left to shatter

mom

2008-05-11T18:51:02Z

this was one of my first pieces. "lucid mauve" is a code for my mom in wiky.

lost bird

(link's fixed now)

another fine airborne toxic event

2008-05-07T18:42:30Z

monday night, i dragged my roommate out to an interview on pirate radio followed by a free show with these guys. i love them. i was in bed by 11pm!! it was great! my other roommate asked us to bring her home "a button or something" and while leaving they inundated us with posters, laminates (??), and even a ticket stub. they had no buttons. they do have a record contract and will be releasing in august. and to think i first saw them at a goth night at d.n.a. which we all had a gaff over (hatehatehate).

- - - - -

on the radio for the B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls with John Hell

2008-05-06T03:19:32Z

eta: http://www.nerdnetworks.org/pcr/JohnHell-20080505.mp3

call in with questions

Studio Line: 415-341-1199

Daughter of a Yup'ik Woman

2008-05-05T19:48:12Z

when i went to the launch party last month, i bought two back issues of red ink. i've been passing through last spring's issue, vol. 13, no. 1. i came across this poem last night over dinner and just about had the wind knocked outta me. wasn't expecting this little doozie (prayer).

she will... live with memories that don't make sense

- - - - -

Daughter of a Yu'pik Woman
by Cynthia Deike-Sims

My daughter remembers eating
fish eyeballs and scooping the
fish from the bones after it was
boiled on the stove.
She was a baby but she has a
mind like a trap. A fishtrap.

The whitefish -- the akakiik.
Silvers, Sockeye, Kings, or Reds?

After years of the white man's food
she does not know how to
make sense of the tin can.
Her eyes lit up when telling
stories of Grandma's house
with good boiled fish.
The story changes, turning to
"Yuck" sometimes with giggles.
We remind her,
"You liked it. It was good."

Her trust of the homemade
went south sometime back
when she had to trust better
prepackaged fast food.
Her lessons of the system
were longer than preschool.
She paid attention
to talks about foster parents
when she should have been
learning the stories of
spawing Yukon King Salmon.

Her birth mother asks us
on the phone,
"Does she remember
to always call her
brother 'brother'
and brother to
always say 'sister'?"
Sometimes. I say.
We don't always
we will try harder again.

The McDonalds food came with
social workers, who met to talk
about grown up things, her
mother not able to care for her,
alcohol is a disease.
They never spoke about
multigenerational trauma.
Things to learn later.
They spolke of things
over her head, beyond her,
while she smiled and
tried to enjoy Playland.

My daughter's solace
she took in cardboard hamburgers;
'eat them fast' fries,
all food that turned to stone,
heavy with deep fry,
heavy without her Aana.

She couldn't connect
food at McDonalds
with love like that boiled
fish that melted in her mouth
maurluq, apaurluq,
grandmother, grandfather
food like other worlds
people like strangers
science fiction
fantasy

She'll learn in college
How it is the same in Moscow
the whole fish being boiled like that.
Right now she is four, and
she can only look sideways
with mistrust for old ways.
No one cooks fish like that
in the city.
In the city
we spend timie with
social workers
in brightly colored places
and get a prize.
In a happy meal.

You can't see fish parts
in a Filet O' Fish
and it gets harder, day by day
to imagine jumping into the water
swimming with the fishes,
touching them silvery
raw and free.

Where is my aata, my father,
my people... the real people.
She just keeps busy,
peeling off pickles.
Smiling.
Always smiling,
no matter what.
Smiling.
Just like that.
We were told she was always
a happy child.

She is not ours but we
call her daughter. Panik.
She was not happy
but always smiling.
She will remember
she is Yup'ik.
Daughter of Janice Joe,
granddaughter of Dorothy Joe,
great-granddaughter of Mary Joe.
Little sister of her big brother,
big sister of her little brother
in another foster home.

With us, she will touch real fishes,
swim with fishes through stories
live with memories
that don't make sense.

i am all the days that you choose to ignore

2008-05-02T01:07:10Z

may day may day may day may

http://www.vh1.com/video/play.jhtml?artist=1123&vid=229632

going back online

2008-04-30T22:11:34Z

soon. real fucking soon. a slightly different domain... but...

i may even get my old domain back down the road. holy shit!

Starting Line...

2008-04-29T20:58:00Z

Starting Line...
Originally uploaded by mattmills

this is a totally gorgeous photo. thanks, matt mcknight. ~~whoever you are!~~

66-103

2008-04-28T18:35:02Z

i woke up from an afternoon nap late yesterday with my back on fire. it still feels kinked and bent and in need of some stretching out.

i had a really fun game saturday night. apparently, i did really "amazing" as my teammates and coach kept telling me. i couldn't tell you because i only remember about 25% of it, from the phenomenon of being "in the zone." par instance, my first major penalty of the evening involved knocking down oakland's jammer after the jam was called -- this means that all 8712981 of the refs on the floor are blowing their whistles at screeching levels in near unison. i heard nothing and took her out anyway. i had one thought in flashing neon red behind my eyelids that flashed, "KILL THE JAMMER! KILL THE JAMMER!" you know, it's good to know that one can tap into that ancient instinctual predatorial zone every now and again; but, in combination with adrenaline it makes for a pretty frightening loss of memory, and too much precious real estate off the rink in the penalty box. maybe you have no memory because you stop thinking and go into a kind of auto-pilot (depending on how well you've programmed auto-pilot dictates how well it will perform). it's something i've been thinking about the past day or two while my muscles heal and i try to piece together my fragmented memory and build the story my teammates told me happened, because frankly, the phenomenon freaks me out a bit.

i can't wait to see the pictures.

a few snapshots from memory

2008-04-26T00:41:43Z

mere snippets.

- - - - -

my team = OMFGHAWT!!

2008-04-24T22:33:12Z

clicky!

[bay area] B.A.D. is back

2008-04-24T05:36:26Z

obligatory posting!! we're skating this saturday night!!

je vois la vie en rose

2008-04-22T03:18:08Z

nevermind the first seven seconds.

dateline : tucson --> phoenix

2008-04-20T09:24:45Z

"we want per caps"

- - - - -

this weekend is... (ran into my auntie at the arizona state u powwow tonight)

dateline : phoenix --> tucson

2008-04-18T22:13:05Z

i have landed. we're a touch cracked out. i gotta pull it together for this evening. coffee.

my friends are the best.

[bay area] rollin rollin rollin

2008-04-14T17:34:21Z

starting at 6p today, you, my dear friends list, can buy tickets to see my team bout the oakland outlaws next saturday (april 26) -- somewhat ahead of the general public's knowledge that these tickets are actually available.

the b.ay a.rea d.erby girls are back in oakland, folks.

this message brought you by windigo "your heart looks delicious" jones #1491:

i'd like to take this opportunity to thank the academy, baby jeezus, my fictional agent...

2008-04-10T18:15:48Z

o facebook, how do i love thee! let me count the superlatives i have been nominated for. and to think i nominate people with such square and normal things like "most likely to party like a rockstar..." tho i've troutslapped and chestbumped a good number of my friends. srsly, i turn 30 in a week and look what i've accomplished.

dude. it's all so true!!

- - - - -

+ you are Most Likely To Slap Your Butt! [*tsk tsk* bad grammar, facebook! it makes one wonder whose butt is being slapped! do i slap my own?]

+ you are Most Likely To Win a Million Dollars only to Blow it on Midget Butlers, Cheap Scotch, and Vicodin [this happened three years ago already, only this guy named mark helped me out.]

+ you are Most Likely To Sing & Dance In the Car While Driving [i was just practicing "high & dry" on my way to a derby tournament last friday night! over and over and over again until i resigned to the fact that i am probably tone deaf. karaoke nights will tell you this, too.]

+ you are Most Likely To Be Best Friends Forever [tho i don't call too often when i don't see you... or email... or write... but, show up on my doorstep two years down the road and i'll bake you lasagna.]

+ you are Most Likely To Get Out of Trouble by Smiling [dysfunctional families teach you so much about human behavior]

+ you are Most Likely To Fall in Love with Fictional Characters [my 12th grade a.p. english teacher wrote in my weekly book report of "a tale of two cities" next to a comment: j.b. <3 s.c. for sydney cartier because of my description of his character]

prepare for mad myspace bulletin spam!

2008-04-09T01:27:23Z

hey hey hey arizona peoples, get ready! because next friday, april 18, i'm performing at this with the likes of -- SIMON ORTIZ...

Bad Love

2008-04-08T18:10:07Z

at the end of an immense weekend, you wish you had one.

my personal on-demand haiku by kampachi:

- - - - -

Hurts enough to drink
80's band that should have been
Bad love means bad hair.

omfg too much derby

2008-04-07T02:37:18Z

*gargghhh*

thar she be.

ded.

wantzes team california.

dr. laurence peter sez

2008-04-04T16:51:43Z

from loltheorists

VONA application in

2008-04-04T00:54:02Z

ok, i'm applying for TWO weeks of writing workshops at VONA. i'll have at least one week paid vacation by that point. holy shit, i just submitted my application. why do artist's statements always make you sound like a pompous jerk?

go, go, gadget body in motion!

animikwaan @ 2008-04-02T22:39:00

2008-04-03T05:45:47Z

joy is.... cleaning your own bearings by hand.

(watch me go *whoosh!*)

riot police lining up to defend..... emo kids?

2008-04-02T18:45:35Z

wow. so, one of the lessor noticed headlines that amyleblanc picked up on her main blog has become one of the more absurd pop cultural phenomenons i could've imagined.

maybe you have or haven't noticed that mexico's teen population has decided to exterminate one if its own faux socio-political groups (categorized by musical taste), emos. generally ignited by some hate-spewed diatribe by an mtv-esque douchebag, punks & rockabillies are thirsty for the blood of emo-kids. obviously we all know that mob violence isn't ignited by one voice alone, so... gentle readers, who the hell knew that a tsunami of hatred was budding in subcultural youth in mexico? curfews/warnings are warning emo kids in tijuana not to go out at night alone. it's so absurd, it really begs someone to dig deeper.

musical blog, rocksellout asks:

This is the kind of stuff you couldn’t make up even if you tried. I won’t even go into the apparent political connection. I just find this phenomenon astounding. Yes, we all find the identical haircuts & tendency to whine a bit much, but mob violence? Seriously?

as for the political connection mentioned, daniel hernandez' blog for the l.a. weekly mentions that "la jornada flat-out goes and says it, quoting a professor at the UNAM who says the violence is a 'reflection' of the social tensions dredged up by the 2006 electoral crisis."

and you, too, can watch a buncha emo kids starting to fight back (if not yell back) -- or hold quiet, twee demonstrations back -- at the high-haired rockabillies with their leather belts off as dozens of riot police run in front of the emo kids -- only to be momentarily distracted by a group of hare krishnas.

wow.

or you mean one that won't scar my psyche, rob?

2008-04-02T16:31:26Z

Aries Horoscopes for week of April 3, 2008

In the film Fight Club, the character played by Brad Pitt storms into a convenience store with a gun, then herds the clerk out back and threatens to execute him. While the poor man quivers in terror, Pitt asks him questions about himself, extracting the confession that he had once wanted to be a veterinarian but had dropped out of school. After a few minutes, Pitt frees the clerk without harming him, but says that unless he takes steps to return to veterinary school in the next six weeks, he will hunt him down and kill him. In my opinion, that's an overly extreme way to motivate someone to do what's good for him. I wish I could come up with a less shocking approach to coax you into resuming the quest for your deferred dreams, Aries. Can you think of anything?

carpiodes diem

2008-04-01T19:47:25Z

it's spring ceremony time back east -- or just was. i miss living in a place that had strawberry moons. granted, i was born in the sucker moon (fucking english), namebinegiizis. some say i was born in a sugar moon, but we live way too far south for that and my cousins go sucker hunting in early april. besides, with global warming and all that the sugar moon is beginning to look more like february.

to make myself feel better, i downloaded some aboriginal fonts for writing cree (which can also translate over into nishnaabmowin pretty easily), and listening to some haudenosaunee social dance songs.