folly

How do we know when a limit has been reached?
And how should we expect to reach out?

lacquered bemusement

untitled

I'm a really big fan of Megan Murtha - and this is just adding yet another "log to the fire," as they say. So, check out the link at the bottom there and enjoy her art work! I've been enjoying it for months, and now the world has joined in, and the world is thankful. The world is rejoicing! The world says thank you, Megan, thanks a lot!



lacquered bemusement

arbus pt. 2

this is the text
to a secret

Letter to Diane Arbus

Staring at the face of Blonde girl with shiny lipstick, I can see where her eyebrows are starting to grow back. Too long since last plucking.

"...we tend while living here and now to perceive only what is random and barren and formless about it. While we regret that the present is not like the past and despair of its ever becoming the future, its innumerable inscrutable habits lie in wait for their meaning."

I can't say I regret that the past isn't the present.
But, that isn't to say there isn't one.

High School. Two (three?) semesters of photography. Mostly, I have stopped taking pictures. The idea of a manual camera gives me a feeling of loss, like a language I can't remember. A verb I am no longer able to conjugate. There is a roll of 120 film in my desk drawer. It awaits development. A chance to re-see the seen, to remember.

"I really believe there are things that nobody would see unless I photographed them."

I feel jealousy toward you. I want to be able to do everything I imagine. You lived on the Bowery, I think. I hardly remember that book I read about you two summers ago. The pain that comes with reading. But, I want to be there, in your apartment. An entire space filled with artists. I think Mary Frank, Robert Frank's wife, she lived there. So different. Did you wonder, how it ending up ended up like that?

You were schooled well, growing up, well-off near Central Park. But, the 60's and 70's were different, of course they were, but why lament for something I've never even known? A woman I've never known? The obsessions with mad women, but only the dead ones.

"We stand on a precipice, then before a chasm, and as we wait it becomes higher, wider, deeper, but I am crazy enough to think it doesn't matter which way we leap because when we leap we will have learned to fly. Is that blasphemy or faith?"

You gave me a reason, or, your story did, for being in New York. For not fearing. Because why, anyway? What for? No reason but fear of death, but that will come anyway. Nothing to be done. And of course, I knew not to be stupid about where I travelled, naive, but you weren't those things. Not the you I created. And that's the Arbus I need. Perhaps, when you're famous, people creates the you they need, in order to continue. I read somewhere, sometime, by someone, that our urge to live is entirely too strong. Like The Bell Jar, Esther on the edge of her bed, broken silk cord around her neck.

"Nothing is ever the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before that I recognize."

So, I take your words to my writing. I guess, that's what I do now. A purpose, of sorts. Recently, I wrote about my relationship to reading and writing. I mentioned that all three of us are in this together now. I cannot exist without writing, I am unsure of what else to do, and one must read in order to write. So that's what I have to do. For now. Until later.


*all quotes pulled from various texts printed in Revelations by Diane Arbus

something > nothing

doing what he was doing

PS: POCAHAUNTED LP CHAINS

do not tend

do not tend to the garden, it is tending to itself, there is sun, and there is dirt, and things are growing there. many different things are growing there, green things, happy things. there is photosynthesis in the garden! the garden, the garden, the garden! miraculous nature! treats among mankind! spending its own time among root rot and insects, spider webs and worms. how could it need you there? or me, for that matter? how could it need anyone to be around? if it grows long enough and loud enough there would be no reason for a hoe, a scythe, a shovel, what would be the point, then? just to sit in the middle of it looking up and over, redwood trees are still growing, growing still. growing, growing, growing! the birds are over head. do you see them? can you see them? they are there, chirping as loudly as ever. sometimes cooing, sometimes moaning. how silly! how cute! a garden unattended to and growing, faster still, growing growing no cutting - heaven sent! what a garden, with nothing to do but what doing must be done. what, in reality, must be, and cannot not be done, as growing does, as growing should do. as it must.

inexhaustible, universal
"life force"
induce spiritual
healing energy

access
attunement

negativity

In a past life, your friends were once your enemies and your enemies were once your friends. This could be uplifting, meaning, it is important to treat everyone equally. More specifically, to love everyone equally. There is no difference. Everyone wants to reduce pain and suffering and increase happiness. This is a fact. So, like me, everyone wants to feel really good. Everyone wants Sunday afternoon. Everyone wants Friday night. Everyone wants a new t-shirt and someone to hold hands with.


This could also mean to hate everyone equally, friends included. Acquaintances included. Neighbor with the dog that barks all the time included. Guy playing the keyboard in the train station included. It is possible to have enough hatred for all of these people. It is probably less work than having love for all these people. Buddha was probably exhausted. I am sure Jesus was exhausted. But statues of saints always look so peaceful. They hardly seem tired from all of that loving. Maybe they didn’t have to love as hard, or as much, or maybe they just liked everyone the same amount. They certainly had to feel one way or the other about everyone, as I am sure saints were held to the same standards. Or maybe they were more human. I haven’t read the Bible in years. Only the book on Buddhism. Yes, it is true, in a past life, your friends were once your enemies and your enemies were once your friends.


In a past life I knew no one, I had to hate and love no one, except myself, so perhaps I loved everyone as a person alone must love herself. I spent most of my time putting small objects into my mouth and then spitting them out. I was skilled at doing nothing, all on my own. If someone were to cross my path I would not notice him. I could not notice him, as then I would have to feel one way or the other, and knew I was better off feeling neither emotion, except towards myself, and in regards to that, I usually chose love. It was easier to live simply this way, ingesting, digesting, spitting as I so chose. Watermelon was a favorite of mine, as this involved all three activities. I was my only friend. I have done this through all of my lifetimes. I have spit things at many different now extinct animals. I now spit things at animals that I will know will become extinct in the future. I have used chewing tobacco. And in a past life, I have always made sure to remind myself that my friends were once my enemies and my enemies were once my friends, as I have been everything, and we have walked through it all together, spitting, digesting, loving, and finding it quite easy not to hate.

I am always happy to be a mammal.
Everyone seems to be preparing. Storing and secluding themselves from the weather.
Summer is over, and no one seems to be too depressed about it. I turn on my sunshine light bulb and move my plants near it and just feel like I am a part of something I have created here, in my room.
It feels so good to just think about really long books and green tea.
About finishing that Colette book I started last winter and maybe start doing all the things I said I would on my "list to become a better person." Maybe starting A Swann's Way.
I wrote today and it felt so good. I'm still trying to decide what to put in here now that I've decided not to post poems so I can try to get work published. Maybe winter will bring more writing. A professor asked me if I was excited about the fact that I've been basically writing two poems a week, and I didn't think so. I feel like I could write something I really liked every day and it wouldn't be enough. There would still be more to say. I guess this is why I started taking pictures again - immediate reaction to something beautiful.

I wrote a friend and said that I couldn't live in this world if it wasn't beautiful. And I think that is probably the only statement I have said that will remain true no matter my mood. This is important to me. To have one stable idea. Something to count on, to look forward to.

If I am a writer, am I only a writer only at my desk, or am I also a writer outside of my desk?


Art is theft and my mind is filled with the ideas of others. Am I a thief?

You should just watch this. Don't listen to me babble.

FUCK

expletives are vague, yet somehow evoke emotion.
sometimes, they are seen as 'cheap' in a poem or song.
sometimes, they seem 'fitting'.

I sit down and think 'FUCK' daily.
I try not to swear too much, vocally speaking.

I desperately want to say something 'true' and 'honest',
like Hemingway. like Gertrude Stein. like Lydia Davis. or Mary Ruefle.

FUCK.

I can not write it.

So how to evoke it?

Witchcraft.

my week

"How was your week?"
"What did you do today?"
"How have you been?"
"What have you been up to lately?"

I have never really thought of myself as socially awkward, but I can be when it comes to questions like these, because I don't know what the other person is searching for.

Those questions are so big, or would at least require a very big answer in order for me to feel satisfied, this is what I'd want to say. But, I get the feeling this isn't what people are searching for.


+MONDAY

Knowing I can find contentment in apple-carrot-ginger juice.

+TUESDAY

W.B. Yeats' "Collar-Bone of a Hare"

I would find by the edge of that water
The collar-bone of a hare
Worn thin by the lapping of water,
And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare


+WEDNESDAY



+THURSDAY
Matthew Rohrer's "Rise Up" & the excitement that comes from mixing different "registers" of language

A decision to "participate" as much as I "encounter"

An Audrey Hepburn influenced ensemble.

+FRIDAY

(taken from NYSOG blog)

image: what we see: how we see it


+SATURDAY

Staying in, making dinner with my roommate, building a bookshelf: how we create space & then enjoy it, and how space can be an indicator of emotional well-being.

+SUNDAY



May, 2005


NOVEMBER 2008!?!?!?!

the truth

I have been sitting on the internet for the last half hour and about 90% of the things I have decided to look at have made me feel really angry, or passive-aggressive, or lonely.

hubba

hubba



I think when we are sick, it is our desire to be coddled. To have someone bring us soup from a can, I do not think most of us would require that someone make us soup from scratch, because that would be being greedy and we are sick already, and if they had to make a soup, it would take away their time and what if we needed water? they wouldn't be around to make sure we were hydrated, and that's just way too scary and lonely. I have a weird problem with my throat, and I called in sick to work, but always feel like people think I'm faking it, even when I'm not.

I get the same feeling every time I walk through a security device at a department store or airport.

I did ask my roommate to pick me up twizzlers. It felt good when she said she would, but usually, when I am sick, I want someone to just sit in my bed and I can close my eyes and they can read to me out of a long novel, or a short story, and I can just listen and sort of forget about my body for awhile.

I think I should go outside.
I think I should stay inside.
I think I should go outside.
I think I should stay inside.
I think I should go outside.
I think I should stay inside.
I think I should go outside.
I think I should stay inside.
I think I should go outside.
I think I should stay inside.

famous

the dog in my heart howls continiously at you

there is real pain in not having poetry (jack spicer, reading)

untitled: morning poem: little sleep and more beer.

there is sweat from glass jars
and it isn't even hot outside
but the faces are burning
red, orange, some sort of magenta.

like a vision,
I see their faces floating
merging together like angels.

I wiped the sweat from the table top
and wrote a letter,
turned on the fan,
and imagined myself among them,
a little bit angry,
thrown in with all those sinners.

new york city

I need to profess my undying love more often.

I have a lot of really intense feelings for strangers almost every day.
I wonder how other people deal with this, because I am sure they are struggling, too.

Cat calls bother me, and I don't think it is an appropriate response.
But I should profess my undying love more often.

sleepy

Thinking about it now, if I were to lose my ability to remember, it makes me sort of sad and lonely. But, if it actually did happen, I wouldn't know any better anyway, because there wouldn't be a past and there wouldn't be a future. There would just be the present, and it would probably feel like time travel, or something similar to a feeling that might feel like time travel. It might even be mystical.

Katie

My friend Katie has a blog, you should read it.

Katie used to eat alone wearing a Le Tigre shirt in the cafeteria. I wanted to be her friend so badly. I saw her and imagined what it would be like to be friends with a girl like that. Sometimes I would see her eating with a few other people. But, never in a large group. I almost always ate alone, reading a book.

I can't remember how we started to talk. It might have been I saw her profile on Make Out Club. I wish it was a better story than that. Maybe because my memory is so shaky, I could make one up. I think Katie would like that.

Katie was the one who told me to read Sylvia Plath. She would read over my poems and I would read over her poems. Her poems were beautiful and covered with a simple imagery. She never force fed you a line, each one came as easy and soundless, breathless, as the next. We both really liked the Robert Hass (He walked back to his own cabin through the pines, and in the morning he found a small blue bowl on the porch outside his door. It looked to be full of rose petals, but he found when he picked it up that the rose petals were on top; the rest of the bowl-she must have swept the corners of her studio-was full of dead bees.

Sometimes we would sit in the PS section of Waldo library and look at books. I switched my major from English-Teaching to Creative Writing. I knew I wanted to do nothing else, and Katie encouraged me. She has always been a poet that I knew I liked. I knew made sense to me. I looked up to her a lot then, and I still do now, especially as she starts applying to the twenty-something different graduate schools. She seems stronger now. We both do. There was one summer I went a little crazy, and we both ended up dating the same boy, only I dated him after she did, and she didn't even get too angry with me. I sort of can't believe it.

I don't think I ever feel bored

but I usually feel unproductive and antsy.

I feel like this is very heavily influenced by the videos of Zachary German and Ellen Kennedy, whose blogs I check on a daily basis. I sometimes feel guilty when I check Ellen Kennedy's blog because I don't really know her, and I feel like I should only read the blogs of people I know. Like, I wouldn't want to invade their personal space or something. I made one of these videos and you could see my cat's tail, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted.



ps: I really loved Kendra's last few poems she has posted on her blog. Especially the newest one.

secret #1

I always really wanted to be a dancer. I still wish it could have been something I pursued. Since I have moved to New York, I have been asked several times if I was a dancer. I felt really excited that I might look like a dancer. I guess, really, I wouldn't want to rely so heavily on my body to do what I loved to do. I feel like if something happened to your body and you couldn't dance anymore, life would be really confusing. You would also probably walk around really aware of your body, probably too aware, because you would have to be conscious of movement. I think, for me, writing is escaping so you can continue living. Lynda Barry talks about this. Other writers have talked about this. I think even in that Philip Glass documentary, Glass talks about this. I like the idea of being able to leave the physical realm. But maybe, when a dancer is really dancing, they leave the physical realm just like a writer does. They enter some other space, yet are still able to operate their body somehow. I don't know. I'd like to hear a dancer talk about dancing, I guess.

guest comic

Recently, my friend Mike asked me to do a guest comic for his website.

I was perplexed about what to write about and thought about all of the other guest webcomics I have seen in my life. I thought I wasn't going to be able to give Mike something worthy of himself, but, luckily, I was able to do it.

There is a little section from me about the process of making the comic, and the fact that I really felt nervous about making it, and having it on the internet for everyone to see. Mike has been so wonderful and encouraging. Also, his comics are really really funny and unlike other readers of his site, I never thought his word bubbles looked like little wangs. But, it is because of him that I get really impatient for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Also, Octopus Pie doesn't help this situation, but he told me about that, so I can still blame him for making me hate weekends. TGIM, I guess.

Also, there are two pictures of me where I look completely different in both of them. I forgot I ever even had a Vagina Monologues shirt. I really used to love that play (?). I have seen it quite a few times. I read a part from it to my class last semester. They clapped. Also, I've been trying to figure out what band shirt I'm wearing in the second, but kind of glad it doesn't say. I have a feeling it might embarrass me.

the something

an unmentionable something came into mind and it seemed easier to have a something rather than a nothing, or a nothing rather than a something because it made relationships seem easier. to have nothing or something. a binary transaction with emotions. and I so much want things to be easier. to be able to say "oh, i don't know. they just have a something" unexplainable but still reliable. people trust it. people will trust things you say more often when it comes to love.

I am a mammal.

Hot blooded
and burning
for a little attention.



I am reading a book and it explains that the difference between mammals and reptiles, is that mammals care about things (their young, their mates) while reptiles could really care less. Mammals then created language to alert when they want more or less attention, or, in the case of the young, are in distress. Birds also have a language. Vultures have a language, I am pretty sure. This has not been covered. They have not said anything about vultures in this book yet.

watch out.

don't worry, it is just friendly fire.

Perpetual change.

Every now and then I move something in my room to a place I wouldn't think to look for it, until I begin to look for it there, then I move it again.


Every time I misplace my keys, I sort of think about how that is something people have always been frustrated with me over. That, and how messy I keep my room. Yet, I haven't changed these things. If I had to find my keys right now, I probably couldn't. I even bought a carabiner, but that hasn't helped at all, really. One time, after breaking up with someone, he came over to my new apartment. I think just to see it. It was a small one bedroom on Locust Street in Kalamazoo. I could touch the ceilings when I reached up and the whole place was covered in books and clothes. He hugged me and said it was nice to see my place so messy, because it reminded him of me. I think about that scene a lot, and have no idea why.

I also think about a story my friend told me. He was real sad, hanging out with some girl he hardly knew, and she was really depressed as well. So they both decided to give each other tattoos. He didn't say what they gave each other, and I don't think it matters really. I just really appreciate that sort of sad desperation. He was going to give me one when I saw him last, a boat, but I'm really glad I didn't do it. I'm working on better decision making skills, but not really working on finding my keys or cleaning my room.

There is a magic to science that can replace the magic of things like fate, love, and God. I am not sure if one is better or worse than the other, I just know I really do need to have a sense of magic. A sense of the unknown intermingled with a sense of the known. A sense of stability in instability, otherwise stability would not seem so precious. So magical. Sometimes my brain goes dormant. I feel a bit more awake, but that my mind is almost out of control, and I am unsure of which new thought to try to process first. Perhaps I should just pick one, and let that be the path.




I watched what the bleep do we know. I feel like my mind is "blown" right now.

repeat

Today I have listened to the same song seven, or possibly eight times. I listened to it three or four times yesterday. I get rather obsessive sometimes. But the words are so perfect. And then the piano, like you could almost miss it the first few times.


The stage is set
Someone's going to do something someone else will regret
I speak in smoke signals and you answer in code
The fuse will have to run out sometime
Something here will eventually have to explode
Have to explode

I sat in the kitchen with my roommate until four a.m. It never feels like babbling. We laughed at mistakes made earlier this year, when summer seemed so possible and we wanted something to happen, so we forced nothing into something, but I think the difference is more clear now.

I tried, but could never get into Soophie Nun Squad

I re-read Nate Powell's "Tiny Giants" today. There is always something new to catch. New to miss. I love how complex his work can get, like you could get stuck trying to figure out why he moved the frames the way he did, and never actually get to the words. The stories. The stories sort of bully you in a very emotional way, at least to me, they seem to point directly at me and ask what I'm going to do about all of this. It is easy to feel debilitated because you are confused, or because words are "so obscenely one sided." I always wanted to be an artist, but couldn't really draw. Just wasn't that good. So I took to words to try to re-create and re-format the images that came about in my head. But, I feel like words lack so much, and not that pictures don't have their own faults, but they speak in a way words can't. I just wonder if I had been able to draw, how I would feel about pictures and how I would feel about words.

finished

I read this book recently. Mary Ruefle's "The Most of It."
Please tell me about poetry books like this. I am having a hard time tolerating poetry these days. This worries me, mostly because I used to be able to appreciate poetry more, maybe I am just too picky. This was amazing and I think everyone should read it. "Perfection" is the best word. Sort of like Lydia Davis, but even shorter.

Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Artic

I imagined your death this morning, and it isn't that I meant to imagine a thing like that; but, I could hear your roommate answering the phone. I could see myself picking through, sorting emotions. Pairing them up. Seeing how it made me feel to see two emotions tied together.

It was because of the dream I had about you last night. It was so foggy, everything misty, like you could see yourself push through the air. It was almost like a real memory of you. I could remember details, but couldn't remember what we had actually said to each other. You asked me to sit in your lap, an intimate gesture, a trust. I held your head in my hands and looked at you. I followed you when you asked. It seemed so real, because I know I am very capable of following you.

After I woke up, I walked into the kitchen and cried. Mostly, because I missed you, and your death was just too much, and I couldn't handle your mortality.

Handling my own mortality is easy. Or at least I can say it is. I thought about my plans for the beach, and hoped the sun could dry me, get rid of the water weight

But, as I floated in the ocean I couldn't help but think of you snorkeling in your Atlantic. Probably so much different than mine. I could see you there, below the water, solitary and observant. It made sense for you to like something like that.

I didn't want to cry, not there, so I swam really fast until I couldn't keep my breath. How loud living can be. We are made mostly of air and water. I thought, we are the ocean. Expansive, salty, prone to unpredictable undertow.

I called you on my way to work. To make sure. You answered and I felt charged by your voice, the pensive "hello", even though you knew it was me, there, on the other line, a really really long way away.

second muxtape

I made another muxtape. It makes me miss being able to make a real mix tape. I remember getting really into them in high school. My friend James would make me one every time he can to see me. My car was filled with them and we would just drive around suburbia switching from one tape to the next. I remember making him a tape and spending hours picking out the perfect songs. I wanted to tell him that I liked him so badly, but it has just never been something I am good at. I remember putting a Rancid song on there. And "Punk Rock Love" by the Casualties. And some Saves the Day. He told me he always loved my mix tapes, and I think it has always been one of those things that I'm at good at. It has also been my way of telling boys I like them for a very long time.

I ended up telling James I liked him, and he said he couldn't, that he didn't want to ruin the friendship. But, two or three years later, he said he wanted to try something, but it was much too late. I think I saw that he is married now. I think about him a lot, but I doubt a friendship could even work.

I also made a mix for a guy I liked that worked at a coffee shop I went to a lot. I put at Camera Obscura song on there and a really sexy Mirah song, probably "Engine Heart" or "Gone Sugaring," but I don't really remember what else. I wonder if he ever got the hint.


http://twoweeknotice.muxtape.com/

I think it would be interesting to make a zine about mixtapes people have made for other people, then have a tape with a song from each person's mixtape. But I'm sure someone has already made that or something.

happy

The comics of Laura Park and Kate Beaton have been making me so happy lately. I want to draw my own, but I don't own a scanner, which I think you might need for internet comics.

conversational

My roommate read some math book and told me two facts. 1) If you could fold a piece of paper 50 times, it would reach the moon and 2)We should expect the unexpected, because mathematically speaking, we are more likely to have coincidences than not. Say, for instance, you averaged out how many times you take a train, and your friend takes that same train, because you live in the same area, there is probably actually a pretty high probability that you'd be on the same train at some point.


Someone also told me there is gas around Jupiter that looks like a smiley face. This was less interesting to me, and I was disappointed in the information they shared.

options

there is a lot of stuff you can do with a brown paper bag.

hold on, holden

I went the the Museum of Natural History today, but couldn't find the area Holden walks through with the kids. I asked where the Egyptians were, and no one seemed to know. We were told to check out the Mammoth mummy on the fourth floor. Maybe Holden was looking at the mummified poultry. I also saw the squid and the whale, from the movie. I felt intimidated, and I think the little kid next to me did as well. He made odd sounds, an almost creaking frog-like noise. At least that is how I remember it now. I was more scared of the wolves. I used to have a lot of dreams about wolves and there is one I still remember very well. I was out in the country at night and there were wolves out, and my dad had to save me. He was always saving me from wolves. They were everywhere. In the trees and on the ground. The diorama gave me the same feeling I used to get waking up from those dreams. My legs felt numb and warm, as if I were walking after lying still for a very long time.

I bought this today. It is extremely well written. I love Mary Ruefle and Lydia Davis a lot right now. I feel inspired after reading these books, which I haven't felt for awhile. I was worried about writing. I was worried about poetry, mostly. I also watched Fanny and Alexander. It made sense to me and I regret my decision not to go see it when it was at the IFC. I might try to write a review about it soon. I just feel like I should. I feel like it is one of those films you watch, and you love, but a few months pass, and you don't really remember why. It reminded me of Henry James' Turn of the Screw, but less Oedipal. Maybe I should write about that.

curiosity

There is someone outside of my window sifting through my trash and all I can really wonder is if they can see me through the fan or not.

---->

I have been thinking about Kalamazoo a lot, and I still miss so many people. I miss how quiet things would get, and I remember moments (night bike rides and walks, mostly) because they don't happen here like they did there. But, the city is a great place to be. It was a 30 minute bus ride to the beach today and then a friend drove us back through all the southern neighborhoods I never get to see. I am sunburned. We walked slowly into the apartment and I wished we were at the beach again. If I didn't have to go to work tomorrow, I would go back. My mouth is salty and I can feel the waves. I can hear them, too. I never really think of them so much as a crash, but as a fizzle between the rocks. All those bubbles! And a million dead jelly fish parts. I found a few shells. Tonight is a full moon. I am feeling many different things and finished a book and have the nervous excitement of picking out my next book to read. Change has started. Falling into the seasons, the gradual shift from heat to breeze to snow to breeze to heat.

Michigan

I remember driving around listening to Sufjan Stevens, and there would be a lot of people in my back seat. We felt really excited and listened to the same few songs over and over again. "Casimir Pulaski Day" always makes me remember doing this. It was my favorite song and I loved it when he would say "cancer of the bone."

We stopped doing it after my friend took a bunch of Valium and was really quiet in the back seat, except when he would say, "I don't think it is working."


In the morning through the window shade with the light pressed up against your shoulder blade I could see what you were reading

"Yeah, her face is sort of clean and bright, in that way that only people with money have a clean and bright face."

Meredith was eating cereal with a soup spoon. She looked at Rachel with a wide-eyed expression.

"Huh." She choked a little and looked at the back of the box of Fruity Pebbles. After a bit, she decided to swallow what she had just spit up.

"Yeah, but, I would like to think her money doesn't make her a bad person. Same for her face. Maybe I'm an optimist."

"I wasn't saying that. Not at all. I don't know. You know what I mean. I was just making a comment about her face. And, no, you're not an optimist."

Rachel messed around with the magnets on the fridge, and then opened it and stared intently at the back of the fridge. There was a very old bottle of cheap white wine, which she grabbed and took a swig of. She swished it around in her mouth for a bit and then spit it right back into the bottle.

I should make a mumblecore movie (subtitle: I could be productive too.)

"Can I borrow that?"

She sort of bends and points across the room.

"Borrow what?"

He looks over towards his shelf and all of his things, his keys, a few books, pencils, and coins.

"Borrow WHAT?"

"The thing there. The flutey-thing. Just hand it to me, okay?"

He hands over the small recorder. "It's a recorder, Ellen."

She mumbles and starts to play "Hot Cross Buns."

Ben sits on the floor of his room and thumbs through some old papers and rips up a bill he already paid online. He looks at Ellen and she continues to play the same notes, only holding some longer than she is supposed to.

She says, "It is for dramatic effect."

"Good job. It sounds really nice when you play it that way. You should write an opera, but all the songs are 'Hot Cross Buns'."

"Yeah, I probably should."

"I don't see why you wouldn't."

"Me either."

She continues to play while Ben just stares at her ankles. He thinks of the time his mother made pancakes, and one fell on the floor, and his dog ate the entire pancake. It made him really happy because the dog wouldn't have gotten the pancake otherwise. But, now, looking back, he figured the moment was kind of sad. The fact that the only reason the dog was allowed one of his Mother's banana pancakes was because it fell to the floor, and wouldn't have been good enough for anyone else anyway.




-------->

I have been feeling annoyed with poetry and have hardly read any this summer. I tried reading a Keith Waldrop book I bought and felt really annoyed by the pictures next to it, and the way he chose to break up his poem on the page. I re-read a Mary Ruefle poem I still like a lot, and one I didn't. I also read some stuff from and old "No" I have around. There is still one poem (the really long one) I want to work on but I feel like it has been too long, or something. I need an anger I have a hard time finding access to. I've been finding a lot more inspiration in stories, movies, and life, because life is similar to these things, or these things are similar to life. I have things I need to be responsible about tomorrow, like student loan stuff and figuring out some legal crap. I want life to be like it is in "Funny Ha Ha" and just be a temp and feel okay with being confused. I really liked the part where she "milks" the creamer. There is an interview from the film festival about "Baghead", and I haven't watched it yet, because I watched one about "Funny Ha Ha" instead. I wonder about the way people influence us, too. I think a lot of people think alike. I got a free slide projector and I want to use it for stories and poems. I feel really happy about it. If you have old slides, please tell me.

I made a muxtape.

http://verytinycabbage.muxtape.com/

I am listening to it right now. I feel really good about my choice in music. I've been wanting to hear some new music lately. My friend introduced me to "The Ex" recently, and I'd say they are a band I like a lot right now. I am also going to a show Wednesday, and it has been awhile since I have gone to one. Sometimes I push music out of my life, because I feel it easier to, or something, and just listen to a lot of one band. But then I pull out my other records after I get bored, and I realize that I need some new ones.

I made this


you can read the story I mentioned about the cowboy here

Saturday night my coworker pointed to a cab and said "I would like to think that cab goes somewhere, even when I'm not around." He pointed at a church too, and said "I like to think the church still exists, even when I'm at home. You need hope you know. I'm just not sure I can handle a subjective reality." I just really liked looking at the church, and I just thought of the church now, how it was when I saw it, and I hope it is there, too. And it might be. Or might not be. Either way, there is hope. And that is something to have.

In an interview Lydia Davis says, "I'm tempted to say we're all very uncomfortable existentially or something in this life." And that makes a lot of sense to me. I guess that is why her characters make sense to me, and why I miss the people that I miss, because they are willing to talk about that sort of thing, and sometimes find it hard to talk about anything else.

tonight

I rode the Q train home and read a book. I looked up and saw a girl reading "Glamor" and thought to myself, "I am glad I don't read things like Glamor, or Vogue." Not that I think I am better than anyone who reads those magazines. I'm sure fine people read those magazines. I am sure people I like, maybe one of my friends, reads one of those magazines. I am just really glad I don't. No judgment. I was just very pleased to be me for a little bit.

I'm reading short stories by Lydia Davis right now. I really liked the one about wanting to marry a cowboy. I bought herbal anxiety medicine for my cat today. Society is weird. It is weird that I can buy herbal anxiety medicine for my cat.

I will be Godard

I created a Youtube account and plan on doing stuff like this until either a) I get bored or b) People get annoyed by me.

michigan & links

I found out that you can turn your garden into a wildlife preserve.

I went back to Michigan last week and sat in Kalamazoo's Bronson Park and just smiled. I have always felt that Kalamazoo is at its best in the summer. I walked to the co-op and the library and saw some friends. It is easy to find friends there, if you just know where to walk to. A lot is changing there, as it always is, I think that's just how college towns work. My friend Bradley was having an art show that night at someone's house on Oak Street, and I was unable to make it, but I heard it was filled with lots of young kids. That's exciting. I talked to my friend James at Rocket Star, and he said that it seems like a lot of negative stuff was happening, but that there were a lot of new faces looking to make change. I just hope they don't get discouraged. Kalamazoo has such a history and I would like to see it get to the point that it sounds like it was at in the late 80's and early 90's.

I also drove through South Bend with my dad. I didn't even know about the riots that happened there, but I think people should know. My dad was proud to note that there was a strip of new stores, a coffee shop, an art gallery. He said they were trying to "turn it around" and it certainly needed something, but I wondered what would happen to the people already living there in the boarded up houses when those houses were bought and then remodeled and they could no longer live there. It was almost like a ghost town. My friend Joseph wants to move to a ghost town. I can see why. But then I worried about, what if he moved there, and then they did something like what they're doing to South Bend? I'm not sure how I feel about it, but Michigan seems to have been "hit hard" by a lot of things, and it also seemed to be sort of sad. But it always did. I think that's why Kalamazoo only ever felt good when it was summertime.

good work

My friends are so good.

Joseph made a song using a poem of Tao's and then Tao made a video for the song. I really like the start of this video.

Story: Untitled

This is the beginning to a story that is untitled as of now. I haven't really written a short story since high school, and those were usually only about a page or so. I think I have problems writing long things. I think that's why I am a poet. Sort of. I will make this longer. It is based off of a real event in my life. Names have been changed. I have added and subtracted details.

What is there to recall, other than the fact that recollection is weak, tainted, with the very memory that was created and stored in the first place.

I am feeling Funny. Strange.

Darkness rolled down the sky, gravity much too barren for even the moon, the sun, all the other celestial beings.

What were we talking about? Something, something, oh yeah.

The car window leaked and the fumes of Michigan kept me interested and awake. No, I was interested before, when Brandon was talking. I know life hasn’t been easy for him. But, I have been told by many people, several times, that it isn’t Supposed To Be Easy. I have not yet been clued into what it is Supposed To Be. The dashboard lights are stronger. Sixty-five miles per hour of silence.

After talking, the silence seems a lot heavier. This is why they call silence heavy. I can feel more of my body as I sit here breathing. I can feel Brandon’s body too. I can feel my body and his body wanting to be one body. This is not a sexual thought, I don’t think. But, I think, due to the silence, I want to hold his hand. Due to the fact that we both said something that nothing could be said after. I want to be able to say, “You are here.” Like the sign welcoming you to a new state, I could be Brandon’s sign to welcome him to wherever it is we are right now.

I don’t even look over. The road spins by as we travel from Ypsilanti back to Kalamazoo. Spring time. It seems like every road trip story should involve springtime, and the trip should be no longer than one hundred and two miles. I guess that means On the Road would not have been written. Possibility. Springtime is always associated with possibility, and change. I gave Brandon a map to New York, and at the beginning of the summer he ended up moving south. I moved to Brooklyn. I felt irritable several times today. Half of the time I am unsure of the cause of my emotional state.

I usually type a lot, then erase it. I think that's why I prefer my real journal lately. I am forced to write and keep it there, and if I don't like it, then I am forced to keep on writing until my mind gets to something I do want to write about. I'm not really sure what I want to write about, but I do know I want to be writing.

My friend Mike really inspires me to be creative. He drew a comic about a conversation we had. He makes time for being creative every day. I need to do this.

I sometimes talk about Winnicott's theory on creativity, which is explained in thing I read online:
Only when living creatively does a person come alive as a human being. We cannot be fully alive if we reside too much in either the realm of reality or the realm of fantasy because in each case we are being simply reflexively reactive to stimuli. Both reality and fantasy are, for Winnicott, outside the individual´s creative realm. In the intermediate space between fantasy and reality, on the other hand, we come alive as creators or interpreters of our own experience; reality is interpreted in terms of fantasy, and fantasy in terms of reality. Perception renders fantasy relatively safe; fantasy renders perception relatively meaningful. A sense of personal vitality is generated when each prevents the other from becoming too powerful. This is what Winnicott is getting at when he writes: "I can now afford to look and see. I now look creatively and what I apperceive I also perceive."

I like the idea of creativity being expansive. I see it everywhere now. I see it when a co-worker makes a good latte. I see it sometimes when a parent is with their child. There is nothing like creativity to suggest that you are still alive, and perhaps will live on, and not have to deal with the mortality of the average human being. That's comforting. That's heaven.


I need to stop saying how I "should" be doing things and just do them. Relevancy is difficult, as well as honesty. Somehow, through all the the things they had to do, the writers I loved still had time to write. So I need to make (create) (be creative with time) in order to have time to be creative. I also plan to take a small "vacation" where I actually just take off work and stay in my apartment.

I also want to get together with people and draw. I used to do this more often, but it is so hard to find people sometimes.



PS: Who wants to go on a date to Governor's Island?

dreams

I had a dream that dolphins weren't actually as cute as people always said they were. I discovered this swimming with them. I was happy with the fact that I knew the truth about dolphins.

The picture above is of a rare seahorse who is giving birth. I really like water creatures. I've been feeling very emotional lately. I am glad that the rare sea horse is giving birth.

sometimes

taking, take, for
instance.

breaking, break, for
instance.

brooklyn moaned. just now.
something moaned. and i felt it.

i felt the city
i feel the city
every single day.

rowing

down the river bed
hush of water forces.

there are many different arm muscles
and the sun is hot
and the water reflects the sun
and your hair burns

dust everywhere.
the oar stuck in dry land.

american haiku

more craigslist american haikus

more brunettes have been mentioned on missed connections.
good for us.

----->------------->
Your name plopped against the umbrella we shared, down in the dead fish.

Please come back library stranger, work is so boring, so ugly, so.

Brunette with Glasses, let's eat chicken, watch Woody Allen, send e-mail.

My arms are so hot and lonely, we should start a summer hating club.
----->--------------->

craigslist **update**

So, in the few days of my craigslist post I have found:

1) Men are much more likely to contact women than women contacting men.
I think that men, who are usually too shy to play a part of the traditional male role in real life, feel like the internet is the place to do it. There is no face-to-face rejection, just an unreturned e-mail. This is okay because most of these guys probably contact a lot of the girls, so sooner or later they will get an e-mail back.

2) A lot of people say, "I never reply to these things, but..." I felt only one guy was actually honest about this. Most of them are untrustworthy. As, most people are untrustworthy, and the internet only heightens this. The issue of women trusting men (and general safety) also relates back to number one, as my friend Nikki pointed out to me.

3) People still use bad grammar, even when trying to convince someone to e-mail them back. Also, I am "the female version of Mike Meyers" (lol). It is surprising how little some of them try.

4) I forgot the part of the equation where people I actually know, in real life, may come across this. I felt embarrassed. I also felt horribly depressed, looking at all the other ads and realizing how serious people were taking craiglist. I didn't realize people took it so seriously. I think the e-mails I received also confirmed this.

5) Most people are "uncreative" with their posts and their replies.
This made me sad about people and I wondered what gets them through the day. I'm still unsure if I should continue my research and go on any dates. Although, there are some people who I actually thought seemed funny and intelligent. I think, mostly, I would feel bad about researching people. Also, see #2.

6) Many have jobs related to computers. This might just be because most people have jobs related to computers. But, the numbers were pretty high. Also, two people posted from their Iphones. Fancy. So, I think, most of them have jobs and would be what I consider to be "well off."

So, I have already took it down, some 40 emails later. (Most people also enjoy facts about pigs) People are lonely. I knew this going in to this, but this really solidified it. And in New York, there are just a lot more people, so the percentage of loneliness somehow increases. So, is there really "someone for everyone"? Or is that just something we spew out, when we don't really know how to deal with being lonely, or some one else being lonely, and we feel bad about it?

****
In an effort to still my curiosity about "what kind of people contact people on craigslist" I made a post looking for dates.



Zach made it seem like a good idea.

Tao joined me.
I think Tao's post is hilarious. I think I would contact him because I would feel like he doesn't take life too seriously. Or craigslist. I like that.

I enjoy social experiments. I will post results later.

today

I felt unable to separate my head from other heads.
My mind seemed infiltrated with things that didn't need to be thought about.
I bought strawberries at the Union Square Farmer's Market and gave one to a guy selling poems in the park. I also bought poems.

There are things I want and things I need.
I am learning. I am finding gardens on Houston street.
I am thinking about thinking and altering my lifestyle.
I am making it seem possible.

Research Level One

Complete. Maybe. I think I "researched" other things. I feel like I want to learn more about what makes people write. How they would write about a room. I might change my mind on this one.

The American Sentence.

Kerouac said: Americans can not envision the haiku. He said: We have our own 17 syllable Haiku; he called this THE AMERICAN SENTENCE.

Sometimes I make craigslist missed connections into these. I think craigslist missed connections define America.

Lillian, I saw you on the Q train, the love train, please call me soon.

Chances are not mine, your denim jacket, our conversation got off.

Trends I have noticed: Q train, L train, Midtown, coffee shop, red head, blonde, "amazing" eyes, "courage", "glance", "I am certain"

I Need a Magic Eight Ball to Make ALL Life Choices for Me

If someone could sit in my room all night and I could ask them "Should I ..." I think I could be content. I would know my choices didn't really matter, because I wouldn't really have any. I would know that whether I do something or I don't do something, the end result would be the same, sooner or later.


I think I feel overwhelmed by something I'm not entirely aware of.

Jean-Luc Godard has captured relationships once again and has made it seem impossible that 1) We will ever give up being obsessed with love & 2) That we are even capable of loving in a healthy ("normal") way, which is something we have only imagined.

I have been into watching movie lately--now that school is out I find myself idle without the pressure of the tiny mind saying "Don't be idle. No time. No time." I looked at my bookshelf and then took a nap, woke up, and thought about things that will happen in the future and the reptilian brain

Beautiful little fools can wear whatever color they like

leaving

Rescuers have reached a cluster of brightly colored party balloons floating in the ocean off Brazil’s coast, but did not find the Roman Catholic priest who had been using them in an attempt to set a flight record

zg: that's beautiful
it makes me feel like nothing matters
me: thats a good way to feel.
im not really sure how it makes me feel because it makes me feel a whole mess of things. and i wonder a lot about it, so it doesnt feel concrete enough to have a concrete feeling about
zg: are there concrete feelings
me: um, maybe. i dont know.
usually, i guess, there is a mix, but sometimes one overwhelms enough to seem concrete enough
me: what do you think?
zg: i think feelings are something like concerete
'good' and 'bad' are sort of concrete
i might not believe that
i think that feelings aren't concrete



Where do you think he is? What happened? What did he think as he lifted off? Do you think he meant to "lose" himself? Did he think anything, if he is dead, about dying? And think "I am dying because I wanted to beat a world record"? I would be okay with that. I would be okay with a lot of things.

explained.

reading

hannah weiner


okay? so, this makes a lot of sense. there are have been a lot of excellent things (smart people writing smart things that don't make me feel dumb about myself, but, instead, make me incredibly happy about all of the really smart people, other things, small cups of coffee, strawberry pies, different types of dogs) that are now or before. and if everything can just keep doing this things will make sense a little bit, i think.

my cat is really into eating wheat grass.

remember when it was really popular to get shots of wheat grass? i wonder if she'd like that just as much? i could really go for one of those right now.

wanting

I want to work with my hands, outside.
It is hard to learn palmistry on my hands, they are heavily marked by line.

I'm dreaming of travels, of summer, of lists to complete.

direct quote

"How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking one felt, or disliking? And to those words, what meaning attached, after all?"

-Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse

I do not know what I like, or if I really like anything, or even if it is possible to really like something. Also, I do not know if liking everything means you like nothing, or in reality, like everything. I also do not know if liking nothing means you like nothing or everything. I also have a lot of questions concerning the ideas of honesty and influence, this goes along with liking or not liking.

Would you like this?

If you want a copy of the last Wigwam tape ever, let me know. Super scaly noise basement shit I did with Miles Haney, of Tapeworm Tapes. Call and respond wind instruments and basic disorder. I will send them for free because it doesn't really matter and you're probably my friend.

Disney

I used to watch The Jungle Book a lot, that and Dumbo.

My mom lent our copy of The Jungle Book to a friend of the family, and we never got it back. Dumbo just wore out and my mom was tired of buying copies of it.

She sent me an e-mail today that said she bought an anniversary addition of The Jungle Book at Costco. We're going to watch it together next time I'm home. Moms are so nice. She's also very excited that it's on DVD, because she's moving up in the world.

thoughts in my head for today

Sometimes I think that I shouldn't be a writer, that it is just too much trouble to worry all the time. I'm just so uncertain about it all, because I don't think it is ever anything anyone is ever certain about, or at least the smart people who realize that not everything, or hardly anything, makes any sense. I also think that there is no "right" or "wrong" way to write. This is just insanity. I am really grateful that there are so many different ways to say the same things. If I was a writing teacher I would never tell them not to do anything, except maybe use cliches, but even those are good. I love using cliches in my work in different sarcastic ways. I realize that I sort of have to be a writer because I couldn't ever stop writing or reading. It makes a lot of sense to me, and even if I'm a "bad" writer I shouldn't really care. I miss being younger, like in high school, and not caring at all what people thought about my writing. It made me feel better about the world around me, like I could create it the way I wanted it to be in the first place. I'm not really sure how I want to write other than the way that makes sense to me at the time. I change my mind a lot because I am a Gemini and I think it is just part of my nature to change my mind about everything all of the time. I have a hard time trusting people who believe they have an identity, or that they are some person. I haven't really thought that I've had an identity since high school when I was sure that I was punk. I'm not really so certain of anything now and I feel really balanced because of that. I also think people are lonely and sad for a majority of the time and I wonder what makes them that way. A lot of people blame it on technology, and I think that's some of it, but I think people were lonely and sad before computers as well. It was just that they had something else to make them feel that way.

As I was waiting for the Q train to Manhattan last night there was an older man (what did he look like? I don't really remember) and he was playing traditional Russian music on an accordion. He had an empty peanut jar to collect money in and my roommate said, "It is as if he's not really expecting much to come from that." I just thought that maybe he just eats a lot of peanuts. The entire platform of people watched him and maybe we felt somewhere else, somewhere special, not waiting anything anymore. Another man (he looked different, but how?, brown hair, bigger face) started to dance, he didn't seem present. I don't know if he was drunk, or just somewhere else. He almost seemed as if he was dancing with someone not present. Like he time traveled somehow, like he made himself somewhere that mattered. I wanted to know who he was dancing with, and who he was when he was dancing with that person. I think we can time travel. I am so glad that we can time travel.

seriously

Sometimes I think I take myself too seriously.

Tao mentioned that it's Spring Time, and he's right. I'm going to Florida soon and I hope to see more friends (because I miss everyone all of the time) and I also plan to pet Hemingway's cats.

I guess, right now, I'd just rather figure out how to read palms than read critical essays on The Turn of the Screw.

I think jokes are really really important.

Margaret

mostly balled herself up,
mostly dropped by unannounced.
The dinner plans ruined,
she figured it would be easier to just pick up a Milky Way on the walk home.

please

tell me about any books you know about memory.

i accidentally turned in a nypl book into my school's library.

sorry, spicer.

there is a bus moving in the world,
how peculiar that the night keeps on breathing
how we call keep breathing in our sleep
to wake up breathing

recalling a dream from when we were a child.

part I

I borrowed
a memory,
a fraction
the weight of two black
socks.
the winter coat.

three beads of blue
berries on my tongue

&

there were never enough
wild flowers,
never enough
daisies. But,

the unfamiliar maps
an empty stage where players wait
direction
the cobalt blue curtains,

they part
and it all seems
close enough.

traps out on a lawn, set to the hour. a snap. a tepid temperature. a horrible stench. a fish in every hand.

exercise

I'm never sure if I should embrace or escape the narrative, or if either are really possible. I've been nostalgic lately (ha, as of late, as if it ever stops, daily) So I'm working on this. I'm working things. I'm not sure how I feel about the voice here, although it is a hard voice to get away from when I had to work with the Norton Anthology, and also with a voice I used to work with when I studied with this book. It brings it all back. Kalamazoo, with its familiarity and a walk to school, a drive to rocket star, the back porch kale. I loved that apartment, even though we feared the cats getting out.

The Norton Anthology

Your notes in my copy,
ink wells,
the blur of your
scripts. a,a,b,a,b,c.

c,d,d.

die, leave, and feel, adrienne rich
(me) saying things quietly,

through metaphor. My notes

on Dickinson, your blue heart below
Yeats.

The cankerworm was especially damaging to roses,

I don’t even remember,
and we met, apparently

in a Shakespearean Sonnet.

Season. Time. (it stops for no one) When I see all these things
I question yer beauty,

scorn. and virtue. Why the indifferent beak of Zeus,
poor Leda, and someone else before us both
writing notes for Pound and Eliot.

A cursive pencil
up against your arrow and ink pen.
My large changing script.

And
I remember
your big white bed
up against all the walls,
you moved it, so uncomfortable
within them,

and how empty the glasses were left that night,
and how empty they all are now.

buttons

they unravel,

sometimes.

(robert frank - mary in the ocean)



Hansel and Gretel realized that they could not both ride the white duck together, so they separated and met on the other side fresh as brides.

All I can think about is water. I had a dream I tried to sing with a friend of mine and couldn't figure out the harmonies.

le livre, la vie

I spent hours in MOMA yesterday. I wasn't happy until the fourth floor. I am stuck in past generations. I just don't see where we are going. In front of me are a whole lot of artist's statements.

(suggestions)

please and thank yous

Please don't hang on,
hang glide.

I have such a furry face,
that is how I would like to explain a little drunk.

I have been thinking about women poets, why they mean so much to me. A little less hollow. I hear your voice, don't worry.

tomorrow I will imagine her face.

chilly fabric

pinned to marigolds

(pointing to above growth)

one inch every two months:
a time span
a visual representation of the morning stretch

number one: are you there?
number two: no, im out swimming. im out
side.

the winds current
the waters current

"i didnt think the current would be strong enough for that"
"dont worry, it is"

point hollow and tired, the point
somewhere and then she lifted up a rock.

not under here. everyone has been looking
under rocks lately, and there still isnt anything
but the muddy sunless dirt.

you said it

but who meant it.


(stress)

dreamy dreams

I had a dream I killed a bee and then awhile later it was alive, so I guess I never really killed it like I thought I did.


This record is perfection:



Sometimes I think of nights like tonight and really wish I could just lay on my couch listening to records forever. Just listening.

Went to class and now I'm real curious about the levels between loneliness and solitude.

staying up

im staying up because i cant sleep. reasons are there, a sick friend. hoping they can feel okay tomorrow. thanks to some strangers. a story i told that i couldnt tell right. i couldnt really explain. how good the blueberries tasted that day. how chilly it is tonight. how apologetic people can be for no real reason, other than that they are just sorry. very sorry. taught for the first time and i just feel a knowing - something certain that says ive found "a calling" i really dont know what a day might whisper but im listening and interested and im here, waiting.

so

I forgot to pick you up the bread you wanted.
I forgot to pick you up.


Honestly,

the size of your hands keeps my eyelids dry
awake and stumbling through dreams

I turned on to

everything else.

cords

Out there in the water there are people splashing, some are drowning, but the others are just splashing, letting you know that they're okay, that they're out there.

thanks for it

I can hear it all opening up to the fine tune of the first tune of tomorrow.


I like that feeling when something just feels RIGHT. I don't concern myself with what it is made of, the finer details. "Everyday stuff"

I wrote a poem while dreaming a few days ago,

if only I could hold on.