...the hard reset

"i desire the things that will destroy me in the end..." -plath

there was a threshold recently, i nearly fell thru it like a plate glass window- missing it- missing all my own cues.  thank goodness for relentless shadows, and the nag of consciousness. i toyed with the edge of a precipice- i peered, and the chasm stared back into me, and for the first time remembered to be careful fighting those monsters, because i. looked. away.

***

last night i didn't sleep. i wrestled the sheets, the walls, my mind, my body. i wept. i laughed hysterically. if anyone had witnessed, i'm positive i would have looked insane.

i'm sure, at some point around 4 a.m., i was insane.

i don't know what it was.

all my fears and anxieties became tangible, and exorcised. and i remembered something i used to tell myself a long time ago, for different reasons- a short verse, almost a prayer, that had found its way back into my head- so, i said it out loud:

i just need to make it thru this day- and if not this day, this hour- and if not this hour, this minute, this second

it is as healing now, as it was before.  i won't forget again. and to keep that longing gaze to a bittersweet minimum.

***

[] [] [] reboot...

...and then it knocked at the door

"we think the same things at the same time

we just can't do anything about it..."  thom yorke, harrowdown hill

its like no exit in here somedays, except i'm stuck with cats.

when you don't usually stop moving- when you're constantly going from one job to the next + children + errands + living your life- having any amount of time off feels alien, almost insidious. there's a strange sort of paranoia (inertia?) that settles in, like kudzu, the creeping vine that strangles entire towns.  a more onerous ennui.

so that's today. i'm waiting for something. or thats what it feels like. nothings coming. somethings coming.

something is always coming.

***

...perpetual days, silly girl

"For the right price I can get everything
Slip into the car, go driving to the farthest star" circles, m.doughty

... it went a little off the rails, but it had to. thirty one has been awesome to me. i lived in a deep irrational fear of my thirties in my twenties, and had i known how good things were going to get, my twenties would have looked much different. but thats ok. because if my twenties had looked different, my thirties might suck. and now, im happily awaiting my forties (fingers crossed).

last night we took the mazda speed daemon up 71 at miles per hour so illegal it went full respect circle. jeromy joked about "dat g-force, tho" and i couldn't do much else but giggle and agree. zoom, zoom, indeed.

it is always such a privilege to see mr. Mike Doughty preform live; even more so when it is the revered question jar show, with Andrew "Scrap" Livingston. Mike on banjo and Scrap on cello, in a room the size of my whole apartment. it is a spiritual thing.

a pair of homebro lovebirds in front of me couldn't STFU, and at one point, right at the 27 second mark into the song ("Light Will Keep Your Heart Beating in the Future") Mike turns toward us and says, "There are plenty of places to talk, and none of those places are right here!" i was glad he did it, but man, i hated being guilty by association.

i wanted to stick around to meet him, but there would be none of that last night. jeromy wanted me to have my selfie with Mike, but the man has already signed my arm, which is a tattoo, and so we settled for a slick hoodie and the Live at Ken's House LP.

we skirted a few minutes early, because the crowd was a gelatinous cess pool, and le fuck that. we ran back down 71, sometimes hitting 160+, laffing our heads off, our fireball blood transfusions complete, and jamming sick dj music the whole way.

somewhere along the way i fell asleep.

what a great fucking night. what a perfect evening with my best friend, my favorite musician, and way too much whisky and ipa.

...dead to rights

"...how am i gonna be an optimist about this?" -bastille, pompeii 

it's funny how you feel your grips loosen on your reins, you know. you know what i mean. sometimes you recognize the madness around you, not because it's obvious, but because its familiar. one million tiny mirrors around every corner. you begin to find Charles Bukowski less and less ironic. Patrick Bateman becomes more tragic.

i am ever more reminded of the time i drove past the Cadillac Ranch and didn't stop.  i should have insisted on halting the CrownVic, but no one listens to the chick in a tore up Stranglers t-shirt with a Hello Kitty lunchbox purse who can't keep track of her money or flip flops. instead, i concentrated on Oklahoma, on how i thought it was beautiful, and wether or not those clouds were cells.

people will have fucked up expectations of you no matter what. it will never matter how poorly someone treated you, it will not prevent them from imagining your favors are forfeit to them.

what a fucked up perspective.

take some responsibility.

i love that succinct pop phrase: i just can't. because, i actually just can't.

so, i really think it's making me crazy. the more i try to be so good, do no harm, hurt no one, the more i have the exact opposite effect. oh well, can't please em all.

***

in Germany, a man argued with his family. things escalated. he stormed out, got into his car and left to purchase explosives. when he returned, he detonated his car, killing himself, injuring seven family members and neighbors, and damaging houses.

...it's just so passionate.

...sound

...theres so much noise now. today. now. presently.

i keep smelling vomit everywhere.

...nope

"I want a god who stays dead, not plays dead  I, even, I 

can play dead.."

                                                              -nietzsche, the dandy warhols

i talked before about the heavy metal gods of the universe. that was all just expert speculation.  i also only recently learned, through a trusted source close to me, that I am most decidedly NOT metal (re: verb-in-transitive, descriptive use of, in reference to/about, et cetera and miscellaneous). so what the hell do i know?  

 >>poser<<

i know i'm pretty fucking angry today. i'm pretty pissed off at the shit people feel like they can just say to other people.  to the abject garbage people feel they can say to me.  except, now i talk back.  i didn't always, but i do now, and it's fucking up the program a little, because i'm not so docile these days.

and those days are in question, and i don't have time for disingenuous pandering and hurt motherfucking feelings. 

i know a guy who is really trying to get me to join the Episcopalians.  and honestly?  i've thought about it, just to be around other people a little bit.  to be around ostensibly nice people.  to go and meet a gay priest.  take my alternative ass to an alternative church.  to be around the kind of christians who, like, get jesus.

those are some of my favorite people.

so, metal, or no, and, jesus, or no, i'm just going to have to continue, regardless of what someone else wants me to feel. i ain't centralia, PA, and you ain't got eminent domain.

 

...very good girl

"Hot lines under a rain of drum, Cigarette Props in action, Dialogue dub, now heres the rub, She's acting her reaction"

                                                        - she's in parties, bauhaus

Mabyl has been talking recently about her classmates, and making choices based on what they tell her to do versus what she thinks is right.  I find it cool that she thinks to vocalize this internal debate, and privileged, also, that she's open to talking to me about it. So I downplay our interaction. I want it to be as casual and normal as anything else that she and I speak about her life.

I tell her she is doing the right thing by saying "No" to some of the things her friends at school are up to, mostly because she has the ability to say no.  But pretty much like every other woman ever, she wants to please the other kids, and she is afraid for people to not like her, etc.  So I shrug it off and tell her she doesn't need people like that to like her anyway, because people like that really aren't worth knowing in the first place.  She considers this and asks me, "Mom, am I somebody worth knowing?"

I told her, "I don't know, Snoopy. That's entirely up to you."