lend me yr ears?

*plonk* ...that was the vaccuum, which just now broke open and released a huge cloud of dust, birdseed and feathers. i had to grab the dust-buster and vaccuum up after the vaccuum. technology saves time and money.

i went to see a b-movie today, "the forgotten" with julianne moore, who is so absolutely beautiful. it was somewhat mediocre but it kept my attention and had some wild special effects, such as people getting literally sucked up into the sky in the middle of a sentence. (sorry if i spoiled it for anyone but it was incredible and extremely scarey...)

we went out for japanese afterwards (hoo yeah) and overheard a wildly amusing coversation about vincent van gogh. there was a somewhat obnoxious family behind us, and somehow the topic of van gogh came up, and for some reason the father chose to tell his two children (who were under the age of 8, i believe) about how poor old vincent cut his ear off, har har! the wife was stuck explaining this to the baffled children...she went about it in a famously graceful way:
"well, you know how your body gets sick? well, sometimes people's minds get sick. van gogh was not normal in his mind. so, he was in love with a lady and cut off his ear for her as a gift."
the kids went on to ask what it looked like when he did this, and "didn't it hurt??" i guess it could've been a LOT less tactful, but you know me...i pick up stigma like a metal detector on the beach. even if it's just a granule...there always seems to be an element of fault or blame with mental illness..."what went wrong?" "who did this to you?" "why aren't you normal?" as opposed to other ailments awarded much more dignity. (then again, i'm sure it's even worse for ppl with STD's..)

it's kind of a sad commentary also that families are more apt to talk about van gogh's ear- hacking than his art at the dinner table. well, maybe they did talk about his art beforehand...but it probably had something to do with sunflowers. (cynical, cycnical...)

i really dunno where else i was going here...i guess i am in one of those moods. i feel racing thoughts but brain-dead at the same time. i really need to find something to do.

deep snot

slowly getting better. out of curiosity, i wonder how many times it will take to blow my nose before i am well. time seems to be measured in these mucus-catapulting activities these days, and it will be a relief to just go back to complaining about my stomach or arthritis again. heeeee.

rebecca called, i think she's actually making the film! i was totally floored when she said they had a crew and actors...and equipment...and a "production coordinator," and that they want to start shooting in october! she asked if i still was interested in the part of the hearing-impaired bag lady, as it were....i said yeah. (at least i don't have to memorize any lines..) she'd asked me about it years ago. i can't believe it's happening though...she's following through with her dream. i'm proud of her, and inspired. i wish i knew how to get started here, i'm so all over the place.

not that i want to, but maybe i'll go down and do some more cleaning in jersey today. i have 9 days left. the carpet's pretty nasty, and the kitchen's scarey to think about. when i was there on sunday some neighborhood kids started digging through my shit and bouncing around on the couch and stuff by the dumpster. people are happy there. people are happy all over the place. it all depends on certain filters and vectors, magnets, chemicals, sound waves, everything on the periodic table and then some.

[trying not to whittle my language trying to contain my own stratosphere trying to pick out the sweet parts. keep it together on the screen so organized, chronicle, that's why i like it, that's why i'm here. we're all here to learn something.]

fuck MS.

cheers!

part of my town is underwater.

the delaware river overflowed. i haven't seen any of it, but my mom's friend was here before, her house (and others along river rd.) had to be evacuated. some guy in a fricking kayak had to come and pick her up...luckily she'd parked her car outside of the borough the night before.
last night there were helicopters and search lights (which i'd naturally assumed were advertising a Grand Opening of some sort...). then i found out today. http://weather.yahoo.com/storm/USPA1276.html

i want to help...i'm not sure where to go or what to do. i guess i'll see if i can get in touch with the red cross or whatever...it's only 3 miles away. it didn't even rain that much yesterday!! i think the river just got filled up somewhere up north and ran until there was nowhere to go. the bridges here, trenton, washington crossing and new hope are UNDERWATER! at least it crested, finally.

so, i'm listening to the streets right now...having mad side effects from this new medicine... my skin is on fire, my tongue is huge and sandpapery, and my sinuses burn. headache. ears are red. i moved furniture today, i kept having trouble breathing. got rid of that sad excuse for a sofa, the kitchen table i used as a desk, the green chair that "my fat ass" broke...uh...other chairs, that dresser...good as new...i got it from the trash myself, lol...the fake leather desk chair that tony brought...i remember the night he wheeled it underneath the balcony with a used wastebasket and a few candles. i came down and sat on it and lit a candle, smoked, talked to tony, and kenny the dealer who never said a word. i felt like a queen.

wow, this snow patrol song reminds me of the psychadelic furs (love spit love). i miss that shit, like echo and the bunnymen...siouxie...concrete blonde....and then madonna came out and all my friends in 3rd grade were wearing fishnetted clothing and big cross earrings and amorphous hair bows...lol...who knew.

well, g'nite...hope yardley doesn't sink. i hope everyone's ok. i dunno what's been lost or how shitty it is, but i hope those folks can go home soon.

oh...get this...the last flood was 27 years ago. i am 27 years old. ok, big f-ing deal...but c'mon, it's a little weird, right??? this sounds like something out of Everything is Illuminated. (awesome book.)



"the sun sets on the war, the day breaks and everything is new." --kings of convenience. (thanks tod)

OFFICIAL BREADCRUMBS OR BOULDERS PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

hello one and all-- i would like to extend a formal welcome to this here weblog, entitled "Breadcrumbs or Boulders." i'm thrilled, honored, humbled, and overjoyed that you stopped by.... please help yourselves to some beef jerky and kool-aid in the lobby. bernard will be coming around with cream-chipped beef bites.

anyway, i want to tell y'all how much i truly appreciate your coming by and reading these mounds of goopy words that i am releasing from my skull. your comments make my fricking day...leave some if you can!

um...i really, really like to write. that's about the only thing that gets me up sometimes. this is my first attempt at anything remotely like this. its been a wonderful release for me. (albeit the carpal tunnel shit). i know it gets pretty disgusting sometimes, and i know i'm long-winded and self-absorbed. this is a solution for what i cannot express out there (a.k.a. small talk). i do not assume the position that anyone even gives a rat's ass about my anonymous journies.

my goal here is to get it out of my head, onto a page, and into the infinite tomes of the web...validation of a virtual existence.

and finally, if you have "stumbled" here in a totally, 100% random roll-of-the-dice kinda fashion...and you (by complete coincidence, of course) see something that doesn't sit well with you on a highly personal level...my sincerest apologies. the opinions expressed by random critics herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the weblog's author (me).
i'm going to open my big mouth now....

let it be, sister. find a creative outlet that doesn't HURT anyone, including yrself. you possess all the strength and insight you need to pull through this. (just an educated guess.) pain isn't something you can unload on people, no matter how much they care about you. it just doesn't work, and i learned that the hard way. i've been down the dark roads, but somehow i'm still here to yammer about it.
chin up...and move on along. find your light. i'm just a (truly) random stranger, and that's really all i want to be.

(this, of course, is a completely rhetorical situation.)

anyway,
peace and health to all.


next week: isabella wakes up from her coma only to find she is pregnant and has total amnesia...and that her identical twin sister has opted for the sex change and will be playing for the Cincinnati Reds!! *fade out*

recollection

today i wore a light blue v-neck short-sleeved shirt and an ankle-length tea-green skirt. i felt pretty for the first time in ages. i felt as though my movements were a kind of minuet/t'ai chi exercises, all day. pretty rad.

we went to frank's. my mother wanted some more houseplants for the living room. i used to work at franks as a child. the sky was a centrifuge, leftover spirals unspiraling from the most recent hurricane. it was beautifully chilly, i felt as though i were protected in the tall cylinder of clouds drifting by at a dizzying pace. i saw a face up there. that happens every now and again. it was cool.

we left with a lush corn-leaf plant, a hostas/philodendron, an adorable little aloe, and some gorgeous bamboo in a neat triangular pot. it's so cool...i never cared about plants before. i'm looking at sunny now, my little friend sitting on the tv. she's reaching for the sky with every heart-shaped leaf. we get along pretty well, so far.

hey you, yes, you!! i saw yr star before. i started singing a ridiculous old song from one of those black & white movies..."have you ever seen a dream...walking...well i did..." lol...(me=cheez log) i still haven't slept, and it's all right. i still have a cold, and it's all right. stomach...well, you get the picture. i keep saying, no...yes...yes...it can't be, it's a dream. i have steady music in my head, which started out as an interpol song and now resembles a sort of church-bell thing. the chords are like inhaling and exhaling everytime i hear them. i imagine an empty beach at night, every single star pulsating cool, white, and blue-black inky sky. i've been here before, maybe somewhere, somehow from my walkman...i'm not sure. i follow the sand, which seems lit from beneath. there are perfect shells, spiraling shells lying in the sand. i am the only one there. i'm not lonely. there is a light wind. i start to remember the last time i visualized this place...it was in the shelter, i was lying in my plastic bed with my walkman on in the dark, listening to "i wish you were here" by incubus on the radio for the first time. the sand is wet and gray and smooth.


i believe you are this place. and i feel i must find you. your sky.


(where's galileo when you need him??)

* *

* *
*



meanwhile, back at the ranch...mom and p. had a huge fight. i moderated, rang the bell, and did a surprisingly ok job. basically they are both stubborn as hell. the disease makes her lash out. he's afraid to leave his parents.
i'm going to go take p. to get a dayplanner tomorrow, and perhaps a spiffy man-bag too. he needs to get organized before he can do anything else at all. (i should talk...) he also needs to wear a watch, or at least check the clock from time to time...
i know she hates it that he always wears sweat pants too. geez, i feel like i am his own personal Fab Five all of a sudden...oh well.


wow. that was the sacred and the mundane. i just realized that. woah.

woah.

i bit the apple

its one of those drifting points now, drifting in the scoop of gray and grayer gray and even grayer than that one, never enough for black but just plenty. i feel huge, like a vibrating reddish candy in a video game. accidentally took a half vicoden after taking robitussin and now, now is just big nose, big beak pointed at the screen screaming from the bottom of a mine shaft. i should just pass out. my eyes are crossing and they might freeze that way. what am i? what are my thoughts? how can i quantify an idea, is it an ion...i know there's more to this world, i got to see it hear it feel it smell it taste it a few times, it's just too bad that all that shit goes along with the crossovers.

i appear to have a cold. my mother just came in. thinking about hinges, feeling like a hinge by which others can move and stay stationary. do i have a choice? today i got angry at this misogynistic jerk who said to my therapist, "YOU bit the apple..." meaning women are the originators of "sin" and all that jazz. we were just goofing around saying that all men are dogs (this can't be true...can it? someone please prove me wrong??), and he started in on this righteous bullcrap. i'd like to take his fancy-schmancy designer baseball cap and shove it up his ass.

i got "helter skelter" at the salvation army. it looks creepy as shit.

i feel it in my fingers, i feel it in my toes.

o words, save me. wrap me in cottony warmth, insulate the pain that shifts direction, don't let me point my dagger-eyes at anyone. keep them closed. keep them closed. i have "doe eyes."

when will they know me?

so i'm outta the hospital, right? god, this place was not to be believed! it looked like jane fucking eyre lived there, along with mr. rochester and his crazy mother in the attic and all the rest. it was truly a forgotten place, not of this world. the building i was in was pretty shabby, it looked like it was maybe built in the 50's, painted that Bright Calm Aqua color that you'd never want in your home but was so easy to stare at, not too bad to focus on. it's a color associated with tropical climates.
there was a courtyard outside the building, this old overgrown quadrangle thing with white cobblestones covered with moss. and on the other side was this old, creepy brick mansion building that looked vacant.
as always, i met people. nurses, docs, therapists...they were all ok here. there was a puerto rican guy who kept trying to kiss me. he was annoying all the girls, actually, and pretended not to understand english. he kept calling me his "novia" and i would say, "no!! no! amiga!" what a hot dog!
there were some truly crazy folks...this one lady came and asked everyone for a cigarette every 2 seconds. she wouldn't take "no" for an answer. she would say, "gimme that cigarette in your mouth."
i heard a rumor that this other lady stripped down naked in the courtyard.
then there were j. and r....not that they're ever going to see this, but you know. some things are sacred. j. and r. had dated years and years ago, as teenagers...apparently from j.'s perspective, he'd seen her through some awful times. i guess they just lost contact...j. lived in new england somewhere or whatever, and i guess r. stayed around here. anyway, so as fate would have it, they both ended up randomly at the same time in the same random rehab/hospital. it was beautiful. they're both screwed-up but i would like to think that both of them found a familiar comfort in one another, and that j. really does take r. with him back to his beach house, and neither of them will want to hurt themselves again.
i feel bad that i didn't get to say goodbye. there really isn't a phone there i could call. when my ride home was ready, i booked it out the door, not even looking back. i hope he's not still crying, i hope the thing about his mom and brother wasn't real and that he's just delusional and will see them again very soon! people kept saying what a liar he was, but those tears were real. and r. was so sweet...they'd taken me in off a stretcher and i know i looked like frankenstein... and she was the first person to come up and say hi, and even give me a hug. she'd had some kind of brain injury-- she had trouble walking and talking sometimes. what a sweetheart this girl was though. i hope it works out for them. i wish i could see them again.

these stays are always bittersweet. i was only there for 2 days, but it kinda helped. it made me see that despite my bouts of rage, i am compassionate, likeable and...perhaps funny. well, sometimes. now i'm back at home, and p. is here for my mom of course, but i won't let the alienation get to me. i look forward to the place i go during the daytime, even if nobody knows me that well. i don't usually trust people too easily these days but when i grow fond of people, i am pretty loyal, long as they can stand me. the poor souls, lol.

so, it's late...i need to get rest i guess. i don't say "sleep" anymore b/c it's never a guarantee. i don't want to go to bed thinking about this man, in there. his story was incredible, and he truly had nobody to turn to, for years. that happens to a lot of us, i guess. it's like that neil gaiman story where the homeless people are basically invisible to everyone..."Neverwhere," that book was called.

i also don't want to think about my mother and p. in her room together.

i have to get well. i know everything will be better, once i stop hating myself, once my thoughts quiet down and slow down, and i am able to see what's true. these spirits keep dancing so close by, i can feel their compassion and desparation brush by me like silken robes. i see love, close by. i was always hanging out with couples. i was always like their child.

thank you for reading this.


don't let it bring you down,
it's only castles burning
just find someone who's turning
and you will come around.

i will live for these things.

ah, so calm and quiet. i'm feeling good, or comparatively better anyway. comforted-- that's the word, i think. temporarily removed from my the pain, a virtual vacation. it's splendid! i'm glad that it's saturday. it's september 11, but i'm really not concentrating on that at the moment. perhaps its selfish of me, but i'm not up for recalling the pain now. instead i think of others that that day affected, how lucky i was, how far-removed from the devastation i was, sequestered in a shelter in the woods (literally). i do remember how no one at the shelter seemed to really care, how it made the surrealism of the whole historic even even more bizzarre. people were concerned with how it would affect their welfare checks.

p. left earlier today, i think...i was in and out of sleep. he really does a lot more good than i give him credit for around here. my mom seems to miss him but hasn't yet started to freak out. she mentioned a small vacation for the weekend; i would dig that a lot, if it works out that we're both feeling ok.

last night i did a little damage control in someone else's life, for a change. i went to hang out with a fellow who wasn't feeling too great about the world and existence in general. i think i let him in a bit too close which is uncomfortable, but it's ok. i am not going to pick on myself, nor do i have any regrets. there's a lot to be said for release.

i'm starting to get a little sweaty and restless, a little worried. last night did shake me up a little bit. ok, i'm going to say it: i wish i had a boyfriend. i wish i were in a reciprocal relationship, where the other is equally curious, concerned and caring about me. i don't want last night. i can only muster up so much empathy before i get a little in return. i am not sure, but i know if it happens it's not going to be just any old schmuck, for any old reason. if it takes me forever, i guess it just will. i want to be inspired and adored. i have so much in me to give, and it's not going to be wasted.

it's something to look forward to, that's all. it's not too far. it's not about rolling dice or saying the right words. "there's more room in a broken heart," says carly simon. let me wrap these fragments around you, these strange little arms. i know it's there if i can figure it out. "i miss you, but i have not met you yet," says bjork.

meantime, time to become a person. time to take the jackhammer to all my old self-loathing and fashion it into a little shelter, a lean-to for storing my love. that is something, at least. even if it hasn't materialized, even if i have to pretend for a while, i know it's there, it exists in my soul, it is a part of me and i am meant to be a caretaker and a best friend and a gentle soul who will find another to rest my head with.

but yeah, meantime, a career, an artisan-ship, a creative journey, a vision quest. oh, let it pick up where i left off...in some graceful series of movements, a dance of days. deep protection of my serious, molten emotional life, surrounded by whatever i can give, whomever i can give it to. this makes no sense, lol. it's ok though, i am ready to wash that asshole right out of my hair.

let us, then. friends, let us lather, rinse, and repeat.

Lonerette

i'm really s'posed to be sleepin' now...it's 4am and i have to be up for Grope Therapy in about 4 hours.

i was driving through the city at 3am, there was a half-moon setting on the right side of the windshield. the air was cool and thick, blasting my face every time i rolled down the window for a smoke. there was no one on the road at all, except for an occasional car which seemed to come from behind and pass me at 90 miles an hour. i had the beta band playing, which didn't help when i came to staying alert...their music was a perfect backdrop to a lucid dream-state. i was groovin' along, all right...it was perfect, and it was beautiful, and i was alone and it was OK!!!

i had just come from packing up more shit in my apartment, which will no longer be mine come september 30. i never realized how much i would miss it in its dumpy, drafty, crumbling glory. 'course it was much cooler having a car there. biking around a teeny south jersey town is no fun, unless you maintain a constant blotto state, or you make a career out of denial. it sucks, i used to see tons of other poor jerks on bikes passing me every day on the way to work. talk about a depressed area...there weren't quite enough jobs, and if by chance you got a job, the fucking bus system didn't go anywhere near your house or your job. oh well, at least there is public transportation, however minimal...

there were a lot of bugs hanging out in my place...moths, spiders (of course), and...get this... there was this...this...well, i think it was the body of a locust!! not a shriveled-up little brown thing, but a large, pretty green thing that looked as though it were made of leaves. at first i thought it was the plastic grasshopper my neighbor had given me (along with a plastic cockroach and several fake spiders), but i approached it and realized it was this thing, whatever it was. it had died not too long ago, b/c it was still pretty bright and non-yucky. it had tiny legs and eyes. i wish i had saved it, but i put it in a trash bag with some other crap.

moths are kinda cool, unless there's like, 362 of them in the same place. i had worked hard to scrub the tub and blammo, it was filled with dead moths. i squirted some chemical or another in the tub and rinsed them down...rest in peace, little friends...

i feel proud b/c i feel like i got a lot done. i pray that i get my deposit back. it still needs a major cleaning overhaul, and i have to get that sofa-thing out too. i had some good times there. me and b. and will used to hang around and draw and paint and answer questionnaires that will made up, such as, "Describe yourself in one sentence," or, "If you had a cast on your dominant arm, how would you wipe your ass?" there was the boy i "rescued" from the cracked out motel...i still think about him and hope he's ok. it was always fun having pregnant nicole over...until she brought her boyfriends and turned the heat up to 80 and started calling all over the place on my phone...*chuckle*...she has 2 kids now. i think she's 20. maybe they'll whoop her ass into shape....
there were my neighbors next door who insisted their place was haunted. the girl was shorter than me and weighted 90 lbs soaking wet, and she was always borrowing my vaccuum. when they got evicted she gave me some food they got from the food bank. i think she took my dustpan-brush with her...it's ok though.
then rebecca and the kids...i know we'll stay in touch though. rebecca has a heart of gold, and as always, the morons with pick-axes are always after that heart of hers. (wow, that sounded incredibly strange...like that mouse from Tom & Jerry who is Jerry's cousin and his head is just a cowboy hat and a moustache, and he kept plucking out Tom's whiskers for his tiny guitar...)

um, other good memories...c'mon now, this is important...well, tony, of course...he was always bringing weird shit over. one new years' i remember playing yahtzee with him and shawn until i couldn't see the damn numbers on the paper anymore...lol. he was insistent that i get into xmas. he brought over a fucking tree, and all kinds of ornaments!! i didn't want to be rude, but i tried to explain that i don't celebrate xmas....but he said something like, "oh, c'mon! you can have a tree..." and he kept bringing wreaths and santas and sno-globes...tony is exactly my mom's age but he looks a lot older. i used to hope that he and my mom would get together but i forgot that other people found him scarey after a while.
he was there sometimes when shawn and i were fighting. he didn't really take sides, but he was there, and he gave advice sometimes. he told insane stories, and was always saying that his life should be made into a book. i would love to write it, if i could remember everything...i would make myself a character in the story...lol. i'd be some tough chick at the truck stop where he worked, and where his son now works. his son is my age. we used to exchange homeless stories all the time, and agree that "nobody knows what it's like, people take their shit for granted, we've been through things that most people don't see..." lol
i talked to him on the phone a couple weeks ago. he told me i'd left the air on in my apartment and that i'd left my screen door open a little. he also said, "the reason i didn't come around a lot near the end was because i was in love with you. i didn't wanna screw things up, ya know?"
i didn't really know how to respond to this...i kinda thought he had feelings for me, but it seemed so ridiculous, because men his age didn't suddenly fall in love with people. and if that was the case, he'd be in love with all the young chicks in the place, right? tony was married and his wife openly disliked me. i guess it makes sense. what the hell?

my posts are getting way too long. oh well. it's fun. it's easier than picking up a pen sometimes and hell, it beats Grope Therapy. wow, it's fucking 5 am! i'm going to be catatonic tomorrow (today).

i hate how i go from complete narcisissm to self-hatred like a ferrari going from zero to 60. there has to be a happy medium. i really wish someone knew me, not THINK that they know me. i wish someone knew me and wanted to continue to do so....that's different from "liking" someone, right? a bit deeper? then again people think they know other people all the time. marriages start, buildings crumble, wars are fought, over and over again...all because we "knew" the territory.

it's just not cool for girls to be loners. for guys it's kinda james dean-ish or at least socially acceptable, but with girls there are so many questions, so many judgments and stares, and so many minds made up so fast. even morrison says, "never saw a woman...so alone..." ! because women travel in packs. they can't even go to the bathroom by themselves. at any given moment i am a slut/retard/prostitute/weirdo/snob/bitch. *shrug*

well then. goodnight, and cheers to you anton, the only person in jersey who thought i was cool.

And-a What?

HAHAHAHAH!!!! that is SO funny...i don't remember writing ANY of that!!! lmfao!! "a stiffy for my mother...?" !!!!

if anything, i keep myself amused... *grin*

non-consciousness dosesn't prefent me fro m my blug..,,,,,!!

i'm half asleep, enjoying the gorgeously cool air coming in through my windows. this cool air is just so mericful to me, and i find myself wanting to cherish each indication of it, creeping through my lungs, caressing my bare legs, understanding my desire to feel close and cozy. i can hear the train whistles much louder with the windows open-- it feels like they are right in my back yard...i guess they are though, for real.
my mother and i fight more when p. is here. he always sides with her. he also takes it upon himself to "discipline" or "reprimand" me for my "behavior." Behavior??? i am almost 28 years old..and he is almost 3 years younder.....what gives? i don't quite think it's appropriate "behavior" for someone his age to to get a stiffy for my 54 yr old mother..? i dunno, that's just me.....

mwah!

You're Lingerie Bettie...look at you, you sexy
thang, your a little dark and maybe a little
depressed deep down. maybe you've been caught a
few times posing in front of that mirror of
your's.

Which Bettie Page Are You?
brought to you by

surprise, surprise...

I'm 23% freak!!

ICY HOT.

well, not actually real Icy Hot, it's the generic version from Rite Aid called, "Cool Heat." nothing like mutually exclusive pain relief!! it feels soooo good on my hands, but when i first rubbed it on in the car outside Rite Aid i was not prepared for the familiar yet still-noxious fumes.

having become a human Wint-O-Green Lifesaver, i followed (rolled behind?) my mother and p. towards the Blockbuster Video in the yuppie shopping center in our upwardly-mobile neighborhood. i generally dislike video stores as a rule, so i hung outside with my cigarette, radiating the crisp, heady minty-ness. i felt almost radioactive.

suddenly a guy came busting out of the store, yelling all kinds of horrible curse words and shit. he went toward his friends and their car, but then he turned back around and went back into the store, shrieking more obscenities at the people in the store! "Fuck you and fuck your kids!!!" his girlfriend had to drag him away...she saw me standing there clutching my cigarette and said, "i'm sorry." i shrugged nervously and watched her lead the guy away.

yes, p. did come today ("if you're friends with p. well then you're friends with me..."), and he brought me a new desk chair!! it is surprisingly comfortable, and now that i can put my legs up, it's just a total lounge-fest. all i need are some drinks with little umbrellas in them, and some tiki torches, and a hawaiian shirt and pinapple and some xanax.

anyway, i'm usually grateful when p. is here b/c it diverts some of the attention and expectations off of me. however, they act like euphoric teenage baboons when they're together. not all the time, but usually in the first 48 hours or so, and intermittently after that. i was in love once, and i know it turns you into a complete butt-head, so i try to be gracious and whatever.

ok, starting to fade into incoherency, which means it's time to pick up an actual pen for a change. i'll end with some nice lyrics:

"Grace Under Pressure" ---by Elbow

Grace under pressure
Cooling palm across my brow
Eyes of an angel
Lay me down
[We still believe in love so fuck you]

Early Morning Visceral Disturbances

grumble.....


talk about your weird hours...it's 5:49 am. i'm sick as a d.o.g.! my mom insisted on my wearing one of her silky nightgowns since i've been sweating profusely. i am now a "Bonniette." i told her this; she didn't find it funny. the nightgown is very sheer and feels good except for the lacy shit around the collar. it makes my nipples look very strange.

well, my good ol' crohn's disease is acting up. (ok everybody: "what's crohn's??")

well, i could tell you what the basic definition of this condition is...crohn's disease is an autoimmune disease of the intestines, both small and large...they don't know where it comes from (of course) but it's thought to be a combo of genetic and environmental factors. a friend told me that it's been linked to children of vietnam vets.

crohn's causes pain, not limited to but including the tummy. it can bring on arthritis (my whole body fucking hurts), anemia (esp. if you're bleeding internally), lots of running to the bathroom, strange demons that pass thru your body, exiting dramatically (each with their own torch song) via your ass. stress apparently makes things worse (como se dice "stress?" lol).

what could it be, then? it could be my fantastic eastern european semite ancestry (jews tend to get this more than non-jews..), it could be dear ol' dad's exploits with agent orange during the tet offensive (great timing, huh?)...it could be that i just don't eat right and my bowels are rebelling...and i know for a fact that cigarettes are making it worse.

i had surgery. on january 30, 1998, they removed my gallbladder, appendix, and 3 feet of small intestine, roughly. my surgeon was cool as hell, he visited me every day. i had an abcess on my appendix, apparently "the size of a golf ball." (those docs know golfballs!) i don't remember much besides a cool morphine dream, my mom washing my hair, my ex and his mom rubbing my feet, adam coming from mexico, and eating apple pie. i have a scar that runs from just below my boobies to just below my belly button on my already hideous-looking stomach.

there's no cure, just "remission." i hear it makes childbearing rather interesting-- yet another fine and valid reason not to breed.

i'm not feeling sorry for myself. i just feel like everyone else is going through this too, at least in some form or another. everyone has immune problems, some worse and more distinct than others.

fellas, i'm not contagious...lol.

i hate being up at 6am though. this nightgown is too weird...i feel like a scarey old lady who's in charge of an orphanage. my bones feel crumbly, my tendons and muscles are shrieking. my mum's boi friend is coming today. time for some professional hiding schemes!

ow.

"there's too much wrong with you," shawn the leprechaun used to tell me. "you have too many problems." i know he just wanted a simple girl who worked the checkout at pathmark, had a golden retriever and a sister and parents, loved the beatles and johnny depp, wanted to ride horses and sing "the wind beneath my wings" at a talent show. this girl would have a slight bad-girl reputation but really will have only slept with like, 1 other person. she will have a tattoo on her lower back that involves flowers or vines or both. she will wear a 32-C and have washboard abs. her favorite food will be spaghetti. she will be so uncomplicated, so unmoody and so healthy, inside and out. she'll never even get a single headache.

oh well, at least she doesn't exist...*nervous laugh*

i guess i don't present as being such a screw-job. it just reveals itself bit by bit until i'm stuck in a room at 6:25am on a saturday morning in my mother's house, alone, wearing a creepy nightgown. i am going to die this way. i am going to die in here in pennsylvania. they're going to see how grotesque i look in this nightgown, and they're going to have to cut it off of me anyway, and they'll notice i haven't shaved my legs or even trimmed my bikini area and they'll see my huge scarred belly and they'll laugh and laugh. they won't find me until they smell spaghetti and horses.

shawn'll have recurrent dreams of fucking my corpse. he'll dream of sticking himself in my skull and wake up feeling refreshed and go off to work in a fine mood. he'll have fantasies of raking off my skin in his fingers, tearing out clumps of my hair in his mouth, chewing off my lips, spitting them back at my face. doing other awful things and leaving me in a dumpster, knowing i'll never scream.

woah...that got all "Naked Lunch." sorry.

i just feel really abject. i never feel more like ground beef like i do when i'm sick. it's not a dignified sickness. you won't find me "doing the best i can." i know my mother's bf (who could be my little brother) is going to tell me i'm "really brave" even though he resents me for being around. i know they both wish to god that i was out getting stoned and laid like a normal person.

ok! my mind and body are both degenerating, clearly. theo, i thank you from the bottom of my heart for wondering if i was a spicy tuna roll...it's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in ages! :D

amy, hope you had fun in sweden.

adam, hope you get to read this. hope pratt is going well. love to connie.

sean, you workaholic. what ever happened to beer and excessive sleep? you're letting the members of your cult down!!

chris, have a great weekend and a great time in chicago.

azeem, sorry for not calling back. i'm not this much of a jerk, usually. we will talk!!

to everyone else...have a goodnight, a good morning, a fantastic weekend and a life full of love and wonder, and spaghetti girls.

Permission to Covet

(eat me)


"in the place where i make no mistakes
in the place where i have what it takes...i'm never
gonna know you now
but i'm gonna love
you anyhow"
--elliot smith, r.i.p. to a fabulous songwriter.
why do people like him have to die and yet there never seems to be a shortage of the paris hiltons and the ted nugents and the rush limbaughs and all the other horsefuckers who don't deserve their own talkshows?? can you tell me?

"sing to me."
(blur)

i'm listening to an old mix i made for Shawn the Prawn, Shawn-B-Gone, Shawn the Demon Spawn...whew, Beulah just came on, what a sweet little long, how can i not feel better? ("calm go the wild seas," it's called). that fucker probably never even listened to this cd anyway.

"cut my heart out but it's still beating
on and on and on and on,
my sails are tattered, they're worn bone-thin..."

eventually, will there be a time when i won't feel so raw? will i not be buzzing and clicking like exposed, uninsulated wires? will this stupid heartbreak shit stop being the only thing i think about? will i ever stop thinking about the words, the assurances....the question marks? when will the tears come at a more appropriate time?

"come, child
come rescue me..
cuz you have seen some unbelievable things...."
(cat power)

you too can own this compilation for only $19.95! (god knows i need the money, i'm about to become a welfare whore again.)

i wish i could write songs. i wish i could write. i wish i could. i wish i. i wish. i. . could stop being so self-conscious.


it's disturbing to me that someone has hurt a friend and that my stupid blog seems to have become a vehicle of pain for someone, or two someones. i dunno what to say about it. i'm just a weirdo in pennsylvania. that's about it.

from, kristin hersh, "me and my charms:"

"i'm checking out today.
me and my charms
me and my charms
when i kiss the angel
i have a taste of you.
when i take the angel
i have a piece of you
i have a piece
i have a piece
i have a piece...

you can come back,
i haven't left you yet.
and when the lights go out
i pick the angel up
i only have 2 left feet...

all i have in my hands.
all i have in my hands..."


now there's a cool jersey girl. ;)

that color was hard to see. this one's not great either, but it'll be better on the dark background.
anyway, here's a crappy poem to end things:



"The Bird Bride"


I.

Once this feather was attached to my body,
enabled me to cut through air and flutter my
squat, brittle body
up and 'round the apartment
like a tiny zeppelin.


II.

"It needs more beans."
She stared hard at the garlic bleeding onto her fingers. "My Mom uses Pork n' Beans in her chili, we got any?"
Just then the blanket became a stretching cat
out of the corner of my eye.
The room stewed in the lemon dish detergent light.
She felt painted, regal, naked except for the purple blanket
over the towel, tucked under her armpits.
Good enough to be in a catalog.


III.

The air was silted, clouds of Country Time Lemonade mix.
The bird fidgeted in its cage.
Crumbs, rubber bands, a ravaged paperback.
The bird cocked its head toward the reflected sun patches
of the mini-blinds on the wall.
The bird yelped and instinctively she blew air out of her mouth at him
Don't make me hate you.
But the bird only screeched louder and she threw a beige cloth over his cage.
The children outside, intermittently asking "Mom?" and barking at one another.
Sneakers, plates of leftover chili.
From across the room she spotted a small black bug climbing
in a series of stillframes down, down the wall. Her back itched and the hairs
crawled. The air was now dustier, crumbs of light, sedimented with
false peripheral movements. A patch of light in the hall, tattered cotton pulled
across the off-white walls. From below the cover she could see the point
at the end of the bird's tail.


IV.

From below the veil I saw her outline.
All I can do is answer the tribes around me,
shrill legions of finch and starling.
I answer them, I call her,
I make sure I'm alive and loud enough in here.


V.

He did like her pork chops. She enjoyed this, although she didn't like making them. The meat was always too rubbery, and it cooked too fast. Not challenging. He liked the rosemary and dill.


VI.

"I'm going to microwave your ass," he told the bird as he banged on its cage.
His alarm haad gone off. (Or was it hers?)
The comforter had slipped off her shoulders and she gathered it back,
not embarassed of being naked but of having to write the word, "naked."
The chatter of budgerigars from the other room soothed her.
He'd probably hit the snooze, although he didn't quite know how to work her alarm clock.
And he would see that she'd gotten no sleep again, and the dusty ghosts would settle in his hollows and shimmer around him, peppering his golden skin with slaughterhouses.


jlr 2000(?)



my hands hurt, i swear i have arthritis. (thinking of that commercial with the lady playing the piano very emphatically, and then declaring that she had arthritis but arthritis didn't have her!)
that poem's pretty weird, huh. it's about when i lived with my ex-fiance and my cockatiel and my 2 parakeets. (boris is the one in the poem)

going to check on my mom.

much love, somehow...

jamie lynn.

Spiders, Moths and Bullies

there are too many fucking spiders!!! spiders inside, spiders outside, spiders in the basement looking bored, spiders marching across the kitchen counter boldly, spiders on the ceiling in the bathroom, spiders shimmeying up the corner of my bedroom wall, spiders on the porch watching me smoke, spiders hanging around my bicycle and making homes on the wheel-spokes. spiders organizing huge protests outside local colleges, spiders doing door-to-door cookie sales, spiders demanding i subscribe to TV Guide, spiders making rude comments when i am getting undressed. spiders doing aerobics on television, spiders suing other spiders in wrongful death cases, spiders in BMW's playing golf, spiders getting boob jobs and tummy tucks, spiders on syndicated comedies, spiders getting married, spiders getting divorced, spiders criticizing my taste in clothing. spiders harassing me because i'm ugly, spiders bumming cigarettes, spiders hinting toward casual sex....


and goddammit, why can't i look like julie delpy? can i at least have a torso transplant? that would clear up a lot of problems.


i just tasted Spam for the very first time in my 27 years. it was Spam Lite, actually. it was just as horrible as i imagined it would be, if not more so. i think i'd rather stick my arm in the garbage disposal next time. i crack myself up.

you're not going to BELIEVE this...! i just killed another spider!!! it was sprinting up the side of my bureau! it was little and brown and probably reading this over my shoulder, god the motherfucker was asking for it. it's not like we're dirty people or anything.

how dare these spiders. i bet julie delpy doesn't have spider problems, even when she goes to Rangoon some famous spider hangouts. julie delpy has teeny tiny arms. men probably have no idea what to say to her.

they always know what to say to me. my formidable nose and conspiringly ridiculous breasts serve as inital barriers, but to no avail.
"How short are you?"
"You look like a really nervous person."
"Wow, you smile a lot!"
"Have you ever just done anything...impulsive?"

i'll stop there. it could get worse. it won't. not now, not anymore. men have said nice things to me too, like "you are a beautiful person inside and outside," but then they never call again, so what's the jig?

ok. i don't care. let them. let them take a look and spin their webs, i'm not even going that way, i'm not into the flycatcher mentality. i can't speak for butterflies, and i always feel sorry for the lightning bugs, illuminating their distress signal.

i'm just a Moth Girl. i'm made of dust, and i prefer night-blindness, and i'm stupid, and i eat holes in your clothes, but i have no hidden agenda, and i don't crawl. i'm a ghost. i'm ordinary. i'm kind of peculiar, spastic, ugly. harmless, but i get in the way. i'm blind, i'm stupid, i'll never shine, but i can surprise you.

i don't know how i got here, to this point, to my declaration of Mothdom or the mild nausea or sweating or anything. i need to sleep somehow.

i asked my friend tonight how long it took her to get over getting beaten by a guy. she said, "i'll let you know." i guess it's more like you just...replace the sensation, scrounge for comfort. i know some ppl like to "speak out!!" about it. i'm not thrilled that anyone even knows about it. no one ever knew what to say. i just never thought i'd be the one at work with the black eye. i can't believe i had to run away again. i hated it there, true, but he made it that much more of a dead world.

i don't miss him. thinking of him makes me feel sick to my stomach, like these pills. the fact that he lives on, that he's seen other girls, that knows he'll never have what i gave. i can't remember the happy times. i can't fathom why i stayed, why i came back. there was nothing wrong with my Love. there is nothing wrong with my ability, my capacity to love. my arms are empty and my heart is...my heart isn't.

and purgatorio is peopled with moths, who can't quite see but can feel everything.