Hide & Go Seek

Upstate it’s snowing
I laughingly gave my condolences
As my heat finally roared to life
With the clang of the radiator
In my Brooklyn apartment.

I was so happy to leave my blanket cocoon
So happy I began to cook
Modern appliances whirling
And then darkness

Sudden.

“Fuck!”

The kittens scattered, confused
By my sudden outburst
Scurrying as I cursed, slammed
My way through the rooms
Upturning every place
I could ever think to put a business card

In the black, in the howl
Of the northern wind outside
The rain pelting my windows
I sat at my desk
Held my head
Realized I couldn’t call my super
The number lost
The building empty
And me in the dark.

I somehow lit a candle
Shadows surrounded me
I laid on my couch
And mused how this could be romantic
If only I wasn’t so afraid
To fall and be vulnerable and try

And on I laid
The radiator stopped clanking
My heart raced
Cold settled back in
And I wrapped myself up again
And Eventually I began to cry

I cried of a lost love
I cried for not having someone
Smarter and more able and more brave
To help
My heart is racing and it’s so hard to explain
That sometimes I have no voice
And sometimes everyone has fangs
In the dark, in the howl
It felt ok to be weak
To toss aside my independence
It’s hard to explain
That sometimes I would starve
Rather than go outside
And sometimes I’d rather freeze
Then knock on a door

Somewhere a siren howled
It’s hard to remember
You’re surrounded by millions
When the windows are tightly
Curtained to keep out the drafts

I cried for five minutes
Slow, silent, chilly wetness
From my eyes, down my cheeks
Turning my head
A practiced and perfected motion
Before they tickled my ears

Then I got up
I tripped across the cats
Walking through the empty
I could feel bad
And yes I do but
I could feel worse
But at this time I don’t

I am unloved
I am not in love
I do not feel love
Only cold
And frustration

My eyes begin to adjust
Flames abound
I light more candles
I settle, I phone for pizza
I miss my electric space heater
I miss my ex boyfriend
I miss my mom
I realize it’s the first time
In a long time
I’ve sat this way
Cold dark and alone

I consider my empty bank account
A newly published book
It’s all so ironic
To be someone yet no one
Spending my days trying to convince
Others that I am bigger than I am
That I am smarter
And more beautiful
And more talented
That I string together moments of belief
Wear them like a amulet
Around my neck
To protect me
From those
I want to love me

Chilled bones
Nine o’clock
No internet, dying battery on my phone
A hiss
Growing in fervor
Boiler whispers in my ear
It could be a long night
If I don’t give in to sleep
It could be a long life
If I don’t give in to the hide
And the seek.

Voting Pet Peeve

By Angel Thompson Georges

I've got a pet peeve. Well, actually I have a few, but the one that is on my mind is apathy. Apathy, by definition is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest or concern. November 4^th is Election Day! Right wing, left wing, chicken wing, I don't care, Go Vote!

Two things that I have been waiting most of my life for, a woman or a minority on a major party ticket, are happening this year. Amazingly they aren't even on the same one! The last time anything like this happened was back in 1984, long before I was old enough to vote. I was 12 when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro to be his running mate. With a novice understanding of the way politics work, I was sure this meant there would be a woman or a minority on the ticket every presidential election thereafter. I never thought I would have to wait five presidential elections before it happened again. People, we are on the verge of a historical election! Who knows when you will get the chance to vote for candidates like these again?! Go participate in a historical event! Go vote!

In 1776 only white men with property had the right to vote (that is unless they were Catholic, Jewish or Quaker). It wasn't until 1856 that the last state dropped the property qualifications. In 1869 the Fifteenth Amendment gave African American men the right to vote, but by 1940 only 3% of African Americans in the south were even registered to vote. In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act denying citizenship and voting rights to Chinese Americans. It was finally repealed in 1943, some 60 years later. First generation Japanese Americans had to wait until 1952. It took 72 years of activism between when voting rights for women were proposed in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention, and when the 19^th Amendment was ratified. Despite the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, many state laws effectively barred Native Americans from voting until 1948. Chances are somebody had to put up a fight for you to have the right. Honor your foremothers and forefathers. Go vote!

Disillusioned with the political process? Me too. Does my vote make a difference? Does my voice really count? To be honest, I'm not 100% sure it does. What I am sure of is that by fulfilling my responsibility, pulling the curtain and casting my vote, I have done my part and therefore retain my right to complain. If the one I vote for wins, I have a right to hold them accountable. If the other party wins, I have the right to hold them accountable too. And when whoever wins does something I don't like, by having voted, I feel I have earned the right to voice an opinion about it. If history past and in the making aren't enough to overcome apathy, then I implore, just go vote so you'll have better grounds to complain.

Yay Yay Yay Yay

Hey everyone!

It's a sunny fall afternoon and I'm resting on my bed looking out at the gorgeous red and yellow leaves outside my window. I made the mistake of moving a tad bit too fast and my head felt funny so yeah, I guess the margaritas haven't worn off yet. :)

I'm trying to stick by a new policy I have to not be so passive agressively bitchyy in my blogs but I failed again this morning. So yeah, sorry about that. Old habits died hard. I just get pretty pissed off when I'm ignored. Pretty universal but not everyone lashes out on their blog so yeah, I apologize. I've recently seen how high schoolish that sorta thing is and I'll work harder to not do that.

ANYWAY!

A week from today is our reading/performance at Stain that should be really great. I'm super excited about our line up and everyone has such great friends so the audience should be fantastic. After that it's upstate for that part of my "tour" hehe. I've got some pretty sweet events lined up including a lecture, a book signing at my college, and an evening of readings with SLAP (St. Lawrence Area Poets.) There's some fun news that should be coming out of that reading soon including a possible radio interview and some .mp3 clips circulating but I'll tell you more once I'm back in the city and have had a chance to talk with folks. It's all totally up in the air.

Then once I get back it's the Black Rabbit Open, some other random open mics I'm going to stop in and read at (I'll let you guys know the dates soon, I'm deciding where I wanna go but I think I will be popping into to the open that my friend Joe frequents (Hey Joe!) and also the Cornelia. Then it's the Bowery! And at the Bowery I might be getting reviewed by someone from Flavor Pill (again, up in the air!)

So yeah things are lining up well. I'm going to be at a ginormous indie book fair in NYC in December and I'm hosting an evening of dirty, tawdry, and baudy songs and readings at Otto's right before Christmas. So yeah, lots of fun stuff coming up including...

this really great event I'm working with a certain promotion company to put together in Manhattan! A new development today so I'm psyched. That should be happening in the next two months.

I also am setting up dates right now to spend some time in Boston in January and *fingers crossed* I'm hoping to head to Austin in the spring for their Indie Book Expo.

Woooo hooooooo

Much love!

Yes, I'm Ranting

My union is a worthless piece of shit.

Since being in 161 since June, I have been unemployed almost 4.5 months with a short period of employment in the middle that I got myself, no thanks to them. And I'm simply really really really pissed about it.

However I won't think about that because today I'm trying to be positive and not obsess about the fact that I'm broke and still unemployment and feeling like a fucking failure.

That being said -- THANK THANK THANK YOU SO MUCH to my friends who came out last night. The reading was fun and great and I had so much fun and it meant to much to me that you guys came out!

Now back to my feeling negative and ranting :) I totally get if you're busy or don't want to come out -- but ignoring texts and emails is just really rude. It hurts my feelings and it pisses me off. You know who you are.

Happy Day

I just did a run through of my reading for Sunday and it seemed to work perfectly. Around 35 min or so. Just about what I wanted it to be. I just need volunteers to listen to me rehearse? Volunteers???? :)

I think once I get this done with I'll feel more confident and then be ready to line up some more. But yeah, life is going well. Now I just need to fall desperately in love, get my heat turned on, lose a ton of weight, and get a job (and/or book deal) and life wouldbe PERFECT. But I'm alright with today, I'll take it :)

Counting blessings in Brooklyn.....

Lonely Tonight

I lay here and I can hear the fish tank filter and cars off in the distance. Grand Street is dead. I have at least two cats on my legs sleeping and Richie next to my laptop. The only light on in my apartment is the floor lamp next to my bed. I can smell the cat litter from my office and it fills me with more dread than displeasure - another monotonous chore for the morning.

I seriously need to get back to work. This is just absolutely insane. But it's late and I'm tired so I won't think about that and money problems and all that.

It's so easy to beat yourself up when you've got perfect hindsight. Fuck even if I had saved more money there's no way I could be ten weeks into unemployment and not be freaking the hell out. The worst part? I tried to resort to crap jobs just "in the meantime" but so many of them pay less than or as more as unemployment. 100 a day? Seriously? After taxes and metro cards and meals it's as much as unemployment if not less. How the mighty has fallen. I was making nearly 400 a DAY on my last gig. This just all around fucking sucks.

OK but yeah said I wouldn't think about it. Time for bed I guess but I really just want to TALK to someone. But everyone else has lives and isn't up at 2 am.

I need a sugar daddy. Maybe I'll look on Craig's List. lol Eh fuck.

The article from the Gouverneur Tribune!!

Redd's Tavern, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, Saturday night, an unlikely chant erupted: "St. Lawrence County – We Represent!" What brought about this proclamation in such an improbable place? It was a book release party for Hermon native Janice Brabaw, for her recently published collection of poetry Universe, Disturbed.

Thanks to a tip from this paper's own Dick Sterling, I was lucky enough to be able to catch up with Janice and learn a bit about her, and how the book came about.

"Growing up in Hermon I always wanted to be a writer or work in TV but it seemed an impossibility." Janice is a graduate of Hermon Dekalb Central School. From there she went on to St. Lawrence University where she graduated from in 2001. "I moved down (to New York City) three weeks after 9/11 and it was an amazing time. The country was about to go to war, we were all worried about further attacks, and every day I'd see posters for missing people or come across candlelight vigils in Union Square. It's kinda cheesy, but it inspired me to really chase after my dream. You never know how long your time on the planet will last."

Janice's optimistic tone is in stark contrast to much of her personal history. "I struggled with depression my entire life but it was during college that it got really bad and I tried to kill myself twice." She told me quite openly. In fact, the majority of the poems included in Universe, Disturbed are from that time in her life.

"When I was compiling Universe, Disturbed I pulled directly from my journals from when I was at my darkest - cutting my arms in my bedroom with a razor, crying myself to sleep at night, recklessly throwing myself into risky situations and being hellbent on self-destruction."

Wondering why Janice would print such intimate details of her life for the entire world to see, I inquired about her intent. "I was diagnosed for the first time at nineteen (with borderline personality disorder and anxiety disorder) and although I feel much better now I still relapse sometimes. Ten years later I think I've gained some perspective that I wish I had when I was nineteen. That I wish I had when I was fourteen! It's those people that are my target audience- teenagers, twenty-somethings… anyone else who is going through that and show them there at better ways to vent your pain and express yourself."

Her hope is to reach the community that surrounds this 'target audience' as well. "I'd like to make parents and the community in general more aware of the warning signs of mental illness. People don't necessarily think of adolescents as being suicide risks but it is at this age that many mental illnesses first present- between 15 and 25, I believe. Suicide is the fifth leading cause of death in elementary children and number three in 15 to 24 years olds. I'm not saying panic and medicate your kids, I'm saying just educate yourself about the signs of depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc the same way you would about drugs, drinking, and other issues."

The book itself is designed to look like a smaller version of a composition book; black with white speckles, with pictures and quotes taped to the face ala junior year. Self depreciatingly subtitled Angry, Angsty, Adolescent Poetry That I Thought Was Super Awesome And Deep At The Time, the cover fits the text. "I wanted to publish this book to show what it's like to be young and depressed. I want to show that it's ok to turn to your journal and just "let it out." Not all of my poetry is good." Janice told me.

When I asked her about why she would publish poems that she so candidly referred to that way she responded; "The funny thing about saying "not all of my poetry is good" is that I think some people assume that it's horrible. It's actually not. I think I was just feeling a bit self-conscious about it because well, I'm not a poet. I'm a fiction and memoir writer." Indeed the excerpt included at the end from her upcoming memoir And Again: A Memoir of a Life Disturbed demonstrates what a fine writer Janice has become.

Like many talented writers, Janice is not yet backed by a major publishing house. Universe, Disturbed is a self published and self promoted work. This is no easy task, but her line up of upcoming readings in NYC shows that she has done her homework. Her schedule includes The Bowery Poetry Club and Otto's Shrunken Head, two of the cities hot spots for up and coming writers. She credits her friends for their support in this venture "I've fallen into an amazing community in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) with great friends who are my second family and who are amazingly generous and supportive of each other in our artistic endeavors."

Don't think that because of this Janice has forgotten those back home. "I think about moving home sometimes because I love and miss my family so much… I love the North Country but it's just not for me at this time in my life. But sometimes, I gotta admit, it's very hard to come back to Brooklyn."

Far from forgetting to look back to where she came from, Janice already has four book related events scheduled for a North Country mini tour November 8^th and 9^th. Her appearances will include The Brewer Bookstore and The Partridge Cafe in Canton, The Field Coffee House in Potsdam and a discussion forum entitled "It Won't Always Be This Way" : A Discussion on Teen Angst, Depression & Journal Therapy at the Gouverneur Library.

If you get the chance, as I did here in NYC, I encourage you to get out to one of these events and meet the amazing woman and author that has evolved from the fragile confused teen that once was.