Conversations Among the Ruins

Lately my sleep button is broken.

I sit up in bed at night, talking to ghosts and rocks.

I guess this is the part where I edit what I'm writing so whomever is reading can relate.

So I guess this is the next line where I don't do that.

The Ghost helps me sleep. I don't "see" ghosts, I feel their energy and have conversations based on that. They are all beautiful.

Wore this hoody to work last night that says LISTEN TO DETROIT TECHNO. Somebody fantastic gave that to me a long time ago at a music festivle. This guy I work with said to me "I have so much more respect for you because you have that shirt on." And I just smiled as I set up the patio. Smiled and thanked him politely. That's all I really have for that these days.

Wish I could measure what it took to just shut the fuck about it all. I'd bottle it up and sell it and save the world.

Once upon a time all I ever wanted was for everybody to know how much I knew about music. When at the end of the day, all I was was the DJ's girlfriend.. with delusions of self importance. It's a really fun and equally as painful part of my life to look back on, flashy lights and fancy friends that were probably really incredible people. I, however, didn't even know myself. Let alone anybody around me.

I think about six months ago a lot lately. Where I'd wake up and get into my car and listen to Lady Gaga's Marry the Night and drive to nowhere. I miss Jami and Jason tremendously. Just the intimacy of two of the most incredible people I know that I got to live with.

I should probably stop writing this. I have a meeting with a gallery owner today to hang up my art all the way in the district.

Delta Blues,
HL

I"m not sure what it is about them. They came from some club kid I knew, where they lived quietly in his trendy Wicker Park apartment, in a box covered in dust under a table.

Like all times in that house the memory is blurred. That club kid was, for a spell, a central point in my "new city life" One of those cool friends you have that years later you only remember, when you grow into a calmer version where cool gets silly and life is just different. Not superior or less, just different. He played Pink Panther on mute on his TV to the latest Global Underground sets. We all have our quirks but that one of his always stuck out to me. The walls were bright orange and lime green, but painted neatly. They're all either promoters, dj's, or graphic designers, in those sorts of crowds I swear. For a while I had a great time running around with all of that.

I met a famous dj once. He was sitting on my couch and I freaked him out, asking him about his family and what he wants out of life instead of what continent he was playing on next weekend. That moment and finding that box are two memories I drift off to from time to time. Total evidence that I didn't belong nearly as much as I convinced myself I did.

"What is in that box?"

"Elephants" my friend had said. After that
"Do you want them? I feel bad that they just sit there but I have nowhere to put them."
I was shocked he would give them to me, flattered and happy. A few months later they finally made it to my house. He had cleaned them up and told me it was important to take care of them, these stoic wooden elephants. Two very light brown, two very dark brown, and three little white ones.

When really difficult things or really beautiful things in my life take place I tend to hold onto the objects in which were important and regular during that time. Maybe it's nostalgia. Maybe it's to remember the lesson. Maybe I just like tons of stuff cluttered all around me. Ask my stuffed duck, hippopotamus, piggy banks, TY crab, 500 rocks and minerals, and a gaggle of other characters and they'll tell the stories to me over and over so I don't have to tell them to anybody else.

I didn't know it at the time but the week I was given those elephants was the week I seemingly got onto the indescribable total Go roller coaster of harsh, beautiful, dramatic self metamorphasis of which the past four years has consisted of. At the time I was just a girl with a new set of elephants, too strung out on cool to even possess the simple concept of hope.

The most traumatic part of a break up is taking down a Christmas tree. The second most traumatic part of a break up is sitting back on your ass at your parents house, in a room full of boxes, boxes of YOUR stuff refusing to un pack anything, because it can't possibly be happening. Only it is.

All I took out for a really long time were those elephants and a stuffed hippopatamus named Hippaa because it made me feel as if I belonged where I was. I am not a "duster" as I have forty given objects arranged on any table wherever I live, but I always kept the elephants shining and amongst all of my favorite rocks and bamboo plants . It was as if I was waiting for my life to come back, and when it did, it would see that I cared very much for those times. But that life of mine couldn't hear what I wasn't saying because I didn't know how and eventually, I left, bringing the elephants with me.

There have been a few since that have joined the family. A little white creamer holder that it pours out of the spout. Her name is Masha. I went to an estate sale in this crazy ass hoarders house and found three others, two gray, one orange marble, and a somewhat ostrich like animal that was made from African mud from Nancy, who isn't technically an elephant, but fits in perfectly. (Uh the elephant not NS. I'm proofing this and falling asleep.)

A year ago at this time I was writing "Elephants" under the list headline of NOT SHIPPING - CAR. There were only about five other things written without question on that list. Packing up my little family within my own consciousness was the very last thing I packed when I left Illinois, because that was the beginning of me losing my shit on a regular basis because of the immesurable fear I felt as a result of huge, abrupt change, and it was is I needed that reminder that some things, no matter what, kept standing. In my life most change has been brought on by some and if not that ended in catastrophe, and I did it anyway, and I can say that I am in a place in my life where I am satisfied, less paranoid, and even, happy. But packing the elephants still feels like stabbing myself in the head.

I remember it, in trucker sunglasses and Joe's baseball cap, sobbing tears onto the silk scarves I wrapped each one of them in last July. Because once the elephants are packed I'm not going back. I can dip into that still, how terrified I was to leave the only home and people I'd ever really known. Now it's just a gut sort of homesickness, where I wonder if I have made people sad, and I hope not, because I just want them to know that I am pretty good at life now and they should be proud. I could have never robbed myself of that decision.

I've moved twice since moving to this twisted little town and each time I am only at peace when my rocks, plants and elephants are in a presentable, favorable spot where I spend my time.

At Christmas I went home. It was a beautiful holiday and my favorite gift, by far, from my mother. I unwrapped the giant box and six yards of tissue paper, just staring up at her in awestruck - in my eyes, tears. She had given me three brand knew elephants. I hadn't ever told her or anybody really about any of the other ones and she had noticed anyway. Without a further word we cried for a minute. Now I have a family within my own consciousness that represents that my mother pays attention to what is important to me, even if it doesn't seem like something that should be. I don't think many people get that.

Also, the wallies, the root elephant that my counter tail painted for me. Yep. I carried an elephant through O'Hare security during the holidays, and the begining of it all, the "Anything is Possible" painting of a flying elephant from DEMF 06. So I've flown with more elephants than most. Speaking of my life as a circus..

Currently, mostly everything I own is in storage. I'm basically a gypsy. Be careful what you pretend to be until the day you become it. I never realized the significance of the elephants until I tried to put them into storage and fought with myself over it for days.

I've been training at a new job, moving, dealing with my current job, cleaning up the place I"m leaving, figuring out the place I'm going to, volunteering in an art gallery (where I am such a fucking awkward dork), trying to consistently write and make my own art, stay on top of my recovery, speaking on panels which means looking and sounding presentable (You all know how I hate washing my hair) and attempting to sleep a few hours a night at the same time. It's been busy, and none of the boxes have moved. I've been angsty and argumentative and pissy and exhausted. Eating like shit and feeling pale in the blistering sun.

Today my giant diet coke and I decided to tackle the room, and seriously, my whole head shut up as I unwrapped each elephant and found a tenderness of which I didn't think I was capable of any more. I arranged each and for a minute, felt like I was home.

My boyfriend says to me often "You have a charmed chaarrrrrmmmeeeeddddd life rocks." I say "yes" followed by "sh don't let them hear" and we laugh. Within those stoic wooden figures the best charms of all come out. The love I had and lost and appreciate to this day regardless of the frigid Chicago winter, the odd African clay duckling from a day my mentor and I sat under a giant tree as spring turned to Summer, the silent acknowledgement of what is within my heart by my mother, and the outpouring of creativity to canvas from one of my most parallel points in the universe, Corrine.

So I guess it took me a few thousand words to portray what it is about them. I'm going to sleep forever or 7a.m. Whichever comes first. The odds of that bet are, I assure you, total shit, and I get to have that today. X/

I wrote a blog that didn't post.

I started writing a book tonight.

Because if not I would have just

felt sorry for myself more than I

already need to. I have roughly

nine hours of video to splice but

the stories are basically adolescent

drug wars, love, and more drug wars.

I am on fire with underworld. The band.

Not using words like "underworld" as it's

meaning in "poetry." I cried at breakfast

today because we both grew up and away.

I wanted to call you to ask you to come

and save me like you did the last time. But

you have a life now and so do I. They're

separate. But I

cried in my hands at a center table and stabbed

some bread with a fork instead. I see in shapes and

energy and I see in color. There are too many

shapes in my kitchen. I was tripping on shapes.

I do not do drugs I simply categorize the illustrations

of which I haven't ever printed.

They smear. Grip grip grip. If you care whoever

you are, following along, I started a painting and

it's an emerald city. Hopefully I don't cover it

in gray. We'll see.

Because skipping rope backwards

tends to hit innocent faces

right before the knees they fell on

skin and scar and

stay forever. / step back.

I am sick
tonight.

Barfing up
hawiian
tofu it

burns my
lips. Throwing
up jigsaw

puzzles of
words without
meaning and

meanings without
words. I have a
fever I think I'm

sure of it I woke
up on the floor it
felt like the

ceiling.
Stop it
I say to

my head it
spins into a
world without
color only

sound and
split rays of
knives into
my skull.

I think of
you every time I
look at that

Fox Moulder
poster. That
war on Ebay when

chunk was a
puppy you gave me
that present and

he started
chewing it. I
woke up on

the kitchen floor
today with a
shattered cup
of coffee

soaking my
hair. All I saw
was the poster

it was black
and white I

didn't make
a sound I
just

closed
my eyes and
started

picking up
the glass as I
thought

of a life I had
with you and
that poster and

my dog that
loved you, his
puppy teeth where
we laughed

in that living room
and ate things like
dinner that

wasn't the
substance of
cold coffee
on a tile floor

that just ate
my face. No
matter what

though that
poster will
always be
with me and

no matter what
my days are, how
good or

bad, in the end
I can look at that
frame and know

there was a time
where everything
filled, and I

got to take it
for granted and
everywhere else
with me

to hang up
on a wall
alone
for the rest
of my

life
because of
that.

Sometimes
my heart
breaks

over you
all over
again all

over me
and onto
the next

pattern of
whatever
it is

I've walked
farther away
into

today.
Because I am
black coffee. I'm

sunset colored
bones of drought
rock cut
power

in the dark
one hundred lit
candles under

black sugar
palm trees and
tequila salted

mix tapes; they
are on special
today order

up just
charge that
tab and sign
your name

on a snow white
out of a dotted
line. I will

whisper to
you
what the ink
said

when it felt
your real
name.