Sunday, October 22, 2017

paper piles

I'm deep cleaning my old room again and I've gotten to the hardest part -- the papers. Years of artifacts have collected into bags and baskets and piles around the room. I try to sort through them - I tell myself to keep it simple this time - but before I know it, the piles are multiplying (as Brett would say).

1) Trash, 2) Recycling (for the curb), 3 Recycling (for at-home paper making), 4) notes and drawings from friends, 5) personal writing, 6) receipts/ephemera, 7) programs and brochures, 8) stickers, 9) collage supplies, 10) fortune cookie fortunes, 11) WILAC movie detritis, 12) Thigns That Might Look Cool Photocopied, and 13) Things I've Had So Long I Should Probably Keep Them.

I debate whether to have a new pile dedicated specifically to Mental Health. The piles will become files. I'm simply cataloging. I tell myself this to release the lump i my throat from old love notes. I carefully unfold each scrap, read each receipt looking for a way to weigh these papers against the one where a man who assaulted me had written his phone number (how I had forgotten), and a pink pamphlet from 2006 - Understanding Your Anxiety - in which some forgotten counselor had circled "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." Before my mind can spiral into the HOW? and ALREADY? and WHO DID THIS? I laugh and lay it down, there's another mystery waiting its turn.


Thousands of papers. Hundreds of scraps. They begged me for a home.


For years, for miles, I've carried them. It's not easy to let go.


Moshe C----- I had forgotten you entirely.


It's comforting to remember that forgetting is possible. Maybe not the best revenge, but still it's a healing thought.



I had forgotten you until I read your name on the page, some venue, some date, your number.



I would never have remembered you if I hadn't read your name on this page. It's hard to write this and I'm trying to find rhymes in it as a way to dissociate.

It doesn't hurt as much if you make it a game.
Now the paper's in the trash and I'll never think of you again.


The moment is hard enough. The writing is harder. Or I tell myself that as an excuse to have a cup of wine.

I'm going to start drinking less - I'm already working on it - but specifically to stop using alcohol as a coping mechanism. I say it will help me process (I think sometimes it does) but really I'm just cloudy and lost.





Mama asks and I have to tell her, yes I finally got diagnosed at the Athena Project. Han said she'd write it up for me, and I can pick it up next week, but basically they think I have PTSD, general anxiety, social anxiety, depression, and some alcohol dependence. Mama says, "It all makes sense to me ecept the PTSD. Is that from the breakup?" I know she doesn't mean to cut me but she does. "Well no it's from earlier stuff in that relationship mostly..." I'm flailing. "Mostly? What else do they think it's from?" I can't place her tone exactly, but it feels interrogative and intense, like I will never have the right answer. "Stuff from a long time ago. I dont' really want to talk about it." She lets it go. Hours later I'm wondering if I missed an opportunity to connect - I've never understood why we are so distant from each other, why it's so hard for me to be open and vulnerable with her. (It's hard for me to be vulnerable at all, in a real way, in person.)

I wonder why she's never told me about her own trauma, why I only know about it in such vague terms from an unsent letter, and finally got more information from Morgan last year. Is it that she thinks she's told me already? She does that with lots of other things. Or is she purposefully not telling me? Or is she just not ready or available to talk about it with me? Was she trying to get to that place by talking today? If that's the case I don't understand why I feel so judged, misunderstood, scrutinized for my feelings, my diagnosis, my experience. Or is that just how all mamas are?


She told me recently that my first grade teacher told ehr she was "too intense" (is this right? or was there another descriptor?) and that's why I was afraid to talk in class. She said she cried so much and felt so guilty.
When I was in second grade she started having panic attacks.



I'm sorry, Mama. If I had been better they wouldn't have blamed you and you might not have felt so bad about yourself. (I know you feel bad and you hide it, like me.) But it can't have been your fault. As early as preschool I was judged, laughed at, and ostracized. I wish I could remember why, but I know it wasn't because of you.


I wish I could remember why you had to give me my first safe word (but I already wrote about that.)


Why sometimes do I have to have my hand held, when I can't stand it when people don't fill in context clues and ask constant questions? I guess I think save them! There are bigger questions! Like how do I fix this hole in my ceiling?

Friday, August 25, 2017

the problem where it's in my head so it's already true. being bored with everything. nothing being good enough. i see it with clarity how it could be better, should be. so why am i not doing it?

but how can i do it alone ?????
everything i want is dependent on others. i thought maybe i could make it work here but clearly i can't. this has been the problem all along. i couldn't find the support among my friends, so i sought it externally and i crashed + burned. dependent and dead.

i thought i had some good ideas over the last couple days. i was so fired up. i needed anyone to fuel the flames. all responses (except rex my love) were lukewarm. i was shattered. i broke apart. i became again dumb, useless, unimaginative, incapable, etc forever. i don't know what's true. i don't know what's real. i'm so busted apart with self doubt and dissociation that i don't know even about reality.
i want to talk about it but i'm a pretend artist working without a practice. my mode has been to instigate others or to glom on later. i have no solo. i have no way to know. i consider being alone in my bedroom trying to "work" and i throw up in my mouth, i can't eat for hours. (do i eat at all?) it's as if i'm supposed to have seen everything already but actually not, oh it's better if you don't, just be yourself. it's as if i am supposed to know how to funnel this brain crash through a gold pan and discover my own secret brilliance, eventually. elsewise i guess i'd better sell my (l)eggs to go to school and have them tell me how to be. i'm at a loss. i'm done for. i want to move to a new town and die. i want to disappear or explode.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

LIST OF DEMANDS

  • always pen + paper
  • only clothes with pockets
  • good art, better art

Sunday, July 09, 2017

hex

I cut the cord. I take back everything I've ever given you. My time, my energy, my love, all of it is flowing out of you and back to me. I give myself these gifts. I deserve my own kindness. I have the power to heal.
You have none of me. You will feel cold and alone. You will find yourself left with nothing until you do the work of healing. Your silver tongue will turn to stone. You will get exactly what you deserve.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

(sloppy words found on an envelope, some time during or after clown class, spring 2017)

i always stand there thinking I COULD DO THAT so why not?
it must take a massive leap. no more pretending to be REAL, no more faking.
i'm tired of being the Responsible one. ugh

kiss them up dearest touching (????)
kiss face to wind to sip or spin
kick up the dirt that isn't dancing

if i can't go now, i never will go
if i can't know (?) now, who will fucking tell me?
no one will mourn nor remember you
it's already too late

oh to write the things that think
before the thoughts are formed
BUT how to be so quick?!




somehow all this bland shit is just
pressing the pause button
in between what is surely
the greatest show on earth or ???
I'm craving (?) to get out of
this version of myself.
NOTHING I WANT is allowed.
is that me? or is that just
totally pathetic. i'm tired
of feeling totally pathetic.
i want it all to be a rush (?????)

i have a lot of work to do.
realize these notes will never be read.
even you will not read them.
become as indecipherable as possible.
you are not made to last.

i want to make everyone believe in magic
that is hard + true + dissonant.
i want to be bugs + dirt + children +
death. how can we bring it.
it's not here in this place with these people.
you didn't find the thing you thought.
it's not your fault. you had to try.
it's not a place, it's a feeling + a purpose. you
know that. you can't rely on a new location.
how is it that you feel more bright and
alive now that nothing is real, no one is
awake, and you've got four drinks inside?
not even blurry silly, just convinced. This is
not the hovel you're looking for. the right
answer is not gonna come in a flask. there
is no right answer. but you have to kill the
feeling that something is wrong + find out

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

today

gojis had so many buds, including some of the new implants. 
also pruned them and the grapes and wlberberries. griff is great. tarryn brought biscuits with amish butter. 
meanwhile thursday sent messages from afar that sent me spinning. where do we go?
farm alliance meeting was awkward. i'm just not the same as these people. even before the third beer. bff isolated itself a little but mike was cute and outgoing. 
i started feeling really sad about my grandparents and the ways i've failed them - their expectations as well as my own. i should have collected more stories, memories, sayings. i hear myself trying to say their words and it just hurts. 
told katherine that i want to be funny (again) and how i miss her (again) and that i've been thinking of stupid fake stand up jokes when i wake up in the morning. she wants to hear them for some reason.  but i'm not sure if they're translatable without the laugh track and funny faces.  
i started getting really sad and crying because i don't belong here, as much as i try. nobody saw it. i'm a great actor. i bought a pack of cigarettes to help me handle it. i bought a whisky ginger to help me handle it. i said "can i get... a.. um..." and he said "'may i'? that mught help." i must've given him a look but he brought out a menu anyway. i explained that we'd had a misunderstanding. i thought he was in teacher mode telling me to use 'may' instead of 'can't' but you can't explain the joke after it's happened. at any rate he didn't charge me for the drink. he was cute and young (dani type) and i think he was trying to convince coworkers to come to karaoke at the crown after shift. 
but after that i still went to the bathroom and cried because i'm missing all the things i care about. i don't know how to talk about it. i'm depressed that my therapist stopped contacting me. i'm depressed that i'm surrounded by farmers and i don't share their knowledge- how much do i want to? i'm depressed by all the books i haven't read and jokes i haven't said. i bought smokes. i told morgan at christmas that i smoke because i hate myself and she made me vow to quit. i was doing okay but i haven't stopped the hate. what is the source? i've explained that i feel less depressed when i'm busy and doing things and have lots of projects- then comes anxiety but it's different problems. i'm still avoiding the root of the problem. i'm still in hate with me. and having urges that i can't fulfill, thinking of writing or joking or whatever. thinking of myself in some other schemes but there's no time to dream with all of these other plans on my head. whose plan? whose dream? where do i fit? nathalie told me to see this pattern. i don't need to go where o think i can help. my help is not the solution. how fuxking selfish even am i?? the neediness of feeling other. the demand to be understood. the feeling of never holding anything. 
they've replaced our old streetlight. it was yellow and faulty and perfect. now we have a constant white dawn over everything, to prevent breakins i expect. the light is cold and familiar and unchanging. i sleep with the blanket over my head. 
i miss my cat. dear gods i miss her more than anything. how i have failed. 

Saturday, October 15, 2016

someone pinched my neck. thought it was you, wrong. bartender laughed at how disoriented I was.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

you can see the shape of the fist in the wall 
and the twist of your wrist in my hair that's your call 
how can I not respond 
how can I not try to touch you 
when all you want is the silence of the highway jump 
when all you want is no response 
when all you want is get the fuck off
after the pulling pushing difference 

I have to remind you it's a meeting 
the door is open 
how you shove and show 




you can see the fists that you fit between the frames that we fixed on this old dirty name 
what could we have done 
how do we stop it 

donotdie
do not die 
donut die 

(( why can't you write 
why does everything feel permanent when it's typed 
why can't you say here ! it is ! I called it now ! and how ! 
it's time to die and die and die ))


it kills that sound and you can't with that sound and you can't begin 

how they sit and try but it's pretend 

Thursday, August 04, 2016

travel dream

impossible spaces/portals like subway platforms, train stations, airports, a pointed tower and a sometimes bar in the middle of the ocean

family is flying away to Japan with all the little dogs In a bag. irie hops out at the gate and poops on the floor. jangly and colorful.
is this where I run into emy? she will become my sidekick through the travels
I think we're even playing Pokemon?!

I know we end up at this impossible bar in the middle of the ocean that only sometimes exists. we drink to get drunk and somehow make it home (a water train??) where we proceed to make out in the bushes. a lot. super hot. this part is a real blur but not a short one.
I think even there's more... I remember a diner where emy is blurring into Bekka.

later I realize I left something at the bar and I'm trying to get back. I'm trying to find Thursday but his phone goes straight to voicemail. I'm standing on a tiny open platform, atop a tall tower, in the middle of the ocean. I have a card in my hand and I open it. it's blue with bubbly wavy letters. at the bottom you can scroll through different music options (classical, soothing) which are paired with different flowers. I play with this for a moment before I realize this is some sort of death letter. an official notice from his employers (military??) that thursday is drowned and gone. I refuse to believe it. surely he just dropped his phone in the ocean and that's why I can't find him. why no one can find him. I'm not giving up.

I get a phone call and now in my head it sounds like mike's voice but I think it was supposed to be emy. or maybe mike is relaying the message for her?? I'm asking how I can see her, contact info or something. I hear him saying "too indie" and I start to spell it back, oh this is her email address? you're saying i-n-d-I-E? "no you are too Indy, I-n-d-y." I'm crushed.

back to business or this may be another dream after the car woke me up. thursday? someone drinks my sun tea prematurely. I was making plain and some other weird infusion thing that was gonna mix in. I'm frustrated.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

thursday dream

wandering around some huge downtown. offered a free meal, it's this huge media blitz, ads everywhere and staff with matching t shirts and smiles pushing paper to everyone on the street. but why not? we have to go through a series of "interactive challenges" to get to the food. for one, we enter a room where the door is blocked by an undulating human chain of smiley staffers. in order to pass you have to wriggle under arms or squeeze through an ever changing gap between two sections of bodies. it's not comfortable. it's meant to be "engaging" but it's just embarrassing.
there are not very many people here and the ones participating are all young & affluent. I try to imagine an actually needy/hungry person here and it seems impossible.

did we ever get the free food? I hope so, after all that.

I remember being in a long line and we were just a couple people behind your ex (who was actually Regina). you did not want her to spot us. her portion of the line got on an elevator and you made sure we weren't on it. what's so scary, I wonder?

we're in some sort of museum when i find my vibrator in my pocket and you find it quite amusing. of course you turn it on and embarrass me with the noise. it gets stuck and I have to unscrew the cap to make it stop.

we run into Marti from work, and her daughter, who want to sit down and chat. we are on a roof looking over onto a falls. there are stone circle table and stools at the corners of the roof, hanging out over the edge. I step carefully out from step to step, terrified of the drop. but Marti's young daughter barrels out and I realize there is a platform below the stone steps as well. of course there is, I think, they wouldn't want people sitting anywhere dangerous. we talk and when I turn around again I realize we aren't on a roof at all, but solid ground. perception

we are tagging along with some crowd, some friends maybe you ran into. I don't mind until I hear you making plans without me. it's not that I don't want to go swimming at twin oaks this afternoon, but that you commit without checking in. maybe this is just my pride, a clutching at still having sovereignty over myself. whatever it is I still want to go swimming.


lots more but I forget. 

Monday, July 04, 2016

I don't know how to be in a relationship in which I am consistently questioned, mistrusted. 
I don't want to be constantly on the defensive. 
earlier tonight you knelt down to look me in the eye, to say you would take care of me, and I believed it so fully, I thought, has anyone ever loved me this much? wanted to take care of me so fully and earnestly? 
but then you got distracted, it's okay, so do I. and then instead of finding promised food, you questioned my fidelity, all over an empty jam jar. how can I possibly respond?? if you can't trust my actions OR my words, where does that leave me?
I've told you: I want you. I love you. you're sexy. I'm not interested in anyone else. I'm not seeking anyone's attention but yours. you're so good at just being you, you don't have to be anything else. 
I just spend the last 30 hours rescuing you from south Virginia. I don't know how else to prove any of it. I'm exhausted. 

is it the alcohol? what makes your brain go there? I wish you would believe me but maybe you can't and if that's the case maybe you don't need me in your life in this capacity. I'm not done, but I'm done with either of us feeling so bad.

Sunday, July 03, 2016

incomplete dream

bff was a huge maze of a house and grounds 

Gracie Lou got outside twice and a snow leopard?? was after her 
the first time I got her back easy 

later the second time she had blood on her face and the beast tackled me 
but it had hands not paws and its  shape was all wrong 

 it turned out to be a person, no one I know in real life, very pale & fair, frizzy orange hair. kept referring to meeting me before 

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Sunday, June 19, 2016

worst morning

  • cat food on the people plates 
  • someone drank my beer 
  • people tried to change meeting to 7 
  • deuce tells me that unexpected visitor is about to arrive 
  • new can of oogles 
  • cats in the warehouse 
  • Ken doesn't take responsibility when I question oogles in kitchen re: cats
  • later cats are still there. Ken did not talk to them as promised so I have to. 
  • thursday says some anti feminist shit 
  • my room is full of flies 
  • bes brings piglet info pickle house and panics Gracie Lou 
  • dan didn't put gas in my car or tell me that the window is fuxked up 
  • rushing to go to work
  • getting gas takes forever 
  • it's hot as fuck 
  • what am I doing here 
  • where do I belong

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

library life

after a weekend of cooking my brain and losing my mind and crushing my body, i was terrified and panicked to start my new job. even at the library! even though i should've felt perfect, i was in a panic after not having had a "real" job for years (ever??)

last night i could hardly sleep, and when i did, i was woken up over and over by my nightmares -- sexual violence and terror and mundane garbage. in the last dream, around 6am, i had to get to work but i was stuck in south boston with thursday and time kept moving and we kept not catching each other to come back to baltimore.

but despite the lack of sleep, i felt motivated and capable all morning. in the shower, i realized i'd been humming "polly, put your kettle on," my literal get-it-done theme song back in austin. i knew i could do it all! i immediately put on some coffee, put together my outfit, and put my diva cup in a pot to boil WHICH I HAVEN'T USED IN A YEAR because i haven't cleaned it. what!!!!

i left the house an hour before my shift to pop into artifact for an egg-cheese-mushroom muffin and, let's face it, a soy latte. despite being there much longer than anticipated, i didn't feel too rushed on the half-hour commute and even though i'd never been there, i didn't feel too stressed about driving across baltimore. these skinny bumpy streets confuse me but somehow i'm learning just by being a passenger. my learning style is observation sponge, and even i don't know it's working till way down the road.



SO. revelations:

  • libraries are always going to be comfortable, no matter what.
  • librarians are awkward turtles and i don't have to be scared of them.
  • i thrive in a service position!
  • i love to help people!
  • helping people makes me love people!
  • i am capable of being confident!
  • i believe i can accomplish things that regular people can. (fix my car, fix my life.)
  • i believe i can still retain my sense of self and my weirdness while working a "normal" job.
  • i think i can also stop smoking! i can! or at least cut way down.

Monday, May 09, 2016

what do i remember about that night???? chris was flirting with me. maybe we had already started snuggling..... i know we had at least been talking/hanging out on the couch in pickle house. 

were we going somewhere? cel came upstairs and we were standing in a little circle by the fridge. 
or did i get up and come back to find the two of them talking?

i remember asking if we woke him up, apologizing. i think it was the next day, he said he couldn't sleep "with a fire under his ass" and a suggestive sort of look.  what could that mean? i didn't ask.

today he's whispering so ken won't hear about a previous "arrangement" he had with chris. something to do with education. sounds like something to do with sex, if i'm reading his implications correctly.  

he also says chris wanted me and him to get closer and that he was trying to bring us together. 
so you're saying he's fucking me to get us to be friends??
and you're saying that chris placed us here on purpose, to 


okay i don't buy it. 

okay i think he really likes me and i don't really know what to do with that. 

i can't get over the idea that he's making it up for some reason. but he told mike he was terrified and excited, he wouldn't say that to someone if i'm not there. to a dude!! and he told FOUR dudes today that i'm an awesome lady (or something, i guess i'll find out exactly what i am when the audio recordings roll in). 



i don't quite know what i'm doing but i don't quite mind. these last two weeks (good lord, three???) have been a blur, a dream. i don't know where we're going and i think i'm okay with that.  
that's not altogether true. i know you're going to south boston, virginia, any damn minute now. and where will be then? you want me to come with you, at least you say you do, at least for part of the time. i can't imagine what this will look like, so i haven't said yes or no. i'm still curious. i still want to see what happens after brett gets here, what we will look like then, and if you are still interested when we're not fucking every couple nights. 

you said:
you want to help me build my space. 
you want to be as honest and open as possible. the experiment is on and for yourself. 
you want to know a good thing.
i can calm you down and descalate you from getting angry, violent. 
i make you feel comfortable in your body.
i make you feel human. 

you said a great many things i can't recall. 


i believe we could do great things. i want to make magic with you. i want to build it better. 

i'm still scared. i'm scared you might be trying to fuck me over, or just get something from me. (what's left? i'm not sure.)
i'm scared that i'm hitting you hard, like wild turkey, and i'm drunk with the right-now good, dreading the ambiguous future. i'm scared i don't know you. (isn't that the point of this, though?)
i'm scared of your massive past, the violence, the drugs, the women. 

your reaction tonight when i told you about cel, about what i thought he was implying, was huge, terrifying. you wanted to hurt him, our poor friend. somehow i calmed you down for now, promising i would talk to him tomorrow before you're back in town... but i don't know how we're going to endure a 4 hour car ride with him for the wedding this weekend, let alone share a tent. i feel terrible. what have i accused him of? what do i know? now i have to have an impossible conversation (is it?) to find out if he's listening to our sex and listening on purpose. the attempt will be better than your proposals. 
i don't understand reacting like that but somehow it doesn't disturb me like it does in other people, or maybe like it would have in the past. why?? maybe i think you're all talk. (not really true.) 


i have a strong desire to record your stories, to pin you down and hold you before you unravel all around me.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

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

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

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

Thursday, April 21, 2016

we like shapes in the night

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

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

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

Monday, April 11, 2016

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

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

Thursday, March 31, 2016

falling down dream

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

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

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

Luke and curtis picking pig to Slaughter

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

fuck it all.
you are supposed to be an artist.
you are meant to do it and you know that.
quit comparing yourself to other people.
quit trying to figure out where you fucked up.
just DO.
you gotta start reading more first and taking it all in.
you gotta start practicing writing. that 3 pages a day thing. just go wild.
you gotta start carrying around a notebook.
and probably actually leaving the house so that you can get out of your own stupid thought cycle.
maybe practice with an adaptation. turn a book into a play. or write a dream into a short story.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

while working on the concrete site

this old stuff has me cracking up! I want to be funny again. I think I have it in me somewhere. 
all these little plans. I need to dream big again. 
I want to make magic!
I'm so sad I didn't go to the earth first workshop. I want to find a way to create things. it's important! 

I'm excited for my pen pal project. I need to write some emails. that will be a start of something.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

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

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


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



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



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

Friday, February 05, 2016

it's shocking how boring you are.

Friday, December 25, 2015

actually, though, why is it so hard to be home at christmas?

we don't know what to do with each other. everyone is looking at a screen. everyone is miscommunicating or misunderstanding each other, either because we were looking at screens when we were trying to make a plan, or because screens have killed any communication skills we maybe once had. we don't know how to talk. we don't know how to listen.

your parents have the same problems that you do and it's hard to watch.

papa can't hear anymore so you don't know how to talk to him. you can talk nonsense with grandma, but she doesn't know who you are.

all your big dreams shrink to fit back inside the old house, back into your dark heart. they smolder there and you expect to be embarrassed to talk about them, but no one asks you anyway. you've already been written off. the dreams die without a fire.

you thought you could understand the world out there, but that mess of trash and war seems like a far-off thought and you're the only one worried about wasting paper on plastic presents and not being able to compost the potato skins. if they talk politics, your words will leave you and you fail your cause entirely. what words are left in times like these?

there is a blister on your mouth that rots all your words.

you ask your mother when you began to hate everything. you guess college but she answers "middle school" and probably she is right. she says she felt this way but she hated hating and the world was too much so she gave it up. but she doesn't tell you not to.

just from watching doctor who with the family you love, the family you crave, you know that something is wrong.

you almost cried, to recall the brilliance of Lucille ball. why can't we all? why can't we? what stops us? strips us?

the moon is full and the grass is wet and it's 85 degrees on Christmas.

the world is dying and broken and full of plastic. you know you're either dead or fighting.

you aren't going to win by crouching behind a bush, sucking down fire, calling desperate to a foreign moon with nothing but your dead self and cold toes.

inside there is light and laughter and you've never been its partner.

you are the broken dream of people who wanted better.

Friday, December 18, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

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

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

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

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

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

Sunday, December 13, 2015

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

Thursday, December 10, 2015

in the sub shop after the concert

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

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

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

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

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

night call

i have a lot to say and a lot of need to say it. it's hard to make myself make time for writing down words. i usually write the first nugget of an idea, intending to continue later, and just never do. half the posts on this blog from the last year are unfinished, you can probably tell.

i've just been sucked into an internet wormhole for the last 2-3 hours. my latest "hobby" is obsessively saving websites i like on the wayback machine so that they are PRESERVED FOREVER by great mother internet. this evening, the category was livejournals and yes you have to click through the whole journal to get every page archived, but there's a big chunk on the screen there so you can't do a whole lot of reading while you're saving, which is very irritating and not productive.

first of all, i miss livejournal. which is blasphemous, i know, since i held out for so long and never really got so into it, always solo floundering about over here instead. but i miss the whole concept, people sharing such small thoughts and writing mostly for themselves-- for the exercise and for the document and for the hell of it. facebook has never been remotely close to that, and never will be. (that very thought makes me want to delete fucking facebook right now, but what am i gonna do, sit over there and be the only non-russian person on livejournal? no.) i wonder if people are still writing somewhere... online? on paper? word documents? and, are these people, are my friends and peers still writing at all? (other than the ones who are being paid to do it, the lucky beautiful bastards) or is it really just something that young people do? and i dunno, i guess i'm old, aren't they all on snapchat? or is there anything at all like lj for these kids nowadays. i'm saying.

and also just seeing these quick flashes, each page a new season, the ups and downs, stresses and excitements, everything so huge and overwhelming, the passion, the potential. and what are we doing now? some of us took off like rockets, having seemingly always known exactly what we wanted. but the rest of us (the real "us") seem to roll along and dip and fall and land and roll along some more. maybe i'm mostly talking about me, but it seems that it's just hard to do the things we're meant to do and harder not to hate every day. i know we're living in a broken world within a spirit-crushing, oppressive system, but to remember so clearly, to look back at all your bubbling words and feelings and the THRILL and maybe you didn't know exactly what you wanted to do with your life, but you knew what it felt like. and we none of us could make it happen.

i'm tired of blaming myself for not being good enough, for fucking up or feeling like one, for not having things "figured out." actually i do have it figured out dammit and what i figure is that this culture wasn't built for us and that's why we're broken. it's time to take it back. and i don't care if you think it sounds stupid because it's fucking true, and if you know it's true, you won't think it's stupid. so let's fucking go. i'm tired of seeing my friends with tense faces and old news and it fucking kills me and i'm so sad that you're not loving your life because you're the best and i want you to have everything and i want us to build it beautiful together.

my life is a goddamn wreck. OR IS IT??? the world is a goddamn wreck.
i have experienced beautiful wonderful terrible things.
i know there is a whole lot more out there than the tv would have me believe.
i just ate a whole bunch of delicious dumpstered goat cheese and avocado on wheat toast and it was delicious and i loved it. the whole fridge is full and all of it was free.
i've met real life witches and i've seen what's in the cupboard and it's amazing.
i know i have to make the steps to change myself.
first i'm moving to baltimore free farm, for the garden and the sweet gentle people and the warehouse event space and the evolution and the egalitarianism, and for john waters.
but the moving, as i've learned before, is not enough. i have to craft a space for myself and my community, i have to create the things i want because they don't exist, i have to make it good.
probably this means i will have to cut other things out, which will be hard, but it's long overdue.
i'll jump off that bridge when i come to it, and i'll let you know how it goes.
there are so many things i need to learn and if i don't start now, i'll be dead soon.
i really do want you all to join me, i want us to go together. it'll be so much easier, and much more fun. and if not here, then where? what does the good life look like to you? how do we get there? what's stopping us?

this is the end of the black cherry cider, and the end of the night, almost dawn. if i can sleep, i'll try for some good visions and if i remember, i'll write them down.

Tuesday, December 08, 2015

sometimes i think i ought to charge

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

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

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

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

how did i end up again against some him?

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

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

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

Saturday, December 05, 2015

on the road with Gil

the time of being a culture people sponge is coming to a close. after the solstice, in the new year, I will curl into reflection, back to written words,worlds, follow pen and paper trails to make the story.

I will follow up with my own ideas, goals, visions. don't let them down.
I will follow up with new friends and comrades, keep connecting with the visionaries and the big beautiful planners. how can we all connect?

seeing myself as a connector: bring people toward each other, facilitate meeting of minds and ideas for bigger goals.
an organizer: making events come alive, planning for the big beautiful. MAKE it happen, no more waiting.
this was always the goal: to create a beautiful world. to be my own ugly in it. to transform what ugly does.

Friday, November 27, 2015

what happens when you go home for the holidays

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

Sunday, November 15, 2015

don't trust other people with your ideas.
don't trust other people to know better than you about your things.

i would've ordered a new charger, i would've shipped the old one to east wind.
i knew the package would never make it in time, we'd be stuck here waiting or have to leave without it.
we waited an extra day and we're still leaving without it.
so i finally ordered new goddamn gear this morning, which i should've done immediately when i realized my idiot self left the charger in ohio.


if you had told me you shipped the whole thing back to acorn, i could've ordered a new battery as well as a charger. now i'm down to one.
yes it's better than nothing.
yes really there's no one to be mad at but myself.

and then why am i SO upset? what makes me take this SO seriously?
(and yet not serious enough, i could've done so much more.)
((and yet so serious that i build it up and up until i'm too paralyzed to shoot))

3 and a half months after i've started this journey and i feel totally unaccomplished and broken down.
at first i had a lot of ideas for what i wanted to capture, my vision of my role.
you all wanted heads talking with your own ideas regurgitated. nothing new, nothing true.
after i adjusted to the reality, i still had lots of ideas-- what i thought would capture people's attention, funny videos and zines and things.
you all crushed my ideas and i went ahead and finished killing them off.

so where am i now?
i felt so good about what i gathered at the midden. not great, but okay.
i felt so good until alex said "let's do another interview once you've fleshed out your thoughts more."
i felt so good until rejoice asked if i got exterior shots, after we'd left the state, after knowing that they took the house tour without me.
i felt so good until my dumb ass left my battery and charger in the kitchen, right there in the wall, right where someone else plugged it in.
i felt so good when i found mike's phone charger and packed it for him, how thorough i am! (a lie, i felt irritated that dustin had taken his phone and left the charger here, full well knowing this was mike's because he borrowed it, this is part of our party, this comes with us. and even now i feel irritated, surely someone in our crew saw the battery there in the wall, someone knew this thing should not stay in ohio.)
i felt so good when this journey was an adventure, when i had a purpose, how i was alive and living.

where am i now?
i'm so mad at myself about the battery that i'm not present, not engaging, not actively asking questions or trying to learn new people.
and i'm feeling like a grump, irritated by everything, constant frown.
i feel myself faking it trying to let loose and it feels awful.
i hope i don't have to go back on meds.




back on the road, we arrive at Possibility Alliance just in time to catch a tour with a student group from Truman College. we're just a couple minutes late, so a visitor walks us out to a patch of grass where the rest of the group is gathered in a circle, popcorn-sharing the things we want to change about our world.
Ethan wears a red baseball cap and leads animatedly, barely able to keep up with himself and the long strings of ideas he wants to share. some of the kids seem already bored or jaded, or maybe i just can't tell what people are feeling anymore.
it feels good to sit in the grass, in the sun, to watch the cow and feel the eyes of other humble humans who are not (yet) communards, with a whole different kind of jadedness.
as idealistic or radical or "crazy pants" as ethan might be, i'm still drawn into his words, jogging along after the chasing thoughts, i'm feeling this.
"we look at screens more often than we look in each other's eyes. humans spend more than half of their waking hours looking at screens."
i'm wasting my life, it's clear.
ethan is adamant that we shouldn't feel too guilty about our own habits up to this point; that will only lead to more suffering, more pain. self-hate is not the solution.
this is a hard one to remember.
i can feel the others in my party are not so sold. rejoice has gotten this tour speech twice already and dustin's already checked out and "hopeless" (his words, his goal) at 22.
as much as i'm feeling the impact of these stories, of being here, i can't get rid of the nagging consciousnesses of the other side.
it's funny what impressions i have of the different communities before i get there. i guess i thought i wouldn't be interested in this place -- why, exactly? i can't recall now, and i can't remember details, just a vague impression.
maybe because they have a "gift economy" which in Point A world is not as interesting or radical as income-sharing and therefore is null.
maybe because it's just a small farm with one family in the middle of nowhere, missouri.
but being here, maybe it's the college tour, i get the sense that they're engaged on a broader level than most of the other communities i've met. they host quaker meetings, craft nights, work days, straw bale building workshops and permaculture trainings. they just got back from a rally (??) in detroit for water rights.
and they've done all this with ONLY a landline telephone and no other electricity.
so what do we think we're doing???
at every community i visit, i consider living there, if only for a moment. on this day, in light of all this mess, i wonder what my life would be like without electricity, without screens. how important are they and how much do i need them, really?
maybe ethan is a crackpot and an idealist but isn't that what i've always wanted to be too?
he asks us this question i've heard a lot lately-- if you could do anything, be anything, if someone waved a magic wand and you could have your dream, what would it look like?
i never do know.
i think that's a major part of my problem.
it changes on the daily or it floats just beyond me, a shifting shape in the fog.
what would happen if i cut it all out, the distractions and the phoneys and the plastics? would i find any answers?
what if i learned all new arts, what if i learned a whole new way to be myself?

i might want some of my modern things.
i might want a manual typewriter.
i might learn to build creatures and make worlds and take photos on film to tell my stories.
i certainly will need my cat.
i don't know what to do about that.

for that moment when i imagine myself in whichever community, i can be anything, i have a whole beautiful life there for myself.
and every life, in every land, is always different.


i listen so much, it's one of the few things i'm really good at, that i value about myself.
so often i hear you before you've spoken. sometimes i can answer before you've said it -- and then you interrupt me to tell me your thought and it was exactly what i thought. why can't you hear me??


"Pandora was pretty dopey dude, she had pretty simple instructions. just don't open the box! stupid bitch."

make this man stop butchering this song.

Friday, November 06, 2015

thin skin

this is why my thin gs are lost.

this is why i'm not allowed.

i tried to organize the zines and pamplhets; they were in miples that made sense.
i walked away.
i walked away and that's my own fault.
i walked away and came back to a beautiful clean table.
a clean table and all my piles all my attempts to organize dismissed.
why did i ever bother
why did i even exist
i'm sorry that i have to make piles to feel alive. i don't know where to go where that's okay.
i don't know where i can give anything that gets credit.
i want to be yr legit diy librarian.
yr diy archivsit
yr diy therapist

and yet get into an argument:
you need to shave your legs.
OH DO I
i can't understand although she says it's not personal, it isn't me, she would say it to anyone
can i exist even this close to the status quo
YES WE'RE SAYING THESE WORDS
can i exist without being judged?
no. i'm okay with that.
i'm a judge too it's cool.
can i exist without being made a fool?
okay but you decided that'
the clown was the object
how can i be a clown without being destroyed?
that's for the people to decide
you're the joke
you play the part
and see how the audience reacts
you can't decide how it all shakes down

they ask if you know your skin is thin
if you know your size and scale

Monday, November 02, 2015

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.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

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. 

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

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.


Tuesday, September 29, 2015

(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

Friday, September 25, 2015

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.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

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!

Friday, September 18, 2015

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

Thursday, September 17, 2015

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.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

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

Monday, August 31, 2015

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.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

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?

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

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.