CIM - countdown! (part 2)

With less than one week to go before my first ever marathon, I am running out of time to train let alone play with options. Two weeks of cold symptoms and bronchitis had destroyed my running schedule before the fated long run where I injured/strained my knee only 10 days before the race. And though I was really happy with my 10:39 pace on Nov 5th when I finished the Run the Parkway 20, I really didn't want 6 months of hard training to end without 'the big one'.

I took a deep breath and recovered some hope after talking with friends and family, and kept on. I bought a compression sleeve for my knee and did a couple of short (2-3mile) runs over the weekend in my Adidas Pureboost X's, and I did still feel a dull pain in the knee but not too bad. Running fast on a downhill did not seem to aggravate it, and there was no swelling or bruising afterward. This convinced me it was the proverbial 'runner's knee' people talk about.  I began to wonder if I might forsake the Nikes for the Pureboost X's but nowhere online could I find anyone who ever ran an entire marathon in these shoes! I just didn't want to wear the Pegasus again, due to their weight and something about them just did not feel right toward the end of my first race. The Pureboost X is a lightweight shoe which is incredibly comfortable and is mostly reviewed online as a 10k or less trainer with floating arches, and good for the road. So I decided to run a counterintuitive 9 miles yesterday with only 6 days to go, just to see if the Pureboosts (and my knee) could handle long distance.

These are the final variables for my race preparation. I have brought my weight down to 169lbs (i am 5' 11" tall) by eating mostly tilapia, pasta, oatmeal, cup of noodles, and drinking Jamba juice, muscle milks, tea, water, and V-8. I take B-complex and multivitamins and green tea extract pills daily. I am happy with my in-run energy plan which consists of Roctane (higher amino acid levels) GU gels every 45 minutes, and S-caps (salt pills with potassium) every hour. And of course water/gatorade provided on the course. Needless to say, shoes and a knee injury are 2 very critical variables to have at such a late stage in training. Up until I got sick and subsequently injured, my training regimen (Hal Higden's intermediate schedule) went perfectly well, too.

How did yesterday's run feel? Pretty good. The Pureboost X's felt fantastic all 9 miles, so I think I will go against the grain and run the marathon in these beauties! Maybe I will be the first one ever to do so? I think they can go the distance. As for me, well, my knee got a little funky after I took a bathroom break midway through the run. It began to hurt in mile 5 and I really thought my plans to run the marathon were about to come crashing down. But I decided to try and run through it, and this time -- miracle of miracles -- it worked! By the end of the run it was feeling quite good and so was I. My plan is to stay off my legs as much as possible the next 5 days, do a lot of yoga and quad stretching, buy some glucosamine supplement and KT tape (kinesiology) -- which seems to have worked wonders for other runners in trouble with runner's knee -- and keep my head up and heart skipping beats as Sunday fast approaches.

CIM - marathon countdown!

Countdown to the California International Marathon = 5 days! Wow. I am excited but nervous. I sustained an injury of some kind -- probably 'runner's knee' -- on my belated long run last Thursday (postponed due to bronchitis). I had reached the 14 mile mark on the Hoka Bondi's I have been breaking in, and I was feeling great physically but got blisters. I had never run far on the Hokas so I had planned for problems, and asked my boyfriend to carry my tried and true Nikes (Pegasus 33) in his backpack as he rode his bike alongside me. These were the ones that I wore when I raced the 20 mile Run-The-Parkway. So he helped me stop and switch out, and I got back on the river trail near Sacramento State. Within a mile I somehow developed a throbbing pain on the outside of my right leg just below the knee. I thought it might be a cramp and tried to run through it from mile 14-16 (on an 18 mile run), but I began limping and could not go further without risk of further injury. I walked the last 2 miles alongside Tosh, who was kind enough to stay with me even though he had places to be and it was approaching 4 hours since we set off up the river. Sunrise when we started had been quite cold @ 36 degrees F but now the skies were sunny and it was a perfect fall day, lots of foliage to see.

I was concerned about the knee. I was gonna wait a couple of days before freaking out about the situation. I had a bad feeling that I caused the injury by switching shoes mid-run like that, because the Hokas are heel strikers and much different from any other shoes I have worn. They have a strange way of changing the impact points on your legs. Though they provide more cushion than the Nikes (the very reason I decided to buy them), I could feel great stress in my hips and inner thighs after running a half marathon. Still, I love the shoes for the way they push back and give me an effortless feeling, seem to help set a nice rhythm in the stride...    (see part 2)

Book Review: The Outsiders

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ponyboy narrates the story of his teenage life within a sewn together band of brothers and young 'greasers' in small town America (reminiscent of American Graffiti) who include working class orphans, school dropouts, criminals, athletes. He provides an emotionally-centered account of these trying circumstances for kids on the back side of the mainstream. Desperate times give rise to fierce loyalties, and it's easy (as a reader) to love Ponyboy and root for him and his friends as they fight the rich kids and steal the hearts of their girls. The action includes drive-ins, cars, turf wars, switchblades, leather, cars, hair, grease, cocacola, madras, cops, heaters, music, 'weeds' (smokes), denim, runaways, sunsets, vacant lots. A whole lot of fun as you get to know some of the characters on deeper and deeper levels. Ponyboy's not afraid to give you his opinion on people and things, and he's not cool with all the greasers, either, but he sees the good in people when he can. It's a sweet and tragic story and you might feel it all ends too soon.


View all my reviews

GRAND THEFT LIFE BOOK 1.2

GRAND THEFT LIFE BOOK 1.1

precipice

There he was, alone in the room. There was the light and him and the dust and the sound of the keys striking, and the strings being struck all alone in the room, and more than a sensation an emotion joined them, he and the light and the keys making chords, the emotion barely registered on his face and one could catch it at the upturned edge of an eyelash, and only for a fraction of a second. Balancing there. Causing the edge to collapse. He promised himself he would not think upon her again. It was not safe.

bygone euphoria

You may be on the road for years and years before you get off the road and keep to one region, one state, one county, one neighborhood, one single home, one room inside one single home, one single chair inside one room, rocking away the rest of your days. Hopefully, all those years on the road you gathered enough memories to fill up your basket. So you can rock the days away with wild visions of bygone euphoria.

katya

thanksgiving

If life has worn you out, be worn out for a while and let yourself surrender. Try and be grateful. For only can you be tired by living if you have truly lived, and it is the living that you did that made you feel the way you feel now. Some don't get the chance to feel beat down by a hard day's work because for some reason they are not living like you are, maybe they are not now capable of really letting themselves go and get carried away. May today be a day to give thanks for the life that beats us up and wears us out, working, raising kids, building something, caring for someone, devotion, fighting for something, loving someone, learning our lessons, taking our licks, falling, getting up, pulling ourselves together, asking for help, succeeding, failing, crying, laughing, running, shouting, breathless, dreaming, getting quiet again... and looking back we would do it all over again.

creative confidence

can be elusive. good thing is you (the artist) will know when you have it. all the rules they ever taught you, muted. taking risks does not feel so scary. nobody knows what you are doing more than you.    the work is mutable not sacred. you can see the whole thing moving through the smallest fragment. it is alive and tugs at all your pulses.

Journal # 11.21.16

You and me, we coexist. Can I describe for you the life you have not lived? Buttons where there were zippers, snow where there was rain, silence where there were people. The television set. But we have so much in common. That's so very nice I could squeeze you like a teddy bear, then fall back asleep. If I see you in the park and study you like a painting, if I read you like a magazine, in joyful discovery, may I fall in love with the complexity of you. Between two points you travel, on lunch break, switching lines on your cell phone, waiting in line at the café, removing your glove so your device can recognize you, swiping screens to get to the mapping application and plot out your next move. I will embody your background the best that I can. I make for pleasant scenery, they say. I understand how it is to be so busy in the life. I am honored in your presence. Not to have time to peel an orange, or a sunset. One day this careless wandering of mine may end, too.

m by memory -xi (fin)

Yes, being WIRED had coalesced cultures all across the earth, simply the most powerful force in the paradigm shift. What normally took the flash of a couple hundred years in the pan, took only a hundred plus, facilitated by the mighty conveyance of internet connection. Many subcultures rebelled against the seated powers once they became aware (almost instantaneously for common citizens, dependent only on the functionality of a modem in an electric grid) of the relative freedoms other cultures and countries had which they had not and wanted. They got restless under the thumbs of a ruling class they had limited stake in appointing. None of these performances on the dramatic stage of sentient theatre had the innocence of virgin material, there would be no immaculate conception by so and so producer, writer, director, star, or egocentric asshole. There would be no trailblazing invention at all. It became clear that you go with what you have, your essential ingredients, and make something more of it. Make a clearing and let it grow. Any farmer could rule the day. Meanwhile the old controllers and their desperate need for control would be stripped to the wire,  primitive and unworthy looking, and frayed. Easily spotted for removal by the arbitrators of theatre in whatever form they chose to express: tv, movie, made for tv movie, short in some indy festival, drawing on some ipad, page in some kid's sketchpad. It didn't matter! Just as the tarnishing of heart and soul, in a rusty mechanical sort of perfectionism, could be caught on an intellectual hook and pulled up and out of the path of vital life,  so could the real, unblemished heart and soul of common decency be ever sparkling for us to see and believe. And so we would have cause to celebrate again. Love was out in the open. Then back to work again.

m x memory -x

Some of the worlds future sentient leaders were highly unpopular and broadcast to greater and greater audiences, as things go. They were encumbered by their attachments to suffix  -ism. This negative attention, when laid on the predominant power brokers of the world, led only to a bookmark and GPS tracking of said leaders' activity. In cases where philosophies clashed severely, and the fingered one's ideas were one-up on the current laws....well, such a threat had to be diminished or concealed, for the fair sake of not allowing culture to regress to old, unevolved, dangerous world orders that could threaten if not topple the current oceanic centered calmness of semi-conducted experience.

Controlled violent force was given the go ahead to help deter the practice of uncontrolled violent force. The former could have been demonized for its inherent unnaturalness and malevolence, but it was not. Something had to carry the agenda. When they could no longer protest in the streets, the people filed suit against different aspects of the hidden agenda, determined to take it apart piece by piece.  In 2021, there was the case of the people versus non-acceptance. Followed in 2022 by the case of the people versus fear-based  reaction. In 2023, a brilliant public defender came out of nowhere to lead the charge of the people versus judgment (the case had been subject to a continuance, however, as the first stenographer mistyped 'judgement' with the gratuitous -e). The powers-that-be consulted with the powers-that-would-be and made plans to stall the accusatory suits in ineffectual administrative law courts all over the world.

Still, diversion of matters dear to sentients -- culture formation and process, length of time standing in lines, availability of redskin potatoes and jasmine rice -- could not hold long, and it was inevitable that the parties involved would be located via electronic footprint and held accountable for their wrongful insertion of old morality plays into further advanced cultural norms, and the harsh treatment against common citizens everywhere embracing the here and now, thrown into confusion by an outdated system which caught them up in an eddy on the stream of otherwise wonderful and vibrant, open diversity of life and light, awareness, energy, and empathic love and compassion never before realized by any species anywhere. This very moment had become so valuable to so many who laid their lives down to resist the confused minority with its majority power still (financial, real estate still held) influencing and disorienting the natural way.

m x memory -ix

The true pioneers of mindful presence were now emblazoned in lifesize advertisements so real you thought they were meditating on you. Commuters dropped coin at their feet, which was quickly swept up by the children of atheists. Advertising for anything other than recreational weed had fallen out of fashion in 2023. Along with work. Working a steady forty, monday through friday, was now punishable by dominatrix for up to one month of nonconsensual slavery. Attaching ones org to a mission was also considered a violation of collective liberties, as the future was to be revered for all and not limited possibility. Proselytizing the sentients into a limited potential future based on some dreamers special mission was considered a flagrant and intentional crime, and prosecuted under the diversion clause. You could not go herding people into some other container, when they had already been successfully contained by strategic water cannon placement and acupressure machines. All individuality had to be compressed and pasteurized, homogenized, so to be useful to the state's personality packet program. The American dollar was of no value to China anymore. Their ports only accepted freight containing the balanced personalities of America. Global trade was mostly information these days. China in 2023 was the forefront global exporter of eastern solution to the world paradigm in similar packets which could be easily decompressed with a modern day can opener any toddler could figure out. A great demand for the nutrients in a non-violent and benevolent product, the wisdoms inherent in confucianism, buddhism, taoism, communism, sufism, among other subscribed philosophies which had evolved the eastern world into its current selfless, rugged, dialectic nature. Sentients efforted and fought over it as usual, but reverence was placed so much differently and more carefully in the world 2023, the landscapes of the last century's ruling global authority had become relics and often been archived, as interest fell mostly on the new world order, which struck most sentients as highly advantageous and useful to the species and collective inclination toward healthy unbiased purpose wherever possible... all the way to the ends of the earth, which were not ends after all, as awareness now informed us of non-finite individuation. this was accepted as practical science, contemporary thought-feeling-knowing. Yet still they go unnoticed, the silent ones. Love was underwater, perhaps devalued or defaced, below the heavy freight of packaged information and pasteurized personalities. This is as it is.

Journal # 11.19.16 'the surest of sure things'

the nights are cold now in northern california and i love it. the trees all showing their true colors. i think i am falling in love with him, who else do you call when you have nothing particular to say? tonight the rains will come for us. i will be with you tomorrow and what will we do? it doesn't matter, just to be with you, to be with you. i have a cold and, for one week now, my great plans to end the year strong have been held up and what can i do? i just wanna be faithful and devoted to these causes, and come back to them when i can, when i feel better. i don't do well when sick. the marathon is in two weeks and sadly is now up in the air, i just lost a critical week of training and maybe more. my novel is waiting on me to come finish her, and this will be the peak experience to cap off a great year, i am sure. my friends, may you find your 'cause' and devote yourself to it! with whatever free time you may find for yourself! your industriousness there in that spot -- no matter the whirlwind of your life around it -- circle it with water and fire, protect it, hold it close to your heart, my dear, get close and open your veins to the earth there, give yourself all! and you may find it sustains you, blossoms and enfolds you, and will carry you through the darkest of days, the bleakest of nights! i promise you. it is the surest of sure things!  - KatYa

laid out on oxys dodging commercials for a living

this one dove into his work and was never seen again. that one raised a family and moved to more affordable real estate outside of town.  i made my salad to define me. the bacon bits were fakers, everything else about it was real. it was colorful and the greens they bordered on iceberg always, cut toward the base of the stalk where the water really filled them. i am always thirsty.  a protective splash of oils with some herbs and salt and pepper. vinegar in just the right amount, the same amount they baptize with... i miss my old friends. the silly things we did in the middle of the night. the funny conversations. i like to reach out to them but they don't always respond. i'm sure i'm the same. not always responsive. this one shadowed their partner's career trajectory. that one got injured on the job and is laid out on oxys dodging commercials for a living. no one even knows about that one but i know they are out there, in a different kinda pain. listen. i love you too. i've been there. i know. some want a life that keeps pushing in one direction. me, i like to land on a mushroom and hide out there for a while, regroup before i walk the shredded carrots to a crouton. but you can bet your ringing telethon i will leave this bowl empty with a tangy memory in my mouth, i will take what defines me and devour it whole and live again. redemption can happen several times a day for those of us who have the nerve to put ourselves out there unreservedly. this one learned a language and moved where they speak it. that one made a soft space to lie in, free from any sensation of the city. you have your mind to contend with. you have me and i can be quiet. when i'm not saying anything they love me more.

dally into dream. wild who we are

We began by recalling the sea. which was not hard to do, for the sea faithfully came back from far places with green bottles and messages inside, wrapped in the trendiest of weeds. the sea happily let us believe, then to lull us asleep to the tune of the tides. i dallied into a dream i had when i was younger, back then a stronger version of itself. i recalled it sadly now for now it could not capture me like those days back after a war, before a war. sadly like a strong figure, man or woman, who meant something to me looking up, looking up to as a child. or some strong oak tree now dying, now slowly. now drawn up in my drifting mind, as i intend to open my eyes unblinking upon it, as though i may recall it so well it's not called recalling. where my memory ends it begins. the path made purely of small sea shells, both of my hands they were held. sweet talk of summer evenings and what ever to do. sounds and warm light spilling out of small houses. side by side. rolling granny applecores away beyond which wild flowers nobody need bother. leaving orange peels for a trail... wild is how i remember us then, and here, the foot of snail and sand, where our memories began.

the reunification

When i dream i dream of loving you through it all and you loving me, cause the world can be processed cheese and nothing nice on a sesame roll of dice. i still want you maybe five or ten times a day while you're away, you call me and i call you and we find ourselves free and working citizens, no game, no fame, just sunning on the ordinary sands, paid in sand dollars and buttering the skin with oils. i got afraid when you wanted to move in with me. i am so used to living alone and rather like it. but last night when reading a story about some fugitives in Germany, i realized that behind the heinous crime spree were people in desperate need to be loved. they found one another in that predicament i suppose. broken families, broken economies. a good deal of sadness turned to hate in the heart of a child who knows not what to do with it. violence comes of a hateful heart if you do not learn the alchemy. nothing excuses the criminals their crimes. i saw a window into their lives as they borrowed identities from friends and secured small apartments for the three of them to live. they played video games and the woman had a cat. they had romances between them and accepted it. they drank wine and read indoctrinating books. they took holiday on the Baltic Sea. for whatever intention people come together, good or bad, ideological or not, the deeper intention seems to me to be the coming together itself, in a world which has crumbled around them. the Berlin Wall went down not long before them, and they were seeing the West with fresh eyes, while the West was seeing them for profit in a market. clearly reunification was gonna be arduous and exciting. if only we all could come together around a good cause. but it cannot be. the point is the coming together, the bond. life energy and life's fulfillment circulate through the bond, the comradery. the intention matters less. such is the way of the world. the crime spree went on the better part of a decade, the National Socialist Underground. they didn't always take credit for their atrocities but they were a known terrorist cell and informants (they call 'assets') all around. but the intel was weak and the investigation poor. the families of the victims, victimized. finally the two men were dead in the back of a camper, after robbing a bank. the woman would be hunted and turn herself in. she is imprisoned to this day. Beate. she is alone again. i am so used to living alone and rather like it. i got afraid when you said you wanted to move in with me. but after i saw the movie and read the book, i really cannot stop thinking about you and me, coming together for all time, as time passes away from us.

indie author

Katya W. Mills is an Independent Author from California. She writes literary fiction with a free and lyrical style. In 2013 she self-published her first novel, Girl Without Borders, about a love triangle gone bad in Chicago. She is currently hard at work on an urban fantasy series, Daughter Of Darkness, about a girl with psychic powers. In 2015, she released both Grand Theft Life (Book#1) and Maze (Book#2).  Katya received her BA in Literature from Northwestern University, and has a Master's degree in Psychology. Her preferred tools of the trade are Scrivener, coffee and a Chromebook. At night she morphs into a social worker.

martial arts mixed with supermodel moon

Good morning world, today it will be partly hysterical with scattered tear gas and a good chance of healing the narcissistic wound, by appearances, anti-Trump and replete with overenforcement of law, and disorder. the wild-eyed tatted up boy from Dublin will enter the Octagon in the square, Madison Garden, while a New Yorker agent of real estate assets makes moves on the Oval, the Office, bearing fruits of the violence of free speech, talking of violence and violence of talking, while the political correct find themselves bundled and floating, sucked slowly into space, drawn to the supermodel moon. the lights of civil rights are mostly white wandering place to place, eye for eye, martial arts mixed and in danger of falling from grace.

my marathon month - aka - a super special mindfuck

This has become my marathon month and despite all my other obligations i have to say it's been a joy to have been mostly devoted to running for the last six months. in 3 weeks i plan to run the Cali International, and last week's twenty mile 'Run The Parkway' race gave me a sweet shot of confidence. it was my first ever real live race, and 10 minute 39 second miles was my best pace ever, 20 miles my longest distance ever. i met some cool new friends on the run who i hope to see at the CIM. the morning was simply beautiful as we followed the American River up then downstream, and got a good dose of singing birds, rising sun, cheering fans and morning mist.

#246. post-race with medal

this was an inaugural race which is selling itself as the official CIM training run and will in fact be getting in bed with the marathon for a package deal savings for 2017. my boyfriend has a bum knee but already decided he's gonna try and also 'get in bed' with me so we can run the parkway next year together. (we'll just have to see how that goes - wink wink) anyway, my brother was a sweetheart and just bought me my first pair of maximum cushion Hoka One One Bondi 4's. thanks bro!

my super max comfort runners

 i broke them in a little with recovery runs - 14 miles - on the streets and the american river the last couple of days and so far they feel spectacular. the 'rocker' effect really helps setup a rhythm and yes, they offer good pushback with every stride, creating a forward momentum for you. dam, i felt the road so hard in the race last week. around mile fifteen my Nike Pegasus 33's could not save my legs from the pavement and it's a solid shoe but i guess i am used to more trail running. i was able to run the border of the parkway on the dirt for several miles though, so it may have been more to do with my decision to keep unusual pace. for the first half marathon i was runnin ten minute miles versus my usual eleven. quite a leap of faith in myself and mostly adrenaline i suppose. also i met some people i enjoyed talking to and was trying to keep up with them, too. a real friendly crowd overall, just over a thousand strong. anyway, the life of shoes log about 4-600 miles and mine are close to dead. and what with the dead legs feeling i had by mile 18, i decided i wanted to try for a pair with max cushion so i don't have to feel the road. in the future (if i race) i plan to go for trail race events like the AR50 (American River 50 mile ultra). that full day hike up to Auburn really makes my mouth water!

cool metallic bling!

what i love about running and training are all the factors at play and how it becomes a genuine laboratory experiment on yourself with so many variables: shoes, posture, nutrition, energy, pace, weather, distance, surface, time of day, hydration, pre-workout rituals, yoga, sleep, stretching, comradery, audio, mantra, visualization, adrenaline, topography, comradery, location, gels, s-caps (salt pills), amino acids, recovery rituals, ice baths, epsom salt, protein shakes, shedules, titrating, tapering, comradery, consistency, constancy, technique, anti-blister, anti-chafing, injury prevention, pre-race ritual, wildlife sightings, sprints, hills, post-race ritual, education,  (did i say?) comradery, effort, breath, rhythm... honestly i think Einstein would be scratching his head!

the American River

during the race i overheard someone say how they told a friend, who then asked them how much they're getting paid to run? people do look at us crazy when we tell them we actually pay entrance fees for these killer events. you probably need to be running 6 minute miles to get sponsored, idk. all i think you need to understand, though, is how you get a better you out of this deal. truly! a bioaffective-psychosocial-spiritual new you. that's my take. i am in the greatest shape of my life (bio). i am quicker to calm, if not emotionally sound (affective). my psychology is a real mindfuck (in the best sense of the word), as i am exceeding the limits of what i thought i was capable of. this part is particularly super special because it means i'm breakin on through and out! i am shattering formerly solid personal belief walls and opening up a new world where what i may have thought improbable is suddenly alive. in process. someone once said 'dare to fail' and it's true. i wouldn't now be busting my ass for Folsom on december 4th, if i felt i had to finish. it's exactly knowing that i never have but maybe could run 26.2 that has me surging and thrilled to try. and that, my friends, is the what and why.

marathoner?!

GWB 2.1.1 a videobook

GWB 1.22.2 a videobook

m x memory -viii

By the year twenty twenty-three, 99% of microscopes were melted down and recycled, whereas bifocals and bottle glasses had come back in fashion. And it was decreed that all laboratories be replaced with ashrams, following in the footsteps of a decentralization trend. Anyone caught with space foam running shoes and acoustic instruments got a one way ticket to the primeval forest being cultivated on Mars. These items became highly sought after. The principal objective was not to have one.

There were some (in the future) who could not hope to walk unseen down city streets. A loosely affiliated group of citizens who did not so much ask for the kind of attention they were given, collectively or individually.Which was a suitable regimentality for twenty twenty-four. Legend has them born of loose-fisted, assymetrical, left-handed, lipton teaheads just shy of true north. The truth was something else.

They tend to make a lot of noise without speaking, and move like waves.  Everyone else wanted to tell them what to do, and they wouldn't do anything other than what they were told if they were to do what was expected, so atypically they defied expectations. Otherwise they wouldn't really exist, would they. Ice water was in their throats, not their veins.

You cannot know them in traditional forms of knowing. They have something more intentional or focused, it seems, or something less violent-by-association. Anyone is guessing. They congregate in the shiny bars of the fringe-mainstream. On bicycle hill perhaps. Or in bookstores off the beaten path in the Mission. They have an aversion to snapping turtles and judgments and extemporaneous litigation.

Along with us, they envision a society where the only records are vinyl and photographic memories are stripped and laid out in the sun. But only visions are envisioned. Nothing has been empirically correlated and nothing ever will. The principal objective was not to have one.

Journal # 11.09.16

The map of the states, the topography of the election was blood red and rising last night. I thought it looked prettier with the interstitial lakes of blue we saw in 2008 and 2012. In Manhattan there was a glass ceiling, unbroken, and through it one could see the many dejected faces below, their leader missing in action. Somewhere deep in the everglades she lost, by a fraction. Today the proper treatment is falling in line. Come together and act united, the states. I know where I'm gonna start... I will be heading over to Susan B. Anthony's grave with my wire brush, to remove all those - I VOTED! - stickers from her tombstone.

m x memory -vii

The leaders of the silent majority were, in this case, unrecognized; the best intel found them having just departed around the time you wondered aloud where they were. This brought tears to the loyalists eyes, although it may have been the preponderance of onions. You knew they had been there by the discarded skins rustling around your feet... everyone deserves a moment with those who wrote the principles they chose to live by - 4 seconds of fame - such an act of devotion impels unity and the kinda nonlocal intimacy comes of hearts and minds in alignment.

K after a 20-mile race!

Yet the antagonists are always gathering like clouds and forcing the separations - an end to to the aforementioned sunshine - and the fading vibrations become absorbed in rugs beaten over handrails in city streets and back alleyways. Rugs are beaten publicly, of course, as they are well known to be taken out upon, in these lands.

vote

ONE of them gets to feel loved by the entire country. one of them will feel loved by me and you. we can only hope that they didn't use all their life up to now, positioning themselves to be loved like this. i wanna choose the one who wakes up every morning and already feels loved. the one i cannot take that feeling away from, no matter

why
or when
or where
or how i cast my vote...

even if the only one they know who truly loves them
thick or thin
is themselves

prefab ona freeway

I was driving up the grapevine out of los angeles when traffic came to a dead stop, near the top. we were all clocking about 80 miles an hour before it turned into a parking lot. ahead of me was a prefab house tipped off a truck bed on the freeway.  i wanted to stop and give the poor trucker the down on his lucker, a hug. he likely lost his job today. maybe they will let him move his family into the new lot he created. rent should be nothing if he sets it up for some tolls, his kids can take turns in the booth making change. governor jerry brown can stop in for dinner once a month and his cut. sure they will have to soundproof the walls and string up some blinking lights. no back yard and no neighbors and the air quality will suffer from the constant emissions. none of it will be legal but they'll be roping so much cash they can buy the courts off. the only great obstacle will be the haunting. the ghost of the family who once lived where the freeway now runs had something to do with this, for sure, a spiritual reclamation of material space. a frontier family gone west and staked a claim long ago. only to be ousted by the D.O.T. commission lobbied hard by big business. no more day hikes to pyramid lake. no more immaculate alta vistas. just a small payoff and a bus to LA, and a new life sucking fumes in carson city. the patriarch promised vengeance. he was the one, long long forgotten, who jumped the trucker's nerves and caused him to jack knife that day. the matriarch got ahold of his wife. you can see the translucence deep into the night when you drive up there and wait for your toll. the kids are all demons possessed.

envy of a ghost

Would the soul cry out if it were being hurt, or would it take its licks salty dead silent? I don't know but the operation went smooth (they say) and they removed the organ intact and placed it in the care of a preservation society. I don't feel any different, except that I have no soul. I have found myself out politicking and bloodsucking, which were never part of my M.O. in the past, but seem to fit my personality so perfectly now. I think I may write myself in for president next Tuesday. Such are the ways of a woman - sans soul.  Trying to compensate for the loss, I mean, though again I say I never felt better in my life, and shook hands with several doctors and a nurse. They even allowed me to put my palms up against the glass and peer in upon the many incubating souls in one dedicated room leased out by the chairman of some board, and I tried to locate mine and yes, I believe I found it! calling for me from one far sanitary corner. My breath steamed the glass and condensed. I stiffened up to suddenly realize a part of me was gone, and no small part indeed. But I comfort myself with my hand in my pocket wrapped around the thick fold of bills. I can properly say farewell and shout through the long empty echo chambers of my heart: "IT WAS WORTH IT!" Today I shall go and have myself fitted by my personal shopper, with all the fineries of a twenty-first century lady. By noon I can see myself peering into the floor to ceiling mirror, in the deep fault of re-cognition. An extravagant and spacious feeling, I am sure! But an envy of a ghost.

Journal # 11.02.16

She wore a suit to the convention, she always wore suits nowadays even if she was walking the mojave desert barefoot. Something inside her had switched, proprioceptively, and all those free spirits baring skin through broken fabrics she once identified with, no longer appealed to her sense of herself. She even began to part her hair definitely and not in one place all the time, but it was a true part - i mean linear - so anyone could follow the line to its natural conclusion, wherever it happened to run that day. The change was neither accidental nor superficial. A vertical adjustment in the makeup of her personality took the horizontal carelessly. Like if you had a birthday party on the ninth moon of Jupiter, and you only served monochrome helium balloons with astronaut ice cream.

vitamin k

the art of the state of the art

You want to slow down the ball so your eyes can ride the seams in and out of the station, otherwise life goes by so fast you die as soon as you're born. There's no contact. I learned it from the black cat. Which only means you have to wait for the next pitch; good adwords catch phrases. Then accept it like a child. Or a sentence. Already there are so many possible contexts to the story, you're not sure which way to go and getting anxious. You might be locked up again. Walk your worries home to the heart of it, and we can hang up our coats and our hats and the art of the state of the art, sit down together and listen to it. I mean talk. In about five seconds time, everything... now pass the first tension and back to what we live for.

The magnus.

The opus.