Moving on...

Just moving on to a new blog, is all. See you there. I hope!

That's it, jitterbugs. Not the end of writing, oh no. But the end of this blog. I guess, sometimes, we just need a little jump just so we can look back at where we've leapt from. With the onset of this fever, I hope it's some cosmic metaphor for something great. Well. When I get over this stupid fever.

Many new things. Working on an Etsy store (or just store at large), working on my website (slowly), working on my art. Business card designs to improve. Uhm. Money to make so I'm not in debt right now. Job to find.

Starting to dip a toe into social networking, which I still do not approve for its suckhole-like properties (Twitter, I am still holding you at arm's length like the puppy that got in the garbage), but as an independent artist/crafter/what have you? How can I complain? Ravelry being a stunning example for discussion, tips, and marvelous patterns. Anyway.

Finding the rhythm

I've been moving so quickly the past week that I feel myself getting ahead of my heartbeat, and what better way to set a pace than by that alone?

For the first time, I attended APE in San Francisco, and it was amazing. My first comicon experience, and probably the best one to attend, as far as my interests are concerned. Scads of people—many whose work I've been following for years—and plenty of other artists and crafters. It was very heartening, to talk to other independent artists on how they've succeeded in making their art alone for a living, and how they've put out their work at all costs regardless of whether or not it meant having two other jobs.

So, in a fit of 16-hour insanity (mostly spet debating which wordpress theme would match my aesthetics for a temporary site), I threw up a website the very next day. More to come.

There are many things on my plate right now—things to do, bills to pay, money to make, another steady job to get, art to make, art to document, a website to get up, business cards to print . . . well, one gets the idea.

And all so wonderful. What else is there to say.

The breeze on my neck

I remember several years ago I read that women tend to cut their hair during times of great change. At the time I was on a constant binge of hair dye, so I rolled my eyes at the statistics and went on my merry way.

Then my boyfriend at the time broke up with me. And then I shaved my hair off.

Again, now with a change of resolve, a closer realignment of the direction I am heading in and some still-yet hazy destination, the chopping of hair. No tangling, no shedding trails, ears clear, and the sweetness of breeze.

An old poem I found

While summer cleaning today, I found an old folder full of things from my senior year of college and beyond...the original drawings for my tattoos, a few drawings of my ex-fiance (and that is an ugly kind of ex to have, regardless of how well it ended), a concept for a print I was going to make, and in the middle of all that, a random poem that I am not sure whether I like or not, but find somewhat amusing, regardless:

We speak no more on
Tongues that dance and deliver
swift, stunning kicks
with the base
of their soles
DO NOT DISTURB
is the war cry of our generation
Rest in Piece
one whole one
The rain is God's giant
morse-code
Message too grand
for us to ever unravel
pied pie pie π
The key to open the door
can also kill you
Kiss you
insult another
That one word will suffice
to carry our culture
through to infinity

And then what next?

This is what happens when you feed your head static: you slow down, not time. You think less, then want to think less. You may even completely withdrawal from society, or identifying with it. Or that may or may not have been just part of your personality in the beginning.

This is what happens when you analyze too deeply, with no safety rope tied around your waist (perhaps it is just tied around your neck): if you are in a positive frame of mind, you are enlightened. If you are in a negative frame of mind, regardless of source, you are completely mind-fucked, and want to feed your head static instead of thoughts.

Let us say, somewhat arrogantly, that you can understand multiple facets to a situation or an idea, understand different sides to the same story, understand enough that by this point you cannot tell what is "right" and what is "wrong," or at least, where you stand on a given situation because it makes sense whichever way you look at it, whether it be a million different perspectives, or two contrary ones.

And then one wonders what happened to that point in time where they were looking at everything in a positive light, or at least a light of peaceful amusement.

Ah, but if you were never down, how could you appreciate the times when you are up?

To instigate that turn in the cycle is my key obstacle. And if I do not love myself at this point, I do love a good challenge.

6am baking of a peach pie, late night chicken and dumplings, coffee with a hint of molasses, and I'm good to go again.

On Direction

I wonder what purpose my life would be drawn to should I lose or lose use of both my hands, darling little things they are.

So is the question not to clarify purpose, but find the essence of that purpose.

Mixed Bag Lesson

That which I cannot change, teach me to love.

That which I cannot stand, may I be able to change.

Of neither, may I be able to walk away from without remorse.

Library break.

It was getting hot for a moment there, and though I watched people bask in the sun it only brought a shudder down my back. Driest since 70-something, said a newsreporter, but it's winter, goddammit, I just want some fucking rain, some cold—it doesn't snow in the Bay Area, is that too much to fucking ask for?

We are lucky to have the ocean and the bay.

Yesterday clouds drifted over and in, like cotton combed over our heads, and though there are no sheets of rain to tuck me in to sleep, I saw earthworms this morning. I haven't seen earthworms since returning to California, most of it to do with living in the city completely last year through the rainy season, and here they are to herald what I can only hope is an oncoming deluge of water.

Working in this library is nothing but a dust bath, bad for the lungs. I see the last thirty years of the life of this organization tumble into my lap, faces of familiar staff long departed (and some still here) staring up at me; I even see my own squashy childhood face flash forward in the shuffle of photos.

So this is truly history, something inescapable. One may stand alone but we are all in it together, and in a few blinks you see what footprints you left behind. Or, if you a clever little thing, those footprints you have swept up as you passed by.

I Held Hard

My head is killing me, and I've been feeling nauseous all day. It seems I am imbalanced, which is natural. But, how does responsibility of life and society never seem to move in the same direction as emotional responsibility?

Being in love many times over, if it's the same tune, I still don't know the finale. I never get that part of the song right...

Story of your my life

You may know everything and still not understand anything.

In Waiting

Is it more terrible a thing to feel the eyes of vultures upon you, or that this feeling is merely paranoia unshakable?

But not in the living room.

She found a wall in the way of her path, where smooth paving had given way to loose chunks of gravel and the machinations of weeds.

Strange, she thought, placing her hand against the wall, one cannot end a journey this way.

The wall was warm to the touch, paper-husk rough with more cracks and etchings than baked claybed; it smelled not unpleasantly of pungent earth. With a gentle push it yielded with the faintest wobble, but did not give open. Scraping and kicking were to no avail, and when night came with its dark cloak, the girl curled up against the warmth of the wall and, perplexed, fell to sleep.

It was when the chill of morning crept in that she woke, and feeling the faint heat emanating from the wall, pressed further against it. This time it pressed back.

She sprang to her feet in terror, stumbling back from the fingers of dawn, rubbing her elbows in the cold. And then she began to laugh. For there before her lay the entire majesty of an elephant, whose neck she scratched at gratefully as she circled round it and continued on her way.

To bask in.

If there were any outward sign of committed religious vocation, that flowers—the trees, all plants, yearn for and face the sun, not one another. There is nothing more devoted to receiving grace than petals turned upward toward the light.

And history is love.

The greatest thing about having your heart torn in pieces is the beautiful stitch marks that lace over and accentuate its story, and hold it back together. These flaws, these mistakes, or giving too freely—to remember why, and how or who and when.

Scars are a beautiful thing.

OOPS

I forgot exactly how vulnerable baring your soul can make you.

Tally up another scar.

Get it right.

That's "ritual", assholes, not "routine".

This is a man-made pond, but it's grown out so naturally that the grass blends right back into the mounds of river rock and from there back into the golden folds of hills.

A big fish eye stares at me calmly as I trace my fingers along trout belly. He's removed the hook while I'm doing this. Without coaxing, the trout flips gracefully upright and glides back into the depths of the pond, a pleasant how-do-you-do, a handshake.

Hands on my hips, skin tawny under a noonday baking sun, a squint over the ripples left behind.

"I swear to god, that fish wanted you to pet him," he tells me in the quiet awe that follows.

This sinks in for a moment, as gently as dew to earth, and then to the business of laying the line out again.

Emotional Weather

heavy combed air

and all I am is
cat-stretched lidded-eyed
slab under cloud-sweat slather

The madness of being able to love your life it's that good.

sound for sleeping

so many heartbeats, too many to count

all thumping and thudding away on this earth