It was a unique kind of horrid

living in that basement with the abusive rapist yelling at her and masturbating on the other side of the door at the end of the unlit hallway, splitting to the only options in that 300 square foot apartment: bathroom, bedroom, or kitchen, the kitchen two tin foil burners in a 10' X 11' room with a disgusting, street-recovered fold-out loveseat,the bookshelf my father made filled with books, and a set of shelves with utensils, pots and pans, two bowls, two plates, a few mugs; the bedroom the only slightly redeemable space in that whole place, at least there was enough room for the queen-size bed and a couple of side tables, a closet just big enough to hold all else that we owned


still, somehow, I was happy, because after nearly 15 years I had finally returned to live in the mountains where I belong. all I had to do was step outside and I'd be home

I'm not going anywhere

Today I both felt and resisted the urge to heckle a strange man walking by my office window, just for the hell of it. Where did that come from.

My six-year-old nephew follows up with me several times to confirm that I have written a reminder on my phone: Prior to December I am to fly to him in Los Angeles so we can visit a local dog toy store, where, he assures me, I will be able to purchase a hat specially made for dogs, with holes for the ears and a jingly bell on top. He thinks it will be the perfect Christmas present for Hanna.

In the past 48 hours I have determined that many of my life's decisions and inclinations originate from guilt. Thankfully I had dance class tonight, and I knew just what to do: punch and kick and gyrate my hips and torso around, getting all that shit out out OUT. Down with the oppressive letters and up with the liberating ones! I am allowed to do what I want! I am allowed to do what I want! I am allowed to be myself!

I do not have to be perfect. Lord has had mercy on me. By that I mean I have finally—finally—found mercy for myself.

And yes I know the talons will come out; they already seeped in the dark edges of my mind as I sat with legs crossed and forehead pressed to the wooden floor at the end of class. But I'm not going anywhere.

Remembering now pedaling hard and fast down the side of that mountain, tears flying off my cheeks into the wind-vortex behind me, begging I just want to be okay as I am 


What do you know. I accidentally wrote Angels.


I'm not a root. I'm a rose.

I wrote that for the health insurance investigators

what is the weirdest thing you can think of right now


what is your favorite poem in the whole wide world FUCK how can anyone pick just one

what do you do when you've recently discovered that you are nowhere near as impressive as you think you are



as for myself, I remove the clean towels from the washer and transfer them to the dryer. I am careful to remove the lint from the lint trap before turning the dryer on

grass rabbits grass

I wake with the intention of writing; six hours later here I am.

First I read a lot and then I made three sets of quadrants and listed out the pros and cons of all kinds of scenarios before reading again, sharing Reiki with the dog, cuddling with the cat, feeding the critters, doing some laundry. Then of course it was time to take the dog for a walk; I stopped at the local coffee shop for an iced coffee with a hefty amount of soy milk, then we strolled back to the park and sat in the shade for a while, Hanna played with a dog named Spunky while we chatted with Spunky's sitter. At home again I got to work tidying up after a week away, after coming home so tired yesterday that we dumped all the bags inside the door, tucked the perishables into the refrigerator, and called it a night.

Now in a clean apartment drinking black cherry seltzer and listening to Silver Jews here I am, doing this thing that really I want to do with my whole life.



An experimentation in form
tree nodules clustered with rocks and seashells
a grandmother's candle piled high with glitter and intentions

stacks of board games
a purple rock in the shape of a heart
Vietnamese marble carved into an owl
cookbooks filled with recipes much fancier than I am, maybe someday
A jar full of roots

"Origami" by Joyce Sutphen

It starts
with a blank sheet,
an undanced floor,
 
air where no sound
erases the silence.
As soon as
 
you play the first note,
write down a word,
step onto the empty stage,
 
you've moved closer
to the creature inside.
Remember—
 
a square
can end up as frog, cardinal,
mantis, or fish.
 
You can make
what you want,
do what you wish.

I took a long walk with my dear friend and then I walked inside and told him what we'd talked about

How many projects have I started and not finished

Is this a character flaw or the gift of discernment





Frankly, he says, you've been kind of manic

"These natural cellulose sponges are crap"

These natural cellulose sponges 
are crap. We spend so much money on them
and they don't even work as well as
conventional sponges

Still we keep spending
on the natural sponges and the 100% recycled
toilet paper and the reusable non-plastic wrap because
we believe or we hope
it is the right thing to do. It is perhaps
the thing that will allow us to step proudly to the front
of the line when the planet finally says
enough
behind the banner that reads People 
who bought natural cellulose sponges and recycled toilet paper and reusable non-plastic wrap and who minimized their paper towel usage and took relatively short showers 

Down shift

Man, spending three weeks with my mom really fucked me up

Now I look at pictures and in the mirror and I can't tell what I look like. I thought I was a slender and generally attractive young woman but now I see an enormous mutant who isn't worthy of eating even the healthiest of foods. According to my mother, even plates of vegetables are too gluttonous for someone like me; she watches each bite and exclaims over my portions for the duration of each of our shared meals. Do that three times a day for three weeks with a mind predisposed toward disordered thinking. Keep doing it even after you've told your mother that it's harmful to your mental state to have her shame you for everything you eat—for eating, period—and could she please stop because you worked really hard to be okay with eating, you almost died because for so long you were not okay with eating, and she says okay but then keeps doing it. The fact that I'm still eating normally = I'm a motherfucking powerhouse

(Remember that, June)


Still. It is weird not to be able to see yourself for what you are, to truly have no idea what your body looks like at a given moment in time, even with the assistance of photos and mirrors. I suppose it's possible that my thighs and my ass are thicker than they were at some point in time, but what is certain is that in the last seven days I have run, hiked, and biked upwards of 100 miles, and today I biked halfway up the side of a small mountain, I mean straight fucking up it, by the end I was roaring and that is what my thighs and my determination can do. I have earned every pound of muscle on my body, and I have earned it all back after a variety of near-catastrophic injuries, and I continue to earn it, just as I have earned my healthy mind, and I will continue to ferret out all that toxicity that was bred into me and force-fed to me because that is what I will not stomach

From "Solstice Litany" by Jim Harrison

             ... We can't tell each other when we die.

Others must carry the message to and fro.

"He's gone," they'll say. ...

Widely taped and traded

It's hard to make out in baseball hats.




In my dream we were about to have sex again, finally, deep kissing with our shirts still on, pants off and pressed up against each other. Right before you slid into me you had to step outside for a moment, we were on a boat or a spaceship or some other kind of fantastical public transportation vessel, and while I waited for you to come back Hanna started having another seizure in the large cabin to which we'd snuck off earlier for the purpose of having sex, and I knelt down beside her and held her and talked to her gently.

I woke up not long after, and not long after that Hanna really did seize, on the bed this time, then sliding down onto the floor where she spasmed and peed a little and I held my hand between her head and the bedframe so she wouldn't be hurt and you heard me from the bathroom and sprinted to the freezer for a bag of cold butternut squash to hold onto her back with your pants unzipped.

Hanna has the purest heart of anyone I have ever met—yesterday she found a fledgling magpie stuck in shock in the dirt beneath one of the biggest trees on the disc golf course, its mom yelling frantically, and she walked up gingerly, sniffed it ever so gently, and then gave it its space to learn how to fly. Another time when she was chasing ground squirrels in the big wide field beside the river she caught up to a little one with paralyzed back legs frantically trying to haul itself into a hole, and once again she came to a stop, sniffed it ever so gently, and then watched it protectively while it crawled back into its home. She is so gentle and good and she doesn't deserve for these seizures to keep happening to her. Why don't they pick on somebody their own size.


What if I put it on the phono.


Perhaps we really will get to hear that 45-minute weird Dark Star played through the nice speakers.


Because I am a 32-year-old woman I am trying to use real em dashes these days.