Schizoaffective

by Dan Uppetreloc Blowing cigarette smoke out into the falling snow I realized that smoke is snow is smoke. I say this because they look similar, especially when a wind is blowing the snow. My breath, of course, drives the cigarette smoke as it dissipates into the falling snow. What is the line between falling snow and smoke? What is the line between you and me, reader? It could be a lot of things. I improvise these lines and you, I suppose, peruse them or maybe even interpret them. Right now, as I right this, I cannot tell you where I am going. How does, or perhaps "should," this affect your interpretation, if, indeed, you feel like making one? It's all as relative as a roll of the dice, which is, of course, dependent on fingers and wrists. Any line is partly random and partly intentional, I guess. Speaking of lines, what is a line of poetry? How does it relate to the difficult-to-discern line between smoke and snow, especially on a blowy day? For a line of poetry is, li...

guest post by Reynaldo Ishiwasho   just feet from me sit three women talking in a coffee house about this and that and other things I pay little attention to   they are mere feet from me   on the table next to this spiral notebook sits my phone a powerful computer more capable in itself of the super power sent on some early apollo missions   with it I can push buttons communicate instantaneously across the globe with some compatriot who I know only by those buttons and a pixilated image on a social media page   should I celebrate this strangely small world or should I mourn for not knowing these three women whose real voices and concerns I pay no attention to and instead think only of these pixilated images of unmet compatriots   I am confused   I know I communicate across the world on the basis of mathematics a two-0digit system where everything is translated into a zero and one and then back again   back and forth back and forth   mathemati...

by Red Rocks IV gee y'all Red Rocks here feelin'— well topsy-turvy emotionally as if strange yes foreign emotions & moods are taking possession of me way up here in not Manitoba & knot not knot not maniiitooooba 'cause Manny ain't one ain't too either Manny is manny things ands I not (k)now as Red Rocks banish these intrusive emotions and moods from me somehow someway to be me yes me without them bye bye possession HELLO! Groovy hello glorious yes yes yes Red Rocks signing off to have a groovy & glorious day to the extent possibly oh, y'all, I mean to say "possible" gee gee gee gee _______________________________ Guest post by Red Rocks IV today. --- Jay Paul, schizophrenic, uh, schizoaffective, whatever

"Time dilation," reportedly discovered by Einstein (or, more probably, Einstein's first wife), in the early years of the 20th century, refers to the relativity of time. Put simply, the faster you move, the slower time passes. At the speed of light, time moves so slowly as to be nonexistent. For something barely moving, time moves quicker, quite literally.  "Literally" means literally—astronauts traveling in space actually experience time moving slower than they do on earth; however, they do age quicker because of the stress on the body. Speaking of body, parts of the body experience time differently. Think of the nervous system as it pertains to skin. It almost instantaneously responds, in some sort of rhythmic way I suppose, to outside stimuli. Right now, I type this blog post with my fingertips, which instantaneously respond, rhythmically to the keys and to my unfolding ideas. (Where, oh, where do my "ideas" come from—what rhythm helps them to emerge...

 1. Do not interpret our artworks and essays as advocating cruelty to any being, including dirt and plants. 2. Do not interpret our artworks and essays as in any way fascistic. Do 1. Interpret our artworks as playful celebrations of the boundless complexity of being and beings, while realizing that sometimes life can be quite difficult. by Jay Paul, Raymond Wavish, Jefferson Hansen, Red Rocks, Jake Reeds

by Jay Paul Strange things keep happening to me, and they are not my imagination. The other day, I ordered breakfast at a diner, then stepped out for a cigarette. In the early morning darkness, I struck up a conversation with a man who happened to be standing outside the diner. He had a skateboard. After joshing me about being high on cocaine the previous night, we exchanged pleasantries about our family and work situations. At that point it got strange, but in a pleasant manner. He asked me if I were eating at the restaurant. When I answered in the positive, he said he would pay for me. He never asked my name, and I never asked his. He followed me into the restaurant. I ignored him. After I finished eating, the waitress informed me, "that guy paid for your meal." I say this only to illustrate that my life is often odd, filled with off-the-wall occurrences and coincidences. Perhaps what happened to my earrings was not a coincidence. Perhaps there was a message hidden in both ...

  by Jay Paul Recently, I learned that my diagnosis has changed—from "schizoaffective" to "schizophrenia unspecified." Whatever. It's still the same old thing. Yes, I hear voices. I suppose all of us schizophrenics come up with techniques to deal with and overcome them. Here, I will point to one that has worked for me. As always, I caution you that what works for me may not work for you. We schizophrenics need to talk to each other about our techniques and experiment, trying out various ones until we happen upon those that work. Anyway, my best technique is not to ignore them entirely. I recognize, acknowledge, and listen to them for a time when they come—which, lately, has been a good part of every day. After this greeting, I then tell them—quietly, of course, so that I don't look "crazy" to neurotypicals—that I am going away to attend to other matters. I then force myself to concentrate on what I need to do, whether it be meditating, doing the di...

  by Jay Paul To all my fellow schizophrenics— Fuck it! Fuck it, all— you are fine as is— some idiots made you this way— they are the nutty ones, not you. My advice is this— if you have been made schizophrenic, think schizophrenic all the way, think the way bequeathed to you by idiots you cannot control, but who tried to control you, and succeeded, but only for a time— until you seized the glory they accidentally handed you— Sanity is the side effect of schizophrenia, carpe diem , sisters and brothers,             carpe diem— the day has always been OURS

by Jay Paul "There is no better blessing than to be believed in. There are those who believe the earth is dead. They are deceived. The earth is alive, and it is possessed of spirit."   — N. Scott Momaday   Who in their right mind cannot hear the vibratory life in minerals, in what is so often reduced to mere "resources"? We need to be careful with our names. We need to court gentleness with our names. Of course, we don't name a world simply into being. But our names so easily can cover not only the world, but the worlds of worlds. When this happens, so many worlds can be simply snuffed out. The world is not too much with us. It's too much of us. Even the dirt beneath a sidewalk contains particles and particles of microplastic. I can sense them there, 15 feet away, where I can see the sidewalk itself. To name without care is to poison. To name without gentleness is toxic. The voices of the grass and minerals, from gold to agate to natural gas, come in languag...

When I was around the age of 30, my oldest daughter was diagnosed with autism, and soon after I was diagnosed with bipolar. I felt some bitterness. My coming to terms with not feeling bitter marked the center of my personal emotional evolution at the time. The lessons I learned have helped me get through many struggles without succumbing to too much bitterness. This, good people, is my story! Bitterness is a real danger for both parents of children with special needs and people with mental illness. I was in potential trouble. Both then and now, I believe there were many factors that prevented me from ruining my life with bitterness. Part of it was the need to keep a clear head so I could support my family. I was not only the main breadwinner, but, for most of the time, the only person in the family bringing in much money at all.  There was one overriding factor, however: atheism. I think that, by not believing in a personal God, I was able to more easily navigate the perilous emoti...

by Jay Paul              "From hearts and brains                sprout the stalks of night"                                     --Paul Celan (tr. Joris)   there is no brain exactly as mandated there is only night just as there is no heart exactly as delimited there is only night because the brain inhabits a darkness as the heart inhabits a darkness   because the night is darkness the heart of darkness which is no heart because the heart itself by itself is darkness too   the heart pumps darkly the brain thinks darkly the dark comes down across thoughts that are born not of the brain but somewhere else entirely like the darkly heart or the darkly tree reaching down into loam communicating with fellows among the fungus...

by Jay Paul “My eyes have turned to four moons, two in the front of my face and two in the back of my bald head. I don’t see from them. They glow white, I am told by my partner. I no longer see. I just glow white orbs and listen, hearing the gurgling of a tea kettle and the scraping of frost off a wind shield in the parking lot. I cannot see. But I can hear. I can hear the morning news report of a killing by the police. I extrapolate to the crunching of bone, the cries of those brutalized for centuries. Bones are still crunched, down this very block. Moon eyes glow. I can hear the toilet clicking in the bathroom, clicking away. When will the landlord fix it? I can hear the toast pop up and think through my moon eyes of how politics ends up so often in the same place, putting down violently those who oppose. Is there another way? I smell the tea— pungent, from the earth half a globe away. My moons glow and I sense the whole earth in my body, knowing it all won’t come down the way I supp...

Various species of birds twitter and whistle, telling something or other to each other of which I am mostly ignorant. But listening in is important because  it confirms one realization— communication is not exclusively human. Birds do it. Trees do it. Biologists have shown that trees communicate through the roots. Communication is everywhere on this planet even though humans have pretended for so long that it is their exclusive domain. Animals are not dumb. Neither are plants. And I doubt the dirt beneath my feet is dumb, either. What's unusual in this world isn't life, but inertness. Does this concept point to anything real? Even the air is alive with microbes. That is clear. But is the air alive with itself? Could those molecules—oxygen, hydrogen,  water, and so on—somehow be communicating, too? It may seem mentally imbalanced to think so, but just a few decades ago  people who thought trees communicated were considered a little loo-loo. Anthropocentrism may have had it...

  by Jay Paul [A quick note on what to expect on the blog in the coming months. I will continue to post the second and  fourth Thursdays. Today, I will have a second post, "On an Escarpment Above the St. Croix River (The Ear)," a recent poem of mine. In two weeks, I hope to have finished an essay I have begun, "On Avoiding Bitterness," which details how I escaped from feeling bitter when confronted with the diagnoses of my daughter's autism and my bipolar. Long-term, I am researching and working on an answer to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , their two volumes in the capitalism and schizophrenia series. I want to read them as a schizophrenic and see what I think. That essay probably won't appear until September or October. Before then, I will continue to post occasional pieces.] Today, I am going to list a whole bunch of good things going on in my life right now. But, before I get to that, I want to address trauma briefly. O...

by Jay Paul (Neurotypical people have no cognitive or mental health issues, such as autism or schizophrenia. They are "normal." Neurodiverse people can use their conditions to create unique possibilities for human culture that they alone are capable of doing. Yet, their conditions are usually seen as only disabilities.) This story is about triumph, at least for now. I say that because portions of it may be harrowing to those of you not familiar with what people diagnosed with serious "mental illness" go through. For us, it's par for the course. I've heard much, much worse stories. But this is mine. Before I get into the story, let me address some misconceptions about schizophrenia, a condition I have, correctly, been diagnosed with. It's nothing to be afraid of. For me, personally, it means that, every few years, I go through a bout of psychiatric delusions for a few days. These usually take the form of thinking some acquaintances of mine, who live near ...

by Jay Paul   [Note: A "neurotypical" is a person without a condition such as developmental issues (autism, etc.), cognitive issues, or what is typically called "mental health issues"—a so-called "normal" person.  Neurodiverse people—people with conditions such as autism or schizophrenia—add valuable insights and thinking to human culture that derive specifically from their conditions.] Oh, those poor neurotypicals and their delusions! Thing is about neurotypicals, they don't know  they're deluded. We schizophrenics often realize we are, and guard against it. For instance, neurotypicals typically think the sky can't fall simply because their culture tells them so. But it can. Chicken Little was right. Maybe Chicken Little was schizophrenic. At any rate, I say the sky can fall because sometimes the sky is clouds. Clouds fall as rain. Hence, the sky falls. What's more, in the 70s Skylab fell out of the sky. Some may say that there is a differ...