2007 note: you know it's funny, she also got totally irritated there that someone was chewing gum, that a grown woman at the baggage claim was smacking away, and I was so inspired I gave up chewing gum for my new year's resolution for 2007. That was so easy! I felt so together. Unfortunately I started smoking again, but I am working on that. . . .

2007 note part 2: I listened to her album from 2006 later in the fall last year for the first time while I was (back when I made some sort of half-assed attempt at exercise) walking around Prospect Park, and I just started weeping. Walking and weeping--the guys don't really hit on you so much when you are doing that which is a good trick to have in your back pocket I guess if you really want to get the cardio in without the usual hassle. I don't quite know what that was, I am not a big cryer, it was just something huge there, that loss beyond the personal loss of her dad, that loss that was really about losing a generation of men that the next generation could never even come close to. I thought a lot about my grandparents and all they went through and how much everything good in their lives meant to them, how the work for it and the value of it were so full.

Okay enough deep sad mysteries of life for tonight. I am going away on a real vacation tomorrow so I will see you next week. Blogging about heros apparently this week. I like that, something hopeful there. Have a happy August, Love, Elizabeth.

You sit on someone's brownstone's steps with another friend just before midnight and you explain why, regardless of the awkwardness, you are grateful for this thing anyway and then it walks down the street. (some weekend) (more awkwardness!)

The"psychic flu": this means you just catch someone else's vibes. It happens to me so much more in the city. I've been trying to figure out why I feel weird and I realize I have nothing to be sad about. Whoever in my loop of hearts is sad and I am picking this up from you my friend, just call me and it will go away.

Actually everything is dripping in gorgeousness and happy times here: I have had three couples today checking out my place to sublet and they are the most amazing beautiful beings--we chatted and chatted and it was so warm and fun and I love being around relationships that lift everyone up, three separate couples who all felt so vibrant. Connected, funny, sweet, just adorable. It feels like an abundance of good vibes, and I just love that, because you know if it's true that what you're getting back is what you're putting out, I am doing great today with this crew. I just felt so happy and on the right track.

I kept telling this one that they could sorta wall off a certain space if they needed more room--their kids will be here for a few days--and they were like, oh we won't need that. Oh that's okay. Oh we'll just all be in the living room together.

Oh, that's just me and my writerly cretin ways and my weird (yet amazing! hi guys!) but weird wasp family that needs all that "alone time" to "work."

I know I should do some kind of meditation to get rid of whoever's bummed out cloud just flew over my head, but I think I will just go for a short walk and get a glass of bourbon. So perfect. Astringent! Yes, astringent! You can't really randomly do that upstate as a 15 minute errand at midnight. THAT is why we pay this rent! Okay, that's why--now I know. Well, I can't really do it in the same way upstate at least, where I know I'll run into someone to have a nice soothing chat with.

Whoever is so sad: cheer up, everything is really going to be okay. That's how it works. You're more than enough. You don't really even need to do anything, just be. You have all you need. You'll do the right thing. Clouds will part. I know it's true, without a doubt.

In more amusing and cheerful news, thank you Jessica for sending along this. Very very funny and you know I am sure it is depressing to a lot of people but it cracks me up. As Tori has recently said:Do this long enough you get a taste for it.

Not everyone wants to read a Jesus da Vinci Gossip Girl Geographical Location X Diet Book for your Pets. I have done this long enough now, I do in fact have a taste for it. Delicious. Astringent. But also kind of juicy.

It's so weird, isn't it, that they still have Mondays at this point in July? Isn't it? Sort of like a big collective fib. xxooE

I'm lucky that my building is on my favorite block, so when it is this hot I just end up at the bar restaurant on the corner with whoever I'm hanging out with that night because I am too lazy to go anywhere else, but also because everything is delicious. Tonight it was good. In defense of my laziness: we tried Barbes around the corner but there were too many people.

Up in Hudson, there are these guys who sit on the porch of my building. One of them lives there and it really is his building more than anyone's, one of them looks like Lil John (but sort of post-male-menopausal version), one of them is the dude who got evicted two weeks ago but comes back with his backpack to hang out and drink beer when the landlord is not in town. Some others come and go.

"Pardon me for asking, but why are you wearing those flip-flops in the rain?" (the evicted one)

"Where's your umbrella!!"

Etc.

I really like writing up the little bits that show up and putting them up here--and I love it when a dream is a whole story. If I stick things into word docs on my computer I just forget about them, nothing ever happens. The blog is really fun in that it's not some heavy novel--it's like it's not all piling up and needing such hellish focus to get out into the world. But maybe it gets me in trouble! Oh well, I can handle a little trouble.

THe Plodder & the Lottery--I don't know what that was about really but not a person. More like the publishing industry, maybe, our whole story/media industry, and the lottery lady was the amazing women writers who take my classes or just in general who are plugged right into fabulous creativity right now. That's what I was thinking of--sort of like those 2 Tori songs "Teenage Hustling" and "Hoochie Woman" which use the language of a failed love story but it's really about an industry. (At least that is my take).

It wasn't news: his normal greeting for either of us is "WHO ARE YOU??" and we've been up in this joint for months now, since March I think.

Porch sitting, snack eating, love the little pretty laundromat cafe around the corner all orange and yellow and nice and with internet. Stars. Dog. Writing. One of my friends didn't recognize my voice on the phone, I guess my voice sounds different.

I have cut my work email down to just Monday afternoons--I have a little autoresponder up and this system is in fact totally working, it's a surprise. It was scary but now it is planet liberation over here. We are all so addicted to our email. It is ridiculous. It sort of snuck up on us. It coincided with the Bush administration: think about it. Life in 2000 vs. life as we know it.

The thing is now I have to bribe myself to even get it done on Mondays. I have always loved a little bribery, however; it is a skill I enjoy and have no problem with.

The black turns to gray turns to mist and there are farmhouses with lights in the window and huge expanses of land around you, and you realize you are so unbelieveably far from where you want to be. Finally at 6:30 you find the right road, far on the other side of the valley, and at 7 you are at your friends house and asleep in the guest bedroom before you even say hello. Lucky.

The nightmare--it was the feeling behind it that got me out of the house. I am not used to nightmares. Sheer terror. Marching orders: get out.

The dream itself was that I stumbled on a book on amazon delineating precisely how this guy I know was the killer of two women. How when he cut their arms off it was done exactly the same way in both cases. The pictures in the book showing it were white marble busts with no arms, so beautiful. How both of these women had the exact same curve to their cheekbone and their eyebrows. I do not have this bone structure. But I gave this man keys to my apartment. I made some calls but my friends were all in Switzerland. He was coming for me. I was meat, actually. I woke up and couldn't breathe. Is this my dream too? A few years ago I woke up and there was an intruder in my apartment (I yelled & he left, everything okay) but that wasn't nearly as scary as this dream.

Fucking go, I say. It's okay though because tonight we are going to a DRIVE IN. Yes.

I don't know whose dreams--mine are never this pretty.

And then tonight! This thing where out of the blue the same song repeats and won't stop? First it was "Our Lips Are Sealed" which was funny three times through then thank god it stopped. Then again it happened. My very nice friend is up and our little adventure had us driving kind of far to get home and I was like, oh christ I can't listen to Fiona Apple again but he said fuck it, so now we have it memorized. It's fun! You just turn the car stereo volume down and then up again if you forget the words and she's still singing. Love that kind of dependability in a girl.

I didn't even know I had Fiona Apple ON there. That bitch is pretty good. Which song? Let's just say I plan to use a certain phrase in conversation whenever possible this week. Now how many of my victims are going to walk RIGHT into that one? Ha.

I got lost a bunch of times earlier before all this when I was trying to find the BEAUTIFUL house someone is loaning me to write in--it is so beautiful. I finally got there--but only after going down this weird long road with an appalling carcass sitting right in front of me at the creepy dead end, the carcass of a beast which I have seen one of daily the past week though before that hadn't seen in years. But I got away. Will post pictures sometime mabye.

Anyway, in the clean gorgeous firefly twilight with dogs barking far away and clear night sounds, I accidentally took a picture of my legs lounging satanically lazily on the porch, and I also took an accidental picture of my legs in my Ghetto Garrett where I write in downtown Hudson earlier this week. This coincidence I get: it means, get grounded, get your feet on the ground, and walk somewhere. Okay--no complaints here. That I can do. So now I keep taking pictures of my feet whereever they are. It is such a different pace from teaching now.

Weird coincidences have always happened most heavily in my life in July. I am so into pictures right now and these little bloggy writings, I always do this when I'm away and not overloaded. Delicious. And now it is time to get the hell off the computer, which is my major revolution of the summer, actually. The summer list is about fifty times more fun than the other lists.

xoxo

Fear not, I am still your flavor of dirty girl: in MILKSHAKEland! Get your brain out of that sad sack blender and hang out with the professional widow. Who is gonna come up and visit and make a video with me? I am in the mood. Here:

Fun. Now look at what the cutie Italians did with a fan video for "Big Wheel" ("Oh! Grande Ruota!):

And then of course the genius of the original. You ARE a MILF, don't deny:

Then you call me, call me in, with your stale bread. Yeah, it's hot.

God I am a slut for that bassline and I have listened to this song a million times by now.

This girl says: You heard what she said, superstar. Off the cross! We need the wood. I know you're a pro. But mama got it all in hand now. Get that shade off of her. Off of me too. Wash it away now.

Enough with the shit talk. Ew! Vegan barley soup. Ack. Where is my grilled cheese with bacon--

Time for one more! I never said I have given up my tendency toward abandon. She's just so freaking hot--she makes the girls want to be boys, but also to be where she's at at 43--it's all that creative abandon, beyond all bs, growing wine out in her compound in Cornwall--

I felt like that today when I woke up with this dream. I don't even know if it's my dream--I think it might be Bjork's dream? We can dress these weirdos up in bear suits and shoot a video. Here:

A woman won the lottery. The big Check finally came in the mail. She was so pretty and so sweet and just a bundle of fun, light energy--in fact that's all she was, like a double helix of energy or something, black twisting lines--very yummy, but at this high frequency and not really in a body. Energy, not a real woman. What she looked like was: ink lines twisting around, and also like musical bars and notes stood on end, moving and alive. You just want to trail after her, everything is okay and nice when she is there.

She went down to the Office to cash the Check. So pretty and fun and sweet and just lovely--everyone on the street turned and wanted to follow her, this feminine, twisting column of ink lines and quarter notes.

The poor plodding Man at the Desk at the Office was maybe even more dumbstruck than the people on the street. When she handed him this huge Check the lottery people had sent her--these people were of course a higher authority than either of them--this plodding slow fuck had no idea what to do. He stared at his desk autistically and sweat formed above his ears.

She sort of smiled and didn't understand, her hand out with this check. The lines of her twisting and breathing and smiling. He could see himself going by normal procedure--getting the money from the vault--and it even made him giddy to think of doing something so great for her, but he was frozen. He stared at her and he shook his head: sorry. Can't do it.

Q: What does your organization do?

But GPRC, through its Buffalo Commons movement, has put forth a new ethic of ecological identity and ecological health, where people work to restore the health of themselves, their community, and their natural environment, proudly steeped in returning life to a gasping land.

Everything sinking down. Every stupid thing you thought or said suddenly as irrelevant as being a teenager. The song--the one you forgot--comes on and in that instant every cell in you drops an octave.

Cold clear water, swimming in a night lake in the mountains: every cell in you. What is it then?

(Nothing to say, nothing through the mouth, the remaining july conversations on the sidewalk break away and crumble out of reality, the old lies release as the motor hums, a very low drum pulling forward from October, a shimmer, a glow through something pure.)

When it is dark green and dark blue and soft gray, and you know now that you haven't really been sleeping in years. A safety. In that little house off the road, you can now enter into the blackness you needed, and someone else will keep watch. This one simple familiar presence. Out of nowhere. Life lines and suicide crimes, there's something every day. If it's my way let me love you--mrs. jesus. Nobody has to do anything. It's all there. What is it? And you know it doesn't matter what it is. You wait but there is no waiting, you just drive and something in you would sing but you don't even need to.

Speechless, still, waking up in the morning, in the face of such amazing beauty and talent and humor and light and energy and bad-ass femininity and well-done revision. I think I get it now how guys feel when they get all overwhelmed with how amazing a woman is and sort of can't quite deal with the voltage! So funny! For me to feel that overwhelm it took what, nine of the best of the best at their full power stepping up in midsummer.

I still don't quite know how I ended up with this little writing school as my job but I am just dumbfounded with gratitude for my luck in being surrounded by the most talented women in New York, getting to watch them create entire worlds and step into their artistic authority.

I was sitting there by the mic and it was like a million volts running right through everything, I would have fried my circuits if I hadn't made myself walk outside quietly for a couple of minutes during the little break in the middle and afterwards.

Sometimes I have other writers in as substitute teachers when I have to miss a class, and the students always report that the sub seems sort of shocked and freaked out at the quality of the work.

Yes.

I am not a girl who just walks into my apartment and falls into bed, asleep--even if I get home at 3am I sit there on the couch for awhile or something first. But the voltage of last night so wiped me out that I apparently went straight there. This morning I woke up to my purse on my pillow and lipstick on the sheets.