This is so cool. All I can think about is the Wicked Witch, "I'm melting! I'm melting!"

I'm also a member of the Women's Studio Center, which is based in Astoria, although now we rent studio space in Long Island City for meetings and workshops. Women from all over the city are welcome to join. I'm on the literary steering committee for the center, and a member of the visual arts component as well. I'm going to be teaching a poetry class through them in fall.
The monthly workshops are great! Free to all women writers, although we encourage people to join. Only members can be included in the readings and special events, etc. It costs like 40 dollars a year to join. And the wonder queen diva guru glamor genius of the writing section of the Women's Studio Center is Anne Babson. She's very famous and a good poet. You can see some of her work at www.pemmicanpress.com. Also a fawning review, which I wrote.

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Since I've joined the N train bloggers clique with the promise that I have local connections to Astoria, I will expound apon these. Mickey Z. is one fantastic counter culture guy. He lives somewhere around the 30th Ave. stop. He has a book, Saving Private Power, a really interesting examination of American propaganda surronding WWII, for sale at www.softskull.com. He's also publishing a new book, The Murdering of Our Years, about artists and their horrible day jobs, which will hopefully include an essay I submitted. I'm also working on the illustrations for a children's book he wrote and is planning to have published by Seaburn Publishing, if all goes well. Seaburn is a small publishing house based in Astoria. Last but not least, Mickey is my uber editor at Wide Angle, a local art and culture magazine which is due to launch in July. I am Wide Angle's literary editor and ocassional freelance writer. Aki, who runs the funky Sofa Cafe on Newtown Ave and 34th Street ( I think! At least it's close to there, right behind the Rite Aid on 30th Ave), is a great supporter of the arts. He hangs artwork by local artists and has open mic readings as well. He's also the publisher of Wide Angle.

Whopee! Yah Hah! And other sundry "ejaculations". I finished my unofficial tour of PS.1. That is, I finished making an online one that the lawyers aren't going to like. Go here and get a behind the scenes, no holds-barred look at how down and dirty the art world really is! And you thought Behind the Music was bad.

The blog we should all aspire to.

This is extremely funny. In that laughing so hard you choke variety. I especially like the "wave your hands in the air" one.

I'm not a pretty girl. I'm past my prime. I have a mustache. I slouch. My wieght hangs at my stomach-- I continually look like I'm in the fourth month of a difficult pregnancy. My skin is pallid and blotchy. My face is puffy and irregular. I walk hunched over, bouncing up and down, with peculiar cant to the left. My hair is greasy and unkempt, and not in that cool, bedhead way of Meg Ryan. My teeth are uneven and biege. I tend to smell of old crab. I don't make eye contact. My voice is reminsicent of Minnie Mouse. But still, every time I look in the mirror, I find it hard not to fall in love.

Hey! You can make your own comic strip! I made a funny. I hope.

Had a wonderful reading experience tonight, as the opening act for the Funkiest Band in the World (hereafter, FBW) Ladies' Choice. I read some of my new stuff from the past couple weeks. See below for samples.

Very small, but appreciative audience. Mr. Kevin Kearse, the drummer and founder of the band, introduced me as the punk queen of the world, and repeated at least twice that I really had balls. I think both were meant as compliments. FYI, I don't really have balls. But I understand the sentiment. Ladies' Choice plays every third Saturday at the Charleston in Williamsburg. They are soo much fun to watch, and not just because they're pretty young things, but also because they really enjoy what they're doing. I've never seen so many spontaneous smiles in a band. I also had a interesting conversation with Lana (I hope that's right) and Jose after the performance. They both work in the film industry, and made it sound quite degrading, so I wasn't too jealous.

Work is... well, everyone hates me already. They're having meetings to discuss what I do wrong. No pressure though. Snort. Bite me. What can I say. As all my friends predicted, "Christine, you will never find a job that you like."

The Drama Queens article is almost done. It's sort of dragging. I'd love to start the Todd Colby one, however, before you get to B) you must pass through A).

Ouch head. I should never drink. Especially BEFORE i read, as it tends to make me mispronounce words. Although I'm a friendly drunk.

Doll Descending a Staircase

I am the dressmaker’s daughter.
He hates sewing
but he knows nothing else.
He kneels at women’s feet all day
while their faces tell him his touch doesn’t matter.

I am the dressmaker’s dummy.
I can fit any dress size.
His touch doesn’t matter.
He is my father.

I don’t need a head
or feet or arms.
I am the dressmaker’s daughter.

The pins leave a tattoo of scars.
He reads them to me at night.
I smell like cotton padding and rust.
These pins are pearls.

I’ve worn 16 wedding dresses.
My hair is made of lace.
My nails have been replaced by springs.
All day I hear the whirring of tiny gears.
Tiny girls circle my head, which I don’t need.

Underneath my skirt,
there’s an automitizer full of gasoline.
I am dangerous around small fires.

I am a machine
made of rubber bands, ear wax
and muzak.
I run on hot air.
When I hold my breath,
I hardly bleed.
These pins do not pop me like a balloon
made of wax or songs.
His slacks are striped taffeta.

I am the dressmaker or his daughter.

If capitalism really wanted to sell sexuality, it would have to have a talking head of someone saying, "Sometimes nothing gets me off at all, so I could hardly give a shit about this perfume or that car. In fact, I'm more interested in breaking things, and treating the people I love badly. Sometimes it's just like this, and nothing helps for a while." Then the General Motors logo underneath. It would be a rare example of credibility in advertising. -- Rick Moody

Money can be fun on the purely physical level. It smells and feels fun. You ever tasted a dollar bill?

My father told me he owned me today. He was not trying to be funny or ironic.

I'm so over their visit. Unfortunately, the visit isn't over. I see them tomorrow. That's okay. It's the last day.
Just one more day. One dinner. That's it.

Okay, I have a portfolio up at a cool new artists site. Buy me!

Day 1 of the parental units visit. It was actually kind'a fun. I had breakfast and dinner with them at the Hilton. I think I've achieved a sort of distance; I just laugh at them instead of getting stressed out. They bicker constantly. It's cute, in a Simpsons' kind of way. I gave them my new painting (see below) as a present, and I think they sort of liked it, though they didn't get the collage concept. They kept saying, it's made of all different bits of paper -- it's broken.

Some people derive great pleasure from pretending to be shocked when they are not. YOU know who you are.


Job is so splendiferiously wonderful. Omigod. Power. Respect. and getting to play on the floor with crayons. It doesn't get any better than this. I counselled my first two children today, ever, and it was a resounding success therapeutically, although my office will never recover, and the foster mother is peeved that I didn't recommend medication so she can manage them more easily, along with the other four kids she has who obey like sheep. Okay, so a few things are frustrating. Like the fact that nobody understands that children up to about ten benefit most from play therapy. They want me to lay the kids down on the couch, smoke the Freudian pipe, and psychoanalyze them. Yeah. At that age, they have a heard time distinguishing between dreams and reality. There's not much of an unconscious to uncover. It's more about building up and integrating and naming, not uncovering. Anyway, I made a drawing of a space ship, and the kid made a jelly fish to go inside it. This made me happy. Until someone tried to staple me to death. Luckily I was able to substitute the stapler with a crocodile.

Multiple Choice

Please answer the following four questions. For each question, you will be given an incomplete statement followed by four possible endings. Think constantly of things that are pink. Please choose the ending that corresponds closest to the corrrect meaning. Some endings may appear to be correct, but only one is the right answer.

Put your pencils down.
I'm the only writer in this room.

1. A poem is:
a) Elvis
b) I'll give you something to cry about
c) hitting your thumb with a hammer
d) a wet kiss from a woman with loose dentures
e) the way the skirt of a girl moves around her thighs
as she climbs the stairs ahead of you
f) the image of your hand, there

2. On any given day, there are:
a) a bucket
b) pins in the corner of her mouth
c) what exactly does this have to do with the previous question?
d) a cloud that reminds you of a dream you had once, but
you can't remember, it's all just a series of images and the
images themselves are a blur. Or maybe that wasn't a dream.
Maybe it actually happened. Sorry. I can't be anymore specific.
But anyway, you were saying?

3. Subject and object confusion are often a sign of:
a) love
b) you're a woman
c) hitting your thumb with a hammer
d) your woman is a small machine
e) You're kidding. And what did she say?

New painting is up, plus the photo that inspired it. It's called "self-portrait as saint", and yes, I do currently have purple hair. I'm really digging it. Unfortunately it has to be gone for the new job tomorrow.

Okay. I'm over it. I've recovered. I spent all day working on a painting, and that helped me through it. It's a self-portrait, and it turned out really well. Me with a halo. hehe. So accurate. Eek. I only have Sunday between me and the new job, and my article about the drama queens is due next week. And I'm seeing the rental units on Wed. Working on a poem. Maybe I'll post it.

Men SUCK.

That is all.

A poet I read recently wrote: a poem is a small machine made of God.

I want to write about pieces of god in my poems, but god isn't the right word exactly. Perhaps I mean a piece of the whole. Buddhism is harder to wrap up in neat words like "god".

I just had to get these poems out of the way before I could sleep. They're offensive. Very. Extremely. If you're offended. Write me a comment. Sorry. Shield your eyes. Look, away, children, look away.

Mother's Day not terribly offensive, this one

I guess I get a little angry around Mother's day.

Always trying to make
the right mother,
the right mother's
day gift.

Always trying to write
for mother,
always trying to be
right for mother,
always trying to write
"Mother"
after she has fallen down.

Fallen down into
the ground
where someone wrote
"mother" on the stone.

Leave no stone unturned
looking for Mother.
The right mother.
The gift.

_____________

And yet more offensive:

Confessions of a Sex Addict

Okay I admit:
Yesterday, I had two.
Two, two times each.
And the day before that six.
Divided by...
I'm not sure how many.
Three I think.

Then it starts multiplying exponentially.
A cell dividing,
a spongy octagon gaining sides, planes,
dimensions until it mushrooms.

Blooms into sight --
the melting tip of the iceberg,
spilling off a cock,
any cock
really,
or every cock
(There's such a thing
as the everyman, isn't there)
so this is the everycock,
just your ordinary average joe cock,
except multiply that by fifty
and you'd have my week, or the start
of my week --
this bouquet
of dicks
flowering with sperm,
their throbbing, sweet little heads
pink hearts
upside down.

It's the numbers that get me off.
1 a day plus iron.
2 a day keeps the doctor away.
3 a day and I'm too
sore to sit
but I'm happy
happy
happy
happy
happy
happy.

__________

And stretches the bounds of good taste and sense further:

My TV

My TV is not only my best friend, it's my lover.
I stick my
fingers into the electronic goo
that lubricates the wires and plugs
and chips and gears and
I moan with the mutual excitement of it,
Like I'm sticking my tongue in my girlfriend's cunt
or my thumb up my boyfriend's ass.
Getting "in" to a body
is such a turn-on for me
I start shaking.
My pussy swells until my lips
are like cantalope halves between my legs.

My TV used to do that to me,
when I could tell it was really excited,
when I put away the remote and got up close and personal.

It would start winking its screen at me.
Sparks flew. Fireworks.
We understood each other, my TV and me.

I would run my tongue over its attenae
and go down on it,
The channels switching
spontaneously.
We had chemistry.

But then the VCR came
and things got complicated.

This guy is a great and very creative cartoonist, but not as poignant, nasty and funny as this one.

Jon-Jon should always be read.

That is all. I can't seem to stop crying today. hmm.

Oh my fricking god, this is so fricking... fricking.

Interviewed Mr. Todd Colby this evening. He enlightened me so much I thought the top of my head was going to lift off as my brain burst into light. It's wonderful to have encounters with geniuses (of the species: genus) -- they enrich my world and I try very hard not to feel smaller in comparision.

As I found out through the boy-of-two-possibly-three-dates, this guy has a tattoo parlor in my building. So now I can just trot on down the stairs, knock on his door, and ask to borrow some sugar, and a little pain and ink.

I've been thinking about sending in a couple poems to here, hoping they might make the yearly datebook. I have some favorites I'd like to try, but damn those copyright laws, they've already been published.