Road Trip

Dear Spring Break,

We're going to Bloomington, Indiana right now.

We're staying at the Scholar's Inn.

Love,
Skin and Toast

I don't know

Dear Paper Girl,
I miss you too.
I even miss that orange dress.
Damn you brown elephant.
I give to them more often then I take from them.
When I'm time traveling,
I clean,
Like a rabid dog
Of Israel.
And cleaning for me means throwing just about everything away.
I don't pretend that I'm normal.
Oh, please.
(Get over yourself Josephine).
Time traveling is a term coined by myself and friend boy.
It's a code word.
It's a shield.
A feather that could be magic if the elephant would ever wake up.
It means that I'm freaking out.
It means that I can't breath.
It means that I need help.
It means that I'm stuck.
I can't get the Internet to work for example on some idle Wednesday,
And also my biological clock is ticking rather inconveniently because I don't have a career.
See where I'm going with this?
Something small, like I forgot to pay the Com Ed bill or take my birth control,
And then I'm a terrible writer and nobody loves me,
like in the same micro nano second.
And the effect this realization has on me is not meant for blogs.
And that's where the time traveling comes in,
code,
remember the last time you time traveled?
It was nothing.
Eat.
And sometimes I don't know that I'm time traveling,
because the nature of this thing is such that it can convince you that it really is monumental,
something to cry and die for.
So friend boy can say,
You're time traveling,
EAT.
And no matter what, I have to listen.
It's a code.
A pact.


I miss Paper girl.
Sadness is different then Time Traveling.
And I don't know why paper girl ended up at the top of the time traveling letter.
But, we don't have to know these things.
I think I realized recently that Paper Girl is very very wise.
I always knew she was my girl and she was sublime.
But, recently I've noticed something new.
Something mountain top.
hope she doesn't mind me going on about it here.


In conclusion:
For the record:
As a tip:
Wear some orange today.
You may think you don't like orange.
That is crap.
I don't understand when folks say they don't like Christmas.
Or kitties.
Or talking children on television.
You can't just not like the whole blanken thing.
That is limiting to all of us.
Just wear some orange.
Or EAT it.
Or look it up in a book.
It's not to be ignored.
It's a star.
A real one.
My heart,
Skin and Toast
P.S. I know, right?

past times

Dear one tree hill,

A perfect day would consist of sleeping till 8:30am

Pouring the hot water over five cups of coffee

Drinking all of them next to a kitty and a screen door broken

With soy creamer and sugar in the raw

Reading something that I had to read in high school, that now means something different.

Not more,

Different.

Then the modern wing of the art museum.

Then some soft serve.

Then a phone call from sister #1.

Then a slow walk home from the brown stop with a new song,

So loud that it kicks up dirt

under cleats

under good

under games

and the setting

Love,

Skin and Toast

OK, Just This Once

Dear Afternoon Sun,

You cast a spell on this Ravenswood apartment.

The living room is currently soaking at the bottom of a glass of white wine, so I took my macbook out to the tree house, no boys allowed.

And there's a man from Colorado playing a banjo in the other room.

I've heard that some people get nervous when there's nothing to do at the moment.

I'm the opposite of that.

I like to stretch out on the marble floor of a Grecian bath house, and stare at the voided out patterns that ornament the space between the tiles on the wall.

Cobalt blue.

Windows instead of outfits because it never gets below nice.

And wide strips of fabric hanging from the vaulted mahogany wood beams next to lanterns next to pineapples.

And you only ever have to work just hard enough so that you enjoy the breeze on your neck.

Sincerely,

Skin and Toast and mini blinds

spring ahead

Dear case,

Suddenly this is about my "disability",

My multiple syndromes,

It took me six hours to complete three mid terms today,

It was rough.

It was dark. Beloved in the grave before she was born dearly beloved kind of black cafeteria.

At times it was not that bad. Like when I knew the answer.

When I really know the answer it's eighth grade all over again and they just posted the cast list.

Who are they?

The kid on the bus had an orange hat as florescent as the day is long, and the kid next to him had a poster board as neon as the Craig is clown. And the lights that said Ashland were as flowing as the milk and the honey.

OK, that was impossible, OK, this is what happens; I show up at the library, and they hand me an envelope, and I do whatever I have to do, and the next thing I know it's six hours later. I don't pretend to know what it's like to be looking for a fix that you can't have, but it might be something like that. Those six hours might be the first forty eight hours. Touch me by an angel you sexy sexy thing.

The guy who checks in on me could tell.

He said next time we'll stagger em'. Even get the tutor to take em' with me. If it comes to that.

He's nice.

Spring break! Fat cat! Take it off! (work more hours at the Bucks).

Linda always used to say:

In a low tone:

Annoyingly:

Through frosted gloss:

"This too shall pass".

And I was always like:

Why did you just say "shall"?

Bloomington Bed and Breakfast,

Skin and toast

Questions

Dear Dickens,

Is writing about the weather just as bad as writing about writing?

Do you have to be dirt poor to be kind?

Do you have to be sad and beaten in order to master the hook of the comma?

Is there a difference between story telling and Neo-Futurism?

Do you have to be a teacher before you're taken seriously?

Do you like John Irving as much as I do, as much as he likes you? He really likes you.

Is a memoir a book?

Is a politician a writer?

Is a writer a performer?

Why would you put Post at the beginning of a new movement? Eventually isn't the idea to be old, to last? As a writer, wouldn't one avoid the danger of becoming Post Post? It doesn't sound right.

They all wanted people to read their journals some day, right? Everyone wants an audience.

Could I hire someone to produce my memoir? Could I write my own memoir via a series of interviews?

Where, without feeling sorry, do you see me in ten years?

If you were alive, would you subscribe to the Believer? Contribute?

Are you alive? Like, in the form of a poor Mexican immigrant in the Bronx, struggling to make it as a cutting edge beat box operator?

My mentor gave me "Great Expectations" on my eighteenth birthday, and that's why I chose it as my favorite book of all time, then I realized I liked the book, a lot. I like the commas, I like that you can always say more, I like that one sentence can go on for pages; lifetimes, weekdays, tech rehearsals, Christmas parties, therapy sessions; the sentence is an air tight leather couch that I could lye down on, except I never do that, that only happens in post modern movies depicting life on the North Shore, I sit right up in those sixty five minute debates, I have to be ready, poised, curled only ever so slightly at the tip of the ankles; for more, if there's twenty two point five different ways of describing something--then by all means, go at it. Pip, Pip!

That last one was not a question. And I wish you were the president of some university that would have me for graduate studies, I know you wouldn't charge me anything, and we would just sit around and talk all day, while drinking hot totties, and wearing argyle sweater vests. And you would produce my memoir, and get me hooked up with McSweeney's, and This American Life.

Well, I was out of questions a while back, and it's mid-terms, so I better skey-daddle!

Bye for now Chuck.

Your chandelier flaming,

Skin and Toast

Modge Podge

Dear 1970's appliances,

I can't tell you how hard it is to replace the sponge that cleans the plates we eat off of. Even if I write it down I forget. It's a slap stick. It's a one act play about a green and yellow dobie. And at this point it's hanging together by a prayer. I think I'm actually making the dishes dirtier by washing them. And in turn, I'm literally eating off of the smell of scum and mildew. Lovely. Really great for my body issues. Never create a logical excuse not to eat. Never be a vegetarian, never play wheat allergy. It poisons the people around you. It puts led in their forks and they're dead within the week. Speaking of forks, I constantly feel the need to explain my religion, also apologize for it. Also put a price tag on it and hang it makeshift from the gate outside my apartment, barter it from the throne of my lawn chair. Use the money for the sushi that's not included in this year's full time student at North Park budget itinerary excel power point place mat. The other day I happened to walk into the theatre with my study bible still in hand; suicide. Well......Ummmmm.........You weren't supposed to see this......My religion is a green and yellow blanket that Linda crocheted for me, that I still bury my face in, that still smells like her Obsession by Calvin Klein even though it's been washed so many times it's neither green nor yellow. Feelings that shouldn't introduce themselves until the first time that skinny carrot top maggot ass prick mother fucker breaks your heart and you steel his football jersey and wrap it around the pillow like a freak, except actually it's some thrift store button down because that's your type if you were to have a type, but now you finally have simply a one. The Linda blanket is probably the most comforting and familiar and true corner of my life, it's a shroud of nothing but love and light. It's all that is good and right. I love it with my whole heart. But, there's so much I don't understand. So much intricate puzzle and pattern, so much. So much. So one of so many other functioning blankets. Yet, I always come back to my Linda blanket, especially when it's dark. But, it's not pretty. There are definitely one too many period and wine vomit stains spackeling it's frays and fold over's. When company comes I have to put it away. And the pastor's a lesbian. And I was never confirmed. I'm really into past lives. I also get that from Linda. And I'm not a Republican. And North Park is the only Christian college in the country that doesn't make you sign a letter of faith. I was raised Lutheran, but now I belong to an Episcopalian church. But, we all know by now that I wasn't really raised. So we have God to thank for that blanket. And if you haven't read the book of Job you're missing out, it's some of my favorite writing ever. Up there with Maya and Alice. And if you want to talk about books, Anne Lamont. Holy. Holy. Holy. Sometimes I read her "Some Thoughts On Faith" when the Linda blanket is stuck in the wash and wont be dry till the morning. Thank you and God bless.

Peace,

Skin and Toast and Service

PS: gave up coke for lent, drinking a lot of sierra mist.