Plathological

"Caroline gets the best inverted compliments." [Matthew]

you've long stopped debating the merits of softcover, fossilized, sleeping in, surgical, with tangled hair, modern history, a pile of butterflies that need roman numerals/what any man wants. Manmade things are not always inanimate, take a garden, for example, walking through it with a watering can in one hand, the yellow pages in the other. Such routine, sometimes. You set aside a day for produce purchase and it tore you apart: you left a papertrain, shifted things in the fruit bowl, borrowed the newest translation in your language, stared at the heater running along the length of your floorboards.

:the abstract policy of my brain after being curled and soundless around so many people these past few days. Friday drank red wine from France and slept somewhere other than home, and Saturday as well--being nothing natural, I was lost in the mail, rerouted, equated with poise, such presence, couldn't move, heavy as descriptions of your mother's kitchen, autobiography, waiting for someone to tell you they don't love you anymore, international airspace, or wings over it. Heavy, you couldn't have pushed me aside with the force of someone swearing never again, putting on clothes, or counting the hours.

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Today was all Kurt Cobain, I'm not even kidding you. Just think about it, (I like) girls with strange eyes, (I can be) moody.

"walk into the light like what" [automato]

Who discovered zero? Matter & style: there is tin foil art all over my wall-- moulds of our faces, one crotch, one pair of tits. So: Matt was over, making a taboo a taboo. Cough. He brought me a mixed CD he titled A--Z; all the songs on it are by artists whose names start with either A, or Z. Go figure. I made fries and provided a sauce, danced to spoken word and took photos, partook in an accidental wet t-shirt contest, which was actually a wet (white, thin) hoodie contest. Then, everything started to stain me at once while I contorted and screamed: My body is turning against me! My body is TURNING AGAINST ME! I did an overflowing sinkful of dishes while listening to p:ano and thought about what it means when you need to buy lightbulbs, or when you discover a cavity by biting down. Spheres believe their own motions. We had a conversation about this guy that hung water-logged condoms on his ceiling as decoration, "They looked like stalactites. He kept them up there for so long, they started to grow algae. They glowed--green and blue." Matt said (with expressive hands).

I wrote 2000 words yesterday, finished the story. Matt read it tonight. I've been writing so madly these past couple of days that by the time Matt came over at sevenish, about an hour after I came home from dropping my story and a few critiques off at the fine arts building, all I could do was languish on my couch, drink coffee after coffee from the percolator while ashing my cigarettes and saying things like, "I feel as if I'm coming out of a cave. . . This song is amazing. . . I'm so glad we put that painting up there. . .Wouldn't the algae on his ceiling be a health hazard? . . .If I had the energy, I would be writing this all down . . .This song is amazing . . . I feel like I'm coming out of a cave. . . ." ////////// CEMENT BRAIN CITY.

words words

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& then, in the middle of the night, I decide I want corn. I don't even like the word kernel. Its connotations are too pedantic.

Sensory Depravation

The most sinister feeling, Vote For Novelty, Pin. Cold War feeling. Music show across the switch bridge. I asked a few people, it seems I managed to pull off black on black. Me, Graeme, and Jaxon tried to smoke a dried fish, it just won't breathe, Graeme said. Uncanny. I had a prayer for help answered tonight; it was almost instantaneous, it was illustrated--town & country. A few minutes there where I thought I was lost for good. I giggled at spastic intervals in the back of the cab, hips as laboratory. It was uncontrollable and unaffected, handcrafted for trade. An inkling that there was nothing I could do; there will be damp mittens for these hands. Point B? I fell asleep symmetrical under my long coat, my fingers on my temples, my thumbs on my jaw. This summer we kept buying packages of strawberries in street markets. We ate them right away on slopping streets that curved down from where we stood. The prices were so good, the sheets rarely changed.

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I think there was a point in the evening where I promised emily an entry about ephedrine. It was supposed to contain serious pain, heartache, lyrics. I don't think I can deliver. Because, when I say stuff like that, it reminds me of why I should never leave my house.

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Is there not this immense undercurrent of culmination, body as watched canvas? I don�t want culmination without intersection--that�s where the sinister feeling comes in. It has taken me five hours to pin this down to those particular terms. I'm a slow, absorbing thinker. I wish my favourite songs were longer. I want to wear skirts, not a skirt. The plural places me in history, monosyllabic dialogue, folds, which are tactile, but also the proper place for a pause. So I got good and stoned last night. Again.

"Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Bood," or something.

a few personal things about me, well rounded:

I now, for the first time, have a home of my own creation and it’s fleshing out.

Because of the dear support of friends, literature, the artistic community at large, and music, I can now say that after nearly four years I am starting to feel like I can act like myself again. No shaved head, no season's tickets to the opera, no gas station attendants mistaking me for someone from Britain because of an affected accent I picked up for awhile through osmosis, no eating disorder. Electrolytes in tact. My hair is very much past my shoulders now.

Today I admitted to myself for the first time that the last four years have left me emotionally dead. It’s more than level-headedness--I can be faced with what should be red-light trauma and just be left staring. The result is I don’t know how harmful things are to me as they are happening because this wall forces me into a very delayed, analytical reaction. It's the Age of Reason & snowblindness, though, Matthew has been very good about telling me how I feel up to this point, mainly:

We are the people who's come here to play
I don't like it easy
I don't like the straight way
We're in the middle of something
We're here to stay
And we raise our heads for the colour red
♥♥♥

I am grateful for this defence mechanism, but it would be nice to feel something again, more than this slight, slow bridge. I used to cry on floors. It’s like certain cells have died, pushed out with the current. I may never get them back. Regardless, I need to find my way back to plot: what does she want, the cords to this fundamental question have been cut several times over. I'm afraid, terrified to be touched, physically. My feeling are, for the most part, special ordered, the backlog.

I realize some things are invaluable and I want to keep them, raising the glass for a reason. A definitive clink. I mean it: You touched my heart, like a knife that's very sharp.

Last night, Jaxon brought home an airtight container for our tea so it wont get stale. We had a brief argument about tomato slices.

My espresso cups keep charming portions, of any liquid.

I found myself crossing the street today to find the sidewalks. It's illegal to walk on roads, alongside and closer to machines.

"I sometimes think they're one of the greatest bands of our time." (Matthew, on The Knife)

PEOPLE ARE ABORTING FULL.GROWN.GOATS. So, like, matthew of the hobo gloves and handkerchiefs around the neck, made me the loveliest mixed CD yesterday: The Knife, Diplo, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, cLOUDDEAD, Beck, Prince, and twenty-four other songs. Today he grounded and supported me during an emotional meeting at the university--my prof is amazing. AMAZING. My friends are beyond dear to me--Matthew, I mean, I can't even express everything you've done for me in the last two days alone. And it probably didn't even seem like much, a rattlesnake caught in a wheel well:

After the meeting we smoked a joint with Kyle on campus and went to my place where Matt and Kyle played music on Casio and electric guitar while I played housewife, warming and distributing food, at times dancing along. Kyle left, Xavier came with a box of honey buns, and we smoked another joint and we were, plainly put, fucked out of our minds. So good. And we danced sporadically and insanely to the mixed CD, which seems specifically formulated to be listened to during a motherfucking state--re, holy heightening vibe-vibes and big cars/you're not a bear, nor are you a bear from The Bear. I mean, last night it was me and Matt, the same pot and pages and pages of theory and mapping. Today it was all stoner dance party, neighbours coming round to ask for vanilla, hoodies and bent-in-half laughter, early knives-- who wants to be ordinary? who wants to be sweet?:

There was a point where everyone was dancing individually in their own corner of the apartment, all with his or her own line of vision and I got caught up in gazing and that was the point where I thought they were trying to kill me with the hilarity of their dancing. There was a point where I smoked a cigar and it fucked me up so much I forgot where I was. Good, happy, body-high pot.

Xavier spent a good half hour in monologue, something about how when the monsoon hit, all the gafelta (sp??) fish were wiped out, so us Jews went to the seas, and all we had to eat was Styrofoam. Sometimes we dipped the Styrofoam in honey to, you know, make it seem like we were really full. This was alllllllll told in an accent, as he lounged on the couch. Allllllllll very Beautiful Losers. There were points where I was laughing so much it hurt like the most gut-wrenching kind of love. There was one point where I sprang up like a firecracker to dance as if out of nowhere to the Muppet-like disco (track thirteen). Gee, Miss Piggy. It was all so dumpling. & I unfortunately don't feel like explaining the origins or my feelings towards the directly preceding term of approval and endearment. We watched a Chinese film called Happy Times. The plot, including anorectic blind girl sans father, was almost too brilliant to handle for my plotless self. Though I had the subtitles down this time for real. This entry is all over the place for obvious reasons.

Just a Thought

I like it when people are subtly and subversively possessive of me.

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Looks, but doesn't feel like, bedtime. Logic compels me.

Fuck **You**, End of Semester. Stop Making Me Do THIS, in nature:

I'm just going to sit here with my lyrical sensibility in tact and drink an entire carton of apple juice. I am going to sit here and analyze why Beck is one of the originals, this go-round. Yes, I just said that and it turned me on, from point A to B. BANG. Casio--my beat is correct:

"Falling from grace, falling from grace/Lord, you have a pretty face./Take it away and pack it in a suitcase/Then forget about falling from grace." [Marianne Faithful]

There is one brown-shelled egg in my fridge, broken English. I've spent some time thinking about the two skins of an orange, thinking them over. I'm listening to Marianne Faithful's The Blue Millionaire. Marianne Faithful is my god, crystal vases she breaks. It's important for me to share this with you:

It seems to me that the effective writer is one who is inwardly sure of the entire naturalness of his creative act. For instance, he must be aware that he is writing not merely because he is neurotic. Everybody's a bit queer and slightly mad, but I'm sure that my compulsion to construct more and more unprofitable verse isn't anywhere near as screwball as the compulsion of businessmen to make more and more money. But the writer who does not believe this is hamstrung from the start, haunted by a false diagnosis of his society, and driven into a permanent state of apology and mock-modesty for his abnormality, or into snarling hatred for the nastiness of the normal. [Earle Birney, on the writer in Canada]

I think it's incredible that I came upon this now, considering all that me and Matt mapped out on pages after pages of my lined notebook at my kitchen table last night in an utter state of madness (re we proved the above quote, and more, mathematically). Synchronicities abound when they're supposed to. This boy has my mental strategy, and nothing definite has my heart. If not a time & place for me to notice through process.

Well, This is Embarrassing--hahah: Smoking Baby Mouth!

You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis. Postmodernist 100% Cultural Creative 100% Idealist 94% Existentialist 75% Materialist 63% Romanticist 44% Modernist 38% Fundamentalist 13% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

Footnote: Cultural Creative is a term coined by Ray and Anderson to describe people whose values embrace a curiosity and concern for the world, its ecosystem, and its peoples; an awareness of and activism for peace and social justice; and an openness to self-actualization through spirituality, psychotherapy, and holistic practices. Cultural Creatives do not just take the money and run; they don't want to defund the National Endowment for the Arts; and they do want women to get a fairer shake--not only in the United States, but around the globe.

Brown Food Num Nums

More sharp than this, we’re a household of scissors, protrusion--four sets of blades between us. As a hernia, what was once contained now is not, organs, or other bodily structure, the nails are now uneven and atrocious, receding behind the line of skin. A code, a collections of laws, or a patient whose heart has stopped beating, as in cardiac arrest, when used in slang. Actions performed to laughter, milk adding texture for the throat.

Last night had Matt & Xavier (hence known as The Long One) over for what turned into a three course meal with merlot, starting with a variety of sausages from the market. It has been a while since any of us has had a meal where all the food groups are separated on the plate--veggies, grains, meat refusing to commingle in one monster fusion. After dinner, we smoked a joint and then Matt, Jaxon & myself did interpretative Thai-Chi to a bill bissett recording in our living room, while The Long One writhed on the couch in overwhelmed agony. Matt then made intricate art with ballpoint; it was all very Ok Computer. I hung the piece above Jaxon’s dragon collection in the kitchen when the lines were proclaimed complete. Evening ended with watching Peter Sellers in The Party on DVD. After the viewing, Matthew said, everything seemed like an extension of The Party--so I was very much observed and laughed at while I struggled, tipsy and still slightly stoned, to reattach my laptop and all its cords to the electrical outlet between my desk and the wall. There were a lot of oh, shits, and fuck, I just unplugged the wrong cord. What cord did I just unplug?? At various points, The Long One compelled me to speak in a super computer voice. In turn, it compelled him to hide behind two blue pillows, throwing them at my evil spirit, or head, at intervals, exclamations implied:

Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt
And we can't be late
And we can't be late

These Hands

When I make myself food, it always looks like some sort of appetizer tray: cut up cubes of cheese, meat, dark, seedless grapes, crackers, put it all on a little platter. Apple juice in a found wine glass. In this regard, living with me is like witnessing a party that's always about to start.

Today I said the following to someone:

For your Monumental deceit, MONUMENTAL, fire and brimstone on your soul! You spend some time talking to God.

"We'll be in touch," Jaxon then said to this person.

Your task is to guess whom we were talking to.

bit of sunrise

I live above a Mediterranean store. It's making me love Arabs, their bulk olives, their fresh dates, guava juice, buying seasonal food by weight. Gold shops in Kuwait. Today was restful: Xavier came over on his lunch break (he works across the street), he brought us olives from downstairs and we made him pekoe tea and chicken soup. Then Jaxon went to work and I read some stories and added another eighty words to the one I handed in for workshop yesterday. I spent some time dancing around the apartment to Depeche. I had a gorgeous nap at six. My body is slowly reaching its equilibrium again. The past two weeks have been consumed with sleeplessness and moving, recovering a sense of place. To stay awake during this time of transition I think I drank enough coffee from our percolator to drown a large, beastly animal. Quite possibly an Ox, or my bloated and growling liver. Now things seem more settled and I have room to focus again, which is great because this apartment is fantastic, everything I wanted and more.

makes things worth it

Lines Written To Commemorate The Award of The Nobel Prize For Literature 2005 To Myself, by Harold Pinter O.M.

So. They have given me
The Nobel Prize
For Literature.
That'll show that
Fucking bastard Bush
And his warmongering
Friend Blair.
Wankers.

� H. Pinter, Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2006

Waiting Room

I love the fact that despite not going to school, Jaxon has more school supplies than me. This really helps when I'm writing and am looking for a pencil sharpener or white-out to better correct my drafts, for example. He's at the hospital at the moment, getting a day long series of injections for his temporary nerve condition. I consol myself by keeping busy with sentence structure, straightening the area rug, keeping the music down, and making comparisons with what doctors are doing to him to the content of quite a few underground pulp novels from the 60s. Yesterday I met someone for the first time and he asked me what my stories were about. I told him they were about people. He said that was vague. I told him it would be insulting to give him a pat answer. He then asked me if I had any reoccurring themes in my stories, and I said, "Oh, you know, people on the outskirts, not knowing what they want." I knew my writing prof would have laughed at this summation, and for good reason, but I kept my face straight. And silently prayed someone at the table would change the subject.

What I'm trying to say is, I've eaten too many pickles and this is now a photo of me:

Intellectually Superior/Action Oriented

All moved in. We spent the day putting art on the walls. I cried all day. I feel as if the people I most connect with are also the people I make most uncomfortable. They leave me most vulnerable in turn. I have a need to talk to everyone for hours. Yesterday was moving van, the massive unpacking and the eventual approximation of some sort of housewarming party. Agreement to drugs in rooms. I haven't done that much cocaine in a while. Me and Xavier shared a mickey of Jagger. Matt gave a housewarming concert on the keyboard. He wore a white helmet while singing in our galley kitchen, milkshake bringing the boys to the yard, &tc. I couldn't ask for dearer or truer friends that I feel inclined to do anything for. When morning came and I was still awake, I realized I can have the most unnatural conversations in the most natural way and that’s my general, on-going definition of connection: doing what your nerve cells tell you to do, having your bowels drop from your body the entire length of the next day. At least the paintings are straight, and one key wall remains bare. This has been a process and we now have milk, a carton; I lay myself down at your feet. You haven’t seen me at my weakest. I am chain-smoking at my desk. I have a writing nook. It faces out onto the beams of the courtyard, it takes the better half of songs:

But in my heart it was so real
And you even spoke to me, and said :
"If you're so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
And if you're so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you're so very entertaining
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you're so very good-looking
Why do you sleep alone tonight ?
I know ...
'Cause tonight is just like any other night
That's why you're on your own tonight
With your triumphs and your charms
While they're in each other's arms..."
It's so easy to laugh
It's so easy to hate
It takes strength to be gentle and kind
Over, over, over, over
It's so easy to laugh
It's so easy to hate
It takes guts to be gentle and kind
Over, over
Love is Natural and Real
But not for you, my love
Not tonight, my love
Love is Natural and Real
But not for such as you and I, my love
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my ...
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can even feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my ... (The Smiths)

thoughts during a full night

Stoning our animals to flesh.

I just realized that I'm about to move into one of the last places I'll be living in Victoria. I have trouble with the unacknowledged seminal, everyone knows that. Soft hearts, I'm listening to Bowie, Warszawa, and the two tracks that follow--Art Decade, Weeping Wall. It's good that I'm feeling like the music I listen to again. Torn from the sounds is a major part of the displacement, something silly about out of tune, two part harmony &tc. We're staying at Jaxon's father's apartment for the next three nights. It overlooks the park while at the same time being above the treeline. The balcony is carpeted, which either brings the inside out or the outside in, depends on whether you're wearing socks, how much cold runs over the tops of your feet. Anyway, it's a transplanting, has the same outcome as houseplants: is it the walls and roof or the leafs and roots that we're supposed to focus on? The soil brought in. I'm trying to compare most things to kitchen utensils, how they work through definitions, sometimes through the nearest translation from a language other than this one. This is the outcome with it: you finish with eating, the body takes care of the rest. Hand to mouth is the final required action, pressing the teeth down in a rhythm. I don't want to lose anybody. There's still something irrational here. The mood slowly settles. The next location. They're coming to get me in the morning. But for now, I really like seeing my life packed away like that, into loose boxes with open flaps. Things you have to carry with a straight back. Come get me.