The moon was so pretty tonight! I was grateful for it, and the sunrise yesterday morning…
Neither photo comes close to capturing how beautiful it truly was though. They were gifts from the Universe.
I’ve spent the entire month cleaning and organizing in a way I haven’t done since I was in my early 20’s. I don’t know if I’ve ever done it in this apartment, and I’ve lived here for 16 or more years now… basically since the beginning of my transition. I’ve done some major cleaning, many times, but it’s been at least a decade since I’ve gone through it like this. Part of the reason I didn’t do it was because I knew I’d come across a lot of old papers that I wouldn’t be ready to cope with. I still need to go through them even more, but at least now I’m at a point where I can face what I find. It’s still been triggering though. I won’t say I was 100% ready for it, even now. I’ve been having some mental health attacks, feeling crazy and out of control and I’m not enjoying it but I suspect it’s temporary. A lot of the stuff I found was a comfort though. In fact, more so than the opposite, so I was glad to get a look at what I still have, because I always kept it with the intent to use it in some way… stuff like poems, art, photos, collages, books, letters, awards, report cards, etc… Well, I didn’t save my report cards; fuck those… but my alternative school did something called “evaluations” instead of report cards with letter grades. They wrote sent our parents or guardians a written report/evaluation of how we were doing, what we were good at, and what needed improvement. They were full of kindness from teachers that mostly all loved me. They mean a lot…certainly more than a generic report card.
Anyway, long story short (too late), I spent all month cleaning as much as I could, and then I got a couple cleaners who help people with disabilities and they spent 2 hours sweeping and washing all my floors Monday, doing the entire bathroom, and cleaning out a cabinet, plus taking out some heavy trash. When they left, I put all my stuff back on the shelves and hung my new orange curtains… Here are a few highlights
You can see I have a lot of art. I also collect stickers. I know I have a lot of sticker collecting friends too. Here are some of mine…
I’m just listening to some music now. I’ve been re-watching Game Of Thrones, I started querying a couple agents for my children’s book, and I changed the cover of my second poetry and art book, which I’ve been meaning to do for months because I hate the original cover, which was a close up of the picture I changed it to, but not zoomed in so much. It makes a huge difference.
I signed up for the next Jam’n Java Open Mic through Zoom, because I hope to announce my art show at The Armory before I perform, although I’m worried about stage fight due to these recent mental illness symptoms I’m fighting, but I’m gonna do my best. I should be fine. I also signed up to be part of a committee meeting through zoom to talk about a roadmap for behavioral health reform in the Massachusetts public mental health system. It’s been a busy day. I still wanna play keyboard for a good fifteen minutes and then wind down with a record.
Speaking of records though, a couple of the greatest hip hop albums of all time had some anniversaries this week.
The Infamous Mobb Deep from April 25th 1995. This duo of rappers Prodigy and Havoc from NY came up in the time of Wu Tang, Nas, Biggie, and other East Coast gangsta rappers. Mobb Deep is probably my favorite gangsta rap duo or group. This is a perfect album in many ways…
And then “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik” by Outkast from April 26th, 1994. I might not even be the hip hop addict I am today if it weren’t for Outkast. They are from Georgia. Big Boi and Andre 3000. This was their debut album…
That’s it! Goodnight and good morning!
