My biological grandfather died shortly before I was born and by then he had already left my family and married another woman who had just given birth to their newborn son. He died alone in a single car accident on a Missouri road after he lost control of the car and he slammed into a tree. Before he died he drank a lot and one of the main stories I remember hearing about him was when he decided to load the kids into the car and take them to the carnival. These excited little kids [my mother included] never knew what hit them when they realized that they were lied to and they were being dropped off at an orphanage. [I'm not making this up. I have photographs to prove it.]

My Grandmother Constance remarried as well and the man that she married was the man that I consider to be my true Grandfather. I also consider him to be the greatest man that ever lived and still to this day I am humbled by him to the point of near worship. [Maybe not actually worship but something pretty close to that at least.] He taught me about Art and Stupid Bunny and pancakes and how to be nothing but loving and compassionate and that in being those things I could almost never go wrong.

When I was a small child my mother and father got divorced. The deal was that my mom would work [in factories mostly] to support the family while my father went to medical school and worked part time as a paramedic for the fire department. This plan seemed to work okay for a while but soon after my father graduated from medical school he apparently decided upon a better plan and chose to leave for some nurse. He left my mother with me and my kid sister and with no money aside from a $5 bill that he left on the table with a note. And that was it. [And he apparently swiped my library card too but that's another story.] Leaving like that can only just suck for the people you leave behind but he left at a time that was and still is simply inconceivable to me. Just before he left my Uncle Cornelius drowned. He was on some float trip with his friends and one of the girls that was there was pregnant. She got a little too far out in the current and was unable to stop herself from being pushed away and under. My Uncle Cornelius went out to get her because that was just what he did. That was just how he was. And he did manage to save her from drowning but he was unable to save himself. They didn’t find his body for over a month. The time my father chose to leave was just then as my whole family had given up hope that he was even alive. They lessened their prayers by then and this time they were simply praying that they might just find his body.

Not too long after that [maybe just a few months if I recall correctly] my Uncle Alphonsus was murdered. His full name was Alphonsus Andrew McHenry III [most people called him Andy and his closest friends sometimes called him Al] and he had just given birth to his new son Alphonsus Andrew McHenry IV. While he was in the Navy he served on the USS Jason and I am named after my Uncle Andy and that ship.

Not too long after that my Grandfather died from cancer of the everything. And shortly after that my Grandmother died of heart failure.

My mom did the very best that she could under those awful and inconceivable circumstances of having your whole entire life just wiped entirely out in one fell swoop. She became an alcoholic and just couldn’t cope as well as she wanted to and I ended up being babysat quite a bit by my surrogate uncles. These were mostly bikers who owned tattoo shops and smut shops and dive bars and who were involved to the point of immersion in the pornography industry. I spent a lot of years in porn shops and tattoo parlors and bars. I saw some things that most people shouldn’t see and I knew a lot about things you shouldn’t know a lot about. On the converse I learned a great deal about the things that are truly important in life. Both of these facts contributed in, for good and for bad, creating a sense of fearlessness and detachment in me that has both helped and hindered me at times in my life. [And I don't regret a moment of it really.]

Years later my mom went through AA and became sober and she rebuilt her life from scratch. My sister and I never wanted for anything and although we were probably poor by most standards it never really seemed that way to us. At least a lot of the time for sure.

As I get older and I consider what my mother went through during that time I’m not sure how she ever even coped with it all. I hypothesize in my head about how I would feel if, for example, the top five people you love the most in life were taken in some horrific and unexpected manner. Gone. How would I handle that? How would you?

[Can you even imagine yourself ever being that strong?]

I went through the same things as she did, I guess, but I was only nine or so and none of it all really sunk in for me then. [And sometimes I doubt if it ever really has even fully sunk in. You know?]

I look back on my own life and all of the wonderful and awful turns it sometimes has taken, and surely will take in the future, and I always can’t help but feel even closer to my mother.

I love her more than I can even say and beyond the fact that I truly do love her I feel like I like her even more than that. And that’s pretty cool to me. I think most of us love our mothers because we almost have to but it makes me feel really great that I just like my mom so well. I think that she’s cool and funny and that she has one of the kindest hearts of anyone I know. I’m proud of her for what she managed to live through and for how she managed to ensure that my sister and I lived through the same. I feel like she did a pretty good job of being a parent and more often than not when I find myself feeling pretty good about myself, for some reason or another, I find that such a characteristic that I seem to somehow possess [and maybe even admire within myself] can somehow be directly attributed to something that I learned from her.

[I just wanted to remind myself of that is all. Again.]

I was down to limited resources with regard to my clean laundry situation and one of the only freshly laundered things I had were these brown corduroy Levi’s and I decided to go with them. I knew they were clean because they were neatly folded and on the shelf in my closet where I keep some of my folded clothes. And they were there, I know now, because they were not supposed to be used anymore this year. After temperatures reach 100° it becomes an act of daring or foolishness to wear corduroy pants in the middle of the desert.

Composed in the twelfth century by the great Tibetan Buddhist teacher Geshe Langri Tangpa [1054-1123], these teachings are an important guide for understanding human behavior, learning to relate to one another while offering compassion  unconditionally.

You can read these eight simple teachings aloud as meditations, if you’d like:

May I consider all beings precious.

May I always respect others as superior while attaining self-esteem.

May I face my inner darkness and turn it to good.

May I be moved with compassion for the pain behind the spite others may show me.

When I am hurt by others, may I forego retaliation while always fighting injustice.

May I reckon those who betray me as sacred teachers.

May I offer joy to all beings and secretly take on their suffering.

May all beings and I be free from ego concerns of loss and gain.

Normally I’m a big enough optimist and I don’t think many people that know me would say that I was dismal or down or depressed. I’m not. I’m mostly facing the bright side of things and I try not to let a lot get to me. I say that as a preamble to mentioning this NPR story that does almost make me feel depressed. The high school I went to was, I’m pretty sure, the oldest West of the Mississippi River and it is just about one of the coolest buildings ever and it’s one of the schools that is on the list.

I can’t even stand the idea of the thing being torn down and just looking at pictures of it makes me feel nostalgic. The building had these old-school phones in each room that could be dialed out to other rooms. It served as a room-to-room intercom system and whenever we’d skip class and hang out in the attic upstairs we’d have somebody call us up there if we were missed.

My old high school in St. Louis

I’ve also been working on my genealogy a lot lately. [A lot.] Maybe that’s why I’m hyper-sensitive to this sort of thing right now. I’ve been really nostalgic for the past and at the same time it actually makes me feel a little bit less connected than I’d expected it would. I heard so many people say how that when they really started defining and determining their ancestry it would tend to make them feel more connected somehow. It sounded reasonable enough and I expected that the same might be true for me. It mostly wasn’t.

It’s just so goddam touching and sad and lonely reading some 3-inch obituary in some newspaper from 1849 that describes the life of someone I am somehow related to. The newspaper is as faded as these ancestors themselves and I’m learning that memories are like newspaper clippings sometimes. They are nice to have access to should you feel like you need some measure of the past to look back on but they get old and torn and you can forget about them entirely when they fade out of your view. This urge to gather together these moments is real enough for me and I do work hard enough at doing it and I often wonder what the real point of it is. I’m finding also that once I’ve collected these things I really don’t know what to do with them afterward. I can pack them back up into a box with a lid and label it and store it up there on the top shelf.

I’ve also got a stack of death certificates from members of my family. It’s this reminder that life is horribly short and that more often than not the things that you have done in that life will scarcely be remembered or they won’t matter much if they are. I guess that things obviously just die off or fade away and regardless of anything else I truly thought that I’d be used to that by now.

[This isn't me being depressed at all. This is just some admittedly sad observation and I've already begun reminding myself of the lovliness that happens almost constantly.]

Words or Phrases That Should Never be Used When Describing Food:
[In Menus or Otherwise.]

• Amusing
• Beaten
• Bleeding
• Blood-shot
• Bloody
• Blurry
• Calm
• Carnivorous
• Chalky
• Child-like
• Choked in
• Chuck-nutty
• Chunky bits o’
• Cloudy
• Coagulated

[This one has been going on for years and years and years it seems.]

Part One: Steeple Chase

I don’t recommend any of the processional wives. I wouldn’t take a dollar from a dead, dying man. I’ve tried to last without exploding into a million star pieces but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I could never be quiet or delicate. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Couldn’t mistake one for the other. This for that. Could not exhaust all of my options. Couldn’t swear at the steeple. Couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Couldn’t speak to droves of people.

No, I don’t recommend the processional wives.

Part Two: Cancer in April

I wouldn’t bother with any of the children. It wouldn’t be fair and they are far too needy. Tomorrow has a bellyache that can’t be driven out.

And that bitch still sleeps on my couch.

By Cybele Knowles [January 29, 2006]

They say Burning Man changes lives. They say Burning Man ruins lives, too.

Don’t be frightened! Burning Man will only ruin your life in the best possible way.

Burning Man changed my life. I’ll tell you how.

I used to be different from how I am now. I worked as a secretary at a software engineering company. I was afraid of my own nose. I lived with a nice man.

When I went to bed at night, I used to say a fucked-up thing to myself.

The thing I said was, Is this it?

Because stuff was not so good.

I was a secretary, but I didn’t want to be a secretary. Does anyone really want to be a secretary? No. No one does. I’m entitled to say it, because I was a secretary for a billion years.

The other problem was that I was slightly crazy. In the clinical sense of the word. That tidbit about being afraid of my nose may have tipped you off.

Essentials of Spontaneous Prose

SET-UP The object is set before the mind, either in reality, as in sketching (before a landscape or teacup or old face) or is set in the memory wherein it becomes the sketching from memory of a definite image-object.

PROCEDURE Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of image.

METHOD No periods separating sentence-structures already arbitrarily riddled by false colons and timid usually needless commas –but the vigorous space dash separating rhetoricalbreathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown phrases) –”measured pauses whichare the essentials of our speech” –”divisions of the sounds we hear” –”time and how to note it down.” (William Carlos Williams)

SCOPING Not “selectivity” of expression but following free deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline other than rhythms of rhetorical exhalation and expostulated statement, like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance, bang! (the space dash) –Blow as deep as you want –write as deeply, fish as far down as you want, satisfy yourself first, then reader cannot fail to receive telepathic shock and meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his own human mind.

LAG IN PROCEDURE No pause to think of proper word but the infantile pileup of scatological buildup words till satisfaction is gained, which will turn out to be a great appending rhythm to a thought and be in accordance with Great Law of timing.

TIMING Nothing is muddy that runs in time and to laws of time –Shakespearian stress of dramatic need to speak now in own unalterable way or forever hold tongue –no revisions (except obvious rational mistakes, such as names or calculated insertions in act of not writing but inserting).

CENTER OF INTEREST Begin not from preconceived idea of what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards swimming in sea of language to peripheral release and exhaustion –Do not afterthink except for poetic or P. S. reasons. Never afterthink to “improve” or defray impressions, as. the best writing is always the most painful personal wrungout tossed from cradle warm protective mind –tap from yourself the song of yourself, blow! –now! –your way is your only way –”good” –or “bad –always honest, (”ludicrous”), spontaneous, “confessional” interesting, because not “crafted.” Craft is craft.

STRUCTURE OF WORK Modern bizarre structures (science fiction, etc.) arise from language being dead, “different” themes give illusion of “new” life. Follow roughly outlines in outfanning movement over subject, as river rock, so mindflow over jewel-center need (run your mind over it, once) arriving at pivot, where what was dim-formed “beginning” becomes sharp-necessitating “ending” and language shortens in race to wire of time-race of work, following laws of Deep Form, to conclusion, last words, last trickle –Night is The End.

MENTAL STATE If possible write “without consciousness” in semitrance (as Yeats’ later “trance writing”) allowing subconscious to admit in own uninhibited interesting necessary and so”modern” language what conscious art would censor, and write excitedly, swiftly, with writing-or-typing-cramps, in accordance (as from center to periphery) with laws of orgasm, Reich’s “beclouding of consciousness.” Come from within, out –to relaxed and said.

BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE
LIST OF ESSENTIALS:

[Previously shared with Carl and James Joyce and me.]

• he dreamt of obscurity, but his vain attempts at effacement would only succeed in refining and polishing a self he had lost long ago.
• once she told him a story about a white knight, and a princess that didn’t need saving. am i the knight? he asked her. no, she answered. you’re the person i’m telling the story to.
• stay, he asked her, not meaning forever.
• you’re so beautiful, he said, you’re so beautiful. she closed her eyes, and whispered to herself, i know.
• she made no mention of recent events, and how he might be the force behind them.
• he imagined holding her wrists, and not letting go, until he was done.
• she calls, only to know that he is there. and it pleases him.
• when he told her that he needed her, he meant that he needed her to desire him.
• what you lack in experience, he grinned menacingly, you can make up for with enthusiasm.
• he explained himself to her. not through what he said, but by what he refused to admit.
• she reminded him of a place that he was almost sure he would never see again.
• she was not foolish enough to attempt to save him from himself, despite his obvious need for grace.
• do you practice that smile of yours? he asked. which one? she smiled back.
• you’ll never know me well enough to know what it is that i really need, she wanted to say.
• he watches her apply, wipe off, and reapply her lipstick, yet again, and licks his lips at her compulsion.
• she asked for more, but she wouldn’t take what he had to offer.
• i’m not sure you’ve turned out to be the man that i thought i was falling in love with, she said, but you do have your moments.
• stop thinking, he said. you stop thinking i’m thinking about you, she replied.
• she was unwilling to substitute fascination for trust, or beauty for sincerity.
• you used me, she told him, and then laughed at her assertion.
• her face was made more beautiful by wisps of hair which he would brush from her cheek.
• they held each other, dreaming together, but their dreams were not shared.
• you could stop, she said. and do what? he asked. something else, she said. he threw up his arms. that’s exactly what i was doing before i started doing this, he said.
• you’ve found the right words, she said, it’s just that you never quite discovered the right order.
• there’s nothing left, is there, she said. i think there’s a pop-tart in the cupboard, he said.
• i was so wrong, he said. that doesn’t mean that now you’re right, she said.
• she saw, in the distance, a place where she didn’t hurt. but she couldn’t tell whether she was looking ahead, or behind.
• she wanted answers to questions he did not understand.
• i think i love you, he said. is that what you think, she said.
• she wondered why the shortest possible distance between him and his dreams was straight through her.
• i want to be in love with someone like you, he said, holding her closely, and laughing.
• she told him that she wanted him to leave, but forgot to mention when she expected him to return.
• i still love you, he said, to no one.
• she knew him, because she knew his failings.
• just because you can’t love yourself, she said, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love me.
• at the point she understood his motives she no longer understood her own.
• each time, they acted as if the ending were near, forgetting that it was already over.
• she stopped longing for him when she stopped belonging to him.
• you’re always clinging to clichés, she said. you may be right, he said. but you have to admit, it’s better than talking in riddles.
• don’t worry. we’ll still be friends, he said, even after you don’t want to talk to me anymore.
• when he told her he had waited too long, it was then that she knew that she loved him.
• she would close her eyes and imagine herself as someone else, someone who possessed him.
• avalanche, she said to herself, using a secret language that only she and he understood.
• (it’s not the way you toy with my affections), he said. when did you learn to speak in parentheses? she asked.
• they would read the personals together, feigning humor, making mental notes.
• she kept the love letters he had sent her, to help mark the passage of time.
• when i try to remember what we had, he said, all i can really remember is what we wanted.
• all of my thoughts are of you, he said, and of the way you would hurt me time and again.
• sometimes, it feels as if we’re repeating the same mistakes only to forget the ones we’ve already made, she said.
• you’re not like her, he told her. that’s right, she said, i’m still here.
• he stole her heart, and kept it in a box, by the bed. she found it, one day, and asked him what it was. oh nothing, he replied.
• she forgot that the only way to love him was to make him fall out of love with her.
• it’s as if we were interrupted at some point, she said, and then we never quite got back around to finishing our story.
• he couldn’t love her, not even enough to stay away.
• we could try something new, she said. i thought you already were, he said. what was his name, again?
• you think i like this? he asked. i don’t think you know anything else, she said.
• do you love me? he asked. i’m not going to write a song about it, if that’s what you mean, she said.
• he thought of the special face she made only for him, and all the others.
• i don’t know how i could live without you, she swore to him, on a stack of travel brochures.
• she almost believed it all, until he told her that he believed in her.
• the world may not revolve around me, he said, but i could go supernova at any moment.
• i can forgive you for being unfaithful, he said, but not for being indiscreet.
• the present is just so many possible futures, waiting all together, in a crowded room, she told him, as she moved away.
• because he reminded me of someone i used to be, she told him.
• she wasn’t able to forgive him for what he hadn’t done.
• you’re the one with the steering wheel, she said. i’ve just got the pedals.
• sometimes, you make me feel like christmas, she said. and other times? he asked. the rest of the time, she said, i remember how you forgot my birthday.
• do you ever wonder if we’d be more in love if we’d never had sex? he asked her. no, she said, of course we’d be.
• i suppose i should have known that when you told me you needed your space, that you’d find it in somebody else’s closet, he said.
• she gave of herself once more, to show him how cruel he could be.
• she never knew what it was that brought him back to her, or if she had anything to do with it.
• tell me about him, he said. in a lot of ways, she said, he reminds me of you.
• if you always knew how it would end, he said, you might have at least saved us both the trouble.
• if you’re very quiet, you can sometimes hear the stars, she said. you’re not listening to the sighs of stars, he whispered, but to the impossibility of desire.
• you’ve made all those promises before, she said. the least you could do is come up with some new ones.
• can we role-play? she asked. who do you want to be? he asked. i’ll be her, she said, and you’ll be you.
• he never knew when to stop, she said, but i suppose that was part of his charm.
• i don’t really see how your need for closure necessarily entails fucking me one last time, she said.
• do you have one for me:

If you have one that you’d like to contribute please do send it along.

I’m getting excited about some of the ideas and inspiration I’m feeling lately. I’ve got my kitchen all cleaned and organized in preparation for moving in there and just making art. I really work well when I’m standing up at a counter top.

The way I write in journals is a bit scattered and slapdash but I do it almost religiously and I guess that’s the point. I have kept some sort of journal for almost all of my adult life. Since before high school for sure. I have always tried to document every single day of my life in some way or another and my daily documentation almost invariably comes in one of these forms: