cackling uncontrollably I am the mad woman who sits alone at the blues bar, writes, amuses herself.

Sitting by the door, I noticed a woman carrying a handbag trimmed with fur come in. She seated herself at a table close to me. Her accessory struck me as being a kind of grotesque display of modern fashion. I later rescued it from being consumed/destroyed by Northside's resident mutt (a half-blind English Bulldog), but not without hesitation (he was clearly enjoying himself). It was hard to hold back the laughter after that. It was so absurd - and oddly romantic - I had trouble distracting myself from the image. Intimate, solo blues music..... dog ravaging woman's gaudy purse (guffaw)..... blues..... purse (cackle)..... blues..... purse (snicker).....

shutters on the fifth floor

Out the window a man sits on the roof of a tall building in downtown Atlanta. He smokes a cigarette, fidgets, stands up, puts his hands in his pockets, sits back down again. A MARTA train slides past in the distance. Grady Hospital. Clouds in the sky. He looks around.

What does the heart see?
What does it tell itself?

It paces. Shifts its weight, listlessly, from one foot to the other. Believes itself alone.

thankfulness.

fullness of Love that makes me wonder how I could continue another moment. how my day to day life could survive the explosion. the heat. the gravity. how one could experience divine providence, even for a moment, and ever resume the task of living. pick up a pen or let words pass, any of them. makes you regret the moment it does. presses tears from the eyes. from your gut strings and heart pearls. from the part of you that beats and is still living. to remind you you're living. the string left unbroken. the possibility of arriving still intact.

bitch

I kept the door open last night while I worked on my art project. I caught the attention of a stray when I first came in. I, on the balcony, she on the ground. We considered each other. It's always been fascinating to me how animals know to look you in the eye. After inching herself closer, she finally came to my door. I gave her scraps of chicken. She ate and dozed in the doorway. I've felt a connection to strays. The black bitch of Mason Avenue, her used-up tits hanging grotesquely. The skinny dog I left on the shores of Valdivia. And this cat. We have an understanding - them and me. I know how not to scare them, myself being fearful.

how to disappear completely

What the heat has to teach my body - its broken water mains and stagnant pools - with enough heat you could dry up either of these. With fire.

Thanks to a recent lack of air conditioning, I've begun to come to terms with my sweat. I would rhapsodize about why sweat is beautiful; how it's one out of thousands of ways the oceans we contain manifests itself, how we sweat in the midst of pain, of joyfulness, of lust,

but I'm mostly interested in its application to problems. When we say we have to "work out" a problem, we usually mean we're going to think it through. Perhaps some solutions literally require working out - work that is evident only as it appears in beads on the upper lip or forehead.

With this thought in mind, I enjoin myself and others to begin again the hardest work. (I don't have to tell you what it is because you know.)

A humble offering of our water and salt to the fire of recognition, maybe the god of us water-creatures will notice and take pity.

on a bus in Chile

Pet Your Confusion

You set bowls of milk out as offering.
It eats, then curls up in your chest.

Every moment I spent in Chile was stolen. Stolen from a life I was trying to hold onto at home. A non-life, really, as the only thing that was missing from it was my self. David, my boyfriend at the time, basically forbade me from going. His jealousy, fully manifesting itself in our relationship at that point, punctured any happiness I had once felt and kept him in a state of suspicion. He had abandoned himself to his suspicion, actually. Our evening phone calls (they were really interrogations) while I was in Chile left me crumpled, wet, and ruined.

Ruined, but free. There's something liberating about being in a different hemisphere from the source of your pain and self-loathing. Especially when you've been swept from the throws of Winter into beautiful, Chilean Spring. Those ten short days abroad were some of the best of my life. I was mopey and alone. I separated myself from the group every chance I got. I picked flowers and prompted a spontaneous daisy picnic. I was so alienated that any openness or happiness I experienced, was an unexpected gift. Was an experience of Grace. Chile was indescribably beautiful and our cello choir concerts, intense.

There was the concert in the rose garden in Santiago, with white banners streaming. The concert in the ruins of Mora(?) Island, where I had those amazing cherry pastries (there were cherry orchards on the island), saw the school-house and its flowers, and got rained on. The stray mutt I left on the banks whose fate was mine, the black volcanic sand of the beach, and our 18 cellos bobbing up and down in dingy boats across the water - some bizarre procession. Eighteen casualties - our instruments in their black caskets.

There was also the concert in the Catholic church in Valdivia, which was magical. We made sacred music there. Music that was careful not to break the silence too completely. And then there was the unforgettable bus ride along the shores of Valparaiso. Window open, knees wedged between my seat and the one in front of me, hair flying, blue skies, water that stretched from rock to horizon.

Moments like those make you beg whatever higher power exists to kill you, right then and there, because it doesn't get better.

I've experienced other moments of joy like that, and gratitude, when my heart asked to lift itself clear of my chest and join itself with whatever lies beyond.

10 minutes

They held each other for 10 minutes at least. They held each other, even though their car was getting booted across the street.

When all is said and done, you can tell them how horrible I was - how I made you give me massages and never bought the toilet paper. If you want these mistakes you can have them. Mistakes we make because we're young and we still think all the stupid shit counts for something. Mistakes we make because we're afraid of being vulnerable to each other. Because someone told us love is possession and we believed them. Mistakes capitalism would be proud of because if we weren't preoccupied with having and didn't always want more no one would make any money off of us.

The light is getting thinner - as it does at sunset.
Colors don't actually exist, but we see them anyway.
I'd like to believe in will.
I'd like to believe in self-determination,
but I've got somebody else's gum stuck to my shoe
and all my mother's problems.

clementines before bed

I'm wearing blue slippers with stars and moons on them. They were given to me in December of 2001 at a company Christmas party. I took off my heels and put them on. I got chided by my boss for doing so - but only because we were at the Ritz.

My fingers smell of clementines because I've just eaten about five of them. There's something about peeling fruit. Oranges, tangerines, pomegranites, grapefruit even. Everything is veiled. Everything breaths, everything shits, and everything has a membrane of some sort.

Burst your bubble.

We often say we're doing something to "get close", but we're usually just talking about physical proximity. Matt wants to "get close" me. I want to "get close" to ____. But I just ate a clementine. What the hell are we talking about?

you're trying too hard - surrender.

I saw a man today who had ears like dried apricots.

I saw a man today bent over a pair of men's patent leather shoes, buffing away furiously.

I saw a man today crossing the road who looked nervously at my car as I inched it up to the crosswalk line.

I said "hello" to Deb who works the burrito line at my favorite bistro. She has a teenage daughter and a grandson. She's got the kind of sense of humor you mistake for rudeness at first. She said I looked tired. I am tired. I had the pleasure of "putting up" Kt and Seth last night. I made deviled eggs, some anti-pasta, fettuccine alfredo, and cookies. I do actually enjoy cooking. I don't know when I began to believe that I didn't.

It was good to see Kt. She made a scrapbook for me I feel the need to show off as soon as possible. I also enjoyed having Seth around. He and Matt get along really well. Matt entertained him while Kt and I went for a walk. Later we went dancing at the Star Bar where we both got really sweaty.

I'm not the most trusting person. I wouldn't say I'm un-trusting necessarily, but I try to keep my eyes open. There's usually not much I need to trust people with so it hasn't been an issue. Lately I've been conflicted. I want to disclose, but every time I open my mouth I feel I'm just providing another person with ammo. Most of the time I feel healthy (not a feeling but what the hell) about disclosure. But right now it feels more like exposure. Sometimes I take people's good will for granted. I assume people have basic good will towards each other and that they operate on somewhat standard moral practices - like openness and honesty. This isn't the case all the time. It's left me feeling I need to be more careful. More sensitive to how I'm being perceived, despite my actual intentions, motivations, feelings etc. Despite how I actually AM essentially.

On one hand, it doesn't matter at all what people think of you. There's a disconnect between people's thoughts and reality - so what does it matter? Thoughts can't hurt me. On the other hand, you can be whatever you want, have all the good qualities in the world, but that doesn't guarantee success typically unless someone else recognizes those in you. Like the whole grad school thing for instance. Or leadership. It's not enough to be right. Just like how good research alone doesn't facilitate change in the world. Being right or "good" isn't enough, you have to be convincing as well.