miss flint.

a sneak peak at the first of a new series...

new photos on etsy.

new to etsy.
dear to me.

friday. and saturday.

friday, at 4 pm in the laurel on forum, a professor visiting from unc-c will be giving a mini seminar on virginia woolf.

saturday night, at the flood gallery in the phil mechanics studio (109 roberts st.):
Queer Writer Girls 2...

Six Queer Writer-Girls to Read at The Flood Gallery Fine Art Center (in the Phil Mechanic Studios, 109 Roberts Street in Asheville, near The Grey Eagle).

Saturday February 27th at 7 PM

Camille Melody Cassada is an almost-graduate of Warren Wilson College who, at 24 years of age, spends most of her time around antiques, her two Jane Austen-named kittens, and her beautiful/painful mindset. She's a pale little thing with a penchant for semicolons, lace, and so-bad-it's-yummy pop music. In her opinion, the world needs more sequins, synchronized dance, and hyphenated words.

Becky Upham is a graduate of the UNC-Chapel Hill and holds an MA in Writing from Hollins University. She has been a teacher, cocktail waitress, fitness instructor, mother-of-three, dj, non-profit manager, race director and a drug rep, and now is writing a book.

Joanna Knowles, a graduate of UNCA, has published various poems and essays in local publications such as the Mountain Xpress and Rapid River. Two of her poems are in the current edition of The Nantahala Review. She was the recipient for the 2007-2008 Topp/Grillot Scholarship for poetry at UNCA and of the Carl Sandberg Award in 2008.

Amanda Gardner is a junior in the creative writing department at UNCA. She is a former migrant farm worker and backpacker who currently lives in Asheville with her partner Ashleigh.

Lori Horvitz’ short stories, poetry, and personal essays have appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies including The Southeast Review, Hotel Amerika and Thirteenth Moon. She is an Associate Professor of Literature and Language at UNCA.

Catherine Reid teaches creative writing at Warren Wilson College, where she specializes in creative nonfiction. She is the author of COYOTE: SEEKING THE HUNTER IN OUT MIDST, and co-edited two anthologies of work by lesbian writers, EVERY WOMAN I'VE EVER LOVED and HIS HANDS, HIS TOOLS, HIS SEX, HIS DRESS.

lights

i dreamed last night that i came upon a place in the forest where a small community had been. there was nobody there, but what remained was still connected to sources of power somehow. the buildings were like advanced tree-houses, with sturdy frames, lighting, and open sides that faced the direction of the sun rise. there were strings and strings and strings of white christmas tree lights connecting one "house" from another, and even arranged around some trees to give the effect of a may pole. as i came upon them, a man appeared out from behind something, and then several men, and then what seemed to be an entire village. they told me they had to leave. that "they" were coming to tear everything down, that they had been discovered and were considered trespassers. it was getting torn down soon, i was told, so i'd better look now, and remember everything. all of the lights were turned on and it looked like i skeleton with all the bare limbs in the cold.

as i looked, the lights began flickering and dying one at a time until they were all out, and you could only hear bulldozers in the distance.

amy bloom

went to see her read tonight at malaprop's, and bought this collection of her short stories.

i'm hopeful.

Gentleman Alone by Pablo Neruda

Gentleman Alone by Pablo Neruda

The young maricones and the horny muchachas,
The big fat widows delirious from insomnia,
The young wives thirty hours' pregnant,
And the hoarse tomcats that cross my garden at night,
Like a collar of palpitating sexual oysters
Surround my solitary home,
Enemies of my soul,
Conspirators in pajamas
Who exchange deep kisses for passwords.
Radiant summer brings out the lovers
In melancholy regiments,
Fat and thin and happy and sad couples;
Under the elegant coconut palms, near the ocean and moon,
There is a continual life of pants and panties,
A hum from the fondling of silk stockings,
And women's breasts that glisten like eyes.
The salary man, after a while,
After the week's tedium, and the novels read in bed at night,
Has decisively fucked his neighbor,
And now takes her to the miserable movies,
Where the heroes are horses or passionate princes,
And he caresses her legs covered with sweet down
With his ardent and sweaty palms that smell like cigarettes.
The night of the hunter and the night of the husband
Come together like bed sheets and bury me,
And the hours after lunch, when the students and priests are masturbating,
And the animals mount each other openly,
And the bees smell of blood, and the flies buzz cholerically,
And cousins play strange games with cousins,
And doctors glower at the husband of the young patient,
And the early morning in which the professor, without a thought,
Pays his conjugal debt and eats breakfast,
And to top it all off, the adulterers, who love each other truly
On beds big and tall as ships:
So, eternally,
This twisted and breathing forest crushes me
With gigantic flowers like mouth and teeth
And black roots like fingernails and shoes.

six words.

1. obsessed with the pursuit of truth.
2. my tree has no branches
3. most happy in quiet and solitude
4. the color of dusk. pink. gray.

i want. i need.

reading- Mrs. Dalloway and The Life of William Faulkner
watching- been watching The Office quite a bit, but not really any movies
listening to- alternations between Bjork, Fever Ray, and David Bowie
craving- chocolate
missing- my sister and my best friend
excited about- my new drawings and embroidery projects
looking forward to- the future
pining for- love. endless, encompassing, swallow-you-whole, love.
dreaming about- complicated love triangles and deviant sexual escapades
loving- my dog
drinking- coffe--lots
eating- mostly breakfast food
fearful of- becoming a drone to my own schedule

i want it to snow today.

of montreal

of montreal was amazing. i think i might wear makeup like this more often.

dream

i just woke up. i slept an hour longer than i was supposed to because i was dreaming of a friendship:

i transferred schools, for some reason, from unc-a to liberty, where i discovered on the first day of class that i wasn't anybody if i didn't have a pair of frye boots. my parents had driven me up there for the orientation (not quite sure why, since i drive and shit), but we were staying in a hotel room near the campus, and we were all just lying around. i looked like i was suffering from summer heat the way i seemed to be just melting down the side of the bed; maybe it was the plastic-like coating on the bedspreads. anyway, i thought it would be a good idea to call my long lost, and invite him up for the day. i was surprised at his quick agreement. he arrived in 2.5 hours. he didn't want to go anywhere, though. he didn't hug me, or greet me warmly. he just sat down across from me in the room, as if he was only there out of obligation, and let me talk. fearful of the silence that might grow between us if i stopped--of the possibility he might slip away if i stopped talking--but finally i ran out of things to say that didn't require responses--since he wasn't saying a thing--and he said it was time for him to go. i protested, saying he just arrived, how could he leave after driving so far after so little time? when he stood and started to leave, i noticed how different he looked. wan. sad. but he left.

the family left, and i went to campus where i met a girl who also had just transferred. coincidentally, we were to be room-mates, and it was her birthday. we went out that night to celebrate, and the town was exactly like asheville, and i kept running into people i knew. we were bonding and talking about our lives right when my alarm went off, and i woke up feeling cheated.

then i watched this awesome video.

etsy

new items on etsy.
sneak peak!

paper planes

it's brown, and blue, and yellow.
something warm to ward off the winter greys i seem to be wearing every day.

really, i just dressed around the new necklace by monserrat de lucca/defy, that i found at minx yesterday. i am being very frugal: pretty much all cooking and coffee at home, but i have a weakness for paper-planes, like the ones i used to write little love notes on in grade school and send through the air hoping it didn't land near the wrong desk, secretly hoping that the object of my affection didn't end up opening it. i saw this, and knew it was mine. it's brass and will patina over time, but because of the quality, won't 'turn' against skin.

bad

look at these awesome photos from a recent photo shoot featuring hip replacements clothing...


more on the site.

also, elementality's'vampire love' party moved to next friday night, the 12th, from 5-8 due to the projected weather conditions. come!