tarot for the week (never mind it’s for the year)

seven of candles / wands

i have been really ducking lazy and even tho this week was supposed to end that and get back into GET SHIT DONE mode, i have not done a very good job at that. lots of playing games on my phone. lots of lazing around in bed all day, staying up late drinking. lots of sex. (obviously it’s not all bad!)
so today i ask the cards what medicine i need for the rest of this week to get back into high gear. here i receive SEVEN OF WANDS (candles in the numinous deck) which screams fierce, courageous, knowing and holding my own power. fucking GOALS let’s get right.

i keep telling myself i don’t have time or i’m not ready to start looking at those art life help books but i’m just making excuses. i need to get some advice from those books and also find a better visual way to keep track of my goals. THIS FEELS SO REDUNDANT. i’m tired of falling into the same loops. i’m tired of having to teach myself the same lessons. i’m tired of screens.

also there really is so much to do in the short term future that it’s hard to imagine making time for this stuff, but actually i think it’s integral to making the right choices about what’s next. i need to be looking for s place to live and figuring out more steady income, plus defining and strengthening my relationship with jerel, which also means helping them get to california and then back here with their car. so in thinking about that trip, having my own place, making more green beans, i need to be placing myself in a strong central position, not trying to accommodate for everyone and everything else before meeting my own needs. this means making time and space for art projects goddammit. this has to be #1 priority for the new year! new home, new partner, new life, new me.

last year i attempted to put my healing first, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t but i think i’ve made a little progress. this year i’ll prioritize art projects (personal and collaborative) and productive relationships. building a nest that supports my mental health and my work. finding gigs that will let me feel more stable while also maintaining my independence. seeking funding for art projects. finding new ways to clown. making plans for the longer term instead of living only in seasons. holding space and being a safety net for my partner in a way that supports their growth and independence. fucking commit to writing. commit to creating sacred spaces and communing with spirits. commit to magic practice as well as art practice on the damn daily. routine can be ritual!! these are not bad words!!! writing, singing, playing.

(also while writing this i kept thinking of january as technically the new year and even tho that’s far away being like well whatever but i just remembered today is SAMHAIN which is witches new year, duh!! okay i’m already on the right track. i like this card for this year. gonna GET IT!)

SO THIS WEEK to get on track, i need to freaking organize my to do list and start knocking shit off. i should try using that app again, i was having a lot of success with that. at least it’s a good idea till i come up with something better. (jerel seemed to have some ideas a while back, when they saw how frazzled i felt half the time. ask them again?) remember that getting the bullshit over-with means more time for the goods.

to do lists
organize for alice meeting
pay therapist
prepare for paris

go to sleep early

florida party dream

rachel smith's birthday party at her house. it's a lot of people, feels like a lot of people more mature than our crew. then again are any of the other nola folks here or is it just transplants from my memphis group that i'm finding here?
dexter, rachel's son i've never met, probably 4 or 5 here although he's gotta be almost 10 by now, removes his pants and underwear and runs away from me giggling. i think it's pretty funny too but the adults are generally aghast that i haven't been able to keep him under control. so now i'm chasing him around with the pants in my hand, trying to coax him to put them back on and feeling generally incompetent.

somehow i end up in the bed in my pajamas? was it a sleepover? the room doesn't really feel like rachel's room although i guess it's supposed to be. the mattress is on the floor along the back wall, and i can see out to the backyard through the windows when i turn around. everybody is out there having a good time, partying, pool splashin. i realize i'm wearing my pajamas (blue firefly shirt) so i look for my bag to put on some real clothes and join the festivities. all i can find is some real dumb shorts i don't like and my floral crop top i've only worn once. i don't want to put it on. do i? or maybe i just go out there in my pajamas and people judge me okay so what. or maybe i'm just distracted by talking to people out there and i forget that's the problem. lots of pals here, lauren dunn, kat, brett, morgan, hunter daniel?? definitely others but i can't remember specifics. i think mallory is here too.
at some point i remember that rachel recently broke up with another boyfriend who was a narcissistic addict, another mean drunk. i want to find a time to commiserate with her about that, but i don't know when i'll be able to, with all these people around. i've barely spoken to her.
i need to get in the pool with everybody else, go back to digging through my bag looking for my swimsuit. it's not there, i probably didn't even pack it, but i'm poking around through piles of stuff on the floor and the desk and now that i think about it, it kind of has the quality of one of the video games i played with jerel this week-- moving through the actions of searching in order to go to the next scene. i'm also exhausted somehow. (by now i've been snoozing my alarm clock and/or getting woken up by dogs and then falling back asleep. in real life i know i need to get up because it's getting really late but i guess i'm pretty tired and there's also this sense of things i need to finish in the dreamworld.)
so in the dream i fall asleep on the bed again. are there dreams within the dream? there must be.
i remember i'm standing over a desk looking through some papers and i see an infographic about making art and suggestions for process. one header says something like "THE TALISMAN" but maybe not that, it has a picture of a pink clock. it's talking about the important of the initial inspiring words - but actually it seems to be about more than words - it's about the moment that you receive inspiration for a project, or the moment that something clicks, and having a physical object or image that recalls that moment. keep it with you or keep it in your work space to hold onto the source of the feeling. of course this is sounding very obvious typing it down, but it felt very useful in the dream. especially since i don't have a damn process and it's so hard to say "artist" and i didn't learn any of these tricks.
at some point rachel is standing over me on teh bed, maybe this is even a nightmare within the dream because she's distant and seems irritated with me, but rightly so considering that i'm sleeping through her birthday party. her green eyes are piercing, so vivid, her hair is currently dyed a deep auburn and her hair is long and wavy at her shoulders. she looks otherwise just the same, same rachel i loved so long ago. i guess everything is pretty fuzzy but her eyes and hair are nothing but clear, in the sharpest focus. i remember i remember.
my body is so exhausted but i have to get up. i look out and i think hunter daniel is gonna play some drums or someone is performing music in front of the pool. it's getting a little darker out now. maybe i fell asleep again. i look up and people are singing karaoke. i can't miss this! I've gotta sing!!! finally i drag myself up, now it's as if the wall has melted away and people can talk to me in the bed from the yard, i can enter and exit this way. brett sees me sit up and calls, "alanna i need your help judging this karaoke contest! come over here!" although obviously i've missed all the performances so it makes no sense for me to judge, which i think i realize. i dip down again, exhausted, and when i sit back up, brett is awarding morgan and two other friends (rex?? kat? i don't remember but they're good buds) who are dressed up as makeshift crystal gems with rainbow fabric skirts and sashes. felt or construction paper hair. they're overjoyed to be winning and i can't believe i'm missing this. how does it keep happening?
as i'm walking out, morgan is coming in, she says that so and so loaned her this bathing suit and she's done with the pool (at some point before, brett has said "Everyone's done with the pool" ???) and i can wear this loaner suit. it's hideous, tan masquerading as gold, and maybe with sequins. it's actually familiar, i think i've worn it last time i was here (but i never could have been here) and i hesitate because of how it looks (so vain in this dream!) but put it on anyway. finally i walk to get in the pool but find it mostly full, and although it turns out there's a second pool (duh) a few feet away from teh first one, no one is know is here. i am trying to participate but seeing my friends all having fun just beyond reach. i try to make small talk with these new people but i feel awkward and stiff. standing in the corner of the pool facing the other pool - see a little tiny brown spider (but a kind of electric blue outline?) skip across teh water into our circle, very fast. we all overreact, and try to splash it away from us. it lands a few feet away, on top of what i quickly realize is another spider just like this one-- only it's 10 times as big. monstrous!! i look around the pool and it dawns on me that there are critters everywhere. little squat brown toads that could've been rocks, sitting neatly on top of the water. wait that oen's not on the water, it's on top of a fucking tiny ALLIGATOR. well, it's florida after all! and i guess we are partying in the swamp!

((this seems like a good image to hang onto for space submarine commander, although saying it out loud to jerel, they said bog witch. good point. and funny that the dream told me to find the image to hang onto-- i think that's probably accurate for both SSC and bog witch. i fucking wish i had a fucking WORK SPACE where i could hang some images on the wall and have a place to freakin think and dream and work. help.))

MY BODY HAS A LOT TO SAY

and it’s full of revelations

firstly being how right kat’s dance teacher is that if you want to write you have to first move. i switched up my body and my mind woke up. so full so sure.

it’s not that “everything happens for a reason.”
it’s that everything means something. (does it? me who loves nonsense, do i really believe that?) or maybe it’s more like nothing happens in a vacuum. everything is attached to something. but maybe everything does have meaning and if it seems like nonsense it’s because the riddle isn’t unscrambled yet? after all, we’re just the conduits.

driving along and thinking about the past, my past self. my happy list - the joy in simple things. picnics and mud and swings and dancing. just friends. those are all the real things. when did it get so bogged down? and when did i decide that my depression has always been eating me alive?? i mean it has but it’s not like i never enjoyed anything. i felt miserable in a cruel world that made me hate myself and makes people have to do horrible things to keep up with it. i was never actually the problem. i had so much passion and energy and i knew what was important!!! i’ve got to get that back.

and that was another revelation - all along six of cups. for months six of cups - good memories, childhood, family, roots, growth. i have to remember how to play. i have to get some of that child essence back. to be good and do good and CLOWN and remember how to be happy.

HARRY COULD ALMOST CRY AT THIS SIMPLE GIFT OF THE UNIVERSE.

i’ve been staring at it all along and i never really saw it. i’ve been saying yes yes i know and thinking it has to do with being home but now i see it’s about something i’m missing, or don’t have enough of, something essential. REMEMBERING TO PLAY. remembering to move. appreciating sensual experiences. i see now how i have to kill some of the adult learned bullshit to get back to a place where i felt better being a blank slate. (i’ve looked for that feeling so many places. sex, masochism, drinking, fire, internet, candy crush, dancing. playingggg and moving without myself is the best one. yeah?!)

i have to say thank you to the clown gods for being patient with me on this one. i’m sorry i had to ask so many times. i need to find a better way to process these tarot readings. through dance, maybe??? today i had the urge to get off after the reading, to be open and explode pleasure in the presence of the cards. i thought that would give them energy. obviously they don’t need it! i’m the one who needs the movement, the rhythm, the process!!!! to take it into my mind it has to come through my body. or vice versa.

is it a gift that the clown gods, the earth messengers, others, out there, are communicating with me? i guess they must talk to everyone like this, but not everyone listens (or knows how to). not trying to talk like i’m some great listener!! obviously i missed the six of cups message for months. (why haven’t they given up on me??) but i want to learn and i want to do better. better, bigger, harder, brighter magic. i want to make it good enough. i hope they’ll keep helping me understand how.

also side note i really need to get “brett” or whatever skeptical voice out of my head so that my thoughts stop getting distracted. ugh. at this point, how can i even doubt????

moments of clarity

brighter, harder, bigger MAGIC

feeling it today, feeling good. remembering that i don't need to swing wildly from the extremes of "i'm the worst" to "i'm so special and good" and actually there's this nice safe place in the middle. i'm not better than other people. i think everyone has the capacity to tap into magic, to pull down the moon, breathe fire. maybe i have some different channels open than other people do, but that doesn't make me better or special. i don't need to be huge, or be a star, or change the whole damn world, if i can change who's in the room, speak truths, bring in the small magic.

follow the fool
follow the impulse
the body knows something the mind doesn't

DANCE FREAK DANCE!!!!!!! DANCE FOOL DANCE!!!!!!!!
that would be an awesome queer dance party, lets make that happen. where??

i hear the right songs and i CAN'T NOT MOVE. i know what they are. cultivate htem and put them together. let's have a fucking dance party already. i can take it to the woods. i can take it anywhere.
i can take the clown to the woods without the nose, the hat, the covered body. i can clown wherever i need to, with anything. haven't i always??? when did i get hung up on accoutrements?!!? yes i want to keep learning and growing, yes i've got to evolve it all. but when did i ever want to do only one thing? can't i be clowning and dancing and following no rules? except the main one - give up give up give up. give up your thoughts and give your body over and let the gods move through you. stop thinking stop thinking stop wishing stop wanting. this is all there is, now.

yes okay fine the question of the audience, but right now they're not here. it's just me in my room. and sometimes i IMAGINE they're there, and that trips me up, traps me. i can't let them come in. it's dancing more than anything else because i fear the predatory eyes and the judgment and they think they own my body. i want to say, when i feel that gaze, my whole body will revolt, contort, i will become bug and beast. never for you never for you never for you.

take it through. if they want to come to your world, they can be an audience and we'll talk together. if they want to ride the wave and the rhythm of this mess, we can make it work together. they don't just get to come here and make demands.

keep the mind open keep the body moving
find new eyes find new power
yes yes yes yes feel that fire !!!!

can we always be dancing?? can we warm up wake up dancing every day? how can we try?
(we need a floor first, oh yeah)

stop thinking

listen i'm not even drinking
listen i'm stone cold sober
(unless you count adderall, 9 hours before)
i'd like to keep talking but i need to go take care of the dogs and then pack and then blah

maybe there is a lesson here about HOW I AM FUCKING OVERTHINKING EVERYTHING IN MY FUCKING LIFE and it shouldn't take this long or this much stress to pack. i'm going to the woods, but what do i really need?? a toothbrush and some clothes and a flashlight. why do i think i need more?

please alanna please stop being so sucked in by the computer. you think you need to know stuff that you don't need to know. most of what you are doing is actually hoarding. much of the time you are just following a line of tabs that never get read or watched and just pile up and pile up. REMEMBER WHEN you didn't miss that???? remember the communes in 2015 and remember the freedom of being phoneless in the loony bin???? you can't know everything and it stops mattering. the focus shifts. you've got to get to that. you've got to get to your body and intuition and the computer is neither of those things. you've got to stop. you're going to stop right now and you're going to stop writing and turn off the computer and go do the htings you have to do. you're going to cleanse your body and spirit in the woods, in the mud, in the river. when you come home, you're going to organize your fucking room and set up a fucking work space. you're going to make some fucking art. you're going to write. you're going to get one of those copyediting jobs and bring in some green beans. things are on the move and they're going to happen but we have to make them happen.

CAN WE DO A TWO WEEK COMPUTER CLEANSE OR SOME SHIT

okay here we go

keyculator speak

today is friday march 2, i guess it's just after midnight so. i'm drinking beer and i just had my first cigarette after 2+ weeks without. i'm trying to understand teh impulse. i know part of it is teh moment itself but what's teh feeling that leads to it and the feeling that hapens afterwards? tonight i thought i would write some messages to friends inviting them to teh movie at SXSW and maybe even post on some groups about the screenings. or do some research. or even just read my book. but there was a shift, a switch flipped. and none of that productive stuff is what i want anymore. i have been filling this void for years this way - beer, smokes, drown it. i use the time too to connect, talk with friends, hang out. if i'm alone i can SING or listen to music in a devoted way that i don't normally allow myself to. or this- I WRITE. is that what i really need to be allowing myself? the smoking and drinking is the excuse for the thing i want. the honest, the open, the art, the silliness.

do you remember the children's book "frederick" by leo lionni?

the good feeling i've been riding took a dip last night and i'm worried it'll run away and i still won't have pinned it down at all. it's so hard to even believe it enough to say it, or if i manage to find the words, they'll become only that, and the feeling will fade. but now that it's a question it's better to just do it... right?

i can already feel myself overthinking this. that is the last thing i want to do. what do i have? i have these fast fast fingers and i can type my brain better than i think! i can write the words my mind makes up! i can sound like a real me in text! (i know because laylee told me that 15 years ago and rex told me so today and so i have to BELIEVE or what if i lose it or what if there's something important i could be doing that i miss because i haven't done anything about it. you know.)

it's so hard to believe. it's so hard to let myself remember what i'm good at.

BUT after xmas after snata craws and rodent carols and another round of GREAT GROUP i was near convinced, i clowned for myself in the mirror and i was able to get there which surprised me - but why should it? donna said not to look at ourselves to practice our turns and i totally understand that advice. but so often when i look at the mirror and i see this strange face and i think this can't possibly be me or be real or be anything at all, and i just shut down. for so long i have turned away i have pushed my nails into my palms to unsee i have gritted my teeth and pushed breath through to see to be anything else. now i find that in the times in the late night in the mirror i can explore and see what this body can do. i can see how to find the biggest expressions of the face, i can elasticize.


FORGET FORGET FORGET

i forget. i forget who the body belongs to. i froget we frog together. the mirror thing, with the perfect dissociative cocktail, surprises and delights. the mirror thing becomes elastic, electric, fantastic.

the thing that hurt to look at, the thing i could never understand how to belong to, i find this thing, when stared down, goes wild. it can't behave and doesn't want to try. it wasted a lot of toilet paper.

this is only partially a new discovery. the feeling is in the body, some of it is already memorized. it's burning embers in there all the time, even though i forget.

i guess i'm rambling now. the important part is -- i have gotten so tired of beating myself up for being bad at stuff. of course that sounds very reasonable written down in such a way. but the things i'm bad at are things that many people find necessary to function - eating, sleeping, organizing belongings, remembering information, simple math, wearing clothes, forming words, etc. i don't really want to care about being bad at all that mess. it happens or it doesn't. i can't remember the names of important people or pretty much anything i learned in school. i can't remember why i hate mother teresa until i look it up on wikipedia (and promptly forget the facts again, but i remember the feeling).

i remember the feeling i remember the feeling i remember the feeling

i am toying with the idea of applying to physical theatre school. i am considering how to make my body into a rubber band or flower. i want to be able to squeeze everything out of the present moment and explode it out of myself. i want to roll around and jump and shriek and freak and confuse the fuck out of people. i want to present another way to be.

if not me, then who? if not a someone with hardly any logical memory but great arches, then what am i even around for? surely someone out there is gonna do it. surely they could stand some company.

this was all made abundantly clear, several times in fact, right around the winter solstice. as it turns out, that was right when i was completing my first saturn return - and perfect timing to say fuck you everybody, i don't care what you think, i can see so clearly what is important. (reminder of what is important: friends, love, art, magic. this is an incomplete list but you get the idea.)

morgan got back in town for the holiday and wanted to go out to the bar with friends. she picked the so-called irish pub, not knowing that a bunch of us had gone there for trivia the night before (don't worry, we lost) so many of our group didn't come along this time. and it ends up me & brett (& later kat) in the weirdos corner with morgan's most type A segment of friends all crowded into the booth on the other side and all i can say is "YEP here i am again indeed, oh and what now? i'm doing an in depth study of mental health, now that i'm back from the loony bin" and there's nothing like a night like this to remind me how much i don't want that life, with the husbands and the babies and the business casual luncheons. UGH writing that is so obvious i could just spit on myself but no no that is most of the world and i think i can be allowed to write it down occasionally. the important part here is that i maybe felt a little embarrassed at first and especially trying to explain wtf i'm doing with myself, yes back in memphis, yes living with my folks, yes again, but more than ever, i feel like answering this questions is more a nuisance than anything else. i don't really care if they judge me for the answers. i don't really give a fuck what they think, truly. are they judging me for being practically unemployed and living with my parents at 30 and oh ordering another drink this late? yes they definitely are. and am i judging them for being salaried breeders who always vote democrat? yes i definitely am. so we're even.

i'm tired of the waffling shuffling pretending i can play for both sides. when i lived in baltimore i felt like 2 people in 1 body-- a demure, polite, if slightly eccentric, part-time librarian with sensible shoes and nothing but patience, and a barefoot feral drunk at the local anarchist commune / urban farm (except not even totally that because i still had to make sure the bills got paid and be The Sensible One which is not me at all and was boring as fuck).

i'm tired of fucking around with that world pretending i can play along. i just can't hack it.
i know i know i don't have it. i'm far from it. it's been six months now since i got out of the loony bin and came home. it doesn't feel like that long but i know my folks are getting antsy for me to figure my shit out and get a move on. meanwhile i don't want to rush making a decision because that is what keeps getting me into messes, it seems like. but i think i'm getting somewhere this time. maybe.


when i was a kid we lived in a small bungalow house in the artsy neighborhood of town, before it got gentrified. the dining room in the center of the house had 8 walls, branching off to the front hallway, our bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathroom, the back yard. "the octagonal room" was the true center & the heart of the house. at that table, my mama accidentally served us inedible cake decorations at the table. at that table, we grew crystals for SIX WHOLE WEEKS on plastic toys & charcoal for a science fair project. and under that table, most importantly, we made our own world. no fort could compare to the one on the persian carpet, table cloth on all sides, and pillows snatched out of beds. what did we do under there? i'm not quite sure but it was all magical, always, because it happened there, in the secret sacred space.

that's the space i want to create for people. if i am not here to take people under the table, i'm not sure what i am doing at all.

***there are other worlds there are other worlds there are other worlds* and they are all around us**

now i've got 3 glasses of wine in me and i still haven't packed so. i'm annoyed bc i dont think i even said what i was trying to say. or it all come out wrong. fuck all. the point is, i am frederick. (or i wish i were.)

jumble

let's be real. i have always been a feelings person. my strength comes from my empathetic side.

why has it been so hard for me to find my way ?

some of it i'm blaming on adhd. especially now that my head is more clear and i'm not so depressed i can see patterns better. i focus intensely on something or fixate on an idea for a few days and then move on, for whatever reason. i have not focused long enough to specialize in anything.
it's not only adhd of course but i think that definitely helps with the quickness and the forgetting. what do i do? even i don't know. but it means i'm good at hyperfocusing and concentrating super hard on one specific thing for an extended period of time - and then also being able to shift my focus quickly to something else. some of this maybe is just keen perception. i see all the things. i see the choices that make sense. (in simple logistical situations anyway. other times i'm a dolt.)

the point is.
the point is everything i already know but always forget.
i am a feelings person. i am an art oriented person.
i might be interested in things like sociology and herbal medicine and animal behavior but i have never had the drive to focus on those things long enough to really learn them. could i if i wanted to? sure but then i'd have to actually choose a thing. that is the hardest part.

but when i think about learning something like clown or performance or dance i am just sure i could do it. in terms of my excitement and my confidence i'm all in. it's only REAL WORLD garbage thoughts that crush me. i should be doing the other thing. the real thing.

HOW IS IT that i am still having this thought process even after being brought up on the value of art? how is it that my parents taught me that and yet they scoffed at every nonacademic artistic dream i ever had???? it's driving me bonkers that i'm just now realizing the full weight of this. i feel like other people's folks tend to swing one way or the other, like kat's parents consumed by their research or alice's music teacher folks. mine are some in between with my dad as collector/hobbyist who finally decided to try his hand at writing in his 50s, and my mama hinting at some vague dreams of writing or storytelling or some wisp of a memory of a dream so incomplete it is just dust, but still she's passing it off, urging us to write, to publish, to create, except no don't go to art school bc you need a job.

oh it's just a mess it's a muddle. like the world like all our brains.
and me always in the middle why ??
does everyone feel that they're here?
outside in the middle
not right. not center
caught between options until you're nothing

this must be what everyone feels.
but still for some reason everything is so hard for me. it all takes so much time. i can hardly get anything done. my days disappear. here i am still. driving my parents crazy. no more of a plan than i had in july. where did the time go? everyone tells me i'm doing so well, it's so good to take my time to heal properly, except my mama. why can't she let me do this ?

i'm up too late. at this rate i will want to skip the social shit tomorrow but i guess i'd better not. damn. rot.

what a mess what a mess what a mess. skipped out on being social again. didn't go to yoga. bligh. just feeling awful. on purpose?? can't be good to stay in and watch sexist tv. starting to feel so stuck so stuck. but also some wild thing in my brain is screaming "it's just that you're a visionary!" that's gotta be it. why i can't seem to find words for any of my thought processes or explain what is wrong with everything to my dad. i come off as "disdainful" mama says. i'm paralyzed by judgment - of myself so i can't do anything and of everything else so it's overwhelming and defeating. how do i kill it ???

i want to make myself a schedule and stick to it, as dorky as that sounds. i really think the ADD hyper focus thing is real.

why is there a car idling in the middle of the road right across from me here on my porch? you are not my uber. you aren't for anyone. sounds like a door slamming and it drives away slow. am i paranoid or ???? maybe less so after the incident with kat a month ago, where in my driveway the man banged on her window and demanded a ride or else he was gonna get shot. my paranoia made me say no. we drove around for half an hour and then she sat and wouldn't leave me until 4am just in case.

my left breast has been hurting bad all day. it's been tender all week. is it just a weird period or something else? googling this shit doesn't help.

i'm pretending again that i'm cutting down with smokes but i'm kidding myself. i have a few good days then some event excuses me.

roll herbal smokes goddammit
work on the papers

lord so many other things on this list i can't remember. where the fuck do the days go ??????

last night i stayed up too late angry and drinking and finally wrote that call out about gratz on halloween. today i had to wake up at 9am bc apparently i'm slow as business at doing anything so midday dog visits on five hours of sleep. i felt hungover and grouchy but i still sang to them. i got home at 1245 intending to nap but i read chris mccoy's write up in the flyer and my energy was restored. spent the rest of the day trying to figure out the wordpress mess i made of the concrete website and whether it's fixable before finally dad stopped it with pizza and netflix. what a grouch i am. but it's still true that steven universe is the only show on tv worth anything. except adventure time. okay.

mama was ridiculous today, probably not on purpose. cracking me up all over the place. my number one clown mentor for sure.

gotta read that clown book
guided mediation and that other body stuff

make a fuxking schedule that includes reading time
i can't stand this nothing nonsense

the problem where it's in my head so it's already true. being bored with everything. nothing being good enough. i see it with clarity how it could be better, should be. so why am i not doing it?

but how can i do it alone ?????
everything i want is dependent on others. i thought maybe i could make it work here but clearly i can't. this has been the problem all along. i couldn't find the support among my friends, so i sought it externally and i crashed + burned. dependent and dead.

i thought i had some good ideas over the last couple days. i was so fired up. i needed anyone to fuel the flames. all responses (except rex my love) were lukewarm. i was shattered. i broke apart. i became again dumb, useless, unimaginative, incapable, etc forever. i don't know what's true. i don't know what's real. i'm so busted apart with self doubt and dissociation that i don't know even about reality.
i want to talk about it but i'm a pretend artist working without a practice. my mode has been to instigate others or to glom on later. i have no solo. i have no way to know. i consider being alone in my bedroom trying to "work" and i throw up in my mouth, i can't eat for hours. (do i eat at all?) it's as if i'm supposed to have seen everything already but actually not, oh it's better if you don't, just be yourself. it's as if i am supposed to know how to funnel this brain crash through a gold pan and discover my own secret brilliance, eventually. elsewise i guess i'd better sell my (l)eggs to go to school and have them tell me how to be. i'm at a loss. i'm done for. i want to move to a new town and die. i want to disappear or explode.

Things I Like To Do

• sing
• stretch
• read out loud
• read!
• puzzles
• write

LIST OF DEMANDS

• always pen + paper
• only clothes with pockets
• good art, better art

(sloppy words found on an envelope, some time during or after clown class, spring 2017)

i always stand there thinking I COULD DO THAT so why not?

it must take a massive leap. no more pretending to be REAL, no more faking.

i'm tired of being the Responsible one. ugh

kiss them up dearest touching (????)

kiss face to wind to sip or spin

kick up the dirt that isn't dancing

if i can't go now, i never will go

if i can't know (?) now, who will fucking tell me?

no one will mourn nor remember you

it's already too late

oh to write the things that think

before the thoughts are formed

BUT how to be so quick?!

somehow all this bland shit is just
pressing the pause button
in between what is surely
the greatest show on earth or ???
I'm craving (?) to get out of
this version of myself.
NOTHING I WANT is allowed.
is that me? or is that just
totally pathetic. i'm tired
of feeling totally pathetic.
i want it all to be a rush (?????)

i have a lot of work to do.
realize these notes will never be read.
even you will not read them.
become as indecipherable as possible.
you are not made to last.

i want to make everyone believe in magic
that is hard + true + dissonant.
i want to be bugs + dirt + children +
death. how can we bring it.
it's not here in this place with these people.
you didn't find the thing you thought.
it's not your fault. you had to try.
it's not a place, it's a feeling + a purpose. you
know that. you can't rely on a new location.
how is it that you feel more bright and
alive now that nothing is real, no one is
awake, and you've got four drinks inside?
not even blurry silly, just convinced. This is
not the hovel you're looking for. the right
answer is not gonna come in a flask. there
is no right answer. but you have to kill the
feeling that something is wrong + find out

fuck it all.
you are supposed to be an artist.
you are meant to do it and you know that.
quit comparing yourself to other people.
quit trying to figure out where you fucked up.
just DO.
you gotta start reading more first and taking it all in.
you gotta start practicing writing. that 3 pages a day thing. just go wild.
you gotta start carrying around a notebook.
and probably actually leaving the house so that you can get out of your own stupid thought cycle.
maybe practice with an adaptation. turn a book into a play. or write a dream into a short story.

while working on the concrete site

this old stuff has me cracking up! I want to be funny again. I think I have it in me somewhere. 

all these little plans. I need to dream big again. 

I want to make magic!

I'm so sad I didn't go to the earth first workshop. I want to find a way to create things. it's important! 

I'm excited for my pen pal project. I need to write some emails. that will be a start of something.

actually, though, why is it so hard to be home at christmas?

we don't know what to do with each other. everyone is looking at a screen. everyone is miscommunicating or misunderstanding each other, either because we were looking at screens when we were trying to make a plan, or because screens have killed any communication skills we maybe once had. we don't know how to talk. we don't know how to listen.

your parents have the same problems that you do and it's hard to watch.

papa can't hear anymore so you don't know how to talk to him. you can talk nonsense with grandma, but she doesn't know who you are.

all your big dreams shrink to fit back inside the old house, back into your dark heart. they smolder there and you expect to be embarrassed to talk about them, but no one asks you anyway. you've already been written off. the dreams die without a fire.

you thought you could understand the world out there, but that mess of trash and war seems like a far-off thought and you're the only one worried about wasting paper on plastic presents and not being able to compost the potato skins. if they talk politics, your words will leave you and you fail your cause entirely. what words are left in times like these?

there is a blister on your mouth that rots all your words.

you ask your mother when you began to hate everything. you guess college but she answers "middle school" and probably she is right. she says she felt this way but she hated hating and the world was too much so she gave it up. but she doesn't tell you not to.

just from watching doctor who with the family you love, the family you crave, you know that something is wrong.

you almost cried, to recall the brilliance of Lucille ball. why can't we all? why can't we? what stops us? strips us?

the moon is full and the grass is wet and it's 85 degrees on Christmas.

the world is dying and broken and full of plastic. you know you're either dead or fighting.

you aren't going to win by crouching behind a bush, sucking down fire, calling desperate to a foreign moon with nothing but your dead self and cold toes.

inside there is light and laughter and you've never been its partner.

you are the broken dream of people who wanted better.

night call

i have a lot to say and a lot of need to say it. it's hard to make myself make time for writing down words. i usually write the first nugget of an idea, intending to continue later, and just never do. half the posts on this blog from the last year are unfinished, you can probably tell.

i've just been sucked into an internet wormhole for the last 2-3 hours. my latest "hobby" is obsessively saving websites i like on the wayback machine so that they are PRESERVED FOREVER by great mother internet. this evening, the category was livejournals and yes you have to click through the whole journal to get every page archived, but there's a big chunk on the screen there so you can't do a whole lot of reading while you're saving, which is very irritating and not productive.

first of all, i miss livejournal. which is blasphemous, i know, since i held out for so long and never really got so into it, always solo floundering about over here instead. but i miss the whole concept, people sharing such small thoughts and writing mostly for themselves-- for the exercise and for the document and for the hell of it. facebook has never been remotely close to that, and never will be. (that very thought makes me want to delete fucking facebook right now, but what am i gonna do, sit over there and be the only non-russian person on livejournal? no.) i wonder if people are still writing somewhere... online? on paper? word documents? and, are these people, are my friends and peers still writing at all? (other than the ones who are being paid to do it, the lucky beautiful bastards) or is it really just something that young people do? and i dunno, i guess i'm old, aren't they all on snapchat? or is there anything at all like lj for these kids nowadays. i'm saying.

and also just seeing these quick flashes, each page a new season, the ups and downs, stresses and excitements, everything so huge and overwhelming, the passion, the potential. and what are we doing now? some of us took off like rockets, having seemingly always known exactly what we wanted. but the rest of us (the real "us") seem to roll along and dip and fall and land and roll along some more. maybe i'm mostly talking about me, but it seems that it's just hard to do the things we're meant to do and harder not to hate every day. i know we're living in a broken world within a spirit-crushing, oppressive system, but to remember so clearly, to look back at all your bubbling words and feelings and the THRILL and maybe you didn't know exactly what you wanted to do with your life, but you knew what it felt like. and we none of us could make it happen.

i'm tired of blaming myself for not being good enough, for fucking up or feeling like one, for not having things "figured out." actually i do have it figured out dammit and what i figure is that this culture wasn't built for us and that's why we're broken. it's time to take it back. and i don't care if you think it sounds stupid because it's fucking true, and if you know it's true, you won't think it's stupid. so let's fucking go. i'm tired of seeing my friends with tense faces and old news and it fucking kills me and i'm so sad that you're not loving your life because you're the best and i want you to have everything and i want us to build it beautiful together.

my life is a goddamn wreck. OR IS IT??? the world is a goddamn wreck.
i have experienced beautiful wonderful terrible things.
i know there is a whole lot more out there than the tv would have me believe.
i just ate a whole bunch of delicious dumpstered goat cheese and avocado on wheat toast and it was delicious and i loved it. the whole fridge is full and all of it was free.
i've met real life witches and i've seen what's in the cupboard and it's amazing.
i know i have to make the steps to change myself.
first i'm moving to baltimore free farm, for the garden and the sweet gentle people and the warehouse event space and the evolution and the egalitarianism, and for john waters.
but the moving, as i've learned before, is not enough. i have to craft a space for myself and my community, i have to create the things i want because they don't exist, i have to make it good.
probably this means i will have to cut other things out, which will be hard, but it's long overdue.
i'll jump off that bridge when i come to it, and i'll let you know how it goes.
there are so many things i need to learn and if i don't start now, i'll be dead soon.
i really do want you all to join me, i want us to go together. it'll be so much easier, and much more fun. and if not here, then where? what does the good life look like to you? how do we get there? what's stopping us?

this is the end of the black cherry cider, and the end of the night, almost dawn. if i can sleep, i'll try for some good visions and if i remember, i'll write them down.

on the road with Gil

the time of being a culture people sponge is coming to a close. after the solstice, in the new year, I will curl into reflection, back to written words,worlds, follow pen and paper trails to make the story.

I will follow up with my own ideas, goals, visions. don't let them down.
I will follow up with new friends and comrades, keep connecting with the visionaries and the big beautiful planners. how can we all connect?

seeing myself as a connector: bring people toward each other, facilitate meeting of minds and ideas for bigger goals.
an organizer: making events come alive, planning for the big beautiful. MAKE it happen, no more waiting.
this was always the goal: to create a beautiful world. to be my own ugly in it. to transform what ugly does.

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.

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

(found mind-mapping notes from Acorn, fall 2015)

create new + better culture

learn to dance again
learn to write (creative non-fiction)
learn to build puppets
learn art history
learn animation
theatre

DIY archivist / folklorist
-document ephemeral culture and dying culture
-oral histories, folk traditions

be a better clown
unlearn
learn new histories
tell untold stories
-write historical fiction movie scripts
-animate with morgan
vaudeville revival / traveling variety show
make zines
write letters
anachronism - move backward from electronics + technology