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the other night i realized i would have very little problem with exchanging oral sex for tattoo work. i mean, obviously it would have to be a very good artist and he/she would have to be someone i liked as a person, but that would be true whether i paid with money or sex.

i know there must be something morally corrupt about me feeling totally ok with the idea of exchanging sexual favors for tattoo work. right? i'm really wracking my brain and searching my emotional system for the repulsion or resistance i'm supposed to feel about such a situation, and it's just not there.

it's entirely theoretical, though, which probably makes it easier to think about. i wouldn't actually create an arrangement like that for myself, mostly because it would probably bother peter, and because it's just not the type of thing i'd work hard to manifest. it was a pretty weird thing to realize about myself though. maybe in a nearby parallel universe i have a full back piece and sore jaw.

whoops, i forgot about that whole thing where i can't fucking function in normal society.

i can't set aside my understanding that as a society we are not meant to be this way. it's not that i'm wrong for not being excited about buying new clothes so i can look presentable at my retail job, it's that there is a larger issue at stake here. the monetary system doesn't work. capitalism doesn't work. sorry, but it doesn't. it seems like it works ok when you're making money, but when you're not, you realize real fast that someone somewhere fucked up.

i know there are so many things that are better for us. i have been a part of some of them.

esquivel is a black cat playing with a pink ball on a dense white rug.

up late on a sundaynightsaturdaymorning. dinner was stirfry. i had come out of my room, where i was perched in the loft bed with cats, laptops, books, chocolate, and coffee. i had come out of my room and ventured into the kitchen, considering food, and there it was being made. broccoli sweet potatoes carrots water chestnuts bamboo shoots. we sat together in the living room. we held hands and said grace together. we thank the earth for this our food, for rain and ? and all things good.. i am learning. the next line is about each other.

nathan slumped around beautiful and surly, his lion's mane and a silent roar floating in the air around him. a few weeks ago we were concerned about these sulks from him i think. for me, it's something about him that i accept lovingly. a part of me understands a part of him and i don't wish to nag or prod or push. he is somehow our archetypal boy king and we smile sweetly at his presence.

he challenged me once in a rainstorm on the radio in the forest in upstate new york. after an argument about work that was too long for a radio conversation really, i said, also, i like you to break the tension after making my point. he said well, i LOVE you. and it was a gentle but not so gentle challenge about the levels of risk we are willing to take with words and affection and i thought about it so carefully after that. because i don't tell people i love them, or i didn't then, even when i felt it, feel it all the time, but was afraid to overstep a boundary, or say something i could never take back, or worse, owe something to someone, have some kind of obligation based entirely on my affection.

later near dawn someone else told me they loved me, and their face was very close to mine, and i was silent and looked at them questioningly and then they said, i mean it, i'm serious, you're beautiful.

sometimes people have said such things to me and it's a last resort or a way to beg or play a card. none of this was present in the summer.

now i live in a house with a huge heart banner hanging out the windows. that is what we have come to. and i have practiced saying 'i love you' and not being scared.

today the heart banner was a bit of a concern because the winds are fierce and burly blowing rain out of the sky and down the street. i have been indoors, wincing involuntarily as the gusts shake the windows and make ghostly noises in the boarded up fireplaces. but the banner convulses violently in the wind, and part of it is tied to a cinder block or two on the roof. we imagined it might catch the wind and pull the block down, and some hapless passerby would be killed by a cinderblock used to hang the unconditional love banner, oh the irony.

so at 4am i was on the roof, in megans raincoat, blinking teary eyed into the rainy wind and just looking at the cinderblocks which look fine. and looking at the tides of water flowing through our empty intersection while the lights change from red to green for no one.

other things from tonight. eve laying on the fluffy rug in various casual yoga asanas while we discussed writing, our voices rising and clashing with our enthusiasm. talking about new orleans, where she lived at 18, and savannah, where i lived at 18. similar places. our nights and days are peaceful this week, i move to and from work, which is mindless and easy, and the couch in the living room. i sit there writing readings and reading writings, and eve sits in the office work room place beading at a table. we are comrades.

yesterday megan came up the stairs holding an issue of popular mechanics which is somehow sent to peter each month. she said, look guys, the new popular mechanics is here! this months cover story: UNITED STATES MARINES SPECIAL WEAPONS AND TACTICS TO FIGHT THE NEW DIRTY WAR. with pictures of soldiers in gas masks.

also:

i was accepted to and now attend the kepler college of astrological arts and sciences. though some of you will undoubtedly make that snorting noise people seem to make when i tell them this, hold off one second. this is a fully accredited four year institution which covers history and science through the lens of astrology! yes i am getting a BA in astrology. shit is hardcore. my reading list is out of control. i am happy. it is kind of hard to work full time and keep up with school full time but i am doing ok so far.

ok. it's almost 5. i am going to sleep.

oh i remember:

we thank the earth for this our food, for rain and sunny weather... um um. something something, but most of all that we are together?

i am wearing a bearsuit

how do i end up pushing myself so hard? why am i afraid of simplicity, or, what keeps me from manifesting simplicity in this city life? is it just the sheer amount of possibility for obligation? is it that combined with the expense of living in SF and the amount of work hours required to meet that expense?

i continually try and prune but i'm always taking too much on. when my community is as large as a city of seekers like this one, it's so easy for me to want to give pieces of myself to all of them. in the form of social obligations, astrology readings, help with websites, volunteering to throw parties. and then i'm still trying to juggle the threads of the friends from afar.. to send emails, gifts, to give people the love and energy the deserve.

how can you say no to love?? that's the question.