stuffed animals

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 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.

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.

Yesterday I watched an episode of MacGyver, and it convinced me that I simply have to become more practical if I am to survive, much less thrive, on this planet. I have to become a female MacGyver, or at the very least, work my way out of the “special needs” category. This isn’t the first time I’ve had this notion, but I always get so overwhelmed by the vast number of skills you need to be even a person of average practicality, that I quickly give up in despair, and decide that, if something ever happens to James I will just have to be content living out my days in a mental institution. Until today, when it occurred to me that I could simply divide all practical skills up into a number of categories and try to tackle one category at a time. So, for this month, I am attempting to become better at housekeeping.

One thing I was admiring about MacGyver, was how- after climbing a mountain and knocking an Asian soldier unconscious- he immediately picked up the soldier’s coffee cup and finished off its contents. Later in the show, he found some Hershey’s chocolate bars on the floor of a recently exploded building that was filling with poisonous gas, and picked one up and started eating it. It made me realize that you just can’t be squeamish if you want to play at MacGyver’s level. But in my case, excessive squeamishness has definitely been a practicality inhibitor. So, I am going to make sure that in housekeeping, I especially embrace the tasks I would normally hand off to someone else, such as cleaning the toilets, taking out the trash, and cleaning the vacuum filter. (Maybe I should even have a sandwich afterwards without washing my hands!) I have long speculated that there may be a correlation between personal power and how willing a person is to get their hands dirty.

So, this housekeeping focus has got me thinking about all the things that turn a house into a home. I tend to think of homes as being very large people, and just like us, their lives depend on a wide variety of organs, systems, and substances in order to live. Without the necessary components, they are simply large bodies that neither live nor breathe. I think many houses nowadays never quite make it all the way to becoming homes, because a mobile, career-centered lifestyle focused on sophistication and refinement tends to lack many of the earthly elements that bring a house to life. In fact, I had been planning to let my current apartment remain an empty-ish white box, to decrease the hassle of moving when we eventually relocate. But I’m not sure it is even safe for humans to live in white boxes, at least not over the long run. People think a lot about the nutrition that comes from food, but I think an equal amount of our nutrition comes from our environment and the things that surround us.

And here are some of the things it seems to me that houses need in order to come to life:

1. Plantly things, like potted plants, unvarnished wood, natural wicker, or even some branches or wildflowers in a mason jar. Plants are the lungs of a room and enable it to breathe.

2. Pictures. Despite (or perhaps because of) having hundreds of drawings and paintings piled up in my home, I haven’t hung pictures on my walls in the longest time, but this is a big mistake! If windows are the eyes of a home, then pictures are a home’s imagination and it’s ability to dream.

3. Soft things, like blankets, pillows, towels, rugs, curtains, or even stuffed animals. These are a home’s soft arms that give you a much needed squeeze at the end of the day.

4. Hard, natural textures, like stone, brick, terra cotta, tile, and even porcelain and glass. These are the bones of a home. Have you ever noticed how bony people make it easily through the lean times and don’t lose their integrity during the fast times? Well, it is the same with homes.

5. Memories, if you are lucky enough to have any good ones. These can be any objects that connect you to happy times in the past, or meaningful relationships you have known. These are, of course, a home’s memory, and help to keep it warm and stable.

6. Gold. Touches of gold, perhaps unvarnished brass or gold leaf, are like a home’s halo. They connect a home to God the Father and remind us that good will eventually triumph.

7. Handmade items and crafts of all sorts are the hands of a home. They remind the home to engage in life fully and not be weighed down by perfectionism and inhibitions..

8. Food. Probably the most important facet of all, cooking and eating are truly the heart and life blood of a home. The fire, the bubbles, the clinks, the smells and the vapors. The forks and plates and crumbs. These are the things which, above all else, seem to bring a home to life.