the root cellar

hard times and a bridge

2012-01-05T20:04:00.002-07:00

suspending
when i roll over
sun rising
and reach his chest with my waking hands run them
down his body my head resting there
exhaling dreams
inhaling
salt sharp butter sweet
the smooth warmth
of his skin how i read into this his heart
how it thaws me how can i not love him
even more how can i not desire this exact proximity
how can the rush not bring me home to every choice i've made
the choice to continue
breathing
desire bridging
lifes' beautiful rise
for this proximity
is bliss the risk of reaching
for this warmth this smooth summer lake stone
is the heart.

2011-12-29T18:31:00.001-07:00

*picture is a stark open rural new mexico landscape, in the center of the picture is an old wooden roadside sign up high on wooden supports thats says "pigs", along side it runs an barbed wire fence with old wooden posts and off in the distance is a large hill and beyond that is a mountain range.

navigating pain

2011-11-16T06:13:00.000-07:00

On a good day
I get to dance
Just for a minute,
2 minutes is bliss
not like I used to but oh the rhythm and the sway slight
but a ride down a river so sweet
air
has me in her arms
rhythm meets me half way through the fog
grabs me
makes me.

decolonizing 100%

2011-10-10T07:17:00.001-06:00

so, i'm realizing one of the (many) evils of facebook is that all this information gets passed around between myself and folks i'm connected to on that site but never here...so...at the risk of being redundant, but hoping these things might reach more folks, i want to post some links to writings about the "occupy" movement that have really moved me...

Occupy Wall Street: The Game of Colonialism and Further Nationalism to be Decolonized From the “Left” by Jessica Yee

"...We don’t need more occupation – we need decolonization and it’s everyone’s responsibility to participate in that because COLONIALISM AFFECTS EVERYONE. EVERYONE! Colonialism also leads to capitalism, globalization, and industrialization. How can we truly end capitalism without ending colonialism? How does doing things in the name of “America” which was created by the imposition of hierarchies of class, race, ability, gender, and sexuality help that?"

An Open Letter to the Occupy Wall Street Activists by JohnPaul Montano

"...I hope you would make mention of the fact that the very land upon which you are protesting does not belong to you – that you are guests upon that stolen indigenous land. I had hoped mention would be made of the indigenous nation whose land that is. I had hoped that you would address the centuries-long history that we indigenous peoples of this continent have endured being subject to the countless ‘-isms’ of do-gooders claiming to be building a “more just society,” a “better world,” a “land of freedom” on top of our indigenous societies, on our indigenous lands, while destroying and/or ignoring our ways of life. I had hoped that you would acknowledge that, since you are settlers on indigenous land, you need and want our indigenous consent to your building anything on our land – never mind an entire society."

A call for economic justice that reflects the occupation of this land, the role of the institution of slavery and immigration

Susan Raffo

"In 1944, FDR spoke about the meaning of security for "post war" America. As part of that speech and in response to the growing international focus on human (mostly political) rights, he called out for a "Second Bill of Rights" guaranteeing Economic Rights. These are the rights he suggested:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.

While not all of these were enacted, some, like Social Security, Medicaire and fair mortgage practices, were created. These are the very economic safety nets that the Right is politically working to end. But in 1944, FDR's call was not the only action taking place.

Also in 1944, The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) a Native American indigenous rights organization, was founded in response to the ongoing termination (otherwise known as genocide) and assimilation policies that the United States forced upon the tribal governments in contradiction of their treaty rights and status as sovereign entities.

1944 is also seen by many historians as the year the Black Civil Rights movement began as Black soldiers returned from fighting in WW II and began to organize. It is when NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall won Smith v. Allwright in the U.S. Supreme Court guaranteeing that "all-white" primary elections are unconstitutional, a landmark case in demanding Black political voice and Black agency.

1944 is also the year when the federal government ended the internment of Japanese families. It is the year after the US ended the Chinese Exclusion Act but created the Bracero program, a "guest worker" program that brought Mexican families to the US for low wage work without granting the benefits of citizenship.

Economic change in the US has always been directly tied to the history of the occupation of this indigenous land, the histories of the institution of slavery and its ongoing impact, and the histories of immigration and control. Sometimes economic change has benefited the mostly white middle class while largely ignoring those who are poorest or have least access to the political and legal benefits of citizenship. Sometimes economic change has happened precisely because of the political protests of the poorest and those with least access. And large scale economic change has always happened without taking into account the fact that the resources that feed economic health - land and the work that happens on top of that land - are resources taken from stolen land and a continuous history of broken treaties.

Let's do it differently this time."

and then lastly a piece i just read this morning which I believe balances all these conversations just perfectly...
from liberty plaza by Adrienne Maree

"I have been in movement spaces for a long time, and we have a way of doing things which is so steeped in critique that I have often wondered if we would strangle movement before it could blossom. sometimes I think we put up the critiques to excuse ourselves from getting involved, and sometimes I think we do it to protect our hearts from getting broken if it doesn’t work out. critique, alone, can keep us from having to pick up the responsibility of figuring out solutions. sometimes I think we need to liberate ourselves from critique, both internal and external, to truly give change a chance."

random fabulous

2011-10-09T08:06:00.001-06:00

me, in my room, where the air is a little more like air...

finished scarves...they are for sale! There are 4 of them. 2 are a bright lemon/lime with dark teal or light blue hand stitching at the ends. 2 are a bit wider and are a medium teal blue woven with an aloe green warp. price range is 40-55 dollars.

soft fuzzy tri-color llama yarn...also for sale...but really/also just showing you all because its fun to show and tell.

and then below are some examples of the gorgeous movement art from Dignidad Rebelde . political art gets me all excitied....

occupying the occupied and proof theres life beyong traffic and dryer vents.

2011-10-01T14:05:00.008-06:00

right now i'm stuck in my room waiting for the neighborhoods fucking laundry to be done but i managed to climb the mountain this morning...well my little car did...

my struggling for oxygen brain has been busy with this whole occupy wall street situation. How with a slight reframing, ok maybe a major rebuild, but with some shift and recentering i would be so much more excited....and you know, its exciting, but i've been digging into my hestitancy around it. my discomfort with the use of the word occupy, since as far as i can tell this is NOT an ironic statement about first nations people reclaiming stolen land and all the rest of us rising up to dismantle america and fuck nationalism and all that. my discomfort with the american hollywood capitalism induced phenomenon where we...even radical folk...have to fucking NAME everything, coin a phrase, market it and watch it spread. occupy wall street, occupy santa fe, the battle of seattle, another fill in the blank is possible (my snark is showing now but i'm stuck in my room n cranky so...). my discomfort with the white middle class able bodied core these protests are built on. worry that its a set up... a set up for the rest of us who are uneasy, have criticism. a set up like a western ghost town movie prop....all building fronts no buildings.
i want this to really be something big. thats lasts. that is precisely about a poor peoples uprising that at its core is folks of color and queers and crips...
but white supremacy runs deep. it colonizes. it occupies and re-occupies. and capitalism, hot damn, it'll swallow potential amazingnesss up and spit it back out at us so fast...so fast.
so yeah, shift the base, the message. the heart.

and even here stuck in my room waiting for the laundry fumes to let up, i can feel the collective busy brain, the hive mind. its a good thing.

find myself

2011-10-01T06:34:00.005-06:00

standing out in front of the house on the sidewalk at 3 am in my socks and pjs staring up at the sky.
so quiet.
as quiet as it gets here. and the air is almost clean. and theres no people. yet.
eventually i feel the cold from the pavement creeping into my feet.

i know i'm not doing well when i do stuff like this.

with the sun comes the cars, and laundry fumes...its saturday. a big laundry day for people.

i'm scheming for a refuge, which ultimately cannot be the sidewalk at 3am.

if i could get a little land with a scrappy little cabin i would. i fantasize about it being this resource to share with other chronically ill folks i know. consider doing this whole online i'm a good cause fundraising thing that seems to kinda work for folks but i just can't seem to get it together.
possibly because deep down i'm not convinced that i am...a good cause.

or i've got too much stubborn trashy pride.
right...in my socks, on the sidewalk.

the other refuge/recovery idea is a little rv. like an old toyota. but i wonder about the triggering -living in a car-factor and if i'll actually make use of it and if it would actually be helpful.

slammed lately. a short dirty (but scent free!)laundry list: unable to board a flight to oakland to see friends, or even do mundane things like errands or eating out or grocery shopping. discovering my father died, i happened to do a google search for his absent ass and found his obituary. serious neck pain...seriously. nothing gets done. now my cat is missing...i got her when i first moved to the mountains, she's been with me for all of it. seems the city has swallowed her too.

oh sigh. insomnia does not wear well on me.

gonna put some shoes on and get in my little car now and drive. get over the mountain before the sunrise and keep the quiet with me.
xo

2011-08-19T09:43:00.000-06:00

we grew up really poor

she said from behind the register

every year my mother would celebrate Christmas by putting a new layer of vinyl down on the kitchen floor

by the time she passed away the floor was thick with layers of new start we’re gonna be just fine vinyl pride.

sometimes out back

2011-07-18T21:17:00.003-06:00

a host of sparrows explodes from the tree top outward in all directions
i can feel the lift of it
the stirring air and for that brilliant skyward moment
it all lifts with them
the heavy growl of traffic
the dangerous hum of humans
all the well lodged voices in my head that condemn me
trash
waste
sick
crazy
useless
its all your fault echoes
of my own voice falling in the heat from the bed
toward the dirty carpet
when
will this
be over
the sounds they all lift
with the birds
exploding stirring up ghosts and history and
a sense of tomorrow
when
theres a chance of change as good as a rest
i want to take off toward
and outward
take off lost and happy
take off years
of lonely
keep this feeling well lodged inside
my chest
a suitcase of sudden hope sparrows.

outta dodge

2011-07-17T07:32:00.004-06:00

i managed to peel my ass out of the house, out of the city, yesterday and into the pecos river valley. just kinda drove. felt city blech shed from my body. my chest. my eyes. got to connect briefly with the northern new mexico that i love, that i miss. the stark, open, stunning quiet.

i thought i'd share some photos of my restless crip journey...

*photo is of an old red wooden barn, on a bright sunny blue sky day with the red rock mesa in the background.

photo is of the pecos river where it is dammed and theres is a long and low waterfall.

Photo is of the acequia madre winding through tall grasses and trees.

photo is of irrigated green open fields below the red rock mesa under a blue sky sunny day.

photo is of an old metal girder bridge above the still, dammed water of the river. bridge is reflected in the water. bright blue sky, tall grasses border the water.

this last photo is of the pecos river, shallow and winding through tall grasses. above the water is a rocky hill covered in juniper trees.

squash flower

2011-07-08T22:07:00.001-06:00

its been especially hard to grow things this year, what with the high winds well into summer, the serious drought and now also the hot hot hot days. and many perennials are struggling after such a cold dry winter. its no picnic for plants out there. so amidst the fires and the sense of certain doom this was a welcome sight...

just human

2011-06-27T15:29:00.005-06:00

What do we do
that feels like fire that feeds like fire
just going through the motions
the little tasks that must just must get done
tending flames
blowing smoke
children play laundry gets done
traffic lights go
green
yellow
red morning sun strains through the haze
what can we do that feels like a downpour
in the dust
feeds us like sweet water on skin
we sweep the ash from the front step
curse the winds
look up at the dirty sky
and wait

*we've had countless wildfires in the southwest this year. well over a million of acres burned or burning. right now there are 2 major fires flanking santa fe, one of which is within the los alamos national labs which brings radiation along with its smoke and ash. it hasn't rained in months.

after

2011-05-16T19:44:00.003-06:00

an early summer morning of deeply hot sex
lying limp and sweaty on the bed staring at the ceiling while my lover fetched tea and toast
topped
with high country choke cherry blackberry raspberry darkest purple preserves
i thought of the swallows in the mountains
the path of their flight
how i'd stand in the pasture look up to the sky get lost in their swirling dipping circles
their deep blue wings and golden bellies
i could smell the air the trees
could feel the open space in my chest
i could feel the mountains in my chest
lover brings me swallows in flight
tears streaming like a slow breeze
memories touched in my belly
made golden
made deep blue circles of light
topped
with tea and toast
spread thick with sweet purple fruit.

tequila

2011-05-08T16:16:00.000-06:00

and I don’t mix well.

I’m susceptible to its' pull out to sea

a choppy lost sea tossing me about

its fun at first

then I crash into ragged rock beds staggering and sick

as a teen tequila would take me in a bar

land me crashed in a strange bed with a stranger man

I’d wake at dawn with no memory

No memory of the sex I had obviously had

Stomach turning tossing with bile up and out the door to hit the street

with no idea where I was

Where my car was

No memory of the drive

Tequila in the backseat to nowhere all night driving

Throw me thru the car window

Land me in a hosptal with a broken neck

Bring it on. Tequila don’t mess. Drink the sea swim the brine

rocks will meet me right where I’m craving impact.

internalized #2

2011-05-07T17:44:00.001-06:00

Will the bitterness be with me till I die? Will it engulf me?

i’ll just take that bitter bow like everyone else I’ve known. Take my bow with a grin and a fuck you.

Take it.

I’ll try and fail try and fail

lower the bar, my expectations, again and again

Like my mother who, with only 20 years on me , is already thinking about dying.

where is she gonna live while she dies.

That’s all that’s left to do. Where is she going to live.

Where will I live? How will I die?

40 years old feels like 40 stories high on some shaky rattling scaffolding.

My heart, hope, my life my skin cracked and vulnerable like the high desert soil.

Bitter dry.

A footprint stays for years. Years I carry the footprints.

oh the bees.

2011-05-07T14:17:00.003-06:00

"Salvation. Appreciate life to save the world."
(Photo and caption by Hongsik Kim) photo is of many bees flying around outside the hive. the vantage point is from the ground with a fish eye lens, looking up toward the blue sky and mid day sun which shines through their bodies making them glow yellow.

the best chicken.

2011-04-28T17:39:00.001-06:00

i'm a total chicken nerd...i know. (video is a close up shot of my wellsummer chicken in my arms then i set her down on the ground and she walks away.)

internalized.

2011-04-26T22:14:00.001-06:00

I’m always surprised when people give me a chance. Trust me. Are interested in me as a person.

Why? I’m no good. Only looking out for myself, really.

Really.

Believe me when I say this.

Surprised when someone smiles, says love you!

Me?

No no…I’m a nasty bitch, really.

I’ll cut you down to size when yr back is turned

Cut you loose with the flip of a transient on my way switch.

Don’t mess. don’t trust me

I’m only looking to get to tomorrow.

catching my breath

2011-04-26T20:13:00.003-06:00

So here I am in the middle of nowhere. Relatively speaking.

Cholla like trees here.

Lizards wait and watch.

My foot steps the loudest thing here.

Crunch crunch crunch.

The gate latch.

Clachunk.

Wind mill sounds like weeping.

The wind like ocean waves

Ravens cutting the sky.

The dry and endless sky.

Been here for a couple days and I’ve just gone between the bed, the kitchen and the courtyard.

Exhausted. Unwell. Dragging my body from place to place light headed breathing shallow.

The silence makes me sleepy.

Occasionally I weep for just a minute and it gets drawn into the breeze diluted and then lost to the open sky.

no cars.

No laundry, cleaning or mystery fumes. No humans speaking or making noise. Just space and air.

And my dog. i love my dog.

And just like that its raining.

The smell of damp earth fills my parched head and lungs makes me feel a bit queezy with the dank weight of water.

I feel relief.

Relief for the coyotes and birds.

For the trees and the cracked land

I feel tired

The skies low and heavy blanket saying

Sleep now poet

You just sleep now.

*photo is a close up color shot of the brown, dry cracked high desert ground. there are a few smalls clumps of stubbly grass spaced apart here and there.

retreat

2011-04-26T20:01:00.002-06:00

i went out to this place outside moriarty n.m. for a handful of days, a little house...well, huge compared to my old house in chacon but you know, a good size, comfortable but not fancy or pretentious in any way. Its on a few acres but backs up against a vast expanse of high desert. for me it was a desperately needed break from all kinds of pollution. the air was amazing. a writers retreat is what Lisa wants it to be sustained as and for that i think its just perfect. no internet, which scared me a little but wow, it was really nice to free up my brain from the web. felt like a detox, on lots of levels.....and i wrote a bunch altho nothing got finished exactly. i wasn't there long enough! i want to go back.
i so enjoyed packing up my little car and heading out there with my dog . I loved that it was only 70 miles away, all on back roads.
some of what i wrote are basically blog posts but since i was webless i had to store them away for later so i'm posting them now!!!! of course i'll post the bigger pieces and poems as well when it feels like they are " finished". deepest thanks to Lisa Gill and her mother for making my stay there possible.

getting some air with agatha

2011-04-15T14:09:00.002-06:00

one of my - not losing my shit while i live in the city- damage control tactics is to try try try to get out of the damn city and walk/sit in the open, humanless spaces. agatha loves it too. its wild how distinctly different i feel when i drive back into town. like i've got a sheen of resilience around me. particles of quiet breathing accumulated in the woods.
* video is at first of my dog agatha, who is white with black eye patches and floppy ears, sitting with me in the woods on a sunny day, then a view of the creek we are next to as well as the big trees all around the creek.

2011-03-17T20:39:00.000-06:00

3rd Space unites with other Phoenix LGBTQ organizations to collaborate on a youth empowerment through art event with queer, homeless and undocumented youth

#11

2011-03-11T20:03:00.001-07:00

last night

instead of sleeping

it was important

I tried to recount all the places I slept

as a teenager

so I didn’t have to go home

Home was that hard for me then

Counting doorways and men’s beds like sheep

but not sweet

Like old doors creaking open

Foyers to apt buildings

Back seats

Under trees in the park.

Strung

So tight

the morning sun

would strum me

decades later

I still

can’t sleep

without drugs

and I never ever

ever miss the dawn.

#7

2011-03-10T09:00:00.002-07:00

risk what it is to say

this isn’t working for me.

I need my life to change.

#6

2011-03-01T17:42:00.001-07:00

risk

what is it to whisper

so softly

we’re gonna get through this

everything is gonna be ok

what it is in the daylight

risk hoping in the daylight

whispers for the night.

word lube

2011-02-23T20:17:00.001-07:00

so a dear fiercest friend encouraged me to try and get poetry to come the fuck outta me...cuz it hasn't been....by giving the -30 poems in 30 days- thing a go.
i'm gonna try. even though everything is really really hectic and i'm super ridiculously cripped out and strung out and hangin' on. whats a better time right?

would love to think i'll post em all but i'm not gonna stress it. heres the first one.

old skins rousing in my old car with the pavement saying lost lost your lost trash ,look around as you slither this shit ain’t funny anymore.

old skins rousing in my old car with the pavement saying

lost lost your lost

trash ,look around

as you slither

this shit ain’t funny anymore.

threadbare but holding

2011-02-11T18:18:00.003-07:00

people
they're threads
strands of color and texture in and out of my life

its a loose weave
the air passes through
but a weave none the less
in my deepest grief and despairing
moments pulling at me to disappear
i try
i try to picture this fabric
gold and teal
some threads of red and deep warm browns
flimsy the light shines through might not keep me warm but if i pay close attention it wraps me up
wraps me tight
connects me
to the other hearts beating
roaming
wrapping themselves in threads of memory
cloth of desire

snowy sick day with agatha

2011-02-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

apparently if left home alone to my own devices during a snow storm when i'm not feeling well... I make videos of my dog.

a little dance in the late sun.

2011-01-15T17:03:00.001-07:00

what i've been doin'...

2010-12-31T09:50:00.000-07:00

After about 5 months of hard, all consuming, tenacious crip sweat and tears I have converted this 12x16 tuff shed into and e.i. safer work space. oh- my- god. I sealed the entire interior with safe seal, put down cork flooring, installed a wood stove and chimney, cut holes in the walls and put big sliding windows in, insulated with formaldehyde free insulation and dry walled it all in.....fuck. of course its not totally totally done but whatever...i need to stop for now. i'm so sore and tired of construction and am so so so eager to get on with using it. I'm hungry for the space to work and stretch and think.

now it sits all cleaned up and ready to go. so i lit a fire in the stove today and just sat in the mostly emtpy space on my little chair and stared out the window while the sun set. then i looked next to me and saw my dusty spinning wheel. I haven't touched my wheel in 9 months. haven't even had a moment or reason to look at it really.
But suddenly there it was, and with a heavy dreamlike motion i reached out to touch it. wrapped my hand around its finely worked hardwood throat and pulled it towards me. fixed the drive band. adjusted the tension. and i wept. it was such acute moment of calm. Simple, in the moment memories.
and then of course theres my looms. I'm so privileged to have all this beautiful, well crafted equipment just sitting and waiting for me.
so, i've been moving my stuff in. stuff thats been in forgotten boxes at the back of our tool shed or crammed beneath my bed. my stuff, bloomin' like flowers all over this odd little shed turned workshop.
Come spring i'm gonna paint the outside some combination of of teal and yellow.

I'm a little nervous about the toxicity of the space. My tolerance for shit is sooooooo much lower now that i've been in town for 2 years and esp. now that i live with other people. Even after sealing (safeseal by AFM ) the crap out of it and running my super duper -extract all chemicals from the air- filter . Its goes against all E.I. instinct to enter a tuff shed. It -seems- ok but....eeeee. we shall see. right now i have to believe its gonna be ok...i've got my heart all excited.

new dance/no bootstraps

2010-11-05T21:36:00.000-06:00

i've been dancing at the gym.
at certain times of the day the aerobics room is empty and open. its full of mirrors and large expanses of wooden flooring and its like stepping into an old skin when i go in there. The vast space begs to be filled with movement and muscles making beautiful things happen.

my life as a dancer began when i was 3. but over the past decade its become sparse.very sparse.

in my early 30's dance classes became too inaccessible to attend. the impact and recovery factor too great.

so nowadays i go solo. i dance in my living room, or in a garage, on a lawn
or at a gym with an empty aerobics room.

and today while marked and messed my way thru some random choreoghraphy, i felt very tired. so so tired. like lead in my veins kinda tired. aware that i'm a soon to be 40 yr old outta practice chronically ill dancer. I'm the dancer that at that this point in life should be choreographing and teaching younger dancers. I think of the director of the dance co. i was in when i was 20, how she'd teach class with a heating pad strapped to her back, trailing around an extension cord, waving her arms and shouting instruction.

I've got a thigh muscle thats like twine and won't stretch. just feels like wood thats gonna snap. I'm dizzy, lethargic, my back hurts....frustrated that i can't do the steps i want to do . can't bring to life the dance in my mind. my body is not gonna do it. not like it used to.

so i'm home now with my heating pad thinking hard about dance and the able body. how does dance exist outside of some sort of relative able bodiedness. i can't move like i could 20 years ago. so how do i own how i move now and call that the dance i need.
crips dance all the time.
i know this.

feels like yet another life lesson in tackling internalized ableism.
just another milestone of letting go. my life of letting go, balancing the acceptance of change with the need to understand and resist the systems that want me to disappear...
the lure to call it -only- loss.
all the things i was supposed to "be", and dancer was one of them. how my brain and body just couldn't keep it up. school, work, dance and that fire under my ass screaming hustle girl! be the best! theres no safety net.
no safety net.
my political critical analytical brain whispers capitalism, ableism, class ...baby...class. but beneath it all is the subtle defeat.
the moving , once again, of the goalposts of my life.
this always slightly humiliating effort to be ok with who i am. what i am. aware of the blasphemy of those words since theres nothing necessarily righteous, radical or defiantly self loving in them.
theres no well timed poetic uplifting message in all of this. no bootstrap revolutionary lullabye.
just disability and poverty and yes, loss and how the up moments are still about ability.
seductive individual ability.

hormones, humans and home.

2010-09-16T17:38:00.001-06:00

Its been a year and 8 months now and I still feel this time in the city is some sort of experiment. to find out if i can, and want to, be around so many many humans. what my stuff is about humans. my psych impairment stuff, my phobias, my ei, and just my goddam preference....its interesting how much of my annoyance, discontent and lack of access w/ being in town is about traffic. fucking cars. loud, fast, smelly, dominant. and fucking everywhere.
in the time its taken me to write these few sentences maybe 10 cars have sped by.

they especially wear my last nerve when i'm premenstrual. this is also when exposures in general feel way worse. I'm keenly aware of just how bad the air is. then, in the inevitable stay at home marathon that ensues in my attempt to avoid exposure to all things toxic/loud/hostile, i'm super vulnerable to daydream...ok...escapism.

and yeah, i daydream of my sheep. and my little mountain home. quiet. air. no cars. I'm not saying i ever want to live that completely alone again but christ, i could hear birds wings as they fly over the house. my sheep moving. the wind coming down the mountain before it reached my house.

whats vulnerable about the daydream is the tip into depression. inertia. dwelling on loss. scarcity.

somewhere in this hormonal,vulnerable state i wandered out of the house and into the thrift store and found this ceramic sheep sitting on a dusty musty shelf. its quite large, about a foot long and 9 inches high. i stared at it for a looong loooong time. i was feverish. i picked it up. i set it down. i picked it up again. then in a moment of compulsive need i whisked it away to the register and out the door.

when i hit the hot glare of the car-packed parking lot with my ceramic sheep gripped tightly against my chest i began to sob.
i miss them. I miss the mountains so so much.
I also cried because i'm now apparently one of those people that collect ceramic animals...

osmosis.

2010-07-18T15:54:00.009-06:00

Cleaning out my suitcase

my tightly packed clothing still held the damp smell of home

so before it could be stolen by the thirsty sunbleached high desert air

I held the fabric up to my face

inhaled the water

the history

the struggle

I come from

towering trees and dense tangled ground cover

encroaching enveloping

sleeping lakes that freeze over in the winter

beckon for entry in the too hot summer

green that softens lulls my eyes wide open

humid air so thick it saturates my bones

deer that consider me before they run on nimble hooves

willows that tower above but weep all the way to the ground

oaks that mock my arms wide open girth

and winters

winters that seem like they will never end

that the sun will never shine again

heavy endless grey

I come from

depression

shame

and a fierce longing

as green as the damn grass is

its gotta be greener over there

or over there

maybe Its greener in the high desert way the hell over there

I come from

rotting wooden houses dank basements too many layers of paint

and ends that didn't meet

I ran from

men w/ baseball bats down the streets of swillburg

I ran thru

the woods of mendon dodging tree limbs and hopping roots

I ran like

Hungry deer through the streets and into backyards with less and less space to call home

I ran toward anything that looked like love

I ran

it’s the kinda place ya run from

where waiting suitcases hold the promise of sun

it’s the kinda place ya grow fiercely proud of coming from

unpacking dense tangled stories

I went to

wrap my arms around that blue collar city

I went to

weep on the ground

wade through the murky lakes of memory

I’m the first to confess

I come with

baggage

heavy w/ history

humidity

longing

and home.

oh yay...its sunflower time.

2010-07-03T20:02:00.000-06:00

bottom feeder

2010-06-25T12:31:00.005-06:00

I hold onto this old bitter theory about class.
why it is middle and upper class people don't rub elbows with the poor
its the cold draft
its because need is frightening
hunger is frightening
poor brings the edge
presents it at your feet
the scream quick drop off to nothing
cold drafty need will find the cracks in any brittle bootstrap
i got mine cuz i worked hard facade and wear it down down down
crack it open.
so they turn
they turn their backs to the draft
Hold close their frightened hearts
the middle and upper classes prefer their own
where ends meet and make a fortress a circle
of i got mine

and speaking for myself, i prefer my own low class kind
i'd give my last dollar. and i have.

for me, being in the company of relative wealth is exhausting
confusing
numbing
enraging
the effort to locate common ground
stretching and stretching to empathize with their problems
when all i really wanna do is beg for help
beg for money
for a job
for housing
for someone else to call goddam human services cuz their ignoring my calls and my food stamps didn't come this month and i'm worn out by life
by the constant stream of shitty news from people i love
from my total lack of solution
crumbling resources
and worry

the raspy screech of worry

wanna add that i'd be lying if i said that truly homeless, forgotten people don't unnerve me
because i'm scared shitless i'm next
because i can't help them
because theres not enough
the ground opens and the edge is right there
the scream quick drop off to nothing
but bitter updraft from below

i get cold easily
so i turn
holding close my wailing heart.
my bitter old theories self evident and so what?
so what?
what do i do?
what do we do?

let bootstraps crack and fortresses crumble
let screeching worry fly
let go our hearts
let go our hearts
wanna say i don't need you
but i do.

a bit o' crip humor

2010-06-13T09:10:00.000-06:00

call to action.

2010-05-14T09:14:00.001-06:00

neighborhood watch

2010-05-07T09:07:00.001-06:00

of all the houses for sale and sitting empty
this one sold
and the new owners brought with them the cop car
state police black and yellow hornet just waiting to sting
and i watch the whole block lower their eyes and leer through their lashes
we’re gonna keep an eye on that car
and that man in uniform as he’s home from work eating dinner in front of the television
spinning racial profiling
as an officers mandate
cuz theres no war without troops
this
is a solidly working class neighborhood of strollers, pick-ups and a-shirts
the boom boom boom, trumpets and persistent polka rhythm of a moments sanctuary
and cops
they too are working class
thrown a hornet
a sting
a bone of power outnumbered
we’re gonna watch that car
and the man in uniform as he stumbles out of his house bleary eyed
in the early morning
gun on his hip
with children running in the road.

Arizona...and possibly texas...utah

2010-04-29T11:04:00.003-06:00

The human rights emergency that we find ourselves in the midst of is of course felt everywhere but seems particularly stark here in "new" mexico, a border state, a state thats predominately people of color....suddenly surrounded by racist militaristic legislation. Arizona is first up...and shit is definitely up....and meanwhile this green light to an unabashed police state has begun to spread to utah and texas where similar legislation is being drafted. May Day has been slated as a day of protest, to demand human rights and immigration reform. I'll ad more links as i get them....am searching now for a comprehensive list of may day marches across the country....? anyone know where to to find this?
wait...i found one i found one!!... reformimmigrationforamerica.org

borderaction.org
altoarizona.com
dignidadrebelde.com
boycotting_arizonas_racism

is this thing on?

2010-04-24T14:03:00.002-06:00

oh sorely neglected blog
is anybody still out there?

long gone is the heyday of daily posts and photos. i'd blame it solely on being less isolated than i was back in the farming era...which is a good thing, and having children in my life....which is fantastic, but i know plenty of folks with people-full, busy lives that craft their blogs much more intensely than i do. so, eh....what could it be?

well one thing might be the end to a decades worth of living completely alone. often in the middle of nowhere. and now a moving van comes in 2 days to carry me into the home of my lover and his children.
could be that.

could be the intense physical labor i've undertaken for the past few weeks. a week of which was taking up old carpeting and installing cork flooring. i've never done that before, cork flooring...i think i did a pretty damn good job. but man, installing flooring is hard on the body.

i get a deep deep satiating joy from physical work. gardening, fencing, house renovation/rebuilding/repair or just building period. even though it kicks my ass to the point where nothing else gets accomplished in my life...dishes, phone calls, hygiene....nothing. you get the idea.

so yeah, shacking up w/ a lover and all that entails. its a whole new adventure. a whole new way of living. i'm sure once the dust settles i'll have plenty to write about....its all piling up in the back of my mind. taken a backseat to packing sorting storing lifting and finding moments to hold his gaze and express the love. this undertaking working at all is dependant on sweetness, mindful love, appreciation, patience... more sweetness.....

and remembering to breathe.

the nine day crack.

2010-03-17T08:05:00.010-06:00

I was thrilled last week when i found an ad for my long lost mechanic in santa fe.

I thought they had closed up shop.
so yeah, thrilled.

i was there today picking up my car and while the owner, neil, is ringing up my total he asks casually if i know where that woman...uh, carpenter??? her last name was carpenter?
if i know where she is.

Standing there in his tiny airless office my head spins
remembering how she and i used to come here
I'd forgotten this.
she had introduced me to him.
how badly she had wanted to be a mechanic
how she longed for the title and the calloused, dirty hands of a tradesman.
remembering how she would banter on with him about calipers and struts and mystery knocks and proven solutions.

to him i say...she committed suicide about a decade ago.

now, being an earnest yet guarded older man he keeps his eyes on the task
nods a bit
says oh... oh... well, i just got to wondering where she'd gone.

i probably didn't need to tell him that
and maybe i shouldn't have it just came spilling out
perhaps w/ a trace of desperation
silence breaking urgency
and anger.

what i felt next on the tip of my urgent tongue was the need to fill him in on her death.

how she put up such a good front. such a good fight.
her desperate desire to become something more than what she felt she was.
her struggle for stability with unchecked disabilities and the scarlet letter of the street
how she could flash a smile
laugh like she knew a secret
lash out like a beaten dog
and spin one tall tale after another.
how depressed she'd been.
how after she took all those pills she changed her mind and called her ex
who didn't believe her and didn't come to help.
how for nine days no one came.
no one knew she was dead in her apartment
no one came
her cat had kittens in the closet during those days
her dog stayed at the side of her bed
waiting.
nine days
and a neighbor noticed the smell.

i felt the sum of this pile up on the tip of my tongue but i stopped it from spilling out.
i stopped it.
dammed up the desperate urge to testify
to tell him the story of her effort and her loss
to pour it out into the air where it can converge with all the rest of it
into the paycheck to paycheck to no check and the struggle to find self love and meaning.

let it out into the air.

help fill in the cracks she slipped through
her story fills the cracks she slipped through
stories like spackling in the cracks
like hot tar poured into the crumbling street

and neil, with his careful, calloused and dirty hands
he hands me my papers and my key
says there you are aaron, should be running just fine.
i turn and open the door to the outside
fresh air pours in and cools us
repairing the common ground
he flashes me a quick smile
its good to see you he says
be sure and come back.

yarn dyeing day!

2010-03-04T16:37:00.002-07:00

these are my freshly dyed hand spun yarns for my next rug. Its gonna be a water rug.

exciting.

lately

2010-03-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

I notice the birds.
Any bird.
Crow in the tree over my car.
Robins quarreling outside the kitchen.
The reflection on a windshield of sparrows in an upward spiral.
And when I say notice
I mean
A Silent noticing time stops clocks stops ticking moving thinking stops quick.
Suspended.
Its all about the birds.
Its been said a million times I know but I think its their access to the sky.
How they meet us briefly but they don’t need to stay.

the wild, the city and me

2010-02-16T14:51:00.003-07:00

dreams.
lately i've been swamped w/ dreams. vivid imagery that stays with me for days.
these have been night dreams.
bears and sheep.
dramatic arguments w/ a lover.
landscapes red cliffs rushing rivers.
naked at a bus stop.

last dark i was living in an old matte-black school bus and a storm came and took half the roof off.

but today walking the dogs through the mud and slush, in the warming sun, i was overcome with the memory of the elk.
how every spring in the mountains where i used to live if i was lucky I'd see them
migrating in droves across the green and misty meadow above me.
just stunning. keenly aware that i was the only human seeing this.
one of those moments that stops everything. suspends time and fills it with wonder.

i miss the elk. and the mule deer. the bobcat lolling in the sun across the way.
the coyote yelling at my house in the moonlight. the barn swallows.the red tail hawks. the bears. and the owls...
how the owls call would fill me w/ foreboding, hyper-awareness and an uneasy acceptance of the unknown.

and...the city thing is ok. you know, i like being clean, and mostly having enough to eat and of course having family. these things are huge. and i suspect i'd be enjoying the city even more if it were a city that met more of my needs and desires....politically, socially, poetically. but the family is here so...i persevere.

my years alone with wilderness rattle through me dreamlike. whispering. reminding me to seek out wonder. seek out the things that suspend time.

Olympic Resistance: Indigenous Groups, Anti-Poverty Activists, and Civil Liberties Advocates Protest 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver Oly-demo

2010-02-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

i'm all for a hearty historic convergence of marginalized groups that are pissed and doin' somethin' about iteven though, being the flaming gay that i am i can't help but have a weak spot for figure skating....but i keep it all in perspective

my animals

2010-02-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

A State of Emergency has been declared on the Pine Ridge Reservation

2010-01-29T10:56:00.001-07:00

*i remember posting something very similar to this last winter.

A State of Emergency has been declared on the Pine Ridge Lakota "Sioux"
Indian Reservation. People have died. Many more people are at risk of
freezing to death. Another cold front is coming in, yet where is the
national media coverage?

Does the 'Lacreek Electric Company' - a non-Indian utility often thought
to be prejudice, care that people are suffering, since they are pulling
meters every day? (which is illegal throughout the rest of the u.s. during
the winter months).

What will Obama and the federal government do about this? While they dig
out Haitians, indigenous people right here may freeze to death. What are
we going to do about it?

Help put this message out for help. The children and families of the Pine
Ridge Indian Reservation need our help now. It is urgent that all 40,000
residents of the Oglala Nation have electricity and propane.

Call LaCreek toll free at 800-655-9324 or (605)685-6581 to see how you can
help pay into a customer’s account, example $5 into ten customers would
require a $50 donation by you. Tell LaCreek to make sure tanks are full
for ALL area residents between the months of November to March – and to
collect any delinquent payments between April and October.

Also, check out this non-profit to see if it is appropriate for you:
Arlene Catches The Enemy 605-867-5771 Ext 13.
Tax Deductable, Non-Profit (501-c-3). She can take credit cards over the
phone: Pine Ridge Emergency Fund, C/O Economic Development Administration
PO Box 669, Pine Ridge, SD 57770-0669

And call Lakota Plains Propane at 605-867-5199 and find out what homes have
elderly or children and if they need money put down on their account to be
able to have a warm home tonight.

*..........................*..........................*..........................***************

List to assist Elders at Pine RidgeShare

Below are several Elders in the Kyle Community of Pine Ridge that are in
immediate need of assistance. The contact information has been confirmed
and permission has been granted to share their information with you.

There are several ways I will mention where assistance is needed and I'll
share here before I begin the information for where you can assist in
paying for Propane for those who need it or to contact a local grocery
store to pay for food for families who need this. Other ways of assisting
the individual families will be listed with their contact information
below.

To pay for propane for any individuals listed below use the information
here and be sure to make your payment to the account of the individual(s)
you choose to help. The propane company requires a minimum order of $120
of fuel before they will make a delivery to the individual. You can also
pay for a persons propane and they will credit the individuals account so
that when they do run out of any fuel they may have at the moment they can

simply call and the company will deliver more.

Lakota Plains Propane (will take credit card)
Highway 407
Pine Ridge, SD 57770
605-867-5199
Be sure to request a receipt and use the contact for the person you are
helping to call and followup to be certain they received the help you paid

for.

Kyle Grocery (will take credit card)
Owner: Liz May
605-455-2824
Again be sure to follow up with the person you make a donation for to be
sure they received the appropriate credit for purchasing food.

Elders in need are as follows:

Adolph Bull Bear
605-454-2190
He remains in need of continued assistance for propane, his son who is
disabled lives with him and he is in need of food assistance which you can

contact Kyle grocery (above) to make a donation for food. He will also
need help with his electric bill.

Arlene Talks (age 72)
605-407-8243
She has a daughter and a granddaughter (age 7) who lives with her and is
in need of propane and food assistance and you can contact the propane and

grocery above to assist. You could also contact her for mailing address to

send items for her granddaughter such as clothes, etc.

Janice One Feather (age 61)
605-455-2889
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 44, Kyle SD 57752
For Propane Delivery give House # 307
She has two grandsons living with her. Asa Steele age 7 and Dillon
Westover age 9. You can mail donations for the two boys to the mailing
address above for her and if you mail by fedex, UPS, etc use the house
#307 Kyle SD 57752. She is in desperate need of food assistance and
propane and you can use the info for propane and grocery companies above
to pay for those items.

Donna Garnette
605-455-2527
605-441-7541
She has two grandchildren (Boy and girl), you can contact her for an
address to offer assistance in clothes, etc for the children. She is in
need of Propane and food assistance and you can use the info above for
both companies to assist them with that.

Lilly Mae Red Eagle (age 88)
605-455-2612
Mailing address: P.O. Box 2, Kyle SD 57752
For propane delivery give House #HC2
She is in need of Propane and food assistance. You can use the info above
for both companies to assist them with that. For deliveries by fedex, ups,

etc use the house #HC2 Kyle SD 57752

Perlene Yellow Wolf (age 65 approx)
605-455-1458
She is in need of propane and food assistance. She lives with her daughter

Crystal and three children. You can use the info above for both companies
to assist them with that. They have a lot of problems with pipes freezing
so if anyone in the immediate area could help with this that would be
greatly appreciated.

May you be richly blessed for sharing your blessings with these elders and
ensuring some relief to their suffering. Please help now as the need is
immediate but please remember to help again in the future if you are able
to as their needs are continual. Thank you in advance for sharing your
love and helping these elders.

a moment to notice beauty.

2010-01-26T19:34:00.004-07:00

this has been a particularly bad month or so.
and not surprisingly, I'm quite ill...whats new right, but its the sort thats from emotional and adrenal exhaustion, really just keeps me still , in bed, drinking lots of fluids... and thinking.

In the midst of all the trauma and stress, I need to mention whats beautiful.

I've gained a sense of family. There are children in my life.
Children that love me. Children that i love.
I have the most amazing lover. we have a love built on 14 years of friendship, complicated lust, common ground and understanding. we fight hard to stay here and stay loving and kind and appreciative and mindful of each other and what we give.

even when things are unspeakably hard.

cleaning out my old email I found this letter he wrote me 2 years ago today. a letter that when i received it, left me sobbing...sigh...such was the state of my protected, untouchable and lonely heart at that point in my life. with his permission and encouragement, i'm going to share just a bit of it. Its a beautiful thing.

"...My attraction to you is simple: strong, ever present and enduring. It
flashes like heat, like pain and grief. It exists even as it is
complicated by life, by violent brutality, parenting , loss, privilege and
isolation: it has resided. tenacious, in Resistance, survival and hope;
Patiently."

i hold this to my heart.
close.
close to my heart.
keeps it open.
keeps it feeling.
and possible.

deja vu...Misinformation, Racism and Militarism Have Frozen Recovery Effort

2010-01-19T16:38:00.009-07:00

"we don't need soldiers..."the spin of emphasizing the "unrest". racism and classism in the media does this with every natural disaster that occurs in areas that are predominately people of color.And as we saw in new orleans, the US priority is "security" and "law enforcement" ...not helping people eat and recover. Its a horrible realization each time there is a disaster of this magnitude that capitalists w/ all that military might up their sleeves -always- see these events as an opportunity.

and for all the shortcomings of bill clinton, i thought he handled this BBC reporters attempt to again focus on the acts of violence and "anarchy" quite well....check out the video...

visual

2010-01-06T17:04:00.003-07:00

out my front door.

yay.

2010-01-01T12:45:00.001-07:00

2 surly straight dudes in the thrift store

2009-12-30T21:59:00.004-07:00

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

2009-12-23T07:30:00.004-07:00

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...

2009-12-15T17:27:00.002-07:00

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

2009-12-05T07:40:00.007-07:00

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.

thanksgiving: a Native American view

2009-11-25T13:59:00.004-07:00

ahhhhh, its that time of year again.

and i know i'm doing that thing where i'm essentially too busy and manic to actually write anything about my life so i post videos or paste in articles and let them entirely speak for themselves just to string y'all along...but hey knowing is half the battle.

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

2009-11-09T07:15:00.003-07:00

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

2009-10-29T19:38:00.006-06:00

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

2009-10-21T09:21:00.008-06:00

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.

2009-10-12T11:44:00.000-06:00

crawling the streets of a past life in a new era

2009-10-09T08:00:00.012-06:00

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.

2009-10-01T16:24:00.002-06:00

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!

2009-09-14T16:01:00.002-06:00

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

2009-09-12T07:53:00.003-06:00

“The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today”

2009-09-10T18:01:00.005-06:00

check this STORY
democracy nows' amy goodman speaks with Kevin Bales, a leader in the abolition movement to end modern-day slavery and co-author of The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today. Bales estimates some 27 million people labor as slaves today—more than at anytime in history. Bales has also helped expose modern-day slavery in the United States, where he estimates between 14,000 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the country each year. He writes, “There has never been a single day in our America, from its discovery and birth right up to the moment you are reading this sentence, without slavery.”

not surprising. and connected to the UFW post below and its assertion that farm work conditions in ny "are one step from slavery." its no lie.

Take Action to Help NY State Farm Workers

2009-09-10T11:10:00.001-06:00

In New York State, laws protecting workers categorically exclude farm workers from basic rights and protections leading to conditions that are one step from slavery.

Farm laborers often work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, at minimum wage, with no overtime pay, no right to form a union, no disability insurance coverage, and no right to a day of rest. Children who work in the fields can be paid $3.20 an hour, less than half of the $7.15 minimum wage.

The UFW is joining with a coalition of groups--including Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert Kennedy and Founder of the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights—who are working to change this injustice. "The Farm Workers Fair Labor Practices Act" (S.2247/A.1867) would finally grant farm workers rights equal to all other workres.

NY’s Governor Paterson said he will sign the bill if it crosses his desk. The bill had already passed by the Assembly. Organizers believe that they have enough votes for the bill to pass if it makes it to the senate floor.

Making it to the senate floor, however, is a big challenge. Opponents will do all they can to see the bill stalled in committee. That’s why we’re begging you to help the bill organizers by contacting key senators today.

When Robert Kennedy broke bread with Cesar Chavez in Delano ending Cesar’s fast, he said, “When your children and grandchildren take their place in America,--going to high school, and taking good jobs at good pay, when you look at them, you will say, ‘I did this. I was there at the point of difficulty and danger.’ And though you may be old and bent from many years of labor, no one will stand taller than you when you say ‘I marched with Cesar.’”

Please take action today.click here. And, when you are old and bent you will turn to your children and grand children and say “I was there. I helped the farm workers."

dredging

2009-09-09T10:47:00.006-06:00

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.

2009-09-04T11:15:00.002-06:00

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

the problem w/ grapes: Giumarra's legacy of abuse continues under a new label

2009-09-01T11:17:00.003-06:00

"Giumarra--the world's largest table grape company that employs close to 3,500 grape workers. Giumarra has a history of intimidating and bullying workers. Back in 2006, a union election was thrown out by an administrative judge because of their unlawful interference. In addition, two farm workers have died of heat-related causes while laboring in Giumarra’s fields.

You’d think that Giumarra would have learned their lesson and quit putting workers at risk. Unfortunately not. Workers report to us that Giumarra is back to its old tricks. They have asked us to help them in getting a union contract so they have protection against these abuses. Please help make this possible, click HERE to e-mail Giumarra.

Giumarra has another way of forcing workers to reach unrealistic quotas and to intimidate workers. It’s a version of the “time outs” you do to a little kid when they are naughty. Giumarra is the only grape grower who uses this humiliating public method of punishment.

A worker does not pick fast enough or dares to question a supervisor? They get an unpaid, “time out” where they need to sit and wait until the supervisor says they can go back to work.

Giumarra worker Oswaldo Luna says, “The most unjust thing I have seen in the company is that they punish us by stopping us from working, for an hour or for days ...The supervisor yells at us instead of talking to us. If someone responds to him, he stops them from working.

“The supervisor Rambo began to look for things to punish us on and reasons to send us home? He stopped us for 3 hours without pay that day just because he got mad we answered him back. He told us he did not want to see us and sent us home for the day.” Oswaldo feels that the supervisor is “hoping that if he sends us home enough times, we will get fed up and leave the job.”

This situation has escalated to such a degree that on August 17, Oswaldo and two other workers filed ALRB charges against the company. That day their crew boss started unfairly harassing these workers for low production. When the workers explained that they were doing the best they could, but there were barely any grapes in their row, she suspended them for two days for questioning her.

The multimillion dollar Giumarra corporation--which is the largest table grape company and a major distributor of fresh produce—has developed a new label, Nature’s Partner. Please email Giumarra at Nature’s Partner today and tell them to treat their workers with dignity and respect and to quit retaliating against UFW supporters."

*I think that this huge corporation w/ a sketch labor history changing its name to "natures partner" its so insidious and so indicative of capitalisms' ability to co-opt absolutely fucking everything...its like how mega-corporate/anti-union whole foods has put out new paper bags w/ the phrase "i'm local!" printed all over it. blech

portrait of everything is just right.

2009-08-28T23:45:00.006-06:00

Femme 2 Fag part 2: the crip toll...i'm payin' it

2009-08-26T20:19:00.018-06:00

prior to surgery, my hair started to fall out from the stress of the decision.
the unknown- how will my body deal w/ the impact. all the chemicals/drugs suddenly flooding my body as well as the trauma of such a drastic alteration and loss.
and the known- i'll have so little money left afterward and still no sustainable home.

now over a month after the surgery, my body is still reeling. endless rashes. i had one in my armpits upon return from the bay that was like fire. cherry red and slowly a layer of skin peeled away. and a yeast infection like i've never had in my life. and my sclerosis is raging. headaches dance through my skull....and my hair...

my hair is still falling out. the same place and pattern that it made when i was 16 and so hungry and stressed, and high and drunk and needing sleep.
when i was 16 the bald spot got quite large. it took years to fully grow back...always a little spot here and there missing.
but i've gone a good 10 years or more w/ out a single sign of loss.
until now.

spreading stark space screams stress. screams unwell. screams i'm fighting hard but i'm losing.

but i am fightin' hard.
i really am.
i can just finally do a little yoga type movement. am able to put my arms over my head.
and i walk everyday.
i lift weights, rub my feet and eat raw garlic. i try to stay hydrated. eat my vegetables.
keep my head above the murky water.
remember my heart.

but when i checked in the mirror last night for the first time since surgery and saw the expanse of bare skin on the back of my skull i quickly went under overwhelmed w/ the sensation of falling apart. that my body is failing me. falling. failing. losing. sinking down down down.

lover on the phone whispers "its a lot baby, i'm so sorry love" and this calms me to deep sighs and sniffling and off to bed.

then the night passes the sun comes up and its a new day. theres always one of those around the bend if i can't just hold tight.

fuck it, i think w/ some sort of new day resolve, i'm just gonna avoid looking in the damn mirror at the other side of me.
theres no going back, this is simply where i am now.
my body and i.
reconciling. catching the moments of joy and comfort. accepting my vulnerability, my fear of murky depth and mortality.

i'm resisting gravity.

i can hold my torso now, place my hands on my smooth chest. feel my heart beating.
feel it putting up a good fight.

mas new mexico poetry

2009-08-24T09:22:00.002-06:00

I am a Poet
performed by my word comrade mary oishi. gorgeous.

holy crap

2009-08-23T10:52:00.005-06:00

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 tranny exhibitionist. i'm rollin' w/ it.

crips w/ cameras

2009-08-08T14:21:00.003-06:00

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

2009-07-30T14:56:00.003-06:00

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.

2009-07-28T11:42:00.000-06:00

"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

2009-07-22T06:30:00.002-06:00

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.

2009-07-09T16:23:00.003-06:00

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)

2009-07-08T06:59:00.007-06:00

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...

2009-07-06T09:50:00.004-06:00

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

2009-07-04T15:22:00.002-06:00

femme2fag pt1: finding home in the hungry body

2009-06-29T13:23:00.003-06:00

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

2009-06-09T17:39:00.003-06:00

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

2009-06-03T06:11:00.004-06:00

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.

2009-05-20T08:21:00.007-06:00

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.

2009-05-18T15:22:00.000-06:00

"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....

2009-05-13T07:26:00.008-06:00

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

2009-04-25T17:19:00.006-06:00

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!

2009-04-10T16:42:00.006-06:00

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

2009-04-07T09:25:00.006-06:00

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.

2009-03-20T12:30:00.004-06:00

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

2009-03-13T15:38:00.004-06:00

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!

2009-03-13T15:30:00.002-06:00

Hey! sign this!

open air

2009-03-01T20:35:00.005-07:00

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

2009-02-26T11:27:00.002-07:00

"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

2009-02-23T18:03:00.006-07:00

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

2009-02-18T08:57:00.004-07:00

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

2009-02-17T16:53:00.004-07:00

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?

2009-02-05T10:58:00.003-07:00

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

2009-02-03T21:30:00.004-07:00

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.