The house of manic is situated on the corner of criminal activity and euphoria.

There is a lizard queen here. She rides around on roller skates with a bottle of vodka. We worship her because she is out standard of normalcy.

There are no beds here, no sleep - only bar stools that spin and spin. - Molecules that bounce, unaltered by conventional ways of thinking.

The house of manic has no walls. - We got bored one night and blew them up with toilet bowl cleaner and empty water bottles.

Our favorite phrase at the house of manic is, "it can't be that hard, can it?" - sometimes prompting us to build home-made solar powered nuclear fusion machines - only to disassemble them the next day because we needed the duct tape for the inflatable swimming pool.

The noise here is constant. -definable sounds of music and typewriter keys - no song ever lasting more than two minutes. We live off a diet of heat-lamp fried chicken and gas station cappucino, the kitchen long-ago transformed into a moldy piece of living art- dirty glass sculptures piled high to the ceiling.

The foundation of the house is made of grey concrete. It is covered in poetry written with hot pink retractable sharpie. We lay on it at night and deconstruct words and ideas and theories. Conversation is our highest artform. Followed closely by sex. We have lots of great sex here.

What we don't have here is electricity. We forgot to pay the bill.

Sometimes the neighbors drop by and offer us cookies and alternative ideas of betterment. "Therapy", they say, "religion". What they don't understand is that we choose our lizard queen above all other gods. She gives us a life of measured chaos, time slips, fearless flights and lucid dreaming.

The house of manic is a great place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live here. - Especially in the winter - it gets cold with no walls and no heat. And the lizard queen always goes into hibernation. Our duct tape is replaced with red tape and police tape and we mostly just hold hands and hide out until the sun starts to shine again.

-Then, on to the dreaming - and the worship - and the vodka - and the racing, fleeting thought that nothing matters.

I have been working my way though Brad's Henry Miller book for almost 6 months now. (i promise i'm going to return it soon) I read a passage yesterday that reminded me of what it's like to go though and journey out of depression. If nothing else, you always know that things change...and life can never be bad all of the time...and I do truely believe that the more you go through, the more yourself that you become.

"What fascinates me is that anything so dead and buried as I could be resuscitated, and not just once, but innumerable times. And not only that, but each time I faded out I plunged deeper than ever into the void, so that with each resuscitation that miracle becomes greater. And never any stigmata! The man who is reborn is always the same man, more and more himself with each rebirth. He is only shedding his skin each time, and with his skin his sins. The man whom God loves is truly a right-living man. The man whom God loves is the onion with a million skins. To shed the first layer is painful beyond words; the next layer is less painful, the next still less, until finally the pain becomes pleasurable, more and more pleasurable, a delight, an ecstasy. And then there is neither pleasure nor pain, but simply darkness yielding before the light. And as the darkness falls away the wound comes out of its hiding place: the wound which is man, man's love, is bathed in light. The identity which was lost is recovered. Man walks forth from his open wound, from the grave which he had carried with him so long."

the reception's gotten fuzzy.
the delicate balance has shifted.
put on your gloves and your black pumps.
let's pretend the fog has lifted.

now you see me.
now you don't.
now you say you love me.
pretty soon you won't.

if we get our full threescore and ten,
we won't pass this way again.
so kiss me with your mouth open.
turn the tires toward the street
and stay sweet.

all the chickens come on home to roost.
plump bodies blotting out the sky.
you know it breaks my heart in half, in half
when I see them trying to fly.

'cause you just can't do
things your body wasn't meant to.
hike up your fishnets.
I know you.

if we live to see the other side of this,
I will remember your kiss.
so do it with your mouth open.
and take your foot off of the brake
for christ's sake.

I hate being the only one awake when I really need to talk to someone.  This blog was born out of that problem.

I don't know why I have all of this sudden anger, but now that I look back on it, it's been building for a while. 

Damnit.

I see myself.  I know what I'm doing and it's pointless to try to stop.  I'm a nice girl.  I let people take me for granted.  I let things get to me. 

Maybe it's healthy.  Maybe it's self-preservation.  Maybe it's cowardess.  I can't talk about what's really bothering me and so I wait for it to build up and then I just kind of implode and walk away. 

People who know me have seen this happen. I let people go and I don't look back.  And I can feel the beginnings of that happening now.

That scares me.

I let people push and push and push and then all of sudden I turn on them and there is this look of blankness in my eyes.  Then they get confused.  Where did I go?  What did they do wrong? 

Is it too much to ask to just treat me with dignity while you still have the chance?

Maybe I'm just not giving mankind enough of a chance.  Maybe I'm giving it too much of one.

I don't know who I'm even talking to here.  Myself, really, since I'm the only one up at 4:45 in the morning reading this. 

Shit.  I thought maybe if I got up and wrote all of this out, I could get some sleep. 

Something's wrong here. 

I am all lips and teeth.

I take your words
and seal them in a bottle
so that I can uncap them later
when I am at home in the dark.

I take in my breath.

I take a drink.

Ok guys...for all of you who have been asking, here's the info on the record store! We are all very excited about this!!! Brad is getting ready to make his initial order, so if any of you have requests, you can email him at this site:

www.spazzrecords.com

______________________________________________________


Spazz Records grand opening Feb. 18th with Red Garage performing at 6pm.

Punk/Hardcore/Emo/Indie/Ska/Goth/New Wave/Glam/Groove/Screamo/Garage/Death Metal/DarkWave/Industrial/Black Metal

and 1 really funny looking Rod Stewart record.

We buy, sell and trade CD's/tapes/LP's/EP's, weird novelties, T-shirts, underground magazines/fanzines. If you are in a local band and would like to sell your wares here, bring it on.

Bob Teague is moving his traveling Thursday night "open mic night" to the store so be sure to come on by and hang out or get up on stage.

______________________________________________________

I can't freaking wait!

jen

When Josh was in the 7th grade at Lee Jr. High, a couple of his friends got "wrongly accused".  I never got the full story as to what exactly happened, I just know that his group of friends were in an uproar about it.  Whatever it was that they did is irrelevent.  What matters now is the protest that followed.

One of the boys decided to make a t-shirt to wear to school.  It was a plain white t-shirt with various colored permanent marker on the front stating "Kris and Cody are innocent!"  On the back it read, "They didn't do it."  The shirt travelled around to various kids and was worn by just about every member of the seventh grade at one point or another. 

I was doing laundry last night...zoning out and inhaling fresh, warm lint, when I was snapped to attention by a screaming toddler nearby.  That's when I noticed that, yes, I was folding the Kris and Cody shirt once again.  My son is in high school now!  Come on!  Will this ever end? The once loose t-shirt is now small enough to fit on his frame like the rest of the tight emo-wear he owns. 

Did Kris and Cody ever find justice?  Do they appreciate that I and countless other moms have laundered this shirt approximately 827 times?  How long can this t-shirt possibly stay in circulation? 

And the more frightening thought:  which girlfriend will be wearing it to sleep in first? 

God, help me.

Sometimes there are moments that define the holidays.  This year I had three of them.  Memories that make me happy...

1.  Sitting at IHOP, 11pm  on Christmas Eve with Deshay, talking about her dressing up in a Santa beard and hip waders on Christmas morning, riding her bike around the trailer park ringing a bell, yelling out Happy Fema and throwing out goverment cheese. 

2.  At Enoch's with Brad just before Christmas.  2am.  closing time.  There is a large group of people from Ireland sitting at the end of the bar.  Two of the guys, 40ish, singing Irish drinking songs at the top of their lungs.  One of them, then standing up on the bar and singing American Pie while the other one gets up and starts yelling "FUCK OFF!"  repeatedly right in his face.  Stacy having to kick everyone out at closing time.

3.  Christmas Eve service at church with Saxon and Conrad.  A church I've never been to.  A  nice service.  Conrad with his long, long hair and beard, dressing in a vintage 70's suit and his black glasses.  Me, feeling like I was in church sitting next to Jesus dressed as Buddy Holly for Halloween. 


I also had a fabulous New Year's Eve. (apparently it's pretty easy to get kicked out of the Blue Monkey)

Am I an optimist to the point of being perpetually deluded? 

Yes.

It's the only thing that keeps me going in weeks like these.

I don't think that there is any other way that I could exist.

I think that if I were not this way, that I would spontaniously combust.

Christmas.

So far, Josh has asked for a Jesus action figure, some Tripp pants, art supplies and a Canadian gas mask. (no, brad, i still don't know the difference between a canadian one and an american one) Aside from the art supplies, these are all things that I have to order online.  Today.  If i want to get them by Christmas. 

Ugh.

We did get our tree put up this year...for all of you who have been wondering, since we put our presents under the TV  last year.  We have not, however, had a chance to do a Christmas card. 

But more importantly, who the fuck cares?

Not me.