you know, around the new year i was saying that i wanted to relearn faith and innocence, a la rob breszny's advice.

and i think i'm getting somewhere. innocence is a state of being, but faith is a state of mind. faith is a choice. it simply is. it's unapologetic and steadfast. it's about looking forward and not being broken and not being crushed. it's not the same thing as grace, or idealism, or epiphany. those can feed faith, or faith can feed them -- but faith is what's left, what's always there. faith is choosing to believe, no matter what happens.

faith is choosing to believe it will happen.

duh. how did i ever forget that?

so a picture was drawn tonight. and while he was drawing me i was thinking about two things:

thing #1
brownies. more specifically, brownies with raisins in them. why hasn't anyone ever tried that? it sounded good while i was thinking about it earlier.

thing #2
cake. more specifically, i'll bet you could cut cake quite easily with floss.* maybe i'll send that into one of my mom's magazines and they'll give me fifty bucks for submitting a great "tip." and housewives all over america will start cutting their cake with floss. of course, it wouldn't work for cheesecake or anything with a pie crust, but i'll bet it would work on that layer cake with buttercream frosting!

*and the minty kind would even add extra flavor!

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
Mars is about to enter your opposite sign, Taurus. This is not an everyday occurrence, and it can have a variety of implications. For now I want to leave the meaning to you. The last time this happened was March 2000. The time before that was May 1998. The time before that was May 1996. Is there a pattern to these seasons, particularly involving relationships? Can you check back in your diaries and see what you can piece together? The events of1998 may have been especially interesting due to other factors heightening your awareness and deepening your experiences. But the overall pattern will have implications for today.

okay. HMM. um, eric francis has a way of creepily and accurately tying things together. before he even said "relationships" i was thinking, gee. relationships. that's what these dates signify to me.

i'll start with the beginning.

in may of 1996, i smewched ben for the first time. see, this was my freshman year in college and over christmas break i was unceremoniously dumped by my high-school boyfriend, craig. what really traumatized me was the fact that i wanted to dump him when he came to visit me in october of 1995, and i chickened out. partially because the boys in my freshman dorm told me it was wrong to have a boy visit you and drive three hours only to be dumped. and i played this song for him, the smashing pumpkins version, mind you. and then i told him i thought you know, time makes you bolder and even children get older and i'm getting older, too, and all that. and he cried. CRIED. and begged me to give it another month. and so i did. and he would send me emails with lyrics from sting songs (he had a big woody for the police) like "the secret marriage." and i thought that was pretty darned sweet.

long story short (too late), i gave him premiere booty (read: virginity) over thanksgiving break. we had dated for three years. it took him three tries to get the condom on. well, three different condoms, anyway. i remember he put the first one on inside out and we had japanese food beforehand and i had to drive back to pennsylvania the next day. i remember wicked game by chris isaak was playing on repeat when it happened. ha ha.

then when i came home for x-mas break i found out he had been cheating on me with a 15-year-old gymnast.*

so i was traumatized. i didn't like being tricked. i didn't like that everybody but me seemed to know. and i went back to school and my roommates made me take down all the pictures of him and hide them in a shoebox under kate's bed.

and so, you know what? i started to get over the kid. by the time he called me to apologize after the gymnast dumped him sometime in february, i was already over it. i had moved on to ben.

ben. the ben of my life. i met him when bess and i did our first radio show at WDCV. his show was before ours. we had the last show of the night, the 1-2 am slot. we freaked him out by busting into the studio and harrassing some of his friends for information on ron cline. we literally burst into his life. we started going to breakfast together and hanging out and eating dinner together. then, in may 1996, we drank mad dog and made out in the HUB. the student union building, that is. we didn't officially "get together" until months later, but that was the first smewching of any kind.

in may 1998, ben and i had been in england for a year and we were about to go home. i guess this was around the time we decided to live together for the summer, at my parents' house. i know that sounds crazy, but my parents LOVE ben. seriously. like adoptable love.

march 2000 is when diego informed me that i just want gentle boys as my muses. and he missed me when i was gone. and we should move in together. and i should go to argentina to meet his dad.

and he dumped me a month later. but, alas. what do all these things have in common? new beginnings, i guess. taking it to the next level. kicking it up a notch. i know taurus is about grounded, home kinda love. it's about commitment and loyalty and all that. it's about safety, financial and otherwise, and creativity and stuff like that.

so. i'm going to go get naked, for real this time, and i'm going to ruminate on this further later. i know you can't wait.

*i saw her at the bar when bess came to visit and she was soooo embarrased. and i was soooo nice to her. because i was drunk, and also because i genuinely don't care anymore and thought it was kinda funny.

richie, this question is primarily pour vous, so i direct you to the comments below.

do hr people take faxed resumes less seriously than snail-mailed ones? and emailed ones less seriously than faxed ones?

all and any comments appreciated. that goes for the rest of y'all, too. yr girl (me) needs a job!

I love you, rotten,
Delicious rottenness.

...wonderful are the hellish experiences,
Orphic, delicate
Dionysos of the Underworld.

dh lawrence

it's time for marie's semi-annual boys-i-love-rant!

okay. benicio del toro.

it's like, ohmygod, could he be any more of a total slab of man? my friend ralph met him at a bar in nyc. he bummed a cigarette off of ralph, and ralph didn't know who he was. and benicio even asked him, after they'd been drinking and smoking together for a few minutes -- "do you know who i am?" but not like an asshole star. and ralph was like, "um, no dude. sorry." and benicio told him to look at the cover of next week's vanity fair. and he was on it. this was in like, 1996.

adrian grenier.

i have such fucking eyebrow issues. seriously, sexy, full eyebrows on smoldering beautiful men kill me.

note that they look like one another. um, a benicio and adrian sandwich with me in the middle? I THINK SO!

more eye candy:

adrian! MEOWWWWW.*

benicio all young and biscuity in 1989. purrrrrrr.*

*note the eyebrows! ohhhh!

so i didn't actually end up getting naked for the ex tonight. when i went over his house he was v. sleepy. he even tried to tell me he was "just resting [his] eyes." heh. but i didn't mind, because i got to watch the best show on television, angel. hannah got me obsessed with this show a few months ago. since then, i have not been able to stop watching it. i love the vampirey, ooky, demonic plots. i love hunky david boreanaz. i even love silly cordy.

so after angel he woke up, told me he was "tired and uninspired" and would draw me another time. then he asked me if i wanted cereal and made me special-k with sliced bananas and sugar, thanks. then we watched final destination and twelve monkeys. i forgot what a great movie twelve monkeys is. brad pitt is an amazing amazing actor. he did the paranoid schizophrenic complete with risperdal tics oh-so-well. and it's so multilayered and tragic yet life-affirming.

so another night i will get nekkid. but it was nice hanging out with him and his dogs and just hanging out on the couch, watching movies and getting high and eating snacks, like the old days. it wasn't a waste of time. he balances me, keeps me inspired and feeling good about myself. rather, he reminds me. reminds me of what i know. what i have always known. reminds me to keep my eyes towards the skies.

can i just state that richie is the most prolific of all of us?

thanks.

so tonight i agreed to model nude for the ex. i've done it before, but what amuses me this time is how shy he was asking me to do it. it's not like i am going to demand sexual favors from him for the privilege of drawing my um, pleasantly rounded female frame. of course i expect him to get me high, but that's only because i am poor.

my new motto is "don't look too far ahead." i was reading "the fellowship of the ring" last night again and that was the advice that elrond gave the party, and what gandalf and aragorn kept repeating when things got difficult.

don't look too far ahead.

what's helping me is the compartmentalization of ingredients of my success. like putting all of my work and resume related stuff on one disk. all my poetry and poesy related stuff on another disk. keeping little charts of what i have done and what i still have to do.

now i have to get dressed to get naked. let me tell you, i'm no artist, but i have a feeling fat girls are more fun to draw. you know, girls with round bits. girls like me. i've been painted and i've been drawn, and i like the way they turn out. it makes me feel like a renaissance princess, to see myself in pencil or paint. isn't it funny how vanity creeps up in moments when i'd be expected to be extremely shy?

the funny thing is he was shy asking me. i know i said that before, but it's still funny. that he was shy.

have i mentioned that the first time we were together, i went to cover my big round stomach and he grabbed my hand, looked right at me and said "you don't have to be ashamed with me."

every girl should hear that at least once.

i have fantasies about writing the great american novel, entirely in longhand, on a stack of legal pads as tall as my knees.

i need a nine-to-five to pad my existence. my entire life is filled with this awful darkness, this nothing. it sneaks up on me every day. i sleep through it sometimes. i distract myself. but it always comes back. it lurks on the edges of everything, smears the periphery.

i know i sound depressed. but i warn you -- this depression isn't one of complete lack of momentum. i am doing a lot, believe it or not. i look through hundreds of job advertisements a day and constantly email* resumes** to hr people. i'm always writing cover letters. i have an organized list of jobs and cover letters i have to send on my weekly visit with the fax machine.

but i worry. i worry that i am never doing enough. that everything i do is half-assed, no matter how much i want something. no matter that i can taste how much i want something. that i build elaborate fantasies of my success. i fear that it, what i am doing, is never enough. that i am destined to fail. that i am doing It wrong. that every success thus far has been a fluke, an error remedied later.

but i know this train of thought is my downfall. i know this sounds stupid, but i'm going to start reading all of my witchy magick books again. and learn how to declutter my mind. to think positively again. i'm going to light some f*cking candles and learn to make myself successful through positive thinking again. even if it's all ritualistic reprogramming. seriously.

*perhaps i should only send or fax resumes. even though my limited printer/fax access would limit the amount i could send. emailing is just easier, and when they list it as an option, i take it. is that foolish?

**i fear my resume is somehow unworthy in its current state. perhaps i should have a skills-based resume?

what are we supposed to do with frustration?

i am sick of grinding my teeth. i am sick of walking away with my heart sinking, being left in the middle of the street, i am sick of seeing your back. i am sick of seeing the side of your face. i am sick of not ever being really looked at.

i have had this problem my whole life. i don't think i'm invisible. i'm fairly sure i exist. but i exist on the edges, and only for moments. i am never in focus.

god is listening and her sense of humor is bizarre

a conversation.

d: "i was in the studio last night working late and the weirdest thing happened."

me: "what?"

d: "well i wanted to listen to some music so i go to my friend's locker and get out his stereo and there's a mix called the basquiat mix. so i think, cool, and put it on."

m: "yeah, that's a great movie. and?"

d: "and immediately the first song to come on is jeff buckley's cover of hallelujah. then another cover of hallelujah. then a U2 version which was all fast and in minor chords. then the leonard cohen version. and it was weird because you made me listen to that song like last week and also you made me watch that movie ages ago and you know."

m: "hm."

d: "so then when the leonard cohen one was on my friend walked in and asked me if i'd ever heard him. and i said no, not really, and so he takes me upstairs and he has like fifteen leonard cohen cds. and he asks me if i've ever heard famous blue raincoat."

m: "really now."

d: "and i'm like, yeah, since you downloaded the tori amos version off napster i've heard it like a million times. but then he asked me if i've ever listened to the words. and i really haven't. but damn. that's a pretty sick* song."

m: "um."**

*sick in this context and many times when i use it means awesome. off the hook. ill. what have you.
**i refuse to go into details. let's just say that i know god is watching. and i have faith. also music is my religion. god is my soundtrack. my soundtrack is god. or something.

andrea was the coolest boss i ever had. i worked for her in the summer of 1996 at a government corporation in new york city. she was the vice president of public relations and she was dating a guy who was a high-up in the MTA. she also used to date the singer from dinosaur jr.

anyway, andrea was great. she taught me how to be a bitch, how to work harder than everyone else even if no one else was inspired, how to rise above. working for her was the only time i actually enjoyed working in an office. the best part was that part of my job was listening to andrea bitch about her boyfriend. we commisserated about boys. a lot. but when we weren't bitching, we were extremely professional. she saved me from the geeky corporate men who used to flirt with me. and not nicely, either. more like, "get the FUCK away from my assistant!" literally.

and i know she would be my ultimate recommendation. i have to find her, somewhere. i'm going to call what seems to be her last job and find out if i can get in touch with her again.

at least we can bitch.

i am madly in love with richie. thanks.

also, everyone who hasn't has to see the broken hearts club. not just because it stars my hometown boy and friend-by-proxy zach braff (now of scrubs fame, heh) but because it's a damn good movie.

for anyone who's reading this who happens to be on effexor, about to take it, knows someone who's on it, or anything, go here. lots of links about withdrawal and the "brain shiver" phenomenon, which was only acknowledged by wyeth-aherst in the summer of 2000. before that you could find NO information about it from anywhere except newsgroups.

another one. note. i don't regret taking this drug. i think in a lot of ways that it saved me from severe depression. what i do regret is not being able to stand up or drive when i haven't taken it, not being able to stay awake, feeling like my brain is going to fall out of my head or actually hearing buzzing noises in my head when i stand up.

i have been tired as hell for the past few days. i am having one of those menstrual cycles where it feels like all the blood is being drained from my body. i haven't been able to do anything but sleep, sleep, sleep. and when i'm awake i feel extraordinarily tired.

i think it might have something to do with effexor. you see, i first went on this drug in october 2000, while i was in the hospital. i was in the hospital because i was depressed. and i had just done all this blow (for the first time, no less, but of course i did a retarded goodfellas amount) and it wreaked serious havoc on my system.

i went to the hospital and cried in the waiting room and then cried in a little back room for a total of like nine hours. eventually this jerky guy was sent to talk to me. he didn't think there was anything really wrong with me. you know, because "girls my age have emotional problems." and he handed me a prescription for some random anti-depressant and told me to check in again in three weeks.

and at that point i lost my shit. i had been waiting for hours. hours. i couldn't keep myself together. i didn't mind crying in front of strangers. not if they would help me. i was beyond the point of having pride. so what i said to him was that i didn't have three weeks. that if he saw me again it would be because i was dead. i couldn't wait three weeks. i couldn't wait another day. i felt as if i had been waiting my whole life and could he please just fucking do something?!?!

you see, at this point i had already seen my fair share of doctors, who diagnosed me with manic depression on sight, tried to give me lithium and depakote without even knowing anything about me. i wanted someone to look me over, to tear me apart, to tell me i was depressed and to make it better.

"oh!" he said, looking surprised. "i didn't realize you were suicidal."

note to readers: you can't just be suicidal when you're trying to get help. no matter how blatantly suicidal you are. no matter how much you say "i wish i didn't exist." you have to say you are. suicidal that is. those are the magic words. and the sick fucks don't even just want to hear that. they want details. they want to know the ins and outs of every psychotic running-in-front-of-a-bus fantasy you've ever had.

so after a whole day of waiting and being ready to actually kill myself in the hospital, i was led upstairs to the mysterious eighth floor. the psycho wing. i saw my roommate, a fiftysomething year old depressed woman who looked sad and pathetic in her little hospital gown, and freaked out. i was actually there, in the crazy wing, with all the crazies. isn't that what i wanted? at that point they gave me atavan, took away my cigarettes and told me to go to sleep.

over the next two weeks i got exactly what i wanted. drugs, that is. and observation. and my doctor diagnosed me with severe depression. there were some other fancy words in there, but that pretty much sums it up. severe depression. he couldn't believe anyone ever thought i was manic depressive. he of all the fancy degrees. he who actually saw me for two weeks and not under an hour. "they must have just seen you in a good mood." this doctor was really cool. young, but not too young. he even dressed up as harry potter for halloween. his wife dressed up as hermione.

so effexor it was. 300 mg a day. and it helped me. it repaired all the damage i had done to my brain with drugs. it got my serotonin working again.

but i've been trying to wean myself off of it for a while now. and the "flu-like" symptoms they warn of are actually much worse. i can barely stand up. i can't think straight. i get these electroshock sensations throughout my body and i can't stop shivering. then, and only then do i take a pill. a 75 mg pill, to ward off the shakes.

and i'm not suicidal anymore. i'm ready to be off of these pills, the depression i have now, when i have it, is natural and normal and i'm not scared of it anymore. but i'm tired of being tired and i just wish that my withdrawal symptoms would fucking curl up and die.

i am extremely susceptible
to poetry. it affects me
the way the virgin mary
on the side of a building
affects catholics in south america.
it bleeds me free of
engendered poisons
like a leech
kissing the base of my spine.

okay. she has been posting out o' control marge piercy poems of late. marge piercy rocks. i first heard about her when the lesbians in my postmodernism seminar wouldn't shut up about her and how brilliant she was. why do lesbians always have such good taste? dood.

anyway, the following poem is so inspiring/true it's scary, and needs to appear on this page for my own constant referral:

For the young who want to

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting. *

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job. **

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don't have a baby,
call you a bum. ***

The reason people want M.F.A.'s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else's mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall ****
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you're certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved. *****

*or, for that matter, crocheting.
**um, THANKS.
***see above.
****i was wondering why i wanted that so much. i still want it but there's something silly about being a certified poet.
*****i'm still working on this.

quid pro quo, clarice! quid pro quo!

i wish i was one of those dynamic webpeople who could share more of the world avec my five or six readers. i mean, even a picture of myself would suffice. the main problem with this is that the most recent picture of me that currently exists on the internet dates back to spring 1999. that would be a couple of years ago. and i wish i could post a million gajillion mp3s to share, since music is basically my life and my religion. however, i don't have the capabilities to do so. which sucks. and it's not like my musical tastes are generic, either. it would make life easier if i could just say "hum like a virgin to yourself whilst reading this entry." but i of course listen to freaky music and specific live versions of songs that are generally inaccessible for download. i'm annoying like that.

yes, if you were here in my basement with me right now, you'd see me wearing my reading girl jammies, listening to das efx's they want efx. thanks. i am obsessively writing cover letters and soothing my menstrual cramps with tea. i have been awake too long. i have smoked too many cigarettes. my gums feel ready to recede into my skull. this morning i am pondering writing a novel but, ironically, i don't know where to start. the beginning is a good place to start, but i always seem to start in the middle. i'm not good at building basic framework, in case you haven't noticed. my car is in the shop. i am going to harass my temp agency today and try to shake them down for a job.

okay, now i am listening to aphex twin's pac-man. power pillz! eat them up, yum yum! if you haven't listened to this, you have to. it's hilarious. it's like the theme song to the power pillz phase of my life. sometimes when i think about how many crazy drugs i've managed to do i feel like a total crackhead. seriously. all of my friends know i'm a champ when it comes to the weed. they know i like the hallucinogens on occasion. and i drink like a lush when i'm in the mood. but when i try to remember how many pills i've eaten, or list everything i've done, i can't.

acid -- more times than i can remember. probably close to thirty acid trips. varying from one to seven doses per trip.

mushrooms -- these are hard to find. only a few times. i'd say six, and that's including the mushroom chocolates i ate once. okay, twice. i've had way better visuals off of mushrooms than acid. the first time i did them was with bess and the mysterious bryan glasspool. basically our tour guide through drug hades. "don't look in the mirror!" he said.

hash -- i smoked this in england for a year in lieu of pot. so, lots and lots of that.

ecstasy -- okay, i've done way too much of this. i'd say i've eaten at least fifty pressed pills (the hotdog of the drug world) and done at least half that amount of molly. which would be the pure form of mdma.

evil coca. -- not so much. but enough to think it's pretty gross that i ever did it at all.

don't forget dexadrine, ritalin, valium, xanax, klonopin, atavan, various other speedy pills, nitrous, and a million more i'm forgetting.

i'm not listing these things to prove how hardcore i am. more as a test to see how honest i can be with myself. also to kind of nail it into my skull that i've used every drug other than heroin and crack.

which leaves heroin and crack. and i'm never gonna go there.

the scary thing is i don't even get off on most of these drugs anymore. especially ecstasy. it's been awhile since i tried it, but i'm over that drug big time. don't get me wrong, it can be a blast the first few times. shit, even the first ten times. but it gets old fast, and it's really easy to get cracked out.

maybe i should get the drug stories out of my system whilst getting the drugs out of my system. you know, frank zappa never did any drugs. i'm not anti-drug. not in the fucking least. i'm just anti-powder for myself. no chemicals. no pills. no powder. no power pillz. no more. i'm just over it, you know? give me the motherweed. give me the yoga and the om ne padme hum. give me the natural high.

or, you know, ayuhuasca.

built my world around certain things you say
i think of nothing else at the close of day
except for maybe how i ended up this way
another drink before you go?

not to mention, even if i did manage to get an interview somewhere, i would have no way of appearing professional. i don't have an "interview suit" or any truly professional clothes to speak of. i'm not good at improvising. sigh.

i hate the coldness and one-sidedness of the job search. i feel so helpless emailing and faxing my resume all these places and getting no response. i feel like i'm communicating with a black hole.

i need to find something. i feel so hopeless, so uninspired, so aimless. i am incredibly frustrated with the current state of my life and i wish i could wake up one day and find everything different. but i know that isn't going to happen. i have no money. i have nothing. it's driving me crazy and that's the last thing i need.

is it wrong to spew out the things that are getting all fucked up in one's life? here, i mean. and in general. will i sound like a total whiny dramawhore if i just can't keep my mouth shut? is it okay if i make myself feel less miserable by sharing the details of my misery with the general populace?

believe it or not, there are a lot of things i keep to myself. which is starting to feel like a useless thing. there's something to be said for writing lists, naming names, facing facts. it keeps me honest. it keeps me on top of myself.

i'll tell you something. i spent the last two nights at my ex-boyfriend's house. this has happened a few times since the new year. since the new year, we have always slept in seperate bedrooms. i made him drive me home at five o' clock in the morning after waking up on the couch about an hour ago because i couldn't bear to sleep in his bed, alone, again. there's something so wrong about that, to me.

see, i have a really hard time with the feeling unwanted thing. with the can't-even-be-lured-into-meaningless-sex thing. partially because it wouldn't be meaningless, even if it was. it would be loaded with some kind of something, and things would be different. and i don't want that. for nothing. but i still want to be wanted. but i wouldn't say no, so this diplomatic "okay, goodnight, i'm going upstairs" is better. it is. but it still hurts. and you're probably saying to yourself, what kind of dimwit sleeps over her ex-boyfriend's house, in a seperate room? how desperate must she be? and i'll tell you what kind. the kind who hates being the ex-girlfriend. the kind who wants to be a human being. the kind who gets lured in with treats* and dinner and fun and silliness and who doesn't want to feel like a buddy, a stranger, in a half-abandoned bed at six o' clock in the morning. not this morning.

and i guess there is a part of me that wants to remain touched. to know that there's something meaningful in biting my tongue and trying to build a friendship, there's something in me that knows he's trying too. and then there are the things that i can't bear to say, that are too stupid and juvenile and dumb and/or heartless to mention.

what i can say is this: this used to floor me, so absolutely. these things. and believe me, things have happened in recent months that would be followed by crying jags and/or hysteria. but not now. i don't let it linger. i retain the mystery. i be what i can be. i am what i am. i have my say. i play along. and most importantly, i do not give up on myself. there is a reason we are all still here. there is a reason. there is something binding us all, there will be another side of all this. one day we'll look back and see it, from a safe distance. none of it can hurt us from there.

*"treats" is the local code for weed.

what is priceless is the way during "tear in your hand" tori says "i don't think you're leaving because me and charles manson like the same ice cream. i think it's that girl." and before she says "girl" she sniffs like she's in the mafia. as in, "i think it's that *tough mafioso sniff* girl." at least on this version bess gave me, thanks. tori is too much.

come again pluto

Come again pluto
I want to be born again
Come again pluto
You told me I was dying
Constructively

I don’t want to be your launchpad rendezvous
I don’t want to be your sometimes
I don’t want to be your left behind your never was
I don’t want to be what you came here
To forget

Pluto tricked me
He said I’d have some companions
But what he didn’t say
Is that none of them would ever stay

And he didn’t say they’d leave me
And leave their scars behind
As the only souvenirs
And he didn’t say that
if I wanted to prove something
I could only prove it from here

He didn’t tell me I’d be rooted ankle-deep
In sorrow and sludge
That my face would be bathed in your light
You’ve asked me to walk beside you
but my feet are asleep and won’t budge

inspired by jeff buckley's cover o' leonard cohen's hallelujah

Maybe you were on to something, this
Being humbled at the edge of great
Tiredness --

And wouldn’t your most grateful
Amen come something like that,
Something like joyful weeping
When you fell and choruses of angels
Were there to grab you
After your stomach dropped
After the worst
Had already passed –

Sweet relief is all you ever wanted, to
Find your own way back to eden, which
You knew was everywhere –
That you would stop trying to do
Thirty things at once
And could engage yourself
In the beauty around you
That you would never get tired of it
And it would never get tired of you --

My darling,
I’m afraid this delusion
is driving us apart

That for instance,
you can stay up all night
in the summertime

inspecting skin
with no sign
of tan lines

and you can troll Brazil
in search
of surreptitiously syphlitic

bikini bonitas

and industrialize
the undeveloped land
that begs you for alms

while you hover
in a blank dashiki and sandals
and patented eyes of goodwill

and you are dusty
with the fetid floral balm
of a bodhisattva prince

(which smells like
clean laundry and
good intentions)

your tongue will learn to love utility speech
and you will kiss around the dipthongs
in little swirling lisps, you will roll

until the roof of your mouth is numb,
until the tip of it whirls around
like a hummingbird, effortless,

and you will start to trip up and wonder
what they really mean
by crucifixion

and you will
come home, and impale your palms
on an obelisk of salt

necessities flock in this dull landscape
oasises on the edges of life

you get the feeling that all the survivors
have come to terms with their anonymity:
patches of darkness, illuminated bits
that were fatty and gray
suddenly lite-brite, suddenly exposed

drawing back the velvet curtain, perhaps –

and objects of desire seem to be drawn
to this exposure
of partially-healed wounds,
an exposition for their benefit,
they hope out loud
that you have returned
from your journey
to tell their stories

and they welcome you
with warm bread, red and gold tents,
they invent new ways to hold you
they reinvent
temperature –

revolve.
you are not so sure.
after all, the plane could be
coming in for a landing
or it could be taking off –

disoriented,
you see lighthouses
blinking distracting safety
all over the coast
random outposts of warmth

where Poseidon cannot touch you
and the sirens and mermaids
know you will come home, so they let
you go

they seem less intimidating
from out here, striped in their simple colors
you can only see at daytime
painted in simple beckonings
of morse code…

they are whores
of promise beyond rocks
you will be closest to death
before you land –

and you begin to wonder if it is safety
or loneliness they offer, if the traveler
has the advantage, if the traveler
really ever needs the land –

we slice away from each other
as atoms –
i imagine something blue-green with purple specks
quivering, cilia wavering nervously
among the whispering hiss of isssssssss

in cutting branches each atom commits
to having been cut, we have no problem
severing matter clear through –

but this
each insular quivering liquid
pulling away and reforming
tears raindrops whistling ball
of nerves

blip,
then the hummmm
of indifference, of dull being
without you –

i cannot commit to losing even your face
for any number of days, i gaze at
what their cameras think of you,

i exchange air with you far too often --

why say anything?
there are a thousand better poets
lurking under meteor showers,
transforming fallout –

maybe because. because
no one listens, save handmaidens
and bored lovers, who have given you
their bodies in hopes
of reinvention –

maybe cassandra
felt the same way.
dust everywhere, empty hands,
nothing to show for those moments
when it was okay to have nothing –

(peeking maidenhead
shiny plaits
hollywood smile
everything girl
what a mess you’ve made…)

you came and you saw and you conquered
and you took the best parts and used them
until they weren’t good enough, this wearing down

i am only here
to bear witness

drama aftermath, i'm afraid

okay. so today i am being punished for the previous night's festivities in the form o' a wicked hangover. i feel better now, considering "now" is four-thirty in the afternoon.

it's funny that bess mentions weird and/or prophetic dreams, because last night i had the weirdest thing happen to me. the dream i had was a continuation of the night i had before i went home, and i did things in the dream that i definitely shouldn't do in real life, but got to experience the wicked satisfaction of doing them in drunkdreamovision nonetheless. that was kind of cool.

i have to tell you, i'm such a pal. meaning everyone is like, "oh hey, it's marie!" and tells me things they can't bear to share with the general populace. and i enjoy this role, because i know i can be trusted. i know what it's like to feel like nobody gets you and no one ever will, so i am happy for the opportunity to lift the psychological load off of my fellow humans whenever possible. i feel like i'm the "little sister"* to all the biscuity boys in my town for this reason. i mean, i wouldn't want to do any of them anyway, but it's charming that they all tell me their little secrets.

but there are times when i am sick of it, i am sick of being wise and/or intelligent and/or accepting. then i get over that. because such feelings are useless. but they're still there. mostly when i'm feeling sorry for myself.

and there are times when i've been desperate to disappoint everyone, to show them that i'm no better off than they are, that understanding and refusing to be a jerk actually make life harder. and i get over that, too.

and i feel silly about last night's drama entry. even though it's all true. the entry from before, about how i'm okay with us not being together, is also true. i know i could disappoint myself and freak out and be the typical girl and harass him about what he told my girls, but i don't even care. i know how empty life can be. i know the difference between things we do just to get by and things we do that fill us with untold joy and life.**

to be honest, when i first heard from hannah that there were two girls, i was pleased. because it implied randomness and not any kind of specific radar love. it implied to me that neither one of them was special enough to mean anything to him by themselves. but he didn't tell me any of it, even though he has told me about this girl at school who likes him, who he doesn't like, etc, etc. how she calls him drunk and wants to hang out. how he says no. how it's annoying. he can tell me about that, but not tell me about what he's actually done. well, to be a devil's advocate -- hannah and katie have known him longer than i have. not like he talks to them more than i do, not by a long shot, of course -- but he has the right to have friends, too. even friends who are more mine.

as for his friends? that group of handsome and silly boys who like to party and talk like teenage girls on the phone, who insist on calling one another forty times before deciding where to go out to breakfast? they treat me with respect. not like, "oh god, here's the godforsaken ex-girlfriend." more like the pal description above. they tell me about girls they like. ironically, they use my relationship avec d. as a barometer of how great relationships can be, how they should be. sample quote: "when i see you, i just think of d. you two have a bond that i can't even understand, it's just so special. i want that. blah blah blah..."

and they still act like i'm his girlfriend. like it's only temporary and silly that we're not together. even though it's been ages. like they don't believe he'd be so dim as to actually break up with me. or something. like, when i call his house and one of them answers the phone, they'll say, "d. you HAVE to get the phone. it's marie, and i think you're in trouuuuuble!" even though he's so not, and i have implied no such thing. but they enjoy playing this game, because as far as they're concerned, something still exists. and they're playful, silly boys.

so i guess what i've learned from all this is that no matter what, i command respect. people are aware of what and who i am, and some are openly afear'd*** o' me. but most aren't. most just see me as a genuine and wonderful person, no matter what happens. all that has happened hasn't undermined my credibility. or his, even. it's just the way things are, the way the cookie crumbles. and as much as these boys would root for him if he hooked up with someone else, because they are pigs who are all about the booty, i am still the alpha female, and i like that. i am a girl who may just be a friend now, but is too good to drop like any common ex-girlfriend. i am special, dammit. and everybody knows it.

now i'm going to drink tea and continue to listen to her mix, thanks.

i pushed through the screen door
and i stood out on the porch
thinking fight, fight, fight, at all costs
but instead i let you in
just like i've always done
i sat you down and offered you a beer
you came crawling back to say
that you want to make good in the end
oh, let me count the ways that i abhor you

you were never a good lay
and you never were a good friend
but oh, what can i say, i adore you

all i need is my leather
one t-shirt and two socks
i'll keep my hands warm in your pockets
and you can use the engine blocks
we'll ride out to california
with my arms around your chest
and i'll pretend this is real
cuz this is what i like best

you've been juggling two women
like a stupid circus clown
telling us both we are the one
and maybe you can keep me
from ever being happy
but you're not going to stop me
from having fun

so let's go, before i change my mind
i'll leave the luggage of all your lies behind
cuz i am bigger than everything that came before
you were never very kind
and you let me way down every time
but oh, what can i say, i adore you

*as in "social sister", but at larger colleges and universities fraternities adopt the girls they fuck and call them "little sisters." as if the whole greek system isn't incestuous and scary enough. but i'm not fucking these boys. it's like a genuine big brother/little sister relationship, except they're totally fraternityesque boys.

**because i ain't no saint. i've done my share of empty useless things, too.

***dig the ancient english!

drama

not so long ago, hannah told me that d. told her that while he was in argentina, he hooked up with two girls. she was beligerently drunk when she told me this, and i am quite possibly beligerently drunk as i write this very entry.* nonetheless, her comments were, in a lilting oxfordian accent, no less -- that he didn't fuck them because it didn't feel right.

now, note. if had been the desperate lovelorn girl of yore, i would assume hopefully that he didn't feel right because of me. because of our great overpowering love. but i have grown up. i am not so silly anymore. i know that he is a decent person and simply didn't want to get that physical with random (hot) girls who liked him that much because they liked him that much. because he was the prince in their cinderella fantasy.** what have you.

anyway, i've known this for a while and have managed to totally not even think about it, even in the back of my deranged skull, for a couple of weeks now. but tonight i hung out with katie and she mentioned to me that he also told her as soon as he got back from argentina. voluntarily. like he told hannah. out of nowhere.

these are my girls. girls i see or talk to every day. girls who tell me everything.. and he knows that. so what upsets me is not that he told one, but both of them. did he want them to tell me? that's what upsets me. it's like, you don't want me. what the fuck? enough with the emotional torture, thanks. telling two of my best girls is basically like telling me.

and the worst part is that he used the phrase "pretty cool" in describing one of the girls to katie. like "i was hooking up with this girl and she was pretty cool." and she's not even the slutty actriz that's been his groupie forever. he hooked up with her, too, but this other girl was pretty cool. the nonchalance of that phrase and how i feel it could never be applied to me is frightening -- see, i am never pretty cool. i am either phenomenally loved or despised. fact. that's just it, i don't mind it, but i could never be that, and i resent it, now.

i've never been "pretty cool" to him. or anyone. as biscuity brian, his friend, no less, said to me tonight, whilst confessing his life story to me: "you're almost more dynamic than anyone i've ever met, marie. emotionally, i mean. that's why it's so easy and so hard to talk to you."

le sigh.

You are a sensitive soul and this often causes you problems. Not only do you have to deal with your own ability to see what people are truly thinking and feeling, you also have to cope with the fact that others constantly question this. They do not trust your instincts. They accuse you of imagining things. This causes you to waste valuable time doubting your own perfectly accurate judgements. Though you cannot help but be sensitive, you can make a wise decision this weekend. Trust what you feel and act on it. You will not be wrong.

that's so true. the part about being sensitive and it being a curse and a blessing. but i'm not stupidly hopeful. as much as i'm dying to say something to him now, katie says that's what he wants, to rile me up. and i said, why, because he doesn't want me, and he's not cruel, so why would he want to rile me up? and she said it's how he sees how much you love him. and he does love you.

and that's just something i don't want to think about anymore. i don't even care anymore if i win.

* i am beligerently drunk, thanks.
**as he is in mine, but they actually live in a country where you might believe it. i am born with all the wrong props. i should be eastern european, skinny and beautiful to match my suffering.

archived poesy

white girl rap
east of eden
disappear here
in which i attempt to be emily dickinson #1
i.w.i.a.t.b.e.d. #2
elegy for good intentions
dear muse
der sexpoem
michael jackson
feeling empty at twenty-four
angel of discontent
in which i pretend to be andromache
in which i am inspired by alan watts
a muse complains
tornado tornado tornado
love, unfinished

i can't even be depressed on valentine's day that i don't have a valentine. i have MANY valentines. i love my friends and they are the best lovies i could ever hope to have. really.

for me, valentine's day has never really been about boys. i mean, i've had boyfriends during the holiday, but i can't even remember what we did. oh, once b. and i went to a restaurant in england and i puked on their carpet. but that's seriously all i remember. as far as i'm concerned, v-day should be about that grammar school spirit of exchanging cute little cards with everyone and getting all excited about the fact. in high school, katie and i had a tradition of going to walgreens and purchasing little baskets and filling them with candy and treats and exchanging them publicly in the band room* on the day. boyfriends be damned. it's not that i'm not romantic, but why share love with only the one you're fucking? why not share it with everybody?

so the song below is for my valentines. my friends. ah love you all.

*yes, we were/are band dorks. the best quote ever from american pie 2 - "i AM a band dork. i just never joined the band!"

When your mind travels far,
you’re gonna look to the stars
Just be sure the beach is always in reach
The music is thumping and the people start jumping
Keep track of your friends,
you’re gonna need them in the end

Everybody got their own trip
as you walk down the strip
Your life could be changed
by a talk with a stranger
Someone told me a story
they said that he knew me
He told me a rhyme
that transcended on time,
how we shared the same space,
Another time, another place
He spoke with a rush
about how so many lives have been touched
I said, “I remember it well, just how it felt.
Like an arrow of love had been shot from above."

everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

i spent the better part of last night at the studio with d. it's funny, he called his mother collect, gave her a payphone number, she called me and i called him. wouldn't it just be easier if we all had cell phones? anyway, we had a good time. he worked on a sculpture and painted, i read the entirety of slaughterhouse five and pasted stuff in my journal.

what i love about not being in any kind of relationship with him* is that when i'm moody or fighting with him now it's really not because i'm bitter about feeling lovelorn or anything, it's just my natural bitterness coming through. and we can laugh and be nonchalant about silly things. we actually have fun together. there isn't this overarching feeling of something bad about to happen, some kind of shit about to hit the fan. we're just friends and it's not a joke, we actually have a friendship worth maintaining. i mean, it's taken long enough to get to this point, but still. it's good to feel that we can put the past behind us, that after all of it, we still mean something to one another that we can't just dismiss.

need i mention that i'm still like BFF with all of my ex-boyfriends? i'm a freak like that. basically i'm the kind of person who refuses to let go of the people i love. and you know what, it's worked out so far. my exes are all wonderful boys. one of these days i'm going to have to post my harem group picture from NYE 99-00 when i drove down to florida to see the big phish show with d. and b. and we picked up high-school-ex-boyfriend c. at the airport. d was my boy at the time, b was the college boyfriend, and c was the high school one. there's a great picture of the four of us lounging, looking happy as shit. we slept in my huge (two-room) tent together. katie joked i brought my own harem. i pretty much did.

tara's parents are just as nutty as she is. they stopped by my house last night to deliver not one but two valentine's cards -- both for my dog, lucy. one from bailey, signed "your boyfriend, bailey" and another one from roxy, whose card was obviously about licking. heh. them cullens are too cute.

katie came back from guam today. she adores her new japanese family and she said she's never seen her brother happier. this makes me feel great, because it's a big slap in the face to all of the people we know** who think bob is making a mistake. for god's sake, he's twenty-seven years old. it's not like this is a teenage shotgun wedding. he's married to a beautiful lovely girl. i'm v. v. happy for them.

*what i don't love is the lack of booty in my life. he gives good booty.

**mostly bob's friends who are his age and aren't even dating anyone, nevermind getting married. no joke, no one around here gets married until they're well over thirty. sad. it wouldn't be so sad if they didn't spend all their time getting wasted and gambling, but alas.

comments added. feel free to whisper sweet nothings in my ear.

SCORPIO (Oct 23-Nov 21)

Week of February 14, 2002

Happy Valentine's Day, Scorpio! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. First, I love how you have desires for seemingly impossible things. It's your most scary and winsome quality. But there are so many other weirdly adorable things about you, too. I love how you don't run away from the cracks that open up in the world but brazenly peer into them to scope out the mysteries that lie on the other side. I love the fact that you seem to be the reincarnation of a sacred temple prostitute who is hell-bent on expressing your exotic wisdom in this profane world. I'm even delighted when you brilliantly analyze the clockwork of the universe so that you can mess with that clockwork.

this is so me, especially the part about being the reincarnation of a sacred temple prostitute. ferreal.

an anarchist librarian. she is inherently fascinating. and also this link of a pregnant lizard which i found via her site. pregnant lizards are also inherently fascinating.

i know it's not valentine's day yet but i got tara's valentine surprise in the mail today! i tried not to open it, but, much to my chagrin, i could not contain myself. oh my oh my! it's beautiful and velvety and unbelievable. i just can't elucidate enough how talented this girlie is. i don't want to say exactly what it is that she made, since others reading this might not have received theirs yet -- but damn! how could i not love her. and i'm serious about us needing digicams.

i didn't do much of anything today. tomorrow i will probably go to the temp agency in summit where a couple of my friends have worked and a couple of my friends are on the staff. this will be helpful in getting me a job, i hope.

katie is coming back from guam tomorrow. she has a sister in law now! thus tonight will be my last night of feeding and loving amelia the cat and fetching the papers from the front lawn and stacking the mail in the kitchen. i have to say, i will miss the overpowering "miaows" of amelia as i enter casa de hendrix. i do, one of these days, need me a nice old fat cat.

today (yesterday?) i applied for like a million and a half jobs and submitted my resume to various temp agencies. i hope i get something soon. i really really need money. and i'm ready to WORK. i mean it. like never before.

today i called some lawyers for my friend hannah. hannah is illegal. on the phone, knowing NOTHING about her case, one of the lawyers told me to tell her to get married. um, thanks, she won't be seeing YOU for a consultation.

i tried to clean my room some more today but i have a major problem: lack of space. you see, i am a queen of collecting things. mostly the things i cannot find space for are:

books i have two pretty darn huge bookshelves, with books stacked on top of and next to them, and i still don't have enough room.

effluvia candles, pretty boxes -- a LOT of those, actually -- the kind of thing you'd put on a shelf. but all my shelves are covered with books, and i don't have space anywhere else for all this stuff.

pictures the wall kind more than the album kind. lots of cool stuff to hang up, homemade dreamcatchers, posters, art, etc. and nowhere to hang it.

i think my main problem is that i'm simply out of space. i've trimmed down the "stuff" in my life dramatically. i just need my own apartment. and before i can get that i need my very own JOB.

quote of the year

are the ordinary housewives who thumb her magazine for craft projects ready to accept their icon as an openly homosexual woman? what, like dykes can't scrapbook?

Don't over-react. Don't blow up a fear out of all proportion or take umbrage at some slight sleight. Don't fall for a sob story. Don't start believing in fairies. Don't get up on your high horse and don't start seething with passion. Oh dear. Now I have dutifully dispensed all the appropriate astrological advice for you today, I realise we have a problem. Listed above are all your favourite activities. You may find it impossible to avoid all of the aforementioned... but you really ought to try.

d'oh! how could i not love jonathan cainer? that totally caught me off guard, but even whilst reading it i was thinking to myself, disappointed: i can't believe in fairies or seethe with passion from the comfort of my high horse? i can't freak out o'er anything i want? what the fuck?

oh, and the gathering of the vibes this year is ILL. as in off the hook. as in DAMN. as in les claypool and not one but two days of PHINE PHIL. and cooey, bess my love -- steve kimock, thanks. tara you have to come too, maybe we could rassle up some reggae or at least some drugs.

the luminously brilliant michael moore on bush and the enron scandal:

I hardly ever talk to the guy, you said. You were like Peter outside the walls of Herod after they grabbed J.C. from the Garden of Gethsemane. Three times he denied he knew Jesus, and three times the cock crowed. But Peter, unlike you, felt shame and wept, and then ran away.

What shame do you feel tonight, George, for the lies you have told? What shame do you feel using the dead of 9-11 as a cover for your actions, hoping that our sorrow for those lost souls and our fear of being killed by terrorists would distract us from what your boys and Kenny Boy were up to during those horrific weeks in September and October?

go read the whole brilliant and sick thing here. it's disgusting how tied up in enron the bush admin is. did you know georgie was carted around on an enron plane the whole time he was campaigning? read this and understand why i paraphrase patti smith's "jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" when i say "george w. bush is somebody's president, but NOT MINE."

this is what happens when the person who didn't win the popular vote gets in office. now HERE'S a person who deserves to be impeached. as for our country losing strength, fuck it. we're losing it already, from george's shit-talking. i think he's endangering us for his own vile interests, and i think HE is a terrorist, in other countries.

happy chinese new year. it's the year of the horse. pooh, i'm a snake, last year was supposedly my year. here are some predictions for all the signs of the chinese zodiac for this coming year. apparently, i can look forward to ill health. woo!

okay, this is a damn cute design.

i can only find templates for diaryland sites and i'm not up to adapting anything except for my paper journal and resume at this point. i'm feeding a cat every day, for god's sake! do you want me to die of exhaustion? no, really, in addition to the deep love amelia has for me, i met a cat named thursday in the town art store today. it's called brushstroke and the owner is an ex-jesuit priest who, coincidentally, married my parents. this guy is such a character. i have always had abnormal admiration for jesuits: i always romanticized them into aristotlean and platonic philosophical squabbling types. to be honest, father fallon (i guess i should say mister fallon) totally upholds this belief. he's an amazing artist and intellectual and wacky in that jesuit way, and also clearly spiritual and kind and open-minded.

um, anyway, thursday the cat, who was apparently about three and was discovered on a thursday, couldn't get enough o' me. i pretended to hide her in my coat when i left (as in jokingly folding one half of my coat lapel o'er her hind leg) and mr. fallon's son seriously jumped. i was like, dood. you are in no dangeur of losing votre chat. even though she obviously liked me better. ha ha!

lately i have been pasting a lot of stuff into my journal. as a result of my collaging projects in past years, i have acquired a large amount of adhesive materials:

gloss medium i've used this on tins and paper. it works well on objects, and with shiny paper, but i'm careful to use a bone fold as the crinkle factor can be high. works great with tissue paper. great for transparent things on thickish paper. has a kind of lemony, chemically smell. i wonder if a dab of essential oil might help...

mod podge basically watered down elmer's in even more faboo retro packaging. good for traditional glue things, less drippy than elmers, best applied with a brush, works well with newspaper, very traditionally popular among collage artists.

mucilage you might remember this stuff from elementary school. holds pretty tight for traditional, basic, journalling type collage. like to get postcards in a book. probably not archival, though, it's kind of scary and archaic, actually, but nonetheless almost manipulatively enticing, and dirt cheap. reminiscent in retro/weird factor as comparable only to spirit gum.

b the w, i think it would be crazy if either tara, bess or i got a digital camera and started taking pictures o' our craft projects. i'm sorry, but tara so needs a crochet project page called "off the hook."

cause she so is.

i am EVER SO FUCKING BORED with my blog design and i am too lazy to actually write new code, thanks. as you can tell from my use of a template, but still. none of the designs at blogdesigns appeal to me either. i'll have to look around, maybe find something originally made for a pita or something.

anyway, expect either copious error messages or a new pritty template from somewhere else (ha ha) soon.

personality sorting nonsense that is likely only interesting to me me me

i am an ENFP. i think i have been other things in the past, but always an idealist. this makes total sense to me. sometimes i do have a buddha complex, and i am obsessed with inspiring people and discussing/casually drawing attention to life's mysteries. heh.

. For Champions, nothing occurs which does not have some deep ethical significance, and this, coupled with their uncanny sense of the motivations of others, gives them a talent for seeing life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil. This type is found in only about 3 percent of the general population, but they have great influence because of their extraordinary impact on others. Champions are inclined to go everywhere and look into everything that has to do with the advance of good and the retreat of evil in the world. They can't bear to miss out on what is going on around them; they must experience, first hand, all the significant social events that affect our lives. And then they are eager to relate the stories they've uncovered, hoping to disclose the "truth" of people and issues, and to advocate causes. This strong drive to unveil current events can make them tireless in conversing with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out.

i realized at the gaslight the other night whilst watching the downhill moguls and drinking a magic hat that it has been four years since i was in england. i know this because the last time i was there, the winter olympics were on.

my flatmates were amused that i had some kind of countdown going on with the winter olympics, i was obsessed with watching it. remember: england is a country that yes, is obsessed with football (soccer, what have you), but they also have darts and sheep-herding on tv. no joke.

the sport i remember watching the most was curling. kind of like shuffleboard, but on ice, and it's as if you are on the shuffleboard. women's curling no less. england is weird, but i miss it.

i almost can't believe it's been so long since i was there. i mean, four years is a long time. it's high school. it's college (for a lot of people, not me, anyway). it's the difference between sixteen and twenty, or twenty and twenty-four.

there's something inherently sad and yet promising about february. right now we're just barely past the midpoint of winter, imbolc, or candlemas -- and already i feel the balminess settling in, the chill wearing off, the impurities misting away. it's a wistful time. there seems to be a lot of putting away forever, a lot of sadness, but strangely, i find myself a million times happier or at least more content and satisfied than a lot of the people around me. and it's not like i have anything to be incredibly psyched about, it's just that i feel this way. profound, huh?

by the way, sweet november is a crap movie. i didn't have the patience for the last hour of it. why are free-spirited hippie chicks always such annoying crackheads on screen? and why was she so fucking needy? dood. i could not bring myself to like charlize theron's character in the movie.

some links for yr consideration and mine

la petite zine

sabrina ward harrison

ontological anarchy, the writings of hakim bey*

*yes, jesse, this is pour toi.

tomorrow i have access to a private fax machine. i only plan to fax one resume one place, but i should probably fax multiple resumes multiple places. but cover letters. ugh. whatever, i can do it.

i have been becoming increasingly sane in my behavior recently. i have been going out less. i have been spending a lot more time pasting things into journals, writing, listening to music, but i still feel a lapse of energy. i don't know why i'm so tired all the time. sometimes i fantasize that i have a terrible, debilitating disease like those i read about in glossy magazines.

i have been feeding katie's cat, amelia, while she is in guam. she's there for her brother's wedding. he and his um, wife, ohmygod, wife! are having a baby this summer. it is a boy and he will be beautiful, i know. his mother is japanese and his father is bob, so what else could he possibly be?*

i know for a fact, by the way, that i don't have one of the terrible diseases mentioned above, because when i take care of myself all of my physical problems miraculously disappear. there was a time when i was obsessed with richard simmons and being healthy, and i think i'm going to give that a try again.

and tonight a friend of mine confessed something rather troublesome to me. and i feel awful for her, because i know what she's experiencing and it can't be good, and it has to be lonely, and i find myself unable to deliver the arguments i know she wants delivered, i see her in perhaps an idealistic light, one no one can possibly adhere to. i see her as being able to make decisions i wish i could make too but probably couldn't.

also, i just want things to be happy and less hard for everybody. i'd like to be able to turn troubles into gifts.

* i prefer to operate under the essentialist assumption that all people are beautiful, and that people of mixed race are tawnier and even moreso.

the anniversary of sylvia's last day. i think it's silly and bizarre that this man even dares to utter the phrase "severe PMS" in the context that he does, but alas.

last one, i promise

i would be lying
if i said narcissism
had nothing to do with this love –

bodies fresh in new dizzying light –
as strong as fluorescent, but made by the moon –

if you weren’t there
to watch the moon wash my scars
i wouldn’t have believed it happened
at all. she left me a gift, crescent
slope of red raised sliver,

an accidental burn
from the first night
i ever forgot my body,

left it behind
while i dug for crystals
in the underworld –

you are not really gone
but i have stopped believing
you ever happened

maybe you loving me
was just a trick of the light:
for a moment, the stars used me
as their shield of projection –

this light never really came
from me, it shone through me
through the stencilled conflagration
of this hole-ridden mortal frame

so what you saw
didn’t come from me.
it came from me
giving up, the muses’
planchette.

the stars are just wounds
of light in the sky
that won’t heal, pinpricks
of ages of suffering.

maybe we stole the light
because we knew where it was,

maybe we became drunk with our crime.

maybe we made mistakes together
in another time and this
is the last exit to redemption

thus every moment
with you
feels unfinished --

more

maybe the muses
meant to give the wet pennies to someone else

always the fondling voyeur,
always the never-sure,
always the incandescent forgetfulness –

maybe if i had milkier, more serious eyes
maybe if my cheeks weren’t so round and my mouth so sloe
maybe if i could explain the beginning –

suddenly there is nothing to tell
and yet there is everything –

his laundry smell, kissing
makes me feel young,

tornado, tornado, tornado

my tongue wants to find a home
in your mouth, now it curls from disuse.

your random outbursts of euphoria
sustain me

more from the vaults

your eyes remind me of stained glass
and tempered steel: glowing, limpid,
sturdy quiverpools.
you can’t even look at me
anymore, sweet one

you acknowledge me with gloomy kindness.
something we forgot, something we never really had
overwhelms us with charmless banality.

love was taught to me by the muses.
i had to be charming, always entertaining gods,
courtesan of long-suffering egos.
everyone’s muse. being a muse
is overrated, you know –
too late i have realized
that the real skill is being a constellation –
for in becoming real, filling in the lines
with flesh too quickly,
the dream is dispelled.
no lover wants their celestial vision
obstructed by real bodies.
the puzzle is only so when disassembled –

go ahead, look through me.
at least, for a moment,
i can look at you.

inspired by a lecture of alan watts'

the intimacies of capillaries and dignity of intervals –

the noise between, the emptiness, the

is what makes us respect the bits of stardust and matter
and metal and words that punctuate our humming
hymn of silence

slow down! the knowing has nothing to wait for,
you can tell them everything, the more the better,
because it will never be enough, your babbling space
will help the rest to see…

okay. then.

the way the music rippled up
from a hundred feet down and then explosions of purple
and red glowsticks tossed in the air, a yellow bumblebee
sentry is sent through the crowd, his hush precedes him,
by the time he arrives he can only stamp out a crackling
firework plugged into the ground,
it is that kind of exchange…

but how can you explain the fact
that some of us are hunted
in our own wilderness, that mostly
paying attention makes sense but sometimes
the intermediate corners of
this delicate matrix
of ganglia, fermions, capillaries –

sometimes this web is folded in
sorrow…sometimes we are jailed
and caught and to what lengths
must we protect ourselves?

or was i right in thinking
that certain ones always escaped?
i imagined they were the ones
i never saw, and i was in their circle
of spillage, that their spillage
reached me, consciously,
i was gifted only because
i was certain it would be so…

the problem with omnipotence
is that it relegates poets
unnecessary.

so we are thankful
to be cast in the role of guru
on this side of bliss…sometimes we play
into the emptiness, we rely
on the shadow, we speak
on behalf of the shadow
to call attention to bliss…

you multitude of stubborn loves,
will you ever learn? you are afraid
of symbiosis, of becoming goo
and that you will lose yourself
instead of admitting
that you can feel my thoughts
in little hairs on your arms,
that when this voice is entering you
it is live even this time, because time

i cannot explain, every time you come
to this space
it is here,
while you pour buckets full
of “new” emptiness…

i have to admit, the frustration
of knowing. of knowing gods
are as careless
as i always believed.
that they are immaculately infinitely
multifaceted, that my imagination
casts them into existence.

i am saying give me
this self-fulfilling prophecy
cast me into darkness so my eyes open
to the light…

and i loved this great carelessness,
it reminded me
of the respite, and that the less i worried
about it leaving
the less it would fall apart

this dissatisfaction
(which always always was,
you never felt that way
when your lost causes
would finally leave you)

it was something you cultivated
because your shiva-eye sparkled
oh look at this delicate plan!
you set up your great falls to play with
your great achievements…

and the things you imagine will be too good
are just that, they feel that way
when you align yourself to getting them…

Quem di diligunt adolescens moritur.
He whom the gods love dies young.
(Plautus, Bacchides)

The Achaians loomed on the landscape past Troy, marked at night by campfires boldly blotting the horizon, the smell of meat and fish so strong it made me ill. If they were so close that I could smell their dinners I wondered if they could smell the fractured meals made in Priam’s grand oikos…if they could smell the scent of beef we made for houses empty of our husbands, if Hektor ever wanted to sneak off the battlefield so I could feed him…

My beloved Hektor, striding victoriously through the Scaean Gates, his helm glinting in the sunlight, blinding me, and he would remove it when he came closer, I would see his face, tired and grateful for the sight of mine…I would see his eyes. I had almost forgotten their stormy grey cast, I had forgotten if they were more blue or green…

Not like this. Not Hektor rushing through the gates, gently avoiding passing news of death to those who pressed him for it, Hektor bearing nothing but bad news, Hektor rushing to his mother’s side to ask her to gather the women to supplicate Athena in her temple. Not Hektor’s hands dirtied and bloodied and his face so empty when he found me already mourning him at the gates…

Our son cries at the sight of him. My helm, it’s my helm, Hektor says, and removes it, but he will not refuse to fight behind the front lines, he will not spend another night in my arms, and I know this will be the last time I will be with my husband and son -- I, Andromache, who have lost all my family and have nothing. I tell Hektor he is my only family, he is my father, my mother, my brothers, he is everything in my life that has been killed, he has replaced death with the necessity of singular love. He is all the remnant of love I have in this world, if he dies there will be nothing to prevent them from killing our son, from killing me, and I would sooner be dead than live the life of a concubine, a slave, a whore, on the shores of the enemy.

Troy, he says, as if Troy itself is a reason, as if this land is worth saving when unpopulated by the man I love, the men many women love, as if there is a lifestyle worth maintaining. I wonder in my wildness if Hektor will slip away with me and our son in the night, if he will take me to the shores of Ilion and we will sail to an island just far away enough that even the gods will lose sight of us.

Alas. I watch him leave me, for the last time.

okay, can we just discuss melanie griffith's website? magic doors? avalon? methinks somebody got a little peyote mixed in with her percocets...

i'll be around when he's not in town
i'll show you how you're doing it wrong
i really love it when you tell me to stop
oh, it's turning me on...

i only come here
cause i know it makes you sad, yeah
i only do it
cause i know you know it's bad
oh yes i know, it's ugly
and it shouldn't be like that
oh, but, oh, it's turning me on.

i recieved the l'occitane catalogue in the post the other day. it was fabulous, and did you know all of their packaging is made out of pressed seaweed from the venetian canals, thanks?

i feel lucky saying that i have actually been to venice. i should like very much to go back one day and spend a lot more time darting about the canals a la madonna in the like a virgin video.

the problem with being in your twenties is that people are like, [they] are in their twenties! nothing matters! and simultaneously when the fuck are you gonna get your shit together?!? i think i just know a lot of pampered people. i know so many people with absolutely NO ambition and NO drive that it's numbed me for awhile. well, no' mo', joe.

also, where was the fucking emergency broadcast system during 9/11? i asked tara this a couple of weeks ago and i still don't know. i mean, there's that horrible beeeeeeep and then it says "if this had been an Actual Emergency this message would be followed by blah blah blah..."

they should change it to "if this had been an Actual Emergency, we would not have time for the emergency fucking broadcast system, because you would be watching live coverage of planes flying into buildings v. v. close to you."

because, you know, that's what we were actually doing. the emergency broadcast system had its chance to shine, and it blew it. that's probably why they revived the yule log. exchange one television retro rarity for the next.

updated goal sheet

-- put poems currently on computer on disk.

-- edit poems. for a short period of time.

-- print poems.

-- edit some more.

-- take poems, mucilage, paper, clip-art, collage, etc. to local copycenter and make zine.

-- really.

-- because it's time for production.

-- also, exercise. because i have gained thirty pounds. it's less about, ohmybigass and more about none of my clothes fit anymore.

-- get shitty temp job and be cheerful thinking all the while of MONEY and using proximity to fax and overwhelming amounts of downtime to edit, as mentioned above and

-- job search / fax my resume about.

-- buy new clothes.

-- exercise.

-- quit smoking, dammit.

-- get job i really want.

-- move out.

-- pay debt.

yeah. something like that.

corporate swindling update

less than a week after i called, wendy's sent me two little coupons for free burger/fries/softdrink meals.

dunkin' donuts sent me a coupon for 12 free donuts, and two coupons for a free small coffee.

i think a good idea would be for those of us who don't eat fast food to get these and give them to homeless people in nyc. you know, homeless people with easy access to fast food.

oh, and i actually saw a case of a corrupt locksmith on television the other day.*

oh, and i think i am quitting my job. i know i said i wouldn't, but i also said i wouldn't start temping again, and now i am happily reinstating myself at every agency i ever worked for. i mean, i can do nothing but work on and print out and fax my resume all day, thanks, while getting paid. and i will make money, and i will deal with less people, and i will not be harrassed by the neandertals i work avec.

*this will only be funny to bess. my apologies in advance.

she sent me an amazing mix, but i think there's something wrong with it. i mean, i managed to listen to the whole cd yesterday, and 'twas amazing, but for some reason, i cannot stop listening to track one, hallelujah by jeff buckley.*

i don't know why this is -- i mean, could it be that jeff is a scorpio, or that he is dead, or that he says things like this:

"I don't have any allegiance to an organized religion; I have an allegiance to the gifts that I find for myself in those religions... I'd rather be non-denominational, except for music. I prefer to learn everything through music. If you want divinity, the music in every human being and their love for music is pretty much it. It's the big indication of their spirituality and their ability to love and make love, or feel pain or joy, and really manifest it, really be real. But I don't believe in a big guy with a beard on a throne, telling us that we're bad; I certainly don't believe in original sin. I believe in the opposite of that: you have an Eden immediately from the time you are born, but as you are conditioned by your caretakers and your surroundings, you may lose that original thing. Your task is to get back to it, to claim responsibility for your own perfection."

or maybe it's the emails like this to his mailing list:

it`s buckley.

i know that it`s been a trillion years since you`ve heard anything from me, but well , that`s just me, i don`t really get excited about calling people or making any kind of social contact through computers or phones. i`m just a lazy bastard, i guess. but still, hi all! hope you`re well.i`m doing pretty nicely.

when december comes, i`ll be wandering around in an ugly rented car and dropping by some undesignated venues , maybe in your town if you`re in the northeast. i`m still not sure about where i`ll go. but , they will be solo shows. and i will have to use some other name. the new record will be out supposedly in late spring `97. it`s called my sweetheart the drunk. but you don`t have to call it anything. watch it get destroyed.

every song will have a quiet part and then a loud part at the shout chorus and the lyrics will totally open up new pathways in the human mind, allowing both sexes to fling themselves into the path of modern boredom and sloth like an oncoming path train it`s not just a woman`s job anymore. both must explode as one.there will be no pain or shock at the time of impact. there will only be coca-cola and disney. and hooks, lot`s and lot`s of hooks for the kids at summer break. for the employees of the year who suddenly crack under pressure and ascend to the clock towers with their candy bars and automatic rifles, or anyone who has finally come to the answers of ife.and lot`s of songs about chicks, i almost forgot... life. chicks. hooks. life. chicks. hooks.life. click click. bang. click click.chicks.click click. hooks . bang.bang. hooks.chicks . hooks .click click. candy bar. bang! bang! bang! snipers are the sex symbols of the future.every newspaper will send one to the after-show parties.so hot. so sexy. they`ll bang us all. i have to be in the meat district in ten minutes so i`ll sign off now. i love you. take care.

jeff

*by way of leonard cohen, and i think his lyrics are different, too. oh god, jeff buckley is my new dead boyfriend. move over, oscar wilde!

angel was really good tonight. a lot of sexual tension. cordy actually uttered the phrase i'm only alive when you're inside me. that's pretty raw, even for the wb. saw the others again. love that movie. i don't want to ruin the ending for anyone but it definitely fits into a category of a few films, and a few films only, but even mentioning them will give the ending away, and if you've seen it you know what they are.

i think bess seriously overstates my abilities, but i still like to hear. to be honest, bill gates deleted my inbox after i had read the important and to-be-replied to messages therein, since my account size is always hovering just 100k or so below the limit of the 2048k borderline, and when it gets too big anything in the inbox goes poof. but i am actually editing and altering a couple of the poems she gathered for me to suit citywriters. rilly.

do i disappoint with my hesitation? i promise to emerge shortly, with wonderful gilded things.

i am so tired lately. i hate my job, but i refuse to quit, simply because that is what i always do. i wish i could so i could devote myself full-time to finding something else, but i barely have money and i need to be doing something. i think maybe temping would work for me. the other day was horrible. a wicked customer yelled at me and then another customer of mine started yelling at her and it was a bad scene. she was just mean and ruthless and one of those people who goes to restaurants only to cause problems and to yell at the person who is helping them. i'm not saying this as a cop-out, either. i have fucked up plenty of times, and i know the difference between someone who is rightfully irritated with me and someone who is just looking for a place to sink their axe. i've only pissed customers off a handful of times, and i've only been randomly abused by a psycho like this woman twice. she was the second. i didn't let it break my spirit, but i wanted to kill her when she told me i needed to be more assertive. i wanted to walk out and just not go back, i wanted to tell my boss i thought i should just be leaving, i wanted it to be someone's fault. but instead my other table started freaking out on her and told her that she was being mean and cruel and basically needed to quit bitching. it was pretty wild.

but i'd still rather be in an office than on my feet serving for eleven hours straight tomorrow. sigh.

one terminal to the next
(in)discreetly wept

comfortable, he said --

more from barthes, as i can't resist:

language is a skin: i rub my language against the other. it is as if i had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. my language trembles with desire.

barthes, ibid, merci

your fingers are bent
and your hands are tied
you're fastening to her broken wings
and covering your eyes

so stop asking me
what she really meant
she's your flightless angel
it's your discontent

(for her empty gaze
of wonderment
is designed
to delight
and shock you)

maybe she'll tell you
what you want to hear
some delicate lies
for your delicate ears

maybe she'll make you see
something beyond the sphere
of deadly disenchantment
and useless old fears

so do me a favor,
just this once
act like you've been sucker-punched
pretend that this is real for once
because you may not be here again

with fingers that are bent
and hands that are tied
fasten to her broken wings
so you can say that you tried.

++++++++++++++++++++++

Fete/Festivity

the amorous subject experiences every meeting
with the loved being as a festival.

(then it is nothing, for you,
to be someone's festivity?)

roland barthes "a lover's discourse"