street talk

yesterday i wore my pockets out and felt like somebody who could be friends with anybody. like couldn't i be the least intimidating person imaginable? if i said hi to a stranger, it would be impossible for them to be afraid of me! red plaid jumper, purple shoes, fat potato on a leash. visionary! but also this face mask, homemade and grey, which oddly enough sets me apart. have i seen even one other today? this week? oh yes, the old guy at the gas station yesterday. and a young hipster who saw me and the old dude and put his on, standing outside his car, before walking inside. but dozens of families out on walks, mail carriers, bikers, cops -- not a one. what gives? do you believe yourselves immune to contagion? or even scarier, do you believe you don't exhale or that you won't breathe yr nonsense onto others?
it's hard to wear the mask, i know. no one knows whether to believe, without a friendly smile. and coming from someone who wants to inject my nonsense into everything, i am at a loss.
but what about this potato? can't he do enough smiling for both of us?
nah, i'm over it. i don't even wanna be outside no more, he says. you dog, are my one job, and if you dont even wanna be outside no more, i'll never see the sun again and i certainly won't be receiving any green beans. especially if tennessee is truly foolishly leaping into reopening, then i aint gonna get state green beans either. and then what, buddy? then we're outta luck i guess. take me home. take me home. take me home. i want to be alone. i want air conditioning and four walls and ceiling and the scent of a meal i missed. i want to retreat to my cool dark cave, no legs or sun, a slug. a nighttime bug. glisten mud and silver silt, sing in my chair to no one and nothing. how comfy the hole starts to feel. until you don't even even realize you're at the bottom of a well and there's no way out and the sun is getting dimmer and you can't remember any other way to be.
but what about this somebody-who-can-be-friends-with-anybody business? who are they? and what about when masks were fun and felt like freedom not restraint?
i've lost the way. i'm thinking too much. i'm thinking about the finished product. i'm thinking of a product. it was just supposed to be ideas and then my head got big and thinking i could just write down a perfection without having to edit. listen YOU ARE GONNA HAVE TO LEARN TO EDIT. or else we're never gonna get anywhere. you know?? this is where we always get stuck. we get bORED with our own ideas and don't want to take the time. we convince ourselves, this is drivel and doesn't matter to anyone. so go and hit your cymbal and make something be done for once. please. ah. stop complaining. you haven't eaten in hours. you drank too much caffeine. like you do, like you always do. how long does it take to realize that patterns have become currently permanent? that they aren't just an "oh this is right now" blur, they're a "this has been the same every day for years" sort of thing.
the trouble is wanting to make something great and that is truly stifling. the trouble is judging so hard all the time, the thought "i could write something better" and then not being able to. IT'S IN THERE THOUGH.... isn't it? why do you even think that? (because sometimes you burn and it's there and the words will find you. sometimes you have written something right. or at least that has the satisfaction of rhythmic traction and ripples in all the right ways. the unnamable rhythms that drive you when you get going, when yr hot heat and flames.)
this got all lost and that is okay. maybe you should take a break and eat something. some soup, maybe.

Finally arrived home with my smokes 2am and all I want to do now is sing and/or disappear but now I'm smoking and I opened another beer. Sounds of a fire pit jingle crackle across the street and cars still swishing trees swaying bugs calling laughter from the other side of the duplex and you'd never know it's pandemic status if you were dropped into this scene. It's good to be outside although you wish you had grass instead of gas but no you really wish you had that wildflower garden promised by the seed packet if onlu the birds hadn't eaten half of it and the landlord hadnt mowed down the rest. You wish it could be time to rest but 
How ?
The strange interchange at the gas station - the person working has to unlock and lock the door as each person comes in. "I don't know where she went" my fellow late night drifter calls to me across the parking lot. "Kevin" comes back to let us in. All I want is smokes. The credit card machine fails us and I wait patiently, the only one of us in a mask, as Kevin locks and unlocks, restarts the card reader, mumbles to me about their night. Locked wm in the beer cave too. Patron #3 pays for my smokes, despite my protests, and Kevin says I'm lucky. And I am.

i am supposed to write the other thing now. i was gonna write this little essay about CARAVAN STORIES. what was my point and what was the point i missed when i wrote about it before? should i reread what i wrote or should i just try to remember? first lets try to remember.


oh yes you're missing the part that makes it universal. you wrote about how you got entrenched all in the thing. you could maybe do some more with the metaphor of "temporary resistance." but you never got to the closing. the closing can be hard. but you could do it if you kept at it. i think so. but drunk?? can i? what can i do or even pretend to do. what is this thing i keep doing.

TEMPORARY RESISTANCE TO ABNORMAL STATE.

Debris needs me to defeat 15 Rattie. Young Elf A (now so nameless?) needs me to defend them in a battle against their overbearing father, while Child wants me to pick up that good stuffrom the bar in Ork territory (don't worry, Child is an adult dwarf).

what is the point i'm trying to make. this whole thing is absurd. comical. especially when they talk about the fucking plague in the story of the game. RATTA TATTA DEBRISIUS. not really. scubby duddy osis.

i don't even care how can i make myself care.

too hot

hey ya fuck
remmeber how you are always imagining how yr gonna write to all yr fave bands n shit and tell them thank the fucking gods for you and please keep doing it and how much you just wanna tell em and maybe also they need to hear it? why aint you just doin that. why you starin at pictures or some nonsense. what are we doing right now/1 cmon. YES i know it's hot, i'ts too darn hot ot do anything but oh well.
fuk i want a smkey so bad right now. i want a porch. i want to invite my friend to sit on the porch with me. there's no porch and there's no friends aka there's no in-person friends allowed. all loud. help help help.
anyway yr phone is dead and there's nothing for you outside. it ain't really gonna be less hot, you know? you'll just be pissed.
i wish i didn't still want a smoke.
maybe try writing. let's try writing that other mess. haha okay.

shower song

you don't mow clover
you don't know no bird


i forgot the other words. but it was something about goddammit i saw this spider and i was so happy about it but i accidentally caught it on my hands so i tried to save it but in my saving i'm certain i killed it, fuck me. so bad so dead.

truths

Night time is fake

No one will find your shoe box if you never wear the shoes

t-shirt idea

Medias are garbages !

(Yeah but it's true)

song a day song

last year i lost my xylophone
i left it at the church
things have gone from bad to good
from good to bad to worse
i wanted more than a capella songs
i have nothing to play
i wanted more than pitching lilting talk
to share on song a day

mood swings like woah

Good day at work. Like I was in a really really good mood tge last hour or two. Now mad and sad and bad thinking about court telling us she wants to move out and having to deal with that on top of a million other things. I'm fucking pissed. And overwhelmed. And just over it all. Time to hide under the covers.

future dreams

looking into mfa stuff again/finally. i was thinking -- i could go to U of M for free and get an MFA and damn wouldn't that be rad. several things sound cool, of course. classes always look fun from the outside -- creative writing. lit. anything art related, really. but also, what's the thing that's kept me from going back to school all this time?? A PLAN for afterwards. i don't want to be lost at sea again after getting a degree. (but you're already lost at sea. how could it get worse?) well i guess i don't know. BUT i think even a little nut of a plan is better than nuthing.

so what i had thought was -- MFA in theatre, with concentration in Directing. that's 3 years. meanwhile, get certified through the North American Drama Therapy Association so i could get a licensed drama therapist when i get done with school. and then????

i like to imagine myself teaching pochinko someday. or combining the pochinko work with other stuff to make it more therapeutic.... somehow. but honestly this is the big blank spot right now. i started getting distracted looking at other programs -- would Expressive Arts Therapy be better/more inclusive than just Drama therapy??? or does it really matter, if i'm just gonna be making up my own weird shit anyways? do i need a Creative Arts Therapy degree?? or even counseling? UGH i dont fucking want to study that. i ALREADY KNOW how to tap into something intuitive that isn't something that can be taught.

or why do i feel like i even need to bring the therapist certification into it? (i mean that would be pretty cool. because i've wanted to do that for forever and been irritated that i have to subscribe to a weird fucking broken system in order to provide that service to people. that's a bunch of bullshit. so yeah, fuck that, i'm obviously not going to study counseling, but maybe the cert actually is cool.) ON THE OTHER HAND what happened to the idea of studying performance itself? i guess a while ago i had been thinking, it sure would be bullshit for me to become a teacher (therapist??) without knowing more about wtf i am talking about. those ideas: Dell'Arte, Manitoba clown farm, Pigiron, Emerge NYC.... others? more physical theatre schools? clowning programs? (who am i kidding, i am a slug who can't move my body at all these days.)

so yes the web gets bigger and i get mixed up again. what do i want it to look like AFTER the training, whatever that is? yes i want to perform again/ever. that's exciting to me. but it isn't the whole picture. the bigger picture includes workshops, healing arts, spirituality. a studio or a school or something - a COMMUNITY. i think i want some kind of credentials just to make myself seem (and feel) more real, and be able to ask for money for my services without feeling like a total tool. also the thing about school would be a great opportunity for learning and REFOCUSING on what i value about all this stuff and oh my gosh it would just be so fun. now that i'm thinking about it, i do like the idea of doing drama rather than "expressive arts" because it would be fucking rad to feel even vaguely like an expert in something. (and also, i looked at one lady's website and just remembered with a crushing roar how squishy and boring a lot of this shit probably is. painting your feelings and shit. i mean, yeah it's good to do that, but it's not rad enough for me. those white ladies can teach that shit. i don't want to study with them!!!! sorry!!!!)

well it seems like the big answer here is that i want TO WORK FOR MYSELF. either having a business/school/collective whatever.... or working by contract for organizations or whatnot. does that make sense? or i could keep hanging around in academia..... it would be fucking awesome to work on research projects or books or something. i want to write a fucking book. i want to write a show. i don't want to be a professor, i don't think. i am imagining public education... or yeah, how does the therapy thing come into it? i think that's the part that feels exciting and gives the potential for experimentation. but i should probably learn more about what the fuck it actually means. will i be more boxed in than i am currently imagining? is there someone certified in memphis that i could talk to?

i just went on a long side quest trying to find people here (v---- m----, founder of pback memphis, duh) and then going down a "play therapy" wormhole and da da da. that stuff always rings a bell for me with the name - oh! play therapy! expressive arts therapy! yes! but then, as with most things in the world, it doesn't look like what i think it sounds like.... maybe that's the thing. maybe i gotta make MY OWN TECHNIQUE. and maybe that means - do the basic degree and keep it loose. maybe i'm thinking too far ahead.

except that the whole point of writing all this was to try to visualize what it would look like and what i do want to see in my future where i'm a badass theatre therapy person.
--to present another way to be, as me, to show how to be a different kind of body
--to bring people under the table, to create another world together
--learn how to be fully present in a moment and let my body ride the wave
--performing as roadkill ghost

random ideas i've had in the past that i should be remembering and compiling:
--clown class for queer/trans people
--clowning/play to process trauma -- the positive kind of dissociation, not "psychodrama"


i don't even know. it feel so incomplete. it feels so far away, these random notes from years ago now. ugh i'm so off track. maybe that's all i need to worry about right now-- getting back on track and what does that look like? if i get to reinvent myself, who do i want to be?

gotta talk to john at hte clown farm.
gotta at least do this mfa app????????? figure out deadlines.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
i should probably just call holly l.....
getting on track?! i don't know. something. just do SOMETHING.

script for SSC pep talk video

Hello, my darling cast mates and collaborators! It's the BIG DAY! We are finally going into the studio, almost exactly one year after winning the Indie Memphis film grant. WOW.
Y'all have been working hard and getting ready for this for months and now it's time to let loose and HAVE FUN! We know these songs so well, they're fucking so weird and good, and all we have to do is get into the studio and have a good time playing together.

Together, we've created 6 brilliant and hilarious songs -- the kind of songs that could never have been concocted by one or two people alone. This work is the process of collaboration -- with 8 lyricists, 7 music writers, and 17 performers, the final product could never be replicated by another group of people. This is entirely unique to us!! And all you have to do now is put YOURSELF into the music, perform it with your whole mind and body, and HAVE FUN!

What we are doing is an amazing and ridiclous thing. We are telling an important story about abortion that also features a talking horse, a lactacting space alien, and a food fight where the food is human organs.
Let's tell this story where abortion is a simple medical procedure and let's show everybody how much fun we had doing it. What we are doing is rewriting the narrative -- creating art to induce a cultural shift and change the way people think about reproductive rights. Our joy and our laughter restores our power, and it removes the power from the narrative that abortion is taboo, is sinful or evil.

With all the terrible shit going on in the world right now, it's so important for us to be able to access JOY, and for me, that looks like play and music and making stuff with my friends.
And joy isn't frivioulous! It's vital!! It can be radical!!

Because above all else, I want our audience to SEE and HEAR us having fun and enjoying ourselves when they watch this movie. When we're having fun and connecting with each other, we can connect with our audiences too.

So. This conversation is important. Laughter is important. The movie we make doesn't need to be perfect to achieve its goals. This weekend, I want everyone to experience feeling powerful and ridiculous at the same time! I want everyone to have fun and go all the way! We are making magic together! Y'all are already killing it and you're gonna fucking SLAY this weekend! I'm so fucking proud of everyone and so excited to make our dreams into realities.
I LOVE YOU ALL. THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME! SEE YOU SOON!

failed eulogy

mary burns passed away. brett called me and told me yesterday morning. i've been having a lot of thoughts and feelings about it - stronger yesterday and i relaly wanted to write them down - but i didn't have time between gigs and movie work and actually relaxing with morgan and kat for a bit.
so i am trying to wirte today.
part of me wants to share whatever this is going to be.... but that already puts a lot of pressure on it. so i am just writing tha down to get teh idea out of my head (hopefully) and let that part of my brain shut up so that i can just feel what i'm feeling and try to say it. (but i did kind of have an idea for a frame with a title, so i'll try starting from there and see how that goes.)

WHEN YOU'RE TOO BROKE FOR THERAPY

when you're too broke to afford therapy, you instead imagine what a therapist MIGHT say to you, should you actually have one.
at least, this is something i sometimes do.
at least, this is something i am doing right now because i am at a loss for words and i'm having trouble feeling through this. (())
feeling lost for words
feeling loss
mary burns has died. how do we make any sense of this?

when you're too broke for therapy, you seek community. you seek comfort and compassion.

i remember open mics at java cabana as my first exposure to real live poetry, to new political ideas, and to a small arts community i didn't know existed. those thursday nights were my initiation - that shared microphone

keyculator bodytalk notes

9/15/19 it's probably around 2pm or so

okay i had to stop and replace the AA batteries. now here i am. and i'm hungry haha. but i wanted to write a copule quick notes about the energy/body work i did with court the last couple days.
today kat came over and court led her, jerel, and me in a visualization about bring our power back to ourselves and then we did some power moves! felt great.
the visualizations were a real trip. i am not accustomed to such long meditation (or any meditation). i think it must've been an hour long?!? i wish i could've been more focused but i wasn't so far away that i didn't get some cool images and revelatory thoughts.
started with grounding - image suggestion was a cord stretching from the base of our spine through the floor through the dirt through the layers of the earth all the way to the magma at the center. i always have hard time with the cord image. this time i thought of a root system, growing wider and deeper at the same time. that was powerful. and the light entering through our crown - imagining a connection to the sun and its heat worked tihs time.
safety color was not easy either but i settled on the color of my parents' bedroom - a cool pale blue/green. and it surrounds me like a bubble but the bubblue is almost spiky/sparkly, shining, stretching. my safe place! sent away other people's energies. first doing donuts in a truck, in a widening circle. sweeping out clouds of dust/smoke and leaves. a kiss for jerel and a twirl and i send them spinning to their own bubble, where they land in a star-shaped power pose, smiling and shining. i give kat a hug and the same spin, she lands empowered in her own bubble.
now we bring our power, our energy, back to ourselves. it's glittering golden light flowing from all directions and i'm soaking it up. then i'm crouched covering my legs then my whole body in dirt, rubbing dirt into my skin to be replenished. and then water, soaking it in and feeling me. i feel scales on my skin, blue/purple iridsecent. my hair is shaved on two sides and i have elf style hair. then i'm a dragon. serpentine. shining, smiling, glittering, glowing.
even though i was drifting off for a lot of it, it was a great exercise! need to do more work on solar plexus, it sounds ilke - the center of my will and decision making. have to gain confidence in this area. need to start talking to MYSELF or writing things down when i am unsure, rather than immediately dumping on someone else.

yesterday i did my first body talk session with court and it was great! intense and healing. definitely felt like just dipping a toe in to a very big area of work. reminded me how blocked and disconnected i feel from my body, for all number of reasons. dysphoria stuff. depression stuff. anxiety stuff. trauma stuff. ALL KINDS OF reasons why i am far from my self mentally and also physically.
she told me to just relax and i could close my eyes if i wanted and just lay there and she would be touching my shoulder and doing some muscle testing on my left wrist. then she did some tapping on my head, my heart, and my stomach. she got messages from my thyroid and my heart. that there was a wall of fluid around my heart, like a protective coating. i can't remember what she said it's called. then she asked me to say out loud "i allow my spirit to surface" (i think) until i felt "comfortable" saying it, while she was tapping those places again. that was really tough. by now in the session, i felt light-headed and kind of emptied. it's like jerel said, it felt like a gem fusion or something. like i was giving all this mental energy away, to her, or she was channeling it elsewhere, or something. but there was a new connection, a new space where i could just float and be held and feel safe and not have to worry about anything being right or wrong or whatever. so i feel like i was pretty deep in it when she asked me to say that phrase. and i said it once and it was really hard. my throat started to close and i felt like crying. do i allow this? is it safe to allow my spirit to surface? (the night before i had posted my patreon interest ask on facebook, so was already feeling very vulnerable about expressing myself and letting my spirit show and being exposed and just wanting to let it all FLY OUT OF ME at the same time. to be ALLOWED to be my true self and my spirit and creative. this was a big big big feeling.) so i felt like i might cry. my chest tightened and my throat closed and tears pricked at my eyes. i felt like i was riding a wave, not unlike what i felt during my abortion - waves of ridiing over it and waves of being stuck in the feeling. moments that were almost euphoric and moments that felt like i was drowning in that one feeling, gettig more light headed, and feeling hot, almost feverish and shivery. but i kept trying to say it and i said it quite a few times. but did it ever feel comfortable? i don't know. it was tough. definitely felt like something was getting worked through, though, and court said teh same thing after teh session. after that i think she did te muscle testing thing again and i kept floating. trance like for sure. i was so relaxed/high by now, i was a little worried i was gonna fall asleep. and i was surprised when she asked me to do something particpatory now. i had to fill in the blank on "my sexuality is determined by ___" and my first thought was "heart" which felt stupid to say, since she was literally just talking about my heart, so that's what was in my mind... i sort of started searching for a better answer but she said just whatever comes intuitively. so i said that. she did some more tapping i think? or the writst thing. i dont' know. whatever following the protocol. oh i htink she tapped on me and i said the phrase.
and then said it was actually "my sexuality is determined by my heart's wall." meaning that protective layer that came up earlier. and so she said that while she tapped on me again and what immediatley came to my mind was the phrase changed to "my sexuality is GUARDED by my heart's wall." which later she said, sounded like progress / something moving.
also felt interesting taht my bod apparently wanted to talk about sex, after shit with chris had come up with the night before and i went to bed feeling awful. and then jerel and i had sex in the morning before the body talk session (which was after a shower) and i kind of wondered if court had heard us or knew what was going on and had some kind of expectation or association of sex goign into it. but it makes sense that that's where my bod was. and it got me thinking again about wanting to open up more with jerel somehow. like what is the next level of intimacy? because i feel like with sex something is stuck for me, or it's just been a plateau for a while. i've been talking about wanting to get toys and stuff to do different kinds of play, but i htink it's more than that. i want to make it magic. maybe need to try some breathing or tantric stuff... want it to feel more transformational or transcendent. more trans ahah.
anyway i felt really relaxed and floaty afterwards. kind of exhausted but kind of refreshed. didn't want to leave the house but i'm glad we went ot cooper young festival. it was like jerel said - scooped out. uber relaxed. grounded. amazing!```````````````q1"


now i'm really hungry and it's 3:45 and i can't remember what else i wanted to write. so i hope that i got it down mostly.
going forward, i am gonna try to visualize better, especially movie related stuff that is making me anxious. i'm gonna try writing or talking to myself before i dump my anxieties/questions onto other people. power poses every day! i would also really like to try doing yoga every day again. i feel weak and distant from my bod and i don't like it. also gonna do another body talk sesssion in 3 weeks! alright!

sad ask drafts

this morning after pages i was feeling some momentum to get some stuff done... SSC stuff in that moment, but with the intention of writing later and maybe even doing this fundraising ask, or a sideways one, or something. jerel came in and asked, did i see that the class was full. no. what? they just checked the website, or i guess i had left the tab open on their laptop. beth maiden's alternative tarot course is officially full. i was planning to email her today, to at least explain my situation and see if she could give me a discount or set up a payment plan or SOMETHING. but i waited too long. hesitated. let everyone else's voices get in my fucking head. i hate this. so of course i immediately turned all grumpy. it does'nt help that i'm bleeding right now. that was about 2 or 3 hours ago, now, and i'm still grumpy. but i felt determined to keep my plan to write instead of sinking into some video game wormhole or something. i will have time for that tonight, because i've already decided i'm not going anywhere.
i was supposed to be taking a break from SSC for a couple days, but i couldn't do it. i don't feel that i'm allowed to do it. i remembered we have a meeting scheduled for monday, and unless i explicilty ask people to come prepared, they won't be. to ask them to come prepared means organizing music files and making sure all the lyrics are easy to find and read and writing a nice but firm email and.... anyway it takes a while. nothing is simple.
now i'm trying to "relax" with dr pepper and indie pop in the living room, keyculating away. damn i love this thing. should've written more songs on here. maybe can still write some dialogue on it.
i'm sad about the movie. i just wanted a break after the big writing meetings on sunday and monday. but then had to finish that grant on tuesday and wednesday. did i get a break yesterday? perhaps! ....nah i was listening ot the "fast travel" demo and considering what kind of feedback i should give to kat, if any. she doesn't have any specific questions so, i'm wondering if i should just let it be, although there's plenty of feedback i COULD give. mainly, that she's added so many breakdowns that it doesn't even feel like a patter song anymore. i feel like she's getting carried away with all these songs, making them fun for herself (which is good) but forgetting how they are suppoed to function in the story and on screen. and this one is now five minutes long! holy shit that's too long!
i just want to get this damn movie out of my head for two seconds without having to stuff another story in there. can i not be in my own mind????
what was i even wanting to say. i don't know. i had been thinking about writing a facebook post but now it feels really emo. maybe i'll try. what do i even want to say?

artist friends, how do you do it? how do you stay motivated and continue to make work in this hell world, how do you find the time and the energy and the money?
i pick up shit "for a living." i sell my labor to the medical school and to pet parents. i work unpaid 30 hours a week as director/producer of a short film. i cannot ask the rest of the crew to be this dedicated. THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANTED TO SAY.
i guess what i had wanted to say was a roundabout way of asking for money. ohyeah.

so i recently had to turn down the opportunity to take a course i was really exicted about because of a lack of time and funds. even if i could have paid for the course itself, i don't feel like i would've had the time/energy to commit to it, between my various gigs and the unpaid (constant, ocassionally fun) work i do making SPACE SUBMARINE COMMANDER.
between my various jobs, paid and unpaid.
i'm frustrated and i don't know how to fix this. i don't even want ot talk to facebook. i miss the old internet.

i miss my blog and the old internet. i just don't feel like i can share the same way on facebook. writing on here feels like trying to tell secrets through a megaphone in a crowded cafeteria lit by 100000 fluorescent lights and i'm sick of it! i'm sick of a lot of things. one of those things is feeling like i'm working all the time and still broke and that much of that work goes unseen. so taking all that into consideration, i'm considering starting a patreon. my intention is to use it kind of like my old blog, with rambly writing and links to Good Art and Music, with the addition of updates about SPACE SUBMAIRNE COMMANDER, tarot and other witchy stuff, and hopefully some clown/performance sketches. heck, i'm even thinking of restarting my penpal project! The Art Party could come be reborn!!!
I DONT KNOW i want to do it all, yall. and i have been struggling to figure out HOW and WHERE and all that. i wonder if patreon would be a good space for all these things to come together. if i did such a thing, would anyone be interested in subscribing? thinking of starting at $1 and going up to $20 or something. what kind of posts would you be most excited to see?

the smoker sensation of always needing to be somewhere else.
need to go out to smoke. need to go back in to the real.
no one needs you anywere.
the antsiness. the wrongness. the wait, why did i come here? the wait, whhat do i need? need need need and it isn't in this room. or should go, should not be.
all along i've thought it's nicotine talking to me - is there someone else too?
(a weird feeling at the napping house tonight - feeling that i just shouldn't be there. keep itching to leave. but maybe probably did that to myself.)

terrible typoed text-to-speech while walking peppy

The tuss and tumble of two chickadees twittering twirling twisting as one in the scrap grass in the dirt in that little block of green brown green by the sidewalk in Spring Green Spring Green ground spraying inside lock screen twisting tumbling as one twisting curving Trent twirling twin twisting testing twins turning am I watching them fucking is this fun or ugly? Are they happy that they know that? Do they know that? Chickadees may be chickadees it’s fun to say at least. And the green spring birds flying one to as one to anyone birds to as one.

In the street on the concrete in the green brown spring and the green springs, the right angle in the road flag place down stands up blaze down the flag at squirrels tail that’s all there is to for the flag waving up and down goodbye I don’t know what to ask for anymore. Forgiveness? Or rage?

I used to ask the roadkill ghosts for their forgiveness and their aid. i used to plead. i used to tell them they’re beautiful they’re beautiful I’m sure they know. i used to tell them I’m sorry I’m so sorry you’re beautiful please forgive us please help us.

Then I felt we didn’t deserve their help. Haven’t they given enough? then I asked for their rage I said rest in power. I said stay hard. I said stay angry. I asked for their fire.

Now I don’t know what to ask can I even ask for anything? What do I think I deserve? Why do I think I’ve done for them? Just my little prayers. Why do I think they want my little prayers? How much is a witness? I see the squirrels now mostly. It’s a shame that they survive this winter only to be smashed into the street. It’s all a shame. I am ashamed. I see in the street everything to me I worry that used to live at used to run it and breathe. For a long time I started saying my little prayers before I even got close enough to see The for her bones. For a long time my eyes were playing tricks on me. I would think I saw a corpse but it would just be a blown out tire. It would just be shoes. For long time still I’m tense at any object in the road. Sometimes it’s just leaves. Now I am wondering about what vision so I’m singing with signs. I’m wondering aren’t they all aren’t they all corpses? And leather of the shoe from some unknown cow? Whose hands crafted this blood went into the machines that built it? What plants what fiber? Isn’t everything deserving of a shrine? Isn’t it all made out of death? Now

Now I don’t know what to ask for. I don’t know. when I’m driving down my normal road between my walks to different dogs and in the middle of the street is a flag waving and the flag is attached to the body Evelyn wants squirrel and the flag is a tail and it is waving, I don’t know what to ask for. You are still beautiful. You were always beautiful. Your rage or your forgiveness, they are not mine to ask for.

Everything a corpse. Everything I pass on the street, on the walk, of course. A corpse. I find it hard to look. Whether it’s TRASH or a body I find it hard to look. Here is coral baby in the middle of the alley. Mouth open eyes open holes. The Gloup and gloom of rot rotting flesh. I force myself to look. I don’t know how to see this. I don’t know how to on see it. Everything is baby, as Kathleen says. These babies gone sour gone sallow, these babies no mothers no homes. Who will care for these corpses in the street in the green brown spring in the green and brown dirt? All the watches over them is rubble. Is 10 cans is plastic and Styrofoam is melting cardboard in the rain and the sweat in my heat in the sun and then she mentioned that heat of the spring time sun coming down green brown coming down. None of this is words I’m writing none of this this is significant kind of power this is a new kind of poem One that lies one that speaks lies. I knew kind of boring told out loud told unwell. Maybe I must learn to enunciate or else except what I get from my mouth to this mouth no hands problems. Pepe is ready. Pepe is always ready and always has been. Petty is baby

if it’s two mirrors, one is round. But it might be none. Done I don’t know about the stop and start stopping while I’m still talking why do you do this to my phone. I have the urge to rhyme when I’m speaking this way. But it’s hard to make that rhymes with the lips and say. It’s hard to say that rhymes out loud if I want them to stay. Rhymes with speaks are stupid now. Rhymes with thing. Rhymes with fingers make more sense. and with fingers make more sense if this thing will ever actually seen saying what I want will keep recording the words I’m saying then here’s all the planets your girls this year it’s more of a tear drop Van Ness fear. I must learn to enunciate I wonder I wonder will it hear me better if I’m saying in clever??? Will it hear my words more whatever let me know my cards for her words.

chords

Do you know me better there? Do you think the clever?

Peppy I Am Merely (Nearly) Human

last night all night

ahere i go sneaking again
in my own home!
starting to feel okay again
now that i have a purpose with a pen
not a pen but fingers and keys
never learning aim to plesae
stomach sick stomach sore
boring boring boring bore

the point is. the point. the point is.
i have a fucking problem with codepenancy.
it's true and it's sick and i fucking hate putting tihs on you. i feel disgusting. i feel like trash. i don't kow how to get rid of it. i don't kow any way back.
i can't be good enough for you.
the last few days - since you dyed your hair - you've been so happy. so much yourself. so alive. lifght. i can feel myself draining you. i can feel how needy i am. how i've been draining you all along. how now that you have filled your cup, i am just sucking at it, leeching away. i am the toxic one. i am the crazymaker. i am everything i didn't want to be for you. for anyone. i am fucking up over and over and over i have no idea what to do. i say "i need to get back in therapy" i've been sayign it for months. but what the fuck do i tink that's going to do
?! it won't fix me. i won't be better for a long time. everything is wrong. i am way past broken.
there's teh light flicker of a tv on in somene's bedroom window, second floor. there's a light flicker as the bugsppass over the lamp post lantern light. the soft shiver of the white crepe myrstle????
i have been forcing you to worry about me. giving me your energy.
okay i guess not forcing but ..... i fel manipulative. i feel like a wretch. i do not feel like a beauty maker. i do not feel like a lover. it's me, i am the toxic one. i am the one who hurt me. it's me, i am the cycle.
why do non-tobacco cigarettes always hurt more? why does it seem like they burn the tongue annd throat instantly, and almost anything is smoking one too fast? is the power of nicotine just to make you not feel those things from teh cigarette? is that all teh drug does? the magic of fire you can't feel. is that why we love the spell?
mayhbe there's a thought there but it's half baked. half cooked. pathetic. like all my other thoughts. wasted. useless. goner. overdone. halfdone. undone. never nothing. none. shut the fuck up and go home. a meager image, a stale old bone.
what the fuck even now you are trying to rhyme. why? why? why? justkeep fucking trying you piss of shit. what the fuck do you think is gonna happen. something ? no. NO. you will always do this, nothing but this, nothing but piss. just drivel dripping down your fingers. just empty weary letters wither. disgust. disgust. distrust. no. no. no. no. there will never not be nothing. there will never not be garbage. there will always be you, sucuk in this body in this mind in this hell of repetition and forever gross forever ghsot. new? something ebtter? something different


i guess i messed up in the dark. what teh fuck else is new. nothing.
forever forever forever just tihs. forever my whole deal taking a piss.
why did i think i could have your kiss
why did d i think it would be different than this.

why did i think i could be better
why did i think we could better.
why didn't i know this is always the way it's goin to be no matter what and forever.
stare at the leaves and see teh summer
something is coming and something's a goner.
nothign sallow wilting longer.
help help help help help
my rhyming father's daughter
my crying mother's daughter

do i actually feel high from this fucking cbd shit
wahat is the damn deal
i smoked one of these hemp-ettes
and now i feel a i've drifted
what and were does my mind go
is it because i've told it so
did i malet teh tether long
did i wish i'm made of song
yes forever yes forever yes
my voice has flown out of my chest
i wish it would i wish it could
but nothing better beter best
nothing beterer nothing yet.
my voice is stuck in tiny humns. my voice melodies writ on rum. my voice the pieces silent sung. my voice a kite that's too far flung.
slipping away sickly slidde slipping slide away
healing nothing healing fine
burping along to ninety nine ninety nine
whipser
nienty nine
hehere
hear
here my heart is beating fine
why can you see only rhyme
when will i better will i different
never, honey, lay down in it
do i even care what i write?
dthere's nothing here to hate or like
whydo i think smoeking this is a good idea
who saidanything about good ideas
NONE nothing NONE nothing NONE
why do i think i'm worth a some

pillow fader pillow farther
little later little longer
but just good get gone now you
but a sling sucks to your shoe
nine and nine is mine and crew
slick pea sweet knee not this goo
why do i why do i why do i do
where do i go if not with you
just chug this beer and let's be done.
why is ihs my only rhyming SCHUME. SCUM.
i'm sick of this i'm sick of it i'm sick of this i'm sick of it. type type type. why why why. bleed it out until you dry. OH MY GOD PLEASE HELP WHY IS TIHS MY ONLY RHYME. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY.

if i felt kablooed after that first smoke, look how i'm gonna feel now. am i gonna be enough for just one beer? what am i gonna need? how do i fuel this fire? how do i stay so dire?
i womdner why i'm herein this rhyme. i wonder what happens, every time. how di get here. why do i tryl.
STOP. okaoiwh
oh my god. help.
really i'm stuck relaly sreally relaly.
what does that?!?!?! is it booze? night? ocd brains? the rhyme the RHYME it won't let me stop. i'm trying hard to stop the clock. OH MY GOD am i though?
?
okay
is it just that i'm actually relaly distressed about something and i don't know how to write it real. is it that i still can't express how i feel.
HELP.
i think actually yeah. it's just a bgi distraction. the way that lplaying a game on my phone would be. or scrolling or something. it's teh instant grafication.
i haear a crackle in the yard nearby. will i spy a new fried or will they wander by?
a leaf and cracke. a rustle sigh.
how much moves your body in the window?
how much meter memory do most carry?
why does that even pretend to matter. stupid.
why can't i shake these stupid sentence structures.
i just want to go somewhere new but i' stuck i n sthese fuckign rhymes. i'm so mad. i'm having to fight.
aoeg
maybe that's not what i get from teh night.
maybe this is just my plight.
OR
GODDAMIT
MAYBE TIHS IS the distraction the ultimate distraction from myslef. talk about compartmnetalizing goddamn. talk about adhd. talk about gone forever away and a day. talk about no.
talk about you were just having this important realization when you went into crazy rhyme dumbass land.
you are a drain on your partner. you are stifling their energy. you love each other. you are full of love for each other you. but you are demanding too much energy. too much time. you are being codpenedent as fuck. you need to learn new pattern.s you need to unlearn tehse old patterns. can you do it while you're in a relationship??? (can you do it when you're NOT in a relationsip?)

i just got stuck in spell check for 300 years. thatnks keyculator. i mean i do appreciate that you have the capapbitly. you're a good guy. you know that? a real good guy. glad we came out tonight. good going, us.
DID I NEED TIHS? can i continue to pretend that i need this? how much more do i need? how much do i need now? how much am i gonna dneed again? why does booze work like this? WHY DOES ANYTHING WORK LIKE THIS. i get real good then real grumpy when i dont drink. just like i get real happy then rela sad when i go off antidperessants. except booze is a depressant. so shouldnt i just stay happy. what. i want more. i'm grumpy that jerel drank my second to last yueng ling. i get grumpy when they drink my booze, even though sometimes they buy it for me. i never drink theirs. (but i rarely buy theirs. except i buy it when we're out of the house. and i buy other stuff. but they buy stuff. why am i worried about his this is so stupid. )
i just want one more. but there isn't one more.
r

remembering body, remembering music. dance. what a thing. what a feeling. how much i imagine and make into small moves. is tihs the big thing???? maybe the moving body can create music and words and pictures together - maybe better than movies. what about it. you never liked light. go to the stage.
but gotta say tonight's meeting felt pretty okay. despite all this sadness despite all the mess business i want to make myself be, tonight's meeting was. well. now that i'm looking back-- good. i really appreciate the group that was in the room - kind of a bwierd bunch together. i love that. i LIVE for that. basically gender segrated, as almost always. oh well. the circle round starting from the southeast corner, coming counter-clockwise - ben siler, brett, me, jerelle, sarah r----, elizabeth, court. a lot of people who don't know each other that well. this is what i wanted. this is what i always want. i want to see these people become in rooms together, become twosomes and threesomes and genius poly configurations that make the thing happen. i want to see it all happen. that's always been my job. let it be my job. let me not be anxious and let me revel in my job. let me just bring them to the ground and let them build the mountain. HA what a fucking egotist. what a piece of scum. what a nightmare to work with. what a selfish bitch. what a hohohohohohoag. hoagie.
i'm having another one of these weird green fake cigarettes. the one with stars in their green butts. i dont even.
i didn't even buy my plane ticket tonight.
i didn't apologize to the people i should.
i didn't say thank you.
i didn't make plans.
this stuff i'm smoking it again teh green one. it's stronger than iwould think it is. that is to say, YET AGAIN, that cbd does stuff to me that i don't expect. i think - it's not weed, it won't get me. but it do. my head feels foggy and my ovaries feel tight. wind whistles through the spiny trees and flies friends to the night. the pollen falls around my feet, in my hair it lights. without their pollen we haven't got left anything too nice.
haha it's good to write bad rhymes. but yeah. done with that. FOR NOW.
wouldn't it be better to dance tho.
wouldn't it always be better
i've been doing yoga for a few days HAHA look at me pretending like i'm doigng stuff or making habits with this stupid few days bullshit.
suddenly (ha really?) feeling suicidal. what did i do this time. what would i ever do different. haaaaaaa what a nightmare. what aa joke. never will i ever
i expected this lil weed seed baby smokey treat to be the calm kind, what i get from my own herbal rollies, or at least the fearsome fire of a tobacco style smoke. instead i get the woosh brain smooth smallness that i associate with my weed panic - is it just my association doing this? or am i allergic to the wrong part of the drug? everyone else says this stuff doesn' fuck with their heads. okay okay.
WELL
i wasn't supposed to write about htat
i'm saying
i am gonna buy that plane ticket tomorrow.
i'm gonna talk to donna.
it will be okay somehow. for now.
ha.

even my cat is judging me!!!

I HAVE TO LET MYSELF HAVE WHOLE DAYS JUST FOR WRITING

keyculator affirmation defense

4/1/19 - fool's day.
my good mood swift swung sour. what did go wrong? working through the artist's way, i am supposed to write out an affirmation about how i am a real and good artist, and then write out all the negative feedback that my subconscious brain sends back to me. this is at once easy and hard. as i get going, i think of more and more awful things i tell myself, i fill a page. it's really putting me into a bad mad sad mood to be tellign myself these things right now-- they really do work!! and now the book wants me to flip each of these bad "blurts" into positive affirmations that i am from now on supposed to say to myself every morning. ugh. this afternoon i cried aka my throat closed up every time i tried to read through the affirmations she has just in the book - i deserve a rich and fulling creative life - etc. wuff. who says?? so yeah this is even harder. i'm stalling when court comes in, i'm trying to explain how i can't just write the 100% opposite of the bad self-talk and she says why not? and why not try it? and i'm saying because i don't want to and because i don't care about that stuff and it does't mean anything to me. but i'm getting defensive and she's like maybe this is why you need to do it, and it's just making me more irritated.
(as i'm writing this, it's making me feel like there is something here related to my general dislike of white woo women and their homogenous ideas. what if everyone really did walk around saying "i belong here" and "i am perfect as i am" and bullshit like that? what if we were all that entitled? what if everyone thought/felt the same things?)
((is this a real fear? am i just being defensive? am i actually wrong? does everyone belong here?))
so i'm using these examples with court - the first one is all the way made up but it does sound like what i would do. if my negative belief is "i'm ugly" i don't want to say "i'm beautiful." instead i would say "i'm bringing ugly back!" to me, this is powerful and real and motivating. why? because i don't care about beautiful. ugly is awesome. i have written a lot about that already, how i want to "reinvent what ugly does." but this example doesn't work for court.i try again, with a real one from the loony bin when that asshole gave us CBT worksheets.
"i don't belong here and there's no place for me in this world" becomes "CARVE IT OUT!" again, this is empowering to me! motivating! YES i have a goal and something to do! a VISION! (i need to have a vision to have a reason to live. that's quite motivating in the loony bin.)
she says "why don't you just say 'i belong in this world' because you're a human and you do belong here?" and this makes my skin crawl. but, being me, my hackles are raising up and my eyes are dancing and my thoughts get fuzzy and i say-- who knows what i said?! i'm in serious defensive mode here. i am physically feeling it. it happened so quickly. now that i'm writing this all out, it feels like it makes sense and i can logically answer what i couldn't say to court 20 minutes ago -- i DON'T think humans automatically belong here, or that all of us do, or something.
oh yeah, i said something to her about, to say "i belong here" would be like saying "the world is fine and i'm fine in it" and she says no it's not the same. and i say actually the world is garbage and it feels bad to say it's fine. and she says the world is not garbage. and i say okay well the world isn't inherently garbage but we sure have fucked it up.
i don't know. maybe we have teh same ideas but different ways of expressing tehm.
or maybe what i was saying didn't make sense at the time because i'm not good at talking, but it makes sense now and there's nothing wrong with my take on this affirmation exercise. (i do feel a lot more calm now.)
OR maybe at heart, i'm just a pissy middle schooler reading adbusters and bitching about the system. a debbie downer. nothing is ever gonna be good enough for me. my ideas are not fully formed, my perspective is miopic and closed. (is this true? i think that's how people see me but it's not how i see myself. because i do see beauty. just right now, i look up at my wall - the true cost of coal poster from the beehive collective - and i know that i am right - or right with myself, that is. right to see the world as sick. right to be dissatisfied. to feel like positivity can be poison. but also i know there's magic and renewal, despite how broken our culture is. to me, the poster is screaming "CARVE IT OUT!" just like i want to. visions of a new world. i don't want to say "i belong here" when "here" isn't home. i don't want to let go of my visions. i imagine myself saying "i belong here" and "i deserve to be here" and i feel my Self fading as my future visions die. i can't imagine holding both. how could i say that and hold the gate?)))) where were we with these parentheses.
the other part of it, i am now realizing, also has to do with my "weird" thinking about humans and bodies and death. i've already lost a way to say it that makes sense. but it's related to ghost life.... "i" is moving. "i" has died a hundred times. we can say that, we've seen it. "i" belong "here" is......?
i don't kow where that was going. maybe it'll come back.
anyway before all this. this is what always happens. it takes longer to recount the event than it took to happen. why do i bother? (i used to love this so much, when i blogged. it was so important to me to catalog. is it meaningful in some way? or useful? i can't imagine. maybe one day it will come in handy for something.)
so court and i had this conversation. i got real worked up real fast. defensive - not mean - but "intense" morgan would say. my thinking is unbending. these feelings are big for me. and then court left awkwardly and i'm just falling falling into my grouchiness and disappointment. i feel like SHIT partially from writing all these awful "blurts" that feel really really real in my body as i write them. and then feeling as if i have to defend that i'm doing the affirmations exercise THE WAY I WANT TO DO IT rather than the way someone else wants me to. (it doesn't even say in the book that they should be the exact opposite of the blurts! i feel like court was putting that idea on it and i didn't like how that felt.) geez it feels so much more clear now that it's written. i guess this is why i do this.
so yeah. that all happened. i was defensive for reasons taht make a lot of sense. things escalated quickly because i was in a vulnerable state. and i felt like shit. i didn't know what to do. i asked the tarot, am i being a big dumb baby about this?
(Was court right that i was being stagnant and unbending in my thinking? was she right to judge me for hating positivity? am i actually blocked in this way? is there something wrong with not feeling comfortable saying affirmations like "i belong here" and "i am clever" and "i have original ideas" etc??)
AM I JUST BEING A BIG DUMB BABY?
(shuffling, the deck cuts itself in half, with three a group of three cards turning away and out to me - i only see first one on top but the whole group is talking. and opposite, the bottom card on the top half of the cut deck, the ace of cups reversed. court just got this card as well. DUMPING out. letting go of emotion and energy. goodbye.)
7 of pentacles
daughter of cups
the magician

7 of pentacles is a very neutral card, only black ink and no living figures. just lines, seeming to go on forever. the pentacles connect the lines where they meet in right angles, in a diagonal across the card. this card is about work, its unending nature, but having teh ability to step back and see the big picture. look how far you've come. it keeps going but you're doing it.
maybe a neutral reflection on what has happened. looking at yourself honestly. that's more important than judging yourself as a baby or not. are we making progress? can we still see ourselves? (wondering when i started referring to myself in plural all the time when i'm writing. it makes so much sense always, especially writing because it feels like channeling - or bringing together parts of myself that are disparate.) (that's teh other weird part of "i" statements - how can i act like i am one thing? maybe i can't say "i am beautiful" because part of me never will be and never wants to be. maybe part of me never wants to belong. does that mean i am broken? sick? do you know how it feels to be sick so long? how you spit on my progress with your pressing?)
7 of pentacles is netural reflection. looking back in order to look ahead.
page of cups is a favorite card - truthfully, i love all the pages, but of course i have a soft spot for this swan, and her rainbow shadow water. yes her SHADOW self is rainbow and she's delighted in exploring it. the simplicity of inspiration. the simplicity, honesty, of real raw emotions. first thoughts, first feelings. the wonder of the world. the rawness.
(this is something i don't want to lose. again this gets me thinking about the homogenous Woo cloud. or any sort of homogeounous culture stuff. and yeah i don't want to "belong" if it means i've gotta twist my ideas to your standards. no thank you.)
THE MAGICIAN. my power card. my dream archetype. this one is especially important to see. hi hello you can be in your body and in your power and access the infinite universe and also be fucking strong and staunchly independent and grounded in your worldview. or - willing and open to change, looking for action and new ideas - but there are some concepts you have to stand on that are not going to change or go away and that is how you know you're still standing in the world as your "self" - everyone deserves love. everyone deserves justice. binaries are boring. etc. whatever. i don't have all that fully articulated now. or probably ever. but the point is that this card always makes me feel powerful, or like an imagined powerful version of myself (especially in this deck, as the jaguar, with the red/orange/yellow streaks from a black sun.) it makes me feel - i have a grasp on what is important. i have glimpsed magic. i might be able to access it if i worked on my balance and learned how to weild the tools. (the tool of MY BODY and the tools of creation/creativity. tools of conduction. tools to become a conduit. LOVE AND MAGIC. CLOWN. AHHHHH!!! okay.) experiencing the power of life by letting go of ego. the beginning of action, of new projects. the ability to harness energy and create magic. a connection to the unknown. in a way, a gate keeper. or yeah, a conduit. okay i'm just repeating myself now. i love this card.

to recap: i was working on the artist's way exercises, then i had that conversation with court. the combination made me very defensive and irritated. i asked the tarot if i was being a sad grumpy baby. i wasn't really sure what the answer was until i started writing. i have written a lot. i have written more than i intended, as per usual. i have written and that's all i want. this book/program is supposed to help me get creatively unblocked, get in touch with my Self, and get to fucking work. perhaps this isn't the intended effect, but i think it's working. this doesn't mean i get to stop, of course. i never actually wrote my new affirmations. wait nevermind i wrote a couple. doing the best i could -
-i am deserving.
-i have interesting ideas and my perspectives are worth sharing.
-i am recovering and discovering myself, taking care of myself, and becoming friends with myself
-i am just as cool as i want to be

but it's not done of course. it's never done. i have to write something i can actually believe in. it's all about the power of words, of course. then i have to say it to myself, again and again, day after day, until it becomes true. ish. even though i'm never going to say (or want to say) an affirmation like "i'm smart" or "i'm beautiful," i don't want to keep carrying these negative beliefs and this awful self-talk. i can replace those with something real. it will be okay. i am exhausted now. less grumpy but more overwhelmed. i'm done for the night. i just want to veg out now.



you should write a sonnet

keyculator, stoop and hall

already oh dear the thought where is it
it is an unflinching thing. sharp.


maybe what i liked was the unfamiliar. or wthat's what i crave. or think i did. bc i adjust to everythihng. chameleon. sinking into patterns. i crave that sinking in feeling. the passageway. maybe that's why i'm sitting in the hall right now. sitting in the floor, looking at the painting and the dust and my feet, and here's my cup of wine, and i hear jerel playing a game at the end of the hall, all the sounds. but i don't look at my hands and that's good and okay. i am just thinkig thoughts almost. isn't this ohow i think? it's sentences. it didn't used to be. i am not sure, i've wondered always, what form do other people's thoughts take? what's their shape? jerel says there's always images. that's more rare for me.
look at that. my cat comes back. the end of the hall. an angel! he's learning the house, nervous, stalking. he's learning the circle. the house is two concentric circles sort of. the hall is the main vein. there are times i avoid it. there are times it feels unnecesssary to my movement, my destination.
jerels' game is getting loud. i should close the doors.


four pockets, four directions.
a stone - a rock, really. i recognize it as one of my own, sitting on my parents' coffee table. i slip it into my front right pocket. a fake flower - fabric. pink. i like it. i was looking for whatever mom thinks willikers was playing with in the (non) living room. i don't see much / i see too much. the flower could be the thing? maybe, maybe not. but i like the color. (my room needs color.)
a twist tie - the color of cardboard. implies "recycled" or "natural" unlike the blue/white/yellow ties normally found on bags of bagels and the like. i don't know what it came off of. i feel like this is a thing that i always expct to be there, and never ever am i gonna pay for it. here is one on teh counter, unused. pocket
packet corner - the plastic yellow corner of a bag of cough drops from the floorboard of my sister's car. i am suupposed to open them for her. i do not litter. i take trash towards me. i bring it home. (i am home.) i bring trash home. i bring it towards its home, my body. you get it.

i wish i could remember which pocket housed which item. why do i wish that? what purpose would that really serve? it's not like pants have directions. i can assign them as i wish, as i prescribe to where my mind/body/center sits.

two weeks ago at movie night, franklin made popcorn, two delicious huge bowls. at some point near the end of the bowl, i wish i remembered the cue (she probably does) morgan tells me "i've been holding these kernels in my hand." i tell her "i put mine in my pocket." she asks "will you take mine too?" and i put her moist discarded mouth seeds into the pit of my pocket. along with my own, i am sowing them for somethign, the possibility of the pocket.
the pocket
the portal
the pocket
the portal
i wish i had a cigarette
i'm tempted to go buy one
instead i am gonna look for my rolling papers and make an herbal thingie. raspberry leaf and uva ursi and shit. and maybe some of this cbd business that smells like weed but isn't. let's try. i have the urge to be under moon, under wind. i dont' want to leave my cat, but the night is calling me. the cards want the night. i am listening.

p.s. when i took off those pants and found those treasures, i put on new pants and found new ones - selenite and bitten off finger nails. what to do with such things!

i'm surprised how much video game noise distracts me. (am i?)

(wondering, did you turn the game down once you heard me moving outwards? or did it just get to a quiet part?)

realizing i'm sneaking again. SNEAKING in my own home! is it for fun or is it from fear?
i realize i'm trying to small myself, curl up, walk toe to heel down the whole hall. i've already left my slippers in the kitchen to be quieter. i realize my throat is tight, closed.
this was one of the things, one of the whole same things. open open open. project. speak. fill. this one is so big. i just want to sing and squeak. instead i smoke and drink. i dont know. i dont know.
i see it.
i'm working on it.
right now i am going to smoke this herbal thing intentionally. i am drinking wine. i maybe should just sleep but i feel like this is one of *those* nights. is that fair?
i dont' care. i'm trying to follow the impulses. i'm trying to feel which are mine, if that exists.

what about holding space for the dialogue between air and electricty? earth and plastic? i know we have enough worshippers of pollution. but how can we have a beter conversation?
i don't entirely know what i'm thinking.
just remembering feeling a magic in electric light, from a distance, like a wish of fairies. the intimacy of parking lots. (and of course their opposites, going both ways. the loneliness of parking lots. the intimacy of a thicket of trees.) what have we actually changed by replacing plants with concrete? what spirits linger here now?

p.s. feather of swords is lookiing up at me when i open the box - after court last shuffled. i hold the cards just for a moment - the only peek i get is the lovers, reversed. just the bottom left 1/8 of the card, but i recognize it. goddamn.
okay.
gonna use a spread i saw on instagram a few months back and have been meaning to try. lets see.

lost found

i begin to think everything isn’t real and this is just a ??
but i’ve been inside a book and 3 beers and tears and i don’t know what i am and what i’ve found now that i’ve come out of it
what is enough
where are the thresholds
how do we see them
how can we honor them
how can i thank everything enough for what it is
how is it okay for me to be alive and consuming

i have my friend here! the cat dr g. what a great guy. what a miracle to see him here giving life to this space. how did i not see how empty it was before ???
how have i not seen how empty the days? when is the last time i touched anything real?
thinking about swamps and sheeps and

maybe there’s a bog witch feeling in there somewhere
(maybe the thing is just to do it and stop thinking. just find a place.)

sad clam stew

what have i done what did i do?
interrupted again i guess
came in with a question and turned around
asshole
but couldn’t take the passive aggressive? response
just tell me your feelings are hurt
just ask me to leave
instead it’s just you don’t want pizza anymore. you’ll have a cucumber sandwich.
now i don’t want pizza anymore
now i don’t want anything
i feel abandoned again
lost
useless
sad
lonely
you don’t think i should feel abandoned bc i’m “never alone”
but you are the one who keeps choosing solitude - how can that be the same feeling?
i’m not mature enough for this relationship
i’m too insecure
i’m not secure enough for this relationship
i’m too immature
the catbox smell sticks in the air
not the stuff but the litter
it’s dusting everything already i guess
the air is already thicker
it’s in my throat like a tickle
making water taste bitter
just dust me dry me burn me away
leave me lying in the dark
leave me lying under feathers
never look at me
never look back
i’m not enough for this
i can’t not overreact
i couldn’t give you enough
i’m not what you need
i’m not what you deserve
i love what i lack
your patience generosity kindness cleverness
i rot i wilt i falter feather
giving only when i need to
getting all of nothing from you
questing licking split the center
rent from mouths mistakes they quiver
climbing clinging higher tighter
melting winging longer lighter
nothing gone from nothing gained
bring me back some nothing name
give me grievance give me shame
give me pleasure give me pain
gone from earth and banned from hell
damned if we didn’t rum barrel yell
this got off track but that’s the point
be free before you blow this joint
go wild run now go wild get down
where did i go
where have i been
i wanted to just say what happened
the words ran away with me
such a sin
the rhyme it tricks me makes me bend
time to be done.
time to be gone.
i only wanted to say it plain
is there a way i can ever do it or will i always cloak the hard parts in the poetry ?
why is this the only place i find it ?
(because it’s melodramatic stupid and embarrassing
and no one should have to read it
you wish you never went to write it)
the flow moves pathways in my mind and it skips along a different rhyme
but rhythm stays the same maybe even every time
i’m done i’m dying
i’m cold i’m crying
i’m not i’m lying
i can’t stop sighing
and every time wonder did you hear ?
stopped half hoping you’d appear
you don’t have words for what i’ve done
i can’t come back from where i’ve gone
but it’s time to make pasta time to sing songs
remember that the night is long
remember that you could go blond
remember that you started this
and you could stop it with a kiss
you know that you could just keep going
when river words are easy flowing
but when they show no signs of slowing
you learn to know when to stop rowing



“the end is nigh”-ing

rat trap night sack

sometimes i forget about how the page used to offer lines. the clear distinction in my mind between lines and the huge block of a never ending paragraph. like the stories didn’t require it so they didn’t receive. and the poems had a whole different vocabulary, different shape.

i have to remember to read more shapes. more poems. more weird words.
rex’s book. angela carter. poetry all the time. what am i doing.

actually these video games are funny sometimes with their lines in a way i can get behind. i didn’t expect to be so drawn in by the words.

(but also there are other words, there are other worlds. we can’t forget to visit.)

i’m up late carefree silly on a thirsty thursday. a pushback against feeling yet again a failure for my parents? a finding fun pushback to jerel playing their new game where i have an excuse to be silly / seen?
i’ve been reminding myself to look for the signs. see that everything is speaking. tonight i saw a lot of words. i saw images i can’t imagine where i found them in 2001, 2012. (“a circus orb” et al.) what were they saying?

do i want another smoke actually or do i want the cool outside alone? can it be both or what is healthy? this drink is probably already too much so maybe it’s also enough. pasta and white wine with the fur family in the museum and broad city episode about hoarding - is it weird that it didn’t hit closer to home? or did we feel it without fully comprehending? was there intention in the writing to actually touch the subject or was it just a vessel for poignancy and laughter? how cloaked can you go?




the remembory is that it can’t be forced, the remembory is that it comes in spurts. we seem to work in sprints. (is this a “good” thing? is it even “okay” or do we keep needing to fight to find some perfect balance? the correct timesheet planner equation? doesn’t it feel too much dependent on yr brain and body and mood to predict? hasn’t it always? how do we leave room for it and still do all this other garbage mess?)

all we really want is a _____ train

stop being obsessed with yourself you prick





listen at least yr writing at least you got to here. this is where you will meet them.
(hello train. hello night. enter smoke. enter game.)

is the place where i have been going
-when i have been able to get there-
the place? where others go
i know there is a stream
many streams
to look and dip and lick
have i found any access points
or is mine a secret chest

(there are rhymes wanted that i do not choose. there are lines waiting that i should not lose.)
((can i be a one to flow through? can my fingers make my mind true?))

if always the revelation is about the revelation then we can’t go nowhere.
if you can’t get the fuck off this one stair then we can’t walk anywhere can’t move can’t do can’t speak can’t teach and then who are we for? still only ourselves still ever our cells still nothing that sells still
there is a something which will creak
there
there yes i’ve heard it
there yes and the word yes it’s singing
creak and sing
teach and bring
let me be a nothing thing
let me be lip to lie on
let me be a lid pried open
let the softness scream our songs
let the darkness live along
and when we dream of day again
we know that we can take the pen
and when the day is vast and open
we know that we must make the potion
(we know that we must never read
the words that we never did speak
we know that lines can come alive
before our hearts and minds divide)


maybe i can open the connection but i don’t know where to go. maybe i’m so worried that it shouldn’t be me. maybe i’m convinced that i’m just an instigator, enabler, facilitator, translator, assistant, nodule, fake. was i even supposed to be here today. was i even supposed to eat any cake. surely only sitting in to sit the wings and make the smoke.
how do i find what the house is about
i want to be the vessel
how do i receive
(if you want to be the muscle
you must first be meat)
and how do i muster the sounds of the moldy
and construct what’s left behind when i’m left lonely
what do we do with the ones who’ve abused
what have we done when we’re forever snoozed
listen
listenlistenlisten
you’ve never seen the kitchen
listen
the critter creaking over there
the sirens trains machines that take the air
we’re sure you haven’t seen much greater
so get off the elevator
quit yr game of rising high
lick yr knuckle spit dry and listen listen listen
hi
if you’re not watching who is ?
who is stewarding this land
who would kiss a possums hand
shut up with that i’m not a savior
but look at what the good gods gave ya
if i can’t get words for all
maybe my own aren’t so small
listen
listen
train train plane rustle car rustle TRAIN car TRAIN central air train train drip drip rustle wind rattle rustle rattle hush rattle rush rustle rustle come to me rustle rustling one so free will you be raccoon or cat will you be possum or rat will you be a friend or foe will you be which grazes low
rustle drip rain falls now rustle train rattle brain slow small cloud drip car drip fall slow soft don’t snow rustle dribble birds quibble cars rush birds hush a light to shine a sounding line an awkward caw a swaying soft the rustle leaves although i’m looking the tussled trees continue cooking

coocoo
cakoo
coocoo
cocoon
speak speak speak
tweet
sleep
squeak
some small holler far away
some life will leave and some will stay

sometimes i forget that we are the bodies we have
in these spaces in these places

spring soon

Doing this mileage taxes thing has been weirdly introspective -- tracking my past, where do my days go, where am I going. Definitely got me thinking about how little I've been doing lately and feeling bad about my "progress" or something, down on myself about what I'm "supposed to" be doing. This morning I'm moving slower than I'm "supposed to" according to my list, but my brain is doing stuff that's maybe good. Rolled around in bed with Jerel for a while, but not "too long," took a shower + my brain wasn't stuck on the list for once. Spent 15 or 20 minutes brushing my hair + listening to a podcast by the Gods + Radicals folks that's mirroring some thoughts I've been having about the white pagan and new age communities and how they're such bullshit! And I'm over it! Is it avoidable? UGH. So I rinse my hair, I burn some palo santo, then wonder how sustainable it is, and is it like sage that we've decided we need it for every damn ritual and cleansing despite it not being native to most regions (not to mention it doesn't belong to us) and I'm remembering the bunches of pine needles I collected from the ground to make into a smudge stick, remembering whole bunches green + fresh that the trees shed, seemingly so early, but they knew winter was coming + they had to conserve their energy, and suddenly I realize that I've been slow, partly for the season, and it always goes sort of this way, and it's good to recharge + spend time with my honey, relax + retreat + conserve + observe. Spring is right around the corner, and the world will open up again.

(4pm getting fuzzy -- I think I forgot to take Adderall again...)

losing wood

Back from walking dogs -- there goes the day again! How can I make time for everything?!? Where does it go?!? I feel sort of frazzled and crazy even though I didn't take Adderall today -- a conscious choice to see how my brain would feel. Still a good bit of spinny eyeballs + racing thoughts. But the energy is good -- could it just be THE SUN? Finally out to say hi? And it's nearly warm outside, I actually got hot in just a t-shirt after a couple dogs. Or could it be partly that I had only one beer last night, when my norm lately has been three? Or is it again just this sense of today as a new beginning + wanting to somehow do it all at once?

Have been trying to work on this car mileage spreadsheet for over an hour and have gotten literally nowhere -- 100% stuck! I feel like I've totally lost the momentum I had earlier in the day, and I'm completely unfocused. My mind doesn't feel super fast but it does feel jumpy and unclear.

(So I took adderall! Maybe it helped?? no idea.)

a newness

I'm tired of acting/living from a place of fear and bitterness and confusion.
I want to love more, better. Now.
I want to have patience, be more kind.
I want to write + take time.
I'm afraid of how some elements in my life make me feel -- screens, adderall, etc.
Am I losing all my empathy? Patience?
How can I slow down? How can I do better?
I ordered a new planner for some reason-- always the thought is "This will really get me on track!" It's just a tool, not a solution, but maybe it will help (if I let it, if I don't let this little fire die.)
Already, today is the start of (another) new era. Jerel is training for their new job at Wizards, and I have my first case at UT on Wednesday. After spending the last few days alternating between mega evil tax hell and total vegging out, I'm in the mindset to take charge of my finances and my records, to do better than I've done before. Wanna get on that hustle!

i think i saw another one of those faces the other night..... a face full of stars??? or.... coming out of the stars?

night visions

just remembered those crazy face images/messages i was receiving last night trying to fall asleep.

orange and bright blue feathers and paint, fiery excited curious eyes
deeper blue ish face looked like it was carved of wood, stoic, lined
the feeling of huge soft silvery white eyelashes closing and opening, kissing my face, huge bright blue eyes
a brilliant shining eye (eyes?) in the darkness - the sense of peering up from some depths

i did wonder if they were clown gods.

were there more?

the rest is hazy as i am getting closer to sleep. i feel like there's this sense of a green/black mottled texture... not unlike moss or algae. maybe had a face but wasn't as clear.
and did i really see... a goat??? or horned animal of some kind, in silhouette.... (maybe this was something i gave myself, after having the thought that they might be clown gods.

the first three felt very close, like they were right up in my face. and very focused on the eyes.

definitely felt like i was receiving these images, perhaps from some universal stream of creative energy, or perhaps from the gods or the fairies or the spirits or the ghosts or whoever's faces i was meeting

HERE IS A THING YOU DO

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

STOP with the reactionary weirdness!

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

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

zoned

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

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

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

things yr gonna do

start a workshop series

host movie night

host writing group

host salons

host art hours

make an installation show

write a script

make a zine

publish an essay

release an album

tour a show

write a biography

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

if we can't now then how

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

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

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

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

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

seven of candles / wands

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

go to sleep early

i accidentally killed the game

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


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

keyculator collab with jerel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

florida party dream

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

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

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

inarticulate after the argument (and probably during too)

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

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