Futility

I know you. You are unremarkable
Small
You can't talk well

Words tangle as they came out of your mouth
Those bad faith words.

Yes, I think I know you.

The blinding fury
The rage that made you stagger
A mood that burned through the midnight hour
A hate that carried you for a long time

You drank
The poison, and prayed
Your enemy would die.

The problem with the best ideas...

It’s so easy to be a man.

Another woman. Another drink. Another joke at the expense of someone weaker. Another decrepit fool who in his space of farts and spilled beer can pitch anything worthy into the trash and find respect.

I want you to listen but you slide your eyes over my face instead. Maybe you’re right about that woman next to you, but I don't think you are because you're wrong about you. On the bed or the bar stool; you treat them as interchangeable stacking objects, give you convenience or give you death. Hot water and whisky. The wheeze in your laugh makes me want to vomit, and I don't swallow it for you. The vomit splashes on your shoes, the tiniest amount. You don't turn your head as I cough.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

I remember how we were,
The things we did together.
You knew you could count on me
I thought we'd be friends forever.

But...

In the end we drifted out of touch,
Two people, always busy.
It's not that friendships end, as such.
They simply stop being easy.

I wish I did anyway.

Grocery shopping for herbal tea
Then selecting courses, canned;
He grabbed my arm to move me past.
I bit his fucking hand.

Last Man Standing

Well, I am done. This has been a great experience... it got me unstuck on a lot of projects.
Hats off to Talking Robot, the Last Man Standing!

An insomniac's plea

Oh, capricious Sleep! I beseech of you, close
My leaden eyes; soothe the ache that blossoms deep in bone.
Allow me to take succor from moonlight's shadows
And escape the persistent glow of the wireless telephone.

If you do not come, Sleep, then the sun must soon
Shine its dispassionate light on my sad ordeal
That yet continues. Oh glorious sun! Such afternoon!
Sunlight's glamour dazzles and mirages seem more real

Oh Sleep, I beg of you: flip the switch; kill the engine;
The city's angles shimmer now, mocking Euclid.
Save me from these monsters, Sleep, each hour they strengthen
Hush the cacophony, Sleep. Kiss me until the day is muted.

Exhaustion weighs heavy. I languish in the dark hours,
Twisting sheets and limbs into a plea and then a shrine
Closing eyes that open once more. I breathe, I stretch; somehow
Sleep eludes me. Sleep, I compel you! With a novel alkaline!

***
Chemistry is what you get when you cross philosophy with alchemy.

My Favorite Things

My Favorite Things

Made some progress on My Favorite Things. My band, the Low Notes, rocks it. Not quite sure what to make of it

Trauma is really strange

Hello everyone. This is my first time at one of these meetings and I guess that first of all I'd like to thank you all for listening and allowing me a chance to speak. My name is Robot. I'm inspired by all the stories of recovery and strength shared this evening and one day I hope to have one of my own to share with newcomers, people like myself who don't know how anything could ever be any different, but still hold out hope that it could. Right now, though, I'm on a journey: a long journey to health. My journey began when I decided to come here and hold myself accountable in my own healing process, when I decided to be a person first and foremost who liked growing things and dancing and attempting complicated baking recipes and simple ones, too; a person occupying space with ease and relating to the world through some other means than trauma.

To put it another way, I know all I have is smashed up, broken beyond repair. But I'm here in the hope of learning to make kintsugi.

***

Trauma is
a state that defies my attempts at an explanation.

Trauma is
like a disability, in that people sometimes treat me differently
if they know
if they find out
not always in a good way
not always in a fair way

Trauma is
living the feeling of hoping against hope that the movie character
will not enter the basement
when anyone can tell the killer waits therein.

Trauma is
finding myself beholden yet to the horror;
a yawning maw that does not care if I jumped in
or was pushed.

Trauma is
finding myself very well adapted
for life in a world in which I no longer live.

Trauma is
dissociation. My own relentless scrutiny
assessing everything I do, remembering and categorizing: I remain
among them but not of them,
assailed by rapid-fire symbols I am never sure
I properly understand.

Trauma is
lurching from one crisis to the next, because
drinking too much is the thing I have most in common
with lovers.

Trauma is
hating myself more than anyone in the world can ever hate me, but

Trauma is
simultaneously seeing nothing but antipathy. Contempt. Disgust.
those familiar patterns, repeated again, again, again,
and learning to shut the fuck up
because
it's my fault anyway,
nobody cares and I'm a pitiful embarrassment.
Same as it ever was.

Trauma is
wanting to forget; to choose something different
and not knowing how.

Trauma is
a whispered thousand part choral harmony
chanting as soon as I drop my guard:
you ought to have known
you could have done more
you should have been braver
what did you think would occur
what on earth is wrong with you
what did you think you were doing
why did you allow yourself such misery
why do you have poor judgement
why don't you learn
ugh

Trauma is
air that must be chewed before it
can reach my lungs;
going to sleep and awakening, thankful
I never remember my dreams;
fearing survival of a fifteenth-floor swan dive
more than death;
not really understanding what standing on solid ground means
but still trying to swim.

Trauma is
the ever-present danger of becoming the monster I fight.

Trauma is
crossing a line
only to find the underwhelming realization that 'healing' is not 'never hurt';
and that one day it will be a long time from now
and it is not yet then but
this too shall pass.

Trauma is
my best kept secret.

Trauma is
in everything of me, and nothing to do with me at all.

The verb "to solve".

One voice. Infinite bodies with infinite voices will equal
greater music, therefore adding and subtracting
from the integral event of simplification. You yourself
Are a solution. Lecture continues. Arithmetic stops helping.

It's hard to figure what lies beneath. Make the most
Of your introduction. Divide up the room; people multiply.
Patterns gather within parentheses; everyone is
Looking to dream, but efficiently.

Over the Rainbow

Over the Rainbow played by the Low Notes
A fun little jam on a tune from OZ

I am not doing my homework.

"I'll be damned if this doesn't factor"
I remarked to a venomous adder
But the adder can't add
Algebra makes it mad
It hissed "Good thing I'm a snapper!"



OK back to math.

Daily didn't last

Well, I guess the daily journal lasted until I had a work day again, but I got some time to draw on the plane to and from CA. Disney's Glendale Central Creative Campus is a really inspiring place to visit. I drink a little more of the kool-aid every time I go down.

Besides I need to be asleep by ten pm.

I thought in vain for words that made sense,
And then to combine them to not cause offense:
I'm working; I'm broke; I'm tired; I'm sick;
I'm having intrusive thoughts about that icepick!
No, that's psychotic. But I could be in pain,
Wheezing in damp, so kept in by the rain?
I'm brushing the cat? I'm washing my hair?
I'm trapped by a brat? I've nothing to wear?
'So, will you be there?' the request, repeated
'I guess it's the truth then' I thought, defeated.
'I'm sort of...,' I started, 'It's that... you know?
There'll be too many people. I don't want to go.'

:(

If not this world...

This started out as a frustration with bureaucracy and ended up a sly remark on a society that may exist in a possible dystopian future. Includes a nod to Idiocracy. This was a lot of fun to write!


I built a poem. It's good as they get!
But I must get a poetic license for it
At least before anyone sees that it's mine
And the municipality issues a fine.

A license for poetry is what mollifies that
Which angered the Trumpen proletariat -
A license for poetry, where a fee is paid
And the poet's content approved for trade.

So off I went to the government bureau
With poem and references, tidy and thorough
With my identification and form printed online
With a belief that the system was fair, just and fine.

I edged my poem towards the window
Composing last-minute changes to the innuendo
Until the public servant at the workstation
Snatched it from me in exasperation

And said "New license or renewal today - wait
Did you get this approved? I don't see the date
Or for that matter, the form approving the intricate
Prose of this work. Filled out in triplicate."

I left defeated; the walk home was bitter
Both from the cold and from being a quitter
But who can compete with government forms
And the endorsed entertainment of "Ow, My Balls?"

Daily: Day 3

Daily: Day 2

Little Dreamer

Little Dreamer
The Low Notes newest tune. It's different every time we do it but always loads of fun to play

Daily Comic Journal

One of my favorite artists did a daily comic blog for a while: http://www.emitown.blogspot.com/

I like the format and figure it's good practice to draw normal daily things, interspersed with other random doodles. Mine is a bit more rough and haphazard :)

We'll see if I can make time for it every day.

New Song - Transformation

Transformation

This is my newest song - finished a couple of days ago.  It's a rough recording but listenable.  This encapsulates where I am - excited about what is to come and coming home to Seattle.  It surprised the hell out of me because this has been a trying time, but my subconscious is obviously excited about the future!

Gotta Have

https://soundcloud.com/dougmortenson/gotta-have1
This is a practice track of a song I am working on to sing in my band "Thieves". There are blank spaces where the guitar players, Lee and Alan, will play bottleneck solos in open E tunings.

The General Paralysis of Insanity

Plath wrote about her own high fever
Unfolding words in a backwards origami, conjuring
Hallucinatory ritual purification and sex from
Jagged syllables hooked out of oblivion.

Fevers break, as do hearts; meanwhile
Poor skeleton steps out
Dressed up in bad blood, bad brain, bad skin
And the deeds of another "ought".

It wasn't fever that killed her, but frenzied hopelessness
Redolent of rotting vegetation, heavy and sweet.
Nobody ever brings plants to hospitals
That can survive winter.

Poor skeleton.
One of these days
You will cast off your death
And be free.


Inspiration: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/02/there-are-almost-no-obituaries-for-sylvia-plath/273032/
I read Plath's entire body of work in my early teens; she's the Marilyn Monroe for the bluestocking set. I still re-read her poems for solace; in earlier poetry the rhymes are so joyful and her later poetry gives death an allure usually reserved for lust. She has such a gift and still worked so hard.

Tiny arts

From this weekend

Floating over a rainbow

https://soundcloud.com/dougmortenson/rainbow

A new tune my jazz band the Low Notes is working on. The Drums (not recorded yet) are double time, and the melody sort of drifts above a field of cymbals.

Ultimate Life Goal

I will belong to a League of Vengeful Witches.

We will manifest in the offices of those who send inappropriate emails to
(or hell, even corner to inflict inappropriate conversations on)
people they hold ambiguous-or-not authority over
regale them with veiled stories of exposure,
public humiliation,
legal action,
jail,
and social media backlash.
All that balderdash about one's reputation.

There will be nine of us,
from middle-aged to venerable,
astringent and
fierce-eyed,
well-versed in the pertinent statutes, laws and policies.

Not accusing nor aggressive
simply refreshing important information that
might have slipped one’s mind.

"Of course! Just making sure!" we'd conclude in unison
smiling like sharks.

Inspiration: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/opinion/sunday/she-wanted-to-do-her-research-he-wanted-to-talk-feelings.html

Chapter ten

This chapter, on the other hand, I'm pretty excited to write.

Distributed Carrying/Crisis Management

            There is an extension of this philosophy of sharing resources that goes beyond the material. As with any collaborative project, when we pile into a shared space together, we pool our resources, our minds, our passion, our emotions, and our needs.

            Wait—we pool our needs? Why would anyone want to stockpile those?

            Leo & Maegan were nervous about Mae entering her very demanding third year of med school with Petra barely a year old. Leo worried about essentially being a solo parent, especially with his own demanding career to maintain. When they shared this with the rest of the house, we responded by introducing the dinner-cooking rotation so at least that burden would be a bit lighter—and we ALL benefited enormously, gaining the most powerful element of our community from our disaster response. JFK once famously (and incorrectly) claimed that the Chinese character for ‘crisis’ is composed of the brush strokes for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity.’ While this etymology is false, it’s a compelling mistake, as it represents our experience—when we rally together to help carry someone who needs us, we make our home a better place to live. As we have weathered insanely busy periods for each of us, or depressive episodes that make us better at checking in on each other, or learned to be consistent in response to small children acting out, we become better humans, better parents, better housemates, and develop our ways of living together in ever-more supportive directions. This chapter is about the gift and the benefit of navigating each others’ stormy waters.

Chapter nine

This one may not be a whole chapter in its own right, in the end. I feel like I've said pretty much all I have to say on the topic in this paragraph--it's pretty straightforward. But there are probably some interesting stories to tell from the last six years that intersect with these examples of sharing, so maybe?

Pooled Resources

            Lest the preceding chapter has scared you away from ever thinking this is a good idea, let’s pause a moment and review the sheer, numerical, logistical benefits of this situation, beyond just the savings in rent. Ten people living together create a lot of mess, it’s true. But the cost of a regular housekeeping service, split ten ways, is suddenly vastly more affordable than it would have been in a single-family scenario. None of us have cleaned a toilet in possibly years. I don’t know about the rest, but that’s a chore I do not miss. Shared food makes groceries super cheap—and nothing ever goes to waste in the fridge. Darn, I need an allen wrench of a particular size—oh look, my housemate moved in with a comprehensive set that I can borrow! My car is in the shop but I need to get to work—oh good, my housemate who works from home will let me borrow hers. The kid is sleeping, and my husband and I haven’t had a date in weeks—hand the monitor to a housemate and slip out on a long, romantic walk, secure in the knowledge that should he wake up, he will be reassured by one of several adults that he knows and trusts. And most compelling of all—I cook once a week. I am served a home-cooked meal every other night. This benefit alone is worth its weight in gold (and saves about that much in restaurant and takeout bills.) But please don’t think that it’s all about money, either; in the act of dining together nightly, we affirm social bonds and begin to relate to each other as family. We are building sturdy and supportive community as we break bread together; we aren’t one big family, exactly, but we are always there for each other.

Any poem submitted must fit in the box below to be eligible for consideration

I zag my way into a place that was not in front of me,

with awful& apostrophe's misworse(placed.or)punctuation)
                 ,------------------------------------------,
the ah imp|roper parentheses? xo an ugly cade|nce
                 |                                                        |
  hiding     '|neath       elaborate       margins     |
 under the |meaning that is not meaning, a min|ute
                                                |              Wait what               |
learn the  |..rules, and then break them <-- - re|peat until dead    
  the text|                 box
                              |              Wait what           |

Is not a box unseen after all, but instead
a window, its windowsill & liminal space
Tree, page, sky, word, aye, thought

Now I'm here I look and where I started from
Is as alien as the bottom of the ocean
tomorrow
or health
The flowers are as out of place as the grammar
I was unheard and and and
and now that I am one of them
they just don't tell me what they think.

The end justifies the means
And I believe the presentation is the most important part
of a gift.
I am no Prometheus.
Your zig? x



Hurry up please its time
<!------>

Chapter seven

Managing Expectations (“managing for change”)

            As in any relationship, a realistic set of expectations about just how magical this is going to be will be helpful. The newly-married couple who expects no marital discontent will be disillusioned quickly, and their ability to weather unrest will determine whether or not they will manage to stay together. When more people are added to the mix, the chemistry gets more complex. Consider as a general rule of thumb that on average, a person might face a major life crisis once every ten years or so (give or take.) When you cohabit with ten people, that means that, on average, you’ll be living with someone in crisis pretty much every year—and that’s a best-case scenario, when everyone takes polite turns having difficulties. In the six years of AND we have alternately weathered the death of parents, divorce, custody battle, unplanned career change, depression and anxiety. Of course, we’ve had a lot of major life upgrades to share and celebrate too—marriages, births, promotions, graduations, new understandings, joy and fun. But a calm and uneventful home life it is not. Combine that with the realities of ten roommates, and know that, when you ask for a cleaner kitchen or a tidy playroom, things will improve—for a month or so. If you expect these setbacks and ripples, you can be more prepared for responding pro-socially and productively, toward a solution or a better relationship, without blowing your top. This chapter discusses realistic assessment of the difficulty of living with a lot of people, and the power of expecting (and thus calmly preparing for) difficulty.

Timeless Road

https://soundcloud.com/dougmortenson/timelessroad4?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook

Tracey Duke, the Bass player in my band (Thieves) wrote and performed this tune. I love the lyrics, and her intimate singing style. This is the first recording of her singing! I tried to give it an Allman Brothers feeling.

Bla-la-fla-da

New kind of post

So Molly and I are tossing around the idea of writing a book about co-housing and collaboration, which I can tell you all about the pitch for in a conversation if you want, but at the moment we're trying to write about the 14 chapters we've decided we need to have--a paragraph per chapter. I've been procrastinating on producing my 7 paragraphs (I've always struggled with writing about what I'm going to write, but I've also never written a whole book and some working up to it seems necessary and important) so I'm going to post a very rough draft of those paragraphs every day until I've produced seven. Here's one, currently chapter five in our outline, but I expect that to change (this one seems central enough that fifth position seems too late, as I compose this overview.) I'm terribly self-conscious about posting this rough draft of a thing I've never done and have imposter syndrome about being qualified to do. But I'm posting anyway because it will make me do it.

Communication (constant)

            It will surprise no one to hear about how important communication is in any kind of group dynamic system. But “Communication is important!” is an empty mantra unless there is a structure and a culture for proactive and even habitual information transfer. Life is busy; much as we intend to share our thoughts, often we’re just not home at the same time. Some months the kitchen is a huge mess and steam is coming out of Heater’s ears, or the kids have been figuring out that different adults have very different policies about loose glitter distribution throughout the house and are taking advantage of the inconsistency, or the plants that got dug up when the sewer pipe failed need to be replaced by something but everyone has a different and passionate opinion about what—and who’s going to pay for that, anyway? And we need to talk about it, and come to some kind of agreement. This chapter discusses principles of collaborative communication and decision-making, including thoughts about meetings and the meta-level of “deciding how to decide”: Majority rule? 100% consensus? A designated decision maker? Who has veto power? We also showcase some scenarios where communication strategy wasn’t consciously addressed and passive avoidance techniques prevailed to our ruin. Like when all of Molly’s jeans mysteriously vanished for three months.