more thoughts on home from the vaults

may 6th:

well i grew up in chicago
and around the southern parts of
this great lake. but am i FROM here?

my lens on truth was the lens
of hyde park racial tension
of bare muscley oaks in winter
of freezing, thawing, boiling
of mourning dove and big skies
of friendly neighbors whom you don't love
of folks makin their life for their family

but is this as removeable, as workable
as the capitalistic/patriarchal/white supremacist/sexist
world&structures that i grew up in? those were also the lenses i was raised in and am livin it and i don't have to be attached just because theyre what i know.
...and that's it. what/where do i really know? no where. my body knows and loves many places, seasons, sensations. i don't know this land.

so should i decide to move to wisconsin, it could/should be out of desire to learn here,
not to "live where I'm from"
yes, similar weather patterns to my youth, similar trees.
but those were the only things i paid attention to.

live in a place that calls to you.
calls to you where you are at.

big changes

holy shit, lots has happened in my life.

adele dumped me for someone else. ouch.

i'm over it. yay!

i'm moving up to the northside - hot damn! high time! should i come out to the west coast? should i tour the us/world with my erstwhile, prodigal baobuddies? yes but no. i still have a life here in chicago (booooo).

az where are you?

anyways, the new andersonville place is going to be beautiful. and life is going to be beautiful. and a LOT less stressful. fondest to all, and if you're in the mood for a housewarming, still live in chicago, or wanna reconnect, well it'll happen soon, i wanna see you, and also i'm going to come out west some time in the next coupla months.

ps post #400 woot!

love

leli

things are not always as they seem

baaaah! [chirp chirrrup] [cluclucluCLLAAA] [phhhhhhhhhhh] [druh druhh druh] [flapflapflap] [breathe--in. breathe--out]
i find myself (over and over though some parts run faster than others crawl)
on a ranch out in fiddletown--
some things same old,
semi-retired corporate giant
turtlenecks and all food names in french or italian and
every story is a one-upper and he knows the best about everything
starts farm on some land with his womanfriend
then she leaves
and he invites wwoofers in to let the goats in and out to graze
to count the sheep
to feed the dogs
to wonder what the garden used to look like
to imagine artists standing on each others' shoulders to make these huge graffiti murals
at times beautiful and at times absurd among blood-vessel-manzanita trees and live oaks.

same old
community of a kind over cardune gratin and oxtail stew
some kind-of-friends over for dinner and
he's hopped up on vicodin
[he pulls me in to dance (/cuddle)]
and asks why such a beautiful girl is trying so hard not to look like a girl
and why i'm hiding my boobs
and why i cut all my hair
when i'm such a beautiful girl,
[he squeezes my knee]
halfway through dinner
he just wants to know, just one question,
do i like cock?
susan drops her fork and
shannon pours her vicodinified lover another glass of wine
trying to restore the thin veil that was pulled away from her lover's mind
and steve apologizes afterward
and swears he'll never have him over again
and i'm bored already

same old
wine-tasting in amador county and
maggie (the other wwoofer, who's a little depressed)
puts on makeup and i my suspenders and we put on our british accents
hailing all the way from sedgewick hop from red wine to red wine
all brewed in our honor
and i say in the car "you know, i find all these people quite boring"
and we're both tipsy with names of thick-skinned grapes floating in our ears

same old
i wake in the middle of the night, pry open my eyes to see if it's light
go back to sleep
start a fire in the morning that gets rained out by noon
surprise steve by trying the oxtail stew
an ox i never met raised and killed by steve's doctor who lives right up the road

same old, i start to think of moving
living on the land i start to think in seasons, years, generations, centuries,
the time it takes a tree to grow, an inch of topsoil to lie down in the forest,
my mind thinking in moments, tiny dramas, eurekas
my travelling body feeling in two- and three-day stints (it's been three here and i'm starting to itch for another life), months at the most

even after so little time here (in the scheme of a tree)
i'm leaning elsewhere, towards laughter and love and spirited vision, a new book of poetry, communities that celebrate and cook together, nourishing our foundations and not just living day-to-day,
wondering too what path i'm on, what the story is of where i'm going with bits of grass and mushroom slime on the back of my hands and a bag of zines and tinctures
when i'll meet up with my kindred (which are to be found in every tree but also today feel rather far away)--

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.