Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Morris Stegosaurus' LiveJournal:

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Monday, May 7th, 2012
9:31 pm	Amazon.com Customer Review of Bic Disposable 'Child Guard' Lighter Classic Full Size - 4 count I wrote the ending first, and now I'm concerned that it seems a little "tacked on". ( Amazon.com Customer Review of Bic Disposable 'Child Guard' Lighter Classic Full Size - 4 count ) (2 Windmills | Tilt)
Monday, April 30th, 2012
1:19 am	I Need Your Help This is a video of me performing "The Puppy Who Would Be Pope", accompanied by Fiddleback, recorded and edited by Wyvern Aldinger: http://youtu.be/CWX-NpsYRMY 20% of the Write Bloody selection process is how many upvotes the submission video gets. I would therefore be ever so grateful if you would upvote this video-- and even more grateful if you would repost it elsewhere. This is going on through the month of May-- winners announced 6/1. Thanks! <3 (Tilt)
Monday, April 23rd, 2012
2:10 pm	Essay on Furry A tiger of my friendly acquaintancship of whom I think very highly wrote this excellent essay on furry. He touches on many things I've thought about and agree with, and articulates them better than I'm capable. (Tilt)
Monday, April 9th, 2012
3:30 pm	Eep! I am one of 20 finalists in the Write Bloody 2012 book contest. You can see the full list here (I am Keith Kurzman, if you didn't know). I am hella excited and also very, very nervous-- about half of these names are people I know and respect, and the rest are complete unknowns to me, which is perhaps even more intimidating. On April 30th I'ma post a link to a performance of "The Puppy Who Would Be Pope" I recorded a couple weeks ago with Fiddleback, the fox musician I've been performance lately, and Wyvern, a local tiger videographer.. Guys: if you can crosspost and upvote the hell out of this thing, I would be very grateful. (4 Windmills | Tilt)
Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
7:00 pm	Vanity These days, I typically shave once every two or three months. Right now, I'm at about two months. When it's come up in conversation, I've asserted I don't concern myself with my physical appearance, and shave whenever the hair becomes a problem-- i.e., itching, interfering with eating, etc. This is posturing bullshit. I don't shave regularly because I never really learned how to shave well. I'm embarrassed to be seen with the inevitable patches of hair when I do shave and it's easier to just ignore it. (5 Windmills | Tilt)
Tuesday, December 27th, 2011
2:06 pm	Performing in San Francisco In San Francisco on Thursday, January 12th, Fiddleback, thisisstar and I are performing an hour long set of music, poetry and visual art (following an hour long set by local poet Sam Sax). The venue is "The Lost Church" at 65 Capp Street. Doors open at 7:30pm, and there is a $10 cover. At this time, all signs point toward this being the best show I've ever been a part of. I'm very excited, and if you are in the bay area and want to come, I think that would be neat. (8 Windmills | Tilt)
Monday, September 5th, 2011
4:50 pm	A Return to Form When I started this journal ten years ago (!!), I used it to write openly and honestly about what was going on in my life both temporally and emotionally. As I and livejournal grew in popularity, I grew self-conscious about the number and range of people reading, and became more circumspect. I worried about coming across as whiny, passive-aggressive, callow, self-centered &c-- any number of appalling personality traits I often fear I possess. While I still worry about the extent to which I may be these things, with my and livejournal's declines into relative obscurity, I think I can return to using this journal as originally intended. I'm not even gonna lj-cut for length! :D I use more smileys now than I used to. I think this is the influence of furry and Twitter. I'm off Twitter right now, because lately I get sad every time I look at it. In February 2003, the night insafemode and I performed at the now-three-years-defunct Essenza Coffee House in Mesa AZ as part of our "Poetry Is Gay" tour, local poet loudgirl asserted to me that I was "emo". That same night, Arrian Wissel, another local poet, interpreted the black mesh shirt and dog collar I was wearing as signs that I was an anarchist (I am not), so I was at the time just as dismissive of loudgirl's characterization. Lately, I've been giving more credence to that suggestion. Within the Seattle furry community, Twitter is a social hub. Larger events, and smaller-scale hanging out are planned, discussed, and later reminisced about, and whenever I look at my feed, I'm reminded of how little I've succeeded in integrating into and becoming a part of the community, how much I am left out of. It isn't for lack of trying. I feel like whenever I'm at an open-invite event, I have fun and get along with people, and that people generally enjoy my company... I feel like a well-liked, contributing member of the group-- but that translates into precious few actual friendships, and all but no inclusion in smaller scale, more intimate, invitation-only socializing, which is where real connections are made, real friendships forged. I am excluded from that: liked, but kept at what-sometimes-feels-like-deliberate arm's length. This isn't really anything new: When I lived in Chicago in 2005-2006 and once commented to chmarasocks about my feeling of estrangement from the poetry community, he told me I was always welcome at Mental Graffiti (the poetry slam he was involved in running). Of course I was! Why wouldn't they want my door money, another butt in a seat and decent poet on the mic? But I was never able to translate collegial respect into more personal friendship-- I was always detached. 2007-2008 in Salt Lake City, I felt more connected with the local poetry community, but I think this can be attributed to my relationship with Ammon. Ammon was always more socially adroit than I, and by capitalizing on his strengths to shore up my own social weaknesses, I was able to establish and maintain a meaningful connection that's eluded me elsewhere. This is similar to how in 2005, my relationship with boixboi allowed me to connect with the Chicago furry community, until our 2006 break up and his subsequent departure abruptly severed that connection. (When I lived in Massachusetts in 2004, the Boston/Worcester poetry community, I always felt welcome in and attached to. I'm grateful for that, and not sure what was different there.) Now, in Seattle, I'm dating Oscar. We've been together 14 months, and I've never been happier with a relationship-- but socially, Oscar is like me: he has just as much difficulty connecting, if not more, and I certainly receive boost from our relationship when it comes to connecting with the furry community. I am ashamed to confess: before Oscar and I were together, there was someone else I had my eye on who a significant draw for me was the social cachet I might accrue from being in a relationship with him. I feel like a jackass now for even considering a relationship built on a foundation like that, and am relieved I never made a move on this person. I've been trying to figure out why I'm having such a hard time connecting with the Seattle furry community. These are my theories, to date: --I'm intense. There are people in my life about whom I've said "I like hanging out with him, but I can only take him in small doses". No one has ever said that to my face, but sometimes I think that might be what people say about me when I'm not around, and why they keep me at arms length. --I am not much "fun" anymore. I think I used to be, but that over the years some of the emotional beatings I've taken have maybe snuffed a lot of the spark that used to be so much fun in me, back in the day. I am more somber now than I like to acknowledge. Hell, my favorite director is Darren Aronofsky. --I get distracted. I've never really acknowledged this-- to anyone-- but sometimes I get lost in my head for hours or even days at a time. One time (only once) it lasted over a month. I'll just zone out and drop off the face of the earth. To me, it's like no real-time has passed and I try to pick up like nothing has happened, but I think maybe some people get alienated by it, and decide I'm not worth their effort if I'm just going to disappear on them. They move on. --I'm too self-absorbed. Whenever someone is visibly upset or bothered by something, I assume I've done something wrong that annoys or bothers them. I used to consider this "self-consciousness", and I suppose it's also that, but it's worse-- I always assume that everything is about me, when it's usually not. I overestimate my own importance, and I think people notice this and find it off-putting, and it's this self-absorption that ends up engendering the very annoyance with me that I thought I'd perceived originally. --I don't hold one-on-one conversations well. I can interact well within a group context where I need only throw back occasionally, but in a one-on-one situation where I'm expected to carry an equal part of the conversation, I often don't know what to say or how to say it. Sometimes I spend so much time considering the various possible reactions and interpretations of anything I might say that I end up saying nothing at all, or worse, a wrong thing. Related: I also sometimes think my silence is interpreted as disinterest in further communication, when in fact it's just doubt in re: how to respond. --There is a lot of flirting within the furry community, and I am uncomfortable participating in it because a) I'm not very good at it and b) I'm afraid I will come across as gross, unattractive, weird or otherwise off-putting. As this is such a common form of communication within the community, my reluctance to participate in it leaves me at a disadvantage, and makes me seem and feel like an outsider. --Perhaps augmented by the previous two, I am boring to people. I don't share enough interests or communication styles with the community, so people don't really know how to relate to or interact with me, and thus have diminished interest in doing so. Anyway, these are all guesses; the true cause of the disconnect I don't know. It bothers me that I feel this way, because it occludes the fact that I do have good friends with whom I connect on a regular basis. Aside from Oscar, I have circafox and fritzywolf who are terrific roommates and awesome friends, and I also have a strong bond with Ty, who I dated briefly when I first moved back here, and Ryn and Karasu, a neat couple of more recent acquaintance. (It is perhaps problematic that the ages of the above are all 20-22 and I am as of 3 weeks ago 34, but that is not a topic I'm going to get into in more detail right now.) I know intellectually that I should be happy with this small cadre of close friends within the furry community-- the truth is, I don't really have time for more friendships, since I should be devoting more time than I currently do to the solitary pursuits of writing and meditation-- but knowing I'm foolish to be saddened by my perceived isolation does not diminish that sadness. (18 Windmills | Tilt)
Sunday, September 4th, 2011
9:10 pm	Not a Joke This Time Here's a link to an actual recent performance, which included awesome original art by , djinni, thisisstar and the latter's boyfriend Tim Riot, and original music by a tremendously talented local musician, Fiddleback: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2zZ_hhiGzo&feature=channel_video_title The video is pretty dark, but the sound quality's not bad. We'll be doing another show like this in Seattle on 10/1, with also poetry and music by Ty Logan. (Tilt)
Friday, August 19th, 2011
2:40 am	Recent Performance I don't perform much lately, but it turns out someone got a great recording of a recent show I was in and put it up on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wYO72zqnLQ&feature=youtu.be&t=4m38s (2 Windmills | Tilt)
Monday, May 16th, 2011
1:27 am	Spilled beer on my keyboard a few weeks ago, so I'm writing this right now on Oscar's laptop. He gave me this adorable rat stuffed animal tonight-- I've named it D-Trikk. Livejournal hasn't been doing it for me lately. I'll probably migrate over to Fur Affinity shortly. (Tilt)
Monday, February 14th, 2011
4:55 pm	Possibly the Best Thing to Happen in the History of Video Games and Literature Someone has made a short 8-bit style game of The Great Gatsby. It only takes like 10 minutes to play the whole thing. It's totally worth it, for the first boss fight alone. And the cut scenes! (3 Windmills | Tilt)
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
3:48 pm	Proof that Twitter has been affecting my LJ habits This weekend, I moved into a new 2 bedroom apartment at the border of Seattle and Shoreline with Circa, Fritz and Oscar. Tomorrow, I leave for a ten day Vipassana meditation course. All else remains well. (Tilt)
Friday, December 31st, 2010
12:59 pm	An Exciting New Development The excellent artist astolpho has begun serializing my poem "The Puppy Who Would Be Pope" in his awesome web comic, "The Dawn Chapel", here. I love how the first page looks, and can't wait to see what he does with the rest of it! (sorry for the crossposting, for y'all who've already seen this on Twitter and Facebook) (Tilt)
Saturday, December 18th, 2010
12:50 am	Quick Thought on Black Swan ( Spoiler Alert! ) (5 Windmills | Tilt)
Sunday, November 28th, 2010
2:41 pm	Q I was at Bellfurs last night-- the house that a bunch of awesome furries live in in Bellevue that's pretty much the center of my social life right now-- and I was in whitepaws' room with him, forestpaw, Cerb, and ryudowolf (I think essexkun had already gone to bed). We were all pretty fucked up, and then whitepaws put on this bizarre movie: In brief: an alternate world in which a lizard-like creature plots to kidnap a human child from our world and harvest its terrified screams to use as a source of energy. If successful, he plans to steal many more children and exploit their terror to power a whole city. Does anyone know what movie this is? (7 Windmills | Tilt)
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
1:19 pm	A Rare Meme I guess this is the normal evolution of LJ-- when you stop writing in it regularly, you end up just posting the occasional meme. Maybe if I get around to it, I'll do a real entry later-- this meme I've yoinked from louiserobertson: The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag everyone, because I'm interested in seeing what authors my friends choose. 1. Salman Rushdie 2. Tom Robbins 3. Margaret Atwood 4. Samuel Delaney 5. David Foster Wallace 6. Jeffrey McDaniel 7. Derrick Brown 8. Edward Lear 9. Evert Eden 10. Robert Browning 11. Mark Z. Danielewski 12. Jeff Noon 13. Philip Roth 14. Kurt Vonnegut 15. Stephen King Wow, 12 white males, 2 non-white males and 1 white female, and like 11-13 or so straight. Not tooo happy with the demographics there. Can anyone recommend to me some good non-straight, non-white and/or non-male authors who you think I'd like based on the list above? (14 Windmills | Tilt)
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
7:45 pm	A Rare Crossposting from Twitter There's a local internet station called "Hollow Earth Radio" on which Dogleaf (Ty) and I are performing tonight. The show runs 11pm-1am PT and's rebroadcast Monday 8am-10am. Not sure when in that two hours we're performing, but you should tune in, here. (5 Windmills | Tilt)
Sunday, October 10th, 2010
1:42 am	Identity Crisis fox_cub was in town recently and put it to me that I was a hipster. Of course, I roundly rejected this notion. I am not a hipster! I hate hipsters! But I put the question to Twitter, and the consensus therein was that I in fact AM a hipster, despite my strident protestations to the contrary. Tonight, I was over at pdmorehouse' place, with a few other kids, watching movies. I had never seen Juno before, and when early on the title character mentions reading McSweeney's I commented that I'd never seen McSweeney's referenced in a movie before. pdmorehouse asked "what the hell's McSweeney's?" I said "you know Dave Eggers, right?" Him: "No." Me: "Well... you've heard of the book 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'?" Him: "Nope." Me. "Um. Hrm. You know how I'm a hipster, apparently? It's a hipster thing." Fuck, dude. Fuuuuuck. . . . (not a hipster) (12 Windmills | Tilt)
Monday, October 4th, 2010
2:11 am	Letting Go I think I'm in the part of my life--right now-- that if I get to be very old I'll remember as the happiest I ever was. A significant part of that happiness is due to the strong friendships I've been able to forge within the Seattle furry community. This was a difficult task, because I've been second guessing myself every step of the way-- either being afraid that the apparent friendship people felt for me was insincere or worried that I might at any moment at best say or do something dumb and lose face and at worst say or do something so outlandish or offensive as to warrant being entirely ostracized. This paranoia's lead me to be timid and overcautious and if anything, any awkwardness that exists between me and any one else in the community appears to arise directly out of this timidity. Last night, I tried MDMA for the first time, and had an amazing experience-- it was as if all the self-consciousness in me was washed away, and I could see myself as everyone else saw me, and the truth is: I'm a pretty neat guy, and by and large, people sincerely like me a lot. It was pretty awesome. While rolling, I got to thinking about why I carried around this awful, paralyzing self-consciousness and I remembered an incident from almost ten years ago: I was still living in New York-- this must've been late 2000-- and I was having lunch with another young poet on the scene, Tim Arevalo. It was our first-- and only-- time hanging out together outside of a poetry event. I wish I could remember more clearly the conversation that lead up to this, but what I do remember is him telling me in very clear terms that a lot of my "friends" on the New York poetry scene didn't really like me, and that he wasn't sure about me either, was in fact leaning toward dislike. I think this changed me-- ever since then, I've been unable to take apparent declarations of friendship at face value, and've felt isolated and cut off from almost everyone. Every external stimuli that might carry any ambiguity at all I've instinctively begun to ascribe to people not liking me, not wanting to be around me-- I took each apparent slight as another confirmation of what Tim had told me: people don't really like me. I've talked before about feeling "estranged" from the Chicago poetry scene while I was living there, and indeed feeling detached from the poetry scene here in Seattle: now, looking back, I think it's all just been an imaginary outgrowth of this. I don't hold anything against Tim now-- I've always been very impressionable, and I think if he'd known how deeply I'd take this to heart, he wouldn't've been so harsh with me. And in some respects, I think I'm better for it: these past 10 years, I've been working very hard to be more considerate of others, and more aware of how my words and actions affect them, and I think it shows. But I think it's time for an adjustment in my perspective: while still trying to maintain this acquired consideration, I think it's time to shift from assuming people think the worst about me until proven otherwise to assuming they think the best, and acting accordingly. It's only been a day-- I'm not sure how long it will take to internalize this, but I'm hoping this'll mark a new beginning for me. [[Addendum, written 1/4/2011: looking back at this entry, it reads like I'm blaming Tim for missing me up, and I don't think that's fair at all. It's entirely possible-- I think, even, likely-- that I'm recalling the whole incident incorrectly and recasting it in memories light in the worst way possible. This is a probably another manifestation of the very paranoia and timidity I mention at the beginning of his entry, and in retrospect, I hold Tim blameless. ]] (13 Windmills | Tilt)
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
2:59 pm	RAINFURREST! All the cool kids are doing this meme about their plans for RF-- I thought I best participate: Arrival and Departure: I arrive with the wind and depart with the grass. I arrive with the cast and depart with God. I arrive at sunset and depart at moonrise. Every departure is an arrival somewhere else, and every arrival is a king slipping acorns into his breakfast. Staying at: The circus of Uqbar, where the merry chapatis swing. Mode of Transportation: Transmigration of the pineal gland. Room Share: I'll be rooming with a Mad Pirate Fox, an anthropomorphic tuxedo and a demon Rat reflection spun from glass and cyanide. Major Plans at the Con: Lather, rinse, repeat. Who Will I be with: Jesus of the Barnswallows, Mr. Marmalade, the Empress of Solitude, Stuckey, Kidnap Princess, Slumbdog Fiftycentaire, Blinky McFendernoggin, Dagon, Milarepa, Shambu Bharti Baba, and Baba Yaga Fursuit(s): I will be dressed as a dingo wearing skin sliced off a man, human skull resting atop my head. Attending Parties: Stormcock How best to find me: Look within. Drink: Funnel your hatment into a distillery. Sweat the hash oil of your spiegel into an oceandrop vial and feed it to me through a giant's eyedropper. Hugs: Drugs Talk: I will explain to you how the folds of spacetime snag your beasticle and stretch you across a moonbeam canvass, if you ask me, tell you the mermaid secrets and the country lies, fish truths from the well of icebergs. Art: In every glance. Do you do trades? You may have my allegiance if only you will part with a small scrap of your dignity. What is your gender? Protean. How old are you? 8, but I still have accidents. Can I touch you? You are touching me right now. The tentacles of your awareness slip through six dimensional axes and entangle my spiritface. Can I buy you lots of drinks? Possession is an illusion, so you can buy me nothing. Everything belongs to everyone. Can I give you lots of money? You can give whatever is yours to give. See previous. Can I hug or snuggle with you? Always. How tall are you? August 21st, 1977, 6:21am EDT Are you nice? Your face. What? Don't make me cut a bitch. Are you cliquey? I play castanets with penguins and dive soldier in the full light of a tarantula. Can I stalk you? Walk through the desert and smell my path. Stink your way into the temple of robust appetites and crawl underneath the subaltar. Do you like parties? Is that really a fair question? How many pink elbows clamor for your flagellum on a night like this? If i see you, how should i get your attention? Through yourself to the lines. Are you fursuiting? Always. Can I ask ya to dance with me during the dances? Sooner ask the sun to shoot icicles or the rain to rocket to the moon. Can I buy breakfast, lunch, or dinner sometime? See above. You've already fed me a thousand times with your breath and presence. Can I take a picture of ya? Only with the elastic film of a muddy-strung harp, or the spastic ticking of a tarpaulin hammerclaw. Can I Steal ya away for *censored*? Theft is an illusion. I am already yours. Would ya like to get a commission done of ya? I fly through the ghooric zone and into half scuppered canticles, tail wagging like comet behind. Thick-padded and blooming-eyed, impossible Dingo borne skyward. What are you selling? Everything I have is already yours as much as mine. (1 Windmill | Tilt)