"Sick bastard. I don't even HAVE a pony." - the passed-note letters

It's the happy heart that breaks.
- Sara Teasdale

The following are excerpts transcripted from handwritten letters written to me by women who shall remain anonymous.
---

Ken thinks my old boyfriend Joe is still in love with me because we write letters back and forth while he's in the army. He also named his gun after me. I don't think that's so weird.

//

The girls cry. All the time. But mostly at night. One girl, one of my favorites, her name is Samantha. She's this little black girl with wire frame glasses and braids in her hair. She's the cutest thing in the world. She's fine during the day, but at night she gets really sad and starts to miss her mom. Last night  I was in her tent trying to calm her down and she kept saying "I'm sorry to keep bothering you." It was so sweet.
Her big problem is that she isn't sleeping, even though her body is almost dead from tiredness. She told me that at night she is afraid to fall asleep and dream of her mom because she'll get sad. I told her that meant that she really has something good going for her, if she missed her home and her mom so much.
It actually started to make me feel sad, because I don't really miss my mom and my home... I miss hot showers and fiber in my diet and I miss coming and going as I please and of course I can't believe how much I miss you, and Pennsylvania, which surprises the hell out of me.

//

Last Friday we had a lockdown for about 4 hours. You could leave, but no one could come in or get around the building without our pass key that unlocks doors. Anyway, apparently some employee made some threatening remarks so they had the cops come to do whatever. All pretty secretive... kinda boring, actually.

//

Ever had your astrology chart read -> Awesome! According to the planets I've got a lot of work to do and it's not all Suzie Home-Maker and a stack of babies. Although the sharks do say hello. I'm taking them to a zombie prom tonight. Come visit!

//

No scholarships here, but I did get double honor cords and a photocopy of a letter from the President. And then the real thing. I sat in the back row of the graduation ceremony and talked to Zeke and Shelly the whole time. The highlight was when the speaker told us to never be ashamed of our rural upbringing because many great people were raised outside of the city. Included in her list were examples of people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, Socrates, Galileo, Plato... you get the idea. But her last example was Jesus. It was priceless. I mean, really, who sites Jesus Christ as an example?

//

Heading towards her house, I noticed what looked like a shimmering castle on the horizon. It just burst up out of the distant trees and I had to blink and ask the others in the car if they saw it too. It looked heavenly, and so out of place on that highway. I'm not trying to draw any deep conclusions but I would like to say that sitting her in the morning light, i'm noticing that your rug is a deep green. Last night I thought it was black.
Oh! The castle. Anyway, as we rounded a bend in the road, the castle became smaller and eventually it disappeared from my sight completely. But while it was there, it was something to marvel at.
What do I want to say with this. Why am I telling this story? I don't want to say that you're the castle, because that would mean that you're going to disappear soon. But you are something to marvel at.

//

I need to figure out my life. I need to make some serious decisions. I need to get back in therapy. I need to start taking my medicine again. I can't keep playing doctor with my own body and saying "okay, I feel pretty good today, I think I won't take my meds." And I can't keep saying to myself that I don't have time for them. There's always time for mental health. Always. (That was laced with sarcasm.)
A moth is throwing himself against my mosquito netting, doing a fly-by ala Top Gun. No big creature problems this week. At least not for me. Anyway it's their home, not mine. I'm just renting.
I am thinking that if I get around to it tomorrow, I will put dreadlocks in my hair. The only thing stopping me is the idea of cutting them off. Ah well. I've had short hair before.
Hey, send me some options for after camp. I have no clue what to do with my life after August 12th.

//

Daffodils are blooming here and that makes me happy.
So tomorrow is freakin' Valentines Day. Not like I've gotten anything for V-Day for the past few years anyway- but before I always had hope that he would surprise me with Daisies or something... I mean yeah, it's a stupid holiday, but its at least an excuse to surprise people with something and they won't look at you like you're stupid.
HA! Funny story, about Corey of course. So the first Valentines we were together, he gave me this set of candles. I mean, they weren't spectacular or anything but its always the thought that counts. Until a few days later when I realized that you got the candles when you signed up for a credit card on campus. I never said anything about it, but I realized that the only reason he gave me anything was because it was free and happened to be there...
Oops. Happy B-Day... although I think I have missed it?

//

Tomorrow I am going record shopping and to this vegan diner with Bunny, who is so incredibly awesome. She and I keep talking about whether or not we want to go back to school. Its really just a momentary musing, and of course I'll go back to school. I'll find some way to make it happen even though my mom wants me to quit.
But right now I would like to think of a time when all this is over. The degree has been achieved. I have the steady job (career, god forbid) and a place that I know I am going to be living in for more than a few months. Don't get me wrong, I'm not yearning for mediocrity. Just simplicity. Sanity. A nice, solid existence. The boy who I can count on. The cat on the foot of my bed. A real bank account. One with money in it and checks in a checkbook. I just want to be five years older and five years wiser.
I just see myself as this giant piece of shit that has made all of these mistakes in just the past 6 years, and it's getting so that I can't fight the urge to get low to the ground anymore.

//

I'm also caught in this 'horrific' nympho moment. All of these impulses, streaming from my head and I can't seem to calm down my cravings. Yesterday I saw Justin and wanted to say "Hey, Tiger" and hug him. These are crazy times my friend. I'm hoping they're just hormonal. I just finished the greatest period ever! Started Saturday morning as was done by last night. Didn't feel a thing. I've had hiccups that were worse.
I also finished that book I told you about, "A Place To Call Home"- nothing particularly wonderful. Just touching and thought provoking. The girl is always trying to get the boy out of trouble and do the right thing. They're separated for years and suddenly hook back up again. Right before they have sex for the first time he says "Help me go where I belong." The next line is "And I did."

//

I haven't been doing much in the area of looking for grad schools recently. In some ways I know that I should be and in others I really don't want to. I just want to run around and be transient. I want to find love and go from there. Why is it that I feel completely dysfunctional when I'm not in love and trying to make someone else happy? Why do I feel the need to share my life with someone?

//

Just feeling incredibly lonely right now. There are people all around me, people that even though I've known them for less than a month, I consider them to be good friends, but suddenly I'm sad. And I see no way out. This is like that letter I wrote to Nicola at the beginning of last semester, but I doubt that I'll mail this one. Why is it that I can be fine, absolutely wonderful, for months at a time, and then, WHAM! All I want to do is die?
That's not a healthy, natural response. I know this. But I'm stranded in the middle of Virginia with no outlet. No one really to talk to because to jump right in and dump everything out. But I kind of feel that I should have been up front with them here. Let them know what they were getting themselves into. I told them about the extent of the problems and I really played everything down. But at the time I told them all of this I was feeling great. I was so happy to be alive. I was so high. you would think I would be able to distinguish my regular ups and downs and to know the difference between momentary and heaven-sent salvation.

//

I wished I could channel you so you could be the one hitting his whiffle ball pitches. So you could be the one caught in his arms as he tagged you on the way to first. He's not a cuddly "let me show you my affections" kind of guy. You're not really that kind of girl.
The two of you could run all over God's green earth everyday. Then the two of you could have mind blowing sex all night long.
You have amazing chemistry. You have an amazing smile. You have my blessing.
Go get him.

//

I was listening to one of the tapes you made at my house. It kicks ass!! Missy was over here on Saturday and loved it. She says you could really get famous. Cool, huh? She also said that she loves you to death and she just wants to hug you every time she sees you. We all do!
I got up late this morning and didn't get a shower. That's why I look so damn sexy right now! I'm trying not to eat as much junk food as I used to and I'm dying! I am in desperate need of chocolate.
I found a dress for prom but mom's taking saturday off so I can find what size I am- the dress I'm getting is from Victoria's Secret. KINKY! Then I'm getting a push-up bra so I can rest my chin on them. Yep, then I'll get nice and drunk and knocked up. That's my kind of prom!
I'm in Environmental Science now- we're talking about hard water- are you as excited as I am?

//

I've been walking thru the halls today, clicking my pen at numerous people saying "Burn in hell." Which is strange because I don't believe in hell. I feel that we create our own after life. People are only energy. Death is just a transfer of that energy to another form. Anything is possible if you believe it.

//

i think i am going to cut off all of my hair before camp again this summer. i have this picture and the chick looks foxy as fuck, and i honestly think i could pull it off.
Also, it really feels like spring here today. its gorgeous out and i just want to go driving forever.

//

Your pain upsets me despite our friendship being so new. This may not be mutual, but to me, we are old friends who've just met. I feel a connection with you, like we've met in a past life or something, if I believed in that crap.

//

hello. i'm not sure who you are or where you're from. but two years ago in the summer i went on a trip to Virginia with a friend of mine. we made a pit stop in Washington D.C. we were looking thru some books in a Barnes and Noble there and a piece of paper fell out.

it read:

haiku---
5 a.m. deep glow
sky grey watery chocolate
tint from dirty sun.

i don't know if it was you that wrote this. but this email address was on it. and i'm not sure if you intended on any one finding it. and i can't even remember what book it fell out of. but i found the paper again while doing laundry the other day. and i wanted you to know that if you wrote this it's beautiful and that you have real talent.

no reply is necessary unless you'd like to. i hope you have a great 2007.

thank you- the girl in the book store.

DRH&DMJ

FOR DON - Wedding Vows

To My Very Dearest Don,

Good evening, my only. My adored one.

I confess here that until recently I have enjoyed resistance. I relish the control of saying no.

Excesses of indulgence always seem to bring me closer to existential dread- to the feelings of loss and melancholy- and less to the truth of my own acutely customized path. 

I suppose this is what zealots mean when they say "temptation", and what I have been really trying to cultivate is a kind of personal temperance. A place for safety, grace, positive work and goodwill.

We are human and so we must go out into a world filled with other humans in order to understand our place. We meet many who do not share our perceived values.

An example: when people say "I have an addictive personality." It's always a red-flag. It sounds like an excuse to me. Like a threat. This is someone saying: "Just wait. I will behave badly and it will cost you. You'll see."

But then we grow, and grey areas come into view. We understand the meaning behind the words being used by those with whom we wish to feel close, even if we don't know why.

And it is there- found among these grays: a sweeping rainbow. In it is the discovery of the nuances of suffering and joy. In it is the cognizance of the magnificence of imperfection. In generosity, serendipity, the azure highlights of unknowable tomorrows.

Here, a tolerance blossoms. A compassion cleans the air.

As writers we understand intimately how, in this beautiful life, we do build so much diction racket.

Our exquisite experience expands in proportion to what we can get away with, which is dependent solely on our vocabularies and how we give ourselves permission to use them. 

It is perhaps we, with our hyper-inflated hearts, who have most used the word 'love' to get over on someone. We've spoken about this. How"I love you" is a phrase often too easily discarded in manipulation.

'Love', however, is not our word, Don.

Amoaeternum is. Amoinfinitum. Eternalove. Lovforever.

One compound word inscripted upon these rings. Coined to get at the precise edge for which we have so long endured search. For this purest thing- slipping past transgressions and accidents and strangeness and fear. This purest ideal- slicing beyond sadness, illness, weariness and poor humor. THIS: an untouchable without any name but what we give to it. The most unidentifiable, yet undeniably alive.

A something like music, or the miracle of a sunrise…

THIS is what I give to you when I give you my future.

Therefore, and in addition-

Donald Ray Hall, this is what I, Dana Marie Jerman, will do for you:

I vow to use all my personal reservoirs of power to help you in your endeavors in this life. To come to your aid, and to trust that you know what you need, and to do as you ask.

I vow to give you my trust by sharing my shame and my hubris. To keep my thoughts open to you. To listen, though I may be at times irritated and filled with misunderstanding.

To continually acknowledge where it all began, and to go there when things grow difficult. To start from the beginning - with a smile and with a kiss.

I vow to know, in the most tender and intimate of my world-heavy artists' heart, that you are first. That our vows of being together will manifest something larger than each of us could alone.

So today, and each day forward, I express to you infinite gratitude, infinite delight, Infinitelove.

Thank you.

I am, most sincerely and always-

Yours.

Miranda's Trouble - Hallucinated Fiction

Leaving mid service, her body rising of its own accord in the tilting room. Saying nothing while moving past cardboard body shapes in cut-out suits. Making for the door of the funeral home, frantic for new air to breathe.

She could make out the black stain of her hand. Looking down further to the left pocket of her dress- another black ruin of a stain from the broken pen- ink everywhere. Her vision growing fuzzier in the fading daylight while her body lead her along the wavy blocks and low tide of lampless street it took to get to the hospital.

The chastising hum of things that could not speak still personified persistently at the back of her damaged conscience.
The Pen: 'I'm bleeding! You! You'll never be able to fix me! You've done this to so many of my brothers and sisters. How dare you!"

The Dress: "I was such a beautiful thing. A gift from your Sister. Your now dead, Sister. It's probably your fault she's dead anyway, useless scum. I'm ruined. I can never be saved or enjoyed again by anyone- for seeing or for wearing. How could you?!"
Her shoes began to pipe up about the wear. Her hair clawed at her scalp to protest.

Stiffening, she fell face first into the automatic doors. Voices started a new stream of action at the edge of her dreaming:

"...found her here, Doctor. We're relieved."

"Yes, but to see her arrive unresponsive to basic stimuli suggest the condition is advancing at a grave rate. I'm sure the funeral wasn't the best idea. We'll administer further testing tomorrow."

It was the Lizard again.

The lab coat grew a barnacled bubblehead and a chin that disappeared into a tongue when he spoke. A long red tongue. She could feel her skin seize with revulsion and looked toward her hand for the stain. It wasn't there. She was now wearing three bracelets. One was a link to the bed. Her dress was on a hook by the window. She could see the side of the dress with the left pocket. The hook of the pen cap still caught at the corner. There was no stain there either.

The Doctor slithered out, and her Stepmother and Stepsister came into focus. Their stout bodies on either side of her. "Is she awake?" The Stepmother.

A swerving motion by the Stepsister followed by a hot sting on her face. "She is now."

It was a familiar thing, the slap. From the left, like most of what happened to her, she noticed. An affliction of the right brain.

"Miranda! You are causing Us a lot of trouble!" The sting dulled faster than usual to a sweet throb. In the calm wave of the pain medication it was quickly ignored.
Oh, medication. She was so tired of the endless curative measures that did not include a program of love. The women around her were too strict for love.

When Miranda blinked again Stepsister and Stepmother were gone. Her gaze could not fall on anything directly, and the sting on her cheek melted as if it was years ago. In the woozy warmth, she dropped again into the dream state.

As the smoke cleared, she awoke in her Sister's coffin. How likely was it that she was her Sister?

The mourners were gone, and there was a transparency about her- a halo effect- that gave her a lightness. A sensation of being thin as paper, broad as a sail, neat as a stride.

A door opened and closed and the Doctor appeared. He cranked the Victrola with an excited patience, and the music that filled the room carried her, scooped from underneath. The mourners were gone, and the chairs in which they had been sitting. And the carpeted walls grew closer, warmer in hue. She sprang up from the casket like a marionette, placing her gentle gloved hand into the tall Lizard's grasp. Up and around, they began to dance in the room with an increasing number of flowers and the pulsing smell of them, and no possibility of other women but her.

The Lizard Doctor spoke without moving his mouth as they danced: "It hasn't rained in days. You come to me when the moon is full as a jawbreaker. This dance means we are father and daughter and your life is your extended death. Of course you are your Sister and your Mother and me, a constant cycle of V's in a line. Ideas pointing in a series of messy blackouts to where forgetting breathes deeply and makes... "

His poetry continued and together with the music they made a song.
The song repeated and repeated, and her dress moved and changed.
When Miranda realized the dance and the song were getting slower and slower, she caught sight of her gloved hand on the handsome Doctor's shoulder. A stain was there. Growing.
The Stain. Now becoming a mirror. An ink into which everything, this time thankfully and without panic, began to envelop and disappear.

Diary Of A Sunday Evening

The following are poetic lines which may be read/repeated in any order.

Already a wittier response than the ones I have on hand are required.

I wear a pink jewel.
Today I've gone out of my way to digest pink things. The gummi vitamin. The strawberry frosted donut.

And here's another truth collected: lines are lethal. Memorize limits to bend suppression- make the rules melt. Symmetry is a caterer to recognition.

Also: intimate to existence is silence.
Texture leads to preference.

Amongst shredded steam, touchable musics are blood and tide.
We are searching elevator eyes going up to go down.
Stare for space, stare downstairs.

To continue the exquisite lattice, the trinity's procession is breaking into heaven.
The sound of their harps hug a scream, causing double-sided dreams.

The rope up my bones, eager on watch, does not talk, for it may disappear.
All while their glance achieves the fractions of a kiss.

Rampant in absence- oh how living dismisses objects from their root!
Living- the stubborn slash of it-
could be lists taken out of context.


Each candlesticks jackknifed alight while white flowers grow from books.


There was a pressure then to consider the lonely summer- brown and bleeding into the low water like a photograph- its damage point being a riddle, or an infected burn.

No one weeps to the chime of ice cream trucks, however out of sunscreen.
Biked over the levels- too much reading and books read with the self in the center found blank.

I have been a hopeful nuisance in a potted shirt.
Precious with my ceramic broken flower breasts covered in oil.

When sunk tranquil in that throbbing me-scape, I've tongued my native speech toward audible stippled cramps of sound.
Past greedy bites (lest dread mistake you for an urgent swell.)

Weep not then your smarted carols over untreated milks.
Sinister gargles are instead called forth to comment, to splice, to fit, to magnify.

Either as hungry as circuit or scaffold.
When subject, some come shamelessly down.

Just as surely your grope will goad on to gossip trivial troublemakers.
Their perfected scratches for sculpted stills purchase a punched-up script.

You unpacked your sundance to draft drinks casting crass bets backwards.
Here you are on a night good for nothing but poetry...

Just then someone was stars on a field of napkins...

Inspiration. Desire. Sweat. Ink.

Audience is considered, but certainly not at first.

When one writes for oneself the intention is pure.

No amount of grad school or publishing is going to make you feel as good or better about it.

They cannot instill passion, only grope blindly after it.

Theirs is a disappointing construction in the face of your will.

CARPE HERI = Seize Yesterday

I tried to call the suicide hotline a couple of times as a kid. I lived out in the boonies and just wanted someone to talk to. Bored late at night, I guess. I always got some hospital lackey on the line.

I wasn't stupid. I knew the person on the other end didn't want to talk, or couldn't. And when they said "I think you have the wrong number" I didn't ask for the right one.

They say nothing, yet they speak...

Repining Polemics

NINE am
coffee +
wake up
call rushes
off to a 
gloom/grey
day of break
fast burrito
and picking
out new boots
and winter
coat before
a recording
session +
recovering 
still from snot
rocket city
being built
in sinuses-
I blow
more comes...
Free coffee
at the burrito
house not bad
good for
people watching
A day that's
not even lousy
with people.
My nails still
red a few chips
Blissed from
taking a quality
poo. Just laying
flat
the studio floor-
getting reacquainted
with my dirty t-shirt
and a nice long
day off.
"Should I be
her?" The
M. Monroe
question is asked
not of photographers
but of
self- out
of pose in the wet
wet city so
missing birdsong.
Drops of rain
song so many
grey excuses
crave a misty
morning summer
in a wooded glade
with lush forest
peep and call all
about
the air sweet
as unmelted
Sunday.
Instead- Ill. In
IL. Still. A few
false nights
of sleep is here
for those who 
can take the
current cold
and not pull down
sweats and chills.
I mail a postcard
and go to work.
It's probably what
got me sick OR
all this bike
riding no real
jacket I'm dull
under all the
music and writing
I need to make
For real big
epic too-
the kind I'm going
to get into
anthologies with
someday.
I've got
to pour a glass of
wine and cough
medicine-
evening shot
through with that
high.
Instead- here
among the
arch-o-texture
a black matrix
down out of the
sky up from
under cars- tiny
burnt broken
skeleton extractions
tangle
out from
hair.
Constructions
diminished
into the final
ash
aggregate.
So small.
The snowflakes
of hell.
Vampire
dandruff.
I fear this
minuscule
construction
as carcinogenic
agent
lodging in the
throat and nose
and soft parts
to recklessly
mangle my own
tender helix
deep within.
What of truth
has ever been
so visible?
Of these fragile
manacles
of discarded
dinosaur blood
I give too much
psychological
weight.
They are
matchless with
the magic babble
of birds- exotic
and not- exciting
the very green
in the branches
with thankful
balming call.
They are not
me- digging
out the gear
for basic warmth
cover-ups and 
slip sliding over
wet underfoot
leaf-smear.
Whisky as warm
wet as the
oftener-than-
sometimes
rain.
The gang of
nightime creatures
bubbling
awake, hedging
entrance.
Hard to sit
up straight and
get into
that eveningtime
waltz.
When you do
all go too the
dominoes what
ached to fall.
I don't think
I can take it much
longer. This
town tearing
a hole in my
heart.
I erase number
after number
from my phone
it feels so
good I don't know
why I'm not
throwing the
whole thing into
the lake. Could
be so close to
abandoning
identity.
Running renegade
back to anywhere.
A lump
in a throat
is a knot
in a stomach
and the hot tears
unjam only
if I admit he's not
there. What if he's
not there?
Not even yet born?
I could find him
then find myself
hating myself for
loving him all over
again.
Crazier
than you
like a fox
to try being alone.
It could take years.
But your time
and mine
wave differently.
You will remember
me mostly
because you will
get the notion
that I knew something
then
that you're not sure
you know now. You
only know that it's
now you need to
know it. You will
not go deeper to
the place where
you discover it
was only the basic
gratitude that
was required. Too
much will distracts
from a plain dumb
truth of the present.
I may
once have been
a her that
was more for
others taking. Once
I may have been
happy to be 
leaned or lead
on.
It is a fleeting
happy. I feel
the truth is
that I never really
have been. But
the risk is a 
faith-charge to
be again that
sweet post
for the right
person.
Where
are
they? Him.
With whom I 
eject myself
from the missing
out beyond not
enough cool
stuff happening
to beyond where
I boxed myself
in with work and
sighing upwardly
against the
darkness for more
energy. Made here
the same mistake
as all other friends-
fiends who aren't
punk anymore except
I didn't set out
deliberately to
do this. Aside
all else is this
beautiful
morning- frozen
and bright and
me- another USA-
born diver and
dodger. Fence-sitter
learning bitch tricks
and bad habits
from the who-cares-
less fit-giveaway
crowd.
Stand/sit and
wait in the sun. All
that's left to
do in the 
city is look around
at more city. To
be a flame burning up
barstools. Observe-
thee by thee- a
dance made on corners
way out of the
casket-
Still into the use
of your own
little world. The
best reality is inside.
Indulging all spasms
that do not soften
one so much
as enliven.
And it keeps coming
and coming
and it keeps coming
'til the day it stops.
Who's safe? For the
moment?
So what if I was
a lovely thing
and now I'm not?
That the city
turned me into a
reeking farting
funhouse of lies?
I've got bigger
bridges to burn. All
my chapter
thirteens huddle
into a pleasure forum
of airy dust on old
vinyl. A hopelessly
beautiful melody
seeps in on delayed
guitar. A record
to control time.
Leisure cast
forward or back
over closed tired
eyes imagined
memories. Sometimes.
Sometimes I shine.
I know there is a
light for the darkest
days. Sometimes.
Who?
Two-thousand-wha?
Why, which now?
This year's sloppy
slut update: the one-night
stands the
most satisfying sex
to beat
No expectations of
more, simply the
enjoyment of
another name added
to the list. 3 hot
pussy poundings
in one night- a 
blissful feeling
carried over into the
good sleep of the next,
and the enjoyable
notion that sex
is still sexy, and more
could be coming
my way and if
these dudes I keep
running into keep
having big dicks
then by all
means line them
up. There's only
been one not worth
mentioning and
he moved away,
so we won't
mention
him. I'm really
thrilled to have
ditched mr.
perpetual jealousy
for the duration
and he seems to 
have stayed away.
Life is a lot simpler
without him.

Fumer Peut Vous Tuer

People treat smoking like this cool-kids in-thing lie everyone knows and passes around- a rumor bathed in subterfuge. As a rule, I don't like things like that. I don't like lies or the perpetuation of them, however necessary they sometimes need be.

Addiction is really fucking boring in my opinion, but everyone struggles with it somehow or thru another, and I respect that… but it stinks. Literally. Smoking seems to be an act, as the masses treat it, only perpetuated for the sake of itself and with no higher aim in mind. As if even the possible 'higher aims'- increased concentration and low-level camaraderie with other smokers- could be worth it in the end.

By these standards of abuse, I do not consider myself to be a 'smoker'. I'm a 'chipper'. I chip away.

It will take me months to finish a pack, and I never abandoned that phase where Clove cigarettes stopped being the most satisfying thing I could be bothered with craving. It's even better that 'my brand' isn't available in the States any more. That keeps them foreign and indulgent and at (mostly) further than arms length.

The abuse of tobacco has lead to some heinous health issues we all are aware of and therefore I won't go into here. But only to note that even light use may lead to sickness. As I write this I'm working thru just a touch of malaise for reasons listed in the last paragraph.

I have a note on my wall which I reference from time to time, which doesn't make me feel better, so much as it reminds me of the standards to which I might hold myself inside the idea that:

"If We're Going To Do This Stupid Thing, There Had Best Be Some Fucking Rules"

- Only Outside

- Have some quiet time. Stop and think and observe.
- No bumming.
- Put off the initial desire.
- Only consume the nice stuff.

- Brush your teeth and drink water afterward.

- Never more than 2 a day.

(There's more to the list that I haven't thought of right now, and maybe more will be added.)

And it is this (hopefully) 'judicious use of tobacco that can provide a real punch', to butcher a phrase coined by writer Thom Jones. 

I know how insidious this habit can be, and not only at the start. My brother still struggles with it and used to smoke nearly a pack a day. My dad was told by his doctor "Some people can smoke. You. You can't smoke."

My mom started when she was 15 in the girls bathroom at private school, presumably because most or all of her friends were doing it. All of my grandparents smoked at one point. Two died from complications from lung cancer. An aunt passed away from leukemia that was no doubt exacerbated by her heavy habit.

Right now I'm having a tough time because 2 of my close friends are 'pouch' a day smokers. They roll their own and it is harsh tobacco that has left my throat sore and gives me a cough that leads to a gnarly chest cold. I start to feel a little claustrophobic and like I can't breathe after hanging with them awhile. I don't want to stop seeing them, even as they exchange cigarettes for breakfast.

I just wish they'd smoke a little less. For their health and mine.

But what do you do when you are your own problem? 

What do you tell someone, someone close, who thinks that consuming poison is "A very 'adult' thing to do."?

Nearly 3 minutes of your life...

                 SPRING = Keep reading. Keep writing. Keep what you need. Discard the rest.

B R A Z I L - 25.01.14. Saturday.

POPhissssss go the canisters and BOOOM goes other artillery. Tear gas is just that. Immediately you start weeping. The throat and lips burn like you swallowed hot cinnamon, but it's better than breathing thru your nose. I catch the first thick whiff at the park across from the burning VW bug.

The protest- a march of anarchists, the disenfranchised, the aware, the progressive, the hyper-left, and those who support them, on the 460th anniversary of the founding of the City of Sao Paulo, and in the name of better health care and education over funding for the impending FIFA World Cup tournament, have left strewn garbage fire roadblocks and siren induced mayhem all across the neighborhood of Consolaçao.

At one time 5 helicopters swung thru a patch of the sky like lazy menacing mosquitoes. The photojournalist I'm running around with, Gus, a while back hurt his heels somehow, and I can outrun him, but he knows where to go, respecting my instinct for pause.
Surreally, just as I get back to the hotel and the helicopter swings over with its cobalt spotlight, (as it will over and over before the night is over) a bike parade comes giggling and chiming and whooping thru. It is the perfect end to the dangerous part of the evening.
Around 21:30 the helicopter hangs over what looks to be Rua Consolaçao. I listen to its pulse reverberate off of buildings, and watch the hotel parking attendants watch it too.
Renauld, the assistant concierge, appears with his blue blue eyes and metal braced smile and observes with me. When a big blonde drag queen appears for drop off, he smiles while I take a snap and smirk a thumbs up. Later we also watch a drunk and angry looking kid amble past. Maybe on his way to getting his face punched in.


I keep writing, and the street lamp just opposite me pops off as if it has burnt out, then mysteriously comes back on. It does this a couple times. The lights in the windows of residences behind it gleam forward for a moment when it does, and I am looking in... Believing the expense of living here. Believing the beauty of the quiet, unsullied places inside. The domicile and the place within the within.

The Brazilian night is wild as an animal. Blinking like a flashbulb. Wooping with the force of a massive dance music party crowd. Wondrous and colorful and scintillating like a billion galaxies in a single deep space telescope image.

I know that Gus is down there somewhere while we are up here with the cops clogging up the shit out of Rua Augusta and causing detours in an attempt to pull arrests. As the night continues they direct traffic (2 lanes almost become 4) and ride bikes and cars both directions. I see some action down the way, but I've had plenty for one night. It's killing the buzz in the hood, even tho' well dressed kids keep moving in both directions.
I'm not doing much good out on the street now. Just thinking and making notes. My feet hurt, but if I take these shoes off, they're not going back on. Soon enough, the riot gear goes back in its camouflaged land boat and kids stare gloomily from the paddy wagon as it too rolls past. I want to free them all, especially any journalists.

Gus turns up at my room about 30 minutes later. He went to the cop shop to see who was in charge and didn't get any straight answers. We head back to his flat for pizza (out of a round box with kale and corn) and my first guarana soda (pretty good!) and I catch another glimpse from his 16th floor windows of the glittering carpet of high rises. It's 'wow' to the soft jagged horizon and back.
He calls his parents to let them know he's ok before grabbing a shower and editing photos. His work ethic is intense. But it always is with someone who really loves what they do.

Later...
Do you ever have a moment where you become so aware of yourself and the magnificence of life around you, that you believe for a second that really all of your life has been leading up to this? THIS second is what you've been doing all that other living for... And if you could relive that moment?
I would want to relive the moment where, cruising in Gustavo's car with a can of Brasilian micro-brew (Do Da Bier) in my lap after playing drums at his house, we go past the magnificent bridge and the certain high rises surrounding you always see in postcards, and zoom down over viaduct and neighborhood while we listen to a famous Brasilian songwriter, and we again compare the strategic corruptions of our respective countries. The heartache over materialism and greed. Feeling that the societies around us have been encouraged to compromise what would be their real pure instincts for improvement and positive progression.
It is only about 5 minutes of conversation, before he drops me and jumps on a bicycle. Off to his night-shift work.
It is the kind of 5 minutes that make every expense to get here worth it threefold.
I did not stay long enough.

Day Job- a blue book's worth of meandering

I swear, the full moon has lasted three nights in a row.

I ride past it on my bicycle toward all conceivable destinations while it calls its silent shriek into the black cool nights of late May.
Girls in skirts and boys in conveniently inconvenient footwear are agents of the summer to come. All of them altars upon which to hang good or bad fashion.
Me? I listen to records (Beethoven, Jazz, Punk compilations never to be released on CD) and clean my room and try to think where to go for breakfast that won't be closed on a holiday. (It's a holiday.)
I keep up with bike riding and try not to misplace my helmet and wheels after a night of drinking and wandering off.

Now morning skies are gray as the damp rains they portend. Threatening to extinguish barbecues and beach-bound afternoons. But so what? If your city never stops, then you do something else. Like maybe resist the urge to break into poetry...
To fall back toward the pits of lingual pleasure... until you are no longer able… Then- it's time for a fresh sheet of paper…
You may never read it again, you'll just get it scooped up right out of your system and into the wastebasket (off of the waist) and that's alright. If it was from around the middle then it probably wasn't worth listening to or re-reading anyway.

And you know, if someone said "Pack. We leave for Paris tonight." I know exactly what I'd take. I'd be ready in just about 30 minutes. "Give me a half-hour" I'd say and I'd shower and shave and toss my goodies in one bag (I could get another bag later.) And so much then for the perfection of departure- a really meticulous thing all laid out and premeditated with a few moments to consider every decision…
Which brings me to the point of hotel rooms. Hotel rooms are a nice place to be naked. I enjoy very much being naked in the privacy and warmth of my own hotel room that I have paid for, for more than one night in a row. There are places that if I ever go back, I know where I'd like to stay. I make lists, too. All the time. And each list insists a camera. Another always good-idea for a take-along include vitamins and a notebook. But perhaps I'm being too practical here. I don't believe, anyway, that the first trip anywhere should be the time to go husband shopping. Always fall in love with a place first. Or don't. Regardless, more full moons will manifest, and boy-oh-boy will some of them get you. Yow. You can't print out all your French poems and read them badly, haltingly, stumblingly into the winged statues in forgotten gardens and think that will be of any help. Nope. Sorry. Just vanity twinging in your asshole and psyching you up to believe you'll be OK. The poetry will be fine. YOU are going to have to take all the vagina you have and wring about 40 years of blood out of it first. You're going to have to twist it up like it's a mean rat tail your mother snapped on you with biology and get screwing. Screw your way out. It's kegle time. Which is another fancy way of saying "play the game, sweetie." Go on, throw a dart at that map and move it. Comic books and barrettes and monogrammed stationery are not travel. Cincinatti is not Tangiers. Too bad for all that, but it can't be helped.

There is good news, however, and that's breakfast. After you've struggled your lot under that electric-grass fed moonshine, tomorrow will arrive just the same and you will find yourself actually craving the standard culinary surprises of dawn, past pre-noon, past the hotel room windows, where you have not stood showing off your hot-crossed buns or other yum-yums down into the streets. Those mild corridors that sing with sweet scents or savory relished happiness- you go thru them.

So put the moon back in its can, and get back on your bike.

Cold Hands, Warm Heart: A Holiday Letter from J.J.

Hey,

   I liked your message about my life, and at the same time it has me experiencing a kind of rude awakening, similar to one I had twenty years ago.

The beginning of summer in 1990, I attended a friend's wedding in Iowa, and I was one of the few guests that wasn't married, and the only one who attended alone. Another married couple invited me to their room, but I declined.

Single people often say that all the good ones are taken, but I was forced to consider that maybe I was the problem. Since that event, my relationship goal shifted from "quantity" to "quality"; I wanted to be monogamous and in love with a woman who felt the same about me.

Jenna and I got together a year later, and I never thought about "diligence" again. After Jenna died, I know why I rushed into the relationship with the psycho I was dating last year.
I guess this raises the question of whether or not a faithful relationship with a woman that has multiple personalities is technically a monogamous one.

My point is that I wanted that special feeling of intimacy again, but now I know it will never feel the same.
I responded to your text about diligence with the reference to the Lucinda Williams song Essence, because it's one of the most sensuous and emotionally charged songs of romantic desire I've ever heard, though it also sounds a lot like textbook sexual addiction and obsessive relationship with strong analogies to heroin usage.
Whatever... it's hot.


Remember at the beach when we were talking about the emotional growth you achieve by listening to the lyrics of the song and make that connection between your own feelings and the feelings of the person who wrote the song?

For me, the first song where that happened was the Don Henley and Bruce Hornsby song Heart Of The Matter. It really hit home during a breakup, and I had a couple of bad ones around when the song came out.
Since then, the song Keep Me In Your Heart by Warren Zevon did a lot to help me deal with Jenna's death. The song We Belong written by Eric Lowen and Dan Navarro for Pat Benatar helped me deal with my pain during the weeks that Jenna was dying.
The Fire Inside by Bob Seger has lyrics that put life into perspective when you're alone, walking through every day as you suddenly find yourself older than you'd ever imagine you'd survive to be.

I just wanted to pass this along, I think I have a compulsion for making lists.


The combination of watching Persepolis on Saturday and talking with you about it on Sunday have just stirred up all kinds of feelings that I want to share.
I am not bashing Islam, or intending to cause any offense, but hearing the speech in Persepolis questioning why women must appear to take all responsibility for the feelings of men made me think.

So here it is: I think Mohammed was the Oprah Winfrey of his day, depending on how radical any given branch of Islam may be.

I know I am making an over-simplification of something that I know very little about, but that never stopped Sarah Palin.

From what I've been told, Mohammed preached that the greatest suffering anyone can endure is the rejection that a man can receive from a woman, and one of the reasons that Muslim women wear the veil is so that no man will be tempted to fall for her and be so vulnerable as to experience the unbearable torture of heartbreak.

Compare this to Oprah, who has on occasion put men in the metaphorical television version of the stocks in the town square for being unfaithful to their wives. Held up for public ridicule and punishment.

It seems to me to be a grand display, for both Oprah and Mohammed, of "he said, she said." Each trying to put the feelings and natural behaviors of men and women in a position of dominance over the other.

I'll admit, the last time I saw an episode of Oprah was when I had no choice in a hospital waiting room in September 2003, so maybe I'm not being fair to Oprah.
Whatever, I remember what I saw very vividly.

So here's where I'm going with this:
I wonder if recent regimes have banned rock music because there are two songs that really need to be heard: The Rolling Stones' You Can't Always Get What You Want, and Elvis Costello's Peace Love And Understanding.

Of course I'm biased because I've lived in this world and not that one, and maybe being prisoner of the veil is no worse than being a slave to fashion and public images of ideal beauty. But isn't it better to have the freedom of expression and choice?


Last Sunday you asked if I was looking for a new girlfriend, and I remember almost chuckling.
Yes, there's everything I said about completing the grieving process, which I know is still ongoing, but after the psycho I don't know if I can ever trust again.

I feel like a trust you. I'm grateful our artistic collaboration is evolving into a friendship, and I hope we stay close through the ebbs and tides of our individual futures. I am so amazed at how there's rarely a lull in the conversation between us, and when there is, it's OK, and your tolerance for my non-sequiturs, and the history of bizarre cinema that we share.
Now I feel that I am definitely at a turning point, living a new life of diligence, in both latex and emotions.

If you don't mind, I want to ask you about something personal and share something personal of my own, more personal than body hair grooming, more personal than going to the queer-positive sex shop, and more personal than setting ground rules, limits, and expectations for group activities...

What do you do for the holidays?

What are your fond holiday memories, your preferences or traditions, and what do you most look forward to?

I ask because you and I seem to connect in so many ways, and that time of year will be here soon, and for another reason that I'll get to after some specific questions.
Do you go back to Indiana, PA on Thanksgiving and Christmas?
If so, do you make an exception to the vegetarian thing for turkey?
Are you with divorced mom and dad separately, or together?
You and I have already discussed religion (Oprah), but is your family religious and do they get together for church things?
I've told you so much about my nutty brother that I don't remember if you have siblings, and how close you are...

OK, here is why I am asking.
As I am sure you're aware, the time between Thanksgiving through the Superbowl is the time of year when suicides spike. When people have the highest expectations and the greatest disappointments, usually because they are depressed or alone.

Holiday depression is intense for me because Jenna was really into Christmas. She was diagnosed just before Christmas 2006, and died on Thanksgiving 2008. I lost Jenna and her family, which meant I lost half the holiday events that I was used to for nearly twenty years, and on top of that all the loss was during the holidays.

Last Thanksgiving and Christmas I was so preoccupied with being unemployed and breaking up with psycho-ex, it just blew past and I didn't think about it much. I made dinner both holidays for my mother and brother, and just immersed myself in job interviews.
This coming Christmas, assuming something else devastating doesn't happen, I am going to be alone and vulnerable to dwelling on all that I had, all that I've lost, and all that will never be for me.
I want to try and channel all my feelings into art of some sort; writing, drawing, photos, etc.

I know I'm not alone in this sense of loss and isolation, so I'd like to try to create something to help others like me deal with it all in some way that isn't destructive. Whatever medium that I choose for my artistic expression, I have a feeling that the best start would be with poetry, and I suck at poetry.
You're a better and more experienced writer than I am, and I've got all the angst and issues of loss and madness, so I am hoping that we can collaborate.

That being said, I don’t want my gloom and ambitions to ruin the holiday for you and your family; these times are too precious.
In a way, I guess I am setting ground rules, limits, and expectations for a different type of group activity; a creative and artistic one. If this is going to be too much, and you’d rather not, I understand.  If you’re interested, then let’s start with my questions, do some brainstorming, and maybe get the ball rolling by going to a poetry slam...

What do you think?

Nowherevember

I.
In the night of my own city, where the lights and the trees curve their curls into vision wide and, to me, flawless- I aim a cosmopolitan gaze thru my high window and the thinning leaves, toward downtown.
At the highest point of the tallest tower- beacon blinks a bright lonely blue.
A searchlight, a warning.
A companionless, tireless signal. The single letter it speaks it never stutters.
It is the jewel in the top of the crown and its job is to rotate a glisten. To remind living things to try and wager the realities of themselves as best they are able.
So, light, man-made- you are never unseen once you have moved your lamp to address a human being.


II.
Or,
what about the paradise of nothing to do?
Moving amongst the grey masses all on their caged tracks and you with nothing only with time to pass in a new circle. Friends to make beyond range of the usual activities. Fresh excitements are a matter of one deep breath after the next.
Unscheduled. Free. Shaken loose from your penciled-in bonds for a short while. Long enough to feel ready for the pull of it again. When it gets close. But that's a while from now.
Now. The beginning of gone. And not where you thought you were going. Not sorry, or disappointed, really. You work thru feelings like that pretty fast. Faster, you think, than others you know. You think.
Here you are with time and money.
All the things you could wish for graspable.
All possibilities where they could possibly find you. Found.