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)

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.

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.

(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

it's shocking how boring you are.

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.

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. 

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

november horoscope, c/o autostraddle:

Self-love is the killer, huh? It’s so easy to love humanity, even when they’re messing up the world–or at least your group of friends who are trying a little harder–but when it’s just you rattling around in your own head it’s harder to feel tolerant, much less enthusiastic, about what you find. You can rely on the love of your sweethearts or closest friends, but only so far. Sooner or later, you’ve got to face that inner sense of being something strange and alien. One tip: remember that love doesn’t need an excuse. You are loveable because you are here with us, offering something this world has never seen. Whether you can feel it yet, you’re being held and seen.

i needed that. really.

tower dream

dreamed this dumb boy was my partner but when we walked through the gate at the backyard party, he still followed around the other dumb boy like a helpless puppy. "I thought you were *my* boyfriend ??" 

then I climbed the tallest tower, metal and open with a slightly creaky sway. at the top, some of my cozy familiar things I think. i lay on my stomach facing out and got off in the night wind. i have to climb back down but I'm distracted by a pair of mostly white cats with weird black markings, brother/sister? and a couple young guys creeping around the bushes and pouting up and laughing. clearly they've seen me but I'm not particularly phased. i have to get up and start moving again but I'm so exhausted, I feel tired to the point of craziness, like I will certainly fall and maybe something worse if I keep going. 

what happens? I just wake up from my nap and realize I'm still exhausted. 

don't worry, honey, skip the meeting. skip the party too, if that's what you need. skip life and stay in bed; just sleep. 

what's that confused look in your eyes?

we didn't talk for 70 hours after our 24-hour text conversation turned argument turned ? i had to stop it, i needed space. i had gotten so stressed and anxious that the break felt really good, better than i expected. of course, it was an insanely busy weekend, between Quercus work party, art party, party party, packing seeds, richmond zine fest, after party, dancing at the dyke bar, Food Not Bombs, and dishes for miles. so really, there wasn't any time to miss you.
even now i'm still trying to digest the "fight" and how it happened and when it went wrong, but it's so hard to parse it out later, even though it's all written right there in green text on this screen.
you had been low for days and of course i know something about what that's like, so i did my best from a distance.... mostly by responding to yr texts with comfort and care, or so i thought.
but it's really hard for that type of communication (you express low feelings, i try to comfort you) to be the only thing happening in our relationship. i'm not saying that's all it ever is, but sometimes it does happen for days at a time, and that's really draining for me. i'm not saying that you shouldn't share with me or express yourself. i just want us to have better balance because most of the time i feel like i'm carrying you.
the worst part is that during this discussion, you insinuated that i DON'T support you and that i don't listen enough. i fucking hate that you would feel that alone, maybe that you're so far down there that you can't even hear me.
but actually that's my main issue. a lot of the time i really don't feel like you hear me and when i expressed that, you actually told me it wasn't the issue, "it's not about not hearing you." i'm sorry, honey, but you don't get to decide that. then you say i don't actually ask for support and you're basically admitting the problem: because when i ask, you don't hear me. this is what frightens me and makes me anxious and sad. i don't know where we're going if we have to keep having the same conversation, if we can literally have this argument for 24 hours and not reach any conclusions. and i am so terrified of hurting you, offending you, breaking you, that i don't even think i can tell you any of this.
what really sucks is that i'm so fucking happy here; this weekend was the best i've felt in a long time..... and i've been antidepressant free for almost a month now, and i can't believe i still feel this good. i see a beautiful life for myself here and i want you to have this beauty too, but i fear, i feel we're floating, veering off in different directions. my needs are not your needs, and vice versa. a couple weeks ago, i asked what you wanted for your life, what you dreamed for the future, what your happy looks like. i don't actually remember what i asked you, but i remember your answer was so different from mine. you want stability and contentment, a good job with enough money to meet your medical needs and support a middle class lifestyle. you want the american dream, and i want to dismantle it.

(found mind-mapping notes from Acorn, fall 2015)

create new + better culture

learn to dance again
learn to write (creative non-fiction)
learn to build puppets
learn art history
learn animation
theatre

DIY archivist / folklorist
-document ephemeral culture and dying culture
-oral histories, folk traditions

be a better clown
unlearn
learn new histories
tell untold stories
-write historical fiction movie scripts
-animate with morgan
vaudeville revival / traveling variety show
make zines
write letters
anachronism - move backward from electronics + technology

the veggie soup has chicken stock, donated pre dumpster so technically it's freegan. I almost eat it but I almost cry at the thought. I'd rather go hungry I decide. worse things have happened. do no harm or whatever. plus I've already had one meal today which is better than other days. why is food so fucking hard?? especially on this trip where food is a major theme, a center point of community. am I being dumb by sticking so hard to my vegetarianism? even GPaul the vegan eats piles of dumpster meat. am I just being stubborn? what products are more evil? I'm smoking newports for fucks sake. I'm already ruined. already I'm wondering if I can convince Lando to stop on the road for subway or Taco Bell or some such garbage because I'm clinging so hard to this one thing: I dont eat animals. I just can't do it. maybe this is absurd but it's been over seven years now and it may be the truest thing I've committed to. so I sit outside and smoke and think and feel hungry and wonder if this is a condition of my privilege.  yes, probably. and is it rude for me to abstain in this place, in this broken city with its food deserts, after these good people have housed me and helped me and even thanked me for just taping them?

but of course i can't. i munch on home fries and bits of tofu, and reagan gives us granola for the road, the ridiculous road of me and lando and a new friend named steph, and somehow it takes us 6 hrs to do a normally 3 hour drive. but of course we make it, despite it all, and acorn is now warm and familiar and weirdly enough people are happy to see me.

male call

this part is just about me. (is it?) i expect to be treated with respect by my colleagues.
maybe i haven't always, maybe i don't always think i deserve anything.
i feel like none of the men on this project have offered to get to know me, or have tried to listen.
do you hear yourselves??????
you'll say you want open communication, but i don't actually feel that.

you have all interrupted me repeatedly. (at some point i just stop trying to talk. i'm not alone in this.)
you have not trusted me, especially steve, especially about tech stuff.
you've told me you want me to create/propose my own projects, but i'm shot down mid-pitch (pax) or your ideas for what the project wants/needs are so specific, there's no room for my input/vision.
you want to know what's going on, but when i try to have real talk with pax, he says he "doesn't care" (LITERALLY) and just wants to keep talking.
you want me to listen to your theories and philosophies and your version of the story, even when it's not yours. this is not the way i learn or the way i communicate with the world.
you want me to be flexible but you want me to
you think i'd be wasting time at BFF without a strict video schedule set up, but no one introduced me to anyone or set up interviews ahead of time at Ganas, Twin Oaks, or Acorn.
you want me to participate but you don't treat me like a fellow organizer. (at meetings, i'm invisible. you skip right over me in the go-around without a second thought.)
you touched me without my permission the second time we met. you touched my leg when we were alone in the car and it was creepy. then in your video interview, you brag about your consent culture and how important it is, how it's the ONLY orientation at acorn. (by the way i didn't get an orientation at acorn, and i felt both forgotten and resented for the entire three weeks.)
you say i can decide, that i can say no, but if i lean that way, there's immediately pushback to convince me otherwise. am i allowed to make my own decisions or not? will my decisions be respected?
you say our styles are different, you liken mine to nature-style documentary where i show up at the scene and just shoot what's happening, whereas your style is to schedule and organize ahead of time (oh thanks what a great tip, i'm just such a fucking messy idiot) but you forget that i do. not. know anyone. i don't have contact info. i don't have an "in" and in these people's position, i wouldn't necessarily trust me. (see ex. "stranger with a camera")
you tout yourselves as so radical, so egalitarian, then WHY ARE YOU A BUNCH OF WHITE MEN and when will you stop making racisit comments and joking about rape and talking down to women?
do NOT touch me. do NOT pretend we are friends.
you fucked my trust when i told you a really personal story and i thought maybe you would get to know me, but you used it as a factoid, another trivial point of information, to STRANGERS, people i had just met.
you don't know my hurts.
you don't know me at all.
your whole new world is a frat house.



three bad situations that made me cry. so embarassing to be that pathetic in front of my psuedo-bosses, but the weird part is that it wasn't acknowledged, at the time or later. maybe i'm more subtle than i think... but even then, didn't you see that i was upset? how i shut down and walked away? did you wonder why? or did you just assume it's because i "can't handle" your "style" aka your white straight male BULLSHIT.

literally feeling like maybe i just can't work with men.
i am astounded by how radical you think you are. i want to laugh but it's actually scary.





the org

expected internal calendar, contact list
--i never know where anyone is going to be or where I'M going to be. plans seem to change every day without me knowing.

seems to be so much theoretical / hypothetical -- imo, too much.


what the hell has been happening since 2013? i don't see any work being done to connect point a to other local orgs, i don't see any outreach. this looks like a circle of friends at best, a clique at worst. and you're literally trash talking other people's projects, but what the fuck makes you so much better than them?

was there ANY media plan/strategy before i arrived. you say you "talked about it" but did you actually decide anything?
what do you ACTUALLY expect of me? and is there ANY consensus on that?




i watch you talk in circles. i watch you preach to the choir. i watch the women get cut off mid-sentence, or never get the space to speak in the fist place.

STRAIGHT WHITE CIS MEN are leading us again, hurray! what would we do without them and their big brilliant brains!

i should be better, glow more glitter
not blurry squinting hunching monster
new holes in my dress + my head
i've stayed and i'll stay here for hours
smoking up these papers
until i stumble walk the bottle back to bed
never eat, oversleep
drink till you can't remember where you put your feet
they found you fallen in the street
all blood + piss + fleas + meat
immature + undercooked
never had a chance you took

the house is not so toppling and scattered as i remembered. nothing wrong with that inherently, only that i am, and i thought i'd feel more comfortable here this time.
nope.
what i remembered was cramped, leaning hallways and a huge common room with furniture near piling on top of itself, people scrambling not to spill out of their chairs.
what changed? did i see too many stars in virginia? was the world there too wide, with the fields and neverending dirt roads? has everything just expanded?
in fact, the halls are long, too long, and the downstairs commons goes on and on, i'll never make it to the kitchen from the front porch. i'll never get to eat.

silly song

has a very upbeat sweet sound in my mind.

why don't you kill yourself
you don't deserve to live
you don't deserve to die
you don't deserve anything
you're doomed to crash and burn
and smash down everything you want to have and hold
you'll never find your home
nothing's left
burn one more

two nights dreamed of tall water.
the first, riding atop the tallest waves in train cars, saving the people and carrying the cats in boxes. gracie lou who close to my chest, while i call orders over the tumult.
and the second, on the tallest balcony, the tidal wave encroaching, worrying over the people and herding the cats into tubes. willikers the prominent tuxedo in a tunnel of black cats.
and that night, in the dark of the conscious world, the saloon deck of the ferry to manhattan, leaning over the railing, willing myself not to drop in.
and then the train with river wild, and finally seeing rex across broadway, in front of roma's pizza. we dance the distance until the lights change. our reunion on the streets and at the overcrowded dyke bar, cash only. but friday night and too many straight boys and overpriced weak whisky pushes us to the corner store, the tiny park, the street. rex doubts his inner queens compass and modern convenience leads us astray. we never do find the water, let alone the pier. what we find is a strangely deserted bright street with a rock. without protest, the rock lets us talk and sit and drink and piss and nearly fall asleep right on it, until rex gets us going, back to the subway and the walk through the garden apartments to the cluttered cozy jackson heights townhouse where we can whisky steelie sleep through the morning. except that rex has a bus to boston at dawn, so i oversleep alone, try to slip out quietly, but am thwarted by his mom, nourished with apple fritter, sweet talk, and decaf. the journey back to staten island takes two meandering hours, and the ferry is soothing this time.
ganas is a strange green maze with its own sidewalks, raised up from the street; is this the real city? there is a palpable tension between old and new, the steadfast 60s communards and the invigorated younger set, fresh for revolution. "it's time to turn, to revolve, it's always time," we say, as we huddle on our porches, sneak a smoke, scurry when we hear them coming.
and look, we do share the bounty! from the house pantry, jaclyn makes tunafish pizza with bacon grease white sauce, plus tomato cheese just for me. the days drift in the green heat; is this city real?
wednesday rolls around and i still don't make it up in time for the 730am planning meeting, especially not from the extra house at the bottom of the hill. i still can't handle time, i'm one step slow all day, and even run late to rex's show at the new york city bureau of human services queer division, and the building was even more swanky than the name. everyone is beautiful gayz and i'm so proud to see rex his cap his bow tie his perfect poems and py arrives right at the end, during the glitter rap dance party, the queer cafe unsure how not to shake. pyrite is a vision in the village, vegetarian and mostly sober, until we spot the stella. "it's the gay beer," we're told. we fold into a flock, a glistening smoking parade brigade, back to the dyke bar, cash only, whisky bourbon on special.
i'm sorry if i rambled your ear off, spun off too far, gave you too many smokes, spent all yr money on drinks, spit your powdered supplement on the ground, cried on your shoulder, hugged you too many times, kicked you for old times' sake. but we did laugh, and we remembered the ghosts, and we almost walked that secret path.
but it twisted and you left us underground in the sick yellow light, where we continued to follow that dolorous brick road through the tunnel, to the dive with the whisky and the filthy foggy back room. it's no wonder i can't remember what was said. but we make it our home, for now, and i could live here forever until rex persuades me to leave, he in his infinite wisdom, with his mind on new york time, and again quit my pointless flirting and i'll hold my brother's hand on the train to queens, and again i'll share your bed until morning, but this time i have a bus, and two ferrys, and ten trains to catch to make richmond tonight, where i'll hitch a ride to twin oaks with comrades, albeit strangers, friends who have never met.

i feel like i may have broken your heart without even trying, without doing anything, and it kills.
don't you know that my bones are crying, that i ache with loneliness too? that i hate it?

The Keep is a bright and cheery collective house in one half of a three-story duplex in DC's Park View neighborhood. With only six bedrooms, at first the place strikes me as a little small for a commune, but with a spacious kitchen and common area for the entire ground floor, I soon see why this is the Point A DC headquarters. The eight members of the Keep are young, vibrant, beautiful folks, bubbling over with sexual energy and crazy infectious laughter. More than a few of them went to Oberlin College, and it turns out there are mutual friends among us. It seems so silly to realize that the world is so impossibly small, but then again, of course it is.

I arrive just in time to be whisked away to a sold-out punk show, where two of my newest favorite bands are playing, and these kids just happened to have one extra ticket.... fate! A local electronic artist opens the show, followed by Girlpool, a duo who appear to be barely out of high school... reminds me of my first tour with SV way back in the day, in the summer following our senior year. Frankie Cosmos closes the night, the first show on her tour, so the band seems a little wobbly and still getting into a groove, but they still sound great to me. I buy their CD and the six of us somehow stuff ourselves back into Feonix's compact car to be driven back home....

"Home," rather, as I'm only here for a week, and the little patch of this place that is "mine" is a piece of memory foam mattress on the floor, in a row of mattresses on the floor, in a ridiculously low-ceilinged attic with no AC. This bizarre room is known as the Garret, an almost-4th floor, and it's where most of the Keep's numerous guests stay, including me and GPaul. Upon arrival, you will be ushered up the three flights of stairs (the last one little more than a wooden ladder) and you will hunch, crawl, or scuttle to the floor mattress of your choosing-- the ceiling is only 4 feet tall. But there are clean linens, towels, and condoms, all provided free of charge by your generous hosts. In the morning, you'll see there is one skylight window, higher the rest of the ceiling, where you can stand up to put on your pants. You're the last one awake, so turn off the fan and be grateful that even without it, this feels better than Austin in August.

The sunflowers sway in the tiny front garden, and the Keep is its own little universe in what is otherwise a pretty rough, run-down neighborhood. The world beyond the porch is a harsh one, and at night, we hear the people and the sirens screaming in the street. At night, the rats come out, and I see who the sunflowers really belong to.

whose hole ?

you're so fragile, sometimes I don't know how to hold you

You are so fragile, sometimes I don't know how to hold you. I want to be a soft place for you in a hard world, but sometimes I find myself craggy, a beach of broken glass + pebbles instead of sand. You don't deserve to wash up here. 

When I feel lost + broken, I pull away to spare you, but it apparently just makes things worse. We both fall backwards into silence + despair.

I want you to reach for me, but I've lost you too, now we're both gone. How many times this has happened, how we talk it out, but begin again.

I'm afraid that we're too broken to not break each other.

Or I'm a bird, and you're a fish, and air + water will never mix.

Like you can never hear the bug + cricket song, sometimes I feel like you

can't hear me. Like nothing I say will settle. How can I make

you hear me with a shell to your ear, and dreams of having fins

in the ocean, when all I can offer you is a craggy windy brutal beach.

How I try to make you happy but I only make you cry.

How you're longing for the ocean but I can only give you sky.

the porch problem

when you think you are performing for someone but there is in fact no audience 

when you try to create something for yourself but can't stop thinking about the impossible potential audience 

why I never write anymore 

why I sing only during dishes

when will I learn 

or figure how to forgive myself

amy and I talked about the selfishness of artists and wondered if that's what it takes to make anything worthwhile. do I have to stop everything else? not that it is anything but I haven't written in weeks, months, years. what do I want anymore? can I blame the place or the job or just me?

a borrowed beer on the porch, a beer too often. a smuggled smoke, ashes again. 

these small sacrifices grow a larger harvest. they don't answer the questions or the problem. 

where can I go? my home under the hill? I've almost stopped believing. 

there's truly no place for me. 

the truth is I'm stuck again and I hate myself for it. the worser truth is that I don't see any way out. even though there are people out there waiting for me, wanting me to bring the fire, I can't believe that it's the right fire. I only have one flame and it's gone out. nothing to be done now. 

have another smoke, another drink, don't think.
the porch is the only place you'll ever be, there's nothing here but what you see. 

I am the fake at all costs

dream

light and dark

we lived in the trees

they wanted to destiny Christmas

hooting people

we did rituals to protect ourselves

costumes and performance

mama there telling me all the truth

mama leading us esp the new generation

a woman has been coming to our side seeking shelter and solace

reformed

we perform rituals to cleanse her

hash

shiner

(blood wine for dark purpose )

she's telling tales

we're stuck as the rifleman makes rounds

ruthless. shooting even our youngest without power

we are all women and old men

she's here in the very center with the most powerful ones

I left them downstairs to protect abatha (the most powerful of all of us, but stuck in a coma and helpless)

when I crawled away trip grabbed my hand and wouldn't let me. I worried they'd shoot me right then, that they'd see me.

but I made it up to the core

my mama in a trance

my costume comedic for joy and mirth (all straps and buckles, my

hairy legs and open skirt)

my clown calling

she tells us she misses that power

details the dark ritual

three times at least she fucked her dark lord, got pregnant and transplanted the fetus to one of our light wombs

abatha, so powerful. she claims that's why

and me

so that's why I was three weeks late

dry birth

covered in scales

made wicked from the start

but where is my power ?

I'm just a jester

so glad mama isn't here to hear

but she most know somehow....

and disgusted to know my true father

and that he wanted to fuck me

and laylee helped us protect the chrosmas things

sort and hide and disguise

morgan had made a beautiful story with wonderful illustrations

I would die to save it

hail to the ringworm queen

It's like a ton of bricks have hit me, realizing you're gone, Brittany. Working the last six days without you has been rocky, so please excuse me if I frumble. we're struggling to treat the worst wound ever seen in the history of apa and it's located in the place where you're missing. you are the heart, the strongest and longest running part of the cat team, and it's unlikely that we'll be able to find a transplant.

When I first arrived at Austin Pets Alive, I was thrown into the cattery mid-kitten season, alone, sink or swim, with only a smidgen of first-hand cat medical knowledge and zero shelter experience. Laylee introduced me to Brittany as a fellow introvert: the first thing I learned was that we shared anxieties, fears, sensitivities, sadness. And still I saw her whip out a smile for every visitor and watched her adopt out cats with such confidence, I knew I would be okay.

Brittany was always there to answer every question, gently offer advice, and quietly provide feedback without ever criticizing. Without her guidance, reassurance, and closing-time venting smoke breaks, I would've drowned. Each poop picture, each sketchy adopter, each dumb question, she would always try to help. Any time a situation was so draining, so painful, so difficult that i wanted to give up, i found myself asking "what would Brittany do?" every time, I found the answer was the most selfless option.

YES she would kiss anybody, funguys and scabies babies alike

YES she would stay up all night, just in case.

YES she would just go ahead and offer everybody a whole nother can.

and by golly if she didn't know the answer, she would go home and research until she was on the road to be the next expert

I saw her treat every life as equal, deserving, and precious, and I wanted to be that good.

But she wanted reassurance too. She never thought she was good enough, always wanted to be better. She set herself at such high standards that she set the standard for all of us. She wanted to be able to give them everything. She took the worst ones, she held and healed and coaxed and loved, and I saw them transform, just from being around her. How proud she was of each Dazey's grad, how she brought them to cattery when they cleared, each one a present at our door. each accomplishment, each life, and Brittany bubbling over with anticipation to put the soul on a name tag, and sometimes crying to say goodbye, although they were only one building over, never really gone.

you will never really be gone. your blood sweat tears soul in the walls, in the concrete, in the porous germy crevices of the blueboxes we so despise. you are laughing in our hearts, still creeping and scheming.

If you are not a magic ringworm glitter elf, then I do not believe in anything.

I wish I could remember everything, but I only have pieces:

when you taught me to set live traps for stray kittens and instead we caught possums

when virulent calicivirus struck our cattery

when humpty's eye exploded

when alvin's back fell off

when lucy's eye was leaking blood

when my whole skin went crazy

when yr whole skin went crazy

when i watched cats transform just being with you

when i was so anxious about deep cleaning after calici that you wrote 6 pages of step-by-step instructions for me

when you told me mikey was your new boyfriend and i wanted her to be mine before i even met her

when you saved roger outside on the sidewalk from running to the mouths of anxious dogs

when jeanne died in the street two days after she got adopted

when minerva died from pneumonia and i wasn't there to hold her

when i realized how much separate history we shared

when you introduced me to gracie lou, "USE EXTREME CAUTION," but you believed in her and helped me take her home

All these times I loved you.

how every cat's face

every cat's fate

how each question

how your reassurance saved us

how you would never abandon anyone ever

how the last thing you wanted was for anybody to suffer

how we were made to stay in our own buildings and pushed apart, i'm afraid, i'm sorry, forever

how i can't recall our last conversation

how i can't stop listening for your laugh

I don't know what I'm going to do without you. Who will compare leg hair in our cut off jeans in the sweltering summer in the height of kitten season? Who will snort with laughter at my terrible jokes, and whine about our angst for hours after closing time, and giggle "I'll grab your butt" so that I don't litter?

We will never replace you. But we can strive to honor you by smiling at strangers, kissing crusty cats, and treating every creature with kindness.

https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/Brittanysfund

I don't appreciate being called rude and I don't like being told what to do

dream space

I must've known it was a dreAm because I started writing everything down in the middle, needing to remember.  

four clans. a prophecy of course. 

they had been tracking us for years, they had seen it all and put the pieces together. 

I don't really know why I'm here or what's going on. we're gathering in a huuuuuuge auditorium, hundreds of people. I can't settle on a place to sit bc I'm all alone. I stumble into an area where no one is sitting and realize it must be reserved for the performance. woops. scuttle into a corner and settle in.  and I'm not wrong, there are male acrobats in shiny sequins who spring out somewhere along the way. so extreme and over tr top wow. later I'm fiddling with something (a mouse maybe?) and they see me and call me out. how??

why?? they escort me out or I'm trying to walk somewhere else and get intercepted. they put me on a spaceship with dozens of others. (mostly women?) I'm starting to see differences between the people, between the nations. two are more powerful, bigger, more numbers. one of these is flashy sequin decadence pop and the other is more nationalist harder military but still decadent in a different way. 

how to explain the others???? 

in the bathroom one woman showed me a picture of a harpy, "this is what you will be. this is what I am."

there is a sense of death surrounding them. they would rather kill each other than have the prophecy come to pass. 

and I do feel that I have something of a choice. people are pulling me like something can change. it's not set in stone. 

then she rescues me. I don't remember the details but she finds me in the crowd and smuggles me out to her own ship. at first I'm confused. later I'm in love. these are my people. and we are fugitives. 

later we get separated and I'm supposed to follow her by piloting my own ship which of course I've never done before. it's okay at first but I just

can't get the hang of it fast enough and I lose them. I think I crash and they find me. 

they're still trying to figure out if I am the one they think. they ask all kinds of strange and invasive questions. "did you have the clear coccidia?" and my family. supposedly my seemingly normal mother was a harpy too and could transform at will. And yet they're all being so nice, no one wants to upset me, no one hurts me. they must think I'm powerful. 

I have a mouse friend from somewhere. actually it might be a person in mouse form that I'm watching over. that other hRpy's daughter? she transformed her own child into a mouse to make a point. they would rather die than see the wrong future. 

I'm carrying her everywhere but she gets away from me. I crawl under a huge gate to get outside and find her but it's too late. there's a creature in the bushes crouching down.. I think maybe she's still out there but the creature smacks his jaw open closed one time and I see the tail inside. 

I know she'll find me. I'm writing everything down in orange crayon. I know she'll come back for me. 

why can't I just relax ?

revolution

make more art
consume more art
schedule yourself better

be yr own
girl gang

I can already feel the new year crackling even through the haze of being sick and the pounds of phlegm in my chest and head. it's alive! the year of freedom and bliss, we already called it.

we freed the fish and the fish freed us.

time to reset

just keep forgetting to take your pills.

follow the smell of piss till it's all clean. 

remember who you love, who loves you. 

expect that nothing will come back. 

there is only the cat and the ache in your back. 

hedgehog hugs

today I try to talk to you for some dumb reason (when will I learn?) and it's like talking to a wall. why even bother? but you give me one piece of insight-- "ask me tomorrow when I've had some time to process." "oh hey what did you think about what I said yesterday?" that I can do. 

tonight I snuggled up and why? made suicide jokes and you tell me I'm not allowed to do that. not allowed to die. but you wouldn't miss me for more than a minute, you'll readjust fine, I say. she's giving me looks but not telling, not until we aren't making eye contact and I'm nuzzled to her chest. "I would cry a *lot* and then probably cry randomly for weeks." I joke about how selfish she is, how she'd only be sad for herself since she's lost her only friend.

when she gets up to go take her pills, "oh and if you want proof, that's why I was randomly crying this morning." but why? "because I worry about you." even though I told you I wouldn't talk about it, you still remember. 

and just when I think I've got you pegged, when I've given up, drawn the line, you always get me. the things you actually do remember, what you choose to care about. 

you keep saying we are too different, totally different personality types, just two hedgehogs hurting when they hug. on some level, maybe you're right, but we haven't even be friends for any time at all, we hardly know each other. and if it were only hurt then why are we so soft?

step away from my light, i need shine

always you want me to forget, try to make me. I just want to talk, I have really good ideas. I believe we could write! I believe you have the vision and I have the craft! or maybe the other way around, we'll have to work out the details. but don't you want to see?? why not even try?

and so I should be done after all this. how many times I put it forward.

you are not the whipping girl unless you want to be. I feel you beg for a reaction, the one you've gotten before. I feel like I'm the creep but I know you know the game. so maybe sometimes I tickle too much and go too far. I don't mean any harm. I want the cuddles and the laughs and the silly. yes the vulnerable. and this is all you'll give me- a little bit of soft skin here and there. but it's not your tummy I really want; it's your heart. if I can find the soft parts maybe you will open up and talk to me. but always you leave, or never start.

tomorrow is a new day, as always. but tomorrow I'm moving and really things will change. I've promised Gracie Lou it will be just us two girls, and I meant it. I'm really cutting this out, unless you don't consent it: truth, honor, trust, compassion. I require so little. I have made do with giggle cuddle coffee time but I don't need it anymore. it all hurts too much without the rest.

you don't want me to cook brunch with you, you can't put me to the test.

I'm bigger I'm better I'm more than you will ever know. I have to make it so.

I am not so cruel.

not as you, not as you think.

but maybe as desperate.

yr failure is not what I want but I'm afraid of its certainty. I need you to talk and ACT and get it together before the worst thing happens. I don't want you on the street or worse. you say you don't need this house? you don't need the safety net? I would love for you to fly from here but I don't see how. not now. maybe your debt is invisible to you, maybe that's my fault. if you don't need us then go on. we want only the best.

what do you want, when you do and when you don't?  
is it just a niceness of your debt, to keep afloat?

if you are the whipping girl, then maybe I'm at fault. 
you joke and pose so pretty: your sugar makes me salt.

you juggle up to jester, and want rounds for the fall. 
you'll never say you dropped one, unless we can recall.

if you are the whipping girl, then what have we done wrong? 
we fell into a dance you threw and got lost in its song.

I know you want attention, kitty, just let me pet your throat. 
be calm and still and open up, and sing before you choke.

if you are the whipping girl, then I've confused the past. 
tell me what it said to you and make the new one last.

after nights when I give up, you call me in the morning: 
meow. meow. meow. the constant caterwauling.

is that your glass heart clinking?

if I tend to write only when I'm alone, then I'm never gonna write anything again living in this damn co-op. sometimes in the shower or in the car, I have ideas, but there's so much jumbled into my head immediately stepping out of those places and into this confusion called my home. generally I really like living here, the hustle and bustle, interacting with so many different people on a daily basis, priding myself on figuring out these puzzles, these people, and getting them to talk. HA! it's true, I won't deny there's a little bit of skill there. but at the end of the day, who makes me talk? who wants to know my ins and outs, downs and ups, tos and fros? none of these people can read my subtle signals, though a couple can see the larger signs-- when I'm drinking more than enough, when I'm overly critical of something small, when I've been hiding in my room for days. and if and when they see it, it's so easy to run away, don't worry, it's nothing, I'm fine, I'll be in my room with the pillow and the cat. they leave me alone like I want them to. but you know better-- you understand the chase. you know the chase as well as I do. I'm practicing a small pursuit on all these people every day, how can they not understand? but they don't want to work on a puzzle, or find that the end reward is no good thing. I try so hard so often to be easy, kind, generous, considerate, patient, amusing, good. I try too much, I unwind the web so smooth, make it all gentle, and they don't see the handiwork. do you know how I am a new creature for every person? how I will mold to fit and nestle in your comfort zone? is it so well done that no one cares enough to talk when I've hit bottom? but this is not new, even though the place and people are. I insist on distancing myself (and my truth, and my heart, and my hurt) from even my friends, then I'm dead and dumb when they can't connect. did I make it one way? I'm convinced it's that they never ask, never ask right, don't really want to know, rather than that I am a closed door with impossible locks. they think animal rescue is my life's work and that I love cats maybe because they're cute or because I'm so good and selfless or because I'm a future hoarder of more than paper. they don't know that I love cats because I hate myself.

why does the truth always sound so dumb?

listening to: xiu xiu - ale

nap dream

brother cats (r9 litter??) ok my dream

there are kids playing a game that seems like they're taking very seriously. everyone acts upset and weird when they "come back" and the chip they win is the wrong color.  they are actually disaplearing into an alternate world disguise as a tv show when they play ??? they're teying to hint at something but i can't digure it out.

board game and tv. they are playing at the board, they disappear, I'm watching a tv show that is really the game -- it's set up and then their solutions. i dont realize that it's not a game at all, but an urgent quest which is why they take it so seriously.

there's a group or three or four creeper dudes that keep showing up whenever the game is going on, or right near the end. they are talking about a house vote thats gonna happen or some sort of big decision. a type of "learning" or discipline or religion??? that they want to establish in the coop. i make a skeptical or negative comment and they react strangely-- calm and somewhat logical, asking so many questions and calling me a close minded business very nicely. their coldness creeps me out every time.

i am figuring out that something strange is going on but i don't know what or how to fix it. i need to talk to Ian or somebody but where ?? i ask her to come outside and she completely pounces. we start hardcore making out on the ground, shes got my shirt pushed up and were tearing at each other. I've forgotten what I came here to tell her, it's all encompassing and wonderful. suddenly there's laylee telling us that the whole coop can see us and we need to het out of there. i feel like i see the creeper dudes pale faces judging me through the window. when we get inside somehow its too late, I've missed the window to talk and now everyone's here again.

going to the theatre to pick up the kids from their show/game and its raining, they're not there, the parking lot is empty except for one car with the doors open. (or the shell if a car, a double open hooded two seat.) i walk up and find a terrified kitten sitting there on the seat, hissing and spittig and so afraid. i realize its a cat i know, Reginald, and i call him by name, wrap him up and take him home with me. bit he's not acting like himself, and where are his brothers and sisters i took to the show? i being him home and he immediately hides under a bench where another brother, tiny rajan, instantly hisses, and i think they don't recognize each other. slowly somehow the clues (there must've been more clues) come together and i realize this is not the cat i think it is, but some other brother, new, and everyone else is stuck somewhere. he starts to yowl as then actually begins speaking, mentions that rajan had a sore on his  tongue -- that's why he hissed! to show the ulcer that is not truly an ulcer but a scary magic bad thing. The lead creep is showing interest in me and this cat sufdenly and he doesn't know that he shouldn't speak. i grab him up and start walking briskly out the door, talking with him since he doesn't know to stop and this creep wants him for who knows what. i dont know where to go thats safe. i walk into my parents room but they're clumping around leaving on a trip. I'm looking for Ian and calling her nme but i can't find her. panic panic i Abe no idea how I will save the cats and not let the coop kingdom fall.

then the damn dinner bell rings. even after waking up i still have a sense of urgency, of going back to the world, of figuring it out.

Austra concerts -- at least two or three. We meet them outside the stage door in the first. In the second I am confident -- volunteer or improvize? Dancing witching every audience member -- sprinkling magic on their heads.. are they sitting down? It's weirdly calm. Somehow Brian is the most important -- the top of his head is shaved, only in the front, and green dye on the sides. Heavy eyeliner and super magic. We talk and something important happens. Third concert, somehow I miss the end. Do I fall asleep? Am I called outside by something else? All this part of the dream looks dark but feels light, good. Sparkly.

another dream working in the cattery, but there are many people who work with me. someone is missing one day and i wonder what is going on. he is the son of important people. maybe not king and queen but the equivalent? he gets blamed for a wet towel that i know is my fault but i don't say anything and then feel horribly guilty when he is gone the next day. then he comes back, quiet and reserved, having seen more harm than good.
Wendy is the queen.
someone dies or disappears in their dorm/apartment. young, tragic, horrible, a warning. we all have to be more careful.
a movie -- do i actually watch it or just know about it? bizarrre sexual undertones (or overtones) and i'm drawn to it and freaked out at the same time. another stage door area -- a man is standing at the top of the steps in an open doorway and the (hopeful?) cast is crowding around for the meeting. the part of Frog Man is obvious. what am i doing there, though?
mainly i have been an observer up to now, but strange things start happening that indicate i'm being pulled towards center. a man driving by craning to see me, with a picture of my granny taped to his sun visor.
someone gives me a locket? somehow i have a secret locket. it is not easy to open but when i do, i see two faces that are really important. i don't remember why. is one me?
someone teaches me how to get free quarters from the vending machine by putting in bottle caps and then pushing the change return button. i get $8 in quarters and i'm walking away when they all swoop in and whisk me away to a secret meeting in their lair.
wendy is the leader. the others are some people i recognize -- the boy from work at the cattery, and his brother, and some other people who i thought were strangers that have apparently been following me. we are laying out the plan. wendy introduces me as the newest member of the team. later in private, she indicates that the whole team is actually my protection -- they just don't know it yet. i am the target but i don't know why. i show her the locket but the pictures are gone. it doesn't matter -- she knew the faces anyway. she has set the wheels in motion and we're on the way. somehow i feel safer now than i did before i knew i was in danger.
there is some question with the boy from the cattery. he evades directly answering his parents and shuffles around. his brother and i are sitting separately, secret smiles and twinkling eyes. i tell him what i know: he was gone from the cattery right before that girl was killed. of course he's not hte killer but we know he knew her. the brother jumps in to add this information to the slough of accusations, without revealing that i provided this information, and i am grateful. i feel guilty again, but i also feel that somehow i'm helping him -- i want him to be safe.
i'm seeing weird sexual tensions of all kinds. trying to be a matchmaker?

I wake up from this dream a number of times, but I'm able to ease back in. I sleep until 1 in the afternoon because I don't want it to end. In writing it looks like a stressful dream, but the having it was really beautiful and calm. Everything felt right somehow -- everything was going in the right direction, I was on the right path. The last time I go back to sleep I think I'm still half awake and maybe making up some of the story, rather than genuinely dreaming it all. But that felt great too and the worst part was waking up and not being able to remember it all. This dream would be a really wonderful story if it weren't now full of holes. I wish I could imagine these sorts of things while I'm awake. I want to write it all.

a note under a door

we are not easy, but sometimes it feels that way.
i, especially, am a great pretender.
sam thanked me for my warmth and kindess but
russ saw the demon in my right eye, the beast
let loose by the queer bomb. now there's no
looking back. i wanted to crack each shell so
slowly that its inhabitant would hardly notice
till they found themselves blinking at the sun.
i wanted to draw each one out, and in turn, be
drawn out myself. it's not easy; i am not what
i seem. sometimes i have let too much loose
without being asked, without coaxing and without
protection. how much i want to be the little
new chick in the spring sun. but instead, just
the worm. it's hard to remember to stay under
ground. i don't want to hurt, but do, and have
done. and so i remember, and so i can't stay,
but you'll see i leave a line open, just in case,
for the brave. sometimes it will be easy, and
sometimes it will not. sometimes it only gets
worse. but if i wait here, on the surface, i
will get burned, a sidewalk worm. it would be
easy. maybe i'll fry.
on the other hand, there is this egg with a cool
hard shell. (inside, there is a light and a warmth,
i know.) i would love to be there when you
hatch, but the worm does not want to be 
the swan's first meal, but can see no other way,
not from the surface. and so here is this line,
these lines, and that's it. forget, or do as
you see fit. we can't do it for you.

it's not your fault no one loves you

there are spiders in your bed.