from happyrobot - updated 6/9/2026 12:33:23 AM https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp en-us https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10738 I heard: let's get into some good
trouble
The kind that -

If a fire were to rip past you and
smoke your bones to white, to a raw
nothingness. And if I were to stand there
smoking from the fire of you -

Everything is unfinished
except your Blue.
Blindingly bright, ages old, iceberg deep.
The soft sinking release in your waters.

Blue like the sky I anchored on in
Little Rock

A heart I buried in dark sky. High

I am
Lightening in the sky
Your grinding motivation and
unstoppable pulse
The one who crawls across the
rock to find you
I know how it feels
Who stops you from focusing
A sudden memory
A dream
A disrupting force
I cannot be broken - and you know,
no one does it quite like me



]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10631
This black wall cloud. This lumbering,
menacing, elemental spaceship.
With its 13 black tentacle arms
scraping across the landscape
each a low, slow wall of water,
persistent, cleansing.
In its wake, a lilac and blue sky,
a Turner painting from behind the mirror.
Are you the kind of person
who likes to watch the storm,
or be in the storm?
Or would you stand on the deciding line,
paralyzed and ululating?
That’s what I’m thinking as I
crane my head around wildly, trying to drive.
Careening all over the road
to get a glimpse of this spectacle,
trying to see why it chose this path
with me not in it.
Ah, I want to be in it.
Next time, maybe, it says.
Make more terrible decisions, and
then we’ll talk. Be less of an optimist,
use less smiley faces in your emails,
and less exclamation points.
Stop singing karaoke.
Stop driving too fast with the radio up.
Stop being honest with people and yourself,
and then maybe you’ll look up one day
and see me: this churning, rotating cloud
ready to push you down to the ground
until you cry for release and redemption.
Until then, it says, carry on.
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10630
American muscle baby
American hustle
The bustle and crush
The mad dash, lustful jumble.

Let the V8 rip
Grip the wheel let the world slip
Bye just passed you up
My 302’s like
Apple pie

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10538


santa monica



the moon at santa monica beach cuts like a silver shimmering knife across the black water.



* * * *



uganda



i was alone outside my tent at Semliki preserve watching the night sky fade. it was the deepest ocean, inverted, limitless. a blue spreading to a deeper and deeper blue still. until the black-silhouetted landscape and sky became one, and i could no longer see myself. occasionally, game lodge workers would walk by on the dirt path to the main house, their faces lit up by the light of swinging oil lamps. i watched a few float by in the distance, listening for the brush-step of lions. the sky was phosphorescent with stars.



i have never been so physically vulnerable in complete darkness as then, in the midnight of western uganda. sitting bait in utter blackness with my tent stubbornly zipped behind me. surrounded by a sparkling and twinkling black and diamond ocean. listening to the sounds of wildlife in the distance against the drumbeat of my adrenaline-thumping heart. 



* * * *



little rock



up the hill from the house, a yard like any other, but it was where I went to sit. i was young, 10 or so, but it was my retreat. i felt disconnected, preferential. purposefully different because it was my doing that got me there. i didn’t think about roller skating or boys or my math homework, i thought about nothing, again on purpose. my point, to just watch the sky and clouds and treetops and breathe in the moment and think on nothing but marking the passing of time with the clouds moving across the sky. that sky was my solace, and i can see it now and every day as if it were then. when i look past you, that's what i see.  if I’m ever abducted by the taliban, i know i will have a lot of competing thoughts and images swirling around, but I hope that is the last one in my head before I die.



* * * *



kansas



you called for a retreat from the daily war-campaign we wage, and so we packed up and headed west. we had no idea where we were going and neither one of us cared. the point was just to make it somewhere before sundown. on the outskirts of this tiny village, a real one horse town, we saw it: a soft, rolling prairie ridged by old oak trees with just enough wildflowers to give an impression of neglect. no one would find us here. for four days we talked: you about your life and dreams and me about mine. and the sky? it was everything you would imagine out there: grand and sunflower kissed. a piercing blue fading into a release of purple and gray, fading to night, like crushed velvet. the hush of a yellow dawn.
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10537

what I wrote on my response card before checking out:

what kind of cruel hotel gives you a room fridge with nothing in it? Hilton Honors. Hilton Honors your sobriety with an empty buzzing fridge with no booze. Hilton Honors you by seducing you with the possibility of earning points so your morning bagel is free but does not give you drinks or snacks in your room. Hilton Honors the fact that it is 4:30 pm and you just got off a long flight at BWI airport where baggage claim is shut down for no good reason and you are about to chew your hand off but now you have to go downstairs and scrounge for a granola bar because where is the room service menu. also, thank you for the turn down service and chocolate, it was divine. ps:  i broke the tv.]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10535

my spiritual medium cousin talked my head off tonight. 

i hate weddings with no assigned seating.  i'm too busy yapping it up with the normals and then when it comes time to sit down, the only empty seat is near the crazy cousin or the crazy aunt that no one wants to sit with.  you know the one. mine claims that her house has a spiritual portal to Brazil. seriously.  i’m eating lasagna from a heater tray, and she’s telling me that she’s clairvoyant, but only at night in her dreams and that her house has a bed of crystals that a lot of Canadians have been using lately.  (you didn't think this story wouldn't include something about Canadians, did you?)  the spirits are telling her she’s going to move to Brazil, and I’m thinking the spirits are telling me that I should have put ranch dressing on my salad, this Italian dressing is no good.  i can’t wait until the spirits tell her it’s time to sell her house. imagine the listing:

SMASHING INTERIOR! Georgetown style living and walk to metro! Owner upgrades include granite countertops, hardwood floors thru-out, spiritual portal to Brazil, and lots of natural light! Sparkles inside and out!

Prospective Buyer: wait what? can you go back to that thing about the portal? what was that?

Real Estate Agent: did I mention there’s lots of natural light?

forget the days on market, it has a spiritual portal to Brazil, people.  but is the owner taking that with her?  is that a fixture? does the seller disclosure specify that the portal is in fact operating and staying with the property? and is that covered by the homeowner warranty because i'm not going to buy a remodeled charmer if that portal breaks down right after we close and there’s no warranty on that thing.

on a happier note, at the rehearsal dinner there were brownies and cookies and when my dad saw my conversational pain, he left and returned with a six pack of Blue Moon that he plunked down on my table with a victorious look on his face that said you’re welcome.
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10482  

i rolled all my strength and
all my sweetness
up into a ball
and tore through it all.

i caught the wind and
the wave and
sent flowers 
to the grave
'ere i fall.
and still i fall.

for wanting, i persevere
my secret, always wanting
just to live and then
just to die
and that is all.

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10458
So this is it
The heartbeat
The hidden key
The few hours we have behind these doors
And the rip raw hunger I feel for you, this emptiness that never ends
That can never be satisfied
Tonight
I saw the moon behind the branches of a tree
I was told once that wishes made to this moon come true
I could have wished for world peace, for solace
A beautiful body, a beautiful mind, a beautiful life
Instead I made a wish for you
For you and all the misery that brings
Sweet misery.
Rip this, rip that.
Rip away, rip away.
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10455

on the same web page as Meet Thai Singles!, this:

i go from loving to not loving you
from waiting to not waiting for you
my heart moves from cold to fire

as it says, when i hate you, i still bend toward you
when i love you, i want to become you and be in you
when we are apart, i feel time and space between us
and i have to think of you to think, i won't think about you

fruitless, blissful, this.]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10443

i've always loved the water.  i love its stillness and quiet.  it's the cover of darkness but in blue and white, or the red of an underwater light that i am reaching for.  in it, i am enveloped and also free.  it cools the fire.

for my tenth birthday, my folks threw me a pre-season birthday party at the local pool.  we were wild that day -- the pool normally wouldn't be open for months but it was all ours -- leaping off the diving board, raiding the snack bar, marco polo, truth or dare.  my dares involved diving board tricks - i wanted them all:  back flips, front flips, back dives, pikes, cartwheels, and for me, the more dangerous cutaway.  for those of you not in the know, a cutaway involves standing backward on the board, jumping back and up, and diving in towards the board.  the board always grazed my head and to this day, i can still see the detailed edge of it as i skimmed by going down.

that day though, i came down on the board.  hard.  i went straight up and i came straight down.  i saw it coming right at me and for a little kid, it may have been the first time i thought oh fuck.  my head and then body crushed and accordioned on it and i collapsed into the water.  down and more down and more down, to the bottom of the pool.  when i finally came to rest at the bottom of the deep end, i opened my eyes.

it was beautiful. i saw blue swirls and white swirls and currents moving.  rays of sunlight dappled and danced.  i heard my own heartbeat and the sound of water.  it was warm and serene and i felt that i could stay down there forever.  it was without time.  i thought, there is a world beyond the world and i was humbled and grateful that it was being shown to me when i was still so young.  i knew that things would never be the same.

there is a world beyond and within this world.  there is a reality that is more real than the wallpaper veil of reality that you and i live in.  and sometimes, only the water shows us the way.

after a while, i knew i had to go, so i floated up and saw the face of my sister inches from mine, at first rippling and moving, then real as i broke the surface.  good god, i was just about to jump in and pull you out. she said, what were you doing down there? 

not knowing how to explain it, i told her, i'm a mermaid. 
so she called for an ambulance.
the day was march 30, 1980.





]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10442
i’m not a church going person. to think, once a week you ask for forgiveness and then hit ihop for pancakes. isn’t that a little sociopathic? though i wish i could do that: pop into church, purge, eat pancakes. i’m actually a little jealous.

when i was eight, i made the decision to get baptized. it was in Connecticut at an Episcopal church, so it was a pretty antiseptic, formal affair that didn’t involve getting dunked in a river in my skivvies, though now i would have preferred that. my sister and i wore matching dresses. the next sunday morning, when my dad woke me up for church, i asked him why i had to go back if i was already forgiven.  he stared at me, and then said "good point" and walked out. i slept in every sunday after that.

there are a lot of churches here in Kansas, on nearly every street corner. you don’t have an excuse not to go. every variety is here and they surround you. born again, recently born, just born, jason bourne, church of the everlasting gobstopper, and my favorite, first family church.  [note to self:  do the Obamas go there? shouldn’t it be called “family first church”?] there’s one called the church of the resurrection--of course, what else would it be called--which looks like a supersized noah’s ark. when the next great flood comes, it’s going to pull anchor and sail off with its weekly donors while the rest of us drown. naturally, there is a place next door that offers breakfast specials.

it's hot here in Kansas. it's hot and there is a lot of god.

recently, when it was 186 kadillion degrees out, i bought corn from the back of an old man’s truck. he sat on a foldout chair under a tiny parasol, pulled the green off an ear and told me to take a bite right then and there.  so i did.  it was crunchy and sweet and he told me that’s how you know it’s good.  i bought a lot of corn that day. my little son and i spent hours shucking and saving the caterpillers in a mason jar with holes poked in the lid. this weekend, we’re going to catch lightening bugs.  that's my church.
]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=10441
i'm supposed to be writing about my dog dying yesterday (yes, that happened).  this is my big re-entry after four years off the grid.  i could tell you all about my time away, but you probably don't care, and it's the stuff you imagine:  kids, marriage, mortgage, job, sunrises and sunsets.  not in that particular order.  right now, it's a big mash up of notes that i haven't had time to sort out and if you know me, you know i won't.  i prefer to look forward.

it's not my dog dying that got me writing again.  it's to write a thank you note to the person who told me to. 

i've been reading a book on magicians, and the best thing i've gleaned so far is that i want to figure out how to roll a coin in my hands.  like really well.  if i can figure this out, i'm going to get a coin made, one side passion and the other side suffering.  and i will do tricks for people and see which side plays out.  i think i would be much more comfortable standing behind the coin than facing it.

people suffer a little when they get to know me.  that's because i suffer when i get to know them.  it's not a bad thing.  it just means that you're special.









]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=9258 ever wake up out of a two year dream?

i did and found myself married and living in new york.  though i found this out over burbank, when the captain turned off the interior lights and the entire city lit up below me.  upside down sky full of LA stars.  i could only catch my breath and see the woman reflected in the window staring back at me.  sounds like a dramatic moment, though it really wasn't worth much to me because i know moments like that are gone as soon as you recognize them.

i'm not a very good wife.  i like to work a lot.  i like to party.  i like to look.  i like to write about these things.

i like to take off to LA for a weekend and eat thai food in malibu when the sky turns purple and sweat underneath a leather jacket on the back of a bike.  burn feverishly on things and through things and wonder where the fuck have i been?

jayne with a y, nice to meet you.  sorry, i should have told you these things.

my friend kristian rots up in new hampshire feeling the same way and someone needs to save him from his current self.  i know how he feels, having just returned.  LA is an addiction that can only be fed by being there and taking big bites.  but i can't save kristian when i have to save myself.









]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=8264 to jayne hawkins:

you didn't fuck up or make a mess of your life. you were married a few times, and from what i understand, they all missed you terribly after the divorces. funny how just because people don't call doesn't mean they're not thinking about you. a lot.

people think about you and you have no idea how often it happens.

so, i'm on the amtrak train heading back to nyc from dc. minutes, seconds from putting my shoes on and getting a plastic cup of wine from the snack car. outside the window, rows of school buses (why always school buses?), houses with xmas tree lights still going (right on). what this is supposed to mean in the grand scheme of things, i have no idea. i can't think of anything except that these things are things i've seen; that there's nothing out the window i haven't seen.

i don't like how trying to get by every day makes us do things we'd rather not be doing, given the time constraints we're dealing with here.

love you all.




]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=8147
i think i just got man-handled while face down on a napkin.

i love nyc, it's great, really. it's got the operas, it's got crazy peoples, good public transportations, and delicious pastas.

it's also got lots of those above-an-irish pub (ps: on the corner of madison and 39th street) lunch-hour nail salons that employ all women and 1 chair massage guy.

let me start off by saying that i have been receiving compliments on my outfit today. oh, and let me also say that i am pretty sure chair massage guy likes the ladies. like, a lot. like, to the point where we are in make no mistake he likes the ladies territory. like, he likes the ladies so much that even with a measly $5 tip for a 20 minute massage, he goes over by 10 minutes (unless i'm on central time, which i'm not). i did give him an extra five. that was after he whispered in my ear (near the napkin), "next time i give you full body massage." where? in the waxroom?

i had a coupon. one of those big yellow flyers that comes in the plastic with your sunday paper. i was all set to have one of the 10 boxes checked off so that, maybe in late 2007, i get a free manicure. but i got the hell out of there. yep, that was me, the girl coming back from a long lunch with no sandwich, a diet coke, and the mona lisa smirk on her face. still trying to figure out whether i was worth $28. i'll get back to you on that later.]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=7988 to greet you, we arrived in our boats,
stepping from the safety of shore,
and crossed over the great river that
flows through hearts and knows no time.
i saw two people shining on its surface, out of a dream,
a mirror, and i wept at its beauty.
each drop that fell became part of the great whole:
the snaking river that mists up over the high trees,
where the sunrise kaleidoscopes in ever-intensifying
pinks and blues and the sun explodes over the horizon.
here, in this eden, the unmistakable great dawn has returned.

at the bar, i see you two making beer mustaches
in the corner booth. i heard you first,
the conspiratorial giggling
flying in circles all around us, like whispers
among the trees carried by the wind.
later on, you will be speaking
your own, new language.
it requires that fingertips touch first.
that eyes are examined and gazed at.
that nothing and everything are said.

i don't care what love is, but only that it is:
the great dawn, the raging river,
the place where time stops,
and where time infinitely carries you on.

don't shudder at the churning whitecaps, for
i have heard the mermaids singing:
"your love is like the silver
meteor streak that slices the dark night.
your eyes shine like the distillation of all the lost stars.
when i breathe, you breathe in frosty breaths at the top of the mountain where
our love resides and you are waiting there for me..
cup my hand like a tiny bird.
hold my heart because it is yours."
i am here with you now.
and to catch you downstream.

yes, we are powerful beyond measure,
and for that we should be afraid.
when you smell the rose he gives you,
you must think of the rose and the rose only.
the balance of powers: yours to crush it,
time to wither its bloom,
and how it holds this moment and you and time.
within it, you are within love's embrace:
you to the rose, love to you.
the zenith of moments. stay there forever.]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=7745 NY






















LA

























]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=7656 i watched the sunrise again over central park this morning. it was so quiet, and every day i wake to the sound of cars going by, trucks braking, horns. perched up in this bird cage of a box, everything outside to the right and left is yellow. decaying yellow buildings west and east. i can see the edge of harlem in the distance, yellow and hazy, gray square shapes of buildings. more trucks going by below. the heater starts to bang.

if i lay down, i can see the blue sky. a plane going by again, heading north. a bird or two. now i know why i have only bird tattoos. i want to always be somewhere else, to be able to leave immediately. or at least now.

i close my eyes. the fragile blue sky in my brain, the sound of traffic. i am sitting on the beach, the yellow sand, the blue of the pacific at its edge, the white noise of the waves. i'm forcing those changes in my mind.

i can remember. it was 2003, october: i had left this place and found myself with nothing around but wind, rocks, water and god. i saw you swimming in large white waves, completely unafraid. i didn't want to be anywhere else, for any length of time. we built a little fire at night. you walked me to the edge of the cliffs and played guitar; a cathedral of stars and ocean. there was nothing to remind me of my life, and two days felt like twenty.

california is my home. i did my time here in new york. looking out this dirty window, i realize that this place makes you a proud survivor only so you stay to continue to prove it. it is a prison of concrete and consumption.

i imagine that the whole world looks like this. that outside, the only patch of free land remaining on earth is this rectangle with scrawny trees. and yet, we've still etched asphalt roads and walkways all through it and fenced off the grass. the sunlight is glinting off the buildings to the west, reflecting the hot sun back to the thinning ozone. and there's a white cut across the sky, like this fading blue above the park is getting unzipped open, right here, right now -- and no one's paying any attention because no one looks up in this town.

i'm reminded of something i wrote years ago, new york/wrap your filthy arms around me/todos los dias/your stench and black and gray sky i embrace. i had made peace with it then. i was so good to her. so she brought me back. they said, you can never really leave. of course, you can never really come back, either. so where am i?

today i am sharpening my sword. if there isn't a reason why i'm here, i'll make a reason. because the thought of this city being alive, of the possibility that it has a grip, a memory, and maybe fondness or an advancing vendetta is too much to bear.

quarter after 7. plumes of black smoke to the west and north. yesterday, a friend wrote, asking about fiji in july. i don't know where that is, or if it really exists.

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=7552 attn all roboters.

what: robot party!

when: 3/25 9pm to ?

where: the bedouin lounge, which is all ours @ madame x @ 94 houston street, nyc

what to say at the door: "hello" and "happyrobot"

why: you get in free; plus, it sounds cool

who cares: i do; bring your ipod/cds. if we're lucky [check with me that week], there won't be another party upstairs and we can play our own music. plus, there's some kind of elevated square room thing-a-ma-jig up there that's perfect for blackmail pix

smokin' lounge?: there's a purty private garden out back

are the drinks strong?: you're damn skippy; we get our own bartender upstairs about 8 stumbling steps from the lounge room

seriously, do they serve strong drinks?: uh huh, like scotch and stuff; i went there myself and had a delicious scotchy scotch

why isn't it at the chelsea?: become some !@#$ is living in 219

will there be cake?: cake!

and goody bags?: yep. they may even include some robots in them! but rsvp w/rich so i can figure out how many to bring!

let's get crunked, whatever that means

]]> https://www.happyrobot.net/words/gator_country.asp?id=7535
mrs. robot is a very, very cool person.

she is a true sassy redhead (no Feria for her, thank you v. much).

and today is her birthday!!

so give it up for the classiest of classy ladies.]]>