One way of being depressed is to develop juvenile diabetes without knowing it for a few months, feeling so terrible and lethargic that you stop going out, going to work, and calling your friends. Maybe not having blood sugars four to six times normal levels will make you snap out of it; or maybe you really are a terrible person. Either way, you're probably not even looking for english-speaking endocrinologists in Argentina.

Everything is one thing.
I'm fine.
No joy could ever be enough.

NNHS

The stars of a four-story galaxy,
shining on me,
are reflected in a new pool;
behind the old school
rises the new school.

Sure As Shoeshine: a song about jealousy

#
Darlin be mine
sure as shoeshine
I don't have time
to fool around.
I won't be fine
in the meantime
while you
tool around the town.
#

Take my pictcha
keep it witcha
if you doubt me
just look down.
If some other
guy won't quitcha
show ma pictcha
and ya frown.

##

If ya ask me
for my latchkey
I'll provide it
for ya now.
Just don't say you
can't attach me
while I work
to make you proud.

##

Don't you think you're
clever missy
as I lay my
money down.
If you think that
you won't miss me
I'll be sure to
play you round.

##

If I can't will ya
then I'll kill ya
shoot you up and
shoot you down.
Then I'll sing this
love song to ya
as you lie there
on the ground.

#
Darlin be mine
sure as shoeshine
I don't have time
to fool around.
I can't be fine
in the meantime
while you
lie dead on the ground.
#

If I am this
brutal to ya
I will take my
lesson hard:
hold that barrel
to my navel
and discharge
into my lard.

##

Oh the pain of
dyin slowly
is a thought that
should abound,
in your head please
choose instead of
me in pain
rolling around.

##

I'll just die there
face in your hair
while you stare dead
at the crowd.
Let this be my
lesson to ya
hope you hear me
clear and loud.

##

MW

The last time I saw you when you were still a girl, we played in the waves together on the beach. I remember you futzing with your one-piece bathing suit a lot while I pushed you on the float; but your laughter was sometimes free and you weren't so goddamn tall. Ever since then when I've seen you, you've been doing all you can to be a young woman. I admire your efforts, but you seem very distant and unreachable. I hope, when you're done growing up, we'll still be friends.

Jr

I'm a superman in the making
now I won't be forsaking you.
I'll wear my helmet when I'm raking
but I won't be taking my life for you.

I hate to tell this to you
but I think you'd know that it's true
if you'd just stop quaking in fear.
I hope you wish I was here
I know I wish I was here.
I hope you know I love you
but that I sure ain't through with you.

I got my shoes on
no thanks to you all.
I haven't lost any friends
and no one needs to get the bends
over some stupid shit
that shouldn't make your blood boil
or spoil a summer of toil in the soil.

Obviously
bureaucracy is not for me,
but I assure thee
that politics is my new specialty.
So don't think you're getting off free,
you'll be hearing from me.

for my uncle, who knows

The wise man grows younger as he grows older until he is again as he was. A great return he has chosen, and new openness to a world he has certainly known but which he no longer knows. He dodges blind rigidity and its associated woes by recovering his mind's flexibility.

"I'm not sure of anything," he says, and relearns- drawing not exclusively from his head, but frequently from the changing natural world instead. A good way not to die before he's dead.

Hungry?

The sickly spores of boredom in the brain are bleating-
drawing ever nearer the hour of unnecessary feeding.
Feel the urge surge within; purge the scourge that is thankfully fleeting.
Courage cures, and causes the sublimation of recreational eating.
Run off the unwelcome sensation: distraction is deflection.
What small satisfaction is gained from a common confection?

I have something
I've been wanting
to give you,

An intimacy
commonly
shared by two;

I was gonna stop by
as I was driving
through,

Join our lips,
brush our hips
and then shoo.

I'm tellin you bro

You gotta go slow.

You gotta know fo sho
you've got the flow
and you ain't no ho.

You gotta relax.

You gotta pay the tax
before you play the sax
or swing the ax.

It's gonna be wild.

But the consequence
is a lot more mild
without a child.

sun showers all day:
God smiling on my way,
would that I could stay.

a new one

Hopefully ethnocentricity
is sorta like outdated,
along with monochromicity.
But I see you alone, missy,
as the finest ethnicity.

Saftey

First Year, put on all your PPE and repeat after me:

Safety is very important.
Safety is a priority.
Safety is number-one priority.
I love safety.
I love feeling safe.
I feel safe right now,
and I've never felt better in my life.

Mother

Mother,
this is from me and my brother,
your son and your other son
wishing you a happy day
in this way
right away.
We may be in New Orleans still
but soon we'll be standing on your door sill
asking for so much that you want to kill us.

Hope it's been a good four months
just you and Bill in our great big house.
Enjoy it while it lasts
cause who knows when you'll long for the past:
I don't want to be crass but I am the shit
and you'll want me around if you are with it.
Of course your fault it is,
raising us on healthy alternatives.

So thank you Mom
cause my life's a song
and it will be long
and I love you strong.

progress

This week the end of my project, getting Sheila's house ready for occupancy, came into sight. On Monday we began what could have been an arduous, drawn-out process: shoring up the soft subfloor in preparation for installing flooring. But we were motivated and industrious so we ended up finishing that same day at 6:30 pm. It was awesome to wield a framing nail gun again. Crawling around under the house like a commando I felt that this was real work, an actual accomplishment. Today we did more preparation for the flooring installation, including buying some of the flooring so it can acclimate on site. My parents are coming down to work this Thursday until next Thursday, and I've assigned them to the floor. Also, we're almost done with the walls, which is what I started on 2 months ago. I'm excited.

dynamism

Whenever I've been uncomfortable here, or especially when I've become keenly aware of the unsustainability of the systems in place for work and living, I've consoled myself with the mantra: everything here is temporary. Turns out it's true; I meant that I plan to leave in May, but the founder is in town and he has started the grindwheel of policy building. The informality and start-up feel of this place has begun to slip away and I am already missing it. Simultaneously, I feel my Boston-area relationships slipping because I don't have time and energy to keep them up. This is why I was scared of traveling.

The Whitest Mud

We're into our second week of mudding (drywall joint compound application) at Miss Sheila's and I think it's going well. The idea is to create a perfectly uniform surface so that when it's painted, there is no evidence of the structure of the house or the work that was put into it. All I can say is, "Dad, now we can definitely fix those holes we punched in the wall."

I woke up on the beach this morning.

In my mom's old north face two person, the indigo walls and golden ceiling were filtering the sunlight; my companion wore purple hair and a yellow shirt; I unzipped the door and saw the Gulf of Mexico, blue under the sun; then I looked into her eyes and realized they were watery blue with flecks of yellow right around the pupils. Thus began my day of rest at the end of my week of rest.

Craig and I are officially drywall installation crew leaders here at lowernine.org now, as officially as anything is here anyway. Last week we only had short term volunteers for one day so everything was pretty chill. Also it was just five of us long-termers living in headquarters, and the personal space was delicious. Now we're flat out for the next six weeks: a bunch of folks just rolled in tonight and the energy they bring is palpable and enjoyable. We will have them clean and buy food while we teach them how to get people down here back into their houses, a fair exchange if you ask me.

Welcome to NOLA

Today I ended my LDR and moved to New Orleans full time; my brother welcomed me with open arms.

free food

Five of us just pulled a week's worth of food out of the food salvage container behind Winn Dixie: bread, flowers, beans, TOMATOES , lemons, parsley, lettuce, waffles. Also from the food salvage containers at Pizza Hut and Papa Johns: 8-10 pizzas and one box of cheesy bread. Then from some other containers on veteran's blvd: 7 very large plastic bins, 3 power strips, a tree planter, a picture frame and a mirror star. We skitched the non-food home in the planter. Only one regret: no chocolate easter bunnies this time...

Sorry I haven't called you...

My northern brethren,
it's not you, it's me: busy.
I promise we'll talk...
eventually.

[title]

When life is easy,
it's hard to have self control.
[word word; word word word.]

lowernine.org

Two Saturdays ago Craig and I moved to a different organization. The church volunteer center was based in a large, mostly finished space, pretty far uptown in a nice neighborhood. It had an established bureaucracy that we had to work through to stay there and there were lots of rules and policies in place while we were there. Our work was scheduled out and parceled off to different organizations. Lowernine.org is based in a small, unfinished house all the way down in the lower ninth ward. We stopped by one afternoon two weeks ago and arranged to stay here; though we were told to fill out and email in applications as well, it was more of a formality. The work here is all rebuilding homes within walking distance of the headquarters. Leadership roles have been designated but the atmosphere is very relaxed and even some essential roles are filled charismatically rather than officially. Living and working here for the last week and a half has been hard, much harder than the work at the church. We work full days doing home rebuilding work, mostly drywall installation. Last week, eating and sleeping were irregular: we moved our beds three times and on Saturday, our friend took us to the food salvage location to pick up free food (and flowers). When it's not raining, we hang out on the street, shooting hoops and smoking; and by 'we' I mean everyone but me; I just hang out in the street. This place is awesome and you should donate money to it: lowernine.org; the founder, Rick Prose, just said: "We're the future baby!"

a couplet in abrogation of a hasty publication

Commemoration is now anachronistic.
That view of things was a bit too simplistic.

Awesomeest Dinner Service Ever

Craig and I cooked dinner for seven tonight and served it at location Blue. We just made pasta with an onion-and-broccoli red sauce but it was awesome; the food and the location. The sauce, which was all Craig, was hearty and delicious and very well received; the location, which was all me, was literally awesome but a bit uncomfortable despite the table and chairs and full place-settings. If only it weren't so cold, and so the-day-after-Mardi-Gras, people might have stayed longer: we had wine and coffee and ice cream (alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and saturated fat) that we didn't even break into, or that we should have broken into earlier depending on how I look at it. The reason we were at location Blue in the first place is that none of us volunteers have housing where we can plan to entertain guests; other people's rules and other people's irritable dispositions have great sway over our livelihoods and living situations and thus over our social lives. I guess that is kind of what we signed on for: to do good work while living in shitty conditions. Anyways, I was really pleased to work as a team with my brother to do something cool for our friends-all that remains to be done is a sinkful of dishes.

Parades are Free

Muses, the women's parade, was the best street party I've ever been to. You know, up in Boston I never understood the point of parades: just standing there, trying to see shit that is not that awesome anyways. But being on a super tight budget down here has really made me notice that parades have one huge thing going for them: freedom. And rather than be scared by the crowd and worried about being in other people's way, I've felt free to join in the spirit of Carnival: a participatory, freeing state of mind. Americans are so obsessed with safety, which half the time just means comfort: 'I'm not comfortable with that, it must be unsafe...' I wonder where we all got the idea that we're entitled to a roving bubble of comfort. I wonder where we all got the idea that our very presence anywhere public or private entitles us to shut down what we find uncomfortable in that place. I wonder where we all got the idea that we have the right to be safe without having to lift a finger to protect ourselves. I can't tell you how many times someone skeptically eyed me and said, 'If you swing those beads into me, it's gonna be bad news.' And I replied, 'Please just don't walk into the beads!' Because Whatever! Beads cant fucking kill you, they can hardly hurt you; your comfort bubble is fucking disbanded here. This is a parade; this is fun; this is free; you can go home if you need to be comfortable. Seriously dude, lady, drunk parent with tired child: Whatever. It's Fucking Carnival.

a couplet in commemoration of a lost friendship

I thought what we had was unconditional.
But now, turns out, it's a lot more traditional.
(what the fuck?)

1

Craig and I arrived in NOLA on Thursday. I lost my watch for about 10 minutes at baggage claim. I considered it emblematic of our arrival in the South, but then I found it. And it's a good thing because we're staying with the Unitarians at the UUSC volunteer center at FUUNO (First Unitarian-Universalist Church of New Orleans, dig the carefully constructed acronym). I love UUs, and I am one, but God help you if you don't know the time: we are Scheduled! I love it, it really meshes with my 'protestant work ethic' (i.e. the more I work, the less terrible a person I am).
It's Mardi Gras season here, so I've been dodging parades. There was one called the Barkus, and it's a puppy parade. People dress up their dogs, dress up like their dogs, and pay fifty bucks a pop to march with their dogs in the parade. We worked a seven hour shift handing out free boxes of Altria brand dog biscuits; we made pyramids of them and forced them into the hands of passerby. Today we're going to learn how to install flooring here at the volunteer center. We're still working on a place to live next week because this place closes for Mardi Gras. Craig is happy: he sleeps 10 hours a day. I am happy too: I like the people I meet and they like me.