i have been receiving letters, beautiful lady letters full of brutal truth only friends can speak. those far away who know me better than those in my own home. those i've met but a handful of times who are just like me and understand. hrm-mm, ho-hum. a tentative scattering of words via sporadic blogs and cramped handwriting sent all over this land. it all feels wrong when it comes out of my fingers. i seek some external proof that change is happening. a tattoo, a haircut, a finished zine, an album of ten songs waiting to be burned for the masses. hm. falling short.

nesting, much like the ominous springtime of '06. sorting photographs into books, scouring old journals, pacing, watching the thunderstorms collect and dissipate every humid electric eve. birthing & rebirthing. it's Just a Phase. preparing to die, in a way. getting all my things in order. for the past few weeks my room has been a mess, an explosion of even more photographs and old journals, cds ripping, ignored utility bills, dirty dishes. (the ants travel with us.) i kept apologizing to c., for i would hole up and work on this nostalgia, only leaving for my coffee shifts and sleep, and the clutter kept growing until it all got put away. everything here is in its place. i'm sorry, i said, but i'm In The Zone, you know? something BIG. it's happening. o my yes.

all that is left is to write all these stories i've been poorly hiding under veiled allusion. the story of the bad craziness. the story of the first love. the story of how i grew up and grew up and grew up and still am defiantly stickin' it to the proverbial MAN, mm-hm. the story of the first boy and starwars sheets. &c. you get the idea. a novella-zine worthy of being shelved near LB's So Midwest, or dream whip, or the latest Sad & Beautiful World, i'll bet. thick and meaty, bloody truth. kicking & screaming. public execution. (the secret ingredient is resentment.)

i am learning that i am completely worthy of standing beside those who inspire me.
we send each other these letters full of restrained praise, things better spoken sideways in person on a rooftop, drunk. it is often frightful, but so necessary, to write the Truth, indelibly. we all say, "you are a goddamn walking inspiration, and me i don't know fuck about shit," but that's the lying fear for we all of us are goddamn walking inspiration and i am so sick of being timidly depressed and self-doubting.

what i would like to have is that feeling of excited curiousity, that certainty that magic abounds, that unwavering knowledge that i am constantly filling my own life with meaning, o and also that the universe is speaking to me. oh oh, a new old friend has told me that he can tell i have seen god and said YES despite my fear, and that YES is in me, muddled up with all this silly human stuff. right now i can't touch it, tho i can remember what it was like when i used to have it close to heart. i want to feel that frenzied-calm sense of purpose without the Nameless Dread nipping at my heals. i don't have to be a grown-up in this way, not if i don't really want to.

it's all in my head. WHAT'S STOPPING YOU? one could argue debt, classes, dayjob, lack of personal transportation, and any number of excuses ad nauseum but IN TRUTH... i can seek adventure myself. and i have. and we have. in despair i've focussed on the failed attempts, the broken promises and abandoned hearts, that time i bought a few hundred dollars worth of cross-country bus tickets and chickened out (and met a boy at the same time). but i just put all of my photos into new albums, compact story-telling, easily-accessible, and there's my proof: i have, and can, run all over this mad-lovely world. and document those myth-moments and show them to all.

my friends went on tour and spraypainted their love all over a monument. oh my yes, we must go and be in love all over this country.

a happy accident & 200+ memories in hand. not too old for big box scams yet, are we?
&so My Past is creeping along the carpet, threatening to topple stacks of photos and open journals.
It's Just A Phase.
we call this: Research.

in Truth i had been avoiding the answers and the motivational kick in the ass. accomplishing my small summer tasks and looking away when i got to the part of my list that says "write a zine, dammit." i got a digital camera three years ago and, sadly, had been neglecting to obtain prints. three year's worth of an ignored past, because i hate staring at screens. so we have photo albums now, hard copies. and that is strange, being caught in this loop, this skipping record take the tape out and unravel it. throw it out the window. give the finger to the neighbors who tell us to stop burning our rotten paper trash, we've finally gotten this goddamn house clean and i will stop burning my trash when you-all stop waking me up with the Allman Brothers on Sunday mornings.

shack life. "rent life to tent life." one day, maybe. so, i have looked, and i have books of words and they shine. and they slap me around a bit and say "who the hell do you think you are little miss low self esteem quiet QUIT whining because YOU are doing great things and here is proof." letters, are, just, squiggly, lines. from friends. and o how i love my friends, fuzzy through cloud-distorted 8-trak previews and their heartrending zines and it is up to me to believe their kind words.

i have often felt floundering but in truth, maybe, perhaps, i have always known exactly what i am doing. stubbornly, defiantly, as some would say. i used to say, "i have so much love to give, it is brimming and bursting," and those boys, those boys would get too scared. and one of them was maybe not too scared and he asked me once to new orleans and i declined because it was not On My Terms (control needs control), i wanted a couple months and then to be swept away. to make a long story short, for it was a year compressed into a month. you cannot really just change your mind like that, little miss. and must i leave the dangermagic behind or can we hold hands and share it, o hello sir? let's go!

often i complain to my therapist that i feel trapped but this is a lousy excuse. nothing tangible is holding me back. not poverty, not debt, not school, not my job, not my inability to drive a car. i have been through far too much to give up now. WHAT'S STOPPING YOU?

in deconstructing myself, i often wonder what will be leftover after this intensely introspective phase of Recovery.
lately, i feel like a tangle of problem & flaw; in becoming aware of negative/unhealthy/self-destructive behaviors, i have begun to define myself as such. obsessive-compulsive. anxiety-prone. paranoid. insecure. doubtful. i can point out the way my brain gets itself caught in an infinite loop but i cannot break these patterns yet. all i can do at the moment is name things, label them, set them aside and let myself be. don't allow myself to worry about how much i worry about... &c.

& it's sad, because i feel certain pangs: perhaps i should chop off my hair and dye it red, perhaps a new tattoo would provide a motivational kick in the ass (as if "looking" more "like an Artist" will allow me to BE more of an artist, as if i really can define myself by scrawling messages and scribbling all over my person). perhaps a road trip would do it. a new mix CD, a new musical obsession. perhaps i need to say Fuck It and quit sleeping so i can stay up all night & write, just like i used to, when i had red hair. sadly (but "sadly" is is not the exact sentiment, it's more of a missing-ly) in Growing Up a little i have realized that none of these things, none of these illusionistic changes have really solved any of my problems, because i've been dragging these melancholic ghosts around for years, refusing to look at them, refusing to acknowledge, to call them by name. & so.

everything is unfamiliar, derealized. grit teeth & shards of glass & unwashed hair.
but it will be okay. quietly, so.

i'm turning twenty-five, soon, and this is kind of A Big Deal.
still & all, the next tattoo will be a rose & "what matters most is how well you walk through the fire." & i am going to new orleans this summer, in a car.
& my hands are aching to write, but literally aching from manual labor, clawed and tense. i'd like to think of this as a Sign (not so much a punishment, i hope), but a reminder that i must stay in practice, even if poetry does not flow from my fingertips so easily these days, i must write those letters i had promised, those journal entries that will not be seen by a judgemental audience.

i had been described as "defiant" years ago and yet i never felt it. childish, maybe; stubborn & self-absorbed.
lately, though... i have been feeling defiant. worn-down yet strong.
& creating a lot of tangible representations of extremely large emotions.

Among other totally mind-blowing utterances,
he said, "I feel more empowered by my sobriety every day."

That's the first time I've ever heard him use the word "empowered."
O, & such sincere optimism in his voice.

(I'm still reeling, but details eventually.)

i am amazed at the potential of human beings to do the right thing, & with a positive attitude to boot.

mundane assignments evoke frightfully perceptive suggestions from my drawing professor:
it looks like you've created a barrier. or a gate?
(they're just binder-clips. those big black ones for holding together your financial records from all of 2008, for example. it is nice to know that My Work insists on expressing my state of mind, whether i like it or not.)

the mediator between head and heart must be the hands!

sometimes they say alcoholics are "narcissists with inferiority complexes." oh, yes, that's it right there. you're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie & doesn't know what's going on. all these complaints, all these accusations, all this talk that the whole world is out to get you, all these grand sweeping statements that start with "you people" and end with "are driving me into the ground"--and all i see is a child throwing a tantrum. outlook not good.

i keep trying to quit smoking but can't decide what i'm trying to prove, since it's not a huge problem right now--i've only been smoking for as long as i've known c., which is a year and a half. disliking the knowledge that i've chained myself to a potentially-fatal habit, but still convincing myself that 3 a day is okay, or 5-7 a day, or half a pack, and after that point i'll say fuck it, i'll quit tomorrow, and tomorrow i'm scavenging cigarettes and counting out change. pathetic. and there was a time, i remember easily, when my nerves did not require such attention.

how frustrating it is, i cannot even begin to express. possessing certain solutions, certain alternate perspectives, and still he is stubborn as shit, insisting he'll "quit on his own terms/time." this is a boy who was forced once, already, to detox in the hospital with shortcircuiting brain and inflammed liver; now, sometimes, he claims there was no seizure, that he just fell over and hit his head. and i cannot explain in words how infinitely frustrating it is to have my world invalidated by a drunk who can talk louder than me. i know what i see and what i feel and i can't stand this complete disregard for factual reality. all that's left is rage, and even that is useless, futile screaming & destruction which will still have absolutely no effect on the situation. if i cry, he will mock me; if i get angry, he will insult me. there is no end.

& last night, i said i was going to leave him. not right now, nothing so dramatic. i need to save up money and make plans--and i've dealt with so much shit up to this point that i don't mind the wait. i've said i'll leave many times, and he has in fact told me in his more pitifully manipulative moments that i ought to leave him "for my own good," and how fucking convoluted is that? now somehow i guess i'm more serious, or it's gone too far; either way, it hit him this time. claiming heartbreak. you know, i said months ago that you'd broken my heart and you just laughed at me. i've grown cold, this is it. grownup. "please don't leave me," he says, "i'll quit drinking, i promise." but i don't believe it. he's been promising since the first day we met that he'd quit. that's what they do. a continuous cycle of abuse to apology, an apology that lasts just long enough to allow one more fuckup & forgiveness. no no no no no.

i have nothing to lose because there was nothing between us in the first place.
or, strike that, because the bottle has always been between us.

every single piece of art i've made and will make at school is about you.
the process is progressing as planned.

i'm sick of writing the same old shit. steady downward motion.

"Recovery." It's some shit.

unfinished cross-contour hand, 9.4.08, graphite.


shoe! 9.18.08, graphite.


self-portrait, 10.15.08, charcoal, 22x30".


progress is happening.

late dinner with c. at huddle house. every night gray-haired flannel-wearing gentlemen sit in plastic lawn chairs on the small concrete porch (if you could call it that), smoking cigarettes and shooting the shit. i asked one of them for a light, which he flicked as i was reaching--taken aback, i leaned over and let him light my smoke for me. "bet that doesn't happen to you very often!" he joked, so sweet. as we got on our bikes and said goodnight, they told us "be careful on them thangs, now, y'all don't got reflectors!" i can't wait to be 80 years old, it's going to be so much fun.

( lordy, lordy, please have mercy on me )

it's autumn and the wind has changed. the temperature drops gradually but the feeling of a change in season is abrupt, clear-cut. one day you wake up and there is a chill, and the wind is different, and the morning light shines thickly. you sit on your front stoop and listen as the birds and insects sing one final desperate call for love before death. you smoke a cigarette and wear a long-sleeved shirt and think about change, and coldness, and getting ready for a long wait, and maybe you have time to write some of it down so you can reminisce next year when the chill takes you by surprise all over again.

every night when the sirens wail (and they always do) there's a dog howling down the street in haunting harmony, and sometimes all this racket even matches tones with the techno droning out of my stereo and i remember that everything fits together.

if i feel like there is no passion behind my art, that i'm just going thru the motions--that i can fake a good photograph because i've set up a riveting style of composition--but if there's no feeling behind it, is this dishonesty? if someone tells me they had such a strong emotional reaction to one of my empty pieces of art, have they been tricked? or does this mean perhaps there is an underlying passion of which i'm not aware? or does this mean it matters little what my intentions are, but how the viewer personally interprets a piece?

the ancient artworks we've unearthed are all about God or Death. votives, exaltations, gravemarkers, bribes to the overseers of life and death to bless us, please. over history, artistic expression has generally moved from the external to the internal, and then there's also movements like abstract postmodernism and reductive pieces designed to focus on emotionless style, and surrealism, and boring landscape photography, and obsessive paintings of nothing in particular. having such a broad and all-encompassing philosophy of Beauty and Art, i wonder if this extension of art into everything--from nature to nothing to self-absorption to everyday life--reflects an underlying understanding that God and Death are found in all things. or even are all things, and the same thing.

Annie Dillard, in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, writes about the viciousness of a world designed to create abundance that will be mostly killed off. insects and fish laying thousands of eggs which get devoured, mothers consuming their own offspring, etc. she writes that humans are the only creatures with a sense of morality, and we are the freaks in an essentially amoral universe. but what if it is just our perception of Death that is askew? what if everything in the universe is basically in balance, and death is neither good nor evil? take human sacrifice, for example. these days we perceive such an activity as barbarism, but as i learned in an art history class (and this could be incorrect, i never really followed it up), many sacrificial humans went willingly, volunteered their lives to the gods, and were treated like kings during the time leading up to their death. what about those individuals who don't believe Death is necessarily bad, but just a part of the process--suicide bombers, martyrs, spiritual leaders, heroes who take a bullet to save another--they seem to've reached some kind of internal peace and are able to let go of life. or, perhaps they do experience a crushing moment of doubt at the end... maybe it's our Fear of Death (& the Unknown) that causes us to label it as bad or evil.

and who decides which moral code is the right one? is it all relative?

and are humans the only creatures wandering around and wondering why? how? what does it all mean? and why do some animals mourn their dead while others devour their own by the thousands? are they ignorant of the existential dilemma, or are they peaceful and accepting, having silently got it all figured out?

i've been falling into self-silencing mode again, having irrational thoughts about why i shouldn't be expressing any emotions. my thoughts race, but i just don't talk--i encounter a conversation, and decide my input is useless, and simply listen with an obvious distraction. with c., especially, i've convinced myself that my opinions, problems, and accomplishments are nothing compared to his. this is partly my own fault and partly his. i tend to speak slowly, formulating phrases before they exit my mouth, which gives him ample room to interrupt. and he's a fast-talker and a rambler, which intimidates me because i tend toward passivity in conversation. so at this point i don't even try.

& being stuck in a rut, same shit every day, same circular nonsense, same problems that are never resolved--i hate feeling like a whiner, like i'm repeating myself and have no follow-through. i've done this to myself, i'm well-aware. i have to start somewhere, change something, and the rest will follow, right? but it has all piled up, become so crushing that even something as easy as smoking a few less cigarettes or drinking more water each day feels impossibly overwhleming.

i'm afraid this is it--the beginning of a bitter cynicism that will last until i die. this can't really be what's happening, though, because i still possess a feeling of hope--i still think it's possible to get better, feel generally okay with the fact that i'm alive, and even experience true passion again. c. says he can tell my type: underlying all the problems and complaints and exhaustion and depression, he says it still feels like i'm a generally happy person. i don't think this is untrue, although it is strange how such a trait can be expressed without my even realizing it--like when i saw myself on video during a recent interview, small girl making these wide, sweeping gestures with thin limbs; i never realized the way i attempt to take up so much space, to compensate for my typical nervous timidity in body and voice.

i'm still feeling so disconnected--it's been this way all year, and not even summertime could draw me out. i'm looking forward to autumn and winter because then it will be more socially-acceptable to hole myself up and be quiet. maybe i just needed a winter year, a time to process all the ups-and-downs from 2005 'til late 07. i feel so inactive even though i am doing so much--school and work and my punkhouse and booking shows. these are things i should feel strongly about, but i feel like i'm on autopilot, like there is no motivation behind my action. but maybe probably there is, and i just haven't been able to articulate it yet.

write the small things, no matter how cryptic. write for yrself. write because yr a writer and there are no excuses. because you need to make time for this. because all that time you spend moping can be used for more creative endeavors. because there are minutes and seconds in between making coffee and reading a textbook for twelve hours and you have to make your life mean something. write and don't care how beautiful, poetic, or metaphoric you think it's supposed to sound.

it was enough, last night, watching c. shake the floor with his songs, watching him really give a shit about something, for a moment at least. but the day-to-day is killing me.

7 interests chosen by red_eyed_soul. if you want to play, comment and i'll pick 7 of your interests for you to write about. good exercise, at least.


deadly sea creatures.
Generally I'm fascinated by the ocean community as a whole, but certain creatures appeal to me particularly for the absurd nature of their basic existence--the fact that such strange animals can fit in perfectly to their ecosystem gives me a feeling of universal comfort; everything has its place. When I was little there was a library book on deep-sea creatures which I would check out religiously; the fish of the abyssal zone (the part of the ocean that receives no sunlight), like the gulper eel and the anglerfish, were an early favorite. Of course there's also the humorous side to gawking at these awkward specimens: squid, cuttlefish, etc. make for excellent LOLs. But beyond printing witty octopus imagery on t-shirts, I have a lot of metaphors attached to various bits of information on my favorite underwater animals. The Portugese Man-o-War is considered the deadliest jellyfish, but in fact it's not a jellyfish at all, but a community of tiny organisms which make up the tentacles; some tentacles capture food, others are used for reproduction, others release waste--it's, like, symbolic of communal living, man. The shark--like many of my favorite restlessly neurotic artists--needs to keep moving or else it will die; it must always circulate fresh oxygen through its gills. The Giant Squid is admired for its mysterious, solitary lifestyle--we know very little about it except for rare terrifying glimpses at sea or the occasional washed-up carcass. Still other creatures I am simply enamored of their beauty: the inky glide of the octopus, and the haunting sentience of the cuttlefish's gaze. It's rather difficult to explain what these creatures mean to me; usually I just prefer to let the imagery speak for itself. Mostly I just feel a sense of awe at the strange and perfect interaction of life with itself--how can these things even exist? But they do, and gracefully.

escape plans.
there always has to be a way out. experience has taught me that even the most comfortable living situation can go to hell without a moment's warning, so these days i always have a backup plan. change-of-address forms tucked into the back of a filing cabinet, a few hundred dollars socked away for a bus ticket, and the knowledge that if i really had to i could pick up and go with my journal and a camera. in the past i made my escape plans in desperation, believing that Things Could Be Better if only i lived in a different house, or another city. usually, it was Fear that kept me rooted in one spot. diner late-nights were spent discussing with friends how i could get myself to my dream-city of New Orleans--and i knew it was possible, so close i could taste it.... just save some money, pack a steamer trunk, get on a train and go. couch-surf, find a job, rent a shotgun shack, be happy. each time i visited New Orleans i was so very tempted to stay, but each time i returned to the safety of home, too scared that i could wreck my life by tossing the security of my job & rent to the wind. i would like to be the kind of person who can feel stable in constantly shifting situations, who can find a sense of calm within, but i have yet to reach that point. so i just scheme and dream and make lists, deriving a small sense of accomplishment in the organization of thoughts onto paper, an easy step-by-step Escape Plan That Just Might Work. i've left a trail of failed plans and missed opportunities. each trip to New Orleans leaves me yearning. in highschool, Nikki & I vowed to spend a summer trainhopping with only our journals and an ample supply of menstrual tools. we concealed our nervousness by making jokes about how we're going to have to piss in jars; we practiced jumping on slow trains down by the river, but we never left. we dreamed of starting up a punkhouse in a rundown old structure on the South Side Slopes, but when we were old enough we just got our own apartments. at thirteen, Susan and I saved spare change to fund our escape to London where we could live together and start a band. and even earlier, in gradeschool, i was making lists of ways to escape myself--insecure "self-improvement" lists about wearing makeup and losing weight so that boys would pay attention to me (relationships being an escape of sorts, mind you). writing this fills me with inspiration, excitement, and guilt--because i haven't reconciled my wanderlust just yet. today, right now, with my future laid out before me--a future i chose, a plan that makes me happy, two+ more years of college and then anything goes--i still want to run. i still want to see so much. i can find adventure in the place i currently call home, but i wish i had the resources to get out. materially, i wish i had the money to travel comfortably; or barring that, i wish i was spiritually-together enough to not even need material comforts. i'm constantly flip-flopping. i make elaborate plans even though i am secretly aware that i really do have all the resources i need right in front of me. but the good thing is, these plans stand the test of time, for the most part. they are all still valid, waiting for my decision. i can still make it to New Orleans. i could probably still call up Nikki and hop trains. Susan would be willing to make time for a road trip. it's all up to me.

gypsypunk.
i met my first honest-to-god gypsypunks at the Cumberland House in Asheville during my Hitchhiking Summer '05. by that time i was exhausted and pissed-off and wanting to go home, but not ready to admit that i wasn't enjoying the Kerouackian lifestyle i'd chosen. i got food poisoning from eating dumpstered apples and spent the morning puking into a greywater toilet i couldn't figure out how to flush. i was sober on the road and getting frustrated with the endless stream of drunkpunks befriending us in every city. but looking back, there was a lot of beauty in this particular punkhouse. the basement was covered in amazing spraypainted artwork and a homebrew contraption lurked in the dark. at night, Sparrow and her friends played accordion, banjo, and fiddle upstairs and the music echoed throughout the house. everyone wore rag-tag stitched-up outfits: stripey stockings, pinstriped vests, flouncy skirts, dapper hats, dirty bedraggled hair. i didn't know to call gypsypunk by its name when i saw it, just kind of fell into an attraction to the olde-tymey bluegrass revival sounds, or the culture-clash of bands like The World/Inferno Friendship Society and Gogol Bordello. despite my interest in this subculture, it's an interest i keep at a distance because i feel that ideas get ruined easily when one starts clinging too adamantly to strict definitions of the idea (like with dresscodes, musical genres, art styles, etc.) i like to feel that i can observe and record aspects of culture that interest me without immersing myself totally in the ideology. (see also: my teenage infatuation with "what it means to be punk" when i wasn't actually punk). part of this, i admit, is a result of feeling left out. i would like to feel as though i belong to a particular culture or subculture, but mostly i feel like i'm all mashed-up, all bits and pieces. it's appealing to belong to a group because within the group everything's spelled out--your likes and dislikes, style of dress, mode of living. but this is also a put-off for me, because my joining one group i'm excluding myself from many others. i sort of went through this identity crisis as a teenager, getting obsessed with one musical genre after another and getting flak for being a "poseur" because i couldn't stick to just one thing--goth, rave, punk, whatever. especially punk, with its claims of acceptance and unity and anarchy, seems hypocritical in its attachment to a particular musical style or type of clothing. punk (diy) as a style has nothing to do with punk (diy) as an ideology. all very confusing for a teenager trying to define her identity. so, basically, i am enamoured of the gypsypunk look, its music, and what these things try to stand for--a life of freedom, travelling, living hand-to-mouth but adventurously not in desperation--but i'm not so quick to define my ownself as such, because a self is fluid and can't be pinned down. i rather enjoy being a cultural tourist, as such.

manipulating clock-time.
once i read a book called The Geography of Time which set out to explain how and why different cultures/locales perceive time differently--for example, why the Northern United States feels more fast-paced and businesslike while the South feels laid-back like an endless evening on the front porch. the most riveting concept i got out of the book was that one's own perception of time has everything to do with the way time operates--like if you're angry about being at work for five hours those five hours will drag, but if you get yourself into a mindset of being okay with the way you spend your time at work, or feeling productive about it, those hours won't seem so torturous. i enjoy having a schedule to my day, but i like that schedule to have some leeway here and there. i am never on time, and i used to feel really bad about it, like it was a horrible character flaw that i couldn't just get it together and do what i'm supposed to do when i'm supposed to do it. but i feel better about allowing life to get in the way of things a little bit. i don't feel like it's possible to measure out our days so precisely, to switch activities and modes of thinking as soon as the bell goes off. time is malleable; it's a human construct, it isn't static. the way we feel about time means everything about the way time passes. clock-time is a measurement; event-time is how we feel that time passes during a particular activity. i'm striving to exist more in event-time: sleep when i'm tired, wake when i'm wakeful. write for as long as i feel like writing. with a set schedule for work and school, i can't really live like this all the time, but i try to manipulate how i feel about clock-time to avoid feeling like i'm wasting time at work when i could be doing something else. there will be time, there will be time...

new orleans.
my favorite city, my dream-city, my city that eats itself, city of death & decay smelling of trash and magnolias, city of creation & abundance bleeding music and sweating song. i fell in love with New Orleans before i was even within the city limits--crossing the Ponchartrain Causeway at sunset in earlysummer, trying to climb out the window and grasp at its unrelenting beauty. i've dreamed of that bridge, those rundown houses on streets named after muses. a city that lives under death's watchful eye and celebrates as if each day might be its last. an impossible city built on a swamp and threatened by hurricanes, a city constantly rebuilding, reincarnating itself. i want to live there as an artist, i want to walk its streets cracked by thick roots and photosynthesize its inspiration. i'm still waiting for the right moment, though. i'm afraid of the city, afraid that if i'm not prepared, if i'm not strong enough it will swallow me whole, spit me out all skin & bones and wild eyes. i've seen it happen. truly i've read the most beautiful words written by lovers of New Orleans. it pulls and tugs my heart's tides, waxing and waning; it teases and cajoles and i flirt, "not yet, not yet..." i daydream of a tiny shotgun shack, i work in the darkroom all night and make my living comfortably enough. it's so beautiful, do you really have to worry about having enough to eat? there, i think, i could live frugally and yet never hunger spiritually. but i'm not ready to give up yet; i'm not ready to throw myself into the storm. sometimes i feel like New Orleans will always exist as an idea for me, the one that got away, constantly shaping my thoughts even from a distance--and i'm okay with that, even, i'm okay with having had my glimpses in weekends and roadtrips and layovers, i'm okay with just the memory of that thick swampy atmosphere, my tattoos of remembrance, my haunted photographs, my drunken memories. still it would be nice; maybe one day i'll live the dream.

sychronicity.
the right things happening at the right time. philosophically, according to WikiPedia, "synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally unrelated." we make our own metaphors, construct our own meaning. i find magic in the observation of simple natural occurrences--a full moon, a rainstorm--and i make sense of my life in this way, gathering details which form a more romantic, poetic, and meaningful existence. the full moon, for example, may not actually cause me to be more adventurous, nonetheless i make the association. when you start looking for meaning, it shows up everywhere--obsessively adding license plate numbers to equal 10, reading your life into a horoscope, sharing a first kiss as the skies open up in a cleansing New Year's Eve downpour--we create the meaning of our own lives.

typography.
another topic i don't know much factual information about, but regardless feel an ambiguous sense of importance attached to it. when Susan was going to school for graphic design, she learned a lot about the use of typefaces and layouts--basically how the appearance of a piece of art, or a brochure, or an advertisement can change the way we react to it, right down to the minute details such as how closely lines of text are spaced. i'm fascinated by this process and although i don't have a formal education in design & layout i'm still aware of how appearance affects understanding. Nikki & i, working on our first zine in highskool, used to have ongoing heated discussions about font style and column size--how dare you use Comic Sans?! i stick to what i know--serif fonts for long passages of literary text, sans serif and a lot of white space for blogs and websites--just the basics. when i make flyers i like to pretend like i know what i'm doing, tweaking the positioning of text until it "just looks right," knowing nothing about the actual principles of design. in nearly 10 years of doing zines i've gone from the typical confusing jumble of cut-n-paste collaged text and random imagery to a more minimal look, simple text and vast expanses of negative space. makes sense, i suppose. as a teenager my writing was a messy thought-spew, so much to express and i just needed to get it all out. these days i've learned the hard way (hat tip to My Tortured Artist, ahem) the value of editing, cutting down to get to the meat of an idea, and presenting that choice portion free of clutter and distraction. something of a double-edged sword, because it helps me get better at expressing ideas, but my insecurity can reach maddening levels during those sessions when i write pages and pages only to realize that i haven't said fuck about shit.




& for old time's sake:

Haiku2 for os-lunatum
again i've been with so many years and i seek a balance i want
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.cominsanejournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

with Dalinian dreams of piano teeth and grinning half-decayed horseheads offering dinner on the beach at night.
with c.'s encouragement, a bit of abstraction. the writing well runs shallow.

i have been reading Annie Dillard and watching birds. o holy cardinal at arm's length outside my second-storey treehouse window; he twitches inquisitvely as my mother's eyes over coffee in the evening, kitchen talk.
i have learned the cries of the owl who lives in my backyard: a radiator pipe hissing at 3am, a drunken shriek, who cooks for you? who cooks for you-all?, and if he is so inclined he cackles like an otherworldly dream. this creature comforts me when i'm safely sheltered in my crooked shack, but when i must dare to journey into the house in the wee hours i run scared across the yard, willing him to silently ignore my presence.
it's sort of like seeking god, but closing your eyes in prayer, blinded by its awe-full nature.

late summer is a winding down; the cicadas call all day now, not just in the evening, perhaps a last-ditch desperate cry for love or at least procreation before death. we found a dead luna moth in the gas station parking lot one morning, its wings faded green & body hollowed by hungry fire-ants. i braved their sting and pinned the moth above my doorway, next to last year's cicada. in their adult form, luna moths live for one week and are incapable of eating; they mate and die.

& what will autumn bring? what of this furious lovemaking, this grasping clinging? what great death threatens our union? in lieu of physical climax my spirit floods with emotion and memory, a time travel that leaves me shuddering and tearful and completely at a loss for words. how do you truly tell a story in our paltry four dimensions? how do you capture the feeling of stacked time, of your life condensed into one burning moment? how do you write an event, and then write your memory of the event, and the way you felt then, and the way you feel now, and the way you're going to feel in years; the way you change, the way the act of recording and recollecting changes your perception of the event? how do you even begin to make sense? time passes.

this machine will not communicate. my computer is lagging in a manner i haven't seen since 1996: i type and type, and when i stop the words are still appearing onscreen, one letter at a time; like a seance, like a ouija board, or telepathy. & every word erroneous, underlined in red because i didn't capitalize properly.

I've been reading Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, and it's one of those books that basically says everything I already believe, but in a much more articulate & well-researched manner. I don't have cable & don't usually watch TV, but many of the points can be applied to my incessant computer usage. (tangent: I always thought it a little extreme to describe the Internet as "addictive," but having experienced actual addiction [to cigarettes] I can verify that I tend to use aimless web-browsing & obsessive email-checking to fill the empty spaces [between activity or thought] just the same way I tend to reach for a cigarette in these moments of anxiety.) Specifically, I'm getting disgusted with the way I replace real, live, in-person activities with mediated, passive computer usage. It's easier to blog than to work on a zine, easier to type an email or myspace comment than write a letter, easier to publish photos instantly online than make prints in the darkroom... [another tangent: I haven't worked in a darkroom IN FOUR YEARS but I am filling my time with the tedium of uploading, organizing, resizing, editing, tagging, categorizing, and cross-posting digital photos which--not to deny the validity of digital art--but THIS DOESN'T FEEL LIKE ACTUAL, TANGIBLE WORK TO ME.] Don't get me wrong, I think the Interwebs have made accessible so many kinds of communication & connection, but I personally feel I've become too dependent on the technology, and it's beginning to negatively affect the way I perceive my own relationships & artwork. For example, I write differently for a blog than I do in my personal journal or even my zines, because I know the audience I am writing for. And yes, I do get a little upset over silly things like lack of comments on my photos. Essentially I'm using technology to distract myself from doing real work, making real art, and engaging in real communication. I'm sick of sitting in front of a screen for hours every day, pretending like I'm Getting Things Done. I want to go outside, have coffee with my friends, spend evenings on rooftops, work in the darkroom, finish a zine, write letters to people.

That being said, I want to give a short update so that it doesn't appear that I've dropped off the face of the planet in the midst of a depressive crisis. On the contrary, things have greatly improved since my last couple (friends-only) entries. C. & I have relocated shackside (click for photo, imagine more green & less trash) after two roommates decided to hit the road towards Rainbow Gathering & beyond. We're now living in a large second-floor room in the rickety, crooked shack in our backyard, and it is a marked improvement over our smaller, cramped room in the house. We're set a little further back from the road, and so we can hear birds and trees rustling in the wind and squirrels and insects and owls instead of the usual cars and trucks and slamming doors and stomping feet. Our yard is kind of like a small forest environment, so I feel like I'm living in a treehouse. The pole-beans are growing all the way up to our window & I hung some morning glory vines on the stairs & the bannisters are already covered in passionflowers. The room itself is split into two large and small segments, and I'm using the smaller space as my office--writing desk in front of the window and darkroom set up in the corner. This is the first time in four years I've had a space of my own and it is wonderful. C. has his studio downstairs, and we share the larger room. We're making an effort to compromise on decorating styles so that it doesn't feel too cluttered nor too minimalistic. (I didn't realize that, unlike me, he never had the opporunity as a teenager to cover his room in artwork and magazine photos and chaotic randomness, so I'm trying to be more understanding about his need to claim a space via junk objects & grafitti.)

Moving into a new space--even on the same property--always makes me feel especially contemplative, nostalgic, and introspective. Time seems to fold in on itself as I clean out the previous residents' left-behind belongings and unpack my own life. I recall all the rooms I've lived in--scents play a big part in this memory-flood... there's something about repossessing a room that's been recently-vacated by another girl... remnants of her life strewn about in boxes and drawers... expired makeup, old polaroids, abandoned artwork, love notes, paystubs, condom wrappers and birth control packets (sometimes), broken jewelry, cassette tapes... the air is thick with dust and ghosts and smells that remind me of my old room back at House of the Rising Moon in 2004, and Tortured Artist's apartment in Pittsburgh (also recently vacated by a female roommate). Time becomes a loop, time is stacked, memory is a kind of time-travel: I am 24 and 20 and 16 and timeless. I have red hair and dishwater-blonde hair and brown hair. I find myself listening to the same music that meant so much to me during my last great Summer (again, of '04): Utah Saints, Morcheeba, Venus Hum...

& listening to Venus Hum sing boldly of colors and skies and skipping school to go swimming & simply overflowing with LIFE, the it's-so-everything, I broke out (free?), cried & choked & walked around my new room placing empty bottles on shelves & hanging photos--yes, it's all okay. Finally, having a strong, passionate, emotional reaction to music again. (See, I knew I'd feel better eventually!) It is summertime, it's green & blue & 104 degrees & we're sneaking into swimming pools again. Existing, and it's okay--not terrifying, not panic-inducing--but okay & even beautiful & good & true. I am starting to see beauty again, I am starting to feel Right again... to feel connected, tangible, real, to feel like my place & my story is blending & twining with everything else in the world. Even this writing falls short, but I don't know how to describe how perfectly balanced & comfortable I feel simply existing, staring out the window & watching cardinals & bluejays, lighting candles & eating veggie corndogs. That's all. A perfect fit.

C. maintains sobriety & is gradually beginning to overcome his own apathy & depression. Still quiet & irritable, but I can tell in the way he gets excited about going to band practice or even to the grocery store. It is strange, this relationship we have now. His personality is essentially the same as always, but in a way I am getting to Know and Love him all over again. I am making a concerted effort to break my self-silencing mechanism--a bad habit I've carried with me since childhood, I hold my words close because I went to Catholic school where I had to dress nicely every day in uniform and know all the right answers and despite my consistent efforts I got my first detention in 8th grade because I filled out a worksheet with all the right answers but it wasn't enough, I forgot to color in the illustration, it wasn't perfect and I failed and had to stay after school and stare at the walls for thirty minutes because I forgot to color in the picture when we were thirteen and no longer children anymore, not really. I hold my words close because my string of early, non-serious but so epically dramatic boyfriends just wanted to make-out with me and conversation was a hindrance to potential sex. I hold my words close because I've been with so many lovers who are loud, boisterous, arrogant, and self-confident and my shy voice and loaded glances went unnoticed. I hold my words close because I've been inundated with imagery depicting the perfect girlfriend, the pefect wife, who does not complain, who agrees with her male companion, who keeps her dissenting thoughts to herself and tries to look pretty like a magazine. & I'm with a quiet boy now, a boy who reads my face & feels my moods & wants to get to Know me but I am scared. I am still scared, even after all this time, scared I'll shatter his image of who I am with all these other thoughts, fears, dreams, hopes, insecurities, responses, ideas that I've kept secret because they are not aligned with certain standards of perfection & beauty. & I have to teach myself, you know? Teach myself that he cares, that when he says he loves me he means he loves me, that when he asks "what are you thinking?" he really wants to know. I have to talk. I HAVE TO TALK. I feel this potential for us to grow so close, so close that we mimic each other's facial expressions, that we share each other's vocabulary words, that we grow the same lines in our faces as we age, that we finish each other's sentences, that we can disagree on something and still understand each other's perspective. This is so close, so reachable, but it takes time, and I have to talk.

I'm going to disappear from the internet as much as I can, but everything is good. I will check my email sometimes & post blogs when zines are available. I will write letters & send photographs. With Love...

34+ hours alcohol free. yes. yes. he takes all his vitamins and sweats thru his white button-down shirt. he's shaky & stuttering, pacing, walking off the nerves. he works in the garden. he sleeps, not thru the night, not yet, but he sleeps. i slept fitfully at his side, aware of the dangers of quitting cold-turkey. i record his temperature and pulse. at 5 o'clock in the morning we woke to the backyard-owl hooting wildly, arguing with the caw of a crow cackling mad in human insanity--for a moment, i thought it was a shared hallucination of sorts, delerium tremens, the whole world laughing at us--but it was just the morning salutation.

he worries about the boredom, the silence, the empty spaces which alcohol used to fill. the need for drink, the direction of drink masquerading as productivity and a purposeful life. but, i ask him, focus on the positive things--why are you quitting? & he says he looks forward to being able to focus fully on the important things: to write a song and completely exist in the moment of creativity without rushing to finish so that drink can be obtained; to read a book; to speak and listen and understand. i'm nervous about sobriety, he says, i have to get used to Being Me. i love the way he describes, articulates so perfectly.

today is our first anniversary-of-meeting. i went to see him play music & i took his photograph--we hadn't yet spoken or written to one another, but we made art at the same time together, a passionate communication of sound & vision. i chose this day to celebrate--instead of the day we officially determined our Togetherness, instead of our non-legal wedding day--because May 23 has always been my favorite day, always been a day when i felt something special and important is supposed to happen, right on the cusp of spring and summer when the rains fall and the air is humid and it is warm but not yet sweltering, maybe still chilly at night. 5/23, my holy number, 2 to the 3rd power is 8 and 8 is infinity standing straight and tall and these things don't matter except when i decide to notice them. last year, this time, i hopped a fence and went swimming and the skies were duskblue and the moon was a crescent slice. this year tonight the moon is nearly full and it's raining gently. these things don't matter. once upon a time a tortured artist venerated me as the muse of memory, mneme, and i fell in love with boys who have trouble remembering, amnesiac alcoholics living in a shifting and unreliable reality. once upon a time my lover's tarot card depicted Memory and he put down the bottle. these things matter because i say so, because i sew things up because i need connections and directions.

he told me once, when i quit drinking, we'll grow wings and fly.
i feel lifted, lightened. my smile is dreamy and astonished and proud all at once. all teeth & bright eyes.
i've been reading georgia o'keeffe, staring deep into thick strokes of color, abstract shapes and memories of place. i'm enamored of her carefully cultivated personality, her quiet but self-assured certainty of existence--she stood tall and confident while they tore apart her work and tried to attach their assumptions and meanings and interpretations. she followed where the land pulled her and didn't look back.

i get out of bed. i want to draw, in my sketchy way, thin wavering black lines repeated until the proper shape forms out of blank space.

Springtime isn't doing anything for me this year. What is most frustrating about this particular cycle of depression is possessing the knowledge that This, Too, Shall Pass--because I've dealt with these troubles all before, the spiritual dilemmas, the stresses of home life, the question of Future Plans, the inability to feel fulfilled and purposeful even when I can motivate myself to do something remotely creative--and yet, still, I need to wait this out. There is a tiny fear that maybe this time it won't end... maybe I'll never experience the Douglas Couplandian moment of Gen-X self-actualization that causes me to kick my apathetic mood in the ass and overcome the cynicism and lack of sincerity that permeates my entire generation. But, probably, I'll be okay, eventually. Life will feel meaningful once again because, y'know, I usually feel like life is mostly meaningful even though it often appears to be a chaotic, senseless mess of sadness and confusion.

I copied quotes from Girlfriend in a Coma onto my walls so they're the first thing I see when I wake up.
YOU MUST TESTIFY. THERE IS NO OTHER CHOICE.
YOUR DESTINY IS NOW GREAT ENOUGH TO MEET YOUR JADED CAPACITY FOR AWE.
if you're not spending every moment of your life radically rethinking the nature of the world...then you're wasting your time.

& from the Ghost Mice, on the ceiling:
get the fuck away from whatever makes you sad!!

These instructions sound so easy.


I started studying Agnosticism because I read some quotes about it on Wikipedia that I found rather pleasing. Mostly it was the respectfulness of the philosophy that attracted me--the lack of proseletysing & making assumptions about what other people do or do not Know. (I'm sure there are assholes who are proponents of Agnosticism, too, just as there are non-asshole followers of religions, but overall what I've read so far [which admittedly isn't much, yet] was pretty damn respectful.) Mainly, what appeals to me is the assertion that we don't have proof of the existence of any higher power or purpose to life, but we also don't exactly have solid proof against these things, either. For some reason, I'm finding more comfort in the idea that we don't know what the hell's going on than the idea that there's a specific, unchangeable set of rules about Life, the Universe, and Everything. Not knowing offers endless possibilities...


It's a mite strange, but not scary, to think about going back to college. I don't feel the same fear of closed-doors and missed opportunities that I used to feel when I suspected that "choosing a career path" meant "narrowing down one's possibilities." Now it (finally) feels more like I'm moving in a direction that is right for me. I'll be learning and doing things I've always been interested in--art history, photography, library science (eventually) and teaching little kids about art (maybe sooner rather than later). It's not as if I'm jumping into something I don't know or feel passionately about already. The idea of school-and-then-career doesn't feel foreign or unreal anymore, partly (I'd assume) because I've had my time for travelling and messing around and making mistakes and figuring things out on my own. I'm not averse to receiving formal instruction now that I've had the chance to practice some self-instruction... so I can understand more fully the value of being taught.


This year I've toyed with the idea of leaving town, as I've felt pulled in so many directions lately: a month in Hawaii to volunteer on an organic farm? a responsible and planned-out relocation to New Orleans? seasonal work on a nature preserve in the middle of nowhere? back to Pittsburgh, even? Nothing is really holding me here, but then nothing is really screaming at me to go someplace else. College will keep me in Athens for a few more years, at least, and I think I'll feel more comfortable in this city now that I have Direction. Athens is a great place for partying and floundering--the days drag but the years fly by... and I "partied," as it were, for a good six months and then got sick of spending the majority of my time at the bar with my $2 Long Islands. & Athens is a great place for settling down in a small house a ways out from town, nesting and guiltlessly existing in a familial cocoon. But the transition between the two lifestyles is difficult in this college town where most people my age are either coming-and-going or stuck in a rut of alcoholic squalor. Maybe... a tour will satisfy my wanderlust this year. & get me motivated to start playing music more regularly. I did, after all, finally get an accordion... which is much more comfortable for me to play than guitar.


I had dinner with Little Star & her adoptive parents last week; this was the first time I've ever spent time with them by myself. Zan was always with me, and the last time I saw them I brought C. along for moral support. Surprisingly, this was the least-awkward, most friendly encounter yet. Probably the passage of time has a lot to do with this--it's been two years now--but I suspect the lack of Zan's overpowering presence has allowed me to, y'know, assert myself. Little Star says my name (sans lisp) and gives me hugs and kisses, scribbles pictures onto my to-go box, shows off her skill at recognizing letters, and pronounces "elevator" like "alligator." It's so endearing to see how H. & S. have taken on different types of parenting roles: H. reminds me a bit of my dad, affecting an attitude of realism but more emotionally tender and less gruff than he can be. & S. is the kind of mother who will discipline a child calmly, attentively, and respectfully, explaining exactly why it's important to sit down at the table so you don't fall down and hurt yourself--not just saying No,becauseIsaidso.


Coffeeshop hours got cut 'cause there's less business in the summer, so I started working a couple days a week at the local 24-hour diner. Just cashiering right now, but waitressing eventually. Figured it would be useful to finally learn a skill that can get me a job anywhere, just in case I do eventually pick up and leave for somewhere new. Coffee-skillz are valuable, but coffee-slinging is a coveted job & I've found it difficult & time-consuming to weasel my way into barista-ing.


I've been hosting a lot of shows at my house, to the point where now, due to some strangely coincidental coding error, my MySpace profile lists "Marketing - Nightlife - Promoter" under my Networking section, even though I defined myself as a Band Photographer. It's fun but exhausting work. I maintain sobriety during my parties because it's more important to ensure that the bands & guests are comfortable & everything's running smoothly (and I don't really like getting drunk anymore anyway). This is mostly beneficial to everyone involved except I feel somewhat distant from the music & activity since I've gotta run around & take care of things. Still, I am enjoying the ability to Give Back to the Community, after all I've taken from Athens in the past.


&... that's all I got for now.

I HAS IT!



(real entry to follow... eventually... maybe... someday.)