word soup

tall boy
long hair
tongue kiss
loneliness
hard liquor
soft boy
headache
heartbreak
heartache
headbreak
forgiveness
laughter
death of a pet
schast'ye, priviet
god's plan
call your mom
choke me
epiphany
rose quartz
left on read
cuttlefish ink
clogged sink
fake tan
real love
real tan
be a man
postulance
muscle knot
borrowed fleece
make peace

retroactive blog post 1/3

had a dream that i was watching a very cute video of a specific type of badger and then i forgot the name of that type of badger and could never find the video again. in another dream, or maybe later in the day in the same badger dream, i ended up in a huge, beautiful apartment where i was sitting underneath a desk(?) with someone who i used to date and didn't expect to see there and also didn't particularly want to see. they tried to touch my hand and be flirtatious with me but i was pretty cold and dismissive to them. they eventually left the apartment by way of a long staircase that cascaded in a square shape down many flights and landings. while i watched them leave i felt regret for how i had treated them. before we left for work i told the person who had stayed with me that night about the badger dream, but not the second one

Tell me I'm clever,
Tell me I'm kind,
Tell me I'm talented,
Tell me I'm cute,
Tell me I'm sensitive,
Graceful and wise,
Tell me I'm perfect-
But tell me the truth.

i remember liking this poem by Shel Silverstein a lot when i was like, 6

i still like it a lot

Silverstein was a libra, like me

a poem(?)

i have

lied and used and neglected and mistreated

and hurt

never on purpose

at least, not since high school 

i have been 

lied to or abused or neglected or mistreated 

hurt 

as much as anyone else, maybe more

but i've always felt

what ultimately hurts worse 

is when you hurt someone else

if it doesn't now, it will later

etc

i feel now what can hurt the most 

is when you are hurt

by someone you have hurt

because you have hurt them

so now they want to

or can

or believe they have to

hurt you

in that sense i guess hurt can be earned 

i have said too many times, to a friend

thought too many times, to me

"i want to be good"

i can do the right thing, but that won't make me good

because i already am

it is how i was born and it's how i'll die, too

as were we all and as we all will

mistakes don't make you bad.

being loveless

or hateful

or fearful

can make you bad. 

something i think 

that too many people think 

is something that can be earned

like hurt

is love

love is there all the time

no mistake turns it off

no good behavior turns it on

"god is love"

read my mothers vanity plates on her rav 4

lol

source of adolescent resentment

divine truth in adulthood

god can be be jesus

yhwh

allah

hashem

krishna

yoga

yeezus

aliens

our lovers

ourselves

to fall in love is to feel god

to consciously allow yourself to love is to do gods work

to disallow yourself to love is to live in fear

to live in fear is to be godless

to love despite odds is to prioritize god

to love yourself is to be holy 

to love others is to share god

"all you need is love" is a song by the beatles

i don't like the beatles at all

they're historically significant pop musicians but sonically just not my cup of tea

there's nothing you can know that isn't known

nothing you can see that isn't shown

there's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be

it's easy

one of my favorite songs is me & u by cassie

baby i'll

love you all the way down

the supremes

and later, soft cell

asked

where did our love go?

roy orbison

in a song that i think was a cover of another musicians song, said

love is just a lie made to make you blue

love hurts

the beatles were right

cassie spoke to the position in which love grows

becomes stronger

downhill

when it feels hard

to love

neither the supremes nor soft cell need an answer

but if i had to give one it would be "nowhere"

i do love that song but

love never leaves, anywhere it's been it will always be

roy orbison or whomevers words he sang were half right, and half wrong

love doesn't produce hurt

love mishandled can produce hurt

love can be misdirected

or expended too exclusively

or not given to oneself

and only to another

but hurt can't remove love

nothing can

love can only move

wherever you allow it to go

if you're reading this i love you

and if you're not i still do

and i'll try to do it right

swear to god

home is where the whatever is wherever

went to ohio this weekend. i spent it with my younger brother and my friend of 14 years, Hayley. i've always had an array of close friends, all rotating in and out and in again. she's the only one who dates that far back and has stayed in. Hayley is a gemini with almost every other planet in Libra. she can be a fucking psycho bitch and is one of the only people who has ever been able to bring out a hysteric, blindly illogical version of myself when in an argument. we laugh at nearly every thing that either of us says when we're together. i love her a lot. when she told me she was marrying her then-boyfriend of less than 6 months, Devin (a kind soft spoken professional skateboarder slash sober person who works as a mechanic on the huge machines at a huge brewery and cute boy from Kentucky) i told her she was dumb as hell. i was one of the bridespeople in their wedding, i got to wear a pink suit. i love Devin now, too. they're having a baby early this fall, a boy. Hayley has been practicing various kegel-esque exercises in hopes that she can keep the baby in so he will be born 8+ days late and be a Libra instead of a Virgo. i think that's mostly a joke but i wouldn't put it past her. i'm going to be his godfather, a role that part of me feels so well cut out for i may have been put on this earth to play it in someone's life. i went to the baby shower, and i bought small versions of clothes that i currently do or would like to wear. they loved them. we threw water balloons at one another, bobbed for apples, drank cans of beer and cans of la croix. everything about the event was completely new and foreign to me—in the past hayley's usually been one to "go as hard" (inflict pain on oneself via reckless alcohol consumption and equally reckless behavior) in a party setting as i do. at 7 months pregnant she's obviously not drinking, and i didn't get drunk either. i've also never had a family member or good friend who is close to my age have a baby, or get married. despite those details the whole affair was familiar, went down easy, and felt right. a couple days before the shower we spent what felt like 2 and a half hours in Home Depot arguing over and eventually agreeing upon four paint colors. hayley's opening a barber shop/salon in northern Kentucky later this year and we painted a wall of the bathroom in four thick horizontal stripes. somewhere between a rich eccentric persons bathroom in the 1970's, and the way that the interior of Taco Bell looked when i was a kid. i did practically all of the work and we never finished painting the stripes before i left town. i'm really proud of her.

my brother Clay and i went to a little town called Yellow Springs to take a hike and dick around. Yellow Springs is likely the least "Ohio" town in Ohio; it consists of a handful of farm-to-table restaurants, more than two stores in which to purchase crystals and spell books and incense and sculptures of fairies, a "little art theater" (currently showing Pavarotti, Rocketman, and a 1960's movie i forget the title of), yoga studios, gay flags hung here and there, etcetera etcetera. my friend Caroline grew up there and told me about a rite of passage womanhood celebratory ceremony that she and the other girls her age in town participated in where they were given flowers to wear and ran underneath an arc formed by the arms of all of their mothers. unlike Caroline i spent hardly any time in Yellow Springs. as a tween, only when i would tag along with my mother when she made the 40 minute drive there for a specific manuka honey or whatever it was she needed before there was Amazon or a Whole Foods near the hyper-developed suburban area where i grew up. my brother works at the local whole foods now. and as a teen, only when my friends and i drove up to smoke our booty ass shitty mid weed more freely and to take hikes. the limited time i have spent in Yellow Springs and it's paradoxical environment to the one where i grew up (think like, an outdoor mall, vibe-wise. but it's neighborhoods. well, there are also a lot of actual outdoor malls. i graduated with over 1,000 kids in my class and the high school was in the same parking lot as an IKEA. a quintessential midwestern mediocrity capitalism mecca!) didn't cross my mind this past saturday. walking around those twee streets and wooded hills, drenched in sweat, with my brother, i felt more at home than i have in a long time.

i went to my parents house yesterday. they still live in the same one we moved into upon arriving to Ohio and where i lived for the duration of junior and senior high school. soon it will be just them. my other three siblings and i have all moved out, and since Clay is 18 and going to be studying industrial design at DAAP in downtown Cincinnati this fall, he will be too on the first of next month. that'll bring their guest-bedroom tally to 4. my relationship with my mother is cordial and affectionate but fundamentally flawed and ultimately vapid. there's love there, though. i ended my relationship with my father four years ago around the time that he moved out of the house. obviously he is now back in (the house, ergo my life) but my siblings and i all still maintain relations with him that can really only be described as fragmented, with various levels of fragmentation. mine being the level on the more disintegrated end. the events that lead to the current state of affairs between my parental units and my four siblings and i were the result of semi-recent and specific events, but like most anything familial, also tied to and rooted in much older and deeper patterns, circumstances, and specific events. the specifics aren't something i feel inclined to divulge in a blog post (or at least not this one?), but the gist is that my dad always proved to be, was later exposed to be, and continues to prove himself to be, an exemplary anti-role model to the five of us. his actions, tendencies, and current reality all serve as a gleaming example of the potential long term repercussions of hypocrisy, projection, avoidance, and dishonesty with oneself and with others. for that i am grateful! most of the time. i'm still learning to be.

anyway, going there feels weird. weirder every year. there are photos of the 5 of us in frames all over the place, bible verses in frames in almost as many places. since i moved out 9 years ago when i was 17, mom hugs me and cries every time i arrive. yesterday we hugged, but she didn't cry this time. i didn't mind and am not reading into it. it always felt melodramatic (maybe even contrived?) to me anyway. i talk to mom, i don't talk to dad. he stands around, sometimes makes remarks as though he's a part of the conversation we are having. i used to be angry, for a long time, and the easiest way for me to stomach that in his presence was to pretend he wasn't there at all. now i answer his questions if he asks, sometimes. i say thank you if he offers to take my bag or clears my dinner plate. that's about it. my parents have an inclination to avoid anything that they feel to be unsavory or difficult if they aren't in the position to correct it or "fix" it. i notice it more now that we're all adults who can't be punished for disobedience. a lot of "smoothing over". like, a lot. they also have a fixation on nostalgia, and rather than make an effort to communicate or establish a relationship with the adults who stand before them, would prefer to play old videos they recorded of the 5 of us as children and ogle at how adorable we once were, when we were all too young to exercise or even be aware of our own personal moral compass and free will. i told them that it makes me feel uncomfortable when they play these videos every time i am home; there isn't the same pleasure to be found in them for me that there is for them. plus, i've already fuckin watched them all. i've told them this before, but i guess it got through to them a bit more this time since the only people in the room were the two of them, my baby brother, and myself. i went out the door at the back of our living room and laid on the porch swing on the back deck and stared at the forest behind the yard. my dad came outside an told me that he and my mother didn't mean to alienate me by playing the videos and said sorry. i said thanks, he went inside, and i followed a few minutes later. they were still watching videos of me at 8 years old with a lisp tearing through christmas gifts while my dads voice read nativity-centric bible verses behind the camcorder. i went back outside and stared at the trees from the swing again. most of them are at least twice as tall as they were when i moved into that house, and so beautiful. there are some tiny little bats that live in them, Clay built a little house out of wood and mesh for them to use and hoisted it up into one of the highest trees. my brother came out and sat by me, and we stayed there until it was dark. my parents came out around that time. my mom talked. about her current friends, her childhood, her childhood friends. i interjected periodically to ask engaging questions that made me sound interested and made her feel interesting. we are both very good at those things, respectively. i got two mosquito bites and became very itchy and said "i'm getting bug bites", and went inside. i hugged my mom and told her i loved her before she went to bed. she loves me too. my brother asked me this morning if i'm going to stay at that house when i visit Ohio in the future, now that he will be moved out. i said i probably wouldn't. it was—definitively and literally—my home. but it's not now. that's okay.

this morning my flight landed in Newark at 8:44 and i got back to my apartment in chinatown at 9:33. my snakes tank smells a little bit, he probably peed. i shaved my head, i went to the roof to read a book. julia's not here, she's at her parents house in Beacon. i love their house. she washed all the dishes and left them on the drying rack. she cleaned all of the table, windowsill, console, and desk surfaces and left the spray bottles out. her rabbit overturned his food bowl, i texted her and asked if he needed anything. she said i could give him some arugula. "nothing worse than coming home to gross apt" she said. "oh nw, it looks fine!" i replied. i appreciate her, and it does look fine. feels fine, too. pretty sure it feels like home

frog

last night i dreamt that i had to perform a spell on my snake that turned him into a tiny green tree frog. or maybe i had to perform a spell that transferred my snakes soul from his body into the body of a preexisting tree frog? i don't remember why i had to do it, but i had to do it. it made me feel nervous and uncomfortable but i knew that for whatever reason, in this parallel universe it was the right thing to do, so i did it anyway. it worked and i think my snake just vanished and then the little frog hopped out of the tank and all around one of my bedroom walls and around my window and i panicked and became filled with regret about my decision to perform this spell, afraid i was about to lose my tiny snake frog forever. but he jumped back into the tank and i was able to shut the lid. good boy. 

i sat on my bed and took a deep breath, but before i had even finished exhaling i noticed a skinny green snake was now in the tank, and my snake was also back. they were fighting. i think at this point in the dream that thing happened to me that happens in dreams sometimes where you either become physically paralyzed, or become an outsider who is looking in on what is taking place in your dream; like reading a book or watching a movie. either way, i was now unable to touch anything in my bedroom, let alone in my snakes bedroom. the green imposter snake and my seraphic little white snake twisted and coiled and writhed, swelled and diminished and then swelled in size again, orbited around the four walls of the tank until it was tipping and shaking and rocking violently on top of my vanity. i felt scared, irresponsible, disgusted, ashamed. and then i felt very, very small. i was looking at the ceiling of my room but my head and my eyes were facing forward, i was moving up my bedroom wall very quickly, and i felt okay again. i think i was the frog.

usually i just write my dreams down to myself in a notebook that i use exclusively for dream documentation and moon manifestation rituals whenever i perform those, but i've been royally sucking dick at updating this blog as of late so i decided to flesh this one out a little more here. if i had written it in my notebook i probably would have just said:

i turn snake into green frog
green snake appear fighting my snake
then i was the frog

a book i have about dream interpretation says that a dream about a frog is a symbol of transformation and rebirth, i may be coming to the end of a phase, and the frog promises me new opportunities. that sounds nice. i don't know if i believe in interpreting dreams, at least not in a manner so straightforward that objects, creatures, occurrences, and feelings can all be translated and organized encyclopedia style in a book. but i do think that dreams have significance and paying them attention can help you learn things about the world inside of yourself and about the one outside of yourself, too. in 2016 i had elaborate, vivid, cinematic dreams about various apocalyptic global demises at least thrice a week for over a year. they were all beautiful and terrifying and i'm glad that they stopped. i'm also glad my snakes okay. a tiny, bright-colored frog would make a cute pet for a person living in a small apartment to own. 

rock, paper, fisters

a friend of mine told me something silly a couple years ago while she was working as the head of the copywriting department at the office where i work as a graphic designer, and i still think about it semi-frequently.

her theory was that all people can be binarily categorized two different ways. every persons face and head is either Potato, or Rat. and every persons personality and demeanor is either Fingerer or Fister.

i like the first one because while it does divide people based upon their physical appearance, the division is in no way tied to attractiveness, or even to any specific definable characteristic(s). I also like it because it works! like, you can look at anyones face and very easily decide whether it is Potato or Rat. I can't efficiently explain why, but you can. 

i like the second one because it sounds dirty, and in a way it is, but in another way, its also not. the nature of "fingering" could be interpreted as a light, grazing touch upon any surface. or poking someone in the shoulder with your index finger. or the obvious sexual connotation, fingering an orifice. and fisting; a fist fight, obviously. the sex one, of course. the "rock" in rock, paper, scissors. the way you hold an axe or a hammer or a microphone.

both categorizational methods are as abstract and open-ended as they are definitive and binary. and silly. i think that's why i enjoy them and still revisit them from time to time. i've been tragically busy at work and haven't had the motivation to write in the evenings for the past few days, but after seeing and talking to Zoe and Meetka about "blogging" again i want to try to make myself write something, anything, here as often as possible. later!

- Rat Fister