STORY ABOUT THE BOWLING BALL INCIDENT

 I never lost my fear of rejection- my need to express myself was greater than my need for acceptance

Self censure then was a denial of self? or a tool to live in the world, the civilized world, one in which we needed not look over our shoulder for fear of retribution from some unknown force, some diametrically opposed genie of the universe, who presided over everything, all at once, and never forgot the score. What happens when we forget? 

Tonight, at the local bowling alley, where happen all the best stories, the ones you'd rather forget but tell anyway, in some impotent ritual intended to purge the darkness of events unfolded, unchangeable, to purge the darkness of events unplanned, 

there was a bowling. A hucking. A bowling ball hucking. Someone threw a bowling ball at someone else. My friend Kate, who fifteen to twenty minutes earlier had been riffing with me on the virtues of being woman. Rejoicing in the fact that we are so much more easily sanctioned to touch other women's breasts, how nice they were. Who laughed, bending at the middle, to let the weight of it out of her chest... She threw the bowling ball. What mad grief inspired her to do this? Word on the street is that he was cheating on her... and she was cheating on him... What was the point of entropy? When did her need to throw that bowling ball outstrip her need to remain couth, within the bounds of bowling culture etiquette? 

She went out the door with fuck you finger flags flying, and no remorse. Did she know what she had done? 

I walked home tense and alone, my mini skirt a little young, and my brain on a loop of reminding myself i am on San Juan Island, not Bellingham, and therefore sort of safe. The cops had been too close for comfort, even though Crystal, who gave me the weed, rolled out of there smoothly, under their noses, with her foxtail hanging from her rear view mirror. 

Earlier in the evening, Tolu Derek and Dono, were joking about throwing midgets against velcro walls, and playing curling with them being the pucks... I wonder.. did that plant the mind in the great Genie to inspire Kate to throw that ball? Was He returning merely what was asked for? Words have power, they say. Self censorship may be an acquired taste, but a necessary one in the world of unknown cause and effect, among the world of man. 

 Dreamt last night of spiders....

I am with a friend, a female friend and we are looking at either her or another friend's hand that has been bitten by the kind of spider that causes sepsis on the sight of the bite, slowly spreading if not cared for properly. i realize that the strange and beautiful design that i have of tight, white webbing on my hand- a many pointed, cocentric design reminiscent of the weaving pattern when you have many spokes on wheel of string, and then thread the rest of the string around the edges of the wheel in overlapping lines, creating a tighter and more intricate geometry as you go..... i had this webbed design closing off the palm of my hand, i think my right hand, and so i realized that yes, although it was beautiful, it was hiding something that would harm me, cause me great harm. i had been looking down into the design to try to see what was underneath it through the one small hole at the center of the web, but it was too dark... now, i finally take my left hand and tear off the webbing to expose my palm and find that indeed there was a "bad spider", a BIG bad spider that was propably three inches in diameter at least!, he/ she scurried off my hand, foiled... i felt deft about getting it off of me, but not too afraid of it, showing my friend, exclaiming how big... in the process of breaking into and smashing the unholy design (or the holy design wrought for unholy purposes), i somehow damaged a very small but larger than should have been able to fit in there, furred animal of some kind, it was kind of half smashed, but then i was going to try to save it, but i felt pressure from my mother to let it go, or abandon it, but i was thinking i could maybe wrap its damaged body in a soft felty cloth, and feed and water it... but we were in a large room with wooden floors and tables, and other people around, and somehow the little animal kind of skittered or moved off under a table to die, or i left it there by accident, one of the two, anyway i remember that i wanted to help it but i didn't know where it went or how to find it around all the people milling around the other side of the room and going in and out....

then i am at the window sill of the same room, i believe, and it also looks a little like the window sill in Micheal's old reading room, and there are many spiders, and i am trying to kick out the bad spiders, but not the good ones, as in the non poisonous ones, and there is even a big garden spider being carried off by a big black widow, or other shiny, black, hard-abdomen- wearing miscreant with intentions to eat the poor thing, At one point, there was even a hermit crab with his shell that in the dream was a kind of a spider, and he jumped out the window before i could grab him, and i was afraid for his shell

so many spiders 

 OPALCO ARTICLE PHONE BRAINSTORM TRANSCRIPT

PEOPLE TO CONTACT:

Rex Guard?

Residents of Rocky Bay?

Project Manager at Opalco? (what is happening to the lumber from this project?)

Colleen at Family Resource Center?

Dept of Fish and Wildlife (This was known on a state level, and for how long?)

(Audited by dept of fish and wildlife)?

Dereks friend who has connections, possibly to an ecologist who has spent time researching the possible and probable effects of this project and is trying to stop it

FORENSIC AUDITOR- LIBBY CONCORD- contact tomorrow

RESEARCH PUBLIC RECORDS- OPALCO+ PLANNING DEPT

TAKE PICTURES

WHO IS THE LOGGING COMPANY HIRED TO DO THE CUTTING/ GRADING CLEARING?

what is their connection to Opalco?

off the record, Planning Dept Head

NO DUE PROCESS OBSERVED

Many islanders driving past have noticed a marked change in the landscape and are wondering how this came about, what is the ultimate breadth and goal of this project and what are could be some of its long term effects?

Open with the neutral facts...... 

The project has thus far cleared this much area, 

and plans on continuing to clear this much land by this date.

Opalco claims its for fire abatement (verify) and to mitigate possible outages

How could this benefit islanders?

WHERE IS THIS WOOD GOING< and to whom?

 - Stipend/ bonus from OPALCO from lumber sales to members? internally, to staff?

- Individual land owners sell lumber?Interview residents of Rocky Bay, and/ or other's whose property has been directly effected by this cutting

(is it worth it for this money? 

-FAMILY RESOURCE CENTER RECEIVING WOOD from publicly owned timber? 

- interview Colleen

HOW MUCH WOOD TECHNICALLY BELONGS TO THE PUBLIC? 

- WHERE DOES THE PUBLIC EASEMENT END AND PRIVATE PROPERTY LINE BEGIN?

why no permitting process? (imminent domain?)

Why no EIS? Why no on staff ecologist? 

pictures of the wetlands that have been cut down to the waterline

Project manager for OPALCO says......

where did the money for this large scale project come from?

how are you getting it back?

why was there NO public discourse or engagement or input prior to the start of this project?

Ecologist says......- 

HOW WILL THIS IMPACT THE ISLAND LONGTERM??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

possible ecological impacts

possible increase in outages do to weakened root stability caused by tree network removal and lack of tensile strength in newly exposed trees

wetlands more susceptible to runoff 

drier conditions due to lack of tree cover by roadsides make likelihood of fire caused by road sources of ignition (cigarette butts etc increase)

eagles, owls and other endangered species habitat loss

economic impacts

property values decrease due to increased road visibility (less privacy)

will this set a precedent?

 MOMLOG AUGUST 6th 2023

Stories she told

That when she found out she was pregnant, she just walked in circles in her apartment saying "God put a baby in my stomach, God put a baby in my stomach!"

- she called Frank, he was so sweet and kind.

Micheal said one Frank was leaving and Micheal was coming into her apartment and Frank scowled at him... And he's the type of person that wouldn't scowl often...

The fertility specialist who had been called in to fix my mother's womb after an 8 year marriage failed to produce the child she so greatly desired had showed her a sonogram picture of her blocked fallopian tubes and declared her a lost cause.... Now, after being only a few months divorced from husband of the aformentioned marriage, at the age of 41, she was pregnant- by a whistling, roguishly sauntering, big bellied, strong armed, red bearded, knot magician/ magic trailing sailor. 

I had remembered on e version of this story when she said that she even had an IUD in at the time, but she did not. She clarified that she had when she was younger, before Frank (her husband of 8 years), but that at the time, her heartbreak was still so fresh from her divorce that she had no plans to "get close to anyone" for a long time, and besides that, she had been declared infertile. 

The confluences of these facts made a situation in which walking in circles repeating the epiphany "God put a baby in me" was actually a perfectly reasonable response. 

When she told my father, she posed it as a theoretical question..."What would you do if I told you I was pregnant?" My father, who was 35 at the time and away literally half the time at sea, said "All you'd see of me is asshole and elbows"... She remembers she saw a vision of him riding away on his motorcycle in her head. Sure enough, he disappeared he did find out, and didn't show up until a few weeks to months after I was born. When he saw me, picked me up, and held me for the first time, he said "damn" to himself , because he immediately and finally knew what it actually felt like to fall in love for the first time he knew he was going to have to be in my life and that his entire life was going to have to change forever. 

He used to say I saved him, or my mother and I both saved him, though sometimes i think we also killed him, accidentally and with more heartbreak. I hope not. but that is for a different story. 

Back to mom, she didnt know what to do. She felt completely overwhelmed and alone.... so what was a single, poor, woman entering middle age pregnant in Seattle in the 80's to do but go for a walk. She walked up through Capitol Hill, ending up at St. Mark's Cathedral. Having been raised a Christian, but no longer a Christian woman, she walked into the pews and kneeing down, called out for help fervently and with all her heart from whatever beneficial Cosmic being resembling God dwelt in that place. 

Help came. It came streaming from all directions, from friends, from strangers who became new friends. They gave her a beautiful wooden crib, three baby showers and much needed companionship and mirth. She recalls her pregnancy as one of the happiest times in her life. Women would come up to her on the street and want to touch her belly. She was cared for in a golden kind of way. 

Next year's Easter found her heavy with child as she again walked up the hill to St. Mark's. She sat in the pews again, this time so that I, who would remain safely tucked in her belly for two more weeks, could feel and hear the organ music play. 

 pomegranate/ trees

I have a pomegranate sitting on

 A table in my bedroom, that is continually

 Unnoticed, and forgotten

getting dry, older. 

I am sure the seeds are still good,

Their soft gem flesh protected safe in a 

Matrix of white...

Pomegranates originate from the Middle East, 

Brought forth to ripen in

One sweeping, warm cradle of land, 

Which is divided from itself today

Into place names like Jordan,

Israel, Gaza...

Comparison:

How many seeds are in a pomegranate?

How many people in Gaza have been displaced? 

How many pomegranates worth of children have

Been killed, 

Their blood running red as the seeds -

Broken open unceremoniously?

Another major export is olives

From the trees that are like ancestors

uprooted after hundreds of years....

(To be continued)

............................,.........................................

 Devin 

you are like a song between my teeth 

no one wants to hear my gnashing of sound 

but i will say it over and over again when no one 

else is around 

 remember 

i remember before you got bat wings 

- Novermber 5th

...................................................................................................................................................

November 12, 2023

written behind the counter on a piece of thick menu paper while bartending open mic

                        Come play croquette with me...

                        We can pretend we are victorian                                    Ladies/gentry 

                      and then show ourhoohas to each other

                      In a Fit of giddy poiseless anarchy 

                         And run away 

                        Laughing like mad children 

                        High on the winds of Spring 

...................................................................................................................................................

                 i can run my thumb over my other thumb and feel the ridges marking all the times that i tore 

                 At my nails with my teeth down past the quick, down to the blood, 

                 The bloodletting, releasing me 

                 like a hyena trying to gnaw and nibble myself up in absent minded insanity

                So i could find again my definition, where i end and the world begins

                through the savage morse code throbbing sweet pain at the edges of me 

                the ravaged antennae of my fingertips becoming conduits for my heartbeat

                proof that i am really here, in deathable skin 

                a reminder that my main job is still to survive

               made fun of at school - tear

               dad's home drunk again, crying about Vietnam again, 

               sitting on the living room floor of  our darkened house, 

              -  tear

               mom went to bed long ago weeping, and shut herself in - tear

               homeless or lost wandering, 

               haven't decided which yet,

               on a colorless day in Seattle, 

              giant bag on my shoulder, 

              by body laboring,

             slung low under the weight of it,

              realizing i might be in over my head -

             tear

             on my way to watch the sunset and then out to a nice dinner, his idea,

            im all dressed up

            He insists we stop at the gas station so he can grab a tall boy of Mike's hard lemonade to help  

             him relax for the next half hour while he watches the sunset, with me, his girlfriend 

            and my stomach sinks before my anger comes - tear

             late for work again

            trying to remember how to tread water for another day,

            how to convince myself that i deserve good things, 

            that i can have good things,

            that i am worthy of respect,

           even though i am late because i was at the bar till close again,

             laughing hard laughter with other lonely people

             who are as good as i am at forcibly forgetting that they have to live another day  

             and sort through the mud of their lives and make it into something that resembles home,

            - tear

             - tear, tear, tear

            each a self effacing act of benediction, 

           i am the saint of bloody fingertips, letting fear ebb out of me to join the

           swirling panic of the world,

           so that i can go on

           and i can go on 

           and i can go on

           it is a ceremony,

           a hurt i can control, 

           the absolution coming as i 

         watch myself mend,

         each crescent moon wound 

          growing over with new fibers of me, 

          tough and smooth, 

          someday my nails will keep growing, 

        maybe into claws,

       then i will not need to bite them again. 

           

            

              

 she was too loud 

the crossing guard had no prior means of 

dsicussing what kind of sould shed bring 

\he saw her at every crosswalk, awkward like a dream 

he would never admit he remembered

thehered to some fires escaper fever vision 

when the afternoon was done

in the crossover times 

when the west was not yert won and never woulf be 

 for because this time the cowboys caught sight of the sea and thought 

maybe i ought to let this horse run free and catch this sunset instead 

as a mermaid 

never too warm , never too cold 

but always appropriate in the tales of old

and then i can be a hero 

one who not just made the world their oyster

but who shed their scales for something much closer\

Im willing to transform especially in water so warm 

but i see know why not every mermaid gives up their form 

this eather is rough 

 full of soft grass and laughter but also of the stuff of nightmares 

hold on to your teddybears because some sad sorry saps idea of the real life is coming to you 

and i umderand wanting to swim away 

i lost another friend just yesterday

someone who wanted to stage their own stage play 

where they were the one who got up and walked offstage 

heroin helps i know but not for me so lets turn the page 

is that the source of my vital rage 

something as simple and the people who decided to be here? 
who i really thought i needed just to be clear

but obviously i am still freely breathing 

no demon on my chest because i dec9ieved him 

he asked why are you sad and i said because of all oif it
but then he asked how he could help and i said no thank you you ARE the cause if it ]

everu time the dooor was locked and the key was there you