Étienne says, "Être is to be"

I went for a long walk this morning to the market, a daily routine. It was 8 am and overcast and I was listening to the Beatles. It's going to be a Beatles kind of weekend, I can tell.

So "Don't Let Me Down" comes on and I'm already feeling rather introspective. I'm thinking about the moment I learned how to spell the word "earth"; it was on a Speak n' Spell and I was at my cousin's house on my cousin's couch. And my eyes are wandering at the muddied leaves flattened to the ground, and the romance of the park benches... chipped and wooden with rusty fasteners. I'm not wearing any makeup, just a touch of mascara and I feel like one of those hipster girls who are fresh-faced, with chunky glasses - ironically beautiful 'cause they're ugly (...in that conventional sense).

Suddenly I see something bright, a dulled shine within the leaves. The rhythm of my internal beat is muted by an inner monologue. I no longer hear the Beatles, but the rant of my perpetual conflict with humanity and morality. This always happens when I see discarded condoms on the ground. In this case, a discarded condom wrapper. "People fuck in parks," I think. "What kind of a person fucks in a park?" And I ask this with genuine curiosity - in no way is it tinged with judgement... Just confusion and wonder.

There it goes, my mind spinning out of control about sex and what it is and what it means and where it happens. "And we're all just a bunch of Neanderthals. Cave men. Our bodies control our minds. We want it. We need it. We thirst and we hunger. But it's not a bad thing. It's just an eternal truth. Robotics will not numb our desire for orgasm... it will only assist it by artificial means. Perhaps in time, make it last longer... And then maybe I'll understand the fuss more thoroughly.

I just wish we weren't so obsessed and preoccupied by it. No. I don't wish that. And I don't wish that for you. Go ahead... be a rabbit. Meet up at midnight, do it on your lunch break. Kiss and peck and say goodbye, until you punch in and punch out and can do it all again. Meaningful or meaningless. At the end of it all, I should worry only about me. Worrying about the sex-obsessions and hormones of others is not my desire, my passion, nor is it my duty or calling. My calling is my work and my work just happens to be associated with the Idiot Box. The silver screen. These devices that use light and sound to convey image, slung together only to form story and teleport these sex-obsessed to other worlds. And when you strip it down to its barest of bones... my purpose is to make people get off by these mirages of light, sound and this 21st century zoetrope formation of story. I'm not referring to pornos... I'm referring simply to the mainstream and the indie. Everything is for the purpose of getting off... not directly in a clitoral or penile way, but simply to feel good. No - to feel something."

As I come to the end of this rant inside my head, I near closer to the condom rapper... And naturally I look down at it to check the brand, for obsessive compulsive curious purposes... And when I do I see that it says "Twinnings."

Well look at that. I lost my shit over the wrapper of an English Breakfast tea-bag.

"Oh," I think to myself.

And within a few moments of dead-air, my mind's on fire again. This time about the irony that I just assumed the wrapper was from a condom, because apparently, like the rest of the world, I am so sex obsessed.

I turn up the volume on my ipod touch, and hope that John and Paul can silence the violence in my mind.

xo Lola

goes jambay.

Daughter Earth

It’s simple see, on simple seas.
Simple trees and simple breeze.
But simple she, can’t simply be
From simple she to simple we.

Cuz simple she, is only free
If simple he’s across the sea.
Cuz simple he plus simple she
is tearful, choking, black and bleed.

So simple she, lives simply be
With wind and sand,
And birds and sea.

And she does love
But simply see,
Inner demons
deaf her plea.

There she lies
by simple sea.
Alone with Mother Earth she be.

xo
Lo
goes acoutic.

When life gives you lemons

When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade
make lemon waves
and ride the top of the crest until you see
how moonlit the terrain can be
how bright and star-dust smooth the dunes are
how even though I may think it is all your fault
it isn't.


Yours,

I

He brings his hammer, he brings his nail.

Everyone's always talking about the weather. And if there's one thing that depresses me it's such talk. Have we nothing deeper to speak of? Are we that afraid of sharing our actual feelings about the day, about our current state of mind, that we concern so much of our human interaction with calculable musings of the dropping temperature, possible precipitation, and unseasonable flurries. That with each morning we greet - "weather" is our go-to topic of choice... almost programmed to sound from our flapping jaw at 9:07am. Stranger-friendly and fire-safe.

Yes, it is cold this time of year. I am fully aware, I was just outside. I know it's cold. Can't you see the blood running from the break in the pink of my lip? The black pond forming at the corner of my eyes. I'm black and red and cold all over. Can't you see it? My cheeks are not a natural shade of rose.

He brings her flowers now.

Twenty-five Augusts past, and he brings cut stems, tied in a bunch with string.
Set on six-feet of frozen mulch.
Hard as nails, spading in the vase.
What a sight. Perfect white on bricks of dirt. Snow bleeding over wheat-colored blades of grass... survivors from the fall.

Ordinarily, worms and insects say disgust - but the thought of a winter bug, winter life scurrying down above her is actually quite comforting. An unlikely comfort. But I grasp onto it.

He brings her flowers now.
Now that's it's cold and buried deep and down and underground.
This isn't a plea for lovers to seize the day, to throw rose petals at every step.
Nor should you rethink any mention of the chill out the door, or the frost on the windowsill.

See he brings her flowers now,
but he planted them with her then.

And the cold will always be cold. And when it's cold we will always say it's cold.
We'll think it to ourselves, and we'll say it to each other. And it will help make things comfortable.
And although it will make our morning interaction easy - warming us into the swing of the routine of our days - know that I will feel a slight discomfort. But only for a moment. A flash of every other memory in a blink of an eye.
Cause I will think of those memories where it is always cold. Where seeds cannot be planted, where flowers cannot sprout up and out, and see the sun.
Where there are no bugs in winter. But, oh how I hope there are.


xo
el oh el eh
Moment of the day - While assembling Ikea furniture, morning shots with Pa.

Bare your teeth, show your bones

It is dangerous to live a life ruled by subtext.

For one thing, you spend an inordinate amount of time thinking "Fuck, is she talking about ME?"

Call it occupational hazard or character quirk or paranoia, what have you, but do not call it benign. It's like living in a medieval Japanese royal court: a knot twisted means devotion, a knot tied means distrust, violet for the virginal and deep plum for the shamed. What do you say? What do you hear? You ask me why we don't speak the same language when we do, the symbols and meanings amuck in a crossword unsolveable. Nothing correlates but for the deepest wavelengths and who has the time de-riddle that riddle?

New Year's Resoltuion #9384985: speak plain, write poetry, breathe somewhere between the lines.

Yours,

I

Oil Can goes "Squeak, squeak, squeak."

"Beauty marks?"

"A couple... in quiet places."

"I never look at myself like that. It scares me"

"I like knowing where my freckles are. But knowing what you look like is only half the battle."

"Wise."

"I pose a question. How can somebody that knows themself so well, so sickeningly well, not have the faintest suspicion of who they'll be with? ...That is to say that they'll ever be with anybody. I can't see him, for the life of me, I cannot see his face."

"He's probably just around the corner. Up the block. Parking his bike. Getting FunDip at the Avondale.
I knew this girl once and she had her first kiss in grade 11, and the dude that kissed her became her first boyfriend, her first fuck. And it was all within the same week. That's seven days in grade 11. So, here's to clarity."

"I lack.
Sometimes i have completely different perspectives on the same issue, given the hour of the day it is. Does that make me crazy? There's this guy - Cadence, and when it's the light of day my head thinks clearly. I know we're only friends and as much as I do find him attractive in that wounded, pouty, I write songs and draw ppictures and have these orgasmic calluses - we don't fit. He's not for me. I'm definitely not the girl for him. ...But when the night rolls around, all of my clarity, all of that assurance flies from my brain, and all I'm thinking is 'why not?' Why not indulge if my body wants his?

And I know the me during the day is the one I believe, the one that's telling the truth. The one at night is just lonely. And that's not to say my night-time me would have anyone... cuz she wouldn't at all. Cadence is special. But he's not mine to be special with. It's not real romance... it's the desire for real romance. You don't actually like me... it's your desire to like someone... In another life, we could have melted from pages of poetry. But not this one. And maybe, even still, I will contradict myself. I will be a hypocrite... and betray me - morning me... day me... afternoon and evening me. And I will fall into you. But know this, I am trying not to."

"Because?"

"Because of the way it'll make me feel. During. Afterwards. Later on. When I see him. When I see everyone. When I see Jack."

"I wish I had some advice to give."

"I don't need advice, I need will power. I need to control what inhibits me. I need to run for the hills when I feel my loins burning for Cadence."

"If they're burning, it means something."

"Yeah. I'm 22 and healthy."

"They burn."

"Falsely. It's the same battle, different day. Distraction. Something to do before sleep, after a movie. Not in the light of day."

"You wank about him?"

"Yes"

"I knew it."

" ...Did you know I used to feel guilt about the very act of self-pleasure. I seriously felt my heart ache with painful regret. Catholic self-punishment. It's inescapable. I was near tears. I'd pray. ...But I digress."

"So if he gets you hot, why not?"

"Why not? ...Why not? The ever-conflicting, never-ever-ending question.
At first, my answer would have been, "his yuppie ex girlfriend, the girl upstairs, and the girl down the hall who's deeply, madly in love with him and will never be happy without his love, but will never admit it and keeps repressing it... and maybe he knows it, and she'd hate me for it. And spit at me for it. And so be it.

But the reasom is not any of these girls. And they are merely girls regardless of their experiences."

"Him, then?"

"Me.

...I feel like I'm flattering him by having this conversation with you about him. And that pisses me off. Because as much as I mention him, it has nothing to do with him. It's me.

Patience. I must remind myself of patience."

"So you're holding out?"

"It's not 'holding out' if you don't want to.
I'm not saying it right. I'm not saying what I mean. I mean,
it's not that I don't want to... or that I'm holding out... but there's circumstance involved. If I did it in grade 11 like your friend from that brilliant story you shared with me earlier, it wouldn't matter as much. But it's different now. And I don't care if you don't see the difference. Or you choose not to see it. I feel the difference. ANd you must know what it's like to feel different.
I just want to stay this way. I want to stay this way until my heart flutters.

Don't laugh.

It's not funny.

I'm not telling a joke.

I'm being serious. A hundred percent serious. Cause anytime I've ever kissed someone I think, 'but why can't I feel anything in my heart?'

You know what that feels like?

Empty.

Like fucking tin-empty. Like a tin man without his oil. Premium oil to squeak squeak squeak and set me free from the imprisonment of these rusted, aching, unmoving walls.
...Maybe Jack's got the oil? Maybe Jack is the one?"

"You think so?"

"I don't know. It's not like I can see him... Or picture us together.. But if it is Jack... I wouldn't be surprised."

"Maybe 2010 will bring some answers."

"Maybe. But I'd probably benefit from knowing the questions first."


***
A conversation by Lo, in 15.
Inspired by: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_fGxeUVhfY
***

A quote by Shel Silverstein:

"When I was a kid — 12, 14, around there — I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls. But I couldn't play ball, I couldn't dance. So I started to draw and to write. I was also lucky that I didn't have anybody to copy, be impressed by. I had developed my own style; I was creating before I knew there was a Thurber, a Benchley, a Price, and a Steinberg. I never saw their work till I was around 30. By the time I got to where I was attracting girls, I was already into work, and it was more important to me. Not that I wouldn't rather make love, but the work has become a habit."

At least I know someone in the world feels what I'm feeling.

Tennessee Williams

"They're like mosquitoes," he says of his parents, "they suck your blood and then they die... And you're left with this irritating swelling; inevitably the residual effect of everything they did and said to you, good and bad, that results in all that is fucked and twisted and sick as shit about how you think... No - How you feel."

He pauses. Ashes out his Dunhill, and rips the seal of his juice drink. Always Presidents Choice.
He continues.

"See, I don't believe that we think. I believe there is no such thing as thinking. We only feel and then act in accordance to those feelings. It's all semantics. Cuz thinking is merely a synonym for feeling. Even facts. We don't think of facts, we just repeat them after we learn them. And learning's just hearing.
Anyways, words mean nothing. They're make believe."

The wind howls. The flurries of snow no longer doddle around us, now sweeping against my cheek in little bites.

"But, that's another lesson in life's little scheme." He coughs. His throat, horse.

I'm not really looking at his face, but I can see his expression in the way his voice sounds. I look at the snow on the roots of the tree below us and wonder if it'll stay packy like that, clinging to the naked oak. "That's not real juice. I mean, there's no nutritional content, " I say.

"Hair of the dog my friend." He stares me down. "Listen. She's not worth it, trust me. Her name's fucking Kaylee. Hold her hand, and she'll snap like a twig with a weak name like that. What does she believe in? Chupa Chups and acetone?
Your parents rather you date Wonderbread? Fine. I get that. We're all a bunch of fucking redneck homosexual incestuous bigots. But at least date a girl- Someone with strength. With will."

There's a long pause. My nose is running onto my lip and it tastes salty.

"I like her."

He shakes his head. He doesn't believe me one bit.

"She's okay, really." I repeat myself.

"Don't just do it cuz you think you have to. You can't fuck yourself cool Tom."

I finally look up at him. Glare at him.

"Don't look at me like that," he barks, "I don't look for it - that Malcom X 'cool pose.' I don't check my swagger in the mirror, or whatever they're calling it.'"

At that, all I'm thinking is how he's right. He's cool by nature. That's probably why he's cool. My head jumps thoughts and I flinch, "You just said words are meaningless And now you're judging the girl's name. Something that was put on her."

"That's different."

My eyes say, "how?"

"Names aren't words."

The shake of my head says, "explain."

Begrudgingly he begins,"Names are a person's soul in sound. In calling. Names say something, whether a person acts like or unlike what it evokes. Names tell something about a person, about who they're fucking father is. Names like Samuel, Jubilee, Max, Marcus. Tennessee fucking Williams - now that's a name!
...You don't want a breaking twig Tommy. You want 50 years in 16. You want a tree."

"A tree?"

"A force of nature."

I nod. He smiles big and I can't help but feel warm in this negative 15. It is, afterall, something I don't see often.
I came to the right buddy for advice. And I think he likes that, the way it makes him feel. And the thing is, I didn't even have to ask. He just knew.
And I think to myself: 'he's my friend, but he feels more like my brother.'




***




*Stories in fifteen minutes by
xo Lo*

If I could name apartment #9 anything? Tennessee Parton.