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

i accidentally killed the game

I tripped up on the crime of rhyme
It kills + kills me every time


if sweetly beasties come to holler
so silky sip them make you smaller
till ghoulies guide you to their pockets
and slip you fit you in their lockets

keyculator collab with jerel

NEVER THINK AGAIN. never think again.
this is the idea but this isn't the way to say it. this isn't the idea and this isn't the way to say it. stop thinking about yourself. stop wondering stop wasking waking asking basking stop stewing in the brewing.
never do the not thing. never be a nothing. never be your own thing. never dance without sing.

and ten kiss and kiss and kiss and never not. the lips that time forgot. and stop without the thought.

NEVER AGAIN NOT THAT SPOT
NEVER NOT NEVER NOT NEVER NOT NEVER NOT

you can't know if you didn't try
so shove it up yr whiny eye

i'll never try until i die
don't make me use this ugly guy

you couldn't scale but half the sky
so set yr pancake on some pie

won't you hear my plaintive cry
upon this pie i'm screaming "why?!"

you wish you did, you wish you don't
know whether you blew crumbs of hope
there's nothing you forgot to bother
spilled the piss across the altar

from my thoughts my fingers pry
a sentence structure oh so sly
so i give a heaving sigh
and rest this back upon your thigh

alas you've changed the rhyming scheme
puncturing my clung-to dreams
i'll meet you hither, thither, there
give this process greater care

a sickened sail, a drunken drum
so suck the scum right from yr thumb

a broken trail, a path availed
a drunken maw what burps and hums
sits in sorrow; blackened lungs
an unset sail has never failed

you already told me you busted the game
what would you like to do now
the only thing i trusted was pain
i'd like to do better but how

you broke your foot you rolled the bone
there's nowhere left once you've gone home

you stick the stuck you plunked the plank
the ceiling's nothing what's not sank

` to drip a drop, to think a thought
i carry all i've not forgot

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.))

inarticulate after the argument (and probably during too)

def plan on chain smoking
join if you'd like
this fucking SUCKS

a cigarette first one after a long while never tastes good like i think it should. it just tastes like ashes. i know this. i know this. what do i do. it is the most self sabotage. is it subconsciously because of the doctor appointment today and worry about my cervix and the lesions there and the cancer fear