things are going along swimmingly. if anything, im more of a mess than ever before and im riding the waves all up and down and sideways, turbulent like Ike. in my scatteredness i find comfort and stability in the inability to hold down a job, a feeling, a boy, an apartment for more than a year. today is lovely. yesterday i didnt leave the house and today i find myself restless on side streets at cafes and using the bathroom of the nail place where i say "im a regular" and its true because four years ago, some other apartment, some other boy i used to go there on weekends and get pedicures, when my bank account wasnt negative and i smoked cigarettes on weekends instead of right when i wake up. i let myself sink into the chair and talk to megan on the phone in calistoga and the sun comes out and im getting texts from my other friends who dont have jobs and i get too worked up some times when things arent going exactly how i think they should be, how i want them to be, i get nervous and anxious and frustrated and sometimes it takes two cups of coffee, four cigarettes and a long walk to ocean beach to settle my hands, to make them write, to have my shoulders fall neatly into the day instead of tensed up to my ears. the sun breaks through for a couple hours and thats all i need it seems.

"tell me a story," she will beg and you will write her the softest water and double it three times to make it your own. "make me feel better," she will say, holding your hand and burrowing into the blankets and you will write her notions of great things and turn on your heals, stand on your head, rip yourself inside out to write down your day and give it a twist, something sweet on the inside, the pushing the pulling, the ability to hold it all together, for her, for her. "make it real," she will whisper and it is hopeful, so you will turn poetry into prose, you will put her on refridgeraters and inside baseball cards because she is so immense in her smallness, commanding in her submission. you will take stories from your head, your heart, you will write it down and do things with words no one has ever seen before. excuse the comma and disregard all capitals until your voice rises and crests with her even breathing and she will hum "see, it gets easier, it gets easier" you will lie next to her and she will sleep and a story is a story is a soothing palm to her forehead but it is a story nonetheless. "take me home," she will sigh and you will wake next to her with your elbows maybe touching and there will not be any words when morning comes, she is thirsty and you will need to write this down.

im getting lost in boxes of jewels and old notes, old writing, scraps of paper and notebooks half filled out with words that couldnt possibly have been mine. like, i actually have no recollection of ever writing that, thinking that, feeling that. and that is the beauty of words and feelings and time. i tell heather this last weekend that time works everything out as shes staring at me steely eyed and blue, and i couldnt believe it more myself today. time moves people into places, out of places and makes writing seem distant, phrases that held meaning are nothing anymore and you catch yourself saying new words, new phrases to new people and the only possible reason is time. time changes it all.

last night dayna and i walk to the store at 11 after half watching a movie on jose's bed to get chips and soda which dayn calls "pop" and i love those things about people that make them them. but we hit the stairs and its cold on cole street, so cold ive put sweats over my leggings and a hat on, shove my hands in my pockets and half expect to see my breath come out in short puff, puff, puff heat but its not that cold, its still september. i say "smell that?" and we both inhale, deeply, as b and i had the whole drive up to portland, deep and long and with your eyes closed because somehow that makes the smell stronger, more wholly felt. and we look at each other "thats autum" dayna says and i just say "shit, it sure is." and there are things, that as much as i hate saying goodbye to summer, that i love about fall. its the smell of fire place, of wood burning stove. and my hands get warm in their pockets, balled up fists and i shake my shoulders a little bit. im not ready for fall. but its here...
this is something ive got to get my hands on for fallllllllll.....


gold leaf combs from Chanel, daaang ma. i be loving that shit.

josies first letter from costa

hey guys,

sending out a quick little note from costa. everything is going swimmingly. flew out wednesday, the flight was quick and painless. at one point i opened my window to get a liittle more reading light and we were just over the border between land and ocean, I´m not sure of which country, and it was this gorgeous sunset and just to the left of the sun was this perfect crescent moon, and while we were watching the sun go down all of a sudden this huge bolt of lightning strikes like a foot past the wing of our plane. it was crazy, like all the elements combined in that one time and place to welcome us into central america. the lightning storms continued til we landed, but we landed so no complaints. we spent that night in a hotel in downtown san jose and the next day walked to the bus station and caught a 3 hour sketchy bus ride to san isidro, where mckenzie lives. randomly found her downtown, thank god since we had no clue how to find her house, and caught a cab to her house because of all our luggage, but it´s less than a 15 minute walk so we´ve been walking in and out of town when we need anything. her house is adorable but not furnished yet really, because her truck and furniture are coming down in a big shipment in a few weeks, so until then shannon and I are spooning on a twin mattress on the floor, and we´ve been eating dinner and playing kings and fuck the dealer, etc. on the floor. we´re getting bars put on the window within the week, since the house got broken into a lot before we got here and there´s bullet holes in my bedroom window... don´t worry, they´re supposedly only from a pellet gun.... drink of choice here is guaro, not recommended if you don´t like hangovers. my spanish is coming back pretty effortlessly, actually, and I can fool most people into thinking I understand everything they´re saying... I´m broke as a joke, so we´ll see how long I can stretch it. speaking of that, and I know you´ll all shake your heads at this, but I just spent like half my money at the vet for a puppy we found on the way to town one day, who had some serious flea and worm issues. however, now we have a guard dog, well, guard puppy, who we fittingly named bones. it´s rainy season, so it´s been raining on and off, today is nice though, and even when it rains it´s not cold so it´s not bad at all if you just accept the fact that you´ll be soaking wet all day. domincal, the beach town mckenzie used to live in where she knows a bunch of people, is 18 miles, or about a 40 dollar cab ride away, but the bus comes fairly often and will take us there too. we´re going out tomorrow, but once we have the car we´ll be driving all over the country and into panama to see the canal. I miss you all but everything here is gorgeous and relaxing and healing and perfect, so you probably won´t be seeing me for as long as my money lasts.... love love love, ex´s and oh´s.
jos

p.s. for those of you who saw it, the gash in my knee is sooo infected. awesome...
--
"I pray that your prayers be answered in kisses" -- saul williams
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gabrielle toft to Josie
show details 2:16 PM (2 minutes ago)

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josie,
i cant fully write all that i want to as im at work. and i find that i can never adequately describe what i want to say when i really need to say it (or can i?) unless you are around, and then it seems like the good lines or advice or the truth, even when it hurts, come flowing from me.
im so proud of you first of all. that you have made these great leaps and bounds out of comfort and lifestyle and easiness to go be a part of something wild and adventurous and scary. im terribly jealous. so jealous my bones hurt, but thats okay. its jealousy of our closest friends that makes things stir in us and forces us to seek out the things we are capable of and test ourselves, and then i guess, its not jealousy at all...but something much more like...well...i dont know. like, love.
i wish the best for you.
keep me updated. like, on everything. i will try to make magic happen here at home, so that when you do come back there will be a safe place for you and your new pup (youre nuts but i totally understand) to land.
i miss you like fucking hell.
i miss you like i missed summer, like i miss 19, like i miss myself as a little girl, carefree, dirty face, sweaty brow. i miss you so much.
work it out, baby. thats my mantra, however you may take it.
say hello to shanny, and take care of each other. take care of your heart. heal up. and let me know how that goes. i feel so open and wounded and raw all the time. but i guess that is part of the healing, leaving it to the open air, and chance.

you are beautiful in everything you do, i couldnt ask for a more perfect friend. come home soon you dead ass baby.

keep it nitty,
love,
g

a drive is never long enough, nor a song, nor a kiss

rocket man

its a shame to be so sad on such an incredible day. i give myself guilt trips on the mornings i wake up next to you and just cant perform, the mornings im quiet and slow and smile like i mean it but i dont, and i dont know why, because nothing makes me happier than a warm day, or you. its hot at 830am when we leave your house. i hold my jacket at my side and my legs are already sweating in the place where your hand rested last night as we fell asleep. the curtains moved this morning and your eyes were more blue than i have ever seen them as the light comes in over the buildings on polk. the meth clinic across the street that last night had been all turquoise windows and white shades drawn is beginning to wake up. silence is beginning to eat at me. sometimes i feel like i am too messy for you. that i am a disaster, that i cant even pin point where i go wrong and whether or not the things i write about are right, whether any of it matters. im telling you all these things as we drive freeways, deep blue, black stencil trees, yellow tunnel lights on the back of your neck, your hand on my bare knee and my skin holds the day, hot and dry, and when we get back to the city my mouth has almost stopped working and i dont know why i shut down when all i really want to do is let it all out.
this is one of my favorite songs and i feel a little bit less crazy and wild and mad when i hear it, when i read the words.


She packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour nine a.m.
And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then
I miss the earth so much I miss my wife
It’s lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight

And I think it’s gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I’m a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone


Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact it’s cold as hell
And there’s no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don’t understand
It’s just my job five days a week
A rocket man, a rocket man


And I think it’s gonna be a long long time...

because its calming me down tonight. aloe sits in the fridge in some apartment i dont have yet, one like my apartment on irving, big, airy, wood floors and long hallways, tiles and kitchen cabinets filled with all my own things, magazines and fancy rice milk that i like in the mornings in cereal while i sit at my craft table in the kitchen and watch rain fall, or on back steps in a back yard. i have to do things like this. last night b cant fall back asleep and i rub his back and tell him to get comfortable and think about a trip you want to go on and all the fun things that you will do. sometimes its these small things we know about people, that for me, i like to think about a place, a home, surroundings, and how those things comfort me, make me still, and safe and that for him, its moving around, going places, shaking things up and opening his eyes in another country that makes him feel alive, and after a few minutes settles him back to sleep.

t talks about tattoos and mars and albert einstein earlier today and it seems all these things are inter-related somehow. that its not about finding your souls counterpoint in another person, its finding that other person that feels what you feel, when you do, and wants to be wherever you are, mars, portland, china, whatever. we must not forget these people that we were, and risk forgetting the people we changed to be.
and then theres this:
which i can totally see myself in some corner booth in portland in the rain, with a cig, writing you letters when youre not there.

The city streets are wet with rain tonight
Taxi drivers swerve from lane to lane
A lonely guitar man playin down the hall
Midnight blues comin through the walls

I tried to call you on the telephone
I left it off the hook
Just to hear it ring
You told me you were better off alone
I never knew that tears could stain

Im on the roof and Im starin at the stars
Lookin down at all the cars
I can see you
In the window of your favorite corner bar
But to reach you is just too far
And I might as well be on mars

The city seems so old and grey and beat
It closes in and makes me wanna suffocate
And you just live across the street
But thats a billion miles away

Youve turned my world into a dark and lonely place
Like a planet lost in space, my light is fadin
Id cross the universe to be right where you are
But Im right in your backyard
And I might as well be on mars

Chorus
I might as well be on mars
You cant see me
I might as well be the man on the moon
You cant hear me
Oh, can you feel me so close
And yet so far
Baby, I might as well be on mars

Baby, I cant fly
If I could Id come down to ya
Maybe I should try

Im on the roof and Im starin at the stars
Lookin down at all lthe cars
I can see you
In the window of your favorite corner bar
But to reach is just too far
And I might as well be on mars


what am i talking about? i dont know, i really dont know. someone once said to me, you are your art, and my art is madness right now, all over the place, so i guess im a little bit mad myself.

fair lady

im laughing hysterically, teeth chattering and neck sweating, my hand is holding yours and you pull me down dark streets and fog comes over the look tower of the museum. as dusk falls around orange flowers and trees laden with blossoms you look at me and say, the only thing i smell is you and its an unreal night in the city once again. im biting the inside of my cheek this time, not my tongue, i can say out loud one thousand times, i love you i love you i love you i love you without whispering, without being afraid, without being unsure of what comes next. its 8:00 on a tuesday and my inability to ride with no hands makes you smile. you look back behind at me every other second, tell me, ride close, youre listening to your "feel good music" on your ipod and were screaming brown eyed girl at the top of our lungs riding down oak street. im pulling over to talk into my recorder and his eyes are shiny, ive lost a little bit of that nervous brow, my heart less shaded with worry, i dont feel the need to pull into myself, my smile is easier, my hands dont shake at the thought of being without you, of waking up alone. when you turn in bed in the middle of the night i dont lie awake for hours waiting for you to reach back. i fall asleep and somehow its morning and youve found me, weve found ourselves.
in the hours in between, during the constant drill of construction, my brain is like a fire escape, im sitting over polk street and its a constant hum, i cant write things fast enough, im spinning circles and weaving my fingers in and out until the next time i touch a pen, steady myself against my drink or run my hands over your face. this summer has lit me on fire, has pushed the sky open into breathy sunsets out a window, cold air pushing up under the couch and my eyes, fastened on yours.

sweet pea

copied directly from printer paper found in my purse this morning, the morning after...

these little moments
what causes change
is there a hero?
taxi driver
pimp
relation to art
writing of the will
money-having it, lack of
defining
white suburban kids
where people came from
with roots
how people have lived

you find yourself talking to randoms at the bar, his name is joe, theyre slipping you their phone numbers on napkins because you say you like that sort of thing and youve never felt so alive. the walk home youre smiling, youve taken a half day and gone shopping with your best friends boyfriend and didnt buy a thing except drinks at the gold dust in between sport coats and silk blend pants. the whiskey tasted somewhat like dead fish and sweat but it does the trick and you and he are laughing through tourists and sweat forms on your brow like a crown.
at 1030 you find yourself outside, alone, smoking a cigarette while your friends talk to boys at the bar and youre sitting on an overpass above kearney and sutter when all the sudden youre 16 at CSSSA crossing the freeway above mcbean pkway for the first time and it strikes you that youre still trying to figure it all out.
at 1045 all you want to do is touch your boys face. you think of how long its been since your mouth smelled like his and youve been wearing his shirt to bed at night but its losing his smell and becoming yours. night and time will do that, you know.
after trin leaves things feel quiet and you take the bus to work listening to old songs and the last five days arent even real.

swedish furniture and a '59 Bel Air

something i picked up along the way...
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow.
If you have been opened by life's betrayals or if you have become
shriveled and closed from the fear of future pain!
I want to know if you can sit with pain; mine or your own,
without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own.
If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful,
realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn't interest me if the "story" you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.
If you can bare the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithful and, therefore, be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not present everyday.
And, if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure; yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes"!
It doesn't interest me to know where you live
or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get
up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me
and
not shrink back.


im feeling lonely today. its so hot out and everythings melting and sweaty and sticky and i love that summer has settled on the back of my neck and the places between fabric and skin, like a bond. i come home from my grandma's house in oakland, my bag full of notes and photos of her and my grandfather who i never met, smiling in black and white. my dad and i sit in the backyard and i used to love to sit with him in the garden in calistoga while he watered on hot nights, whats this flower, whats that tree and in those quiet ways my dad and i learned each other and that smell of dirt on his skin is something i will never forget.
i collect things, im a collector. drawers and boxes and scraps of paper written on in some bar in some city in some drawling scrawl litter my floor, my jeans pockets, my heart. there is room enough for all of it, these momentos that we hold onto for whatever reason, or for whatever reason they hold us.

my first time

this morning i woke up having a dream that my best friend was retarded and in a wheelchair and getting beaten up by a big hairy man on the bus and i wasnt doing anything to stop it. i told b and after i could hear him through my laughter, he said i should write it down.
im taking things slow. slow like ice cream cups outside a corner store in the richmond, apple juice and hennisey on a phone booth, bike rides at night, leaning up against a car that isnt yours, leaning into your boys sweatshirt and breathing in, slow like saturday, slow like tracing circles on his arm in the morning before hes awake, slow, slow, slow.

i figure we should talk about firsts...since this is one, here, right now.

my first memory, easy enough, is of being held. thomas and i are napping. it smells like a nest, of organic things, twigs and dirt and bread baking. it smells like crush in the valley, and the back of my neck is sweaty. i have straight across bangs. my moms skin is cool, and shes brushing back my hair. eyes open, eyes shut, eyes open, eyes shut. sleep.

my first fat lip was electric. i got hit in the mouth with a baseball in little league. i cried like hell. but i was much more adventurous after that, i was less afraid of getting hurt.

my first kiss. were watching a horror movie on halloween at shane hastings moms house before i was allowed to go to boy/girl parties. i sat next to jason tamagni and i could barely let my leg rest up against his without dying. when carries mom came to pick us up he kind of leaned over and put his tongue in my mouth as i was getting up from the couch. it was weird but i remember being excited for weeks.

my first heartbreak was real. i slept and starved and pulled all inside. i became these horrible things i didnt know i was capable of being and thinking and wanting. i remember reading something that changed it all for me, to the point where laying in bed and running steely eyed through the streets didnt make sense anymore. my heartache was real because i was capable of loving and that made me happier than i expected. so i bought a frozen yogurt and got the fuck over it.

my first stoned bike ride with b in the richmond was last night. it was absolutely amazing. i scraped up against so many walls hoping he wouldnt see but not really caring if he did. i laughed so much im raspier that normal this morning. i woke up tired but not exhausted. firsts are good. firsts pave way for more, for you to figure it out, to get it right.

im trying to get this right.
heres someone who got it right.