#uncoffeed...

I followed my own advice:  when you don't know what to do, garden. Pulling weeds does something to clarify the bigger picture.  What keeps growing back is native; understand its purpose. Study your soil and weather - and the local wildlife - when choosing to interject a garden into what's already there. You can take risks and plant something you really like, but know that it may not survive the environment even if you dedicate yourself to protecting it. Decide which way you're gonna play this - in my opinion, there are no wrong answers. Sometimes I feel like I'm standing a planet away from what should be my peers. As a rebellious teen cliché, I gravitated toward highly intelligent people who did not hold degrees. They made sense to me, and I seemed to make sense to them. They were happy in their hippie lives, happier than I was in mine. They presented a version of stability to which I could aspire. I get very clear signals from time to time that I did ...

Milensia Virginiensis I saw this tank with wings patrolling my tiny cottage a couple days ago, and then it was gone. And then it was back last night. I enjoy all the beasties that find their way into my home, and I enjoy putting them the fuck back outside. I've liberated many spiders, including an adorable teenage Orb Weaver, moths, a butterfly, a skink, two baby snakes and a mole. Not the ants . I thought at first it was a variety of bumblebee who'd bumbled in from the mint out front. I couldn't find a picture online of a bee like this -- but wait...shoot. I'd forgotten all about yellowjackets . One of the first things we learned as wild kids in Michigan is that bees don't want to hurt you, because they will lose their stinger and die; wasps and hornets can sting you over and over, unrepentantly. While I flipped through pictures of things that will stab me, the hovertank disappeared again. I thought maybe it had gone to bed, so I would do same. And t...

You have a beautiful mind. Thank you. And we want you to use it. Thank you. On what should I use it? You can use it on anything you like. Butterflies? Well, yes, butterflies. But don't you want to use your mind productively? What means productively ? Something that progresses the state of the world. The world seems very big and moving due to gravitational collapse... The citizens, then...mankind as a whole. Just the mans, then? I am not a man. No, silly...humans. All humans are equal. Okay. Am I a humans? Yes. I like butterflies. Are butterflies humans? No, butterflies are not humans, but you can like them. I want to use my beautiful mind to help them.  I can study what they need and they will always be and I will be happy. Will this progress the state of all humankinds? Well, perhaps...butterflies need oxygen like we do... And food. Butterfly foods are in flowers, and I like flowers. Do humankinds find that production of f...

My work-space is currently a poetry lab, but the poetry's not mine - Peter Kidd sent me some-odd pieces by priority mail so I can see what art may manifest to accompany them. I fixed the pages like butterflies* with long pins to my U.S. map, around and over the Presbyterian Migratory Trail where each generation of Ewing is marked with a different shade of plastic head. The ancestors will have to wait and support this project - every choice they made was for me, was for now , after all. Right?   Take the risk. This assignment coincides with the emotional birth of Deconstructed Corvid 3, which I saw in the rocks and moss growing between the carpets of my driveway. The carpets are not allegory nor metaphor. I'm not sure why they were laid out there initially, but as I move them throughout the winter to cover iced-over puddles I think I get the idea. When Pete said he'd be mailing the pages, my first thought was that I should send them back illuminated like Medieval...

A few days ago, I came home to find a weird convention of ants circling my kitchen light. It was weird because there are no food crumbs in my kitchen, especially in the light sticking out of the wall three inches from the ceiling. They seemed very intent, as ants usually do. I wiped down the entire area with bleach and soapy water, and those who weren't sopped up began to disperse. *Psychepedantic Rob Coafman told me he has the foolproof method for ant killing: You need water, sugar, and Borax.  It must be Borax.  Great success.   Boil a couple cups of water and keep adding sugar until the water is supersaturated with sugar.  It should begin to appear more viscous even when boiling.  Once you can't get any more sugar between the water molecules add Borax.  I add a fair bit, maybe 2-4Tbsp per cup of water.   Once that dissolves, take it off the heat.   Put that shit out near where the ants are.  Once they fi...

Our children have left us for the cities. We Nenets have migrated across Yamal Peninsula for generations. We take care to not disturb the beings that live around us. Yamal means End of the World . All the way to Kara Sea there are low shrubs and wind-stripped birches. There are bogs, lichen, howling winds, reindeer, and us. We move north in summer so our reindeer can graze on fresh pastures. We return south when the Ob River freezes over. I have given birth to three sons; one died an infant and two went to the city. Once they were no longer afraid of the Communists, our children gave up herding reindeer for what they called civilization. They went to universities to learn other words than those we taught them. They speak Russian and no longer regard the spirits. My sons think I am simple because I follow reindeer with my sledge. I know other words, city words. I have no use for them. Cities have terrible stories. Our Nenets children are bewitched by bright lights...