may's a-flurry

home-to-home!
i left oakland on sunday night, after two weeks of preparation--bike building (spend FOUR HOURS tuning my front derailleur and now it mostly works but of course when you load a bike up with like 50 lbs of shit everything is a little different), packing, repacking, saying goodbye, sweeping my room so someone else can live there and call it theirs. i kept telling teresino they could move stuff in while i was still there but i think they needed to wait until i left, until the room was really empty...but they still came by every day to water plants and give me a big hug. we had a kind of thing but it was all very ambiguous and so when we said goodbye they gave me some quizzical looks but i'm never sure how much to make a summary story and how much to leave things open-ended, allow our stories to develop separately...
anyway,
after my goodbye party friday night (packets of stuff in tin foil in a fire, hella drunk kids from fancy house) i kinda disappeared, running around and helping build a chicken coop and celebratory beers for everything.
sunday i got an amtrak up to eugene
kevin helped me pack up my bike at the station, hung out on the tracks talking about hot mess and dreams and travelling and king cobra
i slept most of the way and felt bad about it cause the view was so beautiful--the starlight line i think--ate hummus and that funny gjetoast scandanavian cheese
woke up in eugene, packed up & took off!
i rode about 50 miles that day, starting around 1:30 and through lots of little towns and big fields...i managed to get lost only in the small cities (eugene then albany then hella lost in the outskirts of pdx)
constantly amazed that my bike was holding up, heavy as fuck with all of these things i thought i'd need
thrilled at first to have occasion to be eating granola bars and wheat gluten jerky and emergen-c for every meal
mostly excited to be on the open road
i biked around albany like 4 times and a cute girl at a coffee shop gave me a consolatory italian soda while i looked for the way out. finally found the bridge out of town and contemplated pitching my tent on the golf course, then instead asked some folks if i could camp in their yard and got 2 compassionate "no's" before someone said "yes."
hunkered down with "the some of parts" by t.cooper and a black butte porter...
after i was asleep some cops showed up with shiny lights and inquisitive faces asking what i was doing there; after i said i had permission they proceeded to ask where i was going, coming from, how long since i'd left pennsylvania, if i went to school, if i finished school, what i studied, where i'd lived...what what what. i was still mostly asleep and confused but eventually they left.
next morning (yesterday) started out at 7, biked about 110 miles! thought it was supposed to be only 90 but i got lost in lake oswego (wow i hate suburbs and cars wowow). the hills got worse (literally, topographically) as i got tireder and the worst stretch was near wilsonville, probably 60 miles in, 20 miles on a curvy road with lots of speeding cars and NO SHOULDER. once some bros in a car swerved and screamed "get the fuck off the road" and that shook me up, made me want to write "share the road - i don't want to die" on the back of my panniers. or i dunno, put up some guerrilla signs or something. such entitlement.
so! i made it to pdx exhausted, displeased with the city after arriving through its suburbs, now up in the north-northeast with bernard and c80 and other folks in a sleepy smoky beautiful house for a couple days till i head up to washington. i'm excited to get back on my bike and feel that freedom of movement.
love to all!

a day in the life

welcome to squareville hills forest park place, chicago.
your humble hero mr monster had an epic day down in the hills here which he'd like to share.

item: he finished his project at work. it looks like this:

item: he stole something and got away with it. for the last time...
item: he successfully navigated hell and came away with a fitted, rented, white fucking bowtie tuxedo. speculations as to why may now commence.
item: he did the laundry. oh my gawd is there no end to the madness?
item (yes it keeps going): he paid two, not one but two bills.
item: he met with a prospective personal knife fighting trainer and secured a lesson for the morrow at a very reasonable price.
item: he finally spoke telemetrically with a dear old friend with whom a conversation was long overdue.
item: he beat starfox for the nintendo 64 in record time, he kids you not.
item: he took multiple walks.
item: he took a valium.
item: he watched an entire movie and half an episode of the daily show, all at 1.2x speed.
item: he wrote a poem. holy shit it's been a while. here it is:

twinkle toes & the life of the mind
went for a walk
swung their legs
and peacock tailbones,
winging along.
in focus! they yelled at the offal shoremen.

said twinkle toes to her
gerrymandered friend:
whatever you say, their curves are much too flat.

but i just had them done,
said the life of the mind,
what-all do you mean by that?
twinkle toes crinkled rows
cufflinks all in line
teach me how you kick your heels
toenails oh so fine.

but nicely nicely,
the life of the mind had missed the point
while twinkle toes could only laugh
and never age.

item: he posted in the damn blog! baooooooooooooooooo!

you can break my face but you won't change

listened to this song while walking Ozball today and thought of z. I know you guys were taking more of a generally east-west route, but try not to get confused and kill a horse/nun.

feeling awake vs. being awake

silence so loud: so this is the life of the infinite? i is alive, i is awake?
why so much wondering pursuing my life if i am indeed alive.
am i to go through it
ever propping up the illusion that i am awake? it´s a fine thing so far. after all, the illusion has given me dancing, good food, gardens, forests, bikes, funny haircuts, costumes, great sex, electric ideas so much! is this the climax? maybe illusion is not the right word: it suggests regret, disingenuity, failure. not what i am going for! never!
but no matter how many ideas i go through i am not safe; i am safe when i do, when i act, when i am .

i notice when i want to feel alive i reach for the typical things: hiking, traveling, newness, hitching, gardening, camping, la-la, fucking, beautiful company etc
all greats things, especially when shared
but there still is a lingering something that suggests more
for a wild grove of youth.
knowing what we may know
what we feel,
are times urgent?
is there something going on?
something going down?
haven´t we been talking like something is?
is there something we should be doing together?
we this beautiful pile of imagination, youth, will, creativity, bodies, wonder kids
are we waiting for something?
have we waited too long?
not taken our connections and experiences together as faith in something promising and important?
are we just going to float on?
is there something to be realized before georgraphy and memory have their way with us?
is place our fate? what about something nomadic?

fear love stability home loneliness will have something to say about this, i bet they will.

these are all real questions and not just round about ways of stating stuff

lately i do not fall asleep at night
i put myself down on things to try
but what happens is something like
my self opening up like a strange flower.
crumbling away into dream, trust, excitement
i am brimming with something terrible and wonderful
i see your faces, and your light.
our voices, talking
we´re moving somewhere
the world is watching
because it is interested in love, courage, possibilities of the young.

i dont write this to be romantic. i cannot sleep. i dont know what
to do. that´s probably the important part.
at least, i have it down somewhere accessible to all of you.
not locked in my notebook.

anfreundend

The past few days have been a whirlwind of tears and euphoria, German dictionaries and massive communication failures, bodies everywhere and buckets o' sweat. By the end of each day, I was exhausted and overwhelmed and ready to crawl into my hostel bed. I wanted space, I wanted friends, I wanted to speak German. I wanted to feel like I was making some kind of home, getting to know the city, making it friendlier.

I had been on an apartment hunt for weeks it felt, visiting expensive designer apartments in Prenzlauer Berg, home to only pregnant women, new mothers, and babies. I visited an apartment in Schoneberg that took me two hours on the train. No one emailed me back, no one was willing to work through my broken German, no one even had a fucking minute to speak a bit more slowly. Thursday, I showed up to the last apartment visit I had scheduled, 45 minutes late after debating whether or not to come. I ended up staying for three hours, eating strawberries and yogurt and talking about anti-semitism in leftist politics, how to make the ö sound, and all the hot queers in Berlin. Today, I moved in to this gorgeous apartment with skylights and big open spaces. It's already starting to feel like home. I've got a little room with a loft bed, a huge communal kitchen full of fresh cheap food, and 6 roommates who speak with me in Deunglisch. It's nice.

mugged by the muggy

it's been awhile--

my skin's a little browner, my tummy a little emptier, my room a little messier, a couple projects finished, a new couple projects in utero, my thoughts tumbling around like damp clothes in this broken-dryer-wet heat,

in the mornings, i stumble out of my bed (sort of like sheets left on the floor of a sauna) and put on the minimals and walk to the lake. so the first apprehension of my day is engineered, clear--i count to ten before i can dunk myself into the icy water. then i take a deep breath and count to ten again. and then i breathe for a little while. and then i dive--

this morning i sat on the porch swing with my coffee

and noticed a tiny spider hanging on a web
between the ropes of the swing

she must have built that home last night
while i dreamed of clay bodies

while no one was watching, she began to wait

and i watched her crawl around and didn't want to ruin the intimacy

(the promise of my silence, our tacit agreement that our shared story would turn out a particular way, that is,

enduring)

i didn't want to break our moment
by being the one to point out that

her home couldn't stay there,
that her home would be folded in upon itself

within the hour.
(and then that i might be the one to do it, to undercut
the optimistic fantasy that drove her to create a home.)

the man who supports the weight of his white crippled dog as they walk through the ally walked through the ally with his dog. the biker who lives in the house with the garden rolled his bike out, strapped on his helmet, and squinted at his watch. a car-driver in a car drove by. things went as they do, the listeners listening and the coffee-drinkers drinking their coffee and the bikers biking and the wakers waking and the sleepers sleeping.

LB wrote, "'i didn't think it would turn out this way' is the secret epitaph of intimacy."

(and i wonder, how do i change my living to avoid that--

not to say cynically, authoritatively "i knew it would turn out like this,"

but to think that in our intimacy, nothing is sure or promised or forever,

and this is okay and good and beautiful because it is)--

and to the spider, what i might have wished i could say was:
"i'm sorry i cannot be seduced by your web
but my aesthetics of attachment are not careful enough
for us to flourish together. it doesn't have to make sense."
but the quietude was tempting and i intimated with my breath
...it doesn't have to make sense.

last week my brother was here, what a quiet charming fresh young mind,

we adventured around and i felt my spirit of adventure returning,

to the MCA to live on metal mobile islands, biking, bäoing, sitting by the lake,

a sip of a beer is an illicit transgressive simple delight,

the world is not so hard, it is good, and the days flow by filled with ideas that are sometimes followed through till completion and sometimes the sketches are left behind.

and these days have been days of making and unmaking,

tinctures pickles lentils paintings drawings beginnings plans truths quietudes stories bread zines

promises obligations burdens annoyances aspirations falseness messes stresses desires pressures expectations stories bread zines

i'm finding great satisfaction in these small projects which have become daily rituals, and though sometimes the process is painful the reward is always great. i am content being alone and together, quiet in groups, fermenting and bubbling in my desires and allowing them to slowly unwind as i bike up, down, back, forth, through the prairie and the froth and the broken-dryer-air.

for now, that's all. i'm thriving on air and memories and presents and futures and glasses of water and icy mornings and the sparest of intimacies and the occasional loaf of hot hot bread.

a lil bit of something else

so to avoid the onslaught of the wheezing robots, i changed the blog to "readable by authors/invited readers only." hope that's okay with you. if you want to open a fellowsquid-squirrel-fox's mind to something adventurous,
- click "customize" at the top of this page (or navigate to the "dashboard")
- click the "settings" tab
- click "permissions" (the last tab)
- scroll to the bottom and add your buddy's email address to the waiting-wanting "invited readers" box
they'll get an email with the address and so long as they are not a robot, are welcome here.
[update: after talking to some squids, i switched this back so you 1) don't have to sign in and 2) anyone can read the blog. as a little sidenote to myself&all, since this is an open page and we sometimes direct our friends here, use yr Sense and don't post any super private info--address, phone #, full name, etc. and since the robots are here, email addresses are rife for spam so keep em to yrself.]

in other news,
capitalism is so boring.

for instance,

this weekend i went to madison with z, the isthmus of bikes-goodfood-tall leaning trees-lakes-co-ops-“ethnic”food-bourgeoisdelight and for the rest of us it’s a prime site for liberatory politics and homes that heal after a long day of the same-the same-the same, this time in wisconsin. the capitol building is better when the farmer’s market rings around it and after we make the rounds (cheese curds, kale, wallawallawallawontcha onions, conversation, little leaf samples, toothpicks for free, hot pickles, endless preserves) we go at it again with coffee-as-handwarmer just to see if there’s something we missed. for instance, a pastry. for instance, strawberry rhubarb something. for instance,

we toured some co-ops, not quite tourists more like “membershipper&waywardperson,” dwelling in the in-between between living and desiring, asking and choosing. reading house journals, asking about conflict, in this gap between rhetoric and reality finding cleavages of spirit and quietude. for instance, how much is dirt a part of your house practice? do you do the dishes because you have to or because you love to? when you say something objectionably real, do others agree? and are you friends? were you friends first? for instance, who shows up? who lives here? for instance, in this huge space, yard-public-rooms-niches-shed-kitchen, where in here do you live? for instance,

cigarettes on a porch, punching kimchi until it sweats, introducing legs to hills and mounds to muscles, homebuilt saunas full of steam and newly-met naked bodies, greywater toilets, filling up space with talk, local beef and indian honey, filing cabinets rocking back and forth with the weight of zines that could change the world if they landed in the right hands,

for instance, our hands found each other.

for instance, getting this funny feeling between my hand, heart, stomach, junk, bellybutton that maybe what i want (permaculture, farming, living, learning, thriving, flourishing, creating, loving) might not be as far away as the west coast, that there are places where life is easier to live well, a funny feeling of jealousy and impatience and through stories and reconstructions and resonance,

coming to love my now/here/present all the more, as ephemeral as it may sometimes seem.

something like,

dear madison,

you are one hot isthmus. thanks for the sunset. i think i’ll be back to go bikeriding with you soon. meet you by the ramps at the farmer’s market?

with communal warmth, cool breezes, and flying hair&pages,
eliot

an xtra reading assignment

speaking of smoke, rhythm and incidental rocks, if you have a free 30 minutes this was a pretty incredible article about the search for a (post)modern opium den:
opium
I've been in a few places that people have described as opium dens, but always metaphorically - there was never any opium! I've tried to guerrilla-plant poppies in hyde park, but they didn't grow. In italy someone gave me a tiny sliver of opium, but that's a long story for another day.
I think all signs point to Thailand - the bus leaves in september '10 - and only you can decide if you'll be on it.

path to knowledge

recently i am reading "the teachings of don juan: a yaqui way of knowledge." it is intriguing. more on that later because i am low on juices.

today i am in pittsburgh
this morning i was at oberlin college in oberlin, ohio, which alex tried to convince me was about 10 blocks by 10 blocks but i insisted was more like 12x15. probably more like 11x9 depending on how you count them.

last night presented 3 serendipitous events in close proximity (10 minutes):
1. on my way to a questionably compelling party "above the coffeeshop," i saw a familiar face and pointed and said "i know you!" he stared and started and it turned out to be theo, my ex-girlfriend's ex-roommate's boyfriend. too complicated. but a kid i met several times when i hung out at the shoreland 2nd year. possibly a little worse for the wear, but lovely once he overcame his shock.
2. someone found my lost bali shag tobacco pouch (nearly brand new) and returned it to me! of course i rolled em a spliff in return.
3. i met nikeel's (sp?) sister while smoking outside this too-full party. she did not deliver a philosophical manifesto. she was also lovely.

actually i realized that i visited oberlin exactly a year ago this weekend. upon my last visit, i wrote a love letter/thank you note (are they so dissimilar?) to oberlin (here if you's curious). what a strange regularity--when my plants grow in spurts and my period comes as often as now and laters to quik snax or rare as laundry day (that is, not often)...it is funny that such cycles would reveal themselves.

i took deep breaths and watched people work and live. i smoked too much and watched a college scene from the outside. it made me want to go back to school and also never go back to living in academia.
i also thought about how many young lives thrive in close proximity and how easy it is to not wear a helmet and accidentally get run over by an 18 wheeler. i think i'll start wearing a helmet. i advise you to consider it (if you haven't already).

all for now
love to the baohaus&others

Saber T. wrote this last night.

all:
can we all channel the same thoughts at the same time IN THE SAME WAY? are we thinking the same actual thoughts or just the same words.
tamara is sleeping
eliot's was a physical contribution. let me translate in words: I LOVE YOU and i am so just at peace with everything and have an opinion in the form of vics vapo rub on your lip

oh no! i'm gonna post later! leaving to get the book, back ltr. love ethan toast doobs mcgee

jake is gonna think of somethin really really good. he's here that's enough

sara goes by SABER

tamawa's symbol like prince is blowing rivulets of air, it's beautiful, also the texture of brad's hair is beautiful!

todd's brain is made of cookie dough ice cream
todd turned a whopping good age on the second of this month!

guinea piggggs

a thousand miles wrapped up in blankets

i slept so late today, droppeddripped into a dreamworld that wouldn't let me go.
at first i was at a relative's house with my sister. there were a lot of people ("relatives") i'd never seen before and the ones with recognizable faces also seemed like strangers. i think i watched porn with someone who claimed to be my cousin.
then we were in this hotelplace and we had to prepare a defense. we got into this court-like place and i was woefully unprepared, had forgotten all of my pieces of paper. i had a hard time stating my name. the purpose of the "trial" was unclear (it could have been a conference) but my sister and i were called upon to Do Something. luckily instead of a defense we turned off the lights and did a performance. i think we won.
back to the hotel, now in the suburbs in the middle of nowhere: i stole some runts and other candy from a grocery store with an unguarded back door (silly silly) and shared with my sister and some other dreamfriends i had met earlier that night. (one, for instance, had long long brown hair and a big black hat and wore all black.) we ate them in the hotel.
later becci and i were hanging out in the garden and i think i dreamt of trellises that grew high high and huge huge collard greens sprouts, racing the sunflowers towards the sky.

anyway i had like 13 hours of adventures in dreamworld. i wish dreams weren't so compelling. sort of. or just that i could wake up in the morning...this "rainforest" sound produced by my cellphone kept creeping into my dream and was very unwelcome.

also i am excited for leli's return!

the rolling ball and being behind, in front of, and on top of it

it is quite possible
that this couch,
in the halflight of our living room,
has powers to suck people in.
i have experienced this.

onto other squidling topics...i feel my tentacles tingling a little.
the past few days have been somewhat immemorable. a few moments:
watching some kids at weiser concoct vegannaise out of olive oil and tofu and stuff.
smearing menstrualblood-ish dye into my hair and scalp, blood everywhere.
scavenging and cooking (of epic proportions) with hausmates...a cacophony of smells and delightz.

tuesday night i bedecked myself for rocky horror at the roots collective. sporting a new(old) leather vest and black-and-white striped tights and a full head of black curls, i reexperienced how fucking hot tim curry is and raised my voice in praise of cultfilm genderbending. wow. we played combat kissing in the yard and i weaved home on my bike, clicking away and hoping no cars got in my way.

then i dreamt that i went to a music festival somewhere in indiana! there were lots of groups of students and their teachers. food for students was free but they only had banana muffins and teacher food (cheese) cost 2-5 cents. i didn't have any money. then there were some anarchists, all scruffy men, organizing some kind of action.

i have been sprouting collard greens and catnip in the house and it is so so ready to be planted in the garden so that's what i'm off to do now.

sorry this is boring. sometimes (but only occasionally, if you live in the baohaus), life is boring.

i think the gay rodeo is this weekend

on saturday justin and i took the 8:10 ferry from port angeles across the strait of juan de fuca to victoria, the capitol of british columbia. 
where we didn't get any stamps in our passports, so we might have not gone at all.
we intended it to be a day trip-- most of the time we walked around looking for food. we found a vegan buffet called "green cuisine" which charges you by the kilogram! i ate 5 kilograms of food once. we bought yummy beer and wine and drank it, and then stole magnetic hematite from the royal museum of britsh columbia (which wanted to charge us $18.50  piece to get in). we have this new code of ethics where if you want something and it costs too much then you take it... i think i've only paid for chocolate once or twice on this trip. there was this AMAZING chocolate company called organicfair which we got a TON of different flavors. also got a baseball cap and beauty and the beast. basically the day was spent feeling bored and illegitimate beausewe didn't want to spend money and yet we spent a lot of it. 
we went to catch the 6:15 ferry but it was full! we decided not to take the 7:30 (and have to get picked up begrudgingly at 9pm) and just stay the night. immediately we began approaching moderately hip young people to ask what was going on that night. we got varied responses and decided to hit up the vegan buffet again before it closed at 8. we asked the cashier with platinum blond hair shabed on one side and 8 inches long on the other...she told us some new places and then we asked her the real question "sorry to ruin this pure exchange, but where can we get drugs?" "look, this is not a pure exchange, this is victoria." and she ran out to get a buddy of hers who had just left. after dinner we hung out with this buddy and 2 others behind a dumpster, drinking beer, smoking spliffs, and talking about rocks and breakups until it was time to buy acid from the bouncer of a nearby metal club. i have never so obviously bought drugs in my life... amazing. about 7 US$ for a hit, pas mal. then we followed colin and john (i'll call him john, i never learned his name the whole night!) to colin's house where a party was growing. colin lives in a magical relic from the 19th century-- used to be the mayor's house. wood paneled with a cozy kitchen, a co-op full of seemingly interesting hip indie mid to late 20s types. colin was growing kombucha in his room which was delicious. and then the DJ started. i danced and took breaks all night, learning so many names (mine was elliot- which i've used before i knew ali used it too. after all, our real names are similar), eating fresh mulberry cheesecake, talking about permaculture, dancing, not getting high (bogus acid grr), feeling not at home and out of place, being worried, turning down an offer to dance with megan who had just complimented my dancing because i dont think i actually know how to dance with someone. and realizing that no one there was actually that interesting to me...  that was strange. it was like everyone had died sort of. i would never want to live in victoria...
so at about 2:30 j and i approached colin and asked to sleep on his balcony. he made a nest of blankets and it was cold outside but we were very warm, burritoed in by our sweaters and comforters. we pretended we were on a ship, sleeping under the stars with sheets as sails and the badly played clarinet (somewhere in the distance) as seagulls.
woke up 5 hours later to creep out and catch the ferry, and uneventful and nappy ride. we weren't looking forward to hitching the 10 mile ride back to the farm (buses dont run on sundays), but we met a guy in country aire (the health food store) who drove us all the way home! he lives right in town and he drove us out to the farm... wow. people like him are great to find when you are tired of being errant and just want to sleep. his name is bill, he used to work for 20 years for the rock division of warner brothers records, in artist relations. he says john fogerty is a jerk and the barenaked ladies are nice guys. we gave him one of our many stolen chocolates.
it's nearly noon here and i haven't done any work yet. bean picking? uprooting canadian thistle? i hate working here. i just want to eat and play and hike. and find psychedelic mushrooms.
so that was my 26 hours in canada. a little alienating and a lot of chocolate.

A rememberance from spring

I wrote this down in April apparently, after Civ class one day:

I had a beautiful dream today in class. We were talking about why Kublai Khan would bother to entertain Marco Polo and his suggestion that the emperor convert to Christianity. The text gave us the impression that there were only public and political obstacles standing in the way of Khan submitting himself to the Nazarite, that underneath he knew that Jesus and his tripartite religion was the True Way. All this is obviously total crap. I dreamed that the Great Khan was a magnificent melange of all the regions his grandfathers overran. He was a gorgeous collage of Turkey and India and China and Mongolia and Jordan. He was this polygendered, polysexual celestial benevolent leader, who knew that his position grew out of chance and not God. He forgot no one. And Marco Polo was a pretty boy he kept around and trotted out at parties because he said such hilariously outrageous things. And the Khan would make Marco sit at his feet (when of course he didn't send him out on grand but ultimately meaningless expeditions) and he would stroke the little Venetians hair and smile down on him. Marco would talk about Christianity and the Khan would nod and indulge him, saying, "Of course, it sounds lovely, send me your priests to tell me more." And the priests would come and tell the fantastic stories of the Bible and everyone in the court would be delighted. And Kublai Khan would be pleased at watching his wives and husbands smile and giggle. And they would all talk late into the night about the panopticon and performativity and identity and promise each other walks in the gardens in their old age.

Mmmm, civ class. I suppose when I look back, that was about undermining a certain narrative of power, but also kind of realize it justifies and exoticizes another kind of power.

Lately my dreams have been taking place in a hybrid of all the underground train stations I have passed through in my life. They all have deep, vast lakes in them as well, which I inevitably end up falling into or swimming in or floating on top of. I wonder what that's about. I've also been walking a lot of places in Hyde Park without shoes on. It's a totally dangerous-cool-exciting feeling. I guess it says "I live here, I own this place, and no one can tell me what to do."

time

hello fellow adventurersss

it's been ten days since i first arrived in seattle in a green turd and began to paint that town red. it's been a week days since justin's and bianca's first experience with nettles. it's been 2 days since mine (the trick is saliva-- it neutralizes it). it's been three nights sleeping on the couch with gixxer (and on yesterday was 8 years since he was born), and three days of crushing on david and russell, possibly because it's been about thirteen days since i've been touched. eight days since my first acid trip. one day since i climbed up into a cloud with trees coated in moss, screaming and singing and running and laughing. and losing justin. he came back, though i wasn't sure he would. it's also been three days since i bought twilight, and justin bianca and i have been reading it to each other but since it's such a piece of junk we've skipped most parts. the town i live outside of, port angeles, is mentioned several times in the book because it takes place in forks, about an hour west of here... so this whole area is getting lots of tourists (16,000 in forks in july) and there's twilight stuff everywhere!

it doesn't rain here in the summer, except saturday sunday and today. it's cold! ali sent me an email about sweat-- is it hot where you are? i'm wearing a sweater i bought at goodwill in town and my fingers and toes are so cold.

just watched shortbus while cleaning garlic, which caro and ali have mentioned to me a few times. i'm basically hoping que(e)ry will be like that. glitter sex fame glamour money drugs power dirt, and so on.
bye guys,
i'm lovin' reading this, keep it up
.zee

In a bronze chamber, faced with the silent handkerchief of a strangler, hope has been faithful to me;

yeah to speak from my tentacles, i'm a little sad that it seems all of the squidbloggers but nautilus & i have fled from the south side enclave. (rollypolly left today for the western coast and mr. malic was compelled by irresistable opportunity to a fairyland of fun in michigan.) but so many adventures! i knew this would be a blog of adventurers and i've been inspired to find my own adventures this summer as well as to recognize how amazing the people who enter and leave my life are. you are among these rare squidkindred.

last night i dreamt i was rolling spliffs and driving west in a red car full of people i didn't know. ah ah!

unrelatedly, i would like to direct your attention to the ancient book of sex and science where the makers of monsters, inc. have turned their attention to weighty matters.

today i was singled out from the masses for a job interview at istria cafe, which has yet to occur but when it does will hopefully result in a deluge of coffee beans, tips, new buddies, life sustained by minimal wages, and sprinklings of consumerist delight.

and when i come it will be on your face (book)

fellows, friends, fish,

my first post has been long in coming.

some of us are -- the point is that coming is not the point.

so here i am. long and unstructured.

i will begin with a few disasters, since that seems an appropriately low starting point from which to soar, tentacles flying and jelly shivering:

a few days ago the noble 5491 residents (five bodies with about 1818 tentacles apiece, give or take) awoke from greener pastures to realize that gabriel had been MIA for several days. our distress was manyfold, as gabriel was not well-equipped for his adventures. rolly and i mournfully inquired at open produce and steven, sleepless by mysterious mewing, referred us to his apartment complex where a lone cat mewed for nights. gabriel has now been located in a holding chamber full of cats at someone's mom's house. his re-arrival is greatly anticipated.

earlier this week i went to homewood to breathe the suburban air but my reverie was interrupted by the firecrackered burning of four cars in the vicinity of z's house. what oddities do not make it to the news! a family van, a much-loved corvette, a garaged car...haphazard destruction that did not have the trappings of heartfelt ecoterrorism. many people were sad and confused.

a few other miscellaneous small tragedies include the crippling of innocent bicycles (a streak of unluck that has plagued both rolly and i, winknight) and several small dead animals on the road. also, many bug bites.

but bug bites are the marks of more pleasing things and as i itch the clusters of angry bugkisses behind my ears, i am reminded of rolly & nautilus & my epic venture into the indiana dunes national park, a headlong tripping into a very boggy middle earth. we snuck easily into the park and refused to submit to a confusing system of marked paths until we found ourselves deep in an orc-ridden area and subject to millions of unwanted advances by amorous insects. then with unexpected significance nautilus said, and i quoth, "i wish we had a flying car" and within moments, a small cart zoomed down the path toward us. we begged and pleaded and plunked in the bed of the cart-car and accompanied the confused (and stoned?) park garbage-collectors on their adventurous route. we found ourselves at the opposite end of the park with dusk (the fateful hour of car-towing) fast approaching. hitching was mostly unsuccessful and saddening but then our cart-driving friend picked us up laughing at our absurdity (hikers who've hiked too adventurously! strange maps! middle earth is not for humans!) and the homeward trek was most satisfying.

i decided to spend this summer in chicago, hoping my grumbling disaffection for the city would flower and transform itself. i have had many adventures thusfar, most of them not of my own making--that is, i grew into the impression that i had to create projects and adventures and objects for my passion. but this summer has been explorations of new scenes (burning man, anarchist, wicker park, kinky) and tentacular beings, experiences had and wormholes into greater adventures. i have not fallen in love with chicago, but that is not for lack of potential adventures. and i am tired tired of wicker park, though the person at quimby's winks at me sometimes.

a few other brief notes that are determining (though not overdetermining) my current existence.

yesterday i created the prototype for my new, d.i.y., multi-step, gorgeous dildofriend. it has a star on it. as i stroked the clay to remove my fingerprints, i wondered what to put in the core of my wand. any ideas? what would you put in the core of your wand?

on tuesday z & justin are heading westward to shock their lives into living and in pursuit of the enigmatic spiritual answers available only (in limited quantity) in india and mexico (and peru). they will be missed.

i went to the next generation "kink munch" at ambrosia cafe in lincoln park. apparently the kink scene is a) entirely in lincoln park b) full of tentative and math-loving uchicagoans c) bougie/expensive/overpriced/capitalism-entrenched as can be. i learned about fireplay and fire floggers and fire cupping and was intrigued.

last night from the front porch i yelled a revolutionary cry seeping with passion and loneliness, love and despair, confusion and straightforward insistence:

BAO

BAOBAO

BAO?

BAO BAO BAO BAO BAO.

BAoooooooooooo!