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.)

the wind it blows (the door closed)

so, my long-term horoscopes from astrodienst are usually really accurate. just read this one, projected to continue from last thursday until september of next year, and not totally sure how to take it:

During this time you are able to achieve a most unusual balance between your material and your spiritual needs, and you see the relationship between them so that you can build your life upon both of them equally. This influence helps you bring your spiritual ideals into focus in the material world so that you can see precisely what role they play in your life. Consequently this is a time of sober reflection and deep understanding about your life on several planes. 

This is a time of serious thought. Your mood will not be especially light-hearted, but you will be in a position to make great breakthroughs in understanding. You will be able to deny yourself rewards that you have wanted in the past, because now you can see that if you wait a bit, your daily life will come closer to your ideals. You are in the right frame of mind for disciplined self-denial and sacrifice without being a martyr. In other words, you are realistic about what you are doing. 

Now you can work to further your ideals, such as working for religious or charitable organizations, spiritual groups or whatever. In general you will be attracted to groups of people who share your views, and you will be able to express your philosophy better in a group than by yourself. This influence has the effect of making your ego subservient to higher needs, so that if you believe strongly in what you are doing, you will be able to work hard even if given very little credit or positive reinforcement. 

With this influence there is the danger of taking your own actions too seriously. This can be a very covert form of egotism in the name of spiritual awareness and devotion, and no form of egotism, even if it goes by another name, is compatible with this influence.

so.... i guess it's time to join a cult?!


listening to: kate bush - king of the mountain

lament for lost autumn

for a chilly moment in the Mills dorm bathroom, i'm blown back to the fresh weeks of fall in the golden blue ridge mountains: bright, full, expectant.

california has made us small, our dreams lost ever since our open hands closed around degrees into tiny fists, into a world for forgetting. the price of the status. the cost of responsibility, the rewards that never come. what did we trade for those days of dreaming? a hot november afternoon, the sun and the geese on thr lake, sober as saints, counting bugs on our muddy legs and laughing deep for the first time in weeks.

tonight will be dancing, women, and wine; we will try to remember how to love, not forget.

take me back to the river of dirt

go back to possum country. the house must be bigger on the inside. breathe into it, let the wind blow in. the woods will be waiting. let the sun be the light.

whats the hurry? you're not going anywhere and they're still waiting.

seek them out.

happy birthday

well, old blog, today you've turned 10. i'd like to make an effort to write here more... the periods of my life when i wasn't writing have turned into weird black holes that i'll never be able to remember. and i think it'd be good to keep this up, if only for processing. definitely in a big transitional period right now, with really no idea what will happen next. if i look at it the right way, i have infinite possibilities; the world is completely open to me. but the reality is much more stressful than that, and this is the worst low i've been in for a long time. i really don't know what the hell i'm doing with myself and it's impossible for me to envision my life beyond memphis and this movie. so i guess that's where i should start?
anyway, i'll try to be around more. sorry for neglecting you, old friend.

i could not get through september without a battle

today officially feels like fall. walking home from the empower center, i catch hints of roasted marshmallows in the air, that familiar slightly burnt smell that goes with this season. the crisp air felt amazing today, but i am dreading what's coming. morgan says it finally feels like wilson, because so much of our time here is spent bundled up against the cold. it's almost hot chocolate time, i guess that's comforting. something about this weather has made me decide that sitting around my room in a sweater and underwear is a great idea. i think it is, even though my toes are a little cold.
today, sophie asked me how i'm doing, and when my response was hesitant and unsure, she said "oh yeah, your mood always corresponds to the weather!" she's very right. even though i maybe felt a little off today, i was welcoming of the change. i am so ready for this month to be over, for this little section of my life to be done, to move on, somehow. i'm not sure how to accomplish this. perhaps i need a self-help book, or a professional. for now, i will stick to my own program: tea, tickles, phil elvrum. throw in some reflective emails for good measure... but how to let go of so much outrage?

listening to: the microphones - the glow, pt. 2