—JUST GO EASY ON ME. I’M FEELING OUT OF ORDER.

 

 

…“Rape is one of the most terrible crimes on earth, and it happens every few minutes. The problem with groups who deal with rape is that they try to educate women about how to defend themselves. What really needs to be done is teaching men not to rape. Go to the source and start there.” Kurt Cobain

 

I have a new story up:

 https://rabbitbrush.org/fiction-no-i-len-kuntz/

 

…“Even the cracks have cracks.” Jay Halsey

 

…Last night I had a dream/nightmare that I was at a party my daughter was throwing and I had both my phone and car stolen. I kept looking for them in disbelief. Then I’d wake up, go back to sleep and go right back into the stolen phone/car dream. This went on for several times. Finally, I said, Fuck this and got up. Luckily my phone was right on the bathroom counter where I’d put it the night before.

 

…“I’m telling myself this morning that if he never existed, then he can never cease to exist. For me, he will always be everywhere I see a coin spinning into an open guitar case. May you rest in the peace you gave to so many,” Bono, in tribute to the late Glen Hansard

 

…“While fear may be contagious, courage is as well.” Jack Smith’s last words at the Senate Judiciary Committee where he was called a “liar” and a “dirtbag,” among other things for telling the truth about the 2020 election obstruction.

 

…“It is inconceivable to me how you can pardon people who beat police office and then go on to vilify the police officers who were beaten.” Former special counsel Jack Smith at the same Senate hearing

 

…Should you ever find yourself alone, on a Thursday, and you need a starter song for an office concert, I’d recommend “Devils in the Canyon.” It’ll get you moving, for sure:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De_e0i_ccmQ&list=RDDe_e0i_ccmQ&start_radio=1

 

…There’s always a new way to say it, but watch out what wrapper you use.

 

…It’s Fall. The spiders are back. Yay. There seven there, just hanging on, hoping to catch something.

 

…I’m not afraid pos spiders because I live on a lake, but bridges--Fuck way off.

 

…Have you, or someone you know ever dated a poet? You may be entitled to compensation.

 

…I’m not sure how I find the things I think I can never find.

 

…Two mini-concerts in the same week? That’s saying something, like life must be good.

 

…Even my little toe doesn’t want to fit that slipper. 

 

“If you allow yourself to get old, you will. I ain’t got time to get old. I ain’t got time to dwell on that.” Dolly Parton

 

…Poor, Rocky. He runs all over that deck looking everywhere for love while I’m right here.

 

…My kids make art all the time. They’re intentional about it, but not really looking for outside gratification. There are few things better than that—your kids making art just to make art. 

 

…“The sad part about happy endings is there’s nothing to write about.” Tammy Wynette

 

…Hey, if you’re happy, you’re happy. Good for you.

 

…I was good for a while and then I wasn’t.

 

…Just so you know, this is all completely unintentional.

 

…“My method of writing is simple: pay attention, be astonished, and tell others about it.” Mary Oliver

 

…How many blood smears can a guy leave on appliances and surfaces before it starts to look like a crime scene?

 

…What you think was important last night probably seems a lot less so today.

 

…“Fiction is still a way of writing about yourself.” Rick Rubin

 

…That was a really strange way of saying, “Hi,” but I’ll take it over nothing…

 

...Sometimes, a lot of times actually. Social media is so inane,, so biased and so aimed at getting sympathy for oneself, that you never want to go there anymore.

 

“I’m just a working girl. I’m a workhorse that looks like a show horse. I’m willing to get up early. I’m willing to stay up late. I just feel like it’s my duty; it’s my job and my joy.” Dolly Parton 

 

…God, you have to love Helen Mirren, right? If you don’t love her, who do you love?

 

…Just leave Sydney Sweeny alone. She’s got a body and she’s not ashamed of it, so what? Fuck off.

 

…“I keep going because I keep going. I lift a weight or two. I’m never going to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I do keep moving and walking whenever I can.” 86-year-old, Ringo Starr

 

…Load up on guns, bring your friends. It's fun to lose and to pretend

 

…“Sometimes carrying on, just carrying on, is a superhuman achievement.” Albert Camus

 

…I suppose Wendell Barry loved the world more than me, but honestly, his writing does nothing for me.

…“A lot of people have dreams that they feel they have missed a chance at. I hope my story reminds them that the path is not always straight.” Ke Huy Quah

 

…You hear him on “The Spins” and you think, This kid sounds so happy, he’s going to live forever.

 

…It’s coming, every day. I can feel it breathing down my neck.

 

…“People always say it’s health that’s the most important thing, but I think the most important thing is friends. They’re what gets you through.” Steve K.

 

…I know, but I still love it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Evnzkez7o&list=RDs1Evnzkez7o&start_radio=1

 

…Dude give it up. There’s a time limit on things.

 

…“What I write is smarter than I am. Because I can -re-write it.” Susan Sontag

 

…All you can be is you, broken parts and all. If no one else gets it, Fuck them. You don’t need them in your life.

 

…Hello Hello Hello how low?

 

…Here’s one of the greatest rejections ever—"No, Dad, I can’t watch that show with you right now because Bay and I are going to go make music together in a bit.”

 

…Broken crayons still color.

 

…“Please be mindful that any mean or aggressive comments can negatively affect the baby…It’s me. I’m the baby.” Jennifer Lawrence

 

…I remember the first time I saw the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” thinking, wow, this is like nothing I’ve ever seen, sort of like when I saw the vid for “Karma Chameleon” and couldn’t make out Boy Georges’ gender. I recently watched the former vid. It’s pretty powerful. Full of angst. Definitely, iconic.

 

…Kurt Cobain lived near here, south a bit, like an hour. He spent a lot of time under a bridge in Olympia. In high school, he had a crush on a popular Cheerleader and wrote he a poem/song, something I would probably do. A day later, someone spray-painted his locker with the words, Kurt Cobain smells like Teen Spirit,” which was a popular deodorant at the time.

 

…“If thou must love me, let it be for naught except for love’s sake.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1845

(A love built on reasons lasts only as long as the reasons do, so love for nothing in particular, and love for the sake of love itself, lasts forever.)

 

…Last week at dinner, celebrating my best friend’s 74^th birthday, he said something profound and probably didn’t even realize it. He was speaking about that flip which occurs, where you go from being worried about getting older to being grateful every day that you are older. I think I’m right there with him.

 

…“When you finally get that dream you wanted when you were seven years old and you get it, at some point a little bit of a lustre starts to wear off if you keep touring and keep turning the same wheel over and over again." Steve Perry

 

…I think it’s okay to be sad. It means you feel something.

 

…“This is not today. This is nine years ago today. Today is the Autumnal Equinox. I want to learn to speak in sunrise.” Jay Halsey

 

…“Everybody Wants to Fuck Me” is a pretty outstanding name for a film. I hope it does its title proud.

 

…(I’ve always been a big Steve Perry fan and always will be.) In 2011, Steve Perry, of the band Journey, started dating cancer patient Kellie Nash, despite knowing that doctors believed she would die. She sadly passed away in 2012, and when asked by The Guardian about why he pursued her, Steve confessed: "I've not said this to anybody yet: I believed our love would cure her cancer. I really did.

"We sat in our tiny apartment in New York – a very expensive small box – and she said: 'This might take me, but it'll never be able to touch our love.' I never thought about such a truth like that. Not just talking about it, but physically feeling it and emotionally seeing it was new to me."

He also revealed that it was Kellie who inspired him to return to music, sharing: "She said: 'Promise me you won't go back into isolation, because I fear it would make this all for naught.' I said: 'OK, I promise.' I lay in bed thinking about what I'd just promised.

"She was looking at the arc of her whole life and, the possibility that she may not make it, had to have some goddamn meaning. She was looking for purpose in all this. I grieved for two years – it was a whole new level of broken heart. It was completely fucking broken. I worked through that and, the next thing I knew, I started writing music."

 

… “If you’re not having fun, you’re doing something wrong.” Groucho Marx

 

…I guess I’m doing things wrong.

 

--HER WORLD IS A PERSONAL VARIETY SHOW

 

Light

 

It’s not yet dawn so

 

there’s not much light

 

The lawn is damp with dew

 

if I’m guessing right

 

But maybe we should

 

go dancing anyway

 

barefoot on the grass 

 

like we’d do when we were kids

 

and the idea of love seemed

 

like the moon a distant place

 

up there glowing shiny and beautiful

 

like a girl in her first prom dress

 

waiting for someone else's knock

 

—I HEAR WHAT YOU’RE SAYIN’, BUT I MAY SEEM OUT OF ORDER

.…Someone was kind enough to recently republish/repost this piece, a very, very, early one, but a piece and character (Ivy) I’ve always loved. I’m surprised and grateful. She’s a rascal and a mystery…

 

THIEVES

                   ---Eckleburg, 4/11/2011

 

She steals.

I watch her in the wine store. Instead of going for a normal-sized bottle, she takes a showcased magnum shaped like a black missile.

Somehow it stays inside her flouncy skirt.

On the counter is a silver platter with three, pie-shaped cuts of brie and a fan of domino crackers. She filches the entire thing in one swoop.

Outside I say, “You’re amazing.”

“You need to stop telling me that crap.”

“But you are.”

“You just haven’t seen my dark side yet.”

“You won’t let me.”

“Well, it might help if you had corrective lenses.”

We’ve been dating for two years. Her name is Ivy. Ink-black hair, cut-across bangs, thin lips that go pink when she’s excited, which is all the time. I love her so much that I eat razors trying to muster up the right things to say.

At the bookstore, Ivy waves her arm around and looks at me with wet eyes. “Just think,” she says, “someday soon, this whole place will be a Kindle.”

She steals Charles Baxter’s entire collection, some Beatty and then every Anais Nin.

“Where do you put all that stuff?” I ask.

“You weren’t listening.”

“Yes, I was.”

“Ah,” Ivy says, potato peeling forefinger-to-forefinger in a shame-on-you motion, “but you didn’t believe.”

Ivy claims she has been culled, that someone excavated her against her will. She won’t say who or anything else, just that.

Once, while I was kissing her, Ivy said, “Go ahead, stick your arm all the way down my throat.” I chuckled until I realized she was serious, then my jaw locked up. “Shove it past my tonsil bell. See if you can reach down into my belly. It’s just a big ol’ empty room anyway.”

I told her to stop screwing around. I punched her soft on the shoulder as if we were both second graders.

“I know you think I’m making this shit up,” Ivy said, “but I’m not. I’m gutted. I’m hollow.” She grabbed an arm, tried to force my hand into her mouth. I told her now she was scaring me.

“Okay,” Ivy said, “but if you forego the proof then just stop doubting me.”

There are things Ivy won’t share. She only talks about today or tomorrow, the future, never yesterday or before. The past, she says, is a black hole just like her, so I need to get used to skipping it, or else get a new girlfriend. Ivy nibbles my earlobe as she warns me, secreting saliva, yet I can tell she means the threat.

One day we stop by a school. “Let’s break in,” she says.

I don’t want to, but I’m more afraid she will leave me than I am of getting in trouble with the law. I crack a window at the building’s north end, and we rummage through desks and leftover backpacks. We stumble into the hall. When we get to the band room, Ivy lights up, her lips so pink they border on magenta.

She jumps over rows of seats to get to the instruments up front, takes a trumpet, two bongos and a tuba. I don’t know where they go, but she’s got them and they’ve disappeared.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” she says.

At 7/11, Ivy steals a Slurpee machine.

At a gas station, she steals the debit card instrument panel.

At the pet store, she steals a school of fish and one obnoxious macaw.

At the zoo, Ivy opts for a wiry monkey then a rhino that bolts to the end of the fence where Ivy dangles a bag of unshelled peanuts coated in Dijon mustard.

After each instance, I tell her the same thing. “You’re amazing,” I say, wishing I had better words.

She kisses me like a wire brush on lips, and I feel fire.

One night we lie on the bed. I rub Ivy’s stomach through her Syracuse sweatshirt. Her flesh is flat, pliable. She says, “Go ahead, push.”

So I do. I obey.

My hand sinks. I force further, worrying I’m hurting her, until she smiles and says, “It’s okay, really. I don’t feel a thing.”

When Ivy rolls onto her side, I push through her back until my hands would be touching if it weren’t for her two skins. “Told you,” she says.

I blink. My eyes burn. I get it now.

I roll my cheek up against her neck like a cat, remembering the times Ivy would flinch at certain pronouns or whenever we were around bald men wearing wire-rimmed glasses and wrist tattoos.

Ivy says, “Your cheek feels good on my neck, like an important cloud. That’s the best place for it.”

I want to explain that no matter how hard she tries, Ivy’s not going to be able to fill what’s been uprooted. I’d like to tell her that damage doesn’t have to be permanent, that theft can be atoned or forgiven, and that the only reason our planet still spins is because of grace.

“Hey,” Ivy says, “are you crying?”

“I’m okay.”

“What’s up?” Ivy tries to cock her head around, but I burrow my chin against her shoulder bone like a metal bookend.

“Steal me,” I whisper.

Ivy arches her back, and I can see the flesh on her ear puckering.

When I say it again — “Steal me, instead” — Ivy takes my hand and puts it to her lips, holds it there, grips it tight.

 

 

—DON’T KNOW WHO I’M KIDDING, IMAGINING YOU THERE

 

…“What I realized is that most people always want to live outside their moment—either in the past, or the future—but never in the present.” Robert Vaughan

 

…7 million views here. Wow. Really? How? Thank you, thank you so much.

 

…I really wish people didn’t have to die, especially the ones I love.

 

…Thursday mini concert. Yay.

 

 …Trust me—you’re never going to regret taking a photo with the people you love, no matter how awkward it might seem in the moment.

 

…I scrolled through thousands of photos yesterday. Some made me cry, but most made me smile or laugh.

 

…The only thing I know for sure is that I’m confused a lot of the time.

 

…“A sure way for me to have a disastrous experience is to do something because ‘it will be good for me’.” Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

 

…What’s crucial, when you ask a friend a question, is knowing beforehand whether you really want them to be honest, and whether they will be.

 

…“Writers are the opposite of athletes—they get better with age.” Alan Sorkin.

 

…My kids have lots of them, and it seems like 85 percent of all people do, too, but I’m still not a fan of tattoos. Nope.

 

…Even now, weird as it seems, I still sometimes think: I wonder what Karen’s up to, and I’ll go to text her, but she’s not there.

 

…What does, “You’re on a roll” mean? I know it’s meant kindly, but still.

 

…hitting notes like you’re Mariah…

 

…“I’ll be good, if you want me to.”

 

…I think I need to walk a bit.

 

…I think there’s more to it—life. I’ll never get to the end of it, but I’ll get to an end.

 

…Sometimes it’s easy to forget you’re supposed to have fun.

 

…If sad music wasn’t the best music, I’d probably feel a lot more joy than I do.

 

…Back then, I think I was happy every single day, though I didn’t even realize it until now, when I was trying to describe my college experience to a friend. Fucking college. The best time ever.

 

--Is this a good idea?

--I’m not sure. 

--You’re not sure?

--Ask me tomorrow.

--Why?

--When I’m not fucked up.

 

…I don’t know. Maybe?

 

…Oh, Hi. Welcome back, you kids. Umm, er,. follow your dreams??

…Lately, I feel super grateful for everything. I’ve had more than I should have, that’s for sure. 

 

…Sometimes you know precisely what you’re supposed to say, but saying it feels really false and so you have to decide--Am I going to be real here in the moment, or am I just going to fake it, like everyone else would?  

 

--You know what I need right now? 

--What?

--A big F*#cking chaw.

 

…I’m probably obstinate, (I know I am) about a lot of things, but I think friends need to show you they really want to be friends, or else they’re not a friend.  Right?

 

…Mac—you kill me, and I don’t even know why that is since I never even knew you.

 

…I don’t know. Did I? What the fucking Hell?

 

...I know what you were trying to say. I heard it all the way into the attic.

 

…I should probably get rid of that chime. Or maybe I should just get rid of everything.

 

…I’ve got, two tickets to paradise…

 

…I wish I didn’t hate him, but how can you not?

 

…Trump Just Threatened to Annihilate Iran. He’s Given the World Very Little Reason to Take Him Seriously. (Slate, 9/23/26)

What sort of world leader talks like this?

Over the past year, Donald Trump’s actions on the world stage have ushered in a new era, in which most of the world’s leaders realize they no longer need to pretend to respect the president of the United States. Their reception of his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday made clear that this era has firmly taken hold.

His 38-minute address was interrupted just four times for mild applause—when he said that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, that all of Israel’s hostages had been freed from Gaza, and that no international bureaucracy will pass a tax (as if this would have a chance of happening), and to thank his wife, Melania, for heading a group that recovered Ukrainian children who had been kidnapped by Russia.

Otherwise, crickets, and deservedly so.

•His previous U.N. speeches have been jammed with bluster and bunkum, but none more so than this one. He began with boasts that seemed meant for a domestic audience—and that were clearly false to everyone in the room.

“Our country is stronger today than ever before”—this, as the U.S. military is failing to subdue Iran, a third-rate power, despite firing bombs and missiles at more than 15,000 targets. “Our economy is the envy of the world”—this, as the rest of the world maneuvers to withdraw assets from U.S. markets and seek alternative supply chains. “The entire world is being lifted by the wealth, strength, spirit, and momentum of a newly energized and very powerful United States of America”—when, in fact, the world is suffering from an energy crisis created by Trump’s unnecessary war, which has moreover revealed weaknesses in our military arsenal.

Trump also said, “We inherited a dark age of America from the previous administration, and we turned it into the golden age of America”—a claim that no president should have to make if it were true, and that anyone looking at any data would know is not true.

…Belarus says no potash left after Trump claims massive deal for fertilizer Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko said Monday that there are no available volumes of fertilizer to send to the U.S. This came after President Trump announced that he was working on a “massive Deal” to buy potash from Minsk at a steep discount amid the trade war with Canada.

 

…I might be a lost cause. Actually, I’m pretty sure I am.

 

…Today I want to do things to be doing them, not to be doing anything else.

 

…Whatcha doing next week? Next week? Next week?

 

…I need all my energy to be who I am today. 

 

…“Hope is a weird word.” Jay Halsey

 

…I just realized my hands resemble a turkey’s feet.

 

…My best friend, who I love dearly, just turned 74 on Wednesday. Like a dope, I wrote him two poems for his birthday because what else do I have to give other than words? He was kind and thankful, but I’m pretty positive he didn’t understand them.

At one point during dinner, he was explaining about the turning point, where you are no longer sorry you’re getting old, but rather you’re really grateful to be getting old.

It was pretty spectacular, but you had to be there.

 

…I think I might need another little finger.

 

…If the word was right…

 

...I’m just a motherfucking kid. Pittsburg. Hey, John, hey…

 

…“And like all lovers, and sad people, I am a poet.” Allen Ginsberg

…It’s so good, it doesn’t even exist.

…Did you ever find out what’s at the heart of it? 

...Boy, I don’t know. I know I still feel like a boy.

…“Anyway, writing isn’t confession. Writing is archeology. I dig through myself and find artifacts I didn’t know I had buried.” O.E. Roux 

…I just need to learn how to say goodbye to Duncan, but it’s been hard.

…“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means, paint, and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent Van Gough

  

…“I used to confuse interpretation as knowledge and outrage as moral. I remember days filled with energy and a voice that wasn't hoarse.” Jay Halsey

 

…“Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. string them together. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that’s not how it works. A human life is a beautiful mess.” Gabrielle Zevin 

 

…“The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy.” John Lewis

 

…I watch Rocky and Stevie Nicks every single day. Rocky is so hyper and Stevie is like, Whatever. 

 

…I know what’s in the box, but the real is looking inside the sack.

 

…“Art undoes the damage of haste. It’s everything else isn’t.“ Theodore Roethke 

 

…You can’t say no to Annie.

 

…It took me a while, a long while really, after I left N, to find my identity and take it back. For a good couple years, I didn’t know who I was. 

 

---How do you want to be remembered?

--As someone who loved life and tried to honor it in every way. – Diane Von Furstenberg

 

…The world always refuses to behave.

 

“Bread rises because someone tends to it. A garden grows only when we pull the weeds. A poem lasts because someone listens carefully to the music of being alive.” Timothy Green

 

…How fucking delusional can this guy be? (from CNN 9/18/26): During his convention speech to Republicans last week in Dallas, Trump said “almost every item” is getting cheaper.  

Three-quarters of registered voters say the economy is only in fair or poor condition; 73% disapprove of Trump’s handling of cost-of-living issues, and 62% disapprove of his handling of the economy in general.

 

…I think what most of us want is someone to appreciate what we appreciate as much as we appreciate it.

 

…“Hope is the thing with feathers.” Emily Dickinson.