before my hard drive crashed

before my hard drive crashed i had "a" method of organization though if i could give myself a grade i would give myself a C+. unacceptable. in order of care, here is how that works: hygiene, appearance, camera, negatives, underwear drawer, wallet, watch, keys, phone, shit in my teeth, laundry, common areas, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, living room, floor of room, refrigerator. while we're here let it be known i also do not cook and i eat standing up; wearing a dress and vacuuming is not in my wildest dreams. in sum, self-care is yet another area that deserves attention, though self-preservation, in the behavioral sense, is not, anymore. these weeks i've seen a lot differently and maybe only half because ERB told me to try and have 'new thoughts' and half because sometimes the weight of your own brain becomes annoying and experimenting with ones old behavior is good in a way that it wasn't at 17 when you told yourself, always, "that's just who i AM!" as if that were the ultimate cry of self-determination or self-affirmation when it now just seems defensive and proves you to be useless, like dried clay you wished you could shape. if we are not changing always then life makes no sense, as that is the one 'act' people, places, and things seem to be really good at. that shit is revolutionary, i told her - actually trying to think to tell your thinking mind to think something else you seem to think you have no control over. i am far from a meditation specialist but i imagine that this is the more progressive move. if you sit and tell those same thoughts you always have to 'float on by' like fish swimming across your mental screen or clouds floating through your beached mind, then that in a sense seems more like coping, dismissing, or releasing (a detachment, maybe) whereas actively trying to change your wiring is the more difficult path. fine. if one can quit smoking, one can change their thoughts. if one can learn to make their bed at 28, one can dictate their own thoughts. i find though, that riding along the same paths in the same shorts on the same bike produces the same thoughts, so the lesson for me here/now is to take a different route. when diego and i ride i tell him "no talking just riding!" but that is just because i am used to riding alone. from one end of bedford to the other, the talking is the best thing. right there along with the hot air on my face and legs, the different smells from different hoods, the joy in passing an air-conditioned grocery store and that blast to the back of my neck, the spray from a busted brooklyn water hydrant, the fragments of conversation and doors slammed we hear in passing, and the cars honking at our backs that we are riding double in a single file lane...when there are no cars in sight at red lights we fade one after the other into the same path like birds falling into place on an invisible flight path in the sky...a thought i never had, of course, until i did it - birds falling off, birds diving in rhythm, birds counting time, birds in tune... my imagination fell short here, but i forgive myself. there is no way i could have known how we would act, at a red light.