Don't Want to Make a Meatloaf Now

Stepping out with Shab for a last chance just before sunset, I got the first for me but one of the last available blasts of the day's summer flower and soft beginnings of the night drums.

Living in Chukkachank I can't just walk to the wild patch up the street unacknowledging of who's else is there in the road, and neither can a flake pretend it's not an event, or at least salient, that Shab and I are in and around and among, in smelling distance.

I overtook a largish family grouping headed no doubt to the same tousled organic respite both appearing and disappearing in the gloom ahead. I decided to try out my Fleyk on them even though it's High Chank tongue.

I said Careful now incorrectly to a fur-loined child that had veered suddenly from a tight but getting fraught filial constellation in the glare of evening.

Explaining, I gestured for the boy into one of the larger roadside trees with abundant vinery spilling up and from it. I'd stopped him in his tracks, and I could guess which of the men was his dad because he wouldn't meet my eye while picking up his pace. This plant, I tried to say, has a venom. It makes problems of the skin. As I paused in striking senatorial pose, son looks up at me with serendipity, not at my lecture, I realize, but for certain my biology.

Perfect moment for just-arriving father to chime in, bowing, Yes, this is a poisonous plant for sure, a dangerous plant and one that the children should take care not to touch or even go near it. Son, did you hear? he stated, sophomorically, to my native ear.

But gratitude tingled just above my temples for I knew this honorable soul was acting out a ritual, and that it was cross-cultural.

As I smiled and harvested, reached, swam in the sudden sea of available smiles, including a commuter, entering scene on his bicycle, could tell it was a moment to use his years of practice as if he'd pedaled through this site, the green tunnel, the malicious tree, with his empty lunchbox and a bouquet for the wife, calling out Hello! Hello! to one and all at end of each working week and day.

The grandmother, the tiniest baby even seemed to go along and say, Hello! Hello! This is the language we speak here cotidianly, and we want you, who also speak this funny way, to feel at home.

Now the calling had turned to laughing and the laughing to forgetting to a low and murmured chanting, involuntary singing, a barely-conscious melody, the kind that someone sings when there's no medicine. Now the children were much thicker in their wave across the ashpalt, and other sounds, the crickets, now in rhythm once they recognized a cadence they could understand, and light was almost gone, and Shab and I were frightened.


by Illyn [shard]

SINGLE PAYER

(got it)
no, not a pear. A pay-er.
They're everyway-er.
Find one make him pay
and it'll be ok
cuz it's his religion.

Dear Micky Vadrid:

I know that self-reflection is like an inside-out hall of mirrors
not to mention the redundancy of the term itself, grammatically,
which even further empties it, sparkly symbols, explanations
sifting down to lexicon from dictionary, or the other way around,
but to scour out, to hollow, is an observer-theory outcome, whereas the
scales might all throw back the other way if you sit up and comb
or let me do it.


Phyllis at Missy Toilet [shard]

A Ruin, Not Ruined

But neither spoiled.
Monument to Naught
Looks good in silhouette,
moon backlit.
So fragile and strong.
Landmark only inasmuch
as would cause a walk around
it? But only if blocking a road?

So Much Death, So Little Inheritance

Who the Fuck is Each Other?

They can now die and clean up after themselves

Unlikely path to discovery, especially for a grail like holy resurrection.
But it's all true: we were looking for a way that the dead could self-waste manage.
Until then, we had to post photos with captions like "He was a collector of sorts,"
In the Real Estater which one may have guessed was a dog whistle for
Nobody wants but a pip of his total life's work, or what he kept, so
It too will be yours aboard this self-driving stationary home that keeps returning empty.

Dear Vikki Madrid:

RE: LET'S BE HONEST THERE IS SHAME IN W.A.S.T.E.

Thank you, Vikki-- I will contact Vikki Toledo.

In general I do not feel that I have a good grasp of exactly how I am supposed to go about either requesting or receiving a W.A.S.T.E. cert or even what those W.A.S.T.E. accommodations are supposed to be or not be.

I would rather not have to wander around like a beggar trying to convince the odd RTD jockey or Shootervax  administrator to help when I need it. Do I have to explain to them that I am W.A.S.T.E.? How does it work, exactly?

I do not know whom I am supposed to approach, what type of accommodation the Clinic is really willing to provide-- if any-- and what the Clinic's responses are to my remaining concerns about accommodation, which I provided months ago.

The Institute is a more hostile environment for me now than ever, and it's very difficult to focus on my patients and other aspects of the job that used to make it seem worthwhile knowing the level of hostility my mani-pedi supe and her OR posse have for me. I feel even more vulnerable and unprotected from this mizus whose behavior I have directly reported to you now that it's clear the Clinic supports what she's done and has rewarded her for it. This is literally terrifying to me.

I believe it would be better for me to request a lateral transfer to a unit where I can do my work without being the object of permanent shade and complete unwelcome from above no matter how well I perform or do not perform. I have always been qualified to work in High Grooming, I already vacuum eye shiv and pull foreigns at other ranch and rig sites; maybe at Chukkachank HG, I could be granted enough hours to actually buy food and make payment.

Alternately, or additionally, I still believe I should be paid for work that I was promised when I cancelled my Dorsal-Stoma residency and came on board nearly full-time at the invitation of Vikki London. She told me in front of witnesses that even if it did not work out, she would make sure I got the same number of hours in mani-pedi to make up for any lost hours in RMP. That was a lie, and now there have been major economic consequences for me (and many more coins for her!). In the meantime, another worker of the preferred species ratio in that department who started the same time I did is still enjoying most likely double the pay I am making after I got the shaft from the two newly promoted mezus who have enjoyed no consequence while my career at the Clinic (and my bank account) is ruined.

The stress caused by Vikki London's and Vikki Belfast's workplace brutality toward me has caused a lot of depression and anxiety and contributed to the loss of my relationship with the flake I was planning to marry and general deterioration of my ability to cope with confusing pre-and-post-procedural duties and other stressful aspects of the new environment I now face after making lawful and dutiful complaints with no positive results whatsoever, only punishing and negative ones.

I still believe that Vikki London and Vikki Belfast broke the law (discrimination, bias, anti-whistleblower activity, retaliation for reporting bias and intimidation, bullying; no Due Process), and that she and Overmizus Belfast tried to cover it up, and that the Clinic is also breaking the law by brushing my complaints under the rock and hoping that they go away with time.

You and the Institute should know that I am nowhere close to being ready to drop these topics, so I hope that you have not done so either.

Thank you,
Donna
"K's Fly Spread Eagle"

I've kicked out the dishes

I've called the cops and said I
want. them. outta here!
They are no longer welcome.
But sir I mean ma'am I mean sir...
They're dishes!

Tell Us Another

Managers and their girlfriends

At this time I would like to invite you to allow me to assume remote decisioning for all voluntary muscular tissue functionality as well as some limited cerebral tasks that I only ask about as a courtesy with the knowledge that you have already agreed to full remote tissue decisioning as a condition of member privileges such as the freedom to charge for and earn from your labor, to enjoy full access to Filter of Loathing, W.A.S.T.E. certificate services, and most official convo platforms.

Hello?

At this time I would like to invite you to allow me to assume remote decisioning for all voluntary muscular tissue functionality as well as some limited cerebral tasks that I only ask about as a courtesy with the knowledge that you have already agreed to full remote tissue decisioning as a condition of member privileges such as the freedom to charge for and earn from your labor, to enjoy full access to Filter of Loathing, W.A.S.T.E. certificate services, and most official convo platforms.

Fine... wow! You don't waste time. I tried that already though so why not...

Please keep your eyes and thoughts away from the cursor, sir. It will be just a moment longer.

I feel a little violated.

You are not violated sir, this is a routine check to help support your help ticket alert. Oops-- sorry.

I didn't need that finger haha. Or the comma splice! Did I do that?

Ok, sir you can reinstall eye contact and tissue decisioning after toggling the puppy icon. I have determined that your issue was caused mostly by self-pity and inability to accept change. Several times when I attempted to get near the dishwasher and the really bad mess in your kitchen, I could barely hold on because the Filter has worn so thin. This is your doing sir, and I must remind you that the filter cannot be replaced easily. Any further attacks on MPS property, even with sarcasm or parody, will result in consequences that will be automatic. No confirmation number or supervisor will be able to help you with that. MPS will assume management of your entire Recreation and Other discretionary fund and commence allocation of all personal property and savings by subscription only, rates to be determined by most recent W.A.S.T.E. rating and discretion of chank-level managers and their girlfriends.

She's gone; I'm her

I stood up to pee and my hair fell across my face the way my old dance teacher's hair fell across her face when she walked, pulling up on her tights like skirts though mud, letting her hair go in her face, walking without trying to cover up pain of walking, disgust escaping through a grimace that used to indicate a pleasant realization and now indicates a realization of unpleasantness. I was surprised to see that the tank had filled up on its own. The top was off so when I flushed it again I could see that it was filling as well without the use of a screwdriver, yet I kept thinking about Marcia, how she could do any combination backwards but could not or would not lose her butt. Modern for her seemed to be a big fuck you to the ballerinas who yanked their bodies like naked chickens. Marcia was going to take charge of space and move through space on Maricia's terms and show Marcia's standard of beauty or at last how a woman can deal with this particular space and time and how you are going to allow her to do it and stay quiet and witness Marcia, that there is a Marcia, and that she is moving in a space you share yet do not share because she is owning this space and you are letting her be the authority and the user of it and how for both of you that is working fine so why not keep doing this. Then her dance was over and no one is aware of sharing anything and she has to get from the stage to the bathroom just physically, not metaphysically or as a story or symbol or communique, or stop, just stop everything because being able to get from point A to point B is a minimum requirement for what's ok with Marcia and the spaces around her.

Support: BROKEN

Maybe 10 minutes? an hour after the building collapsed I was foggy but conscious that I needed to get something done, and I was having a lot of trouble because I kept getting blocked from these outside-- they were beams I guess, one just a few inches above my forehead so I couldn't lift enough to see my feet, which also seemed to be encumbered among some wobbly metal pipes, like I knew I had paid for the software but I never really received any tangible version of it and now, of course, when I needed it after a crash, even after spending all morning locating the the little green card with the product key and finding the correct version and country and division of the company with the sign-on that I still might have the password to saved in the browser I used to use, and getting in that way, and typing the 16 numbers into the fields and retyping them after a couple of errors, getting the message, "What you have entered is not a product key." I thought I could turn onto my side, slip out onto what I was hoping based on echo and coolness was the concrete slab behind me, but I felt at that point that I had probably been seriously wounded in my side somewhere or at least that it hurt far too much to try a solution that might only make matters worse. I even got through to a number of "support" personnel who sung, each in turn, the delights of being able to help me and promised that we would work together to find a solution to my issue even though I felt deeply that this issue was not mine, that I must assert that, that I'd kept my part of the bargain; I'd found my goddamn green plastic card that would survive much longer than I will on this planet and typed the numbers correctly into the fields. This was my property that I had paid for, and I had never requested that it be held securely for me, so securely that I would certainly have to shell out more money either for a complete replacement, which would be completely redesigned for the sake of redesign with no regard whatsoever to the hours I had spent learning and customizing the old design to my preferences, or at least to the point where I could actually read documents sent to me by my workplace without having to either enter symbols or  swear oaths or divulge private and vulnerable aspects of my identity, or for a superior level of "support" that would go beyond the celebration of support offered without support actually having been received.

Circle of caring

So completely sober, or as sober as i ever am, i started this project where i auto-stim a psychedelic journey from which i can learn.

I'd been reading wacky but reasonable versions of the plant-induced variety with accompanying sides of terror and physical revulsion.

But why? All of that only goes to show that the brain is perfectly capable of doing that all on its own, and that it may actually be always doing that anyway without our ever noticing.

So I surrendered to the colors and shadow anyone might notice with their eyes closed or partially rolled back into the head, relaxing.

The trip reports had mentioned being carried along on a current that you can't stop. I thought of the swollen stream rushing past right outside my door and what it would be like to be on it.

Distracting thoughts for me, a ruminator, don't have to be chased down, and my morbid imagination is not afraid of and indeed occasionally produces scenes of carnage and destruction, as does any red blooded. So i was not afraid, but that did not happen. There was lucidity as in partial dreaming.

But then i remembered my own last experience with a bio-halucinogen: the very real sense of another presence, not a cartoon guide frog sitting on a stump, but something round that was just next to me and actually overlapping into my own head, so like my head was a Venn diagram, except both halves living and potentially aware of one another, at least i of it.

Now tho as i hung my head in frustration, wishing for the ego obliteration splinters of which were variously described as lighting, ants, fractured bisected perspectives, no instead my hand on my head became the hand of that thing. It was my left hand and the thing had been intersecting with my left brain.

The hand was familiar and maybe it was someone i knew who is dead and earlier, even before the experiment, i had been experimenting with prayer and reflecting on how it's different from talking to the dead, and whether or not talking to the dead was more dangerous than prayer. Which assumes more agency? etc.

The hand not only held my head while I wept but let me bury my face in it and felt my face as if it had not felt it for many years and wanted to remember. It's not like i never feel my own face.

Lately also i've been saying thanks to my previous self: "Thanks, past self," and really meaning it. I do something that will help out later like putting the groceries where I can find them again, and it's a pain in the ass while i am doing it but i feel like i need to say thanks to that person for going to the trouble because so often everything seems like a lot of goddamn trouble but sometimes i find the energy to do it anyway because i respect my future self that much at least or at least have the optimism to expect there to be a future self.




Dr. Donna Thong
"Doing my time on the Chang K. Chang Chank Drunk Tank Chain Gang."

Parti-colored tipis

shields devils heads are the lining at the base of a column
green sunset, rising black
we are embedded in the placenta or tongue
a house of wooden figures with rubber bands for knees
the one that used to run, heaped in a corner
a band of light, orbiting pure mercury
is the hand railing/ chair bumper
in a glum nursing scream home
you are no longer reasonable no matter the reason
let me go, I'll tell them you're keeping me
against your will, I know, they all say that.
As the gut churns, a heaving green turfscape
in a mist, slippry, odorous, and tipis. Calico
tipis with tip flags, lancers.



Ayre Fromme-Diaz

Tipis
Tipis at night with
Spotlights shining down on them by
Tipis hovering overhead:
Tipis shining lights on tipis



by Flaco Huevon

Black men's names bleeding into my white skin

I have to admit I have trouble making them out now
Not that I've forgotten but the ink has spread, what
happens to an old tattoo by a drunken spaniard at the
seaside, what's been repaired and pumped and let
slide; even keratoses or folliculitis comes up black

These guys among others were with me in parallel
Encountering intimately the secrets of genetic disparity
and delight, the fight, tho what we shared was losing
Losing lots of losses in a row that inspired meta-loss:
that's when men then seek the young not the departing



Love, Hoolie

More man tips

chinstraptail

chintie

gagtail

tailhelmet_side

Beavers had more agency

When we were in the pen, we and everyone who was born there stopped noticing getting shat upon over and over. And our nobler substances spilled on top of that. It didn't matter. Managing contact with the excretions of others is perhaps the core experience of all life forms. We became degraded ping-pong balls lolling atop a sticky heap of ego destruction. Our selves were the empty spheres of which we were aware, within which anything could be imagined and nothing could be directly experienced or executed except the wading in shit blood tears and cum part. There would be no special result of our lives individually any more than one pale leaf riding on a stream could create a natural dam big enough to stem the flow. Indeed, beavers had more agency.



Love, Peg

God damn the glamour

God damn the glamour
the glamour is gone

dirt owl in its hole
wing wrap of cardinal

we smear this glam all over
unseen it does not glitter

pardon our homosexual
remarks resting in hip

but this is not your trip
just a silly runway stroll

is what i'd say back in
the storied golden dome

but they came for the
mystery, then peed on it



Dr. Donna Thong
"Once a go-go, always a go-go."