what i had not said

It's finally over. X-mas murders me. This was the seventh one that I have had to work instead of going with my instinctual need to pile in a few bottles of whiskey and lock myself in my room for a few days. The whiskey method worked for about 15 years, so I won't knock it. Working on the holidays gets me out in the world to deal with it. It desensitizes me to the whole shebang...the palpable sense of obligation and guilt,or the smell of greed and avarice. The best part of having to be conscious for the holiday is that I get to see the people that come into town.It has been fucking beautiful this year.

I have gotten to spend some quality time with a number of people who had a big part in my development, spiritually, into the person I am today.I don't have words to explain my love for these people. If I did I would now eloquently discourse on the true nature of connection and it's eternal implications. I can safely say that it's been the best holiday that I have had since I can remember. It has nothing to do with material things gained (there wasn't much,everyone who knows me knows it's nothing to do with presents) but about talking to someone that blesses and soothes my soul with their voice,holding their hand and looking at what the world still holds together.

didn't I tell you that a cold november'd come?

the past few days have been wonderful,in the arms of my chosen family.I have been out every night since Wednesday and have gotten to spend time with the people that I love the most.

sing wide

much better now.Had to spend some time outside.It's a shame I missed the Leonids because we had cloud cover for about a week.However, I have seen several very serious shooting stars the past few nights when the clouds cleared.I am grateful to see the few I have seen and I wonder at people that don't even notice.But then not everyone dawdles aimlessly watching the sky.It's probably why I am always running around with skinned knees like a seven year old.In some ways I don't know that I will ever Grow Up. It's just not my style I suppose. I do try to retain my sense of wonder (to keep my sense of whimsy company)
I have been missing people lately. Nostalgia getting the best of me and sometimes it makes me a bit sentimental. It makes me a little crazy.I find that stepping outside helps immensely.I can usually get my head on straight after a few minutes.I have been a little strange ever since I hit the reset button last and I am thinking that I might need a little time before I can really process everything that I got from it.I think I shed some baggage, but I am still working to figure out exactly what has been left behind.

the last unicorn

So tonight I find myself hanging in my studio,I have all the windows open and the wind is rushing thru the house like a lover.It's a house built to catch a breeze.So southern in it's design.I think that I am content to be alone for a night and think things thru.So many astrological changes coming current right now and I have to think about the implications of many things to make informed decisions........and something outside smells divine.Smoke of some kind,but so sweet, and wet, and fragrant.Almost smells like aloeswood.It's riding the coming rain and I really could just breathe it in all night long.I don't think that there will be another warm night this year.This really is probably it.After this rain,it will be a long and cold one.I don't really look forward to the cold.I just want to drink in the rich, balmy wind until I drift off to sleep.The wind is picking up and making the trees speak so loudly.I think the golden ginko across the street has something to prove.I am glad I took photos of it a few days ago because this wind is liable to drop the leaves overnight.

Haiku du jour

too cold and wet out

antisocial behavior

writing and smoking

hold me down,I am floating away into the overcast skies over my home town

These days it seems I am caught constantly between the highs and lows.Most likely because two major planets are going direct right now and I feel like I am coming off hold.I don't know how else to explain it.

I had a wonderful night last night with my squirrels.I didn't feel like getting out.But once I got there and hung with Raven for a little while,I realized how much I have been missing her. She had a lot more energy than she sis the last time I saw her and I feel much more like she will make it.The show was actually really moving and it was a lovely thing to see so many people being so supportive.Exene was fucking amazing. Her music spoke to me hardcore and I hope to the gods that I will be that cool when I "grow up".She let me touch her guitar for good luck.Her smile is just infectious and I had the best time talking to her,mostly while I was getting her high in my car.I think I am also just so touched by the fact that she came to support Raven.They have known each other about 7 months.I have to say this, I think I have one my little friend crushes on her. I got to hang with so many of the people I really adore,and none of the ones who are giving me grief.I got to dance around with some of my favorite ladies, to tunes spit out of my favorite DJ in Memphis. I have renewed faith in the life force in a very precious person. So I am marking the night as a win.

Today I skinned my knee, so I feel like a seven year old.It was wet and slippery out and I wasn't paying attention. I was in good spirits until I got to work.I also made the mistake of trying to check up on one of my best friends while I was on my break.Turns out she really has gone round the bend, and is back on head meds, after all the struggle she went thru getting off of them. I can feel crazy radiating off of her thru the telephone. What is a girl to do. She is no longer accepting help from me. It seems as though the best thing would be to stand back, cause things are bound to get ugly soon. It fucking kills me.

I am ready for a sunny day. The sky has been leaking for days, and it has an effect on me after too many of them with no real amount of sunshine. Revelations have been coming hard and fast lately. I know that these are odd days, and that I should be paying more attention.

whispering in the hall,pointing your finger at me...

In a slow strange mood tonight.Hard to explain.I am supposed to be getting ready to go out and I am having a hard time of it.I kinda want to be alone,but I am going to a benefit show.Exene Cervenka came across the country to play this show for my friend Raven.It's a benefit to raise money for her because she lost her house and her job and she is going thru chemo and radiation after having sx for breast cancer.I know that I haven't been the most supportive friend during all this.I told Raven repeatedly if she needed anything to call me and I would do my best to get it taken care of.However,she is a very proud creature,and we haven't been in close contact most of the time that this has been going on.I will be the first to admit that I have a tendency to withdraw emotionally in these kind of situations.There have been several hospitalizations for up to three weeks,because her body is barely hanging in there during chemo.There have been times when I thought she was a goner.I have had other people die on me this way,so I prepare myself by going cold.I cannot help it.I have lost so many people.I pray that she recovers and I WILL get myself out into the night to go to this event.I love her dearly.I want her to know.I don't know any other way to let her know.

I have been stuck off in my head for days now and I don't know how to come back up to the surface.I don't have it in me to be very social.I can fake it,but I am not really feeling it.

I have been having one of those days where you just cannot get up the gumption for a damn thing.Too many days without sun,maybe,and the fact that it gets dark so early now and I was not ready for the winter.I am cold and all I want to do is get back into my bed and stay there. However,life is not about to let me do these things,and my appointment book has too many things going and thanksgiving is next week.The holidays have crept in on little ninja feet and will engulf me until the new year is here.

I still don't know what I feel about 2010.Many that I know have had a really rough year.I admit I have been kinda stressed out,but for the most part,it's been good to me.I still cannot believe how fast it all blew by.Hell I am amazed that November is already half over and it feels like it just started.I don't know where it all went.

to be alone with you...

My sleep schedule has been completely fucked since I come home from New Orleans,but then it was kinda getting hincty before I even left.I guess that I needed a change, but this isn't what I had in mind.I have been in a strange place in my head as well.That is what i get for reading Murakami again.I love his writing so much,but puts me in a very detached emotional state.Then again,I was feeling detached headspace before I started reading it,so there is a good chance it is more affect than cause.Sometimes getting high helps,sometimes it makes it worse,but at least then I don't care.I don't feel bad,just not altogether a part of anything at the moment.I know that I don't feel lonely because I don't have the slightest inclination to reach out to anyone.I feel like being alone.
However it is very cold tonight and I wish to god that I had a bedwarmer.Funny thing is that there is someone who fits that bill.He can warm a bed like a charm,but being around him is like being alone for me.Unfortunately he is several states away,and does me no good.I guess that I just have to be cold or get the gumption up to go on the search for another bedwarmer.I think I like being alone better than being warm tonight.

I am having a hell of a time adjusting to being back in Memphis.I am so intensely happy that I don't have to go to work tomorrow,just do a little hair and be done with it.Tonight after work I hung out with Korbet and I completely spilled my guts and I feel much better about everything.I miss having her in town.I only get to see her every few months.I cannot speak as freely to most people.She knows me inside out,because we are so very alike.She gave me another of her gorgeous pastels.The colors will be divine against the peacock blue of my bedroom walls.I am in love with it.I filled her in on everything that has been happening for me in the past few months.She never makes me feel like a monster,no matter how honest I am with her.I love her like my own soul.

So.I think that things got quite rearranged when I hit the reset button in New Orleans.I have been alot more right since.I have something new on my hands.

the reset button

I came to several odd realizations while I was home again.There are several situations that I have been involved with lately that, in all honesty, have nothing whatsoever to do with me.I don't know why in gods name I have been letting myself get dragged into them with shocking regularity.I guess it's to do with the rather erratic behavior of certain close friends,and my inability to recognize

the warning signs that would prompt extrication from the vicinity of said situations before things get ugly.It's been a fucking downer.

The realization is that I have to re-prioritize,to figure out what needs to be held at arms length for a while,and what bears closer examination.The season is changing and so am I. It was something I saw from the rooftop terrace of the hotel we stayed in.It was the tenth floor and I could see the river.Monday morning, as I was watching this blood red dawn climbing over the river, I realized who I am now is not who I was.I felt like a cicada climbing out of it's old shell. When I saw the new moon for the first time at sunset that evening, the world felt new, and unspeakably old at once. All I could do was feel the world turn for a moment and know it in the present so sharply and clearly.I felt every thing draw down to a point that I could only identify as illumination.I think it is something to do with being up so high in the air.I had been sitting with my feet in warm water up there,watching the sky wheel overhead, and having a heavy talk with a friend who knows my soul as well as I know his. I began to understand and see more clearly the nature of synchronicity and how many strange places that fate will take you. How you have to trust it, and continue to do what you are moved to do,to essentially be a catalyst.I realized that time can move with grace if you let it.

I feel so disoriented being back in Memphis.We made the drive in just under five hours.I really hated leaving,but home is nice now that I am here.I think that something in me got rearranged on the trip and I am pretty sure that it is a change for the better.Will write more when I am not so discombobulated.here is a haiku I wrote while I was out by Jackson Square yesterday...

wandering alone

free to dawdle,free to stare

and to meet strangers

drinking black coffee and smoking cigarettes...

I am so wanting to move back home to New Orleans.I forgot how much I love this place.I guess that everytime I come back,I am usually in some huge hurry to have as much fun as possible,I drink and eat too much and can't wait to go home at the end of it.I have had time to stretch out and relax a bit and now I remember what I love about my home.There is nothing like it,that is simply it.

Last night I finally got to eat at Tujagues.I love that place because it reminds me of my father. He was nuts about the place and ate there as soon as he came into town.I think that we are supposed to go to the Court of theTwo Sisters as well,which always reminds me of my mother.I guess that really this city is filled with memories for me.The St Charles streetcar reminds me of running away from home.I cannot go anywhere in the Quarter without thinking of the way it was when I was a kid.I cannot deny that I belong here.I wish that I could live here again.

in which our heroine finds herself in a ridiculously oppulent hotel with rather large pupils....

I know I am late with my blog for the NaBloPoMo,however,yesterday was almost three days long.So I think it still counts.I am sitting in the business center at La Pavillion,which is to say that I am in a four diamond hotel that kinda blows my mind.Something about this place makes me feel like making outrageous demands.I know it's silly,but really.So Yeah.

It all started when Ramsay came over to get his hair cut the day before Pax and I were slated to come to NOLA.He was saying that e really wished that he could cme down and dig the city with us.On a whim he looked up House of Blues to see who was playing,and who is it???just my favorite DJ ever...DJ Shadow!!So I made him promise to meet us here for the show.When Pax got off work,we went to Red Bar to get dinner and visit B.He was looking a little down,so we told him that he needed to come to see DJ Shadow with us,since we all have a really personal connection with his music.It was the soundtrack for some of the most intense experiences that we have had.We figured that he could get back for work because he could go back to Memphis with Ramsay.So we tell him that we are coming for him in the morning and head home to pack.

Come morning I had a hell of a time getting Pax awake,a complete monster.Then we went to scoop up B.We had to bang on his door for ages and enlist the help of his cat to get him to answer.Apparently he had company,she was none too pleased with us.But we got him up and rolling.They snoozed on and off while I drove.I made incredible time,since we got such a late start.I got pulled over after Jackson for going 17 over,but at least he didn't catch me while I was ballin 110 while everyone was asleep.Pax's car just drives so smooth,I didn't notice that I was flying until I just happened to notice how easy it was to overtake everyone.I was happy to change drivers after that little experieince because I hadn't slept on saturday night (still haven't really)I got a halfway nap over the bridge.My mother used to put me in the car and drive me over that bridge when I was a baby to get me to go to sleep.I guess it still works.

We got into NOLA and tried to go for brunch,but apparetly there was a game going on (GEAUX SAINTS!!!)and there is some kind of Jewish conference going on and there were all the crazy protesters and cops out the wazoo everywhere,and we couldn't drive into the quarter,so we went in circles for a while.Eventually we checked into the hotel and made it out to the quarter for dinner,after which all involved felt increasingly more human.Then there was wandering and imbibing of open mind solvent up on the moonwalk.The river was amazing and so was the hot chocolate from Cafe Du Monde.Eventually we moseyed our way back to House of Blues and checked out the openeing band,Pidgeon John.I dug his sound and his lady DJ.

DJ Shadow was so fucking incredible.I don't even know how to explain.It was a very humbling experience.It seemed so intimate.There were maybe 300 people there,tops.It felt personal and I had this wonderful little perch to watch the visuals on the shadowsphere.At one point I felt so overwhelmed and grateful.I felt like things all were working exactly the way that they are supposed to,that I just have to trust the process and let things happen and do as I am moved to do and everything will be fine.The new material was part of that revelation.One of the new songs in particular made me feel so comforted and amazingly safe in the knowledge that things roll on the way that they must to keep life changing and keep us learning if we are open to it.It was just a bit overwhelming.

I started calling people because I needed them to know I was thinking of them,wishing that despite circumstances that they could be there with me.B and Ramsay ended up staying the night,and we ended up on the roof until the sun came up.I had some intense talks with B and sat with my feet in the heated pool,watching the stars wheel around until the bloody glow started over the river.It was very very special and I don't know that I can even begin to explain that. after that I gave B a reading and we sat up talking til it was light outside and then we all attempted sleep,some of us succeeded and some of us did not.I am getting delirious,and should probably stop here until later....get back out in the streets.Pax is sunning herself on the roof and the boys left about an hour ago,so I think I might wander alone for a while in my hometown.

One more thing.I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

holy shit

I am so damn excited about going to New Orleans.Shadow tells me that DJ Shadow is playing tomorrow night at the House of Blues.Deb and I are gonna go,cause how could we not.I had no clue.We decided that we were going for no reason at all,but this came out of the blue.If this is any indication how this trip is going to go,I am very excited indeed.I also remembered that I had put away some brownies for a rainy day.I am going to surprise Deb with them tomorrow.I am procrastinating badly.I really have to get my shit together and pack for this trip.I am a rotten creature.Shadow might follow us down.I would love to dig NOLA with him.He is chock full of adventure.I also want to go to the New Orleans Art House.Some artist co-op where they have built this massive tree house.I am also supremely glad that we are not taking any vegans with us,because it was a disaster last time that I went with one.New Orleans is not a very vegan friendly city.

I will admit that I am most excited about getting out on the highway.Deb had wanted to take the train,but my love is for the road.I get into a trance that I cannot get into anywhere else.I feel huge joy when I am hurtling through space,on my way to somewhere else.There is nothing like it.It makes me safe,because no one can get to me,I am a moving target.

twinkle...

I have been thinking about when he used to have me sing so softly,just beside his ear,said that he liked my voice best from there,where he could feel my breath on his neck.It's those little things that make me miss him. I guess that I have some residual feelings left over from that time of my life.I know that I cannot go back.I just have to find something that makes me forget.He's gone. Sometimes it feels like he's been dead forever.

the night in my veins...

It's crawling up on morning and the sky finally cleared and the stars are so sharp, and hard, and brilliant. Sometimes I think of this time as mine,the time when the world is asleep and dreaming.It makes me think of the intersection that I lived beside in my last apartment.It was actually the second time I had lived in that building,thirteen years to the day apart.Both times the intersection drew me out of my house in the wee hours.It's a three-way crossroad that dead ends into Overton Park.It was completely deserted and nothing looked real in the light of the traffic signal.It felt like the world had been emptied out.It contrasted so deeply with the heavy traffic and bustle at any other time of the day or night.But between three thirty and four thirty in the morning,it was my private playground.I got a profound sense of peace sitting out on the sidewalk,looking up into the oak trees.In my adult life I never felt more safe than I did during that magic hour,when I had the world to myself for a little while.It's amazing how we find little pieces of the city and make them our own for a time,then drift off into a different neighborhood,and suddenly it belongs to the world again...But the magic hour,it stays with me,no matter where I am.

cold rain

This light cold rain makes me ache to sit on the porch all day writing.The rain and the quality of the light make me think of this window seat that I had when I was living on the third floor of the Lowenstein-Long house.It was this massive room with dormers,and a little window seat in am alcove.I would sit and write songs and play guitar all day in there when it was raining.I would keep the window open no matter how cold it got and wrap up in blankets.I considered it a boon that my hands were so cold that I couldn't feel my fingers aching from playing too long.I wish I could remember all the songs that I wrote.I would meet so many people in such a short time.Sometimes I would have these deep intense friendships with people that would last only a few days.My songs were always heavily influenced by the stories that they brought from all over the world.These were my early days living at the youth hostel,so I was still incredibly interested in the people who came to stay,before most of them started to blur together after I moved into my apartment over the men 's dorm.I was still on the bed and breakfast floor and felt like I was on sabbatical.I painted in the attic for a lunatic at night and spent my days that winter curled up in that little alcove playing music and dreaming.My lunatic boss would have these little soirees every night to have the hostelers drink and revel in the attic while I was painting.He liked to think of me as his minstrel or something,and would call on me to play a song for the guests.It was a very surreal existance for a while there.

On days like today,though,I miss it all.It's been fifteen years past....a good safe distance.

in there with it..

GOd in heaven,the sound of the trains at night is intoxicating.Pair it with a chill wind that tells you it will rain tomorrow,and I am a nostalgia machine.I have been working on a new painting and writing all night since I got off work and my mind is going some odd places.I guess that it's a matter of sense memory that will always grab me by the throat whenever the air holds a certain edge and the sounds of the city are seducing me.
It was this night when I was about nineteen when you could still get up on this section of the interstate that never got built,we called it the bridge to nowhere,an overpass that began and ended in massive clover patches.I was drinking blackberry brandy(which was my drink at the time) from a pint bottle and laying around in the clover with my friend Jason,who had this uncanny knack of finding 4 leaf clover.He could even find them at night.It was like he had radar.We just lay up there killing the bottle and listening to the trains and the sound of the highway that sped under the bridge.The sky was that wild purple color it gets the night before violent weather,and the clouds were racing by.I sang songs to him while we lay out with our hands to the sky,tracing the shadows between the clouds.I felt like I was singing the sky down.

and with needles and thread you can plant them deep in your chest...

I am in love with this Low song right now.Some times I feel this way,like something inside my chest can see so much clearer than my eyes.I just have to follow my intuition and instincts and just wing it with that.Half the time I see it as a blessing.

Life lately has taken on an unfamiliar taste.The Fall has come in earnest and I am trying to thermo-assimilate and it's not easy.I have decided that I am going to compartmentalize my life again.Spending time with people one on one just fosters a deeper connection between people....and my squirrelfriends are fighting again.For a while there it was nice to have everyone all together again,with my newer sisters.But it's like jazz,always hit and miss,so I go back to putting people where I can deal with them best.I love so many people.I miss so many people,But finding people that you can really talk to is hard, like cold mornings.

The East coast seems to be eating the people that I love to talk to.I miss them in a way that I cannot even describe....and that is saying something,because (given the time) I can describe anything.I will see Korbet sometime this month when she comes to town.I am hoping that Patrik comes in for the holidays. The latest in this trend is my friend Charlie.I had originally thought he would be a good Gay Boyfriend facsimile since Patrik doesn't seem like he's gonna be coming back to Memphis any time soon.He just showed up on my radar one day and I found that I could talk to him as freely as I do my Geminis (though he missed that boat by a day) But, alas, He's been swept off to Baltimore.A shame really,but I understand, more than most, the importance of adventuring and traveling while you are young. So the hunt for another Gemini is underway.

Oh. I decided to do NaBloPoMo this year.I gotta start posting in this blog more and I decided that committing myself to the blogroll will make me do it.I am taking a suggestion from them,cause it seems the thing to do.

It ask what childhood toy you you still possess.I don't have any toys from childhood.I am not generally a holder-onto-of-things.But I do have one thing that came from my childhood.It's an antique rosary ring that belonged to my great grandmother that was given to me when I was little.I cannot really remember not having it.For years it was on a leather thong that I wrapped around my tarot cards.I have managed to keep up with it,which is an accomplishment with my gypsy past(I once moved 8 times in a year).Once it was lost in the coils of a radiator for almost two years. I keep it in a box on my altar now.I still use it for prayers from time to time,but they rarely come out as Ave Marias.That is the only thing that I have from my childhood.I didn't bring much when I moved here.

So I will go and light some candles for all saints and get on with my day.

i danced myself right out the room....

I had a wonderful party up in my house last night.It had to be the most drama-free party I have ever had.Everyone got along with everyone and there was this incredibly loving energy running though the house.It had to be the strangest mix of people ever.I realized how many lives I have led when I see all the people that show up at my parties.There were at least fifteen people crammed on the roof outside my bedroom window and it made me so indescribably happy.Snuggling up with people on the roof was the best part of the night.I guess it served to remind how very lucky I am.

One of my old-time friends,Jennifer,showed up.She is someone that I used to go dancing with when I was seventeen.She is also one of the spiritual warriors that I hung with years ago.Just talking to her reminded me of so many beautiful truths.It's amazing to have a conversation with someone who knows that part of me.I miss that family more than I probably miss any other.So much light.It was so good to see her.

I got to watch several interesting reunions.I realized that everyone that came in the house last night (exempting total strangers and my roommates annoying boyfriend) was someone that I love in some very special and individual way.I have history with them all.I got to see some people in from out of town and that made my night,some that I hadn't seen in years.I tried to take pictures,but honestly I was a bit housed and was overwhelmed with the vibrations I was getting off of everyone.People were bringing bottles of everything under the sun to stock our bar. We ended up with some pretty strange booze.We had a little fire pit out back and I was glad for it because it got downright cold overnight.Perfect way to kick off the fall.The Dame passed out in my bed about halfway thru the party,and Shadow ended up showing us his "drinking panties". It was funny to watch the party flow in and over the Dame while she snoozed.The vibe was that chill in a packed house.That is the sign that something went right.

the road's alive and everybody's all here....

The fall has started in earnest,and I am missing certain people more than I can say.Most of them are Geminis.Life has been just insane for the tail end of the summer.I have been keeping incredibly busy and playing with a lot of people on a bunch of playing fields.I am so ready to settle into the slanted light of autumn.There's nothing i love more.On the first cold night I opened my windows and I felt myself wake up again.I sat in the window til I shivered and my teeth started chattering.I am still working on finding the cast for the next act.I have an outline,and blessedly,my anxiety level is dropping significantly.

Pax and I have decided to do a massive overhaul and move the entire house around.We decided that with things the way that they are,we feel like little girls with adjoining rooms,hell,we might as well be in bunk beds.So she is turning the living room into her bedroom,we are moving the living room into my studio off the kitchen and my studio will be in my current bedroom,while my bedroom will then be in the adjoining room that is Pax's currently.So i get a suite and our bedrooms will no longer be separated by only a wall and a door.It's also because I still have issues with the fact that my bedroom doesn't feel like "mine",it still feels like Gabe and Emily's room.I still miss Gabriel so fucking much,so it is very bittersweet.I have a hard time sleeping in there,but I don't think I will have any problem being creative in there and I wouldn't want to give that room up at all.I just don't want to have to sleep in there anymore.So i am excited about

taking over the entire east side of the house.

We are also getting neighbors downstairs again.2 twenty something girls,one with a two year old.we shall see how that goes,since I hate children.I know it makes me sound like a total monster when I say that,but honestly,aren't there enough people using up the world's resources?

I don't tolerate them well at all.I try my best,but I also have a mouth like a sailor,and I am terrible at keeping it under wraps when someone brings a child near me.They can't possibly be worse than the old codgers that lived down there before that would bang on the ceiling if we walked after 9pm.Then again,I shouldn't speak too soon.

I am slowly but surely making my preferential switch for the fall.I blew off the girl (and I use that term loosely,since she was a bit butch) that I was kinda seeing over the summer because she ask me why I didn't go to public places with her.Honestly,I just don't really deal well with lesbian society in this city.One on one,it's all good and I have a good time.....but when you get the sewing circle together,it's nothing but drama that I didn't even sign on for.So I have been on the search for bed-warmers for this winter.A few prospects,still working on it.Boys are weird,but I am finding them attractive again,and by the by they are much less complicated than women.

I am also excited about a party that Pax and I are throwing this weekend.She has decided to share her birthday with me and so we are having a birthday/fall kickoff extravaganza.I warned the new neighbors that it may be a bit of a madhouse,since our parties have been known to get a little out of hand.We shall see.......

Gotta go enjoy this gorgeous weather by rolling around in my bed in front of my open windows,then out into the night.

like an arrow,i was only passing through

September is a strange time,at times both ecstatic and heart wrenching.In eight days it will have been eight years since my brother died.I still miss him all the time.I was there when he died and I still feel like I was left behind.He was my other half.

I have never been close to my blood brother.He's nothing to me,but when i met Gabriel,I had found my twin.He went so far as to convince many people that we were related by blood.I have never had love in my life so pure.I haven't felt it since he died.It doesn't seem like it has really been that long.

I had been doing a good job of not thinking about it until B called me at 4:30am a few days ago.We talked for a few hours about so much that brought up many memories and I am processing them now.I think that he calls me when I have just gone to sleep because I don't have any filters then. We say everything and we are perfectly honest with each other while we watch the sunrise on two ends of a line.I guess it serves to let me know that we are both still here.B says that our ashes have to be scattered in the same place.Too much heavy shit going on right now.too bittersweet.I gotta go.

things I might have forgotten.....

The Fates are playing with me.They are making me examine my life very closely lately.I have been in touch with a whole different cast of characters,and I can feel the fall coming at night.The other night this intense storm whipped up.There was insane lightning all evening,and I just beat the rain home.Finally the deluge started and it was coming down in buckets,I couldn't bring myself to go inside.I got drenched,but it felt so wonderful.I reconnected and felt the wind rise.The trees were speaking so loudly.it was fucking incredible.Whatever they had to say,I needed to hear it.

Hung out with some folks last night,and as usual,whenever you get any group of people together,the talk tuned to politics.I am so damn tired of politics.I was reminded why I am not a part of any movement.I don't think that what I believe in is better than whatever everyone else believes in.If everyone would stop trying to convince each other that they are right,then the world might be a much much nicer place.I did get to talk to a guy that I really enjoy talking to.He had been friends with my sister's ex,so essentially I hadn't spoken to him in months.I forgot how much he makes me think.I love being mentally stimulated.It's been happening more lately.

Earlier tonight I got to hang out with one of my sisters from a really really long time ago.She is one of the few people in the world that I have ever been comfortable enough to do any more than light energy work with.We traded readings and I had completely forgotten how wonderful it is to be with her.Both the readings went straight to the jugular,but I would expect no less from the both of us.We learned a lot from each other when we were younger and it really shows now,many many years later.It's amazing to see your own influence in someone that you respect the shit out of.I am hoping that we will see more of each other soon.

I think that I am really starting to understand the last dream that I can remember.I was in a boat and I was in some river.The boat was full of water,but it wasn't sinking.I was catching fish with my hands,they would come right to me.I would inspect them and decide whether or not to put them back,or put them in the boat to come with me.They seemed fine with whatever I decided.It was all very peaceful.I was figuring out who is turning the corner with me.

knocked on your door at dawn with a spark in my heart...

The end of the summer is coming.I have been languishing in the heat and going out too much. There is so much shit I need to do,I just have a hard time making myself do any of it,when I would rather sit around with a friend or two,or make an ass of myself in some bar.I am painting and plotting.Biding my time and looking at the angles.I think I might have to pull off some prime miracles before the equinox,which is only a month away.Luckily I know when my windows of opportunity are.

So, I think I might have had a little breakdown for a minute.Not unusual for the season,but it really came out of the blue.I think I might need to hit the reset button sometime soon.I can feel the fall girl rolling over in her sleep,getting fitful from the waiting.I have been nauseous for days,haven't felt like eating.Cannot remember my dreams at all.For a while I felt like I was going crazy without them to provide me with my cues,but now I am finding that they shut off to put my intuition in the driver's seat.It is serving me pretty well so far.It's like one has to shut down to make the other stronger,like when you close your eyes to intensify your tactile sense.So it's like walking around in the dark,but I have the overwhelming feeling that I am making the right decisions.I am just running with whatever feels right.Planning anything with me lately has been a total joke,as I am likely to blow it off and do something completely different,but I have been moving in some interesting directions.I am almost constantly intrigued.

I found out from my mother that my grandmother on my father's side died in may.I haven't seen her since I was a child.She taught me one of the most important things of my life time.After my father died,she has nothing more to do with us,but that was just her way,she was foreign and my father was 1st generation in America. Eastern Europeans can be a bit strange about family.She passed on some of their oral history,but there were communication issues.She taught me about reading cards.I learned with a deck of playing cards,which was the only way that she knew.I eventually moved on to tarot.I wish that I had known when she passed.My mother just found out from a friend of my grandmothers,but she didn't have many details.I have often wondered where she and my grandfather were,they were travelers.I still don't know if my grandfather on that side is still alive or not.

I realize that I don't really have anything to do with my family on either side other than my mother.I have a brother that I will barely talk to.So many of my friends are so embroiled in their families.I have never really felt that way since I became an adult,ever.Yet when I think about the cast that my grandmother died without me knowing,I feel like I am missing something.

chlorine

Recently I got back in touch with a friend of mine,R, whom I have know since I was a kid.He lived next door to the house that I spent my summers in here in Memphis.He is about that same age as I am and we were best friends every summer.He recently found me on facebook.He told me a couple of days ago that they guy,Joe, that lived on the other side of the house I spent my summers in had died that morning in a motorcycle accident.I have been trying ever since to figure out how I feel about it.

You see,Joe was about 4 or 5 years older than we were,but the kids in the neighborhood were mostly older than R and I,but we ran with them just the same.They just kept up with us,made sure we were alright,taught us all about climbing fences, what pools were good for breaking into, showed us horror movies,etc.Joe was always an ass to me,telling me I was too little for things, throwing me in the pool fully clothed.The summer that I turned thirteen he started being really nice to me and I was kind of suspicious.I found out later from a friend that he had walked up on me having sex with this guy Casey in one of the pools we were forever sneaking into.I don't remember seeing him,but apparently he saw plenty.Casey was about 18 and a total sleazeball,but I didn't really see anything wrong with it,being a very sexually confused (and experienced) young girl.Apparently after that Joe didn't see me as a little kid anymore,but something to get a piece of.

He started taking me for rides on his motorcycles,and was always trying to get me alone.When we would all watch horror movies,we watched them in the dark.He would invariably sit next to me,and put his hand up my skirt.I remember trying not to make any noise,so no one in the room would realize what was going on.It was like a game.But with my past being what it was,it was a game that had psychological repercussions.I let him do a lot of things to me over the course of that summer,but I flat out refused to actually have sex with him,because I had this bone deep dislike of him that I couldn't really get rid of.

When I went back home at the end of the summer,it's like I forgot it all.I hadn't thought about that summer in a really long time.Looking back on it I realize that they were WAAAAY to old to have been doing those things with me.But it was definitely part of my makeup whether I remembered it or not.That summer was when I realized that there was a certain power in withholding sex from someone,because the more I held out,only gave a little,the more in control I felt.....and that was a very precious commodity for me in those days.

So yeah,I have this huge ambivalence about what I feel about the fact that he died in a motorcycle accident a few days ago.I feel terrible for R,they had been friends practically their whole lives.I feel that he kind of deserved it on some level,because really,what kind of person preys on a girl so much younger,that they had watched grow up,just because they thought there was a chance that she would put out??Then there is some part of me that is thankful for that sense of control that he gave me when nothing else ever made me feel that way when I was at home during what I considered my "real" life.I don't know how to feel about it.It's been bothering me ever since R told me.

However,I did figure out something about myself since all these memories got brought up.It is a sense memory that I never really understood.Sometimes in the summer when am driving thru rich neighborhoods,I will get a whiff of a pool,the chlorine I think,and I get the sense of wet concrete,still hot from the sun,one my back and I get incredibly turned on for a second.I understand where it comes from now.

like the mines

I was consolidating some of my things,cleaning out a plaid onboard bag from the fifties that I hadn't unpacked in a few years.I found some things that I had pretty much forgotten about,but can never get rid of.
I found a Grateful Dead keychain that my friend Joey gave me,on it was just one key.It was the key to the studio that I was moving my things into on Lammas Day '93,it was the same day that he was murdered.I only see it every few years,and it reminds me of that day.
I found a collar that I used to use when I worked in BDSM.Later I would put it on whatever toy I favored the most at a given time.It took me back.I cannot even tell you how many people have worn this single ring strap of leather.It's thick,with metal plackets all the way around.It is incredibly worn in and surprizingly heavy.I didn't remember it being so heavy,maybe it's the weight of so many memories attatched to it.
I found a knot pendant that my brother Gabriel gave to Jeffe a very very long time ago.Back when they moved me in with them.Around the same time Gabriel gave me a pendant as well,which I still have as well.The knot pendant came to me indirectly through a friend who was Jeffe's neighbor.She has a habit of diggin thru whatever is on the curb when apartments are cleaned out.She found it and said that she thought it belonged to him and ask me to give it back to him,because it felt important.I recognised it and tried to give it back to Jeffe,but it was kinda soon after Gabe died and so he told me to keep it,since he was trying to work thru things and it was a really painful time.I imagine there will come a day when he will take it when I try to give it back...so I keep it.
I wonder about why I keep so many things that give me such fits of memories.Sometimes I feel like they are line field mines that I leave for myself.....but I cannot find it in myself to throw them out.

How they shimmer, how they glimmer .Those butterflies

I have been terrible this summer.I have been neglecting to write,I haven't painted anything AT ALL.I have,however,been playing my guitar and singing,and learning songs that it will be very ironic(and i mean that in no hipster sense of the word) to play at my ex-wife's wedding this winter.

She is marrying one of my ex-lovers from a really long time ago.They ask me to play the music at their reception and honestly,I cannot find it in me to turn down a paying gig.There is something deep inside me that is far more practical than emotional,and it happens to rule my decision making center.Sometimes I am deeply thankful for this fact.So yeah,just playing music and being musically passive aggressive (which is not really my style,since i am normally aggressive-aggressive)

The summer is making me languid and smoky.I have been going to a lot of smoky bars.I have seen a few good rockshows.I am realizing that the kids are not alright.What the fuck is up with the le zombies??I keep telling myself that the only good thing that can be done with the youth is to take one or two of them at a time under the wing.They have to show marked potential for being an interesting member of ones past one day.Hopefully sending them out into the world with a differing and open mindset will change things for them,and even if it is just a drop in the bucket,maybe change the world in a small way.The collective consciousness is altered one mind at a time.Have been also spending heap big squirrel time with my ladies.It doesn't realy feel the same without LL in the squirrelicane situations,so I try to hang with them all separately.She's spent pretty much the entire summer with her VA lover/husband out in the sticks.I miss her.

So yeah,there you have it.I have been trying to be productive in between all the days when I cannot for the life of me leave my a/c's immediate vicinity.I am reading lots of books.I smoke and drink too much and go to rock shows.I make friends with whatever stranger happens to sit near me.I die a little every time I get into my volvo/blast furnace to go anywhere.I am apparently too lazy to stop my hair from dreading in this beastly weather.I am still waiting for fall.

and so the days roll on and I spend most of my summer hours curled up in front of the air conditioner with stacks of books.....you would need a crowbar to prise me away from it.It is fucking simmering in Memphis.It's like New Orleans heat,but worse....because though the heat is the same, you are not in New Orleans.Ugh.

I think that this is the most antisocial summer I have ever spent. I haven't even really been inviting people over...their body heat increases the ambient temperature in the house.It's sad when your life is dominated by efforts at temperature control.I spent two nights recently in an unairconditioned house hanging out with some of my sisters,and seriously,fuck that.I will either see them out,or they can come over here to ModConlandia to hang out.I was melting.I have realized that in high heat conditions,I cannot think straight.It explains all the bad decisions that I made that summer I was living in the attic with no a/c (trust me some very very stupid decisions were made that summer) So Yeah.Books.I think I will be at this til at least mid-September.

Fall......Please get a move on????

I was here at home,waiting for my twin to return

it's just one of those days when you let yourself get really cold.you steele yourself for it and open all the windows on a cold rainy spring morning,actually it's the last day of winter.it puts the freshness of spring right up your nose,and the lingering chill of the winter.you dance and run around the house with incense for a while,trying to stay warm,and enjoying teh fresh air...but eventually you surrender yourself to the cold,and you feel your hands numbing.there is something about cold wind that cleanses you though.it's almost painful the way that it rips right through you.i love it though.sometimes i feel as though it's the pain of losing the things that need lost...let that cold wind just carry it away from me...the things that i don't need anymore.however,the cold does it's part,it numbs you to the pain,so that you start to enjoy the sensation.i know people who savor physical pain,i am not one.but in that numbed state i am better able to study the sensation.likewise the cold makes me more able to bear the emotional pain of the having things i emotionally and psychologically do not need anymore removed from me.the wind is my surgeon.

i feel like it is a way to pay homage to the passing winter,to have it complete,it's only fitting.i sit here and i shiver,but i keep the window open anyway,the fresh air is intoxicating after the warm humidity yesterday before the storm.the cold clears my head and makes me feel alive in a way that i don't understand or rememeber when the time comes for languishing in the dizzy,heavy heat of summer.there is a different person alive in me then,she will wake up after the thaw.i know that she has been stirring during the warm days recently.i look forward to seeing her again,but i know that there is nothing like the feeling i get at fall equinox,when the fall girl wakes up.today is the last day with her.she's going back to sleep tonight.

when you see me coming you better run....

Life has been fierce lately.Things are moving fast and spring has come on really strong.So many things are changing and the venues are being shaken up, the casts rearranged. Time got set forward and everything switched into the same mode.Then again this trend could have something to do with mars picking up speed after going direct.Equinox went by in a flash.

I have been going out a lot with my squirrelfriends. The ladies are having a blast and I am really glad since we haven't really come together in genuine "squirrelicanes" in some time.It's been a level 4 hitting the city,I am enjoying it.I am still a bit blue that my favorite bar burnt down.The interim bar was closed down and now I am wandering around in one of the only other bars in the city that i really like to go to alone.I have been working on making friends of the bartenders.I can get them to come around the bar and drink with me,So I think that I am doing a fine job.One must have a close relationship to the bartenders in the bar that you go to alone.Then they do the job that your girlfriends/wingman would be doing in some other bar.They take care of you,keep you entertained during downtime.I am working on it,because my favorite Alone Bar had a roving cast of bartenders.They change out about every nine months.So I have to go and woo the new ones at intervals.

It's not all nightlife though.I am settling into life with a third roommate that resembles the absent minded professor(despite being a student) I think that I am doing alright.I have certainly worked on making my bedroom more of a sanctuary from everything and everyone.I think that I am digging life in my house. I feel like I am coming to peace with the fact that I still have to live communally from time to time. A month ago I had the grand urge to uproot and move on,but it proved only to be the predictable flight urge that comes when a one year lease is done.I am fine here for a while.I have done a good job of keeping my Gypsy blood in check in recent years.I used to wear myself out moving every few months.My record was 8 moves in a year.I was very busy,I nearly had a nervous breakdown by the end of it.

So I have pretty much wasted a entire morning listening to some wonderful music and smoking too much and writing in my various journals.It all has to go somewhere.I need to put my ass in gear.

and she was with some kid called David, from the garage up the road.

So sad that my "weekend off" is coming to a close.I ended up doing a lot more hair than I wanted to yesterday,but Hey business is picking up again,and it's money(or good trade) so who am I to turn that away???I ended up at a birthday party last night with several of my cohorts.By all accounts it was a strange group.LL is in heat.Erin is looking for parties where there is a keg,a fire and a fight.Lelyn has been off and on interested in the birthday girl,who is also a newer hair client of mine.

Within half an hour LL had already crawled up on the prettiest/dirtiest boy in this party(and I mean a boy of twenty) and Lelyn was embroiled in politico talk with The Dame (who apparently is on the outs with both the birthday girl and the DJ) and Erin is canvassing the room for cigarettes for us to share on the porch,and I am being bombarded by the attentions of some loud hippy in a tiedye who professed both satanism and cannibalism.I later paid him two dollars to stop talking to me.It was terrifying.

The next thing I know LL is giving us her car-keys,leading that boy out the door,and telling me she'd call me in the morning.Erin nearly starts a fight on the porch because some guy tried to snatch something out of my hand when he was not in rotation.I think that she was probably trying to fill in one of her party requirements,since there were actually two kegs,but no bonfire.Lelyn looks like he's planning espionage with some stand up comic,and I am watching The Dame give the stink eye to this weird theater chick because she slept with the DJ(who is asking me when I can fit him in to do his hair)At this point we decide to leave and go see Lil' Gay Tony at Perkins for muffins.

It seems like that is usually how Saturday night usually ends.We do a bunch of ridiculous things (last week we went to a drag show and watched the guest star set fire to the stage) and then we go see Tony to trade tales of what we have been up to for free, hot and buttery muffins.He has to work the graveyard shift every Saturday and he was our clubbing buddy for years uncountable. He will usually text me from the kitchen asking if the hot boy sitting next to me likes guys. We sit and rehash everything we saw before dragging ass home or to Alex's (the only decent afterhours bar left)

Today I felt off all day because we lost an hour last night to the Daylight Savings Time, which is an evil joke. I feel like I have a slight case of jetlag.LL and I decided to combat this by going to see Tim Burton's 3-D Alice in Wonderland,and then we went to Trilogy to have a winking,cubist Babe the Blue Ox tattooed on LL's ass,while Pixi popped in every once in a while between her piercing appts.Eric,the tattoo artist,played Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum the whole time(thus continuing the whole satanic theme that had been started by that hippy last night).Eric's a strange manbird,and an old friend of mine.After that we went to Track's for supper,only to be waited on by this ol' queen that I did way too much cocaine with on the club scene back in the early nineties.I had no idea that he'd turned back up in Memphis.So then we went to the Walgreen's to run around in the isles until she saw that filthy and adorable boy that she had left with last night.

I think that Hunter was right,when the going gets weird,the weird turn pro.

I am pretty happy that we seem to be reassembling the Squirrel-icane.Last night it was a Level Three before we lost LL to the demands of her libido.Seems like it might be a very interesting spring.

a love to last past Saturday night....

Apparently the spring tides are coming in with a bang.It's bringing to mind the vision of waves smashing into cliffs,tidal pools and watery caverns.It's like feeling a primal force creep up your spine.It is the basis for the idea of "Spring Fever". I guess that am just really excited about the spring and summer.A lot has been happening.I think I cam coming out of the self imposed Hermit time that I so desperately needed.I needed a minute to simmer things over.

It did cause a blow up with my roommate.I finally got too fed up and we had a yelling match.Unfortunately it happened while I was doing a two color process on a new client,a referral from my friend Erin.I put in way more highlights than I had planned on because I was trying not to start a fight with my roommate.I had to tell the chick that I would do corrective color for her for free if she didn't settle into it while she was out of town.It was a really terrible day, and we had it out and we both feel much better about things now.She is in Florida for a week visiting Sister Sunshine for a week.I think it will do us good to not be in each other's face for a moment.We got things out on the table.

I am watching LL come back into herself.Actually I should say that I am watching her come alive again.Being single has definitely lit a fire in the girl. More truly I think that she's gone into heat and has started a virtual relationship with a guy in Virginia.They went to high school in the same tiny Louisiana parish.They had chemistry back then. They found each other on the internet. He is a shriner clown and he's doing a circus in that selfsame tine Louisiana parish.He's promised that if she comes to it, he can get her backstage to meet an elephant.She is incredibly excited about this last part.It happens to be during her spring break.They are both incredibly "no strings attached" and I think it's the best thing for it.It's good to see her excited and happy.

I am adjusting to having another roommate in the house.More or less it's the weirdness of living with someone you have never lived with before, and a guy at that.I haven't lived with a boy in the house since the last time that B lived with me.That has to be at least 4 years ago.Suffice to say that it is odd to learn your friends habits.I do like having him around though.He's a lovely person and is incredibly entertaining.We just all have different schedules. It is definitely shaking things up.

In other news,I am being reunited with my books. They have been in boxes in a closet for over a year.I was waiting for Deb to finish refinishing the bookshelves since we moved into Clark House last March.It's amazing how you fall in love with your own things when you have been denied them for long enough. Whooo!! So on that note,I am off to shelve more of my babies,my lovelies, my books!!!!

but not every apple is red...

Tonight I am going to a "reunion" for the people that used to practically live inside this club called Red Square.It was honestly some of the most fun that I ever had when I was in high school.Some of the closest friends I had back then were people I met in that place.Before it was Red Square it was a gay club called Rumples.I am looking forward to seeing some of my old friends.I am kinda wondering what ever happened to alot of them.I just think that it's interesting that i never went to any of my high school reunions,but I will put my hair in curlers for this club reunion.

Sometimes I miss those days.I was always awake and I had drag queens living in my walk in closet.Life was a parade all the time.I also remember feeling like I was going to fall over from exhaustion most of the time.never the less,I miss it.

The spring is coming,and while this prospect excites me to no end,it also marks the beginning of Flood Season.The spring tides are already moving and it is making people insane.

under the sycamore tree

I am in a kind of strange place lately.There is too much going on and I am trying to assimilate.

I think that a tide has turned and i am trying to get out from under.I have a strong feeling that things are about to pick up again and that the time for Keep-Your-Head-Down-and-Keep-Working is almost at an end.The spring is coming.I saw the first budding things a few days ago.People are budding as well.It is not a comfortable process,but it holds great promise.

I have to step back for a moment and try to figure out how to re-act to everything that is happening.I don't react immediately most of the time.Body will sometimes react physically to things that are overwhelming,but the mind just keeps on functioning and taking me forward.I think that I have been taking on a little damage spiritually.So I have to stop and do damage control,figure out what even merits a reaction,then proceed from there....Making decisive moves. I have had to be too many things to too many people for the past two weeks and I think I need a mental health day to get myself back in line.

at night when the bars close down,brandy walks through a silent town

I leave them alone for one night and THIS is what happens.The Drinking Annex of my living room has gone up in flames.At least I got to spend the past two nights there relatively unscathed.

Deb and I went there for steaks wednesday and then we went to hang with B and drink on thursday night.Things got a little out of hand later,but we had a grand time.Then this.very sad times indeed.

The past two days have been a little hectic and insane.I feel like life is happening so fast these days.I have been getting so much input from outside.I am trying to assimilate and keep up at the same time.It helps to write it down.Random event style.

I saw more cops on one night than I have seen in the past 3 months.I am talking gatherings of up to 15 cop cars.They were all over the interstate when LL and I were driving and smoking and talking last night.We actually spent some of the drive smoking a # and following a swat van for shits and giggles.

I got to see one of the boys that used to sneak in through the window of the house that Deb and I shared on Evergreen.He would just show up in your bed and be there when you woke up.He's a wonderful heater,and can sleep for three days if not disturbed.I didn't realize how much I had missed him until I saw him again.He's been busy being a rockstar,drumming for bands and touring.I hadn't seen him in at least 8 years.I just remember him coming to see me every week for tarot readings,and being amazed by the process every time.He's all grown up now.

One of my younger Gay Boyfriends showed back up after flying under the radar for a few weeks.Apparently his lover had bashed him in the face with a pool cue and he had to have surgery and was recovering.He's still on the mend.I ask him what happened and he tells me "I have terrible taste in men,and a very smart mouth.This is a dangerous combination" I am hoping that he heals up alright,and that I never run into the asshole that put him in the hospital.Assault charges won't look good on me,I am convinced of it.

I somehow got roped into doing hair and makeup on The Dame for some burlesque shows that she's doing with the Memphis Belles.I have to say that I actually impressed myself with what I did with her hair yesterday,in under ten minutes,with limited resources no less.I have to do it again tonight,but I am getting into the show for free,and some of my other friends are performing as well.I think I am amazed that I can still surprise myself in this arena.I learned quite a bit technically and health-wise when I was in cosmetology school,but it was a million years ago(the early nineties) and since then I have innovated my own techniques and styling methods. I am still in awe of the art of transformation,I think that is why I continue to do it.I think that it's the only art that I have done consistently since I was a sophomore in high school.

LL and I have stumbled onto a mystery.Another of our Gay Boyfriends was telling us last night that a friend of our that we have always assumed was straight might have been hitting on him. She and I started thinking about it and we realized,we never hear him talk about ladies,or gentlemen,or anyone for that matter.We realized that maybe we just don't know which way he swings,and we are intrigued.The other night when we hit the reset button with him,he said some things that made me kinda wonder.I also noticed when we were snuggling that he has the softest hands(they make mine feel like total lumberjack hands in comparison) and he always smells good.If it's a matter of genetics,his mother is gay.Suddenly we are like the Nancy Drew twins. We can think of nothing but ways to divine this man's sexual orientation.I fear we will become terrifyingly annoying before long.

I have apparently scheduled myself for way too many things today and I don't know how exactly I am going to pull it all off.I am still a bit worn out since I didn't eat right the past few days( honestly I just didn't eat at all for the most part,and too much caffeine) and I haven't had enough sleep and drank way too much the night before last.I had to carry my roommate around the the house,she ran over the neighbors lawn trying to park her car,and I actually drank a lot more than she did.She puked on the floor after telling me that she didn't need a bucket when I ask if she did.I could only get her half undressed before dumping her into her bed.She's very unwieldy on whiskey.I couldn't get a straight answer as to whether she had to go to work the next day and it tuned out that she was supposed to be there 2 hours after I carried her to her bed,and she had all the manager cards that the restaurant needed for opening up.We had gotten a bit carried away drinking shots with B and a bunch of our friends at SSG,which consequently burned down less that 24 hours later.I think I might need to get going.

wish me luck.

it's just the night in my veins

I am coming to terms with the fact that pretty much all of the people that I was with when I was doing hard drugs are all dead.It makes me very very thankful that I have been off dope for almost 12 years.Apparently they took a very different path.I have just found out about three of them in the last month.

First was an old friend of mine named John.He was a genius,one of those tortured ones who had to find a way to turn it all off sometimes.He lived on Southern,back in the day.I was about 19 or 20.We used to buy from the same girl.Her name was Jennifer and she lived upstairs from John the baptist(who is alive and well and just had another baby) Jennifer had one of those apartments that most hippy chicks had back then,Two and half tons of giant cushions and tapestries on the walls,and those little multi-colored christmas lights.I spent a lot of afternoons there falling in and out and talking to John.I had heard from a friend of mine that he had moved away and had gotten clean and he'd started his own company.He made the mistake of coming back to Memphis and got entangled with a girl who is still nothing but trouble.He OD'ed not long after coming back to town.So sad.I thought that he'd gotten past it.

Then a few weeks later,I hear that Josh B died of an over dose as well.I hate to say it,but it surprised me that he lived as long as he did.Back in the early nineties,he used to come over to the house I lived in with Shannon (my ex-wife and Dharmin live there now,soooo weird to go in there now) We would put on some Velvet Underground and fix in the living room floor,so that we wouldn't fall off of anything.He would put on my silky dressing robe and we would sway through the house and read Byron to each other from this antique book I found in the attic,The collected works.He never paid enough mind to his dosage and we had to bring him back numerous times.He had a penchant for wearing leisure suits,he walked with a cane because he would often lean perilously.He had a habit of showing up at our house,tilting his head back,closing his eyes and running his hands down his long body,announcing "I am siiiiiiick". Shannon used to impersonate him to make me laugh.

I recently saw Shannon's husband had commented on a friend of a friend on the old Facebook. I sent him a message asking if he had her #,I wanted to have coffee,catch up since I hadn't seen her in ages.I lost touch with her about ten or more years ago.She had married this guy,had a little boy and was going through nursing school.She seemed like she was straightening up and flying right.He messages me back and he tells me that they divorced a while back.She had apparently stolen drugs from the hospital she was working at and was shooting up again,then she was working for Pam's pimp,and had moved in with him.He got custody of their son,thank god.He told me that Shannon overdosed on morphine about seven years ago.It was three weeks before her family found out that she was dead.It knocked the breath out of me.

I had been looking for her for years.I guess I can stop searching.She and I were really close friends when we were young.We had been through a lot together.We were like sisters for years.We had lived together several times.It always imploded eventually because I couldn't handle the chaos.I guess in the end,neither could she.

I guess I am just reeling from the impact of the message that the universe is sending me so far in 2010."Keep your feet on the path you are on,because that could have been you".It's hard sometimes,because I don't have anyone to talk to about it.No one that I am in contact with understands what a huge temptation that it is.I am glad for that fact.Actually,Dharmin is the only one I can talk to about it(he's the only one left alive).He says that he might do it again in his lifetime.I am hoping that I never do.I just don't know anyone else that understands that it's a matter of staying off of it....every day.....no matter how long you have been off of heroin.Because you remember what it felt like.

It makes you feel so alive,because you are just dying a little bit faster.

black and white

Today I saw a picture on a friend of a friend's facebook.It was taken in the CK's coffee shop back sometime in the early 1990's.It reminded me of something that I had completely forgotten.It's just a black and white of a guy reading a book and talking to a girl who looks like she's had one of those days.I recognized the guy.His name was Chris.I met him when I was eleven years old.I was stuck in Memphis for the summer and a couple of my friends had convinced me to go to this summer camp with them.He was a camp counselor,about 18.I was rather advanced amorously at that age, and I wanted to get it on with him.I remember one day I was on the trail alone,and he caught up with me.The sun was about to go down,maybe he didn't want me walking out in the woods alone. It took us ages to get back to the cabins,we were just walking really slow.I remember stepping over an earthworm and daring him to eat it,thinking if he doesn't take my dare,I will tell that he has to kiss me.He picked it up and ate it on the spot.I was disgusted and still somehow turned on.I was a strange little girl.

Flash forward about ten Years.I am about 20 or 21,and He comes into the coffee shop that I wasted my youth in.When he came in I ask if he was meeting someone.He said no, so I ask him to sit in the booth with me.I told him that I wanted to read and didn't want to have one of my friends come and sit there and a stranger might discourage them.He fell for it. we read in companionable silence for a little while,peaking at each other over the tops of our books.We ended up talking before long, and I realized who he was.He ask if I wanted to do some blow and I told him my apartment was on the corner.So we go back to my place and spend the rest of the night blitzed out of our minds, and swaying, and having some really gritty sex.It felt grainy like an old photograph.I was fulfilling some kind of pact that I had made with myself when I was still a little girl.The years had brought out a lot the edges on a man that I had only known when he was in the blaze of youth.Afterward,I just lay there appreciating all the marks that a hard life had left on him....and at the same time I hoped that I would never have to see him again.To leave that whole incident as a photo in my memory.Eventually it became one photo in the many that live in my mind,and it was practically forgotten.

Then today I run across a black and white of him.Unmistakable.It brought it all back.I can still remember swaying with him and hoping that he wouldn't remember who I was.

gives back to me what I give to them....

had to hit the reset button again.it makes it's need apparent.i found that i am very comfortable with someone that has been around for a while.i am being brought back to life.winter is making me very thankful this year,and teaching me patience.beauty can be found so many places that you would never suspect.The sunrise on the trees,encased in ice,it caught my breath and offered it up to the sky.

I am having one of those nights where I feel like I need someone to hold me down.It's not often that I feel this way.I guess that it's just that I don't feel like my feet are touching the ground lately.I haven't felt grounded since Sister Sunshine left and went back to Sarasota.

I still don't know what I think of 2010 yet.We have decided that it is safest just to skip naming the years anymore.It never related to the year the way that you thought it would.It is often quite ironic.But life is good,and I cannot really complain.I am working a lot,but business has picked up.I am being social,visiting people one on one more often.As long as I keep reaching out,I don't worry too much about that detached from the earth feeling.I am pretty much on top of everything that needs doing.I am starting to feel very very creative.So I really wonder where this kind of unhinged feeling is coming from.

your eyes shine like the sun,I wonder why....

It's one of those nights when I am so lost in nostalgia.I have recently gotten back in touch with some people that I will always love in a deep and special way.I wish that I could find the rest of them,but they are apparently in the wind.I am going to admit something,my big deep dark one...I was a hippy for a long time.I spent quite a bit of that time hitting a drum and drinking whiskey, playing the guitar and singing four part harmony.I wore a ton of jewelry(some of it hemp and seashells) that I never took off and I braided feathers into my hair and had more than a few dreadlocks.I lived in calico sack dresses and cut-offs. I bathed in rivers often and had a tan.I ran with the people with the light in their eyes.We believed in omens and music was our shared soul.

I am probably going to live the rest of my life and never see so much light in one place.I still carry it inside,it comes out to play when I think of the times we had.Recording with B and Oregon Jones in the wee hours of the morning.Long talks with Kenny about the cosmos,and the movement of energy,we could talk all night long.The night Key and I drove through the Mountains in his jeep with the top off,we stopped and turned off all the lights while crossing a creek,to look at the stars and listen to Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here".Laying up with Kaykay,Chrissy,and Charlie in Scott's massive brass bed,giggling and singing while Scott made us breakfast.It's all very dear to me.I think that maybe it was one of the most positive times in my twenties.I think of them often and fondly.

soooooo.writing has been on the backburner this year.visiting has come to the forefront of activities that i have been interested in,but it seems that has come to a screeching halt,seeing as I have somehow managed to lose my phone.NOT PLEASED.So now i am waiting a day to see if it turns up and then I have to order a new phone,because the one that I had is no longer offered.GRRRRRRR.

This is what the end of mercury retrograde looks like.