If you are a monster, stand up.
If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend,
If you’ve built a steam-powered wishing machine
If you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme,
If you kidnap maidens or dabble in dreams
Come stand by me.

If you have been broken, stand up.
If you have been broken, abandoned, alone
If you have been starving, a creature of bone
If you live in a tower, a dungeon, a throne
If you weep for wanting, to be held, to be known,
Come stand by me.

If you are a savage, stand up.
If you are a witch, a dark queen, a black knight,
If you are a mummer, a pixie, a sprite,
If you are a pirate, a tomcat, a wright,
If you swear by the moon and you fight the hard fight,
Come stand by me.

If you are a devil, stand up.
If you are a villain, a madman, a beast,
If you are a strowler, a prowler, a priest,
If you are a dragon come sit at our feast,
For we all have stripes, and we all have horns,
We all have scales, tails, manes, claws and thorns
And here in the dark is where new worlds are born.
Come stand by me.

~Catherynne M. Valente

Never make a musical play list when you are down on life and yourself as the result will be 81 songs worth of soul shredding heartbreak. I will now attempt to listen to only upbeat music and do something productive with my evening. Although I am certain that track is doomed to failure, one more into the breach. For no reason in particular I am deep in the doldrums. I want ice cream and wine and a better outlook on life.

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
I, I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms

I am sleepless.

Three days of hard work in mostly direct sun led to some pretty severe heat exhaustion. Wednesday night I slept a straight 17 hours and woke up still drained. I kept myself mostly in the lab and office on Friday but it was still pretty tiring. I awoke an hour ago sore and uncomfortable and finally just gave up on sleep. I feel like a street gang jumped me in. Having never experienced a heat based sickness of this level I wonder how long it will take to feel like a real person again.

It would be nice if I no longer felt like Heat Miser was having me for a nice cuddle.

This past few weeks I have felt like life is mashing me down, crushing me and rolling me out too thin. I feel behind on everything and as if I just cannot catch up. It seems that some internal center has lost its gyro and I cannot find up, find direction, find me. Distracted by everything I can give nothing my full concentration. It is as if I am no longer a laser in my focus, just a dim light in the widening dark.

I need a deep breath, some bliss, maybe a day of sublime beauty spent with something greater than myself. Give me an ocean, a wide river rolling, a shaded meadow beneath some ancient tree or I'll take a night of energy and motion, dancing with my head tossed back in the garish lights of a nightclub to music that I can feel as much as hear. Just a few moments of disconnect from every trouble, every worry, oh how I crave it.

Dear life, come pick me up. Take me out. Dust me off. Straighten me out so that I can breathe again, dream again, and run again.

For this I beg, amen.

I believe I won't be answering my phone for the next few days. I'm tired, my internal battery just won't charge and there are several things going on upon which I would like to let my thoughts marinate. I apologize for the radio silence.

Perhaps in lieu of any real plans for Easter weekend I will just go on a mini-walkabout of sorts.

See you all another time.

Valentines/J's Birthday was combined this year and spent mostly on the couch with some German food, roller derby, and The Wolfman thrown in as token outings. Because you can't spend a three day weekend entirely at home, right? I got a pretty pair of carved cinnabar earrings as a Valentines gift and managed to lose one earring before the end of the weekend. I'm pretty bummed about that and I am considering turning the remaining earring into a pendant.

All in all it was a great and mellow weekend. I need more just like that.

This piece of 20th century Persian poetry found its way to me and I wanted to share it because it is beautiful.

in my small night, what mounting
regret!
wind has a rendezvous with the trees'
leaves
in my small night, there is terror
of desolation

listen! do you hear
the wind of darkness howling?
I watch breathless
-ly and wondrously this alien happiness
I am addicted to my own hopelessness
listen! listen well!
can you hear the darkness
howling? -- the dark hell
-wind scything
its way towards us?

in the night now, there is something
passing
the moon is red restless and uneasy
and on this roof -- which fears
any moment
-- it may cave in --
clouds like crowds of mourners
await to break in rain
ruin
a moment
and then after that, nothing.
behind this window, night shivers
and the earth stands still
behind this window an unknown
something fears for me and you
O you who are green from head to toe!
put your hands
-- like a burning
memory into my loving hands --
lover's hands!
entrust your lips -- your lips
like a warm sense of being! --
entrust! -- your lips to the caresses of my
-- loving lips -- lover's lips!
the wind will carry us with it
the wind will carry us with it

From Foroogh Farrokhzaad book of poems entitles A Rebirth translated by David Martin

The grackles on a wire
are puffed twice their size
and I hear their cries
beneath slate skies
that promise a cold
that climbs into your bones
and curls in the sinew.

Winter days
and I am a blue woman
in a blue sweater
struck with memory
that coalesces
with my breath.

Ice on the panes
and a memory of snow
on sepia streets
and I am far away
in another place,
another time,
with a blue girl
who dreams
of the sub tropics.

I want to reach back,
reach in
to that blue girl
with a hard heart
that still can be broken.

The southern winds
will thaw you,
the sands burnish you smooth
and the tropics will
slip around
quiet as a prayer.
The sea shall
take these memories
like an offering.

But blue girls
and black birds
all fare the same
on cold days.

On frozen mornings
there are grackles on a wire
too chilled to fly
and I am a cold woman
with a blue heart
too sad to remember.