Monday, December 29, 2008

old story

Magic Man
Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 10:08pm

Across the street from the hardware store where I went to buy the light bulb for the baby’s head for my installation, there’s a huge building with a domed roof and a lot of very tall columns.
There’s a green lawn between the huge building and the street and on the lawn there are tall lamp posts whose lamps are like giant glass globes.

On Thursday there was a man standing on the grass under the lamp posts, playing with a tiny glass ball that looked like it might have fallen from a post and shrunken to a size that he could toss between his hands.
theres a man named Brian Fraud whos written and illastrated a few books about fairies.
many of his fairies have globes with them, floating above their palms sort of like personifications of their fairy magic.

the man on the lawn rolled the orb over his arms and the backs of his hands... flip flopping his objectified power under the glass globed lamps like a magic trick or a slight-of-hand or trick-the-eye game.

I tried to take his picture.
I stepped out of my comfort zone to take five more shots then I usually allow myself... before my stalker slash tourist phobias take over and I run away from the stranger whose soul I’ve tried to capture...



I tried and tried
But I didn’t capture the man with the globe.
only the memory of it in the awful snap shot photos that, when I look at them, will remind me of him. And ill know where and who and what I saw.
Someone else will see a man in a blue shirt with a smudgy green grey something behind him and a blur of something that could be anything flickering between his palms.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

just dreaming
id like to work in Anthropologie
and stay late when the people come to hang the strange paper and yarn decorations from everywhere.
and maybe hold the bottom of a ladder while they reach up to nail a nail.

i think that there should be a whole new goverment funded work devision that is in charge of beautifying.
they will be like the maintenence. and they will be everywhere where there is a maintenence.
they will have meetings and design all the decorations for the mall or community college where they work
they will hang and ornament all the places where the janitors sweep.
they will work everyday and everything will always be artful.
it will be basically like a crew of instalation artists who make things like beautiful lighting and carpets.
or something
imagine going to a mall one a week and finding that everything is different everytime because someone is paid to make sure that the lighting is blue one week and red the next.
sort of the way Google illustrates their logo according to holidays- this work force will illustrate their area according to everyday
but not just holidays- seasons and themes in the news and current events.

Goodnight Benjamin

the curious case of Benjamin button made me want to wake up early and hear the birds singing
and live my life in a big way and fall in love
all in misty blue.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

rant

away
want to go away
get away
from something that feels like nothing but also feels like everything
everything means nothing

where?
away
away where?
tasks...
bake
chores
point a to point be
process, process, process,
remember to pre-heat
bake
cookies!
point a to point b.
no..
creativity
just
measurments and sugar.
tell me what to do!
but dont tell me what to do!
i know what to do!
make me do it!
i will
make me do it!
shut up!
never
stillness
tired
ache
heart sqeeezzeedd with tight situations.
sunny breezy big windowed mornings!
please!
im done.
fail me!
im done!
i dont want anything
except everything.
dont tell me what to do.
i want to do everything.
NOTHING!
college! shit!
no!
i dont want to make movies!
i want to make stories
in my head!!
i dont want to show them to you!
theyre mine!
theyre incredible!
perfect!
but youll never know
listen.
whispering.
i cant do this.
"we"
could we do it?
no!
i hate you!
no
i just dont like you
that doesnt imply hate
dont touch me!
if you touch me i hate you!
i cant do this.
i want to bake cookies.
dropped out of harvard to open a bakery.
fell in love with a charachature in a red sweater.
"i believe your writing a story about me... when i file papers i hear a deep ocean."

tragedy or a comedy.
tragedy you die- comedy you fall in love.

tragedy you get rejected.
comedy you get accepted.
no fucking way
its the other fucking way around.
give me one comedy about being accepted.

"outrageous for a man like me to stand here and complain
painting my hair the color of mud"

i think that if i had a twin i would run away
because they would come with me
and like me
and like running away
and like running away with me

run away with me?
i dont think i like u enough.

i cant stay here and give up
i have to go far away and shout back to the shore: by the way! i give up!
and then dissapear over the horizon.
or under it.

pirate ship!
yes!
point a to point b
to a whole new level!
always moving!
never standing still!
always moving! and always with the simple
uncreative goal of "treasure!"
piracy!
yes!
please
im stuck!

Monday, December 15, 2008

The Pact

It’s so warm today.
The wind blows and the sky is churning, black against grey
with the bitter resentment of winter overpowered.
No matter how it howls
There’s no bitterness wind
That whisks pleasantly past my face and blows my hair around my eyes.

The rock where I sit is the day’s only memory
Frozen with yesterdays chill, it turns my thighs numb
And chuckles with the small piece of consciousness that
One of the philosophers promises us that rocks have.
"No windows or doors for anything to come in or out"
Just self and consciousness of self
Is what the rock has.

But I’m sure somehow that the wind and the rock have formed a wordless pact
"There’s nothing I can do!" says the wind
As he lifts the pages of this book
Flipping back to an entry from last summer.
What a tease.
"You must hold the winter for us until tomorrow."

And the rock chuckles inside its windowless soul,
While the message rattles the shutters on its walls.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

ifuture

when predicting the future, tarot card readings and all such silliness predict only the future of the path that you are on now; if i read my tarot cards they will give me the outcome of an event if everything continues the way it is going.
"If i take this path (draws a card) then this (another card) will be the outcome."

one of the futures we like to imagine looks like pipes and slime and factories giving off filthy smog but another one of the paths we are on is headed towards a silence where we all live in round white ihouses.
and wear white, clean, shiny, iclothing.
and we wont communicate and the world will stay silent... like snow

Ever notice how everything is quiter after snow... with only a few foggy sounds from far away.
thats what i see when i see the white iworld.

...everything pulsing with that white round light that mac computers pulse with when they go to sleep.

the iways will shine as the icars whip around corners, quietly, like slieghs on ice. and when theyre not driving the icars pulse in the drivways.
theres a setting to turn off the pulsing light but only the most computer savvy people know how to do it so mostly the world will pulse

and be quiet
except for the sounds of quiet keyboards.
and the tiny crescendos of computers turning on.

Friday, November 21, 2008

poem at the end of summer

What did she say?
The angel with the blue, pink, purple, silver pigtails?
What did she write that last morning?
The morning when she woke- she said- as if from underwater.

She watched me sleeping.
“Katie” she wrote, followed by adjectives like beautiful and sleeping
and outlined against a blue window-
glowing.

Was I there?
Did she really see my closed eyes and think they looked strangely peaceful at rest
because she remembered them fiery and full of life awake?
Did she lie?- that perfect angel with the silver hair…
No, she didn’t, couldn’t lie.

So was she real?
Was she blind?
Or was I beautiful?

Thursday, October 30, 2008

old poem

fishing today

I think if I see you today I will smile
Today I’ll know exactly what to say
And I’ll say it.
And not think about what you think about it
I think I won’t replay it and regret it

Today I think ill look at your face
instead of into your eyes

My thoughts will wander slowly tawords the knowlage of your presence
Like thoughts are supposed to do
Like early mornings
When I find
my mind meandering easily
Between intentions of buttered toast
And theories of world domination

I don’t think I love you anymore
I don’t think you can real me in
like a fish who has swallowed a hook

The hooks you never know you have cast
The ones that
with no intention of yours
you have kicked from the dock
Into the sea where they snag
Unwanted, innocent, invisble passing fish
That you never knew were there
And you never knew were caught
And you never cared.

I was cought.
And you never knew
Dragged and flung from oblivion
And landing gasping in airless powerlessness
At your feet

Of course I cant be sure
If I love you anymore
I wont know if I don’t
Until I see you and smile
And speak and look
And look away
So I'm hoping to see you today.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

maybe

maybe i dont really want to make movies.
maybe i just like the idea of having someone tell me what to do.
even if its me
telling me what to do
i still need to excuse of a controlled experiment of an alternate reality
in order to consider myself a credible authority
and to listen to me.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

most days

Most days

Most days I go downstairs,
And find something wonderful to eat
Like buttered toast
And earl grey tea.

I carry it all back upstairs
With the delightful idea of
Stealing a movie from my dad's credit card
And downloading it from itunes.

Sitting on the floor with my tea and my perfect toast,
I look up at the screen and let the Beauty wash over me.

And now a universe has squeezed its way in
Through the little red arteries in my eyes.
And now the dye shows the doctors things that they couldn’t see before.

And we can see the particular cavities
Where imagination and believability swim around and wait
For other people’s ideas to arrive.
And we can see they are squeezed and prodded and swirled around
Until they are adequate for transfer
To the next piece my brain
The piece that controls the pride and the entitlement and the potential of me.

And we can see that
This second chamber of judgment,
Behind my eyes,
Houses a predictable little response who
Turns up its nose at the
Mutilated bits of other people’s universes
That squeezed their way in through my red eyes.
Because the little response has just received
Word from me and I know that we
Could have created a much more perfect work of art.

Sometimes I take my dirty dishes back downstairs
Thinking about what a genius I am

Sometimes I leave my dishes on the floor
And go downstairs empty handed
But always
Thinking about what a genius I am

I smile as I get more toast
More tea
And do it all over again
Knowing all along that I am headed for greatness
And that all my daily habits
Are somehow helping me to get there.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

recipe

one and a half teaspoons of hot coco mix.
a bit of heavy whipping cream

put the cream and the coco in a small jar and shake the jar until the liquid does not make any noise or move at all.
then lick with your fingers
or eat with a spoon.

note: if the liquid starts moving and making a noise again you will have chocolate butter.

Friday, September 5, 2008

You

I'm ready for you now.

when i see you
i know not to wait for fireworks.
I'm ready for the silence that will follow
in the rocket's place.

I'm not expecting much.
I'm ready for that too.
ready for who you wont be.

I'm ready to be patient
while i sketch out
the perfect you
and iron it onto your face.

I'm ready to peel away that pattern
and see that-ah-yes-
you've turned out a fine first draft of you.

I'm ready to outline your features and
line by line
to cross-hatch your shadows.

I'm excited for the day
when ill take
my perfect eraser that doesn't smudge
and reveal the highlights where the sun touches your cheeks
and the lights in your eyes

I'm ready for the hard work that you will take.
and I'm ready for the grand unveiling...

ill decide one day that you are
as good as i can imagine you will ever be.

that's the day ill stand before you and view you
with the critical eye that all artists save for their own work.

ill know where you could have been better
and also where you are perfect.
ill feel a bit more perfect myself for having created you.
and also a bite more flawed
because Ive given so much of me to you
and you turned out nothing like i planned you would.

Ill run a finger or the back of a brush
over the lines of you
and smile because i know that all along
you've been painting me too.

I'm ready for you.
I'm waiting for the blank canvas of you with open arms, rinsed brushes and colors
that ive chosen before knowing you
a palette of paints Ive mixed the way i like them.

I'm ready for you now and whenever you re ready we'll begin.

making lists.

I'm making a list
of things to stack
one on top of the other.
stack until they pile high enough
to reach over the wall
of myself.

hand by hand foot by foot
i begin to craw upwards towards the top
of this jumbled decaying compost heap of intention.

the list teeters.
"make a movie" gets pressed into my palms and
"learn to drive" is under my nails.

as i pass my abdomin and reach for a rib. i look down and see
"excersise daily" there on my foot
its coating my footholds in resisue.
what more could i possibly do on that point?
i wonder, panting as i reach
for the next rung on the ladder- collar bone. and
grasp it with all my srength...
this must be good enough to satsify
"daily workout", i assure myself, as i swing there for a moment
i turn back
hoping to check off that fulfilled bit of gooey resalution
that is sticky between my toes.

"just be happy" is hard like diamonds on the inside of my skull.
i scrape it off in thin layers which shatter
as they fall and shower me in crystal dust.
then-crack- im out- blinking in the sunlight
coated in that last bullieted requirement for freedom.

political dreams

Giuliani is tossing a ball
back and forth between his hands and laughing.
the ball is bright and red and shiny as it is flipped
from one small plump hand to the other.

i want to snatch the beautiful toy away from the cackling politician.

all it has done is shine
but the old man cant let it alone.

back and forth it flies and finally he drops it to the floor.
delighted to be free the ball bounces off the podium and rolls away.

i pick it up when it arrives at my feet
i hold it hight above my head and a stadium of people cry and cheer
the ball shines brightly back at them all...
red and pure and audaciously hopeful.

a wormy sensation

a wormy sensation has a hold on me
a crawling tight knawing twist in my gut
tells me that i am dissatisfied with something.

so i crawl into the tightest corner i can find
i wrap myself in my arms and squeeze my ribs together with my elbows.

i try to think of what could possibly be wrong.
why am i crawling and twisted?

maybe, i think, there is not logic at all
and the wormy sensation is just my heart
squeezing iteslf with its elbows
curled up in its own tight corner.
maybe myself has no more idea
of why it must this
then i do.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

more almost fatal dreams

i found my red book...

i had a dream that my heart stopped so some paramedics tried to shock it back to life

they shocked me once and my heart fell out on the steps on a porch where i had fallen

i got up and took the paddles from the startled paramedic and held them uncertainly over my heart...
wanting to shock it again but not being sure how to do it

i yelled at the profesionals to help me

one came forward and told me that i had to excite my heart awake

he put my heart in a plastic bag and i took the back and swung it around my head...

i woke up.

Monday, August 25, 2008

little piece of self

i lost my red book
i sat at a table in barnes and nobel and looked back through the pages

i held a year of pages between my fingers...
a month
a differnt month

i looked at my little bit of life
written in horizantal lines on graph paper between two pleather covers
i put it down
and thought
"dont put it there it will fall or someone will want it and take it or youll leave it"

i left it

i bet someone took it

i would have taken it

i hope they read it and are inspired by it.

i miss it.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

dream

i am in a dorm
much like the one i stayed at at camp this summer
i am surrounded by artists
much like the ones i was surrounded by this summer

they are all hurting themselves

i dont remember the specifics

only a vague image of a androgenous face lying on the ground close to my own...
in some sort of self induced agony.

i decide to leave

there is some logic behind what they are doing to themselves...
some excuse for it like... art or self discovery
so my dream self cannot bring herself to tell them to stop...
she understands why they cannot so she leaves

she (i) take an elevator down from the dorm
the mall... the palisades mall is under the dorm...
the mall is sort of like the lobby or common area of the dorm...
where everyone hangs out when they are not in their rooms or on thier floor

so i wander around the mall.
it is huge... like a realistic mall
i end up on the other side from where i came down in the elevator when i decide i can go back upstairs now.

on the otherside (where i am) there is another elevator.
much the same as the one that i came down in
but
i know that if i go up in it i will have a difficult time finding my way back to the dorm
i know that my dorm is on the fifth floor
but apparently the fifth floor is very large because if i take this other elevator there i will not know how to get to my side of the floor.

so
i know all this but
i decide to take this elevator anyway
there is a man guarding the elevator door and i have to pay him a ticket which i have to get from a ticket machine near the elevator.
so i am getting my ticket thinking that if the elevator comes down and the doors open i can get in without paying...
which apperently is allowed
because the doors open and i get on right infront of the elevator man and he doesnt care...

once inside i hit the botton for the fifth floor and the doors close and the lift goes up
we go to the seventeenth floor.
a beautiful thin tall black woman gets on

the she hits the lobby botton and the elevator takes her down...
as she gets off at the floor that i just left from she calls back to me something about the elevator not choosing floors in the order that the bottons were pressed.

we go to another floor that is not my floor and a girl gets on
i know her
she is from another group...
not my group...
she is not from this side of the building
but she is not from my side of the building either...
she takes a different elevator to her dorm...
not this one but not mine
but i know her

she asks me why i am on this side
i say i thought it didnt mater and that i would end up on my floor anyway
she points to the elevator buttons with the numbers on them and i notice
that there are a lot of different sets of numbers
there are multiple fifth floors

now i know i am lost

the girl who i know and i get off at some random floor

we leave the building

there is a blank spot in the dream now

next thing i remember is that we are lost
outside of the building at the top of a hill and we are on bicycles.
we ride very fast down the hll and end up through the glass doors of a building... (they open and we ride through)
the lobby we are in is the lobby with the elevator to the girls dorm
and from there i know how to get to my dorm

the other people from the girls group run to meet us and want to now how we got lost and why we left and how we found our way back
they put quarters into our hands to pay for the elevator and then tell us that it really doesnt matter
and then take our hands and we all get in the elevator and then
i woke up...

illusions

either the whole world is blind or i am delusional.
i have this thought in context of beauty

there is a girl who i just do not find attractive.
she has the body
she has the hair
and the face
and the laugh

i do not find her atractive

and everyone else does

now
usually i can see what other people find conventionally attractive about someone even if i personally find them rather ordinary...
but with the indiviual who i am thinking of...
its just not there...
and it is for everyone else...
so it makes me wonder

either the whole world is blind or i am delusional.

which seems an interesting thing to think about
much more interesting than this girl...
so i wonder...

either the whole world is blind or i am delusional.

this is a thought that many people have...
because
everyone must be delusional or everyone would be blind
because
the entire world and everything in it must be illusionas
so
we must be delusional to see it
otherwise
we would be sane and looking around and seeing what truly existed: nothing.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

two dreams

first dream:

i am a man
i am standing in a crowded ballroom in what feels like a very exspensive hotel
surrounded by what feels like very wealthy people... like myself.
in the crowd i am aware of two others amidst the strangers.

one is a beautiful woman. the most beautiful woman i have ever seen... i think she was wearing navy a navy blue gown...

the other is a man wearing a red suit.
his skin is also red *(when i woke up and remembered the dream i remembered him like the yellow demon from sin city)
he is also watching the beautiful woman.

i leave with the beautiful woman we go back to my room... remember i am still a man.
im lying with her on my bed in my very small hotel room when we realize that the red man is under the bed.
i dont know how we knew we just did.
i turned and saw a drop like blood on the white sheet
i thought "blood" but i heard my man's dream voice say "a tear."

i reached down and under the bed and pulled the crying red man by the hair out from under the bed.

the woman and i ran out into the hall.
there were many people in the hall
they had a just-left-the-party feeling to them.

now the woman is gone or maybe i am her
because now i am a woman
though still not quite myself...

i am running through the black tie event dressed people
away from the red man
i am holding a baby girl
i run to a room
in the room i give the baby to a man who i know will protect her
then i leave the room and go back to hall
i see the red man waiting patiently in a group of people and yell back to the room for them to lock their door
i hear them lock it.

next dream:
im sitting on a couch in a small house that has a beach house feeling to it
the house and the room are very crowded
i dont remember the begining of the dream
but i remember that a woman (who was a mix of my mom, meryl streep, signorey weaver and a million other women that i know and actress that ive seen) was shooting at me.
she shot me in the leg and the neck... she was also shooting the girl next to me.
the girl next to me got a bullet in the chest or the stomach and went still
the lady was still shooting at my arms and legs so i turned to that she would shoot me in the heart and it would all end.
i remember just being frustrated that she wouldnt aim better.

she shot me in the head and then stopped.
i sat back on the couch and tried to feel what i felt.
the woman seemed to be patient and calm enough to wait for me to die.
i was thinking about the whole situation when my dream minded started to wobble and i felt a bit drunk...
i remember linking this to being shot in the head.

*in real life i have just finished the book "illusions" which is about a man, richard who is taught a lot of lessons by another man who is actually a mesiah. the mesiah's name is donald shimoda.

in my dream, as my brain began to get wobbley i grapsed onto the thought of donald shimoda telling the richard that the whole world is an illusion and we have complete control over what we choose to make real.
so
as i died...
in my dream i decided that i didnt want to die and that if donald shimoda thought it was possible i was going to try to not die.

i turned to a calm man sitting next to me and told him i would like to go to the emergency room and try to survive.
he looked tawords the kitchen where the woman was and said that he thought i should ask her.

the girl next to me who was also not dead said that her mom worked in the ER and that she had to go there anyway to visit her mom
she said it would be no trouble for her to take me there.
i got up and went to ask the woman
she smiled when she saw me and said that me standing up had caused my head to bleed even more and that i was surely going to die even quicker if i bothered to get to the car and get to the ER.
so she let me go
completly convinced that i would die on the way
the man and the girl packed gauze onto my head and i held it there and i got into the car and then i woke up.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

what about not speaking in context.

when i think a "what if" thought i dont think i actually think the words "what if"

i think i think something more like "what about" because my brain is already in context.
like

if i think "what if i ate a banana right now..." im not thinking "what if..."
im thinking "what about a banana"

because my brain is already on the same page as i am...

cuz there is just that one page...


what if i started saying things as they occured to me without context to test the people around me to see if they are keeping up...

"what about not speaking in context..."

the little boy in extreamly loud and incredibly close.

johnathan safran foer.

genius

not original

everything is illuminated

alluminated

heh

they laughed when i couldnt spell it

we watched it

holocust gets old...

couldnt watch it again.

jewish...??

Friday, August 15, 2008

blogging

i feel lonely.
its strange because the lonely feeling was triggered by never feeling alone.

i woke up late this morning i slept in max's bed last night because my bed makes me sneeze and max was in montreal.
i woke up and hoped that no one was home because i wanted a peaceful morning without my dad telling how i needed to do things in order to not end up like he ended up: married with children and too much work and not enough art....

its strange... my parents teach me all about the law of attraction which teaches that anything that u expect to come to you will come to you.
they teach me that and i believe in it like some people believe in heaven and hell.

i tried to talk to my d ad today about his dream day... and whats strange is that he couldnt plan his dream day.. couldnt talk about it
and thats all the law of attraction is; visualizing and expecting and knowing your dream day.

this blog makes no sense
im really just writing it to avoid going to sleep.

im avoiding going to sleep because my bed isnt made and ill have to make it before i go to sleep
and im avoiding getting into my bed because my bed is against the wall that max's bed is on the other side of.
and max is home from montreal and his girl friend is here with him tonight.
shes in my grade and shes a sweety
and im glad that i got to meet her.
but relationships make me sick.

just for now

im sure they wont make me sick forever

its just that

relationships were such a highped up... and important and worth envying thing...
before i ever had one...

and then i went to art camp and had a joke of a relationship...
but it wasnt in the begining.
in the begining it was wonderful.
at the end it was a joke.

but i loved myself and hated myself in new ways that i had never felt before while i was sorta of jokingly loving my art camp boy...

strange...

but the point of all of this is to say that...
i dont want to hear my brother and his girl whispering on the other side of the wall.

it will give me stomach ache

the fakeness of it
or maybe its not thier fakeness
maybe its my own
or my fakeness that i was with my art camp boy...
that is what will make me sick
the memory of the dark room that was so dark that i could have been kissing anyone...
and i thought about that in the moment
this could be anyone.
"now you understand why guys get in trouble with thier girlfriends all the time for saying a differnt womans name." says jake when i tell him this story.

i do understand

i hate relationships

i want to feel as beautiful as the pixie girl who looked up into the boys face while he traced the lines of her cheeks and lips and whispered "you have the most perfect face ive ever seen..."
i want to feel as beautiful as that pixie girl.
she was me.
he said that he meant the most perfect face in terms of art... composition.
he said it was a compliment but also just a fact.
he ran a finger over my closed eye lid and i knew that he was so proud of himself for having me
and that was a feeling that made me want to belong to myself and to no one else forever
but also a feeling that made me want to be held forever.

he was proud of himself for being with me...

thats all relationships can ever be... a feeling in yourself that the other person makes you feel.
you could feel it with half a dozen others.
the question is do they feel it with you?
proud of themselves in context of you?

i blew him a kiss when i drove away after five weeks.
he was sitting in the lobby and he waved at me through the tall glas window wall.
i smiled and blew a kiss
i hope he loved that
because it caused me some pain.

but anyway
im lonely
in a house with no doors
where construction workers are always in the yard outside the kitchen
im lonely surrounded by friends who never take a breath between sentences and who say "i love you" as a substatution for "hello" "goodbye" and many other things.

im lonley
because i feel like no one ever loves anyone for anyone.
everyone loves everyone because of some feeling that they feel themselves with they are around people.
and thats lonley.
and selfish and i know i am a victim of it.

ill have to go make my bed now
and sleep in it.
and ignore the whispering.
and if i cant ignore it i will have to refrain from anylizing it

goodnight.

Monday, August 11, 2008

today (in which i do not get my learners permit)

today i woke up early because i had to get my learners permit.

i went through the motions of
wake up
get up
shower
eat
leave
like i would on any normal school day during the school year.

i thought about how
these things were much easier things to do when i was moving towards somthing that i felt indiferent about- permit.
as opposed to something i was dreading and unprepared for and livid at- school.

we drove to the department of motor vehical in haverstraw.
on the way the black tape with the cord that connects to an ipod and plays ipod music through the stereo...
that black tape got stuck in the tape deck.
my mom tried to claw it out.
while she attempted the hopeless task she talked about growing up in the 70's when tape deck problems were a daily thing.
she said we needed a knife.
we tried a pen.
we pried the black tape up with the pen and the tip of the pen came off
and black bloody shiny ink covered the deck.

well not exacly bloody.
if youve ever seen a large quantity of pen ink outside of its pen
you will be aware that
in the right light (the kind of light which the morning was in... bright light...)
pen ink reveals its true colors...
which is really just one color
which is shiny purple.

so

shiny purple blood covered the tape and the deck
and the tape stayed in the deck
and the deck made strange helpless courageous "i think i can i think i can i think i can" clicking machine sounds when we pressed the eject botton.

and then we arrived at the motor vehical office and i filled out a form
there was a bit at the end of the form that was optional where u could register to vote if you are going to be 18 by the end of the year of the next ellection.
i am going to be 18 ONE month after the next ellection.

FRUSTRATION!

so i filled it out.
and i realized that i didnt have a political party.
and that i couldnt vote in a primary.
so i probobly should have just registered as a democrat even though sometimes they are silly.
they are generally less silly than the others.

so anyway
we got to the front of the line and only had one form of id and my mom had her drivers liscence but they sent us away to come back with a birth certificate and a social security card.
so we left.
and we went to starbucks to meet my dad and my social security card.

and to get a coffee.

we got those two essential items and then were on our way to panera... down the strip... to eat and wait two hours till the next time slot (1:00) when i could take my permit test.
right outside starbucks
under the awning, next to the trash can we waited when we saw a friend drive by.
she parked her car
and then we stood there and talked with her about identical anorexia while lightning crackled a few times
and we kept sharing opinions as it began to rain.
when we finally left her to her coffee we were faced with the obstacal of crossing the bit of parking lot between this bit of under-the-awning-strip-mall-sidewalk and the other bit.

there was a huge puddle in the low bit of that bit of parking lot.
we looked at it with forboading for a moment.

on the far side of the puddle-bit of parking lot there was a modelles
an advertisment in the window of the modelles had a swimmer
she was swimming and she had a nose plug pinching her nose and churned up water all around her.

on our side of the parking lot there was a photographer who was out
apparently
photographing the weather.

we told him we were about to run through the puddle
he told us he was going to take our picture
so we ran.
when we got to the other side he ran after us and told us that the picture of us and the advertisment picture of the nose-plugged swimmer had come together quite nicely in his photograph and could he please have our names.
we gave him our names and continued on to panera.

in panera i read a short story by truman copote.
the story was called miriam and in it there is a old lady who hallucinates (i think) a young girl with silver hair.
the young girl forces her way into the old lady's life and the old lady gets upset.

then i listened to "the weepies" who have a lyric in a song that they have
that goes: "yesterday when you were young everything you needed done was done for you"
i thought about my learners permit.

then i got two text messeges.
on messege was from eliza.
eliza recomended the book of truman copote stories.
the one about miriam was her favorites.
thats why i was reading it first before reading any of the others.
her text messege wasnt about the book.

in her messeges she told me that she was seeing pineapple express at the mall with her twin sister maya.
maya and eliza are my friends who are not friends with my other friends jake and adam.
the text messege from eliza told me that jake and adam were in the theater with her maya and it was followed quite immediatly by a text messege from adam that told me that he was in a movie theater with "your twins" and of course i was already of aware.

i texted them both back and told them about the other ones text.
making it, im sure quite awkward for them...
two faces lit blue in a dark crowded movie theater... strangers to eachother together missing the person-in-common-link that could make an introduction about of anponymousness.

after panera and miriam and the two text messseges
we got back in the car with the bleeding purple stereo
we went back, 30 mins and maybe four towns away, to the motor vehecal office listening to my ipod with one ear-bud each.

when we got there i went in ahead to go to the bathroom.
in the bathroom the toilet paper fell off the roll and onto the floor and rolled away into the next stall
someone on the toilet in the next stall rolled it back to me
neither one of us said anything.
there was another roll in my stall so i left that one on the floor.

i went back outside to get my mother and found that she had lost her liscense.
so we left
and went back to panera.
to look for it
and her credit card.
which had been in the hand with the lisence and was missing too.

on the drive there we called my dad and told him to tranfer all the money on the card into his account incase someone wanted to use it.
if someone had stolen it.

someone hadnt
they hadnt spent anything at least.

but in those few minutes of listening to my mothers side of the please-transfer-all-the-money-using-the-online-transfer-thing-conversation
i realized something

it is this:
i did not want my permit before today
but now
i do
just so that, in future, i can avoid being in close proximity to conversations like that.

and also i realized that i will never get married and if i ever by some illogical crazed choice i do end up married
i will never ever ever have a single cell phone conversation with my other.

so long story not very short:

we found the cards
at panera
i didnt get my permit.

the end.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

me and bella swann/cullen

feel like im moving backwards in time.
away from who i was in boston...
pixie dancing smiling kissing beauty girl

past who i was at nyack
naive silly self-steryotype wierd waldorf girl

back to who i was at green meadow
just katie

i want to get a tan
not to impress anyone
who to feel like i am healthy and not ghostly
i just want to get a tan
i dont want to go to the beach
just the tan

i want to buy clothing
not to wear to something exciting
not to feel like the kind of person who i want to feel like
the kind that is wearing that clothing
no
i just want it
to wear it when i leave my house probobly leaving just to buy more clothing

id also like to be awake
to leave my bed and its dusty sheets and antifeminist guilty pleasure novels.
i dont care about bella and her vampire love and her vampire human baby
she shouldnt have become a vampire
a feminist wouldnt have made her one
would have made her her own thing
instead she just lived happily ever after
in modern fairytales the princess gets the prince and then realized she doesnt want him

in classic fairy tales she gets the prince the end.
classic fairy tales are classics because they arnt written anymore
because our heroines are supposed to be
heronines
not
like
pretty
bellas happy ending?
beautiful vampire husband child and self.
happily ever bloodsuckingly after.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

beauty in the dark

I am writing this moment into a poem
I assure you the moment was perfect in life
Perfect- and poetic which was what lead me into temptation and it to it’s death.

Its short life began when I turned out the light
And saw, spilling, molten, across my pillow
A puddle of silver moon

Its beauty stunned me, enticed me to let it live- let it be.
To trust in its existence
And my own
Enough for it to be enough
That I knew that it was there, and that it was beautiful.

No need to take it down onto the list of ingenuous conquered by my pen
No need to bottle up the evidence
To prove to a bench a critical jurymen
That silver beauty does exist in the dark.

My ego now commits the crime.
Beauty, taken and spoiled by documentation as I search the room
For a pencil and paper
And return to the bed with these in hand
To scribble blindly about magic
Searching for the right words to tell them all what I can see
Articulated all around me in perfect coherent reality.

The perfect silence is ruined by the whispering and cracking
Of the pencil lead which breaks in the dark
I'm slaying this moment with a this poem
I've stolen its purity and its virtue in the dark
It limps away, still beautiful, but tainted forever
And I assure you, as I remember what it was like in its youth
It was not worth it.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

copying

it appears that i have a certain rule for myself that is incredibly important to me and completely irelevent to the rest of the world

the simplified version of the rule might sound somthing like "THOU SHALT NOT COPY SOMEONE ELSES HAIR STYLE, PIERCING PLACEMENT, IDEA, OUTFIT, POINT OF VIEW, DRAWING, WAY OF WALKING, OPINION OR PREFERENCE IN FOOD... ECT."

what it means is that there is very little left that i am allowed to do, think, eat, wear, like, draw ect. because pretty much everything has been done.



But.
this week and this month i have been fighting the all powerful hold that this eleventh commandment has over my life
i have been fighting by way of art.
i have been drawing things that other people have drawn.
looking the drawing in the face and knowing that i did not think of it myself
looking at it and realizing that i love it.
then drawing it
exactly the way they saw it
exactly the way they drew it... (thats the goal at least)

and when its finished
making myself appreciate it for itself and for its closeness to original.

now
i know that artist do this all the time.
painting from photos (photos they took themselves or otherwise)
drawings for life...
if we draw from a model are we copying life?

well
anyway
ive been fighting this impulse down...
the one that tells me that this is cheating
and i have been copying
and i love it
and its so straightfoward.

put the shadows where they put their shadows and thier lights where they put their lights.
and copy.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

this weekend

this weekend i painted a face onto my upper thigh
with henna
at first it looked like mud... a wide eyed pouty lipped generic well proportioned face
an elementary school art teachers lesson on how to draw a face...
drawn in strange smelling orange mud on my upper thigh.
it had huge eyes so it looked like my mom.
all the faces i draw from my mind look like my mom.
the mud peeled away and left the face there...
vague and faded... and orange.
henna
upside down when i stood up.

i went with some friends to a place i had never been before.
a place i had passed many times.
i didnt know it was there.
there, where it was, was between two huge mansions.
one mansion probobly owned the place.
the bit of left over hill between this house and that house...
there were stone steps...
uneven and invisible in the dark... leading down the hill
tawords the water and the reflection of the yellow sci-fi movie moon.

halfway down the hill was a sort of wooden porch...
sticking out from the grass...
it was a kind of look out...
there was a railing and a lamp post.
the lampost was on a wind caused slant... leaning back up the hill.
adam sat there and looked like a photograph i think ive seen,
of a skinny man leaning on a leaning lamp post.

we watched the oposite side of the river where two trains passed.
one train had silver windows and looked beautiful
one train had red windows and looked evil
we talked about fear.

we ran home and skipped and held hands in the street
and proclaimed ourselves leaders and ran to the front
and proclaimed ourselves followers and lagged behind
and then i tripped and skinned my knee and laughed till my heart fell out in the street.

and back in jakes kitchen i sat on the counter.
and looked down at my legs.
one was bleeding and one had an orange upside down portrait of my wide eyed mother.

we talked over eachother
about everything that was incredibly important and irrelivant and completely unable to be explained... ever
only able to be understood.
and got mad before we remembered not to care so much.
and then we got tired.

and then went to sleep

and then we woke up at seven... three hours later.

and i went to temple and the rabbi told us to look at the world through open eyes
and that if and when we did
we would never be cursed
with the kinds of curses that the young boy chanted from the torah in quick quiet hebrew...
curses like lonliness and sadness and paranoia.
curses that you cast on yourself by having narrow eyes...
and that you lift from yourself by having open eyes.

and i thought about the place halfway down the hill
between the two huge mansions
and about how wide my eyes must have been
pupils dilated in the dark
looking out over the river at the silver train and the red train
under the yellow sci-fi movie moon.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

american beauty

yesterday i watched my scratched dvd of american beauty and had to take it out three times to skip a damaged scene.
its my friends dvd so ill have to buy him a new one
and then ill keep the scratched one
and im sure ill watch it in this choppy way many many more times. because ite perfect.
at the end of the movie the camera panned away from the straight leafless tree lined street of somewhere suburban in america
and kevin spacy told me to apreciate every single moment of my stupid little life.

so i went outside.
and saw that the right-after-rain-storm weather had turned my home into heaven

the sun was setting behind the barn in the field behind my house.
the sun was setting the way the sun sets after rain... lots and lots of colors and bright wet contrast... and mosture creating light lines...rays... wherever it reaches.

so i walked there... tawords the sun. tawords the barn. and as i neared it... it got dark and the sun dissapeared. because you cant see the sun stading directly underneath it.

so i continued around the barn... down the hill and then back up.

and when i got back to where i had started the whole image had setted with the sun...

but it was still a wet and beautiful and well contrasted world outside.
so i took my think blue racing bike with the spindly tires that remind me of tim burton's animated charecters and thier spindely legs...
and i took my dads old digital camera that clicks like its thinking whenever you zoom in or out.
and i road down the street...
and i stopped a few yards away from home.
and got off the bike and took some close up pictures of raindrops in grass.
then i went home.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

in-between

I'm coughing.
I like being sick. I like being alone. I like in-between feelings like being lost or stranded or stuck.
In these situations there is apsolutlty nothing I can do about my situation and no one can fault me for it. I'm just exempt and excused from life for a few moments.
Also it’s like being in another reality.
If you’re lost there is nowhere else you can be- you’re just lost.

Unless a obligation interrupts your perfect in-between reality.
You’re lost but you’re also late… There is nothing worse than being nowhere, blissfully unconnected to everything real with the pull of an earthly-ambilical-cord of an appointment making it apsolutley nesessary to call someone from the real world and get directions back there.
Or to make sure that the snow plowing man is there are three am to shovel away the sow and ensure that your car will not be stuck

Id like to live my whole life being lost.
Drifting from one unannounced event to the next.
A life without time
A life without context
Only existence and enjoyment

Sunday, April 27, 2008

story

It was the first day of summer. Never mind that the calendar had just recently declared it spring, the thermometer thought otherwise. There were only three people by the water. All of them must have noticed the new gate that stood between the parking lot and the pier. On this its first day of duty it stood wide open and seemed to be in denial of its true purpose: keeping people out... off the pier. In the summer months to come there would be no more arguing with the short angry woman whose job it had been to get every last skateboarder off the dock by eleven. Arguing with her never did much, but arguing with a tall iron gate was sure to do less.
The girl sitting on the shore end of the dock remembered a story she had been reading months before. “Imagine a world where cause and effect are erratic.” The book had suggested. It had been one story in a book of many that all began with a sentence like that one: “Imagine a world where…”
Today, the first day of summer when they put up the new gate, was a day in a world where cause and effect were erratic. Was the new gate a response or an effect of the gang fight the night before; Or was the fight caused by a community’s closing its doors and turning its back on a problem? Which was cause and which effect?
The girl was the only one on the dock now. The two others, two men, had left through the gate with their Frappuccinos.
On the shore there was a woman lying under a tree with a lunch box and a blue scarf. She had eaten, sun bathed and stood. The girl on the dock watched her and described her on a page. As the woman gathered her picnic and left in her car the girl realized that the whole thing would have been more beautiful and more true in present tense and first person.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

3 word movie review #2

21

-college
-transformations
-jim sturges

3 word movie review #1

Amazing Grace

-poignant.
-political.
-perfect.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

i made a tiny movie

this is just to say that i am sitting on my desk and typing with the keyboard here...
on my lap and i think thats pretty cool.

Monday, March 31, 2008

everything could be anylized and conversed into nothing.

for some reason we narrow down all our emotions to fit into
sad emotions and
happy ones.

i think instead we should narrow them down to fulfilled ones and emptiness ones.

that says more.

all sadness is emptiness.
all happiness is fulfillment.

this weekend was full of things that filled my life with fullness and happiness.

things like late night conversations with my favorite boys
and falling asleep ...
in a white room in one tiny bed with a huge window for the headboard,
a window that looked out on a river.
with lights on the other side.
...propped on our elbows and watching the four am yellow thumb nail of a moon sitting on top of the oposite shore's trees and buildings.

and feeling terrified and small in a world where everything could be anylized and conversed into nothing.

a feeling that would have been overpowering and lonley and empty if we had discovered it alone.

but one that made us feel like one complete person made of three individual ones... because we had discovered it together.

and in the morning.
the friend i left behind felt like an empty place.
and that place is sad and empty now.

i dont know what to do.

i want everyone to stop being sad.
and everyone to stop being vague.
and i want me and everyone i know and love to feel like one person made of everyone
in this huge scary world where discoveries are terrifying when you make them alone.
and perfect and ecstatic when you make them together.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

applying myself to an envelope in a thin layer...


and sending my shallowed-out self away to be evaluated by an anonymous pair of artistic looking hands who will pick me up and read me and decide if they like me.

Ive been wondering on the subject of why I have begun to dread art class...

Ive tried desperatly to concieve of a original sounding metephoric statment to describe my feelings of tormented unoriginality

I feel like its all been done before.

My head has dropped back under the clouds;

My eyes were once in a black, starlit universe of uninfluenced, original thought.

Now all I can see is a foggy generic mist and the backs of the heads of the other millions of high schoolers* whose attempts come from the same polluted, plagiarized landscape as my own and whose college essays and portfolios will reveal as much.

*(An image I stole from so many others who have already drawn or described it…

It's an image of those floating nondescript individuals holding brief cases or over-sized pocket-watches under their arms…

They're all wearing the same common suit and all headed for the same disappointing day of work… or life.)

smudge

is it possible do you think..
to have an allergic reaction to charcoal?

my fingers are itchy and my arm is red and there is charcoal everywhere.

and i want to go to sleep.

but the original culprits...
the drawings...
are there...
on my bed.
and i dont want to get to near to them.

so i think ill sleep in my brothers bed.

because hes never home.

even though hes home for break.

i dont know where he is.

but if i sleep in his bed ill wake up smelling like boy.

so i think ill move the drawings.

but seriously.

i am scared to go to close to them.

because im allergic to charcoal.

and my fingers are itchy.

good nite.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

art

so
art
and
i are
not
doing to well.

we thought in the begining
that
perhaps we were progressing
slowly towards
somthing
that resembled
originality
or talent
or
...
...
...
art.

then we
realized
that
we
just
suck.

and we also realized.
that we have paint in our hair.
i mean
my hair.

i realized
that there was
paint
in my hair.

art in my hair.

paint.

the
paint
on my paper
is no more
art.
then the
paint that is
underneath my nails
and in
my hair.

ouch.
i thought i was on fire.

cuz i lit a candle
but i wasnt
on fire
but i did light a candle

i thought it was inspiring
its just...
hazardous.

but o so pretty.

the only things that are happy in the
entire
world
right now...
are white christmas lights...
where the owning used to be
over the door.
before it got blown away by the wind.

there are lights on it now
twined arouned sticks...
that are there.
instead of
the
awning
that was
blown
away by the wind.

and beeswax candles are happy in the world too.

enless we are on fire.
i mean.
me
on fire

by way of flaming hair.

there is paint in my hair.

and on my paper.
that is
all it is.
just
PAINT
cuz it couldnt be art.
cuz art and i are having some difficulties...
in out relationship.
at
present.

laughing with the wind


today i sat outside
at school
instead of going to gym
cuz we had a sub
and i sat all alone near the football feild on the bleaches looking towards the river
and was all like
blown by the wind. and watched the birds
and felt meditative.
it was weird
like
there was no sound
almost none at all
like no cars
and no people
and nothing
just like...
wind
and leaves on pavement
it felt like i was in an alternate reality
like
a world without anything but me
and nature.
and the wind.
it was really calm and fluttery
then all of a sudden (twice)
it just whipped up and blew my hood right off and i laughed
even though no one could hear me.
and i realized that i dont laugh for my self as much as i laugh for other people.
like
when i laugh im usually stifling or exagerating it for someone elses sake.
i dont think about it
i dont resent it
but when its only for the wind...
its refreshing.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Thoughts the occurred to me on the snowy stretch of road between the bottom of pinebrook and here...

Something is poetic in the way different branches of different trees carry their snow.

Evergreen trees huddle in their snow like homeless men on the cold streets of cities…
they're wearing two or three bulky down coats but still each gentle icey breeze seems likely to blow them away.
and theyre calm. under the incredible weight we assume they are carrying.

the other, leafless, trees wear their white like jewels.
like rich woman in sparse black evening gowns... skinny and shivery in their fashion- wearing diamonds.


What is cinematic about a field covered in a untouched sheet of snow?

cinematic? or symbolic?

a field, unlike a road, has no direction.
well. in truth. it has infinite direction.
every direction.
and the snow makes it original direction.
it is cinematic in its image of infinite possibility discovered by no one but the perhaps one pair of footprints- you.
one track leading somewhere out of infinity.

Unoriginality is no longer original you know...
billy collins copy righted that adjective with his poem about copying other poems.
and im sure someone did it before him.
and someone did it before someone else who did it before someone who did it first.
and we can trace it all back to that first person who originated all things unoriginal.
Fascinating.