Conversations Among the Ruins

I would like to
walk like a delicately
pealing banana down

a tie dyed path of
quartered sunkist
jelly beans.

To spit up out of
my mouth into a
pin wheel patterned

polka dotted
pill bottle.

I will write
NOVEL onto

my palms and
pray really hard -
wearing a hat

that people
would stare at
in a Denny's

at two in the morning
after I threw a
cheeseburger

on it's plate
at somebody

I mis thought
importnat.

She cried I wore
glitter print blue
and orange

t shirts.
With a smirk and
a lot of bleach
in my hair - it made me

feel.

I believed in love
but only when it gave
me the excuse to

bring out a brownie
sundae at a pizza place
and laugh -

Because of
that - I got

to be.

He tells me sometimes
not to worry that they
won't hurt me and I

snort obnoxiously
and tell him

it isn't me
worrying about them
that I think of.

Down a candy apple
lane of ecstasy and
mixtapes on

tollroads at the bottom
of the gin ice I

grew up and
fell in love and

got married

again to the sticks
and stones and tubes
of lipstick that wore

me.

The letters tell me
lately that my
writing is powerful

and I (thank you) and wonder
about people that write
REST IN PEACE

over social networking
sights on the internet.

I'm sick of picking the chicken
out of my food and how right

lately
the price
sure is.

I watch her every day
and hope it's the day
she makes the decision

to put down the denial,
hit rock bottom and
crash but I

need her still to
stay alive.

I love her and she
hates herself she

loves how beautiful
they tell her she is.

They say it so much
that she says it too.

I met her
topless in the
dust.

We talked slowly of
death by heroin and
parties and sex

industry work.

She is young but I
hope every day that she
makes it out

alive without a
prison term.

The world is
too true

sometimes I just
quit playing along.

Thank God I'm
twenty eight and
out on those streets

dead and sick
is more acceptable than
"worn."

Young girls idolizing
Courtney Love
makes the world

a very sad and
small

place.

The dark fades
just the

same.

It only took three buttons.
Three buttons to delete
two years of

emails that changed
my entire being.

I said I would go to
the temple but I
never made it - I

couldn't stomach that.
I couldn't accept it.

I couldn't burn
all of those letters
yet. I could not

say goodbye - it
would have ripped
at me and I still

didn't understand.

I sat at Shelli's
today and explained
how a woman

taught me how
to live. She was one of
the most honorable

and incredible people
to ever come into
my life -

but something went
entirely wrong and

she did not agree
with my choices. So she
asked me to delete

everything I she ever
ever wrote to me and
so I did.

I find dozens of
cards that she would
always send me weekly
in boxes and I

either stop of
leave them there - I
can't believe this planet
spins without her

guiding me
however I no longer
accepted
her opinion

of my love and of
my life therefor I

had to leave. I went over
a step with Shelli this morning
and she

said to me that

"No matter what
happens I'll be with
you on

this side and I'll
be with you on the
other side

too" and I

almost choked
at the simplicity

of such a statement.

I am

far.

I walk calmly out of the house and into
the sun, out to the car where my father
is getting out of the front seat.

I give him a hug,
walk around and hug
my mother.

They step into
our living room -
sit down on the

couch.

And they don't
say anything
about the six foot
tall

portrait
I painted
and put up.

So.
Her name is Muriel
and Muriel is the name
of a Lemurian Quartz that I

chose to give to a
women that I had
a lot of resentments
towards -

However. I decided to
just put myself and my
bullshit aside and love her

through
what she was going through.
So I gave her Muriel because
I felt the pain that she

was given and after that
I stayed awake for two
straight days and
painted

that canvas.

I figured as much
but I had hoped

I guess.

"The lillies
are beautiful."

My mom says.
I don't tell her

I got them
at my two year
birthday.

It is in my art studio
that I start frantically
pulling out
every

completed canvas.
"This one I made
at the burn and this
one is for Dubz but I

don't have five hundred
dollars to send it. This one
is sexual assault and

this one I traded Jami
when I gave her Kalliope I
took this one back.

The ones I painted on
the patio were
my favorite - "

And my head
goes back for a
moment and it's a

person I can't remember
saying

"Why
do you pull
so much shit

out to show us
every time
we come

over?"

Sometimes I just
want to start my whole
life over and not

be the seven year old
that is ok with

need for twenty
extra

years.

Ever since the last one moved out we've cringed a bit. Cringed because the landlord of the house next to us doesn't do any sort of a background check. Basically, anybody with enough cash for the first month can move in.

The last neighbors were witches. Bat shit insane women but good people, if they weren't loudly threatening to kill each other early enough to wake me up. They left a trail of stray cats and a jeep in the backyard that doesn't run. She comes to feed the cat, whom we've adopted, almost daily and it's straight out of the wizard of oz - long black hair and a black leather coat - riding a bike with a basket.

Naturally, I love this woman the way I love everybody - from a fixed distance. I listen, say very little, and smile.

Last week a pile of tires started to form in the back yard of the house. "Guess he got somebody to move in." The pile of tires turned into a pile of tires and road signs, stuffed animals and about ninety giant pieces of dirty metal. I'm sure this is "stuff" but I can't even tell. there are motor bikes and tool box looking things and fans and it's literally a pile of metal. Looking out into my backyard is now like a junkyard. Yesterday the cops even visited it. Perfect.

Naturally we've had a field day with this, doing our best to just laugh it off.

Tweakers are tweakers and whatever. It's the desert and that's typical. Better them than me. Am I a little fucking annoyed that I drive forty five minutes every day to get the fuck out of the wreckage of crack and poverty that is Las Vegas? Of course.

I didn't see people for weeks just more and more shit piling up.

Today I took out the trash and I saw a woman, about four foot nine and very thin with really messy blonde hair walking around aimlessly in the yard. It was an absurd reality, she looked about ninety pounds.. so I didn't say anything at all. I just felt this horrible sadness. Penelope went closer to the yard and as I went to pick her up I jumped at a man that was watching me from the dark laundry room of the house.

I detest people coming out from nowhere like that so I did my best to recover and smile/ say hello. He's really nice actually and the woman comes walking up and I realize that she isn't a woman at all, that she's a four foot nine ten year old girl.

"My name is Reality." She says as she pets Penelope. She has and army print shirt on that says "Angel." She has a giant spring in her hand. "I found this in the pile!!" She says happily as she bounces the spring on a fence.

"I'm sure you can find two hundred more." I say with a sinister smile as my eyes fall to the trash pile before I make an exit.

A few hours later I go outside - Harmon is pulling weeds and Reality is helping him. She even has leather winter gloves on. There is a dead flower on the bench.

"That is one of my favorite flowers. It died in the move so I wanted to give it to you guys. I like your flowers on the porch."

I laugh. "I kill a lot of flowers so I finally just got some fake ones. I like all of the colors. I like your shoes" I tell her. She has on boys DG skate shoes, black and blue.

"I like boy shoes better. People make fun of me but I don't care."

She sits with me for an hour on the porch. No adults come out to see what she's doing or their kid might be. She is pale with frekals, blonde hair and a fake peace sign tattoo next to her left eye.

"I hope we get to stay in this house. I lived in an apartment at first, and after this this really gross place. I've moved like nine places this year."

She shudders. I watch

the air. Ten places this year in February. I hope she counts the years starting in September like I do.

Hi my name is Heather and there's something you should know about me. It's that I do not enjoy listless conversation with people.But I sat with this kid for two hours on my porch today and it was one of the first times in a very long time that the conversations were effortlessly real and sincere.

"Do you like art?" I ask her.

"Yes." She leans over and cups her mouth to whisper

"Don't tell my mom but in my art class I've been working on weaving her a basket for Christmas. I know it's late but I didn't get to give her anything so I'm going to give it to her anyway."

I bite my lip. "Mothers are lucky for their daughters." I say.

"Do you want to see my art studio? It's right back there."

She gets nervous and says no. I tell myself that it was her parents, of whom haven't been out to check on her in two hours, that taught her that caution.

I tell myself that really loud all the way to work.

I don't hate much in this world, but the desperation and despair of so many on this planet, and the ways in which it affects the innocent children

is really an aspect of the sort of thing I do hate. My sponsor tells me constantly that I can't save anybody but myself.

Powerless over any other people places or things.

I can't believe the awareness of this I lack at times.

July, 2010.

I'm in an In & Out drive thru with my roomate fighting back tears - those panic like ones, where you're spending your last buck fifty on a fountain mr. pibb at In & Out.

"So who cares?! You bought the ticket and it's done with. You told her you'd go so now you're going."

"I am so. Fucked. I spent the last of my savings on the ticket. I can't fucking believe I did that. I better see a unicorn resurrected from crystal ashes. I want my skin to turn sea foam green. Forever. I'm going to be eating minute rice from now until October. I'm such an idiot."

I stop wallowing long enough to see her frozen in a stare at me, twisted in my direction at a ninety degree angel in the car.

"Well how the fuck much was a ticket?!" She says.

"Three hundred and ninety dollars."

"And what do you do there?"

"I'm not sure. Like. Dance and walk around. I guess, under a pre text of radical self expression."

"Pffffffffwhew." She says and I feel the same. We drive in silence as I sip my Mr. Pibb in a panic that it would be my last Mr. Pibb for possibly ever. For all I know I could die at this shit.

Burning Man.

It would be a radically expensive way to relapse, die, or both.

I did what I always do, I hoped out loud and silently resented how it would be like every other stupid night at a rave/ club/ house party/ shady warehouse party I'd ever been to and since far outgrown, except I wouldn't be able to leave. In the mean time, I ate a shit load of minute rice and the occasional avocado when I could afford it, grumbling to myself that if I weren't going to stupid Burning Man I'd be having a bobbi from Capriottie's.

One of my best friends Corrine ( Playa alias: Angel Face) and Nick (Grandpappy) flew to Vegas from Chicago. The three of us took my VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE to Black Rock City. Do not do this. Corrine basically had to lay on top of everything in the back seat. We drove the seemingly ninety miles down the lonely old highway and Grandpappy, the vet bringing us virgins started to get excited.

"I can smell the dust" He kept saying. "What?!" I kept looking at him like he was crazy. He told me a while ago that I wasn't allowed to ash my cigarette out of the window. I did not appreciate this. I didn't smell anything but alkoli and I didn't see anything either. Just dust trails.

I had no idea what the fuck I was walking into, and I have a huge problem with this because I'm a control freak about my enviorment. What I walked into was, for the first time in my life, completely out of myself and into the arms of a tan girl with giant fuzzy boots, ears, and a skirt on saying "Welcome Home."

Not only did I have the most incredible experience of my life, my grudging indecision to go to Burning Man radically re coursed my life.

Firstly, I didn't meet people to party with. I acquired a family of people so radically different and incredible that beyond any other reason of placement on Earth besides for us to meet and create a structure/ camp together is just absurd. As a direct result of this fact alone I do not believe in coincidence. We have the rocket scientist, the carpenter, the brilliant artist, the mom, the gorgeous child, the architect, the musician, the exotic beauty, the sassy one, the heart throb, the hilariously wasted/ doted over one.. just to name a few.

This group... each so radically different from I yet so radically exactly the same. When others are free to express themselves at an unabashed level, you learn about yourself through them at just the level. I spent my first burn filling the pages of a journal because all I could do was write.

I burn sober. People seem amazed by that fact fairly often.

"You're so nice about it" JB says. "I see people offer you everything and you just politely say "no thanks I'm good. Why?"

These are the people that can get fucked up for fun. I'm not one of those people. I get wasted so that I can not feel or deal with things and it looks like I'm having fun. If there is anywhere in the world that I do NOT have to numb out how, what and why I feel it's on the Playa. Burning Man is literally the Astral Realm Wave of Experience here on Earth - as a PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL entity.

Burning Man is a hyper spiritual experience for me and I would not alter that with external substance. The people that do, good for them, this is just my experience. I danced in a fifty mile per hour wind/ dust storm with just one person, the DJ. It was like the ultimate relationship for an hour - I needed him to play the music to dance and he needed me there to dance to play the music.

I lost it - just.. every part of myself that needed to shift.. in front of the Temple of Flux - utter hysterics as I just screamed it all out into the arms of two people I barely knew because of why I was painting what i was painting. Have you ever screamed or cried in a way that afterwards you just stop for a moment and think

"Has that been in me all along?" You have to wonder what shifted as a result.

The desert in itself opens your energy like the sun opens a flower. The air is different. On the playa the idea of sitting in front of a computer is foreign, as if you can hardly imagine it, or how or why you do it. I had my heart opened. Literally, by a man who taught me how to do it with his eyes.

"How will I go home and sit in front of a computer?" Tosh asked me a few times. I didn't know either.

For as amazing as Burning Man is, it's inevitable that you're going to lose your shit after it too. Why?

Because you found yourself through all of the people around you, except you were in an alternate reality of which you are no longer in. Now you're in front of a tv trying to remember how to use the remote. Alone. You have bills. Printed on paper. You realize how much you eat is fucking crazy, because you learned to live on sauce and noodles once a day for seven days. Throwing "apple" into the choice complicates it, now you can have basically anything in the world. You have to go back to work.

The concept of work baffles you, and you come to an understanding of the harsh realities of life on this planet as we have made it for ourselves.

You trudge along, planning next years burn down to the exact pieces of rebar you'll pack, the wigs you won't pack, and the list of the best things (Monster. Yoohoo.)

The next year comes and your whole life has changed, or at least mine has. I met a guy. I met him because he said to me

"Hey burner" one day and I did a 360 and said "You fuckin went to burning man?!" Today we burn together, have a dog and a house together, make art together, buy rocks together.

I had a much broader perspective of myself, my wellness, and what I was walking into. "I can smell it!!!!!" We yelled at each other excitedly down that million mile road to Black Rock City. "The DUST. THE DUSTTTTTTT!!!" I take video after video, sending them to Corrine (angel face) until my reception dies all together. I will not turn my phone on for ten days. It will be in a sealed ziplock bag in a cabinet under a box. Or something.

My last burn I made art. I had adventures. I laughed my tu tu off at camp with my family. I painted flamingos on people's faces. I spray painted shoes. I had a three hour conversation and breakfast with an Iranian film director because he accidentally picked my coffee up at center camp. I gifted Lola, my sacred Flourite Sphaelite to Peter and Alfonso - two of the most amazing people I have met on this planet to date. I sat on the front porch. I survived a two bike tun on a flaming RAMP OF DEATH. I painted canvas and faces and swung on a marry go round like a child, laughing so hysterically loud that I almost threw up. I sat in the middle of a thirty story metal pyramid. I went to meetings in Anonymous Village and I met a man that told me

"It is within the man burning that we attempt to, on a smaller level, re create what it was for each individual to arrive here." (On Earth)

In short, the things that clicked into my head about the evolution of this planet, where it's headed and why I am here became crystal, dusty clear as I watched the Temple of Transition burn in silence, because the temple does that -

burns in silence with fifty thousand people around it. It's just that kind of a moment. I simply wrote "New World Order" in the dust. We stayed on Playa for ten days and I got back here, got back to work, got back to life/ back to reality - because I have a sense of "Home" and what the most incredibly profound and special time of my life feels like. It's the Burn.

It is with a heavy heart that I write that the ticket fiasco has turned admission to our great City into a pile up on the 101 at peak rush. Basically, I don't know anybody that's gotten tickets. Like not one other person of the twenty five in our camp and the fifty in Harmon's camp.

This isn't to discredit the newcomers that did get tickets (I am one myself having gone to only two burns) because that shit is what killed the "rave" scene (and the drugs) but it was the ego and attitudes of people that were older. When love turns to ego all you have left is ego. And meth based drugs.

This incredibly beautiful girl I work with, Gina, has been telling me she's wanted to go to the burn for a while. I was walking out the other night and she stopped me, ran up to the door, and told me with a hopeful look on her face

"So I'm going to register for a ticket!!!!" She was so beautiful and innocent and excited, it was crushing. So I just smiled and said "I hope you can make it." Knowing full goddamn well that the tickets are sold out and the remaining ten k will be auctioned off to theme camp participants.

I am sad that people will not have the opportunity to stumble onto one of the most unique and unbelieveably inspiring times of their life.. where they get to be on this planet but not on this planet at all.

Burning Man has taught me where I am truly from in this universe. Not what it looks like, but what it feels like. I am not afraid of death and I sincerely look at my life today as if I have already died, because whoever I was before I was given the hope and love of that experience will never exist again. I have a greater faith in humanity, and it was the first real cracks of light for me - where the masks started to come off and I realized that I too have a spirit. These two people had an amazing project in 2010. I wish I had known their names, but it was a giant blue flaming blue sand culdron with an arrow that could be swung around. What was more incredible than what they made, were THEM themselves. I passed them crystals and they said I was beautiful and that i was light. I'll be on my death bed remembering that in ninety years. Not what it looks like, what it feels like.

In fact, I was waiting on some really rude and intolerant lawyers recently. It was their whole law firm having a party, and I overheard some of them discussing burning man, and how they go every year. As I poured the coffee I whispered "I burn too."
And they were complete snob motherfuckers to me about it, sniffing "that's nice" at me. That HURT me.

But you know what? I have faith that on the Playa they shared their water with somebody or helped somebody onto an art car. Fuck, it could have been ME. They wrote on the same temple of flux that I did, and they watched it burn in silence with me. Maybe they painted faces or let somebody wear their tu tu. The bottom line is this:

We are all better for the experience. Every single fifty one or two or three thousand of us. Wether we make it this year or not, it is the real deal, and I am happy for all of those that get to participate, that got to participate, and that will participate.

That being said, we were taking a drive down Joshua tree highway tonight.

"I don't even know if we should go. It won't be the same without Corrine, or Kat, or Al, or Marsh or Frog. I mean really. It's the year of the Dragon and embrace change and yadda yadda yadda, but maybe that change should be for other people because we already had our experience. What are we even going to do? Besides meet new people, which we will, and it will be incredible, but still.

It hurts to think that our collective families will be left out, and I sincerely don't know if I want to be a part of that. Maybe the theme camps are gigantic and fancy and important, but who will make our cucumber sandwiches? And who will build the shower? Who in the fuck is going to play the harmonica at dawn? The families are broken. I mean. We could do something else. Go to Grants Pass or something. Go see JB in SLC. I don't know."

Everybody has collectively kept their burner spirits. "If I don't get in, I don't get in. We'll do regionals and service."

In July of 2010 I accidentally purchased my soul back for three hundred and ninety dollars and I

certainly hope that others have the opportunity to find what I discovered; Who and what and why I am.

In addition to the joy and beauty of every single being around me.

I would eat instant rice for the rest of my life if I ever felt I would lose that and I could buy it back.

You can always go back - the option to choose to forget is always available.

But it isn't what it looks like.

It's how it feels, and what that means to you, and how you go out into the world and spread that feeling and meaning.

Once it gets on you, it's your choice wether you're going to keep it to share it, or resent it to squash it.

If you had an incredible, inspiring, open hearted older sibling that wanted to teach you how to experience the thing so much responsible for making them that way safely/ respectfully. How much of an impact would that have, and how much more likely would you be to respond safely, respectfully, and with the best of yourself?

Now. If you had an older sibling and your relationship was based on them talking about how incredible and special something was, however mom and dad fucked something big up right along the time you came along - and now the whole family is being ridiculed, and everybody is "less than" because it radically changed everything. How are newcomers going to respond to that?

The tickets are fucked. Demand far outweighs supply. That's the bottom line. Could you imagine how the people that have to answer to all of us feel? What would you do in the situation? When I have an answer for that I'll allow myself to judge the course they took - but I don't have an answer, and I don't want to scramble my nervous system trying to think of one.

I saw something up there about a kid that wanted to make a peacock jacket and it became this rant of "You newbie idiot you can't wear feathers." That broke my heart. Maybe it was a joke in the first place, but how would you feel? To be openly ridiculed like that in any area of your life, let alone by "Burners." Why not just say "Cool. Just use acrylic paint and a canvas coat. Feathers are moop." Who are we?

My point is if your family really got screwed, I mean really badly, would you be the one to point the finger, or would you be the one to love them through it and be there when they needed you, no matter what? Keep in mind this is a family that loved you first with open arms.

It isn't all sexy sparkle ponies and blinky lights burner babies. Lets respond with the principals of love and self reliance that this city so much tought us and just love as many people as we can through this.

<3,
Heather Co.

My drive home from
work is a long one,

up into the hills
until Las Vegas
is a beam of

synthetic sonic
light in my
rearview mirror.

The speed limit is
seventy five. The roads
dark black.

There isn't cell
reception and I

often either turn on
jazz or drive in
silence.

I was deep in thought
of my friend Phil.

We were very close
for many years of

hanging out in bars
and giving a shit about
being cool and

knowing how to talk about
music. We watched
a lot of movies and

danced on dirty floors.
We didn't cry together or
ever really say

"Hey I love you and
we've had a lot of life
together."

We got wasted and
fought.

Fought because we
hated what ultimately
brought us together

in the first place.

Corrine and I have laughed
over this, over our friends

in the past. "I fucking hate
you. Lets go get a beer or
sit on the couch

watching The Mars Volta
on TV all night."

"Remember the time
you played that killers
song like

twenty times?"

I am so far from that
version of my twenty
two year old self.

"Everything changes
in five years." He would
always say.

"We won't even be friends
anyway so what's the point

now?" Was his line.
It hurt the same each time
but at some point

I became the
component detached.
I

changed and left and
got totally fucking
intolerant of being treated

like I was young and
just pretty and

the blank
canvas.

"You can ride on my
coat tails" he said
once. I believed it

and was grateful for that
wholeheartedly and I
resent who and why I

was at that age.

When I was in Chicago
last I went to see Phil.
It was purple outside, just
faded gray and

foggy - a slight ice
mist. We don't talk much
but I parked the car and as

I saw him I ran
as fast as I could up to him.
He spun me around three

times and it was the
first time I felt

like I was home.
He gave me Bokup Fish
and we went to
Rosleys.

It was a short
visit but as I
walked away I knew

that somewhere
in the world, for
the rest of my life,

no matter who or
what or where I
am,

that that person
will be somebody that
loves me.

We fail to know each other
on a day to day level.

He will not read this, just as I
rarely listen to his mixes.

But we are there, in
some place
together where none
of those realities

really matter.

I am grateful for my
friend Phil.

I don't
interrupt that
with the phone.

Valentines day is always a strange time to me. Likely, I'm working a monster shift, full of extra tables and featured drinks - red colored. It always made me sad in the past that I wasn't a fancy girl in a tight dress eating steak and lobster. This year was no different, as I trudged to work after kissing my love goodbye with a frown.

I went to Starbucks and got my venti four shot iced coffee, 3 pumps raspberry and two inches of cream. It reminds me of a place that's a million years away and besides, it's pink and festive. "Where did you hear of this?" The barista asks.

"I worked in a coffee shop. They had them, they were called coffee coolers. You can do them with any flavored syrup."

Today I am blessed with the ability to just keep it short. It's all a long story, that Thank God I don't have to tell the barista at Starbucks today.

I got clean the day before Valentines day and proceeded to work the worst waitress shift I've ever had. Where I walked in to eight tables that were mine that weren't regularly there, so nobody knew any of the numbers.

A few days after that my friend Heather was murdered. By her husband. We went to the services and everybody was going out for cocktails. I told them I had to just go home and slinked away.

Two years later and I acccept that I will, for the rest of my life, one day at a time, be in the process of learning what it is to "feel" in human life, instead of "get a cocktail" in order not to.

I woke up with my valentine and our littlest valentine (Penelope) yesterday wedged between us. We slept all day. Well I wrote in my notebook and Harmon slept next to me.

"Before I go to work I have to shine my shoes, shave, do my hair, put on my suit in order to be entirely ready."

Entirely ready.

Those words have stuck with me this week. I didn't see pretty women in tight dresses that I'd never be like last night. I saw people beaming they were so happy to be having a nice dinner together with each other. Dudes have long mac if they're taking their ladies out to my work, and I was happy for those women, because they deserve that. Everybody does.

I got home at about one and in the dark on top of my computer was a big russle stover box of chocolates.

So I cuddled Penelope and my love and smiled quietly, they way you do to yourself in the dark.

I never asked for
strength I simply

hoped for
change.

Courage wasn't
a part of my
vocabulary - I

only wanted
to stop

feeling like
I was spinning

void of
control.

Who did I call?

It was Phillip
that told me

"But everything,
EVERYTHING will
change."

I never asked
for a new life

or a wester side
of the country

to live on I only
wanted to
get a

fucking
grip. I had no
concept of

three hundred and
twenty days of

sun I only felt that
somewhere it
existed. I never knew

that out there
there were women
with

my nearly exact
story.

I refused to
picture myself as

the hysterical spat
of rage at

four o'clock
in the morning
after your phone

rang,

One hundred and
ten down
I55 in

hysterics because
my life was all
good and I

"Had it" and
nothing
bothered me.

I could have
killed

people with that
shit - with my

epitome of self
wellness through
gin induced

denial.

A lot of things
that were beyond
my control

happened in my life
and it wasn't ever

ok to talk on that or
write on that or
acknowledge myself
as all

of that. A lot of those
things

were my choice.
Many were not - the
difference un blurs

a little more
each day.

I remember that phone
call with Phillip. Sitting on
my mother's stoop I

just hung up the
phone in a
terrified

silence.

I ate a bottle of
addoral that week
and was going to

a bar for Corrine's
birthday that night.

I ordered two double
Tangurray rocks - it
was last call

and I slammed the
first one and stared
sadly at the

second as all of
the lights came up.

I left that gin on
the table and I haven't
picked it or anything

similar up
since. Today people

gave me a lot of
flower bouqets and
cupcakes and

roses, books, coins and
written cards,

mix cd's.

We bought our
puppy a hot pink
spiked collar and I

never could have
known to ask
for a life

like. Nobody
knows for sure

if a rainbow will
appear after
a storm.

But I like to think
that people attain

some hidden
capacity for
hope and

courage and
love

anyway. Somebody said
to me once that they

would be so angry
if I ever

were to turn out
to be

average.

"You will be
a huge example

and that
will either be

of the dark or
of the

light."

Today I choose
light.

"Girl you made me
cry." He says as I
walk the hallway I

walk ten thousand
times a night.

"It isn't
a sad
story, actually."

I stare at my new
black patent
leather high heels.

I was at Starbucks on
Thursday and this man
got out of a

Dodge Charger and
walked up to me,
gave me hug and

said

"You spoke on
Monday and I
heard you."

I didn't know what
to say so I just
ordered my coffee

with a person
that heard my
entire life

standing
behind me.

Shit people have
said to me that
stuck:

"People
do not
do what

you are doing
at this
age."

Because I was
searching within
the printed papers

of my own words for
who I was

who I was supposed
to be and who

I would turn out as.

I remember a
skinny girl in chunky
gaudy heels and

skin tight jeans with a
backless tank top

at a meeting
in The Rooms

all geeked out and thinking
to myself

I was a long way from
home in some ways
and in others

home would never
leave me. My life is

not a hook track -
six seconds to
listen. Yesterday

I was taught
that I don't
have to decide

my entire life
today or understand
my entire life today and

that
likely

there will always
be another
hallway.

Sometimes I
lay in bed and
tell him about

when he was a baby
and I wasn't born yet,

how I would make him
laugh and his eyes
would shine,

just like

they do

now.

It isn't good when I
stare evenly at a
wall and ask

my boyfriend
"Why
is she

texting
you?"

I'm a crazy person
did you forget?

That I'm female and
a year ago the

closest person
to me in my life

told me every day
I woke up that you

would leave me
for somebody

better and I am
sorry to you
for that when it

comes out at
breakfast and I'm
slapping the

table.

All these years.

The rage
the same.

Life sucks when it's a Sunday and I have to close and my feet hurt and it isn't ever going to end because
nobody will leave and the patio still has to be broken down and the jelly beans have to be wrapped and there is a run

in my tights and I'm fucking exhausted because my boyfriend is out of town and my dog needs me to be home with her but I'm not.

I'm tired it's been like eighty laps around this place today and poor, pretty, privileged me. Poor me and my three hundred dollar shifts a night five to six days a week and my poor starbucks and shoes and crystal balls and my misusse and expensive hair product, mac makeup and God knows whatever else I feel like buying.

She asks me if I will take her to the bus. It's finally forty five past midnight when she asks me and I tell her yes because I work on the East side and fuck that if a girl is walking down that street at that time. She has a pretty face and rarely says much, I haven't talked to her much at all.

I met her Fiance on New Years Eve when we were all still there at midnight watching fireworks. I was slightly taken aback when I met him, but I thanked him for making her so happy, and that it was nice to meet him.

"It's going to take me two and a half hours to get home on the bus." She says as we get into the car. "It's so fucked up by my house. Theres this homeless village, just tents and shopping carts for blocks, and I have to walk through that shit. It scares me."

"Well do you arm yourself?"

"What?"

"Do you have a gun?" I ask her.

She shakes her head no.

"Maybe you should. Tell me where to go I'll take you home." I say, annoyed because I live forty minutes in the other direction.

She starts talking, really fast. As if she doesn't know where the start or end is.

"I used to be a dancer, I made a ton of money and I was really really good at it. I was the top girl. I was taking this medicine and because of it I got Chromes disease, and people at work think I'm lazy, but I have the disease, and I don't have insurance or any medicine and I'm really sick. I can't dance anymore because of the disease I gained fifty pounds. I had to have emergency surgery and they took out most of my intestines and I have this big, awful scar."

She stops talking to take a breath, as the above paragraph was a giant run on sentence.

"I hate my scar." She says as she stares out the window at all of the people in tents (North LV)

"sometimes I think I can go back into the strip club and work and just wear something that covers the scar. I have a kid that I'm trying to support. I'm supposed to get a few million dollars from a settlement because of the medicine I took that gave me the disease but who knows when that is going to happen.

At least I found (my fiance) to help me take care of my daughter. I'm so fucking sick though Heather. So sick and fucking scared."

"Do you have parents?" I ask her. She's chewing her thumb. "Uh - uh" she says without expression as she chews her thumb for another minute. She takes it out of her mouth

"My ma died of AIDS when I was really little. My dad has been locked up my whole life. It's just always been me and I can't even fuckin hustle anymore because I'm trying to be a better person and shit for my kid."

And we're sitting here in my car and I just take my hand and put it on top of hers. Put it on top of hers and tell her that

she doesn't have to be scared and
that she isn't as alone as sometimes maybe it feels like she is.

I drop her off in an apartment complex and drive through the tented shopping cart community in a quiet daze.

You never know what the fuck somebody else's life is like or what they're going through.

Remember that if you forget to look outside of yourself today,

Try to do something kind to correct it.

Roughly a year ago I went back to Tucson for the first time in seven years. The first time since Robb died and I never returned to my house or my job or the two or three friends I did have.

I drove to Phoenix and went to a party with my burner friends, passed out and woke up in the morning. We walked to a starbucks with Jim's old dog Sasha and got her a cranberrry scone, because that's just the kind of person Jim is.

A brilliant man that adopts a sixteen year old dog and walks her to starbucks every day, feeding her scones while he reads chemistry books.

I don't know what happened but I saw the "10" freeway and I had to go. I gave him a quick hug and with a startled look on my face stammered "I have to go. I just have to go to Tucson. Just right now. I need to go alone. I love you."

And I left. I left and I drove in that sun with a bright decible of light only found in Arizona. Stared with chills at the "hook" mountain that lies in the middle of nowhere, the 10, between Phoenix and Tucson. I was so afraid. So afraid of what I would see and what it would make me feel because let me tell you something

I'm twenty eight years old. I've been sober for two years. What that means to me is that I've been alive for twenty eight, and I've allowed myself to "feel" what I'm "feeling" for two years. Two years. That's nothing. That's everything. Anyway.

Afraid of the dirt and dust and heart that changed places the way that all of that did, but in the deepest corners, where the sun didn't go - the flip side of accidental salvation remained. I was afraid of how the last time I cried there was when I was blown on oxycotin on a roof because I already knew what would happen - that the double rainbow told me. I was uncomfortable that my life was placed upon a fake tablecloth that was ripped out from under me and

nothing fell back into the same place.

I pulled up to what was our house first. The house I tried to cook dinner in and where I cut up what was left of my clothes and stared at a crack in a sink after I held my cell phone under the faucet/ best move of my life

Where we drew with chalk with Mariposa and the stuffed unicorns and played with her the game "Witches" where we could cast spells on each cactus in the garden. Where he punched me and comforted me and nodded out over enough K to kill half of North Korea.

The house was empty so I just stared at it. After that I met Lola at Coffee Exchange because she was in Tucson that week on a fluke. Lola and I first got close because she was the first person to ever read my novel. She had gone to the U of A in Tucson and I sat there, in the Coffee Xchange coffee house where I had worked, bought my sanity back at $5.50 an hour - with my hands

just shaking. I couldn't stop shaking. My tongue was shaking and do you know the fuck what?

Lauren Schroeder being with me in that coffee shop that day made it a completely different place. We went to what had been Robb and I's house together and I just stood there. I didn't have a reaction except for this film reel of the shit I used to accept as my life. It just looked like a worn out, dirty place.

It reminded me of how far I had gone to change in my life.

"There is nothing for me here." Is all I said as we walked away. Three houses down the street what had likely been a strung out artist had been evicted. There was just this gigantic trash pile of shattered glass and all of this art that consisted of skulls and eyeballs, cows and crosses and all of these dark symbolisms of death. I took a lot of pictures of that trash pile, just a few steps from the house I thought that

if I saw would change me, but it didn't.

Death on the floor inside or out - I simply turned around and walked away

with a few things I didn't have before.

A better person.

"There was this day where we sat on Skype for like fourteen hours. He showed me all of his hoodies and snowboards and bandannas. We took phone calls and I was in that gigantic fucking house alone, but it wasn't like I was. Not at all. He was so. Beautiful. I couldn't look at him. He was just so pretty. It was crazy. I thought we would be in love and together forever.

When the reality is is that is just what I needed at the time. I listened to Tegan and Sara's "Sainthood" on repeat for days. I didn't sleep after my first burn, I starved myself and laid on the couch because NV energy cut the power. He was like the only thing that kept me even showering I was so depressed because I thought maybe he'd skype me and I wouldn't feel alone.

Anyway that day we talked forever I had to get off the phone to go and get dinner. He asked me what I was going to have and I told him "Oh I'm just going to get a carton of cigarettes and a shake from Mc Donald's."

And that's what I did. I bought the cigarettes with the last fifty bucks on a three thousand dollar credit card. I was relieved about this. I think about that every time I'm on the East side of Vegas and looking at this walgreens. I bought them here, listening to "On Directing" on my ipod.

Sometimes I miss the ideal of what I thought here would because that didn't ever happen. It's a waste of energy to try to figure out how it will all play out.

Tonight I'm on my blue jelly bean couch in my art studio blaring some sainthood that on directing track. Covered in paint and pajamas today we bought fake flowers for the front porch and a dozen rose bushes to plant too.

Material girl there are thirteen completed canvases in this room and the two I'm working at now.

"The rocks are only what they are because of what I am." I say and I don't know if that's

the new order or the

old order but I

will not stop.

I will not stop to look back I have to just sit on this multi colored carpet covered floor and sift

through

the way to make the ways I already took into how I end up

getting there.

Harmon went to the store this morning before I woke up and got me Don Fransicso Hawiian Hazelnut coffee, because it is my favorite breakfast in the world. Six scoops. Half cream in the cup. That's the trick. It's a secret that I keep actually, and there.

Now you know.

I haven't had Don coffee in a while because I've been so strung out on going to work that I really forget things like grocery stores.

Unless I have to buy redull. Or nylons. I usually have six minute windows to do so. Because I sit on my couch as long as possible with my dog in between coming and going to work.

I got a new tattoo last week. It says "Of the Light." Right next to the all seeing eye (A back of a DOLLAR BILL?!?!" I've had shrieked at me.) It's actually a representation of the New World Order, the pyramid, and the cacidius represents the stalph of Hermes/ Mercury. But ok. A back of a dollar bill and the medical marijuana symbol. I digress.

Cool. Of the Light is where I'm from when I'm not on Earth. And I should really come up with some other shit to say like "Oh, it's the name of the band I'm in." Or "Oh it's a brand name of a super up and coming skate board company" or some shit. The tattoo will be white eventually and nobody will see it. For now I say "It's just a thing about me" and walk.

So I wake up to my favorite coffee made the right way and my puppy and the man that I love. It's sunny and I'm speaking so I apply my makeup carefully .

We get there and I tell my story and it's the weirdest fucking feeling ever. Like ever. Because I like to forget I guess. But god fucking damn, I'm statistically, totally impossible, because of course the credability of my story depends on if it looks like I layered on too much foundation.

And I don't "got this."

We leave the meeting and go to another meeting because I have a service position that I didn't get covered. Have lunch with a bunch of people after that and take Penelope to Paradise Park. She doesn't know what exactly to do at the park, and neither do I, so I kick around the hot pink soccer ball I got her, and she ignores it, and we walk along the dead grass in the sun just the same.

We drive home after a long day and go get cheeseburgers and dr. pepper, collectively take phone calls and Harmon goes to sleep.

I go to my art studio and sit in the room and paint for a few hours. Paint the paintings I fucked up when they were good enough in retrospect. I painted a sea horse, a white witch, and a dusty record label lung tonight. Busted out the plaster for the witch and later on came in and sat in a really hot shower and just

sobbed silently forever.

I feel I told my story wrong. I feel wrong. It's all perfect and what I always wanted and I just don't get it.

I don't understand myself. I don't
understand myself

sometimes at
all.

All I ever wanted was
to stand up and
have a voice.

I sit in the chair
in a dirty room
and

the people are
street hard. I am

too pretty.

I'm afraid that if I
open my mouth too
wide I will

throw up instead of
speak. Speak the story

I lived to tell,

keep a straight
face and the direction
in a straight line of

experience
strength and
hope

but with grace.
She comes back
to me in those words -

Words of fists and
raves and ketamine
needles.

Lines of meth and
burnt glass pipes,

dirty wood floors,

the little girl
with they dying
flower collection.

She comes to me with
my words as an
alley runner indian

surrounded by a
circle of guns in a
bathroom in a

northwest suburb.
Half the head shaved

the lips puffy
chewed.

She is blacked out
on a couch
and doesn't remember

the club and she is
starving
on a couch

refusing to eat
the rice.

She is in Mexico
walking a boarder

in fake glasses
and she is kissing

the stitching
holding his corpsed
lips
together.

She is somebody you
wouldn't ever believe just
only if your

eyes weren't ahead
resting on her words.

Words of conviction
that waver at times
with tears but only when

she says
the name of a little
girl.

That loves her.
That knows her

because

she finally learned
to sit in this chair

with a voice that a
few hearts and

deserts came back
for

just in
time, the greatest
gift of my life -

where they know my
first name not my
last one

not my
nickname where I
speak up front

for an hour and
spend the rest of
the day in a sunny

daze that I did
something I always
felt I knew I would I was

just mazed out of
the context in which

that would actually
happen.

I got a text later
it said

that I
have so much to
offer the world.

"Limitless."

It said and I
believe.

So tomorrow there
is this speaker and
actually the speaker

is me.

I'm nervous about
this so I ate at
red lobster

in Las Vegas and
the candy store
here on this towns

busy street - orange
and vanilla
fudge. It was
amazing.

I bought
a striped shirt
and a gray shirt

and a rainbow
colored sweater

and isn't that
funny,

that I am sharing
my life story
with a room of people

but I need a
new shirt
to do it?

Have you ever just
had one of those
lives?

Where segmenting
is needed and it's all
just sort of

funny.

I had to get
myself a new
shirt

so I could feel
more comfortable

watching my
peers

hear

this

life.

The sense I
make to myself

generally
leaves me in

sixty one second
intervals.

Oh, Marvelous. It's February Third and I haven't written shit because I'm working a lot and I'm writing something else right now.

I really, really dislike it when the "post" calendar on the right of this blog has black dates on it - dates I did not post anything.

Listen, sometimes I'm using all of my energy writing steak orders. That's the reality, and I can "deal" with that all I want, but my paycheck is pretty spectacular.

Penelope has joined the ranks of the "barking dogs" on the blocks. She is just this gorgeous little creature, our little swimsuit model that poses in the sun all day.

Harmon has been in Bv Hills for a few weeks working and she protects me. He is coming home today, which means I should be dusting the house and getting him a two hour massage card instead of doing this, but oh well.

0203,
HL

Edit: It's February 4th. I tried.

Do you remember
that kind of love where
you put on that song

"Ice cream" and just
smile.

Where you kiss slow
in a bed of stuffed
animals on a floor

in the bedroom
of my adolescent
self.

I never knew
how to cry even
though none of them

ever loved me
back as much as I
thought I

loved them.

Love told me it was a
party
and a split

hit.

Love told me it was a
boy crying
against a wall

and telling me
that I could
be

so much
better.

Love told me it was a
walk
on a beach

and a bottle of
vodka under a
blurry

strobe light.

Love told me it was a
slow motorcycle
ride to breakfast

on an orange
fall morning and I

never knew how to
cry but
love told me it would

teach me that and
she did.

Love was a woman
sitting at my kitchen
table with me

for six hours
and taking me to
the airport because

she liked to
talk to me.

Love believed in
me and love

forced me to
walk away in order
to learn

the order.

Love taught me that
she is a little girl

in the middle of two
hundred barbies,

handing me a gem
from her treasure chest.

She is almost nine years old and
Love's eyes are very deep

brown.

Love is a ten hour drive
to as far as nowhere
in the desert

takes us.

Hand in hand with
my head

on that shoulder.

Love is in the
crystals. and if Love

didn't ever teach me
what it was to cry

with every dropped pin
of my being,

I would have never
learned

any contrasting
feeling.

Love is a little red
dog with a light pink
collar.

Love is trying and
all I have is

light
anyway. It's dim
on this planet

because I have to
worry about groceries
and

cell phone reception but
I promise you
that someday the way

that trees bend
into light

will talk to you and
tell you

the reason for all of
this pain.

I have a sunburn
and a puffy new
tattoo.

Took my dog to
the fancy groomer
today.

She smells like a
baby flower and
her nails aren't all

hoodrific long
anymore.

I'm in the middle of
a painting and I fell

hard
off of the backyard
fence yesterday.

I started my
stepwork over.
Got a new notebook

with new stickers,
a new sponsor and a
broadened perspective

of
gratitude and
fistfulls of glittery
guts.

Time is on my side
some days where I

pay all of my bills
and open a savings
account and

kiss my dog in
the gold sun.

I just wish
at moments that
it were time for

the time for
the reason why
I'm on this planet.

I didn't come here
to drink lattes and

pick out bracelets or
keep up with the
dollar rat race.

I paint with a smirk
lately because I had it
all wrong.

No line
is the wrong
line.

One to the whole
to the one back
to make up

the full
whole. What
mirror track

am I on when I
read about washed
up film
stars instead of

the practices of
Native American
tribes?

I always wanted
to be spiritual as

long as
it was something

I could just
buy

in a store.

Colored scarves
and thousand
dollar crystals.

Feathers and
books and
spiritual

music. Wind chimes.
Plants and

you should see
all of my

unicorns and
dream catchers.

Spirituality
is not

a concert
t shirt and I

do not believe in
sottered melting
clocks.

The tattoo
says

of
the

light and I

don't care
about why

that is

tonight.

With my
baby flower and

my
spirit

blood.

Farther and
farther and
farther

towards the
place she told me

I wouldn't ever
with my choices

end up.

I am a spell
cracker and a

fucking nut case
when I don't edit

what I say so that it
fits and that's

alright
with me.