also this is interesting

http://www.designingasociety.net/

i am in RESOURCE MODE
like making connections like knitting except at the end i DO NOT HAVE A SCARF
dropping words and pennies and then waiting for them to show up in a water fountain
you know, i really think i see it as a good thing in my life when the same advice/recommendation/etc. is coming from two directions at the same time,
this is happening because i am in RESOURCE MODE
and i feel a bit like a spider
an owl-mirror spider-dancer internet-crawling bike-about-er
maybe it is because i realized i will never fully integrate all of my parts
and so i want to integrate the world around me
weave webs tight as blankets that will serve as the walls
of our yurt-trailers in our utopic-dystopic queer perma-village of ephemera
when all of the RESOURCES are gathered
and there will be no more cracks to fall through because
we will not set up our village on a faultline or a cliff
and the crumbling that's happening will be mostly composting
instead of widespread precarity

in the face of precarity i launch into RESOURCE MODE
i danced it today

here's the new game, from leslie who learned it from a butoh artist in the bay who has a very long name that sounds like 'boat':
divide yourselves into pairs, lay out a rope on the ground.
not too neat, squiggled around.
one person goes to the beginning of the rope and closes their eyes.
they will walk, heel to toe, along the length of the rope without falling off, and their partner
holds their hand. the next pair follows, and so on.
upon completing the rope-path, switch roles;
when finished, take a few minutes to discuss.

optional follow-up: stand across the space from your partner. walk toward each other, precariously, with the same feeling as when you walked on the rope, maintaining connection and eye contact the whole time. when you meet, express your state through movement and sound, until satisfied. optionally, discuss.

this is what we have. this is all we have.

the game:
at any time, someone can call the beginning of the game by pulling something out of their pocket and proclaiming, "this is what we have. this is all we have." then everyone else proceeds to take everything out of their pockets, bags, fanny packs, etc. and hold each item up, one by one, saying "this is what we have. this is all we have."

these are the tools of my life:
red-handled knife, often dirty, often dull, and sharpener
a black sharpie
white greasepaint and gold powder
a lighter
cell phone, beeping
slightly glamorous earring which doubles as a toothpick or last-minute gift
masking tape for decoration and minor emergencies and securing poultices
red and white water bottle i got from a bin in ashland for a dollar
lemon balm tincture from the wolf house
bandanna, any color
pouch of tobacco

it would be nice to have a fork, too.

in other news,
it is frosty here at versailles! this past month-moon-cycle has been a steady stream of transformations big and small and guests. after samhain, i quit my job and worked my last two weeks at the residential treatment center. fox went back to work and carrot strolled into our lives as a new housemate-subletter along with their two chihuahua-creatures, potato and kinikinick. the rest of the acorns fell and the leaves continued to drop, the daylight hours starting to fly by, and when i came back from the bay this weekend the mornings are 24, 25 degrees and those white jagged outlines and sparkling nights and mornings are whisperin the coming of winter.

we have begun having fires most every day which means splitting wood and scheming about getting more wood. the cold keeps us orbiting around the wood stove and goose, who has been living in the south wing, is moving out and toward another house or perhaps seattle, bike mechanic work and other family dreams. we got our little car starting more reliably and something started leaking, so she's out of commission again. the deer have eaten all of our kale and broccoli down to the stems but left the wong bok and cabbages untouched. i have a lot to learn about gardening, and the deers' appetites and easy leaps over the fence have been one clear and painful lesson.

soon, tomorrow, i will plant garlic, a bit late but not too late i hope. we got a few varieties from avram, a friend and garlic farmer nearby. i am reading more, a biography of isadora duncan, and getting excited about winter scholarship and dancing too and garden planning again. i am so on fire about performing and making creative work, toward wild theatre and a dance-theatre of rewilding, art emergent from living with the land.

and, good night!

Vladdy's Revenge

Where's Vladimir?
today i threw out my car. it was heavy and it didn't fit in te dumpster but i gave the garbageman one hundred dollars that i was just gonna snort things with anyway and he helped me fit it in. it only crunched a little. then we threw out the kitchen sink, and after that we were done!
the house was empty
only, then lokchi came over with the vet in her pocket and said, "ok, guys, where are the cats?"
well, i remembered that my last load of laundry had been more lumpy, also more meowey, so i ran downstairs to rescue gabe from the wash.
only, i had to stop and eat a cheese sandwich.
then i rescued gabe from the wash and said to lokchi: "here they are!"
but lokchi shook her head from side to side, mournfully almost, and i remembered the other one.
HE WAS KNOW WHERE TO BE FOUND...

so we went up stairs and got out the risk board. i was green tmo was yellow. lokchi was blue (!!). nobody won, because we got bored first, but first we played for six hours. Then we were bored. then we heard the soft pitter patter of the soft pitter patter of the soft pitter patter of vladdick's little paws on the dirty, dirty floor.
the end.

the winners rewrite history

it's funny, but I think being sick (finally! - the worst part was waiting for the inevitable) has helped focus me on a few things. things in my head.
I'm not suggesting the body as a distraction from anything important. A careful distinction - I'm suggesting involvement in the daily routine as a distraction, an involvement that normally requires a healthy body. It's been great to get out of the routine a bit and regroup.
reshrink.
recapitulate.
I don't know if anybody but me ever obsessed over the boardgame Risk (nevermore - I promise), but the winning strategy was always careful containment of power, to never spread oneself thin, until the very end - the moment of truth.
Social dynamics a bit like risk (where's the verb in this preceding sentence? hiiiiiding). We have multiple moments of truth in our game whose different sizes (importances? truthinesses?) are relative to the risk required to attain them (triumph over the moment, not the truth - but maybe it's the same thing [how cynical!]), but the basic strategy remains the same - keep your energy close around you until you really need it.
We can see another analogy in gravitational dynamics (as always - I hope this doesn't come as a surprise) - those heavy little stars last much, much longer then the big, spread out ones that end up collapsing or blowing up.
collapsing or blowing up - this is the consequence of overextension.
Not that I'm trying to judge - both of these are equally valid forms of creative-destruction/destructive-creation/change - but (applied to all the metaphors at once now) until I want my little pieces of star/plastic tanks and horses to mix with all the other colors and planets and shiny bits of flesh around me, that is to say, until someone buys a better board-game than Risk, I think I'll play it close and choose tact over excess.