Sunday, October 27, 2013

every day i nearly die, and so do you, and so do you.

when i got to work, the whole APA parking lot was full because of all the games going on. saturday sucks. i shot death glares at every man, woman, and child on the stupid soccer field, plus the baseball diamond. i sure do hate children a lot these days.... but so does everyone i work with, so that's awesome.


[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[finish this later]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

sometimes, in the distance, I see beasts. 

Monday, October 21, 2013

i tried to go to sleep at 12:30 tonight and haven't had any luck. last night i got home from work at 12:30, ate a piece of alfredo pizza from papa john's, had a glass of wine, took a benadryl, and went to bed around 2. i woke up at 3:30 in the afternoon then went to a potluck party on a farm. i had yummy veggies and macaroni and lots of good beer. i got too much food and had to throw it in the woods because they had taken away the trash can by the time we left. i am sad that i didn't get to eat my hardboiled egg, but i hope a possum finds it. i wish i could sleep. i took a half a bendadryl around 5 so hopefully it will kick in soon. i wonder if my pills are keeping me awake or if it's caffeine or anxiety or what. i've just been thinking about the cats all night. and itching itching itching. i need to find out if kelly got itchy when she was staying here. i just keep thinking that it's somehow self-contained and as usual my body is a mutiny and maybe it has to do with being a mutant. next week i have an appointment to find out whether i am eligible for sliding scale health services and then maybe i can afford to go to a dermatologist. my body feels like it's breaking down entirely. i hate doctors but i don't know what else to do. i feel guilty that i haven't taken my cat to the doctor in so long. i should make him a doctor appointment while i'm in memphis for the film festival. i feel like the worst cat mama ever. i wonder if i can bring him back with me on the plane. i miss him but i still don't know where i'll be living next month. everything feels so up in the air and impermanent and sliding and i don't like it. not that things are bad in general. i do like my job, but i need to learn not to work too much. i might have a date with a lady tomorrow. i have never been on a date, so i don't know if this is one. i might be too scared to show up. i might go to a show with a band from memphis and get drunk instead. i might go get the kitten with the broken tail and bring her to my room. i wanted to bring home jekyll but i couldn't when kelly and dill were staying here. i was going to bring her home on wednesday but laylee gave her to another foster and i will never see her again. i'm sad but i shouldn't be. story of my life. tomorrow maybe i'll get minerva and maybe won't be so lonely. maybe soon i'll fall asleep.

Monday, September 30, 2013

i hope my thoughts don't pierce your dreams

just saw Walt play and felt all the feelings. i didn't get to talk with him much, but the set really overwhelmed me. the music lost and found me and took me back to new orleans days and made me think of so many friends, so far or so gone. and here i am, tied up by my own lonesome leash.


listening to: 

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

"Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace is transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender."
tonight, walking back with the groceries, i thought of this quote, in the parking lot between the car and the door. i was thinking, “i cannot be happy. i have tried and failed too many times, it hurts too much, i give up on happiness,” and the resignation was such sweet relief, and it was so familiar, having thought this so many times, and i want to just feel nothing but that feeling, that empty low that owes nothing, that hollow in between the trying. and i thought of this quote, and i felt so calm, and of course reading it here now, it seemed better in my mind, though i couldn’t quite say just what is missing. and that rather neatly drives the whole thing home, doesnt it, though i hate to point it out.
remembered this quote tonight, walking from my car to the apartment, desperately hoping that the grocery bag wouldn't break. that would have just been the last straw. (i wonder what really would be the last straw, at this point.) thinking: i want to go home, but there is no home. i want to be somewhere else, do something else, but it won't help. i want to be happy, but i don't know how. i'm not capable. i have known this for a long time, but remembering my resignation tonight with the groceries, i felt such a burden lifted, and i remembered this quote. i don't want to jinx it, but so far it seems to help. or maybe it's just really late. today was terrible. this week was terrible. every time i see a bit of silver lining, or have a little moment to smile, it all goes black again. i am overwhelmed and undone by everything. it's leaking out now, without my choosing. laylee had to see me cry tonight and i felt like such a pathetic baby; i didn't want her to know. coffee, brett phone call, egg in a basket, car phone calls, craigslist, nothingness, shower, getting off x3, hash stash chills, look for place to live, couch on the car, hit the other car, crying, grocery, beer, tv, sleep. why i cling to other people: i have nothing to live for on my own. why i stay up so late: i'm allowed to be in my own world, a nothing place.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

death night. puddles, beer, tears. i don't know that i'm qualified to take care of cats. or much of anything else. feeling more useless and alone than ever and could really use a hello.
of course there's plenty else to say but no time at all to say it. 2am!!! how are you here again. i have to go to bed to dream about cats to wake up to take care of cats. repeat. circle.

Sunday, August 04, 2013

if I was where I would be, then I'd be where I am not

today was my first day in austin after it took me a million and a half years to get here. after we got back from georgia, i had a really hard time packing up and getting on the road. in fact, i got so anxious just about packing that i almost backed out of the whole thing. FINISH THIS.

listening to: karen dalton - katie cruel

Monday, July 29, 2013

sun forms shadows inside me

dreamt of walking in the woods, in groups and alone, hiding and searching, walking the stream, not just wading across. wrapped three black musket balls in leaves and hid them in the river cane. peering through the trees at the far-off crowd.

the alarm and the snooze button brought me hazy texts from charlotte and made me think of amy's song "walking in the woods" and i inserted them into the dream as well, though i forget just how, now hours later. it all feels like some omen against austin, though that could just be my anxiety talking. in the dream, i responded to charlotte and it somehow felt positive, but in life, i'm too sad to write back, real dreams of north carolina and poetry and goats all fading to nothing.

i've got to get this shit on track. austin has to be better than this paralysis.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Something about shuffle tonight has me spinning in circles of you. Or something about being here in georgia again, almost a full year since i last saw you. Or because of the mind numbing deadness of bejeweled pushes all this unfinished business to the surface. I dont know how to be done. The number of times ive thought of writing, even planned to, but where would that get me? Would it really be closure? How could it. And how could co mmunicating make things any better? Youre happy now. I know that and im glad you found what you were looking for. Theres no reason to disrupt that. (not that i could really have much effect there anyway.) your last letter suggested you were failing at your relationship, thhat you were "damaged goods." that was one of the most infuriating and frustrating lines-- as if saying that absolves you, as if there were any such thing. And the subtext seemed to say, "i cant do this, and im telling you because it isnt working and im moving back." and my heart couldve broken again but it hardened again that you assumed id take you back. So what was i supposed to say? I had plans, grand plans, to get you on my side and pull you down and really make you see... But i had tried that once (twice? Twenty times?) before to no avail. What good would it to and why should i waste my time? And still im planning the letter, thinking what i would have said. Sometimes its mostly nice-- i really do miss telling you about my life, miss having you to talk with. But i try to stay resolved: you have to know that youve done wrong, you fucked me over, and now you dont get to know. Youve lost the privilege. Anyway you wouldnt have cared to hear about my depression (because you never did) or about my granny's last months (i cant picture you taking care of anyone) or any of the mundane stupid things ive wanted to share with you.

I wouldve told you that when i moved back to memphis i found a beautiful card, with the start of a letter from my mom. "it was great to see you but i wish you would think about what you weere doing and stop wasting aysour time." something to that affect. Se hads said it to my face before we left town but i was offended and not really paying atttention. (good god i was riding so high on the dream of you.) but damn it ehat a huge waste of time and energy. Maybe you feel the same somehow. But i was reacng out and out, feeling so little in return and just rideing that dream, putting so much energy into the idea, hangiong so much on your occasional sweet line.

Unlearning that love has been a great lesson, an experiment. Ive had more sex this year than in the past three combined, albeit mostly bad. I thoug i couldnt do it but appparentlyi i too am capable of random drunk hookups and even sustained flings. Ive got my mind wrapped up around this one guy, he's older, a drummer, and a comiplete mystery to me. So i mabe overanalyze our intewractions out of curiosity, and a need to be solving puzzles, of which i hhave no otherw at the moment (sexual or otherwise). But at the end of the day i know it doesnt mean anything and i find these thoughts on repeat: this may br th last time. i sr ysour face. You have never said my name. Do you like me or not? not that it matters. But it is interesting and odd to spend time with (and devote thoughts to) a human whom i do not love, romantically or otherwise.

So when i miss you, i think i miss loving you, the act of devotion, the dream of what you were and what we couldve been. It was all speculative afer all, which makes it feel all the more stolen. But no, you had the right idea. Cut it off and dont look back.

I dont really beliee that. I believed you respected me too much to take that route. And i resent you for that. And i still miss your sense of humor and our little talks and jokes and our whole history and your ice blue eyes. And didnt they say it all, shouldent i have known? That ice spread thin and far, covered up everything and froze us in the end.

Monday, July 22, 2013

last night again you were in my dream

but thank god i don't remember it. somehow you floated into my mind while i was brushing my teeth, and i remembered you had been there. even asleep, i ignored you. two rows over in the theatre, and not a word. but you just followed us around and didn't say anything, so it was easy. and saying it like that sounds like the living you, but the dream you pulled and twisted, and glowed and hummed. brushing my teeth, i laughed at how the reality is flat and cold and easy to ignore. (and yet this dream.)

"the days go by like butterflies...." the days move abruptly from coffee to beer. my head aches with a constant tender worry, my skin feels thin and useless over imagined/probable ills. i can't shake this damned cough, after being sick ever since the vagina overkill/amy oelsner show (almost two weeks ago now) and then chainsmoking at bobby's going away party (though he isn't yet gone away). it's a wonder i haven't infected anyone. mostly i just want to know what the hell is going on, and why i can't choose, and how i ever fell this stagnant. who is driving this contraption, who calls the shots, and what do they want?

maybe it's not all bad. there's drinking an appropriate amount of beer, the bartender saying that you have the best laugh -- the bar folk don't bite every night. tipping off your stool, leaning and laughing, canoodling all night, a dozen poses at his place, and tiptoeing home at dawn before the long drive to see your grandparents in georgia. the audiobook narrator's voice makes your head reel, but it's almost puss in boots, and you will live through this. it has often been worse.

your goals fluctuate wildly, from grand and wild to status quo to suicide, depending on the time of day and how much art you're absorbing. versus how much media. some nights it's okay to watch bad movies with your parents, play unblock me, and believe that having a 9 to 5 job would be the greatest thing that could happen. (from there, imagine the range of other possibilities -- it feels like sacrilege to write them down.) mostly, obsession is the thing, whether fleeting, ongoing, or recurring. you will consider every relationship, exhaust yourself over a moment or a text message, wonder and analyze and reconsider, all while knowing what a goddamn waste of time. but when you're not alone, how the time trips on and the thing takes over and you don't know who you are anymore- how much you change depending on whose company. how you seem so unsure of what you really want. how well you can pretend. how you never can stick to the plan. or the designated curfew, the number of drinks, the amount of money. you are sickened by your privilege and indecision, this rotting, waste. you don't know how to change.

like clockwork, your grandma wakes up between 2 and 3 every night to let the cat out (or in, apparently). "you're still awake? are you working on your.....?" she doesn't know what she is trying to ask, but no, of course you're not. you really don't deserve any of this; you're too lucky to have fucked up this bad. you should have done so much more.


listening to: joanna newsom - go long

Friday, July 12, 2013

it is dark here

i dreamed i manned a pirate ship, carrying my sister, our three dogs, and my cat. i don't remember much now that the nap is done, but it was an adventure and a struggle, and had very little to do with any ocean or other body of water. i remember sailing into a tree. and i remember that by the end, my main objective was to make it home safely with all the animals alive. (morgan could mostly fend for herself, and help out with the rest.)

i thought sylvie could make it, that it was the dogs i had to worry about. at one point, i set her down in a bathroom stall, needing the use of my hands for some other purpose. (were we sailing through the toilet?) she instantly tried to run away, jumping into a small square indention in the floor. at first glance, i thought she was safe there, but then i saw that the space lead to a greater tunnel, a sewer, and was actually filling with water (more water) and i had to scramble to reach in and barely grabbed her by the scruff of her neck before she was pulled away by the current. and why didn't she seem happy to be back?

at some point in the dream, i lost her. or at some point, i remembered she had died, and she wasn't my charge anymore. but at some point, maybe in between, i woke up thinking, "oh god i haven't fed her in days, how could i forget?" before i remembered.

why does the empty bed creak? when have i ever been so alone?

tonight i talked to laylee for the first time in months -- it's always awful how that happens, and now the time has really gotten away from me. she wants the whole story, and i still cry telling it, although it's maybe easier to hide now that it's been a week. the call is too brief and i mentally firm up my plans to move to austin. i just wish i'd hear back from the folks at duke one way or the other so i'd know where to start.


listening to: a cackle or a coughing fit - tunnel

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

a single firefly. this is summer.

i miss and miss and miss and miss

i've missed.

am i missed?


once i thought i had magic, or at least that it had me.




i understand that you don't miss me. you have your own way to be happy.

it feels good to not be waiting on you for once.

meanwhile i do a horrible job of taking care of myself / functioning.

somebody must be fucking with me

had one of those feelings, so checked my "serious" email inbox that i never look at. this message from the center for documentary studies was delivered only 8 minutes ago:
Hello. Hope this finds you well.
Please excuse the brief iPhone email--I'm traveling this week so base of operations is a little sketchy, catch as catch can.
Your letter and resume have risen to top of the pile. We would very much like to interview you for the position.
Are you available for a phone interview in the next week? If the next week, indeed, works. Let me know when you have a chance.
Looking forward to hearing from you.

i've been waiting for weeks to hear back, and now that i have, i'm freaking the fuck out.
is there any possible way i can give a good interview in the state i'm in? how do i explain being unemployed for six months? could it possibly make sense that i've been holding out hope for this, or is the let down gonna be that much worse if i don't get the job? how many other people are at the "top of the pile"? how do i even respond to this email? this is too much for me right now. forever. i don't know how to have anything.

listening to: liz phair - (fire up the) batmobile

Sunday, June 23, 2013

it's not wrong, it's just a feeling

apparently this weekend's midsummer SUPERMOON has some downward pull so i guess maybe i'm not so alone after all. although it doesn't really feel that way. where did everybody go? it seems like i used to always have someone to talk to, even if it wasn't necessarily the right person... i miss that. i got to skype with brock for a little while tonight, but the last few years, whenever we talk, i just really miss our old days of talking for hours and hours on end, breaking down every gesture of every social situation and attempting to untangle our confused psyches... the way we pulled each other out.

i hate being nostalgic for high school shit. i hate remembering how long ago that really was. it's not like i can't have interactions like that anymore, i just... don't. 


listening to: tiny vipers - slow motion

Saturday, June 22, 2013

the season will destroy you

on the longest day, i did not see the sun. i meant to plant a tree, take a walk, make a plan, clean up a bit... i barely managed to make a call. could not take any. 

even doing this is impossibly difficult. 

half an hour later... (longer? time doesn't move right anymore. what have i even done?)

another half hour. music finally chosen, the cat sick and restless in my lap.

where did it go? the last solstice still seems so close, maybe even the freshest thing. because i wrote it down? or because i was full of fire, more inspired and empowered than i had been in months, before or since? because i had a plan, or because i didn't? because i thought i would inevitably die on the highway? OR BECAUSE I HAD GOTTEN TWO HOURS OF SLEEP AND WAS CRAZY FULL OF COFFEE AND FELT LIKE A GOD FOR GETTING OUT OF A SPEEDING TICKET? what a bunch of shit, what a fucking farce. everything has gone wrong since then, and i'm sick of pretending otherwise. i don't understand how everyone can float through all these strange social labyrinths and somehow know all the rules and make it look so pretty and beautiful and boring at the same time. why am i bothering to try?

today i decided to give up. again. maybe it'll stick this time, now that it's words.
stay inside. don't wonder what you did wrong. the dance won't be worth it. the mess is too much. they don't actually like _you_ it's just beer. they won't call. no one will choose you except your cat who will die. get some kind of desk tech job and quit kissing and pining and puking.

what did i ever think i was doing, all these years? why did i never plan? somehow it never seemed necessary. i didn't believe in anything involving goals or plans. why bother? probably won't live that long, and if i do, i guess i'll have done something right. i guess not.

boy is this ever hard to write tonight. i just wanna spit. what a fucking disaster. although it doesn't matter since no one will read this.

i've fallen into a trap of cycles, a bunch of really meaningless stupid short time-disappearing ones. probably it's gotten a bit obsessive.. not too sure how to get out of there. because i'm always "about to" do something else, then three hours later... i get up and do the dishes and then get sucked back in. how?! oh misery, so embarrassing.

now this low, i saw this one coming on, but i didn't know it would be such a hard fall. now, from the bottom looking up, i see that i've just come out of probably the longest manic period of my life, and it's taking its toll with a vengeance. it was fairly steady with only bursts of total crazy - a month of panicked online booking, three weeks of lunatic touring traveling nonstop communicating and floating and attempting to entertain (another story entirely), and the whole next month riding it out, mostly solitary mellow with spurts of restless social energy and the urgent need to be out out out. how much i needed people! and why? the whole time i kind of can't stand them (mostly) and i don't know even know what the purpose is, why am i there. just to use them? for distraction, or....? add in my newly recovered (discovered?) libido and jesus what a mess. just to be on the pulse, to ask the questions, to be wanted, enjoyed. still, they never do catch me. (haha what am i saying, they never try.)

maybe i am getting somewhere to be able to at least remember that charged place so clearly, even from all the way down here. have i pegged this before? morgan seemed incredulous when i told her my theory, but after i explained, she said, "yeah you do go through this barhopping phase a lot." and i could feel the switch starting, when i sat in the corner at the p&h drinking straight from the bottle and trying not to make eye contact, and when i showed up at lauren's cookout not knowing why i had come except to bring the charcoal. clinging to each little mission. the next drink. the next smoke. the next person through the dark of the door.

maybe i should go work at a bar, that's what i was thinking. why not? and then there's this spiral, and i can't stand anyone, and i can't do anything, and that's all there is. even typing that feels so useless and stupid i can't believe i even did it. but this whole thing has been a struggle, so no point in stopping now, three hours later.
this is where 4pm coffee gets me.

really it's not as bad as it could be.... so probably will get worse before it gets better. this could be the slow buildup after such a long decline. a blank staticky expanse stretching on and on and on... potentially toward some much more tumultuous oceanic death-ridden thing, i'm sure. i don't see another option.

lord how does it ever get so late (and where indeed does the time go) and why am i even writing this here. TOO LATE NOW HAHA and dont bother editjng


listening to: matson jones - spring fever

Thursday, June 20, 2013

​being on facebook has made me more depressed than ever.

my cat being so sick has me thinking about how i constantly feel ill.. is that why i didnt notice right away? i am used to dealing -- so is sylvie, it seems like. always a little ill. and i've always felt tied to her in that way -- how will it be when she's gone? i hope i haven't killed her.

unconvinced of myself

HE DOWSNT LIKE THE STUFF I PUT ON FAKEBOOK punk song

a blank staticky depression as opposed to suicidal or oceanic -
maybe coming on slow or strange after such a long manic streak ?


Sunday, June 16, 2013

that all the clay of you might yield to the fire of you

the prickly itch of shaved skin, the hot buzz of the clippers burning your ear. 

the point at which the laundry stops coming out clean.  

the cat won't eat. every day she lightens in your lap.

the same list stares back. every day the same danced to-do. 

realizing that the voice in the void was your own echo.

forget forget forget forget forget forget

pack up the car and go. the waiting isn't working.


listening to:  noel'le longhaul - spoon river

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

two lives lived in distant lands

ugh this sonnggggg



listening to: the magnetic fields - strange eyes

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

first lucid dream?

dachshund mix colony - the middle of the woods, i'm in the middle of the circle, there are little tunnels around me where i can see them running circles around me. a few come out and actually let me pet them, but one growls. slowly i become his friend.

the other two show up and try to load off some free range dogs. i'm trying to explain that we cant just leave them there, they're not the right kind, these are people dogs not wild dogs. they don't listen, just leave. they say "why dont you take them, then" and soon i realize the dogs will follow us no matter what. we make our way through the forest, back across the bridge, up to a wooden house on stilts with a gazillion stairs. some of the dogs have followed but a storm is coming, a huge flood. i'm standing on the porch calling them, panicking, not knowing which are in and which are out. a few run in and i think we've got them.... but at the last possible second another batch runs in -- cosmo and junebug and more! the number of dogs is overwhelming, far beyond what the woman had dropped off. maybe some are from the colony but they can't all be. magic dogs?

now too there are more people in the house, our fortress, headquarters. magic people. a woman with colorful hair, same age as me. there is an electric feeling that something is about to happen.

a stadium. our troops? of course they're scattered and scraggled and they're mostly just people. the back seats are full of children. they start a step routine and soon the entire stadium has joined in. we are really a team now. i look for bobby, expecting him to be sulking and sitting it out, but he's in there trying to keep up with the step moves. he can't do it, which surprises me since he's such a great drummer. he catches my eye and smiles.  he's here with us too, part of the team.

why am i thinking about a wizard for this part. or wizards. or having to get something from one.

the battle. of course we're totally outnumbered, they're militant and strong and evil. they have huge monsters on their side, freaking space ships and shit. the leader is a severe man with grey hair, but he doesn't look very old. (think gene elliot but skinnier and creepier.) we're getting slaughtered, they're pushing us across the bridge to the edge of a platform... are we on some sort of huge deck? over what? me and the pink haired lady are pushed to the edge and we turn to each other. there must be something we can do. she thinks maybe she can zap some things with her telepathic powers... she's trying and i suggest that we focus our energy together. i pick a point, zero in on it, concentrate my mind toward it, and see it explode with a blue zap. i am ecstatic, we can do this together! she says she wasn't really even doing anything but i dismiss her and continue the strategy. i'm zapping spaceships and heads of monsters (and i really feel like i am physically doing this, pushing my brain into a focused point like i would do to stop a headache. am i doing this in the dream and in life, really?) 

i'm running all around zapping when i am attacked by a huge man, all bronze and muscle, terrifying. what do we say? am i trying to logic him out of killing me? do i try to zap his head? i think i'm somehow putting him in a headlock when i say, "well this is my dream after all" and he laughs uproariously before i kill him....?

i am biting into flesh, tearing into it with my fingers, and i can feel it all. it's all too easy. i remember thinking that this is impossibly easy, shouldnt i have to try harder? i'm barely putting forth any effort, shouldnt this be harder? i think i am asking the dream? my subconscious? maybe i have jinxed myself.

in the end we win the day and go back to home base to celebrate and rest. this is a good feeling. too good because the other leaders and i stay up all night (apparently) and to our dismay, we're being attacked again. they're rolling into town now, their forces replinished, even doubled. we get into some sort of sky car and zoom down to meet their leader in his procession towards our camp. i dont know if i've climbed into his car or we're just flying alongside, but i'm trying to talk him out of this, trying to tell him that it isn't worth the wasted life and the destruction. he won't have it, this is a sport or some stupid act of honor. (WHAT ARE WE EVEN FIGHTING OVER, i have no idea. for some reason that doesn't come up in the dream, so maybe i knew then and have since forgotten. or my own mission was so strong in the heat of the dream-moment that i didn't care either way.)



something here spurs a flashback... something about remembering when they met when he was 9. my dream cuts to a flashback of a couple kids, "we had just gotten back to town after the summer and we were ecstatic to see each other again" style voiceover. i see these two kids stepping off side by side planes and running toward each other. i'm thinking, "these kids aren't 9!" and the whole thing stops and rewrites. ALL IN A FLASH. now for some reason it's harry potter, i feel like i may even see a page in my mind, and hear "chapter 10, diagon alley." or something. this is so over the top, i'm thinking. then the voiceover/narration gets really weird, a little poetic and nonsensical. (something about a puddle?) i'm so aware of it, "what is going on?" i think i even wonder if i am writing it and thats why it doesnt make sense. then back to "all these had been carefully placed to obscure the entrance to diagon alley and make it look like every other alley in london." this is too much, and i wake up. as usual i've already forgotten a lot, but i didn't forget the feeling of choosing. is this really my first lucid dream???? i think maybe i actually have done it before but i just didn't so blatantly recognize it. the fact that i called out the dream during the dream.... or perhaps i wasn't asleep at all during this nap, and actually i was just making it all up??? a daydream??? then why couldnt i stop the general from attacking us again? i wasnt actually thinking this up, it was just happening.