glitterati

You're a bastard for this.

Honestly, I'm not too terribly keen on some of the writing I've done in here for the last few years, it's vague or bitchy, or idealistic without backup, or just boring. It seems almost like after I had Athena I focused less on working hard at anything creatively. I won't say I gave up, but I definitely half-assed most of my projects.

so. less of that, eh?

I wish it were still summer, with the water and gravity and the sun holding me again so perfectly.

I am one month and 17 days in Rhode Island longer. I've packed my books, and most of my time has been dedicated to reading, absolving, listening, memorizing, reconciling.
I used to write on livejournal inconsistently and loyally, occasionally deleting it as things changed, as i changed and as I moved on, moved back, our progression I've recently realized is a waltz (and, love is not a victory march, as we know).

I am landscaping and farming through the winter, grateful for the opportunity to grow things and shape things with my hands that will rise and fade with seasons, it's a good lesson in letting go and giving up the product in place of passionate work. I am always learning, I am always a student, I am the best at forgiving myself and others more than anything these days. I love, much more unconditionally than I ever have. I am just so incredibly grateful that it's hard to stay bitter about anything. You are all so inspiring and so important to me.

I feel stable, within the chaos, and I feel like I've found what I need to do with my life, what my constant callings have pulled together for me over many years. I'm grateful also for this.

I know I will return to a place that's changed, I have no idea how, yet. But this is the 2nd autumn I really fell in love with the leaves.

(Min. You know, I think, but I love you, too. Please keep being kind to yourself. I am so happy for you.)

we are denied nothing. we only deny ourselves.

So Chris and Jess are coming home today. I talked to them last night and they told me they were in a seedy motel, leaving today, taking the long way home.
Last night was the first time Chris called me all week, and the first thing he did was jokingly insult me, I'll never get used to his pseudo-abusive humor. Maybe it's a New England thing. Maybe I'm too damned serious. Maybe he's a fucking Jerk. Who can know these things?..

More unsettling than my two primary lovers being on a week-long road trip without me is realizing how little I missed them, how relieved of their company I felt. It felt like fresh air. I was fine alone.

I didn't expect to feel this way, I care about both of them, have lots of sex with both of them. We talk a lot about shared ideals and adventures, we sometimes make food for and with eachother. We text eachother goodnight.

After spending this week around people I feel so naturally comfortable with (Nik, Dan, Penny, Ant, Minnnnnnnn) My relationship in comparison feels forced. Because it's a new paradigm? Because we're unlearning lifetimes of differently structured relationships? Or because it just plain doesn't fit? I can't tell. But what I discovered in my time away from them was this:

I'm not in love with Chris anymore.
I don't know if I could ever love Jess, as amazing as she is, and I don't know if she could ever love me.

I'm pissed that Chris called Athena once the whole week and talked to her for less than 30 seconds.
I'm disappointed that he has no problem with me taking her for 5 months this winter when I gave him a choice to spend time with her, not wanting the time lapse to be so painful.
I'm disappointed that he takes me for granted. Still.
I'm disappointed also that Jess puts inorganic effort into our relationship on the basis of rules, date nights and goodnight texts, and her desire to work within this alternative structure for a relationship still makes it, unfortunately, a structure, which I can't stand.
I'm disappointed because i know that Jess hasn't been honest with me about the way that she feels, because she's wonderful, and I want her to be happy. Genuinely.

But what keeps going through my mind is
this doesn't fit.
this doesn't fit.

and not knowing if my expectations are just too much, if I need to get out or just have space.

I don't want to discard everything positive in my relationships with either of them, they just don't get me,
and it's that they pretend to that makes me feel worse.

If we were brave or reckless enough for it, our despair could afford us supernatural powers. Imagine being able to act without fear of the reprecussions, to choose the unknown over the intolerably familiar, to withdraw from unhealthy obligations and relationships the moment you recognize them for what they are. It takes a ruthless mercy to discard sentimentality and remember all the things that never happened and still might happen, all the dreams that never came true - to acknowledge that we can't wait forever, there's not enough time for that.
Let the past go. All the old battles you've been fighting all your denial and defense mechanisms, all the addictions and inertia you've accumulated and all the fears that bind you to them. This is going to be the hardest thing you ever live through - but let them go, let them die, have courage through the silent moments in the void as you wait, trembling, for your new life to be born. It will be.

When your friends misunderstand your works and your enemies understand them all too well, when waking up feels like a defeat rather than a triumph, when the razor blade or the cliff's edge beckons, remember - death is not pretty, only well advertised. Remember what they did to Michaelangelo, waiting until he was buried to paint over all his masterpieces - just as the racist sister Neitzsche hated presented him to the world as a champion of her own cause after he lost his sanity - just as Paul did to Jesus, and Plato to Socrates, and the communists used Durriti. The dead cannot defend themselves.
Give your enemies nothing. Let your tears freeze to stones we can hurl into catapults. Write your own epitaph and shout it aloud.

If you're fighting, you've already won.

The year of the rat, the damned earth rat, is finished. I thought this year would never end, now that it has I've felt different (Is it just psychosomatic? I have no idea.)

After the separation I went into (I refuse to say Ill advised...) bouts of drinking, transformation, dynamic (as opposed to static) decision-making, sex with men I didn't trust, school, etc. I was day-to-day by default and feel as though im waking up from a nap that lasted 2 days and was full of chaotic dreams that made it feel like years.

Mind you I'm not dismissing this year as a loss or a mistake, I made a lot of ballsy moves this year, including quitting a well-paying job that I was good at because I felt that it was oppressing others, and going to school for a craft I am completely passionate about despite having neither the money or time to devote to it easily. I felt love this year and because of it felt real loss, I honed a lot of my instincts by getting myself into dangerous situations and relationships that I had to shimmy my way out of. I abandoned my car to the dogs and quit my obsessive/narcissistic SNS pages.

Traditionally, the year of the earth rat is about rooting and stability, maybe this kind of speeding around non-stop and exorcism of experience is the grounding I needed, like syrup of ipecac for the soul (Oh, here come the rights to a book series!).

speaking of which-

Had a virus that lasted a few days and made my skin shake and sweat from either bad liquor, bad pot or a year of bad habits finally catching up with me. Looking for: a violin, good stationary, an airlock, good pie recipes, working sewing machine.

feel exuberantly happy, alive, alive. not badass. not cynical. just glad to have made it through this shit and stoked as hell at the love and support that's somehow still got my back.

I love ya'll. really.
I know I'm crazy and usually busy and sometimes don't answer my phone.
Please don't doubt that I will still feed you pie in your darkest hour. <3




If we could realize that the work is to keep doing the work, we would be much more fierce and much more peaceful.-CPEPHd

Drinking last night at the e&o - too many people starved for contact yet shying away from it, so they crowd themselves in this tiny bar and pretend they don't wanna be touched. Please.

This town in winter makes me hungry for kindness and the almost disarming affection shown by strangers on the west coast, and it makes me feel like an odd bird here.

If I live here I really need to believe in Providence as a kind city, damn our culture and it's influence over our communities and our friendships.

lets all be warmer at least until this winter dies and the earth starts giving us back it's own.

1. quit smoking(11/19/09)
2. go to new orleans amazing! beautiful!!
3. put out a book of prose, good, edited properly and something I’d read
4. brew my own wine (it was mead, but who cares, it was delicious!)
5. make a successful compost
6. do the dead warrior women series
7. go to iceland
8. learn how to speak spanish (relearning!)
9. pay off my debt
10. find alternative learning community for athena
11. move into a low-rent anarchist-positive living environment
12. re-learn violin (relearning!)
13. be able to perform a bellydancing routine I choreograph myself
14. make some of my own clothes
15. play on a kickball team
16. read all of my massage books from start to finish
17. volunteer for the sexual assault trauma resource center
18. play violin in a performance piece
19. be current on my utility and rent bills
20. have at least $1000 saved for emergency
21. have the skills to survive in the wilderness with only the clothes on my back and a hunting knife for 10 days
22. go to the wilderness for 10 days
23. start a bellydancing troupe
24. teach athena Spanish
25. design a visual piece of art that is perfectly symetrical
26. see godspeed you black emperor live
27. learn how to make lithographs
28. build the foundation for a community learning center that is free to the public in providence
29. have a regular meditation practice
30. take an extensive herbalism class
31. complete a group therapy class for adult victims of sexual abuse
32. work out and become wicked strong
33. do a frank frazetta warrior woman photo shoot with friends
34. host a party in an abandoned warehouse that doesn't get busted by the police
35. set a car on fire
36. go to chicago
37. remember all my friends birthdays and make them cards
38. send thank you cards
39. make a rug
40. work on the garden this summer
41. buy a hookah and learn how to soak tobacco
42. stay true to my word
43. don't talk shit about anyone for at least 1 month
44. have most of my basic needs come from barter instead of money (food, clothes, daycare)
45. get a good bike (alas, it was stolen. so new bike!)
46. learn how to live without a car
47. throw cell phone in the garbage, not get a new one
48. leave anonymous poetry in public places
49. go hang-gliding
50. go skinny dipping with good friends at least a handful more times
51. make my bed everyday (most days)
52. fall in love with someone completely and without cynicism
53. learn how to shoot a gun properly
54. make my own bellydancing costumes
55. have an art show
56. write a series of short stories about (....?)
57. meet someone on the internet that lives halfway across the world
58. meet them in person
59. kiss them
60. read the concise oxford english dictionary
61. memorize a speech from a shakespearian play
62. read a book start to finish from the following:
a. franz kafka
b. frederiech nietzche
c. karl jung
d. d.h. lawrence
e. gertrude stein
63. love my body totally
64. wear feathers more
65. do the one-night-zine project
66. go to a protest in new york that erupts in chaos
67. get at least 2 good scars
68. learn how to dance a spanish dance
69. teach athena how to make her own clothes
70. get better at calligraphy
71. be less awkward around people
72. make at least 3 bras that fit well
73. build a piece of furniture
74. see gogol bordello live
75. play poker in a shady backroom while smoking a cigar
76. make a woman feel completely beautiful in her skin
77. learn how to fix bikes
78. get involved in the alternative learning/anti-standardized schooling movement, or create one
79. completely decorate a street over time and with stealth in subtle beautiful ways
80. read john seyemore’s guide to a self sufficient life and how to live it
81. read scott kellog’s toolbox for sustainable city living
82. go to spain
83. eradicate jealousy from my life
84. get a spontaneous tattoo(01/04/09)
85. learn how to concentrate my energy
86. re-learn the thriller dance
87. learn the west side story knife fight dance
88. be in comfortable silence with someone for one hour
89. teach athena how to make green apple curry
90. get acupuncture
91. knit a sweater
92. be kissed by someone first
93. give myself a tattoo
94. make another art of asha board w/pieces
95. re-learn how to play art of asha
96. get comfortable enough with my tarot cards that I don’t feel the need to yell at them (I had the wrong deck!)
97. see beirut live
98. know what all the muscles in the body feel like
99. take nothing but polaroid pictures for 4 months
100. meet my spirit animal while on mushrooms
101. choose idealism over cynicism

in all the embrace of anger, of lonely, the finicky bursts of blissed-out recognition of my world, in this room, in this house, in this city.
my feet are more than itchy,
my heart is more than broken at my friend, who i've known for longer than i should have been here, who is leaving and today is saying goodbye to me, with his furry lumbering silliness and dark sweetness and optimistic gorge of love. i am jealous, but also hurt, that i cannot go with him.
i spend entirely too much time daydreaming of being in rome, belgium, india, egypt, iceland, jamaica, france. I must leave - i must leave - i must leave, the hope of doing so and doing it with my daughter rules my hope right now. Please don't be hurt providence, you're lovely, and you've been kind to me, but I need to leave. soon. in a year or less.

the parts of me that i hate - the parts that are attached and stubborn, that are envious and obsessive. the parts that don't get better. that hate and worry for hours, that burn, that reappear when i start again. that are too hot and not warm.

I'm in the early evening of today, I hate stop and shop, I hate anyone who doesn't use their turn signal, I hate stuffy noses, and random other stuff.
I would like to smash all of my dishes on the floor
so I never have to wash them again =)

On the bright side, I won Fiona Apple tickets on the radio today, unfortunately it means I am disqualified from winning Tool tickets (which I assumed they weren't giving away) so now I have to use someone else's identity to win them and bribe them to collect them for me, and listen to the radio about 6 times more than I usually do, which is absurd but necessary.

I miss my bike.

I stopped looking for Jessie Murray, Jay Russo, Alex Athanas, and more. California is going to be really good for both of us. Fresh start, new friends, I've even been seriously considering dropping cigarettes, and who knows, maybe I can get Chris to do the same?

I'm honestly just so tired of waiting for people to call me back, I am so done with that part of my life. What I'm looking for is something that's going to move forward, produce something. I don't want to hurry up but I at least need the fruits of the process to get me through the next few years. Fresh fruits. Not dried fruits.

My Montessori certification is really exhausting right now, especially because I have to worry about:
1.Athena eating garbage, lint, bugs, hair, tacks, onions, pieces of wood, buttons, rings, pennies, and dust bunnies off the floor
2.My ability to interpret my childhood, ages 2-7, including my environment, sensitive periods, issues, interests, et cetera
3.My ass, and how it looks in jeans
4.Explaining to people every time I go grocery shopping how WIC works, recent lessons also include interpreting english, scanning merchandise, and customer service. because you decided to get a job at stop and shop, and you should at least know how to do it.
5.When (and where) my period will come back
6.Breathing through an opening the size of a pen tip through the snot in my nose without suffocating
7.Taking out the trash (because none of my roommates have hands, unfortunately.)

okay. I'm sorry. I know I'm a bastard sometimes too, but damn it feels good to bitch sometimes. Like Wednesdays.


And one more thing, DONT FORGET MOTHER'S DAY YOU BASTARDS!
Your mom PUSHED YOU OUT OF HER VAGINA in SCREAMING AGONY with tears running down her face, cleaned your ASS for years, read you BEDDY-TIME stories and PROBABLY WISHES YOU WOULD CALL HER MORE. So, give her a call. A foot massage. Maybe some flowers and a nice dinner. No one will ever love you like your mother. Appreciate it before the apocalypse hits.

so fuck it - why pretend?

for so long i thought you were searching, but you were a ghost and i've lost the energy to seek out the dead.
i have grown so much though think of you sometimes, and i miss you but you're different now, too.
i don't hold grudges, i just let go.


I say lets take advantage of the beautiful day and clean our dusty mind attics.

Tool is playing in Boston and already sold out.
I will go to any lengths to get into this show.
a.n.y.
including servicing wbru for the tickets they have.
I refuse to miss out on seeing them before I die.

The move in October is materializing, Chris is making sweet money this summer and we already have about 3.500 saved. Montessori is incredibly exhausting, my library fines are paid, my computer is working again, and my driving test is june first.

Dzuy - I'm going to call you today. no, really.
Mindy - Your entries, like your presence, is wonderful and I appreciate that you get so flipped out over the state of affairs. Thank you for not giving yourself over to the jaded anarchist vacuum, thank you for not being afraid of compromise and contridiction, thank you for making me a regina spektor cd that ended up getting stolen anyway, thank you for not giving up entirely. Your contributions to the new world are noticed and worthwhile, and your voice is important, whether or not you can always hear it. Thank you for your ranting angriness and your meltdowns and your humor. I value you. (in the butt.) (No, but seriously.)
Steven (if you even remember livejournal)- congratulations on your ability to commit to one person, be kind and real to her.
Sarah - Stop smoking cigarettes, are you nuts?

Athena is crawling and called me "mama" for the first time the other day, which just about broke my heart into 50 pieces.
I'm looking forward to the sun, to change, to work and to friends.
I've been cooking crepes a lot and filling them with pinapples, honey and ginger.
mmm.

i owe you a letter, an essay, all my nice jewelry and a batch of authentic curry.
I owe you hand-sewn robes.
I owe you the skin over my spine.
i
owe
you
everything
and here i am
playing the busy game, the tired old game
the competition, the metaphores and the endorphines of fo' real love
we live it up and can't give it back, or won't
ride on your back jump off and fly away
and all i owe you you'd never take because you can't accept gifts or debts like these
and it's why you cannot love
and it's why i loved you, no matter how hard i didn't want to.
but i always did
appreciate
your time.