end end

Hi,

I don't know if anyone still checks this - I'm looking at you, several crazy stalkers. Oh, we've had some good times.

Rather than delete coalesque, I have decided to let it settle into the infinite internet, where in 10 years I will look at it with the same jaded sentimentality I feel when look at my decades-old journals.

Often people - strangers, friends - would ask what my blog was doing. >>

Coalesque was a catalogue of my emotional experience in graduate school. This was a traumatic period of life for me. Studying theology as an agnostic was more difficult than I anticipated. Furthermore, throughout this graduate experience I was unable (physically, mentally) to express the very deep love I had for someone. The psychological ramifications of these trials are still in the process of being resolved.

Writing remains the lonely passion of my life. Most of it I am doing in my head now, and reading more.

I recently finished Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," and woke up yesterday with a blue mark on my face, just like the main character. I received a message on my phone that I could only access for one second before it disappeared. People are exiting my life in superficial ways and entering them through my dreams. The more books I read, the more things make sense on the inside, even if the external world is beginning to confuse me. But inside - inside ends are showing me their means, and the connective tissues between spirits and atoms are glowing like haunted cartoon DNA.

I will always be a judgmental person because I have made it a point to master the (perhaps arbitrary) qualifying systems of ethics and aesthetics. On that low point, here's the closing remark:



the secrets you keep to yourself, are the most sacred parts of you.

transparency is just that - a spectre.



a summation of the last two anda half years>>>>>>>>

bye>>>>>>>>

kk

I hate all women except the ones I love.

>>>>>>



your pathetic attempts to become a more interesting version of me have failed in every way.



>>>>>>

Lena, a biography.

>>>


1. Lena is the name of my great-grandmother's most beautiful sister. I have only seen one picture because my grandmother only has one picture, and my grandmother is an orphan, and between the maternal orphan heritage and the paternal Eastern-Euro gypsy lineage, I don't know where I come from.

2. Lena is the name of Werner Herzog's current wife. If I could meet anyone on the planet, it would be Wener Herzog. Wives of great artists are very interesting to me.

3. Lena is the name of the main characters in Gertrude Stein's "The Gentle Lena." This is the story that not only inspired me to write, but opened up the possibility of writing.

>>>

text message pen pals

a stranger accidentally text messaged me the other day. this is how it played out. this is 100% from real life.



309: Omg, kate really does get on tom about everything! Its weird...like how she tells him what to do and then tzts kam and tells her what he's doing.
me: omg yr so right tell me more. Tom...tom...tom
309: So, I didn't mean to txt u and i have no idea who u r. Sorry. Awfully odd response tho.
me: Wanna be frenz?
309: Not especially. Who r u?
me: This is your subconscious speaking. LOL.
309: lol. Nice.
me: Think about it, we could be penpals. This could be the next big thing, random text yo area code.
309: haha. R u a boy?
me: Do i sound like a boy?
309: U sound like a creepzilla!
me: I am not a creepzilla i am a human being i deserve my rights u sound like a tween dude.
309: mwahahaha! I'm a lady. 25. U sound like an art fag.
me: I am a 24 yo woman and i am totally an art fag.
309: I knew it! Still wanna be penpals?
me: Um like duh. Who else is gonna listen to you bitch about Tom.
309: tom's my husband's son.
me: How old is he?
309: 10. I was bitching cuz his sister gets on him for all the weird shit he does and its stifling the kid.
me: Maybe the shit he does is really effing weird tho, amirite?
309: He licked the cat's tail. Sure, he's fuckin weird but its a good thing. sure the cats get tired of cleaning themselves all the time.
me: Who hasn't wanted to do that. Although recall the tail's proximity to the asshole, which is at least a psychological concern.
309: Indeed. But hey, its fun as long as its just the tip. Joking...or am i. U know peter, by chance?
me: If course I know peter! ...grl u serious? wtf.
309: this is rachel.
me: Yeah we totally went to high school together!
309: lyzz? U gonna keep me guessing?
me: Don't you have any sense of mystery? 309 covers a huge amount of central illi.
309: you're right...where IS my sense of mystery?
me: You sold your soul to the devil.
309: Hah! U sed it, man!
me: Godspeed.
309: nice talking w ya, lil lady! Take her easy!
me: Likewise. Peace.

no longer south

>>

last full day in Nashville - 16 May 2011. I miss the women I met and the men I didn't. So alone most of the time. So alone most of the time - so afraid to be less alone. I listened to wonky electronic music to isolate myself and now I only want Johnny Cash and Cat Power. When I think I can't do it, then I remember that everyone else is doing it, somehow. That's the same for dying - everyone else does it - don't be scared. Millions now living will never die.

profile for Lena's character

>>>>it's very real.


frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days chronic feelings of emptiness inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days chronic feelings of emptiness inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days chronic feelings of emptiness inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms


>>>

Shopping Experience.

>>>

Nicole has gone to the megamart with the intention of purchasing shampoo, but a sale on panties causes Nicole to momentarily prioritize the care of her pubic hair over the blonde curls on her head.

The deal is five pairs for twenty dollars.

Nicole desperately needs panties for two reasons: one, she has been too lazy to do laundry for the past couple days and has been without clean underwear. Right now she wears a summer dress with no panties, but not because she is slutty, necessarily.

Two, Nicole has strategically planned on getting laid exactly a week from now. Her target likes boyshorts even more than thongs, which Nicole thinks is unusual for a man. But boyshorts make the bottom of Nicole's ass look like upside-down cleavage, so she is happy that he likes them, and is also happy boyshorts are part of the underwear sale.

Nicole browses the racks of panties. She decides to purchase smooth cotton pairs in order to contrast the laciness of her garter belt and fishnet stockings. Nicole loves fashion, and she has figured out its only secret: a combination of various textures. This makes her look expensive even if she still has to ask her parents for money from time to time.

Nicole has selected a pair of black shorts and a pair of blue ones when she feels someone tap her on the shoulder. It is an Asian man of medium height with spiked hair and wire-rim glasses.

"Hi, what are you doing?" he asks Nicole.

Nicole is holding the boyshorts in her left hand and her right hand is buried in a pile of g-strings, searching for a size six.

"I am buying underwear," she tells him.

"The reason I came over here is because I thought you looked wealthy. Are you wealthy?"

Nicole looks at the sign above the rack of panties that says "5 for $20." The panties she fantasizes about wearing someday are fifty dollars each.

"No, I am not wealthy," Nicole says.

"Well, you look wealthy. I need to find a wealthy woman because I need someone to help me support the twenty children I've fathered."

Nicole stares at the man. He is probably a few years younger than her - twenty-two or so.

"Are you...are you joking?" she says.

The man looks defeated. "Yes, I was joking. I just wanted to know if you wanted to hang out sometime."

Nicole looks up at the ceiling, which she does every time she is nervous. It makes her eyes looks bigger and sexier but she does not intend that effect.

"Sorry, I am leaving this city soon," she says.

"Oh. Well. Maybe another time."

The man walks away and Nicole is charged with anxiety. "I can't help but think they always think I'm a prostitute," she writes in her diary that night.


>>>

Picking Up Items and Putting Them Back. Lena, Mark, an Unnamable Lover, and an Unknown Listener.

>>>>>2005.

Lena asks her roommate if he can stay the night somewhere else.

"I have plans here tonight," she says.

Lena's roommate is sad but obedient. He secretly records the sounds that drift from Lena's bedroom walls and sells them to a stranger on the internet. The stranger pays two-hundred dollars for each hour of audio. Sometimes the roommate gets excited by the audio but he is a man of god goddammit and he must save himself for a moral whore. Ten percent of each two-hundred dollar hour goes to the poor, he tells himself goddammit. 

Tonight is a six-hundred dollar night. Tonight will surely be symphonic. Lena has already tossed the lingerie she plans to wear over the armchair in the hallway. It is close to the color of her skin, which makes it very light and almost transparent. The roommate does not mind Lena's obvious promiscuity but wishes she would wear red sometimes. She would look goddamn better in red, he thought. 

The roommate enters Lena's room while Lena is  showering. He walks to her nightstand and places something underneath it. It is a tiny device that can record three hours of audio before having to be recharged in a wall outlet. The roommate sets the device to begin recording at 10 PM. It is 8:40 now.

The roommate is distracted by a piece of jewelry Lena has left on her nightstand, a single bone-shaped earring. It doesn't look like anything she would wear. The roommate picks up the earring and finds it quite heavy. 

"It's not for your ear."

Lena's roommate turns around. Lena has been watching him but there is no way to know for how long unless he asks her.

"How long have you been watching?"

"Nine seconds," she says. "Are you looking for something?"

Lena walks over to her roommate and he notices that she has managed to get into the skin-colored lingerie between the bathroom and her bedroom. She smells like her own cum because she always masturbates in the shower, but the roommate thinks Lena smells like shampoo.

"Just checking if you have any dishes in here before I run the washer. I saw the earring on your table."

Lena smiles. "It's for your tongue."

The roommate blushes in revulsion. He sets the ring back on Lena's nightstand. "I thought it looked weird," he says. 

"That's because - " Lena takes the ring off the nightstand "- you are used to seeing pairs." She opens her mouth and pushes the ring through an invisible hole in the center of her tongue. "Now get out of here Mark. I am barely dressed."

Mark leaves the room and doesn't run the dishwasher and leaves the house and doesn't lock the front door. He will stay at his girlfriend's tonight, even though he still hasn't been able to explain to her why he lives with such a crude woman. But his girlfriend loves the one-hundred-and-eighty dollar shoes he buys her so she asks few questions except "how ever did you afford these?" She will then give him a bad handjob. While she does it, Mark closes his eyes and pictures his girlfriend in red lingerie. Unfortunately she only wears white underwear. It reminds Mark too much of Lena.

Lena is polished when her lover arrives. It is 9:31.

Her lover motions to cup her breast after they have had a glass of wine. He squeezes it and likes how it is the perfect size for his hand.

"You're filthy," she tells him, but thrusts her chest forward and deeper into his grip. Her lover gets on his knees and lifts up her slip to kiss her stomach. The position puts him eye-level with Lena's desk a few feet away. It distracts him.

Her lover picks up several pieces of red-stained paper from the desk. "Your writing is covered in blood."

"It's only wine. I spilled it accidentally."

The lover holds the paper close to his face. The blue inky words bleed into the stained paper. A string of them he can make out: "the satisfied cunt will suffer my trials."

"You're going to kill one of your characters," he says. "A girl."

Lena takes the paper from her lover and replaces it on her desk. "No. She just needed to get dirty. But she'll be alright. You, on the other hand, have the opposite problem. You are filthy."

Lena walks to her bathroom and turns on the shower. "Come here and take off all of your clothes," she instructs. "I am going to watch you clean yourself." 

The shower is clear glass with sliding doors. Lena's lover slides one of them aside and steps in. He begins washing his hair and the shape his arms make when they are above his head does something strange to Lena. She sits on the sink that faces the shower. She draws one leg up to rest her foot on the sink and lets the other dangle. 

Lena begins to touch herself and when her lover notices what she is doing he also reaches for himself. For several minutes they refuse to meet the other's eyes, suspending the illusion for as long as possible that neither knows the other is watching. 

"Get over here," he says finally.

Lena obeys, not bothering to remove her slip. When wet it clings to her body like another skin, so when her lover puts his hand underneath it he feels like he is penetrating her already.

He attempts to pin her back against the narrow wall of the shower. He wants to fuck her standing. but the wall is wet and she slides down a little when her feet lift from the ground. As he pushes harder she slides further down. With her left hand Lena grabs the top of the sliding glass door and distributes her body unequally. She positions her right foot on the soap ledge and her symmetry is recovered. Now her lover is able to fuck her harder.

He does and when she is about to come, Lena's foot becomes dislodged from the soap ledge. A tremendous pressure is suddenly applied to the glass door Lena clings to. Her lover thrusts forward to deliver the concluding orgiastic movement. Lena screams, the glass door shatters, and the two lovers fall out of the shower onto the bathroom floor, still connected to each other and now also connected to several hundred shards of glass that beat them to the ground. 

Lena and her lover quickly survey their new surroundings. Then their eyes meet, both pairs still raw with desire from orgasm. The lover's body, covered in blood and glass, starts to shake with laughter. Lena, equally bloody, equally glass-covered, is equally amused. Lena and her lover cling to one another, closer than any two humans have ever been before, two laughing humans fucking on a pile of broken glass while their blood clots and skin breaks.

"I think about you all the time Lena," he says. 

Lena stands up and brushes bits of glass away from her body. Her slip is torn but nothing is punctured. 

"We're lucky to be alive," she says. Lena pulls off her slips and leaves it in the sink. A combination of water and blood coats her skin. Her lover has never seen anything so arousing. 

"Let's go to bed," he suggests. 

Lena nods and helps her lover off the ground. The pair enter Lena's bedroom and Lena begins to pull tiny pieces of glass out of her lover's skin. They take turns digging out little pieces from flesh and placing them in a coffee mug. With every freed shard comes a gasp of relief. When they are emptied of glass, Lena's lover puts two fingers inside her and she moans at the unexpected sensation of being filled. 

Lena's lover is happy and surprised with how vocal Lena is tonight. She tells him she masturbates to him all the time and orders him to come on different parts of her body. She is louder than usual and he responds proportionately. When he becomes too exhausted to continue, Lena waits for her lover to fall asleep and then cleans his wounds with alcohol. She reaches under her nightstand and takes out the audio-recording device. 

"I miss you," she says into it. 

Lena shuts the device off and leaves it under the nightstand for her roommate to retrieve in the morning. It is 12:57 AM.

>>>>>

unorthodox sample use / Sweden+Brazil

>>>>

Wish I could pick out more samples from The Field, but I've only been able to discern a couple on account of how chopped-up they turn out after Axel Willner subjects them to a -finally- cathartic cut-and-paste regiment.

Anyway, here's the cut:



From 6:40-7:10 or so you should be able to hear:



Yes, Aquarela do Brasil by Ary Barroso. I have included the Geoff Muldaur version here, because it is creepy - and pretty much the only piece of music used in Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985) - one of my favorite films. 0:05-0:10 is the clearest place you can hear The Field totally rip off the riff and make it into something equally good. 


As an aside, The Field is techno music that I think nearly everyone could enjoy.  Listen to it while drawing.


>>>

filters of my house

>>>>4.30.11

borderline fashion gesture: whimsical/suggestive

'

>>>

>>

>>>>

Dear Jane,

The worst feeling is when someone tells you how unbalanced you are, and you didn't even realize it, but it makes so much fucking sense now. Because it is you, it isn't everyone else, like you've always thought.

And why does this always come from people who know you the best? If I am to maintain my sanity, I am forced to conclude these people do not know me at all.

So the options are either: 1.) none of my relationships are real or 2.) I am a lunatic.

I would start therapy again, but who gives a shit, I don't even know where in the country I will be living in two weeks.


Love,

Lena.

>>>

thesis.

Some of you have expressed interest in reading my thesis when it is complete. Well, now it is complete.




click here to read my thesis.



It is relatively short at 41 pages long.
The topic is an interpretation of a Francis Bacon painting.

theory from: early Christian Byzantium, St. John of Damascus, Martin Luther, Joseph Leo Koerner, GWF Hegel, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, my own experience
fictional literature from: Oscar Wilde, Jorge Luis Borges
film stills from: The Battleship Potemkin (1929), Triumph of the Will (1935)
art from: Francis Bacon, Diego Velazquez, Albrecht Durer


>>>>

essential free mac apps for academia

>>>>

One (the only?) skill set I picked up in graduate school: efficiency. As some of you know, my master's program required a ridiculous amount of course work (51 hours [16 courses, 1 thesis] in 4 semesters). I also worked two jobs (about 15 hours a week at the library and 7 hours a week doing curatorial work), and remained committed to maintaining a creative voice (updating this blog). Also had to, you know, do laundry, locate and prepare provisions, and socialize. I incorporated technology as my organ during this time, and survived as a result of it. I am a minimalist; I hate having tons of operations running at the same time, clogging up valuable processing speed all in the name of making one arbitrary task 10% less complicated. The following, however, constitute apps that I used all the fucking time. These are all free apps, by the way, because I am always fucking broke. 

1. "Alfred" by Running With Crayons LTD

This is the best application for MacOSX. Ever. It is an application launcher, which is exactly what it sounds like. The thing is basically a search bar that pops up when you hit space+alt. Not only can you open apps with it, but you can define words, perform calculations, shorten urls, search google/bing/amazon/whatever, search your harddrive for both locations and files, and on and on. Alfred is highly customizable, intelligent (it gets better at predicting what you want to do the more you use it), and best of all, spares you from opening unnecessary apps and windows.  


2. Skim by Sourceforge

For two of my classes this semester I was required to purchase zero books in lieu of having hundreds upon hundreds of digital .pdf files to read instead. Economical (thanks profs), but printing fucking sucks, everyone knows that. If you're looking for any meaningful engagement with this already-mundane form of reading, Adobe Reader won't do shit for you. Skim, on the other hand, allows you to highlight (or underline!), annotate, and organize all of your markings and comments. Soon I'll forget what my own handwriting looks like.


3. Dropbox by Dropbox

You probably already know about this by now, but in case you don't: an internet harddrive. Access files saved to dropbox from any computer with an internet connection. I only saved my school documents to dropbox, so everything important was always backed up (lazy). I also use this app to share files with friends, as you can set-up public folders accessible by invited users. 2GB free, invite your friends for more space.


4. utorrent by BitTorrent

If you haven't learned how to navigate the wide world of torrents yet - I dunno, what the hell? Get with it. You will be too broke to go see movie and concerts in grad school so you'll have to settle for downloading them. Why do I recommend utorrent over transmission? First and most importantly: LIGHT. LIGHT. LIGHT. Will not interfere with anything! Also: customizable, easy, fast, fast, fast.

5. caffeine by lighthead

Keeps your mac from dimming the screen every 30 seconds of disuse. Because sometimes, staring vacantly at a half-finished paper requires hours of illuminated focus.


>>>>

my front porch stitched pano

new music reviews for April: Prussia

actually just this. be sure to listen all the way through.

Prussia is my favorite band so far this year; like skinny-baby Frank Blacks singing songs made for girls to sing in the 1960s. Seriously, I don't listen to many "band-bands" (groups of young white men playing real instruments) these days without shrugging my shoulders and thinking "eh, it's been done." Prussia - total exception to that expectation. Lovely music.

desire lines are retraceable.

this part is inspired by a few things. this post, that is. one is red wine, which I am drinking now; this will become quite obvious. others: real conversations with real people. everyone who shares their honest thoughts with me is inspiration. 

1999. 

"Alethea and Her Cousin"

On a warm spring day eight years ago…almost…the sixteen-year-old virgin Alethea enters the bedroom of her cousin.

Alethea is a Catholic and a devout one at that. She attends mass twice weekly and remains vulnerable to the anachronistic orthodoxies of the institution.

"The church updates itself every four-hundred years or so to only be only a hundred years or so behind the present," Alethea's cousin tells her.

Alethea is also vulnerable to her cousin. He is a year older than her and obviously not Catholic.  Alethea is often startled at the accidental profundity of his thoughts and injures herself at night in maniacal attempts to persuade her hands away from her clitoris. Their bedrooms face each other from across the street. Currently his is dark. Currently Alethea's hands are burnt-up with the remedying effects of boiling water.

"What is this?" Alethea asks herself, holding her raw and shaking hands up to the mirror. 

Of all his parts, Alethea likes her cousin's eyes the most. They are the same blue as the Virgin's shroud. Alethea's eyes are brown like shit so she refuses to meet his gaze, fearful a prolonged connection will soil her immaculate soul. 

"Whose soul?" he cousin asks. "Why do you never look me in the eye, Alethea?"

"I don't know."

"It's me. You know me. It won't hurt you to look at me."

Alethea repeats Matthew 5:28 to herself as she lifts her gaze to meet his. The verse goes something like, "you might as well give up trying, because even just thinking about something bad is enough to damn you." The verse's resonance corresponds inversely to the ever-intensifying blueness of her cousin's eyes. The longer Alethea stares the bluer they get. 

"Oh!" Alethea says laughing. "This is easy!"

Her cousin sighs deeply and shakes his head. He puts his hand behind her head to feel her scalp. He pulls a few of her hairs. Out. "Come back to my house Alethea," he says.

She takes his hand, worn unevenly from the constant plucking of guitar strings, she takes it and finds it fits very evenly into hers, hers still burned from the night before. 

Alethea discovers that sex is like the cigarettes she smokes, the poetry she reads. She never knew she needed it until she had it, and now she cannot exist long without it.

Her cousin requests she takes off her shirt but she removes her panties. He puts his hand on top of her skin and she puts it under. He offers her a kiss; she multiples them, over and over, everywhere. She becomes positively helpless when he compliments her breasts and she hears the Holy Mother screaming in agonizing bliss when he discovers her clitoris. 

"I've never done this before," they say to each other, not knowing exactly what they mean.

* * *

Lena pauses in drafting her story, suddenly unhappy with how happy these teenagers are in this small and, in the whole grand narrative of things, relatively meaningless encounter. She arises from her desk and pours herself a glass of red wine. 

Lena is alone in her house, spare a cat, spare the aquarium of fish it taunts every dawn and dusk. 

"I am so devastatingly lonely," Lena says to herself. She calls her friend Jane only to repeat the sentence. "I'm so devastatingly lonely..." Lena catches a fish from the aquarium and tosses it to her eager tabby. The cat pins the fish between the rug and its paw, waiting for its struggle to subside. Before the fish dies, Lena shoos the cat away and returns the fish the aquarium. It is still alive.

"Come over," Lena says to Jane, who has been telling Lena all about something forgettable for the past several minutes.

"Lena, no."

"It will be quick. You can just lay there. You won't even have to move."

"No, Lena."

"Why not?"

"...I'm not like that."

Lena grips the telephone very tightly, and holds it very thoughtfully, before flinging it across the room. "Neither am I you bitch," she screams. The telephone hits a print of Madame Butterfly Lena has framed and shatters its protective glass. Lena rushes to pour another glass of wine. She pours the next glass of wine on her manuscript.

"Are you happier now, Alethea, you hedonistic bitch."

And Lena, frenzied with envy over a piece of her imagination, grabs the now-red notebook and crams it into her purse. She leaves her house and begins walking towards a tower. A bell tower.

"I'll exorcize you Alethea. You're going to change. You can't have all the fun now. I won't have to live vicariously through you, for your life will become dull and mine so very interesting. I'll have Jane. I'll have my cousin. I'll have my father, real Electra-style. And when I'm not with someone forbidden I'll throw myself on the various inanimate phallic objects that reside in my house. I'll have a fucking banana. Then have a drunken baby with the better end of a wine bottle. You'll be nothing, Alethea, just a child crossing the threshold of a single taboo, a single taboo to my dozens upon dozens."

"You'll be nothing," Lena lies to herself, applying lipstick, readjusting her stockings, putting on a face to face herself less fearfully. 

The gates to the church are locked, however, and Lena is forced to delay her exorcism for twelve horrible fucking hours.

self-portraits holding icon & wearing headphones

the two indispensable objects since January 2011.

The Next Chapter of Lena: Confession

aren't you getting tired of seeing no updates? yet you return, day after day.


depression feels like desperation, and I refuse to submit a dishonest post.


Lena: Return.






Lena walks back to a place she has been before. A scaled-down Babel pierced the sky. A sound came out of the rip - bells. A woman in an ugly hat walked out. The church.


Entering the confessional, Lena walks back again to a place she has been before. 


"When was the date of your last confession?" the virgin asks her.


"Age fourteen. A requirement before Confirmation."


"And how many years do you have now?"


"Twenty-Four. So ten. Ten years since my last confession."


The virgin says nothing. Lena decides this silence is the least offensive prompt of all possible prompts which are directed as instigating one's admission of vulnerabilities.


"My first sin is that, when I was younger and forced to participate in this sacrament, I made up sins," Lena says. "I never felt as if I had done anything wrong."


"And now, you feel you have done wrong?"


"No, not really."


The virgin says nothing, and then says, "Why don't we continue anyway?"


"Why not I suppose. My second sin is not believing in God."


The virgin automatically responds, "Mother Theresa was plagued with doubt until the day she died. She wrote of it every night in her journals."


"I guess I don't see what that has to do with me, because I don't give a fuck if God exists or not. I write about interesting things in my journal."


The virgin clears his virginal throat. He reswallows the virginal mucus he has just worked so hard to dislodge, virginally. "Perhaps confession is not the right step for you at this moment."


"Jesus man. I'm getting there. I'm just fucking around right now."


"So you do have something to confess which burdens your soul?"


"No, but one of my characters does. Do you mind if I read a part of her confession to you?"


"I'm not sure I understand." Virgin clears his dumb virgin throat again. 


Lena clears her own de-virginized throat. "Her name is Aletea. She is conflicted right now because she is having an affair with her cousin. They played the 'show me' game when they were young, and now, their paths have mysteriously intersected again many years later. Their attraction is magnetic and natural and mutual. Yet of course it is wrong."


"Is this you? Are you talking about you?"


"No, Father. This is Aletea. She is one of my characters. From my journals."


"Ah - I think - "


"Anyway Father, may I please read you her confession? She is quite a devoted Catholic and I need to know what penance you would give her. For contextual accuracy."


"Er, alright then."


Lena opens her purse and removes a small red notebook from one of its compartments. She turns to page 17 and begins reading. Slowly.


"When he finally touched me it was how I remembered touch felt. It was bare sex, elementary sex. Everything else has since him, a footnote. Like I tapped into the center of a system. Its maxims. Its gears. At one point I said, as he was cautiously reacquainting himself with me, I said, in a last attempt to salvage my ethical self, to squander his carnal appetite, I said, 'Don't do this to yourself.' He said, 'But I'm doing it to you.' And god. I just fucking let him."


"Is that it?" the virgin asks after a few moments of dead air.


"Yes. What are the damages?"


The virgin merely swallows. "15 each Lord's Prayer and Hail Mary."


"Is that really it?"


"And a tremendous effort to change."


Lena frowns. "But if she changes the plot will be ruined. I have many more pages after 17."


"Well, then I guess she's not really sorry."


Lena ponders this a moment. 


"I guess you're right."

very bad year so far.

left alone, right alone.
one fate after another
amplifies our distance.
I cannot continue anymore
what have I left?

not resistance.