july 17, 2001
riddle - in
christmas day, 2000 :
my mind feels like a room that has just been swept by the fickle breeze meandering across the surface of a crystalline lake.
fresh.
organic.
each door thrown open to the autumnal damp -- complete with extra-crisp, red-nosed slivers of sunlight -- the temperature barely lackluster.
would you, if invited, care to walk down these endlessly twisted hallways -- no light but that which emits through expressions of joy?
your joy, of course, illuminating the dank corners of my mind. i wish you'd find all the rooms there.....
this is the first moment we've had to sit down & discuss the last two years. and yet i am still writing to you, not a moment of presence in the affectations of love or humor that line the journey since february last. all i wish to say to you is written on the small of my back. so often i feel crooked and misleading, reciting only the syllables reflected in my mirror.
when the phone rings, i am spirited away into an almost carousel-like mayhem. tumultuous and divine, waves of fury laced with graciousness, words tumble for your mouth and i scramble to collect each of the relics. i should devote a museum to them, and perhaps one day i will. framed and mounted consonants hung in perfect geometry -- precise and severe. i imagine small black curlicues painted several inches from the ceiling and a window at the far end looking out at a vast desert with a slightly greener shard cutting across in the distance, differentiating the sea from the sky. i would play recordings of seagulls singing.
any artist worth her angst would do well to record your lexicon -- nothing too fancy, though, it would only subtract from the sweetness your language resonates.
pages pass. weeks move quietly and quickly into the past and, of a sudden, all the months apart are reduced to one singular tremor of pain right behind my eyes. light flashes, cuts around my cranium until all i can see is the outline of your handwriting, recording so many lies.
moments fading :
.....an aging henna tattoo -- that sun on my forearm or pair of electro-charged houses on my palms. over the crackling radio a voice chatters about february & all the upcoming events and the visual switches, jumps out ahead of me -- an ever-extending calendar, filling up the days, reaching far beyond the confines of this conception, this room -- pop pop pop into mind....3d rendering & astronomical charting. sun is shyly creeping along the walls, highlighting glittering sea glass & the waxy curves of ivy.
sundays that find themselves stretching into thursdays. skittish cat on the prowl for an open can of tuna. open book. leaking pen.
indigestion :
a time bomb (illusory pleasure) hiccup in the pass. up all night (head between knees) constipated inspiration finally loosening.
your face is mixed up (shambles) eyes muddying under the strain. your favorite past-time (annual) injecting passion in my varicose veins.
hmmmmm...... -- it seems my most distinct challenge is believing in myself.
it is necessary for me to expand & develop some very important skills: listen to those that i love, appreciate them, recall that each moment is unique & deserves every ounce of my attention.
july 15, 2001
saturday night in tehran
to simplify: i'm hungry for the wholesomeness of white cotton panties & a brief, sweaty stint under the rails. time to dreamscape -- slink under wormwood & knock back a couple of shots. imagination, overdrive.
july 14, 2001
"y'all got fancy food?"
jubilation! camping was called off due to a rumor circulating that it was going to rain today in index. personally, i can camp anywhere (and have) and once again the democratic wheels have roared to a screeching halt when an email list is built & "decision-making" ensues. ah well, it's probably for the best -- it's nice to have two totally empty days peppered by spur-o-the-moment.
speaking of which, i hit up a spearhead show the other night, totally spontaneously. we had checked out the sponsors' preview of volume: bed of sound at the henry art gallery (which graced me with my first taste of the residents -- why the fuck did no one tell me about them?!?!?) and then headed downtown to the showbox to see if tickets were still available for sr. franti. this is the fourth time i've seen them live, and, oh mother, did they kick ass. what a splendid show! we danced until we were dripping with sweat, covered in spilled drinks, and exhausted by the waving crowds....but nearly no one left the show early. they worked us up into a frenzy and we let it all swim freely through shaking hips & swinging arms -- truly delectable, delightful, and well worth the $17 price-per-head.
i've been more social lately, and i think this may be due, in part, to swimming 30 laps in the pool every day for the last month & a half. it's proven to energize me & keep the dank doldrums of depression at bay. i've been slowly adding five more laps, and hope to be swimming 50 per day by the end of september. it feels good to slide into the water midday and glide into that first lap -- so meditative & centering. my mind concentrates only on the movement of my muscles through the water and attempting to move as smoothly & splashlessly as possible. it also helps break up the working day and afford me a bit of perspective on the work environs.
tonight i'm heading out to PXL This. i always like dreamscapes and the finer points of lo-fi production. yay!
life is good -- although harrowing at times and, of course, incredibly confusing and messy, i feel myself developing all the parts of myself i always wished i encompassed. through my professional challenges and cryptically obsessive artistic molotov cocktails, i've had the keen sense of a slow boil -- perhaps marrying all the relevant spices into the exceptional gumbo i hope one day to serve up near & far. whatever the results, the concocting is incredibly mind-blowing -- i never realized growing up would be this much fun.
july 12, 2001
gladiolas, honey i caught the bloom
it's just that i freak out about stuff, ya know? watch plane crashes & hear myself deliver it up dyslexic -- medic/stereo. where do i need to take myself to find satisfaction? my whole life has been an endless hiccuping pain in my chest, so much so that the phrase "lump in my throat" lost meaning years ago.
sometimes i shine. show it off. want to feel the bliss that confidence is. wear fine tailored suits made of know-where-i'm-going and understand-my-goals and triple-tenable-exploration. but, in essence, these journals are a testament to my upright stupidity & inability to jump outside my cranium. (hey, honey, you need to calm down for a moment & quit it with the fashion jargon.) it's occasionally entertaining, no?
credibility lacking, sense-of-self soaring, i like who i am but i don't know who i am most of the time.
july 11, 2001
"if only the floors of life were clean"
i've been thinking about my upcoming sojourn to mexico & entertaining the idea of going totally solo. time to decompress & reassess. remove myself from the present social circumstances & get a bird's eye view of where i'm at/where i'm heading. i haven't traveled solo in so long, it would be an extremely refreshing change of pace. no plane tickets have been purchased yet, so hopefully no one will be pissed at me for retracting the invitation. and if they are -- well, so be it. i should make the decision in the next week or so and really set it in stone. no waffling!
hey -- i have a new pal! for the past few days, i've been mixed up by his first offering -- a deliciously intergalactic ride. coupled with my recent martian obsession, i can't help but jump into outerspacial exploration. everything is getting so fucked up on this planet, i'd like to make a hasty exit for another globe, ifyadontmind.
the other night, a good friend of mine & i crawled into a bottle of vodka & ended up getting totally rowdy. it was rejuvenating, to say the least, and i had an immense amount of fun. i'd missed hanging out with him, and it was a blast to just get utterly sloppy & bullshit for hours on end. methinks, however, that i may like him too much -- especially since he's going through a lot of shit right now & i'd hate to be yet another stressful element. so i've decided to just chill it out & continue to develop our friendship more -- one thing that i walked away with from hanging out the other night is the realization that there is so much more i want to know about him, and that our friendship has always been fairly kittenish.
at any rate, summer has hit full bloom & for the next three weekends i will be out in the world, getting away from it all. this weekend we're heading up to index to camp & giggle incessantly. next weekend i'm hitting p-town with the lovely miss a & miss n for miss a's belated bachelorette partay -- meaning intense amounts of strippers n booze. the following weekend is my eldest brother's wedding, in which i must trail after the bride in yet another green bridesmaid dress -- and white shoes!!! aaaargh!!!
i want to go kayaking at some point, too. this will happen, goddammit.
overall, i feel splendid. some recent shit up & hitting it all made me falter for a moment, but then i realized it really wasn't worth it to be freaked out & pissed just because of a supposed "disappointment." maybe my standards are too high, or i expect too much, i'm not certain either way. i do know that what is most important to me is to keep plugging away on these relationships in my life & helping to polish them into little jewels. i want the people in my life to be part of it forever, and it's all the hard work trying to keep these strings vibrant & happy that makes the friendships worthwhile. slowly i'm deleting all desire to just say, "fuck it all, i'm gonna bail" or the ever-present, "you're not worth it, i'm moving on" because, frankly, giving up & giving in isn't any fun at all. no one is perfect, least of all me, and hopefully one day i'll look back on my life and think to myself, "good fucking job, lady."
it ain't easy, being cheesy.
july 04, 2001
el pimping no es tan facil!
it's just barely fourth of july, and i've spent the last several hours in a dank & heated club dancing my ass off for darling sprocket's twenty-fifth birthday. in the space below, kool keith worked his magic, and ended up on the dance floor upstairs after his stint. someone came up to me in the middle of my goodness & told me that he'd come up to dance near me but that i was way too freaky & i scared him away.
waitamuthafukkenminute -- i thought this bloke was sposta be cool. & he can't even handle some locaweda boogying with her shoes off (i have blood blisters on my toes -- damn cement.) ijole -- i hope someone caught that on tape (there were enough digital video cams one would think someone important had shown up.)
i love to dance. there is very little else in the world (aside from hitting a beautiful crooning groove) that provides me the solace, centering, energy, and gratitude that dancing does. any song served, i will dance. it don't matter.
early on in the evening, one of the members of our party was picked up on by kool keith's dj. he just sat at the entrance and waived over all the chicks he thought were hot. this particular lass worked her voodoo & was able to squirrel three other friends into the show gratis -- incluido a few moments alone with the lyrical lion himself in his white & magenta stage coach parked outside on the street. this shit always strikes me funny -- primarily because i am not a starfucker -- and even when i've tried to be, i've been absolutely horrible. i just don't have the misplaced respect necessary for kissing the asses of most famous individuals. okay, actually i'm just a bitch, and most of the time i find it endlessly amusing (and intriguing to pinpoint the exact stroke of luck which differentiates this person from any fucking other somebody/nobody) to watch the dynamics unfold -- little hiccuping angel fish licking the sides of the fish bowl.
all in all, it was a great night -- i danced for about four hours straight and landed myself home on a wave of endorphins. how lovely it is to venture out -- i often forget -- low on the alcohol, high on the movement, everything humming, humming, humming --
thank you!
july 02, 2001
oiga!
kitschy dreams wrapped up in sailing a boat in incredulous waves. for a moment, my dream self wrote a tawdry, yet nimble, love letter on a rotting credenza -- the intended lived somewhere beneath the storm that was clutching our miniature sail boat....como "please let go & watch us embrace the horizon. why do you want little ol' us?" tiny, yet regrettably weak, the boat flipped & drank deeply from the treacherous sea, leaving myself (and bleeding white linen stationary) floating in the midst of the whirlpool. one last glance up at the perforated sky, sheaths of light cutting down through the cover, piercing the horizon -- a single gulp of air and, instead of waiting for the washing machine to overcome me, i dove deep within the belly of the beast.
only to come out the other side -- crawling, salt-stained, among marsh mud, hearing behind/beneath/around me the roaring of maritime discontent. i didn't look back, i knew if i did, this brief reprieve in the weeds would disappear, to be replaced by the everlasting black of the ocean's depths.
good morning!
july 01, 2001
"the wasted chance that i've been given"
it's a shock, when i look up at the calendar and realize we have passed the half year mark. heading on into the slippery slope of bloated middle summer, treading downwards into the muddiness of autumn, hang a left at halloween & bury the days further under the charms of holidaze. before i know what bit me, it's gonna be 2002 -- a deliciously palindromic annum. i should begin study promptly so as to speak only in reversals for the entire three sixty five.
why not? seems a worthy pursuit. i've been taunting myself with stream of consciousness writing, hoping that i'll open up a damn nasty can of worms because then, baby, i'll have something to work with. something, anything -- i'll take it -- i'm just fucking sick of the smug faces of the world around me. to be perfectly honest, i often wonder where the joke ends. and, for fuck's sake, will someone clue me in on who the hell is telling it?
it's humorous, i'm very focused on applying a creative twist to my present career persuasion, and am feeling typically antisocial, framed by the fact that i have almost no desire to drink/drug. the handful of moments in which i've thought, "hmmm -- maybe i do want to ingest this" have turned into pure frustration. the night before last i found myself on the bus home in a haze & congratulated myself on yet another failure. it seems i've got this annoying predisposition dictating i must engage in a specific activity until i am well and tired of it -- complete over-consumption lending me to spin into the opposite direction.
darling, the sun feels heady & the grasp of my momentum pushes me underneath the waterfalls/calypsos of self-control.
unfortunately, i've surrounded myself, primarily, with folks who just can't get enough. it makes socializing difficult -- but i think that this is perhaps a good thing. i feel sort of solitary -- not quite hibernating, because i've been incredibly active as of late, walking everywhere & exploring -- but just desiring the solace of my own thoughts.
it's my own fault, really, i disappeared into this sphere a couple of years ago -- and upon resurface, there are the faded minutes of observing the fallout.
how ridiculous is this! you little bitch, so self-assured and certain you understand the finer delicacies of human interaction. wait -- i didn't say i did, or did i? always one step ahead/behind -- centrifugal force collapsing my heart strings, just pawn me off as another sociopath and watch as i tenderize my personality with a thousand experiential spices.
truly, it is as if i believe in the "field of dreams" syndrome: hoping that if i develop myself into the woman i want to be, i will either meet those that challenge and intrigue me, or i will learn how to find those qualities in those that i know already. i remember a girlfriend once telling me, during our breakup fight, that i never let anyone in & that i was going to be alone my entire life. i may be a late bloomer in some respects, but i truly wish to embody one of einstein's most famed quotes,
"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."
if only it was as easy as it sounds -- often i get caught up in taking other people's words for granted & shutting off an avenue. and how much predisposed bullshit do i carry around with myself, instead of feeling, truly, what is meant to be held, carried, remembered?
open up the doorway & make way for the streams.....
snapshot :
i can stare straight at the sun when
it's behind lilac. it's got a magical, aching quality to it, deep blue heart
attack, under wraps, i watch the smear continuously -- sugar, it feels under
rated -- obligated -- reinstated.....i need to run up and spear my fingers,
delve into the ball of the blue, the lilac warping como crinoline y organza
-- is this what they mean when they hint at retinas burning in the middle
of eclipses...? quickly, now, as the sun moves just a half inch away and into
oranging-faded (desecrated) hiccups of bizarre love triangle through static-ridden
speakers i've had since thirteen.
poster girl :
gradient somersault, a greenish plantonic,
or uber-riot within/without -- fortress forgetting whatever i buried way down
deep last week. strumming fingers for the first time in weeks through pubic
hair and inner thighs, i often forget (look, you filthy beast!) who i was
with last night in my dreams. on bus rides, i fantasize about flipping out
-- little ol' me with the baby face & smiling eyes (sometimes) -- wtf
would happen, all yellowing and perspired, covered in their tiny, inflated
problems, were i to lash out & detract? couple myself up with a psychopathic
act? little gripes or wasted fools, my thoughtcrimes giving away with dirty
glints sliced from iris.
overall, i feel rich in my delusions -- on days like this i feel like i'm gonna end up somewhere real, real nice.