last day at ocean park beach
today is a holiday

so it looks like I can only put text above the image this way
which isn’t my usual style
does it still work with all these lines
and spaces?

text here? above

my dreams have been very vivid lately, i took a moment to write this one down

Sí
it all depends on how You define “waste”
i always thought it was very irritating of her to say that to me
and that little sand in my flesh has made a pearl over all these years
when i wrote this entry
it was after seeing “the golden compass”
and that line about how “authority tells people what to do for their own good, and in a kindly way… so they won’t hurt themselves”
it started a thought process of agreement that led back to my critical feelings that mass media generally asks people to “waste” their lives
and often expects that
and in that definition of “waste” i mean what’s so commonly called “abundance” here in the western world
where everything now is disposable and made to break and be replaced
Make yourself disposable waste!
like the excess packaging on tooth paste, or a TV
like a cell phone or computer that needs to be changed every few years
like a car designed to take up space and resources
and be replaced
excellent at making waste
i imagined being precious
life being precious
everything being precious
and through attention to the details
reverence cultivating the whole world in myself
retained, reflected, and alive
growing
progressing
dreaming
not something to just be thrown away.

don’t ask us to waste our lives
don’t expect that we wish to waste our lives
“don’t waste your life”
— last words from my high school Biology teacher, Mrs Burkhart

but
whatever
I’ll always be beautiful
no matter how old I get
or fat
or grey
or dead
why is it hard for people to know this about themselves

I’m in Puerto Rico with Jorge
(in case you’re curious)
i return to NYC January 10th.
(hopefully a little darker)

fragment of a conversation at dinner last night lead to this:
because all good distractors have recursion in them
something too heavy to deal with
a light flight of fantasy
to carry you away
and bring you home again
“sometimes you have to go a long distance out of the way
so you can come back a short distance correctly”
what you couldn’t deal with looking at from one angle
looks manageable from another