oh not much

geez it is pouring out here in the west hills of portland and it sounds like the ocean crashing into the back of this mansion.

putting things in bags, this dance i have been dancing of touching things and shuffling papers,
scrounging for toothbrushes (i'm at 4 now)
flipping through books
sorting into piles
rolling up clothes
putting liquids in plastic bags.
oh geez home again home again jiggity jig.

headed to pittsburgh tonight on a bird that walks on clouds slurping gasoline
or something
it's funny to be excited about not paying rent
for a few weeks
in the house
i grew up in
for years

i'm hoping to find some ways that are satisfying for me and easy gentle for my sister brother parents to celebrate welcome acknowledge the solstice on the 21st and the full moon (the 28th?). lots of things. and a family reunion in tennessee. my mum sent out an email suggesting cabins for the "kids" based on gender and then another email suggesting instead a division of quarters based on "comfort."

yup yup,
it's portland,
everything's fuckin cute
even in the rain!
pink and purple narwhals,
uniporn,
restaurants with "toast" in the name,
splashy umbrellas,
tiny inventions
apps galore

it's been a whirlwind here, and really really fuckin lovely. lovely to walk around and say "oh i don't live here anymore!" (we just got officially "approved" to rent a house with a fruit room near wolf creek. mmmmmmhmmmm) also busy and wet and occasionally totally overwhelming.

all of these words
feel a little hollow
right now

i have a new tattoo!

aw oh

well i am i feel at a crossroads, and it could be a very boring crossoad
or it could be so much?
right now
today
tonight
the family,
that had been a-brewing winter plans
well
what happened?
they didnt materialize
fact
&this is ok! this is ok!

but i think i should let go!
when all our wills are truly aligned
they will align
and we will all feel good bringing our whole selves
but i dont want to compromise
and i dont think we should

i am young
i am fucking young
and i am fucking alive
and i fucking love you

who's mehitabel?

also!
this week!
z's homes nest up at the roost!
a team of windbusting frigid bxc bikers, swoop in from madtown,
via mke
and crash here
on the same day
that j.boog returns
from places east
whaaaaaaaa
t?
(also last night at dill pickle food co-op i was asked
"are you a member?"
"no but my partner might be... justin tate"
*typey typey* "are you elizabeth tate?"
"ahaaahaa, ha. no. no that's not me.")

so thanksgiving, will be a raucous pile of bodies
overwhelming for sure
definitely.
so many cooks
in a kitchenette

and what am i looking for and will i know when i find it?

here's a little gem i encountered today, though who knows if this is what you´re looking for--

"Life is hard" signifies a certain degree of fatalism, it must be admitted. But as an all-purpose saying, "La vida es dura" soaks up a variety of meanings, a range of nuances. The vagueness and abstraction of "life" is set against the concreteness of "hard." Most certainly, such a phrase is the simplest possible strategy for linking the particular to the general, the personal to the social. But is this equation an assertion that things must necessarily be so? Or does it not carry the possibility, the implication, that things might be otherwise? As a coda set to the rhythm of life's frustrations, this maxim can relate the duress of social and economic crisis experienced as personal conditions. It marks, too, the duration of the crisis that renders life so very hard. Its pessimism, its fatalism, can plainly serve as a sort of alibi, and excuse that relieves the individual speaker of the consequences of his own actions...at the same time, this proverb can bring to light the strength and endurance of the people who survive life's hardships. It marks, by turns, the banality of suffering, the intimacy of power, the comfort of resignation, and the resilience of the oppressed. (from p. xvi of "Life is Hard: Machismo, Danger, and the Intimacy of Power in Nicaragua" by Roger Lancaster)

oh and me, i was stranded on an island yesterday and today i'm back in a town that, given the options in this country, feels pretty familiar--
becoming-familiar like sweaty shoulders and bug bites
becoming-immune to bug bites.
i go in and out of being uncomfortable with being on vacation. so many feelings (always feelings!) about white tourists, whether anything in my pockets would serve a too-skinny begging boy well (chapstick receipts bandanna..?)...
it's probably been good to become reacquainted with boredom, to miss, to commit wholeheartedly or at least mostheartedly to sticking around for the flourishing of a little familial culture, to think and think about projects i want to be working on without a pen to write anything down--
what is traveling for, again? and am i heavier or lighter now, and does it become easier or harder to recross a border once-crossed? and how much am i seeing, and how much do i want to see?
anyway, little bubbles of thoughts and loves have been flourishing in this faraway,
little messages that aren't quite drowned out by the market flies
relearning rethinking pride and humility, probably not through seawater
but i did see a BRAINCORAL and a blue fish. (life is hard, and not so hard.)

anyhows, i'm missing the sticky sweaty communtarian raw-haven of the bao, looking forward to seeing some of you tomorrow evening and most all of you in my dreams.

home? homes?

baoooo,
hello all. so, about my life, location, etc.....
i don't exactly have a home. i mean, i suppose i have a lot of homes, if i'm feeling positive about the whole situation. which i am, mostly.
i'm at one of those homes now. it is a small, white two-story house in Maryland sitting on a corner across from a long driveway ending at a much, much bigger white two-story house (if you can really call it a house...it seems more than just a house) that is also a home. and then, across a pond from the big house, there is a medium-sized white two-story house where i grew up that really is only sort of a home now. so obviously, it's complicated. and i haven't even started on virginia, or michigan, or chicago (baooooo!). i don't have one stable home exactly, but there are lots of places that sometimes feel like home where i can sometimes go and sometimes expect to be welcomed by family or something similar. complicated.
i start with this complicated explanation to give fellow squids some sense of where i am now both geographically and in my head. i don't really know what else to say except that i wish you were all here with me, so that you could experience this beautiful, complicated, humid place i often call home. so that you could smell the honeysuckle in the night air, swim in the dark, run through the grass, drink minty things, wear sundresses (well, again, complicated), and play with small rat- like dogs. i'm having a wonderful time. such a wonderful time that i've lost track of time. i thought yesterday was today, and was looking everywhere for leli, who was probably happily enjoying saturday somewhere in wisconsin. now it is actually sunday, which is pretty exciting, because i get to have another day of sleeping in and eating too much for breakfast. wow. what luck.
anyway, hope you all are well. i'll be in touch. sorry not to share anything more interesting in my first blog post. it's been a long time since i've written much. too much lingerie in my life, too little grammar. i need to go back to school. oh well, important to mix it up. and the UofC never could have taught me how to walk in six inch heels....but anyway....back to the honeysuckles,
lots of love,
A.

you can lick my face anytime

here's my soupy soup
i thought about sending this in an email but for now i'm putting it here until i decide that it's okay to press the send button (these things can mean a lot and for some it might be toooooo much)

wow wow wow
i have warm burbles of love for all of you
i'm on the edge of tears - IN A NICE WAY, i must say
such that my eyes are always a little warm
and the edges of my vision blurred and soft so our world is a little dreamy
and my skin a little prickly
i feel fizzles between us
and though i am ZONKED, i like it and i like you
yes YOU, i'm looking at you
pretty mess-maker, joy-dancer, toe-wiggler, happy glowworm
at YOU life-good-maker, family-friend-lover
to whom i am grafted

i would briefly like to thank the universe
and its chaos
for coalescing to bring us-me-you here
THANKS ENTROPY (or rather let's measure ourselves on the spectrum thereof)!
you are a treat
you smell goodbad
you are nastytasty-tastynasty

aw shucks
i wanna hide in my hair
but i totally want you to get underneath it too
and we can live in a little tent
of my SAMSONITE hair
because i am so proud of you, to be with you and near you
because you are strong and beautiful and enticing and so so smart
so there you go

soupy-sappy-lovelove
you can lick my face anytime

hark, it is the dawning of the

brrrrr i c symphonic collusions on all sides
reminds of a waterfall in a nether world
rush & shush & rush & shush
suddenly BLAM! KERPLAM! (just kidding).

at the dinner table i am an elitist
[and? so? i've traveled galaxies, fought wars, raised monuments - i've lived for so long my beginnings are lost to memory - i love myself and i love you - so yes, i am a lelitist]

at the gay club i am a spectacle
[and what about the 35 year old lumberjack wearing a thong and tight leather pants pulled down under the thong, grinding on a metal bar - why are all the middle-aged guys watching chris and i? why did we bother with 21+ night?]

at night, wrapped in sweaty limbs, believe it or not, i am a star -
[i didn't see it coming - they and they and they didn't see it coming - but in the end, everybody is coming]

but only in pittsburgh.

free glitter for all

phew...i tried to talk to my sister today about paying for glitter at a huge chain (or anything, really) is dumb.

she kept asking: if everyone stole, wouldn’t they shut down the store and then the people who worked there would be worse off? she said she could get on board with liberating bread/food (the necessaries) but not glitter since i make well enough money to buy glitter.
(of course, this isn’t quite the point...nobody should be paying $5 for glitter, unless they want to.) she was into the idea of gift economies, freestores, how dumb it is that all of the excess of clothes/craft supplies/etc. in peoples’ basements can’t somehow be put back into a free exchange system...but the idea of liberating glitter “made her stomach turn.”

any tips on sharing the pleasure of freeshopping? connecting these liberal-altruistic principles to a sense of injustice/outrage/subversion? or even just talking about “liberation” and getting past the stigma/fear/shame...? (do you see it as a way of coping in a shitty capitalist world and/or a strike against the chain itself?)

i imagine this is something many of you have talked/worked through in your own thinking or with others...any advice or zine/reading recs i could pass along, by comment or email, would be much much appreciated.