Hello, Kitty.

I have been feeling terribly desperate lately, in the whole range of areas to feel desperate in. From jobs, to work, to men. It’s just really no good. So here’s today’s hope: To drink deeply from the cup, and not grasp wildly at straws.

I went for a walk in the sun today to photograph widows and orphans. Here’s one of my favorites:

xox

I’VE HAD A BABY!  Well, to be more accurate, I’ve had a baby vomit on me.  I have recently become the part-time caregiver to a three-month-old.  Who would have predicted?  (Or allowed?)

Some thoughts for the day:

I am broken.
I am remade better.
I don’t need the cardboard sleeve on my coffee, which means my hands are calloused enough to protect my nerves.  It’s some sign of hard work.

Passion v. Vision- KO!

So it comes to passion and vision, the two things one cannot live without in the City.  Without the pairing, men are destined to be the walking dead.  These men are necessary in the City, but not the heart of it.  So, I am left in the despair of the realization of only being with one of the lovers.  Passion abounds, but with no object, there is no vision, and all the energy and fervor in the world are for naught.  My soft heart tears like a rotten peach on every blunt edge, and my body will not slow for its own welfare.  Licking my own wounds is counterproductive to healing, but brings temporary comfort and target to distract me from my lack of vision.  If only I could figure how to lick my own heart and eyes to heal the rift of my passion and vision. 
            Sometimes I long to be a great artist.  To make works able to move the hardest of men to tears.  Not by sentimental appeal, by but illustrating and being Truth.  Other times I think I might have some masterpiece of words welling up inside me that will bring about civic catharsis and lift all people out of their trance.
            But my greatest longing and desire is to impassion others, for the Lord, beauty, truth, and life.  But I lack the vision, and in it, become the walking dead myself.  I can see the final composition I want, but when I try to focus on a part or stroke, I am left confused or blind, like the first time I had a migraine, or a brain tumor. 
            I would rather be thwarted, than be so powerless.  In hitting a brick wall, at least one is moving beforehand, and then there’s even the ricochet.  It seems better than sleeping awake.
            So vision and passion, glass and fire.  The imprecise and global desires of my heart for peace, beauty, and truth paralyze me.  Vision seems so immediate and local to me that I could never accomplish all that I see.  Paralyzed by my own inaction, there are so many causes that I ache for.  But I do not feel a pull.  And cannot know where success lies.  And I am frozen. 
            If I cannot see any outcome, regardless of probability, I am dismissive.  I feel like I must ride my bike off a cliff, to make sure my parachute doesn’t have any holes in it.  Perhaps I should knock on all the doors to have them slammed in my face, rather than wait in the cold for one to open.  A draft of warm air every now and then is enough to keep me going. 

Mid-Winter's BBQ

So after that last posting of writing jeremy reminded me of this piece I wrote at the end of fall/beginning of winter when I could still ride my bike. I have been experiencing a bit of the winter gloom lately, so I though maybe I would post it to urge "bikeable" weather forward. I think there might soon be plans for a "Mid-Winter's BBQ" as well with the same purpose.

Sunny cloudy Sunday ride
down Ocean Parkway to see the bay.
Pay respect to the gray scale amusement park who rivals the coma of the beach.
And the thumbp, thumbp, thumbp of my bike on the boardwalk sounds like a happy eternal flat tire.
A scratchy Italian radio is playing for two scratchy Italian men.
No bass at all.
I sit two benches away on an otherwise deserted stretch of planks to eavesdrop on the movie magic.
I wish I had a thermos of something to sip and wrap my hand around.
Ride home trying to remember sand and thumbp, thumbp, thumbp.
My love for an island that is not really an island is stillborn in the early winter air.
I am trying to ignore the “empire” in “The Empire State” of every license plate.
I pass.
The spooky grit of coney island trumps antiseptic fireworks of Times Square

Writing Samplings

The performance went great, thanks to all those who came out. The videos and images are making their way online slowly but surely in the new stuff section here. I've been have a rough few weeks since quitting my job with no backup plan. I keep getting "leads" which go no where, and interviews that make me hate life. Plus its Feb., which means pleanty of grey and no sun. I am solar powered.

So, in my tired and frustrations I have been doing a little bit of writing between checking NYFA and my email. Here's a few samplings, don't be too harsh.



I am petite middleclass, and I think that mist be a force of gentrification in this apparent “urban blight”.  I find safety in the fact that someone once told me that I walk like a lesbian, which I took as a commentary on my solid, heavy, unmovable steps.  My feet don’t move unless I say so.  It makes me feel that despite my short stature and feminine curves, I might seem like less of a victim in my neighborhood of strangers.   I am “Miss” and “Ma’am”, when “Hello, I am selling candy for my basketball team at school.  It is only a dollar.”  But otherwise I am, “Hey baby; hey sexy thang; I want some of your sweet white chocolate vanilla.”  I want to exist on a level of mutual respect with my neighbors, but who is my neighbor, player or basketball player?  Lately, I have just taken to walking with one shoelace undone because when I once did it mistakenly, all anyone said was “better tie that.”  There’s something to be said for consistency’s power to greatly reduce confusion.  It’s just easier.
            Who is my neighbor? Who is my brother’s keeper?  Who is my keeper?  I am sure the residents of the apartment below me are not as reassured of their safety by their by my pounding stomp of a walk, but if I can’t have a dog, I might as well have the protective sounds of a 300lb man.-

When I go to art museums, it’s kind of like the zoo.  Not that it’s crowded or loud or smelly.  It just that I have to see Cornell just like going to see the monkeys; I have to see the Klien, like visiting the Reptile House.  It is like dropping in on an old friend.  But, good old Joey never changes like real people do. -

I had this dream, where I had finally written a beautiful song.  And I had one of those conscious dreaming moments where I thought, “I actually did write it because this is my dream and all these thoughts are mine.”  So I tried really hard to remember it, but when I woke up, the only thing I could remember was the following line,
“If Dusty and Lonely
Got to cuddle the whole way,
I hope home’s not too far to go.”
Ain’t it awful to find out something you thought was beautiful is crap.-