the sun is out. it's raining.

i ran into beau from smu! we're going to kick it this evening.

i woke up this morning, sore and feeling a little delicate on the spongy rollaway bed -- thoroughly in confusion about what day it is. it can't be saturday morning. it just can't.

i really wanted to edit that post from thursday. i've held onto it for a bit, reading it now and then.

i won't edit myself.

it's not okay.

cd of the moment? built to spill's keep it like a secret through headphones. it seemed suitable. i've been listening to track three full blast in the car lately.

story:

no wait, preface:

okay, okay, i'm boring everyone to death by my observation (and wonder) that most folks i know and love seem to be going through some marked transition. i've never felt so dysfunctionally in sync before.

see below for some god-death-etc. musings that seem to have a correlation
----------------------------
bundle all the shit up together. think for a moment. i remember an evening like this:

joe.

you remember, bran. joe's and my contingencies merged violently beautifully briefly

we were so alike for so few weeks

one of those nights at hiyam's, each step squeaking the thin floor. smoking cigarrettes on the safe side of the balcony (one half was rotted) while drinking miller high life or cheap whiskey and coke....

conversing in groups, multitude of beverages consumed, and this odd pull i felt
skinny depressed type with bad teeth

the blur alcohol lends moments leading up to the ones you remember

joe and shnn. sitting devastated on the safe side of the balcony smoking camel lights and sharing the last mug of booze we'd stolen from rita's half of the fridge. speaking intensly.

i just remember a moment
we stood, spilling precious beer
and literally shook our fists at god

we were just there on the verge of anger and agnosticism, just willing enough to blame someone we no longer believed in

i remember it so well. i wish i had more details to give you to make it real for you.

i remember kissing despite ourselves, as though the connection in the making had to be more really realized
the emoto-psycho-social amazing connection, our brains firing synapses so rigorously, so excitedly that they literally jumped across space
traversed the space through thick skull and dull void odd air-space through thick skull to merge and dance about

that laughable four-letter-word soul.... ours scoffed at the very idea of their existence as they pulled us
staring intently as we shared stories and anger bitterness and such
fists in the air
other hands gripping camel ultra lights

that was one of those evenings when your conversation creeps up on the dawn

what followed was an email exchange
joe's and shnn's 0's and 1's traveling between dallas and austin
radiohead and brandon and shiner and river trips and ex-commie-boyfriends and story games w/ bryan dave & co.
weed bakeries
and quiet moments, the two of us sitting against his track-lit wall with a twelve-pack of shiner between us as we... spoke.
the language resonated with shared meaning.

i'm all lost in reminescence, in the traditional trajectory of story beginning and end. what i meant to do was share the shaking fists at god moment, as it shares importance w/ galloping across lightening danger business and such.

and is relevant to the thought i intended on following.....



---

that being death and god and things not being okay.

you forge connections with people. and then they go away. they cease to exist. they get wrapped in your roommates last glad bag with twist ties and he complains and you cry because... because

and they go away. and we don't know that they don't just go away to nothing. we don't know if there's anything after this pain bullshit existence we make the best of, try to find meaning in to keep pushing pulling trying scraping scrimming trying

life is trying.

death, life's seeming binary, tends to help make it so.

bastards.

you love people. you share amazing things. and then they go away, and you don't know how to process that, to deal with that. they become void.

join the void.

damon asks "why does god give children cancer?"

i know, i know. bs bs. but it pokes holes in the whole "just god" argument.
if he has a fucking plan i'd like to see the specs.

i'm sorry, but if i die and a jack chick jesus is up on a throne i'm going to be pissed.

i just tend to think nothing happens. this is it...but who knows?

i have so much more to say. i think i tend to. right now i'm angry w/ any doctrine that teaches that we're inherently evil. man, we have enough fucked up complexes w/out thinking we're evil by default b/c of some pomegranate incident.

go out and buy some sparklehorse right now. i'm too tired to read this over before posting. so you get this tomorrow, maybe the day next. when i'm in GA.

we just sold russian red pill rights

someone please help the guy in the brown shirt at Park and 75

what does he need? a shower, some medical care.
tacos definitely.

i gave him money. it doesn't feel like enough.

thoughts on god from boothead, the captain and jessie from the past week:

"and now, not only have i lost the one living connection to the life i use to have, but i'm losing my faith in God. it may be lost, but i'm too afraid to really say that out loud."

"i think i'll watch the daily show re-run, smoke a cigarete, pray, and go to bed. i'm not sure what i believe in the god-arena anymore. i believe in god for sure. but i'm drifting away from the belief system and label Christian. i don't really know if i think prayer works. but i'll pray for someone other than myself tonight and see what happens."

"It was a terrible day. just terrible. Death is something I've become accepting of, if not jaded of, but it still takes an initial jerk at my heart. It is infinitely worse when you're not there to comfort those who can't handle that awful reality. I've previously determined that the worst feeling in the world is letting someone down. Tonight, I think, the second worst feeling in the world is the pit of helplessness when there are no words left to comfort, because even the sight of God has been lost. How do you ease the fear and pain of a loved one who feels abandoned by God? How do you tell them to keep hope alive when hope has been repeatedly dashed -- not even haphazardly, but thrown on the floor, stomped and spat on?

Today I came close to cursing God for the first time in my life. I wanted to shake some sense into Him with my screaming. why can't she just get one lousy break??

I just want to take away the pain... and I can't... and it makes me feel so small..."

i want to be at home, in bed, windows open, dealing with all of this
i'm so dumb. my sister is going to be mad at me. all the hidden stuff, and i've typed it all out for the world to see
i'm cracking
the divide between the two shnns rupturing
it's going to be violent

fear

we are not bears.
we are not mars.

somebody help us.

kelli just said

i guess you can't capture serenity

i am so thrilled to be alive this saturday night in my solitary room in taos.

here are some images of recent fun:



okay, i may seem to be the insane over-sensitive veggiehipster -- but something bran said a ways back suddenly makes sense. he said that he doesn't like the idea of riding horses, of forcing any animal to labor for our selfish desires/"needs". at the time i resisted, seduced by the romantic "western" narrative of horseback riding (though i had only experienced said narrative in the broadest sense.)


see, my mount today was pretty damn miserable. i'm sure it had much to do with my inexpertise (and later the weather conditions). and i know that the horses are accustomed to wearing that bit bridle thing in their mouths, but for fuck's sake, they certainly resist having it put on. and Sugar wanted to drink and play in water every time we encountered it, but he wasn't allowed to.

i don't know. i just felt bad for using him like that, paying money to sit on his back while he's forced up and down trails and taking stupid fucking pictures, leather saddle and stuff creaking in the peaceful stunning landscape.

conversely, i was really touched by the respect our guide justin and his horse Judge had for one another. they really communicated with one another, both exhibiting humor and love. there's obviously a different dialectic at play b/w experienced riders and horses -- and certainly something sweet when rider and horse know one another. hmm.

justin told us a little about himself. he's a new mexico native who fell in love with the valley of angel fire; so much so that he works 3+ jobs just to live there. this gig, he bartends, he did some irrigation at the local golf course ($7/hour for that hard labor), he teaches snowboarding, he's an artist who sells his work occasionally, etc.

goddamnit. it is so expensive to live here, especially if you want a piece of land however small. all the rich white fucks own everything; all the irritating rich white tourists roll into town and pay money to drag horses into thunderstorms and fall off ski lifts and the locals work so hard to scratch together a living. the locals are the ones who have a real love for this place.

dan's going to give me hell for my reverse classism for sure -- but it's so striking. it's a criticism that needs to take place -- maybe with less vehemence and cursing, i admit. and, of course, in this situation i'm one of the irritating novice bs rich tourists.

so let's shift over to today's narrative:

i absolutely loved it. riding atop my fat dappled sweetie, giving Sugar free rein as much as possible (keeping in mind that the reins i used to guide him were tied to a metal bar in his mouth), my body shifting and moving as necessary with his movements through aspen groves and into meadows and ducking tree branches and patting his neck by the mane and he'd blow neigh-sounds occasionally. ambling through grasses, climbing knock-kneed up inclines, his hooves clattering on the occasional rock as he so kindly carried me through john denver beauty.

i love him. i want him to come live with me in my loft with my kitties, i want to stable him w/ the goats at papa and granny's, i want to get to know him and i want him to forgive me for sitting perched atop him and jerking him all about the mountain trail. i want to free him to scramble up mountains as he wishes, to drink and eat grass and bolt from terrifying thunder as he wills it.

i don't want to bend him like i did this afternoon.

we tried to spot some elk. i could smell their musksmell; william heard them grunt as they retreated. we entered a meadow with a view of what justin called the "hidden valley" (and i thought distractedly that i'd now seen two beautiful places named after salad dressing -- the other being the thousand islands)

we clopped on as the clouds rolled in, storms brewing in many directions. we watched rain douse wheeler peak (and i proudly shared that i'd climbed it) and the first drops sounded

we each dismounted to put on the rain gear (if you look at the photo you can see it tied to the back of mel and justin's packs) -- somehow we made it out there with only three. of course mr "i've got a hat" guide went without while we zipped and snapped ourselves into bright yellow. and so he stayed dry above his neck while i delighted in the wetness on my forehead, beading in my eyebrows and gently soaking my hair and my left leg.

i can't think of how to describe it... a 3-D curtain blanketing everything, a sweet steady wash... it was awe-some.

it was a gift.

and i don't even believe in a Gifter.

and then came thunder and a second later, lightening. we slip-plodded our way home down steep slopes as bright white streaks of thin light flashed about us. mel's pequito nearly spooked. sugar wanted to run home. i wanted to run home.

my left hand gripped the wet leather of the saddle horn

i hate lightening. i'm somehow convinced that i'm going to die from it one day
(mom says "don't claim it!")

kept to the trees
until we approached a meadow
justin said something akin to 'let's get over this fast'

and then the run, the gallop over the dangerous meadow
lightening sounding all around us
i was crying and happy and alive and flying finally a part of the horse
meaning pelting me with raindrops and horse hoof beats and shnnbreaths

sharing fear and exhiliration w/ sugar
for that minute our contingencies led us to a place of solidarity
"let's get the fuck out of here!" solidarity

the rest of the way occasional tears joined the rest of the water on my face
dripped off my chin onto the slicker covering my torso
a terse final downhill trek,
leaning back in my saddle, braced after each bolt of lightening for the thunder that would potentially unseat me
alive and so happy to be so
and that's something.

that's something.

i just checked my stats.... apparently tio from elimidate was pretty popular. there are tons of "tio flamenco" hits. crazy.

i'm exhausted. about to take a nap and then go harvest some sagebrush.

i don't like lightening, but today it sparked quite the life experience. a friend told me to fill today with something worth remembering. done!

wow, last time i was out here i helped save a tree (and maybe this neck of carson national forest) from a lightening-induced fire
tonight i'll have to write michigan dave (who's now in w africa w/ the peace corp) a letter

first, rest. i'm dirty and i smell like leather -- but i think i'll wait a bit to wash off the remnants of my adventure.

Here's the courtyard (it's the view from the other window in my little place); these images do it no justice.



After getting rained out, we three drove Taos-ward. I read Rorty in the backseat and occasionally laughed and read quotes about Heidegger. We discussed theory and being while weaving among the foothills of the sangre de cristos mountains. We then found ourselves in the Taos main square, where we went into several clono-stores. They all had wares like this:


Buy some shit, you're on vacation! Hoo-ray for over-priced plastic dolls in dead-cow costumes that aren't even historically accurate! Yay! I didn't let that depress me. I ran into this amazing fabric store that made me think of Emily (she'd go crazy w/ just the ribbons and little adorn-ment things)



and we saw this outside of this sort of gallery-gift-store-thing:


now i'm procrastinating from writing by blogging... which is technically writing, though i guess it's more post pictures show and tell business.

okay. i have a short story waiting for my attention. more later.

Melissa, Wm and me this morning before we drove to Angel Fire to sit in the horseback riding place for an hour while it rained. We're going to try again tomorrow morning.

sippng thunderbolt coffee and looking out the window


you can't see it, but there's a flagpole out there that was once the staging ground for a camp-esque state rivalry. the writers from texas vs. the archaeologists from michigan. i can usually take or leave state pride bs -- but i just had to jump into the fun. after they confiscated the texas flag we'd triumphantly raised (they wrote "forget the alamo" in masking tape and put it back up) i snuck into their casita and stole a couple of the guys' boxers. up the flagpole they went.

anticipating retaliation, we rigged up a booby trap to the door of our casita with a bucket of water, some dental floss and ingenuity. the contraption actually worked -- only the water doused one of the hispanic ladies who was coming to restock toilet paper!

we called a truce and went out for some tecate and two-stepping.


i never went to camp as a kid -- i don't think any of us did. it was fun to play out those narratives; there's something so simple and sweet out here.

From this morning before I took a nap at the airport: (Crazy internet access right now, so I'm just posting this fucker. More to come tomorrow.)

I'm in heaven.

------------------


I’m sitting in the Albuquerque airport. I sure wish they had wifi here! Give it a few years.

Waiting for Mel and Wm -- they had some delays on their drive from California. This is just the kind of day I’m thrilled I have a laptop. A couple hours wait becomes opportunity for moments of creativity.

I fear that technology will be the death of my traditional journaling. I just pulled one from my bag and only scratched out a paragraph or so.


Sickness seems to be upon me; instead of over-priced airport cocktails I’m sucking down emergen-C dissolved in orange juice (in my new easy grip bottle!)

Is this a military town? There seem to be an inordinate amount of hot guys running about in olive drab. Sigh. I adore olive drab.


I wanted to sit outside but everyone is smoking out there. They need non-smoking designated areas in the space just outside of airport doors. One is seemingly always subjected to standing in a cloud of smoke while waiting for a ride home (or whatever).

I’m really tired. The mountains are within reach! Trees and chipmunks and gray squirrels, nighttime bats. Carwash burritos.

what is it with kickass music in commercials lately?

what the hell? modest mouse in a minivan commercial?

the nissan quest:

moms have changed. shouldn't the minivan?

-----------------

hey, apparently i'm famous. bran saw a geico commercial this week (i think they were selling homeowner's insurance) that used my name!

i was in the final stages of phantom moon yoga when my phone rang last night. i thought for sure it was avery b. calling in some duncansheikesque meditative moment of synergy, but no! it was dan and his friend thomas, all filled up on veggie burger and seeking out a tour of gibson co. wonderland.

after rooftop fun with my neighbors the rudds, i cooled down in the shower (my body temp gets pretty high when i yoga).

to my delight kristen called shortly thereafter; she had a hankering for new amsterdam fun. and so off we went, into the warm streetlit night for good conversation and refreshing beverages. despite the very very loud jazz music filling the small smoke-space of the bar, we managed to communicate effectively. it was fantastic and relaxing -- i ended up ambling up my stairs in a wash of the gentle buzz that only maredsous can deliver.

despite the alcohol, sleep still eluded me. i should have attacked the mounds of laundry that are overtaking my apartment (they've currently conquered the closet) -- but instead i sipped day-old iced Lipton and read old college era emails until late late.

i'm tired and a little yawny this morning. but things are good.

i think i have a fever.

i wish kelli was here to feel my forehead.

two sacred sparks of life occupy my apartment full-time. they are real, alive in such a tangible way. i'd be content to spend my sunday watching them eat, sleep, play, sun themselves, curiously investigate boxes, knock over the pitcher of tea i just made.... i was somehow incomplete (i know, word choice... i can't find a more precise term here) during those eight years i spent pet-free, after the devastating loss of my two dogs and two cats (gumbo, cajun and chris went to live w/ the grandparents in rural cleburne where they quickly met untimely deaths by rattlesnake and/or abandonment) (and tippy went to the pound, which is another story altogether) right before i started high school.

i know it's silly. but i love beringer and berkley so completely. i'd be so less... happy without them. i think loneliness would take me.

when i got beringer from kitties and puppies two years ago the strange cat lady warned me: "now you know what committment you are making. this is a 20 year thing --- cats live a long time." i remember thinking "good!" -- i'm not ready to deal with the death of something so *shnn looks over at berkley and cannot fathom a word to put here*. hell, i get upset when people kill bugs. don't get me started on the barbaric concentration camp meat industry (i know that's a pretty hefty term to drop here, but i think animals are sacred just as people are. call me crazy.)

i visited muyo last night. he's gained more weight -- i wouldn't be surprised if he weighs 25 pounds. i felt bad for jumping all over damon's case (he'd bought the shit cat food from 7-11 instead of muyo's diet food), but this 9-year-old fatty isn't going to be around much longer. it's just a reality. i love that goddamn cat so much.

shit. anyway, this thought thread is all due to some bad news. bethy's cat boots (the boot in boothead) has an fiv-related illness. he's got a couple of days to a couple of weeks left.

i know, i know. death is a part of life, etc etc. but you don't understand. my beth has endured more loss than anyone i know who's our age in this sheltered american existence. her mother passed away recently after battling breast cancer.

and now this. boots is her family, he's the glue holding together the past and present. boots is beth. beth is boots. he's an amazing, personable, kickass kitty. i don't want him to leave. i can't accept that yet.

--------------

mom and i talked yesterday morning about death. my grandparents aren't going to be around forever. papa's heart is bad. gran has no cartilage in her knee - she's either got to lose crazy amounts of weight and have knee surgery or she needs a wheelchair. she stubbornly refuses both options.

they're totally ready for their ascent to glory. i'd probably be okay if i believed there was a glory to ascend to -- god and john denver conversing over smoothies and all that. sigh. the truth is, i've got to deal with this death thing soon. maybe i should read delillo's white noise a few thousand more times or something.

i mean, i freaked the fuck out when the newts died. i came home from damon's one morning and there they were, sort of half-floating, stinking up their home, bloated and odd. their forms distorted and somehow blurry. stink, capo and micholet dead mere hours after i'd fed them raw ground dead cow. i tried to fish their bodies out w/ the little fishy net thing and i couldn't. i seriously lost it. poor damon had to do it. and they were too big for tradional toilet-burial. and we had no yard to bury them in. and so the undignified goodbye, shnn carrying a large black kitchen trashbag with three solemn little bodies inside it all alone, walking across the street to the smelly dumpster crying, awash in fear sorrow grossed out grief. it was horrible.

and they were newts. just newts.

that's the day i knew that beringer wouldn't return to the nokill shelter despite his penchant for shitting on my bed. i picked him up all desperate-like, so thrilled that he was alive, little cat-heart beating, all kitten-squirmy "put me down mom!" sweetness.

goodness.

hey, go to the breast cancer site and lend a click.

i love my mom.




this morning i don't mind so much that berk scratches my bed, or that beringer is especially talkative. or that tea is spilled all over the shoes i was supposed to return to the store. or that berkley is currently chewing ein's ear.

can't.... sleep....

From Salon's The Fix:

Charlotte Abbott, book news editor of Publishers Weekly, on the dustup between Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken, both of whom have books coming out in September: "I think it elevated both books to a higher degree of visibility. The kind of visibility that Franken is getting is extraordinary. It surprises me."

papa and gran's jack russell's is "pregnated"
i... want... dog...

good lord. if i keep going at this rate (1 pet/year) (holy shit, i've had berkley for almost a year!) things are gonna get crazy.

no more pets, shnn. not right now, at least.
oh, puppy:


in other family business, my sister recently got smacked in the face with a softball. despite the stitches, she's still "jumping up and down beneath that ball" (my grandparents' term for any sport involving a ball)

gran said "she'd go play ball if the lord was coming"

spoke w/ fletch online last night -- life, the universe and everything type stuff
i mentioned that i was writing and he asked if i was working on my manifesto

it was one of those weird how did you know? moments

he said:
"out of anyone, you seem like the manifesto type"

one of the candidates in the California recall election doesn't even know who the vice president is....

may your friday eve be filled with fair and balanced fun

i get to spend time w/ the squires kids tomorrow :) maybe i'll surprise them and bring my guitars.

Just sent my aunt and cousin on their way back to Beaumont. They crashed here after depositing my cousin Karl at UTD in what they refer to as "dorms" (I call them apartments. There's no way to call them residence halls, really.)

It was so good to spend time w/ family. I'm astonished at how much my two cousins respect me. I was greeted by enthusiastic hugs (the type I tend to give people I love to death) and given high accolades (Karl told his RA that I'm "so cool") -- there is something fantastic about receiving such unabashed affection and love.

I think the bonds we share will eventually reinforce and recreate the McCoy connection that our parents have taught us.

And now, an hour of sleep before a fantastic busy Friday of work*.



*maybe I should start using a different signifier; this one seems laden w/ negative connotation.

[]

what a fantastic monday. good to be at work today -- maybe it's that i'm working with manuscripts, or that i'm somehow getting a lot done. things are tempered with a general cheerful quality that's refreshing. it's the yellow i was trying to convey when singing "day by day" with soggy dolphins, the new color of theyblinked, the color of joy rodriguez.

maybe i'll write tonight. maybe i'll visit muyo. yoga definitely grins at me from the near future; i can't wait.

reach for the sun!

saw the polyphonic vw commerical yesterday.

yes, this amounts to a confession of watching (yet more) television.

what a morning.
it's a stay-in-bed and nap, read and sip hot tea kind of day.

-----------------------

last night i got caught watching (gasp!) television. finally got the cable working. i can see how one could spend time time time watching TLC and such. tv is such a time-sucker. trading spaces, what not to wear, etc etc, until it was late night television time....

after an amazing SF dork moment on a shit sitcom, i encountered my favorite dating show: elimidate.

it was texas people in hawaii -- one girl (i'd bet my cat she's an smu grad) and four guys on vacation-find-a-date. a mixture of hicks and dallasite types. hysterical.

my favorite guy was tio, the flamenco guitarist. (he seemed to think that tio meant something sexy. it actually means 'uncle')
one of the other guys is this rodeo cowpoke who deals w/ livestock on a daily basis and competes in rodeos. tio's response?

"hey, i'm a cowboy myself myself. i grew up in tyler texas, which is a very small town."

yeah, sure tio. and i'm a cowgirl -- i even own a pair of black ropers and i'm from mansfield. we're both real shit kickers.

---------

my favorite quote from the cowboy? "I'm not going to kind of run her down until she can't breathe anymore to make her go out with me."

(note the new bookshelf!)

i'm not pushing edit.

listening to the people's agenda on npr -- they're discussing crime in dallas.

a year or so ago, someone broke into dave (they smashed the small quarter window in the backseat) and stole a cd player that didn't work

i had to pay to fix the window. but hey, they got off with jack crap.

unfortunately, damon's car was stolen from the same location recently. i often wonder what these folks steal for (our learned response to crime is "it's drugs!"). how often did they watch the street? how many people did it? did they talk to each other before-hand, during, after? did they strip the car themselves?

how do race and class identity play into this?

i hate blogging at work. i deliver little pithy statements and questions (sometimes eliciting friendly responses)....

i would promise more later, but that would seem like an assignment. and i'd never get it done.

I'm having more respect for this book project I'm working on.

It seems less a grab for fame than a compulsion I've certainly felt -- the author experienced something so striking that she felt compelled to share it.

New JK Rowling is the New Black


Consider this, one of the best effects so far of being the NJKR: I received an email from the "entertainment marketing supervisor" of a promotional and brand-marketing company who was "currently concepting fresh approaches and strategy for McDonald's Happy Meals" and felt that "Lionboy would benefit from the exposure of appearing on 15m Happy Meals per month".

This made me specially joyful because: 1) years ago I did an undercover journalist stint working at McDonald's, and considerably slagged off the company, and 2) the villain of Lionboy is an evil multinational corporation.

I fantasised cheerfully about which bits of my opus should be reproduced in the Happy Meals' free booklets - the sweatshop island with the child workers perhaps? If anyone had read the book they would see that my worldview is not exactly McDonald's-friendly.

to the future, and those things we shall pass by and those that shall become our past.

Berkley and I did yoga yesterday:

goodness, the diane rehm show is rife with binaries this morning. first an hour of low-level argument on same-sex marriage. then this gender-binary essentialist bs discussion of romance novels (they deal with feminine issues like emotions) vs. literature (spare, masculine language.)

gender gender gender gender gender.

alone in the office today.

working in the intern room because it's too cold at my desk (and one of the computers in here has speakers.)

listening to brandon on repeat. there's comfort in hearing his voice. it's seriously like he's sitting right in here with me.

--------
much to say. no time. i've got to edit this boy band business.

morning

i wonder at my attachment for certain objects
all jokes about my fondness for the kitchen garbage can (and mb gucci's affinity for paper towels) aside, there are just a few things that i have an emotional attachment to.

my books. my car. my guitars.

make that guitar.

that's right -- my uncle wants the k brand guitar w/ the hillbilly roses on the sunburst body back.
i learned to play on that guitar
i wrote songs
serenaded jacob
stayed up late singing with jen
duet-ed w/ bran
filmed a music video

i'm going to miss it.

this is one of those times you categorize later, when you have the chance to utilize 20/20 hindsight

i'm in a unique leg in the process of becoming

i don't really know what i set out to communicate this morning when i opened blogger. there's just a general feeling of acceptance of all this. i'm about to go to cleburne and i don't even know if i'll stop in to see my grandparents. that hurts a lot.

and back to that whole idea of deconstructing my stories

i'm finally moving past some of the bitterness towards xianity. (see how i still distance myself from it by clever use of the "x"? i managed similar machinations by calling my father rick.) i really think we should sit down and write out the process of grieving over the loss of faith. except i'm not sure there is a streamlined set of responses like the handy list we have for dealing with death (still haven't done that one -- ooh, something to look forward to!) seems like i had that bitterness stage down great for four years or so (and don't think i'm tricking myself into thinking i'm past it)

i guess the next stage (at least for shnn) is dealing with the emotional pain, the stunning searing pain that i was able to escape with a steady stream of alcohol, weed, sex, cigarettes, and witty angry bitterness. the most devastating shift in my life was not just painful. it was terrifying. the entire framework within which (which within?) i understood reality was violently shaken. someone tossed out the limited lenses through which i viewed everything.

(and i wasn't even creative enough to substitute my faith with something more than the sad [insert noun here] of beat lifestyle.)

i had a personal relationship with the invisible imaginary sky king. it was somehow okay that we lived in a world of such utter suffering because there was a higher calling, a grander meaning, something better out there that we'd get to. i mean, what a beautiful story -- i was going to get to meet jesus. my xian friends and i made plans for after the rapture "meet me at the crystal sea after you see jesus!"

and i Meant it.

here's where i get all flurmfy. i'm closing you out right now, closing myself off. i'm uncomfortable talking about this, exploring it too far. but i'm getting there. i'll push some more later.

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shoot. i need to shower still. then it's off to hang out w/ my aunt and kickass cousin.

something. something. something.

i've complained lately about how everyone seems displaced
we sit on couches or in chairs at bars and look at our lives, heads cocked sideways with a puzzled looks --- "is this my life?"

this is some rough transition (i feel like i've been driving on smu's bishop blvd for the past few months (not in a suv)) from the construct of college-type life to... what? adulthood?

there's a seamless quality to my waking and dream life.

change happens so rapidly that there's little time to reflect on the consequences good and bad. jc moves to okc and i look up, shocked to realize that everyone seems to have gone. the friends i spend the most time with i've known less than a year. there seems to be some loss of continuity, history. i'm forgetting all the inside jokes. and of course, the likes of kelli dan david kauser emily trevor beate jeff robert are dropped in my lap, an unexpected gift.

look out, i'm likely to go on another list rampage (but i can't really afford to do so right now -- i've got to go upgrade my aunt's computer)

i'm shifting, changing. starting to deconstruct some of the stories i tell myself. and despite the potential and realized spots of depression, i'm somehow able to control my attitude. somehow i've recently maintained this general joy. i want to sing all the time; i often do.

i tried to draft this blog in word for fear of losing it (you know the whole "shit i lost a great post" bit)
but i can't seem to write the same in that interface

so here i am.

i visited dan's blog this afternoon at work and read about his thursday morn/wednesday eve apocalyptic dream. wow, that's powerful stuff.

i, too, dreamt some apocalyptic shit that morning -- so striking that i sacrificed the usual twenty or so odd snooze minutes to scrawl the details in my journal. i've been putting off blogging on it (because it's a long meandering crazy dream, but mostly because i'm an idiot and plan to blog on certain things and it never happens b/c it just becomes something else to procrastinate on/against/what the hell is the appropriate preposition here?/towards yes.).

anyway. i digress. (who's surprised?)

okay, so there was no nuclear explosion thing. the dream wasn't even scary. but there were bombs, and my mom shooting this grenade launcher! (i've never seen a grenade launcher, but i imagined quite a doozy in my dream-ness.)

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dreams are difficult to put into language. sometimes i think differance resides there, all slippery flurmfy difficult to nail down, hovering on the skirts of meaning. maybe it's our piecemeal memory of dreams, or my lack of any artistic ability, but the landscapes and details and human interactions are difficult to pinpoint. for instance, a person in your dream can be a person that you know and recognize -- but they're completely different. like in this dream that i'll hopefully get around to telling, i made out w/ this gay guy from smu named gary. i knew he was gary. but he didn't look like or act like gary. and in the dream he wasn't gay. and the to complicate things further, he sort of was someone else later. but it was a seamless change, i just accepted it. see? i'm already having difficulty explaining this shit. but you know what i mean.

yes. so i'll leave out those weird difficult to explain details hopefully and get to the chase. because this was one fun-ass flying crazy adventure dream.


the worst part of telling people about a dream is that there are no details. only pieces of memory. maybe a good writing project would be to write one long one out as a story. i could make some shit up, like details about what mom and i were doing when the attack came. i keep trying to write this like a story, in typical shan-fashion.

it's just not going to work.

fuck.

i was hanging out with mom when solid thick trails of gray mingled with clouds in the sky. i turned to tell her "hey look!" when things suddenly became night.
we realized we were being bombed.
we were in front of a huge gray church, and there were a ton of weapons on the step.

mom picks up a grenade launcher and starts firing at the sky
i try to find a way into the church, wanting to take cover

mom runs out of ammo,
i run out of patience. finally convince someone to let us in, and we're congregating w/ folks, watching the fire in the sky through stained-glass windows. for some reason confetti and fireworks are going off outside.

i think that this must be how the iraqis felt recently.

so some more shit happens, blah blah, i don't remember, and next thing i'm not w/ mom

i'm running about with dan. it's an adventure! yay fun!

we run into robert and jeff from the tulsa convention. they had some mishap with self-tanning lotion and have very orange faces. we run about covertly. bombs explode now and then.

i'm not scared through any of this. it's adventure time! i wasn't even taken aback at mom's weaponry-business. (lord, i remember trying to teach her how to shoot a .410 -- shudder)

i got a little frightened when i was walking down a gravel road and this mack truck starts raring up towards me, trying to smack me.

i was able to clamber up this landscaped concrete thing and escape (the mean truck man smashed into the concrete, crushing some tulips)

and then i entered into lucid dreaming. i replayed the event, this time w/ mack truck coming from the other direction. again, i escaped, but this time i had super jumping strength. i started running along the concrete edge,

a bit aware that i might be dreaming because how else could i be seriously contemplating flying?

i ran ran ran and jumped onto a fire hydrant, the up to a telephone pole, onto a tree where i ran a few steps, then launched myself with one step off a building! man, i fucking flew, arms out

(this is not how i normally fly in dreams. generally i start to kind of float up, normal shnn posture, and i'm like "hm, i guess i'm flying" and then i usually fly around cities looking for brandon. sometimes i find him and take him flying, superman-and-lois-style)


for quite some time, thinking to myself (don't think about it too much, or you'll realize you're dreaming and wake up or you'll fall)

and i came, settled down to rest in front of some friends.

yes.

this is only about 1/5 of the dream sequence. there is much more zaniness to follow. drunken monopoly, some sentient neon signs, making out with gary (who isn't gary) (or gay), running about stairways in the morning w/ mel, etc.

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oh, sigh. i don't know about this post. but it's in-the-moment. no backspace rule. here you go.

i miss god.

hi.