{march 22, 1999}.......,...........................<--ramblings, observations, & mistranslations---......
"all the news that's fit to print."
shit, i've got a pacifier for you, something to take the edge off, something like talking you off with descriptions of that hallucinogenic disneyland trip: rusty bitch-in-heat, wine glass filled to a curve above the rim, sipping crimson while spitting blood. i'll warm the stomach of an ice cold winter day with my words, scrape off the dust and scabs and forget-me-nots in an effort to remind that warm still exists above rotting trees and beyond the break of time.....removed from the rash of emotional shutdown.....hidden behind going home for the holidays with three suitcases and a set of antique silver knives designed to be driven into the backs of loved ones. i swear, i'll send you something that'll make you calm down and relax.....something to hum in a rocking chair.....something to wipe into the creases of age and worry, like so much sandy cake-make-up.
the goodies i've got ain't meant for public consumption, sugar, and that's why this special offer is just for you: come on in, sit down on my velvet couch for a moment and tell me about all the strife you wade through just getting to the bathroom in the morning. tell me about the collection of logical fallacies and hasty generalizations that crawl beneath your skin and cause everyone around you to shade their eyes, hood them against the glare of your unfinished, unanswerable questions. i'll listen, but only for a moment, and then.....
..... then i'll start talking. shut you up from yourself and remove your body from the stake. take down your pictures from everyone's mental dartboards and place you in a hot spring somewhere, with a daiquiri and a volcano in the distance......humidity rising off the nothing of the everything that makes you up and leaves you like a hooker in the middle of the night, forty dollars and a bag of fruit-flavored-lipgloss. i'll replant you into a lost field fertile with the dead hopes of gamblers and junkies, spinsters that crochet and weave new scarves for the midnight to don as he yet again passes them by. i'll write a check to god and request a credit in your favor, open you up wide to the spears of tenacity, the joust of raw, the tube top of unedited feeling.....
and in return you'll ask: miss kat.....tell me, what must i sacrifice to gain the favor of your slash-n-burn eyes?
and i'll answer: it's simple really.....i ask only that upon waking each morning you say six times (three times forward and three times backward,) "nus nmad nwo ym esiarp i."
~march 20, 1999~
taste the rest: three p.m. friday found me wrestling with the illustrious derek danger on the hills of the pike waterfront park, my dress all up and over my head an shit. the ever wonderful, newly bald beatnik bran had accompanied us and he and i ate strawberries in the glorious sun. when the sun comes out in seattle, everyone goes CRAZY.
case in point: three women walk into the park with three bulldogs: small (a puppy girl), medium (a horny boy), and large ("rocky.") introduce four small children between the ages of one and five and you know what mayhem will ensue: horny bulldogs and toddlers do not a smashing combination make. the three of us sat up on the hill making potty joke commentary through this pseudo-circus act, the highlight of which was when medium wrestled large into a sleeper hold and started to hump his head with a zeal unknown to anyone whom has never been associated with rollercoasters or hay rides. the worst part was that during another attempt to mount large, the little one year old girl, who had been wrestling around with the dogs the whole time, slipped in between medium and his intended target......getting the brunt of medium's exuberance right in the face. jesus, i've never laughed so hard in my life. what will they think of next?
anyway, aside from sailing the seas of public kink and circumstance, i have been in a stellar mood. my recent sojourn to las vegas has proven to give me a fresh new look at what the hell i'm doing, not to mention the early infusion of luscious sun. seems it has followed me here and spring has sprung the gates to my eva-lovely heart......i'm simply glowing. can't hardly stand it. ear to ear.
and despite los complicados, the icky bits and pieces, i feel endlessly lucky. everyone around me is itching for spring and we're all teetering through the last dirty seconds of winter, trying to make it through, knowing there is lovely on the horizon. all the minutes are riddled with such an unapologetic vibe i feel as if we've all entered the 10 km of crushed butterflies: no consequences, no regrets. like anything is possible. perhaps it is just my voice of recent vacation shouting above the rest, or perhaps it is because i have found myself wrapped in the tangle of a most delicious romance.....but everything just feels right.....as if it will all fall into place and all i've gotta do is keep the faith.
baby, i should bottle this shit.
~march 19, 1999~
curled up smoke and mirrors and a dirty foot injury are meditations on what we gotta be gettin on when we be gettin on. only grace from sanity is a short term memory about the nasties.
see, when i was growing up, i lived primarily in a dream world. soft, illicit.....quietly open wide to all things immaterial and rough. it was a textureless babylon, perhaps, growing up in the shaded bush against the pale intruder of age. but it offered me this prickly faith in the continuity of things. sit back, relax, cuz this ain't how it's all gonna fall down. trust me, stones roll through the ravine of circumstance like rusty lovers of medusa, moving toward a velvet sun. sometimes i wish i could roll joints better, feel like my caribe education was concentrated too heavily in fog and not enough in technique. but, if i could roll 'em myself, for what would i need a man?
i have thought that perhaps people whom dawdle through life.....the perennial tourists.....the bastards maintaining a constant forty mph no matter the speed limit......the folks that clog escalators and grand canyon railings.....that perhaps they actually have a deep seeded sense of purpose. they don't need to get anywhere......they're already there......and those of us whom walk firmly and decisively through a crowd, we're the ones that know we don't have a purpose and thusly choose to exhibit our strength in this knowledge by expressing sheer determination in all the easy areas of our lives. this theory was put to a rather severe test, however, during my stay in las vegas.....seems like the place is so overwhelming that when the average individual is set down in the middle of it, he or she is swirling through a muddy pit of disbelief and horror.....walking through casinos with anything resembling a determination to accomplish something other than gawking at the bright lights/big sincity is regarded with an almost amusing amount of distaste. the saps at the slot machines looked like six year old children smooth sailing the riddlin-induced teletubbieswave and the hordes hovering over the buffet tables had the rash of too much roasted turkey and pumpkin desserts. it all reached a rather feverish pitch one evening when i decided to sit in the casino bar and take in "the sights." there should be a limit to how much pseudo-egyptian bullshit is co-opted for thematic purposes. i suppose in vegas, however, there are no limits, even to the sky.
sometimes i crave the dirty dust of a big bad city, sometimes seattle's too tame and filled with way too many volvos. i'm the kinda woman who can only truly appreciate a camaro. don't ask me why, but when i see that cherry red i lose a little more of myself down the drain of impurity.....so why is a harlot like me still skanking around the netherweeds of the pacnw's overcast thighs? am i hanging around in a vain attempt to cool everyone else out? or am i just a pitiable bitch built only for dark dreams and hard talk? i suppose the answer depends on what day of the week it is, and if i've got a man around to roll my joints. or perhaps it just comes down to the silver light that filters through my six a.m. windows, bushes skeletal against the victor hugo sky, the quiet comfort of knowing yes, it's going to rain.
~march 18, 1999~
las vegas sucks on cigars like the limp cock of some ailing bohemian king. with a tray of bloody marys and a bottle of chocolate body paint i wrote down things i'd always promised i'd never tell myself, especially not in the three a.m. hour itching at the clock that some bastard broke on his skull in an effort to make some sense.
four nights at the luxor. seventy-two dollars in slot machine loot and i can't shake the burn. four inch red spanish heels and this black lace piece o' fine ass nothing that hung untouched in my faux egyptian armoire. i thought of you, though, you were in a dream with a bottle of scotch. i remember asking you if i should wear the iron choker or the velvet one. you told me i should wear both.
this book written in passing seconds, i feel a firecracker implosion, a psychotherapist's intrusion, a lover beating down the house. watching boxers and rolling all the wrong numbers: woke up in the burning desert sun playing charades on the plateaus -- reds and oranges and faded blues that laughed at my crusted silver morning eyes -- and wrote a love letter that i left in some dirty gas station bathroom outside of reno.