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.

living and cooking

it has been an eventful summer.
i received shocking and devastating news,
tallied one more year,
worked an extremely unsatisfying position in childcare for the first time in my ten years of experience
and gained some perspective on how solitary i really am.

Some call it autonomy, others loneliness. I mathed it out and started seeing a pattern:
I don't drink as much
I don't drive as much
I don't go out of my way as much.
My energies are channeled into work and mental stability. This has made this summer very different.

Two of my friends got arrested, one tried to be committed, a whole bunch of them moved and gas prices made it hard for me to drive to brooklyn, eat cheese and pay my electric bills ("energy saver star" really...really?)

I'm going back to H this fall but I'm considering options/ daydreaming of trees.
I love cooking with mushrooms and I love how many cardinals I've been seeing.

we will find out if i have shoulders for these bricks.

we will find out if my shoulders are bricks and if i can stand up straight as a wall of hardened connective tissue.

---------
finding disguises in this shirtdress.

am i unproductive or does this book just suck?

am i going to be better than i was before all of this happened?

am i protected by my skin or by my voice?

sending these into outer space...helping to cleanse my guts of waste.

stuffs

a hot, hot summer in hell.

costco air conditioner
spandex = i don't care get over it.
fai and i eating a number one and number five at mexican corner.
fantastic rotating taps at lazy boys. mammk ave is like carnival.
i drink my favorite fuze


alex and i "take target"
alex tells me: "if you can read this, the lady has departed" - i vow to screenprint this on a tshirt for him.
alex is leaving for school soon.

i make my mother salmon burgers with avocado. she delights in my cooking.


i dream i am in love with Kyle MacLachlan and we are part of an underground tv show which is paying me 28,000 to perform a script i wrote. there is a conspiracy to sacrifice me. kyle wasn't in on it, thank god.

demi's irish dance recital is on friday.
HUGE litmag expo in soho on sunday! no excuses.

i still suck at darts. i am still reading the fountainhead.

binx.

mmm triple melts of re-run plastic
a burned hair smell underneath fresh cut nails.

it has stopped raining long enough for the sun to set
and cars to screech at its sight,
a vision of light pollution crested over their visor.

i have decided to smirk the cut shorts and curly frimps
blading under my bands and prickling my forehead.

i wait and wait and wait and want to know why
my stomach smiles like it
knows a secret spelled in the threads
inside my shirt.

there will never be a "best of"

"would it make you feel better if i sent you a picture of my dick wearing a sombrero?"

yeah shouldnt have come back.
sick of it.

eh. the coffee is better. the soymilk is divine. there was a hearty tomato soup today and some minor research on blake. they changed the color of the metrocard logo to green. it's a statement that the loving and caring mta gives a shit about the environment. ok i'll roll with it. i saw a bentley on lex today crookedly parked with a scratch on the bumper. i snickered. fuck your bentley. fuck it! i'd put that bitch on diesel roller skates and have a ball bombing a hill in neutral.


you know. there's a reason i turned to blues. "you know you wrecked my life and you are the one to blame" sounds so much better coming out the speakz with a pianer rather than a blastbeat.

i had this dream about someone i'd rather not. you know what thats like? you try and get rid of someone and they seem so far away and it might actually be possible to escape their claws.. and then you wake up and they're just about in bed next to you. i had one dream a few years ago about hiding in a bathroom stall with someone and it seemed like the lengthiest dream. i couldn't shake it for days. look i'm talking about it now.
the dream last night involved matter of the heart. i did something bad and woke up GUILTY. i felt it in my heart. like when you taste your own blood and you don't see the wound - you just think...iron. im bleeding delicious iron.

I am flying back to New York tomorrow and I'd rather not.

mourning doves.

We used to leave our air conditioners in year-round but someone took mine out this winter. I forget who it was, probably my father when he came over to visit.
Last spring, some birds constructed a next underneath it. They would howl and screech and often I would turn the AC on to scare them because at five in the morning, it could get really, really annoying.

This spring they're back. Problem for them: my air conditioner is gone and they are VERY confused. They keep returning to my sill as if to say: "no no wait wait this WAS the spot I swear."

Then about a week ago, I noticed that they weren't just those twerpy little birdies that scuttle around so regularly in brush. They were mourning doves. Their cries led me to investigation and wikipedia informed me of some interesting info.
They build in urban places, are monogamous and return to the same places to nest.
Aw!

They were preening each other. I guess she's already knocked up and needs a nest to lay in.

I've been considering writing a blog about my auto immune disease. Not many people are diagnosed with what I have at such a young age. I've been battling this since I was seven and now, sick again, I can't seem to explain to people exactly what is WRONG with me. I have health insurance now, so I plan on going to my specialist v. soon. Developments have also arisen at school. I am a student for life.

rising MTA fares and the results in service:

20-Something Party News:

It was a long week last week. I should have had a nice comfortable weekend of reading Elizabeth Bishop. Yet, as is characteristic of people who take three hour tests on a Friday night, I found myself in a metal bar in Yonkers next to the motel where that one channel of porn is free [and awesome]. What's strange about the bar ["the haunt"] is that it was very obviously a run down expansive night club. Interior includes massive disco ball and huge iron doors to separate the club from the "front club." Despite said features, there is no gin at the FIRST bar and you are better off getting the two dollar bud light anyway [somehow]. That sentence lacked sense, but I continue...
When I first stepped in there was a band on from my hometown. They were awful. They were not very metal and the breakdowns did not make me want to start shit on the football sized dancefloor. The next band had a teensy asian man on electric violin whose shredding rivaled eddie van halen's pretty woman intro. Unfortunately the vocals were overwhelmingly styled after chris cornell's. Nothing fit.

The next night was initially spent waiting for the L train. BUT IT NEVER CAME. A drunk man was loose on the tracks and they cut the power to the L and JMZ. I kept doing laps around Union Square unable to come up with an alternative plan to the otherside of the river. In a roundabout way I wound up walking to and waiting outside the U.N. Suddenly sweating swearing and soldiering because some guy with a crowbar was trying to WAKE NYC UP. I kept wishing to be somewhere else, convinced I was going to die in a grisly Law and Order style. Someone's dog was going to pee on my leg at 9am and they would call the police after saying "whats that underneath the cardboard boxes Fido, is that Gazpacho?" Luckily I was picked up and crew stockholm played stip-scrabble.


The morning after the night before, I went bowling with Little Wheeler and Axl Rose and fixed things the veganhardcore way by drinking some olde e and eating a cheeseburger not cooked to order. I even carried a small tree branch over my shoulder to gain perspective on the nature of Williamsburg. Axl picked up where I left off.
Now I'm back in the grind.

Briefly: Today was one of the hardest most patience testing days of work a young turk could hope to handle.

remix

i have friends that were born with wide
shoulders and small breasts like
dime bags of peanut butter.
they have wide hips with
rawring tummy and i've seen them
punch men on the street or
piss on the fawned tumbled cement
while guarded with wool coats.
some of these friends are nice for the sake of
being nice
and some just want whatever jam
my tongue is making
so they do not have to speak
for once.

i have friends with wide breasts
born in shoulders
dimed hips
drinking punch on the street.
woolly fawns for the sake of tongues.

Semi-Regular Event!

Burning that candle:
I made an embarassing mistake the other day. I'm not going to give you full details for fear of being arrested or simply avoided like the human plague I can sometimes be...
Let's just say that instead of taking one medication I took another. One with multiple side effects. During the day. Effects lasting from the tail end of work throughout the school eve.
I only late at night realized my mistake because as is common in my life, my body is unpredictable. Therefore things like lapses in memory, slight visual hallucinations, a mumble-stumble, etc. ARE COMPLETELY POSSIBLE. They are also things I know how to deal with, being treated like a guinea pig in my formative years for a delightful AID that sometimes made me unconcious. The joy!
This will never happen again, as I have now taken it upon my duties to personally make the labels quite discernable from one another.

Other news:
Swingin titties. Every time I'm at the YMCA I want the other ladies v. small a cup titties. I will have to learn how to be in a better mood about my own jugs. GOALS. I HAVE THEM.

20-Something Party news:
This weekend was spent at a few hotspots. I re-met some guy I had conversed with the previous week at Duff's. I saw Manson Family Picnic at Pete's Candy Store [many of my friends showed up and MFP were really bangin for a second show]. I saw David DePoris get his grove on in front of an absolutely abnoxious crowd of NYU students. They were all miserably drunk and the ratio of one dude to hot asian chick was great. Great for them. I was looking for some brothers, or at least people that looked like they hadn't fallen out of their parents wallet in spandex and cocaine covered smocks. Oh, right. I met some lovely ladies. They were on the powder tip and I was on the just got kicked out by security tip. It was fun but I'm off the crazy glitter and I needed a snooze anyhow. This GinCat likes the soft pillows these days. I'm surprised I didn't stay in all the week-end trying to re-watch twin peaks.

Hope I don't feel differently tomorrow.

The human body. Created for all of the struggle that can be felt by the gifts we were blessed with!

For a while now I have had a terrible attitude about money. I grew up on the disadvantaged side of the spectrum because of a whole lot of bad decisions my parents made. Staying together, over-estimating people skills. You get the idea. I've known work from a very young age which has it's drawbacks.
For one, you grow up resenting those with no work ethic. I may be lazy when it comes to buckling down and concentrating on details, but I've been beating up the big picture pussy with a dick the size of a bayonet [I'm very old-fashioned].
Excuse the terrible reference and slight to women. Where I'm from it becomes a part of your everyday language. Instead of erasing that, I'd thought I'd give you a peep into what commuting on the NYC Subway is like. Day in and day out.

Of course I'm aching and dying step by step and I reach my front door and the elevator is going to be out for two months and I turn the key and sigh and walk up the flights with the ole "I didn't die on the last landing, I ain't gonna die on this one" attitude.

Back to money though. It's when I'm at my most tired that I really do NOT care. Heading into this gloomy recession has hit me hard. I'm really poor in every sense of the word. At least in the sense that I can not take you out to dinner and I steal rolls from the cafeteria and I will make you a Valentine's Day card with stale markers and you will think I'm creative but really wouldn't we all like chocolates and don't you think I need a haircut and health insurance? Seriously though. I honestly think of my father coming to this country and only having a radio to occupy his home time. Or, of course, interaction with family. OR just hanging out on the corner with people before the days of invasive ring tones and clothing for dogs.

The thing is, I can fall just as deep into the gold filled rabbit hole. I like to spend money because it's such a stupid thing. I'll give you this if you give me that. In reality I don't need what you have unless it is knowledge you are imparting or the ride it takes to get me there. I have a nice watch I don't need and my ex-boyfriend actually buys me stockings and feeds me when I don't have food in my house. I can not put a price on good company or a good show versus an ankle sweller and skull crusher [I'm a fragile boned lady, ask my PediR]. I can not put a price on sidling up to someone with a cheap beer and feeling them out. If someone kicks a trash can and startles a Goddamn CAT I can not recreate the moment of 4:30 am deserted Brooklyn streets. This is my version of "money can't buy you love" or "I will not contemplate slaughtering that woman who is wearing a full length fur in april, for she is radiant in ignorance and rich in a nose broken on purpose to smell the richness of her own shit." vampires of zanzibar. sensory overload!

I always think if I can't live anymore or I lose my house or shelter, if I lose my family, if I ruin everything, I'll just go back to the dirt and make january nights smell like the butter of bare damp trees. yum.

You tend to write uplifting things at the craziest of times. fuckit.

working title.

or "return to the big screen", "post-partum woes", "beached icicles: beast tricycles"
:
"everybody hurts"

I went to my car tonight and was surprised not by the sight of it, but by what was inside. Gee wiz, it was a whole bunch of feelings!
Let me explain:

Today was one of those days that everyone has. It wasn't exactly "fuck the world." It was more of a day that turns into conflict and leaves you a little bit breathless. In my case, it meant a bit of sniffling as I took out my keys to my car with readiness to go home.
I shoved my things into the passengers seat and started her up. As soon as I did I was flooded by Q104.3's (self-proclaimed "classic rock" station) sweet melodies. I changed to power105 without registering what was on and then switched back in a powerplay that involved NOT hearing duffle-bag boy song. Truly, my subconscious was on high alert, as R.E.M's "everybody hurts" was at the crux of it's sweet gnashing. This is the way my life is. I laughed a little at the situation and then returned to my sniveling briefly. The song ended and another came on. Before I knew it I was cursing in traffic and salt stained on my dry cheekbones.
This is what happens. It's not a sign, it's just the way things are. (Insert bro statement if applicable).

The breaking point has been set high lately. I've been taking things in stride, trying to do my best, all of that inspirational shit.
It's just that when things go wrong the problems swell until the emotions are saturated. In dealing with people you have a connection with, it's often hard to be persistent with communications of unhappiness or displeasure. In my experience, whiners suck and are a helpless breed. Yes, I've got some things that I won't share with anyone, immediate family aside. I feel I shouldn't have to take on the worlds problems. One problem at a time towards the solution. Heath Ledger died dude. Amy Winehouse is hitting the crackpipe. The world is upset and I'm trying to find out the forecast for tomorrow.

But, in the event that I void myself of the truly pertinent material that does, indeed, fabricate the mysterious bridge of laced fingers or phone conversations over five minutes, I like to have a retainer and not a barrier. Bluntly: I can be blunt. Some call it a flaw, others don't even call me on it. I realize it. When emotions leak and the pipes burst and doves cry, I'm greeted [nameless] in a manner I would never think to inflict on anyone. Sometimes I have to remind or simply state that: I am not a robot. I may not show all of the inner brew ALL of the time. FINE. But then I was told,
have more spine.
That really ticks me off. Makes me tingle. Makes me cringe. Makes me turn from a "sad" tear to a tiny laugh of disbelief and disgust. Some people go to any lengths to justify their black holes and common noticeable flaws. Some even go to other "states" to realize that they can't escape the reality that claims itself in one's roots. You have to let people go and figure things out for themselves. They'll either quell that demon or wind up in the same spot and in a similar situation. Motivation. rah-rah!
It's not always about leaving or wishing to leave, or leaving your old self, OR leaving the world with the aid of socializing, booze, or crutches. We all do similar things with our ideals and notions of reality.
"This is MY club, this is MY party, MY life, the way I am."
Yeah. I can get down with that to an extent.
It's the growing up comedown. Not getting older, but shedding some skin, seeing documented metamorphisis. It's THE life. "I joined your/the party and it's been A ride". If we can't get into OUR reality, dig ourselves out of OUR joint problem or even YOUR problem and MY problem butting heads... the least we can do is recognize it and accept it. We can use it to help us in our reality and bring it into the party. [Growing up is hard to do. There are fantastic double-standards, but high living with someone else blowing wind in patchy sails leaves one in Bermuda Triangle territory. I realize I'm taking the example too far. Party boat. There I'm done].

I guess clearing out the damage isn't permanent medicine. It's our dose of reality in a generous measurement.
Chronic.les.