I'd like to sit in the rain til i pruned
my finger's a wrinkly criminal dream
i could poach stereos without a print!

I'd like the grass to pattern my feet
til i was striped with tiger impressions
i'd hunt grasshoppers and roar loudly.

I'd like to chain clover for bracelets
i could dance my wrists and court the bees
til they stung me for playing games

I'd like to rub my nose yellow with dandelion
I'd stick my face to the sun, grow roots
sway and try to photosynthesize!

He scares the feathers off of birds,
my cat who's caged by window panes.
Snares the tricky, buzzing fly
and lifts his paws to peek--
He's all that's wily; fearsome purrs
That ripple after terrible pounce--
My fluffy, purring, awesome cat
Who's lazy-dozing in the sun.

Someone's angry.
they're pounding down
the too-thin walls,
their fists screaming
at the neighbors,
with lightning banging
on the porch step.

Someone's breathless.
shower's turned full-on,
drowning out the rush
the sound and spray,
sputtering over thumps,
gasping past the
wailing waters.

Someone's frantic.
rumbled steps along
the ceiling, tripping,
grasping at the locks,
flinging open doors,
cracking knobs against
the new-broke plaster.

Someone's electric.
ozone curling carpet,
linoleum slicked and
rattled glass above
the kitchen sink,
puddles crazed
and wind-broke curtains.

...this is the number one reason that I need to get a job and move the ---- out of my parents' house. I love them, I adore them, they're my parents...but gods, PLEASE someone hire me. In fact, let's make this an open advert for employment.

Random List of Qualifications

I speak three languages (not including English, or Engrish)

Arabic: I speak pretty good Arabic. If you're a paranoid conservative bigot who wants to spy on the neighboring mosque, or just some friendly FBI person who needs someone to provide fairly accurate translations about what those women were talking about under the grapevines, I'm your man. Er, girl. As for what they were talking about it's most likely the price of tomatoes or the new teacups they bought in Aqaba, but since you never know, it's best hire me just to be sure.

Spanish: I'll be able to understand you. If you speak only Spanish and need someone to follow simple instructions in the language, I'm your gal. Annoyed that conservatives are douchebags and want a gringa gardener/nanny/maid, simply for irony's sake? Again, I'm your gal. I may not be good at these jobs, but I will provide you with countless hours of irony-induced satisfaction! Yo trabajo muy bien para ti!

Japanese: Always wondered what they said in those speech bubbles in the manga you like to read? HIRE ME! I will translate various BOOMS, WHEEE's and DADUM's for you! My knowledge of kanji is limited at best, but wouldn't you feel cool, having your own personal translator order sushi for you in Japanese?


I type really fast

Okay, lots of people type fast. But I type quickly and accurately. Do you habitually go off on spiels of long-winded diatribe? Think of posterity! Where will they be when you're not around to set them straight? Hire me to follow you around and set your immortal words to page so that those who come after will benefit from your greatness long after you yourself are gone!


I have a philosophy degree

Want to sound smart? Hire me to throw obscure philosophical terminology into conversations! Liven up your parties!

Example of this skill:

"You're SUCH a nominalist..."
"Yes, well, I suppose he's following his own World Spirit..."
"Well, when the Other meets the Stranger..."
"Eschatology is as eschatology does..."

And many more!


I have a psychology degree

Depressed? Lonely? Wonder why life is worth living? I can't solve any of these problems, and no, I'm definitely not licensed to practice psychology--that would take another four years! HOWEVER, if you hire me, I will listen to your woes and, with the help of my trusty DSM4R I will tell you whether you meet the diagnostic criteria for mental illness! Will I diagnose you? Absolutely not! This is better! I'll tell you what the psychologist you would otherwise pay $300/hr would likely diagnose you with instead! Why suffer the stigma associated with professional diagnosis when I can give you my inexpert opinion, solidly backed by the SAME BOOK that professional psychologists use!


I like to write and am quite good at it

Do you need a term paper written? Are you not worried about actually learning, but just want to get through those pesky liberal arts courses? Are you not too concerned with the academic repercussions of being caught cheating? AWESOME! I'm your gal. I excelled at liberal arts and I have no problem doing your homework for you as long as I myself suffer no repercussions if we're found out! HIRE ME! Papers, journals, poems, articles, short stories--it's what I'm good at! Lucky you Mister MBA and Ms. Science Degree--there's no market for people like me anymore! Use that to your advantage by hiring me to churn out papers for those nasty History and Literature courses you're forced to take!


Other things I'd be good at:
Tour guide of Jordan and a few other parts of the middle east, non-skilled worker for the disabled, book reviewer/editor/recommender, phone answerer, dog walker, and so much more! Contact me here or at my email address for inquiries, because I know I'm employable, even if no one else does! Hope to hear from you soon!

I'm thinking about going to clown college. I've never really thought about it before, but honestly, what a freaking cool job, right?

I've done a bit of research, and there's a clown class right here in Reno in the summer. It's actually a bit more like a lecture/seminar, but it seems interesting if a bit pricey for only three days.

The other option would be a school in San Fran which has a 3 semester clown college. I think that I'd probably have to take the seminar, and then if I were really still interested after it, consider the other.

I wonder why more people aren't clowns? Granted, clowns are scary, but isn't that part of the appeal? Holding their laughter and their terror in the palms of your hands...muahahah!

I think that my clown name will be Hooka. Hooka the clown.

Okay, this is a bit of a rant, but I don't have anywhere else to express my annoyance, so here it is:

The Somali pirate kid. What the fuck are people thinking? Does the media, or the government ever stop to think about the possible implications of this kind of coverage?

You've got this teenager. He's a non-entity, and suddenly...he's a super star. Admittedly, it's bad attention, but human psychology is such that any attention is better than none at all.

It's the same kind of precept that makes terrorism a viable option for some. Attention, any attention to their cause, is better than none at all.

So, what is this saying to all of the would-be pirates out there? Yeah, the other pirates died, but remember that feeling of invincibility you had when you were a teenager? Add that to the desire to step out of ordinary life and become a SOMEBODY.

Look at this kid--he's definitely a somebody. Worldwide news coverage, high level US agencies involved--I bet he's a hero to his friends back home.

What's that I hear? Oh...we're setting an EXAMPLE, that's what we're doing. Bullshit. We're stoking the fire for copycats, fucking mark my words.

Okay, I'm back from the peace corps. It was amazing, spectacular, angsty, enlightening, all that jazz. My PC journal was catalogued in jordanjournals.livejournal.com until the peace corps decided to go all big brother and demanded that we submit our every blog for their approval before posting in addition to the rules governing blogs that they already had in place, so I said fuck it and stopped writing. Secretly, I imagined myself behind an Iron Curtain of Bureaucratic Doom.

Anyway, a short bit of nonsense:

On Gaza: Meditations on a Massacre

giggling whitecaps waved
at the monolith that belched,
and struggled and moaned
like a beached whale with
sand up its crank.

you'd think the oppressed would
learn their lessons and
maybe teach their kids a
thing or two of tolerance
and cohabitation.

history, however, thinks different.
rightly so, seeing as lessons
don't seem to do a bit of good
and we can fairly fail humanity
in all of its courses.

they all whine and bitch and
preach and pray and God must be
bringing out the belt because
this report card just ain't
going on the fridge.

I'd like to think I'm different
but I'm probably just a fuck-up
on a smaller scale so
I don't notice it as much
but damn do they suck.

morning prompts my voice retreat
washing dimples from the hills--
22 seconds of silence
as realization dawns.

songbirds scream as nighttime dwindles
gargling beaks of feathered songs--
19 seconds screech
til silenced by car alarms.

eyelids stain my sleepless cheeks
pasted together in greeting--
11 seconds crammed remains
forced back in afternoon.

suffocating by the koi pond's trickle
the stammering lethargy of 4 o'clock--
8 seconds pace and sweat
trying to keep on breathing.

starlight abandons its artful pretense
crisped by the evening's langour--
1 second to lend comfort
then skittish reason startles.

The day is bright and much too short. So much left to do!
I've left my wits inside my sheets. My brain is stuffed with sleep.
I've paperwork and traveler's checks and bills still left to pay.
Friends to greet and toilet seats to bid goodbye today.
This semi-random pointless jaunt lacks all but boring meter.
If I could buy a day or two I'd be a Walmart greeter.
No need for cause or point or rhyme. Just organize my thoughts.
Procrastinations spider web is reeling tight--I'm caught!

Okay, so I'm nervous about leaving for the Peace Corps. I keep thinking about what it's going to be like to visit a culture that is (in so many ways) the absolute opposite of my own. Except I'm not really visiting. If I were moving to a US city, I wouldn't think of more than 2 years as "visiting"--I'm really MOVING there. It'll be my new home.

So, I don't know whether I'm excited or nervous, but I think that it's a little bit of both. I never really question whether or not I want to go or even why I'm going. I just am--it's something I shot for (a shot in the dark, since I've never known anyone in the Peace Corps, or really anyone besides me who's ever thought about joining) and somehow I hit it. So, I figure that it's fate. Not some kind of wishy washy fate where drunken gods are dicing for the fate of the universe, but honest to goodness determinist type fate, and I'm cool with that.

So, I'm left to wonder why I'm nervous. I guess that it makes perfect sense. I've never even left the country, and here I am planning on moving halfway across the world for the next few years. I don't speak Arabic. This IS a branch of the government, something that would normally get my libertarianish panties in a bunch. I'm leaving my family and my friends, going into a place where I'm uncertain of everyone and everything, alone, and for no particular reason.

Oh, sure, there are various and assorted small reasons, a desire to see the world, interest in conflict resolution and the philosophical and ethical implications that accompany it, the desire to learn a new language, the desire to help, not just as an American who feels guilty for her country's misdeeds, but as a citizen of the world--many others as well I guess. But no reason in particular.

So, here is a question--what kind of person leaves behind people and things that she loves in order to do this kind of uncertain thing? I'm perfectly happy where I am--I have friends and family who I love dearly. The only thing is, I have this feeling that there is something else out there. I don't precisely feel limited where I am, but I feel like if I never explore beyond those limits, that I may not ever be able to appreciate what I have. The whole 'how can good exist without evil' thing, except I'm not exactly looking for the evil to counterbalance my good.

It's more like I want to explore other types of life and happiness and sadness. Maybe I'm selfish--I want too much. I want to see how other people experience joy. How they live their lives with each other, and how it is different and the same from mine. Like I'm looking for some essential formula for humanity.

I was thinking earlier (and I was relieved and comforted by this thought) that at least I will still be in the northern hemisphere. So, I can still pick out the same stars. One of my friends or family from home looking up at the sky can trace the same constellations. This is only distance in space, which can be traversed. Think about how much harder distance in time will be to take as I get older. And even then, the constellations will stay the same, because our lives are so short.

Awhile ago, I was thinking--if you love someone, that never changes. The love of that moment, and the connection that you have with that person in that moment, will never change. Even if, at some point in the future, your love falls apart, or if you grow in different directions, there is still that part of you that will always love and understand that person, even if it was only for a short time.

Whether that love is some fatuous figment, or something more, it exists within you, and will always be a part of you. There are friends that I have grown apart from, and friends that I love dearly right now and hope to never grow distant from--however, I know that if we do grow apart, there will always be a part of me that loves them. Love, the present tense, because for ourselves, memories are always in the present tense.

I remember past loves--childhood friends who I grew apart from. I used to paint the sidewalk with nothing more than braids and sprinkler paint with Missy, and watch the sun bake away our pictures. We were the only ones lucky enough to see them. That is something special.

Kristen, my name twin, another childhood friend. We are a part of each other's histories, and when I recall my childhood, it is soaked in her companionship.

Now, I'm lucky enough to have two friends who I love. I think I connect with each of them on a different level, and I hope that we never grow apart. But even if we do someday, I will always love them, and see them in different aspects of the world as I walk through it. Love, once felt, never really dies, it just transmutes itself to object and memory, i think.

Okay, well i've rambled far off topic and I think that i will take my leave now. today is July 3rd, and I leave for Jordan on July 5th and 11:16 am. If I don't update before I leave, livejournal, my friend, fear not. I won't abandon you =) we're friends.

drunk on brushfires
embering the hillside
late sunset bloodied
reviving blanched
and waning rays

like old men stagger,
wander through their days
swipe their sweaty brows
with motor-oil fingers--
the blanketed blaze
stutters to smolders.

young men who follow fathers
burning breeze-swept ashes
cajole the sage to dance
and blaze enraptured pines
to scour the skyline

five seconds past the sunlight
pretend stars pock the desert.
scenting sun-dried smoke,
a child of late June
fathered on thunderstorms

old man, creeping down the black
do you regret your bridges burned
the child who wanders your path?
the smoke burnished twilight
that pegs your moment's glory

young man, so quickly burning
refracting in the smoky sky
do you scent your father's gasping
that hapless suffocation, the moment
where nothing's left
and fire's consumed by starlight?

tattoo (angle 1)

This is a picture of my new tattoo, the clouds are new, the wings are older. Go to my pictures and select the tattoo gallery to see other angles =)

TEN MORE DAYS TIL JORDAN!

tata!

Hey all, less than three weeks until I abscond to Jordan! I am so excited =) Going down to San Fran this weekend to mess around as well as to go shopping for supplies! This entry is random and semi-pointless, serving only to express my excitement.

...

I better start studying arabic ^_^*

electric lamplights glazing leaves
bouncing off a row of windshields
a cricket laughs as water drips
in crinkled leaves cast-off by fall
televisions blaring blankly
a passenger jet sinking toward the skyline
vague murmurings along telephone wires
wrapped in stars and cooling fareheit
soft skin and bathroom breaks at 10pm
vague arguments of entitlement
hand-held guidance back to slumber
this and that and this; another last--
the clock announcing just an hour
until my time here's gone

Because it's so silly and I do it so often, I thought you might be interested to know that I often do battle with a program on my computer. It's the 'winrar extractor' program, and I've surpassed my free trial period.

Whenever I want to open a .rar file, I will quickly click then hurriedly press enter whilst frantically sliding my mouse over to close the program the second it finishes extracting the file. If I manage to do this before the warning telling me that my trial program has expired pops up, then I win. If the program beats me entirely, it wins. If I manage to extract, or begin extracting but am not able to close the program before it pops up, we tie.

I have to let you know that I chuckle evilly whenever I beat the program (even though I am able to finish extracting the file either way, since I simply have to press close to continue) and I warily acknowledge the program as a good opponent if I lose, or if we tie.

It's really strange, isn't it? It's a shareware program that I use quite often, and would likely buy...except...I just can't see giving up my worthy adversary. I feel quite a sense of camraderie with this program. Is this an early example of bonding between a human and an artificial "intelligence"? Maybe someday, far in the future, this post will be pointed to as one of the first acknowledgements of the sentience of computers. Because I swear the program smirks when it beats me.

Winrar archiver, I salute thee. Henceforth, I shall call thee "Winny" my worthy adversary. Bring it on, Winny, bring it on...

the first cigarette
hits the morning in
a breath of dizziness
curling round my tongue
seducing me to
greet the morning



Why did I have to wake up so early? It's a beautiful morning though and I don't have to be at work for 6 hours yet. Maybe I'll go for a walk...


baptized in the shock
the cool of June in early morning
gentle catechisms
exhort my steps in daylight
waking with the grass
to stretch and kiss the sunlight
stroked to gentleness
from dreams of rooted languor
lapping at the fertile soil.
the span of hours
spins and topples like a dreidel
and water fades to memory
patched on blackened sidewalks
when daylight burns
lovers turn to masters
soft words, toenails dug in sod,
sharp-scraped coolness in my lungs
reserved for early morning.

slashing through the bloody night/
leaking down the skyline's canvas/
fascinated whispers dog the streets//

staunched and wrapped in yellow ribbon/
entrenched official OSHA hazard/
i'll hush the sky, dip my fingers deep:

half-born buildings mourning grayly/
emptied windows shuttered with the dark/
wire fences spiked to guard their rawness//

pockmarked streets that reek of asphalt
spun in early morning's smoky twilight/
heat that writhes but can't escape the sidewalks//

gnashing moans and mutters running red/
deeply gashed emboldened white that scars//
the pretty face of cities facing morning.

the 31st of may
comes with lisps
and limpid whispers.
sullied by a languid spring
i'm too lazy to stretch for summer.
crushing dandelions
i stretch out on the crumpled grass
watch the sunshine
chase itself across the sky.
leafing through the calendar
a half a year has faded
humming fireflies on lilacs
remind me where the months have gone.
I've aged and watched the flowers
slept in careless langor
watched the sleepy march
til it seemed a faded dream.
in the end, the dirt beneath my feet
the hazy air that crawls
hot between my lips
the salt that flicks my tongue
with beaded perspiration
mountains pried apart by sunlight
convince my eyes to open
to live the waking dream