Five 0 Seven I AM

I figured it out! I figured out why it is

all

so

dark.

It is easy to be bright.
It is easy to show people
your brightness.
It is not however
easy
to understand
why people aren't impressed by your light
until you
accept
that they are just a little stupid
and a
complete
waste
of life.

To the shadow casters, be gone.

LOVE THE ARTIST

I'm driving Eastbound on 90/94 from the Irving Park area. It's about quarter till midnight the time when the skyline looks as big as the rockies and as bright as a country cosmos. I realize I haven't even been paying attention to the sight along one of my favorite routes in the city. My head is full of snapshots from the nights conversation: the post-grad, 20-something fear that drives us to want marriage and children, banana republic dresses and pearls against a fresh cut lawn, the ultimate cop-out. Realizing that what we are will never be what we loathed so strongly in College, the loathing that put us in a fit of crazed isolation and half-hearted depression. All those Miami girls with their bouncy hair and Tiffany necklaces and coach bags and North Face jackets that acted so much better than the rest of us, were indeed better than us. With a head full of absolute shit I realize I don't have much room to take notice of much anymore until I see what my brain has been wired to see: a billboard.

LOVE THE ARTIST

A white backdrop with giant red painted letters. There's a model on there, lining the side, but I pay no attention. It hits. What if.

Replace all the billboards with LOVE THE ARTIST and we would. We would love the art, the culture, the thought, the opposite. The investment banker is stripped down to nothing, the artists hold all the glory. I watched the city dissolve. Things could be so much different.

I'm watching Terrance Payne on RTN

http://roadtripnation.com/TerrencePayne

and I'm tired of being compared. Sexy skinny flare leg "The Artist". But shit, they all say screw em. It's time to stop listening to the data monkeys and start loving the artist.

I am confused

It is true. The wanderluster is thinking she wants more than anything else in this giant world that she has covered just a fraction of that she wants to get married and picket-fence it. No rugrats yet. Just a garden and a dog. Oh, and that spouse that you get to come home to. This is ridiculous.

But that's a whole other chapter. The point is, i am confused. All the time. Constantly wondering which thoughts are mine and which thoughts I've adopted and retained as true over the years. This is a struggle. Such is growing up with Brain Analytics. And the struggle often comes out on these pages. I am revealing this because it bothers me that although I am quite proud of the five years and 121 posts, it bothers me why it is all so dark.

Anonymous said...

You seem to have a indescribable talent to write, and write well...but why such a dark and bitter view...I know its dark sometimes but why always??

3:06 PM

Thanks for shedding the light on the topic secret anonymous.

but that's the goods as far as I'm concerned. Call me dark, call me a psychologist, seeing the rough and tumble of a soul is what makes them real, makes the laughs a little more sincere.

I do laugh. Often.

Let's wash the dishes

let's fill the sink
sud up the soap
break out the new sponges.
Yea, there's beer in the fridge
is that what you asked me?
No, it's cool, turn it back up.

i dunno, bluegrass just brings me back to places, ya know?
PBRs at PBR with a bottle of shine around a fire
It's a pizza place, Pizza By the River
on the banks of the Nantahala in West Carolina
artichokes, black olives and a lotta laughs.
Twas the best of times, was the worst of times.
Remembering it, man, thats what makes it all worth it.

No, it's cool, I actually like doing the dishes.
Do you have memories like that?

Can you hear me?
Oh. Sorry.

Who was that?

Oh.

Yea. No. That's cool.

Nah, I'm gonna stay in. Ya know, do the dishes.

Yea. No problem. Thanks for coming out with me.

Ok.


I wonder what happens after the dishes are done.

Carly Simon

It seems the spirit leaves you
when you become too smart
to start thinking for yourself.

Apparitions embodied by strangers,
stories and information come in
uninvited, perhaps a sign of a
higher power to tell you of worm holes
and the history of years and magic animals

and while the skin is seething with interest
and lust, the self cleaves and leaves you
waiting for all the days you remember the moment
like a simple photograph, a memory of a nice day.
a memory of young adult hormones that made you feel
like the world was bigger than everything that's been shoved
between your ears.

if you try real hard
you can hear the birds sing again
and if you try real hard
you can take note of the details.
but you're lying to yourself
so you slip back into arranging all the blocks
to make a shape or a structure you can stand on.

all you really want to do is get new blocks.

the fight against is as equally stupid
as the fight for.
there you go changing on me again.
there i go refusing to.


Everyone seems to be praying these days.
None of the people praying can figure out why.
"We have grown to such great numbers,"
said the lead praying man,
"that we can no longer account for the clarity of
our individual prayers.
Instead, the sound has grown into one collective pitch
resonating high into the heavens.
Thus do no expect your individual prayers to be answered,
but instead a universal one."
When the people heard of this misfortune,
there was a deep sadness throughout the world.

kim krans
i am not a shrinking violet

in honor of the chacos i had on my feet today...

I've decided to share some other things that have made me smile in the past week.

Ashley found this the other day while trying to figure out how to go about making a pop-up vagina for her Love at the Glove valentine's day cards.



I have mixed feelings about this one, but decided to go with my first instinct which was, "this is funny."

ok, it did make me happy. But it's not now because I can't find it again. Therefore you also will not be happy. Let's move on.

My cousin Erin posted this on her facebook a few days ago after getting back from Chicago for business.

Erin is glad to be in wisconsin - was getting really sick of suburban chicagoan coeds and their overhighlighted hair and lip gloss.

And to which I responded "that was funny" she said,

every annoying girl on UCUI campus was from naperville. I got sunburnt from their glowing blonde hair, and when one gave me her resume, her 3-inch french manicured nail scratched me. I almost threw up.

Talented shit talkers are funny.


I work at Lone Star Steakhouse in Carbondale which does not make me happy. However, one of my co-workers whom I rarely talk to came up to me and said,
"Do you like movies?"
"Uh, yea? Same as the next person?"
"Yea, ok. Name your top five favorite movies."
"Tough question."
"Just anything that pops in your head."
Going for the ultimate wash, I said "Wes Anderson" to which he exclaimed,
"I KNEW IT! You totally looked like someone who would love good movies."

And that made me happy because he made a correct assumption about something that is quite important to me as far as interests go and then had the courage to propose such curiosity in the face of a demi-stranger.

But then I immediately thought that my boyfriend doesn't do that and I got sad for a moment.

I put an old cd on and didn't realize Looper's "Treehouse" song was included in the mix and that made me really happy. Like little pleased smile happy, which is the best kind.
Here's a crappy fan video that makes me feel kinda nauseated, but don't let it ruin it for you.


My friend stello (he's over there, under Hey, I know those guys! ------------------>)
told me about vimeo, which has been a source of happiness for me. Here's one for you.

you already know. from Jessica Bigarel on Vimeo.


I made some jewlery the other night (happy) because I was left home alone with no car and no friends (not happy). Here it is. Soon to be on etsy (happy).







That's all for now.
Good luck making yourself happy.
That post was a weeks worth of material.

just a little bit

honesty is the first prize.


but it's not something we win.


is it?

Spare the Rod

spoil the child.

He that abstains from beating by way of correction
Hateth his son.


Punishment. Perhaps the way a fingernail fits perfectly under the bed of a scab beckoning you to peel away the purposefulness of its healing nature. Perhaps the way the sexes were created to fit together oh so naturally, and in so doing peeling away the horrid joke of the mismatched male and female minds.

Things feel superficial as they always do when relationships end. When all your friends feel like they were simply audience members in the show of your love life. What a dream it all was. You were all there. O hello again. Thank you for coming all this time. The reviews are out, the critics have spoken. Please, tell me what you really think. Don't hold back. It's been so long. I never would have guessed it looked like that from where you sat.

Who am I kidding, she asks and thinks no one. Sad pretty face in a mirror surrounded by naked bulbs alight enough to see the coil from which it burns. Consistent as sugar, needed like air. Where does this come from. She asks and thinks no one.

100,000 miles of mountains in the distance covered in yellow and orange and pink and lime green yarns, each foothill, each tree, each leaf a thread tied by hand. There wasn't a word from him. Each comment blasted power and passion and reason smothered down into a mutter under the breath. Not a word from him. Standing on the horns of a beast, bloodied, gallant, a heart in my hand and a gash down my own chest I take my eyes from the sky and look down at him. My shoulders drop, my pride fades, and there is nothing but disappointment as a failure to impress and evoke a word from him.

You bruised me. You bit me. You bore me. You were cheap. You were not smart. You were needy and selfish and obsessive. You were no fun. You were lazy. You were afraid of everything. You brought nothing to the table. No one really liked you, no one really disliked you. You needed a team of defenders to protect you against the truth. And I held your hand to make sure you never found out.

I was told there are two people in this world, the open palms and the closed fists. For so long, with all the effort I gave to keep you safe from you by taking on the demon of your secrets, my fist grew tighter. And the more I gave, the more I hated what I saw and the more I hated the more I fought. My knuckles were white the day your demon tore the flesh and I ran away.

But they didn't tell me what it meant to be an open palm. They didn't tell me what went with what they presented to be the better option, the one to strive for. There is nothing in that palm. That fist meant something. That fist was angry with love, angry for it, angry for wanting it, angry for not understanding it. That fist was holding on to something.

This palm admits there's nothing there.