"something somewhere!" he cried out in his sleep

oh gee it's rainy in oakland

wet feet wet hems of pant legs dirty underwear gold candles

going through a matchbook to try and light a cigarette,

walking through a puddle to remember that my rainboots have opened their soles to rain

looking for a warm hole (bucket? pot of soup?) to dive into and curl up till

the rain stops,

thought i'd evaded winter but oh hello.

but when i think of it that way it's not so bad,

this time, this quiet, once i'm curled up to read-zine-reflect-ponder-talk to friends old and new-play bananagrams by candlelight

not what oakland's been so far

(does a home, a nest in some woods or a tree, ever promise to be warm and dry and stable all the time? are all and any things cold and wet "miserable?")

the cold air through the last few boarded-up windows and the dripping in the front hall

are boring

though

and other souls wandering through attracted like moths to our candles and

recent-found patched-up walls and stability,

quiet dreams of the wood-burning stove (not just a game we're playing, though that too)

bernard maybe leaving with their pile of zines and shame about their teeth and beautiful face in the morning, katrina maybe too to go be present in the northeast with some mending hearts and sighs of dying,

and more kids coming in

a reminder for me about how things change, slow and fast and always,

to see this house grow up in weeks like the bao did over years

like trees over decades

like rye grass roots in minutes (3 miles of root hairs a day! i read).

i am trying to keep myself happy for me and also for others

i find recently that being around loud people makes me quiet, stressful people very chill, perhaps being around sad people makes me rejoice in the small pleasures of oatmeal all the more:

raisins vila almonds cinnamon nutmeg real maple syrup flaxseed out the wazoo

i will sigh and return to pat califia, who has at this moment to say:

"at times like these, i remember the spanner case because it renews my faith in being out of the closet and fighting back. the american gay press ignored spanner, scared off by the thunderclap of spanking and the rattling of chains. but it should serve as a powerful inspiration and model for any group of people who would like to live in a sexually sane society.

it all started in 1987..."

(didn't we all)

& just gets better and better

leli-pie

it's a pale morning in the bao. the cats are having a tiff - gabe makes a hissing mew, and vlad makes a mewing hiss. i shit you not. 1 huge cup of coffee brewed strong, and reach for the oatmeal - empty. so instead i defrost a wholewheat pita and microwave it with almond butter, apple chutney, and an egg. i shit you knot.
the acid jazz streams out over my speakers like a cold front over boston before it collides with the rap from the radio in daryl's room - when i stand next to the bathroom in the hall i find myself in a neutral zone where the relative strength and distance cancels out, and i get hip-hop jazz, or acid rap, like in the eye of a storm.
my head perks up a bit as caffeine floods my veins, and i open the physics problem set. about ten seconds later, someone standing within 50 meters of the baohaus would have heard a dire curse, a string of consonants and glottal stops unknown to the present age, and the snap of a textbook slamming shut. it can wait till tomorrow.
so now it's 11:30 which means about 12 hours until the party tonight which means about 5 "solids" if you use leli's system of time management which takes into account not only the solid chunk of time needed to accomplish some difficult task or set of tasks but also the extra framing time needed to reconfigure brain function for each new setting. it's kind of like the kuiper belt, it's kind of like vomit streaming down my face at 2 in the horse's ass, it's kind of like reconnecting with a memory so old and essential that in retrospect you realize it was there all along, pulling on your hair and scratching your nether regions, only you didn't know it cuz you thought it was a wedgie but really it's just a thing, and an outdated thing at that. anyways the pale morning sez: you can't spell "transcendence" without "dance" and you can't buy you love without money, but you can definnately make leli-pie without oats.