it was missing an adverb (it's always an adverb)

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do," wrote the essayist Walter Bagehot. Personally, I don't think that's the supreme joy possible to a human being; but it definitely has a provocative appeal. May I recommend that you explore it in the coming weeks, Virgo? The astrological omens suggest you're in an excellent position to succeed at an undertaking you've been told is unlikely or even impossible for you to accomplish.

here's one [title was taken from the fray, how to save a life] , I remember FPH and I argued over its interpretation, that was back when he'd respond to content pretty regularly, only when he felt like it of course but he wasn't 'withholding' response either

conclusion: glad I didn't delete this blog after all
conclusion: I would realllly like to avoid the whole psych each other out thing wherein people have responses but won't give them to you, as if, I dunno what, as if they're gonna run out of responses to being alive so they have to conserve, or some crazy shit - I am trying convince myself that ti's something other than screwing somebody that does that, but

time to think

conclusion: as much as anything, I've been bored

remember this? or better, this? in my wa wa wa, I've been focusing on Mr Softee, his random appearances amidst lakes of time spent dealing with The Robot side of FPH like Mr Hyde. all that is fine, and not to be undervalued. I can feel FPH so thoroughly that I know when he withdraws his capacity to understand what I write, both fully comprehending and habitually inert (he is as not-prone to commentary as a highly literate human being ever could be). It's like putting out gifts of carefully made meals, replete with meaning and care, that are consumed overnight by a treasured largely invisible gremlin. My demon lover, materializing according to some moon phase or underworld goings on that I can't fathom, my reading (soft-ish)robot. And he can feel me too; he plays music for me lately, ironically, "remember this one?" he whispers in my ear when I am in public places alone. like I said, human connections are not to be undervalued, probably especially the strange ones in a world that does not admit to being strange (but is, very). however, what has gotten lost (among many other things) and which has been coming back to me more and more lately, especially as I can feel him leave my emails unread for instance, is my desire to write, my need of it, and at him was one of the ways I have been able to do that - until I lost sight of that in my care and concern and desire for Mr Softee himself.

for a while now, some number of years, I keep coming back to this idea of a genre that I call a vignette - it's not a shortshort story, because those have plot (I like those, but they tend to be kitchy). it's not a prose poem, because it makes more sense than that (although the sense breaks down sometimes, when it has to because sense has broken down). they're more like photographs, like Winesburg Ohio only shorter, a photo album, each one a thing in itself that is one thing and another in a series, which can be reordered at will. such a 'book' might end again and again and again. there was one I wrote of a woman who would not decide which chair to sit in because that would confirm the world and she refused, and that was the whole thing (I wrote that one for DmS, and now I can't find it [do you have it?]). I write one every so often, I keep them around, I think 'I should do something with these', but what? every time I start something new, like my recent greatgreatgreatgrandma project for Story, I think of this again and I wonder if it's a genre already. it is. I heard its name today, 'flash fiction'. the woman who named it that works in Buffalo in the poetics department I graduated and fled from. I heard some of her flashes today, one in which a woman takes a selfish lover (he's from Crete) after her bitter marriage ends and she thinks "I am just happy to be able to give" and my heart stopped, but it didn't need to keep beating because that was the whole story. Somewhere, someone is getting married right fucking now.

I need a lover to write about (cz how else would I have captured trying to save Robot from an academic firing squad except by lapsing into absurdist drama? maybe brecht started as a stupified lover of a maniac) and to write at (which is why, as much as I'm stirred and interested and all that, none of the musicians have inspired me to really throw down).

I have my body. I can cook. I have words upon words. And I have precious little reason to cough up all of those 3 things that are all I've got = the entire/global nature of my distress.

taking off for Boston . . Todd sent me that ferns thing so I'd be in a good mood heading out . . of course he doesn't know what associations Will Ferrell has for me. sigh. welp, Will Ferrell is funny, a symbol for all that I got out of it that I'm richer for bla bla bla. on that note, in order to enjoy Boston, I'll have to not care, to not remember, to not think about anything pastwise. I'll have to think of only the present. maybe that's how the future comes. I hope so cz there is nothing I want more than to stop looking back behind me at nothing but my own shadow.

repeat repeat love this song

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Will Ferrell from Will Ferrell

this is a pretty good one

memory (the hidden track), painful

whoa man playing this for me without my having to even ask (just cz I mentioned I loved it one day) was the most romantic thing any five guys have ever done for me (at one time anyway lol hahahhahahahahah)

and I do believe they did a better job of it, as utterly unbelievable as that is, holy shit

trying to be upbeat, there was no music at all playing at the toe ring party, that was NOT an improvement (except of my toes)

"I don't know what I'm looking for," sings Brendan Benson in his bouncy pop song, "What I'm Looking For," "but I know that I just want to look some more." I suspect those words could come out of your mouth these days, Virgo. I worry that you've become so enamored with the endless quest that you've lost sight of what the object of the quest is. You almost seem to prefer the glamour of the restless runaround -- as painful as it sometimes is. That probably means you're at least somewhat out of touch with the evolution of your primal desires. Check back in with the raw, throbbing source, please.

the restless runaround 'it's a journey' stuff has zero appeal anymore. looking, waiting, wanting, trying, all of it utterly sick of it, boring boring boring near frantic motion from one chore to the next one outing to the next one meal to the next, and all the time the funniest jokes are always my own and if I weren't flirting w myself and cracking myself up, cz god knows everyone else is either too lame or too miserable wa wa to be even infintessimally interesing let alone surprising let alone delightful, then neither I nor anyone around me would gigglesnort whatsoever. I was more in synch w the world when I was dying. I'm sick of everything, you're boring my brain til it shits out my of my eyes in a deadpan fuckyou stare 24/7 and boring my heart til it rots away and leaves me empty like django's ballsack

Just as Venus spends her first full day in an adventurous part of your chart a Full Moon falls in your communication sector, giving you a chance to open the communication lines and to walk the talk. Venus is on a mission to bring more romantic adventures into your life, with a chance to have heart and mind on the same page Virgo.

heart and mind on same page. huh. I dunno, would that be good? cz I make up my mind to buy puppies, for instance. seems a bit iffy <:/

meanwhile, I like this phrase
I gotta read the words of the day in the middle of the night cz TJ caught me once and asked 'what's that?' - whoa man, I gotta keep him from finding out about the urbandictionary, that's a disaster waiting to happen.

mine

I can't remember the last time I felt so purely grateful for an embrace as I felt towards that hug of hot water.

people can really treat you like shit. water and flowers never do.

well hmmm . . LMG is moving in down the street from me, that's a transition . . he and Thighs both want this from me (Thighs was just flirting, I think, but of a course he is also actually in pain as most men over 30 are somewhere along their spine) and the more I've talked to LMG about it, the more I understand the specific repetative motion injuries that someone with a heavy strap on one shoulder standing up for hours on end is inflicting on him(her)self. I chitchatted w Animal a little yesterday too (drummer, like from the muppets ya know?) and by the end of the night LMG and I were texting back and forth about a cottage industry I could get going in yoga classes for them all. I mean, friendwise, this has become my 'niche market'. and my home studio will be 3 blocks straight down from his new digs . . welp, I am certain that LMG is not just flirting w me, his back hurts and overall it makes him feel "old and stressed out", which made me want very much to help him, which made me for the first time stop thinking of this home studio as something I need to guard against the invasion of Milk-n-Cookies (with whom I have much more than enough 'together time' as it is!). I'm going to give him my yoga ball today, and order a couple more . . .

my rising sign: In Plato's Republic, Socrates speaks derisively about people who are eu a-mousoi, an ancient Greek term that literally means "happily without muses." These are the plodding materialists who have no hunger for inspiration and no need of spiritual intelligence. According to my reading of the astrological omens, Capricorn, you can't afford to be eu a-mousoi in the coming weeks. Mundane satisfactions won't be nearly enough to feed your head and heart. To even wake up and get out of bed each morning, you've got to be on fire with a shimmering dream or a beautiful prospect. (this one I do understand perfectly, regardless of it being Greeks ft Capricorns)

In his book The Rough Guide to Climate Change, Bob Henson talks about the "five places to go before global warming messes them up." One such beautiful spot is Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park. Vast swatches of its trees are being ravaged by hordes of pine beetles, whose populations used to be kept under control by frigid winters before the climate began to change. Australia's Great Barrier Reef and Switzerland's Alpine glaciers are among the other natural beauties that are rapidly changing form. I suggest that you apply this line of thought to icons with a more personal meaning, Virgo. Nothing stays the same forever, and it's an apt time in your astrological cycle to get all you can out of useful and wonderful resources that are in the midst of transformation.

I do not understand this horoscope. (shrug)

for VIRGO today: Why you choose one direction instead of another is a mystery. You defy the laws of marketing and laugh in the face of persuasion. You definitely have your own mind. Many will try to predict your next move; none will succeed.

shrug. even I dunno what it's gonna be. I'd usually move (buy a farm), that'd be a 'gina maneuver', and I might but I really just don't feel like it. so I dunno.

but it does feel about time for a something only I would do

stopped at home depot on my way home from yoga, having sweated as much as I possibly could, drinking tons of water so I could sweat more bc my notsick smell is one of my biggest pleasures (as small as that is) at present - asked some dude to help me find grass seed and slug guard and whatnot, him looking familiar vaguely but half of WNY has gotten their grammar corrected by me so whatever, then finally he places me and I place him . . he was just thinking about me the other day he says cz he's going to see The Hip again this summer like we did a couple years ago . . . funny how people can share a moment, who knows how many moments actually, and not share them at all ya know? I tried to do the math but I couldn't cz the night of that concert was either the umpeenth time FPH and I broke up or we never did at all depending on whether he ever 'counted' or not, and honestly I have no idea whatsoever (who's to say? he or I? my mama or his?), I just remember his having to take a pee so bad and FaintedInk yelling his name across the crowd in the dark and us laughing . . then I came back to the moment I was in now, not the first time an ex of Ink's has flirted with me, which as a repeat event must prove she speaks well of me (hahahahha), I register in their minds as desirable some kinda way, and I bit back a smile remembering her driving off with COI wrapped up in the seatbelt still, him running along the side of the car . . it's fine, I'm fine, that's really all that counts given impending mortality and all that, but it made me sad how time gets lost and people with it (all of them sorta actually, each in our own way now that I'm thinking about it) like FPH who simply vanished as if he cut the cord that tied him to the ship and floated out into the weightless black of space (can he breathe? I do not know), and I sang a cappella in the car with all the lungpower I could muster and I prayed my kids won't go missing on me cz some things I can take (barely anymore, but still) and some things I could not

for FPH('s ghost)

Dancing in Forever21, buying a new dress. I am happy to be healthy. Free of.

blue sky

What have you had to relinquish in the past ten months, Virgo? What were you forced to sacrifice or surrender? Whatever it is, I predict you will be compensated for it over the course of the next 12 months. And the process begins soon. It's not likely that the incoming blessing will bring an exact replacement for the dream that got away. Rather, you will be awakened to an unexpected new source of excitement, thereby dissolving the lingering sense of loss and liberating you to rise again.


have you ever fallen down and tried to catch yourself and scraped your palms up? that can't tell if it's hot or cold abrasion ouchy feeling?

my nails have grown a foot in a week and the ridges and white spots are gone, they look like I've been working on them but I haven't at all. I'm stunned kinda by how many little ways your (my) body can complain, can whine for attention with dry patches and slow-healing bruises and a stubborn sandbanking of fat that you don't need and can't get rid of and astringent-smelling hair and puffy eyes and nervous energy ft crash ft nervous energy ft crash ft nervous energy ft crash. that last complaint, an ache for napping between bouts of effort, that remains.

as for FPH, I feel like he chose not to survive, opted to get lopped out of me even though he wasn't what was making me sick. it is very hard, very disillusioning, I feel like calling his mother to make him get a puppy so I know he's okay but an unrenewed magazine subscription can't do that. this blog was one of the featured columns in the magazine. there is no reason for it to exist anymore. but, well, there's no reason for it not to exist either.

went to yoga before work, first time back in a few weeks - I don't smell sick anymore, I smell like wet bread again

surreal

ok I'll stop now >:/

gross

this is disgusting - human beings are lamentable - politics begins in your intestines, in what your gut says, listening to it and following that to the most loving responses you can have to anyone in each situation (think about it: have you ever had a bad feeling about being good to someone?), and that ripples outward incalculably. people will cheer this death today, fetishize it obviously, and it will make me queezzzzy.

happy monday >:/

(obviously the wreath works hahahahahahahah - gonna have to tell LMG to be careful where he puts that thing)

the sound/video quality of this is not super terrific - Sunnie took it w her phone - but it's so friggin adorable - it's Crown Chakra singing a song he wrote for his kid, and he brought out the kid to harmonize w him (teaching him to be a little rockstar, teehee). when the kid chimes in at about 3:20, it's sooo cute omg, then Thighs backs him up with the guitar riff, it is cute on steriods (that's me you hear giggling next to Sunnie): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt2eKTXFRVs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

then Clyde, LMG's band, which was okay but I wanted to hear the whole last set and had arrived just in time for it, perfect timing to get a drink and hug Tony cz they're on a break (who made a beeline right for me, BIG HUG, he loves the wallflower in me, and I appreciate that), Badfish for me when they started up again . . . but The Hydra went with me to Waterstreet after all, and after sitting still for 3 songs it looks at itself and thinks "we could be fighting or fucking right now" (SIGH) so home I go cz they want to get into their hot tub to hate or love each other . . fair enough, I kinda want a hot tub, they are nice on a chilly night I must say.

it was a good night, "good people" (I like good people)

You may be rethinking upcoming travel plans that you thought were already set. Or, perhaps, you're juggling your responsibilities so you can fit everything into your schedule. But it's tricky now because you cannot do this work alone. You'll improve your chances for success if your co-worker or partner supports you, so include him or her in your scheming. Remember that nothing is etched in stone yet. Today's decisions could change as soon as tomorrow Virgo.

ha ha - I didn't book it anyway, I was chatting w a student and forgot (whatever)

M

VIRGO Some of your thoughts are the same as yesterday and will repeat again tomorrow. There will be completely unique thoughts, too -- ones you will never think again. Capture them somehow so you will remember.

I have pretty feet (?)


yesterday I went to a fiction/poetry reading for students and faculty who published stuff in the campus lit magazine. I always feel so awkward in chitchat situations, but I don't feel awkward about feeling awkward anymore cz that's just how it is and there are worse problems to have (I could have 3 tits, or elephantitus, ya know?), I just observe my awkwardness from a meditative distance and let it go then concentrate on other feelings without hardly trying at all. I've gotten so much better at just letting shitty thought just offgas itself out my ear before it hits my stomach. M was there. She looked beautiful, really she is very beautiful in that fragile poet way w pale perfect skin and a face that flits from troubled to laughing and back again constantly. I like to look at her face. I emailed her afterwards just to tell her that. She emailed back that she had had the same thought about me looking good and that it had made her jealous and grumpy. I thought about that and in all truth I have zero jealousy that I could find in my mind, of her or anyone. I think there must be some kind of envy tucked into that social awkwardness of mine, a wish to be more like someone better than I am, but I honestly don't feel it as such - it must be offgassing w the fear of the awkwardness itself, I think. I even tried to pull up an image of FPH's new love interest to see if I could turn green mad, but all I could find in my feelings was a very deep tender spot. I like my mind/heart for being that way - that's a new thought.

What is not new is feeling shitty about every thing I have ever fucked up. And now a relentless (as opposed to intermittent) skittishness about ever being sick again in any way whatsoever, a near-crippling aversion to Needing Anything eats my liver in the lightless night.