Friday, November 27, 2015

what happens when you go home for the holidays

​why can't i enjoy anything
why does it feel like i can't stop being mean
why is nothing ever right

Sunday, November 15, 2015

don't trust other people with your ideas.
don't trust other people to know better than you about your things.

i would've ordered a new charger, i would've shipped the old one to east wind.
i knew the package would never make it in time, we'd be stuck here waiting or have to leave without it.
we waited an extra day and we're still leaving without it.
so i finally ordered new goddamn gear this morning, which i should've done immediately when i realized my idiot self left the charger in ohio.


if you had told me you shipped the whole thing back to acorn, i could've ordered a new battery as well as a charger. now i'm down to one.
yes it's better than nothing.
yes really there's no one to be mad at but myself.

and then why am i SO upset? what makes me take this SO seriously?
(and yet not serious enough, i could've done so much more.)
((and yet so serious that i build it up and up until i'm too paralyzed to shoot))

3 and a half months after i've started this journey and i feel totally unaccomplished and broken down.
at first i had a lot of ideas for what i wanted to capture, my vision of my role.
you all wanted heads talking with your own ideas regurgitated. nothing new, nothing true.
after i adjusted to the reality, i still had lots of ideas-- what i thought would capture people's attention, funny videos and zines and things.
you all crushed my ideas and i went ahead and finished killing them off.

so where am i now?
i felt so good about what i gathered at the midden. not great, but okay.
i felt so good until alex said "let's do another interview once you've fleshed out your thoughts more."
i felt so good until rejoice asked if i got exterior shots, after we'd left the state, after knowing that they took the house tour without me.
i felt so good until my dumb ass left my battery and charger in the kitchen, right there in the wall, right where someone else plugged it in.
i felt so good when i found mike's phone charger and packed it for him, how thorough i am! (a lie, i felt irritated that dustin had taken his phone and left the charger here, full well knowing this was mike's because he borrowed it, this is part of our party, this comes with us. and even now i feel irritated, surely someone in our crew saw the battery there in the wall, someone knew this thing should not stay in ohio.)
i felt so good when this journey was an adventure, when i had a purpose, how i was alive and living.

where am i now?
i'm so mad at myself about the battery that i'm not present, not engaging, not actively asking questions or trying to learn new people.
and i'm feeling like a grump, irritated by everything, constant frown.
i feel myself faking it trying to let loose and it feels awful.
i hope i don't have to go back on meds.




back on the road, we arrive at Possibility Alliance just in time to catch a tour with a student group from Truman College. we're just a couple minutes late, so a visitor walks us out to a patch of grass where the rest of the group is gathered in a circle, popcorn-sharing the things we want to change about our world.
Ethan wears a red baseball cap and leads animatedly, barely able to keep up with himself and the long strings of ideas he wants to share. some of the kids seem already bored or jaded, or maybe i just can't tell what people are feeling anymore.
it feels good to sit in the grass, in the sun, to watch the cow and feel the eyes of other humble humans who are not (yet) communards, with a whole different kind of jadedness.
as idealistic or radical or "crazy pants" as ethan might be, i'm still drawn into his words, jogging along after the chasing thoughts, i'm feeling this.
"we look at screens more often than we look in each other's eyes. humans spend more than half of their waking hours looking at screens."
i'm wasting my life, it's clear.
ethan is adamant that we shouldn't feel too guilty about our own habits up to this point; that will only lead to more suffering, more pain. self-hate is not the solution.
this is a hard one to remember.
i can feel the others in my party are not so sold. rejoice has gotten this tour speech twice already and dustin's already checked out and "hopeless" (his words, his goal) at 22.
as much as i'm feeling the impact of these stories, of being here, i can't get rid of the nagging consciousnesses of the other side.
it's funny what impressions i have of the different communities before i get there. i guess i thought i wouldn't be interested in this place -- why, exactly? i can't recall now, and i can't remember details, just a vague impression.
maybe because they have a "gift economy" which in Point A world is not as interesting or radical as income-sharing and therefore is null.
maybe because it's just a small farm with one family in the middle of nowhere, missouri.
but being here, maybe it's the college tour, i get the sense that they're engaged on a broader level than most of the other communities i've met. they host quaker meetings, craft nights, work days, straw bale building workshops and permaculture trainings. they just got back from a rally (??) in detroit for water rights.
and they've done all this with ONLY a landline telephone and no other electricity.
so what do we think we're doing???
at every community i visit, i consider living there, if only for a moment. on this day, in light of all this mess, i wonder what my life would be like without electricity, without screens. how important are they and how much do i need them, really?
maybe ethan is a crackpot and an idealist but isn't that what i've always wanted to be too?
he asks us this question i've heard a lot lately-- if you could do anything, be anything, if someone waved a magic wand and you could have your dream, what would it look like?
i never do know.
i think that's a major part of my problem.
it changes on the daily or it floats just beyond me, a shifting shape in the fog.
what would happen if i cut it all out, the distractions and the phoneys and the plastics? would i find any answers?
what if i learned all new arts, what if i learned a whole new way to be myself?

i might want some of my modern things.
i might want a manual typewriter.
i might learn to build creatures and make worlds and take photos on film to tell my stories.
i certainly will need my cat.
i don't know what to do about that.

for that moment when i imagine myself in whichever community, i can be anything, i have a whole beautiful life there for myself.
and every life, in every land, is always different.


i listen so much, it's one of the few things i'm really good at, that i value about myself.
so often i hear you before you've spoken. sometimes i can answer before you've said it -- and then you interrupt me to tell me your thought and it was exactly what i thought. why can't you hear me??


"Pandora was pretty dopey dude, she had pretty simple instructions. just don't open the box! stupid bitch."

make this man stop butchering this song.

Friday, November 06, 2015

thin skin

this is why my thin gs are lost.

this is why i'm not allowed.

i tried to organize the zines and pamplhets; they were in miples that made sense.
i walked away.
i walked away and that's my own fault.
i walked away and came back to a beautiful clean table.
a clean table and all my piles all my attempts to organize dismissed.
why did i ever bother
why did i even exist
i'm sorry that i have to make piles to feel alive. i don't know where to go where that's okay.
i don't know where i can give anything that gets credit.
i want to be yr legit diy librarian.
yr diy archivsit
yr diy therapist

and yet get into an argument:
you need to shave your legs.
OH DO I
i can't understand although she says it's not personal, it isn't me, she would say it to anyone
can i exist even this close to the status quo
YES WE'RE SAYING THESE WORDS
can i exist without being judged?
no. i'm okay with that.
i'm a judge too it's cool.
can i exist without being made a fool?
okay but you decided that'
the clown was the object
how can i be a clown without being destroyed?
that's for the people to decide
you're the joke
you play the part
and see how the audience reacts
you can't decide how it all shakes down

they ask if you know your skin is thin
if you know your size and scale

Monday, November 02, 2015

november horoscope, c/o autostraddle:
Self-love is the killer, huh? It’s so easy to love humanity, even when they’re messing up the world–or at least your group of friends who are trying a little harder–but when it’s just you rattling around in your own head it’s harder to feel tolerant, much less enthusiastic, about what you find. You can rely on the love of your sweethearts or closest friends, but only so far. Sooner or later, you’ve got to face that inner sense of being something strange and alien. One tip: remember that love doesn’t need an excuse. You are loveable because you are here with us, offering something this world has never seen. Whether you can feel it yet, you’re being held and seen.

i needed that. really.