Tuesday, April 26, 2016

this family has known from day one that I didn't belong here. why not own it and go full creature ?

the others send me no smoking signs. the phone getting stolen was big. here another, the whole pack of smokes I lost was found, returned, I was joyous until I found them all broken and wet and it's just like me and how much does it take for me to know a metaphor? 

how I find it so hard to speak in this language. how nothing nothing nothing makes sense. 

Thursday, April 21, 2016

we like shapes in the night

we drank half a 30 rack and we smoked more than half a pack of cigarettes between the liquor store walk at 10pm and the sun coming up at 7am before we crashed to the mattress on the floor and took our clothes off, for the second time, i think?
we sat on the bench where we'd been painting boards for the bedroom trim and i was wallowing and you held me and told me you wanted to help and nuzzled my head until our lips found each other. 
(what was the moment in which this became inevitable? the last beer, or the first? meeting eyes in the kitchen and feeling seen? the night you don't remember, when i tickled you to capture your nonexistent keys?)
i don't remember what came next. chainsmoking and natty bo in my unfinished new room, top floor of middle house, sitting on the roof to watch dawn creep over the highway, wearing only jeans and a hoodie. i don't remember when my shirt came off.
we were too many beers in to be doing what we did. we crashed to the mattress on the floor tangled tickling kissing and i fell into a dream, walking to a job interview at the neighborhood grocery. to apply i had to get fingered. your hard soft body naked on top of mine, the sweetness of skin on skin, how we ache for this dance. suddenly your soft hard cock inside. i wanted it but i hadn't said so, i wasn't ready and no protection. (you're lovely but i don't want your babies or infections.) what is wrong with me that i can't stop, can't say anything? why has this become my pattern? caught in drunken jumbles, wanting without knowing why, not having the courage to speak.

they have said: cmon. please. you're nothing special. just hold still. shhh.
and they have said nothing as they put themselves inside me.
and they have said how much they missed me, how they love my squishy body, i'm not like the other girls, i'm good enough, i deserve it.

my heart races to write it. as much as i'm disgusted and furious with myself, i'm still turned on. and i want and i want and i want and i like you but i don't like our culture. i don't like the roles we're playing or the confused consent. i want to break myself apart to see how my sexuality was formed around my passiveness and i want to start over.

Monday, April 11, 2016

​i admire people who are doing things all the time. i am jealous of people accomplishing a lot.
i need to plan my week better, set goals for the days ahead. it's helping a little to have the day before planned out, but i'm still not getting enough done. filling the time with the tasks and all that.
i need to dream bigger although i'm not sure what that looks like.
and it's hard right now, being unemployed. i feel useless! like i have all this time and i'm just wasting it or worrying it away over someone else's agenda. THAT SUCKS.

katherine just sent me an idea to make reenactment videos to start promoting concrete again. i read the idea and my first thought was "what will brett think?"
how warped has my brain gotten that i can't make up my own mind?
and just today i was reading an old chat conversation i was having with tom about how arrogant and controlling brett was on set, and in general.
and another conversation where katherine and i were miserable, wracking our brains to figure out what the hell the story even meant, and what were we saying, and how did we do this to ourselves.
i need to think more before i say yes to katherine's idea, but i mean. why not? we've done all this other mess. and i was literally just sitting here feeling sad that i'm not producing anything.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

falling down dream

lots of falling or almost falling
catching myself and climbing, pulling myself up

Brandon with tattoos
except its a whole little cage of Simpsons figurines, with little teal stars dangling between some
don't they fall? no

I've taken a whole fridge. something important in it

Luke and curtis picking pig to Slaughter

apa senior cat arellia
I somehow diagnose her cant tell if anyone is listening to me
doxy bubble between her eyes
we nearly lose her somehow
is that how I start tumbling down the mountain?
at first on the road, sliding like a too fast car
but shooting off like a black star towards the white sky
and down crashing through the trees fill I catch a branch
watch a raccoon pursue a precarious route up the cliff and follow suit

Land day I'm in giant auditorium
I've already pissed off one girl
these two looked almost ljke twins but they were lovers, hair dyed black with red streaks
they're mc for this part of the show but they just start making out and dry jumping
or is this the show?
I try to find a seat, it's unusually quiet as people focus on the show
I'm trying so hard to be silent I lose my balance on the narrow ledge between seats and slip off, but manage to grab hold of the edge before falling 100 feet
I am thinking there's no way I can do this. didn't anyone see me? will they help? but I don't dare shout
somehow I get my leg hooked over and scramble back up
there's chris, high as hell, "oh hey what's up alanna"
there are plenty of empty seats around him
he's sitting with another man with a grease vulture look

she's mad at me but I don't know why
she's making fun of my fall and how I squealed so loud, but a little too late, how obviously fake. I say "I didn't!" then "did I?" and honestly I don't know
I thought I helped her earlier, maybe her pride is sore
I realize too late I should have teased her right back and she would've left me alone

Sybil lamb is mc or she's something, auctioning off someone to fuck
bids start at $5 "bc she's horny!"
I missed part of this somehow bc I'm trying to ask syb clarifying questions while counting my pile of money on the arm rest.
"so the person with the most $ wins? or is it just who she likes the best?"
I'm confused bc it seems ljke everyone just put down $20
and this is a fundraiser after all
Sybil thinks I'm silly but takes my money anyway -- not all $142 but some.

the girl in glitter green with wide eyes and dark bangs and high pony
talking about the grease culture
he's obsessed with her ass
it was novel, fun at first but she's bored now
not him he's obsessed
(an image of him fuxking her against a baby crib)

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

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.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

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.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

(found words on an envelope, winter 2016 in Baltimore at Cafe Hon)

they want you to leave the restaurant. they're talking
about you and you can almost hear them. am I making
someone uncomfortable? what happened now?
too ugly? bookish? poor? smelly?


GET RID of regular pop culture in yr life
there's no room, no time. RETREAT. go back.
no point in gross fascination anymore. there's more for you to do!



why do I relate to the words of survivors?
what fucking happened to me?



  • the world is old and movements are bigger than right now.
    • reconnect to history
    • dissociate from self
    • devolve
    • remember fairy tales 
  • research OLD SHIT
  • Magic beyond religion, beyond time - learn what this looks like. 
  • WRITE
  • read alt histories
  • plays/scripts about rad ladies/queers
  • READ MORE
    • Angela Carter
    • Jack Zipes

Friday, February 05, 2016

it's shocking how boring you are.

Friday, December 25, 2015

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.

Friday, December 18, 2015

a dream of a cult of vampires, or something almost like it.
the kind of dream where me and it are taking turns telling the story, drifting in and out of sleep.
the whole crew silently filed into town overnight and somehow i saw. they seem to not have particular powers, no pointy teeth, only marginally violent, definitely terrifying, dangerous. i'm drawn right to them, or maybe i can't leave. they take over an abandoned building and its all ours.
i should've written it down right away. it's all gone now.
another weird fucking day. back in memphis. tonight dad wants to see star wars.

my former friend has agreed to meet with me when i'm back in austin, with the condition that we don't talk about what went down at the coop.

my long-distance girlfriend is so overwhelmingly pissed about that that she referred to me as her "friend" on twitter but has been dating so many other people she didn't think it was worth it to tell me about them.

my long lost ex best friend/lover has finally written to me something that means something. but I'm too dead to know how to respond.

i'm lost in a sea of online window shopping for xmas gifts, one of my least favorite activities in the whole world, but something i get sucked into every year. when will i be adult enough to say "i'm not fucking doing it" and push a little further out of the consumer cycle?

i'm lost in general and i don't know where i'm going, except that it's in baltimore. 

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?

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Every damn time I'm at the Keep, I have to sneak upstairs to cry. For years I've barely cried, and yet after a couple days in this place, something breaks, without fail, every time I've visited since August. Maybe it's because being here feels like I'm back in middle school, except I'm forced to live with a clique that doesn't want me. Right across teh table from me, Feonix tells Maddie + Juliette that they're "cool," there's an "invite only" party she wants them to come to with her. She's 10 inches away from me and I'm invisible. Are we 13 or 30?
Today Laura Mittens invited her friends over for brunch. They seem cool + queer + kinda dorky. They're arriving slowly + I make small talk in the kitchen while Laura finishes the food. She never invites me to join, so I assume it's friends-only and that's perfectly fine. The other Keepers trail in + join the table without hesitation or introduction. I hang back in the kitchen, "Oh don't worry about it, I'll make more coffee." Laura says thanks, but it's not an invitation, which is fine. I will eat the dumpster bagel and look at my phone. Pretty sure I'm invisible. Until Steve comes up and loudly asks me to join, overdoing it completely. "In fact, I'd love for you to join us," and I just mutter and stammer, wanting to say "But Laura didn't ask me" but not wanting him to pressure her too. Plus we were supposed to do an interview before the next afternoon event, although this seems increasingly unlikely. Maybe the best thing would be to sit down for a minute. But a quick walk by reveals a full table with maybe one empty chair covered by a coat - looks claimed to me. I continue to the nearby couch, but after a short minute, catch Laura's eye, an awkward look, and I have to leave. Take your coffee + your uncool back to the garret and cry alone again.
I've never been too worried about being liked by everyone. I keep on crying, but I think it's a combination of middle school trauma flashbacks, loneliness, and travel fatigue. That old familiar feeling: They don't even know me. How can they.....?
Maybe I can't blame them for that, as I shift and tilt and recalibrate for each new place I land, trying to shift to fit. It always seemed to make sense but here at the end I feel phony + pathetic. Maybe I do need to channel middle school to remember where I come from + who I am. Unshakeable dork. A reminder of values and a commitment to not waste any more time. It's already so late.
Maybe it's best to be alone.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

in the sub shop after the concert

Joanna Newsom show was beautiful but Ryan needs to learn to turn down, and violin player needs to sing closer to mic! I always wish the harp were louder. But such many massive feelings, so so hard to contain in a theatre seat, so aware of all these bodies around me. This music makes me want to dance, in fact to choreograph. To share these feelings somehow, though I admit I'm disappointed to know how much of this sound is keyboard produced - what I thought was xylophone is just synthetic. Even still how I crave it and these feelings. I want to wonder what her life is like, how she sings so knowingly about life + death + all the everything. What happens there? How do we all achieve it? And if ti's true that those no longer in their bodies can feel this, can be here, how can I best be, how can I explain that I know, understand, want to hold space for the ones no longer living? This music makes me remember everyone, from Brittany to my sister to Tom. How badly I want him to hear "Peach Plum Pear" again but really hear it. Can you feel that? What do you have for hunger?

Here in this fluorescence, this street side Italian restaurant, the music is booming and miserable, tehre's no escape. Who thought of this terrible plan? How do they make the dream escape so quickly, so easily? We knew just what we wanted only moments before, just before "reality" set in. This is how you wait for a panini: with your death, by holding your life hostage.

Sam asked me two minutes before the show started what I wanted to hear most of all, and I could've said a thousand things, but I answered "Sawdust + Diamonds." I didn't expect to hear it, but she played it as an encore, the only song. It was so urgent, it was almost rushed. Sam said she saw ehr motioned offstage right at the end, the harsh reality, the lights alive before we found our feet.

And I find myself at the pizza place with, it seems the most obnoxious person at the show, the one who kept yelling garbage after every song, fucking shut up and go the fuck home!!! If only I could be so good. If only I knew how to not drink three cups of wine at the show, to not bum smokes from every eligible hipster. If only I knew how to make myself beautiful enough to sell.

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.

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

sometimes i think i ought to charge

lately, everywhere i go, all these men's eyes.

at east wind, there's a male majority, and the closest town with a bar is 20 miles away. commies in the ozarks get lonely too. from out of the autumn night rain, i shuffled into the cramped sunnyside commons, bumbling with my bags and beer and too many coats, sloppy smiling, and i became meat. the freshest sort, from one or two communes over, but as yet unclaimed. a dozen people crammed in this small room, and i felt them mentally undress me, i saw them puff up against each other for a piece. but it was so far under the surface that maybe i'm the only one who saw, because they were really all so kind, not creepy at all, just starving.
could i blame them?

i don't know what to do with men's interest in me. i guess i'm a little flattered but mostly confused by it. they all like my dimpled smile, they like that i think, they think it's cute that i'm awkward, they always like it when i'm nervous.
do you think your presence caused this? your power?

my confusion takes the lead in the dance of the flirt. i refuse to believe that this is what's happening, i thought we were friends. i didn't expect him to take it there.

how did i end up again against some him?

his room is its own circular structure, right by the dribbling creek, falling down, half whole, mysterious, broken. is this how you saw me? how did you see me at all?

i will entertain the conversation, i will drink his dandelion wine. i'm a sucker for the bottom of the barrel, let me keep going till i find it. finally i'll stop my awkward talking long enough for him to ask to kiss me.
thank you for asking.
for a moment everything feels sweet and giddy, almost innocent.
why not say yes? why not anything? why not see if i feel?

the first time kissing is always the best. (maybe i am better when i'm nervous.)
it will start on the couch with our mouths until his hands start to wander, why not? he will want to move to the bed or turn out the light, why not? he will squeeze my tits like lemons, kiss suck pinch pull push hard harder hurts.
most of this will be uncomfortable.
i will go into a certain type of subspace: silent, riding, object, use me.
some things feel good but others i will just let happen.
what's the point in trying to correct his too tongued kissing, his hard hands?
what am i doing here, where have i gone?
what can i ask for that i will get?
he won't know until after he's done it that i like pain but he won't understand what kind. he will have already had his hands inside me and will have bitten my meat until the blood vessels pop and the bruises flower up.

Saturday, December 05, 2015

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.

Friday, November 27, 2015

what happens when you go home for the holidays

​why can't i enjoy anything
why does it feel like i can't stop being mean
why is nothing ever right

Sunday, November 15, 2015

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.

Friday, November 06, 2015

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