why i'm a crappy blogger (for now)

i'm stressed.
feeling a bit like a broken freakin' record. i'm mourning the land, my little house....grieving and letting go, can't go into the woods without sobbing like a child, so i'm not much fun to be around right now. not much to say since i can't seem to form a coherent thought that isn't about moving, where am i going, what can i afford, what do i need, who the hell am i without this place and my high mountain farmer chaconera identity.....do i still need/want that identity? what can i do to infuse more poetry into my life without giving up fresh air and peace and quiet and my animals....do i need my animals?
and around and around we go.....

the days have gotten chilly,esp. with all the rain! night comes earlier, grasses have gone to seed, all around the subtle shift from brilliant green to slightest brown....i swear i can smell fall in the air...its like that up here. so short, the warm season.
we'll have a first frost by september no doubt.
winter counts to a hundred, whispers...ready or not, here i come.
i am not ready.

animals never cease

to amaze me.
hell, i'd probably perch on those soft wooly warm bodies if i could.

does anyone know

how to post audio to this here blogsite? A friend sent me an mp3 of my performance in the film "commiting poetry.." and i was hoping to share as its the next best thing to magically dragging y'all to a reading right? but alas, i can't figure it out.

i can however send it to anyone interested via email...so lemme kow if you'd like to give a listen and i'll send it yr way.If i don't already have yr email just post it as a comment and i'll be sure to keep it private.
its a recording from about 4 years ago or so....right after we invaded iraq. I'd ike to think my delivery and cadence has improved since then but hey, its not too bad.

as for the chacon house....i'm trying my bestest to envision the end product, and muster my superqueer strength to get it there....i need a cape and some tights

update on the home search...and some garlic

well, i saw the inside of what i'm calling "the chacon house". a bit overwhelming. between the mothball smell that has permeated absolutely everything and the general cheapness and panelling and bad framing jobs(half the house is actually frame)....it needs to be completely gutted. while there are pipes coming up throught the floor where the kitchen would be, there is no kitchen,no sink, no cupboards, no hot water heater. theres holes in the ceiling/roof where woodstoves used to be but no woodstoves, the elec wiring is minimal and ancient....etc.
the bathroom scared me...and i don't scare easily.
i can't even get myself to post interior photos...

anyone out there wanna come help me gut this house??? re-wire it????

so...ugh....again i come to terms with this being all i can afford and how it flies in the face of why i'm selling this place which was some hope of finding a bit of ease and comfort which i need and deserve...ha.

i've been considering moving back home to new york since land is frighteningly cheaper than here...and theres water...and my mom and sisters and old friends. but then wow...thats only a 2200 some mile journey...sigh.

anyone out there wannna make a road trip with me from new mexico to new york????

so, the head spin continues, and time is running out! altho the very sweet women buying this place have agreed to let me stay past closing, i still feel compelled to get on with it as i can. i worry it will just be too sad to still be here and yet not be mine...too sad.
at least if i bought this beast of a house down the road i'd be able to stay here while i gut it and get to work on it....i feel another sigh coming....

in other news...i pulled some garlic up yesterday...i love love the live earth and garlic smell. makes me happy and still for the moment its up against my nose....ahhhhhh.

ok....the next hope for home is....

this ginourmous adobe down in the village right below me.
Its on an acre, has community water, electric and an extra mobile home hook up.It needs a bunch of work like ripping out the 70's blue shag rug thats been doused with mothballs....yech.
theres also this awesome old log building, looks like its fallingdown but its actually quite sturdy and perfect for the sheep as inside its only about 5 ft or so high.
i really love the view, this is from the porch. the mora river is right below.
there is one neighbor super close by but they are behind the house so easy to ignore. theres a few really cute little kids that live there...i crossed paths with them on their way back from the river where they were fishing. super cute.
theres the mountains behind the house. i so love the mountains.
so cross yr fingers folks cuz this ol' house is about all there is on order within my price range!

shameless plug

so, a while back i mentioned that i was featured in a film called "Committing Poetry in Times of War" and more recenty i was able to catch a screening of the film down yonder in albuquerque. I thought i'd mention here that it will be screening in Santa Fe on july 17th, 7pm @ The Film Center (Cinemacafe) 1616 St.Michaels Dr. as well as in Taos on july 21st 1:30pm @ Touchstone Foundation, 0110 Mabel Dodge Lane.
I've been asked to perform after the film at the taos screening (they're even gonna pay me!) so if yr in the area come check it all out...the film is quite good. It was a winner of the New Mexico State Film Offices New Vision Award and the Telluride Talking Gourd Poetry Festivals Tellus Award. More recently the film has been accepted into fall film festivals in both canada and South Africa....how cool is that?

AND while i'm at it, i'm performing tomorrow night, the 15th, along with many other kick ass poets, at LA REVOLUCION POETICA, the 5th anniversary celebration of the greatest little peformance/community space, "Outch'yonda", 6-8pm 929 4th Street SW, ABQ
be there or be square!"

suns up and i slept...yay!

wow...how cranky was that last post? not that all my worries are gone today but man-o-man i do not do well without sleep.

some things i will do with the money from selling my home:

get new glasses( the ones i'm wearing are 10 years old, prescription included)
register and insure my truck and get her carb rebuilt
give my mom some money since she helped me through last winter and she could really use it.
buy some goddam socks
eat enough food for once...gain some weight..
go home to new york and see my family and friends(haven't been home in 5 or so years)....and get some major tattoo work done by my life long friend who is now some hotshot tattooist...yesssss.
get my butt over to the bay area and see my most gorgeous and amazing leona as well as kasi and seeley and some other folks i mostly know thru the internet.....and maybe grab some open mics with my poetry.(a fresh audience would be a treat, everyone in new mexico has heard it all before...lol)
buy an electric spinning wheel so i can up my production without killing my legs and back.
buy a whole bunch of lamb fleece from my sheep yoda.

and most most importantly, buy a home (with plumbing!) for my heart and my animals to live and love.

come on yemaya......

donde oh donde

so yesterday i called and withdrew my offer on the little village house....it suddenly hit me that there was no way i'd be able to find peace with that much traffic spewing past my house all the time. While its good in one sense to have put that behind me, i'm pretty fucking stressed out that the closing date for my land here is on the 10th of august and i have absolutely no idea where me and my herd are going.....nada.

i am keenly aware that its poverty that is driving me to leave this most beautiful place.

i am not sleeping.

here in new mexico, trying to find a functioning house on even a bit of land for 60k or less means you are either next to a busy road...or the freeway...or the railroad tracks...or in a slum. my mother is facing the same issue in new york. she is seeking to sell her home of 20 years in order to avoid foreclosure and if she's lucky she'll walk away with 30k to find a new home with and only the capacity for payments of maybe 300 or so a month.....that doesn't leave a lot to choose from.

i hate that capitalism does this....that our lives are always for sale....home is so hard to attain....that nothing is ever really ours as far as a sense of belonging and peace.

i heard recently that foreclosures are up 87% from this time last year....fucking american dream colonizer profit margin bloated empirical bullshit state of things. and that damn iraq war costing us billions a month. grrrrrr.

life right now like jumping off a cliff with a stupid wad of cash in my sweaty little fist....thats how things feel. just hoping something lovely breaks my fall.

critters

now, i've been apprehensive to romance the land too much with more breathtaking scenery shots since i'm leaving in a couple months and, well, its counterproductive and kind of masochistic to romance a lover that your leaving, no? but, animals are animals so thats allowed....
these little snakes love the hay bale /tarp combo....sometimes theres dozens of them.
this should win the prize for the greatest variety of animals in one shot...
cheers!

where is that (scent free) soap box?

so check it out...i have to reprint this here cuz its like almost never that anything related to my disability gets as far as crappy mainstream news land, esp. in a context that doesn't involve making my kind look like whiny eccentric wierdos.This little snippet is ofcourse too short, and what i want to know is how the suit goes in the end....if she wins then maybe that will set even the smallest precedent for the rest of us...maybe. My favorite catch phrase that i stole from the anti-smoking brigades that also totally applies to gnarley ol' neurotoxic scented crap is " your rights end at the tip of my nose"

"Allergic US employee sues to ban perfume at work
Thu Jul 5, 11:12 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - An office worker for the US city of Detroit is suing for her colleagues to be banned from wearing perfume which gives her such severe headaches, nausea and coughing fits that she must leave work.
Court documents showed Thursday that Susan McBride suffered so acutely from allergy to the chemicals in scents, lotions and sprays that she had to go home sick when a heavily perfumed co-worker shared her office at the city's historic districts department.
Her sensitivity is such that she avoids the detergent sections in shops and cannot sit near perfumed people in a movie theater or on the bus.
The co-worker refused to leave off the perfume, according to the complaint filed at the district court in Detroit, in the northern state of Michigan. McBride needed medical treatment and was off work for some time.
Now she is seeking a jury trial to make the city force fellow employees to come to work un-scented, citing disability discrimination laws. She is claiming unspecified damages for "pain, suffering, humiliation and outrage" suffered.
McBride and her manager have already asked the city authorities that employ her to enforce a "no scent policy as an accommodation to her disability, without success," the complaint said."

dream time addendum....

as if things weren't confusing enough right now...theres a new option in front of me. i'm swirling around in my head with so so much to contemplate and decide on....so here it is....
a friend of a friend, who also has e.i., has 5 acres that she lives on just 20 some minutes south of santa fe. She has sheep as well as goats and a most beautiful horse and a dog and some cats. She is open to the idea of sharing her land with me...i would buy a yurt (this i'd take with me when i leave there) and also i'd build a barn for my sheep and chickens in exchange for rent (since she'd get to keep the barn when i left.).

at this point i could build a barn in my sleep.

i would have shower/bath priveleges in her huge rambling adobe. she'd run a seperate phone line to the yurt. I'd have to fence in the yurt in order to keep my dogs in/with me.
it would all involve a whole buncha work in the next coupla months but in some ways its not any more huge and scary as diving into owning another property all on my own that really in the bigger picture i can barely afford....but then again, i'd be on someone elses land, living in a glorified tent...but then again i wouldn't have bills and taxes and septic and blahdeblahdeblah all on my own little shoulders as i will if i get the house down the valley.

and, all this yurt business would be a temporary thru winter kind of thing while my friend thats in santa fe and i look for land in the area.

hmmmmmmm. its a pros and cons extravagaza.

swirling head...thats what i have....and my tummy is all tight with no room for food....i'm in some kind of scorpionic decision making purgatory....but hey, at least i'm not lookin' at homeless. i never want to look at homeless again.

dream time between worlds

I'm now in some kind of netherworld limbo where it seems i've sold the farm...but haven't actually yet done it, and it seems i'm going to buy this little village place ...but haven't actually done it.Then theres the overwhelming surreality of the idea of not being here on the mountain anymore. The aspens out my window,the contours of the mountains around me, the birdsong in the morning. I've cried so much that now while i write this my eyes swell and my throat sticks but the tears don't quite flow....i think i've run the well dry...finally....for now, and i have to remind myself that if i was staying i'd be freakin' out since i've no money for firewood or hay...hell i don't have money for food right now and my car isn't running and i'm stuck and as gorgeous as the mountains can be they can also be quite demanding and relentless. So when i'm not mourning the loss i'm quite excited at the prospect of where i'm hoping to go. Sure it has drawbacks, like the stupid road/traffic but the thought of plumbing, being able to bath whenever i like, turn a tap and do dishes, being able to walk to the post office or the little healthfood store, ride my bike to the farmers market...and having a house big enough to accomodate other humans...i love that prospect the most. and the thought that some big ol' radical queero (thats me) is gonna live smack in the middle of the village makes me chuckle....

which reminds me....the huge old adobe on 2 acres is also for sale next door....so someone awesome has to come and buy it so we can combine our loviness ok?

but , see, i'm getting ahead of myself.....the owner hasn't officialy accepted my offer, and the women...queer women(yay!) buying my place haven't actually signed the purchase agreement....hence....limbo land.

so i need y'alls magical intent or prayers or whatever it is you do....i feel the cosmic momentum is there but it couldn't hurt to give it a collective push....ok?

the new home for remedy farm??

ok all you wise and loving folks of the blogosphere....here are some photos of the place i'm considering. Its funny how with stanky ol' real estate there is the fun part daydreaming, lifechanging, house loving and then there is the boring, kinda nerve wracking sketchy bits....like contingency contracts and inspections and offers/counter offers and terms and permits and blahdeblahdeblah.but anyway.....here she is. built in 1894, thats old for adobe around here.originally the home of some us senator, it has stayed in the family. This is the first time it will be changing hands.I fucking love this front door.
I'm actually a little concerned that its a bit too much house for just little ol' me. 2 bedrooms, dining room, living room, kitchen plus a spattering of funky little pantry kind of nooks and crannies as well as the attic. windows are all single pane originals....brrrrrrrr. and theres the big issue of there being a cesspool which is categorically illegal anymore these days....i was thinking i'd put in a composting toilet and a grey water system instead. hopefully that would satiate the folks at the environmental dept. The house sits all of 100 ft. from the mora river so the water table is literally like 10 ft below the ground. Theres an old well on the property to back that up...you can see the water not far down the hole. So easily contaminated.Right nextdoor is this beast of a building thats an old old mill of some sort...it built of huge cut stones and is slowly falling down.
Out back the property borders a 2000 acre alpaca ranch so that provides a bit breathing room from being right in the village.One other concern is how the land doesnt have a single blade of grass on it and is very sandy/river rockish...note the mullein that loves this kind of soil. funny since all around the place grass grows just fine. I'm hoping that some irrigating and spreading of manure might help? If i could get grass growing i think i could put a dent in the sheep feeding by splitting it in half and rotating them back and forth....but if nothing grows that means they don't ever get any fresh nibblings.
Also on the property...which is just under an acre....is this little 2 room adobe house. It looks smaller and ickier on the outside than it is on the inside. The 8 million fruit trees on the land have begun to swallow it up. It actually has plumbing with a shower and sink...but obviously it needs some serious help.Also on the land are these 2 little barns. One is adobe and log and the other is all wood. Both are in good shape. The mud/log one is almost root cellar like as you have to duck and step down thru the door , has an earthern floor, and is cool and dark inside. That would be the sheep house. The smaller wooden one has little windows and is a perfect chicken house.

they're asking 62k for the place, which is, ofcourse ,too much. esp. with no survey/plat and the whole looming septic crisis.
but, that said,They are willing to finance which is good cuz a bank won't touch my poor ass with a ten foot pole. i'd offer 55k with a good down and see what happens.....i'm a sucker for funky places that reek of history....hmmmmmmm.