I hear a voice from my soul’s core sayin’ freedom’s just a metaphor.

Listenin’ to fellas with gravelly voices and everyday words strung together with the amazing skill that makes silk purses from sows’ ears (there’s forty ways to use ‘and’, but only a couple-three work out to be magic) is the best accompaniment to introspection. A life gone unexamined isn’t a life atall from what you hear in the papers, but pulling up a microscope on the fibers of your memory and heart is a sweaty experience. It takes a certain weight of will to torture yourself in such a manner, yet not get lost on Whatif Street; you know the place, it intersects with Could’ve Avenue (some silly souls confuse that one with Should’ve Avenue, which is an entirely different route that pertains only to matters of life-and-death, really) and the weather there is spotty: Hell, along one solitary block you can walk through patches of blinding sunlight followed by drowsy rain followed by sheets of ice so thick that you are in danger of being frozen if you don’t move quick enough.

The brain and heart are a funny combination, and I mean that in all senses of the word: There is funny-ha-ha and funny-weird and funny-ouch and funny-itchy. I can think of that time when I was in third grade and did The Really Embarrassing Thing and I get all fidgety, fiddling with the tip of my right ear absent-mindedly, flushing red, stammering to change the subject even though it’s just me and my thoughts here. I can physically revisit the knee-buckling lust of that magical connective moment with Him (oh yes, with a capital H and that’s not to be questioned), my breasts full and weighted, every last particle of me electrified, even the hair on my head singing to beat the angels at their most hallelujah-drenched moment. I can pull up great despair and taste the dirt of tortured distress and sadness in my mouth, gritty against the insides of my cheeks and making me want to lie down, never to get back up.

In those instances, the moments where I take a breather from alternately being dragged along behind my life and grabbing hold of it to squeeze, I realize how very much I’ve lived. I do grieve for those moments past, even the horrid ones, because they have been spent and even though I can immerse myself in them –truly feel them– I’ve already done with them what I would.

I worry sometimes that (even for and in spite of all my care) I am too busy looking ahead or too busy burning time by daydreaming about other times future and past that I’m not fully appreciating the here and now, that I’m not rolling it on my tongue and savoring it as best I can. It is, after all, what I will touch back on some day years and years from now, extracting the truths and recollective emotions from the experience.

I am in motion I am blue / love is an ocean I’m anchored in you / but I am a dreamer / so you sent me away / sometimes we dreamers / just get in the way / but I’ve always known / since I was a child / that the road is my home / and my spirit is wild / and I have my memories / and I’ve got lots of time / and I’m stoned in san francisco / with you on my mind / I am in motion I am blue / love is an ocean / I’m anchored in you, love is an ocean

a letter

Dear Elliot Smith,

I sure wish you hadn’ta gone and done that. I sure wish you had thought there might be another way.

A faceless fan of your art,

Jett ‘guhthatsturrble’ Superior

future butterfly gonna spend the day higher than high / you’ll be beautiful confusion / oh once I was you

I saw you caught between all the people out making the scene / and a bright ideal tomorrow / oh don’t go too far / stay who you are

everybody knows / everybody knows / everybody knows / you only live a day / but it’s brilliant anyway

I saw you in a perfect place / it’s gonna happen soon but not today / so go to sleep and make the change / I’ll meet you here tomorrow

independence day

independence day

independence day

I thought of you, and they tell me that’s what counts.

MAXIM: I saw a shirt that was very you today.

JETT: Yeah?

MAXIM: Yeah. It said, ‘PUNK IS IN MY PANTS’.

JETT: Right on….why didn’t you buy it?

MAXIM: Because somebody was wearing it!

JETT: I don’t see how that has one thing to do with your procuring it for me, Maxim.

[MAXIM gathers car keys]

MAXIM: Come the fuck on, girl.

JETT: Where we going?

MAXIM: To buy a pack of wifebeaters and a big-ass magic marker.

JETT: Just get me a sharpie, cheapo! I’ll write it on my forehead.

hum along with mee-eeee….

Despite the fact that Richard D. Bartlett (also affectionately known as Wretched Dee Cutlet) pokes hatefully at me sometimes (I reckon it as akin to pulling pigtails on the playground), we have some very spiffy late-night chats.

The other night consisted of “you should hear this song” and “fucking AIM file transfer” and “my computer is arse” and “give it one more go”, which ultimately led to “you know how to ftp?” which ultimately led to this, a delightful sampling of near-and-dear songs that maybe, just maybe (if you are smart and hip and cool and tuned-in like a motherfucker) you might like if you give them a listen-through. Enjoy!

(more added daily. kinda.)

Starin’ out inta humanity.

Best phone message ever to one of the Superior children this week:

“Sam? This is Cy [yes, his name is really Cy, don't you love it? Sounds like an old western-movie hero to me...and talks like one, too, all sloooooowww and draaaaaawwwwwlyyyy]. Sorry t’bug ya, man, but I’m borrrrred and figured I’d liketa talk ta youuuuuu.

“You know, better’n sittin’ here an’ starin’ out inta humanity.”

Yes indeed, young Cy; I know exactly what you mean.

What, WHAT, huh??

There is someone in the Science Building that is ‘taking care of breakfast’ in the ladies’ loo on the top floor.

I know this because they never, ever flush the results of their self-destructive handiwork after herking in the bowl. I would practice simple avoidance, but

a) I’m one of those gals whose bladder gives no indication whatsoever of an impending tinkle: One minute that sucker’s bone-dry empty and the next it is impossibly full.

b) there’s no predictability (save for timeframe) at all; it’s a bathroom quick-sleight: “Which stall will host the vomitus today? Step right up, your buck gets you ten if you win!”

Look, if you want to empty your innards of your meal’s detritus via Reverse Operations, that’s your prerogative. I don’t necessarily agree with it; I don’t necessarily support this (far-beyond foolish) decision, but I’m not out to target you or those of your ilk. Far be it from me to do so, for I have beams of mine own to extract.

However, if you don’t start flushing afterward and I am forced to continue seeing the remains of your partially-digested Hardee’s breakfast, I’m gonna presume that you wish to be discovered. Therefore, I will stand sentry in that bathroom so as to ask you:

“Just what in the holy fuck are you doing??”

so, yeah.

I was filling out something couple days ago and at one point it asked me to, in a very brief statement, describe myself. I wrote, ‘I am a loving, loyal person with very little patience.’ It came out almost as if someone else was writing it; I don’t know if that means it’s MORE true or LESS true.

Pretty soon I’m going to start a reader quote section, because you people say some incredible things to me in comments, e-mails, in chats and over the phone. Your magic needs to be singled out.

Also, I’m going to set up a (HUGELY VAIN! NO MATTER HOW I STATE IT, IT COMES OFF AS HUGELY VAIN, SO THERE YOU HAVE IT! THE BRUTAL HONESTY YOU ALL SO LOVE TO BLUDGEON ME WITH.) section with things you say about me, New Yawk Times-style:

“I give Jett three thumbs up! Don’t ask where I got the other thumb from!”
“I’ve never seen someone blog so self-aggrandizingly before. This girl is a marvel. A broken, trainwreck of a marvel, but a marvel nonetheless!”

I’d also like to flesh out the Muffinass Manifesto and Code of Belongingness (sort of an introduction to Muffinassitude, as it were) that was jokingly suggested by Keith a few weeks back. A manual (written in crayon, of course, as all sharp writing implements are frowned on here at The Home For Wayward Weblogging Superstars^tm) and a secret handshake may just come out of all of this, you never know.

And MELLY, I got home and of course they had fucked my order up. It worked out well, for Carlito the Smashing Latino Fellow finally knows where I live in case he and I should ever decide to consummate our ferocious desire for one another.