tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40300712011-06-03T08:55:17.204-07:00mel * 21st-century loxm.noreply@blogger.comBlogger781100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-15968944957264863432008-11-10T22:37:00.005-08:002008-11-10T23:00:04.822-08:00My mortal beloved.The life expectancy for American women is just a fraction less than 80 years, twice what it was 100 years ago and 5 years higher than contemporary American men. Assuming I achieve that overripe old age, I'll have enjoyed 65 years of sex, 62 years of voting and 59 years of (legal) drinking. Not to mention 56 years of post-bac career achievements that I can only hope will merit m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-35388648310373044652008-08-31T02:55:00.024-07:002008-08-31T05:43:12.316-07:00Number nine.The Man burned tonight. Saturday. I watched it on a fuzzy full-screen livecast in my friend's basement, idly fingering the playa dust surfacing on the thighs of my Levi's as I shifted on her black leather sofa, wondering whether I'd leave a mark and whether, if I did, she'd be glad of it. Three fingers wept blood, not from sharp rebar or pinching tent poles but from the clips holding m.noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-31210858750454282982008-08-04T23:34:00.013-07:002008-08-05T00:15:21.434-07:00Craft(y) polyamory.If I had any sense I'd keep my knitting needles far from my loom, my loom miles from my sewing machine and my sewing machine all the way across town from my paint brushes. But because I err on the side of openness, they all occupy small spaces on my crowded dining room table, competing for attention on weekends and random Wednesdays.I vacillate between respecting my ability to m.noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-40357681006756955542008-07-04T18:51:00.001-07:002008-07-05T04:07:11.617-07:00I belong.In preparation for my formal entrance in the world of part-time bicycle commuters, I took a "halfway to work and back" ride last weekend, to get a better sense of the blind commitment I'd made. I never wear skirts in real life but it seemed very Portlandish in that moment, the better to straddle the U-frame of my neo-post-retro-modern commuter bike (atop totally inappropriate footwear, m.noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-38229712117225168332008-05-18T22:28:00.007-07:002008-05-18T23:00:10.760-07:00We are gathered here today.I flew home from New York on Friday night and I noticed everything. At least for the first 20 minutes, anyway, every little bump and shudder registered in my conscious. The increasing speed of the plane's taxi woke me unexpectedly from my crossword slumber, the comfortingly distracted place I live (intellectually and emotionally) every time I'm in take-off. I'm not usedm.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-4877024710687378982008-05-05T23:03:00.003-07:002008-05-06T01:35:40.116-07:00We're too good for stupid angels.Benicia: bedroom window, porches, cowpunk.Alameda: dance floor, New Year's Eve, angry chairs.NYC: Sticky Mike's Frog Bar, redhead, bathroom.Headlands: hillside tents, fog, rocks in our shoes.SF: Richmond, push-pull, coffee grounds.SF: Cole Valley, push-pull, coffee grounds.SF: Valencia, push-pull, coffee grounds.SF: Castro, push-pull.Parties and parties and m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-61877535893064198182008-04-27T23:51:00.001-07:002008-04-30T20:28:53.654-07:00Songs of love and loss. Songs of forgiveness.I made a muxtape recently. It felt perfectly natural to make it, assembling meaningful songs, poignant songs, songs that make me lock up and feel something. But when I listened to it the next day I caught the narrative... It's chock-full of people I've loved, lost, unloved, hated, unhated, forgiven, missed, miss. It's really fucking sad, this m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-63301048188577495602008-04-27T23:02:00.009-07:002008-04-28T21:34:41.114-07:00If laundry falls on an empty floor, does it really need washing?Sometimes being single is about giving myself permission NOT to do things. I DON'T need to get up for brunch. I DON'T need to put on make-up on Saturday. I can do the dishes TOMORROW instead of today. It's self-indulgent, yes, but it's also freeing. Relaxed. Left to its own devices, life paints an honest picture. Unimpeded by m.noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-29688859072473081802008-04-26T00:02:00.001-07:002008-05-01T23:44:01.389-07:00"So, what, he gets a medal for correctly identifying a feeling?"What's an apology worth? When does "I'm sorry, and I learned something" give way to "I know better but I fucked things up anyway"? It depends on the recipient's particular flavor of co-dependency, their propensity to think, "This will be the last time; it will all change with me." Sometimes it's about a person's sense of self-worth: m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-64743739672243814202008-04-17T20:22:00.004-07:002008-04-17T20:27:42.200-07:00Build it."I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's."-William Blake"...escape well-established patterns of behavior, especially the ones that are no damn good for you."-Rob Breszny"Always accept yourself the way you are."-Fortune in a cookie from S. Dynasty, New York City, NY"May you lead an interesting life."-Chinese cursem.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-27862590364393515532008-04-16T17:57:00.013-07:002008-04-16T18:31:37.728-07:00What dreams may come (redux)I don't know what we fought about that day or if we were always just fighting. I don't know why I left him alone in my house but I did, returning shortly after to find him at the end of a rampage that had gouged and bloodied walls in almost every room. Hammers, pipes and bats had left welts and holes and cracks. Columns and rows of wounds were eerily aligned. Windows m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-80306867216004220432008-04-02T23:04:00.021-07:002008-04-17T20:28:46.600-07:00On staying in the game"One of the most important of the rules that make improv possible...is the idea of agreement, the notion that a very simple way to create a story--or humor--is to have characters accept everything that happens to them."-Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink"Well, goddamn if I haven't been mulling over this very concept for the past three years, and some improv team (parsed by Gladwell) m.noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-3591770469875520442008-03-24T00:32:00.002-07:002008-03-24T00:56:36.286-07:00What you feel now*Moving slower than normalLoving instruments rarely playedWearing really old shoesLetting sane friends go crazyLiving with clean sofas and dirty bathroomsBeing happily aloneDrinking champagne straight from the bottleRunning towards and away, a little at a timeLetting my roots showChoosing my dog over my friendsEmbracing three-drink idealism AND three-drink realismWearing m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-37455955861177934492008-02-29T21:26:00.004-08:002008-03-03T22:10:29.846-08:00Gum wrappers and old receipts.This time, I'm really throwing it all away. My basement, my attic, and every room in between. It's literal and it's figurative but mostly it's just real. How did everything get so damn heavy? My house is heavy--I'm donating my stuff to charity. My body, heavy--I'm losing weight. Even my hair felt heavy, so I chopped it off. It's like cleaning out a pocket or a purse m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-14541492470834709602008-01-03T21:21:00.000-08:002008-02-25T20:31:01.155-08:00Maximum capacity.When I was really young, maybe four, I saw a black-and-white version of Frankenstein, probably James Whales' 1931 rendition (kudos to Wikipedia for holding so much meaningful trivia at the ready). Unremarkably tame by today's standards, it nonetheless set my histrionic imagination on fire, causing me no end of nightmares and daydreams about gargoyles and giant flies tromping m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1168402599942982122007-01-09T20:06:00.000-08:002007-02-04T03:38:08.253-08:00Dog days.Re-reading old posts, I can watch myself prattle on from a safe distance. Searching for the thoughts that shaped each one. Wondering how I managed to find so many 10-cent words in so few days, months. Reliving exoteric moments that may, perhaps, have been better left in a pocket next to a cigarette butt and a few forgotten coins. Reflecting on the agonizing crusade that is the eternal m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1166363809039530852006-12-17T05:56:00.000-08:002006-12-17T17:30:37.773-08:00Singing my life back to me.While brushing my teeth as a young girl, I used to angle the mirrored medicine cabinet door so that it reflected the opposing mirror on the wall. Between them would appear an infinite number of new mirrors, a strange, green hallway with no discernible end. Fancying myself a modern-day Alice, I would step through the suburban looking glass into an otherly world whose m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1164781323325103042006-11-28T21:39:00.000-08:002006-11-28T22:22:03.416-08:00Recharge.Shoes that fit when nothing else does.An auction that ends just after you bid.A dog that loves you and only you.A kiss just because you ask for it.The song stuck in your head, playing on the radio.Flowers blooming in snow.An attentive waitress.The best blanket tucked just beneath your head.A friend who calls right before you do.Leftovers.Waking up a minute after the alarm.A compliment, m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1157693128764083212006-09-07T21:55:00.000-07:002006-09-08T20:43:49.316-07:00Aminals.Sadie wraps her small, grey body around my wrist like an armwarmer, a fluffy doughnut that purrs and scratches as it squirms for purchase against crooked fingers. Barney cares for nothing if a curled cow tendon is within reach. I stare longingly at my stack of style books, desperately wishing to read but feeling a betrayer of the droll sitcom rerun that acts as a barbituate against yet m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1150622844388556882006-06-18T02:10:00.000-07:002006-08-13T20:42:54.776-07:00I knew a girl.Her name was Melia. I met her in the dorms in college, in San Francisco, and she was beautiful and mysterious and shy. She had soft blondish-brown hair, and she was slender and naturally beautiful in that quirky way I always find so intriguing. I wanted to follow her around like a puppy dog, holding her water bottle and lighting her cigarettes, but I was too shy. Too unsure of my m.noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1150267116168381362006-06-13T23:16:00.000-07:002006-06-13T23:49:37.086-07:00Hyper-allergenic.It had nothing to do with foreign bodies in my nose, as it turns out. Okay, maybe there's a random tissue in there. Perhaps some pollen during the on-season. Carpet lint. The usual suspects.The real problem, though, turned out to be far more pernicious and inconspicuous. Care to take a guess? Global warming, that's probably your first guess. Peak oil seems like a reasonable m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1145050543851784692006-04-14T14:35:00.000-07:002006-04-18T01:17:37.780-07:00Nose job.I've been sick. Not stuck-in-bed-for-weeks draw-the-blinds dying-of-Victorian-ennui sick. Illness that extreme presents things to handily medicate or to stick needles into. No, this is far more sneaky and pervasive, a ninja sick. The kind of sick that keeps a feather in its pocket and uses it to tickle my upper lip while I'm working, interrupting me (and every other writer within 20 m.noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1139296288034408272006-02-06T22:36:00.000-08:002006-02-06T23:11:28.080-08:00Yeah, it's you. It's definitely you.What's that quote... about craftspeople and their tools and how crappy tools can be made to serve a skilled artisan and all of that jazz. I can't be bothered to Google it because I really don't care much about the actual quote. It just provides context for the humbling lesson I learned while spending five days in bed with a raging head cold and a jumbo box of m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1137652766753359402006-01-18T23:12:00.000-08:002006-07-23T00:25:00.393-07:00I might be free.I sat in a smoky pub tonight and never lit a cigarette. I didn't even want one. Was I thinking about cigarettes? Of course I was. Smoke swam around me in great gusts and fluid wisps. Further down the bar, a bearded man sat down and immediately pulled a tattered paperback from one coat pocket and a pack of Dunhill's from the other, slapping both down on the counter with firm m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1093851040026060842004-08-30T00:46:00.000-07:002004-08-30T00:49:12.276-07:00Where the hell have I been?
I fell in love with a painting over breakfast and took the artist's number - does that particular piece mean as much to him if I never call? It's a strange phenomen: the more you make your thoughts public, the more you doubt they actually exist when you opt to privatize. I'd be lying if I said that I write soley for myself. If that were true, I'd put it in a journal m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1093852292881204022004-08-29T00:03:00.000-07:002004-08-30T00:51:43.706-07:00Glass Houses
Where did the night go, the night that you loved me
When I made you feel famous, said what you needed to hear
Under the glow of a streetlamp I let you seduce me
Now you've taken my power and run like a coward
Your laughter still rings in my ear
Now the sun is signing his name on the pale of my shoulder
And even the birds sing a song of the lady who fell
If I said it was worth it, m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1084172741827411382004-05-09T23:47:00.000-07:002004-05-10T00:05:41.826-07:00Love Song.
My head was pounding as I rolled out of bed
You've done it to me again
Made all those promises but I just feel misled
And now I'm asking myself when
When will I find the strength to finally walk away
To leave with no goodbye
The empty shell of you beside me where I lay
And now I'm asking myself why
--Chorus--
You make me feel like I'm ten feet tall
When you're with me, I never feel m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1075362272803251042004-01-28T23:44:00.000-08:002004-01-28T23:49:53.170-08:00You think you're creating something new. Not because you actually think it in a conscious and intentional way but because you feel it. Every thought in your head is a stranger, and mashed up behind the smoke in your eyeball as you try to make out the pictures on the far wall, it becomes something altogether unique and unexpected. Your right brain wants to layer it onto the sculpture in any old m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1065042114970578182003-10-01T14:01:00.000-07:002003-10-01T18:23:02.600-07:00My cat sidles up to my leg with a plaintive cry, ducking his head under my calf and reaching up to swat at me with unsheathed claws, and I know that he is lonely. I lift him up gently, turning him over and cradling him in my left arm like an infant, resting my hand on his belly. He is not tired, having just awoken from a lengthy nap, yet his eyes droop slowly closed in an autonomic response to m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1062797804833386892003-09-05T14:36:00.000-07:002003-09-05T14:36:44.750-07:00Ah, the humanity.
'Guest House' by Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1062565416765283172003-09-02T22:03:00.000-07:002003-09-02T22:04:52.716-07:00Beyond Belief.
m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1061269316706267622003-08-18T22:01:00.000-07:002003-08-19T01:42:32.503-07:00The Tree of Disbelief.
I sculpted until the light was so dark, I couldn't see the wire well enough not to cut myself on it. Until my contacts burned and my head pounded from squinting. Until a blister flung itself from the soft skin on the inside of my thumb, and I swore that I was bleeding from every fingertip.
And while I was sculpting, I thought about what I was sculpting for: art for it's m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1060970690391861922003-08-15T11:04:00.000-07:002003-08-15T11:07:05.993-07:00Going Home.
From Russ:
"My favorite memory from being on the esplanade was when our camp, Foreplay Lounge, was “raided” one night. Our bar was packed solid... had been the whole night. Piercing through the other-dimensional babble created by all of those people came the haunting shriek of a post-apocalyptic police car. The Mad Max vehicle stopped in front of the Foreplay Lounge and emptied. Fivem.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1060500085758786282003-08-10T20:28:00.000-07:002003-08-11T01:17:50.783-07:00Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
Blood.
Cycle One: Igniting
If you look carefully, you can see me as I see myself. Waves crest both in violence and grace, casting out deadlock, mortal enemies of inertia. Cherry blossoms fall sweetly without withering, willing performers in a waltz of transience and time. Pine branch juts its evergreen needles skyward in winter, enduring.
Cycle Two: Carving
The first m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1060240162378531802003-08-06T23:09:00.000-07:002003-08-07T00:14:58.113-07:00Hemingway wasn't a natural, either.
My mind is soft today, not like oatmeal but like sand, slippery mismatched thoughts rubbing together chaotically as they briefly collide and then carry on their way. They are all unique in their structure and origin, yet I fail to parse them as they glide casually past, catching finally in the small crevices between my toes to be tracked through the house, one m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1059546227362088932003-07-29T23:23:00.000-07:002003-08-07T00:12:27.450-07:00Keep on using me, until you use me up.
Catholic Schoolgirl Barfly Bus Bachelorette Party - congratulations to Angi, the guest of honor at the most hedonistic public displays of drunken, lustful female aggression ever inflicted on the unfortunate bystanders of Portland, OR. Even though I managed to scrawl the name of every bar on a piece of paper, I've lost more of the evening than I can find:
Mym.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1059038232158196842003-07-24T02:17:00.000-07:002003-08-03T22:19:28.210-07:00Die Dämmerung holt mir ein Lächeln.
When I said, "I don't need presents - you could give me a toothpick stuck through a napkin and I would love it," you actually did it. Twice. I kept them, the one nestled snugly in its birthday card bed and the other, a skewer this time, pushing fiercely through a manila envelope that can't hold onto it any better than I could to you. But there they lie, keepingm.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1058780424164599262003-07-21T02:40:00.000-07:002003-07-21T03:26:52.023-07:00It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Perspective. Context. Headspace. They're all different ways of expressing the same fundamental concept: It's All Relative. Perhaps we didn't have all of the information, or perhaps we just weren't self-aware enough to foresee the damage to be wrought (or the joy to be found). The road to regret, then, should be paved solely with misguided intention.
But m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1058517947081561532003-07-18T01:45:00.000-07:002003-07-18T01:50:04.833-07:00Random thoughts, early in the morning.
- I'm not actually addicted to instability. I simply view my life as a series of projects (a classic case of life imitating work). And because projects have, by definition, a discrete beginning and ending point...well, you do the math.
- I may be a Skeptical Mystic for now, but I will be a pantheist forever. God, schmod; the universe is the ultimate realitym.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1058474103468532592003-07-17T13:35:00.000-07:002003-07-17T13:35:03.373-07:00Marry me, Milan Kundera.
"In Irena's head the alcohol plays a double role: it frees her fantasy, encourages her boldness, makes her sensual, and at the same time it dims her memory. She makes love wildly, lasciviously, and at the same time the curtain of oblivion wraps her lewdness in an all-concealing darkness. As if a poet were writing his greatest poem with ink that instantly disappears."m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1057735162377919052003-07-09T00:19:00.000-07:002003-07-09T12:49:46.566-07:00Al Sobrante, where have you gone?
I am thankful every day for the power of the associative brain, but the images called to mind by the stitching of a collar to a kimono are truly baffling.
Watching the needle weave methodically in and out of the dense cotton, I am wondering how many miles of thread I have slipstitched in the 23 years since I first picked up the overstuffed tomato pincushion (m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1057390961438334032003-07-05T00:42:00.000-07:002003-07-08T22:34:38.500-07:00They way you do the things you do.
Out on the lake, after the fireworks show, all of the boats with their regulation green and white headlight/taillight beacons turned the water's surface into a liquid freeway. From high atop the north shore, we watched them gliding in unison, a hundred mechanical bugs migrating west, as if hatched simultaneously from their pyrotechnic mothership.
Here and m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1058780659409352842003-07-03T02:04:00.000-07:002003-07-21T16:38:17.516-07:00Et cetera.
The potential for trouble constantly surrounds us, a thousand of Pandora's wicked boxes hiding around every corner. The trouble we finally experience firsthand is merely the contents of the particular box we choose to open.
Crowley wrote, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." But we are not Rabelais, and reality is a persistent demon. Broken promises become angry daggers,m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1058780479280344412003-06-30T02:03:00.000-07:002003-07-23T01:30:37.213-07:00How the West was whirled.
I am thinking to myself, "I kissed this man."
Severed now from the moment, the recriminations begin: "Selfish". "Thoughtless". "Arrogant". "Impetuous". "Reckless". Sharp, angry stones that grumble and bite at my bare feet as I make my way home. But I know this route. I've taken it before, it's achingly familiar. I kick at the roadway, and a stone rolls gently on its m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1056528804802508942003-06-25T01:13:00.000-07:002003-07-03T00:31:57.310-07:00Obsessive-compulsive.
"PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Fertility clinics in the U.S. are filled to the brim with frozen human embryos. Forty thousand would-be fetuses are now on ice, waiting for a go-ahead from the couples that spawned them. This backlog of potential life in limbo reminds me of you, Pisces. If you could get access to the parts of your imagination that are immobilized by fear, you'd m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-1056355606007087322003-06-23T01:06:00.000-07:002003-06-23T01:06:45.990-07:00Slave new world.
So, tonight I was wondering whether, if you replaced every instance of "soma" with "prozac" in Huxley's seminal masterpiece, it would actually read any differently?m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2004346572003-06-18T01:28:00.000-07:002003-06-19T00:44:25.000-07:00Oscillate wildly.
"PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The fictional young English wizard Harry Potter can communicate with snakes because he knows their language, Parseltongue. The real English magician John Dee (1527-1609), who served as astrological advisor to Queen Elizabeth, was able to converse with angels in their native language of Enochian. And now, you, Pisces, are about to undergo a four-week m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2003434522003-05-27T00:12:00.000-07:002003-06-18T13:03:37.000-07:00Descending the summit.
Twenty-seven pages and fifteen exhibits; about $32 to proof, print and bind. Two years of my life are sitting discreetly in an unassuming brown sack on the console table, branded with that familiar royal-blue "Kinko's" logo. As if they had anything to do with it. Well, besides being very gentle with me as I wandered bleary-eyed from PC to printer and back, releasing a faintm.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2003092112003-05-18T19:35:00.000-07:002003-05-20T10:16:49.000-07:00What dreams may come.
Rich says to me, "You should let me kill you." He's angling a sawed-off shotgun, smiling warmly. "Honestly, it's so much better. I hooked myself, you know." And I realize I'm not talking to the Rich I've come to know, but some New & Improved Rich, the re-manifestation of Rich into something better, stronger, more highly evolved.
"Will it hurt?" I ask with hesitation. "Or m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2003020802003-05-16T12:37:00.000-07:002003-05-16T14:29:02.000-07:00The city's on fire.
After a summer storm, when the sun comes blazing out of hiding, a smoky steam dances eerily from the tar and shingles. I drove through it slowly, blocks and blocks of smouldering streets and rooftops. Weather armageddon.
Hab' 'nen Luftballon gefunden
Denk' an Dich und la§' ihn fliegen
Big fuzzy bumblebees crash into the dining room windows all day long. Sometimes I find m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2002936912003-05-14T22:37:00.000-07:002003-05-14T22:37:26.000-07:00I hate my MBA program. I hate my MBA program. I hate my MBA program. I hate my MBA program. How many times do I have to say that before it takes the hint?
In six weeks, this will all feel like a dream...m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2002599672003-05-08T01:24:00.000-07:002003-05-08T01:24:39.003-07:00What happens if the witching hour ends, and the witches aren't quite finished?m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2002482762003-05-06T02:02:00.000-07:002003-05-08T23:53:07.000-07:00I've walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire.
I don't really understand what made you leave. I don't know the compelling event that pulled you so far from the reality standing right next to you, the flesh and blood that kept you warm at night and bandaged you when you burned, wrapped you in cool, smooth gossamer sweetness, loved you both in spite of your faults and because of them. When I channelm.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2002391282003-05-03T20:14:00.000-07:002003-05-06T01:48:28.000-07:00Stella was a diver and she was always down.
Would it be inappropriate to name my first child after a song that describes a woman as "my catatonic sex toy, love-joy diver"?
I want to write lyrics. It seems so simple when I read the ones other people put together. Everything falls into place so neatly, the symbolism matches up, there's some rhyming - how hard can this be, right? I suppose we all m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2002123922003-04-28T13:59:00.000-07:002003-05-01T19:17:30.000-07:00Sense memory.
The other morning, the scent of my morning shower soapiness threw me backwards to the summer of '93, Santa Cruz, that two-headed shower that was "made for lovers". I was sitting in traffic today, stuck with the commute and zoning out to trance music, and I was hit by a waft of paste odor. The little tubs from kindergarten, with the plastic knives stuck in the screw-on caps. I m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2001751422003-04-21T01:31:00.000-07:002003-04-27T21:47:40.000-07:00We were innocent once, but it was only a phase.
If I've had a crush on you for nine years, can it still truly be called a crush? Doesn't the definition of "crush" necessarily include it's temporal nature and association with adolescence? "Puppy love" would seem to imply that when we become full-fledged card-carrying adults, there's somehow no room for that sort of childish infatuation, that mad m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2001488332003-04-15T00:54:00.000-07:002003-05-01T19:20:13.000-07:00In your absence I find other forms of amusement.
"What Would Jesus Do?" may be a good philosophy of life for some, but I find that it rarely helps me decide how much to tip a hooker."
-Charles Gulledge, www.ruminate.com
I find god in a good karaoke song, a slice of citrus cake at Pambiche, the unapologetically aggressive white blossoms of my pear tree, a fur coat and a warm body on some ecstaticm.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-2000718372003-03-31T01:59:00.000-08:002003-03-31T02:03:03.000-08:00Lover, you shouldn't have come over.
Anger. Denial. Accusations. Epiphany. Accountability. Release. Sorrow. Manic joy. Excess. Confusion. Numbness. Quiet. I am a textbook case, but that chapter has ended. Where do I go from here?
I have been fighting my inner angels. Too feminine, too woo-woo, too grey. I'm far too rational to pay attention to that pesky intuition (I've been swatting it away m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-903325692003-02-16T19:44:00.000-08:002003-02-18T18:44:07.000-08:00When not being stupid is not enough.
Anti-Valentines Day on the Barfly Bus. Ten bars in five hours, everybody dressed to the nines and looking for love/lust/whatnot. Is it any wonder the Party Crasher ended up snacking on my color-coordinated dreads?
How do I get myself into these things? We've all been trying to put the jumbled, hazy pieces back together, helping each other with the small m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-902608602003-01-31T12:40:00.000-08:002003-02-18T23:09:32.000-08:00A friend asked me recently, "What should I do with this unwieldy, hulking terabyte of archived emails from my ex?" He was torn between the "Your mailbox size has exceeded its limits" warning that threatened to cut him off from his precious virtual network, and the desire to relive his memories of Love Lost from time to time over a strong cocktail.
I told him: written words are photographs of m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-902509032003-01-29T12:45:00.000-08:002003-02-18T18:42:21.000-08:00If Dali wrote my horoscope.
A suburban distance lying across your chest, a purpled frock befitting the asphyxiated, cans of lima beans upon your knees, you are truly a goddess of disturbed tranquility!
- Shockingly appropriate nonsense courtesy of The Surrealist Compliment Generator.
Jaybird, you were the caboose in my train of thought.
What draws you to the remote south wetlands? Your pithy m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-902431202003-01-28T00:48:00.000-08:002003-01-28T01:05:40.000-08:00I am sitting awake tonight with a glass of sake, and I am reflecting on the nature of friendships. I consider it so long, it becomes a nonsense word, a random gathering of vowels and consonants with no true meaning or definition. And it occurs to me that "friend" is just that: a mutable term, a broad umbrella for the relationships one makes that extend beyond mere affiliation, but pause before m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-902324752003-01-25T03:17:00.000-08:002003-02-18T18:36:35.000-08:00I force myself to write.
Even if I have nothing to say, I have to do it. Like homework, like weightlifting, I write to keep my brain from atrophy and blight. How many years have I sat, waiting for divine inspiration to strike me like a lightning bolt, but it's still Indian summer so I force myself to put the words on paper anyway. The dry spell writer's block empty space is nothing but the m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-902073062003-01-19T20:40:00.000-08:002003-01-20T09:15:56.000-08:00"When I think about it now, I realize that the physical attraction you feel to a person can make you feel that something momentous is happening. It can create the illusion that nothing else matters at all. It was the same thing I felt with you later on. But I was more prepared for it then, and that's why I did the disappearing act over and over..."
-Anne Rice, "Belinda"
Tonight, I was m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-901913392003-01-15T23:54:00.000-08:002003-01-15T23:54:20.440-08:00You're my favorite nemesis.
Every time you tell me how much you hate me, it only inspires me to make you laugh louder and longer. Each morning, you wake with your head full of plans to incite my ire. Do your worst, I tell you, bring on the fiercest assault you can muster. Confidence is my shield, wit my sword and scabbard, and you are easy prey.
You're laughing right now.
m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-901795782003-01-13T14:20:00.000-08:002003-01-16T10:34:54.000-08:00Arrogance.
Self-important smugness that is absolutely sure women were put on this earth to belittle & emasculate men. Self-righteousness that takes pride in exacting blind revenge on women who are not available at their whim and on a moment's notice.
(10:30pm Friday - Automobile interior. Mel and friend are driving to a party. We hear a cell phone ringing; our heroine answers.)
M: "Hello?"
m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-901699042003-01-10T18:56:00.000-08:002003-02-18T18:39:16.000-08:00Local girl makes good.
I direct your attention now to the dreams and incantations of my doppelganger, Mel the Younger, the Teen Sleuth.m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-901696302003-01-10T16:37:00.000-08:002003-01-10T18:29:04.000-08:00For inspiration today, I have devoured this bit of beauty from Sufi mystic poet Hafiz (many thanks to Cindy):
Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth
"You owe me"
Look what happens
With a love like that
It lights up the whole sky...
(image gorgeousness courtesy of sam brown, exploding dog)
m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-871835952003-01-09T17:35:00.000-08:002003-02-18T18:37:03.000-08:00Epicurus, or the happiness of all concerned.
I have no discipline. Or rather, I have no discipline when it comes to things I just plain don't want to do. Can you blame me? If motivation=wanting and desire, then what depths must we plumb to find motivation for that which we despise? Some abstracted sense of duty, or commitment, or balance...to whom, I cannot say. Does the lack of desire ease the m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-870843822003-01-07T16:16:00.000-08:002003-02-18T18:38:01.000-08:00I didn't even know I needed a Monkey Phone Call.
In the months when we were separated, the little pad beneath my wedding-ring finger used to itch like crazy. I was constantly scratching it, and there’s no good explanation when somebody catches you doing it. What do you say to the person who has to sit next to you in a meeting, watching you feverishly gouge at your palm for two hours? “Darn m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-870293322003-01-06T15:23:00.000-08:002003-02-18T18:37:22.000-08:00Ode to Don, March 1996.
The lid cracks open, to let in the light of the morning. Tones of time passing chime in tinny, arrhythmic harmony, winding me up and spinning me ciruclar. Six years and the lid drops and bends me over again, my legs molded perfectly to form in fifth position. Pink netting bunched and prickling at my waistband. I can't scratch it, my fingers still grope for the halo above m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-870282802003-01-06T14:58:00.000-08:002003-02-18T18:37:39.000-08:00Random thoughts from 1995.
So many times, I've looked back and thought, "Wow - I'm so much more mature now than I was back then." Now, the fact that this keeps happening leads me to assume that, empirically speaking, it will continue to happen ad infinitum until I am on my deathbed. This is something I'm glad about. This is a reason to look forward to growing old.
I want to throw sea cucumbers m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-869474342003-01-04T20:30:00.000-08:002003-01-06T15:43:44.000-08:00My bedroom is red. Not just any red, though...it's the one I've been dreaming of. Victorian parlor opium den Edith Piaf cabaret midnight cowboy courtesan Indochine house of ill-repute red. "Get on your knees and beg me for it" red. Red that makes you a bit uncomfortable, though you're ashamed and embarrassed to say why. I run my hand over it, gently, a suede skin that had suddenly slithered m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-867179352002-12-30T16:16:00.000-08:002002-12-30T16:17:28.000-08:00I made it through the paperwork review, the signatures, the bland but pleasant smile of the clerk as she stamped and notarized our forms. As she filed my dreams into a neat stack, one by one. Averting my eyes from the sight of my wedding ring on his right pinkie, I followed him to the counter to pay our dues and receive our number. The cashier droned on, about dogs and fees and nothing in m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-866734722002-12-29T15:33:00.000-08:002002-12-29T15:33:24.870-08:00I entered my living room this afternoon to find it robbed of its worldly possessions. My footsteps echoed across the empty wooden floor, and the sound drew me up into my head, *snap* like a roller shade, behind my eyes. Why was I so affected? When did I begin to define myself by my "things"? I hadn't realized until that moment, just how much comfort one could find in a sofa.m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-902431772002-12-24T01:19:00.000-08:002003-01-28T01:20:43.000-08:00I'm just flat-out not going to discuss Saturnalia. Suffice to say, it was memorable in more ways than one.m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-861920192002-12-17T16:27:00.000-08:002003-02-18T18:38:29.000-08:00The longest good-bye.
We are extremely sorry to see you go; please be assured that this is not in any way related to performance issues. Thank you so much for your invaluable contributions. This organization could not be where it is today without your integrity, creativity and commitment to quality.m.noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4030071.post-861199502002-12-16T10:01:00.000-08:002003-02-18T18:35:29.000-08:00I hope I didn't wake up to fish death.
Tonight's karaoke selections:
Stevie Nicks: Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
Paul Simon: Late In the Evening
Manfred Mann's Earth Band: Blinded By the Light
Elton John: I Want Love
Won't break me down, won't brick me up, won't fence me in. She got down but she never got tired, she's gonna make it through the night.m.noreply@blogger.com0