this is how i take notes.

tragically vague understatement -
radical realignments,
well-worn products of extended borrowing
from one demarcated zone to another,
shifting boundaries,
infinite borrowings.
when all i can remember is skin:
delicious sex theory &
scratches on marble;
memory is of the muscles.
that she is ruddy, fleet, and strong;
that sometimes there is nothing left but
these mossy incantations.
to hunt the waterfalls you must
imprison yourself around
the whole fantastic world!
household motions, &
telling tales about the sun.

back to school

back to school, and it's been a week of going to class and working at the library and conversations with so many forgotten friends...this weekend was a potluck at the circus house to celebrate larken's visit to chicago, and all the lovely lively magical souls brought together for it. yesterday a big box of squishy tomatoes at food not bombs brought me flashbacks of canadian sunsets, and lindsay and i put on cat stevens and aprons and chopped and spiced it all into spaghetti sauce to share with margey and jeff and circled around the kitchen table till we biked off to that basement show - crooked teeth, young nervous eyes, colorful xylophones and toppling microphones; fiddles and banjos and using my bike seat as a bottle opener. the two minneapolis bands finally came up to tell me they'd been staring at me all night cuz i look just like their friend laura. i stayed till i got too cold and too sleepy to sit on that concrete floor anymore, refusing cigarettes and riding shivering home.

as for today, well, it's been a day of good deeds.


December Critical Mass:





New Year's Eve:

all these songs are sung on roadtrips.

i'm daydreaming about banjos, typewriters, and vegan ice cream while i sweat over a mixtape and try to rub this dryness from my eyes. last night was an adventure involving bicycles, thai food, giant rats, backdoors, anarchists and jokers, red wine, grass, tired tramping feet, phone calls, spilt champagne, and pancakes. photographic evidence to follow shortly.

so by the way, over winter break i clocked in 6183 miles on greyhound buses, traveling from chicago to portland; then eastward roads got snowed out so instead of returning i went to LA, Vegas, and finally to North Carolina where my little sister smuggled me indoors so i could surprise the family, sitting on the couch christmas morning with a bow on my front. best christmas ever, no gifts, no melodrama - meals and booze and boardgames, real conversations with everyone. now my brother's off hiking in israel, my sister's been accepted to college, and i'm back where i belong in my apartment.

(portland involved all sorts of nice re-encounters with all sorts of beautiful souls; birthday parties, bar shows, rekindling not-so-old flames. north carolina involved a lovely night of drinking and singing and spooning with my ladies. both towns tug on my heart so hard, so hard, pulling me into whirlwind wistful imaginings. i could have such an interesting life in so many different places and it kind of pains me to think that i can't have them all at once. i fall in love, so in love, with the taste of the air and the shape of the streets and the people, oh the people, everywhere i go.)

back in chicago. school starts this week. i need to find another job.