"Some old timers waiting in there talkin hella shit"
On pulling cards, overworking, biding time, and bucking anger.
Hi, this was first sent to my fan club members (announced last newsletter) on December 4th, with a print version going out mid-month. Consider joining ~the club~ if you to want me to send you snail mail & other cool shit.
[image: a left hand holds a zine open to a page that says ‘Is it possible to write yourself out of a blocked situation and into your own fantasies?’]
It's been a hell of a time trying to figure out what's even on my mind that I want to talk about. I'm finally getting my head under. Lots of things that should've been done in a nearer-past are now finally connecting for me. In this mortal world and wicked extractive expansionist society, material stability truly affords one a great deal of time and space for nurturing talent (when mentors and elders alike are also largely absent).
Every sentence out of my fingers onto the screen feels good to write and then disturbing to read. Disturbing is a strong word, but many other replacements also begin with dis-. Others un-. The way ~social media~ has altered my sense of communication to be always anticipatory of attack is notable. I have been practicing shaking off the spell.
I was looking at my cyborgmemoirs tumblr. Around 2010 or 2011 I started my original tumblr. I tried to use it like a livejournal, and catalogued my study abroad in Osaka, but once I got back to the states and tumblr was getting thiccer, I started using it as my personal moodboard for All That's Left and my general aesthetic and intellectual and political sensibilities. Anyway, lemme cut to the chase. That tumblr had a big following and I made a lot of friends and connections and learned a lot from mutuals and shit on it. And then one day, I deleted it. So, it's gone. But tumblr will let a deleted account live on in the reposts (and add this -deactivated string on the handle), and I found a bunch of my old posts, talking bout soooo much shit of such a caliber. Like NOW I see why ppl would be like yo ur kinda famous on the internet, and I'd be (outwardly) haha coool / (inwardly) like lol why tho, I'm an aggressive nerd, hell yeah, but also shahh me???.
Anyway I'm getting over that shit. Putting yourself down is wack, and Butler was dropping science when she said being shy is shit. I get it now. You do yourself a disservice. Why hold yourself back? Who's doing it? And I mean I've known this shit, I been talking about it for a looonnnng time. But putting practice into the method takes time. Long time. And sometimes you have other people's shit on you. And when you get that off, you find out you got some ancestor's shit on you. A lot of it! And... well, that's life. Dealing with your lot.
So, my doings online are not currently very reflective of my doings in the flesh. I've also been back at the indie retail job I left at the start of 2020 and it's holiday again. I also took a last minute book design gig, so I was busy ALL of October getting it together in between pay-job mayhem ~and~ running a pay-what-you-wish rendition of the Mercury Intensive fiction writing workshop.
>> I can design a goddamn book tho, lemme just tell you. I do good, precise, efficient work. Tell your ~colleagues~.
I have a lot of thoughts about this past autumn Intensive [it ended mid November]—one is that I was working twice as much during this one and it's not good for my experience and my facilitation. Two is, if I'm going to continue running a more open Intensive and accept people from art school backgrounds, who hold creative writing degrees, are working artists versed in getting paid opportunities, working academics and related... I have to figure out how to make it very very clear that the intensive functions as a martial practice, and is not an appropriate place to subject other participants to institutional baggage. WHY? Because the other participants have not had the chance ~to acquire~ said baggage, and to take time out of the schedule to make processing space for people who have already had the privilege and access to the arts and higher learning, it's just... nah. I'm not doing it. I don't have the capacity. Feels like a shortcoming of mine, and yet, I'm not the one, idk.
What I can do about it, actually, though, is have a pre-intensive orientation session, where everybody can introduce themselves and mingle and I can properly introduce myself and speak outloud all the written-down communications, and people won't feel so rushed I suppose, when we jump into things. I do know that I am very tight for keeping a schedule of my own making, it's not fun and nobody enjoys it, and for what. For my astro heads, my Mars is conjunct my sun in the 10th house at 15º, my moon is in Aries, and I'm in a Scorpio 3rd house profection year… Mars temperment is whooping my ass since 3 weeks before my birthday.
My temper has been demanding that I handle a great deal of emotional bereavements by…feeling them. Reminding myself that shit is fine and cool. The positive self talk. My therapist was like idk if this is corny but have you read The Four Agreements? And I was like u know what, they have it at Five Below, I should just fucking buy it and read that shit cause ... like, I know about it, I read a wiki, but I never read the whole book. Recommended. I really fuck with any popular knowledge said in plain language. Got to. But back to my temper.
What's making me angry? A lot of middle class people's bullshit. I don't know what else to call it. Trying to write detailed pinpoint breakdowns of what exactly it is that XYZ BCD etc... it's not even worth it. It's not worth trying to MAKE an argument or an analysis, bc what I really need to be doing is understand WHERE I have control to do anything about it. And in therapy, I'm like well it's easy to be saying ok cut these type of people out and this and that, but my dad cut like...everybody out. That's not a good model.
I pull a lot of wands and disks lately. I—
OK WAIT THE WEEK BEFORE THIS ONE WAS WACKY TABACKY
setbacks on SETBACKS it was fucking commmmical.
Lost my phone. Get a replacement phone. Phone cant get delivered cause delivery man cant call no one. I cant call the fedex. I just go to the fedex and there's my phone. Oh the SIM card needs some weird shit. Need to get a code text... and it went on. IT went on ALL motherfuckin day to get this replacement phone.
Next day? Booster shot appointment at 10am 6900 Lindbergh ave CVS. I get there, the fuckin pharmacy is CLOSED. Some old timers waiting in there talkin hella shit, and the staff is like yeah we dunno when any of them are coming in. Customers walkin in and out saying shit like man this the WORST cvs, they're gonna close like 60 of em? they need to close this one FIRST. Another customer like this CVS is great but the PHARMACY?? Started talking hella shit. It was too comical to be mad. Like of course the only open booster appt would be at the one with the bullshit Rx.
NEXT DAY sike. Anyway, the homie Ras helps find me another appointment on a Saturday at the Oregon ave CVS, but they're listed as 24hrs when they're not. Call that CVS. My booster appt says come at midnight?? Oh yeah you can just show up. I'm like damn, I go. I get the shot. I get a $5 off coupon, I'm chilling waiting for 15min to pass, everything is gravy. This CVS was clearly a bastion of community services, they had this bombass gift bag section, home goods, magazines, groceries, all this shit ~and~ playing cards. Like more than just red or blue Bicycle cards, I was impressed. So now I have this FIRE imp themed Bicycle deck and ...all this to say, I'm pulling playing cards along with tarot cards more, and shout out to my cartomancers out there.
The playing card deck loves to give me black suits, spades and clubs, sometimes a heart or a diamond for charity. Spades represent* cutting something out, oppositions, obstacles, obstructions, restrictions. And me, the Mercury ruled person, loves a good sword. But ya can't be the motherfucker always waving around a sword because then no one will want to deal with you ass! That's a little paraphrase from that book I love, Hagakure. It says you also can't always keep a sword in the sheath all the time either, or it will become rusty and unusable. I heard recently that in Solomonic (demon conjuring) magic, the spirits are apparently terrified of a sharpened steel blade.
So, a sword, like any tool—and language is a tool—needs to be wielded with skill, to achieve what one sets out to do.
That's what I've got today. Some light practice.
[image: a close-up on p 37 from my book with a line reading “IF HUMANS DON’T WANT ME, WHY DID THEY CREATE ME?”]
[image: an aisle sign from an ACME grocery store in south philly. it reads “NEW AGE DRINKS”]
Cyborg Memoirs Fan Club ⚡️ANALOG NODE & UP⚡️ members should have received their inaugural snail mail package. To everyone else, you are invited to join my snail mail fanclub patreon, or spend your hard-earned currency at my DESIRE HOPE DESPAIR distro, where smut zine VENUS SATURN SQUARE and cleaning grimoire DISCIPLINE WELCOMES BEAUTY are back in print after a very long absence. But you're already fuckin with me here, so really, just chill. Thanks for being here. <3 <3 <3
By the way, I haven't heard back from anyone on the betaATL list about how that ch2 draft hit ya. I am not surprised, it really is a feat to read someone else's writing and then respond to them about it. So having heard no peeps from anyone on that front, if you'd like me to go on and drop the ch3 draft, you'll have to ask.
AND ANYWAY things are changing in that department too.
Thank you for being my attentive reader once again. BY OUR POWERS COMBINED!!
P. S. Fuck the ivory tower!! Fuck the Amerikkkan project!! Fuck capitalist expansion!! You only live ONCE! I’ll be sharing a few more treats in the coming days so stay tuned.
@}-}-;-----
Monk
