Concrete Solutions for a Brittle Economic Time

Often times all the trouble and oppression in our world can feel overwhelming. The more one learns the more one feels as if all the ism-threads (sexism, capitalism, racism, ageism etc) can never be separated and because of that strong knot nothing will ever really change. I feel this ism-knot as a conspiracy to keep us locked in constant theoretical debate, to keep us apathetic or just completely overworked. The knot keeps us from being able to see solid solutions to problems that affect us all. Sure it’s intense at times. But I think it is of utmost important to have an open dialogue with one another, to throw out ideas that just may work. Of course, these are not new ideas that I am writing, but I want to hear what you all think of some of the solutions that I’ve been contemplating in my own mind, solutions that seem reasonable, that seem to be conducive for the majority of people living in the united states. Here are two ideas.

1) A Maximum Wage—Everyone seems to be able to come to the conclusion that a minimum wage should exist, but it would make the most sense to have a minimum wage that included enough money to actually live on and a maximum wage that caped people off from having more money than anyone truly needs in a lifetime. Sure this would change the dynamics of capitalism, but it is not nearly as drastic as completely ridding our society of its capitalistic flavors.

2) Job Sharing—Here is the plan. Multiple people work at the same job, they work the same amount of time and are off the same amount of time and get paid the same amount for the entire year. What would this look like? I believe there could be multiple ways of doing this, but to put it in a more concrete example: Sally works for the Flower Power Co. from May to August and Dec to Feb. and has Sept. to Nov. and March to May off. During that time she receives a regular weekly salary that is exactly the same whether she is on or off the employee schedule. Betty works and is off the exact opposite of Sally.

Job sharing would enable people to contribute to the capitalist society by “working” mainstream jobs but would also give people time to contribute to their own life chooses whether it is something in the creative sphere such as writing or watching films, whether it is dedicating oneself more to their family and friends, whether it is starting one’s own business, whatever whatever.

I don’t know, these seem like great solutions to our current economic woes, what do you all think?

I've decided I don't want you to Touch me with Your Hand

Who came up with the concept that you should have a firm grip when you shake someone’s hand because it shows you’re confident/assertive/in control etc? I want to find that person and punch that person in the face. Whoever came to this idea and decided to spread it around is a jackass. Why? Because now no one even shakes your hand they just squeeze it. They squeeze it like it’s a game of mercy—whoever let’s go first is the loser. They squeeze it like they want to break all the bones in your hand.

And let’s me honest. It no longer proves anything about anyone because everyone knows you’re supposed to firmly grip the other’s person’s hand.

I have a suggestion. How about we don’t touch each other’s hands at all? I don’t know where your hand has been, it could have been up your own ass for all I know. If you really think about it what’s a handshake for anyway? Is it like our Avatar tail? We touch you on the outside so we know what you’re like on the inside? Except now we can’t get any sense of each other because the person shaking your hand cuts off all circulation before any meaning is sent through.

Thus making me come to the conclusion that you—hand smasher—are probably just an asshole.

A little stream mixed with a little dream

windows to see into the screen, into the alley, into your belly. windows to open, windows to close, windows buy time until your brain explodes. garlic breath isn’t it fresh, fresh from the garden of tongue and mouth death. are you depressed. degraded. over-stimulated by the mutated tomatoes staring at you in the center of winter, laughing sinisterly as you chop in delight, those big juicy red tomatoes snicker and slime through your teeth, mushing toxins down your glub. windows to the earth where there is dirt, where fruit grows like old men’s toes. and garlic still leaves your breath smelling of death and rot and rain. Tomorrow.

Am I done with this style, have I over stylized this style am I dead to this way, should I try something not me, something unknown and ghoulish or just keep trucking through hoping that I’m doing the right thing?

Who really knows what the right thing is anyway right? We all have our own minds. Each of us have comprehended the earth in our own way, yet we are all connected in a very threadlike manner to one another, whether we like it or not, whether we agree on anything else, we have to agree on the fact that we are all here trying to deal with one another. Our ideas may be complete opposites or somewhere in the grays. It could be that there are parts of our own selves that we don’t even like, so how could we ever like anyone else completely, totally, purely? Is purity something humans are even capable of? I mean how can one ever be innocent? I don’t mean in any catholized “we’re all sinners” sort of way, but in a way that right out of the womb we’re left jarred, forced into a world of someone else’s making. And the entire time we’re left here trying to figure shit out. Because we never figure it all out. Which at times seems wonderful, an endless array of learning, yet at other times it seems overwhelming and heavy, like the weights of time and ignorance are being set on one’s chest. But, I like to think everyone feels that way, but then again that’s me generalizing humanity, which I obviously shouldn’t do since each and everyone of us have different experiences. Just as a quick example, think of driving down the road with another person—you see everything out of the right window, she sees everyone out of the left. In those moments of flash by experiences you could see a fight or a bird or a giant frog which could spark a memory or an idea that the driver would never have even thought of—it’s just so weird and obvious I guess, but the more I think about it the more it sort of creeps me out. What brought you to reading this? What brought me to writing it?

Does it make a difference at all? Is it supposed to? And if so should I be a doing a better job at whatever it is I am supposed to be communicating right here for you to read? How is it that we are so separated from one another? Surely we are all connected in a greater more mystical way—so why can’t we be kind to one another?

Why can’t you move over when I am walking down the same sidewalk? Really, why? That is my singular most greatest mystery about life—when I can figure it out I believe I will understand the meaning of life.

I used to think that when I understood the meaning of life—that whenever that moment came to be and I “got it” I would suddenly implode or get hit by a bus or something because there would be no more reason to live. But then I realized that that could never happen, because the meaning of life is a continual search for meaning.

Another conspiracy (Military) theory

I’m wondering—is it cyclical or a conspiracy or both… the economy goes under—people can’t find jobs, they join the military to go fight in an (unjust) war because it’s really the only choice after they lose their homes and can’t afford food. This seems to be just around the corner for most people, and I’m sure has been the answer for many already. But how fucked up is this--the government starts a war—the war causes the economy to collapse—and now all the poor working class people (specifically minority men) have to go fix it—either way they are riding the death line. Starve to death here or get blown up over there. The government doesn’t have to institute a draft because they’ve put so many people in such terrible circumstances that they leave them with only one viable option.

Another conspiracy (Conan) theory

Last night my conspiracy theory mind was running rampant. It happened when Conan, for like the millionth time this week, was bitching about NBC. He decided that since NBC has to basically pay for whatever he does until he gets released he’s going to ridiculously spend their money. Following that comment he brought out the most expensive car available for purchase dressed up like a mouse. Okay. So we get it. But this is where I started to get that weird tingly sensation in my brain when it goes into over analysis and I perhaps overthink a moment. Was this NBC, Conan, and Leno’s idea all along—perhaps not all along, but it was at least heavily discussed. Look at the representation of Conan. He is now an American hero. He represents all the people who have been fucked over in the last few years, but he gets to earn his revenge on national television. He gets to over-spend company money and he gets to slam his boss over and over again (to the point of redundancy). He gets to do everything most people who have gotten “let go” dream about doing. And what ideal timing. Right in the middle of a major recession when more people can invest more time in television because they have no money to do anything else. After the show ends and he gets his 33 million severance pay he can basically do whatever he wants for the rest of his life—another major vicarious dream come true for his audience. In the end, we know it will not end badly for Conan. Perhaps the other people on his staff are going to get fucked but no one can relate to their boring ass lives so who the fuck cares?

What do you taste like?

Good taste

Is it possible to determine who has it and who doesn’t? To me it seems even more subjective than who is beautiful, because at least with beauty there have been scientific studies to determine it’s mainly about being in proportion. But, how can one person claim they have “better” taste over someone else? Or that someone simply doesn’t have it at all? Isn’t that, in a way, creating god in your own image? Especially if you’re assuming that everyone has to have the same taste as you in order for it to be good.

This seems quite problematic in that if I started plucking off friends who didn’t like the same things as me I would have none left. Especially since I don’t like creamy martinis. I wouldn’t even be able to live with Ryan because I find his taste in bananas utterly repulsive. And what about all my friends who are married or getting married or have children or want children. Do I just shun them because their lifestyle tastes are alternative to mine?

So, what do we do? Isn’t at least a similarity in tastes how we connect with people and become friends? Yet, don’t they also say that opposites attract? In the end it seems, perhaps, we should just leave taste at the table and let it go if it isn’t on your plate.

23 Things to do before I move...

Many of you know that Ryan and I will be moving out of Chicago in the summer, so I've complied a list of 23 things to do before I move. I would love more suggestions and requests to join me!

1) Ice skate downtown (winter)

2) Find someone with a boat and go out on the lake (summer)

3) Road trip to Milwaukee (beer)

4) Chinatown

5) See Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince of Persia @ Imax (May/Spring)

6) National Museum of Mexican Art

7) Swedish Museum in Andersonville

8) Actually finally get a beer from the Hop Leaf

9) Eat pizza out of a bowl at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder

10) Have a (vege) Chicago hotdog

11) BEACH (summer)

12) Go to the Museum of Science and Industry

13) Free music in the park (summer)

14) Pitchfork (summer)

15) Pervertable Tongues at the Metro

16) Road trip to Wisconsin (cheese)

17) Have a martini at the Hancock

18) Go one last time to the Art Institute

19)Road trip to the Botanical Gardens AND stop at the

20) Bahai Temple in Evanston/Willmette (Late spring)

21) Top of FormOsaka Japanese Gardens (at Wooded Island in Jackson Park) (spring or summer)

22) Chicago Supernatural Cruise

23) Go to an S&M bar (near my apartment)

Mind Fuck: Post-Modern War Trip and a Revolution

The last two Netflix dvds Ryan and I watched were Steal this Movie and The Weather Underground. I don’t know if it was coincidental that we received two movies revolving around Vietnam, protesting, movements, hippies, riots etc. but we did and it got me contemplating. Many people are comparing what’s going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan to Vietnam. It makes sense, in one of those movies they refer to the president sending over 50,000 more troops—so the link comes easily. What doesn’t come easily and what isn’t even close to comparable is United States citizens’ reactions. Yes. The wars have parallel events, but how we handle them are completely different.

1960’s and 1970’s are exposed as a time of “revolution,” a revolution that was short winded and didn’t quite get the job done. And when I see these movies I wonder how much of a propaganda they are. Because I feel torn. I feel paranoid. Almost all of the anti-war protestors, the anti-capitalists, pro-equality leaders have been defeated, whether they were killed or whether they were influenced to the point of giving up and joining the cocaine binges and shoulder pad excitement of the 80’s.

Don’t they feel pissed off that the cycle has repeated itself, and in their lifetime even. Aren’t they infuriated that everything they once stood for got shat on and no one seems to care? That most people look at the Vietnam time period through nostalgic lenses instead of a lens of learning.

These movies make it seem that it is nearly impossible to create true change. They do such a good job of influencing apathy that people my age are defeated before they even begin. We think what we learned from the 60’s and 70’s is to not do it that way because it doesn’t work. Perhaps, it works TOO well. Perhaps they were truly on the brink of something monumental and they gave up because it truly was too difficult to battle one of the most evil passive aggressive/ violently obvious power houses ever to exist in the history of this planet.

The most intelligent and influential people have control of your knowledge. Do you think they would allow you to see how a true revolution works? At first, you may answer, no. But then, yes. Perhaps it’s a psychological mind fuck. They know if you see it and you see that it didn’t do much for change that you will not want to repeat those actions. But. Let’s be real. Things have changed since the 60’s and 70’s. The fight wasn’t worthless. And they did stop an unjust war.

We’re entering a new decade. This past one has sucked ass. I am pissed off that 1/2 of my life was under the control of the Bush family. I’m pissed that people don’t pay attention to history. That people live passively, idly by, waiting for their life to end. We can ALL see that capitalism is a fucked up game. We are aware that racism and sexism and ageism and all the isms still exist. We are all aware that 30,000 more people are going over to fight in a war for reasons that are just not justifiable. But what are we going to do about it? Ignore it until we implode anyway?

Yes, it’s great in theory to think you can live in your little shell, your tiny box, to imagine that you are not connected to anyone else or anything else, but if you weren’t connected, you would be dead. Like about 100,000 civilians who already are (not to mention the military).

What really sucks is how quickly hope can shatter. I believed in the Obama’s campaign for change. I still feel that part of my apathy and passivity comes from the euphoria of getting Bush out of office and getting, finally, a non-white president. But, now I’m wondering if he again is just a figure-head, a puppet like Bush but with a better smile. Was he just a ploy to get the liberal uprising to calm down? I want to trust him. I really do. But I can’t help thinking he’s being manipulated and played like the rest of us.

We need a new revolution. Time has altered us. Perhaps the picketing and the riots are no longer the best solution. But we NEED something. This frightens me. In the deepest parts of my heart, I wish they would have stuck it out in the 60’s and 70’s, pushed through so that when I was born in the 80’s my life would have been a hippie’s paradise. But the battle has waxed and waned. The same general goals still exist. I don’t want to leave this world knowing that I did nothing to make it better. If I kept my voice silent I would internally torture myself while also missing vital connections and relations to people that I need in my life. So maybe we do it a bit differently this time around, but at least let’s do something. I know I want to. But I have to be honest. I’m not sure where to go or how to start.

I know what we do not need. We do not need a resurgence of cocaine or shoulder pads. Nor do we need to go around smelling like patchouli oil or forgetting to comb our hair.

But our time of ignoring all of this is over.

Or we are.

Romance, Sex and Violence

The other night, Ryan mentioned something about wasting away money on expensive call-girls. I said he if did that before paying me back the money he owes me I would strangle him. He then laughed, agreed and said if anyone did that they deserved to have their brains smashed in with a hammer or a bat or some heavy object, I can’t recall. This remark made me cringe, for I didn’t want to imagine bashing Ryan’s head in with a candlestick, rather I wanted to imagine strangling him almost to the point of death. His vision of violence was grotesque, where my vision, to me, seemed a deserving punishment for the hypothetical crime.

I don’t generally condone violence, but I can’t help but find some forms more romantic than others. For example, if I can imagine myself doing it, like truly performing the action, it isn’t gross. Basically anything done with my natural body, punching, slapping, pulling hair. These have a rustic, classic comprehension to them. Whereas spooning out someone’s eye or stripping off someone’s skin for your own new skin just gives me the willies’. I guess in some weird way I have compartmentalized violences that could potentially be deserving as opposed to violences that are just fucked up no matter what.

Another example is in the movie Hard Candy, staring the beautiful and talented Ellen Page. I feel quite a bit of tension for the man but also a deep enjoyment in his torture. Why? Because he’s a jackass rapist murderer and she’s just laying down the Karma.

Or in the movie Teeth, the main character (Jess Weixler) has Vagina Dentata –or vagina with teeth. Though the film plays up the humor angle of the horror-movie really well, when her vagina bits off the rapist’s dick I cheer, YAY! Because I logically and emotionally argue that rapists deserve to have their dicks ripped off—at least for awhile as a scare tactic; then a doctor can potentially sew it back on so the rapist can pee but can never again have sex, muhaha.

And of course, the violence in Fight Club. He (Norton/Pitt) starts off the moving by kicking his own ass, which, I have felt I needed to do to myself many times. He then rallies up a bunch of working class angry-at-the-world boys who go to an underground cement lair and let out all their inner rage on each other. And these boys who are covered in sweat, covered in muscle and covered in hot hot sexiness also battle for an anti-corporate, anti-material world, and I like that. Their violence is channeled into a cause that I support so I relate and I enjoy. But that’s not how I usually feel about the infliction of pain upon others.

And hence I have a recently realized that I have different levels of tolerance for different forms of violence. Underneath the tolerance exists elements of innocence and my personal perspective on rehabilitation—can the offender be “fixed”. I have to wonder how I developed the morality to mentally separate and accept or object one form of suffering over another. I then have to admit that I am a product of my environment and a part of that environment is packed with violent images that are sometimes romanticized to make them more acceptable and tolerable. Even if I could think of sensible substitutes to my initial strangulation response to that “hypothetical” whorehouse crime, violence was my initial and most solid imagined (mental) reaction ( then comes suing followed by passive aggressive manipulation).

Though in most circumstances I would choose an alternative angle to violence such as giving rapists an overdone of depo to knock off their sex drives, or talking through a problem in an attempt to come to a compromise, sometimes a left-hook –right uppercut hit to the face followed by a double time kick to the groin is really, to me, a viable (and sexy) solution.

Really. I think I just need to punch someone in the face. What is taebo and kick boxing and kenpo karate for if I never get to hit someone. Perhaps I get some aggression out, but how much anger can you release by punching the air? Why am I so angry? Well for one, Ryan is hypothetically cheating on me with expensive call girls.

Words on: Really Ugly Women who try to look Really Hot (and fail)

This happens every once in a while. I am on facebook. I see someone I know tagged in an album. I think, why not and I go through it. I don’t know why I do this—I guess I want to see what people are wearing or perhaps looking at other humans is just a general habit all people have.

But, some times I just can’t help but come across one that makes me say “damn” (and not damn in that long drawn-out swooping sounding damn; I mean damn that shot is disturbing).

What is it that catches my eye and hurts it so much? Usually a woman, of about my age, orange tan, too much orange foundation, too much black eyeliner, too much processed hair; too much of every stereotypical product that exists to “enhance” feminine features. Too much to the point where the woman looks like a witch or a troll or an inflated and then squished Bratz doll.

Whoever you are—and you know who you are because your Walmart and Target and Sally’s receipts convict you—please, STOP. You would look more gorgeous if you toned it down, JUST a smidgen. Go a day without the raccoon look, try a pixie-do while you’re hair heals from all the damage you’ve done to it. Perhaps, since it is winter and you’re presumably in the Midwest—knock off the fake fucking tan. We all know you haven’t been to the Bahamas. We all know you got that from a bottle. And it looks like someone vomited baby carrot food all over your face. And no one wants to lick that off.

I’ll admit. Maybe I should just quit looking at facebook albums. But, I can’t. Maybe I do secretly enjoy the train wrecks of other people’s failed beauty attempts not like every photo ever taken of me has been amazing, but that’s not the point. The point is, quit trying so hard to look good for facebook photo albums and stupid frats boys. I’m not telling you that you would be happier if you took more time enjoying life and less time bleaching your hair, I’m just hinting that you may want to do less work to look better.

It is FACEbook. We all have to look at YOUR face when you put it online for people to see. And personally. I prefer to not want to gouge my eyes outs.

Thoughts on Thinking

I go through spells of overeager energy. I want to read everything ever written. I want to write down every word ever created and memorize and know it forever. I want to rearrange the symbols of letters over and over again to create new ideas, brave thoughts, passionate sentences.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m going to burst because I can’t get everything done in a lifetime that I want. I want to go back in time and make myself read Blake and Dickinson and Ginsburg and di Prima so that I’m already prepared with them by my side, but instead I keep falling into more and more knowledge, wanting it more. And the more I want to learn the more I seem to forget what I already have. Photosynthesis. It’s pretty much the only thing I remember from grade school. And to shoot a jump shot with perfect form.

For some reason, I seem to remember the people who impacted my life, the students and the teachers, more than I remember the actual learning. Their strange quirks. How in second grade all the students would put folders around their desk, bright folders like Lisa Frank with neon dolphins and prissy kittens wearing pearls. The teacher allowed the kids to do this so no one would cheat, but most of the kids did it so they could pick their noses and not get caught. Or maybe that was just me.

I remember in sixth grade making a list of all the boys I had had a crush on since kindergarten. Which was basically every boy in my class except the ones who never showered. In the same grade I remember being in the bathroom when Jessica S. showed me and my best friend her purple bra and then continued to inform us that you could make your boobs bigger by taking in big gulps of air every night before you went to bed. My best friend did this religiously until college when she finally decided it wasn’t working.

I don’t remember learning about anything else except photosynthesis and how to shoot the perfect jump shot.

Now I’m wondering about what I’m going to remember when I’m forty. Why am I even in school if I’m not going to remember the actual knowledge that I’m paying to learn about? Am I only going to recall the night where a group of us sang Madonna in our underwear? Am I only going to think about how I was once mistaken for a drag queen? I surely hope not. But how can I be certain?

While in the shower the other day I came up with the idea of “mind insurance” then Ryan defeated me by telling me you can’t insure the abstract. The concept was that graduate and PhD students could take out insurance on at least the amount of loans they took out. For the protection of thoughts within the mind. Because, after $80,000 in loans the only thing I have from the experience is what is packed within my brain. And all of that information could potentially (and most likely) be lost through time or other traumatic or dramatic experiences. It sounded good in theory. But I guess all my shower thoughts aren’t brilliant ones.

But, if I could start an abstract insurance company I would be rich. And I would have backup in case all this grad school stuff fails. In case I never learn every word ever created. In case I can’t read everything ever written. In case in the end all I remember is photosynthesis and how to shoot the perfect jump shot.

Hey Cracker! Hey, crackers! Yum.

The other day I decided to make homemade crackers. I know many of you probably think this is nutso because you can easily buy large amounts of crackers “cheaply” at any neighborhood store. Well. Here. I’ll give you some logical. I had hummus, but nothing to dip into the hummus. It was negative degrees outside, like -10. I had ALL of the ingredients to make crackers. I thought it wouldn’t cause anyone any harm. Plus I got to turn on the oven—helping to warm up the apartment. So, no, I am not a Martha Stewart wanna-be. I just like food.

As I was making the crackers I started wondering why “cracker” is a derogatory word for “white” people. Here are two reasons why this doesn’t work. 1) What is wrong with a cracker? Nothing really. They are generally salty, crispy, and delicious, so calling someone a cracker is like calling someone a pretzel or a potato chip—it has no true pain attached to it. 2) The crackers I made were decidedly not close to any shade of white. They were in fact, brown with speckles of green and red. Sort of like how white people aren’t generically white but more shades of wall-paint-white, like ivory or seashell or soymilk with speckles of freckles and zits and scruff and red blush.

My crackers were whole wheat crackers with jalapenos, paprika, cumin…they were very much not enriched flour white, crackers.

They turned out wonderfully, by the way. They were softer than store-bought crackers, if I try again I’ll just roll them out thinner. They were still delicious though. And my hummus thanked me. And my oven thanked me. And my apartment thanked me for warming it up.

Shower Thoughts

The shower seems to be the breeding ground for not only mold but innovative thought, beautiful lines of poetry, and goal setting. The shower is often like that moment right before you wake out of a dream, when a perfect line of music melodies across your mind and you try to hold on to it. You try to hold onto it because it is so delightful you want to share it. It feels so close to grasp yet more times than not it slips away like a kiss blown into the air. Sometimes I wonder if those moments exist just for me. Should I just accept them or should I try to hold onto them tighter?

In the shower I have some of the most fantastic ideas. Sometimes I don’t want to leave because I want to keep thinking, then, unfortunately I begin thinking about all the thinking I’m doing and I realize that I am probably drying out my skin and wasting water and the gas it takes to make that water steam clouds around me.

Sometimes I think I should invent a water-proof recording device (probably has been done) to take into the shower with me so I can let out all wonderful thoughts that I have before I forget them. Then I realize that the only reason I’m even having those thoughts is because I don’t have to. Because the shower is my space to just breathe. To let everything go.

Yet many times, in the moments of unthinking, a clarity sweeps over my brain, making room for fresh perceptions. Clean armpits and a less polluted mind.

I sometimes am lucky enough to find an ounce or two of creativity amongst the shampoo and cold white tiles. And that little dose can carry me through my entire day…

oh what a little warm water and a Clorox scented room can do…

Dissolved and Drained

My brain has hurt for weeks. Daily headaches. Lethargy. Muscle cramps. I feel as if I am being pushed, yet at the same time, chained to an invisible wall inside my mind. Unable to fully accomplish all I want to. And why? Because I am expected to. Because I am told to. All I want is to drink beer. Not even that. To lie in a bathtub until I drain away. I step into the steaming hot water, my feet fade away like tiny sugar crystals in the wet. Next my legs fall to pieces--off in chunks until, they too, tingle away. My upper body hurriedly follows; it doesn’t want to live without my legs. My arms are hesitant though, waving in the air, hoping that I stop this madness, but no. I push my arms in the sweaty water and watch them sliver away like the sand on green seaweed, I watch my arms decay. I dunk my head under. I disappear. Years go by and the heat wanes. The drain unplugs.

Like the lukewarm water that circles down the pipes, I expect to go with it. My body’s like left over cake frosting in a mixing bowl thrown in a kitchen sink of just-filled dish water.

How did I not dissolve? Why didn’t I go down with the rest of the muck?

It’s been so dark here. The sun sets by 4--if it decides to come out at all. I feel trampled by the gray. The sharp cold sneaking through cracks in the window panes. Have you ever looked up and watched the tree limbs crackle and shake with laughter? Daily I watch their moods. And they watch me. We seem to share mutual feelings toward the dismal weather. They try to shake it away. I gaze at them with puppy-dog eyes hoping they can sense my empathy. But they’re too stoic to comment. I know if I stare at them long enough, one day they will reveal all of their secrets. Those trees. They watch me. I watch them. They shake. And I am left aching for the zip, the zeal, the zest of life to pump back into my blood.

And I become undone. Over and over.

Every night I tell myself tomorrow will be a more productive day. For years this seems to have been the slogan, the mantra I repeat until dreams impose upon my sleep. And I realize I’d rather stay there for as long as I can; especially since the really good ones happen right when my alarm clock startles me from slumber. So, I shut it off.

Hoping to fall back into the dream, but it’s never the same. A faint memory of the imagination, something that was never real to begin with, but I yearn for it all the same.

And do we ever really feel full? Do we always want whatever it is we don’t have? Or to not have what we already do. The binary divide. Nothing can complete us, except ridding our minds of needing to feel complete.

Is it all just a paranoia ride, a lust, a cheap fuck, a game we never chose to play, a life that comes covered in blood, screaming with fear, not feeling the real, just yet. All because nine months earlier two others came with pleasure, not pain, a cyclical karmic effec

t of humanity. And we do it every day, all the same. With birth control and alcohol. With cell phones and sexting, power plays and getaways. with peanut butter and molesting, with lubricants. And you, suggesting.

The cucumbers are pickled. The nipples are wrinkled. The love that you’re after, is the hope you’re caressing. Deep within your blood. On the surface of your bath tub. The un-dissolved. The left-over matter. The big lump of cells shaped like a woman. Pushing her way. Away from the drain.

Have you ever looked up and watched the mood of the trees? Have they ever told you a secret you never could share?

An abstract idea, made tangible with the touch, the tip of the tongue.

And I become undone. Over and over.

3 Unique Gift Ideas

Don't have a clue what to get the person who has everything? Here are 3 rare options that not only will brighten that almost-ungiftable individual, but will help local artists out as well!



1) Pervertable Tongues Cd (Click here to buy physical copy)
Cheapest Option--only $8 plus shipping

2) Krystal Fawn's Art (Click here to check out work)
2nd cheapest option (prices go from $10 and up)



3) RW Ruehlen's Art (Click here to check out work)
Intense and Monumental --a worthy investment for any collector--whether you're just starting out or have been in the game for awhile. Prices range from $100 and up. He's also available to do commissioned work.