Sunday, December 28, 2008

ouch, i think i found it.


Warnings:

Travel warnings
Product warnings
Weather warnings
Traffic warnings
Food warnings
Global warnings
Emotional warnings
Viral warnings

Oh dearest of worlds, i climbed a soft mountain and at the top was the most incredible view. i saw two whole continents, and the ocean between them and i had to wake up to remind myself not to be afraid. of the height, and the view, and the height and the view. And that i may fall. that i am falling. that there is no landing pad.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

kin





My sister came to visit us in kansas.

kansas xmas.

beautiful, strange, weather.

I made a thousand candies.
we wore the chocolate on our faces.
chocolate zombies.
ice storm

Friday, December 12, 2008

MAGIC


Today I went to the bank and I got involved with the two tellers at the bank in a conversation about how the world is really poor right now, yes, but it's ok because I just watched Harry Potter and it was Christmas in the last movie and he went to the Weasley's house and they don't have anything really, but they love each other and they got sweaters and scarves for x-mas and it was beautiful and warm and good. And then I said, yes, and Harry is also a magician, at which point, Ben suggested that "Magician" might be a derogatory term for what Harry Potter really is : A WIZARD.

Then when I left the bank, I looked at my receipt closely and the teller who had been depositing my checks accidentally entered an extra 800 dollars into my account.

**MAGIC**

I sat there for awhile trying to figure out what would happen if i just didn't say anything about it.

Turns out that sometimes all you have is honesty, even if your just a lowly magician.

p.s. I love you universe.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Snow Day




It's snowing.
I'm getting serious.
I guess it's time to grow up. Sounds fun.
This is what we ate for dinner on Thanksgiving. we had a lovely feast for two.
Then we went to the Bourgeois Pig for a warm holiday beverage.
There are some very sweet folks in Lawrence, KS.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

the house we are contemplating



this is what the house looks like now.

we are contemplating our desires.

of course we want a house.

but do we want it HERE?

We do what we can.

we are incredibly strong.
we lifted those trees just the two of us.

I thought it couldn't be done. But then it was.

Building a house. thats so much more than it sounds like.

*D

brewing a stone of momentum


I want to ask you a question?
How slow can you go?
How slow will you go?
For a tangle?
For a soft night, everyday?
For a way of doing things that are unforgettable?
Will you do it seriously.
Serious.
One time I was so mad I died.
I just laid down and died. I was so mad.
I was a somad. A soman. A snowman.
I was published by the ghosts of people who might die in the future.
I mean, they are more likely to die than others, in the future.
I guess the near future. If there is any other kind let me know.
The far future. The far out future. I doubt it.

So obstinate. I just don’t know what story to tell you.
I do it all myself.
I don’t believe in commerce.
But oh I love it so.
I don’t believe in money, but I do believe in restaurants.
Oh my love, I believe in wine bars.
I believe in the saturation of my sensual tolerance.
I believe in my body as the bearer of very expensive and beautiful clothing.
Hello. I believe in shoes.
I believe in escape. And ice cream.

Monday, November 17, 2008

gladness


mostly.

even though

things are insanely:

wierd

hard

uncertain

scary

confusing

insane...

I still have lots of hope. And everything I need is with me now. Everything we need is with us now.
Sending out a huge wave of generosity, gladness and support:

*betsy heavens

Thursday, November 13, 2008

DRIVE


I have this fucking most annoying problem in the world.

And this problem is that if I do not drive a car I pretty much can't do anything and sonow I'm roughly about 14 years old.

I can drive the damn car. ok. I can back the car up in a straight line. I can turn my windshield wipers on. I can park.

I can stop at the stop sign.

I can probably just shut up and drive.

But I am pissed off about it.

I am pissed off that I am being held hostage by this.

I want to take the bus. I want to sit next to a junky retard on the 14 mission and get there for a dollar.

There are no sidewalks for feet with people attatched here. I just feel really resentlful that everything is made for cars. And even if I can drive and park and get out and pay and eat and leave in my car...what the f. you know?

I CANNOT walk there. there are no street lights. It's 15 miles away. I would die. Literally. I would literally die.

So maybe I'm just a big cry baby pussy pants who doesn't know exactly how to drive and that makes me really kind of an asshole. Im almost 25 years old for god's sake.

But as my deadline approaches and I get ready to take my permit test and then my stupid driving test, I just want to say once and for all, before I bend under the stupid rules that I totally HATE. Before I agree to kiss ass for the rest of my life and before I lose my ability to gage how far I think I can walk....I want to say this.

HOW BOUT YOU KISS MY ASS YOU LAZY SON OF A BITCH TRUCK DRIVIN' MOTHERFUCKER HILLBILLY ASS -HOLE AND GET OUT OF YOUR HOT ROD AND WALK.

WALK.

I LIKE TO WALK.

See you all on the road. I don't plan on having so much road rage.

love,
danielle

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

being perfect again


i think i gave birth to myself. here's what's wierd about it:

When you are pregnant with yourself it's really tangible. you feel full. full of yourself, not in the usual sense of those words, but you feel it. really. you just want to pop all the time. and you want things you never wanted before and you dream new ideas and most of all you spend time imagining yourself. You imagine what you might look like, what you might say or like or be like.

But the birthing experience, the actual labor is kind of bizarre. it's definately not tangible. it's a process. it takes a little while. im not talking like 72 hours, i mean like a month. A month of personal labor. i think i need a new emotional vagina. i cant believe my husband still even likes me. what a freak show.

I'm serious though. When you give birth to yourself, when you give yourself that labor, you are dialating yourself, you are turning yourself inside out so that you can be alive. its almost unbearable, and you think you'd probably rather die than finish it off. thank you. and even now, in the after-whatever of the birth, the infant of me is so small and vulnerable and sort of blank, that i can hardly tell it's there. Especially because of the big me who is supposed to provide for that little me. the big me is still there, maybe we'll trade places and we'll merge together. But I sort of thought that when I was born, I would dissappear into that new me. But it doesn't work that way.

i still have to grow up. except this time, i get to do it to myself. i get to grow myself up. so right when i thought i was all done with this big huge job of carrying myself around forever and then fucking squeezing myself out, now i have to be gentle with myself. i have to make sure i do it right.
i guess i should say a GET to be gentle with myself. i get to go slowly. i get to marvel slowly at the new world around the new me thing. i can do it right, and i will do it right, because i am a total autonomous universe in and of myself. and i know everything there is to know. even from the moment the first me was born.

i was born perfect.
i was born perfect again.
you were born perfect.
so be perfect again.

*d

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

dont try this at home

the concept




The Miniature Housewife is a solo performance /spectacle exploring the enduring cultural fantasy of the homemaker. In a deliciously surreal landscape, a tiny woman whose apron labels her “Mini” tries to create pretty, precise, and practical meals in a kitchen full of enormous recipes and implements. Battling all kinds of size and shape problems, “Mini” confronts her self worth, her physical capacity and her emotional power. This piece admits a real desire to be the perfect little woman in an overwhelming and unattainable environment. Mini reminds us that women are still being hypnotized by images of pure, elaborate, breathtaking feats of efficiency and grace in a world full of increasing economic turmoil, enduring misogyny and absurd social laws. She lets us fantasize about the cleanest, coziest, neatest, most comfortable and alluring home we can imagine. But this home is not simply the door we open and close everyday, it is the space we move in, the cultural sphere we try to hold around ourselves. It is the shield of sanity and pleasure against the violence and unknowns of our real homes and gardens.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

now what happens?


I am operating on the basic principle or belief that food is love. And just like love, food can disguise itself. Just like love, without food you will perish. A mother gives you the first experience of food. You eat from your mother. And then when you are full of her breasts, she feeds you another kind of food, the food of the earth. And so she is connected in your spiritual understanding of the earth as the provider of your nourishment, your love, your satisfied belly and heart and soul.

Now what happens when the nourishing ingredients of the earth are diluted, adjusted, cut in half, turned upside down by the demands of the hungry culture? Those ingredients make a thing that looks like love, only it never really fills you up. It makes you reach out for more, always hoping to get your fill, but never allowing you to really feel the state of peace that you know in your deepest knowing you deserve. This bastardization of the ingredients of love turns us into addicts, crawling on our faces for the original feeling we were promised directly out of the womb: that instant connection to another living creature, filling us with the whole food of our mothers. We get locked out, the earth no longer available to us, though always promising silently to hold us and feed us, behind the double paned window of what we think we want. If the ingredients of love are stolen and made alien to us, so that we may no longer be the creators of our own love, we shrink, bend under the promise of a good feeling.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

what not to wear




I thought you should see this.

love betsy

oh my f-ing god you guys.

Can you believe it. I mean, every single thing ever that was ever made to be sold to a woman except for maybe herpes medication or a breast cancer fundraiser ( i.e. problematic diseases and stuff we like to feel sorry for women about) is made to uphold the idea, against all kinds of reality, that women are supposed to be married to their households.

I have not had a television since I left home for college, but I've been subjected recently to stuff like the Discovery Channel, chanel, what? And sometimes the occasional episode of What Not to Wear. I'm just kidding. sort of. Oh my god I'm so ashamed. If you ever want to feel really paranoid about going outside watch this show.

So between these so called programs, there is this one f-ing commercial that keeps popping up and its about a mop. The swifer mop that mom fell in love with... and this broom keeps showing up trying to win her back. Because now she has a swifer, that skank whore. And the broom is like trying to woo her and give her flowers and shit. Baby come back.

So, if that's not a great example of objectification and mannequinism and how it's looping women around in this neverending oscillation between wanting to be perfect and not being good enough, well then...

In my current research I have found that alot of women are curious and skeptical and dare I say a little turned on by this housewife stuff. now let me see...why could that be?

Even if you close your eyes really hard and scream at the top of your lungs till you pass out you still can't ignore that one of the most prevalent images that women have of themselves in a succesful moment is the image of a good clean counter-top, or a seven minute hamburger helper casserole. Wow, I can finally breathe easy you guys cause now I dont have to kill a chicken.

Didn't we evolve past simple instincts? Aren't we supposed to have, like a creative urge for metaphor and symbols?
I'm going to go ahead and mention that john Lennon wrote a song called Woman is the Nigger of the World.
I think that's true.
Mysoginy wins! I guess that will take care of this Sara Palin bullshit. whew...

The sad thing I think is that all these women, myself included are hungry and actually inspired to have a connection with home that harkens back to a time when there was a hearth. Ok so you dont have to get in the hearth and make out with a bottle of windex, but the bastardization of this lovely connection is what I think confuses women so much.

Oh gee I guess im just domestically challenged.
It's not you its the house.

love,
betsy

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Rabbit Hole


Untied all the laundry from the lazy week of wearing clothes and walking through the rain in the dark. Slept in a ship with the lover and the dog and invented the spinning of the sea: the pool of threats and throats that holds you to your promises and strangles your attempts at escape. Fingered hairs into a ball-you really have to wonder deeply what is the difference between me and the sad one? Why are you sad and unhappy about nothing?
AKA------>
Rainbows. Animals. Fluffy stuff. Pie. Aprons. Miniature housewife:
I’m only a small part of that tidal mass of womanhood that tries to get you to love her through peaches, cans, biscuits, ham, coke, whiskey, cornbread, tomatoes, shoes, frilly brassieres, apple bottoms, dolly face.

The only thing better than all of that has a smoke sticking out like a silly sad rock and roll cupcake sundae.
I want you to drive me down a dirt road with your hand in my head and skirt and eyes.
I want to go to the picture show even after I die while im dying, before during and after I die.
I would like to travel with you to the land of weddings and sea food buffets. And shiny little pink and epic cocktails.
If everyday is a small party, a treat, a sneak away from home, a sexy romp in the basement shower, a telephone call to the high school sweetheart, then what, what do we do with today?
I know one thing is true, you can never predict anything.
Let me be your radio signal when the clouds roll close.
I’ll siren at the sunshine and comatose the rain.
I will be an electrocutionist in the afternoons spent waiting to go outside to finish collecting the rust after the fire.
This is the aftermath of a minute steak. Will you make me eat it all?
Grandpa likes to make racial slurs at the dog: The fucking dog is a dirty jap.
Inside my hands are the rivers and boats of dirty jap fishing boats filled to the brim with dogs. The dogs of the heart that are eating away while you ignore the news and stomp on the grapes
I used to love you but then I read the paper.
I used to love you but then I drove the meat truck.
I used to love you but then I moved out of oz and figured out pretty quick what makes an old heart soft.

KANSAS:
The plains, the big cereal rolls sitting sleeping on the slight curve of a pasture dusted with snow for breakfast. In winter, the hummingbirds wings freeze in mid flight, makes a statue of a many-winged thing. The freeze catches the multiplicity and holds it till spring when the garlic comes up and knocks the poor bird into action again, like a sobering for sugar. A winter nap to digest the need and the little pink and epic cocktails hanging in the trees.

I used to open a handle of whiskey and stick it into the dirt to fuck the worms all up. Too drunk to move, they dissolved into my garden and the tomatoes on your plate whistled at you like you was hiking your skirt up and showing your thighs.
When you bit into one it would go straight to your head. I got an underground distillery and the worms work for free, I don’t need any sugar, so they’ll never get after me. I'll just feed you tomatoes and watch you dance and when you’ve had your fill I'll lay you outside again and let you melt into the fruit bed. How I want you as part of this circle. How I want to dig out a home from the clay hill and hear no rain or wind when it comes. Like a Rabbit Hole.

Monday, September 22, 2008

queen of the parade

wow, I can't believe I forgot this:

Dan is working at the VFW in Lawrence ( The Veterans of Foreign Wars club) as a bartender. Ok.

I have become relatively pouplar among some of the auxilary ladies there ( I dont even really know what that means yet)
and after singing them a song last sunday they actually asked me to be the queen of the VFW for their St Patricks Day Parade contingency...float...thing.

Im thinking this might be my first big opportunity for performance terrorism.

And David Paige told me to wear a camo prom dress. with the tulle and everything.
I think that's a little harsh.

I'll let you know if I accept.

*d

three armed hottie


Working on a performance project called The Miniature Housewife:

All of these implements are just a little too big for me.

I ask you to answer the following question:

Would you make a good housewife?


In other news: A real adult life is so incredibly difficult.
I can't imagine I was so spoiled as a child that this comes as a shock to me.
I'm not even going to pretend it isn't difficult beyond my wildest fears etc...

Here's what I know: I only owe it to myself.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Dirt Lesson #1

Sept 7th

Everything sliding on an angle, on a grade, parked in waiting for the final tilt to horizontalism.
Mr. Fix it, the hummingbirds and a postcard from the metropolis comes and fixes up some breakfast for you while you wait, knees curled up to your chest, for a ride on the radio flyer.

We were taught as very young children to tie everything down and make sure it wouldn’t blow away in the wind.
We swept up all the hills before mom came home and swept them again, thinking oh how the dust settles on me and me alone.

A thick coat of dust and sun falls steadily on my home and the rain comes and tries to wash it off, it paints me golden.
It finds me sleeping in a seeping pile of grass, the heat unbelievable underneath.
On the horizon you would imagine a tall ship coming to get you, but the massive mirage of your movement, your body, is reflected in your ranch style home, it lies flat and rolls forever toward you, bringing you no such boat.
No sail in the windy belt of the United States.

When I slept last night under orange peels and the trauma of 50 children all begging me to understand, not to judge, to love them despite their wrong doings, despite their need to be the right child; I dreamt of a revelatory map- islands surrounded us. The continent broke into confetti bits all around the borders, this was the deception: that the icon of our continent had come to mean a truth to us. We believed that shape was our land.

That boat with legs and a pregnant belly spilling into the southern floor. A massive crown on its back.

Even after we made it a custom, we did not know what more there was to discover. As if a discovery leaves you at the end of a rainbow. Up Up go the towers and Down Down the pipes.

The night before, we moved into a building full of children. We stamped out our previous dreams with little feet. We held the feet in our hands. Our wrists were so sore the next day we threw them over our shoulders and ran. We ran until we could run no longer and then we fell to the ground and then the children were grown. They said: "why did you bring me here?"
It was too fast and too fun to forget. But I will forget. I will grow and continue to grow and then I will forget.

It is a lifetime guarantee, you will always be at the end of your rope.
The damn rope is dancing like the real part of your face that loves me in a breeze.
It makes such a poetry to really be in love with you.
To be afraid you might leave or I might leave, that little space of dread grows the beautiful flower.
I long to crack it open and dig out the reds and purples of regret that are living under the pretentious soil of what we believe to be a peaceful union. There is never any peace.

Once upon my foot that you stepped on in learning to dance, we got rained out. It was so sexy do you remember? We performed in a tight velvet box in paris and you held my neck in your elbow and pretended to choke me and they all squirmed in their chairs. We made them think we would burst. And then when we went home we did. We burst. We danced like sore old ladies down a popular street and made them all watch us while we led streamers behind us and our teeth were just humongous.

I had a fantasy that I could drive. Don’t laugh at me. I want to get somewhere. I want to escape the thunder of silence that crowds around me here. The human water and the human food that we have to endure to get to the bottom of things. Elixir for the young ones. Lets go try to find the natural healing authority. Where are the magicians? The witches. Lead me to them so that I might be among such a treat. Such a treat. I want to look down the black hole and jump in and float and get back out and try as hard as I can to get to the bottom. Throwing yourself down the well.

September 8th

Radius, radium, radial, radix, radical, radiate, radiation. Target practice for a new pioneer. Desperation may force you to find a center. At a loss? Try new radium, guaranteed to bring you back to square one so you may venture out anew, bringing light and love beyond the outer reaches of a circle.

My husband grunts and confronts the paper work of a difficult decision: How can I work for myself? How can I live outside the game and still rake in the bandaids? How can we eradicate the debt? Well surely we will be asking that question now. They gladly handed you the cash and then raised the price of everything including a hard-on and now you’re just like a continent, stuck between glaciers. It’s so hard to admit but I don’t yet conceive of the blood pumping through my veins. The responsibility of my aliveness is overwhelming.

Looking back on the crop, I seem to generalize a lot about nutrition. Well if it looks good then eat it. Then I’ll eat it.
Last night I dreamt we crashed the car. I sprained my neck in the curve of our crash. Quite possibly I was being reminded of the lightning. The drama in the sky about hot meeting cold and that endless banter between red and blue that can’t even let us have a single dream without them. Stubborn abuses. Asses in the sky. Sure you could call the authorities, but they would get all wet and melt and would be of no use to us in the morning when we stabbed each other over the no butter situation. Or no milk -or no eggs- or no meat -or no bread- or no fruit- or no fungus- or no fork to eat it with. That would indeed be a serious problem. You can’t rely on the rain to set you straight when the mealtime blues come sweating into your kitchen and sit down promising never to leave.

Oh my god, its so fucking obvious that when you are about to leave a place for what you might think is good, you start to really love it. Breakup sex. Traveler’s sex. Moving on sex. The really good things about a place in time only happen after you have longed for them. Lord fix upon me a permanent dye of contentment. Rig me a caravan that I may know my whole country at once and never confuse the west from the east. That I may eat the vittles of the road. The road kill of royalty, the kings shrimp basket is going soggy waiting for me to show up in the next town and dazzle the hearts of children. I am not a television personality. I do not care who knows it. I insist upon the needs of a great character. You will not enter the building in that fashion while I am inside performing a serenade for my lover.