HERE IS A THING YOU DO

you ask someone's opinion before you have let yourself think about your own opinion. YES YOU HAVE ONE. sometimes, sure, you don't actually know until someone says what they think, and then you realize, oh my feeling is THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT. but maybe sometimes you are just being lazy!!! or asking is automatic aka yr doing it because of codependent tendencies.

STOP with the reactionary weirdness!

THINK before yr asking someone else what they want. you fuckin do it all the time. sometimes it's because your recall is bad -- like, "where do you want to go out to eat?" because you can't remember anywhere you've ever been.

AND NOW you are procrastinating bc you've gotta get htis shit done and you don't wanna! self sabotage! ahhhhhhh! stop!!!!

zoned

need to get better at winding down at night. when i stay stimulated i don’t get tired. gotta get away from screens at night! (now a sound has spooked me and i feel ridiculous. help. will i ever sleep ?? )
got wayyyyy too excited over a kind of small thing tonight. i think it really satisfied my adhd brain. adderall brain??? i’ve been in tons of crazy internet research wormholes all year and i was just talking to kat about how hard it is to pull myself away out of the wormhole and away from the screen because there’s always MORE and there’s no clear end and there’s nothing that satiates my brain’s need for stimulation. where’s the reward?? so i’m lucky enough that alice is paying me to do some research (although i’m sure i’m doing more of it than she originally intended) (and for some reason i get panicky about this job when i’m not doing it but as soon as i am it feels really good and natural etc) so i’ve been looking at a bunch of financial and marketing crap i don’t understand on and off for the last few months. a lot of that time has been researching an automatic payment or direct deposit system for the teachers, who are independent contractors with tutti studio. and tonight after literally like 3 hours of more research on this same topic, i finally found a reasonable, simple, cheap solution. (i mean i think i did. we need to test it out.) but it felt so GRATIFYING and i was physically giddy and eeeeeee and wow i had been exhausted and ready to quit just moments before, and then i had a burst of energy that lasted.... well that was almost two hours ago now. but tomorrow is another big big day and i can’t lose steam now! so! gotta sleep. gotta try at least. eereeeeeer help.

imagining myself upstairs, typewriter click clacking, glue licking. can we follow the aesthetic of 2017 clown "Grimoira" style of floral print, rich reds + purples, piles of books, LAMPS?
(how important is a color scheme, really? in my imagining it's often very clear, such a MOOD, such a way to shift into a new reality. new realm? is it mre about the style or the space? schedule? is it back to one notebook lifestyle or would it help to have a planner? def need WALL CALENDAR and visual lists.
DESIGNATED SCREEN TIME. HOLY SHIT.
sun and lamp light. an unnecessary amount of fabric. (does a studio have art on the walls or is that just distracting? what is good enough to look at all the time? a bedroom certainly can have full walls -- posters, postcards, drawings, lovely things. a collection that feels like myself, not holding onto something for someone. not an ARCHIVE but an expression. but i suppose too the lists have to go somewhere. living space or work space? CAN THERE ALWAYS BE PAPER? Can i start to actually use it?)
Opened the box of the Numinous tarot, seven of candles (wands) comes flying out -- the card i drew for the new year (unknowingly kinda) on Samhain (but of course i did -- also need to call on the High Priestess / The Diviner more often to trust, to follow my intuition and let my body go first. Mind will catch up. Move my hands to move the cards. Find it with a feeling. /// Looking for a feeling! The body knows some things the mind doesn't!! /// I'm now wishing for space to MOVE, dance, sing, play. Wishing for knowledge + skill to teach Pochinko play. (Could I really go to the clown farm?!) Making this year about -- courage, expression, light, opening, creation, strength in self, support in community, FIRE. resistance. power. commitment! positivity?! SUCCESS?!?!
also, drink less.

[look how even the pencil breaks, refuses to work, doesn't even cooperate to erase. the words must stay. of course the only pen I find is PURPLE of course. thank the gods of course of course]

things yr gonna do

start a workshop series

host movie night

host writing group

host salons

host art hours

make an installation show

write a script

make a zine

publish an essay

release an album

tour a show

write a biography

let me be a better sister
let me not in my sickness linger
let me carve paths through the suffer
let me see
where i dropped me
and pick back up my sister

if we can't now then how

when you break the thing you were trying to carry.
your fingers aren’t fast enough to clear up thinking flurries.
your words are the turds that you scrape from your belly.
you silenced the sole sound that wanted to be many

look and say look and know
it’s so hard to write within this flow
(every word corrected into a typo
every gorgeous creature stifled into camo)

this isn’t the way this isn’t the time
let yr own hand say this line
let yr own mind be its own scribe
consider how the pen will choose the usefulness of mime

stop this nonsense
i’m sorry for my shit
i’m sorry for my selfishness and ache and spin and spit
i haven’t found a way to speak this stuff i’m carrying all the time
it should and jives and jerks and buckles and flails behind a rhyme

tarot for the week (never mind it’s for the year)

seven of candles / wands

i have been really ducking lazy and even tho this week was supposed to end that and get back into GET SHIT DONE mode, i have not done a very good job at that. lots of playing games on my phone. lots of lazing around in bed all day, staying up late drinking. lots of sex. (obviously it’s not all bad!)
so today i ask the cards what medicine i need for the rest of this week to get back into high gear. here i receive SEVEN OF WANDS (candles in the numinous deck) which screams fierce, courageous, knowing and holding my own power. fucking GOALS let’s get right.

i keep telling myself i don’t have time or i’m not ready to start looking at those art life help books but i’m just making excuses. i need to get some advice from those books and also find a better visual way to keep track of my goals. THIS FEELS SO REDUNDANT. i’m tired of falling into the same loops. i’m tired of having to teach myself the same lessons. i’m tired of screens.

also there really is so much to do in the short term future that it’s hard to imagine making time for this stuff, but actually i think it’s integral to making the right choices about what’s next. i need to be looking for s place to live and figuring out more steady income, plus defining and strengthening my relationship with jerel, which also means helping them get to california and then back here with their car. so in thinking about that trip, having my own place, making more green beans, i need to be placing myself in a strong central position, not trying to accommodate for everyone and everything else before meeting my own needs. this means making time and space for art projects goddammit. this has to be #1 priority for the new year! new home, new partner, new life, new me.

last year i attempted to put my healing first, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t but i think i’ve made a little progress. this year i’ll prioritize art projects (personal and collaborative) and productive relationships. building a nest that supports my mental health and my work. finding gigs that will let me feel more stable while also maintaining my independence. seeking funding for art projects. finding new ways to clown. making plans for the longer term instead of living only in seasons. holding space and being a safety net for my partner in a way that supports their growth and independence. fucking commit to writing. commit to creating sacred spaces and communing with spirits. commit to magic practice as well as art practice on the damn daily. routine can be ritual!! these are not bad words!!! writing, singing, playing.

(also while writing this i kept thinking of january as technically the new year and even tho that’s far away being like well whatever but i just remembered today is SAMHAIN which is witches new year, duh!! okay i’m already on the right track. i like this card for this year. gonna GET IT!)

SO THIS WEEK to get on track, i need to freaking organize my to do list and start knocking shit off. i should try using that app again, i was having a lot of success with that. at least it’s a good idea till i come up with something better. (jerel seemed to have some ideas a while back, when they saw how frazzled i felt half the time. ask them again?) remember that getting the bullshit over-with means more time for the goods.

to do lists
organize for alice meeting
pay therapist
prepare for paris

go to sleep early

i accidentally killed the game

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


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

keyculator collab with jerel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

florida party dream

rachel smith's birthday party at her house. it's a lot of people, feels like a lot of people more mature than our crew. then again are any of the other nola folks here or is it just transplants from my memphis group that i'm finding here?
dexter, rachel's son i've never met, probably 4 or 5 here although he's gotta be almost 10 by now, removes his pants and underwear and runs away from me giggling. i think it's pretty funny too but the adults are generally aghast that i haven't been able to keep him under control. so now i'm chasing him around with the pants in my hand, trying to coax him to put them back on and feeling generally incompetent.

somehow i end up in the bed in my pajamas? was it a sleepover? the room doesn't really feel like rachel's room although i guess it's supposed to be. the mattress is on the floor along the back wall, and i can see out to the backyard through the windows when i turn around. everybody is out there having a good time, partying, pool splashin. i realize i'm wearing my pajamas (blue firefly shirt) so i look for my bag to put on some real clothes and join the festivities. all i can find is some real dumb shorts i don't like and my floral crop top i've only worn once. i don't want to put it on. do i? or maybe i just go out there in my pajamas and people judge me okay so what. or maybe i'm just distracted by talking to people out there and i forget that's the problem. lots of pals here, lauren dunn, kat, brett, morgan, hunter daniel?? definitely others but i can't remember specifics. i think mallory is here too.
at some point i remember that rachel recently broke up with another boyfriend who was a narcissistic addict, another mean drunk. i want to find a time to commiserate with her about that, but i don't know when i'll be able to, with all these people around. i've barely spoken to her.
i need to get in the pool with everybody else, go back to digging through my bag looking for my swimsuit. it's not there, i probably didn't even pack it, but i'm poking around through piles of stuff on the floor and the desk and now that i think about it, it kind of has the quality of one of the video games i played with jerel this week-- moving through the actions of searching in order to go to the next scene. i'm also exhausted somehow. (by now i've been snoozing my alarm clock and/or getting woken up by dogs and then falling back asleep. in real life i know i need to get up because it's getting really late but i guess i'm pretty tired and there's also this sense of things i need to finish in the dreamworld.)
so in the dream i fall asleep on the bed again. are there dreams within the dream? there must be.
i remember i'm standing over a desk looking through some papers and i see an infographic about making art and suggestions for process. one header says something like "THE TALISMAN" but maybe not that, it has a picture of a pink clock. it's talking about the important of the initial inspiring words - but actually it seems to be about more than words - it's about the moment that you receive inspiration for a project, or the moment that something clicks, and having a physical object or image that recalls that moment. keep it with you or keep it in your work space to hold onto the source of the feeling. of course this is sounding very obvious typing it down, but it felt very useful in the dream. especially since i don't have a damn process and it's so hard to say "artist" and i didn't learn any of these tricks.
at some point rachel is standing over me on teh bed, maybe this is even a nightmare within the dream because she's distant and seems irritated with me, but rightly so considering that i'm sleeping through her birthday party. her green eyes are piercing, so vivid, her hair is currently dyed a deep auburn and her hair is long and wavy at her shoulders. she looks otherwise just the same, same rachel i loved so long ago. i guess everything is pretty fuzzy but her eyes and hair are nothing but clear, in the sharpest focus. i remember i remember.
my body is so exhausted but i have to get up. i look out and i think hunter daniel is gonna play some drums or someone is performing music in front of the pool. it's getting a little darker out now. maybe i fell asleep again. i look up and people are singing karaoke. i can't miss this! I've gotta sing!!! finally i drag myself up, now it's as if the wall has melted away and people can talk to me in the bed from the yard, i can enter and exit this way. brett sees me sit up and calls, "alanna i need your help judging this karaoke contest! come over here!" although obviously i've missed all the performances so it makes no sense for me to judge, which i think i realize. i dip down again, exhausted, and when i sit back up, brett is awarding morgan and two other friends (rex?? kat? i don't remember but they're good buds) who are dressed up as makeshift crystal gems with rainbow fabric skirts and sashes. felt or construction paper hair. they're overjoyed to be winning and i can't believe i'm missing this. how does it keep happening?
as i'm walking out, morgan is coming in, she says that so and so loaned her this bathing suit and she's done with the pool (at some point before, brett has said "Everyone's done with the pool" ???) and i can wear this loaner suit. it's hideous, tan masquerading as gold, and maybe with sequins. it's actually familiar, i think i've worn it last time i was here (but i never could have been here) and i hesitate because of how it looks (so vain in this dream!) but put it on anyway. finally i walk to get in the pool but find it mostly full, and although it turns out there's a second pool (duh) a few feet away from teh first one, no one is know is here. i am trying to participate but seeing my friends all having fun just beyond reach. i try to make small talk with these new people but i feel awkward and stiff. standing in the corner of the pool facing the other pool - see a little tiny brown spider (but a kind of electric blue outline?) skip across teh water into our circle, very fast. we all overreact, and try to splash it away from us. it lands a few feet away, on top of what i quickly realize is another spider just like this one-- only it's 10 times as big. monstrous!! i look around the pool and it dawns on me that there are critters everywhere. little squat brown toads that could've been rocks, sitting neatly on top of the water. wait that oen's not on the water, it's on top of a fucking tiny ALLIGATOR. well, it's florida after all! and i guess we are partying in the swamp!

((this seems like a good image to hang onto for space submarine commander, although saying it out loud to jerel, they said bog witch. good point. and funny that the dream told me to find the image to hang onto-- i think that's probably accurate for both SSC and bog witch. i fucking wish i had a fucking WORK SPACE where i could hang some images on the wall and have a place to freakin think and dream and work. help.))

inarticulate after the argument (and probably during too)

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

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

why oh why

why is my heart pounding and why can't i finish my breakfast and why can't i keep my toes from curling and why has my cunt gone fiery ? how am i supposed to get anything done ?!

i have all this big glorious thoughts about reminding people about magic
but all of my actual ideas feel grotesque or at least dark

MY BODY HAS A LOT TO SAY

and it’s full of revelations

firstly being how right kat’s dance teacher is that if you want to write you have to first move. i switched up my body and my mind woke up. so full so sure.

it’s not that “everything happens for a reason.”
it’s that everything means something. (does it? me who loves nonsense, do i really believe that?) or maybe it’s more like nothing happens in a vacuum. everything is attached to something. but maybe everything does have meaning and if it seems like nonsense it’s because the riddle isn’t unscrambled yet? after all, we’re just the conduits.

driving along and thinking about the past, my past self. my happy list - the joy in simple things. picnics and mud and swings and dancing. just friends. those are all the real things. when did it get so bogged down? and when did i decide that my depression has always been eating me alive?? i mean it has but it’s not like i never enjoyed anything. i felt miserable in a cruel world that made me hate myself and makes people have to do horrible things to keep up with it. i was never actually the problem. i had so much passion and energy and i knew what was important!!! i’ve got to get that back.

and that was another revelation - all along six of cups. for months six of cups - good memories, childhood, family, roots, growth. i have to remember how to play. i have to get some of that child essence back. to be good and do good and CLOWN and remember how to be happy.

HARRY COULD ALMOST CRY AT THIS SIMPLE GIFT OF THE UNIVERSE.

i’ve been staring at it all along and i never really saw it. i’ve been saying yes yes i know and thinking it has to do with being home but now i see it’s about something i’m missing, or don’t have enough of, something essential. REMEMBERING TO PLAY. remembering to move. appreciating sensual experiences. i see now how i have to kill some of the adult learned bullshit to get back to a place where i felt better being a blank slate. (i’ve looked for that feeling so many places. sex, masochism, drinking, fire, internet, candy crush, dancing. playingggg and moving without myself is the best one. yeah?!)

i have to say thank you to the clown gods for being patient with me on this one. i’m sorry i had to ask so many times. i need to find a better way to process these tarot readings. through dance, maybe??? today i had the urge to get off after the reading, to be open and explode pleasure in the presence of the cards. i thought that would give them energy. obviously they don’t need it! i’m the one who needs the movement, the rhythm, the process!!!! to take it into my mind it has to come through my body. or vice versa.

is it a gift that the clown gods, the earth messengers, others, out there, are communicating with me? i guess they must talk to everyone like this, but not everyone listens (or knows how to). not trying to talk like i’m some great listener!! obviously i missed the six of cups message for months. (why haven’t they given up on me??) but i want to learn and i want to do better. better, bigger, harder, brighter magic. i want to make it good enough. i hope they’ll keep helping me understand how.

also side note i really need to get “brett” or whatever skeptical voice out of my head so that my thoughts stop getting distracted. ugh. at this point, how can i even doubt????

moments of clarity

brighter, harder, bigger MAGIC

feeling it today, feeling good. remembering that i don't need to swing wildly from the extremes of "i'm the worst" to "i'm so special and good" and actually there's this nice safe place in the middle. i'm not better than other people. i think everyone has the capacity to tap into magic, to pull down the moon, breathe fire. maybe i have some different channels open than other people do, but that doesn't make me better or special. i don't need to be huge, or be a star, or change the whole damn world, if i can change who's in the room, speak truths, bring in the small magic.

follow the fool
follow the impulse
the body knows something the mind doesn't

DANCE FREAK DANCE!!!!!!! DANCE FOOL DANCE!!!!!!!!
that would be an awesome queer dance party, lets make that happen. where??

i hear the right songs and i CAN'T NOT MOVE. i know what they are. cultivate htem and put them together. let's have a fucking dance party already. i can take it to the woods. i can take it anywhere.
i can take the clown to the woods without the nose, the hat, the covered body. i can clown wherever i need to, with anything. haven't i always??? when did i get hung up on accoutrements?!!? yes i want to keep learning and growing, yes i've got to evolve it all. but when did i ever want to do only one thing? can't i be clowning and dancing and following no rules? except the main one - give up give up give up. give up your thoughts and give your body over and let the gods move through you. stop thinking stop thinking stop wishing stop wanting. this is all there is, now.

yes okay fine the question of the audience, but right now they're not here. it's just me in my room. and sometimes i IMAGINE they're there, and that trips me up, traps me. i can't let them come in. it's dancing more than anything else because i fear the predatory eyes and the judgment and they think they own my body. i want to say, when i feel that gaze, my whole body will revolt, contort, i will become bug and beast. never for you never for you never for you.

take it through. if they want to come to your world, they can be an audience and we'll talk together. if they want to ride the wave and the rhythm of this mess, we can make it work together. they don't just get to come here and make demands.

keep the mind open keep the body moving
find new eyes find new power
yes yes yes yes feel that fire !!!!

can we always be dancing?? can we warm up wake up dancing every day? how can we try?
(we need a floor first, oh yeah)

stop thinking

listen i'm not even drinking
listen i'm stone cold sober
(unless you count adderall, 9 hours before)
i'd like to keep talking but i need to go take care of the dogs and then pack and then blah

maybe there is a lesson here about HOW I AM FUCKING OVERTHINKING EVERYTHING IN MY FUCKING LIFE and it shouldn't take this long or this much stress to pack. i'm going to the woods, but what do i really need?? a toothbrush and some clothes and a flashlight. why do i think i need more?

please alanna please stop being so sucked in by the computer. you think you need to know stuff that you don't need to know. most of what you are doing is actually hoarding. much of the time you are just following a line of tabs that never get read or watched and just pile up and pile up. REMEMBER WHEN you didn't miss that???? remember the communes in 2015 and remember the freedom of being phoneless in the loony bin???? you can't know everything and it stops mattering. the focus shifts. you've got to get to that. you've got to get to your body and intuition and the computer is neither of those things. you've got to stop. you're going to stop right now and you're going to stop writing and turn off the computer and go do the htings you have to do. you're going to cleanse your body and spirit in the woods, in the mud, in the river. when you come home, you're going to organize your fucking room and set up a fucking work space. you're going to make some fucking art. you're going to write. you're going to get one of those copyediting jobs and bring in some green beans. things are on the move and they're going to happen but we have to make them happen.

CAN WE DO A TWO WEEK COMPUTER CLEANSE OR SOME SHIT

okay here we go

lost on the ride

i haven't been writing. that's no good. i think this adderall helps my brain to not be a pinball machine but instead i am constantly hyperfocusing (??) i don't know if that' sthe right word to use for what is happening. i'm forgetting that i put a string around my finger. i maybe lost hte string before it even got to my finger. oof. i'm getting lost in the internet ALL THE TIME. this week i made a bunch of internet IMPULSE BUYS which is a new thing that i've never really done and it was a little too easy. i'm trying to do some research, or what i am doing turns into research, but i am just amassing a bunch of links and articles that i have not read. it's all stuff that's very exciting to me, about clown and performance and activist art, but the deeper i go, the more overwhelmed i am. first of all, by the amount of information i've already gathered that i haven't touched, and second, by the sheer amount of people in this work. is this kinda why i fell off the train last year? when i realized there are thousands of clown troupes roving around the world, living my dream??
BUT REMEMBER - if them, why not me? don't forget that xmas revelation!!! that was a big one. if people are doing it, why can't i be one of them?? because i'm afraid of not being as good as them OR of not being original enough. it seemed like a better idea before i realized there were thousands of theatre clowns. BUT ALSO REMEMBER - as we learned from our trip to dell'arte, much of what these clowns are doing is not exciting to me. they're doing a different thing, they're on their own journey. that's why i keep coming back to POCHINKO and the CLOWN FARM and canada and i know i have to go there. i have to write to john, said donna. i have to call donna back. why am i avoiding these things???????? fear of failure, probably. goddamn that one.


i just got lost on a goodreads trail for like 30 or more minutes. what hte fuck. i didn't want to and i don't want to. i have nO SELF CONTORL!!!!!!

damn dumb

i've opened a beer but i'm out of lives on candy crush and also on two dots and that means i have to find something new to look at on the phone or try to be in my body in 20 minutes or however long it actually takes to drink a beer - does anyone know?
i'm sick with shuffle playing love songs. i want the passion but not the subject.
i tell myself it's okay, today is so and so, this isnt time to quit or even abstain. as if the day exists. what a fiction ! does adderall make my memory worse? could it get any worse?
(maybe i didn't know before... i'm not good at remembering the specifics but i can feel changes - or maybe i was always doing these physical things but my brain was pinballing so fast i didn't take the time to observe the physical stuff except every now and then? (oh wait your toes have been crunched up for maybe 30 minutes and it doesn't feel so great.))

run with the wolves and make art

respond !

be wild

be stupid

if you're thinking too much you're not able to be creative

don't use fear to avoid the river

work EVERY DAY no matter what

notebooks. pens. pockets.

get the fuck off the internet

fucking today why

saw on the calendar that today is the new moon. it's june. which means that today is the one year anniversary of chris cheating on me (to my knowledge) and also leaving me. no wonder i have felt like hell all day. and now my heart is racing and my mind is fuzzy and all the other stupid shit that happens when i get triggered. my throat closing. my eyes blurring. the whole deal. i just want to lie down but i have so much to do. i guess it's better to stay busy than to wallow.


also my cat has been gone since before the storm last night and i'm very worried.

why in the fuck do i think i can be everywhere at once
why can't i pay attention when people are supposed to listen to me
why can't i pay attention when i'm supposed to hear anyone



what the fuck is wrong with you.
why do you sound miserable and whiny all the time.
no one wants to be friends with a depressive or someone who is constantly complaining. this is not news.
you look back at the night, the day, the week, the month, and you remember conversations but not where you were. like your mouth just opens and the shit flies out without you intending it to.
maybe medication can fix this.
how the fuck do you fix this? being unintentionally negative whiny complaining. being never in your mind or body. being automatic fool forever. how the fuck do you fix something so far gone