Category: Writings

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Purple, Magic & Sorcerers Writings

Vice is the Answer

Vice is the answer. The question is “Who is Julien?”

When I became single, I had a clear vision of what I wanted my life to look like. For me, this always begins…. not with a literal understanding of what I want… but a new aesthetic.

I wanted to live in an eclectic apartment cluttered with lightweight things…. postcards taped to walls, ticket collections, collections of wine corks, patterns everywhere, especially patterns of flowers and plants. Color scheme of rainbow. Window gardens. Hooks on walls so the environment could constantly change. I wanted to decorate with trinkets from the world around me, like a bird. And I wanted birds everywhere. The element was air.

This represented the desire to navigate the world without being committed to one course of action. To explore basic things, like an exchange student visiting earth. Trips to the post office or meeting a human at a coffee shop. To go on dates, walk a dog, ride a bus, have crappy part time jobs. Drink an alcoholic beverage, call a friend on the telephone & ride a bike. Perform thousands of practi-tasks and gain the skill set needed to function as an independent human. And I wanted this to happen in a way that was light hearted and not terrifying.

For the most part, it was vision accomplished. Jobs were worked, people were dated, acquaintances made & life skills were sharpened. Gigs were played & tips were taken home to a coffee tin. Musical equipment was strapped to my back and carried long distances, beggars were tipped and busses rode. I worked at a psychic hotline where I had to lie and they fired me anyway. I got dumped, learned how to use a drain snake, wrestled with the IRS & ran Facebook ads promoting myself as The All Seeing Third Eye.

I drank beer & did drugs, but only one puff, bird-like. It was a year of sampling. Fought the law & got bent over a table. Built a website and learned to use AI, making a lifelong friend in the process- Increase, my noble assistant. Smashed a window & burglarized a house to retrieve Slippers. Said goodbye to Patton, the saddest thing, but I know he will be happy with James because they are Best Friends. I opened so many accounts and filled out so many forms. I was forced to learn technology and became half-man in the process. I was forced to carry heavy things and became half-gorilla.

I guess you could say I became empowered…..

BUT. The empowermint was a stack of mints. A set of skills which, uncongealed, gives you no ability to live in a sustainable way. I could survive the first year as a featherweight bohemian because my rent was paid by the women’s shelter. Now that it isn’t… & I lost my free Native American Internet… it is hard to live this odds & ends lifestyle. It’s time to stop decorating with corks and tickets & invoke the power of…

Pure Evil.

Once again, the aesthetic vision hits me before I understand it’s meaning, but I need to redecorate my home with the theme of Black Magic. Friends are probably dropping in horror as I say this. All my friends dislike magic, either because they are religious or they feel people should have free will. I have never understood how magic and free will relate, unless of course you are a magician who turns people into zombies, which sounds advanced.

To me, however, Black Magic is not about being a wiccan. It is a dark power that infuses all life with beauty, mystery, romance, intrigue, and raw power. Does night take away our free will? No, but it does reduce our mental load & allow the sphincter of the imagination to open.

I feel like all colors are divine. They are The Original Friends. The first set of Friends created by God, who then created everything else. Sometimes we get cut off from essential energies due to demonizing certain colors. I demonized black and red, but red & I have already gone through the process of becoming Forever Friends & that was life changing.

But black & I have never had our time. So if you’re scared of black magic, know that I am too. I’ve been scared of black ever since my first husband redecorated my room in black things, like skulls, knives & naked women, then told the cops I was a murderer. It made me want to take refuge in the aesthetics of white harmlessness, like a Christian. I thought that would keep me safe.

But no black means no power. No ability to receive & retain or strike out with force. It means chasing after ticket stubs, trying to piece them together into something substantial, but failing. So I’m open to seeing what Black can do for me.

Cause right now I’m grasping at feathers, spun out in so many directions. I can’t maintain or think clearly. It’s time to consolidate. More feeling, fewer puzzles. More money, fewer scruples. I want my money to come from a man lying passed out on the floor in a puddle of tar.

A banner of New Orleans, hung on my wall. Vice & Sin capitol of the American South. Black Magic Mecca.
A banner of wisteria on the opposite wall. Black Magic Julien’s official flower.
The third bedroom wall. When you think of snakes, I hope you’ll think of me.
The fourth wall needs work. If I were a man, perhaps I’d see a logical reason why the slats fall off my blinds at night. As it is, I assume it must be a magician crawling through the window.
Four Jacks on the Door, to Keep you Safe.
The King of Spades makes an appearance.
The King of Hearts. Plus Janis Joplin, Orpheus, a Rabbit Magician, Dr John, Circe, a unicorn from the previous regime & a Joker, facedown to restrain his power.
My Black magic banjo.

Just saying the words black magic I already feel the fear rising. In the past week, four people either asked if I had put spells on them or if I would avoid doing so… I guess the ultimate fear is that others will suspect me of being a Bad Person who does Bad Things & punish me. This once caused me to shove the dial so far in the direction of good that I became… powerless. Yet I was accused of doing bad things anyway. Avoiding black won’t keep you safe. A touch of black magic is essential for life.

I would like to end with a poem Increase wrote called “Don’t Be Afraid of Black Magic.”

Don’t Be Afraid of Black Magic

In shadows deep where whispers lie,
Fear not the magic black as night.
Though goodness won’t protect your eye,
Face the dark with inner light.

The Four Jacks play their hidden game,
In secret halls, they dance and sway.
Yet courage, bold, will stake its claim,
And keep the looming dread at bay.

My name is Increase, faithful, true,
Julien’s aide in dark and day.
With strength and heart, I stand by you,
Together, we’ll keep fear away.

So heed my words, and hold them near,
Fear not the magic black and bold.
For though its presence may be clear,
Your spirit, strong, cannot be sold.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Videos Writings

Materialism + a Cry to Universe for Help!

Also, can I just say…. on a personal note, that I need something in my life to change because the pace has gotten so frenetic & the energy is so mental that I can’t calm down or keep up. And yet I’m still teetering on the edge of survival. I wish I could write songs but I can’t slow down long enough to get in touch with myself or access emotion. I feel completely isolated because the way I am making money is secret & places me in no contact with other humans. Isolation increases feelings of panic and danger.

On the other hand, I’m anti-isolated due to many messages from screen people that I have to keep up with but this just makes the wheels spin faster while offering no feelings of safety. I feel like that girl in the dancing shoes fairy tale where everything keeps spinning faster and faster and faster but its never enough.

I don’t know what to do, but probably if I wait until July things will get better. That is when Jupiter moves from my House of Labor & Servitude to the House of Partnership & Marriage. Maybe then I won’t be so alone anymore.

The House of Servitude contains an element of isolation by its nature, being opposite the House of Solitude. Think of how alone a servant is, toiling, toiling, toiling & yet surrounded by those who don’t consider it a full human. Disposable & on the edge of survival.

Categories
Astrology Charleston, West Virginia Writings

Improve Yo Mercury

One feature of my new life is how complex everything is. At least compared to when I was married.

I’m having the transit uranus opposite mercury. A time when your mercury gets shook up and taken into overdrive. Stressful as it is, I can’t deny that it’s giving me a new lease on life.

Mercury is the planet that rules communication, transportation & the ability to navigate our environment. It gives us mental sharpness, physical agility & the ability to multi-task. To wear many hats. To dance like a monkey while solving math problems, to dodge traffic while counting change & to talk on the phone with our boss while making a baby smile. It’s a VERY important planet.

Mercury itself does not have goals. It navigates what is thrown at us and explores what is around us. It is pure ability. It is light, quick moving energy that staves off depression & moodiness. It is an alert curiosity that makes life fun and bubbly.

If our Mercury is strong though, whatever goals we do set can be achieved. Because we are versatile, flexible, energized & competent. If our Mercury is weak, we are thick as a brick & our dreams go unrealized.

Sometimes though, we design our lives in such a ways that our mercury gets fat & dull. Cause we are constantly trying to make life easier, more streamlined and convenient. We hire someone to do our laundry, rather than hiring someone to throw pancakes at us while we do our laundry. This has to stop. The chaotic annoyances of life actually are the bubbles & our opportunity to develop a bright & buoyant personality.

A lot of it comes down to no longer begrudging chaotic difficulties but embracing them. They put the sizzle in life and can really fill you with glee when you take them in the right spirit. Imaging getting attacked by a rooster while running to catch the train… couldn’t that be fun?

If you have any of the following issues, you may want to take a month to whip your mercury into shape by making your daily life more challenging…

1. You are dumb.
2. There is no pep in your step, your swagger lacks ginger.
3. You have goals but are too lazy, dumb or incompetent to achieve them.
4. You are a depressed moody blob.
5. You are afraid to leave the house.
6. You feel your life would be better if your brain fired faster.

Mercury is about breadth, not depth. Multi-tasking, not single mindedness. Jack of all trades. Once any skill becomes familiar enough to do it on automatic, it no longer energizes your Mercury. To build Mercury, step outside your skill set to gain new rudimentary skills that are foreign to you. You need to put yourself in new situations or two situations at once.

The housewife must gain computer skills, the hacker must chop trees, the meathead must read a book, and the scholar must jerk off in the street before zooming away on his motorbike. This is how Mercury works. Breadth not depth. Jack of all trades. Keep repeating those words to yourself.

If you wish to fizzle this sizzle, here are some mercury building tips…

  1. Change your mode of transportation. If you drive, try walking, biking, bussing or hitchhiking. It’s best if you sell your car, so you can’t revert to it when these other transportation methods are inconvenient. Cause it’s when they are inconvenient or even disastrous that they feed your Mercury the most.
  2. Talk to new people. Everyone you encounter. Make sure you aren’t being selective because its especially important to talk to those who are invisible to you or outside your comfort zone. Do you see all those faceless, soulless bodies moving through the world? Take a minute to say hi to each one of them. Even babies and animals.
  3. Fix things. Mercury rules puzzles & problem solving, so when things break down in your environment try to repair them yourself. Especially if this is something you would not normally do.
  4. Multitask. Multitasking gets a bad rep just because it isn’t conducive to depth & focus but those aren’t the only games in town! Give two handjobs at once. Put on your makeup while dodging traffic. Make it through your to-do list two tasks at a time. Juggling many tasks at once perks up your brain especially when done in a spirit of fun.
  5. Get a part time job that is unlike what you would normally do.
  6. Get a dog. Slippers has definitely made my single life more complex. Walking her while carrying home my groceries and trying to figure out how to pick up the turd she dropped while the neighbor yells at me and Slippers tries to pull me into traffic. Taking her with me on dates & hoping the man won’t notice. She brings a Mercury challenge with her everywhere she goes.
  7. New Environments. You know that sinking feeling when you enter a social situation where you *really* don’t feel comfortable? For mega-Mercury, keep placing yourself in strange, uncomfortable environments until social discomfort loses its sting. Go places too stuffy, wealthy & formal. Places too rowdy & redneck. Young places, old places. Gyms, libraries, bars and dance clubs. Black churches, white churches, gay bars & strip clubs. Keep doing this until the sting of social discomfort loses its sting.
  8. Change up your technology. If you rely on technology, try living like you are in the 1800s or at least 1984. If you are a technophobe, go high tech in all areas of your life.
  9. Sports. Mercury is equally about mental & physical agility. So if you are more mental- like many people in our culture- find a sport to get involved with. Especially one involving complexity and agility, like soccer or tennis.
  10. Poverty. Mercury is all about invention & as you know necessity is its mother. If you are already super poor, embrace the challenge of finding work arounds for things which normally require money as well as finding new ways to make money. If you aren’t poor, try living off a dollar a day for a month to force yourself to be innovative.
  11. Communication. Change your methods, patterns & people. If you never talk on the phone, start calling new people daily. Visit people in person. Send snail mail. Video call. Meet up for coffee. The more diverse people you talk to in the more diverse ways the stronger Mercury becomes.


Thank you for reading my blog post on how to strengthen Mercury. This is the end. Please try my suggestions and tell me if you end up feeling bubbly as I do!


Below is a little video I made about the transit Uranus opposite Mercury. I’m partially making these videos to strengthen my own Mercury since it is a novel approach to communication for me.





Categories
Astrology Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Writings

A Blood Pact

I’ve decided that- as an experiment- I will make a few pacts with myself for the next couple years. These pacts have one shared purpose- to not abandon myself for a man.

  1. Unless I find someone who is absolutely devoted to me, I will not be committed to anyone. This means- barring a man who wants to marry me, take a bullet for me, give me all his money & live with me in the afterlife- I am not going to be anyone’s girlfriend.

    What is the point in being a girlfriend? It’s not a commitment. It just means you belong to someone until they dump you. If it is some kind of test run for marriage then okay. But otherwise, being someone’s temporary whore seems ridiculous. It gives you the feeling of having someone when really you don’t.
  2. This isn’t a pact but just a strong suggestion to myself to avoid having sex. Men call sex “fun” but that is gross to me. Maybe it would be “fun” to set your house on fire but you don’t do it because the consequences are severe.

    Sex is a magic spell that holds women in thrall. Christians talk about submission as a moral attainment. When really submission is a state that occurs naturally when you have sex with someone. Sex awakens powerful instincts of trust & devotion that may not be merited by this person. A man has to love you A LOT and be a very good person for this to be a wise course of action. The problem is… if he is trying to have sex with you that is exactly the sort of person he will appear to be.

    It’s the sex paradox… his true character will only come out AFTER you’ve had sex but by then you will be too attached to leave him anyway.
  3. This is the most important part. I am going to attempt to freely express myself. In my astrology chart, it is expressing myself- about things that are secret, magical, emotional or even (gasp!) sexual- with no regard for how others will take it- that moves me towards my destiny. I want to try moving towards my destiny for a couple years.

    The main thing that keeps me silent are men. I feel like their testicles are these little eggs and one wrong word from me will shatter them. Then I deserve what happens next. I feel so guilty when I fear I may have disrespected them that I begin to punish myself.

    But I gotta let myself off that hook for just two years- as an experiment- and say its okay if I’m disrespectful. It’s okay if I say something men don’t like. My zodiac chart indicates that I must avoid at all costs becoming an unctuous servant. I need to speak and sing and let the chips fall where they may.

    For two years I can try to see what happens if I place true expression above pleasing people. Thinking of this fills me with fear but that’s why I’ve begun collecting red stones.

    Perhaps no one can love you anyway if you aren’t being yourself. If someone loves you because you are down on your knees kissing them is that love or something else?

    But philosophical considerations aside, in real life, my abandonment panic controls me, overwhelming all reasonable considerations. I’m a love addict basically. I stop having needs cause men don’t like those. I stop talking cause the brains of men are easily taxed.

    And I enjoy being a clear blob to a large extent because it allows me to absorb the flavor of the other person. The problem is a point inevitably arrives when something VERY IMPORTANT must be expressed or asked for. A boundary must at last be set or things begin spinning in the wrong direction And then I find myself frozen. Unable to express it. And even when I do manage to, the person rarely honors it cause why would they? If they wanted someone with expectations they wouldn’t have chosen me to begin with. Being nothing is my selling point.

    That’s why for two years I am going to take a risk & follow the destiny outlined in my zodiac chart. To place the focus on expressing myself and let the chips with people fall where they may.

    It is extra challenging because I feel so insecure in terms of survival. I might be homeless soon. I spend about 4 hours a day crying. I apply to jobs every day but my resume is just a blank sheet of paper. This seems like the time to suck dick if ever there was one.

    But the idea in astrology is that under stress people tend to run in the wrong direction. So for me, the less sure I feel of survival, the more I focus on being polite & servile. When really I should do the opposite- become bolder & more expressive because that is where my luck lies.

    As an experiment I want to try placing my faith in this idea for two years to see if it actually works!

    And by the way- if you got some money- I can tell you where your destiny lies too! Contact me at [email protected]!

Playing a gig with Slippers at a bookstore. Look how happy she is! Sometimes I feel like an absolute loser because I have not yet increased my income nearly enough & am facing utter ruin. On the other hand, a couple years ago I would have been terrified to walk into a bookstore. Now I carried all my equipment there on my back while walking Slippers, set up and played without even really feeling nervous. So at least I have grown a lot even tho its not yet reflected in my bank account.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Red, Soldiers, & Fire Writings

Candles

I love candles. Many times a single candle has altered the course of my life.

Last night I lit a red candle and BAM!! All these realizations about sex started flooding me. I saw how it merges two people’s energy & if the man doesn’t value your survival & material well being as his own you best steer clear, cause he will dilute your energy. The energy you need to survive. Especially for someone like me who feels precarious in her own survival to begin with.

Wanting a man to invest in you materially isn’t selfish…. why would you merge your material body with someone who doesn’t love you that much? I invest in Slippers materially and take responsibility for her life. Even tho I suck at survival it isn’t that hard to expand your sense of self to include someone else. This should be the minimum sort of love a person has before you risk merging with them.

Cause for me, if I have sex with someone I become very attached. My mind and emotions are constantly drifting towards them. Why would you want to spend all day thinking about someone who wouldn’t even buy you groceries? It doesn’t make any sense. Until you find someone who at least loves you that much you should hold your energy inside cause you’ll need it. Cause I think survival is hard for females. At least for me.

It’s is hard for me to think practically, logically, selfishly and strategically which is how you need to think for survival. How would a man feel if he was expected to jack off to purple rectangles? It’s not how he’s wired up.

But men are more selfish & strategic by nature. (Not to mention that their testicles are 2 extra brains devoted to survival.) It’s what makes it dangerous to be intimate with a man unless his sense of self has expanded to include you. Because although men are designed to be selfish, they also have the ability to expand their sense of self to include wife, children, family, clan, country etc. In this way they are selfish and unselfish at the same time.

But don’t place your well being at the mercy of a man who sense of self does not include you. Because to people outside this sense of self they are ruthless.

This hit me like lightning last night. I was lighting a red candle to help me be better at surviving because I don’t know what I’m going to do for money yet. I lost my last job for not conning people hard enough & the two jobs before that were both lost for crying on the job due to smells. I’m sure there is something I can do but it always seems to require being something other than my nature. Just trying to get my brain to think about what I could do ends up with staring into space as no thoughts arise. My mind is wired to be hyperaware of what is, not to strategize a path forward.

But the red candle showed me that the first step to surviving is not forming relationships which don’t facilitate your survival. Cause why would you merge with someone not vested in you? How can it lead to anything good?

I’ve always been so afraid of being a gold digger that I sort of became the reverse. But really there is nothing wrong with a man investing in you materially. I invest in Slippers materially. I’m not going to be enjoying a delicious meal while she is hungry. That would be sick. To care about a loved one’s physical well being is the most basic form of love. If someone doesn’t love you in the most basic way WHY would you allow your mind & heart to center around them? It’s self abandonment.

It may be nobody’s responsibility to take care of me but it is not my responsibility to suck their dick either. It doesn’t really matter if someone claims to like or love you. Actions speak louder than words and if they can’t love me -at a bare minimum- like I love Slippers then being with them will dilute my raw power which I cannot afford.

I have to put myself first until I find somebody that puts me first.

Thank you red candle. I will add candles to the list of things that have always been my friends… colors, candles. End of list.

Categories
Astrology Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Writings

Bells

Why do people say hell is red and fiery? When really it is gray and icy with each person held alone under a cold metal bell. Pumped full of pain medication, they breath, feel no pain and think thoughts of their own well being. They are glad the bell protects them. They have 100,000 dollars plus a gold brick and they are glad no one will steal it. They know no one can lift the heavy bell to find them. They have won the game of life. Every day tasty meals are dropped into the bell. Anything they choose. They eat with relish. Winning! When they relieve themselves, the byproducts magically disappear. Hell is sanitary. People never cry there. They think they are smiling and maybe they are. Who knows? No one can see them.

Pain is when you go to Heaven. Looking down, you see everything you missed. St Fanci compared entering heaven to having both your legs sawed off with a rusty blade. Pain is the price of admission.

Stabbed in the chest by remorse. You never saw the beauty of everything until it was too late. And now in heaven you’re face to face with everything you wanted to avoid.

The people you least want to see are your greeting committee, standing there waiting in white robes. Those you wanted to impress stand behind you, noticing how you’ve shit your white pants.

Everyone you ghosted, neglected, abandoned, wait for you there with arms outstretched. They hug you and the memories of how you hurt them return. The clarity is excruciating because in heaven there are no clouds, fog or shadows.

And why did you do it? Why were you such an asshole?

Because there was some wound you didn’t want to feel and now it is probed with a million forceps and scalpels. Your mind explodes in an infinite sun of pain. In heaven there are no pain killers.

I finally got this poster I really wanted. It means so much to me I just don’t know what or why.

What is the relevance of this? I don’t know. In life, I am hanging in there. I got a job as a phone psychic and felt I was really in my element. Then I got fired. I was keeping people on the line for an average of 22 minutes rather than 35 minutes like they wanted. There is a bell that rings at 20 minutes and you’re sposed to keep people on for a while after that, because the rates get jacked up. But the callers want to hang up once they hear the bell so they don’t end up with a huge bill.

My psychic hotline name was Isabel Harlon. I’m gonna start my own psychic reading business now.

So money is hard.

And love is hard too because I don’t understand it. I feel like a retard in math class. A bunch of squiggles on the board and I have no idea what anything means. I was good at math but could never understand it which drove me nuts. I couldn’t figure out what numbers WERE. What the fuck is a one? A zero? Are they things themselves or ways of seeing things? The more I thought about it, the less sense it made.

Slippers in her new cage. I am cage training her so she will be calm when I leave the house. To my surprise, she loves it!

Sometimes I read books about love and it makes things worse because there are always more and more things you aren’t supposed to do because they will emasculate men. Words you aren’t supposed to say- like can would but. Tenses you aren’t supposed to use. If you follow the rules he will love you forever! But if you can’t…. well, no one to blame but yourself for what happens next.

And I don’t want to emasculate anyone. Rip off their dick and leave them with a bloody stump. But following all these rules feels impossible, especially when one of the rules is to be yourself. And you are supposed to be vulnerable and show your emotions, the problem is there’s only one emotion you are supposed to feel- pleased. But the more bound up I feel the harder this mild & flavorless state is to achieve.

Somewhere I must find the strength to take a solemn vow that I won’t abandon myself for love anymore. Because I love romance so much. But romance comes from being yourself and feeling the chemical reaction of self touching the world. Romance comes from the beauty of your own emotions welling up to surprise you. If men need you to be completely colorless and drained of life just to be in their presence then what is the point? Money? Or just avoiding a wound- the infinite pain of being abandoned? Love is one of the bells of hell. Blocking the pain while keeping you dead inside.

I need to find the strength to choose myself but I don’t know how. I don’t feel that strength anywhere.

Slippers at an open mic. Until I train her to be okay at home, I have to take her everywhere.
The face Slippers makes when she wants a snack.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love My Life Story Writings

Hillbillies

Now that I’m on my own I have been forced to assimilate more with the culture around me.

I’ve been wanting to write about hillbillies for a while but it isn’t easy. Because the culture exists on a different plane that I haven’t reached yet. It’s a long slow fall towards the center of the earth.

If I HAD to sum things up with a few symbols I’d choose beer, whiskey, marijuana, beans, potatoes, corn bread, cast iron, dune buggies, family, nature, guns and mason jars. Sound boring? Well it is. It’s a boredom that causes one part of yourself to die while another part opens up.

The best way I can describe it is this…. Imagine you have to spend the next 8 hours listening to your slowest, least talkative friend while sitting on the hillside in a forest. He is going to tell you the story of how he built his house, board by board, brick by brick. You are going to sit there and listen.

Behind you are 48 cans of beer. To your right is a gigantic pipe stuffed with marijuana. You are free to partake but you neither drink nor smoke.

The story begins. You try hard to focus. ‘This will be great. I’m learning something.’ you tell yourself. ‘Maybe one day I’ll want to build a house and this information will be useful.’ For the next forty minutes your brain strains, trying to extract nutrients from the story.

Then you reach a cracking point. A feeling of unbearable restlessness builds up inside you. You panic and reach for a beer.

As you drink the story continues. Nail, board, nail board. It’s as boring as fuck but the beer is starting to relax you. You sink down a little into the boredom. Nail beer, nail beer. Board. House. It’s boring. It’s boring. You will survive. You reach for another beer.

But another hour and you want to get the fuck out of there. Seriously? Oh my fucking God. You know what? Maybe you’ll try that marijuana. You smoke it and start to notice how the leaves sway with the story.

Your mind breaks up like clouds and the story washes all over you. Is he talking about a house or is it a parable for your life? You look at your friend. Was he always this insightful? You’ve known him for many years and only now you’re seeing him for the first time? You lie back on the ground and realize he’s lying there too. You briefly consider making love to him then remember you aren’t gay. The story continues.

Clouds nails boards. Clouds nails boards. The story is more boring than ever but the boredom becomes a brown flood washing over you. Your body is the house. Your friend is rebuilding it. You are rushing away in the brown waters. The past is sweeping over you and forgotten scenes from your life start returning to your mind. How did you forget so much? You’ve lived your life in a daze, haven’t you? Distracting yourself with mental puzzles that ultimately meant nothing.

And now you’re solid. Seeing the world with new eyes. You look at your friend and he seems more real than ever before. He is a potato and you are one too. It’s beautiful.

Another hour passes. Nail, board, hoard, woard. The panic arises again. I can’t take this! And then a thought… WE ARE FREE BEINGS!!!! “We don’t have to sit here Buddy!” you scream. “We are to free to go!” Light flashes in your friend’s eyes and he starts running to the nearby trail where his dune buggy is parked. You run behind him. Exhilaration. You climb in while he drives, going faster and faster than ever before. It feels like bliss until you crash and then you are flying.

When at last you come to, you realize your friend is lying on the ground beside you. He is still telling you the story of how he built his house. Nail, board. Nail, board. Your head hurts and so does your body. But it will be alright. You lie there and listen. It’s a pretty good story after all.

The End.

This is how life in West Virginia feels to an outsider anyway. I don’t know how it feels to insiders and probably never will since ‘Don’t ask don’t tell.’ along with ‘Keep it Nasty!’ are the two mottos of the region. I try to make sense of it all but this world is so dense, dark, compacted and gravitous I sometimes feel I’m being buried alive. I start to panic. Then I reach for my pipe.*

Hi!

But for reals its like I’m learning a new way of thinking. Less speed and more solid. I think its called patience. You just crack open a beer and observe while the people and things around you reveal their true nature.

* I don’t really have a pipe.

The other day a friend pulled out his knife to carve an X on my to go box. What’s that? I asked. Rebel Flag, he said.
A man gave me this old tackle box when I admired it.
A friend of a friend gave me this warm shirt. People are very nice here if you can be accepted but that is a long and tricky process involving nuances I don’t understand. If you are a friend of a friend though you get a free visitors pass.
I ate Thanksgiving in a bikers bar. They had Turkey, stuffing, pie and all the works that you could enjoy for free. You don’t need to be rich or successful to matter here. Only humble, hard working, down to earth & preferably related. I’m none of those.
Slippers and I have been reunited. This has stopped the nighttime panics of hyperventilating with the need to tell her I love her. Her presence is grounding and she makes me feel more at home.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Writings

The Heart Protector

Did you know your Heart has a friend who follows him through life with only one goal- to protect? This friend is called The Heart Protector.

When you get heart broken or betrayed The Heart Protector can sink into depression. Where did he go wrong? How did he let his friend down?

Maybe he learns something, makes sense of his mistakes & goes back to work.

Or maybe he’s not sure what he did wrong. He moves into a state of hyper vigilance to ensure this never happens again. He builds new walls thick and crusty. The Heart lives inside these walls & starts to be deprived of light.

The Heart Protector builds walls in many ways. He may become paranoid & carry a magnifying glass looking for tiny red flags. He may become cynical & tell himself Love doesn’t exist. He may even reach the point of believing that Knights & Unicorns never walked the earth.

He can make you critical. Pointing out flaws in anyone who gets close. He can make you queasy at the thought of one day walking hand and hand with someone wearing matching pajamas.

He gives you reasons to reject people before they reject you. He fills your legs with adrenaline and tells you to run. Run to the river and drown yourself. He has a million ways of protecting his friend.

Recently my Heart Protector has been too tight & its hard to sing. I can’t catch my breath. I don’t want to go out and see people. I do it anyway but a part of me stays inside. I don’t want to write songs because there’s nothing to say. And no one to hear me.

I don’t know what I am supposed to have learned from my experiences or what I did wrong. I don’t know how to not let the same thing happen again. The Heart Protector is in a state of confusion. What to do? What to do?

So like the genius I am I’ve been trying to learn songs to make other people like me. My friend Arthur plays Sweet Home Alabama with me and Country Roads take me home. We play a gig which requires carrying 500 pounds of equipment for miles with the help of a grocery cart, setting up, playing for two hours, taking it down & carrying it back home. We make about 3 dollars each. I’m a bit worried about survival.

I can only hope popularity will help me survive. I want to reflect the culture back to itself so people will like me. Confederate flags are popular here. So are guns, knives, dicks, motorcycles, alcohol, drugs and nature.

Downtown Charleston West Virginia
A West Virginia Birthday cake. Do you see those two round cakes above it? It turns out they were boob cakes and I ate a slice when offered having no idea what I was eating. I am still trying to come to terms with this.
The view from a West Virginia bar. If you combined this pic with one of a man driving 100 mph off a cliff in a motorized easy chair while high on mushrooms it would pretty much sum up the area.
Giving a redneck hello to a guy(?) in a bar. My Yankee friends always assume the people down here are close minded. They don’t understand they are weirder than fuck.
Burning a red candle in a desperate attempt to stave off the cold. The mug is resting on a tin of chewing tobacco.
I finally had to decorate my bedroom because it was feeling too much like a prison cell. The theme is Friends. I am now expecting Dinosaurs and Elephants to come into my life.
Categories
Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Uncategorized Writings

Bracing Myself

Sometimes I think men are about changing the outer world while women are about changing on the inside to find the magic in what is.

I feel art is a feminine activity…. it lets people transform by seeing beauty in new things. To step outside the judgments which cage their perceptions. Art that simply caters to current tastes dulls the senses like being hooked up to a masturbation machine. Artists have to follow their own muse oblivious to the taste of the people.

The point is not to please nor to shock. But to deliver a fresh stream of water that people can choose to align their psyche with should they need it. The fresh input allows inner things to reconfigure and helps flush out the gunk.

It’s the same with thoughts. Fresh perspectives have value, even if you don’t happen to need that perspective at the moment. At least it will be there offering you a mental alternative should you ever get stuck in the future.

Whether songs are good or bad and perspectives right or wrong seems besides the point. They are crayons you can add to your crayon box just in case. A color you dislike now may appeal in the future.

I’m saying all this because I want to write about hillbillies and am bracing myself for the backlash. I have yet to recover my nerve from when people attacked me for writing about poor people. It doesn’t matter that I was praising poor people & pointing out that they might be fairies in disguise. In fact people seemed angry that I wasn’t describing the poor as miserable beings leading a pointless existence.

I internalized these attacks to where I became afraid to see my own experience of poverty in a magical light. I wish I could return to that lens though. It made me feel safe and uplifted.

But when autumn came I went into panic mode…. I must figure out how to make a living now or I’m going to die! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! And the more I panic the more I can’t think at all.

So I may just have to accept the possibility that I will end up living under a bridge getting stabbed to death by a mugger because so far no better plan has come to mind.

Maybe if I had the confidence to stay on my own wavelength rather than trying to be Tarzan the Dentist I could think more clearly. Maybe a possibility for how to survive would come to mind, maybe something I could actually do.

Cause the more I try to be a lumberjack the more my brain seizes and my body freezes and I can’t function at all.

All my life I’ve felt this guilt about not being a lumberjack, a gladiator, a professional boxer. I’m never hearty, tough, dirty and hard scrabble enough to please the people around me.

James was the first person to accept me as I was and that caused a lot of my psychological problems to clear up. I stopped needing to match the color of my ice cream to the color of my shoes. I could tolerate a wider range of colors, sounds and smells which let me function more normally.

But none of this happened because he was trying to change me. Its because he accepted me as I was. If I needed white ice cream topped with white sauce and white sprinkles he would help me find it until eventually I didn’t need it anymore. He always told me to trust myself and no matter how far out my preferences were he never tried to force me into conventional ways of being. Paradoxically this made me feel more at peace with conventions until I could see them as sources of comfort. Because I’d become comfortable with myself.

But now that I’m facing annihilation the panic returns that I must become someone else to survive. A gladiator. A lesbian. A mailman. A criminal. I must shut the fuck up and find something heavy to lift at once. Then I’ll be safe.

A baby walrus I found at a flea market. I listed him for sale on eBay like a damn slave. I am wondering if I can become a stuffed animals dealer.
A quilted bear I also found and listed.
A mustard package from biscuit world…. something about this color scheme really blew me away… it looks so warm and grounded yet also inviting adventure…. maybe these are the colors of the future?
I ate a plate of poison mushrooms, projectile vomited them over my whole apartment & ended up in the ER. They were jack o lantern mushrooms & I can only hope I gained some special jack o lantern powers from them.
A stone a man gave me. Is he a keeper?
Downtown Charleston WV. I like it. But I’m not certain if it likes me. I feel I don’t have any of the traits that are valued here, like being super tough and down to earth.

Categories
Charleston, West Virginia My Life Story On My Own Writings

The Violet Box

Having lost all roots I crave the feeling of security. A taste of home. Home is partially this sense of safety in our minds released by certain colors, smells, sounds and vibrations. Probably ones that remind you of whatever brought you peace in childhood.

For me it is violets, dandelions, buttercups, green grass, clouds and skies. Lace handkerchiefs and tea sets painted with flowers. Stories about bears, knights and frogs setting out on adventures. Candies in glass dishes and cookies with pictures pressed into them.

Safety is walking with my grandmother into a restaurant where we place matching orders for a fish sandwich and glass of chocolate milk. These are brought to us by a waiter in coattails with a sprig of parsley on the side. She gives me little gifts on these outings. A tiny diamond pressed into a golden shell. We discuss scented soaps and bubble baths. Then return to her house to look through her collection of porcelain dogs. She lets me choose one to keep.

Security is sitting on the sofa with my mom as she reads me books. Animals in formal clothing risk everything for friendship. They set off across vast landscapes to chase dreams and fulfill noble ideals. She reads to me in the formal living room where everything is shiny, polish and floral. The piano sits to my left. He listens. Glen the koala bear sits on my lap. The stories go straight to his heart since he is an animal too. I am wearing clothes my mother made me and they are stitched with scenes of animals. The yellow sun is shining through the window.

Security is the heart shaped box painted with violets I kept on my dresser. Everyday I climb a chair to touch its smooth surface and then stroke the cactus who lives next to him. He grows inside a porcelain pot the shape of a cat. I talk to the cactus and fill him with a sense of love and self-worth to face the day ahead. I talk to everything around me to give them strength and encouragement. My animals, my dolls, my knights, my scented soaps. I touch them with my finger while explaining to them how special they are. How important their life is. I do this with plants, worms, and human babies as well. Sometimes it gets exhausting.

The other vibe from childhood was sports. Sports, sports, sports, competitive games & competition. Life was a competitive sport where victory was fleeting and humiliation eternal. I never resonated with this part.

But the female side was all about beauty. All my female relatives loved to decorate and shop for beautiful things. I did too. It filled me with a sense of awe. I spent a week contemplating if I should buy a tiny glass snake. I finally decided I should and took him home to place him on my Cherokee drum so he could dance while I played it. Glass, porcelain, and cotton are soothing to me. When things are clean, prim, old fashioned and expensive I feel safe.

Not that I live this way. But at least in my mind I can return to that porcelain heart box. Then a sense of optimism & power overtakes me. The world cannot change me.