Hit Me Baby

Humor is a 'sense' like eyesight or hearing, that helps you navigate landscapes and situations.
Lately I've felt like I was standing in a vast, flat expanse, like a desert or a field. Nothing between me and the horizon, no variance of space, nowhere to point the arrow. Yup, I lost my sense of humor. Where does humor go when you lose it? Well, the same could be asked of eyesight or hearing. People who lose their sight or hearing usually find some other sense overcompensating. Not so with humor, in fact all of my senses sort of dulled.

And then, like a little flower bursting through cement, this made me laugh

Rhode Island R&R

A week or so in Rhode Island in a place far off the beaten path. It was filled with moments that reminded me of my Indiana childhood. The hours spent squatting looking at things on the ground, poking at dead things with a stick, walking along country roads, bug bites. It was heaven. Deer, fox, snake, bullfrog, hermit crab, firefly, dragonfly, turkey vulture, red clover, Queen Anne's Lace, foxtails, hydrangea.

Just another day at the office...

This is a REAL commercial for restaurant chain in Australia...and after I laughed out loud, it left me speechless. There's so much to say that my thoughts are all piled up in my mouth and nothing can escape.

you have...mass

Mom: I'm having one of those colonoscopies tommorow. That's not that thing you do, right. You do something different.

Me: Yeah, I get colonics.

Mom: Well how often?

Me: Oh, like once or twice a year.

Mom: and you think it's help to keep your weight down?

Me: Well, I don't know, maybe. That's not why I do it, but it does help my body digest better so it probably helps with weight. But honestly Mom, I eat pretty well and exercise regularly, plus I'm not really a fat person to begin with.

Mom: Well, no. You're not fat, but you have a bigness, you have...what would I call it...mass.

Me: (silently to self) @#^#@%$#^$#*&^%^#@^^%)(**^%#$#$!$@##W^&%^%!


Anne Lamott recounts a story from her friend, Tom.

Tom:
"Parents behavior can make us a little crazy sometimes. My 94 year old mother said something annoying to me over the phone on Christmas Eve, and I wined at her, 'I HATE it when you say that.' So she says it again, right? I said, 'Please dont't say that. It makes me feel like an eleven year old.' And when she said it again, I slammed down the phone.

She's 94! I'm a middle-aged PRIEST----and it's Christmas Eve!"

obsession becomes ritual

Have watched this video everyday since discovering it. I get something new each time. Today it made me think about the facade of romantic love and our eagerness to accept an illusion. I love that she wears an evening dress that reveals itself to be nothing more than a front, just a sequined smock over jeans and bedroom slippers.

Also, I wish I could wake up and have an Icelandic accent, it would make for an incredible outgoing message on my voicemail.

Thankyou, whoever you are...

click ME for the sick TRUTH!

or, get very frustrated because you are a tech tard and cant figure out how to put in a hyperlink.

or,just visit www.planethiltron.com to see what happens when photoshop falls into the hands of the wickedly wonderful.


Although, for a moment, there was something deeply poetic about clicking on "ME" or "TRUTH" and finding out that the page does not exist.

Try it for kicks.

Hello Ladies...

the captain has turned off the "fasten seatbelt" sign please feel free to move about the cabin

today's obsession

Instead of doing mind-numbing but practical and necessary things I've been watching Bjork videos on youtube (1 hour give or take 2). She's such a creature, sprung from an imagination not a womb. Hard to imagine her grocery shopping or going to the gynecologist. Activities like covering a wall with eye lashes or time-traveling to the ice age to dance among wooly mammoths in a dress made of fish bones seem more fitting.

She's like a living manifestation of the subconscious.

I'm all stoned out on her, she's floating through my blood stream. I feel like we just had sex.

Felix Arthur Liam Moyano Ventouras

something so calm and easy about him, certainly a knowing.

tonight's walk

I inadvertently offended the owner of this dog when I remarked that I thought he looked like Captain Kangaroo.

overheard in hermosa beach

Dude 1: Holy Shit man! Did you see the tits on that oriental girl?
Dude 2: You mean, asian.

"the most soulful woebegone eyes you have ever seen"

A description of the guitarfish (also called banjo shark) by Dr. Robin Milton Love, from her book PROBABLY MORE THAN YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE FISHES OF THE PACIFIC COAST





They show up on the fossil record before dinosaurs.
It showed up on the pier the other day.
This poor ancient thing summoned from the depths, brought to the surface to die.
Hung by its tail, blood draining from it's gills, mouth.
It was still alive, god knows how long it had been there. I was on the pier for at least 20 minutes before I noticed it.
I could touch it, and did. It seemed like something you know is there but can't actually feel---like a pancreas or a liver.
The skin was cool and damp and had the texture of the sole of a very expensive ladies shoe.
Barely breathing, it seemed accepting of it's fate...it's eyes all soulful and woebegone.
Death in a place it had never lived.

STRIPSY

drunken state at which removal of clothing begins (audience optional)

last night's walk

I just read a news story about "Fred", a Basset Hound who was found in Arizona, 430 miles away from his home in California.

We had Basset Hounds growing up.
It was my sad little attempt to to get my dad's attention.
He never talked about his past. When I'd ask to hear stories from his childhood he'd answer "Why?"---delivered not as a question, but as an definitive "back-off". But he once mentioned that he'd had a basset named "Mister" . My Dad kinda looked like a basset hound too. I remember one of the neighborhood kids approaching my father...

Kid: "Mr _______? Were you born that way?"
Dad: "What way?"
Kid: "Sad."

After my parents got divorced I begged my Mom for a basset. We got Sam. Sam was sweet and destructive. She'd do just about anything to get in your lap and she also ate right through one of the legs of our piano. She had an adorable way of collapsing belly up for a rub and spent a good deal of time digging holes along our fence line. Eventually she dug one big enough to escape through and the rest of her short life was spent on the lam. It was the same with our other basset, Kong. We found him everytime he escaped, until (cruel twist of fate) my stepmother found him squashed on Meridian Street. Bassets are escape artists, and they don't lead on that they're unhappy at home either.

Ironically, my Dad would eventually move to Florida without telling us.

think with the senses, feel with the mind.

the white balloon

Just looked up and out my doorway and saw a single white balloon gliding across the southern sky. It took all of a second to cross the small patch visible from my vantage point, and I cant help thinking how I would have missed it if I'd looked a second earlier or later. Been in a narcotic haze of benedryl and robutussin all day and that moment somehow pierced right through it.

In Cherokee folklore white symbolizes the southern sky, warmth, peace and happiness; and my head has felt like a balloon dancing above my body since I woke up. Cool.

on today's walk

overheard today at Starbucks

Girl; Oh Hey! How are you?
Guy: I'm good, how are you?
Girl: Good, I'm getting ready to go back to St. Louis. First time in 5 years. I'm a pastor's daughter and there's a big deal thing going on for him at his church so I'm gonna go to that. It's gonna be wierd but great. I haven't seen those people for like 5 years.
Guy: I'm going to Cabo. Kinda like St Louis, right?
Girl: Yeah, almost.
Guy: Actually, I'm going down there for Kent Harris' wedding. Do you remember that guy?
Girl: Yeah, he worked in marketing right?
Guy: Yeah.
Girl: Why is she pregnant?
Guy: Um no.
Girl: Did he just meet her or something?
Guy: Well, they've been going out for like, a year and a half.
Girl: Oh is she from Iowa too?
Guy: No, actually she's from here.
Girl: Oh. Is she dumb or something?
Guy: No. I mean she's seems really nice. Well, it was good running in to you. Have fun in St Louis.
Girl: I will, it's gonna be really wierd to go back there, really wierd. Bye.

I sense a salacious back story.


The native populations (as in native americans) of coastal California believed that the Pacific Ocean had no memory. It's no wonder so many of us midwesterners are drawn to the magic water of Santa Monica Bay and it's ability to erase our pasts.

Memorial Day

My cellphone, a slew of relationships, ways of thinking and percieving, my 30s. All in memoriam.

Recurring dream imagery of late:
Scythe
Tower
Cliff Edge

GOOGLE SAYS...

SCYTHE: Symbolic for the end of something.
Cutting ties.
Reaping, expresses hope of a fruitful harvest of things desired.

TOWER: Paradigm shift.
Destruction of illusion.
Insights and revelations.

CLIFF EDGE: Indicates arrival at an increased level of understanding, new awareness, new point of view.
Reaching a critical point in life requiring a "leap of faith".


We know before we know.

Imagine how your day would go if these kids were the first thing you saw...

RAZR blades

After months of complaining about how much I hated my Motorola RAZR phone, fate intervened and took it away. At the time, and for the days following, it was the particulars of the dissappearance that got to me. For four days I looked for symbolic meaning. Was I not connecting with people? Did I need a push to get rid of some questionable friendships? Was I too attached to the past? Did I take things for granted? Was I a bad person? All aboard, express train to crazytown.

I have a new phone now.
Now Im thinking about the sense of isolation I felt when I knew I couldnt contact or be contacted. Many times I have accidentally left my phone behind and felt a rush of pleasure for the spontaneous solitude. Why was this so different? Sure there's the hassle of having to corral everyone's number, and a year's worth of dear images (spectacular sunsets, adventures, friends and intimates, children, oddities, the art in everyday life) are all gone. But I felt gripped by a sharp, hollow presence in those 4 phoneless days. I still cant quite shake it, and I feel different. Like, maybe something had to die so something else could be born...but it's all happened in the shadows of my being. It doesnt feel bad, just unfamiliar. I hope whatever got born has a rockin' sense of humor.

on today's walk

the definition of insanity

Me: I'm looking into taking voice lessons.

Mom: Hmmm (disapprovingly) Why?

Me: I'm not trying to become a singer or anything, I'm just looking to focus on unlocking my expression--- I thought it would be helpful to learn from someone who knows how to open up the voice. Plus, I think it would be fun and feel so good to sing.

Mom: That sounds expensive.

Me: Mom, can't you just be supportive?

Mom: How am I not being supportive? I just think you cant afford lessons and I dont see how it's gonna help you with your art. You express yourself to me just fine.

Me: Oh Mom, you don't get it. It's ok. I shouldn't have brought this up. It reminds me of that saying about the definition of insanity.

Mom: I don't think I know what your talking about.

Me: There's a saying, that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Mom: That sounds like depression.

Me: Let me put it another way...It's like going to Nordstrom's and expecting to come home with groceries and enlightenment.

Mom: Ok. Well I still don't understand why you need singing lessons.

Photos by Jill Greenberg

I'd like to strap a collar and leash on my anger and stroll it around the neighborhood. Socialize it, give it some fresh air.

Setting up my private torture chamber, alternating who's sitting and standing.

My mind gives me a movie.
He is sitting... naked and tied to the chair, I have sedated him. I roll in a cart. On it a scalpel, a vat of flour and water, and a 2 foot chicken wire form in the shape of a phallus. I never make eye contact with him but feel his eyes on everything. I approach him with scalpel in hand and take a strip of skin. I dip it in the flour water and set in on the form, I do that until the phallus is completely constructed. I clap my hands and a chihuahua enters the room, it's wearing a shirt that says "cock-sucker". I place the skin-mache dick on the ground and the dog sinks it's teeth into it and takes it to the corner and tears it apart.

This feels good to me for about 10 seconds. On the eleventh I begin to empathize. On the twelth, I am ashamed of both my scheme and then my willingness to feel ashamed about it.

My turn to sit in the chair.

Get me off this pain-exchange program.

"...Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand..."
(the Skin Horse from the Velveteen Rabbit)

oh god, the moon (tonight's walk)

animal crackers

In last nights dream I was trying to care for and save 2 tanks of fish but I couldn't get the air bubblers to work right and the heaters were spiking the temperatures or not working at all. Some fish melted, some darted around crazily, some stood still but eventually they all died. While all this chaos was going on, cats kept jumping through windows and pushing open doors. I would periodically leave the fish to tend to the cats. I'd scoop them up and toss them out, shut windows and lock doors but they'd find some hole in the wall or through a crawl space and appear again. Eventually the cat problem was solved but the fish had a different fate.

I woke up mad. I woke up annoyed. Nothing in me is swimming anymore. Everything has been lurched onto an active volcanic island. Jagged black mountains, things that cut up the soles of the feet, noxious fumes.

on today's walk

The alp

An alp, a demon from German folklore. It sits on the chest or throat causing deep anxiety in it's victim (it's also fond of souring milk, tangling hair into knots and riding horses to exhaustion.) I certainly feel soured, tangled and exhausted. Sometimes expressing myself is like trying to shake off an alp while being encased in coffin of quick-dri cement.

Anne Lamott from "Traveling Mercies"

A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illusion that your life has not fallen apart. But since your life may indeed have fallen apart, the illusion won't hold up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion.

on today's walk

TODAY.
I woke up this morning mind-chanting "time, time, time, be kind, be kind, be kind, time, time, time, be kind, be kind, be kind."

I did laundry, bought a scratch off ticket and won $100.
I laughed when the man who runs the convenience mart insisted on showing me the latest National Enquirer (celebrity plastic surgery issue) and giving me his opinion on who looks good and who doesn't.
I felt moved when he then told me that he felt sorry for all of them and hoped they were able to find some happiness in this life.
I walked by a local church parking lot where they were setting up a carnival: ferris wheel, tilt-o-whirl, rollercoaster and I remembered being 10.
I sniffed a passionflower and it smelled like grape kool-aid.

I confessed to myself that there have been times I've wanted someone to hurt me physically so that I could feel both pain and power.

on today's walk

THIS arrived today, like a window into an alternate universe. His beautiful handwriting dancing to the rythym of his pleasure. Descriptors like "turbo-charged", "phenomenal", "vitality", "blast", "grand show" (and the use of 2 exclamation points) displayed a spirited gratitude. I am blissfully happy for him, but jealousy and anguish peer through the window. Now insecurity has me competing with exotic locales for his affections. Also, the picture on the postcard fills ME with the wanderlust and a fervent desire to be engulfed by a foreign environment, to expand MY sense of humanity. I wanna connect to that which is bigger than me! I wanna roam a vast expanse instead of pacing the two square inches of my current head space. It was my greatest hope and desire that he'd have exactly the kind of experience he related. But the anguish over not being able to sit across from him and watch his pupils dilate as he narrates the story, and feel the energy flying off his gesticulations, and having his silvery voice glide all over my skin...

on today's walk