(my name is Fiona, and I steal wool sweaters)

again, this is a page I'm working on for S's book. I hope to generate a few more soon, as the project is due on Saturday (stress, little droplets flung from my forehead). & I've decided for sure on it being a magnet story. Anyhow, this is Philmore, who gives Gerald the news on his river.

The contrast between his story and mine makes me startle.

So, I finally finished one of the accordion books so that it actually includes "content."

The "content" took me much much longer than it should have. phew, sigh.

Here it is:

Yoohoooooo, sister o'mine!

For one of my print classes, we've had to come up with a "self-identity" button (using Illustrator), which we're to send off and have mass produced.

It's been a total stumper for me... not the actually making something, but the actually coming up with an idea about my self-identity. Made me really pause and reject any one part of me as encompassing enough to act as a stamp of self.

So, finally I went to folklore...

(the outer black circle with the text on it will be on the wrap-around side of the button)

Basically, it's a spin off the story I used for my tattoo, which I got more as a reminder than an identity. In the Haida fish (Pacific NW Native artwork), which I have on my arm, is a little figure who represents the ancestors. The story goes that when they die, the ancestors ride on the back of salmon and steer them back each summer to feed their children. The fish itself partially represents cycle, but also of resurgence, and so the combination reminds how history and community steer both cycle and resurrection.

But I've been thinking quite a bit about the Raven, who is both a Prometheus figure said to have pried humans out of a clam shell and then stole the sun for them; and also a trickster devil of crass and wicked ways. He's also supposed to represent Art, which makes the most sense I've ever heard of as a description of art... crass, tricky, sneaky, cunning, self-centered and yet through all the mischief and mistakes and fuck-ups, ends up bringing something new.

So, I decided to combine these two in my self-identity button, and think of it as the Raven doing something with history, cycle, and language... maybe eating it, maybe licking it, maybe taking it someplace new, or maybe just torturing the poor fish and our family. Who knows? That's why I like folklore, and in particular PacNW stories of How. I guess I just identify with combination stories, even if I'm not sure I'd claim it as Identity.

(p.s. I know I'm not a very good artist of Native American design, but it makes me admire the ones who are that much more!)

This is Gerald. Gerald speaks with clouds, his friends. I'm working very slowly on making a story about Gerald. 'Cause, hell, I like giraffes and I like the little person I have yet to meet (my god-daughter). Not to mention: it makes me happy to work on simple love.

Today I've had a super-lovely day, perfect or near-perfect (it would have been more perfect if I had gotten up earlier to enjoy it at a reasonable time).

Outside, I think is the last warm weather of Chicago before everything turns grey and spitecold. Not that I mind grey and spitecold that much, but it does seem to last for a very long time, which is my main gripe, and the primary reason why I enjoy every last drop of the dregs of the warm weather and leafy avenues and orange smell of autumn. And today, it has been blustery-warm, blue-skied, and when I walked across the street with lh, and a wind hit, and I pretended I was being blown backwards, lh instantly started doing the same thing, and a man sitting behind the wheel of his car at our stopwalk with his window rolled down started laughing, and I looked up to see his smile, and really.

I spend too much time forgetting how beautiful everything is.

I went to the beach with lh and walked along the sand, got stuck in mucky goo, remarked on how few people there were, climbed up a small-pier, and felt a few of the sculptures people have sketched into the falling-apart wharves all along the lake.

Everyone looked peaceful today. Not super-happy or crazy with glee, but so peaceful and calm, stretched out in recline. And that's how I felt too.

Especially as I had a bowl of apple crumble and two half-scoops of ice cream in my tummy. Especially as I was coming home to do some reading, and then some eating, and then a little writing and pretty soon a small bit of computering (I'll later put up a piece of the bookie I'm working on in Illustrator, which is a little children's book for my god-daughter, and it makes me happy to work on it).

A couple of weeks ago, I decided I needed to change the way I think. What I think about, how my thoughts circulate. Mainly, I decided that I needed to feel more positive, to see things in a yellow-tinged hue, and that I should decide to be in control of my own thoughts. What a strange idea-- that by changing how I perceive, I might change where I see life heading. It made me feel lighter to realize that, perhaps as I've emptied a few rocks from my backpack.

And so, thanks to lh for providing me with apple crisp and a friend to walk through a rare wind with, and thanks to everyone else too.

Quote of the Day:

"It shows that there's no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster."

"En el Posblitz"

En el Posblitz el golpear de metal
sobre el empredrado parece mas claro, antes
del alba, tiempo antes de que tuercen
el paso, sin mirar, los jinetes.
Su mirada no va dirigida a nadie, ni a aquella
frente blitz vista en una estacion de metro,
la hendidura escasamente cubierta de hierba,
ni a este humo de una puerta cochera en
fina senal, ni a los escombros blitz,
a las grietas en los muros.
Y quieta (?sequiran esperando los
observadores, la mano en los focos calientes
de noche?) en la ventana, cuarta planta, tu
mirada a las fotos con flash, disparadas al torcer,
con el golpeteo sobre el empredrado.

(Comida Falsa, Marcel Beyer)
(and no, I don't understand it all, but I still like it)

*

"Some lines for MFA Writers Wherever They May Be"

All anguish is theoretical,
wild saliva.
Who spit blood in the Jujubes?

Brandy starts the new stance
below the addiction
threshold. We lay together

to break a moan.

This is about requited love &
the feasible orgasm
which happens

here.

Don't say this is
the beginning
of a writing career. Don't say
career. These lines
are not "another matter"

& we don't mean to rhyme.
So take your terror straight
& pick out the cotton
left by
the headphones.

Juice it.

It's the Muse staring through
like a laser sizzling a retina
brings us to an off-rhyme in home.
Bring us to drool
for crucifixion.

A sexual allusion to Krapp's last spool.
And erection of comfort.

The desire to end this
with something beautiful
is a kind of rape.

(Precinct Kali & the Gertrude Spicer Story, James Bertolino)

*

"Metaphysical Bum-Sonnet"

Don't balk at the red owl,
it eats mushrooms too.
Deep behind its face
the inscrutable swims
for its life. Because it is

it means. Because it is no longer
the opaque window sings.
Don't balk at change.

A sermon encased in glass
whirrs out of steam &
we gather to hum its praises.
Precious droplets of common moisture
form a liberating chain.

A feathered forehead, a damp cowl.

(ibid)

Godzilla was after me, and I was running and hiding in different crevices about a decimated urban landscape. One of these hidey-holes had two openings on either end, and at one end, Godzilla was scraping his claws in to catch me.

But at the other end, I saw the eye of the giant Chinese warrior looking at me. So, I started talking to the warrior, trying to convince him that since he was giant, wouldn't it be nice if he helped me out with Godzilla?

Turns out, he was no fan of G, and so hopped over the building and started attacking. The warrior was dressed in thick leather plates with small spikes coming out, and a helmet with two horns. He carried a curved sword, but couldn't get it out because Godzilla was picking him up and slamming him down too fast.

Godzilla spewed fire, and scratched his armor, leaving bloody streaks down the warrior's chest. After a few minutes of pounding and destroying buildings, it became obvious that Godzilla was distinctly winning. Finally Godzilla picked the warrior up by the throat and was about to bite his head off...

when the warrior puked all over him.

But this was the warrior's special defense. The puke was special acidic potion puke, and it changed Godzilla into... a slightly small-sized Buddhist monk. Once this happened, the warrior turned to me and said, "Sorry, but it's your fight now."

So, I went over and picked up the G-Buddhist monk by his leg and held him upside-down. "Now to figure out what to do with you," I said.

First, I hung him over a stairwell and said, "Oh, should I drop you?" I felt very sweet. But the monk was terrified and I felt guilty, so I pulled him back up and looked at him.

Then I hung Godzilla-monk on a clothing hook along a wall somewhere, and went about my business.

Ah, Godzilla, so cute.

tonight, after freaking out all day, i watched a woman give a lecture while naked - she quoted Derrida during this time - for ten minutes, and it made it all worthwhile, because in the Q and A, nobody asked her about her discomfort level.

i think it's more a commentary on them. (heh)

aside from that, her work was great, and she was impossible to look at as a sex object, not because she wasn't beautiful, but because of what she was performing.

that... even well after the sixties, is pretty interesting.

she was talking about war and multiple versions, multiple versions aware of the past versions. multiple versions watching the past versions with an audience watching both versions. multiple versions aware of watching the present version watching the past versions watching the past versions.

anyhow, good stuff. and salty. look it up.

Please go see this post, after reading the below. I'm curious what you all think.

"I've been asked to remove X's name. Actually, I haven't been asked, word has been passed around via a friend about my unprofessional behavior in posting candidate names. Basically, the idea is that this process was a private process, and what I've said here could damage X's bid at tenure elsewhere now that we've rightfully nixed X.

I have to say I'm a little flattered that they'd think the words of some semi-anonymous computer dweeb thousands of miles away could affect their decision about X's work and teaching abilities.

I'm also of three minds:

One being that this is censorship.

Two that X does have a right to challenge any cyber-assessment of her. It could be that I'm a little shit who is spreading malicious gossip, for instance.

And Three, was this really a private process that I, in bad form, broke? Everybody at SAIC was invited to these lectures, and the announcements of their lectures were posted on the internet. Is it just because I panned X that it's supposed to be private? Or by making an internal process public, did I fuck up unwittingly? What do you think...?"

Also of note is that the same prof who spread word around asking that I remove the name said some really shitty things during the hiring process.

She dumped shit on our class after X blew it in there, telling another student (not in my presence) that I "should have shut the fuck up," because I contradicted X at some point - trying, lamely, actually to give X an opportunity to shift away from the weighty silence that had descended and start a new tack. This other person also ragged at some of the other profs at our school, in public, with other students and also in my presence, in a way that involved the words "fucking bitch" and "control freak."

I dislike this teacher, mainly because I don't respect her approach to professional behavior. Ironic that she's trying to give me lessons. Especially as I decided not to bring this dispute up to the department head, which was requested at some point, and to instead walk away (to another department actually).

my mind has been a wiley rusher, toting nostalgia as its bottomline. the sea floor. unknown desire. a softing pine. regrets honeying in a jalepeno salsa. i have been distracted by loneliness and old dreams.

i dreamt I was in a Writer Brothel, and the Madam, who was dressed as one might expect a Madam to dress, was writing a novel about a woman editor of a gossip magazine. her novel was about how she compiled all the gossip. and she pulled me aside, and expressed her disappointment in me, that i wasn't generating enough revenue (i.e. gossip) for her project. and i asked her about audience - was her audience highbrow or lowbrow. was the woman editor character of her novel writing her magazine for highbrow or lowbrow - was it People or Cosmo she was writing. I told her I didn't know what kind of gossip to collect if I didn't know my audience. She patted me on the head and told me to keep thinking, and then I roller-bladed home through an empty Midway airport (which was closed down for the weekend).

i've holed up for the past couple of days in an extreme way. i've refused to check email or phone messages. i've refused to answer. i didn't want to answer. i didn't want an audience, or an expected audience. i didn't know what i wanted, and i read children's books all day while in between, on the toilet, asking myself why i was writing. what did i expect, after all?

and i came up with the conclusion that i want to be alone for awhile, that i want to find pleasure in writing again. writing whatever i want. writing for whatever. why does one write? it's certainly not communication. no, i don't think it is. i think writing is about finding game, pleasure, joy, in acts of two-part creation. the creation i do solitary for my own game. and the creation the reader may do solitary for their own reasons. reading children's books, i asked myself why i was happy, why i wanted to read. i wanted to read because i enjoyed seeing someone else's life. because i felt sad sometimes, and happy at others, and curious always. about what was happening, about why people reacted the way they did. and mostly, because i wasn't in my own thoughts. i was happy because i was not, for a brief instant, myself, and that was a gift.

so, i think i need to stop writing on the blog for awhile. maybe i will, and maybe i won't, but i know i'm going to stop seeing it as a huge part of my life. this is hard to explain, but i think it's distracting me.

and i want to love writing on the computer, alone, and for no other reason, again. so that's that.

about how much i want a cat.

i think being an animal mum would make everything just okay. i'd have someone to love and pay extreme amounts of attention to, someone fully capable of both excepting all i have while simultaneously setting her/his limits. gotta love that combo.

and i've become pathetic on my walks... whenever out, i stop at every puppy encounter and adore for at least five minutes. i fondle everyone else's baby, regardless of indications of puppy training, and then only drag myself away under the duress of their leaving.

i desperately want a little critter, but can only think about how likely it is that i will be moving soon, maybe out of the country. i don't want to be an irresponsible mum, but something's been missing for way too long...

Or maybe, quite possibly, and thus is speech:

And, closed, syntactically (white noise, very basic):

a tale remnant zinnia
ablaze hence line jot
a sanely lank jet noon
a cad inherently sinks ion noon
a man elm knoll lo
jaguar pairing eject
a starboard wharfs rest fry
arena mess nuns
nest sew jig
whole like our
rebel tern sol
chords luck yen

A Yen (for you):

Ablaze, a starboard jaguar
pairing inherently rebel
tale chords, the luck
testing the noon man, a remnant

Our zinnias sink and eject knoll
Lo, sinks ion noon
Hence, a sanely whole jig sews a lank arena

Tern, or turn, whole… like elm wharfs
jotting a cad line
resting like nuns in fry

jetting a mess, in the tone of sol
but not.

Yesterday I rationalized skipping my Artist's Book class today, which is something I don't do very often... skip classes, that is. Unless of course I hate the class, when I sort of passive aggressively show up as tardy as possible, and ditch the two-three classes we're allowed to miss. But I don't hate Artist's Books, so why then skip the class?

I told myself, and it was partly true, that I was skipping because of my neck pain, which probably needs a little TLC, i.e. at least one week not bending over things and meticulously focusing. The other part is that, although I'm not doing as much as I'm capable of doing, I'm still really tired all the time. I try to give myself time off, to relax in front of the TV or go over to my buddy lh's house, maybe go for a walk, eat an ice cream with kx, or treat myself to sinful pleasures.

(My sinful pleasures last week involved me spending too much money. Money I don't have, from a job that I also don't have. Money on loan. Money given to me from my parents who are helping me through Art School, I think under the assumption that I will learn amazing things, be able to support myself afterwards, make them proud, and in the case of my mother... learn to be happy.

So, the money I don't have and shouldn't be spending was nevertheless used on wonderful, delicious items: different forms of "paper" to run through my printer, and a print cartridge. The "paper" includes magnetic sheets, iron-on's, sticker paper, and glossy photo paper.

Ever since, I've been interrogating everyone I know or meet as to what they would put on a magnet if they had the chance. The answers have been interesting, and some folks brought up the vague idea that they wouldn't want their magnets to go on plain ol' fridges. One person wanted to do a self-portrait of her genital area, take the magnets to bars, and throw them at people she likes, insisting that they could stick it wherever they want, just not near the fridge. (the last naughty comment was my addition).

I've already made one iron-on, although I don't have a plain, dark cotton shirt to put it on and can't rationalize more expenditure for awhile.)

But back to the being tired. Knowing myself, the tiredness has to mean that I'm totally stressed out, because when I'm stressed, I get tired, cranky, tense and much more slobby/slovenly. Check, check, check and check.

And of course, I know exactly where the stress is coming from, I just don't know how to deal with it. School's ending this semester, I will be totally out of money since I'm not working, I don't know if I want to go back to teaching but I'm not positive what the options would be (I do love teaching, but I do not like the college shuffle, the pretty much permanent instability, and the huge amount of off-hour time it takes). Also, I want to make something awesome this semester... and I want my writing to take off again. I want to make sure that after school I'm not depressed because all my friends are gone and Chicago doesn't feel like home, and I want to not brood on dumbgirls. I want, I don't want, I want, I don't want.

But mostly I probably just need to relax and be systematic about my approach to everything, from cleaning my room to writing and on over to applying for jobs. Slow down, take a day off every now and then, etc.

Which was my plan.

But funnily enough, I am so totally out of food and stubborn about shopping, that I dragged some chicken out of the freezer yesterday, and decided to make a hot noodle soup because I had some habaneros lying around the bottom of my vegie bin. So, I roasted up four habaneros, crushed them in lime juice, seared the chicken, cooked it all up with a little sage and tarragon, and then... made myself sick.

Just for the record, and feel free to make it an idiom: four habaneros is two too many habaneros. Sneaky little bastards - made my "sick day" into a sick day. Oh, but they tasted good.

I saw him on TV once when I was living near the Canadian border, and he made me howwwwwl.... And I needed something like this today, yepyep.

Last night, I dreamt I had to get rid of a murdered body. Although it was in Alaska and there were miles of forests everywhere, I felt I had to wrap the body in plastic, take it to the dump, and wait for all the people to leave so I could offload the corpse with a bunch of trash. It was probably the scariest dream I've had in a long time.

Anyhow... for my Oulipo class this week, we had to do a translexical translation. It seems my two-part function in the class is to speak during the horrifyingly silent periods, and also to mess up, in some way or another, each of our assignments. I still like what I came up with, but I think technically I changed too much of the syntax for it really to be right. But here's my translation of this:

Brer Bush

Not ter lon’ ago, I ax’d de Congress ter pass a ‘portant spendin’ bill dat’d set our fightin’ folk wid de funs en bend dey need. ‘Stead, folksa de Hous’en Senate pass a bill dat flips de knowhow our milltarry co’manners fo’ de ‘pinions of gonnerment. So, I vetered de bill.

Dis why de bill past wunt wuk: Fus, de bill’d mandate a rigid en artificial line fo’ ‘merican troops ter start a leavin’ from ‘Rack. Dat ‘moval cud start earlyz july fust spite de situation on de groun’. Make no sense tell de enme when you plan ter start settin’ tail. All de tuhrists’d have ter do wud be mark der calendars en bimeby gather der strength begin plottin’ how ter overthrow de gonnerment en take chage a ‘Rack. I speck settin’ a deadline fo’ withdrawal’demoralize de ‘Rack folkn’d courage murdrers ‘cross de Middler East ta 'snatch out’r eyeballs, t'ar out er yeras by de roots, en cut off’n er legs, en send a letter dat ‘merica not ter likely ter keeper word. Settin’ a deadline fo’ withdrawal is settin’ a date fo’ failure, en dat’d land us in a mess o’jaweed.

Bimeby, de bill’d be like muzzlin’ de dog yer got ter bite ta fox. Atter forcin’ most de folk ter withdraw like de beas’ wuz atter em, de bill’d lay de rule fer de remainin’ co’manners en der folk ter figh’ de enme. Dat means ‘merica's co’manners in de middler de grass’d hatter take fightin’ ‘vice from folk thouzand mile ‘way in Wuzhingtern, D.C. Dish yer is a preskripshun fo’ chaos en confushun, en lay’t on yer folksz like to put’m in middla nest o’bees wid der fetched honey all acroxt der lips.

Bimeby, de bill is loaded wid nar-bajillions dollar in non-potent spendin’ dat has nuddin ter do wid fightin’ de woe on tuhror. Congress shud axe fer dese spendin’ fun’ on der own attenshun en not as a fofth whiskey poed inner pint ah bahr.

Dose ‘cratic leaders know datta mess a folk in Congress disagree widder sass en dat dar not nuff votes ter override de veter. I speck many ‘crats saw dish yer bill as chanceter maker political statement about der fuss onter woe. Dey sent der message, en now time ter put dese wuds hind us en len hanner our folks wid de funds dey need.

Bimeby, I know that my choice of Uncle Remus Ebonics for Bush's speech is a bit suspicious, and quite possibly entirely insulting to all of black vernacular everywhere. Considering that the Brer Rabbit stories were just about my favorite stories growing up (the rhythm of them is amazing), I might have picked a better application of the lexicon. But I thought it'd be interesting, that's all.

Anyhow... since I messed up the first try, although it was great fun, here is another version that is much more accurately a translexical translation:

Yoga Bush

Twelve asanas ago, I asked the Buddhi to pass an emergency dharma spending mandala that would provide our brave yogis and yoginis in shauca with the tapas and satya they need. Instead, yogi of the Buddhi passed a mandala that substitutes the kundalini of gurus for the dyana of our military swami. So a few chakras ago, I vetoed the mandala.

Tonight I will explain the asmita for this bhakti and my desire to work with Buddhi to resolve this dharma as quickly as possible. We can begin tomorrow with a bipartisan mantra with the brahman here at the Prana.

Here's why the mandala Buddhi passed is unacceptable. First, the mandala would mandate a rigid and artificial samadhi for meditation yogis to begin withdrawing from Ashram. That neti-neti could start as early as July 1st, and it would have to start no later than October 1st regardless of the niyamas on the Ashram.

It makes no prana to tell the yamas when you plan to start withdrawing. All the yamas would have to do is mark their svadhyaya and gather their viniyoga and begin plotting how to overthrow the gurus and take santosha of the Ashram. I believe setting a vinyasa for samadhi would demoralize the Ashram yogi, would encourage shodhana across the broader om and send an aum that meditation will not keep its karma. Setting a samadhi for neti-neti is setting a ishvar-pranidhana for dharana, and that would be irresponsible.

Second, the mandala would impose impossible brahmacharya on our swami in asmita. After forcing most of our yogis to withdraw, the mandala would dictate the asteya under which the remaining swami and yogis could engage the yamas. That means meditation’s swami in the bikram of a combat ashram would have to take fighting aparigraha from gurus 6,000 ananda yoga away in Prana. This is a bikram for dhyana and kripalu, and we must not impose it on our yogis.

Yeah, so in that one the syntax is exactly the same, and the theory behind this type is translation is that it demonstrates how closely allied with form (syntax) the meaning of a text is... that is, that the meaning and tonality of a piece of writing is developed just as much by form, rhythm, structure as it is by the subject.

Pretty convincing if you ask me.

woooooah, dude, tonight the night of thinking about a bunch of things.

to start: i was still really pissed after the texting about the borrowed books with Ms. Whoosh. and after lots of supportive conversations with folks, i still had this sense about things. that they were not right. that i was not right. that i was tired, way too tired for my age. and that while i understood part, i didn't understand enough.

as forward, truth told, i have had too many interactions over my lifetime that were similar with the one with Ms. Whoosh, and it's enough to get one thinking about things. As in... if it happens more than once, then it can't be just about them. It has to do with me, too. about how i interact with people, especially people i like in certain ways. maybe it's a pattern regarding whom i'm attracted to, maybe it's a pattern regarding how talented I am about fucking things up, or maybe it's something else.

but really, over the past four years, I've had enough interactions, or dates, or whatever, with women who throw themselves all into me, and then take off like bottle rockets under extreme and undefinable thrust. usually, these women are at first very overwhelming in their adoration of me, like I'm some kind of abstract salvation and if they talk at me enough, maybe the world will surround them. like they can actually watch me in the midst of destroying myself just for them, and this is the definition of redemption, of loss, of their self-image, of their future, or something highly intangible.

(a side-note about being queer: if a man dates a women and she treats him like shit, said man usually doesn't retreat to dating men. he doesn't go to a certain gay fellow and talk about how shitty women are, and how you (a particular man) are better, understand them so well, know how women are shit, nothing more than shit, and would you flirt with me to make everything better? Or at least, I don't think so. I mean, surely men support each other in the shittiness of women just as women are there to support the opposite, but do men flirt/fuck with other men in coincidence of this support? why is it that women look towards lesbians in support of their temporary hatred towards the male race?

I hereby state for the record: in my adult life, men have treated way better and with far more honesty and integrity than most women I've known. So, fuck you, women who want my particular lesbian woo-ing only in the face of their own difficulties with men. Women are just as horrible and beautiful as men, so blah on any strict knowledge of life. I, as opposed to you, am attracted to women not because men have done me wrong, but because I am cursed [in life] [to be attracted to women].)

Back to the discussion: I was feeling it wasn't all right. I was still angry. And confused. And just shitty in general.

So, I decided that I had swallowed enough. That I have taken. That I rant and rave on my blog and to my friends (god does bless their souls) too much, while talking too little. And so I thus rationalized texting Ms. Woosh and asking her simply: Why? Well, I phrased it differently than that, like such (and normally I avoid posting personal things to this specificity as being Not Ethical and Far Too Public, but whatever):

a Q, [Ms. Whoosh], that continues to bother me: why, if you liked me as much as you said and acted in June, did I warrant such a harsh blowoff as soon as you had a bf? this is a nonrhetorical Q, btw.

And it was a nonrhetorical question. i mean, shouldn't i know how i continue to find myself in the position of being treated like crap so very consecutively to being treated like lotto ticket to the Bermudas? i rationalized the whole thing in the name of "research," and research i was entitled to knowing. that i needed to know in order to continue forward.

and the response i received after an agonizing four hours during which i pretended i wasn't looking at my phone (pretending for nobody, as nobody was watching me pretend but myself):

There was no bf involved at all. We went out to dinner to hang out and then all of a sudden it was a daily relationship. Too much, too fast. I'm so sorry. :(

I mean, ouch. Seriously.

But now we get to the genre of text message. Of life tho [sic] too. Because this message could let me know that I'm a freak. It could tell me I'm a wacko (well, actually it does). But it omits most of the information. It neglects the fact that Ms. Whoosh was texting me messages about my lacy bra's and how sexy they were. It neglects the fact that she asked me out on 2/3 of the dates we went on. It erases the fact that she told me she thought I was beautiful and "in a spotlight" in her life while we were on a trip out of town at her own urging. It forgets most of what happened in such a short time. It ghosts the shadows of what was.

And yet, speaks to a truth. The whole "too much, too fast." Now, that is a truth. I've heard it more than once. I know it is true. Honest.

But I don't understand it. Why do things with me happen too much, too fast?

So, you could say, I learned something from Ms. Whoosh, from having ventured into texting her, into the genre of the ShortNQuick, into the arena of Omission That Speaks, and asking her: Why? But that's not it, because I texted her again and said:

Yes, it was 2 fast, 4 me too. but confusing/mixed. twas your tm that hurt tho. we mightve been friends i think. ohwell. peace,

And I think I was totally honest in this message. It was too fast for me too, too fast to be questioned about children, about shared bank accounts, to be taken into the dells and sunk into the darkness of the rocks around, with fireflies, silence, history right up front and between. To be told so many things About. But it was confused and mixed because it felt so good, and it felt so unreal, so much like hope incarnate. And then it felt horrible when she coldshouldered me after a couple of weeks acting like she recognized something about who I am. And then, it was the text-message that hurt, not just the text-message though; that was a fifth-truth. It was what hurt the most (being texted after fishing, after leaving and giving space, only an innocent two postcards in the interim of two months, during the thought:

[that's the thing about fishing that folks don't really seem to get. It is a period Away. for thinking, and I go so many circular/circulating miles thinking and thinking and I decided somewhere within this summer to actually listen to all of the words I've heard this year, all the lines I'd noted and filed away, all the ideas I tucked away to follow.]

What do I want?

If Ms. Whoosh does not like me "that particular way," do i want to be friends with her? {this was the question that startled me the most. i mean, i actually asked it. usually the question of whether i want friendship ends up in an "of course" without the question actually being asked. i found, when i asked this question, about Whoosh, as well as others, that I was startled. It was not "of course". It was yes, no, or maybe (as in the case of Whoosh). It had to do with circumstance and otherness. It had to do with sinking into [The word "investment" carries more accuracy than "sinking into," but it's too capitalistic for friendship, which is not about putting X into Y in hopes of X gaining currency through Y. Friendship seems more about putting X into Y because you Love. and Trust. and Trust past Gain. Perhaps friendship is not about Gain, but about Balance. So, as an act, it's about what you hope will happen as a whole, as an affirmation against the brutality of, as a proof in the struggle against solitary and selfish and absence of meaning. And thus, when you are thinking about whether to "invest," you are thinking about whether someone is likely to look you eye to eye in the gift of simply existing. And if they look away, you lose everything.

Everything.]

And so, I thought this summer, when I really asked the question, that, beyond guilt, beyond sense of obligation... I Don't Know.}

What would fulfill me?

What leaves happiness in its wake?

How will I survive after art school?

What do I want to make to leave?

How will I reconcile Art, Survival, Selfishness, and Life, in the order that they roam?

In other words, it expanded, the field I needed to think about and it was a slap to receive a text message blowoff after all of that [...it was clearly a blowoff, by the way; i was calling her and she texted me back saying she couldn't pick up the phone because she "was out on the town with her (what-was-ex) boyfriend who moved from new york to chicago to be with her," and could she call me tomorrow? :)...].)

And so, Ms. Whoosh was just who she was in this arena. She was her words, and her actions, and the things she provoked in me, and the subtle languages she spawned. By accident, I think.

Because I've always wanted to meet someone who I could love. And would love me back. Sometimes it seems a neglected entitlement in life - and that the old spinsters of this world were the ones who slacked off and lost out. That the spurned, the mutilated, the unknown, the abandoned, the debilitated, the lost...

...were lost.

[It pops into head, I don't know why, defense maybe. But this summer, I saved a life really. It feels that way, even though it wasn't that drastic. It never was. But it was a special thought. Something to make me love myself, because when I look in the mirror, much of the time I see a failure.

This summer, I worked commercially fishing with a woman who was 350 pounds. It was a freak of accidence and I saw it coming, knew it on sight when I heard that X hired her friend over the internet. Because some people live so much in the cyberworld, they can't acknowledge the realities that corporeality presents. So, all summer, it was about physical ballast. Shifting 350lbs from one side to the other. Reassuring myself the boat wasn't going to flip over; even if it were during the right storm, it might have. Tucking my hands under when the weight moved from one side to the other.

[And I have to say, right here, right now, that the conversation that has most informed and reaffirmed my love of my sister... was about this person, who risked so much to come out there. And whose every effort on the boat, whether slapstick or operatic or hyperdramatic was, nonetheless, extreme, and amazing, and more than. She was braver in a day than you've been in a year, guaranteed, and so fuck the smile you have on your face about her 350 lbs ballast, because I don't mean it that way. And my sister was the only person I've told about this experience who saw it the way it really was.]

And one day, she fell overboard, all 350lbs of her. Right in the middle of the hook of the net, which meant that there were no near solutions in moving the boat to pick her up. There she was, right at the edge of our 30' skiff, floating. Her first response was to note how cold the water was, and everything after that was panic about her ability to get onboard, and guilt about how difficult it was to get her onboard. That was the thing I noted: how many times she apologized. how upset she was about the difficult, about the inconvenience of her survival. she kept apologizing... in a tone varying between hypercontrite to hyperpanicked.

maybe we could have abandoned her.
maybe we could have blamed her.
maybe we could have ignored her.

all these things were there. right there as she floated in the water and moved from the side of the boat to the back.

And here's the thing: I was really good. I mean, I was really good. Not just in action, which would have made me happy enough. But I also knew what she was freaking out about, which really helps when you are trying to calm someone else. I told her not to worry; I was firm. I was firm and told her not to concern herself with insecurity, that we were there right with her. I told her like a schoolteacher, like a policeman, like an artist, to... goddamn it, calm down.

i was firm.

she calmed down real fast after i talked to her. i mean, i told her that despite the cold water (it's really cold, like supercold... all i can manage each year is three dunks), that she needed to relax. that it would be okay. (i knew it would be).

she really only responded to firmness.

and then I told her where to move to. and i rigged up some ropes and the other folks on the boat wrapped them around her feet, so she could step on them like ladders, but her hips were too wide to fit around the motor, and she kept apologizing (for her weight) in between trying to get herself aboard, and she was so very young. so very. she kept being sorry, and finally i tapped her forehead with my gloves and said, that's enough of that; let's get you onboard, my dear. and i smiled at her to let her know she was here.

and simultaneously i was thinking about the options, about trying to tow her to shore, and whether we'd have to tie her to the side of the skiff, like a whale, and whether she could get there, or would be too tired, and what would i do then, but i was intent on just making it work, it wasn't really that big a deal getting her on board 350lbs aside, and everyone was scared, but listening to what came through me.

And when she made that last heave to get her hips up over the motor (which I was stepping on, trying not to step on the clutch, trying not to mash the engine, just trying to maneuver around the motor), on the third try, and as she lifted, I was really in her muscles. and i yelled, 'puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuullllllllll. oh yes, i yelled. and then we all laughed and whooped together when she got her hips up over the motor.

later i felt strange somehow when she made it into a privilege and a joke and an adventure as she talked about it to the rest of the crew. was that what happened?

But, i will say: it was one of my moments... maybe in life. reflected in how the other two onboard sat at the edge of the skiff afterwards, and looked at me. not like i was crazy or wrong or too intense or too fast or fucked up: they sat together. they sat together looking at me. they thought about it. one person had known me my whole life and never looked at me that way. and i don't know what they thought about. but then one said wow, you were amazing.

and maybe i was.

and maybe sometimes we are amazing. maybe there are moments like that. moments when we really matter in this world, and we see.]

And then Ms. Whoosh texted me again:

What does tm mean? I'm not as good as you on these text message words. :)

And perhaps, these tee emmm words are harder than anyone ever meant them to be. so I said, and meant, simple enough:

ha. tm=text message.

And not to be a horrible person, really because I'm not, but I found irony in it all. And it made me feel better: to not have continued the conversation in my head, to find it funny, to care and hold myself to the realization that I'm too much, too intense, and to realize that sometimes the most simple seems too complex and vice-versa, to accept that i'm too honest sometimes for others to love me, to find myself consistently ethical like a religious nut, to have done so, to have done...

well, the simple and estranged-from-thickness genre tm told me something not about complacency, but about my relationship with concision. and i will not stay the same out of smugness, no, that's not what i meant at all. what i mean is, although green is still my favorite color, omg it's gonna b just ok. and all the subtext therein.

I mentioned that I was in an Artist's Book Class, right? So, this class goes at an absurd rate, and basically we make on average anywhere between 2-4 books in each class. It is an all-day class, but I find the pace rather extreme.

The troublesome side is that I rarely have time to pull together stuff to put inside the books, so they are mostly blank-paged. So far we have focused more on the binding techniques. The other difficulty is that between the intense bending and folding in this class, and the sitting in front of a computer for 6 hours in my Saturday class, I have pains stretching well beyond my back (which I am still struggling with and soon to see a doctor about hopefully) and into my neck, jaw, and legs. I'm gonna have to do some crazy figuring on this one, and boost the stretch times from once every 1.5 hours to more like 5 minutes every hour.

The perky side includes the production of many pretty things that actually give me ideas for writing. I think I often work from form to content... seeing the shape I want before I know what's gonna work within the shape (this is a new thing I'm playing with. so often I end up with endless scraps and pieces of stories that fizzle out because I don't know where to take them, but what if I have an artificial design to begin with, follow it, and allow myself flexibility when it is required? will my projects come together more? it's an idea.) I feel pretty good about these things... especially as it's just me learning it all out. So here they are:

This is my first book. It is Pamphlet-Style, 3-hole.


This is the second one I did, also Pamphlet-Stitching binding, but 5-hole and with a cut folding overleaf and an fuzzy-paper insert.


These next four were all done on the same day, and they are different types Stab bindings. The first one we did was the Japanese 4-hole:


This one is called Noble Binding, and I used specialty paper for the cover this time, and black Rives for the inside paper.


This one also uses a specialty paper, and the binding is called Tortoise-Shell.


The binding on this one is a variation on Hemp-Leaf binding that drops off the bottom line of stitching. The cover is also an overleaf cover with a little weird design for fun.


This is one of the books we did today, the one I'm really excited about because you can do multiple pages, multiple editions at the same time, and then pop a cover on the glued pages. This is what most book presses use, and it's called Perfect Binding. We also did a couple different Accordion Books today, but I'm gonna try printing on them this week, and so they're not complete enough to show yet.


And this is the book I'm most pleased about so far (along with the never-ending book, despite my printing woes). We took all day last week to learn this, the Hard-Cover using a selected Stab Binding to hold the covers in place, but I'm extra pleased because I managed to "find some content," as my teacher puts it. I took several stories I'm thinking about making a unit, wrote a new section of it, and added eleven black-and-white pictures of rocks I took this summer. I think it looks pretty sweet, and besides that, I'm planning on reading it in about another week, and see how the material seems as a group... whether it fits, and what it might need. So, basically it is a single edition of a piece I hope to continue working on, but it rather beautifies the revision process for me. Here 'tis:

so here's how I know that long-distance relationships are not for me: once I had one.

seriously, every time I would see her after a long time away from each other, she would lean in for the kiss after the immense flight towards me, and I would think: um, who are you? I wouldn't mean to, but I'd lean away, with the feeling that some stranger in a bar (my car) was reaching towards me with their stranger lips, trying to make a go of it with someone they hardly had an inkling of (me).

and every so often, I'm into that stranger kiss, I'm in the mood, I want someone safe and unknown, someone whose kiss might be like a black ferari with streaks on the side from some random action and reason for action. but on the daily basis, I like to know where my mouth is landing, and I need to know it's not just anyone I'm sinking my body into.

of course, in that long-distance relationship, the lean-away doesn't go over well, and when you perform it after someone has flown X amount of miles to see you, well, you don't look so good. you look like a mean yellow coward without underbelly or truth, for that matter.

all a part of why i avoid long-distance relationships. because the lean-away from strangers-trying-to-kiss-me is a fundamental part of who I am. yep.

and why the moment, right now, as I type, is so agonizing and foreign. because my love, the one I spend the most time with, the one I know as far as is knowable for me, the instrument of my bodily ablutions, has been away, and tonight is the first night I have spent with her in nearly a month.

and Polyhymnia is a little pissed that I find her a bit of a stranger.

someone whose mousepad is a little sticky-feeling. someone whose new keys (including the "n" key) seem stiff. someone upon whom I feel less comfortable marking up new Photoshopic terrains. someone upon whom I keep hitting the Mac apple key on, before realizing that all I'm doing is hitting Alt over and over to no avail. someone who is totally unaware of the 300 digital photos I have taken and discarded over the past month. or the thoughts I have typed, the revisions I have made, the blogs I have stalked and added to the bookmarks I couldn't keep... all with the rented and bonny apple hussy I have been keeping company with during her stay away.

and she is pissed. for so much has passed.

but I swear I'll know her all over again, because her bones are my brain, her electricity my aura, her bookmarks my memory, her toolbar my priorities, her RAM my boundaries, and her skin, my ethics.

how odd it all is, getting her back from the computer store, where they mauled her all over, tried to overcharge me (I stood my ground), lost her power chord and tried to convince me I had taken it with me (what bullshit; I knew when I dropped her off that she'd need to eat, even in the hospital), and ultimately fixed her as best they were able and while nothing is good enough for her, my budget is extremely limited.

Sigh.

I am not the best provider, but I will get over the distance that has grown between our experiences. I will type her all over.

*

on an Entirely Different Topic:

I got a text message this weekend from the so-called Ms. Whoosh, saying that she was wondering how she could return the books I had lent her. and I myself couldn't help wondering: why should I have to go through the disaster of The Break-Up with someone I didn't even get the pleasure of deflowering? so... I told her exactly how she might "return" the books I lent her, but then felt guilty for said sarcastic commentary, and apologized, only to realize that I was writing yet another text message (only 2) to someone who I'd never get an iota of effort from.

that's the thing about it all: dating (or its many versions). I've come to realize, or maybe I just think, that dating is just another word for the project of people unwilling to risk something from a language of a particular reality: Respecting, Straining, Trusting, Caring, Trying, Loving, Digging, Reaching, Striving, Becoming, Balancing, Understanding, Creating, and above all (for me), Risking.

Of course, my opinion on all of that is why I will do just about anything for someone who tries, even if it's not what I want from them.

but why ask, after a month, how to return books, when she knows damn fuck well where I live, and how one might go about returning books if she had it in her craw to do so? I mean, keep and fucking read them. If not, drop them on my doorstep. Don't fucking ask how to return them, especially if what she means is: "Hey you, are we cool?"

If that's what she means, then why not simply fucking ask it? because it pisses me off all over to be asked a stupid question after a month and starting to not-care and getting over it and get into my work. That's what E used to do, contact me when I was just starting to mellow, and fuck it up all over again by reminding me of the particular emotions I seriously needed to forget and move away from. It makes me so angry, all of it, truly all of it.

("fuck" count = 5)

I mean. Okay, I shouldn't get started because it could become a stupid rant. But really. People make decisions all the time that are in the interests they decide have priority in their lives; this is somewhat fair, because we were not designed to be altruistic scapegoats of chaos. We choose things. We decide what we want. And sometimes what we want conflicts with the desires and needs of someone else. Yes. And still, not always, but in the important things, we must choose what means the most to us, what fulfills us the most, regardless of whether it conflicts with society, or community, or family, or friendship, or even the ethics we thought we believed in.

but.

But, a simple acknowledgement of how our choices may not coincide with the hopes, desires, ethics, fairness, connection, or meaning of someone else's life... well, it would really go a long way in making things better. Or is that just me?

See, I ranted. I got pissed off, perhaps because both my sister and jw told me that Whoosh was maybe "just testing the waters" to see how annoyed I was with her, so maybe we could be friends. and because I'd like Whoosh to either leave me alone, or admit honestly and with risk that she fucked up in how she treated/told me about her choices if she was truly interested in making me a friend. if I could ask her to understand this, which I really can't, because one can't talk to a stupid text-message pad, right?

anyhow.

*

over the past few weeks, I've been making some books. I will very soon be posting pics... but not right now because I'm going to bed. Yep. Yawn. but first...

*

my birthday was lovely. very mellow, with so many people who checked in. i feel lucky. lucky lucky. very smitten with my friends and family, with thanks.

and:

*

my sis turned in her apps for vet school yesterday. her forms all looked rock on and she should be enabled to be medi-mommy to as many animals as she wants, if you ask me.

anyhow... as the acceptance rates of vet schools are lower even than med schools', I think we should all turn our karmic, religious, voodoo, or Schrodinger crossed-fingers her way. Because she will be a great veterinarian and all of us who crossed our fingers during this great moment might get extra coo's over our pets in the future.

Not to be selfish about it or anything. But. Extra coo's make the kitties happier. And happier kitties poo on slippers less frequently. Ipso facto, kitties should be happier, and my sister should be accepted into the vet school of her choice to help make it thus.