the usual

Dreamed of my cats falling and getting hurt; when a cat is first mortally injured it turns into a demon that moves and sounds like a droplet of water on a hot cast-iron skillet.

The dream got better, there was a telephone conversation with a kind stranger. It was experienced as a telephone conversation in a film might be, with the camera cutting to only the stranger's lower face as he spoke.

Then, a forest, it was misty and the lighting made it seem as though the air was constantly on the edge of refracting itself into vibrant color. I was with a group led by Sir David Attenborough, who was explaining the various animals that scuttled peacefully around. I came upon an iridescent black bird, which turned its shiny head to reveal a severe crossbill. I beckoned my friend next to me, grabbed his arm excitedly, and said, "Look at the crossbill!"

dreams like this are nice because i mostly feel like everything else sucks pretty bad

first world problems

did you ever literally weep in self-pity?

you feel stupid later

tgiving 09

phones ringing in empty restaurants

dad and i will eat gyros downtown

far away, mom evangelizes, and means well

the guy at jake's thought i asked for two packs of menthols

i asked for only one but say nothing, too shy

they will have to be used as trade goods with the natives

not much longer

All the old people lately seem obsessed with telling me how things go downhill.

"You're in the best time of your life!"

I want to tell them to

shut the fuck up;

that I already feel my clockworks,

heavy heavy cogs and gears

so cold in alaska

apparently

I don't actually sleep anymore, i just fall drunkenly into bed at the appropriate hour and mostly roll and curl myself into different positions, dreaming intermittently.

I wish I could afford to get the hell out of town for awhile. I will go to a different city and meet someone without hang-ups. Someone who will take my hand and say, "All that other shit and those people you know? I don't care, I like you, let's have fun." We will have fun. The person will, late at night when there's smoke crowding the lamp-light, tell me something about myself that is true and something I have not already presumed or heard. The person will have the most beautiful point where jaw, ear, and neck intersect, and will tuck my nose there as we sleep.

There is no money for such trips, though they are imaginary ones. I feel i am always working, and there may be no person I trust not to quickly bore or hurt me; I haven't been out of lincoln over-night in over a year. After I typed that sentence I wanted to cry, but instead i will drink some water. Yes, this is complaining.

Normally at this time of year I'm making lists and anticipating winter break. Now I spend nights trying to plan out my life in long, obsessive thought patterns as I lay in bed. I see my friends languishing. There is so much languishing.

the law of the spiders

if the spider climbs into bed with you

you are under the jurisdiction of spider-law

there is no return

you will become a queen

a queen of the spiders

as queen your duties will consist

of scuttling into cracks;

embroidering corners;

do not worry about lacing

your eight elegant leather boots,

there are handmaids to assist

ringing ringing

On Sunday mornings I can hear the church bells, different peals from different churches around the neighborhood, at slightly different times; I don't know what they signal, whether it's church beginning or ending, the church I went to growing up was low and modern like an office building and didn't have bells. Bells are funny, communal objects. Why does a bell ring if it's not meant to be heard by and mean something to a group of people. The study of bells is called "campanology."

I took a bath that was too hot last night and woke up uncovered at 3 a.m. on my couch, brittle like a clay pot that's been fired and cooled. Full of pent-up vibrations like a bell that ain't been rung for ages. Bats in the belfry.

These past few days I've come to a sort of calm acceptance of my moods. Not calm, but unsurprised. There is nothing new or shocking in my general disappointment with my days; I do not expect _________ (I could not decide what to write there but anything fits). The profundity of my forced patience for something that moves me makes it difficult to allow myself relaxation anywhere else. I sit and compel myself to finish reading the chapter of the book I'm enjoying instead of feverishly biking the streets of downtown. I tell myself to stay in the bath-tub just a few more moments, though it is hot, because what else is waiting for me except passing out on the couch, cold.

I have been having trouble with time. Generally when I slip into a daydream it's not hard to lapse back into real-time and continue with my day, but when the daydreams end lately I'll find myself disoriented and unsure of how much time has passed. It feels like waking up without a clock next to you, and having to guess how much time you've been gone from the world. I usually find that what felt like it might have been an hour was only a few moments.

There is a nice lack of screaming in my head, just a vast, windy pla(i)n(e).

I'm never quite sure what normal is.

times that i spilled hot tea on my mother's new macbook while teaching her to use it

2

watch out for my heart

my heart-beat has

started to be too strong

and/or fast,

a staggering thoroughbred,

making my

eyelids twitch,

it sounds like

cracking gum in the

stairwell of the library,

inside i am a pulp,

it is making the bed lurch

across the room,

i can no longer sit next

to anybody or my heart

will beat them up,

busting ribs,

swinging punches

sat.

Dreamed of being in a new place, and a small but vicious lizard. I found the lizard's nest in a flooded room, with a clutch of soggy eggs. "Are these your babies," I asked the lizard, holding one out as evidence. It was oblong but chicken-egg-sized, white with a tinge of pale pink like new milk. The lizard responded by pooping out another egg, this one smaller than a jelly-bean, then returned to terrorizing a bird. "You are a terrible mother," I told the lizard. I cupped the large egg in my palm and felt for life. It soon began throbbing with a subtle heartbeat and emanating warmth; it was cold-blooded and I was giving it my heat. This scared me slightly; "Don't take it all," I whispered, not sure how I felt helping an invasive species survive.

This morning I have too much to do and I've been following the block of sunlight across my living room. Every labor just seems so fruitless.

walking and smoking and spilling coffee

Today at work I picked up the beige touch-tone tele-phone and called myself,

I didn't answer --

an alien voice said "hi sarah's voicemail, leave a message if you feel like it"

I mashed a few keys, in groups of four, to see if somehow

there was a portal to be opened on this line;

The right combination could reveal a soft accidental curve

where time loops back upon itself,

and I upon myself.

Always I am picking locks:

this is life inside the exceptional mimic.

The ro-bot operator [roboperator], evidently loathe to explain to me

again

my options, sympathetically told me:

"I'm Sorry!

You Seem To Be Having Trouble!

Please Try Again Later!"

The line went dead.

son of a bitch

is it embarrassing

to admit how much more comfortable i felt with ears and a tail and a little black nose

scamper scamper

today is warm and blanketed with delectation; refreshing wonder