Love doesn't exist to meet your expectations.

I write a lot of poems in my head while I'm walking in the woods and too often, lately, I neglect to ever write them down. At the same time I am growing more comfortable with allowing things--moments, experiences, feelings, ideas, (poems)--to be fleeting. To be there and then to be gone. I may never again think about the sunset over the river today, how the sky flashed gold behind me, startling my eye such that I thought, for a moment, I was being followed.

On change and the status quo

Of course, I make the choice every day by living it.

"Work Shy" by Alex Phillips

To be poor and raise skinny children.

To own nothing but skinny clothing.

Skinny food falls in between cracks.

Friends cannot visit your skinny home.

They cannot fit through the door.

Your skinny thoughts evaporate into

the day or the night that you cannot

see with your tiny eyes.

God sticks you with the smallest pins

and your blood, the red is diluted.

Imagine a tiny hole, the other side

of which is a fat world and how

lost you would feel. Of course,

I'm speaking to myself.

How lost I would feel, and how dangerous.

 

 

 

 

 

hunting vest

Nearly every day I wonder if I am ready to say goodbye to you, or to him, and I don't know about you (or him either) but I remain hopelessly unsure. the comfort and the agony of intellectualized paralysis. all these false equivalencies, the consummate absurdity of this choice I've created for myself, which I am not making.   



I returned to the valley floor today, determined, this time, to be less afraid. When I first wrote that line in my head it went like this: I return to the valley, this time unafraid.

But that would be a lie. As I descend the tension in my chest constricts, constricts, constricts as I work to remind myself, over and over again, to be brave. It's something about being that close to the water, I think, two miles spent criss-crossing the creek via slippery stones, all those dark crevices behind and underneath boulders into which a woman hiking alone could so easily go missing, all those deep pools in which she could so easily drown.

In defense of framing a piece of art

I didn't eat for so many years. It was no way to live.


I am learning, once again, how to feed myself.


I think art is important. 

"The Thrush" by Edward Thomas

When Winter's ahead,

What can you read in November

That you read in April

When Winter's dead?

I hear the thrush, and I see

Him alone at the end of the lane

Near the bare poplar's tip,

Singing continuously.

Is it more that you know

Than that, even as in April,

So in November,

Winter is gone that must go?

Or is all your lore

Not to call November November,

And April April,

And Winter Winter—no more?

But I know the months all,

And their sweet names, April,

May and June and October,

As you call and call

I must remember

What died into April

And consider what will be born

Of a fair November;

And April I love for what

It was born of, and November

For what it will die in,

What they are and what they are not,

While you love what is kind,

What you can sing in

And love and forget in

All that's ahead and behind.

Heron sighting

One thing I am learning about faith is that you can't have faith in things happening in a certain way, only in that they will happen.


Speaking of which last night I drove out past the hotel where that coworker got married to a church, which is unusual for me these days, or at least I started driving there but then I followed a yellow schoolbus in the dark to a brick building near the end of the development I lost the schoolbus went inside went to the bathroom laughed with the woman who accidentally walked into the men's bathroom sat down in the auditorium got comfortable took some deep breaths then a man stood up to talk into his microphone headset and I grabbed my coat ran drove off like a maniac in pursuit of that yellow bus, screaming into my cell phone careening down a darkened road alongside a gated community.

I thought I might miss her.

Instead I sprint to the doors of the church this time, the yellow schoolbus is in the parking lot, I slide into a hard pew and stretch my body over the armrest so I can see around the pillar. Her hair is grey-dreadlocked and her pink scarf looks just fine with her new blue sweater. She speaks and I am confronted by my expectations, stiffened, and then she makes me laugh.

It takes what it takes.
Hope inspires the good to reveal itself. 
Forgiveness is where almost all of the miracles reside. 
Just feed each other and get each other some water.  

I am a spiritual person, "yes" I write on the college students' survey, and last night was a spiritual experience. Still all that lofty talk didn't prevent me from looking down during our hike today, kicking at grass alongside the road until he mentions the herons and sure enough in the sky there are two of them, right above me great blue. All that cawing from God, all those great big yellow buses, and I nearly missed them for needing to look up.

The Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach

I.
I try to write it this way:
Anguish.
Exquisite.


II.
Going down is the hard part.

The ravine is cold.
I am alone.
I am scared.
The woods are deep.

I am scared because I am alone and because the woods are growing dark.



III.
I cry the nearest approximation of the sound of my heart breaking.
He drives away.
I am standing in my socks on the asphalt,
cold. 



IV.
The old man at the party wore his sweater tucked into his jeans.
I laughed when others made fun of him.
Not to his face.
But I laughed. 



V.
I do not want to be blamed for this.
I am so very sorry.



VI.
I have been invited to a moon-howling.
There will be a campfire. It will be dark,
save for the moon, which will be very bright. 
The boy who loves birds might come. 
Fifty or more of us will gather together. 
We will stand shoulder to shoulder as we scream.

mouthful

What are we gonna do???


I think it is just a stink bug...


Thank goodness!

In no particular order and without exhaustion here is a list of things that have changed my life

the waterfall glens
       Wilson the cat
backpacking trips
       camping in Vermont
the broken lampshade
       Amish furniture
a number of bands and musical arrangements
       gardening
yoga
       books and writers, and a few select photographs
works of art that I no longer remember
      the tick on my inner right thigh
people I love and have loved
peeing in the woods
     fingers and bumpers
Winnifred the subaru
     living on a couch and from the trunk of a car
hostel sex
     Spain
     Guatemala
     Ireland
him cooking for me
the first time
    that rock on our backs on it
Oberlin anarchists
recycled bracelets
activism
    Mrs. P
    my adopted grandmother
being labeled a leader
    teaching
Colorado mountaintops
cross-country tripping
composting
    hand-knit gnomes, mittens, and dolls
watercolors
     feminism
painting
    lying on my back
    misanthropy
drinking in high school
     my lung collapsing
multiple relationships
     being harassed in Washington, D.C.
environmental studies
    cultural theory
     jams
     rain boats
phone counseling
being hit
learning to eat again
      collaging
     rejected hand-made ceramic bowls
     desirability
buying new clothes
     running, squat thrusts, weight lifting
     chiropractics
cinnamon
     going gluten free
moving a lot
intersectionality and rhizomatic realities
poetry
orange polar fleece

in a white room and a curtain fluttered*

"That which you hold holds you" 

 -Tom Robbins

You who come to me in sleep

touch me

fold my body to your body—

mock me, 

your pity eyes dark

in the woods

by the water

inside the gazebo—

I love you.

Love me. 

Don't—

You leave me when I wake.

You leave me when I wake. 

*From "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Adam Zagajewski

Cigarillos

This is not about race.
He stole cigars.
He listened to rap.
His friend had tattoos.
He was huge.

A spade is a spade.
A stolen cigar is a stolen cigar.
A gun is, well —

His mother receives a letter.
In it, lamentations from another member of the aggrieved.
It wasn't about her son's race.
He was threatening.
He covered his face with a hoodie.
He was carrying Skittles.

For all we know they were stolen.
That's the end of it,
right? 

Philadelphia

If eating vegan marshmallows after breakfast is wrong then I don't want to be right.


There are three drops of my blood on a bar's pool table somewhere in Philadelphia. They are close to the pocket on the bottom right side.

The difference between a small, grungy dive bar with a jukebox and neon green lights inside and a boutique beer list with wrought-iron sidewalk tables is exactly one block (and several jello shots).

The inside of a Rite Aid at 1:00 am on a Saturday morning is the great equalizer. A room full of people cheering for the man who found his Cheetos.

My kingdom for a king-size bed.

Creaky stairwells and loose banisters and waking up in the middle of the night needing urgently to pee.



The next morning I bite into bacon, lean back eyes closed and chewing, when I open them again I say to the waitress you have given me a new lease on life. She laughs and I tip well.

We walk all over the city and then run for the train, 35 minutes along the waterside trail underneath the art museum.

I shit you not: There is a line of people each waiting to take the exact same photo of themselves in front of a statue of Rocky. One by one they raise their fists over their heads.

The train ride is sleepy and uneventful. After setting down my backpack in the kitchen and kissing Wilson on the top of his head I walk to the park, lay down a blanket in the grass, look up at the tree branches above me blinking.

Back home in bed I sleep well, dream I'm an FBI agent in the middle of a life-or-death investigation. I slither beneath stone walls and test a blind man's veracity, confident, I will not let that woman get hurt.

What does it mean to be non-hegemonical in everyday life?

If I paint the walls will anyone notice this home has been condemned?
I bought a bucket at Rite-Aid then stopped to play the piano for the young man on the sidewalk.
Music for everyone he says I say I can get behind that.

In the hot grass lot I trade two organic Capri Sun rip-offs for three shots of vodka.
That concert changed my life.

The kitchen floors are mopped, now, the sink scrubbed down, the dishwasher run.
Why don't you go and find it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~


After the rains the world cools down. Damp wood and puddled roofs.
When I ride my bike a thin black line of water appears on the back of my shirt.

I have no one to talk to about this.

Tomorrow I will build supports for the tomatoes and peppers.
One cut bleeds on my knee, the other at the base of my left hand's middle finger.

The rainbow plant drowns.
The begonias are due for a watering.

Wilson is learning to be brave

In the past, even before the rain hit, he would take cover beneath the brown corduroy couch and re-emerge hours after the thunder had passed.


This time, as lightning illuminates the living room walls, he stands between my knees and the backs of my thighs where I sit on the rug—tense, ready to run the two feet to the couch, yet trusting for that second or series of seconds or a minute maybe that everything, as I promise him over and over, will be okay.

"I don't think it will ever be easy to make an album"

Bees cling to clover, lilting heavy side to side.
He lies sick on a navy blue L.L.Bean quilt in the grass.
Two groundhogs run for cover.

Feel better, darling, and I'm off. I am here to get away
from war, bombed-out planes, oil barons. I step down the trail, the trees are so much bigger since last time I was here, the flowers too, big bushes of green growing so tall they swallow the edges of wooden houses filled with birds. I am thinking in poetry again, if only for these muffled steps through mud, and clumps of grass, if only in my own head.

I run. Miles move slower than normal, my feet fall heavy, it's okay, the better to see the creekbed, floating leaves, purple puffs and sparrows dotting the green hill. I expect I'll walk the bigger hills but here I am hopping up them, watch that rock, there, and that one too keep your eyes to the ground but occasionally, if you're up for it, sneak a peek at the top. It's not that far away, after all, I run with a dragonfly for a while, I say with but I'm no match for its speed, we both know it, this is not a competition





*Tallest Man on Earth

the better to keep sweat from accumulating

He stands in a raft rowed by another man tugging at lines. I spread my legs wide, the better to keep sweat from accumulating in the spaces where knees and upper thighs touch. For my birthday I bought myself a bike.

Her name is Lucy, I bought her for $200 and change on consignment, already I've earned my money back all it took was one speed-pedal down that shady tree-lined hill fucking flying one time? I've pedaled out hard nearly every day since. When I sling my foot over the seat and step off my thighs are shaking, this despite running five miles at a time and doing squats in the kitchen. These days I do them with the fan pointed right at me, in my underwear and a tank top, it's the only way to make exercise bearable in this heat well that and coasting downhill

Meanwhile Wilson sleeps all day, hot on the coffee table or the stone floor in the kitchen, both are cooler than the rug or the couch or anything made of fabric though it's a relative term in this apartment these days, he's committed to the birthday suit just like every day me I'm trying to keep it relatively decent what with those filmy curtains in the kitchen




I am grateful to you, I hope you know that, there is a clause that I want to write here but I don't know who's reading, that and slurping gluten-free dairy-free ice cream from a spoon.

No I do not want to write about that, the lines are too long and they're always gone by the time I get there. Anyway.


I ride with the memory of the day that car hit me, young woman on the passenger side crashing into me thrown from the bike its frame bent around the stop sign and blood all over it. I comforted her, tugged at the metal a bit then climbed back on, it took me another few blocks to figure out where the blood was coming from, a deep puncture in my finger that's all, the scar's nearly gone now but it was when I stepped off the bike again that I started shaking

Fish on.

When exploiting fishing analogies it is helpful to watch several episodes of River Monsters back to back

Do I have time for this can of worms? I don't even know how to hook them.

Albert you've still got it

"Three Rules of Work: 

Out of clutter find simplicity; 
From discord find harmony; 
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." 


- Albert Einstein

to the farmers down the road from my friend's parents' house

You have planted the same crops in the same fields again, huge swaths of corn, tobacco, wheat, and at the same time as every year past and with the same intention to harvest. There are a few rebellious pink flowers growing in among the wheat fields, please don't spray them with roundup, please don't poison the land that feeds us, that feeds itself when we let it, all it takes is planting a few rows of squash, some beans maybe, a couple of lines of kale and chard for the soil to replenish, just shake things up a bit, let some flowers grow, the rest will take care of itself

If you have not walked alone in the woods for some time

The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.

-John Muir

If you have not walked alone in the woods for some time it will require an adjustment. You will feel unsettled as you step past a series of woodpiles, signs of humans not present in these woods in the past, again each of the four times you fail to see a spiderweb until it is wrapping around your face, across your mouth, swatting frantically at threads hoping the spider itself isn't pressed, sticky and writhing, to your lips

Then it's down to the water, no signs of herons or fish either but rolling along deep, swift, a blue-green both eerie and inviting. You don't skip stones because you are not entirely unconvinced that a limb will burst from the algae as you lean out across the current and pull you, screaming, and with no one to hear your cries but the spiders, in

So you stand on the stones by the water's edge picturing the deer carcass from winter--stiff and morbid and decomposing ever-so-slowly into the gully, its entrails drip-drip-dripping into the creek. That deer may be in this water now, for all you know, parts of it anyway, blood and guts and decaying leaves swirling together, pulsing up and back down again into the murk wrought by summer storms

the dire wolf

there's nothing to say now except
i'm not sure
i'm not sure
well
you know
maybe
do you



let's talk about concrete let's talk about chicken wire let's talk about fences brick walls fistfuls of leaves wrought iron stairwells wooden bed frames your face-- your hands-- a pink cylindrical container of salt

tonight we sing play guitar i have everything i've wanted sitting around me don't i just like on monday driving to the woods i saw a great blue heron standing in the creek i saw a menonite woman hauling a wheelbarrow we waved at each other, smiled just like that young woman in the grey hoodie smiled at me as i passed her on the sidewalk today in the rain, and i thought to myself that was a real smile that was a privilege you don't see those very often

but i mean when you do.




i have been so sad for the past few days inexplicable except that i am in mourning, the cat knows it he curls up with me every time i sit down and purrs, my head knows it aching, aching, and my body so tired, the rain knows it falling from the sky. but my god how the beets and the broccoli and the lettuce and the kale have grown.



oh also tonight walking back to the apartment a woman sat on a chair outside the bar another woman with a camera said watch this they had it streaming live on the tv inside the bar meanwhile two men stirred ice into a five-gallon bucket of water, cold, and then after a short speech and some name calling (for the children) they poured it over the sitting woman's head

it was 50 degrees outside i offered her a towel from inside the apartment she said nah i only live a block away and i'm heading home now i guess the cold doesn't sting as much when it's for a good cause

cloud cover

The clouds are so bright.
I guess the moon must be bright.
But where is the moon?

get the fish

lean-back on bricks cameras watching wait-lying through my teeth he does
i-don't-know-what inside with the smoke with the lungs with the burning
he will shower, afterward, and we will not speak


i eat steak drink merlot who the fuck do i think i am remember when you could see up my skirt on the deck in sunshine i make a joke about female ejaculate it kills with the feline demographic

meanwhile i am eating vegan marshmallows lying on the couch wilson is on his back on the rug playing with mr. fish he shoves the tail into his wide-open mouth and kicks his back legs into the stuffed animal's face






the grateful dead today we walked from bar to bar watched the champions league final on the big tv in the back room i drank whiskey gingers and vodka shots i was the only woman in the room after that other woman left three-quarters of the way through the game i talked to the guy i saw watching the arsenal game on the treadmill at the gym a few weeks ago it's possible he thought i was weird it went to extra time then everything fell apart

in the game i mean. then we walked around the park it was nice out when i got back to the apartment it was nearly 8 o'clock

o'clock

o'clock




we laid out blankets and bundled up under the stars around 10 last night we were settled in for the long haul we had vodka and even more blankets and some cool astronomy app that's the first thing to really make me want a smartphone although i couldn't look at the screen for long because why the fuck would i look at that when there's a sky full of stars right above my face anyway it was beautiful and i saw two planets-- jupiter, mars-- and supposedly saturn was on the other side of the house then jupiter disappeared below the treeline then the clouds rolled in and we didn't see any more stars for the rest of the night but here's the thing before (Wilson you know i love cuddling as much as the next cat but right now i'm trying to write and your little body standing on my stomach is blocking the screen) before the cloud cover rolled over the entire sky like a tipped-over gray paint bucket we saw three bright-shooting stars although i thought to myself really they're not shooting so much as falling

Pennsylvania painted sign

Woodsplitter for rent.
Perennials for sale.
Asparagus

Luciferin, by Dean Young

 

 

"They won't attack us here in the Indian graveyard."

I love that moment. And I love the moment

when I climb into your warm you-smelling

bed-dent after you've risen. And sunflowers,

once a whole field and I almost crashed,

the next year all pumpkins! Crop rotation,

I love you. Dividing words between syl-

lables! Dachshunds! What am I but the inter-

section of these loves? I spend 35 dollars on a CD

of some guy with 15 different guitars in his shack

with lots of tape delays and loops, a good buy!

Mexican animal crackers! But only to be identified

by what you love is a malformation just as

embryonic chickens grow very strange in zero

gravity. I hate those experiments on animals,

varnished bats, blinded rabbits, cows

with windows in their flanks but obviously

I'm fascinated. Perhaps it was my early exposure

to Frankenstein. I love Frankenstein! Arrgh,

he replies to everything, fire particularly

sets him off, something the villagers quickly

pick up. Fucking villagers. All their shouting's

making conversation impossible and now

there's grit in my lettuce which I hate

but kinda like in clams as one bespeaks

poor hygiene and the other the sea.

I hate what we're doing to the sea,

dragging huge chains across the bottom,

bleaching reefs. Either you're a rubber/

gasoline salesman or like me, you'd like

to duct tape the vice president's mouth

to the exhaust pipe of an SUV and I hate

feeling like that. I would rather concentrate

on the rapidity of your ideograms, how

only a biochemical or two keeps me

from becoming the world's biggest lightning bug.

 

 

 

 

*Biography here

you're not even good enough to be in creation*

cartilage kneeblankets stairwell tapestries

white-scraped larynx mutilates pustulerot

don't believe me i'll show you



don't believe me    i'll show you


i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm wainscoting i'm an inexpensive way to upgrade your living space i'm old world charm i'm the warmth of wood i'm only trouble is only trouble is only trouble is

slide from walls slip-mucus through fence-posts cry-whisper goodbye moose and better luck next time and it was nice knowing you and please don't hate me and I hope your hooves feel better and i understand if you do


vodka shots, bigger than expected. grilled chicken on a salad. dear drunk librarian. wet-white tissues in a dimly lit room. dry your eyes honey dry your eyes honey dry.your.eyes

the waitress is coming.

 you have to wash your body.

fuck you.



who papier-mached the bathroom. who is walking holding hands. pinch wet cheeks it will be less obvious. let him be mean you can take it. please and listen and i know you and me too.

cry me a creekbed. drinking orange juice again with the lid on. carotid deeper, carotid deeper, carotid-fuck your sandwiches. brown paper bags.



i saw a baby rabbit. i walked over the bridge. i wanted to stop but i was tired. the sun was setting. my feet hurt. i was thinking too much. the cross-legged statue and the big white rocks were gone. yesterday i pulled into a gas station beside a crushed yellow bird.



*Freaks and Geeks

get wasted don't think about it

things have been getting a bit stale around these parts let's crank up the volume let's pour three shots of rum into a mason jar and toss it back before dinner let's grill chicken asparagus pineapple red bell peppers keep drinking soup cookie this is how the world turns

she pounds through the door near tears that man with his pants down turned toward her advanced toward her she ran i say listen you are not leaving this house again without me by your side i will walk you to that restaurant i don't give a fuck i'll kick him right in his balls. she says her mom is always hounding her for walking alone at night i say listen it is fucking bullshit that anyone would expect you to stay home at night because you are a woman don't you ever apologize for being outside

with that i am thinking about all those late nights early mornings by myself walking the ten long blocks from the metro station to my room in that group house all the times i was followed all the times i was told to stay inside past 9. say what you want i'm not sorry say what you want it's not my fault. it's not my fault. it's not my fault, right Staceyann?

soft and sweet

part of me thinks it's unacceptable to write when i am quite clear that i have nothing of substance to say at the moment while another part of me thinks you should write-sing-express all the time whatever song or substance is in you at the moment sing it out.

in addition to that it's also that i feel good here, simultaneously safe and exposed, and challenged, and connected

my god in the aeroplane over the sea fucking slays me, here have my heart-lungs-stomach neutral, milk, hotel, pulling them out of me

i shower before and after the cat bats at the curtain i have accepted this: i may never have privacy in the bathroom again. i mean he even tries to leap onto my shoulders while i'm sitting on the toilet peeing

yes i pee and i taught so many teenagers that girls even poop, too that summer in the woods-- the looks on their faces when we showed them the trowel! i think my proudest moment as an educator is seeing girls grow unashamed of pooping.

it is good to remember who i am where i have been who i've spent my time with it reminds me that entropy is a relatively new development in my life. clean your antique rifles heave civil war cannonballs into the underground basement what fitting objects for a pacifist to hoard.

at any rate there are window boxes on the porch three of them i will fill them with flowers color spilling over the wooden stairs.

the bees have started a new swarm about 30 feet from the original hive. they worship the new queen, buzzing bodies pressed tight together around a tree branch and the queen pulsing with power. i am only steps from them before i realize it's not just a thick tree branch, that it is moving, that there are thousands of bees pressed tight together around their queen and i am not her.

soup cookie

what does that upside-down peace sign flag mean him standing on the corner serious by the grocery store i roll by under flower trees and wonder.

i was going to write more from folly but instead i just was there, and it was good, sun hot on shoulders drunk hand over mouth in the back room. nephew tossed wet sand on his hat and crawled straight for the waves.

after 14 hours in the car my back aching i stooped nonetheless to cat waiting anxious at the door in the dark hasn't left my side since. i kiss the top of his little orange head and he purrs.

i'm in a real pickle now i know what i want don't know if i'm wanted back now is the time i suppose to be brave. do you hear me?


a man was so angry at me he demanded i ship him that old gifted blond-wood guitar across two states or else hurt me but he also taught me to be honest and for that i am grateful. at the same time i do not know how to respond to social media requests.

how cool was that bike ride hands clasped and windswept the world was greenblurrysunset-lipsredskytreegreenfields-holdingonblinkingatthe-widegreenopen

listen up pandora if i wanted to hear blackbird by the beatles i would have selected "depression remix". as it stands i asked you for radiohead not that i enjoy listening to a random mix of mildly related songs by mostly mediocre artists but the stereo is currently in the kitchen and i lost all my music from my old computer and here i am lying on this couch singing to wilson

STEP RIGHT UP LADIES AND GENTLEMEN FOR THE LOW LOW PRICE OF ENTRY TO MEMORY LANE

!

let's see you taught me i need to protect my own self you that good kissing matters you that i prefer not to be a vessel for the wrong person's melancholia you so many things mostly beauty and also gentleness and also that love can last forever you that i have power at my fingertips you that great minds can intellectualize themselves out of loving you that love is real even when it is temporary you how to be honest that being loved is not the same as loving you to be tough to not expect small favors you how to love someone when they're having sex with someone else in the next room how not to push too hard you how to have sex for fun you that when a man jokes about how capable he is of raping me while lying on a bed with me with my shirt off it is okay that i never called him back yes even though he bought me flowers you that brotherly love can be just as powerful as the romantic stuff you i am not sure yet maybe to never abandon my relationship to my self oh and also to get drunk sometimes and dance



well that was uncomfortable and i apologize.


i'm warning you right now give me a few lines of space to get cheesy but come on i left my garden untended for just five days and weeds grew up all over the fuckin place and how can anyone not point out the metaphor? be triewe, that is all there is. be triewe.



also be curious, soup cookie, right this way

folly, part one

yes that white egret standing alone in the clear-cut marsh on the side of the highway destroyed me, i mean really broke my heart in the definitive sense of the term, but for now i want to focus on the fact that we all really need to get out more. i mean i had nearly forgotten there's a whole world outside of where and how i live, and simultaneously as the white egret stands alone in the clear-cut marsh on the side of the highway, a lot of beautiful things still exist there.

who knows if it's true but apparently there's a word, ubuntu, that means "I am what I am because of who we all are".


over the past few days i have observed myself on several occasions using the term whack, as in, that is whack, in addition to the phrase that is mad bullshit. i have found that these phrases apply to a diversity of circumstances and am completely fine with this linguistic development.

today i walked out over the atlantic ocean on a 1,054-foot-long pier in south carolina and when i pressed up to the rail between crowds of fishermen, one of whom flashed me such a beautiful smile, i looked down and saw a stingray and several fat, pink jellyfish in the water. i mean wow.

after walking around downtown and then across the beach, barefoot and into the cold water and over sharp-pointed shells, my brother and i poured ourselves tall glasses of vodka and sat on the porch trading stories about dating. i should really get drunk with my brother more often.

then my nephew arrived and hot damn he is crawling now, cruising around the beach rental, and he can pull himself up and walk a little as long as he has something to hold onto. later at night before his parents gave him his bath he hung upside down in his dad's arms and i turned my head upside down to make faces beside his and he smiled and tugged my hair and then stuck his fingers up my nostrils and into my mouth. i didn't even care that earlier his hands had been smeared all over the floor and the porch outside and the hands of the little girl who gave him a flower on the sidewalk, and i think this is probably what everyone is referring to when they talk about love.

and maybe he is

here's the thing Dr. Phil thinks he is really helping people, or maybe he thinks that, and maybe he is. in that case good on you, Dr. Phil, helping people and whatnot.

at the gym the woman in front of me walking on a treadmill is watching the Queen Latifah show. a young woman is called up to face the audience. she is asked a question-- is the answer "la" or "lala"? i can't tell which she says but i guess she answers correctly because an unidentified brown hand reaches into the screen to hand her an air-sealed jar of ground coffee and the entire audience laughs. the young woman is laughing too she has brown hair she looks nice i wonder if she is really happy, standing there with her new jar of coffee?



i miss traveling, irish accents, days spent walking the riverbank, reading seamus heaney in his homeland, that horse following me the length of the fenceline, stumbling across abandoned castles and homesteads of famous poets. i chronicled my life in ireland on this blog and now i can't remember my login information-- i read the blog as if it belongs to another person, at this point i guess it does.


i wish there were a way to know if i was happier in the past or if i only remember myself as being happier because of neurobiology and the intricate and indefinite number of factors affecting memory. i mean i know i was a lot of sadness too, really a lot of it, but i was feeling, all the time feeling, and goddamn if that doesn't bring with it a constant undercurrent of agonizing, ecstatic joy. i see from the past three weeks (and too many times more than that) how relentless scheduling destroys feeling. i would rather live out of my car than stop feeling ever again; really i've been very happy living out of cars in the past; i wonder how much that air stream would cost me.

what i do know for sure is that i miss wandering, alone and with another person or people who really get the value of wandering. do you remember your fingers up my skirt late night on that bridge in Cordoba, later in that hostel bed, moaning i have missed this needed this your skin so warm. we wandered the streets of Madrid i stepped outside that famous deli walked to you sitting on that streetpost pressed my stomach to your forehead pushed fingers through your brazilian curls. i learned from you that love is real even when it is temporary, even though we will never speak again and i don't need or even want to. sigue buscandome. 


speaking of love i miss you that bridge that creek have i told you how grateful i am to you for letting me sit on that rock alone and smiling the dog padding along behind us? i guess what i am saying is that yes, i feel like it does.


there is more to say but i am struggling to write well. i am so tired. if you need me i will be listening to the tallest man on earth playing his tiny desk concert for npr.

Camus

Whatever you do, do not let anyone convince you that eating stewed olives is a good idea. They are disgusting.


I forgot to buy nutritional yeast at the natural foods store. Now it is closed and who knows when I'll have time to stop by again, what with all the gardening I have to do. We built a fence and tilled the soil (not all of it yet because it is hard, slow going, but the last of it in good time) and planted heirloom seeds and starters: red russian and lacinato kales, broccoli, deep red and golden beets, atomic red carrots, amish deer tongue and purple lettuces, apple mint, lavender. The tomatoes, peppers, melons, and cucumbers we'll plant after the last frost. I haven't been this happy in some time.

We hauled buckets of water from the fieldhouse (drink up, little ones), then I ran home from the gardens-- easy, bright, sunshine and flowers and birds whistling at me and dogs so glad to be outside. I know the feeling, friends. That was one hell of a long winter.

this is how I worship God

Take to the trails, ankles bared to sunshine
legs moving first stiff then swift beneath me,
eyes up swallowing boughs laden with buds with light-bright blossoms / Leap
from root to rock to wet dark soil smiling at dogs, the occasional hiker, my own maneuverings breath/lungs/body/mind waking
up /        keep running bleary eyes 
down the yellow-flowered paths by the clean-green creek darting bluebirds up the hills covered in light, grass / look how brilliantly it's shining.
For some time I have not been religious but God
If this isn't glory, if this isn't triumph, if this isn't goodness / infinitely coming

my favorite octopus story

I'm a little drunk I'll probably get drunker the night isn't done the night isn't done I want to be loud I yell through headphones and microphones no I will not quiet down

 Everything feels hard I don't mean emotionally I mean this couch (why am I on the couch?) this floor this rug beneath me these knots in my shoulders those lips the lines of the stairwell everything geometric you can't escape it you think I'm crazy


My parents buy me dinner followed by basil lime sorbet there are fresh basil leaves in it I taste the basil it is good I like basil I buy it fresh at the market from my favorite farmer her name is Mary but still I throw most of the sorbet away I am sorry, gods of recycling but really I am not a huge fan of sorbet even when there is fresh basil in it even when I like basil which I really do. That's why I ordered the kiddie scoop.

The twelve-year-old drummer pounded, pounded, the teenage guitarist singing not good not great but okay and what matters is that he was singing, asshole, don't judge a teenage guitarist until you have tried to sing-- anyway he was good he was great because he was twelve because he was playing but he wasn't as good as my dad, Dad please eat something more than that egg-and-cheese sandwich I love you there is still poetry in you and music, such rhythm coming out of you, these decades later remember when you were my best friend when we meditated on the family room rug then drove to your Big Band practice through the college creek splashing water up past the windows me with one hand out the window eating shredded flakes of coconut?




He boils eggs we will paint them we will paint them with colors swirling yellow and blue and pink and purple do you know how many colors we can make? the cat sits by my feet on the couch. I love couches love lying down on rugs on my stomach on my back big fat headphones on listening to music take me carry me away carry me home carry me anywhere I trust you to kill me 


How many tattoos have I imagined will I ever set ink to flesh? Okay I'll end the suspense my spirit animal is a heron this is the real fucking deal I see them every time my soul feels heavy they wade-soar-plunge their beaks into shallow waters balancing effervescent on floating logs in the lake lifting me up, up, up--

"Don't let anyone laugh you out of something you think may be true"*



and for how many years now, despite my busyness, my overwork, my heart stretched in infinite directions my climbing of mountains pounding of pavements and sweaty gym floors, still my something staying there with you with used record stores that rock that pond that creek that sandbox our bare feet in it that water fountain in the little green park


On another subject how did Kerouac die on another subject I say Listen bud let me set you straight I say make a flower euphemism. Is there anything more meaningful in this life than flowers. I mean come the fuck on, have you ever considered the lilies?




*Dr. Jane Goodall, April 18, 2014

when will i be free saes the cilde to the stag

and the stag saes thu will nefer be free

then when will angland be free

angland will nefer be free

then what can be done

naht can be done

then how moste i lif

thu moste be triewe that is all there is

be triewe

be triewe

*http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/magazine/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-he-feels-fine.html?hpw&rref=magazine

(at least I only spent twelve dollars)

well shit the plants didn't make it. shriveled and black they dissolve into dirt grim reaper incarnate at least
i only spent twelve dollars
at least
alyssum is still alive


the parentheticals are back fuck it i'm a gemini do you believe in astrology in ghosts in eternity? do you believe in small wooden boxes stuffed with paperclips post-it notes staples a pencil sharpener older than my body's cells i'm a regeneration motherfucker do you?



thank you for speaking tonight i am proud of you and also myself. i am grateful to the small black hairs sprouting from my calves. tomorrow i may shave them but for tonight they are my only companions, i awake and the cat on the couch sleeping. my socks do not match.


well this is the end of the line for the time being it's time to brush my teeth wash my face (how often have i confused colloquialisms) lay my body down. if i should die before i wake i will not tyrannize the minds of children if i should become a ghost i will slip misty into people's minds i will whisper love what you love, listen to music, and sing, and singing, and sing

take back the night

For Staceyann Chin



please excuse me i am prone
to bouts of dissociation please
excuse me i am remembering
how to sing how
(she reminds me) it's all
connected
it's all
our business,
his hands in
my sweatpants
my underwear, first friends then
nobody watching
we light fire
from bricks from
brown pine needles
brimstone
curling from a cabin chimney


dark-driving lost and me
the only one who could read a map i trace
contours and projections slide
fingers drown out
the old man's knocking/blankets burning/one of us screamed
go
away

but come
here beside me
here
fingers grasping mouth
to lips finally
too late 
dead in the room
at your parents' house
and our friend watching
and me wishing i'd never wished
to be touched


how many years later
do you think of me?
do you know how i've worked
to kiss hug fuck love
me love
him love 
anyone
do you know
how i've cowered
you were not the last to hit me
how i've torn myself trying
to tear you out
out
my underwear
my sweatpants
my memories
cabins and nighttime
and the morning after
by the riverbank
you picked me flowers


fuck your flowers
this is your legacy
you forget while i tried
to starve
you out of me
to carve
you out of me
with pocketknives and paperclips
all to show
for it: thin white scars

But MY scars.
I rub-hit-starve
my body I reclaim
every inch of me every
means of touching me
I finger-bruise-slice not out but
over you
obliterate your marks so they are
MY marks so I
stand
(see how I am standing)
woman made

daytime

cat head-butts me awake sliding his face underneath my hands (here human, like this) crawling over my stomach (purring) love me, love me. brush my teeth eat breakfast in the kitchen then listen to music he climbs into my arms i sway side to side while he pushes his head to my chin and purrs. every morning who knew a cat could so love to dance.


in my dreams brown delicate bats slip through a wet-dark tunnel in the maple tree and my mother asks me for gardening advice. something else happened but i do not remember.

dear alyssum bought from the smiling duck-raising woman at market and planted in sunshine two weeks ago i know it is cold now please don't quit on me. "For the world is not painted or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe."*



my stomach has been hurting again i have not been hungry but i eat anyway, deliberately, because it is important, listening to music standing cold in the kitchen.

on the chair cat chases his confounded tail puffed up hissing claws bared faster one day-- you watch-- he's going to catch it.




*thanks, Ralph

What I will say if anyone ever accuses my writing of being self-indulgent

Yes, it is.

it's night that's unbearable, almost

it's night that's unbearable, almost, what to do with my hands my mind swirling, rain falls loud soothing on rotting shingles thin panes of glass. a kid i'd lie in bed listening to thunder too excited to sleep, run to the window breath/hand prints on glass, look, look. in the morning disheveled hair wild eyes pulling on rubber boots step out to meet it stomp the gutters, float leaf-boats, play i got older sat on the wooden porch bench covered but inhaling, tickling my fingers out past the edge. or stood walked to the driveway eyes lifting up to the sky smiling arms spread wide hair getting wet. if my car weren't sick i'd get up and drive (over the bridge under the rain canopy still-silent sanctuary filtering wet black leaves).



sorry Ezra.




i started singing again today, feels good oh yes why did i stop do it again, again, again! s/he rolls their eyes. okay how's this the cat watches a documentary about the history of bubblegum and i cross my legs.


i don't know what to say next only that i bought candy at the gas station it was as i expected full of sugar and food coloring but it's important, i think, not to be too good. i remember i covered the walls of the bedroom in my parents' house, women bearing swords, leather sandals, standing up on rollercoasters wind blowing up her skirt. i bought the wooden advertisement on the streets of berkeley her on a bike with a falcon lit up behind her me hoping for talismans to render me bold.

right now i don't feel it just constrained to this apartment covered in rain and wishing for movement for music loud singing wheels carrying me there.

today's walk count (raincoat edition)

wet feet, wet sidewalk, wet leaves. innumerable raindrops. cold flowers.

last night as i exited the grocery store

last night as i exited the grocery store someone passing by the cart-lines in front of me was redolent with weed. it was either the mom with her two young children yelling out for the truck-shaped cart or the loner guy with his long hair, black band t-shirt, and 24-pack of cokes, and i will not speculate.

when i lived in guatemala i accidentally told the owner of my school that he sexually excited me, when what i meant to say was that i was excited to climb up and into the old volcano. there was a lake there the fog rolled in that's a literal term now i have seen it. my host mother's nephew's name was alex we talked world politics in spanish as we climbed the uneven, handmade stairs back up and out of the mountain's insides, he was very kind.

i could hardly breathe the path was steep and me with only the one lung functioning, the other tender scarred and knotting around itself, squeezing. see now i run because i can and because i am the only reason i can, because the doctors told me i could never run again, could never breathe hard again, could never fly. i tear down the path underneath arching trees my breath comes fast heavy fuck, yes look at me now i am flying.


cat leaps onto the couch behind it startles me. we both had a good laugh, the school's owner and i, and he put his arm around me. there's a picture of the two of us somewhere i remember him mostly for his tango classes (i had never danced in public before i wore a long skirt small shoes and felt self-conscious but laughed anyway) and for his small low-to-the-ground pickup all of us riding in the bed weighing it down so the bottom nearly scraped the road on our way to a farewell dinner. i remember how lavish the restaurant was, or how it attempted to be, and i feel sad with some kind of nostalgia or something, how do you talk about the ways we try to convince ourselves we matter?



i think music is one of the greatest gifts we've been given, expression in general, herons, marshes, rivers, forests. did i tell you i have a new spirit animal?


i will eat the orange i will eat it with my fingers sticky and swirling scent up and out of the windows. the children playing in the park and the men playing basketball and the cat sleeping he is back to his favorite blanket on top of the couch. dear wilson you are very brave.


i suppose i want to see what happens even more than i want to be safe. do you remember DC back pressed to the wall men whispering one after the other i said thank you why don't you give me your number so you will never call me. i came here to dance can't you see my boots and the way i swing my arms swirl my hips stomp my boots around the floor? still i loved them, the three of them, maybe more, god you were there too, how do any of us make choices we stood by the pond full of huge golden fish you kissed me you weren't supposed to i think that is a limiting term. i do not want to live like this, erecting new barriers each year, each month, this is right this isn't count 'em how many points out of 10? i will eat the orange i will eat it with my fingers sticky and swirling scent up and out of the windows.

today's walk count

two bumblebees. one exposed patch of brick in the shape of South America. multiple ants on the sidewalk. a cluster of yellow poles. two boys picking dandelions. several dried and fallen leaves.

rain poem

you too.


fuck the parentheticals i'm done. there is the post's title like it or you don't. i think the doctors were right about my propensity toward low blood sugar.

it was pounding rain the rabbit sat at the base of the holly tree nibbling grasses getting wet.

today is warmer than a day has been in-- seven months? that it has been that long, and that the warmth still comes. if i had died this winter i would never have known


fry an egg put it on top of my oatmeal with cinnamon yes i know but you might like it.

the rain trees leaving hard.



cat lies on the cream-colored rug blissed out on 'nip. he stretches long, slow, and stays that way.

i am attempting to get back to a place within myself.




order oshinko rolls lie hot on the couch in pink-polka-dot boxers. when is the last time i wore my legs bare, outside of the shower or disheveled sheets. maybe one of these days i'll even shave my thighs.

i am at risk of saying a different name now. i call the cat something else.

i have grown scared of changing my life, but i want to.

today while walking i saw among other things three bumblebees, one sideview mirror adhered to its car with zebra-print duct tape, dogs playing together happy in the park, a blue house from top to bottom. also a sign saying "change before you have to". fuck off clothing proprietor don't tell me how to live my life.

still, you have a point.

dinosaur paws pad windowsills. the golf ball drops. how to tell if i am satisfied or settling. if it is a binary equation.

it was pounding rain you were sad we held hands stepped outside yes here yes do i help you feel happy?

this is a poem using only a few of my favorite words

caterwauling parcheezis perseverate violins. gnomish copernicus babbles peripatetic rhizomatic stardust. cataclysmic promenades guffaw coalescent waystations.

arterial cornhuskers perambulate fistulas [on] insterstitial rocketships. Bogota. babble intersectional pantaloon mimesis.

fig. ecclesiastes. moon.

these are a few of my favorite words

perseverate
caterwauling
guffaw
cataclysmic
mimesis
Bogota
pantaloon
arterial
cornhusker
perambulate
promenade
waystation
babble
Parcheezi
fig
fistula
coalesce
interstitial
rocketship
Ecclesiastes
gnomish
violins
peripatetic
Copernicus
intersectionality
rhizomatic
stardust
moon

(this is an exercise)

I drink water from a quart-size mason jar while the jello shots set in the fridge. Freeze-dried edamame equals the new candy cigarette. You can tell I'm an experimental writer because my sentences don't coalesce.

also, sometimes i don't use proper capitalization!



I dance in soft leggings and a button-down on the living room rug. Good 'ol rocky top. The cat lies on my hoodie unimpressed.


By all means coat my nuts with sugar it's not like anyone can appreciate authenticity these days. I wanted to eat a goddamn almond not a sugar bomb. It's just as well; I learn to my chagrin that nut butters provoke the immediate and unrelenting growth of a large zit on the left side of my chin.


Emily Dickinson I apologize. Amelia Earhart I hope you are still alive. CVS brand trail mix you can burn in hell.



This piece is an exercise in writing when I do want to write. This piece is an exercise in writing when I do not want to write. This piece is an exercise in self-flagellation. Remember when you used your you-know-whats as a whip?



They lined the walls of the bedroom my eyes wide I thought if this is being adventuresome there's not a lot to miss. I do not need the flick of leather use your fingers make me quiver.

Emily Dickinson you dog.




If I write fast and long and hard enough I can bust through these confines what's up motherfucker the house is leaves the house is leaves yes I am blackness hurtling toward no-meaning onmyway I type hurtness and then accidntly naturally I start thinking naturally I'm snapped back to being here blinking at bright lights when did those get here I'm a space traveler motherfucker. I was there and I know it. This is an exercise in writing when I do not want to write.

(in the future i will sit)

In the future
I will sit by the fat manatee
in her pink hat
on her iron wheels, smiling
and with nothing
but gravel and rapidly browning grass
beneath her prodigious shade. That's the kind of place
where you can step out of reality for a bit,
or out of what you thought was reality, and remember
there's more than one way
to live this life.

(It's official)

It's official: My neighbors can see me standing naked in the kitchen through the filmy drapes. I know because we made eye contact.

Tonight walking back from CVS and singing to myself I remembered that Clay Aiken exists, that he sang a song called "Invisible," and that at the time of its release it was wildly popular, at least among middle school girls. I sing what lyrics I can remember as the rain slaps my black umbrella, listen to the full thing on Youtube once I've walked through the door stripped of my shoes and my wet pants and standing pantsless in the kitchen this time, I think, my neighbors are not outside to see me.

The song is not very good.







I am not attempting to disrupt anyone's life. At the same time I am re-committing to living my own, and come what may, and whatever that means. I made a promise to myself in front of a man who sought to cut me down, like hay, they said, and as I stood before him my voice shook but it was the powerful kind of quaking and he stopped talking then and another man stopped stirring the tomato sauce on the stove long enough to listen. I suppose I had forgotten I ever said anything only now I can remember the sound of my voice and I can feel him pressing against me, later, thin leopard leotard sliding wet bodies through broken windows behind locked doors and rusted out fire escapes. We swung from the ceiling and drank like apes.

I switch the song seamlessly Heavy Things and Bugs and another lyric I can't get out of my head. I scrub the recyclables with hot water, swish it over and over again through beer bottles until it is brown and thick with the stench of fermentation and buzzing lips. Please help me to find a way out of this.

(stung, I think)

The cat perches hackles raised
stung, I think, by a mosquito, some
invisible insect, his own imagination leaping
from dreams to wake back thrashing
against the sofa golden fur spit
onto the carpet.

You were in my dreams
again, leaning in from above my
arms encircling your skin-bare waist,
my friend in the bed
beside us head cocked and smiling
and I passing nonchalance thinking
how much longer can we wait.

He hisses away my comforts
no touch, no holding, no hand
stroking his oily cheeks. We press together
in the morning kitchen I reach
for a water glass, grasp
your body pushing
mine tight to the fridge.

He sniffs the edges of the apartment not
quite trusting them to hold place.
I run miles in sunshine wondering
is this what it feels like to be awake?

(evaluation)

Yes I fantasize. 


About him, mostly. 


Well


When the time comes


I can't. 




Sometimes. 


When I picture his hands. 

(this is your adversity)

this is your adversity:

running downhill.
consumption.
memories of fingers on your bare back.


your comeuppance:

toddler pajamas.
dark closets. a favorite pocketknife.
fear and want.


your salvation:

cliches and violins.

(But praise)

What lifts the heron leaning on the air
I praise without a name. A crouch, a flare,
a long stroke through the cumulus of trees,
a shaped thought at the sky — then gone. O rare!
Saint Francis, being happiest on his knees,
would have cried Father! Cry anything you please

But praise. By any name or none. But praise
the white original burst that lights
the heron on his two soft kissing kites.
When saints praise heaven lit by doves and rays,
I sit by pond scums till the air recites
Its heron back. And doubt all else. But praise.
         

--John Ciardi, from the poem The White Heron (as quoted in The Heron Dance Book of Love and Gratitude)

(Ukraine. March 1, 2014)

If the young piano tutor can protest
in the fire-flashed streets with two broken ribs
and his friend killed behind him ("Something changed in me. I am no longer afraid.")
then surely
I can clean the apartment with a fever.

I scrub the sink then kneel down
on my hands and knees sweeping
from under the bed
dust, plastic wrappers, shreds of linen,
a crumpled sock.

I scrape up the dirt with my hands, sift it
into plastic bags and carry it to the porch
where it is cold, and dark,
and stand inhaling.

And stand aching.

and return to the apartment
where I can do nothing,
where it is warm, and full of comforts,
not the least of them the sound
of a piano playing.

(vocalizations/weekday nights)

It's amazing, the difference mint makes.


I think I really like being human right now.


He is a bully, and you are great.


Lemon ginger, please.


Good boy.


It will require experimentation. Does that make sense?

(The Book of Wilson)

Wilson sees no reason why things should not go his way today, tomorrow, five minutes from now, and every moment hereafter.


Wilson believes in keeping up with current events. He spends several hours each day looking out the window for this purpose.


Wilson prioritizes what is truly important. For instance, when a mouse started chewing inside the wall behind the washing machine, he did not leave his post on top of the washing machine for several hours. Not even when it was time for his five-hour-long nap.


Wilson believes in the power of cuddling.


Wilson will not settle. Not Fancy Feast, nor five-dollar cans of organic tuna will suffice when what he really wants is Natural Choices Turkey & Salmon Dinner Slices. He knows what he wants and he will meow until he gets it.


Wilson believes that everyone, everywhere, should sleep as much as possible.


At the same time Wilson is a firm believer in the importance of physical fitness. This is why he runs laps around the apartment, and up and down the stairs, and across the female human's torso, over and over again at 5:30 every morning.


Wilson prioritizes the long-term relationships in his life, even when glitzier friends come along. For instance, even after Catnip Everdeen showed up in the toy basket, smelling so good he sees visions, he still makes sure to spend quality time every day with his dear friend Mr. Fish.


Wilson believes in the importance of creative outlets. His personal brand of catharsis comes in the form of scratching posts, scratching burlap pads, and scratching the arms of the white chair in the living room. Occasionally he will bite the female human's ear lobes, but only when she is not giving him enough attention while she is sleeping and he needs to express his frustration.


If Wilson falls, he lands on his feet and keeps on walking.

(of it)

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.


--Eugene Debs, to the judge who sent him to prison in 1918 as a result of the Espionage Act.

(day)

Today I am in love with the woman in the sex tape. I think his name as she comes.

Today there is a map of Pennsylvania on the bedroom wall. I think about inking over New Jersey with a permanent marker, but that seems harsh.

Today the moose sit on their log bench, where they always sit-- whispering and laughing together, doing their damndest to remind me of when I was camping in Vermont. I looked up at the stars they were flying and I was loved.

Today the squat grey lamp sits on the quilt stand, ceramic, hugged by the tan shade, looking altogether like something a person who owns quilt stands and handmade lamps would use to light their bedroom.

Today I am lying knees bent under me one leg in and out of the covers. I turned it off because I could not do it any more. I could not do it any more.

Today, as every day, the cat needs love. He cannot understand why the bedroom door is sometimes closed. When I open the door he wails his way in, indignant, and sniffs me all over before curling up in the blankets. The nerve of me, to think it reasonable for him to spend a few minutes anywhere else.

Today the hand-stitched curtains hang grey at the tips. This is what two years without dusting has wrought. The previous tenant made them and she left them for me. Who am I to tell her she didn't spend enough time cleaning windowsills?

Today I walked circles in this city that is new to me, yet so old, mine as much as it is George Washington's, or the man smoking outside of the bank.

Today, and henceforth, I am learning to accept the holes in the baseboards. Perhaps not everything needs to be patched.

(lessons learned while reading AMAs on reddit)

take the high road.


there is a theoretical limit which is around 1,000 km for the outer dimension.


if I let anger take over, I am going to become a victim again.


life is a big collaboration.


the consensus view of global temperature increase over the next century is a curve with a peak in the 2-4 C range... the most probable outcome (at least on the 100 year time scale) has risks that are probably manageable, but as Marty Weitzman at Harvard has pointed out, we need to pay attention to the tail of the risk distribution, because the economic and societal risks can be very large there.


growing up is very hard.


where possible, avoid going through the media who often have agendas that have little to do with truth finding.


it's very disarming to the other party when you are calm and poised through adversity.


raise the bar!


think about forgetting the past because it has no importance to the present or future unless you hold onto it.




(from here and here and here)

(you are how old what have you done?)

muddled ashtray.
spit.

kitty leaps, flexing his claws.


It's 1pm what have you done with your life? It's Thursday what have you done with your life? You are how old what have you done?


the toilet won't stop running again. the mailbox is full of bills again. it's time to get to work again. the sink is full of dishes again. i washed dishes last night.

the toilet won't stop running.

kitty sleeps, flexing his claws.



do you want a sweet potato for dinner?
do you want quinoa for dinner?
do you want stir-fry for dinner?
what are we eating tonight, for dinner?

(I love the way that he has made his art his life.)

"I really love the way Wes writes with his collaborators, I like the way he shoots, and I like HIM. I've become so fond of him. I love the way that he has made his art his life. And you know, it's a lesson to all of us, to take what you love and make it the way you live your life, and that way you bring love into the world."

-- Bill Murray on Wes Anderson, reddit AMA