Baudelaire's Perfume: The Art of Waiting; The Depth of Disguise

This morning is 9 AM pizza and coffee.

I am currently awaiting a meeting that I have been both anticipating and fearing since about 4 PM on Friday.  These ambush meetings are the worst, at times.  Hopefully they will involve an element of the best.  Only time (90 minutes and counting) will tell.

While I wait, I listen to the sounds of planes overhead.  I learn the creaks and pounds of an apartment I do not live in, empty but for me, my coffee, my nerves.

(I pause to turn on a lamp.  There's no need to behave like an actual intruder. I have been invited here, after all.)

Last night I went to temporarily replace the scarf I left at a dear friend's house who lives 61.8 miles away.  It won't actually replace the scarf, but will act as a soft and decent stand in for the next few weeks.

(pause)

I know that you read me as the responsible one in this. That my mystery is all in your head.  That everyone's excitement and quixotic tales are in the past. That's not the case with me.  I know you sense this, and I know it turns your stomach into an apple'd, acidic mess.

I hide my undoings well.  I wash and obscure the scent of these tales off of my arms, my neck, my chest before entering the room. You compliment the spice of my cologne.  And when our eyes meet, you dare yourself to read as much of me as you can, through them.



be well; be loved,

k.

(photo via trashy princes tumblr)

The Crinkling Sound of Your DIY'ed Owl Costume's Wings

A good and productive day.

The taste of cinnamon in my mouth, a hunger for potatoes in my stomach, and the crave of a thick lotion from my hands.

I realize that I'm different. But I can still relate to people. They may just be more akin to the lads in The Wolfpack documentary.  

Costumes diy'ed out of cereal boxes and cut up yoga mats?  

Fuck yes, and please. 

Isolation growing up may be horrific, but it also gives you a lot of time to think, and to become resourceful.

 Be well; be loved; find a job where the hiding, costume making and thought juxtapositions continue,


k.

(photo: damaris goddrie by wikkie hermkens for volkskrant magazine via mazzystardust tumblr)

The Tone of Your Voice: Echos In the Submarine

I went to the water today.

It was a gray, toothpaste green color and the winds were driving it wild.  Foam and waves and crashing and bitter cold, everywhere.

It was beautiful from behind a window.

There are days, and there are parts of this city, that make it feel like an abandoned seaside town.  It has something to do with the wear of the paint upon the houses that line the water.  Usually pastels that have been worn down to white and paneling, in parts. The picket fences around them that are too small, crooked and have given up.  There is something both reassuring and other-worldly in their state.

There was a time I had wanted to meet you at the water.

Instead, I have come here alone.




Be well; be loved,

k.

(image: Julia Mangold, Untitled, 2014- 0301, 2014 pigment wax on paper via vjeranski tumblr)

Plum-Colored Smoke and the Art of Artfulness

Tonight I'm here with blankets are all around me. I have on an oversized black knitted sweater and thigh high sweater socks. (Underwear, too. I have on underwear.) I have a bit of a headache, but my sweater socks tempt me to forget all of that.

I've been drawing and painting like mad as of late. It started, randomly, with a book I was reading that talked about how the brain works, how it memorizes things, how sound influences drawing, how images impact writing...basically the interconnectedness of art. It goes into a lot of the bullshit ideas of "good art/bad art". It gets into the idea of practice, just as any dancer, professional pitcher, singer, violinist, etc. would do.  It's gotten me to let go and just fucking make shit.  And so, I am.  It feels good.  It's interesting to see how it's impacting other creative spaces in my life. (I'm defining this loosely, here.  Creative spaces defined as conversation, flirting, work, humor...among other things.)

Anyway. I've been moved to incorporate more of my daily interactions into my art.  We'll see how it goes.

Like last night, for example, when a drunk man at the bus stop came up to me speaking in Spanish asking if I was French. I answered him in Spanish asking why he thought I was French.  He told me it was because I was tall. Then he pondered my accent and asked me what country I was from. But before I told him, he said, definitively, that I was from Portugal.

There's a four panel comic in that, somewhere.

Keep creating and keep expressing. 

It saves us.

It saves each other.

Don't let anyone convince you that makeup or gelled eyebrows is not a form of art. 

(And if they try and tell you this, take a glance at the eyebrows of those who say it. Haters gonna hate, and they know that you are brilliant enough in how you hold yourself to be in a museum on that merit, alone.)

Be well; be loved,

k.

(image: Jing Wen shot by Benjamin Lennox/ Makeup by Mathias van Hooff for Vouge China December 2015. via mazzystardust tumblr)

Open My Heart Like That: Just This Once and Forever

I'm experimenting with Sumi (Sumi-e) Ink, again.  I tried a number of years ago (roughly 7), but gave it a rest.  I'm back with it, again.  It makes everything looks so beautiful and gray scale once you get a feel for it. 

I'm going to get my feel for it.

(pause)

Things have been good.

Directed.

Productive.

I've been thinking a lot about silence and friendship and productivity and love and life goals.

I've been listening to lots of vinyl while doing so.

Be well; be loved,

k.

(photo: From the ink wash series Party Girls by Emily McMorran as seen on Kat Thorsen's blog)

I'll Leave You My Car Keys, In Case You Want to Leave

Ghosts emerge this time of year.

It is not quite Halloween.

It is, sometimes, All Saints Day.

It is, sometimes, the Day of the Dead.

It is not quite the tales of the ghost of Christmas Past.

All of this, and none of this at once.

Perhaps it has to do with the turning of seasons.  Perhaps it has to do with the change of the moons.

Who knows.

What I know is that people's ghosts come out and around them.  Haunting, taunting, reminding, pulling. And it ends up impacting the choices that some make.  For worse.  For better.

Tell me: How have you been sleeping these nights?

Be well; be loved,

k.

(image: To Repel Ghosts by Jean-Michel Basquiat)
(title: lyric from Damien Jurado's song Rachel and Cali listen to it, here. It is worth the description of love and friendship.  And crowds. And everything. Trust me on this one.)

"We're Not Sluts...We Listen To Bauhaus!": Thanksgiving Edition

Good morning. It's roughly ten in the morning the day after a national holiday. I can hear a few cars on the street outside my house, but not many. 

As much as some may have strong feelings about the holiday season- for, against- I'm into it simply for the feeling of apocalypse:  Empty sidewalks, people gathered inside of their homes having shut their doors to the world, odd stretches of available parking in parts of the city in which that is unheard of.

(pause)

Today, I sip coffee. 

With whipping cream in it because I am feeling indulgent. 

Five feet away from me, I see the blanket atop a loved one rise and fall with their breath.

Orphan holidays, indeed. 

(pause)

I have come to enjoy the solitude and indulgence of these days. Strange how brilliantly things may shine once you invent, and eventually live, a narrative true and earnest enough to counter the mainstream story.


Be loved; be well,


k.

(photo credit: I believe I grabbed it from lecollecteur tumblr)

Open That Pea Coat and Show Me What Will Get You Arrested

Here I am: Reporting live from underneath a light bulb with my tongue slightly scalded by hot chocolate.  I've been painting most of the evening.  I'm not sure what all of this is about.  It's not my usual medium, but I'm going to go with it.

(I painted my first boob tonight.  Although I have drawn many a boob in the margins of note taking in high school and into college classes, I have never painted one.  It was not from a model or anything. My imagination. So of course it is a bit unrealistic.  I don't care.  It's my first boob. It's pretty hot in that "oh this is art, I'm not suppose to say that" type way. HOT.)

Moving on.

I've been feeling pretty internal as of late.  Focusing in on art and psychic shit.  Sure, at this rate I'll end up living in the street and talking to myself but I'm fine with that. I feel like this is the month that I should be "setting goals" and things of that nature but, frankly, I'm content with watering my plants, fucking who I want, and getting way the fuck too into Jean Genet's sailor shit again.

(Pause to take in the photo, above.  Genet's sailor shit, again.)

In addition, I've been watching way too much ¿Quién mató a Patricia Soler? I can't help it. I justify it as language study (it IS!) and end up getting way too wrapped up in the plot.  I mean, can you imagine not being able to tell your children that they are your children because you've been in prison for 16 years for a murder you didn't commit? It's all totally relatable.

Okay. That's all for today.  I'm a bit obsessed with paint and with grape flavored gum.

Obviously I need to exorcise these demons out of me.

Be well; Be loved,


k.


(photo credit: I can't recall. I swiped it from Tumblr. I'm usually so good about this.  I was distracted by the hot faggots.)

You Answer The Phone Before I Call; I Hug You Just Before You Arrive.

Here we are, folks.  A Sunday morning in the light, the air smelling of milk and honey because of my hand lotion and smile.

Let's talk about the healing nature of dreams and why it's so important to get enough sleep.  The rested mind is so incredible. As is the hydrated mind.

I know I may sound like a hippie, but it really is true.  Things I can't see clearly in the sleep deprived waking life come into focus with the light and sound of a well rested mind.

Insert something, here, about interconnectivity and the conversations I have with a particular, magnetic woman who is, mostly, a stranger to me.

(pause)

Let's take a moment for the highlights of the transit this week:

The man with the shitty tattoo on his face asking me directions to the water park:  I feel solid in my directions and hope you got there.

A conversation with Holland about class and jobs and unions and the importance of archives.  You may look like a Hollywood handsome gangster but, well, but nothing:  You kind of are.

The woman who pointed out to me that there was a make up lesson happening in a department store glass window that evening : Well- lit and with students watching.  The participant was being painted as special effect type zombie.  It was gorgeous.  The sun had just gone down, and all eyes were on this illuminated and center-staged beautiful monster.

How could it have been any other way?

(pause)

As an aside that is not an aside: The conversations with L. have been hilarious and healing and validating on all fronts.  It feels good to be falling back into our every-few-day phone date pattern.

Seasoned friends are everything.

It's where I learn the most.

Be well; be loved; be looking for what matters with that rested mind of yours,


k.
(image: via cosmicclusters tumblr)

The Only Thing Clean is My Underwear: An Unexpected Meditation in the Forest

It's 10 am and I am far away from home and two things are certain:  I am wearing roughly the same clothes as yesterday evening, and I am- without a doubt- the first person who ordered a pizza when Domino's opened at 10. 

These are the things that dreams and misfortune are made of: It's up to you to decide which as befallen you.

(pause)

I'm in an empty and flimsy office space.  It's cold as fuck in here, but the box of pizza on my lap is doing a good job of keeping me warm.

Things have remained at that level of good/odd/good, and I'm okay with that. It's a bit more adventure than I'm used to for this time of year, but that's nothing to complain about.

Art collaborations are coming along.  My body is waking up again. 

(pause)

I'm off to eat my dessert of 10:45 am peanut M&M's.

In the meantime, read this article called What We're Getting Wrong about Dissociation because it is important and on point.

be well; be loved; be warm



k.

(photo: Robert Mapplethorpe in NYC, 1969)

Four in the Morning at Eight PM

California. Florida. Arkansas. Ohio. Michigan. Oregon. Texas. Washington. New York. Slightly Colorado.

Friends from all over the place are getting a hold of me at random, but not random at all.

I'd blame the holidays, but it's too early for that.

I'll say it's a bat signal:

Home style.

(pause)

Things lately have been electric.

Strange, but electric.

I'm excited about tonight's company.  She's new to me in this capacity, but has been around for a long time.

I'll try to keep my composure, although the structure of our plan has anything but.

be well; be loved; go with it:


k.

(image: John Baldessari via euo Tumblr)

Locked Rooms and Delayed Savorings: Sleep Edition

About to turn in for the evening.  It's been a long, fun, misunderstood, productive, enjoyable day. I'm beat.

I'll leave you with a quote from a final interview with Foucault, because I can and because I feel his point, here, on denial.

Be well; be loved,

k.

P.S. Although I enjoyed the New York Trilogy when I read it a million years ago, I think Paul Auster is kind of a dick knob. The interviews I've heard with him are pompous and dated. He's overrated. Is this just me?  [Full disclosure: I think the majority of U.S. born cis white straight guy writers are overrated. Yes, yes: Your drugs and your travels and your deep, deep thoughts. Zzzzz.]

Virtuous Souls

This morning, up early, I listened to an interview with Maya Angelou from a while ago while wrapped in layers of coats and sweaters and hoodies.

It has gotten cold out, and the rain sees to get down to your bones with its chill. 

Here is a transcript of something she said that resonates:

It's like the difference between facts and the truth:  Facts can obscure the truth. You can tell so many facts that you never tell the truth.

You say the places where, the people who, the times when, the reasons why, methods how, blah blah blah. 

But if I tell the human truth, if I tell it well, then a person in Bangalore, another person in Beijing, somebody else in New York City, another person in Mexico City will say "Yes. That's the truth... that's a human truth."

(pause)

(end transcript) 

As I made my way through the cold to my destination, she said one more thing that made me think of so much, as of late:


"You have to have enough courage.  It's the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can't be consistently kind, or true, or fair. Not consistently. You can be anything erratically."


be well; be warm; have enough courage.


k.


(image: Aurora Borealis (Substorm), Chena Hotsprings, Alaska, 1989, Kikuji Kawada via isidore tumblr)

The Divinity of Numbers

Holy amazing sleeps of the world.

I recently awoke from one of the deepest, most needed sleeps I can recall in the past few years.

For the past 3 weeks, I haven't been sleeping.  There have been 3 different situations causing stress these 3 weeks.  Although I've been trying to figure out how to contain them, it's taken me quite a long time.  Not surprisingly, it was Friday the 13th in which I managed to contain all 3 of them at the same time and, in doing so, as a reward, was given the sweetest sleep ever.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

At least 3 times are in order.

Last night before my descend into the land of dreams, I had a conversation with a beloved New Yorker-via-Detroit for just shy of 3 hours (2 hours 39 minutes).

Oh, it was what I needed.

Today will offer me more "home" in the form of visitors coming in from out of town to enjoy this rainy day.

All of the aspects of things that have been strangely skewed in the past 3 weeks are coming back into focus.

Clarity.

For my own sanity, I say:

THANK YOU to all of the people in my life who communicate. Who offer apologies.  Who accept apologies.  Who hug. Who love. Who are strong when someone they love is weak. Who are weak and let someone else be strong.  Who are complex and fucking beautiful beings.

The whole 9.


May these numbers never stop haunting me.  I know their curses as much as their magic.


Be well; be loved; be enjoying a slow Saturday morning with those you love.


k.

(image: Maison Martin Margiela Spring, 1995 via neveriaa tumblr)

Like a Train

Sitting with a friend in high-backed, gray velour chairs facing a picture window that faces a street busy with steady traffic.

The floors here are a blondish wood.

I miss wood floors.

Carpet is not my thing.

While I'm at it:

I miss basements.

(pause)

The past few weeks have been odd and bad and odd and good. It just depends on which day and which interaction you are referring to. I've been spending time trying to contain the emotional vomit wheel of someone else, whom I care about.  That's always rough. If you can imagine a room full of dandelion puffs floating around in the air and your job is to get them out of the air.  Of course some sort of water would be involved.  Wet them so that the weight of the water pulls them down to the ground.  Flattens them. Mats them to the ground.

Containment.

It's certainly a strange and imperfect art form.

(pause)

I've been listening to interviews with various authors, lately.  One that I was excited to listen to was one with Javier Marías about his book A Heart So White. It was beautiful to hear him discuss it in his own words, albeit not in his own language. Although he comes across as a pompous ass at times, his relationship to language and translation will always keep me sewn to him.

Be well; be loved,

k.

[If you're interested to listen to the interview mentioned, here is an online version of it. The comment the moderator makes about the argument she overhears in Spanish is fucking ridiculous and ignorant, and I appreciated and laughed at how Marías shut it down. #monolingualbullshit]

Witch Hunt

Today is slow.  Odd.  Late buses and broken down engines.  My eyes are puffy.  My fingertips have been replaced by miniature marshmallows.

One of the things I have experienced in my life as a woman-read person is this:

A distrust of others around my own sexuality. My own sexual agency.  Everyone accusing me of fucking or wanting to fuck other people.  As if that is an accusation.  And almost always by people who I am not dating.  They are the ones who accuse.

What is it about a woman-read person's sexuality that is such a threat?  It is, of course, no surprise, that this is why sex workers are demonized:  "How dare they capitalize off of their own bodies and sexuality" is the arrogant and ignorant thinking.

Sex workers are forever perceived as both magical, and a threat.

A fantasy that, afterwards, must be destroyed.  (Emotionally, morally, physically...i.e. murdered.)

We are priests to confess every dark and scared and sacred thing to, yet somehow, we are simultaneously entirely untrustworthy. 

We.

Yes.

We. 

(pause) 

What is it about women-read people who are unapologetic and honest about their sexual desires, their preferences, their relationships - that initiates fascination, violence, and obsession?

What is it about women-read people that demands that a hand other than her own must write over her words? Tell her how she exists.  Tell her that she is wrong in what she is doing.  Tell her that she is lying. Tell her that she is a saint and a savior by the same person who moves to destroy and condemn her.

In general, and without beauty:   Fuck your erasure of self-written narrative.  Fuck your distrust of women who don't buy into state-sanctioned marriage.  Fuck your judgements of greed of women without children. Fuck your suspicion of women who fuck who they want and when they want and why they want and are honest about all of it.  Fuck your scandalized face that you display to any woman who simply lives a life equal to any run-of-the-mill bullshit Jack Kerouac.

Fuck your witch hunt. 

Burn our bodies alive if we don't destroy you first -  but the just venom of what you burn will only return, tenfold.  

Has history taught you nothing?


k.

(photo: Isabelle Dépraz, Possibles, 2015 via Gacougnol Tumblr)

The Investigation of Curiosity

Thick fog morning.  It's the perfect white gray against the gold brown black leaves that remain on the tree outside my window.

It's been an incredible and indulgent weekend. The type of weekend where you get to do any and everything you want, when you want, and how you want to do it. 

It feels good to reap the benefits of a gained trust with someone.  

It will also never feel the same as having a few days, unwitnessed, to do anything and everything you want to. 

Both of these things have beauty within them.

(pause to watch a crow land on a low hanging electrical wire a few yards beyond my window)

I feel rested, satisfied, sparked, excited. Lots of art and good conversations and reading and connecting happened this weekend.  I continue to be focused, calm and happy in a way I've never experienced before. 

All things considered, this year has been, unexpectedly, one of the best in my life.

Here is to pushing past the limits we place upon ourselves at times, and to the jackpot of happiness that awaits us on the other side of them.

be well; be loved; be doing things you love as much as humanly possible,

k.

(image via modefunker tumblr)

The Perking of My Ears

Good morning, world. It's 9:22 am on my morning to sleep in a bit. I woke up, earlier, to the sweetest text and sentiment. It's incredible how the timing of such things can inform your day.

Now I'm here, armed with coffee and a sesame bagel (Toasted. Tahini and avocados. Sprinkled with nutritional yeast and black cracked pepper.), typing away before getting out of my pile of blankets and spread, bleached sheets to get to work at eleven.

One of the things I've been appreciating, lately, is the sound of gravel crunching in the morning in the alley beyond my bedroom window.  Cars sleepily sneaking through the alley to the main road in hopes of a shortcut to repay their snooze bar struggles.

I wish them luck.

k.

(image sun is out/ Lisboa via Manoomantero tumblr)

The Sound Of Twigs Snapping Underneath Such Beautiful Shoes

Just out of the shower at 6pm, with a 9pm curtain call of sorts. It feels good- like mint upon one's body. To have wet, combed hair in the coolness of the evening, and be able to see the day's sun setting through my bedroom window.

I feel clean. Washed of the recent dust bunnies that have been developing in the corners of my mind.

I know, I know. It's a gross image.  But you know what I'm talking about.

Tonight will be Spanish and English and ASL and good company and art and darkness.

How could one ever go wrong with that?

be well; be loved,

k.

PS I've been listening to Avec le Soleil Sortant de sa Bouche's Super pastiche fantastique (members of Fly Pan Am) last night/today at the recommendation of a lad whose music tastes I trust/enjoy. Listen along.


(image: via 40 media tumblr)

Examining Light

This morning I woke up and everything felt like Christmas. (In the good way.)

One thing I've realized is that, when one slight part of my life doesn't feel right, while I'm considering it/thinking it over, things feel focused on in a way that is a disservice to the rest of my life.  So, imagine that you are looking at a huge painting.  When there is something I feel unsure about, and need to double check, it is as if I am focusing on one tiny part of the painting for a few days, and can't see much of anything else.

Once I figure out what I need to do, or how to re-position it, and do it, it is as if everything opens up to me, again. The entire painting lights up and begins like a carousel, again, with everything moving in tandem and complement with each other. Life opens up.  And what I see is incredible.

[The conversation about creativity with B. The dinner made of all of my favorite foods that was made for me last night. The banter with C about repression in the fashion industry. Pondering remnants of last week's discussions of advocacy/disability/family with W. The book I just finished. The excitement coursing through me about today, and this week.]

I love the loves in my life who look at things differently- fashion, academia, art, food, gender, love, loving, politics, the world, economics, sharing, learning-  all of the time, and who I learn from.


-k.
(image: Chung King Express, 1994, Wong Kar. Via waitemoss tumblr)

Vision and Beauty

Last night was incredible, peaceful, and perfect.  I woke up with my body wrapped in thick ribbons of silver, white, and a gunmetal blueish gray.  How I was wrapped was beautiful and slow and adoring.
A slow cocooning of beauty around me by the most gentle of hands. Healing. Gorgeous. New. Timeless.

(pause)

I've been reading Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination by Robin D. G. Kelley, again. Reading about the power and importance of the imagination on both individual and social movement levels.  The importance of being able to imagine and look for the future while in the present.

A friend of mine recently posted a memorial/celebration of life post having to do with Grace Lee Boggs who recently passed. My friend who had had the opportunity to be in a series of conversations with her wrote "She told us that she fights for justice with her grandmother in mind, not because she was political woman, but because its important to remember time a hundred years back and a hundred years forward."

I keep thinking of this.

And, in thinking of it, it brought me back to Freedom Dreams because of how closely it relates to what it is about. (It, of course, is no surprise that Kelley mentions Boggs in his book.)

Anyway, what I'm thinking about this morning were some things Kelley wrote about imagination and future vision, and of poetry and poet philosophers and the part they play in creating the imagination that is needed.   Here are three excerpts:

""What presides over the poem" [Aimé Césaire] writes, "is not the most lucid intelligence, the sharpest sensibility or the subtlest feelings, but experience as a whole." This means every thing, every history, every future, every dream, every life form from plant to animal, every creative impulse -plumbed from the depths of the unconscious. Poetry, therefore, is not what we simply recognize as the formal "poem", but a revolt: a scream in the night, an emancipation of language and old ways of thinking."

"In the poetics of struggle and lived experience, in the utterances of ordinary folk, in the cultural products of social movements, in the reflections of activists, we discover the many different cognitive maps of the future, of the world not yet born."

"For Toure [poet Askia Muhammad Toure], the "movement" was more than sit-ins at luch counters, voter registration campaigns, and freedom rides; it was about self-transformation, changing the way we think, live, love, and handle pain."




be well, be loved, be thinking forwards and backwards all at once, and together.

-k.

(image: from the editorial photos from the short film Slumflower)

What Do You Have, There?

It's been a weird day.

Lots of needles poking at me for blood draws of various seasonal tests.

Medical settings always make me feel small.  Not "bad", just, size wise, smaller than I actually am.  I always feel like a little pea sitting there on that crinkling thin paper on the exam table. 

At least my favorite blood draw guy was working.  He knows how to work a needle so that it feels like butter. It's those children's butterfly needles, I'm telling you.  He knows what to use.

k.



Read about the short film Slumflower based on a short story by Street Etiquette, who I am always admiring.  Then, if you need 20 minutes of beauty, watch it here.

Rules of Engagement

I wish I could tell you how this works.

I can't.

Last night was spent exactly how I wanted to spend it. 

Such a rare and perfect feeling.

There are times, when you are standing, that I prefer you to kneel.  But you know this. And you respond. Pressing dirt into the knees of your jeans, sometimes soaking right through to your kneecaps when the weather has been just right. That surprise wet that kisses each knee gradually, or all at once. It is your own reward, you once told me.

Sometimes you can feel your heartbeat throb through the entirety of your body when you are like this.  You can taste pennies in your mouth. It, too, is your own reward, you once told me.

It amazes me, the depths you will go.

I remember once, you falling down upon your knees, placing forehead down upon a study desk, staring at the industrial carpet. You weren't certain if anyone was in the building, but you wanted to show me that you didn't care.  You started rubbing yourself through your pants, knowing that you were not to raise your head to look around to see if anyone was there. You heard a door slam, but kept your eyes on the floor and did not stop or look up. You could hear someone, and put your faith in the thought that it was me, watching you, from far above on the second floor of the library.

Do you remember that?

The echo of heels descended on the cement staircase joining the floors of the library.

Had I come to meet you as I said I would? Or had I decided to ignore you simply for the fun of it.  The steps came closer, muffled but coming closer now on the thin carpeted floor.  You kept your head down, eyes on the floor, and continued to fuck yourself.

Would it be me, or was it someone coming to deal with your raw and spread indecency?



-k.

(image: her liquid arms tumblr)

Tailored Comfort

It's raining outside. Pouring.

This afternoon is one of those rare, deep-warm pockets of time where I have gotten off of work early, and come directly home.  While I listen to the busses and cars go by- the running steps of people trapped in the rain- I am here: in slippers and thin pajama pants; a sweatshirt and hair tied and piled atop my head.  There is water about to boil for tea.  I'm thinking something with cinnamon and orange and spice.

My lower back hurts a bit, but my lips are in a slight, continuous smile.  It's so good to be home.

(The whistle of the kettle. A moment, please.)

The steam from my mug a foot away is exactly what is needed. The smell of the leaves and the spices and the heat surrounding me.

The past many months- since January to be more or less exact- I have been working towards some things that will make me happy.  Things that will continue to give me a feeling of accomplishment. Not in the superficial, typical ways that are pumped out and around in the world- but in a way that matters. To me, to those around me, and,  in whatever small way- to you.

It feels right. It feels strange. It feels like exactly the right time for it to happen.

I hope you're well out there. I hope you have an afternoon like this one some day soon, when luck arrives on your side dressed exactly as you need her to be.



be well; be loved,


k.

(image: via n01re tumblr)

Upon My Arrival, You Shiver: Heat and Cold and Excitement.

Low light in the living room, with one candle burning to supplement it.  The constant gurgle and hum of the aquarium in the corner.

Tonight we made soup, broke bread, wrapped blankets around ourselves, watched brief black and white episodes of directorial perfection.

I am here alone, now.

These nights feel good. Worked for. Earned.

(pause)

In the back of my mind, on the tip of the light point in my mouth just behind my front teeth - the alveolar ridge- where my tongue taps and touches to create sound and meaning and differentiation. These secret, dark places.  This is where you live. Ever present. Ever tempting. Ever lasting.

Frigid. Frantic. Fasting.


(image: Red Party- Virginie Bocaert. via Witches' Sabbath tumblr)

Star Witness and the Beauty of the Fall

Sweaters and hot liquid; cashmere and heels. 

This weather gets me.

I've been all over the place in my mind as of late.

Flashes of the night we dragged my mattress out onto my balcony so that we could sleep under the stars. It started to mist rain and, as we spooned and pressed and inhaled the night air, you behind me, you took your cock out and slid it inside me. I pushed back onto you and we fucked frantically for the first time and the stars saw every bit of it.


k.

(image: is not mine. it's from tumblr, though i can't recall from where. i know. i am awful.)

The Delicate Flowers That Fall From Your Lips As You Run

Let's sit down, shall we?

I am warming up to write these cold months.  The season of hypergraphia is upon us.  It is just beginning to open its fingers to me. 

This season comes again, and, with it, comes Marías:

Confronted by that feeling of being examined, however, we all instinctively feel a need to pass, simply because it's a challenge, and still more if the person assessing and judging us is someone we admire. 

I understand why you shy from me. Why your face flushes, your heart beats faster. Why you care too much what I think. 


(pause)

In other news: this weekend I assisted a friend of many, many years in finding a gown for her birthday.  It is gorgeous.  Metallic. Gold and copper and silver and black, all in one. I stood outside of the dressing room and ran back and forth with different bras, slips, corsets.  She will be beautiful on the night of her party.  She is always beautiful.  

I'm proud of her.  

I've watched her start to celebrate her own fabulousness over the past few years.  I've watched her shed a fear of all things feminine. Both always feel so incredible to see.



I've also watched her become supportive of unions, which matters.  

Sometimes people aren't so much "anti-union" as they just didn't grow up with them. They weren't around them, and so think : why would you take more money out of your pay check to be a part of one? And by not having been around unions growing up, they just didn't understand them, necessarily. 

Strangely, and not so strangely, it's the people who grew up with unions around them who understand this, I think.  

Not exclusively, but largely. 

I think sometimes it's the people who grew up with unions who understand that that knowledge, that information, is passed on through families or neighborhoods or trades or jobs or is simply a part of the culture or the local history that surrounds them.  Who understand that it's best to explain because of course it makes sense for there to be working people who are disconnected from labor history. Or from union history.  All of that history: the good and the bad; the solidarity and the total racism. All of it. Because it's all important, really.  The dirty deals. The just causes. All of it. Dismissing a person who isn't outspokenly pro-union isn't the best strategy because, well, what if the person just doesn't know?  Ideally, isn't that what organizing is? Talking with people? Listening. Answering. Questioning. Talking with.

And if the person knows- if the person has time to ask questions and learn more about it - that they may end up being a supporter, after all. A leader, even. 


In any case, this isn't about some idealist concept of unions.  Just something I'm thinking about in relation to my friend.

I'm proud of her. 

Her strength, her convictions, and her washing away of the fear of lipgloss.

Somehow it feels fitting that her gown will be metallic this year:  Strength and beauty, all in one. 



be well; be loved,

k.

Meet Me in the Stacks One Last Time

My friend Dennis once interviewed me about suicide.  He was doing a zine about suicide attempts: If people had ever tried to commit suicide and, if they had survived and/or decided not to attempt it or attempt it again, why that had decided not to. 

It was probably one of the most intimate conversations I have ever had in my life.

There we were, two twenty something punks, sitting on a rooftop in the Midwest, eating a plate full of broccoli and fried tofu covered in a steaming garlic peanut sauce, discussing our relationship to suicide.

I’ll never forget that conversation. 

I barely knew him, and it was our first time hanging out. 

Leave it to the punk kids to decide that this was the appropriate notion for a first hang out. 

The trees hung heavy and green all around us up there on the rooftop: a confessional tree house to keep our secrets that afternoon. To keep our stories.

(pause)

That same year, I met Travis- a punk from the South who was a librarian, wrote zines, was in bands, and was generally all that I aspired to be in the realm of the adult world.  He and I started writing letters. Became pen pals long after “pen pals” were obsolete.  The intimacy of letters: we would write out and share all that we thought and dreamed and wondered and created.  He would stay with me in the various houses in the various states I lived in over the years.  I would randomly show up in his library in Florida, sometimes, and there he would be, behind the reference desk. We would walk around the streets of Gainesville talking about needs and wants and dreams. About life.

The last photograph taken of Travis while he was in my city was a Polaroid, taken just a while ago, long after Polaroids, too, were obsolete. Travis and a group of other beautiful hearts had stayed with me. I left early in the morning for work, and left them all a note to read on their trip to the next town of their various destinations.  They took a photograph of themselves to leave with a thank you.  All of them crammed in and smiling to fit within the small white square of the Polaroid’s borders. 

It was sitting on the wood table close to the large window in my living room when I came home; my spare apartment key had been slid under the door after they left.

(pause)

Sometimes, people say that if you are feeling sad, to just hold on for one more day and things will feel different.  Or eat some protein. Or do ten jumping jacks. Or take a bath.  Breathe deep. Meditate. Everyone has their sworn-by remedies. 

For me, I turn to the library. 

People who work in libraries have a particular experience that is different from those who use them, or from people who have no interest or relationship to libraries.  I have written about this before, and I am certain that I will write about it again.  Any time I find myself lacking faith, lacking belief, lacking knowledge, or just feeling a general lack of anything- I turn to the library. 

In depression, I lose myself in the ideas and words of others- to search for anything to change my mind.  Change my perspective.  A million perspectives, a million tales, a million realities, a million histories- all to change, or at least distract.  

(pause)

Travis killed himself almost three weeks ago, now.  

One of the hardest things was going into my library after I found out.  It was a reminder that the library had failed him, somehow. That he couldn’t find something to help. Maybe he hadn’t tried. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to.

I keep thinking of what and how the library failed him.

It’s an unsettling feeling to feel such a connection to someone- a writer, a punk, a librarian- and to know that the answer, for him, was to end his life:

What does it mean when someone you look up to commits suicide?

(pause)

I quoted him in a post back in 2009.  I’ll leave you all with that same quote.  Somehow, today, it takes on a different meaning.  A different depth.

Rest in peace, old friend. May you be among all of your favorite books you ever read, and among all of those you hadn’t had time to read.

"In the meantime, let's act like what we do matters".      

Be well; be loved,

k. 

(photo credit: Birds / Jack Barnosky via Gacougnol Tumblr)

Necessary Rings of Hell

Things feel irresistibly and measuredly new.


The worked-for type of new.


The kind that makes you feel comfortable and proud all at once.


Muscles that ache feel triumphant in their throbbing.

(pause)


This weekend there were unfoldings that were both unexpected and relieving.

It is a profound feeling to feel not just not alone, but connected in an undeniable way.

Blood is thicker than water may be bullshit in a lot of contexts, but in some, it proves to be slyly undeniable.


(pause)

My jawline is defining itself these days.  A rounding of the face has been squaring off to show diligence or gender.

As with everything, the answers emerge from the shadows.  Contours and new directions are no exception.


Be well, be loved, be evocative in the shadows you play within and create.


-k.

(image via neveriaa tumblr)

Slipping Masks and Thirst of Tasks: Tales of Summertime

There's a type of lipstick that I wear from time to time that feels thick in a good way. My lips are already full, and, when I wear this particular lipstick, my lips feel borderline obscene.

I'm okay with that.

Today is one of those days that I don it.

(pause)

I've started reading The Phantom of the Opera.

In high school, every long haired theater boy (the few straight ones- the ones with long hair, scabs on their elbows, and the perpetual but faint shadow of a mustache) wore a Phantom of the Opera shirt. Admittedly and regrettably, this may have been why I avoided having anything to do with it.

Recently, however, I have been doing research into various types of masks and their histories.  Not surprisingly, the famous mask of Erik from Phantom keeps coming up. 

Three chapters into it, I can't believe I waited so long to read it. Ballet, a ghost, a theater, a mystery, and notes written in an almost indecipherable scrawl of red ink:  All of the elements necessary for me to fall in love. 

Some of the descriptions leave me faint but excited in their detail.  One young ballerina is described as having a tip-tilted nose. Incredible. The allure of all the happens behind the theater curtain prevails:

Raoul had to stop before the inrush of the little troop of ballet-girls who blocked the passage which he was trying to enter.  More than one chaffing phrase darted from little made-up lips, to which he did not reply...


Yes, please. 

It may be summertime,  but even nights lined with abandoned iced tea glasses and their wilted lemons are due their fair share of French haute hauntings and dramatic divas.

Be well; be loved,






k.

(image: Hollis Johnson via untrustyou tumblr)

Dancing Upon the Lips of the Awe-Stuck, or, How to Play Upon an Open Mouth

The evenings have been jeweled as of late.  Wide, see-through-blue skies looming over the petals of royal purple, delicate pinks, blossoming whites.  Such an alluring perfume that spreads just as the evening unfurls into night.

There has been a strange sorcery as of late.  Conjuring up the jawlines and perfectly scarred hands of those I miss, in the flesh. Something with this global warming nightmare has given us a second spring.  The messages that are slipped between (and among) us leaves the tips of my neurons peaked. Such a delicious depth beyond the usual curiosity.

Take in the expanse of these evening skies. Let their wide-spread and rubied hands lure you into the dark of night. Surely you will catch the glints of the diamonds scattered across that velvet as you descend.

By the time you hit whatever ground there is
if there is
the iron taste in your mouth will tell you
that it was all

worth it.



-k.

(image: Archie Savage, 1942, photographed by Carl Van Vechten)

Cloak(s) and Dagger(s)

I've been reading the words of Colette today, Earthly Paradise. A treat handed to me by the most favored of hands, these days. I am preparing for the next week, which will include the shadowed and curled arm of the forest, water, light, dirt, books, eight wonderful creatures, and time. 

[Admittedly, I've made believable excuses as to where I will be to some. "A cabin." "Some friends." Things of this nature. For now, I need only to focus on what lies ahead, as opposed to describing and explaining something that hasn't occurred yet.  For me, somehow, it risks the syringing of magic from its veins.  No. No, indeed. Stories are better told afterwards, after all, are they not?]

I am sprawled upon my bedroom floor, at present.  There is the vibration of a jackhammer plummeting away outside in my hip bones through the floor. Construction and destruction is everywhere these days. How pleasant it is to feel the movements of building in such a tangible, savorable way. The body as a frame to absorb.

For now:  Lips glossed. Hair brushed and surrounding my shoulders. The scent of a perfumed oil hints that a stranger has slipped into the room behind me. One can only hope.

Here is to the depth of the scent of what's to come.

It's time to go, now. The quickening of my pulse is the only timepiece necessary.

k.

(image: via Vaspour Tumblr)

For the Love of the Day: A Brief Update

A few months back, late March I would say, something happened that changed my life in such a positive way that I'm not sure I can fully explain it.

I've been trying to rearrange and find the words for it, but I can't quite yet. Only one person, the person I see almost every day, knows for now.

In any case, just know that- in general- everything is good. 

That I'm waking up, much like today, with excitement in my veins and a smile in my heart that is, well, visceral.

More soon.

k.

He Can't Keep His Wild Eyes On the Road: Springtime Ettiquette and DIY Spreader Bars

I've been wearing corsets, recently. The only kind I tend to wear: Steel boned and secret ones.  The kind I put on under t-shirts simply because I like the way they feel.

Tight and slightly uncomfortable; reassuring in their compression.

It is well past Spring, although it is just getting warm here.

You can feel the tension in the air. Hold it in your hands, and between your legs.  Strangers, usually timid, are more brazen these days. They will blurt out that they like your mouth, or will slip you their card with eager fingers and an expression that lets you know such a gesture goes against their usual motions.

It's an intriguing time of year.

It always is.

Such a collective dropping of masks and restraint.

Always slightly out of step it is no wonder that I find myself basking in the hidden fist of a corset these days.

I've never been one to let the weather dictate my reserve, I suppose.

It is only fitting that as the world blooms,

I am perfecting the art of swiveling up into a bud, once again.



k.  

(image Masquerade Ball Shadow Silhouette Venice Carnival via Doctor escozor tumblr)
(the title, of course, had to have a splice up of a Taylor Swift lyric.)

Two Can Play at This Game But Only One, Of Course, Shall Win.

Last night, at quarter after midnight, a large, tattooed man began pounding on my door with such violent punctuation that the entire frame shook.

I should say that I do not know this man.

I've never met him.

But I know that he owns the kind of truck one would need a stepladder to get into.  It is black with tinted windows and is the kind of truck that is always spotless and shining.  The first time I saw it, I criticized myself for thinking "That looks like a  douchebag's truck" - although I admit it was more in critique of the mixed feelings I've always had about the term 'douchebag', and less about the stereotyping of this particular type of truck's owners.

The door frame was moving in and out and in again in rhythm with every pound of the door.  I'm not stupid, I remember thinking,  I'm not going to unlock the fucking door.

The thing about these moments, when you are caught at such a late hour in a t-shirt and panties lit only by the flickering of the image of the program you are watching, is that the abruptness of the first pound on the door is that much more unnerving.  Much more vulnerable than if you were clothed, on the street, in broad daylight and saw it coming.  In moments like these,  you get a taste of iron in your mouth in anticipation of the blood that will fill it after you are punched in the face by an angry stranger.  Your heart drops straight to your asshole and burns there while you formulate a plan to get away.

I should say that what he was about to yell at me about, or rather, the problem that he had with me, was valid. 

It is valid. 

I'm still not going to unlock the door.

Quick thinking in moments like these, while your body refuses to move is a bit difficult, but you manage.  Until one day, you don't.  Fortunate for me, yesterday wasn't the day that I didn't manage.

The person who opened the door to stop the pounding was not me.

The person who opened the door was smart enough to hold the door at an angle that would give the impression of open-but-guarded-because-it-is, afterall-after-midnight, but also cut his field of vision off from seeing me, there, planning.

Even with my heart pounding, I felt fleetingly victorious that I, physically, did not have to hide:  I lay there on the couch.  And while I pressed back into the couch with my spine, I also lifted my chin into the air to prove, to myself, that I was not hiding.

He may find me soon, but by then he will be too late.


k.  

Thee Eternal

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Wishes On the Wall: A Passing (of Time)

It's night time.

I just parked next to a semi truck in the far reaches of a parking lot of a motel just outside of my hometown and, as I'm walking up the slightly rotton wood staircase that leads to the second and only other floor, I am carrying a bundle of photographs of my dead friend.


(pause)

Eddie's hands. The cuts and callouses all over them. The sunburnt face. The momentary blush of shame of not knowing "the right word for" what he was trying to express. You know the exact fucking words for what you want to express. The rip in his boots that exposes the dirty padding of it. The lull a few years back in construction, and how it meant that he would be the one to care for her when James needed to work and her kids needed to get to school.

(pause)

I met up with my recently-dead friend's brother in a motel.

There were two beds. There were five lights. There were the floral, slippery, nylon-type comforters found in such motels covering the beds. We sat on the beds like chairs, and faced each other.  There wasn't enough room to sit down like you're supposed to.

He went through photographs of her, still wet and sticking together from when the firemen had come in to drench his burning room. (How is it that things like this happen so closely together?  Your family's small house begins to burn down and, a week later, your sister is dead.)  He told me the story of each of them.  Paused only to peel them apart from each other.

(pause)

Later that night, I dropped him off at the long term temporary colonial-style apartment complex that his family is staying in while workers repair their burnt up house. It was dark in the lot of complexes. Dirty miniatures of The White House all lined up in a row.

It was watching Eddie fumble for his keys in the dim light outside of this unfamiliar waiting home that it finally hit.

Something about imagining his mother, forever reading romance-novels from behind her seventies, half-tinted glasses sitting on the couch behind the door of this temporary home.

Something about imagining his father, his short temper and stocky self- always in dress pants (unstained, but not pressed) for the reason that every man of his class wore them.  Proving something. Hiding something. Habit. Some men will never have hair past a close cut, and it will never be about style as much about an evasion of judgement.  But that, too, will be hidden. In language of diligence, and of jobs.

(pause)

Let me tell you about how my bones shift when I am home.

Let me tell you how the things I have hidden in the past ten years come to bare themselves when I hear the familiar angles of the local pronunciations; when I see the things I try and hide and want nothing more

than to covet them.



--k.

(Title is a slight reference to the snippet of a lyric from Wish Fulfillment, by Sonic Youth. Listen to it if you can. It sets the feeling for this post, or, has at least informed it. Listen, here: It's my favorite shot of you: You look so pretty - your eyes were true )
(image: Frida J via Untrustyou Tumblr)