the art director tagged my name in silver on my favorite midnight street; so young, so young, all the bars & streets are adventures when the city is a ghost town on a gorgeous night at 3something. we kept it consistent, tully neats, many, because the rise of the other irish whiskeys, is just a decade's worth of subway marketing coming to fruition. when we are old, they will say that only old men drink jamesons, because the young will be drinking something else.

i've got a silver ring on a black thread. what's it signify? a silvery fancy that caught my eye on a saturday afternoon. i've got my third tungsten replacement sitting in the bottom of my book bag. a pretty aging thing wore too many diamonds, dangling from two symmetrical holes in her lobes, a tiara, because all gold-diggers are princesses, a cuff, a collar, and so many rings, except for the commitment ones. she mostly ignored her slightly sleazy, ugly, beta-y, significantly older date. i bet she tells him that she's old-fashioned and likes to be treated like lady, and is wide-eyed & girlish at all compressed carbons.

as a child, when patrons came in, and i'd be doodling or doing my math homework or sometimes reading the paper, because intelligent children occasionally like to read expensive rags, i'd suggest the pink ones, because regular ones were boring. when did shiny cut & polished crystals begin to signify love?

love is a poem. love is fiction. love is creativity. love is not roses, but a bouquet that i deconstructed, into a richly-colored blossom, left on every lonely parking meter, or bench, or closed shop door, for the first stranger to claim it.

all cycles:

i. meet someone, don't meet someone, meet someone almost special but not
ii. drinks, food, coffee, tea
iii. friends, more than friends, best friends, family
iv. sex, love, things in between, and things not at all
v. fantasy, wishes, hopes, dreams, dreaming about work, work, off-time from work
vi. adorable children, frustrated aged-children, bitter young people, bitter old people,
vii. kindness, the ease of finding happiness when not expecting it (happens all the time, babe)
viii. behind on work, behind on art, ahead on some other things, which makes life pretty okay
ix. break down, or actually, not, and not be surprised at all
x. play guitar, write, sing, sing in the shower, dance in the kitchen, bake cookies, bake brownies, bake cake, bake sometimes
xi. wine, poker, spend time with people you easily enjoy the company of
xii. minimalize on the bullshiters, the whiners, the negative, the ugly-at-core, the manipulative
xiii. depression is real, bitch, and so is anxiety, and stress, drink water, drink less, be objective, & be more importantly, in-gut kind to self & others in positive progress in emotional well-being
xiv. kindness is not fucking easy; it's an internal, conscious choice against other innate instincts; it's not morality that drives it, but the choice to decrease levels of various forms of suffering that exist
xv. life is suffering, life is a hand of cards in a game with shifting rules, and you can futz it a little if you have the energy for it; life is happiness in the agency in personal realms
xvi. people are not pawns and non-players in your life, but developing players in their own lives, so don't be a mean little bitch and fuck with someone else's saved game when they're working on something.
xvii. if they take time to help you, whatever, cool, thank you for the pokeball, keep moving if you want those badges, or quit if you're done; yellow, blue, crystal, ruby, pearl, you do not have to get a nintendo 3ds and play the new ones unless you want to
xviii. you can become a traveler in your own city, you can take a vacation in your city, just do it justice & not half-assed
xix. live. death is okay too, but you only get one real one of each.
xx. love is not something that happens like rain;
it is a act from within someone, and it's not always easy, and it's usually not. nobody deserves it or doesn't deserve it. sometimes it is beautiful, and sometimes, it is a hot disgusting mess in a bad way. love is not romance, nor is it a video game where you win at the end after playing well. it's just one of those things, where it is, or it isn't. it is inherent, & arbitrary, and sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not there, because it is a feeling in your guts & brain, and there is no wrong or right about it-- the only thing fairness has got to do with, is your actions, & sometimes it is relevant in relationships & human interactions,--- but fairness has got jackshit to do with love,
& love, might just be the satiating feeling of happiness that occurs in a being because of concept/thing existing in the universe.

how to frost a cake

the crumpled letters i send, or the handfuls i don't.

in the last century, you could mail a letter, and it'd be gone. paper & ink, and it's out of your hands. everything exists in digital these days, so yeah, all the re-living, re-experiencing, & re-interpreting.

take the photo. if it's good, print it, & hang it.

wherever you go, your life exists in record. there is no escape.

i think about moving. i think about quitting everything i've started.
why is there this need for continuity? why can we not have one-shot beautiful projects?

there is such a need for career narrative, for journey & goals, in this long novel, but maybe my life is poems.

this was joy in lunch in my mother's kitchen, on a restless afternoon. that was croutons from a box, poured into slavic soup made by my best friend's mother. that was winter skies, all pale and grey and bright. that was a soft darkness on my hard floor in the room where light seeped in from the hall. that was the radiator, and the highway is a slow sweep. what is light, but orange streaks of evening on the walls, when you are awake & existentially alone?

one boy sees a sad girl he wants to save, another, a muse. one boy sees creative mania, another, a fierce drunken mess. one, a bullshitting hustler, another, a wide-eyed innocent. one, a crazy girl for pure hot fucking, another, a sweet lady for a doting wife. this one, a strict, mean-mouthed bitch, another, kindness, kindness, kindness. what is play, and what is heartfelt?

detached or a gush of emotion. it's lenses. they all see something different, and are either aggressive or intimidated, angry or sad, adoring or bitter, this or that. desire is a bitch, but they are the ones driving these emotional fantasies in their minds.

i'm just a girl, but girls are an easy medium for gratification, psychological or physical.
if i wasn't a girl, i'd be a bottle of pills. one pill gives you orgasms, and another makes you weep, and yet another does nothing at all, so maybe you change your prescription, which may or may not help you find happiness or satisfaction, or the different lens of experiencing the world, that your soul seeks.

love is hard because on the rare occasion i find someone i feel about on a deep-in-my-guts level, sometimes i know i am just a form of escapism for his soul. he doesn't know me. i mean, he knows bits of me, to be sure, and maybe has a sense of what i look like, but what he loves most, is this idea of me that he's got, and he doesn't want to ruin that idea. he's already in love with this idea. how do i compare with her?

well, i don't care how i compare with this ideal, but i can sense when a boy is falling in love with some idea who shares my face and body, but not my soul. i'm not mad about it. it's just not what i'm looking for.

it's not too hard for me to fall in love, because i fall in love pretty damn easily, but it feels pretty bad when i fall in love with someone who's already in love with an idea of me, so i stop myself. it's like a stop & go, which doesn't feel fantastic, but it's okay.

i'm complex, but not complicated.
i like cheese & bartending. i like poems and long wanders. i like the rain, & playing my guitar.

if i didn't love so many things in the city, & the city itself, and if i didn't have family (who don't need me, but sort of do), and friends who are family, - i'd leave. i'd move to some other city, somewhere warm, and i'd bartend, and spend my free time writing, & making music, & wandering beaches. i don't need a lot to be happy. i do a lot, & help people create & do what they love, because it is the next best thing, to doing what i love, which can wait. people are in your life, for loving.

if i could, i'd have even more awesome people in my life, and maybe the less awesome people already in the fringes of my life would become better people to themselves & others, but whatever. we're all doing our best.

i thought i was falling in love last year, but eh. our lives weren't falling together, and i didn't force it. there was so much uncertainty. if i could, i would have him in my life. it would make me pretty fucking happy, but it looks like he's moved on. i'm all on and off missing him, but i've been mature about it.

what is love? / i don't know, but i know when people are special to me.

some people just make you happy because they exist. for the last part of the year, when my mom was in the hospital, and we were in the ward thinking that she would die at any moment, we talked for a really long time, & honestly.

i've got an overachiever's streak, but in the face of the lives of others, i realize that i don't really care about the rat race. i have nothing to prove. i don't need money or fame. i do what makes me happy, and not at the expense of others.

if i died tomorrow, it'd be okay.
maybe i'll die without finding a romantic partner, or having created a child, but i did awesome stuff already. everything else in life, is just frosting. my life is a cake, crafted with all these shades of love.

i only wanted a small bite.