Aquarium Drinkers Drink Wallflower Felt Monday, Sep 25 2006

sinking into the couch in the lowest dim corner of das pool hall, i can watch the slouching bodies line up in their glowing columns. i am just far enough from the ground to see the brightness of green felt and the crown of the stripes and solids. the murals here are mostly faces, some with kohl-blackened eyes and deeply painted laugh lines, some with frightened glints and reddened cheekbones.

the hanging lights, reminiscent of so many post-gymnastic pizza hut dinners with my mother, illuminate clouds of cigarette smoke. a boy in a wool cap dances with his dog, flinging his limbs to fill the negative space more fluidly. there is a white patch on the pup’s chest that flashes as it wavers on its hind legs, and the chain links on its roiled leash sound out like bicycle bells as they snake fiercely onto the concrete. homer is wearing a pair of blue furry slippers that bring to mind my birthday present from caroline hlavacek nearly four years ago. those monster-feet made me brave when i was at summit; my first night was a spotlight because sometimes you can only stomp. you can only roar.

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Discomfort, and Death by Squirtgun Sunday, Sep 24 2006

listening to bob sinclair and watching the dogs rock back and forth on the lawn in ode to tennis balls — i think of cologne and keenan and the weakness in my bones that sleep is wont to cure. my featherbed is slipping further towards the ground every day.

feeling trapped in bed and rectangles and oddest corners of the country, i have forgotten (and begun to remember once again) how to live. uh uh uh. i walked for hours through afternoon with a layer of wetness and unbearable sadness just at the foreground, and when it was over, i crept outside into a night full of polka music and makeshift beer gardens. beautiful accordians!

ryan just came in, drenched with salad dressing, to retrieve lost backpacks. we went to the bins yesterday with w-pizza and one seventeen, for treasure hunting and non-dog electronics. scabby-eyed toddlers with thin blonde hair clustered around my feet as i flipped through a pile of frames, and they stared at the star on my face through filth-clotted eyelashes. a spanish-speaking spanish-breathing family of nine shoveled books into their shopping cart until it swelled, leafing through the pages in search of some fleety, unknown key. masses. afterwards, with lemon oil stinging brightly on the side of my face, we ate lunch in the back of a mexican restaurant on the side of the road. sometimes when i feel like i do not have roots, rice and beans and the gasp after first gulps of water can refocus: there is a modesty suited to living on earth that i recall from time to time. i will be delivered: schenectady.

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Satellites of Love (We Are Part of the Kollektiv) Saturday, Sep 16 2006

the red star on my face is still a deep semi-gloss, though i have showered with soap and toothpaste and peppermint shampoo — kommunism is not water soluble, they say. rksk initiation was one of my favorite things: fervid chanting and dirty feet, u-hauls full of children and smoke. they filled our bowls with peppery borscht and unboxed brown glass vials of vodka for! the! people! white uniforms flew through the air, strewn in handfuls to be kustomized with red paint and stencils. i was so delighted to hold the slippery cardboard, casting star shadows and hammer-and-sickles across backs and arms and shoulders and strangers and friends. i like the rattle of krylon cans.

the concrete was good to our knees and felt cool when we ran, clutching ragged stuffed animals, to the undercuddled library. the thesis tower was so swelled with people, it felt full and circular and alive. we have no right angles; we are part of the kollektiv. then away, away! the motherland was beautiful belligerence, with a fire pit and e-coli spinach confetti. naked prospie phil and newly-karlo rossi danced there too, in motherboard masks and telepone cords. the rivulets in the steel floor of the truck were filled with mud and wetness that got between my toes, and our ever-falling bodies were pressed so tightly together that i could feel four people breathing as one. i love the warmth of human beans.

KRRC embraces, and we found it dimly lit with traces of smoke and on-air static. there was dr. seuss and people piled lovingly into chairs to listen and play. franklin and i had a soundtrack until the sun rose, to which i learned photos, records, the sofa, and graffiti: i had a wide-eyed peace there, brimming by morning with the youngest satisfaktion. S.U. blanket-firelight and the glow from grey-scoop skies left me feeling energized as campus came back to its vivid, sloppy stasis.

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