Wednesday, November 26, 2008

who can it be now?


Eleanor really really wants to know what all goes on in the house...where it is we all disappear to. thing is,if she wasn't so bossy w/ the dogs and if there was a way to control her random gumball machine pooping action i'd probably let her in...sigh...its just the way i am. back in chacon i used to love how if i left the doors open the swallows would come in and fly in circles and sing(it was their house before it was mine). i've slept with dogs in the bed my whole life. i'm the one who would wander off to the barn in the night to sleep with the horses when i was 3....but thats a story for another time.

why i don't celebrate thanksgiving

so tomorrow is that day...the day when mythological happy pilgrims sat down w/ mythological happy native americans and had some mythological happy-meal of abundance and sharing.
ugh.
a group called the united american indians of new england will hold their 39th day of mourning tomorrow at coles hill plymouth, MA (plymouth rock).you can read all about it right HERE.

and while getting together w/ family to eat a bunch of food might be harmless enough, the least we can do is not perpetuate the gigantic lie that europeans peacefully occupied this mostly empty continent with the full blessing of the few native folks that just happen to be here.
debunk the myth people.

Monday, November 24, 2008

a little coal love...y mas

once in a while coal likes to free himself from the horse pasture below and come up top to visit...and eat directy from the hay pile.
please note the obvious trust i must have in all of you that i would post a photo of my bed head.
ok...just take in the cuteness of these feet.

and since this is an animal appreciation post, i'm adding this photo of eva and pancake sound asleep.
AND in other news, check out this fantastic fucking house in the middle of the city of rochester for sale. the asking price is...you might want to sit down...28k. we're about 10k short...anyone want to lend my mother and i 10k? pretty please???

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

its all part of a plan...

even tho i tend to disagree w/ just about every third thing out of her mouth, i had to share this bit by twisty faster since it made me chuckle. and who doesn't need a good chuckle.(its suddenly striking me that chuckle is a really odd word)this is one of her theories as to why the same population that would vote in the first black prez would also ban gay marriage...

"The New Obam-A-Merica is young, happy, hopey, changey. We’ll ban gay marriage, OK? but only to pave the way for the inevitable ban on straight marriage, whereupon we liberate millions from the stifling, dimensionless, heteronormative purgatory of the nuclear family..."

Monday, November 17, 2008

republic of lakotah state of emergency

for more info go HERE and to help out go HERE...


International Declaration of Emergency
Update 01- November 17, 2008

Greetings!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Republic of Lakotah
help@republicoflakotah.com
605-867-1111
RE: Twelfth Day of Snow Emergency

* Many hundreds of American Indians still snowbound and without electrical power
or water on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
* Sofia Romero, age 98, snowed in, no power, no water, food situation unknown.
* Emme Zimiga, age 96, snowed in, no power, no water, food situation unknown.
* Amanda Milk, age 80's, no legs, dialysis patient, snowed in, presumed dead.
* Hisle SD - 38 households (average of 17 persons per household on Reservation)
still snowed in with out power or water.
* Lost Dog Community - 5 families snowed in, no power, no water, food situation
unknown.
* Lacreek Electric Association reports that over 1,000 power distribution poles
broken by the storm have been replaced, but dozens more are still down, while repair
efforts have been diverted to the some of the main distribution lines still partially
inoperative.
* Red Cross Effort Vehemently Incompetent - As documented by Marion White Mouse
(605-462-6242), the American Red Cross sent a contingency of one volunteer, Monica
Turkleson who departed the Reservation prematurely on Saturday, November 15th.
Ms. Turkleson's "aide" consisted of nothing and her behavior was reported as impatient,
rude and racist. Russell Means suggests that this organization change its name
to the "White Cross."



Please forward this e-mail to friends, press contacts and bloggers to get the word
out.
May the Great Mystery continue to guide and protect the paths of you and your loved
ones,
Russell Means
Chief Facilitator
Republic of Lakotah

Sunday, November 16, 2008

prop 8 fervor and then theres Duanna Johnson

so i left a comment earlier on crip-chicks blog in response to her righteous post (read it!) and then afterward realized i wanted to say more about this whole issue of the very mainstream agenda of gays getting married versus the base line issue of violence against people of color, poor folk, trans folk, queers and crips and all the people that embody the various intersections of those realities.

marriage vs. beaten to death. hmmmm, which one makes me want to stand in the street and yell til i'm hoarse in the throat?

its like a convo i remember having with a friend some 12 years ago about the community meetings on the land we lived on.i was concerned about the need for tackling class and oppressive behavior(big surprise) and he was stressing to me that all the other issues of oppression that we had to discuss couldn't even be discussed if we don't first address disability access.because you can't have the convo if you can't even be there.

in this case, how are "we" to address the issue of something like marriage if some of us,undoubtedly the more marginalized, aren't even fucking alive or on the outside or well fed enough to have the discussion.

its trite, but i'm gonna say it...no ones free til we're all free.

honestly i'm not that concerned about the right to get married in particular. i am however concerned about human rights. our right to live w/out violence and hunger and homelessness and exploitation and incarceration and war. thats where my anger is. thats where the love is.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

birthday portrait 08'



ahhhh.... like sands in the hour glass...so are the days of our lives...(violins)

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

i decided to clean out my desk

i'm rifling through years and years of hoarded papers.
receipts, articles, zines, poetry, drawings, flyers
and letters.
stacks of letters....you know, hand written, sent in the mail...from before the internet came along.
in these letters i found her, again.
its been a while.

now, i've known plenty of heroin addicts. i've lost some. some made it back. why i didn't end up hooked myself i'll never know.
i've also known plenty of sex workers...some had to do it...some chose to do it. some of us lived in the grey space between had to and chose to.

and i've had a couple of lower class lovers.
but her and i had something special between us.
that potent combination of "trash, whore and revolution"...as she would say.
we were poets. we were survivors. we did whatever it took. we had an understanding.there was no judgement, no suspicion, no need to pass. it was ok to be exactly who we were....damaged, vulnerable, gorgeous and dangerous.
but she had it worse than me. honestly. and she held me to it, she wouldn't let me forget or fuck up.

having run in predominately white middle class downwardly mobile circles in my young-adult life, i got used to being the only poor person. like the real, live, -right now- poor person. not the -oh listen to my tale of childhood hardship before i went to college- person.or one of the many that adopted some sort of rough around the edges persona after college in order to embrace their idea of anarchism.
but she was a glaring exception. an abusive junkie dad,on her own turning tricks since she was 13...the constant struggle to stay clean and alive.

Although we ended up in san francisco, we met while living together in a crowded, chaotic house of queers in north portland. at the time i was a full time thief.seriously. i would get up in the morning, take the bus to the trendy shopping district and lift anything that had either resale value or was just useful in my life. i'd head home on the bus with my bag heavy with loot. she had come from the bay area and was always looking for work... whatever she could find in a town without much of a sex industry.

honestly, she scared me a bit. i felt that familiar cold draft of nothing swirling around her and it scared me. in the end this would be my fault line.

it took some work to dislodge myself from my back up against the wall stance i'd grown accustomed to.i was pretty good at pointing the finger at classism. not so familar with checking my own shit.
she helped me sharpen my class awareness to a cutting edge.

she had a theory that the middle class didn't know intimacy like we did...it wasn't possible. that the pretense of economic privilege and comfort prevented it. so it was ours to covet. our secret weapon.
i believed her...i believe it now. i search for it still. the wordless knowing. no judgement . no need to pass.

in the end i fucked up. i hurt her. my fault line cracked wide open and i made choices to essentially utilize my ticket to ride, save my own ass and leave her behind. i was lured away by the warmth of proximity to the middle class. anything to escape the cold draft.and even then, she understood, heartbroken but forgiving...who wouldn't escape if they could?

so here i am today, at my desk which is covered with her letters. love letters, calling me on my shit letters, letters of desperation, fear and hope. i close my eyes and i can see her. her thin fidgety fingers. her bright red lipstick and greenest eyes.

cold draft swirls around me still. always will. as its mine.

dead chicken and another birthday

it always upsets me when a chicken dies.
disbelief.
i've only actually lost 2 chickens in the 2 or so years i've had them...which doesn't seem too bad...? both have died when i've been away visiting the city. i come home and just happen upon a chicken body. no sign of attack or injury. just dead. and i just stand there with my mouth hanging open.
disbelief.
all the other chickens just keep on keepin' on...i mean, what else are they gonna do?
i guess thats true w/ all species, including humans.save for the way we get caught up in grief.
not much grief goin on in chicken world.
apparently thats my job.
this one that just died was one of my wellsummers. gorgeous, huge, speckled eggs. i called her my crooked chicken.at some point months ago she got in the way of a dog stampede, was unable to walk for about a week and recovered but since then her body bent at a sharp angle at the base of her tail. these past couple of months she'd been picked on pretty badly by the others. her comb would be a bloody mess. i'd find blood droplets all over....i wondered if she was picked on for being crooked? or ill? is that just me applying human ableism to chickens?sigh....

in other news, my goddam birthday is coming up this friday. i wish i could somehow make it not important...but at this point its become some sort of symbolic litmus test for my life, my level of isolation and my community...or lack thereof. fucking ableism and poverty...i swear. i mean, my friends/family that are scattered around the globe will call or email to say hello but whats sorely lacking is actual human contact. oh blah....self deprecating thoughts don't wear well, grief makes me look tired...and older....silly birthday. maybe i'll invite the chickens in for tea.
they could teach me a thing or 2 about how to keep on keepin' on.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

masochists love song

the want to be broken
broken open torn apart
used up and left for pieces of memory
a need to be taken down
taken for an insatiable burning ride
beaten like a drum skin stung warmed and singing
beaten to the brink
and brought back for a warm kiss
broken open to flood
slamming up against blood
the edge

its all about that elusive edge
finding it
straddling it
the lure of falling
the lure of letting go
the lure of not coming back

such a long way off from the point of should i return

i want you to break me
break me down split
into kindling
leave me burning in pieces
of memory.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

si se puede godammit


after the last 2 elections were stolen and after 8 fucking years of the most horrific administration EVER and esp. in a country that was literally built on fucking slavery i was thrilled as i watched state after state fall into a blue hue.a million people gathered in chicagos grant park.record breaking numbers of voters. and i ain't no stinkin' democrat....
but hello people.....our president is barack hussein obama.

i know its not the end all.i know he's not anti-war. i know that on the ground everything is still a fucking mess and he's not perfect....i just want to indulge in a moment of collective pride....and a little hope. that maybe this ripple effect of this on the ground will be a better collective energy...a more cohesive grassroots movement, a strengthening of the belief that what matters is ordinary people power not politicians or governments.

and i hope, with all my might, that the most terrifying sarah -end of days- palin has a good cry then slithers back to whatever apocalyptic pentecostal rock they found her under. yeesh.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

visuals

i've been commissioned to do a large blanket (thanks beth and chris!) and have finally finished spinning the 6 pounds of yarn needed for the job.yay!
then i took about 2 lbs and dyed it various shades of red. I'm haphazard w/ my dying process so i'm never sure exactly what will come of it. its exciting when the colors are then right there in front of me cuz then i have an idea of what the piece is going to look like.the colors are actually different than the photo, a little more earthtone, a little less grapetone...damn camera...damn blogger.
and here in new mexico our fall season is defined by cottonwoods and aspens pretty much.down here at 6000ft, we get cottonwoods...

Saturday, November 1, 2008

whittled down

sometimes life just pushes you towards something.
yesterday was a ridiculous day.

i woke up to an email saying that the vegas house had another interested buyer that was willing to outbid and pay full cash.

i can't compete with that...so i had a bath and a freak out then made one, last, definitely pushing my economic ability offer on the place.

all w/ the owl hoo-hooing outside my window.

pretty convinced i was out of the running i got on with my day, which was out of control...by the way....really strange....and later to my surprise was an email saying they accepted the offer....so then in the midst of freakin out about that...elated , scared, elated , scared....i got some news that i can't share since its not about me but it was the kind of news that tipped my shakey scales...towards new york.

suddenly, with the seller of the house out there somewhere thinking she had sold it, i felt this enourmous pressure to hurry the fuck up and make a gigantic decision...asap.
in that mind boggling period of a few hours it was funny how everything became ridiculously significant.
i called everyone i could think of for advice. i read my tarot cards. i flipped coins. you name it.

so at the end of the day yesterday i let the vegas house go. i turned them down.

and while i have fleeting moments of "what in hell are you thinking...who do you think you are turning down a house you could actually own in a town you actually like..."
i'm feeling okay about it....frazzled but okay.the house needed so much work. didn't even have plumbing or electric yet...or interior walls...or insulation...or heat. so it was a gigantic undertaking all on my ownsome.
and frankly, i've done the whole -fix up the old adobe as best i can and live in it basically unfinished because i ran out of money- thing.

at this point i'm going to get on with the gigantic task...made up of trazillion little tasks....of moving across the country.i've got about 5 or 6 months to figure it out.

of course, anything could happen between now and then. but i feel an eerie calm without the inner chatter that comes w/ indecision.

i've been trying to dig up any info i can on disability stuff in the rochester area. theres a center for disability rights, the deaf queer resource center, an adapt chapter and an independent living center.thats what i've found so far anyway, which is great and certainly more than whats around here, but is generally kind of standard stuff. i have yet to find the "hot queer crips for the revolution in rochester ny" website...dream on.

and hey, i have tons of stuff to sell....anyone interested in a small solar power system? or an 81 mercedes wagon w/ a single tank veggie oil conversion?....theres so much more...when i have a list, i'll post it.