technically, lady bugs do not scream.

but they do flit. they crawl, climb, gather. they invade lakefronts, like one year in chicago - became a horrid ugly thing. you realize any pretty thing can get to be too much. crawling all red

and dottish and smooth over your shins and in your hair. you're picking fucking

ladybugs out of your soup at lunch, they're catching a wind and dying in between your book pages. red bloody dots smeared tomato wash across crime and punishment.

this has turned dark. it was not the asian lady beetle. they were ladybugs.

i used to like them.

i keep wanting to write about traverse city, but it keeps coming out boy crazy. so so be it.

he liked my glitter.

we talked at a cafe and i didn't pursue it. he was tall and terribly marine like. his eyes were for fireplaces and his skin was for snow.

i am learning the art of leaving things to the imagination.

so in my traverse city diaries (which i write psychically once a week or so), we skin something by an ice fire in lake effect snow. he shows me a picture of a childhood friend he has tucked into a hooded coat. he says her name like he says his own and beyond that we don't talk much.

just the crack of the fire. the fish

salty.

after flower day

the mania of sifting through the market is easier at 4:45. you go when everyone is done. the vendors are packing up and giving stuff away.

if it starts raining the grumpy arguments turn into soggy surrender.

no one really gets upset if you only want one orange. they're happy about whatever you buy.

yesterday was flower day at eastern market. hundreds of vats of begonias, marigolds, lilac, wildflower got hoisted off. dozens of ivy and vinca vines. tons of ferns.

they all left in the trunks of people's cars, or wet up the backseats.

me and stray flowers were left. in the spitting down rain. at the end of a melancholy weekend filled with unavoidable fussing with people i love. incurable distance.

sometimes i wish i could just shut up and turn into monkeyflower

strewing the asphalt

notes on pepto bismol...

i asked a friend of mine to give me prompts for my blog. today she gave me pepto bismol. i remember once i drank rat poison from an orange juice container.
not a lot, because my mother caught me with the container before i got too many good swigs down. it was one of those moments i got to see how my parents loved me.

i was very young. it was all very calm.

when they realized i'd drunk the poison, there was a sudden air of tranquility. they kept looking at me, looking at each other, and starting talking in hushed tones.

maybe they didn't want to scare me.

hushed tones - were not their specialty. but this day, they mumbled reprimands to themselves for their own parental stupidity. how dumb it was to put rat poison in an orange juice container, even though they thought it was out of arm's reach for me ...

and they never blamed each other. one would say you couldn't have known. the other would say look at her. she's gonna' be ok. this was also an anomaly amidst my parental unit.

i don't know what this has to do with pepto bismol. maybe cause i didn't have to get my stomach pumped. i didn't even throw up. guess i had a rock hard gut even then.

anyway. it's the first thing that came to mind.

a note on lake towns

i want my compadres to seriously consider - invasion.

i am going to live in a laketown. i am going to have a farm (however small). there will be a bed and breakfast nearby, which i may or may not operate. it will be on the water.

i will scare the white people. and

i am encouraging you to consider scaring them with me. not in a bad way - in a ...

... poet kind of way.

i want you to consider this.

i am quite serious.

dr. phil talks to the mirror

The following article is a note to myself and to all the rest of us in this bitter ass town who are trying to control our inner control-freak and our closet bitch/assholes.

1) start small. work from light to dark. if you ever took a drawing class, remember what your teachers told you. lighter can go darker, but darker can't go back. i think of this like discussing behaviors instead of slinging libel. if you say "it's hard for me to plan my day when you're more than 15 minutes late to our meetings", it's easier to build from that conversation, than to say "i just don't think you respect my time." and then have to prove your case with (notice...) alot of examples to justify the character slander.

2) ask questions and don't make assumptions. as you continue to dig the hole you are burying yourself in - this little tactic will give you and your shovel some wiggle room to piledrive your way out. it is important that we stop saying "If I was soandso, I would NEVER do that." The point is you aren't soandso, they probably function differently than you do. So if you feel disrespected, is it possible that your lines of respect are totally different than someone else's?

3) give up the last word. this shit is hard for us in d-town. the last word is everything. we need it. we suck on its mammoth ego tit. if you can get in the last word, whatever it is - that means you've graduated to bow-down status. mothafuckas that bet had recognized - recognize. this is why negroes all over the metro area peacock strut off from random ass conflicts and say:

have a blessed day!

i mean - what are you supposed to say to that. of course they get the last word. (that is pronounced, by the way, blest - in case you hadn't heard.) sometimes i want to say "don't say bless you when you mean fuck you." but here, i digress.

4) don't pretend you hate the motherfucker now. oh my god, the most childish shit you can do is when you get mad at someone, all of a sudden not be able to stand anything about them. that's why your ass is a humpback isn't something you would say to your broke-back friend on a good day when you love them. an argument is not the place to "let it all out". love their humpback (or their low i.q. or whorish ways) as much when they piss you off, as you did when it served you in your friendship!

5) admit when shit hurts. i've figured out, moreso working with the kids, that we really are about being hardcore - it's another detroit jones to kick. it's really hard for us, in the d especially, to admit that we can be vulnerable to someone else. that they affect us. but not only is it crucial to our interactions, i think it actually helps us get through our arguments more honestly.

6) watch your tone. sometimes if you can keep your tone level, and stay calm, the person you're talking to may not even realize you've just had an argument.

7) take a nigga to get a drink after you've lodged your complaints. nothing like some brew and music to put you in a better light.

not all landscapes suck ass

it's mostly about mental health. all those cherry blossoms in ansel-adams-ripoffs. i get it now. i think it has something to do with getting older.

or maybe it's living in the city - for more than like 3 years.

anyway. it's not about the viewer. well not really anyway. it's more like saying, hey guess what. i know i'm a morbid motherfucker (by the way, i found out today motherfucker is only one word)... i know i'm a morbid motherfucker, but the truth is ...

i like pretty colors, too. apple blossoms (which make for a pretty wicked white) and hawkberry and orchid in color. and not every pink lily has to resemble a long tongue in order for me to appreciate it. i'm as organic as the next one.

so the good word from the corridor is - all the trees aren't dead yet. and they're blooming like swollen cheekfat from kissing someone you really dig.

to remember what walking will bring up

sunshine. of course, obstructed by clouds.

freeway overpass cement. and the concave cage you may

wrap your knuckles around and whisper at passing semis, hoping they'll honk anyway.

glass in the street.

parking lot signs, with low low prices.
that old man smiling with a shopping cart.

here comes the bridge, dark under there. not so tall, think you might
bump your head.

some kind of goo on the curb. gravel, makes you remember your smaller toes.

and the building you're headed for - the way it comes into view. over the dexter bus. over the under/overpass. over the heads of yellow headwraps.

quiet and the dirt you're willing to put up with.

i've been sleeping.

the bathroom sink has something in it that i am afraid to touch. the kitchen is uncookable and yes, there are a few strange -- bugs. not cockroaches, or ants, nothing that nameable. a couple silverfish, and some sort of red winged thing.

i sort of think of them as dream bugs. the kind you dream are in some new place you've moved and you're not sure how to get rid of them, so you just go to sleep.

the thing is...they are not in nests, or colonies, or infestations, they are just

bugs. and that's kind of how the noise is: incidental. which in a city

full of surround sound, pimped out rides, cellphones, hollering last-word having motherfuckers, you know...

i'll take it. i'll take it. i'll take it.

because i can sleep. yeah, it's a little mildewy and reminds me of many a dive bar that i like - and look for.

but the light is good and it makes me want to read. and jack likes it, and last night i slept. this morning...

i fucking overslept.

i'm a city girl, always jonesing for a little quiet.