My little caged bird sings so sweetly for me.
He whistles while I sharpen my knives.
I keep him inside, sometimes his cage hangs in the sun.
The sun moves across the room, it is brightest at 3:05.

It falls across his cage.
He doesn't like the sun.
He prefers the shade.

I cover him at night, he doesn't need to see out into the dark anyway.
Bad things out there.

I found him in the forest, poked him with a stick.
I brought him home and locked him up.
I had the cage!
He likes it better here with me.  I know.
Sing for me! Sing! Sing!

Of places I'll never go.
Of those faces I'll never see.
So sweetly.
Ahhhhh.

I'll never let him go.


Thanks T.S. for the parakeet story

Night after Night

Night after night I sit here and watch her dance.

Sometimes the air gets so hot I can't breathe but I don't care.  I don't come down.
 Not anymore.

The girls, they come up and bring me whiskey.  Plenty of it.

There's my friend Lucky.  He always leans, even when he's drunk.

I can't stand the way some of these girl's are dressin'!

But I love to see her sitting and looking in the mirror.

To be invited up.....that is a big deal.  Means she likes you.

You could just bust in but.... I don't like to treat her that way.

Some nights I just prefer to watch.  From afar. Especially so she can't tell I'm watchin'.

If she knows you're interested, she'll take you for all you've got.

Stay back!  You want her to see me?

You dog!

 Well when I die, they'll be takin' me to the graveyard in Doc Sweeny's Black Moriah!

Believe it or don't.

I still feel a little funny having buried Old Chuck yesterday.

Was that his wife dancing tonight?

Lord, it's hot up here.

I won't go upstairs tonight.

Ever since that bad night/day and night with Apache May, I really haven't been the same.  

The same person I mean.

Who would be?

Christ.

I guess I feel better sleeping outside.

Good night.

a New Adventure! part 1

It was thursday and the gang was antsy.  
What haven't we done yet?  We've seen it all.
ho hum.
Yeah, life was starting to feel predictable and grey.
That's why when the Mystery of the Cave came up,everyone got really excited.
"Whaddya mean mystery?"


It turns out that you know that cave down by the river? Its kind of a hollow that the river carved in the clay bank.

                                                                                             Ok so it's not even a cave, its a hollow                                                     allright, call it a "hollow".  

Well the other day, a boat showed up there. 

 Stay with me.  A boat showed up there and there were some...things in it. 

 Strange random, antique-y kind of things.  Mrs. Jonesy stepped out of the  crowd first and tugged it up onto shore, trying to investigate it and almost broke her back doing it.  She started handling everything that was in that boat, kind of cringing while she did but still grabbing things almost like she had to.
The boat?  a painted rowboat, that's all.  Let me finish about Mrs. Jonesy!
So she was touching stuff like crazy, picking it up and throwing it down practically, leaning so far into the boat that we could barely see her as she dipped.  It was creeeepy.  Some of us kind of yelled out "stop" and "settle down Mrs." but no one stepped forward to help her.  No one wanted to touch her.  Finally her little boy ran out to her and got her away, sobbing.  She was sobbing and sobbing.
So we got a branch out of the forest and pushed the boat back over the bank into the "hollow".  Wanna see it? It's probably still there.

no one moved.
"scary stuff in a painted boat?"

end of part 1

Secondary - Wake up!

 I remember looking around the corner and not really remembering where I was or why I was even there.  When things start to look too familiar I take them for granted, but now everything is a little....


I feel unsafe and strangely unreal.

For one thing,  I'm sick of doing what's  right even when I don't believe in it.  Am I that malleable? What am I for, anyway? I just get disgusted with my waver-ability.  

 I decided to  wait and see, maybe the universe would tell me what to do?
 But you know, I kept waiting and waiting and that got a little boring.  I still felt  stuck.  I wasn't doing, seeing or hearing anything at all.  I considered just taking a leap and striking out on my own.

But I guess I still felt a little unsure about how to proceed.  So I finally decided to stay where I was. 
 I'm happier now that I've finally made a decision.  












thank you to Jennette Nielsen for letting me photograph her amazing treasures.  Her blog is called "Smashing Rubbish"