| magic flashcards & bigger mermaid lagoon |
[16 Jul 2009|12:42am] |
instead of studying flashcards i fell asleep with them all over me, and woke up at 10:30 when it was time to bike to school. "and i knew all of the information when i woke up the next morning," i told my classmates. "they are magic flashcards." "osmosis," everyone said.
i got the index cards from the abandoned tech school. they have moldy water stains on them. they are blank on both sides. the best kind.
right now i am taking a shirtless air-conditioned break from digging the pool deeper/wider in the backyard. with shovels. to rent a digging machine (i don't even know what they are called) would be $250 and to make $250 would be faster and easier and less sweaty than doing it with shovels, but there's something about sitting in a pool you've dug yourself. with shovels.
i can feel the sweat drying on me.
& out again.
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| like this |
[15 Jul 2009|04:10am] |
i bought a greyhound ticket to portland like this:
scott dug a hole chest-deep and covered it with the general tarp and filled it with water, so we have a weird little pool in which we were lounging playing with marti gras beads and saying, "we are marti gras mermaids," and then i said to steven, "i will buy you lunch if you drive me to the greyhound station." almost everyone in my house is unemployed currently. i leave for portland august 1 and leave from portland august 15 and will see mountains and taste new air. the bus will go over across the desert to los angeles and then up the pacific coast to portland. in the greyhound station i ate a 6-inch vegetarian sub and steven ate a footlong meatball sub and jo and aaron were there and i forget what they ate. we drank dr. pepper and rootbeer and strawberry fanta. i ate two peanut-butter cookies and a bag of baked lays. jo said she knew someone who was obsessed with baked lays and turned out to be a bitch with borderline personality disorder. i was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder once in a psych ward by a scary nurse tripped up on power like the skinhead cops around here who mill around our house like sharks. right now i am reading one flew over the cuckoo's nest and oh wow about that. tomorrow i have a biology test and also i will dissect a rat. when i get back from portland i maybe will start an internship at the zoo. the man who explained the internship said to me things like, "it's a good cross-section of the alternative community," "it's a good place to be if you enjoy the spectrum of humanity," "be careful around the apes; they are more intellegent and therefore more likely to exhibit pathology about being locked in a cage."
i can't write about any one thing without writing about everything else.
we called a house meeting last night and it was depressing and made me miss cleveland. i was sitting on the floor and i folded myself in half and put my head down between my knees and found a dead bee and stared at its wings and missed cleveland. later i brought the dead bee to my altar in my room.
susan texted me and said, "i collect dead bugs in your honor. is that weird?" she spends the holidays with the Man I Love and Our Daughter. she went to his family reunion and had to explain to everyone "no, i'm not the mother." i like her and love tim and she likes me and loves tim and tim likes me and loves her. um. what? so i lie on my futon and let my cat lie on top of me and am 1000 miles away. i met my cat when i was twelve and since then we've had this arrangement in which i am sad and he lays on top of me and i feel better.
& on & on.
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| year-old self-portrait |
[24 Jun 2009|05:08am] |
in los angeles, on estrella. first picture i took with my camera. dog named blue.
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| pomegranate |
[23 Jun 2009|03:09pm] |
hydrogenated oils
gas station candy bars
heat rising from the sidewalks in waves
pot
cat finally satiated
a magazine someone left on the couch
another green blanket
sweat makes shirts wet
window a/c unit hum
bedroom disarray
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| the movie screen |
[16 Jun 2009|03:15pm] |
last night scott knocked on my door which was a world of dark green and radiohead and soft monitor light and me petting my cat, and he said you wanna go to the rice mill and get a projection screen?
it's a big brick building and we climbed through a hole in a boarded up broken window and up up up flights of stairs. how can i write about the rooftop of that building, a big vast white plane with spraypaint like hidden smiles, the view of the river and the city, the breeze blowing? i can't. you'll just have to come visit new orleans and i'll take you there and you'll see for yourself. you'll see the red moon rising. and i laid on my back and watched seagulls divebomb each other and all the amber leak out of the moon as it rose in the sky and the outline of scott moving deftly in the shadows.
(pre: we need a projection screen as big as our two-story house, so we can project movies onto it every thursday night and make pretty flyers about it. last thursday we showed the triplets of belleville but our projection screen was a wrinkly silver tarp so the movie was dark and warped. we dumpstered a printshop and got lots of pieces of white vinyl and tried to glue/sew/patchwork them together, but abandoned that idea. they painted a clear tarp white but all the paint chipped off. they tried to steal a billboard but almost got shot by a crazy neighbor. plans were in the works to steal another billboard but then it was said that the roof of the abandoned rice mill is covered in white rubbery plastic, huge sheets that won't wrinkle or blow in the wind or have to be patched together. so that's where we went. on a mission. then it went like this.)
1) measure a square 25x20 and they argue about if that's big enough or too big, and i'm lying on my back listening to the seagulls make sounds like little dinosaurs
2) scott moves around the square with the razorknife and it makes a pleasant noise and he is all smooth shadows when he moves and i think i like this a lot, new orleans
3) we fold it and cut grommets and fold it and cut grommets and i lie down again and watch it get wrinkled and heavy and it's so heavy and we push it and pull it and there's nowhere to grab it and the fingertips hurt and i'm not very useful so i lie back down again and think about giving tim head while i watch half the seagulls and half the three shadows very far away struggling with the tarp
4) i am useless and they are covered in sweat and they break to smoke cigarettes and it's something i want to paint, but i don't have paint or even a camera so i keep lying on the roof watching them smoke and also the seagulls are still there (two of them)
5) we are batteries that have been depleted and we must recharge ourselves, i say, and he says we have to drag it out of ourselves, so we dragged it out of ourselves or mostly they dragged it out of themselves and rolled and pulled and pushed it off the top of the building. boom.
6) down the stairs and down the stairs and down the stairs, and by the entrance there were three squatter kids with their three dogs
7) back to the truck and sitting in the back and the long process of making the decision: put it in the back of the truck now or go home and get it later? and i kept thinking of rechargeable batteries and electrons and energy transfer and being hungry and wanting to sleep
8) more sweating and pushing and pulling and it's in the back of the truck and we climb on top of it and i say it's ours now and scott says i'm glad we followed through and steven drives to marti gras zone
9) ice cream, vitamin water, odwalla bars, hot pockets, foodstamps, 3am
10) home, cat, catfood, sleep
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| auburn alabama |
[16 Jun 2009|12:17pm] |
when i was sitting on the ladder in the backyard ben said what are you doing tonight, and i said being drunk and miserable unless something else comes along, and he said do you want to go to alabama?
we were driving out of new orleans in the project truck and he said we are unprepared, we really should fix the spare tire and bring it with us, and the jack and tire iron. we kept driving. so in bay st. louis the tire was flat and we walked into the strip of woods between the two directions of the highway and i found a cicada shell. we ate some blackberries.
we got thirsty and hungry. let's hitch to the next exit i said. i put my thumb out and then i was complaining, this isn't working. it has been only one minute, he said, laughing at me, digging through the trash in the back of the truck to find some cardboard to make a sign. but that's one, two, three, four, five, six rejections, i said, counting cars as they went by.
then someone stopped and i picked a purple flower to give to him, but he didn't want it. he dropped us off at a subway and i ate and drank and was happy. i walked into the cattail marsh behind the fence beside the subway and saw a lizard. i caught him thrice. i held on to him not at all. but i am getting better at catching lizards, which i feel is important.
a cop drove by and told me there was an alligator there. told me to not go back there. i was slyly bratty to him. in alabama i walked out of the gas station and ben had his digital camera and was hopping up and down with his benjamin grin and said symmetry, look at this, fucking look at this! and he had a picture of a cop suv with a big bold word all in caps on the side: CONTROL, it said. can you believe it says that?! he said. at least they are honest, i said, laughing.
two men came in a white van to pick us up from subway and take us to the truck and change out the tire. this was because ben stole a phone charger from the gas station and charged my phone in subway. they said that their van was very dirty, maybe she could wait in subway and you could pick her up after the tire is fixed, she won't want to ride in a dirty van. i wanted to punch him in the face but instead i smiled and climbed into the back of the van. she could sit on the cooler and you could sit on the tire, he said to benjamin. i sat on the tire.
he wanted $170 and he could've been argued down to maybe $70 but i didn't feel like doing it. i was just going along because i wanted to ride in the passenger seat and listen to radiohead for 6 hours, ben said it would be like that, he only needed me to come because he doesn't have a license and maybe if the police catch him there should be someone who could drive the truck back. we aren't supposed to take it on roadtrips anyway.
see, now there's sand in it, and seashells. "i don't know how i will explain that one," scott said, peeved. he's not allowed to authorize us to take the truck to the beach, or to the airport to pick up friends, or especially not to alabama. but he always does but we should be more careful so he doesn't get caught. but now the truck is full of beach sand and seashells.
the man who changed the tire talked a lot and told weird stories. you know that trailer behind the gas station, the man in there done died was dead for a week, eyeballs popped outta his head, now billy's got the trailer and is cleanin' it out for when a hurricane comes, sucha stench tho, smells so bad. et cetera. my brother went to the looney bin and was meetin' girls there bringin' 'em home and we all lived in a one bedroom trailer mom and pa slept on the only bed and we all slept on the counters, floor, bathtub, wherever, and ma said to him about that girl that she wasn't right, she left behind something, left it behind on the kitchen floor, a tampon that was rotten and black musta been in her for months, so we went back and got her and gave her a bath, scrubbed her real good. we always tried to help people out, yep yep.
um. yes. so we gave him all our money and ben said, do you still wanna go to alabama? and i said yeah. and he said yeah, it's always more of an adventure without money.
we got on the wrong highway in the most beautiful way, found ourselves on 90 along the gulf coast in mississippi. right there beside the road was the beach and then the ocean. the ocean and the sky were black because the sun had gone to the other side of the earth for a bit. we were waiting for the right time to stop and swim, like when ideoteque was finished playing, i decided. then all the cars were stopped and ambulances and firetrucks and other vehicles with sirens were honking through and everyone was driving awkwardly up onto the sand. i got the truck stuck & then there were frat boys walking down saying, it was an accident, dumb drunk fucker on a bike done killed himself, and they helped us push the truck free and we parked it on the side of the road and took off our shoes and i said i'll race you to the ocean. i didn't have a chance.
we took off our clothes and put them in a pile and ran into the water. behind us was the line of cars and the sirens, blue lights reflecting on the water. it was warm warm so warm and i floated in it and looked at the sky. i missed you ocean, i thought.
then we drove through the whole goddamn state of alabama in a diagonal line and in montgomery we slept on prickly grass underneath an umbrella. a man woke us up asking for a light. ben asked where a good place to sell foodstamps was, cuz we needed gas money. the man said, i know a lady, so he got in the truck with us and took us to a house and went inside and came out with a list. then we went to the grocery store. then we went back to the house and the man took all the groceries inside and got the money from the people and went out the backdoor to the crackhouse. left us waiting for him in the truck like easy white fools. i like to think that if it hadn't been 8am, i wouldn't've let it happen.
so then we cut open a can of spaghettio's with a razorblade and ate it with a plastic spoon.
in the grocery store in montgomery in the checkout line there was a bag with white dirt in it. WHITE DIRT, said the label. "what is this?" i asked the cashier. "it's dirt. black women eat it," said the cashier, who was a white woman. "i ate it when i was a young girl," said the bagger, who was a black woman. "it's good." does it have any nutritional value? i asked. no, they both said.
alabama.
then... more things happened, as they tend to do. but now walter (the dog) is back in new orleans. walter and ben are the same in different species. we went to the beach again on the way back and they both ran and ran and ran in the water, then slept and slept and slept in the car. they are parallel. they belong together. hopefully no more ex-girlfriends will steal him and take him to faraway hometowns whereupon we must driiive to go retrieve him, but who knows?
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| hello. |
[12 Jun 2009|11:47pm] |
morris is rubbing his head on my knee. the highway is making highway sounds outside. a fly is making fly sounds around my head. my room is lit with the main light, annoyingly. i will get up and turn off the light and make it be lit with green christmas lights + the lcd monitor light, pleastantly.
i will do that now.
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| (new orleans) just give me more of the same |
[19 Mar 2009|01:51pm] |
i've been pressing flowers
pressing through the heaviness that settles on me while i sleep
which has few reasons to exist, when i can walk 2 blocks for breakfast and pass 5 different kinds of flowers on the way, growing from cracks in the asphalt.
& there's the sound of interstate traffic from underneath the bridge,
but never the thought of leaving.
ghost hands are back.
i cannot be troubled to make good decisions.
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| for three days |
[16 Mar 2009|05:56pm] |
all i've been doing is sleeping on the floor in a little cocoon of sleeping bag and fuzzy blue blanket
new orleans seemed so big, for a minute there, but then the rain came
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| tao lin |
[02 Mar 2009|07:00pm] |
kind of abstract; the impermanent nature of things
was making a terribly beautiful emotion
in the center of my being
i was going to feel it as a kind of emptiness; really,
the political gesture was neither good nor bad; 'see,
when you break a heart nothing really breaks,' he screamed
to music, 'it's just a figure of speech'
a kind of indefensible waste of water
--Tao Lin
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| crawling up and out |
[02 Mar 2009|05:02pm] |
i love waking up from nightmares. i like the evaporation of those realities into just a bed, a room, sometimes another warm body breathing also.
then the person i'm sleeping next to wakes up and so does the black hole in my chest and i want, i want to wake up from this one.
then the person starts talking and i understand that the words are building a wall. you stay on that side, they say, because you're crazy and what i don't want.
okay.
then there's artificial light and a dead hour and then finally the blanket off, and the cold air there, and the socks and the shoes and the coat that's not enough, the staircase that is wooden and the footsteps that are too loud and important because of the echoes, then there's the bright and the grey, then the cold, and the cold, and the cold, and the wind which brings more cold.
i wake my car up and it shivers with me in the cold, and we shiver out of tremont and onto the highway where most of the cars also have only one person, and i wonder how many of them are also lonely and daydreaming of death, and guess that it's probably a lot, and i think of how we're all in it together but we don't know that so there's nothing to do except drive and drive and try not to look at the billboards.
what is this shit?
why does this keep happening over and over and over again?
i went to kate's dance party on saturday night. there was tequila. there was a kitten. i danced to new orleans jazz. and dubstep. i got good hugs, and ate a blood orange. joseph came to cuddle with me in susan's bed. then it was sunday.
there was good music in susan's car on the shoreway, which is my favorite highway because it follows the coast of lake erie. the lake was stormy and the city was wrapped in snow clouds, but there was sun. the snowflakes were going every way except down. susan bought a susan pipe.
jolie holland was playing in chipotle, which felt like a pure hug from the universe. i consumed guacamole and rice and beans and corn in good company. the sun went down. joseph and i climbed into susan's house from the kitchen window and smoked her weed and ate her cereal, then left. (disclaimer.) subterranean, we listened to records slowed 4x which made time slur. it slurred. and i woke up 3 hours later to fight through the slur and make raspberry hot chocolate.
so i had raspberry hot chocolate, and sex, and two hot dark showers (something about the womb), and crawled into and then out of the nightmares which started this post.
today's monday.
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| conquered |
[05 Sep 2008|12:16am] |
garage is down!
friends are glorious!
backyard is big!
fines are deflected!
epic win.
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[20 Aug 2008|09:38pm] |
"In Those Years" Adrienne Rich
In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and, yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to
But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through rages of fog
where we stood, saying I
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| vulture meat |
[03 Aug 2008|10:54pm] |
I feel so empty it hurts. I'm craving and dreaming and reaching and starving and there's such an emptiness. It's like a black hole opened up in my stomach.
I go to meditation every Tuesday even though I'm atheist fo sho, and the monk tells us to focus about two inches below the belly button, that it should be our center, like we should find something or feel something there.
And I do, and it's a black hole, and sometimes I get up and go into the bathroom and cry for a while.
I don't know how everything got so serious all of a sudden. Everything feels so serious and I just want to shake it off. No no no it's not this serious, we're young and we're playing around, everything's okay.
Broken families and broken dreams, scattered everywhere, but I can still resuscitate myself, right? I'm not stuck on this path of tragedy like it's my iron-chained destiny, right? I still have choices, yes? I can make my house into a crazy fucking forest and make a fire pit in the backyard and learn all the chords in my guitar book and drink lots of tea and wear rainbow gloves and go to the scrapyard to get weird pieces of metal that I can stick magnetic poetry onto . . . right? And it will all be okay?
I can . . . I can save some of this, can't I? I can come back, I can breathe life into myself again, I can learn to feel safe . . . can't I? Yes?
I just can't say anything with conviction. Some people, you know. They're 30, 40, 60, dead -- still a mess, all the way through, nothing but pain and tears. They never figure it out, or they keep messing up, or something. There are fractures that just never, ever mend. I don't want to be one of them, I don't want to keep dropping out and failing at everything I try, I don't want to keep holding myself back, I don't want to keep being so disorganized I can't even think or eat or live, I don't want to keep . . . doing this . . .
I'm scared I'm on the too wrong too wrong too wrong path, in some hopelessly lost in a dark haunted forest sort of way, in an oh-god-please-save-me sort of way, in an "I might as well eat these poisoned berries before the wolves come rend me limb from limb" sort of way.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
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