- Skyped with Ira Glass and Mike Birbiglia
- Hung an art show in Olympia, Washington
- Read Lonesome Dove
- Published a compilation zine with ... contributors
- Got stitches
Monday, December 31, 2012
Top 10 sweetest things I did in 2012
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Walk a Mile
There are too many factors to consider.
The microcosm. The ecosystem. The you, me, the finches, the plants in my yard, the burning candles.
How we get along. The things I love about you. The things I can't stand. Our angels and demons love and battle and push and pull. Looking closely into your eyes I know more, we sleep together, wake up with similar dreams. "How strange," we say.
You put eggs in the boiling water.
"I never learned how to make eggs that way."
You've made some beautiful things. Built them with your hands. You've climbed trees and tagged the baby eagles. Sent me a birthday package with a pink stone from Arizona. You wrote that song about her, because she hurt you. You're doing heroin, sometimes, but you have it under control. Dancing, always. Kissing people and breaking their hearts when you leave. Putting the children last and your art first. Borrowing money you'll probably never return. Of course we understand, your intentions are good. We understand. We love you.
Spreading into the streets, getting farther from a comfortable source, I wander. There are more stories, the complication becomes greater, like those Eye Spy books. Things become more complicated. I'm drinking now to not be so afraid and my heart cracks open dumb and wide. The stories blur. Crashing into the mass in parties I am held.
I think we all have these moments. When we're drinking at a party and we go to the bathroom and think, "how the hell does anyone like me?" and it happens all the time - this goodness. This true kindness of being surrounded by compassionate and caring beings that see a little of your demons and angels and see your face and say, "you're ok. You're alright. This world is troubled but for now we're here and it's good and it's real."
"Your friends will carry you home," he tells me as I stare in the mirror.
Farther out, away from the pallet fire and the tribe, spinning under the stars in the midnight, I stretch my whims and collect new names and faces. The streets and sidewalks, in the buildings, at the market. We smile, gesture, say. Our story is simpler. We use less words. Maintain a distance of a few feet. Little comments about the weather, the expectation of rain, a passing compliment on a bright scarf or carefully placed cap. Brushing against you here and there, we look like a mass, we maintain a polite distance, brief eye contact on occasion.
In yoga and the teacher says, "if you are comparing yourself to others, realize you don't know their story. Recognize you don't know what is going on in their lives."
Paris, 2006, in view of the Eiffel Tour dinner a group of international students are ranting about how ignorant Americans are. How they reckless, how cocky. Pigs. Assholes. The Hungarian is speaking above everyone. The Mexicans are the most scathing. Soviet Julie notices me and says we should change the subject.
"Horses" I say.
I don't defend my country. I don't defend myself. Their points are valid. Who am I? part Irish, part French/German, Vegetarian, Twenty, Writer, Illustrator, Zinestress, Dancer, Pisces, Democrat, Reckless, Watcher, Tiger, occasional Drunk, Hopeless Romantic, Reckless, Tall, Female, Oregonian, Cascadian, American, American.
I stumble, farther and farther away.
Going farther, my looks leash*.
I strain my eyes to see what is really there and not what they are saying beside me. Looking on, squinting, how can miss it? Though a distant observer, I can still see. I am careful, I try not to make up stories, but they come. The farther the look, the fiction flows, trying to make sense of this or that.
It is in the screen. In the pictures in the paper. From the farther points out I can't see the whole picture but only what they show me. I try to look beyond, see with my own eyes, beyond the limitations, but I can't. I can't be there. I form my opinions based on the half-story they tell me.
The farther they are, the more they become them. They are. They are not here. We are here. We have our own stories. They have their stories.
We have never met them.
Here you are beside me, telling me about them. A story you heard, of the things they did. Of all the hurt they spread. I don't know them, but I listen to you, because I love you.
"They are not like us," you say.
"They are not like us," the television says.
"Their stories are not the same. Their thoughts are not the same. They are the bad man. We are the good man. We are human. They are not human. Their atrocities are not our atrocities. They are different. They are sick. They act without reason."
There are so many words for them. Savages. Monsters.
When they do kill us, which they will, of course. Our last breath will be a curse on them, just as it was of their fathers and grandfathers before. They survived to make it right. We died and pass the hatred on, just one more generation, we promise. We'll get them, this time. Just give us the chance.
"You've forgotten," I say. We're lying now - beneath the stars. A reminder of out smallness.
"That they're just like us. They want to eat and sleep and fuck."
"Russians love their children too," Gordon says.
I turn into you, we don't know each other, do we? There might have been moments...
Look at the man in the eye to hate him.
I met a man from Iran. A doctor. We were riding the same bus to the airport. He made it clear to me the people in Iran don't hate Americans. The 2009 protests were an example of Iranians attempting to buck a government that further isolates them from peace-talks. Though he was only one person, he represented the larger picture. The side of Iran that isn't acting out of fear, but appreciation.
"We don't hate you," he said. We, Iran. Me, America. A summit of nations you might say, on the bus to the airport.
I know this doctor is there. He is them, a piece. I am, us, another small piece. What to make of it?
When the protests broke out in 2009, protesters used social media to broadcast their experiences.
For me it was the thousand voices of that doctor were saying, "HE (Ahmadinejad) is not US. We are our own voice."
And I call back, "THEY are not ME. I am my own voice. I am American, I don't hate you. I don't want to bomb you.
Our voices mesh, I can't hear you above the shouting.
it's hard to see the individual. The shouting is so loud, unable to make even words out of the scrum.
You can't meet a person and look them in the eye without loving them a little.
You see my demons, I see yours. We're apart of this.
"If you must, shoot a man. But don't hate him."
It's to goddam complicated to make these generalizations. Us and them. It's easy this way, but it's not the truth. Dole hatred out when you see clearly what it is. Judge a man, destroy a man, that stands in the way of truth, but don't kill his family.
*Plath, Soliloquy of the Solipsist
** 147, A Teenagers Guide to God, 12.17.1999 This American Life Episode
***Waking Life
She is nesting. He is sitting on the typewriter hanging out with me.
The microcosm. The ecosystem. The you, me, the finches, the plants in my yard, the burning candles.
How we get along. The things I love about you. The things I can't stand. Our angels and demons love and battle and push and pull. Looking closely into your eyes I know more, we sleep together, wake up with similar dreams. "How strange," we say.
You put eggs in the boiling water.
"I never learned how to make eggs that way."
You've made some beautiful things. Built them with your hands. You've climbed trees and tagged the baby eagles. Sent me a birthday package with a pink stone from Arizona. You wrote that song about her, because she hurt you. You're doing heroin, sometimes, but you have it under control. Dancing, always. Kissing people and breaking their hearts when you leave. Putting the children last and your art first. Borrowing money you'll probably never return. Of course we understand, your intentions are good. We understand. We love you.
Spreading into the streets, getting farther from a comfortable source, I wander. There are more stories, the complication becomes greater, like those Eye Spy books. Things become more complicated. I'm drinking now to not be so afraid and my heart cracks open dumb and wide. The stories blur. Crashing into the mass in parties I am held.
I think we all have these moments. When we're drinking at a party and we go to the bathroom and think, "how the hell does anyone like me?" and it happens all the time - this goodness. This true kindness of being surrounded by compassionate and caring beings that see a little of your demons and angels and see your face and say, "you're ok. You're alright. This world is troubled but for now we're here and it's good and it's real."
"Your friends will carry you home," he tells me as I stare in the mirror.
Farther out, away from the pallet fire and the tribe, spinning under the stars in the midnight, I stretch my whims and collect new names and faces. The streets and sidewalks, in the buildings, at the market. We smile, gesture, say. Our story is simpler. We use less words. Maintain a distance of a few feet. Little comments about the weather, the expectation of rain, a passing compliment on a bright scarf or carefully placed cap. Brushing against you here and there, we look like a mass, we maintain a polite distance, brief eye contact on occasion.
In yoga and the teacher says, "if you are comparing yourself to others, realize you don't know their story. Recognize you don't know what is going on in their lives."
Paris, 2006, in view of the Eiffel Tour dinner a group of international students are ranting about how ignorant Americans are. How they reckless, how cocky. Pigs. Assholes. The Hungarian is speaking above everyone. The Mexicans are the most scathing. Soviet Julie notices me and says we should change the subject.
"Horses" I say.
I don't defend my country. I don't defend myself. Their points are valid. Who am I? part Irish, part French/German, Vegetarian, Twenty, Writer, Illustrator, Zinestress, Dancer, Pisces, Democrat, Reckless, Watcher, Tiger, occasional Drunk, Hopeless Romantic, Reckless, Tall, Female, Oregonian, Cascadian, American, American.
Standing outside the venue, we're hot from dancing - slamming into one another, fist pumping. We are wild, we are young and poor and full of light. They walk by - mittens and boots and suit coat with the fur rim, silver tipped hair from the salon. Indicating to them, you mock. A nasally English accent with stick-up your ass you swing an imaginary cigarette holder and scrunch your nose, say something pretentious.
"You don't know them," I say. "That woman was in one of my classes in college. She's incredibly generous and sweet. We both wear size 10 shoes."
I stumble, farther and farther away.
Going farther, my looks leash*.
I strain my eyes to see what is really there and not what they are saying beside me. Looking on, squinting, how can miss it? Though a distant observer, I can still see. I am careful, I try not to make up stories, but they come. The farther the look, the fiction flows, trying to make sense of this or that.
It is in the screen. In the pictures in the paper. From the farther points out I can't see the whole picture but only what they show me. I try to look beyond, see with my own eyes, beyond the limitations, but I can't. I can't be there. I form my opinions based on the half-story they tell me.
The farther they are, the more they become them. They are. They are not here. We are here. We have our own stories. They have their stories.
We have never met them.
Here you are beside me, telling me about them. A story you heard, of the things they did. Of all the hurt they spread. I don't know them, but I listen to you, because I love you.
"They are not like us," you say.
"They are not like us," the television says.
"Their stories are not the same. Their thoughts are not the same. They are the bad man. We are the good man. We are human. They are not human. Their atrocities are not our atrocities. They are different. They are sick. They act without reason."
There are so many words for them. Savages. Monsters.
When they do kill us, which they will, of course. Our last breath will be a curse on them, just as it was of their fathers and grandfathers before. They survived to make it right. We died and pass the hatred on, just one more generation, we promise. We'll get them, this time. Just give us the chance.
"You've forgotten," I say. We're lying now - beneath the stars. A reminder of out smallness.
"That they're just like us. They want to eat and sleep and fuck."
"Russians love their children too," Gordon says.
I turn into you, we don't know each other, do we? There might have been moments...
So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It's unspeakable.
And yet, you know, when we communicate with one another,
and we--
we feel that we have connected,
and we think that we're understood,
I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion.
"
Look at the man in the eye to hate him.
I met a man from Iran. A doctor. We were riding the same bus to the airport. He made it clear to me the people in Iran don't hate Americans. The 2009 protests were an example of Iranians attempting to buck a government that further isolates them from peace-talks. Though he was only one person, he represented the larger picture. The side of Iran that isn't acting out of fear, but appreciation.
"We don't hate you," he said. We, Iran. Me, America. A summit of nations you might say, on the bus to the airport.
I know this doctor is there. He is them, a piece. I am, us, another small piece. What to make of it?
When the protests broke out in 2009, protesters used social media to broadcast their experiences.
For me it was the thousand voices of that doctor were saying, "HE (Ahmadinejad) is not US. We are our own voice."
And I call back, "THEY are not ME. I am my own voice. I am American, I don't hate you. I don't want to bomb you.
Our voices mesh, I can't hear you above the shouting.
it's hard to see the individual. The shouting is so loud, unable to make even words out of the scrum.
You can't meet a person and look them in the eye without loving them a little.
You see my demons, I see yours. We're apart of this.
"If you must, shoot a man. But don't hate him."
It's to goddam complicated to make these generalizations. Us and them. It's easy this way, but it's not the truth. Dole hatred out when you see clearly what it is. Judge a man, destroy a man, that stands in the way of truth, but don't kill his family.
*Plath, Soliloquy of the Solipsist
** 147, A Teenagers Guide to God, 12.17.1999 This American Life Episode
***Waking Life
She is nesting. He is sitting on the typewriter hanging out with me.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Some hearts
The parts are like best are the ones where I'm not thinking at all. We were staying in a hotel room and I couldn't sleep so I went into the bathroom to write. The light above the toilet was also a heater and you put it on a timer, fifteen minutes maximum so I set the time for fifteen and would try to become so lost in the writing, without looking at the time, without thinking about the possibility of the light turning off. Like going to sleep while waking. It took awhile. I was incredibly conscientious of the timer and the possibility of myself being left in the dark. Then it happened. I was writing, and suddenly, it was black.
Sarah McMurray asked us to talk about abudance. And gatherings. This was our homework.
Walking down that neighboly patch on Ogden I came across a box of moisturizers. Night creams, day creams, eye creams, charcoal scrubs, facial tinters etc. etc. I took several bottles and have been using them often. I considered several options: someone recognized the lies of these products and stopped believing they could reduce aging. Someone
If you start talking about "us" and "them" your going to lose me, sorry. I won't listen to you. Whenever you say, it is all "their" fault for "our" problems I won't be able to hear you anymore.
When you say, it's all men. When you blame it on women. When you say it's the 99% or rich people or poor people or smart people or dumb people you lose me. I can't listen to that shit anymore.
We're winking at each other from across the aisles and dissolving our world. We're biding our time to make these casual loyalties real ones. We're talking a lot of shit and losing something.
We can talk about differences but for godsakes, leave "them" alone.
Don't get me wrong. There's some real shit out there, but there's some real shit in here. I've done some shit so my brothers and sisters and they've pulled some real fast ones on me. A goddam I couldn't say that I've never hated a bitch
Got drunk the other night and wrote in my journal
"I adore humans to their fullest extent. To the fullest of their absurdities. To all of them. I adore them."
Just like Kevin, I get downright sentimental when I'm drinking.
Funny thing about me, I don't accept compliments. I just don't believe them. For the same reason I don't give compliments only in true occasions. Compliments feel cheap. I try to honor something I appreciate by spending some time with it without words.
Tony was telling me about the Soviet New Year. He says it's on the thirteenth of January, which I believe, but some sources are pointing to the 14th. This year we'll wear grey working class uniforms, turn off all the heat and electricity and pound vodka.
In my dreams, I'm in Olympia. Neighborhood cafes and so many genuinely likable people.
God is the dream giver.
The medicine path is all our lives, it all the ways we hurt and heal. It is what we put in our bodies, it is what our bodies are made of. It's where our spirits are. It in the balance. The earth, wind, fire and water inside and out.
Jake, Laura, Nico, Ory and I are in the medicine field. Yarrow, mullein,
By the river I ask Jake,
"What is this?"
-Hemlock, he tells me
-It kills you. Sometimes the Natives were called to it.
-What happens when you eat it?
-You die.
-What happens when you die?
-You're heart stops.
I didn't ask, I knew. Why were the Native called to it?
Because it was part of their medicine path.
I wish I could hear them. Hailee brought in her aloe plant to take care of while she's away. (I need to take care of her) I was hoping they would speak to me.
My realization of my medicine path started with mullein. It started with Natty when she walked me through the mullein and sat with them for the first time, her interpreting their song. Then I met yarrow - little white petals, feather bristled leaves.
Seth and Hailee took me to a field of ancient sage.
-The deer live of sage in the winter, Hailee told me. (I wish I could find a medicine to help her with her deep and wild heart break)
In the little garden this summer the sunflowers bent towards the path. The catnip was covered in cat fur from Miso rolling in it. Tomatoes were stunted by the deer eating the blossoms (more on that later). Basil and terrible unsuccessful
Laura was building a fire and I was on the mattress reading to Nico and I asked her,
-What do you need?
-Firewood, she said
-and an hour to massage this woman from Honduras.
What I needed I came there for and was taken care of. Cut off the bandaid they had wrapped around my pinky at the Urgent Care and re-bandage the stitcher wound that made me dizzy to look at.
Sarah McMurray asked us to talk about abudance. And gatherings. This was our homework.
Walking down that neighboly patch on Ogden I came across a box of moisturizers. Night creams, day creams, eye creams, charcoal scrubs, facial tinters etc. etc. I took several bottles and have been using them often. I considered several options: someone recognized the lies of these products and stopped believing they could reduce aging. Someone
If you start talking about "us" and "them" your going to lose me, sorry. I won't listen to you. Whenever you say, it is all "their" fault for "our" problems I won't be able to hear you anymore.
When you say, it's all men. When you blame it on women. When you say it's the 99% or rich people or poor people or smart people or dumb people you lose me. I can't listen to that shit anymore.
We're winking at each other from across the aisles and dissolving our world. We're biding our time to make these casual loyalties real ones. We're talking a lot of shit and losing something.
We can talk about differences but for godsakes, leave "them" alone.
Don't get me wrong. There's some real shit out there, but there's some real shit in here. I've done some shit so my brothers and sisters and they've pulled some real fast ones on me. A goddam I couldn't say that I've never hated a bitch
Got drunk the other night and wrote in my journal
"I adore humans to their fullest extent. To the fullest of their absurdities. To all of them. I adore them."
Just like Kevin, I get downright sentimental when I'm drinking.
Funny thing about me, I don't accept compliments. I just don't believe them. For the same reason I don't give compliments only in true occasions. Compliments feel cheap. I try to honor something I appreciate by spending some time with it without words.
Tony was telling me about the Soviet New Year. He says it's on the thirteenth of January, which I believe, but some sources are pointing to the 14th. This year we'll wear grey working class uniforms, turn off all the heat and electricity and pound vodka.
In my dreams, I'm in Olympia. Neighborhood cafes and so many genuinely likable people.
God is the dream giver.
The medicine path is all our lives, it all the ways we hurt and heal. It is what we put in our bodies, it is what our bodies are made of. It's where our spirits are. It in the balance. The earth, wind, fire and water inside and out.
Jake, Laura, Nico, Ory and I are in the medicine field. Yarrow, mullein,
By the river I ask Jake,
"What is this?"
-Hemlock, he tells me
-It kills you. Sometimes the Natives were called to it.
-What happens when you eat it?
-You die.
-What happens when you die?
-You're heart stops.
I didn't ask, I knew. Why were the Native called to it?
Because it was part of their medicine path.
I wish I could hear them. Hailee brought in her aloe plant to take care of while she's away. (I need to take care of her) I was hoping they would speak to me.
My realization of my medicine path started with mullein. It started with Natty when she walked me through the mullein and sat with them for the first time, her interpreting their song. Then I met yarrow - little white petals, feather bristled leaves.
Seth and Hailee took me to a field of ancient sage.
-The deer live of sage in the winter, Hailee told me. (I wish I could find a medicine to help her with her deep and wild heart break)
In the little garden this summer the sunflowers bent towards the path. The catnip was covered in cat fur from Miso rolling in it. Tomatoes were stunted by the deer eating the blossoms (more on that later). Basil and terrible unsuccessful
Laura was building a fire and I was on the mattress reading to Nico and I asked her,
-What do you need?
-Firewood, she said
-and an hour to massage this woman from Honduras.
What I needed I came there for and was taken care of. Cut off the bandaid they had wrapped around my pinky at the Urgent Care and re-bandage the stitcher wound that made me dizzy to look at.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Derek Sitter has just played the part of the Devil in the play Bobby Gould in Hell, put on through the new Volcanic Theater Pub. He sits at the edge of the stage, wearing devil horns and a fishing vest as he fields questions from the audience.
I found the play excellent and amusing. Derek was dynamic and riveting as the devil (he apologizes for the use of curse words). He spent much of the the play chastising Bobby Gould (played by Wayne Newcome), demanding he confess his life's evildoing.
There's been a question I've been dying to ask Derek to add to the stories in demon zine. I considered addressing my questions in an e-mail but Derek mentioned his medium of expression is through acting. Asking him while he's on stage, still dressed as the devil could not be more appropriate.
"You won the Source award for Sexiest Teacher (light laugher) and in the article you mention fighting your demons alone in a motel room. Do you mind expounding on that experience? Sorry to get all Terry Gross on your ass."
Years ago, Derek responds, he was at a Motel 6 in Tallahatchi withdrawing from his medication. It was a long night. He had been afraid of everything. He had jealousy. He was in a three-year depression. Walking through his life asleep.
"I was either going to die or be a better person."
Saying to the demons, "You can't kill me. What am I afraid of? Fuck it."
It was a long, terrifying night.
It's difficult to draw a demon out. They move carefully around the bones, between the ribs and under, over, around the organs. They are nearly impossible to pin down.
Derek invited his to surface when he stopped taking his meds. He didn't go to sleep. Let the skin boil and the organs shift.
It took staying up all night.
Joel once told me sometimes you just have to stay up until the sun rises to push past something. And if you want to face your demons like Derek you have to give them the space to show themselves. You have to stay awake and exhaust yourself and be at the brink where you'll either live or die. You can't go to sleep. You can't deny them. You can't bury them. You have to sit there and be ravaged by them until they're done with you. Allowing the demons a space to present themselves.
Giving them the space and madness to speak. And moving forward, whatever it takes
But in the morning, something was clearer.
Derek, on stage in his devil horns, pretty wife by his side, says he did it for his family. For his daughter.
Now Derek has his theater. The Volcanic Theater Pub, a dream of his, where you can drink a beer and the characters move from the stage to the audience. His space is off of Century across the courtyard from Goodlife Brewing. He's taking his meds.
& he's playing the devil now.
"I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it." - (From the poem The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer)
Review for Show & Tell
"Rachel Lee-Carman's comic diary zine is equal parts devastating and joyously life-affirming. Issue nine of Show & Tell is packed heavy with mood as Rachel's drawings and writings swirl together across the page; unlike a lot of diary comics, Rachel's aren't necessarily sequential and don't come in panel form. It's an earthy structure she's using, very much like something growing wild in nature, all tangles and vines and sun-grown intricacy. What you get in issue 9 is a big dose of life--searching, fighting, celebrating, troubled, anguished, worried, humorous, philosophical, patient. Rachel's looking at some hard and sad things in this issue, death and estrangement, growing up and finding your place. But as heavy as it can be, Rachel knows how to showcase the gentle and beautiful things, the good hearts, the parts of life worth loving. You get a well-rounded thing with Rachel's zines, a life (hers) examined from all angles. Reading Show & Tell is like looking at old glass-case biology exhibits or reading pioneer diaries; there's a very comforting, soothing manner about her examinations of everyday living, something young and new but refreshingly timeless. Show & Tell has been a Microcosm favorite since day one and this issue is Rachel's best."
-Microcosm Publishing 2011
"Similar to Nicole Georges or Erin Tobey, Rachel Lee-Carman documents her daily life in thoughtful lines, daily anecdotes, and love. The composition of the pages grabs you and commands that you reflect—if only for a minute—before retreating inside your own skull to reflect on the ways these things ring true in your own life. Operating as a filter for Antoine Saint-Exupery's The Presence of The Little Prince, this zine reflects on feelings, love, and spirituality. Without ever getting dogmatic, she reflects on yoga, Anne Frank, religion, concepts of abundance, relationships, and feeling better through buying yourself roses. This issue is a thinker and will shed many hours of joy upon you. "
-Microcosm Publishing 2011
http://wemakezines.ning.com/video/bling29-1
Friday, July 27, 2012
More nudity
Ironing ideas for the comic
Funny thing happened the other day. Hannah and I were at Elk Lake, killing a six-pack and throwing sticks to Orca, her German Shepard.
"GET DA BABY!" (yelling) DAST IST BABY! GIT! (pretending to speak German)
Came time to jump in the lake so we each tossed a can and swam in after it.
"We have to finish these beers in the water."
Talking a little, drinking, time going by. Dog barking.
Done with beer
Getting out. Laughing (kind of far away looking) distance
This girl came up from behind us while we were drying off on a log, marveling at the day.
Excuse me (meek looking)
I just need you to know... (she was shaking, angry or nervous)
There are children around here...
pause
You should put your top back on.
Yes.
I mean, there are children around here.
Yes.
Pause.
I sometimes forget nudity makes people uncomfortable. Culture is funny. Boobs are funny too.
Thinking about middle eastern women being chastised by women and men for not wearing headscarves. About breast feeding moms being flagged on facebook. I think about the stigma of our private parts.
I didn't buy the children argument. She was implying that (my) boobs were a moral degradation of children. Moral degrading like watching a person physically assault another person. Morally degrading like chronic neglect. Like non-consesual touching.
These are not the same.
Boobs don't lead to moral degradation. The viewing of boobs does not take away from their innocence.
What takes away from innocence is labeling parts of ourselves as degrading.
The hugest perversion is sexualizing these parts of ourselves. It's sexualizing each others bodies.
Perverting our bodies robs us of having a safe relationship with ourselves. Because of the labels inflicted upon us we can't see what we really are.
Disconnecting from what my body is and only seeing it as something seen by others is straining. It hurts the relationship between myself and my body.
And we set our young to see bodies are stigmatized sexualized objects rather than what they really are.
Chest. Arm. Hand. Neck.
"I thought she was going to tell us to stop yelling & cussing." Hannah says.
I wish she should've said
"I don't like to see your boobs"
Funny thing happened the other day. Hannah and I were at Elk Lake, killing a six-pack and throwing sticks to Orca, her German Shepard.
"GET DA BABY!" (yelling) DAST IST BABY! GIT! (pretending to speak German)
Came time to jump in the lake so we each tossed a can and swam in after it.
"We have to finish these beers in the water."
Talking a little, drinking, time going by. Dog barking.
Done with beer
Getting out. Laughing (kind of far away looking) distance
This girl came up from behind us while we were drying off on a log, marveling at the day.
Excuse me (meek looking)
I just need you to know... (she was shaking, angry or nervous)
There are children around here...
pause
You should put your top back on.
Yes.
I mean, there are children around here.
Yes.
Pause.
I sometimes forget nudity makes people uncomfortable. Culture is funny. Boobs are funny too.
Thinking about middle eastern women being chastised by women and men for not wearing headscarves. About breast feeding moms being flagged on facebook. I think about the stigma of our private parts.
You could tell that was difficult for her to come over here and say.
Damn, that would've been the time to pretend I was German.
I put my top back on.
I didn't buy the children argument. She was implying that (my) boobs were a moral degradation of children. Moral degrading like watching a person physically assault another person. Morally degrading like chronic neglect. Like non-consesual touching.
These are not the same.
Boobs don't lead to moral degradation. The viewing of boobs does not take away from their innocence.
What takes away from innocence is labeling parts of ourselves as degrading.
The hugest perversion is sexualizing these parts of ourselves. It's sexualizing each others bodies.
Perverting our bodies robs us of having a safe relationship with ourselves. Because of the labels inflicted upon us we can't see what we really are.
Boobs. Penis. Vagina. Head. Lips. Heart. Ears. Hair.
It's just my body. It makes up who I am.
And we set our young to see bodies are stigmatized sexualized objects rather than what they really are.
Chest. Arm. Hand. Neck.
"I thought she was going to tell us to stop yelling & cussing." Hannah says.
I wish she should've said
"I don't like to see your boobs"
Friday, July 20, 2012
Joel's Voicemail
He-ey, Rachel. *ahem* It's Joel. I'm just sweeping and talkin' on the phone. I just had an idea ... of a ... I needed to tell somebody about it. And it was mixing the word hello and howdy. Um. and then it would just be. Hell-Owdy. *snicker* I just thought that was kind of funny. Anyways, um... Hey-Lowdy! Um... so, yeah, anyways, if you're working, I'll give you a call later, bye bye.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Flesh Ether, we'll just call it done.
My secret boyfriend Jack's playing behind the white sheet which serves as a backdrop and Heather is pleased I'm letting her take pictures of my bush.
I remember a being a child, a preteen, at the public swimming pool. Women all around, they were so huge, boobs flopping. I changed in the bathroom wondering how those women could be SO NAKED. I get it now.
I became unselfconscious about nudity the same time I started loving fresh tomatoes.
Incense is burning and I'm smoking on a stool and can't seem to get enough smoke to obscure my face. We want a smoke shot. The cigarettes are slim. It's not my fault.
Heather is taking photographs of me nude and I ask myself, what is she taking pictures of?
Without my clothes, my self is still buried.
Where is my self?
Under the flesh, muscle, is it in the bones? In my brain? My heart? She is not taking pictures of me, she is taking pictures of my epidermal.
"Why does one ask, 'where does the flesh meet the ether?" Cazo said at his art opening at Velvet months ago. Things are so obvious to him.
Before, before, I am trying to get everyone to rapture with me. I even sent out a facebook invite. This idea spawned by reading a few Douglas Coupland books back to back with a similar sentiment. It is page (3) in Player One, the chapter CUE THE FLAMING ZEPPLIN. Karen is in an airplane musing about the book/movie the Langoliers by Stephen King where a bunch of people suddenly vanish, their clothes and earrings and walkmans and headphones left abandoned where their bodies once took shape. There are some people who wake up to this (something about the pressure). Karen muses, "What does it mean for someone to vanish?" Namely, what is US and what is NOT US.
Ok, wait. So. The Rapture. Let me explain. In it's most simplistic sense the Rapture is the end of the world. In theory the good will rise to heaven, leaving their earthy possessions behind. The bad will stay on earth. A blaze of glory. Floating to heaven. Eyes skyward. Trumpets. A sweet photography project.
The rapture project didn't work out. It was supposed to be a series of photograph shoots. I would take a series of THREE photographs for every person. Locations were random. Wherever you happened to be when the rapture would take place.
FIRST PHOTO: Person, full body, looking skyward. SECOND PHOTO: Same frame, person gone, pile of what is "not of the self" left on a pile on the ground. THIRD PHOTO: Detailed perspective of "not of the self" stuff.
I wanted to make a prototype so I took set up a stool with my camera on it, put it on timer mode and took a picture of me looking at the sky.
Second photo: I took all of my clothes, shoes and hair things and put them together in a way where it looked like my body had just disappeared. Then I realized, wait, wait. I had are that morning and hadn't fully digested my food, so it wasn't part of my body yet. So I placed a cup of maté, some chewed up tortilla chips and my nutritional supplements and set them by my clothes. These things were not me. Then, wait, wait, my fillings, they are not me either. I took slivers of tin foil to replicate fillings and placed them besides my clothes. What about my dead skin? That is no longer apart me.
And staring at all these things and then thinking about what else I needed to include, I realized that my whole body was not me.
I was made up of the food I had eaten and the water I drank and the air I breathe. It wasn't just these things that supported my life, they literally were a part of me. My bones and blood and everything was just things I had consumed my entire life and the combination of those things, constructed by some divine intelligence made who I was. And I then I realized, I'm not separate from these things. I am, all these things.
If the rapture were to come, I would not rise. I am this earth. I am heavy. I am the universe.
I am one with the universe.
It's not nirvana. It's reality.
I couldn't go any further with my rapture project. It just got to complicated. It was too absurd to try and make an art bit out of a silly myth. It wasn't worth it.
So, what the hell is Heather taking a picture of?
Me? Or the Universe?
Heather said she owed me one for coming over on short notice and I told her this wasn't true. But I asked her to take a picture of me like the one Nelson Algren took of Simone de Beauvoir, doing her hair in the bathroom in heels. Wasn't the same. I'll try again in my forties.
Heather's so cool.
When the questions were asked
a deep breath was taken
creating space
for the answers
& slowly in clues & omens they came
The Universe answers
I remember a being a child, a preteen, at the public swimming pool. Women all around, they were so huge, boobs flopping. I changed in the bathroom wondering how those women could be SO NAKED. I get it now.
I became unselfconscious about nudity the same time I started loving fresh tomatoes.
Incense is burning and I'm smoking on a stool and can't seem to get enough smoke to obscure my face. We want a smoke shot. The cigarettes are slim. It's not my fault.
Heather is taking photographs of me nude and I ask myself, what is she taking pictures of?
Without my clothes, my self is still buried.
Where is my self?
Under the flesh, muscle, is it in the bones? In my brain? My heart? She is not taking pictures of me, she is taking pictures of my epidermal.
"Why does one ask, 'where does the flesh meet the ether?" Cazo said at his art opening at Velvet months ago. Things are so obvious to him.
Before, before, I am trying to get everyone to rapture with me. I even sent out a facebook invite. This idea spawned by reading a few Douglas Coupland books back to back with a similar sentiment. It is page (3) in Player One, the chapter CUE THE FLAMING ZEPPLIN. Karen is in an airplane musing about the book/movie the Langoliers by Stephen King where a bunch of people suddenly vanish, their clothes and earrings and walkmans and headphones left abandoned where their bodies once took shape. There are some people who wake up to this (something about the pressure). Karen muses, "What does it mean for someone to vanish?" Namely, what is US and what is NOT US.
Ok, wait. So. The Rapture. Let me explain. In it's most simplistic sense the Rapture is the end of the world. In theory the good will rise to heaven, leaving their earthy possessions behind. The bad will stay on earth. A blaze of glory. Floating to heaven. Eyes skyward. Trumpets. A sweet photography project.
The rapture project didn't work out. It was supposed to be a series of photograph shoots. I would take a series of THREE photographs for every person. Locations were random. Wherever you happened to be when the rapture would take place.
FIRST PHOTO: Person, full body, looking skyward. SECOND PHOTO: Same frame, person gone, pile of what is "not of the self" left on a pile on the ground. THIRD PHOTO: Detailed perspective of "not of the self" stuff.
I wanted to make a prototype so I took set up a stool with my camera on it, put it on timer mode and took a picture of me looking at the sky.
Second photo: I took all of my clothes, shoes and hair things and put them together in a way where it looked like my body had just disappeared. Then I realized, wait, wait. I had are that morning and hadn't fully digested my food, so it wasn't part of my body yet. So I placed a cup of maté, some chewed up tortilla chips and my nutritional supplements and set them by my clothes. These things were not me. Then, wait, wait, my fillings, they are not me either. I took slivers of tin foil to replicate fillings and placed them besides my clothes. What about my dead skin? That is no longer apart me.
And staring at all these things and then thinking about what else I needed to include, I realized that my whole body was not me.
I was made up of the food I had eaten and the water I drank and the air I breathe. It wasn't just these things that supported my life, they literally were a part of me. My bones and blood and everything was just things I had consumed my entire life and the combination of those things, constructed by some divine intelligence made who I was. And I then I realized, I'm not separate from these things. I am, all these things.
If the rapture were to come, I would not rise. I am this earth. I am heavy. I am the universe.
I am one with the universe.
It's not nirvana. It's reality.
I couldn't go any further with my rapture project. It just got to complicated. It was too absurd to try and make an art bit out of a silly myth. It wasn't worth it.
So, what the hell is Heather taking a picture of?
Me? Or the Universe?
Heather said she owed me one for coming over on short notice and I told her this wasn't true. But I asked her to take a picture of me like the one Nelson Algren took of Simone de Beauvoir, doing her hair in the bathroom in heels. Wasn't the same. I'll try again in my forties.
Heather's so cool.
When the questions were asked
a deep breath was taken
creating space
for the answers
& slowly in clues & omens they came
The Universe answers
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Depression
I want you to know, I want to live. I want to fight. But there is a part of me that wants to die. And this part of me gets in the way from the wanting to live part.
Mom asked me the other day if I still think about suicide. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. She told me she read an article that kids who stayed up late were statistically more likely to be suicidal when they grow older. I used to stay up late to work on projects. Write stories. Draw little pictures. Nighttime was when I fely most creative. Still is.
When my therapist asked me, several months in, if we should start about medication she mentioned there are cultures where depression is normal. I thought of this picture in a sociology textbook which discussed the Amish. In Amish communties depression in males is documented because they do not mask the disorder as alcoholism. Common in my culture. I was told in the French culture no one admits to being depressed but only says, "je fatigue."
I've been depressed for a very long time. I started taking pills more than a year ago. The pills I take are called Citopram. It stimulates my neurotransmitter to release more serotonin. I take 20 mg in the morning with my iron, B12 and Omega something something.
When you are waiting in the waiting room for your doctor they have you fill out the
Goldberg's Depression Test.
It says things like:
I find it hard to concentrate when I read.
I think I am uglier than most people.
I feel like a failure.
I find it hard to do trivial things.
I find it hard to make decisions.
I feel I am being punished.
You grade the answers based on your level of agreement.
I had my dose doubled to 40mg a few months after the initial assessment. The doctor told me I might feel less empathy.
I'm continuing to take the original dosage. I break them in half. It means I only have to go every 6 months.
When I told my mom I was on medication she was disappointed. In High School, when I would say i was depressed, she would tell me to say I was sad.
I was sad when I should have felt happy. Like accomplishing something. Finishing a project. Standing on the mountain top.
I told my brother and sister first. My sister seemed annoyed. My sister gets upset when I tell her I'm sad. She tells all I need to do things that make me happy. Go on vacation. My Dad tells me my friends or job isn't good and I should get new friends and a new job.
My brother said the only thing anyone has ever said about the issue which had made any sense, "I have no idea what you're going through, I have no opinion." For Christmas he bought me an inexpensive laser tag game and Memory game.
My doctor says my hypothalamus is like a raisin, shriveled up because of a lack of serotonin. The medication would help make my hypothalamus become fat and juicy. One day I wouldn't need to be on medication.
Camus says suicide is the one truly philosophical problem.
Every once in awhile I will stop taking the pills. Sometimes I forget for periods of time. Sometimes I want to see what happens. The same things happens every time. It takes a couple weeks. My life becomes overwhelming. I feel guilty. I don't feel ok around people, I don't feel ok alone. I don't feel ok at all. I don't want to go to yoga. I feel guilty for not going to yoga. No one likes me. I want to eat all the time.
There is a deep well of sadness - like an underground lake. Dark blue and cold and beautiful. When I am depressed I am in that place. It is difficult to explain. I feel buried under a thousand feet of scar tissue. When I am here, on the shoreline of this lake, I want to die the most. I hate being here. With all my heart I hate this place. I am all alone here.
Taking pills doesn't mean I'm happy. Taking pills means I don't have to be in that place. When I cry, I cry until I forget, like a baby. I get distracted. I stop crying. I make tea. I cry when I jog alone. I get a few miles from my house and punch a tree and say, "FUCK YOU WORLD!" and cry and cry and keep running.
To be crying all the time with no tears coming down your face is hell. To be crying and wishing to not be alive anymore is hell. To hate life is hell. To hate the vessel you are in for no reason besides you are breathing is hell. There is no why. It just is. Maybe a bad habit. I don't blame it. I just want to get away.
The frustration that comes from explaining depression is defending it as not a choice. To pin something that is a feeling or emotion outside of the realm of choice makes people uneasy. From a philosophical basis, it skirts free will and our ability to create ourselves. It makes claim that we are a confluence of circumstances. It skirts responsibility from the individual to make themselves who they are.
Is taking pills taking a way of taking the responsibility of creating my life? Am I cheating myself? Am I cheating nature?
I find talking about depression is easier when I describe it as a tumor. When I describe the depression as not being a part of me but something that grew and became attached and I can live without. Something that grew and became rather than always was.
Talking to my therapist a couple months on the pills, she tells me I am still myself. The pills did not change who I am. Being who I am is still my responsibility.
But I'm afraid. I'm afraid I am cheating. I am afraid I am really supposed to die. That the universe has called me to take my own life and I am cheating. I am being selfish. Killing myself weighs heavier in my thoughts than going on vacation. It is on par with my life options as is getting into a new relationship. Buying a car. Moving to a new city. What right do I have to use modern pharmaceutical technology to extract my responsibility from answering the fundamental philosophical questions, to live or to die?
It's easier this way. It's easier to help people. It's easier to work on projects. It's easier to feel good about myself when I accomplish something. It's easier to talk about sadness when it's not so deep it hurts to touch. There is still a heaviness in my understanding, having been to a place of sorrow.
I haven't lost my empathy. I am still me. I want to live.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Nowhere
Reason #458 why I make a terrible friend
I forget to use code words when talking about drugs in text messages.
This zine was supposed to be about what a dick ex bf James Ryan is but I got lazy and now I just don't have what it takes to tear him up. And now we're friends who don't fuck and get along pretty well. He is such a dick though. Don't ever date him. He'll treat you like a whore and fuck all your friends. Other than that he's awesome.
This sinus infection is the root of all my powers. The sinus infection has disabled the "give-a-fuck" node in my brain making my immune to the pierced arrow of truth. I've debated for sometime to make a doctors appointment so my energy levels can return to normal. If I don't have the sinus infection I will start caring about really dumb things like I used to. I just can't go back to that.
It makes me so sad sometimes to not have anyone to share these hilarious moments with. Watching youtube some documentary about these siamese twin girls in High School who share a body but have two separate heads and hearts. Gaaah I want that SOOOO bad! Have another person who is super similar to me and we could watch funny shit all day and laugh and laugh and laugh. It would be so great.
My spelling has become dogshit lately.
I forget to use code words when talking about drugs in text messages.
This zine was supposed to be about what a dick ex bf James Ryan is but I got lazy and now I just don't have what it takes to tear him up. And now we're friends who don't fuck and get along pretty well. He is such a dick though. Don't ever date him. He'll treat you like a whore and fuck all your friends. Other than that he's awesome.
This sinus infection is the root of all my powers. The sinus infection has disabled the "give-a-fuck" node in my brain making my immune to the pierced arrow of truth. I've debated for sometime to make a doctors appointment so my energy levels can return to normal. If I don't have the sinus infection I will start caring about really dumb things like I used to. I just can't go back to that.
It makes me so sad sometimes to not have anyone to share these hilarious moments with. Watching youtube some documentary about these siamese twin girls in High School who share a body but have two separate heads and hearts. Gaaah I want that SOOOO bad! Have another person who is super similar to me and we could watch funny shit all day and laugh and laugh and laugh. It would be so great.
My spelling has become dogshit lately.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Friends
Hard to explain. There are five of us here. We are accessories. We make their lives miserable because we work together.
Hobart
Microwave 1
Microwave 2
Refrigerator
Coffee Pot
This is a story about Coffee Pot
Hobart
Microwave 1
Microwave 2
Refrigerator
Coffee Pot
This is a story about Coffee Pot
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Flowers in the Winter cry in trashcans
Who was it that said that incredibly sweet thing about the lilies in my house?
Staring up at them in the late morning maybe, maybe in the evening - feeling sad for them with their provocative shape, protruding genitals, petals, palms stretched back all the way enticing a bee that will never come. It is winter, not just that, they are indoors.
I stare at them, probably drunk and romantic, feeling sorry for them and he tells me they have fulfilled their destinies when I smell them. Tickle their stigma and pistil.
And I smell them. All the time.
I sleep with the dead ones cupped in my hand near my face. Find them crumpled in sheets in the morning.
Michelle asked if I want honey with my tea. What will it be like when the bees are gone? Of course, I want honey with my tea.
Used to spend my money on roses. Before they died all the way I would take them into the backyard and lay them so they could, in their last days, feel the dew on their petals and would be spared the humiliation of crumpling before our eyes.
Staring up at them in the late morning maybe, maybe in the evening - feeling sad for them with their provocative shape, protruding genitals, petals, palms stretched back all the way enticing a bee that will never come. It is winter, not just that, they are indoors.
I stare at them, probably drunk and romantic, feeling sorry for them and he tells me they have fulfilled their destinies when I smell them. Tickle their stigma and pistil.
And I smell them. All the time.
I sleep with the dead ones cupped in my hand near my face. Find them crumpled in sheets in the morning.
Michelle asked if I want honey with my tea. What will it be like when the bees are gone? Of course, I want honey with my tea.
Used to spend my money on roses. Before they died all the way I would take them into the backyard and lay them so they could, in their last days, feel the dew on their petals and would be spared the humiliation of crumpling before our eyes.
Words
Been buying things to define who I am. This is very postmodern of me. This is very American. Or is it human? Don't judge a man until you have walked in his cowboy boots, even if they fit him just perfectly and only rub you the wrong way as you cross the desert. Even if they jangle on your feet like a child trying on mommy's high-heels.
Been buying things to prove to myself who I think I am. Let me explain: I am getting farther away from finding who I am by buying things, of course. What one needs to do is find an ashram in Bali under the direction of Ketut Liyer and undergo an indefinite amount of time thinking about nothing. This is a joke.
Spiritual tourism is very postmodern. Or very American. Or bullshit.
Been watching hours of the X-Files on Netflix because I've been needing to check out of the ego for awhile. Life is too fucking long.
People used to say, as they always say, when I was a teenager, when I was in High School that these were the best years of my life and were going to go by so fast. Who the hell were these people? In High School I made myself aware for the rest of my life that High School did not go by fast. Painfully slow.
As a child I reminded myself that when I had money of my own I would buy candy, because as a child I did not have money of my own and needed to ask permission to have candy. Now I buy candy.
Tired of finding out who I am. It seems like it should be obvious.
The Dalai Lama does not understad self-loathing. He went to a conference where the subject of self-hatred came up and it just didn't compute for him, if compute is something the Dalai Lama does at all. Doubtfully.
The Dalai Lama also did not understand the joke of a young and fucking stupid reporter who was interviewing him:
Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop and says, "can you make me one with everything."
The Dalai Lama is not a postmodernist. He probably doesn't understand why people in this culture don't know themselves. He probably doesn't think Dumb and Dumber is funny.
Temet Nosce.
Written above the Oracles door in the Matrix. Know thyself.
A psychic told me how I was going to die, just not when.
Said I was going to be at work putting reduced fat cream cheese on a microwaved soft bleach white bagel with a butter knife, put the butter knife in my mouth to clean it off, walk towards the dishwasher with the knife clenched between my teeth, hands free, trip and have my brain impaled. My last few moments I think no thoughts and can speak no words as my hypothamlamus has been ripped in half and as I feel a rush of DMT I am vaguely aware this is the best moment of my life, albeit, understanding this without the context of words. Psychic says no music will be playing when this happens. So, I have been wearing my headphones lately.
But we all know, there is no avoiding the inevitable. Though the most troublesome bit is the reduced fat cream cheese.
I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I'm miserable now.
Seattle (pronounced See-Tull) sucks. Wrote it a letter and shoved it in The Stranger sidewalk dispenser. Dear Seattle, fuck yourself.
Wrote it on the napkin of the Cupcake Royale where we spent 10 dollars and pissshit coffee and cupcakes made primarily of white flour and bullshit. Drove the hell out of there.
Last week stayed the night in Seattle on our way to Orcas Island and Patrick told us about the "Seattle Freeze" where nobody makes any friends because no one is a local and everyone hates non-locals. People will tell you their life story at a bartop, he tells us, but never invite you back to their house. Perpetual loneliness ensues.
I asked Patrick, why:
"No one knows, some people think it's the asian and scandinavian cultures mixing. Some say weather. There are many odd articles."
The only good things about Seattle are
1. Patrick
2. Dan Savage
3. The animal masks at Archie McPhee's.
Then there's the Horned Hand with its foamy ass beers and good tours.
Kombucha
Baby Mix Tape
Caught some geo-keshers in the lawn today.
They were here and gone. Left their little treasure and kept a new one. I was able to share in their discovery. Maybe I was a part of their discovery. A couple and their adolescent boys.
There are secret places all around us, waiting to be found.
Why does the robot man on the phone call himself John when we know he is not really a man? There are obvious lies abound. Told me I would get a ticket for two on a cruise if I answer some political questions. Sounded to good to be true.
Someone told me loneliness is the most constant human condition, we all share in it, but I disagree. I believe there are some people who live their whole lives without feeling lonely. Most of us experience it anyway, because our thoughts are mostly invisible.
It's for this reason I never understood why people so readily dismissed the Borg and having a computer chip in one's brain.
Disclosed this the other day leaning against a wall at a busy venue during an intermission talking to Kelly and "Matty." I told them I wouldn't mind having a computer chip in my brain because it would be easier to access information and if I were ever to be kidnapped it would be easier to find me.
What I don't tell them is how I am terrified of loneliness. What people fear about Big Brother I crave. Constant companionship. Constant monitoring. The idea that at all times someone cares enough to watch over me.
Sure, my anarchist friends would draw away from me as would the Christian ones who have read the Left Behind series.
Want to hear something fucked up? When I first discovered what rape was I wanted to be raped. Because I wanted someone to want me. A sick small sliver of love. I was just a little kid at the time too.
What the hell is wrong with me?
More on the subject of loneliness: sometimes I want it SO BAD. In the company of boring people mostly. I would rather be alone. One interesting person is worth a thousand boring people doing interesting things.
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!
- Kerouac
Thee Silver Mt. Zion's Efrim Menuck does not hesitate from using too many words. Use as many as it takes. Just keep the tone interesting.
Haven't been learning. Just assimilating information. Being a newly acquainted mac owner has made me more postmodern, more American, could you say, less human? Unsure. What I have discovered about all this is how inorganic my thinking has become, albeit, less complicated. Considering going to Thailand all I simply look it up on google maps, locate key cultural paradigms and subtleties, key phrases, research choice blogs of American travel in the region including the list of what is in their backpacks, become acclimated with the wikipedia description of the place and local politics, perhaps thumb a National Geographic, research current events through NPR, listen to a few podcasts and radio archives of historic and current upheavals and I feel fully secure and in the know with my future destination.
My language skills have become mush. But I am exposed. I am temporary. I am a wealth of knowledge.
I feel nervous for my teeth all the time.
On the subject of identity there was a time in my teens when I applied to work at Fred Meyer's. They have this whole series of hoops to jump through, one of them being a multi-page personality questionnaire with one of the questions being: do you trust your friends? *Always *Frequently *Sometimes *Rarely *Never.
We also walked through video scenarios depicting morally sticky situations. There was one where two men are hanging in a warehouse unloading some fruit when one man admits he is hungry. He grabs some fruit and begins to maw down on it. Freeze frame. What do you do as the other coworker?
Walking away from the experience I felt shaken by the depth I was asked to go into myself. Shaken by what they wanted to know of me. Of course I lied. Said I always trusted my friends (imply overly naive?) and would report the fruit thief to my supervisor (heartless?). Fucking bureaucracy.
Cops at my work. Panicked recalling the negative comments I made about Palestinian human rights and Monsanto via a text to my Craigslist boyfriend. I feel weird because I am wearing fuzzy boots and no deodorant. Plus, I reek of garlic from the pesto I just had from lunch. No time to be arrested.
Been buying things to prove to myself who I think I am. Let me explain: I am getting farther away from finding who I am by buying things, of course. What one needs to do is find an ashram in Bali under the direction of Ketut Liyer and undergo an indefinite amount of time thinking about nothing. This is a joke.
Spiritual tourism is very postmodern. Or very American. Or bullshit.
Been watching hours of the X-Files on Netflix because I've been needing to check out of the ego for awhile. Life is too fucking long.
People used to say, as they always say, when I was a teenager, when I was in High School that these were the best years of my life and were going to go by so fast. Who the hell were these people? In High School I made myself aware for the rest of my life that High School did not go by fast. Painfully slow.
As a child I reminded myself that when I had money of my own I would buy candy, because as a child I did not have money of my own and needed to ask permission to have candy. Now I buy candy.
Tired of finding out who I am. It seems like it should be obvious.
The Dalai Lama does not understad self-loathing. He went to a conference where the subject of self-hatred came up and it just didn't compute for him, if compute is something the Dalai Lama does at all. Doubtfully.
The Dalai Lama also did not understand the joke of a young and fucking stupid reporter who was interviewing him:
Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop and says, "can you make me one with everything."
The Dalai Lama is not a postmodernist. He probably doesn't understand why people in this culture don't know themselves. He probably doesn't think Dumb and Dumber is funny.
Temet Nosce.
Written above the Oracles door in the Matrix. Know thyself.
A psychic told me how I was going to die, just not when.
Said I was going to be at work putting reduced fat cream cheese on a microwaved soft bleach white bagel with a butter knife, put the butter knife in my mouth to clean it off, walk towards the dishwasher with the knife clenched between my teeth, hands free, trip and have my brain impaled. My last few moments I think no thoughts and can speak no words as my hypothamlamus has been ripped in half and as I feel a rush of DMT I am vaguely aware this is the best moment of my life, albeit, understanding this without the context of words. Psychic says no music will be playing when this happens. So, I have been wearing my headphones lately.
But we all know, there is no avoiding the inevitable. Though the most troublesome bit is the reduced fat cream cheese.
I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I'm miserable now.
Seattle (pronounced See-Tull) sucks. Wrote it a letter and shoved it in The Stranger sidewalk dispenser. Dear Seattle, fuck yourself.
Wrote it on the napkin of the Cupcake Royale where we spent 10 dollars and pissshit coffee and cupcakes made primarily of white flour and bullshit. Drove the hell out of there.
Last week stayed the night in Seattle on our way to Orcas Island and Patrick told us about the "Seattle Freeze" where nobody makes any friends because no one is a local and everyone hates non-locals. People will tell you their life story at a bartop, he tells us, but never invite you back to their house. Perpetual loneliness ensues.
I asked Patrick, why:
"No one knows, some people think it's the asian and scandinavian cultures mixing. Some say weather. There are many odd articles."
The only good things about Seattle are
1. Patrick
2. Dan Savage
3. The animal masks at Archie McPhee's.
Then there's the Horned Hand with its foamy ass beers and good tours.
Kombucha
Baby Mix Tape
Caught some geo-keshers in the lawn today.
They were here and gone. Left their little treasure and kept a new one. I was able to share in their discovery. Maybe I was a part of their discovery. A couple and their adolescent boys.
There are secret places all around us, waiting to be found.
Why does the robot man on the phone call himself John when we know he is not really a man? There are obvious lies abound. Told me I would get a ticket for two on a cruise if I answer some political questions. Sounded to good to be true.
Someone told me loneliness is the most constant human condition, we all share in it, but I disagree. I believe there are some people who live their whole lives without feeling lonely. Most of us experience it anyway, because our thoughts are mostly invisible.
It's for this reason I never understood why people so readily dismissed the Borg and having a computer chip in one's brain.
Disclosed this the other day leaning against a wall at a busy venue during an intermission talking to Kelly and "Matty." I told them I wouldn't mind having a computer chip in my brain because it would be easier to access information and if I were ever to be kidnapped it would be easier to find me.
What I don't tell them is how I am terrified of loneliness. What people fear about Big Brother I crave. Constant companionship. Constant monitoring. The idea that at all times someone cares enough to watch over me.
Sure, my anarchist friends would draw away from me as would the Christian ones who have read the Left Behind series.
Want to hear something fucked up? When I first discovered what rape was I wanted to be raped. Because I wanted someone to want me. A sick small sliver of love. I was just a little kid at the time too.
What the hell is wrong with me?
More on the subject of loneliness: sometimes I want it SO BAD. In the company of boring people mostly. I would rather be alone. One interesting person is worth a thousand boring people doing interesting things.
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!
- Kerouac
Thee Silver Mt. Zion's Efrim Menuck does not hesitate from using too many words. Use as many as it takes. Just keep the tone interesting.
Haven't been learning. Just assimilating information. Being a newly acquainted mac owner has made me more postmodern, more American, could you say, less human? Unsure. What I have discovered about all this is how inorganic my thinking has become, albeit, less complicated. Considering going to Thailand all I simply look it up on google maps, locate key cultural paradigms and subtleties, key phrases, research choice blogs of American travel in the region including the list of what is in their backpacks, become acclimated with the wikipedia description of the place and local politics, perhaps thumb a National Geographic, research current events through NPR, listen to a few podcasts and radio archives of historic and current upheavals and I feel fully secure and in the know with my future destination.
My language skills have become mush. But I am exposed. I am temporary. I am a wealth of knowledge.
I feel nervous for my teeth all the time.
On the subject of identity there was a time in my teens when I applied to work at Fred Meyer's. They have this whole series of hoops to jump through, one of them being a multi-page personality questionnaire with one of the questions being: do you trust your friends? *Always *Frequently *Sometimes *Rarely *Never.
We also walked through video scenarios depicting morally sticky situations. There was one where two men are hanging in a warehouse unloading some fruit when one man admits he is hungry. He grabs some fruit and begins to maw down on it. Freeze frame. What do you do as the other coworker?
Walking away from the experience I felt shaken by the depth I was asked to go into myself. Shaken by what they wanted to know of me. Of course I lied. Said I always trusted my friends (imply overly naive?) and would report the fruit thief to my supervisor (heartless?). Fucking bureaucracy.
Cops at my work. Panicked recalling the negative comments I made about Palestinian human rights and Monsanto via a text to my Craigslist boyfriend. I feel weird because I am wearing fuzzy boots and no deodorant. Plus, I reek of garlic from the pesto I just had from lunch. No time to be arrested.
Clock
I've seen four pacifiers on the sidewalk this winter. Abandoned by soft mouths. An omen for what? Stop reading into it. A guy who does not work with me but is here at my work asked me if I had kids. Then he asked how old I was. Then he told me my clock was ticking after twenty-five. My therapist has tried to convince me otherwise. Telling me I had a lot of time to decide. I don't think I will ever decide. It will have to be an accident. If someone asked me, where ever I was before I was born, if I would like to be alive, I think I would spend an eternity making the subject so incredibly complex I would never make the choice. THE CHOICE.
To be or not to be. Thank god, it wasn't an option. Thank god, I don't always have to make decisions. Thank god, for accidents that define who we are. Thank god, existentialism is a myth. Thank god, god is dead. Thank god.
To be or not to be. Thank god, it wasn't an option. Thank god, I don't always have to make decisions. Thank god, for accidents that define who we are. Thank god, existentialism is a myth. Thank god, god is dead. Thank god.
Smoking
I think about smoking all day, all day long. I can't roll my own cigarettes and I rarely smoke cigarettes that are not rolled by Syndny. I rarely smoke at all. But I think about it all the time.
Crooks
"I'm gonna die of loneliness, for sure." -Devendra Banhart
Joel called me on it the other night after Rio's party, the party I did not make a fool of myself at, after Jim and Jonathan left. He set at my small lunch table trying not to finish my bottle of Pendleton, or not to appear so. A trick of the eye. With mirrors.
He said he thought I had been fooling around last year with many people, "getting around," I think he said, when I lived at the old place. When I had lived with Kevin for most of that time.
I had to disagree. But on the other hand, when Kevin and I broke up and we both moved to our separate flat/mother-law-studios blocks from one another, I had been getting around and made no secret of it.
Talking to Joel, twenty-two, who had slept with two, I wasn't sure what to make of myself, so I explained.
Certainly I would die of loneliness. Months passed where I was untouched by anyone. You don't realize how rare it is to be close to a person in this society without being intimate. It's fucking rare. The closest we get, it seems, is brushing by people in the aisles of grocery stores, always with a curt and whispered excuse me. Two ships passing in the night.
So I started fucking people because, because, because it was the only certain way to get someone to stay the night. And I wanted them to stay the night. Making up for months of sleeping alone.
Referring to Crooks in Of Mice and Men who wakes up not sure if his dreams are in his head or reality - he doesn't have anyone to wake up to to refer to. No one to play rummy with. No one to talk about the books he's reading (books are no good). "A guy needs somebody."
To say nothing of affection would of course be untrue. I loved the people I slept with with the love I had for missing the love of humanity. I miss them. But I cannot go back. Humanity is not the one I long for. I just want my baby.
Joel called me on it the other night after Rio's party, the party I did not make a fool of myself at, after Jim and Jonathan left. He set at my small lunch table trying not to finish my bottle of Pendleton, or not to appear so. A trick of the eye. With mirrors.
He said he thought I had been fooling around last year with many people, "getting around," I think he said, when I lived at the old place. When I had lived with Kevin for most of that time.
I had to disagree. But on the other hand, when Kevin and I broke up and we both moved to our separate flat/mother-law-studios blocks from one another, I had been getting around and made no secret of it.
Talking to Joel, twenty-two, who had slept with two, I wasn't sure what to make of myself, so I explained.
Certainly I would die of loneliness. Months passed where I was untouched by anyone. You don't realize how rare it is to be close to a person in this society without being intimate. It's fucking rare. The closest we get, it seems, is brushing by people in the aisles of grocery stores, always with a curt and whispered excuse me. Two ships passing in the night.
So I started fucking people because, because, because it was the only certain way to get someone to stay the night. And I wanted them to stay the night. Making up for months of sleeping alone.
Referring to Crooks in Of Mice and Men who wakes up not sure if his dreams are in his head or reality - he doesn't have anyone to wake up to to refer to. No one to play rummy with. No one to talk about the books he's reading (books are no good). "A guy needs somebody."
To say nothing of affection would of course be untrue. I loved the people I slept with with the love I had for missing the love of humanity. I miss them. But I cannot go back. Humanity is not the one I long for. I just want my baby.
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