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Welcome to our new feature!

It’s called 37 trips down memory lane.

Or Ode to Laurie, subtitled I’m too young for my life to be a tragic poem.

(We’ve been talking about this one for awhile; it was a group decision of how to share some of the more poignant nbc movie of the week moments with our adoring public. Have we already spoken about how my mother’s best friend is named Laurie? Probably the first female name I wrote as a child next to my own.)

1. The first one is a no-brainer. Laurie, did you know that when I was sending Jakk emails and texts that I was leaving my keys for him under the mat that Bubbles was intercepting them, and decided it would be a fine idea to make herself a set, and them pass them out to her flunkies? And then, after thoroughly convincing me via fake katie that I was in deep danger and insisting I go away to CT immediately, proceeded to invade my apartment with me a state away, marking it with their rituals and placing surveillance inside a picture of Jesus, and other less sacred places. Now mind you as time progressed, the Jesus picture would become one of the things they fucked with, and when I say fucked with, I mean I would come back from being gone, and there would be a white towel near the front table with a broken off piece of the frame on it. Just like they would do with the tree. Tear off a little piece of bark and leave it for me clearly. This was one of the oldest practices. Chip away at things I loved as a way of chipping away at my psychological state.

Laurie, where did she learn all this violence?

I’ll tell you what I learned.

She doesn’t like not being able to get to me. And she can’t.

So, she resorts to trees.

Thus the violence.

Oh gosh look what’s playing

Funny how this plays so often when I’m talking about the last thing left for me.

See, this time it was the first tree they’d ever fucked with.

Here it is.

Just so you can get an idea of how big their present was.

And here it is now.

I assure you this is entirely personal.

I give this tree love everyday. I have watched that branch grow back since 2017. And isn’t it convenient that that they just sawed the whole thing off.

Violence, Laurie.

Violence.

Let’s call this one number 2, shall we?

That’s the 7th tree they’ve used the electric saw on btw. But who’s counting?

Stella is, actually.

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This is the last time I’m asking you

This

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2017-2022

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April 29

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I was here at 7 this morning. What they are Doing to nature is a crime.

These are too heavy for children. This is the work of disturbed adults.

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This shit crazy

Y'all don't know that don't shit faze me

(Ball so hard) This shit weird

We ain't even 'posed to be here

(Ball so hard) Since we here

It's only right that we'd be fair

Psycho: I'm liable to go Michael, take your pick

B-ball so hard) I'm shocked too

I'm supposed to be locked up too

If you escaped what I've escaped

You'd be in Paris getting fucked up too

(B-ball so hard) What she order, fish fillet?

I don't even know what that means

No one knows what it means, but it's provocative

No, it's not, it's gross

Gets the people going"

Ball so hard mothafuckers wanna fine me

Don't let me get in my zone

These other niggas is lyin'

Actin' like the summer ain't mine

(I got that hot bitch in my home)

The stars is in the building

They hands is to the ceiling

I know I'm 'bout to kill it

How you know? I got that feeling

You're the only story that never been told

You're my dirty little secret, wanna keep you so

Come on out, come on over, help me forget

Keep the walls from falling as they're tumbling in

You made everybody else seem insane

You filled my head with your notions

As far as my eyes can see

There are shadows surrounding me

You've always shared my darkest hours

Chasing the only Meaningful memory you thought you had left

With some pretty, bright and bubbly Terrible scene that was doing her thing on your chest

But, oh comely

It isn't as pretty as you'd like to guess

Standing next to me, he's only my enemy (blond and I were shoulder to shoulder waiting to be seated at the resto on jakk’s bday)

Your father made fetuses with flesh licking ladies While you and your mother were asleep in the trailer park (my father fucking anything that moved & giving me siblings)

The music and medicine you needed for comforting

So make all your fat fleshy fingers to moving

And pluck all your silly strings and bend all your notes for me

And soft silly music is meaningful magical

Smelling of semen all under the garden

Was all you were needing when you still believed in me(the night blond told Jakk to break it off with me, he went home to tell her that we weren’t breaking up, but when he got there her mother was sleeping over, so we met in the park and had sex. It wasn’t very good, sadly. Kind of just an attempt to feel bonded in the face of adversity.)

They buried her body

I wished I could save her in some sort of time machine

Know all your enemies

We know who our enemies are ( I just got this. It’s a reference to stella’s death. Several spiritualists said the accidents (mine & hers) were connected, and that she absorbed a hit that night that was meant for me, and that it resulted in the accident.)

Goldaline, my dear

We will fold and freeze together

Far away from here

Goldaline’ is an unreleased Neutral Milk Hotel song that has been described by Jeff Mangum as a story about lost siamese sisters that are soon to be engulfed by a beast.

But now we move to feel

For ourselves inside some stranger's stomach

They are warm inside the belly of the beast, and together they await their death by digestion.

Further details are: Goldaline is a siamese twin, lost in the woods indeed, and they are facing a bear. Mangum here speaks of the theme of death (in the eyes of these girls) as redemption. Earlier lines mostly speak of how they are lost and will die a horrid death, but there is a solution after, “far away from here […] sun and spring and green forever” which could be heaven or whatever. Here, in the bear, by destruction, they can find redemption…There is also a recurring theme of reincarnation on this album: perhaps after being devoured they find themselves, not in the stomach of a monster, but of their next-life’s mother.

(Worth mentioning that when stella was alive, I agreed to write her a play, and she wanted it to be about a little girl and a bear.)

Knowing everything, knowing everything, we cried

I told you everything about everything

You said "Holy shit, we almost died"

I had no idea, I had no idea

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The dust has settled,

Replaces the bulbs in all the lights.

I guess i'll get no sleep tonight.

A revolution happened.

Oh, sorry, you haven't heard?

We are the children of the new world.

If you're quiet you can watch if you like.

They say the future's beginning tonight.

Whole empires will crumble.

Civilisations will fall.

Lie on the bed, hear the sound of it all.

No anger, no guilt and no sorrow;

It sounds unlikely, i know, but tomorrow

You will wake up to find that your whole life has changed.

Although nothing looks different

A revolution took place.

I love the way you do it.

I love the way you put them on.

You know the answers but you get it wrong.

(Just to confuse things).

Why did it seem so difficult to realise a simple truth?

The revolution begins and ends with you.

Now all the breakdowns and nightmares look small.

Now we decided not to die after all.

Because the meek shall inherit absolutely nothing at all.

If you stopped being so feeble you could have so much more.

The answer was here all the time, you see.

Just how i missed it is a mystery to me.

I have waited and waited for this day to arrive.

The revolution was televised.

Now it's over, bye bye.

It's over, bye bye.

Yeah, we made it.

Just by the skin of our teeth.

Perfection is over

(The rave is over)

Sheffield is over.

The fear is over.

Guilt is over

(Please leave the building quietly)

Bergerac is over.

The hangover is over

Men are over, Women are over.

Cholesterol is over.

Tapers are over.

Irony is over.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

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Frankincense tree

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