cr0wl_misstree crOwl describe your current journal... 061008 ... misstree such lovely open endedness to your questions always... i love that in them... sometimes the question that a person answers is as telling as the answer itself. my first image was one of blank pages. while i was working, my journal went everywhere with me, and an hour of bus ride is a great place to dribble a bit of brain juice onto a page. it's about 5" by 7" or so, covered with embossed brown pleather, with a snap that holds it closed (a good feature for an overstuffed purse). it's stuffed lovelyfat with lots and lots of pages, so i can write without the feeling of impending doom that signals the end of a journal. its lines are close together, hugging the size that my hand loves to write, but making easy excuse for when i ignore them. it's hardcover, as i believe all things to be written in must be. how else could i write as i wandered through my neighborhood, perch it precariously on my purse on a jostling bus? but it has been neglected. i am not riding the bus to work, and there has been a time of great change in the brain, where writing becomes letters to friends, self-contemplation becomes redecorating. there is another book that could be properly called journal, that pleases me greatly. i found it at goodwill, about 6" by 8", tall and slender to look at. it's black with silver embossing on the front and spine, just random frills. its pages are gold-edged and slightly creamy, unlined. its first entry was a simple line sketch, a snapshot out of time. i had forgotten about a brief interaction the night before until my companion reminded me. something about being outside the club, licking a lighter shaped like a gun, being wielded by a rockabilly. it was just one of those moments with delicious sparkle, and it had gotten lost in the shuffle. once i had refound it, i didn't want to lose it again, but didn't want to hve to translate it to words, to assign values and descriptives. so i sketched in primitive renderings of the elements, the hat, the grin, the tongue and the flame. a moment in time always at hand. other pictures followed, first times and deep draughts and laughter. sketches of clothing and smears of words have begun inhabiting the back. (journals always seem to do that with me, their end filling forward with flotsam.) there is another aspect of description i wish to touch. my journal is and is not a single entity, or even a multiple entity. everything that i write could be said to be part of my journal, some record of my thoughts and being. footprints. journals are commonly concieved to be blatantly about the self, but what level of subtlety draws it away from that definition? even a treatise on the role of orange juice in 18th century warfare has reflections of the writer. so too does everything i do, written and not. i am writing to friends rather than to myself. i am pulling down many of the decorations in my room and reshuffling and replacing them, changing the stories it tells. my resume has become the portrait of a person rather than a list of past occupations. a piece of writing, thicker even than my normal syrupy style, lies neglected, an account of a show daunting to attempt to capture, a dreamlike affair without words. but it was written, it was tasted, it was accounted for. it was granted that small moment of immportality. my journal is on scraps of paper scattered everywhere, notes to myself, lists and ideas, words and phrases that caught my fancy. i think that i have answered every aspect that's important to me, or at least taken every path that has appealed. in any case, i am empty of words, and ready to turn once more to the flux state that is my environment. oh yes, and this is my journal too. 061009 ... crOwl i think it's interesting that you ended this stunning view into your written world by stating the post itself was part of your "journal," because it's exactly what i was thinking as i was reading...and i loved your concept of journaling consisting of everything you write or draw or collect as personal observation and words to others. i loved your intricately detailed response, mainly beause it's what i expected from you. i had this idea while i was on the tractor at robin_hill...i had read a recent post of yours from a few days ago and realized i missed your writing and that it was so good to hear from you again. i hope you visit red more often. i thought back on your unique, fully descriptive style and mused over what your journals must be like, and even toyed with the idea of a journal exchange. one of yours for one of mine... what is like for you to revisit old journals? when you read them, how do you feel? 061010 ... misstree thank you for thinking of me. it warms me to imagine you going through the fields, surrounded by shades of brown and green and gold, birds suddenly bursting into the blue, and carrying the concept of me into that setting. almost as if the beauty and peace could transfer. i often write when i'm scared or hurt or just uncertain, and reading the pure expulsions as i tried to talk myself through it can bring it back with sometimes painful clarity. the other side of that particular coin is the ability to say, "yeah, i remember that, that was rough, but it all worked out okay." tamping dirt down on graves. there's one more journal that i didn't talk about that was probably my favorite, and the one i have reread more than all of the others. when i first went down to new_orleans, in the first week i was there, i met someone who made books as a hobby, who offered to make one just for little old me. he asked what kind i would like, and stumped for any other answer, i just said, "patchwork." he raised an eyebrow, then sighed, anticipating an enjoyable challenge. a week later i was presented with my gift. it was huge, made with 8.5 x 11 paper with the cover slightly wider. the paper itself was heavy stock, small groups of different colors with two or three sheets of a dark ivory separating each of the clumps. he had printed lines on the paper himself in different colors. the cover was, indeed, patchwork, with probably 10 to 15 different fabrics on each side. one of the pieces on the cover was a pocket, which led him to reveal that he had chopped up some of his roomate's donated clothes for the project. this book went *everywhere* with me. i'd often have my green velvet poetry book stacked on top of it, and both tucked into my arm. i was busking as a street poet, so i had plenty of downtime, plenty of time with words. whenever i was in a bar alone, whenever i just wanted to sit by the river or in a coffee house, i would talk to that book about all the insanity, the divine revelations and hellish incidents, the strange people and lives and visions and anything else worth recording. whenever i got to those deep golden pages, i would put special effort into my writing, try to really express more than merely talking to myself, become more conscious that i was crafting something that i would come back to later. i sometimes used it as an excuse not to talk to people, but it often had the opposite effect, usually much to my delight. there are sketches from gutterpunks and scrawlings from drunks. i was sitting in a friend's bar when a relatively well known band came in, determined that i was a "journalist," and dragged me off for misadventures at a strip club. its size made it a convenient table or altar for some odd activities, given testimony by the handful of stains and wax clumps. this is the journal that i have most often reopened. so much life was packed into 8 months, much of it would have been lost if i hadn't written so feverishly. my first meetings with people i would become amazingly intimate with always struck me with extra force, seeing my first impressions and their accuracies and errors, my first tastes and tingles. times that i was fighting my way through concepts and changes that were part of my evolution. tales of a single night that would be lost in the lushness of experiences if i hadn't seen fit to set them down. the back of all my journals is a sort of mental doodle space, with lists, sketches, half-finished poems, phone numbers. this one was particularly potent with poetry, filled to brimming with my efforts to express this or that burning bit. this part especially impacts me when i look back at it. these scraps are soulbits in their rawest state, when they are first clawing forth with no care whether or not they meet some imagined approval. in just the trails i have left there is a very clear summation of how my heart fared through that strange summer. and here i am having gone off on a tangent about another journal without actally answering. with all of my journals i am very ginger, that patchwork one least. i rarely open them when i am actually steeled for their contents, so small nibbles and scans are usually enough to refresh times and places. i think i journal more for the act of writing, for asking thoughts and feelings to kindly get in line and be put into solid ink, be labeled and chewed on, be properly digested. we don't have funerals to produce graves, and i can't quite explain how that explains what i think of my journals. 061014 ... misstree i realized while i was listening to the rain earlier that, while my first answer was about all my forms of journaling, my second was only referring to the traditional. the rest deserve to be touched on, as they are actually quite different reactions, but the sun is leaking into the night, so it must wait until i have dreamed. thank you for giving me questions that keep asking for answers. 061015 ... crOwl this is exactly what i thought your relationship with journals would be, yet you again have astounded me with the depth of your clarity, the effective capturing of experience with its multi-layered textures and the intimate divulgence. i absolutely love the things you have said and my journals almost look at me like an audience clapping their approval, urging me to relish them with the obvious devotion and respect that you possess. "tamping down dirt on graves..." "we don't have funerals to produce graves..." whoa...amazingly well said. i look forward to more of your reflection on your other form of journaling and please tell me how did busking as a street poet work? 061017 ... misstree i have let things stew too long, and many a thought drifts... but with a bit of sifting, i may be able to place them together coherently... i'll start with the most similar to traditional journaling in my journey away from center... i feel i not only have to touch on blather, but touch it solely for a moment. there are times when a keyboard is the only way that thoughts can fly quickly enough to be captured. i love the long loopings of a thick black pen on heavy paper, the way my handwriting unabashedly reflects how i am thinking, licking each word as it emerges. but sometimes, a keyboard's busy clatter is the only thing that can keep up. looking back on past selves through this particlular window. it is sometimes one of my favorites, because it is filled with other voices, and so i am not so closed up with my own echoes. even when it is simply slipping words into a box, a confessional space, a place to hear my own voice, i am more conscious of what i write, and often cut deeper to the quick of a particular timeplace. it is hard to describe the bitter and the sweet at once. i am happy to have such supple record of all the old pains, so that i can remember what it was like to feel something so deeply, and i cherish the burblings and bubblings that have come forth from nothing more than worshipping words. i have occasionally jumped randomly through my user list, and usually been surprised by some nugget that i planted and forgot, now gleaming back pure as the day it giggled to life. there was one pseudonym that chronicled a particularly potent infatuation in thicker than usual language, and being able to see the progression, not just a single moment but a whole symphony, le_sigh. i'll skip to my room. as a general rule, i am very... notsomuch nostalgic, not longing for the past, but cherishing it closely. my walls are covered with all manner of fabric and paper, and each trinket has a good chance of being a story unto itself. small picture collages are notes from selves past of things to remember, to dwell on momentarily. rarely are they direct reference; no movie stubs, and only a few pictures of friends, stippled in to a seamless blend with the pieces around it. having all these at hand make a place home to me. my self is smeared all over my environment, giving me a stable point to whorl off of. tearing down things to redecorate lately has very much been a reflection of inner stipping, and handling each of these artifacts has been at once refreshing and, well, a bit tough. i've been away from all but two of my darling family, thrust into the unfamiliar and then hidden in a cave, and walking through empty halls, well. things are continuing their curve, though, and i emerge from hibernation newly decked inner and outer, i have a heartbrother visiting and i am beginning to scent beings worth keeping around for a bit, collecting more tribe in every stop. enough of that thread. i'm sure there is more to say, but you asked about the busking, and i'm in just the proper mood to talk about it. in a separate post, because i don't trust computers not to crash, *especially* after i've spent a good chunk of time writing. 061018 ... misstree being a street poet. i might as well give you the whole story, and i'll just hpoe my wrists hold out. i had been living in a large college town for a number of years, and ruled a particular kingdom of a kind, but was yearning to see other corners of the world. near the end of my reign, i met a boy with blue eyes and blackest hair, bones long and birdlike, and we were entranced with eachother for a month before we spoke. he was amber-scented and lovely, and when we were together, it was on some plane niether of us were native to. there was no love, but such overwhelming passion that i found myself gushing torrents of poetry, trying to capture the way my heart stilled at his stare, to somehow moan out the longing that i threw myself fully into, cherishing the terrible intensity. i'm not sure how exactly i decided to do what i did. i planned to travel from illinois down to new orleans, work my way across the southern states, up through california, and end in portland (took me six years, but i made it). i refined and typed some of my favorite pieces, many about the boy and many not, planning to sell the sheets for a dollar, to copy more when i needed to. i planned to get there just before mardi gras, but in several strokes of synchronicity i didn't know to thank at the time, i first lost my i.d. and had a two-week delay in getting it, then got a flat tire, then needed my starter replaced, delaying me a total of a month. while it gave me time to spend with friends and family, kept me away from the most crowded, chaotic, difficult and dangerous time i could have arrived, and caused me to have a night that was most magical, it also ate up all of my money. i showed up in new orleans with $8, looking for a boy scout i had contacted through a gothic mailing list whose home i would end up spending about a month and a half in. i can't tell you how my heart stayed in my chest the first few times i went out. i had a plastic skull from a previous residence and some candles, with some plastic coins and shiny things and such inside of it. the first place i ever read was behind the st louis cathedral, underneath a tree overhanging royal street. quite a bit of magic in that particular spot. but people don't particularly stop when you're trying to spill words at them. most won't look you in the eye. i made the occasional tip, and had the occasional conversation, but yowling to an empty night was too draining and not earning nearly enough to sustain me. i tried different things for a bit, standing in shop frontages, on jackson square when the tarot readers were sparse enough i wouldn't disturb them. i finally hit upon something that at least engaged people, purely by accident. i was walking up and down decatur restlessly, and i asked someone i passed, "would you like to hear a poem?" he stopped. i read for him. he bought me a beer. over time, it evolved, growing the appendages needed. i could watch people's gazes and get a feel if they would be open; those who staunchly won't meet your eye will likely hurry at the sound of your voice. large groups were difficult, and most often wouldn't slip into my world, my voice, as i unraveled dripping scarlet lovelies for them. i would offer a choice of categories: romantic, sexually_perverse, good_mood, bad_mood, and other. over half of what i read was sexually perverse, but nothing so simple as recognizable erotica. my favorite to read would cause different combinations of arousal, hunger, and nausea, depending on the temperment of the person. most were pulled straight from my mind from long and diligent practice, brought to life on my lips with eyes sparkling and hand gesturing absentmindedly. sometimes, it was lapped up, loved. i met many an interesting soul, though more often by trading poems for drinks in bars (much easier, by the way). after i read the poem, i would say, "tips are appreciated, but smiles work just as well. i'm trying to get some money for (gas, cigarettes, or food, whichever was truth)." two of three times, this would bring an awkward smile. sometimes a handful of change. usually a dollar. on a few rare occasions, ten or twenty. there was a blue haired boy that busked with me one day not long before halloween, and a lovely lestat gent was lured to our doorway, and after a poem apiece from us, said, "one more each, and if it really impresses me, i'll make it worth it." we both went full out, trying as we were to get kitten food (four hungry fluffballs at home makes a wonderful motivation). the $20 he gave bought a feast not just for the felines but for us as well. it was very very draining, at times. some nights it seemed that no one wanted to hear a poem, that the whole world was in a sour mood. but when you don't have enough gas to get home, there's nothing to be done but keep smiling, keep trying to paint on the mask thick enough that you can overcome the grit in the humidity. sometimes people were overwhelmingly disinterested, which made for very uncomfortable times for both they and i. there is a particular despair associated with having nothing and nowhere. i had my car, at least for the first 6 of 8 months, and all of my earthly posessions inside it, but i spent more time than not having no idea where my next meal would be, whose roof would shelter me. the french quarter at 3am on a tuesday can be a very very lonely place. i spent a decent amount of time with various gutterpunks and guttergoths and tarot readers and small sections of the quarter's millifaceted society. that grinding heartbreak made it into some of the poems i wrote, but more it made me throw myself into the other times. i underwent a, well, a rebirth, bloody and naked and screaming as they all should be, but laughing as well, and with two lovely boys, yin and yang, and my darling daddy to boot, and so many luscious nights and thick dark lovelies that got chronicled... this was during the time that i had the patchwork book, but i wrote almost as much in my green velvet poetry book. i'll tell you about that another time. (i realize i'm bouncing around quite a bit here, but i trust you to be able to cock your head and see how they all merge, and i appreciate your undulgence. *grin*) the one poem, my headliner, the one that caused blushes and confused hunger... i need to speak about it, because it was such a big part of that particular gushing. (the length of this answer is your own fault for leaving the question so open. i somehow doubt that was accidental.) the poem itself is on blue under flesh, called the consumer. before you read it, though... when it is on a page, it is not proper. spoken... there is a way to my words that this poem slickly plays with... the inflection, the pauses, the hints of snarls and grins, all of this is what makes street poetry worth giving someone money for... i didn't just recite poems... i performed them... and only ever my own work for profit, though when alone i'll often let others drip from my tongue... but the consumer... just reciting it was an invitation to something dark and slick and sweaty... it is still the one i perform most often, and somehow it always infects... my golden child... anyway, the poem was written about one of the two boys... no boy was he, even in my playful language, barely human, oddly evolved... but it was written all in a single frantic gush, not a single word changed from its first writing, purely literal and still barely managing to touch the concept inside of it... that is part of why performing it is such a joy to me... because each time i stroll through those words, i am striving to touch that place, am suckling echoes easily and sliding them panting into another's ear. (yes, it is another form of rereading a journal.) such a delight, this little infection, this hijacking of hte synapses. i am happy that i have been able to move people so, especially in such an illict direction. alright, i'm spent. trying to capture the taste of a taste was enough to finally blow very taxed circuits. thank you for causing me to write. i don't do nearly enough of it... i think part of it is the feeling that i should be writing about something going on in the present, trying to sort something out or blargle some sort of commentary. your questions are always invitations to construct a garden as i wander through it, to toy freely and fondly, to dance with words and feels and thoughts. it's one of the 64 pieces of me that doesn't get fed nearly often enough. (though, it's in the equivalent of a food coma at the moment...) 061018 ... crOwl again, i have to say, i love your writing and an honour it is to know i encourage you to indulge. more of it please we beg... i wish i could see and hear your poetry performance. i imagine it, just as i do your style of writing, to be passionate and exhaustive. you seem to be one that has fun, even in the midst of darkness, shining a light, even if the hot wax burns your hand. what are you doing these present days? what is the last thing you wrote for yourself or someone else? 061020 what's it to you? who go blather from