Showing posts with label baltimore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baltimore. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

so I'm in baltimore waiting for the train to the airport when a group of teenagers rolls up, snatches my phone, and hops on the boarding train (not my train). I'm thinking "well fuxk it" but a good samaritan holds the door long enough for me to grab my bags, jump on and take off. I find the teens, who say they threw the phone in the grass before they got on. really?? next time the train stops, they take off running. again I'm thinking screw it, but another good sam alerts the driver, who calls the transit police, who appear within minutes. this cop gets my story, and after I've identified the girls, I get my phone back plus a cop car ride to the airport. i ask what will happen next and she tells me the kids are being arrested and taken down to the station. I feel pretty fuxking rotten about this. now the detective and police station are blowing up my phone to get my statement two billion times and they want me to testify in court. thanks for retrieving my phone and getting me on the plane... but can I politely decline?? I'm not sure what punishment the system would give to these kids but I can't imagine it will help them.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Last night I found out that I was accepted to live at Baltimore Free Farm, which I was anticipating but still anxious about. Now that it's real, I find a whole new set of anxieties crashing down on me, including
  • MONEY
  • getting there
  • getting my stuff there
  • my cat
  • my health
  • not getting sucked up into the usual shit whirlwind
Somehow I have to find a way to make money that doesn't run my life. I bet I can live on $500 a month, or I'd like to try. Biggest expenses:
  • rent = $300
  • phone ≈ $50
  • cat ≈ $75?
  • food
  • booze
  • smokes          
Not so bad.....?? 

BFF is not yet income sharing and I think it will be my first big project to push to make it happen. After all, this was a large part of the draw! So can I be okay with a coffee shop gig or do I need to do somethign more "real" or "important"? Am I even capable? Just reading job descriptions stresses me out. Maybe it's pointless to do that to myself. The way to get experience is to live and learn, not to build a resume. At the end of the day, I don't give a shit what $$ I make or what org gave it to me. If I can finally focus on art and activism and that means slinging coffee, I think I'm okay with that.
How to not forget?
--Real goals. Rad people. Join groups.
What's important?
--Writing. Reading. Making. Doing. Being.

I have forgotten what it is to be me, too much time spent being a sponge. I have felt too much guilt to do things for myself, things I wanted to do. But this is IT! Time is running out. I can't delay anymore. And there's still so much to learn + see - who knew I liked public transportation so much?

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

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.