born into this mess

functioning at 2.3G

2006-09-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

this is a whinge alert. if you dont want to read my musings on misery, close this window.

i used to be so depressed that i had trouble participating in conversation. i just felt kind of scraped raw inside, hollowed out and wind whistling through my lungs and out through my eyes and ears. sometimes all this bile would come flowing out of me and it we be so much that i'd double up and start sobbing.

i don't feel particularly depressed anymore. i really want to go to picnics in the sunshine and to shows at dark party bars. i want to laugh and talk and dance. i wish it could happen to me.

i used to love the rain. it was great to sit outside on that couch in the carport at Decleyre or on the porch swing at Felix. we'd roll cigarettes and listen to will oldham through someone's half-opened bedroom window.

it makes my face feel swollen. pressure over my eyes. in my vertebrae, my shoulders, my knees. my bones are made of lead or something heavier. in this kind of gravity it gets hard to keep moving. i wobble when i stand still, and stumble often over my cold granite feet. there's a sort of resignation to it. i'd love to have more energy, to be lighter, and i certainly dont want to make other people be around me when i am like this.

i've become forgetful and self-centered. sometimes it's just me and the sickness no matter how many people are involved in the conversation. i think i am letting it win somehow, but i dont know how to stop. the generals of this army got lost somewhere in that first long move from menlo park to atlanta. self pity tears are my missiles. my words are nerve gas. i'm about as pleasant to be around as an armed conflict.

it is frightening to feel like this. how can the sickness be winning. i dont understand what i did for my body to feel like this.

i wish i could pay my library fines. i really just want to hole up and read today.

yeah, so

2006-04-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

Sometime last summer I took off for Chicago for a week. When I got back I started packing. Got here in November, made it through the winter largely by spending obsessive amounts of time on the internet.

It's gorgeous here, and I'm spending my day off on the beach.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Poem for Monday, September 19, 2005

2005-09-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

Tears

by Allen Ginsberg

I’m crying all the time now.
I cried all over the street when I left the Seattle Wobbly Hall.
I cried listening to Bach.
I cried looking at the happy flowers in my backyard,
I cried at the sadness of the middle-aged trees.

Happiness exists I feel it.

I cried for my soul, I cried for the world’s soul.
The world has a beautiful soul.
God appearing to be seen and cried over. Overflowing
heart of Patterson.

how does it make you feel?

2005-09-14T06:29:00.000-07:00

A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush from Michael Moore

To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That's right. Horse shows.

I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the ..2 and ..3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That's not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read "My Pet Goat" to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying "Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you're doing a heck of a job!"

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn't a horse show.

Yours,
Michael Moore

so you know

2005-08-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

laptop is in the shop.

hence, minimal posting until it gets home.

xoxo,

red

Poem for Monday, August 8th

2005-08-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Two Short Poems

from “Short Poems 1994”

by Kathleen Raine

So far, so good.

And when the pain comes
I talk to God.

untitled

by Kikaku

Above the boat,
bellies
of wild geese.

Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
Winner of Best of Memphis in Memphis Flyer
for 7 Straight Years

sue is jacketed for transport to the lab

2005-07-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

from googlism.com

sue is human
sue is going au natural
sue is the largest
sue is great
sue is handling the $$$
sue is coming to fresno
sue is goo goo for johnny
sue is gone
sue is mary sue is mary sue*"
sue is coming
sue is gay
sue is one of glendale area's
sue is on the web
sue is a champion
sue is a
sue is alive and well'
sue is human leander kahney
sue is that you? or
sue is so perfect in the author's mind that she soon takes over the story and everything revolves around her
sue is great i just wanted to say that sue thought about this
sue is gone i am not an actor but i've been on stage since she left
sue is jacketed for transport to the lab
sue is a permanent feature at the field museum
sue is prohibited
sue is my middle name
sue is all about
sue is mary sue is mary sue
sue is set out in the limitations act
sue is a fan created character
sue is in
sue is pure class
sue is here to help
sue is for sale
sue is currently working with dr
sue is
sue is very special
sue is shown finishing her championship in merritt
sue is an icon
sue is a member of a select group in the accounting industry
sue is born
sue is proud of her new body and shows it off on national tv
sue is so good that she plays her flute at weddings
sue is right
sue is creative
sue is largely responsible for
sue is a pet
sue is an
sue is the perky
sue is vigilant in ensuring that the children's needs are met
sue is working very well
sue is a post a comment name
sue is basically wish fulfillment
sue is a real estate agent that is known in the community of brunswick for their dedicated client service
sue is always ready to help students get their paperwork done for graduation
sue is taught to see herself within victorian sexual ideology
sue is susannah weaver and a band of local professionals
sue is an indiana university alumna
sue is a goddess challenge
sue is one of our many world
sue is passionate about working with rural communities that are struggling to manage change
sue is in the hospi tal
sue is about 5'5"
sue is out in the snow
sue is the third person from the right side
sue is basically an avatar
sue is not just an aerobic star
sue is the biggest thing to hit union station since the titanic set sail
sue is remarkable because of her size
sue is at the florida museum of natural history
sue is having twins
sue is also an instructor for arts for the aging
sue is an advocate for media literacy
sue is actually a lesbian
sue is concerned about global warming
sue is expected to take more than two years
sue is a trained mechanic
sue is mother of john
sue is sane
sue is a woman
sue is alive and well 17 quilts featuring sunbonnet sue and overall sam autori
sue is an engineering process for accurately identifying the quality of subsurface utility information needed for highway plans
sue is my best friend
sue is the mother of four children
sue is the light of my life
sue is also qualified as an iso internal auditor
sue is professor of psychology at the california school of professional psychology
sue is human
sue is going au natural
sue is the largest
sue is handling the $$$
sue is coming to fresno
sue is miss september angelbabe 2002
sue is goo goo for johnny
sue is mary sue is mary sue*"
sue is my middle name
sue is jacketed for transport to the lab
sue is prohibited
sue is gone
sue is pure class
sue is in town
sue is gay
sue is desponded's
sue is one of glendale area's
sue is alive and well
sue is alive and well'
sue is human leander kahney
sue is that you? or
sue is so perfect in the author's mind that she soon takes over the story and everything revolves around her
sue is great
sue is a site
sue is nothing new
sue is miss september angelbabe
sue is all about
sue is mary sue is mary sue
sue is set out in the limitations act
sue is a permanent feature at the field museum
sue is a fan created character
sue is gone i am not an actor but i've been on stage since she left
sue is here to help
sue is currently working with dr
sue is in
sue is very special
sue is a member of a select group in the accounting industry
sue is born
sue is serving up the easter bunny this year
sue is largely responsible for coordinating and scheduling activities of bbi international president mike bryan
sue is not an exclusively female phenomenon
sue is vigilant in ensuring that the children's needs are met
sue is an examiner for
sue is a pot plant that has a built
sue is basically an avatar
sue is a pet
sue is so good that she plays her flute at weddings
sue is for sale
sue is currently under the "care" of the south dakota school of mines and technology staff at the museum of geology
sue is the perky
sue is taught to see herself within victorian sexual ideology
sue is basically wish fulfillment
sue is susannah weaver and a band of local professionals
sue is always ready to help students get their paperwork done for graduation
sue is having twins
sue is a real estate agent that is known in the community of brunswick for their dedicated client service
sue is friendly and loves to converse with her members
sue is working very well
sue is the biggest thing to hit union station since the titanic set sail
sue is a trained mechanic
sue is remarkable because of her size
sue is correct
sue is one of our many world
sue is actually a lesbian
sue is in the hospi tal
sue is out in the snow
sue is an icon
sue is concerned about global warming
sue is available for clinics and lessons at home and abroad and explains in plain english
sue is mother of john
sue is focusing on the season and improving her game
sue is one of disney's top booking agents in the northeastern us
sue is my best friend
sue is alive and well 17 quilts featuring sunbonnet sue and overall sam autori
sue is the light of my life
sue is battling her own depression
sue is taking the league by
sue is the mother of four children
sue is revision 2 of the same program
sue is sane
sue is a graduate of western michigan university
sue is
sue is a very special dinosaur
sue is?
sue is unconscious

finally found the love of a lifetime

2005-07-26T06:50:00.000-07:00

apple pie for breakfast.

step-babies

2005-07-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

pk

pk and trip

cat, what are you EATING?

2005-07-24T17:26:00.000-07:00

2005-07-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

it's interesting to me that the main treatment for BPD uses elements drawn from Zen. I've been thinking for a while now about going to live in Zen monastery. it's always been something I've kept filed away in the back of my head in a glass-fronted case marked "Break Glass in Case of Emergency."

maybe not so filed away, now.

my true love

2005-07-20T19:54:00.000-07:00

Poem for Monday, July 18, 2005

2005-07-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

(late, sorry)

It's Yevgeny Yevtushenko's birthday.

"Birthday"

by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Mother, let me congratulate you on
the birthday of your son.
You worry so much about him. Here he lies,
he earns little, his marriage was unwise,
he's long, he's getting thin, he hasn't shaved.
Oh, what a miserable loving gaze!
I should congratulate you if I may
mother on your worry's birthday.
It was from you he inherited
devotion without pity to this age
and arrogant and awkward in his faith
from you he took his faith, the Revolution.
You didn't make him prosperous or famous,
and fearlessness is his only talent.
Open up his windows,
let in the twittering in the leafy branches,
kiss his eyes open.
Give him his notebook and his ink bottle,
give him a drink of milk and watch him go.

Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

fun with borderline personality disorder

2005-07-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

if i had a trust fund, or even decent insurance, i could take a real nice little vacation at mclean. hell, even st francis'd be nice.

instead i sit and freeze on the top floor of the library, watching traffic on poplar and walnut grove, wondering how much more of this i can take.

that's ok; my will is good...

on sisyphus

2005-07-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

"it is what he thinks of during his descent..." -Camus

on the way down I wonder
what would happen
if I refused to pick it back up.

"a decent society is one which does not humiliate its members"-Zapatero, Spain's president

2005-07-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

a few days ago my grandfather sent me a horrifyingly offensive email forward, full of jingoistic propaganda claiming that the "muslim world" has attacked the US because of their "envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms..."

I'm wondering exactly which freedoms they are referring to.

Spain's just passed a law legalizing same sex marriage. Canada is expecting a similar law in the next few weeks.

We're living in the only "first-world" country that does not provide universal healthcare to its citizens.

we allow religious fanatics to lock their children up in "ministries" that promise to make god-fearing church members out of their rebellious drug-abusing or queer teens.

our schools are pathetically underfunded, our air and water are polluted, our meat is is tainted, and there's a dead zone the size of New Jersey in the gulf of Mexico from the pesticide runoffs from our farms.

my friends are sure that they are being bugged and won't speak freely in public places. patriot act and all.

kids get the shit beat out of them for being who they are. it's an inevitable thing around here, you're gonna get picked on, beat up, discriminated against.

some success. some freedoms.

I'm tired, I'm sick, and things just get worse.

about damn time

2005-07-06T14:44:00.000-07:00

"The White House is completely disconnected from reality..."

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, via al-Jazeera

Poem for Monday, July 4, 2005

2005-07-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

Jar of Fireflies

by Charles Simic

In the first dark,
Someone is there
Under the trees.

The hands flare
And the face.
But not long enough
To see who it is.

That is why I listen
For approaching steps
And hear only
The wind worrying
The dark leaves.

Happy July 4th, Independence Day. Shop your locally owned, independent bookstores.

Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
Winner of Best of Memphis in Memphis Flyer
for 7 Straight Years

proud to be a mac owner

2005-07-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

Steve Job's commencement address to Stanford:

"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

via PulpFaction.

cutter (a fragment)

2005-07-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

each scar is a mouth,
swollen with tooth-sharp words.
some secrets bite, and bite deep.

they surface from skin
shocking as earthworms
that curl, wounded, under bare feet.

2005-06-27T16:21:00.000-07:00

the worst thing about fibromyalgia is that it makes me crazy. the worse i feel in my body, the worse i feel inside my head. i sleep 12 hours a night and wake up exhausted, even with extra seroquel.

wah wah wah. poor me.

I think I'm losing my mind this time; this time, I'm losing my mind

2005-06-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

it's a very strange feeling to have an audience while having a nervous breakdown.

the whole Love in Action thing has stirred up a lot of bad memories. it's been really rough lately, trying to keep my shit together, knowing eventually I'm gonna fall apart again. only this time they've taken away the safety net.

it's hard, knowing that MMHI is the only place I'll end up if it gets too bad to keep living in the real world.

fun with borderline personality disorder. temper tantrums, a soul-tearing fear of abandonment, violent mood swings. the nearly tangible sensation of imagining all the seroquel i own in my mouth.

binge eating. lack of faith in the future. inability to balance checkbook or pay bills on time.

second chance fucked me up.

2005-06-26T03:17:00.000-07:00

the weekend of thanksgiving 1993 I waited til everyone had fallen asleep and then out the door wearing on everything i owned. heartbeat in ears running down hotel corridors and out into the night. 38 degrees or so trying to get warm under the 240/poplar overpass. huddled up under the briges wrapped in newsprint thinking maybe, maybe i'll be able to hitch back home to atlanta.

picked up by security guards in the parking lot of st francis. huddled up next to heating vents trying to get warm. newsprint blankets. hundreds of miles from home. counting hours.

trying to get warm.

when they came to pick me up in the morning from juvenile court i didnt want to leave. 13 and didnt give a shit about the future, just wanted to be able to pee alone.

they dragged me out. i kept grabbing the officers' legs. if i hit one of y'all can i stay.

you're just a pathetic little druggie and you need to get honest with yourself and work your program.

so not over it.

not at all.

god bless you, Margaret Cho

2005-06-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

so many thousands of people showing so much support. hang in there, kiddo

2005-06-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

didn't get the job. don't know why. too tired to care.

fibromyalgia sucks ass.

2005-06-19T01:24:00.000-07:00

wow

2005-06-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

take this, homophobics:

Old Testament
Leviticus 18:22

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. ASV

Correct Hebrew translation: "and with a male thou shalt not lie down in beds of a woman; it is an abomination".

It can be seen that, rather than forbidding male homosexuality, it simply restricts where it may occur. Culturally, a woman's bed was her own. Other than the woman herself, only her husband was permitted in her bed, and there were even restrictions on when he was allowed in there. Any other use of her bed would have been considered defilement. Other verses in the Law will help clarify the acceptable use of the woman's bed.

Leviticus 20:13

13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. KJV

Correct Hebrew translation: "And a man who will lie down with a male in beds of a woman, both of them have made an abomination; dying they will die. Their blood is on them.

Again it can be seen that, rather than forbidding male homosexuality, it simply restricts where it may occur. Culturally, a woman's bed was her own. Other than the woman herself, only her husband was permitted in her bed, and there were even restrictions on when he was allowed in there. Any other use of her bed would have been considered defilement. Other verses in the Law will help clarify the acceptable use of the woman's bed.

I Samuel 18

1 Sam 18:3-4 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle. KJV

In this passage it speaks of an "immediate bond of love", their souls being "in unison," their souls being "knit". Genesis 2:7, as written in the original Hebrew, describes how God blew the spirit into the body of Adam that God had formed from earth, so that Adam became a living soul. This means that "soul", in the ancient Israelite times and in the Old Testament Hebrew, represents a combination of body and spirit. Thus the two men appear to have loved each other both physically and spiritually. I Samuel 18:3-4 also tell us that Jonathan and David made a covenant, and that, to seal the covenant, Jonathan took off all the things he was wearing and gave them to David. The things he took off tell us a lot about the covenant itself. He took off his sword and bow and gave them to David, signifying that he intended to protect David. But it went further than that. By taking off all his clothes, he signified a much deeper and more intense relationship. Had this not been the start of a physical, sexual relationship, Jonathan's actions would have been considered bizarre indeed, by the standards of their day, or ours.4

1 Sam 18:21 And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son-in-law a second time. ASV

1 Sam 18:21 And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son in law in the one of the twain. KJV

Notice that "the one of" is in italics in the KJV. That means they are not found in the Hebrew text. In fact, they are not even hinted at in the Hebrew text. Adding them completely changed the meaning of the verse. Verse 21 proves that Jonathan and David's covenant was a marriage covenant, and that Saul recognized the marriage, since, beside Michal, David had no marriage covenant with any of Saul's other children. Although he was supposed to marry Saul's daughter Merab, that never happened. Therefore, the only two of Saul's children he had covenants with were Jonathan and Michal. Just as a point of information, Hebrew has no word for "son-in-law". The Hebrew word used in the verse is a verb which means "to be related by marriage". Since Saul used the verb in connection with David's impending marriage to Michal, it is clear that the relationship he referred to was indeed son-in-law.

Also notice that King Saul didn't draw any distinction between David's marriage to Jonathan and his impending marriage to Michal. Although Saul didn't approve of the marriage between the two men, 1 Sam 20:30, he still recognized it as a marriage, and not just two men living together.

I Samuel 20

I Samuel 20:30 "Then Saul's anger burned toward Jonathan, and he said to him, Thou son of the perversion of rebelliousness! Don't I know that thou has chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion (see note) and the confusion of thy mother's *****?" (see note below)

Confusion - The word confusion has a somewhat different meaning here than the one we usually use. Rather than meaning "being confused," it refers instead to being undone or frustrated in purpose. What Saul was saying was that by choosing David, Jonathan was a rebellious son who was confounding his own future, as well as the very reason that Saul and Jonathan's mother had conceived him, that is, to ascend to the throne of Israel when his father died. Saul expounded on this in verse 31, and then offered to "remedy" the situation by having David killed. Saul's annoyance with his son's choice had nothing to do with David's gender, but only reflected the fact that as long as David was alive, Jonathan would never be king of Israel.
***** There is no polite English word for the phrase King Saul used. He used a graphic and vulgar term for the female genitalia.

1 Sam 20:41
And as soon as the lad was gone, David arose out of a place toward the south, and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times: and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded. KJV

Correct Hebrew translation:
I Samuel 20:41 "As soon as the boy was gone, David arose from the south, and fell on his face to the ground, and bowed three times. They kissed each other, and wept together, until David experienced an erection." (Hebrew: "became large")3

II Samuel 1:26

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. KJV

David expressed his love for the late Jonathan. Please understand that when David referred to the love of women, the only possible love he could be referring to was sexual love. It was considered highly improper for a man to have any type of platonic friendship with a woman. Men and women usually didn't even speak to each other in public. Even a husband and wife would not speak to each other in the street. (The Chassidic Jews still observe this custom.) Since David would not have had any platonic relationships with women, he could only have been referring to sexual interaction. This is further indication of the sexual nature of his relationship with Jonathan, since it would not make sense to compare a platonic relationship with a man to a sexual relationship with a woman. David clearly preferred the love of Jonathan. Nowhere in scripture will you find David expressing such love for a woman. Although he married more than once, and fathered children, he never expressed such love for any of his wives.

taken from this incredibly informative site.

still reading, Mom and Dad? maybe you should study hebrew so you can learn what your Bible REALLY says.

fall down go boom

2005-06-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

sue+heels+hilife+gravel driveway=ouch

o superman

2005-06-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

signs of depression:

spending hours in bed reading and on myspace
letting dishes fester in sink
havent vacuumed or swept in 2 weeks
sleep for 10 hours and still feel exhausted
body pain
listening to laurie anderson on repeat

i feel fine. don't really feel anything. reckless, if anything.

interview is in 3.5 hours. i hurt all over. crappity crap crap.

here come the planes

that's ok; my will is good

2005-06-11T04:22:00.000-07:00

inevitably it comes back to this: is the person I am on Meds ME? and if she is, why do I rebel against her so strongly?

I'm so very tired of all of this fighting against this. this has got to be the 20 somethingth medication I've taken and basically if I take I high enough dose to be effective i go through a radical personality (both emotional and physical change.

I just want ot be me and be ok with that.

you can hide 'neath your covers and study your pain

the protest continues...

2005-06-10T15:51:00.000-07:00

for further news about the Love in Action protest, go here.

IT'S OK!
TO BE GAY!

FIGHT THE RIGHT!

tell it, Jimmy, tell it

2005-06-08T21:03:00.000-07:00

"To demonstrate clearly our nation's historic commitment to protect human rights, our government needs to close down Guantanamo and the two dozen secret detention facilities run by the United States as soon as practicable."

-Jimmy Carter, via Aljazeera

eep!

2005-06-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

on my way out of the bank my phone started ringing. normally I don't answer the phone when I don't know the number, but after my friend Deidre told me a horror story about missing a call for an interview, I've been answering.

and to my great delight and total surprise, it was the principal at Central High School. Central is the midtown high school, that is, in the region where I live, so it's my number one choice. it's a fairly diverse school, about 80% black, 15% white, and the rest latino and asian. it's right by my favorite part of town, little Saigon.

so, da da da da DUM! I have an interview with central on Monday! the whole time I was clenaing the Pilates studio I kept jumping straight up into the air and squeaking out of excitement.

the protest against Refuge continues. hopefully I'll be able to make it out in the afternoon tomorrow and friday.

here's me being interviewed for channel 13:

"I just don't think god needs people to lock their kids up to make them love him." I was so mad I was crying, so I'm astounded I didn't come off sounding like an idiot.

according to the ABC 24 poll, 79% of memphis is against forced conversion of homosexuals. that's my city, y'all.

IT'S OK! TO BE GAY! I think I'm going to make myself a t-shirt for the pride parade on Saturday that says "I love my gay best friend." gotta represent my family, know what I mean?

gotta run. eep! Job interview! monday!

boats against the current

2005-06-06T19:57:00.000-07:00

rereading the time traveler's wife, I am struck by this thought.

this is what it must be like to love me.

never knowing at what moment the most random of thoughts, sights, sounds, will pull me unable to resist back into the past. I wonder what my face looks like when I leave, those moments when I'm looking inside of myself, is it the face a child makes holding a shell up to her ear, straining to hear the vacated sea?

what waves break behind my eyes, I can't tell you, nor can I take you there.

born back ceaselessly into the past...

so warped

2005-06-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

apparently up in raleigh/bartlett there's an extremely religious treatment center, the refuge, not just for drugs, but mostly for homosexual behavior where horrible evil controlling baptists and evangelicals are locking up their kids for not being the way they want them to.

places like these have straight up been called child abuse by the APA. i oughta know, as i spent 14 months in one when I was 13 and had(have!) massive psychosocial damage as a result; I used to fantasize about ways I could kill myself or at least hurt myself badly enough to get out. I had recurring nightmares for most of my adolescence. I ran away after 2 months and got taken to juvenile court, where I begged to stay. my parents had to physically drag me out of JC, it was that bad.

and they feel all sorry for themselves cos I don't talk to them. hey, mom and dad, you're funding child abuse and you wonder why i dont want to talk to you?
their church is listed as one of this fucked-up place's supporters. they fund this religious child abuse every week with their little envelope in the plate.

hope you are proud of yourselves. now you can create a whole new generation of angry, self-mutilating, borderline personality teenagers. i'm sure they'll have happy and productive lives when they get to be, oh, 30, and quit talking to THEIR parents, when they get 12 years of therapy to finally be able to be an ex-ex-gay.

here's a link to the website. you can see how fucked up it is for yourself.

http://www.asafeplace.org/default.aspx?pid=1

there's a protest tomorrow, apparently this kid came out to their parents and now is getting locked up. as far as I know, children over 14 can't be held for longer than 72 hours without a court order, but I'm not sure how exactly that is enforced.

"so this protest, 830 am at st elisabeth's episcapolian church 4780 yale in raleigh.
if you're coming from midtown there are about a hundred ways to get there, but the easiest (if not most out indirect?) is to take sam cooper to the 240 loop. go 240 east (? toward covington pike) to Tn 14 N-Austin Pea highway. go 2.8 miles into raleigh on 14 N and turn right at yale (beside the raleigh springs mall). the church is on the left past some shopping centers at this odd location at the first light."

if you need further evidence of how incredibly horrible and fucked up this place is, here's a copy of their rules: I'm bolding some of the especially fucked up parts, like no eye contact or communication for your first couple of days. NO EYE CONTACT? what is it, the guantanamo prison for terrorists? these are little kids we are talking about!

Refuge Program Rules
Exceptions to program rules will be granted by C.O.C. (Chain of Command) only.

Sobriety

One of the core functions of the Refuge is the common pursuit of corporate sobriety from sin. The program strives to perpetuate a safe environment that is ripe for growth and for hearing from God. The sobriety of each individual is a key focus.

Galatians 5:19 - 21: 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, 21 envying, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:12-15: 12 "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are expedient. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be brought under the power of anything. 13 "Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods," but God will bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. 14 Now God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Don't you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Will I then take away the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? Certainly not!

1 Corinthians 6:18: 18 Flee sexual immorality. "Every sin that a man does is outside the body," but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

1 Thessalonians 4:2-5: 2 For you know what charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, 4 that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust...

1. No smoking, alcohol, drugs, or inappropriate use of over-the-counter medications. All prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications must be left in the care of a parent or guardian, who will administer them when necessary. Refuge clients may not have prescription or over-the-counter drugs in their possession at any time, exceptions by C.O.C. approval only.

2. No sexual/emotional misconduct. Any temptations, fantasies, or dreams are to be presented to one¹s staff worker only. Sexual misconduct includes viewing pornography, visiting an adult bookstore, emotional dependency, voyeurism, stalking, masturbation, mutual masturbation, or any form of genital or sexual contact with another person. Sexual temptation, as well as the above, is not to be discussed between clients. This includes MI's (Moral Inventories) written on current sexual struggles or temptations).

3. No hugging or physical touch between clients. Brief handshakes or a brief affirmative hand on a shoulder is allowed (exception is when observed by therapeutic accountability).

4. Clients are to remain within the ³safe zone² while in the program. This "zone" is illustrated on a map of the Memphis area in the office. An exception is for clients who reside or are staying outside the safe zone, and commuting to the Love in Action campus.

Hygiene

Small unhealthy habits can either reflect or lead to dysfunctional, life-controlling habits. Attention to the details of daily lifestyle is a pivotal aspect of residential recovery.

Luke 10:27: 27 He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

Luke 16:10: 10 He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much. He who is unrighteous in a very little is also unrighteous in much.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20: 19 Or don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

Psalm 139:13-14: 13 For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I will give thanks to you, For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.

1. All clients must maintain appropriate hygiene, including daily showering, use of deodorant, and brushing teeth twice daily.
Men: Men must remove all facial hair seven days weekly, and sideburns must not fall below the top of the ear (the top
of the ear is defined as where the ear meets the face below the temple). Clean business-like haircuts must be worn at all
times. Hair must be long enough to be pinched between two fingers.
Women: Women must shave legs and underarms at least twice weekly.
All: Only natural hair color is allowed. Hair that is colored, highlighted or streaked, mut be dyed back to its original color, or the color must be cut out before entrance into the Refuge program.

2. Attire: General
Modesty is expected. No tight, provocative, or suggestive clothing or spandex may be worn. No provocative or
suggestive mannerisms are permitted. Fresh undergarments are to be worn at all times. Boxer shorts of any kind are
considered underwear and are not to be worn as outer clothing. All clients must be dressed appropriately in clean,
unwrinkled clothes when leaving the house for the day. Men may not wear any jewelry (other than a watch and a wedding band) unless approved through a C.O.C. In addition to a watch and wedding band, women may also wear a pair of simple earrings (one earring per ear.) The clients may not wear Abercrombie and Fitch or Calvin Klein brand clothing, undergarments, or accessories.
Men: Shirts are to be worn at all times, even while sleeping. T-shirts without sleeves are not permitted at any time,
whether worn as an outer garment or an undergarment. This includes ³muscle shirts² or other tank-tops. Bikini-style underwear is prohibited.
Women: Bras must be worn at all times, except while sleeping. Thong-style underwear is prohibited.

Attire: LIA Campus
In addition to the General Attire above, the following items apply. No torn, ragged, or stained clothing is to be worn at
any time while on campus. Monday through Thursday, clients must wear pants, a clean shirt, and shoes or sandals with
socks. Jeans and a nice t-shirt are acceptable. On Friday, clients may wear clean, knee-length khaki or denim-style shorts.
No athletic or excessively baggy shorts may be worn on campus at any time. No hats, jackets, or overcoats are to be
worn on campus
Women: In addition to these guidelines, women may also wear skirts which fall at or below the knee. Women may wear
tank-tops only if they are worn with an over-blouse. Women may wear open-toed shoes or women¹s dress sandals
without socks. Bras must be worn at all times, except while sleeping. Sports bras may only be worn while working out.
No sleeveless blouses may be worn. All blouses and t-shirts must fit modestly (not extremely tight).

3. No cologne, perfume, or use of other highly scented hygiene products.

Therapeutic & Staff Issues

A goal of the Source is to be purposeful and strategic in order to help clients pursue growth and transformation. The principles below are common elements of this plan.

Romans 13:1-5: 1 Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who be are ordained by God. 2 Therefore he who resists the authority, withstands theordinance of God; and those who withstand will receive to themselves judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Do you desire to have no fear of the authority? Do that which is good, and you will have praise from the same, 4 for he is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he doesn't bear the sword in vain; for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him who does evil. 5 Therefore you need to be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience¹s sake.

Hebrews 13:17: 17 Obey those who have the rule over you, and submit to them, for they watch on behalf of your souls, as those who will give account, that they may do this with joy, and not with groaning, for that would be unprofitable for you.

1. HONESTY AT ALL TIMES.

2. IF IN DOUBT, DON¹T. ASK FIRST.

3. All clients are expected to memorize the Program Expectations as they summarize the spirit and heart of the rules of Love in Action.

4. All Refuge program members must complete four MI's (Moral Inventories) per week unless otherwise instructed. Detailed instruction on writing MI¹s will be provided within the first few days of beginning the program.

5. Refuge clients will be prepared to give an Introduction (³Intro²) at every Intro Rap. Detailed instruction on giving an intro will be provided within the first few days of the program.

6. To make special requests of the staff or inform the staff of something (e.g. asking permission to leave the safe zone for some reason, informing the staff of a breach in program rules, etc.), Refuge clients must communicate appropriately. This means filling out a Chain of Command (C.O.C.) form. All C.O.C.¹s must be signed by the Refuge client¹s parent or guardian before being submitted to a staff member, or the C.O.C. will be returned with no answer. All C.O.C.¹s must be concise and not ³story tell² or ³whine.² Such will be returned with no reply.

7. No continuing education while in the program. Home-school Refuge clients may be allowed to continue their studies during the program, pending approval by LIA staff.

6. Refuge clients and their parents/guardians are required to attend Love in Action¹s host church, Germantown Baptist Church, on Sunday mornings. More information about GBC can be found online at www.gbconline.net.

7. Parents and guardians are expected to attend the Friends and Family support group on Thursday nights from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., held at the Love in Action campus. Refuge clients will be supervised during this time by a Love in Action staff member.

8. Refuge clients and their parents/guardians are expected to attend Love in Action¹s Open Meetings whenever they occur, held on the first Tuesday of every month at Kirby Woods Baptist Church at 7:30 p.m.

9. Refuge clients are expected to maintain a committed pursuit of a positive and thankful attitude.

10. Absolutely no journaling or keeping a diary outside of the MI process unless directed or approved by staff.

11. Absolutely no calling staff outside business hours unless it is an emotional, therapeutic, or physical emergency, or unless prior permission from staff has been obtained.

12. Additional (i.e. beyond one per week) one-on-one counseling sessions will be granted by C.O.C. appointment only.
False Image (FI) Concerns

Through the Source, God renews clients¹ minds and lives, helping them to put off the old self and put on the new. False images are items or behaviors that are of the old self.

Proverbs 8:6-8: 6 Hear, for I will speak excellent things. The opening of my lips is for right things. 7 For my mouth speaks truth. Wickedness is an abomination to my lips. 8 All the words of my mouth are in righteousness. There is nothing crooked or perverse in them.

Ephesians 4:17-25: 17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts; 19 who having become callous gave themselves up to lust, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 20 But you did not learn Christ that way; 21 if indeed you heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus: 22 that you put away, as concerning your former way of life, the old man, that grows corrupt after the lusts of deceit; 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new man, that like God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth. 25 Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak truth each one with his neighbor. For we are members one of another.

1. LIA wants to encourage each client, male and female, by affirming his/her gender identity. LIA also wants each client to pursue integrity in all of his/her actions and appearances. Therefore, any belongings, appearances, clothing, actions, or humor that might connect a client to an inappropriate past are excluded from the program. These hindrances are called False Images (FI¹s). FI behavior may include hyper-masculinity, seductive clothing, mannish/boyish attire (on women), excessive jewelry (on men), mascoting, and "campy" or gay/lesbian behavior and talk.

2. As non-residential clients, Refuge participants must submit to an F.I. search every morning. With the exception of the very first program day, when they may arrive no later than 9:00 a.m., Refuge clients will arrive daily at the Love in Action campus no later than 8:50 a.m., waiting in a designated area until a staff member meets them to perform the F.I. search and check them in. Refuge clients may not enter any of the client spaces on campus before submitting to an F.I. search. All belongings brought to campus will be searched, including book bags, notebooks, wallets, handbags, purses, etc. Items that violate the F.I. policy or the dress code will be held for the client, to be returned no later than the client¹s last day in program. Clients may request to have their F.I. items returned by filling out a C.O.C.

3. All photographs will be taken for the purpose of sobering re-evaluation. Clients may request to have pictures returned to them via C.O.C.

4. Refuge clients will not be allowed to use personally owned computers during the program, whether on campus or at home/in temporary lodging. Computer stations are normally available on campus when clients need to type something.

5. Clients should report all FI's (with discretion), whether their own or another's, to staff.

Campus Rules

LIA honors clients¹ confidentiality and time. A campus structure has been established that will ensure a fair and balanced approach to every client.

1 Corinthians 14:40 Let all things be done decently and in order.

1. No visiting or entering staff offices unless prior permission is given.

2. While on the LIA campus, Refuge clients must be in phase at all times, whether indoors or out of doors. A client is ³in phase² when he or she is with two or more other clients (whether Refuge or residential,) one of whom must have been in the program for at least eight weeks. Exceptions to phase rules will be granted by C.O.C. request only.

3. Further campus rules which are still being developed and revised will be communicated to Refuge clients on their arrival.

Relationship Issues

Emotional dependency and inappropriate sexual behaviors have their roots in unresolved relationship issues as well as poor personal or relational boundaries. As a key part to his/her recovery, each client¹s program will focus significant attention on resolving relationship concerns and cultivating healthy relationships, both within and outside of the program.

Psalm 133:1-3: 1 See how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to live together in unity! 2 It is like the precious oil on the head, That ran down on the beard, Even Aaron's beard; That came down on the edge of his robes; 3 Like the dew of Hermon, That comes down on the hills of Zion: For there Yahweh gives the blessing, Even life forevermore.

Romans 15:5-6: 5 Now the God of patience and of comfort grant you to be of the same mind one with another according to Christ Jesus, 6 that with one accord you may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

John 17:22 The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one.

Ephesians 4:1-3: 1 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, 2 with all lowliness and humility, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love; 3 being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

1. No physical violence or physically threatening dialogue. Violation of this rule warrants immediate dismissal from the program.

2. No breaching another person's confidentiality to anyone outside the program.

3. No talking behind another person's back (TBB).

4. The 24-hour rule is to be used after challenging another client who is in breach of the program rules. If one notices that another client¹s inappropriate behavior continues, the client should be challenged to report to staff. If in 24 hours he/she has not done so, one is required to report the breach to staff via C.O.C. or verbal communication.

5. Due to the nature of many gender identity struggles, issues of enmeshment and emotional dependency can develop not only with same sex, but sometimes even more easily with the opposite sex. Because healthy and appropriate same and opposite-sex relationships are encouraged, dating and exclusive relationships of any kind are prohibited while in the program.

6. Clients may have no contact with anyone who has left the program prior to graduating without the blessing of the staff to do so. Clients may address off-limit persons they inadvertently encounter with a polite "hello" only.

7. While in the program, clients may have no contact with anyone involved in unrepentant emotional dependencies, inappropriate sexual behaviors, or chemical dependencies. This includes any contact with friends struggling with dependency issues or inappropriate sexual behavior that was known about prior to entering the program. If such a person is encountered, the client must make his/her staff worker aware of this.

8. Refuge clients and their parents/guardians will be participating in off-campus events and meetings where non-program strugglers are in attendance. To encourage the safety of all involved, clients are required to be in phase when communicating with non-program strugglers at these meetings, and will be prohibited from establishing contact with them outside of the these meetings.

Safekeeping Rules

1. All new Refuge clients will be placed into Safekeeping for the initial two to three days of their program. A client on safekeeping may not communicate verbally, or by using hand gestures or eye contact, with any other clients, staff members, or his/her parents or guardians. In case of a practical need, Safekeeping clients may write down their question or request and show it to another client, staff member, or their parent or guardian. Writing may only be used when absolutely necessary. Parents and guardians must enforce their child¹s safekeeping status at home or in their temporary lodging.

2. Refuge clients may C.O.C. to be removed from Safekeeping status. Safekeeping clients will be removed from Safekeeping at their staffworker¹s discretion.

3. Any client may be placed into Safekeeping at any time, at a staffworker¹s discretion.

4. Safekeeping clients are permitted to say ³hello² and to communicate enough information to be courteous in public interaction (mostly in the clients¹ church setting).

5. Safekeeping clients are required to spend a minimum of two hours (in one sitting) a day alone in their room (note: by ³alone² it is understood that parents or guardians can be in the room but are not to interact or disrupt the alone time of the safekeeping client). During the alone time Safekeeping clients may work on their treatment plans, read program materials or the Bible, pray, or work on other assignments from their staffworkers.

6. In the evenings, all Refuge Safekeeping clients must remain at home or at their temporary lodging with their parent or guardian (i.e. no going out to eat, to the store, etc. during Safekeeping.)

7. Non-Safekeeping clients are responsible to protect and uphold the Safekeeping parameters of the Safekeeping clients.

Rules for the Home/Temporary Lodging

Hebrews 6:11-12: 11 We desire that each one of you may show the same diligence to the fullness of hope even to the end, 12 that you won't be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherited the promises.

Ephesians 4:22-24: 22 that you put away, as concerning your former way of life, the old man, that grows corrupt after the lusts of deceit; 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new man, that like God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.

Refuge encourages all clients to first focus internally. Why is the client here? What is broken? What is the core motivation of the client¹s unhealthy behavior? Staff members will work with clients as they learn what is wrong and as they take the steps to articulate it. Second, staff emphasize the need for each client to seek the truth of God. What does He have to say about each client and his/her pain? The rules that follow are designed to both protect the client and facilitate his/her wrestling with God.

Colossians 3:9-10: 9 Don't lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, 10 and have put on the new man, that is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator...

1 Kings 9:4: 4 As for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my ordinances...

Psalm 7:8-9: 8 Yahweh administers judgment to the peoples. Judge me, Yahweh, according to my righteousness, And to my integrity that is in me.9 Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, But establish the righteous; Their minds and hearts are searched by the righteous God.

Proverbs 10:9: 9 He who walks blamelessly walks surely, But he who perverts his ways will be found out.

Proverbs 11:2-3: 2 When pride comes, then comes shame, But with humility comes wisdom. 3 The integrity of the upright shall guide them, But the perverseness of the treacherous shall destroy them.

Proverbs 13:13: 13 Whoever despises instruction will pay for it, But he who respects a command will be rewarded.

Proverbs 20:7: 7 A righteous man who walks in his integrity, Blessed are his children after him.

Genesis 32:24-28: 24 Jacob was left alone, and wrestled with a man there until the breaking of the day. 25 When he saw that he didn't prevail against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained, as he wrestled. 26 The man said, "Let me go, for the day breaks." Jacob said, "I won't let you go, unless you bless me." 27 He said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "Jacob." 28 He said, "Your name will no longer be called 'Jacob,' but, 'Israel,' for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed."

1 Chronicles 29:18: 18 Yahweh, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this forever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of your people, and prepare their heart to you...

Isaiah 49:13-15: 13 Sing, heavens; and be joyful, earth; and break forth into singing, mountains: for Yahweh has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his afflicted. 14 But Zion said, Yahweh has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me. 15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

Matthew 9:36: 36 But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, as sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 14:14: 14 Jesus went out, and he saw a great multitude. He had compassion on them, and healed their sick.

Matthew 20:34: 34 Jesus, being moved with compassion, touched their eyes; and immediately their eyes received their sight, and they followed him.

Luke 10:40-42: 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she came up to him, and said, "Lord, don't you care that my sister left me to serve alone? Ask her therefore to help me." 41 Jesus answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her."

Luke 10:29-30: 29 Jesus said, "Most assuredly I tell you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land, for my sake, and for the gospel's sake, 30 but he will receive one hundred times now in this time, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land, with persecutions; and in the age to come eternal life.

Exodus 20:12: 12 "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.

Malachi 4:6: 6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse."

1. No discussing therapeutic issues at home. Keep conversations positive.

2. Clients must gain permission through C.O.C. to make or receive phone calls from friends and family members outside the program.

3. No cell phones, beepers, computers, or e-mail/internet access at. Exceptions by C.O.C. approval only.

4. No visitors from out of town without permission via C.O.C.

5. Refuge clients may only read materials approved by staff.

6. No television viewing, going to movies, or reading/watching/listening to secular media of any kind, anywhere within the client¹s and the parent¹s/guardian¹s control. This includes listening to classical or instrumental music that is not expressly Christian (Beethoven, Bach, etc. are not considered Christian). The only exception to the media policy is the weekly movie.

7. Refuge clients may watch one video/DVD per week that has been approved by staff via C.O.C. Movies submitted for approval must be rated G or PG. The parents/guardians are responsible for securing the video/DVD.

8. Weekend curfew (Friday and Saturday) is 10:00pm. Weekday curfew (Sunday through Thursday) is 9:30pm.

9. Refuge clients must be with at least one parent or guardian at all times when off-campus.

10. On certain occasions Refuge clients have the opportunity, with the C.O.C. approval and their parent/guardian¹s permission, to visit the residential houses of the Source program clients. On these occasions Refuge clients must be in phase at all times, and must abide by all the house rules and follow instructions given by Source program house managers. House rules will be communicated to Refuge clients as the need arises. Refuge clients are encouraged to ask for clarification if they are unsure about a particular house rule.

11. Refuge clients may not enter any restuarants with bars, even when accompanied by a parent or guardian.

12. Refuge clients must be accompanied by a parent during any trip to a public restroom.

13. No access to malls of any kind.

14. Clients are not allowed to visit any video, music or media stores that are not expressly Christian, even if accompanied by a parent or guardian. Clients may visit LifeWay Christian stores with a parent or guardian.

15. Refuge clients must report off-casmpus emergencies, illnesses, or injuries to their parents/guardians as soon as possible. Parents/guardians are required to inform LIA staff members of such situations by phone as soon as possible.

16. Total silence time at home begins at 9:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. Refuge clients may use this time for resting, but are encouraged to make a habit of using it for a nightly quiet time with God.

17. Lights-out time will begin each night at 10:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday.

18. Refuge clients are allowed a one-time 15-minute maximum closed bathroom door time for shower/grooming purposes. The only other closed-door alone time allowed is for using the restroom.

19. Refuge clients must keep their bedroom doors open at all times, day or night.

20. Proper bedclothes must be worn during nighttime sleeping hours. Appropriate bedclothes include full pajamas (tops and bottoms) or a pair of non-underwear-type shorts and a T-shirt. Nightgowns are not allowed.

21. Refuge clients are expected to eat dinner with their parents/guardians/other family members (if any) at least four times per week.

22. Refuge clients are expected to cook dinner one time per week.

On-Level Rules

³On-Level² is a protective and therapeutic measure that is sometimes implemented between clients who are having relational difficulties.

1. On-level clients may not speak to each other unless there is a potentially life-threatening emergency.

2. On-level clients are to spend no time alone with each other.

3. On-level clients are not allowed to ride in the same car unless C.O.C. permission has been granted, in which case, one must sit in the front of the car, and one must sit in the back of the car.

4. On-level clients, whenever in the same room, must always have exactly one person between them, whether sitting or standing. Planned activities such as church, Open Meetings, and socials are no exception.

5. On-level status can be initiated by any staff member or house manager.

6. On-level status can be removed only by Executive Staff.

Group Norms

1. Be honest, authentic, and real.

2. Active participation is expected. This includes body language and eye contact. No slouching in chairs, sitting back on chairs hind legs, sitting with arms crossed, rolling eyes, or making disgusting faces.

3. No attacking or demeaning another person¹s character.

4. Raise hand to speak. Speak one at a time as called on by the facilitator.

5. Maintain strict confidentiality of everything discussed in group. "What is seen here, what is heard here, remains here!"

6. Clients are to sit in such a way as to not cause another to stumble.

7. No food or drink during rap. This includes chewing gum and toothpicks.

8. Appropriate attire is required. No hats, athletic or baggy shorts (for men), or extremely short skirts (for women) are allowed.

9. Say "I love you _____" after each person is finished relating.

10. Be on time!

11. Do not talk at, preach to, or teach one another. Each person should keep the focus on him/herself and how he/she feels.

12. Do not be defensive. While being spoken to, one may not respond to defend him/herself or return confrontation to the person speaking.

13. If one needs to leave the group for any reason, he/she must ask permission from the staff in charge of the group session.

14. Stand when speaking, relating, or being related to. During general raps, one must stand while relating. One must also stand when someone is being given feedback or being related to. Standing is not necessary during teaching raps.

Men/Women Dynamics

The following common courtesies apply to relational dynamics between men and women. While these are not rules and may initially feel a little awkward, they are strongly encouraged as practical guidelines to promote mutual respect and honor. It is LIA¹s hope that these suggestions will become common practices and help to nurture a value of self and an appreciation for others.

Places of Honor for Women:
Respect for women may be shown by offering them first priority in a number of ways:

1. Please invite women (not just LIA clients) to be the first in line to eat.

2. Encourage women to accept the more comfortable seats in a room. Men should consider offering a woman their chair when there are none left in the room.

3. Men should think about opening doors for women, both when entering a building and when entering a car. This simply adds a level of respect, consideration, and value.

Honoring Both Genders:
Be mindful of the types of humor and communication used around one another. Jesting about bodily functions, discussing gender-specific issues when not in rap sessions (at the LIA office), and other conversation which could potentially be inappropriate to the opposite sex should be avoided.

Program Expectations

Therapeutic & Interpersonal Expectations

1. Clients are expected to affirm one another and edify their personal and corporate pursuit of growth and transformation. This includes a commitment to courageous honesty with respect, a commitment to sobriety in all manners of talk, action, and dress, the exercise of prudence, and honoring confidentiality and accountability.

2. Clients are expected to take responsibility for their environment and to inform appropriate authorities of program breaches. This is to be done using the 24-hour rule.

3. Clients are expected to give back. This includes watching out for one¹s brothers and sisters. It also includes the initiative of upper-phasers to provide accountability for lower-phasers.

4. Clients are expected to maintain a committed pursuit of a positive and thankful attitude.

5. Clients are expected to avoid peer-to-peer physical touch. Brief handshakes or a brief affirmative hand on a shoulder is allowed.

6. Clients are expected to actively identify and subsequently remove all personal and corporate FI¹s.

7. Clients are expected to avoid therapeutic topics of discussion with House Managers.

8. Clients are expected to make their homework a priority. Phase 1 clients must complete four MI¹s per week unless otherwise instructed. Phase 2 & Training clients must complete two MI¹s per week unless otherwise instructed. Phase 1 clients will be prepared to do an Introduction at every Introduction Rap. All clients will be assigned a personalized treatment plan.

9. Clients are expected to plan ahead and communicate appropriately, following Chain of Command (C.O.C.) for any information or communication with staff.

Practical Expectations

1. All clients must maintain integrity in their personal presentation. This includes daily grooming and hygiene maintenance, bed-making, as well as regular bedroom and bathroom cleaning and maintenance.

2. Clients are expected to work either therapeutically or professionally Monday through Friday unless prior permission is granted through C.O.C. Clients who are not working are expected to be in the office.

3. Clients are expected to actively re-evaluate the influences of secular media. Phase 1 clients are restricted from television-viewing, internet access, secular media, or reading of any kind without specific permission. Clients may not enter any non-Christian bookstores. Phase 2 clients may use email and the internet at work for work purposes. Training program clients may listen to secular music. However, they may not listen to secular radio for the first 30 days. No secular music is allowed in residences or when around Phase 1 clients.

4. Clients are expected to honor their home environment by being on-time with cooking responsibilities, attending all weekly house meetings, dinner attendance, curfew, total silence, lights out, and by working cooperatively to complete all stewardships with a positive attitude.

5. Clients are expected to remain accountable with all relationships. No cell phones, phone calls, or contact with anyone
outside the program without prior permission. Phase 2 and Training Program clients may make approved relational phone calls.

Refuge Program Parental Rules (not to be given to client)

1. No discussing therapeutic issues at home. Keep conversations positive.

2. Clients are to be picked up from the LIA office no later than 5:00pm each weekday.

3. Respect all Love In Action and Refuge rules. If you do not understand them, support the program in front of client at all times and gain clarification from LIA staff. Do not sabotage or defocus your client.

4. Don¹t allow client to split your family. Unite to present stability and unity.

5. Your client is not allowed to talk to anyone outside of your home including friends or family. Do not tell client who has called for them or who is asking about them. Keep the thoughts of the client focused on his/her treatment.

6. The family needs interactive time together. It is very important that togetherness is the priority during this time. The client does not need extended time alone or with only one family member. The only exception is for Refuge clients who are from out-of-town and staying with a significant guardian while here.

7. Family dinner is encouraged to occur at least four times weekly.

8. The client is expected to cook dinner at least one time weekly.

9. The client is expected to complete a weekly cleaning regimen to your satisfaction.

10. Parents/guardians are asked to make themselves available for any special meetings deemed necessary for the successful treatment of their loved ones.

11. If there is an ³Open Meeting² during Refuge Program, parents/guardians are asked to attend to enhance their involvement with Refuge. Open meetings are held the first Tuesday of each month at 7:30pm at Kirby Woods Baptist Church (on the corner of Poplar Ave. and Massey; entrance is located at the ground floor on the east side of building entrance).

Consequences for Rule Violation:

1. Constructive criticism from the group.
2. Ten to thirty-page written paper on rule violation.
3. Program dismissal. This does not need to be addressed with the client (The client may sabotage his/her own program due to purposeful dismissal consequences).
4. Isolation from the group.

i know this is a really long post, but this shit is so incredibly fucked up and evil and horrible that i'm shaking right now.

somewhere it doesn't look like where we are

2005-06-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

I read too much. 5 books a week keeps me sane, but leaves me wanting something else.
I'm killing myself with nostalgia, listening to Hayden, choking in the heat on the front porch.

I miss the old public library, where I'd bike when my air conditioning went out 5 summers ago, and sit happily with a stack of books in those cracked black vinyl chairs, surrounded by the slumbering homeless. the main water fountain had a sticky botton and would shoot you in the face with ice cold water that tasted faintly of rust.

I miss Barrister's, the bar downtown where all the garage bands played, back when everyone sounded like Sunny Day Real Estate or Neutral Milk Hotel or the Apples in Stereo. we sit up on the roof of the parking garage drinking our illegal beers and pretending we lived in a real city. we were young and holy enough to walk on the water that saturates the air here, that makes it a punishment to breathe. the heat made us moody and we'd slump in clusters in the alley, leaning against the brick walls and smoking our Doral Menthol Lights.

we used to sit for hours at the ck's on the corner of Poplar and Germantown. summers when I lived at home I'd go up there and read when I couldn't bear to be in my parents' house anymore. we'd meet up and go somewhere. we were always going somewhere.

who knows where we were going.

I was cured all right

2005-06-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

there's this tremendous pressure on me, as one recovering from BPD/PTSD/anxiety/depression, to be Better. to be always happy, to have it Together. to be the One Others Go To With Problems. to be a Good Example.

you know what, though?

I'm not. I'm still plenty disturbed. the skeletons in my closet are cemented into the walls.

ok?

damn this metabolism. crazy cook genes. rrr.

2005-05-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

I ate banana bread all day yesterday. this is a significant step for me, since, if you know me at all, I loathe bananas. HATE them with a burning and fiery passion. still, in the past few years, I've tried my best to eat anything. frog legs, goat barbeque, elk, duck, sweetbreads... seems like I can choke down some banana bread to be polite.

bof. c'est pas mal.

'd prefer some fried chicken, grits, and cornbread with bacon gravy, though.

must. stop. thinking. about. food.

woo!

2005-05-28T18:42:00.000-07:00

Dear New Teacher Candidate:

Thank you for interviewing with Memphis City Schools! We believe that you possess the skills necessary to be the difference for our students. As a result of your interview, we are pleased to inform you that you are now a member of our new teacher pool for the 2005-2006 school year.

As part of our New Teacher Pool, we will actively consider you as a candidate for existing and potential vacancies for school year 2005-06. Membership in the pool does not guarantee you a position, but it does mean that we will invite you to school job fairs, attempt to schedule specific school interviews for you and make your information available to principals who recommend candidates for hire to the Human Resources Department (HRD).

When vacancies become available, school interviews for New Teacher Pool candidates are set-up in a number of ways including:

* Interview referrals made by the Human Resources Department
* Large-scale teacher job fairs and interview days
* Targeted subject-specific mini-job fairs and interview days
* Direct interview scheduling done by principals using New Teacher Pool candidate information

There are a number of factors that affect the availability of vacancy information such as the timing of teacher retirements, previously unannounced resignations, and certification issues. Because the Human Resources Department cannot completely control when this information is available, the arrangement of school site interviews can take time. We will be in ongoing communication with New Teacher Pool candidates to provide you with status updates and other pertinent information throughout the summer. Please be patient with the process as we work to find the best possible school site for you.

We prioritize candidates for interviews based on how close they are to Tennessee state certification. While candidates in critical needs areas will be considered using alternative certification guidelines, candidates in moderate and low need areas will likely not. Please consult the next section of this mailing for certification and critical needs subject information.

We look forward to working with you through the remainder of the recruitment season.

Office of Recruitment

Memphis City Schools

draw the blinds hoping it'll pass

2005-05-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

a kid I went to school with, like all my classes, killed himself last week.

shit. shit. shit.

there was a point back there when I thought about it, I thought about it long and fucking hard, lying on the floor in my kitchen with the wolves closing in, sharp black shadows hovering just out of sight. I thought about it but didn't have the energy to do it. couldn't handle the thought of leaving a mess for someone else to clean up.

I don't know. there was a night a few days after I left the hospital when I was pacing around my apartment fighting with the idea of eating every pill I had. I'd just been to the new p-doc and she'd given me boxes and boxes of samples and I'd spent hours popping them out of their plastic blister into an egg carton. they were so pretty, pink white and round or red and oblong and I could actually feel them in my mouth and I was calling every one I knew and when they'd answer I couldn't get the words to come out of my mouth, please come get me, I think I might do it, I'm scared. none of the knives in my apartment were sharp enough and I had tried them all and was almost to the point of breaking the razor blade out of a pencil sharpener.

I don't know, I was standing by the door howling, literally howling, insane and out of my mind and my cat asked to be picked up and I sat there and held him until it passed enough for me to put some music on, a fucking iTunes mix called 'music to keep breathing tonight,' a bunch of Godspeed and Low and Dirty Three, then Kiss the Bottle over and over while I lay in the tub with the shower running over me staring at the ceiling.

long night. so many long nights to get to here where they're secret treasure maps instead of ravening wolves. I wouldn't have made it if it weren't for Tiffany.

shit. he's dead and all that religious fervor he developed after they kicked him out of high school couldn't keep his wolves from pulling him under.

I'm so glad I got better. goddamn, hungover and sad as I am it feels fucking amazing to be breathing.

how were we born into this fucking mess. such a mess.

2005-05-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

this is quite possibly the best book I've ever read.

I blame this job

2005-05-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

since I totalled my car a few months ago, I've been biking to work. most of the time this just involves a short ride of 5 blocks total. every other Friday morning, however, I haul my vacuum, mop, and Bag O Biodegradeable Cleaning Products in my paperboy baskets about 4 miles away over to the U of M area. not so bad, except when I forget the key and no-one's home and I have to haul ass back to Midtown to fetch it and end up wasting 45 minutes of lunch break.

rrr.

every Friday afternoon I clean the yoga studio. this is quite enjoyable as I am all alone for a few hours and can do a few rounds of Sun Salutations or other weirdly named poses when I'm through on the newly cleaned floor.

I also utilise my time alone in the the building to sing my heart out to whatever I have playing on my iPod at the moment. this isn't necessarily something I do only when I'm alone in the house I'm cleaning. I'm known to serenade the family dog and/or baby, as well.

this is all well and good, but it was just a wee bit embarassing when Sarla, the owner of Midtown Yoga, walked in and caught me doing an interpretive dance to Modest Mouse...

Party at the Stanfills' tonight. see you there.

soul food

2005-05-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

the only thing I really miss about having a car is being able to drive half way across the city to eat. there's plenty of restaurants in Midtown, but one can only eat so much Vietnamese, Thai, and bar food. especially since Pho Pasteur, with their mind-blowing duck leg soup, hasn't been open the past 4 times I've been by.

all a girl really wants is some good fried chicken. ok, fine, I'm obsessed. I have a problem.

If you drive me to Miss Ellen's, I'll be your best friend. totes BFFL for realz!

I need a nap, since I've obviously lost all touch with reality. that or the crazy smelling floor wax I just used made me high.

bluh.

new best place to meet cute boys: karaoke.

up past my bedtime...

2005-05-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

thursday: 6 am
friday: 1 am
saturday: 7 am
sunday: 1130 pm
monday: 8 am
tuesday: 6 am

after years of crippling social anxiety, I've started going out way too much. not way too much as in ingesting huge amounts of illegal substances, but way too much as in my circadian rhythms are starting to resemble squarepusher beats. I don't think I've ever had this much fun before. and best of all, I don't have to drive. ever. woo hoo for that.

I've developed a serious jones for early morning fried chicken. every time I end up at the Two-Way at 530 in the morning, the rancid grease smell makes me crave something edible. I keep trying to talk Pony into taking me to schnuck's so I can make everyone friend chicken at 6 am, but so far, no luck.

last night I walked into beer bust just in time to see about 18 kids up on stage hollering along to "knockin on heaven's door" with a live band doing back up. that's right, live rock&roll karaoke AND $5 all you can drink till the keg runs out PBR.

Memphis used to suck. or maybe I did. who knows. all's I know now is that this is the best summer ever and it's not even technically summer yet. is it? wait, does summer start in June or July?

snap. I need some more sleep.

but it's not yugoslavia

2005-05-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

I've spent the past few weeks madly in love with CocoRosie. these two sisters with these high, scratchy voices that sound like ancient jazz 78s sing about butterscotch, st nicholas, and falling in love. I've been getting a huge kick out of trying to identify the weird samples that serve as a sort of ambient percussion. so far: water slurping down a drain OR rain in a gutter, traffic noises, dishes rattling, a typewriter carriage return, a see & say. I'm pretty sure that none of these are right.

then every now and then their voices tangle and soar up octaves into the top of my brain when I'm riding under the train bridge and I almost fall off my bike with the ice crystal piercingness of it all.

lovely.

2005-05-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

there's something so strange about sleeping until 530.

must. start. going. home. sooner.

yeah, right.

spoilers

2005-05-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

The new Star Wars kicked me right in the chest. I think I cried for the last hour and a half of it.

In a sense, it's a brutal and fucked up love story.
I don't ever want to love like that, never ever again.

it's hot.

goat tastes good.

2005-05-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

it's very, very hot out here. holy shit, i just saw an extendable bus. you know, "MATA" means "KILL" in spanish. it's gotta be crazy as hell to move here from like, Mexico, and see directives urging you to kill all over the public transportation.

finished my book

2005-05-17T16:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know how to tell you about the person I've become. My bed is a few inches higher than the windowsill and I sit and look down into the yard, at the sloping amber glow of the hour before sunset. if I narrow my eyes and look inside, there's this feeling of indescribable fullness that threatens to leak out. I feel like the boy in the Hemingway story, the one who thought he was going to die because he had a fever, and because he'd been away at school and was used to degrees centigrade and not fahrenheit, once he found out he was going to get better and he "cried very easily at little things that were of no importance."

the closest words I have for it are to say that it all goes 'all the way through.' when I was in high school and I was on so much Lithium I could feel the electrical wires like veins in the walls, I used to brand myself on my arms because I couldn't feel anything. or I felt something, but it was this tiny faint thing inside me like the pale sharp core of a carrot and I had no way of bringing it out to the surface to make me feel real.

I feel real, now, and it's such a strange feeling, not to feel like I'm a tiny little homunculous at the controls of a giant me-shaped robot.

excuse me. I've just finished my book and I need to go watch the sun set.

He was reaching into the familiar place inside him, but what he found there didn't feel like a sorrow anymore. He wondered if it had really been a sorrow to begin with. From Jonathan Franzen's Strong Motion

awesome

2005-05-17T16:10:00.000-07:00

I get home at the end of the day from work and my feet have little clean stripes on them when I take off my sandals. I've got this sticky feeling and thousands of new freckles.

today I used no fossil fuels.

listening to Pearl Jam's "state of love and trust"

2005-05-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

the street we lived on was wide and sloped down to a steep shoulder into the people across the street's yard. it had a decent amount of traffic in the evening and I used to sit on the curb at the end of my driveway and watch the cars go by.

towards the end of the summer my parents had pretty much given up on me and things had calmed down. i'd just started ninth grade and things had finally started to feel like they were going to be alright.

i'd sit out there on the curb and smoke cigarettes and listen to the air moving in the pines on the other side of the road. I had this feeling that everything was happening just over the horizon. sometimes at the park I'd run into other kids I knew, boys with their hair long over their eyebrows, baggy shorts, lo-top allstars, and their skateboards. we'd go sit on this bare-skinned log by the edge of the river and watch the sun go down, trading stories about geting wasted with the older kids or about how much our parents sucked. some nights i'd go home and wait for my folks to go to sleep and go out my window to go back to the park. the clearing where the log sat had a tiny beach, about 10 feet across, and i'd stand up to my knees in the warm silty water and look at the moon on the water, the current tugging gently at my feet. i wondered what would happen if i swam downstream until i couldn't anymore. where i'd end up. if they'd find me tangled up under some dock near savannah. if crawfish would creep up next to my waterfilled ears and sing me silky copper lullabies. if things would be easier if i disappeared. if i could walk up to the highway and stick my thumb out and turn into someone else.

i was so young. growing up hurt, this persistant ache in my rib cage, this burning in my shoulders. i'd wake up nights unable to breathe, stifling in my room. i'd lie on my back and try to imagine looking down on myself in my bed, in my bedroom on the west side of one house in a row of identical houses in a subdivision of identical houses surrounded by the raw red clay of newly cleared land. i tried to imagine all the other kids i knew, lying awake, wishing we were somewhere else. in my irritable dreams we walked in the moonlit streets in droves, looking for something we couldn't ever find. following something we'd never seen.

when they sent me off my parents threw away everything i owned. diaries, tapes, books, clothes. i had my head broken into, its contents scrubbed hard and shoved back in more or less the same places, but that year has been reduced to a handful of images and an eighth grade yearbook, signed when i was in the hospital. it's painful to look through it and wonder who i would have been if i'd been able to stay there. my thoughts sort of squirm away from me when i try to force them in that direction, as if they weren't my own.

that year doesnt seem real at all. it's more like a series of stories someone else told me that i've heard so many times i can picture them happening in my head.

sometimes it's hard to believe i was ever that thin faced little kid with a copy of catcher in the rye stuffed in my coat pocket, knee deep in the water, frozen in place, terrified by the wave curling up over me, holding my breath against its weight.

Poem for Monday, May 16, 2005

2005-05-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

Nocturne

by Mark Yakich

If time is the sky,
Then moments are understandable

Autumns, the leaves split
Seconds, and sorrow is
Undressing the neighbor boy

In a single breath.
If such gusty emotion is

The landscape, words make
Only the mountains, and the valleys
Are just gorgeous inversions.

And if the head sounds
Like that, each drop of rain

An amorous dialogue,
Then leave tonight,
Between the wave and the lantern,

Every particle
Rowing.

The poet can be found at www.markyakich.com

Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
Winner of Best of Memphis in Memphis Flyer
for 7 Straight Years

jonathan franzen is a genius

2005-05-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

"this and all the other motions he repeated every night were like a sorrow."

I wish I could write about raccoons and make it hurt. jesus, man, to be able to write like that.

heartattack & vine

2005-05-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

I will spend the entire day in the semi-shade behind my house, reading and listening to tom waits.

on fair days the wind carries the wireless signal from the house I live behind into my apartment.

don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk...

is this enough

2005-05-14T23:05:00.000-07:00

a stack of books and somewhere comfortable to read them. a short bike ride home from a going away party.

a small white cat curled up sleeping on a white down comforter. a yard with two border collies bouncing tirelessly after sticks. coffee after work and a plateful of cookies.

iron and wine, the glass, cory branan, richard hawley, otis redding, and tom waits.

maple syrup, bacon, and fried eggs. earl grey with half and half.

no fireflies yet. it's been cold for may.

had we but world enough and time...

we should shine a light on

2005-05-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

my tenncare got canceled so no more free meds. bleh. i'm slowly weaning myself off them, trying to get down to just one. it's ironic that i have traded the crippling anxiety for a goddamn eating disorder. i'm hungry all the time. not just hungry, but like craving food all the time, like having the munchies but worse. i eat until i feel sick and still feel hungry. sucks.

am hoping p-doc can give me buspirone.

good god, it's hot. i feel sticky all the time. it's kind of nice to be biking in this weather, not having to deal with being stuck in a car waiting for the air to work, going through 30 bucks of gas every few days. i gave in and watched some tv today in an act of hungover desperation, and 90% of the commercials are for cars. there's this ridiculous contrast between the new huge rugged gas sucking trucks aimed at the rednecks who run our country and then the super gas efficient hybrids and saturns aimed at the rest of us.

i'm trying to like joanna newsome, but her voice is so damn weird.

Poem for Monday, May 9, 2005

2005-05-09T20:01:00.000-07:00

from "To the Soul"

by W. S. Merwin

Is anyone there
if so
are you real
either way are you
one or several
if the latter
are you all at once
or do you
take turns not answering

Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
Winner of Best of Memphis in Memphis Flyer
for 7 Straight Years

listening to Iron and Wine

2005-05-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

last night, riding down McLean, I smelled honeysuckle for the first time this year.

there's this very specific nostalgia I get every year that has to do with the way sprinklers smell on the cement, the sound of bicycle tires on asphalt just after midnight, the tightness in my chest I get just before I walk into a brightly lit place filled with people I don't know very well.

a year ago I was spending about 65 hours a week in a 20x100 foot room frenziedly mettrant en place, swearing to myself and staring out the window at Monroe, wishing I was over at Squidge's drinking wine and watching cable. wondering just how worth it it really was. pretty salads and seven squeeze bottles.

two years ago I was riding my bike down Central, up Cooper and over to Felix every night, drinking beer and eating tofu and rice messes on the porch with Sarah and watching Josh and Suzy sing strange howling songs with banjo. it never seemed to matter if it was hot or if it was late; we were young and we were living forever. the smell of old cast iron heating on a stove will always make my stomach clench up.

we go through the nights blindly aiming ourselves at the morning but in the end we won't remember enough of it, the days run away like a sack of marbles dropped on a hill, they scatter in every direction and we run after them, they spin out of our reach and where we once held hundreds we hold but a handful or maybe just one, its color hidden inside its scratched up glass.

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from the piles of fallen leaves

seisdemayo

2005-05-06T14:39:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how much I love my bike.

2005-04-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

my bike came back!

hurrah!

the basket and wheels are gone, but still!

wheeeee!

shut up and play that guitar

2005-04-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

I go through phases of listening to Lucero obsessively and I have to confess that I can't stop playing the new record. Roy Berry dropped off a promo the other day and it's been on my iPod for a solid week.

good and sad and good and southern.

I'll settle for watching her dance
I'm happy just watching her dance
we ain't nobody's darlings

we never stood a chance...

look how they shine for you

2005-04-26T16:09:00.000-07:00

teresa, my best friend from graduate school, lives about an hour from nyc. i went and visited her over spring break and had a blast hanging out with her hilarious and fucked up (but in a good way, the kind where they all still love each other without any judgement) family.

this morning, around 6, she gave birth to aidan tomas. i can't wait to meet him.

as soon as i can get enough money saved, i'm moving again. up to brooklyn or over to eugene/portland.
i've been here far too long; i'm getting restless. i spent the first 9 years of my life in the bay area, 4 in horrible edward scissorhands suburban atlanta, then bounced around memphis from house to house, a new one every few months, for the next 12 years. i have things i want to do with my life and i'm not going to be able to do them here.

2005-04-26T10:47:00.000-07:00

karma's a funny thing.

apparently in a past life i was some sort of terrorist who blew up trains and such because i have got some serious bad luck with wheels.

my bike got stolen.

Poem for Monday, April 25, 2005

2005-04-26T10:41:00.001-07:00

35/10

By Sharon Olds

Brushing out our daughter‚s brown
silken hair before the mirror
I see the grey gleaming on my head,
the silver-haired servant behind her. Why is it
just as we begin to go
they begin to arrive, the fold in my neck
clarifying as the fine bones of her
hips sharpen? As my skin shows
its dry pitting, she opens like a moist
precise flower on the tip of a cactus;
as my last chances to bear a child
are falling through my body, the duds among them,
her full purse of eggs, round and
firm as hard-boiled yolks, is about
to snap its clasp. I brush her tangled
fragrant hair at bedtime. It's an old
story˜the oldest we have on our planet˜
the story of replacement.

Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
Winner of Best of Memphis in Memphis Flyer
for 7 Straight Years

Poem for Monday, April 25, 2005

2005-04-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

on my iPod

2005-04-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

the Walkmen- bows+arrows
Outkast- Stankonia & Aquemini
the Glass- Concorde
Dixie Dirt- on our way like we never met

random songs by the Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Eminem (esp 'cleaning out my closet), Ryan Adams, Kimya Dawson, Kind of Like Spitting, Harlan T Bobo, Antony & the Johnsons...

I'm SO pretending to work right now...

2005-04-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

the entire city is covered in yellow dust, inside and out.

ouch.

ouch.

ouch.

2005-04-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

"i can feel it in my bones, i'm gonna spend another year alone."

2005-04-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

made some wasabi tiramisu just now, a little experiment for this saturday's catering event. very thin cake (rice, flour, eggs, milk, sugar) layered with tamari, wasabi mascarpone, avocado, and smoked salmon, wrapped in a strip of nori with some pickled ginger on top.

damn, i rule.

this life is a mess, but not anymore

2005-04-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

dear Richard Hawley,

I love you.

Sincerely,

Sue

2005-04-11T10:34:00.000-07:00

why, sue, why are you on the internet? shouldn't you be at work?

heh.

oh wait, i am.

cleaning the big house today, with my laptop. like having a very expensive boom box.
when they make ipod cellphones my life will be complete.

i forgot to mention that i had my very first party the other day.
my apartment is about 50 feet long. shoebox.

fisrt me and baby beth were watching thelma and louise. then the 4 circuit benders come tropping up my stairs without wiping their boots. 20 minutes later 4 more kids show up and then the dogs trot in and hell i got 4 cats right now...
i think a party is sort of defined by how many people per square yard one has.
so yeah, party. woo hoo.

i've been on this crazy meat eating tear for the past month. i think i must be protein starved. roast beast sandwiches, pork chops, bacon sandwiches, fried chicken, hamburgers, beef stew.

it must be the bikeriding or the intense social life.

ok, i am really going to clean now.

clearance ben

2005-04-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

Ben Roberts, my favorite boy from high school has a blog now, clearance bin and I have to say it's just about the most hilarious thing in this arm of the galaxy.

last night after the Circuit Benders we went by the house across from the Felix (RIP, snif) where the boy is housesitting and I go in to empty some of the Sparks, cuba libre, and PBR out of my bladder. unfortunately as I flushed the toilet the waterline to the tank became violently disconnected and started spewing cold water at me. I screamed hysterically and then both of us ran around like chickens with their heads cut off for a minute. finally I found the panel to the waterline and turned it off, but good god damn there was a lot of pacing around the house hollering. I mean here we have two incoherently intoxicated kids yelling at each other what the hell happened I dont know I flushed it and it exploded oh god oh shit and what the hell acck.

damn we gots to love the midtown plumbing.

I want to marry the Beauty Shop and have its babies for brunch.

mmm.

brunch.

Poem for Monday, April 4, 2005 a bit late as I just now set up my wireless network

2005-04-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

from "Journal"

by David P. Young

Sometimes the self is cracked and peeled.
It's twilight here. It's spring.
The moon is new and narrow,
The air is pure; things
Belong. This empty field
Dreams of the farm in every furrow
As the body dreams the mind,
The windmill dreams the wind.

Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
Winner of Best of Memphis in Memphis Flyer
for 7 Straight Years

urrrrffff

2005-04-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

after huge spring break road trip neglected to pay time warner and somehow haven't felt the need to get the internet turned back on. there's free wireless everywhere, occasionally even in my own front yard. god bless you, netgear, whomever you are.

so, superquick update: car is totalled after the big running a red light late to work wreck 2 fridays ago. I haven't found an appropriately cheap car yet and am quite happy riding my fabulous new bike around. it's got paperboy baskets big enough to haul around my cleaning gear, and gears and brakes that actually work, and the boys at the Peddlar were nice enough to adjust the seat to my height so that it's just plain easy to get around. it feels amazing to toodle down the road powered by my body, as opposed to greedy warmonger overpriced gasoline.

my ass is looking kinda bouncy, too.

heh.

my schedule's ridiculously unstretchable so I may not be able to start biofeedback with cool new shrink until school lets out, but I am looking much forward to taking an active role in regulating my brain.

also had the insight that the habit I developed about 5 years ago of om mani padme hum-ing my way out of bad headspace is actually rather similar to doing biofeedback. the Pure Land Buddhists say that by chanting the name of the Buddha or certain mantras one ensures one's rebirth into a blissful existence. I've reinterpreted that to mean that I can chant my way into a better place in the Here and Now.

what else. filled out the online application to teach Spanish in the Memphis city school system and hopefully will hear from them soon. even changed my voicemail from Spike sneering "someone wasn't worthy" to something more suitable with my name and the invitation to leave a message.

in general despite various stressful things and tinkering with my meds I'm just plain Happy. Doing Well.
Going Out a whole bunch and enjoying people.

Rocking a lot of high heels and short skirts, having my dancing skills requested by various bands, doing a little free-lance social work for my Girls.

Life's good.

Happy Daylight Savings.

Love,

the Future Profesora Sue

i won't obey

2005-04-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

am seriously considering substituting daily bike riding and biofeedback for effexor.

tired of being another blindeyed whimpering pup at the tit of

Fitter, happier, more productive,
comfortable,
not drinking too much,
regular exercise at the gym
(3 days a week),
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries ,
at ease,
eating well
(no more microwave dinners and saturated fats),
a patient better driver,
a safer car(baby smiling in back seat),
sleeping well
(no bad dreams),
no paranoia,
careful to all animals
(never washing spiders down the plughole),
keep in contact with old friends
(enjoy a drink now and then),
will frequently check credit at
(moral) bank (hole in the wall),
favors for favors,
fond but not in love,
charity standing orders,
on Sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants),
car wash
(also on Sundays),
no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate,
nothing so childish - at a better pace,
slower and more calculated,
no chance of escape,
now self-employed,
concerned (but powerless),
an empowered and informed member of society
(pragmatism not idealism),
will not cry in public,
less chance of illness,
tires that grip in the wet
(shot of baby strapped in back seat),
a good memory,
still cries at a good film,
still kisses with saliva,
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick,
that's driven into
frozen winter shit
(the ability to laugh at weakness),
calm,
fitter,
healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics.

2005-03-31T17:33:00.000-08:00

If I ever end up braindead, my god, please don't trap me in my body.

2005-03-31T09:12:00.000-08:00

I neglected to pay my roadrunner bill while i was on spring break and thus have no internet at home. i'm thinking it's good for me to detach from the internet, so i haven't been updating so much lately. there's abundant wireless internet, and it's been somewhat liberating to have more time at home not spent on the computer.

friday I ran a red light, late for work, and totalled my car. i'm getting a loan and will probably buy an old civic or something. i may hold off for a while and just ride my bike around. it's been nice not having to shell out 25 bucks on gas.

Poem for Monday, March 28, 2005

2005-03-28T14:18:00.000-08:00

Walking Home Across the Island

by Jack Gilbert

Walking home across the plain in the dark.
And Linda crying. Again we have come
to a place where I rail and she suffers and the moon
does not rise. We have only each other,
but I am shouting in the rain
and she is crying like a wounded animal,
knowing there is no place to turn. It is hard
to understand how we could be brought here by love.

Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
Winner of Best of Memphis in Memphis Flyer
for 7 Straight Years

I be cheffin' like a mofo

2005-03-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

sushi party pictures.

2005-03-22T09:19:00.000-08:00

prodigal

put a ring on my finger
a fat calf on the table
clean me up
and welcome me home.

around our feet
and under the table
memory growls like a dog
over greasy bones.

these are the things we will not say again:

for all the years I lived in shit
are the years you taught me I was a pig.

babies rule

2005-03-16T18:25:00.000-08:00

Sherbert learned how to stand up by herself while I was on spring break, and when I was cleaning the bathroom I heard her gurgling and cooing in the hall and had to go hug her. 2 weeks with no baby is a long time.

anyhow, she pulled herself up and was standing in front of me, sort of wobbling between her wide planted leg, and then looked and me and grinned...

and took a step towards me.

bullies are just insecure

2005-03-15T06:32:00.000-08:00

"If you thought the Americans were going to bomb you, wouldn't you bury this stuff, too?"
ny times

Dear W,

in kindergarten, someone who beats up the other kids, steals their toys, and won't let them have any new ones gets put in the Time Out Corner.
Have you ever been to Siberia? I hear it's lovely in the spring.
Sincerely,
Me

no sleep til...

2005-03-14T20:10:00.000-08:00

miles driven: 1823
cities visited: bloomington, columbus, easton, philadelphia, brooklyn, manhattan
couches slept on: 4
friendships renewed: 4
rolls of film taken: 6
times i got lost: 4
anxiety attacks: 1
items of clothing lost: 1
speeding tickets received: 1
inchoherent phonecalls made from outside a terrible underground (as in below the sidewalk) bar in chelsea: 3

too overstimulated to write more. off to read my friend paco's book. eep!

Poem for Monday, March 14, 2005

2005-03-14T15:12:00.000-08:00

Poem for Monday, March 14, 2005

Poem

by Bill Knott

A kite in the shape
of a map floats
over the land it depicts,

but at night no one sees
its roads at the end
of which a child feels

his hand tugged upwards,
disappearing
in salutations.

Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
Winner of Best of Memphis in Memphis Flyer
for 7 Straight Years

up there glowing

2005-03-11T08:55:00.000-08:00

the first time I read my name is Asher Lev I was 12 or so. since then it's been countless others, the willow tree, the fortress of solitude,hundreds of stories. all of them pushing me to one place.

where I want to be when I grow up has always been easier than what I want to be.

the anonymous come out at night and autograph the walls. here I am. I saw this. look at it. there's so much less anomie when one's name is embedded in others' optic nerves.

cast iron fences keep the trash cans from running away at night.

the korean grocery on the corner has better prices than the schnuck's back home.

stairsteps and peeling paint and cherubim perched on the rooftop corners.

never manhattan. never any longing to mingle with the sort of people who would spend a thousand dollars on shoes. no starstruck searching for certain faces. never a pull toward tiny pretty food or 10 dollar martinis.

but brooklyn. where I always thought I'd end up but never really believed it.

I'm here. it's like coming home after a 15 year absence.

I don't know how I'll be able to handle going back to Memphis after just two nights and a day.
I guess I go back and work my ass off to get out of debt and save up enough to start doing what I wanted to all along.

it's snowing.

things I have learned so far on this trip

2005-03-07T17:06:00.000-08:00

bloomington is like athens, but smaller and more polite.

midwestern white kids can't dance. i couldn't tell you about kids of other colors, since i didn't see any the entire time i was there.

every small town between memphis and louisville has a seventh adventist church, a kingdom hall, and an lds church directly on the highway.

there were many barns, and many many water towers.

my face has changed greatly in the past three years. i couldn't tell you why.

is it true that one needs a license to busk in NYC?

thank you thank you thank you

2005-03-01T20:23:00.000-08:00

a couple of exmases ago...

there's my mom and dad.

they totally rule.

thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.
thank you.

bastard out of carolina

2005-03-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

It wasn't God who made us like this, I thought. We'd gotten ourselves messed up on our own.

We had all wanted the simplest thing, to love and be loved and be safe together, but we had lost it and we didn't know how to get it back.

It's been almost a week since I had any solitude, any time to sit alone and think and read. Got home from school and made a sandwich and curled up in bed to read Bastard Out of Carolina and didn't stop until I finished it just now.

Nothing like reading to make a body want to write.

something about balloon men and far and wee

2005-02-28T14:34:00.000-08:00

japanese magnolias in which flocks of purple tulips nest
forsythia, primary color yellow and hot pink
dogwoods
crocuses and daffodils

soon enough we'll have small soft leaves, crabapple petal flurries from the medians, tiny fluffy parachutes blown off the cottonwoods across the river.

allergies kick in, gravity starts getting stronger in the region of my head, i develop a mean sudafed habit and starting eating wasabi in my oatmeal in the mornings to wake up.

spring is the best time to have someone who holds my hand in public and pays for my movie tickets and occasionally (and I am suspecting deliberately) knocks things over to show solidarity with my terminal clumsiness.

spring break starts this weekend:
saturday- drive to bloomington
monday afternoon- drive to columbus & pick up paddy
tuesaday morning- drive to philadelphia
wednesday morning- drive to brooklyn
thursday- coney island, subway tunnels, alphabet city, maybe go on a quest for bruce springsteen's house in jersey?
friday- easton, PA to see very pregnant BFF from gradschool
saturday- BABY SHOWER!!!!!!
sunday- drive to columbus & drop off paddy, then to bloomington
monday- back down south

I love watching cable

2005-02-24T09:22:00.000-08:00

Bush is on TV live in Slovakia sounding like a total ass, talking about the free press here in the states. um, Patriot Act much?

I've skived off school today due to exhorbitant fatigue and joint aches, despite the waterbed in the house where I am dogsitting. my right arm is stiff as hell and my bicep is curiously sore, probably from being worked so hard making sushi last night for my neighbor's feng shui party.

yesterday the labs woke me up at 630ish demanding out and breakfast and although I managed to snooze another hour or two and stumble around trying to make coffee in a strange kitchen I was soon up and rocketing out to the Fresh Market and the Korean grocery.

There's such a lack of decent fish in Memphis. I got in a fight with the fishboy at the Fresh Market about tuna. he insisted I buy the cheap frozen tuna for sushi as opposed to the freshly caught & cut yellowtail, but whatever, I wasn't making it for myself, but for a houseful of ravenous yuppies. I suppose I need to chum up to some of my old restaurant buddies if I want to ever get good fish. they've got live tilapia and eel and a few things I didnt recognize, as well as some decent crustaceans, at the Viet Hoa. and the mexican fish boys don't argue with me. they've quite nice, and love to be spoken to by little peterpanpunkrock girls in damn good Mexican spanish.

anyway, then I zoomed back to Midtown to the vietnamese market and then back to Jen's fabulously endowed kitchen with its huge gleaming expanses of granite counterspace. Then I mise-d like some kind of manic human robocoup, julienning carrots and cucumbers, cooking and peeling lemongrass shrimp for spring rolls, soaking chlorella noodles, steaming black rice, rolling spring rolls. I had to duck out to clean the Pilates studio and then got back and busy making sushi.

nori rolls-
cucumber daikon (which I wasn't too proud of as the daikon was too chemical-y)
avocado mango & smoked salmon
cucumber carrot avocado
avocado tuna

I didn't have a mat, but I made a decent attempt at one of the rolls with the rice on the outside, which came out quite pretty since I'd added minced carrot to the white rice for color, and then sprinkled black sesame on the finished roll. I saw one of the canadians use saran wrap on Iron Chef last night, which hadn't occured to me.
I guess waxed paper could work as well.

I made some badass nigiri with black and white rice which came out looking like yin-yangs.

wasabi mousse. cream, eggwhite, gelatin, wasabi. gorgeous. I think mascarpone would be better, but I was on a $50 budget.

seared tuna strips tied with nori ribbons drizzled with pomegranate teriyaki.

they scarfed it down and crowded into the kitchen to beg for more. when they asked me how I learned to do it, I told them the culinary fairy blessed me at my christening, which must be true, since this is the 3rd time in my life I've made sushi.

I'd just kill to be able to buy things I had access to at Stella. creme fraiche. huge tubs of mascarpone (not these bitty $8 tubs), microgreens. FISH. 10 Lb blocks of dark chocolate.

utensils. pots and pans. workspace.

a person to wash the dishes.

watching Iron Chef America last night, egging on the canadians, yelling at the tv and getting the labs all riled up, I miss cooking. I wish I could combine all the things I'm good at and passionate about into one concrete what-i-want-to-do-when-i-grow-up.

so what combines reading fiction incessantly, writing compulsively, speaking Spanish, and cooking bizarrely and beautifully? and isn't psychosis-inducing?

Poem for Monday, February 21, 2005

2005-02-21T07:53:00.000-08:00

On my tombstone they will carve, "IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME." HST

Portal

By Marvin Bell

He was given to see through time.
He made sense of near-autism and near-schizophrenia.
A door handle turned on its own, back and forth.
On the other side a blinding light.
Grainy apparitions rode the third rail beneath the sidewalk.
City is city.

Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
Winner of Best of Memphis in Memphis Flyer
for 7 Straight Years

2005-02-21T07:37:00.000-08:00

somewhere around 7 the storm woke me up and i squinted out the window at the rain daggers all golden from the motion light. my yard is flooded down at the deepend where the mosquitos breed.

"I'd blown my mind, couldn't work," he told Playboy. "So finally I just started jerking pages out of my notebook and numbering them and sending them to the printer. I was sure it was the last article I was ever going to do for anybody." ny times

keep those pages coming, dr gonzo.

you can still see the high water mark

2005-02-20T21:44:00.000-08:00

if anyone could tell us
what comes after the light
it would be you.

2005-02-18T19:47:00.000-08:00

e.e. cummings - you shall above all things... (1922)

you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

mash me up

2005-02-18T07:28:00.000-08:00

so my boss called me last night to tell me she was changing my schedule and then made me get on acquisition and d/l a bunch of mash-ups.

the best one by far is marvin gaye singing "sexual healing" over radiohead's "high and dry." they do it all with sonic foundry and other fancy programs, but it's basically just beat-matching and track-cutting. there's a my bloody/beasties song that's decent, and a hilarious "milkshake/holiday," but most of them are a little too house-y for my taste.

holla.

someday we'll find it

2005-02-16T21:06:00.000-08:00

I don't know what's wrong with me today.

Sherbert, the 2 Chicks and a Broom yoga teacher's baby, woke up mid-way through her nap while I was cleaning and refused to be consoled, even by daddy rocking her, until I came in and got her. I slung her on my hip and carried on dusting. When I finished in the bedroom, I laid her down on the bed and sang her "thunder road" complete with interpretive hand motions. I mean, the fact that she knew I was out there and wanted to hang out with me should have make this a glimmering cupcake of a day.

Maybe it was listening to too much Cat Power. Maybe it was the stupid damn stupid crappy damn stupid multiple choice psychology tests I had to cram for. Maybe it's the freakish weather.

Maybe I should just accept the fact that medication, therapy, 8 full hours of sleep and all still can't keep me from occasional glumness. There's always chocolate Silk with a shot of half & half. there's always Kermit singing "rainbow connection."

there's always two cats on my bed and Hemingway on my pillow.

2005-02-16T07:11:00.000-08:00

stupid crappy psych exams. O, the indignity of having to study for multiple-choice tests! why, it's been since Fall of 1998 since I've had a multiple choice test. Maybe Spring of 99, in my French class. grrr.

I find studying nearly impossible, even at the library. here in my bitty apartment there are way too many stimuli, but at least I have a sofa.

It's sunny and in the 60s here. Ridiculous. Hooray for global warming. This summer will be unbearable.

2005-02-14T22:21:00.000-08:00

I have seen the red rose burning
and this means more. -Bukowski

red flowers and waiting as the sun sets,
there is nothing left but the burning.

bootheels on cement,
the key turns in the lock.

can you hear the tigers?

it's over

2005-02-14T22:13:00.000-08:00

my love brought me 2 carnations
My love brought me red

my love brought me her
my love told me not to worry
my love told me not to die

my love is two carnations on a table
while listening to Schoenburg
on an evening darkening into night.

Ah, Bukowski.

bayou blues

2005-02-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

today was absolutely lovely.

therefore it seems perfectly logical that the abandoned orishas of the asphalt covered bluff city bayous should take their revenge in the form of the mosquito plague.

first bite of the year: 7:37 pm, 14th February.

it escapes me why anyone would choose to live in this gods-cursed city. a hundred years ago downtown would flood- the north end and the south end accessed one another by boat. then yellow fever, civil rights violations, the assasination of our culture's greatest hope. the ubiquitous threat of earthquake. the rain. the complete lack of competent governing officials. the corruption in the jails. persistant racism and segregation. the light gas and water monopoly. the hopelessness of the public educators. the travesty of the pyramid and trolley. the dead birds in the summer. it's like a damn Garcia Marquez novel, I tell you what.

we got us some real pretty flowers in the springtime, though.