at night I run the dishwasher and stand  with my belly pressed against its heat to battle loneliness and sorrow

Notating Jerusalem

It is snowing on Camano Island and I am annotating Jerusalem an oven inside my face sloop down carelessness paranoia utter sadness regardless.

Little Bear is gone.
It's my fault.

The dog crate I bought for him broke as I was carrying him into the house and he fell and it frightened him he turned and looked at me in despair then ran off into the dark forest. I search for him until morning and every night calling calling calling so he knows where I am he is so timid so afraid and now snow and now fireworks and now rifle shots.

Eight days gone.

Every morning every night and every time I step out the door I call him I search the forest calling his name.

My son says stop  stop I know I sound the worst kind of insane.
I can't give up.

I rescued him then I failed him.

Terrible guilt.
Terrible grief.

The Surfer and I worked our asses off yesterday in the ill house cleaned it out everything gone gone gone including The Surfer's roses that he planted way back when he was in high school. It is such a relief to be rid of that horrible place the sad junkies and evil landlord the thieves and gang bangers and pimps and crime.

Now to unpack which will be a joy and I can take my time at it no more restraints no more push push push.

It is New Year's Eve a good time to mark the year. I am not going to do bibliomancy readings this year because last year two people complained about their readings and inside I thought fuck it one of those people actually took me to task about her reading in a private message and I undid her after I explained that I open a book put my finger on a line and that's it. There is very little me involved and very much of the universe and the voice inside books if you believe.

All my cast iron pans are in the trunk of my car and I am loathe to take off my nightgown (it has holly berries on it sheesh) and walk up the trail to fetch it. We have been eating on the run for a month and last night we had our first sit down dinner at our actual real table. Soup that I made the day before and cream cheese havarti cranberry and spinach sandwiches on rye. Delicious. I was too tired to even crawl under my covers.

I have interlubes back thanks to Wave Internet a small company on the island with super speedy connections.

I have teevee cable even though I haven't had time to watch yet.

I owe you all so much. I owe you all everything.

Summer's End is live!

I have so much to tell you but I am exhausted. Tomorrow is D Day our last day to clean stuff out of the terrible house and all we have to do is go to the dump with some stuff in the garage then I can relax.

I have so much to tell you.
Terrible things have happened.

Nothing great occurs without blood sacrifice.

I love you all.

TRISM reviewed by Judith Roitman forthcoming in Galatea Resurrects

And then there is Trism, another book I find myself returning to. Also obsessive. Also inter/intra

species (bears this time, not sheep), also prose poems but more (47) and most longer (pages being

5.5” h x 8.5” w). As I looked for Trism’s online traces, Google somehow directed me to an

anthropology paper by Beth A. Conklin and Lynn M. Morgan, Babies, Bodies, and the Production of

Personhood in North America and a Native Amazonian Society, presumable because words like socio-
centrism and ego-centrism appear. Which struck me as serendipitous. Babies, bodies (both human

and bear), production of personhood (both bear and human and add to that boys and girls/men and

women) are central to this book. As Loudon writes: “Intimacy confused with blasphemy the

ineffable origins of SELF mystical when masked...”

Trism is situated in a gender-frozen dystopia, in which all girls/women are named Alice, all

boys/men are named Jack, never one at a time, always all of them, i.e., Alices and Jacks, together

with Trism Bear and, later, cub Ursula. Alices are in aprons tending to what women tend to and

bearing what women have to bear — “the fucked the suffering mother the mayonnaise and white

bread sandwich...”. Jacks’ bodies are helpless, violent, betraying themselves and Alices’ bodies. Jacks

try to hang themselves. Alices have their periods. Sex is quickly glimpsed — “Jacks were getting

back on their knees their cocks flapped at their stomachs” —raw experience with no context, often

one-sided. Trism Bear is at times generative/mythic, at times in chains, at times animal in the forest,

at times dead, diseased, “necrotic,” his suffering a form of revenge. And Ursula. at times an

anthropomorphized toddler/baby, at times bear cub sucking her paw, killing animals, “she roared

and trundled away..”

Most pages run 100 to 200 words thick with association, one to another, accreting, a landscape thick

with suffering surrounded by the detritus of a middle class dream:

Babies at the bottom of every villainy suckled roots snatched toys broke

down at the border a shoe repair shop a bakery stuffed animals footstools

wicker baskets chocolates papier-mâché the syncretic carnival speechless

and shuffling....

The landscape is both blasted and lush. Children appear as corpses, broken from plague, murdered

by soldiers, twitching in a bomb shelter, poisoned, “ringworm colic allergies coughs”, mutant infants

— “A naked vending child rode on the great bear’s back not caring that the bear scorched earth

blasted cities.” In the last page/poem Ursula scrambles into the forest to be caught by “thirty

cameras... thirty-three microphones... five thousand six hundred feet of cable... hid in an

abandoned wolf trap...”

And the book ends “NO] nipson anomemata me monan opsin [NO.” — the Greek transliteration

translates as: “wash your sins, not only your face.”

A handsome book. The cover is a photo taken somewhere in Europe — Italy? Romania? — I would

guess 1930’s to 1950’s, a bear sitting in the street, muzzled, a long chain connecting it to a man who

holds the chain in one hand and in the other a tambourine, while a few bystanders watch in and near

a doorway, a porch; one woman has her hand up to her mouth in shock? horror? concern? The

binding uses the elegant Japanese four-hole binding stitch, the pages are cream or is it ivory, subtly

textured. Of course it is out of print. But the text is available online as a pdf from several sources.

You can Google them yourself and I suggest you do. The binding and paper will not be available to

you, but the cover photo will, and of course the remarkable poem(s).

I hurried
I hurried packing art into Sweet Lime packing her to the ceiling
I hurried and I stepped into mess and I fell splat on my ass right on top of Ezra!!!
I may have really fucked up my already fucked up knee ice on it now but I'm heading out
neverthelesstrout
heading out

I'm sure Ezra is laughing his ass off at me from Ezra heaven

time to fly away away away

I'll find you when I can soon Darklings

love

Darklings,

I did not miss the full moon but I felt her I've been so busy and today is the day I have been up packing since dawn and soon I will leave for the island then I'll come back and fetch the fur babies and bring them to their new home a VERY BIG DAY

then I get two days off and I'm going to cook my first meal in Summer's End and figure out the dishwasher

yesterday I took my first bath in Summer's End which might not seem like a big deal to those of you who have never seen the bathroom in this hovel it was heaven it felt like heaven it was pure and such a deep sigh escaped my body as I lowered myself into the water that my breath steamed every window in the house

I did my last bit of shopping late yesterday a garbage can with a foot pedal for the kitchen bamboo silverware holders and a small dish drying rack and stocking stuffers for The Surfer who has been kind and patient and long suffering and strong

I won't have interwebs until December 29th but tomorrow I'll have cable which means basic teevee and also a landline phone out there in the hinterlands I will be carrying around my almost dead Kindle until then grabbing free wifi where I can steal find it checking in on you all

there is a band of wild roaming chickens who visit my yard and the trees down below deck and sometimes they walk around in the street and sometimes they show up in someone else's yard they remind me of the Sharks and the Jets from West Side Story and they remind me of Mary Moon and I wonder where their eggs are but they are funny as hell

yesterday again the field was filled with white snow geese

oh oh and oh

miracles

we spent most of the day on the island I got pretty much the last tree at the wee IGA near Summer's End the last tree maybe on the planet it's skinny and very very tall and barely decorated (so far) but there it is and shepherds can find me if they need too and I love it love it LOVE IT the last two years I had no tree and I grieved because the truth is I hold Christmas in my heart all the time like a candle

we unloaded my son's truck set up a common area for the cats with three new litter boxes and three billion pounds of food and new scratchers and old familiar toys and catnip and new large kitty dishes and ordered 6 more cases of food from Chewy.com and then we had our first meal at my actual real table chips and three layer bean dip on my fancy octo plates and coffee then we came home and I ordered internet and cable and a land line and I am exhausted beat tired tomorrow we make two piles one for the dump the other for stuff to go to the house kitchen stuff and clothes and Wednesday we are renting a UHaul and making short business of it and on Thursday my son The Evil Orlando and I are moving in FOR GOOD

Tuesday December 27th my new washer and dryer will be delivered and installed and December 23rd I'll have cable for the first time EVER and on December 29th I will go live with internet and and and

tired
bone tired
so good tired

but I am excited to have my creative brain back in its spectacular housing I miss it hurry little wings hurry back feathers hurry back fire


Love to you Darklings

Snow Day

Snowed out! We had to turn around and come back here. I went to the store and bought bananas and deli soup and stuff I don't have to cook. Honestly I can't bear to cook in this house anymore. And both of us need a serious rest. My leg is screaming at me and my son said his shoulders are tired and I've never heard him say that ever.

taps foot...
taptaptaptaptaptap

Everyday miracles

Yesterday when I carried my two suitcases (there is no rolling of suitcases in the forest) into Summer's End a great blue heron was standing on the deck looking in. I held my breath there was no breath in me I became still as a rock as the heron made eye contact walked across the deck then flew off.

Getting ready with coffee and furry boots to head back to the island in the snow with more stuff under the bed stuff rolling around in my closet stuff and some black beans to soak over night so I can make soup tomorrow.

This flat blue space is boring but I am not bored not one bit. Gonna tree gonna listen to Christmas movies while I unpack gonna eat something all my food is over there over the river and through the woods literally.

Tomorrow I'm calling about getting innerlubes and cable set up so close now I can't even imagine Christmas though I am awash in a dream of sugarplum fairies and jolly old elves wake up! Wake up! Wake up!


Love

drove very carefully in 27 degree weather and snow to Summer's End lugged in all the furniture and all my clothes and all my cds and all my boxes of books then we were both too tired to go fetch a tree much less paint so we're going to get the tree tomorrow and not move a damned thing just tree and treeing and treesome

did you ever dream of having a window seat in your bedroom? I have dreamed of it my entire and now I have made one

I have an actual table now but I was too tired to take the plastic off the chairs much like June Cleaver and maybe your grandmother if you are of a certain age also there is a boy's graceful hand a small bag of bread and a slightly lewd winking Santa cookie jar with cookies in it the red kitchen reminds me of The Shining I'll be painting everything white

plants for oxygen more Christmas and snow on the deck orange BE GONE!

The Surfer's '57 Chevy Bettie and his surfboard heading for Summer's End last week

I go over four bodies of water to get to Summer's End first is the Snohomish River then Steamboat Slough then Union Slough then the Stillaguamish River then Davis Slough then the big wide ocean there is a spot where I turn to go down a hill and there is Possession Sound shimmering as bright as Easter morning it makes my breath catch in my throat every single time I will never get tired of seeing it never ever

I am utterly happy
I am utterly exhausted
I am utterly happy

went to Lowes at 8 AM to buy paint and painting stuff to paint the gigantic pantry
packed the rest of the boxes and all of our furniture
kitchen table and chairs and coffee table and side table being delivered this afternoon

we're on the last bit of it now the last bit most of the heavy lifting done random stuff and some stacks of books and the kitchen

AND...

AND...

putting up the Christmas tree
my first in three years


photos to follow I promise

LOVE

Heading out to the island to carry in a load of stuff and let The Cleaning Woman in to do her magic. That's right. The Cleaning Woman. For the first time ever in my livelong life though I was a cleaning woman for a year. I thought a beginning deep clean of Summer's End would be prudent. Going to assemble furniture while I'm there and maybe take a bubble bath before I head back hopefully right ahead of the snow.

Pretending to feel healthy but my happiness is true and mine.

Paige my concierge at The Standard in NYC is featured today on Tattoosday Bill Cohen's tattoo blog. Check out her fabu Amy Winehouse tattoo.

Good morning Darklings. Welcome to the home stretch.

ps

I AM NEVER MOVING AGAIN

I've been sitting up for about an hour. Done. Packed one box of good dishes. Ate two grapes a saltine and one quarter of a bagel. Bronchitis. I forget what I was going to write here.

Oh.

The third thing I did on December 1 was to subscribe to The New York Times Sunday edition and The Paris Review. I have wanted subscriptions to both these for my entire life but have never felt permanent enough to have a subscription to anything.  I have always felt dangerous living here waiting to get booted out. Ha ha. I won.

That's it for now Darklings back to bed.

Christmas at The Trailer Park Mall photo by Page Loudon of course.

I put a little bit of art in the library at Summer's End yesterday banners from Angela Simione and Severe Snacks from Sandra Gibbons this makes me so happy

taking a day off from packing and unpacking I am tired again to the bone I am wiped out from this pace and using a cane now for my stupid knee because I have to keep mobile and I was ill last night I fainted again but didn't fall now I can't eat or drink just sips of hot water with lemon juice in it and so and so it goes

I am a fainting goat

baa
baa
baa

Gifts

in my new kitchen:

beautiful door knocker from Liv and teapot and cups (and tea and so much more) from Barbara I owe you both mail real mail but I feel like I have not settled anywhere in 10 days not once and yesterday my day of rest was spent turning myself inside out

the gold dragon cup on the top shelf has been mine since I was 20 years old I've used it so much I've eaten much of the gold around the rim the virgin behind the door knocker came home with me from St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC and the Cafe Du Monde cup came home with me from New Orleans

so gorgeous

this kitchen!

I just want to hang out there in the house but it's in and out and boxes and boxes and moving mess and oh how I long to linger by the fire oh how I long to nest

love to you Darklings I'm home and it's starting to snow again

(off the deck this afternoon where the snow had almost melted)

it's beginning to look a lot like Beethoven's Birthday

oh oh oh yesterday my official Day Of Rest began with me running around the crap house flattening boxes and packing up my car for the trip to the island today and ended with a frantic phone call to my chemist for Zofran after barfing for about an hour he didn't wait for fake fake doctor nurse to call it in he just gave me three so The Surfer (thank the Animal Gods he was here!) drove there and picked up the three I took only one stopped barfing ate a soda cracker and fell asleep The Slumlord cashed his last rent check from me EVER and as soon as the snow melts we're heading out to Sweet Lime which looks like this right now:

wooohooo SNOW DAY!!!

Oh John I miss you so.

Also I don't know if you heard but Rump is trying to fuck over my Alma Mater, Boeing. Way to keep jobs in the U.S. of A. you fucking shitwit.

ps,

yesterday The Surfer took me to Borracchini's Bakery which was called The Ginger Bell Bakery in the 1960s when I first started going there I bought amaretto cookies and Italian wedding cookies and fancypants olive oil for dipping and a loaf of potato bread and a loaf of Italian bread and Borracchini's own vodka rigatoni sauce which is actually better than mine something I rarely say and a pink box full of cannoli that we took to the island last night and this morning we brought it back here giving me the chance to say Leave the gun, take the cannoli  to my son because come on how often does that happen? Borracchini's is the closest to Little Italy that Seattle has and it is spectacular
I also bought all manner of cheeses

SWOON

I need to write but I discovered my breakfast place on my island
I am not really a going out to dinner person unless it's a date
I am most definitely a going out to breakfast person no matter the time or day
THE FARMER'S CAFE
seriously I may die of full
AMAZING BREAKFAST

I have furniture now all wrapped in plastic like Laura Palmer and helter skelter inside Summer's End all I need to do is screw on the legs
I have new sheets and pillow cases and a comforter and a classy duvet and a pale blue and green quilt with starfish and octopuses on it
I have pale blue towel-sheets and hand towels and matching wash cloths a first in my life
I have a fucking pale pink cake stand
I have never had a cake stand in my entire not to mention a pale pink cake stand which is why my gorgeous cakes always kind of sink in the middle much like my body has done
tomorrow I am taking the day off because my cold is not getting better and my leg still hurts like hell especially in the cold though I've been doing my physical therapy exercises and it's hard to make myself be still first thing every morning I'm packing my car my son is packing his truck and we make the trek out and back
today my son moved his '57 Chevy named Bettie Page or just Bettie or The Spank Mobile as I call her for obvious reasons especially if you know who Bettie Page is to the island and parked and covered her then he put his surfboard in his room next to his bed where it actually fits

(extremely awkward sentence do I care? no nope not one whit)

we have board games piled up in the library closet now it looks like the closet in The Royal Tenenbaums without the wild boar stuffed head the funny thing is neither my son nor I like to play board games except for GO and backgammon I just like to collect them and have over the years perhaps expecting children to visit

children are going to visit and soon but I'm not allowed to write about it here

HOLY SHIT I HAD BREAKFAST AT 7:30 THIS MORNING AND I AM DISGUSTINGLY FULL STILL AND YES THE PLACE WAS FULL OF FARMERS

today I got the reciept that The Slumlord received my notice to vacate right after he sent me a "funny" Christmas card with a photo of himself and his two grown daughters and a text asking if anything needed to be attended to in the house


hahahhahhhahahhahhahahahahhaaaa





Love to you Darklings wherever you may be and Happy Birthday to Tom Waits if you observe

sick as hell
my right leg hurts like all the swears
it's snowing at both my houses
this afternoon moving in my books

HI!

ps.

Do I believe the universe opened up for me just so I could meet Z and teach her violin lessons?

Of course I do

It is ALWAYS about children always

I am thrilled beyond words

I have so much to write that my brain pretty much shut itself off like a Mr. Coffee drip pot
yesterday I composed a NOTICE TO VACATE to the slumlord and mailed it certified so he will be sure to see it when he checks his PO Box in the middle of December it was professional and curt merry Christmas slumlord! and thank you innerlubes for your spectacular form letters

then I mailed change of address cards for both The Surfer and me so all our mail from today forward will go to Summer's End then I drove out to the island and met the male former owner of the house and his niece who is ten and the niece and I had a conversation and I mentioned that I was on my way to NY when I bought the house and she really swooned and said she always wanted to go there and she meant it and I got it deep because I wanted to go when I was ten also and then I told her I loved the blackboard in the dining room that I would use it to write and to help when I teach violin lessons and she, Z, said she wants to play violin

you never know the deeper reasons why things open up for you for me
this morning I had a conversation with Z's mom who said Z fell in love with me she said I was like a grandma which warmed my heart to bursting and I told her that I would give her a deep discount for lessons instead of $250 a month only $50 a month because I know they are in dire dire and I understand dire I understand dire dire too I understand deeply

so
new house
new violin student who loves to read and wants to go to NY
the universe is rapidly expanding
I'm sick as fuck maybe strep so I'm letting The Surfer do the work today and I'm staying home today but still

WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

good morning Darklings and Love