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November 9th, 2004
08:44 pm - Intercontinental Ballistics.
I went a little every which way but loose today. I was a caged animal, restless and yearning to scratch this very, very old itch. And I'm in the process of scratching it, but I'm not there yet. I've only newly begun.
I've been so content. I suppose we're all alloted a restless day. It ate me alive, from the inside. All those little things I normally enjoy were today just a nuisance. Distraction from what I really wanted to be doing. Having that kind of adrenaline rush in the morning is not a good thing. It just gets my lantern lit and then I'm useless for anything requiring focus and diligence. Once that sucker's lit, I'm gone - I've got so much fire inside that when someone turns up the range knob even a little, I'm consumed and consuming.
My daddy made bombs, yes. He made me.
I am an incendiary device. I am highly flammable. I am volatile; hazardous goods, and I don't have a green wire to cut to disarm me.
When my pulse quickens, watch out. It's the old metaphor. I've got milk and a match, which one you gonna choose?
Funny. He was milk. I am a match. The two don't get on well. Milk will always douse the match and keep it from lighting successfully. I kept striking it up and he kept dousing it. And the milk was romantic and I loved the idea of it. I loved him, but I couldn't love him any longer when I realized that we were both in denial about his problem. So once again, as has been so many times in the past, the match had to walk away; seek more oxygen so that she might be able to strike.
I am struck.
A little sulfur. A little saltpeter. A little oxygen. A little tinder.
I am ablaze.
I've never told anyone this, but before every performance, since I've been performing, which started when I was six, I've asked someone - God, the cosmic stuff out there, whatever you want to call it - to crown me with a halo of fire. That's been my little prayer before taking the stage for twenty-three years. And someone always has heard my plea and heeded it.
I burn like the burn-off torches in the oilfields of the Middle East; bright blue and super-heated. I remember those torches as clear as day. My first memories; flying into Saudi, banking, preparing to land at the airport at Daharhan. I'll never forget the way that looked. A million blue-tipped matches standing on end on the desert floor.
"See the oilfields at first light...it's a beautiful day..."
They were the candles on my first birthday cake, those torches. Looking out the window of the green Saudia Airlines jet, 1976. Coming down to land in the world of black ghosts, of Pepsi-Cola, of urine in the streets and gold in the souks. Coming down to land in The Kingdom, All Hail His Holy Eminence, King Faisal al Saud. Allah Akbar. Coming down to land, inshallah. If we don't get hijacked by the PLO first.
Armed guards in the airport in Rome. A long way to the ground in Paris. A tricycle on a track in Germany. My first experience with lobsters and Communism in Portugal. Baby steps up the Acropolis in Greece. Seeing the Lippizanners in Austria. The Zuchspitz. Trafalgar Square. The A-Bomb dome. Hiroshima. Tokyo. Cairo. Berlin.
How could I not burn?
This life has been seared into me; I'm branded. My Kingsford Briquettes were doused in lighter fluid before I could even speak.
Did you ever lose a childhood toy?
I left my pet rubber bat, Fleeter, in the ladies' restroom at Heathrow.
I dropped my Tweety Bird while climbing up the endless stairs to the C-5 military transport plane in Greece. Some nice soldier returned it to me that time.
Did you go to preschool?
I went to Riyadh International Community School some days. The other days, I accompanied my Mama to the Saudi Royal Palace where she taught English to the children of the Crown Prince.
How could I not burn?
This is such a unique life. I accepted it for so long that everyone's life must be like this. What foolishness!
It astounds me, now, looking back. The places I've been. The people I've met. The things I've done.
How could I not burn?
How could I ever be content for long, without trying to move forward?
How could I ever expect not to be restless?
I've never known anything but dynamic movement. From my earliest days on this planet, I was soaring above it. I was a two-year-old jet setter! It's been an absurd life. A traumatic one. A good one. Rich and full, and I've only just begun.
I feel so blessed.
I am on a heat-seeking trajectory. I am shooting up the parabola; maintaining my pitch, my roll and my yaw. Balancing my artificial horizon until I smell that target.
And its scent is on the air.
I am an Intercontinental Ballistic.
Current Mood: Long Range.
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November 8th, 2004
09:36 pm - On the Exhale.
I know it’s not safe anywhere else to think these things, but I can think them and release them here. And for some reason, it’s important that you know. If you see them, they can be dealt with and released.
It’s impossible to separate one piece of it from another. It’s all wrapped up together in the same Christmas-printed shirt box.
I have pushed and struggled for so long. As I told you, everyone sees it; everyone wants to capitalize on it, but no one knows (knew) how. I just wanted some help! I wanted to be able to relax and enjoy it a little.
You’re help.
People have helped; I’ve had a tremendous lot of help along the way – that’s not what I’m talking about. I wanted someone to take my ideas and run with them. You’ve read it all; you’ve heard it all. I just can’t tell you what you mean to me. Already. I’m fond of you on so many levels, but my career has always been first in my heart and mind. I’ve been married to it. I took that vow when I was just a child. I only wanted someone who had the confidence to do what needs to be done in my way; his way – our way. I’ve had them fighting me all along. You’re not fighting me. You see the method; you see it and know there is no madness. It’s pretty straightforward. That’s what I’ve been trying to get people to see for years! For some reason, no one did or could – or would.
In a different life, I would be able to lie down with you and consummate everything I feel for you. It isn’t only sexual. It’s spiritual. A meeting of our souls; as close as I can get to you. I think our souls are already there, so perhaps it’s pointless to even lament, but this mortal coil begs to know what the spirit knows already. And I can only feel that wholly here; keeping the company only of these clandestine words. Some prayer writ to the firmament of posterity.
My body nags me. I tell it to be still and it is for a time, and then it pleads to be let in on the secret. I give myself orgasms so strong that I am thrown off the bed by my own power. Perhaps it’s just the timing; am I not supposed to be edging into my sexual peak? It feels so much more than that, though. My body wants to commiserate with you in the same way my mind has. I’ve already made love to you with my intellect. As happened with my first muse, we make love intellectually, and in many ways that’s much more exciting. But still the body pleads.
And I am professional, and I am one tough son-of-a-bitch, and I can be – will be - reserved and keep this longing in its proper place, but not here. I have to release it somehow, so I’ll let the words become my exhale.
I am so romanced by all this. And it’s wonderful for the art of it. It’s exactly what I need to do what I need to do. Feed the spirit. Feed the soul. Feed the mind. Appetizers to whet the pen, the voice, the canvas. Cosmic hors d’oeuvres.
I walk away from the little pub warm with Irish Coffee, warm from the fire, warm from our closeness, warm from hugging you. I walk into the freedom of the city. San Francisco is freedom. I step through the city alone, in my black woolen coat, in my black stockings and black heels, dragging on my long black cigarette, and I have arrived into all the little-girl dreams I had of myself. I always knew I would be this. It’s the image I saw of myself when I was just six years old, and I saw it and felt it and I cried because I knew and yet I couldn’t be there. I had so many years to go; so many things to learn.
I cross the street against the tourists and my legs feel long, even though they’re not. My stride is long; some compensation. My hair is relaxed from the drizzle and keeps falling over my eye. I move through crowds alone, my collar turned up against the chill. I smile to myself and the tourists see this and wonder about it.
I am in my element. I am here for me, and this is my city and it’s happening on my time, and the person you know is me. Not some silly rock-star image, not some projection of one facet of my personality. You are the first person to really know Casey. Casey as I have always wanted to be; me without the fear. And you’re perceptive. I am quiet. I am quiet because I observe. I drink everything in and analyze it; assimilate it.
All the pieces are there; finally. I have no one for whom I should sacrifice my independence; my autonomy, and yet I have love. And that’s what this is, is it not? Love in some way? Filial? Familial? What is love but ardent fondness? What is it but loyalty and trust? What is it but optimism and hope? What is it but a belief in yourself and in another person that you somehow supercede all this silliness; all the pettiness of this world and exist on a higher plane? What is love but friendship? And this friendship I have no name for. I only know that it means the world to me and I trust it to carry us both to places we have only yet dreamed of. This friendship now exists solely for you and I. Others may have glimpses into it, but they can’t know all it involves. All the permutations and nuance only so recently born, but yet so old. Does it not feel that way to you?
So comfortable and luxurious, like cashmere pajamas. So familiar, even though it shouldn’t be. So genuine.
You are my executor. You will be my protector. This friendship is so special. What we are doing is so special. We are engaged in something so wonderous that no one right now can touch it. Shhhhh…so quiet. It’s as soft and as quiet as a first snowfall. Hushed. For only you and I.
And that will change as we move into it, but for now, it’s only for you and I.
My heart is with you.
Current Mood: First Snowfall
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October 1st, 2004
08:56 am - Armistead Maupin Wrote my Life.
There goes the Daio Paper ship.
That's a lot of paper.
I suppose it's on its way to Japan - a return voyage from dropping off reams and reams and reams of the finest 60lb ivory linen laid resume for Miller, Starr & Regalia. Yes, lawyers kill a lot of trees.
It looks like ice out there and if you were here, seeing what I'm seeing, you'd know how appropriate that is.
Current Mood: Snowing Packing Peanuts.
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September 27th, 2004
11:22 am - If it Keeps on Rainin' The Levee's Going to Break.
Alright. I know I've used that one before. Since I've been gone from this hornbook an for more than a couple of fortnights, I'm not opposed to recycling.
You know, I come down so hard on people for some of their indiscretions, but I have my own.
Sweet dark hours
Why don't you stay a while,
I know a good way to pass the time
Sweet, like indiscretion
I swear I'll be discrete
If you give me something sweet and fine...
Sweet.
Like indiscretion.
My indiscretion.
My single, solitary indiscretion that is burning me as I sit here in this sedate office. Sedate. I love that word. It calls to mind "sedan", which calls to mind a whole host of Maharajah scenes, like eighteenth century Raj dining-rookm wallpaper. Malleable eucalyptus trees preening over well-dressed elephants.
Passing time under the Malleable Eucalyptus
The Venerable Eucalyptus
Waiting for my honey wine
Passing time in shade of lemon trees
Waiting 'til he comes to me
With indiscretion sweet and fine
And a barrel of monkeys
Couldn't keep the corners of my mouth roped down
There's an innocence about this kind of thing
Especially when the lines limp around so lame
But that's fun
Under the Eucalyptus trees
Begging venom from the bees
It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.
Current Mood: and able.
Current Music: Blind Lemon Jefferson - "Long Lonesome Blues".
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September 20th, 2004
12:40 pm - Bringing Back the Plaid.
Therapy. Therapy. Old friends are therapy. Especially when you’ve recently been on the outs with other old friends. I’m getting over it. I’m getting over it. I’m getting over it. Therapy. It helps to repeat things three times. It’s a little drill burrowing into my skull fixing the idea in place with the resolution of a home-decorating show host. I’m getting over it.
The truth is this: there will never be a day that there won’t be something for me to get over. But it gets easier. This time I only got the howls for two days, really. I was in mourning over it for months before it actually occurred, so by the time the reality came around, I’d pre-empted a lot of the grief. Anticipated grief. Maybe that’s the way to do it.
There are other things to concentrate on. Lots of other things. So many that I really don’t have time for a relationship even if I had one, and by this time in my life I am able to stand solidly in my too-high heels and face the fact that I am not a good girlfriend. I’ve known this for a long time, but I’ve been unwilling to face it. I submit too much of myself to my boyfriend. I find it inordinately difficult to retain my sense of self in a relationship; I become the geisha. I’m attracted to men who naturally dominate, and I’ve a very dominating personality myself. Maybe I will be one of those women like Jackie Onassis who, in the end, found that she was happier without a mate, per se. Lovers, fine. Mates…I’m skeptical. I do feel, however, that I’ve never had the opportunity to date a man. I’ve only been with boys. Guys. Males who have not found out for themselves how yet to be men.
So, that’s that for now. I’m having to retrain myself on how to be attracted to men. Men, I mean. Not boys. Are all men boys? Can I be attracted to those who aren’t? It remains to be seen.
Current Music: Bee Gees - "Jive Talkin'".
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November 1st, 2003
02:24 am - Chapter One - "Options".
Foreigner. Cold as Ice.
That's the last time I remember being completely happy.
I was watching MTV. I must have been about seven years old. I was sitting on the floor of our finished basement in blue footie pajamas, making icy soup out of a bowl of vanilla ice cream and Hershey's syrup. I wasn't supposed to be up that late, but then, I've never been a big fan of sleep. There's a window - from about six to eight pm where I might be able to sleep through the night if I let myself nap. If I'm up past eight, I'm up until eight in the morning. It's always been that way. The girl can't help it.
Anyway, I was watching that Foreigner video. I can't remember what it looks like now, except for the hot-air-balloon shape of Roger Taylor's hair. I think he was wearing white pants. I know they must have been so tight that you could see his basket.
I was happy. Completely happy. Completely without another thought in my head but Foreigner, ice cream soup and twisting the blue shag carpet with my big toes.
Why can't life ever be that simple again?
The alarm went off on my cell phone four times this afternoon. By the third time, I barely heard it, so I balanced it on my neck and tried to hold as still as possible while I squeezed the last dregs of sleep out of the five minutes I had left. For five minutes, I dreamt of Foreigner and Breyer's Vanilla Bean. You've got to steal all those happy moments (or at least the memory of them) while you can. The buzzer went off for at least three minutes before the sound penetrated the song. Rude. It was rude. The whole thing - the sunlight eeking its way past the black towels over the windows - rude.
I lurched out of bed and hit my knee on the frame of the bathroom door. Fuck.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy my job, but it is after all, a job, and I don't care if you're being paid to have sex and eat candy all day, if you're doing it for someone else and getting a biweekly paycheck for it, you'll dread getting up on Monday morning to have sex and eat candy. I think it's a Newtonian Law.
That being said, I'll tell you - I'm a disco instructor. Don't laugh. Really. I teach disco. You name it. The Tango Hustle, The New York Hustle, The Brazilian Electric Boogie...I could go on. You'd be surprised at what demand there is in suburban America for disco lessons. Everyone has their favorite shred of nostalgia. For me, it's Foreigner and The Empire Strikes Back. For a lot of Junior League soccer moms across the country, it's Tavares and Alicia Bridges. Hey. Fine by me. Pay my rent and buy me groceries and I'll teach you how to hustle like Ginger Rogers with a bee in her booty.
This is how I'm able to get away with getting up at four in the afternoon. It's nothing to shake a stick at; pretty cush, but like I said, it's a job. It's work. Work is drudge. Even when it's disco.
In the shower I cut myself shaving way up on my right thigh, in the same place I've cut myself repeatedly for years. I've got three different scars in the same half-inch wide patch of skin. The same thing always happens; it's more ritual now than accident. The razor gets too soapy and when I hit that piece of skin, it spins in my hand and slides horizontally for a three-inch-long joyride. Fuck fuck. Three long red parallel lines that are going to leak through my Danskins all bloody day. Fuck.
Okay. Really. I'm not this irritable all the time. I swear. It is Monday, after all, and I just don't feel well. Something I ate last night, maybe. I don't know. There's this itch I've had since Friday night that I just haven't been able to get at. I don't know what it is. I had fitful dreams that day, and after class, I went out with some friends to this little place on Elm where they play a lot of eighties' funk stuff, which is usually enough to make me giddy, but Friday - I don't know - I just couldn't get into it. I didn't even get up for The Ohio Players. I just sat there, compulsively stirring my scotch and soda. Something's weighing on my mind, and for the life of me, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just too much salt.
I went through three pairs of stockings before finding one with only one run. It was in the toes, so I just tied a knot in the foot and stretched them as much as I could. The crotch was still kind of low, but not totally uncomfortable.
When I got to the studio, they were already waiting for me.
Mrs. Daley was sitting on her yoga mat, which she always insists on bringing even though we never do anything on the floor. The other women were gathered around her like a herd of sea lions, barking and yapping over each other.
"Oh, there she is! We were beginning to think you'd skipped town on us."
I dropped my bag against the mirror and smiled as best as I could. It was hard.
"Sorry I'm late. I had a couple of mishaps at home."
"That's okay, Sweetie. We were just catching up on Saturday's Hornets game." She turned to Mrs. Gupita. "You tell Channapa that if she needs anything for that knee, we'll be happy to help. I'll send Mary-Kate over with some of those blue ice packs. We've got tons of them since we went camping last October. Natalie! Are you ready to start yet?"
I gritted my teeth and smiled again. It was harder.
"Almost."
Someone had stepped on the plug for the amplifier. When I bent it back into shape, it shocked me. ARGH. MONDAYS.
I counted to five silently and turned around with a smile (hardest) on my face. I don't think they bought it.
"Okay, Ladies. Today we're going to learn some new steps from the hustle that spawned them all, The Latin Hustle."
"Finally. This is the only reason I took this class." Mrs. Kellerman took a swig from her Dasani and coughed.
"Well, I'm glad you're getting your money's worth." I stood in the center of the floor. "Everybody up; let's face the mirror."
Now, as dance goes, disco's just not particularly hard. There are only a few basic patterns, and once you get those, you can motivate fairly competently to any song. All the songs have basically the same changes. It never fails to surprise me how absolutely inept some of these women are. It's not ballet, for Christ's sake. You just know most of these women were cheerleaders in high school and they probably all took aerobics until the births of their first children, at which point they switched to yoga or Pilates after the Tae-Bo craze ran its course. All of that should give a person some degree of rhythm and knowledge of anticipating a beat. Not so. Maybe their minds are too full of soccer scores and the price of Freesia-White Tea Body Butter. I don't know. Whatever the terpsichorean equivalent of not being able to hold a note is - some of them - God! Some of them can't put one foot in front of the other and still stand up. I don't know how they walk! Maybe it's because they're out of their Brighton sandals.
You think I'm judging them unfairly. You think they can't all be like this.
Let me tell you. Every pair of feet looks the same. I see them change from their Nike trainers into their dancing heels. Between shoes, there's a flash of two immaculately pedicured, fake-baked feet. The only variable between any of them is the color of the polish, and that usually only varies by brand. They know. "Oh, you've got Chanel's version of Lancome's Mauve-a-Lish! I love it! I'm going to have to get that!" "Everything's going dark this season. Not quite as dark as Vamp, but darker than that Nars color last fall."
I shit you not.
So how, you ask, did I get into this line of work? How did I wind up, at twenty-nine years of age, teaching The Latin Hustle to a bunch of Stepford wives?
How does anyone end up doing anything? I was out of options.
That novel I'd started writing when I was out of high school just didn't come to fruition. I picked it up every second year and made it to page one hundred and thirty-eight, but I can't ever make it past the point where Robin says to Clay, "I'm starting to miss you, Asshole." I applied for several jobs out of country, but they all required college degrees, and I gave that up two years into school. I thought about going back to school, but I'm interested in too much. I can't narrow it down enough to convince the registrars that I'm not going to flip around and drop a bunch of classes. I'd put in for flight attendant candidacy with Aer Lingus, and that looked promising, but the mail runs slow between Dallas and Dublin, so in the interim, a position came available at A Lone Star Is Born! Dance Studio. It's close to my house. It's not nine-to-five. It pays well. I figured I'd do it until I heard from Aer Lingus. It's been seven months. I think I'll apply with El Al. That should be exciting.
"No, no - Mrs. Golier - it's step-ball-change, step-ball-change, THEN grapevine right and touch. Here. Let me show you."
By the time class was over, I could feel the stress knotted up in my spleen.
"I'll see you all next Monday. Get your husbands to take you dancing so you can practice."
"Yea, that'll be the day!" Mrs. Kellerman, ever the peach, kicked the studio door open and let it hit Mrs. Gupita's rear end.
"Ow! Mindy!"
I could hear them fumbling with their Mercedes keys, and the cars beeping in reply, and the solid German "thunk" of doors before the engines went on. I grabbed a banana out of my bag, plopped down on the floor and ate it, staring at myself in the mirror.
"GET OUT OF IT!" I growled between bites. "Just snap out of it already! I can't stand you like this!" I cocked my head and smiled the phoniest smile I could muster. "Are they out of your shade at Aveda, Sweetie?" I groaned and rolled onto my back, stretching my legs over my head and grabbing my shoes.
"Please. El Al. Come through for Mama."
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
On Mondays, I have classes from five-thirty until ten, back-to-back. Three of those are forty-five minute long disco classes, and then I also teach a half-hour of high-impact aerobics just to stay in shape. That’s actually almost always fun. We listen to a lot of Van Halen. The women in that class are a lot less – er – a lot less uniform than the ones in my disco classes. I actually like them. There’s Anne, who’s pretty heavyset, and it amazes me that she moves as easily and freely as she does. There’s Miriam, a little wiry Persian girl who looks as though she’s never eaten anything and is always chewing gum with her mouth open. There’s Chardonney, the darkest black girl I’ve ever seen, with the sweetest disposition of anyone I’ve ever met, and there’s Abe, the token fag. I think he comes just for the music, because no one in the gay community will admit to liking Van Halen.
Those are the die-hards. Occasionally, Grace will drag herself in. Grace is forty-nine. She chain-smokes. Her teeth match her hair – a dingy sort of gray-yellow that reminds me of old lady kitchen curtains. She always wears this purple tie-dyed shirt over a pair of bright orange stirrup pants and she scratches her crotch. A lot.
I look forward to when Grace comes in. I must have really needed a pick-me-up, because she hadn’t been in attendance in a month, and this particular Monday, she showed up fifteen minutes into the class. We were already doing pull-downs to Yes’s “Leave It”. When she ambled in, I smiled for real for the first time all day. She was still smoking. I didn’t tell her to put it out.
“Oh, crap. I’m late, hunh?” She took a place next to Abe and sat down to tie her sneakers. One had pink laces and the other, green. Abe stopped jumping and put his hands on his hips.
“Lady, you need to put that cigarette out!”
“Anh! Gimme a minute! My shoes came untied!”
Abe went back to jumping, but not before pulling the cigarette out of Grace’s mouth and stepping on it dramatically.
“Cretin!” Grace scowled at him as she stood up. “I said gimme a minute.”
“A minute – “ Abe huffed while jumping, “of secondhand smoke…” “is a week…” “off of my life!”
“They just tell you that ‘cos the government likes to scare people. What are we doing?”
The mix cd switched from Yes to Zeppelin’s “Rock & Roll”. Grace snorted. We switched from pull-downs to a high-kicking jitterbug.
“GET THOSE FEET UP THERE, PEOPLE!”
Miriam blew a bubble and it exploded over her cheek as she picked her feet up. Anne couldn’t pick her feet up very much higher, so she started thrusting her arms out like she was boxing.
“Hey, Anne – good idea!” I started doing it, too. “Come on – everybody!”
We boxed with Robert Plant until the song was over and then went on to Missing Persons’ “Walking in L.A.”
When that class was over, I felt substantially better, although the sweat was making the cut on my leg burn like hell.
“Good work, you guys!” Abe threw me a towel. “If anyone has any music they want to bring in, remember that you’re always welcome to do so.”
Anne poured some water on the front of her shirt. “I was thinking we ought to try some Dead Kennedys.”
“That would work. Got any? I think all my old tapes are pretty defunct.”
“I’ve got a cd. I’ll bring it.”
“Great.” I blotted my forehead with the towel and blew my nose into it. “Say, what are you guys doing after this?”
Chardonney took the scrunchie off of her wrist and started pulling her hair into a ponytail. “I’ve got to get to class. I’ve got a night lab tonight.”
“Miriam – what about you?”
“I’m meeting my boyfrien’ at Cinema Eight. He said he was going to take me to see that new Chainsaw movie, but I’m gonna make him go into the Sean Penn one when after we get the ticket.”
“Anne?”
“I’m just going to go read. Nothing much planned. Why?”
“I want to go get a pizza. I want company. Anyone want to come with me?”
“Sure. I’ll come. I haven’t really been out in about a week.”
“Abe? You down?”
“Sure. What the hell? You only live seven times.”
“Grace – what about you?”
She sniffed and wiped her nose on the collar of her shirt. “I’m not too hot on pizza, but I could use a Coke.”
“And a smoke.” Abe popped his towel at her thigh.
“You bet.”
“Cool. The rest of you, I’ll see you next week.” I picked up my bag. “I can only fit two in my car. Can we all go in somebody’s?”
Abe grabbed his keys out of a red hard-shell backpack. “I’ll drive.”
He has one of those nouveau VW Beetles. I abdicated shotgun to Anne. Grace tripped over the seatbelt while getting in the back.
“This is nice. I like your mum.” The neat thing about these bugs is the little flower vase on the console. I think someone at VW had the right idea with that.
“Mum’s the word.” Abe shot us back a smile and adjusted his mirror. In it, his eyes found Grace. “Don’t even dream of lighting up in my car, Chicky-Boo.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We made idle chatter on the way to Johnnie’s NY Style Pizzeria; it was mostly Abe telling Anne how much he likes Chihuahuas and Anne nodding her head politely. To my surprise, Grace didn’t say much. She seemed to be elsewhere. She stared out the window while one hand twisted the bottom corner of her shirt. Over pizza and Cokes, she came back to life enough to get into an argument with Abe over the virtues of a Christian upbringing. Another surprise.
“I’m not saying I buy into it all. I’m just saying there’s some things that are absolute and it’s a good thing to teach a kid. Church is good for teaching ‘em.” She went back to sucking her third Coke.
“Like what, Grace? What things are absolute?”
She blew some bubbles in the glass.
“Well, like murder. Murder’s wrong. If you don’t have some sort of code – you know – some rules to follow that lay out what’s right and wrong, then you’ve got a kid full of, well, mess. I’m not too big on institutions, but I think a kid benefits from going to church. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Yea, we all know murder’s wrong. But what about all those other things they teach you in church? Like homosexuality is wrong and having fun is wrong and doing what comes naturally to you is wrong?” He wound some stray mozzarella around his fork.
“Where’d you learn to eat your pizza with a fork?” Grace looked up from her Coke.
“I just don’t like eating with my hands.”
“Never bothered me.”
“I’m not surprised.”
They went on like that for the duration of our meal. I tried engaging Anne in conversation about the book she was reading, but she seemed too shy to really say much.
“I’m sorry, Natalie. I’m just tired.”
“No problem. I’m tired, too.”
“Thanks for coming with us.”
My spirits fell again. The temporary high I’d ridden after class abated when I couldn’t get a good conversation started among that group. I was anticipating some innocent fun, but all Abe and Grace wanted to do was pick at each other and Anne proved to be just a bystander. Abe drove us back to the studio, where we all said goodnight and got in our respective cars to go home. I didn’t go right away. I turned on the accessory power and let the CD player come on. It clicked and paused. Track 3 of The Lindley Park’s “Tea” disc.
“Sorry guys. Not in the mood.” I hit the eject button and tossed the CD into a book, not bothering to put it in a sleeve. I turned the key to ignition and hit the AM/FM button.
“You’re as cold as ice.”
I stared at the display on the CD player.
“You’re kidding.”
I sat for another minute in the car, my eyes closed, thinking about that vanilla-and-Hershey’s ice cream soup. I could taste it; feel all the little grains of ice on my tongue. Then the song ended. I shut off the radio and drove home in silence.
When I got there, nothing seemed worth doing, even though I had a good-sized stack of resumes to send out and a basket full of clean laundry to fold. I got in bed and stared at the ceiling fan making alcoholically slow circles.
Sometime I must have broken my own rules and fallen asleep, because I woke up at four in the morning needing to pee so badly that my legs hurt. When I went to the bathroom, there were little pink spots in my panties and in the toilet bowl.
“What now? A bladder infection? Great. Great day, God. Great day.”
I couldn’t find the cranberry pills in the kitchen, so I threw a jacket over my work-clothes (I was still in a leotard) and drove to Walgreen’s. Even though this time of the morning was nothing new to me, everything seemed weird since I’d slept. The streetlights looked too bright and glaring. It had rained a little, and there was still a mist in the air enough to form fuzzy halos around all the lights. I kept blinking, trying to clear my vision, until I woke up a little more and realized it wasn’t me.
The solitary clerk at Walgreen’s was your typical graveyard shift retail employee. Overweight, skin pockmarked from bad teenaged acne, glasses and a mean lisp. He wore one of those cheap silver ankh pendants that renaissance fairs make a bad habit of selling.
“That all?” He waved the box of pills over the scanner and the beep it was like a dagger in my brain.
“Yea. That’s it. Thanks.”
“You get these often?”
“Pardon?”
He held up the box and shook it before dropping it in a plastic bag.
“Urinary tract infections. I’m assuming you have one. Do you get ‘em often?”
“More than I’d like. I tend not to drink enough water.” I pulled a handful of change out of my pocket and counted fifty-six cents. “Why?”
“My little sister gets ‘em. Do these things work?”
“Most of the time. Drinking the juice is better. And you’ve really got to up your water intake. I hate drinking that much water.”
“Hope it works for you this time.”
“Thanks.” I took the bag from him and felt like I should say something else, but I couldn’t think of what.
“’Night.”
“Goodnight.”
At home, I filled the 44 oz Kum-N-Go mug with water and popped a couple of the cranberry pills. I forced myself to drink it all, even though I felt nauseated by about ounce 22.
I thumbed through the stack of resumes – “tomorrow” – and climbed back into bed.
The ceiling fan hypnotized me again and I was out until two-thirty.
This time when I woke up, it was raining. The light peeking past the towels was blessedly dim. When I went to pee, it was clear again.
“Thank God. Intercepted.”
I didn’t have a class until six, so I forced myself to fold the laundry and lick a few stamps on the resume envelopes. In the middle of it, the phone rang. It was Paula.
“Want to go out tonight? There’s a French DJ at Fusion. He’s supposed to be awesome.”
“I don’t know. I’ve been feeling really weird lately.”
“Weird how? Like pregnant weird?”
“God, no. Like weird weird. Just weird. Everything seems very surreal and my head hurts. Last night I thought I was getting a bladder infection, but I think I caught it.”
“You need to get out. Come out tonight. We don’t have to stay the whole time.”
“Maybe. I’ll call you after class.”
“Alright. You better call.”
“I will.”
Paula is an attorney. She’s partner with a guy who used to play guitar for The Vandals. He had a practice in L.A., but gave it up after dealing with too many slimy contract-negotiation cases in which his best contract writing didn’t get his artists diddly-squat. Now he mainly negotiates patent contracts. Paula specializes in trademarks and copyrights. I met her when I needed someone to look over my SR form for this collaborative songwriting project I did with my old drummer last year.
Oh yea. I used to be in a band.
Paula’s cool. She’s not your typical lawyer type. She’s more in the Ally McBeal school, although not nearly so neurotic. I like her because she’s got real confidence, and that’s hard enough to find in anyone, let alone a woman. If we’re out eating somewhere and the waiter gets my order wrong, I let her handle it. She’s got a knack for getting things done. I suppose we look for traits in our friends that we admire and don’t see in ourselves. I was a born procrastinator. It’s symptomatic of the overthinker. If there’s anything I do effectively and on time, it’s overthink.
“Do I want to go out tonight and hear this French DJ?” I pulled Opus down from the shelf and held him at arms’ length. He just stared back at me with big white eyes. His red bow tie was coming undone. “We need to fix that, don’t we?” I tried to straighten it and returned him to his perch.
Current Mood: An Itch to Scratch.
Current Music: Tavares - "If I Can't Have You".
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02:19 am - I'm Afraid I Can't Help It.
I've been working on King Lincoln diligently, with a week's hiatus in San Francisco. My goal is to have it finished by my birthday. That being the case, I'm taking a month off to participate in the National Novel Writing Month event. A break from pre-World War I Louisiana and zombies should do me good. The event prescribes the goal of writing a 50,000 word novella from 1 November - 30 November. I'm going to attempt it, and I'm going to do it live, online, without ropes or mirrors.
I make no apologies for what sort of meandering crap might float your way in the coming thirty days.
Current Mood: Gingerly Optimistic.
Current Music: Bowie - "I'm Afraid of Americans".
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October 30th, 2003
03:56 pm - I Reach Down Between my Legs; Ease the Seat Back...
Panama.
Panama-a-a.
Goddamnit, if Teddy Roosevelt beat his sickliness through hard exercise and stubbornness, so can I.
Current Mood: Granola and Bally's
Current Music: Van Halen - "Panama".
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October 28th, 2003
04:12 pm - Before I'll Let that Happen, I'm Gonna Dance My Life Away.
Daddy Bo fixed the old Sansui turntable. A couple of weeks ago, the little driver belt broke right in the middle of a workout session with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I was irritated, to say the least.
Now it's back! Yay! Sometimes I feel so shallow. All I want to do is dance, dance.
Dad bought the Sansui at the base exhange at Sasebo, Japan. I remember the day very well. We brought it back to our little Japanese crackerbox with the flaky gold and silver walls (the plaster of the walls had glitter in it - never seen it before or since) and hooked it up. It looked so high-tech. Strangely, it still does. It's one of those rack component systems from the eighties with big, lighted square buttons and a peacock of a graphic eq. I used to watch that thing for hours. It's got a programmable turntable - very novel for 1984. Dual cassette deck, high speed dubbing, video in with a separate eq specifically for video (sign of the times) and a "710 Synthesizer Tuner". Midi input. All the input jacks are 1/4 inch. Ahh. Heaven.
So now that it's back, I celebrated by popping on my parents' disco records, my Michael Jackson and Prince and the golden fleece - the Ghostbusters soundtrack LP that I bought in Hiroshima in '84 when I was obsessed with the movie and with that Thompson Twins song "In the Name of Love."
I danced in my room to that song for a good part of the two years we lived in Akizuki. I couldn't get enough of it. Before that, it had been "Eye of the Tiger". I was a Rocky fan from the word "go" or the word "Mick", whichever one you prefer. ("The yellow diamonds or the white, whichever one you prefer.") Sorry. Nelly took over there for a minute.
I've been dancing alone to this song since I was eight years old. That's TWENTY YEARS OF THOMPSON TWINS. Holy shit. I'll never stop being fascinated and tickled by this age thing. I used to sit on my bedroom floor making my space shuttle models, with this song on "repeat", sporadically eating from a box of weird little Japanese candies shaped like Contact cold medicine. They came in a blister-pack, and were little gelatin capsules with candy sprinkles inside. Leave it to the Japanese to make something so dangerous so cute and cuddly. The package had a sick bear, winking, with a thermometer in its mouth.
I learned to dance watching Michael Jackson videos and Saturday Night Fever repeatedly. I was always so afraid to do it in front of anyone when I was really young. When we lived in D.C., I had a big group of friends that had parties often enough; like so many things in my life, I wasn't about to lose face when the opportunity arose for me to dance the first time, so I just got up there and did it like it was no big deal. From that moment, I was hooked. I'll never forget the glee of dancing with Jenny Kerr and Missi Hyman to Violent Femmes, Nitzer Ebb and the (Venerable) Milkmen, standing on the benches at Kathleen LoJacono's house. We liked to "scare" the boys by getting on our knees in a circle and mouthing all the words to Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Rawhead and Bloodybones" while acting like freaky broken dolls. (I was goth before goth was cool.) The year, 1988. The bangs, high.
Dancing in a circle with everyone to "Need You Tonight". Buying Outback Red sweaters for different birthdays - buying them at Springfield Mall. Hanging out to watch the skaters at Wavedancer. (Avril Lavigne suck my figurative dick. I was there LONG before you, Babe.) Listening to Milkmen, Metallica and Anthrax with Hans Christensen in his bedroom. Taunting his dachshund, Hexe. Awkwardly kissing Charles Jacks and hoping it would make Dave Ulrich jealous. It did. Brett Steele in Billabong shirts and Bobby Le in Polo. Joey Dittmar. Rebecca Shriber and Kavita Gupta. Oh, don't you all know I loved you? Gary Riddle. Mike Mattingly. Christina Gomez-Collins. Tim O'Neil. Anh-Van Nguyen. Brady Ouilette. Morganne Carlson. Adam Martin. My first kiss in Major League/Gleaming the Cube. Curtis Schlunz. J.J. Campbell. Paige Brashear. We were such a great group of overachieving, nerdy, new-wave, skater-punk, honor roll, Just Say No Club kids! Before I moved to Oklahoma, the gang gave me a brand-new bright blue Tommy Guerrero deck, signed by everyone. Dave gave me his beloved, thrashed-to-hell SMA Jesse Martinez deck. I still have them both. He also gave me a comp tape with Erasure, Echo and the Bunnymen and Julian Cope "Charlotte Anne." Maybe that's why I'm so heady into this memory. I found that single at Amoeba and have been listening to it as though it were the cure for my cancer.
I miss watching The Lost Boys at your house, Hans. I miss going out to Daventry to spend the night at Missi's, lying in bed listening to Black Celebration and talking incessantly about Dave and J.J. Mike showing me the "oi" tattoo on his bottom lip after doing handplants at the end of the Shribers' driveway. Riding the Shockwave at King's Dominion with Dave. Watching Nightmare on Elm Street with Rebecca after her parents had gone to bed, with popcorn and blankets and hot cocoa.
Oh...
When we moved to McAlester, I tried to continue that feeling, but everything was so different. I found that Tulsa seemed very much like D.C. - a suburban wonderland the likes of which ruined so many people because of its sterility and boredom - but I LOVED it. For a peripatetic introvert like me, it was a paradise. In D.C. I BELONGED for a minute. I snuck away to Tulsa as often as I could; once before I even really had my license. My remarkably- worldly-for-living-in-McAlester-Oklahoma-all-her-life friend, Erin Long and I used to get dressed up (she like Siouxsie, me like Robert Smith) and drive up to Woodland Hills Mall, in hopes of catching the attention of some like-minded people. I was always jealous of the Tulsa kids because they got to be there all the time, while I anguished and angsted away in McAlester, dreaming of getting back to D.C., or to the U.K. or anywhere at all that was not there. Erin was a godsend. She was a die-hard Morrissey fan. She liked The Young Ones and Oscar Wilde. She had a little stuffed bull named "Durham" that accompanied her on all her sleep-overs. We'd sneak to Tulsa to buy subway posters and records at Starship. I bought the blue-vinyl copy of The Glove disc there. We made videos in my back yard with painted masks and makeup and dubbed them over with "Primary". I painted a huge mural on Ken Davis's bedroom wall with phosphorescent fish bones and "It Lit Up All the Fish Like Rain and Rained Them Down on Me" in big, swirly letters. On good nights, we could get The Spy from Tulsa on the wind up on the hill with the water tower. I spray-painted "Morbidity is Sacred" there once. Can you believe how wonderfully teenaged and ridiculous? We'd sit in my car, smoking cloves (where we bought them in McAlester, I can't remember) and listening to "Fade to Grey" by Passage on The Spy, dreaming that we were there at Ikon. Silly, isn't it? I love it.
Then Clay came along. Elena Jacobs and Beth Rochester. We watched Rocky Horror until we knew everything forward and aft and could recite it in sign language to each other across a geometry class. We made Chinese food at three in the morning. We made U2 videos in my bedroom. Beth was Bono, I was The Edge and Elena was alternately Adam and Larry. Elena danced the Stray Cat Strut and we made up Clay to look like Frank N Furter, using all of Erin's good white concealer. She was pissed. That video still exists somewhere.
Clay, I'm starting to miss you, you asshole.
Today, my joy knows no end. I've got the Ghostbusters soundtrack on the Sansui and two hours' worth of dancing under my belt. Endorphins run amok. Life is a John Hughes movie and on the way out to my pink Karmann Ghia, Duckie stops me and professes his love for me. I've got purple high heels with lacey socks and everything's glowing in neon just for me! You know what else? There's CEREAL. CEREAL I CAN EAT. Mom brought home a box of Atkins soy cereal and by gum, it's a darned reasonable facsimile of the real thing. Now all my childhood fantasies are realized! Ghostbusters. Indiana Jones. The Sansui. Mask of the Sun. Eating cereal with my fingers while watching Saturday morning cartoons. Blessed be, blessed be.
I'm not going to hurt you. I only want you to have some fun.
Word.
Current Mood: Elated.
Current Music: Them Thar Bee Gees - "You Should be Dancing". Yea.
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04:11 pm - It Just Occured to Me...
...that proof of the existence of God and His Infinite Sense of Humor is the fact that Rick James and Neil Young were roommates and in a band together.
In Canada.
And there are giraffes.
I rest my case. You must acquit.
That's better than the Chewbacca Defense and the Massey Pre-Nup put together. It'll hold up in court.
Oh - and Rashaud - you owe me 40 bucks. The Gap Band did "You Dropped a Bomb On Me". "Let it Whip" was, indeed Sir, The Dazz Band.
BOO-YA!
Anyone care to engage me in a round of Breakin' II trivia?
I thought not. =)
"Tell me something good
"Tell me that you love me
"Tell me something good
"Tell me that you like it..."
Fuckin' Chaka Khan. Fuckin' yea.
Yea.
Current Mood: AllYouSuckaDJsWhoThinkU'rFly
Current Music: Rufus Feat. Chaka Khan - "Tell Me Something Good".
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October 27th, 2003
11:42 pm - Up to My Elbows in Pumpkin Guts.
Spent the short hours of the day until darkness carving jack'o'lanterns for Mom. Agreeable work. I got a little overzealous pretending I was Norman Bates and my hand slipped on the knife, slicing into the crease of four fingers through the dermis and into the muscle. This stuff doesn't usually bother me, but my blood pressure shot up so high that I went deaf for a minute or two. Odd. Worth commenting on, at least. I've never felt like that before. If there's an injury to be had, give me a minute and I'll have it.
I'm glad I'm not Moslem. The Hajj, while beautiful and transcendant in theory, looks like a lot of very terrestrial hell, really. One of the niceties of forming one's own personal philosophy of spirituality is surely inventing one's own rituals and not having to have one's nearest living male relative write a letter of authorization in order for one to travel to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
For me, just living life is a ritual of faith. Isn't that how it should be? I sacrifice pumpkins and spill blood on the ground. I am Isaac and I am Ishmael.
I am hungry.
Current Mood: SoCrazyMyBaby
Current Music: Beyonce with Jay-Z - "Crazy in Love".
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06:15 am - Beneath the Sky There is an Open Fire.
Well, well. StepStone comes through. In my li'l inbox was a note about a clerical position open at the American embassy in Copenhagen. It would be a start. Resumes. Yuk.
Elizabeth, I knew you. I was there when you waggled your finger at the bishops for the first time. I saw your eyes on Sir Robert and watched your heartbreak when Duty stole you away from Love. I've thought that about the Virgin Mary, too. The makeup - I would have done it. Kudos, Lady.
"Pour me out of the water, pour me onto the land".
I want to hear that Jimmy Sommerville song from "Orlando". Now's the time for pale, hook-nosed women with hair of straw and flax. Now's the time for burning heretics at the stake. The time for "Bell, Book and Candle", says Mom. "That 'soft-witch' stuff from the Sixties", she says. Love it.
Went to a play at the Bastrop Opera House; "Paganini". Great Faustian stuff - just right for these short days. Even better seen in an antique dig on the Texas Historic Register. It's got my hands twitching to lay down some green paint on a canvas in the shape of the maestro himself, holding his violin down as though he hears something, while the shadow of the devil looms over him. A solid advert for headache powder or some such thing, right?
Current Mood: I Do Understand.
Current Music: Julian Cope - "Charlotte Anne".
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October 26th, 2003
04:41 am - We're Peter Pan Without the Inconvenient Footwear.
E Cosi Desio Me Mena.
My Desire Carries Me Along.
This is why you're the muse. Because if I write, I am near. Something like that. Get at it while inspiration is there.
What I want to tell you I can't ever just say. That's alright, because it allows me to use food as metaphor, and what beats food?
Look into the palm of my hand, Love. Here are almonds for you, stripped of their skin. Destitute of their secrets, they yield only their smooth ivory bodies for your palate.
I knew you when my kimono was lined with red. The length of my sleeves caught up in my steps and made for a hasty, messy gait. So it is with adolescence. Young girls are lovely, hasty, messy creatures. Age lengthens the stride and finds one's center of gravity. The haste and the mess has been tempered now. I am comfortable in my skin. I know how long to step and in what shoes.
The world is wide open now and I know what I want. I want everything.
Only three things, really. I want you there in between them. No. You've always been in between them. I want you there despite them.
Loving you is like rubbing cinnamon-sugar into a wound. Fragrant, sweet and painful all at once. But I've always had a thing for the sweet side of pain. Like bruises and scars, pain tells you you've done something and experience is the thing, no?
Can I let my passion go? Can I let it speak without reins? The depth of it has frightened so many people; lovers, friends. In this new life, are you so much a man that you can look into the gale of my passion with a set jaw and hearty laugh and say, "bring it on"? I've long thought that if there was such a man - if anyone who could weather it, it would be you.
Would you take my hand and leap over the decades with me? Would you take me dancing and cook for me and let me cook for you? Would you care for me when I'm sick, as so often is the case? Would you be my physical strength when I had none and let me be your emotional strength when you'd run dry?
Wait...you have.
How did Tinder Singh put it? Ah, yes - "Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow."
Perhaps everybody needs someone with whom time stands still. Perhaps everybody needs someone who adds to their own magic and makes the rest of the multiplicitous, fractious, laughable world into nothing more than a zoetrope, projecting its comic images over cylindrical walls that revolve around us but never touch us because we are in the center and we are OVER IT and now we just laugh. And perhaps, yes, perhaps everyone does need a hot bosom for a pillow in the middle of the night when everyone's feet and hands are little icicles.
I'm starting to understand. It's all about security, really - isn't it? Insurance for when your parents die. Insurance for when you need companionship. Insurance for when you need someone to do the things you just aren't capable of doing. Insurance that if the four horsemen come tomorrow, you won't be looking up at their hooves alone. Insurance that one person, at least, understands where in the hell you're coming from.
It never made sense to me before. Not like that.
Insurance that when you look your worst - when you're bloody and bloated and exhausted from bringing someone else into the world, there will still be someone there to kiss your hand and tell you you're beautiful.
Hm. Adulthood is bizarre.
Glad I still wear children's clothing.
Current Mood: Fascinated.
Current Music: Suede - "Shipbuilding".
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01:56 am - The Recipe for Parker House Rolls.
Allah took my life on the 4th of April, 2003 in Manhattan. For what He gave me in return, I shall always be grateful.
Sometime ago; I can't be sure exactly when, I was made into a clean goosefeather and blown into a new life. I floated down on several different currents before settling into one that seemed a good fit. On it, I swirled down a slow, dizzy day until my down touched earth again. On Texas soil, which is not where I expected to land, I was turned back into a girl. The faces that greeted me were ones I remembered from my former existence, but they were all different somehow. They smiled at me with love and seemed genuinely grateful to have me around.
Ay! There's the difference! That's the rub, surely! While I was a goosefeather, floating and flitting on those wayward currents, my former cadre of associates was vaporized into clean, white space. In their stead, Allah drew together around me a circle of old loved ones. While I was floating, he imbued them with some new knowledge of me. They would receive it before I would. In turn, I was imparted with a new knowledge of them, which would reveal itself in layers of white onionskin. This knowledge, like so much knowledge in both of my lives, is of a visceral sort. Allah doesn't speak through intellect. He vibrates through sinew and flesh.
After my goosefeather tenure, I stepped into legs thinner than the ones I'd had before. He gave me new skin and a new body, lithe and ready for dance. He softened the worry lines out of my forehead and streaked my natural hair with gray - "you'll still cover it with black, but you and I will know it's there. Remember it, for it is My covenant with you. You are born into newness, but never forget the trials you endured to get here."
Allah took my hand and led me into a world which resembled the old one in many ways, except for a grace I had only dreamt about before.
To my parents, I was prodigal. "Let us love you," they said. "Take a room and do what you will with it. Stay here for a time and just be who you are."
To my friend, I was triumphant. "You are the only one I followed. I'm coming here for you because I believe your talent is undeniable and irrepressible. Make music with me."
To my family, I was liberated. "Come do things with us! We've never had you before! Let us show you who we are, now that you're unfettered."
To my Muse, I was realized. "You're real. I can't believe you're here."
To me, I was gifted. Repeatedly. Allah had led me into an advent calendar, where every day was a new tableau to open, in which waited a miraculous little gift to taste.
I was hesitant and tremulous at first; shaky on my new legs and unsure as to whether I deserved such a reception. I kept waiting for discouragement. I held my breath and winced many times, waiting for harsh words that never came. Around every corner, there was encouragement. From all sides, there was grace and acceptance and the ever-present gratitude that I had returned. What a lovely surprise. My presence brought smiles. My mere presence. All of a sudden, I felt as though I didn't have to earn or win acceptance. I had it spontaneously, merely for being here.
I am still unsure. I still step lightly in this new world. It's so unlike the one I used to feel pressing in on me. But for this love; this grace, I lay myself supine in my heart every day and every night praising Him and singing in my finest voice my thanks. I thank those around me who have received me with such magnificent love. I never imagined it could be like this. Thank you.
Everything here is clean and white, like the kitchens of elderly ladies living by themselves. Immaculate and old. Comfortable. It smells of yeast and vanilla. I look down into a milk-glass bowl of salt and sugar. To my right, five cups of flour, refined into bisque powder any maiko would be pleased to use on her fair skin. Every day, I bathe in scalded milk. Stirring it smells like potatoes. It is warm, white and safe. Clean and pure. There is laundry laced with snowfall. There is a dog in a clean white coat. Behind me, there are the white eyelashes against my neck when I sleep; the same eyelashes that have always fluttered into my dreams and brought the rest of your face into focus. When I can't remember what you look like, I think of your eyelashes and the rest comes into view.
Wrap me up in white sheets made of Egyptian cotton. Caress me with your white hands. Let me tangle my fingers in your white hair now and every Sunday until our next life. I have missed you so.
My wrists smell of biscuit-dough. October is the time for baking, for baking is purity. Turning all the white into something golden, to be eaten and enjoyed.
Current Mood: Crisp and flaky.
Current Music: Nicolo Paganini - "Caprice #3".
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October 16th, 2003
05:33 pm - Slippered Feet and the Sounds of Typing.
I often forget what I’m in the middle of doing. Easily distracted, I guess you’d say. It’s a wonder I don’t burn the cookies.
Perfect room. Nearly every moment since I got my car back has been perfect, in its way. Without the anxiety of that riding my shoulders, I’ve leveed into a sustained, functional bliss. If someone would have told me that was possible, I’d have said it sounded like an oxymoron, but here it is – real. Allah akbar.
The windows are open, behind white roll-down blinds that breathe with the breeze. Street noises ferry in, punctuated by the occasional conversation in English, Viet, Farsi…Someone passed by earlier with the windows down, blazing Mazzy Star as though it had bass. Were they rollin’ on dubs or carriage wheels?
I’ve long loved the way people live in San Francisco. It’s such an easy city. People will talk with you. There are organic eggs in the grocery store by matter of fact; well, why would anyone want them if they weren’t organic? Sublime vistas crossing the streets at night, casting glances down the hills to the cluster of buildings around Transamerica, looking like saplings straining to be as grand as their older brother. Maybe one day, guys. Lights and interesting signs everywhere. Punched tin ceilings and white walls with wainscoting enrobed in a century’s worth of clean paint.
Eggs and smoked chicken for breakfast. Sleep comes in commercial-length segments. But I always sleep like that when I’m sleeping with Morgan. Long but sporadic. Maybe if I was completely without affliction, I could have danced for another three hours the night before last. I’ve never had the opportunity to dance to a marching band before. It was sublime. Had we stayed much longer, I’m sure I would have been fairly well naked and looking for a way to get up to the trapeze ring. Gregariousness overcomes me at the strangest moments.
There was a line in one of Beau’s poems that made me chuckle – not the ones about fat girls – those made me snort. It was something like, “leaving things out that will let you know I’m worth it.” Do we all do that? It is a natural human idiosyncrasy? Maybe if they see this, they’ll think more of me? Funny. I remember doing that when I was sixteen. I still do it now, to some extent. We all want to impress those who impress us, do we not?
The people-watching is premier here. A troika of Japanese girls on the bus yesterday; I’m sure I could tell you what they were chattering about even though I couldn’t translate it verbatim. A pretty redhead sitting alone, reading. A Hispanic mother with a wonderful smile who flashed it in my direction more than once. An old black man with yellow teeth – not gold. A hooker commuting to work with black Frederick’s of Hollywood heels teasing a tattoo on her right ankle. These are a few of my favorite things…
Even the air here has a European flavor to it. Utterly pleasant, all of it. Sketching the green curtains at the B&W gallery. Watching the activity at the 620 Hotel. Inquiring after the moon cakes at a little bakery in Chinatown. It’s a city like Honolulu, in which I feel safe and oh-so-comfortable. A good lay, as it were. If L.A.’s the codependent girlfriend; San Francisco’s the good wife. She welcomes you back with open arms no matter what you’ve done and gives you everything you need to be comfortable; maybe not wealthy, but comfortable. She is pragmatic and compassionate. Frivolous and practical at once. She releases you from your vellum envelope and says, “enjoy what I have. You’ve earned it. You’ve been so long without benefit of a bounty like this. Take advantage of it.”
I will, thank you.
I’ll partake of your hand-milled, organic wheat shortcake with your small-farm raised local strawberries and crème fraiche. I’ll do the goth shimmy to your marching bands and your Wolfsheim and Peter Murphy. I’ll drink in your formidable Victorians, your Mardi Gras-mi-parti convenience stores, your Walgreens on every corner. I’ll be fascinated by your sailboarders in October, your strident working women with stiff necks, your liberty-spiked punk hippies and your Lithuanian midgets cavorting with retarded blondes, and I’ll love every moment of it. You love me, don’t you? L.A. didn’t know what to do with me. Like New Orleans, you love me.
Hey, Frisco – the feeling’s mutual.
Current Mood: Zagreb on the Back of My Hand.
Current Music: The Dead Milkmen - "Bleach Boys".
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October 14th, 2003
05:05 pm - Purloined From the Red Corduroy Book.
Dallas. Always fly on Tuesdays. Much more room in Coach. You may now use electronic devices if you should wish to do so. Temper a desire for the spontaneous combustion of joy. License to Ill. I'll never tire of airplanes resting and being refueled on scintillating, white-washed days. Here we go in silver needles, thrashing the air of the century. I'm flying North again.
Over Texas. Falsetto and cold coffee. Have a string section on the wing? What were they thinking with these lyrics? I find people pleasant today. Who could be unpleasant on a day such as this? Air conditioning chills me, drying my shirt, which was soaked after the first flight, on which the vent system failed. Savoring three seats to myself; the belly of the bird. I'll travel all the rest of my days. It's the pinnacle of modern existence. ("But I'll stop if you fuss a lot.")
Utah. Following the red line across the occidental span of America, splayed out like a brown leather glove; palm up, waving at me. I look down on the convolutions of the Rockies and think about Donner Party bones lying at the bottom of a wash or on top of a peak. Burying the Donner Party. A far better view of Utah than the one I had on 21 January, 2003. No more Hiroshimas. No more birthdays like that. Cleaving a cloudbank in twain. Shakespearean flight lingo. The shadow of a great cloud passes over mining towns and Mormon homes, opening its wake to a sky more brown than blue; castaneous channels bathed in the aspirated yellow breath of the atmosphere. Riverbeds run through like barbed wire.
The significance of stepping over clouds. Sharing airspace with the high acrobatics of a fighter jet. Cigarette contrails; silver cigarette fingers plucking minutes from the sky. Fragrant smoke curls and tenders below, entwining Allah's fingers as he exhales. Six hundred years below me, Lake Powell resembles the Dead Sea. What connection is there? Did Joseph Smith find his prophecies inscribed on copper sheets and parchment, rolled up in salty cylinders and tucked away into some mineshaft? The horse is a dapple gray. Silver hussars ride it to Valhalla (or whatever they call it in Hungary.)
San Francisco. I love this city. There is color to be had on every street. I'm at the SF B&W Gallery, waiting for Morgan to meet with Bob Adler about a website. Last night, we ate a fabulous little Colombian restaurant and made a brief tour of Chinatown. There's something languid in the shadows cast by the fire escapes on the street opposite me. One side of the street perpetually in shadow, he says. Nice for xerophobes like us. Always a cool, dark place. The 620 Hotel and people always walking. Asian mothers in red velour joggers, leading their children to school. The son wears those shoes that turn into rollerskates with one wheel. People watching in the reflections in the gallery windows. A very - strike that - an exceedingly livable place.
A woman in a quilted vest contemplating photos of Lithuanian goat herders. The faint aroma of saimin on the breeze - the same breeze that lifts a flag above a sticker of Bush that reads, "Impeach This." Contrast. Looking at the Dakota Hotel - not the same Dakota that saw John Lennon get the bullet, but similar in feeling, I'm sure.
I could dive into the blue of those car windows. Soemthing wonderfully comforting in all of it; art, city, '80s, saxophone-yellow stripes on urban pavement beside graceful old victorians that somehow survived double tragedy. Same-Day Service. Painted Ladies. What's going on behind that green curtain? Casement protects... Perhaps two people inside doing something sly in the early afternoon hours? Eating Chinese sticky buns, sitting on the edge of the bed nude and shiny with a fresh layer of sweat? Carrying coffee and donburi while talking on a cell phone. Some guy in a backward cap and shades leaning against the glass at the cleaners. Ah, Tesla..."long haired freaky people need not apply." Thoroughly beautiful, Windex-clear air. I feel so Yoko Ono. Maybe it's the hat.
"Jeff" wins backstage passes to the Joe Satriani show tonight. I'd bet he wouldn't know to throw turkey bacon at Jimmy Page. Not many people do outside of Cincinnati. Would Pamela DesBarres throw turkey bacon at Mr. Page these days? Oh, Pamela sitting on a JCM-900 at the edge of the stage at The Fillmore.
Van Halen's version of "Girl, You Really Got Me".
Swing it Eddie. Swing it from Barney's Beanery up the coast to her final resting place.
Current Mood: Flying North.
Current Music: Nelly (With The Neptunes) - "If".
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