love is never far away

think of me when it's cold outside

when you cannot see your reflection
in a frozen puddle,
can't go outdoors
with sandals.


think of us
when you're driving to the bay
with all the windows down,
the air smelling sweet and burnt
and the sea so clean and heady.


remember that you are our mermaids,
our faery kings and queens;


let all our wild horses run together
in dreams.

keep it under your yarmulke

well, i got the punch i requested.

i've just been accused of conducting myself wrongly while someone else was in a time of mourning, several months ago. i was accused of talking about my life for "almost an hour." petty of me, ok. but would you rather have a friend nearby, or nobody? is there a code of funerary behavior that i missed? did i NOT honor someone's life?? who can say?

dying is a process. you certainly cannot be dying forever. even if you're suffering, if you have lost someone dear, you still have the gift of life, of being able to interact and partake of this ethereal world. easier said than done, i'm sure.

you can live under a shroud, or you can try to release your pain. you can watch something green grow, or you can plant seeds of bitterness and guilt in others' lives...and watch THAT grow.

in the process of grieving and releasing your pain, i don't think you need to piss on anyone's face.

possibly un-clenching

there's a lot of dots that just aren't connecting for me right now.
-how did my room get this messy?

-why did my mother go to the store and stuff if she knew it was going to be too much for her? it scares the shit out of me when she gets like this.

-why do i only have $56 left for the week if i just got paid TODAY??

-WHY do i have Perpetual Teenager Disease (PTD)? is there a cure?

-i found a geographical location i like. i found a state of being, real friendships, a philosophy to follow. why can't i find a way to make it where i want to be, HOW i want to be???

-i need a good cry...could someone please come and punch me?

surprise, surprise

Franz Kafka Your Literary Style Is 33% Realistic, 100% Philosophical, and 83% Psychological!

Franz Kafka's literary style is so distinct that an adjective has been coined from his name to describe similar styles. That adjective is "kafkaesque". Your own writing, obviously, is kafkaesque. Kafka wrote very strange, horrifying stories. His most famous novella involves the transformation of a man into a giant insect. His works are not only fantastic and symbolic, but they are often very philsophical and thought provoking. Many of his stories are allegorical or metaphorical, focusing on the nature of spirituality and the absurdity of life. Not only that, but his work is often intensely cerebral, delving deep into the minds of his characters and examining their psychology and the motivations for their actions. Your writing follows Kafka's example by being highly philosophical, psychological, and surrealistic. Some stories you may enjoy: "The Metamorphasis", The Castle, The Trial, and "A Hunger Artist". The other literary styles: Edgar Allan Poe / Jorge Luis Borges / George Orwell / F. Scott Fitzgerald / Fyodor Dostoevsky / Herman Melville / Albert Camus

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on Realistic You scored higher than 99% on Philosophical You scored higher than 99% on Psychological

Link: The Literary Style Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

fun in the fog

i decided to write (and share) the lyrics to my brand new R&B song.

please contact me if you are a recording artist and would like to help make this dream a hit.


-----------------------------------------------------------

"Come Settle For Me"
--copyright 2007 J.L.R.


[chorus]
Come settle for me
Come peddle it fo' me
When I'm paranoid and gossippy
Come meddle for me

Come settle for me
Build a shtetl for me
Hansel-and-Gretel fo' me
Let's settle it up.



Yo come and settle, babe you win 'da gold medal
For puttin' up with my shit this long
and watchin' over my screechin' kettle
You got some eyes
you know yo' beauty from trash
Let's be like water, no fight, just flow
You know
those mean plastic bitches is heinous
And that beauty ain't glam, it's subcutan'ous

[chorus]

You ain't just a flash in my Pan
i say we write our own Q'uaran
and make it each and every single illusory second that they say is time and
Blam
this high-art
is tearin' my shit to shreads and
puttin' holes in my Keds
so what I'm really gettin' at here is

[chorus]

This Old Menstrual Hut

who is joan of arc and did she really exist?
was she beautiful, or did she terrify people?

why am i a woman?

man seems the default, woman the classical deviation. i don't understand why. or what. i feel like i am MY woman, like sigourney weaver in that huge robo-suit she used to fight the alien(s). i feel as though i inhabit a young lady's skin but i'm pretty neutral inside, although i must admit that i do not trust most women. which makes me annoyed, until i realize that i probably shouldn't trust too many men either.


what a ridulous bucket of chum this all is. gender weirdness. intellectualism. competition. the reflexive need for life to surpass, not do what it wants.

winter diorama (with cotton balls)

aren't i just super? isn't everything i say SO poignant?? isnt' that why i write it; so the world may benefit from my frigging expertise??

i am so turned around right now, i couldn't pin the tail on the donkey. i'm losing bits and pieces here and there, and the oil that holds things is so dry and things become rickety and i can't rely on ANYTHING at all. i feel lost in a dizzying free-fall and i can't get a moment to steady myself to even know what end is fucking up.

everybody else feels this way too. i just have to be the one to whine about it.

throw me a fucking anchor here.

no, better yet...a compass?

all that jazz

posing and posturing are nothing if you are not familiar with dance.

when i was little i learned how to make my hands like falling autumn leaves. for some reason this memory of a ballet lesson makes me swell with pride, the memories of the days when my body was my tool for expression (and less of an obstacle).

thinking about madonna's "vogue" and how ridiculous it seemed to me at the time; how would isadora duncan have responded to "striking a pose?" ballanchine??

what about pulling a thorn out of your paw? what about brushing your shoulders off?

it's the fear of the construct of you that they've built; it's their Cardboard You that you're haunted by when you stumble down the halls furiously. but remember: it's theirs, and they can keep it.



and then there's always the music.

(cat stevens' "oh very young one will you leave us this time?" pops into my head)

those musicians; each song is a beautiful gift to us dancing ghosts who have lost our way.

and therefore, each dance becomes a story and a tribute to the metronomic thrum in our blood. unwinding the taut threads of imposed reality, working out the kinks of slave-marching, and sorrow into profound meaning.

the fantasy creeps

life before myspace

anyone remember?

remember when, if you met someone at a party or bar, you couldn't just look them up and request their immediate friendship and allegiance? ...and all the other scenarios in which human contact is no longer necessary?

i stay on myspace to keep in touch with friends across the country. local myspacery has been ok but has also gotten me into trouble on several levels, mainly just forging friendships with people who are out for their own ends. also, for someone who tends to reveal too much and expect the same wide-eyed honesty and allegiance, it's dangerous.

it's a double-edged sword, this internet of ours. i still just wish i was alive in a simpler time. i'd give all this techie-shit up in a heartbeat if i could be somewhere where people told stories and took care of one another (although in some scenarios i might've had to sacrifice running water, sanitation, modern medicine and part of my lifespan).

man is the charlie brown of all creation, doomed to never get it quite right.

legacy (create your own)

i just realized (or was informed, really) that i am able to control much of the "input" that makes its way towards my brain. seems so simple, but really, this is a great tip.

"some of them want to use you
some of them want to get used by you

some of them want to abuse you
some of them want to be abused.."

i always gave others the benefit of the doubt since i became a label, or a statistic...but i've reached a point in space and time where i'm realizing that the reality where i reside really isn't quite so askew.

i know that Nature herself is fierce and bloody and terrible...it's unrealistic to want for a world in which no violence will ever occur...no power-plays, no strangle-holds, no abuse-for-sport. i think that we have a choice though--we can either rally on this process (i.e. more blood! more guts! more consumption!) or we can help shit heal.

the key point is that we don't have to be a perp if we choose NOT to be a victim.

(speaking very generally, of course.)


i'm not about to tout moralism, or even humanism, for that matter. sometimes it's best to crouch indefinitely when surrounded by overwhelming amounts of chaos. resilience, then, is learned when one is able to identify when to crouch and when to stand up (and become his/her own superhero, if necessary).

maybe there comes a point in life when one wants to protect, or rescue, or shield others from what he/she has suffered. ideally, this is pretty swell, although many healers remain pretty damaged themselves.

when the cobwebs part, it is still only "you" in the mirror. no one can help you face that.