i should have stretched in the water, i got a hard knot in my back, kevin's like, i hope we don't get arrested. i also didn't want goofy lulu to swallow too much water and start sinking, but tomorrow godmanit i mo stretch it but good. plus it sounds like war every night with the explosions, every night anger explodes bombs, juneteenth explodes into independence day and none of it is liberating or joyous, it just explodes with no message other than here we are still fucking stuck in history.

The ways that we treat each other, and the ways that we treat ourselves, sometimes make me feel like things are hopeless: this giant machine of thought that is capitalism/ oppression/ trauma/ not enough. All of the horrific things that are driven by the fear that we are not enough, and that we don't have enough.

The wound of 'not enough' fills pockets and keeps society going and makes us compare ourselves to each other, seeing some lives as more worthy than others. 'Not enough' is a wound that actually makes us close our hearts to each other (we are afraid of being seen as not-enough, so we cover the tenderness of our heart with all this other stuff, to make ourselves look like more). When we close our hearts to each other, then violence and othering becomes much easier: we no longer feel the innate connection that is a natural part of our species, so we don't see it as hurting ourselves, our sons, our brothers, our fathers. But someone other. Someone who's heart we never let touch ours.

I spend a lot of time mulling over the concept of guilt, and what guilt actually is. Guilt, as far as I've come with my thought lately, is a way to keep ourselves closed to the reality of a situation. Guilt keeps the lens focused on the self. Guilt, in other words, is a nice protective layer that keeps our selves as the center of the story, and protects us from the ripples of grief that affect all of us.

Which is to say, if there is guilt, you're entitled to feel how you want, but if you have it in you to soften the guilt and feel what's underneath it, then you might feel a welling up of something much more tender, and much more scary. Grief. Collective grief, personal grief, the grief of mourning, the grief of loss, the grief in the face of senseless violence. Allow that grief, and let it be personal but also let it be everyone's. Grief unites, is the great equalizer, is something that none of us are exempt from, and all know how to help each other with (a hand on the back, a hug, an 'I'm sorry', a 'you will get through this but it will be hard', a 'you are not alone').

Allow the grief to make you bigger.

If you feel into that grief even more, after allowing it to make you bigger, then what you might find is a little seed of something shiny. That seed of something shiny, if you allow it to grow, is your truth. The spark of you that is you. The spark that most of us believe isn't enough, because we were taught that it isn't enough. We are so afraid to even LOOK at it, because of how devastating it is to think that the core of our being isn't enough.

-rebecca altman

r. sent this and i said oh it's so windy but after i posted stuff i felt a little lighter and yes it's good, this is a part of it maybe enough i haven't finished if the rest is soul good i'll do another. it's enough.

bear and sheep. i guess i'm maybe about done for today. i don't have an essay for this. but the moments are what sustain, not plans, play at work, for we know everywhere you turn there are stupid white entitled people and there's no future in this spectacle of once upon a time invented illusion democracy. so moments, you can't build towers on em,and you cant steal em but you can have em for free, and they take care of you—better than society.
in fact the moments are life, and the accrual of capital is extractive extinction, life is moments of love and play. not all the deadly activity they say.

what makes us live? what sustains us. not the government, the government kills us for money. what we need to find out is what makes us live and keeps us alive.

bear approached the bird's nest very carefully and then when she felt sure it was uninhabited she wanted to bring it home but i said no bear i only showed you for a photo op kid, i know you found it, but ya gotta leave it, sweetkins. in truth i wanted to bring it home too, but the little r. on my shoulder said uh-uh, nono.

you don't ever necessarily know exactly what a dog is thinking and maybe they may be thinking nothing just padding along when they happen to come upon some gold glitter and snort some and sneeze.

so after the fuck the police photo op i think of the next stop, that's old lily white-assed racist carl linnaeus. there go carl, you're welcome to topple off your lying pedestal, bitch. let 'er rip. hey kids, this is a hoot, you should try it! soul satisfying and harmless!

here's to bear. bear is not really into the photo op aspect of the walk but today i thought hey that's part of my training, once they get that they're good with me.

don't give up. did you give up?

anyway my horoscope said i may feel tranquil and serene today, and this could help me navigate peacefully through any situation. oddly i did, though i also did this fuck the police post. i do say that to the racists and the abusers and the killers, and the system that pays them and militarizes civil hate. fuck all that. but i am thankfully able to mainly ignore them without being shot in the back and i'm glad to talk to the dog lovers among them who may still use excessive racist force. the dogs are my shepherds and they guide me when i need.
i did feel oddly serene though shit is really severely violently fucked up.

ya, we come to swim godmanit, it's safer here than in the nail salons and hootchie bars. this is the place for us gnome sane.

summer's too short godmanit, we gots to swim, unless they come with tasers and rubber bullets, we be swim, wolfgang don't you fret.

lulu meets wolfgang. they're both kind of bonkers so they get along famously. we swam far out and it was far out and kevin was far out too and met lulu. the water was to die for. what a phrase. i swam back and got the camera and picked up the squeeky ball and it got doused a bit i gotta get another water camera. it was acting funny and quit and when i unloaded the pics it said dec.31, 1969 at 5:oo. i was ten then when i took them pics. it seems to have dried out and sobered up in the post truth post covid fullblown nazi psychotic american present now. what a freak rude awakening sorry camera i wish we could go back to 69 maybe we'll try tonight. it was real cute and i coulda got lots more pix but what the fuck you get what you get we're lucky we're not dead in this fucking whacked american pandemic psycho circus.

a turtle exited the pond and was heading for the quad. little bear started barking and the turtle turned to the right up a ramp to a building that probably is closed. bear was wild and so i scooted her away toot sweet saying sorry, sorry turtle. it's embarrassing when the person you're with starts barking at somebody in public just because they're different.

we got what you call it psychic numbing. we're numb to most of what goes on. toxic industry, destruction of the land, the air, the water, war, pandemic, democratic police state brutality, nuclear annihilation, deliberate poisoning of the environment and people by corporate murderers for profit, there is nothing we can't adapt to by numbing ourselves and waiting for the end. 

we got watcha-ma-call-it, the sick fuck trump. who uses nazi symbols to threaten citizens in the american heimat. 

don't you feel like you just got a gift? what do you mean. me i mean. i just though oh shit i gotta get bear and r. said it's 7:43. oh shit, i was on copp time. now i got a hour gift. i was looking at a mummified falcon and r. said so beautiful and then i read charles webb died and i had no idea how fascinating his life was and how he rejected fame and all possessions. 

    he had an anarchist view of the relationship between humanity and money. he never wanted any. 

i've had this feeling ever since i graduated. this kind of compulsion that i have to be rude all the time...it's like i was playing some kind of game, but the rules don't make any sense to me. they're being made up by all the wrong people. i mean no one makes them up. they seem to make themselves up.

i have one word to say to you, just one word: plastic. the future is plastics—will you think about it?

                in the blue room bear always wants to pull my mask off in the blue room

no matter how many people die they say we have the best numbers in the world. look 
at our arms sales, look at our gdp. less people, less poor people, less unemployment. come, add the figures with us. you'll see, we are still at the top, the greatest country ever in the history of the world. and if we should ever fall it will be on all of your heads.

mister to bear.

we didn't make the lake. we just crossed the street and in a minute a downpour came and i hid inside the mulberry tree eating wet berries and lulu circled outside in the rain until she gave up and came in with me and then we went and found her squeaky ball and i got good and soaked as the lulu. we don't mind in truth we rather like the summer rain. then i stripped naked and washed everything including my toe shoes which stunk up the rest so i had to wash again and everything may still be stupid stunk oh well that's life we only live once every dog has their day.

when we return home from our walk we go to the blue room and think about things.