Pig and farm report

The rhythm of a long line is also an animal cry.
-- Allen Ginsberg

I have so much I want to write so much I want to tell you but each day brings more horror and hatred and racism and death in the news and that stops me though I am writing writing I'm still sending bodiless messages to my own email I want to try again here today even though my heart has left the building even though my meat sack carries such worry and sorrow for all of us

I want to write about some magic that happened to me

it may seem like I didn't celebrate my birthday it felt like that to me too that I failed to celebrate myself for the first time since I was four years old when birthdays became magic because they were part of summer because they were the culmination of summer's ripe desire and deep rot and brought a promise of freedom and a sense of change and new school supplies even though I can only remember having one birthday party and it was dreadful and drunken and loud and probably involved screaming and possibly handguns

all of this lack of party (even though I made myself an angel food cake) (even though I had two pieces of angel food cake for breakfast that day) (even though the breakfast cake made me feel kind of sick) (even though it will be a while before I eat angel food cake again) I rallied that night when I had dinner with my son at the Mexican restaurant near his job and I realized that I am happy not hahawheee happy but deep down happy with my life right now many of the birthdays I spent at the Oregon coast were in times of unhappiness a way to escape what always felt like imminent danger

none of that is important because I want to tell you what happened the day after my birthday

my hairdresser for a billion years Mandy finally quit and decided to travel the world with her husband last I heard from her they were in Vietnam which is splendid but here I was with a literal giant wad of hair on my head over a year's worth of hair so I made an appointment with a hairdresser across the street from my favorite ever greasy spoon restaurant in Stanwood a little place called Wash & Wear I got there at 2 pm and right off the bat an infant guinea pig was inexplicably thrust into my hands I held it under my chin where it chirped and clicked or however you describe guinea pig sounds and the little girl who handed me the pig was at a large divided cage which held the mama guinea pig on one side and a giant rabbit on the other the giant rabbit belonged to a young boy about ten or eleven years old who was getting an emergency haircut because he was taking the aforementioned giant rabbit to the Stanwood Camano Fair which began the next day I didn't mind the wait because if I am handed an Animal God right off the get go I know I'm in the right place after Sarah (she is the sole owner and hairdresser of W&W) finished cutting the boy's hair she made him sweep it up himself and then three other little girls probably seven and eight years old came into the shop and they were giggling and putting on the sample creams and singing into hairbrushes and I was in the chair by then getting foil attached to my white hairs and then the girls put on quite a show with acrobatics including handstands and headstands and cartwheels and splits and one of the girls did a backbend called the table after which a bottle of water was balanced on her stomach all of this in this tiny shop my hair was completely done by then so I clapped and cheered them on and wildly applauded the girls who went on to do a complicated hand clapping routine and Sarah's husband came in and asked the girls if they wanted ice cream which of course they all did so they trooped across the street to my favorite ever greasy spoon where it turns out Sarah's husband is the cook and Sarah and I talked and talked and she put more foils in my head enough to keep out all alien rays then eventually the girls came back Sarah's daughter she of the guinea pigs and the other three girls who turned out to be their neighbors and by then I could feel steam rising off my hair as it got lighter and lighter and it was 97 degrees and I think my head was on fire by then but oh jesus it was fun and those girls were funny and sweet and Sarah is simply an amazing person and by the time she started pulling the foils out of my head the girls had all gone home with their dad in Sarah's truck and I got a perfect haircut then it was over but the whole day was incredible and fantastic and funny and full and I am now very very very blonde think Marilyn blonde

the battery on my computer is at a dreaded 5% so I'm about to sign off it is the beginning of August the time of Great Winding Down and of course those new school supplies and now that I have chipped the ice off of my dark guts I will be back sooner

Love to you Darklings who find me here when I can and when I can