publisher's clearinghouse blah blah blah

every so often it comes into my head that i should enter the publisher's clearinghouse sweepstakes. they have commercials where a van (the Prize Patrol) shows up at someone's house, people emerge from the van like it's a damn clown car, there are balloons and a giant check for some old lady who answers the door wearing a house dress.

so naturally, i think "i should enter that contest! i could be next!" (this is not to say i own a house dress. i do not.)

but it's not just ONE contest. oh no. it's at least three emails a day, most of  which read something like this:

what in the fuck is a SUPERPRIZE NUMBER? i'm fine with entering a contest, but i have to have "ownership papers" of a number? some random number?

okay, clearinghouse, i'll bite. once. maybe twice. but then you send me THIS kind of shit after i skip one entry?

"YOU WOULD RATHER HAVE SOMEONE ELSE WIN ALL THAT MONEY!"
 yes, THAT must be it.
what kind of creepy, attempted-guilt-tripping type of crap is that? what genius came up with that notion? this did NOT make me enter the contest. no. this made me UNSUBSCRIBE. you hear that, clearinghouse? you've been 86'd from my inbox.

picture upload day!

waiting on a couple of work things to come in, so it's upload time, y'all.

some cuteness.

some days.

some days i have some bpd moments. i find myself with my defenses up, like my brain is telling me "be ready, something bad is coming. you need to protect yourself." it's not like a panic or anxiety attack, it's like i'm on alert for danger. i feel my the expression in my eyes harden, my jaw clench ... like i'm putting on this "don't fuck with me" face -- the expression you wear if you're walking alone at night and you want to look less vulnerable. i know we're all vulnerable in life, all the time, really. i just wish i knew what was triggering this nice little bout of crap.

 

an amazing writer handed me this a long time ago ...

(... and i just came across it. and i love it as much now as i loved it then. )

Two Halves of a One-Winged Bird

her eyes catch fire
the whites ashblack
shadow of magma
to be seen
light-years from
never
the laugh a disguised scream
as she smashes the plates and
glasses with seething glee
against the floor
(in a place far away)
we dance on the pieces
and our socks paint themselves
wine on chin
teeth too big as though they want to
get out and eat the face away around them
red wet kleenex
clotted lines marking time
like in a flesh prison
rubber room
but head a cage
and filled to the edge with echoes
now like prison gates slamming
her eyes shut
she doesn’t know whether she’s
in or out
even in sleep she is alert
though suffocating
dead yet suffering
i touch her with tired guilt
insomniacally
and flee finally into
dreams
she is there, smoldering
and slapping me with invisible objects which
she knows are real and sacred
as scarred words
i believe in her
i know she knows i am
nothing
deep down
and this is to be clung to
she wills herself away
yet in her withered will i am with her
and so we stay instead
and try to extend the
dead night into
ever
always alone with one
another after another
mending
mask-lipped
embedded in our embers
buried in each other like
two tombs
tapping at the fragile indestructible because
invisible
walls of silence
between us>

obsessed with boots.

even though i'm a girl, idon't have piles and piles of shoes. iam a size 11 and that can really fuck with your in-store shoe options, and when ido find shoes, idon't usually have money to toss around. for example, i love these UGG boots:

i also really love these goodies from Torrid:

 

however my true boot love is reserved for these, which i bought years ago at the minot flea market and i wore them until they fell apart and only duct tape held them together.

aren't they lovely? perfect with jeans, perfect with skirts and tights, and i need to find another pair.

this is all very shallow, isn't it? stereotypical girl-wants-shoes thing. i think I've been stressed for a while and maybe there is something to the idea of retail therapy - or even just online browsing. who knows. i know that smoking sounds pretty great (no worries, i'm not starting again) and i suddenly think that living in a shack in the middle of nowhere would be fantastic too (don't worry, i'm not wearing a hoodie or working on a manifesto). i think i'm just ... tired. more on that another time. for now, i seek boots.