2 surly straight dudes in the thrift store

one says to the other,

how long you been married?

-7 years-

well...i've been married 17 so let me give you some advice.
when a woman marries a man she sets out to change him.
thats what she wants to do.
so you know what you need to do?
let her.
let her change you.
that is the secret to happiness.

holding still

its been almost 15 years since i met a woman in albuquerque that not only introduced me to the reality of environmental illness, she also introduced me to disability politics and the right to access. That was a life changing time for me. I was so so sick, and my psych stuff was totally unchecked. I immediately felt the benefits of reducing my exposure to the world. The benefits of staying in,of protecting myself.
i changed all my products, threw away my essential oils and incense and began de-scenting my clothing.
I bought a respirator. i remember the profound difference in my ability to detect how bad the air was in traffic or in a theater or store if i wore the mask then removed it just to see....shocking.
I wrote righteous articles about ei and access. My new found clarity. My flexible and bountiful willingness to educate everyone.

but there were other changes being made that would have ripple effects for years. they still do.
i was a painter. so at first i tried painting with the respirator and with fans on me and windows open. eventually though i just had to stop.
I was dancer. so at first i lobbied hard in my dance classes for access, put up signs everywhere asking folks to be scent free. but eventually i had to stop.
in the social arena, peoples indifference and/or hostility began to wear me down. it was so seductive to instead just be alone.

i began walking by the river...spending hours at the river w/ my dogs. i built a fort in the thick bosque so i'd have a place to relax while the dogs ran around.

solitude slowly became my solution.
I stayed in,
I protected myself. i held still.
Solitude slowly became isolation.

so, fast forward to now...its no surprise that after so many years of struggle and loss i went and lived up on a mountain all alone for as many years as i could. claiming my small victory over adversity by obtaining a place to call home and embracing my new life as farmer and weaver. I was determined to stay, to hold still.

Ultimately though it was the poverty and isolation that brought me back down here to where the humans live.

so here i am back where the humans live. theres movement all around me. its bitter sweet.
I've internalized a mountain of shame, doubt and mistrust.

and i find i'm untouchable.

even though i'm brimming with desire and ideas and hope and need, the lack of access still looms large. i'm still chronically ill and sporting a variety pack of psych impairments, the world is still a toxic stew and gone is my fledgling clarity and bountiful willingness to educate.
I'm encased now in protection, caution and bitterness.
I look at people in passing and they look at me. i laugh loud, i'm quick with opinions and a smile. but i'm never touched...or moved...or full from community.

i've made a handful of attempts to connect with people here. Its quite something, its like i'm 7 and we just moved to a new town and i have to be the awkward kid that approaches people to ask them to be my friend. Its hasn't worked so well, and i'm aware that part of it is theres no common ground, no consistency. i don't work with them, or party with them, organize with them or go to the same class, you know , i'm home bound and unemployed for christ sake .i don't really have access to that kind of natural evolution of getting to know people in the communities here since i'm not really in them.

whats tricky is how my isolation has slowly undermined my social skills. and how in some cruel twist, i now undermine myself. being alone has come to wield this incredible inertia. its a love hate thing, its my comfort zone that i've come to loathe...but its still my comfort zone. i can spin and spin and spin (and i don't mean yarn)....full of ideas....yet go nowhere with them.

and i don't know that woman from 15 years ago anymore. I don't know the me from 15 years ago either. flexible and willing.

barring some sort of monumental access revolution, isolation will always be with me. its how i recover from exposures. but i don't want bitterness and inertia to be my life. If it remains this way its like the powers that be have won. they have successfully gotten rid of me and my big smart-ass mouth and my innate ability to create beauty in the world.

no no no.

and in an optimistic breathy sorta moment i think if i'm gonna go down i wanna do it screaming and scratching like the trashy nellie fag that i am.

but i suspect those breathy moments come from watching too many movies. too many scripted dramas, crafted to move our emotions quickly.

i'm thinking real life happens quietly, in small movements. up and down mountains. down icy sidewalks and along railroad tracks. through kitchens, into bedrooms , markets and work.
words that move.
flexible and willing to be touched.

lost and found # -i've lost count...

i have the image of your hands
the shape of your palm etched in my brain

and your eyes
snapshots of you over me
and the way your body moved in the forest
this butterfly delighted interest you had in sliding up next to me
anywhere
anywhere we happened to be




*i was searching through my word documents looking for some boring thing i need and stumbled across this. i think it was actually a letter but think now it makes a sweet little poem. whats funny is i can't remember who its about.

this crips' recession blues

i'm thinking of letting go of my weaving and spinning cottage industry. income from it all has been in slow decline over the last 2 years, and i haven't sold a thing now for 3 months. Not that i ever made a fortune, but steady yarn sales certainly helped ends meet and cash flow was punctuated by the sale of a rug or blanket every few months. its obviously the recession....and honestly i don't see it getting any better.No one is buying hand crafted things right now, and i don't blame them.


its fear that feeds my hope that the empire economy will recover. my loathing of and dependency on capitalism put to the test.

i can't help but think i should try and sell my weaving equipment while theres still a chance in hell someone will buy it. then if i want to spend time on something creative that doesn't make me any money, i'll concentrate more on poetry.
I've got maybe 4k in equipment...i sure could use that money. i'm looking at december with 100 dollars in my account and utilities still to pay.

sometimes i'm kickin' myself for not sticking with my tattoo work. i had gotten pretty good. stopped mostly because of arm pain and the ei access nightmare of the ink and getting up close to peoples bodies...but now it seems i shoulda tried harder to work that shit out. i've a friend who is a tattooist in new york and she's slammed with work. whats that about? i guess a tattoo is a sound investment when the shit is hitting the fan. it ain't goin' anywhere.

then next on the list, now that i've recovered from surgery, would be figure modeling or fetish/dom work. the genderqueer factor either working for me or against me. never mind i'm 39 which is up there for employment hinging on looks(ism). oh...and that santa fe is this uptight new-age/fine arts blah de blah kinda small town. but hey i'm game...you never know.

lover says i should give textiles one more year. spin out some serious inventory and see what happens.
ok.
but i'm gonna give my tattoo machines a tune up, and maybe do some push ups and polish my boots just in case.

movin' right along ...degedung degedung (yay jim henson!)

i'm in the middle of moving. my least favorite thing after the dentist, my car breaking down or sitting in a group of middle class people talking about their college degrees and subsequent careers.
I'm in the phase where both places are relatively stark and uninviting, echoing and really not functioning. its come down to where my bed is. right now its in the old place....a couple more days then its in the new place, along comes the cat and tada! its official.

hoping the move will be done by my birthday....then i'll be able to really focus/wallow on/in my birthday neurosis and do it up right.

more soon.....

race ,class, gender variance, sexual identity...and that other thing

This piece is really well done, important stuff. The missing piece is disability and the issues of ableism and access. Its all so intricately woven into the reality of poverty and marginalization.

this and that and the other thing

I need to find a home for one of my dogs. eva. its the dregs of this paring down process since i realized i had to sell the farm.
renting is too tricky as it is. dog food costs money.
its shitty. but she's a good girl and i think its possible to find the right person for her. I don't give her the alpha she needs. i'm too tired and consumed w/ other things.

she's a good farm dog.
would be great in the city with some ground manners....leash training!!!

anybody have a good home for her?


and i'm moving soon. right downtown...sounds silly cuz santa fe barely has what i think of as a "downtown" but you now, its all relative. i'll be near the train and the farmers market. and goddammit i'll have enough room for my looms. and for a guest or 2. the whole situation here in santa fe is so economically unsustainable for me really. but i'm just gonna make the best of it while it lasts.
i've got 5k left from the farm.
and a 3 year waiting list for section eight in this town. 2 years for albuquerque. about the same for rochester.

but hey,right now i get to live in a small, old, sweet, sunfilled house at the back of a quiet little compound
in fucking arty-fancy-ass santa fe for so many months. I'll model w/ my tranny ass if i can navigate successfully the intense gender binary bullshit in the world of figure modeling.i've got a gig mucking and feeding this womans horses when she leaves town. i'll crank out blankets as best i can and try and get them sold during these desperate heaves of crumbling empire.

occasionally i'm gonna run out of food. and optimism. and breath. and the ability to cope. but right now is right now.
i'm grasping this.
i've got sweet sweet love. and room for my looms.

crawling the streets of a past life in a new era

5 days in the bay area. full of interactions and meetings, dinners and walks. crips and queers the common thread. probably the least isolated i've felt in many years.

but everywhere i go there are memories. body experiences. the smell of 16th and mission when i came up from the bart tunnel.the mix of sweaty adrenaline, food, exhaust and urine. How 16 years ago she was berating me for leading her through her old scoring blocks in the midst of her tenuous recovery so i could find some food before my blood sugar dropped out. our feet aching. our hands cold.

sitting with this new kind of people in some falafel joint on frighteningly gentrified valencia listening to words like hegemony and paradigm but distracted by the film in my mind of me and my hooker friends eating burritos at the azteca on church. the easy banter of queer youth draped over a bitterly common scarcity. the playful tease and slap smart advice.

walking past corners where she kissed me. doorsteps where i broke down and cried. i let it wash over me, the old patterns of thought, how my body felt or didn't feel at all.

i've such a love hate thing with the bay area. and sordid history. theres a resistance to the pull. even on the heels of such a sweet time among crips. i hold up her memory as a reminder that for folks like us, its not all that great. its desperate. that the level of downward mobility and pretense amongst queers there is staggering, disorienting and exhausting. the californifying effect is not that attractive outside california. I speak of san francisco transplants here to new mexico w/ suspicion and a little disdain.They bring with them the winds of coolness, we watch new mexico turn into a california satellite.

but the pull lingers. i love the flowers in every ones yards in berkeley. the ratio of crip to able bodied. the saturation of queer. the vast diversity of people. the sci-fi howl of the bart train off in the distance.
the poetry. the hum.
the water. definitely the water.

and away i go.

right, so i'm heading back to the bay area. briefly. no major landscape changing surgery this time just visiting. Gonna check out a predominately queer and crip performance called Sins Invalid. I'm horribly critical of performance art...and celebrityism....horribly. but i'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised. and that aside i get to see old friends, catch a kiss from my lover, and maybe make a few new friends.

i'll report back...my suitcase crammed full of pics and opinion...i'm never short of opinion.

the folk art fest!

much fun. a sweet day in albuquerque. didn't make much money but i covered my costs plus a bit and got to chat w/ waaaaay too many people.my booth was in a great spot under a big tree w/ a good view of everything...

my yarns...a promo shot

dredging

lover pulls a needle out for his T shot and time stops
memory appears like ink on my vision and bleeds outward to cover everything i see
then suddenly w/ me is the lull
as he draws the liquid into the syringe emptiness arrives boldly on the surface of my skin
this feeling i must always carry
once stuffed into trash bags, weighted and sunken to the bottom of my life
the rig, the bottle, the pipe, the need, my friends
my goddam junkie friends i couldn’t trust as far as i could throw
people i loved
shot up and lost and wandering

I’m still wandering

It’s the feeling i carry heavy in the bottom of my life
the pull to stop caring and trusting to stop feeling
wanting to just disappear
cuz fuck this shit anyway
just fuck it

but the truth is i fight it everyday
the bitter break
the breaking weight
the bitter pull to give up
for all the need to go away

just go away.

to once again put my belongings into trash bags and head off into a lulling sunset
away from here
away from the dissatisfaction the disappointment the envy
the anger and the shame
get away from the feeling that I’m just waiting to die.

even with my lover on the bed beside me
even with laughter and righteous hopeful conversation sometimes streaming from my lips

syringe says remember the despair.

the clammy skin and rolling eyes and the stagger
the secret
the ones that have survived and recovered their lives
the ones that didn't
the spent love
all the sweaty desperate love that you just can’t trust

I just don’t trust me

not sure I’ve recovered much of anything, yet I’m here
don’t know why I’m writing this
why of all the people I’ve known and lost, I’m the one alive to tell anyone that cares to listen another sad story about bitter broken dreams
about flashbacks and hollow innards
about trash bags of hopelessness sunken to the bottom of memory

maybe I’m here to sing the story of needles and bottles and pipes and pills and fuck this I’m outta here
to sing the story of things you just can’t trust
to remind everyone including myself that there’s a poem in a moment that stops time and brings up danger from the depths

and in that poem that should or shouldn’t be trusted as far as you can throw it
there’s possibly something worth recovering.

thank fuck for the brilliant collision of youth and poetry.

theres a ton of these "brave new voices" clips to watch if you go to the youtube page. just fabulous.

portrait of everything is just right.

holy crap

its been a while.
as usual things are swirling around me and i'm trying to get a grip.
-looking looking looking for housing that meets my criteria and that i can sustain.
-trying to get out to poetry slams/readings then reintroducing myself to the impairment and exhaustion that follows for days afterward.
-trying not to reply to this ad on craigslist for a laying hen w/ an injured leg thats super friendly and can't be around other adult hens cuz, you know, chickens are kinda scary mean the way they take out the injured.
-weaving scarves.
-arguing w/ "progressive" middle class people about the ways they perpetuate exclusion, poverty and the class system. You'd think by now i'd be used to being the "angry" one.
-hoping maybe i can find my mom a decent job here so i can then entice her to move here. that woman deserves some sunshine. and she's too fuckin far away. or i am.
-navigating love.

been practicing poems a lot...i thought this series of pics taken whilst i recite on the kitchen floor in the stifling heat were kinda nice.i'm well aware that i'm becoming some sort of post op trans exhibitionist. i'm rollin' w/ it.

crips w/ cameras

this is exciting to me since we've been kicking around the idea of connecting crips w/ cameras for just this reason and then putting it together in some sort of righteous documentary fashion....here is evas blog (brand new)heres her intro...

"Hey, I’m Eva. I’m 26 and a recent college graduate. I like to write, to take Digital photographs, and just chill. But this blog is not about what I like. This blog is about how people treat me. You see, I am physically disabled. Actually “severely” physically disabled. I have Cerebral Palsy, which for me means I can’t walk, speak, or use muscles in traditional ways. I use a power wheelchair to get around and spell out what I want to say on a letterboard.

This blog will be videos of people treating me bizarrely. My video camera is mounted to my wheelchair (very discreetly) and I basically just press record whenever I go out and then edit the good stuff for you! I will then write my comments on the event, which is usually what was playing in my inner monologue while these insensitive people were talking. Hope you enjoy. Here’s an introduction video (no other people, sorry)."

scars

2 weeks old.

a long way to go.

i've the chest of a 12 year old boy.

friend says i need to watch out for all the chicken hawks.

moving through the world very carefully. wide eyed.

trying to learn to stand up straight.

i need new clothes. none of mine fit anymore.

"Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity. But silence is impossible. Silence screams. Silence is a message, just as doing nothing is an act. Let who you are ring out & resonate in every word & every deed. Yes, become who you are. There's no sidestepping your own being or your own responsibility. What you do is who you are." ...Leonard Peltier.

bound in berkeley

hey look i'm sitting up...relatively alive and well. tired...i get tired like someone flipped a goddam switch. today i get my sutures out which then means i can shower for the first time since the 13th. yum.

the binder is itchy and way too tight and i spilled soup on it just to add to the charm.

i bought a little cheapo video camera before we left so we could document much of this whole ridiculously gloriously righteous trashy crip undertaking. as soon as i figure out how to, i will post clips. the camera has been great for comic relief in the midst of -very- trying circumstances so don't expect anything too deep...seriously.

saying goodbye to boob gear.

i did my going out of town laundry today. when i was hanging the clothes on the line i found myself pondering the many contraptions i've used to hold up smoosh down strap in and contain my breasts. I realized that in so many days i'll no longer need them. i won't miss them.
Then remembered and mourned a moment the well crafted leather pervyslut halter top i've yet to have the occasion to wear.wondering if i can sell it on ebay or craigslist...how much...

scraping life together in the face of this (could contain triggers)

First I want mention how shitty i think this reporting is.then i want to mention how these murders spotlight the vulnerability at the intersection of poor and trans and first nations. or should i say classism, trans-phobia and racism. they also spotlight how much fucking work there is to do and the urgency of it all. its not just theory, or a good poem, or a workshop.

heavy on my heart, and a screaming need to change this.

Looking at whats on my agenda, consider my fortress. why its there. why i need it, why i need to leave it and find others.


fuck.i used to live in a shitty apt. on the 500 block of maple SE.

Another Cross-Dresser Found Dead

By T.J. Wilham
Journal Staff Writer
Three cross-dressers have been found beaten to death on the city's Southeast side in the past four years.
Two of the men were found in the past month.
All the victims were apparently American Indian, and their bodies were lying in the middle of streets or alleys.
But police said Monday that they have no information to lead them to believe the three homicides are related. Investigators said two victims were prostitutes. The latest deaths occurred in a neighborhood just east of Presbyterian Hospital, three blocks from each other.
"At this point, it is still very early in the investigation to determine if there is a correlation between these homicides," Albuquerque police spokeswoman Nadine Hamby said. "As this investigation continues, we will see if there is a link. Because they were all dressed as women doesn't mean they were all related, but we can't rule that out, either."
The latest killing occurred Saturday when police found Teri Benally, 42, beaten to death shortly after 1 a.m. in the 500 block of Maple SE. Investigators said they do not have a motive in the killing, but believe Benally was meeting someone he met online.
Benally was found three blocks from where Fredrick Watson, 32, was killed June 9. Watson was dressed in women's clothing. Investigators are looking into the possibility that Watson was killed by a customer. According to court records, Watson had four prior prostitution arrests.
Ryan Shey Hoskie, 23, had three prior prostitution arrests when he was found beaten to death in January 2005 in the 1600 block of Ridgecrest SE. Hoskie was partially clothed in women's attire.
Janice Devereaux of Transgender New Mexico Support Group said many transgender prostitutes become victims when they don't make their sexuality clear and their customers "don't realize what they are getting into" and retaliate.

more new mexico poetry...

I'm passing on a video of local poet Hakim Bellamy. I've had the privilege of seeing him perform many times over the years here and when i stumbled upon this video i thought i'd share it w/ y'all...enjoy!

TWO SPIRITS: Sexuality, Gender, and the Murder of Fred Martinez: TWO SPIRITS - Official Trailer

femme2fag pt1: finding home in the hungry body

life sometimes seems to be about a series of unveiling's, peeling away of layers. discovering whats there. sunlight hitting the newest skin. whether i'm ready or not.

in july i'm having chest surgery. the breasts go. gone. fantastic...and frightening...but mostly fantastic.

i think the biggest head fuck over this is the money. I'm on a fixed income, 8k a year, lucky to have a roof over my head. i try to make ends meet by not eating as much food as i likely need to, i go a little bit hungry every day. i live on thin ice. so...who the fuck am i to get an 8 thousand dollar body modification? who the fuck am i to do anything other than sit tight and try not to cost anything? or, how happy am i gonna be with my new chest when i'm sleeping in my fucking car?


since i sold my little home in chacon i've been looking for a new home to buy. but here i am almost 2 years later, the money steadily dwindling, and i haven't found it. i can't get a mortgage so i'm limited to owner financing. and in order for payments to be reasonable for me the property has to 50k or less. you don't get crap for 50k or less in new mexico unless i wanna go waaaaay back out to the middle of nowhere and once again live w/out running water and electricity.The cost of rent is beyond my income. section 8 lists are miles long.

so in the meantime theres been the surgery. this is likely my only opportunity for such a privileged procedure. its attainable w/ the money i have left. if i don't do something the money will disappear into car repairs and dog food. at least with the surgery, it can't be taken away. can't be lost to poverty.

its mine. its my body. its my sense of self. its who i am.

bizarre is how i'm making all the last minutes details come together for this huge journey and surgery while in between those tasks and thoughts i'm a deer in the headlights. my brain desperately trying to find a way out of what feels inevitable. inevitable instability. It feels like when i was a little kid and i was standing at the edge of the shallow end in a pool when i began to slide. slide. slide into the deep end. under i went and i could see the light at the top of the water. and the murky unknown darkness at the deepest point of the pool.

planning surgery is easy. its a straight(hardly)forward task made up of little tasks like emails and list making and research. keeps my head above the murky waters of where the hell am i going to live and make ends meet and not be isolated...and, god forbid, do some work for myself and this fucked up world.

i think i'm harboring some sort of dangerous idea that after surgery something will shift. that the skin shedding will free something up. that the new skin will beam with light.
that i'll start swimming.

catching the storm

there’s a fury nesting in my chest
its all beating wings
and high winds
it roosts there w/ a keen eye for the clouding skies
since I collided
with her feet
then I collided
with her fists
and shes my mirror
she’s my wretched
warrior
she flails about me
reflecting I have
shoved back
kicked away
screamed at
begged to
thrashed and cried
thrown glass
slammed doors
so do I seek them out?
the feet and the fists
and the words like sling shot
into the mirror
into the beaten debris
laid bare for all the world to see
i’m no stranger to those rushed lightning acts of rage
I’ve been the adrenaline warrior flailing the fury
the storm
enacting revenge
or acting the bulls eye
laid bare
for the open stare
her
and I ache where her fury
collided into my
disconnect
where my disbelief turned to face her storm
where i pushed back
wielding a mirror image
that’s so plain
to see
there’s this fury in my chest
its wings are beating on my rib cage
crashing up against my lungs deepest breath
and I understand now
the anatomy of a storm
the travel patterns of lightning
as it rolls thru building tension
it envelopes everything in its path
leaves everything changed
everything bruised and left to heal
seems i’m forever healing exhaling the slowest relief
seems i’m forever on my knees in the slightest light
my chest closed tight
i look around and everywhere
everywhere
is the debris of me.






*i began writing this poem years ago. i'm finally happy enough w/ a draft to share. as usual, i think its better performed.

the sun rises on fabulous

Beyonce's Single Ladies dance performed by Darius Crenshaw, Grasan Kingsberry, and Brian Brooks with bonus choreography.

this took my mind off all my troubles this morning...for a few minutes. so so yummy.

how to resist dissappearing.

its intense. all the changes. the long term effects of isolation. esp. the last 6 years of rural living on my own. and the loss, still digesting all the loss. my home, my little mt. life , my sheep. and living here in this tiny apt. i can't really afford, or weave in. in a town where i know 2 accessible people, and they don't really get on w/ each other.
(but hey, don't think for moment i don't appreciate the plumbing, the fridge, the endless hot hot water and electricity that doesn't cut out for a day here and there....its fantastic)

I'm only beginning to grasp the depth to which being so isolated has changed me.

this in town thing....it means i deal w/ random people everyday. every frikkin' day, in some capacity. and ya know, i'm ok w/ cashiers...i can hold a minute long chatty inane convo no problem. but oh my if i'm presented w/ a social situation whereby i have to have a convo longer than a minute, where there is implied relating going on, i swear i can't see straight, don't know what to do w/ my hands and often i can't remember what i've said afterward.
i'm always checking in w/ a friend after any social thing happens to see if i "did ok".

I do fine w/ one on one relating w/ someone i know well, thats not a problem.i enjoy the intimacy. its socializing i can't seem to handle, my brain just blows a fuse.
I have no idea how to go about getting to know someone new. no idea. i'm so used to peopele not being accessible, or worth the effort to gain access, or even being an option.
its so deeply ingrained in me to self-sustain, to not need anyone. to put on a smile and a quick laugh but to protect myself from people, no...to protect myself from needing people.

so i'm pushing. i'm pushing through.
I'm not always successful.
i'm resisting the urge, which is really a habit now, to stay one step ahead of the seemingly inevitable inaccessibility, marginalization and confusion by just staying home, staying out of it. i'm pushing through the dizzy nausea that comes up when i think about attending a social gathering. honestly, just the loud roar of everyones many agendas makes me want hole up in bed after a hot hot shower...never mind the perfumes, detergents and hair products.

i'm not quite convinced that humans are worth it. still feeling that where i belong is on a green grassy hillside conversing telepathically w/ my sheep...not navigating my way through traffic, spending cash i don't have and chit chatting w/ city folk in a cloud of pollution.
but...i'm here...my mt. home is gone, that place was a dream 10 years in the making and 5 years of living and its gone. systematically dismantled by poverty and disability. i chose to leave in order to survive.
and i'm here now, a little lost.always contemplating my next move. focused on surviving, on not dissapearing.
i'm not yet brave enough to dream.

"There is enough love and good will in our movement to give energy to our struggle and still have plenty left over to break down and change the climate of hate and fear around us."-Cesar Chavez

home again home again jiggedy jig....

i went home to ny for a week...it wasn't enough time. partly i was on an information collecting mission.it cost me a friggin' fortune.
santa fe is wearing on me. i only want to stay here in this weird town if theres a way to build in my friends yard, where i would have affordable housing and a working class queer refuge in a gentrified landscape...otherwise, i gotsta go.

so, once again i headed home to try and get a feel. realistically what i should do is visit there in january eh?
i looked at a house for sale on linden st. right near south ave. walk to everything kinda location...it was great. i had a huge crush...it sold like the next day. i think it was forsale for 2 days.it was a dirt cheap freddie mac foreclosure.

bck out where my mom lives, i managed to find some sheep!


what was nice about going in may is that the summer people hadn't infested the fingerlakes yet so i had keuka lake to myself. there weren't even any boats on th water, very nice.



ok, i've been in the desert so long now that i take pictures of grass...its true. it fascinates me. draws me like a siren.
and, for those of you who read my "free ketchup" post, this is a follow up. here we having living proof that the ketchup bottles rightful place is on the table...for free.

how to stay here

and pliable not brittle full of little
cracks
the days im like a ghost wandering through crowds
brittle creeps up
bitter creeps up to break me.

i keep my hands in my pockets.
i keep smiling.

my teeth ache from holding on
brittle full of little cracks

deep inside my pockets i clutch my keys
spare change
and bits of paper say i'm here
i'm fucking here

stomachs bitter creeping says
for what?

for the chance
to feel something

for the something i haven't thought of yet

for a supple bellowing laugh
to drown the bitter in sweet

¡abejas!

they're here they're here!
here i'm seeing if the queen is alive before i put her in the hive.she comes in a little box w/ a candy door and has to basically eat her way out,this take a some time and meanwhile her presence orients all the workers to stick around and get to work.now i'm literally pouring thousands of them out of this box into the hive. i was mesmerized by it...
so now i just let them get started on doin' what they do and check back in a week...

thinking about love and survival

I'm both a critical, deconstructing skeptic and a soft mushy wide-eyed believer in the power of this state of being open hearted, connected and intimate.

i'm skeptical of how "love" gets sold to us. co-opted, sanctified, stolen, repackaged and sold back to us like everything else. how that affects our expectations, creates expectation in the first place.

and... i'm polyamorous...which sounds so clinical. but is somehow better than saying i'm non-monogamous since its always sketchy to define ourselves by what we aren't. being poly is a challenging thing for my kind...the kind that have ei and don't get much socializing and are often quite isolated. Its actually quite rare that i have more than one lover at once, and often i'm on the shitty end of the poly stick whereby its my lover that gets all the action and i'm home watercoloring or watching movies or chatting w/ my mom on the phone or whatever i need to do to get through my insecurities whilst my lover is on a date.But i persevere because i know myself that well....i know that when it comes to a time when i stumble across an attraction, i'll want to check it out.I will check it out.Its my nature, and its my key to sustainable relationships that its ok, that it can negotiated, supported and understood.

what further complicates poly stuff for me besides ei is class...often poly models are so so middle class, like autonomy is neatly defined by everyone having their own house and money and resources so that all that is left to navigate is the emotional web of relating. Now, i've managed not to live w/ a lover for years now, at my own stubborn peril. I've gone hungry, done things on my own that nobody should have to do alone. all because living w/ a lover has always proved way too loaded, way too dramatic and way too much like i'm being kept, always knowing that when this affair is over i'm back to scrambling for a home.

Now i find my self w/ a lover that has impeccable crip/class/resource awareness and politics. He is truly committed to being poly. we've been friends a while now w/ plenty of trials and triumphs but honestly, right now....i'm in luuuuv...like seriously head over mushy fuckin' heels. and in all this i find us exploring this idea of building me a casita behind his house. scary stuff...this is. but also fantastic....i'd have a home i could afford and sustain, which is huge.

but hello? i'm doing just what i always told myself i shouldn't do....make domestic shacking up decisions in the middle of a honeymoon phase.

fucking horomones..i swear.


more on this for sure...but i have to run to the bank so my rent check doesn't bounce!

yarns for the revolution.

I dyed these today. they sure are purdy , no?

if knitting is yr thing....check my shop!...i know....shameless advertising....and not a single creatively analytical thing to say about the state of the world to help balance it out.
i blame neck pain...uh, and the recession....yeah.

running with the dogs

i used to do it when i was a little kid...like really little. i was an only child in the country and they were my pals, those dogs. we'd run through trees, chasin' stuff.

as a teenager, w/ out a dog, i'd go to back to where i was a child and run through the hilly woods between ponds and swamps. i liked how i had to dodge and jump. nimble on my toes, i felt like a deer.

i'm trying to run with my dogs here in town. the dog park is all we've got for open space nearby. i don't schlep heavy buckets of feed now, or muck pens or throw bales of hay. city life, under the right circumstances, is so easily sedentary. my wheels spin and spin and spin.

so i run.

now, i'm not a very good runner really. i don't get very far. at all.

but i notice just a bit farther each time. my lungs expanding just a bit more. my abdominals carrying me just a bit better, less impact on my knees.
i like running up hill.


i like how the colors get brighter when i get lots of oxygen.

i like the sound of my breath.

Join the Petition Drive for a National Cesar E. Chavez Holiday!

Hey! sign this!

open air

i felt it the moment i reached you
felt the vulnerability breech the stone levee
that has separated us

as a matter of course
i wear my heart on my sleeve
vulnerability is my m.o.
i can wield it like a whip or sirens song
shove it deep into my pockets
twirl it in the open air
lay it boldly on the table

here
is
my heart

make
poems
and dinner
and a big somethin outta nothin’
make fire

do what you will.

my bent and rented heart
has reached yours.

Help women win equal rights in the grapes

"I don't want women in my crew because I have had too many problems with the men being disrespectful and rude."
--Giumarra Vineyards Foreman

It’s commonplace for grape companies to discriminate against women. It happens all the time and you can help put an end to it.

Israel Herrera works at Giumarra Vineyards. After having a foreman tell him that he wouldn't hire Israel's wife, Guadalupe--who had close to 20 years experience in the grapes--he said, "I do not understand why other people's attitude should determine whether my wife works or not. She is capable of doing the job: she has done the same work with other companies."

Martha Galvan worked in several other jobs in the grape fields at Vignolo Vineyards. For years, she proved her worth. Then she applied for a job pruning grapes. A foreman and general supervisor told Martha and her fellow employees "that women did not work as fast as men. 'Women were not any good for that work. Women were lazy and he did not like women to prune or as a foreperson.'" Martha said he also would tell them, "Women are useless."

Armando Pulido saw the same thing at Kovacevich 5 Farms. He told us when he started working, "It was company policy that they did not hire women. I asked if my wife could also work there but they declined. They told me that they already had too many workers. To me it was obvious that they were discriminating against women because the company did not have a single female working there."

What would you do if this happened to you? Sue them? You're darn right. The UFW helped the workers at Kovacevich 5 Farms, based in Delano and Earlimart, to file a federal class action lawsuit. Last December, the women won a major victory when the company agreed to settle their lawsuit for $1.68 million.

This year's grape season has just begun. Discrimination is still rampant in the grape vineyards. It has to end. Please help. Your donation can help us leaflet, organize and get the word out, even file more lawsuits if necessary.


To donate go HERE.

sometimes between

gigantic thoughts and buildings i catch glimpse of a crow on the tallest tree.
Between humming or sputtering engines i'll hear clips of sweet birdsong.

there'll be a brief moment between the store and car where the air wraps around me and pulls me to stop
look up and consider the clouds. the color.
the storm over the mountains.

i dream about my mountain cabin floor. decades old the wood creaked and nails would work up here and there.sometimes crickets hid between the boards.

sometimes between fried potatoes and the neighbors laundry i can smell my sheep, almost feel them when i reach out my hand. the earth they carried.

spring is coming and im thinking of bell peppers and basil. beehives and a new fork.

sometimes in my day my eyes go blurry then all i can see is trees and horizon.
the whole sky at once lulling and commanding me to consider the clouds.

more on the movement to resist foreclosure and reclaim empty housing

once again the good folks at democracy now! are shedding light on the groundswell of movement around the housing crisis. This story focuses on the work of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, specifically in minneapolis. They've begun placing homeless people in the many many homes that are just sitting empty. fucking brilliant.

read/listen/watch the entire story HERE!

bringin' a little farm flair to the city

ok...first off check this bee video. i'm gonna be all about the bees for the next 7 months while i take this course...so get used to it. what i didn't know was that the colony is like 95% female.





and its a good sign when i'm focused enough to tackle soaking my fleeces....very good very good. market season is comin'....fuck the recession. hey,maybe more people will take up knitting....and i'm always open to barter!

when it has all fallen apart, what do we have to lose?

this is well worth a listen....
In Michigan, Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans announced Monday he won’t enforce sales of foreclosed homes. Wayne County includes the city of Detroit and has had more than 46,000 foreclosures in the past two years. Evans said he’d be violating the law by denying foreclosed homeowners the chance at potential federal assistance. He said, “I cannot in clear conscience allow one more family to be put out of their home until I am satisfied they have been afforded every option they are entitled to under the law to avoid foreclosure.”

Marcy Kaptur of Ohio is the longest-serving Democratic congresswoman in U.S. history. Her district, stretching along the shore of Lake Erie from west of Cleveland to Toledo, faces an epidemic of home foreclosures and 11.5 percent unemployment. That heartland region, the Rust Belt, had its heart torn out by the North American Free Trade Agreement, with shuttered factories and struggling family farms. Kaptur led the fight in Congress against NAFTA. Now, she is recommending a radical foreclosure solution from the floor of the U.S. Congress: “So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don’t you leave.”

the story is HERE

branching out

ok so here i am in town...starting to kind of get a groove...kinda....keep having to remind myself that things are just down the street or still open after dark or that there are events to attend, theres things going on, and again... right down the street, not an hour or 2 away. i'm farm trained to be up at 5:30am and done with my activities/work by nightfall. So tomorrow i'm going to venture out after dark and check out what seems to be (?) santa fe's only poetry open mic at some tea house on palace ave.

i plan to rock it.

i'm skeptical of what the crowd will be...but thats me...a cranky bitter skeptic always waiting and hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

if i'm super brave i'll head down to burque later in the month to the mas poetry slam where i know i know for sure w/out a doubt i will be awed and inspired by the diverse revolutionary force that is the poetry scene there....

but in the meantime...i'll let y'all know how it goes tomorrow night.
really,its all feeling like part of a plan to distract me from missing my sheep....damn sheep still haunt me. they made sense to me ,my life made sense w/ them
i kept them safe ,i saved their lives and god knows they saved mine many times

but now theres no sheep grease on my hands
no vigilant senses no low hum of pasture life

i wander through aisles of things
through lots full of cars and people
and i'm small and i'm lost and i'm missing something
something flocking
something all around
my body
making sense of my lonely lonely life full of purpose.

oh sigh.

free ketchup

i'm at this cafe place in santa fe....where i live....god i don't know if i'll get used to saying that. i feel like a visitor, and sort of like it that way.
anyway i'm in this cafe...i have in front me a plate of french fries and they came w/ some sort cilantro runny hippy sauce in a little cup. no no...i want ketchup. the condiment of my people. so i saunter up to the counter all friendly like, say " do you have any good ol' fashioned ketchup?"
he smiles says "yes we do...."
-great!-
"...it'll be 75 cents for ketchup."
in all seriousness he says this.

i stare at him.

i look over my shoulder at my fries...lonely lonely fries...
and i cough up 75 cents.
he disappears into the back for what seemed like forever and returns w/ a tiny little cup w/ about a tablespoon of ketchup.

i felt taken....i felt a little dizzy....confused...head whirling w/ countless memories of diner after diner after working class fucking diner where the GODDAMN KETCHUP BOTTLE sat on the table w/ the salt, pepper, sugar packets and napkin dispenser.

what planet am i on people?

hi

my head is brimming w/ things to write about but my neck is out...its does this....from driving and schlepping all my shit. sitting here is not in ayway shape or form a pleasant thing. pain is ruling things right now.

soon though....goddamit.

pictures worth a thousand words

comic relief

ok, i'm so so in over my head and between worlds w/ moving and beyond exhausted that i'm completely useless when it comes to any creative endeavor...including blogging. a friend shared this link through another site and its made me laugh....i was a sesame street child and i love love anything jim henson...so i'm passing it on. who doesn't need to fucking smile eh?
go on...enjoy a little silliness.

Online petition to protest Jerry Lewis Oscar humanitarian award

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that it will
give Jerry Lewis its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award on February 22, 2009.
Disability rights activists object to this award. During his decades of
hosting the Labor Day Telethon, Jerry Lewis has helped to perpetuate
negative, stereotypical attitudes toward people with muscular dystrophy and
other disabilities. Jerry Lewis and the Telethon actively promote pity as a
fundraising strategy. Disabled people want RESPECT and RIGHTS, not pity and
charity.


In 1990, Lewis wrote that if he had muscular dystrophy and had to use a
wheelchair, he would "just have to learn to try to be good at being a half a
person." During the 1992 Telethon, he said that people with MD, whom he
always insists on calling "my kids," "cannot go into the workplace. There's
nothing they can do." Comments like these have led disability activists and
our allies to protest against Jerry Lewis, and against the Telethon. We've
argued that the Telethon promotes pity, a counterproductive emotion which
undermines our social equality. Here's how Lewis responded to the Telethon
protesters during a 2001 television interview: "Pity? You don't want to be
pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!"

Disability rights activists have launched an online petition to protest the
Academy's decision and to demand the award be canceled. To sign the
petition, go HERE!


Feel free to forward.

of all the places to go

it appears i'm going to live in santa fe for a spell.

i've a long history of contempt for santa fe...well, what has become of santa fe to be specific. while there is definitly a lingering working class as well as homeless people, it is predominately a wealthy resort-esque town. real estate prices are unreal, as is rent.but at the same time i've always been around it, i know the city pretty well.
so my time in santa fe has always been a mixed experience of spending time with my friends but having my hackles up the whole time in the midst of such grotesque displays of wealth and pretense that blanket the city as a whole.

i mean, its not all bad. parts of town are really pretty to look at. and its nice to look up at the big mts that tower over the city. and theres a lot of art stuff going on.and some really good people doing really good things.

i've lived there before. for about 6 months i stayed in my friends garage because i had nowhere else to go.
and i've lived in various crappy little cabins w/ no electric or water on the outskirts of the city.

but now here i am...i'm actually gonna rent a little ....and i mean little....place right in the center of town. its come down to needing to be near my friends and nearer to health care and everything else that being in town has to offer. I think from there, once i'm rested, i'll be better able to decide where to REALLY live.

i'm selling all sorts of my stuff off and socking away the cash to pay for the ridiculous rent.I sold my truck, some weaving equipment...i'm trying to sell my solar power.anyone interested in a solar power system????

so....i'm wiped out. pretty much.i look/feel like hell. i'm just a robot packing, sorting moving like i've done a bazillion times since i was 7 years old. i try not to think about my sheep. or springtime coming when i would normally being turning over soil and having the sheep shorn. or the good good clean air of everyday in the country.

i'm trying to focus on how nice it will be not to need my car. to have friends nearby. to be a train ride away from awesome poetry in albuquerque. focus focus and esp. keep my eye on the prize which is still the hope of buying a home....somehow....somewhere.

i'll take pictures of my overpriced closet when i'm next in town. and i'll try not to bore you all with too many snarky complaints about the new-age-wholefoods-i-wish-i-was native-american-middle/upper class-grossness that will offend my senses daily in ye ol' santa fe.....but i can't make any promises.