and would not scare

it wasn't a skunk, but a raccoon posse. "a pack of bandits" is what my mother would call them. soft and fat, the fur up close, the ringed tails, the clasping paw-hands, half-cat, half-bear. I left a shiny black bag full of trash outside our door; I planned to take it out, but I forgot.

Tonight there were only two pelicans and one cormorant. J has a new dog, and we played fetch for awhile. Then I helped J hold one of the pelicans because it had a swollen eye and it needed medicine. It took me forever to get home because of all the Halloween traffic going into Isla Vista. I just took a shower and now I'm relaxing. There is so much less time lately.

ring around

noticing fewer animals lately, and worrying that some effort has been made to reduce their numbers. The squirrels seem scarce, and I haven't seen a skunk for weeks. I hear the killdeer at night, and I've seen one or two in the field. The hummingbirds continue to frequent the feeder. I will go to the birds in a few hours, which will be nice. I go to the bird center on friday evenings, and though it is gentle and soft, I miss the way my morning interactions with the birds would impress my entire day.

the santa ana winds are kicking. I rode my bike to work today, and now my hair is full of dust and leaves. There must be ashes too. Last year, I looked in the mirror after having dinner outdoors, and there were flecks of ash on my skin.

Since the fires burned away all the vegetation on the mountain, they dumped hydro-mulch on the dusty, craggy rocks so as to encourage plant growth. The hope is that this will lessen the risk of mudslides and flooding. At first the mountain looked birght green like astro-turf, but now its brown again. It is hard to believe that it will ever rain.

I love threads and scissors. I love to pull thread off the spool and to make these little matted nests of color. I like how the thread is soft, how from a distance it looks like hair or an insect or stems.

Mist in the morning and walking through the air is like a very shallow swim. No rain, only humidity that comes in a gray hug.

The sand at the beach is higher. It is high enough to cover the anchor that was my landmark on the beach. "I will walk to the anchor," I'd say to myself. Now I walk to where I remember the anchor is, only I can't see it because it us under all this sand. I would not know this if I saw the beach for the first time now. This may seem banal, but it helps me understand something about history, and language, and what we might mean by "tracks."

I like to think of text as tracks. I am remembering fewer dreams. I think most of my rem sleep happened between 8 and 10 am. Of course I no longer sleep during these hours -- not even on the weekend.

I played with a kitten the other day. A little gray kitten with tender teeth and paws.

I like the word vibrissa. This text has whiskers.

Everything is different

like when I wake up and when I go to bed. how much time I spend outside. what and when I eat.

everything is different.

several days have passed, and I have not seen the skunk in the yard. I saw a small green frog who lives in the mint. I've become more tolerant of moths, who I understand are important pollinators. I planted geraniums. I went to the bird center and fed pelicans. One had a wound in its mouth. Another had an uneven beak. Like the lower part did not meet the upper part. I tossed the fish into its pouch.

we were gone and then we came home. everything is different. new jobs, which means more money, though it is still not very much.

The days are getting shorter, which makes me feel dark inside. Like dusk inside -- the jack-o-lantern dark. Not like halloween, whatever that is, but something round and orange and empty --lit from within. something smudged and glowy.

When I'm driving, I often mistake things near the side of the road for animals. There is a small hydrant of sorts on Mesa, and as I drive over the little hill towards home, I often mistake it for a small brown rabbit. It looks like a rabbit that has risen from nibbling the grass to stand at attention-- quite still, it's ears alert. And there are bits of black plastic (I think they are from black garbage bags) tangled in the thorns of the curled barbed wire that trims the chain link fence that runs along los carneros. I often mistake these bits of black plastic for crows. The plastic looks like crows that are cawing, tails fanned, necks outstretched.

I often do see animals near the roadside, especially close to home. Sometimes a Great Blue Heron will be right at the side of the road. I assume that it is hunting ground squirrels. And there are often ground squirrels; the field near the parking lot is a virtual city of squirrels. When it rained I worried about them. I wonder if they dig deep deep down or if they vacate the boroughs. I am still wondering about this even thought I've been seeing them again. I often see animals on the walk from the parking lot to the door. Several times I've seen a skunk. I have a fondness for skunks. I think they are beautiful and vulnerable. But I only see skunks at night. During the day, I sometimes see a hawk. And lately the trees are flooded with blackbirds. It seems they are never in numbers fewer than 100.

In the dream last night there were several parts. In the first part K and I were in a variety of snowy places. They were collegiate and cobbled and winding and I kept asking "are we in Providence? Charlottesville?" And the two girls we were hurrying to follow kept saying "No!" At one point the city appeared to fold in on its side and then it seemed as though it was Kyle or some other small Texas town frayed on one edge by the interstate. But then we were in a large house -- southern, gothic in its architecture with sprawling rooms and columns and porches. It felt hot, and perhaps wet. And then there was another side -- a part of the house that abutted a mall. It was a large mall, like the one in towson, and there were fluorescent -lit cinder block hallways. There was some confusion in one of the bathrooms off the hallway. I was washing socks so that they would be clean to pack. I asked K if he wanted to trade suitcases. I had books in mine and so did he and we thought to switch because at least then they might be light enough to bring. But it seemed unlikely that everything would fit, and our belongings were scattered and dirty and disorganized.

The next part of the dream was like a flap of cardboard that unfolded from the side of a box -- like a book flap. And in this part that unfolds from the dream on a crease that is like the wall of the house, it again becomes a house that is like my grandparents' house and I was following a friend from high school, D. She was blond and gangly like she was all limbs and bare feet and ankles. I was following her up the stairs that had dark oak banisters and multiple flights and landings. And we were going up up up to the highest little attic corner of the house. It was like a secret wing or turret (reminiscent of the little octagonal room in the victorian doll house with the plastic windows) and it was where D's mother slept. When we reached the top there was carpet and quiet like a room that someone slept in but is empty. There was a crumpled silk nightgown on the floor and the bed was unmade. I was aware that we should not be there and that we might get caught. I watched as D tried to slide into a closet in the corner. I knew it was the attic because of the a-frame roof that hung down and tapered toward the white half-door of the closet that D was opening and sliding into with only her bare legs sticking out. This was as we (I was with at least one other girl, maybe J) took to looking at the shelves -- the stacks of papers and books and boxes. Then D was back in the room (which was lit by skylights) and showing us her mother's diary. Her mother seemed to be some sort of astrologer and and she had logged the locations of all of the planets for each day. There were long columns with numbers and hieroglyphic planetary symbols written darkly (like someone had pressed hard) in pencil. These little rows like runes on a tablet. As I was looking I was like "of course she knows the future." And I thought that if D's mother knew the future, than surely she most know that we were here in this room looking at her things. And so at that moment I became even more afraid of getting caught. I crept behind the (curiously) open bedroom door to hide just as D's mother came into the room. I felt too large in the corner and so it was clear that there was no way for me to hide. Meanwhile, D and the other girl had positioned themselves in the middle of the room where they were nonchalantly looking at magazines. "oh mom," D said, looking up, "we just came up her to look at these." She said as if it were nothing. D went on flipping the pages of the magazine and her mother seemed annoyed but not like D was going to be in trouble. But then I came awkwardly out of hiding, smiling big and hard because I couldn't help it and knowing that my emergence made it clear that we were just pretending -- that we really knew we shouldn't be there. And so it was my hiding that actually exposed us all.

In the dream last night my parents' old house was at the beach like a little shack and one end was open and faced the beach as though water could wash in. as thought water had washed in and we had to remove the tidal debris, the dirt and the bits of dried and dead palms. I wanted to show K how we'd arranged it. I thought that she would be impressed with the amount of room. I was also surprised by the amount of room. I am always having dreams in which rooms I do not know about suddenly appear. And when I wake I am disappointed to find that they are gone. It was raining and the power flickered on and off. This house also seemed like my grandparents' house. In my dreams about my grandparents' house there are always neighbors I do not know in the alley.

When we are on the beach, I notice that there are birds whose long necks extend from large round rocks, or perhaps eggs. Perhaps they are like snails who live in their shells. They appear to be eating fish and it is a little grisly, the red flesh and the white crisp bones breaking with a little crunch I can feel in my jaw. I see that one bird is out of the rock/shell/egg, and it is long like a rubber chicken but it is a sea bird, like a heron, but stretchy with long yellow legs, like a rubber chicken.

aliveness

Yesterday I was thinking about aliveness.
At the bird center, the pelican with the partially amputated wing started bleeding. It was sudden and not sudden.
Earlier, on my way down to the pond, I passed the lifeless body of a grebe. Usually J puts them in the freezer and then they go to animal control or to ornithologists. Many birds arrive at the center already dead, or so starved or sick or injured that they are already beyond recovery. So I have grown accustomed to seeing these dead birds when I am there. I have thought/felt through it. But when a bird is still alive and is in trouble, I find that I rapidly decompensate.
Yesterday, I held this pelican in my arms while J removed its wing wrap. She wanted the wound to dry out. I had to hold the bird more closely than usual; with one hand I held its beak closed and I held its body between my torso and my arm. I was crouching down so I could hold its wing closed against my torso, and in its gray eye I could see my dim reflection. I was uncomfortable contemplating the pelican's consciousness. Even though we were helping the pelican, I did not know how to feel about the fact that we had to overpower the pelican to help it. I don't know why I was thinking about this. Every time we use a tube to feed a weak or starving bird, it is necessary to hold it. It took me awhile to understand how firmly I'd have to hold a bird; something about the feathers -- the way a finger can slip through -- made me worry that the birds were overly delicate. But I've had to use all my strength to hold a seagull's wings closed so it could be hydrated or fed. And I've seen that same seagull fly back to sea after it recovered. So I don't know why I was suddenly uncomfortable holding the pelican, but I could see every detail of its neck feathers and how they changed in color from yellow to white to brown and gray and black (sometimes, from far away, the feathers remind me of newsprint) and could feel its body inhaling and exhaling. After the wing wrap was removed, I let him go and the bird resumed his perch on a bit of drift wood. J went to the shed and I went to fetch a bucket of fish. When I came back, he ate and ate, which is always a good sign. And then I noticed the blood on the rocks under the perch, and saw the blood on the feathers. I was hot and cold and could not stand. I dropped the fish. I sat on a milk crate and gripped the chain link fence so I would not fall off. I knew I had to get J, but it was difficult to stand. I clung to the fence as I moved toward the gate. I felt like my feet were cinder blocks. I wanted the pelican to stay alive. The blood was so bright and red and so alive that I could see just by its color that it was warm. When J and I came back, a group of seagulls were feasting on the fish I'd dropped. J moved the fish and I followed her back into the pen. We had to hold the pelican again so she could re-wrap its wing. I knew that the pelican was okay then, that the bleeding had stopped, but I was shaky and jittery. And I still feel that way today. But not just because of the bird, but also because I am worried about a person I love. I want everything alive to stay alive. I don't care if the world gets crowded or is too full of living things. I just want everything to keep living living living

I had a dream of an apolcalyptic sort. I lived on an island replete with hotels and paved concrete corridors that were open (almost like cloverleafs and highway flyovers) and there were also zig-zagged cobble-stone streets of an almost european shape and variety w. restaurants and tourist shops. There was the ocean, but it was violent and stormy and mostly people sat on the beach but did not swim. It seemed dangerous. There were palm trees like outlines or spears. In one of the buildings with the ramp winding upwards, spiral-shaped, there were rooms like dorm rooms. It was hive-like. I felt that many of the buildings on the island were like this. There were many people and the rooms seem randomly assigned. They were also in various states of pre-occupancy. No one seemed to mind. It was crowded and there were lines for things like the bathrooms and showers. It seemed that there were mostly girls who were away from home -- duffel bags and laundry and slouchy cosmetic bags stuffed with toiletries like clear mascara and razor blades. I shared the room with two or three other girls, but I only saw one of them. The room was where teenagers lived and it seemed that I was staying in a room I'd lived in before. Was I a teenager again? I told the one girl I saw in the room where we'd had the furniture. The room seemed to change sizes and dimensions. At one point it opened and seemed much larger. We were frequently coming and going from the room for group events and competitions. I thought about swimming often. Before the apocalypse, I came back when the room was empty to hide a box. The box contained all these personal tangible objects. letters and lockets. I hid my key to the room under a brick in the concrete corridor. The brick was loose from the wall. Then the apocalypse came. Everything was stormy and dust. People were corralled and evacuated. The authorities sealed everything shut. People no longer lived where they had lived before. The old places were vacant and surrounded by chainlink. Still, I came back. It was understood that this was something people would sometimes do -- to wander the old place. I came back to look for the box. The door to the room with the box had been sealed shut. The key that I'd hid under a brick was resealed into a wall and painted green. I knew my key was in the brick wall, but I didn't try to break the wall down. I thought it was hopeless. I went on without trying to get into the room with the box but I knew it was there. Then I couldn't stand it and went to break open the brick wall painted green. The hallway was like the space in those tiers that wrap around baseball stadiums where there are concessions and bathrooms, only it was abandoned. I tried to break the wall. Just then, the other girl with the key emerged from the door. I had known there was another girl with a key and that she would not give it to me. I had known this all along. I had accepted this. But when she was right there, in front of me at this moment of desperation, I tackled her. "I have stuff in there," I told her. She looked at me like she knew, like she had looked at my stuff, that she had spent time with it. Not in a malicious way, but for comfort, which was also what I wanted. I did not hate her. She looked guilty, and I saw that she would change her mind. Whatever the risks of sharing the key with me, it was worth it to share it -- the room-- with someone. Inside the room the world was not so much real as simply that of teenagers. A preserved room. It was full of dust and papers and objects no longer in the world. "How silly we were," I thought, reading the loopy teenaged handwriting, and "how deeply we felt then, when the world was real." The past self I'd forgotten was so happy and unknowing. I cried.

low tide

On Thursday, after volunteering at the bird center where we put two grebes into an old loomix tub filled with softened lukewarm water, we went to campus point at low tide to gather rocks. My friend Kathryn is an artist, and she has been gathering rocks all month for one of her art projects. I've always liked to look for interesting things on the beach, but I've never been to a beach so abundant with rocks and shells. At their thickest, the swath-shaped layers of rocks are 2-3 inches deep. Among the rocks are tiny shells and bright flecks of beach glass. There was so much that I didn't know what to look for.

At first I was drawn to what seemed most luminous -- still wet peach-colored quartz and ruby-tinged granite flecked with black spangles. Next I was drawn to what seemed most unusual or different. This could be anything from a bit of coral anchored in rock or a shimmering sliver of abalone or a strange conglomerate of asphalt and shale and what I thought could be fossilized whale bones. Then it was to shells -- the bigger the better. In South Carolina, where the shells on the beach were mostly oyster or mussel or clam, the great beach find was the sand dollar, but conch shells or any shell that was curved or curled was rare. So I went for those. Last, as my bag became heavier and heavier, I was drawn simply to what I most wanted to touch. I was looking for touching -- for smooth and semi-porous surfaces, for edges. The looking lasted for over two hours -- until the tide started to come in and cover the rocks. And the rocks are only there during the winter. During the summer the point is mostly smooth sand.



At one point-- probably mid-way, when I was looking for the largest and shiniest shells -- I climbed onto the pile of large rocks that jetty into the sea. At the very tip -- yards of moss and jagged black rock and pools beyond where I stood -- pelicans had gathered to rest. Even the air was shiny, so shiny the body (my body) felt invisible. The pelicans shimmered between bird and outline. Later, near the end when my selections were motivated by what I thought would grant the most tactile pleasure, I occasionally heard the scatter of sandy dirt-rocks slipping from the cliffs. The rocks wash up, the cliffs fall down. It isn't erosion exactly, but a sea saw of hardening and softening.

Today I washed and sorted what I'd gathered into three piles -- shell, rock, and glass. Tomorrow I will sort them by size and type and color. I am not sure what will happen next. But it feels like making poems. like gathering letters and sounds and words. The syntax of tangibles untangled and rearranged, if only temporarily.

some thoughts on why I am interested in animals

I dislike nature shows: the animal porn, the emphasis on "the hunt," the sly suggestion that animal "violence" naturalizes or justifies human brutality. I dislike the way one is expected to assume that there is a logical and natural distinction between "the cultivated" and "the wild," or the implication that cultivation is less violent than wilderness. I dislike the omission of the human -- whether it be the camera crew or the people who live near the photographed animals. I vaguely recall the John Berger essay, "Why Look at Animals?" The Victorian zoo and nineteenth-century capitalism. The way looking is about distance, objectification. This connects to many of my thoughts about gender and gender constructions and gender politics.

Still, I go to youtube and look for videos of animals. I go on walks and photograph the animals I see. There are reasons I look at animals, they just are not the reasons suggested by the nature porn. I look at animals to feel less lost, to feel alive. I have been thinking a lot about living, or rather living as a state of being. I want anything alive to keep living. But it does not bother me that an animal kills another animal because it is hungry. The polar bear does not kill the walrus it does not need to eat.

But one nature program shows chimps attacking a neighboring group. They live in fig trees and it is suggested that they have plenty to eat. Their group is 150, which Attenborough tells us is quite large. Despite the figs, the chimps attack the neighboring group out of desire for more territory (so we are told). The neighboring group scatters when the large group descends, screaming. Some of the dominant males of the larger group capture one of the younger rivals. They kill and eat the baby. The pass the red limbs to one another. It appears to be about ritual, not hunger.

I do not know why they ate the baby, but I'm not convinced that it is out of a desire for dominance -- the sort of motivated violence I associate with humans. Some researchers suggest that these attacks are the direct result of habitat loss and contact with humans. That the violence amongst themselves is a defense against the stress of an ever-shrinking jungle.

The same program opens with a segment on Birds of Paradise. The birds live in Papau New Guinea where, according to Wikipedia, sea shells were abolished as currency in 1933. In this segment, Attenborough tells us that "the abundance of food gives [the birds] plenty of time to do other things."



I'm not keen on the way gender constructions are projected onto the birds in this clip, but I'm intrigued by the suggestion that -- in the absence of scarcity -- the birds not only thrive physically, but also become more artistic. Usually when I think of scarcity, I think of it in the context of capitalism, of how greed turns more into less, of how William Morris suggests that if everyone had creative work, the problem of scarcity would be abolished. And then I remember the camera and that I am looking at animals. And I am reminded of Eileen Myles's observations about pets and animals and gender. How in the presence of animals, gender constructions weaken. I've not yet mapped the constellations of my interest in animals, but my feeling is that -- like all interests -- its political aspects are something I must explore and attempt to articulate even if ultimately I end up saying many things I might change my mind about after saying them.

public and private life (britney and dick)

perhaps we are so interested -- or so it would seem that many are interested -- in the private lives of eccentric celebrities because we are living in a time in which our leaders are _not_ public.