__tinker_bell

Been craftin' it up this weekend. I finally put some of my crafting to good use and created a shop on Etsy...check it out here! It's not perfect yet, and there are only a few items, but it's a start. Clearly, this is not going to be a money-maker, but it's a fun way to make use of one of my hobbies. Eventually, I hope to add a wider variety of items.

Skin
by Lucia Perillo

Back then it seemed that wherever a girl took off her
clothes the police would find her –
in the backs of cars or beside the dark night ponds,
opening like a green leaf across
some boy’s knees, the skin so white and taut beneath the
moor, it was almost too terrible,
too beautiful to look at, a tinderbox, though she did not
know. But the men who came
beating the night rushes with their flashlights and
thighs – they knew. About Helen,
about how a body could cause the fall of Troy and the
death of a perfectly good king.
So they read the boy his rights and shoved him spread-
legged against the car
while the girl hopped barefoot on the asphalt, cloaked in
a wool rescue blanket.
Or sometimes girls fled so their fathers wouldn’t hit
them, their white legs flashing as they ran.
And the boys were handcuffed just until their wrists had
welts and let off half a block from home.

God for how many years did I believe there were truly
laws against such things,
laws of adulthood: no yelling out of cars in traffic tunnels,
no walking without shoes,
no singing any foolish songs in public places. Or else they
could lock you in jail
or, as good as condemning you to death, tell both your
lower- and upper-case Catholic fathers.
And out of all these crimes, unveiling the body was of
course the worst, as though something
about the skin’s phosphorescence, its surface as velvet as
as a deer’s new horn,
could drive not only men but civilization mad, could lead
us to unspeakable cruelties.
There were elders who from experience understood these
things much better than we.
And it’s true: remembering I had that kind of skin does
drive me half-crazy with loss.
Skin like the spathe of a broad white lily on the first
morning it unfurls.

MUST...OWN...THIS!!!!!

Lotus Cat Tree

Aieeeeee!
<3

I feel as though I'm living in some sort of time warp wherein holidays rush toward me at an incomprehensible speed -- not with heavy, steel-toed strides, but with soft, ballet-footed, sprinting tiptoes. Christmas has come at me like a flood; at first I felt unready for it and closed my eyes to the tinsel and chocolates in stores. But now, as the holiday is soon approaching, my heart is quietly disappointed that the usually comforting and joyful excitement of the coming season has escaped me. I haven't had time to look forward to it or steer my mind in the direction the holiday spirit. Although I no longer celebrate religious aspect of Christmas and haven't in many years, I continue to appreciate and be thankful for the brightly generous and uplifting nature of this season. I am devoting this weekend to preparing my heart and home for what I hope will manage to be a beautiful holiday filled with the spirit of Christmas.

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence



Namaste <3

So today was my first official day volunteering as a "cat socializer" at the Humane Society. Getting hired as a volunteer has been a pretty lengthy process, with a bunch of interviews and trainings. Anyway, my three-hour shift was crazier than I had anticipated. I was the only person manning the cat adoption ward, and in addition to trying to answer all of the questions of the enormous influx of Saturday (Caturday????) visitors, I was responsible for keeping all the kitties fed/clean/attended to. Overwhelming! There are, like, 40 cats in there, and every time one of them knocks over their water, another one is shitting, or whacking over their food bowl, or whatever. I feel like I hardly gave any individual cat any love or attention, other than quickly petting them and cooing at them whenever I had to unlock their cages to repair a mess. Ah well. I guess I did my best. Maybe future shifts will be less hectic.

Leave me a comment and I will reply with why I like you. If I don't know you, I'll either make something up or tell you why I like your LiveJournal. You must pay for the privilege by posting a message like this one on your LiveJournal.

Maybe these things are happening because I just need to enjoy myself,
let go,
not worry
and nitpick and plan and scramble to grip my little hands on life's steering wheel

because what good is it, anyway, for one to gain the world but lose her soul?



Maybe the universe is telling me to find a balance between logic and soul?

I had a dream that I was going to New York City but I didn't have a warm enough jacket and was worried I might freeze to death. To remedy this, the Wizard of Oz offered to loan me some ruby slippers so that I could click my heels and take a hot air balloon there. Instead of a hot air balloon, I ended up on a ship. To avoid paying for two tickets, I killed my husband and put him in a cheap wooden coffin, taking him along with me as baggage. When I arrived in New York, the immigration officers were very angry that I had a dead body along with me. They grabbed me, took me ashore, and dumped me there, throwing the coffin out of the ship so that it split open and the body rolled out. The arms had broken off and my husband's body was stiff and yellow.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling odd and tingly "down there" -- along with the feeling of having to piss like a racehorse and going to the bathroom only to hear a pathetic little "tinkletinkle" in the toilet. This persisted throughout most of the afternoon until the achy feeling of having-to-pee-so-bad-I-can't-stand-it-and-yet-nothing-is-coming-out was nearly unbearable. By late afternoon, while I was helping a friend clean up after Halloween in this lounge-type place, in the darkened bathroom there, I had a strange feeling that the tiny bit of pee that had come out was -- huh? -- pink! I told myself it must just be the lighting, but strangely, by this time, an awful ache had taken over my lower region. Overcome by the feeling of having to pee, I started going in and out of the bathroom every couple of minutes until finally, I peed a trickle of blood. "We have to go to the emergency room," I finally told him in a panic, "I am pissing blood." The pain worsened during our hours-long wait at Providence, until I had to go and piss bright red blood every couple of minutes. Pissing was excruciating.

I was finally given a hospital bed and a diagonosis for a UTI (and possible Intertitial Cystitis).

Went to a 24-hr pharmacy on Belmont and got the medications.

I'm home now. I slept in until 1pm. It still hurts like fuck to piss. Shiiiiit.

[Edit] Now the illness is turning towards adverse side effects from the meds. The peeing is doing better, but now I'm all tired and nauseous and sick-feeling...UGHHHH...I think I'm going to take the day off tomorrow...:(

My neighbors must be certain that there is a wounded animal on the other side of their wall; a hideous stream of wails is escaping from my throat. As I turned from complacence into sorrow, tears leapt from my eyes -- a rash, suicidal jump into the ocean spilling from me onto my wooden desk.

Tonight, I happened upon a touching breakup letter, if one can imagine such a thing. This letter reached into my chest cavity and held my heart in its palm; it embodied every beautiful thing I wished I could have said to Beau as we ended our relationship. Instead, the words that spilled out at our End were dry and stale in my exhaustion and numbness. How I wish I could have been the one to write this letter and placed it in the pocket of his jeans...

...and on the flipside of this coin, I happened upon a windstorm of words by this same pretty lady that also touched my inner being. This is what I am looking for in my Other Half. Maybe this is what we were missing. Or maybe it's only a fantastic pipe dream.

*Girl eating Asian rice crackers (sometimes they have that yummy dried seaweed on them, you know?*
Girl: (over some commotion that has just occurred) "Hey, shut the FUCK up, FUCKER!"
Teacher: "What is going on?!?!"
Girl: "He just told me to shut my legs because it smells like tuna!"






...Lol.

It's that time again! The annual Ms. Baker's R+J masquerade (and by annual I mean a mere three years and counting). This time, I was convinced to do one, too...confined by my own requirement that no purchases be made, I made a quick, $0 trip across the street to Esther Short park and used what I found...( Click to see mask! )
Ta-da! Scrambled together in a mere 15 minutes!

( I used to adore masks as a child...Venetian masks, or the ones I saw at Carnivale in Holland )

( Massssskksss )

Things are finally different; a jelly jar somewhere has had its seal snapped away and its lid unscrewed and opened.

I am tempted to say that my life has been turned upside down, but it hasn't at all, really -- I still live in the same apartment, work the same job, et cetera. I think it's my perspective that has been flipped around, at least to some extent. I have been jarred out of my routine and forced myself to stretch outside of the cave in which I normally confine myself.

For those of you that have not yet realized this, over a month ago, Beau and I ended our relationship of almost exactly three and a half years. I don't think I'll (ever?) go into detail about what happened, except to say (vaguely) that we weren't encouraging each other to grow into everything we could possibly be.

Beau was not the one to hold me back; I want to make that clear. Nothing was holding me back but me...I allowed the idea of our relationship to tie strings around my wrists. However loose they may have been, I permitted them to be there.

A door has not flung open, but it at least has been cracked and I am testing the waters and I am feeling my own spirit slip back inside my hips.

Today, 5th period:

(Discussing the vocabulary word "expose")

Me: "What will happen if I expose my skin to the sun?"
Class: "Sunburn!"
Mexican kid: "Not Abdul!" (Abdul is from Sierra Leone)
Light-skinned black person: "Yuh huh, black people can get sunburned...right?"
Abdul: "Mees. Baykaah, block pipull cin geet sunbuaned, yaaahhh?"

(The three black students sitting directly in front of me, along with Abdul, look to me with great curiosity and anticipation)

Me: [looks incredulous] ".......why are you asking ME?"



...followed by unstoppable lawls from everyone.

I considered buying myself a beautiful, diamond engagement ring and wearing it as a constant reminder that I am my first priority...that I need to put the pieces of myself back together and go back to being someone I can take absolute pride in. I want to reinhabit myself. I want to find the voice I lost. I want to grow up to be the happy, intelligent, whole, healthy, organic, beautiful, compassionate, authentic woman I always knew I could be.

A Man Walks Into a Bar

I can hear the ache behind your lips
and the way our hearts are looking
in separate directions
even when they are near enough to

reach forward and touch,
eyes widening,
neck softening
as raw and open-wounded organs


often long to.

I really need a day of rest, and I hope today can at least [somewhat] be that day. This past week has been a bit too busy for me...Open House, along with with four other nights of involvements has left me sleep deprived, not to mention the impact helping Beau move had on my body the past few days. It hasn't all been bad, per se -- I did get to have my tattoo recolored on Friday and Saturday, but the pain of a chest piece PLUS the issue of needling over scar tissue was nearly unbearable. All of this is combined with my head being packed with the emotions of my current situation. I am okay, for those that might be worried...it is just strange, and a lot to deal with, and has left me feeling like the guiltiest and cruelest little thing.

“The trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” –Erica Jong

“The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.” --Frances Willard




Abyss

With what
or with whom will we fill
the spaces left to fill?



Momentum

It is, in these situations,
difficult to tell
whether one is a coward or a warrior

Was the fight worth fighting?
Or within my insistence on lingering,
did I shrink back from opportunity,
wasting my life in friction when it could have been
momentum?

I feel like everything that's been going on right now is too personal to share here...at least in detail.

There is no right way to say things; no words can justify the depth of the situation. No amount of tip-toeing and careful rhetoric will prevent people from evaluating or misinterpreting the circumstances.

These things are better left unsaid -- at least for now.