quarantine memes: 5:9

i'm not a big follower of memes generally
but some of these pick your ones
i find intriguing
because it says a lot about you
what you will absolutely not compromise on
and what you will put up with
just to get something you want
at least
on the good versions
that is to say
well composed versions

and
mostly
they kinda wash over me
they're momentarily fun and then   poof    gone
but this one has stuck with me for almost a week
and i was able to find it again
so
i'm going to let you in on the self analysis that is
pick your quarantine house

now
the way this one is set up
the last item is supposed to be the item
that is the deal breaker
and so it makes sense to go through it that way

except, of course
i didn't
i read the lists through completely
before i decided
because my life has been a series of
i can make due with this
i am so tough, blah blah blah

house 1
netflix + hulu, heated blanket, comfy couch, endless snacks, bedbugs  X

house 2
porch swing, whiskey, fire pit, fishing pond, living with someone you dislike

house 3
home gym, protein shakes, view of the city, small dog, no smartphone or tablet   X

house 4
swimming pool, margaritas, master grill, big dog, no video games

house 5
library, garden, coffee bar, fluffy cat, ghosts

house 6
hot tub, mountain view, movie projector, wine cellar, no internet   X


so house 1 isn't very motivating--  don't really want any of that and bedbugs would be a deal breaker for me even if i did.  just say not to house 1.

house 2 however has two items that i would love to have--  porch swing and fire pit.  so house 2 will stay in the running for now.

house 3 again isn't very motivating.  home gym, protein shakes, view of the city could be good.  if i had a home gym then maybe i would get enough exercize which would be good for me.  no smart phone isn't an absolute deal breaker if i have a computer--  it wouldn't be my preference but i'm not leaving the house, right,  however, nothing on this list is enough for me to want to sacrifice my smart phone.  i don't have a tablet.  small dog is not cool.  small dogs, in my mind at least, are yappy and not a lot of fun to be around.  i don't really think there's any reason to keep house 3 in the running.

house 4 has margaritas.  that is a big big pro for house 4.  no video games is in no way a deal breaker.  i almost never play video games.  the last time i played sims was the last time i talked about it--  which is years--  so that is not at all a problem.  swimming pool and master grill are not motivational.  i don't really see myself using either of those.  big dog, hmmmmm.  if i lived out in the country i think a big dog would be fine.  if i lived in a house with a yard i think big dog would be ok.  but with this configuration i start asking a bunch of questions about the exact situation.  is this a big dog i raised from a puppy?  who else is in the house?  what kind of situation am i encountering if i'm going out for walks?  i think, even with the margaritas, house 4 is not really for me.

house 5 is highly motivational.  library yes.  garden yes.  coffee bar yes.  fluffy cat--  cat yes, fluffy, not optimal, might lead to itchy eyes but not a deal breaker.  ghosts--  oh no.  now i'm not reading so it doesn't make a lot of sense that this is motivational, but i love books.  i do not garden but the idea of walking around in the garden with the growing things seems amazingly good--  so much so that i might even figure out how to care for the garden.  coffee bar--  i don't need a coffee bar but i do need coffee--  is this the only house with coffee.  but ghosts.

house 6 has some good stuff but no internet is the ultimate deal breaker.

 so
i find myself leaning toward living with ghosts
and that's crazy

goodnight sweetheart
i love you very much
i gotta go to sleep

II nite chat: 5:8

i grew up loving the idea of new york

i had seen it in movies

i had seen it on tv

it looked so amazing

but

when i actually went there

it was too much

i still loved the look of it

but it was like

every molecule was filled

with

i started to say angry ghosts

but that's too strong

just full

of human energy or spirit

living and dead

all my life i thought

when i go to new york

i will do this and that and whatnot

but mostly what i did was hide in the apartment

once a day i forced myself to go down to the corner

to this funky little not quite a coffee shop and not quite convincingly either health food restaurant

i'm not quite sure what they were trying to be

but it didn't feel to me like they were quite managing

brooklyn

it was hipster that's what it was

and it was managing just fine without my approval

i'm from a pretty big city

and the way i have always gotten by

was reading the vibe

is this safe

am i safe here

i just knew

but brooklyn i couldn't read

once

on a trip

i was walking around and around edinburgh

trying to find my bed and breakfast

which i don't know what that term means there now

but at that time it meant

home converted to a hotel

or just very small hotel

but more like rooming house

you got a room

bathroom was down the hall

they were pretty full up so i got a large room

single bed with a cot

and the person at the information station

seemed ashamed of how expensive it was

it was like twenty pounds a night

which i thought was cheap

it was super cozy

it had a tv and a kettle and a sink

and the bathroom was super close

and i think all the other bedrooms were upstairs

i loved it

but i hadn't found it yet

and i'd taken the night train

and it stopped constantly

and i couldn't get any sleep

i was exhausted and lost and couldn't get the map to work

this is before i realized i was geographically dyslexic

there was an old guy sitting on a park bench

and i'm finally looking at my map

in public

but i have it all folded up

in the hope that it looks like a newspaper or magazine at least

from a distance at least

because

are you kidding me

anyway major fail because he's yelling at me

from like twenty-five feet away

you'rre lawst aarren't ya

whehrr'rre ya frrummm

i'm from texas i say shocked

just shocked

that i'm so lame as to be so obviously a tourist

and to have been addressed in such a friendly

friendly and familiar manner by someone

someone who lives in what i thought to be a large city

[in fact it wasn't as peopled as i though, but still]

i'm from texas, i say

ha, wull ya shuddah brrawt yer hurrse

and then he was my long lost great uncle and directed me

so happy from the exchange

mortification completely dissipated

1987 i was twenty years old

one of the things my father had taught me at about eight

if you're walking by yourself always walk fast

but fast like you're on your way somewhere

but you're already a little bit late

and they're expecting you

he'd already given me the

if you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours lesson

and i just somehow understood

this lesson was about reading body language

that you had to be constantly aware

because not being prey was about not looking like a target

the idea of telegraphing information was not new to me

it made sense and the look like you're expected lesson

was appreciated and well taken

i felt like i could read london

well enough to get lost

drunk on the street looking for a night bus

back to my dive "bed and breakfast"

which barely had a bed and didn't come with breakfast

where i had a real fear i might catch a disease

from the bed

or the wall

or

for sure for sure

from the shower

and it was thirty-five pounds a night

on the night bus

i had a pleasant conversation

on the upper deck

with my new friend

who was really into serial killers

i found out when he learned where i was from

and i was able to tell him that yes

in fact a family friend had been friends

with his teen aged accomplice and we all felt like

he had narrowly escaped

no fear

i felt like i could read the room

brooklyn

i did not feel like i could read

I nite chat: 5:8 [this font is wrong for this read first nite chat 5:8]

the last couple of days
i've been looking for her
because i thought she had a message for me
and i was pretty sure i subscribed
i have way way too many subscriptions
but i looked through all of them
and i could not find her
she doesn't show up in my feed
because
algorithm

but
just like a prayer
when i went to youtube
it was in my feed
a week later
but
right when it makes sense
course it doesn't answer my question
but it points for sure

yours is sort of the same
but
completely different
my cynical mind says
everybody is getting some version of this
but
i mean
that isn't necessarily wrong either

goodnight sweetheart
it's super late
i missed the sunrise
i gotta go to bed

i am grateful for you
be well

prayer: 5:8

ok god
first i want to thank you
for that girl getting better
i don't know if that had anything
to do with our conversation or not
but thank you anyway

i just
right now
i feel a personal need
to re-iterate the part about
what we need less of
in reference to the whole
valet thing
it's right there
so very close
is there no way
you could just help it over there
i know he's got lots people taking care of him
but
maybe?!
maybe both of em?!

they super deserve it
please don't think badly for me for saying so
but they are bad people, both of 'em
really really bad

and i'm not sure that the one after that
is like actually a good person
on any kind of absolute scale
but
i mean
it'd be an improvenment 

i know
they told me everything's going to be ok
but, i mean, what does that mean
this doesn't seem like ok to me
maybe they meant i'm going to be ok
and i'm not even sure
how that can be true
but
i'm not trying to be difficult
maybe i'm gonna be fine
i'll figure something out before the money runs out
which seemed a lot more plausible before
it seemed like it might never be safe to go out again
and maybe i won't get sick
or maybe i won't die
or
maybe i will die
and then i won't have any more problems
i don't really know what ya'll mean by
it'll be ok
maybe you just mean
that i will have this time
that i've wanted and needed
and
in which i could accomplish something
before i die
i don't know

but
even if that's the case
even if i'm going to die
could the bad man please die first
could i know about it before i go, please

maybe that makes me a bad person
or maybe it just means
i'm angry
at the total lack of care
i mean h.e.b. started their prep in november
to ensure they would have supply chain
and they haven't done too bad, really
i mean they didn't anticipate the toilet paper
and they've had some snags
but
they planned

and that guy with the nursing home in conneticut
he planned
from when they first heard about washington state
and i think he didn't anybody
because he locked down right away
and told his staff
he'd pay 'em double
but they had to live there and not go back and forth

and
that's another thing
i don't want to be a service worker any more
i see now how absolutely pointless
all that work i though was so important was
i was giving people their first cup of coffee in the morning
or helping them pick out beer or wine
but when it came down to it
i just doesn't seem like
it was worth
the chunk of my life that it consumed

please please
lead me to the more worthwhile thing
to spend the rest of my life doing
i need your help
because
i really don't want to
but i have trouble visualizing
how else to make money
i'll see bits and pieces
but
i have trouble believing in it
and i'm having trouble with a unified theory

i want to do what you want for me to do
but i never got the impression
you had any agenda for my working
i felt like you led me to the coffee place
but this last one
i was like
is this the place to be
will this help me get closer to him
and you were like yeah this is good
but
i never expected to be there so long
and
with all this family tree stuff
i realized i was wrong about joan's death age
she was my current age
and
that's freaking me out a little too

i feel like
i'm all over the place here

so
bullet points

• justice
• guidance
• thank you for whatever you can do
• thank you for the many ways this is a gift
• thank you for the many ways this is a lesson
• i really hope i come through the other side--  i don't say back because it isn't a back kind of lesson, is it, it's a through it kind of lesson

nite chat: 5:8

so
i tried a different tea configuration--  nettle + berry blend - whatever apple i could pick out
there is still some apple and it is sweeter than i'd like
but the flavor is good

i did not buy, but did research ingredients in semi bulk
[mountain rose herbs]
and i think suma might be the ingredient
because i was wanting to keep things simple
and i thought
one bark = devil's club
one berry = hawthorn or schizandra
one herb = nettle
one root =
and there was a lot of debate for me about that
there are a ton of good roots
with very good medicinal properties
but when i saw suma
i got very excited
because i remember a couple of times
i have found suma supplements
and i always felt like they really worked for me
like my body liked them
and i was thinking p'au d'arco
which is very strong and has a lot of good functions
but suma is an adaptogen
p'au d'arco does not taste good apparently
so would be poorly suited to a tea
but suma is supposed to be vaguely vanillic
i'm not sure what devil's club tastes like
but the people drinking the tea were going all like yum
so whatever i'll know soon
i suppose i could also do

one flower =
and that would allow me to add
rose hips
or calendula
or something else

so
like
pending ingredients
this is what i'm going with
although my interest has been piqued with
ivan chai which is a traditional russian fermented fireweed tea
i may at some point look into that
but
i think i've got enough to be getting on with here

i spent a kind of a long time on that

and
that probably is not what you want to know
so, what tea are we drinking by the fire
in your fantasy of us together

*sigh*
this is one of my problems
it's a problem with my writing too

i really do want to develop the perfect health tea
and i think this is super fun
but i recognize that it may not be that fun

i guess i'm a little worried
about this whole
our plan is not to have a plan thing
i guess i'm thinking immunity and health
are like very important

also
i'm freaking out a little bit
because i liked one of her comments
and i didn't realize it was her
and then i went back to read a thread
and realized it was her
and i didn't want to un-like it
but i don't want her to think i'm trying to tell her something
and maybe she didn't notice
and maybe it didn't cause you any trouble
but i'm worried that it did

so maybe i'm a little more on edge than i though i was

i love you

i liked that combo you were wearing
the hat and shirt and shirt jacket
the pattern and color
it was unusual for you

also
that last song on my playlist
is not the one i wanted
it's just what was available
if you know what i mean

ok
i almost forgot
i have a prayer i need to write

nite chat: 5:7

i love you sweetheart
i hope you are happy and healthy
and
i hope you didn't mistake my description
of the guy in the dream for my being
in some way fixated on him
i was trying to convey
he was supposed to be
somebody
spiritually important
but
he seemed very non-descript
the 80 year old woman
she was very lively and he, by contrast
was almost invisible in his visibility
but
when you talked to him there was something

it was a weird dream, for sure

i'm going to bed i think
i want to get up earlier tomorrow

i have tons of things to tell you
but i'm not sure how interesting it really is
and
if i start
i will be up til 6 again

i will say, briefly
i think slug must be one of my animal guides
slug turns up periodically
but through this quarantine
s/he has been around a lot
so that has got to be some kind of message

goodnight sweetheart
i love you very much

quotidienne: coffee + toast 5:6

protea the flower was like a protea, kind of
i don't know when they're having the briefings now
or if they are at differing times
or
if i'm just missing them on purpose
but i think
maybe it's not bad to miss a few
i know bad shit is going on
i have a pretty good idea what it is
maybe i don't need to focus on that, ya know

i'm not sure it i said
and it probably isn't that important
but the guy in the dream
the one the 80 year old woman
who i really hope i dream about again
that guy was white and he looked vaguely familiar
but when i started trying to place him
i realized there are a bunch of guys who look like that
arliss howard, scott bakula, eric kufs
all kind of like base-line attractive not as good looking as you
but i guess that would be like what i picture
composit-like man

it's funny
because a lot of women think ryan gosling is attractive
but there is something so unattractive to me about him
that it distracts me from his acting
i was very disappointed when they were going to cast him
in the new blade runner
i thought it would ruin it for me

which reminds me
harrison ford is kinda the same type listed above
but he's not
because something about his expressions
his eyes and his smile
the animation of his features
makes him in the very attractive category

and like alexander skarsgard
he's a type that i normally find unattractive
the guy who plays thor most would probably say
was the same type
and i'm not saying he's objectively ugly
but
there's nothing about him
but with alexander skarsgard
it's his expressions and his voice

and i guess that is what attracts me, really
facial expressions
proof of mental life or something

but
this guy
being all hal hartly-ified
he had no facial expression to speak of
and i didn't see him as physically attractive
it was something else
some kind of
essence

I dreamed I was back working at that place I just worked

And Dennis was there but he was about to go to some really big meeting for which he had a suit he was going to change into

And I was just kind of milling about

I do not feel that happy to be there and I did not feel very motivated to do anything for them

and I think I said something to bring up the specter of something person who wasn't with us anymore or something

And then all the employees who are working came in and were saying oh it's weird so and so isn't here it's weird so and so isn't here

But some of those people just weren't there yet and came in subsequently so it was clear that none of the people who had been saying oh it's weird so-and-so isn't here we're talking about that they had been let go or anything it was just weird they weren't there at that particular moment

And there was something about a trash bag

And there was something about tearing down boxes

And I went up to cuz this point it had changed and we were in a I don't know dormitory or something but we each had our own rooms

Well I don't think I had a room but this girl who I don't work with in real life she was in this room and I walked up and knocked on the door and she said yes come in and I walked in with my flattened cardboard box

And I was going to ask her something but then I couldn't remember what I was going to ask her

And she's like are you sure this is what you want to be doing

And then it was still in the same room but there were more people there

There were two African American women one of them was like I guess my age and the other one was old like she could easily have been 80

And the younger one asked me I don't remember her wording but it was something to the effect of the difference between a job and a career

And I said there was a certain kind of axis that you factored career on One was how much you cared about it and really wanted to be doing that and one was how much money it paid

So if something didn't pay very much money

it might be a career for you if that was something you really serious about doing and cared about but other people probably wouldn't consider it to be a career

And then there was money

If something paid a lot of money you might say it was a career even if you didn't really care about it and certainly other people would think it was a career but that if you didn't really care about it it was unlikely you'd really get that far with it anyway

But regardless it wasn't really a career for you

And they both seem to think this was a really good answer

And the 80-year-old said yes I'm managing this young man and he is n't doing that well right now but when people hear him he's going to take off

and it turned out that he was down at the market which was like a kind of a farmer's market on the street right then so I went down and I tried to find him but also I didn't want to work I didn't want to work right then I didn't want to work there and there didn't seem to be anybody who was really watching what I was doing anyway so I decided that what will make me happy what's to go into the street and talk to people or look for the sky or something

and I think they were interactions with other people that I don't really remember because I kind of came to this whole realization that I wanted to do what would make me happy

The being happy was super important

And then I saw the old lady and the guy on the street and he was dressed kind of retro

But it was really more than how he was dressed there was something kind of kind of like he was in a hal hartly film

It just didn't quite seem like he was moving at the same speed as the whole rest of the world he seemed to be in this kind of zen-like alternate reality

Anyway the old lady she was like let me give you his card but don't let him see because I don't want him to know we're doing promotion and do you want me to sign it do you want me to sign the card

And I was thinking why would I want you to sign the card who are you and I don't know y'all anyway so even though I'm not really that big on signatures yeah sure sign it for me

So she signs it and she puts it in my pocket because I'm wearing a shirt with a pocket for some reason and it's like I don't know it's two and a half by three or something it's kind of odd-shaped for a business card and it's not horizontal it's up and down but it's got some kind of a picture of it but it's not a picture of him and as far as I could tell it isn't a picture of an album either

It's a picture of some kind of a I don't know like a flower but a weird sort of a flower

I want to say it was sort of like a proteus but I'm not sure if that's right and at any rate it was up and down not hanging over

That's not a very helpful description I'm sorry because it might not even be the right name of the thing I'm thinking of

It was up and down kind of a cylindrical shape but rounded

And they weren't so much pedals as kind of thorny well no not thorny spiky bits

Kind of a tulip thistle

Although that's kind of inadequate description

Anyway he said something to me

And I don't know what it was

I don't know if it actually even was all that profound but it affected me somehow

And so then I think I was another person and he and the old lady came up to my stall in the market I didn't really have any sense of there being a change butI hadn't had a stall in the market before so I'm assuming that it's a different person

Although I did seem to be having a sense of seeing them again somehow which they didn't seem to recognize me

and I talked with the guy a little bit more and I became even more impressed with him

And he looked at my pictures which were prints

And he wanted like three of them

for a very cheap price that normally I would have been very offended like I mean it was only slightly more than one of them but he wanted three

But I was so taken with balance somehow even though I hadn't heard him perform

It was just something about him and what he said and I don't know he seemed

Almost like I don't know

A spiritual leader

But he didn't introduce himself as that at all

And I was like wait let me see if I can do that trying to figure out how much I had paid for the production of the prints and for the stall and all that stuff and see if I was going to like lose money if I gave them the prints at that but I couldn't work the calculator I just couldn't make any of that number stuff work so I think I ended up just giving them to him either that or I took whatever he was offering me I can't really remember which thing cuz I think I woke up right about that but again

It's like this alternate version of myself or this other person or whoever I was I like turn to the camera you know fourth wall'n it

And said it's very important to be happy I don't really care about all these other details

I just want to do what makes me happy

And that was kind of the outro I don't know if there was more dream after that or not That's what I remember and I'm sure there were other dreams before this whole dream started

and the old lady she tried to give me a card again and I'm like but you already gave me one

but then she tried to take the old one and give me a new one and I don't know if that actually happened or not so I'm not sure what that means

it takes me longer to dictate these things than you'd think it would

I've up for about an hour now

And I really haven't done anything else except try to get the dream clear in my head and dictate it

that seems like a lot more time than that would take anyway up now

Goodnight sweetheart

I love you very much

💋

The rain has started

Supposed to rain really hard all night although it just started and it's more like morning really

But the weather people they can't get it right anymore

I mean they never did that good of a job of getting it right but

It's my theory that was global warming the way they forecast doesn't work anymore

Cuz the way they forecast is they look at patterns and they say when it looks like this this percentage of the time this happens so that's why they'll say like you know 20% chance of rain or whatever

It's all probabilities

but I think now that we've got changed patterns due to climate change that they look at the pattern and they predict using the old models and doesn't work so where they were only marginally predictive before now they're just not at all

But still

Rain

nite chat: 5:6

i didn't start all this as a believer in the warm beverage principle
i drank tea
sometimes because i like tea
and sometimes as a health thing
like when i drink the pu ehr tea
i like it and it's healthy
but then
i ordered that healthy chai
not actually because it was healthy
but because it had lapsang souchong in it as the black tea component
and i love lapsang souchong for like forty years
but it doesn't present itself much
and i'm rarely hunting around for tea
i drink coffee
pg tips is easy to come by and nice
typhoo is less nuanced but strong
in fact when i say a box of extra strong typhoo at work
i had to buy it just to see if it was really stronger
yorkshire gold is also really nice but pretty smooth not that strong
i don't currently have any of that
i have some irish breakfast tea from ireland
can't remember the brand off hand
but it makes the english breakfast cry uncle and hand over it's lunch money

sometimes i'll stop into a fancy tea shop
and get a monkey picked oolong
or a richly spiced chai
but i rarely get flavored teas
and
i'm not much for herbals
sometimes i buy them
but i don't really drink em
i have a box of nettle tea
nettle tea is so nutritious--  choke full of vitamins and minerals
and it actually tastes pretty good
i've had it for two years
i'm not half way through it

i try to get as many servings out of this healthy chai as possible
the tea plays out after two cups
but the spice can go four
so i'm using the typhoo in the third and fourth cup

i ordered some berry tea from root girl
it's got hawthorn berries and elderberries
and some other berry and orange peel
which is all great
but then it has a fuck ton of apple
which i'm not mad for in tea
it makes it too sweet and too something else apple-y
i tried adding nettle and that helped
but i ended up adding a pg tips tea bag

i'm seriously, i think, going to try to mix my own
because i'm on board now with the warm liquids
not so much because i think the warmth
makes you any healthier
but
herbal infusions could, potentially

so
idk
this is early days in the tea creation
it's probably not going to look much like creation yet
just old fashion blending
which is very traditional, i'm afraid
but i ordered some devil's club bark
and i have the nettles
those should go well together, i theorize having never tasted devil's club
because nettles have a smooth agreeable flavor like weak tea
but
i'm leaving open the possibility (that was a challenge)
of making a decoction for the bark-y root-y elements
and possibly the spice element as well
and then brewing the lighter herbal elements as a tea
and then blending them together at the end

devil's club
could go burdock, dandelion, osha, possible other for roots
i would like the health benefits of a medicinal mushroom--  chaga maybe
but i don't think that's going to work with the flavor
cardamon for sure
i would have said i could take or leave star anise
but i've been drinking it in this healthy chai
and i honestly don't think i'd want to leave it out
i would have said i could not go without cinnamon
but this chai doesn't have it and i have not missed it
however i'd like to introduce the cinnamon orange combo element
one of my favorite teas growing up was constant comment
and a few years ago i had a russian samovar tea that was even better
at the cinnamon orange element
however
that maybe a second tea
it might be too distracting for the chai
that may be the base of the berry tea

they may have black tea
or pu ehr tea
or rooibos

or they may not
it depends on what i can come up with

the idea is to come out with at least two
herbal infusions that i really really like

quotidienne: coffee + toast 5:5

i had multiple dreams about work

in one i was working in a grocery store
and i was all like this is a super easy job
because they wouldn't let me do anything
except walk around and ask customers if they needed help
there were a bunch of people all milling about
kind of listlessly
so i kept asking people if they needed help
and i was grateful that i could just ask that
and didn't have to do some kind of
ask open ended questions
song and dance
but everyone just kept asking
where do i get the free bread
when i went to ask about the free bread
management told me that that was just
a promotion that had been made to florida customers
but apparently floridians were the new okies
and they were all in texas
where there was supposed to be food and jobs
and we didn't have any free bread
they shoulda stayed in florida


i had another dream
where i was working in a cafe chain
and it had been run by a management company for a while
to the point where standards had deteriorated to the point
where i was wearing tank tops and flip flops to work
and we weren't doing much
because there was almost no business
then i went downstairs
and the owner
and others who cared were back
and the cafe was full
and i went to the bathroom
there was a hole in the wall
a cat was leaning in to drink out of the toilet
and there was a plexiglass pocket on the arm of the toilet
that had a diet coke and a partially eaten candy bar in it
i was grossed out
the guy who i wanted to punch in the face
from the last nite chat
walked in and said wow best bathroom ever, it's got snacks
then i walk out and get immediately caught by a supervisor
a young girl who is either naturally nasty to people
or drunk on the power
i'm gonna need you to do something for me
ok, i say
i need you to clean the mix-master sinks
ok, i say, got it,clean the sinks
no no no, she says, the mix-master sinks
which are the mix-master sinks
oh, she says, have you never cleaned the sinks before
i've cleaned the sinks, i just never knew there were different classifications of sink
the mix-master sinks are the ones with the brown plexi back splashes
ok, i say and pick up a bottle of bleach soft scrub and a scrubby sponge
no no no, she says, that's not how you do it, cleaning not your forte
ok, i say, how do you want me to do it
you get the packets of cleaner and fill up the sink with hot water, then you let it sit, you come back, empty it, and wipe out the sink
ok, i say, where are the packets
do i have to do everything for you, at this point i could have just done it myself
and walks away
ok, clearly there is not a place where they keep the packets, or she doesn't know
so i start diggin around under all the sinks and in cabinets
i find five packets that seem like they must be the right thing
they remind me of urnex and that is the process she has described
the process we used to use to clean coffee urns
so i start walking through the labyinthine (i don't even feel bad that i couldn't spell that) back room and i cannot find any sinks that have a brown plexi back splash--  not one


there was another dream
i can't remember it
but it was at an airport terminal


and then back before any of these
there was a really long dream where i was talking to you
it was a good dream
and in the lucid part of my dreaming
i'm telling myself
you have to remember this
you have to tell him this
but
although i remember that i have to tell you
i can't remember any details at all
not one

nite chat: 5:5

i swore to myself
that i would go to bed
just a little bit earlier
and i was shooting for three
but
four looks more likely now
if i can make that happen

i am not exactly seeing this thing i'm about to say
but i am visually imagining it
is that a distinction that makes sense outside of my own head
it isn't just coming up before me
i'm conjuring it with my imagination
so it's totally non-threatening
but i'm seeing sugar skeletons a la Posada
dancing around the room
they're pretty cheerful
not like a plague times type thing

so
anyway
i guess it was mixing the metaphors
because it's another holiday
i'm not really sure what we call this one

it feels like it has a definite place
but i'm not sure that it's on the earthly plane

i am imagining you
and i together
and apparently we are in the woods
that's not a location i normally conjure
but it there now
the sounds
but we aren't in a tent
we're a little glampier than that
we're in a small airstream type thing
and we're singing songs
and maybe we're smoking something
or maybe we're drinking margaritas
or a nice red wine
or maybe we're doing something else
idk
we're relaxed
and we're having fun just hangin out

and
do you remember
when you were like a teenager or early twenties (maybe)
when there was this thing--  making out
where you're kissing and touching and stuff
but
it's like about the kissing

can i remember how to do that

because after i got older
imean sometimes there was meaningful kissing
and sometimes there wasn't much kissing
but
after i started having orgasms
i don't think it was ever about the kissing again
maybe i'm remembering things wrong

or
maybe
i've spent enough time looking at your
lips, your mouth
that i feel very inspired by the idea of kissing you
i want things to move slowly
i want to savor everything about you
my tendency
i know
in the past
was to get too excited
to want to push through

i had someone who used to be like
slow down slow down
and wanted to do all this teasing
and i wanted to punch him in the face
because getting near orgasm
and then having things stop
might be great
if you're only having one orgasm
but
it always read to me like
you ask me what i want
i tell you what i want
you tell me i want something else

which requires a better case to be made for it
than you can apparently pull off

maybe i'm just not a good bottom
but maybe i've just had avery limited number of sexual partners
who had had pretty limited sexual experience
before thay were with me

so
maybe what i'm really saying here
is i want to go slow with you
really explore all the electromagnetic currents
and like facial mucus membranes
completely
before getting (i cannot help myself)
bones involved

there has been so much wind up between you and me
i imagine myself having to pull away from kissing you
to thrash through an orgasm
so we won't knock our teeth together
would it happen that way
idk
but you have made me come that way
by thinking about me
thousands of miles away
but
the thing about the energy surges
in proximity
i would expect them to be stronger
because
you get a
feedback
loop

quotidienne: coffee + toast 5:4

ok
well, i have some good news and some bad news
regarding twc's communications with me
they decided that since i got severance
that i do not get paid from them
for april and may
however
it looks like i am going to get
two weeks of march
one of which will include the $600
so
almost a thousand dollars
plus the twelve hundred that i will theoretically get
so
not nothing
and i figure if i'm not eligible for the unemployment pay out
for april or may
that should mean that i'm not expected to have to
look for work during may
which is good
because they sent me an email
that was like

what?!
not working yet
all grocery store are hiring everyone
sight unseen
get your ass down to acme plaguetown works
you lazy piece of shit

ok
that's a slight exaggeration (really? i spelled that right?)
they also were kind enough to tell me
that if i didn't want all the hassle of requesting payment
for weeks i wasn't gonna get paid anyway
i could just drop out
and easily re-apply if i still didn't have a job in june

yeah, right
it took a full month to not quite have money in my hand
but have paperwork making it look like it might happen
in forty-eight hours
i think i can manage, thanks ever-so

i was really hoping
with all the talk of retro
i'd get two weeks of $600
but whatever
we'll see how long it takes em
to like actually put some kinda somethin like a plan
there'll be a second wave in a couple weeks
and then they'll realize
it's not gonna go away just because we got bored with it

wow
it got late fast
i probably missed the briefing
and i didn't watch anything while i was feeling so bad

i feel better obvi
i still have a headache
but it comes and goes
my face is broken out and my chin is full
full of what i assume to be cystic acne
but it's gone down since yesterday when i was afraid it might blow
if the pressure got any higher

but
none of that matters
i feel happy
and semi-hopeful that this will all be ok, somehow
even though
the way it is being managed
looked at objectively
doesn't seem
cause for optimism (really?!  i thought sure that was spelled wrong)

i love you
you are such a beautiful bird

I'm up

And I had a lot of very intense dreams

But I can't remember

nite chat: 5:4

ok
sorry
that was a long deep rabbit hole
but it felt like i was being led
and
i ordered a mushroom tincture
i'm trying not to get my hopes all up

i'm tired
and
my neck is all jacked up
i probably have been sitting
with my head at a bad angle for hours
so
i probably can't be super chatty
right at this juncture

all i really want to say
is that i feel very grateful for you today
that is the overwhelming emotion
not fear of my future
not anxiety
not depression
but
happiness that i know you

stay healthy and safe and happy
this monday
is going to be a good day
i know it
so
i'll be up in about six hours
to tell you about any dreams i remember

i love you so much
sweetheart

if you have time
think something at me at about ten
your time and let's see if i can hear it
in the dreamtime
i bet i can

goodnight sweetheart
i love you very much

i love you

ok
that may not have been interesting
but
ya know
more quarantine food talk
we had not discussed bbq yet
it is not as important as mexican food
but it's a thing
santa maria is tri-tip
with which i am unfamiliar
texas
is predominantly brisket
i mean, not entirely
but
yes brisket

also sometimes i put bbq sauce in a baked potato
if i'm jones'n bad

oh dear god

just pretend i said a bunch of sexy stuff
because
maybe you don't think
bbq talk is foreplay
i think
right now maybe i do

i do not know how to do this

i am not claiming to this skill

but

i do appreciate it 

i love you sweetheart

i'm goin to bed

nite chat: 5:3

ok
this is going to seem pretty random
but apparently this is what i'm obsessing about
so
one of the things that i missed most
other than baked chicken
which after eight years of craving it
i finally decided there must be something
something in it that i just needed
and i started eating it again
occasionally (wow spelled with an s, not t)
anyway
bar-b-que
i think i have had that once
in a weak moment
but i mostly just started
baking salmon with bar-b-que sauce
which is fine
not bar-b-que, though

so
somebody i follow on instagram
her husband and his brother
they dry farm beans in santa barbara county
and
one of the kind of beans they grow are pinquito beans
and i'm like what the hell are pinquito beans

now
beans and i have a rocky history
i didn't much like them when i was a kid
so deborah would put half a plate of canned pork and beans
which i think would be my least favorite kind anyway
and i couldn't leave the table until i ate them all
this may be part of the way
that i started checking to see what she was cooking
and just saying i was sick and didn't feel like eating
if she was making pork and beans
or that meatloaf with the raw dry oatmeal in it
or just really gross stuff
she was gonna make me eat more than an adult portion
of whatever i didn't like
so i just wouldn't eat
i'd go to my room
and feel like i had won a prize
this is third and fourth grade mostly
maybe the tail end of second
and i was out of there after fourth

anyway
i digress
because of this trauma around beans
i couldn't or wouldn't like them
until i became vegetarian
my body was craving protein so bad
it was like do not get between me and that can of refried beans
do not get between me and the peanut butter
[which i had never liked before]

so now me and beans are friends
but it's a recent thing
only the last ten years, really

except
strangely
when i was really little
like up until five or six
i loved lima beans
and then suddenly i hated them

so
these people they specialize in butter beans
which is lima beans
and then they have these weird beans i've never heard of
omg so so much wind up
so
santa maria bar-b-que
i read about it somewhere in relation to these beans
they are the kind of beans
and i still don't much like bar-b-que beans
but
for some reason i decided that these pinquito beans were the thing
so i went down a small rabbit hole
about santa maria bar-b-que
and
i was wondering if you've had it
with all your experience with california
because
i love bar-b-que
like
before i went vegetarian
which i admit i'm a little bit fallen from now
but before that

one of my pretend bucket list things was
to do like a bbq tour of the country
well, not the whole country
but i didn't realize california had a bbq tradition
and i gotta say it doesn't look the best

texas has two variants of bbq sauce
one has a vinegar element which makes it more similar
to carolina bbq sauce but with heat
that's all ya gotta know about texas
a texas burger will at least have a lot a lot of mustard
and it really should have jalapenos too
like california means avocados
when i used to road trip
it was whataburger until that last stop in the las crueses
and then
it was hunting for the first carl's jr
you cannot get avocado on a hamburger in texas
unless you are at a fancy gourmet burger restaurant
you'd think guacamole
but you'd be wrong

the other is a sweeter not quite kansas city or memphis
but in that neighborhood i think closer to memphis
[except i just looked it up and memphis is pork based
texas is more beef based]
but again with heat
and
i gotta say
the one i like better
depends on how well ya do the heat

and of course the meat is supposed to be
like amazing without any sauce at all
so if the sauce is not good, whatever,not the end of the world
and there cannot be too much mustard in the potato salad
but the sauce needs to be poured on the potato salad
so it really needs to be good

and this santa maria stuff
doesn't seem like that at all
and the recipe for the beans
has bacon
and ham
which is kinda nuts
but still
for some reason--  obsessed
so i ordered the beans
and whenever they come
i will have pinquito beans (semi santa maria style)
and butter beans
which i'm really hoping i love again

unemployment saga: 5:2

i got a phone call
from the twc
when i was asleep
and the number he said to call back
was an automated we can't help you number
but
i called him back on the number he called me
and i left a message
and he called me back

i answered questions
they are going to call my employer
and i should hear something tuesday

i asked if it was likely that the severance
would need to get used up
before the unemployment would start
and he said
he didn't think so
he thought it would only affect the week that
i received the severance

so
i was thinking
i probably wouldn't get money
but
maybe i will

wheeeeeeee

Okay I want to get this down before I forget because I was forgetting very quickly

I dreamed about your high school which I know nothing about

You somehow almost single-handedly revolutionized the use of music in high school and I don't know exactly what that means

But but somehow before you were like rock and roll like before you everything was you know la la la and then you brought in rock and roll

And that sounds not as impressive the way I'm saying it as it was in the dream

In the dream was like this really incredible and I was listening to this whole I don't know almost like documentary but I think it was actually listening to the people that you went to school with talk about it

And then it points it was almost like I was there

And then I had another dream and I'm not sure if it was related to that or not but there was something about I was always accidentally parking in a handicap spot that was sort of randomly in the middle of this parking lot for a restaurant

Maybe it was more of a coffee shop than a restaurant I'm not sure

And then there was another part where I went to I'm not 100% sure I want to say I was going to a Japanese amusement park but it might not have been an amusement park exactly it was some kind of a park and I was trying to figure out how to get there without having to drive

and I found this way that you could get there on the bus but I wasn't sure how long it was going to take because it was like the bus would get you to the park then you had to get off the bus or maybe it wasn't a bus maybe it was a subway that you had to get off of and then come up and then take a bus from there to the entrance of the park and then you'd catch some kind of tram there that would take you actually into the park but it wasn't sure how long that was going to take because it was like you have to wait here and then you have to wait here and I was trying to figure out how far it was and it seemed like it was too far to walk from the exit to the subway station to the entrance of the park and I was afraid it was going to be like an hour wait I'm not sure why I thought that

So I wasn't sure how early I had to start and how much I had to allow

And there was something that I don't think was in today's dream I think it's something I dreamed yesterday but it's possible that I saw it somewhere it might not have been a dream but it was this person who had this it was an outfit but it was it was kind of like a was kind of like a suit but not like a business sea suit kind of suit it was like pants with a shirt jacket kind of like a safari jacket or something like that and it had all these pockets it was really impressive it had just like pockets everywhere on the jacket and on the pants but it didn't look good really good and I was like oh I want one of those so bad how cool is that

And I feel like there was a dream that I was in school but I don't really remember any of the details of that

I also feel like there was some kind of a work dream but I don't remember any of the details of that either

goodnight sweetheart
i'm going to bed
i love you very much
sorry if i wasn't much fun the last couple of days

nite chat: 5:2

i don't know
i was gonna write a short story
i thought that's what i would do
when i got up this evening
but i didn't
and
i don't know what i thought i was gonna write it about
i feel transparent
does that make any kind of sense
like i'm not quite even here
my head hurts
i do not feel able to string coherent thoughts together
and why the hell can i not spell

i went to fucking school
i've read books
i just cannot spell for shit
this fucking thing puts red squiggly lines
underneath things i misspell
but then i have to go to a new tab and look them up
and it's the same words a lot of times
i'm just not learning them
and that's probably been the case my whole life

one time i know i turned in a paper in college
where i spelled counselling councilling
and any word with double letters can just fuck right off, generally
i know i have typos too
but
i can't fucking spell
it has never really bothered me before

quotidienne: free fall 5:1

i went to be at 6am
i woke up at 11:30am
i peed and scrolled through my phone
i felt very awake
yesterday my temperature was 97.6
i took it several times
with two different thermometers
i went to the bathroom
looked at myself in the mirror
i put on the progesterone cream
i said i still don't feel right
i lay back down and fell back asleep

i woke up about 6pm
i scrolled trough my phone
i should say all these times are about
i went to the bathroom
this time when i take my temperature it's 97.3
and i didn't take it right when i woke up
it had been at least 30 minutes

now i tend to run cooler
but at the beginning of quarantine
when i was taking it three times a day
it was more like 98.1 to 98.5
and i assure you it is not cooler temperatures now
the weather has been very accommodating
but it has not been like cold or anything
so idk if the temperature is important to my feeling bad
or if it's hormonal
or if my metabolism has just slowed down to match
my activity level

i'm up now because
i'm hungry
and
i need to change position from horizontal
my back is starting to hurt

idk
maybe it's just depression or something
but i don't feel depressed
i feel a very confusing array of emotions
but
i don't think depressed is one of them

i love you sweetheart
more later
i promise

poem: is a poem a goodnight kiss? 4:30

this is the last poem of april
and
the challenge
was
one poem a day for april

not every poem
was
a good poem
and
i think that that's natural
as it should be

will i do one poem a day
for all the month of may
i don't think
i don't think i will
for
i love poems
i love to write poems
but
not necessarily poem-y poems

it's a hard question
because
is it better to write a poem every day
to get the three good ones in a month
or
to trust
that you will write the three good poems
without the impetus
write a damn poem
damn you

and yet
to sit up thinking
to try to write a poem
that isn't wanting to poem
well
i think you see my point

goodnight sweetheart
i love you very much

Okay here's what happened to me

I got up at 5:00

I did all the morning getting ready stuff

I started calling them at 5 minutes to 5:00 I mean 5 minutes to 7:00

and it took me almost 30 minutes but I did actually get through

I was very excited because the phone rang and then I was even more excited when something picked it up

But it was an automated service that picked it up and it said press one if you need to apply for unemployment

Press two if you need to change any piece of your information including your pin

press three if you have questions or problems and need to talk to a person

So I press three

And it said we're overwhelmed we don't have time to talk to you right now

If you applied You are fine

Everything's retroactive including the $600

If you have any questions use the website or the automated phone line

I already had looked around the website and there isn't any answer for my question there

I haven't used the automated line yet but unless it can specifically look at my account and tell me the answer to my question I don't think it's going to help me because I don't have a general question I have very specific question

So that I need some toast

And drank some more coffee

And then I started feeling really bad

I mean first I looked around on the internet and whatever so I've been up since 5:00 and it was like 10:30 when I started feeling really really bad

I had I still have I think a migraine

But it might just be a really horrible sinus headache with a cluster headache on top of it

I feel like something blew in

I don't think I have Corona I haven't left the house in a really long time and although I have interacted with things that people have touched I feel like it's pretty unlikely

But I do think I have a migraine and I'm nauseated and my guts are I don't know not good

But my hormones could be jacked up

And have not been putting on the cream

I can't really explain to you why I haven't been doing that

But I was feeling good

And I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get more of the cream

But I did get more of the cream

So I don't really have a good excuse

but that's my best guess for what's going on with me but I just feel like I might die

Now I did do that whole switching from my natural bodies circadian rhythms back to normal peoples circadian rhythms and it might be that on top of the hormones it's just responding really badly to that

But I got like 9 hours of sleep last night

And that's on top of the two and a half hours of sleep I got the night before that

So so that average is out to a pretty decent amount of sleep

But I came and lay down in the semi dark cuz you can't get it completely dark in here during the day

And I hadn't really intended to go back to sleep I had just intended to lay in the dark

But I did go back to sleep

So it was 11:11 when I got into bed and it was sick something when I got out of bed so I've had basically another 7 hours of sleep and I still feel really bad

I dreamed that I had a bunch of dreams and I recorded them without actually waking up

I just discovered him when I looked at the this thing

But there were also like video recordings that went along with them although they weren't of me they were like of the dreams or something

It was really cool

and then I had the southern dream but I'm not sure if it was a dream or if it was a movie of one of the dreams that I had when I was asleep in the dream

I was in prison

But it wasn't quite like regular prison

It was more like quarantine

But it was me and I think two other people

And one of the people he was trying to get a stereo

So he ordered some stuff and it came kind of damaged and they were trying to tape it back together and what not but he really wanted a stereo

And I don't remember what I wanted

I don't remember what I wanted in that part maybe I didn't care about that kind of stuff but then

When I was when I went out to get supplies I bought a turkey

And then I put it in the freezer because our refrigerator that we had was like one of those kinds you would get for a dorm room and it didn't really keep things cold

And the freezer I'm not sure if it kept things frozen but it did keep things at least refrigerator temperature

And I don't know how we were going to cook the turkey it just seemed like a very ill advised purchase

50 was more but I don't remember I just remember the struggle of the stereo and the struggle of the turkey

But I think I bought the turkey because it was going to be Thanksgiving or I don't know some holiday it was going to be some holiday in just needed a turkey

Anyway I'm laying back down now I still do not feel well at all

But unfortunately no I'm not making productive use of my time or doing anything fun I just have been feeling sick

I hope you're doing better than me

actually that's pretty weak sauce I hope you're doing really well

But I don't know that I'm going to be hopping up and doing anything productive anytime soon we're fun for that matter I was going to make nachos

But just the idea of food is kind of disgusting

poem: tired 4:29

i fell asleep
sitting in the chair

and i feel like
that's almost a trope

but
ya know
i don't think i've done that
since i stopped working

nite chat: 4:29

well
it was busy all day
one time i got very excited
because it rang
it went to an automated message
you had three options
i don't remember what 1 and 2 were
but 3 was talk to a person
and as soon as i hit 3
it went back to a busy signal

so plan b
is to get up earlier
and start calling them before 7
so i'm going to bed soon
i got almost no sleep
so i don't think it'll be a problem

i love you sweetheart

quotidienne: coffee + toast

12 grain bread with grass fed butter
coffee with soy milk
that feels more authentic
maybe it's better
maybe it's not
we'll see
but
i could feel myself getting all caught up
in the need to research and stuff
to the exclusion of
actually doing anything

man
i feel exactly like
if i really didn't get any sleep
it is not a good feeling

i am dreading this whole calling process
maybe it will be easy and i will get right through
then i dread the conversation
and the information
but
first i am dreading the calling
because i do not expect it to be easy and go right through

i love you

Grackles: 4:29

have you ever woken up from yourself?  well that's what happened to me on day forty of quarantine.  i got up at regular time--  before times regular--  after having reverted to a schedule which was natural to my own body clock.  my cat was the happiest i think i've ever seen him.  he is a morning person and has not adjusted well to the changes, namely that i go to bed at the time i normally woke up.  i fed him and showered.  brushed my teeth and went back to the bedroom to put on some clothes.  i was pulling on my yellow skirt--  which i have literally had since 1995 and never wear--  it's a pale yellow cotton knit long modified pencil skirt which i am choosing because 1) it's cotton and fairly cool for my early texas summer no air-conditioning challenge  2) i'm trying to wear light colors to maximize my laundry situation  3) it's a "cheerful" color and i thought i could use that today.  the cat and i had a routine in the before times where he would jump up on the bed and i would pat his rump.  it's just like it sounds.  i pat his rump he makes biscuits into his polar fleece blanket, which i had to return to it's customary location because it had fallen off.  i do this while he traverses the blanket and moves in ways that usually make it difficult for me to reach him.  not today, today he is taking it easy on me in the reaching department but he is really giving the blanket a good work over.  then he flops down on his side and i pet him in the ways that he likes.  until such time as he becomes over-stimulated and has to bite.  he hasn't had this routine for possibly the entire forty days and he has clearly missed it.  he manfully restrains himself from biting for maybe the longest time ever and then he doesn't really try to bite me.  he gives fair warning, which for a cat is the best you can really hope for.  it's just like the before times.  it's nothing like the before times.

i put on a heathered gray modal t-shirt that i don't like the way it looks on me but it is very very comfortable, and also it is light colored (laundry).  i don't plan to look at myself.  who else will see me.  i haven't put on makeup.  well, that's maybe not true.  i have put on a tinted sun-screen when i went out for walks once or twice.  if that counts as makeup then there's that.  even my skin care routine has whittled down to almost nothing in the last couple of weeks.  cleaning:  witch hazel on a cotton pad.  maybe centella serum, maybe not.  chaparral desert skin oil.  i had a multi step korean inspired skincare routine.  when i realized i was going into lock-down i ordered a few extras of things i didn't want to run out of.  i haven't used them.  the desert skin oil isn't even something i was using before.  it's something i bought because 1) i needed something light to wear with the non-air-conditioned situation 2) i wanted to support the small business maker 3) i needed retail therapy 4) i needed a justification to spend the money so i made up #1--  i know i have light oils i could have used.

so here i am.  i got up early today because i need to call the unemployment and find out what's going on with my not getting money.  truthfully it's kind of a misrepresentation to make it seem like i woke up from a night's sleep.  i went to be at 4:15am and i got up at 6:30am.  that's more like a nap, really.  i feel like i haven't been doing this right.  i had good intentions, i really did.  i was going to figure out some income streams.  i was going to sell all my old stuff on poshmark or ebay.  i was going to look for work from home opportunities.  first i was going to take two weeks--  vacation, if you like--  shelter in place and then take stock of the situation.  i guess after the two weeks the situation seemed apocalyptic enough that i just decided to zone out.  now, don't misunderstand me, i do not mean i spent the time high.  i do not have drugs of any kind.  except alcohol.  i have had a few margaritas.  not anything excessive.  three or four times in a forty day period is much higher than my normal drinking levels, but is definitely not excessive.  unless you think it is.  in which case, i mean, whatever, i don't know what to tell you. 

i'm awake now and i have stuff to do.

ok
i gotta go to bed
gotta get up early
and do crappy life stuff

i'm still gonna write you things
and i'm still gonna write in the formats
i've been doing
i just need to get a lot more done

maybe i don't have to stop having fun
i have a very harsh internal voice
well
one harsh voice, anyway

sorry you had to hear that


goodnight sweetheart
i love you very much

poem: [bad voice in my head is not respectful] 4:28

i think
i'm not sure
that i should maybe not
have the spirit guide stuff mixed in
with the grackle stuff
maybe i should
maybe
maybe i'm having a bad day
and i'm rethinking everything from a bad day angle
and maybe
maybe i'm not the right person
or not up to the task
idk
i seem to have
overnight
almost talked myself out of my ability to write any of it
maybe i need a monday strategy

when i was 17
i thought i was going to be an activist
i didn't
i mean i really didn't
and that's ok
but
now i feel very silly with my spirit guide story
when the country's on fire

idk
i'm gonna have to spend some amount of time
on the phone tomorrow
and
if there's no money coming
i'm gonna have to get serious
about doing something to earn money
not just sit around and play

but
maybe
what i should do as well
is set aside [in fact you know to do this
you stupid cow] time specifically
to write
and then just write what writes

not
letters to the beloved
not poems for poetry month
write the fuckin book
if you got a book
and if you don't
then just shut up

nite chat: 4:28

ok
monday is officially my least favorite day
it just keeps fucking me over
my unemployment looked like it had a statement
i got very excited
but it said the amount paid was 0
and sure enough 0 was the amount extra in my bank account
so
i need to call and check what's going on
i think they decided not to pay me until the severance weeks
have run out
which seems legit, except
i was really hoping to get the g'v'm'nt money
and it doesn't look like i'm getting that
at least until the severance weeks is up
so then i need to know
is that what's going on
or did i do something wrong paperwork wise
and is it counting by number of weeks
or dollar amount
and
if dollar amount
is it including the $600
or just the $252

so it looks like i might not get the $600
maybe at all
and if they're opening back up
i assume they will change the number of jobs
i have to try to get in a week from 0
to some other number

i don't want to have to get some dangerous job
for no pay
but
i'm not sure how this is all going to play out


anyway
very stressed

when i signed up on facebook
pretty much right away there was this woman
who wanted to be my friend
i didn't know her
but she was a painter
and she seemed cool
i think she was in the same circle as my mom
or maybe she subsequently is, idk

but since then
she has gotten divorced
and become a real estate agent
and i was attempting to read my feed
which i don't really enjoy
and rarely do anymore
but
she was one of the first people on my feed
and she was posting a statistic
bar graph
about human trafficking
and she said
i am so proud of my president for his work
in catching human traffickers

and i thought to myself
is there any way this could be true
i've not been tracking that at all
could he have actually done something good
and i momentarily felt bad about myself
maybe i've been unfair

so
i was just trying to find the graphic
and the first thing that came up was this

now i didn't read the entire article
because it kept popping up subscribe to finish
paywall ads, however
i used to read foreign policy
not regularly, but sometimes
and i did not ever think it was
anything other than a reputable news source

i just looked it up
and they never endorced a candidate until 2016
so, i mean, they aren't looking for his good stuff, sure
but i don't believe they are fake news
sometimes i read things
and i think, well yeah, ok but is that really news
or is that really an editorial that's posing as hard news
and i know pretty much nothing from the right slanted news
can be trusted anymore
but
sometimes
even the sources i think are "my kind" of news
sometimes the questions they ask
are not the best questions
because what they want is the thing that will sell
and the orange one calls it fake
if it doesn't paint him pretty

but sometimes it isn't fake
it just isn't quite real either, if you know what i mean
news and infotainment are all mixed up
and it's all content

then
it gets even more crappy
because they "reporters" often just present
two things as though they equate
or
report craziness without actually calling it craziness
so
any news, for me, is possibly not real
although that's not the same as fake
do you follow me

but
i feel like
if foreign policy says his record is fake news
that i don't need to read the whole article
they may end up saying
yes he arrested this many more people
but this is how that somehow undermines
everything
and that did sort of seem to be the direction they were going
but i think of foreign policy in a similar vein as the economist

did i tell you
that way back
i may not have told you this
when i was first out of high school
before i started college
i know i told you i worked at the bookstop
which you may or may not even know what that is
but
i ran the news stand
i ordered and received and managed which magazines we carried
and all of that
i really liked it
and the returns were stripped cover returns mostly
so i could take the magazine home to read
so
i read foreign policy and mother jones and fifth estate
and off our backs and the nation and a bunch of other stuff

although fifth estate and off our backs and on our backs
and woman of power and shaman's drum i generally bought

off our backs was a feminist broadsheet newpaper
on our backs was a feminist erotica/porn-esque magazine
also deneuve (later curve) was one i read regularly
i used to read a lot of magazines
i love magazine
but i rarely read them anymore
i now read twitter and instagram

i would also take home paris review
sometimes
that was pricey and people bought it
so it wasn't usually left over
but
i never read much of it
maybe one thing per issue
i thought i should read it
and i wanted to want to read it
but
i guess i liked the news and politics better

fifth estate was an anarchist newspaper
that is where i first read about ronnie selling drugs
to get money for the contras
in like 84 or 85
and everybody i told was like
you are crazy
but it turned out to be true didn't it
oh, also earth first

so that is the stuff i was reading
when i was 17-18 before i started college
in fall of 1985

that was not what i intended to talk about

i am pretty sure i never told you that

i wonder how that jibes with
who you think i am

poem: verse chorus chorus 4:27

what is it like
to dance with a dragon
and had you really never
thought that way about each other

i woke up with a mash-up running through my head
wild horse 42
so
idk
maybe it was about numbers
but
right field to third base
came up at least as much as any number
i guess it was mostly wild horse
but 42 was almost entirely 42
and
if i really look closely
that chorus just glombed on to the other
so verse chorus chorus verse chorus chorus

why
i have no idea

nite chat: 4:27

i hope you had a good day
i slept real late
i spent a bunch of time researching
well
that's not exactly right
watching book reviews
interviews, readings
4321
then
i watched true grit
[cohen bros]
and ate homemade fried rice
which was almost entirely wrong
and not just because it was made
with brown rice
but managed to be good anyway
i pulled out the majority of my
chin antennae
my chin hurts, a lot
and
somewhere in there i listened to the briefing

i wrote a little
but i'm not sure i like it
and
i got this strange idea
that frida and quetz'l are having an affair
i started writing the scene where they all meet
and there are no parties in the street
but then
it seemed like it was just them
like everybody else got the memo
no new assignments during the lock down
too much parental attention
enclosed spaces and whatnot
and then
one thing led to another
and then i'm wondering
if they are spirit guides
but not working with the same person
i shouldn't keep calling them kids
they're only kids for a while

would they be able to have contact
other than their quarterly meetings
maybe
maybe they could have contact whenever
but then why do they have meetings

to get together
so
surely they can't have direct contact
but maybe they can text
or write
or
read each other's minds
idk
and i'm not sure whether that makes it more interesting or not
i mean
maybe that's a different story
maybe it's stupid
or maybe it's a better story

idk
i'm going to think about it


last night i dreamed
i was working
and daniel i used to work with
was cleaning the kitchen floor
which we didn't have, a kitchen
he had a broom
and some kind of wax solution
and he was making side to side movements
and i was like ok
i'm gonna go clean the bathrooms

then also
i went to the movies
and they had tables and chairs
like it was a school or something
big tables
not little desks

i have a headache
and i want to try to get to bed earlier

i love you sweetheart
i'm gonna go write that poem

more nite chat: 4/27

so the reason
that that guy is clyde
is not because i don't think the whole ghost dance thing is cool
it's because it turns out to be
heavily influenced by christianity
and
it didn't work

so
he came up with this movement
that spread all across the native peoples
everybody had a slightly different take on it
and that's, in a way, amazing

but
you see where compared to these other guys
he's kinda clean cut and such

although
maybe it would be better
not to assign clyde to an actual person
and maybe it'd be better to leave ghost dance guy off the roster
i'm not sure that i can write him
and
it might be offensive
the way i might end up writing him

poem: lazy dolly won't you get up 4:26

why will she not
why will she not go
why will she not go to sleep

she's tired
she's tired all the time
she's gonna be tired in the morning

when i was a kid
when i was a kid i used to
when i was a kid i used to get insomnia

but that's not
but that's not what's
but that's not what's happening now

if i went to bed
i'd fall asleep
i'm sure
no question

i just
i just can't
i just can't make myself
i just can't make myself go to bed

night chat: 4:26

listening to this

i am very tired, strangely
how are you holding up

i thought i had all these things to say
and i was listening to the book
and they don't have any trouble adding stuff in
but i am getting a picture of where she lived in san francisco

i'm a little worried about my cat
normally he wants to eat at 8:30
9:30, 10:30 and then he might go hours
but
he ate at 8:30
and at 10:30 he had no interest
now he's still sleeping
i'm really surprised he's not menacing me
or passive-aggressively chewing on things
that clearly aren't food
like, see how hungry i am
i have to chew on this pen that fell on the floor
or fake cactus
or your makeup on the counter in the bathroom
while i'm peeing
because i'm just not moving fast enough

when he isn't hungry
i'm worried he's sick

if they stop the briefings
i'm going to miss them
not that they were sensical
but
just the place they occupied in the craziness

my eyes itch so bad
i might have to get something
i'm pretty sure i have eye lubricant
i did for fall allergies
it's like slightly viscus
not like visine
it doesn't get the red out but it is very soothing

anyway
i can't remember all the things i was gonna say
because i can't stop seeing the artist studio building
and dorothea lange down the block
and what chinatown in the early thirties must have been like
when she went there to have them make her folklorico dresses
i'm calling them that
that isn't the technical term
it might be better if i read this in print
i remember terminology better if i see it
i think the jewelry was zapoteca but i think the dresses
have a different name
anyway
there was a asian woman who was famous
among the mexican women in mexico
and to honor her
women tried to emulate her silks with what they had
and then she kinda did her own spin on that
by going to chinatown
and having them make her style of dresses
from the chinese silks
she really kinda developed her style
when she was in america
to connect her to her homeland
plus she was young
and kind of inventing herself as an artist

she's so perfect
and quetz'l
i guess i need to know more about him
but that's tricky
plus
i guess it's ok to make him up
but
do they get along, i wonder
seems like they would

i would not have thought of her
because she's so over used
too much of a pop cultural item
that gets misappropriated
and i mean, so is joan, but i feel like
the trans reference is pretty obvious and yet
i haven't seen it
don't tell me if it has
because i won't be able to then
but it's such an odd foiling
it funny
i was just thinking about it
but joan might end up being my only white person
that might be bad
i might seem to be appropriating
i just haven't though about any

and
of course
now that i say that
i think gee, i'd really like to have foucault in on this
he'd probably be one of the ones who would never have a kid
and would help out with older people
not so much from fomo
as just not so much wanting to have to deal with kids, maybe
i don't know him personally
and maybe that's too much

so
just went down a multi hour foucault rabbit hole
i know i've read madness
i think i've read disciple and punish
but i'm not positive
i may have just read excerpts
and had class discussions
idk
i could get either of those or vol 1 of sexuality
on audiobook
but
what i really want is like an overview of his main concepts
there are some readers or introductions
but they are more like break downs of his books
or the historical context in which he wrote
which is great if you're studying him
really great actually
since he was all about that shit
but
what i really wanted was like power/knowledge/freedom
and i did finally find that
and only published about five or six years ago
but
it's $40 and it'll take over a week to get here
or i can "rent" an ebook
which is weird
so
idk we'll see

anyway i took forever to get back here
and i was gonna go to bed early *sigh*

so
anyway
i hope you're doing well
and i hope you enjoy some days off to do fun things
i love you very much sweetheart
i'm gonna go write the poem

quotidienne: coffee + toast 4:26

frida kahlo
seems like, on the one hand
why didn't i think of that right off
i wish she was my spirit guide and she is definitely
like a major influence
but, on the other hand
jesus that's not a small thing to do right
but
i can't not do it now
and it's her fucking demand that they do DoD as a meeting
and they can barely get her to go to the meeting
why don't you just fucking haunt it they say
that's not what Dia is about, she says
it's not pinche halloween

yeah
we are totally doing this

now the question
or at least my question is this
should all the spirit guides be people you've heard of
i mean that might be funnier
but it doesn't seem realistic
but
maybe you don't want it to be trying too hard to be realistic
it's a question
another question is who do we get for the
american indians, cause we gotta have some of those
we need kinda off beat ones
the guy responsible for the ghost dance seems a likely candidate
but maybe not, i'm not sure i know anything about him
ok
i feel like jack wilson might be clyde

gotta eat something
more later 

Okay I dreamed there were several parts and they all got kind of mixed together in my mind I mean I think they were separate in the dream but I'm not sure where the lines are

I was in this apartment and it was a pretty cool apartment and it kind of looked off over the roof

And I think there were two women who came in to the next two apartment that maybe we had promised to take with us because they were from out of town and they wanted sightseeing or something

And then there were these two women who came into town who were my friends since college

Which isn't a real life thing it was just in the dream

And I was telling them they should go ahead and go start and they could take those women with them if they wanted but I was going to have to go to work

and they were complaining and I'm like look how long have you known me I always have to go to work and they're like aren't you off didn't you take off for our visit

And I'm and I'm like yes I did but I'm going to have to go in for just like a couple hours I don't have to go in and make the schedule or anything but I have to go in and do some checklists and

so if you want I can go out with you and we can like have dinner or a couple of drinks and then I can go to work and then we can hook back up after or I can just go to work and we can hook up after but I do have to do the work part

And they were complaining and apparently they did not want to take the strangers from next door which I don't blame them

So then they kind of drag me outside and flagged down a taxi which was going to make my going anyplace else difficult because we weren't in my car

And I don't remember anything else from that dream I think there was more but I don't remember it

What I remember was going to the makeup department of some store and I think it was like a big fancy store I don't think it was just like a mall store

And we were at this makeup counter and it's pretty big but I don't think it was any brand that I've actually seen in real life

And I put on the CC cream

And it looked great it made my face look literally perfect but it didn't look like I had any makeup on

But then all the other testers in the section were all just destroyed so I couldn't try any of that on

And the colors I was trying on it was like it's all very cool-toned browns

And then I put on the slip stick and it was Matt and it was purple

And I was asking the other people if it looked good cuz it wasn't sure if this looked really great or if it looked weird

and then I looked at my teeth and they looked I don't know pink or something it was really weird and I was like I don't think this is the right shade for me

So then I put everything back

And I realized that nothing was on sale which is really weird for you know makeup counter usually they have some kind of sale or some kind of special or something

They did have a bunch of displays but nothing was on sale

and there may have been more but that's all I remember

not asleep yet

pizza

I like Chicago pizza

but I can't eat very much of it

when I was growing up

I had something that was called

Chicago pizza

but it wasn't

it was "deep dish" pizza

which Chicago pizza is

but

Chicago pizza is a pizza pie

and

this wasn't

it just had very thick crust

but

otherwise regular toppings

I really liked it

but

based on pictures

I think it may be more like Detroit pizza

anyway

I think generally

what I like the most now

is a slightly thick hand tossed pizza

with pesto topping

with cheese and mushrooms

at a minimum

but

ideally also garlic and onions and olives and sun-dried tomatoes and jalapenos

it's been a long time since I've ordered a tomato sauce pizza

and I actively dislike super thin crush

I think the Chicago pizza I got was cheese

but spinach sounds great

spinach quiche sounds good right now

but I'm weird about spinach

I can eat it raw, no problem

and in things

no problem

but

just a big pile of sauted spinach

is kinda yucky to me

saag paneer yum

and that's a big pile of spinach

idk

something about saute spinach is gross

maybe it's got to do with the oil and garlic

but

normally I like those things

also

stewed okra yuck

fried okra yuck

okra in gumbo yum yum yum

and

I don't like pimentos

don't know why

I can eat them now

just don't like them

but

at one time a tiny piece of pimento ruined

an entire plate of food

like the princess and the pea

is there pimento in this 🤬😭🥵🤢

poem: dear god 4:25

god
here's a question
is the planet trying to shake us off like fleas
is it coming up with new viruses
because
it needs just a lot fewer people

i mean
who could blame it
we have been a real burden
fewer of us would be a better situation, i can see that

and i get
how survival of the fittest
is generally like a strength, health thing, i get that
but i don't think that is the right criteria here
what the earth needs fewer of
isn't weak people
isn't like non-caveman types
what the world needs fewer of is problem people
and you know who those people are
and they aren't correlated with the traditional model

so
what i say is
how about we keep the nice people
the readers, the glasses wearing nerds, ok
those people were never the problem and they aren't gonna be
what the world needs less of are rape-ers
and ass-holes
and selfish people who put their convenience ahead of
other people's safety
and people who think they are more important

now
i'm not telling you who those people are
that's not my place
and i'm not saying i'm perfect
or even not selfish
i'm sometimes selfish
but
i hope i'm not part of the problem
so, please
help the earth out by
this time
not like with aids
where it seems like we lost a lot of really
valuable people that we really couldn't afford to lose
this time
how about you help the earth out
and take some of the people who are the problem

let's hang on to the good ones
there are plenty of not so good ones
plenty

please

random and impartial may be fair
but
it's not best, ok
let's try for the best, ok