i like...

drawing people i know as comics.

stomach flu

um, everyone in philadelphia is sick right now. luckily i got a flu shot so i’m just losing my voice, which ideally will end up being sexy for a few days. we’ll see. i think about the weather a lot when i’m in the city since interaction requires me to actually go out into it and right now it’s being a total fucking dick. like last night, it was doing the really pretty quiet snow thing and i walked home all smiley listening to it being silent. then i woke up this morning and the sidewalks were all slippy and melted and it was raining. come on, weather. stop being a tease.

also, i hate alligators and they are on tv right now in my living room. people are provoking them. oh god. i hate alligators almost as much as i hate rabies.

speaking of alligators, have you seen this video? please watch it.

i am going to make t-shirts with this little guy on it.

incidentally, have you noticed that obama is left handed? i am left handed. i think all left-handed people get secretly excited when they realize someone else is a lefty too. i know i do. why do left handed people die younger than right handed people? why do i get my university’s hillel newletter? do the colors on my blog make it too hard to read? why is the discovery channel now the home shopping network? life is full of questions.

HOMYGOD THEY ARE LETTING ALLIGATORS CHASE THEM. he just said “we’re gonna put on some heavy armor and agitate the alligator to try to get him to chase us.” guess what mythbuster? elbow pads are not exactly what i’d call “heavy armor.” actually, not even close; maybe if you’re five and trying to learn to rollerskate. that motherfucker is going to crush your bones into tiny tiny pieces.

i bought lotion the a few weeks ago that smelled like last winter, but now i don’t even notice it.

isn’t it funny how smells fade into familiarity? and you know how smell is supposed to be the sense that’s most tied to memory? try to describe how something smells. it’s hard. but then, when you talk about how something looks—there are so many words! flat, smooth, small, close, easy, curvy, ugly, young, red, blue, alive. scent escapes language and lurks somewhere back in your head, back where memories are spun.

it’s almost february, too. i’ve been waiting for it since november so i can listen to “february air” while i walk to class because i like songs with specific months and days and times in them.

there’s not really a point here. i think the point is: i would like some bike-friendly weather so that i can go outside and start making sense.

Consider the Hands that Write This Letter

after Marina Wilson
Consider the hands
that write this letter.
The left palm pressed flat against the paper,
as it has done before, over my heart,
in peace or reverence
to the sea or some beautiful thing
I saw once, felt once: snow falling
like rice flung from the giants' wedding,
or the strangest birds. & consider, then,
the right hand, & how it is a fist,
within which a sharpened utensil,
similar to the way I've held a spade,
match to the wick, the horse's reins,
loping, the very fists
I've seen from the roads to Limay & Estelí.
For years, I have come to sit this way:
one hand open, one hand closed,
like a farmer who puts down seeds & gathers up
the food that comes from that farming.
Or, yes, it is like the way I've danced
with my left hand opened around a shoulder
& my right hand closed inside
of another hand. & how
I pray, I pray for this
to be my way: sweet
work alluded to in the body's position
to its paper:
left hand, right hand
like an open eye, an eye closed:
one hand flat against the trapdoor,
the other hand knocking, knocking.

[Aracelis Girmay]

back in business

this video was brought to you by the letter d with honorable mentions to a, n, and i. additionally, this moment of joy and gay abandon could not have happened without the help of my brother, who gave me moustaches for christmas. thank you, michael. also, i think it's pretty obvious here that the real comedy goddess is dani. whatever, i'm not jealous, i've got other talents, like making pasta and playing dress up. watch us do what we do best and get to know what goes on inside our little heads [nothing].

when did you first realize that planets were smaller than stars? i think i only understood this recently.

i’ve been here for three weeks, where everything has a place, but i can’t find the big dipper.
when i was tiny, my dad would wake me at that time between late late night and morning [there’s a word for that in spanish, it’s “madrugada.” i like how they have words for things that we have to explain with a whole sentence. it’s like they understand something that i ruin with too many adjectives or too much explanation] to show me the stars. even in the spring it would be cold that early, so he would wrap me up in the afghan his grandma made for us and carry me outside. the streetlights on our road seemed like they were always burnt out; the only thing lighting up the night was the moon right above us and it was changing every night. he’d try to show me orion, but there were too many stars for me to tell where he started or ended. or cassiopeia, because she was a queen and was like our name. but all those stars were too dim from my driveway. so he would hold me on his back with one arm and point with the other at the two pine trees across the street and i would find the constellation between them.

every night since i’ve been back, there’s been so much sky. i look toward the two familiar trees, but i just can’t see the big dipper. i’ve noticed that some of my streetlights have been replaced, lighting up the neighborhood while they mute the skies, but i doubt this newness is what clouds the reminder of my little memory.

stars are ubiquitous; no matter where you go, they’re right there above you. my grandpa taught me this word when i still lived in pittsburgh, and told me that god was ubiquitous.

see? this is safe. i can submerge myself in it without losing everything else. i won’t drown.

last summer, i was worried about the one star that burned weaker than the other six. i know it’s been working so hard for so many years, but i hope it doesn’t fade completely, at least not while i’m still looking at it. i wonder if that is a completely selfish wish. then i wonder if it’s already dead and maybe we’re just seeing leftover light. the message [“goodnight, ladies and gentlemen. thank you for coming to the show.”] hasn’t gotten to us yet.

the thing about night is that you can feel the darkness. it’s like when you see stars from somewhere where nothing else is. with no lights to dim their brilliance, you realize how many there really are, filling in the space in between the ones you see every night. because that only happens when you’re far away from everything else.

and then there’s tying memories to something big, something in the sky that everyone else can taste, if they want to. it’s more universal than having thoughts about books or songs, and no one can talk about it, not if they want it to stay real. you throw a rope up above your head and bind just a speck of yourself to your star. you let your ideas swirl around—they’re there in case someone wants to share with you, but you’re content knowing they’ve been thought.

hang on, sloopy

ohio has a lot to offer--corn, homogeneity, tomato juice [the state drink], cows, cities that start with the letter c...  cincinnati, a world-renowned cultural metropolis, is home to the shaker museum [a religous group who [shockingly] died out a hundred years after they were founded because they didn't believe in procreation], a giant statue of jesus, 98 degrees, lots of sausage [i blame the germans], jerry springer, and is conveniently located near the creation museum.  

with so many options, i've obviously opted to hide out in my room most of the time i've been home, emerging every few days to eat a buckeye or go to the library. [the library here is fantastic, seriously.  they have everything your little heart could ever want and if they don't have it, they will buy it for you.  also, the girls who work there are occasionally cute and always nerdy, so i can impress them with my library-card-number-memorization skills.  4054550, bitches.]  

my friends who are home for christmas are hermits too, but sometimes we get adventurous and go out into the cold to spend qsbt* together.  all i've wanted to do is dance so i've been suggesting that we join the rest of civilization and learn the "single ladies" dance or find my friend isabella's "darren's dance grooves" tape but instead we've mostly just played the youtube game.  everyone who needs more dolla bills in their life knows that the best thing to do with your friends is play the youtube game.  you go to their house and show them videos that you like and they show you their favorites and even though you both realize how pathetic this is, no one has to pay money and so you're pretty happy.  isabella brought this genius video to my attention the other day while we were being poor together.

i come from a "not scrabble" family.  this is mostly because we prefer the smack of violence over intellect.  we have a talent for turning any nice family game into an argument and can make you feel inadequate and judged no matter what we're playing.  card games mean long, cruel stares at the player who takes longer than three seconds to play and scattergories usually results in yelling and someone going home mad.  

in other news, my dog is in heat [ew] and has to wear a diaper and my mum asked me the other day if i have penis envy.  t-minus 11 days until i get to go back to philadelphia, thank baby jesus.  

*qsbt = quality sober bonding time.  this one comes from my friend dani aka daniela aka donatello peepmichaelangelo aka petemike.  dani is also famous for being 14, emo, loving dolphins, stripes, and josh, and also being a secret gay.

flurry fury

i am flying away to cincinnati on saturday and i am so excited my head is going to explode. i am even convinced that the flight is going to be fantastic.

[this is mostly because the last flight i took was like a tiny version of hell, so this time will definitely be an improvement. besides sitting in the

airport for 6 hours after my flight was delayed, i got stopped by the tsa guys because i was carrying a space heater in my bag. they were convinced it was a bomb, [which, if i’m going to be honest, isn’t really a bad assumption; it’s older than me, makes ticking noises, and sparks sometimes] and so they decided that it would be a good idea to take everything out of my suitcase and question me about the heater for about a year. also, the person in front of me was the crankiest old woman alive. the little boy sitting next to me touched her seat a few time and she kept slapping him. at first i thought maybe he just had an abusive grandma or something, but then they weren’t related and she was just mean.]

going to cincinnati means seeing stars, reading real books without feeling guilty about not doing homework, spooning with my dog, and playing cards with my

grandma. and it’s christmas which is especially exciting because i really like wrapping presents. [ps if anyone wants to know what to wrap for me, i would like cowboy boots, a flu shot, paris je t’aime, a shamwow, and some new songs to love.]

This Winter

I suppose, with the wind and rain outside, and more to come, we’ve cocooned with blankets, warm fires. I suppose, like the change of season, freezing cold, instead of sun, inward, instead of outward, the season of that endless war, killer hurricanes, loved ones lost, I’ll just turn the page, start over.

I’ve often wondered if I’m a winter writer, rather than summer. Throw on thick sweaters, coats, gloves and trek high up the mountain to my tower, to “bear” for winter. One small, frosty window to look out. “Countless tales,” I write in my journal shivering, “layers of rain, snow, and wind, to overcome.”

It is this imagination that binds. Pen in hand, fingers spread evenly on a keyboard. Wipe the frost, find the pulse. Tell them what ails, or inspires. Reveal the colors, be it agony, intense and miserably cold, or thoughts of romance, desires, engulfed or enflamed by simple candlelight. Set the temperature and tone, open the page, begin.

I suppose, from my mountain view, the lights below, mere weeks before Christmas, that I’ve got something significant to share. A vast landscape, glistening jewels of light, smoke billowing from thousands of chimneys. Don’t know, can’t tell yet. Maybe nothing.

I stroke my long beard, smoke my pipe, pull the flaps of my hat lower. We are, the words of every season, all of us, to our last breath, touching hearts and souls, scribbling blindly, breathlessly, designing, building, hunkering down.

But all is silent, save the wind, howling at my back.

Look, tell them of the pain of death, so recently endured, what my eyes have seen, tortured, beaten, abused. Tell them of flying high above the fray, a view so magnificent, it begs to say, to express, to share. Create an unforgettable character, that mighty hero of mind and heart that gives, saves, knows all. One who carries us to that tearful page of victory. Lie down here, another blanket to keep warm.

I suppose, there is no greatness, not now, perhaps later, but we trudge through, press on. Every day, every season, different.

High above the howling storm, frost on my beard, eyes searching wanefully to heartfelt losses, human touch. Seasons that follow, lead, churn deeply. Imagination does not go cold. Or does it? Here, take this pen, write it. Eyes, alive and moving beyond the snow, conjuring winters across the ridge, snowflakes dreamily to the page.

We’re not gone, only adjusting, acclimating, different sights and sounds, binding. Takes time to see, peel the layers, undress. There is nothing to say, not yet, the world at our feet.

“Countless tales,” I write, “layers of snow and wind, to overcome.”

[Charles Mariano]

work in progress x3