It has been a long time coming. Funny how my muse comes and goes like a carnival or a rainstorm. It's bright and flashy, a party for awhile and then my mind is a veritable desert and I have fragments that pop around like a ping pong ball. My emotions were on hold but now that I'm out in the woods my freedom to think is also my freedom to dwell. Getting to know people always makes me wonder who I really am...I think I constructed myself out things that I thought were admirable and artsy and pensive and intuitive and beautiful. But I think I misinterpreted those things somewhere along the line which is okay because now I'm just that weird girl that wanders with the wind. I can deal with that, it's artsy... so that isn't what this poem is about. I am a big fat hypocrite. Writing this poem is the very act of contradiction to my poetic resolution. And I don't think the title of my poem is at all appropriate and I need to dwell on it a bit more so it is absent.

Silver clouds are far
behind that icy stare
and love is a stupid
thing all wrapped in jealous
gauze. A hopeless wish,
a rainbow fish flashing
beneath the foam,
too big for the line,
too vibrant for death to dull.
I waited on the horizon
for a gale to hurl me
off the edge of the earth,
space goggles on
and adrenalin high.
The plunge was near
and oxygen zero but I
could breath and I knew
the abyss was an idea
you made. It was a depth
masked by the stars
in my eyes but I saw
the moon last night,
emerge from the haze
and nothing but my laugh
on the wind will tell you
that I have gone cold
and rigid on the rim.

no words, just music...

What Happens When The Heart Just Stops
The Frames

So what happens when the heart just stops
Stops caring for anyone
The hollow in your chest dries up
And you stop believing

So what happens when the heart gives up
But the body goes on living
The blood crawls to a slow and stops
And flows away
Well we got no-one to meet
No love we would beseech

We only have ourselves to blame for everything
There was no answer in the dust
And I'm missing you so much
And now you're sleeping
And I'm leaving
Empty-handed waiting
Time it will subside and we'll agree
It was a given

Well there was no standard we could set
And the world it does regret
To have to leave you in this state of bereavement
You see I'm feeling everything
Nothing gets by

There is a hollow in my chest
The time I won't forget
There is no comfort in the eyes
They put us always to the test I can't prepare myself for that
But I work it out in time

There is a love that flows between us
Ever-changing everyday I worked myself up to a crawl
But I'm not fearing it at all
I have no reason left to stay

And that's why I'm leaving
And there was no answer in the dust
And the one I feared to trust
There is a lie that drags me
Beating and pulling into disappointment

You might think that my life, or at least my outlook on life, is pretty bleak. However, things are not always what they seem (like Aladdin, the diamond in the rough). I thought I would share a diamond, not to make us all feel better about myself but because it is so funny. Names, dates, locations and actual events have been altered to protect all involved, including myself.

Fact 1: My friend, who shall forthwith be known as Anna studies early in the morning in a public quiet place that shall be known as the X Spot. Generally, she studies until her friend, commonly known as Friday arrives. They procede to chat and then she goes to class.

Fact 2: Friday lives in what shall be called Boulder Snout, about 30 miles out of Seattle. This just happens to be the very same village that I will be based out of this summer on my trail crew. Anna and I thought it would be cool for me to meet Friday and bond over our similar summer digs.

So here's what happened: I was at the X Spot at 7 am but Anna apparantly has no self control when she sleeps and turns off her alarm without actually waking up so she was a no show. I worked on my paper while casually wondering if any of the boys around were Friday. I had no idea what he looked like. After a while, I started squirming around on my chair and at one point I was squating and then stood up on the chair to reposition and when I tried to sit back down in a sort of half pigion pose, the chair tipped and slid backwards. I flailed my arms in an attempt to save my fall and the momentum twisted me into a rather sideways position. I crashed to the floor and lay there like a stunned beached whale for a moment. The whole ordeal made a huge racket in the solomn silence and I made matters much worse by laughing histarically. I was horizontally spread on the ground with a toppled chair under me and scattered papers fluttering about and I certainly was not alone in my laughter.

The next morning, Anna actually got up and we managed to convene at the X Spot. Friday came right on schedual, introductions were made and we bonded a bit over our mutual residence. But time was such that I had to leave and I made a quick exit, leaving Anna and Friday to their conversation.

Two days later, Anna mentioned that Friday had recognized me because he had seen me tumble of my chair the day before. He found it odd that he should see me participating in mildly unsuccessful acrobatics one day and then meet me the next, having never known or seen me before. But it is even funnier because as I reflect on the people present, he certainly had been right there in front of me, he just hadn't fit the Friday description. He even asked if I was ok and gave me a somewhat sympathetic smile. So it boils down to my incredible ability to make a fool out of myself and laugh over it and my horrible feature recognition and I am laughing as I type this. What fun...
I guess you had to have been there...

Well, here I am.

I have been sitting in front of my computer constantly for the past week and now that I only have two reflection-type papers hanging over my head and have successfully handed in two grade defining papers, I find myself sitting (or rather hunched on the floor in an awkward zen pose that is not only making my left foot fall asleep but is making the waistline of my pants cut into my stomach significantly) in front of my computer wondering what to do now. The thought of any physical activity is way too much to even bare. My exhaustion seems to be an all-encompassing one that manifests in my lack of enthusiasm to even go for the simplest walk or make a simple bowl of soup. I have not been very healthy lately, but I'm not really complaining. I cannot complain about something that I do intentionally. I am very poor at balancing work, school, friends and myself. Instead of holding even one up and forsaking the others, I let them all drop. I am like a giant snail with a rotten foot and I am stinking up my own shell with my puss. I am most unhappy about how I have been treating (or not treating friends) and how I have been bolled over by the American way of life with out so much as a backward glance at Africa.

But today I am thankful for my family and friends who have taken so much of their time and themselves to buoy me up these past few weeks. I am thankful for my lap top (monsieur ecriver) and Microsoft word. I am thankful for the wonderful hugs that have been sent my way and I am thankful that other people pay attention when I am driving. I am thankful for music and jam sessions and the wonderful emotions that flow over me and I am thankful for strangers who invite me in and I am thankful for sunny days when my mind is in shadows.

I wish it was raining. I realized just this second that I have been listening to an unprecedented amount of music that mentions the rain lately. Coincidence...?

10000 Maniacs
If I were you,
defiant you, alone
upon a troubled way.

I would send my
heart to you to
save it for a rainy day...

The Killers
We took a walk that night,
but it wasn't the same
We had a fight on the
promenade out in the rain

Maroon Five
I don't mind spending
every night out on the
corner in the pouring rain.

Nora Jones
And I want to wake
up with the rain
falling on a tin roof.

Wallflowers
I'm bringing down my suitcase now
I'm shining up my good shoes brown
cause no-one knows my name
Now, no-one knows my name
So look out into the morning rain
cause I'm on the mourning train

It's raining men, halejula
no just kidding... I don't even know who sings it!

According to Mohammed, Anthropology Professor extraordinaire:
When we say I romantically love you, we mean a host of things including, but not limited to, I care about you, I will be loyal to you, I will protect you, I like who you are, I can rely on you and you can rely on me, I admire you, you inspire me, you make me feel good...etc.

But we also mean, I like being physically intimate with you. I like kissing you and having sex with only you. Physical intimacy is a defining factor because in its absence, we could be describing how we feel about our best friends. When physical intimacy is a factor, jealousy is a factor. We are jealous because, according to Freud, humans lapse into mental psychosis. Romantic love makes rational human beings irrational.

All of us twitterpated, romantic fools are on the pathway to mental psychosis where a good majority of us have already gone. Mohammed and Freud aren't saying anything new here. We already knew that love drives us crazy. But I think that being sane and out of love is much worse.
Crazy? I was crazy once...

Not Talking

Storms brewing on the western shore
with clouds of doom, precognoscente
of a fatal electric strike. Thunder echoes
in between glassy towers streaming
with sleeting peril. Tears of rain, tearing
like a knife.

Storms brooding like an old maid
rocking, rocking...
darker, darker
threatening to read my mind
threatening to take me down

Storms of screeching birds, plummeting
wings on an ashy wind. Smelling of intense
fear like a musty, threadbare tree,
a slinking cat with wide, yellow eyes, tail
tucked in howling fear.

Storms ripping chemical rain and steely ice.
hotter and colder
There is a life cracked open and bleeding,
sweeping down the metallic streets
with green downpour. Charcoal dreams
are muddied dust in a quivering sky.

I don't know what to do!

Do you ever feel like you are going to burst? Maybe that is not the word for it. Essentially, I mean, do you ever feel so overwhelmed by all the problems and issues, big and small, that need your attention, immediate attention, that you can't imagine being able to attend one of them much less all or any of them? So you retract. You don't do anything and waste away your life, slothing through the motions. You live your life, but you don't live it for anything or anyone. That's how I feel. The world is dying and I can't do anything about it. This beautiful world, this amazing sphere of people, music, dancing, oceans, houses, forests, freeways, markets, beads, books, flowers, universities, espresso drinks, pierced ears, marriage, color, saltines in little plastic packs, airplanes, tro-tros, terraced farming, commercialism, pollution, snails, rice paddies, sun set beaches and marmalade analogies. This world is dying. There are 6.4 billion people in the world. One recycled aluminum can will power a television for three hours. Flying from Seattle to New York will completely nullify an entire years worth of recycling. The coral reefs and glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone during my lifetime. In 20 years, the world population will more than double. Our road less wildernesses are no longer going to be protected but harvested instead. The Mexican wolves have all but become extinct. The last wild Mexican wolf, named Lobo, was lured into a trap by his mate's carcass. His captures tethered him in a field and humiliated and tortured him. In the morning, they found the leader of the pack stone cold and dead. For years he had out-witted them, avoiding their poison and steel traps. And in one fell swoop, they killed him; they broke his heart and his spirit.I am a white, blond, green-eyed female. Therefore, I have an accumulated advantage. I will be more likely to get a job, buy an apartment, make a better deal on a car and hail a taxi than any other non-white person. I will not be as likely to be sentenced five more years for a crime or pulled over for speeding. I know all these things. I know that there is inequity and injustice and poverty and pollution etc. The picture is bleak. As individuals we are good but we manifest a society full of discriminating bigots who consume 65 gallons of water a day and over 1/3 of the world’s resources. I feel like crying and I left out so much that I do not know. I am going to get it out right now. I am a polluter, I drive a car and throw away trash and sometimes get bags at the grocery store. I use paper cups and too much toilet paper. I buy things that were not made locally. I am not a conscious consumer and I would rather keep my shower water on while washing. I have expensive, unnecessary things and I think my world is coming to an end when I have to pay 9 dollars to see a movie. At least I have nine dollars to spend on a movie. I am a huge part of the problem. I am sorry but just being aware is not going to make any difference at all. Look at me, I am aware and I still drive my car to work and I still buy Tevas from China and I still blow hot air out of my mouth while sitting on my butt, probably conuming more than my share of petroleum products.

I just have a lot of fragments today. I am fragmenting, I think...

The Sarah's and I, once again, kicked butt in Bloomsday. We did almost everything exactly the same as last year on May 3, including frisbee, dinner in Coeur D'Alene and crashing at Gramma Joyce's house. However, we were down one woman. Our dear darling Rena forsaked us for her ever-so-important work. And instead of running the race at the same pace we all beat our times from last year. I finished the sucker in 1:15 on the nose, making that my second fastest of my four races. We also had the pleasure of meeting up with our neighbor, Hilary. Saralita left her CDs in my car and I discovered that she has been hording an old friend. We have been catching up. This is what we've been discussing.

Have You Seen Me Lately
Counting Crows

Get away from me
this isn't gonna be easy
but I don't need you
believe me
you got a piece of me
but it's just a little piece of me
and I don't need anyone
and these days I feel
like I'm fading away
like sometimes when
I hear myself on the radio
Have you seen me lately?
I was out on the radio
starting to change
somewhere out in America
it's starting to rain
could you tell me the
things you remember about me
and have you seen me lately?
I remember me
and all the little things
that make up a memory
like she said she loved
to watch me sleep
like she said,
"it's the breathing
it's the breathing in and out and in
and..."Have you seen me lately?

Probably not... I've been too busy rolling my sticks of gum up in little spirals and then biting off each end so that the cylinder forms a square. I've been too busy using/consuming an average of 65 gallons of water a day. I held hands with someone during a casual conversation. It reminded me of Ghana. I've forgotten a lot. I have it all written down somewhere and when I'm not fading away, I will remember. Someone told me today that this might be the last day that we have together...

I wish I was feeling more articulate because I have some fairly complex, weighted and emotional issues roiling around in my head and I would like to sort them out. Here's the tip of the iceberg: Currently, I am in the midst of processing myself for the acceptation into two institutions. The first of which and the source of much of my internal angst is the University of Montana. Lately, the U of M has been littering my mail with acceptance letters, financial awards and orientation notices. The onslaught of letters is suddenly making it painfully obvious that I will be living and going to school in Montana in a little over three months and that the Seattle era is drawing to a close in a matter of weeks. After attempting to make this city my home for three years, I am finally pulling out. At the risk of sounding corny and pathetic, I'm going to confess that it is tearing me apart. I love Seattle and Seattle wouldn't be nearly as cool if it weren't for my Seattleites. I love my Seattleites and as selfish as this sounds, I don't want their life to go on without me. Enough...listen to me wail about my opportunity to go school when some people will never even have the chance. Moving on to the second institution, the US Forest Service. After an unmentionable amount of long distance minutes on the phone to places like Kooskia, ID and Darrington, WA and Sula, MT, and hours on the gov. website filling out the generic application form and days worth of silent agony, I was offered a job on a trail crew in North Bend, Washington. For lack of a better word, I am stoked. North Bend is the ranger district directly south of the ranger district that I worked for last summer. I will be busting my butt in a different area of the same beautiful Alpine Lakes Wilderness. So there you have it: As of June 13, I will no longer be a Seattleite but a nomad of the forest once more and after that, well, I'll be too far away for regular weekend trips that's for sure. I would love to delve into the icy waters that hide the rest of the iceberg but I haven't the intellectual prowess right now and oh, look at the time, I have to get up for work in an hour...

{God speed all the bakers at dawn may they all cut their thumbs,
And bleed into their buns 'till they melt away. }

Last night, I had a nightmare. This is the first nightmare that I have had since my premonition. I dreamed that while I was cleaning the meat slicer at Great Harvest, I lopped off my thumb. I woke up instantly and found that my entire hand was asleep. I really hope that this was just a bad dream and not a glimpse into the future. Though I must say that I have increased the odds substantially by operating and cleaning a slicer three times a week. On another interesting note, my entry from April 23, 2004 is all about a previous digit-wounding experience.

{If I can learn things like this in school then it's all worth it}

Compress the entire 4.6 billion years of geologic time into a single year. On that scale, the oldest Earth rocks we know date from early February. Living things first appeared in the sea in the last week of March. Land plants and animals emerged in late November, and the widespread swamps that formed the Pennsylvania coal deposits flourished for about four days in early December. Dinosaurs became dominant in mid-December but disappeared on the 26th, at about the time the Rocky Mountains were first uplifted. Humanlike creatures appeared sometime during the evening of December 31st, and the most recent continental ice sheets began to recede from the Great Lakes area and from northern Europe about one minute and 15 seconds before midnight on the 31st. Rome ruled the Western world for 5 seconds, from 11:59:45 to 11:59:50. Columbus arrived in America 3 seconds before midnight, and the science of geology was born with the writings of James Hutton just slightly more than one second before the end of our eventful year of years (Geologic Time, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1978)

On my run today (I'm up to thirty minutes a day) on the Burke Gilman trail, I was astounded by the sight of two merganser ducks, one male and one female, flying side by side down the trail at a break-neck speed of 15 miles per hour about two feet off the ground. They were plummeting right toward me without any sign of swerving to the side. Not quite comprehending that I was directly in their path, I kept plodding away while musing over their close proximity to each other and the ground. It finally donned on me that they were on a race to the death and that they weren't going to part ways to avoid a collision with me. I jumped to the side as they zoomed by. I turned around, mouth gaping, to watch them fly wing tip to wing tip down the trail and out of site around a bend. Later, on my cool-down walk, I saw the pair languidly floating in a swamp. I feel like this is some metaphor or sign but I'm not sure what. Any ideas, serious, funny or lame (I could use a laugh)?

what have i been up to lately?
i've was working at the SCCC bookstore. that was an interesting experience. at least we listened to the RHPS soundtrack and prince. i've also been working at Great Harvest Bread Company. i am a barista/sandwich maker/bread server. customer service is a bit of a drag but i like the customers and the employees and i really like making drinks. i've been hiking up and down and around. most of the days i've gone it has rained or hailed or snowed. but no matter. i have been schooling. yes, that's right, schooling and homeworking. i like my classes, i think. so far they are interesting. i will explain why humans don't have fur and the "universal timeline in relation to a year" someday soon. i appreciate incentives to learn new things. i went to see Finding Neverland. i also went to cry. sometimes i need a release. i still need a release. i spent time with my dad. we went to cafes and listened to live jazz. we went and saw colorful tulips in the skagit valley and we dined on indian and thai cuisine. i went to a concert. i'm going to more concerts, most importantly, The Shins. i'm training for bloomsday on may 1. times a flying and i've only just got my fairy dust. now it's time to think happy thoughts.

I dare you to ask me what it is like working two part time jobs and going to school full time...

Time is always moving forward but why do I feel like I'm stuck in the past year? I'm not bemoaning it, wishing it different or celebrating it, I'm just dwelling there, reveling perhaps...I guess I'll take The Shins' advice and skip with it...

Gone For Good Lyrics

Untie me, I've said no vows
The train is getting way too loud
I gotta leave here my girl
Get on with my lonely life

Just leave the ring on the rail
For the wheels to nullify

Until this turn in my head
I let you stay and you paid no rent
I spent twelve long months on the lam

That's enough sitting on the fence
For the fear of breaking dams

I find a fatal flaw
In the logic of love
And go out of my head

You love a sinking stone
That'll never elope
So get used to the lonesome
Girl, you must atone some
Don't leave me no phone number there

It took me all of a year
To put the poison pill to your ear
But now I stand on honest ground, on honest ground

You want to fight for this love
But honey you cannot wrestle a dove
So baby it's clear

You want to jump and dance
But you sat on your hands
And lost your only chance

Go back to your hometown
Get your feet on the ground
And stop floating around

I find a fatal flaw
In the logic of love
And go out of my head

You love a sinking stone
That'll never elope
So get used to used to the lonesome
Girl, you must atone some
Don't leave me no phone number there

the things on my mind:
commuting-gas, parking, permits, traffic
current jobs-too many?
grammas
imminent classes
jesus
musicals
physical condition (or lack there of)
sasquatch festival
spring
stagnant relationships
summer jobs-not enough
thunderstorms
traveling/teaching abroad

I found it nestled in a giant tree that overlooks the Sound and the strangely warm sun that makes my plastic hair smell like Ghana. I found it on a hill top while the full moon waved in the water of Lake Union and the city formed a bridge of light between the blackness of the water and sky. I found it in a conversation with good friends, home cooked curry and a guitar/bass with 9 strings. I found it in random visits and planned ones too, the pigeons of Pioneer Square and incredible generosity from my friends and family.

High Spirits

I hid for an hour, high
in a tree and I found him
sitting right next to me.
And when I turned my head,
I found him all around,
basking in the bright yellow
buds, sunlight searing high.
Making no sound,
he grasped my hand,
held it tight, and then
slowly let it go again.
And the yellow petals
scattered windward,
while white clouds washed
the bright sky like words.
Alone, I sadly thought
and scrambled silently down
to the waving field of clover.
But I felt a weight on my palm
and so slowly turned it over.
Painted there in pastel nectar
was the shape of a dove,
a symbol of peace, a reminder
that I am loved.

My senses are making me dizzy. How can one single solitary scent conjure images from so long ago and how can a song throw me into a reel of memores? I never knew there was so much information buried in a sound or lurking in a faint perfume. Life, my life, is everywhere.