personal essay week 4 - caught shining

the waiter set my plate down

"thank you" as i'm contemplating

what the fuck i ordered

i rotate the plate to see if this

creature

is more manageable from another angle

mom is smiling secretly

she reveals that

she knows

she is okay with everything

like i knew she would be

but over lunch because of one

silly mistake my sister made?

while she's sipping brown ale and

i'm trying to figure out

how to bite into my sandwich

funny because nothing has happened

we are just doing what we have been doing

plus talking

it's just a proposal

i am insistent.

mom says

"my january baby's growing up

my little girl's in love"

but she's always been

such a silly woman

and hopelessly romantic

so i don't know how to act around my family

they have never known something so big about me

i am so good at keeping hidden

and when this was right in front of them

did they see?

No.

it took a little nudge from a poem

that accidentally got left in their line of vision

not even my mistake

because i know how to wipe my tracks

as i'm running away backwards

so i'm on stage melting under bright lights

EXPOSED

performing a facsimile of my life

i have forgotten how i used to be

i have forgotten my act

i'm trying to seem normal as usual

i have forgotten how to be around her

and i know they can see it now

when i lay against her shoulder

i hope at least they have a memory of who they think i am

that they can reteach to me

so "hi mom!" here's a shoutout to my family

the nosy noisemakers discovering me in here

back again? who let you in?

we'll get a bouncer for this haven

-- my former self, March 2003

I have always given myself a hard time for writing about writing, even though sometimes it’s the only thing I have to say, and probably writing about writing is better than not writing at all. Maybe.


In middle school, I read constantly, and in high school, I wrote constantly. In 2001, my best friend and I started a poetry blog together, which evolved into a writing and art blog with 36 members before fizzling out in 2008, long after Brittany and I were officially BFFs no more.


In general, my focus is terrible. I know a little about a lot, and I’ve quit nearly everything I’ve started. But for a few years, my blog -- writing, reading, web-master-ing -- gave me purpose. Confidence, even. And community! Something I’d been craving, and still crave. This group knew all my truths (even if they were told slant) thanks to my feral free verse. I had no training; I was a runaway train.


These things come back to haunt you, don’t they, the train loops back around the track. My younger sister, also a writer, artist, and steadfast member of the blog, accidentally left the website open one day over spring break in 2003. Of all the damn poems she could have read (we had hundreds of posts by now) my mom found a love poem I had penned just a few days before: “i am wearing your jacket / because it smells like you” etc etc you get the jist.


Mama invited me out to lunch at Boscos, the only local brewpub at that time. I should’ve known something was up, since it was just the two of us, but the thought didn’t cross my mind. I wore the aforementioned jacket, as I had done every single day of spring break, feeling cozy and brave all at once. After the monstrosity that was my sandwich arrived, Mama let loose that she had read the poem.


"My little girl's in love!" Her eyes sparkled over the beer glass.

"We're just talking, we haven't decided if we want to do anything or just be friends. Nothing happened."

"Okay, okay... I just can't believe it, my little January Baby is all grown up."

"Nothing happened!" I picked at my sandwich.

"Well... I just want you to know that I love you and support you, whatever you do. And it’s okay to be gay.”

"I'm not gay, I'm bi."

"But are you more attracted to men or women?"

"Neither! I’m… I'm right.. in the middle." I tried to show her with my hands. 50/50.

“But I want you to know that being gay is not easy, it can make life harder. There's a whole different set of problems..."



This was the extent of her speech. Whether or not she said it out loud, she implied that, if I were really “in the middle” I could choose to only date men, and that would make my life a lot simpler, safer, and happier.


Of course, as soon as we got home, I scratched out yet another poem about the discovery of the first poem, the subsequent conversation, and the acknowledgement that my safe space was no longer private. But even that poem is not the whole story. It doesn’t mention those difficult parts of the conversation, or that even as she verbalized that she was okay with my choices, she implied that they were somehow wrong or would end up hurting me. It doesn’t even mention that I was wearing the jacket and how embarrassing that felt, in the too-big booth at Boscos. It was not a vessel of pride now, but shame.


What the poem does say is that Elise and I were not actually romantic or dating.


~~~~~~~~~~


"It's a perfect day! A perfect day, Elise!"



I liked her as soon as I saw her. Comic book cover printed t-shirt and close cropped blond hair. I thought she would never see me but somehow she did, and my shuttered world blew open wide.



Theatre friends, gay BFF, cool-dork boyfriend (1 year older), and in the fall, a CAR. Decent-ish music tastes, but malleable enough for me to work with. Cruising immediately improved, which was good because that was pretty much all we did. Drove around town and stood around in various parking lots. What else is there, then? Suddenly somehow we had become a true GROUP, the first one we belonged to that we had chosen by ourselves. (At least that's how it was for me.)



It would go like this: Elise would already be with Kevin, so they would pick up Brock and Laylee in East Memphis, then head to midtown to get me, blast Violent Femmes on the way to the Media co-op for indie movie night, then stand around in the parking lot for 3 hours afterwards. They'd drop me off first, which made me sad but gave me time to start blogging before everyone else got home, at which point we would often continue hanging out virtually, via AIM. And we kept on going and growing.



Somehow Elise saw me and now: belonging, mobility, support, identity, self-seen-ness.



It wasn't long before I was smitten. Our group had developed a language of physical affection, dancing, and inside jokes that continued to grow our intimacy with each other. Our vulnerability allowed us to share mental health struggles and tap into half-conscious ideas about sexuality and gender and identity. Oh all the typical teenage things, really! But in this case, practically no one was straight, and if they were, they inhabited omega spaces in some other sense. (We later learned that our classmates called us "the emo kids" even though not one of us ever went through that black eyeliner stage. I decided they were just jealous that we were so full of love and having so much fun.)



Kevin and Elise broke up eventually, and I was there to support her, as I had through her previous break up. I was sleeping over nearly every weekend. Morgan Fox, our friend and mentor, gave us a copy of his first feature film, Three Minutes (Based Upon the Revolution of the Sun), after he found out we had been renting it from Black Lodge Video every single week. The movie is very DIY, very autobiographical, and very gay, and it gave us an opening and a language to start talking about our sexualities. Turns out, pretty much all of us were identifying as “bi” at the time. Elise and I watched Three Minutes while cuddling on the couch at her parents’ house. At play rehearsal, she'd lean into me and I'd stroke her hair. We had been talking about bisexuality for months and eventually started considering whether to let our relationship flow in a more romantic direction.



It was probably my idea, looking back. I was elated, walking on air. She went out of town for spring break but left her jacket at my house, and I didn't take it off for a week. And being what I was back then, I wrote a love poem and I posted it on my poetry blog, of which Elise was also a member. It was a missive, an arrow, supposed to make her swoon. It was an error.



After spring break, after the Boscos incident, I stopped wearing the jacket. Elise and I kept cuddling, but I felt different around my family now. Estranged, even though Mama said I wasn't doing anything wrong. (I wasn't, was I?)



One day Elise called me, so excited, she had just come from from Music Fest where she ran into her ex (GAG) and they ended up hanging out and having so much fun and they MADE OUT and isn't that the best?? I was floored. Had she not received any of my love arrows, in all those months? My sweets and songs. My hugs and hums. I probably pretended to be happy for her, though. I guess I had it wrong all along. I hid the hurt, but the damage was done. Six months later we had stopped speaking. A pitiful fizzle. And it would be years before I felt I had earned the right to call myself queer.

personal essay week 3 - postcards, unsent

daphne,
sometimes i hear your laugh, its ghost, and my whole body misses you.
i'm sorry i tried to kiss your nose. i hope you know.



you bastard,
you were never thursday. you are a goat, no you don't deserve that.
from now on, i will call you what you are: liar. pathetic. unforgiveable.
one day you will try to say my name and it will cut your silver tongue.
one day you will forget me entirely, while i will always work to undo you.



my beautiful friend,
i wish i would have known sooner you were trans. i wish we could have undone each other long before you announced the news on social media. we could have been bathroom buddies, truth tellers, holders of hands. to celebrate scars is to remember our travels. maybe together we could have seen the seams fraying, the tip of my chrysalis unsilking. it's okay, i'm here now, welcome home.

personal essay week 3 - quitting

5 things i have quit or tried to quit
--smoking (semi-successfully?)
--clown class, almost but i didnt (thank the gods)
--chewing my fingernails (complete failure)
--men (doing pretty good with that one these days)
--work (would love to NOT be selling my labor but have not managed that thus far)




“I’m at the hospital and I’m not sure how long I’m going to be here. I don’t think I’ll be coming back to work.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. But we can wait for you, you don’t have to quit. Do you have a rough estimate of when you’ll be getting out?”

“No I have no idea. I don’t know. I can’t come back.”


Two days after begrudgingly beginning a Wellbutrin prescription, I quit my job from inside the loony bin. The phone hung on the wall in the hallway between my room and the common area -- treacherous territory. At first I was self conscious about using this phone because what if anyone else heard me? Wellbutrin made me shameless. And it gave me a plan of action.

1. Quit job. 
2. Move home. 
3. Make art with friends.

What a delight! I couldn’t sleep and I was barely eating, but now I had plans. I was beginning to feel human again, although the days vascilated wildly between “I live here now” and “worst.”

Humanity was short-lived. Once I was released, I was back on my damn phone, drinking, and yes even smoking again. Home had been a beautiful prospect in my mind, but it turned out all my friends were also suffering from mental health crises and no one wanted to make the same kind of art as me anyway. I tried to hold onto the fire I’d felt, the wellspring of ideas I had rediscovered, but I felt trapped by the constraints of the whole damn deal -- time, money, maintaining a corporeal form, the rigidness of the available paths. Look, if you squint, you can see your own death at the end there. Well then. Why not speed things along a bit? If I’m locked into this nonsense called “life” and can barely make any meaningful choices until I die, why not just become a ghost now? Ghosts can do anything.

personal essay, week 2

Frog prince twins sipping gin and snorting Torchy's. Mind meld magic in the grass outside the party. Sick so special man yr movie's really arty.

 We blew by SXSW. Full contrarian status, I refused the widely used abbreviation, "south-by," and ran around shouting for weeks,* "We're going to southbee! southbee!" Big business tech tycoon nightmare carnival took over the whole town. When I lived in Austin, I hated the whole racket -- the traffic, the tourists, the lines, the logos, the litter, the excess. Well of course I still hate it, so even though I was ecstatic that we had been invited, I was determined to fully embody anti-SXSW values whenever possible. I stayed up late making homemade paper business cards. I insisted our crew get matching jean jackets, the Ghost Fleet. 

 We trash talk, we lip lock, we jaywalk for miles. We dumpster, we long fur, we sweet meat and smiles.

 You know, of course, it turned out to be a lot of milling around, as is the case with so many conventions. We ate cole slaw sandwiches inside a massive, empty sound stage while the adults had barbecue. We became festival friends with a woman whose movie, in the “Midnights” category, was about a female necrophile. Before the premiere, we visited the new GOAT YOGA studio in same dang strip mall as the movie theatre. You can't make this shit up.** 

 While the world hurdled ever onward into the lie of neverending capitalist death show, I found myself surrounded by my best friends, my very favorite people, love bugs I've known for decades and buddies I’ve known only briefly, together, sharing visions, feeding on each other's passion, running from the juggernaut and WINNING. Day drunk, sun spilling in, what a ride. Somehow my favorite people, my best loves, all in one place at the same time. The overwhelm - the too muchness of it - the bigness of us made small by the drone. 

personal essay, week 2 quick write

prompt - write about a person who has been both a hero and a villain in your life.



CONTENT: mention of sexual assault, consent issues, drugs

We rolled all night. When we started to come down, we dosed again. We were sitting on the stoop, smoking, I’d imagine, watching the first hints of dawn beckoning over Druid Hill. Across the street, some techno hippies were breaking down the event they’d held that night in our collective’s warehouse space. You, always a character, never one down to turn down a conversation, probably hollered Hey. We were given a curosry head nod and everyone went back to business. Until a few minutes later. The head hippie passed his van and headed over to our side of the street. “Hey uh, there’s a bunch of smoke in the warehouse, I think something might be on fire.” Rolling or not, you sprang to action. Our rickety old building, nothing up to code, the physicalization of our deep love for community. Oh no you don’t.

Not having any kind of central heating (or cooling, for that matter) we used to keep the wood stove burning during any winter event. The stove itself was sturdy, but the pipe stretched jankily through a hole some punk had put in the ceiling years ago. I seem to recall there was duct tape involved. It seems a solidarity cinder had gleefully blown not up and out of the ceiling, but into it - into the insulation, between the roof and the also punk-installed ceiling tiles. Our warehouse was going to burn down and take our love with it -- food rescue programs, letter writing campaigns, zine library, the stage and the microphones and the amps, and the office containing the collective’s long and storied history…. not to mention the not-quite-legal home of several collective members. Simply put, a fire could. not. happen.

And so you, high as a kite, leapt up on a chair and started to pull the ceiling down. I scrambled across the warehouse, as well as the gardens, sheds, and three (absolutely perfectly legal) houses our collective owned, trawling for every fire extinguisher I could lay my paws on. I also texted our reluctant but fearless leader, Reagan, a woman whose coolness would shrivel you. Luckily she always woke up early (as gardeners tend to do) and it wasn’t long before she was on the scene. It must’ve been 6am by now. By the time she arrived, you were hanging from the ceiling, literally swinging from the rafters, a bandana over your face and an axe in your hand -- all that insulation and smoke floating down around you, a blurry vision.




When you got home from Jan’s house (although looking back, I highly doubt you were honest about where you’d been) you found me at the table in Middle House, though everyone else was asleep. A member of our sister commune had called out another (long-term, prominent) member as an abusive predator. There were a lot of emails. When you found me, I was reading Batman’s letter in which she confirmed yes, this person pushed the boundaries of her consent as well. You put me in your lap and I read what Batman wrote: her history, multiple rapes, monstrous men. You offered me lemonade -- we always drank juice straight from the jar, I didn’t think twice about accepting. I hardly noticed the bitter taste; I was trying to swallow heavy stories. Tears pricked my eyes and your prick -- well I’m glad everyone else was asleep. My body began to move without me telling it to. My mind couldn’t process text anymore. Thursday, this stuff is really fucked up, I feel really weird, I am not in control. How long before you giggled, “Oh shit” and remembered what you’d done to the lemonade? And how could I ever have thought your offering it to me was an accident?

transcribed voice memos from my dog walks

6/7/2021, 1:51pm 

sidewalk squat to get a picture of a gutter egg

two doors down real live robin puddle sputtering full robin

and here’s these sticks

the sticks of men

there’s a dead bird

a dead bird in the yard of hte sticks of men , oh god

he had a lawn and it killed them all

the dogs dog dogs dogs with some paws ouch oh jesus

i’m not ever gonna get used to this - what if i - okay

i don’t know if they can still here me

these dogs these dogs noses and paws

tj’s tryin to wiggle away fey

they never liekd it how i rhymed

personal essay class - week one quick write

cramps grumpy crumpet. blaring bleating trumpet. sticky fickle carpet. yr never gonna stop it.

when t​he​ bell rings in there, ​swings in there, sings despair, try not to care but hey​ you​ over there,
you can't escape the ding ding ding ding crushing twisting cramping.

how about that now, how about you talk to her. what did she ever do to you!

like conjuring my inner critic, i will pluck you, uterus, out and set you up right here on the futon.
it's real hard to get them out.​

the bleeding never bothered me.
​you know i can't abide a lie!
middle school was murder, seats stained, jeans ruined, cruel laughter in the corners.

​this is so boring, i'm bored of myself.
are you writing or reading or even thinking? which one are you doing! pick forgodssake!
you got self conscious and that's okay. are you feeling too vulnerable today?
do we need to go in another direction?

​i didn't mean to pick on you.​ it is just the body of me that is talking right now, so it only made sense.
a sweet bright drop-

you can't stop the squiggles. little worm in there, nast. a lonely sequin on the doormat.
every day i nearly die, and so do you, and so do you.

yr world has really shrunk, huh. all there is, curled and contained. the bedroom. the kitchen.
the walls. the ceiling. the face of yr "honey."
​(​in tarot, the ​figure of the World​ is intersex - non-binary - in between - across - trans​)​
but what about the ant on my pants?
and waht about these fucking cramps?
if i have a body (and so far, i do) will nothing make it quiet?

the World isn't in there. it never was and never will be. the World is too vast and vibrant to be just this. the oven is not the cake. mammals think we are so brave.

don't worry, we're all still god, and so are you, and so are you. i am the white hot center of a web of love, and so are you, and so are you.

the center of me tunes its frequency to the center of Things. it's cool to vibe in, but don't linger. you can't! catch hold of the knot that brought you here and climb back toward it, back to bones and blood and oh, cramps. sing yr thanks to every moon + every womb but bless the ​earthworm, the slippershell​, anemone​. all things god and so are you and so are you​: a sweet bright drop.​

SOME WORDS ABOUT MY DAY

featuring three (3) not-quite cat calls, entirely zero (0) proofreading, and more lists (!) like this

today i'm gonna tell it like it happened. i stopped writing my morning pages about a year ago. i had fallen off the wagon a couple times but at the start of the pandemic, i had a burst of creative energy. lockdown? what a good time to MAKE THIGNS, i thought, so naively. maybe it was just my own crutch that was the trouble - i had gotten accustomed to treating morning pages as a journal rather than a creative experiment (most of the time anyway). and then, april 2020, i had absolutely nothing to report. i gave up almost immediately. now i think i'm ready to try again but i don't know how to start. this can't be it, it isn't even morning! but it's words in whole sentences and that'll do, pig. last night while high i scribbled down some half idea that good writing is like a light fingering. just a soft pleasant tickle. maybe like tingles across your skin and you want the feeling backwards and forwards at the same itme - past present and future all at once. well taht's what you get when you're high i guess! bull bunk! but i'll tell you, i was walking down the street, walking other people's dogs in exchange for green beans, as one does, when i heard a holler. not a cat call, in my overalls, oh no. a construction dude, although fully invisible, seemed to holler to his construction dude brethren, "WHY THE FUCK HAS SHE GOT ONE PANTS LEG ROLLED UP??" oh, that IS me. huh. the follow up question could have been anything, honestly. "IS SHE A DYKE?" / "IS THAT FASHION?" / "IS IT ALLOWED EVEN?" and so on. i'll never know and neither will you. but what struck me about it most is how BORED this guy (and therefore, everyone in existence) must be. what is exciting about one pants leg slightly higher than the other? the truth is that they were both hitched up but one fell back down and i didn't bother to fix it. the truth is even more bored than that guy. so i suppose me and my overalls were happy to do them this service.

a beautiful lady on a motor bike may or may not have called out my name. we both turned to look over our shoulders as we continued in opposite directions. did this really happen? maybe it wasn't my name at all.

at the stop light, a teenager crosses the street in front of me, carrying an empty orange fanta bottle. ever a raccoon, i scan the block for trash and recycling receptacles. i'm thinking, golly look at this kid, carrying his plastic all the way home to the recycling bin, what a good guy, someone out there really does care after all. and then he walks straight into a sidewalk bump of tall grass and "effortlessly" lets the bottle slip from his grasp. two steps and he even does a double take, perhaps to make sure it was a good drop. "NOT COOL, DUDE" i yell after him, but for once, my windows are rolled up and he can't hear me. my raccoon eyes shoot rays of guilt at his back but he doesn't turn around again. i turn left and leave it too.

at home the war against the ants rages on. i'm just thrilled it's spring again and i can see and sing again. the rest of the week looks something like this list: nonograms, group therapy, cheez its, menstrual cramps and motrin, too much hair (me), the smallest hairball (dr. g willikers), K/D kibble, avoiding doing taxes, 7 fans (window, ceiling, and standing) at a time, funderemployment, sandalwood incense, underwear in the bathtub, IPAs, illegible stoned scribbles, and 6 versions of daniel johnston's "walking the cow" plus my own rendition. i need to do the litter box. i need to do kind of a lot.

dream bitties

I don't remember anything about my dream except

Morgan explaining to brock about having to poop sideways

Kat sent us a new selfie of her ex David that he had just sent her. She was gushing about how sexy he is and I was scared that they were getting back together. She sent the picture - and half his body was airbrushed away. He was posing on a bed supposed to be looking hot (also not a selfie, who took this picture??) But with chunks of his body erased. And Kat didnt notice?

soup key

Different neutrals - childhood

Ellie had free reign ish aka whatever you want (within limits of their resources sense of indulgence etc)
I had mama signing me up for random stuff none of which I cared about but played along with until I didn't anymore
Encouraging play looks different
Brett brought the keyboards but I have to make them fun ??
I wish I could just play with everybody
I wish I would've done better before covid
I really need to find something to do
After this one I'm going rogue !!!! Ebahakfhajahdhsahaha

the walls stay wet

 

keyculator meandering dream

willie is desperate for pets tihs morning. he's got his tail wrapped arund my head. begging and begging but then he bites. why buddy why!
the dream was circular and hard to follow. but it was all about following. the first thing i remember is hiding - a rural village is being raided by invaders or some sort. it's really ijmpossible to tell the time or place. i don't even know what i'm doing there, but i know i'm not a native, this is not my home. am i a traveler who's gotten lost? i show up at the village right when shit goes down?
a woman finds me -- am i caught or have we chosen teh same hiding place? under some table with a white tablecloth. she's 30something, brown hair tied back, no nonsense pants, a vest? nondescript. but she smiles at me through the chaos and she's an insane light i need to follow. she tells me she never lives to stay anywhere too long and that i'm welcome to come with her but ONLY if i'm asked. never follow without permission. that seems easy enough. alright. she says sometimes we will have to go separately so as not to raise suspicions and that i must be patient and only do exactly as i'm told. if i'm ot leave first, i have to wait for her, not come back for her. or only leave exactly when she says, not rush. it seems like an exercise in total trust. but do i have enough?
she tells me to folow her behind a tree, there's soem specific steps to it, and suddenly, peacocks and towers. we have jumped to an entirely different place.
the whirlwind of adventure. romance and intrigue and ridiculousness. we meet people who it turns out are others like her, with the ability to teleport, and what a band of merry men they are. either they're all poly together or it's a love triangle of some kind or i odn't know what. but right now she is burning for this other woman, and she chooses her as her companion for the next destination. she says there can be only one. but then that woman chooses the dude. they follow the steps, walking in a particular pattern on a parrticular place, and saying the magic words. red circles burn briefly around their feet, and then they're gone, one by one. the dude is the last. he's got playful eyes and all the power in the world. will he pick me? i think he's thinking "why not?" but when he gives me the instructions, i can't seem to activate the same circles or teleportation magic as the others. either i'm stepping on the wrong spots, just not doing it right, or he has intentionally given me bad directions and this is just a big joke. is he just killing time, waiting around while the other two finally get to fuck? is this the usual game?
i wake up before i can find out.

keyculator quarantine journal

"a scroll in the morning is death to a writer." -not anyone's quote. but i think i'm summarizing.
you forgot the line. you forgot the line. you forgot the line. look at how it happens every time. even when there's paper present, even when that heavy lessens. remember how it feels when the words read right? remember when you dreamed you were flying? the kite?
last night's dream was beans and cheese, a lesbian house party, a tongue on your knees that climbing slickly, made you seize. you woke up in your usual pillow squeeze. the culmination of the epic journey into the land of the dead and these men and their quests and getting it done. the insistence on the story if it's one that they won.
meanwhile, me, with nothing to say
desperately try to fill a page.
(i guess that's how all my writing just turns out to be about writing! what a nightmare!)
last time, 2 months ago, with a deadline, ellie asked me what i was trying to write about. i have no idea. i just want words, the kinds that click together. satisfying sounds. BUT ALSO i want them to resonate and maybe be topical and probably be perfect on the first try without me having to do any editing. WHAT and who do i think i am. no wonder i never get any writing done! more importantly, no wonder i never get any writing STARTED!
today is suddenly full of words. i'm filled up again with writing projects: ones i've been sitting on (like ART PARTY and SSC missives) and out of nowhere (what if i use tarot cards as prompts for abstract free writing?)
now i'm hungry. this is the trouble with morning pages. i don't want to be bothered! but i need to focus! i need a new breakfast food. a quick, light one. latley i always want to eat the most so that i don't have to be bothered by getting hungry again. but then i end up either not having lunch or having a light, late one and then dinner is forever later. part of me still trying to match ellie's food timeline, i guess.

ohhhh dear. i got temporarily stuck in the scroll, instead of eating or writing. STUPID. i guess i got bored with what i was saying a minute ago. (rhymes were certainly more fun. EVEN I WAS JUST WRITING ABOUT WRITING AS FUCKING ALWAYS. HELP.)
the scroll will be the death of you!
gotta find prompts! gotta do stuff!
(except now i just wanna eat yogurt and play a stupid game. helppppppp.)

keyculator theatre dream

8/17/20, dream taht i wish i could remember more of.

a visit with laylee and a dream about clowning. also good sex and an appropriate amount of alcohol and going to bed tired and waking up with a little bit of good ache. i want to move my body better, more. i know i say this all the time. i know it's stale as crackers by now. but here i am saying it again, in the moment after, where the little movement sparked the big dream.
the play had multiple titles. the vichy government, or ....
at some point half waking, thinking wow i could never write that. and realizing, no but i did.
large ensemble cast, with a lot of improve elements. poetic speeches but mostly movement, strict blocking with room for loose execution.
somehow i was a late addition. my part is very small and i am not even fully familiar with the show. something very exciting about being IN the show and WATCHING it unfold around me. (how to recreate THAT with an audience?! immersive theatre/storytelling. bringing people on a journey PHYSICALLY and emotionally. well don't worry it will never happen again because covid.)
some scene where somehow the director (an old balding white dude who looks like werner herzog) ends up with his feet in my mouth??? morgan is upset, somehow i konw this although i'm not sure if she says anything out loud. i'm trying to show her that my clown is sad about having feet in my mouth but i, me, am fine with it. just hold them loosely and mush around. no sucking. plop them about like fishes.
linley and her scene partner are rehearsing lines. they have this scene super tight, alternating between speaking in unison with back and forth, humming or droning under the other person's speech (or they have a third doign this, it's not fully clear). the effect is immediate - thrilling and taut and disorienting and everything. i guess they're practicing because linley is anxious about her lines but i think they sound perfect. the director approves too.
i keep ending up on the wrong part of teh stage. the director is irritated with me for TOO MUCH improvizing?? (more likely too much clown, something i think bill has actually gotten frustrated about before during his improv games. i'm taking the spotlight. standing out too much from the ensemble.)
or i'm always drawn towards the one place i shouldn't be or the one prop i shouldn't touch. three times i mess up a delicate prop that sarah rushakoff and co. have to keep resetting. it's like a pumpkin pie or something, a little orange cylinder. it's supposed to grow or spill or something at the right moment. not my moment! the first time i picked it up and ruined it. the last time, i have been accidentally left out on stage when everyone else is gone. (the story involves a giant icy mountain and probably some kinda ice queen at the top. linley?? the cast manipulates the set as the scenes change, dancing the backdrop into something new. they pull the white sheets around themselves and up and create teh mountain. somehow i am left out in front as everyone else has spun away. i'm crouched at the foot of the mountain, all the way stage right, upstage, trying to be invisible. someone comes out for the next scene and sees me and follows the rhythm - the new rhythm - picking me up and dance carrying me across the stage. i am light as anything and full dance clown, reaching and stretching and wriggling. then i see the pumpkin!)
i think i'm being graceful and careful this time. i'm reaching and making a show of my wanting, as i'm being carried/restrained by this other person. i barely tap the dang thing, and it's bottom spills out in a big orange circle around it. i've destroyed it again!
around tihs time i start to wake up but i really don' wantto leave teh dream. can i go backwards and try again without destroying the pumpkin prop? but it's too late, i'm too conscious. willie is screaming. simon's power tools are screaming. a big kathunk from the back, what is jerel doing? and waht was the name of that play anyway? it's beginning to fade. can't go back. but want to want to want to.

light on everything

what are the words that are important now, today, when i have finally decided to cut the mop from my head? the matted mop. the rats' nest. can't even get fingers in, it is just a bramble. briar patch.
i finally gave up the idea of the mud ritual video. then i thought we'd get a picture. i thought i could "go there" in the backyard, if not in the wilderness.
but then the world exploded. again and again and again. george floyd and the protests. covid denial and reopening while deaths skyrocket. everything is looking absurd out there as we've always known it to be. more and more. it just won't quit.
meanwhile, trauma anniversaries. physical anxiety and near panic attacks without warning. visits from unwanted images. too much too much too much.
and realizing -- it's actually been FOUR fucking years since my hair has been cut. and the last person to cut it was chris. right after wickerman? or before? right before i started my new job? the end of the first phase, the "vacation." the first time i felt threatened, even though i don't think he said anything specific. he stalked off in the woods alone and i followed. it was the day after the festival had ended. shark week stuck around, just binge drinking and not wanting to return to reality. i remember standing at a drop on the mountain, thinking "he could kill me and no one would even know. he could end me with one push." then brushing the thought aside as crazy, pushing down instinct like i would do again and again.
four fucking years. the length of fucking high school. how is it possible i've worn this story for so long? i'm so ready to release it. maybe memories hiding in my hair will mean my body will also let go of some of these anniversaries. i know i can't heal it all in one chop.

but i am ready to release a portion of that harm, and that fear. i am ready to release some of my wildness, the electricity and fire that have been in hiding. maybe i can come back to some other parts of myself. maybe i can start writing again. maybe this is the start. maybe every night i should play this lovely sitar music and just float and sing with myself.
i talked with rex today a little bit. he's sorting his papers and thinking of making a zine with old notes and half finished words. i want that so much. i want that so much. how can i remind myself that i want that? it is WORK to really want it. it is work to be able to make the work. it is work to be awake and alive and conscious at all right now. it is work to hold space for others, especially poc, and in particular of course ellie, my honey, my light, my sweetness. we have been putting our insecurities on each other. trading back and forth. it is a bad habit. we need other kinds of release. i need to work on my codependent tendencies. i need to clean my desk.

honey don't overwhelm yourself with what you should do right now. you are doing exactly what you need to do right now. you are writing this down. you are gonna take the scissors and make new life.
(an abortion is like a haircut. if you can do that, you can do this too. choose yourself. make the cut and make new life. you can live again. you can be new.)

should i buzz it or should i try to shape something? i don't know. what do i need to say?
i think buzz is not what i ultimately want. but maybe it will be fun to grow fresh and see what happens and then i'll be able to truly topiary myself. but yes. ultimately i think i want to have hair that flops silly and messy and fun. i don't know. i guess i just have to start.

now i fell into the stream, the scroll. help help help. i don't want you all in my damn head. i gotta get outta here. maybe i should erase facebook for a while? fuck. is this really who i want to be???
who: at least half feral. writing. inked. loud. dancing. unapologetically other. listener. holding space. less booze. less screens. cmon honey. baby steps.

to do --

Try to do the other stuff from yesterday?
Off track already. Fuck. Why is the world so heavy.

aha

2019 was my year in the middle. the middle room of the sad house. between court and jerel. between kat and brett. desperate to connect people with each other, resulting in having issues connecting with anyone myself.

the foster cat peed on my purple shoes, so now they're garbage. they were falling apart, holes in the soles, anyway, so we can't be too sad about that, other than as much as we are always sad about creating garbage.

Should be a real free write BUT

Can you put some more stuff in my cup from the box in the kitchen

Your hand asleep outstretched asking
Can someone hold me

keyculator - lines from an unknown time (2019 or 2020)

ha, so much for
the tolerant left
you check
your balance
the noose at your neck
a dinner no chef
ingredients
in greedy paws
lip service to laws
abundance of wealth
show and don't tell
do what you do well
buy now, wait, yes, don't sell
one day til rome fell
when one knee knelt
lesson learned, cracked belt
pride in pain
just a sprain but leaves welts
generations have felt
bruised skin shed
made pelts
worn while raw
all felt
bad hand dealt