garden early this spring, before the ton of bricks (I think Buddha is drinking a beer)

the garden layout now, with all the brick paths laid (tbone is drinking a beer for sure)

buddha got a bouquet for the garden show

god king face tree, cz ya need god and goddess energy both (of course)

Nice digs, the toilet-top alter is handy, and thanks for the bling - this is all really working for me, gotta admit.

I'm glad, you do look fabulous!

I feel good, I could use some more crystals or some shit on my alter though, fyi.

Yup, I figured, I'm just trying to pace myself. One earnest prayer at a time, eh?

Fair enough. You sure about this one?

Yes.

Sure sure?

Yes.

You do realize . .

Yes.

(pause) Okay then.

Amen.

Right.

Sunnie and I concocted the idea for 'intention jam' earlier this year, when there was still snow on the ground so we were imagining summer. Preserving jams cost me a lot of money to make, but I do it anyway cz I like to, it's old-timey know-how that I like to keep up, it tastes nothing like store-bought at all, I can taste summer all winter long and I give jars of it away as gifts. I was getting fruit from the farmers market on her road, and meanwhile she made friends with the farmer, and so instead of paying 'bruised fruit' prices like I was doing, we're going to get 2-day-old fruits for free from him in exchange for a couple big jars of jam per canning day. Then we'll sell about half the jars to break even on supplies, and the rest is pure food profit, to eat and give away. Today was our first batch, a raspberry lo-sugar jam. The intention part is our kitchen witchery, so each recipe has its own mojo. Since this is the first recipe, it's intended for "starting things, getting projects going, setting things into motion". I named it "Pluck!" We made 50 jars.

we be jammin playlist:

bonus track - bob marley - jammin

cake - war pigs

lizzy mercier - mission impossible

kings of convenience - boat behind

dala - ohio

giant drag - wicked game

homesick elephant - danger zone

Tbone followed us around the entire time we were working, drinking Bud Light and yammering like a little kid with a whole lot to say. I sent him to Tops 4 times, he was like the one of the kids who's old enough to drive hahahahahhah, it was pretty great. (But wow can he YAMMER, I always forget how much.) Tomorrow night is the big soltice celebration, we're casting a ritual circle big enough to hold about half of Youngstown on Sunnie's property, Tbone wants to go, he even raced off to Walmart to get himself a yellow shirt (dressing to honor the sun is the only requirement, and a sunshiney dish to pass of course, mine being another new recipe: Lemonhead Chocolate Cookie bars, I made it up to taste just like dunking oreos into strong lemonade and yes it has real lemonheads in it, mmmm), a LOUDass hawaiian print with tequila bottles all over it.

All this time, I'm babying a slight hangover, which is reminding me to do some hard choice thinking on the backburner of my mind while all this was going on, which I did.

Better get some sleep, tomorrow during the day is the Garden Show, I'm one of the new invited entries for the village, pics to follow, of such things as the kids selling rootbeer floats for a buck at the end of the driveway . . . zzzzzz

WEEKEND LOVE FORECAST: ARIES: You know what a loved one wants, and you'll thoughtfully deliver. TAURUS: Someone seeks your attention and affection and will work hard to please you. GEMINI: You're a miracle worker. You somehow manage to make everyone happy, including yourself. CANCER: You'll see where a relationship is headed and decide whether that's where you want to go. LEO: You might need someone more than usual, and this will be a positive for both of you. VIRGO: Others don't need to be able to read you like an open book. Stay mysterious. [This shit bores me half to death.] LIBRA: You believe you are right, but you still leave room for the possibility that you are not -- a lovely and useful stance this weekend. SCORPIO: Talk about the things that excite the other person, and you will earn his or her devotion. SAGITTARIUS: You'll have the undivided attention of someone who genuinely wants to make you happy. CAPRICORN: Your work may interest you more than love right now, but things swing back the other way next week. AQUARIUS: Being seen as a success and being seen as a nice person will go hand in hand. PISCES: You don't want to be attached at the hip to someone -- it's space and freedom that make you feel more in love.

I had a great night out, got a little tipsy, it was open mic, a teenager with a Katy Perry wig always hogs time but the bartender is supercute and he bought me drinks. I have to somehow not let it upset me, though, the whole man problem. Getting hit on by people I have no interest in really sours my mood big time. It makes me feel exactly like when I put a dollar in the vending machine but the frito bag gets stuck and won't come out. Like Sunnie says, I should just take it as a compliment. She's great at that, she takes it like: meh of course you want to kiss my ass, do!, just kiss my ass!

Tbone showed up tonight.

did you feel it?

Today was hard.

--

You're entering a phase of your long-term cycle when cultivating abundance is an especially smart thing to do. To take maximum advantage, I suggest that you be both extra generous and extra receptive to generosity. Bestow more blessings than usual and put yourself in prime positions to gather in more blessings than usual. I realize that the second half of this assignment might be a challenge. You Virgos often feel more comfortable giving than receiving. But in this case, I must insist that you attend to both equally. The giving part won't work quite right unless the receiving part is in full bloom. (cry)

--



--

nick lowe - the beast in me (sopranos soundtrack)

the apostles - don't huzzle for love - for me

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

WEEKEND LOVE REPORT: ARIES: You'll approach relationships from the spiritual angle and find that most of the practical and material concerns get handled quite naturally. TAURUS: When loved ones want your attention, they'll do emotional back flips to get it. GEMINI: You'll like the one who likes you. But do you like this person because he or she likes you? Maybe so, and the relationship will still work brilliantly. CANCER: No need to go out of your way to attract someone. No games are necessary, either. You do best just being you. LEO: Change up the routine, and you'll either find new love or spice up an existing romance. VIRGO: Bring a touch of glamour to your world. Your efforts in this regard will be a magnet for romance. LIBRA: A visit to a festival, fair or marketplace will bring new buzz and interest to a special relationship. SCORPIO: You need less and less from your relationship, and strangely enough, this makes you grow closer to a loved one. SAGITTARIUS: You are more like your loved one than you thought. As you focus on all you have in common, petty differences will disappear. CAPRICORN: Give your love to one who is mature enough to appreciate it. [lol I did NOT write that! The weekend forecasts come from Holiday Mathis, fyi] AQUARIUS: You radiate your specialness and uniqueness to the universe. PISCES: You are feeling more cautious in matters of the heart, and you are right to be guarded.

Brad Sucks

In Your Face, a very bradlike upbeat depressed as hell headbobber, high rec

and Bad Sign, one of the death songs, also very driving in my car la la la

---

meanwhile, hahaahah HELP!HELP! lol

and the worst part is that I got to that story by link hopping from a headline that read "Why are so many people having sex with their pets?" (the answer: so they can post it on facebook)

Virgo, you've been rising higher and feeling bolder. You've taken a stand on issues about which you had previously been a bit weak and cowardly. You have been able to articulate elusive or difficult truths in graceful ways that haven't caused too terrible a ruckus. Your next challenge is to rally the troops. The group that means the most to you is in need of your motivational fervor. I suggest that you think deeply about how to cultivate more dynamic relationships among all the parts, thereby energizing the whole.

I'd like to believe this, but I don't. Sunnie does, DmS does, Amy does, all the smart people I know do, but I just can't. The same (problematic) way that I can't believe that abuse isn't, sort of, the woman's fault. I've been that woman. I guess I am identifying (too much) with the gulf itself or something >:(

Meanwhile, it was a good day. It rained hard. So the roofing had to slow down. To stop, actually. Given the thunder, (lordy I love thunder - I'm an angry water lover! ha.) there was nothing we could do. And we couldn't do anything else on our wishlist, so I had to just not do much for about half a dozen hours. I napped and cleaned and made a cheesecake for Hungryman Thursday, hazelnut-infused and marbled with fresh first-of-the-year strawberries, which is right now filling the entire house with the smell of baking hot sugar butter.

The interviews improved this morning . . . the guy last night was a self-absorbed block of crap, and/but I was the bitch for insisting that matters. M said that he was ‘compelling in his desperation’, as if I were being mean to kittens. (eyeroll)

At the studio, they’re up my butt to work even more bc Mark and his wife want the entire next month off because she’s having a baby – her parents are here from Amsterdam to help, they’re renting them an apartment and a car for several months, they still can’t afford to pay me for all this work (which is okay for now, but still), and they need 4 adults to care for one crappy baby?! (armscrossy)

I’ve conducted 4 interviews in 1 ½ days, taught 2 classes, graded a mountain of papers, cared for my 2 kids myself (one of whom got another 4 teeth pulled today for another $400 out of pocket), put 200 miles on my car . . . then I do this morning interview w another guy who is nuts but interesting, and I’m trying to focus on that because his book includes interviews with Johnny Marr and Richard Thompson and others, so I’m interesting in talking about guitar playing as a form of poetics like rebuttals to the more famous vocalists and what these musicians are like to talk to actually etc. Then I need to go fetch my kid and race all the way back to a distant suburb for the ortho appointment so can I please not do the lunch(?) and M throws a hissy because, as she shrieks, she is TRYING TO WRITE AN ARTICLE. I try to be mindful that everyone’s obligations are equally valid, so a kid doesn’t trump an article, but um I can’t imagine screeching my childcare pressures as if anyone would care and if I did that I’d be dismissed as not serious enough to hold my academic job, so why do I need to accommodate everyone’s needs for space and time for all their reasons all the time!?? I bit my tongue of course and moved lunch earlier, as in right then, fine I’ll take him for an omelet whatever, eat fast Bub . . . (armssooocrossssy)

Then back home with a bloody mouthed kid finally w dinner to make and laundry to do on and on and never ever ever once does anyone offer anything useful or helpful to me whatsoever. (X doesn’t even remember his kid is in pain today, and/or that I am tending to it, for instance. Of course.)

The whole time, I’m listening to this on the radio in the car, getting more and more pissed off. It seems to sum up what my problem is today: people expect everything for free, are outraged in fact when they have to even consider anyone or anything else in their cost analyses. Remember when everyone was saying that the Wallstreet Asswipes shouldn’t “privatize profits and socialize losses”? Well why do we think we can socialize cheap gas and privatize the costs of this spill? Saying that BP is “solely responsible” for this mess is like blaming the hooker for the existence of prostitution, as if the pimp (the government) and the john (who wants sex without the hassle of even minimal interpersonal expenditure to get it, in this case all of us driving our gas guzzlers all over hell on whore gas with only our own personal immediate goals in mind ever) aren’t an issue. I include myself in this, and when I see clearly that I myself deserve no quarter then I’m not in the mood to grant blind leeway to anyone else.

In other words, in general, just assume that the most deserved response to you (and me) today is Fuck Off. Don’t even try to figure out why or what for exactly, just take it: Fuck Off.

Fave distraction story for today. (shazzam!)

where the magic happens

I would say that working constantly is keeping me relatively satisfied by perhaps acting as a relief well on my inner life, effectly cementing off the flow of discontent by leaving no time for it. But actually that metaphor might not work at all. <:/



listening to: magic wands - black magic, very catchy summertime pop type song

love horoscope: The planetary energies activate your social life to the extent that you may wonder just what has hit you. A meeting may prove very fortunate as far as romance is concerned, although you may not immediately recognize this potential in the person you encounter. Your first impression is likely to be of someone who is a fast talker, knows their own mind, and has plenty to say.

hmm welp I'm dong hiring interviews all day today, from 10 a.m. - 10 p.m., with grinding paper grading in the breaks between - maybe the poetdude who is the dinner interview will talk fast, which would be good because then I wouldn't have to talk at all . . . .

update, listening to the radio on the way home

TJ: Mom, they said 2 million

Me: I know I know

TJ: No it’s 2! Not 200. You said it was 200!AH! when you turned it off this morning, remember?

Me:

TJ: So it’s not a billion gallons this week.

Ears: She said it was a billion last week too.

Me: Did I? Well, I mean millions and billions as a metaphor.

TJ: Right. Did they have math when you were a kid?

Ears: giggle

Me: Shut up. Ok genius if it’s 2 million a day, how long until we get to a real billion?

TJ: Are you sure you want to know?

Ears: You just can’t figure it out.

TJ: How many days has it been?

Me: It’s been 7 weeks.

TJ: sooothats49times2roundituptimes . . . about 70 weeks.

Me:

Ears:

Me: I’m going to take your word on that.

Ears: gigglegiggle

Me: Shut. Up.

TJ: Is everything ok? Like are you sure the bills are paid and stuff?

Ears: gigglegigglegiggle

Me: O shut up Ears, you can’t do math for shit either.

Ears: I’m not in charge of anything. You’re in charge of everything.

TJ: Which is a very scary thought right now.

Me: lol SHUT UP!

I have to stop listening to this, at least in front of the kids. I'm bad at math, TJ the Brainiac can come up with a billion-gallons-per-5-day rate of spillage in his head in a nanosecond, faster than my arm can reach out to turn off the radio.

WEEKEND LOVE FORECAST: ARIES: Your ambition excites a loved one. This person believes in you, and you can ride that energy through the weekend. TAURUS: You're practical, but not when it comes to spoiling your loved one. You see the importance in doing that now. GEMINI: All eyes are on you, and you thrive under the pressure. CANCER: You need freedom, so steer clear of demanding and inflexible people. LEO: An interesting secret will be revealed to you. VIRGO: Yours might be the best way, but it is not the only correct answer. LIBRA: A loved one ends his or her project and therefore has more time and attention to concentrate on you. SCORPIO: Your creative style will impress. You know how to tell a story, and also how to play a part. SAGITTARIUS: Assume the best about your loved one, and this person will live up to your assumptions. CAPRICORN: You'll find a new way to encourage your sweetheart. When this person feels good about himself or herself, your relationship is smooth. AQUARIUS: Being with someone who is your intellectual equal will make you think even more astutely than usual. PISCES: Compliment the special way someone loves you.

----

city & colour - bring me your love - as much as I ever could might as well do it now cz we're going to dead in a minute la la la

Long-buried emotions from the past, some of them pleasant and some in need of release, could well up from your subconscious today, Virgo. This is likely to have an uplifting effect on your mental and emotional state, so don't fight it. It's also likely to release whatever hang-ups you might have about relationships. Therefore, you can expect all your involvements to thrive - particularly the romantic ones. Enjoy.

My resting tone is sardonic (armscrossy). But actually, aside from the fact that the world is ending, finally I feel reliably and consistently good. I could be a little happier, and I could be writing a novel, but . . . . meh. Not long ago my resting state was between bored stiff and miserable as hell (faking it). Now it's between pretty good and just fine most of the time. My kids, they laugh at my jokes, Ears holds the doors for old ladies instinctively the way FPH does and I love that, the neighbors let my dog out if I'm running late, my phone goes off all the time with texts and emails exchanging nothing much but life tidbits. It's unremarkable in almost every way, which turns out to be the thing I'm remarking with pleasure in my rare spare moments.

I'm about to teach yoga - in just walked an old grad student acquaintance, a professor now I know at a nearby university. He pauses, decides "no way", I smile, leave it alone. Once I would have winced and wondered what language poetry bullshit thing I was about not to know. Now I'm going to make it fine for him that he's in those really awful cargo shorts.

Mad enough to not drive our cars? Hell, I can't find anyone (after being very obnoxious on the subject to all my friends and several classes full of people) who is mad enough to pay 10 cents more per gallon willingly.

Every morning, I get up and read about the spill until I want to blow my head off, and then read about stuff like the details of Gary Coleman's will. This is my fave distraction story of the morning, I love the bystander commentary "Why do this if you're married?", ha. Ok how many of you, married or not, would risk a $500 fine to have hot sex on a picnic table? Personally, I prefer working class automobiles for public ludeness but . . . meh . . .

I had to go to court this morning (more on this later when I have time to reflect/write about it) - turns out the judge is a student in my hot yoga classes. I.e. he has seen me in my underwear, all sweaty and bossing him around. He made a point of telling my lawyer how much he likes my classes. My lawyer said afterwards as he walked me to my car, "You're the good guy, and you can afford to be nice because you are in complete control of this situation." My eyes are adjusting to the light of that conceptual framework . . . .

VIRGO, The detours you take and the diversions you chase will prove astoundingly productive, since you will get inspiration from unexpected sources. It's what keeps your image fresh.

and from astrologyzone: In many ways, your life is getting better every day and in every way. You've been through a great deal over the past two years, but now you are seeing the end to a long and arduous journey. . . . Put a big gold star on your calendar when Jupiter and Uranus will conjoin in Aries - June 8 - making for one of the most dazzling economic days of the year! It should be a standout day - a real dazzler. Use it for key meetings, presentations, and to make applications.

wtf?!

o sexual relations between a woman and anyone she breastfed as an infant is not cool, whew, why didn't I think of that to worry about? lordy you'd think sex was some kind of nuclear device for all that elaborate cautious handling. are islamic clerics all virgos and capricorns or what? hahahahahahlol

snow patrol - new sensation (inxs) , high rec beautiful cover

I do not want to be afraid of what I look like (to anyone else) first thing in the morning.

WEEKEND LOVE FORECAST: ARIES: You ward off an overly sensitive mood by taking plenty of time to yourself. Your easygoing attitude is so attractive! TAURUS: If you have to handle someone with great care, your time together won't be as fun. Go for hardy people. GEMINI: There will be a happy twist of fate on Saturday night. CANCER: You'll be in the mood to take chances, and someone wants to join your adventure, too. LEO: You make someone feel wonderful about himself or herself, and that's why this person wants to be around you all the time. VIRGO: Keep everyday problems and worries out of date night, and everything will be magical. LIBRA: Because of the way someone sees you and reacts to you, you'll get in touch with what is special and unique about you. SCORPIO: You'll meet just the right person to help you let loose and have fun. SAGITTARIUS: The way you say someone's name will tell this person exactly how you feel about him or her. CAPRICORN: Try to center your conversations and actions on the things you know will interest and excite the other person. AQUARIUS: Relationships that take off quickly could end just as fast. Go slow -- savor getting to know someone. PISCES: You'll be in a rebellious mood. Avoid control freaks or there will be trouble.

We are all guilty as hell. Among other things, this is a perfect example of how worse-than-useless anger is, since it would be not only very satisfying but also completely bullshit to be pissed at anyone but ourselves for all the crimes against the planet and each other that our own addiction to oil has perpetrated and/or allowed in all categories, all our policies, for years and years. Last night the spirituality class spent its time praying for the ocean. We had bottles of ocean water that Sunnie brought back from a vacation on the gulf a couple months ago, she'd given me a bottle for a gift of 'water magic'. It stunk like seagull shit. It smelled alive at least. We arranged ourselves in a circle around a bowl of it, breathed in a smell that no longer exists and probably never will again, and said our Hail Mary's so to speak. We are each one of us individually guilty of that spill. And I'm getting really scared that we're all going to feel the price of it right down to our guilty individual persons, not at some remove but literally raining down on us and coming out of all our taps. Am I overly dire-minded, or does it feel immediate and irrevocable to you like that too? Like hitting a pedestrian with your car might feel, and in an instant of your own careless making your whole world is shot to shit, the weight of it sinking into your consciousness in slo mo (700,000 gallons a day). Hopefully this is just a Virgo's perspective and not reality.

VIRGO, Something about you warms people up. It's probably your extraordinary self-confidence. People feel safe with you -- like whatever happens, you'll handle it. They're glad to have you around.

I'm getting more feedback like that lately than a woman has a right to. WAY more. At the commuciation workshop for yoga teachers wow they loooove me, after several recent classes from students wow they loooooove me too lately jeez louise, at the at-risk-youth yoga class I gave at the Native Community Center, at the reconvened mystic wed night classes, two sets of "God Bless You" letters on the same day in the mail (no seriously, my boss sent a note just to tell me she is going to pray for me and everyone I love every day this summer), a set of "Clerks" dvds in the mail as a for-no-reason-except-you're-awesome gift from a coworker, a kiss on my nose from the piano teacher, and more . . . and that's just in the last week. It's embarrassing to report kinda, but: Clearly something I'm doing is working for other people, (and that works for me). Hmmmm. The thing is, I'm just doing my thing mostly <:/ I'm not trying to evoke anything from any of these people. I dunno. Shrug.

Welp, this set of songs is dedicated to FPH. I say "dedicated" rather than "for", that seems to represent better my overall meh ft. neutrality mojo at the moment. The list starts out cracking me up and then gets asldkgfalsdjfa;sl warmer as it goes but in a restrained chill euro beat kinda way, metrosexual musk playlist:

josh bloomberg - beast of burden (the cover style really brings out the canadian gay in this song, gigglegiggle. optional: orginal version)

frankie karl & the dreams - don't be afraid (do what I say) - soul/do-woppy

mixilodian - make me - weird beginning, it catches you at the guitar riffing, 30-45 seconds in

andras fox and sui zhen - petite morte - sexychiiiilllll

jurassic 5 - canto de ossanha - pick up the pace a bit, chill w a shake-ass bass-line, oh yaaa

Sat night, I had my first ‘house party’, ie a party for the house. I had it smudged out w sage and a tribal drum, had the energy read and the ghost (re)located (having displaced the poor bloke again w the endless undone projects that I do myself and/or fuck up in the void, etc.). To stand where the ghost stands to watch me, you have to come here, it’s too hard to describe. I showed it to MilknCookies, she shivered all over freaked out. I showed it to Officer FBI, and he shivered all over freaked out. I don’t find it very freaky. I get goose bumps like someone is breathing on the back of me, but it doesn’t feel bad. I like having a man around the house, one like that, an appreciable but aloof presence. I got lots of advice about my energy, which is becoming (if not already done becoming and IS) totally and utterly and irrevocably singular. Not necessarily solitary, since obviously there are lots of people around in my life now, so much going on that I can hardly keep up. But that’s part of it, I have filled every corner of my own existence, all my space and all my time. And I’m not sure I want to change that. I say I do, but I think maybe I’ve tricked myself, the way a mother tricks a child into being good for Santa Claus, telling my girly self to keep a heart happy for Prince Charming. Even my music allows for hardly anyone else, and I haven’t noticed because I blog it. Sometimes I really am suggesting you listen to a good song, but mostly if you did listen you’d probably hear a song too morose and complicated to play any other way but alone in your room or car. Usually when I blog a song, I am saying essentially, “I am having a conversation with this song today and that conversation has nothing to do with you“. FPH and I used to say, “I am having a conversation with this song and that conversation has something to do with you”. I'm not sure DmS would concur that we did the same but I did on my end. And as a result of thinking of music that way, of thinking of myself as “relating“ in that way, I would blog songs that made me think of other people too, I would be in a state of relating to some degree whenever music played . . . but I dropped much of that, and I didn’t even notice the crucial difference it makes, the affect on me. Among other things, for a whole night I struggled to play any music that would be communal at all, would set any kind of mood for more-than-one-alone. These little things - in my space, in my time, in my sound environment, and probably more ways that I‘m not aware of still - they are all forging me apart. I am casting an apart spell on myself. I want to break it. (Or do I?)

No song. I don’t have one that really speaks for me to anyone. (Or vice versa, eh?)

How skilled are you at getting things done and making things happen? This is different from just being busy; it's not the same as scrambling around attending to whatever tasks are at the forefront of your attention. I'm talking about actually cranking out excellent results that manifest a comprehensive vision of your intentions. I'm talking about working hard and smart to serve the big picture, not working frenetically and mechanically to rid yourself of nervous mental energy. You're in a phase when these themes are especially important, Virgo. Be a master of the details; don't let the details master you.