Do not turn off the system

Installing...


I am sad that my sister and brother in law didn't respond, but also I know that I have been the one not to respond and it wasn't personal


It's really shitty that you didn't have anything kind to say

Also

Thank you for helping me to release you


Perhaps that's the kindest thing you could have done

I thank you and I release you



I wish I could tell all the people I haven't responded to that I love them

Because I didn't tell anybody what I've been through nobody knows what I've been through

Therefore it is harder for them to understand the radio silence

Still I wouldn't have listened even if they'd known, and that's why I didn't tell them

A save of everyone's time




I watched the movie where the tiny people migrated underground except for the poor tiny people and the people who wanted to stay above ground to help

Chin up fists up




The orange tennis ball sits beside the green tennis ball and around my waist is a pair of extra-large green and blue plaid boxers

When I stand up, they fall down, which is why I've rolled the elastic about six times and use one hand to hoist them skyward whenever I walk from one room to another


Carefully picking our way among the red stones

He says they remind him of home





We walk together
Eight legs, three hearts, the mountains
The red stones like home

79% 88% 91% 100

After we wake in the middle of the night to care for Hanna and then wake a few hours later to hike to that remote alpine lake amidst piles of red stones, we drive home down the long dirt rode through the migrating cattle and stop at the Hawaiian place to pick up some takeout

For lunch I eat raw tuna, thinly sliced cabbage, pickled onions, white rice and hot sauce

I wash it down with a bite of almond butter and some low-sugar orange juice


Raw tuna? Who is this woman! 


But then I remember that tuna salad was one of my favorite foods throughout my entire childhood

No salmon for me, thanks


Nevertheless, these days I eat tuna maybe 2 or 3 times per year because people are eating too many of them

I do not suffer for it



The spicy ginger from Vietnam is so good, though at a certain point it hurts my teeth

I am sad that I may not be able to visit my brother in January


I am so excited that I will be going back to school in December



Shall I start writing haikus again?



The lake is so deep
and so eloquent, bugs script
across the water

think of class 3 as all the stuff you can do

I want you to be in


At the exact right moment I channel the force





I've figured it out--what makes animals so beautiful. They are both animal and spirit, wholly





Sucking a grape popsicle remembering how good it was to be a kid in the summer





Earlier I really felt it--how privileged my life is. A reminder to seize every bit of my freedom, and still not forget the people and other creatures in cages



I will be teaching creative writing at the local jail



The wheel spun and because I am writing I flinched--then remembered I'm not with that guy any more and grew thankful



Crinkling cellophane and the gentle sound of 27,000 people talking


We lay down the yoga mat and all four of us converge



How big is Dick's stadium


What's that on the table? 



I am starting to understand what it's like to feel human. I feel like a rose dropping her stiff outer petals, revealing the soft ones beneath



I ask for my chocolate and he is so nice about it

That yogurt with the honey on it



An imperfect life, wholly

The motorcycle has ridden away into the sunset

In my memory I sit on the dock of the inner harbor living up to its name as I sheltered in that familiar place, paused for a moment between the shoulders of my two new women friends, perhaps the first I'd ever had, in between two worlds I did not know but between which I was traveling


I'm sorry John I owe you a phone call or at least a text



I just let myself be the sidekick to everybody's life. In retrospect it's so sad

I didn't know that I was allowed to live my own




I remind him to be nice and he does it


I remember when I wore black tights and combat boots everywhere and I went out dancing three or four times a week

I remember when I

I remember



I remember






Four ordinary men quietly became one of the most successful musical collaborations in the history of our country, and if that balding head isn't enough to teach you something about the power of passion and joy then you've gotta zoom the fuck out




Everything's right so just hold tight 

and I brought sliders

Ew at the sitcom laughing over

Real car in a fake parking lot

She tried on the bionic arm to get over him, and it fit



Then she could control things





Where have I heard this story before

This is a sacred space dedicated to healing 



The bookbag rests in front of the bookshelf which is covered in books

He comes home and I throw him a Welsh accent and he rolls with it

I'm in a bookclub

I still don't know how I feel about forgiveness

Does that make me a bigger person or a small one?




Don't really think I have a role model. Maybe no one could live up to the perfection in my head.

I am trying to be free of it.



Fake fridge in a fake kitchen in a fake relationship fighting

I don't want to be apart ever again.



I am proud of my mom for going to Morocco.

I know how the ending could be horrible and perhaps at some level I think that if I know the ways it could be horrible then I'll be able to prevent them from ever turning out that way.

In reality you cannot prevent a mug from breaking just because you know it could.



And so I worry a little as the sun goes down.


My mother would not have sat with me.

But she did schedule me an appointment.

In this moment I think I understand that she did most things out of love.

And a small portion of it from fear.

Which I have also.

Because my mother is human, and so is her daughter.

"Why do you want to get married under the water?"

It takes a little whisky and too much Hulu to finally get going. It's been a few days and the impostor syndrome has started to creep its way in. That being said as soon as I start again I feel whole again.


After I called the insurance company the kind woman asked for the mileage reading on my 19-year-old car and I ran outside in bare feet and braless and told her. Then when she asked for my credit card I ran back inside again

What kind of dress do you think you'd wear under the water? 


The fact that there are people getting married underwater makes me think I should spend more time being myself.


You are not the lowest hanging fruit.



We laughed while bouncing down the rutted dirt road and backed up to read the hand-etched sign: long-distance cell service, a joke



When I first saw the Polaroid picture that I took to be funny I was horrified to see that the angle and perspective of the shot made me look about three feet wide. Then I watched the young woman give the eulogy at her husband's unexpected funeral and remembered that it so does not matter

What matters is having someone with and for whom to take the funny photo in the first place



I am seriously considering buying a remote cabin in the woods


You are welcome to feel joy

"From Blossoms" by Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes

this brown paper bag of peaches

we bought from the boy

at the bend in the road where we turned toward   

signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,

from sweet fellowship in the bins,

comes nectar at the roadside, succulent

peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,

comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,

to carry within us an orchard, to eat

not only the skin, but the shade,

not only the sugar, but the days, to hold

the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into   

the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live

as if death were nowhere

in the background; from joy

to joy to joy, from wing to wing,

from blossom to blossom to

impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

You have never been my husband.

I think loving my dog is helping me heal residual mother issues.

I have to let her be herself.

She is getting the hang of being whole; I'm so proud of her



I always thought I was an old soul but lately I've been wondering how ....



I think this time finally did it. I think I'm done, and I thought it three days earlier while dancing my face off and gazing up at the moon. Thank you. I release you.



Today I did it I put my hat in the ring and said yes please, I would like to be considered for the option of doing with my life what I deep-down-truly want to do


Now I understand people who talk about not doing things because that's what others expected! Only in this case it's my own expectations I'm defying.

Or rather those of the inner critic, good 'ol Ic, making a new premier in stronger form because he realizes that I'm breaking free

Thanks for your concern, buddy. I'm keeping an eye on things.




Holy shit I really did it. Every word of it was me. The essay and the portfolio that I whittled away on. Every bit of it has me right there in it. Holy shit I really am me. I really said it. This really is my life.

From "The Bones of August" by Robin Ekiss

Is it necessary

                      to remember

      absolutely everything?

purple mountains majesty

After I said no for the fourth time and then no also to them I went for a bike ride to clear my head

Took a chance on a rain storm and enjoyed the payoff of wind at my back for the whole ride home

At one point as I pedaled hard and fast alongside a wet wooden fence a robin swooped in on the other side and I swear to god for a few moments there they were racing me, and I cried out in delight and in contradiction of the song I'd been belting along with David Berman all my happiness is gone but not quite and not really



before that when I walked Hanna down by the river a snake slithered in front of me, that's been happening a lot lately, this time out of curiosity and due to the sheer preponderance of snake sightings I pulled out my phone and googled their significance. It seemed spot on but also I can convince myself of pretty much any meaning or lack thereof

Am I picking up what the Universe is putting down, or am I being oblivious or ungrateful? Is it all in my head?

What has always comforted me is the idea that it doesn't really matter; if I believe and act like it is, then for all intents and purposes it is


Tomorrow I will go camp in the national forest somewhere, we'll just drive down a long forested dirt road until we see somewhere that we'd like to pitch a tent, and then we'll pitch it, and we'll cook some veggies and protein on the portable two-burner, and after sleeping under the stars we'll climb up and over a mountain pass to a lake and when we get back from that maybe we'll go climbing

I work so hard to preserve my freedom. The next step is to live once again as if I am free