weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

love and some verses she sang

2007-06-04T16:25:34Z

sorry i haven't been in touch with anyone. everything in my life is getting really heavy right now and i need to be doing what i'm doing on a constant basis. june and july are going to be filled with stacking cheese and seeing my family and making plans and then august i am OUT of HERE. i can't be happy and live fully in this city. i need to be on the road. i will miss some of you but know that i'm doing exactly what i want to do with myself and try to follow that same advice. hopefully i'll end up in a land full of redwoods and hills and promises but i might crash and burn in a shithole like indiana. the point is that we're going to try. i can't do the normal college thing and i don't prefer the company of college kids to my time alone or with the cats or a book or my boyfriend. i think i always knew things couldn't go down like this- i can't really pull it off. and i don't see the point in trying to pull it off any longer (because of course our days are numbered). it's just not the path my life is going to create. but i have the luxury of choice. i might be happiest when i am roaming and unsettled and expanding my mind and finding love in new places. and that's what i'm going to try and hope that it makes my life rich and full. i am at peace with everything and thrilled at letting chance and life take the front seat and hurl me into an incredibly beautiful experience of living intentionally and fully.much love, everyone. i think it's pretty apparent that when shit shakes down at the end of the day, my friendship with most of you is a thing of the past and we don't truly know each other in our adult reality. and that's how things go and prove themselves in time to be true. so if i don't see you before i leave, good luck. try to get out and exhaust yourself fully into every little tiny moment of our silly little time on this giant sphere.

i am writing graffiti on your body i am telling the story of how hard we tried

2007-04-09T21:37:56Z

i am learning a lot about how to love. it is not a straight-shot easy road. spring should come back around any day now, though. i am itching to leave and feeling the immense pull of an open road. i just hope i won't be leaving alone this time, because loneliness is a heavy burden and life's a lot juicier with a companion. across the country, mandy and my brother have created life! she is due to deliver their baby in october. and either they're coming home to the midwest or i'm going back to the desert, cause our days are too sweet and numbered to miss out on my brother becoming a father. i miss the woods more than i can express. leaving the huge cliffs and waterfalls of the gorge and returning to working in a restaurant and watching tv and sitting in a classroom and counting change and walking on pavement is a drag. and that wraps up the update. ONE OF THESE DAYS I AM GOING TO CUT YOU INTO LITTLE PIECES!

yeah nobody knows where to find us cause it ain't nobody's loss

2007-03-17T18:04:07Z

life's confusing and good and surprising and much, much better without the burden of loneliness. spring should come soon and stay for a while. i'm going to kentucky with my lover this week to sleep huddled in the freezing cold under the stars and climb around the rocks in the sunshine. that should be nice. made one dollar today at work. sometimes i think i should get a new job or smaller bills, but i'm kind of used to the pace of five shifts in a restaurant every week and i don't know what i'd do with myself if i wasn't so busy. probably just lay in the sun, drink wine, touch bodies, and listen to music. sounds terrible, huh? school's not enough to occupy my time or mind but i think next quarter will be better: english 103, latin american history, philosophy of moral and political ideas, feminism in north america, and topics in math. that's a lot. last weekend i got my nipples pierced and it's phenomenal so far. i was told to update the world so there you have it. i'm usually around clifton if anyone wants to get together and eat food on the porch and laugh and shake our heads at how funny life is- hit me up.

WHY DON'T WE DO IT IN THE ROAD?

2007-02-06T12:52:01Z

"... Right here in our bodies, in our defense of our right to experience joy, in refusal to abandon the place where we have been most completely invaded and colonized, in our determination to make the bombed and defoliated lands flower again and bear fruit, here where we have been most shamed is one of the most radical and sacred places from which to transform the world. To shamelessly insist that our bodies are for our own delight and connection with others clearly defies the predatory appropriations of incestuous relatives and rapists; but it also defies the poisoning of our food and water and air with chemicals that give us cancer and enrich the already obscenely wealthy, the theft of our lives in harsh labor, our bodies used up to fill bank accounts already bloated, the massive abduction of our young people to be hurled at each other as weapons for the defense and expansion of those bank accounts- all the ways in which our deep pleasure in living has been cut off so as to not interfere with the profitability of our bodies. Because the closer I come to that bright, hot center of pleasure and trust, the less I can tolerate its captivity, and the less afraid I am to be powerful, in a world that is in desperate need of unrepentant joy."- Aurora Levins Morales in "Radical Pleasure: Sex and the End of Victimhood"

i love school!

it was the sweetest thing i've known oh mahogany yeah

2007-01-18T21:13:00Z

i am living in a different place and i like it a lot. i'm busy enough that i don't have time to be unhappy or dramatic. word.

what you know about dat?

2006-12-24T22:25:31Z

wednesday afternoon, as i'm heading out the door at my dad's house, mara stops me: "ew, what's that on cricket's ear?" cricket is a big, black standard poodle, who is wagging her tail and looking at us expectantly. hanging from here ear is a bloody white pulp of some sort. with further inspection, we notice that she has festively adorned herself with ripped open, bloody tampons. she is ecstatic and dancing around in the hallway, howling and tossing around tampons and indistinguishable blood-soaked cotton. ummmm? so dad runs in and says, "oh shit, i forgot to tell you. tampons are her favorite treat. try to hide your trash." i spent the next half hour or so retrieving tampons that she hid around the house and, eventually, i found myself chasing down a hyper poodle covered in my tampons, trying to pull sticky pantiliners from between her claws. that was pretty much the holiday highlight. give me yours.

liberal scare tactics

2006-10-26T21:33:57Z

fuck this weather. fuck my brain. hybernation is something we shouldn't have grown out of. jeeeeez louise- i'm gross. how negative! something beautiful: watching spoon sunbathe for hours is probably the best part of life. that and dancing before work. but really, spoon knows where it's at mmmmhmmmm. okay i am occupying a library computer to take this huge shit on livejournal. enough! goodbye. p.s.i need human interaction

i'm tired of making these lists.

2006-07-21T04:45:20Z

current soon-to-miss list:

my brother
relentless sunshine
running at dusk through our 'hood listening to murder by death
mountains in every direction
persistently getting lost with camyle
camyle x 1298490340
immigrants' advocacy movements
the palm tree by my window
sand storms
spanish- everywhere
the sound of the birds
thursday night folks at 3 roots
reggeaton rattling cars
mandy
mandy's cooking
mandy's unbelievably badass completely insane dance moves whaaat?
phoenix food not bombs
enthusiastic kids from california
stopping to eat oranges off the sidewalk
my english teacher
satisfaction of water after a desert hike
watching neighbors' kids play soccer
sunflower market
valley metro bus drivers
warm pavement at night
95.1 fm
cacti
feeling safe
crispy skin
ineffective rain-dances
bus transfer slips
yellow watermelon gardens
flat roads
our blender

why

2006-07-18T17:53:26Z

tucson is my favorite place here. it is a much smaller city than phoenix and MUCH less developed. downtown is about four buildings, and the rest is the general desert-sprawl of tiny houses and diners and motels. but there is some kind of charm about it. when i took the greyhound there, the border security was on board staring everyone down (after tucson the bus crosses into mexico). they were incredibly intimidating. considering i stepped off the bus in tucson at 8am having no idea where i was or where to go, things went really well. i walked into a circle k and asked where i should go if i want to see what tucson is about. they had a good time composing a route for me, which i only followed for about five minutes. i ended up in a quiet neighborhood next to some railroad tracks and an abandoned church. the houses were all small and close togethere and generally falling apart, but each one had a distinctly beautiful feeling to it. the plants were all overgrown and one house was almost entirely covered in a watermelon vine, with huge watermelons sinking and pulling the whole structure down. i can't stop connecting watermelons with fertility. arghh. anyways, most of the houses had these signs that said HUMANITARIAN AID IS NEVER A CRIME because people who have brought undocumented immigrants into the emergency room to save their lives are being locked up and charged with smuggling. there was also a house affiliated with NO MAS MUERTAS (no more deaths) which is a group that has set up aid in the desert by the border. most neighborhoods in phoenix are full of people sitting around listening to reggeaton (which, by the way, is my master) but this neighborhood was very quiet. a few kids played in the street and there were lots of lizards running across the sidewalk. i kept walking and ended up on the other side of town in a populated area called fourth avenue. there was a coffee shop that looked okay so i got to drink water and get out of the sun. i don't know why i am retelling this play-by-play but i can't stop now. i went into the food co-op and it was nice and friendly and i talked to a man who suggested a book store and gave me some expired carrot juice. word. i like carrot juice better than any juice in the world, i think. i never really expect to buy anything in a bookstore, so i just kind of browsed and made a list for the next time i go to the library. but then! i found a book i have been searching for for over a year now and i actually bought it! then i remembered that i had to catch a bus to get back before my english class, so i started trying to find the greyhound station. your typical street-punk-junkie approached me and asked me for some change, and we got into a heated little debate about anarchism. i didn't have any change but he did walk with me to the greyhound station. i have never met so many tweakers as in arizona. it sucks. anyways, i'm glad i bought that book because the bus was FIVE HOURS late. so i missed my english class and when the bus finally came it stunk like piss and maybe a dead rodent and there were flies everywhere. they also had a tv playing a movie full of gunshots and mushroom clouds. what the fuck? but i managed to get my own seat and lay down and sketch the mountains and telephone wires flying past and listen to iron & wine whispering love into my headphones- so i was basically in ecstacy. being on a bus or a train is nice because you don't have to worry about what you're doing with yourself. it's all already decided and you just sit back and watch things go past and let the motor rock you to sleep. i like that feeling sometimes. it's that spectator wish-wash i got when i used to smoke pot. okay done.

last night

2006-07-05T17:11:03Z

fuck the fourth. not just because it is a cheesy orgy of nationalism, but also because it makes me sad. fireworks used to be amazing. five years ago, i could sit on a blanket on a wet, july lawn, in awe at the magnificence of colorful lights exploding in the sky. but in my mind now, those colorful lights are something else. this fourth, i was mopping up the kitchen at work, when the first sound of a firecracker made me drop the mop and duck. that bullet-shot, bomb-drop, war-zone reality was my first instinct, though i have never seen a war. the people in the bar were singing kareoke, "when i think about you i touch myself" over and over in drunken slurs and spilling pitchers of beer on our red, white, and blue tablecloths. i stepped outside for a minute to see the fireworks. the sky flashed like lightening and cracked like whips; people clapped, whistled, and hollered behind the parking lot. this is america, my home of dreams. and dreams. and more dreams. dreams big enough to make our stars and stripes more alluring than open eyes and human dignity. open eyes and human dignity might help us realize that this dream-land carnival is only an imaginary line away from entire countries of our dirty laundry. pictures of mangled civilians in iraq, starving children in honduras, maquialladoras just south of here in mexico, and broken families in palestine lean against the wall behind the bar. and i can't hear these slaps and cracks and not feel the immense strangeness of our world- this ugly, impenetrable magnificence, in which my life and the life of the child whose legs were blown off by my tax dollars relate so differently to a popping, colorful sky. so where do you start? "less talk, more action." but sometimes all you can do is cry.
(and then write in your stupid livejournal the next day)

strange hours

2006-06-21T16:37:04Z

Last night at, Rick walks in the back door and heads straight for his corner at the bar. Rick is a middle-aged man who lives in the same apartment complex as Triana and I. He wears a NASCAR hat and is friendly with all of the employees, but I think he is a pervert. Anyways, a pitcher of Michelob is poured and devoured, while he makes jokes about Triana and Lisa being lesbians. Then he asks me for a shot of Jose Cuervo, grabs the remote, and turns the TV to a poker game. In between his cigarette breaks and my other customers, the two of us chat. He asks me strange questions and I try to give him passive, honest answers. He orders another pitcher. When I answer his questions, his head rears back in laughter (often silent) and I worry he is going to tip his bar stool. I dim the lights at 8pm and he tells me I am the funniest person he has ever met. Part of this gig is making the drunks comfortable, so I am pretty sociable and whatnot. Triana comes out from the kitchen and she and Rick watch Room Raiders on mTV. This, along with any televised image of an attractive female, instigates the kind of comments (from the bar patrons) that make me want to scream and kick and spit and walk out. But for two dollars an hour, I am a slave to the killing of my spirit. The woman on the television talks about breaking up with her boyfriend because he couldn't handle her emotions, and Rick screams, "DYKE!" I try to sing happy songs in my head as he orders another shot of tequila, at which point I ask him if he would like to open a tab. This offends him for some reason and he pays for the shot with cash. At this point, he is pretty drunk and still asking me questions, like, "What do you do for fun?" "I dunno, normal stuff. I like to read and watch movies and go running and stuff." This sets him into a fit of hysterics and he starts bellowing "Virgin! You're the virgin of the virgins! This girl doesn't even party! She reads! Oh! You're killing me! You just don't know how funny you are! ah ha a hahaahahhahaa!" Everyone at the bar is staring. Whatever. Fucking idiot alcoholic. Eventually, Al walks in and tells me I can go home. On my way out, Rick slips me a $15 tip (bigger than his bill!). It pays to be compliant.

i'll be home in august.

2006-06-18T05:36:16Z

The afternoon slipped behind the mountains and the billboards, and we three sat in Mandy’s house. The air conditioning made goose bumps pop up all over my arms and all I wanted to do was pull my knees to my chin and stare at the television. A movie about a young, French woman being fucked by a middle-aged, Chinese man played across the dark screen. Blinds in the window let stripes of sunlight in and, while the dark orchestra played through ominous thrusting and a terrifying climax, all I could watch was the reflection of a silver fish in the tank behind us. He swam back and forth in his three-foot tank, alone against a backdrop of cardboard seaweed and coral. His body moved in perfect, calculated waves, over and over, right through the naked couples’ wet union. Does he stop swimming when he sleeps? I suspect this fish will never escape. Mandy said that he wouldn’t survive outside of his tank, in a canal or lake. I kneeled before him, our eyes level, and decided that, if it weren’t for the brick on top of his tank, he would be writhing on the floor in protest. But the couple kept moaning and the fish swam on.

The illogical fear of entering into a room full of aquaintences and being expected to socialize has grown strong. There is a small part of my brain that stands in stubborn opposition to this experience, and makes it difficult for the rest of my mind (which craves emotional connection and silly fun) to initiate such. I hope that this is a habit that has only strengthened because of repetition. With practice, I think I can reassert myself (in the eyes of myself) as a social person. I need to stop getting so nervous and carried away imagining future outcomes that have no basis in reality. When I meet someone, I obsess over she/he and use what little I know about them to create a pretend relationship that eventually destroys itself. So, by the second time I see this person, there is already a false history in my mind. It’s not as clean-cut or consistent as I described it; it’s something that evolves and fluctuates and I can almost always stop myself. Again, I am going to believe that the more I practice getting over myself, the easier it will become. It is much easier to exist book to book, but human interaction is important. I can’t be a hermit yet- I am only nineteen. Maybe, if I get used to working at this bar, Carmen’s, I will have confidence in casual, simple relationships, which is somewhere to start.

(that was my daily practice in writing with clarity and thoughtfulness (so that i don't sound like what my english book calls a chowderhead, did it work?)

ellusivenun @ 2006-06-10T09:49:00

2006-06-10T16:59:00Z

www.loosechange911.com <--someone watch the movie, damnit

i think it's too much for the american public to even consider stomaching. and government walls are so fucking thick it would take a people united to get any kind of demand to the FBI or the goddamn white house. and unity is something they're keen on preventing (divide and conquer! with fences, ad campaigns, urban planning, etc). all i can say is that we can see, again and again, the intense danger that greed for power imposes on masses and masses of people. and some of you will still maintain that government does more good than harm. it's out of control. and we're getting fucked over in every minute aspect of our lives as a result of it. TAKE BACK YOUR FUCKING MIND. yeah, early morning conspiracy docs are where it's at. and i watched it with extreme skepticism, i promise. i am not a spongue and you shouldn't be either...so go watch it and tell me where the deception is!

ellusivenun @ 2006-06-04T14:53:00

2006-06-04T22:07:12Z

it is 119 degrees farenheit and our air conditioning is broken and we have no quarters to get water. damn. i think it's okay though because laying on the floor in the dark is about all i feel up to today. i am becoming a little bit attached to some of the folks here and the fact that i'm leaving always seems to loom in the back of my mind and makes it difficult to just enjoy it while it lasts. i have made myself into a self-disciplined student even though the class designed for the book was a load of shit. so every weekday morning i get up early and ride to three roots cafe and read and take notes on as much text as i can get through from Women, Men, and Society in three hours and review my previous notes. and then somedays i go to the tempe public library and look up the suggested reading texts at the end of the chapters. learning is fun! i wish i could have the rich benefit of learning alongside others but MCC was not the place for that. i still have one evening english class with my secretly a member of nickelback canadian teacher. so that's good. i don't know why i am writing in this thing except i guess i want someone to talk to (mandy and elliott are at the hospital) but this is an unsatisfying replacement for conversation. yesterday was a great day (battling minutemen, falaffel, a movie) and if anyone ever sees a movie called Hate i highly recommend you drop whatever you're doing and see it. it is a personal look into the riots in the french ghettos a decade ago and it is fucking beautiful. one of the best movies i've ever seen. i'm exhausted and sweaty from typing hasta luego, ninos!

well mr bush, what you gonna do about the starvin in DC-freezin on the marble steps of your policies

2006-05-30T14:46:17Z

the simplest way to ruin a long drive from tucson back to phoenix on a straight highway with the night air finally cooling down and a red-orange sunset to the west behind jagged red mountains and (majestic haha) purple mountains to the left dotted with strange shapes of cactus sillhouettes and the windows down and your face all crispy from the sun and your body exhausted and the mountains changing colors is when SOMEONE PUTS ON AN UNCLE CRACKER CD. actually, it wasn't ruined. tucson is my favorite city that i have ever spent time in. if only my family could condense in this beautiful region. someday, i want to live there. it is fucking beautiful (and tragic, of course). my gender and society class starts in one hour and thirty minutes! eeeee! i am nervous and excited. i hope the teacher cares about what she/he is teaching. and that the students care about what they are learning enough to question and investigate individually and bring lots of things to the table for me to poke through and learn from! that's all i ask. community college day one: BRING IT. in other news, my brother and his girlfriend decided to drive a motorcyle through a mountain without helmets. sdkjfghkjfdhgkfdhgkhdfghkdfhgkjdfhgkdfgg. bad idea. they're lucky their wounds are only of the flesh.

even if my back is shaped like an S and my knees are shrivelled into prunes- my tie and belt match!

2006-05-18T17:11:53Z

sometimes arizona pretends like it's going to storm for hours but rain never comes. mandy says they went 130 days without rain once. damn. i have seventeen new freckles (no joke) at different places around my body and i don't know if that is normal. i have had some long, strange, grand adventures here but somedays i don't know what to do or where to go and end up sitting in the apartment reading or cleaning or killing time with this anxious feeling. not sure what that's about. the heat isn't exciting anymore, though. i like our neighborhood with all of its unusual characters and how i found a half-eaten pancake in the ash tray in front of the laundry room yesterday. i am reading a book called "Men's Lives" by a group of sociologists and right now they are dissecting what they call the triad of men's violence- violence towards themselves, other men, and women. the trend is frightening but the way that all of these individual cases can be traced back to a bigger structure in our culture is really awakening. and now i notice it everywhere. last night, i went to the pool to try to cool off and there was this little girl crying as her dad dragged her by her arm across the parking lot back into their apartment. and i am ashamed that i didn't say anything but my brain went so quickly from "this is terrible" to "i feel her pain" to "go grab her and hold her and stroke her hair and tell her it's not her fault" to "go say something to him" to "it'll just make it worse for her inside the apartment" to "look the other way". shit. i don't know. there is endless constant pain in this world, even when your lawn is green and you feel healthy- our entire species is terribly sick, if you ask me. today i'm going to take some busses to downtown phoenix. last time i was there, i gathered that is is one big boiling pit of abandoned cars, angry gangsters, young latino women with tired eyes and babies hanging all over them, cheap mexican food with menus i can't read and the owners sitting in front on plastic chairs smoking cigarettes and shaking their heads, little kids on bikes, fast cars, women and men sleeping in little patches of shade with thin bodies and wrinkled faces. maybe today will feel different. this time i am travelling alone and i'm going to try to talk to strangers and work on my spanish. i think it'll be a delicate art to not sound like an asshole.

it is eight in the morning here and the mexican children nextdoor are fighting

2006-05-12T15:44:40Z

o boy o boy! arizona is another planet. i can't believe this is my life. i am going to take classes at mesa community college. they are only for five weeks so they will be really intense but i think that i can do it because i am really interested in my course selections. i'm taking gender and society, introduction to elementary education, and english comp 102. i will have class from 9-11am and 11-1pm monday through thursday and an evening class from 7-10pm on monday and wednesday. my tuition is under $400. i think i have found a solution to my desire for a teaching degree but disdain for large universities. last night i met some wonderful folks who sat in a circle and talked about the revolution with respect and equality that i have imagined but never witnessed. and then we dumpstered arizona state university. if you ever want to understand a society, look in their trashcans. if you ever want to understand a college student at a huge university, look in the honors' dorm dumpster. we loaded a pick up truck up multiple times with everything from down comforters to coffee makers to canned goods to computers to small refrigerators. goddamn. apparently, the semester is over. i got some groceries that were sorely needed. everything here is incredibly exciting. i got a bike from goodwill for ten bucks and it is "the official bike of the 1976 olympic games" hehe. the brake lines are busted and i can't figure them out but i think i can take it to someone who can. this better happen soon because school is four miles away and i don't like the bus. these streets are strange and flat and go on for too long and it's hard to believe that i'm living this. and some of the colors here would blow your mind full of assumptions about the colors of trees into tiny pieces. hopefully i'll get a hold of a camera sometime so i can share this with y'all.

i'm actually not desperate

2006-05-06T04:39:38Z

oh man so apparently you can make plans with multiple people and get all excited and even buy fresh produce to share and STILL spend the evening alone in an empty kitchen with an unopened board game and trying to focus on reading. i feel pretty dissapointed but it's ultimately good to know where relationships stand. so no hard feelings, of course. i just wish that i had been notified of cancelled plans so that i could go to sleep or take a walk or something. whatever. sometimes, it is good to find support in people whose faces you'll never see because they are the most reliable and avoid small talk. i have made friends with emma goldman, voltairene de cleyre, ryan harvey, mary wollstonecraft, etc etc etc and they help more than i would have imagined. they don't laugh at the word feminist or social change or trust or hope. i think bird on a wire is a completely beautiful and sad song and i don't think i could ever be within earshot of it and have my mind or mood be unaffected. even if it plays over and over for forty years. it's just potent. and potent doesn't do it justice. and it's worth noting that the only version i am interested in is the one played by the kids in the stolen hearts street band sitting on a stoop or in a warehouse in baltimore. who cares about leonard cohen or johnny cash, really? i don't.

like a bird on a wire
like a drunk in some midnight choir
i have tried in my way to be free
like a worm on a hook
like a knight from some old fashioned book
i have saved all my ribbons for thee
if i if i have been unkind
i hope that you can just let it go by
if i if i have been untrue
i hope you know it was never to you
like a baby stillborn
like a beast with his horn
i have torn everyone who reached out for me
but i swear by this song
and by all that i have done wrong
i will make it all up to thee
i saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch
he said to me, "you must not ask for so much"
and a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door
she cried to me, "hey, why not ask for more?"
oh like a bird on a wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir,
i have tried in my way to be free

ellusivenun @ 2006-05-01T12:31:00

2006-05-01T16:31:47Z

current soon-to-miss list

sleepovers at dominique's
cooking to iron maiden and everyone in the food not bombs kitchen
sitting around with good company at MICA
playing catch and talking to the kids on the stoops in sunday fnb neighborhood
eating with the folks downtown at dusk
morning on the front steps
sitting by the water by the commercial ports
hardcore shows at every DIY space in baltimore
biking through the business district on a friday night
making snacks for the little girls next door
red emma's soapboxes and in general
random adventures like "if the bush administration was a gay porno" with matthias
the enoch pratt free library
free meals at MICA
watching the sunset from the rooftop
dogs running free with no leashes in wyman park
the swing at wyman park
the brown painted walls
the sadness of the marc train
sneaking on and off the light rail
dumpstered bell peppers
strikes
extreme exhaustion coupled with fulfillment
getting lost and talking to strangers

so i borrowed a digital camera and followed myself around (appropriate neighborhoods only) uh-huh check it out if you're interested
http://mica.facebook.com/photos.php?id=80900768&l=3cb57

i got to got to got to got to move on

a thing not to forget

2006-04-28T18:00:16Z

eleven o'clock at night in the kitchen drinking tea and laughing. enter: one plastic cup with twirling lights at the bottom found at the spring fair. four bystanders and the lights are all off and the cup begins to do it's magic and we have a new god. the whole room full of kitchen appliances and shiney pots and windows dances in color. we fill it with water and ice and stare at it from the top where the colors move so fast it is hard to stand. add one stereo with "pure love" techno and bubbles. and four red bike blinkers and a mirror. our kitchen has become a worship rave. i lie on the floor below our god and leora blows bubbles over the shrine and they glow and reflect the colors in the pulsating cup and fall like planets against the light show on the ceiling. melina and i blow upwards to keep them from popping but it's too beautiful to breathe and i just watch them drift down. we dance and chant and keep adding things to the god to make it's beauty better known. shiney things. things that reflect. plastic wrap. matthias smokes a cigarette and blows the smoke into the bubbles and the bubbles are opaque and fall faster and make smoke splashes when they pop. the music keeps pounding and the shrine gets bigger and bigger and our hearts beat faster as we try to go inside of this world we have created. hysteria and thirst and panic and excitement and ohhhhh the intrigue and exploration behind a corny pina colada cup. we were up for hours trying everything. so it really is true that sober kids do the craziest shit. go forth! create create create to make love and find life

at least it can be said that we we did things right yeah we we did things right

2006-04-27T21:09:46Z

so i'm back in the city that owns me inside and out. the trip here i carpooled with the most lovely character named nicki. she had just spent six months hitchiking through central and south america and was trying to get back to boston. so we drove nine hours and watched the morning happen, ate apricots, listened to slow country songs, and talked about time and revolution and people and thoughts and experiences and it was incredible. my faith is being restored in the possibility that i can meet people that i connect with in serious ways. one of my tires went flat in the middle of maryland but we improvised and made it. ohhh life. it was beautiful and i hope to see her again someday (who knows). at the house, melina and i talked over a bowl of her fresh minestrone soup. yum. and in front of my bedroom i found a little brown package adressed to me. nia is a friend i made here in baltimore who now lives in massachusettes and she sent me a package with organic tampons and a mixed tape that is off the chain. now my casette collection includes: the audio zine mike gave me, a mix that papa t (a musician living on the streets here) gave me, nia's "if you're not doing what makes you happy you're losing" mix, and silent night. sweet. it always feels wierd and wrong and even tragic when i drive away from my family and cats in cincinnati but the last twelve hours have helped soften the blow immensely. word to kindness. twelve days 'till ARIZONA! ahhhh! much love, everyone.

http://cincinnati.craigslist.com/zip/

2006-04-17T00:20:40Z

i am not promoting paranoia, but what the fuck? why does it seem like everytime i come home something happens to my car? this summer before i left someone busted out the back windshield while it was in the driveway. when i was home for winter break, someone stole blaine's bowl and pot out of the glove compartment while it was in the driveway. and this time someone took both of the liscense plates! how ironic to live in the city of baltimore where crime is on the tip of everyone's tongue and never have much theft but here in the burbs my crappy dodge is continually explored by stranger(s?) whatever. i hope that whomever is using the plates as disguise or whatever doesn't get caught by the police. and i hope somehow mara gets plates back on the car so that she can drive it eventually. and i hope no one is intentionally fucking with the car because they see me driving it cause i'm not worth all that hate and risk. i guess it's true what they say that property is robbery (and now in a literal sense) take it all motherfuckers! today blaine accidentally drank blue easter egg dye which was one of the funniest things i've witnessed in a while. it is good to laugh with her again. and isn't it funny how a mere e-mail from a far away friend can make your day a thousand times better? eeeeeeep i miss baltimore a lot. i do miss my mommy a whole bunch, too. it is easier to be away from her when i am in a totally foreign environment like baltimore but here it is so strange to sit in the kitchen or fall asleep at night and she is not here. i hope she is okay in mamelodi and i hope she helps lots of people. arghh but i miss her very very much. and slipknot is making me sad and i want to get off the computer and go curl up in the fetal position and talk to my cats. and there's nothing wrong with that so shut up. speaking of getting off, it was funny at whole foods whenever i would leave work for the day this cashier named lisa would say, "Langdon, are you getting off?" and i would always say "ooohhh yeah baby" and the customers would look uncomfortable as i mounted my bike. heeeeehehehehe sorry for this random junk a lunk keep it reeeeeeeal loves!

heyyy do you guys know about craigslist? http://cincinnati.craigslist.com/zip/ there is sometimes some useful stuff on there. that is the FREE! section and that's where we got our refrigerator and in baltimore we got a piano and a giant mirror from craigslist so it is definitely a good thing to know about to keep consumerism down and promote swapping and sharing and recycling things. and check out those alfalfa cubes. word.

just to make you roll your eyes and hate me more

2006-04-09T16:07:17Z

i was told to update like a normal livejournal so i am going to try to do that (i don't know what that means).
i had a strange weekend. friday afternoon i rode to MICA and kind of wandered aimlessly trying to find friends to take pictures of. later, i went to a lecture by mark dreary who talked about what society aestheticizes and doesn't and what that means. so, for example, looking at photographs of people jumping out of the twin towers as iconic images to be analyzed objectively or the internet filled with live beheadings and war porn and such. he was a dry asshole who made halarious, refined, blunt, believable points. afterwards, i decided to go home and see if matthias wanted to go down to see the witchunt and municipal waste show. when i got home, people were watching vanilla sky and it started to rain so i decided to wait a while before going out. jose decided he wanted to go even though he began making fun of the scene before we even left. so we left around ELEVEN PM because of the fucking television. on the bike ride down to the talking head, a taxi full of fat, balding ex-frat boys pulled up next to me and yelled something obnoxious and drove ahead. so of course i caught up to them and yelled "you got something to say to me, fuckers?" and they said something about the sidewalk and we went back and forth for a few blocks when jose decided to drop the fat card and tell them they might want to consider riding a bike instead of taking a cab to shave off a few pounds. and then we smoked 'em for good. anyways, at the talking head, witchunt ended as we tied up our bikes in the alley and jose stood there making fun of everyone and the band and so on and we found out the show was sold out and i wanted to stay to see if i could get in sneakily when municipal waste started playing but jose and matthias wanted to go to a damn bar and they needed my bike lock so i said fuck it and left. so we road a couple of miles to this fancy ass bar that is acceptable to jose's taste and of course i got carded at the door and was so angry by this point that i just took my bike off the chain and locked theres up and headed down charles street. by this point it was raining and i almost hit a drunk pedestrian trying to cross the street whoooo turned out to be mark dreary and his flock of fans (hehe) he said, "my bad!" when i amost hit him i said, "nice lecture" he said, "thanks." so then my bike chain got in a knot and i had to pull off the road and fix it, so i arrived at MICA covered in bike grease, rain, and frustration. but luckily there is a wonderful group of people there whom i appreciate and love dearly. they offered me indian food and a beer and good company and eventually i wandered back to my old dorm and fell asleep. okay i'm done with this update- i don't know how to be brief. saturday there was freezing rain and i stayed in my pajamas all day and read books and drew pictures and made dinner with matthias and we watched The Wall. that was more brief. today is food not bombs and then leftover crack is playing down the street from me but alas i am getting on a greyhound at nine and coming home. the suburbs for two weeks. holy shit. ahhhhhhh. the things we do for family love.

we both dove and rose to the riverside

2006-04-05T16:28:42Z

:( i wish there was less pain for people i care about (everyone). ive seen some crazy shit in the last nine months or so and it really protrudes that there have been so many blatant examples of cruelty and pain and the antidote random kindness is so rare. yuck. sometimes it makes you want to crawl in a corner and not move or breathe and just sob for a while before your obnoxious housemate bangs on the wall and yells, "are you masterbating in there? it's six o'clock in the evening! come watch the godfather marathon with us!" anger kills all other emotions, i think.

SOMEONE IN CINCINNATI- please, please go see these people give talks. i am telling you that they will be incredible. even if you disagree with every word they say, they have fascinating ideas and should provide something to think about, at least. John Zerzan who has written books on sustainable primitivity and resistance and Kevin Tucker who writes for Green Anarchy are both going to be speaking some place down at UC tomorrow (thursday). i'm sure it's free and it sounds like a great use of a thursday night. maybe you could even get into an argument with one of them or something. eeeeeeek well anyways if anyone goes, please please please give me some kinda report on what went down. and by the way, hats off to the university of cincinnati or something cause i don't think many state-run universities would be down for inviting these cats to speak. i feeel hungover this morning but i've been sober for months. go figure.

DOWN WITH PATRIARCHY

2006-03-23T16:39:36Z

THE EQUAL PAY ACT OF 1963:

(d) (1) No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this
section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such
employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying
wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at
which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment
for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill,
effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working
conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority
system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by
quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any
other factor other than sex: Provided, That an employer who is
paying a wage rate differential in violation of this subsection shall not,
in order to comply with the provisions of this subsection, reduce the wage
rate of any employee.
(3) For purposes of administration and enforcement, any amounts
owing to any employee which have been withheld in violation of this
subsection shall be deemed to be unpaid minimum wages or unpaid overtime
compensation under this chapter.

WORD. sooooo i am filing a complaint and possibly a lawsuit against my lovely friends at Whole Foods Market. so they probably aren't sexist people, but when you get hired at the same time for the same position with someone of the opposite sex for fifty cents less an hour, you can't ignore it. this shit has been happening for generations all over the fucking world and i won't be pacified. and if anything, it could prevent this bullshit from happening to another employee at this specific store. motherfuckers i'm about to get RAAAAAAW.

does anyone want to meet me in pittsburgh on april 7 to go to a counter recruitment convention? so this bacteria has invaded our schools and is killing our friends. i think it's kind of important to resist, even if the soloman ammendment made that grounds for expulsion from public school. anyways, i have friends we can stay with and the conference should be pretty decent. either way, pittsburgh punk is some of my favorite :) come ooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnn and i'm guilty and i'm guilty and i'm guilty