i feel like…

We both skipped a turn? Or something? But we’re also back in true form if we write anyway to check in belatedly, with promises to write more maybesometime…um.

WHOA with your meeting theme from above. Are you speaking with Volcanic yet? Is she there yet, will she ever be?

I have a slow-burn cold-hot ache across the middle of my back that just feels like sadness. Maybe some IcyHot? Does that cure all…

Today on a whim I decided to wrap Persephone’s earbuds a la a Pin I saw once and thought I pinned but apparently didn’t. Or I can’t find it on my boards, but that doesn’t mean anything. Except mine doesn’t look nearly as neat and lovely as it’s been at least a decade since my last friendship bracelet.

Also I have a meeting tonight for children’s council, which is going fine by the way, but I hate hearing myself talk, so I sort of have to power through that conundrum. Hm.

I made muffins… banana…

And I did laugh out loud at your pork and cockroach allergy. I mean… epic. Outside of a random Indiana Jones adventure, I don’t foresee many problems with the cockroaches, but have you sensed pork? And HOW are you not allergic to wheat, officially, after all your trials and tribulations with it? Do we trust this Korean assessment really, is what I’m asking. But I love that there’s still a ??? mystery allergy hovering out there. Ooo what could it be. (SG!) And allergic to dogs, however mildly – psshhh. I don’t know. I just don’t know.

The bookshelf is filled and is glorious.

I’m officially avoiding nosy-hag neighbor, who is simply going to have to fly on her own, little bird, fly fly. For my toxicity sensor is beeping wildly.

I ought to mow the lawn and refresh the hummingbird fare and water the plants. But it’s so wilt-y out there, whine.

And Bunheads is wearing on me with its lack of heart. Like it’s got the spunk, but…

anyway.

ttfn – totes – boom

penz

findings, by m

Good Afternoon. We apologize for deluging you with words after a month gone. And with no flashy new spins or whistles. The second week we were gone my heart got all achy for the blog. But then as with most neglected things I upped my netflix que, started drinking and tried to fill the hole with anything but words. By now I'd been so long away that I couldn't remember what it was to blog or why and I drank less and started working out more. Then I started getting twitchy and as pen and I phrase it "spirally" as in downward because having now been out of work for a month not all my problems were spontaneously fixed, not all the things on my list were crossed off, and things were stacked up high in my mind and i couldn't quite see my way clear to be excited about the blog or to study for french and all i watched was MurderSheWrote. Pen insists my malaise might be due to watching copious amounts of SixFeetUnder but I insist that my mom not having life insurance is up there along with my dad being an asshole along with the kitchen and the bathroom being a shithole along with it being winter along with our book not being finished or me not wanting to work or my waistline or my age or my single status or well just about everything i could suck into the dark matter vortex. Because one thing like not working might be the event but all these other things become echoes until the horizon is chalk full of a whiny gooey mass. Though the upside of rain is that the drought is over and that the paint that got into my hair is water soluble, i think... and that the sun is out before you know it and Spring around the corner. Just writing that in this little form makes me feel all sorts of grounded and normal. I can feel myself being more productive already.

Mango Oracles

I methodically cut into my mango slice by slice, balanced on a wad of napkins, licking sticky fingers and making sure all the orange peach colored meat is taken from the mysteriously tough fiberious pit. i consume it quickly. enjoying the sound of the knife cutting the fruit and scraping the pit. a contradiction: i find myself dispassionate lately about a lot of things. A friend not speaking to me is a buzzing gnat that i can't even muster outrage over. Just a sigh. Well if that's how it is then... well... (the tail goes swish, swat, swat) maybe i'm depressed over the job ending. am i? i don't seem thrilled over the freetime either... As i eat and enjoy slice after slice, contemplating the taste and texture of each bite, juice down my chin, sucking on each piece and gripping them with my teeth and running them clean. and yet, I feel mangoless, though lately i've been enjoying all the wonderful deliciousness they possess. I've bit by bit begun to paint again and write and reawaken whatever creative impulses have been wasted in time taking activities. and yet still it's like i slumber. rolling my neck side to side. de ja vu in french class jolting me to other realities but just barely a beat rising. what was that, what was breaking thru like a pulse and gone. dreams of myself, my mother- dying quietly, sleepily in the garden, peacefully passing while sitting in a pose of sitting on haunches, hands in lap, eyes closed and straight forward- shocked awake, sad and heartache, vowed to remember but fighting thru thick webs of hour after hour of nothing. pondering the uncut mango. smooth. is it ripe. too ripe? unripe. cut into it. i talk to jesus in sighs and murmurs, snatches of conversation distracted and lifted up in tired gazes. i do not ponder what he may be teaching me but am waiting for resuscitation of color to breathe new life into the canvas. have i fallen asleep? am i waiting to be wakened. bring it to me. i ache. the music says it better than i do. the still air. the cat across my path. and everyone else speaking from a far off place. i am left with the pit and dirty hands. but do not remember.

Hola!

In my on going effort to fight blog silence I patter these words now- i can't believe it has such a strong pull, everything but writing... when i'm surrounded by books and reading jacket covers at work- i think enough is enough- i need to fucking concentrate. Go home and work on my stories... and then i glaze over. I did happily go swimming today and every dive was luxurious. I think despite my teeny addiction with burgers and fries I've lost 5lbs. But I fear the slump... and in an odd, unrelated turn my left hand has been tingling and numb. which is as you know good times. and i actually told the manager- i need a handrest- what day would you like (i asked)- tomorrow, thurs or friday? woo. so tomorrow it is. even though she gave no sign of being worried about workers comp claims...

anyway, contributing to the malaise of feb/march was my visit to my great grandmothers house- which is in a poor and super-urbanized part of LA. there's something wonderful about it still standing though in most breaths i say, "abomination" and make a wide biblical sweeping motion with my right hand. they bought it for 1,000 or so in 1918... and it's still standing. my great-grandmother's house was my favorite place in the world to my memory- velvet drapes, closed drawing rooms i couldn't enter, rikety stairs, lace curtains, sprigs of flowers, and one exploration of hazy summer butterflies after another. and when i think about it, it's like taking a fresh breath in a stagnant and ordinary smog. so of course encountering the reality of time and neglect, there is very little to add but a sad nostalgia. luckily i only had my camera phone with me, as i hadn't seen the house since i was a kid it was a spontaneous visit, it gives the stark grit of concrete and sagging stucco a gentle blur which makes the pain and ruination of art almost bearable. the form still survived- i said, as i drove by and stopped, wow, there it is... and the house next to it too- wow. huh. huh. i thought. i want to somehow print out the old pictures and mail them to the current owners... explain to them what it could all look like again if they wanted... maybe break up the cement island and plant grass... maybe? that would be a start. and then the bars on the windows... possibly? like a nice letter encouraging them to care.

i don't know.


next up is a brief pondering on my tea and magic castle visit.