Heart decrying distance, Words defying pen For lack of substance. Always appearing just before sleep ends As my mother to my younger self Came to wish sweet dreams in bed (Though I'm no far-seeing Celt) It comes then as no surprise, that voice, Though the pre-cursetory ring I never felt. Calls heralded by his body, in my mind cloistered, Though I know to well where his body lies Sleeping only-or would if it was my choice, And if my choice, then nearer too, fewer miles. Thus more chance to see, and, yes, to touch, That words might sooth and not bridle. They can, and have, done each much.

"when i said i'll take it...i meant as is." -Ani

The rush of the river seems it should block out the possibility of any other noise. It doesn't. Even against that continuous rumble she can hear the snap of a opening beer can, then the laugh of a man. That is the single word that sparks a thousand images against the inside of her head: Man. Then mushroom clouds, shotgun being fired, piles of corpses, yelling dictators, chanting mops, splashes of blood..., as if she were not also human. A boy once said she was awkward on land, like a duck or some other creature more used to swimming than walking. He was not wrong; she could swim before she could walk. He also never saw her on stones that roll or paths uneven by nature rather than by design, faulty or otherwise. She walked the woods long before her feet ever knew what it would be to become accustomed to the monotony of pavement. The man's white tee shirt--his defining physical feature at this distance--moves further out of the trees and as if connected to him by an invisible fulcrum she slowly steps back from the edge of the rapids into the shadow of the trees.

everything

Sasquatch: Minus the Bear, Death Cab for Cutie, Liz Phair, Modest Mouse. Minus the Bear was a perfect classic-style emo band, did Seattle proud. Death Cab was nearly a religious experience, you have to love a band that puts all their energy and guts and soul into a performance, they definately did. The lead looked like he was going to just fall over afterwards. Liz Phair I'd heard of before but never heard. Her lyrics were excellently honest. Modest Mouse was a spiritual frenzy. I was lucky enough to be near one of the only other Modest Mouse fans in the crowd who not only loved them to bit and also knew all the lyrics and was willing to dance like a mad thing to their crazy tempo-heart-attack beats. I'd been about three people away from her but once we both got going the people between sort of got out of the way and got on eith side of us until we were dancing next to each other. We started borrowing each other's moves and embelishing on them and pounding our feet on the cement and hands against the air like we were trying to leave the ground behind. It was absolutely excellent. Afterwards I shook her hand and took off before the energy could break. I left during the Flaming Lips, before Coldplay. I left a note on one of F's friend's car. I was tired of dealing with Ellensburg jabber and being someone F felt a need to look after. I slept in the back of the beast and started back toward Seattle as the first light hit the sky. Rest stop coffee is about the weakest stuff out there, but it is free, and the old dude working the booth was a sweetheart. Watching the plaines turn into green hills and the light sprinkle of rain I drove into were lovely. No one else was on the highway. I parked along the road and stood in the rain--it felt so good on my sunburned shoulders and back--then took a picture of the sign WEST I-90. ... I parked by the piers and walked up town to the Seattle Center. The streets were still empty at 7:30 on Sunday Morning. I took picture of all back alleys where vines grow out of brick walls or the light falls just so. More coffee in Pike Place market, watched the fishermen and and the asian flower women and the fruit people set up shop. Folklife was good, all the strangelings, musicians, hippies, belly-dancers, and just about everyone else show up to listen to music and eat food from all ove rhte world. Myself, I like to sit and watch little kids run around in the huge fountain and listen to the drumming circle. Had dinner with Fluffy and her sister. It always comes back to highschool. Fuffy loved it. I was just getting by. Then they reminesed about their childhood. I've heard it all before, I know to smile and nod.

I went East to be a new me, but I went to the East and I was still myself. I returned West to get back to the people who knew me, but I'm not her anymore. I'm not sure where she went or if I ever was her at all or if she was just one more more weak mask I wore. Am I afraid of everything or nothing? Fluffy keeps unintentionally talking over me and I'm not sure what it means but it seems like a detail that might be important. She always has some. I notice it more now. Reinforcing my silence seems very home-like to me. I remember the last time I was loud for an extended period she and Jade were quite sure that something was very wrong with me. Funny that.

in e-burg

drive was cool, open highway was good. Watched the mountains get closer and closer until they surrounded me an all sides. Then I went over a hill, passed a sign "10 miles to Ellensburg" and then the land got flat and dull, the houses got farther and farther apart with field in between. Maddening nothingness. Welcome to Central Washington, where everyone knows everyone and they all tell the same jokes ripped off from South Park & Sponge Bob.

QUIT BEING AFRAID YOU FUCKING MOUSE!

hmm so tomorrow to e-burg. be afraid. but day after that is Sasquatch at the Gorge. yum. and after that two days of Folklife fest at the Seattle Center. (you know you're jealous.) [No, I didn't make wings. No, I didn't even start.] ... thought: Is it really necessary to hate on people? I mean really, if someone wants to be barefoot, or wear black all the time, or be optimistic for once, or try to have dreads even if isn't really working out... jeez, can we just let them? What's with this bubble-popping and hating-on-ness. What the fuck?! [This space child sincerely wishes that the people could live together a little more acceptingly and peacefully, and in cases where people behave in a manner not so conductive to this puff-ball of a optimistic dream that maybe they are just tired and need a nap and maybe a snack.] ... So this weekend: Do I have directions to E-burg? Not yet. Do I have a WA map? No. Rents lost it when they sold Francis (the old beast). Do I know where my ticket to Sasquatch is? No. Mom says it came though. Do I know where I'm putting the soccer-mom beast while I'm at the fest? No. ...just no. Can my CD collection handle the drive-time required for this weekend's activities? Hopefully. Has this space child ever driven for three hours straight without human contact? Not yet. Is it starting to sound like my weekend might be more enjoyably spent sleeping/reading/painting/chatting as par for the last week? [No comment.]

There is a point while cleaning your room, under paper cranes and dried roses, you realize you are not really cleaning at all. You are instead dancing around rather daftly to sitar and drum music, and not only are you very much not cleaning your room, but three cows are looking through your window. They look fairly amused, as much as cows can. Nope. Sorry, this is not your life. It's mine.

I had dinner at Jo's last night. I haven't seen her since probably last July, maybe June. I was supposed to have hung out with her and Fluffy in August right before Brooklyn, but my mom wasn't letting me leave the house for anything but work at that point. Jo is wonderful. You can't hide from Jo, she asks the questions that get under your skin that are uncomfortable, but that really you need to talk about. That woman is a spiritual/mental homing device. Maybe your world isn't necessarily brighter after talking to her, but it isn't any darker, and it probably seems more fixable. Oh, that woman... ... The pool a town over called. I get to start teaching swimming lessons tonight. Whee! I hate to say it but I miss the little kids. I like being in the water. I like the really little kids who don't even know how to float yet, and laugh at everything. Some are scared of everything and you get to convince them how excellent water is. The ones who aren't scared of anything who'll hop right off the table if you're not watching, they want to swim so much they're sure they can. They're scary to watch over sometimes but they're game for anything. And I like the upper level kids who know all their strokes but just need to work on form and endurance. If you can get their form down it's just laps and you can do those with them. So as if it wasn't obvious I'm really looking forward to this. [Hopefully more hours to come.] Game night tonight at the coffeehouse, first since I've been home. Maybe it'll just be Dawe, Em, and I playing cards or whatever, but maybe Lisa or some other's will show up. It would be nice to see some of the old faces. Even just Dawe and Em are a riot though, I won't even hope for more.

strange dream last night

It was like it was second semester. I’m not sure why but Tey had stayed in Brooklyn that weekend. It was dark out but not late. I went out to get Chinese on Myrtle. I walked past the place I normally went to and took some side streets. I didn’t feel lost. In my mind I was exactly sure of where I was. There was a building like a wherehouse, with lots of students around going in and out. I didn’t really know anyone, but I recognized faces from around campus. Some girl from the office recognized me and had me go in with them, just for a minute or two, to check it out. It was dimly lit. Loud music was playing, didn’t recognize and songs or voices, but the beat was good. Video montages were playing projected on the walls and ceiling: exotic flowers in colors that don’t look natural blooming and dying in fast forward, farm animals being slaughtered then the video reversed so it seemed like the blades were reassembling them then bringing them back to life, naked people and masked people reenacting Bosch’s paintings, Munch’s Madonna digitally becoming a live girl who suddenly opened her eyes and stared straight at the camera until she slowly became a mannequin, close up on a piece of flesh (so close you couldn’t see what it was) that was hit with something hard then the bruise blooming where the flesh had been struck, a hand holding a knife pressing the tip against the opposite forearm gradually harder until a dot of blood appeared a the knife tip, a boy trying to climb a tree then falling and becoming a girl when he/she hit the ground, a naked girl standing while a doctor moved around marking her with red pen for plastic surgery (bigger boobs, smaller waist, new nose, sculpted ass (she’d been fine before)), a lioness catching then eating an antelope, a clip from Kitao’s film where you’re watching the faces of the bully boys and trying to imagine where the boy they beat up is bleeding from to make their faces go all strange and afraid like that, opening scene from KIDS, a clip from the Nazi films of Jews dying in freezing water to find out how long their pilots would survive if they crashed in cold water,….. I just kept watching, I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to see, but I did too. The videos and music stopped. The room was absolutely dark, for a minute, but maybe for a few. Everyone was quiet and no one moved. Everyone seemed to waiting. Dim red lights turned on in a corner, a voice started to speak going from deep to high pitched to deep quickly and often. I didn’t catch the words. I couldn’t see who or what the voice was coming from it was too crowded and I was too short. Then the voice stopped and some people were leaving. The lights had gotten a bit brighter. Some people were elaborately dresses, costumes, masks, strange complicated make-up, whatever, it was the ones like me in street clothes, nothing special who were rushing out. The office girls were telling me to go get my wings and to come back quickly. They kept saying it too: “Quickly! Quickly!” I went. [I’m not sure how they knew about the wings. In the dream they were finished, but I haven’t even started them yet.] I went back to the dorm. Tey was lying like she was asleep or trying to be. She wasn’t asleep though; she sat up as soon as I opened the door. She’d been worried about me. Had called around the other dorm looking for me. Had called my cell and not gotten an answer. I’d been gone for hours. I got the wings and put them on while she was talking. She asked me not to go, begged me, and then said if I went she’d call someone big enough to stop me. She was so worried. I finally agreed not to go back, but she was still afraid. To go to the other dorm she asked someone to come to our dorm and walk back with me. In the morning I got Big to walk back over there with me but there was no where house. There was just a fenced in parking lot.

Seeing as my crew are still out of town and conversations with my parents to be avoided in general, it seems my social interactions have reverted to the bare minimum reminiscent of the first few month in Brooklyn, which is to say regulated primarily to long distance.

[If I drove for two days without stopping I would still be an hour away, but an hour is really not so much.]

met a new dude @ the coffeehouse

Viking Fest this weekend. *groan* I braved it for Em who was working the coffeehouse during the parade and said she'd be bored. Ahh, but she was not, there was a line, very long. So I stashed myself and bookness by a window in the back. I was shortly joined by a man (roughly in his late fifties), we began to talk because for some reason that space just inspires talking with strangers (maybe it only does so with me). He told me about his metaphysical ideas and practices. Yes, he did. ...yes. He either needs to break into or out of the fifth dimension (I lost track of the dimension numbers a bit) and then he'll get his body from when he was twenty and he gets to keep it and it won't age or get sick or die (he said). Apparently he's been working toward this for many lives, but he feels that he is close, weeks, maybe even days. He will teach others. He kept on remarking that I didn't seem shocked, and didn't seem to be shutting him out. I said that I believe in the possibility of everything. He just looked me right in the eyes for a second or five, then said, "yes, you really do." He said when it happens he's going to Oprah cause he feels she'll be receptive to it, though she won't like having to give up on all the religious figureheads that we use to name off our subconscious. I said I'd keep my ears open. He let me take his picture and said afterward when we meet again (he is quite sure that we will) that he'd let me take another. Wow, space child, you sure do pick 'em. Ahh, yes. Indeed I do.

Switzerland - A neutral power for as long as most can remember,
it has avoided war for several centuries.
However, it is still considered highly advanced
and a global power.

Positives:
Judicial.
Neutrality.
World-Renouned.
Powerful without Force.
Makes Excellent Watches, Etc.

Negatives:
Target of Ridicule.
Constant Struggle to Avoid Conflict.
Target of Criminal Bank Accounts.


Which Country of the World are You?
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Letter to Janus

I cannot live for you, or save you from yourself and them and life. I cannot make everything alright. I used to think I could. My life is mine and it has it's problem too. If you envy it is because you chose and so did I, on different paths. And if I thought the things you put into yourself could make you happy do you think I would ever ask you to stop, if even just to think for a moment before you jump. Have they made you happy? Have they ever? I'm not always happy either, and yes I'm still afraid, but so are you, though I show it more. And at least when I'm happy it's mine and not part of an equation ('add this to me and I'll feel happy'). This isn't an accusation or a call for change. You've already done both in your head, I hear it echoing in the lines of questions where you try to get me to judge you so you can reject my opinion instead of trying to find a way around your own. You know me: I won't judge you. I'll beg and plead with you for the dreams I know you still believe in, all the potential you've never been able to hide, even for the boys you'd hurt if you could keep yourself from caring, but never judge. That's why we are us. Doorways facing opposite directions, you remember. I love you, but then you knew that too.

Home is weird, good weird, but still. It'll be less so once my job starts and I have some sort of commitment for my time. Now its, 'hmmm, well I could do anything, so what to do?' Pathetic. *grin* It's nice, but I keep getting these little moments of panic where I start childing myself for putting off homework before realizing I don't have any, though I should probably unpack soon. Even I cannot live out of suitcases forever, at least not in my own room. They take up too much floor space that I could be using for some very nice sprawling. My time has not been entirely wasted though: I reread Story of O yesterday. (If you can't handle the Marquis de Sade don't even look up Story of O.) Next up: Memoirs of Casanova, Vagina Monologues, Ruined By Reading, Manhattan Loverboy, Disgrace, or Wonders of the Invisible World. I am as of yet undecided. ... There weren't any stars out last night. The moon was full and he clouds were out reflecting it. I went out all in black and was darker than the night. ...but I can do a lot of things and I do.

F-ing jet-lag

I think I fell asleep around seven. I guess I still can barely sleep for more than six hours, too bad I'd planned on being awake during that time. Haven't fought with mom yet. Go me! Drove the minivan to the grocery store. It'll take a while to get used to that being the space child mobil. I miss the tin can just a little, but the beast drives easier and has a better stereo so I'm sure I'll get over it. I walked by the bay. The blue was still and uninterrupted. I haven't gone to the coffeehouse yet, maybe today. I want to go to go north where the ocean is more like itself, and to the city to see who has come/gone/remained and how the city has morphed in my absence, hopefully not too much. These things will have to wait until I get over this narcolepsy.

space child, get thee to a diner.

This is the beginning of the period where I can't let home be anything. If it's places they're too far apart, if it's people, still too much difference/distance. There should be less space between coasts, but if there had been less maybe I would have run further. England still speaks english, you know. I thought the hermit idea was a good one, if I could be that much of a minimalist, if only it weren't for all the books.

I'm desperately tired of packing. I'm tired of being reminded of gender and treated as if I were silly for thinking I could. I've been trying most of my life. I can't figure out how all this stuff got here. I want to walk in the rain and not think about here or there, or if I'm more of a comfort or an annoyance. I want to sleep more. I'm getting tired of waking up.

I'm getting tired of being unable to ignore the pretentious people out of either duty or affection. (yes, including me.) So I'm listening to the Spoken Jazz CD of Bub that he gave me before he realized I was a minor, and more importantly was not going to go drink with him in his VW. I guess I'm not really listening to it, I put it on just to have the satisfaction of ignoring it. Really it almost makes sense. Just trust me on this one.

"I came as a rat, but I came back."

I reread Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and A Wrinkle in Time over the weekend. This morning while waiting for it to be time to go to work I started in on The Hero and the Crown again as well. If basic psychology means anything to you: congratulations: you are unsettling my mind, so that if this in fact the trend it appears to be I am currently reviewing and weighing those works after which I based my views of reality roughly a decade ago. Maybe I'm trying to get back to it, maybe I'm preparing to reject it, maybe both simultaneously. 'Look deeper to the true answer.' To bad I don't believe in "Truth" most of the time, except when I do. ...I talked to Smack the other day. It was just so good, like my heart was cracking open but in the best possible way. (wow. pure cheese, space child.) It's like we'd both nearly forgotten the sound of each other's voices, or were somehow remeeting for the first time, like back in seventh grade when she wore glasses that were as thick as coke bottle bottoms and my hair was past my waist, we didn't really have any secrets to unburden then besides that we'd read more than we'd spoken, and so there was Monty Python, and all the allusions made only for & between us, observations of the people who were less subtle in making their own, and everything she could extrapolate, and everything I could imagine. I think she told me once I was the first student that voluntarily spoke to her in junior high. I remember thinking she was the only kid there that looked like she felt as out of place as I did. I told her all the goodbyes and hellos since the last time we spoke, really spoke, that was before Spring Break. If I took you walking in the rain in the woods around the Puget Sound until no part of you or your clothing is anything but absolutely soaked, and you shivered until your body stopped caring and then started to wake up again, and ran until you thought your heart had stopped a hundred yard back... I wonder if then you'd understand about Modest Mouse if I played it in the car as I drove you back around the Hood Canal with the rain changing everything outside the window into a impressionist painting in shades of gray.

PhantomRises4: "Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking." --Wallace Stevens PhantomRises4: " ... idealism is one of the greatest forces in the world. It makes seeming impossibilities possible and succeeds where prudence fails. But unless the idealist is brave and has the courage to face the truth, his idealism creates nothing." --Grenville Kleiser

You should be a Cancer, Intuitive, sensitive,
responsive, aware, family/home oriented, shy,
understanding, feeling, imaginative,
dependable, conservative, loving, but can be
moody, touchy, prikcly, hostile

~*What is your TRUE Zodica sign?*~
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My intent had never been to let you dance with any of my night time foes, even these light worrisome worrying ones. I was bent to the opposite, to tame a few of your own if I could. Forget you heard them. Forget that they are. ... Home can't decide if it's heaven or hell, so I'm not sure if I'm moving up or down in the spheres. Either way it makes this week purgatory. To desend or asend?

I started to write the line, "I hide from no man..." but I had to stop after "no" I used to be able to write things like that and not feel hypocritical, funny but I think I'm freer now, or at least hiding from myself less. F. asked me, "why?" in a dream thursday night and I didn't even have to think before answering, I usually weigh my answers so carefully. In forum the other day I couldn't remember what 'tesseract' meant, but it used to be important to me. It's from A Wrinkle In Time. It was an idea Mr. Murray was working on before he went away. It's the fifth dimension, there a straight line is no longer the shortest distance between two points. It's like a fold in the line. In the book Mrs. Who illustrates it by holding the hem of her skirt between her two hands (within consideration of only three dimensions (or even with the fourth which, I think, was time, but I could be wrong) a line should be the shortest distance between two points i.e. her hands) and having an ant walk across it. Then she folds the skirt into her hands until the ant can step from one hand directly to the other, thats a time wrinkle, a tesseract, the fifth dimension. I remember I was reading The Hero & the Crown and a few other things where characters became greatly distanced from each other. I remember thinking at the time that love must work within the fifth dimension. I suspect this comes from being a romantic kid with an early exposure to physics. (Thanks, dad.) I don't know. I'm rambling. So here's an important question for anyone still reading: If you were my Nana (grandmother) would you like a very small painting of a rose with light coming out of it for your birthday/mother's day?

Rafael. You're most like the ArchAngel of Healing.
You want people to shape up, and you nag. But
you mean well, and you're well loved despite
it. Or because of it. You bring the donuts
even as you tell people to eat more veggies.

Which ArchAngel are you most like?
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My boss keeps telling her pregnancy stories, breast-feeding stories. Last half-hour or forty-five maybe, I think I'm going to go for a walk or get nauseous. Oh my. ... I'd forgotten what my name sounds like when you say it. It felt like rain inside my head. ...

You are most like Sarah You are loyal to your friends. Your imagination and
fantasys are what makes you differnt. Your will
to win sometimes can be so strong, that you
come across as cruel.

What Labyrinth Charater are you most like?
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You're Witch Baby! Always thirsty for knowledge,
you wonder where you place is in life. Not
many people understand the intircacies of your
young mind.

Which Weetzie Bat character are you?
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Brooklyn turned back into Brooklyn. I want to be soaked in rain.

You're the Hipster Intellecticus. Call yourself
what you will (beatnik, philosophy major,
liberal arts student), you're still hip and you
still dig Kerouac.

What Kind of Hipster Are You?
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The light outside is pure Seattle today, grayish and indirect, but it makes all the colors so bright it almost hurts your eyes after so many rainy or sunny New York days where everything is still washed in gray. It rained last night, and the trees & grass are green again. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.