Yes Virginia There Is A Grad School.

It's bittersweet to leave my company, but sometimes artists work alone, sometimes they leave their vibrant communities and hammer out some letters behind their names. Sometimes they become obsessed with their own ability and shimmy down the table legs. Tired of eating out of other poet's hands, resting on the neighborhood lore, the line around the block, the lucky price of admission. Those people aren't standing in the cold for ol' skin toast, not really, they're there for the clothes line, and the clock, which used to be an honor until the rights and properties turned out to be finely printed on the bald head of the ham burglar's bastard son.

Dear East Coast Half Number Two,

It happened. It's all true. I've been dying to call you. But, we're too far apart in age. And I don't think I actually have your phone number. It wouldn't make sense, I got the Internet on my ninth birthday, I can type with my thumbs. I wish we were fifteen months apart and I could spell it all out in traces of my fingertips across your back while we're supposed to be asleep, sleeping soundly on the floor of the one room school house because she forgot to pick us up that day.

I hate him.

I don't know where to start. The beginning? The red shoes?

There are six copies of King Lear in my dining room, and I can't imagine being without any one of them, not for a second.

I feel sorry, I see that I clearly hit a nerve, I feel sorry about that. I also feel like my nerve was hit first, and I'm reacting too, and the joke's on me because I'm the one wandering into bookstores in the middle of the day like an Alzheimer's patient wondering what I was looking for and why there are snakes on the wall.

I'm all muscle memory, excited, and sentimental, and broken, thankfully busted, because I need a new look. Put me on the g-mail pintrest timeline-- time to grow out the bangs already.

I'm lumping things together, I can find the delete key in the dark, but I always have to look for the plus sign.

+++

I would say there are three major things going on right now inside this coconut of a shell. I have officially separated them into three different proteins.

Which is good because it's one thing to fry bacon for dinner, but a completely different thing to accidentally eat an entire package of ham while you're frying the bacon, because you're thinking so hard you have no control over your hands.

I think I will write about these things clearly. In parts. Starting tomorrow I will try to start at the beginning. Part one of many.

++++++++So very happy to be going back to school in the fall. School for me is more about personal triumph in the face of adversity than it is about getting a real job. That said, I intend to put my Master's to use, and get the hell out of waitressing. The plates are so hot.

Going to Grad school has everything to do with me and nothing to do with egg head. That said, I've had enough. I'm going to let him win so that I can take a shower, turn the faucet all the way to the left and piss my brains out.

I got an assistantship. That's the best part. I get to work closely with a smart, nice, silver haired guy who's written lots of books. Plus a huge break in tuition, and a nice stipend.

Sigh.

More later.

Promise.

Maybe if we have time tonight we can roll down the windows and blast the Teagan and Sarah all the way to the DQ. I feel like indulging.

Love,

#4

Female Circumcision Suspended in Liberia

I love you all so much.

Skin & Toast & Progress

EMMA

Dear Kurt,

I think we should live on Damen Avenue for the rest of our lives. Why? Because Emma Casey lives somewhere around Damen Avenue. Emma Casey. Somewhere South Of Foster and West of Ravenswood. I think. She told me the exact location one time, in passing, casually. Emma Casey. Blunt bangs and really good taste in music. She goes to school in New York, a junior, I think, Sarah Lawrence? 21 years old? She lives in New York, but she grew up right around here, and this is where her home is. And she makes all her own clothes. And we know her because she volunteers at the Neo-Futurarium. And we know her father because her father taught at Cherubs, which is where we met. And fell in love. Emma Casey comes home to Ravenswood every winter, and every spring, this is her home.

I grew up on 10909 S. Longwood Dr, Apt #3, Chicago, IL 60643. You grew up on 10002 Forest Grove Dr., Silver Spring, MD 20902. I sent all your letters to Forest Grove Dr, even when you were away at college. Sturdy people lived in your home, the letters were always saved for you. You always had a home. Every spring, and every winter, piles of paper waiting for you, set aside for you.

My situation, my home, was a little different. Soft, always taking new shape. A different set of numbers in the upper left hand corner. Your letters were gold to me. Kept in a locked drawer ten million leagues below, because I just never knew.

One time I got to the end of a hallway in my Longwood Dr. apartment. And even before the walls opened up into bedroom I knew something was wrong. My older sister was sitting in the rocking chair that framed the yellow lace curtains. She was bleary eyed and reading the holy bible. She looked at me, looked at her, blinked twice, and then asked me if I wanted a moment alone. I didn’t. I got ready for school. There were boxes under that bed. And not one ounce of any shred of any fiber can speak to the whereabouts of those long rectangular boxes. Those black shoes, that set of baby teeth. We didn’t last the summer.

I’m not domestic, I don’t need a pitcher of ice tea baking on my patio. I certainly don’t want a pie cooling on my bay window. But, I would like to be myself and you a set of sturdy people. Sturdy enough to keep things, important things in piles, in clear plastic containers, arranged and ordered for the sake of someone special. Oh, let me just give you their address, that way I’ll definitely get it next time I’m home.

We were together seven years before we were married, and that entire time, whenever I asked you where you kept my letters, you said the same thing, not sure, think they all burned in a fire, most of the stuff in the attic was ruined by either fire, or water damage. I didn’t believe you. Someone had to be keeping them in a locked drawer ten million leagues below. Safe.

And then suddenly, just this past Christmas, our first Christmas as next of kin, there they were, in the mail, all stuffed into one large puffy envelope. Thought you guys would want to have these, love mom. She knew exactly where they were the entire time.

We are two sturdy people stacking the years up, and up. Keeping track, and staying put. So for the rest of her life, whenever she visits home, and decides to bike east to the theatre, or north to that cafe. She can look up at our window, and say, I know them.

Love Always, Your biggest fan, & newly wed, Jessica Anne

Dialogue from the first university and I've still never been to San Francisco

Me: It's cold in the writing room, by the way.

Her: Well, then how do you explain the flowers?

Him: I don't explain anything, I work.

Me: Well, I take a lot of breaks.

Her: Normal people go to libraries.

Him: Normal people die, its all the same.

Me: Stop yelling.

Her: I imagined you'd be brave.

Me: She took me to a field one night after a long assignment was due. I pretended I had never been there. She told me it was more beautiful when on drugs and with men. I blew my nose and kept walking.

Him: Its funny the memories you make in your twenties. I was on a train most of the time. I had a car, but it was more trouble than it was worth. I was hospitalized and that scared me.

She: I started and stopped writing music. I got new clothes and met someone.

Us: I wonder what we're supposed to do now, besides get tattoos and fix our minds. Thank God we still all love each other, on the second floor of our neighbor's homes.

Prefaced With The Usual Not Angry Anymore

I still play that game I made up when I was a little girl. Very little. Like, in the crib little with the snow white wall paper glaring back at me little.

It’s a going to sleep game that started happening to me when I couldn't turn my brain off.

See, what I do is I get nice and wedged over on my side, then I curl my right hand over my left shoulder blade, and tilt my head down to my chest like a chicken. Then I wait for the popping sounds to happen in the middle of my neck. It kind of feels like all the extra oxygen bags that usually hang off the sides of my face are getting sucked down to my spine. Like cough medicine before a spelling test. Its good and bad.

Then I get real heavy and I start to see things. I see dark things like the close up of one of those Jackson drippy pictures, and the insides of dumpsters, and the holes in the ground. And then I also see very white things, like eggs, but not an egg on a counter, the surface of an egg stretched tight to the edges of my brain so nothing else gets in. Also ice. And the little rainbows of thread that you can see on the tops of buttons. But, I’m not choosing these pictures, no, they pop in my brain and hemorrhage, like fire works. The pictures find me, and they’re always either black or white. And I barely have to use any of my thinking, so I go to sleep.

I suppose people like us, us brain hemorrhaging people, us people who think we might be smart, buried in the sand smart, but we can’t find the clues to prove it to other people people-we’re sort of comfortable being kicked out of things, having no where to go exactly. We’re used to it. And sometimes we even look for it.

Personally I feel like a large man in the middle of a river. I love my wife, and I love my truck, and I love the edges of my kitchen table. And I’m so proud of myself, and I could tell her anything, and I do. And I always come home. But, sometimes I just have to take my tackle box down to the middle of the river and pull the mini blinds over my eye balls and think to the world I’m on vacation, but I’m not.

I stand in the middle of the river as a large man casting white strings out over the black water. And I put the girl of myself on a raft so that she can think of nothing. Nobody.

I hated that plaque on the bathroom wall. I was very familiar with that plaque on the bathroom wall on account of all the time I spent in the bathroom, primping and pruning and hating being a girl. Hating blow drying my hair and smearing concealer over my cheeks. Hours and hours. Sitting on the edge of the tub making myself look not bad. Tucking my shirt into the elastics of my underpants. Talking to myself out loud with half of my voice and standing very close to the radiator. It was a ceramic plaque from a board walk in Jersey.

The Smith Family: Jacob Gertrude Ajax Seth. Equipped with adorable water colored cartoon versions of themselves in their pajamas under their covers.

I didn’t understand why it had to hang in the bathroom that was attached to the guest room that was my room, that played my fire works at night.

My last name was Smith! His name is still on my birth certificate. The boys are my blood. But, I didn’t make the plaque. And they wondered why I told the teachers to call me something else.

One Sunday night I came home to my mom and step dad’s apartment, and there was a kitty sleeping on my bed. They had rescued him from the tree outside my window. he was a little baby, and he got scared of the rain. They gave him a bath and put a red ribbon around his neck. I was so happy. But, also sad, because I realized that my mom and step dad did things on the weekends, like save animals. I had been hoping they just laid on the floor all weekend with blankets over their heads. It is always sad to miss out. My conclusion was to love my kitty more than anything, and to call him buddy, no last name. he was all white with a black tail and black eye patch.

Now of course I loved all of the people while I was awake and eating. I still love them. But, there were so many groups of them back then, and I hadn’t yet made my raft, I didn’t quite know how to float on my back in the middle of everything. I got sad when they pulled in the extra chair from the other room. It was closer to the ground and it made me sneeze.

I get very tired when I remember all of this. The images start to fire work my brain, and I curl my body under on account of it doesn’t matter anymore. I like how cool the water is under the sky. I wouldn’t change anything because its none of my business. Those white lines that cast over the river they just land, its OK really. And my outcast roots make me a little sparkly in certain situations. Like when I wear a mini skirt to prom, or combat boots to my own wedding.

And you just sort of relax with your fireworks and your chicken-- and you thank the large man for the way that you are. And you turn everything off. And you gurgle bubbles down the side of your neck. And a million years go by. And then the one large man becomes many large men. Many many faces helping, all changing the direction of the water so that you never have to drift too far before you wash up safe.

And

Go home and kiss your wife.

Good night.

Festus.

I have a distinct memory of sitting in a circle of lawn chairs in the middle of Iowa, on a day so humid you think something’s going to happen. I must have been about nine years old. I must have been wearing pants. On my right I see the forearm of an elderly man in a white button down shirt, he’s lifting a female infant above his head and talking to her in the third person, telling her she’s perfect, and innocent. I remember remembering that he was the one my mother called a racist bastard. I remember thinking at least he’s nice to that baby. Six years later, when I kissed the black boy on the church steps, I remembered the racist man again, and I wondered what color my baby would be someday, and I wondered if any baby of mine could ever make it through Iowa. On my left I see my mother; smoking, ignoring the racist bastard, and the innocent baby. Directly in front of me I see a pair of bare feet, and the pair of bare feet is talking, agreeing with the other voices that Jessica should take a ride on Festus, Jessica is the perfect size for Festus. Then I remember complete darkness; root canal darkness. Then I’m standing on an upside down bucket while the bare foot voice is whistling through her fingers and shouting things like baby, and sweetie, and honey pie, and sugar snap pea, and I’m thinking why don’t they call Festus; Festus. Festus is a mule. A grey mule just my size. He was dying twenty years ago, so I can only imagine he must surely now be dead and gone, burned and scattered over the bigoted daffodils and melting juleps. I rode that dying mule into the ground, I was wearing pants and plastic sandals. He was naked accept for something around his neck, a red string, or a pink shoe lace. The bare foot voice abandoned the left side of Festus and returned to her lawn chair. I was alone with my grey mule, and my country, and the soft places of my body; I was as independent as a white turtle. I liked the weeds of Iowa, I liked that Festus never took me out of ear shot, the babies were louder than the crickets all night. He was like a dog, or a father. Except much different, because his spine was cutting me in half and I liked it. When he finally got tired he just sat down, and waited for me to slide down his spine like frosting out of a plastic bag, he disappeared into the weeds, I taught myself how to walk again. The voices laughed. I felt something in my cotton underpants. Something binding, like chewing gum, or rubber cement. I excused myself to the out house. And because my mother had boyfriends instead of husbands, I knew all about hymens and exactly what was going on. No big deal. I cleaned my thighs with the back of my left hand. I smiled. I returned to the circle and helped myself to a hot dog. I am wild, and slow, a Mona Lisa in a lawn chair. Rest in peace grey mule.

~Skin&Toast

Oh Boy There,

I took a break.

See, I've been working on one of those blasted applications again,

Trying to air brush my portfolio just right,

Not really feeling like writing anything new,

Feeling emotional looking at everything I've ever written,

And supposing; this has got to be good enough for whoever you are.

I'm not giving up.

We don't do that in this house.

I got two new tunes,

Some chick called Birdy,

She's from another country and she has this single called Skinny Love.

And these dudes from another other country called Of Monsters and Men.

Did I ever tell you I soak up this kind of thing, I mean soak,

Like, wrinkled fingers, and light heads.

And, I started another, an additional part time job.

Another adventure in barista precious grounds.

I'm a barista at Heritage Bikes.

Go there.

Its on Lincoln and Southport.

Right by the Golden Apple and the huge church.

Its brand new.

A tune up and a cup of Stumptown is only ten dollars, and you can hang out all day with me, I'm nice.

And everyone there is really nice.

A young couple from New York, it's their idea, and launch, they own the joint, and they're so hip, and creative, and approachable, and smart, and stylish, and busting with ideas.

They have a sister company in New York called Bowery Bikes.

But, now they have a cafe bike shop right here on Southport, and Lincoln, and me.

Its the first bike cafe in Chicago.

Dudes.

The bikes look so phat.

They're for the casual rider.

Dudes.

Have you heard of tweed?

Look it up.

I am, like totally getting a bike now.

I was afraid up until now.

Not afraid of riding,

Afraid of walking into a snobby bike cult shop nothing, just know everything, which I don't.

OK.

And Stumptown is way hot.

They flew out to teach us.

I can pour a heart now.

Yeah, check it out.

This week is soft opening.

Grad opening is this Saturday, 6pm--11pm.

Then we'll be open everyday 7-7.

There's long picnic like tables, and a bunch of hanging Edison bulbs.

Mr. Best Friend was there all day yesterday doing work on this lap top.

And he loved it.

And he doesn't love just anything.

Oh My God!

Like, his show like totally got in!!!!!!!!

Ah!

Prime Time, 2013, Chiang, be there!

We have a year,

Ah!

Lets get to work!

I'm in it too, so is T--Rex,

Hans Lullaby is in it too, first time on stage, ah!

And some other people that Mr. Best Friend doesn't know yet.

Its about fate, and Lord of the Flies, and a bunch of other stuff.

It's going to kill.

Ah!

Then the president of Monkeys asked Mr. best Friend to direct a school show.

And he sure is going to direct it.

And as far as I'm concerned that's a big deal.

And then his painting that he painted with our good friend sticky,

They submitted it to a gallery in Seattle,

And it got in!

So, their work is going to be hanging in a real gallery.

Ah!

How bout that?!

Their art space is launching by the way, they're having a soft opening next week, it's called Dead Squirrel; A Neo-Futurist Art Project.

Whatdoya think ah that!

I'm the managing director, I'm making the pamphlets.

Doing things.

I performed with Paper Girl two nights ago at the Hideout, it killed. It was for this thing called GRAZE University. We lectured on the history of the horse. It was so fun. It was a pot luck, I had the best cold curry noodles of my life.

Just keep eating.

Gotta go jet set some crazy stuff,

Skin&Toast