I have been eating...

...quite a lot of spinach. Right now I'm at the coffee shop called Winning eating more of the spinach and drinking my second cup of coffee in two weeks. I am sitting by the succulents and spikulents in the windowulents. It is my second favorite table, it is small and round with two small round chairs.

Art

I am going to put up art in here in March! March.
I am going to Oregon in December. December!
It is November, November? November.

It is November

I feel no need to give anyone any advice. Sometimes someone will present a problem like "I can't eat gluten" and I will think of several things that don't have gluten in them and happily list them over several months. "eggs!... dandy blend!... this cookie!" But it's not really advice. You are not required to eat any of these things.

"You are not required to eat any of these things"

These are some things I overheard: "the Haitian sensation!" "the Rio Grande clams!" These are some things from a really lovely evening: shocking windows, a few goosebumps, arnica, sequins under swaying lights, flows following folds flocking, and warmth finally. And falling asleep.

the Haitian Sensation.

My roommate Stephen Perry is about

to go on tour...

(this is the creepy image I made him for a t-shirt). Hope he uses it!

Happiness

My time with Americorps is over. It is sad in a reminiscent way but now I can lobby again, and make enough money not to qualify for food stamps... exciting times! I've stumbled into two new jobs, and although I searched fruitlessly and anxiously for months prior to finding them nothing could have been easier or more pleasant than the stumbling that happened just as my Americorps term came to an end.

With my first employer I share a name, a hometown, a birthday and the characteristic of having unusually bumpy thumbnails-- I believe that these coincidences helped me get the job at the herb store, that and my blind confidence.

For my second job I answered a craigslist add that described my skills with ridiculous precision. The one odd skill was "willingness to learn to handle a variety of animals, and show them to other people." The advertisement--although exact, never said just what the job was. I was asked for an interview and directed to the zoo. My interview was conducted amidst peacocks. I interpreted this as a good sign. I was asked back for a second interview and then offered the job-- which I now know is to travel around to schools in Albuquerque in a van that converts into a miniature museum (complete with plants and animals) that describes the ecosystems through which the Rio Grande travels. My particular responsibilities are to create and administer fun art projects.

So, Americorps has ended and new times are beginning in the desert. Just now it is raining and I am glad.

"J"

If we build it they will play

My house is made of sheet.

Bethany's house is made of cloud.

This keeps us going the right direction.

Coins In the Bean Jar

The Gallery is getting better, Bethany keeps talking to herself, telling herself to go to bed. I am tuned into the stories on This American Lift. (ha! Life) The door is so beautiful.

There are sheets stretched between the trees. It's 3:51.
If I have time
I'll keep coins in a bean jar.


CC

P.s> am tucked into fort. Ready to sleep a little while

Places to Go to Bed.

1.

This is a nice place to go to bed. It's walls are thin, but comfortingly pink, and the ceiling only reaches about 4.5 ft high which cozies the ambiance. There is a lamp. The pillows blankets and sleeping bags make the cold hard gallery floor into a lumpy, soft and warm floor.

2.

This attractive fort/tent situation can usually be found in once abandoned buildings now being converted into something else. This particular fort was surrounded by giant chunks of missing floor, dust, and strange items. But within its walls one finds the contents normally reserved for the insides of houses. A very good place to sleep.

PROPAGANDA of My Friends!

My friends will be found this Friday in the John Sommers gallery --the subject of posters with Propagandish tendancies. I can't wait.

On pillows, in the fort.

ASLEEP IN THE GALLERY THIS MORNING, I HAD THIS DREAM. CLICK ON THIS TEXT.

Hoboculous Twinius Galerius

To further the purposes of living in buildings that are not your house Bethany and I are building forts inside of a gallery.

My first fort is complete. It is in the south corner of the room, cloth walls strung up with yarn and nails. There is a blanket covering the tiles of the gallery and my sleeping bag is sitting by the lamp. Sarah Daegling, are you reading this?
-sheets and lamps in galleries forever!!!


Bethany constructs a fort in the North corner of our new home. She's stapled a tarp to the wall and is taking measurements for cardboard.


We are a new species: Hoboculous Twinius Galerius: The conjoined unit, now homeless entity, building it's tents in a gallery.



They gave us special permission to sleep in the gallery for two nights, but lock the doors to the rest of the building so the homeless won't come in. This means that only one of us may leave the building at a time, and the other must stay within. In order to pursue our shared purpose of art-making we must operate now as two parts of one being: each dependant on the other: the twinius.

Being this collective-animal we lose our separateness: time and space we could take as an individual functioner is unavailable to those who must operate within a certain radius of each other. Therefore the houses we call "home" cease to be places we can abide at this moment in time, we become homeless or, hoboculous.

Finally, our particular state of hoboculom twiniism only fully exists because of the conditions of this gallery which is why we belong to the particular genus of Galerius.

I have to delete the butts

I am sitting at Brickyard pizza sipping slowly on a second beer. I have been looking for work like a pinata looking for candy: that is anywhere except within. (Do pinata's look within?). But recently something shifted and I decided to enjoy myself a lot more. Therefore I began a different job search which was instigated by the creation of a magic spell which I wrote on three bright pieces of paper, blessed with water, a found marble and a rock I got from a friend found at the junction of a river and the ocean. I also dressed in pink (an outfit I am still wearing now (24 hours later)). Thus prepared I got on my bike and personally began an investigation of three places I would love to work in Albuquerque.

At this point I am aware that whatever other actions I take in my search for a job in Albuquerque (by September 1st!) the job is now taking care of itself. Each enthusiastic word, bike ride, old lady I talk to, plum I eat in the interest of the job will help me, but I may have no idea what is really happening until it's all fallen together--- candy piled on the metaphorical ground that is my life.

In this cosmic state of job searching I have begun sifting through craigslist by searching for words like "beautiful" and "soul." I found an interesting opportunity that I responded to using this method, and wanted to attach a link to my blog when I realized that one of my most recent posts contains a picture of two butts.

Saw See Saw

I'm illustrating a book for my friend Richard, who is terribly clever.

Waiting with Legs

Aloha!

Waiting at the Kona open air airport. Me, flouner (found flower), and night.

What hour is this in the hours of travel? The eleventh? I have returned to the mainland, Mahalo U.S. Airways. But now but one-hour-flight-away from home the plane's rudder malfunctions and I find myself seated on the carpet of the Phoenix airport.

The carpet of the phoenix airport:

It looks like planes poised precariously in the midst of a thousand simultaneous tornadoes--- Or maybe the planes were hurled into a giant pond. The ripples in each of their wakes only block them briefly from smashing into each other.

So anyways, I'm seated here on disaster carpeting, drinking my Cinnabon coffee, hoping I get to Albuquerque in time to play a show. Is this how the Beatles felt? Did their plane rudder ever malfunction. I'm calling it a rudder, but maybe it's not called that.

In any case airplanes are a lot like boats. I was on a kayak yesterday in the pacific ocean. Green water everywhere, forever. Sometimes I got tired of rowing and watched the green hills of water lift me higher than the shore, then the hill would roll past and I'd be below it watching the shore retreat further every time. I panicked a little thinking I might be pulled out to sea. I would float, but I would be so thirsty and dizzy.

With this in mind I used the paddle again trying to pull a little in the direction I wanted to go. It seemed ridiculous pulling myself along the surface of the such a huge animal as the ocean. Like a mite making slow progress across the hairs of a running cat. But I did get to shore, and rode the last wave in like a roller coaster. Oh! Wahoo!

The sea near Waimanalo, O'ahu (renamed: Oh! Wahoo!) out of the car window. It was this turquoise sea that coaxed me silently out farther and farther from the shore.

I began this journey last night at 8 0'clock. I flew from Honolulu to Kona, and spent the next six hours sleeping fitfully between a soldier-type with a huge bull tattooed on his thigh, and a tiny coughing Japanese woman.

I woke up again and again: my head was rolling around in that horrible way it does on the plane or in a morning lecture. My knees felt like they'd been banging into things. My eyes closed compulsively. I had tiny dreams of my nephews' and niece's mouths. They have funny round mouths filling up with teeth and words. They were the most amazing funny thing in Hawaii for sure.

My mouth tries to be as funny.

An hour has passed since the last announcement. No news is good news, but in this case, no news is simply no news. New news would be nice. I'd like new nice news now, or nearly now. I'm negotiating finding another coffee shop. Negotiating with my legs.

Me: "Legs. If you stand up you can go look for coffee." said in a wheedling voice,

Legs: "But our knees hurt inexplicably and you don't even know where the sweet sweet coffee is!"

Me: "I'll give you two dollars!"

Legs: "That's a trick! It will still be your two dollars"

Me: "True true, clever legs..."

Legs: "yip."

Me: "You hear that legs? Yeah, that's right, another hour, at least. We might need that coffee."

Legs: "...or something a little stronger."

TO BE CONTINUED...

(2 minutes later)
Me: "Wait! Legs! oho! There's a new aircraft! Gate B5! Gate B5!"

Cinco de Communion

WE'RE ALL MY BROTHER.

We all put on Davids sweaters and Jackets that were lying in the crates he was leaving behind. David was wearing a lace Santa cap with pink fur around the edge and on the top. Sarah and I made it for him one Christmas. I was surprised he'd kept it until this point. Now it had filtered out of the dregs and he put it on his head.

David took a picture of us standing in his clothes, he cropped the heads like a thumb blocking them. We tried to stand like he stands, then we sat like ourselves in the rubble of his leaving. A type writer without a ribbon, ink spots on the floor, a spool of film marked "return to Lorraine Rene Cook," some white shoes without laces, sheets, a pile of clothes.

David asked if we'd follow him around the house, in a line, while he pushed smoke into every corner with a smudge stick. We agreed and followed him from corner to corner. He danced walked, I laughed. He was still wearing the lace hat.

We followed David outside of the house to porch by my window. David turned and smudged each of us with the smoke. He smeared cedar on each forehead. "Cedar to protect against evil" he murmured. He put the burning smudge into a ceramic pot waiting on the brick then threw the whole thing at a rock post supporting the roof. It shattered and the pieces fell.

We helped him carry his bags out to the car. He hugged us each goodbye and left to spend the night in the airport.

Adam Hooks

Musician

I made a myspace for the songs I record on my computer! SUPER low-fi, almost finished, but not always, singing in harmony with my self -sometimes singing in disharmony with myself. Hallways, birds, and fans (the whirring kind) in the background. I'll change em' up periodically.

Check out the tracks at

http://www.myspace.com/christyjoycook

(the audience at a show played by the Albuquerque Boys Choir)

Hands Down!

This is spring. It was slowly rolling out the end of the tube (in bubbling -sinking tones notes stone son(n)et) into the dark blue ditch full of evening. The surface of the moon was angling sharply up at the sky. Cool wind blew night out of its corners --from around the roots of the scraggle plants

now it's wandering in and out of cherry blossoms
stinking the day with cherry blossoms

Warm rooms become hot rooms, the pulse rises, the trees breathe out thin green wire lungs in clumps, or are gripped with seeds
time is measured by naps or warm days between snowfalls,

hands down, it's spring,
hands up, it's spring!

Richard Simmons shorts make appearances every half an hour, I froze my toes snow hiking the day before Easter, and we found where they keep the heat lamps in the biology building.