The Big "Oh?"

Seeing in the dark

2010-12-20T12:56:00.003-06:00

Keys clicking like little frantic heartbeats
(a frightened rabbit, a bird)
That bright white glow against the dark that means:
"I'm connecting to something."
It's not a computer.
It's a lifeline.
Half-empty beer bottle
leaning, cold against my hip--
I, prone, propped up in bed,
crippled.

My fingers are the only animated part of me now.
I could use them--
press into my eyesockets,
squeeze and pull the unseeing parts away
push, push past the mush of hot, wet tissue
find the gray matter.
Clasp it. Tug at it.
Pull it out, fling it,
smear it on this screen.
Then, everything would make sense.

My fingers refuse to obey.
The little clicking keys
are soundless.
A trigger is one loud click.
It's an easier way to get my brains
onto the screen.

I Guess So.

2010-12-20T00:16:00.002-06:00

Here we go again.
My fingers don't even work.
You're welcome, all. For me not doing it.
I can feel the steel, the angle at which it rests, oily
in my mouth
(full of boredom)
cold metal, a long reach--
say "ah."
Touch the roof of your mouth
with that cold, cold metal.

Lovely.

Licking it in my mind.
(The open, oily barrel)
Really? No.
Shotgun funeral.
Gun-shy.
Dick.
Cock.
Fuck me to death.
My brains out.

HOLY FUCKING CHRIST COME FUCK MY MOUTH UNTIL I CANNOT SPEAK OR WEEP
MAKE EVERYTHING WET
ALL FLESH
BREATH
COME
COCK
THRUST
LEAN PUSH
RIBCAGE
STOMACH
PELVIS. DIG. GRIND.
BONES.

...shocked..?
Oops.
Better now.

It's funny that way.

2010-02-21T12:34:00.002-06:00

I don't want this to be a complaint. Something really wonderful is happening right now: Virgil is standing by the glass front door, on full alert, birdwatching--like he's at a Wimbledon final. And he reminds me so much of Andre that sometimes I feel guilty. I want to go out today and get some birdseed for the feeder, just so he'll have something to do while I'm laming it up in here. Should I feel guilty for loving him the most when he reminds me of Andre?

So, I'm waiting for this job--THE job, the hard one, the one I want. I've been doing what I'm told you're supposed to do and not give up on your dream for something else. So the fuck what if my dream is to stop drinking like a sloppy fish out of water, be good to my lover, and land a low-paying job doing what I wanted to do when I was about five. I wanted to be a veterinarian, and that was something they could be proud of me for doing, so they wanted me to do it. Then they saw that I was a good writer (was), and wanted me to do that. Then I went to college, and people thought I was smart. So maybe they could be proud of me for being an editor. A writer. A something with words. Then I got into grad school, was forced to teach Composition, and was just lonely and miserable enough to throw myself into it wholeheartedly, so they thought I was good at it. Some of my students did, too. So, maybe I could've done that.

I didn't.

I did some other shit in the middle. I was good at that, but I couldn't or wouldn't do that either, for whatever reason.

So I quit grad school, because it's full of assholes who only want to hear how smart they are talk about shit that absolutely does NOT matter in order to convince themselves that they are as smart as they think they are and how one day they'll get to just be writers, but in the meantime pretend to care about the tiny minds they piddle into while drinking with their other friends who want to hear how smart THEY are and talk about things that also don't matter. And they know where they're headed. Some little shithole community college where they might eventually meet a decent lay at a conference and get hitched even though they told themselves their whole lives that smart people are too smart to believe in marriage. How is it that I feel like the failure here?

Oh wait, that's right: because just once I stood up for them in a way that took balls and shouldn't have caused anyone any harm. And it backfired. And the only friends I had (save one, who I might also have just completely accidentally lost for good) got pissed at me, but didn't tell me for a couple of months, until I finally had the courage to actually go out among them, one last time...and I find out that they were pissed at me for months for something I didn't mean to fuck up, which I did on their behalf. And so now, that's failed, too.

And of course, I fucked up suicide as well.

Now, I'm just depressed. I guess that's what happens.

If I don't get this job, I don't know what I'll do. Probably the same old failing shit that I always do.

Please, God that I don't believe in, just let me get a job where I can go back a little bit and feel like I'm saving the dog I failed to save.

I think I'm even making my dogs depressed.

At least I just wrote something. Something no one will read.

Friends at home.

2010-01-29T17:30:00.008-06:00

I have decided never to have children. I decided this a long time ago, but, at 27, I'm finally old enough that when I say it (again and again), emphatically, people believe me. I'm not married; I have two and a half degrees and no career; I'm terribly irresponsible with money, and I have very little discipline and less ambition. But none of these things would stop me from having children if I wanted them (in the case of some folks I know, all of the above are true, but they keep on squeezing out that next one). I am extremely close to my family, who never abused me any more than your average family. I don't particularly like children. Anyone's. Children are no better or worse than most adults, as far as I can tell; some of them are rotten, some of them are incredible and amusing and have something to contribute, but for the most part, they're boring.

But above all, there is one reason I don't want children: I love having pets.

It's snowing hard here for the first time in over five years. I couldn't quite get up the gumption to go frolic in it like I would have years ago...but then I let the dogs out.

I have a two year old Belgian Sheepdog (Groenendael) named Dante, and a ten month old black labradoodle named Virgil. They are both black, brilliant, healthy, happy dogs--but in terms of personality, you might as well be talking about Hamlet and Polonius. To Dante, snow is how things should be. You'd have to be a tiger to demonstrate a more regal dignity--everything holds his interest, but everything poses a potential threat to his wards (us). Constantly marking the world around him, head up, eyes bright, taking it all in. He knows how to take care of himself and of his people; he is protective, ever-watchful, and extremely independent. Silent, smart as hell, fast, capable of understanding everything you say to him (although he makes his own decisions based on circumstance). Then there's Virgil. All the intelligence of a Labrador and a Standard Poodle, but still such a puppy. Nimble, agile, fast...yet clumsy and slapdash somehow. Follows me everywhere, interested in whatever I'm doing. Vocal, grumbly, funny little houndthing--no sense of danger. "You want this? I want this! Look, I will get it and bring it to you, and then you throw it so that I can have it, and then I will bring it back again! I love you! I love this? What's this over here! Oh, look! I love it!"

I can't even say how long I spent today, just letting them out, watching them dust each other and yip and yelp and scrap and wrestle and run and live. Now it's dark outside, and the snow is still falling. Virgil is curled, in a meatloaf-tight wad beside the front door, and Dante is stretched out, all sleek and dark like gravity itself, eyes half shut, completely content and exhausted beside me on the couch. I look at them, and I feel like royalty. I do what I do for a living so that I know nothing bad can happen to them that I cannot afford to fix. They are taken care of, even if I am not. Total peace here, this evening. Thanks to my dogs.

Is there a religion that worships them? Well, there is now.

And if you don't love me, let me go.

2009-02-02T19:34:00.004-06:00

Listening to The Decemberists' "Engine Driver" incessantly. New mantra emerging in the chorus...everything in my life is so uncertain--even my love--a larger thing these days than it ever has felt previously. It scares me. I remember Zampano's chest breaking through chains and think of my heart--when I love, it hurts.

I have my Ipod on (well, no Hank's Ipod, to be accurate), and am sitting on my knees in the floor of the apartment, wondering. I have a good cry coming on--the result of accepting things I do not understand.

A poem is wanting me to write it, and I don't know how to begin. I feel as though my face is pleading with every other face it sees, asking, "What IS this? What does your face want from my face? Why do we bother even acknowledging one another?"

Will anyone ever be worth it? Worth the awkward moments in elevators, the "How are you"'s to sales clerks, the being polite to the old and the handicapped and the stinky people with strange wardrobe decisions (stories we later relate to a group of drunken friends who pretend to hate other people along with us)?

I fear that my writing has slipped away forever--that I will never again be able to construct a coherent thought with the potential to create a connection somewhere else inside the obscurity that is experience.

Showboating, mimicry.

Mating Rituals

2008-10-30T17:52:00.005-05:00

I'll never get used to them. Even when I am only one of many in a seething, desperate, drunken mass, I feel myself inside this hamster wheel of skepticism and alienation. It's not always a bad thing, but drinking at least made the plastic more transparent. I know, what an idiotic metaphor.

Why sex? Well, it feels good if you do it the right way(s) with the right person(s), sure. But beneath that, we're fundamentally--I don't care whether or not you "believe in" marriage or kids, or even want either of them--geared to pair off, find a cave, and squeeze out another little monkey or six.

That said, (very reductive, I know), what purpose do relationships serve, when you do not--as I don't--have any intention of reproducing?

There are plenty of happy, childless, long-term couples out there, right? Do they still fuck? What happens to their sex drive once makin' babies becomes obsolete? It's like Jackie Treehorn says, "The brain is the greatest erogenous zone in the body." That's where my sex drive derives, anyway. First thought, then action. And are men and women so fundamentally different in this respect?

I know this makes me sound very ignorant, but the thing is that, for someone who has actively pursued sexual...(I refuse to say "liberation") awareness for most of her pubescent life, I feel like I suddenly know nothing about it.

That brings me back to the question of what a relationship--homo or hetero, open or closed, long-term or short-term, but romantic regardless--is FOR, if not for reproducing. Body heat. It's true. Also, instinctively, let's go back to the jungle or the open plain, the mountains, or whatever. Let's go all the way back to spears. Back-to-back, you're better off, regardless of your gender. That expression--for someone to "have your back," really gets at the heart of what I'm trying to understand. Yes, I have an agenda here. I want to know:

What is it about a relationship that has been so important to me, over the course of the last year, that I let Liam put me through the ringer without just walking away? Why did I let myself, and him, become so unhappy that I felt more like his enemy than his partner or lover? I know where it began, but that doesn't mean that I can just blame him and move on. It began with a lie. It always does. And not just any lie, but a lie that put me at personal risk. I'm talking STDs here. That's something I take very. Fucking. Seriously. Condom or no, viruses are getting cleverer and cleverer, and their consequences are dire.

Oral sex is awesome, on either end, if it's done well. I'm not going to put in a fucking dental dam, or suck on a big rubber tube. That would take all of the enjoyment out of it for me. Does that put me at a higher health risk for stuff like HPV, AIDS, etc? You're goddamned right it does. I have no delusions about that. So, when Liam was cheating on me, lying to me about it to the point that I didn't know who he had done or what, I had to assume for the sake of my own safety that he was having unprotected sex (oral or otherwise) with women I did not know. And I have to say--nothing personal here, but a couple of them were really nasty. Like, really got around. And I never found out about it until AFTER the fact. AFTER I'd had unprotected sex with him.

My rage about that only increased with each time he did it. I lost track of how many, but who's counting now?

The point is, my "partner" risked my safety and my longterm health for the sake of getting his fucking dick wet. That was not a gesture of love, devotion, or even friendship. It was very nearly the most careless, selfish thing that anyone has ever done to me. And he did it a lot.

He seems to feel pretty sorry for himself, with his busted tooth and his dental bills, about the raging, abusive alcoholic he escaped from. I can't pay his dental bill, so he came in and pretty much said that I should "give" him the scooter I have been needing to sell to support myself.

I wonder how much antibiotics for chlamydia come out to, after all the treatment? The immunization shot against HPV? Anything else that might turn up in my system long after he's scot-free on his scooter? He loved to preach about his privacy, but the wall we kept coming up against was that his "privacy" could have cost my private-parts a whole lot of trouble. Somehow, that never seemed to sink in with him. We were doomed, and have been, for a very long time.

And yeah, I'm feeling pretty resentful about the old issues. The breakup is going fine, it's just that now I can really look back and see it for what it was: a fucking train wreck for the last year. Before that, it was beautiful. Blame aside, that's all I know. But clearly, I have been feeling this way for a long, long time. Resentful doesn't even begin to cover it. Try furious. Wounded. Betrayed. Scared enough to strike.

Sex doesn't mean what it used to mean. Diseases are very, very real, and I don't want a goddamned one of them. I wouldn't wish them on anyone, but the conclusion I keep arriving at concerning my conflict over monogamy is this:

It's not just monogamy. It's statistics. It's trust. It's knowing how many invisible enemies are out there, waiting to feed on my pleasure parts, and having trusted someone else with my long-term health.

I don't think that he ever understood how serious it was--not just the cheating, not the jealousy, but the lying about it.

Goddamn it, I want to see a pedigree before I fuck anybody ever again. I'm gonna go get myself tested for everything under the sun, and I'm going to present any future partner with some fucking papers. And I'm gonna keep 'em updated in cycles of six months!

Well, anyway, I don't know about that, but I sure as shit am going to make a mofo wrap his shit up. Twice.

Biting back

2008-10-27T16:57:00.002-05:00

Well, as predicted, Liam and I broke up last week. What day exactly, I couldn't tell you. Partially because of the logistics and complications of him moving all of his stuff out, and partially because we really love this house, and are still under lease for a year, we decided to remain roommates. The "friends" bit is pending, as I'm not really sure what kind of a friend he is. So far, the roommates thing is working out pretty well, except for a few things. One, I'll always be the neat roommate. Two, I'm isolated as fuck because my phone is broken, and we never bothered with a land line, and I'm sick for the first time in nearly a year, with no one to take care of me or really support me--and no way to even call anyone and ask if they would mind doing so. So, I'm feeling pretty damned lonely and sorry for myself, and the whole "call your sponsor" when you want to drink thing is simply not applicable at this point, nor has it been for about four days.

You can imagine how that's gone.

Plus, (if I may continue to vent here), part of my relief at the breakup was "Finally, sex." It's no real secret that, for some reason completely unknown to me (and heretofore irrelevant), Liam very rarely wanted to have sex, especially once we moved in together. So, I was really looking forward to just getting good and fucked. No dice. No relief, even in that department, since I was struck with this damned head plague AND the Niagara of all menstruation over the weekend. So I can't exercise (too cold out, and I'm too sick). I can't fuck (unless someone wants to stage his own Halloween bloodbath between my sheets). I can't call anyone. I can't drink. I'm fucking broke. I'm lonely. Goddamn it. I'm feeling so sorry for myself I could just scream. What else is new?

To top it all off, Liam seems to be having the time of his newly single life. I'm glad it's working out so well for him (no sarcasm here), but I resent the fuck out of being the only one stuck here, jobless, broke, sick, lonely, sober, and bleeding.

Things have to get better, and soon.

Ouch.

2008-10-05T12:30:00.001-05:00

It's not a wagon. It's a unicycle, and I guess it takes more than I realized to ride.

Last night wasn't pretty. Most of them haven't been, but I wasn't expecting this one.

Chugging vodka, weeping in the grass, vomiting, etcetera.

Back to square one.

Sky Blue Sky

2008-10-03T11:45:00.001-05:00

"With the sky blue sky,
this rotten time
wouldn't seem so bad to me now.
Well, I didn't die:
I should be satisfied.
I've survived;
That's good enough for now."

*Wilco

If you wear that velvet dress

2008-10-03T10:44:00.002-05:00

Morning, day two, meeting three at noon. Hallucinations now--hearing people who aren't there say bad things to me. Other than that, a dead calm, like fog on the moor. I can't see forwards or backward, only today...and that isn't the AA mantra talking; it's how I feel. Today, fortunately, I have shit to do.

But I feel like I did when Dante died; I feel like something has been suddenly unplugged and will never be replaced. What a lousy comparison, I know--Dante was dearer to me than drinking...but drinking killed him, more or less, and I didn't see it coming. Now, all of the sudden, I am faced with the prospect of never drinking again, and it seems that a part of me is gone for good. A bad part, a good part, I don't know. Dexter calls it "the dark passenger." I'm sure someone else calls it that...or that the phrase originates outside of the show, at least, but that's the first place I heard it.

I'm making myself write in the morning and in the evening about this. About nothing. I don't feel much right now, so my writing will suffer. All the anger that has fueled it for so long is dormant, and the joy that often sends me to the page has also leaked out somewhere.

Otherwise, it's a beautiful, beautiful day outside. Scooter ride to a meeting, and from there, who knows.

How not to die of liver cirrhosis

2008-10-02T10:26:00.003-05:00

I think I may have figured it out, which is good, because dying of anything liver-related doesn't sound very appealing. Especially if I suffocated beneath a gargantuan pile of goose liver. I'm dancing around this a bit, because I am every stupid cliche there is, including this one:

An alcoholic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm also an idiot for not realizing or acknowledging it sooner. Drinking every night is so normal for most of the people I know--and I can't say there's anything wrong with it. But a little over a year ago, I started drinking a little earlier each day. Five. Four. Three. Two. Nine. Not sure when the big leap backwards happened, but it's been at least since May now that I've woken up and had beer with my coffee, skipped breakfast in order to get a better buzz going, and maintained a pretty steady momentum throughout the remainder of the day. Then my body would wake me up around two am, needing just a little more so that I could sleep.

I haven't been sober for more than twenty-four hours yet. Last night, towards the end of my 24th sober hour, my body started cramping. I started to cry, couldn't stop shaking, couldn't think of anything except the beer in the fridge (you may be wondering why it was there...well, I'd had guests the previous night, and picked up a twelve-pack for "them."), and I had to have it. So I did. I had one. Just one. That soothed my system enough to get me off the floor and into a hot shower. From there, I was okay. I was able to sleep for a few hours, until I started needing again, at which point I stayed the fuck in bed, held onto Liam like a life raft, and shook and trembled my way through the rest of the night, and well into the morning.

But now, this morning, I'm sitting at the Sunrise Cafe again. Got dressed. Got up. Got myself here. Still sober. Meeting with my sponsor--a much older woman, which was important to me--at 4 today, after which we'll head over to the women's AA meeting, after which I'll hopefully go home and have some tea. Maybe even some sex. Blocks of time right now are things I have to fill with something, anything, besides "the usual."

I lost my job last week. Bit of a wake-up call, you know?

2008-09-20T12:16:00.002-05:00

Porch screens all smell the same--of smoke and dust, a little metal. Standing behind or in front of one, staring in or out, the world is a simple, detached grid. Something permeable, like a membrane, between you and a storm--you and a bee. You and an exiled lover. The triumph of separation; "I dare you to try to enter here." Screen doors. Window screens. Inviting chaos--a screen is the fishnet stocking of a comfortable nesting instinct.

Knowing it was dirty, still holding everything that ever touched it, I pressed my face against its tension anyway. I sneezed. I went and washed my hands, sat down to write.

Handcuffs

2008-09-18T14:01:00.001-05:00

The Sunrise Cafe in Fayetteville smells of bacon, and my stomach is full of everything from eggs and coffee to a lousy, underlying guilt about the decent job I know I'm quitting. I hate it. It's not real work. It's sitting and sitting and watching the clock, and it's what everyone else is doing these days in a dying nation. I love working with my hands and shutting down my mind. Writing doesn't do that for me. Everything comes out all wrong these days—or at least it seems to when I try to sculpt words out of sensation, experience, and ambiguity. I rely more and more upon music and the voices of others to keep me here.

What is wrong with anonymity? Nothing is wrong with me today, except the creeping knowledge that I tend to disappoint everyone with my failure to live up to what they once believed was genius. I think they confused it with passion. The passion continues, most of the time—or at least waxes with the manic moons, and then I believe that I can do or be something special between now and oblivion. And then the crushing feeling—not fear, not anxiety or sloth...just the sensation of confusion about what it means to be satisfied with myself. It's true: most other people will only love you if you're never satisfied. If you're always reaching...“with the hunger of ambition, for the change inside the purse; they are handcuffs on the soul, my friend. Handcuffs on the soul, and worse.”*

Then I think that what I refer to as “satisfaction” must, in fact, be my special brand of fear. That tug inward that makes me want to be invisible some days, and appreciated or even worshiped on others. I think now that perhaps I know better than to want the rest of the world to love me. I just want to be good enough for the ones that should love me whether I am good enough or not.

“And when they say that you're not good enough, well the answer is: you're not. But who are they, or what is it that eats at what you've got?”*

A.R.

*Paul Simon

Mixing Memory and Desire

2008-09-08T13:25:00.003-05:00

B,

It's been years since I started hoping for news of your death.

You are the only person I have ever hated, and I doubt that even spitting on you in your casket would dilute the vitriol I feel when I even try to imagine your face.

Whether or not I ever could have believed in a benevolent god, you alone would have been enough to compel me to doubt it. The notion that even predators and rotten people can inadvertently work some good in the world now seems like the ultimate copout. Even if it is true, I find myself wishing you away, whether or not you have some "purpose" to serve in your miserable remaining years.

For once, I met someone whose inside was truly as ugly and deformed as his outside. You always smelled of mold beneath your clothes.

You stole two years of my life and poisoned my mind. You taught me to mistrust those who claim to love me. You took the best parts of my soul and turned them against me. You did the same to several other women. I hope you die. My heart pounds. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

I have to cure this, for my own sake. It surges sometimes, without warning. "Love your enemies" sounds noble, until you have a real one.

Song to My Assassin
by Leonard Cohen

We were chosen, we were chosen,
Miles and miles apart--
I to love your kingdom,
You to love my heart.

The love is intermittent;
The discipline continues:
I work on your spirit;
You work on my sinews.

I watch myself from where you are;
Please don't be mistaken:
The spider web you see me through
Is the view I've always taken.

Begin the ceremony now
That we have been preparing
I'm tired of this marble floor
That we have both been sharing.

Evil.

2008-09-01T22:35:00.003-05:00

It isn't obscure. It isn't romantic. It isn't even dark, let alone intriguing, as most folks over the course of history seem to think. It is transparent. We as a species over-identify with it because it is the easiest thing to understand. Monstrosity is something at which we feign shock. The fact is that even the simplest creatures with claws and fangs can cause suffering. We just give it a new face and call it art.

The lesser, lower half of human existence is the basest form. Torture, murder, cannibalism: all of these make perfect sense in their own instinctual respects.

Mercy? That one puzzles me. Revenge makes perfect sense. It's there in the Old Testament for all to see and read. It is given shape by Adam and Eve--i.e. blame the other. Cain and Abel: destroy the weaker and feign ignorance. War, war, war. That's the low road. You take it, and I'll be in Scotland before you.

I want to think about Jesus and the Christian message, but all I keep coming up with as an invocation is Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman."

"All my life, I knew the right path. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? Because it was too damned hard."

Being good is complicated. Goodness is complicated. It's more difficult to put your finger on what makes a person "good" than what makes them "bad" or "rotten." And yes, I am of the opinion that most people are rotten, evil bastards--myself included. But only because of a lack of thought about what it means to be truly GOOD. Kind. What it means to have a heart.

Sometimes I don't think my heart can take this anymore.

It's only been six months since I slit my wrists (and oh, no pussy-ass halfway scars for me. See attached photo)...and I thought I had learned my lesson. But then I get here again and remember how exhausting it is, trying to figure out what "good" means, when "bad" is always the simple answer. It's like essay versus multiple choice, and your eternal soul (whatever the fuck that is) depends upon your score. Are you going to go with essay or multiple choice? Who the fuck reads those things anyway?

The riches of diversity

2008-07-17T13:19:00.004-05:00

So, my good friend Ritch is changing his life. In the process, he's applying to law schools all over the country. And what did they want? Genius? Hardly. They wanted LSAT scores and ass-kissing. Big surprise, right? So, after reading what I would call an excellent, introspective, culturally accurate essay on this ridiculous, self-defeating notion to which we as a melting pot so desperately cling, I wrote my knee-jerk response to their bullshit subject matter.

What is diversity? Who is diverse? In my uninformed, unpleasant opinion, "diversity" is hardly bound by the kind of pseudo political correctness with which our culture has become so enamored. Rather, true diversity lies within the individual's willingness to be bold, to make gross mistakes, and to discard infamy with the same contempt that he or she would regard anonymity. In other words, maybe one shred of this elusive label lies in the ability to say, "No, dear law admissions board, I will not kiss your ass on this one. The notion of diversity is an absolute crock, and I'm sick to death of its celebration."

Love,
Offended Fascist

Confessionals: Day One

2008-07-17T11:17:00.002-05:00

Three things today. Here goes:

1) Buttholes make me giggle. I sometimes do google image searches for "butthole" and surf through the thumbnails, chuckling. I think buttholes are hilarious, especially in conjunction with the word "butthole." I cannot explain this. Maybe I should start my own site, "LoLholes" or something. Dog buttholes, cat buttholes, chicken buttholes, Goatse. It's hilarious to me. They're just as different as faces, but so very not-a-face. What the Foucault? I don't know.

2) I'm bipolar. I was actually diagnosed over a year ago, and have been medicated since then. Not heavily medicated, mind you, but at a high enough dosage that I have some trouble coming, unless I get a lot of build-up (talking dirty especially does it). I have kept this "secret" (not so much a secret to anyone who knows me and sees me cycle over time) because of all of the stigma associated with bipolar disorder and manic-depression. It is even apparent if you sift through my childhood--very textbook stuff, from nature to nurture. Maybe I'll touch on that here.

I don't know what it means to be "bipolar," even though it's something I clearly "am." Maybe it's just emotional immaturity combined with an impulse-control problem and some very irresponsible fiscal habits (formerly sexual, but I've reclaimed a lot of control over that). Maybe it's a spiritual problem. I don't know. It comes and goes in intensity and in manifestation, but I've been under psychiatric supervision for a long time, and I trust these women to know what they're talking about. Not all shrinks, but I have two who communicate (clinical psychologist AND a psychiatrist), and they aren't colleagues or financially connected in any way, but they do agree on the issue of "Allison is bipolar as shit," and that sometimes I'm a danger to myself. Never anyone else (unless they really, really piss me off, and then only exhibited in some very ineffectual, fist-flinging ways), except for emotional or psychic damage caused by exposure to my crazy. Anyway, I'm coming out of the closet, at least in this forum. I've fibbed about it to a lot of people, but it's there in black-and-white on my permanent medical record for everyone to see. Nothing to be ashamed of. The stuff I've done when I'm manic, however, certainly can be. I never wanted to make my "condition" an excuse for the shitty things I do. But this is just an acknowledgment that there's at least a clinical explanation for why I can be either a total emo asshole or a whole lot of fun.

3) I can smell the inside of my nose, which compels me to pick it, because the smell of boogers is very distracting. My sense of smell is incredibly sensitive, and this is just one example of how it's not always a good thing. I hate being able to smell the inside of my nose, especially when it bleeds. I get most of my information from my nose (which sucked when my boyfriend was cheating on me and I couldn't find physical proof, but I knew it long before I "found out" because I could smell other women on him--his hands, his face...you know).

That's it for today. More forthcoming depending on where the mind decides to wander.

Disclaimer to "Confessionals" series

2008-07-17T10:32:00.005-05:00

I'm going to try something a little different. I want to discourage you from reading further, or in fact from reading anything labeled "Confessions" if any of the following applies to you:

--You regularly use the phrase "That's too much information," or "Man! Don't tell me that!"

--You are easily offended or grossed out in any way.

--You think that if you lived in another person's head for even thirty seconds, you'd get really freaked out by what's in there.

Because I have a lot of weird thoughts on a regular basis. No, I mean REALLY weird ones. I always have. Maybe it's all mental garbage. But maybe, on the other hand, there are pearls of wisdom to be found in every little bit of subconscious housecleaning. I don't meditate nearly as much as I used to, and when I do, it's usually very active. These bizarre thoughts have to go somewhere, though, and it may as well be here. Besides, insanity has been a great motivator of creative impulses for as long as there has been art; I'm not suggesting it's the only motivator of art, any more than I believe that alcohol improves my writing. It's just that one of the reasons I write is to find out what I think, and vice versa. Thinking without writing it down, for me, is like the parable of the four blind men who all grabbed one part of an elephant; remember that one? One man said, "Oh, this is a tree!" and the other said "No, it's a motorcycle," and one said, "No, fools, it's a dank, smelly cave full of elephant shit!" ...or something like that.

So, here it goes. I have two today, which I'll enter now.

Your life is a joke.

2008-07-17T10:21:00.001-05:00

What kind of joke is it?

Mine, for example, is a "why did the chicken cross the road" sort, with a really lame punchline. Feel free to offer one. I've got a few possibilities:

a) To get to the other side. (Existentialist perspective. See, it's like "the road" is a metaphor for life, and of course, "the other side" is death, and that's all there is. Get it? GET IT?)

b) To avoid doing anything productive (No, really. On one side of the road, there's a university. On the other side, there's a social networking site and an online RPG.)

c) Manic spree--believed she was moving faster than she actually was, and also wanted to prove her invincibility. (Psychobabble)

d) Suicide attempt. (Groaner. Suicide isn't funny, y'all.)

e) The road is an allusion. There is no chicken. (Simplistic eastern philosophical spin)

8. Da da!

g) Quack.

m) Sex. That's why everyone does everything, especially dumb animals.

h) She didn't know any better. She should have stayed in the fucking kitchen where she belonged.

I am such a birdbrain.

The inconvenience of hipocrisy

2008-07-09T19:25:00.001-05:00

A lot of folks complain about other folks being "two-faced." But what does that mean, anyway? There are plenty of worthwhile people in the world, and a great many of them simply don't get along. I don't necessarily consider myself to be one of those "worthwhile" people, but I nonetheless don't feel the need to put up with complete asshattery from someone I know marginally at best, just because I have to be around them on occasion. I confess, I'll do an obligatory amount of sucking up to authority figures, but I prefer to at least rib them about the fact that I'm sucking up when I do it. And there are people who I find a bit distasteful for a number of reasons, but have no cause to be overtly rude or unkind to them. They get the cordial chitchat and the smile and the sincere, if superficial compliment ("Nice ___ you're wearing today." Or, "You look really ____ in that ____."). It's not that this sort of compliment isn't genuine--quite the contrary; if I see something pretty, I'll tell the person who possesses it. I don't think that superficial compliments are passed around often enough. However, it's often the case that I simply have nothing else to say to the person, so I'll look for something nice to say in order to pass the time. That doesn't seem like it would make me either a villain or a wretched sycophant, right?

Then there are the people with whom I'm thrown into constant contact for one reason or another. These may be my friends, people about whom I care deeply, or they may simply be people that my friends are around often enough to seem like friends by proxy. Or maybe they're people that I work with, with whom I wouldn't necessarily spend a bunch of quality time, but who seem like perfectly reasonable, likable people worthy of consideration and respect...perhaps we just have very little in common. Hence, a slightly deeper level of polite chitchat--considerate small talk of sorts.

Now, when it comes to my real friends, I love them fiercely. And by fiercely, I mean that I will defend them tooth and nail if someone else is attacking them in any way, whether or not I am aware of some of their personal flaws. Friends are people whose personal flaws I try not to take personally. Sometimes, for whatever reason, even friends don't click in the same ways anymore. Then you just need space before a conflict develops. If it develops anyway, I'm prone to jumping on it, calling it out as a conflict, and doing my best to come to some sort of understanding. "I still care about you very much...we've just grown apart, changed as people, chosen different lifestyles, etc." These are all very palatable explanations for why people who love each other simply don't mesh anymore, but they're certainly not reasons to just cut a person off altogether. They're just causes of tension. No big deal. If there's static with a friend, I acknowledge the static, promise to do what I can to subdue it, and move on.

If I have a serious conflict with someone close to me, and it gets all big and emotional, I'm prone to saying exactly what the fuck is on my mind about how he or she has behaved, and then apologizing once I have said it, and trying to explain why I feel how I feel and why I said what I said, and what I probably shouldn't have said in spite of the fact that I felt it. Then I apologize, usually cry, and try to use it as an opportunity to become closer to the person.

Now, here's another thing altogether; it's something of which I am not necessarily proud, but that I may be nonetheless unable to change for some time. Depending upon who you are, you could call it a virtue or a serious character flaw: I don't take shit from people, regardless of who they are or how I feel about them. If someone attacks me passive-aggressively, I notice, and I respond with at least as much force and honesty as they have avoided through needling passivity. Sometimes, my paranoid streak creates explosive situations where perhaps someone wasn't intending to be passive-aggressive, but he or she said something that they should've known would set me off. In these circumstances, I try to give warnings before I completely blow my top. This applies to people with whom I am close just as much as those to whom I am indifferent. I just don't take shit from people. Trust me, I have taken enough to last me three more lifetimes. I used to be sweet, naive even, soft-spoken, and gentle. In other words, I got walked all over by nearly everyone with any personality. I was abused verbally and physically and in all sorts of ways I don't want to go into. Exploited. That sort of thing leads to rage. Rage leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side. Etc. I'm not running around attacking people, but sometimes it overflows. When does it overflow? When someone tries to give me shit. I don't take shit from people. Have I made this clear? As often as not, I've smarted the fuck off to someone I later wished I hadn't (authority figures especially). But at least I then know that they know where I stand when they do or say that particular thing that they said or did. Whatever.

Case in point: Sometimes, compassion and empathy are easier if you just go ahead and keep a respectful distance between yourself and someone with whom you clearly clash. (A thing worth noting: if you think I'm somehow referring to you, I guarantee you I am not. This person does not have access to my facebook notes at all, so if you're reading this, it isn't you. And if you're so interested in to whom I am referring, feel free to do the detective work. It's not a big secret; I just want to get this off my chest without publicizing everything in stark detail.) Over the course of the last several months, I had tried and tried to be empathetic towards a person whom I found immediately, dramatically distasteful and unlikable. It has been a long time since I met someone who so swiftly soured me to his presence, under almost any circumstance. I tried time and again to subdue the friction by reminding myself of my misanthropic tendencies, and by telling myself that perhaps this guy isn't an asshole; perhaps you just need to get to know him better. So, I tried. I tried to have conversations in groups; he would dominate and derail anyone within shouting distance. I tried to spend some one-on-one time with him; when he wasn't trying to sloppily molest my face, he was talking nonstop about himself and his own petty struggles. And not non-stop the way that I nervously blurt; I mean, really, non-stop, "Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich," [interject attempt at common ground...change of subject...hobbies, pasttimes, anything besides "Malkovich"]...."Yes, which reminds Malkovich of Malkovich Malkovich."

Eventually, I burned out. I gave up. I came to the realization that I just plain don't like this person, so I gave him a respectful amount of space in order to avoid saying, "Look, I really don't like you. I never did. Everything about you strikes me as obnoxious. Perhaps we are just too similar; I respect that possibility. But in the meantime, recognizing the similarities between us is not going to make me like you any better. All it means is that I hate the part of myself that you remind me of, and I probably always will." Instead, what happened is that I successfully avoided this person, with polite "how ya doin'" interludes...until I was thrown into a small space with him again. True to form, this person acted like an asshole to the point of trying my patience until he finally just insulted me outright, and...true to form, I told him the fuck off. I said cruel, horrible, HONEST things. But by this point, the message should have been the same as it always was: "I just don't fucking like you. Stay away from me."

And then he threatened me. He THREATENED me. This is a thing that nasty, wilted cowards do. I may be a downright vicious cunt, but I don't threaten: I act. And when I acted, he couldn't handle it, so he balked and whined and when I stood my ground with the, "Look, you were being an asshole, so I told you off; it's nothing personal--it's just what I do when I'm around assholes," he began threatening me. And, as is so often the case, he did not want the truth. The truth was so simple: I think he's an asshole. He got in my face with his assholery, and I told him he was being an asshole. I guess that makes me an asshole. Nonetheless, I am through with this person. I am completely fed the fuck up, and I think I may have learned a lesson. Perhaps a respectful amount of distance is often preferable to what eventually, (after no small energy expenditure oh my brothers), begins to verge on red-eyed hatred and disgust. No, I don't hate him. But I could. The son of a bitch threatened me.

Please, friends, if I ever get in your face or tell you off for being an asshole, just tell me off in turn or smack me in the face. Seriously. Cut me off completely; tell the world that I'm a terrible cunt and your nemesis and whatever else you want to do. But don't threaten me. It spurs me to action.

Is it the fear talking, or...

2008-07-09T19:19:00.001-05:00

Are we finally, ultimately fucked? I'm not talking about terrorism and global warming; I'm talking about flooded farmlands, increasing food-borne bacteria, and antibiotic-resistant infections. Prions, salmonella, mercury in the water. There are things from which we are not prepared to recover. Crops don't regrow overnight, nor do miracle cures present themselves within a few weeks of a new epidemic. Gas prices, bah! That's nothing compared to what we'll begin to see when we start to run out of food. Think about THAT. When we start to run out of food. Running out of food. Who would've thought it could happen in America? But take a look at the breadbasket, the cattle industry, the poultry industry, the fisheries, the vanishing bees. Friends, we may all know hunger in our lifetimes. Grow your own--start now. Learn how to use a hunting rifle and a bow and arrow. And don't say you didn't see it coming.

Peta-philes

2008-07-09T19:05:00.000-05:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/animal-rights-group-turns-its-fire-on-celebrity-meateaters-856591.html

I love animals. So, I have three pets, of which I take incredibly good care, at all times. Each of my pets is vaccinated, well-loved, well-fed, and lives indoors with me in cleaner conditions and better beds than at least half a dozen college kids I can name. They all get along, and they are a very important part of me.

I'd take down a motherfucker for hurting an animal. You want to see my claws, try to tell me that animals were put here by God for people to use as they choose. Try to tell me it's not worse than sin to hurt or maim, abuse or starve, or hunt or kill without mercy or the intent to use the flesh and fur to its maximum potential.

And you know something else? I eat dead animals. I do it all the time. I eat their flesh. I wear things made from them. I will most likely continue to do so until the day I die, all the meat in the world becomes polluted and diseased, or another animal eats me raw, with no cocktail sauce.

PETA is full of a bunch of flakes and assholes who thrive on forcing their beliefs on other people through intimidation campaigns and distortion of the facts. Sensationalists. Abusive, reactionary turdbaskets. Fuck PETA. I eat meat. If I die of some wasting, meat-borne disease, so be it. Poetic justice, karma, whatever. I'm so sick of PETA making the rest of the animal-rights advocates look bad.

I feel very strongly about a lot of things, and one of them is trying to mind my own fucking business about someone else's lifestyle. I don't like it when people pump their bass; it pollutes my peace of mind and gives me cause to jump to one simple conclusion: "that ignorant fucker cares more about his/her image amongst a bunch of strangers than he does about the welfare and comfort of people who don't want to be invaded by his/her musical taste." I fucking hate it when people litter. It's unsanitary, and it affects everyone; it blows from one place to another, and when you litter, I have to clean up your mess--dump your motor oil on the lawn, it affects the safety of my garden.

Most of us are guilty of at least one lifestyle choice that genuinely, negatively, directly affects someone else. Me? Well, I cuss a LOT, aloud, and I use someone else's God's name in vain and I say really offensive things within earshot of others. It may make me feel clever and bold, but it's actually pretty obnoxious and rude. I'm working on it. You, reading this, maybe you don't use your blinker. Maybe you stomp back and forth across your apartment without thinking about your neighbors downstairs. Maybe you're the asshole who eats repugnantly stinky food in your tiny, ill-circulated office space. Maybe you smoke by the public entrances to buildings. Maybe you let your dog shit on the sidewalk or in the neighbors' yards and you never, ever pick it up. (If that's you, fuck you. You make the rest of us dog owners look bad.) I guess that's your prerogative; all it does it make you an asshole in someone else's eyes.

However, what you put in your body and on your back with your money that you earned is none of my fucking business at all. Meat-eaters don't get up and gag and point and glare when someone orders a salad with asparagus spears. We don't protest all the hypocrisy inherent in your every lifestyle choice. Get off the public's fucking back, PETA. Meat's murder. Abortion's murder. Murder is murder. It fucking happens. Mind your own goddamn business and shut the hell up. I hope your cats eat your face when you feed them soy nuggets soaked in rice dream and your cruelty-free kids never forgive you for the creeping anemia that haunted their childhoods. Of course, you're only human, I know: it's just that, well, you think you're better than the rest of us. And everyone's an inconsiderate asshole somewhere along the line. I'm not going to form a fucking protest group that attacks the people with whom I disagree. PETA's a small step away from those dicks that stalk abortion doctors and burn crosses on lawns.

The so-called "love" professed by someone who lets their passion turn them into hateful people...someone who "loves" animals so much that they hate a person who eats meat: their beliefs evaporate into thin air. Their tongues are dust. Love becoming hate is an irreversible spiritual alchemy. You can't turn gold into lead and keep its value.

PETA is a four letter word. FUCK PETA.

Life in a house

2008-05-29T19:19:00.002-05:00

We got it: 1100 square feet of pleasure dome, in a rustic sort of simple way. Bordered completely by trees, with a broad, wooden front porch complete with overhang for sitting and watching thunderstorms. We'll be surrounded by such lushness on all sides that no one--NO ONE, not even our landlady--can see the house from outside the yard. And the yard, oh the yard! Dark soil, level grass, a quarter of an acre with cedars and oaks, polars and maples, honeysuckle, wisteria, old growth everywhere. Hardwood inside, a central kitchen painted green--a freestanding basin sink bordered with charming little blue and green glazed tile. It's old, but it's in great shape, and it's gorgeous. I am in love. The rent's an absolute steal, thanks to the fact that our landlady is beautiful, brilliant, and awesome, and wants good tenants more than max rent. We put down our deposit Saturday, and are moving the first week of June. I cannot describe the specialness of this place; I absolutely cannot do it justice. So instead, I'll wait until I get all-access, and post some pictures soon. I could not be more excited while maintaining bladder control. Huzzah!

Did I mention anything about the in-ground flagstone swimming pool, the fire pits, the stonework wildflower beds in the front? I didn't? Well...you'll just have to see for yourselves.

Favorite Slave

2007-10-26T13:47:00.001-05:00

Swathed in gossamer, my sloping, formless everything
Sees itself reflected in the marketplace of gazes;
Spine erect, insides shoving against one another,
I digest silence between nine limestone teeth
which grind into
An almost-smile,
something effortless and gruesome,
Evidence of ill-use, like scattered eggshells
Sleeping in the soiled and feathered straw, unfertilized.
Soon someone’s dustsalt fingers find my leather tongue,
Which clicks whiplike against each of his questions:
“How old?” “Cook?” “Offspring?”
My body is a doorway. Every name I have been given
Means Passage.

Now

2007-10-02T19:54:00.000-05:00

I just returned from two hours at a day spa called "The Pool of Bethesda". I'm typing this without looking (for the most part) because my head is reclining on the back of the couch, my neck feeling more relaxed than it has in over two weeks; at the base of my spine, I've tucked a microwavable warming cuddly thingee, and the aquarium is bubbling background noise from the direction of the kitchen.

There is a room in the back of this salon that is a microscopic analogue of what I hope to see waiting for me in the afterlife. I enter on my cushy white terry-cloth flip-flops and find: a beautiful, pristine, neck-deep bathtub brimming with hot water and mineral bath bubbles, gurgling all over from jacuzzi-type jets cranked all the way up, and lit from beneath so that several different colors pulse throughout the water. In each corner of this cozy, warm little room sit several burning candles, and just behind the huge silver spout of the bath there is a counter loaded down with shampoos and conditioners, rosemary-mint body wash and green-tea facial gel...geranium-amber scents and lavender and tingly goodness all within a finger's reach. Did I mention that this was how I spent half an hour BEFORE my hour-and-a-half massage? How much, you ask? One hundred even. Well, to be honest, they knocked ten bucks off the bath because I was so sweet and special--so a hundred is what it would've cost normally. These women were kind and smiley, and the massage therapist (Heather)caressed my head after working over every aching inch of me, and I swear I felt like a regular rich girl.

Now I just feel...relaxed. For the first time in a long time, my eyes and face are soft, my feet are propped up, I could go to bed and sleep for hours: and all this without popping a single bottlecap.

"Lap of luxury" nothin'. I just reemerged from the womb.

Welcome to the Monkeyhouse

2007-09-06T13:57:00.001-05:00

Twice a week I long for some spectacular catastrophe--nothing short of a divine hand striking half of my Reformation class completely dumb. Why is it always the people who squeal when they speak that feel they have the most to contribute to the pre-session banter? I'd rather gnaw rope and fling poo. Does this make me more antisocial or neurotic? Snotty? Perhaps. I don't think there's any dignified way to behave in casual group settings. Me? Over here in the corner, clicking away on the shiny toy, hiding behind a screen and being a judgmental shithead--a total cliche.

Bastard lovechild

2007-08-31T14:12:00.001-05:00

I just like that phrase, and wouldn't know how to begin posting again after a lengthy hiatus. Hiatus: Isn't that Latin for "the state of having one's head stuck inside one's own arse"?

For those of you who aren't aware of this, I suffer more than anybody else. It's a fact. That justifies my tendency to feel so, so sorry for myself that I choke on hot baby tears.

I deleted a lot of the more negative posts on here, and I doubt that they'll be missed. Having saved them for my psychiatrist, I thought it best to just let all that garbage go, whether or not I feel better or that I have even gotten through the worst of it. Looking back, I don't doubt that something in my chemistry and brainwaves is responsible. And if it's any comfort to you (as it is to me), I'm going to be a good girl for awhile and take my psychotropic meds every day. Sexual side effects, bah. I'll take a functioning emotional life over an orgasm any day. Except Friday. Friday is orgasm day.

So, I'm back in school--still with the migraines, but a little less frequent than they were this summer. Just the same, when they hit, nothing helps. And I mean nothing. Well, sometimes sex helps a little bit, for a little while--endorphins are amazing little creatures. But needless to say, getting in the mood isn't easy when John Brown's ghost is busying himself driving railroad spikes into your occipital cavity. The worst part is getting advice from people who "get migraines too." They say Aspirin. They say Aleve. They say Advil and Excedrin and Hydrocodone, and before they say it, I'm ready with "tried it." It doesn't work. This shit is, so far, completely medicine-resistant, and some meds ('dones in particular, and other narcotics) make it even worse. Cold packs. Hot packs. Cold showers. Hot baths. Rest. Activity. Food. Nothing.

Anyway, aside from the headaches, I think I'm doing a bit better. Whether or not the worst of it is "out of my system" is yet to be determined. They told me exercise and diet, if I would try it, would cure my ills; but though I'm already past my quota, I need another load-o-those-magic-pills (TMBG).

I could really use more sex, though. Always.

In the meantime, at least I got my student loan check and a sweet-ass laptop (on my sweet-ass lap). Who wants to take me dildo-shopping???

Prologue and Disclaimer

2007-07-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

It's time. I've put this off for far too long, and I am starting to fear for my sanity (imagine that). I feel that I should include a disclaimer again, considering that maybe half a dozen people who actually know me can access this blog if and when they choose (although only a small handful of them leave comments or own up to their readership...you other folks may, I assume, have opinions best kept to yourselves). I suppose that I have the option of privatizing my entries, or limiting my readership to myself and my therapist, but that would to some extent defeat the purpose. This will be a confessional testament. It's a story I have to tell, whether or not other people will like it, and regardless of the opinions of me that may subsequently emerge. I told this story once--albeit the short version--in a bureaucratic, semi-legal context, and was at first encouraged, then ignored, then ostracized outright by the very individuals and systems which should have assisted and protected me. This is not necessarily a story you'll want to read. It's R-rated for psycho-drama, sex, drugs, adult themes, strong language, and some violence. And no, I'm not about to embark on some insane attempt at a full-length autobiography, whether or not I possess the necessary narcissism to do exactly that. I'm going to try my hand at a series of entries describing--with little to no explanation, justification, or embellishment of the facts--my two years in the dark. I know that my "flair for the dramatic," as someone recently described me (by proxy...so perhaps his source was misquoted), will occasionally emerge, but I hope to avoid, as often as possible, any overloaded language with regards to the events themselves. I originally thought that perhaps a synopsis--a sketch--with later visitations of the details would be more appropriate. I'm not sure, however, that the "short version" really does any justice to the tangled truth itself. Nonetheless, I'm worried that this will sound...what, like a bad Lifetime movie if I say too much. Enough stalling already. Geronimo.

As some of you may be well-aware, I spent my college years in the Donaghey Scholars Program--an insular little honors program, designed with brilliant, high-scoring humanities majors in mind (not to neglect the sciences, but when I entered the Program, it was geared more towards the humanities and emphasized writing and critical thinking skills over scientific research and so forth). Scholarships were given in groups of about twenty, with many of the students progressing through the program as a group (in the ideal state, a "tight-knit" group, although most of my fellow scholars were a constant irritant to me, and I to them). Classes were designed to supplement the university's core curriculum, and approached the disciplines through their formative ideas and histories. "Science and Society" (Darwin, Kuhn, etc...no lab work, really, mostly the philosophy and history of science). "Rhetoric and Communication" (a fucking joke for me. A sham-ass smorgasbord of "journalism," "communications" skills, and touchy-feely drum circle shite during class sessions). "Creative Arts" (theatre, art, music). "History of Ideas" (Eastern/Western philosophy survey courses). And last, but most importantly, "The Individual and Society." Most of these courses took two semesters, each semester emphasizing different aspects of the field of study. For instance, Individual and Society I was a political science course (mostly political theory, particularly as it pertained to Italian city-states), and boring as hell. Individual and Society II? Psychology and Sociology. Our story begins here, in Individual and Society II, during the second semester of my sophomore college year.

Strange urges

2007-06-04T10:04:00.000-05:00

I should be recording my impulses in this blog. I'd like to reread them months after I have them, and wonder what would have happened, and how everything that is then the future would be different, had I obeyed my own spontaneous desires--strange or subtle or insignificant as they might seem. These are the things I want to remember...the kind of things you miss if you don't listen closely to everything your mind does, and occasionally let yourself stop, grasp the tail of a thought that was just about to wiggle away, and say, "Wait. Let me look at you."

The really important things (the things that get you strange looks if you act on them), like the sudden, powerful impulse to stand up and walk into the next room and make steady eye contact with someone--a friend, a coworker, a stranger, whomever-- and just say "I love you," because you do, because in that moment you know it, and mean it, and know that it won't go away because it doesn't, this kind of love that is not romantic or platonic or situational or filial or erotic love...but something that flows outward from your center as the natural result of who you are. It matters just as much. The love that values everyone you have ever seen or spoken to, and those whose existence means absolutely nothing to you. Love which is pure gratitude that you exist, and an equally ecstatic joy that everything else exists at the same time, in the same space....the feeling that it is enough to be here or anywhere for however long, with whatever else, and to completely surrender to your own gratitude that life has happened to you and everyone and everything living or dead, forever. Love because it's there, inside and outside of you, like breath or blood--a force, a fuel--something living that must be passed on for its own survival, for the survival and existence of everything that ever matters or mattered or will matter. There is no "because" in this kind of love--the closest thing to a reason for loving would be "because we're here, at the same time, and we must, we must love each other now if we want anything to ever be good again."

I wish I could be the kind of hero who follows these impulses--the good ones--the ones that have the potential to rend the threadbare fabric of "reality," and leave a perfect portal through which substance and principle can pass...the ones that change everything in a second, for a second, and forever. I wish I had that kind of courage.

Allison's starting to happen

2007-05-28T16:34:00.000-05:00

Remember The Lemonheads, 90's music fans?

"This world is topsy-turvy,
and it is mine to eat.
She's a pebble in my mouth
And underneath my feet.
She's the puzzle piece behind the couch
that made the sky complete...
Allison's starting to happen.
Allison's starting to happen.
Allison's starting to happen to me...
...Allison's gettin' her tit pierced!
Allison's growin' a mohawk!
Allison's starting to happen...to me!"

I always loved that song, as well as The Pixies' "Allison," (from distant star to this here bar) and I just thought it would be appropriate to include some lyrics to songs with my name here at the beginning of my twenty-fifth year. The day before my birthday last Friday (the 25th), I went and did something I've been wanting to do for a really long time: I cut my hair short-short, and styled it in a wacky, eye-catching way. So now, not only do I have the convenience of a wash-and-wear haircut, but I also get to enjoy a different "look" altogether. That's right. Allison may not have her tits pierced, but she sure as hell is sporting a faux-hawk. And it's so invigorating in more ways than I could describe. It's fun. It's spunky. It perfectly reflects the inner shift I've felt over the last several months. I also enjoy dabbling in androgyny, although I don't exactly think that anyone could mistake me for any sex besides female. Who knows. Anyway, I'm in the middle of moving into a new spectacular place in my life, my looks, my love...this year will be a good year. I am absolutely sure of it. More on this subject later. For now, it's back to the moving grind.

Do you know what time it is?

2007-05-22T11:33:00.001-05:00

I'll tell you:
It's POODLE TIME! This is my Andre, a 2 year-old apricot standard poodle. He has the intuition of a mystic, the vocabulary of most five-year olds, and the body of a...hm....a fuzzy, long-legged...poofy...thingee.

You know him. You love him. You cannot fucking live without him. Andre. The Poodle.

.

I Heart Neil Swaab

2007-05-07T17:00:00.000-05:00

Requiem for a turd

2007-05-07T01:49:00.001-05:00

About the previous blog--I just realized something ironic and a bit embarrassing that I am not too big to confess:

"...nothing makes me gag harder than trying to swallow some hamfisted moral message with a sappy soundtrack backing it up."

This is bullshit. I'm a sucker for plotlines and characters, and have happily choked down MANY a craphappy morality tale as the result of empathizing with the characters or overidentifying with the film's plot or subtexts. That's what fiction does. It sucks me in--sometimes even the bad stuff.

I suppose that what really bothers me the most is when I know I'm being sold a product that some greasy Hollywood mogul recycled from some other successful flick and decided to fling at the groundlings this year. And I find myself especially resentful of said commodification when they (faceless whoevers, all of them fat-ass, silk-suit, steakeating rapists, as is well-documented by the cartoon that plays constantly inside my insomniac cerebrum) create some stale, garbage-pail catastrophe and market it as an art film with sullen celebrities who just went slumming for the folks who worship filth. See also: Closer, Vanilla Sky, V for Vendetta (and this is largely due to the total betrayal of Moore's text and the soppy revolutionary sentimentality throughout), and Requiem for a Dream.

My readers (and many others besides) just might hate me for slamming those films, especially the ever-revered Requiem (and I'm sorry, but "Requiem for an Anything" just oozes smarmy arthouse pretension in the worst way)...and I'd have to refrain from commenting very thoroughly on the film, because I won't do what a good critic would do--because I'm not a "good critic," just some schmuck who likes to bitch about shit as a pasttime-- and watch the film again. Strap me down Little Alex style and force me to view it again on the big screen with my eyelids peeled back and see if I don't spontaneously combust.

So, that's that, I suppose. My gift to you. A blog about a blog, the ultimate in narcissistic wordspew. All I'm saying is that I'm just as guilty as anyone for liking things that show little to no artistic merit. Just please, for the love of the sins someone died for, please don't make me watch some vapid crap about the oh-so-precious plight of the bourgeoisie and call it "a brutally honest insight into the downward spiral that is drug addiction." And they can keep their textbook descent into what the suburbs call "the underworld" while peeking through their fingers and masturbating their own captive boredom.

For the price of a Friday night film, I'll drive you to Orange Mound so you can hug a fucking junkie and see what happens.

Taste test

2007-05-07T01:48:00.000-05:00

*Reader Warning: 7/10 on the Pervert Richter. Filed under The Too-much Information Act*

Tastes change. I've noticed a change this year in the way I feel about many things...films, for instance. I'm just not as easily satisfied by your standard hokey plotline anymore. I've become a rather unforgiving critic, and I hate seeing loose ends flailing around in the plot, and nothing makes me gag harder than trying to swallow some hamfisted moral message with a sappy soundtrack backing it up. But that doesn't mean I haven't been able to find many films with which I've been quite content.

As far as my taste in drinks and food goes, that has changed substantially as well. I used to abhor pepper in all forms, and couldn't really handle anything spicier than a mild curry sauce. But I was out with L one night a few months back and tried a fresh jalapeno...and nothing has been the same since. I'm dousing my morning eggs with red savina puree and grinding peppercorn medley into everything I cook. Where liquor is concerned, I've come to prefer light whites (Riesling and Gewurtztraminer....where the hell are all the little accent marks in this format, anyway?) over your usual heavy cabs and so forth (though I'm still a sucker for Pinot Noir and some Petit Syrah). I don't like dark beer as much as I used to, and I can't fucking stand anything sweeter or more complicated than tequila or Jaeger. Besides, something about mixing sugar and alcohol does not bode well with me, and I often wind up fainting (not passing out, mind you...just a weird swoon brought on by blood sugar stuff) or feeling like shit after more than one sweet drink.

But that was all just foreplay to my main point. The thing is, my sexual interests seem to have evolved as well. I'm still a naughty little lustbucket 23 hours a day, and I still love...you know, all the things we all tend to love. Pleasure. I still masturbate myself awake a couple of times a week, and I still don't really get into sex toys. And as far as talking dirty goes, the more turned on I get the nastier my mouth gets until it's almost distracting...sometimes my L and I will wind up giggling in a sweaty heap just from something I've shouted or whispered in the heat of my climax. So that's still there, and I'll leave many other details as far as my sexual tastes up to the imagination. Everything is contextual, so what I want changes with my mood and the setting and the sort of day I've had, sure. But I used to really dig the rough stuff. Spanking and restraining and hair-tugging, name-calling, power roles and marks to explain at work that week, etcetera. Either role, dominant or submissive. But for some reason, that just doesn't do it for me anymore. It's not that I've tried it and stopped liking it, but more that it just doesn't seem to occur to me as an impulse or interest, at all. Maybe it's this relationship. The power balance is stable. We're peers. Neither of us could pretend otherwise. That, and our everyday sex is effortless, as well as the best ever, without any bells or whistles or electronic gadgets. But it's also just...me. I don't need the pain as much anymore, and the sudden, lashing violence (particularly the burden of all those props) itself just isn't as appealing. Who knows why. I'm trying not to think of it as good or bad, just indicative of change.

So I was startled this evening when L was playing his new Wii game (me spectating, procrastinating, gestating a paper I don't want to write), The Godfather: Black Hand Edition...and I found a new ::ahem:: interest I never knew I had, and one that I never had before. See, in this game (Wii fans, raise your nunchuks!), you kick ass, make threats, talk shit, and strangle people. The action command for strangulation is one of the most fucked-up things I've seen in a video game yet. I mean, the game itself is violent, sure--blood and shooting, blahblahblah. So, when you go to strangle someone, the wii remote vibrates gently as you spread the remotes, then squeeze, then shake them quickly, continuously downward while your victim's pulse grows louder and faster as you force him (or her) to the ground and eventually snap the neck with a crunch-pop sound. The first time I saw this, my face reddened and my jaw dropped. And then, wonder of wonders, I became aroused. I found myself....liking it. Hm. Interesting how tastes change. What'll come of this, who knows. I'm not saying anyone's going to find me naked with a noose around my neck, suspended over my toilet in an accidental masturbation death or anything. Don't worry. You'll find me in my bathtub drooling purple foam. (JOKE, okay?)

It's just, I don't know, interesting. I never thought of strangulation as exciting before, and suddenly I'm sitting here perving on a particularly violent Wii game. What the fuck?

Nice belt you got there.

Next week: Wedgies and ball gags! Who knew?

Giving up for Lent

2007-05-07T01:45:00.000-05:00

Why is it that I continually force myself to do things that I do not enjoy, just to see if I've changed my mind about them? Is it peer pressure? Am I really that convinced that, just because someone I respect enjoys these things, I should feel the same way? Or is it just that I'm always looking for something else to enjoy? Maybe there's a certain degree of pretension in it--that I don't want people to know that I don't like something because I'm afraid that I'm the one schmuck who can't see the Emperor's lovely new wardrobe. Regardless of the cause, here are some of those things I keep trying out, in spite of the fact that I KNOW already that they are just NOT to my taste:

1. Cadbury creme eggs. They just look sooooo good on the commercials, and the sound effect of the clucking bunny always made me extra crazy for a creme egg; there has to be subliminal advertising at work there (buckbuckbuckBUY!buckbuckbuckBUY!). Why is that a bad thing? Because I think they're nasty. Over and over, they are nasty.

2. Christianity. What an appropriate association to make: Creme eggs = Christianity. They're so alike for me. And in fact, I feel like the Cadbury bunny when I try to blend with Christian culture; it just plain isn't my bag. It's not how I think; it's not my worldview; it's not historically or factually accurate, and until a branch of Christianity is able to practice unconditional love and the same acceptance, tolerance, ethics, and wisdom that its central prophet so passionately advocated, then I'm going to stick to my own version of immortality--one that doesn't require me to define myself by which portion of the population I exclude from the privilege of eternal life. And don't even get me started on the concept of hell. If there is one, then the god who thought THAT shit up can just keep his followers and all the gruesome consequence of living a rational existence, rather than one based on senseless following of ancient, obsolete edicts.

3. Marriage.

4. Children.

5. See 3 and 4, and stop telling me I'll change my fucking mind.

6. Pot. Every time I get high these days, my lungs feel like someone is searing them on a grill, and then I simply feel generally uncomfortable with my own brain, my own skin, and my own surroundings for the next six hours. It kills pleasure.

7. Anal sex. Just wondering if you've read this far. Is she kidding? Who knows...

8. Birth control pills (note: PILLS! I'm on b.c. in the form that works for me) and brain candy. Fuck anything that manipulates my serotonin and my dopamine or makes my tits hurt constantly and sends me into hell-bitch mode every other day. Xanax? Okay, but only on special occasions.

9. Woody Allen. I watched another Woody Allen film the other night, and you know what I realized? I don't care if it DOES make me a bad intellectual or if it gets me flung off of the film buff wagon forever. I get tired of listening to that snivelly, neurotic cunt run his mouth incessantly. There is nothing cute about people who can't shut the fuck up.

That is all. Here are the things I give up on...

...at least for now.

Premature Ejaculations

2007-05-07T01:08:00.001-05:00

Verbal ejaculations, people. Verbal. God, it's disgusting what you just can't say without people thinking "sex".

But anyway, the "premature ejaculation" refers to a pretty exciting thing for me: My application was accepted by Suicidegirls! They like the photos I submitted (some of those appearing in my photos section on here were featured), and they want me to produce an actual SG-styled set. I have to come up with a name for myself, a "Suicide girl" name, and then I just have to come up with something professional in terms of a photo shoot. I'll probably submit several, and I don't doubt that I'll eventually come up with something they want to buy. I'm welcoming ideas for a name for myself, as well as some ideas (especially from anyone who is somewhat familiar with the gimmicks and styles of SG photo sets) for a context in which to shoot some interesting photos with a consistent theme and setting. The first set has to meet these guidelines:
"Start out clothed and end up fully nude, the outfit and setting should remain consistent throughout the entire set. Please be sure to include a variety of angles and poses so that there are enough photos to work with. You may not have anyone but yourself appear in your images.

Fully exposed breasts and bums are required. Spread and overtly sexual shots are in no way required in a set. Penetration is not accepted. Think 40s pin-up style shots or playful and cute nudity, not graphic sexuality. Nudity should begin in the first third of the set - for instance, if a set is 40 pictures long, nudity should begin around picture 11.

Any set submitted should be in color - we are currently not accepting any black and white sets."

One idea I've had so far is to title the set "Unstuck in Time" and try to do something with clocks, timepieces, and jeez, I don't know what for costuming. Should I be a Tralfamador? Dress up like a pilgrim? A German soldier, maybe. Ooooh. Or a Jew! Wynn, this would be the perfect opportunity for us to use "The Diary of Anne Spank" idea. "Concentration Tramp"! This no longer has anything to do with Kurt Vonnegut, but that's okay. It's brainstorming. As far as a name goes, I don't want nothin' cheesy or Emo, but still welcome suggestions. I thought about Karenina, Dubois, Nocturne, Viola, Titania, and Epiphany. That's all I've generated so far. They have to be a little pretentious, or at least eye-catching. Tits and ass will only get you so far without a cunning linguistic package when you're a pinup girl on an intellectual smut site.

A pinup girl. That'll be me soon. I'm gonna be a suicide girl. Just you wait and see. Or don't see, if that's not your bag. But I'm excited.

Eater of broken meats

2007-05-07T01:07:00.000-05:00

This is ridiculous. It's nearly one in the morning, which means it's technically the day before my paper is due. The day before. I have written one page, an intro. I'm sitting on something really spectacular (and no, not just my sweet luscious ass and juicy reproductive organ) in terms of a thesis, and it's going to be stillborn because I just can't pull my shit together. I feel like an intellectual cripple, but somehow less sympathetic than a "real" cripple (I think they prefer the term "gimpily disabled") because it's entirely my fault. School has tightened the noose around my will somehow, and I feel utterly incapable of doing anything except bitching about how I can't do anything but bitch about how I can't do anything. AAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!

Now I sit me down to write,
I've wasted the entire night;
And all I want is sex and sleep:
Procrastination's price is steep.

Saving sex from censors' scissors

2007-05-07T01:06:00.000-05:00

ttp://www.myppmc.com/Books%20-%20Pornogrphic%20Sch.%20Library%20Pictures.htm

Yet again, libraries are under attack for attempting to educate children without a Christian agenda. I stumbled across this material today while trying to research my presentation for tomorrow, and I could not help but submit my own letter to the editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. While I don't expect it to appear ("democrat"-gazette my ass), I thought that I would publish it myself, right here on Narcissistic Nutjobs Not-so-Anonymous.

The link above is a link to the "controversy" and the petition to remove sex-ed books from shelves in Fayetteville schools. The following is my letter of response (keep in mind that I was working under a word limit):

While I encourage parents to involve themselves in the education of their children, I am disturbed to see the vehemence with which Laurie Taylor and many others have attacked Arkansas school libraries, alleging that these libraries provide "vulgar" books and pornography to children. These books are educational, not titillating. The central message of these books is that sexual pleasure and perversion are not synonymous, and that children should not feel guilty for feeling or fulfilling normal sexual impulses. Since when did sex become inherently perverted? Since when did Farenheit 451 become our national reality? Since when did it become the school library's responsibility to LIMIT educational resources? Parents, stop expecting society to raise your children for you. If you want to restrict your child's emotional and intellectual growth, do it on your own time and stop demanding that your libraries and legislators take on your responsibility.

Nostalgia

2006-04-25T16:21:00.000-05:00

Summer is the season for nostalgia. I've decided this, considering that the melancholy memories have been flowing in like white-capped waves over the last few weeks. It's strange, but winter seems to be the time for dreaming and diving into imaginative realms, whereas the warming weather sends me straight back into the unreality of my childhood; everyone's childhood is stranger than fiction. Proustian visions call for italics.

There are some nameless lakes left in the world. I grew up in, on, beside, around, and with a nameless lake--nameless because no one ever questioned to which body of water you referred when you said "the lake." My lake. Our lake. Green, pasture-rimmed well of the souls surrounding.

My first house was wooden, unfinished; Mom was squatted, hammering on it the day I was born. Unmatched carpet squares overlaid on strange, rough flooring. Small knotholes through which one could peep from one side of the stairwell, clear through a parallel knothole and into the closet under the stairs (sometime home of the spastic yorkie puppy). Skylight above the stairway, sunshine streaming against dark wooden planks--scent of varnish everywhere. Fresh. Bunk beds in the far corner bedroom--mine on top, rainbow brite sheets and a mickey mouse nightlight. Stomach virus, vomit in my brother's hair--him sleeping through the shower that rinsed it out. "I need to hear a story" "I had another nightmare."I need a drink of water."Snoring sounds like monsters."

Abundant blueberry bushes ten yards from the back porch shrouded in woods. Large orchard sloping down into flat pasture and garden. High Lombardi poplars leaning like feathery fingers out over the road beside the orchard, which is filled with plum trees, pear trees, crabapples (stomach cramps and flinging fights), peaches. Across the orchard from the dark wooden house is another house, this one stone, and again built foundation to sky by my father, grandfather, mother, grandmother, and half-uncle. Raw stone, mortared together--still a phenomenon to me. Still standing. Still in the family--the uncle. Deaf, cruelty waning with loneliness, longing for absolution. Abuser.

And it is around this stone house, raised before I was born, that the soil is blackest--the grass still thick and green, dandelions along the white, cream, and brown-speckled gravel driveway (long and winding, flattening into peagravel concrete and sloping down sharply just above the lower level of pasture and garden which separate wood from stone homes). Maternal grandmother Nell, Nanny, straw hat, dark hair, Indian owl eyes, thin white Tshirt, skinny brown legs, denim shorts, red-handled scissors, on her knees next to the driveway, snipping the grass and flowers even (mower so imprecise).

And now the lake. Always the lake. Forever this lake inside me. The lined leaning poplars protecting it from time, leafy blades slicing away the time that ventures too near. Still, green water--edged nervously by flipping brim, speaking in gulps through the breaking bass. Carrying the sound of four to six cows (first the blacks, as stupid and kind as cows can be; then the browns and whites, sweet but smarter, one pearl-white calf--afterbirth spilled like a gigantic Cadbury egg across sharp gray rocks, what a smell in the sunshine...sex and rot), carrying the Canada geese across a season and into the winter wheat to graze on the lake's far shore, carrying the green steel john boat, carrying the dead kitten, neck broken, nose bleeding, carrying the memories that teem and surge below the silent surface.

Fishing alone. Swimming together. Swimming with abandoned yellow tufts of gosling trailing circles behind me, climbing my shoulders for occasional rest. Fishing with father. Fishing with friends. Catfish on crayola-colored jugs, bobbing and captured, still owning the deep water, sharks. Slimy. Unclean.

Four long curves in the lake, one half in narrow, shallow shade below the oaks, hickorys, a single sycamore. Deep, it was deep, with cold pockets grasping your thighs and breath as you bobbed along the surface beside the fishing pier. Cold deep. Turtles with crocodile jaws, parrot beaks, log-snappers, monsters. Giants. Well-mannered cottonmouths lurk, slink, hide their darkness among the wet twigs floating.

This is enough for tonight. I feel the flow ebbing, though I don't think I could've stopped it till now. This is the water in my mind, always lapping.

Accidental angst

2005-11-25T13:58:00.000-06:00

I am lying in my bed five flights up, and my day, which nothing interrupts, is like a clock-face without hands. As something that has been lost for a long time reappears one morning in its old place, safe and sound, almost newer than when it vanished, just as if someone had been taking care of it---: so, here and there on my blanket, lost feelings out of my childhood lie and are like new. All the lost fears are here again.
I prayed to rediscover my childhood, and it has come back, and I feel that it is just as difficult as it used to be, and that growing older has served no purpose at all.
Rilke: [Fears]

Something from which I've been shrinking for weeks has arrived: a silence. Stillness. It's time to lie down, curl up, and nurse wounds. Quietly, like animals lie when they need to heal. Weeping the way some pray--without announcement or ceremony, choking on emotion. Language sticks in the clicking gap between my heart and throat. This anguish has nothing to do with anything because it is everything--all emotions, my own and those I've borrowed from friends and lovers and music across time.

I can hear people calling, asking "What's wrong?" And I'll say "nothing. Nothing." Over and over. Slack-jawed. Nothing but echoes of nothing. "Nothing will come of nothing, speak again."

Starbuck

2005-09-10T14:26:00.000-05:00

Another death, following others, falling forward into more death, until this great change is the only thing existing and surrounding and saturating our senses. Starbuck Stiles was a dear friend, a generous person, an adoring father, and a brilliant doctor--a healer in the oldest archetypal sense. Odd that I should so suddenly realize that I loved him; almost comical to think that I'll never see him again. That power of certainty lies only in a death: about what else can we ever say "never"? I do still feel him, though, and all of the years I knew him add up to one mysterious void--a kaleidoscope of questions and images, scents and voices...my mind flashes to the dry soundless wind of Mesa Verde; this is what death feels like to those still living.

Workhorse

2005-04-16T14:02:00.000-05:00

Another day in the country; friends all seem too busy to play. I should be busier, in fact, at this very moment, and yet instead seem to keep finding ways of distracting myself from this pressing paper deadline. One Adderall later, I'd be finished with flying colors. Tense, sore shoulders aching inside AND out (many thanks for the sympathy at work, Dave) from sunburn, weed-pulling, blower-toting, and grass-mowing. Fuck the shit-ass, bourgeois, concrete sanctuary that calls itself the Little Rock Athletic Club. I can't even get a massage for this sticky red mess of skin on my back.

There. Now that a little steam is blowing off the surface of these waters, I can say something worthwhile. Well, on second thought, nevermind. I'm still waiting for the moment at which I have "something worthwhile" to say to materialize from the primeval soup of my cerebrum. If and when that ever happens, maybe I'll get something published. Until then, I've resigned myself to continue my rather numb infatuation with the institutions of learning in Arkansas. Big fish small pond syndrome? Maybe. But that in itself is still just an arrogant laziness. Speaking of which, I was accepted to the grad program at the U of A in Fayetteville...notified that I'm at the "very top" of the list, whatever that means...especially since I can't be at the "top" of the list, because my GRE scores arrived after the deadline. I think that what the director of grad studies is saying is that as soon as a grad assistantship opens, I'll be the first on the "wait" list to receive it. Until then, I'm sort of biting my toenails in suspense. Of course I want this, but it still isn't good enough. Why the pressure? I wonder if it has anything to do with my colleague's instantaneous recognition...I feel bested. Silly as it may be, what I wanted isn't good enough since there's something better out there. What the fuck kind of egomaniacal bullshit is that steeped in? Issues, issues. Second place, second best, is almost worse than last. How single-minded of me. Somebody grab a bamboo stick; this bitch needs a beating!

Anyway, it's nice to know that the planning I've been doing about grad school hasn't been in vain. Now all I have to do is get up there and bust my ass and bash my brain to bits for twenty hours a day. Maybe I'm just not ready to be humbled like that...set up in front of a classroom and placed behind a podium (pedestal?) in order to be knocked back down. I don't want the recognition in the first place...just a track for my own train of thought to keep chugging along. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

I think I may be a bit down today. No sense in flogging this dead horse any longer.

Mania

2005-03-30T14:08:00.000-06:00

Been hearing Henry Mancini all evening; beautiful melody on loop in my head.

Feeling a little fragmented, but not in a bad way. Sushi-shopping for supper. Insects galore congregating on the screen. I still haven't showered (dirtylittlebitch); sometimes postponing it is fun, just to test how long I can stand it and enjoy that hot steaming release as the surface tension eases...tonight would be a good night for a pedicure and an apricot-oil rubdown. Charlie Chaplin films, Xanax (courtesy of my fabulous cohort; i.e. partner in crime), sex, sushi...hmm...what am I forgetting...? Soft, snuggly thigh pillows.

Been craving more poetry lately...want to read it aloud, but preferably to an audience. Becoming sensitive to a strange mix of my own desire to share myself (physically, emotionally, spiritually, creatively) and be open. But a shy sort of hesitance (like that shown me by the shepherd at work today...Beautiful golden eyes, fixed but mistrustful...an urge to play and a fear of being touched. I still insist that there are few feelings in the world that beat earning the trust of a shy or wild animal. Before I left that yard, he had let me scratch his back and offered me three kisses--one on the eye, one on the cheek, and one on the lips. Soft and somewhat bashful, but it sent me soaring.) keeps me back on my heels. I want to sing and whistle and dance...spread joy carelessly. I like reading aloud to a willing partner, but I'm always afraid of exposure...if I read something to someone and they appreciate it, the day is never wasted.

Maybe I'll just keep e.e.cummings in my bag at all times. Shout it from my car downtown! I resolve to start playing in more public water fountains and singing aloud on my bicycle. Mm. Yes.

Primeval equinox

2005-03-27T14:12:00.000-06:00

My work is interrupted as swiftly as it is begun. Struggling with the epistemology of modernist fiction and philosophy, head buried in piles of paper, I glanced up at a motion in the pale sky. Ten large white shapes against the gray--a rhythm in flux between complete stillness and the fluid, metered sweeps of wings. The last time I glimpsed these birds they were gliding South, smooth as swimmers. Now I see them heralding the spring in, impervious to this belligerent frigidity and dampness. These could be the same birds I saw last fall; no way of knowing...to me, in my perception, they are the same birds because they represent the same thing. Such control and measured endurance as to pull me to my feet and urge me to throw open the door and watch them until they disappear. An ancient desire to join them is pierced by the painful, penultimate reality that my feet and legs are as roots in the soil. But they travel on, compelled by the beat of their own wings and some soft rhythm in the cosmos--so strong a vibration that each tissue thrills. My ears are numb; nonetheless my lungs, heart, and groin all feel the same pull. Gravity. Rotation. Deep forces urge us to flock and breed...in the springtime, I am bent further--though gently--towards my own animal nature. Violence, lust, and maternal tenderness all stir under the insistence of the warming sun. My form pleads for music, sex, song, wine, and dance...an urge to hedonistic indulgence in the ease of natural pleasures. Easter Sunday, and pagan surges of electrical strength send sparks from my scalp and fingers. Crushed by ecstasy--death and life dissolving into one perpetual resurrection. Amen.

Putting the "vent" in "adventure"

2005-03-09T14:13:00.001-06:00

Heading up to Fayetteville to house-shop a bit this weekend...told myself I'd spend the spare time I have today working on my final project paper. I'll get to it when I finish this. Feeling all shitty, sick, and feverish today...did some yoga just to get the blood flowing in my hands again. It's going to take a near-miracle to inspire something worthy of my three committee members' time.

Went out to Juanita's last Saturday night; J had intended to come along and then abandoned the rest of us at the last minute, leaving me to snuggle up to a series of beers, shots and a fun-loving dance partner. Still, things just aren't the same when I look single to all the hungry eyes out there. It's weird how exposed and dirty I start feeling in the midst of the Little Rock meat-market scene. While I know it's just me and my social angst, something just shudders at the notion of a seething, breeding group of preppy VD-carriers all trying to look equally attractive and cool to members of either sex. If I'm gonna blend, I gotta get me some high-heeled shoes, a home-tanning bed, a rape-apron (ladies, they're the shirts cut off above the belly with a wide-open back), and add about another half-pound to each titty. Jeez. The only woman I'd have taken home with me, if I was a guy on the prowl, was a good friend, already dancing all sweetly with her beautiful breasts against my back. But we couldn't even just enjoy the music and one another's rhythms without getting drooled all over by the local yokels.

Starting to feel like a total stiff; either me or this town is in desperate need of a big, juicy, fun-enema. Aside from the friends that came with me, (whose company is always enjoyable whether we're in, out, or smoking ourselves retarded somewhere in-between) I just wasn't impressed with the barflies. The images of the crowd that stand out the most prominently in my mind are those of the burned-out bartender, silently slopping out drinks to the minions, the bouncer cradling his head in his hands from exhaustion when he thought no one was looking, and the greasy-fried rednecks oggling whatever slice of pie sidled past with an air of inaccessibility. A scene all-too accessible on a Saturday night. Next time we should just wander around on the golf course with a couple of blankets, some wine, and a big tasty doob.

Right now, I'm totally open to suggestions about the nightlife here...because at the moment, I'm beginning to understand why David Cross continues to diss us as a metropolis. Then again, maybe I just need to stick to dinner, a movie, and an occasional outing to a good concert. Till then I'll be satisfied just to finish this damned paper before spring break.

In sickness and in...ugh.

2005-03-09T14:13:00.000-06:00

Obviously, something was snapping the last time I made an entry. Whether it has snapped, is snapping, or will snap, I'm nonetheless doing everything in my power (which unfortunately wanes as the pain lingers and shoots through a new nerve center every day) to function. Speech therapy may be in order if my communicative abilities continue to degenerate at this pace. I'm in flux somewhere between severe depression and total fatigue. Itching in my throat and ears; whatever germ I'm fighting will take its first chance to leap into my chest and make some mucus there. I know better than to expect immediate results from meditation and other self-care, but DAMMIT! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME???? Everything hurts. No energy. And I have this strange intuitive sense that something "bigger" is responsible. Who knows. All I know is that my pleasure, well-bring, physical health, and motivation are just bottoming out. My wit, written or spoken, has become practically nonexistent. Ready for spring, come hell, high water, or global warming.

2005-03-07T14:04:00.000-06:00

"The sea, it swims like a sore head
and the night is aching;
two lovers lie with no sheets on their bed,
and the day it is breaking..."

Angry with everything. Wishing for lightning, anything, to split the sky and just set the chaos loose--take it out of my head.

Fucking Monday. Struggled all day to keep these emotions under, and now once I'm finally home they all break and slap the surface like so many cold waves of tension. Why now? Safer not to pretend I'm okay, once I'm away from people I may like, but in front of whom I cannot cry. Everything is turning inward, including destructive urges.

"Did I disappoint you? Leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love,
and you want me to go without..."

Psychotic pervert. Villain. Professor. Professed Mentor. Professional Tormentor.

"LOVE IS A TEMPLE, LOVE THE HIGHER LAW!
You ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl."

Blood in the tips of my fingers, between my temples, on my tongue where I chew it...furious, roaring, and ultimately powerless. Fuck this fucking feeling. Fuck it. Write it out. Ride it out. Slap of a snare drum steady in my chest.

Cigarettes, beer, xanax...shoot up smack, poison as antidote. Why take responsibility for our feelings? Who wants to? Drown...drown...drown.

"A vampire, or a victim;
it depends on who's around."

Let it out! Kill the beast! Take up arms against the terrorists! I feel this tidal flood of panic and hate rushing and eddying outside, licking my doorstep and windowsills...promising to pull me into its undertow if I don't swim with the stream. Manic waves of fear and loathing. And why?

"Well, it's all in your mind...it's all in your mind..."

one love. one. blood.

taken. given. burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail, poisoned in the bushes and blown out on the trail.

Tell me something. Tell me one thing. How much is a woman supposed to take? Tell me. How much?

"All she can. All she can."

Why? Why? Why? Why?

Brightwaters, ho!

2004-05-14T14:23:00.000-05:00

Whew. Well. Typing at a new desk with my forearms completely outstretched...relaxed on the smooth, light oak. Scully is still panting from her close call with the vacuum cleaner--this place is entirely carpeted...it's nice in a way, but shit, if I wore my shoes in the house, it'd be filthy constantly.

It's lookin' kinda spiffy in the new place...I love being home now, instead of itching to get out from under the blazing demented eye of Dr. Sauron. I bought some red wine last night and there's still a bottle and a half of that left (well, as far as evening drinking potential goes, call it a bottle, cuz I'm going to finish the "half" before much longer). I've just been hanging out reading and keeping my fingers crossed for a day job (and I've even gotten out and applied a bit, as well...finger-crossing will only get you so far with the job fairy) to save me from more restaraunt work. After awhile, the things that you say to people become so garbled and generic that you show up at a table and spew something to the tune of "How are you drinks tonight?" or "My name is Allison and I'll be your appetizer...can I interest you in one of our hot servers this evening?" until your entire conscious communication becomes one giant mad lib.

My neighbors, of course, are strange. Not unpleasantly so, but as strange to me as I must seem to them. People are strange. The expectations that come with being a single female never cease to amaze me. The desperation in Arkansas is as thick as the summer air.

Not that I really expected this entry to go anywhere, but at any rate, I'm back. Internet access, new computer desk, and hopefully, in about one hour, new job.

I'm still working on my final project, and so should probably get to work on that. That's how it always goes; we get in a hurry and lose our balance ever so slightly, and something fucking blindsides you. Like, for example, a state trooper who informs you (and your three trembling, plastered, beer-stinking friends in the backseat) that you were doing thirty over when you ran that invisible stop sign, and now he wants you to jump up and down on his flashlight. God, I'm glad we hadn't been getting high.

Timeline

2004-04-29T14:26:00.000-05:00

The timeline of my life is littered with unfinished books.

That line--or something similar, if simper-- struck me as I was walking to the car with cardboard boxes tonight. I think it's going to be the beginning of something; personal essay, maybe, about not finishing books.

Last night here. Wynn's helping. Lots of boxes, lots of stuff. Wondering how much of it I should just chunk.

Smoked a bit; it feels better to medicate, though I don't exactly feel any sharper...it took Wynn and I about five minutes to get out of the car at the liquor store. Watched Wynn fumble with the handle, snapping it back and forth until he finally got the door open, and then bounced back and forth myself between walking towards POpaTop, realizing that the window was still open, rolling it up, heading back towards the store confidently--forgetting to lock the door, returning, opening the door, locking it, shutting it, continuing.

Mmm. Pot.

Stifft Station Days (2004)

2004-04-24T13:29:00.000-05:00

When we look back at it all, as I know we will--you and me, wide-eyed--I wonder, will we really remember how it feels to be this alive? And I know we have to go, I realize we only get to stay so long....always have to go back to real life, where we belong.

Real Life is six days away. Real Rent, Real Job, Real Responsibilities. Real Bullshit.

I've been living here in the Treehouse for one year and almost three months now, which was time enough. I'm typing this in the southwest corner of this small, steepled carriage house at 116 1/2 Johnson Street in Stifft Station--the ceiling is dripping fat raindrops onto a towel I've wedged strategically between the computer and the wall. The mulberry tree outside is beginning to fill out in gnarled and spiny fruits, which may be edible before Friday, my moving day. If they are, I'm bagging some up and taking them with me. It's not so much that they're particularly tasty fruits as it is that the act of picking fruit from a tree in your backyard just feels...good.

I've been wanting to reread the "Time Passes" section of To the Lighthouse, but am almost afraid of what I'll read there. Staring out the tall, rickety window into the city blackness last night, I realized that this is about to become my life. Day in and out, working and doing duties and making money and balancing budgets and applying for things and getting turned down and trying and failing and, shit, that water is dripping on the desk now. If I get electrocuted I want it to be a little more poetic than that, thank you. Still, I would've gone while writing about the banality of my impending transition into the "adult world". That has to count for something...

Thinking of starting an advice column in the UALR paper called "Ask Charon"...questions about dealing with death, loss, and other inevitabilities. But I doubt that I'll follow up on that. Still, I'm hoping that one thing on which I WILL follow up is keeping up with this journal. So far, I've not given out the URL to anyone, which should keep me from typing with others in mind. That's one of the problems I've had in journalizing (what an awkward word. Damned Rhetoric and Communications course--shudder) previously: integrity. I wind up pooping out weak entries of little substance that always sound forced. But when I think about it, writing is almost always going to be as futile as anything else at "capturing" whatever it is we try to capture. Like moments, all writing goes by one word at a time, no matter how quickly you read or think ("once a page is read, all but love is dead"). You can read the same sentence a hundred times, but will it really be reborn, or just regurgitated? I could publish something every year of my life, and it won't expand my mortal self, nor diminish my immortality any further.

So why do I want to write? Because it feels good. I could compare writing to oral sex (giving OR receiving): the idea isn't always appealing, and the act can be laborious at times, but if you don't THINK too much while you're doing it, the process itself (from any angle) is as extraordinary and pleasing as the eventual release.

I suppose that the time has come to stand up, stretch, shower and struggle to shave my legs without slipping or taking ANOTHER slice out of my leg (four weeks and it's still a pretty ugly cut--bled for three days...). Then to work, sloshing around cylinders full of poison and meeting desperate eyes as empty at the end of the night as the glasses into which they dip and drown.

Once more into the breach, dear friends.