Photos stolen from Diana

I'd been wearing these clothes for roughly 3 days then? About to drink my first legal pint.On of my destinations tomorrow. I'll take my own photos then.


This is Trafalgar Square, near the National Gallery. Well, pretty much right across from the main entrance, I think.

A club called "Mother" in my neighborhood.

I've been watching too much Doctor Who to trust these.


On the walk to the Brick Lane market.

So much food! And none of it English.

I wanted to be friends with this man. And his little dog too.

I think I've seen these people in real life.

One section of the Brick Lane market

Lots of outdoor vendors. If I were less honest, I would've left with many things.

From a walking tour. This is in the Royal Academy, I think. In the West End.

This billboard is right near my bus stop in Hackney. They're posters for it everywhere!

Here are some of my friends.

This is right next to by bus stop outside of school.

These stickers are on a lot of the sinks in Central Saint Martins

London photos stolen from Amy

These are everywhere.

A posh-type arcade with many high end shops.

The toilets at Sketch gallery.

Westminster Abbey. Such an amazing building filled with about 1000 years of history, housing the bodies of monarchs, matriarchs, writers, generals, princes, etc, with more plaques than fathomable. It's where every coronation since the 1200s has been held, and most royal marriages as well.

Another view. This is the entrance.

On the walk to the Abbey entrance, you can see Big Ben. We also walked past all the different government buildings in the neighborhood, including the pub where members of Parliament go for lunches to get their colleagues drunk enough to vote with them.

Across the way from the Tower of London. My first castle. Also, the fantastic sign for the Underground or Tube.


Not the London Bridge, but the Tower Bridge.

Another angle of the Tower of London.

Summer's Back: What a Bitch

4 months later.
I'm back in California, single, no longer a smoker, unemployed and draining my brain with my anti-boredom tactics. I have summer resolutions that I keep failing, but then trying to make up. They are as follows:

-draw everyday (that's the one i don't always get to)
-make at least one full-fledged hand-drawn comic book
-read Leni by Steven Bach, learn a lot about Leni Riefenstahl from films, etc as well. Possibly make a comic about her.

That's it. Though I think getting a job goes without saying. I spent 3 hours walking around yesterday on the hunt and on Monday, I'll complete my rounds. I don't think job hunting on a weekend makes sense -the manager's probably not gonna be around anyway.

What I've been doing over the past months. Well, I've made a lot of lists. I'll share two.

5/6
My Months Away As Explained to Californians Who Don't Really Care
-I learned many things from people you've never heard of
-I hung out with, got drunk with, ate with and slept with people you'll never meet
-I love & lost someone I've hardly known a year whom you will never know
-I created artworks you will never see
-I laughed at jokes you will never get
-I discussed in detail thing you'll never care about
-I lost a teacher I never told you about when he was still alive
-I gained and lost friendships you never knew I had

5/2
Least Favorite Things
-forced conversation
-being the 3rd or 5th wheel
-being late/making people wait
-wasted time/effort/money
-when people say they'll call and don't
-typos
-Ronald Reagan worship
-intentional withholding of care/information
-people leaving without saying goodbye
-leaving voicemails
-being lied to
-people on line not moving when there's 4 feet or more between them and those in front of them

Since it's summer, maybe I'll actually keep this up.
'til next time...

Longgg Time

So it's been a serious while since I posted anything.
No, I didn't quit smoking. Shit happens, like moving into a house full of smokers in New York City on the day that's supposed to be your last day of smoking -a house full of smokers with a $5 a pack cigarette hook-up. I mean, what're you supposed to do?

Haven't really been writing much poetry lately, either. I dunno. I feel a bit washed up as of late. When's the last time I seriously made a piece of artwork? When's the last time I felt really inspired to?

I have an idea for a movie script or comic book or both, though. Sort of a New York subway version of Rattaouie, I guess, however that's spelled.

I guess I've been distracted or lazy or something. Often I just say, "fuck it- i'm just gonna watch some cartoons" or play zuma because i'm addicted.

Now that I'm writing this, i think my plan of action before the Twin Peaks evening will be to dye my hair & make some valentines or an art piece. that sounds good.

all right, then.
see ya!

inspired by tisha

so, i haven't even looked at this site for a while, but finally i think i have something to vent about.
i'm working on quitting smoking.
not sure how permanent it's going to be or exactly why i decided to stop now. i've cut down to three a day now, which is harder than i thought it would be. i really don't know what's keeping me from just saying "fuck it, i'll have one" right now except i promised myself i wouldn't -at least not until after midnight when it carries over to the next day so i'll only let myself have two during the day & one after midnight again. i'm very glad i didn't just go cold turkey, though. if i were home, it would have been easier 'cause everyone knows me & it wouldn't be as bad -though i'm sure my parents would've gotten pissed with me, but they've been through it themselves.

so i've got a plan.
all this week, 3 cigarettes a day while i'm living with my Uncle & am allowed to smoke in the basement & have rather little to do. so it's a little rough.
next week, it's down to 2 a day while my plans are iffy
after that, it'll be down to one a day until my packs run out.

I started smoking when I was sixteen: before my first kiss, after my last role in a play, however counter-intuitive that may seem. Three years. It sounds like a lot and nothing at the same time. I've never smoked a whole pack in a day and have only smoked more than half a pack in a day under more stressful times, you know, like finals or a busy day.

Wish me luck.

November 4, 2008 11pm and on

smiling
crying to sleep
what bitterness can be held
O joy
O Whitman
O America
you reawaken
a pride in me
The world weeps with
joy for thee
in this night
avoiding fatal plunders
O bless thee
America this night

We Explode
applause exclamations
of wonder
What I waited
impatiently for
The Adrenaline unmatched
unselfish unrepentant

In tight warm hugs
The Weight Lifts
with my feet
in the spin
This glorious global flotation
we hold we spin we sing
for thee, America

This century of terror
apathy degradation
the sinking National Pride
U-S-A in parody
I Love America in irony
the world wept
at Our stupidity
reacted in violence
against Us, Alies
We lost
We lost
and disassociated
Ourselves from
self-serving blundering
now Lame Duck
Administration

We Rise
stand on chairs
sobbing screaming
America would not
could not
surrender to failure
Not again
It's a Landslide
It's a resounding cheer
America

My skin crawls
in exhalation
The world shouts in awe
O America
Not Red
Not Blue
We blend combine
Make right injustice
soon
Soon -in hope
In Change
Unite
America

XXI

this little vacant lot
a grimace to wake to

dreaming excuses
explanations & petty jokes

it's a couple days from trying
couple days from cope

this smiling vacant lot
numbly mined & hallowed

XX

In Providence.
alternate universe?
well, i don't really know
is not my family
is not my sleep schedule
-is not my throat swelling
-my mild heart mildly twittering at distant thoughts
-is not my consumer wallet empty
is not my bed nor home nor
fight to concern myself with

the south side
the lovely rotten
skeptic faces & boarded-up buildings
trash lot parking church lot

the brown-green
un-funny overly irony
flannel glasses foreign language
politics narcissism nostaligia
the unheard mumbled voice
of the youth
of today
-laughingcrying WhyOhWhy

smiling sleep to siren wails
urban comfort
broken glass

economy tank & crowded malls
"the value of America's moral currency"

My Weekend In Providence, Rhode Island

XIX

I am a bit terrified.
I finally got the chance to watch the VP debate from last week -& I am terrified at what this country may become.
Obama runs under the banner of hope; well, I've had hopes crushed before in elections & I just don't know what I'd do this time around.
Americans can't be that stupid, can they? To even make sense of half of the basic sentence structures of Sarah Palin -the blatant lies and absolutisms thrown out by the McCain campaign.
All these years I hid from politics, I hid out the fear of America disappointing me time and time again. The climate -political, economic and social- in this world and this nation is horrifying.
I will not be able to sleep well for a long time, I know this.

XVIII

here's bitter, biting frustration:

Sept. 29
A Love Poem

it spans the world over
boys don't grow up
take near whatever
can get cheap
stomp out strings-attached

them boys that go for
boys -call me pretty
beautiful cute
them boys that go for
tail -look the other way
her starved torso
them boys that (may) go for
me -far away &/or impossible
to rationalize

say you got three girls
at your cal
say I'm anything you like
just not one of
them girls panting waiting for
any cool-eyed Y-chromosome
without a conscience
them girls immodest bowing to
the honor of sucking your
ungrateful dick
them girls desperately resigning to
following you in your unkempt
habits & taste
-----------------

today:

Oct. 8
adorable

heels click
vacant cynicism melts
to shouting streets
& blank rain checks

unexpected turn for
giddy fingertips
smiling staircase

mindless unapologetic
wanders
rain falls gentle
nonviolent coughs

teeth gleam 'neath
dark void of hair
eyes sparkle
-that sweet delicate
glow burns painless

an inside joke
everyone knows

XVII

man oh man. this has been such a stttttrrrange year.
it finally feels like it's taking a genuine up-swing, though.
i love being busy & making plans that work out or not planning, but being prepared & letting the night take me where it will.
i haven't written much poetry-wise in a little while, i think.
lemme check... yep. last one was a very bitter poem about romance.

on saturday night, among everything else that happened that day/night, I read one of my poems at Student Works. A large number of students and their parents, along with some members of faculty, attended. It was a bit terrifying, especially since the audience looked like a black void I was talking to.

Here's the poem I read:

July 10, 2008
wanna see

The Northern Lights
ground of green
The Emerald City in the Sky
The Aegean Sea
ruins of civilization
Alexandria of old
Zeus' scattered islands
The Fall of Rome
rose unto Catholic Empire
The Boroughs of London
The Boroughs of New York
The Cramped Housing
of New Delhi
Tokyo
Paris
Madrid
Rio de Janiero
The Spires of Communist Russia
The Shame of Germany
rebuilt Berlin
broken walls
smoldering Hamburg & Dresden
The Endless Sahara
the tombs it engulfs
The Busy Bustling Markets
of regenerated
& rejoicing Rwanda
Sudan
Kenya
Uganda
The Radiant not Irradiated
Bikini Islands
The Lush Unpoliced Mountains
of Free Tibet
The Gigantic Straw Goat
of Stockholm
up in flames again
The Lit Legal Cigar in my hands
before going to one of
the doctors on every Cuban corner
to be diagnosed with lung cancer
The New Knights of the Round Table
currently including
Sir Elton John
Sir Sean Connery
Sir Paul McCartney
The Vaults of the Swiss Bank
The Giggling Cafes of Amsterdam
The Unplundered Incan Home
The Palace of Blood and Bone
The Real Mount Doom
Mines of Moria
vast lands of Minos Tirith
The Pass Through Which
Hannibal hopes to
take elephants
The Beaches of Gun Shells
Oceans of the Ancients
avoiding the tourist traps
of postcards & t-shirts

XVI

September 7
don't try ver hard
thus fail no miserable
but fail sorry & silly
soft strange hopes a
rush through door passion

how could not?
confident(ial) boost
perty made up face
tied-on slipping down
scarf skirt

roun here s'all minute hopes
some brilliant light
at ease day
one by one
fall in hand-holds
rather thn finger brush

ooh - ooh - subtext
guess still new huh
days crawling & gone

& never work too hard
got boy smiles
no tips on
what purpose attraction
w/o physical interaction, no?
tolling & worn down
come around one day
matter of slow time

XV

screw california

who's call did'i'd miss
feelin' on comin'
winter thrill
shoulders slack'd n tense

none'd i'd miss'd
sense th' loss n hollow
fri'ndship fall
head sunken shivers

bin daze no touch
bed months no care-es
g'sebumps nitemares
calc-late pattern

reach out n touch fate
loosin' gripes
drop fast far
'fore even catch

been not full
fore weaks n
gone broked up?
;take solid come-fort

hole up n
spring squeakless
savin' up steam
for dam when burst

:here be drug up
trenches n shallow
ms'd da date
'versary long used

makin' no-sense
'nt blamin' thim dreams
pills er dr.s
problems of own

tact 2
in call
en th'
mournin'

(Roman Numeral)

I have not had maximum brain function for a few days now. I don't know what to do with myself.
Got a head injury on Saturday night & I've been sleeping at inopportune times, missing classes & have not been able to sit through other classes. Formulating sentences is difficult. Reading is... I just fall asleep half way through all my homework.

I don't know what to do but lie around & do nothing.
The medication they gave me makes me groggy, distracted and vacant. Without the medication I'm weak, distracted and bitter.

Just can't win. Why the fuck did I run into a window frame?

XIII

another college-level poem

9-10-08
academia
& we sit
we listen & note take
learn in increments
to be a novice
in any given field

disengage the senses
a degree and a chemical
addiction
or two
vocabulary expands in the
short term

courses are whispers
attentive humor
internal dialog discussion
in the distance
echoes & shuffling hands
rotating chairs clicking pens
wandering eyes

calm unfound in high schools
pretension mounting & squashed
anxious ambitious silence
we sink in doubt & debt

XII

college refresher course

what's your name again?
sure, don't remember mine
still a background fixture
the follow conversation
back & forth around the room

No sleeping
food makes us ill
free liquor
free gym

cheap friends

making bets on
which ones will last
to expand collapse rebuild
& continue

XI

a post for a girl I love

August 9, 2007
My Platonic Lover
rosy from pink wine
popularity in a box
this folly of a love
affair -I don't know him
I know you -you guess my words
without saying them for me
no private abuse
no need for pure tolerance
so we smoke too much
-cut down when time & finance allows

insults never made up in glory
but with you -I've never been happier
all my sorrow now disassociated
I hurt no more for you
that feels decades past
we laugh -eyes burn dry
to pleasant death
open ears to any hour

July 30, 2008
Love
in some & many ways
we are tarnished proportionally
assets rearranged
disassemble all too easy
scab & scar & wrenched in two

past the envy & bitter comebacks
arms & chins line up
fit snug
get past this creeping
hall of mirrors
shards at our callused feet

we so strong
fall hard & weep
only when the other
is near
in mind -in some unspoken abyss
we always fall
side by side

X

Long time no exceedingly long post.
Today was my last day at my s&m assistant/corporate training job.
I switch coasts in two nights from now. I've got giant piles of things to take with me & I have no idea if even 2/3rds will fit.
It's the last few days before take-off that bother me much more than the traveling. In my head, I'm already out the door. Living in limbo's sort of how I roll. Makes leaving hurt less, I guess. I also feel a bit heartless.
Less than 60 hours & then goodbye California for probably 9 months.

Feb. 12, 2008
W.W.W.W.W.H.
think long on it
how on earth to spell
thin with the i
as in In- the-in

why lose -not lOse (lOh se)
looz - loze
where's fo-netics when
they're needed?

& if she jumped
from the Golden
Gate -what time could
it av been
if she did she leave
her purse behind
did she where'd she leave
the note & if in
her purse -if left behind
a walk by picks up
abandoned pockabook
& if they'd open it
to find SuiCide NotE
where would it they it go?

(who edits obituaries?
good health benefits?)
clean up eulogy
tighten up our prayers

August 27, 2008
inspiration forgotten
in day are packed
with waiting for
tentative plans to
fall through again

air dry pours clogged
in sweat ears ring
big smiles -hide
from each other
in patchy darkness

summer closes up
shop & time is
tight -expendable
rude sonabitch
assumptions estimations

stare screen & empty
missed call & no message
holding petty grudges
shrugs & mind-slips
rub ill -private scowls

hourglass drips runs low
temp time world change
squeeze in
squeeze ever so tight
& slip slip slip away

IX

post-its and pocket notebooks

cloud watching-
plot-less melting
cartoons -sea
horse with a fluffy
heart -disembodied head
eating or vomiting -a map
of England -is that a
star or
another plane?
there're a lot
of old men in
the clouds

the cyclops threw
the whale -but
will he catch it?

----
Goodbye Tom Ucko. Ric Roi. Django -The Man I Love

"We like long relationships- especially with oil companies" -Boss about Chevron contract

how I hate your body
sitting down
so stand for me stand
lie down for me
lie there soft & shrunken
I see you as the child
from decades ago
video tapes & photo albums
stand down & hold your head
at that sweet angle
maybe we can make a deal

"The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on" -Catch-22 Joseph Heller p. 127

I blame Ellis Island for names like French, German, Ireland/Irish

"With that kind of experience, you could get a job at Kinko's!"

WILEY -Now You Know
-all our great brands
For Dummies
Betty Crocker
Pillsbury
Webster's New World
Pfeiffer
Cliff Notes

Tokyo Police Club -Cut Cut Paste
Sparks -Girl from Germany
Righteous Bros -Just Once In My Life
Replacements- We're Coming Out- Sixteen Blue

mouth tastes like
blood & chocolate
backspace/delete
align the lines
condense the file
coffee soaks in

red upside
we good
trippy/sexy
still wet

he's gone away-ayy
he's gona ah-weigh-eay
stuck in my head
& what does it mean to me
I've gone away-eayy
where the mass of
Y chromosomes
I keep in close circle
I fail in close contact
(he starts conversations
I strain conversation
after nearly 5 years)

how you keep so skinny
gurrhl -am I?
the relative world
plague of obesity
& bulem-anorex-IA
But I look a little
androgenous -no?
cut off my hips
& I go running
with the pack

5/24/08
wrecked a girl
who wrecked this man?
what can science do to
reverse a bungled first
love -we fuck each other
up -as if some kind of
revenge -& what seems
a gift you never received
yourself -may be what
makes the next one grumble
your name in retrospect
who started this mess?
what can be done?

life the universe & everything
(I can quote too)
must be more than a number
a shrink to make
the problems smaller
death to make me
stronger
tough it out, little lion
your roar don't shake mountains
not just yet

sure scattered
what college's for
when will we settle down
raise us a garden
of pretty painted pictures
love & lost so young
they grow up so fast
can't wipe his runny nose
forever
of all the madmen
I've had unmentioned dreams of
somehow this adds up
to a blurry web
graphs tempt me
but crushes of a dozen years
aren't as linear
as the points express

5/21/08
an age of homage
walking for my health
there are no stars
& songs just brush the surface
where do you sleep at night?
campus that's beautiful
half the time
got an ugly dry side
in these transition days
oh the places we've been
(I'll forget again tomorrow)

2/29/08 Leap Day
work 7pm -1am
-Renee inventory -eat brownie dough
-starts snowing again
-cig. break w/ Jes "Did you wish for this?"
-learn to clean grill
-"who picked this song?"
my ipod on shuffle
"I love danzig & the Misfits"
-off shift: finish weird
Doppleganger movie

7-5-08
well over a year since
1st (last) orgasm
is this misremembered?
& she chimes
find a Mr. O.K. -Mr.
great -a Mr. Right
eventually -he will appear
apparate into this life
& no apologies or snaps
will make her silent
or patience any less
frustrating
exercise is the answer
& the bike flies by
the field of
last (1st) orgasm
& the world shrinks

8/21/08
dry leaves of
California summer
broken rotting fruit
small sidewalks
step around
dog shit
fruit flies
duck or walk through
dipping tree branches
vines overflowing
from pretty picket
fences chain-link
peeling fresh white paint
bland architecture
the air smells of
manure and rosemary today

I'm a zombie-zombie-zombie-zombie-Zom-bie (3x)
but please don't kill me
cuz I won't eat chu

8/20/08
what manner of
reality is this
where questions must
always be answered
(a philosopher needs not
these replies)

in heaven
in reality suspension
what do your friends
your family
your long lost loves
see in you?
are only the dead up there?