without a true admission of guilt.

that strange feeling that comes along this time
haunting with the white and dark meats of things that fill a room
with many good smells as they roast closer to god and a
ceramic or decorative plate.

and they wait.

to be introduced to the mashed potatoes that alex made
with so much butter and kale and garlic
and the cranberries that have bubbled into paste
and want to bond it all to the looser, more lovely and
candied sweet
innocent potato. these have clementine sections in them.


later on i am sick.
my insides have decided they will bleed and bleed
and rasputin is no where to telegram a cure
so i take to the bed. hello bed and warmth. hello
relapse into eye flutters and the shutter of programming to
commercial.

no.no. leave this on. i say. it does not matter and is
easy to sleep to and wake up into
because it is eventually plotless and circularly structured for the
other overstuffed turkey brains.

except i am nauseous. if you know anything about anything
you know i kept it down until i slept with someone holding my hand.

better feeling the next day. until i felt the obligations coat my throat.
i've only just recovered from spitting up blood.
i can sit all night in the dark with a bunch of people and say things
that we won't remember. why is this what people want? there is no
other way to do things i guess.

i am sick of my job but not really
and sick of forced learning but not completely
and sick of you saying
here is where i live
here is where i live

because we all live right here

and as long as you don't get what is allowing you to breathe out such
slender sentences
i will remain going back to the bed with the hand to hold.

i don't think that selfishness is routine. i think it is the disrespecting of anothers' as inferior.
we are all so guilty
guilty.

sometimes there is not enough substance to fill us and the gruel
can never educate the palate of one who has tasted.

i am so happy when some of my senses stop and only and couple work in hyper-drive.
i am so happy when i can just see
or feel warm on my knees.
really i just always want to simplify everthing and
it's fucking impossible.

Who knows.

I'm convinced that my words are sign language and that what I'm hearing is really the wind
and the waves are actually a hurricane of communication.
Who knew?

Steinbeck. (Kino knew.)
Thoreau. He knew the gentle solace that lead to divinity.
Melville knew. He is buried close by.
E.B. White knew. He watched sparrows carry ribbons in their beaks.
Walt Whitman knew. He knew for himself and for us. He knew us.
Elizabeth Bishop knew. The blue eye of that fish.
Donna Tartt knew. She doesn't even live in New England.

I don't know about D.H. Lawrence. That's grey.

O'keefe knew. Her insides were outside and everything flowered once she met the desert and got out of the green that plagues the northeast.
Paul Muldoon knows.
Sherman Alexie knows.
They know themselves and what they are supposed to feel and their sense of heritage. Their respected and respective lands that have tore them apart and built them up.

Bukowski didn't know shit. I think we enjoy (?) his dry rot and wisdom teeth that were never pulled.

Billy Collins knows.
Stanley Kunitz did too.
Marie Howe felt it some.
Sharon Olds didn't know there was anything to know.

Galway Kinnell knew. I never knew about him until recently.
Thanks be to bear.

(Read it: The Bear: http://staff.psc.edu/schneide/Kinnell-TheBear.html)

Excuse the sentimentality. Here's a rarity:

I am everything but lonely when I am alone.

Alex asked me today why I went back to school and why I went back for writing instead of art. This is my favorite question he has asked me recently.

I am not in school for writing. I always write. The two are happening simultaneously.
In short:
I write because I can not do anything else with compulsion and passion in a fulfilling way. Writing lets my cloud bursts come in aisle three. My water breaks on the six train. I get a nosebleed while I'm driving. Right before I go to bed I write a novel. Most of this is gone before I can write it down. I am not some uber productive Tolkien unrevised hobbit of the pen. NO. Sometimes some words slide out...
I have a tapeworm that eats my words and makes my sentences skinny when spoken aloud. But it's all there buddy... it's brewing. Live. active. generating.

Inside my head I've got the bloat- a parasitic consumption of letters and punctuation. Rotund and starving, digesting and discarding. Sometimes it's raining and sometimes it's all sorts of precipitation. I've got a lot of weather between my ears. Sometimes I think I can't hear because of all the thunderclaps that mimic awkward applause, or the subtle roar of booing.

It doesn't matter if you aren't God's gift to some prize or short-list. If you do it out of passion, you own it.

A lot of this ranting is coming from my cleaning and sorting through old papers. I'm downsizing my archive in a serious way. When I say archive, I'm referring to a collection going back to journals that are purple from fourth grade and contain my first handwritten poems. There are also quips ("I don't like teacher so and so because when he turns off the lights to get our attention his shirt becomes untucked and I can see all of his hairy belly." God help me. It was 1994. I love hairy bellies now!- and also...bellies-ahem) Sorting through this is a draining chore. I can't let go of the written word. Unfortunately, it stacks up to my height.

On to the next one:
I never feel alone when I'm writing. I never feel alone when I'm alone. I can go a surprising amount of time without conversation. Analyze that to death if you like. Let me give you some hints: I came from a fighting family, I still have a fighting tongue, I'm always in love with something or someone, I'm always worried and anxious... I can spend days on end in the woods with a bottle of gin, my favorite book, a bowl of grapes and a baguette.

This is getting personal.
Forward>>
Boil down:
With people - mis communication and the sudden urge to snorkel with them so we can be underwater and together and make noises of exclamation about beautiful things without describing them and blabbing.

Without people - missing the touch. feeling the weather.

This in know way undercuts my absolute love for people. I would just about curl up and die if I couldn't snuggle or make divine connections with really special souls. The older I become, the more I think I would have a grand time holding hands and singing songs instead of saying: "BITCH PLEASE."

New York is such a ginger root.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So I write because I can't NOT write.
I write when I can and sometimes I just sit in my car facing the Long Island Sound thinking: remember to download this song... remember to... remember. Remember to write down what that fisherman is wearing. Usually I revel in that moment. There's a slight chance that those moments will make it into my upcoming portfolio.

I've got three poems I'm editing. One is serious, the others are on the dangerous verge of straight malarkey. Reuben helped me with one. Workshopping helped even more. Meena has been helpful in her graceful and fluid way. The Olivetree is always filled with the best mashed potatoes. If we were a holiday we'd be Thanksgiving. All the components are overwhelmingly different and complimentary. I've loved getting serious there lately. It's fun to show up naked in liquid latex, but the it's better to me a marshmallow of repressed feelings on a red couch and explode, no? I digress. I digest!

Love,
Rebecca.

this is not my best.

Do you want something more from me?
I want something more from me. Harvesting dust and paint peels and flecks of sawdust into glittering foot soles hardly seems enough. I can read out a tongue twister for you.

Don't tell me what to do.

While they are busy building my furniture at Ottavio's on Main St. in downtown New Rochelle, I am building my little room community of papers and magazines (the type you can get grease spots on) with plenty of electrical wires to power hard drives and printers and speakers aaaaand phone chargers and lamps for light projection

onto my lap
late at night,
though I never figure out what eats up my time.

Am I looking at violent pictures on spaceghetto?
I am watching documentaries on instant which only depress me. The Goebbels one had me thinking that every construct of man presently and furture-thoughtfully represented an extension of the third reich. It was scary for a few moments. "Just like the third reich, huh... huh?" or "I wonder who the minister of propaganda is on this project?"

Well there is no more.

No-
There are a few more things. I'm rewriting some drafts and taping them onto bigger pages that I can put into a binder. I'm sketching a little. I'm failing at adjusting to the kids being 5 and 7.

I might as well get it out in the open. I tried to dye my hair back to brown and the expensive Feria chemicals refused to do their job. I am still red,

and everything I pick out is red also.

bulletted and frantic lazy river.

we woke up today like sushi falling apart.
i thought i could snooze under the far corner of the red sheeted bed
but the awakes had different ideas,
wrapped in green.

all clothed and abreast of the time
we reclined stiff shock, still stock and
washcloth in glue in the again
early 8 am
blue.

just when i thought the colors were over
i was in the front seat of the brake dust factory,
driving him to work and ordering a bagel.
the person who made the bagel messed it up so bad i thought of
lenders bagels and i was angry for paying
this calculated amount
for frustration. i carried the carcass of whole wheat
back to the red bed and gutted it with my mouth accordingly,
feeling the cream cheese slime, wrong slime, hocking back in my throat.
welcome summer.

when i was on a boat for a week i ate better things by inhaling
sea salt mouthwash by convex breath ins,
maybe thats why i didn't get sick. even with no humira.
now im rubbing my knees and telling the laundry to shut up
and denying the exercise and saying my burned knees
turned honey bee golden, but they are no bees knees.

if you were wondering. i am not talented and can love almost anything
but being naked on a diving board.

in case you were asking i'm going to do more,
i'm going to be appropriate.

i'm going to change life into long hair and late night phone calls if i have to.
no.
i will probably snail up and paint the inside of my shell
to my liking.

gravesites and overhauls.

There is this feeling that all the roads are with simple grass and all the garbage is human suspension.

I am in my room (kind of). My bed is here until Friday. There is a T.V. on the floor and a diet coke handy.
Yesterday I went on an early morning walk. Being here is too much. There is no space. There is still space in Pelham Manor and New Rochelle, so I took some of that space up. I floated on the street. GPS bouncy ball.
First I found a mushroom that was pretty interesting. I did not ingest it or pick it, but I can show you what it looks like. (1)
I then found a robin's egg with a grub inside of it. (2) Do you see that blue?
On my way back, looping on to the main street that leads to the car glut.... there were two rotting fish. (3) After this adventure I went with Alex to Lazyboy's. We ran into Greg and Cassandra and I think Greg's parents were there too. I have not seen Greg for oooh I don't knowwwww a good 6 months. Nice to see familiar faces.

I woke up at 2 pm. Must have been all the fuzz from last night. Alex and I watched Gran Torino, which we both really liked. Clint Eastwood is a favorite of mine. I used to watch him in Westerns with my pops when I was little. Always in the dark. If The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was on, it was an event.
After Alex and I watched GT, we descended into a discussion that seemed to last until 4 am. Apparently, he woke at 11 and I would not let him leave. He mumbled something about me even being selfishly aware in my sleep! Sorry...

Alex's tooth hurt and it gave him the grumbles really badly. We went to some joint called horsefeathers which was pretty nice. Tarrytown. I figured since we were near Pleasantville, we'd go searching for my Grandfather's grave. My mother did not know where he was burried, but findagrave.com tipped me off to some "location unverified" cemetery. It wasn't that one. There were some Brundage's, but none of them were ones I knew. The Brundage clan is pretty big. Also, there were no Palmer's in that cemetery. I knew that my grandfather was buried near some Palmer's. There was some intermarriage back then at some point and we got muddled up into the same deathpile.
Turns out that there was a small cemetery next to the one I was looking in. This one had Palmer's. It also had my grandfather. Harold Palmer Brundage. He was about sixty when my mom was born and died back in the 70's. She hadn't been to his gravesite since his death- or a few months afterwards. Pretty stoked to have sleuthed this out myself. My great grandmother and great grandfather Mary and George were also hanging around nearby. Several other Brundage's were dotted around the place. Two were great uncles. The others kind of melt into the huge Brundage family tree. This cemetery is supposedly the "Banks" cemetery. Sure I saw some Banks around but there were quite a few other names. See was a common one. Guion. I'm going to go back with a bigger camera so I can get a more accurate depiction and maybe even do a count of internments. My mom said a man volunteered to take care of the property. It's wedged between two houses and a little overgrown. Some stones are completely covered.
My grandmother? Ruth was buried in Brooklyn. She is at peace in Greenwood. Some of my first memories are of visiting her grave. Strange. No Westchester for her. Back to the BK.

Alex got some orajel and I tried to have a coloring session, but he wasn't having it so I came back here. Nothing is painted and the boxes are sky high. I have so much junk. I'd sleep back up in Chauncey (oh lord, it really is the lord's manor), but beer is calling Alex's dexterous hands. Growlers he must fill. Shipments he must tend to.

I've been trying to properly expose myself to the sun before I ship out. I actually went downstairs and lathered myself in SPF 90 and still burned. This is not an encouraging sign, but at least I have some color. Let's hope that all my photos don't have me appearing as a bloodshot bull's eye. I have not done anything all summer and it has felt really fantastic. This rehauling is project enough, and I deserve some laaaaze. It makes me a little restless, but I'm trying not to freakout.
freakie-outtie.

it feels like being concious of swallowing one's spit.

How are we going to do this?
Hold hands,
clap our hands
[thunderclap, worlds shut-
eyes open]

Waking up in a sun filled room
black cat's maw all a-mew and I felt,
who are you,
so naked, so old?
My legs and your legs in front of a TV set just days ago
made the whole of the Hamlet
swallow into sex and
boring flickers of a seeping love.

Together & Alone:

I take pills to get the mind shut down,
wondering how it ever wound up in the first place.
The process of sleep: a Jack in a box. The box,
what do I keep in that box?
My nuvaring, the head of state, a few thoughts and one
giant muscle that is always pulsing to close.

That is why I am a beam of winded sun,
or
[How are we going to do this]
the weather, unpredicted and irrational.
I am loving and kissing and I am so angry and I'm angry that I'm angry.

The person who taught me how to battle: forced me to armor-up too early,
is now my lesson in calm strength. I suppose I'll never know why inertia
hits the wrong the synapses. My footnote, my keynote.

I leave myself because I hit myself and I haven't found the strength to divorce the qualities that have control over my quality of life. If all goes alright, I'll be on a boat, in the ocean and peacefully exposed to what will consume me as an implosion. I can only go inward until I come around.

My new language, Paul Auster, red notebook?

mom's home.

ii.
we went into the girls locker room and i told them to turn the shower on
but they didn't listen
and i reached in
and cranked it
and i wound up soaking wet.

we were hysterically laughing, even as i dried them off and let myself
out into the parking lot air.
continuing to hiccup as we were driving home
singing a song only made up of the word: "yes."
sometimes I'd throw in a "no" and they'd giggle.

iii.
easy mac,
that's whats going to happen.
can i stir in the cheese?

THIS SHIT IS MADE OF YELLOW PLASTICS
I scrub the macaroni scum from the bowl.

iv.
look how high i can jump
bigger than you,
as high as you are tall.

(but we're holding hands and i'm helping you,
the door slams. mom's home)

v.
put glitter all over your eye?
i am leaving
and i am leaving with the memory of
your eye glittering,
not pink and red sticky jar stuff
but when you fall asleep and your eyelids flicker
and you're so glossed my heart drops
to my bare feet.

vi.
she's a terrycloth model,
pacing the steps with her glowskin
and unbrushed bedtime teeth.

vii.
don't tell mom
the babysitter is.
alive and well
and not an adult secret.

---
There is no "i." because it was absolutely irrelevant. these all go together and a little ditty about french doors didn't make the cut. I have not edited this, nor do I care to at the given time. This summer is going to be about more than survival. Las Truchas, more. More.

hair snaked down the fire escape.

Okay; hello.

Already there is a summer sun: begun by burning a stripe into my shoulder. Fruit stripe gum (if you smell me close).

I am starting The Bruise File. "You have files for everything."
I am aware. I bruise so easily and they come in shapes and colors and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I took a few pictures. Auto immune diseases make your body do really weird things.
It makes me very weak sometimes. I took my Humira this evening. It was a stinging jet of glaring fluid subcutaneously splaying it's dreamy fingers.

Is it strange that the longer in this life I take the subway, the more I become paranoid about it? I've been riding that piece of musclefoil for years, but my anxiety never ceases. Some strange French (he said he was) guy with a giant plank of wood decided it would be a good time to discuss the swine flu and mumble about his ten dollar watch. "Does it look cheap?" He asked me where I was born. I told him right here. He said "Brooklyn?" I told him no, because a. we were not in Brooklyn yet, we were calmly rocketing from Manhattan to Brooklyn and at any second that would be true.... and b. NO I WAS BORN ON THIS TRAIN. I had this image of myself being birthed with the helping hands of construction workers getting off work and a business suit type named Leonard.
Then I snapped back to less than rapt attention.
Then the girl in between us told him to shut up.

Late that night Ian and Fanny and Sasha and some more people and I were drinking and eating and having a great time. I was in the process of erasing all the bad goo out. Flushing my brain pudding into my mush mouth. It was great.

THEN: this morning I woke up sweating next to Fanny. I had dreamed that a man had kidnapped me an beaten me with a hairbrush. Where does this shit come from? I tried to go back into the dream and resolve it, but the damage was done. Why had I gotten into a red pick-up truck with this man who had scary teeth? A perfect stranger.

I have really enjoyed the people I know thoroughly. I have a handful and it makes a fist when I feel a bit alone or compromised. I work on flexing that hand. Bringing my toes justice. Walking it out.

I'm almost done with this Didion and ready for a swap with Shakti. Shakti is a real princess peach. I think she might say "fail" too much because it is very "win" when we stroll the streets. A positive influence, yes. Yes.

This week:
Alex shaved his head, I drank some iced chai, oh spice, spice, I shaved my legs and repaired them with cocoa butter. I climbed to the very top of my bed and blanketed my face in soft fabrics I will tuck under tomorrow. I went to the gym and used a noisy machine and wasn't that embarrassed because it's the YMCA. Someone contacted me to be a babysitter/ companion for a 13 y/o girl and a 16 y/o boy but I am not going to reply because 16 is a really hormonal age and I would be shuffling them to the beach and taking them on errands which sounds great except for a scary rogue erection or being close to the tech generation of autotuned lives. I live pretty skifree so I think it would be a bad idea.
humm. I have a new door.
I have my CR from my CR/NC
working with the kids tomorrow. i want to take them to the beach. hunt for seaglass amongst the dime bags. I'll bring my camera.
Oh<
I have recovered sufficiently enough to interact now. SUMMER SUN: Let's Burn it Down

Desperation/Consumerism

Done did it again.
MY EXPLANATIONS:

1. CAR REPAIR:
My car got hit on Westchester Ave. and Waters Place around 2:50 pm by an MTA Truck (says an eyewitness). The bumper got completely torn off and I had to wait for the cops from the 25th precinct for 3 hours. They are huge douchebags. My mom and dad actually both showed up to console me (I just bought this fucking car on my credit card- need it for work and to get to the subway). The hilarity in this is that they rarely see one another. Instead of yelling at each other, my father yelled at me and my mom fell asleep in the car listening to the radio. I'll take the compromise, thanks. So, I drove home with my back seat collapsed and my bumper sticking through to almost my shoulder. Two guys gave me business cars for their shop. One was driving a tow truck. One guy asked me "whaaa happened that thing get hit" and I told him that A DRUNKEN PIGEON LANDED ON IT AND THE LOAD WAS TOO MUCH TO BEAR. I fucking hate the Bronx, hate cops, hate having cars out of commission, hate calling my dad in times of crisis.
Estimated repair costs: Arm, Leg, Health -5.

2. Melvins:
Didn't get any merch, but I did put more on my metrocard than I should have. Tisk Tisk. GOOD NEWS: on top of seeing Dillard and Dunn play with the melvins, I'm sitting around st. marks eating the crappiest pizza known to man, when who do I see? THE BRO FROM OBITUARY. WHAT?
Estimated cost: 35 dollars, give/take. Health - 3.

3. Victoria's Secret:
Swimsuit. Bikini, actually. God only knows why I must be closest to naked when I feel closest to the sun. I'm supposedly going away this summer, but like everything else, including the huge hole in my wall and everything wrapped in plastic: "are things really going anywhere?"
Estimated Cost: 45 dollars. Health +1
Estimated Delivery Time: Mid-Week

4. Anthropologie:
Really that tank top was fucking darling, and I'll be damned if my mind lapsed from the "I'll never wash my clothes, fuck off, same black t-shirt and jeans everyday, bitch" to "seriously, isn't that the cutest thing to ever live and breathe in cotton fibers?" I'm disgusted. I'm repulsed. I've got a wee bit of cash, step off.
Estimated Cost: $40. Health +1

5. Victoria's Secret: Revenge of the Secret:
I needed a bra. Titties be going every which way like someone with wall eye. Okay, embellishment......hyperbole. There was also lingerie wash that had been discontinued and I had to buy it because I used to wash all my bras in it. I even took it cross country when I went to Cali that one time! My mother flipped a shit and started saying: "We'll only use this for special occasions!"
Deferred Cost after Wallet Massage of Companion: $6.00 Health +1

Let's go home:

6. Vans Era's.
Because I don't have two pairs already. I'm somewhat of a Vans Collector. I wear them every single day. The guy from 99x knows me (and knows I'm a window shopper if anything). Every season I kick it off by getting a pair. Last season I didn't do that. I'll wear my slip ons with wool socks into late fall. It's that bad. I used to be on sneaker forums, as well as Vans Vault, looking up all this stuff. It started with a pair of Sk8 Hi's I bought off Ebay. Now look at me! This was a pretty practical sneaker decision. White canvas with some dark red piping. Eras are more comfortable than classics. My black slip-ons are slowly biting the dust. These are versatile in look and appropriate usage for different events. Can I justify this more? Sure, when I get them, there will be photos. For the record: my favorite pair of eras are my Joel Tudor surf style neon dealies commemorating some Vans anniversary or something.
Estimated Cost: $54
Estimated Delivery Date: Monday/Tuesday

7.
My feet are fucked up.
YOGATOES.com Okay, I am a complete sucker. I've broken a lot of my toes and some haven't healed so well. I have a forming hammertoe, bunions run on the wasp side, and all my shoes hurt me except Vans. Eventually, my pinkie toe will bore a hole in the side of my shoe, and that will be all. "As with any exercise, you must be careful" the website says. I had a 15 dollar off coupon and I don't want foot surgery. I read up on these and they are preventative and corrective. Its like a jelly sleeve with teeth for your feet. Hell, I can't describe it. Just know they are somewhat ridiculous looking. Thanks goes to: The back of New York Mag, Fitness, and AM New York.
Estimated Coast: $42 (!!!! and that's with coupon)
Estimated Delivery: Late in the week.

I also bought some Hunter running shorts. I forget how much those were but I used a Barnes and Noble gift card. I need to buy a book or too, but firt things first: Car and Finals.

big faker/ six gold teeth in the hands of a giant.

humongous secrets revealed:

I am not a real redhead. Ask people of the NRHS grad class of 2003...if they remember my hair from 2000. I used to be a dark blondish/red as a child. As I grew closer to my father during my HS years I decided to go for it and take on the crazy "Hungarian hue" of his and my childhood.

People ask me this all the time and I tell them I'm a huge faker. Either that or I'm surprised they can't tell.

I'm so used to it myself that this all seems routine for me. Also I am not a liar. I've never really seen the point in lying. Even white lies. I just won't say anything. Perhaps this is another reason I feel I can not be around people who pay me compliments. I can not just say thank you and leave it, or pay one back. Gee, I like your...UGLY STOCKINGS. Hold on a second, let me talk over you and replace your inane drivel with an absolute out of the blue comment you can not respond to. Good news! I can not tell a lie. I used the wood from the tree to build a fire under us. Thank me later.

...cont.

I dye my hair in the nude because I am a messy hair dyer. This is not really sexy. (Ask my neighbors, particularly the one across from me whom I always walk around naked in front of. Pull your shades or DEAL.
Who doesn't like to cook and read in the nude?
I am always sticking out my stomach and trying to mimic a nude model that I once had at Purchase in '04 with Andy B and Joyce. He used this awesome pole to show his old man muscles, and, well, I feel like an old dude sometimes making my little sandwiches against the pale slant of light that filters into the kitchen.) So tonight is not different, except my hair dying robe, the robe I lounge in, has it's ass torn out from being a billion years old.
One day I will sit on it and dust will explode from around my ass and shoulder blades upon contact with any furniture.

(I was successful though. I am ready to graduate into my regular robe and sit down with a Klonopin and Diet Coke.)

I am soul for real though.
I am not not not not not not.
Make that into an equation.
yes, yes, yes
no, yes.
no = yes.
NO + YES = Tomorrow.

solar powered heart.

In the past month:

-My Uncle G(atsby) mailed me tickets to the philharmonic. My mom and I saw Mitsuko Uchida do Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major (It was amazing. Mitsuko speaks a lost language found only in her finger bones and the three small ones in the ear.) Then we saw Schubert's Symphony in C major. It was late an I was tired. It was amazing, but 50 minutes. I'm not that advanced.

-I wrote a couple of poems. I'm working on some non-fiction.

- other things. hunter college things. odes to stuff. mums the word. all i do is work. and sleep. all i do is read d-listed and drink tea. i bought some new teas...i really like the masala chai. bought tin house. one really weird good story in there. dialogues of departure by stephen heighton. finished that oscar hijuelos book. empress of the splendid season. rode the subway late at night and kind of passed out: mistake. didn't go to any stupid parties, just a good one thrown by the otr. i'd like a cat. i'm excited to go see melvins. people from all around will be coming and we're gonna have funnnn. my dad and i explored a basement. sawdusty. some old habits grew back because it's spring. all i'm thinking about is setting up summer and new paltz. i think about new paltz constantly. i miss alex. all of them. all 3. i wonder how high the grass is- how bad the ticks are. some things are not fun at all but waking up just right is high ranking on fun. when you wake up and you feel the cold but the heat is brewing on the outside and the weeds are soaking it up and the old VW GTI was still around (the first one) and the hills were mountains and sailing down them was this bliss i felt in my teeth and the pores on my forehead. also i got a haircut from bumble and bumble. they didn't fuck it up and i left feeling light, and i sat on 8th avenue and 13th and had a spoon and ate some lock and lock lunch. there is some guy who knits full body suits on the subway but i've never seen him in real life...just pictures. there is a funny feeling in my tummy so i'm going to bunker down.

If you make lists/ are looking to justify empty bank accounts:

(on my account)

The only thing worth having money for is:
-transportation
-coffee (+tea)
-shows
-shoes
-shower (products)
-condiments (cranberry chutney)
-medication co-pays
-books that are impossible to get for free/ are out of print
...and most likely about five other things.

Extra guidance:
soup is in the same category as coffee. travel is in transportation. band shirts and polo shirts go into the shoes one. make-up or socks go into shower. parfaits, yogurts, and gum go into condiments. drinks with friends go under medication co-pays. somehow technology goes into the books one- but i'm unsure how that would work. i would like to say that trips to the bronx zoo or poetry events go under transportation AND shows.

this is my feel good systematic break down for this week.

Old Jobs, Old Faces

Saw my old boss in a communal dressing room at Loehmann's this evening.

This was the woman who tortured me, took advantage of me, used and exploited illegal immigrants, burned my fingers on my first day of work, had me run her entire business while she was in China for a week (and the rest of the time, unofficially), who consumed my life for many months back in 2004.

After being abused for a paycheck and learning how to source materials, do phone sales and do actual design work because she was a lazy, lousy drafter, I snapped one day. She called me a name and I got up from her desk and quit. I called her a few names and told her the IRS had been calling me about her. I walked out and threw the keys in her wretched face.

So tonight, when I saw her familiar twitch and heard her grunting to get into some pants....when I saw her reflection in the 360 mirror of the designer strip joint in Elmsford, NY.... I had the inclination to whip around and have a "look at me now" moment.

She tried to place my face. I observed her doing such as she gave up on the pants and slumped them next to her for the employees of Loehmann's to collect. She didn't say anything. If she knew who I was she must had seen that I was not 19 anymore, still loved metal and had been working out. She must have seen another one of the young girls she made stronger by teaching them how to organize and maintain two lives simultaneously (and drive around with her awesome dog hanging out the window- on loan of course- for the crack smacked streets where we had our factory).

I looked at her palsied hands and grey face and thought: "S on a D you B" but called my mother to reveal my thoughts of repulsion and admit my former stupidity for succumbing to the type of work a young girl takes when she is trying to get the start-up for tuition and is developing the guts to heave guttural cries of "FUCK YOUR LIFE LADY!"

lockbox with a prybar. 2009 kickstart and freezepop.

let me.
entertain you.

i went to see gypsy with mom. my christmas gift to her (the big one anyway...she needed something tangible to open on christmas since it's just her and i now...so some sweater giving was involved). patti lupone is over-rated. she was great but i think i'm spoiled by the movie version. i wasn't fond of the way patti-lu held her notes and then warbled them into oblivion with the orchestra taking her out loudly. call me picky. pick me.

break has been tense. tense because all i can do is work those two days of pure joy with the kids im growing with. i am tense because i don't have the added tension of deadlines, rendering me into a self loathing unmotivated beast of heavy handed snooze slaps on the alarm clock. i usually look forward to this time...and it honestly hasn't been that bad. my friend visited from cali (and while i'm too broke to reciprocate the trip to his LA playground i was thrilled to chills when i saw him standing on the street in greenpoint, felt like everything was RIGHT). my other friend, the one i visited in olympia last year, came to ny and i saw her briefly. then they were gone.
and i had my savings. and i had my undershirts. and i was warm, briefly.

i bought a camera with those savings (great inspirational pressure led to this financial whirlpool) and it was a GREAT idea. i missed constant documentation with an SLR. NIKOND80.
i went to some parties (and that was fun), but i really liked going to bluestockings and seeing an awesome queer memoirist read from her book. and i really liked reconnecting with browning leaves that mulched my ears.
i got into blackadder.
mom bought me HBO (what is this luxury??? she is changing our lives in subtle TV channel additions and the plaster of my ceiling is getting caught in my hair) The TV goes when the books start brewing and being dissected under direction. resolution.


last semester did me right. i felt this good (albeit high-strung) connection to what i was doing. most of my friends from around here have graduated and have jobs or are living off trusts or working really hard so i feel like the oddball who has to juggle stress and money and smuggle smiles closed eyed in the florescence of the commute home. i loved reading at the telephone bar. i was terrified. i like being terrified in that context.

i've forgotten how to write sentences. i was writing a thank you note to a very dear cousin of mine who is a most talented women with the most fetching personality and i felt like apologizing towards the end for the horrible syntax. [but] fuckit, it was on my good stationary and i posted it post haste to get it out of sight.

i am excited to set up my writing/creative studio. i want a fainting couch (it's become an obsession). i want a book i can actually read. i've only bought books that are ten feet tall lately. i subscribed to a magazine. beginning of the year- new moleskine time. (haven't gotten to that yet...printer cartridge too) - when the first class of 09 starts i'll retire the one i have. i am proud of my journaling this year. so proud it'll be put in the lockbox with the other serious transitional pieces dating back to my first fuck, first line of coke and first kiss with a girl. had some firsts this past year. locked in with the naked photos and zines.

a "best of 2008" list would be overkill.
im feeling good and hope to meet my own deadlines this year. i want to cook more. i bruised easily this week. i will organize my computer files and papers and studio and limbs into movement and leave the cold inside my jacket when i collapse into the incandescent lightfield i've laced my room with. this is brocade. this is crochet. this is highly complicated structurally demanding networks of dependent elements making new prospects under the microscope of high hopes. this is porous bone passed around.