Was I just attacked by a demon?

Today I tripped and fell on my way from the freezer where I keep my brownies; the brownie somehow dislodged from my hand and sailed across the living room, landing well out of reach. Immediately I began rebuking satan, and then set out to retreive the brownie and get back to my movie marathon.

But then, after I sat back down and fired up the DVD player I started feeling a strange presence in my mind. At first I thought it just might be that I ate too much brownie, but then I realized that I was actually hearing the audible sounds of potatoe chips calling me. Could this just be sugar overload / need salty cure? I felt so controlled by the tsunami of thoughts telling me devour salty potatoe chips that when interupted by the nasty sound of the phone ringing--not of my own might and power, this I now realize--I lunged from my easy chair and sprang 4 feet across the room to grab the stupid phone. Irritated and feeling completely overtaken by the potatoe chip voices I spat "WHAT!" into the receiver. After apologizing to my employer for the rude outburst I went for a walk to calm down, grab a beer from the liquor store, and regoup.

Do you think maybe I need to have my house blessed?

Pioneer

I realize how awful this template is but I feel powerless to change it. And frankly I don't give a shit that its ugly and outdated. Originally this blog was for to post photos, then my beloved cat Maui passed away and I stopped giving a shit about this stupid blog and my life ended that day anyway when Maui went away. On occassion I remember this old blog and just out of curiousity, I wonder if I can still compose a sentence.

Who are you? Why are you here? It feels very strange that anyone would actually read words floating in space written by a stranger in a strange land. We have no blood ties, no cyber ties, yet always we suffer dead disconnect. I will never know how things may have turned out. Our comments, like a wake perfectly content to know itself as dissipating behind a boat are the only clue life passed by over here.

I miss you and I don't know you. Would this be possible without ever expanding technology? In a split second, total darkness, dead technology...seperation. Seperation anxiety. The dead walk, nearly without coaxing from without, for their gods and Apples and Droids have cut the connection off clean through the throat; hyper hues of red warm goo, lights out. Corporations are not going to be able to repair humanity. We are all disconnecting. I would like to be the first to bare my soul and tell you that I am deeply frightened and alone.

harry bezalel

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waiting for Maui

gap, 2011

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Smoke

My reaction to younger people oblivious to the dangers of smoking is jealousy. Takes me back 15 years. Back when my only problem was getting out of the the gym and finding my empty pack pushed down between towles and sometimes not at all. Smoking after a work out...that first suck was the best suck. Sweaty, tired, high as a kite on endorphins, not a care in the world. Nothing mattered as long as I was lit up. Sweet rush of smoke after a hard sweat, I still remember. Colors were more vivid, wind was sticky or cool, and it carressed deep, oblivious places. Denial. My only friend. This went on for a few more years until one day death took an interest in me and we made a bargain; my lungs for his protection. But...Death is a big fat dick who never follows through on a bargain, which is really to say that he is a trustworthy killer, a hardcore fucker that Death, and so he entered and raped my lungs and crushed my spirit.

I finally got off the pavement and when I walked the 5 miles back to the bus station and I had mustered up the courage to look, it was then that I saw her face in my mirror; she was not the same kind, alabaster skinned innocent being, but a whore with a broken spirit and a broken face with shards of glass for teeth and she had made a pact with a Great Sadness.


For a few moments the jealousy teases me with threats of verbal violence and self loathing. I just laugh; the abstract theory of forgiveness, I don't fucking get it. Laughter, mockery, but only for a few minutes. I see the young kids sucking and sucking, and they see me through eyes of contempt. In a quick exchange we both know what we both don't want to know. There is no barrier between us and yet we're a million worlds of degradation apart.


I'm envious and I don't give a shit. They are merely my pain in younger packages. We'll all meet up one day.This time the walls will be the cement that bonds us together while we wait for medical care and hope.


I could edit but I like the brown shitty film Ambien knits together for such rare occasions. Blankets of comfort in the absense of cocoa.

The 10 things I want to do or see happen before I die

Wake up in a good mood, without the horrible fear


Learn Hebrew


See my mother experience grace and mercy so she can show me some


Trace my family ancestry. I'm told they come from Isreal on my father's side. I don't know if it's true. My family has secrets


See my brother grow up into the man I know he wants to be, so I can watch him be happy


Go camping again


Be a cyclist again


Be a painter again


Love people again


I know, that's only 9. I can always ask for 10 more things with the last 1.
Right?

I saw her in a petsmart. i think i love her.

should I, or shouldn't I ... should I, or shouldn't I.
Do it. NO, don't.
Yes, do it!
Do it! Do it! Do it!
NO, shut up.
Those eyes.
Leave me alone, self.
But those eyes. So green, so loving, so full of almond shape ...
SHOO.
But you would love her desperately.
GO AWAY.
Your boy cat loves girls. You've seen how he gets. It's so cute. His desperate little male whine. He's so sweet when he gets like that. So sweet.
He's neutered. So. LEAVE ME ALONE.
But...

no.

I'll be going back to see her next week. I hope she's already been adopted out.

oprah's show is ending? who. fucking. cares. this blog is about me.

Karen says: oprah so sad today


Brenda says: huh?


Karen says: oprah is sad
straight forward


Brenda says: what?
who cares if she's sad? i dont get it


Karen says: omg
the show!!!!
lol


Brenda says: i've never watched her show. she's on tv, right?


Karen says: brenda


Brenda says: what?


Karen says: how do i describe this


Brenda says: describe what, your sadness?


Karen says: noyou
lack of something

Brenda says: empathy?


Karen says: no no no
lack of social something


Brenda says: skills?


Karen says: no lol
you don't do any popular social stuff that people do
like watch tv
or anything like that


Brenda says: and you want a word for that?


Karen says: yes
like how do you not know that oprah is on tv
you have empathy (Sure I do. For cats)


Brenda says: i figured out she's on tv because every sheep in the world baa's at her command


Karen says:lol
cause she's awesome
what's the word or phrase i need
without you screaming at me


Brenda says: i don't scream at you; you interpret screams


Karen says: recluse
withdrawn from society; seeking solitude; "lived an unsocial reclusive life"


Brenda says: wow, someone Googled today

But in all fairness? and to keep it real ...

Karen says: my brother works for a phone company

Brenda says: and

Karen says: i asked him how to get a number for my website

he gave me a google invite

Brenda says: google invite?

Karen says: for the google phone number things

Brenda says: oh

Karen says: it forwards to your cell phone

i need it for a business line

Brenda says: oh right, that

heard about it

Karen says: maybe this is more exciting to me heh

Brenda says: thats cool as hell

Karen says: anyway, know what number i found?

Brenda says: no what

Karen says: 1-234-PETBOOT

Brenda says: omg

Karen says: is that incredible?

Brenda says: its breathtaking

karen

Karen says: i know

Brenda says: !

1234 petboot

Karen says: you can pick an area code or a word

so i typed "dogboot"

Brenda says: karen, the logic of that number is psychologically breathtaking

Karen says: and got like (25d)og-boot1

Brenda says: 1234 petboot

Karen says: i know it was really lucky

LOL you funny

Brenda says: thats brilliant

no im not being funny, its true

Karen says: i know

happened to be area code (234). it was the only petboot available

Brenda says: why do people always laugh when i'm being serious

Karen says: cause you are just funny anyway

Brenda says: omg that number

1234 petboot

im just tripping out on the psychology of the number alone

do i need mental help?

Karen says: a little, but that's ok

Brenda says: well, i think you should let me explain why i think that number is the best thing you've scored in ages

Karen says: k

Brenda says: ok, so when i read that number i see a set of commands. 1 leads to 2 leads to 3 leads to 4; there can be no doubt that those numbers belong in that sequence. then it's followed by petboots - as if "pet boot" follows a logical progression.

it's like, there can be no argument against buying your dog boots; not in my mind anyway. i've already bought 10 pair and i don't even have a dog

ok, you think i'm nuts enough already.

Karen says: it's fine

i won't lol (No, you think I'm nuts and your not laughing is just a consolation prize I have to accept in leui of your taking me seriously. But I can take it ...)

Brenda says: but its true tho, no? i mean about the number

Karen says: phone, brb

posted dec 10 or 11th, 2009

bye bye city. sort of.

I'm leaving the city. Sort of. I think sort of means that the city is close enough that I can get to it without a long commute...but far enough away from it to probably save my life. Or someones. People are driving me crazy. My current landord, a giant corporation operated onsite by a diminutive little cunt, is driving me crazy. If I don't leave soon I am going to sue her and them and make sure several people lose their jobs. Is that what I was put on the planet to do? Sue stupid people - that's what I've always dreamt of doing...combating unrepentant morons while my creative talents slink away into obscurity and then finish me off by strangulation.

The planes buzzing by every 10 minutes or so are driving me absolutely crazy. If I laid outside on my back just outside my front door I would almost even be able to read the model and make of each plane. Sometimes I sit around on the ugly chair near the window with the ugly view and I drift off to imagine the people in those planes. They cruise above me a mere thousand feet above and they are all pointing down at me screaming get out of the city. Other times I sit around and wonder what I might really do if one of those hunks of metal just fell to the earth. Would I survive? What would I try saving? What if I was really just one of those people who live their entire lives based on a moral character only in theory, one they've invented out of wishful thinking and lies...but then when faced with a real life disaster they panic and forget to snatch their animal up because that is really who they are after all.

I could kill someone. Sometimes I write little stories in my head wherein I plot my upstairs nieghbor's boyfriend's fall down the cement stairs. More so lately than ever I fight this urge to smack someone. People in Southern California cities are insensitive, desensitized, crazy and greedy and callous. My resident apartment complex manager is crazy and abusive. She chain smokes and she nearly always smells like an ashtray. Her tiny little office smells like an ashtray. The area around her unit smells like an ashtray. I should really just have more compassion for her as she begins showing signs of emphysema and cigarette related malaise. Shouldn't I? Isn't that what normal, sane people do? They have compassion...right? She's probably just jealous because I get to stay at home all day in my pajamas, and if I want to-I could put on real clothes if I wanted to-and still pay the rent, on time, every month...with more than some left over enough to drive back and forth past her tiny little office, shopping bags filled with shopping binges busting out my car windows. I'm pretty sure that nothing would make her happier than seeing me late on rent so she could stiff me with a lease clause. I have regretted every last dime I've spent on this stupid piece of shit fucking box. My language has detoriated into fuck this fuck that get out of my fucking way you fucking moron before I peel the skin from your body with a nail file; then a quick rev on the gas pedal to make sure my point is taken. The only good thing that came out of allowing myself to be raped and pillaged every 1st of the month while a chain smoking troll coughed up only verbal acknowledgement as my receipt is that these walls gave home to a shelter cat I named Gabriel Boojal Scraggsworth. He needed me. I needed him. When I say his name it brings me joy.

My mind races constantly moreso now than ever. The Indy 500 lives inside my head. So I talk to myself a lot more and brain impulses commandeer my body, literally, as the thoughts pound my skull. But, don't concern yourself with that chainsmoking power hungry troll because you know, she's going to end up smoking herself right off the planet; good, she deserves it; no stop, focus on something positive; I need coffee; that fucking cunt; what if I pour dish detergent in the jacuzzi, would that make you feel better; illegal and juvinile, totally non productuve and uncreative; I wonder which makes better suds, Dawn or Joy; Oooh, buy more movies on amazon; people can see the scars on my wrists; man a lemon muffin fucking sounds good; they can see them; order pillow online; fucking cunt; I'm proud of you for fighting for your life; Crimes of Passion: She Woke Up Pregnant...what the fuck movie title is that? get up go order it now; shit, the dishes; go for a walk. Get out, get out, get out of the city. You won't have any chain smoking neighbors anymore. No more neighbors above you fucking all night and then walking by your front window nearly shirtless with stupid smirks on their faces. No more 3 day covenant or quit's because you left a pair of flip flops out on your patio again, or attempted to ignore the morons above you by actually being proactive and erecting a japanese shade to keep them from peering needlessly. No more city celebrations blaring well past midnight. No more walking outside and finding 15 young boys partying in the jacuzzi.

There are about 300 people living in that canyon. They're very friendly as if they're on something. This should delight me, but for some reason it scares me. I would probably die and go straight to heaven if I found out that people can really be that happy without being on drugs. Or I could just accept them as is and let them be themselves and accept that I'm close enough to being an addict as it gets without really...no, I'm close enough and the thought of being at peace horrifies me.

Last night the smell of dog and horse and cow lingered. I could have showered it off but I couldn't focus long enough to bother. Or maybe the lingering smells reminded me of the fear I feel and I froze. I am scared shitless. What am I doing? My "bathtub" is going to be a doggy tub. No really. It's a tub used to bathe large dogs. There is no tile on the bathroom floor and the water pressure will never be enough to get my hair clean. The disorentation from the elevation kept me teetering back and forth while I was viewing the place. I think I nearly fell down those steps a few times. My rental is on the side of a mountain, not a flattened and paved parcel with convenient access to a comfortably appointed "cottage" - but a shack on the side of a mountain that looks more like Grissly Adam's vacation lodge.

I have heard almost every reason from every person in my life why I should stay in the city. Too dark at night. Too many unknowns. Too much isolation. Howling things and spiders. Steps too steep. Our mother's might fall down...you need to build a railing for everyone to be able to get inside. It's too dangerous. What if someone comes by at night and rapes you?

When I was 16 my mother called the police because a "blonde colored dog" was running up and down our street. I came home and walked in and there was my mom, hysterical on the phone telling the police officer that it was only a matter of minutes more before she couldn't bare any longer the thought of this blonde dog. "Yes! he is running up and down the street and I am afraid he might enter the house and get upstairs and maul my son. What if this stray dog kills him...or worse. He's sick and in bed with something and only 12 and defenseless against a big dog. Please come at once"

I have a few painful memories of my mothers dramatics...but none so telling of my future now, or then, as my having to run around for 10 minutes cleaning up the wine bottles so that the officer wouldn't think my mom was a crazy lunatic drunk. The most interesting thing about my mother is that her dramatics were never a result of alcohol at all; she was eccentric and that tore her apart because it wasn't allowed if you're raising two children alone. There was no place for fancy or frolic.

I have to get out of the city. The walls are closing in and I need to try to save myself. If there is an earthquake and my little shack falls off the side of the mountain then I am going to die brave and happy, knowing I did everything possible to save myself from myself. I am going to sit in the dark with a candle and write to the sound of my heartbeat. I am going to watch horror movies and let myself be scared, and then wake up and be OK. I am going to wrestle with spiders and snakes and mountain lions and horse shit and dog shit and my shit. I am going to be dirty a lot and roll around in the dirt. I am going to carve out something in the side of the mountain, maybe my name, I don't know, I haven't gotten that far. All I know is that my life is at stake and I plan on keeping my phone off the hook for as long as I want.

Photos of the shack

sep 15 2009. i know that for sure

It's inevitable ...

like mother, like daughter

posted july 31 2009