move-out week at the bäo (a thought in verbs)

sweeping painting moving smoking hoping poking hugging lugging missing packing sweating readying tracing pacing feeling singing washing reddening confusing checking double-checking dismantling renewing finding dreaming cleaning listening looking waiting waiting wanting wanting wondering

starring z, j, and me

this song infiltrated the Roost, let it gently worm its way into your ears! I worked furiously on this video for half the merry month of May, then took a couple months to convince my bandmate that we would never rerecord the vocals and he should just let me put it on your tubes already. here you go.

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.

If I ever find forever, I will share it with you.

"Hello, darling," she says and looks me straight in the face. I blink.

"You look different," I say. "My nails are longer and your hair looks more mussed than it should be and your cadence flows sweetly where my voice sounds like a zipper being opened and closed. You're wearing that dress I don't want to wear and I'm wearing the one you won't wear ever. You're in the circle and I'm standing in front of the crowd. You've been rubbing your temples and I've been twirling my hair. But we're both wearing sunglasses. I'm lost. I'm confused - what exactly is going on here?"

Today I run smack dab into myself and we recognize each other immediately. We exchange bows, baos, and to-do lists. "Oh" we both murmur "that's you then" and can think of nothing more to say. We both saddle up for our days. A parting shot, "I like your necklace" or "Nice tights." We can't be best friends but we can learn to live with each other. We will pass each other in hallways, on the CTA, in cafes and we will nod to each other every time. There's no ignoring one another.

Culture of excellence, culture of hugs, culture of the upside down, culture of fog and wandering, culture of specificity, culture of no no no no thank you, culture of apology, culture of mourning, culture of why don't you call anymore, culture of leading to follow, culture of following to lead, culture of living in your head imagining your body doesn't exist, culture of living in your body imagining your head doesn't exist, culture of needing people, culture of lists, culture of winging it, culture of washing our hair, culture of playing the same three albums for three months, culture of knowing about persona.

Hi, me. Do you know when it's time to take over?

Reg Induced Insanity: RIIaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaia - a portrait of getting out of school lickety-split

guys,
i think my eyes are open wider than usual
i mean i think i have a larger visual field than normal
a non-human level of awakeness pries open my eyes
and i have the tiny eyes of a shrew
the tiniest, lies lies from tiny eyes
sprints up and down the corridor of the faculty (foucaulty) offices
coffee coffee coffee coffeeeeeee (baileys - sassayossie) [dear last year of college thank you for helping me develop a deeper relationship with balzac's killer]
i wondered if helene cixous got drunk in libraries
the internet is a cesspool
protracted portraits of co-dependence, gchatting people sitting next to you
disoriented-dizzy
cool-awesome, spew spew vomit vomit, can we get this over fourty pages?
do you like the music of pivot?
take for instance the fact that they sound like a distillation of a clockwork orange
take for instance the fact that they smell like Beethoven
transgressive noises on the fourth floor: music leaking from head phones, wrappers, phones on vibrate, giggles, whispers, pages flipping, books clacking to the ground, someone typing too loudly, coughing/sneezing, snicking combination locks in oddly sideways lockers, packing and unpacking, (someone farts), scuffing feet along the floor, a gently clicking clock, can you hear the thoughts screaming inside peoples' heads
i'm talking about the shift from collecting to editing
let's edit this collection
it's got too many pieces, too many notes Mozart, the royal ear can only take so many
buzz buzz buzz
my phone's on vibrate just for you (hey dad thanks for calling to check on me, when did you get power back, what kind of wind storm are we talking?)
are you excited or apathetic?
is that our version of how are you?
how's it going, tik hei, tuto bem
my phone keeps buzzing
certain people who are usually on my mind are not on my mind (but they do pop up - do you bite your thumb, i do but not at you)
that's funny - i've forgotten (and i'm writing about memory and mimesis and journeys through learning and unity of time and monologues and direct address, but i have forgotten a vital thing/person/experience already so here are my inherent contradictions)
bright shining clarity does not necessarily equate to paginas on the computer
speed speed speed of thought, but too fast to steer
and my face feels dirty
or at least oozy (gross? nuh uh) and rough
before the sprints in the back corridors
i pretend not to notice i person who i know
i pretend again
this like a walk-by social snub
not really
i just don't want to have a conversation
oh reggle
joey reg
i love you
do i though?
she says to me "he said a word to me, a word that i can't even say out loud, and i think you're with me on this one, you know, like now is not the time, he said a word to me"
but see that was from another time, let's pack up and go
pack up to go the library
and home again
then to home home
bags in and out of books, bags in and out of books
books in bags,
baguettes on your head salvador
keep the ants from crawling into your eyes
SO HEY
i'm glad we can say - fuck you, i love you

i feel it in the static

I AM DOUBLE-FISTING!
hot coffee and cold (well isH) tea
and honestly
i'm ready to go

what a mind burp! the imperceptible mutabilities of my brain have shifted - suddenly my perception is altered so i can see the threads of interlocking connection and of association and CHOOSE which thought to follow. every thought has six or seven other thoughts twined round it by dint of the bridge's collapse and now since yesterday i can choose which ones to follow instead of being pulled down the estuary by my subconscious' fell force. what luck to have stumbled upon my own capabilities! and in the bath no less, mechanically moving to wash my hair, my nose, the back of my knees, but my mind spinning at a speed that says...you won't remember this in the morning.

coffee coffee coffee
caffeine and i have made fast friends this week
buffeting buffeting buffeting me along like a lukewarm blanket for my insides
always leaving behind that one particular aftertaste
and a feeling that my digestive tract is a sluice
but, you know, balzac starbucks dick in a cup of coffee shock and awe and (let's not pretend that we don't want to put our dicks in cups of coffeeeeeeee for a living)

Hi, I'm T'mo and this is my emotional range
dearest kitty, i am everywhere
hi ho friendo, buzz buzz buzz

a whirlygig breather-screamer-singer is ready to burst forth from me
what is the difference between nasty and erotic?
I MEAN, what is the difference between nasty and erotic?
eros
holding hands but between our palms there is peanut butter
and bananas! mashed together squishy squishy squish

forget what i said about perception BECAUSE maybe i was lying and it was all just made up and it never really happened and maybe i'm just beckoning you in so you will get close enough that i can bite you and you scream (careful don't shove your face so far into the pillow, make sure you can still breathe, pretty one little one pretty little one) but still you'll like it because you like it when i bite you and you look real nice with little red blooms all over your skin, so don't pretend

don't play coy with me
hello pretty princess
hello little girl
funny old thing, funny funny little thing, child, creature, sweetness and light
it's a fine thing
it's a fine thing to be alive

for your consideration...

i think this is a pretty interesting article that conflicts interestingly with this whole line of thinking i've been doing about alienation, labor exploitation under capitalism, greed, excess, money...for me, this makes me want to think more about the language i'm using to describe the system and where i'm placing (or depriving) people of agency/desire to do good. (what is the desire to "do good?") anyway. i'd love to hear your thoughts.

whole text is at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/2007/02/army-of-altruists.html

"Army of Altruists: On the alienated right to do good
By David Graeber
Harper's Magazine 2007

You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. -- Senator John Kerry (Democrat, Massachusetts)

Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education. -- Senator John McCain (Republican, Arizona)"

(continue reading here)

from the warm&quiet isolation of the regenstein,
elz

giving birth to a vacuum

I am fundamentally against the smashing of guitars, and all other varieties of instrument destruction. Don't throw a tuba down the stairs. Don't stab a drum head with a stiletto. Don't siphon off the beans from a maraca. Don't bury each piece of a clarinet in a separate location. Don't open the emergency hatch so your Vulcan lute gets blown into the vastness of space. Just give them to me if you really want them to stop talking to you.

the marked hen

this is not a story for the faint of heart

here on west wind farm there live about 25 mature hens who lay about 25 eggs every single day. in a separate coop there reside about the same number of 3-month old chicks (who are black and blue and slightly brown and haven't grown their red gobble gobbles on their heads), who will replace the others when they become too old (they're near the end of their lives).
russell, the 22 year old from seattle who came to these lands 4 months ago and has decided he will never leave, is the master of the hens. he feeds them, collects their eggs, and spends good time with the chicks, allowing them to become accustomed to the human touch.
about two weeks ago, russell began noticing queer occurences in the coop. at least one, if not as many as 3, eggs were broken each dusk as he went in to collect them. who was the culprit? the mystery continued...
until last week, russell walked into the coop and saw a hen run out of the wall of nests, with a shell and bit of yolk on her beak. she was caught red handed.

quickly she was moved out of the mature hens coop and into the pen with the younger hens where she could not eat any more eggs. but she kept getting back into her old coop, the wily one. she was then splattered in blue paint, for us to more easily identify the disrupter of order on the farm. since then she has remained with the younger ones.

and there are still more gruesome facts... it seems she is teaching the young chicks of her ways; by laying eggs and pecking at them. the young chicks have never seen eggs before and now, it is feared, all they know is to peck at them until they break.

something must be done about the marked hen. it is russell's mission (a directive from peter, master of the lands) to get rid of her. most likely by outsourcing her death to a neighbor who will find some unsavory use for her tough body.

she will be remembered by the few as a boundary-breaking, devil-may-care, rebel with an unknown cause who was murdered for her beliefs.

rest in peace, marked hen.


----
edit at 3:07pm:
russell dutifully placed the hen in a dog crate and about 10 minutes ago coleman (the neighbor) came by with his dogs in the bed of his truck, placed the hen in with them, and rode away. her body will be too tough to eat plain-- she will have to be boiled or put in a stew in order to be tasty. i told peter i hoped i wouldn't get carted away if i started drinking my menstrual blood and he said if people found out, i just might. but then again no one harvests my blood to sell at saturday markets for $4/dozen. this is so fucked up... she is being killed for eating her own eggs (she laid and ate another one today). apparently with chickens these days it's actually bred out of them to fuck. there is a rooster here who lives with 25 hens and only rarely does one of them actually guard her egg and take care of it (it's called brooding) because she knows it's fertilized.
maybe we will have a little ceremony tonight for her by the fire.

wikipedia shook my hand!

On Handshakes

The handshake is initiated when the two hands touch, immediately. It is commonly done upon meeting, greeting,parting, offering congratulations, expressing gratitude, or completing an agreement. In sports or other competitive activities, it is also done as a sign of good sportsmanship. Its purpose is to convey trust, balance, and equality.^[6]

Unless health issues or local customs dictate otherwise a handshake should always be made using bare hands. In some regions especially in Continental Europe attempting to perform a handshake while wearing gloves may be seen as an inappropriate or even derogatory behavior. In traditional American etiquette the requirement to remove a glove depends on the situation - "A gentleman on the street never shakes hands with a lady without first removing his right glove. But at the opera, or at a ball, or if he is usher at a wedding, he keeps his glove on." (wikipedia)

From an alternative source: Squids often link tentacles for similar purposes but it is considered highly inappropriate to touch an indisquidual's leftmost tentacle unless the participants are intimately involved.

on that note,

hello to le toast, a.k.a. ethan, and to iah, who have ascended to meet us on our descent (or vice versa).

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!