trying on hats

i was trying on
some hats
or
caps
really
i don't tend to think
i look good in most hats
but i like them so i keep trying
cause i think maybe they might, ya know
and sometimes they do look good
and sometimes
sometimes i buy one
but then it's too funky
or anachronistic or whatever
so then i never wear it
just baseball caps, sometimes

anyway
i was trying on these caps
not ball caps
the kind i've seen some other girls wear
and i don't like them on them
so i don't even know
why
i was trying them on
just for comparison
i guess

and this girl was with me
i sorta don't like her
she's sorta a bitch
but what're ya gonna do

i asked her:
how does this hat look on me
bad huh

and she was all like:
no it's good

and i'm all:
do i look like a hipster

and shes:
more like maria von trapp from the sound of music

that thyroid stuff really works

i've been taking it
like three days
and i've lost six pounds
i'm opening the capsules
under my tongue
first thing in the morning
and they have dessicated glandular stuff
with rosemary
(and other stuff)
they kinda remind me of liver
but i have to take them on an empty stomach
and i know it takes capsules
more than 30 minutes to dissolve
and i eat breakfast now-a-days
so i gotta do it that way

but
i'm very excited
i am now
thirty pounds thinner than you have ever seen me
which is not to say thin
definitely a ways to go still
but i'm pretty pleased with the progress

and you should see my skin

i mean
it's not twenty year old skin

but it makes me smile anyway

and
how is it that when i was a kid
i had a posed smile i could do for pictures
but now i don't
i just have my real smile
and it squnches up my whole face
how the hell am i gonna get any head shots

i'm not sure that the dream is as interesting as the vision

in the dream
there was a wedding
and then there was some bizarre game
where everyone played in traffic
but the traffic was somehow in a field
and the end result was a disturbing number
of mutilated corpses
that needed to be
cleaned away
the bride
sat
dead
still
beautiful

and
i have no idea what any of that meant
but i have watched a few episodes of walking dead
which manages to be really visually excellent
which i would not have thought possible
so maybe that's influencing

but the reishi
i don't know
it's effecting my brain
when i was on anti-depressants
everything was always going to be fine
almost to the point where i could have been
looking at a severed limb and think:
wow
now i'll be able to lay on my side so much more comfortably
but
it was excellent as a short term thing
because it let me
bounce myself out of the grooves in my brain
it let me see how it was not to be
depressed
and when i went off em
i learned that it was maybe the anxiety
which i hadn't really realized i had
which was the bigger problem

and
when i was on weed
i spun myself out into the fabric of the universe
to the point where
i really felt i could astrally project myself
to where you were
see things with you
have you in my head
i had visions
but sometimes
sometimes
i couldn't remember the names of people i knew
i was literally too far out

then
through detoxifying my body
then learning to trust what it tells me
i've had this whole energetic burst
but
there hasn't been much interface
with the universal consciousness
out there
it's all been closer
electricity running through me
spontaneous energy orgasms
but i have very little success with masturbation
which
(to be honest)
i rarely even try
anymore
it's much less satisfying
than the energy orgasms i'm having spontaneously
and
for some reason
i can't have multiples when i'm masturbating
(no energy loop maybe?)
and the singles feel more like a body function
so they make me a little sad

there was a time
when i was convinced
(and i wasn't on weed for this)
that you were sending me thoughts
and i would run to the shower
convinced that you were there with me
in spirit
lean into the wall
and bite my arm to muffle the screams

and
what the reishi is doing
is something like
if the anti-depressants were a sane thing
everything is a little more meta
and it's not like:
oh everything is all okay
it's more like:
maybe
maybe that all was sort of just me
not that you don't exist
not even that you don't think things at me
but
maybe it isn't really a two way thing exactly
what would that mean about me
and my capacity for 3D fantasy
and how could i actively engage with that

does that make sense

not like an:
omg i've just been mind-fucking myself
i'm clearly delusional
why does this have to come from outside myself
i'm such a loser

which is how i might have looked at it

more like:
i'm uninvested in the answers
because if i'm crazy
or have superpowers
or the ways those things manifest have changed
i'd like to use the information to have a lucid experience

i got a thyroid supplement
because i have actually known i had low thyroid activity
most of my life
but it was never low enough to medicate
and i wouldn't really want to medicate
but i decided it needed attention
and i think that decision was the reishi talking
not just the desire to have lost 100 pounds

blah blah blah
the visions are thin on the ground
generally
but last night
i had a sort of visitation
which could totally be the state between awake and asleep
but i had something that felt real
it was my son
and i was calling him zeke
which is a name i've always really liked
but it's not like i thought:
oh i'll call him zeke
i'm not even sure if i'd name him zeke
(it rhymes with geek
is that really wise)
but somehow that was his name
and he hovered around me
and then he went inside me
like:
here's a little preview for both of us
of how gestation might feel
we'll be psychically linked
only it wasn't words or anything
it was very strange but cool
he's really old but really new at the same time
and maybe
he's just a
potential reality
can't say
if so
he wants to be potentiated
he sought me out
bonded with me
but there is an element of fantasy
at least after the fact
because i see him now
[in my mind's eye]
with your beautiful soulful eyes
and that floppy green hat

this holds the spot for something i haven't written yet

there's a lot going on in there
(my head i mean)
and i have to get up early
i feel altered by the reishi
and lack of sleep
so we'll see
if
i dream

i'm reading this again today

and
i'm sorry
if it's scary
on oh so many levels

i don't mean for it to be

i just know that i can be difficult

i wasn't trying to make you the keeper of my

experience


what i was trying to say
was more like:

it's okay to tell me

you don't ever need to just shut down and tune out


or whatever
does that make sense

i would never say:

make it stay this way forever

it hasn't even been the same way for this amount of time

whatever

i need to shut up

i'm not sure if this is interesting

i ordered this slightly freaky food

dried hunza apricots
apricot kernel butter
reishi/shilajit/ormus tea

and i totally love them

i was going to do this cleanse
but i couldn't get all the elements together
and maybe, too, it was a little too weird

so
what i've ended up doing:

toast (hemp or multi-grain)
with apricot kernel butter
unfortunately
it needs a buttery flavor to make it delicious
so i'm cheating with smart balance light
my original plan was to eat it on celery
which tasted pretty disgusting as a combination
i love celery now, weird huh, didn't used to

i read this thing
about how cancer is really like
scurvy or pernicious anemia
(a metabolic illness)
and the remedy is B17
(which might be true, or not, can't say)
and we get B17 from seeds and pits and kernels
which we pretty much never eat

so i'm doing the toast thing for breakfast
the dried apricots and celery for snack or lunch
depending
i've got to figure out something to go on the celery
i don't like peanut butter
and i cannot have hummus with every meal
i mean
i could but i'm trying not to
i have my eye on this fermented kelp product i just found
and black sesame butter
but i don't have them yet

the tea tastes kind of like coffee, kind of
but i've been mixing the powder
(it's a powder)
into my pu'ehr tea
and i love it
hopefully it won't overstimulate my spleen or whatever

and i sometimes find myself
thinking
of special foods
i imagine would be extra special healing for you
which, for me, is maybe freakishly domestic
but then i think:
he probably won't want to eat for healing
which makes me sad
because i'm a believer

but that whole wanting to make you special food stuff
scares me, to be honest
i've never never ever not once in my life
had a relationship where i did that type of thing
i've done it (sometimes) for myself
but the idea that my desirability as a mate
might rest on having the dinner ready at a particular time
freaks me the fuck out


and i generated all of that
it came from
wanting to do for you

which i want you to let me
but not that you demand it of me
and would you
my gut feeling is no
or yes
what i mean is
that you'd kinda roll with it
that you know too
how that stuff
can be a comfort and a joy
when it comes from love and fun
but that it's a cold comfort trap
when it becomes an institution

mostly
mostly i don't think about that kind of stuff
mostly
i have focused on whether we will be compatible
in other ways
the ones i think are way more important

but i was thinking the other day
and i want to tell you:
the normal average person does not get to have
the moon-eyed goofy teen-aged quaking type of love
for years with the same person
they do not get to develop that love
so that life becomes a story
that you want to read the next chapter
that you never want to end
and i've had that
and i don't know
how much of that was me
how much of that was you
how much of that was fate
i question my sanity
frequently
but i never question
whatever this is
and i'm serious
whatever it is
i don't want it to ever end

so do me a solid
and don't ever let me ruin it
ok

i'm not sure when or where this started

i know
the origin
of some of the bits
but it would take too long

and i'm not one hundred percent sure where
this might all take place, i mean, it seems
to be near the sea, but it seems to be some
where desert-y

and the house is stucco or something like it
a long rectangular room
fireplace
kilim rugs
a large dog
maybe a wolfhound
or something like
the house is on a promontory
and it's the kind of deserted landscape
where one leaves the doors open
and the wind whips through

i have angora goats
i make cheese from the milk
there are fig trees
and i have a small garden

my dog and i
take long walks along the sea
which is not an ocean with big rolling waves

there is almost no furniture in the house
i think there's a long table against one wall
the kitchen and bathroom are
i think
physically separated
from the room which is the rest of the house
and the bed
is a built in niche
that separates the big room
from a small study
that you only reach by getting out the other side of the bed
i don't know if that describes it
the bed is draped off too

it's very stark
and
solitary
and i think i only go into town
every once in a while
to sell wool
or cheese
or pick up supplies

and
now that i'm thinking about it
there doesn't seem to be any obvious way
to incorporate other people into the fantasy

do you suppose
that really
it's more of
an inner landscape

or do you suppose
that i really
am
that much
of a hermit

i have been thinking about my dream life and wondering if i'd be any good at it-- i'm gonna go take a bath and come up with something coherent

to say about that
or
possibly
something else entirely

scribbling

be safe
where
ever
u
r
u
r
loved

this might be interesting, or it might not

i look for signs

and
really
i think they are better
when taken
as they occur

naturally
or whatever

but
sometimes
okay
maybe often
i try to ask for signs

which is one thing
when i'm asking for a sign
but
is a different sort of thing
when i'm saying something like:
if x is true
then show me a pregnant woman in a pink shirt
if y is true
then show me someone in a buc-ee shirt

and then i see a pregnant woman
in a burgundy shirt
and i'm like:
hey, that's not really pink
so then i see one in a sort of mauve sweater
and i'm like:
that's not really pink either
and i picture the pink in my head
and then i see a pregnant woman
in exactly that shade of pink
and i'm all like:
good that thing i wanted to be true
is so totally true

and then two days later
i see a tween in a buc-ee shirt
and i'm like:
crap
i can't remember what that was supposed to mean
but i think it was somehow contradictory to the pink shirt thing
and i mean
the pink shirt thing was
about my being able to have a baby
and the buck-ee shirt was somethin to do with beaver
but i can't remember what
and
there was a canadian coin with a beaver on it too
so
does that constitute sign of the beaver
or what

and then i have to
stop
and wonder if i'm all crazy and shit
but if you're worried about it
then you're not
right
whatever
crazy
not crazy
i just really want to remember what the buc-ee shirt means

happy thanksgiving

you know how people have a ton of left-overs after thanksgiving

well
i've never actually cooked a solo thanksgiving dinner before
and
while
if i'm cooking for me
i would know
i could eat one sweet potato
or a bag of brussel sprouts
and maybe somethin else small-ish
when i'm making
thanksgiving dinner
i apparently think
eight sweet potatoes
two bags of brussel sprouts
a pumpkin and half an acorn squash
and
five quarts of sorta french onion soup
seems about right

it doesn't even look like i've eaten any of it
i'll be eating this shit all week
good lord
what did i think i was doing

on the plus side
it was all really tasty
except
the soup wants rosemary

the sweet potatoes were the best thing
i learned from my past experience
this time i soaked the apricots overnight
and pureed them in the blender
before trying to mix them in
and pecan butter is delicious
and i had that maple syrup left over from the master cleanse
but they are really rich
so
it's good that they are delicious
because i have at least ten servings left

when i finish up this food
i think i'm gonna do some sort of cleanse
but i haven't decided what kind yet



i hope your day was everything
you could have wanted it to be

hey

i've had a really strange day

i can't remember my dreams
so i don't know if they were
strange
but
all day
i've been kinda twitchy
and
like a space cadet
and
sometimes
i wonder
when
i have some reaction to the world
that just sorta seems to come from
some
something
out there somewhere

i wonder
and maybe i should think i'm crazy for wondering
if it's got something to do with how things are with you

there are ways
in which i have never felt
as connected to you
as i did before
before something
someone
happened
like
maybe you can only be spread so thin
but
maybe
i just feel
something different than i did
and so i experience things differently
maybe i'm more psychically shut off
for sure
i'm less open
since i don't get high
i used to do that
pretty much every day
but i stopped that
a month or so before the cigarettes
and it's been
like about three times since then

i know i feel you sometimes
know when you read something i've written
but
like today
i wonder if you were having some sort of agitation
or if that's all just some unexplained brain chemistry for me
i don't know
and
i'm not saying
it's a vital national security issue either way
it just interests me

i also wonder sometimes
if you have any physical reactions from any sort of psychic link
maybe you don't
maybe
it's all conceptual to you
and that's okay too

really
conceptual
is already so much more
than i've ever found before
and you might say:
well, maybe you didn't really look that hard
and
maybe you'd be right
i wasn't really open to it
i like to do stuff alone
when i was travelling around alone
that was fun for me
i really enjoy my own company
eating out alone
people are embarrassed to do that
i love it
sometimes i try to fantasize about what it would be like to
live with you
and, really
i think you probably have a full dance card
are out doing things all the time
and maybe that'd be great
or maybe it wouldn't

maybe
and this seems likely
we'd have some period of adjustment
figuring out how to have together time and alone time
and if we were really lucky
it would sync up in a way that we both loved
i've never had that though

i picture you
not talking
much of the time
and i wonder
am i then running off to the computer
to write you things
maybe
and
at this point
i'd sorta hate to lose this
and maybe that's the craziest thing of all

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

i'm at this concert

the really strange thing
is
that there is
like a sports announcer
but not sports
you know
because
it's
music

but this guy
he's really famous
and old
and
at first
he doesn't like it
this music that's playing

it's too fragmentary
in it's melodic signatures
and it's unlike
the musician's other work

but i'm listening
and i'm hearing
like
the negative space
and
some sort of
underlying structure

this is kinda hard to explain

anyway
it's genius
breakthrough
somehow
the step he always needed to take
and
i'm blown away
and just frantically thinking at the commentator

just listen

and
finally
he does
and he says
pretty much all that stuff i just said
only better, clearer, golden, so the world knows

and
then
there was a really bizarre section
something to do with cake

i don't have time now, but later, i will write my dream from last night

and maybe some ramblings
depends
the dream
might be hard to decipher
but
definitely
somethin
for you later

the menu

so i'm testing recipes
and
brussel sprouts with chestnuts
rocks so hard
it's almost thanksgiving all by itself
i was pretty happy with preliminary rice
which i made without the thick shitake core
(to save a bunch of time
and cause i wanted to try
my walnut butter and brown rice vinegar sour cream)
do not scoff
it has changed my life
i use it in creamy salad dressing
and taco salad
and now
if i want a cream of mushroom soup rice
(yes my mother liked to cook with campbell's soup)
so sue me
i still miss that chicken/rice/cream of mushroom soup thing
occasionally
but
i think the rice is overkill
especially if i'm having bread
that's double grain
unnecessary
i'm also toying with the idea
of pecan butter in the sweet potatoes
with or without the dried apricots
i won't have time to test that
but
i'm pretty sure i made it with apricots before
a really really long time ago
and my recollection is
wow that was a lot of work
and
really
marshmallows are tastier
so
i was thinking
maybe pecan butter has a more similar flavor profile
i just thought about the apricots
because i've been reading about the hunzas' diet lately

http://www.alkalizeforhealth.net/Lhunzadiet2.htm

so ideally
it would be apricot pit butter
but i can't get that except online
(i don't think)
i just keep trying to figure out something cranberry
i have this thing i eat pretty regularly:
grapefruit + shred coconut + goji berries + shred wheat
(grapefruit is one of my favorite foods has been since forever)
and, if i ever associated those fruit salad-y things with tg
i'd totally throw in cranberries and call it a day
but i never did
and double grains
and desert seems like the obvious cranberry place
since it won't go with anything
but
no no no no no no
wait
i got it
cranberry-type kir/mimosa-y things
like a champagne punch
totally
i was gonna have that
14 hands
hot to trot
washington state red blend
and i still might, too
you should really try it
it's only like $9 a bottle
and it is seriously some of the best stuff going
i don't really need pie
if i'm having pecan butter in my yams
not really
i really want biscotti
but i think i'm unlikely to start making biscotti
for the first time
on thanksgiving
and
it's not very nutrient dense
and
it takes a long time

actually i just looked it up
and it doesn't take that long
so i make it on monday
it's not nutrient dense
but it is hella lowfat
and i love to dunk it in coffee

i don't know
i think a holiday
needs a special desert

will have to finish this later

i had this incredible dream

i got a job

at

quasi national geographic

there were yeti to pet

i was all

freshfaced and collegiate

with a ponytail

jogging

it was

so

much

fun

well it started out as last nigh't dream

i know there was college
again
i've just about decided
college
must be short hand
in my mind
for learning
or something like that
but
i don't think it's conceptually that simple

anyway
i'm studying english now
i guess
but i don't think i'm satisfied
with english
i think
i think
it's a little stuffy

i meet this woman
she's a professor
and she taught for years
in paris
but
she had this mode of dress
it looks like some
somewhat bizarre fetish-wear
but it is
in some ways
really more a form of observance
her outfit
skin tight
her breasts
constrained
reformed
shaped
like hammerheads
frightening

one day
she wanted to stop
but the parisian school
had too much invested in her mystique
which i remember thinking
was kind of style over substance
and camile paglia came to mind
but she wanted to escape
from the trap she had made for herself
grow beyond her hammertits and nailed down rhetoric

and i met her then

and everything about her
flickered
like an old silent film
and

there was this image

she was kissing
someone else was kissing
in the dark
flickering
overlapping
the image folded in upon itself
and then they were kissing
but they weren't

it was art
film
multi media
conceptual

i'm not even sure what to call it

a shadow play
butterfly erotic


and did you know how much i wanted to throw you against a wall
and ravish you when you said you would rue it
i think you did
and you didn't want me too
or maybe you did
did want me to
but you always
want me to stop
you give
quite a clear
actually
it isn't clear at all
at first
i thought it was fear
and maybe
it is a little
but
i think
it's more like
i'm burning you
hurting you
you need to be three rooms away
safe
and
i don't know
that was a long time ago now


but i spend a lot of time
trying to imagine
something
anything
i can do
to

seduce you

i feel this need

to gentle you somehow
to get the yes vibration that i need

but then
too
i get this really strong
rip the damn band-aid off vibration
which makes me uncomfortable for two reasons
it kinda turns me off
and
if i'm wrong
it's all ruined
and
if it's all gonna be ruined
i want it to have been
something i wanted to do
which
as soon as you're backing away
it isn't

i know what your lips will feel like
but your tongue is a mystery to me
it seems to me
suddenly
when i imagine french kissing you
that i am perhaps
too aggressive
i haven't had a lover who wasn't passive
for like 17 years

you wouldn't know how to approach me
and i wouldn't know how to tell you to

but i have these fantasies
where you unequivocally stake your claim
and tell me how you're going to fill me with your seed
sometimes with hair pulling
and admonitions about keeping you waiting so long

i have other ones too

and sometimes you're not active
but i would never say you're passive
you always have passion for me
you always want me

you look at me across a room
and say:
i need you
and
she clenches involuntarily

but you'll deny me too
have no idea what i'm talking about
and
psychologically
you know what the most obvious reason for that is, right
but it doesn't fit the pattern

if we had done it
the first night i met you
maybe it would have been great
or maybe not
but i doubt it would have led to the great passion of my life

which you are
so much more now
than when i first told you

the love has seasoned
like a cast iron skillet

you'd think i'd have a better grasp of the cooking

just a little snatch of dream

you looked
just like
someone
i can't remember who
not like yourself, really
but not unlike
either
there was some
component
animal magnetism
a lankiness
that you have
maybe
more in my mind
than in reality
in the dream
you were some actor
i don't much like actors
as a rule
but
that wasn't bothering me

we were at a party
trying to be alone
in a group
and
we were succeeding
we were mingling
working the group
but we were so locked
energetically
it was like we were

you know

right there
in the middle of everyone
but no one could see

i didn't look like me either

while you had that:
you know what they say about thin guys thing
pulsing around you
i
was
i'm not even sure how to describe me
venus on the half shell
a sunflower
glowing
not some mata hari
not some barbie doll
but i'd have to call me femininealthough
i hate that word
it was a really good thing
as illustrated
in the dream

and

at one point

we were standing
close to one another

maybe we were even talking to other people

and i felt you


like a key
in the lock


and
it took my breath away

i just realized something

i have no idea whatsoever
what
i'm going to eat for thanksgiving

it was really my only holiday

and i'm not sure how it works now

i might have gotten tofurky
if it had happened earlier in my food journey
but
i'm now feeling
that processed soy fake meat
is worse
than carcass

and
i mean
i could just eat the turkey
festival meat seems to make some sense
and i eat fish
sometimes
so
what's the big deal
but

i don't want to have a feeding frenzy

i don't want to eat that stuff or that way

maybe someday

but i'm not far enough removed from it
not yet

but
it's my one holiday

and
maybe
it just comes off as whine-y
(if so that isn't how i mean it)
these are choices i am making, not restrictions
i'm not all orthorexic
or whatever
i'm mostly eating what i feel drawn to
which varies
but
i feel repelled by the idea
of turkey
or tofurky


i keep thinking it'll come to me
but i'm gonna have to shop soon

isn't that weird

how do you celebrate a festival to stuffing your face
when you don't like to do that anymore

i thought about fasting
but that seems too reactionary

so i can go
harvest festival
with squash and root vegetables and whatever
or i can go
raw mock turkey loaf
(which i got a whole foods and it's delicious)
but i have not perfected making it yet

it needs to be all special and ritual-y
not just something that tastes good

maybe some sort of mushroom rice for earthiness
and sweet potato baked with apricots for sweetness
maybe some sort of soup served in a small baked pumpkin for savoriness
and seeduction bread with a little goat cheese schmear

does that hold together, i'm not sure

and what about a green vegetable
brussel sprouts with chestnuts
that sounds good
and seems seasonal
i'm tempted to go asparagus but that's spring, right

is that all too heavy
or just the right amount of heavy
it doesn't seem right
but i'm not sure what's wrong with it

i looked to see what movies were out and i saw/ that they made a film/ of for colored girls

which i may
or may not
go see
i'm not sure yet
but
it did make me remember something
i had forgotten

ntozake shange
she taught at the university i attended
and
i signed up for an acting class she taught
i wasn't really wanting to act
so much
i just wanted to study something with her
and
blah blah blah
i'd had intro to theater
where we did some improv and shit
i figured i could handle it
although
the thing that i do
i think i already knew
wasn't acting, exactly

so i show up to class
and we do improv
and i'm supposed to be standing at a bus stop
and
when it's over
she uses what i did
as an example

of business
(little physical shit you do to fill in the space)

and i think:
well
maybe that's good
or maybe that's bad
but it's not nothing
so
cool

but then she starts talking about her philosophy

how she had a girl once
who was supposed to be playing
downtrodden
and she just wasn't believable
cause
ya know
she was all like
upper middle class
and pampered
and shit

so the way
ms shange
got her to the place she needed her to be
for the performance
was to improv

a gang rape

and then
you know
they had to calm her down
for about an hour
but she never came across all privileged
anymore



and it was all i could do
to stay in the room
until the end
of that
day


i ran
not walked
to drop that class


acting
wasn't an art
i wanted to suffer for
and
i figured i
really knew
all i
needed
to know
about
ms
shange