There's a bug in my blog, so I haven't been able to post for a while. I just figured how to circumvent it, slightly. I hope everyone is having a merry whatever. I'm not.

okay, so I'm not headlining! Still. I'm "many others".

The St.George's Play House, MindtheGaptheatre.com and PlaysontheNet.com

Present

'Voices of the World - A Night of Poetry.'
A Benefit for Child Victims of Land Mines.

Featuring Green Man, Rana, InnerForce, Isa Schaaf, Joanne Joseph, Jason Grant, Morgaine Gaye, Jo Barrick, Robert Astor, Ralph Pochoda, Stanley Sherman, and many more! Plus selections from John Lennon's 'In His Own Write'. Hosted by Chris Savery.

Date - Wednesday January 8th 2003, start 730pm
Venue - Mod (505 Columbus Ave, 84/85th Streets)
Subways B/C 81st street.
Admission: Free! Donations will be accepted.

I just woke up from the wierdest dream. It was in China, but simultaneously on the deck of my parents' house out in California, and in some dorm/hotel rooms in hideous beige. I was visiting a host family in China, who lived on my parents' deck in California, but it was China in the dream. Everyone spoke English. Almost everyone in the family was black, not asian. There was a lot of cooking on the deck, spicy sizzling foods that I could never seem to eat, although I kept lining up to get them. And the weather was very humid and tropical -- it kept raining suddenly and then stopping. Vegetables, especially, red and yellow peppers grew very fast everywhere. Once some huge white goop rained down and got on everything and no one could figure out what it was. I tried to take a picture of the goop, but my camera just sizzled because it had gotten wet in the storm. I opened up the back to see if I could fix it, and all these vegetables were growing inside it. My best friend in the family was very nervous because she was applying to get a scholarship in NYC. I kept telling her that even if she didn't get this scholarship, she could get another, so not to worry. Then all the family and neighbors went to a soccer field next door, so they could do hang gliding. The hang gliders were very queer, like crude paper airplanes, or deriglebles. The wind was awful so people kept going out of control and having to jump onto the field, sometimes from great heights. But they continued to go on the rides.

Lost California

You miss the blondes.
They were everywhere,
every shade,

like the sunlight everywhere,
glinting off sunglasses
and shining off teeth
and hair that hair
miles and miles of hair
hair with rippling waves
wheat colored

Hair in the wind
as the blondes stand up
through the sunroofs of their cars
while the other blondes drive
down the freeway.

You miss the freeways.
That was when you liked to drive.
Driving with your long blond hair
through those sweet blond hills
driving with the hot wind
and the sound of the grass.

Your left shoulder getting burned
because you always prop your elbow
on the open window
and steer casually with finger.

You miss how the wind
would pull your skirt
up your thighs when you drove.

You miss driving the same streets
nowhere
over and over again

and seeing the same hills with the same
round oaks
over and over again
under the same sun.

The same smell of smoke, grass
and sunscreen.

You miss that smell
and that drive,
that drive that never
ended in California

I am coy! Coy you hear me! coy!

This is great. You go girls. Secretaries should steal all they can. Then run. Run like the wind, you hear me!

The whole idea of loyal secretaries is just such upper class stupidity. Have any of these Lawyers at Skadden, Arps ever been a secretary? Do they know what humiliation really is?

I actually was a secretary for a lawyer at Skadden Arps for about 4 months. She was one of the nice ones. And she was absolutely crazy and demanding.

New poem:

Kiss or Kill

It's like a cut I lick

red like the velvet dress
Maria wore that night outside the bar in november
she refused to wear her jacket
she said it clashed
her goose pimples
were like braille
I wanted
to touch them with my fingertips

Maria kept talking under the streetlamp
she wouldn’t go back into the bar with me
to get warm
I wondered if she wanted me
to kiss her
and I wondered so hard I felt sick

her breath kept spurting out
in white clouds of syllables
from her red red mouth
shaped like a big o or maybe a zero

I just wanted to shut that red mouth
somehow
I wasn’t sure how

First


we’ve been sitting on the couch
watching TV for

My shiny skirt is pulled
I push my soft leg

Soon he will
He says he wants to


I take
my palm.

Closer, Closer, Closer, Closer
He touches

as if by accident. I trace
my white cotton panties

Kiss me

StopStopStop Stop
I know I should say

but his finger is
sweet

gentle
hot, I
I

and it feels too good to

And I rewrote one really old and yucky poem. I think it's kinda cool now, in that minimalist kind'a way.

And since I have all this free time, not working, I decided to get a book of my poems together and submit it. To several places. Yes. I have a title for the book, Sag, Soil, Fade or Burn, after one manufacturer's claim that his perfect fabric would do none of these. Right.

I've been working, working, working, without being employed. Listed about 30 books at Amazon.com, and was happy to learn that I had some collectibles I didn't know about. Like a hardcover copy of Satan Says. Also, I sold my first book within 30 minutes, which is good.

So tonight!! I met one of my favorite artists in the world, Catya Plate, and also, well, okay, she's not Kiki Smith, she second favorite to Kiki Smith. But anyway, I met her at an opening and she knew me! From her mailing list! Evidentally she knows everyone who ever bought a piece of her work. And I have a piece. A great painting called Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend. And she said I could interview her! For Wide Angle. If it comes out. Catya Rules! And I totally embarrassed myself in front of her. I kept hopping up and down and saying, I'm your biggest fan! every 30 seconds. O well.

Rewrite:

the other side of the room

All Sunday I heard it.
A sussurant whisper;
hundreds of grasshopper
wings whirring.
In my wifebeater and chains, I leaned
out my window on Flatbush Avenue
and saw nothing.
No feathered Sunday hats, no
locked bicycles dissolving into rust, no
candles and wreathes.
And the sound stopped.
I slouched to my kitchen
where roaches twitched
on their backs
like hot black commas.
I tucked a rag green with smears
into the handle
on the oven door while
over the stove the mirror,
ragged with fingerprints,
reflected nothing.

I sat down on my velvet
couch and it shredded to dust.
Then the stove exploded,
silently like snow
and the sun traced
figures in the sand,
everywhere.

Everywhere, sand.
The insects flew faster.
Behind me a wave of green and blue
wings nearly crashed.
I stood near the ocean,
some wide pink and blue ocean
and it was almost quiet,
with that hush between tides.
I opened my palm to read
and a flower bloomed there,
slowly, but quick,
with large white petals
which were the white petals
of my heart.

I've actually corresponded with Daphne Gottlieb and Lauren Wheeler on livejournal. Teenage squealing. More poetry stars I worship. Along with Tricia Warden, Todd Colby and, uh, well, others.

It's so cold, now. I'm not used to all this cold. I just can't go outside. Even inside, it gets inside my bones. My feet are never warm. Winter is always the time I imagine I'm dying.

The Backward Cannibal

Five seconds after you leave,
I want to obliterate every part of you.

I had asked you not to go.
Not even screaming
concentrating on my fingernails.

Now I down your beer and
half-eaten pizza so fast
I can't breathe.

I flush your hat.

The toilet burps and soaks
my pink carpet red.

I raise your favorite mug to smash
but it slips through my fingers
and breaks my foot.

Finally, I have a reason to howl.

New Poem.

But the place I interviewed at yesterday also seems nice, and it's working in schools, so I get two months off in the summer. Kewl.

Tomorrow is my fifth interview of this week. So far, everyone seems to like me a lot, but I won't hear back from anyone for at least another week. The job I interviewed for today seems grand and it's working with children. Plus, it pays a lot!

Now, if I can just get a job so I won't be homeless.

So today was good news. I am! too! enthusiastic! First off, I found out that I was short-listed for the Alsop's Review poetry prize. This is very big deal. To the few amount of people who know what I'm talking about. Then the editor of Alsop's asked me, asked me, asked me (I feel like a Benny Hill sketch: What's that in the road ahead? What that in the road, a head?) if he could publish the poem that had almost won. Uh,

Yeah.

Alsop's Octavo Quarterly, where my poem is going to be published, has also published Kim Addonzio and Dorriane Laux, both of whom I just started liking a few months ago when I was looking for interesting poems for my class.

So this is in the plus category.

And, furthermore, meanwhile, back at the ranch, later that same day: Sex and Guts accepted one of my pieces, and the editor said my work, "broke [his] heart." Heh.

I swore I'd never use sussurant in a poem. And now I've done it.

The Other Side of the Room

All Sunday I heard it.
A sussurant whisper;
hundreds of grasshopper
wings whirring.

In my wifebeater and chains, I leaned
out my window on Flatbush Avenue
and saw nothing.
No feathered Sunday hats, no
locked bicycles dissolving into rust, no
candles and wreathes.

And the sound stopped.

I slouched to my kitchen
where the roaches twitched
on their backs.

I tucked a rag green with smears
into the handle
on the oven door while
over the stove the mirror,
ragged with fingerprints,
reflected nothing.

I sat down on my velvet
couch and it shredded to dust.
Then the stove exploded,
silently like snow
and the sun traced
figures in the sand,
everywhere.

Everywhere, sand.
The insects flew faster.
Behind me a wave of green and blue
wings nearly crashed.
I stood near the ocean,
some wide pink and blue ocean
and it was almost quiet,
with that hush between tides.

I opened my palm to read
and a flower bloomed there,
slowly, but quick,
with large white petals
which were the white petals
of my heart.

Okay, and since you're begging, here's another one.

Girlfriends

There's a shameful secret
my friend told me once (I think
she was a little drunk).

We were having lunch
at the Mexican-slash-Chinese place
one of those times when our boss
wouldn't miss us.

She turned her delicate head away
and looked at something vague
across the room.

She said that's what she thinks
about all the time,
getting it from two men at once
from behind and from in front,
and she must be crazy,
is she crazy?

I was silent --
I left her alone
for that moment;
figuring out how
I could be one of those men.

Plus this is just a draft.

Got a new poem. It's not about you! Really.

Yeah, I'm sorry I've been so remiss at updating. I've been writing and painting alot, and just generally losing my mind over my lack of employment situation. Seriously. I'm showing all the tell-tale signs of Alzheimer's. I'm just about to start accusing people of stealing the things i misplace. like my glasses.

Anyway, seeing as I didn't sell many paintings last weekend, I have created a new portfolio page listing the rock bottom prices born of desperation and a Con Ed shut off notice. Please buy! I accept checks.Portfolio of pain.

I think I'm gonna try to turn the fiction below into a poem. Mebbe.

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I have been getting quite a bit of writing done. however. Teaching this class has been a great motivator and inspiration. Not that I'm stealing my student's ideas. Much.

I had an art sale Saturday. Spent all Friday cleaning my apartment, hanging the pictures, putting out candy and selecting the nice art-gallerish music and scents.

Guess how many people came?

One. At the very end of the day, the darling and talented writer, Ms. Hillary Russ, who bought 3 pieces after I practically shoved them down her throat.

Okay and two neighbors came. Near the end of the day, I was standing out in the hallway and grabbing anyone who walked by.

After my upstairs neighbors ran by my door, I realized that I had become the annoying single lady with too many cats who asks every one to stop by "just for five minutes" to look at her button collection.

I did see a little of that duck and weave. I've done it myself. I can recognize it.

I hate not being employed. Makes me depressed. And so lonely and needy. I've been calling the boyfriend so many times a day he just turns off his cell. So I'm pissed off and lonely.

So... Halloween came and went. I dressed up in a costume I bought 8 years ago but never wore, put on a new purple wig, made my self-up like a ghoul and then decided to stay home all night. Well, at least I made half the effort.

I went to several galleries in Chelsea this afternoon. I saw this photomontage artist I worship! She did that thing I like so much, mixing the grotesque with the girly, fairytales and porn, crude and slick. Her name is Marnie Weber and she's at the Fredericks Freiser Gallery, which must be a pretty small affair, as they are in some sort of basement. She made a very elaborate dollhouse, and took pictures of the interiors and then collaged gruesome fairy-tale sort narratives on to them, using photos of the faces of manequeins and photos of the bodies of little girls in dresses. Plus there were dancing bears, jewels, etc. It reminded me a bit of Kiki Smith's work around little Red Riding Hood, but not so carefully plotted in different media.

Mostly over that. I must give props and thanks to Mr. Buddha, who said kind things about me in his blog, and his quite the interesting blogger himself.

Many, many lawsuits.

Anyway, I want to burden you with the super sad-sack story of me getting fired. On Wednesday, I went to see the Optomistrist (okay, I can't spell!) during lunch to finally get a new pair of glasses. At the very end of the exam, the optimistrist (yes, I know about the spelling!) squirted some stuff in my eyes to do some sort glaucoma test. I had a violent allergic reaction. I started retching and had to run out of the store. After relieving my stomach on the street corner, I managed to hail a cab and go home. As soon as I got home and was able to, I called my boss and told him what happened. They next day, when I returned to work, I was fired for being unresponsible.

As I just got fired today, I decided to join Nano, etc. and write a novel in a month! Since I'll have so much free time! But probably less so once I become homeless. Since the police say, "Move along, Move along" when you really try to establish yourself comfortably on a park bench.

I got a painting accepted in the Women's Studio Center show, and the director told me I should definitely charge more for my work. Plus she said it was fantastic. Hee.

Oh, you must come. Open studios numbering at least 35, and a reading at the women's studio center on Saturday at 3pm. It's the big ugly grey building, very squat, at 21st Street and 45 Rd in Long Island City.

Mostly happy.

Okay, happier.

My poetry's here, in case you forgot.

This is a draft of something new:

A Pretty Girl and Her Mother,
the Day After

So everything's the same but nothing's
changed. You moved your house
Haven't you? Or perhaps just the
furniture's reversed. Maybe it's you.
You changed
the part in your hair,
the gap in your teeth the side
your buttons button on.
I believe it is you.
You look a little like you.
Or one or the other of us.
I'm afraid to touch your hand, there.
Right now.
It will be cold.
Like that awful mirror behind us.
On that side, again.

Please ask the cat to discontinue vomiting on my couch. Please.

Watched BTVs this evening, of course. And there's wierd little web-interactive thing going on. In the eppy, there's a little lost high-school girl (what's new) who is actually a 30 year-old actress I've seen before in several failed sitcoms (what else is new) who has a website that the characters visit again and again, and quote, etc. Okay, the eerie thing is, there actually is that website at www.cassienewton.com and it is very authentic looking. There's no little winks or nods or hidden links to WB11 or buffydotcom or nothing. And it's a free geocities site! How low class can you get? And the art shown in the girl's room in the show is on the site and there's no "real" artists' signatures, although I get the feeling that each of the paintings was done by someone else. The few give-aways to the hoax is that although the html for the pages is very sophisticated, lots of Java, etc., the paintings are scanned in very amateurishly, although the girl didn't have photoshop to crop them. Although she had photoshop to do the other stuff. So it's like they were trying to show how a teenager would do it, but weren't quite consistent. Also, the poetry is badddd. Just like many teenagers, but also just a little too good. It's just wierd to be able to see on my (computer) screen, what I just saw actors looking at on my (tv) screen.

I'm going to have to go read some Descartes now. Reassure myself that I really exisit.

This is a cool new journal I've discovered, written by someone just around the corner from me. And I mean that literally, not metaphorically.

This fashion accessory is so ugly that you'll probably see it soon on Sex and the City.

Hullo to all you faithful readers from the south! I have no idea who you are, but I can tell from my tracking device that you're southern. And that ALOT of people look up "penis bouquet" on Google. Anyway, so I went into the Strand today and managed to escape with the damage being only two poetry books, a short story collection, and book of the notebooks and photos of William Gedney. Gedney was a fantastic photographer who took photos of San Francisco in the '60's. Mostly he took black and white shots of stoned people sleeping on the floor of burnt out hotels, looking quite miserable. Hee. Flower power.

I realized after looking at several pictures of long haired, bearded, bejeweled, etc. people, that everyone still dresses like that in San Fran. Most of the pictures could have been taken yesterday. Especially along the Haight, San Franciso is stuck in one of those Star Trek time loops, where every thing repeats itself. Maybe the farther away you get from SF, the more the ripple effect from the time distortion wears off, so that in Oakland, for example, it's 1980 right now. Although I'm feeling that in Weed, California, it's still the 60's.

Anyway, I had tea today at the Plaza Hotel. It was quite swellegant, but the rich food gave me a tummy ache and I left early. Definitely not my preferred scene. You know, I'm more a lower East side kinda' gal. I sat next to the darling and vicious Yelena, who is a brillant writer and painter. And has a very pointed and forked tongue. So, amidst the rest of the company, which were mostly Christians, though (mostly) not annoyingly so, she and I spoke quite frankly about sex. She made a sex coloring book which sounds absolutely fab, and we talked about marketing ploys while I asked for advice about spicing up the scene when things are vanilla, yet satisfying, in the bedroom. Not about anyone in specific!! Geesh.

Anyway, something quite amusing and cinematic happened. Yelena likes glitzy and actually expensive jewelery, and she just happened to be wearing a dramatic and bejeweled cross. One of the Christian women who'd been sitting far away from us scooted up close and said, all friendly and crisp-like, "That's a beautiful cross. Is there a story behind it?''

Yelena paused for a moment. "Yes," she said. "My husband bought it for me and for that I was so grateful that I had wild sex with him three times." Yelena has a dramatic Russian accent, which makes everything she says sound more important than it really is.

The woman was wearing a hat with fake flowers. She retreated a bit back into the hat, like a turtle.

"Oh, and Yelena forget to add that she's Jewish," I quipped.

The woman said, "Oh yes. That's a little more information than I needed to know," and skirted quickly away.

Yelena and I gave each other a look that was the equivalent of a high five, and burst out laughing.

Yes, I know it was very immature. Very, very immature. Hee.

So there's the rant.

New Job is keeping me very busy. But I miss the light. I'm in a windowless basement, you see.

I redid my quiz. Which probably means that every one who took it already has to retake it. Oh well. I didn't leave my email so the angry hords can't reach me. Hee.

Which 20th Century Poet Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Okay, I stayed up all night making this stupid poetry quiz. I'm sure I got all the facts wrong and everything. Plus, some poets will want to sue me for slander and just general nastiness. But go on, find out which 20th Century poet are you!

Hee. Hee. I'm a "starving artist." And I didn't even have to cheat on the test.

What type of artist are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

So I asked the class to write about something that bothered them this week. I wrote about how it felt when I saw the boyfriend walk into a pizzeria with a woman. He kept touching her arm, didn't bother to introduce us, and kissed her goodbye. Then she ran out of the shop, looking at me strangely. Well, I was glaring at her. Like I wanted her dead. Which I did. When I asked the bf "who was that woman?" He answered, very good, and then turned to the cook and said, please call the police, because I'm about to get murdered.

Hah! Hah! Very funny, Mr. short-with-the-elephant-ears!

So we had a big fight. She was nobody, just a friend, you're cheating on me, no I'm not, you're a big liar, no I'm not, you're evil, no I'm not, I hate you, yes I do, please call the police, no I'm serious, Christine, take a seat, no really, don't touch me, blah, blah, blah. Etc.

Man, I hate not being able to trust. And then, I hate dating someone I can't trust. And I hate stupid emotional crisises. Really I do. Yet. I can't. Avoid. Them.

Wide Angle is looking more and more tentative. Which makes me feel like a complete dope.

i want more people in my class. Fullness, I want fullness. Maybe I can bribe people to come.

Funny, I gave everyone the words in a bag exercise (where there are a bunch of random words in a bag, and you have to choose a certain number and make a poem), and the class finished before I did. I couldn't get past "rub your cinnamon genitals against my toilet, Nightmare house." Of course I got the word genitals. Of course. I should have known when I put it in the bag, I would pick that word. Along with the word, rub.

I just finished my first poetry class. Whew. Deep sigh. Glad that's over. I was very tense, but then I got more relaxed as class went on. Ms. Babson was a great help. I asked her to call me boss lady, but no go. Instead, she offered to call me "professoressa" which is female professor in Italian. I did a couple exercises with the class; I think they went down okay. I think the first day will be the hardest, because we were just getting to know each other. I could tell the students other than Anne (there were two of them) felt sort of awkward and intimidated. One woman I'd never seen before, and I was worried she felt left out, since the rest of us were talking like old chums.

Well, I can't make everyone happy! Can I? I feel like mothering everyone, and giving them wrapped up treats and taking them gently by the hand and saying, "it will all be okay. It will."

I think everyone liked the work booklet I put together. At least, I like it. I think it's very helpful to people who are interested in poetry. Contemporary poetry, at least.

Hee, hee. Hee. Heh. haw. yoinks.
I just ran my poetry page through brunching shuttlecocks' drug identifier? I believe it's called something like that. It's one of those web translators. I think my poetry improved for it.

Objects are Closer

A cat tries to catch himself
in the mirror
again and again
As if this time he won't see himself
until it's too late.

And sometimes
I think I almost see you,
when your eyes are elsewhere,
and your face
is doing something different,
when you don't know
I'm watching.

Okay, I found out Wordsalad.net published some of my poems, because a reader wrote me to ask a question. I wish, sites, would, TELL me when they accept my work, BEFORE they post it. Still, hee. Got accepted.

And I am! King! I got the perfect job today. Starts next week. I'm going to be a therapist with a low caseload at a clinic that pays well, and is a twenty minute commute. I couldn't believe it when the director offered me the position. I was like, that's it? No more hoops to jump through? I was just overwhelmed with the happiness. So I went out and bought a lot of new shoes and shirts. Extra shoppy goodness. Yes.

Woodenfish has launched. Yeah, August! Please go check me ( I mean, it) out.

Also: since certain things in my life have changed that I won't go into, I've been noticing that my feelings have come back. This is a really odd experience. I keep thinking, "I'm out of control! I'm insane!" and then I double check and think, "no, most people would get very angry if they totally prepped for the GRE and worried and anxietized and all that, and then were denied, shall we say, fullfiment? The climax?" I think that would upset anyone.
Feelings are odd.
I'm half tempted to dispose of them again.

But. Hey. Beekiller accepted three of my poems and posted them before even telling me about it. Beekiller's a very Billsburg site for funky Williamsburg-like people. But I managed to sneak in. They also have art. And if anyone called Jon reads, the, ahem, Jon Poem -- It's not about you! I swear!

This means I may not be able to go to grad school next year, as orginally planned, because my GRE scores won't get to the schools I'm applying to until after the deadline. That is, if I wait unitl I can get a new passport. Also need money for the passport thing. Have to beg the 'rents again, for, well, rent.

My, it's unusually warm for October.

Rabbit blog has an absolutely beautiful description of why and how people write blogs. Please read! d

Oh, today is much better. All around. Tho' I haven't started studying yet for the GRE. And I keep obsessing over why I said "circumcised" rather than "circumscribed" in my last interview. That was for the job I really wanted. I think I got nervous, and when I get nervous, I use really long words. Badly.

Writing a poem called, "Black Market Boyfriend." And another called, "Red", about blue things.

So. Things are going somewhat well. Finished three interviews this week. The last one was for a job I really want, for a good salary, at a place I've wanted to work at ever since I graduated social work school. I've interviewed at one part of the agency or another 4 times over the past seven years. The last time I had the second interview, but then I was never called back. Every time I interview there, I get really good vibes, and they seem very enthusiastic about me, but I never get the job. I'm just hoping this time, things will be different. The other two interviews were okay -- one was a third interview for a senior center (two more to go on that) and one was to work with homeless men at a brand new residence, run by people who are completely overwhelmed, but loved their jobs (they told me this about three times). I hope to be working by October 7th, that is the goal.

GRE next week. And I'm going to STUDY.

I discovered today, surprisingly enough, and contrary to much scientific research (as well as urban legend), that one feels better if one goes out during the day and exercises. There's something strange about sunlight and movement. Really lifts the spirits. Someone should do a study.

Anyway, must fly, as I have an interview this morning at ten. It's way in the Bronx, but the interview will be good practice, if nothing else. I leave you with an amusing quote from the Powellsbooks.com newsletter.

"This brief interlude is dedicated to the millions of unheralded, hardworking blank spaces who tirelessly and with pride perform the thankless task of unbeing in order that words should remain properly held apart."

I've been doing more reading than writing lately. Besides sending my first, and probably last, spam to 400 near strangers to advertise my poetry class, I found lots of new great blogs. Which I will link to soon. One blog in Indonesia linked to my poetry page, and gave a little lecture about too much sex in poetry. But it was a polite lecture, so I respect that. Just finished faxing out 16 resumes for a job. what's the emoticon for a Buddhist prayer?

I'm definitely on the winner train today. Slept through the GRE test, and missed a job interview. Yeah, I'm a winner.

NEEDLE

"There was some sort of business with a rubber strap and I felt a thunk deep in my arm. Then she was hitting my clenched fist: tapping it with her knuckles and then wiggling her finger in the center of my palm to loosen it. It felt so much like an odd, stubborn sort of fingering that I laughed. I sucked in air. I had been holding my breath.

When I left my head felt light and loose, and my thigh muscles burned. I felt like I had run a marathon. Naked."

TEST

"I can see it floating in outerspace surrounded by stars, listing slowly from side to side, the blood curving in waves from end to end, clinging in a milky, speckled red film to the inside of the tube, that's how I see my blood, once it ends up in the tubes and away from me."

Anyway, which is probably the word I use the most, other than "I", I've decided to post what I hope are interesting excerpts from old journals, before I had this blog. Above is onesuch. Not a nonsuch. Onesuch.

I left my certification of self in a cab yesterday. My passport, social security card, college degree, two grad. school degrees, social work certification. Of course, nothing with my phone number on it. I've called 12 cab companies in Astoria so far. Most of them laugh. I don't exist anymore. All my paper's gone. Plus my poetry journal.

So I've got to write something interesting here, if only to give the people at eyeshot.net a run for their money. That's an expression my mother always uses. Along with "slicker than a greased pig" and "running around like a chicken without a head." Raised on a rural farm, my mom. The ghetto kids don't have nothing on her childhood. Sort of like Bastard out of Carolina, but not so pretty.

Diana, stop reading my blog! You evil woman. No wonder you were wearing all black today. Oops. Right. A funeral.

Anyway, right. Okay. Can't say nothing now. I'm too embarassed. Uh, poems, right. Did I mention Mickey Z. won a NYFA grant in '97? I'm so totally impressed. So far the voting has narrowed down the range of poems. But I still need more votes, people. Do it for your country.

I've spent way too much time making this background right. But it rocks my boat. I love designing websites, even if I have to code everything by hand.

And Mickey Z. and Trish Warden have already selected their favorite poems from here. They get lollipops. Hurry, supplies are limited!

Oh, write in my tag board! It's about half-way down the page.

Of course, I'm going to miss my friends at work. And seeing the boyfriend every day. But my brain feels like it's full of helium instead of lead. Free!

I feel so free, yes, Free!! like jumping in the ocean in July when you're eight years old kind of free.

Got a new look. Probably last a week.

I have spent most of today feeling so, so lonely.

Okay, I need your help, gentle reader. And not so gentle reader. And really-when-it-gets-down-to-it, quite mean reader. I'm applying for a NYFA grant for poetry in a few weeks, and I'm trying to figure out which ten poems to send. Please go here, pick your ten favorite, and email me the results. Send the titles of the poems, along with numbers showing how they rank in your estimation. I'll send you a cookie.

That is to say.

Whopee!

And I'm getting published much. Got acceptance notices from Taint, Burning Word and Whalelane. I'm quite surprised and more than a little elated.

So, miles of fun with the curdled milk men of Mr. Colby last night. Much interesting interaction involving feathers, hats, apples and pink tights. Oh, and words. Lovely words.

And, props to a friend and blog-reader, Mr. Colby, who is having a show in the East Village (of course) this coming weekend. To quote:

""The Grandest Insanity Poetry has yet." -The Los Angeles Times
Come and watch the Yogurts Saturday, September 7 at 10 PM
at the legendary Bowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery @ Bleecker,
right across from CBGB's
F train to Second Ave | 6 train to Bleecker | 212-614-0505
only $5

www.bowerypoetry.com"

You should all go. I even cancelled with the boyfriend for Saturday, seeing how he's sabotaged every other social engagement I planned on attending with him. So I can wait to make sexo until Sunday, I'm not desperate or nothing.

Don't listen to what they tell you.

Right, as I mentioned, I'm getting paid for two poems. Yippee. No, I mean that. At C/Oasis. Whatever the hell that title means. I think I submitted these poems 3-4 months ago. Anyway, Taint picked up The Empty Bed, and I'm getting some nonfiction published at eyeshot.net. I'm also working on a review of "Signs" which I think is fantastic-- not the review, the movie. I've already cooked up references to Nabokov, who wrote a short story, "Signs" and Checkov. It's all in the movie, I swear. It's very, but not intrusively, post-modern, or even maybe, post-post modern, which would be, what, stop-modern, if you want to get a little pig-latiny with it, and why not.

So my holiday weekend was eventful, and not in a good, "had a barbeque with friends" kind of way. I got to that spot again, the place that I hate but seem to always end up in, where I'm caring for a previously kind and loving significant other who has become psychotic/blind drunk/completely high, and is threatening me implicitly or explicitly with death or bodily harm. This time I did a little better job of taking care of myself. I mean, after he spilled beer all over the apartment, fell and hit his head more than a few times, called me a "puta" 50 times and worst of all, HURT MY CAT, I realized that he needed to leave my apartment, pronto. Of course, it took me an hour after that decision to actually get him out the apartment door, and then there was the cab drive from hell where he kept arguing with the driver and giving him directions (wrong, directions) but eventually I got him dropped off at his apartment. Of course, he was a little confused when I didn't climb out of the cab with him and instead sped away into the rain. I actually had to yell at the cab driver, GO, now, drive! go! just like in the movies. Mucho excitement.

Donch'a hate it when that happens.
Then he actually apologized the next day, which was a first for me. Usually I get scoffed at.

My Father Entering Me

Most successful poems
are about the ocean,
but he stands
between me and the sea
a huge, invisible shadow
that chills

And make me turn back
without thinking
zipping up my jacket
and kicking a coke can
as if it were my own idea,
As if I had a choice.

Everything all at once again

Neon. (again)
low riders to suicide to orgasm to manicures with sunflowers to biting and kissing to L'Oreal Blond number 9A
to double piercing my left ear to being in love with Vick to how cute the grey kittens to being in love with Rick to what kind of beer feels best for puking to the shine on the knife that night to bruises from the sidewalk to which green for my eyes to much ado too much
too much

Grammar

What is this thing called protocol?
What is the protocol for things.
These things have taken over.
They mill about
behind my back
and freeze
when I re-enter the room.

This fork, chair and
Nintendo game whisper
when the light is out,
catalyze strange chemical
reactions that result
in time lapses,
dream-like waking states,
and phone calls at 3am.

At the other end
there is only static.
Always at the end,
static.

The Wig

Once it's on,
its tentacles are in you
forever.

You must wear it neatly
every day.

No use pretending,
as with the myth of parental love
that we can just forget about
yesterday,
the blood,
that spasm and fist.

With the wig,
once they see the real you,
it can never be the same.

Middle-aged woman screaming at Faith
in the Hotel Lobby

Faith, get over here!
I said come here!
What do you think you're doing?
Don't you listen?
When I say come,
you come!

The Man with the Mile Wide Penis

Like Joan of Arc,
at age ten,
an Angel came down and gave him
a sword.

He was 12 when the first woman fainted
at the sight of him.

God has decreed he should share his gift,
but there are too many women
and not enough time.

With great power
comes
great responsibility.

It haunts him.
Sometimes he curses it, and weeps.
He wakes to find his sheets destroyed.
Sometimes they don't wait until he's asleep.

Women creep into the house.
His lock has been picked so many times
it hangs open, slack
like the legs of a virgin in his path.

He puts his pants on
one leg at a time
it just takes him longer.

Boy on the subway

Shaved head,
no shirt.
Dirt everywhere.
Black cut-offs suspended with dog chains.
His sneakered toes point delicately together,
like a ballerina poses when she is day dreaming.
He rocks.
He could be high.
He is probably 16.
He's definitely homeless.
He is the left handed side of the city,
bastard, squirming and hungry--
the Bed-stuy of the soul.
He is writing, endlessly.
Watches us all.

Bookstore

I always end up here.
Surrounded by people with similiar glasses.
Dizzy and vaguely frantic with the heat.
Considering and discarding,
like broken lovers,
or broken love.
I get a green feeling
behind my navel,
somewhere between nausea
and hunger.
My fingernails break.
My teeth crumble.
I fantasize continually about salad.
It happens every time.

Crazy boyfriend

I woke up one morning and Micheal was gone.
A stranger had moved into his head.
This trembling white mass of flesh
sat up next to me in bed,
rolled its eyes and said in a voice
I didn't recognize
that he was leaving for work.
I saw it wasn't Mike.
I didn't know what to say.
After he left, I called the police.
They told me to take him to the hospital.
Maybe to remove the new guy from his brain.
The day before,
I had told Michael to meet me for lunch
in Washington Square Park.
I don't know if he heard me.
He'd been really busy lately.
Writing stuff all night long, lists I didn't
quite understand.
And now this.
So the new guy did show up with Michael's body
at the right time for lunch.
I got him to come with me to the hospital.
It wasn't very easy.
I only hit him once.
He tried to touch me.
I don't let strangers touch me.
When he got out of the hospital,
he slept most of the time.
His hands and faced twitched
when he slept.
I watched him sleep alot.
There wasn't much else to do.

Okay, trying to work on the drafts of poems. So you will see.

My September 11th poem.

Last night, right before I fell asleep, me and the boyfriend started talking about September 11, and how the anniversary is coming up. I started remembering how I was being abused by my (now ex)boyfriend at that point -- I always connect the terrorist attack with my own private terrorist -- and it was getting pretty flashbacky.

But then we moved on to more pleasant topics. Such as how I was going to force the (now current) boyfriend to visit me in upstate NY when I move up there to finish my Ph.D. in English. Drugging, Kidnapping, Bribing, were all explored. In, of course, totally non-threatening ways.

So then I fell asleep and I dreamt that I was living in a homeless shelter for teenage girls in California. All the girls felt compelled to prostitute themselves in the most dangerous areas. Then the girls ended up being stabbed and sent to the hospital. Or just plain killed. The men the girls met lived under bridges, and carried knives, broken mirrors, and sharpened metal sticks to hurt the girls. In the dream I kept trying to counsel the girls so that they would prostitute themselves in safer ways; it didn't even occur to me to tell them to stop. Then I was woken up by a woman screaming, "No, NO! STOP!" and sobbing. I couldn't find the source of the screaming; it was very faint. I got dressed to get ready to go outside to find the woman, and call the police. But the noise kept stopping. I put my ear to this wall and that, and leaned out the window. Eventually I realized that I had imagined it, that sometimes the wind and the rain and the busses outside sounded vaguely like a scream. As soon as I tried to fall asleep, I would hear it again.

Did I mention how much I am looking forward to September 11? I nearly died on September 19, from something related.

Ugh. Hmm. words escape.

Somebody actually likes the poem below, which I find amazing. I also just found out that "Amorous Morsels" and "Spring", which are on my poetry page, got accepted for money! My first cash for poems. I am happy, thusly.

The Cul de sac Angel

with wings made of safety pins,
used tampons and bottlecaps,
softly swoops down
and kisses the place under
the left breast
of all the middle-aged single women
in Ohio
whose bras are too tight, who
get a little sore
spot right there,
on the fragile skin
over the heart --
every night before each
of those women
takes her last breath
before dreaming
of kisses she'll never have,
or had but never wanted,
she feels a tingle
right there --
like the start of a heart attack
or the glowing thumbprint of a saint
or how a thumbprint might feel
if a saint were to touch her
or anyone
to touch her:
Anyone who wasn't
coolly shaking
her hand
goodbye.

Yes, yes, yes!

I now have one of those cool trendy things. All the other kids have them. They must be necessary, I mean vital. Now. You. Can. Link. to me. with an. image.



Just right click on this image and copy the html and paste. Wella! As they say where they can't spell French.

That's a bit from a painting I made a few years ago, when I was in my Egon Scheile phase.

Ru Paul has a weblog. And if you send him a song about your favorite food, he'll post it there.

And this is my plan for teaching poetry!

My philosophy of teaching poetry, or what will happen in this class.

This is a class for poets at all levels.

First of all, there will be reading of other poets. And then there will be writing. Lots of both. I will bring in poems that I have found to be a catalyst for my own writing, in both style and content. I want people to forget about what they think a poem should be, and how it should sound or look. My philosophy is “make it new”. (Yes, Ezra Pound said that first.) I will focus on helping students create original and genuine language and ideas. I want each student, by the end of the class, to have her own unique definition of what makes a poem. Each meeting, I will assign three students to bring in their own poems and have them discussed. Students may tell the class how much criticism they want, and how comfortable they feel with certain kinds of critique. The class should feel safe enough so that each student can try something new and not be afraid of the class’s reaction. Don’t worry about what your mother would think or what is politically correct. I encourage to students to write about what moves them deeply, what makes them cry and then makes them feel silly. If students like, they can give me other poems in excess of what is assigned and I will critique them and bring them back the following week. I encourage all students to try new things, to write about things that scare them. And... I have a personal bias against rhyme.

Also, no sex between students unless I'm involved.

Okay, the last bit won't go in the catalogue.

I am teaching a poetry class, teaching a poetry class,

teaching a poetry class!

(Sung to the tune of "closer" by NIN, or "Mary Had a Little Lamb", depending on your preference.) It starts October 6th, which is a Sunday. And runs for 8 weeks. It costs $180, unless you're a member of the Women's Studio Center, in which case it costs less. It will be held in the Women's Studio Center, which is walking distance from Queen's Plaza/Queensboro Plaza in LIC. First stop in Queens From Manhattan on the N, etc. And it will be lots of fun, even though no men are allowed, because it's the women's studio..., so you cannot expect to pick up cute guys there, but, if you're gay or bi, you might get lucky. No guarantees.

Okay, that was an embarassing bit of hero worship. But I'm fine now. No more with the squealing.

I just got this email:

"hey christine,

saw your writing on the web, think it's fucking amazing. was wondering if
you'd like to submit some writing to my ezine digitalhammer.com? we only
have a few interviews up right now, moe tucker, anya janssen (her art is up
too), tod a., maggie dubris‹diamanda galas is set to go up soon. also a slew
of writing should be going up when joe (the webmaster) has time, very cool
stuff. i would be honored if you'd be a part of it.

picking my teeth with the tongues of the wicked,

trish warden"

And I started screaming and nearly fainted.

Do you know who Trish Warden is?

Only Just About My Favorite Poet In the Whole World.

I read her book "Attack God Inside" so many times it's completely trashed. Most of her stuff is out of print, and I've spent hours looking for her other book, "brainlift" in all the used book stores in NYC. "Attack God Inside" has been a major inspiration for me, and was one of the things I read constantly when I really started writing poetry seriously about two years ago.

I've been horribly sick today and had to crawl home from work, and the excitement from this is making me worse!

The life of the blindness De Hysterical

My is full of the pain.
Those could have been a choice. They
are not absolutely
safe -- broad sveglisi to the patient to the morning,
nauseated from the whole light. My feet,
which go the mattress for giving the Plasterung forwards to suffering
that, which shoots in any place.
It could have been hipocondriaco.
I must ask
mine doctor, but
it stopped,
over of my calls to send back
the last month.
It said that it reached too much
intensively to us,
this whole spirit and exchange of the physical liquids.
Which had for látex.
Task, which shows a fear before segretezza.
We have the all day we were only twice kissed, those together.
In which case hour more rueber.
It does not renew my regulation for codeina.
And lasci with this jaqueca I and artificially
an inflation behind my the left ear.
My skin, sums at the times, during my Eidotter barretta.
They are sure that it is for the
safe code category
of the paralysis premonitory.
And the light, ah, the light! Escalda my eyes.
It constantly forms rasgón it. That cannot be normal.
Dígame, this cannot be normal.

Magic Trick

sometimes
when you fuck me
I disappear.

you touch my spine
and I become your fingerprint.

you hurt me
I become your teeth marks.

you bend me over the sofa,
and I become
a pink
neon
circle,
blinking,
blinking
on a
Tuesday night,
the last day of July.

The Reading this weekend in Astoria Park was cancelled. Twice. Saturday it was rescheduled to Sunday, and Sunday I didn't get the cancellation notice until after I had wandered around the park for twenty minutes like a dork. I was pissed, but it turns out that the woman organizing it didn't have my correct phone number, etc. Me and the boyfriend did not fight at all this weekend, which was sort of a choice on my part, but made my life boring. Instead of fighting I had to go rent movies, and they went near as emotionally moving as the real thing.

Sounds like I need a life, huh?
I'm all stressed out about the promotion -- so many new responsibilities, so much area to fuck up. Arrgh. I can't take a "sleep day" like a did in the past when I felt overwhelmed.

You know, I might be a little slow, but I just realized that I should probably not be posting certain information under my real name. Because then just about anybody could connect the dots.And I think I'm in trouble. The internet used to be such a small, anonymous place, nobody knew anybody, nobody cared, and NOBODY DID SEARCHES USING MY NAME. Which has been happening about three times a day. It makes me a little uneasy, ya know?

Anyway, I was offered the position right near my apartment, but I also think they're going to promote to my (ex-) bosses position at work, which would be muy caliente. I'm going to find out the details tomorrow. Monday so sucked, and today so rocks. It's like my life is a coin that keeps flipping back and forth, or to be more psychedelic, it's like through the looking glass, Alice.

I love how I can just change history by deleting blog posts. What breakup?

Okay, the last three search requests that landed people on my page:

Narcisstic Trickster

Penis Bouquet

and.. Mushrooms Tennessee Tampon!

I wrote a new poem, just this afternoon.

Hysterical Blindness

My life is full of pain.

This could be a choice.
I'm not quite sure -- I wake up sick
in the morning, nauseated by all the light.
My feet leaving the mattress
for the floor gives me shooting pains
somewhere.
I could be a hypochondriac.
I'll have to ask my doctor,
but she stopped returning my calls last month.

She said it was getting too intense
between us,
all that blood and exchange of bodily fluids.
She had a thing for latex.
I think that shows a fear of intimacy.
We only kissed twice the whole time
we were together.
Anyway, it's over now.
She won't even renew my prescription
for codeine.

And I'm left with this migraine
and an unnatural swelling behind my left ear.
My skin, it tingles
sometimes, along my fingertips.
I'm sure it's the precursor
to some sort of paralysis.

And the light, ah,
the light!
It scalds my eyes.
Makes them tear constantly.
This can't be normal.
Tell me, this can't be
normal.

Notice how much I'm writing again? I wasn't writing so much in the past couple weeks, was I? You know why? Cause I was happy, dammit!

Without anybody telling you what to do at the end.

Kind'a like a cross between confession and phone sex.

I could just blog all day long. It's so soothing.

Found two really good blogs, through Andy, of course: Uffish, and gregunderwater.

I also thought I was like the daughter, Tabitha, on Bewitched, and I kept twitching my nose, hoping things would change.

When I was little girl, I used to think I was Charlie Brown. It seemed like fate was always against me. I was a happy child, you can tell.

Plus, I'm pretty sure I didn't get that job that's two blocks away from me. Sigh.

I dreamed last night that I had super-powers, and I had to keep fighting this evil force that was threatening everyone. I had to put my hands together in front of my chest and squinch my eyes really hard and a silver ball would appear and shatter on the bad guy, weakening him. I was a guest or distant cousin to this really nice, church going black family. I had to keep protecting them from the evil. All this happened at my grandmother's house in Saratoga. I had very long, strong fingernails. I worried a lot about whether or not I was a racist, and if the polar ice was melting.

Next Job Interview at 1pm. I've just given up on going to work this week. Think they'll notice?

This is just so wrong. But I couldn't stop laughing. Plus I'm hoping to buy some big glass vases...

Next job interview at T-minus 180 minutes.

Consider the nectarines of the field. They toil not...

i'm doing a reading in Astoria Park on the 17th.

So he forgot.

Must think about nectarines. Nectarines are the best thing in the world. Not only are they beautiful and sunset colored, but they combine the best tastes of a lemon and a peach. Plus they dribble all over you and make a mess. I like messy foods. Food that demands a lot of attention, and makes you laugh awkwardly.

Have two new job interviews Thursday and Friday. In case the nun takes a closer look at me and gets the willies. But the Catholic job would be fun. And not just because my commute would be two blocks of walking. That very fact thrills and astounds.

This is kinda' embarrassing and yuppie, and so counter to my usual counter-culture self, but it's a big deal to me, so I have to announce it -- I joined a gym. And working out is, like, fun, dude. Except for the part where the walls are covered with mirrors so I have to gaze at my puffy, pasty self. But it's fun to think that I'm actually doing something about my horrible body image, since I don't have the cash for plastic surgery. Also, surgery hurts, I've been told. More than just a tattoo.

I saw Yes, or was it some contemporary offshoot, in San Francisco 20 years ago. I remember the opening act, some guy in a black body suit who juggled lights, better than I remember the music. I fell asleep during the concert. I fall asleep during most concerts. Really loud, ear drum shattering rock music has a way of lulling me to sleep. It must sound like my mother’s heart beat. Not that she’d ever admit it. I slept through Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads, Blue Oyster Cult, Grateful Dead, to name a few. I was a real wild teenager. Sleepy, tho.

Because Ladies’ Choice is a bunch of losers, they will not be playing at the Remote Lounge any time soon, like a I promised my friends. However, the owner/events manager at the remote, Matt Somebody or Other, wants me to bring in my portfolio of paintings, so he can start to display them. I believe they’re going to be part of a video display they run on all those hundreds of “Man Who Fell to Earth” TV sets.

I’ve been writing a lot of drafts of poems, nothing too great, although I might post something called “The Guest” up here soon. All my poems seem to be sprouting weird subtexts lately. The Guest keeps trying to be about death, when that’s not what I meant at all.

Looks like I’ll get a job working for a nun. As a social work supervisor. It’s a much more stable place, the director is actually a social worker, and has been there for five years. At my current job, no one has lasted more than 2. My boss-that-I-hate has been there 9 months. I’ve been so bitchy to him lately that he’s gotten less lovey-dovey and more nasty. Eeh. Every time I speak to him, I end my sentences in my mind with, “and you can kiss my ass.” I don’t think I’m the only one that does this.

Sorry I haven’t written lately, I’ve just been so busy and it’s also been dawning on me that it might be a little self-destructive to be the narrator of my life, rather than the protagonist of it.

I injured the ego of the therapist I supervise on Wednesday. The thing is; I know she's not really a therapist. She doesn't do therapy, more a form of behavior management. So we clash a lot. I try to get her to see things pyscho-analytically and psychodynamically, but she really doesn't like to question why the children do the things they do. Her reasoning is, "they're just lazy," or "they just want to do what they want to do." She's not interested in helping the kids with deep structural change. So I got sort of pushy when she was telling me about a case where a 13 year-old girl was kicked out of a foster home for having boys over when the foster mother wasn't around. The therapist was really mad at the child and wanted to talk to her about deserving what she got. I suggested rather strongely that she try to be on the side of the child, as the child was probbably feeling rejected and alone. This REALLY pissed her off. To try to realign my self with the THERAPIST, because I knew our relationship had suffered, I apologized the next day. But she's still very angry at me, and now she's telling me what to do.

There's nothing that gets me faster than people who are not my boss telling me what to do. So I'm angry.

Sorry I don't have any exciting psychological drama. I'm feeling pretty calm and in control. I AM as usual obsessing over tiny slights. A friend told me I must have OCD because I keep going over and over tiny words or phrases that people said to me, thinking what did that mean? and how am I going to respond next time I see them? generally getting more and more angry and upset. Not very buddhist-like of me.

The job interview on Friday went okay. The woman who interviewed me was hard to read. Although I did notice that when she was showing me the building other employees seemed to cringe in fear when she walked by. Also that as she said good morning to every one she checked her watch to see what time they were getting in. Not terrible good signs, those.

If I have nothing to say, I might as well say nothing with style.

Tired of the uptight "all-white" look.

Cause it won't load this new fucking template right.

blogger is killing me.

I was looking over what google searches led to my site. One particularly imaginative one was "Devil+having+sex+with+angel" by a German, which led me to discover this site. It's for those whose jeans are so baggy you can read the tommy label on their boxers, whose t-shirts are so loose they can fit themselves and two friends in, and who have broken so many bones skating they've lost count. Or for people who pretend to be like that. Sort of like me. Faux-psuedo skater fan. Anyway, they have a very cool 50 word fiction section, which has inspired me to start some pieces. I'll be posting.

So I have two job interviews set up. I am v. happy. I can't wait to leave my job. Write me a reference, oh gentle reader?

but anyway, a new poem:
Cat Licking Pizza
So delicate
the strokes
an old master
at a painting
like the first
brush of lips
before the biting
begins.

I faxed out ten resumes today.

More Evidence that People Visit My Apartment While I'm at Work

1. One extra dirty fork in the sink.
2. Cats have moved from the positions they were in when I left.
3. Toilet not flushed.
4. Inflatable bed is slightly deflated.
5. Water is dripping from bathroom faucet.
6. Bedroom door not completely closed.
7. Airconditioner is on.
8. NYtimes Book review is on LEFT front side of couch, when I left it on the RIGHT front side.
9. Light in bathroom on.
10. Cats mewing, and gathering oddly around their food bowls.
11. Kitchen cabinet door not securely closed.
12. Books in bookshelf not alphabetized.
13. Cigarette butt near front door.
14. Refrigerator magnets not parallel to sides of refrigerator.
15. Shampoo bottle half-empty.

Maybe I've simply been on vacation from my life for a while, and haven't realized it.

I saw that horrific "Meet My Parents" tonight. Yes, exactly like a car wreck. I couldn't move from my seat to pee I was so transfixed by the carnage. It was so medieval. Literally. It was medieval Europe, relations with a woman are brokered through her father. She's just a transaction between two men. But on top of that, the potential "boyfriends" were completely castrated by the whole process. The princess turned to Tom Cruise at one point, (he was Tom Cruise, I swear -- okay, Tom's Clone) she turned to Tom's Clone and said, "you're just a real little horndog, r'ncha'? I think we should just cut off your little dingle there and teach you a lesson." So much of the show was just about humiliating the princes. I, of course, was routing for Brandon on 90210, but he was too crafty and snotty (one of the lie detector questions the Dad asked him was, "Do you think you're smarter than me?" and Brandon lied and said, "uh..No?") Besides being short. And having dated a black woman.
So of course, Dad, in a true fascistic fashion, choose the Nazi-lookalike, Dolph Lundgren. At the end there was a group hug, and they all embraced and weeped about the beauty of their middle class, American whiteness.

Andy is at Dixon Place this Friday: you must go! He's a wonderful guy. Great reader/performer. Writes about sex way funnier and better than me. I still remember some of his lines from Potty Mouth that I heard about 6 months ago, especially the bit about how passive aggressive guys ask for blow jobs -- they slowly push your head down there.

There must be a god; who else could be responsible for the Giant Blue Freeze Pops?

Some highlights from yesterday:

Ella Smith's poetry: God is here, and boy is she fat!
Mr. Magic's nervous and adorable dropping of balls during his juggling act. (Give him a break -- it's his first show in five years!)
The Goddess Pearlman's 2 inch long glitter eyelashes, and her song about shoplifting, dedicated to Ms. Ryder.
My neighbor in the spot next to me, a real graffiti artist, Fab 5 -- I think -- who oh so kindly gave me a t-shirt just for watching his paintings when he was away for five minutes.
All the cute boys who introduced themselves. And then introduced their wives/girlfriends five minutes later.
And of course, Olga, for patiently sitting next to me and for introducing me to all her cool artist friends.

blogger error!

Then there was scenes about demons and ghosts emerging from the bottom of this strange swimming pool in the basement of our house. Also being chased and bitten by swimming tigers. But that probably really happened.

I dreamt last night about the devil and my family. I dreamt that my cousin and many others moved into my parents house in California, and I was still living at home. I think we were all teenagers. It alternated between my parent's house, and a really grim looking gothic orphanage. All the other children (who didn't belong, as I kept telling them) kept impinging on my space. I was also in college, and they kept using my computer, and sitting on my notebooks when I was trying to do class work. Just generally getting in my way. I ended up trying to strangle the boyfriend of my cousin because he kicked me. Everyone was pretty much ignoring my complaints until Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer showed up. She told me she would kick anyone's ass who messed with me. This made me quite happy.

But I still didn't make enough to pay the phone bill! Snark. Gotta start knocking over the deli downstairs. Do you think they would recognize me in a ski mask?

But I didn't sell as much as last year, or make as much money. This made me irritable. But I know it shouldn't. Nobody else I saw sold anything. I have to have an attitude adjustment. This kind of event cannot be about making money. All the other artists, who were selling stuff for real prices, didn't expect to sell. It's about the exposure and meeting people.

The artfair yesterday was a big success. Met lots of nice artists. Had lots of good comments about my work. The worst part, which wasn't SO awful, was that several people recognized that the heads I did Saturday were copies of McGee. At least it gave us somethign to talk about.

According to my stats, nobody's really reading this anymore, which is good. I was starting to get hatemail. Made me rethink the whole blog project.

I am so exhausted. I spent all day preparing for the Art Fair tomorrow, and I haven't recovered yet from the flu. I'm not sure if it's really the flu, or just a reaction to all the hormones my doctors are pumping into me. I think my resistance has been lowered alot. I made 6 tiny paintings today, to sell tomorrow real cheap, in the style of the graffitti artist, Twist, or McGee. Okay, not only in the style of, but a blantant rip-off. I hope it's not too hot tomorrow. Please come. Yes. I'm selling some pieces for 15 bucks. Once again, it's at the 30th Ave subway stop in Astoria, on the N line, 30th Ave and 29th Street, in the bricked up park where all the teenagers skate at dusk, where Athena stands, looking really dorky.

When I have a fever, my sense of touch is hieghtened. I feel the creases of cloth on my calves from my dockers, and the scratch on my thigh where my cat dug in and jumped seems to sing to me. My fingernails itch from their polish. I feel how greasy and limp my hair is, but I'm too tired to shower. I just crawl from my aero-bed underneath the air conditioner to my computer, and back again. Then my cats forced me to crawl to the deli for cat food. I don't know if I should indulge this eating addiction. Lots of cats go for weeks without eating, I keep telling them. But they demand to be fed DAILY. What's that about?

When I was obeying my cats, I picked up a coffee hagen daz for myself. The summer after I graduated from college, before I got accepted to grad school, I lived in a nasty Portland apartment with the man I hopelessly loved and hated and his two snotty, artistic and pathetic room mates. I was, of course, the most snotty, artistic and pathetic of the four of us. There was a 7-11 next to the apartment building, and that summer I lived on foodstuffs from there, mostly coffee hagen daz, raspberry poptarts, and cheetos. The man and I fought most of the time, and I spent half my days curled up on the futon on the floor, sobbing, while he sat up and looked at the ceiling in disgust. Then every weekend I would go stay with my other boyfriend down the block. He wasn't an artist, so there was a lot less drama, a lot less competitiveness, a lot less "your writing sucks" and badly concealed giggling. So of course he was less attractive to me. I believe he's an ambassador in Russia right now, or something.

Just say no to kittens.

I'm working on a poem on Henry Darger, the psychotic, prolific folk artist who made thousands of drawings and stories about naked girls with penises being tortured. Darger, he saw the inside of us, he knew the danger of little girls, even with watercolor butterfly wings they can't be trusted.

oh, the coding is messing up. The font jumps up and down in size. Makes it look interesting, tho.

So this is the new look. I hope you like. I was getting sick of the trailer trash/kitsch of the old one.

The ART FAIR is directly off the 30th Avenue Subway Stop in Astoria. Take the N train to Astoria, and get off at 30th Ave. It's on Sunday, July 21st, 10-6PM. Free licorice with purchase. You can preview some of the stuff I'll have at my portfolio (look to the right column).

I saw the beta version of the magazine I write and edit for, Wide Angle. It was so fantastic. It's going to blow the Voice out of the water. You can go to the website to order a copy in a couple weeks: www.wideanglenyc.com. The site won't be up for a few weeks. The design is so great. You all must buy ad space. Must. Buy.

I love this color green. It's what I painted my wall before it all flaked off again. So what if it's industrial, janitor green!

Martha loves it!

In other, much more appropriate and less personal news, I am going to be selling some, or hopefully, all, of my paintings at the Art Fair this coming Sunday. Miss Olga will be sharing my space, making me look bad with her much superior work. Last year I had a wonderful time, sold about 20 pieces, all of which I miss horribly, but it was time to let go. It was also a great time to meet other artists -- that's how I first started connecting with all the other artsy and poesy folk in Astoria. My motto was and will forever be, "Paintings for sale or swap." If you have some art I really like, we can do a trade. Also, if you're a close personal friend, or pretend to be, you might get a piece for free.

I've been cleaning like a madwoman this weekend. Hauled out 6 more 30 gallon bags of garbage. My bedroom is still a disaster. I tried painting the peeling, sagging, bubbly wall in my living room, only to have the new paint peel and sag some more. I'll try again tomorrow.

I've been trying to avoid thinking, I'm so hyper active nervous about work. It seems from all sorts of odd, random things that have been happening, that my department is going to close soon. Uggh. Plus, add to the list of things I should know by now: 42. Never date anyone from work.

Every time I date a new man, I end up wishing I just taken the easy way out and hit myself in the head with a hammer again. Instead of getting my hopes up. At least you're certain with the hammer. Wham. Bam. No thank you, Ma'am.

I spent the eveining tonight going to *Cafe Bar and *Tupelo (Woah, *Astoria hot spots*) with the darling Miss Olga. Much of said evening was spent dispensing relationship advice to said Olga, although with many disclaimers about being a walking, woman-shaped, flypaper trap for bad relationships. Boy, that metaphor really worked, didn't it. I impress myself.

Man, I hate the break-up speach. Although it has gotten easier. I just got to remember to always do it over the phone, and cut things short so we don't get into the real reasons I never want to see your mug again. Ever. Never is too soon.

(Clears throat.) "I just don't think we have any chemistry. No, our personalities just don't mesh. I'm just not feeling it. Sorry. I wish it could have worked out."

See? Isn't that better than, "Ever since you told me about trying to strangle your ex with a belt after she sliced you with a broken bottle, I've had my doubts. Like, quick-run-the-other-way-doubts."

I seemed to have regressed to about age 16. Every thing feels so intense and shiney all of sudden. Plus all the Nirvana songs seem to speak directly to me.

I will find the center in you. I will chew it up and leave. Trust me.

I just remembered how much I liked Richard Brautigan in high school. I love his style. It's so flat. It feels like the antidote to mine -- I'm so hyper and purple, like if I don't scream I can't be heard. I remember reading his story about the abortion before I knew what one really was. It still seemed terrifying.

This person refers to September 11th as "the day they shook the snow globe." I really like that. It kinda sneaks up on you. And this was just a nice little childhood piece.

Life sucks.

I want to stick my head in the toilet and flush. Arggh.

I gotta stop being a social worker and start being a dominatrix.

So I've actually found some good links. Women in Refrigerators (the title is actually a little more intriguing than the page) and Googlenews. Cause that's what a blog's supposed to do.

I've vowed to stop writing stuff in this blog about people I know and just respect everyone's privacy. Because, in some cases, this blog has just become a form of passive-aggressive communication.

Ha.

I crack myself up. I hope you enjoyed that.

Yeah, you. You're going to be reading about yourself. You.

Loft Poem

In your loft
with the lights low
we sit talking
as I want to fuck you
speechless.

I look into your pretty
brown eyes and
will your fist up my cunt.
We talk about politics,
spirituality, the knicks,
who gives a fuck?

I try to radiate sex juice
in your direction.
If I get any more frustrated,
these dirty windows will shatter
like when a soprano hits a high "C".

I hint that I'm "a woman with a past."
I hint that I'm "easy."

It's 4am and my throat is sore
from all this goddamn intellectualizing.
I'm dizzy from lust, fatigue
and your cigarette smoke.

I say I need to get to bed.
You gesture towards the couch
and slouch off towards your room.

You wish!

In five minutes I knock on your door
and let myself in.

Your belly is soft, concave
and covered in darling brown curls.
Your cock tastes of piss and scented
toilet paper.
Then just of cock.

Afterwards, I whine into my hand,
"Four hours of talk!"
You are hurt,
crease your sweet brow and say,
"What? You didn't enjoy our conversation?"

And, unfortunately, I will no longer be the opening act for Ladies' Choice at the Charleston. Because Ladies' Choice is not going back to the Charleston, ever, after that last... show. (Clearing throat.) Oh well. Plenty of other places to read. I think I'm going to get real ambitious and go for Dixon Place.

Shampoo accepted one of my poems! This is a great big deal! It is! Shampoo is The Atlantic of funky, low-budget, non-paying on-line poetry zines. They publish many great poets. You know who you are. They accepted The Addict Renames the Days, which goes to show you, poems with gimmicks are the most successful, if not necessarily best.

So, I'm about to lose what pitiful readership I have if I don't "insert" "something" useful "here." The problem is not that I have nothing to say, but rather too much.

I just found my obit: Christine HAMM; Sheffield, AL; age 68. Sept 6th, 1997. And I thought I felt strange for the past five years.

The fireworks were pretty. I'm reading a good book of poetry, Directions to my House, by Robyn Selman. Gave me ideas for new stuff to write.

But hey: I have an airconditioner. A lady (who speaks no English) is coming to my house Saturday to clean. This is a wonderful thing. My kitchen might actually stop being so scary. I will no longer have to carry a cross when I enter it. And I got 3 homies. They came from a vending machine on Bedford Avenue. A homie clown, a homegirl complete with long hair, long nails, and a zoot suit pants, and a homie rapper with a gold chain and a mic. Sometimes it's the little things.

I'm going to the greatest party on the planet this evening, the 4th of July de Lisa! Every year my friend Lisa has this party, which always rocks. She lives on Waterside Plaza, which is in the twenties and on the East River. She's so close to the fireworks that when they go off, her windows rattle like they're going to break. When you stand in the plaza to watch, you can feel the explosions in your chest. It almost interrupts your heartbeat. It's like triple those Dolby sound advertisements in movie theaters.

The Curse (see below) was accepted by Woodenfish! It's the first piece of fiction they accepted for their inagural issue in September. I'm very pleased. hee.

A confession: when I was a little girl, I was addicted to shocking pink, and demanded that my mom paint my bedroom that color. I'm talking way beyond pepto-bismol pink. I'm talking vibrating, hurts your eyes pink. When we were selling the house so we could move to California, she painted it all over, which made me cry. I used to measure the heights of my stuffed animals with a crayon on those walls, to check and see if they were growing. My mom has always been a bit of DIY'er, so a lot of my furniture was mismatched and half-painted with sloppy, ambitious colors. Okay, so she was a depressed, alcoholic DIY'er, but it's the thought that counts. She gave me permission to be a slob. Which let me be very creative... but also, I'm still a slob!

Can you imagine being a child and having a room like this?


What a nightmare. How 'bout just shoving that femininity down your girl's throat, mom. What's also annoying is that you can tell that the kids had no input to this. It's a magazine's idea of a little girl's room. There's no room for spontaneous weirdness, which, we all know, is what kids are really about.

Some German dude got my blog translated. It's fun to read in German. Makes me feel sophisticated, or sumting.

I wrote this one about 8 years ago, and I'm trying to rewrite it.

To You with Your Thing in Your Hand

Aphrodite's turned 50.
She creeps out of the ocean, and
this time no one comes
running with gauze.

Her eyes no longer crook like the finger of a Penthouse Pet
but take your measure and look
away.

Breasts
that once invited,
rising like bread to your tongue,
have hardened into
wooden paddles.

You've been bad.

Black bees hum in the back of her throat.

What was that, Honey?
you say.

The beekeeper smiles
While there's still time

Run
and take it with you.

Wow. I just got three poems accepted here. I just submitted them three hours ago and they're going up tomorrow. This is a great zine, btw, for you struggling musicians. It's mostly a music review. Improvijazzation Nation.

Quoting, "Only when I write do I feel well." Kierkegaard. Sorry. I wish they had some sort of twelve step group for intellectuals. A relapse would be, well, quoting Kierkegaard. Plumbers and carpenters could be our sponsors.

HOT PIX!! ALL NUDE GIRLS!! Okay, so it's not porn, exactly. These are the three paintings I finished this weekend. My favorite is the last one because it reminds me of that painter that does everything upside down and Francis Bacon.

I found the coolest new site. It's an art collective based in willies' burg. Search the site for a poet by the name of Furr. She rocks. Also, Bee Killer is having a party this weekend.

Email me things you should have learned by now and I'll post them.

Things I should have learned by now, part deux:

by the Zombie

1. People really don't care how extensive my MP3 collection is.
2. Movie buffs are just people who can't accept that they're not capable of making their own movies.
3. I am not as attractive to homosexuals as I think I am.
4. Life is not like a porn movie.
5. It's still illegal, regardless if I get caught.
6. Pretending that I am a conneisseur of fine foods, owning numerous handheld gadgets, and claiming stakes to liking excellent movies and music does not actually compensate for not having any real redeeming qualities that girls would find attractive, nor a small penis.

I suppose all this means that I probably won't make it to the gay and lesbian parade. Oh. Well. It's too hot out anyway.

Anyway, I've been working on a series of nudes, mixed media on canvas, and I'm quite pleased with myself. I hope to finish three more today, along with the draft of the short story, "boys" -- or something like it -- and finally, the typed version of the interview with that enigmatic trickster, Todd Colby. Soon, I will upload photos of the nudes and link to them so you can see. Aren't you lucky.

Doncha' hate it when that happens?

okay, exactly one person besides me has voted for a cover. I feel the love

I found a new blog. I like it because the two writers of it are very angry and lonely and easy. Ha. hehe. I found out the male writer dates on Nerve and Match. He sounds like someone to watch out for. So I can run the other way.

And I love this story, Girls, on Nerve.com. I'm seriously thinking about writing something like it called "Boys."

This makes me realize I don't have it so bad at work. Luckily, I'm not in the New Media/IT world, although from my experience of trying to work in art galleries, I'd guess that the art world is the same. Mary Boone, for example, make sure that all the receptionists dust the walls and counters hourly.

I'm lying. I can't be bribed.

I can be bribed to disclose the addy of my real personal site with gifts from my wish list, of course.

What Kind of Poet Are You?

This is pretty true, I think.

I have a new guestbook! Please sign. Especially you, with the Mac and the bellsouth.net operating system, what's up with you, checking my blog five times a day? Declare yourself.

But what was very specially interesting about the reading tonight, besides making me feel all warm and gooey and loved and besides reading outside and having a halo of fireflies the whole time (which I was unaware of and only told about after the fact) was that the poem that was best received was the one I wrote today during lunch. I was struggling with "The Anatomy of Distance" (see below) because I wasn't really pleased with it. It was a nice idea, and had some nice images, but I felt that I kept circling around something that I was trying to say and never quite getting to it. I've been thinking about how my poetry seems to fall into two categories, pretty or ugly. I think the best way to put it is: the raw and the cooked. Okay, I know the title is taken. The cooked: more about language and image and some other post modern gender stuff, usually. The raw: drugs, sex, pain, love. Maybe if I were a really good poet I could actually combine the two. But the stuff people really seem to love is the raw stuff. After a reading, I've heard the response at least 6 times, "you really tell it like it is," or "you say what every one thinks but is afraid to put into words." The poem I wrote today was what came out when I asked myself, what do I really want to say but am afraid to? So what came out was pretty ugly. It exposed a part of me that I'm not proud of. It basically said a lot of things that frat boys say, and if I were a man and I said those things about any woman or showed that attitude, they would have killed me. I would have been stoned. It would have been biblical.

But since Iyam what iyam, all the women in the audience were giving me the high five, talking about empowerment and role-reversal, etc. I'm thinking of changing the title of this piece to either, I'm a pig, or Hi, I'm Christine, and I Celebrate Female Sexuality. That last one would be pretty funny. I feel like introducing myself that way at my next reading, and keeping a totally straight face.

Oh, oh, I almost forgot: what was so precious about tonight was that I dressed totally straight, in fact, beyond straight, I put on my Amish-wear dress from my previous job at a church and wore mary janes. They were so surprised at the stuff coming out of my mouth...!

But anyway, nelson, shmelson. The reading went very well. There was much laughter and appalause. Several lovely friends from my new job came by.

Anyway, Cat Tyce (rhyms with nice) was a wonderful and gracious hostess and she should join the Women's Studio Center right away.

I'm lovingthis:

"Dear Diary,

Today I tried to get olivia to change my tampon but once I took my pants off she wouldn't..."

hehe. Fearless.

Today, Tuesday, June 25th, I and Paul Ash will be giving a reading at The Read, 158 Bedford Avenue, first stop on the L train in Brooklyn.

My reading list: (you can look down this blog page, or here for the text of most of these poems)

The Bad Secretary
In the elevator
Doll Descending a Staircase
Multiple Choice
Confessions of a Sex Addict
American Dream
My Black Boyfriend
The Addict Renames the Days
Bite Me
Come
The Anatomy of Distance
The Curse
Thirteen Ways of Killing a Kitten

That's the line up.

Plus,

I wrote a new poem.

It has no obscenities, which makes me nervous. I always worry that I'm not gritty enough if I don't use some nice four-letter words. Didn't Queen make a song about that? "Four-letter words you make the rocking world go round!"


Here it is:

The Anatomy of Distance


Picture
an oil painting
In the Medical Academy
by a Dutch master in 1641.
The walls are in shadow,
appear to be black.
Our walls are blue.

I. The Doctors:

In the auditorium,
in our room,
spectators surround the body.
One touches
it and looks at
us.
He doesn't mean
to touch the body
in a way that has any kindness in it,
As your fingers attempt to sign
nothing
with their grasp,
but his hands are as gentle
as the soft astonished faces
of the men staring at us
as we stare at them.

II. The Body:

The body does not appear
to be sleeping
but dead.
Not just the pallor
but the lack of eyelashes.
The upper lip curls
in ecstasy or disdain.
Although the kidneys vena cava intestines
splay into our faces,
point to the sky
and our eyes,
the body
is the only one
who escapes
in this picture.
The one
truly alone and hidden.

As you and I are hidden
from each other
by our bodies,
the deeper we thrust
our cutting
fondling instruments
the farther we float
away like unmoored boats.
Until we lie
next to one another
on the same bed
in different rooms
the same color as
the inside of an eyelid
or eggshell,
the same color blue.

I feel on a more even keel today. So my boss is lying psycho. I still have to kiss his ass for a paycheck. I'm used to psychos; I know how to get on their good sides. I almost lost it today when he accused me of having a narcisstic personality disorder because I asked, in a completely neutral tone, if my computer (which he's been promising me for the last six weeks) was in that big box in the corner. I have no idea why asking if the 'puter was in the box was narcisstic. But then I remembered that he's narcissitic, so I wasn't so bothered. His new method of complimenting me is by saying, "finally, you're wising up." Passive aggressive loser.

But on to much more exciting news: I made some collages and pictures! Yes, yes, the thrill. I'm also trying out two new covers for my poetry book-in-progress, Pavlov Made My Mother Cry. Here, yes are the draft covers and new photo of the collage assemblage.

For a while, I stopped writing fiction because I thought it was all lies. Then I realized that poetry, also, lies. Nothing is true unless I say it's so.

Okay, on to the publicity: On Tuesday, June 25th, I and Paul Ash will be giving a reading at the Read
158 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211
tel: 718.599.3032

Starts at 7PM. Hoping for an improvement over last Wednesday.

last time: this is IT!

My next reading: The Charleston, 174 Bedford Ave, Williamsburg, first stop in Brooklyn on the L. Wednesday, June 19th. 9:30. I and the most wonderful writer in the world, paul ash, will be opening for Ladies' Choice, which is funkadelic.

More short storey-ish:

The Curse
At 14, I am visited by strange green flies and visions of the virgin. She is out of focus. Her hair appears to be pink. She speaks only in Greek. When I shake my head because I don't understand, she gives me the finger.

My sisters pinch me and talk about fixations on Britney Spears.

Each night the moon is full. The flies avoid the TV, but cling to the mirrors. My sisters swat at them and glare. Sometimes I look at myself in old photos late into the night. I was different then, before I was called. Since then I have shaved my head and sleep on the floor. I only bathe in fat-free milk.

Still, the virgin torments me. Her sarcasm is enormous. My dreams are filled with blocks of color. Sometimes I dream with my eyes open. The teachers in school resent this. My mother can do nothing with me. My sisters tie my hands behind my back and leave me in a closet for days. The virgin persists.

I begin to think the Virgin resides in one of my bicuspids, and I attempt to remove it. My father offers me his pliers.

They bury me at sunset next to my grandmother. Purple roses spring spontaneously from my grave. During the wake, the virgin appears and hovers over the TV set. She points to my youngest sister. The others move their chairs away from her. She pisses herself.

Short story like:

Woman in Search of her Sex


She became obsessed with getting water into her body. She took two hour baths followed by hour long handstands. Her bookcases were filled with enemas and douches. They were arranged according to color and scent. She drank ten gallons of Poland Spring a day. Her kidneys hibernated and had nightmares. She put a funnel in her ear and poured in rose water. She stuck her face into a sinkful of water and inhaled. She became more and more pale and indistinct. When she opened her mouth to speak, one could hear the faint crash of waves in the background. Her belly murmured with the lonely sonar calls of whales. Her skin became scaly. Her hair started to fall out. Her eyes became huge and stopped focusing on anything. She stopped saying hello to the women in the apartment next door when she got her mail. She stopped getting her mail.

She cut herself shaving and something vaguely orange oozed out. Her toenails dropped off. A huge fish tank, fishless, but full sat in the middle of her bedroom. At night, her neighbors in the building across from hers could see her face illuminated by the fish tank glow. She gestured and spoke eloquently to no one.

The neighbors called the cops. The cops took her away.

The apartment stood empty for two years. Mold creeped into huge snow flake shapes along the windowsills.

Then the neighbors saw the woman again, at night. She had grown enormous. She was shiney and naked at all times. She let her breasts rub against the glass as she painted the window panes black.

The neighbors called the cops. The cops went into the apartment and disappeared. The neighbors called more cops. More cops came. There was an accident. The building was burned to the ground. The smell of burnt fish for days.

The neighbors moved away. They moved to the ocean. They were visited by odd spells of melancholia and nose bleeds. They regreted the city. They were all eventually lost at sea.