on selling drugs, badly.

That is the best embellishment of the fuck-word ever and I can't believe I didn't think of it first. It's courtesy of the Post-It Note Reading Series, this story in particular.

Oh man I love art, don't you?

sometimes it consists of this

All day I have been walking around saying to myself, "It's alright, it's alriiiight, I'm okay."

It's hard admitting to you, oh World, that on days like this I don't especially know who I am anymore, what my motivations are, where my resolve lies. Apathy twists my emotional arm, and then I get panicky, grief-stricken, my heart's mouth stuck in a soundless O of panic; this all results in, of course, me thinking that I really am insane instead of just telling you so and then aping for the cameras.



Anger. Default. Easier than both panic and sorrow.

To the laydeh at the Piggly Wiggly this morning: I am not sorry I was actively rude to you. You are constantly actively rude to me and I am sick of play-acting that I am a patient, gracious, forgiving person. Trying really my hardest to be that person over the course of the last two or three years has hammer-beaten a crater in my middle which everything in me is forced to flow around, the sum of which is that I am exhausted, all ways exhausted: In my heart, my head, my spleen. It even hurts to place the bottoms of my feet on the carpet in the mornings. Fuck this.

To the laydeh at the Subway sandwich store, I am very sorry that I snapped at you about the handwashing thing. I have an adequate grasp on germ theory and am not especially terrified that the filthy money you were just handling would somehow infect me with some inconveniencing affliction or infection or even the sniffles. I, in fact, relish the thought of my immune system being shored up through such faux pas. Not treating immunities lightly is what is killing a lot of modern society. Bye-bye, Darwin says you deserve what you get, ninnies.

What I am indeed sorry about, oh Subway laydeh, is that long about the time we both sidestepped nearer to the lettuce bin I started crying in spite of myself. I'm very, very, very sorry about that. And mortified. I am mortified about that. I find it hard even admitting I have cried to someone, I find it repulsive to cry in front of someone I actually know, can you then imagine the horror of standing, one hand lightly atop the curved glass, tears unexpectedly breaking ranks to utterly and completely betray me? In front of strangers? In a semi-crowded PUBLIC PLACE? And then, when you asked me if I was okay, my face crumpling like so much discarded newsprint, forcing me to throw my free hand up and over my precociously-watering eyeballs...well, for all intents and purposes I might have fared better taking a bullet straight to the guts.

"Sweetie, sweetie," you said quietly, and I noticed how pretty your eyes are and how unfairly your glasses detract from this, "are you okay?"

"Yes" I lied, "I just need to get home, is all." What I really wanted to tell her, voice choking like a five-year-old betrayed, was, "No, I am terribly frightened, because I don't know from whence these tears came or --more importantly-- when they might stop. Unprovoked tears are funny that way, Subway laydeh, they carry the threat of not resolving themselves in quicklike fashion. One day they will create the tide upon which I am washed up into a straight jacket."

In the car, and the tears bullied their way past my chest, my throat, my ill-behaving eyes. My sunglasses were huge, but they couldn't hide the grimace that comes on when a particular fashion of crying manifests itself. When we were three blocks from home, Mathias asked me a question.

"Mom, are you okay?"

I can see it now. I can see the first sentence to his award-winning novel, the one that he will deftly navigate to film because there is nothing this kid cannot do once he is focused.

"I was nine the afternoon my mother, once and for all, lost her mind." He would then go on to paint in words the gorgeousness of the day, the fact that I was in flip-flops and pigtails and had only just purchased him a pint Dutch Chocolate ice cream from the Piggly Wiggly. He would describe how, as he stoically sat in the seat next to mine and looked out the window in front of us while my sobs took all the oxygen out of the car, he asked me if I was okay.

And then the actress portraying me would turn to him, blowing her nose on a Subway napkin, push her sunglasses (somewhat askew) to the top of her head and take a deep breath.

Her lines are as follows:
"Sometimes, Mathias, mommy gets very, very sad. Only I show it by being mad. I'm sorry if I was snappy or short with you at the grocery store. I'll be okay. Are you okay?"

He often speaks in mumbles, this Mathias. It drives me crazy, because he already has a dusky quality to his voice. Because there is so much going on in his brain, he sometimes overlooks conventional rules of nicety, like not to speak over two adults when they are talking (or two psuedo-adults: One who is ringing groceries and one who is angrily ripping a check from its leather home). You know, to tell his mother that --because he is a boy genius intent on translating the inventions in his brain to paper so that we mere mortals might get a glimpse of his incredible mental capacities-- he has ONCE AGAIN misplaced his wallet, and that it is probably on Nana's dining room table. "Can we run back there and pick it up?" His incredible forgetfulness also asses me continuously.

The actor-Mathias turns to face the actor-Momma. "I'm fine," he says simply, and she has to believe him, because as opaque as he sometimes is, he is always a direct-answer-to-a-direct-question kinda guy. No matter that he is nine: He tells it like it is.

Then actor-mom crosses the railroad tracks, makes a quick series of turns and they are home. The camera cuts between boy, scooping ice cream into a glass bowl in the environs of a well-lit kitchen and his mother, slumped on her bed and weeping, slugging it out with her own flavor of brokenness.

And I'm startled because it came on just so suddenly and has left a hangover of hurt sitting all over me for the remainder of the afternoon. Mathias got picked up a couple of hours ago by his best friend's mother; they are going to spend the afternoon playing (oh, the joy of two nerdy, expansive brains collaborating To Play! the angels sing triumphant on such occasions, I'm sure of it) and the evening at the skating rink.

Before he left, though, he came to see me in my room to say goodbye. I was sitting in my favorite reading chair when he did, busy folding linens. After he'd told me he was going now, he asked, "Mom, are you sad because you think you hurt my feelings earlier?"

"Maybe just a little." It was sort of a lie, sort of not. Thinking that I'd maybe spoken out of frustration at him made me even more knotted up than I already had been, but that wasn't the crux of the issue at hand. I didn't know just what the fuck was to blame, really.

"Well, you didn't. Okay?"

"Okay, son. Thank you."

Then he bent down to hug me, one of those really great hugs that only he can give. They are so phenomenal because he presses his chest snugly to yours and you can actively feel that he is vulnerable, is putting all of himself into it without overpowering what you might have to give back. He hangs there in that moment for as long as need be.

With a kiss on my cheek, he said, "I'm going now," and I bid him love and a good time with a huge polyphonic hum in my ears.

(It was this evening before it dawned on me: I get this way just before something huge happens. Something impactful, something that creates terror or havoc or loss. I don't want to be some sort of goofy emotional barometer. It's not a gift you can tell others about, like being able to play a Rachmaninoff piece skillfully on a contrabassoon or doing complex calculus in your head. It's a gift that makes other people spit ugly words like 'antipsychotics' and 'years of instensive therapy' at. It's a gift that people don't want to think about because they often can't fathom such freakishness. Sometimes I can't even fathom it either, and I'm ready to assign those same labels myself. But then The Something happens that sent me flailing in the first place and I Remember, and I try to have patience with myself and with the way things are.)

some loo philosophizing is better than others

unfinished, raw, but ready enough
(appended with Here Is Why Insomnia)

I am dying to sing something beautiful
over you, into you, about you;
Here now is the want
to trail off notes with
the curve of my ankle,
to float measures via
the wisp of hair at my neck,
to illustrate the primal backbeat by
the meat of my thighs.

I long to soar across steady bars on
the lightest caress of my fingertips.
My muscles into the coda again and again, toes tiptoeing the silences between with mastery.

I imagine crafting
delicate melodies with my eyelids,
a lullaby with my backbone,
low wails emanating from my wrists.
There would my chin keep time,
letting my shoulders find their tone
and my hips shore up breath.
All so that my scapula can scream the exact pitch
which your name hums on in my every part.

::: :: ::: :: ::: :: ::: It is coming a veritable flood here. Thank you, oh Miss Fay. We have been so dry for so long. That sort of thing has a sly effect on the people, even if they don't realize it.

Summer tomatoes are the worst they've ever been. Mister Robert brags on having to pump out his back yard fish pond twice in five hours. "Save that water," I joke with him, "we'll need it probably sooner than later."

We have an entire closet devoted to just-in-case food storage. This week powdered eggs arrived. I must admit that it slinks in the back of my brain, the notion that some of the powdered things will be useless sans water. Will there be enough water?

We have bullets, too. I only want them for protection; I fear ever having to use them to attain something of sustenance. Something out of have to. Should the world become that place, though, I think I would. But I would admonish the children to cover their eyes and ears first.

If it ever comes to that, that is.

she will survive the revolution, I reckon

JETT: How old are those Doritos, anyway?
TESS: They still taste good.
JETT: THAT'S NOT THE QUESTION I ASKED.

I shouldn't be so damn persnickety. I remember some of the crazy shit I subsisted on in my (broke, broke, I was an adult and supporting myself, so very broke) college days. Also? That spate of months when I was a kid where we made it solely on mustard sandwiches roughly every other day. Funny, my father was intent on making us survivors before he left, but his leaving did more toward that end than he knows.

Thanks, Henry. Just because I don't speak to you doesn't mean that I don't think there were valuable things that you contributed to my life.

not much of anything, really.

It aggravates me when people say "Welp, it's better to be pissed off than pissed on." It's ignorant. It's ignorant because most people are indeed pissed off because they have been pissed on.

And to answer a question posed by a few people this weekend, "Yes, I have a Twitter feed."

No matter how long I've been doing this, I'm always amazed at the sheer volume of people who are actually terrified to step into someone's frame and poke out their hand in greeting. Hint, people: Some of the folks with the biggest bite also give the warmest hugs. You are no more or no less than they are, no matter how you perceive them.

Now, some of you lurking bitches comment. I'm ready to shake hands. So are other people; give them a shot.

I'm sorry I said 'babyfuckers' in the last post. What I meant to say was 'those nasty, NASTY babyfuckers'.

There is some mighty big shit going down in the world nowadays. Most of it I feel crazily inept commenting on. Hell, I only just yesterday came to a concrete state of belief on a several-years-old matter.

"I, Jett Superior, think that the wonderfully enigmatic and unquestionably talented Pee-Wee Herman got the short end of the stick back in...what was it? Nineteen ninety-one? Ninety-(only I'm Southerin, I pronounce it 'NAHN-dee')two? And I totally did not intend for that 'short end of the stick' part to be a pun, but it works and so I will do the obvious 'SHORT END of the STICK, geddit?' routine that everyone is so fond of.

I mean seeeeeriously, he was in a place specifically intended for the pulling out of one's member and slacking the jaw in pursuit of somewhat-unbridled hedonistic pleasure. I never realized that Theatres de Pr0n required great decorum. They are dark, yeah? And they have a dirty movie playing? Sometimes they sell anal plugs instead of Jujubes out of the glassed-in counter? And the marquee out front mostly hollers "HEY, PRETTY FREAKY SHIT GOING ON INSIDE (if you pay our low, low(ish) price of entry, then you can choose to come in and check stuff out, since you are a grown-up and all and likely know the boundary of your moral and/or ethical values)!!!"

Pee-Wee Herman got railroaded by people who want to deny me child-friendly programming with a subtle, amazing brand of tongue-in-cheek adult humor that would totally escape aforementioned children. Oh, Pee-Wee, you bleeding genius of a man! Sympathies on this travesty!

That, as decided yesterday, was my well-thought-upon stance where the matter was concerned. Then I wanted to be certain regarding the original arrest date (in Florida, where my former in-laws reside, and I'm not especially sure they didn't have something to do with the Conspiracy Against Pee-Wee), so I began to peek around Cyberia for the unvarnished facts.

That state of belief lo these seventeen years coming was dashed on the hard, cold rocks of teh INterswebNets0rs, however. Damn you, readily-available gluts of information! Curses, oh eagerly-waiting engines of search! Pee-Wee was arrested on charges of possessing norty pictures of boys some ten years later, in two-thousand and one. Dismissed by the defendant's counsel as part of a vast collection of vintage memorabilia, the lawyer framed them up as totally 'innocent' tintypes of boys in repose.

That's where my screaming middle hops about all flaily and says, "Nineteen-ten or two-thousand ten, the sexual exploitation of a minor is a criminal act of the proportions that stomp all over my righteously indignant guts!"

So now I have to amend my little screed that it took me nearly two decades to debate out internally. Henceforth it will have to read like this:

"I, Jett Superior, think that the wonderfully enigmatic and unquestionably talented Pee-Wee Herman got the short end of the stick back in...what was it? Nineteen ninety-one? Ninety-(only I'm Southerin, I pronounce it 'NAHN-dee')two? And I totally did not intend for that 'short end of the stick' part to be a pun, but it works and so I will do the obvious 'SHORT END of the STICK, geddit?' routine of which everyone is so fond.

I mean seeeeeriously, he was in a place specifically intended for the pulling out of one's member and slacking the jaw in pursuit of somewhat-unbridled hedonistic pleasure. I never realized that Theatres de Pr0n required great decorum. They are dark, yeah? And they have a dirty movie playing? Sometimes they sell anal plugs instead of Jujubes out of the glassed-in counter? And the marquee out front mostly hollers "HEY, PRETTY FREAKY SHIT GOING ON INSIDE (if you pay our low, low(ish) price of entry, then you can choose to come in and check stuff out, since you are a grown-up and all and likely know the boundary of your moral and/or ethical values)!!!"

Pee-Wee Herman got railroaded by people who want to deny me child-friendly programming with a subtle, amazing brand of tongue-in-cheek adult humor that would totally escape aforementioned children. Oh, Pee-Wee, you bleeding genius of a man! Sympathies on this travesty! less than he deserved. And I'm pissed that when the inevitable low-key celebrity encounter that will pertain to him occurs, I won't in good conscience be able to shake his hand. Pity, that.

So from here on out I'll maybe just take twenty-seven years to allow a position on profound matters to hack its way out of the bag and settle into actual words. Just to be on the safe, well-informed side.

Pee ess, in the throes of heavy research, I found this site, which is too fabulously exuberant to not share

regulars, I beg your patience

Because of some recent linkylovin' from Her Esteemed Blogness Jenneh, I find myself the recipient of a sudden influx of New Folk. This leaves me wildly compelled to be all vain and shit and make a post trying to somewhat flesh out just who the fuck I am, despite the eight years' worth of archives over to the right. So, kinda who the fuck I am, sketched out off of the top of my head, in under thirty minutes:

O HAI. I am Jett; I am inclined to adventures, hilarity and wordiness. I have an attorney on retainer at all times. In multiple states, actually.

I am a Medicated Middle American Babe, once a month for one week at a time. This is because my once-temperate and mild-mannered female bits decided to do a complete fuckout on me in the form of a hormone wash flood typhoon-tsunami-armageddon thing on me about four months ago.

I love those whom I love deeply, unquestionably and thoroughly.

Sometimes I have these vague, spastic impulse control problems. But they most generally manifest themselves as 'fun' rather than 'episodic'.

I am smart. I am not ashamed of being smart. I am also not ashamed of my boobs and shiny, bouncy hair. They're all gifts. As is my ability to floor you with my choice of lesser verbiage, most especially the adorning of the word fuck with all sorts of imaginative prefixes, suffixes and exuberant qualifiers.

Everything is funny if squinted at just right. Everything. Well, except for babyfuckers. They are appalling no matter the set of my eyes or mouth.

Usually, I'm the 'outsider mom' on those occasions that I'm forced into interactions with other parents. Darn the luck, I have very active kids with a good range of interests, so these forced interactions happen more than my sweet little misanthropic heart would beg. I typically fly quietly under the radar until one of four things happens
onesies) I wear something that enables one of my tats to be seen
twosies) I use a multisyllabic word (other than motherfucker, that is)
threesies) I throw my hair up in pigtails or
foursquare rounds it out) my cleavage makes any sort of appearance.

Go on, be an asshole; I'm not intimidated. But you start acting a fool, then don't get your ass up around your shoulders when I return the same. Only I will do it bigger, better, harder, longer, and make you feel smaller than you ever imagined you could feel. This will probably be in one dozen words or less, depending on the day. It's an art, and my skills have been honed to a fine, fine point by some folks amazingly adept at being dickheads.

I live in a huge, rambly, Brady Bunch-style home that we totally lucked into because it was being used --literally-- as a garbage dump, so we got it at a steal of a price. There is constantly work to be done on it. It is proof of the insanity that is my life. "Water leaking through the light fixture? Ohhh, HAAAhahaha!"

Regular readers are referred to as 'Muffinasses'. It is a term of endearment. Muffinasses come and Muffinasses go, but Brynne will always and forever be known as either 'Number One Muffinass' or 'Muffinass the First'. Brynne floats in the background of Muffinassery, spectre-like, and taunts the rest of you with her brainy hotness. That's just the way it is, y'all.

I'm not mad at you for being an atheist, agnostic, pagan, (fillinthisblank) , so you don't be mad at me for being a Christian. I think we all have room to learn things from one another. Plus, if I believe like I say I do (and I do, y'all folk), then my God doesn't suffer from an identity crisis and doesn't need to prove Himself to anyone. I reckon that means He doesn't need my paltry, finite ass to defend Him. He just charged me to love people and take care of them the best I can manage, and to not give up on that directive. I have by no means perfected the art of the former, but I'm plugging away at it: There's everything to be said for just showing up and trying to be used toward some good end(s). At least that's how I'm approaching things at this time.

I've been voyeurnalling for over nine years, eight of that using Blogger as my publishing platform. We've had our hiccups from time to time, me and Blogger, but mostly it's been good to me and I reckon I'll stay seated squarely in the home camp.

Despite my immense love of all words everywhere, I do not like the following terms: blogosphere, mommyblogger, 'first to comment!'.

Yeah, I'm very opinionated. Yeah, I'm fairly blunt, sometimes to the point of being rude and/or brash. Rarely, (SO RARELY) do I 'hate' anyone. Polite, well-worded dissention is encouraged, but save your bandwagoning for someone else. Always feel free to state your own views, but do your politicking privately via e-mail. We can converse, we can come to understandings, we can totally disagree: None of those things guarantee my either buying or not buying the next round. Sycophants suck. But so do campaigns of petty dickheadedness Just For The Sake Of.

I love art of all kinds, and passionately. Music isn't just my boyfriend, it is my daddy and I its willing bitch. Language is a plaything, and I enjoy it immensely.

Child advocacy is near and dear to my heart, and has been for ages and ages. Babyfuckers are a startling aberrance of nature and should be roughly dealt with. I have no patience or lovingkindness in me where this issue is concerned.

I am occasionally prone to intense bouts of selfishness that will cause me to post my poetry here in this space. This is for two people: Me, and Christopher Robinson. For me, cos I'm ridiculously angsty in turns and for Chris because he genuinely likes it. This, despite the fact that he is qualified to tell me my poetry (and any other words I stack together, really) absolutely blows by virtue of some letters poked in there behind his name and some experiences poked back there behind him in his past. Selah and amen. (I tried to find a poem to link, but I have no patience for that sort of thing. Any recommendations, Mister Robs?)

I'm not particularly afraid of taking a beating.

I love to laugh. I like quirky things. I like elegant things. I like tacky things. I love both the whimsical and the grave. I like giving presents. Orange is my favorite color, but I've a soft spot for ivory-hued things.

I don't have a gym membership because of vanity's sake. I have one because ay) I like to push my body to the extreme of its limits sometimes and bee) it keeps me from killing the random motherfucker who really, really deserves it. Also, I just like to feel good, don't you? I took my body for granted for a whole lot of years there. I'd like to not lapse back into that place.

Your station in life means nothing to me. The contents of your heart and brain absolutely do.

For some reason, I tend to attract people of the Piscean, Sagittarean or Taurean ilk. Iunno why, it's just a pattern I've noticed. They're the ones I end up collecting --for better or for worser, anyway-- up to this point.

I haphazardly collect vintage photographs of people at fancy-dress parties.

My toes are well-manicured, my fingers are well-gnawed. Dichotomy rules me.

I love my job (in the healthcare field) but I don't necessarily think it's my Calling. I work with/for one of my best friends, who for the purposes of our bloggy funses is referred to as Young HotDoc.

Oh lord, shoes and books and lipsticks are my Achille's heel. I think I'm getting a handle on my slavery to bath products, though. I think.

I. Can. Drink. More. Than. You. This doesn't make me an alcoholic, just adept. I am, however, a non-practicing junkie. DEAR DOCTORS, STOP TRYING TO MEDICATE ME. IF I CAN'T MEDICATE MYSELF, THEN YOU CAN'T EITHER. UN. FAIR.

For years and years I wouldn't put a picture of me on the web, preferring instead to let my words frame up whatever image the readers could muster in their heads. This policy has recently changed. I look like this when I'm chilling on the weekends, like this when life has handed me a shit sandwich, like this when roadtrippin', like this when I R Drankin, like this when I'm self-satisfied and like this when I'm at peace. I'm terrible at self-portraiture. The less attractive the picture, the more likely I am to throw it out there, probably. And no, you can't have a picture of my titties, stupid.

I am a mom. I LOVE BEING A MOM. IF I COULD HAVE LIKE FOUR MORE KIDS AND AFFORD TO FEED THEM, I TOTALLY WOULD. As of now, though, I have sixteen-year-old Sam, fifteen-year-old Scout and nine-year-old Mathias. One word to sum them each up, you ask? Okay, in order: Heart, Head, Soul (read the archives if you want further clarification). My partner, and I do mean partner, is my husband Maxim. He is everything I'm not, thank God for miracles. He is a knight in shining armor and a non-smelly hippie. He has a great hands and heart, which are both exceedingly important in a Manfolk, to my way of thinking. We are foster parents, but currently have no placements and are taking a bit of a break....though we do sponsor a child in Indonesia who Maxim insisted I place a framed photo of on the teevee console, along with all of our other bebes. We have two dogs; One is Ellie, pretty little brown-red Australian Shepherd, and I've learned an appreciation for the art of owning a neurotic dog at the mercy of her paws. I've never before owned a pet in need of medication, so I quietly despise her, though I try not to let her know this. The other dog is Maple, who is Ellie's quite-unexpected pup. She is My Dog, no matter what I allow the rest of the family to think, because she is silly and affectionate and fun.

My best friend is a shining example of Most Everything That Is Right About The Human Race. We say 'Your Mom' an undgodly lot. Her name is Tess and she's got the best legs of any near-thirty-year-old you've ever seen. There's not a single day that goes by when we don't laugh together. She is a lesbian, though I've not actively written about this yet. I've chosen her to marry my husband should I ever get hit by a bus or fall in a hole or some shit. All parties are in agreement.

I do not post every day or even every other day. I AM BUSY, BEESHES. PLEASE DO NOT PRESSURE ME. You are not paying for consistency. In fact, you are not paying at all. Every now and again I will hit one out of the wordsmithy park, making your repeated empty clicks worth it. I promise this to you, Oh Fair Muffinass, I do.

Sometimes Zakk Wylde will show up to give you a big, testosterone-laden, sweaty rock and roll hug. Like now.
:: "c'mon over here and lemme lay some Zakk on ya!" ::

Also, I will make vague references to beer and sausages, i.e., "Beer and sausages for everybody!", though I haven't done that in a while so I don't even know why I'm mentioning it.

I'm gonna leave it to my Loyal But Sinister Muffinass Cabal to fill in any blanks which I might have missed, down there in the comments. What will be hilarious is if they leave me hanging and crickets ensue. Because we are that flavor of loving jackass here at [Abuantg.]. Welcome to our madness.

Are any of you following Cake Wrecks yet?

Because, really, you should be.

dunDAHHHHH!

I just want to start off this week with the declaration that my life is great. My life is great because --among other things-- I have a kid that says things like this when I feel like the world and everyone in it are kicking me squarely in the ass at ten-sixteen on a Sunday morning:

SAM: You know what I do when I'm not feeling so great?
JETT: What is it that you do, kid?
SAM: I start singing Bob Marley to myself.
JETT: Which?
SAM: Three Little Birds. You know, "doan woory / about a ting / cos every little ting / go-nah be alright"

Of course I knew. I fell in on the harmony about three words in and then we both laughed. My heart was near-immediately lightened and I thanked God that in this crazy, fucked up world that feeds The Things That Would Be Ugly If Unleashed residing up there in my head, there is this magic boy and it was seen to that I'd have the immense fortune of getting to be his mother.

Though a bit of a slackerbait at times, he is a person of hilarity and grace and caring and judicious nature. I will be proud to unlace my theoretical hand from his one day and pass it to some young woman, knowing that he will be a fine man who loves her with all his ability; one who can inherently pick the exact perfect things out of the ether to offer her cheer and comfort and a sense of having someone solidly in her corner.

I just hope that a) the rockstar gig has paid off for him by then or b) he gets a degree first and can feed her in a respectable manner.

You people? Don't worry about a thing. Every little thing is gonna be alllllriiiiight.

ode to x-acto knife

My exact favorite moment whenever I'm in my studio is the one where I get the first bit of anything smudged onto the tips of at least three fingers. Ink elicits the most pure sort of joy, but sawdust and epoxy and wire marks and beeswax and glue (gawdamighty the decadent selection of adhesives available to the modern woman!) all have their place, as well. Nicks and burns are in a class all their own, because then the materials don't just float atop the skin, but nestle down to become a part of it for a time.

After this moment passes, my mind lapses into loose, concentric vapors of thought. These are often distilled down to a catch phrase of sorts, usually in about a half-dozen words or less. For instance, what I have written in black sharpie on my left palm Right This Very Now: the plans are not mutually exclusive. There are some that play around up in my head, snapping like ribbons in the breeze before loosing themselves to turn lazily in and over and around, looping and twisting, gloved in a tender wind. Tonight's was, There is a terrible voice inside me that says, "WHAT IF THIS IS THE WARM-UP AND I AM NOT EVEN PITCHING THE ACTUAL GAME YET??(!)"

I'm thinking about making a set of nesting dolls with that exact question written across their seams, until the very last doll, the teensy inch-and-a-half one is left sporting just tensed-up punctuation. (HA, "you don't love my words, you just love my tensed-up punctuation")

Today I decided I'd just make little, simple signs that convey the things I love in as many languages as I can muster. For instance, "Me gusta punk rock y Jesus." Of course I got the inspiration for this from a Sublime song, and now I'm obligated to tell you that I keep a little info sheet on each piece I complete. One of the things I write on it --really the only reason I 'document' a piece at all, surely-- is the song that was playing when the idea initially hit me and/or I started working on it.

Which is why it should come as no surprise to you at all that I spent a portion of my week doing research and planning in my head how to go about opening a pie diner (breakfast pies! luncheon pies! pies of all desserty sorts!), and all because of a Patty Griffin song.

"Art does not begin and end at the edges of a frame."

So, this past week I began the task of cleaning up the sidebar(s) over there to the right. (Hey, hover and/or click on those little snap things there. You knew they were interactive, right? I'm told my design is clunky, but I'm still in love with it and may be for some time yet.) It really shouldn't be so hard, culling inactive or hardly-used links and adding back in more recent reads and resources. I, however, being who I am, made it into A Thing. I began missing people, thinking about things like interactions and beginnings and the way I've morphed into Somebody Maybe Altogether Different since I first opened up Blogger's entry window and began boldly spilling my veins there.

I got no further than my personal reads, really, because I was clicking through and checking in on people I'd not updated myself on in what seems to be eons. I used to follow the Styns pretty regularly, most especially Kaya and grandfather Caleb, but I used to peek in on Halcyon from time to time. Caleb has since died (my condolences to his family, he seemed to be a Very Amazing Person Indeed), Kaya has apparently given up blogging in favor of other pursuits, but Halcyon is still at it. He's changed to mostly an all-vid format, and I took in a few of them. He is still quirky and still full of humor and his own style of grace.

One vidblog in particular really resonated with me, because it's something that I've been settling into myself more and more as of late. Tess and I were discussing it over a plate of downhome-style veggies at the local bread-and-butter cafe just last week in fact. Between bites of okra and butter beans, everything distilled down into the one statement of fact that Tess pushed at me across the table, accompanied by subtle gestures of emphasis with her fork: "I may never spend one minute in a studio besides yours. I may never pick up the materials you do and translate something of myself in a way that other people can relate to. That doesn't really matter, though; I am the best piece I will ever craft, flawed and textured and dimensional and full of heart." It was amazing, this very intimate confession of hers, because it got at the meat of what Halcyon had said a scant two days earlier:



"You, by choosing to see the world creatively, are an artist regardless of if you produce anything." And he is right. So right in a way that many people need to hear. So right that I had to bring it here to you. You, friend or lover or brother or sister or momma or poppa or island unto yourself.

You, Life Artist.

falling up

Tess works at a pharmacy part-time every couple of weeks. Last Saturday she got me an ampule of B-12 and a pack of syringes. They sat in the pharmacy sack on top of a vintage washstand --the first present my father ever bought my mother, discovered on a road trip in New England-- until last night.

I waited until late into the evening, when the rest of my family was in bed. I found myself eyeing the sack over and over and over until I just lost patience with myself and snatched it up.

I locked myself in the tiny bathroom at the back of the house. I stood looking in the mirror above the vanity, looking hard for something I even as yet cannot quite put my finger on. Maybe fighting to recognize myself....this is something I used to do often as a child. Me and mirrors, we have a long history. They are full of an inexplicable mysticism for me, much in the same way that trees are full of an inexplicable and large comfort. For some reason, there is a part of me that believes mirrors have Big Joojoo and I must be careful with them. I think maybe they are equal parts lies and truths all mixed up, and you can get trapped in the deciphering if you are not careful enough.

It took a small weight of time, rolling the tiny bottle in my hand, staring at the plastic package of hypos, before I was able to touch it. I haven't so much as looked at one up close in a long, lonnnng minute. Hell, when I'm getting blood drawn I can never even actively look at the needle the tech is using; while they are punching through my flesh and navigating it to a vein I throw my gaze into the other direction. This is not because I have the standard, classic fear of needles (my fear is loaded and extra-special). It's not because I am being caused any kind of discomfort, because it often barely even registers, even when my veins are playing hide and seek (your body remembers being your fool on some level, it sure does) and some vigorous digging around with the steel is employed.

It's somewhat like not taking a call from a bad former boyfriend: I don't even want to give a hair's-breadth of a chance for some kind of romantic charm to be employed, lest I be up to my neck in shit again. What, you don't have some flavor of demon that might make you seem irrational to the random passerby?

I set the vial next to the sink, picked up the package and tore it open. Gingerly I extracted one of the syringes, skinny and lethal-looking. I am small, it said to me grimly, but I am sure as fuck-all serious.

Respect, I responded silently, Re. Spect.

After that it all became business, rapid and efficient. It's amazing how easy it is to do things you haven't done in years. Draw down, tap-tap. Squint, tap again. Smile in spite of self. Curse self. Pull running shorts off of hip. Parry, thrust, submerge, push, all done, triumph.

Pulling the fucking thing out almost made me sad.

It was strange and unusual for me to use a needle in pursuit of something healthy for myself. The only thing I've used them for previously is to quiet demons, chase forgetful bliss and destroy the good and healthy body that God seated me in.

I have to do it again next week and I'm already nerved up about it.