It Is No Measure of Health to be Well-Adjusted to a Profoundly Sick Society

Though your hands may bleed, and your body may lie broken, Every storm must soon give way

Woke exhausted and in a sweat from dreams of a fantastical place, wildly-coloured sunsets and sunrises, creatures from other worlds, transmogrification, white stags piercing through frozen lake barriers into white worlds with pink and violet skies. Zombies, monsters, music, secret moss-covered sculpture gardens.

Then woke up to an empty-homed Christmas morning with my partner gone. I went for a run in the hot morning Southern California sun, fall leaves scattered in yellow and orange all over the unswept sidewalks of this ghost town. And the wind pushed them through me. I cried.

"Though your hands may bleed, and your body may lie broken
Every storm must soon give way

Raise your head up high
So the heavens hear your cry
Light the brightest fire
From the highest mountain
so the whole world knows
that your spirit can't be broken.

Let this rage inside you die"

Moonshine and Cherry Cola.

The cover of night brings comfort.

Moonshine and cherry cola.

John Edgar Wideman Quote

"The brighter, harder, more convincing and impenetrable the shell became, the more I lost touch with the inner sanctuary where I supposed to be hiding. It was no more accessible to me than it was to the people I was keeping out. Inside was a breeding ground for rage."

In The Land of Gods and Monsters

Lana Del Rey lyrics

In the land of Gods and Monsters
I was an Angel
Living in the garden of evil
Screwed up, scared, doing anything that I needed
Shining like a fiery beacon

You got that medicine I need
Fame, Liquor, Love give it to me slowly
Put your hands on my waist, do it softly
Me and God, we don't get along so now I sing

No one's gonna take my soul away
I'm living like Jim Morrison
Headed towards a fucked up holiday
Motel sprees sprees and I'm singing
'Fuck yeah give it to me this is heaven, what I truly
Want'
It's innocence lost
Innocence lost

In the land of Gods and Monsters
I was an Angel
Looking to get fucked hard
Like a groupie incognito posing as a real singer
Life imitates art

You got that medicine I need
Dope, shoot it up, straight to the heart please
I don't really wanna know what's good for me
God's dead, I said 'baby that's alright with me'

No one's gonna take my soul away
I'm living like Jim Morrison
Headed towards a fucked up holiday
Motel sprees sprees and I'm singing
'Fuck yeah give it to me this is heaven, what I truly
Want'
It's innocence lost
Innocence lost

When you talk it's like a movie and you're making me
Crazy -
Cause life imitates art
If I get a little prettier can I be your baby?
You tell me, "life isn't that hard"

No one's gonna take my soul away
I'm living like Jim Morrison
Headed towards a fucked up holiday
Motel sprees sprees and I'm singing
'Fuck yeah give it to me this is heaven, what I truly
Want'
It's innocence lost
Innocence lost

Cold

No amount of intoxicants, compulsive exercise, transporting music, or films, will free me from this.

The end of a long, long day, usually ends around 2:00am; I've been sitting at my computer writing, studying, focusing for about 6 hours. The kindest greeting at the end of that would be something that makes me feel beautiful, a night walk, some warming gift to look forward to - even if it was just my own. Actually my own would be just fine. But I have no promise, no beauty, no night walks. Only guilt, blame...I tried to think of something else but that's about it.

Lana Del Rey - Tropico

Short film by Anthony Mandler

This is absolutely beautiful, dreamlike, nightmarish, transporting, glitz, glam and grit all at once - like so much of Lana Del Rey's work. She just keeps getting better and better. And Shaun Ross is preternatural.

Disclosures. PS I hate that word.

I guess the practice of disclosure now is don't?

I was struck by grace with some moment of insight into myself, my behavior, my actions, and I went there and thought about it.

I need time alone. I need it, or else I will suffocate. By time alone, I mean time
- thinking my own thoughts - not someone else's
- doing what I want to do, not what I am supposed to do, even if I made a commitment out of some higher-order desire that makes me have to supposed to do things a lot of the time. This usually consists of reading, writing, painting, exercising, being out in nature, sometimes talking to a friend (though that has been happening more and more rarely lately).

I'm a PhD student. I very, very rarely get true time alone. I am a married person. I very, very rarely get time alone that is not the result of an argument.

I disclosed that I realize I believe I sometimes allow arguments to happen on purpose so that I will get time alone because I am gun-shy to ask for it.

Why am I gun-shy? Because I ask for so much already. Because I have decided to commit myself to an incredibly rigorous training program in order to some day have something like a career that I can feel proud of, that will make my father and the rest of my family proud, but most importantly, that I will find fulfillment in. Something worth doing for as many hours a day as present day west-society jobs demand. And goddamnit, I found something, a place, where I feel like I can actually make a positive difference in something that motivates me. I would've been very happy in the Ivory Tower until I taught classes to inmates in prison.

My very vulnerable, tender, embarrassing, difficult disclosure was not met with appreciation, or encouragement. Actually it wasn't met at all.

I'm too tired to even finish writing this. I'm tired of constantly being called selfish while he says he can't live without me.

Dream Fortress

Dream Fortress - Grimes

Right now, this song is my soul.

Just added the album this is from, Halfaxa, to my Working List of the Most Beautiful Albums