Letter to the Ether,

I guess we broke the blog. Or that the unexpected fish tank explosion of 2013 really was the last straw. I wish through this time I was unaware of leaving the blog or that I didn't think about talking to it, but I deliberately didn't- my usual test to see if I could give up talking to the ether and I find that I cannot.

So here I am again.

There is something to the slight warping of the floor boards you mention. The imperceptible lift and catch to say I am no longer perfect, no longer a blank slate to act upon and be acted upon but a floor with a story. I suppose it depends how long you live there and who will live to know and pass down this queer day there was a shift and the inexplicable imperfect occurred. It deserves a small humorous plaque I think. The stories I know of my floor are not nearly as daring- fraught with the hazards of carpet and animal or metal or toilets overflowing. I wish it had been more. And the mundane hazards replicated over decades -- thus the scripture. I finally sanded the West bedroom after a couple sermons and worship music and avoidance activities and now the equally arduous task of stain and sealing. The same herculean mental effort.

It is also possible my metabolism is crashing which would explain the extreme fatigue, the brittle nails and hair, weight gain and recurring food intolerance - dairy, frosting? I don't know. If I wasn't afraid of the black Friday or that guy Mayhem I would've gotten some b-supps. I did however take a walk. And it was a beautiful post rain- glisten and gold dripped trees.

It is not lyme's disease however. It is not that... should know more.

But we are tired are we not of all the habitat enrichment and diagnosis that is the human body. But still we must grapple and wrestle out of this mortal shell and cross the divide into that collaborative body of experience, warping boards and all. Beautiful in the patterns we make.

I did almost set the house on fire- but in my defense I didn't know that the large board was soaked in something highly flammable before I put it sideways into the fireplace.

m.



 

Penelope.

Hello, from across the continent. I'm listening to Bon Iver and Param is by my feet. And I'm up past my usual bed time of 10pm at least this last week. I can feel the rhythms evening out as each thing is accomplished, and hammering asphalt intermittently during the day as my upperbody building exercises is enough to make my eyes lightly mist up in encouragement that even that - this measurable output 1/3 done- Sure even as I sat and sighed deeply in satisfaction at 2/5 gardenias planted I noted that they're being attacked by something and that the 2/3 is long as the day is hot in August. But still. We do what we can. We do it where we're at and we don't wait to be anywhere else. To suddenly have money. For pigs to fly. For things to alter themselves when they have always been the way they are.

Mom said that painting the bathroom was not akin to climbing Everest and I quipped and she hurumphed. But each room I think is a mental and emotional battle against my own internal grudges. Deep-seated. Grooves that go really far down into my own heart of darkness. Grooves that have me loosing my shit over craptastic drywall work- lines everywhere, lines cracking through the primer, drywall not flush to the door jamb, weird fucking wonky not perfect shit. I look at the spider like smash I made in the enamel of the bathtub- 3+ years ago by now and I think I made that. I was tired. I swung and I missed and I knew I had to put the sledge hammer down. But this drywall business is just half-assery. I get it. I'm guilty of it, like the floor- there's lines aren't there. But this guy they hired and my dad know better. They aren't novice hacks. I don't know why it enrages me so. Maybe because I feel i'm doing this by myself against the stream of fuckall. I had worship music going for a good while just to push through the inevitably toxic mental churning.

Still it didn't stop me having to scream at someone (poor mom) of the shit job- surely someone has to know. Someone else besides me in my own head all by myself, as I spend each day fighting the gremlins from room to room. And then of course somehow got into a fight with Amber where she was prompted to hold against me all the things she's done for me that I thought were generous of her but apparently not, so of course I should do just this thing out of 'you owe me'. Don't you? And I was reminded of the MM part where he talks about how we economize relationships- and I thought ok i'm not going to do that. I won't tit-for-tat this. But then it led me to wonder what other resentments other people were stacking against me. It goes to what we can possibly repay. We can't. I'm in enough debt as it is- I simply can't keep account to balance out friends- but it's a new way. A new groove. To burn the ledger- and how to love through and in that space. I can't say I know what that looks like.

It's control too and the perfection you know time and money can execute for you. To just have it done. To not labor. As if nothing is learned, gathered or built in the doing of things. Are they really time stealers- or are they like washing the whiteboards or waxing the car- the discipline of carrying through and doing and being mundane creation and maintaining- and how we behave in those spaces and the decisions we make to keep going- hacking at the asphalt, letting the lines lie- weeping, gnashing and then rubbing the imbedded gravel out of our knees and we keep going- to find peace in an imperfect space. To find peace in ourselves.

And then in those meditative spaces I think- God, you must not care about me as I sit here in this imperfect mess and you don't deliver me from it with bags of money or a husband or a friend who won't inevitably hold it against me if I ask for help. And then I hear, it's not important. But I think that's me thinking what God would say, and then I argue back but it's important to me. But then I think what's the aim and the aim isn't perfection, and I think God would agree with me on that. And then what it is - relationship- in those spaces with God and myself in the concrete, and in those spaces in my heart that all of these things trigger. Pondering the verses below as things fly through my head, as I shrug my shoulders from the tension and crack my wrists from the overwork. It would be better if Jesus be my arbiter- against accusations of who I am in the world and to others. It will never be enough without him. So the power of such things must be to walk in faith through them- the small that would make us small- to define myself not by the cracked lines of an atom among many, but by him, who makes me heir and calls me daughter. I have to believe I'll be the better for it.

^2cor10:3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴ The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵ We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

S for So-so,

It's hot here as L.A. is wont to be coming toward July. It has been 5 days since my last shower. It has been 2 minutes since my last cup of coffee. There is one in the freezer for later. There is 1/2 of one in an ice-cup for 5 minutes from now. I'm going to paint the baseboards in the room, go to a bead store and mail some dried seaweed to a girl in Oregon. It's only $13 but it's something. Monk is on in the background and I've found since i've been back there is less on tv then there was a year ago, and that as much as I want to watch Damages I'm emotionally recoiling from it, so Netflix it is and old episodes of that quirky OCD detective.

I haven't found a game to replace GearsofWar3 and there are only so many deathmatches you can participate in when you're not connected to xboxlive and fighting and communicating with real people. Apparently my time as a hermit, though foretold, has not yet come to pass.

Strides have been made in the renovation of the sleeping place. And as i stare at the enclosed pictures the imperfections arent so upsetting, but stain reveals all the variations layers and trauma of a floor more than you think- you'd think the sanding it to its natural state and protecting it would somehow purify it but it's all there- the unevenness in absorbtion and actual level of the wood, chemical reactions, bad previous sandings, life, chair scrapings, deskmat meets grit... it was tyrannizing me a bit- so i wrote scripture over it. Seemed to me a perfect pairing of an imperfect thing with the perfector of things. Also it's telling me that the perfection of the floor though it would have been glorious doesn't have to rule me- let me live with the good enough and turn it into art instead of some shameful embarassment to woodworking folk everywhere. Grieve it, let it go, and move on. It took a lot of scripture to cover it- ps 139 "search and know me o' Lord" is 43 to v14 "you are my witnesses," declares the Lord. cor1 13 "love is. love never fails... love. all of romans 8 "the spirit intercedes with groans words cannot express".. and ephesians 6 "so put on the full armour of God"... and so on all handwritten in that sharpie marker cursive. You live in a place long enough and it becomes a well in 15 years when the varnish wears and you knew intuitively you'd have to deal with it even if that seemed so far away at the time, and so that things you plant repair ignore are indeed the reaping and sewing of your life... well anyway.

Also the cats are doing this. It's so ridiculously hot for them that they just sleep during the day and go out at night. Also in general they love sleeping on my bed now that it's in the living room. Like the central den scenario is finally come to pass and they approve. I'm not sure how they'll handle me relocating back into the bedroom but for now i can just gaze at them and laugh. For some reason them sleeping is hilarious to me. Of course i upset danica by sending her the cat pictures because she's a napper and can't nap currently because of the kids and schedule and life and whatever. I never have been and i don't like the way it makes me feel when i wake up- slogged and foggy but how cute is that? I guess i'll be one of those cat people. Laughing and no one quite knows why. But they're like this for a good 6 hours or more as i work there they are mocking it by just being and sleeping.

 oh and i've done a little artwork.

 

and here's marcus wondering what to do now that he's committed alien genocide and saved humanity. he stops short of bathing himself in the ocean cathartically i might add which is what you think he's going to do and what you'd instinctively want him to do after a dirty battle thats lasted i dont know how long especially ones without sleep, bathroom breaks or food. my friend nan- her character name anya is telling marcus that there's tomorrow- that's what- a future and a hope- if only there were a gears of war4. and marcus and anya... and i could keep and then...anyways. i must remind myself that i wouldnt like the military and at best if i were the remenent of humanity i wouldn't know what to do with myself either- which points to the importance of having a hobby even before the zombie apocalypse starts so that it doesn't seem like a sham to you to put down your gun/xbox controller and start painting trim and sorting papers on your desk so you can make room again in your life for necklaces and future jobs and prayer walking around the block and trying not to let it drive you crazy that it's not a full mile or even a full 2/3, point 74. agh.

m.