Chapter 7 continued...

I looked at him secretly from under a fall of hair.

He was lying on his back, his hands under his head, staring at the ceiling. The starched white sleeves of his shirt, rolled up to the elbows, glimmered eerily in the half dark and his tan skin seemed almost black. I thought he must be the most beautiful man I'd ever seen.

I thought if only I had a keen, shapely bone structure to my face or could discuss politics shrewdly or was a famous writer Constantin might find me interesting enough to sleep with.

And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault after fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him.

The same thing happened over and over:
I would catch sight of some flawless man off in the distance, but as soon as he moved closer I immediately saw he wouldn't do at all.

That's one of the reasons I never wanted to get married. The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitment and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.

Plath, S. (1971). The Bell Jar. New York: HarpersCollins Publishers Inc.

Not caring about anything. I hate it when I get this way. Anxiousness wrapping around me like a mummy. I'm turning to stone. At least if I were an oyster, I could create something iridescent and luminescent and beautiful like a pearl.

When I feel this way I wonder if I'm perpetually afraid and only at peace momentarily - or if my inner most self is like a long row of sadness where happiness passes through in cracks, like a long, lonely sidewalk. I hate getting annoyed about things and then I have so much difficulty letting them go.

Just calm down, breathe deeply, pretend I'm having a good time...but that doesn't work so well for me. I can't fake it.

In my heart I'm naturally happy, but when the blues hit the ground shakes. I lock up because I know my foundation is being rattled and tested and the ground below me is turning into water and everything is going wash out like dark storm. Never mind.

I need sleep. I need to drink water, ride my bike, take a hot bath, and figure out what home really is.

Hawk

Sew the seeds
Of everything to be
Safe in sleep
I winter in my dreams

Speak your words
Defined by grief for me
Out of reach
Some things just can not be

From chapter 7 of 'The Bell Jar'

I started adding up all the things I couldn't do.

My list grew longer.

I was a terrible dancer. I couldn't carry a tune, I had no sense of balance, and when we had to walk down a narrow board with our hands out and a book on our heads in gym class I always fell over. I couldn't ride a horse or ski, the two things I wanted to do most, because they cost too much money. I couldn't speak German or read Hebrew or write Chinese.

The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.

I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brillant professor, and other fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of of other lovers with queer names and off beat professions, and other fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I coudln't quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant loosing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

Plath, S. (1971). The Bell Jar. New York: HarpersCollins Publishers Inc.


"New Discovery" By Alex De Spain

by kozyndan http://www.kozyndan.com/

Frost // Soft Attacks

I watched the winter today.. slanted rips and tufts in the air, a shattering and crunching of feet marching over frozen land. The sky the color of milk mixed with dirty water. Harsh and silvergrey. The sun scarcely shone from the edges of the clouds, Through the bent trails of water on the car windshield. Dim shadows flanking luminous reflections, crawling across the backs of my hands as I watch the edge of the hood onto the road in wonder. Handcolor, whitegold and peach. My scars are shiny, pink, faint, white, and dull. I have 3 easily visible scars. They drove me to a hotel. My nails reflect the bed light, making them seem more awake than I am. My fingernails made up of a million hairs, pearls at the top, and light pink at the bottom. How many things have I touched with these hands? How many things have I made? how many more will they make?

My motion for magic is always to make the same loose fist and then uncurl all of the fingers kind of open outward movement, like a little puff of smoke expanding, then you expect something to appear in my palm. To make the motion would be to say swooossshhh! - but I can't write it because it's a whisper. It's the onomatapoetic sound of a tiny magic thing happening, I'm doing it now, something tiny and magic is happening right now.

The sky at dusk was bluegrey. It reminded me of the color of the skin under someone's eyes who wore too much makeup and partied too long last night.

Semafora, Triangle Folds

Sometimes we sink, sometimes we float, and sometimes we fly. Today I'm submerged, but tomorrow, I'll shake the wet frost off my wings and race the frozen clouds. Tonight, I'm listening to Legowelt and hanging vintage garments in one lofty closet. Is this all it is to be a girl in the city? Only for now.

He Would Have Laughed

Only bored as I get older
Find the ways to...
Cult of time

Only bored as I get older
Find new ways to spend my time

I'm a gold digging man
Find my money, find my land
I'm a gold digging man
I won't rest 'til I buy your land

Sweetness comes suffering
In sweetness comes suffering
I won't rest till I can't breathe
I can't breathe with you looking at me

I get bored as I get older
Can you help me figure this out?

Come on, dream on:

"I lived on a table - I don't know where to go. I know my friends would. . . I know where my friends are now. I lived on a farm, yeah. I never lived on a farm. Where did my friends go? Where did my friends go?"

What do you do when you're sleeping?
Where did you go when you said:
"I don't need nobody on my bond"
Where do your friends go?
Where do they see you?
What did you want to be?

- Deerhunter, Halcyon Digest 2010

I'm off to a peculiar start. It's like there's something wrong and I can't put my finger on what it is exactly. It seems like I'm searching for something but I don't know what I'm looking for. I'm forgetting something important and everyone know's what it is, except I do not. I'm lost today, maybe I dove too deep in all the writing yesterday. Today I feel like I need to surge to the surface for a blast of life-giving, forgiving air.

Moments like this, I wish for a full time job so that I could punch-in to work. Forget about my personal thoughts for 8 hours, switch into work-mode, and just let my 'self' rest. Maybe this week with Kacey here, I've been digging up too many buried confessions about my weaknesses. I feel exposed.

I'm taking a break from Facebook, I need respite. I wish it weren't a finger's touch away. Too much social networking makes me feel like I've put myself on an operating table and everyone's looking at my insides and I can't do anything about it because I'm sedated and drifting to and from reality.

I like this blog because, let's be real, no one reads it! Well, maybe 2 friends and they are like family. I can vent here and say whatever I want and get it off my chest and it remains unknown. Plus I don't know where my written journal is hiding today, so, here I am.


Rest circular thoughts,
rest...

This morning I awoke wanting to write again while the house is still sleeping. I awoke wanting to do a whole lot; thirsty for knowledge, hungry for activity.

Crazy connect-the-dots inside my brain today. Synapses zapping metaphors around these deep fissures.

My thoughts, zooming around like a fleet of small birds, blackspotting the sky. Droplets of memories and bits of information clinging to a hundred tangled mindwebs, occasionally coalescing, slipping down my spinal cord like a long icicle. Shiver.

Can you know me? Look into my eyes. Can you see the gold flecks shyly floating in there? Can you see the iris of rust acquiescing to the sea on an overcast day? Can you look through my pupils and tell that I'm not from here? Not from anywhere?

Wading up to my knees in a flooded street. Transparent windstorm. Starry glazed streetlights in the reflection of a storefront, dusty raisin sky like a smoothly rounded rootbeer waterglass.

Waking up in the middle of the night with heavy choking fear like swallowed cotton and humidity in a small dark corner of a bedroom. Fear of what? Today, tomorrow? Nothing. So I slumber into the bathroom and look at myself into the silver mirror. I look surprised.

Ok, maybe that's out of my system now. I don't know, it all definitely helps.



"I had that dream again
I'm exploring my (own) home: I happen across a door: that leads me to a room I've never seen."

- Photo by Brandon Boyd
From White Fluffy Clouds

I love what light in the sky can do in different situations. Moonlight on white clouds against black sky. Sunlight from one side of the atmosphere against bold clouds, it makes the sky taller. Eerie quiet light blinking during a lightening storm, electrons balancing and unbalancing, like a flashing strobe, a thousand snapping photographs. Rays of sun through smoke, like the edge of a beachfront. Bright, bright.


Photo by John Trujillo

- Brandon Boyd
White Fluffy Clouds

Love&Life,Life&Love

- Brandon Boyd
White Fluffy Clouds

Carla Swart

The beautiful, brilliant, heart of a pure champion. You will always be remembered.

Trish Keenan

Brilliant poet and musician. I will always hold Trish's music and close to my heart. All the good ones go too soon. It's as though they see too much, know too much. They're a catalyst of life.



I am grey, still on the page
Oh colour me in
Just an outline, sketchy but fine
Oh colour me in

If green is chasing the hills over miles
If blue is pursuing the sky
If the red of your heart doesn't mind
Where to begin to colour me in

Something new and nothing to do
I'm just the idea
I must be real cause somehow I feel
That I'm just the idea

Let's share the blue of the towering sky
The green of the hills that run by
Leave the red of your heart to decide
If you cannot choose which colour to use

I'll always wait, it's never too late
To colour me in
To colour me in

Today or next year
I'll always be near
if you want to colour me in

Kevin Cyr featured on zeitgeistudios.com

I can relate to this after living out of the back of my Subaru station wagon all summer while traveling to bike races. This, to me, seems like luxury. In 2011, I'm going "big"...

Architect Selgas Cano featured on zeitgeistudios.com

I would work in an office like this one in Spain...

Tiny PBS Documentary on the Tiny House Movement

I've been writing longhand in my journal and it feels so good to flow into true penmanship again. It's a little more visceral than typing up a blog. Reading my journal from 1999 made me want to try physically writing again. I converted a few of those entries from 1999 into this blog last month but decided to save that entry as a draft. Basically that period of my youth is uncomfortably strange and unusual to me now. Despite its tumult, the diary documenting that time period was really quite beautiful. If only for the depiction it provided. Things I had completely forgotten, and it took me right there, to that very moment reliving it, or watching it from a distance. That's the beauty of an actual diary. I think the direction of thought is better documented that way, at least for myself and for the time being. Maybe it's because I know it's completely private. The act of writing, when we don't have to feel guarded in any way and the words become more effortless. They are complete thoughts, uninterrupted by judgement. Maybe I'll submit some entries from my current written journal into this blog. As for tonight, I'm once again super late in going to bed. I have a job interview tomorrow and I need to get some sleep, but I'm nervous, well just a little. On the other hand there's something that cycling has taught me... I know I can step up to the occasion when the pressure is on. It's interesting how riding a bicycle can be applied to life in so many little ways.

Here's an old Squarepusher track. I used to love when Dave played this one. We all lived on St. Paul Avenue in uptown Dallas and listened to great music, and created all kinds of art. I was a bike messenger then and life was different. I remember I would come home for lunch just to watch The Kids In The Hall with Matt. It wasn't long until I fell in love with the idea of bike racing. Anyway, this is odd and quarky track and for the most part unknown, but I love it.

Yokoo: Words to live by

"Weathered Stone" by Aphex Twin, I listened to it over and over on the Greyhound bus when I moved to Texas. I looked out the window all the way from Chicago. I remember I wore tan corduroys and a black top. There was a lot of gold september sunshine. I had an empty stomach for days and days and had just turned 19. Such a dream ago. Right now I'm up late listening and baking a cassoulet. I'm in love with the entire Selected Ambient Works Vol. II album.
Also the track "Rhubarb" , "Metal Grating", and "Corrugated Tubing" are all just as intense.

Lying there in a tall painted room, hot like baking cookies in August.
So still that I've forgotten what quiet feels like.
So still that my body is no longer an instrument of touch, but instead a conduit, a translation of cadence and whirl into tactile output.
So still that my chest falls open like a sleeping child's fingers, uncurling.
My heart is beating like a couple's joined hands swinging as they walk down the street.
The bicycles going around the track so fast they catch my breath.
I'm so happy I could die.
A bell rings and the dark gold sound is like sunlight in the leaves and it ripples through my body like a stone thrown into a pond. I'm simultaneously all consciousness, released from the shackles of the body, and all physical, sense and perception washing up my spine like a bucket of bloodwarm white chocolate.

Hands off the bars of my bike and it's twilight. The stoplights are like stars, if stars were made of cherries, yelling "go!" into my eyes.
Tan wind on my skin like pond water.
Around and in and out of well-banked curves I'm wheeling, twisting, a sparrow at a dance party.


I wish I could cast a spell. "Watch this," I'd whisper as I ride up the bank into the low, late, yellow moon.

Feel the slow soft love of being alive with me, like falling asleep while I watch you, smiling.

ראש השנה

L'shannah Tovah!

Today I wanted to stay in and write. I wanted to find a used slide projector and make a show on our wall of other people's vacations. Today I wanted to document it all; the taste of anise, the sounds of stepping on leaves, the sound of the hub on my favorite wheels, the way light creates stars in the creases of a strawberry candy wrapper, the ribbons of a balloon wrapped around an antenna, the shush and rattle of the wind in the trees, the sounds of bicycles as they travel in packs, the way expensive shoes sound on the pavement, stepping the time away moment by moment, the way our sight wraps itself around each object, softly and carefully, like a cotton towel after a cool swim.


This life is an engagement ring, it's the touch of your lips against a warm forehead.

This is it,

a heart beating.

Still the body resting into a blue corner, pressing a toe against the crack in the wooden floor.

Ink dots dripping onto fresh paper like pores of skin. Listen, it crackles as it spreads.


The ceiling is above and the floor is below and the walls are four sides of boundary, it's a space.

What will you fill it with?

Two minutes or twenty thousand miles?

A fragrance of pears?

The nape of a neck?

Gauntlet Hair

GAUNTLET HAIR - I WAS THINKING from ( . )( . ) on Vimeo.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

I don't know why but when I return home from long races I sometimes tend to feel blue. When I drove into Texas a few hours ago, I felt the heat change against the windows and the Texas sun set in. I started to unload the car and felt all woozy and dizzy inside. I felt worried, worried in so many ways... Worried about the bad dreams I had last night, worried that maybe I said or did something wrong, worried that I could have offended others. Worried about so many things all at the same time. Maybe I'm just tired or overstimulated because I have nothing to feel sad about today. I set my goals and I completed them, I'm home. Why is that not enough? The aftermath of weeks of hard racing enumerate themselves through ecstatic highs, elation of good results, interviews and celebrations. Why is it met with the contrasting lows? is it the natural balance of life? All of it makes for ups-and-downs that tend to follow a long batch of intense efforts as we strive so passionately for achievement. Maybe as highly competitive individuals we push ourselves so gruelingly to surpass our boundries that it depletes our stores of serotonin; the very shred of our comfort. It does stand to reason. After a great bunch of races, why on earth would anyone feel depressed?
Maybe the sum total of racing is greater than its parts on the course, or where ever it is that achievement is sought. It goes on and on after the finish. The journey doesn't end there, it's only just begun.

Tired, glazed eyes separate me from everything. Odd camera effects pushing everything into the distance & feelings of disconnect.
Flyaway

pink pink pink pink pink

I wrote a long entry, but then I erased it to feel the power of making something irrevocably disappear.

Last night I dreamed of kissing.

I'm reading Henry Miller again.

I am lonely.

Sun-thick & Lolling

Strange how summer happens so fast. The air is gray and sharp one day, sun-thick and lolling the next. The flowers are each events. They're drops of food-coloring, twisting knots in the crevices between cool rocks. Throughout the seasons the temperature doesn't actually change. In the wintertime there are blankets and warmers and overheated restaurants. In the summer its shaved ice and bare feet, skirts and lying in the shade. Sometimes I slip into an apartment building's swimming pool late at night to swim. I submerge myself quietly in its corners. Nobody ever notices.

When I was little, there was a old, sparse fir tree in the park next to our house. One of its lowest branches was sturdy enough to sit on. I used to climb it, my nimble eleven year old body easily borne by the branches. I climbed up quite far and would look over my house and then descend. One day I decided to climb as high as I possibly could, I got almost all the way to the top, my head level with the other tree's, peaks and branches. Displaced blackbirds flew around, I could see into the neighbor's backyards. The trunk of the tree was so slender at the top that I could feel it sway slightly back and forth. The air felt lighter and cooler, I felt older. When I looked down, I didn't know how I could ever return, I felt hidden and nested. There was a green hush over everything. I loved climbing trees.

Lemon yogurt cake and espresso.

Yellow sunshine and toasted earthiness.

The sky was reddish purple at school today, like the color of my fresh bruise.

There were plums dripping as clouds, rich ambient light making everything surreal.

The sky was this color because of the vortex surrounding this university, blooming with clouds in the sky gusting up into the air.

I'll draw up a hot bath tonight... one arm out the window, my fingers steam and drip, evaporating into the night.

Drawing 11

Somedays I watch the crowds flickering, perched safely from my rest, wrapped in cotton and protected from the world. Somedays I look down from an ariel view, in the crispy prickle of the unconscious. Somedays I watch the wind. Somedays the pulse quickens, the coffee fills the brim, the wine spills onto the table. In the evenings the bathtub water pours onto the tile. Maybe I'm too mesmerized to care, too tempered to seep out of, I talk with a boy talking in his sleep.

Sometimes I manage strong and majestic, other times I make my grandmother's yellow cake at midnight to feel her company through the wafting cinnamon. Sometimes I tell you it will be ok. Somedays, will you tell me?

The city sleeps and I think of love. Listening to the Magnetic Fields. Pushing away lust. Joyful, simple, pleasant. Lips swollen from kissing. Pull my hair please. I feel a rush wash over me. Inquisitively. Want. love.

I have found newness and it will never be kissed.

Bask yourself in goodness.

I'm still a night girl, but I also wake up with the sun. It slants the bricks on the neighbor's chimney peachgold, and plays blind shaped shadows on my bare, white walls. It stares carefully through gaps in the tree leaves. It rests, carronade by tangerine and lavender, in the thin early fog. The cicadas and aren't up yet, and the birds still sing into their sleeping feathers. In the night, sound seems to be muffled, and the dark closes around you like a pink cashmere blanket. To be awake is to be alone, at odds with other people. You can almost hear their dreams, drifting like perfume in the quiet air. But the morning is expansive and crisp, like the taste of pineapple

A fine day, one which sieves out the best in us; cool air, mild winter skies, warming sunshine in the afternoon, no feelings of rush. When all seems to possible, let's leave it this way. Let's explore the new and feel awake. This morning, a longer ride than it seemed - but, with two sweet-hearted boys and a lot of easy talk. Now I wait for a party tonight sitting with my contest chili in the crock pot stewing. Yep, contest chili, what better than a chili cook off in December?

Right now, there's totally strange & unusual international disco sounds a bit skewed with mixes of American big band on dublab.com. I've got a side 450ml of La Fin Du Monde next to me - almost a meal in itself, and 5 pine candles burning around the apartment... I have a huge weakness for pine candles. Sometimes I think I would spend my last dollar on a nice piny candle.

Tomorrow I'll prep and cook all day and we'll throw everything in a cooler and head out for a long trip road trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mountain bike, single speed, winter boots, bomber hats, and big sunglasses. All of it to see a big frigid lake, and lots of snow, lots of family. Can't wait to feel our frozen breath and warm pubs on Brady Street.

I'm happy to report that as of yesterday my step dad, Larry, is showing signs of improvement. This last week has been scary, I hope we can all get back on our feet again. It's one of those lessons that teaches you to be grateful for good health. I haven't talked to my mom today but I hope he continues to do a little better every day. I was terribly depressed in my last post, part of me thinks I shouldn't post feelings like that, maybe a little too dark. Maybe I should try to remain happy-go-lucky on these online forums/blogs/etc. They've been a source of anxiety at times and I need to back off facebook right now, it really creeps me out sometimes. I think I tend to worry enough in general, without adding stress from silly social networks. Too much some days, just toooo much. I did want to get back to this blog though because A. I don't think anyone reads it anyway! plus it feels like a private corner of existence to which I can let my fingers go. B. My last post was so depressing I wanted to bring some good news on a new day. C. I've been wasting so much time today, it's a new personal record for me and definitely worth noting!

Yes, I can hardly believe it's 2pm and all I've done is email my professor about how I can't turn in a paper that's due tomorrow because his directions on the syllabus are completely different than current APA formatting. By the way, APA is psychotic and definitely a candidate of induced neurosis. It makes me crazy. So now I can't begin my next research paper until I finish this one and I can't finish this one until the prof tells me how to trick-up some half breed APA formatting.

Since I woke up today I've considered lifting weights, writing a new paper, doing all the productive things I should - but I then decided to update my iPod on my iPhone which consisted of me going through several thousands of tracks on my PC's music library for just the right blend. It took me 2+ hours to create a playlist. Meanwhile I'm not at the gym, I'm not doing my paper, I'm not doing anything. I didn't even want to get up to pee because I'm zoning out so hard on the playlist that my bladder suddenly ceased to exist. This isn't even procrastination, it's spacing out on an astral level. Hahaha, I will eventually get to work. Or will I???

...one thing is for sure. I t will only be when my music has finished uploading.

Matzo & Poached White Fish...

This rainy morning I put my books aside and decided the rest of the day can wait for a little while, so I prepared fresh food instead... my favorite procrastination technique. I had a craving for steamed matzo balls, which are kosher dumplings, and crispy cast iron turkey bacon on the side. What? I said turkey bacon. אױ װײ!Last night I wanted poached cod so I decided to steam the fish in white wine, pepper corns, crushed garlic, and bay leaves; with some whole carrot matchsticks to poach as well. The flavors were so delicate. I usually go for bold and super pronounced styles of cooking but I love the refinement and these, kind of like, whispers of flavor. Especially the poached cod, it offered a completely different feel. It was a ballet rather than a tango.

So what's with all this Kosher cooking you ask? Should I find a synagogue tomorrow and go to Shabbat? Although, I don't think there are any Jews in Wichita Falls. I'm secular anyway... not overtly or specifically religious...or maybe a little bit of everything, which feels peaceful to me.

Shalom

שָׁלוֹם

The cold dust from this windy city leaves heads heavy with coarse beards, faces red breathing whiskey frost, icy fingers, watering eyes from wind tears. Its bathtubs fill with sand.

My hair grows more quickly here, it wraps around my neck. I let it fall around my shoulders, old friends. The blueberry

stains under my fingernails came from picking them last night before bed. I wondered how many bites until I find the perfect one? What will blueberry dreams look like? This morning, I awoke giggling.

I

The graybright sky smells emphatically of nothing. Cold humid prickles, the ghosts of raindrops, rise on the backs of my hands.

Today, I want to cleave myself in two, that I may be more exposed to the world. I want to tape my eyes open until they fill with tears and everything turns into a blur of colors. I want to be the off-key tuning fork for pianos in the trees.

Even when you see, you can not know if it's real.

II

Sit under the warm sky, doll. You won't be able to see the sun anyway. Your sweat smells like two-day-old flowers and your eyes are the color of raisons. Let's make dinner out of something in the neighbors trash can. Let's find the tallest hill in the city and pin a love note to the tallest tree at the top. Let's sit face to face and I'll inhale the breath out of your mouth. Let's fill a dish with old tomatoes and drop it out of the window. The cracks in the street are the shape of rain as it trickles down your slicker, but not the same, love, they're not the same.

I've been waiting to do this. Wanting to be alone and free of time and willing to write again. I wonder if the full moon has been influential. I can list the ways the moon has done its mysterious deeds today. It was an unusual day. On my bike on the way to school, I noticed a brilliant sun and the sky was creme-fraiche, it was a perfect day. The kind that make you want to have damp feet from the garden floor, and hear music in your pockets. The days that make it easier to imagine being in a different city and in another decade. To play make-believe. I still play that game. It's not as easy as when I was seventeen. It makes me sad because when I was seventeen, I didn't know it and never enjoyed it. But today, I enjoyed as much as I could. I rounded a bend in the road curving around a park while I was riding but instead of going to school, I went to the park instead.

Today I took some pictures of a tree that was lining up with the sun. It reminded me of an eclipse and the camera obscuras I saw on tv last week. While I was lying there I bullied mini hybrid bees swarming around my ears, the little bees that confuse themselves with flies. I watched a cricket squeaking, and tried to study, I felt guilty that I wasn't working in a hospital but I stayed there in the grass and with my computer and books and duck food for lunch for 3 or 4 hours. I wanted to avoid the library that was waiting for me but decided to go instead and do something productive. When I was there I found a spot for myself that was very private. Libraries are sexy, they're appealing to people who are happiest alone.

The most poignant moment in recent past was my cat and his dying in my arms. Heavy like a swollen funny shaped pear he lay next to me in a bed. Heart beat short, moaning, human like. I saw death and slept next to it like an old friend until its fuzzy and gray beaming life was gone. It hurt intensely. My little lovely. I am missing him a lot.

I also started school and I realize I have to pull the reigns in on my mind. I have fears of 'can't'... and 'what if I just couldn't?' It's hard to learn how to study again, after my funny self has been running ramped over the last 2 years. I haven't been a complete waste-monger, I've read a good bit and have been writing and working hard, and have been keeping social and I try my best to be well versed and witty and savvy and organized, and yet unrefined, but, the thought of school overwhelms and I'm alone amongst all of these online classes to face my own successes and shortcomings, left to study alone, make my own deadlines, assign my time. I have no one to study with or call when something is confusing. Internet classes are a lot to keep spinning together and separate. I hope to do them well, I have to - I quit my job for them! I did it, I quit! No more shrilling call pager in the middle of the night! No more work depression. I registered to race for 3 days in Austin this weekend and am making plans to race in Las Vegas in 3 weeks. In 2 weeks I'll be in Dallas racing around the American Airlines center with a crowd of friends and a field of comrades. 4 weeks ago I was in Illinois racing the national championships, 6 weeks ago I was with Colavita at Superweek. Wow. This season will be missed greatly. Seems far away but, when it's finally come to an end, I won't know what to do with myself. I can't imagine that next year could be any better but I hope to be surprised. I love surprises.

It's late, I'm so tired. I need to sleep, but no work tomorrow. I can't get over that. It's scary and wonderful at the same time... I love a paradox. I love to be frightened and thrilled. They say it's the worst time to quit a job and here am I, voluntarily unemployed in a recession - and I wanted it that way?!

Forget the recession, before I go I have to share the really great news: I made my first apple gastric tonight! A glazed base kicked off with a chicken stock, ginger, mustard, black sesame seeds, hoisin, chili peppers, tamari, and 1 chopped apple. I then seared the onions & garlic in sherry vinegar, added the sauce and reduced. Served over pork with wild rice and hard lettuce for wrapping. I ate it with pale ale served in a mason jar. From here forward, I'll always want a pale ale in a mason jar.

Yours in spades.

'Motorman' excerpt meets bedtime story...

She would say, "Play the Buxtehude, Moldenke. I enjoy the chills it gives me." She would close the door behind herself and leave him alone in the piano room with its pots of ivy and ant-traps.

He would begin the Buxtehude on the cold keyboard. In the bedroom she would listen through a wall.

He would play the Buxtehude until ants crawled along his fingers and assembled on his sleeves.

He would then walk into the kitchen, carrying his hands like packages, and scrape the ants into a teaboil. Roberta would emerge from the bedroom, stand in the doorway in her flannel. Moldenke would turn from the teaboil and smile, his old silver tooth throwing out a beam of light.

Roberta would say, "Tea?"

Moldenke would add mock sugar. "Yes, would you like a cup?"

She would always have a cup. She would say, "As always."

Moldenke would have his with potato milk, she without.

David Ohle 1971

I've gotta big big big big heart beat,

yeah I think you are the sweetest thing

I wear a coat of feelings

and they are loud

I've been having good days

Think we are the right age

To start our own peculiar ways

With good friendly homes

You get me freaked freaked freaked on Preakness

Never met a girl that

likes to drink with horses

Knows her chinese ballet

Must admit you smell like

fruity nuts and good grains

When you show my purple gaze

A thing or two at night

Make me sick sick sick to kiss you

and I think that i woud vomit

But I'll do that on mondays

I dont have a work way

I like it when I bump you

an accident's a truth gate

I'm humbled in your pretty lense

I'll hold you dont you go

Sometimes you're quiet and sometimes I'm quiet.

Hallelujah!

Sometimes I'm talkative and sometimes you're not talkative,

I know....

Well i'd like to spread your perfume around the old apartment

Could we live together and agree on the same wares?

A trapeze is a bird cage

even if its empty and defintintely fits the room

And we would toooo

And my dear dear dear khalana

I talk too much about you

Their ears are getting tired of me singing all the night through

Lets just talk together

You and me and me and you

And if theres nothing much to say

Well, silence is a bore

I've gotta big big big big heart beat,

yeah I think you are the sweetest thing

I wear a coat of feelings

and they are loud

I've been having good days

Think we are the right age

To start out own peculiar ways

With good friendly homes?

Sometimes you're quiet and sometimes I'm quiet

hallelujah

Sometimes I'm talkative and sometimes you're not talkative

i know....

Sometimes you hear me when others they can't hear me.

Hallelujah!

Sometimes I'm naked and thank god Sometimes you're naked.

Well, hello.....

Can I tell you that you are the purple in me?

Can I call you just to hear you,

would you care?

When I saw you put your purple finger on me

There's a feelin' in your bottle

Found your bottle, found your heart

Gives a feeling from your bottled little part

Gotta crush high

Thought I crushed all I could

Crushed all I can

then I touched your hand

Crush high

Don't want it to stop

Cause stories of your brother make my crush high pop

And you couldnt really know cause its in my toes

And sometimes i wonder whered that crush high go

Crush high

then i go and take some pills

Cause i cant do all of my dos and still feel ill

You get that whooooooo

Today I raced for the first time in 3 weeks. My head hurt toward the end and I sat up but it's ok because I still made $300 and a new pair of Pearl Izumi shorts. I lost my motivation in the men's race, I needed to see 5 laps to go in order to pull something out of my wattage cottage, also known as ass, but the lap cards, they weren't coming, the lap cards, where were they? Then I sat up and: LAP CARDS. My life needs lap cards. I shouldn't have given up. I was sitting in about middle of the field when I quit. Why'd I do it? I didn't care anymore, apathy... ugly.

Tonight I lost a nice speaker that I just bought for my computer. How does anyone lose a speaker? Tonight I also window shopped at Highland Park Village, the oldest shopping mall in the country. I decided if I were to buy a gun, I'd get a Beretta. Instead, I got a Beretta baseball cap. I also lust for a Chanel suit in much the same way people lust for dirty affairs. I decided my next hair cut will be a short black bob with heavy bangs. But first I need a long neck like a gazelle. I also want Chanel shoes and a gaudy Chanel chain with Chanel coins and pearls clanging all over my chest. Chanel, Chanel, Chanel.

When I'm done bike racing I think I'm going to turn into a long distance runner and grow freakishly thin. I'd like to try it. I'd like to be emaciated at least for a year or two before I get too old and it doesn't matter anymore if you're fat or skinny. I'm also going to start writing more, I will. I love to write because it's one of the only things I can do while being completely alone with myself and I love it because it makes every bone in my body pop. I'll be taking classes full time at Midwestern next year to finish the next degree in Radiology so I don't think I'll have much time to write as much as I hope. I've also committed to the cycling program at MSU on top of 15 hours. Look, anything to not have to take mobile x-rays anymore. The money is unbelievable but I can no longer endure the call. I spend all my money because I am bored. I need to live for something I am passionate about. So, I'm going to live small again. The ways of the small. Less is more and no, that doesn't pair well with Chanel but I think expensive clothes look best in my imagination anyway.

I've got nothing tonight except the lingerings of a concussion and a really sore shoulder that is missing its skin. I have a heavy heart and am sad that Gato, Ross' family cat, was pronounced dead today. Devastating. Our cat Leopold is getting really sick from drinking dirty water.

Today I remembered a favorite teacher of mine from high school. He used to say that giving flowers was nothing more than giving someone plant privates and that every time we smell a flower, we are pushing our noses into a little plant's genitalia.

I'm going to read my book now. Lunar Park is aces, gold, diamonds, and plant privates. I can not get enough of Bret Easton Ellis. Who am I going to bathe my mind with after he's all finished? Who? ...WHO???

I can't stop thinking about a line in The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. "And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep." This has been resonating with me all day today. Can't shake it.