Little Museums

One of the most hilarious and romantic things I could be told by a het-boy:

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:47:16 GMT

"I still would've been really excited when I met you if you'd been a boy."

Do Not Be Ashamed, Wendell Berry

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:35:18 GMT

You will be walking some night in the comfortable dark of your yard and suddenly a great light will shine round about you, and behind you will be a wall you never saw before. It will be clear to you suddenly that you were about to escape, and that you are guilty: you misread the complex instructions, you are not a member, you lost your card or never had one. And you will know that they have been there all along, their eyes on your letters and books, their hands in your pockets, their ears wired to your bed. Though you have done nothing shameful, they will want you to be ashamed. They will want you to kneel and weep and say you should have been like them. And once you say you are ashamed, reading the page they hold out to you, then such light as you have made in your history will leave you. They will no longer need to pursue you. You will pursue them, begging forgiveness. They will not forgive you. There is no power against them. It is only candor that is aloof from them, only an inward clarity, unashamed, that they cannot reach. Be ready. When their light has picked you out and their questions are asked, say to them: "I am not ashamed." A sure horizon will come around you. The heron will begin his evening flight from the hilltop.

Seems pretty right-on

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:55:45 GMT

from Nerve's Sex Advice from Mike White:

...Another common subject of yours is outsiders. Do outsiders have an advantage in relationships when they grow up?
I think the earlier you realize that the conventions of relationships, the conventions of life, don’t pertain to you, the freer you are to make decisions based on your own happiness and your own criteria. That’s a real gift of being an outsider. If you grow up a little bit outside of the norm, you’re just free of normative thinking. The most unhappy people I know are people who made choices based on some kind of conventional wisdom as opposed what was right for them specifically.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:28:41 GMT

Someone, perhaps my mom, is pranking me. Over the last few months I've been receiving the following in the mail: varioius diaper coupons, ads for subscriptions to children's magazines, and, most recently, information on how I need to SAVE NOW FOR (MY) CHILD'S COLLEGE EDUCATION!

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:43:07 GMT

Can anyone tell me where I can look for a kalimba, or other "folk" instruments, around Toledo, Ann Arbor, Detroit, or Columbus? This is very birthday related.

From my mom

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:48:23 GMT

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:09:41 GMT

Cold has set into the house. I feel like I'm creeping through an abandoned barn.

I feel like fighting the good fight.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:49:34 GMT

daughter | nicole blackman
one day i'll give birth to a tiny baby girl
and when she's born she'll scream and i'll make sure she never stops.

i will kiss her before i lay her down
and will tell her a story so she knows how it is and how it must be for her to survive.

i'll tell her about the power of water, the seduction of paper
the promise of gasoline, and the hope of blood.

i'll teach her to shave her eyebrows and mark her skin.
i'll teach her that her body is her greatest work of art.

i'll tell her to light things on fire and keep them burning.
i'll teach her that the fire will not consume her,that she must take it and use it.

i'll tell her to be tri-sexual, to try anything, to sleep with, fight with, pray with anyone,
just as long as she feels something.
i'll help her to do her best work when it rains.
i'll tell her to reinvent herself every 28 days.

i'll teach her to develop all her selves
the courageous ones, the smart ones, the dreaming ones, the fast ones
i'll teach her that she has an army inside her that can save her life.

i'll tell her to say “fuck" like people say "THE"
and when people are shocked to ask them why they so fear a small quartet of letters.

i'll make sure she carries a pen so she can take down the evidence.
if she has no paper, i'll teach her to write everything down on her tongue,
to write it on her thighs.

i'll help her see that she will not find God
or salvation in a dark brick building built by dead men.

i'll explain to her it's better to regret the things she has done than the things she hasn't.
i'll teach her to write her manifestos on cocktail napkins.

i'll say she should make men lick her enterprise.
i'll teach her to talk hard.
i'll tell her that her skin is the most beautiful dress she will ever wear.

i'll tell her that people must earn the right to use her nickname,
that forced intimacy is an ugly thing.

i'll make her understand that she is worth more with her clothes on.

i'll tell her that when the words finally flow too fast and she has no use for a pen
that she must quit her job, run out of the house in her bathrobe, leaving the door open.
i'll teach her to follow the words.
i'll tell her to stand up and head for the door after she makes love.
when he asks her to stay she'll say she's got to go.

i'll tell her that when she first bleeds when she is a woman,
to go up to the roof at midnight, reach her hands up to the sky and scream.

i'll teach her to be whole, to be holy,
to be so much that she doesn't even need me anymore.

i'll tell her to go quickly and never come back.
i will make her stronger than me.

i'll say to her never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember.
i'll say to her never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember.
i'll say to her never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember

How do you develop immunity?

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:05:34 GMT

Stop feeling ashamed because this toxic culture makes you sick and take care of yourself.

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:45:53 GMT

My mom doesn't have cancer.

Fuck

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:45:35 GMT

One of my favorite kids from work was shot, which is why he's been absent all week.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:44:30 GMT

My mom might have cancer.

My mind, of course, is stuck on worst case scenarios and rolling around like a lead ball in a wooden box, and each dull thud is some other miserable part of my family life: alcoholism, incest, alienation. I know it's a masochistic indulgence, but sometimes it seems necessary to pity myself for the things I've had to endure, if at the very least in order to remind myself that THIS is the scramble of living, and it's fucking hard, and it's what you've got to work with-- no magic rituals to escape it, and no place to escape to.

And, just like when we first lost Dr. Bob, there's the feeling of being shoved to the frontline of this thing, without the illusory buffers between life and death where you sometimes fool yourself into finding comfort. Do what you gotta with what you got while you've got the chance.

This being said-- Abbie found out that we can use the "bookbinding lab" at the university WHENEVER WE WANT because it's only used for ONE CLASS that's GRADUATE level. Also, one of Mike's friends stopped by with red chaterelles later last week, which Steve and I tracked down in the woods yesterday. Needless to say, we have some delicious meals to thank these mushrooms for. And Steve and I are going canoeing with my family this weekend, and money troubles that have been hovering over my head have been resolved, and I getting into some regular and free, really good, yoga classes soon. Also, I'm reading Zami by Audre Lorde and it's so good that it might be the final kick in the ass I need to start writing seriously again. My newest painting is moving along and I'm nearly positive that I'm going to start renting a studio at the arts center-- I think part of the reason that I haven't pursued projects aside from large canvases and fiber arts, in spite of greatly desiring to make chapbooks and shadowboxes and etc etc etc, is that I just don't have the space. My boss lets me come in after close and paint in the classroom space in the shop I work at, but I can't keep things there and it's a fifteen-minute drive and an hour bike ride away. The arts center is a block away and I can see it from my bedroom window. I could go to my little room, spread out all of my things, and condense the meaning of my life into small objects you can hold in your hands.

Coming unwound is not an option. I need to do all that I can to build my endurance for handling real life and getting out of it what I want-- the opportunity to live as who I am and shape the world around me.

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:02:45 GMT

Ugh.

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:55:45 GMT

Mike showed me a project proposal with a big circle around (to paraphrase) AND RANGER RICK MAGAZINE WILL BE USED AS EDUCATIONAL LITERATURE BLAH BLAH BLAH. Then he asked me if they have a suit, like a mascot costume, that we could rent or something for me to wear during work.

This is funny because he makes fun of me for how often I've cited Ranger Rick magazines that I read during my childhood, but it's funnier because I've known him for six years and it's only been in the past four months that he's actually hassled me the way your real friends do. It's sort of like how he used to try to make me feel better about being short by telling me that short people live longer and have fewer opportunities to bash their heads against things, and now he gets a wicked & sadistic glint in his eye when ostentatiously reaching things in high places.

At least once he's said, "Hey, look at what I can do!" But I might be paraphrasing again...

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:18:28 GMT

I woke up this morning with the light outside still fuzzy enough to be confused for night-time light pollution, and a little bit of drizzle hitting gentle percussion. It's been strange the last few nights to sleep and wake alone-- Steve is out of town, and I've realized that it's been eight months since he slept in his own bed. I probably would've stayed in bed had he been there, but this is my favorite type of day and my favorite type of weather: morning light, just a bit of rain. Good for writing on a porch, drinking coffee. Good for a visit with my folks.

You can take Charlie out of the farm, but...

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:08:59 GMT

Charlie Johnson looked around sprawling, post-industrial Detroit, amazed. "You could raise cattle here!"

Why I can't go to art school

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:26:25 GMT

Adrienne Rich from What is Found There, on Tourism and Promised Lands (italics mine):

"Poems of the artists' colony: poems about grass being cut a long way off, poetry of vacation rather than vocation, poems written on retreat, like poems written at court, treating the court as the world.
"This is not to deplore the existence of artists' colonies, but rather the way they exist in a society where the general maldistribution of opportunity (basic needs) extends to the opportunity (basic need) to make art. Most of the people who end up at artists' colonies, given this maldistribution, are relatively well educated, have had at least the privilege of thinking that they might create art... One result is that art produced in an exceptional, rarefied situation like an artists' colony for the few can become rarefied, self-reflecting, complicit with the circumstances of its making, cut off from a larger, richer, and more disturbing life."

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:51:02 GMT

Goddamn I love Toledo.

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:46:49 GMT

We were supposed to get up at six thirty and ride our bikes to the east side of the river and take pictures of the city with the flat, lavender light of morning coming up and hitting the snake-skin of the buildings. Instead, we slept in. I think it was overcast, anyway. But maybe next weekend. Maybe this week I'll wake up half an hour before he does and get myself to one of the highway overpasses-- the only places in this neighborhood where you can see enough of the sky for it to matter.

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 18:22:04 GMT

We're on a trip to a small town now hollowed out because the college kids are home for the summer and all other forms of industry have caved in, and the lighting is clean and bright and there are lots of friendly shade trees and gentle hills and even the rougher parts of town (where people still live in the summer time, walking in groups of two or three back and forth from the convenience store to home) look inviting. And yet, and yet-- I get the sick, bilious feeling of having been cheated out of something-- however arbitrarily and unfairly assigned it is, anyhow, and of falling short of it, anyway. And I wish I had the hard, stream-lined body of a strong child or an ageless man with a stony and indecipherable face-- none of the superfluous flesh and plumage and always open, always violable femininity that I've grown into and cannot shed. I wish I knew already all of the things I want to learn because the process of discovery now has too many other witnesses to undertake unabashedly.

I used to think it would change if I could find the right place or the right company or the right things to do. And I feel like I am right where I belong and in good company and as appropriately occupied as I could be, but I still want to shake this all off and burrow into the hills and be transfigured into some other creature, if anything at all. Maybe just dissolve into a mystic's phosphorescent ether and stop having to know the intersections of nerves and space.

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:24:43 GMT

My favorite pro-gardening statement of the day:

"Man, I used to think I was hood, but there's nothing more hood than digging something out of the dirt and smashing on it right there."

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:39:33 GMT

Small things, like taking the deer path as a shortcut or collecting scraps of colored paper and little boxes.

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:30:00 GMT

Sometimes self-medicating works.

My week in music:
thelonious monk quartet with john coltrane at carnegie hall
nam june paik works 1958.1979
dolly parton the essential dolly parton (almost exclusively disc one)
jelly roll morton 24 rare recordings of piano solos...
post bop collection
animal collective merriweather post pavillion
miles davis complete bitches brew
muddy waters his best 1956-1964
charlie parker 1920-1955
leadbelly goodnight irence
deerhoof holdy paws
the carter family give me roses while i live
kronos quartet franghiz ali-zadeh
ray charles best of ray charles
john cage and david tutor indeterminacy

also, bananas by woody allen, kill rock stars video fanzine ii, the history of chemistry copyright 1951, the harmless people by elizabeth marshall thomas, zami by audre lorde, four complete yoga sessions, a long run, strength training, and covert, really satisfying sex at a family party.

oh, and plans for the future: school again, wwoofing in mexico, and wilderness education in the smokies (someplace i can rock climb). and maybe, eventually, i'll be able to buy the vance's property in montana.

work has been really, really great lately. i feel like i'm in the right spot.

thank you, internet

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:26:03 GMT

Two Limericks About Cetacean Evolution

The whale simply cannot decide
Just where she prefers to reside.
In water? On land?
In sea, or on sand?
She can't say, although both have been tried.

If the fish knew about it, they'd fail
To accept the strange past of the whale.
It might cause a riot,
So she keeps it quiet,
And hides her hind legs in her tail.

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:27:59 GMT

A message I missed while my computer was out of ops:

Subject: Please forward important announcement to all staff and friends!
Importance: High

Martha and Sigfried announce the arrive of little cygnet number one! Hopefully three more to hatch within the next few days. Toledo Botanical Garden welcomes the newest staff members. We look forward to a magnificent fleet of swans to enrich our lives.

I should tell the story of Martha and Sigfried sometime, and of Martha's long-lost George.