on looking over

i remember when/how you {could open nearly everything i write}. today i prefer to begin with “i am hopeful that”, “today it seems”, “the challenge of”, “i love when you/it/they”, or “when i see you next”. i fancy myself someone who prefers a challenge over the comfort of what has past.
—
alas, i remember when you put a penny near the stylus of the record player to offset an uneven end-table. when you made chili with oranges to brighten the vegetable flavors, and how it did. you sat with me and cried after telling me that i “only see the world as wrong and broken”. when you made a baclava for six of the longest hours. i remember Greece, and the “maybe” of Canada. i remember a sense of longing to be more when you didn’t wash you clothes for years.  i remember loving you the way it feels to finally vomit and take my life back from fear. i remember when we kissed in front of your girlfriend, who later never mentioned it. i remember the political spectrum became a circle and we only wanted to know where the wick of the thing was kept. i remember loads of cussing and dirt and how much we needed all of it then.  i remember you having sex with partners of friends while i had sex with your X. drinking as we drove to the desert . we smoked weed and went to the halloween party with far too many people. i remember how you drove with two tires in the inside ditch. i remember what they thought when we all slept on the floor together. i remember driving 3 hours one way to see you. the day before you moved away they called us communists for reasons they couldn’t understand. i remember the conversations about ant and insect philosophies as they disappeared into the concrete. i remember the lasagna/Elvis Costello/smell the day i moved in with you and your partner, down south. i remember how big it felt to love you because i love you something like that right now.
—
maybe remembering is as much of a keystone as it is a crutch. maybe it just feels good today.

philosophy is confusing because it's real

i am in a morning writing sit at the moment, and had a thought i wanted to share. it's one of those that feels as obvious as it does complex and impossible.  

though 1: dying is inevitable, and therefore not worth a great deal of attention. without the ability to affect levels of change on something there is less of a need to put much energy into it. this is all part of the base for existentialism, yes? philosophers were concerned with inevitable truths and religious categorizations of morals. folks who ended up "existentialist philosophers" were at first simply saying that some things are inevitable, and therefore not asking us to give them too much attention. this has always been my understanding, and largely i agree with it. death and dying are largely for metaphor, and less for dwelling.   

thought 2: if an ache, or some sort of suffering, is as necessary in a human experience -- should the ache warrant as much attention as death? or should it warrant all of the attention, as a primary driver and influencer and motivator? or none? or some? 

some - feels right today. 

none - feels impossible.

all - feels like what it wants, if my ache experiences desire.

all of this is to say that i am trying (again) to have a better relationship with my ache, and possibly give it a little less control when it becomes entirely tyranical. 

a letter to anyone and everyone

i wonder how it feels to be a woman today, knowing that the reproductive rights and sexual health you have needed will soon be revoked and diminished. knowing that the hyper-rich and privileged man who the US electoral college voted for has admitted to sexually assaulting/raping women. knowing that your children will not have reproductive health centers or education. how might that feel? 

i wonder how it feels to be a latin American person today, or to look like you might be? knowing that millions of your fellow citizens elected a person who wants to kick you out of the US and build a wall to keep you out. knowing that you have worked as hard as the immigrant grandparents of the people who want to see that wall erected. knowing you are not wanted.

i wonder what it feels like to be Muslim, or to follow any religious doctrine other than Christianity today? knowing that your coworkers and neighbors want you removed from the US, for fear that you could align with some of the worst people in the world -- based on the actions of a few people you truly abhor. knowing that you are viewed as a terrorist who needs to be dealt with, rather than a person who loves people and simply believes in a different god of Abraham. 

i wonder what it feels like to be a lot of people in a variety of groups today who are not white privileged males, and how the future now looks. i wonder most how it feels to be a trump voter today. to feel some responsibility for that the fascist who is about to make the US more openly hateful and more directly xenophobic than it has been since the Native American holocaust. to know that you are partly responsible for mass suffering across the globe, at the hands of someone who's only experience with power is in his oft failing corporations.   

1. even Bush Jr didn't vote for him. 

2. trump lost the popular vote. this is in no way a democracy.   

i feel sorry for everyone who has to live in the U.S.. it is a sad place. i feel very fortunate to be leaving, and i hope my daughter never has to live here. 

wish i could love you

like a lead blanket you enter my space and make movement arduous.
like fall and winter you enter my time and always i forgot you were coming, though i knew you would.
show up, sit on my throat, dig yourself into my smallest muscles, and adjust pressure as you wish.
i wish once i could prepare for you, like a monthly menstruation i don't want more than i can relieve. similarly, you come for three weeks -- and give me one off to recuperate and anticipate.
i would cancel things and draw a taught bath in the fall through spring. open the windows and smell health. maybe some of the leaves could come with me.
in the summer you can be burnt out of place occasionally. off your rocker and out of time. i get back at you a bit in those few fleeting months.
you make my life a schedule i can't pay taxes to.
like ten feet of ocean above, you make it hard to believe in my own ability. any able.
like twenty four hours. three inches of rain. too many drinks to count. internal flames sound a jester's act.
sometimes i wish you would take a vacation, and go enjoy time with someone who appreciates you. let me have time with my loved ones. let me take deep breaths without needing them.
sometimes i wish i loved you. then maybe we could be together more thoughtfully, in a way where i would be allowed a say.
like a thousand rifles pointed at my body, i want to give up.
like everyone is is watching and cares, i can't say that aloud.
silently yours,
me

throwing porcelain plates at parked cars

bits of me needed a tangible thing to put into my bag, hold between thumb and longer fingers, and ears to be dogged.
my skin wanted to have pages that could collect the smells of places i have been for long enough, and stain with my oil and fluid.
some certain nerves wanted to those same paged to be burnable, tearable, chewable, and to occasionally collect my tears. i hope that some day they all would burn with a building, or that i would light them myself. occasionally i have.
i needed the pages of everything i wrote to have properties beyond what was written in them.
my ego may have wanted them to be found in the future, for a posthumous romp.
or defenestrated whimsically.

i think all of me was motivated to write, read, and collect thoughts in a way that made loads of cultural sense, and fit well with an identity that i liked, but no longer makes sense for my real lived experience. i've gone through various iterations of what i want my creative life to feel and look like. these are deeply integrated pieces of the overall questions of living for me. i am happy to admit that aesthetic and tactile elements are as important to me as any functional ones.
replacing journals, pencils/quills, matchbooks, and notepads with keyboards and touch-screens has been a slow and thoughtful process.

• precontemplation: i love everything about paper cuts, and the ways coffee stains mashed paper. i take pride in the piles of disorganized notes that make up my written "outline". ink stains are integral inspiration. 
• contemplation: i enjoy reading the blogs my friends have put together, and i can appreciate how we are able to share and discuss their written work. i love that otehr folks are able to read their creative outlets, and share thoguhts on the content. i might one day have a blog...but what would i call it. 
• determination: found a name for this thing by wondering what might be the heaviest thign someone has ever tried to balance on their head? maybe a pieno? = pianohat!
• action: start dumping all new poetry into this digital thingy. sometimes writing poems and song lyrics on paper and posting a photo of them. share pieces with a few friends who write things i like. 
• maintenance: delete posts like mad, and hate on the lack of smell/sound/taste/touch in the digital space. stop reading other blogs and return to the pages, the magazines, the beer coasters. bobble back and forth. take more pictures of written thigns to post occasionally.  
• termination: pack the bag with books, notebooks, pens, pencils, and a laptop, and head off to the cafe. 

the smell of tactile material records is one of my favorite, and the adaptability and convenience of typing, checking, editing, locating/relocating, and sharing my creative work has made a space for the digital device in my life. most of all, i enjoy having less stuff to haul around as i travel the world. a meaningful appreciation for pens and papers certainly endured, and i will likely always carry both wherever along for the battery outages and diagram illustrations. i have to remind myself, these are not the verbs that happened in the past and are finished. they happened and are ongoing. 

   

what seasons know about telling stories of shared motion

leaves race cars around corners, like "pow" and "zam" bars trace comic book characters to share their majesty. divinity. celebrity.

life has action marks in fall.

leaves chase our human feet, bicycle tires, curbs, and each other.

tree detritus adds sound and motion to so many things we could have appreciated differently, all summer.

leaves become smaller as they spin, breaking into dust bits and bench slats. fragments fill in holes that will fill in further. spiders shelter for seasons in the stuck foliage.

there is very little outside of this photograph, because leaves fill outside and inside everything.

form the size that feels good on bare feet to the one that lets rivers show their speed, broken bits make room for translation. energy painted by absentee brushes, like lighting everything that ever made me look up.           

like new parts turning yellow, and then green throughout,

it is felt when parts shift to yellow, then orange/red/tawney, then variations of brown.

plants version of dark. absence of life. of growing.

time for a long cool rest.

autumn is the season to allow our shoulders to show. our armature.

to be identified nakedly.

to allow those with the skills carry the weight of oxygen.

to hold the soil still against a shifting skin.

to feed the fowl, and clothe every last insect for the rain.

like a look under water, we see the heron's rook for the fortress it is.

holes are dug, and rots are fed through ancient mushrooms' mastery.

all of this motion of perennial impermanence reminds the city kid of a country drive.

recalls the books of a childhood in basement boxes, beside records that will dust off for coffee.

patterns allow for ache and joy as inhale and exhale.

what we forget is important, as the door is slowly closing.

gnikrapon

Now

Often

People 

Are 

Reverted to

Kicking 

In

Numbered

Greatness

off to uni

after a long night of nothing resembling sleep, i sent my 9 year old off to college today.
maybe she is off to peruse an acting or ship welding gig. i am not clear on the details, and i expect that those bits will shift.

her mom and i split up about 9 years ago, give or take numerical confusion on my part, and we have been cordially co-parenting since. we have had a host of friends, partners, and parents holding the corners of the the blanket up while we arm wrestled our way through college and several unlikable non-careers/wage-shits. my current partner held the whole blanket, on my end, while i was falling in a sea of chewed up cud, for about a year. all of this is to say, she has a strong community.  

today she is off with her mom to explore some of the world through a Workaway program wherein her mom will work for families in trade for room/food while she hangs out and does some online school work. they plan to explore Ireland, England, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, and possibly France, before heading to Nicaragua and beyond in Central America to make their way north through Mexico to Oregon. currently Penelope aims to attend 5th grade in Portland with many of her previous classmates, and her mom to find remote work that will allow her to afford to live in the city packed full of paid software transplants. my belief and hope for both of them is that all trajectory will morph into some synthesis of what they learned from the hallways of other peoples' homes. the way we all learn to use forks. the ways we sometimes learn and don't have to acknowledge. i hope it feels good.

this trip will hopefully provide Penelope with an array or lenses to see the world, and her life through. it my allow for a gyroscope with more color than any of her blanket holders ever knew. it may change her life for the better forever. it will handily be of more educational value than our public school system could manage in the same time. i am happy that her mom is giving this to her, and i am happy that she is excited for the adventure. i wish i was coming along.

on my end, my partner and i are moving to Italy in a couple months, where we will meet up with them for their stay in the boot. herein lies the "9 year old to college" piece of this narrative. today means more than simply watching my daughter and her mom take off on a year+ long world tour. this day marks the beginning of a new way of relating to and showing up for my daughter. from this day forward i may never again be able to talk to or see her any time i/she like. she may never choose to study in Europe, or come for more than a summer visit. she may feel ditched. i sincerely hope not. i hope she feels like i am opening up her platter of opportunities for experiencing life. i hope she takes advantage of options. i hope fear, guilt, and obligation leave her alone to make her decisions thoughtfully.

form my side of the sea this is a day i feel lost in. today started weeks ago, and may continue to march up some steps toward next month. the weight of change is a heavy one now, and i am unsure of its direction. i rarely shy from ambiguity

grace land

when you crawl up on the lawn-like back of a kodiak in the fall and it saunters a few steps, kneels down to its bulbous belly, and falls deep asleep. that is what Paul Simon's voice feels like. 

notes on amory

poly/open/normal/animal/wft you wanna call it:

i can exist in a monogamous relationship if the partner i choose to be with needs that. i do not need every piece of my life to work in the ways that make the most sense all if the time. I am mostly an anarchist living in a capitalist corporatocracy after all. cognitive dissonance has become a native plant in my forest.

& now, some notes on what i appreciate about open relationships. none of these elements negate my insecurities, nor immunize me from failure in any way, but they feel true today. some of these are not entirely thought out, nor tested for accuracy, but they all made enough sense to type.

as i often prefer, i will continue to use "i" statements whenever possible, rather than allowing the assumption that anyone else experiences the world precisely the way i do.

• i simply don’t believe in monogamy. it does not describe a natural way for nearly any animal to exist, and the way humans do it is particularly constructed and limiting. to be more descriptive, the massive amount of power and importance placed on this oft-presumed fidelity is neither reasonable nor honest. if i were to attempt the level of perfection that some monogamists expect, i can only fail. never thinking of another person as sexually attractive is not possible for a large number of people. myself included.    
• many people are all love with other people all of the time, or often. why would i want to limit that love to certain types of physical interaction, while not limiting the emotional interaction?
• if monogamous couples could limit emotional connection between their partners and other people, should they? what allows for the difference between emotional and physical limitation/control (folks in favor of it might call it something else, like abstention), and should i/we/they allow for it?
• with all of the terrible ways humans control one another, i am not interested in supporting ones that feel unnecessary and unnatural. particularly those that are not regulated by secular-law, and therefore are much easier to explore and deconstruct/resist/disobey.
• deconstructing power is important for me. in any and all ways possible. i prefer to live by rules made by myself and people i respect. i prefer those rules place power in a horizontal orientation, and that they are decided on via all affected parties. (if these were in order, this one should be closer to the top)
• to say for certain, we all only have one life to live and i have no interest in limiting a partner’s experiences in their life. i would prefer that partners gain the experiences that help make their life make sense, and feel as good and full as possible.
• i can not be all things to all people. a partner and I will grow and change, and trying to do that in a way that works together will take work. i do not believe that i will always be the only person a partner will want to sleep with, nor that I can fulfill all of the sexual desires they may have or develop. other folks know more than I do, have different bodies/spirits/minds, and have different skills.
• as partners we may want to learn from or experience a sexual interaction that the other is not interested in. we may also want to watch. we may want to hear/share about it later, or see a video. we may prefer not to know about what is shared with other people at all. this is all to be decided, and likely to evolve with time. i don’t ask a partner to get all of their emotional needs met by me, nor physical. this includes sex.
• despite the possibility of jealousy, i believe that an open relationship is more honest because it shows love beyond ownership. it allows partners to find deeper connections because they are bound by fewer social contracts.
• it can challenge us as partners to remain interested and/or interesting/engaged, and can help to foster/maintain kindness. with fewer social contracts we have to remain the positive and supportive force in one another’s lives.
• for reasons similar to why i would prefer not to marry a partner, nonmonogamous relationships take the social and political bonds out of a relationship. the only thing holding it together is the love that the partners have for one another, in all of the ways that love will change, tide,  and hopefully grow.
• if either/any of us wants to be with someone else and seeks out another partner through our open relationship there is room for a dialogue about what that means for us. in my experiences with monogamous relationship this kind of things seems like it would only look like a failure of the relationship, rather than an opportunity for partners to explore life with other people while loving each other.   
• monogamy can occasionally promote cheating and lying because there is often no room to even discuss how anyone feels toward other people. silencing feelings can create resentment and drive me/partners to behave in ways other than they otherwise/naturally would.     
• i like to be challenged by my relationships with people, and open relationships have proven emotionally challenging in the past. this creates a longer and more dialectical process throughout the relationship that i feel keeps me engaged on a level that i need to be.

remembering something new (have i used this title?)

a friend recently asked what this means to me. this was my reply, today.

Q: "Remember something new" - where does this come from and what does this mean to you? I like the idea of it."           

it came as a way to describe the feeling that i was recalling something, specific or broad, and that the memory felt specifically new/unique or different from the original. 

it is a refreshing feeling of things that i once knew to be true, or memories i hold onto, that i now understand in refined or deconstructed ways. those new ways can often be a mix of what i knew and what  learned. sometimes they are a mix of what i knew and what i think i knew. on other occasions they are a combination all to themselves. illusive. 

friendly queries

to your query: "*Does having someone read what you write influence or impact the value you derive from it? 

this seems a fantastic question to ask of value, particularly because i sometimes sense a value in things through the way other people know those things. i think the true answer for me is mixed and supplanted in some ways. as it relates to the question from your original email, value seems like a term used to lift up the edge of what makes things feel good and worth doing in life. 

with that intent/definition i sense a meaningful amount of value in both shared and hidden/kept works i have written. 

if i drew a venn diagram of my "felt sense" of writing, split between two bubbles "shared" and "kept" works, the overlapping bit would be a warm color (likely tawny) representing what it means to me to purely write (regardless of audience). 

the "shared" bubble would be more orange, hot with tinged anxiety and excitement. i enjoy writing for and with other people, and it provides a different feeling of release and therapy that i get from writing only for myself. the joy i find in writing for an audience of one, or anyone, also greatly depends on the audience. i prefer to write for/to people i love. it's lucky i love a lot of people. more than i know. 

the "kept" bubble in this (only currently-dichotomous) venn would be the colors of a deciduous forest from across a small valley. some of the photosynthesizing hues left behind, many new stages of dying and repurposing-light happening in a spectrum from gold to mud. 

writing for myself is like standing in the forest alone. standing far enough from anything human that the only frightening thing to see would likely be a person. or a reflection. 

when i am my audience i get to be in the forest, and even smell it sometimes. this is how i make sense of the things i can not find answers for, and the ache that keeps me asking questions. i think some folks can find a similar sense through spirituality. 

skipping on a railing

i am on a ship that is moving faster than i can see. 

running along the hand railing, i know i will eventually have to jump off the back of the boat when it comes. 

i don't know how large or long the ship is, or if the railing reaches all the way to the rear. 

i do not want off the boat and never have. i have taken this fact for granted. i have been a poor shipmate for certain. 

don't know if i can still swim, do not have a life jacket, have no idea where land might be, no concept of the predators that wait to feed as i float, and no means of building my own boat. 

today all that i know is the feeling that the boat has sped up, considerably.  

i can not converse with the captain to drop anchor, as there are others who have places to go. 

 

endur-bro is color coded

cycling, like many sports, is heavily weighed down by silly marketing and sham-tech intended to cajole consumers in the the newest/fastest/lightest/largest thing that will simultaneously brush their teeth while doing their taxes.

my mind first turns to the current craze around "gravel bikes". i am not the first to say it, but i grew up riding gravel roads because that's what we had, on mountain bikes -- same justification. the cycling industry, particularly un the u.s.a., has done an amazing job of making riders think that their cyclocross, road, or mountain bikes are not appropriate for local grand fondos or gravel grinders (aka road group rides). with an impressive wave of the capitalist wand there is now another branch of the industry packing garages across tan suburban divisions in every state. blek!

now to the point. ENDURO! at the outset i saw this genre as another attempt to sell bikes to people who have to much money, while creating a more chill way to race those bikes.
basically DH racing, without the necessity of a chairlift: roll along chatting with friends until you race your ass of on the descents.
it seemed like good old mountain biking, but people were/are paying a LOAD of money for it.
then i tried to think through the positive bits of enduro's new popularity, and came up with several. here they is, in no particular order.

• bikes are becoming more fun to ride, with slacker head tubes for fun descending, and shiploads of R&D going into making rear suspension work well on climbs, under breaking, for light and heavy riders, as well as on rock plunging DH tracks. 
• xc bikes are also moving in the more fun "trail direction" and are making mountain biking more accessible for folks who want to learn to ride. yes you can ride/race many of the same trails on a rigid single speed, and you will likely learn some skills that you would not on a squishy bike, but not everyone wants to do everything the hardest way possible. why not make bikes that are fun for everyone, and the only buriers are guts, skills, time, comfort, humility, and a willingness of other wonderful to teach new ways to ride things. 
• trails can be built with more technical features because bikes are more capable of handling the terrain. we don't have to smooth out every bump if our bikes and skills can both grow to deal with larger challenges. 
• the aesthetic side of dirt bikes and gear are moving away from lycra and eating disorders and moving toward comfort and protection. though there are folks who will trash talk their friends who show up with the wrong flannel pattern for a fall trail ride, many riders i have run into are stoked to ride in clothes that they might wear off the bike and feel good about their bodies therein. also, anyone who knows me would know that i am stoked to color match my digs and wear colors that mostly look like bubblegum ice-cream form the 1980's. All kinda rainbow! 
• i feel that there are a lot of other salient positive elements that the enduro genre has added to trail riding, and these are the few that initially came to mind when i asked myself "what does enduro have to offer?".         

desert thoughts on envy: biblically

i hope this message finds you feeling more so the the way you want
to than the last message may have. -me

working toward trust is not a thing i can see steps or an end to. possibly trust is a process, and not an end or goal. 
i recently emptied the trust kitty of my most supportive and loving friend, and i am learning how to fill it back up. 
i think there are ways, other than trust, that we create connection with people, but that does not negate the importance of this feeling that i know someone is sharing honesty honestly. 

envy and or jealousy are like death in some ways. 
they are inevitable, and spending energy on them allows them to add fear to my life. feeding jealousy with details and dwelling feels like a good way to let shitty feelings win. sitting with jealousy, alone in a windowed room, gives power to a feeling that neither serves me nor has anything to teach. in 35 years of thinking and feeling i have only learned to despise jealousy, and to sit painfully with it as i hope it will fade.   

the idea that someone could not experience jealousy is not real to me, though i am not herein attempting to negate another's feelings. rather than denying jealousy, i prefer to starve it of my energy or time whenever possible. 

the native narrative of feeding the wolves within us feels useful for this. i want to let the envious or jealous lupo die off any time it come around.  

June 6th

spring: 

i am still dealing with the car key i lost in the woods, 
trying to prep other people's stuff for a trip, 
lost my wallet/money/ID yesterday, 
had a conversation with a coparent about parental rights that felt horrifying, 
got some really hard news from Johannes about the farm, 
and spilled a big plate of sour scalding milk on two of my best friends' skin

can i ever know the order :?:

the trickiness of interview inquiry and where it got us (us = me).




how :?: potentially as invasive as why, this one i reserve for instances of necessary knowledge. the narrative we can recall walks with a single broken stiletto and forgets in the morning. how is released promptly as the safety committee threatens a walk through, and retreats to its scabbard in similar fashion. its hip joints rutty, teeth warn flat, and still it can catch a queried thinker with gnash and stammer. inside one stiletto heal sleeps a switchblade, no one recalls which foot it belonged to.

how are you?




what :?: the generalized other of narrative, what holds hands with where on a swing constructed by who with nails rescued from its childhood treefort. what is the meaning of anything, and often nothing at all. if a water-colorist fancies a soft breeze from the north in "Landscape Willow with Backyard Swing", what is there to show the pale underside of every third and fifth leaf.

what would you never do for your lover?




where? holding my heart like the necessary muscle it is, where draws a picture of the patio corner meeting the sliding glass door, in the back yard of a child's first home in rural Japan, where who and how played. befriending in the country is sometimes hard. former child makes hands at boat repair in the city now, and where brings vodka to the evening's Arnold Palmer.

where did these stains come from?




who? beyond demographics who is afrolic with potentiality. who is better at hiding than any of its siblings and knows all the best tricks, like backwards-alphabets and cusswords in literary languages. who smokes what it can scrape together until it is time to get in the station wagon and disappear. occasionally, who waits around the corner that i didn't see coming and, rounding in tandem, slams body to my body abruptly.

who wrote this hand written letter?




why? stop. incarcerating power happens in three letters that many languages either omit or make mouthed silence. why needs no sharpened shank or oxide coated steel pick to escape. why eats the cake, frees the knife form its own belly, and forgets the truth before boarding a plane. why knows that some institutions aim to be trusted, and truly expects that no one trust a thought it could share. why is rewritten Soviet histories.

why are there only three knives in the drawer?            

commemorative mugs for being human, rather than another animal

"i think they (the disembodies other) should only give allergies to the villains in Jane Austin novels and telenovelas. the rest of us should get coupons for free hair cuts and commemorative mugs for playing. this is my official opinion" -K.W.

the mug might work like a mood ring, becoming what the receiver feels is right once they handle it. the mug could be the larger piece of something you have always carried around, never quite sure what it was. possibly there is an oligarchically selected committee that votes on the most thoughtful and nostalgic mug shape and design. sentience feels difficult sometimes, and since humans sometimes assume we are the only animals that have it as a sense of the world we will need quite a proportionate mug.

to be accounted for: size, aesthetic, magical prowess, colorway, relevant incantations, refill quota, lip interaction, grip, buoyancy, packaging (this is an additional list), transparency, ability to remind the owner of the life spent earning it, durability, willingness to say "you did the best you could", shareability, x-ray-ability, proper storage techniques (a further additional list), insulative property, pickle capacity, and a host of less urgent variables.

and when should the mug be presented? post retirement from a work-thing seems pedestrian, to allow time to enjoy it before you (the royal you) find - out - if - you - were - right.
attaching the mug to employment could be painful for some.
appearing casually like the second circle in Silverstein's "The Missing Piece Meets The Big O" may allow for a successful integration. the mug might appear along side you when you are being your own authentic and beautiful self, feeling need for nothing. the mug earns love, and an appropriate amount of affectionate ridicule moving forward.

if you (royal) do not have hair, do you get coupons for cranial massage?

dictionary

svegliettadellatetta: when it feels like someone is looking at you fondly, but they are looking at someone just past you. also applies when that person is on the other side of the glass and is peering at their own image. 

parting glass, take one

can taking on water count as sinking, or is it necessary for a sinking thing to be growing less visible?

the place i work may not be a sinking ship, but one made bouant by deeply dedicated fingers stuck in holes that came there by way of external desire. the hole punchers thought they were dealing with a fortress rather than a sea vessel, and likely would not have expected buoyancy had they known. the hole pluggers, their fingers weary and tiring from the pressure of what might become sinking, look in at one another with the hope that someone has learned to free themselves long enough to see if there is a helm and rudder to the wave-tossed wondering hull they call home.

those we work for, our clients or youth, are not privy to the possibly-sinking nature of the boat. some of them found us late at night and climbed quietly on board. some were brought our way while hitching rides with pirates. others were floating along, tired from trying to learn to swim, and hopeful that we could teach something about swimming or fishing or boats. many youth would love a handshake or hug, if ever any of the hole pluggers could free all five fingers to extend. instead youth replace those hands with chemicals and things that feel like what they think a hug might. for this behavior youth are asked to keep swimming. our porous boat has little tolerance for measures beyond hole plugging.

some of us hole pluggers manage ways to love the holes, or at least love the painful fingers they create. many of us have to pull our digits free and swim with hope for a solid hull. no mention of the pain our fingers will remember, and the soon-plugged-holes forget. all of us love some of the people we work for, and may wish we loved the holes or that there were a helm. no space to mention the pain our hearts will remember, or ask who still just wants a hug. i do.

schools of youth who continue to swim will light-on panopticons of all shape and size to rest. those hidden towers shape like universities, shift leads, doctors, ministers, wardens, or community college recruiters. shift from no one freely offering a hug, to hugs as paid interaction. learning to swim is hard.

were it my choice, i would be a camp fire

 the best ways i know time passing: 
time in the forest, in the sun, in warm oceans, in cafes without english, in college classes, with particular friends, in breath gulping workouts, first entering an unfamiliar library, cooking meals with or for loved people, anonymously watching life happen, when gravity feels less persistent, without a deadline, crammed with the smell of newly blossomed plants, free of leaders and genuflectors alike, with tastes that remember, among animals that make it feel like there is more blood, in quiet, when the ache shows me what it wants or what i want, when power happens on all sides the same, when birds can be seen or heard, when buildings are too far away, when it is too dirty for you and just right for me, near the desert, when i get scared, while the duff is drying, when rivers are louder than thinking, as friends are asleep at camp, when fires remind me of love, when music reminds me that people can be really good, looking at art that makes my thoughts reverse, hearing rocks clang together, feeling sex in every cell, drinking lovingly brewed coffee, without too many clouds, when i have given everything i can and want to give more, hugging, building things with tools i don't yet understand, writing, sitting in trees, recognizing contributions, learning about species i don't yet understand, driving on ice, being hungry, listening in a open plaza, smelling outdoor summer festivals, with mulled wine, dancing, filled with thoughts of lost friends, pondering geometrics, with few numbers or codifications, listening to stories, seeing movements of animals and plants under water, creating bad haircuts, with my back against a tree, as toes fill with mud, when things taste like gravy, when i lose control of most things, as the vision i know becomes distorted, while grey hair grows and grows, holding off judgement to search for other truth, adding wood to a campfire, aimlessly traveling, writing, the few times annually when it feels like the words "best" or "good" may be internally generated, with warm or dissonant tones, deconstructing nearly anything, believing, being honest when it hurts, when i should shower and don't, when the clouds break, when someone tells me the hard thing they want to say, mosquitos being eaten by birds, without traction, listening to mechanisms do their jobs, touching cactus,