--IT’S JUST ME AND THE WHISKEY

…We tend to fight the next war the same way we fought the last one which makes us prisoners of our own existence.

…It’s very difficult to dispel ignorance if you retain arrogance.

…Fun is a big word, if you think about it.

…Most times life is an unguided missile dressed up like a bulbous cloud that looks like a husky elephant doing a jig.  It’s pretty difficult not to get sidetracked by a cute sight like that.

…I’m not a big fan of instructions.  Words rarely look like the things they designate.

…Clearly I am a private person and, quite possibly, I am a fool.

…What’s past is past.  One could leave it as it is.  And still, on the other hand, there are all sorts of after effects.

…From gavel to gavel, the answers land with impunity.

…Often I feel myself rocking between the sky and the land, somewhat akimbo, and twitching.

…I’ve heard it said that “You can’t step into the river twice” but then I think: don’t believe everything you hear.

…But wouldn’t it be nice to believe everything you hear and not have to question the validity of it?

…Quite often I wonder how I get by.  Like, how did I even make it to the airport on time?  Find my key?  Find my gate?  Get to the hotel?  There have to be merciful angels out there.

…I have left so many things on airplanes—a brand new Discman, laptop, phone, car keys, books, books, books.  I’m sort of like a skinny Santa when I leave a plane.

…I’ll be honest and admit that my major writing goal is to create something that outlives me.  Weeks and months go by and that still hasn’t happened.  I know I shouldn’t think that way.  I know it shouldn’t matter at all, yet it does to me. 

…Often times having an outlandish and egotistical goal will only create prolonged constipation.

…Almost no one knows it, but I had a third book published.  There’s only one copy, though, and I have it.  It’s called MY UNCERTAIN SEARCH FOR MYSELF.  I didn’t title it that, someone else did.  It’s a pretty slim volume, like me.  The cover is a winding highway with cloudy-but-blue skies.  I wonder how they know me so well.

…Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing.  I’m not colorblind.

…Sometimes I am Silly Putty and other times I’m just putty.

…Sometimes I have to remind myself:  That’s my depression talking, not me.


…They say whiskey’ll kill you, but I don’t think it will.  I’m riding with you to the top of the hill.

 

 

—AS YOU WISH

 

…You think you do, but really, you don’t have any idea.

….You can ask me all you want, but I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

…When there’s nothing left to say, it’s best to use sign language.  If not, if there’s say, a notepad, grab it.  If not, if there’s a can of spray paint, grab that and find a wall or sidewalk and start talking.

…Someday soon I will write like a motherfucker again.  Someday soon, I just know it.

…The other day my wife and I saw a wonderful little indie film called “Lady Bird.”  I didn’t know a solitary thing about it, but hoped it wasn’t about Lady Bird Johnson.  It wasn’t.  What it was, was really terrific, one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time.  What broke my heart was the fact that there were a total of seven (7) people in attendance.  I’m sure “Thor” and those other superhero movie theaters were packed.  Yep, heartbreaking and sad.

…You can tell a lot about a person by where they sit on a bus.

…Some stories are so crazy you think they’re fiction, but they’re not.

…We all have this life and we live it or we don’t.

…The other day I did something brave.  I cleaned up my office.  While doing so, I found an old notebook.  I don’t know how old, but it was brimming with random notes and story starts I hadn’t remembered writing.  Most all of it was crap.  But at least the paper was recyclable.

…It’s good to be scared once in a while.  It means there’s something you don’t want to lose.

…Sometimes the boxes we live in don’t want us there.

…Grief wears a lot of different faces.

…If all there are is words, sometimes when you roll around in them, blood’s going to be spilled, and later on there will be scars, and in that way those words will always be with you.

…One of the most important things I’ve learned is—people can change.  “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is sort of shit.  People can change.  They really can.

…A lot of times, my most favorite time is 2AM.  There’s something about being awake while everyone else is asleep that makes it feel special.  The rain splats.  The vents hum.  Nothing glints on the coal-black surface of the lake.  At 2AM, I feel like a ghost with a purpose.

…There are a lot of emotions that aren’t very fun to experience.  I’d say fear and worry are my least favorite of the lot.

…I believe in Jesus.  I do.  Oh, sure, I am a bad Christian, and I have tons of doubts, not so much about Jesus, but about what came before him.  Still I try not to let my mind go down that rabbit hole where the doubts sit.  The upside is so much better for everyone, don’t you think?  Because if God is real, then hope really is a thing.  That’s what I most want to believe.

…Dear Diary: 

I am writing to you again.  I don’t know why, but for some reason it feels necessary.  Thanks for putting up with my junk.

…If I were you, I’d be tired of me already.  I know I am.

 --IT’S MORNING AND I’M WIDE AWAKE

 

…I hope you had a most wonderful Thanksgiving.  Mine is Saturday.  There should be 24 people at our house, packed and noisy, with a few kids running around giggling, just the way I like it.

This year I am grateful for so much.  As Keith Richards said, “I’m just happy to be anywhere.”  I’m grateful that you stop by here as often as you do.  Thank you.

 …Here is my favorite Thanksgiving Day poem.  I hope you like it:

PERHAPS THE WORLD ENDS HERE

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the
table so it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe
at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what
it means to be human. We make men at it,
we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts
of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms
around our children. They laugh with us at our poor
falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back
together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella
in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place
to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate
the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared
our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow.
We pray of suffering and remorse.
We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table,
while we are laughing and crying,
eating of the last sweet bite.by Joy Harjo


The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

—from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by

 

—GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT

 …Everybody wants to read your book and you’re only a few chapters in.

…Eventually I’ll have to deal with all of my irreconcilable selves.

…We’re all stuck inside ourselves, one way or another.

…I’m a story riddled with potholes.

…You are somebody’s Something, but you are also your You.

…You make your plans then you hear God laughing.

…There’s so much to say about a mustard seed.

…I have some explaining to do but most of the time I’m speechless.

…My least attractive side?  I’ve got plenty.

…It’s complicated.  That’s what people tell you when they don’t want to tell you the truth.

…The world’s knuckles never bruise, which is kind of amazing.

…Would you rather spend the rest of eternity bloody but alive, or with your four good feet stuck in a plot of dirt?

…The right answer is somewhere inside of me, waving its hand.

…Sometimes you think you’re spending money when all along the money’s spending you.

…I remember what I’ve imagined and imagine what I remember.

…The problem with happy endings is they’re either not really happy, or they’re not really endings.

…You pick your endings, and your beginnings.  You get to pick the frame anyway.  Maybe you don’t choose what’s in the picture, but you decide on the frame.

…I miss certain people.  It reminds me that to be alive is to be missing.

…I try to break myself open as often as I can.

…I’ve found that many people don’t know it’s customary to say Thank you.  Maybe it’s not their fault.  Maybe they just don’t know.

…Mostly I have felt myself becoming a servant of sadness.  I am still looking for the beauty in that.

…If it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?

…Loneliness is solitude with a problem.

…Barefoot in the grass, I have faith in what I see.

…I’m not perfect by any means, but have a little faith in me.

…I wrote all this because I had something to say to you.

 

 

--THERE ARE DYNASTIES OF BROKEN WINDOWS

 

-“Don’t quit.  It’s very easy to quit during the first ten years.  Nobody cares whether you write or not, and it’s very hard to write when nobody cares one way or the other.  You can’t get fired if you don’t write, and most of the time you don’t get rewarded if you do.  But don’t quit.” Andre Dubus

 -“The force that pulses

 in the boughs of trees

and in the sap of plants

 also inhabits poems

but it’s calm there.” -Adam Zagajewski

 

-“Hangovers are the perfect state to be creative—nothing feels real.” Florence Welch

-“When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl. But I say, ‘Bitch, you’re Lady Gag.  You get up and walk the walk today’.” Lady Gaga

-"We've all got to go to school, I expect, and we don't all get the same lesson to learn, but the one we do get is our'n, 'taint nobody else's, and if it's real hard, why, it shows the teacher thinks we're capable." Rose Terry Cooke

-“It’s cruel to keep the mouse alive just because the snake has lost interest.” Maggie Nelson

-“Alcohol doesn’t console.  All it does is replace the absence of God.”  Dumas

-"We need a renaissance of wonder.  We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is miracle and magic." E. Merrill Root

-“’Why is the sky blue?’  I try to explain it to someone or remember my answer myself.  Now I like to remember the question alone, as it reminds me that my mind is essentially a sieve, that I am mortal.” Maggie Nelson

-“Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer it as it is now.  Ravaged.” Marguerite Duras

-“At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough.  You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it.  It is enough.”  Toni Morrison

-“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” William James

-“Imagine someone saying, ‘Our fundamental situation is joyful!’  Now imagine believing it.  Or forget belief: imagine feeling, even if for a moment, that it were true.”  Maggie Nelson

-“From the mountains, you can see the mountain.” Emerson.

-“For Plato, color was as dangerous a narcotic as poetry.” Maggie Nelson

-“Why should I feel lonely?  Is not our planet in the Milky Way?” Thoreau

-“Men supposedly get blue, but women get the deepest blue.” Maggie Nelson

-“As a rule we find pleasure much less pleasurable and pain much more painful than we expected.” Schopenhauer

-“Love is not a consolation.  It is light.” Simone Weil

 -“Even the silence has a story to tell you.” Jacqueline Woodson

 

—YOU ARE CUTER.

 

…Isn’t it funny how part of yourself can be in a place while at the same time the most important parts are in a different place?

…I is the hardest word to define.

…The harsh reality is life is fleeting.  Everyday there are reminders of this.

…Sometimes you delete things in haste and can’t ever get them back.

…Sometimes, like yesterday, I go on Facebook and 80% of it, or more, is some type of whining.  One thread started off by being aghast at the rollback ban on imported ivory.  Then someone replied to that saying the war on Iran is what we should be worried about, and from there it just turned into a shit storm.  I stopped reading after comment number 23.  Then people complained about Al Franken and the proposed tax bill and on and on.  It was exhausting and tragically annoying.  Maybe that’s why I’m rarely on Facebook anymore.

…Wish I didn’t know so much.

…I like being outside at night in summer.  It gives me this weird feeling, like I’m homesick but not for home.  It’s kind of a good feeling, though.

…In some ways, pain is the opposite of language.

…Your now is not your forever.

…I have felt like a fish before, like my whole story was written by someone else.

…People always say, “It’s too good to be true,” but nobody ever says, “It’s too bad to be true.”

…Being vulnerable is asking to be used and not caring about it.

…Out of focus—that’s how most people really are.

…Mental disorders are vastly overrated.

…I realize that I’m just a bubble on the tide of the empire, and I’m okay with that.

…My best lines are always the ones I borrow or twist. 

…One of the defining features of parents is that they don’t get paid to love you.

…Being “in love” is a weird phrase in English.  Like it’s a sea you drown in or a town you live in.  You don’t get to be in anything else—in friendship or in anger or in hope.  All you can be is in love.

…Having someone read your poetry, hearing you read it out loud, is like letting them see you naked.

…I like short poems with weird rhyme schemes, because that’s what life is like.

…The most important part of the body is the part that hurts.

…We’ve sure been through a lot already.

…One of the best things in life is having someone who wants to take care of you.  I mean, who really wants to take care of you.  That’s something else.

…I need to be liked up close.

 

 

--IT’S NOT MY FAULT THAT WE’RE SO ADORABLE.

…For a lot of people, the ocean, or a star-filled night, is what makes them feel inconsequential.  For me, it’s a very crowded airport-- where you recognize absolutely no one, but you should at least know someone, recognize one person at least, because you live in the same space as them, yet you don't know anyone at all--that's what makes me feel small.  Smaller.  It's embarrassing to admit.

…I should admit more, but it’s hard.  It’s really hard.

…I was in Bismarck, N. Dakota a few days ago.  Bismarck, and North Dakota are not known for being diverse.  In fact, until this trip, I had never seen an African American in the state, and I was born there.  At one point my brothers and I stopped at this hip bar literally in the middle of nowhere and there were four African American employees working there.  The odd thing is that on one of the TV’s there was the imprint of a Confederate flag with an imprint of an AK-47 in the middle of it.  Hmmm...

Also, a 3 Doors Down song was playing shortly thereafter.  Hmmm...  I'm not down with the Confederate flag, and I'm definitely not a fan of AK-47's.

…Drinking when you’re depressed is like throwing kerosene on fire.  Then again, when has depression ever felt like fire?

…Sure, we’ve both got our own set of problems, but we’re in this together, right?

…The eye is simply a recorder, with or without our will, and the same can be said of the heart.

…“We should talk.”—is always a scary thing to have said to you.

…If I don’t know them, then I just wonder about them.  I'm always wondering, and maybe that's my problem.

…The daffodil knows more of spring than roses know of anything.

…We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.

…I think I might be fiction.  Or am I only a set of circumstances?

…Something about looking up always makes me feel like I’m falling.

…The worst part of being truly alone is you think about all the times you wished that everyone would just leave you be.  Then they do, and you are left being, and you turn out to be terrible company.

…I keep trying to feel in present tense.  I also keep trying to see through the clouds.

…All of my habits are nervous.

…The weather decides when you think about it, not the other way around.

…Looking like you mean something can make you feel as though you have a purpose, even if you really don’t.

…The longer the memory, the longer the list.

…I keep reminding myself that it’s all about showing up.  Grab that cup of coffee, or whatever, and go go go.

…We all just need to be a little more patience   That usually does the trick.

…Sometimes you just forget.  It happens.  Doesn’t mean there’s something harmful or malicious about it.  Forgetting is a natural part of life.

…More than once I have left the best parts of me on the page.

…I like laughing a lot, but I enjoy making others laugh more.  Over the weekend, I made my brothers laugh a ton.  Most of the time they were laughing at me, but I didn’t mind.  At least they were happy.

…I hate giving blood, can’t look at the needle, have to turn to the side and read a book.  But I do it often, I give blood.  I’d like to think there’s some 0-Positive blood available if I ever needed it.

...If you think about it, "give" is an esteemed word.

…Anne Lamott (I can never remember how to properly spell her name) said that there’s no such thing as wasted writing.  I try to remind myself of that on days when all I spew is crap, when I sound all fourth-grade.

…What’s sad is looking at your phone and finding nothing.

…We still have the best and worst of it ahead of us.

…In the best conversations, you don’t even remember what you talked about, only how you felt.

…I don’t even know what I don’t know.  How about that?

…But the fact remains that I have been dreaming about you for quite some time, often when I didn’t even know I was.

…Those seatbelts will hurt you while they’re trying to save your life.

…Oh, yeah, it’s going to be a long night.  Hold on.

 

 

 

--TAKE ME WITH YOU

 
…I am ridiculously grateful, but I’m not a fan of turbulence or aisle seats.  One jostles you till you feel like puking, the other pokes and thumps you with a cart, a bag, or a very large derrière.


…Our moods don’t usually believe each other, and that can make a person crazy.

…When you’re stumped in conversation, try saying something you’re thinking.  That’s something I never do.

…Whether it hurts or not is often irrelevant.

…The way some people talk about their mother makes you glad not to have one.

…Worrying is the correct worldview.  Life is worrisome.

…Beauty is mostly a matter of attention.  The lake is beautiful because you are looking at it.  The fallen, dying leaves are beautiful because you notice their color and striations.

…When my dad died he left the house and yard in disrepair.  In fact, there were 27 vehicles hunkered down in the mud, most long, rusted-out sedans that resembled slumbering dinosaurs buried under layers of pine needles.  To go along with them, there was an old limousine, an equally ancient hearse, a camper, a broke-down semi, three snow mobiles, and three tractors.

I never asked him what he was doing holding onto all of it.  I guess there were a lot of things I didn’t ask him that I should have.

…All my scars are open when I’m sleeping.

…The good news is I feel like writing again.  Now I just have to do it.

…There is a chance I might become flippant about things you consider fragile and precious, and for that I am sorry in advance.

…Something tells me, it’s about to get loud.

…Last night or very, very early this morning, the sky looked cut up, lacerated.  Clouds like tree branches steadfastly waving.  A few mountain ridges elbowing their way into the picture.  In the patch where the moon hid, it had turned indigo.  In another corner, the yellow face of a ghost stared back it me, blinking with a nervous tic in his right eye.  You weren’t there to see it, but as I said, it was very, very early.

…When you get the chance to sing it out or dance, I hope you dance.

…When we only live by words, one vague, misunderstood note can rightfully cause a tragedy.  Words--the silence that lives in them--can be a slippery slope.

…Sometimes you just throw something out there and see if it gets noticed.  Isn’t that a lot like life?  What comes after the answers is a whole lot of questions.  And then, we begin again.

…“Blue is the one friend I can always count on.  It loves me when I am lonely and thinks of me first.”—Lucinda Williams said that, but there are days I can relate.

…Don’t you think the world would be better off if everyone had a book in their hands, reading intently?

…Maybe it’s the things that are nonnegotiable that we should pay special attention to.

…I often get sent halfway across the world in a cardboard box with the incorrect postage on it, but then some kind soul always sends me right back.

…A lot happens here, if only in my mind.

…All this time I have been trying to speak your language.

…No one says “Goodbye” or “See ya,” unless they really want to see you again.

…I want you to know, if you ever read this, that there was a time when I would have rather had you by my side than anyone else in the whole world.