crystallized from Fake TV on Vimeo.
Hi, hi, high.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
those who don't never will. but those who do?
Rise and shine to you.
For you
The moon and the stars and
The sky. There is always
Quick heat in mouths touching, built
with brick around
frost, and hung
with a thousand particles of
light around brick.
Stolen, not taken. My world
is the same as any other (because
what is a world?) if a look is taken
at the brick and
the frost, the lights
in the dark.
But between? There, in the
tiny, apparent barren space that
no one bothers
or, maybe, looks close enough
to see?
There is a rise
and shine
to you
For you
Always sticking.
It is steady, it is even. and
I?
I have seen what a world is after all.
For you
The moon and the stars and
The sky. There is always
Quick heat in mouths touching, built
with brick around
frost, and hung
with a thousand particles of
light around brick.
Stolen, not taken. My world
is the same as any other (because
what is a world?) if a look is taken
at the brick and
the frost, the lights
in the dark.
But between? There, in the
tiny, apparent barren space that
no one bothers
or, maybe, looks close enough
to see?
There is a rise
and shine
to you
For you
Always sticking.
It is steady, it is even. and
I?
I have seen what a world is after all.
Monday, December 21, 2009
A year, in review.
This season. It doesn't feel like a single one that's come before it, not that I can remember.
Last year, same day. December 21. I wrote this.
Months and years past of train ticket machines click-click-clashing my passage to and from a place that I knew was my home. I took a train again this morning in a sweater two sizes too large for me, and stared out a frostbitten window knowing that I don't know where that home is anymore.
And, far more significantly, knowing that it's alright to not know.
I expect that having figured everything out at the age of 23 would make for a horribly dull, albeit easier and more manageable existence. I could be wrong, of course, so if there's a 20-something (or 30, or 40, or ever 50-something for that matter) out there who believes that they've obtained such clarity, please send me an e-mail...I'd love to hear all about it. So, for the time being, I'm unsure as to what direction this is all going in, and I mean that in the broadest sense possible. Past, present and future blogs, schools, careers, homes, shoes, cigarettes, planes, trains, automobiles, holidays - you name it, I've probably not quite figured it out. And the great clarity I've been seeking for a longer time than I would like to recollect kicks in when I remind myself that it's not something I even want. I'm in love with not knowing, and for right now that's good enough.
A few days ago my oft-alluded to man and I sat in our beautiful tropicana coloured kitchen nook, where we sit most every evening and enjoy the beautiful meals we alternately prepare for one another, and we talked. We always talk.
It's nice, being with someone who likes listening to you talk, likes the way your face moves when you listen to them talk, likes talking to you.
Our talks range from making silly noises and singing at one another to examining existentialist treatises to congratulating each other and ourselves on the accomplishments of the week (songs, chapters finished, meals made, dancing fun had). This time we talked about happiness. What it means, where you feel it, whether it's in your chest or bones or stomach or skin or brain or all of then at once. How it doesn't change who you are, it lets you be who you are. And even though I still don't know what it is, or how to explain to anyone how to feel it like I do...
Happiness. We came to this conclusion. When you can just be, it just is.
And this? This I know.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Last year, same day. December 21. I wrote this.
Months and years past of train ticket machines click-click-clashing my passage to and from a place that I knew was my home. I took a train again this morning in a sweater two sizes too large for me, and stared out a frostbitten window knowing that I don't know where that home is anymore.
And, far more significantly, knowing that it's alright to not know.
I expect that having figured everything out at the age of 23 would make for a horribly dull, albeit easier and more manageable existence. I could be wrong, of course, so if there's a 20-something (or 30, or 40, or ever 50-something for that matter) out there who believes that they've obtained such clarity, please send me an e-mail...I'd love to hear all about it. So, for the time being, I'm unsure as to what direction this is all going in, and I mean that in the broadest sense possible. Past, present and future blogs, schools, careers, homes, shoes, cigarettes, planes, trains, automobiles, holidays - you name it, I've probably not quite figured it out. And the great clarity I've been seeking for a longer time than I would like to recollect kicks in when I remind myself that it's not something I even want. I'm in love with not knowing, and for right now that's good enough.
A few days ago my oft-alluded to man and I sat in our beautiful tropicana coloured kitchen nook, where we sit most every evening and enjoy the beautiful meals we alternately prepare for one another, and we talked. We always talk.
It's nice, being with someone who likes listening to you talk, likes the way your face moves when you listen to them talk, likes talking to you.
Our talks range from making silly noises and singing at one another to examining existentialist treatises to congratulating each other and ourselves on the accomplishments of the week (songs, chapters finished, meals made, dancing fun had). This time we talked about happiness. What it means, where you feel it, whether it's in your chest or bones or stomach or skin or brain or all of then at once. How it doesn't change who you are, it lets you be who you are. And even though I still don't know what it is, or how to explain to anyone how to feel it like I do...
Happiness. We came to this conclusion. When you can just be, it just is.
And this? This I know.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Not Here.
There's courage involved if you want
to become truth. There is a broken-open place in a lover. Where are
those qualities of bravery and sharp
compassion in this group? What's the
use of old and frozen thought? I want
a howling hurt. This is not a treasury
where gold is stored; this is for copper.
We alchemists look for talent that
can heat up and change. Lukewarm
won't do. Halfhearted holding back,
well-enough getting by? Not here.
- Rumi
Monday, November 30, 2009
Us.
People sometimes forget that every beginning is an ending, too.
The change, the change...it all happened for a reason, didn't it?
I've made it. I'll keep it.
It's you, always.
Dear Yoko Ono
Dear Yoko Ono,
I like you.
You're strong.
And I think I understand you. Mostly.
Some afternoons I sit here in this very spot that I’m sitting in now and I watch you on my computer screen: burning it with all your clipped words of white-hot love. It helps me sometimes…I think.
It helps me think.
Either/Or.
And there you sit across from me in the screen, sitting the same way every time: being positive, elegant, generous and loving and all of the things that we all should be. We all should be…and yet none of us are. No one I know is. I try to be. I know I’m not.
But you! You are.
Even after the merciless and horrible things the universe has brought upon your tiny little head, still full of your shiny short hair at 73 years old, you are.
See, if I were you, Yoko, I don't think I'd ever be able to say I love you again.
And you! You do. You say it every day, to everyone and no one at all.
God, you’re so fucking strong, Yoko.
You make me entertain the thought that I, too, could maybe be as amazing as you are one day even though I’m admittedly selfish (and, quite simply, not as amazing; simply in that I never want to have to be). But I still entertain it. I let it loose up in my head, like hair that’s been confined from tight braids it’s been in for weeks, like a child who’s eaten nothing but Pixie Stix for days on end and runs up and down the block to burn it all off.
This kind of simplicity? It’s so nice to have sometimes.
I wonder, Yoko, if you too sometimes get sad or bored with yourself, and the feeling that you’re not actually very good at anything at all?
I try to be creative most days.
Most days I can't even tell if it's working or not.
Most days I think I could do anything at all and none of it would matter to anyone but me.
Or it could matter to everyone, but I think it would mean nothing to me either way.
What is being creative anyways? Just…creating? Well, I could create anything then. I could write you a letter, I could draw pictures of paper coffee cups piled up on desks with words like I’m so fucking sick of this scrawled over them, I could draw them over top of worse renderings of with tiny waists and long legs of extra-terrestrials spreading their fingers atop the open palms that face their audience in surrender, saying come in, I’m letting you in, have a fucking look and don’t fucking look at me and I could make a million dollars.
People make a million dollars making much stupider, much dirtier, much more inane things than these.
I wish my mind was clean.
I wish I could make a million dollars.
I wish I didn't wish to know everything all the time.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is…I feel like you must sometimes feel like I do, Yoko.
Do you?
You certainly never show it. I'm working on that, too, the not showing of it. Not letting it get in me in the first place is hard enough, but at least not letting it out...it's kind of like those affirmation things that you’re supposed to do when you’re depressed. Someone told me to do them when I thought I was depressed, but I don't think I really was. Just sad. I did them anyways.
So tell me Yoko, please, because I actually need to know whether or not it’s true.
Do you ever get sad? Do you ever go on your early evening walks and feel nothing but loose street gravel below the soles of your little feet, do you alternate between conversations and shapes and numbers in your head, do you find yourself unable to speak of it, not because you don’t want to but because you don’t know what your insides are made of, let alone what words to use?
I hope you do, Yoko. I hope you are sad sometimes. I hope you hate sometimes. I hope you’re just as confused and fucked and afraid as the rest of us.
But as much as I need to know that you’ve got bad on your insides too, Yoko, don’t worry. I know you don’t. It’s why I like you.
I like you.
You're strong.
And I think I understand you. Mostly.
Some afternoons I sit here in this very spot that I’m sitting in now and I watch you on my computer screen: burning it with all your clipped words of white-hot love. It helps me sometimes…I think.
It helps me think.
Either/Or.
And there you sit across from me in the screen, sitting the same way every time: being positive, elegant, generous and loving and all of the things that we all should be. We all should be…and yet none of us are. No one I know is. I try to be. I know I’m not.
But you! You are.
Even after the merciless and horrible things the universe has brought upon your tiny little head, still full of your shiny short hair at 73 years old, you are.
See, if I were you, Yoko, I don't think I'd ever be able to say I love you again.
And you! You do. You say it every day, to everyone and no one at all.
God, you’re so fucking strong, Yoko.
You make me entertain the thought that I, too, could maybe be as amazing as you are one day even though I’m admittedly selfish (and, quite simply, not as amazing; simply in that I never want to have to be). But I still entertain it. I let it loose up in my head, like hair that’s been confined from tight braids it’s been in for weeks, like a child who’s eaten nothing but Pixie Stix for days on end and runs up and down the block to burn it all off.
This kind of simplicity? It’s so nice to have sometimes.
I wonder, Yoko, if you too sometimes get sad or bored with yourself, and the feeling that you’re not actually very good at anything at all?
I try to be creative most days.
Most days I can't even tell if it's working or not.
Most days I think I could do anything at all and none of it would matter to anyone but me.
Or it could matter to everyone, but I think it would mean nothing to me either way.
What is being creative anyways? Just…creating? Well, I could create anything then. I could write you a letter, I could draw pictures of paper coffee cups piled up on desks with words like I’m so fucking sick of this scrawled over them, I could draw them over top of worse renderings of with tiny waists and long legs of extra-terrestrials spreading their fingers atop the open palms that face their audience in surrender, saying come in, I’m letting you in, have a fucking look and don’t fucking look at me and I could make a million dollars.
People make a million dollars making much stupider, much dirtier, much more inane things than these.
I wish my mind was clean.
I wish I could make a million dollars.
I wish I didn't wish to know everything all the time.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is…I feel like you must sometimes feel like I do, Yoko.
Do you?
You certainly never show it. I'm working on that, too, the not showing of it. Not letting it get in me in the first place is hard enough, but at least not letting it out...it's kind of like those affirmation things that you’re supposed to do when you’re depressed. Someone told me to do them when I thought I was depressed, but I don't think I really was. Just sad. I did them anyways.
So tell me Yoko, please, because I actually need to know whether or not it’s true.
Do you ever get sad? Do you ever go on your early evening walks and feel nothing but loose street gravel below the soles of your little feet, do you alternate between conversations and shapes and numbers in your head, do you find yourself unable to speak of it, not because you don’t want to but because you don’t know what your insides are made of, let alone what words to use?
I hope you do, Yoko. I hope you are sad sometimes. I hope you hate sometimes. I hope you’re just as confused and fucked and afraid as the rest of us.
But as much as I need to know that you’ve got bad on your insides too, Yoko, don’t worry. I know you don’t. It’s why I like you.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Writing a book.
...for me, it goes a little something like this:
1. Your water breaks. And the words, they come pouring out as though every major artery in your body (heart included) has just been swiftly and mercilessly slashed open. It's all kind of disgusting really, or would be if not for the fact that you're kind of excited because you're having a baby goddammit!
2. The birth commences. But you had to take public transit to the hospital during rush hour, and now that you're finally here, not one kind soul is being magnanimous enough to stab you in the ass with an epidural. Yep, this part fucking hurts.
3. Postpartum depression sets in. How on earth do you get this monster to go to sleep, or at the very least stop caterwauling at you for five minutes? You're approaching the beast from every angle, and it's deflecting your advances like a pro.
4. It is a screaming terror of a toddler, and there are moments, more frequent than not, wherein you believe that it is either you or it. Only one shall survive, and it's not looking like it's going to be you. You feel inefficient, paralyzed, and just about ready to put the thing up for adoption. Or kill it. There's always that option, too.
5. Alright, it's finally learning to talk and walk and is even starting kindergarten soon. Every day gets a little bit easier, and maybe you're learning to be good at this whole thing after all?
6. Ah, so this is why people do this. It's quite nice actually, having a little partner, a little consistency in the day, watching it grow into a more compact, recognizable version of yourself. You start to enjoy making it after-school snacks and tucking it into bed at night.
7. Nuh-uh. Wrong again. Did no one warn you about the terrible teens? It's become its own person, or so it thinks. Stays out too late with boys, talks back at you, is openly smoking cigarettes (and, you suspect, worse) and is its 'own woman', or so it thinks. Still lives under your roof though, and therefore your rules. Thems the breaks, kiddo.
7. Evil, evil teenage years. War of the wor[l]ds, every day. Where did it all go wrong? You need a vacation, from which you consider never returning. Or, once again, killing it. You brought it into the world, you can take it out. Right?
8. You can't help but sometimes marvel at what you've created, and the fact that, via some semblance of both a competence and will of your own, it's still alive. Holy shit! And really. It's quite beautiful, smarter than you usually give it credit for being, and objectively pretty damn cool. Still a pain in the ass sometimes, but who are you kidding? You love it to death.
9. The bittersweet day comes that it's accepted into college. You knew the time would come that it would fly the coop to go and become someone else's problem, and after all that you've been through, it's more than a little bit exciting. You'll see it on holidays and for the occasional visit when it needs money/attention/affection...but it's never going to be just the two of you again and you both know it.
10. "Hoorah! You're free! You're freeeeee!" chants a little voice in your head, over and over again. Yes, indeed. You are free. And you miss it terribly already. You sit back. You finally take that vacation. And you wish with all of your heart that it's being taken care of, that you taught it how to take care of itself, and that no harm comes to it. Ever, ever, ever.
Disclaimers:
1. No, I have never had a child. This is just what I imagine it's like.
2. I am currently somewhere around stage 8, occasionally reverting back to stage 7.
3. I think it's self-explanatory, but publisher/public = college/world.
1. Your water breaks. And the words, they come pouring out as though every major artery in your body (heart included) has just been swiftly and mercilessly slashed open. It's all kind of disgusting really, or would be if not for the fact that you're kind of excited because you're having a baby goddammit!
2. The birth commences. But you had to take public transit to the hospital during rush hour, and now that you're finally here, not one kind soul is being magnanimous enough to stab you in the ass with an epidural. Yep, this part fucking hurts.
3. Postpartum depression sets in. How on earth do you get this monster to go to sleep, or at the very least stop caterwauling at you for five minutes? You're approaching the beast from every angle, and it's deflecting your advances like a pro.
4. It is a screaming terror of a toddler, and there are moments, more frequent than not, wherein you believe that it is either you or it. Only one shall survive, and it's not looking like it's going to be you. You feel inefficient, paralyzed, and just about ready to put the thing up for adoption. Or kill it. There's always that option, too.
5. Alright, it's finally learning to talk and walk and is even starting kindergarten soon. Every day gets a little bit easier, and maybe you're learning to be good at this whole thing after all?
6. Ah, so this is why people do this. It's quite nice actually, having a little partner, a little consistency in the day, watching it grow into a more compact, recognizable version of yourself. You start to enjoy making it after-school snacks and tucking it into bed at night.
7. Nuh-uh. Wrong again. Did no one warn you about the terrible teens? It's become its own person, or so it thinks. Stays out too late with boys, talks back at you, is openly smoking cigarettes (and, you suspect, worse) and is its 'own woman', or so it thinks. Still lives under your roof though, and therefore your rules. Thems the breaks, kiddo.
7. Evil, evil teenage years. War of the wor[l]ds, every day. Where did it all go wrong? You need a vacation, from which you consider never returning. Or, once again, killing it. You brought it into the world, you can take it out. Right?
8. You can't help but sometimes marvel at what you've created, and the fact that, via some semblance of both a competence and will of your own, it's still alive. Holy shit! And really. It's quite beautiful, smarter than you usually give it credit for being, and objectively pretty damn cool. Still a pain in the ass sometimes, but who are you kidding? You love it to death.
9. The bittersweet day comes that it's accepted into college. You knew the time would come that it would fly the coop to go and become someone else's problem, and after all that you've been through, it's more than a little bit exciting. You'll see it on holidays and for the occasional visit when it needs money/attention/affection...but it's never going to be just the two of you again and you both know it.
10. "Hoorah! You're free! You're freeeeee!" chants a little voice in your head, over and over again. Yes, indeed. You are free. And you miss it terribly already. You sit back. You finally take that vacation. And you wish with all of your heart that it's being taken care of, that you taught it how to take care of itself, and that no harm comes to it. Ever, ever, ever.
Disclaimers:
1. No, I have never had a child. This is just what I imagine it's like.
2. I am currently somewhere around stage 8, occasionally reverting back to stage 7.
3. I think it's self-explanatory, but publisher/public = college/world.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday mid-morning coffee break.
Sometimes I just don't feel like using my words or my brain because sometimes it all just comes out the same way as it did yesterday and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who knows what I mean.
Do you know what I mean?
Sometimes I don't want to write I just want to look at pictures of Anita Pallenberg in 1968 and study the angular sharpness of her face and wear more fur smoke more cigarettes draw my eyes black and heavy and wake up at whatever hours I want.
Sometimes I just want to be horrible and not care and not bite my hands, not hate my arms every time I pass by a mirror.
Sometimes I don't want to read about hope or love or see any more long-legged girls in beautiful outfits that I could never fit into or afford.
Sometimes I want no one inside my head but him and I take back everything I've done and...just, sometimes, oh.
Oh. Suck it back, stamp it out, oh.
Do you know what I mean?
Sometimes I don't want to write I just want to look at pictures of Anita Pallenberg in 1968 and study the angular sharpness of her face and wear more fur smoke more cigarettes draw my eyes black and heavy and wake up at whatever hours I want.
Sometimes I just want to be horrible and not care and not bite my hands, not hate my arms every time I pass by a mirror.
Sometimes I don't want to read about hope or love or see any more long-legged girls in beautiful outfits that I could never fit into or afford.
Sometimes I want no one inside my head but him and I take back everything I've done and...just, sometimes, oh.
Oh. Suck it back, stamp it out, oh.
Friday, October 23, 2009
half the world away
Don't accept anything less than big love. Massive, consuming, fast-paced, scary, wonderful, overwhelming, huge love. The kind of love that makes you want to put post-it notes with sweet nothings written on them all over his suitcase when he goes out of town for a night. The type of love that makes you suddenly understand why your mother has made you take your vitamins and fed you beautiful meals your whole life. Because long days and heavy eyelids don't matter when you've got big love. Nothing can keep you going like big love, because there's nothing in the world like it and once you find it? Oh my god you'll know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
