Conversations Among the Ruins

I have a little puppy.
Her name is Penelope

Flower. Penny is copper
red and wears a light
pink leather collar.

She sleeps in my
armpit at night,
her puppy nose laid

out symmetrical
with my neck.
Penelope has long

red eyelashes and
a long springy tail.

Her ears - too
big for her five
pound body and her

paws are large
with dainty fingernails
too.

I lover her, from her
ears to her

fingernails. I've never
had a baby. I've never
taken care of anything

before. So I smile
outside, in the freezing
cold

waiting patiently
as she learns
where she is to

poop. I fell into a
deep love with her

behind a plexi glass
pet shop window

months ago, and
she cost what I put
down on my first

car. So I went to
see her a few times
a week for a few

week. After Christmas
Penelope was put on
sale.

So she didn't have
to go home with some
kids with parents

with more money
than I have that would
pull her tail and

polk her ears. Instead
she watches me curiously
as I put on mascara,

explaining to her
what I'm doing.

I've never gotten to
tell

anybody about
applying mascara

before and she seems
obliged. She's a pretty
girl and when she learns

her name I will call her
just Penny

because she has a
tomboy spirit like a
nosy neighbor - in a

neighborhood where
I live

the dream.

I wore my lace and satin puffy eighties dress with a leather jacket and four scarves form India to
Joshua Tree highway on Christmas day - I walked up to that tree it was twenty seven feet tall and in my eighties dress and
scarves from India complete with bells I backed away.

We drove into that sunset on that Christmas night - into some grease spoon diner where I read him

Rod Mckuen - 12 years of Christmas, quietly out loud. We opened presents in the morning after making that killer coffee and he told me that he got me crayons and a coloring book, that he didn't wrap. I laughed and thanked him, and I opened a card with a Burning Man ticket confirmation number in it.

I had a BLT and onion rings, he had a ribeye,

We brought presents and unicorns to Kaylani and Evannah, and we played Kino in some other dive on the Strip, in my eighties lace green and satin with a giant bow puffy dress, cropped leather jacket, ugg boots and scarves from India.

"I love you my Christmas baby" and it's funny, this Christmas, where there isn't snow or cold just a vast desert we drive through all day just

because we can. Today was the big day where I went to the pet store to see if my dog that I've been going to visit there for a month went on sale. I will not shut up about this dog. I named her Penelope and she is amazing. Without an idea as to of how, I knew she was our dog, and she would be our dog.

And lo and behold she was $200 off today, and we gave them an offer, so the girl called the owner, and the owner said yes.

So Penelope Flower came home with us today. We got her toys and a pink leather collar, two beds, an octopus, a hoofy, and lots of luvs and kisses. I can't believe my life. I can't believe that I paint regularly and read as much as I used to, and how soundly and well aware I am of how "on my way" I really am.

Penelope is tiny and sassy and absolutely beautiful. She likes my scarves from India and my eighties dress too.

"We are parents!!!!" I whispered at the pet store, frantically excited.

I've never had the opportunity to take care of anything, not even myself, so Penelope is a very very big deal to me. After that I spoke with my mom and Dad and Harmon and Penelop and I on Skype. My dad was telling Harmon all these stories about my Uncle Olinto, and scolding me for missing Auntie Angie's ravioli at Christmas.

Life is amazing.

The moment,
HL

It's a little silly I
guess - how I call my
current obsession of

reading
my
"home schooling."

Home schooling because
fuck
academia and it's

waxed floors that
smell of paper bagged
lunches. All the new

sneakers on the
tile, using up

each other - I
need to stop it to
instead tell you of

this perfect moment.
With two one dollar bills
to my right,

white phone to my left,
cold coffee in a black and
red cup, TAM card,

colored bling ass pens
that J got me out of a
dumpster,

a lace doily,
and my body wrapped
in a soft gigantic

orange poncho sweater.
There are no storms
here only words and

headphones jammed
in my ears. I woke up
this morning and heard

a noise. "I was wondering
if you'd move out of bed
and if you'd pull a

gun on me, and if
you did, what one
you would."

ha laughed.

"I'm too old
for all of that

at such an
hour, and besides,

I got an hour
deep tissue massage
and slept like a

brick. A home schooled
self taught
badass beautiful

in this perfect moment
brick. Bricks don't
shoot people, Harmon,

and we are all
lucky

for that."

"You will be
so famous." Is all
he says

through a grin
where his teeth show
and I

look away.

When I travel lately I
only bring my laptop,
phone and purse

with me.

I don't want to deal
with the anxiety of
checking bags and

I have an excuse
to once again go
shopping.

She was staring out
at the sky when she
said it.

"I remember a day
where you came over
in a

lime green dress and
turquoise shirt. You were
so happy and

young. It was so
fun sometimes, that
winter in Pilsen with the

crazy man banging his
peg leg on our floor."

Hi I'm over here. I'm not
a famous writer yet and
not many people even know

my name.

(I've got a cure)

I was on an airplane
all day and
the woman behind me

was folding
oragamies
the whole duration

of the four hour flight.
It was the first time I've
been openly curious about

a person doing something
silently to themselves with
great attention, lost in a world
of detail.

I looked into her eyes.
What I saw was fear.

She was timid but she
made all of these animals
as if she were a craftperson of
paper.

I admired
her silence. She wore
no headphones and
occupied her hands

without ever looking up.

I was staring out that
window, thinking about
my life in that lime green

dress and turquoise
shirt.

After that
I cracked my neck
just to stop it and

remind myself to keep
trying to add

the moments I've
wasted on

making them into
the shit that

already happened.

I check
baggage

everyday of my life
and today airport security
made me take my hair out

to make sure there wasn't
a grenade

in my bun.

Baggage and
time bombs.

I wonder what those
machines really

read.

And then it's nine
years later and I'm

running down
a dull, busy

city street - I
towards him

him towards I.
He picks me up

as he hugs me
we spin
around and laugh

for a minute and I
miss my life here
in this dismal goddess

grey of darker matter
metal block stacks of
structure.

Nobody loves me
like this city/ that's a

fact. I drove down I55
today, in a
flashback today of

how drunk and cold
I would get.

The glamour of
believing in that life
left me -
the love did not.

Edit rewind the coffee
is cold and my face
has aged because I

earned it.

I earned it not to
overdose in an alley
way and I earned that

run down that street
into those arms
this afternoon.

I earned it to remember
what it is to drive
from inbound to far out

wasted at dawn, convinced,
and to realize
what I could have been
capable of, and I earned it -

the capacity for gratitude,
that I never killed myself,
or anybody else, or anybody else's
children.

We talk over and
over over coffee - I
take him to

Rosley's and
he picks a rock,

telling me he still
has the pink rock
from a day in

Memphis.

"I lost the coat
but I've got the
rock still, and the rock

was actually
always in the
coat."

I say goodbye as
I'm late. So we part
again

for maybe a month
or a year
or a decade or a
lifetime.

Back to back
walking separate
ways -

I from him with
him from I - both with

those pink rocks
and those

foot
steps that match
where they walked

when they walked
together towards

opposite
away. These streets
do not apologize

to me they just
show me what I'll

never regret

instead.

I left here in tears, it
was summer and

I lived one of
those days in my life where
I drove through

Nebraska. But I drove
through Nebraska listening
to a mix tape that somebody

that loves me
made for me to listen to
while it was the day of
my life that I drove through

Nebraska.

Sometimes, you have to drive
through Nebraska
to get to the ecstatic

other
side.

In Nevada, the lights
blinded me, yet they were
nothing of the lights

of the city at home, only
in the city there aren't
hills to see the whole

thing. I didn't realize that
at the time. I was some

dreamer girl in my giant
bathroom, listening to
Miley Cyrus in my shower.

An impeccable
tan.

Walking through fear
every terrified step
of the way, alone, with

help, with love.

But I was ok. I'd starve
for days with the electricity
cut - ecstatic to find a

pie crust in the back
of an empty pantry to
eat for dinner.

I was broke with my
fancy big girl job and I
didn't cry much I just

made very strong coffee
and stayed up all night
lost in acrylic paint and

discount canvas.
I was in awe of Las Vegas
the way you would marvel

at a significantly gory
skin slash or
bruise. The beauty of excess

on the glaring constant
yet never a part of
me or my life

at all. I never had anything
to do or anybody to talk to

without a phone so I'd
drive all over the place

listening to the mix tapes
that my best friend that
loves me made for me to

drive through Nebraska
to. I was

so fortunate
for those tapes.

I got a few tattoos and
a better job and I
fell in love and moved

a million ways, a million
times.

I went all over
California and walked
unabashed

into Lake Mead
in a dress.

I passed crystals at
Burning Man and I missed
my friends and my family

and I found myself
within the faces of
the faces around me

within recovery.
I lit cigarettes in hysterics,
danced on Zuma during a
sunset and rode my beach

cruiser down
Radando.
I took a cake and texted
people as if I took it for
granted that I knew

anybody
to even use my phone
with.

I met the art chic and
started working at their
gallery.

They took me for
tai food during a
sunset.

I freaked out during
scary movies with Jami and I
bombed

my Cosmopolitian
cocktail waitress
interview. I didn't know
how thankful

I'd be later
for that

at the time.

I sunned and swam
and made friends
with my guys

that wonder why
they can't read my mind
like all the rest
at the rock store.

I got tans and
lost them and I

work in the number
one restaurant

in Las Vegas - and
if I can make it

there I can absolutely
make it anywhere and I
earned that.

Just like I earned
my spot

in the chairs that save
my life that I sit in
during the mornings,

in circles.

Tonight it's just
I guess reflective.

I'm sitting in front of
my mother's Christmas tree

and

I am a success.

You live through the
big city to end up

crossing over
Nebraska

to get to the point
where quiet

doesn't mean
empty and

vast

isn't so

alone.

Never aim for
perfection.

Just know
how to find

what it feels like
when you look
back

caught in the
current
forward.

I don't fucking like you when you write me three pages of post comments that are just quotes.
Sorry.

It's been a fairly amazing three days. I've been busy, and it's good. Still not smoking. Still gaining weight. (Joy)

Going to go die in bed next to my love.

Tomorrow will be long, and amazing.

I will write on what is actually going on tomorrow.

This is big.

Love,
Me

When I got clean nearly two years ago it started. I said "That's it, I'm done, and I mean it."

I had said that before. Said it before and ended listening to some dj on some yacht in Detroit, tripping on acid that I guess I accidentally took, or something. It all happened very fast.

Or my favorite, sitting down in my then therapists office (Of whom became a great mentor in my life for a period. We are no longer in contact) and saying something like "I had one shot and that was it. - Oh - wait. And a beer, and some vodka. No wait I had two glasses of wine. I was wasted. I had two glasses of wine I just lost my keys for an hour. "

Likely I never told her the "wasted" part. It took me about a year of saying I was done to actually be done, and that week, when I was done drinking or getting high or WHATEVER (Because I certainly didn't have a fucking problem, everybody and everything else on Earth was the problem, but not ME or MY actions.) it happened.

Despite my new found sobriety and done-ness, I can't exactly remember how it all played out. I can't even see it I can only feel it.

There was a phone call, and I choked out a sob of some sort, and I simply said "No." Because in my universe I was dictating that my friend had actually not been shot in the head, the bullet didn't come from the gun in her husband's hand, and in fact, my phone didn't even just ring. "Heather has been shot by her husband. They caught and arrested him. She is gone. She didn't live."

Heather Jesk and I weren't close at all when she passed away, but I knew her once. I knew how much she loved her husband and children. How she followed him all over the States depending on where he was stationed out of. I knew she was young and wild and beautiful, and she had eyes like giant liquid pools of crystal, and very long blonde hair, and she smoked Newport hundreds.

I worked with Heather serving pizzas. Our manager at the time put us as Heather 1 and Heather 2 in the computers, which was confusing at first because nobody knew whom was whom, so eventually, she was just 1 and I was just 2. At that time in my life, 2004, after I came back from Arizona, a girl from nowhere with stringy black hair and ash white skin, I would watch Heather and give anything in my life to trade her lives. She was younger than I was and she got to act it, and believe it would last, and she was vivacious and jumpy and full of life. I was huddled in corners writing poems on the back of beer lists about how my boyfriend had died and I wanted to die too.

Through the time that I met Heather and up until hear death, I learned how to write, and I learned how to hare it with people. I wrote her parents letters about their daughter and how important she was, how many people loved her, and the impact that she had. I was so afraid to hand her dad the letter. I found him at the services and handed him the letter. The pain was so clear in his eyes, but not as bright as the gratitude if for just a short instant.

It's funny about my life, when I remember the worst times of it - how I remember the people that were around me that were happy. As if they were there all along as some reminder that everything does change.

After a while Heather and I would talk sometimes, and she'd color me pictures with the crayons up at the hostess desk. She was always freaking out she was pregnant and either fighting with or madly in love with her boyfriend, whom later became her husband. They had matching ring tattoos.

We lost touch. The last time we talked she was living in Colorado and her husband was in Afghanistan. She seemed happy and looked very forward for when his tour was over. They had two daughters and her babies were her whole life.

They went to a party and her husband and her had an argument. He picked up a gun and shot her in the head. Their daughters were no home at the time, at least. At least. Strange use of a phrase considering the sentence.

And it's so unreal. It just isn't real. that happens in papers and on the news, not to the pretty girl I watched grow up into a mother and wife.

All of the girls that worked at the pizza place we all worked with Heather at got together and went to her services. It was huanting really, I hadn't seen any of them in years, and we all met at the restaruant we all worked at. Some of us cried, some of us pretended we were just hanging out. I focused on the bullshit fact that I decided I wasn't drinking any more so I couldn't order a drink.

It was the worst wake I've ever been to, and it was bad because she was young, and the family of the man that shot her was also her family, and they were there too. They deserved to be there. It wasn't them that pulled the trigger, but the room was separated, and there was a lot of silence, with the exception of the quiet sobbing. The pictures of Heather during her life were beautiful, beautiful and NORMAL. Heather laughing over her daughter's Christening cake with the baby in her arms. Heather posing for the prom in a sleek black dress. Heather as a little girl, as a baby, as an adolescent making a face at her mom on an old couch. There was a singer softly singing about how important it is to take every day on Earth to remind those around you that you love them, because you never know when you won't be able to.

It stuck.

Heather Jesk laid in her casket. We all kneeled before her. It was so surreal. Surreality is always the same. I cried. Like a maniac. I cried, after it all, alone, with the safety of myself. Mostly because I couldn't have a fucking drink, in my mind at the time. "What am I going to do to feel better?!?!" I was yelling to myself. All of the girls were going out for cocktails afterwards. I politely declined, went into my car and sobbed while chain smoking in a gas station parking lot.

The reality was was that eight days after I got clean this happened, and I was different, and I had to deal with it.

Nearly two years later Heather's husband, the man that murdered her, stood trial for her death. Joseph Jesk had been indicted on six counts of first-degree murder, but the second-degree conviction means he’ll serve about six years in addition to the time he’s already spent in jail awaiting trial (Which is two years) so about four years. And I realized

how just.. even if they would have gassed him with federal dollars it wouldn't bring back Heather or her eyes and long hair. If her served a life sentence, it changes nothing. Nothing will bring her back. It was the first time I guess that I've actually been struck with the reality of what a true atrocity the whole situation really is.

Heather's picture has always sat on my shelf by where I write. I hope she knows she's never forgotten, and that she isn't actually gone, and she did actually, through us, live.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/metro/joseph-jesk-heather-army-veteran-sentenced-17-years-for-killing-wife-20111215

"I feel like shit and fat and I don't want to be here and I don't want to talk to any of you -"

"I mean I love you all but just today. I don't want to be anywhere but on my couch, with my nonexistent dog. I feel like theres a weight on my chest. I'm sad, and I want this season to be over. But that's so fucking selfish. How could I just wish away Christmas when all of those kids out there everywhere are so excited and hoping for it to come? How could I not think about them? How could I be so selfish?

I haven't touched my 4th step in months, and that's a bad idea, because I'm so miserable right now that the thought of even piking that up and trying to come to terms with myself an adolescent. My hair has a lot of split ends, but I gave myself a pedicure yesterday. Just scrubbed my feet forever because they're generally black, because I wear black nylons with heels to work every day. And I work on my feet. I roll siverwear on my feet and I feel like a lunatic because I'm half ecstatic that I got Bif "Unicorn Being a jerk" book for Christmas and half devistated to the point that I'm crying while I roll silverwear on my feet that I will not see my family.

But what's the point? Because I have a family, and they love me. They love me so much that when I cried the other day I got out of work at 1 with a text from my dad telling me he'd like to get me a puppy. Then today he expressed his disapproval to me for acting sad towards my mother, which in turn mad her sad. It's all a snowball, and I'm in the desert.

I don't know where the fuck to put my crazy.

Love
HL

Her voice is a hint of shaky
as it asks me

what book I would like
for Christmas.

I try to breathe in
to come up with an
answer, but I stop

and catch my breath
and let out shrill
sob.

"I don't know what
book to tell you because
I don't want a book

I want to come home,
and I want this whole
fucking holiday to be

over.

I'm trying to be
positive and all of
that and the bottom line

is
is that I miss you.
I was going to distract

myself and go to the
beach with Harmon, but
he called me an hour ago

and told me he got
another job at Sahara
and

that he can't leave
Vegas for those
weeks.

And mom, I
had to be a fucking
adult and tell him
that I understood.

That I understand that
Harmon having a job
is more important than

me having my way. But I
have to leave to go serve
dinner in a few minutes

and my tears are black
and I Just want all of this
to be

over.

"Honey"
my mother says

"Don't cry. You don't
have to cry."

And I stop crying as I
stare out at the bright
gold sun.

Because she's right,
I don't have to. But I'm

lost as to of what else
there is to

do.

"And fucking thank God anyway that I lost that orange tan that is so prevelent in Chicago's suburbs. With striped hair and boot cut jeans from Express. Not my shit. Do you know what I can't believe? I can't believe how fucking thin my sanity is based upon cigarettes. I am so uncomfortable in my own skin. It's all I can think about, and I feel like when I'm not thinking I'm listening to Christmas music,

specifically that song that begs somebody to please come home for Christmas. I sobbed at the thrift store today before I bought this -"

I come face to face with him as I zip up the short, green lace and satin dress with a giant bow on it. It's so old it has a "Made in USA tag" and I'm going to walk around in Hollywood on Christmas day wearing it with ripped fishnets because I don't know how to give a fuck about Christmas without my mom and dad and their tree. I don't want to go to meetings. I don't want to write steps. I don't want to write. Meeting puppies is depressing because I have to put them back and they don't understand where I'm going, and neither do I.

He makes a salad and I read him Hope for the Flowers as he falls asleep.

I am not smoking I"m breathing.

"My face has filled out" I say, and he agrees, and I freak out.

Everybody promises me that any and all weight I gain I will lose and that is just a whole nother conversation.

I don't know what the fuck my problem is, why I'm so emotional and annoyed and full of energy that I don't have the motivation to place into a goddamn thing that's productive. I bought McDonalds today just to throw it away and it's 2am and I'm listening to letters to cleo drinking starbucks and not smoking and thinking about being sixteen and working at Kmart.

You're all the same to me.

The sublime fact
that I guess I missed

is that once you deal
with your own insanity,

you are left to have the
sort of decision regarding
weather or not or how much

or how little
I will deal with the insanity
of others.

You can draw a line
in the sand with a

pinkie finger or a
blow torch. The sand

sifts

just the same.

I am not fascinated and
I don't want much to do

with anyone. But I call him,
to say hello to him, and

tell him that I love him
very much.

His dad got off of his
prison sentence and
I tell him about the

gallery walls, price tags,
and the puppy I want that I
can't for the life of me

find.

"I live in a house with a
green couch, zebra rug,
and a man that I love. He

taught me
how to be treated
and more importantly

how to treat the people
that love me."

"I had one of those."

He says, at work in
Los Angeles with a sunny
laugh.

He asks of my rocks and
what I'm writing.

"A script. I'm
terrified. And I hate
everybody right now."

He is the only person
in my life that was that
in my life of whom I still

speak with. Sometimes I
think it's because he was
the last one to see me

jump off the cliff and
on a day once, on a
gray ice drizzling highway

during some of the worst
times of my life

He held my hand and
said to me that someday
we would meet again

under the sun in
California.

I don't ask if he's spun
today. I don't want to know.

I just laugh at how
he says it's a miracle we
never had children,

that they'd be
far too beautiful and
even farther too

insane.

I hang up the phone
on our green couch
with my

zebra rug.

I love that I can be
in love and love

others.

You can't and you won't and you haven't.
You cannot and you will not and you have not.

Fear. Maybe I should fucking write about how
when I write I fear that all of my shit six pages later
will get deleted, just as it did.

You can do it but it'll never happen. Put in all
the work you'd like to put in just don't
ever expect results.

Puking up my life story leaves me
dehydrated and wondering why I'm even
talking. With a pen in my hand above a thick

thank you card.

I am anxiety the nervous system filters the
fear into lesser things like

rent and sore feet and the burn
on my arm from a hundred and
eighty degree plate. so I
sit by a tree and it all isn't so

redundant.

Trees are angels - they are burned, compounded
and sold on a wholesale discount. We show
up to work on time day after day.

Anything for the money, for the thin green paper
laying lifeless on a dirty mattress
like a used up green dress, rumpled
in the corner. (Caulfield)

Celebrity on gloss pages the young
girl at age 11 has

LOVE PINK written across her
ass as she bonds with her mother by
judging a woman they've never

even seen and I fucking wonder
often what is really happening here.

This poem was brilliant before it
got deleted it was all about

reactional motion and the evasive
bubble cloud and I've lost it and I

do not have the patience at
the moment to re find what the fuck

I just wrote for an hour.

In some kinetic
pencil case puff bag
under a box of

ruins
long forgotten
is a version of myself

that I watch amongst
the crowds
often.

Sometimes they are
angels. Bubblegum
party girls that have

cute plastic earrings
that I got too

hard to wear. Tortured
artists. Brooding and
raw - huggable.

I see myself in the
singers when they're yelling
instead and sometimes I

catch myself
within what is taken for
granted as

the order and it's nice
to not be in some
maniac fantasy that my

head dreams up.
I already have two
pet unicorns, and a

hippoptoamus. Her name
is Queen Hippaa. She lives
on my bed with all

twelve
of my main rocks.

As I was saying though
I was having a good hair
day today and the most

stunning woman
in the room gave me

her phone number.
She asked if I would
call her and I lied and

said "yes." When in fact
I hadn't processed
what was happening.

She was beautiful and
hilarious and when she
left I realized that she was

just nervous because she
was young and the man
with her was not and

he met her at her work,
the strip club
and took her to dinner.

I stared at her number
for a long time, turning my
back so I didn't

have to remember
how she walked

into his car. I guess
it can't be

unicorns and
plastic earrings and
art

all the time.

I'm so
fucking
tired that I can't

even write it.

My body hurts.
My whole body and
my feet and the upper

right side of
my head. My fingernails
ache.

There was a rodeo
in Las Vegas and the
people sitting for dinner

were a big deal. I could tell
because nobody
just wears

shoulder pads covered in
sued fringe paired with those
kinds of

diamonds. (The sort
that cover

your whole
wrist.)

They ate and drank
and none of them laughed
or smiled much

as they left.

A crumpled ticket
to the rodeo was left
on the table.

$250
the printed price tag
for the ticket
and a photo

of the woman
I just served

salad and chardonnay
also printed
on the ticket.

They had photoshopped
her eyes
so they'd look more green.

I just sat in that empty
trashed

room for a minute.
In my own world

with the rich
and

printed.

It was worthlessly

perfect.

My phone rings and it's Rachel
so I roll over and take my head out
from under the pillow.

Sometimes when I talk with her
all I can see is myself in the
giant house I lived in alone

on my knees, asking God
to just let her be a person
that wanted to talk to me.

"Do you know that I love you
more than you will ever know?

Because our capacity for
understanding
love here on this planet pales
in comparison to what it really

is. But I can tell you this.
No matter what planet you go to,
or what wave in pragmatic time

you end up at after this -
what star or sky or sun
system,

we will always
know each other. Not in this body,
not with this hair or the need
for oxygen.

It will be
the light.

Do you know
what a fucking miracle it is
that you answered your phone
that day?

I'm not sorry to get
all spacey on you today but
I"m sure it's a lot. I
haven't had my coffee yet and I'm

stil in bed. Rachel
cried with me
on the phone

this morning and
we laughed for a while
after that because

all we have
is this moment.

Which I'm slowly
learning - how to write

the current moment
void of rambling past
insanity.

Win
lose or

draw.

You might not know this about me

but for a very long time, I have wanted a dog. I have wanted a dog because I have wanted to be a person that is capable of caring for one. A person that is capable of caring for a dog so much that the dog is totally awesome and loving, with personality and traits.

By my house there is this gigantic, absolutely beautiful park, and sometimes Harmon and I go there, just to watch other people with their dogs. Watch them I would, in their north face coats and boots and knit hats. I'd watch what kind of leash they picked out for the dog and laugh.

When I was a little girl I would always pick Pretzel, my first dog (a dacshund) her leash out. Naturally it was hot pink with rhinestones, always. For her whole life.

For a long time I have thought that I would probably end up hating the dog. I don't know why. Harmon and I have finally started to get our house together. To (somewhat) agree on furniture and that sort of thing, and this week we decided we were going to get a dog, a wiener dog.

So I was going through breeders and they were like two grand and that just isn't our style. I've always pictured having a dog that looked like Elvis and people that for whatever reason it is that you do read this,

I found our dog. He is amazing and beautiful and weird just like Harmon and I. He is half dachshund half basset hound and I think that really, honestly, this is our dog.

I just wanted to share that. I hope it works out and we can bring him home.

Is what he says to me
as I sit here, with an empty package of Raisinettes, an empty container of Chunky Monkey, an empty venti starbucks cup, and an empty container that says "YogurtLand"

I ate a cheeseburger for dinner at Village. With fries. And I watched cartoon network and ate applejacks all morning. Oh and we made popcorn and I showed Harmon what Aqua Teen was. This is why I cannot have days off. This is why in the past I smoked cigarettes. I'm coming to terms with, loud and clear with, how thin my sanity really is. I realized this a few weeks ago, when the 215 turned into a parking lot at the exact same time that I realized I didn't have a lighter, a match, or two stones to put together to create a spark to light a cigarette.

I went fucking apeshit in my car. So apeshit I found Cory and Nick's burning man tickets from 2010 that I've looked for five times (and no lighter) and my mac seabreeze lip gloss from the summer of 2009.

I want to tell you about how obsessed I am.

I have always been obsessed so I will always be obsessed, today I simply have the choice to play into my obsession, or to play into the work required to learn to live another way.

Which I thought was doing really well at. I work my program, show up to my shit, take my service positions seriously, share honestly and connect with people as best as my self centered ass allows.

But, as it turns out, I'm still the same fucking lunatic that paced like a rat in a bathroom wearing ten inch platforms for my 19th birthday as I shaved half my head. This comes out in consumption of coffee and ice cream and cookies and candy. This comes out in my views towards myself "You can't paint that' "You'll never sell that." "You aren't saying anything" "You look fat in those boots."

This comes out in the holes within myself that I try so desperately to fill, because thinking is thinking too much and it's a hampster wheel.

"Am I enough?"

"Have I let them down?"

"Who the fuck am I?"

"Where am I going?"

"What do I read next?" - I'm reading two books a week right now because I'm not in school and it's important for me to stay connected with giving myself some kind of information about the world (or not world) I live in.

"I miss Nancy. I miss her and I want to call her and tell her about the gallery, and the script, and the angels, and Olivia, but it is what it is." I cried over that this morning. Just sat here and sobbed, and that was my choice, and I own that, and it hurts to own things.

I'm currently incapable of writing "Are you writing?" Al asks me. "Ghostwriting. I ghost write lately. I do this for periods, where I write things simply to write them, to present the act. I have no idea what the fuck I'm saying and it doesn't stick with me. I drift."

The problem with drifting is that I get very inclined to get onto the track where it takes me to the bad neighborhoods in my head and I'm once again playing into how fucking crazy I am because I can't go out on the porch and light a Marlboro.

Which actually I can but that would be gross. So I'm fixing on frozen yogurt and the PUPPY that Harmon and I are getting. I want to name him Elvis really bad. We put up Christmas lights the other day and raked leaves. It was an odd pairing but I like calm Sundays like that, where the sun is amber colored.

PG was evidently going through boxes and sent me all kinds of pictures - one in particular when I was totally spun in my LSD apartment. I was staring at that picture today. It was one of the worst days of my life. I don't have any idea where I had come from but I finally got to Paula's, and walked into the warehouse and laid down in the pile of clothes the size of a McDonalds. I was about to pass out for a month but my phone rang and it was Phil asking if him and Robb could come over.

So I got my ass back into a taxi and the driver was this crazy ass Vietnam vet and he asked me if I had a gun on me because he had a feeling that I'd better. So I jumped out of the cab somewhere around Ashland and walked halfway and found another cab. I got to my apartment and frantically tried to cover my face in (makeup before they got there) because my face looked like a meth commercial. Even at the time I was aware of it, and now, years later, I stare at my brown teeth and the pock marks under my eyes at the young girl in that picture and just shudder.

There are very few people in my current life that ever saw me that way, and as I look outside at the christmas lights on our house, I smile and let my head shut the fuck up.

Seeing that picture reminds me that I can do anything, and I have already done so much. I am quitting smoking because I want to live on the beach and write books and take care of my body, and I will do all of those things, but this is the first step.

but I still want to take a bath in frozen yogart and sotter a grenade launcher onto Gile's roof for every time I have to drive.

Wonder Years,
HL

"Scott didn't believe me that there is a St. Nick Day." (St Nick Day is in fact real, it's a Polish Christmas holiday, of which also Michelle's birthday falls on - December 6th.)

"So my mom gave us both presents and I woke him up with it and said that it's for St. Nick day, and he gave me a box too! A present, and you'e not going to fucking believe what it was!"

"He proposed?"

"No no no. It was a remote fucking control Yoshi car!!!!!!!!!! Like Yoshi. The Dinosaur!!"

"Yes. You were always Yoshi when we played Mario Kart." Her voice is like an angel laugh, she's so giddy and happy I want to bottle it up and save it forever.

"I told him, I'm putting this into every corner that Kitty hides in, and we're going to terrorize Kitty. There was a gigantic one but he found me a smaller one so I can drive it around the house more."

It is my best friends's birthday and she is in love with a noble man.

That's living.

He had kissed my head as he does
every morning as he stands
over me in the still dark hours of
dawn.

I always mumble
"I love you" before I
sprawl out onto the whole
entire bed and go back to
sleep for at least

another
six hours. This particular
morning the wind sounded
as if it were ripping off
the roof.

"It's December" his voice said
to my closed eyes
in the dark.

"Long December."
I whispered before he kissed me
and was gone.

It isn't very often that
we get to spend our time
together.

Last night we
danced slowly in a
casino parking garage because
that song

"Long December" was playing
over the speakers.

We picked out Christmas
lights for the house and
hung them and marveled at

how pretty they were.
We eat sushi boats and
pop pop corn and totally

dork out at Yogartland,
because I am addicted.

December
will be long.

I'm pretty devastated
that I'm not going home
for Christmas.

So we're going
to the ocean

instead. It's been
so long

since I've seen it
after all.

The house is full of
cable installers and I'm
sitting

straight in bed
thinking about twisted
bright gold
fruit.

Sipping coffee
swallowing picture
thoughts - in Arizona

there was this
abandoned grocery store
that I looked at in traffic

on my way to pick up
my check. The memory
is concise if for just

an instant. After I picked up
my check, I bought ninety nine
cent
roll on lip gloss

after wandering
the dollar store
for a half hour.

I never knew why,
it was just what I did
to pass the time.

To worry less.
To just not
feel. So that maybe
if I were at the store

longer it would
somehow mean
I wouldn't go home

to people passed out
next to needles and
burnt spoons
in my

living room.

I parked my white
Dodge Avenger
in the rocks outside that

living room and for a
very long time I stared
down at that roll on
lip gloss.

I didn't have a quarter
to buy Ramen noodle,
but I bought that lip gloss

because I thought
it would fill.

On the plastic
label

was a sparkly
gold
pineapple.

I was nervous.
I knew what I'd see.

So I twisted that label
until the pineapple
looked like a raisin.

Dollar stores
in Tucson

always made me feel
safe. I kept

that lip gloss
for what felt like
one hundred years,

and the crushed
pack of empty cigarettes
I pawned

my custom made
wedding dress

for. They both lived
under whatever bed
I slept in

for many years.

I sit here
with the cable guy,
in my bed

straight up.

I don't look for
comfort in dollar
stores and I don't

even know
what happened
to the lip gloss or
empty cigarette pack.

But I know
what happened
to me.

Thank God
I've lost everything

so many times
in this

life.

I am in a fit of rage
because it is taking
this pretty snob kid

twenty five minutes
to make me my sandwich
at Capriotti's. In addition

Nancy Grace
is squawking at
full volume on the
dirty tv screen.

Nancy Grace used to have
a dignity about her.

Now she's the next
Jeraldo Rivera. Legit
news anchors

are news anchors not
contestants on
Dancing With the Stars.

People need to stick
to one thing, and keep
their publicists

out of it.

"This whole world just
weirds me out. The people
in it. Wherever I'm from

I was all about Earth.
I begged to come here.
And now I'm on Earth
and I'm all about

wherever I'm really from.
I meditate lately about how
I will live on Redando and

not smoke or eat
crap and I'll be healthy
with books published or

something. Sometimes
I want to do the things
you've done in your life, and I

wonder what
it is that I'm doing here,
if that is what I want - the

things I know you can't
give me."

"I know that you will leave.
You will have to. It's just
the order - but

I will love you
forever."

Sometimes
it's like I'm

nowhere.