the dungeness spit

there are certain things that accentuate our existence: a 5am 5 mile hike on dry sand, a bald eagle ten feet from your face, a dried otter on the beach, smiling flirting seals

Bombs and Feathers

on a day of sun and joy and plenty of free boyfriend time we decided to take an adventure, so we moseyed on down to the SLUT (or the seattle trolly thing whose initials are all i happen to remember, and i suppose that the true name isn't truly needed when we could simply call it the SLUT). Anyways, slut abound, we rode all the way to the city center. we wandered in and out of various seattley type places. walked through the expensive and newly remodeled SAM (seattle art museum) and missed the Chicago Art Institute. Went to the pike place market and wandered into an anarchist bookstore. spent lots and lots of time reading books about art, religion, mental health, science, history, philosophy, etc., etc., etc. my thoughts began to get somewhat anxious as i thought about china and tibet. iraq. iran. terrorism in south america. starving children. poor indian reservations. i started to hate the world and love it and wanted to save it and forget about it all at the same time. as i read and thought, (and inevitable bought) way too much i kept hearing screaming from outside. i thought i was losing my mind as my head turned over thoughts of fear and pain and inequality. i thought the world was ending. I knew i was hearing something and in my american media fed head i thought that there had to have been some tragic gun or bomb related event going on outside.

so we went outside

and we saw this...

 

and then we stood there in awe.

in my mind full of fear and violence and anger i thought the worst. and we all do. because time after time we hear these things on the radio on tv on movies in books. violence. war. fear. pain.

but instead it was merely fluff, and quite literally. feathers flew everywhere as hundreds of people brought their pillows for an impromptu pillow fight in the market. police in riot gear surrounded fearing the worst when all people wanted was a chance to mindlessly pound a stranger on the head with fluff.

hmm.

symbolic i suppose.

camera shy

a movement towards plastic couch covers...

i cannot express my excitement for the life that is soon coming into this world. how to concentrate when my sister is in the hospital dilating to a 3. when do i go? what do i say? how do i hold him? i dont know the first thing about babies other than the fact that they scare me.

i was in the hospital once. it was rather traumatic, and i was in a lot of pain. My every thought went towards my drive to end my life. her best friend, who i often like to consider my sister as well, brought her new born son to visit me. the life, innocence, joy, and beauty that that child exuded truly saved me. and for that moment, after so many moments of pain, i was content and i realized that life was beautiful.

so now my sister is in the hospital and i am ecstatic and josh is sleeping next to me, but i can't sleep. i can't read, or do homework. all i can do is wait and be that cheesy girl that oohs and aahs over a new baby. i can't help it.

TCS, my beautiful nephew, please come into this world safely and happily. i know its bright and harsh and loud, but we all make it through. its tough to be alive sometimes, but in being here you will remind everyone that it is worth it. please treat jordan kindly, and love me dearly, for i know nothing more than the fact that i will love you forever.

so now i sit here thinking cheesy thoughts and i think of girls who like pink or have those "precious moments" angels in their houses. the girls who have framed jesus quotes over sunsets. but i saw one of those sunsets the other day as i drove over lake washington on 5-20 and i couldn't talk. there was a tear on my boyboys cheek and i was speechless to the world. so i suppose i have the ability to be cheesy. to be a girly girl. or a grandma with floral couch covers. or, i suppose, an aunt.

aunt linea. hmmm. okay.

insurrection

(picture created by some amazing artist whose name i don't know)

im sitting here in my living room reading extremely dense german philosophy and drinking a gigantic cup of hot chocolate and listening to red house painters in my underwear (which i suppose is irrelevant, but it does create a sense of the freedom of this scene) and as i am reading about the effects of the french revolution on romantic/idealist philosophers and socialist and nationalists and all those pre-hitlermaos i have to laugh at my previous self. the self whose main goal before she died was only to start a revolution. the me who thought that the greatest joy in life was being intoxicated/high and alone riding public transportation.

            i think about all of this and laugh at the fact that i merely wanted a reason to fight. or something to fight for. i wanted for it to be okay for me to be angry or mean or crazy. i wanted my actions to be justified. i didn't know why, or what for, but i wanted to revolt.

         and its funny, cause i still see revolutions with some sort of romantic lense. they still represent some sort of beauty to me, and the thoughts and art and behavior are intriguing to me. i still enjoy reading les miserables and watching 60's documentaries.

            i don't know what exactly im getting at, but this: i sit here alone, free, with my hot chocolate, studying past anger and pain, and i am happy and content. i am safe here. my life and my mind have been stable quite a while now, and i have developed a safe and sensible way of dealing with myself. im okay not being in a revolution. im okay not killing or hurting in order to get what i want. im okay without using some outside political or economic or spiritual source to deal with my own demons.

            getting fucked up and riding the train alone might be amazing. and terrifying. and sublime. that fear and excitement that comes with carrying drugs past the big mean drug dogs, or the "are they looking at me? can they tell?" is invigorating.

         but so is sitting in your living room and doing homework until your love comes home to give you a hug.

         let me not seek past excitement to fulfill a longing for infamy.

         excitement comes in all sizes.

we've arrived

the move from Chicago to Seattle went well, now it's time to live with my parents until we find our own home...

love and couches

I often find myself seeing the world as I will remember it and not as it currently is. Because I so often go back to memories for writing or even just to put together the pieces, I now find myself trying to see things before they happen. Preparing for the next article, book, life. I find myself viewing the world as if it is not me that is living it, but me that is directing it, painting it, acting it.  Take this moment. Josh is at work and I just cleaned the apartment. Five hours ago there were piles upon piles of my papers and books and clothes. My stuff everywhere. But now it is clean and I sit here in my green chair next to the window by the plants and purple curtains and I look at how big it looks when it’s clean. I think about how much space there is and how beautiful the hard wood floors look when there is nothing on them. I always wanted hard wood floors, and now they are here. In my suddenly clean apartment. But anyways, what made me think of this is the fact that I was looking at the pictures on the wall above the couch and they made me think of Jamie, my last roommate, and my old place in the loop in chicago. They are in the same order, over the couch, and I think about how I remember that apartment and I think about the memories that were there. I think about memories a lot. I think about the movement of objects a lot. This chair for instance. I think about all the places that it has been with me and all the places that it may have been in the past. Its like that movie The Red Violin. I don’t remember very much, but I have been thinking about that concept my whole life. I used to think about the fact that if I moved to a new room or location I would have to make sure that I changed it, so it looked different, and I think somehow, with the help of my parents I was able to do that until I was about nineteen. Then I ran out of money and the furniture in my home became the furniture in my home, no matter where that home was. This chair is my chair and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have to keep it. It is my friend. And everything else around here, in this apartment, with a few exceptions, is a constant. The brown couch. I think about it sitting in the apartment in the loop. I think about it sitting in the house I bought it from. I think about its lives, and what happened on it. I think about who all slept on it. Who made love on it. Who cried, laughed, sang on it. I don’t know where this is going, but I wonder what I will think of when I remember this place. When I see the couch again, with the same pictures above it, will I think of this apartment, or will I think about my last apartment. I will really miss this place, and I am afraid that I will continue to miss its shape and form as I miss the one on Broadway in Seattle. Why do I make apartments into living beings? Doesn’t that seem a little strange? I miss them like old friends. I don’t want to leave. This place especially. I want to bring it with me. It didn’t do me any harm. I love it like the Broadway apartment, but I have better memories. At least I have josh to create new memories with. He will be there in the next home we create, and probably even the next.