tiger woods and tiger beat

i saw you become greatness in the palm of surprise.
as an awkward girl i watched your grace flow out in the only way your body knew.
and did you ever know. never even a half step. like wind through a tree.
i saw you rise above the surprise & give a stellar performance at subtle righteousness.
your father must have been crying out inside, thanking whatever god had delivered him this amazing, perfect, non half stepping son.
you give them not a crack in that smile. flash.
on and be gone and done with it.
like oil. can't catch on me.
there was one you. not 10,000 almond eyes staring at me from every corner, from every story. not a whisper to be had that didn't come from those white teeth.
soothing the curiousity with transparency & feigned banality.
but what can be less banal than your story? a mix of every corner of the earth. a gift from the future. a lesson.
but your persona, like vaseline, clear but foggy, viscous and repulsive in a benign sort of way.
push away from here, nothing here but what you know. nothing more to see so stop looking.
but what then of the


i stopped writing there. i had enough. even something i wrote of you isn't enough to keep digging.
don't you find that interesting? but there's this much: i hope to one day smash my husbands car window to rescue him as well.
that is love. that is how i want to show love.

SMASH BANG, baby i love you. lemme help you out.

thanksgiving

is anyone else breaking their eyeballs when they look at the calendar? i can't believe its almost 2010.

to get into the swing of things (because i've barely had time to let my tan fade, let alone get totes psyched about some fall happenings. i'm sorry where was apple picking this year?) i'd like to count my blessings because it just seems the right thing to do as years come to a close & the winter solstice comes upon us.


1) thanks be to ALLAH 2009 is almost over. am i right?? christ on a crutch what the fuck did the world do, vomit on god's child while simultaneously backing over mother nature's cat?

2) the cycadas this year. there's nothing quite like the sound. an instant slow mo country time lemonade button for my brain, as close as i'll ever be to sitting in buddha's palm.




3) when the internet works.

4) david foster wallace & his words like honey.

5) my sister. hey girl, hey.




6) the rest of my sisters. hey tiny ponies, hey.

7) dan. what a man. i hope to never not be his best friend.

8) dario argento. AH! every single image i want to tattoo directly onto my eyeballs.




9) i've been feeling exceptionally sexy since about...july. not much more to be said.

10) raspberry hot pepper preserves. i just...there aren't words.

11) my dad. there's always a story to tell about something. an anecdote, a word of caution, a prescription, something. he's like a living fortune cookie. except you can't learn any chinese from him.

12) this really sweet fake fleece blanket my grandmother got me last christmas. you wouldn't believe how nice synthetic fiber is.



i mean, you can practically hear the whispered pleas for decency.

13) my roommate. she put a photo of pasta bread bowls on our fridge.

14) singing karaoke. singing in the shower. singing at all.

15) the newly reopened & restored monument in ft. greene park. it's just such a fine looking place to be.

16) teenage. vampires. in. love.

i've been eating plain rice. do i get a half a mil?

UFC fighter was eating ketchup and rice before UFC 104
By Steve Cofield

If anyone needed a huge postfight bonus at UFC 104, it was Pat Barry. The heavyweight out of New Orleans, scored Knockout of the Night and Fight of the Night for his victory over Antoni Hardonk. That was good enough for $120,000. Good thing, Barry needed the infusion of cash in the worst way. He confirmed to MMAScrapsRadio that he was completely down on his luck before the fight, agreeing that he had little to eat in Los Angeles the week of the fight.

"I still had my apartment but if something would've happened and the fight had been canceled, I would've been evicted six days later."

Barry, 30, said he didn't even tell his trainer Duke Roufus for fear that he would think the fighter had the wrong motivation going into the fight. Barry said he didn't ask anyone for money including his mother:

"I could ask someone but then at the same time, how hard are you going to work for something if everytime you get in trouble somebody catches you? I did something to put myself in this position I have to work my way out of it."

Barry got his $120,000 bonus check last Tuesday. He couldn't believe it. When he went to deposit the check, his truck wouldn't start. Barry got a jump and hit the bank sporting a black eye and pink striped shorts.

"I go to the bank, I'm sweaty, I've got the black eye, I haven't shaven in two days, I'm strung out because I haven't slept, I have green circles under my eyes so I'm like 'Can I have a deposit slip mam?'. She gives it to me, I fill it out hand it to her. She looks at the deposit slip, then the check, then looks at me and says 'Excuse me I'll be right back.' Then a manager comes out, a guy in a suit and says 'What seems to be the problem?' I was like 'Well I have a black eye, that's the only problem I know this looks really ridiculous.' So he asks me for my ID, I hand him my license an he's like 'Your license says Pat Barry, but this check was written to Patrick Barry.' So I decided to be funny and tell him Pat Barry is in my trunk right now. He didnt laugh. So I told him take your time man do whatever you need to do because I have no where to go and my truck probably wont start when I go outside so you can just do whatever you need to do. An hour later he came back and everything was fine, the check was in my bank account."


as usual i'm torn. of course the story made me cry & i'm happy he's not starving anymore, but clearly he has poor money management skills & i can only wonder how long this paycheck will last him, but also...what about PRACTICALLY EVERYONE ELSE in the country going through the same or worse times.

can i get in the ring & throw down for my rent? last night in LA people were actually paying to fight the kardashians, proceeds went to the Dream Foundation. i'd be more than willing to get in the ring for my own dream foundation.

speaking of shiele

go see THIS!

paul roberts

discovered this interesting painter while googling. his work is very sexy to me. i really love the cinematic idealism...makes him seem like he has no idea about nothing.

i have a thing for male sexy realist painters. a motherly thing almost. i equate it to an extremely adept med student who could be in any field of medicine, yet chooses gynecology because he loves women & doesn't know a thing about them aside from what he's read. it's a very sweet combination of thought processes.

its such a theme among men. degas, munch, sheile...all were so pained & mystified by women. painting them in contorted positions, awkward proportions, to somehow communicate to the world the demons they saw. helmut newton, brandt, guy bourdain took it further for their ability to take a medium of truth & reality & yet manipulate the subjects themselves into becoming the characters they saw. when even your subjects submits to your vision of truth...how successful & satisfying for the artist. how terrible for the feminists out there. how deceitful.

there's a good amount of sexuality, yes but i love how there are some moments, some paintings that are 'innocent' yet when i consider him as a whole there's a whole sexist/sexy/misogynistic/macho/outsider cast on my overall impression. play, play, play.

and then of course there's just the fact that a good deal of them remind me of v.c. andrews book covers.

hello darkness my old friend

today & the entire weekend has been one helluva. no need to end that sentence.

when people say 'i feel like i've been walking around in a fog', yes. i feel like that. but in addition to the fog, i thought it would be good to wrap blackout fabric around my head, spin around 35 times, & cut off my arms for good measure.

i just haven't been participating in my life. it's as simple as that. i've chosen to sit down and take a breather in the form of putting my head completely underwater. and god am i angry at myself for that.

this post won't make much sense, well...yes it makes sense. i'm sure everyone has at some point in their life been 'there': your relationship with your partner is dwindling before your eyes & all you can think to do is push further away in the most unhealthy of ways possible, your body feels foreign & tired & just generally mutinous, books are like eating chalk, t.v. is worse, the simplest communications becomes the bane of your existence, & forget about current events. the NYC marathon could run right by your window & you would have no idea.

that last part happened this morning. it took me a full 20 minutes of watching to figure out what i was looking at. i exaggerate all the time. this time i did not.

so when you're "there" what to do? it seems like making it better would be like asking a deaf man to listen up.

what is this big rock that sits in the road of feeling better? better yet how on earth do i always manage to go find the rock & put it there. sadness or confusion is not a vicious place to be. i've been sad before without it being a dark & terrifyingly defeating place. (maybe 1 times) in an attempt to summon the yogini i will be in the future i say aloud that sadness/confusion/darkness/etc is as valuable as anything else. gifts from god to be opened with care. examined. cherished for the knowledge. blessed for the growth.

but i am not there yet because every time i say that, still i turn away from the gift, refuse to see the solution, refusing to move like an obstinate child, insolence & general shittiness imbuing my outlook.

i step back to look at myself and marvel at my isolation. i am dazzled by my momentum & absolutely knocked on my ass at the lengths i run away from help.

perhaps i am missing some self-preservation instincts. 'perhaps'.

i can admit that when i was a bit younger i found it eerily satisfying to surrender to the depression and get as dark as baby wants to. i find no relief in the martyr now. at least there's that. in that state i had found complexity. interest. drama. something to care for. now i find the opposite. i find weakness & kill myself over every moment of inactivity or regression. i find myself boring & tiresome. and then too tired to run..too tiresome to be worth a fight. therein lies the viciousness.

i try to examine the things that pull me back to myself. telling myself that i don't need to run from sadness helps. that i don't need old habits to save me from the bad times, that the bad times aren't monsters & that ultimately i'll always have me.

oh but like the most deadly & efficient of predators, habit creeps back to you like an ugly pet. i feel that i can't look myself in the eye for the foolishness & carelessness i've brought into my life lately. if it's the hard times & how you react that define who you are, i am truly sad. i have come to such a hard bend in the road & man, did i mess things up. i thought i could face a challenge boldly, with conviction & trust in myself. instead i decided to sit down & not participate in the slightest.

you know when a child is upset about something, say getting in the stroller, & they sit down? so you go to pick them up but they've suddenly become, as if backed by all the forces in the universe, 20 lbs heavier & infinitely more cumbersome?

that about gets it.


ill leave you with this clip from one of my most cherished movies. life is about balance & using your brains, stephanie.

as if i needed any more of a reason to visit the natural history museum

WOW. please, if you have time, go to this. look at it. it's truly marvelous.

to quote the fast company article by ken carbone, "In this age of everything being "awesome," it is so wonderful to see something that truly is."






xx

GRAND CHAMPIONS NEVER SAY DIE!

WOW! i haven't been this excited about an event since The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe movie!

if you don't know about grand champions then you probably are not a good friend.



also please read the write up in Juxtapose Magazine.


tonight! Oct 23rd! 7-10PM! Factory Fresh! 1053 Flushing b/t Morgan & Knickerbocker! use your google maps skills!


xx

still tripping out on woman love!

this is yes, a VERY sad and distressing story, but look at her in love, alive, & even laughing. some people's strength blows me away.

aint i a woman?

hey girl hey.


today i just want to look at photos of strong, powerful women and read stories about strong, powerful women and hear strong, powerful, smart women speak.

today i am overcome by my pride in myself, in the women that surround me and guide me and blaze even in the most blinding light, in the younger women around me that are overwhelmingly inspiring, focused, leading lives of joy and purpose, but most importantly the women i don't have any ties to but still offer so much inspiration and love to the world that it's irresistible. poets, artists, singers, writers, activists, prime ministers, the list goes on and on.

today stir my soul sistren, make me sing and sing louder and like no one has ever heard.
keep singing.
i'll keep singing, keep going.
my place in the world rises up under my moving feet and delivers me home with every step.
keep going.
i move through this that you've colored with beauty, words, love, truth, heart, strength, fire.
i'm blinded.
keep stirring.

xx



"Ain't I A Woman?"

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

- Sojourner Truth, 1851 at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio