pit of my stomach

can't tell, really, whether it is the latest conference, the garlic ravioli, or the mix of night time medicines I've taken that has tied a knot in my stomach. I think it's the BlogOn conference, but it might be mixing Levaquin and Celexa, or it might be the cheese Ravioli from Bergamos. What do you think? I think it might be the conference. Whatever it is, it hurts like hell just now, and I'm lying on my side typing for lack of a better way to handle it. Dearest brethren. I take wing when I read how much you care about what we say, what we do, who we are. You still care. I care too. Except the words. They too make knots in my stomach. Every day something ties knots. Everyday I try to write them free. I used to be able to write them untied. But now I can't seem to untwist the double-knots. It's not every day I read about a BlogOn conference, nor is it every day I have to take Levaquin at night, and this is, after all, the first time I've had Bergamos ravioli. So, I'd like to think of this most recent pain as an anomalie. But it's been coming. Little knots, tighter knots, all trapped up inside this editing window, this screen.

I used to see inside the screen. I used to see beyond the white and blue to a new world outside of any familiar dimension. I used to see you and you and you. I used to see everything--every single thing--and nothing, and both had meaning.

Now I see pixels and letters and words.

Yes, it is probably the Ravioli.

I think you're right.

Write Now

Dear Jeneane,
You have my vote for sticking a fork in blogging and calling it done. The post mortem will probably show the time of death as somewhere about the time I started blogging. certainly it was dead by the time of the bizarro Blogger-Con, that event where creativity, authorship, and the craft of writing were subordinated to the ego and get-rich-and-powerful fantasies of the Big Gouda himself.

Recently, when Gary Turner's Memoria Technica went white-screen, I stole a good line from somewhere and suggested that "not blogging is the new black." By this I meant of course, that if Gary Turner was (not) doing it, then it was high avant fashion.

I like these little on-line spaces that people have labeled blogs. They're a convenient place to hoist first drafts into the light of day. For some, they're a medium and for others they're an intermediate step to the final product. Regardless, they really beat the ruled pad and the number two pencil.

I have been so happy to hang out with a set of genii and excellent writers, people who basically get what I'm saying when I say it and are fairly accepting of much of my more nonsensical and outre utterances. I don't think community necessarily dissolves as boundary conditions shift. But I could be wrong. Look at the cities, the suburbs and the motor car.

For now, thank you Nina June. Thank you for the reminder that it is really about the writing. After a few years anywhere we get so stuck with cliches and commonplaces rattling around our brains that we need a good shake or an ultrasound treatment to chip them loose. High time I took the old cranial unit into the hygienist and swept out the dusty corners of my (don't call it a blog!) online publishing space.

Bada bingo... best regards from the spill-chucker,

fp

Blogging is Dead. Long live Writng

Dear J.
I received your email. Much thanks. Much love to you.
Blogging is dead you say. Yes, we buried Blogging a long time ago. Fishrush was one of the first who buried blogging. Others followed. Most are still trying to reinvent blogging. It will not be so. Blogging is dead. There is no going back.

Writing is alive you say. Yes, we are writing again. Writing about dreams and fears and spanish guitar sounds and moss covered trees and sex and love and loneliness and angst.

Solution is poetry. It remains so. It's always been this way. Is poetry solution?

Somewhere in between there is resignation, cynicism and love and hope. All practical and completely impractical things that humans have always done and will continue to do.

And we constantly rediscover ourselves. Gain answers. Loser answers. Search for answers. Curse that we ever found those answers. Then found out the answers were not the answers to find. Then found out there are no answers to have. Then found out that the answer about the answers was not the answer to have as an answer, which begets more questions. But as long as the music is on we dance. And we dance. And we dance.

...solution is poetry the solution is poetry the solution is poetry the solution is???

Signal. Signal. Sendig Signal.

Ba Ba Bidi Bi Blocks.
Bird changes Gold Cage's Golden locks
Birdy, bi, ba bada bi bi!!!!
You got got got a new gold key.

For you new golden cage, age age.
Ba Ba Bidi Bi Ba.
Keep on changing keys keys keys
Bada bi bis bis bis

Peekaboo! to you all.

Letters to Brethren, Part 1

Dear Ones,

I have been receiving the emails. I understand the passion, the mission, and who it is we should piss on. The problem, really, is this: meaning.

I understand.

To make meaning of the agony, something beyond/outside/other than/more than/for him/her/them// untangling the mass in the gut and splitting it up, like a cheese pizza, to share with you and you and me.

We eat off one another, soul food, relaying what we can one from the next. SOS. Watch out. I don't want this for you. My brothers. I don't want this for you.

I want that for you--hot sun turns your forearms brown, browner still, sea salt and mountain trails new with rain.

The point of it is that when we come this far--to the place where only our pain holds meaning, we unfold.

Show that. Write that. Tell that.

Show yourself. Let her see you.

In love, dear brothers,

Jeneane