but i'm still learning..

today today..wtf. it all started innocently enough and then bam, reality check and slam in my face. yes, it's that dramatic. but no, i can't tell you what happened, but it was fucked up. but somehow, its all going to be ok now. don't ask me how, but action (which i have to say I have never been good at ) got it all taken care of. I really know that now I am able to get off my ass and make something happen..as in the past, i just balled up like one of those roly poly bugs and had a crazy melt down. i even had time to laugh inbetween the crazy shit that was hitting the fan. but i tell you i couldn't have done it without my partner in crime. circles circles circles. you'll never know what we went thru today. but we survived. so far. and so tomorrow it's on again. who knows what madness will occur. a major event tomorrow night that i don't want to be a part of, possible former employers hanging out and checking out my store, snooty noses and all, fuck them. they dont even know the first thing of how terrifying, ridiculous and crazy it is to have thier own bookstore. by the seat of my pants. and someone today even asked me why I still do this even though i am TOTALLY in the hole at this point with almost no real way of making it out alive. And I just smiled. Because, it's what I'm suppossed to do. Don't be crazy. Let ME be crazy for you. you sit there in your button up shirt drinking you crappy watered down coffee in your cubical and your steady paycheck and never have this feeling i have right now.. what is it? well it feels like i just jumped off the empire state building and landed on a feather pillow held by Russel Brand who gives me a big beautiful toothy grin and calls me 'love'. you don't feel that when you play it safe. you don't feel anything the way I feel it... but.. i'm still learning. and hopefully the rush won't be so terrifying as it has been today. i'll turn the key to my front door of my little sweet, amazing, beautiful funky little shop that no one really believes in 'cept for all us crazies that jump off of buildings every day. amen.

my mondays are better than yours

Burlesque on Saturday. fun show. nice ladies that have real bodies make me feel good about myself. they have bigger boobs, but thick thighs and i think i can relate. most of all i want some new clothes, dresses that tear away and lots of feather boas and sexy underwear. I'll always be a girly girl. I wore a black pencil skirt, my beatnik stripes sleeveless turtleneck and black laceup corset belt, fishnets and patent leather heels and my black beret. Ooh la la. I felt way underdressed. But it was dark. Convinced C to go with and I think he had a good time too. It was a great show. I love the look in the ladies eyes when they perform. it's that look when you know you've got that audience eating out the palm of your hand. i love that feeling. Sunday spent the day going thru old journals back all the way to 99. That would have been when I had only been married for 2 years. It's crazy. There is some good work I can use, and last night at Bills I read some and it went over well. The only thing about the old journals that bothered me was that I feel like I can see the bipolar in writing. The manic love tones, and the very low lows. Too many lows. How much of my life have i spent in a funk of lowness? It's beginning to become very clear this is an issue and that it always has been. Time to find someone to help. All of that being said, last night was great. Desmene was great with Zim on background blues guitar. There were lots of old and new friends. We met at Lilly's new pad just up the street before the show and had a few drinks and talks. Love my friends. We made our way to Bill's and I said hello to Paul and talked to him a bit before the overwhelming depression in him kicked in. I told him I was sorry that I pushed him away so hard, but that I am still learning how to create boundries. It's true, I still am. Boundries that will let me keep friends without entirely pushing them away forever. It's a sticky thing. Well it was good to be near him, afterall we've been friends since before I even met C. It's a strange thing to go thru so much with someone but always be so removed, just due to all the mental instability (on both sides) I tell him about his kids. I tell him he needs to text them more often, and that they are beautiful when they are at the store eating all the candy and drinking all the water and touching everything gently with thier small hands. Always wearing thier bike helmets, always asking questions about everything, and always being so polite. I wish the world for them, but most of all I wish for a father that is well enought to spend more than a few hours a week with them at a time. So much amazing poetry out there. It was like being in some great beat room, drinking wine, snapping it up and couples making out between the tall aisles of records. This is my element. This is my place in life. I can't get enough of the way I feel around live performance. Screw the movies and screw the radio. i want real drama and music in my face. The energy that is exchanged is electric vibrations of positiveness. It makes me feel so good all over. The girls in thier pasties, the musicians bleeding onto thier guitars and microphones, the poets closing thier eyes and pointing thier fingers and swaying thier hips to thier own rythem.. on yeah, thats where I want to be. Always. And now today, slept like a stone till 11:30, now drinking water with lemon, washing clothes and watching the sun peek out like hide and seek. The dogs (wolves) next door and sleeping under the trees, and I think the wind must still be cool. The hardwood floors in the house are chilly. I could be doing so much more today than I am, but I love my time alone. Have I told you that? I really love my time alone. Sure sometimes I need to be around people, but mostly I want to be here in my home, stroking Mars the cat and listening to some music on the kitchen radio. For lunch I'm boiling eggs. My scale MUST be tripping. I can't be gaining so much weight on eating nothing. It's time to start writing it all down again. Wednesday Fel and I are going to zumba. Oh yeah. I can't wait. Maybe that's all that counts. Today I need to take a jog and do some bowflex. Cooking fish tonight. wish me fish me luck. Fish and veggies and brown rice. Oh boy I sound old. And then I banish my husband to the bedroom (to sleep) so that maybe later we can listen to some jazz at the Amsterdam, and if not then we'll stay in and watch MASH and sleep good night dreams. The rest of my day, transcribing some of this poetry, working on the fiction, wash clothes and bedsheets, eat boiled eggs, peeling them over the sink under running water watching the squirrels try and bother the wolfdogs..feed the cat milk since no one is watching, fold clothes that smell like spring and watch the tall stalks of wildflowers and dandelions sway in this cold wind. Jog, stretch, shower and daydream some more. I've got some hardcore daydreaming today, and I can't think of a better day to do it on.

lowdown bike riding blues

Low.

Feeling kinda low. Hang my head off the edge of my sofa and sigh. Why? I dunno. Run out of the rock show on my bike peddling for my life. Why? Turn down invitations and sit and smoke all the pall malls. Why? The world turns slow. The days go and go. And I'm so low.

Maybe friends with bottles and stories will help. Maybe a conversation that comes easily would bring some peace. Not tenmillionstories running thru my brain and the everpresent hum of the world that won't turn off its lights. Low.

I got 3 pieces into 'Every Reason' issue 6. I'm waiting on 2 more publishers. Will I be 1 for 3, 2 for 3, or make a home run? I miss my grouchy no poetry writing mentor. I miss his laugh. I miss his stories of hustling books and handywork. I miss his face. I can't call him because I don't have a phone, and if he reads this, he'll hate all my run on sentences and misspelled words. I love him.

Mary came by yesterday. I missed her too. I miss too many people. What's wrong with me? Low.

I'm starting Milan Kundera's the book of laughter and forgetting. This may or may not be a good idea. I've got to read up on horticulture, i'll be gardening soon. i miss uncle steve. he's in love and in his own world and he'll read this and shake his head. I miss my husband because he works and sleeps and asks me all the time whats wrong with me. I don't know. Low.

Someone help me lift the low. Bend down over with me and pick it up. We'll tie to the broken kite and sail it away. I am mourning the death of something. I don't want to tell you what, but after this weekend it may be inevitable. Low. It's such a beautiful thing we've made. Why won't they just come and see it. Appreciate it. Love it like I do.

I've got to stop listening to these bike riding blues. Spokes turning like prayerwheels with empty dreams and lost intentions. All the people in cars are driving off to live thier lives. I watch them when they have apathy in thier eyes, glazed over on autopilot with the lists of chores or people eating them up inside. I see freewheeling teenagers behind sunglasses roaring like thier death will never come. I see women in tears in thier SUVs. I see men in cowboy hats with mardi gras beads dangling from thier rear view mirrors looking for a party everywhere, honking at every bare leg. Kids staring out the windows, driven to thier next experience.

I ride my bike at night and sometimes i want to ride off into forever. dark quiet and unnoticed. I could just dissapear like Enid on the imaginary bus out of town.

I miss my best friend. Fuck her. Fuck her life without me.

this blather don't matter

Raul Midon killed me last night. I'm still on a mutha effin high. Just saying.

Its been a good productive day. Visits with babies and guitars and musicians and friends. Thursday always brings out my favorite people. I submitted 6 poems today to 2 different publishers. I've been holding some stuff back from my usual postings so that I could take this leap. Most of these places won't let you simultaneously submit, so I have to keep my mind on what may work for each place. One of the zines I'm really excited by..but who am i kidding. I am so small town right now and I guess i'm doing it just to get the rejection slips! I can start tacking them up around the walls of the bookstore, make us all feel at home.

Planning on a movie tonight with the infamous Texaho. Videodrome at the Texas. But before that I plan on eating massive amounts of dinner as my sugardaddy got paid today. I want to eat like a queen! I've been eating sour pickes and smoking cigs all day. Yuck. I'm so hungry this laptop is looking mighty tasty.

and the blahs? they are blahing away. i'm trying. i'm trying. 2 more weeks and if this doesn't get any better i'm trying some new meds. I hear theres some cheap yoga on sunday that I really need to do. Where's my ballance today? Somewhere out the window and flying like a broken kite. i've never been good at ballance, i can't even walk down a line. It's all or everything.
never nothing. that reminds me, i need to go to costco.

late nights on davis street

Something possesed me to stay late tonight. Some kind of inking that maybe something interesting might happen. I was wrong. Most of the day spent pricing moving things around, chasing kids around the displays like ticklemonsters, peeling clementines, eating peanut butter out of the jar. Oh i'm so bored. I don't know what I expect from this world. Everything dull and lusterless, everything on the bring of orgasmic release only to be left panting and unsatisfied. World what do you owe me? What do I owe you? Some days passed like diamond raindrops and frightening bright sunshowers that I swore I'd hold on to forever. Now forever seems like an evil prospect. I know I shouldn't complain. I have so much. What do I do with it all now?

Stark Naked Reality on the jeep's interceptor midnight radio waves

Here it is now days have passed and so many things to write about. First and foremost, my glucose levels are back to norms. Of course I probably shouldn't be drinking Blue Moons but they are so good. Second, Weir is out of jail, for now and hopefully will stay out of there forevermore. He sat on my futon cleanshaven and holding a beer when i walked in. That was the best thing in the world to see. Mags and he drove over and we held it down on the porch with delicious wind and all. Even uncle Steve was there. We asked all sorts of questions about the clink, took shots and drank beers and shot the shit all night. I love my porch meetings. Weir read 2 new pieces he wrote inside and they were a-fucking-mazing. Sober writing. His talent has no bounds and his work just keeps getting better and better. I perpetually feel humbled in his pressence. He has such a finger on the poetry of human condition.

When the night broke up after listening to music off the jeep's radio, and watching Steve spin off on his borrowed bike, we holed up in the house eating popcorn and sour pickles and watching the tube. I sank like a stone on a feather when i fell asleep. I really love sleeping now. I sleep uninterupted and fully for probably the first time in my life.

Well thats the good stuff. The bad stuff well.. should I even go there. I mean, 2 days ago I was pissed to the world, then one day ago I was depressed as hell, and now today, I just don't know how to feel anymore. Gordon Hilgers is continuing to attack me online. There, I said his damn name. I'm so tired of this passive agressive shit. I'm so tired of waking up everyday to some other gaggle of lies he's fabricated in order to smear my name. i shouldn't have to be dealing with his fucked up shit. He's being vindictive and cruel. And yes, we were friends for over 15 years. Not just 2 weeks. That hurts. And no, I'm not going to forgive him for the things he said about my business, my life, my family, my RELIGION, my RACE and my CLASS. So everyone out there, just forget about it. Mental issues aside, he seems perfectly capable to function in the manner he chooses when he chooses to. And no I will never shake his hand. Something has been going on for a while now that makes people thing that its OK to attack me. It isn't. I don't know who you think I am, but i'm not a wilting flower anymore. I've effectively kicked away all the shitheads in my life, and Gordon is the last of that bunch. He's been a user, and abuser, and I'm over it. I am protecting myself. There must be some grand perception that my life is so much better than everyone elese. I'm just as broke, broken and confused as anyone else. Leave me alone and I promise I will never look in your direction again. Oh and another thing, please call me a bitch. I consider that a compliment. I was never your Yoko. I've always been Opal.

So now thats out of the way, and we shall never speak of it again.

on another note The meds have normalized me. NORMAL. It's itching at me, so I'm probably going to be working at crazy ideas to help me feel well, more normal for me. I want to paint. Or sculpt. Or streak down Davis st. I'm just warning you. :)

But for today, more bookselling, more LastFM on Tears for Fears Radio. Not in the nude, yet.

Supermoonjunespoonschooner.

The words are coming back. Sometime last night between the ride to MH and the end of the night watching tv and eating a delicious greasy not good for me moved to the darkside hamburger I found myself swirling in the thoughts and words again that had been gone for so long. I even had to take notes on the little notebook that Judy bought me for my birthday. I am actually beginning to feel normal again.

The night was perfectly strange and wonderful. First of all, yesterday at the store was amazing. A full fledged day of goodness. Lots of customers, beautiful weather and Ray Wylie Hubbard stopped by the shop the last few minutes of our day and bought a book! (picture up there^)

We closed shop and headed over to MH to make an appearance. I ate a cookie in the car. It was delicious. I wore my ridiculous 4 inch wedges and we had to walk a block to the house because the parking around those condos are ridiculous. We knew 'the nemesis' was going to be there. And he was. He made a beeline to C and stuck his hand out as some kind of stupid truce. Mind you, I was the one who was personally attacked and called names, etc. But he goes to C. C told him to fuck off. It was getting heated very quickly, and I just turned my head and said 'not the time or the place' and it broke up. Unfortunately, he continued to badger C all night and we cut out after only being around for an hour or so. Now I tell you I can understand he is mentally ill, but he seems to be well enough to be civil to everyone else around there. To cut it short, let me just say, he has a lot of work to do. He has a lot of work to do. On himself mostly.

But to describe the scene, well, lots of food, booze, gracious hosts and a whole lot of people I don't know. The poets stick near the food and the booze or on the deck smoking cigs of both hand varieties. I guess I knew it was time when I ran into the 'help' who looked a whole lot like me. But man, he has some great art, and everyone is really nice. I just can't help but feel I've dropped out of the sky into some other land. This is purely my affliction. One day it will feel ok. I think i'm getting there at least. I lasted longer last night than I ever had before without completely falling apart on the inside and feeling inferior.

Then we left that scene, snuck out under the radar while wine glasses still clinked and the scent of grilled shrimp wafted down the stairs. We made our way back to OC, and hit the club we were going to meet our friends at. I LOVED IT! What a great little dive. Little stage up front, lots of beer neon lights, a good bar with really nice help, and 2$ shooners of beer. Are you kidding me? In one night I went to imported to bud light and I was happy for it. C and I cut a rug a few songs, but mostly gabbed it up with our new friends. The Cliff Blues band sure know how to rock it. I was thinking about all the other little clubs everywhere in world that were partying it up on a Saturday night. Little bars all tucked away full of regulars having the time of thier life. All us working class people drinking beers at our Lobo, (like on Roseanne) and living it up for a bit before we have to get back up on Monday and do it all over again. Our exsistance is meager but real. Why can't I help but feel happier knowing that I'm never going to be more than what I am now. Even if things change and I do win that lottery, i'm never going to be happier than I am now, living this life in my little town where the bar tenders know my name, and the house band plays songs about the streets I live on.

Tonight is Supercute at MFA, and then Bills. Happy Sunday.

My fortune cookie today.

I took a 3 hour nap. Totally unheard of. But I feel amazing. This morning we celebrated our second Storytime at Cliff Notes. It was a success. Karen was amazing.

South by Ghetto

Everybody is at SXSW. Blah. If I could count how many times I actually planned on going to SXSW only to realise that 1. I don't have enough money, and 2. I would probably die of anxiety if I had to be around that many people at one time, I'd be exhausted. Today I am actually well rested despite a minor migrane attack. C opened the store and rearranged everything today. It was good to have a day off, but I am still learning how to get away from here even when I'm not here. I find myself staring out of my windows at home wondering what I could be doing if I was at the shop. Probably playing Cityville or something lame like that. Anyway, I just sat down to the counter at this hour, and will be closing in 57 minutes for the night. The Kessler turns one tonight and James Hall is going to rock it. I'm broke, (as usual) so I plan on sucking up the free water or pulling some bread together and get a six pack before I walk over. I HATE being broke. Today I had to go to a store and buy something and I saw signs all over the place for spring clothes sales. How girly and dissapointing for me. I really want some new clothes, shoes, bras, jeans, blouses, vests, everything everything everything!!! money money money~

Today I found a blouse I've never worn, and an old blazer that fits like a brand new outfit. I am also rocking some 4 inch wedges that I bought eons ago at the thrift store on a whim. Tight jeans. yes. i look good. Its a shame to look this hot and to be so broke.

Somehow i am suppossed to be learning something about this whole phase in life. but really at this point i'm almost 40 and I never thought i'd be scratchin' and survivin' like the Evans family. C'mon now, lottery hit me!

Bless my Asana

Last night was my first Yoga class. I was so excited about going that I came home, dragged out my workout clothes (that fit oh so much better than they used to!) got my fresh unused yoga pad and threw it over my shoulder and jumped on my bike, Roxie, and peddled down the steep hill to the rec center across the main road. Boy, did I fly!

Well, I got there almost 2 hours early! The park was filled with families and kids and ducks overstuffed with stale bread. I decided to cycle back to the store and wait it out there. All uphill. In traffic. I tell you, I have really become quite a fearless commuter on my little cruiser. I never thought I'd even consider riding outside my little neighborhood when I first got it a few years ago and look at me now. Can't help but feel a little proud these days.

I waited at the store for a few minutes then peddled back with my new bike lock I got at the dollar. It was windy!! When I got there I went to the small community room overlooking the pond and all the park. It really is a beautiful spot. The class remained small, there were only 5 of us including the instructor. She was really amazing. Just like you'd expect a yoga teacher to be: Small, quiet, ethereal, soft spoken and kind. We went thru poses seamlessly while learning what is called a 3 part breathing. It felt good to breathe so deep but with control and peace. She played gently sitar music. I felt my muscles at first tense become long and stretched luxuriously, my breath became easier although still deep and cleansing. At one point near the end of the session we laid on our backs completely relaxed and I felt such peace that when she explained that we could feel this way at all times and that 'life is good' i felt warm tears form in the corners of my eyes. There is respite in a chaotic world. And we hold the key to that peace. It was very comforting.

Well, I am hooked! Thanks Felicia!

After the lesson and wrestling with my new lock, I peddled back home in the dark and the wind was delicious on my sweaty skin and scalp. I always love riding at night the most. It's so quiet and I feel like a mosquito skating on the surface of a still pond when I ride so quietly. When I got home I had 2 small tacos of beans and brown rice and felt so energetic. I checked my calories for the day and realised I still had over 600 calories left for the day due to all the cycling and yoga I did that day! amazing. So I splurged on a big bowl of popcorn and slept soundly a few hours later.

This is now day 4 on the new meds. I don't even notice a thing now. I just don't have those horrifying jolts anymore. Thoughts come and pass thru me. The hard part has been not having a beer. I can see that I may have one or two this weekend, so I hope this doesn't mess me up. Also unfortunately my glucose level is stubbornly at the same level. It lingers between 240-275. If I don't see a change by next week I'm going to make a plea for insulin. The stress of being so high is the only downer of this week so far. Eating so little, working out so much, I feel like this has been the hardest series of maintanece i've ever had. Keep me in your thoughts.

This weekend is a good show at the Kess. Also saturday is our storytime. And MH's bday is somewhere around there too. I would like to make an appearance but not stay too long, I think the urge to drink would be too great. I find when I feel anxious I grab a drink. But who knows maybe I will feel ok without it.

And today? Dead. It's too pretty outside to go book shopping. I think i'll stay open till 8 and see if I catch anyone. Today I should be working on these taxes.. but it's too pretty outside to look at numbers.. bah.

sleeping in the blank of charlotte gainsbourgh's breathy pause

so tired. I read that a drawback to this medication would be drowsiness. They weren't kidding. Of course, it could be this weather or the Charlotte Gainsbourgh that I'm listening to. I fell asleep at 10:30 which is unheard of. But oh, darlings, what tapioca pudding of a sleep. I truly forgot what a sensation it is to be dead to the world for a stretch of time. No jumping up in complete terror, no weird noises in the hallway, cat mewing or partner snoring. Just black deep coffee sleep, warm and smooth. Only problem: wanting to wake up. I could have easily drempt this day away.

Yesterday a few regulars and friends came by to chat, smoke and laugh. Copasetic. Sold some books, made some plans, heard about vacation scenes, debauchery, and jail cells. Right now I'm laying my head on a paperback translation of a Chinese fable about an enchanted stone that was a cast off from building the sky. It is beautiful and has poetry quatrains thruout. I picked up as a whim while waiting for the webseries to be filmed in the store. Sat outside in the chairs and listened to the ocean of cars rumble by while i walked barefoot with Taoists and Monks and enchanted stones. I haven't left there yet. I'm still walking in the hills listening to enchanted voices.

I'm yawning. My jaw hasn't had this much action in a while. Translate that as you will.

I just ran into my friends Karen and Steve as I was outside reading a little more of the book. It is CAO XUEQIN, THE STORY OF THE STONE. It's over 500 pages and I just realised it's only Volume 1! This may very well be an epic. I may be reading this for years. I am having trouble keeping the names of the characters right, as they all have Chinese names and well there are already tons of charachters that I'm getting confused about. Probably not the best book to read as a bi-polar, ADD stricken soul. But I know if I skip ahead or something stupid like that i'll be lost. Slow and steady. That's not my style. Fast and erratic! I love to read books in one sitting and move on to more. oh well.

Eating day 7, lots of fruit, raw veggies with lemon and pepper to jazz em up. Almonds, peanuts, water, beans, rice and a little meat. Oh and peanut butter on really seeded hippy bread. Erik game me a blood orange yesterday and it was sublime. cottage cheese with cut up apples and cinnamon and half a yeast roll (yes half, damn it was so good) for breakfast. 1/2 apple, and 1 orange and a handful of raw almonds for lunch. Tonight bean burritos with whatever raw vegetable iI can fit in there. i've lost 5 pounds this week. thats including the vodka shots (2) i had at the party and the snowball i ate for my birthday cake. I'm shooting to lose 30 pounds by end of the summer. Tonight I hit the bowflex, which for the past year or so has been a really expensive clothes hanger in the laundry room. i'm wearing my overalls from 1997 right now. yesssssssssssssss. I may never take them off. Is it in poor taste to wear overalls everyday even if you change your shirt and accessories? I'm trying the Todd Ator look. Amy, you know what I mean.

Karen X has agreed to do the kids reading on Saturday morning! Fab a roo ness.

It's ALIVE, It's DEAD, it's a stranger, killing a kindle.

I sit in the beast of my creation. I do this 5 to 6 days a week and do it mostly alone. It's a beast on the inside and a princess of light on the outside. It's metaphorical and it is true. I spend all my time physically and mentally here. I plan for it, nurture it, avoid it and hate it all the same. It's my bookstore and I don't know what to do about it.

It was a life long dream to have a bookstore to call my own. From the time I was really small I was always surrounded by books, either at home, the library or the local litte bookshop in my hometown. Book equals freedom to me. These were the place I was always free to explore and move around without being held back. I could open any book I could reach on the shelf. I could read any book that I wanted. I began reading at the age of 3 I am told. I would pick words out of Reader's Digest magazines, moved by the charactures and cartoons on the short story pages. As long as I remember I've always been working on one book or two or three. Reading is my life and books are my passsion. They opened me up to the reality of writing and reciting poetry, and that is what I do. That is what I am.

So now we are coming up on 2 years of being business owners. We've survived floods, community apathy, bad deals, loan rejections, broken pipes, debt, rotton landlords, and the most miserable thing of all.. not being known. Still to this day we are stunned by how many people in our community don't know that we actually exsist. I know this is partially my fault, since I don't have the extra money to advertise on a large scale, but slowly and surely we seem to be gathering momentum. I just don't know how much longer I can stick with the 'slowly and surely'. I need some business now!

And our friends, well they have been our rock. But how many books can they buy? How many events can they come to only to see that no one else is there? Depressed. Yes. Anxious. Yes. Is this how I have gotten to this state? Probably. I don't think it is the only reason, I've been unballance for a long time, but it is a big reason nonetheless.

Why is it important to keep going? The community will miss us when we are gone. I will miss us when we are gone. If we give up how will that feel to me for the rest of my life thinking I was a quitter? Can I in good conscience leave and let a Christian bookstore or worse a big box bookstore come in and change the personality of my neighborhood again? Who are we benefitting now? What have we done that has been really good here? Why can't I think of these things when I am sitting here for hours all alone and my till is empty. I haven't paid myself in 2 years. Things are getting bad, if not already there.

Things are dire. Things must change and change quick otherwise I won't be able to sit here and try to decide what to do. The decision will be made for me.

We are working class people in an upper class surrounding. They can smell us from a mile away.
Of course, I am a bit paranoid about that kind of thing. Don't you think that what is going on now in our country is not so much of racism as it is a class war? Don't get me started on that! Just look at the attacks that are being made against the working class as we speak. Well sometimes I wonder just how much of this is going on *now* *here*.

I spend most nights thinking about these things. No wonder I need the wine.

So the question is, hold on or let go?

second day wild beast subdued with stack of cloud stone goodies or a promise of future pain.

Second day on Klonopin. Only silighty giddy in moments that I realise I may very well be feeling normal. Of course normality scares me. Last night I was faced yet again with the on going barage of nonsense and venom of my local nemesis via facebook and myspace postings. The difference this time was I felt as if I was on the outside looking in on the mess instead of feeling like I was knee deep in that mire. Then I laughed, shrugged and took a hot shower. The steam was delicious, and as I soaped up my legs I noticed the slight lines of muscle forming thanks to all the cycling and walking i've been doing lately. I'd like to try yoga again, but I don't think I can trust myself to STOP when the pain starts. It goes back to early recognition that pain was kinda pleasureable. That and the mantra of the 80's that you have to ' FEEL THE BURN' or 'NO PAIN NO GAIN' yeah, I take that shit to heart. In the 90's when I got my first of a few piercings, (my first was my tounge ring) my friends came with me for moral support. They said I never even flinched. So yeah, that's what you are dealing with. I'm not going to say childbirth wasn't the most fucked up pain i've ever known. I'd have to say that having broken molars coming in was. I could easily have picked up a gun and shot myself just to get a diversion from that! Anyway, I have to say that I am feeling No PAIN right now. I just ask my close friends to come to me on the day I stop being myself and tell me to stop taking these things. It's just that I got an almost disruptive free block of sleep last night and it was amazing. I have been going months with only a few hours here and there. Lots of late night tv, which is all actually poker, news or talk shows with people I've never heard about. Whats worse is the alcohol and other kind of consumption I've been used to doing just to get some kind of anxiety free sleep. It's been killing me inside. Warm wine in my underwear watching Wendy Williams. WINNING!

It's difficult to sit here and type. All I allow myself to think about is my nemesis somehow finding this and tearing it apart publicly on his 'blog of note' that no one reads. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, I don't know where to put my commas. I don't spell anything right, I forget to capitalize 'I' most of the time, I create run-on sentances, I don't hold on to topics well, I just from idea to idea without any real flow. Well, let me tell you why.. because that's the way I think. That is the way I talk when you are right in front of me. I don't dream in typeset with semi colons and commas and exclamation points. I talk in whatever rambling noncoherent way I can. Sometime the words come so fast I feel muckle mouthed and clumsy, sometime I have to say something so fast and so loud I will grab you arm or your hand and look into your face and just SAY IT, even if it is out of context or if it is absurd or incoherent or pointless. Words so beautiful to see on the page, even more precious floating in the air between us, crashing into hearts and minds and smiles, words are so amazing,. I may never be able to master them, but I still love them..however unrefined I may be, I will always love words, and you need a dr. If you don't believe that I do.

Thanks Dez.