As I stare out on this magnificent vista...

(That title is an allusion I think maybe one of you, my readers, will catch. Let me know.)
I'm at a campsite deeply removed from even a sparsely populated village, so of course I'm nowhere near a town or proper city. Just driving here was its own extraordinary adventure of winding around hundreds of hills, missing signs, missing turns, turning around, climbing and dropping down the ground like it was the sea - nelson didn't like it. It made him anxious.
When he gets anxious he tries to climb over my seat and onto my lap while I'm driving.
Me: 95 lbs.
Nelson: 145 lbs.
So we finally got here and it is BEYOND beautiful. Literally stunning - I tried to describe it on the phone and could find no words to fit it. Like last night I'm surrounded by woods and looking at a lake, but the quality is so much higher. Each site is on its own dock built over the lake, and includes the section of woods in front of it. So I'm on my dock, but it's nearly october. There are no other campers. Nelson and I have some several hundred wooded, lakeside acres all to ourselves.
He took a few walks within the first hour and a half of our arrival, but then the pre-storm weather started to build. The sky went dark, the fog became a drizzle, there were distant camera-flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder deep enough to barely be audible.
I thought it was all terrific.
Nelson thought the world was ending.
Here's the image you should take from this:
Me, in an inside-out oversize white tee shirt and knee-high rubber rain boots, laying on my back in my car (with the back seat folded down. Look for the pics of my car-bed.), looking out the sunroof and grinning ear to ear while the rain gets stronger and heavier while Nelson tries over and over again to wiggle his entire body under mine, nose first.
Also - if you're on twitter, send your love to my very dear, very close friend, mister @treybytrey (or trey, as he's usually known). He and I have been through a lot of shit together that nobody should ever have to go through, but the funny thing is that half of that shit was my idea that I convinced him to join me in doing, and the other half was him bringing me along. Really though, I've seen a lot of things that I don't tell anybody about. But he is the only living person to whom I can not only tell those things, but with whom I can discuss them. He's talked me off of plenty of bridges, he's fed me, clothed me, put me up for weeks at a time, counseled me, listened to me, and genuinely cared about me. I'm pretty sure that he's the only person whose empathy I can feel - I can see him trying to see the world from my perspective, and that's a rare thing.
He's a rare type of man.
Happy Birthday Trey.
Xo
-a

(The first pic is my view from my car's rear windshield, the second is a pic of my car parked at the campsite.)
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Kentucky

I just left kentucky, and I have to say I was impressed. It was much prettier than I expected and not at all trashy. The site I found was absolutely beautiful - tucked into the woods on the side of a hill with a view of a giant lake. Nelson and I did some hiking and woke up to the gentle splash of waves hitting sand. It definitely broke my melancholy.
Also - happy birthday trey!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Once more, with feeling

I'm on the road again, for the second leg of my road trip, resumed after some disruption.
America, I'm begging you, show me something I need. Some way to live out the rest of this life that so many people worked so hard to save. I'm a little more desperate this time, a little more sad, a little more old, a little more scared.
So please, show me something, some alternative to this heartbreaking meaninglessness.
I'm getting too fucking old to be 22.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Guest Post 14 : K. N.

my bike story:

 

 

 

 

Some people are runners. Some people like group exercise. Some people don’t have to exercise. I am none of these: I like biking. But until yesterday, I’d never gone organized biking or ‘cycling’ as some like to say. With not much training under my wheels, I signed up for a 100 mile bike ride, all to be done in one day. To make sure I’d stay committed, I talked up my ride to as many friends and family as possible. I’ve heard telling people you’re going to do something is the best way to stay true to your goal—none of us like admit we didn’t live up to our word. So, at 7 am after five hours of sleep, I headed over to the starting spot. Now mind you, I didn’t know anyone there and made sure to tell the registration ladies I was by my lonesome and would prefer to ride will someone who wasn’t planning on hauling ass. These events can be intimidating, because many riders show up with thousand dollar bikes and matching riding shirts… the matching shirts are a dead giveaway that you don’t want to ride with them as a beginner: they are far too serious. One cheery woman said: “ride with Carlos, he’s our friendliest cyclist!” I turned around to find Carlos: a balding man with the shortest shorts I’ve ever seen and a pink exercise crop-top on. He clearly wasn’t into the unflattering padded ass shorts most cyclists wear (I bought a pair to wear the night before the ride). How could I defer? He looked like the most interesting person there. Carlos and I strapped our gear on our bikes, clipped on our helmets, and began our ride. We headed up toward the Michigan-Ohio border and all was going well, but I could tell it was going to be hard to keep up with this fit 61 year old man. He even looked like he had extra muscles in his calves! I am pedaling my heart out and learning about Carlos. Turns out he’s basically a genius: from Brazil, fluent in many languages, and a neurologist by profession. We make it to our first stop 15 miles in and have a little breakfast. Other riders are there as well, including a more or less 300 pound man I decide to strike up a conversation with. I realize he’s the guy we passed on the road who had speakers and XM radio built into his bike and bright-as-hell LED lights flashing from every spoke of his tricked out bike. While I’m trying to figure out how this huge man can pedal for so long, let alone get on his bike, I find out his ride is worth 4 grand. Now, that’s about twice as much as my car is worth and well more than the 1980s bike I’m riding that I found in my uncles garage earlier that week. This inspires me to look into speakers for my bike at a later date. Music can help you keep pedaling. Meanwhile, people keep trying to speak Italian and Spanish to Carlos and I keep having to remind people he’s Brazilian and therefore speaks Portuguese. We wheel on to Tecumseh, Michigan and stop to have lunch. This is the point where most riders turn around and head for home, making the trip about 60 miles total, while the more enthusiastically crazy riders keep trucking on another 20 miles so their whole trip, including the return-to-start miles, will equal a 100 miles. Carlos and I hop back on our bikes and we pick up another straggler named Bob. Bob had intended to only complete 60 miles, but when he heard Carlos and I were going for a 100, he decided to join in. I would like to attribute Bob’s interest in joining us to our lax style of biking, but I think it was more of a “if these guys can do it, so can I.” We’re all getting along pretty well, making our way to a scenic lake, and not too many cars are honking angrily at us. Carlos is proving to be a warm person, in the sense that he really tries to get to know you and doesn’t feel uncomfortable saying your first name at the end of declarative sentences, as in “it’s really beautiful out here, [insert first name here].” I think it’s a really personal thing to say someone’s first name regularly and I feel like South Americans do it more frequently and with more grace. Bob says hello to everyone we pass: waves to drivers, says hello to other bikers, and asks how people are doing who are in their yards. He considers himself an ambassador of bikers who must inspire all to like cyclists through his Midwest friendliness.  There is so much farmland up here in the rolling hills of lower Michigan and so many creepy old barns that look like they’re straight out of a Rob Zombie film. We finally make it to the lake—the halfway, 50 miles point—and have a few snacks. It’s now 2pm and we are certainly the last people to get here. We take a small break and start beasting up the hills on our way back to flatter Ohio. And then things start to get interesting. I realize that I’ve packed far too much on my bike and it keeps sliding off, so much so that about every 10 miles we keep having to stop, so I can strap everything down. We’re struggling up hills, cruising down them, and taking in all the pungent farm smells. There is some good lookin’ livestock in these parts! Now, this whole time Bob has been instructing me to not get my tires stuck in railroad tracks. To do this, you have to go perpendicular to the tracks. Well, for a particular set of tracks that crossed the road at an angle, this method didn’t work so well. I crossed the tracks with perpendicular precision but because of the track angle I was about to fly off the side of the road after doing so. As such, I broke (braked?) will all sorts of fury, not paying attention to Bob’s proximity behind me. Bob came barreling into me and flew off his bike. Luckily, neither of us was injured. We stand there, on the tracks, getting ourselves together. My brakes are off, so Carlos, like a good doctor, is helping with repairs. Meanwhile, the wooden arm thing that plops down and closes off a track when a train is coming, swung down and karate chopped Carlos’ bike, which had been propped against it. In the wake of our crash, a train was coming, blaring down the tracks. It wasn’t a life threatening situation, but we got out of the way as quickly as possible and continued riding on. About 30 miles from home, I notice my back tire has lost quite a bit of air. We stop to assess the situation. It’s often hard to figure out whether your tire needs air or if it’s a flat-out flat. We start pumping with a not so useful hand pump, but the tire keeps losing air. By rides an old man on a lawnmower who says he’ll ask his kids if they have a pump and informs us he rode his mower from ten miles up the road. He does this so his kids can cut their grass. Ten minutes later, he brings back an even dinkier pump than we have, so we resort to trying to change the tire but with no luck. Although I have all the tools I need to do this, the screws on my bike won’t loosen. Bob, mustering all his enthusiasm, compels me to ride on with the flat. I do this and about every 5 miles we stop to hand pump the tire that is quickly losing air. I feel like such a burden and it’s getting closer to sunset. I offer to have someone pick me up in a car so they can get a move on. Like those emotional war movies where one member of the squad gets shot and tells the others to go on to safety without him, I tell them to leave me! They said we’re not quitting now! We were in it together. Our quads are burning and so are arms, from that shitty little hand pump. If you want a full body workout, just get a flat tire on a long ride and try to pump it up the whole time. Good for your legs and arms…not! Finally, as the sun is about to set, we make it back to our start point. Everyone else finished hours ago. There are no other cars in the lot. Bob and Carlos are still in a great mood. So patient and understanding. I’m happy I biked a century, but the company and the calamities is what made it bearable. And the whole pizza I ate thereafter.

Bio: K.N. would rather her life remain a secret. Though I feel I must add that I like and trust her more than i do most people.

news. pay attention, kids.

Botulism cases blamed on black tar heroin

September 14, 2011 |  6:00 pm

Two people have been hospitalized in the Seattle area with suspected cases of botulism probably contracted by injecting black tar heroin.

Four additional cases have been reported in Texas over the last few weeks, said health officials, who warned that serious, untreated cases could result in paralysis of breathing muscles and death.

"There is no way for a person on the street to tell if black tar heroin is contaminated, nor any way to clean it to make it safe," Jeff Duchin, chief of communicable disease epidemiology for the Seattle and  King County Public Health Department, said in a statement.

Black tar heroin, produced in Latin America and sold mainly in Western U.S. states, is a cruder, less-refined form of heroin that contains more morphine derivatives than pure heroin. When injected under the skin or into the muscles, the botulinum neurotoxin can fester and grow in the wound, producing potentially deadly infection, health officials say.

California has had 17 injection-drug-related cases since 1997, about three-fourths of all cases in the U.S., state officials reported this year in the online journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. All the California cases involved heroin users.

Early hospital treatment with antitoxin is usually successful, though King County officials, who have an information page about how to avoid infection, said it may take several days to two weeks for  symptoms  to develop -- blurred vision, difficulty speaking or swallowing, fatigue and dizziness.

--Kim Murphy in Seattle

link to article

Guest Post 13 : Asleep

On Grief

when someone you knew dies, you feel wounded like the universe just punched you in the gut, totally unprovoked.

Reeling from the blow, immediately, my mind goes to "how the hell did this happen" than to, "will this happen to me" and finally settles on "how did he(the dead guy) bring this upon himself"

which i suppose is normal, but is also a lousy thing to settle for. Its easier to live in a world where "bad things happen for a reason" than "there is absolutely no fucking reason for this bad thing to have happened."

Im kind of sorry to report that I have finally, landed on the last thought. there is no reason. there is absolutely no reason for the last act of my friend's life to have played out so tragically. If you knew him, than you don't need for me to reiterate the details. If you didn't than it is none of your business. this isn't a "tell all expose." this is a meditation on the complex emotions which surround grief.

The thing about grief is that it is horribly counter-intuitive. For example, during the phone conversations and txt conversations I have recently had with my friends who knew the guy, there have been some genuinely huge belly laughs, like laughing till it hurt, doubled over. the kind of laughing that you do and you feel endorphins kick in, and you feel almost high. Um is that really okay? I should add that some of these jokes, and when I say "some" I mean like 90-100% of them" were either directly or indirectly at the expense of my recently deceased friend.  Some of them good natured, but not all of them. After the tears of joy dry and the hitching in my chest stops, I kind of exhale and think to myself "right so should I just go on the internet NOW and book my ONE WAY TICKET TO HELL?"

Clearly this is a time for decorum, for respecting boundaries, for providing an appropriate shoulder for people to cry on, and to ask in only the most appropriate manner possible for that shoulder in return. Late phone calls should maybe be kept before 10pm right? maybe keep it under 30 minutes? maybe not be too much of a burden. Drunk is fine right? but shitfaced is sorta uncool, right? I don't know how I'm supposed to act, there is no manual on how to be an expert griever.

soooo just checking, I wouldn't want to be out of line. Than again, loosing someone is tough enough, and fuck you know that i am still in shock. Really I lost him long ago, right? Really I shouldn't be upset, right? YEah and really sentiments such as these do FUCK ALL when it comes to getting through the day without thinking of a time, a story, an episode, a bit of shame or embarrassment about how I acted or he acted, I was being pretentious, I excluded him, I shouldn't have maybe I was jealous of him, maybe he was jealous of me... these thoughts end up like slivers of broken glass digging their way into my heart, and they really hurt, and I simply don't have the perspective to remove them.

How many times was I embarrassed by him? How many times was he embarrassed by me? TOTALLY SHITTY FRIEND right? Like did he even like me? did I even like him??

I stood by him for years, since I was 4. Nobody else did. I was his first friend, this much I know. So everybody else can go fuck themselves, at 4 years old, I wasn't scared to be friends with him, I wasn't afraid of him. I was occasionally afraid of his family. Know what? I still am. like now more so than ever.

I tried to be a part of his life long after he wanted me around, saying goodbye that first time stung, but I thought that later, down the road we would rekindle our friendship. we never did. this does not make it any easier at all.

----ugh, okay .. as predicted, here is the part where I directly address my dead friend. So Cliche, I know, Im more of a musician than a writer though, so forgive this shitty device.----

Im so sorry. I tried as hard as I could, but I let you go a long time ago. I couldn't help you anymore, and let's face it, those times when you were in NYC and just decided to not call, not let me know, yeah I knew. Likewise, I spent a lot of time in NJ and really didn't call you either. This is definitely not easy to admit.. none of it makes it any easier, and it still hurts, it hurts most of the time. Joking at your expense is definitely helpful, You maybe wouldn't  like that I think. You always had a decent sense of humor, of course unless it came to you, you could never joke about yourself, always took yourself so seriously you fucking pretentious twat.

And FUCK YOU for dying and making everybody go away first, FUCK YOU for not fighting harder to get out, to save your own life. FUCK YOU for being so smart, and so talented, and such a beautiful person and than one day suddenly giving up. doing what was easiest, choosing to take the path of least resistance. YEah yeah the universe owed you a favor, sure. It owes all of us a favor buddy, Im still waiting for mine, not holding my breath.

Oh this is so offensive, this is so shocking, I am so not permitted to be angry at you, I NEVER FUCKING WAS, just PERFECT YOU, just so fucking PERFECT ALL THE TIME..... YOU PLAYED JESUS IN A SCHOOL PLAY, YOU WERE NOT ACTUALLY JESUS !!!!!!!! ... I swear you never got that, after that your ego was utterly huge, just like this big hunkering thing. oh christ it was pathetic, I was so angry at your self importance. I couldn't sit in the same room, I felt pushed out by your ugly obese fucking ego!

Was I just jealous? god it maybe pains me to say that I was. You were so smug, fucking dick. Did you know, that during your long long tirades about yourself about the music you were working on or who you were working with, just hours of you talking about yourself, I just sat there nodding my head, like "oh wow that's so amazing, you are so awesome." (meanwhile trying not to DROOL with the TEDIOUSNESS of your LAMENESS.

Did you know that I in my OWN ARTISTIC PURSUITS had not only matched, but totally FUCKING ECLIPSED yours????? DID YOU EVEN KNOW THAT???

Like you never once acknowledged a single thing Id ever done, only in the most condescending possible manner, like calculated to make me feel like an ASSHOLE for even attempting to be as brilliant as you. ugh you disgusting piece of SHIT.

----

Still, I hung on to hope, I called, I tried. I spoke to your parents, they asked me not to call, no explanation. Your flaws, they don't make you any less of a beautiful person. I miss you. I really do, and If we were angry, I have to believe that it was because we cared. Desperately in need of one another's approval. This is how brothers act. We were both only children, we had each other to throw this garbage on top of, nobody else really..

It kills me that honestly - it really isn't supposed to be over yet. At 40 we were supposed to be bumping into each other in Reykjavik, or Berlin, or Paris and bragging about the venue we are playing, and introducing each other to whatever asshole celebrity we were having brunch with. at 50, we were supposed to be writing really shitty emails to each other about how I needed to give you back your copy of a very rare CD which I lost (yeah, I lost it on purpose you dick!). Now I don't get any of that. so sincerely, fuck you for taking that away from me and everybody else. I guess I *have* to hold you responsible for your own life? ???

Really it wasn't your fault though. it just wasn't. it was maybe even NOBODY's FAULT. That is the part that I have the most trouble with. I may never figure it out. kinda doubt it. you would have, you were always the smart one, I was better looking for sure, but that really isn't helping me right now at ALL. Im still here, and I am wounded and I loved you all I could and now you are.simply.gone.. so Goodbye, I guess, and of course as usual, Ill say it one last time. Im sorry.

-Asleep at the Glue Factory

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Richie Rich

Im sorry i missed your show.
you're a hell of a guy though.
thanks for being so great to me.
xo

unaware, still. but calm, despite.

 
Summer's almost gone.
We had some good times, 
But they're gone.
The winter's comin' on.
Summer's almost gone.


Morning found us calmly unaware.

It's uncanny

the way my life parallels edie's. This song bob dylan wrote to her feels like it's directed at me. Every line is a part of my life.

Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan

Once upon a time you dressed so fine.
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall,"
You thought they were all kiddin' you.
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out.
Now you don't talk so loud,
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be without a home,
Like a complete unknown,
Like a rolling stone ?


You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely?
But you know you only used to get juiced in it,
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street,
And now you find out you're gonna have to get used to it?
You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but know you realize
He's not selling any alibis,
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
That say "Do you want to make a deal?"

How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be on your own,
With no direction home?
Like a complete unknown,
Like a rolling stone?


You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you?
You never understood that it ain't no good  -
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you.
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat.
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at?
...After he took from you everything he could steal?

How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be on your own?
With no direction home?
Like a complete unknown?
Like a rolling stone?

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people-
They're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made.
Exchanging all precious gifts,
But you'd better take your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it babe.
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used.
Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse.
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel?
How does it feel
To be on your own,
With no direction home,
Like a complete unknown?
Like a rolling stone?

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

My (mostly unsuccessful) return to new york

I lost my credit card, let my car battery die and had to have it jumped by a complete stranger (who then sold drugs to my friends from my backseat), and somehow started a fight with an enormous dude that ended in him following me to my car on a completely empty street and throwing a bottle at me. At some point in there I seem to have deeply offended a long list of people by my failure to be at 2 different parties at the same time.
Oh, and I apparently inspired such regret in the last guy I hooked up with that he's decided he must be an alcoholic.
So I'm not feeling great.

I don't know. I rolled into new york like I would any other town, calm and relaxed and generally happy. You can't do that here, and I forgot. I guess I never left long enough to such an extremely different routine that I lost my new york hyper-awareness. So my guard was down. When you live here you have to be like a squirrel or something all the time, always ready to turn the corner and deal w 5 guys with knives, always anticipating and looking for the next person trying to fuck you over. I lost that 6th ny sense. I'm not tough any more in the way you have to be, I'm not thick-skinned.

Ill never forget that feeling of shattered glass spraying my legs - he was trying to hurt me. I'm just a little girl.
In the rest of america a man doesn't pick a fight with a little girl.

I guess in coming back here I had much higher expectations of "what a Man ought to do" than I should have. I made a lot of mistakes, mentally, and now I remember why I left. I want to grow in a way which I can't here. I want to move beyond this day-to-day constant tension that catches me up in a kind of stasis.

So I don't think I have what it takes right now. When I left I said I would only come back when I'd grown up enough to take advantage of the real opportunities here, when I needed what this city can offer in order to keep growing, when I needed something from new york again. I don't need anything here yet. So I'm leaving, again, for the same reason I left before.
There is nothing for me here right now.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I made a mistake

I lost my credit card. I'm 90 percent sure I dropped it on the floor of a cab at about 12:15 while trying to put it in my wallet, but the taxi commission is closed until tuesday for the holiday, so I can't contact them.
Also I don't remember with whom my family banks, so I can't cancel it without confessing to me father.
Also I've only been in new york for about 24 hours, and my parents didn't want me to come here in the first place because they felt something bad would happen. So this just proves that I'm not as responsible as I told them I've become - as I promised.
This sucks so hard. My parents are going to be so pissed, and they'll be totally justified. This was all me, just being irresponsible. I fucked up. 100% my fault.

Fucking up is the worst when the consequences impact the people to whom you promised you would not fuck up.

Have I made any progress at all? Am I the same silly child I was two months ago? Ohhhhh self-loathing...


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Finished tattoo

I got the outline of this tattoo early last year and I've hated it. More and more. But now, its fixed! Dominic evened out the lines and gave me bright colors and I lovE it!!!

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