#thesingingknives

[thesingingknives]

Prompted by @canticleofcanticlesforleibowitz (Thanks!)

Last Song (I've listened to): Michael Jackson - “Billie Jean” (because one of my kiddos was playing it; not that I’m complaining) / last song I actively chose to listen to was Old Saw - “Ira Dorset Suffering from Moonblindness”

Favorite Color(s): I never know how to answer this. Because what does it mean? Favorite color(s) to wear? To use in a painting? To decorate my living space with? Also, I have a lot of favorite colors in all those contexts. Here are a few: black, white, grey/gray, deep purples, light lilac/lavender purples, very dark greens, light heathery greens, many many shades of blue, mustardy/goldy/saffrony yellows.

Currently Watching: My partner and I have been rewatching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia starting from the first episode. We’re on season five now. Other than that, not much recently other than YouTube videos; I had a goal at the beginning of the year to watch one movie a week but that fell by the wayside when I got busy with my job.

Current Obsession: I’m getting really really into geology. I’ve long found it fascinating but a combination of factors (what I’m reading, where I live now) has put it at the forefront.

Currently Reading: Strata: Stories from Deep Time by Laura Poppick (see above), and Mojave Ghost by Forrest Gander.

Currently Working On: Trying to get back into writing after a minor dry spell. I have lists and lists of ideas/notes, but haven’t finished a full poem or prose piece (not counting journal entries) in a couple months. (I know that doesn’t sound like a long time to most people, but it is for me.) Also wanting to get back into making zines; I haven’t published one since early 2025 and I miss it.

Currently Wearing: My ancient Daycare Swindlers tee that I cut the sleeves off ages ago and then later made into a crop top; a pair of knee-length black yoga pants.

Last Internet Search: Portage Beach Sturgeon Bay (went there with a friend yesterday and wanted to know more about it)

Favourite Flower: Again, like favorite colors, it depends on context. So, again, I’ll just list a bunch: violets, pansies, lilacs, peonies, forget me nots, sweet pea, honeysuckle, magnolia, cherry blossoms, dandelions, morning glory….

I’ll tag @belialjones, @junkmanserenade, @rhymingteelookatme, @dee-the-red-witch, and @endreal - but don’t feel obligated (and if you want to do this and I haven’t tagged you, consider yourself shadow-tagged!)

[thesingingknives]

Life is wild. Remember that job I applied for back in December, and how I heard back from them and they said they’d already hired someone? And how I tried to convince myself that I didn’t really want the job after all? Yeah, that was totally a coping mechanism. I did really, really want the job. Well, now I have it. Long story short, the person they hired had to drop out due to personal reasons. They interviewed me and a couple other applicants the Friday before last, and as soon as all the interviews were over—they called and offered me the job. (At a $2-an-hour higher pay rate than even the maximum they put on the job description! So they must really want me.) It’s all been a whirlwind. As I said, I got the job Friday before last, and I started a week ago yesterday. The first week went well, but it was mostly meetings and training, not much hands-on work, so it was just a lot of information coming at me all at once and it got a bit overwhelming.

This past Thursday, I had a really bad anxiety day. Partly about the job—I’ve never had a job exactly like this before, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had a job with a regular paycheck and steady hours. And the impostor syndrome hit me and I started thinking: “I can’t do this. I’m gonna fuck up real bad and they’re gonna fire me.” (I was looking for a job, and then I found a job—and heaven knows I’m miserable now.) I was also having anxiety around a Concerning Symptom I’ve been having. It’s not even really that concerning or that much of a symptom, but when I’m already feeling anxious, my brain notices any pain or strange sensation in my body and latches on to it, and convinces me that I am going to die imminently.

On top of those two things, I got an email from someone from my distant past. I was super super into him, on the verge of falling in love, and it seemed maybe like he felt the same way, but because of the circumstances of my life at the time, I wasn’t gonna go for it unless he made a move or straight up told me he was into me. But he never did, so nothing happened, and I just yearned from a distance and wrote a lot of angsty-sexy poems about him, and then he hooked up with this other woman we both knew and my heart kinda broke. And then I got over it, mostly; he became another person on the long list of people whom I still get a pang when something reminds me of them, but whom I don’t think about that often. Well. He and the woman he went for instead of me are going through a brutal breakup, and, to reference High Fidelity—he’s going through one of those ‘what does it all mean?’ things. And decided now was a great time to tell me that he was really, really into me back then, but he got scared, and went for the person who seemed like the safer choice, and now he regrets it. And now that he’s single again, he’s been thinking of me. Uggghhhh. I hate when dudes pull this type of shit. It’s like, man, there are five thousand reasons why nothing is ever going to happen now. Not the least of which are that a. I’m not single, and b. we live hundreds of miles away from each other.  It pisses me off! I went through emotional hell due to our nearly almost nothing/whatever it was, but I got past it, and you wanna bring it up again now?!

So Thursday was pretty rough, but I did take a good chunk of it for self-care. I took a long, hot bath with epsom salts; I read a book. That evening, I had another work meeting, but it was fine.

And there have been good days since then. The weather has been warmer these past few days than it has been in months, and sunny! And in the upper midwest, especially after the extreme cold we had this January, that means it feels like spring! Friday, the kids had off school; D. went to hang out with the grandparents, and C. and I drove south to get lunch and then go to the historical museum. Everyone I encountered everywhere we went that day was so cheerful and friendly; I’m sure at least in part due to the spring-like weather. I got my platonic flirt on with several people. (I feel that there needs to be a new term that means ‘flirting but platonic,’ because flirting alone has a romantic/sexual connotation. Some would say that flirting platonically is just being friendly, but to me, there’s a different energy there.) Saturday, the grandparents watched both kids. P. and I went to a session of short films at the film festival, then came home and had some great sex, then we cooked a decadent meal together. I made baked brie with fig preserves for an appetizer, and he made ribeye steaks + rice pilaf + asparagus for dinner. Later, after the kids were asleep, we had more hot sex.

Yesterday was my first day actually in the office, working. I clocked in four hours and got a ton done, and I feel a lot less anxious about the job now that I’m actually doing it rather than just being inundated with information. Yesterday was even warmer (mid-40s!), so when I had to leave the office to drop some stuff in the mailbox at the post office, I took a little walk/smoke break. I walked down the road a little ways, sat by the big sculptures, basked in the sun, saw a wooly bear caterpillar, listened to the crows squawk. In the evening, P. made gumbo, and C. and I danced together to NoLa brass bands, NoLa hip hop, and Bad Bunny.

Still, I’m restless. As I’ve said before, no matter how good things are in my life, I always want something more. I can achieve brief moments of contentment, but as a whole, I am not built for contentment. And I’m full of nostalgia. It’s weird having moved up here, because though it’s a place I’ve never lived before, it’s been a huge part of my life for over 30 years, and for many of those years, I’ve spent so much time here that it’s been basically a second home. So I can’t really go anywhere without having some memory about what used to be there, or who used to be there. Sometimes they’re just fleeting thoughts, other times I’m hit with a wave of memories so strong it’s like I’ve been hurtled back into the past. Then again, Racine and Kenosha were like that for me, too. A lot of places are like that for me. And honestly, even if I were in a place I’d never been before, the memories would still be there. Case in point: I always think of Filia a lot around this time of year, and also Ruby, and so I keep having vivid memories of being with one of them in Philadelphia, NYC, D.C., Baltimore, though I am very far away from those places. I’m haunted, what do you expect? And it doesn’t help that the weather is feeling more spring-like (springtime makes me extra restless), and it doesn’t help that we’re nearing Pisces season (Pisces season makes me extra nostalgic). But I’ve been restless and nostalgic for as long as I can remember. That’s just my life. At least now I generally deal with both those things in less self-destructive ways than I used to.

[thesingingknives]

I always know I’m dissatisfied in my life when I have a lot of dreams about sex or travel. I should clarify: I have dreams about sex and travel all the time, but when I’m dissatisfied with my waking life, they take on a particular tenor. When I’m feeling okay in my waking life, my sex dreams seem to take place in some alternate universe where I am not married, and they’re usually about celebrities or random dream-people that don’t exist IRL as far as I know. They’re dreams of fun, no-strings-attached sex. Same with my travel dreams during better times—they’re adventures; they’re just about visiting random places for the hell of it. When I’m dissatisfied in my waking life, the sex dreams either feature people I know IRL (old flames, platonic friends, casual acquaintances), or, even if they’re about fictional people or celebrities, it is very clear within the dream that I am ‘stepping out’ on my marriage, or they are doing something similar. Basically, my sex dreams during these times involve me actively fucking up my life in some way. Same with the travel dreams—they become less about adventure and more about me burning my life down to go someplace else.

Yeah, I’m having a lot of those fucking-up-my-life dreams, lately, ‘cuz I’m so, I’m so, unsatisfied. (Hey! Tomorrow’s my birthday and it’s also Paul Westerberg’s birthday!) It’s not even that my dissatisfaction (how many times can I use that word in one journal entry?! let’s find out!) is about my marriage or the place I live—no, those are two of the aspects of my life which are going well right now (not perfect, but better than other aspects). It’s just that taking new lovers and traveling were historically the tactics I used to shake up my life when it needed to be shaken up, or to try and find solace when my daily life life was already fucked up.

But. THERE IS NO SALVATION IN PEOPLE OR PLACES. I wrote that nearly 11 years ago (I was really into Jenny Holzer’s Truisms at the time). I’d caught feelings for someone, and I was already dissatisfied in my marriage and with living in Racine, and I briefly considered burning it all down to run off to [redacted] and live with them. But even before all the goddamn heartbreak that ensued, I decided not to do it, because I thought of all the times before when I’d gotten into a new relationship or moved to a new place thinking this, this would be the one that would fix me, and it never worked. No matter whom I’m with or where I am, I still have all my same old issues. And no matter how well things are going, I’m still always restless. I still always want more.

* * *

I’m just stressed and depressed. Before the holidays, I had all the usual pre-holiday stress, which was exacerbated by the fact that my mom has very high expectations for how the holidays are going to go, and if they don’t happen the way she wants them to, she blames it on me.

And now that’s past, but I’ve got the pre-new year/pre-birthday gloom; both are bad enough on their own but I get a double whammy because for me it happens at the exact same time. The whole “another year older/another year over and what do I have to show for it?” I always, always feel like I didn’t do enough. Didn’t write enough, didn’t publish enough, didn’t accomplish enough. I know, logically, that I did a lot this year—I put out a chapbook and a spoken word EP! I wrote a lot for my Substack! I moved across the state! I got a job! I got my kids enrolled in and settled in at school! Yet I still feel like a failure.

Before Christmas, I applied for another job. Not to replace the one I have, but as a second job. The job I have now pays well, but it’s very part time, and we’re doing okay right now, financially, but we’d be doing even better if I had a second source of income. Everyone I told about it encouraged me to apply, saying I am highly qualified for this job and would be really good at it. And they weren’t wrong! So I applied. I found out the day after Christmas that I didn’t get it. Not like a flat-out rejection, it was just that they had already filled the position before I sent my application in. On the one hand, I’m kind of relieved, because as much as I think I was qualified and would have been good at it, I also kinda didn’t really want it all that much? Like, it would have been interesting in a lot of ways, but it is also a lot more schedule-based and structured than the types of jobs I do best in. Not to mention, it would have left me without time to pursue the other opportunities I’ve been wanting to since moving up here, and since I didn’t get it, I’m taking that as a sign to go ahead and pursue those things ASAP. So yeah, I am kind of relieved. But on the other hand…I feel like I’m disappointing my friends and family, and I feel like a loser because what’s wrong with me that I can’t/don’t want to work a ‘straight’ job in the first place?

And my house is a wreck. I haven’t cleaned/picked up since before Christmas, and there are presents and boxes and wrapping paper everywhere, not to mention clothes I’ve washed but haven’t folded.

And I’m feeling terrible about my looks. Every day I see myself in the mirror and think: “Ugh, I look ancient and ugly. I’m about to turn 44 but I look like I’m 64.” The only way I get through it is reminding myself that a. probably no one is judging me as harshly as I’m judging myself, and b. the people I’m attracted to do not look like airbrushed-to-perfection models, so why should I expect myself to? But I made the mistake of looking at a couple anti-aging makeup products online, and now nearly every targeted ad I get on Facebook is for anti-aging makeup, except the ads are awful. They’re like: “No, actually, you really are a hideous hag, and in fact you look worse to other people than you do to yourself, which is why you should buy this product. Then you might look marginally less ugly, though not by much.” Well, okay, maybe about half my targeted ads are for anti-aging makeup; the rest are for apps and programs that supposedly help you drink less, yell at your kids less, and keep your house cleaner—all because years ago I looked up stuff like that once or twice, and now I can’t get rid of it. It genuinely harms my mental health; as much as I know why I’m getting these specific ads, it can still feel like my Facebook feed is telling me: “You’re an old, ugly alcoholic toxic parent who can’t keep their house clean.” Good times.

At least I’m enough of a contrarian that the more an ad pushes something on me—especially something like a ‘beauty’ product—the less I want to use it. So instead of buying any hella expensive anti-aging makeup, I’m gonna set that money aside and put it towards a new tattoo.

* * *

I don’t know, man. I guess I am a bit dissatisfied in my marriage, and with where I live. But not in the way you might think. I’m not dissatisfied with my marriage itself, or with my partner, I’m dissatisfied because we just don’t get enough time to be romantic, or have adventures together. And I’m not dissatisfied with where I live because I hate it here, but because I don’t have a chance to do all the things I want to do here, to meet more people and take part in things. And yeah, I do want to travel more, because I always want to travel more, and I wish it was a small world, cuz I’m lonely for the big towns. I just want more, in general. More adventure, more romance. More art and music and friendship. I need a phone call, I need a raincoat. I really, really need a raincoat.

[thesingingknives]

Today I had one of the most agonizingly horny* experiences of my life, and I can’t even really tell anyone about it**.

*Agonizing because it will not and can not ever lead to any kind of release.

**I can’t tell anyone because they’d either a. be weirded out, b. not care/not get it, or c. not believe me.

[thesingingknives]

7. I love hate you more than I’ve ever loved anyone Before, or anyone to come I’ve fucked. Someone said Your name, I thought of you alone. I was just the same, 2,000 miles away.

7.5. I always thought of her when I listened to Jawbreaker Which is fucking hilarious. She thought all that boy-punk Was so patriarchal. So let’s call this poem 24-hour revenge Therapy.

—from an untitled poem-draft, c. October 2017

[thesingingknives]

I found salvation in the narrow aisles of secondhand record stores, a turntable became my altar. I prayed to fairy godmothers of punk and queen bitches; supplicated to starmen and dandies of the underworld. They taught me it’s all a whirl, a drag, and I adorned myself in leather pants and feather boas, wore eyeliner like a weapon and sprinkled pixie glitter all over my skin. Who cared what it meant to be a lady when, like, you could be everything. Forget growing up, I grew glam and wild. I gave myself a hundred names and I pulled them on and off like secondhand dresses. One was Peter Pan green and in it I was the slutty boy who sucked cocks in bar bathrooms, marked my lovers with my lipstick. One had polka dots and paired best with combat boots and fishnets, wearing it tasted like whiskey and shined like a switchblade. One dress was a pair of tight cuffed jeans, an angora sweater, and a leather jacket—when I wore it I was a ‘50s j.d.; I kissed my girlfriend under the drugstore’s security camera to distract them from the makeup I was stealing. And one was a nightdress, dotted with moth-holes, but still so silk-soft when it brushed my bare flesh; I accessorized with nightdark wine and a silver cigarette holder, became the woman who sang je soigne les remords / je chante la romance as she wept over lost amour.

—from a piece titled “Dresses-Named-Rivers,” c. October 2017

[thesingingknives]

Yesterday was a great day, and today is shit. At least, I feel like shit. I mostly know what things triggered all this, and mostly they’re not as dire as my brain is making them out to be, but that doesn’t change how I feel.

I just. I’m bored and restless, but also busy and overwhelmed. And I’m anxious and sad and I feel lonesome and rejected and unloved. And I’m also tired, which doesn’t help.

Though I did take like a 30 minute nap earlier and feel slightly better than I did prior to that, so that’s good.

[thesingingknives]

Yesterday I found out that the downtown YMCA, where I used to see a lot of shows as a teen, is getting torn down, and man, I am having feelings. The poem draft I wrote last night, that went up today, is about that. Today I decided to go downtown and take some pictures of it while it's still there. They have it encircled in a tall fence topped with razor wire, but I walked all around the outside, taking pictures, and I also got some further ideas about stuff to write re: my history there but also ghosts and memory and whatnot. I'm eventually going to put it all together in a hybrid photo-and-text essay, which will probably be published as a mini-zine. I thought about how, in my younger years, I would have returned under cover of night to explore and take pictures inside the building. I either would have brought wire cutters to make a hole in the fence, or just braved the razor wire and climbed it. (And then I immediately thought of "On the Ave." At the reservoir you impaled your wrist / on razor wire climbing the fence...) But I'm not as brave as I once was, when it comes to things like that. It's not fear of injury, or even fear of who or what I may encounter inside the building; it's more that, since having kids, I'm not willing to risk getting arrested for shit like that. Taking photos of the outside wasn't as romantic as going inside would have been, but it scratched my exploration itch, and gave me artistic inspiration, so it was good enough.

After that I grabbed an oat milk cappuccino from a downtown cafe, then got back in my car and headed off on various errands. I listened to an old mix tape that a pen pal made me back during the same time frame I was going to shows at the Y (or, well, the 8tracks version of said tape, as I no longer have a car with a cassette player in it), and I'll be damned if those songs didn't sound just as good as they did the first, tenth, one hundredth time I heard them. And the world was full of signs, today, quite literally—a sign outside a church that said Delight in the Small Things, and a sign outside a diner that read Never Let Your Heart Harden. And it was all so much deja vu; driving through those neighborhoods I know so well, remembering what I used to do there, remembering what used to be there, while listening to those songs I know so well. I've been writing so much about my teen years lately, and it's funny, because when I lived here as a teen, I thought I hated this town. There were things I loved about it, but mostly, I just wanted to get out. I was also adamant that I was not from here. After all, I wasn't born here, and only lived here for seven years before moving away the first time. I never envisioned that I'd one day move back here for real, let alone that I'd come to love it for real. I may not live here for the rest of my life (and in fact I don't plan to), but, yeah, at this point it's my hometown, for better or worse.

[from a journal entry; April 19, 2024]