“Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

13 January 2009



1. i crave indian food always.
2. i am addicted to books, like a junkie to junk.
3. my favorite color is brown.
4. i prefer animals to humans, outside the realm of intercourse.
5. knitting is deeply therapeutic.
6. popcorn with butter and salt, popped in the stove-top popper.
7. i love to sleep.
8. after all this time i still feel deeply alone and have decided it must be
psychological.
9. i really want a little scooter to drive to work.
10. reindeer, black panther, rabbit, dog.
11. i am, i have come to accept, extremely sensitive.
12. i love everyone.
13. i am possessed by an extraordinarily naive heart.
14. i am a slacker with no self-esteem. it may be that i do not know, after all
this time, what it feels like to really be me, and one of my true wishes is to
make this untrue.
15. in college i wanted to study how geography affects religion.
16. there are things i am not willing to disclose here.
17. as a rule, i do not wear underwear.
18. i always wash the utensils in groups of four.
19. i would rather not talk on the phone.
20. the direction of the toilet paper has lost its significance.
21. there is a deep grief in me that has yet to be lifted.
22. i am an insufferable and relentless know-it-all.
23. i do the crossword compulsively, in pen.
24. i will not wear red.
25. psychedelics have been a huge influence on my world-view.
26. i love that skunky puppy smell.
27. i am extraordinarily superstitious about numbers: letting the microwave
run down to zero, the amount i pay for petrol, the bids i make on ebay.
see #18.
28. writing this list inspires paranoia in me.
29. i have always preferred movies about outsiders who find where they belong.
30. im bad at etiquette, deadlines, and state-sanctioned holidays.
31. i want to be your friend, but at a remove, and will gladly avail you of my
blood, bone marrow, and/or spare organs.
32. i am a loner.
33. i believe in non-violence.
34. i love the art of andrew wyeth and susan seddon-boulet.
35. i believe life on earth is miraculous and endlessly wonder-full.
36. my favorite month is october.
"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." -V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)