On Easter Sunday, we went to Catholic mass at the church where I used to spend a lot of time as a teenager worried about being a sexually aberrant human being.

I dressed as Mary magdalene, if she shopped at Rainbow outlet, though I can't tell you if that was intentional or not, because i was half asleep from an overnight ride in a big rig as research for me book. My mom dressed as the Virgin Mary. Or, a very dark-skinned girl at her first communion. My stepfather dressed like Miami Vice. the three of us are 5'5 and under. Then there was my domestic partner, he refers to himself as "my husband's wife". he dressed like a Mennonite. He stood 6'2. we went for him. because he had a french grandmother, madeline, but he had never seen catholic mass. The music sounded like Dracula.

My counselor today--she laughed when I said the church did not burst into flames upon my entry. She is is a Buddhist, but grew up Catholic. Then, she told me that the new Pope has started to go into prisons, both men and women's prisons. To wash the feet of inmates. And that sounded like the best post-Easter news ever.

 Body of Christ.

Christmas as the joyful collapse before it begins again

Holiday lights at LemonGrass Thai as Harleys do their charity parade, double wide hogs decked in lights and seasonal giving. Goddammit if I didn't miss the end-of-sumer fest featuring the cast of Sons of Anarchy.

A reiki practitioner invites me to his home, to welcome me to St. Pete, and gives me this cocoon. I can only think Jessica Tandy. I should have thought about the cat. Even though I put it on a high shelf, when it emerges, I am hung-over, exhausted from networking all night at the exotic dance club. passed out, a such when it flutters to the ground and the cat destroys its wings. I feel like a negligent murderer. Maybe foretold by this piece of gold glitter that got affixed to the chrysalis a couple weeks ago.

Artie Glove transfers the monarch, broken, to the sweet potato and basil pot on the balcony. I wonder if I should kill it, to be merciful. Two days late, it has climbed the herbal fronds and it is flexing its wings slowly, methodically, as if to rehabilitate. A kind of Christmas miracle.

Artie Glove plays the wolf man ingenue in flannels.

I make land and water turtle Christmas cards--a very glittery Flordacana flipflop kind of card. My answer to who I can only be this coming year, slo-mo-burlesque.

the arrival of gifts

Jovan becomes enamored of the Douglas Fir of his youth.

I try not be a total eco-downer and point out my disdain for getting a tree, a dead tree. He appreciates this.

But he walks away from the Douglas.

And then he falls in love with idea of a real, potted, tabletop fir!

 He settles on a Norfolk Deco, which actually grows year-round in FL.

Our first Christmas in Florida! The tree gets a ride on the lobby cart.

He bought ornaments weeks ago and squirreled them away in the closet. Which means I cannot make a steampunk courtesan themed tree, but I am still charmed by this hidden stash of decorations.

He confesses he has never actually seen a Charlie Brown Christmas, so is just pretending to get my references.

He lets me glitter most of the ornaments.

He puts a tiny one in our bedroom.

Jan Van Swearingen--artist, collector-extraordinaiire, vendor of fine smelling things, sends me the most amazing package with stuff I did  not know I absolutely needed. Letter tattoos for my alt. burlesque photo project, inter-species love, owl soap, and an edible Advent calendar are just of few of the times. How is it that I, Joseph-Cornell-freak, have never had an Advent shadowbox before. When all the chocolate days have been eaten, I am going to re-tool it with paint and glitter and other little things for next year.

Our roommate from San Francisco, Aaron Araki, sent us the most gorgeous cursive letter. Aaron, Jovan read the otter to me while I cooked dinner. I miss coming into our little kitchen in the morning and seeing you at your skillet. Or hearing you rehearse songs in your room. "Oh, Bacon, why did we leave Bacon?" I wailed, as Jovan read.

Mo Pertik, a new friend I randomly met at my nearby cafe during a Jungian art show, brought me a necklace from the Amazon, told me all about Gulfport activism, and her work in dementia awareness.

Oh, and thanks to The Conversant and Declan Gould for publishing an interview with me and Denise Leto about Waveform.

And there have been winding, unfolding gifts in the form of suggestion and introductions. Another new friend i met through interesting channels connected me to sexological bodyworkers in the area, which then connected me back to people in this realm (mutual friends, they all turned out to be, on Facebook...)--people who I had wanted to talk to before I left CA. Now that part of my art and practice is growing in the light in a way I did not think was possible in Florida. Oh yeah, and there is this somatic psychotherapist I met who sees into my love for the color coral.

more pink citrine versus amber bonecream in pools

esos Wesos

Excerpt from email to Melanie Westerberg:


Yeah, the old name for it really was Cayo Hueso (Shakira has a beautiful line about her huesos--from when she was still more Alanis than Brittney), but the funny thing is, Latinos in FL, like my family, THINK, that this in the espnagles for Key West because, some people will say Weso instead of West or Oeste, as in the proper Spanish. Kind of like the way my abuela and my abuelo get shortened to Weli and Welo. But actually, that is not a good example...But, hilariously enough, when you googl Cayo Weso--the Wikipedia for Key West pops up at the top.

Process of excavating foundational vernacular--to push off from the silty bottom of how the talk gets talked and what about, where I come from. so as to make new pomes in a home speech, what M. Sikkena calls (Dusie, Issue 13), "radical vernacular".

A doliath grouper, which I hope, now at this size, is a protected species. I think also, when they grow to the bulk, they taste like rubber tire anyway

Nascha and Lucille help me rethink color gradients for the Fla. apartment--Meme holds fuchsia and peridot on the liminal bedspread

ambient notes # 12.2.12

it rained all week. smell of wet metal and gutter sparrows. Bacons' grandfather's old bomber jacket molded in his closet and i felt sad for him. clients at Laguna Honda started speaking more clearly, though I still did not know what to say in many cases. floating above the fountain with dear Val, holding a cup of chai, i recall what she said a while back--"Anxiety can be mistaken for devotion." Anxiety cannot be measured as a unit of work, it is somewhere between static and energy. then, it stopped raining, or--it sluiced lightly and J. and i sat in the dark, with the bedroom window open, looking out into the street. until we decided to take the bus to his work van in Daly City for donuts.  then, the day and the sun. to greet the sea with some coyote dogs. we kept going, where i resisted frosted glass tables at ikea. the cheer of swedish meatballs and Mariah Carey Christmas squeals made me eager, wistful, full of sunday night dread. until J. started pulling me around on the hand truck--and i let it go. decisions were made. a small, low table so now i can see to type this.