shellfish

Today I read Julia Sweeney's blog a bit, I thought of my friend Katers, because I believe they're similar people...
I've been meaning to write Katers a letter..I've been meaning to journal more, so I thought..this is just easier.
Besides, in a dream I had recently Katers said to me, "I can't take it, Kris, I can't just listen to your life right now."..and its made me wonder what I would put in a letter that isn't maybe too much...and I realize when Sneez says, "its not all about me" and it makes us both feel better, that in fact, it isn't. And what a relief.
So what else is there?
This morning Sneez was talking about the 5,000 birds that dropped dead new years eve in Beebe, Arkansas. She told me about vision quests, some Hopi prophecies and the need for humanity to connect itself more spiritually for us to have any hope of survival..
I offered my defense for at least Westerners, who are in fact destroying everything while simultaneously consisting of people I admire and think are very good for this world, or at least for my world, anyhow..and anyway, its useless to pretend it all could have happened any other way than how it did.
SO anyhow, my defense: people, even the real fat American ones who's primary activity is microwaving dinner, watching television, and sometimes vacuuming, want a spiritual connection. desperately. Why are there so many yoga studios and meditation discs and that big stand right when you walk into half price books for eastern spiritual studies and how come at the local coffee house there's tribal night and everyone wants to atleast LOOK like they're connected to something, somewhere, and all those acid dropping beats who set out for India and now we read their books and its COOL, man. We're desperate. Is it our fault? Well pseudo spiritualism is our fault. the whole aesthetic and scene, this "tribal" business, this I AM YOU YOU ARE ME etc over and over ad nauseum.
I can think of a few things wrong here. Lack of discipline, easy access to easy elation, anti-intellectualism of it all! I feel like reasoning could help..I feel like if we want to be connected to something transcendent and unseen we will have to do unconventional, uneasy things. And I don't mean acid.
So anyhow, what does it mean to be spiritual? and I can think of a few indications of a spiritual person..a person confident in their own voice and intuition...self loathing is probably indicative of a completely disconnected creature, you know?
And maybe thats what it all comes down to...America hates itself and as a result, doesn't know how to love.
so, what is there to do? ease the mind of America, tell her she's good, she's really got potential and ought to relax and focus on what it's doing right.
I'm not sure. It's easier for me to reason my way into spirituality than it is for me to establish my own connection with confidence and ease...I am trying to love, I am trying to know I am good.
This usually just takes space and quiet, and its just there. what a great deal we have sometimes.

In between creating this blog, showering and actually typing this out (without forethought, I might add, but thats my general style...no forethought)...Paul shows up unannounced. I am in my bath towel listening to the Deodato vinyl Leonard left me...feeling pretty all right (other than the fact that I think too much heavy whipping cream and allergies is concocting a sick kris) and my phone rings, I look out my window, there's his truck..there he is at my front door. O Lord I am not in the mood to have fun with this awkward dynamic. I am angry. O good, anger.
So I open the door a smidge, say let me get dressed, come out to the patio and look at his face once or twice..tell him i'm a little stressed, i'm a little sick, and you know, shellfish. shellfish.shellfish, yer a shellfish. Go learn about your own goodness and get off my porch, Paul. Your goodness is not here..easy elation..appearing sweet and tasting like old meat. (if one could say an alligator in a rocking chair appears sweet.)
I'm glad i'm a little sick, its like all the bloods in my head and nowhere else.
This Deodato song is in the Being There trailer..also on the soundtrack is Beethoven and  Erik Satie.
Sometimes things just make sense, and I wonder if the universe is offended I am surprised..but then it always keeps my cats coming back and someone around somewhere who likes me..and more importantly people that I like.
On the agenda today: to be grateful. for no reason. for no end. not even to feel good.
There's a big wasp in my house.

Thanks.