unholy frittata

fall brings the past closer for me. something about the cooling air seems to make clear the back window of my mind, as if its been mud-smeared the entire year and has just now been wiped clean. people and places that have been partially forgotten, by a deliberate act or simply due to the passage of time, suddenly come to mind, begging to be discussed or enjoy a private audience in my thoughts. autumn also speaks of change and growth, the beginning of the new academic year, time to entertain new ideas and turn inwards toawards more intellectual pursuits. fall is the season of the mind- a time for thinking and remembering, learning from my own past and from the experience of others.

on one hand, i enjoy the increased capacity for concentration and deep thought seemingly magically sprung from chill air. on the other hand, i dread the dredging up of memories sometimes best forgot. often, by the end of autumn i am devasted, wrecked, and broken by events that could only be changed if time were to turn back as easily as mind. the past few years, however, i've come through strong. i feel like the proverbial clay vessel forged in the heat of a kiln, as though the fires that formerly consumed me now only serve to make me hard and beautiful. hopefully, this year will be the same and winter will find me burned clean, strength restored by the fires that sought to destroy me.

everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

"I observe how profoundly serious Nature has made her about a rubber ice-cream cone - brown rubber cone, pink rubber ice cream. I have to wonder what equally ridiculous commitments to bits of trash I myself have made. Not that it matters at all. We are here for no purpose, unless we can invent one. Of that I am sure. The human condition in an exploding universe would not have been altered one iota if, rather than live as I have, I had done nothing but carry a rubber ice-cream cone from closet to closet for sixty years."

--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007

the saint with the french fried hand

a puzzle: once upon a time, i went to sixth street with ryan and his soldier-friends and we stayed at this hotel (i forget which one), but since none of us really had much money we had to split the cost on two rooms for about 12 people. the morning after a night of drinking, ryan, myself, and about 4 or 5 of his soldier-friends are sitting around waiting for the rest of the group to be ready for check-out when one of the guys declares:

I sure am shitting a lot. I must've shit 5 or 6 times this morning already.

everybody looked at him for a moment or two and then we resumed waiting and idly chatting as we had been before. i do believe this odd statement will haunt me for the rest of my life. what did he hope to accomplish by saying that?  what was the intended purpose of that young man's declaration?  the world may never know.

cold water living well

things were bad. Things were extraordinarily, monumentally bad. I didn't think I could get through something like that completely alone. And I was alone. And I got through it. Things are still bad. Things are still screamingly bad. Not just inside my body, but outside as well.

Recovery has been slow, a classic two steps forward, one step back deal- sort of a pas de bourrée of recovery, so I can't exactly say that I'm "back". But I am sitting up and typing with only minimal pain, and that's something. 

The first day that I could walk again, I had the urge to start cleaning out the closet in this room and I found all of my old quilt projects. I started these years and years ago; before hayley and college and everything else, before I ran out of time or interest or discovered that I lacked the skill to finish them. It took a few days to get everything sorted out, and a few more days after that until I had the motor coordination and minimal strength to start working on them again. But I am working on them again and most of them are coming along. I have time and interest (granted, I would be interested in classifying dog poo if it kept me out of bed at this point) and although I still lack skill, I've learned to fake it at least halfway convincingly. Its nice.

Pink Kitten: an experiment in hand-quilting

an experiment in machine embroidery

a Crazy crazy quilt

a t-shirt quilt or possibly two t-shirt quilts (or more) its too early to tell, but there are a freaking lot of t-shirts here.

 Before the quilts, there were books, and before the books, there was buffy. I'm going to continue my profile song tribute to buffy ASAP. I'm saying this as if any of you even noticed that my past 3 profile songs were from buffy, and as though you are eagerly awaiting the next song in the tribute series. (Humor me please, the fever has addled my brain.) I'm going to try to find aimee mann next cause her song always makes me wish I knew someone named Mario so I could say "Oh, Mario" as well. its fun.

stinging bed linens

i am nobody's punching bag, doormat, or venom receptacle. i've lost track of the number of times i've been cursed at, spat upon, or hit by men- always men- until the names and faces just blur into one big, angry man. the beast. i've had more than my share of him. he wants me to forget, to forgive, to give him a second chance. No, mr. beast, some things, some words, some actions, can't be undone, can't be grabbed back from time because time only goes forward. people only grow up, not down, and as they grow they learn. i've learned that, in some cases, it doesn't pay to forgive and forget because, as time goes on, the broken hearts become broken bones and the bloody noses become bloody head wounds. i know that you'll always come back to find me, wearing a different mask, bearing a different name, but there are no second chances for you, mr. beast, not from me, not anymore. Go back to your cave.

bovril & silence

"Anyone shut up between four walls ends up by losing the power to associate words and ideas."

--Jules Verne

such is

there are no words...

i have made attempt after pathetic attempt to express through the english language what its like to be me. what its like to have struggled and sacrificed and bled to regain control of my life, to claim my body and my will as my own only to have it snatched away by an undefined force. what its like to awaken day after day  in a nightmare where i've died, but i can't escape my corpse. to watch everyone else pass me by as my own potential withers away. what its like to be begging for help only to be ignored, lied to, and betrayed by those who i should be able to rely upon. things are not okay. i am not coming out of this alive, in some respects i am already dead. no matter how many times, or how many ways i say this, it will be to no effect. there's nothing i can do to make you understand because
there

are

no

words