Rocktober!

This month I am going to dance and fall in love with the feeling of a hand on the small of my back, a secret room in the library, the taste of wood smoke in the air.

School has officially started; I've had all of my classes once. I am so glad that I made the choice to study art and psychology and not psychology and art. The difference, though minor, makes all the difference to me in that starting next week there are open studio hours and I will be there. I have a friend who has a key so we can go hang out late and weld.

Starbright Firecracker BoomBoom is going to the great mechanic in the sky where the roads are always banked and the days are nothing but 70 degrees. I will really, really miss her.

On the bright side, I left my Levi's jacket in the library yesterday. I lost my shit when I realized it was gone. I am freakishly attached to certain belongings. I've had this jacket since 2003, I bought it used at a certain Value Village on Capitol Hill, it's going to be an heirloom. I called the circulation desk and it was there.

I am rambling and have no specific focus this morning. Have you heard of abe books it is a wonderful and cheap place to buy used books in non-specific condition. I have been wanting to expand my collection of early erotica so I went on a binge and bought a bunch of classics including The Story of O, Fanny Hill, Justine, Lady Chatterly's Lovers. I found a photographic companion to Anais Nin's Journals at the library yesterday and am now able to give faces to all of her comrades.

I am losing myself in pages and the still empty halls of the library. Between the studio and the stacks, I have found my place on campus.

Fists First: on bruises, scrapes, and collateral damage

Riding my bike, my mind on the disappearance of my lover, the first day of school, the perfect feeling of air on my bare skin, I am distracted. My tire catches an edge where concrete and sod meet, I fall, my calf abraded; I stand a young man ask if I am all right. I am.

Is there such a thing as a perfect moment in time. There is; it lasts until time realizes that you've been cheating them and rushes all of your stolen moments out of you in an instant. Time always wins. I know this, I've dealt with it in the past. I am not one to stand mourning, time tick-tock moves at an unbelievably rapid pace until I find someone who is capable of slowing everything down for an hour, a day. This quality, this ability to stand outside of time is relative to a person's experience of life. I have been blessed that I am able to move so calmly through the minefields. Not that I am unemotional, rather I know that emotions are relative and that time ultimately wins.

I am being pursued by a fellow student artist and do not know how to tell them that when I am with them there is no slowing of time, no magic, he doesn't know the difference between commonalities and connection. I am frustrated because I appreciate that we have so much in common, yet that alone does not implicate connection.

I am gaining access to my creative core and will have virtually unlimited access to the studios on campus. I avoiding taking painting classes. I don't want to pollute my heart.

Life is fragile, people are fragile. I fall all over myself this week. When this happens it is typically a sign of awakening, the slow return to my body after having been somewhat distant. As I re-incorporate the challenge of unification takes it's toll. Additionally, distraction and the effects of being human.

Lovingly, Chaya

Taped Ankles, New Nails

It's the first day of school first day of school school

I am still pigeon toed
My toes kiss,
They share secrets,
I am stronger
Than the history
of our making

Yesterday I went out with a girl yesterday; it was a pre-date, a get to know you, let's talk about everything from music and art to medicine and being queer.

She sat in the salon drinking mimosas, reading a cheap fashion magazine while I had my nails painted. I marvel at her self-possession. The woman taking care of my claws is young, from the coast, has white blonde hair. As she nods over my hands I see her scalp, it's pink. I am oddly mesmerized by the translucence of her hair.

We talk quietly trade gossip; there has been a rash of people being ruffied and it makes all of us uncomfortable.

Her left forearm is covered in crosshatched scars.  She is beautiful. Her eyes are the color of the sea at sunrise, deep grey green blue, iridescent gems. I am awed by her bravery, her eyes, her white hair. 

***

I have taken to wearing a corset under my blouse. It is this secret that I have something binding me tight, an absent lover's embrace. 

Simmer in the Sun

It's mornings like this, now, half six and just home, that make me wonder about my ability to continue to hop to like a bunny.

I hobbled to all night and made the cheddar
I raced the machine
Human me one, machine less than one

I am tired and suppose that I have an almost happy attitude all things considering

there are more motorbikes in the world

and I am one of billions, I am fairly certain I have a damn good life

***

concerns:

A's and how to maintain my near perfect GPA
Bravery in the face of
Comfort
Direction
Evolution of the mind
Fallacies, their
General relationship with
Hypothesis and the never ending lack of
Illusions which
Jumble my ability to express my
Kink

Lions, Tigers, and Bears: silver linings are not always easy to find

911 is not always enough

Today has been rough. I found out that my motorcycle is officially totaled. More information to follow on how the insurance is going to handle all of that. Most likely I just walk away even.

Thank you bear.

Sometimes walking away even is all we can aspire to.

Thank you Tiger

***

Awhile back I had a fair amount of my identity tied up in that bike. Not so much now, but it sure was nice knowing that I could leave, go out for a ride, chase a little sunset whenever the fancy struck me. I also feel like I didn't have a final goodbye, a final ride, any of that.

I was upset so I went for a long run. One third of the way through I fell and twisted the shit out of my left ankle. I lay on the ground staring at the sun for a moment. I stood shaky but stable; I have a fairly normal level of pain tolerance so I knew nothing to serious had happened. I continued. I started to cry, why the fuck today.

I am vulnerable and realize how alone I am, become thankful for my ability to see clearly, continue my run another five miles.

I never said anything about common sense.

***

In the past these are moments when I would heat metal to molten and press it into a sensitive area on my body. I can still remember the sound of skin pulling back from the edge of a horseshoe nail, the blister, a scar that never bleeds.

Today, I run, I fall, I scrape my leg and twist my ankle. The damage is somehow par for the co
urse for an athlete, yet the damage is most likely more lasting, permanent, likely to bother me in the future. Yet, you tell people you ate shit running and you get a high five. You tell people you have and attraction to pain and they give you concerned looks and comment on your mental instability.

Yet, I run and run and feel more alive. Perhaps this is the divide between good and evil. In failing to recognize self-inflicted harm as anything expect a strong urge to live is a mistake.

Where have all the monkey bars gone: an ode to skinned knees

Styptic, sterile playgrounds haunt the parks. Plastic wrapped joy shoots for slides,  pulverized rubber turf, the lonely fat kid trying to smash their unused body through the maze. We are raising a generation of children afraid to bleed. As if fear has ever stopped blood.

I have sweat condensing in the small of my back from riding my bicycle. Two moms,  distracted by their children's needs almost drove me off the road today. See, children and the fear of blood.

Warm to my bones

Coming slowly to my senses, no, more the gradual return of feeling to the places with in side of me which had grown numb.

Supposing that all of the time I spent not feeling has any conditioning affect on me in the long run?

There has been a fair amount of water and a large number of bridges in the last year. A lot of that is on me. I am a fire person. I like to burn things. I like to watch metal turn from a solid state, breakdown, become molten. I know that a well tempered weld is stronger than the original steal steel.

Years ago in, high school, my mother told me that the people I thought were my friends were not actually friends. I argued that we would be friends for ever. I was wrong.

I dreamed of walking through a diffuse Seattle with a man approaching silver fox status. We wandered a deserted pikes market and drank an espresso from a woman who eyed my candy. We bought coffee and since the Italian roast was to my lovers liking we bought dark roasted beans and a colorful counter-top espresso maker in a teal or red.

Earlier I dreamed dreams of despair and again back to the feeling of losing things that I didn’t realize I could lose. The feeling that trust misplaced is dangerous.

Again, California, what a disastrous mess. I had so much pride that I was unable to call the farm, tell them what was going on, express the simple basics of the situation, ask from help from the people qualified to provide it. Instead, fingers tight around my throat the walls shaking, the rage of a man struggling to put my face on his demons.

I see things now that I haven’t ever seen before. I am whole in a way that means I have been taken apart, examined, left dusty pieces abandoned, retired the junk, removed the treasures: fractured; divided; made into pieces.

Pieces once removed are able to be refit, welded back to the whole after careful examination, cleaning. With considered precision I re-knit the fabric of my being I am often at a loss. I find I make poor choices and hear a voice telling me that no man will want me, that I am not a real woman, that I don’t have anything to offer.

I find I make positive choices and I hear no voice in my head. I find I make a choice to stop listening to that voice and accept very much that to each day the struggles are sufficient.

I have been exercising. My lungs hurt. I need to do laundry.

Fuck Art, Let's Dance

 He brings roses and leaves them on my bicycle while I work.
I ride home with them in my teeth
the thorns are sharp
I taste blood
and am grateful for the
reminder of flesh on skin.

I woke from dreams of california, the farm, the food. It pushed me back to blog posts of november and december of 2012.  Reading these takes me back to the house on Dry Creek, to the time when shit there started to get more and more out of balance. It also reminded me so clearly of what I was doing there. The life I left, the life I thought I was stepping toward.

More, it was beautiful and I am grateful to have this record of my heart.

***

School starts in the tick-tock number of not too many days. I can hardly breath in anticipation. I get to go to school. I get to learn new things. I get to meet new people.

I met someone from the department yesterday. A fellow artist, a ceramic sculptor, a runner, a father, a formerly enlisted marine. I am not technically interested.

My drives these days are too complex for merely having art, fitness, adventure in common. I need the intangible fluid spark of desire.

I am also somewhat disinterested in pursuing or being pursued by gender specific bio-boys.

***

I take the bike into the shop today. What a blessing to be responsible enough to have full coverage insurance and know how to use it.

I had wanted to spend the last few days out camping alone, this event led me to quickly change my plans. I went running instead. I climbed a mountain with my legs and sweat. As my heart grows more firmly rooted in my heart, I am as thankful for my strength as I am for my vulnerability.

Positive Spin Doctor

I wish I made a photo of Starbright Firecracker BoomBoom this morning. She was attacked by a bear, pushed over and left for dead.
No one likes hospital photos. The impact of the fall caused the fuel pump assembly to break and gasoline to pour onto the gravel. Boo-fucking-hoo. A few phone calls later I have a plan in motion and will be up rolling within the week.
***
My hands smell like fuel. It's one of those scents that makes me tighten my inner thighs in anticipation.
I feel misplaced within this woman body inhabiting man world built by for suited to man.
The skin is soft and covers the long sloping curves where her back and thighs join.
****
I recover my poise quickly am laughing and joking about the bear within minutes. Information is king. It will take one week. Until then there's nothing I can do but bite my lip and smell the fuel only fingers.
*****
How much more I appreciate scents that have mingled. Fuel, morning sun on wet grass; the secret aromas my body holds post coitus when the sweat of two bodies dries in the tangle of my hair; charring meat, freshly cut grass, sprinklers on dry  concrete.

Worlds Collide, Light Rush In

I am back a dozen years
 reading diaries, eating fruit in the nude
my inspiration remains
worlds colliding
 (Anias Nin: What I most want in the world,
the only thing that counts,
my deepest need, my obsession,
is the dream of love
and that I cannot possess but intermittently.
I want it all, continual, frenzied, full of orgy,
even if I must pay for it with my death.)

The smell of rain on dry soil and forest fires, mingles with our sweat. Overlooking the valley my eyes sting as the salt of my perspiration leaks over the lids.

The soil is thirsty, the plants are dry, we all need moisture; the human body without touch becomes aged and stiff. A raven spies on us as we reach groping for our pleasure, not alone, animals a part of nature.