LIFE RULES

Partying at the Gates of Hell... Bogus Adventures in Modesto

Me and Morgan went to Modesto to thrift and it was so fucking wack. Creepy redfaced fat rusty pig boys whispering fag in our ears flipping us off in a screechy pickup... women with painted faces discussing cigarette price chages at Valero, a town called Salida which I think means exit lies right next door to the town which means "modest". We drove twenty miles to find a hollow aluminum shed full of dusty deals... 49 cents for fucked up clothes that sucked. They gave me a nice seafoam green and denim blue floral bag for my cropped floral cardigan... why did I buy it, cause I wanted a souvenir to prove that the trip wasn't a waste, that the central valley isn't a black hole, that it's an underappreciated gem responsible for the poetry of Joan Didion and my mother, who climbed water towers to watch for enemy war planes in the 1950's when she was in high school, dreaming dairy queen dreams and feeling jealousy toward her sister who found two bucks behind the toilet once. The windmills follow the curves of the hills, spinning fast and ominous, and you feel very small and scared of them, as you are in the darkness of the valley, feeling encircled, almost ganged up on by hoards of mega lacerators. The clouds are black on the top sides and white glowing under belly, and the girls at wal- mart work their magic on you, informing you about one dollar rentals of popular movies, and it seems there is no room in her sentence to tell her you don't live by here or near any wal mart at all... the closest one is near the airport. It seems like a place where you might pick out a new shade of hairdye for some entertainment or get married, or drive a hundred miles an hour on the freeway. If you have ever in your life wondered who is enjoying all of the wonderful antidepressants you hear about, it must be modesto, where people would never think that their lethargy is caused by Carl's junior chicken stars and they don't want to get up in the morning because nothings new, Lady GaGa is still number one on the radio, T.I. is number two, and Kanye is number three, though depending on whose calling in what requests, the trifecta may re-arrange itself throughout the six weeks that the songs reign supreme, but I digress... orchards forever, that make your mind so blank that you are scrolling through a list of fruits and nuts, deciding what kind of tree is repeating itself into such an organized forest along the roads which are disorienting and sometimes deceptive, twenty minute drives toward what you thought was something, abruptly dead ending. Signs tell you depressing things about droughts and deltas. Modesto is the biggest empty that ever was.

fat is creeping around my thighs. rip it off, rip it off.

STOP BEING SO OILY

AAAAAAAH

pocket in the sky
a million miles of lint filling
doing donuts in heaven with elvis presley
a millionaire in my mind
thats what you get
when you die
whatever you want

I just get caught up

I have so much anxiety. weird weird. I need more of people I like. I'm afraid to get close to people. I have warm affectionate relationships with walls. I want someone to listen to me. I feel really unheard. and my mind goes in weird places and I think that everyone is barely tolerating me. This isn't true but I'm getting so paranoid. I want to get inspired by stuff that speaks to my heart. I want to feel fulfilled when by myself. I want to do the things I say I will do. I want to make a five year plan and I want a lover. I want a good listener that doesn't think I'm a pain in the ass. I wish I was better at communicating. I would like to learn to be less of a control freak. I wish people would sometimes realize that their jokes hurt me. I don't always want to know what other people think of me. I want to feel invited wherever I go. I want to feel more deserving of love. I don't know. I have jealousy that is uncontrollable and has nothing to do with reality. I want to at least be honest. I feel really conservative compared to my friends. I get mad. I feel like I should learn to be more free. then I get mad at my parents for being so old fashioned. and then I get upset that that could upset me so much, and that I don't really know my own ideals. I'm turning the anger in on myself. It really scared me the observations that have been made about me recently. lots of inner self revelations. lots of really, painful things were pointed out that I always thought I was better at concealing than that. I guess it's supposed to make me ask why I conceal them in the first place. I read "Spilling your guts is as attractive as it sounds" in a book the other day, but I just, I think theres something really refreshing about someone explaining their thought processes and neuroses. I don't want to pretend that I'm not fragile and easily wounded, and I would like not to pretend that I have no insecurities. I have many many, I catch myself comparing myself to everyone. I would like to be more proud of myself. I wish I was not as moody and emotional as I really am, and I wish I didn't have so many deep-rooted judgments that I halfheartedly believe because of the way I was raised. Sometimes I feel like I communicate these weird alien inherited feelings through my facial expressions before I have time to process them and send them to the garbage can for lame thoughts that I don't believe in. My ideal self would not assume anything or get nervous, or hide an opinion. Is it me or is it everybody fucking else?

Dream we had

took a long vacation. this was alien. white shutters swang like wings. flowers came up through the ground like erections in the night. the porch was glowing. the dish towels looked like shit. every dream told you a story about your brain. what kind of, what kind of person are you? It's like you see yourself in a photo and the eye tells you about yourself. and your mom tells you about yourself. and your doctor tells you there is a little hole in your heart, and cats sort of hiss at you in a silent way saying, "asshole". but the summer haunted you. the night was a deep tunnel. you found yourself deep into it without any memory of travelling. this is no surprise. you find yourself in the strangest of places, screened in southern parlors with the lace swathing the windows, cold old nights, outside, backbending over a car, surprised to find a hand shoving itself in the void. the night was a trail, a void, a trick, a secret shining cave. you never knew how beautiful it could be until you were in it, forgetting your way back out. you were always afraid of losing it. everything that happens in the night feels as though it has happened a thousand times before. in dreams, in stories. every distraction could cut your life off and start your birth in a new world. serious nighttime. to howl, to cry, to breed. to steal the world with a nighttime screech.