The universe is more cold-blooded than I'll ever be.

In the snow.

Homesick for a place I barely remember anymore,

I follow an invisible line. 

Eroded to papery skins.

When you put to much pressure on yourself, you just can't do anything anymore. Everyone tells me things I should be doing, things which I have been doing- and then can no longer do once I've been told to do them.

I have decided to wear lipstick every day. So far, I've failed.

I wish I had a tape recorder inside my head, so I didn't need to write things down in order to remember them. I always feel as though there's so much I want to say, but when I sit down to write it out, it's all just gone.

There are also a lot of many, many horrible poets out there. Seriously god awful.

Do you wear lipstick to an interview? I need to know these things. All of these little, daily things that most people seem to know by default- I need to be let in on all of this. What exactly DO you wear to an interview? Especially for a job that finally doesn't involve serving food? I was only told to wear 'proper interview attire.'

How exactly dressed up do you get before you start looking like a hooker? How can you wear heels at all without starting to look like a hooker? How do you wear tights while wearing heels? How short of a dress is too short? Do I have to wear a suit jacket, no matter what? I was never told these things!

I'm not good at being grown up.

W.W.

A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove
late of a winter night, and I unremark'd seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and
seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and
oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,
perhaps not a word.

W.W.

At dawn when the dew has built its tents
on the grass, will you come to my grave
and sprinkle bread crumbs
from an enchanted kitchen?

Will you remember me down there
with my eyes shattered
and my ears broken
and my tongue turned to shadows?

Will you remember that I went to the graves
of many people and always knew I was buried
there?

And afterwards as I walked home to where
it was warm, I did not kid myself about
a God-damn thing.

Will you remember that one day
I went to your grave and you had been dead
for many years, and no one thought
about you any more,
except me?

Will you remember that we are fragile gifts
from a star, and we break?

Will you remember that we are pain
waiting to scream, holes
waiting to be dug, and
tears waiting to
fall?



And will you remember that after you have gone
from my grave, birds will come
and eat the bread?

Richard Brautigan

21 days

it takes 21 days to make or break a habit.

I folded the note up four times, into a perfect square- the kind of note you pass back and forth in high school hallways, stick into locker slots only to have them fall among the clutter at the bottom. That's where this note belongs- forgotten under unused textbooks and dirty gym clothes until summer release finally frees it, unread, into a pile of community trash.

home.

home is where the river flows
humming through the willows.
home is milkweed in your hair,
with hemlock moss your pillows.
home, if only you could know,
is anyplace I see you-
it's in your heart
and from the start
I've known my home would be you.

-grande pierre

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

--W. B. Yeats

Waiting

From the peak of the grey slanted rooftop,
she watched every day as he walked on by--
From behind dirty blue flowered curtains,
she watched every night as he traced his steps.
Day in and day out, she watched him grow old,
looking solely for a peek at his life.
Seasons change, months and years of watching,
waiting, for one day-she would pique his interest.
One day, he would notice her one more time.
He was growing, he was changing too;
one day soon, it would be he who would watch
from the peak of the grey slanted rooftop,
watching every day as his child walked by.
From behind dirty blue flowered curtains--
he would watch every night as she came home.
Day in, day out; he would watch her grow up,
hoping solely for a peek at her life.
Seasons would change, months and years he would watch,
waiting, for one day, he would pique her interest.
One day, his daughter would wait as well.

Anew

We, as we are unaccustomed to courage
have become used to holding ourselves in,
hiding behind all that is familiar,
burrowing into our own small comforts.

We collect and hoard away all that we are,
letting the weeds creep in, the dust pile up.
Trapped beneath all that we call our own;
hiding under the things we choose to show.

Change can never settle within the dust
that we leave lying in familiarity.
Happiness can't be found in the attic,
nor will it be found in boxes or trunks
stashed away in the basement or tool shed.
Happiness cannot be tricked into coming
to visit, or held hostage at gunpoint.

Fear is not acceptable, discomfort
is never an excuse to hide away.
For we avoid the struggle we all need,
the struggle that will stir up all we know.

Now happiness must be found once again,
he ran away, he's lost among the rubble.
Today I have begun again, my search--
Clearing out the dust, opening the door.

Before I wake

Everything seemed so much simpler when seen through her large, soft, round eyes--she was always looking and searching--studying his face, the noisy clock, the large, colorful bird on the wall, yes, but for her there was also always an answer, a definite conclusion that always satisfied her interrogations, that he with his hard, nut-like eyes never seemed to come close to cracking no matter how hard he tried or how many countless nights he stayed awake devotedly praying and watching while she soundly slept; he needed to watch her every breath, her every movement and quiver of eyelid, and he always felt the urgent need to keep her safe while she slept because he wanted to be there in case her simplicity scared her awake, but most of all needed to be there in case it didn't.

Summer

Boroughs are resurrected pure at dawn-
the night, such a rebellious child, smoked
relentlessly, laughed and trembled, breathless.
She exhaled scorched breaths through yellowed teeth and gums,
and stained glasses with thick, honey-colored rings.
Downpour arrives fast, he breaks up the party;
takes all the houses hostage, locked inside
their own thickets, and fences, and city.
He shakes teapots, spills the coffee brimmed in mugs.
Quiet pealed through the abandoned hallways,
alleyways and pavement soaked down to bone-
yet the smell is all I can remember.

Food, Groceries and Religion

Today a lady came into the store and sat her groceries down, and I began to ring them up, as usual. She then stopped me halfway through, saying that she didn't want to have certain groceries put on "her" tab. Without question, I went on to ask about each remaining item, asking, "Is this hers? What about this? This?," never realizing, or even thinking, that I didn't know who "her" was. And I still don't. But the woman paid two separate bills with her own money. And "she" never showed up. And the groceries were all bagged together. I wonder if there really was another person, or if the woman was just trying to have some fun with her shopping. And if there were another person, where was she? And why were all the groceries bagged together and paid for with the same money? They only needed to be put on two separate bills?
I find it amazing how some people color coordinate their groceries. An elderly couple came in the other day and bought orange soda, Uncle Ben's instant rice in an orange box, and an orange. And they seem to do all of this without noticing- I think. The lady was wearing an orange sweater. The man, a light orange clip-on tie. Suspicious? Maybe.
Another lady came into the store, and she was so happy. While I was ringing up her groceries we had a conversation about a few things, and I just couldn't believe how happy she was. Almost everything she talked about was how she wished these nice things would happen to other people. Then she went on to say that her husband wasn't feeling too well, so she told him to go and relax out in the car while she finished their shopping. I replied, "Oh, that was nice of you. I hope he doesn't have that new flu that's going around." She then told me that he just found out he has pancreatic cancer, with no cure nor chance of survival. They just got back from bringing him to get an operation in Boston. This woman had lived her whole life loving this man, and she just found out she was going to lose him. Yet she said that she wasn't sad, because she knew he had lived a good life, and they loved each other. They spent as much time together as they could, and now it was his time to go. She said she didn't want to lose him, but they are both satisfied with their lives. She then said there was nothing to do but pray, and left with a smile. I don't believe in god, but I prayed for them that night.
At work the other day, I was talking to this man who was checking out. As he pulled out his wallet to pay for his groceries, I saw that he had pictures of Jesus where his family pictures would have been. I knew the man had a family, because he had just been talking about his wife and kids. Yet he put pictures of Jesus in his wallet.

x3.

3.

around and around and around and around

There's never an end to it. I can't ever stop thinking; about life, about people, about art, about relationships-I even find myself thinking about thinking. I have such high expectations for everything, for myself-yet I really have no goals.

Dreams.

Sometimes I have the strangest dreams, of people I haven't seen for years and years, or people I don't even know. Lately I've had a lot of dreams of sitting atop highway overpasses, signs and telephone poles, just holding a sign. I don't know what the sign says, and I'm just sitting there, afraid to fall.

I have a strange fascination with things that are also other things, things that aren't what they seem, things that morph and change, things that have characteristics of things they shouldn't.

I often start to shake violently for no reason, and I really don't know why.

Packrat.

I keep too many things; random things, little things I don't need. It's as if I'm afraid that if I don't keep every little ticket stub, token or momento I'll forget everything. The scariest thing for me is when I remember something I had completely forgotten. It just makes me wonder what else I've forgotten that I may never remember.

So where do I want to be?

Every day people live and go about their lives, whether or not I'm in it.

So many random, interesting, crazy things happened tonight; they wouldn't have happened to me had I been at home. Though they still would have happened.

Hotel.

I love working in a hotel. It's strange, but I get to see these little bits and pieces of another persons everyday life, which excites me. As if I could live vicariously through these people by changing their dirty sheets and old soap.

turn back now, while you're still ahead.

Sometimes you just can't turn back. Everyone has that point in their lives-you've seen too much, and you just can't return to what you once were and be satisfied.

I want to be both Bonnie and Clyde.

I want to remember everything and everyone. Why do I leave so many interesting people behind?

When I walk down the street, the first thing I think about when I see someone is: "what are you doing for dinner tonight?" I'm not sure why, I've just always wondered that about people. Everyone has to eat, and it's usually an intimate detail of a life-something you don't usually share with the world, but you know most other people are doing it too. Today, I got to sit and watch my neighbors have dinner. I sat in my window with the lights off, and just watched them eat. I still feel creepy about it.

The world is so much more beautiful in the rain. Everything just looks better wet. The bricks, the leaves, the sidewalk, houses-they all look brighter and richer against the grey sky.

ANTS.

If I could be anything in the world, I would be a dandelion puff. It may be a short life, but just imagine how much you'd get to see. Would I die by drowning in the ocean, or by getting pulled apart by the jet of an airplane?

My kitten can play the piano.

Wednesday.

Wednesday. Nothing interesting ever happens on a Wednesday. It's the blandest day of the week, void of both the dread of Monday and the excitement of Friday. It's the middle child; overlooked and forgotten. Really, do you know anyone who's favorite day is a Wednesday?

I wore lipstick today, hoping I could spice the day up. It all came off on my coffee cup, all before nine. The people here all walk around in the dark. It's always dark. Right now my fingers all have these little lights in them, they're distracting me with their twinkling, but no one else seems to notice them.

In the long run, I think I lost this one. big time.

It's all the same, since the beginning, all the same as the end.

old woman going senile. alone in her living room. talking to her dead husband.

you never knew it, but even before you were gone, I was painfully lonely. I never had many close friends, you kept me from that. I had my bingo nights, I had my glee club; excuses to get out of the house for a night, away from your stony silence, and actually find human contact. That helped soothe the ache for a little while, but it really wasn't enough. You knew that, of course. Long days, blurring into long, sleepless nights-you were gone, the kids were gone. I had only myself to talk to all these years, you know. That is, until Mary came to visit-she seems to be around a lot these days. I think she got lonely, too. You do remember Mary, don't you? She was my best mate way back in junior high. We hadn't talked, not even sent letters in over forty years, and then she goes and shows up in my living room! I do say, it is a lot nicer around here now that I have someone to talk to.

you'll never fully know everything I am.

I smoke a pipe now, it tastes like autumn.

you say you know I'll leave you soon-

I've already left you behind.

rust can corrode your bones if you aren't careful.

Move too slow and you'll never pull away;

you'll never get out.

bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea. π

too busy to live.

33 hours.

33 hours until the show gets hung. I'm not ready.

I was painting all night, people were over. We had some good conversations, mostly about painting.

I dream about painting. I cant sleep. 

There are too many people sleeping in my house right now.

'Your very flesh shall be a great poem,

and have the richest fluency not only in it's words,

but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.'

WW

People can fall in love on escalators. In bus terminals, amongst the grimy-booted downtrodden passengers, your heart can be reaching out. Falling in love, in certain instances, has nothing to do with the person. Only the time. I leave love letters here, strategically hidden half-heartedly in fake, fading plants and cracks of crumbling stairwells. Sometimes people just need the hope of love, even a hint of romance can get their minds (and hearts) running-crash-into the next person they meet. This may seem almost cruel, a haphazard way of trying to play cupid. But who's to say it's not just giving fate a hand? Some people need that push, they're just far too dense to see love when he (or she) is staring them in the face.

pan tostado, y galletitas!

Parr is amazing. He made and mailed me espresso brownies!

choka

envoy 

tanka

haiku

renga

hokku

kigo

'you know I hate, detest and can't bear a lie; not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world-what I want to forget.'

'There were moments when ones past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare for oneself; but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder among the overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and space.'

'He nodded a nod full of mystery and wisdom. 'I tell you,' He cried, 'this man has enlarged my mind.' He opened his arms wide, staring at me with his little blue eyes that were perfectly round.'

-Heart of Darkness

Self Definitive CD 1

1. november

2. 32 flavors (rethink that)

3. across the universe

4. easy to please

5. anna begins

6. fake plastic trees

7. everything means nothing to me

8. bowl of oranges

9. life like weeds

10. bigmouth strikes again

11. am i wrong

12. regret

13. your glasses (rethink that)

15. clark gable

16. crimson and clover

17. I don't know what it is

18. ruby tuesday

19. everybody loves jill (ha!)

Lesson 1-1: Transparency B.

This essay on Blake is good- really good,
the kind of writing that I would like
to be able to write off the top of my head.
And instead I'm thinking smoking is wrong.
When did I ever care when something was wrong?
And I'm thinking I have a heart problem.
I should have applied to at least one grad school;
And I'm thinking I'm one by one chopping
years off my already heart-shortened life.
And I'm thinking I should pay attention,
so I do- and they're discussing porn.
And I'm thinking that I must have missed something good,
but I shouldn't bother listening now-
it isn't as good when you come in
in the middle of a conversation.
And I'm thinking I want to be like
a heroine in a romance novel;
maybe I just want my life to be like that.
Picturesque and smooth, with steamy romance
and me always coming out on top.
And I'm thinking that sometimes I wish that
I could record my life and play it back-
at least all of the most beautiful parts.
Like yesterday, when the sky was heavy
with fog, and I was sitting in my car
down by that ditch in Amanda's driveway.
The Counting Crows were playing really loud,
grey music for a likewise grey day.
And I'm thinking that I like the spelling
of the word "grey" better than the word "gray."
And Steph and Liz were slow dancing next to
the car, and they were all laughing out loud;
And Kate was blowing dying dandelions-
you know, those off-white poofs of cotton fluff?
The ones you wish on? Yeah, she was blowing
those into a cloud aimed at the dancers,
Hundreds of these fragmented wishes stuck
in their hair and clothes and their eyelashes.
They swirled in the air and around the car,
and they were laughing, the music playing;
And I felt like it should be a movie
playing in slow motion-slightly off-focus.
And I know that to you it was stupid,
it was something that happens every day;
but it was beauty--it was a good movie.
And then I was thinking where am I;
in this movie, who writes all of my lines?
And then I was thinking why am I
always the one on the side just watching?
And I'm thinking I want to live beauty,
not just be the one watching it walk by.

Remember July 2002.

Misfits

Common Rider

Saves the Day (x2)

New Found Glory (x2)

Alkaline Trio

Get Up Kids

Bouncing Souls

Catch 22 (x2)

Flogging Molly

Sublime

Less Than Jake

Rancid

Flame Still Burns

Reach The Sky (x2)

shoelaces tied, train tracks followed.

the romance of a premature death has left me rapidly aging.

the corners of every room hold magical powers.

5 days. 5 days. Everything has to be up in 5 days.

Nothing is done, and I have no motivation.

I hate this.

a beginning? a beginning.

Every year about this time I start to think I can take over the world. Right after the winter depression, right before the dawn of spring. Yet I have times like this all throughout the year, so I suppose the season has nothing to do with it. I suppose it's a life-long cycle, a yearlong menstrual cycle that never ends. Beforehand, I always feel so apathetically depressed. I just hate realizing that there really is no point to all of these mundane things that we people do every day. There is no reason for this obsession of objects-how long can you really keep all of this shit anyway? I once knew a woman who hoarded all of her shit in her house, until there was no room for her to live there anymore. She ended up living in a trailer outside, while her junk took precedence over her household and daily life. It wasn't even anything good, nothing of value. This woman saved sticks and bundles of newspaper, for Christ's sake. And was she happy? No. She was a mean old spinster. They're never happy. Take a look at me.
It's not only objects that have no real value-even talents are reduced to shit when you break it all down. Something like learning a new language or how to play an instrument just ends up feeling superfluous and mundane if you think about it. And how can you not think about it? Yippee, you can play a progression of sounds on a piece of shaped metal. You're still going to die. Is that piece of metal going to keep you company on your deathbed? It's not going to help you any in the long run. All I have ever gotten out of life is that there is no point to life at all. All you can do is be as happy as you possibly can, and maybe change the way those proceeding you think or view things. That's it. Hopefully you find someone to love you in your short existence, for if not, your happiness factor is usually down a bit. And you'll waste a whole lot of time looking for someone to love, when you could be putting that time into a cure for cancer or something. But hey, everyone dies from something, right? And you, you're going to die of cancer. But it's not your fault you never found someone to love. At least you found someone to marry, I suppose. That's what counts.
If you ever asked me how I wanted to end up in life, I definitely wouldn't have said that I wanted to get really old, forget whom I was and spend my days sitting on our oldest sons couch, mumbling to myself. That thought never crossed my mind. It didn't even cross my mind when it was happening. By then I was too senile to really think about it. Ask me the same question earlier, maybe when I'm about 24. By this time we've been married for a year, and I'm about to give birth to the aforementioned son. I was so damn ambitious back then. I planned on taking over the world, one kitchen at a time.
Yes, I knew what I had been taught growing up. Men are the masters of the household, I, as a woman, are expected to heed to your every beck and call, all of that bullshit. But back then, I didn't think it really applied to me. No, even when it was happening, it didn't apply to me. Yet I still learned something valuable from that experience, dear. No matter how much you love a man, if you have any dreams, he will proceed to fuck them up. And be happy about it. Unless, of course, your dreams are to make home-cooked meals daily, take care of the kids, keep the house spotless and rub his feet every night. You're welcome to do that without his interference. He'll probably be off on a business trip anyway, or out golfing with the guys. ('Business Trip' will always mean off fucking one of the many cute secretaries with cute names. In ever book you read or movie you watch, this will always be true. This is because it applies to real life. No man will ever be faithful enough to not have sex with another woman when he's away for two nights. Two nights without sex? Unthinkable! Don't worry, he never loved you anyway.)
No woman ever asked or wanted to be treated like shit then abandoned once her used, childbearing body wasn't as attractive and elastic as it once was. All anyone ever wants is to be loved. And I suppose that's why I never got anywhere in life. All I thought about was love-ways to get you, my husband, to love me. My mind was so occupied by that, I had no time to cure cancer. But then again, it's you who died of cancer, not me. If you had given me the love I needed, you wouldn't be dead right now. That's what this all boils down to.
Yes, so I was bitter. I hated you, passionately. I don't anymore, I suppose. You can't really hate anyone who's dead, can you? I mean, they lost. You have to feel sorry for them, the losers. Especially since you've beaten them. Yes, dear, I'm the winner in this game. As senile as I may be, I'm still alive! So no, I don't hate you anymore. But I did-oh, I did! You were a poet, which I thought was romantic at first. Until I realized it was just a waste of life. In your case, anyway. You worked your office job, but your real passion was being a poet. Rather, you wanted to be a poet. All you ever wrote was shit, and it took you years to write a fucking poem, years! And to think your stupid little housewife wrote this in a few months. All in her journal, all about you.

F.E.A.R.

Forgive Everyone And Remember,

For Everything A Reason.

family follows tradition.

today my father tried to talk me into helping him con his friend out of a couple hundred thousand.

I guess he's just keeping up the tradition.

first time doing any sort of drug: with my father.

first time in a jail cell: with my father.

first time stealing: with my father.

first time asked to lie in court: by my father.

harlequin type ichthyosis.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Duck-Mouse/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Theater-Effects%3a-Gunshot-Wounds/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Telephone-To-God/

i called, and called-

all is swell.

he told me today

to go to hell.

look yonder,

and ponder,

alone in a field-

a farmer,

who'd harm her?

she's got nothing to yield.