February VOGON '19

FRIENDS,

How’s it going? Spring’s approaching, so I’m trying to surface from my mystical hibernation. But I tell ya—after approzimately 5 decades of insomnia, to finally get permission from the kosmos to sleep as much as…. everyone else…

to sleep soundly instead of constantly moving the spheres w/ my sweaty brain waves….  the pressure is OFF.

Forever? Or just this year? Or just till April? Who knows. But I love it.

As Spring approacheth, I’m also approaching the end of the Exegesis of PKD. I can’t wait to say a few words about it here in the Octopus Diary. I’m sure you all remember my Existential Crisis of 2017 — I saw you all making fun of me. Anyway, I’ve been on an exhaustive spiritual quest since that summer & the Exegesis was a thrilling & cathartic parallel to my own efforts. And my efforts have been rewarded more exhaustively than I could have ever imagined. 

So who’s laughing now?

And with the arrival of Spring will also come the 7th Octopus Review. You will love it more than your own Instagram buffet— send Octopus art!

                NOW     !!!     ENJOY these VOGON poems!!!!!!!!!!!! 

————————————————————————————————

BULLET TRAIN AROUND THE WORLD

It’s Sunday, ie no longer a day off for anyone

                                Where do we start?

Breakfast burritos on the border? Naw, construction.

      Let’s go to Sumatra for coffee. There’s just been a murder

of tigers, following a 100 acre rape

               [Attempting to mate w/ a plate of eggs?]

Pick coffee beans from paws & proceed to the mainland

China is old. It is dying &

Some other centipede is bumbling out of its hole &

Redrawing boundaries. A moving target

                           w/ infinite digits

                        reloading, redrawing

Till China looks more like a penguin than a pig

Finally a warship cruise to Venezuela

     where they’re hungry for the recipe

                                       for caliphate cake

                Cartoon leaders stand like unlit candles

      Awaiting a match,

Tigger™ pinyatas swell w/ gasoline

0210:0550a

**********

It’s A Re-re-re-re-World!

I dreamt of our finite globe, 

                the whole thing in one night

Tour guide Owl led me to this & that corner

           of our edgeless touchstone —

     It was a flash in the pan w/

                      no souvenir

The quickest, kitschiest tour of a planet ever…

        It was over & there was nowhere left…

It was time to right fiction. 

Retract tentacles. Present claws.

0210:0575a

***********

My SCRABBLE Game:  white

                                        pigs

                                     praying

                                       trimly

                          jag     axite      edit

                                   ouzo pint

                                  wound fried

Then it was back to 7th grade. The year you realized

             the social contract stated

That as soon as anyone leaves any room, whosoever left behind is free 

             to judge the aforementioned person in his/her/their absence & 

               slander & libel him/her/them within the walls of said room

 Never holding up any mirrors to self examine, but only to cast aspersions

                       on someone/anyone else to deflect any

Mirror/platter/reflective surface that may reveal a clear cut version

                             Of the self to the self—

And you decided then & there in your 12th year of life that that was the very worst

                               Thing ever

                                About people

& you would do your best to avoid being in rooms, then not being in rooms,

                  with any of them

0210:0575a

************

Dream — April 2017 — A Writer’s Conference or Mystic Faire — Hotel Lobby

       I recognized writers

But card tables draped in velvet & linen

          said psychic faire

I tried to say hi to a few faces

     & they smirked or turned away

Soon I saw the familiar gathering of hackles, the bonding of atoms

                that didn’t include mine

[Based on being ignored during poetry week / month/ lifetime

        Why did we stop posting & critiquing, 

                 building a big centipede of conformity

                       A poetry that does not segue 

                           from the brainstem of The Master 

to the old hermetic blackbox labeled Me?]

           I was shoved to the nubbly curtain,  my phone jostled

                       Uproarious laughter  having fun at my expense

Because I am cheap & easy. The centipede can’t make

              100 simple decisions per second, so it laughs 

                   at its own hacked segments

I came back for my phone & found it cracked &

          Mystics smiled all around 

0210:0575a

**********

I’LL CONTINUE to BORE YOU with MY INNER JOURNEY…

—> Loss of libido

—> Psychic safari

—> Psychotic break

—> REINTEGRATE

—> Prodigal ejaculation

—> Clairvoyant assault

—> Redact claws

—> Wrap tentacles around the cake

Remembering PornWeek: surviving hourly wage boredom

W/ the devil in my pocket

(now that I have pockets

            full of frogs & snails & cat tails…)

0210:0600a

*********

THE BODY PARTISAN

Do children go outside anymore?

I’m good at being outside; reading the conference room

Everyone’s a dullard, a dotard

Let’s go

Do children have locks on their bedroom doors

I did.

My lock broke one day & I thought

I’d never get out

& that didn’t scare me until I got hungry

For peanut butter & jelly & how would it fit

Under the door?

Saints & angels for every season —

You’re the patron saint* of those who DO TOO MUCH & HAVE IT ALL!!!

I’m the patron saint of those who’ve been robbed of their will to live.

I dial up terrorists & school shooters, & ask wtf dude?

And they always say the same thing — 

      Constant displacement by new people when the old ones haven’t

                   found a place (aka OVERPOPULATION)

Xenopause. Beekept information.

0210:0600a

*Patron saint = unpaid psychiatrist

*********************

my attempt at an insta-poem!!! (ie, not Vogon)

“Tarot Bell”

I’m a very affordable mystic

But I won’t go easy on you

You’ll feel me the next day…

2-17-19

***********************

THE CODA PENDANT

I haven’t gone through anything diagrammable

At least that’s what I thought

Till I got the bright idea

To connect the dots

Just decide what the dots are — 

          Dates? Songs? Dicks sucked? —

And connect the bejeezus out of those

        Little ordinates that could

               **********

Taking an    unpaved

                unlit      uncool

                     Road

to get to this junkture

     Blindfold + balance beam

Between temporal lobes I walked

                                (‘I’ meaning ‘me’ this time)

                          I walked & fell

                        I palpated walls

                 I massaged my heart

I called you out on all the things I heard you say

                                     inside my ear drum ( your

                                           unconscious biases)

I knew from 12 that no one really likes anyone;

                your evaluation is always going on

                       But it’s never glowing…

I walked the planet as if it were 4 inches wide

And the judges were eager to deduct

                             not only points

But actual wood molecules from my unvarnished feet

I somnambulated

I echolocated

Till one recent a.m., without my asking,

            a great wink of the eyeball sun

      lit up my inner/outer

                    (core/reactor)

& I was evaluated by the sky

           (or God, if you want to call It that)

Here is the snapshot of how the world —

                      or Satan if you want to call it that—

                                       views you

I expected to see a fetal spiral, head bowed to chest

    A piece of human excrement curled around an overflowing loo…

Instead

The impossibly high-def mental picture

Was of me on the ledge

                        (parapet, railing) of the Philippi Creek bridge

Walking               way above the water

Doing my mental & physical gymnastics

While cars honked & classmates shouted

“You’re the girl on the bridge” people would say at school

          & I would make some animal noise

I forgot I did that. Forged those skinny paths

Unwalked by anyone else

You’re the girl on the bridge, God said,

                Even though you’re a sad-but-too-happy-to-be-a-poet man

                                                these days…

You were born to be the girl on the bridge 

And that’s who you’ll be when you end

No matter what she’s gone through, no matter where she’s been

*12th grade witchcraft*

Now you’re back on wet cement

0222:0333a

************

BRIDGET BARDO

words are back

to play  to pledge allegiance & plead

                                    insanity

Rudeboy Giuliani

      please have a seat in the oxygen lounge

We’ll call you neighbor when

                    we’re good & ready

When the fortress is built of moonparts

             & shoots gamma rays

Early wood, morning hammers,

         Construction galore & pussy

                nowhere to be found

Even his truck is a ghost

         At 4 a.m., has he had breakfast

   behind the dateline? Somewhere in the Dominican?

I know he’s a pilot, but we won’t discuss it.

Flora/fauna codependent 

       Audio break up — rain, Forest!

All that (those) bacteria! Lit up. Glowing. 

     Not just Fairuza Balk(crafting)

       but Mayim Bialik(blossoming)

An invading viral consciousness that turned us

        inside out like a tube sock

   on Dec 23, 2012

We felt it. We split,

      bifurcated, lost sight of each other,

           became a mismatched tribe

Of tubesocks in an overcrowded drawer

Till the lint trap opened and out Bakula

                   (quantum leapt)

0222:0375a

**********

DOE-EYED BUCK-EYE

You grow fat & lazy

       When I make you supper

         & the world covers me w gold stars!

You grow closer to God

      When I make you suffer

    & the world peels the stars from

               my ceiling

(“specific spirituality” = please God help,

                  but only until midnight on Tues.)

0222:0375a

********

p.s.  Just a note about these DIAGRAMS OF TIME.

        They are Diagrams of Time, not cartoons of our solar system. Please don’t get that mixed up, as I do every time I look at them.

I’ll keep working on them as they are not quite right yet… I’ll spend all year drawing TIME if I have to

January VOGON '19

Hey Y’all

Happy Groundhog’s Eve. Here are the very first Vogons of 2019. I’ve been super busy w/ gross earthly responsibilities, and also I’ve managed to spend a lot of time hibernating. Which I plan to do all year long. Which means there will be fewer Vogon poems & hardly any new art. But I’ll give you what I can.

Just a reminder that submissions for the next Octopus Review are open! Send me STUFF! 

*********************************

VOICES BEHIND CLOSED DOORS:

       A TRUMP & PUTIN DIALOGUE IN THE STYLE OF MAMET

T: Bail me out

P: Hey

T: Why not

P: Why not pay?

T: Later

P: Now

T: Why? Let’s wheel. Let’s peel & eat. Let’s seal a state.

P: Rue it. Rent it. Ivankit.

T: Rentvanka?  

P: Ivankment

T: Nosvedonya

P:

T:

P:

T:

P:

T: Let’s fluff. Let’s tuft. Let’s Tiffanize.

P: Hmmm……

T: Hah?? Huh??

P: Hmmm….mmmmm….mmmmm….Tiffanope…

T: Wha??

P: Ivankage

T: But Jared…

P: Nyuk nyuk…back channel

T: But…

P: Nyaa..nyaa…

T: Scapericorn. Goat germs?

P: Sharksteps

T: Chirp chirp 140 chirp chirp chirps…Tiffanyet?

P: < 3.7 tongue clicks > Perks?

T: The works. pp cummings. Any sexton pussy mob or dick&sons

P: We make poetry together?

T: And rent

P: Da-da-deal comrade < poison sandwich? >

0114:0625p

***********

2014: Spider   2015: Frog     2016: Owl    2017: Rabbit    2018: Worm

           2019: whatever hibernates 51 weeks/year

(The Sunshine State Zodiac. Which sign are you? It doesn’t matter, they’re all incompatible)

************

THE PLEASURE OF BEING A BURNOUT

Drone. Yawn. Snore. Whaat?!

You’re

cutting edge

cutting hedge

cuddling ledge

budding Reg

   (or is it Rog?)

0114:0625p

***********

HOW TO DEFEAT ISIL

Let them have their caliphate &

also bake a 

        many-tiered cake

Build a wall around their caliphate &

      toss the bread-laced tablets

  Manna Manna Overboard

       overbred  overbite

Sanctions, blah-blah-blockades

          A caliphate from

      Walls of bread & one day

                                 needles

One day only flour instead of bread &

         one day bliss

         becomes a kite

        becomes a comet

     blessing this caliphate

A cup of small white disks, crushed

          into powder

Pull a pretty hippy to the town square 

     A hub of sunshine in her love-vest &

                                    detonate…

Dust the cake generously w/ fine powder

Be sure to wear full hazmat gear

0114:0625p

************

Spirit Animals: From Karmic Kidnapping to Deluxe Escape

Spider: Not the coveted Soviet features of an ubermodel

            But one 8-eyed spy

Tripping, hopping on too many stages

    Burying currents in well insulated legs

Frog: Suddenly you’re an apprentice

                     electrician. It’s your house & body

              That need rewiring

Beginning w/ the doorbell & ending w/ the

                              hyoid bone

                     Ribbit  roar  purr (remember

                                  when the doorbell almost

                                    burned the house down?

             That was my last day w/ guardian angels

                                For

                                   how

                                      long…? About a year….

                     The morning I was frog-bombed on the toilet

                            I knew I had new angels & 

                should never ask what happened to the old ones)

Owl: You pulled your wings from my overdrawn 

                   Bank of orgasms, 

            And fluttered like money across my eyelashes

                              Glory bee! That did not sting,

                      But too many peeks behind the curtain

                               Leave you weak

Rabbit: Your scars itched & your brain prepared 

                                            to give birth

                                  (to a whole new reality. And

                               I don’t use that word lightlessly)

              Nibble on the clover you’d overlooked

                    for falsity (& I use that word selflessly)

        

                       Dismantle the gingerbread mall

                                 w/ your teeth

Worm: turning & resisting

           cliche, always softening your angle

                        With those segments

           How could anyone mistake you for a visual thinker?

                          And yet they do…

0114:0650p

***********

Blurry shotgun penguin wedding

ADVENTURE AT THE MMJ DISPENSARY IN SEATTLE*

The sad thing about the adventure

      was how perfectly it started

Some water drops are naturally unholy

          but each particle of fog on this adventure

                was of baptismal quality

W/ laser precision I calculated the time of your birth &

from there I was able to pinpoint the moments

                       you made your way west

All the zany cardstock characters were written

  in —

       the ranting blond whose tears turned out

            to be holier than rain

She distracted from my reverie

                    but didn’t destroy it.

Continue. 

               Everyone stopped & posed

                  in my windshield

One man halts & takes an everest chug

          off his vapor cannister

            as he limps up the ramp

Not a puff but a breath of creation heavy w/

                                        holy mucus

Perfect weather. Perfect temperature

      for rolled down windows

A hot box of MAGA hats leaves the station @ 10:45

& at 10:47 it’s your turn.

Then,

 my turn to see you in the windshield,

                 familiar not zany

In those 47 minutes I’d written your life story

        and couldn’t wait to get home & end it

            w/ the perfect punctuation mark—

An audio-visual orgasm

               A just-long-enough jest—

when some walk-on character appears,

                                summoning,

                        desperate semaphore

                          & you respond

By leaping from my skull’s embrace & traipse

    through a fog that’s already hardening into glass

2 writers should never share a windshield

0127:0400a

*not the real Seattle

************

Please, no more tests!!

Remember the one I took all last year,

Swordplaying through your obstacle course

Of illnesses? 

Please no more.

How much longer do I want to hang out

Watching the fragilest minds of my generation

Do what they’re doing??

Intuition is a thing now

      but there are forces working against it

This is a collective, a food pantry

           of Christ hostages

Needing to be eaten before decomp sets in

All TIME has angelic seals of approval

          from dickless gatekeepers,

      somehow always defeminized

            like astronauts in SPACE

Let this 45th Blotch appear

On the face of a wafer

Screeching for us to halt as the

       Evolutionary bottleneck approaches

Some get stuck there like a

        Butterscotch in the throat…

0127:0425

*********

I was born the moment your train left the station

               We crossed paths

      I couldn’t find a mother & friends

            were a chemical risk

The drano crawled around your palate

    & the styrofoam cup corroded as you watched

                       from the bathroom floor

And other mothers scared you,

       the caring available ones —

            (If you got something to say…)

Most of us unpack this shit through

              divorces/troubled tweens/ whatever mirrors

we encounter on the walls of the world

Rarely do we choose to face

          the mirrors of the skull. Your inner disco ball awaits!

Meet it w/out flinching &

             the velvet ropes will engorge

                     w/ loving platelets

Like, how dare you see me under

                all this business,

           this shroud of bureaucracy?

I must be doing something Pretty

Dumb. But can’t believe all the dumb things 

You keep doing!

I always counted on you to be the smart one.

0127:0450a

(this is so like today, all my thoughts ending on the other side of the page

where they’re easily lost

10 of fucking wands! “broken pumpkin”

I always thought the first family might be a little

                     topsy turvy)

**********

WILD WEST VERSION of 1980s + 1930s =

An era I never wanted to see

But here I am w/ eyes not made of hamburger

I love to conspire

You were the pious earth mother

You were sawn in half & rebuilt yoreself

W/ good food, meditation

& a photogenic lifestyle

Who else are “American”? The Weiners?

Do Americans congregate?

A parish of them?

A perish? A persistence?

An astroika?

What about ostrich feathers

Blooming from sand pits?

What about popped heart balloons

What about the seabirds &

                     the billionaires—

How do we reconcile their differences?

Octopus Diary is back channel to oligarchy?

Now I will call the interpols

Those we called “mama’s boys” before

“toxic masculinity” was entered

In the lexicon

Gardening under hydroponic duress

A different momma’s boy has arrived

(Alternative spelling

Because his variety is benign)

Expie al Adocious, 

           Sir Gaga

    More purring, less roaring

You are the Master…..

                                    [It’s hard to be a poet when your

                                       family is still alive. There’s so much to show

                                      Not tell. And, it’s not all bad. It’s actually

                                      pretty interesting & profound. 

                        But privacy (yada yada) respect  >: ( ]

0127:1225p

The o'BLIGatory New Year BLOG

FRIENDS;

We’ve made the vertiginous leap from 2018 to 2019 & I hope all of you survived.

For the past few years I’ve had this thing I call New Yearitis. I think it started in ’14 when I had a bad break-up w/ a best friend who had been toxic for many years. It was a rough start to the year & ’14 felt wrong right away. Since then the first few days of any year, I am in this odd fluctuating state — literally my body feels like a lava lamp or a rocking boat — and it’s an intense joy & a horrid anguish that rise & dip over & over. Barely anything in between.

And the weirdest thing is, I often find myself asking — Wait, is that the joy? Or the anguish?  It’s really hard to tell them apart.

These sensations were particularly intense & long lasting in ’17 & ’18. In 2017 I felt seasick until Jan 20, whereupon I returned to feeling angrier than I ever had. So I’m happy to report that 2019 has begun on placid waters. I feel more like an ice rink than a lava lamp. Better than I’ve felt for the past 5 new years. I won’t make any grand pronouncements about the meaning of that, but yes… I do feel like I’ve passed (or just barely squeaked by) some huge karmic BARDO EXAM. 

Someday I may write about the whole ordeal — it was quite a JOURNEY (w/ more turbulence than bubble baths). But NOW….

…. I want to write about 2018. And 2019.

         **********It Was All About Vogon Poetry & The Exegesis *************

I think the hardest part about the last 2 years was trying to figure out who I was in a world that no longer made sense to me. And having the painful awareness that I DO NOT MAKE SENSE to THE WORLD (aka Peoria, aka middle america, aka rural america, aka heteronormative america, aka family values america). The empathic knowledge that I make those people as uncomfortable as they make me. Actually feeling their pain!

Ouch.

I did a lot of processing through writing & art throughout 17 & 18. And it payed off because I think what I (re)gained in ’18 was just a clarity & understanding I had really lost. It’s difficult & depressing to go through your days by the light of a crescent moon. I feel like someone built a window in my little outhouse of a skull. 

[And it was me—I built the window! With art & words. That’s kind of the magic of being a human.]

Another thing that really gave me comfort & magnified clarity was reading The Exegesis of Philip K Dick. I will call it the prescient text which has helped define this 5-year period of spiritual darkness I just passed through.

I’m actually still reading The Exegesis & can’t wait to blog about it at length once I’m finished. Not since A People’s History of the United States has it taken me this long to read a book. It’s just not possible to go any faster. I read one paragraph and have to mull it for days. And I’ve also been reading all of your chapbooks in between, so thank you for the glut of humor & feels to reflect on whilst exegeting.

I gave you lots of Vogon poetry this year! I submitted nothing & wrote only for the pleasure of writing & figuring shit out. In my own words. In my own style—which is way out of step w/ ‘real poetry’, which I was sad about for much of the year, but about which i am no longer sad AT ALL.

Vogon poetry is basically automatic writing, or stream-of-consciousness, unedited, flowing, without concern for publication or universal themes. In the past, this form of automatic writing has proved to be prophetic on some level. Often on a global level. It may take till mid-’19 to find out if any of the ’18 Vogons are prophetic but I’ll let you know.

Most of 2018s Vogon poems seemed to be in direct correlation to what I was about to read in The Exegesis. Almost like I was in contact w/ PKD himself! But I won’t make that claim or my credibility will be on the line w/ Peoria & beyond.

Speaking of such squeamish things: Tarot. I forget exactly when I began offering free readings so that I may improve my mysticking, but I think it was 10-27-17. I have done several readings since then, but still not enough for me to feel comfortable charging money for it. So I will continue to offer free readings until I know it’s time to say Pay up, bitches.

[My dominant cards for 2018 were definitely the Knight(King) & Ace of Swords. Barely any reading w/out those two!]

And then there was The Octopus Review! I can’t tell you how this little spontaneous combustion of a zine practically saved my life in ’17 and just made me happy & proud in 2018.  I would love to do more this year and I will be asking for submissions again soon. And folks, there is nothing more Xmasy for me than an inbox full of submissions, no matter what time of year it is. So thank you to everyone who has been a part of it! I hope the tiny press still thrives in 2019.

A lot of great stuff did happen in 2018. We got the cutest bunny in the world, no lie. The cutest. And meanest : )) We did a lot of stylish mutations to our house. We inherited a future business. I pass way better than I did in ’17, and also unlike ’17 I haven’t battled waves of suicidability all year. 

But there was

        *****************************TURBULENCE************************

A lot of weird shit happened this summer & I blame it on all those planets that went rogue for several weeks. It felt like i relived lots & lots of different chapters of my life in rapid succession & nearly melted down. Or more accurately did melt down for a while. Hulk rage, T rage. 

When I had my T levels checked in Sept, they were in the 1500s (like, higher than Aquaman!) So I’m still having trouble regulating/metabolizing the hormones. And it got the best of me for a few months. 

One thing I realized during the T rage was that I would need better, more permanent ways of managing it if it were to become a recurring thing. And I decided I needed to start singing again, 

A) to once & for all find my new vocal range and 

B) because singing always made me feel better…

…it hit me that I hadn’t sung at all since before 2014. I sang a lot in 2013. And then something happened. And I could no longer sing. I could just run & run & run & cry & cry & cry. I sang to my cat a few times in 2015 when I was entertaining the idea of doing a trans-themed podcast, but it wasn’t, like, serious singing. And then I decided to take hormones & my voice changed a little bit—not enough to sound masculine—but enough to ruin my female vocal range. And I just thought…

   …. do I really need to sing? Am I ever going to need a voice again? 

I must’ve decided ’no’ because I stopped singing altogether sometime in 2016. But this summer I revved up the old, creaky, cranky vocal cords & there they were. It took a few weeks, but I found a new range. I can sing a lot louder now… and it has helped me feel        alive. (that sounds dumber than balls, but it’s true as piss flaps)

Another thing that happened this summer was that on the day Anthony Bourdain died, I had a garage sale (you remember!) And as I was closing up shop, a truck stopped in front of my house & Anthony Bourdain got out & told me he was going to be my neighbor.

Of course, it wasn’t really Anthony Bourdain but it did look like him & I had a moment of spiritual dissonance. And if you know me, then you know I have post traumatic neighbor disorder (PTND) from someone I lived next to in another life. So when ghostie sidled up & said he was about to go to town building a huge mcMansion next to my humble blue beehive, my buzzing T rage was compounded by stinging anxiety — 

Who was this person moving into my tranquility zone?

When exactly would it happen?

How loud or disruptive would it be & could I handle it?

So far he seems decent. He did not seem decent on the day I met him, which was scary. (You may have read my Vogon poem about him in December’s dossier.) He started construction—very loudly— right after Thanksgiving & I was ready.

It hasn’t been the horrifying experience I expected & I’m so relieved. 

One thing that was good about the extreme T rage was I got a lot done. Not just the usual artsy stuff, but the “heavy lifting” I might not have been able to do if I was all calm & happy.

              ******** HI DEFINITION NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS********

Oh golly. I’ve rambled. You’re sleeping. Well, WAKE UP! I have to tell you what my New Year resolutions are —

          …………………………………………………………………………………………….

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………….errrrr, I resolve to be less of a thinking person & more of a FEELING person this year…………………………………I resolve to reconcile my public & private selves………………………………….I resolve to keep working on VOICE, whether musical or poetic……………I resolve to sleep………………………..

[SLEEP is my new drug of choice. I’ve been a professional insomniac since 2nd grade, so imagine my pleasant surprise at my fondness for sleep lately. I look at my bed & see a pina colada. Or a big syringe full of sugar crystals. Or any other addictive substance. Mmmm, mattress fluff.]

I resolve to enjoy social media for one more year. Have I ever told you all what a magical invention social networking was in my life?? Do you all know how many times in my sorry pre-digital days I longed for contact with friends from the past? Oh why can’t I talk to so & so again? And I would tell myself  You’ll never see so & so again. You’ll have to find new people or just learn to comfort, delight & entertain yourself. 

But I did see “so & so” again! Every so & so I ever knew! And I’ve met so many other so & sos since then. It has been really wonderful. 

But I am pretty old now & I’m a little bit tired of being in constant contact w/ so many people. Much as I love it, much as it has contributed to our evolution, I feel it has overall been damaging to my mental health. And yours too. But you’ll have to decide on your own when to ditch it. I resolve to enjoy the fuck out of being so connected to everyone in 2019, and to de-connect in 2020.

I also resolve to post my Favorite Music of 2018 in a list format by next week. I will also be posting Octopus Review submission guidelines soon.  Okay,

HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS, whatever that means for you!!