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.

life is beautiful,life is wondrous

The holidays are passing so fast.Maybe it's just been busy as hell.I normally hate "the season" but there is one thing that I love about it,everyone comes to town.People are out of school,people come to see their folks,it's a veritable visiting fairyland.I am actually having a radical faery come and see me today.My Gay-boyfriend Patrik.I love him so,we have known each other since I was about 16. He moved to Asheville NC,and haven't seen him in about a year.I also have my Sister Allison in town from Sarasota and my girl Portia in from Georgia.I am just happy to get to spend time with them.I have been seeing so many people and it reminds me that I have an enormous amount of love in my life and that I have to be thankful for every moment of the life that I share with all these beautiful people.

having a django kind of night,with r l burnside undertones......

I am having the kind of night...you know.Something is coming to your attention....the year is coming to an end once again.Amazing how that happens.it's the time of year when you want to drink strong wine to keep the ends of your fingers warm.It sometimes leads to schnapps shenanigans in parked cars.I feel the season coming on.I am trying to learn to cope with the sudden turn in the weather.I feel that odd "long december" moment coming on,as well as a propensity to burst out into tears anytime I hear that goddamn dan fogelburg song....well,they are the harbingers of the season.I have a sister who has dubbed it gift season.But I have uses for this season all alright.

It is when everyone under the sun goes out of/comes into town.You have a chance to see a lot of different faces,to strengthen old connections.It is about family ties.I promise I am not getting all don corleone here.I just think that it's a good time to see some beautiful things happen.I 'll do it as long as i can wander.

It's a wicked life,but what the hell....

Am beginning to think that I am going through a "filling the well" period in my life.Mostly listening to music and reading and catching up with people.The rest of my time I spend working or sleeping.I have been waking up absurdly early for some reason,though I am still going to bed late as hell.I am settling into the fun part of sleep deprivation.The two week mark where you start feeling really optimistic,and giddy most of the time.You start to feel creative again.

A recent event is making me examine one of my prime motivations.Curiosity.I let a certain,rather dubious,character from my past get in touch me via an unnamed social networking venue.Curiosity got the best of me.I had to see how he had turned out after a decade of ignoring him.Now he's offering to give me footrubs and to bake me cookies if I will see him. Here's the kicker.He's moved into a condo a few blocks from where I am living.He was a HUGE mistake the first time around.I fell into bed with him,though it seemed he was queer as a three dollar bill.I couldn't resist a boy that I could put in a rubber dress and put Marlene Dietrich makeup (he has lovely cheekbones) It was like having sex with a woman,but with outdoor plumbing.I think that the affair went on so long because he didn't mind having sex in weird public places ( I was a bit of an exhibitionist when I was younger) and I never had to give a blowjob when we had threesomes (which was often)

When I was done with him I passed him off to my friend Matt.You see,he finally pissed me off by fucking things up with someone that I had genuine chemistry with.By this point my marriage was in the crapper and my wife was hooked up with a man who was leaving his family.I had brought in Said Unsavory Character to make her jealous.(she liked boys pretty) We decided that he was my pet and dubbed him The Cat.One of our favorites was T.He was dating a friend of ours,but I guess we didn't care too much,since she had already cheated on T with me.(It was the late nineties,don't look at me like that.)T and I started sneaking time alone together.When The Cat found out,he squawked.Everyone got into trouble except me.My goodwill toward my Cat withered after that.Eventually I moved in with other boys and he became the "not-my-cat" and was threatened into leaving me alone(it involved a flight of stairs) I haven't dealt with him since.

I am thinking that forewarned is forarmed.It's good to know who is in your neighborhood.It affects things.I might be grocery shopping on the other side of town for a while,or I have to engineer "the super-secret emergency escape burka" alot sooner than I had planned.

til we become beauty,a fluid medium...

I had no idea how much I needed to hit my reset button.It had been ages since I watched the magic flow into and drain from a sunrise.it happens so quickly.I spent the evening with the ladies that I am closest to.The ones that I have known the longest,the ones that know me best.I cannot scare these women.It was a re-bonding between two of them.A rift healed.What went down between them had to run it's course,but I think we are all healthier for it.I cannot imagine how my life would have gone if I hadn't had these people in my life,changing my perceptions at times that were critical in making me who I am today.

I think that what I got from the events of the past 24 hours,was my sense of wonder.I lost it somewhere here lately,and I had to clean out my closet to find it again.It's something that I want to use all day everyday.It makes everything an adventure.

i'll be halway to somewhere as the day loses light...

o,the fall is progressing beautifully.I have been to several halloween parties in the last week and I am finally ready to kick back with a few people and enjoy All Souls Day with margaritas at "the happy mexican" downtown.I always want to sit by this ridiculous mural of a halfnaked mexican in a sombrero pouring tequila into a very happy-looking donkey's mouth.Some people find this disturbing,but I just consider it an attestment to the theraputic qualities of tequila.

Think I might cut back my nails and get out my guitar and play faux mariachi music on my roof til Happy Hour.

the lights

I had a moment last night when I was talking to Pax.I was trying to explain the concept I have of my memory.It's like these circles and cycles of vignettes.The only good metaphor that I could come up with was a crystal chandelier.The ones with rows and rows of crystals,hung in a circle,it's like the cycles and eras are the tiers.That in much of my memory,things stood out,but they are small crystaline images of what was happening.The air between the inividual crystals are the times that I just don't recall,the times when I was killing time,making pay,most of the drudgery.But the small pieces are so clear and multi faceted.The way that I felt at the time,the smell of it,the way that light played on the objects in the room,the air quality,the pysical sensation.It's why the smell of a Nat Sherman cigarette will take me right to a place in my head that I could describe for you,even now,with such clarity and detail.It's all caught together,and it looks different at different angles,depending on the way that you shine the light.

Alot of light gets thrown around in the fall.Alot of memories come flooding back to me wherever I look.Ithink that I need to do some visiting with old friends.It's about that time.I definitely need to go sing for a few people.What else are rainy days made for?Well,visiting and stretching.I am having a hard time getting out of bed lately with all this rain.I have little motivation.The only thing that will get me moving is the prospect of fun to be had.I had the realization this morning that maybe I am solar powered.I think that I might need a little something to make me feel like I am wasting time sleeping.The weather report keeps promising this mystical three full days of sunshine....it's always about three days away,three days full of showers and thunderstorms.

I admit that I love me some thunderstorms,I just never get anything done during them.It's when you drink your hot tea and you listen to Nina Simone or Fleetwood Mac,or Leonard Cohen in the afternoon.At night you smoke on the porch and watch lightning.Some of the most intense conversations I have ever had were on a dark porch during a thunderstorm.I know that I just have the "Grey days" right now,it's just the unrelenting cloud cover that makes me feel like I just want to sleep for a year.I think I will settle for a hot bath instead.

you can fill yourself with static with the ghosts up in the attic...

Let me start with the fact that Autumn makes me tres nostalgic.I had some kind of overdose on my past last night.I am wondering if this happened all over the city?Unfortunately one of those encounters was with my ex-wife.She called (repeatedly) so I answered ,mainly to stop the ringing.She wanted something,No big surprise there.So I agreed to come over to her house to trim her hair,for $ or trade.I told the company at my own house that if I wasn't back by 8pm to start blowing up my phone.I dragged myself out into the rather chilly and drizzly night to head over to her place.

When I arrived,she was already aout 3 or 4 sheets to the wind.I was not looking forward to trying to cut hair on a moving target when I saw that she was swaying already by the time I showed up.Then she steamrolled me into coloring her hair as well.I went ahead and did it seeing as I didn't want to have to respond to another bout of messages and my phone ringing up a storm.(she is a persistent creature)The trade was small,but worth it,but didn't help with her swaying any.She sent a little home with me.Honestly,if she can find trade that nice,why the hell is she drinking so fucking much?

There was a time when she wasn't like this.It's like she went into some drunken stupor ten years ago and never came back out.Her husband and her son are both aware that she isn't who she was,but they never saw who she was before she started drinking.When we were together,she drank to excess,but only rarely.We did all manner of psychadelics,but we were both very constructive and there were good times.I just remember her in a vastly different way than the person that she's become.We met young.She is still in love with me.I go thru long periods of not responding to her because it bothers me to see whats become of her.It's terrifyingly sad.

You see whay I deal with this only intermittently.Sometimes I go a few years without dealing with her.It always culminates in a teary mess on her part.It goes back to a day that I came home from work when we were living in the last house that we lived in together.It was in the afternoon and there was sun shining in the windows and she was wrapped up in a quilt on the couch crying and watching a Behind the Music about Simon & Garfunkel.I ask her what was wrong and she says "I have realized that you are Simon,and I am Garfunkel.I always wanted to be Simon." and something about her always beng the backup and that I was always in the spotlight.It was a weird moment for us.

It was not long after that afternoon that I decided to go solo.

Today is the first day that I woke up truly cold.I went to sleep with my window open,listening to the rain and woke up chilled all the way thru.I am guessing the transition to winter will be quick.I think I am blaming the gray skies for the prevailing cranky mood of most of my friends.I am in high spirits for the most part and I am sure that once a little sun shows it's face,others will soon follow.

The only thing about fall is that is makes me incredibly nostalgic and I start going to all these weird places in my head,listening to old music and visiting old haunts.I don't feel my age at all.

It's like fall showed up overnight.It's what I have been waiting for all year long.Nothing makes me happier than opening the windows and airing out the house after a long,wet,humid,steamy summer,except maybe the drive I will take later tonight when the temps get down in the fifties.

There will be loud music and coffee with the windows down and the heat on the floor.It's my favorite.

So.I am thinking that I might do the NaBloPoMo this year.I thought about it last year and the year before that.But I never really got cracking.I think I might have to do it in celebration of having the computers in my house up and running again.My roommate,Pax,found some way to infect both of the main computers in the house,so they were out of commission for about a month.The computer doctors came over and fixed them both,so I am back in business.I am probably just psyched that mercury retrograde is almost over.We shall see.

today I am a bit flustered.a little torn between feeling really pissed and just not giving a shit.I was called by my boss while I was asleep to let me know that I am in trouble.My response was " yeah,I know,my bad,i fucked up.I take full responsibility,so write me up and I will sign it" all without really waking up.I feel like this week is designed to test me.I have 4 more shifts until I am on vacation for 8 days.I just have to survive til then.guh.

the circle game

It's been exactly seven years today.Sometimes it really doesn't seem like it's been that long.sometimes seven years doesn't really feel all that long a time.Still i wonder who he would be today,had he had the time to develop as a person?The love that we shared was never romantic,but it was strong and true.He was my other half and I miss him so.He had alot of people convinced that I was his biological sister.I remember once we tried to fold ourselves into an egg,one entity.It was in the dark kitchen in the Hideaway cafe,way way afterhours.Watching the sunrise with him was like nothing else.He saw what I saw.I miss his point of view.

My only real consolation when he died was not found in the friends who all gathered round me afterward,Or the fact that I spent that last hour glued to his side.I was that his last words were "I feel wonderful".He felt truly amazing when he slipped out of our lives.I still miss him so much.

Only one other person who died on me cut me so deep.He was a lover and it nearly killed me.Gabriel was the one who helped me pick up the pieces of myself afterward.Then three and half years later puts me through the same thing.I guess that that is was probably as hard on me when my father died,but it happened so long ago that it's dulled over time.

I have to say that it is a little strange to live in his and M's old bedroom.To write here and to sleep here,it gets a little strange.I read M's cards right where I am sitting now,when she moved back into this room to grieve for him.It was his tarot deck,identical to my own.It was the night of a full lunar eclipse.I have a picture of the moon that I took from the roof right outside my bedroom window.It hangs on my mirror right now.I am surrounded by memories.

They say that seven years it the statute of limitations on so many things.The other day I had to tell the Dame that I thought that his spirit had long since passed on.It was hard to say out loud,But I felt him leave a few years ago.I know that his life force is still out there,doing something else.If nothing else the man was scientific and whimsical.

I will continue to honor his memory brightly in my heart and mind,I no longer say that I grieve for him.He wouldn't have wanted to be the cause of it.So I will enjoy the beauty that he brought into my life for a time,that feeling of completeness that I will never,ever forget.I celebrate that fact that he ever happened at all.

I only wanted more than I knew

So,life is finally picking back up.It feels like Autumn outside tonight and I am in love with the wind.
I have been visiting people alot lately.I think it has something to do with the fact that the other two formerly able bodied computers in the house are down with virus's and so I am reduced to using my little laptop that is made up of gum wrappers,twigs,and rubber bands and fueled by hamster wheel technology.It's severely cut back on my sitting for hours on facebook,or watching netflix and whatnot.....and increasing my chances of actual human interaction.Who knew that a couple of virtual pests could change my habits so much?

I have actually been in contact with a couple of old flames lately and it's reminding me how much I used to love having a crush on someone.I used to have little crushes on everybody.I think i miss that part of my life,so i am trying to look at the word without the cynic behind my eyes.So far it's working.when the hell did I get so fucking jaded?how come noone informed me how destructive it would be?

So tonight I spent some time sitting on my back stairs and looking at the moon.It was the more serene portion of my evening since the rest of the time I was trying to help my roommate locate and terminate a hopper (aka cave cricket) that has taken up residence in the living room,there was some insanity with a broom handle,we pissed off the downstairs neighbors and managed to relocate said hopper to a level in the room where the cats should be able to finish it off by morning.....I hope.I cannot stand hoppers.Other than that the night has been gorgeous.I think we might get an actual fall this year if the hoppers are already trying to invade the hosue.

Hold me amongst falling stars....

okay,I haven't been writing....first because I was doing this creative recovery thing where I was having to write long hand everyday,and it kinda burned me out by week 6.Since then it's abeena huge backlash of no writing,just reading reading reading.Add to this the fact that I kinda feel like this summer has been a bust,and you have the reason that there has been nary a peep out of me for what seems like an eternity.I haven't even been going to bars.I haven't been drinking.I think I might have just finally gotten sick of dealing with people trying to be impressive enough for someone to go home with.

On the other hand,I have been enjoying going to visit people,and suddenly I adore being at home.possibly because my home is no longer surrounded by creepy folks and crass individuals.I have been more antisocial than usual this summer.I am starting to crawl out of it,but it's taking time.

Yesterday I ended up going to see Havok for his game night,but leaving before games or dinner because it was full dark and I wanted to drive wth LL out to the forrest to see the tail end of the meteor shower.We ended up taking Pax along for the ride.She was in a foul mood and needed to get out into the woods to watch some falling stars.It was SOOOOOO beautiful.We saw a bunch of really big ones,I had my eyes on the skies the whole time.It was strangely chilly down by the river,which is sooooo highly unusual for mid-august.A park ranger came to tell us that the park was closed,but when we told him what we were doing he turned off his lights and watched with us for a while.He was totally amazed by how many he saw while just standing there talking to us.He was really sweet and even hosed Pax down with bug spray since she was being eaten alive. I was just happy not to be kicked out.On the drive back into the city,I even saw a few meteors thru the open sunroof.I didn't even want to come back to the city,but LL and Pax had to be up early.

I think that the falling stars have inspired me.It's time to shine again.

I am sitting here in my living room,looking at the full moon.I think I have it pretty good.

it's about art asshole....

I know the feelingIt is the real thing
The essence of the truth
The perfect momentThat golden moment
I know you feel it too
I know the feelingIt is the real thing
You can't refuse the embrace
It's like the pattern below the skin
You gotta reach out and pull it all in
And you feel like you're too close
So you swallow another dose
The pinnacle of happinessFilling up your soul
You don't think you can take any moreYou never wanna let go
To touch the roots of experienceThe most basic ingredients
To see the unseen glitter of life
And feel the dirt, grief, anger and strife
Cherish the certainty of now
It kills you a bit at a time
Cradle the inspiration
It will leave you writhing on the floor

This is so unreal, what I feel
This nourishment, life is bent
Into a shape I can hold
A twist of fate, all my own
Just grit your teeth, make no sound
Take a step away and look around
Just clench your fist and close your eyes
Look deep inside, hypnotize
he whisper is but a shout
That's what it is all about
Yes, the ecstasy, you can pray
You will never let it slip away

Like the sacred song that someone sings through you
Like the flesh so warm that the thorn sticks into
Like the dream you know one day will come to life
Try to hold on just a little longer, stronger

It's the jewel of victoryThe chasm of misery
And once you have bitten the core
You will always know the flavor
The split second of divinity
You drink up the sky
All of heaven is in your arms
You know the reason why
It's right there, all by itself
And what you are, there is nothing else
You're growing a life within a life
The lips of wonder kiss you inside
And when it's over the feeling remains
It all comes down to this
The smoke clears, I see what it isThat made me feel this way

I know the feelingIt is the real thing
The essence of the truth
The perfect momentThat golden momentI know you feel it too
I know the feeling It is the real thing You can't refuse the embrace
This is so unreal, what I feel
Flood, sell your soul, feel the blood
Pump through your veins, can't explain
The element that's everything
Just clench your fist and close your eyes
Look deep inside, hypnotize
Yes, the ecstasy, you can pray
You will never let it slip away

Like the echoes of your childhood laughter, ever after
Like the first time love urged you to take it's guidance, in silence
Like your heartbeat when you realize you're dying, but you're trying
Like the way you cry for a happy ending, ending
I know

*****I remember When this song came out when I was in high school,All these guys thought it was about masturbation because of some T-shirt that Mike Patton wore at the time.But it's about the connection between a person and their art.The need to create and communicate somethinng that is too hard to explain,something indifinable.It has to be put across through visual art,through music and through lyric, poetry and prose.It's about a way to convey what you are feeling.Bringing that into being.Ultimately it's about connection.

I tried to tell people that back then,It was how I felt about art at the time.That song still makes me feel a little high on creativity.I used to love to drop acid when I was in college and listen to that album on repeat and paint all night long.Push myself to the edge of my abilities and see what came out.Sometimes I saw the edge very very clearly.Once I tried to describe it in a song. I have since forgotten the words.I remember how to play it on guitar...but the words don't come anymore.Then again,the edge can be terrifying to some,so it's probably best that the words be an apt sacrifice to history swallowed up by time.

i'lll be fine until the time comes to put out all the lights...

A freak of nature type storm rolled across the city last night and knocked out power while I was at work.We were runnin on generators and sweating like slaves all night.Thankfully when I got home the power was still on in the house.Alot of the city is still without power today,and it might be that way for a while.Cooper Young is completely out.

It was so strange to look out teh windows during the storm and see these inline winds blowing everything sideways.The darkness on the drive home was just to alien and so still.There were downed trees all over the place and you had to navigate the streets to get around them.The strange part is that the storm part only lasted about 20 minutes.Afterward,the sky turned gold and there was this intense double rainbow.It had to be the most vivid one that I have ever seen.It lasted for quite a while.

I guess that I am counting myself very lucky that I still have the lights and air on when so much of the city is still dark.

I haven't been writing nearly enough lately.Things are just moving too fast.I am trying to slow down every now and again to make sure that I am enjoying life,instead of just living it.It seems a simple thing (it is)But that just makes it easier to forget to do it.

I figured out what I have been doing wrong for the past few months.I did it while I was in the mountains,and promptly stopped as soon as I got home.It is a ritual that I started when I was eleven years old.Smoking and Writing.I started doing it in the morning when I was 14.I think that it contributes to my sanity.I like to write longhand in jounals in the morning.I like the fact that I will eventually burn them.I burnt them either up to 93 or up to 98.I haven't unpacked them in a long time and I was rather drunk when the burning happened.It was kind of like burning my children,but I was moving again and I had sooooo many heavy boxes of journals that I could no longer lead my nomadic lifestyle with anything resembling ease.I knew I could not just toss them,let them out into the world (too incriminating)So burning...I feel no regret.

Apparently I am in trouble for this act.I was recently told that I was the one remembering everything.Noone can remember shit,but they didn't sweat it,because they knew it was written down somewhere.My ex wife actually took me by the shoulders at my birthday party and shook me over it.I did end up having to straight-arm slap the shit out her later in the evening,So I don't know exactly how much of shit I give about her displeasure.But one of my old roomates (my lovely diva friend Kenny) seemed genuinely distraught over the loss as well. Deep inside I know that as many people are ticked at me,there are many more who are rejoicing in the fact that those particular years of history went up in smoke(for good this time)

Writing and Smoking in the morning helps me to get my perspective straight for the day,before the world gets ahold of me.

This is what gave me my life back.

I had to get out of the city for a while,so Pax and I drove up into the Ozarks to visit an old friend,Cassie,and her wonderful family.Her mother is especially wonderful and I really didn't want to leave her.Some souls come into your life for a reason.I feel like something inside of me healed up while I was up in the mountains.Something that had been wounded for several years and just needed the rest to let me walk around everyday without wincing a little at times from something that I didn't even know was there,leaking out my vitality day by day.I don't know what else to say,other than I am meant to see these mountains and valleys every once and a while and I had ignored that need for far too long.I think that I am ready to start practicing again.I haven't been for a little while now.I cannot do it if I don't quite trust myself.I am finally getting my balance back.I am shedding the things and people in my life that were dragging me under.It's getting better every day.

So now I am in the home stretch,I am almost to vacation.I am trying really hard to just keep my shit together until Friday.

Have been having really really weird dreams lately and I have been sleeping less and less.It's like my mind keeps saying "oh HELL no,we are not doing that again."But I am used to it,I have been an insomniac for my entire adult life.Things would be fine if my waking life weren't being so weird as well.I got a phone call last night from an old friend of mine that I recently caught back up with.She tells me that she wants to "have an experience" with another girl,and that she is looking for a bisexual girl to have sex with her and her husband.I am still not exactly sure about this situation.I think that she was hinting that I am perfect for this job.I played dumb and said that I would ask around to see if anyone was interested in a threesome with them.I have fooled around with her in the past,but I do not find her husband attractive in the least.Come to find out,he was the one who was pushing for it,I could hear him over the line asking if it was going to "happen tonight".....I am not sure how to handle this one.I think I am gonna just stand back and see what happens.

Better than Sex

Today I woke up from a particularly weird dream.In the dream I was making out with two guys, but it was guys that I know in real life.One was an old roommate of mine named John (the Baptist) and this guy that I knew from the strip back in the day.I was having to pay really equal attention to them because they were kinda moody.I was inside my head trying to come up with a graceful exit so I could go get in my car and drive.The problem was that they were both straight.If they had been bisexual,I could have just excused myself and then they would have just got it on with each other(which might have persuaded me to stay and watch)But no,they were straight.Just when I was getting to the point where I thought I could just sneak out of the house if I told them I was going to the restroom,I woke up.My first thought was "that was easy".

It's come to my attention that this is not the first dream I have had lately where I was making out with some guy and all I could think about was leaving to go for a drive.I have to ask myself...do i really love driving THAT much???Or am I just that over men?The girl that I have been kinda seeing (but not dating) has kinda weirded me out as well.Maybe driving is the only thing that does it for me anymore.....or I need to meet someone interesting.

sense memory

listening to new order on a lazy sunday afternoon.It makes me remember the gray days that I used to spend with my friend shannon in her na-na's house,She lived with her na-na because her mother was immersed in her new family and her father was a drunk old mechanic who was not feeling like being a dad anymore.we were still in high school at the time.We would spend hours locked up in her room,listening to new order,the smiths,and bauhaus(she adored peter murphy and I was hot for daniel ash)...getting ready to go out.she was a theater girl and we could play dress up all day before deciding on the get-ups that we would wear to the club,or the show,or whatever trouble that we were preparing for.she had ray bradbury quotes written in sharpie on the mirror of her massive antique vanity table.I can still hear the crackle from the shitty stereo system she had in her chevette.everywhere that we went,we left the scent of alfred sung perfume,red wine spills and clove cigarettes.we had a penchant for wearing fishnets with everything.

like sunday morning....

I have been ignoring this blog.I am horrible koozy.But I have been kinda boring anyway.Still settling into the new house,it's taking a while,since Deb and I can never get on the ball at the same time and I have been down with an ear infection for the past week.I have been staying home,reading alot,staying out of trouble in general.Like I said,boring.But happy at the same time.
will be back when I have got some writing to do.

this is how work makes me feel tonight!!!!

Take the Ride

I have been waking up obscenely early since moving into Clark House.I am trying to find good ways to fill the time that I should be sleeping.This morning I watched "Buy the Ticket,Take the Ride".It could have been a real downer,but instead I thought about how I was influenced in my youth by the man.I remember reading his books when I was in junior high.I borrowed them from this boy that lived a few blocks away from my grandparents.He was in highschool and he would get me high in the rumpus room of his parent's house while playing Rush and old Pink Floyd. He got me hooked on two things.....space music and Hunter Thompson's writing.I was probably too young for that type thing,but in my home town,you are really never too young for anything.
I remember being so impressed with the wide open narrative...the immediacy of these events that had happened when I had been only a child,or the thought of a child.Granted,it seemed alot more recent back then,seeing as it was about 20 years ago.I realized that literature was not just what I was given to read,it was whatever I could get my hands on.His books were the ones that led me to read so many other works that changed the way that I saw my life ahead of me.He and Henry Miller were the authors that allowed me to walk away from childhood with no illusions about the nature of man.

I guess that I don't really begrudge him the way that he died.I guess that it's a rather roman way to think about the concept of life and death.I think that he knew when he was done.I think that it is your right to die off when you choose,if you truly believe that you have lived a full life. It's paradoxical though,because on the other side of the coin,when someone chooses to die because their life didn't live up to their expectations,I see it as cowardly and pathetic.It's all about the perspective,though it cannot be broken down into right and wrong.

**I have to say that I believe that my itunes (which stays permanently on shuffle) has some kind of higher intelligence.about halfway through this entry,it spewed out "Lawyers,Guns & Money" by Warren Zevon. But then,it does this shit all the time.****

kings of oblivion....

Life got turned upside down.I have been living in a box fort,but unpacking is going on at a reasonable pace and I am starting to feel at home.I think I had a mini breakdown somewhere in the middle of it all and I had to remember who I am.Venus is going retrograde today and I am hoping that it doesn't bring any super-freaky,untoward events.All in all life is progressing as it is meant to and I am trying to remember that all things pass and I will be stronger for having the experience.That is about it.

it's a one time thing,it just happens alot....

the last week or so has been equal parts social hurricane and fucking nightmare.There have also been a few moments when I recieved a shot of enlightenment.That is what the realizations felt like,a shot of really serious whiskey,in that it made me feel warm and like I was choking at the same time.One of these realizations was that I have not been paying attention at all.I have been running at top speed trying to cover so amny bases that I have been ignoring the one thing that has saved my ass more that all other things combined....my intuition. whuh....

So last wednesday morning,I was sitting at home and just chilling,waiting around for my client to show,so I could make some cash since I was seriously flat broke.Right before her appt time LL shows up at my place,she had to leave work because she was too high strung to deal with the children.She told her principle that she might start snatching up children,and she wanted to keep her job,so he set her loose.Then Boss shows up raging about the Shadow situation.Then my client shows up to get her hair done,and she's a shaking wreck because while she was waiting at the intersection by my house a branch fell on top of her car.

from there on it has been a mad house.I dealt with court for my poor car that won't pass inspection,Basically putting it off for a couple of months.I have found some people willing to haul my shit around next week.But Valentine's was nuts.I had to deal with one of my sisters getting very very upset about a man,and to avoid any funkiness,LL and I grabbed her from SSG and took her on a tour of the city that involved herbal goodness and 80's music.Then come to find out later on,sometime in the wee hours to morning,B,who is like family to me,got shot twice by some fucking lunatic neighbor of his.He's been in the ICU for days now,and I am terrible worried about him.He seems to be recovering,but it is a long road.I have all these people calling me and asking if I am alright,and I am all..I am not the one who got shot.crazy.

I do have to say that seeing him like that made me realize that my family that I have made means more to me than anything.It freaks me out that I could have lost one of them.

I am also realizing that there was NO hibernation over the winter.it was all go go go go from beginning to end really.I am just ready for spring to be here so that I can float for a while.The winter has been pretty hard,alot of work.I am hoping for an early spring.The tulip trees are already blooming,do they know something that I don't?????

a little something for carnival....

Cherise was brushing her long hair gently down
It was the afternoon of carnival as she brushes it gently down
Rubin was strumming his painted mandolin
It was inlaid with a pretty face in jade played in the carnival parade
Cherise was dressing as Pirouette in white
When a fatal vision gripped her tight
Cherise beware tonight
Rubin, Rubin tell me truly true I feel afraid and I don't know why I do,
Is there another girl for you?
If you could see my heart you would know it's true
There's none Cherise, except for you, except for you I'd swear to it on my very soul, If I lie, say I fall down cold
When Rubin played on his painted mandolin
The breeze would pause to listen in before going on its way again
Masquerade began when nightfall finally woke
Like waves against the bandstand, dancers broke to the painted mandolin
Looking out to the crowd who is standing there
Sweet Ruby Claire at Rubin stared, at Rubin stared
She was dressed as Pirouette in red
And her hair hung gently down
The crowd pressed round, Ruby stood as though alone
Rubin's song took on a different tone and he played it just for her
The song he played was the carnival parade
Each note cut a thread of Cherise's fate it cut through like a blade
Rubin was playing his painted mandolin
When Ruby froze and turned to stone for the strings played all alone
The voice of Cherise from the face of the mandolin
Singing Rubin, Rubin tell me true for I have no one
but you If you could see my heart you would know it true
There's none Cherise, except for you, except for you I'd swear to it on my very soul, If I lie, say I fall down cold
The truth of love an unsung song must tell
The course of love must follow blind without a look behind
Rubin walked the streets of New Orleans till dawn
Cherise so lightly in his arms and her hair hung gently down



I love this song...it makes me think of Mardi Gras season when I was a little girl.It seemed magical really.I loved sitting on my uncle's shoulders,catching every trinket that I could.Later on,the season was a pain in my ass,because I wasn't allowed to run the city unchecked,because there were too many people from out of town in the city,getting shitfaced and acting a fool.But when I was little it was amazing,and loud and bright and the brassbands were so roucous.I loved watching even the old folks dancing in the streets,waving their white hankies.There is nothing like it.

i've seen better days,but i don't care

this morning left me a little homicidal feeling.i actually get up early to go thru the inspection station downtown,the one closer to my house that my friend Deb insisted would be quicker....the bitch that was working my line wouldn't even inspect my car because she said it had "black smoke" she says "look,can't you see it?" and i am all "what the fuck are you talking about???" so yeah,not fucking pleased.at least on the 1st attempt,they went thru the whole rigamarole and then failed me.AND I HAVE DONE WORK ON THE CAR SINCE THEN!!!!fuckers.

soooooooo,it looks like I am gonna have to get all hoodoo on this shit.I am thinking St. Expedite, since I have to go to court over a ticket for out of date tags in under two weeks.He's got a great track record,and he's e-speedee.Gotta roll to the voodoo store in the am.

Sometimes I wonder if I am a bad person.Today after brunch,I went to visit my friend Rochelle,whom I don't really get to see all that often,though I love with all my black little heart. She is such a good friend that she warned me about the fact that my ex-wife is working in the restaurant where her boyfriend,Chachi, manages the kitchen.Needless to say,I don't get along with my ex-wife.she gave me many reasons to despise her and I finally snapped a few years ago and decided that I don't want to know her,so I moved and got rid of my landline # and told everyone not to give her my cell #.So I am told that she has become a world class alcoholic....as opposed to being just the raging alcoholic that she was when I decided to have nothing to do with her.

This is the part that makes me wonder if I am becoming a bad person. Apparently Rochelle was in the kitchen before we met up and she and Chachi were bantering back and forth,and my ex was standing nearby,so she makes sure to tell Chachi that she was going to hang out with me and he's all "good,be sure to give her a kiss from me",and about that time my ex just goes real still and stops what she is doing.WHY does that fill me with glee?does that make me a massive bitch?The fact that I love that my friends are willing to make such a display to make her aware of what she's lost....it makes me warm inside.This is not my warm and fuzzy side making an appearance,this is me being smug.Does this make me a bad person???

In other news,I am all super-excited about moving.Deb and I got Clark House,despite the fact that my landlord was totally dragging his feet and stalling,probably because I pay my rent on time and don't bother anyone.Unfortunately,I get bothered all the time by my weirdo neighbors, who have now come to be known at "the cowboy" and "shaft" by my friend Lelyn.He was chaining up his bike a few weeks ago,about to come upstairs to hang out,and they started interrogating him about why he was there.I am all for security,but honestly,I think that they are just nosy people who don't have lives of their own.Goddess bless the day that I finally get to leave shaft and the cowboy behind.

Also supremely happy that mercury went direct today!!!whoo!!!

Been trying to be patient about the whole house getting situation.Bated breath is an understatement.I have been trying to do things a little differently.go to a different coffee shop, use the computers in the library instead of at work (to avoid being written up),just going places that normally don't so that i can distract myself from the fact that i am fucking WAITING.

We actually had snow for the first time this winter.It's been cold as hell since mid-fall and we are just now getting snow.Not that I love the stuff,like some folks do.I don't get snowdays,so I have to get out in it,but it was really pretty to look at.I feel like I have been so boring lately,since I am trying to save up money for the prospective move and I can't g out like I normally like to.I am so used to going out every night.I have also been staying in because of the cold.I am not native to cold climates,and I know you are thinking.....Memphis,a cold climate.....and laughing your ass off,but seriously,I am from tropical climes and this is fucking freezing.

okay,i am being boring.WANT TO MOVE!!!!bye

from the year that I was born....

It is winter in earnest now.It's been below freezing for the better part of a week and I am already fed up with it.Today wasn't so bad,but it's the first day that it's been above freezing,and it felt damn near tropical.

This weekend I decided to lay low and keep to myself.Last week was so busy busy busy,I just needed some time to snuggle down in my bed and dream.I have also gotten more sleep in the past two days than I have in the past two weeks.For a while there I had nothing but really bad,really stressful dreams every night.Alot about war and guerilla fighters and deserts and jungles.I think that it was in part because I have been following the news lately and I think it also had a bit to do with the news I got a few weeks ago about how Jericho was killed.So I just stopped sleeping for the most part.I decided to stop following the news.If something important enough happens,then someone will tell me about it.

But I finally had a dream over the weekend.I was at college,I think,like a study period or something.I don't know if I was a student or a professor.It was really frenetic and everyone was all running around and I was dancing with some girls that looked familiar.Then I left there,and I was driving my old 87 Celica (I loved my little sportscar)that I drove when I was 19.It was so exhilarating and then I ended up in some bar/coffee house that kinda reminded me of Earnestine and Hazel's downtown.I ended up in the back room on a couch making out with this 6'7 guy that I know socially.I remember thinking to myself that I didn't want to take him home,I just wanted to make out with him for a while and then go drive some more.Then meaux woke me up yelling about the bottom of his foodbowl being visible.When I told Boss about my dream, she giggled at me and said that she thought it was cute how I equate driving cars with sex.

I miss both my celicas.the first one that I drove was a 1975 that had been modified a bit for racing.Basically it was one of my uncle's friend's hobby car,and he had gotten bored with it.There was no back seat and most of the dashboard was gone,it was light as hell and had these massive tires on it.It was fast as all-get-out and I was only 14,and my uncles thought that I needed a ride,so that they didn't have to cart me around.I was thrilled,and learned to drive a 5speed in record time.

I fell in love with the high rolling hills on the edge of town(or it was before it all got developed in the past 15 years or so) that ran thru the woods.I could catch serious air,because the car weighed practically nothing.I think that at that age the concept of danger was the most sexy thing on the face of the planet.I would grab my friend Shannon and we would ride on those hills in the fall with the windows down and the heat on the floorboard,wrapped in thick scarves,singing Bob Dylan songs at the top of our lungs and drinking spiked coffee.I had never felt so free in my life.

It made a lasting impression on me and to this day,if I am feeling hemmed in,or sad,or I just need to clear my head.....the first thing I do is grab my car keys.My big ancient volvo might not be as fast as those little sportscars,but she still does the trick.Calms me right down.I still open the windows and put the heat on the floor and sing as loud as I can,and I remember exactly who I was and who I still am down in there somewhere.

Been busy as hell lately.Things are good though and I am starting to feel alive again.I have had a good bit of business for the past week or so,and I have been making plans to play with alot of different people.I have also been considering moving back into Clark House with Deb.I found out that it was up for rental and it would be cheaper for both of us if we were splitting the bills.She has been pestering me to live with her again for about a year now.

I was thinking that maybe it isn't the best time for considering this,as it is mercury retrograde,but then I really thought about it.Retrograde usually has to do with things coming back from the past,and we have lived there before.Of course the last time we lived there we almost died,and the DEA was watching the place because one of our roommates was selling crystal mest,and we didn't find out until pretty late in the game.Then again,the crystal meth eventually saved my ass.It was a pretty fucked up week.

It started when the police came in and searched the house.One of my other roommates(there were five of us) had let them in while we were all asleep,except the meth dealer,who was likely out dealing.I still cannot believe that the police rummaged through my room while I was out like a light the whole time,and I am a very light sleeper.They found nothing,and resumed watching from across the street.

Later in the week,a friend of ours from knoxville was visiting and had brought this stuff called GHB.I had no idea what it was and since they were drinking it out of shotglasses,I thought it was alcohol (like PGA or something) and drank a shot of it.turns out that you are supposed to mix a capful into a gallon of orange juice and drink a shotglass of that.I found deb fished out in the bathroom and tried to keep her under control,which was not easy,seeing as I was getting pretty lousy myself.Somehow a couple of friends of our showed up at the house to try and find out what had happened to us.Sunshine,who had brought the GHB to town was passed out on the couch. The Dame,who is a 6' hoss of a woman,woke up when they tapped her on the shoulder.Deb lost consciousness and then stopped breathing.So SuperDave and Heffe bit the bullet and took her to the hospital.I however,went catatonic while trying to crawl down the hallway to find her.

I have to say that my biggest fear in life at this point is being in paralysis.I could think and I could see and hear and that was it.My best friend at the time,B,kept me in his lap and tried to keep me from passing out and keep me breathing for a few hours.I couldn't even say anything while he just kept telling me to look in his eyes and not to die on him.I don't think that he knew I could hear him when he told them that my heart was slowed almost to nothing.Then my speed dealer roommate showed up along with one of my oldest friends in memphis.They decided that since they had a substance on hand that could speed my heart back up,they should blow it up my nose.After the second session of this,I came to....with three men telling me "you need to snort these lines of meth,or you might die".....needless to say,it was the last time that I ingested speed,or did experimental drugs for that matter.

We all moved out of that house the next day.Deb and I couch surfed for a month before finding a place together on Belvedere.Now,you might wonder why we would want to move back into a house that we nearly died in......I will tell you.Because it is an amazing apartment with the biggest clawfoot bathtub ever made by man.It is HUGE and has amazing windows.I love the attic that I used to live in.I love the fact that there is a washer and dryer in it.I love the kitchen and all the windows.Most of all I love the roof that you can crawlout onto from the bedroom windows.It is big enough to throw a party in.I am hoping that we can rent this house!!!I can deal with being a little creeped out by the hallway.I want my attic back!

these are a few of my favorite things...

the blue of the sky about 15 minutes after the sun goes down on cloudless days.
swimming at night,especially in lakes or the ocean
reading and smoking in the bath
red apples
laughing with my sisters
the distant sound of trains late at night when my windows are open
talking shit to my cat(he takes it so well)
thin mint girl scout cookies that have been frozen
mixing up scents
high thread count bed linens (i am a fabric whore)
going to parties where I know and really love everyone there
the right color red
camping (especially with Deb)
taking photographs
living in midtown
finding and adopting things that have been used and given away or abandoned
wearing chinese doll shoes
nan goldin's photographs
driving late at night (sanctuary)
pecans
making up haiku
slow dancing
songs in french
juxtapos magazine
conversations with strangers
getting lost and finding my way back
throwing things
the botanic gardens
painting
listening to music in my studio at night with the lights out and the blinds open
talking to someone while sitting in a parked car in winter(usually drinking for warmth)
swingsets on cloudy days
the 1970's
my volvo!!!
making mixed cd's(since I don't make mixed tapes anymore) for the people I love
shuffling through dry fallen leaves that make swish-swish-swish noise
Steely Dan (particularly the song "deacon blues")
Gustave Moreau
being barefoot
the way that the air smells when I take a hot bath after I've been wearing china rain oil
calico patchwork
being alone
my bed!!!
writing and smoking in the mornings
getting off work and knowing that I have the next day off
the "house is clean,laundry is done,kitchen is stocked" feeling
stained glass windows in cathedrals
ruby port wine with chocolate or tawny port and those little mandarin oranges

2009.....rise and shine

So.I had a really nice New Years Eve.I decided to pass on all the crazy events.I decided to stay home and have my sisters over.I worked three spells and worked a few with Boss.I consecrated my new anthame that I got for Yule from Lelyn (love him)and it was a really good night.

2009 started with dancing and singing with my sisters.We made things to burn for the new year and honestly,it was so much better than going out.I just couldn't decide what I wanted to go to,so I said fuckit and stayed in.I didn't want to deal with a bunch of drunk people and tons of smoke and the risk of kissing the wrong person for new years.I don't care what anyone says,the first kiss of the year has a lot to do with how your year turns out.It never fails,if I don't pay attention,someone strange comes along and lays one on me,then my year turns out screwy.Last night we decided to forgo any stupidity and so I kissed my sisters.The last year that happened turned out to be a wonderful year,so I think that this will work out for the best.

I was actually thinking last night about a New Years Eve from over a decade ago.It was '96-'97.
I was with my family that I had before I got divorced from my exwife.We were hanging with some really amazing people back then.Every single one of them had light in their eyes.I don't know if it was because we were young(or because we were a bunch of hippies)but spiritually,I felt like I truly belonged with those people at that time.We brought in 1997 dancing and singing to eachother about love.I brought in that year being held by some of the most beautiful beings I have ever known.I still miss them intensely.

Somewhere around 2am,I got the bright idea to go across the street to another party where a bunch of my old friends were,it was this facility called Spirit,Mind,and Body.Apparently,I passed out during this process and collapsed in the middle of Cooper st.Big Scott picked me up and carried me back into the house and snuggled me into my friend Kathy's bed,I never did make it to that other party.It turns out my ex-wife had passed out around the side of the house in a flowerbed.It was a wild party,But I felt totally at home and I wonder if I will ever be able gather together a family like that ever again.

I know that the people I am with now have light in their eyes,it's just on a dimmer switch.You just have to find the switch(I can still spot a black hole from 20 paces & I have learned to keep my distance)I wonder sometimes,if I just shine bright enough,if others who shine the same will come to join me.That is how it worked the last time....and I am tired of hiding.

blue in green

She's trying to sing just enough,so that the air around her moves...

So.The holiday spirit is running rampant this year,and for once I am just trying to go with the flow.I have recieved some pretty interesting presents so far and some of them quite useful to tell the truth.I have even been going places without my headphones on,and not coming out all homicidal.Maybe I am mellowing out in my old age?Maybe I am just running around with a buzz all the time from the rum balls and the nip bottle of jager that I have been hitting.Normally about this time I have already started holing up in my house after laying in a store of booze and insist that noone comes near me until it is over,and time for new years.This year I am proving to be downright jovial.

Did spend last night holed up,but mainly because it has become too cold for life to be undertaken without a blanket and the heating pad and my cat all strapped to me for warmth.I had Boss and LL over.We dorked out and watched two of the longest movies EVER,all snuggled up together in my bed.Somehow this went on until 5am.I am just glad that I didn't have to anything but brush my teeth,quit the lights and then crawl back into my pre-warmed nest of blankets.Boss tells me her hands practiacally froze to the steering wheel of her truck driving home.Pooh-bet.

I have been having the weirdest dreams lately.Most of them are purely situational,none of them seem prophetic or anything.So I ask myself why in the world I am remembering them so clearly when I wake up.Maybe it's the winter.Like how the stars look so much clearer in the cold night, maybe the dreams,like stars,come clearer in the cold.who knows???I have also been dreaming of being in Europe(not that it would be a good idea right now,with $ so tight)I had one where I was in Ireland,and I had one about Belgium recently.I guess that at least I am wealthy enough for travel when I am unconscious.

I did get to spend a little tiny bit of time by a bonfire for yule.I was with LL,Heffe and Trevor, and the wind was cutting right through me.But I did get to have a fire.Trevor's party was pretty strange.It was alot of good people gathered there,Only one that I have quarrel with.She ended up eating mushrooms and tackling me onto Boss,while I was lit and drinking quite a bit of jagermeister.I ended up with a very wet ass(from Boss's drink) and The Perpetrator of the tackle got to sit very uncomfortably across from my and my sisters all sitting on a couch together studiously ignoring her.Other than that it was a fantastic party.We did alot of smoking in the garage,alot of braving the freezing wind to look at the stars(they have more of them out there) and alot of talking crazy while under the influence.I am hoping for a good New Years party as well.I haven't pinned down exactly where I need to be yet,But i have more than a week to narrow it down.

long december and there's reason to believe that maybe this year will be better than the last...

I sat up late with one of my best friends the other night,talking about how we will look back on 2008.We decided to call it a "learning year" because it was moch nicer than the alternative.At first all we could seem to think of was the way that we had been worked over by this year(deaths,bullshit,the drama llama coming home to roost,medical clusterfucks,malfunctions,and major disasters)But by the end of the conversation,we had decided that it was just a year of learning limitations(and learning how to use them)and finding out exactly who we are.

I guess that I am really glad that this year is almost over.It's been a hard one,but I am in a better place than I was at this time last year.Maybe not financially,but in many other ways.I know that I am stronger,and I have stopped sticking my head in the sand when it comes to keeping up with what is happening in the world.

All in all,I am ready for 2009.I think this will be a year of broadening horizons for me and of finding adventure whereever I can.Life is what you make it.

why it's gotta be this way.Why do people ask what you think and then get all upset when you tell them the truth???I guess that it's that whole policy of truth thing.Fucking hell.

And we crossing border after border,We realize the difference is none

Am in a rather strange frame of mind today.It's been raining cats and dogs all night and all day,and the wind has been intense.I was talking to Boss the other day about traveling,about moving all the time.I think sometimes that the strange feeling I get,that flighty feeling,is because I have stayed in one place too long.I have been looking at apt listings again.I think that maybe it's my gypsy blood boiling up again.I do miss going so many places and meeting so many new people all the time.I know that my body would protest such conditions as I used to live in,sleeping on floors and such,but I do miss it.I was alot tougher when I was young.

More than that,lately I feel like everything is in the air.I know that it's partially that end of the year feeling.Only a few more weeks left in 2008.It has been a rough year altogether.I gues that I kinda have high hopes for 2009.I know already that I want to move into a new apartment at some point during this year,mostly because I am tried of my creepy neighbors and the evil ass parking lot.I love the matchbox lounge,but quite honestly,I think I might need more room to spread my stuff out......Or I might need to unload a bunch of my stuff.One or the other has to happen.

I am also thinking about writing a letter.....THE letter.I haven't written a letter to the goddess in a long time.I have been perfectly happy being alone until a couple of instances lately.I don't really want someone that I have to marry,or even live with....I just want someone to talk to in the dark.It's also about being warm.I think that this winter is going to be hella cold,and rather long.