Doppelganger

Joined Elise at the film festival. The most direly needed and fortuitous accident that could possibly occur.

Broken English

(written/directed by Zoe Cassavetes starring Parker Posey/Melvil Poupaud...)

Spent entire evening clutching Elise, gasping with the sensation of watching myself on screen, a la Roberta Flack transfixed by someone "strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words..." In the spirit of Flaubert himself, I keep gasping, "Nora... c'est moi!"

I have no words to describe the effect or experience that is marrying itself so persistently to my thoughts, merely a galaxy of reflective emotions. Without doubt the best film imaginable, especially at this fulcrum of my life.

Oh, and my new ultimate compliment du jour is "Parker."

quiet thoughts on a quiet evening

Closing the weekend at home and listening to simple breezes and a new generation of crickets just beginning to sing summer's songs in the fresh grass... much on my mind. Some semblance of the peace that passes understanding creeps slowly across my thoughts, admittedly, as I silently keep watch over the darkened house that has watched me grow these past 15 years or so... A day not without its tearfalls and emerald eyeshine that can only come with the redness of grief, but a day... another day to be thankful for and appreciate in whatever mystery it managed to unfold. I come now to seek the wisdom of poets that seem as real as friends on these dark evenings alone, words I cling to for answers, comfort, solace, insight... strange how the thoughts of strangers are ultimately the kindest and most gentle springs of hope amidst the strange tragedies of life. Home without that trusted lifeboat of a library that anchors my life in my own flat, I rely on the resources of my computer files, lovingly accumulated throughout the years and painstakingly organized... It seems as if I hope to find some sort of emotional Holy Grail locked away in the sonnets and quatrains of the Masters and truthfully I should better resolve to seek my own enlightenment, but alas tonight I haven't the energy. In my younger days I kept journals of my joys and sorrows, determined in my naivety to capture each glorious moment in black ink and blank sketchbooks, as if permanence could be secured by immortalizing memories in spiral-bound records. Several of those old sketchbooks litter my shelves, gathering dust perhaps or just waiting in lonely repose for me to renew interest in my own past... Perhaps that wasn't such a terrible habit... if nothing else to hear from your own thoughts those innumerable aspects of life for which you are grateful seem a small comfort.

At any rate, words secured from poets far and near...

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

- e e cummings

____________________

Nothing is Lost

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.

- Noel Coward

_____________________________

(... and my old favorite)

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

- Li-Young Lee

laughter and apple blossoms

Have been within the evil clutches of illness for an entire week now. What a lovely spring this is rapidly becoming. Shakespeare claimed that sorrow came not in spies, but in battalions... and I must agree with the Bard considering the tragedies that have rippled through my week.

I lost a friend. He was found on Sunday morning, cause of death not exactly clear, a medical enigma explained only partially by the fact that his uncle had died just as suddenly at the age of 44. Brian was only 28. I cannot do any justice to grief through words - those who have first-hand experience with death can perhaps relate. I must simply acknowledge that our lives are not our own, and that we exist merely as fragile property of the universe itself, come what may. But my heart aches in places I cannot even identify and I find myself in tears more frequently than not. Me, the Girl Who Doesn't Cry. Unfortunately this is no time for irony, just the sorrow of the world being robbed of yet another of its best men. His smile could stop a rainstorm. I am blessed to remember him with that glorious smile, lucky to have been within his world if only for so brief a time as 28 years will allow. 28. Just short of three decades yet a life rich with happiness and love and family. Brian, you were extraordinary. You've left a void in this world no one will ever fill.

If only the candles we light in memory of departed friends could signify our sorrow, could truly light the darkness of our saddened souls. If only that flickering light could travel and be seen by those we mourn. I think of the grief of Virginia tonight, holding its candlelight vigils to honor the tragedy of the Virginia Tech massacre. We are so unique a generation now to remember these events that shape our lives: each that passes seems to be the worst depth to which humanity can sink, and yet the continued chain of happenings only proves otherwise, from Columbine to 9/11 to this... What world is it that we will create based upon this knowledge of grief and horror? Where do we look to find our hope?

I am old enough to remember all of these things, from the day of the Oklahoma City bombing (the worst terrorist act on American soil) to wearing running shoes to calculus class after the Columbine shootings to waking up one day during my first month of college to discover the twin towers in flames and the world forever altered. The plague of cynicism is swallowing us whole. Loneliness and aggression seem to fuel the worst impulses in human nature, swallowing men like a forest fire does trees. I thank God for my friends - without loving relationships to keep me afloat in these dark times I would be lost myself, drowned in the dark ocean of men's evil.

I was speaking with just such a friend earlier this evening and we were sharing our reactions to the world in all its terrible beauty and cruelty alike. I diagnosed us both as having a case of the "Kurt Cobains," a sensitivity to life alluded to by his legendary suicide note. And yet I don't want to chose Kurt's answer to the problem. As tempting as suicide has been over the years - and believe me when I say it has remained an all-too-alluring offer that I have not always been able to refuse - I still yearn for the optimism of faith. The world is just beginning to blossom again with the fresh springtime promise of new life and sweet green growth. Just outside my window are a row of blooming crabapple trees, my favorites, and their delicate scent is intoxicating even to my stubborn sinuses. It would be easy to fall back on the cliche that children are our hope for the future, easy to look to the innocence of youth for an answer... but I don't believe that such an answer is that right path. It remains in our hands, this future we speak of... if little can be done than so be it but little we shall do if that is an option.

Tonight I leave my window open. I want the night air to soothe me and fill my lungs with its sweetness as I drift off to sleep. I want to let the world in and let the sorrow out. Let us all grieve together on this beautiful April evening, breathing in each other's pain and exhaling it gently to nature. No one is alone: we must seek out the lonely among us and wrap loving arms around them, reassuring both them and ourselves that unity has strength beyond anything else. We deserve no less, any of us. Let us remember... and honor those lost to us... by loving those who are left behind.

Because we miss you. Because we will always miss you.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden

Tussinex

Hanging suspended within a reality I don't quite recognize and haven't the resources to properly investigate - think am having some sort of adverse reaction to the meds I'm taking to cure The Cough of 2007, as am now labelling it. You better believe it's capitalized. This beast of a virus/microbe/bacteria invader has left tornadic destruction in its wake (upon surveying my clutter-dotted carpet landscape I see this has an all too depressing literal significance) and I'm stuck in hallucinogenic hell, 9th circle.

For reasons unknown the meds seem to have gone to battle not against the disease that's robbed me of a decent week of school work (oh god oh god oh god) but in a feud against one another. Fun symptoms currently include inability to focus, mild hallucinations (mistook snow shovel for an alley cat), small colored spots everywhere (think rainbow sprinkles meets psych test), tremors, dry mouth (oh for god's sake), nausea, dizziness, weird taste in my mouth?

I can only imagine how pleasurable this list will be to read later. Haven't been able to construct a proper sentence aloud in past several hours and fear this will be no exception to rule. Keep drinking water in hopes that, as often happens with murderously stormy hangovers, these symptoms will quietly vanish and I may roll my eyes and chalk this up to "dehydration" or "low blood sugar" or one of my moons being stuck in the wrong house somewhere. Damnit. Except I am at least smart enough not to drink with this elixir in my system. Because there are no ways to salvage anything once the fine line has been crossed and it is a hideous, hideous site to behold.

I don't feel like myself: quite frankly I feel stoned. Which excepting for the possibility of Immaculate High (loosely based on Immaculate Conception - well honestly if virgins are birthing offspring there leaves little else to cherish with cynicism - and for all I know Indianapolis may be pumping the sewers full of narcotic gases in a desperate ploy to boost downtown business), that is not a possibility. I can't explain any better though. Dizzy and lightheaded and cross-eyed and dry mouth... ok about this dry mouth, never had it before and am definitely casting my vote "against." I feel like a swallowed a tube sock. How I pity asthmatics.

Trying to keep awake by any means possible for at least 15 more minutes to imbibe enough water to fill a Malibu swimming pool. Am so damn tired. And this self-imposed sleep strike is not conducive to my need to pass the hell out, drool merrily on my pillow, and pray for uncomplicated dreams.

Am boycotting the Tussinex tomorrow. Whatever pills I gulped down today were clearly most disavantageously (shit that looks funny) forced into a disastrous relationship. Am running out of patience and metaphors. My eyes are sore. Here's a tasty bit of irony from my afternoon: windy day, contacts irritated, I take to the rewetting drops like a temp actress in a daytime soap opera funeral scene. Eyes don't improve, start to burn, damn they sting like holy hell - Clear Eyes to the rescue again. Picture me at this moment. I have spent 45 minutes removing my lenses to be cleaned and scrubbed and cleaned and placed back in my now Bride-of-Chucky red eyeballs which have not ceased to water (complete with sniffles, that oh-so-sexy watercolor streak of ruined mascara, and the realization after being in such close proximity to the mirror that my eyebrows have decided to go the way of Ugly Betty) when suddenly I realize that the goddamn Clear Eyes drops are actually the entire problem. Whether I'm allergic to the formula or I just got a shitty toxic bottle, it couldn't be more obvious that I have spent most of an hour systematically poisoning each of my poor, defenseless eyes. Motherfucker. If I ever get my hands on that damn Ben Stein I'll kill him for endorsing such a dangerous biological agent. My God it's domestic terrorism. Call the President. No, let's ummm... not. Times like these require heavy artillery. ("Who you gonna call... Ghostbusters?") JACK BAUER! He will seek our freedom-loving nation's revenge against the evil mastermind Stein and America will applaud the demise of a man of only one word, "Bueller?"

6 more minutes. Don't know if I'll actually have the courage to post this... well courage is perhaps the wrong term. Have doubtlessly managed to produce nothing more spectacular or original than a long-winded burst of incoherent nonsense. And I haven't even a Jabberwocky to set a proper mood. 'Twas brillig, though. Rest assured of that.

3 minutes. I'll brush my teeth to kill time (and germs and hopefully this delightful fruit-of-the-loom taste that won't seem to go away) and try not to remember details about brain tumors and tasting metal. (Is it pennies? No matter. Think Aquafresh).

This would be an opportune moment for a Juanita-ism: "Hallelujah! Praise Jesus!"

Anyone not acquainted with the Sordid Lives reference has two options. First option is to hasten (with the speed of oh say a bullet train or perhaps the stampede to the open bar at a wedding reception... haha or a sorority formal in the Windy City where certain morally bankrupt couples smuggled entire bottles of whiskey out of sight of the depressingly unaware barkeep and chugged the contents in record-breaking time whilst "hiding" inconspicuously in a goddamn cactus I mean hypothetically speaking of course this is merely a fictitious anecdote used to illustrate and the story is not without a moral as this band of thieves really was only granted temporary custody of the alcohol and promptly returned said alcohol to the city itself though such varied collection sites as hotel toilets, dumpsters, trashcans, gutters, of course, yes, and a cyclone of bedlinens that - in a glorious display of my incomparable good fortune in life - actually greeted my cheerless face the next morning... that is to say... hypothetically...) nearest rental store/pawnshop/Delta Burke fan club headquarters and procuring a copy (by any means necessary) to be watched immediately and without pause or may hereafter be considered demoted to rank of "serf." No, lower than that. Even serfs would rent the damn movie. Anyone not willing to sacrifice a mere 2.5 hours for mandatory learning purposes will be stuck cleaning up after serf dogs, which considering standard of living in medieval serf peasantry will probably imply scrawny packs of mangy, wild-eyed, flea-infested canines who are likely ravenous... and incontinent.

Definitely not posting this. Saving as draft. Sweet Jesus if some freak-of-nature event actually does occur and I am struck by lightening tonight or smashed because a plane drops an engine on my building or hell if I just trip on my way to the bathroom and land at the pearly gates like 'ole Peggy herself, well damn it all to hell I do not want this to represent my final earthly thoughts. Can't even read the screen. Shit and just thought of something, wasn't it chloroform that leaves the taste of copper on your tongue? Hmmm. So we're down to fatigue, poison by choloroform (however the hizzle you spell that damn thihng), adverse drug interaction, dehydration, and oh whatever the hell else. Am having an inkling that tomorrow's shift will be absolutely tragic. If such be the will of the fates, I say let it rain. Bring on the weeping.
And the "lamentations of the women and children"
[CONAN THE BARBARIAN: ultimate wisdom beyond all imagination.... well his at least.]

Zen for Breakfast

Have greeted the morning sunshine with alarming cheer, especially considering the state of my influenza/chest cold/haggard body. am apparently still paying my dues for being so incredibly drunk in church on Easter morning. What can I tell you... at least I wasn't the one who threw up the sacrament and traumatized some innocently pious elderly woman in the downstairs ladies' room. Now that's some good sin work. (Nicely done, Miss Shrock. I am, as ever, your biggest admirer).

Thanks to a most direly needed script for Tussinex (a rather potent psychotropic cough substance whose origin I am convinced has some roots in the dark arts) and a whopping 36 hour nap between Tuesday and Thursday, am actually feeling most refreshed. Although my voice is still locked in "transgendered male" pitch and the hacking cough is reminiscent of the whooping jaybird, I truly can't complain. The worst is over. AND I finally finished reading Liz Gilbert. Am now eagerly devouring the entire AK Press* collection.

*Note: AK Press is a SF, CA based publishing co with strident anarchist ideals whose anthology includes works as varied as "Dispatches From Hell: A Vegan's Guide to Love, Sex, Relationships, and Other Suicidal Tendencies" to Marx's Communist Manifesto to a library's worth of Noam Chomsky to my personal favorite title, "Orgasms of History: 3000 Years of Spontaneous Insurrection." Love that. Reminds me of that scene in Amelie when our favorite little gamine heroine announces sweetly that 15 people are currently having orgasms at that precise moment in time. Brilliant.

Amazing how I have so rapidly transformed myself from the compassionate, provocative thinker whose steps were feeling more sure-footed than ever on this little tightrope walk of life (me, last night, finishing Gilbert's Indonesian stories) to this daytime yuppie slut who keeps giggling like a schoolgirl at the mention of orgasms and sex in general. My internal clock is a bit troubled by the recent skewered sleep pattern, I suppose. Yet how I longed to hold on to that feeling of contentment, feeling of (dare I speak it?) wisdom that had somehow crept into bed beside me in the night hours... It's moments like these when it suddenly becomes all too clear just exactly what the Yogic masters mean when they declare that desire is the root of all problems. Simply the fact that I wanted something (even just a feeling) to stick around guaranteed that it was about to shag-ass out the metaphorical door. Alas, Louise Gluck had this one right: "Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances." Well, perhaps she said that, I honestly don't remember to whom to attribute the quote but oh I do love the idea...

It's always so fascinating to discover the historical/lingual (lingual? is that correct?) roots of words. It's as if you discover an entirely new language or decipher a hidden code that has been staring you face-to-face the entire time... For example, paradise originates from ancient Persian and literally means "walled garden." (thank you liz gilbert, your painstaking research is now mine to fully appreciate and exploit at lackluster dinner parties - hurrah!)

Spoke with my parents this morning. Realized that I had best leave my mother a message so she wouldn't panic at the shocking site of my name on her caller ID at seven in the morning. And then proceeded to wake my slumbering brother at Purdue. Conversation went a little som'n like this:

Peter: [groan/grunt sounds] h... hello?
Me: Oh hey! What's... wait... hey, man, did I just wake you up??
Peter: ummm... [more groaning... and probably scratching, let's be honest] yeah. you. did.
Me: Oh wow, man, I totally thought you'd be up already... don't you have class now?
Peter: Allison. It's. Friday.

Hmmm. Whoopsie-daisies. Probably serves him right for taking such pleasure in torturing me awake all those childhood years, years of waking to a glass of ice water being poured on my face or my sheets stripped or a rousing human percussion instrument involving my head and Peter's fists. Hmmm. Don't feel so bad now that I think about it. Karma's a bitch, eh bro?

Anyway, will close with this (Liz Gilbert of course, page 260 of Eat Pray Love):

As I focus on Diligent Joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once - that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-breeding act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you truly free to serve and enjoy other people.

Pascoa

Just learned that my best friend is headed to Lisbon for Easter weekend. My favorite place. In my excitement, have dug out photos and journals from my trip and have blissfully slipped into reverie as I turn the glossy pages and decipher my scrawling handwriting.

Fitting that I had just read this excerpt from Liz Gilbert, reminding me of both that trip and another enchanting summer on the Riviera:

"Every once in a while I recall that I used to live in Rome and spend my leisurely mornings eating pastries and drinking cappuccino and reading the newspaper.
That sure was nice.
Though it seems very far away now."