Peak a boo

Hello out there. Testing testing, is this thing on?
It has been a while since I've written here.
I promise that I am still alive, still working on music, still breathing and all. I've still got ten fingers and ten toes and an overabundance of love for bacon despite the hysteria over a little flu. Swine flu? really? Is this what it's come to? It's just a different strain of the blu people. It's not the end of the world. It's not ebola.

I'd much rather read headlines about pirates. I know that it's tragic and all, but I kept looking at cnn's website and seeing headline about pirates. I let out a little arrg in my head. I pictured men with patches over their eyes and scarves on their heads, brandishing swords and swinging in on ropes to kidnap unsuspecting passengers.
The word pirate makes me smile. I'm not totally sure why. It doesn't even have to be proceeded by the word butt to make me do it.

There has been much going on with my family. It has really taken its toll on me. One bright spot of light that peaked through the clouds was my sister who came to visit us in New York. She is 4 months pregnant, expecting a boy, so needless to say her visit focused around food and her desire to eat it. I have no complaints on that front.

this is all for now...peak a boo. I'll be back with you soon

back from the dead

Photo by the ridiculously talented Carrie Thomas

I feel like I have risen from some sort of zombie state. There has been a lot going on that has weighed me down and put my in a place where I feel sort of vacant and disconnected from reality.

I didn't go home for Christmas this year, partially as a protest. If my parents didn't want both me and my boyfriend then they could have Christmas without me. I don't know how my decision would have been made had I realized that this would be the last family Christmas in the way that I have known them for so long.

My parents now live in separate houses. One would think that this would be a traumatic situation for an 8 year old and more easily handled by an adult, but it doesn't seem that way to me.

I spoke recently with the extremely talented Carrie Thomas, and she told me that she felt sorry for the children who thought their families were normal and then realized later that it had all been an illusion. She, having accepted that her family might not be up to par at a young age, felt it to be a softer blow.

I have never really had illusions that my family was perfect, but I guess I didn't really understand how fractured it was. My mother shielded me from a lot. She acted as a sort of ambassador for my father. He could not tell me that he loved me, so she would tell me that he did. She would tell me that he was proud of me. She balanced him in this amazing way.

My father is in a wheelchair. My mother is in a house by herself. There is so much pain, so much loss.

I cannot focus on this. Though I am doing my best to be supportive, I cannot let this swallow me. I have enough problems already with CNN telling me that the world is collapsing into sub-prime rubble. I can quite easily created my own private apocalypse without the help of others.

I choose however at this point in my life to watch the flowers bloom from the ashes, for the grass to grow where the mine fields once marred the landscape.

I believe in positive thinking to some extent. Perhaps I have forgotten to practice what I preach at times, but I do know this... There is so much beauty in this world, so much hope. I am surrounded by amazing people who I am blessed to have in this world. I have to choose every day when I wake up whether I want to focus on the dark underside of the clouds or the rays of sun shining through the breaks in them.

Yes, feel free to put me before a firing squad and shoot me for being guilty of cheesiness. I bare my chest for you.

Oscars, chili, rambling

Last night K and I made chili and watched the Oscars. I thought Hugh Jackman did an excellent job, especially on the dancing/singing numbers.

I was thrilled that Sean Penn won the best actor award for Milk. He definitely deserved to be recognized for the great job he did.

I sense that someone is mad at me, that something has happened, but I don't yet have confirmation. It's just one of those gut feelings where things seem to not match up quite like they should.

I've been very wrapped up in a great deal of stress with my family, much of it is completely out of my control, which just gives me this overwhelming sense of helplessness.

I feel optimistic today, like it is the first day of the rest of my life and that I can just put one foot in front of the other and gain much needed momentum that at times it feels like I've lost. I guess I just feel bogged down or as Kate Bush Would say, "Suddenly my feet are feet of mud. It all goes slow-mo. I don't know why I'm crying. Am I suspended in gaffa?"

I need the soundtrack in my head to switch to Robert Smith singing Doing the Unstuck. It is time for that shift in my perspective.

A Picture w/ Some Words is Worth 1,000 Words

I have a softspot for old lesbian pulp novels, educational films(especially sex ed) from the 1950's and a plethera of other odd objects from the past.
There has been so much going on lately that I don't know where to start, though I suppose the best place would be with an apology for neglecting my duties here at the Rant. As many of you may have noticed, Chester Devonshire's image and name never left the blog after he was so suddenly fired due to the economic downturn. After a week, without Chester, I found myself sinking into a slow paralyzing depression. I found myself down on my hands and knees begging Chester to come back. Some of you will be very pleased to know that he has accepted on the condition that his return was to begin after a 4 week vacation to the Virgin Islands.

It is cold in New York, that kind of cold that seeps through your skin and into your bones, making your fingers red and numb, your skin cracked, your toes pulsating with tinges of pain.

K went away to Canada for a week. During his absence aspects of my life began to fall apart, completely unrelated to him, but rather connected to my family. Many hidden thing came forth and my parents separated.

My father was in another car accident, totaling his truck on the way back from a therapy session. He was unconcious when they found him. I'm not sure what happened. The details still seem to not add up. He is in the hospital with a broken sternum, some bleeding in his brain that seems to be headling and an extremely broken leg.

Despite being in a whirwind of stress that has bounced me around from crying to hysterically laughing, I decided to stop smoking cigarettes. I have only been smoking for a couple of months. I wave goodbye to nicotine and spend long stretches without it in my system and then suddenly welcome it back like an old friend only to say goodbye again. I have felt a bit tense the last couple of days, but I am breathing deeper and smelling more, some of which I wish I weren't smelling.

I am feeling very rundown from everything. I don't fully know how to process all events and emotions. I have fear of things to come. Life goes on, but it changes so often in unexpected ways.

My Father:Update

I thought it strange that my father was released from the hospital so soon after fracturing a vertebrae in his spine and I guess so did the neurosurgeon who said that he should have been lifewatched by helicopter on Friday.

On Tuesday he was readmitted to the hospital and last night at 7pm, he was taken into surgery to repair the damage.

A huge thank you to all of you for your thoughts and prayers. His surgery went well and my father is recovering. This has been a week of emotional ups and downs for me, and I am very thankful that my father is alive and relatively well given the circumstances.

My Father

My father was in a car accident on Friday. After swerving to avoid hitting a deer, he crashed the car off a 15 foot bridge into 5 feet of icy water. He managed to pull himself out of the car, climb a hill and reach the highway at the same time that a friend was driving by. One ear is very badly injured and he fractured a vertebrae in his neck. He goes to see a neurosurgeon on Tuesday. Despite major head trauma, swelling,etc, it is pretty much a miracle that he is alive and was able to go home from the hospital yesterday. I was able to speak with him today on the phone and he was in good spirits despite being in a lot of pain and in a brace from chin to chest which leaves him very immobile.

I ask please that you keep my father and his recovery in your thoughts and prayers.

Thank you so much

Robert

Nov. 4th

Today I find myself in an odd state. I am tired beyond words.
Je suis trop fatigué pour les mots. I will start with a confession, something that I generally keep very quiet because it enrages some people and starts long drawn out conversations with no resolution, conversations for which I have distaste and which I have already had before.

Before this week, I have never voted.
I know it is my right, my civic duty, but honestly I have always felt and still to a great degree believe that the system is broken. If we didn't learn this in the 2000 election, then learning anything may be a hopeless cause. The electoral college is a system set up by rich white men who wanted a safeguard should the results of the election not meet their liking...regardless I've had this conversation before. I will not go into the details of my reasons for protesting a very non-democratic system for many years.

I am tired beyond words because I was restless on Monday night. I felt so tense. I stopped in the middle of the street in soho to call K. A homeless man standing 10 feet away began ranting in my direction about how white people are going to be exterminated from this planet like the disease that they are. I pretended I did not hear him, and walked away. I couldn't fall asleep that night. I think I fell asleep around midnight or 1am. I got up at 5:30 in the morning on Tuesday. Mind you, I am not a morning person. I seem to see everything in double vision until the clock strikes noon and two cups of coffee have churned away in my empty stomach threatening to bring a future self-induced problem with acid reflux. I'm sure there's a drug for that, a purple or blue or pink pill. There's a pill for everything.

You are probably wondering why I was up at 5:30 or maybe you're clever and know the answer. It's all the rage and all the buzz. Black is the new white. As a person who happens to be gay in a predominantly carribean neighborhood, I find that the word minority has a special meaning. It's all about where you are standing. Plop me on the upper east side and I'm an economic minority. Plop me in a sports bar and I'm a "social" minority. Plop me in any church and I'm a religious minorty. I am a card carrying member of a native tribe. I look white as a sheet but don't let it fool you. Plop me on an indian reservation and I am an ethnic minority even though I share bloodlines with the people. Plop me in a "whitebread" town and I have a supressed desire to put on war paint, do a rain dance, scalp my enemy...no I kid and scalping can be traced to Mexicans. It is not a tradition of native culture. Push anyone far enough though and you better hold onto your hair.

At 6 in the morning I found myself in a line of people that wrapped around the block. Beaming smiles were painted on their faces. There was a sense of excitement, an energy that was palpable and electric. Parents with children took pictures with cellphone cameras. Most of the crowd were caribean americans/african americans, speckles of white like myself, all of us knowing that we were voting for the first black president, a pretty big deal. Though, honestly I don't think of Obama as black. He's half white, raised by a white woman in Hawaii. Much of being black in america is cultural. It is a shared experience that goes back to africa, crowded unsanitary boats, whips, chains, songs ripped from the soul, marching, death, rebirth, collared greens, the art of intriquite hair braiding, and the beating of a distant drum that you can hear if you listen hard enough. people kept coming, the line kept growing and growing. after an hour I was still in line, now double in size, almost triple. As I got closer, I began to get more and more excited, my heart beating like a hammer against my chest.

There was a woman who voted right before me. She had to be 80. She had a man holding her up on one side and a cane on the other side. She was glowing, an old african american woman who was voting in an historic election.

When it came to my turn, I stood in front of a closed curtain. Apparently the curtains are supposed to open, but mine was broken. There were no instructions or anything. I looked at the woman who was a volunteer in the process and said.

"What do I do?"

A girl behind me laughed. The woman smiled and told me to pull the lever, vote and then pull the lever back the other way...not the most eloquent or detailed of instructions but enough to get me where I needed to go.

When I pulled that lever, I felt like I had pulled down on a slot machine that was spitting out gold. It was like an electoral orgasm. My whole body tingled with power and satisfaction...uh huh. god it felt so good. I voted for the skinny man with the floppy ears and ooh did it ever feel like big ol' slice of pecan pie with whipped creme and sprinkles. mmmmm hmmm.

That evening K and I were sipping wine from a cheap bottle that tasted a little better than cheap, watching the results. When they called the election for Obama, we both started chearing and clapping. We heard yelling, clapping chearing in other apartments, people in the halls yelling OBAMA! We grabbed egg shakers and our Obama sign and took to the streets. People flooded the sidewalks and the streets, holding signs, banners, wearing t-shirts and buttons...hooting hollaring. Screaming. Cars slowed down honking, people hanging out the side, people drumming, dancing, playing music out their windows. We went to the bar right around the corner and the bartender who is our neighbor began pouring shots and handing them to everyone. We all raised our glasses together, cheering.

I mistakenly called my family. They are a group of conservative christian McCain supporters. I sometimes forget the pervasiveness of lies in negative campaigning and how they can seep into people's heads. I cannot repeat some of what came out of the mouths of my family members most noteably my sister. It absolutely horrifies me. Racist things, idiotic, crazy things. between coming down from this great historic victory and grappling with the evil discriminatory propositions that were passed in California, Florida, Arizona and Arkansas, I have found myself in a place of one who has had a sugar rush, bouncing off the walls and now everything has crashed a bit.

Last night, I went to visit my friend Beverly. Last week I was supposed to help her set up her cellphone. When I arrived at her building she was in the lobby holding a towel covered in blood, blood gushing out of her mouth, choking on her own blood. I had her doorman get in touch with her son. I rode in an ambulance with her to St. Vincent's hospital, truly the waiting room to purgatory. They managed to stop her bleeding and cauterized a broken blood vessel in her nose. Her son arrived and it was odd to look at him. He looked so much like his father, Norman Mailer, a notable writer who died earlier this year. Beverly had been involved in a love affair with jazz musician Miles Davis, but left him for Norman, became his 2nd wife and gave him two sons. She was a model on the price is right many many years ago and has acted in multipe movies, plays and commercials. She is full of so many stories. There are tales of spain and Hemmingway and of a New York that isn't here anymore. She is a special woman with a touch of southern charm and a dash of crazy...two elements I have as well.

Beverly seemed to be on the mend but still recovering. I helped her put some numbers into her new cellphone and show her how it works. I rushed from Beverly's to Mr. Dennehy's for the Leonard Cohen tribute night. K was waiting there for me. On my way I got into a heated discussion with my mother over the election. She preached doom and gloom, the coming apocolypse, her misguided view that Obama is a socialist and things bordering on racist....actually not bordering...truly racist. I became disgusted, angry. I said something with proceeded by the word *Fucking* and hung up on my mother. Oh my god. I hung up on my mother. She called back. I didn't answer. She called back. I didn't answer. She left a voicemail.

I called her back to explain that I was upset and horrified by what was coming out of her mouth. She apologized. I suggested reinstating our moratoreum on political discussions. She said it was not necessary. I love my mother deeply, but I am still horrified at the inherent racism of my family.

As a child the dreaded "N word" was used in our house. I had to train my parents, to tell them that it was offensive and not acceptable to me. The word disappeared, but I guess it is hard for some people to shake their surroundings. I carry the mud of radical christain hate which has been smeared on me like some coat of paint that might make me right. I don't know if it will ever wash off.

My parents have come a long way. I know they love me, but they think I am misguided and living in sin. They don't speak it, but I know it is there. I said that I wanted to spend christmas with K.. Instead of inviting him my mother made up a lame excuse about how there is not enough room in their house, of course meaning that K and I would have to sleep in the same bed, a horrible sin in the eyes of god for them. A part of me wants to cut ties with my family at times. It goes in waves. They love me. I love them. That's good and all, but they do not fully accept me for who I am. At times, it makes me feel like they are ashamed of me or embarrased of me.

It has been 12 years since my parents found out that I am gay. I knew long before that. I made out with my first boy in the 3rd grade. It felt innocent and natural. I hadn't learned yet that to some people I was stepping down the slippery slope to a heathen lifestyle. I live in a country which claims to be free yet has the highest per capita population of people incarcerated of any industrialized nation, a place where I cannot marry the man I love and have equal protection under the law. This election was an amazing powerful thing. I do think that people want change and that there is a renewed sense of hope in a new direction, but this nation is by no means free or equal. Gay people are second class citizens who are tollerated. There are not seperate water fountains or seperate seats on the bus, but we are not equal. Until every man and woman in this country has equal rights. This nation is not free. There is not freedom for all in my america. I hope that is the next thing to change.

9 to 5

Something rather alarming happened over the weekend. For many this wouldn't seem alarming, but for me, well, it's a different story. We ran out of beans in the cupboard. I being a crazy stockpiler of canned goods and former grocery store employee, maintain my cupboard like a grocery shelf. As soon as I buy a can of beans, it goes behind the previous cans so that the oldest can is at the front and will be grabbed first. This is something we called "Rotating Shelves" in my previous life.

Being aware of shelf rotation when shopping, I pull cans off the shelf and buy the cans at the back knowing that they are the freshest. I do the same with milk and almost everything I buy, digging until I find the items with the latest expiration dates.
These neurotic behaviors most specifically the stockpiling have been brought into question in the past. With slightly raised eyebrow and subtle smiles, my boyfriend looks at me with that adoring look given only to one capable of coupling with someone as neurotic as my self.

We went to the corner store to put a bandaid on the situation and buy a few cans of beans only to discover that the beans were marked at 95 cents a can. I was shocked. 95 cents a can, really? I thought for sure someone dyslexic must have just started working at the grocery store, switching the 9 to a 5 and vice versa. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Upon visiting another store I discovered an outrageous bean price of $1.29 a can, I accepted the sad state of affairs with a tinge of regret. If only I had bought more cans of beans 6 months ago when they were 59 cents a can. It's amazing that the price of beans, a staple of my poor man's diet has doubled in less than a year.

I hate buying dried beans, but it looks like I will now be stockpiling dry beans in mason jars.

As a child, I remember being at my grandparent's house on their farm in Oklahoma. They had this walk-in pantry with enough food to survive for months without going to the store. Something about it always creaped me out because half the labels were faded and tinted a shade of green. The brands were some I had never heard of and I even think perhaps some of those cans had been placed in the cupboard during the 1st great depression. We find ourselves on the brink of a possible second great depression. My grandmother, having been forced to move to California during the dustbowl (see grapes of wrath aka her life story) has been preparing all her life for a second great depression. Knowing it was only a matter of time, she has been patiently building her reserves.

I live a world away in New York. I was born into the commercial excess of the 1980's and the proliferation of Public relations and marketing to the masses. I was part of the MTV generation but grew up in a town that didn't have MTV. I didn't even see MTV until it had morphed into the epicenter of reality television, a plague that has swallowed popular culture and vomitted out people like Paris Hilton, Clay Aiken, and a heard of forgettable ladder climbers clinging to their five to fifteen minutes of fame. Despite the distance in time, space and generation, like my grandmother I find myself stockpiling canned goods, building my reserves and preparing for some sort of tragedy. Sometimes I wonder if this makes my cynical, practical, crazy or all of the above. No matter what it means, instinctively, like a squirrel burying nuts, I forage through the isles of grocery stores looking for choice nuts to bury until some sort of winter brings hunger. It is impulse. It is instinct. It is what needs to be done. The urgency for which this task holds in my conciousness is ever growing. It is this urgency which scares me most.

We Can't Have Nice Things

Photo by Carrie Thomas

I remember knocking over a china vase while fighting with my sister. It was probably the 5th grade. I remember getting super glue and piecing it back together to cover all traces of our sin. My mother used to say that we couldn't have nice things. I think that I was a big part of this.

I remember staining the carpet with bleach. I had white shoes that I wore to gymnastics and they had turned an earthy shade of brown. I took a bottle of bleach and cotton balls and sat Indian-style on the carpet, dapping the bleach on the offending spots. I was so proud of my accomplishment until I looked down at the half dollar sized circles of bleached carpet. I grabbed magic markers and shoe polish to try and fix the mistake, but I was found out. My mother was furious. I had to sit in a chair without moving until my father got home. I think this was the last time in my life that my father whipped me with a belt.

I was standing in line this week at the post office, listening to music when the sound stopped pumping into my left ear. I discovered that my nice headphones, a christmas gift had started to come apart due more than likely to the rigors of abuse that I have inflicted on them. For the last week, I have been listening to music through one ear. The strange thing is that I feel like I can hear what should be coming through the broken headphone, but it's just in my head. I'm completing a circuit like an amputee who feels the need to scratch a limb that is no longer there. Yes, We just can't have nice things

Lullabye

After the birth of my nephew I wrote a new song on piano.
It's never been played live but was played at a ceremony
in Kansas for my nephew's dedication to the church.








Lullabye
Go to sleep
Go to sleep little one.
Count your sheep.
Count your sheep. The day is done.
Close your eyes and dream
of little ducklings in the water
swiming close behind their mother.
Soon they will fly
Soon they will fly away.

Little one
Litte one you've much to learn.
We had our chance.
We had our chance. Now it's your turn.
All we can do is watch you as you're
catching fireflies in a jam jar
leaving grass stains in her new car.
Soon you will fly.
Soon you will fly away.

Rambling

Friday was exciting with the news that my music video had climbed to #1 on Logo. How awesome it felt to be in the top spot on a national countdown. I reveled. Yes, I reveled as I should.

Lately for some reason I have become sort of obsessed with the song, Cherry Falls, a track that has not been officially recorded unless you count the lo-fi demos I've been concocting in my apartment. There is something about this song. I know that it will turn some people off by its graphic nature, but it is very real to me. It is something that I think needs to be heard whether it makes people squirm or not.

I've been distracted. We moved into a new apartment which seems to put my life on pause. We haven't even hung all the curtains. I can dance in my underwear in the living room, but perhaps I am giving people a show they don't want to see.
K and I have been dating for 10 months. Relationships must add to my body like the rings on a tree, showing its age by how bloated I feel. The comfort of love makes one more prone to lying around eating much too much shephard's pie. Laura has been studying pastry arts at culinary school. She has been creating these amazing things, but every time I see her, she gives me a plate, bowl, basket or tin filled with bleeched white flour demons. I consume them. I ly around. I kiss my sweet and add another ring to the tree.

My nephew was diagnosed with a rare chromosonal disorder and has started growth hormone treatments that the insurance will not cover despite the fact that they are necessary for his development and some semblance of a normal life. My sister called last night to let me know that her husband fell from 12 feet of scafolding, breaking his pelvis, requiring surgery.

I went to Karoke last night, one of my least favorite activities of all time. Graham Norton was there. how odd.

Well, I feel spring pecking at my window like an overly zealous bird. With it, I am feeling this renewed sense of purpose. I don' t want to say that I've been floundering, but rather I've been thinking a lot. I've been allowing the world around me to just kind of flow as it may. Now, I feel very determined to create, to kick the world in the butt....to kick myself in the butt.

I'm searching for a drummer and a cellist. I'm getting ready to dust off my yoga mat. I have a sudden craving to catch up on sleep and eat salmon in the countryside. This weekend is Easter. We are going upstate to Jason and Simon's house. I'm planning on dying eggs and hiding them around the property. I'm planning on drinking and sleeping more than I shoud.

Ho Ho Hooters (a Christmas backbLOG)

She swirled her purple pen across the napkin, signing her name with a heart and caressing it as she delicately placed it near the edge of our table.

"Hi, My name is Sasha, and I'll be your Hooters girl for the evening. Can I get you something to drink to start off?"

I never thought I would hear these words coming out of anyone's mouth let alone on Christmas day, let alone at Hooters. Yes, you read that right. Hooters.

I took off for Topeka Kansas with my father to catch a 4:30 showing of Sweeney Todd on Christmas day. We were on a tight schedule and our plans were thwarted after my father was pulled over by a police officer for speeding. The officer only gave him a warning seeing as it was christmas and all.

We got to the theater 15 minutes late and the next show wasn't until 7:25, so we had two hours to kill. We discovered that everything was closed for christmas including McDonald's which shocked me. I thought for sure that they pumped out artery clogging mystery meat 365 days a year.

Split between going to Denny's and Hooters, I chose the option that involved hot wings and booze.

I expected to see women writhing on greesy poles, oiled up like roasting pigs, bits of flesh and torn edges hanging as old men drooled and stuffed dollars into cleavage and crevices like a reverse ATM machine.

The reality was much more pedestrian. Hooters is a "family" restaurant or so it seemed on christmas day. It was no more scandalous than a Brooklyn dive bar. The food was good. The waitress was nice. Yes, she was wearing a santa hat. Yes she had a nice "rack" and a low cut neckline. I highly recommend the wings, so if you stop through Topeka, say hi to Sasha. Let her wet your napkin with her purple pen. Tip her well and tell her that Robert sent ya.

Cocks gone wild! True Stories of barnyard manlove.

Photo by Carrie Thomas

Ok, so I made the title a little more sensationalistic than it had to be.
Last night I had a short chat with my mother who is fighting off a rather nasty sounding chest cold.

As previously posted, I visited the family farm in Kansas back in the fall and helped my father build a larger chicken coop. Recently my parents got a 2nd rooster.
Well, the juicy gossip folks (Yes, you heard it here first) is that rooster #1, aka Little Jerry is gay. Sorry Jerry for outing you. I know how hard it can be to live as a homosexual rooster in Kansas. Little Jerry has been seen "humping" the new rooster.

This news delighted me, as it gave me the chance to educate my mother on prevalance of homosexuality in animals. She was completely unaware.

btw, who knew that 1/4 or all black swans are moes?(as in ho-moes)

ah, black swan, I wonder where you are?
ah George, You save my soul.

Rest in Peace, Ashes and Dust

Early this morning very quietly and I hope peacefully,
my grandmother took her final breath and slipped away from this world.

Leona Messer raised 7 children, one of whom is my mother.
I know that her life was hard at times. I know that she wasn't always
able to deal with the hardship. I understand.

My fondest memories of my grandmother are the car rides to the orthodontist
when I was only 14. I was allowed to drive because Kansas laws are strange, but
I had to have an adult in the car with me, so grandma would come along.
She would let me get fast food from McDonald's before they tightened my braces and the pain was so intense that I couldn't eat solid food for days. At the time, this felt like a naughty treat.
Grandma btw was a terrible driver. My sister once returned from a trip with her
saying that grandma had cut off a man, forcing him to take an exit to Amarillo, TX.
Apparently the man wasn't planning on going to Amarillo.

Over the last couple years my grandmother's health rapidly declined and dementia began
to take away her memories and eventually even her will to eat. She no longer recognized her own family members. The last time I visited her, she did not know who I was. After I left she kept asking where that boy had gone, wandering around looking for me.

In the last few months
her quality of life reached a place that was heartbreaking.
She no longer found anything in life that she enjoyed.

I am glad that she is no longer suffering and I hope that she is at peace in a better place.

The final song on my album is titled ashes and dust. I have never posted the lyrics. K and Laura both have requested this song played at their funerals. Today I post them in honor of my grandmother, a strong woman who lived a full life.

Ashes and Dust

In the beginning there was dust
the sun, the water
then there was us
but all the bridges began to rust
we must all return to dust when we are done

In the beginning there were ashes
there were no wars or social classes
now the buildings burn to ashes
we must all return to ashes when we're done.

In the end I wish you virtue
to hold the hand of the ones that hurt you
to heal the pain that is inside you
to hear your heartbeat and let it guide you
to have a smile for the ones that greet you
to find the time for the ones that need you
to let the love pour out like water from your soul.

Don't hold it in.
Just let it go.

The Egg Report

In a previous post, I mentioned liberating the cooped up chickens with visions of their egg production doubling. I am please to announce that last week, the chickens laid their daily best of 17 eggs in one day. This tops the previous record of 9 eggs in one day and is more than double the 7 eggs a day that was their previous average production.

I receive periodic egg reports on which I will keep you updated.

Transmissions from Dialup

I write to you this late evening from Northeastern Kansas where I have been forced to heed my own words and "unplug".

My cellphone has been rendered inoperable due to T-mobile's lack of care for the residence of this rather unpopulated state. My usual status of constant connection to highspeed internet has been taken away.

My parents have purchased 30 chickens which are currently laying 7 eggs per day. I ate 3 of them this morning for my breakfast, the eggs not the chickens. I commented on the state of these poor chickens which have been cooped up in a rather small pen. Somehow this escalated into a protest on my part.

I ended up in the pickup truck with my father traveling to one small town where the lumber store had apparently closed. I suppose they have been outsourced to India or China, but then again I'm pesimistic. We finally found a lumber store that was open 50 miles away and picked up lumber and chicken wire.

I spent the rest of my day with my father digging holes for posts, leveling them and building the frame for an extended chicken yard, which I have proclaimed will double the egg output.

We ended our day pouring concrete round the posts and drinking beer as we basked in the glory of the beautiful frame we have built. We then discussed my father's missionary trips to Peru and Ecuador. Sometimes I wonder if I could ever be as great as this man.

I wrote a song in the truck. Here are the lyrics. They're hokie. I don't care.


The rooster's out there crowin' and struttin' with his legs
It's time to feed the chickens and gather up the eggs.
This small town's really strugglin' but it's stronger than you think.
You can see it from the highway but you'll miss it if you blink.
It's time to feed the chickens and gather up the eggs.
throw some bacon on the skillet and some boots upon your legs.
The factories move to china and the people move away
but the ones who really love this town are out there bailing hay.
there's fence that needs a mending and there's cattle needing fed
they work till they're exhausted then they fall into their beds
till the rooster starts a crowin' and struttin on his legs then
it's time to feed the chickens and gather up the eggs.

These are my roots people.

My father said something interesting which somehow became profound. The only thing you hear out here is the ringing of your own ears. He's right. It's so loud. The city traffic, the subway, all of it. It rings in my ears. I cannot find silence even here where it is silent. K is in Canada. I am in Kansas. Tomorrow I finish the frame and pull the chicken wire round the posts and feel the satisfaction of a job well done. I will gather the eggs after I've eaten eggs for breakfast. It all is in balance and yet I miss my boyfriend. I miss the noise of the city. At the same time I'm content and happy out here on the praerie, hearing the coyotes howling after sunset, sitting with my father drinking beer and smoking cigars. There is a simplicity that I miss, yet there is a complexity of noise and clatter that I need to fill my scattered head.

The Bundle of Joy

Yes, I am cheesey. Here is a picture of the most precious little thing in the world, my nephew. He's even got blonde hair and blue eyes. Since I'm not yet responsible enough to adopt my own little chinese baby, I must live vicariously through my sister.

Uncle Robert

It is official.
Jackson has entered the world.
I am an uncle.

I have been so stressed for the last couple of days for a few reasons.
One is that my sister was taking these hypnobirthing classes and hell bent and determined to give birth to a baby without drugs. I think they call this natural childbirth. I call this passing up the chance for some perfectly good pills. I kid. She called me upset and asked me to pray for the baby as his butt was where his head should be, a state of being with which I am all too well aquainted.

So today, I get the call that now the baby's feet are where his head should be and that the doctor has decided to do a c-section before things get out of hand. The baby was born. My sister is numb. All is well.

I went to get my hair cut at 5:30 with Tommy. Tommy is this oldschool punk/glam rocker who lived in the East Village when it was still scary to walk down the street at night and when people shot up heroin on the steps of the buildings where they were squating. I am devastated. Tommy told me that this would be the last time he cut my hair as he is moving to Portland. What will I do? He recommended me to someone named Raphael. That's too exotic for me. That sounds like a love affair that ends badly. I may just shave my head.

K has moved in with me. It's offically unofficial today. His apartment fell through, so I told him he could crash with me until he finds another place. I worry that he thinks he's an imposition. Does he not realize that I love him with all of my heart. He could never impose. He is my little bacon bit, afterall.

On Labor Day, I go back into the studio for a 6 hour session. I hope to have something with which to tickle your ears when I walk out.

The pull of the moon

Photo by Carrie Thomas

My sister is 9 months pregnant, due this Friday.
My mother is convinced that the gravitational powers of the full moon today are going to pull that baby right of my sister like the invisible hand of Jesus.

We are mostly water.
I think it has more of an impact than we realise.
I know that I am very much a child of water, drawn to the ocean, wanting to return.

We have tides, high and low within us.
We float in water before we enter the world.
The ocean in my sister's belly is swelling, moving towards the gravitational pull, ready to burst. The waves will be crashing. The child will emerge from the ocean, to first crawl and then walk on land.

The crazy people come out when the moon is full...not saying that the baby is crazy. I'm just saying.

8 1/2 months after the fun

Very soon, my nephew will enter the world. I'm training him to be my very own miniature village person, having purchased an NYPD onesie for the little bundle of joy. I still need to find a baby construction worker outfit, a baby Native American costume and of course a baby cowboy get-up.