Sunset Rewind in Naples.

My memory is so swiss cheesy I'm making note of what I've already read at Sunset Rewind:

July: I did a modified version of my Parker/Alienated piece and Birds in the Rhizome.
Aug: Thirst and Murder of Crows.
 
Sept: Press and Replay (The Remix)

Oct:... I think I will do Sanguine Penguins and Red Penguins tonight.

I keep wanting to write completely new stuff.
But so far, I just rearrange and rewrite old stuff.
I made up "Red Penguins" today out of an old blog post/crazy rant. I salvaged some bits, added new, and hopefully it will come out sounding like it does in my head.

I wrote Sanguine Penguins because I love that sanguine means both cheerful and blood red. The two very different definitions are interesting to me. It's a word that I find very bipolar or right-left brained or north-south pole-ish, or other similar black-white flip side kind of ideas.


Sanguine Penguins

i am poised.

open.

towed and drawn out...

not just murderous,

but steadfast!

cheerful!

hell bent on ballast!

and off she sails...

cheerful and bloodthirsty

combined together.

not just a tether to rage, but...

delight.

pendency poised by the mere whim of a penguin. 
not just sanguineous,

but also the SCREAM-SING-SANG-ING out of,

"Igneous!! Hold fast to the rock!"

and equilibrium held it's breath.

cheerful and bloodthirsty

combined together.
not just a tether to rage, but...

delight.

one toe of weight perched just right?

enough quip to slew the seas.

webbed feet,

weighing down like an ink blotter.

standing firm,

against sanguinary eddies.

soles sucking breath,

in the drown of the undertow.

cheerful and bloodthirsty

combined together.

not just a tether to rage, but...

delight.

Red Penguins

This is the story of Dead things crying from the Other Side of Somewhere, calling to be Let Back Through. written, wrongly, dis-according-ly-clanging the wrong-out-of-alignment-Tune... this is that story retold true.

The tide is coming in.

That means that right now, all the crazy and Rolls-of-Coasters are Spooled out To SEE.

Everything on the cusp, a wave of crashing-CLAMoRing lucidity.

Know that at the last turn of the tide, The Pearls were not slopped out to the Swine but Safe in the Riddles of Oysters.. to protect the TRUTH... because every time the tide slides back out you lose the answers again.

wisdom rolling away like marbles.

shifting sand slipping through the brain-pan.

trickling time.

losing hold of everything.

but Know, that even if you spend too much of  your Time on Beaches, sniffing suspiciously at the scr-itch of the Sand... a snickering twitch, crab-scrabbling at your feet, scritch-scratch calling you back... out... to brave that Seethe once Again... for reasons you can't quite recall...

Hello? Hello? Empty seashells keep hanging up on you...

Know, that Even if this moment of Clarity falls away again and becomes lost for a Time, know, that you withstood this crazy surging tIDE and you. did. not. step. back.

And, that is pretty much the first step. (not stepping) Now, hold that pin-wheel-spin-wheel-rocking-ship STEADY you Mad-Captain-Ahab, You. Be Still and FIGHT the current. Keep your Head above Water. Blur those Wings my baby Humming Bird. THRUM-PURR and HOLD FAST TO YOUR POSITIONS!!

(Now might be a Time for a dramatic, bloodcurdling SCREAM of DISSENT!!!! I find it can be quite steadying...)

Remember, you are "arms outstretched and head thrown back" you are that insanely-laughing-impossibly-abstruse-non-conforming-psycho who Recalled that... "RAGE" is not just for Cereal-killers anymore...

-Amanda may Knot-Yet-Know how to Hold On to a sea-Turtle... but that crazy-Cat Can Catch As Catch CAN and she'll GRAB! GRAB! GRAB! Scramble and steal whatever Knowledge she can... And what that girl CAN DO? Well. She can really Hang on to a wing-ing- singing, tap dancing penguin, that's What.

So, Bring it, Whale.

Because I walk with Sanguine Penguins Thundering and Happy-Feeting My Path through this Icy Strait of a Dire Way.

(And, I carry a Vor-Pore-ous Cricket BAT. arrGrrrgh!)

that's right. i have a crazy penguin army.

(and delusions of pirate grandeur.)

what's black and white and red all over?

penguins covered in blood, that's what.

(they were natives of the south pole, kidnapped, bird-snatched, forced to don eye patches at the crazy command of some ego-maniacal Fish out of water who thought that the north pole could use some penguins too.)

it didn't work out for the fish.

there was a mutiny.

a messy one.

and a captain position became available.

so now they march with me... while the tide holds.

but this sea-sickly bipolar rolling, unevenly swinging decks shuffling madly to keep up with the toss of this pirated ship... i fear this mood is running out of swing.

Know, that i will find you again my dear.  the threat of even keel is screaming in my ear... but someday i will find a way to hold on to what i hear. there was something about... oysters... all my cheerful red thoughts are bleeding out to gray. leaving me in the stark wake of black and white thinking and short of a full deck... i'm coming to a piratical sabbatical... time to walk the plank...

The tide is going out.

EVIL Cometh. SHORE UP! HOLD FAST!

it eraseth me...

Aspie self vs. Bipolar self

I feel catatonic.

Catatonic. Cat tonic. A tonic for cats. A lap cat as a tonic. Distractable. Retractable.

Obviously I know I'm not actually catatonic. I'm not a complete idiot. Regardless. I still want to say I feel catatonic.

I feel catatonic.

Non verbal. Non verbal like my mouth is too slow and stupid to react in real time. Voiceless but not without words in my head. Non verbal like that. Slow. Surreal. Out of sync because I'm functioning slower than reality. Plodding zombie shuffle. Expressionless face. Am I here? Am I here?

There is depression that can be tampered with, forced, made to snap back like a hassled dog. And then there is the blank kind, the below suicidal kind, the nothingness and nothing to reason with kind. Everything numb and hard to reach. Expressionless face. Am I here? Am I here?

Been awake nights. I watched the first two seasons of Homeland on demand. Claire Danes does a pretty good job of acting like a bipolar chick. I don't really think a lot about being bipolar. I relate to the Asperger's label so much more. Sure, I was OFFICIALLY DIAGNOSED as bipolar long before I discovered Asperger's, (Aspie's get way hung up on being diagnosed officially, so I like to specify. And also mock the officialness with caps lock.) but I never really took to that label.

I guess because, at the time, the doctors admitted that I was not just bipolar and that there was some other thing about me that they couldn't quite put their finger on. And I knew that was right. And I pretty much thought they were idiots. And then when I found Asperger's I was all like-- THAT'S IT!!! And so then I just took off identifying and learning about that since that was ME and I continued to ignore the whole bipolar thing.

Plus, I tried several mood stabilizers which did nothing to stabilize my mood, so I felt like- how can I be bipolar if zero drugs for bipolar affect me? Plus, I'd known a few other bipolar people, and I didn't really relate to them, so the bipolar part of myself seemed to be either mislabeled or unimportant.

But then I watched Claire Danes flip out over a green pen and go crazy with highlighters and try to explain to her boss that things were "high purple". So, if that is bipolar behavior, well, I totally do that. And it's embarrassing. But mostly, it's just really sad. Because the thing is, my brain DOES work and IS super smart when I have episodes like that. But I sound like an idiot, because I always feel like the people around me can see and understand what I'm talking about when I have epiphanies. But, no, they are not following. I'm always playing by myself.

Anyway, I'm sitting here all catatonic-depressed. And I think I want to snap myself out of it. I dragged myself to the library and I tried to listen to music to kickstart my brain, make it circulate, distract it into another direction-- but I think maybe I force myself to stay depressed so much because being more happy/manic is worse. More isolating.

Because I CAN force myself to slide that way. I can tip the scales but I can't stop the inertia. I can force everything to slur and rush like laughter, but the problem is that it hurts a lot more to be unloved and rejected and misunderstood in that state. It's silly and happy but it's also super vulnerable. And I don't have a mediating speed. It's either full throttle or full stop. So I think I want to be full throttle all the time, I want to be creative all the time, and fast all the time, and not care. But... I do care. And that's the problem.

I don't need everyone to love me. But I do need a few people to love me. And I do have Garret, which is more than I probably deserve. But I guess I'm greedy.

I write things when I'm feeling stuck and depressed to try and get my brain moving. I guess I don't really have a point to this post other than that. So, in conclusion, cats are awesome.