Mammalian and Human, Examined Non-Scientifically, of course. August 4, 2009

Above all I need to re-align my perspective of human beings. We are more than flesh animals who bear our children in wombs, have hot blood and feed offspring from nipples. We are psychological beings (I forget, I forget) and we have behavioral responses to our current stimuli based on past instances of behavioral shaping.

So, while it doesn’t allow me to take full responsibility for things that may be wrong (my brain is filled with so much noise and my greatest fear is that any of you would look upon what’s there and scrunch your faces in un-delight), it does allow me to give up some amount of control and reconnect with my innerself when I realize that perhaps every fuck up is not entirely my fault, not solely a glitch in an elaborate chemical system, but a series of moments and repeated consequences that have shaped me into somebody who, while despite openly touting the beauty of the world, has found desire for self-validation through a savior-complex and working too hard (while never quite finishing anything for fear of it being imperfect- like this sentence, for example).

There has never been a burden so heavy as conscious awareness combined with subconscious response. I can get better only once I recognize that I am one cog out of billions that run in the elaborate system of psychological behavioralism in addition to chemical movement and the firing of synapses.

How to Make Jewelry and Bowls from Old Records! July 12, 2009

I set aside all of last Sunday to be creative. I haven’t had a creative day in a while and therefore have felt lackluster and understimulated. In the morning I made some coffee and took it down to the garbage alley behind my apartment complex to smoke a cigarette, sip at some fresh brewed cuppa joe, and decide ultimately what I wanted to do for the day. 
Would I paint? Write poetry? Play guitar? I had not yet made a decision when I looked over and discovered this in my back alley:

A whole pile of discarded records! I remembered seeing a while ago that people made bowls from melting down the records and so I picked through the albums to find the ones with the best covers and names, finished my cigarette, and gathered them up in my arms. I went back into my apartment and started doing some research. I found a lot of websites that told me how to make a bowl from a record, but in terms of making jewelry from the vinyl, it was almost impossible. I decided to wing it! I drew out some quick idea sketches and got to work.

THE PROCESS:

I chose records with covers I liked so I can make craft projects out of those later.

I gathered up the materials I thought I’d need:

(in the end I didn’t use the ruler, I free handed most of the designs or sketched directly onto the vinyl)

I set the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit:

I drank some more coffee while I waited for the oven to reach its temperature:

When it finally warmed up enough I placed a record on a cookie sheet and set the timer for 8 minutes:

Then I drank some more coffee:

I had wanted to make the cute vinyl cuffs that you can buy (but not learn how to make) on the internet. So I decided to start with that, the vinyl was very hot at this point and I mentally prepared my fingers for pain before grabbing ahold of the record and cutting a strip that appeared to be of the desired specs:

It cooled very quickly and so I popped it back in the oven. I realized then that I would have to be both patient in the process while simultaneously working quickly. When the record came back out of the oven I cut it into more workable pieces for I had also wanted to design various necklace charms, rings, bracelets, and earrings, as well as vinyl guitar picks.

I had made the mistake of using a double sided recorded as my first experimentation album, and so you should avoid doing this as the vinyl is thicker and cools much more quickly – although I found it was the least likely to curl up.

I finally got around to shaping my first cuff. I didn’t have anything shaped like my wrist, but luckily I’m one of the toughest people that I know, and so I let it cool a little and shaped it on my own wrist. Again, you have to work quickly while being patient with the material:

It ended up being too big, and plus the edges ended up being very sharp. I cut it down further, not realizing I needed to round the part that clips open for your wrist at this point:

While I was working with the cut up vinyl I decided to try my hand at making a bowl. It’s not technically a bowl since it has a hole in the center, but it makes an impressive, awe-inspiring candy dish. Here’s what you do:
1. Oven at 200 Fahrenheit
2. Place a metal or glass bowl upside-down in the oven on a cookie sheet.
3. Place an album on top of the bowl (which is upside-down, so you are placing it on the bottom of the bowl).
4. Let the album get soft, you’ll see it curving down the side of the bowl, this will take around 5-10 minutes
5. Carefully pull out the cookie sheet, lift the soft record from the bowl, flip the bowl over, and press the record inside of it to make it bowl shaped. You can shape some of the curves in the bowl as it cools:

When it is fully cooled, remove it from the bowl and voila! Presto! Increible!

With the other record, I kept the cut up pieces in the oven and rotated working with them so I could cut them down gradually (it cools quickly!). In the process I made a better cuff:

I also made some earrings:

Some more bracelets, guitar picks (the hardest to shape, I had to file them down later on), and a ring:

I had made guitar picks out of old credit cards before, but the vinyl was both much harder to shape and to file down:

I made a pair of the guitar picks into earrings.
And here’s the collateral from the first album:

The lightening bolt is a necklace charm, so is the asymmetric heart, 3 bracelets, a ring, four guitar picks, and a pair of earrings! (the earrings are the charms, they drop down from the fish hook style earring hooks.

My roommate, Gillian’s, kitty was so happy!

I popped another album in, set the oven for 8 minutes and did some more waiting:

I made a couple more bowls in the process (it’s a very quick thing to make):

Look at these cool album covers!

I started cutting up the second vinyl album, starting with cutting around the center label so that I would have only raw vinyl to work with. I mustered some additional inspiration and shaped from a large scrap a base to set the candy dish upon!

I left the base free from the bowl so that if somebody did not want the base, they could have just the dish without the obligatory base, as my boyfriend, Alex, said he disliked it set upon the base.

With the other part of the second vinyl album I made the following:

A set of lightening bolt earrings, two leaf necklace charms to hang down (one lower than the other), two thinner bracelets, another ring, and a guitar pick.

Here’s me modelling one of the thinner bracelets:

Ooh la la!

I also made more bowls:

I made two of the bowls vagina shaped, one of them is already designated to my favorite feminist gay, Joey Hood. I also already gave out one of the regular round bowls.

I tried to paint on some of the vinyl, it turned out okay, but wasn’t as spectacular as I had hoped it would be:

So now I have an overabundance of vinyl things and bowls and such, and if you would like something, this is what I have to give away to you, dear friends!

-Two vinyl rings (one of which is painted)
-A pair of lightening bolt earrings
-A pair of S curl earrings
- 4 or 5 bracelets (two of which are painted)
- A couple of guitar picks
- A double leaf charm necklace (the leaves are big and your friends will drool with envy)
-An asymmetrical heart charm for a necklace
-A couple of record bowls with bases

If you want any of them, e-mail me at (jdeboer@ – kendall. edu without the spaces or dash)

I am planning on making these as quick gifts for house-warming parties. They can also be sealed to be food safe if you wanted to use them as chip bowls, so that you can clean them in the sink without making the cardboard center soggy. It’s a forgiving medium, it can be shaped and then reheated several times.

There’s some more information on the web, but not much. I’m no expert, but if you have any questions about working with it as a craft medium, please feel free to e-mail me also!

A rough draft poem: Stranger in the Subway May 10, 2009

STRANGER IN THE SUBWAY

Stranger in the subway
I want to stretch my legs and
put my feet
on top of your feet.

My heavy, heavy lower eyelids,
your flushed, apricot cheeks.
Let’s go home and sleep next to eachother
without touching one another
except for one of each of our wobbly,
tired knees, and maybe a few cold toes.

I have low-wattage lightbulbs in
my hallways. They make the night
glow like bronzed skin and
you could pull the cord that turns
it on, if you would like.
Would you like?

We could pretend we are in the Caribbean
basking in the sun, and stand very still
between rooms, wringing our hands, imagining until
the cockroaches climb the walls and
interrupt shared sentiment.

Or we could go to your apartment:
where do you live, dear lady?
“I am not the conclusion, I am
the continual question.”
That’s how you’d respond
and I would understand.

And so, I will go alone to the room
that asks me to exist within it –
conscious, moving about as if
a baby in amniotic fluid
floating lazily in a large womb. I will
throw out a limb
so you know I am here.
Yes, yes. I recognize your voice.

The teacup on my desk
adorned with pears and leaves
is hollow but for a stain
and I understand the way it
looks at me with such
heavy longing and sadness.

The driving rain outside the window
beats against everything. It says to me
something along the lines of how
I should get going before what I have
loved changes me into something
I will loathe irreversibly.

I want to put my feet upon
its feet, ask it keep quiet. Explain
that if it hushes up then
I will explain the thing
that has needed (for so
unbearably long) to be explained:
“I am not the hypothesis’ conclusion. I am
every continual, silenced, and unanswerable question.”

Yes. Yes. I recognize that voice.

The Universe is Whispering Sad Hopeful Secrets Into My Ears April 21, 2009

Today it was drizzling harder than it has in a long time and it felt fresh and spring-like and as I was walking towards the train I noticed the only tree on the block that had a full bloom of blossoms and I stood under my umbrella taking in the small, white clusters of flowers being rained upon for a few moments only to realize that the tree was in front of the church where I saw a homeless man two weeks ago get down on his knees in front of the locked doors to pray in the mid-day sun.

Uptown Manhattan March 9, 2009

With the warmth comes the drunk neighbors outside of the bar, saying to me “Don’t smoke that cigarette, it’s bad for you. Smoke me instead.” The small, flashing neon sign advertises “Chicas Exoticas,” and the pool hall is alit. Men wearing khaki pants and wristwatches and flannel shirts take shots at cue balls and wipe the sweat from their glasses onto their thin sleeves. The music and the conversation escape through the windowpanes, not thick enough to hold it in, still not as thin as my own skin.

I am walking past and my eyes are searching the sidewalks for the community cat and she is no where to be found in the rain, I recall: Cats dislike water. A sign above a bodega advertises “A dozen roses, $10.00″ and I think to myself, jokingly, ‘well hot tamale!’ and then think, ‘yes, they probably serve hot tamales there as well.’

Little speckles of rain coat the cars parked on the side of the road. My face. My jacket. Another man says, “So beautiful,” and after a pause, “I swear!” I fought with this man a week ago outside of the laundromat. He was angry that I sat down to have a cigarette. He began shouting at me. I pleaded with him, “Porque no me dijo? Porque?” The alcohol and the exotic women must have helped him to forget this incident.

Inside of my building I notice a new emergency exit sign in the lobby. I wish it led to some place that felt like escape. Later, in my bedroom, I think ‘all of this space is mine, it isn’t much but it’s enough of a place for me to think in and work in and exist.’ Compared to the home I grew up in, it should be written off. I should be written off? Sometimes my head writes poetry and it does not make sense. It is how I exist.

Sometimes when I walk I pay attention to the trash, what does it say about anything? An empty, plastic, purified water jug, a styrofoam cup, an opened condom (used?), a pin that reads ‘Tell Dem Slavery Done!’, a very large hairpin, candy wrappers, a tumbleweed made from fake hair, and all of the etcetera’s you could ever imagine. Does it say anything about anything? Have I ever said anything about anything?

No, no. Of course not. It’s only in me to create and to keep the substance in. You know, they tell me they don’t want to hear it. Not explicitely. They don’t say it, per se. They imply with their gestures and their calculated conversation, and I was never taught to be that, and I wonder what it is like to know their secret codes, their rules that make being alive easier for them. If you know what to do then you can interact with everybody else who knows what to do. No, not me. I am strange. They have told me that too. Explicitely. They say it. Per se.

That is why I am not invited into the bar with the pool tables and the lacquered balls on the felt tables that are easy to mar. That is why I am not invited to speak the language or shop for mangoes or listen to loud music outside of my apartment in their cars. That is why they yell at me in Spanish outside of the laundromat, and when I beg them not to be angry in Spanish it upsets them more. Use your words, your only power, but keep them inside of your head, lest they lose all power on a recipient who does not want to hear it. Tell us another story about a cat, okay? Don’t say that you are fluid and sensitive and have observed our garbage and judge our priorities and character by it. Do you know any jokes about tugboats?

No, but I have one about choo choo trains.

Como Se Dice. February 21, 2009

Ask for unquestioned support and you will be denied.

Oh god, don’t admit how you feel. Don’t say it. Not because it will offend but because they won’t understand it. You see? It’s not angst, it is quiet resignation, coupled with experience, coupled with that (those) time (times) I tried to explain and then you laughed at me for crying.

But give up the weight. Remember: I am free so long as I allow myself to be.
Or not?

Rework ideals, ignore conflicting emotion that sits hot in your chest and grates against your ribs like fingers moving quickly along vertical, metal fences. It makes that noise like unzipping a zipper. But do not unzip the zipper, staple it shut, lock it up, keep it inside. Sexuality like heated buttons, overcome what feels natural. Learn to fear what you feel because they don’t understand.

You see? I asked you, do you see? It is not angst. It is quiet acceptance. It is those times you laughed while I cried when you should have held my hand and said, “Hush up. Be quiet now. I believe in you.”

But let go of the weight. Isolation does not make the implication of importance, or of one who is special. I do not think I am so special, or different. I am alone, that’s what I was saying. I recognize (RECOGNIZE) that I am not the only existing being to have ever felt this way. I am just saying. I was just saying. I do not connect, like faulty technology, like stranger’s hands in a crowd, like my ideologies and my families: I do not connect.

And I would throw out the luggage if it made it too heavy for the plane to soar. I would irrigate the soil. I would tell you that I finally understand: I am a _________ of _________ out of place (do not say it, they will not understand), holding your strange, unfamiliar hands in the crowd.

A Snippet February 10, 2009

The presence of one thing implies
an acute awareness of the absence
of all others. For instance:

Your arms are not his,
I am glad for this.

I did not misdirect my anger today.

When you rub the small of my back
it makes me feel safe.

On Getting Robbed February 8, 2009

All of the cash in my wallet was stolen last night by a stranger.

I threw up in the cab on the way home.

I sat outside of my building, gathering myself, drinking some water, resting for a moment before heading into my apartment when two men came over and started talking to me. I ignored them, pretended to be calling somebody, when they said, “It’s okay, we’re from the neighborhood, don’t be scared.”

I continued ignoring them, it was 5 a.m. and I was in no shape to take on potential confrontation. When suddenly, a woman came across the street and started yelling at them. I found this to be uncomfortable, and stood up to go into the lobby of my apartment when she said, “Yeah, that’s right bitch, you better get home before I rob you of your purse.”

It’s the principle of things, you see? It’s not the money or the time of the morning or the amount of liquor. It’s the principle. It’s honesty and respect.

My heart is all twisted up in sadness for the human race. We’re not good to one another yet expect decency and honesty from others to us.

I’m going to go grill some squash and boil some wheat pasta and sautee some spinach and shitake mushrooms and make some tea and try to make some sort of sense out of people. Really, I want to believe in the best in all of us, and hope that we want to exercise it, but you’re not giving me much to keep faith on. A few bread crumbs, is all, an eyelash or two.

As Long As We Suffer Apart From One Another You Can Hold My Hand But You Can Never Hold My Heart February 5, 2009

Last night I jumped up and down and cried and laughed and I’ve been laughing at the hard stuff so often now and it feels good because it means that silly things that used to hurt me are falling off like teensy flakes of skin.

Last night I cried and laughed and jumped up and down and it was because after 11 months of carrying your weight and feeling sorry for myself for not being what you wanted me to be and for your not allowing me to help you and for your heroin addiction and your cold shoulders and your lieslieslies, I finally let it all go. All of it.

All
of
it.

Gone.

And I can point to the catalyst but can not figure out why, and I am afraid to question it because it feels so fucking wonderful to be free of you.

My god, it’s about time I moved on with my life.
I forgive you, but more importantly, I FORGIVE MYSELF.

(If I could compress a hundred emotions into one word it would be this little two-syllable wonder: overdue).

It’s Only the Best Way to Say It February 4, 2009

I still refuse to acknowledge winter.

Every day I first put on a pair of cozy moccasins and walk around my apartment imagining the feel of warm breeze on my legs. I later change to weather appropriate shoes and it starts my day off with a general crankiness that is hard to shake off.

I just want comfort and beauty and ease. So why did I follow a life filled with hardship, and struggle, and a pocket of glaring ugliness?

It made you laugh when I said it a few years ago, so I say it to others now: it probably has a lot to do with being an internal masochist.