God, you know what? I dont even know. Who used to say that all the time Duuude you dont even KNooow? Kevin James. My old homeboy from the beach and second starlight lover which is to say second man or boy back then who I loved and who loved me cuz of the myth we made in each other. God did we love each other crazy. He's dead now. It was years since we'd talked when he died, too. He came to me in my bathroom at Anngar the week I found out about his OD. Stood there sad and silent in front of me just like I could see him Typical Kevin come to me when I'm naked I thought then cried a terrible cry from somewhere tucked deep and wild and hidden in my gut. It was the same energy him standing there that I used to feel when he'd be so flyed out of his skull wacked on dust or just hella drunk that his eyes would be zombied, this weird wall of grey and hurt in the heart.
Wow I am limbo right now, limbo for sure. Today is the first Saturday I got to wake up in my own little bed in my own little pad and had nothing to do. See the thing is with me I am such a damn perfectionist and especially one of those action-doer people, but also I am very go with the flow like to chill accept the moment and so be deep in peace or joy. And I've found over the years that the two attitudes aren't neccesarily conducive, so I've had to be willilng to be fleixble with my self to learn to maximize and integrate these two great and fine apsects and gifts of self. Which means that while I was up unpacking my office/writing room/sacred space til past midnight last night and dead ready to jump out of bed this morn and finish the project, all I really could do was get some coffee in me when I finally groggied my ass out of bed and then sit down in front of facebook and blogger and so far haven't got off the couch. It's like 11 something now. Sam and the boys are coming down Easton way for a matinee show so eventually I will get up and go do that. I want some pancakes but will settle for chocolate dognuts. By the time the shows over it will be late afternoon I'll need to get fancy to go over the bridge to see my ol grrrls and pay a visit to an old friend of ours from back in the back in the day who opened a downtown premier spot in Baltimore City. I hope he's there tonight it's literally been years, and I've known this cat since 3rd grade.
Really, I just want to chill. I am so fucking tired of packing and moving and moving and packing and unmoving and unpacking and so much tiredness in my bod. This teacher I work with, three weeks ago when our second term was starting and I had to not only pack and move but also place over a hundred new students and meet with all thier teachers and call all of them on the phone Hola hola buscando para Antonio, ooo ooo Antonio soy Kelly de programma de ingles, recueda? O si si hola hola que pasa como estas?? Ahhhh bien bien gracias bien...This teacher during our meeting in her sweet little Minny Mouse voice was like Whaaa? You're moving, again? That's the third time this year!
Right, right. I know.
Mom and dad came down last Sunday after we were up to Grandma's and Pap's on Saturday for this great fundraiser thing put on in the Jefferson hills where you eat plates and plates of Pennsylvania Dutch-Style homecooked food that literally a hundred volunteers have helped to prepare for you and if you dont know what eating like this, this kind of food, is than I certainly cant tell you but please someday be sure to go to Lancaster County and check out for yourself the Amish markets and country stores. Anyhow folks came down and within ten minutes of them being here mom doing my dishes and cleaing my kitchen and trying to be helpful and me stressed and feeling compacted and tight and like an ingrate at the same time, dont you know the fucking closet shelving which means ALL MY CLOTHES all fell down AND the tv stopped working. Within 10 minutes of them being here how funny is that? Thanks to them in fact because within the hour it was all fixed and put back together, and if it'd happened when I was here alone that shit would've been the final factor and I would've melted down and guess what, no it still wouldn't be fixed...
That night I finally got a bed. The next night I was getting ready to leave work and come home and just chillllll and by the time I got to Easton it was dark, which it already was when I left the college and God do I have a hell of a time with the no light thing in the winter and IT's ONLY been two weeks...blaahhhh...and there's Brooks waiting unexpected for me and only last night did I finally get around to taking the sheets off the couch. We were up until almost 3 listening to tapes! Which seriously you would not figure on how fun that can be--it actually makes you really engaged in the process of music listening when you have to search for it like that, finger on the rewind button and all. I have this dub I made off the radio 92Q and oldskool V103! the day Biggie died and I hadn't listened to that in years and years and we listened to it late night well past witching-hour in its almost entirety not talking much just smiling low and rapping along here and there and eyes closed and nodding our heads.
He's the shit.
Next day he had to go to Wal-Mart to buy a new dress shirt and tie so the people in our office couldn't tell he slept in his clothes. I haven't been right since that night and now it's caught up with me: the fact that the winter's here, it is dark, I am alone. Alone in a new place and no one, no love by my side. Most times I am thrilled by that but other times too it's just dark, and quiet, and scary, and alone. Blguguhghg. I am writing and making my space but mostly, for real, I am just looking forward to rest and sleep and back to nothing to nothing to nothing to do. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
There is this house full of youngish thuggish boys across the street from me who remind sorta of Kevin James and the ol beach crew in that they're more punk-hard than thug-hard and sometimes I sit on the roof half out my window and look over at them and sometimes, like right now, they sit on their front porch and look up at the window like they're looking in at me. Every time I look over my shoulder they're down there, smoking cigarettes, looking up. O, Easton, and all this rain and grey. O tired heart and bones and boxes still left to unpack. O everything, that passes away. Ahhh sacred ipod and new songs cuz I just got paid.
La la la de da.
November 12, 2009
Other Bloggers I Want You to Know
O jesus, this fucking day. Remember all that stuff I said this morning about fighting for it? Well, equally important is sometimes to just throw your hands up, ring the mercy bell, hail the dark heaven then let yourself crumble to pieces beneath, or with, the falling sky.
I LOVE GENIUS's and here are a few. The first saved my ass today because for real when I came in to the office I had this mean woman waiting for me she is bitter and hard-hearted and has yelled or gotten not just a bit bitchy but rude and challenging with me not once but twice on the phone while I'm here trying to do her son a favor by bending some rules to help this kid from the ruin that his life could be for the next several years. And she has me going, and hot as hell before we're even to my cubicle. And what the fuck why do I work in a cubicle in the first place for rude assholes like you!?!? And then it happens I drop hard as hell like how it happens to me sometimes straight flipswitch I will kill a bitch and I cant even see straight the adrenaline and blood is coursing so hard behind my eyes and I have to go Brookes' cubicle I am shaking so hard almost choking on my tongue and he sits me down and doesn't say anything because he doesnt have to because he knows there is nothing at all that can be said I just have to wait it out. And that is it the rest of the day just starts and goes on from there but of course I have students testing and interviewing and counseling with me--with me!? Crazy as hell as I am and they are counseling with me and I remember my job is to serve to lift them up to make at least this little bit of an hour or two of their time a bright spot in their day so at least I am laughing again and able to laugh at me and take it all in stride. But the day has been marked and by the time my last appoitment walks in at 5:45 I want nothing more to do with it so I blog roll, and I want you, dear reader, to stop by and get to know the life and times of Carrot Quinn she is one of the only mythmakers I've found out there on the blogospere crafting her life sure as she is crafting, a day at a time, her song. God she can write. They are long posts I only check in on when I have the time to give to them and attention for the soul craft she is sharing and so today, she saved my life. Or made it at least the triumph that I ache and crave for it to be.
There is this other grl blogger called Davka and today she claimed she cant write shit which is funny cuz this girl doesn't ride the pain of life but blends in as one with it and so transmutes it breath in to fire in to action on the page so it springs up in to and makes your heart leap then hurt then say, oooh, whoah~Which to be able to do that Shaman-style even just once is a gift and a grace but to be able to call that your gift. Well. Her even being out there in the world does my heart well.
Read them, please.
Finally. This guy emailed me today he's walking around Easton with a bag full of books and notebooks that all are also on my about me list on my profile. He is a writer here in Easton, evidently there are more of us than just me and him and the winter is here and this is when we take our power off to our sneaky haunts the funny creaks and lofts of our hearts where, if we are true to what lie there, the periphery the nebuli the slanted changing edge around things, changes. Changes, changes is changing, we the Artists, Who have that power.
So we subsume....
I LOVE GENIUS's and here are a few. The first saved my ass today because for real when I came in to the office I had this mean woman waiting for me she is bitter and hard-hearted and has yelled or gotten not just a bit bitchy but rude and challenging with me not once but twice on the phone while I'm here trying to do her son a favor by bending some rules to help this kid from the ruin that his life could be for the next several years. And she has me going, and hot as hell before we're even to my cubicle. And what the fuck why do I work in a cubicle in the first place for rude assholes like you!?!? And then it happens I drop hard as hell like how it happens to me sometimes straight flipswitch I will kill a bitch and I cant even see straight the adrenaline and blood is coursing so hard behind my eyes and I have to go Brookes' cubicle I am shaking so hard almost choking on my tongue and he sits me down and doesn't say anything because he doesnt have to because he knows there is nothing at all that can be said I just have to wait it out. And that is it the rest of the day just starts and goes on from there but of course I have students testing and interviewing and counseling with me--with me!? Crazy as hell as I am and they are counseling with me and I remember my job is to serve to lift them up to make at least this little bit of an hour or two of their time a bright spot in their day so at least I am laughing again and able to laugh at me and take it all in stride. But the day has been marked and by the time my last appoitment walks in at 5:45 I want nothing more to do with it so I blog roll, and I want you, dear reader, to stop by and get to know the life and times of Carrot Quinn she is one of the only mythmakers I've found out there on the blogospere crafting her life sure as she is crafting, a day at a time, her song. God she can write. They are long posts I only check in on when I have the time to give to them and attention for the soul craft she is sharing and so today, she saved my life. Or made it at least the triumph that I ache and crave for it to be.
There is this other grl blogger called Davka and today she claimed she cant write shit which is funny cuz this girl doesn't ride the pain of life but blends in as one with it and so transmutes it breath in to fire in to action on the page so it springs up in to and makes your heart leap then hurt then say, oooh, whoah~Which to be able to do that Shaman-style even just once is a gift and a grace but to be able to call that your gift. Well. Her even being out there in the world does my heart well.
Read them, please.
Finally. This guy emailed me today he's walking around Easton with a bag full of books and notebooks that all are also on my about me list on my profile. He is a writer here in Easton, evidently there are more of us than just me and him and the winter is here and this is when we take our power off to our sneaky haunts the funny creaks and lofts of our hearts where, if we are true to what lie there, the periphery the nebuli the slanted changing edge around things, changes. Changes, changes is changing, we the Artists, Who have that power.
So we subsume....
9 Songs: Mix Tape for a Rainy Ass Morning
Here's what I've learned.
I remember the exact moment it was concretized, too. It was the end of this past February, I was snowed-in at Choptank, my phone fell in a cup of tea and short-circuited so I was fully isolated, my heart was slithered and sliced which is a bitter and hideous thing worse than just being broken, and I was coming off five days of a terrible fever and ear/sinus infection that literally had me delirious on and off.
It was a dark, dark time. And then I had a moment, when I was literally laying on the floor in the living room thinking there was no lower I could go, when I realized. Well, I could just get up, and go pay bills.
And damn it if that's not what I did. I got out of my dragged down ludicrously depressed hopeless and numbed out nebulous swirl of funk place and got my bills and all this paperwork that had stacked and felt gnarly consuming and slowly, one by one, centered myself on getting through each piece of it.
Then I got a shovel and started to dig my way out of the driveway, which is when Life met me halfway and the neighbor plowed me out.
So, that's me. how I'm wired, Shit piles up and I feel victimized and bitter about the whole damn mess. Till I remember: just get your miserable pathetic ass up. And go pay the bills. Or, as this morning: and go do your dishes, then go to work and finish your damn LWIS and get your new students registered. This attitude, to Just show up, and be willing for life to meet me half-way, is my interpretation of the old Irish axiom that, especially through the winter, is my motto:
IS THIS A CLOSED FIGHT< OR CAN ANYBODY JOIN?
I'm saying, so long as I'm breathing, I got a fighting shot for the joy and the beauty, the heartaches and the pain...
Which, more or less, is what this morning's special little mix fired-up in me...
1. Cygnet Committee, David Bowie
2. Complimentary Me, Elizabeth & The Catapult
3. The Cool, Cool River, Paul Simon
4. Sonic Teenager, The Took
5. Last Dance, The Cure
6. Slow Down Gandhi, Sage Francis
7. Ball & Bisquit, The White Stripes
8. The Story, Brandi Carlile
9. Take It In, The Waifs
Listen to those three links for some wailen, fighten theme music
I remember the exact moment it was concretized, too. It was the end of this past February, I was snowed-in at Choptank, my phone fell in a cup of tea and short-circuited so I was fully isolated, my heart was slithered and sliced which is a bitter and hideous thing worse than just being broken, and I was coming off five days of a terrible fever and ear/sinus infection that literally had me delirious on and off.
It was a dark, dark time. And then I had a moment, when I was literally laying on the floor in the living room thinking there was no lower I could go, when I realized. Well, I could just get up, and go pay bills.
And damn it if that's not what I did. I got out of my dragged down ludicrously depressed hopeless and numbed out nebulous swirl of funk place and got my bills and all this paperwork that had stacked and felt gnarly consuming and slowly, one by one, centered myself on getting through each piece of it.
Then I got a shovel and started to dig my way out of the driveway, which is when Life met me halfway and the neighbor plowed me out.
So, that's me. how I'm wired, Shit piles up and I feel victimized and bitter about the whole damn mess. Till I remember: just get your miserable pathetic ass up. And go pay the bills. Or, as this morning: and go do your dishes, then go to work and finish your damn LWIS and get your new students registered. This attitude, to Just show up, and be willing for life to meet me half-way, is my interpretation of the old Irish axiom that, especially through the winter, is my motto:
IS THIS A CLOSED FIGHT< OR CAN ANYBODY JOIN?
I'm saying, so long as I'm breathing, I got a fighting shot for the joy and the beauty, the heartaches and the pain...
Which, more or less, is what this morning's special little mix fired-up in me...
1. Cygnet Committee, David Bowie
2. Complimentary Me, Elizabeth & The Catapult
3. The Cool, Cool River, Paul Simon
4. Sonic Teenager, The Took
5. Last Dance, The Cure
6. Slow Down Gandhi, Sage Francis
7. Ball & Bisquit, The White Stripes
8. The Story, Brandi Carlile
9. Take It In, The Waifs
Listen to those three links for some wailen, fighten theme music
November 10, 2009
Things
Things that relax me:
~the fireplace at Panera, the way the heat feels like a warm gold ball rolling over me like in gym class when we were real young and gave each other massages with the red rubber dodge balls
~jazz, especially Miles and Coletrain; and Old-time, like Count Basie and Billie
~taking a long soak in my own hot bath
~the luxury of a whole hour of morning quiet time now that I am only minutes from work
~hot, homemade soup
~the warm feeling of anticipation that comes from thinking about toasty winter nights with close friends
~the quiet angles of my living room, how simple and appealing, and quiet and right it is
~laughing. a lot. til the muscles of my gut are all crunched up and I have smile wrinkles deep in my face. ("Stardust? Is that you?" "Yes, fair maiden. Lo, I have come from beyond to spread the goodliness of sissyhood...")
Things I forgot about:
~how quickly the grey seeps in to me, the real and dulling effect of how the sudden shrink time of sunlight impacts me
~my certainty of how closely we All are affected by that. I had over half my new students cancel or reschedule on me today. It was so grey today that the color actually seemed to hang on the air like rainforest mist or desert dust.
~what writing does for me. AND HOW HARD it is to force myself in to writing without stopping after I've gone ahead and stopped for a while
Things I'm so grateful for:
~my writing partner, who is all about NaNoWriMo and watching her forge forward and break through her own defenses has made me both so inspired and, at once, given rise to that friendly ol marauder Competition, thereby forcing me to get on my damn game. Which makes me just sooo, soo freakin thankful for Erika and so in awe of how life, after 20 years, circled us back around to each other again. Really, when I get quaked with this much warmth of emotion, I have no words.
~my little apartment. Have I mentioned this lately?
~the unforeseen
~my friends and family. It is November, I am soon to be 9 years clean and sober and the time of month to count thanks is almost here. Amen Amen Amen, there is just so much....
~the fireplace at Panera, the way the heat feels like a warm gold ball rolling over me like in gym class when we were real young and gave each other massages with the red rubber dodge balls
~jazz, especially Miles and Coletrain; and Old-time, like Count Basie and Billie
~taking a long soak in my own hot bath
~the luxury of a whole hour of morning quiet time now that I am only minutes from work
~hot, homemade soup
~the warm feeling of anticipation that comes from thinking about toasty winter nights with close friends
~the quiet angles of my living room, how simple and appealing, and quiet and right it is
~laughing. a lot. til the muscles of my gut are all crunched up and I have smile wrinkles deep in my face. ("Stardust? Is that you?" "Yes, fair maiden. Lo, I have come from beyond to spread the goodliness of sissyhood...")
Things I forgot about:
~how quickly the grey seeps in to me, the real and dulling effect of how the sudden shrink time of sunlight impacts me
~my certainty of how closely we All are affected by that. I had over half my new students cancel or reschedule on me today. It was so grey today that the color actually seemed to hang on the air like rainforest mist or desert dust.
~what writing does for me. AND HOW HARD it is to force myself in to writing without stopping after I've gone ahead and stopped for a while
Things I'm so grateful for:
~my writing partner, who is all about NaNoWriMo and watching her forge forward and break through her own defenses has made me both so inspired and, at once, given rise to that friendly ol marauder Competition, thereby forcing me to get on my damn game. Which makes me just sooo, soo freakin thankful for Erika and so in awe of how life, after 20 years, circled us back around to each other again. Really, when I get quaked with this much warmth of emotion, I have no words.
~my little apartment. Have I mentioned this lately?
~the unforeseen
~my friends and family. It is November, I am soon to be 9 years clean and sober and the time of month to count thanks is almost here. Amen Amen Amen, there is just so much....
November 5, 2009
Where it led
Wow if today wasn't one of those days so much back and forth at work how do we maintain and be mature adults again? I haven't written--other than this one project I am working on which is not my novel (and for that side-project I only wrote for 15 minutes, yesterday) since last week. For a person like me accustomed as I am to feeling the muscles loosen--as my old pal Lara says--after I write, well. Trust me when I tell you a week was faaar to long and so I needed to jump on here and doooooownlooooad.
I am here, in my new digs! And very little is unpacked which, everyone continues to assure me, is just how it goes. I dont have a bed yet and am sleeping on a thin magnet pad on the floor. The first night sucked, but each night since I've slept like a dream and am finding my back less and less tight as result. Today I walked to work, then walked home at lunch to put soup on in the crockpot, the gorgeous blue sky singing heaven and the leaves rustling and whispering and cheering along. I love it here, I love my half-open barely emptied boxes strewn all over every possible inch of floor space, I love my walk-in closet with the ridiculous Diva poster of me and KRuss that I've finally had the nerve to hang, I love the 12 foot high windows and morning sun, I love the window I can open all the way and sit half way out to talk to the moon. I love walking to my office or for my coffee or to have dinner with a friend downtown.
I love my cable tv.
Last night I got off work and was actually at the college when I left, so was quite near the outlets. The moon was high and except for some thin lines of grey clouds that seemed to curve against the north sky its cozy lover or sweet soft naptime sheet, the night was clear. It was silent out, and cold. The kind of cold that gets under your clothes. I was doing paperwork which is my least favorite job of all and my eyes were burnt and tired from staring at the data screen under fake light all night. But I got out, in the air, under the sky, and I was so, so happy. I drove to the outlets very nearby and pretended like I was so full of wealth I could buy whatever I wanted and my heart sang at the pretty silk dresses and stiletto shoes. All I really could afford was a hot-chocolate and so I treated my self just before my drive home.
When I got here it was after 9 and I sorted through my books, the hardest of all I own with which to part. I laughed at mindless TV and was so, so happy and full with peace.
When I'm done my soup and this blog I'm gonna stroll down the block to the Night Cat and catch the show that's getting so much hype.
Can this really, really be my life?
Such simple steps. A long walk, simple steps with no sight beyond each footfall of what came next. Simple, but not all easy.
I am loving where it's led...
I am here, in my new digs! And very little is unpacked which, everyone continues to assure me, is just how it goes. I dont have a bed yet and am sleeping on a thin magnet pad on the floor. The first night sucked, but each night since I've slept like a dream and am finding my back less and less tight as result. Today I walked to work, then walked home at lunch to put soup on in the crockpot, the gorgeous blue sky singing heaven and the leaves rustling and whispering and cheering along. I love it here, I love my half-open barely emptied boxes strewn all over every possible inch of floor space, I love my walk-in closet with the ridiculous Diva poster of me and KRuss that I've finally had the nerve to hang, I love the 12 foot high windows and morning sun, I love the window I can open all the way and sit half way out to talk to the moon. I love walking to my office or for my coffee or to have dinner with a friend downtown.
I love my cable tv.
Last night I got off work and was actually at the college when I left, so was quite near the outlets. The moon was high and except for some thin lines of grey clouds that seemed to curve against the north sky its cozy lover or sweet soft naptime sheet, the night was clear. It was silent out, and cold. The kind of cold that gets under your clothes. I was doing paperwork which is my least favorite job of all and my eyes were burnt and tired from staring at the data screen under fake light all night. But I got out, in the air, under the sky, and I was so, so happy. I drove to the outlets very nearby and pretended like I was so full of wealth I could buy whatever I wanted and my heart sang at the pretty silk dresses and stiletto shoes. All I really could afford was a hot-chocolate and so I treated my self just before my drive home.
When I got here it was after 9 and I sorted through my books, the hardest of all I own with which to part. I laughed at mindless TV and was so, so happy and full with peace.
When I'm done my soup and this blog I'm gonna stroll down the block to the Night Cat and catch the show that's getting so much hype.
Can this really, really be my life?
Such simple steps. A long walk, simple steps with no sight beyond each footfall of what came next. Simple, but not all easy.
I am loving where it's led...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)