First, DD then Edie BB and DD combo, character development.

Funny, lively and amiable. Crushing and insincere. Flitting across the dream screen she shuffles to and fro between peoples who people her party. Those with whom she currently has rapport.

I do believe she sees herself as wholly separate and flawed, yet superior regardless. (As every human alive..) She Turns On when around people, gives candid opinions, just enough for someone to believe she's "real". All the while keeping a wild judging beast tucked in her interior.

Eventually, in every life that calls her friend she will one day disappear. That interior beast spoke louder than the "real" girl, one too many times. Left them wondering, wandering in the dust.

Now what about Edie BB and the DD combo?

She's a perfect nut. Her story and interior impressions of the exterior squalor are sincerly pristine. She still lives in the elegant luxury, in habitual style and action. I love her for her horsey face and powerful manifestation of fashion gowns through means that only supply enough tuna fish in cans to feed cats and raccoons.

Although entirely different and exactly the same, DD is in perfect alignment with her thus must merge and become one in character, although not yet. I'm not yet ready to give DD up to another manifestation. I must have her as I write who Her is, just for my own.

bare patch of skin

He told her yes she was right, he didn't respect her. He didn't have feelings for her. He did disregard her. He told her this many times, maybe with different words. She needed to hear it at least 28 times before she believed it. She needed the abuse to make her stop reading between the lines, the stories that weren't really there but projected from her own want. Now it is today and there is nothing left of it but silence and bruises to cherish and rub. Oh, don't let me forget, there is the embarrassment that sits in her self chastising and daily emotional beatings. I shall pluck a hair for each mistake and then I will have a nice round bare patch of skin to press and pinch my sins to self till a soft fuzz grows back and I can pluck again. Or I could just let it grow. She just doesn't know

Be suspicious of what you want -Rumi

I want a devil. He wasn't going to make me happy but I wanted him. I wanted him because he refused me. This isn't the only reason, I'm not purely a fool. There was some amazing moments and I am addicted to them. But the devil refused. The devil didn't love me, want me or even care that I was alive. I am dead to him. And he is the only thing alive for me. I am a devil. I want to extract the good, kill and discard the devil in the devil. My want is so unwieldy it frightens me because it contains it's own velocity and wind patterns that accost and harass. I believe it's panic and I die a little each time I let it take lead of me. Just come back. Live my story of you and I and be everything I want. What a monster I am. What a devil you are.

The overlooked

I've just come back from a visit with my sweet mom.
As she's getting older, her health is changing and the experience of this has me thinking of how much I love her and want to spend as much time with her as I can. In between the times that I visit, I want to think about the rooms she moves through during her day.

I decided to take pictures of some of the discarded areas and areas that aren't designed to have their pictures taken. I think they carry as much information about my mom as the obvious places that hold what's pretty.

This is a very little mirror my mother has hung with a push pin in her spare bathroom.

Yes, it is sweetly, this small.

The little boxes, paperwork and books below the microwave, they have been there for years, I don't know if my mother remembers why they were once important or if they still are. They have become part of the scenery of a home, like so many things can. The kitchen utensils that hang here, they aren't used, they're part of the "artful" presentation set up with the margarita glasses that are there just for color.

Behind a garden chair on the back porch, a can of wood finish and other forgotten containers from projects past. They sit in the dried flower petals of the bouginvillea bush from the side of the house, that have blown to rest here.

Before my mother lived here it was my grandfather's home. This shed is a remaining piece from that time. For me, it represents what the memory of someone can become after they leave, no longer refreshing your memory with new images. It seems sad but there is such a beauty in the falling apart of memory and the forgetting that follows. It's what so many poems are written about and cried over.

This is my favorite. My mom has just left and should be back shortly.

Bedrock

At my friends birthday party a man was singing a song about the time in a person's life when one realizes they aren't going to be famous and change the world in some big way. He sang how it's a time of disappointment, maybe sadness.

In my own life I remember this moment and how it brought on disappointment and the feeling of shrinking into unimportance. But it's evolved into something different. Not that I don't still have my moments of wanting to create with word or picture, a life of influence in the world. But now I think about all who have passed before, tens of thousands of years worth of people. People most of which were and are completely forgotten.

So when I visualize my passing, what it means, will mean to others, etc, etc. I think this: That which is remembered is built on the back of that which is not. We the forgotten, cover this earth from one end to the next. We are the bedrock that holds the built up memories of the so very few. So it's OK to be the dust in a box whose grave stone no longer stands.

Complaints

You're rustling through the park like old dry leaves again. It's not even Fall but here you are in the wind, pushing along the sidewalk. And even though you sound like a lonely, scraping leaf, you will always remind me of early summer.

Regardless of the ragged hole I believed you tore into me after walking away, when you conveniently forgot to untie all those lovely little heart strings I tied to you. Or, tied to what I made up about you. I still see you with dog by your side watching, waiting impatiently as I soak up your image like a photo, to save for a near future in which you will be no more.

I was always terrified by my premonition of my loss of you. You were gold you see, I coveted the immense newness of my wealth, knowing I would lose it all when the market of your affections plummeted. I thought to jump from a window, leaving a note with my Secretary saying, "Send word to my stockbroker, I've jumped in spite."


You've hidden so much of yourself inside your ever thinking mind. Stretching wide, you fill yourself full of words that all eventually come together in a scheme that will always leave me feeling hungry for more of something you only gave sparingly.

Despite my complaints you will always hold such a massive if not horrific acreage in my life. Because of the few gems you gave, I made you an epic masterpiece. And I have written about you before as I have now and no story really describes the immensity as I know it, nor will the 10th, 20th or 33rd story I write after this.

Maybe when I die I will become a transparent glob of ectoplasm carrying stories told by emotion and image, if this is so I will try to play myself like a movie reel for the pleasure of those who would like to feel what my brief wealth was like. But I can't imagine any of the stories ever ending without the audio of old dry, rustling leaves.

lonelier than normal

I touched myself like a lover, not in the way you may be thinking. I brushed my hand down my stomach, to my waist then hip. For a moment I thought I was somewhere else, someone else. I was being touched and surprised by my own hand. It's been so long since another person has reached for me with intentions thus and now I feel alone, knowing how lonely I am.

oily dark bears

I drove the ragged car over the jagged and jutted tracks made by big burly trucks, cycles and what have yous. I crashed just before the far hill that I couldn't keep my eyes off of no matter what was right in front of me.

I wanted my tank car to spill it's oil all over the jagged and jutted tracks so I would need to creak open my battered door and walk in my flip flops through the beautiful brambles, milk weed and black and blue berries.

I could stumble upon a oily dark bear, startled by my human thrashing. I would stand there staring at my potential death and think, "I'm supposed to lie down and pretend I'm dead so that I may not die." I would wonder which is better, to die pretending to already be dead or to die standing in witness, this bear threatening in it's bear way with growls and whatever sounds it makes before it eats something or decides to walk away.

I could experience the end of either the encounter or my life. I would stand there waiting for a terrible pain, for nothing or for everything. Laid out on some life platter of decisions I would stand there feeling very alive and none of it would matter either way the bear chose to act. Out of hunger or disinterest, this thing, life, would inevitably stumble on with me as I am or as I am not. And maybe in a week or two someone would find my flip flops and wonder why someone would leave their shoes there.

a flutter in sleep

The other night I was asleep and I felt a flutter and then something fairly large land on my chest. I immediately woke and pushed it off me. I sat up and said to my partner, "There's a bat in the house!"

I don't know how I assessed this situation to be bat related so quickly and while asleep but I guess I know my bats. It took a couple of minutes to confirm the fact and after a little while I was able to get the bat into a smaller room and then a smaller one still.

As I quickly closed the door of this last small room in order to contain him so I could open a second door and set it free, it fluttered around me and gently landed on my back and held on to my shirt for 30 seconds. It had such a gentle soft weight, I felt privileged to have this brief connection with this precious animal who's specie is in such jeopardy to a sickness that's wiping them out by the thousands.

I opened this second door to the night and off it fluttered to catch bugs. I'm so glad I had this experience.


If you would like to learn more about this problem concerning bats Google White Nose Syndrome.

Absolutely no one reads my blog anymore. Can't say I blame them, I never write in it anymore. Maybe I should start again.
But for anyone who happens to stumble upon me go to my other blog at:Hudson Valley Dog Boarding Blog

Sock Fetish

I love socks but they illicit angst. I just did my laundry and there is one sock without its mate, and like me, I prefer to be with my mate no matter how imperfect the fit is.

I will wonder about the missing sock till I do the next load that brings them back together. I concern myself with the separation often, visually referencing the drawer where the one sock sits..Waiting.. I understand the lacking it feels, alone in a crowd. It's almost Christmas and it's alone, in a drawer.

Fetish isn't the word for proper description of my attachment but like most Americans I use words incorrectly because I like the way they sound and because I've heard other people use them.

Glee and the Worried Few

Feeling a little pistol whipped but liking the hot afterglow of the wound..one must look to the bright side of every senseless act and contusion, am I right? besides I like scars.

I'm actually quite well and feeling partial to a surge of glee forming somewhere behind my left eye but I like the drama so I say, "Start with your wound and work your way up to the glee." Always go from the ache of disembowelment right into that gathering swell of hot yellow happiness waiting right under the scab and stitch.

Oh but I feel the cynical stretch of that daddy hand reaching out to bitch slap the bright right out of my eyes. I'm like a low and dark thing that sits under the bed sucking on scary wandering thoughts, making my heart flutter, boiling me wide and far from sleep at night. I perch, stoney and grimaced like a gargoyle eating the fuss and tussle, drinking lingering night sweats.

And like the cyclical nature of a moon the color of a sun, I will rebirth, reboot, press my bruises just to make sure they hurt and roll my severed head across a dusty floor to the door that always opens to a happy, hot yellow glow of glee.

portraits of one's own making

I make up memories that never happened about deep snow, a happy us, bounding dogs and joy, so much joy. The memory causes regret irritated to life by little dreams I quietly carried in the din of your ideas. You framed us big as a portrait with only your talent to paint it from.

There was no time for romance only business and the acquiring of more of what made your shabby kingdom. I pulled my slow heart through change and never really recovered from the speed and the wind of your rush. If you would have wooed me for a while, my hand would have loved to have been held in parks and under umbrellas.

But you have moved into new and vast frames with oil colors to paint new love, old lies to cover. Brush wide strokes, the mistake of our portrait. You look so fresh and innocent of a past you are responsible for.

But be the virgin queen in this new disguise and I'm sure you will seduce new bright ones. They are always good audiences for talented, shameless minds. And your silly posse of court held vaguely near, always nods yes and pats your ruffles clean of inconsistencies of character.

You really should rule a vast and powerful painting, a kingdom of the most fascinating self denial.

a balancing act including dance and manuscripts

There was a smitten man on the crowded train, smitten with me. I would have been smitten back but I'm not inclined to the male variety. I was making eye contact with the girl six people over. The one with the straight brown gold hair, eyes perfectly green and brown. Distinctly, they were green, they were brown.

I am the courteous train passenger, melting and slinking into free spaces to avoid the jostling of ass and shoulder. I was busy, I watched the girl watch me watch her and I watched the man read and edit a manuscript while balancing his long frame lightly against a pole. The train lurched and he stepped on my foot. I was already whispering, "no worries" and shaking my head in forgiveness by the time he straightened himself and looked up to me to apologize.

His eyes widened by a fraction of a centimeter, lighting up then quickly snuffed, as to not come out of his cool. But I saw it, I was a Lego fit, at least for the rest of this ride. And from this time on he looked to me between sentences and corrections. He adjusted his position to be in front of me when I moved to sit down. I watched him watch me out of the corner of my eye as I watched the hazel eyed girl get off the train.

I kept my gaze pleasant and never quite on him as we left the train. I did that subtle dance of awareness and polite disinterest. He lingered a second or two, gentle and in step, balancing his role with mine. Then aware that the song ended he increased in speed and just before he took a flight of stairs to his next train, he looked back and smiled.

Vodka and watermelon

There was a boy, drunk and asleep on the train yesterday as I was coming home. As people were getting off, seats became available and I sat in one across from the boy. I opened up my book and settled in for the rest of the trip.

But things changed. The boy's body decided it could no longer put up with the vodka soaked watermelon he'd been eating all day. Out of the corner of my eye I saw liquid puking movement. I think I knew before the boy, he was only half aware of his own existence except for his misery.

six people and I shot up and flew to the side of the train, like mice running from water in a sinking ship. I placed myself close to the door so I could shoot out at the next stop, the boy thought this was a good idea for him as well. He lurched out of his seat and stumbled right at me. I launched myself into the crowd that had mashed themselves into a corner as he leaned over and puked in the direction of the door. I looked at all of our disgusted faces then longingly to the other side of the train where passengers sat watching, looking at us, glad they were not over here.

At this point there were ten of us crammed into a small corner in fear of this one barfing boy, 10 adults mashed together like scared prey. All because of this one slightly stupid human being who made a mistake. I felt foolish for being so grossed out.

I had the sneaking suspicion that we were behaving like we hadn't ever been stupid and drunk in our lives, like we were a separate sect of humans who could not consider taking part in such an experiment of bad manners and uncouth behavior. I was immediately embarrassed and deeply affected by this boys struggle to recover.

I'm not going to tell you that I helped him, I didn't. But I changed my position and became his equal again. I cared and felt no judgment anymore. it felt so good to remember there was no barrier other than the one I had imagined. All of us poured out and switched cars at the next stop, he got out and sat for a while.

Something Else?

A witch I knew in waking visited me in a dream. I was busy at the time she arrived, leaning over into the dirt picking up colorful, fat and fuzzy ribbons, the kind little girl's moms tied pigtails with when I was young.

I was caught up, talking to myself about the importance of being able to hold all of these ribbons at once, worried about dropping them, worried about what next.

I knew she was there in her soft and willowy way. She said nothing and watched patiently, judgeless. Her feet were clean in the dirt and her dress moved silently over them as she moved in rhythm to an evolution she was humming to.

Out from the periphery she came into full view, I looked up to her and she said, "If you worry so much about holding all of this you won't have room for anything else."

from all and various directions

At first, I carved my name into every tree you passed, on every bench you sat. Every street light blinked my favorite color, leaving you startled and alert for my madness, fearing such committed and unsettled acts could only lead to a harrowing encounter with a mad and wicked me.

You scan horizons for my shadow behind trees as my initials appear in every leaf you scatter. My memory sits tiny in the moss growing on the stone your house sits on and where the Cedars cling. You shake with the awareness of the audacity I have to keep myself ever present in the most unpleasant and indecipherable way.

You duck, hearing my fury wind rush you from all and various directions. I am the dust that sprinkled my corrosive image in your dreams that burned you awake. I am the ghost that breaks things and threatens to come close just before you touch the skin of a New Her.


But none of these wicked and immoral acts have I committed, but only for the sake of not knowing how. I awake from my sorted and true colors to see that this magic was for my own story and had little effect on you and yours. None of my fury holds to anything but my own neck, a wasted grip and with no consequence but for experience alone.

In the world of your kaleidescope, the only conclusion worth aiming for is one you haven't come to because the only moments your interest peaks in are created or corralled by you, the only person who is substantial and worth your respect, is you.

I have had the effect of the puddle you walk through. I stick to your boot for a while, dry to a dirt mark and fade.

Now nothing

I wilt into the paint of a wall that rests somewhere against my back. In the pressure of your gaze, I am becoming a wallpaper print, loud and long. Peel me, then throw me to a wooden planked or tiled forgotten room, grind me to a rust, a dust. Then wander we will in slow forgotten drafts on dirty floors finding new corners to clutter.

I remember and forget the whys we came this direction. Scuttle and cluster, we're filling drafts with words irrelevant and sorrowful. Ghostly settling, still. All that seemed solid and cared for, invested to the tops of broken hearts, we filled with vexing toasts of angst.

Meaningless silence now empties the room and finally, nothing. Words in their senseless intent, could be no better as they are as nothing. And we fill this place, this space with our old and dead misdeeds and clearly it is preferred, temporarily to another kind of love that lives in the newness of olden dead. But what I mean to say is that this sweet room belongs to the words from then. And now, the now is new and belongs elsewhere in a blue and golden view.

Again, let's love this death, empty broken bodies of so much offered into nothing. All the profound and glorious importance gathered into the folly of irrelevance makes for the most ultimate joke to tell on each other. so let's us laugh as we have equalled out to even. Turn to the right, there is blue and golden view. We are just the same and better for it.

Rummaging through the dead

I'm sitting next to an etching of St. Marks Square in Venice. It's quite lovely, a view from the water looking into the square through the gondolas. I bought it and another for $30 from an apartment sale who's owners died. they had no children, just a gruff brother and a wacky neighbor who volunteered to give away and sell their things to the random strangers who answered the ad.

One by one people came, entering meekly, stopping to stand in the living room, visually absorbing the scene. At first look, it wasn't promising. Seventies decor in the front room, and the kitchen filled with odd dishes and ancient utensils.

When I came to the door it wasn't by way of the ad the neighbor had placed. I'd met a woman in the elevator who was heading to the apartment. She told me someone was giving everything away. She was furnishing her new apartment.

I rang the bell and the wacky neighbor answered looking as if I was the first person to ring it, ever. I fumbled for words, "Hi I just met a woman who said you were giving things away." Blank stare from the lady so I fumbled some more, "She said you put out an ad? That people were stopping by?" After a series of pointless questions I was finally approved and allowed in to wander through the stuff.

When I first came in I spotted the two etchings I eventually took home. I knew they were worth more than I was going to pay for them. I asked the overseer how much they were, "$20 each." "Will you give them both to me for $30?" Lady lets a flicker of defeat cross her face then, "Ok."

I walked around the front room feeling odd about rummaging though dead peoples things. It was clear they were elderly and had collected these things their whole lives. A prickly feeling crept over me. I felt rude pushing things aside to get to another, picking that up, pulling this out. It seemed wrong and weird.

I slipped to the back bedroom to get away from the overseer, who's voice seemed loud and out of place, increasing the feeling that we all should be ashamed of ourselves. In the back room there was a young man who was in earnest in his quest to find stuff. He was latino and gay, two of my favorite attributes in a man so I pushed into the room and hovered around him to make myself feel better.

The space was strange and dusty. It was at some point a work room, filled with homemade radios and other electrical hoo haas I knew nothing of. My new friend here was finding old photography equipment, light sensors, film rollers and cameras. All of this was a boon for him as he was a photographer. He told me he was here helping the wacky overseer find things of interest to put on Ebay for sale.

I stood watching mostly, still feeling strange about these old dead things left in this room since the 50s. Dirty and forgotten now being pulled out, opened and set aside. I positioned myself in the center and decided to pickup only the things that peeked my interest. I found a small framed picture of the dead couple with family and I had a desire to slip it into my bag unnoticed, to save it from the onslaught of strangers to come.

With a pile of ancient old pillows stowed for whatever reason, came out an old photo album and with it my friend tells me what he knows of the people. "Oh look at thissss, it is the woman's family album from when she is a child with her family. She and her husband were Jewish, Austrian refugees from World War II."

The pictures were so charming and sad considering the families eventual status in that part of the world. They looked like upper middle class gentiles fitting all the stereotypes of the ideal Hitler aryan family. Fat blond haired children, content and happy, fed too much, representing abundance at it's most successful. The father was dapper, not handsome but he carried himself as if he were irresistible.

Most of the photos were summers at the beach through the years. In recline in the sun with the wind lazily pushing at their hair. Somewhere in each frame, beach balls, picnic baskets and the water reflecting the warmth that made their skin brown . My favorite photo was of the mother laying on her stomach looking off with a soft squint in her eyes. Happy and motherly, she was as content and relaxed as I could ever wish to be.

In the middle of the album were two unopened letters dated in the 1950's. They were from a locksmith in Manhattan. From a locksmith? Could these be from a lover? Or are they just forgotten mail she used as a bookmark way back then as she absentmindedly paged through her memories? Then I wondered, has she not looked through the pictures since then? I fought the urge to open them, I fought the urge to slip them in my bag.

I could have stayed longer but I had duties to attend to. So I slipped out with my two etchings wondering how I'll carry them onto a crowded subway. Wondering if my weird feelings and sorrow for the dead people and their long forgotten things were worth considering. Do I really care that the things they loved or at least liked went out of their apartment to new homes? Besides we're giving the stuff a new life in new environments. New drawers to sit in, walls to hang on, floors to stand on.

I guess, considering the people's life experience it would have been nice to have known their story. Maybe the wacky neighbor and the gruff brother could have written a page or two, made copies and handed them to each of us as we came into the apartment. It would start: These things you take from here today were owned and loved by two people who lived and survived an extraordinary story, it went like this...

Where's my fix for the day?

Ive created several distractions for myself. These distractions better help to prevent me from feeling relaxed and happy. Rather than calling them distractions lets call them, habits. Or can we be dramatic and call them...addictions?

Yes, that's what they are for me. And it's really not several, it's just one. Fear. Yes fear, it comes in all shapes and sizes, content doesn't really matter. It's that delicious fix of adrenaline I get when I sort for all that's wrong in the world and find it.

Here's how it works; Over repetitive years of shit sorting I've been able to develop an almost instant state of anxiety in myself right when I wake up. I then take this feeling to indicate that something is actually wrong rather than realizing it's just a stinky habit.

I then lay in bed pulling all the covers off of me as my temperature has risen because I'm anxiously alert and sorting for the reasons why. And believe me, I'm a very good investigator, I find what I'm looking for.

Examples follow:
"I owe so much money, I'm in debt. What bill is due? Oh shit, did I forget to pay something?! No. " A lull in the sorting then, "I've got to clean my ferrets cage and sweep the litter around it, I need to mop this floor, what am I some loser that doesn't care?" shortly after, "I need more clients, I need to make more money...why is it so slow these days? There's too much competition, I can't keep up, wonder if I never get anymore..."

I'm very affective at keeping my peace and happiness at bay. Just writing the last paragraph has risen my pulse and made me feel like a wee little good-for-nothing. And the ironic thing about this amusing past time is that it takes up all of your energy and confidence thus leaving you listless and a little paranoid. You should try it!


Kidding aside, I've determined to see this little addiction for the drama that it is, realize it's all just a silly bore and find something better to do in the morning..afternoon and night. Like being relaxed and happy.