January in Cleveland

There is, or there was, or there will be a full moon, I can't keep track, but the moon has been huge and sitting heavy on the clouds. The lake tides have been unnaturally high all week. That's not actual, that's a metaphor. People have been tapping on the glass. Also a metaphor.

So of course we tapped back, and they tapped back, and it became a game, and then a code, and then we all went outside. I'm not good with codes. I need things spelled out, in black and white large clear font, with footnotes. I have just started wandering around blissfully self involved, ignoring the tapping, letting others figure it all out. There are all sorts of emotions swimming behind my eyes, and I don't give a crap. I spend my mornings wishing for bread to dip into tea, that's how weird things have been lately. It's probably because I've started reading again, it makes me a weirdo.

In celebration, January became a month of sobriety and sunshine. It's not January I'm worried about, it's all those other months waiting in the wings. February. March. They are using January to soften us up. We melted like margarine at first but I want to be wrapped up and protected now, I want to sleep in warm places, with warm things. This weather sets off sprinkled pricklings in my spine of storms to come. It is beautiful and calm and threatening. How unprepared I am, to be put away for winter.

Between the sunshine and the deadlines and the full moon, I feel like this year is going to take forever and a week. We were all quiet that day, and I think we were all tired.

The Ass, the Angel, and the Lawyer

The triune brain (our brain in three parts - reptilian, paleo mammalian, proto mammalian) is a concept that will get me yelled at, cause it's what? Outdated and not true, at least as far as physical structural evolution of the brain goes. Oh we've all got the same basal ganglia, they say. And mammals don't get to have all the limbic fun. But you know what, sometimes concepts that aren't scientifically true are still good for your narrative. After all, there aren't really wizards either. Sometimes when you do something that makes no sense, you need a basal ganglia to blame.

My reptilian system, which we will call the worst and best parts, kept me out in the sun for days this weekend, in an exploding Mercurian sort of sun. I basked in it, I let the UV rays mutate me, I gloried in my baked scent. I had no other thought except to be in the water and to be burned by unfiltered starlight. It was extremely irresponsible. Lizards are not known for their common sense. The next morning I had turned into a bright pink alien, sick with longing for the home world. The sun had infected me, and I was really and truly ill. Turns out even though part of my brain is reptilian, the rest of me is still very vulnerably mammalian, and I slept cocooned in sun sickness for two straight days while my largest organ tried to either heal me or kill me quick. Did you know if you broil your skin, it also affects your immune system? Yeah, turns out that's true. Fever, chills, weakness, dizzyness, swollen throat, migraine. Fuck you too skin. Why do you have to be so fucking Irish skin? What's that ever gotten anybody?

So, feeling the sickness coming up on me, I tried to wander outside in the newly wet and gray thunder soaked Monday world, to cool down a little, since a giant tub of cherry jello was not available. I'm pretty sure I had a fever, and I wanted the rain to substitute for my lake, which I'm not allowed to go back into until I've healed my exoskeleton. We tried all the proven methods to make me feel better - ice cream from Scoops, walks in the Metroparks, standing under train tracks and holding onto the steel beams to feel the vibrations from up above. I believe train vibrations are just as effective as magnets, at something.

If the paleo mammalian limbic system dictates our parenting instincts, our connectivity to community and that weird little emotion called love, is it possible to have a reverse limbic system? Like, I just need to be taken care of myself, to be eternally the child who just wants a pair of arms to fall asleep in? And then when I'm really sick, when I've reached the point where I'm feverishly texting my friend about sequenced images planted in my brain as code, and this dream I had where we were on different security patrol, one by air one by water, trying to destroy an invading animal/fungus/threat to humanity, well then there's two opposing forces. There's the desire to be held, but also the stronger desire to crawl under the dark cool porch and die alone, where no predators can find me and take me out early. I love that when my immune system is at war, I dream of fighting.

Then of course, what you've got left is the neocortex, the New Mammal, designed to bring you back from the edge of your Stanley Kowalski conversion, back into the world of engineering and architecture and paying bills and planning for the future. The responsible part that took me over to Urgent Care to make sure I wasn't actually mutating into a lizard or dying from sturgeon flu, which is apparently as much Not a thing as sun poisoning Is a thing. They say. I don't know. Is it weird that I feel like Urgent Care doctors know less than hospital doctors? Like, I feel the reason he kept me waiting is he was looking up my symptoms on WebMD. Anyway, I think the train vibrations were far more helpful at bringing me back to neocortex level, whereas the doctors office just made me wish my jaw unhinged so I could start attacking.

I wonder also if since the Triune Brain is no longer a scientific concept, but solely a cultural one, if we should add a fourth brain in there - The Cloud. Everyone's all in a tizzy about Google+ because privacy! Only, you don't really want privacy. Privacy is an Old World concept darlings. What you want is recognition, and not just from your already known and encircled friends, but from the world. What you should really be mad at is that our economic system didn't catch up to communism at the same time as our intellectual system. The Cloud - the part of our brain which allows us to plug in. The USB port of our soul.

"Dante organized people he knew into circles, too." Pheezy

Rules for Living in the Snowbound State

There is no better cure for that horrible moment when your online music station starts playing Heart, and you start singing along, than to immediately quickly without hesitation play some George Michael. George Michael's Greatest Hits is almost always a good idea, it's that strong shot of Goldschlager you used to do in the basement of the old Grid, because you were underage, it had gold in it, and you hadn't developed your hatred of cinnamon yet.

I'm extremely tired. I went to sleep full of eggnog that various lawyers fed me like candy, and woke up two hours later, not hungover but vaguely broken. Disassociated. Full of things left to say, but there's the rub in waking up sometimes by yourself. My muscles ache now, in that warm exhausted way, when every small direction you stretch - your ribs, your neck, your eyelids even burn slowly. It's that vulnerable time when any classic pop song is going to win, and loads of other things that are bad for you. We're so sensitive in the winter here, easily disappointed, easily excited. Then by March we'll be regular stone profiles, done with all this shit. Oh and then Spring. I can imagine the Spring light if I close my eyes really tight. It's under the ice. The ice even smells like it.

It was so cold outside today the hairs on the back of my neck frosted over. We got out of the car and were instantly hit by a wall of frozen air. We walked to the rocks, and in five minutes our noses were red. In another five, my fingers could no longer work the camera. Ten, we were falling asleep. Fifteen, we were snow zombies, stumbling on the ice, giddily taking bad pictures of each other. Twenty and there were no longer two girls on the beach, but two silent huddled things, trying to find the car like bats, with echolocation.

There were sentries every where on the lake shore, watching and waiting. The annual appearance of the sentries means we're no longer in control. Instead this giant slow body of water is taking over, burying us alive. You have to fight back or it won't respect you. It's hard to fight something so harsh and gorgeous, enormous and heavy. It takes intent.

After all, we're the least affected, really. We're the lucky ones, with thumbs and coats and scarfs and heated cars to escape to. If we just keep moving, the ice won't get us.

All these dead monsters got swept out by the ice, whales and snakes and giant rotting trunks of man eating sturgeon. Winter is when the Lake cleans itself, I think. Exfoliates it's evils. Walking along around the carcasses, it's like that really cool dream you had when you were a kid, and you were St. George fighting the dragons, but the dragons were all dead to begin with, buried under continental drift. See, they stopped moving. This is the lesson today.

All roads going to the Lake are ice. All roads away from the Lake are ice. All paths to the water are now designed to kill you by an apathetic titan. You are so fucked. But the ships are still coming through. The ships always come through. They are tanks and siege engines and monstrous mountain dogs. The ships are amazing; never give up, never back down, never stop bringing the coal and the salt and the rock. God, that's hot.

And there's this creeping deadly advancing growth of water, water desperately crawling out of it's bed, reaching for dry land. It's an invasion by something that thinks it belongs here more than us.

Steel yourself by any means necessary. Food, drink, sex, whatever it is that keeps you agitated and keeps your vibrations from syncing up with the rest of the world. You have to stay on a different frequency from the Lake.









More photos from Snow Day 2010

The Prehistoric Forest Wants Your Childhood, To Fuel Its Spacecraft

Q: Why did the dinosaur cross the road?

A: To rip your fucking head off, duh. With cunning.

Q: What is a dinosaur's favorite thing to eat?

A: Laser Beams.

Q: Why are lady dinosaurs afraid of mirrors?

A: Because they are afraid the sweetness and light reflecting back at them will blind their magic-sensitive eyes.

Q: Where there really giant prehistoric snakes?

A: No. That's an actual snake.

Q: Did the hunter, lost in the monsoon, ever find his sloth village again, and bring food back to his starving sloth children?

A: There are no more giant sloths for a reason.

Q: Am I safe?

A: I am not sure.

Q: No really, should I run?

A: I mean, it's not the worst idea. If you are wrong, the park attendants will just assume you are shrooming, and if you are right, you will still be alive with a generally intact soul. Though it will never be as shiny as it once was.

Q: Shit, is that a giant bug?

A: That is the Prophet of the Praying Mantis, the founder and saint of the grass green hordes, who taught all daughters the techniques of the blood sacrifice, and protects young girls from cowardice.

Q: Don't you totally get the same feeling from this *triceratops* that you get when you read about talking badgers in young adult novels?

A: I've often thought that reading talking animal adventure novels is as addicting as porn. And dangerous. Badgers are nasty little creatures really, and very unlikely to offer you a cup of tea and a ham sandwich. Though I wouldn't put it past them to slaughter pigs and cure their meat.

Q: Wait, isn't that me?

A: Yes, that's you.

Q: Why did mother dinosaurs guard their nests so well, when they knew they were going extinct, when they felt it in the ashy winds and blood soaked sunsets?

A: ...

Q: Is it going to ask me a question?

A: Since giant cobras obviously never existed, I can only believe that one of the sculptors was a secret worshipper of the Cult of the Cobra, a group of women in Lamia who transformed into the deadly snakes and devoured men. Can a woman's beauty be changed into a thing of terror? There's your question.

Q: Is the mammoth really there?

A: The mammoth is always there.

More photos here.

The Only Post You Will Need to Get Thru The Weekend

Coffee or tea?

Tea is for people who don't care to feel alive anymore. Sick people. Weak people. People scared of their own power. Tea is for people who don't want to run faster, think smarter, enunciate words properly, have sex before bed. You know what they grow in secret on tea plantations? Marijuana. You know what they grow in secret on coffee plantations? Cocaine.

Drinking coffee is saying to the universe daily "fine. kill me. See if that fucking stops me."

Where did the time go?

You are going to have to clarify what particular unit of time you're talking about, and in whose construct? If it's my construct, then it leaked out slowly between episodes of Bones and a new obsession with Jello salads. If it's yours, it was probably decimated by the endless hours playing Mass Effect 2 OR watching Yacht Rock videos on YouTube. You should go mow the lawn. And I should do my dishes. But we're not gonna, and that's just how it goes.

What kinds of monsters live under Lake Erie?

Let's see. Giant sturgeon. Giant catfish. Parasitic zebra mussels. Bone stripping Corn Obsessed carp. Sheephead, otherwise known as the slightly annoying unicorns of Ohio's waterways. The nasty, barely educated, sexually offensive ghosts of lots of 19th century sailors. The slightly less offensive but patently passive aggressive ghosts of draft dodgers. Aliens made of oil locked in ship holds. The secret lair of the mutant seagulls, and the steroid pumped evil blind water otter that protects their stronghold. Oh, and snakes. Lots of snakes.

What do you make of these? Octopus Chandeliers. Would you put one in your house? Which color? What room? If no, why not?

This is the best thing I have ever seen today. I want them all. In particular I want the green one, for my bedroom. So I can fall asleep every night protected by my guardian octopus, and have safe squiddliscious dreams. I want the pink one for my car.

You should get one for me just for making up the word squiddliscious, right now.

Which Winnie the Pooh character are you, and why?

I am a Heffalump. You can't catch me, I will eat all your honey, and I don't actually exist.

What do you think of obvious sorority girls who wear pink North Face jackets? Why do you judge them so much?

I don't actually judge them that much. I appreciate having a warm jacket. When I was little, my mom always bought us those Lands Ends winter coats, that were short and in bright colors. I hate them visually, but those things were fucking warm. And they lasted forever. Someday I will get old enough to not care about the kind of coat I am wearing, and buy myself one of those again. So hey, you can afford a North Face jacket? Good for you for dressing reasonably according to the weather.

The girls I judge are the ones wearing high heels in January in Cleveland. What the fuck? Is there some surgery you can get to turn off all feeling below your knees that I'm not aware of? Is your plan just to expose your skin to biting winds and freezing ice and rock salt so often, your nerve endings just die? Do your toes even work anymore?

Who is on your "blocked call" list and why?

I fucking wish I could figure out how to work a blocked call list. I don't think I even have that option, cause I have cheapie cell service. But do we seriously even have that anymore? I mean, you can see who's calling, and just not pick up?

If you were going to eat one thing for the rest of your life, and it wasn't bone marrow, what would it be?

Freezee Pops.

What's your favorite sport to play? To watch? To watch while playing another sport? To play while watching another sport? To watch sorority girls in pink North Face jackets play?

I like horse racing and bowling. Basketball is okay to watch even though I don't understand the nuances because at least it moves fast. Football is fun when I get to curse other teams out in some sort of fantasy that I belong to an actual fan base. Ann Arbors A Whore! I imagine the only sport where you see girls in pink jackets playing is skiing, and that shit is boring after the first couple runs. Why are you so obsessed with pink North Face jackets? Please tell me.

What are five things you tried and will never do again? Why?

1. White Castle burgers
2. ***censored***
3. ***censored***
4. raw deer
5. ***censored***


Ask Me Anything

Last Night Akron Tried to Kill Me, Like Always

My friend Todd is a bassoonist. I don't know if you're supposed to put "classical" bassoonist, cause I don't know if there's any other kind? But that's what he is. He plays in orchestras around the country, jets off to exciting places like Wisconsin and Florida. He's got dark curly hair and a gorgeous poised "I look like a ballerina" girlfriend. He brews beer. He's living the dream. Anyway. Bassoonist. We love Todd.

So last night, he got me a ticket to one of his performances with the Akron Symphony. I was going to meet up with some of my other friends before the show, but I ended up running out of my house late, big surprise. I'd never been to EJ Thomas Hall before, because in general I try to keep my time in Akron succinct and to the point. Akron tries to trap you with one way streets and despite having had to drive there for my birth certificate multiple times*, and various forays out to college dance bars, I have yet to learn anything about the layout of downtown Akron. At all. I'm convinced the damn streets move like that MC Escher picture of the stairs, floating back and forth like buoys on the rough waves of fucking Summit County. Maybe it's the leftover fumes of Goodyear that turn me around, but every experience I've had in Akron can be boiled down to this: "how the fuck do I get off the Akron U campus? Why does this building look exactly like the four buildings I just passed where I also couldn't turn left? Is Exchange street in fact an alternate dimension with no beginning or end point?"

I finally got to the Hall, but couldn't find the parking lot, so I walked in the lobby 5 minutes late (after the valets finally just let me take one of their spaces since I looked like I was about to cry after curbing my car pulling into the damn garage), and had to wait until the first pause before I could go in and find my seat. The performance was beautiful, Todd's principal piece was wonderful. I actually learned what a bassoon sounds like, which sounds ignorant**, but really, it's not an instrument I see a lot separate from the whole orchestra, right? So it was like a good class field trip, one in which we went out to drink later. I did find the bar much easier. Hung out with my friends for a little, told Todd he was wonderful ect., admired Todd's girlfriends ability to look French all the time. The risotto balls at Bricco are great, the fried pickles are good but not spectacular. Then we all got up to go home, and went outside.

Into the deepest fog ever. Like, if ever there was a fog that made you think there was an alien attack or that something evil this way comes, this was it. It was all over the city in thick grey soupiness, which was fine and fitting for flitting my way back the highway, cause Akron matches that abandoned train line feel. But once on 77 and headed home, it became a problem. You couldn't see more than ten feet in front of you. Worse, a large stretch of the Bop back to Coney is street light less deer farm country. I had to turn my brights on for literally the first time in my entire time owning this car. Which meant I had to find the brights. The lone car in front of me kept disappearing into wormholes and reappearing randomly, so I went fifty the whole 45 minutes back, convinced I would hit a deer, run off the road, have to hitch a ride in the fog, and end up a news story, or wrapped in duct tape in a Fairlawn basement.

According to my friend, this is what happens when the lake isn't frozen over yet, the Blind Fog creeps over the valley and throws you back into the Country Primeval.

Eventually I crawled out of the muck into the Cleveland lights. I picked up my friend, who was biking back from a bar, so I parked on his street and waited for ten minutes, during which I saw 1 drug deal and 2 gay prostitutes. Oh Ohio City. Oh Akron. Oh Ohio how hard you try to remind us we are only settlers here, and that your weather patterns, your underground rivers, your glacial history and wet future all still exist despite our best attempts at infrastructure.




*This is why Akron tries to kill me, because I was born there, and it is my Achilles Heel Zone and I become powerless and weak when in it's grip.
** I am not in fact saying the bassoon sounds ignorant, even though that's what the sentence structure implies. Bassoons sounds very smart.

Seriously, sturgeon scare the crap out of me

In the early grey morning, the fisherman unloaded his gear on the shore of The Great Lake. He set a bucket of minnows at his side, unfolded the old camping chair, and settled in with his pole for a quiet morning. The jagged break wall was empty. In the not so far distance, the city was only barely awake. It was damp and chilly in the spray of the waves, and he pulled his hooded sweatshirt close around his neck.

There are things to think about and things to not think about, as you sit on slick rocks and stare ahead but not behind you. The fisherman thought about his job, his yard work, this girl he knew when he was about 25. The waves curled quietly towards him, and away again. The perpetual October clouds stubbornly refused to let the sun break.

A man walked towards him on the break wall, and stood about 50 feet away, looking out at the lake. The fisherman noticed him, and took stock. No fishing equipment, no chair. The stranger was young, and made no movement to acknowledge him. Just stood there, staring at the water.

Our man became uneasy. There was no else at the shore, no other fishermen, which was to be expected in late October, early morning, before morning. Days like this had no morning. He tried to ignore his silent companion, and concentrate on the slight movements of the pole, being sucked in and out. He tried to think about that girl again. She had dirty blonde hair, and had danced at the bar to Bon Jovi. He had liked her then, drank with her. He couldn’t remember her name, which bothered him. Fifteen years? 20 years. He took a drink from his thermos, and remembered the way she had clutched at his neck, making out in his Buick at 3 am. Was it Heather? Crystal? She had stopped coming to the bar suddenly, and people had talked about a boyfriend, a pregnancy, probation? Years before he had met Whitney, and before the kids and the house in Brookpark. Whitney had liked to come with him to the lake when they first met. How excited she had been to catch her first fish. But then work came, and the boy, and now she merely nodded at him and went back to sleep when he woke up on Sundays morning and took out the tackle box. He thought about taking them out for breakfast when he got back. He would take them to IHOP, she loved the stuffed French toast.

When he turned to look again, the man was gone. He had left as silently as he had come. The fisherman glanced up and down the path, but there was no sign of him. He buried his hands in the sweatshirt.

Suddenly the pole went slack. He reeled it up, expected that the line had been caught in the rocks, and took out his pocket knife to cut it off. What a bitch, to lose that hook. But when he pulled it up, the line was broken, it slipped out of the waves like floss.

Underneath the waves, a dark shape moved.