Goodreads Reviews 2012

Half sex, half Buddhism, the way everything should be. Finally starting to read my 2011 ugly duckling presse subscription books. Writing deep in a surface way. I had the orange hardcover library edition. Cathars vs the Catholics. Collage of underlined lines. The book I want to be reading whenever I'm reading another book. I like how he seems to have this one thesis, and all his books, whether poetry, prose or a hybrid of the two, are really all about this one thing. I wrote some *really cool* stuff about this book in my spiral notebook, which I can't find. Thinking deeply about Devo. Great right after waking from a nap and not putting your glasses on. The way that the actual subject matter of the book very slowly dawned on me was really cool. I also liked the Muslim interpretation of "Silent Night, Deadly Night." I'm so depressed. I was confused and thought this was a zine listing Robert Duncan as author instead of editor, but then I realized it is an essay by him that begins with two poems as epigraphs to his essay. Entertaining. I totally don't remember taking this from your house, but I guess I did. I found it in my bag. "Everybody reads the first paragraph of The Wealth of Nations where he talks about how wonderful the division of labor is. But not many people get to the point hundred of pages later, where he says that division of labor will destroy human beings and turn them into creatures as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to be." Want to read the whole thing just two at a time like this. That the question that despair asks has no answer. 

Glide food line vs Tartine Bakery line

Not sure what I'm trying to say with this, but I think about this a lot.

Translation of Chinese recitation assignment for tomorrow

I am American, I can speak English, I also can speak a little Chinese. She is my Chinese teacher, my teacher is very good. She is Chinese, she speaks Chinese, she also speaks a little English. By the way, how about you? May I ask, what nationality are you? What language can you speak? Can you speak Chinese?

Suffering because I cannot be all the things I want to be.

I want to read and write poetry nonstop, and all I have time to do is homework.

Some I like a lot. Writing a paper, a critical review of a case study, and somehow, luckily get to incorporate Post-Structuralism into an ESL learning paper! Got so excited about it I got heart palpitations as I pulled out Of Grammatology.

I also want to do intense ashtanga practices 6 days a week. I'm on the every other day track which is OK, but I always lose something on the day off, and so come to every class with an exhaustion in me. Also a pulled hamstring.

I love the idea of learning Chinese, I love when I look at texts and I can recognize some things, but 2-3 hours a day studying it is exhausting, but will be cool after the fact.

Can't make any poetry readings or any of the free school stuff... But would I have been too exhausted to go anyway with the old job and commute?

I thought since this was my third master's I could just breeze through, and when everyone else is stressing I'd have the time to write but doesn't seem that it is the case. Maybe I should take 3 classes instead of 4 next semester...though it will probably be better when I am not taking a language class (though I wanted to continue in a noncredit or non-school affiliated place).

And the stack of library books up to my thigh, mostly theory, criticism, some poetry, a few novels, want to absorb it all, all simultaneously, but time...

Fell asleep in Viparita Karani, and was thinking about the chinese word yidiar,  it is so complicated has four characters, maybe two of those are really one, but it means "a little bit" and the characters are the words for "one" "black" "dot." One of the radicals that is part of one of the characters means "walking man." Laughing to myself in post yoga happiness about "a little bit" equalling "one black dot."


一點兒

The Structure of English 9/20/12

The emptiness will be filled by the "did."

Any and all kinds of emptinesses are not called a trace,
only a particular kind of emptiness.

Null is created by the movement.

Why do we need displacement?


If an apartment is occupied,
you cannot just move into it.
The guy will be mad at you.


This container is a host
but it is a temporary host,
you cannot stay there forever.

The ability to recognize gaps is a normal activity.

Morning is a container and night is a point.

The book does not move.

Second Language Acquisition 9/19/12

Unfringeable.

Collocation for quiet.

Islands of reliability.

"Characteristically empty symbols filled with stereotypical content."

                  chocolate, bread, information

                                          perlocutionary force

The five ingredients.

Formulaicity is ubiquitous.

Professor chunking.

binomials, rock and roll, black and white


We aren't original.

The Structure of English 9/18/12

You cannot survive.

The yellow leaf is falling to the ground.

There are various kinds of situations.
Senses give us perceptual states.

The noise is moving.

The yellow leaf is not an agent.

The location is a person.

Love is a very curious mental state.

Would Mary have a mental state?
Not in this sentence.

Fear is a metaphored entity that travels
from one location to another.

The Structure of English 9-13-12

We live in the world. 

We are surrounded by journeys. 

There are journeys to nowhere. 

But assume this is a journey to somewhere. 

A fragment of a clause.

“of the” is not a unit.

John thinks that I wonder if he hates me.

This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the cheese that…

Why did language 

design 

this property-

complexity of thought. 

Language reflects our complexity.

If understanding creates anxiety.

What is ruining education in this country are tests.

The fact that we know

that we don’t know

whether or not

Lew Welch is alive.

by land or by sea

rage is a container (she flew into a rage)

We sit in a chair because a chair is a container.

“into” means basically to in, but English speakers invert it.

MATESOL classmate: “My personal life wavelengths are all awry.”

Professor: “I don’t normally laugh at things.”

The door closed. The door is undergoing the action, the door is not the agent of the action.

Notes from The Structure of English class 9-6-12

There is no theory of theory construction.

Theories cannot be built without making an assumption.

There are two ifs.

Everything is a container.

Pronouns are not nouns.

I bullied kids at school in (when would Mitt Romney have been in school?) 1982.

New Work

You can see my name in three new places.

NAP

Metazen

and Flavorwire talking about Metazen (not really about me, but my name is there!)

Thanks Janey.

Giraffe

I'd been writing a follow-up poetry chapbook to The Unicorns, written in the same way, a line an hour on the hour, in the cubicle. Since I quit my job I think this project has to be done. Rarely do my writing projects end so tidily! Just have to type up some scraps I took home, lots of scraps, mostly on those loose leaf page-a-day calender pages and in one little work notebook. Was calling it My Favorite Giraffe T-shirt, because it must have a creature in its title, and I have a favorite giraffe t-shirt. But this means I will have 2 chapbooks and a book book ready to be published.

I got the unsalty version and really am regretting it.

Incompossible Concordance

The Incompossible has:

5 references to birds or pigeons, 1 (absent) seagull.
4 references to suicide.
9 references to night or nightmares.
1 twin peaks reference.
1 fairy tale reference.
2 references to unicorns or the lack of them.
3 references to the color yellow.
4 references to the color red.
3 references to the color blue.
3 references to keys.
5 references to mirrors.
10 references to reality.
2 references to pirates.
3 references to anxiety.
There is 1 vortex.
4 references to quiet.
There are 6 secrets and 4 enigmas.
16 references to the World.
There are 3 dreams and 1 daydream.
2 references to naps.
5 references to pills.
1 Christmas poem and 1 Easter poem.
5 references to certainty.
3 references to sex.
8 occurrences of "belief" or "believe"
4 blankets.
9 references to Thought.
4 sadnesses.
6 references to mother, 1 to grandmother, 2 to Father.
4 references to tables.
And  the sentence "What I am repeating I will delete." - only once(!)

Napowrimo Day 30

From banking to baking.
Existence's evidence's light
with no known light source.

Not having seen balloons today.
Everything is potentially hippie.
"To-day." The mind-stuffs in flux.

Kierkegaard and the concept of dread.
Lew Welch's study of Gertrude Stein.
Robert Duncan's hustling.

How the present is present.

I
made
a list
of
every-
thing.

Napowrimo Day 29

After buying Chinese herbs on ebay,
everyone buys oil paintings.

Visarga of me.

The product you make
while pretending to enjoy
just being in process.

How the nervous
can hurt those without
nerves.

Lists just accumulating.
Reading A Void as avoid.
To just get rid of errands.

Taking a picture of my oven.
Printing out the picture of my oven.
Emailing Zack the picture of my oven.
Here is the picture of my oven.

Napowrimo Day 28

Learning to not say mundane
things when I'm thinking
deep things.

Contradictory events.
Etymological seduction attempt.
How what you settle for
is what you really want.

The loose tube top. Flouncy.
Nobody hates the park.
"It's a spliff."

The soundtrack to the spectacle.
With beads hanging off.
The only ones who won't hurt me
are those I don't love.

Anything I could list out now
would not be as great as
that woman's ass in the magenta
sundress.

Unable to find her again after
writing that sentence.

The point where everything
starts to go. I don't remember
writing this. We think he's a baker.

"When I get drunk I always start talking about horses."

Napowrimo Day 27

Attempting a neutral mind-set.
Finding the right lyrics site.
The italical ending
                 or an other one.
Unable to scroll.

How irritation is hormonal.
How we should just stay sleeping.

The other voice's interception.
Colors as a verb.
The unattributed pause.

This ordeal is almost over
and when it continues
I want to know what to do
with it like I always never
know.

Every cycle a sequence.

I don't like the pain
because I like the pain,
I like the pain because
of what I will get out
of it later.

Giving a better ending.
"Regressed to the point of infinity."

jumping [the] guns

Napowrimo Day 26

If awareness ends seeking.
This will be the official list.
The atheist's ire. Wanting
to not eat and just do.Not
sure if I said the wrong thing
or not. Inability to relax.

I will tell her
my energy levels are perfectly
aligned but my neck hurts.

I dreamed about something fake.

That my intellectual pursuits
are a metaphor for transvestism.

Waiting for the part
that's coming
but that's been
cut out of the remix.

My own body odor an exotics.

I didn't mean to make a list.
How being healthy is an isolating act.

Napowrimo Day 25

Who is the night, as a completely rational question.
Edit becomes Exit becomes Exist.
The day passed and I went with it.

Someone noticed I was dressed up.
I didn't say why.
I held the door for one of those men
that don't usually notice me
and I remembered my dream
until the radio came on.

Is there a way to eat chocolate
and not eat chocolate.

It is a super weird trick you are doing.
I don't know this one.

My own inconsistencies.

The problem of sex
is not a problem of sex
per se and not a problem
of thinking about sex, it is
the problem of how to get it.

Napowrimo Day 24

Life is intermediary, always.
A constant indeterminacy.
Becoming less and less intelligible
as time goes on.

Making every excuse except
the real excuse.

Eating fried apple turnovers
while trying to get away
from the ghost of you
who I guess is you.

There is no longer anything hanging off the seat.
"I'm not the one."

Making lists doesn't help
if the only thing you have time
to do is make lists.

I don't know why I have this famous reputation.
She cuts her hair short in order to wear barrettes.

In this particular time zone situation.
Conceptual reading.

Napowrimo Day 23

Not that I'm dreaming in Sanskrit
already. But kutra kutra kutra!
In between the I believe
and the I don't believe.

The gong cellphone tone.
Bus metaphor.
I will take anything in a pink box.

Wondering if the assignment is worthy.
Shouting into the anti-breath.

Why are you waiting. Verte.

What hurts from misuse.
"Rip" in the fog-rain, waking
up saying Thank you Thank you
Thank you over and over

to the empty air.

Napowrimo Day 22

Not only am I your charioteer,

Is it because I'm reading
about Dada, that I do something
so inane, something slightly immoral,
and for no apparent reason whatsoever.

The Heidegger girls, like the Vivian girls.

The time I befriended the cool girl's
nerdy sister to get in with the cool
crowd, and it worked, but both of them
mad at me afterwards, and me a nerd
ever since.

The austerity of yogurt with fruit not at the bottom.

Hearing the guy in the subway
playing Knocking on Heaven's
Door and then ever since having
it repeating in my head concurrently
with a Smashing Pumpkins song. The one
with the pretty bells.

The mystery of the future is not
something I can feel in my body.

but I also am Krishna.

Napowrimo Day 21

What I missed from three years ago.
The poem leads me astray. Or
The poem leads me away from what
Has led me astray. My new subject
Matter. Hugging the waitress. After
What's killing us had killed us,
We are free. Need more ab work.
Three days out of they year when I don't
Need to wear pants. Remember to take
Your chai tea home with you before
You get fired. When I had hope I had
All my art postcards. With me. The shroud
And why I kept rolling on pins. The way
You are deluding your self about the flute.

Napowrimo Day 20

Resistant to what I have to do,
having done so much already.

Wheel turning, in the interim.

The attention and the notice.

If I dreamt I was doing back flips
in the air. Like an unread book.

Triad of false wisdom.

Winter's fade/
summer's glare.

Linking what you've told me
with what you've done.

I have no complaint,
but whispers irritate me.

The red drink's healing properties.

I did not nap; that kind of hangover.

The negation unsaid.

Not dressing casual on Fridays.

Driving alone's connotation.

In a stable, in a cubicle.
At least we are allowed to wander around.

Napowrimo Day 19

"Because I had spent a large portion of my life blocking out my surroundings" - Avital Raz

I secrete secrets onto the floor in a language you cannot read.

Capable of instant adjustments.

Escape is an isolation.

When you really look at what you fear, does it disappear?

Thankfully lost.

A lot going on behind me that I'm blocking out.

Turning off the sound but not the music.

Blending together my inside and my outside.

Whenever the shout comes.

The good scenery and the bad.

Waiting on the winkless watered down, calls quietly.

In the other windowless room.

If the problem of loneliness is resolved
when you come into communion with it.

Listening and not hearing.
Laughing in the hum.

Wakeful this time, I've slept enough now.

Napowrimo Day 18

Ruff

One half of the mix I thought would
save me, playing, while we are approaching.

Her.

Everything understood.
Too much looking down.

The measurement of language.
The liberality of order.
Elizabethan dreaming.

Riding with my head back the whole way instead of forwards.

Before the sky.
Too bad I wasted that.

Accidentally halving everything.

Napowrimo Day 17

Cornflower blue
checkerboard kitchen
window curtains.
"I'm not finished yet."

The ________ key without.

Rape dream while the mother is talking
on her cell phone, oblivious
of the green grass, the blue sky.

Every part of me rising upward.

I am such a dreamer
in my fabulous tax-day fashion.
Black and purple.

If you write
cute little notes
to the taxman. Say Sara
says hi.

The fog hovering.

Completely injured.
But I know the solution.

Better halved.
Locust locomotos. Whether it is
peace or sloth that sits waiting
in the ocean. Not waving.

Napowrimo Day 16

The clock on the wall is only
a memory. Things aren't where
they used to be. Things that are
no longer where they used to be
are no longer.

It is
not necessary
to be
in this much
pain.

Remembered the codeine
pills, but forgot
my oatmeal. The Valerian
tea seems to be stinking
up the entire train.

The recipe for forgetting.
Laughing at incendiary.
Setting fire.

What used to make me so nervous now
just relaxes me.

I don't think you're real.

Is this the end or the beginning.
Is this the end of the beginning.

In between the RV trailer
and the playing field. I
always forget.

Napowrimo Day 15

Today is not tax day.
I refuse single-use
vicodin vicodin vicodin
in order to quit chocolate.

Tagged laundry room door.
Rolling on the foam roller.
Waking to the phone, talking
without lifting my head. Green
pomade. Should I use it for this
or should I use it for that. Having

appropriated from the mainstream
—it does not notice what we have
evaporated from it. At 4:00 I will
eat a second lunch.

                           Later, at epiphanies
my neck will no longer hurt, when
I've gotten you off it. The fly
buzzing around me intoxicated I
cannot move, but flinch

in my stillness.

Napowrimo Day 14

When you stopped dreaming it was because
you had dreamed everything.

The ancestry password I can never remember.

If I ever think about slitting my wrists anymore,
it is just fleeting.

Back on the right path.
Needing to rest.

Instructions to keep doing more things
so that you can finally finish.

The broken appliances, on roller skates, sitting
next to her.

Trying to remember what I was thinking
by remembering where I was when I thought it.

Trying not to want what I want because
I never get what I want.

How the memory of something is both transitory
and completely tangible.

Napowrimo Day 13

Another words.

Crossing out time tables.



Cookie Monster eats vegetables now.



                                                       penalty applies



I only like them yellow.

When I get my will power back.

Pandesal.



Wait for the next cycle.

Something is rolling towards me.






Got out of that one.

Napowrimo Day 12

This blue dread. The previous
image overlaid over the present.
The dreams we do not follow.
Whether the destruction of non-
existence is more non-existence
or less.

Too textual to match. The pillow-
rain. Nothing but mugshots and a weird
sweating. The children in the back-
ground. Falling asleep until my book
falls. Simplicity's difficulty.

What I want when I'm asleep.
The difficulty of movement.
Sometimes somebody. The dreams
reddened into fog. Choosing
the untextual. Waking my
ambience, not my ambivalence. Auto-

graphic lumen, and what is about to fall
off of me, laden. Matching my bookmark
to my shirt. When yes is a no is a no
is a yes. My subject matter fading. Your
alluring agency.

Napowrimo Day 11

Liking what I didn't like before.
The train smelling like mold
in the rain. How can they just
close up a whole side like that?
Not sure if we changed tracks yet
or not. Faith in the invisible.

Dream of a really old abandoned
pickup truck. And you are fixing
something, tools
are everywhere.

Throwing food at the barking
dogs. The food is not really food.
Blown-up air balloons resembling food.

Missed a lot, listening.
Missing what overlaps.
Flashes of colorwheels.

Lacking the status to appropriate.
How end times' ending ends. Lie
to me. Fighting the matriarchal
patriarchy.

Napowrimo Day 10

"You can remember someone many times but you can forget them only once." --Tan Lin

My darkness running out.
Loving the two. Like land. Like torn
knickers. Like lintels.

Where are the waves.
The invisible hand pushing
and falling down the stairs
in the dark. The park

I could never find. A totem
for the present. Less represented
on the map than you. Disbelieving
the offer of help. Our souls
torn out of us. The pretension
of family that is not family
at all.

Trying to find what I've missed
but not finding anything. Unable
to remember what I've forgotten.

The bottom step.

Napowrimo Day 9

Destroyed my red coat.

Satisfied at what I was trying
to do, but now I have to do
it in inverse. Instead of wanting
one, now I want everything.
Found her in the un-park
unflying an unkite with her
undog. An unher. Later
after coffee, cigarettes, chocolate
we hear what they are saying
in the remix, overdubbed. Un-
transcribable agreement of opposites.

It is that sound that I want.

Moving every part of me that I
never loved. In the quiet parts
what I hear in the other distance.
The fears of youth, my favorite
disappointment. Dunes, wrapped
up in.

Napowrimo Day 8

I think maybe I lost a day. Sub-
scribing to the innermost marrow.
You know that I know that I know
that you know. I know that you know
that you know that I know. Bliss.
Stoicly breathing. Spicy tuna.
"Play"'s slideshow. For everyone

and to everyone. What I can't get
to because I've covered it up. All
the dirt comes off so easily, just
like in the dream. Painting over
graffiti. The unicorn outside my
window. Overdoing it for a future
underdoing it. Anuloma Viloma,
Anuloma Viloma, Anuloma Viloma,
obsessively.

Napowrimo Day 7

The formal command.
Having run out of ink.
Finally reading something
I don't understand that I
understand. 8 ways to share
mixtapes. Having dyed my hair
dark, I wonder if I should dye
it darker. Cringy memories, how
do I get out of here. Seven hands
and you are on your own. Having
processed everything into perfection.
The vision I once had of the language I
couldn't read, learning it now.
Everyone has to be so cool and
everything is illegal.

Napowrimo Day 6

"Of things I'd rather keep
in silence I must sing"
(The Countess of Dia).

The old man my mentor
pointing out the Hershey's
Syrup in the bookshelf.
There is no fence.
The sink is clean.
My avatar is in a bikini.
All the complaints come to naught.
The fish swims away.

Lemon candy, or that which
we'd rather not come to,
but take when offered.

Download everything and then ignore it.
Trying to destroy my SD card.
Walking away and not towards.
Venus Lock.
Having come to our opposite edges,
duplicity is seen to be truth.

Napowrimo Day 5

At least I'm backwards
but I don't have white sunglasses
and am not sitting alone.
Friends talking to each other
across the aisle.

The angel's progress.

Fantasizing about practicing
my Sanskrit script. Using
my nasal spray instead. Sleeping
instead. Listening to music
instead. But this is why
I never get sick any more.

All my messages meant for machines.

I am only worthy of getting what I want
if I can perform magic.

Napowrimo Day 4

The terror of time in all
the dreams I remember. How
seeing something is true frees you
from that thing. Waiting to see what will
happen with only a slight expectation.
The train's gravity.

Seems like its the half way point
but its really the two-thirds of the way point.
Forwarding to the song I like while
my music is on random. If a pulsing,
surrounding, repeating sound
could be translated into text. Curtains.
The ridiculousness of that one thing.
And what about the fade.

The point where the train
brakes hard tricking you into
thinking you are almost there. If the end
to sweetness would allow it to continue
in such a way that we'd not have the sweetness
in our hearts scaring us so much. The
simultaneity of hurt feelings.

Not what I want to talk about.

Napowrimo Day 3

Limitless spellbound redemption.
In the doorless car.
Having been flapped on the head
with a pigeon wing. Not what
is about to be carried away so much
as what must I get out of the way of.
For. From. How scarcity makes you hungry.
How sparcity makes you horny.
Because I kind of knew this before.
I'm not sure the present circumstances
are the exact cause. Is life an always
looking for something new I don't know
about? Everything falling towards me
because of the way it is placed.

Napowrimo Day 2

Yesterday's unknown.
Yesterday's angel
lost in the rocks
at the sea, but also
                           to always
be found there. Time is
what was. I don't know
what is.

                          That which
is hidden and that
which knows. Vs. That
which is that which
one would rather not be.
But it is that that is
in the what is. And so is
is in the acceptance of
the that, that one would
rather not be, working with
it, that it can become
that which one wishes. Bi-

consonantal
conjuncts.

Napowrimo Day 1

"You need to direct me."
Pictures of Amy and Oakland Bart.
When the water frightens me
because of all the disorder
and walking on land barefoot.
The unknown underneath
me. Beach Poem #1.

I also have Plato. Laura
is taking off her clothes.
She's coming over.
I felt like I ate all the bread
but I only ate some of the bread.
There is sand everywhere
and the wind is freezing.
Why do people like this?

Here comes Yosefa.
She is bundled up she looks cold.
The flirty seagull. I call him a hottie,
he flies away just as the picture
is about to be shot. Commitment phobic.
I think my phone is on roaming.
Beach Poem #1 is probably the only
Beach Poem there is going to be.
"Hey California was settled before the Seventies."
Solitary acts in the presence of a group.

At the beginning of primary series this morning, maybe because there were a lot of new people, but it was totally chaotic, from the beginning no one was waiting for teacher to tell us to jump up or whatever, they were all just doing it on there own, and it seemed not the time for doing it on your own, and like I wondered if teacher felt like he'd lost control or was losing control of the class, but of course he just went with it and said you are your own teacher, awesome. Then I started thinking how awesome chaos is, and accepting it and going with the flow is one of those scary zen things that you get to face in yoga. Scary only second to Bhuja Pindasana, don't know why that one scares me more than handstand right now.

But thinking about chaos and losing control and allowing it and seeing where it takes you, contrasted with the extreme discipline of otherwise, and how another teacher once said never get ahead of the yogi next to you and stay in sync, which is sweet and communal, and takes you out of ego, but also can be somewhat militaristic and overly disciplined. Think maybe in the beginning when you are building up prana energy and so forth it is better to have the discipline way or it will just get scattered, but after a certain while, once you do have a lot of prana/kundalini energy, I think that can be repressive and too much of a constraint, next level is CHAOS! And how awesome to just open that energy up into the unknown, that is where the creative takes place.

DeMarco kind of looks like the melting face nazi in raiders of the lost ark, or maybe I just want to see it...

Satya

I've never much understood what Keats meant by Truth or what truth means in a religious context, but just came across something describing Satya, which states that Truth is a form of constancy and unchangeability, and I understand that better. Merely avoiding lies seems annoying and pointless, everyone lies randomly - it doesn't seem to be a great spiritual thing to not do that, like white lies or lies from not thinking clearly. But to be constant in a larger way does seem so. If you love something or someone, then to always love it/them, that sort of mental stability, that kind of "decision," is great and spiritual it seems, and yes one of the 8 limbs...

Tried to go to this, but it was so packed I left shortly. Long walk for not much!

He is going to be speaking at the Occupy Move-in Day Rally Saturday (someone gave me a flyer) - maybe I will go. Haven't been to a single Occupy thing yet, what kind of intellectual am I?!

I want to get his book Debt, but $32.
Standing near the Surrealism wall, I also want Women in Dada: essays on sex, gender, and identity, and In the Shadow of its Shadow: Surrealist Writings on the Cinema. Funny how I prefer reading books about Surrealism to reading Surrealist works themselves, with a few exceptions...

Did a two-hour arm balancing workshop this weekend and neither my arms nor my wrists are sore in the least. Boo. But my hips are killling me and I have a gigantic black bruise on my right hip from "bouncing" from koundinyasana to eka pada koundinyasana I, my new trick kind of. Or what ashtangayoga.info calls kaundinyasana a to kaundinyasnan b.



then a fun little bounce to:



Sort of ouch.







So I learned that, and I learned to get one foot off the wall in my pincha mayurasana. Which I just recently am able at all to get both feet on the wall for.

I cannot do the jump throughs or backs still forever.

But did realize, in Bhuja Pidasana that I can lift my feet off the ground, by just lifting my feet off the ground. Not ready to put the head forward though, but wanted to try it in primary series this morning but could not go because I could not sleep last night, because I acted in my first Poets Theater tonight. Nerve wracking, but once I was up there, it was much much less nerve wracking than giving a poetry reading because all the people up there with you, your energy is diverted into them or something...

Went to acupuncture before-hand, and she gave me some "calming pills" Thank You. And then I had rum in my coke, and then we did tequila shots so even though I flubbed a line, I still felt calm about it and it didn't lead to a catastrophe of flubbings.

Three One-line Friend Facebook updates in a row all together

I wish it were otherwise


you'll find my truth in the relentless mid.sentence, listen close . . .



my former residence is essentially on rent strike. sad i missed the party.

Have been, I think, meditating too much, an hour a day, sometimes almost two hours. Think sometimes too much is too much, it brings up darknesses, buried emotional stuff from long ago I didn't know was still in me. But realized today as I bought this Krishnamurti book, that, unlike P. Jois' view of yoga, you really can't or shouldn't do meditation without theory, remembering these ideas - say, like all problems come about because of the conception of time. So realizing that in my little miseries, I can come out of it. And what mediation does really is increase your energy, life force, kundalini, but how do you use it? If you let it, it will attach itself to the dark stuff swirling around in you, but if you use that extra energy - using your thoughts in these ways - then I don't think necessarily the dark stuff will come up.

This has happened to me so much in my life that I thought it was a part of meditation, and maybe it is. But I never quite know what to do with it and I wonder if just diverting the energy away is the answer, or is that repressing? I do remember thich nhat hanh, i believe, in his book on anger, saying giving energy to anger as it rises only makes it worse, and you should transform it. So I think he is right because he doesn't seem repressed or like he is harboring unresolved issues. The issues are there to see for a moment and then dissolve.

Chardonnay Enlightenment!

December 2011

PROACTIV $49.90
BART $180
EATING OUT $142.60

HEALTH COSTS - ACUPUNCTURE/HERBS $84
DENTIST $174.34
PRESECRIPTIONS $130.59

WALGREENS-$105.81

GROCERIES=$196.30:

PUBLISHING COSTS $135.08

MUSIC/BOOKS/CLOTHES:$250.50 (OOPS)

ATM WD:$160

BILL PAYMENTS: $481.54

RENT: $900

$2,990.66 spent, NOT INCLUDING AIR TRAVEL RELATED, or CHRISTMAS PRESENTS (december only)

TAKE-HOME PAY $2,122.56

$868.10 IN THE RED

Would be almost OK if I bought NO music/books/clothes, quit all publishing endeavors, and ignored my health entirely.

Will try again next month... Feel like I'm always making the biggest mistake eating out/shopping at Bi-rite, but doesn't appear to be the big issue...

Also did not include yoga which I only pay for every four months but is $105 a month...

Just cut my own bangs, so don't need a haircut. But I do need shampoo.

2012

Thinking through a very complicated math problem during corpse pose tonight, my first night back at Asta after over a week. And after corpse pose, Rene talks to us, and brings up math, synchronously. As a parallel to ask us why we are doing yoga, what is it for... and always it is always for spirituality for me. Not necessarily mastering the asanas. Have been wondering though, as I am starting to get pincha mayarasana, what is a parallel in real life to gaining that pose, which is strength based almost entirely (also fear issues), and it finally occurred to me that "strength" in real life would be self-confidence. So that plus more extroversion are my new years resolutions.

I think an alternative to black eyed peas on New Years Day might be red velvet cake flavored ice cream?

Also as I am reading the Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer, I want to start writing a poem a night, dictation style. A series called Dictation? Also to combine my long time desire to write a project of project-less poems (ever since reading Poetry is not a Project).

Also doing another budget to see how far off I am. Will do another at end of January since I lowered 401K contribution and am no longer getting a commuter check so will have a little more cash flow... Budget Blog Post coming soon.

The math problem I was trying to do was, as someone once said, for every day you are off of yoga, you have to do yoga twice that amount to get back your practice. So I had my last SF yoga class of 2011 Thursday the 23rd, then I took a Power Yoga class in Austin on Tuesday, then a Baptiste class in Ft. Worth on Friday, then tonight's class which is Sunday. So that is four days off, one day on, two days off, one day on, one day off, and then I am back. So, 4 days means I need 8, then I took one day, so I'm at 7, then two days off, so I'mm at 11, then one day on, so I'm at 10, then one day off again, and I am at 12, then today I'm back, so won't be back to normal until January 12. Although I'm not doing 12 days in a row...

The Texas yoga was OK, as far as exercise goes, but there was no chanting, no meditation, no pranayama, no bandhas. Kind of Methodist yoga... I think they all already have a religion so they ignore that part? Or maybe I just picked the wrong studios. The other Really Weird Texas Yoga Moment, was this girl was wearing a bandolier with bullets on it, though she took it off before class started, and placed it in one of the cubbyholes, which was right by where I was, and I stared and stared, are those bullets!? Namaste! The light in me salutes the lightning in you.

Angels / bad signs / near misses / hit and runs

Someone asked me about my angel chapbook at the poetry reading, and then on the ride home, I'm listening to my IPOD alphabetical by song, and I get to the series of Angel songs, 12 total. Although I first counted 11 and that felt mystical. Two of the McLachlan ones are identical, so maybe 11.

Angel-Belly
Angel-Eurythmics
Four different versions of Sarah McLachlan's Angel
Angel Bell - Cranes
Angel, Angel, Down we go Together- Morrissey
Angelene - P.J. Harvey
Angeles - Enya
Angeline-Faithless
Angel's Weep-Mythos

Then I made Dana Teen Lomax cry, talking about her father's death, but I don't think it was in a bad way, but it is recent.

Then walking home, right at my intersection, I saw a very bad car crash, the car was upside down, hit and run, but I heard they caught the guy.

The guy who'd been in the upside down car, was fine sitting on the sidewalk, someone was telling him tomorrow your ankle is going to hurt a lot you have a lot of adrenaline right now.

There were all these boxes all over the place, like he'd been moving, in the process.

There is not much you can do about bad signs, but just know it is coming.

Cool! I'm a revolutionary!

Devoting one’s life to an activity with little chance of bringing any sort of significant cash reward is a revolutionary act within the virulent capitalism we inhabit.

Completely harmless — no threat — and so completely allowed. But my power, I think, comes from the fact of not buying in to the competition, the market place, somehow creating peace and art in a sphere outside the sphere of power is itself a power. I may not be noticed much, but I am outside their power structure, which may make them slightly nervous, but not so much since I am broke so what can I do (until I start Occupying some street or other). Also thinking being in a sphere outside the power-marketplace sphere, in my space they cannot hurt me. The safety of not playing the game.

Eleven Eleven Reading on 11/11/11 with 11 poets.

Really liked Eric Selland, but he is very academic type, a little unconscious of anything outside of that, and went way over his time limit. He asked rather late, am I over my time? And a woman in the audience said Yes! But he went on like he didn't hear her, and then Hugh finally got up and went over towards the end of the aisle and started clapping at the end of the next poem, so everyone else clapped and the poor guy realized he was done.

I liked what he was reading a lot. Lots of translations of Japanese haiku, which he says originally was one line, it was only through English translation that they became 3 lines, to fit with the english language. He wrote in the kindof abstract poetic style I love. "Self as grammatical formality" "To confront interpretation" a lot of lines with that device - "To..." "To..." is that called something? "The body, geology of the unimagined" (not sure if I'm remembering that one right). I'm not sure if that is him or the Japanese poets originally but I'm going to look for his books...

Also liked Rusty Morrison, she is always deep, mostly talking about death. I was thinking during her reading how there is so much pain in everyone, in all of us, and how at the same time, we make this stuff, this poetry. What are we doing? The life force attempts itself. Loved seeing Jessica Wickens again, who I read with a while back, does Twitter poems. She has a book too I need to find.

Regretted not making the Black Surrealism thing at Poetry Center at the same time, and MISSING Will Alexander! How could I? But got my cool African-american poetry fix through Amaud Jamaul Johnson, who I'd not heard of and want to look up his books now. He read in a very slow paced way, which made me feel spiritual, sat up straighter, aligned my bandhas. Felt focused. "It's all pie-chart & phylum."

The rest of the people were the prose writers so I really have nothing to say but they were funny.

Have been wondering the place for yogis in the Occupy movement. Haven't heard any teachers mention anything in regards to it until Marie today says The Silent Revolution begins, or something to that effect, which is only a reference by inference. Wondering if there are many churches or spiritual group directly involved? Haven't heard of it but I am really an outsider to it. Maybe not this:

http://www.facebook.com/occupychurch

I'm not part of it mostly because of no time. Work + Commutes=12 hours every day. Also yoga will always take precedence to a march, usually even to a poetry reading, or socializing. I can't go without, so really there is really no time. And I think also perhaps a slight aversion to going, although I agree with everything in spirit, don't think I actually want to be there in the midst of all those people, rubber bullets, and tear gas. I will just be meditating over here.

Also even though it is mostly non-violent on the activist's parts, it seems not quite; received a pamplet at the poetry reading last night, and there seems to be a discussion about whether non-violence or violence is the way to go. Yikes. From that I understand my aversion. How to Occupy while honoring ahimsa. An essay on ahimsa in activism would be very interesting to read.

Yoga teacher, Rene, said you should be able to balance in Tree pose or Utthita Hasta Padangustasana, even during an earthquake! I never can balance. I used to be so good when we would do everything all in a row, my ankles were so strong. Tree, then Utthita, then dancers pose, then Ardha Baddha, then warrior 3. Whew! I should try and do that sequence on my own some time, 5 breaths each.

Did Garbha Pindasana for the first time in full lotus, but now with the arms through the legs. It is kind of easier. My hips are finally starting to open up, but only on Sundays. Craving more Primary Series'. ironically, because we do the second/third series mixed all together Rocket series usually, when we do the primary series, I feel like this is so wacky and wild, but it is the most traditional series there is.

Rene said "notice the fluctuations of the mind" and I felt so happy because that is SO Patanjali. And how breathing calms the mind, and to notice how it does, and something about the way we control what our body does, so we can control what our mind does. And finally feeling free of my emotional problems of last week. But it will probably start all over again tomorrow.

Probably the best poetry reading I've given to date, I mean the one I felt the calmest, and most serene, was the one at Loretta Clodfelter's house in Oakland. sitting on the floor, barefoot, wine glass bedside me. But I'd had a major acupuncture for nerves treatment a day or so earlier, for anxiety. Need to remember to do that again. I though my recent readings were just horrible. But I didn't do acupuncture beforehand.

Read Derrida all weekend, but it wasn't that great. This essay all on Heidegger's Hand, which really seems to me a silly subject. But it is Derrida so it is kind of cool. There was a lot of German so I may not have understood it all. Also a lot of Derrida, so I many not have understood it all.

Taking this Chinese herb for my congestion problems plus fatigue, and woke up at 7am this morning HYPER, didn't know what to do that was quiet and wouldn't wake my roommate, so I rearranged my to read pile, I made it worse seemingly (much longer), but instead of having all these different categories of to read books,(different small piles) I put them all in a linear pile (very big), and the plan is to only ever read one book at a time. I think I will feel less frazzled. This thing leftover from grad school, where I want to read every book in its entirety, but maybe I don't have to, if I'm not feeling it, and fell like I want to switch to something else, maybe I just will put it in the bookshelf, and never read from it again. Until such time that I am dying for it.

John Taggart and C.S. Giscombe

Grooving out on the bus reading this poem from New World Journal that David Highsmith let us take, much more so than I was feeling about him in the reading, I think it might be his masculinst reading style that makes me feel incapable of paying an ounce of attention to him. But the poetry is actually nice with this repetitive lyricism thing.

From "That This May Be":

"As if no one no one were seated beside you no one beside you as if you were alone yourself completely alone in a room a room without Ezekiel as if you were completely alone in a room in a finite room as if no one were seated beside you when a tongue when a tongue feeds a train when a violet tongue feeds a violet train into a violet room when a tongue feeds a train into a room made all violet in waves of a wide wave on wide wave of a as in father mist of a thousand waves over you ...."


He talked so much in his reading it felt almost more like a lecture which was nice, albeit also masculinist stance-ish. He mentioned Robert Duncan and Oppen as two of his major influences, and then later on after reading a poem with the line "walls do not fall" he started to talk about a third influence, and I knew, just knew, it was H.D. But then he said it was Zukofsky. Oh, just Zukofsky. I felt SO disappointed in him.

Then he spoke of a 70 page poem that couldn't make it into Is Music, so it went into There are Birds, called "Unveiling/Marianne Moore." I frowned.

C.S. Gisocombe, I can't remember as much because he didn't upset me. I liked how he had a project about trains. Trains as sexual and trains as racial. Want to read more of him.

Love a 2 hour beginning yoga class where we do handstands, but I didn't get home in time to make it to the grocery store. Had three fails, with random stuff in the pantry. The German potato pancakes with applesauce seemed great until I realized I followed the directions wrong, mixed the egg with the package and then added water, should have mixed the egg and water together first, then put the package in, totally not mixing and disgusting so I threw it out and made a bowl of baked beans, which seemed great with my twist off french wine, until I realized it tasted wierd and looked at the can and it expired over 6 months ago. Third try spiral noodles with butter, and wine. Hard night except have discovered James Blake on Spotify and Love Him. It's like ambient experimental R&B? Totally headphones in bed kind of music.




My scoliosis spot is screaming and my rotator cuff is acting up again, and my left knee is hurting. Maybe its the rain. I feel I should stay in bed for a week but I have to work a 6 day work week.

The difference between exhaustion and fatigue. One is kind of funny, the other, utter despair. I want the funny kind where its alright because it is temporary.

Destroyed myself this weekend trying to do vinyasas in half lotus - I kind of did it, but now. Right arm is spazzing and left knee ham string, probably not related to that actually, but also doing yoga utterly fatigued. Slept 11 hours Friday, couldn't believe I slept so much, so set my alarm to get up at 9 on Sunday (more than 3 hours later than my usual time) and I was sound asleep. Think I'm getting CFS. And I have to work a 6 day work week this week, and I have no sick or personal time left.

I have all these texts just waiting for me to put them together, and so in a month, with only rewriting and obsessing over forms, I have a second full-length manuscript ready, sent it out to an open reading submissions period, but even if that doesn't pan out just cool having it and can send out to other places... So now I'm working on my third manuscript.

Blogs

Reading blogs again, having figured out Google reader, and wow, I feel so satisfied reading words. That become paragraphs, how odd!

I want to learn the history of my street.

There is a war on teachers?

I love this project of Michelle Detorie's.

Love reading these on facebook, had no idea they came with pictures!

Not going to yoga, is somehow relaxing, I'm "being" tonight more than doing. Ironically.

Incisor teeth

Re: Amy Winehouse. We need good drugs, and we need them to not kill us. Don't we have scientists?

I asked God for an epiphany about my life while I was lying in the dentists chair, and all I got was Life is suffering and misery, try to stay stoned as much as possible.

Nitrous breathing meditation: around breath 12 I started to feel really good, around breath 30, really horny.

I'm not going to have any juice in the morning, I am drinking it all right now, and having a little fear of no juice in the morning thing going on.

Told my boss I couldn't work overtime on Saturday because I am being interviewed for a radio program, and she didn't respond and I realized she thinks its a job interview!

Thinking of getting back into mudras.

Is it because of twitter that I actually think in snippets now?

After the procedure, they asked me to rinse, and I spit, and I spit out a screw, a very small screw, and I asked is that a screw, and the dental assistant looked at it and said yes but I think its from the sink.

And I think now, it feels sort of deja vu, like maybe I've spit out a screw before, but I can't remember, and why am I spitting out screws, and second of all, why are there screws in my mouth at all!

I know I'm exhausted this week because I haven't been able to move my kundalini at all. But a few weeks ago (maybe I was ovulating) I was splitting it in two, not splitting apart, but splitting like branching off, growing. I guess that is good, I think eventually my whole body would just be kundalini fire, or could be, but not sure I'll ever have that energy.

Also wanting to get back into sahaj marg, i need a cleaning very bad. I don't know any of those people anymore though.

For me that split second that changes everything, lasts so long.

And finally, guitar music, with the lead singer singing "C'Mon" over and over again, is just not proper dentist office music, is it?

ADVENTURE STORY

I called in sick, I am sick. Because it is Friday and I leave my cell phone charger at work during the week, to play Pandora all day, I now have no cell phone charger all weekend. so clearly I have to buy one. I would think that I need to. But I feel awful. So, adamantly refusing to go downtown where it would be pretty easy to find I think, I wander through Mission, dizzily. First I went into Community Thrift, got a great yoghurt maker there once. I don't find any that fit, but am trying them all in this crate located under the regular phones. Then this guy brings this small tv over and asks me do I think it is black & white, or color? I don't have any idea, I say. I have no idea. He wanders off, a little later he comes back, do you want to watch a black & white movie with me? I do my Tenderloin-learned I cannot hear anything you say and have no consciousness that you are even speaking to me thing. He wanders off.

Then I walk down thinking to try the T-Mobile store -- why, in a neighborhood that refuses to let in american apparel and apparently starbucks, and even peets, is there every single cell phone company in existence? And why is there a Chase? Is there any Mission Community Bank or Credit Union?

Although I am the only customer in the store, the T-Mobile people don't help me, seemingly not noticing me, wrapped up in their own conversation, and it looks like their chargers are for their phones, as far as I can tell, so I wander out.

Then I think, Mission street. I go down and try the Goodwill. Taking a number 8 for my bags, and remembering to slip my cell phone in my pocket, I try all their cell phone chargers, but none of them work. I almost buy a wall clock that looks like a disco ball. 99 cents. This whole time I am dizzy, slightly naseous, and pretty sure I am going to faint at any minute.

Then I go over to the dollar store, they may have elctronic something. They have a phone section, but only old school phone type things.

Then I'm walking along Mission street, thinking to give up and go home, and I see actually there are a lot of stores on Mission street that have the word Electronics on the outside. I go in one but he says no, we don't have those. There is mostly DVDs. Then I see a pawn shop, maybe, who knows. They don't, but the guy is magically informative, this guy has answers. What a relief. He says go down to Giant Value, and there is a guy with a table outside, he sells phone chargers. I go three blocks down to Giant Value, and there he is. I ask, doubtfully, do you have cell phone chargers? It all looks like car phone chargers. Yes, he does. I show him my phone, it is the kind it looks all usb-like, he says no problem. He takes one out of the box, plugs it in, plugs it into my phone, and magical red lights pop up. Yay! Then, oh, how much? He probably does not take credit and I am wary of how much cash I have on me. He says $10. I look and don't think I have enough, but then find a hidden $5, which means I have exactly $10. Magical Story! All True.

The awful, new commute, to Pleasanton, for my job (50 minutes each way) is exhausting, but great for getting some reading done, and, I've been writing a poem every day between Castro Valley, and West Dublin, perfect with the rolling hills, and 9 minutes without a stop. So was websearching to find any history of the area, for a title, and came up this, it is a census designated area, being, not an actual town, and the citizens, actually voted against it becoming one, considered "unincorporated" and I thought, oh cool, I'll name it Unincorporated, or Unincorporated Community, but then I just realized Craig Santos Perez, totally beat me to it, and how much more hip, his Guam, vs. my um, Castro Valley? Nerd. So now I don't know what to call it, still.

Like how film directors, but themselves in one shot of the movie, I put the words to my secret texts in my poems. Like a secret hint, otherwise un-alluded to.

Feel annoyed with too many days in a row at yoga, and everyone who is beautiful and perfect, and have these seemingly beautiful social lives partying out with each other all the time. I'm now craving people with defects, so back to the poets I go. No yoga today, just writing. Want to feel unhealthy actually, cookies and coffee all day long. Bad posture in the darkest (very dark) corner of the cafe.

Reading Agamben's Profanations, after Laura Woltag's recommendation:

"Linguistically visible"

"Every woman has her Juno."

"Every true celebration — an abolition of time."

"There is no thing that with a twist of the imagination cannot be something else." WCW, Kora in Hell



Printing my Dusie chaps finally; Have printed 14 copies, need to do 100-150... it is legal sized and they keep falling off the printer because they are too long and I lost the printer extension piece.

two separate distinct naps today.

Did my taxes, pretty sure the lady made a Blatant Error; I'm going to have to look it up, pretty sure she was incompetent, or lazy. Why don't I just do them myself!!

Feel destroyed all weekend, in a no more ardha baddha stuff kind of way, with a limp. I kind of like because it means I did something, but don't like it so much because I can't do too much more at the moment...

Listening to Catching up with Depeche Mode on vinyl and drinking a Racer 5.

My favorite Asta class right now is Fridays 6:30-8:00, never a lot of people and really really intense. Had the heart pounding through the entire body reverberating thing, which I haven't felt in a while...I got to the area early tonight so I went into Four Barrel Coffee, had a coffee, read Baudrillard, "Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?" and wrote deep stuff about duality and the real in a notebook. So went to yoga kind of caffeinated. Thought I'd be falling over left and right because of it, but only did in utthita pada hastasana, which was kind of falling over for fun... but the standing split series I was on it, for some reason, totally focused.

Have been doing 20 minutes of yoga everyday at lunch in the exercise room at the new work site, no one is ever in there, and Wednesday I think it was I did marichyasana c with the bind for the first time, that is a weird awkward feeling, could only do the left though. now I can't do it so I don't know why I could then. The pose is teasing me. But think 20 minutes a day in addition to my nighttime yoga practice is really improving things?

In the middle of printing or about to print 3 different chapbooks. Need to just order mass quantities of paper online so I don't have to carry it all, but do want to go to Kelly's paper tomorrow to get peach legal sized cover stock, also cuz I really need to see it. The text papers and white cover stocks I think I can just order.

Our bathroom window just fell out, onto the porch, fell out...broken everywhere, and now cold in there.

I kind of think that everyone that works at Bi-Rite is "good people." I don't even feel offended when they double charge me.

Reading also E. Tracy Grinnell's "Leucadia" and I wrote down "landscape as voice," not sure if truly applicable to the book or not but I like the possibility.

Everytime I go into the Big room, start thinking, I start crying. Maybe its the SuperMoon.

Sort of freaks me out that I had psychic yoga dreams the whole weekend Larry died.

Dream 1: I'm coming to class and another teacher of mine, not Larry, is leaving the earlier class, but he is exhausted laying out on this old red couch completely wiped out.

Dream 2: I'm at yoga to the people, and I'm randomly out of nowhere doing handstands in the middle of the room, over and over I do it, just floating there in mid-air.

And finally an epiphany; the way yoga is supposed to mean union, or to yoke together... I've always felt these disparities between my yoga life and my poetry life, like the body vs the mind and they are fighting each other. But I realized when one of my teachers called me out (in front of everyone!) to name the sanskrit of the pose we were doing, and I didn't know because it is the hardest one to know, triang mukhaikapada paschimottanasana, and felt sad I failed my teacher, but its ok, because now it really fired me up to learn all the sankrit names now, I know that one, and then this weekend I spent several hours learning the opening chant to patanjali and I know it now. Intellectual side of yoga! And funny, went to a poetry reading and two of my poetry friends are apparently studying sankrit, just because they love dead languages I guess, and i realized that is the fulcrum that unites my two worlds! I think a truth is there is no duality, really, but it is yoga that strips away the masks and boundaries that cover that truth. If we think there are disparities it is only because we haven't looked deeply enough.

OM
vande gurunam caranaravinde
sandarsita svatmasukhava bodhe
nishreyase jangalikayamane
samsara halahala mohasantyai

abahu purusakaram
sankhacakrasi dharinam
sahasra sirasam svetam
pranamami patanjalim
OM

Reading on Buddha's teaching on co-arising.

This weekend I'm doing proofreading, working on a project called Autobiography (not mine), actually it is two projects, parallels of each other. Also need to get my Dusie chap done. It's so still in process, takes forever!

Counted all my writing projects, and there are 9 chapbooks and 7 book books.

I'm saying project, not intuitions or simply poems a la Lasky, because, I realized, they are not really poems. Its a hybrid form that you just wouldn't call poems in the same way that Lasky writes individual poems. I don't know what the word is but writing project seems to cover it.

I don't have any music in my head right now, but because of the stupid easy listening station we listen to at work, I had a dream I was at a 1970's-esque Rod Stewart concert.

Period. So I may only go to yoga to the people this weekend, because they don't do inversions, although Amma said we shouldn't at all for the first three days. But I know, I think that would wreck my body.

Dreamt Jared Hayes was in a rock band, and I'd just bought his CD to cheer up my mom, but it was a little too rock n roll for me. My mom's husband had just died, who is dead in real life, and I was like didn't he already die once before? Also the poodle died. Lots of sadness and clutter everywhere.

Been sick off and on for 6 weeks or so, ever since that stupid never again flu shot. But its ok, I'm processing. Stuff. I have a thing I'm thinking about that would solve all my problems, almost all, but I would have to make some concessions.

Very little yoga practice this week; some home practice, but too much phlegm, which is entirely disconcerting when upside down. Did use the neti pot maybe 83 times this week. There is a lot, a lot of my phelgm floating through the pipes at the credit union.

Also, including the day job, worked 13 hours on Wednesday and 12 hours on Thursday. $$$$

So tonight I am staring at the ceiling and watching Vertigo. I've kind of been watching it for 5-7 days. Searching for a youtube of either the psychedelic dream sequence scene, or when she says something like, only one can wander, two together are always going somewhere.

Searching for vintage clothes fashion blogs. Dreaming of money.

Disturbed by the birds and the fish, how is no one mentioning BP?

Enjoying the new focus on the primary series at Asta lately. Realizing how focusing the series is, compared with the Rocket series, which seems to be more about increasing kundalini, firing you up. But too much Rocket leaves you with too much energy just going everywhere. Nice to be able to come back to the primary in order to put all that energy into a specific direction. Was having the whole I have 18 writing projects at once thing, but that doesn't lead anywhere. Picking one to focus on at a time. Also, reading, I currently have 27 books checked out of the library. So I made a reading plan too.

All quoted words from the forthcoming The Incompossible from Black Radish books

“Opinions”
“All tropes are clouds.”
“it”
“it”
“the general?”
“pre-existence”
“among.”
“if.”
“Being”
“He wouldn’t actually drive the saucer.”
“without.”
“pretend”
“Nightmare-Heaven.”
“See, she’s a witch.”
“natural”
“left”
“two.”
“Apprehend”
“Temporary Ravine”
“I feel like I’m in a movie.”
“beginning.”
“I know she’s lying.”
"You must change the form of your practice."

Thinking about how if the life force comes from mulabhanda, and when on our periods, our energy is completely churning away in that area, then maybe it is not a curse at all, but makes us luckier? So I've been trying to turn my cramp pain into kundalini bliss all day. It kind of works if I concentrate really, really hard. But I'm not sure how much longer I can keep it up. Definitely need a nap. Also, finally agree not to do inversions, because my period has been lasting 7 days instead of 5 lately, and ew. I guess they're right about that.

Reading the third translation of Patanjali that I've read. The first one was translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, one of my teachers was reading it so I read it, the second one was translated by Chip Hartranft, I don't think I liked this one because I thought it was "too easy" and "armchair enlightenment." (This is what I said on goodreads.)So now I am reading Sri S. Satchidananda's translation. This is the one, the cover I see most people have if I see people with a Patanjali. I also checked out the Mircea Eliade book on Patanjali, a more historical study.

Had the thought in the middle of a rather intense yoga class, or regular yoga class, but I was doing it intensely, that Ashtanga is a form of shamanism. Like we are out in the desert on a vision quest, haven't slept for 36 hours, are tripping on some weird-ass drug, and there is some nut there trying to lead us through it. Funny, people who are drawn to meditation and yoga because of the "relaxation" thing, they don't know, and I think I was one of them initially, that it has to take you through hell first. It is not ease, confronting the self. And even if you don't think that is what you are doing, it tricks it out of you, and it becomes what you are doing. The people who can't handle it are the ones that drop out, or go sporadically. I don't know that I am actually confronting the self, I think I am starting to, and in the past the confronting the self thing made me evasive within my own practice. I am still evasive but becoming more aware of what I am doing, and so evading less, I think.

When I'm feeling "unglamorous" sweater totally lopsided and no possibility to ever right it, scoliosis apparent, like I'm the hunchback of notre dame, right foot dragging behind me, I remember I'm a poet, I'm supposed to be fucked up, and I feel better.

Bought a book from a former classmate at new college on the $1 rack outside modern times. Should I tell him or not??? I'd read it from the library so I'm actually happy I actually own it now. also bought some 70's paperback for the cover. (Something about her wicked wicked ways) Thinking of my upcycling next and last dusie chap. Not sure if it will match the project I'm thinking of though.

Tea is cheaper than coffee, generally nowadays. Poets are all going to become tea drinkers. Coffee is for yuppies.

Confused about kundalini vs chi. Are they working at cross purposes? I'm not sure but I think kundalini coming up from the sex, at least in women, is inner inner even more inside than inside, whereas chi moments in acupuncture, seem to be entirely on the surface of the skin, or even hovering slightly outside, like an aura. So maybe they are complementary. Though I realize one comes from China and one from India...?

Thank you Veterans for giving me a day off.

I realized that I'm so uninterested in this construct continually dug up by other people in which "lyric" is split off and set up against "experiment." I can't even be bothered to protest it, for protest would just give it credence, in a way. I am interested in the signature and the mouth and throat. I am interested in how ear and throat receive language.

--Erin Moure

Every time I walk down Oakwood street I have a beautiful moment. Every single time.

Had a very writerly day. After walking around for an hour in the rain with my skirt inside out, I came home and mostly haven't left since (except for a stroll on Oakwood). Finished making the layout for Jill Stengal's new chap "and i would open", that I am doing. Settled on a cover design and a color. Then I got the proof for my Book-Book The Incompossible. So I printed the whole thing out to reread, read it, and then sent off my comments and then now I am writing a blog entry. Drank two glasses of white zinfandel but strawberry flavored that my coworker gave me. I also spent some time "categorizing."

I have not read every single poem Poetry Foundation has on its website, but maybe 60%? Well actually, not that I look, they have over 9000 poems, so probably not even 10%! Anyway, here are two good ones.



Alice Notley

Spicer

This weather, first cold day, makes me feel spiritual and pure. Like I want to only drink water and eat very little. But it might be the medicine.

Anyone who couldn't afford (or didn't want to afford) my arrow as aarow chapbook A Musics, can read an excerpt at Little Red Leaves. A slightly different, earlier version is on the LRL webzine.

My yoga practice is becoming terrifying, but that is the only place left to go if I don't want to stagnate.

Learned about the Dum Dum Girls at the hairdresser.



Getting over a silly little illness, trying to figure out correct dosages.

Reading Kevin Killian, Leland Hickman, Nietzsche, Olson, Vendler on Dickinson, The Power of Now, Zibechi and Brian Teare.

Went to a few Litquake readings. Sweated. Matt Hart freaked me out. Really loud, like a male Dorthea Lasky. Thinking about how Bay Area poets maybe need to use emotion as part of our poetics a little more. We are so repressed and embarrassed. Maybe we are too "cool."

Watched Bluebeard. I think she maybe changed the ending.

Maybe giving up netflix and greencine, in favor of Faye's. Great deals, and a block away. They have a thing called Pick 12, that has a theme and changes every week. This week's theme was Rebel With a Cause, and you can get one free with another video.

I did pincha mayurasana, with Teacher's help, lots of help, terrifying, but I'm hoping he'll keep helping me up there and keep holding my legs up! I don't know how I'll ever be able to do that on my own.





















Poetry Book is in it's finalizing stages. I think the cover is really super cool, and am really excited to see it, eventually.

Been home sick for 4 days, including weekend, and what I really want to do is just read in bed, but I haven't really, though I slept a lot, and sweat a lot, and watched some movies, from Faye's, and drank a lot of syrupy things. I think I have too much to read, and the pile is too big, and I'm overwhelmed and I just look at it.

Third Day of Autumn

sundress, leggings, flats

or

tennis shoes, rolled up jeans, tank top

or

a-line skirt, clogs, tank top

or

shorts, baggy tank top, sandals

or

shorts, flip flops, t-shirt

or

tank, jeans, flip flops

Rene said "Pain is not pain, pain is tapas." I looked it up and tapas does not actually mean pain, but something like right effort. So OK. I had pain but it was cool. The difference between neurotic pain and pain through effort. I totally get that.

And I learned the name to my favorite pose and I didn't know it had a name:

Upavistha Konasana Uth Pluthi.

Do a google search and you will get nothing, but it is real.

Reading the Power of Now and doing the thing where you stop thinking and just being in the now, and everytime I relax so much I fall over and I don't think I should do it while walking. But then for the first time in months I had a moment where I was like OMG I'm happy, and there is no reason for it. So nice, I think it works.

I liked today how Rene says Ashtanga may be one of the hardest yoga practices there are, but it corresponds to how hard the world is. Such a satisfying sentence to hear. Not like some other yoga teachers who say bliss bliss and everyone is happy and all is good. Um, no, look outside! I don't think so.

Realized if I push on my foot in the hurt tendon place in my foot while in half lotus, that totally makes my painful lotus hip issues relax relax, and are they connected?

Reading tonight at a house reading in Oakland, my first house reading. I hope I don't get in a fight. and then Tuesday in SF at the Idiolexicon series. It's like I'm just passing through the bay area on a reading tour and getting in both side of the bay. I'm thinking tonight will be more lyrical and deep stuff and Tuesday more funny, just because Elliot Harmon is funny.

The cafe I am in is playing Si Se. I think.

Going to acupuncture in a moment, which I just learned I can pay for with my FSA card. So maybe my nervous will not be so bad tonight! 4 people so pressure is off somewhat...

Was thinking I'm trying to do two forms of healing simultaneously, that might be counteracting each other. One - ashtanga heals through fire - burning it out of you- raising your frequency, and the other - massage/acupuncture heals through extreme relaxation but really opening up the spaces through a quietness. Not sure if they work against each other or with each other, but in class today Rene says that yoga is for opening you up also, so maybe both are different way of opening. I think all stress and bad mental states comes from too much body tightness, which leads to mental tightness, restriction, constriction, nothing can flow, and the life force can't get to any of the places. Open open open is relaxing relaxing is healing.

Newest fetishes:

Guys with topknots

straight guys who carry book satchels

asian guys walking alone with their bicycles

every fluffy dog in the universe

seaweed

bok choy

going back full time to an ashtanga studio (I'll save money when I'm dead)

replacing my sweets fetish with a salty fetish

Me and mom looking for water.

Mom: Bushes like this, they grow by the water.
Me: I see a glistening!

Mom teaching me to fish.

MOM: You take the salmon egg and put it on the hook, you push in on the bobber. Carrie, you're going to have to move. You reel it in like this, when you go to cast it in you push this in so the line will go out. I don't think there's any fish here. Rainbow trout looks just like a rainbow but there is a trout that looks just like these rocks. Next time I'm going to buy some waders.

Me: Look that tree fell over there, halfway, but the other tree caught it.

Mom: OK just one more time then we're going to move.

A beach with other peoples shoes. I want to follow the path because its safer.

Me: Let's keep catching rocks.

MOM: It's too shallow.

ME: Let's go eat some trout & I'll pretend you caught it.

(Year of the Hailstorm)

ME: There's a fisherman.

MOM: He's flyfishing.

ME: See how he's standing up elevated away from the water. You should do that.

MOM: Carrie, I'm not taking you fishing with me again.

ME: I really don't like the wilderness, mom. Why don't you ask the fisherman for advice?

MOM:I don't need no man for nothing.

Places I peed today

My house
Asta Yoga
La Cumbre
Mission Creek Cafe
Jubilee Hair Studio
Safeway

Kinda glad I'm out of Oakland tonight, but kinda wish I was in Oakland tonight. I want to be where the action is. Hard to know what to say but it isn't right. Too bad you always have to fight so hard against the world.

Was talking to someone in the cafe today, and she was a library activist, or something. On the board of directors for the library? Is that a thing? She saw a library book in my bag and started asking me which library and how do I like it! I said SF Main, better than Oakland, because the selection is better, and they have Link +. She didn't know what Link + was so I told her and she asked me if I was "in research"! I said no, I'm a poet, I have to. So then she was impressed and told me I must have a great command of the English language and I said "yeah." That is all we get. Then it occurred to me how most of us or a lot of us do work equivalent to someone "in research," but I bet they get paid. And why do we do it we are insane.

Have to say, despite Silliman's views on W.S. Merwin, I like him. He may be conservative, but I don't feel like "school of quietude." There is a spirituality in him that I dig. I connect school of quietude with like backyard barbecues and mundanity, domesticity, but he is never mundane. I like all the spaces that the lack of punctuation creates. I checked out The Lice tonight and Sorry, Tree. The insides look similar except Myles uses more periods.

Also played my records tonight. The first song was Power Station, then Katrina and the Waves, then Bonnie Tyler. Roommate didn't seem to be annoyed and told me to be as loud as I want! She can sleep through anything. Sweet. I'm in the big room, stealing internet from someone, our is *pending.*

To get the key we had to get past the dog, wade through the river, wake up an old angry woman, return to the under room, place buckets over our heads, send a bunch of text messages, get into a dead man's email account, win over the one-armed bandits, engross ourselves in a particular historical period, hunt down the serial numbers, sing the song off-key, pay a lot of money, present our identification cards, live our whole lives in Germany.


















I kind of hate EMI because they won't let me make my blog pretty.


Totally silent!