this imploding heart

the gravity urge

Ooh! First time of double-paycheck so I went right out, paid my library fines and bought some new shoes. Handmade clogs from the handmade clog man, in pink and work happy black. Mom and poppa paid for the work shoes, I threw the pink ones in for myself.

Here are paintings 2 and 3.

shakin them sticks

Oh man. I think about this all the time. We'd be sitting at the IHOP or the PlasBank and you'd flip through your book. How coffee stains turn into the damn eifel tower with a frenchman on a bicycle underneath. How everything had the potential to be something else, had a way to turn more beautiful or complicated.

In painting, I thought about that a lot. All I wanted was the things in the front to *look* in the front, and I'd imagine how easy it was for you to make a peanut into a palace. I used to watch your hands pour out something beautiful at the bus stop and wonder what the fuck was wrong with mine. Hands! Go! But my hands can't make what my mind wants. If I can't catch and hold the flash of joy in your eye, whats the point in attempting your face at all?

So I start with painting my plants. Their expressions take at least a day to change.

you've heard it all before but let me try to explain

I spent 3 hours and forty dollars tonight to get my class 12 permit for my new *other* job. Other job is right next door to Mostly job, so it's just like another day at work except that I have to wear pants and stay awake past one. If I could get a job at the Korean grocery, I'd be the queen of the neighborhood!

I'm getting good at remembering names. Now if only I could match all the stories... are you the guy who just published the paper or the guy who takes his sandals off and talks on the phone? Physics or Physical Therapy? Pina Colada and Prince or Mocha and Metallica?

My trick for names is to think of the first person I knew with the same name and link them together in my mind. It's easy to remember the name of someone I already know. But tying people to the temperments of others might be disaster. If I see you and think of Souxie, will you want an Americano or will you love Rocksteady?

I don't know what I'm thinkin'bout...leaving here with you.

I went discount-bin CRAZY at the record store last night. After 45 minutes of *flip*-*flip*-*flip* and gentle swaying at the hips, I boldly faced the counter with the following bargains:

James Brown: James Brown Live at the Appollo
Sly and the Family Stone: Different Strokes by Different Folks (a remix record)
Nirvana: In Utero
Jurassic5: Quality Control
Yo La Tengo: I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
The Jimi Hendrix Experience: BBC Sessions
Steel Pulse: Earth Crisis
U2: War
Fugees: The Score
Paul McCartney & Wings: Band on the Run (this is the 3rd time I've purchased this particular bit of music. Don't you judge my love.)
and lastly: Justin Timberlake: Justified.

Why do I tell you people this? Mostly to note that my tastes are becoming less and less particular. Got a guilty pleasure? I'd especially like secret loves that are shop-suitable.

you will always be my necessity

"A small coffee, please."

"You got it. Would you like a little room?"

she stares at me, completely blank. "What?"

"Do you take a little room in your coffee?"

"....... Do I ........ What?"

"Would you like space for milk or cream in your coffee?"

"Oh! Ha! I'm sorry. I'm from New York, and I don't quite get the lingo. 'A little room', what a cute way to say that!"

(I seriously thought that 'room' was universally spoken in any dirtwater coffee joint in the world. I learn something new every day. )

the photograph of myself is all I have to show

Tiny is off to burn the man today, and though I haven't seen her with my eyes in months, I worry about her in the desert...alone....with thirty thousand people. She might get converted to Veganism, for craps sake! Anything could happen!

PatrickOpie and I saw 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' in Magnuson Park last night. Between skeeter bites and passes of pinot I realized that this summer has passed. While I was in dog pose, covered in paint, or putting stickers on cups the swimming weather snuck by and took it's mischief with it. Last summer, I didn't do a damn thing other than swim, eat fruit, smizzlewizzle and hula-hoop to rocksteady. A summer wasted, broke and boring? Nope. One of the best ever.

So *this* year, fall is the new summer. PatrickOpie and I kicked it off with our midnight run from the fuzz through the Magnuson P-patch. Tiny and I are going to the fair and apple picking and hay-riding in 2 weeks. Mom and I have big plans for sewing and canning and berry-picking. I'm going to catch a salmon. With my bare hands.*

*and promptly shriek and drop it in the water. They're big and floppy! Maybe I should stick to the pole method.

I and I

My first Painting! Presented to you on the last day of Community College:

I can't believe I filled the whole thing in!

the model:

aint no cure

I'm two weeks away from completing my coursework for my AA. I'm also completely paralyzed in procrastinatory angst. I purposefully avoided something that might have helped me decide yesterday, for crap's sake!

I must be in a rut, because I dream at night about having babies and shaving off my eyebrows and kicking pinecones down asphalt highways.

Mostly, it's hard to choose another long term goal when I so desperately want to step out of this one like it was a swimming pool. I want to shake off my toes, let the sun evaporate all the ink off of my fingers, put on a dress and walk away. No eyebrows, mystery baby, pinecone and all.