Alsof Een Engeltje Over Je Tong Piest

2012-02-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

Haley's birthday came, and we went to the mountains of Index, Washington. There our bones were warmed by whiskey and we whooped along to Paul Simon, She moved so easily all I could think of was sunlight... there was an open air hot tub surrounded by cedar slats down by the water, and every few hours we folded our tired bodies back into it and made merry or serious celebrations of faith under

2012-01-26T13:30:00.000-08:00

Today is sun and walking and this week has been holding, and comfort with good women, conversations about broken love and working with hands and the places to raise a family. my mom says about hard things "Except for that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" and that is comfort too. You can measure a coffee shop in Seattle in part by how hip its clientele is. Today, walking, felt like Amsterdam,

2012-01-23T15:01:00.000-08:00

it is sunny and like a freak i don't want to go out in the sun so much as i want to make words absorb words say spill everything. this is often what happens to me in sun. i started a new blog, another collections place for all the quotes i am pulling from my seven zillion library books (and owned books, and articles i read on the internet). it is here and it has eaten four hours of my day so

2012-01-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

There was supposed to be snow, and we waited for it and worried about it and waited for it and worried about it and then, in the middle of Tuesday night, it came. This after an evening of preparatory drinking, popping across the street to be taken care of by Gage, friendly bartender. He occasionally pops things we have not ordered down in front of us, things he is working on. What is this? A

2012-01-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

This week: I had two very special nearby friends, Mark Richards and Zoe Hyman-Levy, have birthdays. I celebrated with one by running errands, eating crumpets and drinking tea, and giving her things to read. With the other by drinking whiskey and cooking together in our kitchen and basking in mutual laughter. Simple celebrations and pleasures. I had three panic attacks, and the associated waves

2012-01-03T23:57:00.001-08:00

i spent a lot of my time in minnesota feeling queasy, uneasy, less than, small, like i was in a place too small, pressing against my sides and also pressing against all the sides of the edges of the Cities, which never felt expansive enough, or rich enough, or dangerous enough... i spent a lot of my time, there, saying out loud and saying over and over in my head that Buffalo was my home and i

2011-12-30T11:42:00.000-08:00

Ryne and Cleo came to visit me in Ballard it was great. We did a little afternoon-evening pub tour of 65th street, and, not having had much to drink in recent...months, I got pretty schnookered on my two or three pints of beer over five hours and after bidding them adieu made Belgian-style-waffles-for-real (like this, except frozen waffles and just chocolate syrup), a favored midnight snack

2011-12-24T13:07:00.000-08:00

drunken phone call from the tenderloin, what are my arms supposed to do without you in them? they are just for drinking beer now, the vast gap in between my hands, this wide desert, 900 miles...hop the first flight, please? how could i even have smoked weed without you here? rich people drive me crazy... the wide-eyed black cat wakes me up at precisely 6:07 each morning to feed her, as if

Of Late

2011-12-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

i'm catsitting housesitting for drew and riisa in ballard, experiencing solitude for a few weeks while tim is home and zoe is home and leah is gone and the bbh empties out. i haven't had solitude for a long time, as it turns out. things i like to do when i'm alone: drink tea, drink beer, take baths, look up things to make online, read books, read articles on the internet, undergo messy kitchen

2011-12-01T11:08:00.000-08:00

Last night feeling of winter as we walked home past strings of white and colored lights in the chill air, bellies full of Meat Combo from Ras Dashen. In the park, you brought me to a play structure, we can't leave until I finish it. Last week I spent several days wrapped in the love of good women on an island, walking evergreen avenues in the pitch black, staring up at the sky punctured by

2011-11-15T15:18:00.000-08:00

Today is cold enough for my winter hat and warm enough for only a sweatshirt. It's supposed to snow Friday, say some people. Na, it's only snowing in Spokane, say others. In the morning I sling 50 pound boxes around the warehouse with Zeke and Eli and then I walk home marveling at the magenta reflections on my hands, my arms, and I eat some summer sausage, and I set out for the laundromat with

2011-11-10T16:11:00.000-08:00

Monday I spent with Becky Globus and Amber Rampino in Vancouver, BC, in the pouring rain. We ate delicious pub food approximately every two hours. I experienced a remarkable cocktail called a "cohiba," a mojito spinoff involving blackberries and I'm not sure what else. We watched a pulpy film noir involving a beefy blond gentleman with a poor haircut named Larry. We stopped to buy them new socks.

2011-11-01T15:34:00.000-07:00

This has been a magic week, new everything, like the live version of a long shower with peppermint soap suds and water hot enough to steam the whole bathroom. And since when does the late autumn bring renewal like this? It's the season of rehashing old pain and while I have been doing some of that too, I'm glad for so many beautiful distractions. Today I am sitting in my new room sorting things

2011-10-26T12:40:00.001-07:00

Reading my livejournal archive. Seven years of memories.

Flashbacks Today

2011-10-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

*In St. Paul they test the tornado sirens at 1 pm every Wednesday. *In the tall quiet room in the Bushuis where we met once a week to talk about our Hopes Fears Dreams and Goals with Letje who remains my guru. Amsterdam is a short city so four floors up with vast windows feels so high, looking out over other roofs. It was March or something and we were probably wearing coats and scarves,

2011-10-18T16:34:00.000-07:00

i have been absent for a long time. when i write at all i have been writing in a secret blog because, well, it feels better right now. there is a lot of change happening right now, and it is happy and sad and hard and...hard. but i am rolling with it better than usual. i don't have the fall sads so much as i have a fall Urgency. i have been spending a lot of time at home and feeling alternately

24

2011-09-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

This week I turned 24. It has simultaneously been the most carefree and the most weighty birthday I can remember. It has absolutely, without question, been the best. Why? It lasted for three days. It was hot and sunny. It contained ritual after ritual and plans and surprises. There was good food. In contrast to birthdays past: no one cried who I had to comfort. No one I cared about hurt each

2011-08-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

I slept until 1 and puttered around the house, anxious, I went to dinner with Leah, the month had been a blur and we had not seen each other. Since the last time, she had become a calmer-earth version of herself and I a more bitter tungsten version of myself. We went to an Ethiopian restaurant where she had a Groupon. It was beautiful and the food was good. We were the only people inside. The

Itches & Confusions

2011-08-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

Several months ago talking to the very wise Erin Elizabeth Gibbs on the phone we talked about all the things we want to do and how hard it is to figure out what we really want to do. Sometimes when some thing or things feel wrong in quotidian life and you are a flaneuse it is easy to jump at any and all possibilities you see. I could be a landscape architect! I could be a graphic designer! I

2011-08-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

The sun has begun to set at 8:30, feeling late in April. It feels so tragically early this time of year. In my delirious hunger yesterday, I wandered down Lake City Way looking for something to eat. I walked into a sub shop that was Acme Deli reincarnated, right down to the ceiling fans whirling and the Jane's Addiction blaring. But instead of pretty sassy girls, the staff were pretty sassy boys

2011-08-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

Drew is driving me through Lake City at 11 pm. It used to be unincorporated, he says. North Seattle, the Wild West. Lake City is the part of Seattle where I am going to work a grave at a housing program for young men who are being detained by ICE, so that they can have a semblance of normal life while they are essentially in jail. They have a school on-site, they have outings to parks and

2011-08-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

This week has been a crazy whirlwind of work and work and work and work and...Mercury is in retrograde, and it shows. It dawned on me yesterday that Mercury in retrograde means more for me than others because Mercury is my planetary ruler. Hm. Recently, I have had a series of conversations with folks who feel that astrology is bullshit of the highest order. Monday, I went to a waterfall. It was

2011-08-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, I had a Device implanted in my uterus. I had a consultation about this procedure six-ish months ago and have been weighing pros and cons ever since. Here are some things that people have said to me about it. "Oh! I didn't know you were seeing someone." "I hope you know what you're doing." "You've been with the same partner for at least six months, right?" "Why would you do

2011-07-31T12:37:00.001-07:00

How You Get Unstuck

2011-07-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

my life has changed to complete immediacy. buses, sleep in the form of naps. the weeks pass in a blur. i had the best bloody mary of my life. i stomped and twirled, again, to the golden boy band from santa barbara. this time there are sixty instead of eight people and we are not the only people pressed up close to the stage. they are on a cross-country tour now. they are Making It. i spend some

2011-07-17T17:54:00.000-07:00

* Americorps(e) is done. I don't have to get these things done "for America!" anymore. Just because I want to. *I spent many hours on an island and the ferry back and forth with the mother of a good friend, talking about youth and age, poverty and privilege, energy, balance, death, loss, beauty, grace, struggle. *I spent my night post Americorps(e) drinking wine and gin (in retrospect, a poor

2011-07-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

when sagey was here, she was the most grown up. she was sleek and wore heels and lipstick. she smoked only the occasional cigarette. she read about environmental policy many hours each day. i saw windsor right after, and she said, yes, she is less, "i burn." i thought about this, and my self and my life. i have this job and in it i am responsible and i bear many things and i am a role model. i

Highlights, In Brief

2011-07-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

I finally, officially, landed the two jobs I have been applying for for the past two months. Thank the lord for labor laws and an hourly wage. I am having a lot of separation anxiety. Not eating breathing living laughing stressing expelling outreach team - that will be so strange. My work bonds are always strong but this is maybe the strongest. Even still being an on-call, it won't be the same.

pdxwknd

2011-06-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

I was in Portland for a few days. Or rather, 30 hours. I did the usual things: sink into comfort zone, eat and shop at junk stores and lie around. Inventories: I ate and drank: A "Rudy," which is a fried calamari and prosciutto and arugula and mustardy sauce sandwich on crusty bread. Mexican Cola. Salt and Vinegar chips. Greek salad. Sweet, sweet local strawberries. Baguette. Coffee. Sierra

2011-06-17T09:14:00.000-07:00

This time last year: I was burned out, and I went on a day-trip to Toronto wherein most magical objects, scents, foods crossed my path. Red sunglasses, tiny disco balls, chocolate ice cream, margaritas, fish tacos and pico de gallo, blue cheese burgers, smooth jazz performed by old men in smoky bars, sandalwood incense, shrimp dumplings, gold slippers, washed up seaweed, sand, pavement, the slow

2011-06-11T00:45:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I did community center outreach. This entailed building condom packets of every flavor/color/size/texture under the rainbow, plus an instruction packet, plus regular lube, plus flavored lube (your choice of 24 flavors!), plus tattoos - "Mama always told me to play safe - LOVE." and "Everyone could use some LOVE." Whilst sitting in the corner of a community center, listening to an

2011-06-09T01:43:00.000-07:00

at the moment, my life consists mostly of: work, work, work, work. letters. coffee with almond milk. garden breakfasts, potluck, and any/all variations on the blue house love fest.

2011-05-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

Today reflecting on the great Gil Scott-Heron, who left us several days ago. Moving memoria to him continue to pop up all over the place. Ironically, I have seen these solely on the internet - not on the ground, not on the street, not in print. The revolution has been televised. Also: It seems to be beach weather on most of the east coast. Here, it is 55 and cloudy. I spent the morning doing

Idle Thoughts (Provoked and Unprovoked)

2011-05-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

*re-apportionment - what's up? *signs of earthly unrest: tornadoes ripping through the TC. crow chasing me for three blocks, swooping low and menacing. fights galore at my workplace (rarely peaceful, but often not violent). *heroin sucks for everyone whose life it touches. *summer backyard hangout time has begun. *texas is a shiny penny.

2011-05-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

I can't really bring myself to write too much on The Internet right now but a) Ellen came and it was great and b) all is peaceful and sunny and c) my favorite part of yesterday was when we tumbled out of Orion to go on a photoshoot for the website (staged photos in alleyways whoooooo!) and there was a GIANT tag on the wall that read SPASE SEX <3

The Internet...

2011-05-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

sucks you in. My girl DZT sent me a letter a little while back that she had typed on a typewriter. In it she mentioned the immense difficulty she had been having staying with her parents, in large part because of the amount of time that they spent staring at screens (computer and television). I spend almost no time staring at the television screen, but I spend virtually all of my time on the

2011-05-07T13:59:00.000-07:00

I am in Buffalo. Or BFLO, as some natives abbreviate it (I did this in an email to a friend this morning without thinking; he wrote me back and said that he loved it and it made him feel old because he thought at first it was some internet code like "lol" or "omg" - but no, it's yet another way being a part of this city is like being part of some sort of oddball speakeasy), or Buffalove, as I

2011-04-29T07:56:00.000-07:00

last night taking out the compost, the sweetest dog, chained up outside orion with three young men in the grey-streaked yellow glowing twilight sky. it was the warmest it had been all day. i was hanging out with them for a few minutes answering questions about shelter and food stamps and talking about the weather (ha) and music, she heard your voice and got excited, one of them said. her owner's

2011-04-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

woke up feeling refreshed at 6:20 this am, paul westerberg yelling let's count the rings around my eyes in my head. i had strange dreams. the strangest, a reunion party on a steep grassy hill where all my social anxieties were realized and we then proceeded to careen, sledding-style, down and down and down in a pack, skidding past children and trees and picnic tables, barely missing. i wound up

2011-04-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday it was 65 and sunny. I went to the market and got an application from Penzeys and bought a pair of jeans from H&M. Downtown Seattle is such an experience for me. I see only the hurt manifested there. And the vicious cycle, people flocking to this one part of the city to ask for money because there is so much fucking money right there. Aylee said, talking about Pioneer Square, "It's

2011-04-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about Growing Up. And how 21...21 was such a frightening, rocky year. And 22...22 was a terrifying abyss that I wasn't sure would ever end, or that I had the strength to claw my way out of. And 23...23 is not so different in style or content from those years, but it feels so much different, better, more hopeful. Perhaps because I know that even if I haven't figured anything out

2011-04-15T16:41:00.000-07:00

"How are you?" asked Adam, and the answer was, "I've been well," and also, "I've been on a balance beam." Woman on wire. I am feeling the urgency of my current position. I want to leave the next volunteer coordinator with a structure to step into. And I want to continue to build the positive relationships that I have built with youth. And I want to be able to save a little money when all of this

2011-04-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

The Comet. The Comet is one of my favorite bars in Seattle. It feels, vaguely, like the inside of a barn - high ceilings with wood beams, cavernous. The walls are covered with years and years of skeletal graffiti - spare white and black letters, sparse phrasing. The Comet is one of those bars on Capitol Hill, of which there are several, where you step through the doors and it still feels like the

2011-04-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

I have been making collections. Making collections and writing letters. I collect the tangible and the intangible. Tangibly: scarves, postcards, rocks, flowers, broken objects, boots, books, jackets, text. Intangibly: dreams, ways of making peace. Whale.

2011-04-11T05:44:00.000-07:00

Struck again by Early Morning Awakening Syndrome (or perhaps more accurately, Middle of the Night Awakening Syndrome), I am thinking about: a) Robant. He is awake, too. He usually doesn't start meowing until 6 at least, according to Mark, but he must be feeling antsy today. b) France and Italy. What the fuck. c) Spring. On Friday, when I got home from my outreach retreat and locked myself out

2011-04-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

California. As I put it in a letter: I am still processing, and parsing, and finding words for the many things that happened to me there and that I thought and felt. Some things: I became very inspired about youth and social justice and the arts and how they can and should combine, everywhere. I smoked more pot than I have in years, possibly the most ever in a concentrated period of time

2011-03-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

what i would like to do today: beat my fever. eat poached eggs. bake something using vanilla sugar. finish my letters to chrissy and george. write. collect bits of other people's writing. sink into my own old writings. what i am not interested in doing today (but will, most likely, do anyway): clean out the fridge. read oryx and crake from start to finish. ***********************************

2011-03-25T03:28:00.000-07:00

I had a fever all night and all day and was achy and miserable, switching between hot and cold, switching between summer pajamas and winter pajamas for many hours. I went to sleep at nine and it broke sometime after midnight and now, comfortable, and having been in bed for over twenty four hours, I'm awake. It's raining outside for the first time in many days, but that's all it's supposed to do

2011-03-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

Nearly every woman has an opinion about Eat, Pray, Love. Many men, too. I watched half of the movie last night, and right now, my opinion is...Julia Roberts is always Julia Roberts. She's more Julia Roberts than Liz Gilbert. And my wanderlust is through the roof. Specifically, I would like to be in Spain. I would like to be eating pintxos in San Sebastian, a seaside Basque city that I never

2011-03-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

what if all i ever wrote about was the sun, my Feelings, plants? that seems to be kind of what is happening anyway. today, the Sun is the brightest and hottest it has been since the week I arrived in September. the sky is the color i used to call my favorite, cerulean. my favorite crayon in the box. i sat in the kitchen watching the Sun filter in the window over the yolks of my hardboiled eggs,

2011-03-16T06:43:00.000-07:00

as always, there is the musical landscape of past years creeping up on me. matching the weather. this year, as march warms and blusters around me: the kills and the xx, deerhunter and the bird and the bee. devin. frank. one friend of many who is clever with words coined the phrase "memory tv," and this, i think, is an apt description of how i am often living my life. there is so much buffalo

2011-03-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

i can't conceivably start this project until...saturday? but i need to clean everything. and sell some things too. and smudge. and spatially reimagine.

2011-03-11T00:37:00.000-08:00

today was: my hands in tubs of raw chicken, pulling the pieces apart. running around drop-in doing housing intakes, setting up community voicemails, and talking about meditation. my hands in ranch, coffee grounds, and cold refried beans. the occasional dish soap. buying all the kinds of cranberry juice there are, at safeway. yet another many-hours conversation in yet another otherworldly

spring is like a perhaps hand

2011-03-10T01:35:00.000-08:00

e.e. cummings is usually right about these things. saturday, the sun permeated everything, filtering through all the green. and the air was the sharp halfway between warm and cold, smelling of salt and bread and flowers and cigarettes. spring. these are the days when, like all days, i wake up at seven. but, unlike all days, i spend from morning to afternoon grinning, stumbling over myself,

The End

2010-12-18T01:05:00.000-08:00

This blog...for a lot of reasons, it's time for it to go. Writing in it hasn't felt good, as of late, on the rare occasions when it's happened. Ellen and I had a conversation tonight about obsessive reflection and knowing oneself as a form of self-destruction. This on the heels of a conversation with my mother several weeks back in which she said, bluntly and firmly as only a mother can, "you

On Fights

2010-12-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

The past few days have been days of small gestures, small reminiscences, small homages. Lightning shocks. I had to buy a bottle of wine for a social event and I bought one with a fox on the label - for you, Alia. Today I am wearing the exact replica of an outfit I wore the first day I went to work here. An old skin Seattle outfit, now. I have not worn it since September. Last night, on a 2 am

2010-12-09T23:41:00.000-08:00

I feel like a bee colony. A bee colony? A time-lapse video of a city at night. I am losing sleep in order to clean my room. I am not emailing anyone back. Noah wrote this beautiful thing about the bookstore and bookstores, books and the internet, tangibility and intangibility, our generation and other generations. An excerpt... Much of my life has been defined by the tangible world. Tangible

2010-12-09T00:07:00.000-08:00

I have a growing pile of clothes in my closet and a growing pile of trash next to my bed, a growing pile of molding food in my fridge, a growing stack of missed calls and voicemails that I cannot bear to listen to, a growing stack of papers and post-its, messages scrawled on my hand, a growing list of work and personal emails. All I want is to clean everything, and to be able to stop for one

2010-12-07T22:31:00.000-08:00

Christy is gone back to the East Coast, and taken the sunshine and good health with her. I spent all my money on used clothing and extraordinarily cheap Italian leather shoes (I love you, punk rock flea market; Value Village), and now I am sick with the cold/fever/whatever that everyone has, for the whatevereth time I have been sick this fall, and my room is a den of mess and I can bring myself

2010-12-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

One of my old favorites, Christy Batta, is here with me. I walked around Pioneer Square for an hour waiting for her and she stepped off the Light Rail looking legit Pacific Northwest, leather jacket, floral pattern, moccasins, scarf, and all. It is a great thing because I haven't seen her in more than a year, somehow, and also because I get to show off this place knowing an increment more about

2010-11-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

I am in Portland with Wiz and Ben, Aubergine the dog and Huxley the cat, the chickens and the ducks running around the backyard pen, the warmth of the wood stove, the best ham I have ever tasted from the pig raised and slaughtered in this yard, the love. That last bit is important. It is important to be here right now. There have been some losses. Notably: all my writing of the last three years,

2010-11-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

Buffalo gets two inches of snow in November and everyone's excited because it's pretty. Seattle gets two inches of snow in November and the city becomes a slip n slide, buses and cars turning sideways on hills, people stranded at one another's houses. A toy city. Some people come together like magic and other people kill strangers at intersections in Capitol Hill with hatchets, the always-way of

2010-11-13T17:55:00.000-08:00

From a letter I wrote the week before I left home: I'm sitting in the middle of a pile of spices and books, drinking a 40. I have 5 days until I leave this place for a brand new-to-me place. I work every day until I leave. I only have the evenings for practical tasks. I am being less than careful about much of the process. The last thing I should be doing is writing letters, but I REALLY need

2010-11-13T11:53:00.000-08:00

I was in Yakima, for a conference. We piled into cars and drove through mountains and the town where Northern Exposure was filmed to get there, and then we were at Adult Camp with 900 other Americorps, spread out at hotels across the city, sitting and workshopping and eating and networking. I did workshops about vision and art with these people and others about avoiding burnout, and sometimes, I

2010-11-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

Today is the beginning of Diwali, festival of lights.

2010-11-05T01:20:00.000-07:00

It has been an incredibly gorgeous week. A week of no jackets and sunshine. Also a week of night walks and talks, conveyor-belt sushi dinners with soul sisters and curry dinners with co-workers, lots and lots and lots of thinking. I think when you're an other-oriented person, you sometimes sacrifice your own integrity. Not because you're worried about what other people think, but because you

Because Dia de Los Muertos is a Day for Unearthing Memories

2010-11-01T23:39:00.000-07:00

What I wrote two years ago exactly, having run home to Buffalo for a few months. We've lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country. everything in its right place. fate? this morning, at 7:15 am, i tiptoed with soft feet into a comfortable room bathed in nothing but the light of nine tea lights arranged in a circle on the floor, a circle of flames that in their natural mirth and

2010-11-01T23:03:00.000-07:00

Today I had a meeting with Mark and I told him I had been writing so much again, and writing letters a lot again, too. "Who do you write?" he asked me. "Just...people?" and then, making fun of himself "Or...animals?" And that could have been just a flub or a joke, but it is part of this genesis, the Egg that has been forming for me for a long time. Animal cards. Maura dreaming that everyone she

2010-10-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

last week disappeared. i spent a lot of time in the kitchen at work, doing frantic things. like making dinner all by myself, or making dinner in fifteen minutes because we didn't know we didn't have a dinner group until it was time to serve (oops). i saw the freaky beautiful circus of janelle monae and of montreal at the paramount. spendy, but worth every penny. i also spent more net hours

2010-10-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

in the coffee shop at the corner they play cut copy or frank sinatra. the tables have deep mexican-blue tile tops that one can lose oneself in, against the rain. the coffee, like most coffee in seattle, has a leaf pattern sewn delicately into the foam. it's stronger than it looks and doesn't disappear when you begin to sip. this is the first time since amsterdam that i have consciously built

2010-10-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

I am doing a thing that I used to do. Waking up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. It reminds me of being 3, 4, waking up thirsty and staring at the octopi shadows on the wall, calling for my parents; being 11, 15, waking up anxious and looking out at the oranging sky, counting down the hours or minutes in the cold silence until school; waking up 20, 21, ready to frantically pour

2010-10-23T14:28:00.000-07:00

it was one of Those Days. punctuated by exhaustion and a poor attitude, heights of bus ridiculousness, two visits to fast food joints, unasked for super-sizing of fries en route to the age-old battle, PRINCE V. MICHAEL JACKSON, unasked for advances by members of the Coast Guard, strange stress dreams... but. there was a lot of girl power involved, the increasing feeling that I know this city, an

2010-10-21T01:41:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in learning more about young adult homelessness, in Seattle and elsewhere, watch this, and read this.

2010-10-14T23:02:00.000-07:00

Today Jenny Holzer tweeted FAKE OR REAL INDIFFERENCE IS A POWERFUL PERSONAL WEAPON, and while I'm certain of its power, I'm not certain that I feel good about the politics of using it. Maybe because conscious presence is such an important, and currently deficient, concept in my life. Maybe that doesn't need to be a binary, indifference/conscious presence? I have lots of muddled thoughts,

2010-10-12T12:54:00.001-07:00

i'm thinking of starting a new blog, and here's why: it's part of the life fragmentation thing. every time i sit down and try to write in this space, i feel a big animal sit down on my chest. i want to write about my day at work and how i saw one of my youth homies panhandling on my walk home, stood up on a cardboard box like a human sculpture, his head bobbing to some beat, his hands

2010-10-10T23:17:00.000-07:00

I went to Portland for the weekend (the day really, if we're going to Be Real about it, which - Let's), and it was everything I wanted and needed it to be. Which is to say, Ari and Suzanne picked me up super duper early Saturday morning and I got there and Wiz and I went out for coffee and talked and went to a thrift store and bought prayer candles en masse, and then we went home to her beautiful

2010-10-04T22:49:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about motherhood. All shapes and sizes of it. Maybe because of my age? Because of a lot of things. I spend time at work around women younger than me who care for not only babies, but toddlers. They are younger than I am and they act and seem younger than I am in ways and older in others. Like in the way they say I used to freak out about everything he touched, and now I

2010-10-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

there are a lot of good feelings i've had. one of my favorites is the feeling caused by the government having purchased my groceries.

2010-09-27T23:03:00.001-07:00

a reason i feel uncomfortable at the moment is because there are so many parts of me having meaningful experiences, and so many parts that cannot be shared. it's like the therapy game i used to play with barb, and myself, about the house, and the pieces of myself that lived in the house, except now all the pieces of myself have to stay in different rooms with the doors locked, and they aren't

2010-09-26T23:40:00.000-07:00

Today Emily and I continued our Self-Guided Parks tour of Seattle at Golden Gardens, sitting on a beached log with crashing waves on one side and train tracks on another. I flipped over a crab who was resting, perhaps dead, belly up on the shore, and jumped over a stream of saltwater, and we did some cards. Before that there had been a long time sitting and watching pregnant women and men with

2010-09-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

"I think it's probably in my job description not to listen to violent, misogynistic rap music anymore." "It's probably in mine too, but...rap music is all we have, man." *** I've been thinking a lot about safety. Since I was in St. Paul this summer, and experienced a breadth and form of physical release/emotional revelation that made me realize that I had felt distinctly unsafe for a long, long

2010-09-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

today i felt like a boiling pot of water all day long. too hot for comfort. somewhere along the line of my life i became the sort of girl who doesn't mind crying in public places, though she eschews doing so in front of those who might support her. thus i wept anonymously on the 71 home, and busta screamed at me attention please attention please, this shit feel like the whole entire world

2010-09-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

On my birthday morning, I woke up in a bed next to one of my very best friends. As I had the year before. I had an email that I had sent myself 365 days prior waiting for me. it said: Hey you! Shit is wack, you keep sending yourself emails and forgetting that you have. Today is your 22nd birthday and the first birthday you have been excited about in some time, a long time. Ellen is asleep in

2010-09-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Seattle is a city of villages. I am learning them on the surface, skimming past them on the bus or the sidewalk. The U District, Northgate, Ballard, Magnolia, Capitol Hill, Greenlake, Wallingford, Fremont, Queen Anne, Belltown. Everywhere is on the water and most places look at the mountains. Aylee has a fig tree in her yard. As I walk, I pick purple flowers off the ground to place behind my

Things I Find Beautiful

2010-08-31T17:07:00.000-07:00

I'll come back With the sugar shack Smell in my hair -Mirah your hands a river gesture, the birds in flight, the birds still singing outside the greasy window, in the trees. -Richard Siken use me suddenly i might say, and the canyon of my youth goes mosaic. -Alice Notley

2010-08-30T14:06:00.000-07:00

i just got to seattle, and am sitting in the airport enjoying the free wireless and a quiet minute with a sandwich, because jet blue does not believe in meals on six hour flights, only overpriced "snack boxes." i was asleep for the distribution of those anyways. i am reading alice notley's reason and other women. a most gorgeous book. you wanted human panorama but were wrong to. sums up much

2010-08-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

Pre-work errands and post-work packings. Up at 6 and to bed at 3. Work in between. All the love I feel for this place and these people, frantic, spilling from me. Trying to give things away. Cleaning and cleansing. Not enough boxes even though there always used to be too many boxes. Radical and erratic acts of honesty that come from and bring peace in the midst of this freneticism. Music hitting

2010-08-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

The summer was hot and anxious, and it hissed and steamed clockwise down the sink drain. I poured coffee and beer, coffee and beer, crazy pills and burgers and bagels into my body. I worked almost every day. My few days off evaporated as I paced around the house, feet dirty, staring at things, or took long naps. I washed the kitchen floor three times. …You know when you have the feeling that

2010-08-19T11:02:00.002-07:00

Do I stress you out My sweater is on backwards and inside out And you say how appropriate I don't want to dissect everything today I don't mean to pick you apart you see But I can't help it There I go jumping before the gunshot has gone off Slap me with a splintered ruler And it would knock me to the floor if I wasn't there already If only I could hunt the hunter And all I really want

2010-08-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

In two weeks, I am moving to Seattle................ In two weeks, I am moving to Seattle. What? I have two days off between now and then, including today. I will be working at a drop-in center for homeless youth, doing street outreach and coordinating volunteers. I am stunned, elated, and very overwhelmed. Once I was on a bike ride with Becky and she described to me the phenomenon

Fragments

2010-07-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

*The other day, sitting with Andrew behind the library, behind what used to be the Philosophers' Circle (a ring of dim orange light and vine and stone that always seemed somehow ancient in the postpostmodern cocoon of campus), talking about not being disciplined, he said, "Yeah, well, it's easy not to feel disciplined, because you're awake more hours than you practice your craft." *Talking with

2010-07-26T23:11:00.000-07:00

I was in the Midwest, seeing some people I love and who love me. I found myself less frantic than usual, and more frequently on the verge of tears. It wasn't a bad thing, just a thing. I think it happened because I felt safe there and I don't usually feel safe. I articulated a lot of big fears and patterns and things that are going on for me right now that make me feel small and terrified. I am

2010-07-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

I don't believe in getting angry in airports/at travel circumstances. And I am not. Hungry, yes. Also very sleepy. Two conditions that breed crankiness. But. Let it just be noted that a) By the time I leave the Detroit airport, I will have been here for 13 hours. b) All I will have gained from this is 3 $6 meal vouchers and a $50 credit for further use on Delta, who caused this mess in the first

2010-07-05T20:58:00.000-07:00

This week everyone has had their heart broken, or had someone die, or been panicked and lived at the end of a knife, or been hit by a car, or lost all their money. We have all been in panic, or grief, or shock, or pain. So few people I love are untouched by this cosmic whomp at this point that I feel I should call the remainder and caution them to be prepared for anything and everything, the

2010-06-27T07:04:00.001-07:00

I often forget, moving so fast and with so much distraction, how lucky I am. But I am lucky, very lucky - and as lonely as I will always be, as much trapped in this head and heart which are so disparate from the workings from any other flesh and blood machine I've met, yet, I have built some cool connected heart things, and they last, somehow. fly to SP with some poems in hand and read them to

2010-06-24T06:23:00.000-07:00

I have many escape fantasies. Escaping what? Nothing in particular. Not the present so much as the future, or my fear of it. So much for paying attention to any advice that anyone ever gives me. But nursing these fantasies feels like a Faberge egg in my sock drawer. Z and I write emails and text messages and voicemails back and forth, abrupt since there is no time for anything more, cascading

2010-06-04T20:42:00.000-07:00

The things that make my life really good right now are getting emails like this: Dearest dear darling dearest darling dear, In the fantasy of our apartment (which, in the fantasy, is a house), there is absolutely a porch. I think there is also a tree house. I’ve never been in a tree house, but I bet you if I had one I would spend all of my time there, and I wouldn’t bring my cell phone, and I

2010-05-12T23:43:00.000-07:00

after therapy, no putting the medusa back in the box. a man sells you his all day pass for 75 cents, your tears blurring the date unrecognizable, your palm pressed obsessively to the dark dinge of the window, fingers folding and unfolding. step off the train a stop early and into the blossom world of Forest Lawn, take a winding walk to the blue sky mausoleum, sit it out, breathe it out, take out

2010-05-05T10:19:00.001-07:00

ask the knot in your back what might be stuck there, she says. is it a belief? it is the ultimate, biggest, baddest belief, and the ultimate, biggest, baddest knot, the spiritual and the physical combined and intertwined, and it will take as many years to undo them as it took years to do them up, is my wager. the sun is beating down and all the flowering trees are bursting and my house has

2010-04-30T16:52:00.000-07:00

i am good and strange. my apartment smells like cat, cat feet, cat fur, cat piss, cat vomit. cat purr. a few weeks ago i said out loud, i want to be self-contained, i am in this good place and i want to stay here, i am not interested in giving away pieces of my heart, i am not interested in having hearts given away to me. the universe heard me, and it gave a little smirk and made a little plot