reading watching listening

Reading
Mirror Empire – Kameron Hurley
Event Factory – Renee Gladman
Elysium, or the World After – Jennifer Marie Brissett
Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel
The Ninjas – Jane Yeh
On the Steel Breeze – Alastair Reynolds
Ancillary Justice – Ann Leckie
Texture Notes – Sawako Nakayasu
Just Kids – Patti Smith
Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible and Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock – Chris Connelly
Totally Wired: Postpunk Interviews and Overviews – Simon Reynolds
Lapsos – Inés Estrada
Susceptible – Geneviève Castrée
Heads or Tails – Lilli Carré

Watching
The total non-event that was RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 7
The amazingness of Swansea City FC
The continuing sadness of the Chicago Fire
This fabulous season of the Chicago Red Stars
Women’s World Cup 2015
Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce
Uncle Grandpa

(and as chosen by my son…)
Alice in Wonderland
The Wizard of Oz
Big Hero 6
Home
Scooby Doo
Minions
Justice League

Listening
Syro – Aphex Twin
Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 EP – Aphex Twin
Jerusalem – Sleep
Rosa – La Lá
Hasta la Raiz – Natalia Lafourcade
Ison – Me Jane You Listen
There are like ten songs that absolutely rule by Nicki Minaj. I’ve been listening to those.
Fountainsun, Wrekmeister Harmonies, Hide. Live at Bohemian National Cemetery. A live show, even!
The Unquiet Sky, Guiltless, and From All Purity – Indian

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=3046221188 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small]

insomnia

here’s one in case you were wondering what happens when that keith guy doesn’t get any sleep. as i get older this becomes more and more of a problem the later i stay up. i just can’t rock a late night like i used to. so earlier and earlier to bed and earlier earlier to rise. which is cool. just stay productive. you can’t fight the seether. you know? this was originally going to go in flotation device 12, but it didn’t make the cut.

8.25.06

Albert Ayler on the stereo. Prophecy. Bells. Ghosts. Last of the summer night time cool air fall on the breeze the wind in my face as I ride wanting school to be done again so I can get back to normal season feeling. I like fall. I hate the feeling of slow sink dread that comes on as summer ends and classes start again. Overcast right now. Clouds. Gray. Humid.

Teaching english standing in front of a class under neon lights dry erase markers. When did this happen?

Trees. Israel. Current events. Fuck. Sleepless nights.

I’ve taken to not sleeping one night every other month or so. I’ll lay down in bed shut my eyes and my brain rebels. It keeps going. I can just feel it not let go of whatever is going on. It won’t let go of the day. It won’t let go of events of thoughts of consciousness of thinking of music of breathing of stress of sounds of awareness that I’m not sleeping of anything. It just goes and I lay there. The glow from the power light on my computer illuminating the bedroom in its blue brilliance as my eyes adjust to the dark. I listen try to focus on something the fan the night outside the refrigerator the house settling. I try counting slowly stretching out each number for seconds elongating the sound of it in my mind. Oooooooonnnnneeeeee ttttttwwwwwoooooo ttttthhhhhrrrrreeeeee I get to twenty before I forget what I was doing and start thinking again. Thinking thinking. Try not to think about why I can’t sleep. Try not to obsess about it and for fuck’s sake don’t’ look at the goddamn clock. Never look at it. Do I still have sleep meds. My nighttime pills that I’m supposed to take when this happens. no. lay awake in bed. Eyes open. Just relax. Let the dreams start to happen. Just drift away shut yr eyes and.

Ow. Eyes open.

Twinge of nausea. Fuck. I guess it’s that time. Go to the bathroom turn on the light blazing brilliance piercing the back of my skull searing my pupils. Turn on the radio. NPR. Safe jazz all night til five am. That’s still a few hours away. Shit my guts out. Read harpers. Listen to safe jazz. Go back to bed. Shut my eyes twinge of nausea. Fight it for a while but every time I start to drift off. Every single time. I start to fall asleep I awake with a start. Oh fuck. Back to the bathroom for more safe jazz more harpers and more shit my guts out. Brilliant blindness of blazing bathroom light.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

At some point I give up move to the couch and read a dull book. Something that won’t take my attention. Something like Race and Reunion – the Civil War in American History. Something in Spanish like El Muerte de Artemio Cruz. Something that’s guaranteed to knock my shit out. Lay on the couch with soft lamplight illuminating the quiet room. And wouldn’t you know it. My dull book happens to be quite the pot boiler page turner and I’m enthralled by how the south carefully constructed their own version of history and foisted it on the rest of the country. Oh. Back to the bathroom. My brain is totally awake, but my body is falling apart. Too bad I can’t be productive. Too bad I can’t write or be comfortable while not sleeping. Too bad I get the dry heaves and shit my guts out cuz I could put a few spare hours to good use. But instead my body goes crazy and I feel totally incoherent. Is it five yet? Five o clock and I can watch the morning news sitting in my rocking chair watching the traffic and weather repeated every five minutes. I finally pass out when the sun starts to come up the sky gets lighter and I fall asleep around six or seven and sleep until ten.

dream

a couple years ago i had one of those waking dream things where you dream that yr awake, but yr not. not yet. i had like double vision going on. vision inside my dream and vision of my waking self. and the two weren’t matching up. as soon as i fully woke up and calmed down from the panic and disorientation i was feeling, i wrote this down on an envelope.

i couldn’t wake up. like a picture in front of my eyes of the living room. i could feel my hands and arms moving but all i could see was me laying on the couch in the living room. occasional flashes of outlines of my hands moving. i could feel me touching me but couldn’t see the action. couldn’t sit up. woke up inside a dream of the same. terror. terror. what time/day is it? pressure on my chest. someone holding me pulling me down? how long did it take to wake myself up? many times.

this sort of thing has happened to me before. and i’m sure it’ll happen again, but this was the only time i wrote it down. so i can actually remember it. and i can still remember seeing what i saw while it was going on. it was kind of cool. ghost arms and blurred movement.