'Life is Short.'

Although it is only 6 pm on Sunday, I have managed to accomplish several things the past two days:

- read 4 books. Two by Chelsea Handler, the new David Sedaris, and finally bloody finished Hellenga's Philosophy Made Simple.

- started drinking yesterday at 10 am with a few Irish coffees. By lunch I was a) hammered and b) moving on up to SoCo/oj/lime (surprisingly tasty, a most excellent lake drink).

- I have a sun tan. Complete with sunglasses lines.

- Revived the Saturday night skinny-dipping tradition with E and B.

- Went antique shopping in town. Found some crazy book called 'Hoosier Lyrics,' a collection of early 20th century poetry by someone I'd never heard of... so of course I bought it.

- Laundry? Dishes? Boats covered? Check. Check.... and getting there.

- It's raining and the lake looks like something out of the mind of Melville. So much gray and blue and the shocking electric green of the plants in contrast. It's breathtaking.

- I don't have to work tomorrow and have decided to stay up here an extra day. Hell to the yes.

- Did I mention how much we drank yesterday? Oh. My. God. By noon we'd killed the whiskey and knocked off a pony keg of Heineken. On to the Southern Comfort and then my old friend vodka-and-cranberry-with-lime. Oy vey.

[And then, in true Camp Mitchell of the North fashion, we went fundraising at the annual lake assoc. bbq. We had our own table. We took ridiculous pictures of things up our noses and falling out of our mouths during dinner. It was awesome.]

- We ballroom danced on the pier (sloppily, quite blitzed) to Ella, Billie, Frank, Louie, and Coltrane (of course)... and then stargazed. And went streaking. And managed to put ourselves to bed by midnight. I'm so goddamn impressed I can barely express myself.

A most excellent lake weekend.

Honey put on that party dress

Looking over my shoulder to verify if I am, in fact, alone has become an unshakable habit when I wake up in the morning.

Some days I’m not. In fact, I’m reviving the age-old art of the One Night Stand… with a vengeance.

And… I love it.

Is it wrong to feel empowered? To ride the strangely euphoric wave of sexual liberation? To be this charmingly detached? Seductive without apology? Brutally honest and demanding and altogether contrary to my typically blazingly sensitive and polite self?

Is it also wrong that this weekend I woke up and could have sworn I was suddenly transported to my college days, some hybrid of Lolita and Tom Petty’s “Last Dance with Mary Jane?”

Or am I just burying my broken ego underneath the weight of another man?

(Sex is the gateway drug for the broken-hearted, if you ask me. Well, I suppose I still don't know if I'm broken-hearted or not, really. Rejected is probably the simplest description. But it's a hurt, a thorn, a wound nonetheless. Goddamnit, why do I still think about you? Get out of my head!)

Maybe this is what I mean, or what I’m looking for:

The man of your dreams,
perhaps not
maybe just one of the
many that have fallen
but for now I am
ridiculously happy
to be the one who
curls himself around you.

[found in OPLL]

Do the Dwayne Johnson

Loves:

- martini Thursday nights, outside under the stars
(if we could actually see the stars from downtown)
- 'This is my kingdom'
- Not bothering to actually engage in the debate as to whether we are friends because we collectively lack moral standards and are thus apathetic friends or if we are in fact friends because of a shared sense of fraternal love, tolerance, and undiluted capacity for forgiveness.
- Steak n' Shake, after-hours downtown crowd. We saw the Jonas Brothers. Or, rather, the Indianapolis version if one of them wore a pink sash around his scrappy locks and one was actually a girl. Still, a good sighting.
- 'Live Green, Buy Vintage'
- 'Baby I'm Shameless'
- Tense polling re: grape jelly brands (childhood preference). Results mixed.
- 'You tell me about your [insert experimental sexual experience here], I'll tell you about mine.'
- Frisco Melt. PLATTER.

On the flip side

I officially love the Amp 'Walk of Shame' commercial. So much so that I typed out the lyrics and forwarded the whole shebang to my brother and best friends with the tagline, 'where the hell was this when we were in college?'



My brother replies with a clip of Ben Folds's 'Late'... aka a heartfelt dirge lamenting the loss of Elliot Smith.

Let's recap: I celebrate a commercial proudly encouraging embarrassing decisions and sexual promiscuity. My brother remembers a great artist remembering another great artist. I am an asshole.

Got me thinking about dichotomy, contradictions...

If I had a dollar for every time someone (ok, a man, men in general) told me I was either 'interesting' or 'fascinating' I would have... a lot of dollars.

So what the hell makes me so interesting, you know? This is what I keep asking myself. I'm 'different' or 'special' or 'one of a kind,' depending on who you ask and how much he or she may have been drinking. I'm 'a study in contrasts.'

Well let's discuss some of those.

I buy organic produce but eat ramen noodles without hesitation.
I'm a bit of a ball-buster but hate (hate hate hate) to sleep alone.
I make fun of chick flicks but watch Lifetime movies. ('Boyfriend for Christmas' is a personal favorite, btw. That one might have been on the WE channel though).
I reject conventional Christianity (especially Catholicism) but feel most spiritually connected in ancient cathedrals.
I look like I belong on Wisteria lane but the suburbs give me nightmares.
I am the WASP postergirl but pretty much wish I was Jewish. A lot, actually.
One of my greatest and most shallow triumphs comes from the fact that I look better than you do and I paid less for my outfit. (I said it was shallow).
Even though I'm as domestic as it gets, I don't know if I'll ever have children. (My choice, it's complicated).
The word 'marriage' gives me an involuntary physical reaction. Not the good kind.
I feel suffocated by my hometown but hate when an outsider criticizes it.
I alphabetize my dvds and color-code my closet but my car is a mess.
I complain when I feel unappreciated by men but usually ignore and/or push violently away those rare few that do show interest.
I survived open heart surgery but still faint when I get an injection... or even think about getting one.
I always get seasick, I'm afraid of fish and deep water... but I love to scuba dive.
I don't trust people.
I own real fur.
I drink beer with a straw.
I'm a damn good cook but you'd never know it because I buy groceries less often than the moon wanes and only use my kitchen for making tea and storing non-perishables like $3 bottles of wine.
I know the lyrics to more showtunes and antiquated Broadway hits than current top 40 songs.
Hate: MTV, Fox News, fundamentalism, sexual discrimination, wearing clothes.
Love: Golden Girls reruns, gardens, reading books outside, being serenaded, traveling.
Think Green, Buy Vintage.
I hate insects but will probably make you kill it for me.
I'm terrified of being ordinary but might not have a choice.
I can quote Jane Austen verbatim... from the books.
I work in retail and still like to play dress up. Can anyone say 'theme party?'
On those days when I think I might want to be a mother, I cry because I don't think I would survive it. I never want to pass this on to my child. Never.
I never cry. Never.
I talk too much but don't actually confide very much in anyone.
Never been a great dancer, never gonna be a great dancer. Although I do a mean Cuban Shuffle when I've been drinking heavily.
I am my mother, no 'turning into' about it.
I give the best advice in the world for someone who refuses to have an genuine romantic relationship of her own.
I'm solid as oak but flighty as hell.
If I love you, then I love you unconditionally. Once you're in the circle, you're in for life.
Love being overdressed in dive bars.
I make my life harder than it really is with a complex web of theoretical ideas, strobe lit daydreams, and overly-intellectualized analysis of the everyday.
I'm lonely often but good luck trying to get close to me. Really, good luck.
My family means everything to me even though we're really just one big fucking mess.
I've seen a lot of sunrises and don't sleep well.
I miss living abroad and hate that my French has gone straight to hell.
Love to kiss gay men.
Talk during movies.
Tend to obsess over one person for months at a time, even if I won't admit it. Years, even.
An optimist with an uncanny ability for cynical foresight.
Desperately in need of verbal affirmation most of the time.

From the Mixed-Up Files of...

E: I just had a brilliant idea. I keep getting press releases for Bible Baptist's "PURE LOVE" preachy abstinence teen program this weekend. how awesome would it be to go in true abfab form and act like we thought it was a PURE ROMANCE sex toy party and start demanding vibrators and nipple tassels!

Sent at 8:06 AM on Friday May 2

me: oh. my. god

THAT is AMAZING

E: or prank call....maybe we'll make drew do it tonight

_____________________

I have the greatest friends in the world... we have our own particular brand of sexual anarchy, what can I tell you?

The State of the Economy

There might be some change on top of the dresser at the back, and we should check the washer and the dryer. Check under the floor mats of the car. The couch cushions. I have some books and CDs I could sell, and there are a couple of big bags of aluminum cans in the basement, only trouble is that there isn’t enough gas in the car to get around the block. I’m expecting a check sometime next week, which, if we are careful, will get us through to payday. In the meantime with your one-dollar rebate check and a few coins we have enough to walk to the store and buy a quart of milk and a newspaper. On second thought, forget the newspaper.

- Louis Jenkins

Brian, this is for you.

Just read something about people complaining about love not finding them, or the 'right person' not showing up... the very core of the Snow White 'Some Day My Prince Will Come' complex.

Interesting, because I was just speaking of the same thing with friends... this kind of passive role just... doesn't suit. There is nothing wrong with a little Cinderella fantasy, a desire to be swept off one's feet, whisked away on a white horse, etc. Fine. We all indulge in secret romantic daydreams, ain't not shame in admitting it... but there is a distinct difference between these harmless dreams and actually sitting still, waiting for the fantasy to come to life.

There is a world of exciting mistakes and romantic foibles waiting outside this little waiting-by-the-phone-with-a-cat-and-an-astrology/candle-collection cliche bubble. I remember reading somewhere some sort of quote attributed to Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (spelling?) in which he recalls sitting in some Hollywood bar listening to these two young girls bitch about how they'll never find the perfect guy and bemoaning the fact that all the Brad Pitts of the world just didn't seem to be appearing or interested or whatever. His response was my favorite... basically, he turned to the girls and said (I'm paraphrasing), "Well, if you want to land Brad Pitt, you have to look like Angelina Jolie! So until then, get off your arses, hit the gym, and quit complaining!"

Right on, sir. Enough with the entitlement, let's face the fact that a girl's gotta fight for what she wants. As in take an active stance. Make it happen. Carpe Diem. (Or carpe noctum, as the case may be, wink).

Anyway, obviously had a poem in mind (quelle surprise). Here it is, enjoy:

Any prince to any princess

August is coming
and the goose, I’m afraid,
is getting fat.
There have been
no golden eggs for some months now.
Straw has fallen well below market price
despite my frantic spinning
and the sedge is,
as you rightly point out,
withered.

I can’t imagine how the pea
got under your mattress. I apologize
humbly. The chambermaid has, of course,
been sacked. As for the frog footman,
I understand that, during my recent fact-finding tour of the Golden River,
despite your nightly unavailing efforts,
he remained obstinately
froggish.

I hope that the Three Wishes granted by the General Assembly
will go some way towards redressing
this unfortunate sequence of events.
The fall in output from the shoe-factory, for example:
no one could have foreseen the work-to-rule
by the National Union of Elves. Not to mention the fact
that the court has been fast asleep
for the last six and a half years.

The matter of the poisoned apple has been taken up
by the Board of Trade: I think I can assure you
the incident will not be
repeated.

I can quite understand, in the circumstances,
your reluctance to let down
your golden tresses. However
I feel I must point out
that the weather isn’t getting any better
and I already have a nasty chill
from waiting at the base
of the White Tower. You must see the absurdity of the situation.
Some of the courtiers are beginning to talk,
not to mention the humble villagers.
It’s been three weeks now, and not even
a word.

Princess,
a cold, black wind
howls through our empty palace.
Dead leaves litter the bedchamber;
the mirror on the wall hasn’t said a thing
since you left. I can only ask,
bearing all this in mind,
that you think again,

let down your hair,

reconsider.

- Adrian Henri

Bad Luck Betty

BLB's streak continues this week with a broken dishwasher. Matt and I were putzing around the kitchen yesterday after work, me cleaning, he cooking something... I start the dish cycle and immediately notice that waves of sudsy frothy water are pouring from the door hinge area. You know... pouring out like some ridiculous sitcom episode where the idiot babysitter puts the wrong soap in the laundry machine or something and Haley Mills saves the day or Alice appears with a shake of her head to scold one of the Brady kids.

Pretty awesome.

You know what is awesome? Clean sheets. I'm totally high on fabric softener fumes right now and it is fantastic. Best day of the week.

Stuck going to the dentist tomorrow morning. Normally I am really excited about dental cleanings, for several reasons. Love of oral hygience and a non-sexual crush on my dentist are the main two... plus I get to catch up on my domestic magazine reading, like Midwest Living or Rachel Ray or Good Housekeeping. Plus, I owe my entire knowledge of how-to-cook-salmon-in-the-dishwasher to my dentist as well. Always fascinating what he tells me. Pretty damn good time, especially if they are offering novacaine and/or happy gas. Best. High. Ever.

Anyway, my misfortune comes because I had mistakenly thought that the appointment was not until Thursday morning, thus allowing me tomrorrow to sleep in (desperately needed, esp. before race weekend). But no, I will but up-and-at-'em bright and early tomorrow for speedy trip home, then back for full closing shift until 10. Oy. Bring on the caffeine, vyvanse, and any number of showtunes for the drive to keep me peppy. I'm not kidding, I'ma goin' blast me some serious broadway all the way there and back. ONE. SINGULAR SENSATION. EVERY LITTLE MOVE SHE MAKES.

Expect full-blast Jesus Christ Superstar in the mix too.

It's going to be such a long day.

Watched The Ten tonight (while I ironed, believe it or not). Maybe I'm a horrible person for admitting this, but I really liked it. Yes, the humor was off-color and certainly lacking in the politically-correct department... but it was great. Although I admit it is probably intended for a much much much less sober audience... trust me, it would have been better under the influence of something. I also have a feeling that it gets funnier with repetition. The last segment was my absolute favorite... it involved a gaggle of naked men getting together on the sabbath in secret to celebrate life, nudity, maleness... and Roberta Flack. YES. That is my kind of religious experience.

Nocturne

People underestimate the beauty of a lullaby.

I'm listening to a recording of my best friend, years since it was originally recorded, and it is the most lovely sound I could imagine for the dark hours of night. I'll admit, it was better when she would sing to me in person, nights when we couldn't sleep in college, long midnights when we were the only two people awake in a house of 140 girls, months when we were absolute disasters and battling demons we couldn't identify and certainly never understood (always worse at night).

It's easy to forget the talents of friends, glance hurriedly over these unique gifts that often drew one to them in the first place.

Oh it sounds so beautiful to listen to her now.

I love when people sing to me. Is there anything more wonderful?

[Today was a good day.]

I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream

I woke up smiling, content and refreshed from a dream that seemed to resolve all my admittedly insignificant dilemmas that just won't seem to leave my thoughts. One of those nights filled with images of people I love... everyone came together and 'met' for the first time, I actually remember introducing different circles of friends/family/lovers at long last... even my family was involved, the lake, my childhood bed covers, holding someone's hand and sharing a pillow at the cottage.

I don't need Carl Jung to tell me that it was textbook fantasy sequence, that I mentally sculpted a perfect reunion/romance/Hallmark scenario, everything my life in reality is not at the moment.

God, it was a great dream though. A great dream.
_________________________________________

A Birthday

Something continues and I don’t know what to call it
though the language is full of suggestions
in the way of language
but they are all anonymous
and it’s almost your birthday music next to my bones

these nights we hear the horses running in the rain
it stops and the moon comes out and we are still here
the leaks in the roof go on dripping after the rain has passed
smell of ginger flowers slips through the dark house
down near the sea the slow heart of the beacon flashes

the long way to you is still tied to me but it brought me to you
I keep wanting to give you what is already yours
it is the morning of the mornings together
breath of summer oh my found one
the sleep in the same current and each waking to you

when I open my eyes you are what I wanted to see

- W.S. Merwin

[a favorite: hung next to my bed]

In Retrospect...

In the past two weeks...

I have begun a new job with responsibilities that frighten me, newfound authority that secretly thrills me, and the terrifying album of changes that always accompany these things. It's not as easy as I had hoped to keep my optimism and faith in myself. I feel at last as though something is really at risk and don't know if I'll measure up, don't know if I'll let myself down (let everyone down)...

I have been inches away from a musical legend, shaken the hand of a presidential candidate, and VIP'd my way around a political rally... all within four blocks of my place downtown. In the rain no less. No better way to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

I have partied like it's 1999. I have more digital photos than actual memories of certain nights and several encounters that would make my mother weep in shame.

I have strolled naked through the moonlight and accidentally flashed one of my best friends. Walking in the altogether down a staircase at five in the morning carries such risk, it seems.

I don't regret any of those nights.

I have laughed with best friends, created an entirely new encyclopedia of tongue-in-cheek inside jokes and nicknames, confided secrets and for once not left anything out. Hello world, this is me... I'm still afraid of these confessions, still somehow naturally tend toward the privacy and safety of keeping things locked within... but I said them anyway. I think I'm getting better.

I have said goodbye to two friends, both embarking on extended journeys toward lands far away. I don't think it has entirely become a reality in my mind just how long and far apart we really are now... I don't know what it will feel like when I do face the temporary finality, look at a map and gage the miles between all of us... what a wonderfully miraculous time we inhabit that we still remain connected, still communicate over land and sea, hill and dale, war and peace. It frightens me, the very thought, so much I don't understand...

Tonight...

I have laughed and danced and run through a rainstorm.

I have soberly chanted lyrics to songs I don't really know and brazenly sung those I do. The dance floors at the wee odd hours of the morning would not be the same without Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing,' now would they?

I have doubted myself.

I have been reunited with a man who regaled E and I with tales of seeing Frank Sinatra live in concert. He was wearing a hat. It was magnificent.

I have been somewhat forced to acknowledge that just because I want something doesn't mean it is destined for me...

... and by 'something' I of course mean 'someone.'

Ouch.

Humility amid raindrops and 80's music isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I'm sleeping alone. [Common knowledge: I hate that].

Kissing you was all I could think about.

I don't know where to go from here and am struggling to remember to let life find its own path, let my life take its course as it will. There are days of sunshine ahead, I keep telling myself... Long beautiful sun-kissed days toppling into my lap one after the other like a row of glowing dominoes, promising light and luck and joy and love.

I am loved... and lucky to be loved so unconditionally, so fully, so genuinely...

Something about tonight is so unsettling nevertheless and I still can't find the pulse-point of it all... so disorienting, so out of place... I feel like I'm walking into a silent test and don't have the answer key.

It's a slow fall down the rabbit hole this time.

I cannot let my thoughts veer toward the land of the woulda-coulda-shouldas. I cannot. I cannot. I cannot.

I need guidance... I must remember the power of the everyday miracle, the pleasure in mystery, the ability to wait, the patience to be still, the serenity to listen...

... to whatever may whisper in the night.

_________________________________________

Seeker of Truth

seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where
truth is here

e.e. cummings

___________________________________________

Did I actually reach out my arms
toward it, toward paradise falling, like
the fading of the dearest, wildest hope ---
the dark heart of the story that is all
the reason for its telling?

Mary Oliver

____________________________________________

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Wendell Berry

_____________________________________________

The Tree, the Lamp

The tree grows old in the tree, it is summer.
The bird leaps beyond birdsong and is gone.
The red of the dress illuminates and scatters
Away, in the sky, the lading of old sorrow.

O fragile country,
Like the flame of a lamp carried out-of-doors,
Sleep being close in the world’s sap,
Simple the beating of the shared soul.

You too love the moment when the light of lamps
Fades and dreams into daylight.
You know it’s the darkness of your own heart healing,
The boat that reaches the shore and falls.

Yves Bonnefoy

A Song For You

So today I wrote a song for you
Cause a day can get so long
And I know it's hard to make it through
When you say there's something wrong

So I'm trying to put it right
Cause I want to love you with my heart
All this trying has made me tight
And I don't know even where to start

Maybe that's a start

Cause you know it's a simple game
That you play filling up your head with rain
And you know you are hiding from your pain
In the way, in the way you say your name

And I see you
Hiding your face in your hands
Flying so you won't land
You think no one understands
No one understands

So you hunch your shoulders and you shake your head
And your throat is aching but you swear
No one hurts you, nothing could be sad
Anyway you're not here enough to care

And you're so tired you don't sleep at night
As your heart is trying to mend
You keep it quiet but you think you might
Disappear before the end

And it's strange that you cannot find
Any strength to even try
To find a voice to speak your mind
When you do, all you wanna do is cry

Well maybe you should cry

And I see you hiding your face in your hands
Talking 'bout far-away lands
You think no one understands
Listen to my hands

And all of this life
Moves around you
For all that you claim
You're standing still
You are moving too
You are moving too
You are moving too
I will move you

- Alexi Murdoch

She never was a fighter
until he lay beside her,
and gently whispered,
'hope.'

Foy Vance

Had definitely already taken a sleeping pill when I wrote that yesterday.

At least the main objective was accomplished - slept for a 12 blissfully uninterrupted hours.

It. Was. Amazing.

at last, she sleeps.

Perhaps it is the changing seasons, the barometric dips in spring's pool, the stars aligning, some pervading air of unrest... have not slept for many days... and apparently I am not alone (for once), but seem to be learning of many friends who share this current nocturnal unrest, this series of waking nights woven with bizarre dreamscapes and the scrolling demiconscious thoughts.

Tonight, however, I will sleep under the protective wing of Night. I crumple weakly and wearily and dazedly into her feathery bosom, sink into her 1000 thread ct embrace, and pray that I dissolve seamlessly into slumbers beneath the ambien veil...



Thus, my favorite poem... a beautiful beautiful beautiful dream of a poem:

Variation On The Word Sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and as you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

- Margaret Atwood

____________________________________

... and perhaps another vivid glimpse, the images the images the images...


The Top of the World (excerpts)

V

I go out.
I dream that I am going out into the snowy night.
I dream that I am carrying
With me, far, outside, there is no turning back,
The mirror from the upstairs bedroom, the mirror from
Summers past, the boat at whose prow
We, simple, pushed forward, questioning,
Deep in the sleep of summers that were brief, as life is.

In those days

It was through the sky gleaming in the mirror's waters
That the magi of our sleep, as they withdrew,
Would spread out their treasures in the darkened room.

VI

And in the rustling of the night sky
The beauty of the world bent down
To see her body reflected in the closed water
Of the sleepers, which branches out among the stones.
She brought trusting mouth and breath
Close to their lightless eyes. She would have wanted
Her brighter breast to appear beneath the shoulder
In the folds of her still closed robes,
Then day was rising around you,
Our earth the mirror, and the sunlight
Hemmed your bare neck with a red band of mist.

But here I am now
Standing outside the house; everything is motionless
Since it is only a dream. And so I go on, leaving,
It hardly matters where, against a wall, beneath the stars,
This mirror, our life. And may night's dew
Condense and flow, over the images.

- Yves Bonnefoy,
from 'The Top of the World'

Slice of heaven.

Today is a day of promises and bargains made with sunshine, quiet joy in a bright day, sweet grassy breezes, wide-eyed optimism...

It is so beautiful, so fresh and vivid here...

Simple pleasures:
Sapphire skies.
Converse All-stars. (Pink)
Sunglasses.
Cold drinks.
Hope.
Friends.
New chances.
Love.
Raspberries.
Open-air balconies.
Clean sheets.
Feeling healthy (or getting there, at least).
The city skyline.
Long walks downtown.
Driving with the windows/sunroof open.
Love... real love... savoring it where I can find it, where it will always be.

_______________

"The desert is beautiful," the little prince added.

And that was true. I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...

"What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well..."

I was astonished by a sudden understanding of that mysterious radiation of the sands. When I was a little boy I lived in an old house, and legend told us that a treasure was buried there. To be sure, no one had ever known how to find it, perhaps no one had ever even looked for it. But it cast an enchantment over that house. My home was hiding a secret in the depths of its heart...

"Yes," I said to the little prince. "The house, the stars, the desert - what gives them their beauty is something that is invisible!"

"I am glad," he said, "that you agree with my fox."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Oh, Bluegrass...

502 Single's (Nick Gerlach, Matt Niehoff, Ivan Arnold)


Bonus: My best friend dated Guy #1 (Cletus). I was there when they met. And today she sends me this video he made. Totally. Worth. It.

Especially since I'm living off a diet of Airborne, saltine crackers, cough syrup, vitamins, and herbal tea. So incredibly miserable. And I sound like Peter Brady when I talk... you know, in the episode where his voice changes and they all sing that horrible horrible song about it. It's incredibly sexy, let me tell you.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may...

In my opinion, one of the most incredibly seductive poems she ever wrote... reminds me of "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," in a way... a sexosensual carpe noctum, no?

*God do I hate sleeping alone.

Blossom

In April
the ponds open
like black blossoms,
the moon
swims in every one;
there’s fire
everywhere: frogs shouting
their desire,
their satisfaction. What
we know: that time
chops at us all like an iron
hoe, that death
is a state of paralysis. What
we long for: joy
before death, nights
in the swale - everything else
can wait but not
this thrust
from the root
of the body. What
we know: we are more
than blood - we are more
than our hunger and yet
we belong
to the moon and when the ponds
open, when the burning
begins the most
thoughtful among us dreams
of hurrying down
into the black petals
into the fire,
into the night where time lies shattered
into the body of another.

- Mary Oliver

April: Month of Epiphanies

Spring is naturally a time for growth, the return of roots and fresh blossoms. A time when the barren winter landscape slowly dons its green summer sundress and the birds return north to reclaim their arboreal homes.

I've grown suddenly aware of the effect of six months of freeze... for me a temporal pause in my own evolution, a reckless abandonment of my identity and escape into a trial version of myself... like a Mardi Gras mask I wore six weeks too long or a Halloween costume that I forgot to put back into the closet.

At first I thought it was myself I didn't recognize in the mirror. Now I'm thinking otherwise.

Tonight I had an incredibly important conversation with someone who has been like a grafted tree attached to me since I was yet in the flush of early youth, a slip of a teenage girl tentatively walking seaside along those island shores... someone who is unmistakably an integral part of me. Someone I love dearly. For me, family. Someone whose infinite love for me in return I don't feel I have fully acknowledged during this period of exploration mentioned above... I should not have taken that for granted, but I am sure that I did. And that hurts too... but in a way that is necessary. Good, even. I need to feel this brand of regret, this particular shame associated with facing my actions and choices and not really... liking much of what I see.

These past few days I have been agonizing over things, many things... thinking that I was surrounded by people I didn't recognize, people I really didn't know in truth. People whose actions shocked me, hurt my feelings... and yet... now... maybe it's actually the opposite of that. Maybe it's me that they don't fully know. Maybe I'm not the person they think I am.

He said to me that it wasn't me who had changed. That it wasn't me who was unrecognizable. That I am still the same, still the one he loves as his own blood. Still bonded at the soul to him for what dreams may come.

That nothing I can do will make him question that fact.

(We're family, after all.)

That I'm not the same person with him that I am around this other environment, this other circle I have so deeply ingrained myself within, a world that brings to surface different aspects of myself.

I have known this in some locked-away page of my inner dialog for a while now, known something like a whisper in the dark before I fell asleep, something I couldn't quite make out in the night's blackness. But it was there. I know it was there.

In my desperation to forget the painful reality of home, the blurred lines between sadness and anger and resentment and confusion and paralyzing fear, I've flung myself headlong into a bizarre alternate dimension where everybody has something to hide... something to forget.

We're really just a cliche country-western song lyric. Drowning our sorrows. Numbing the hurt. Dancing and spinning so fast we hardly remember our bearings... except... really aren't we just drilling a deeper hole? Has any of us truly moved past that original sin? The root problem?

It seems not.

The only anti-venom to poison in this case is love...

...and how I managed to keep it, I'll never know. These are the people who stick, like barnacles attached to the hull of a ship even as it's sinking. These are the people who grab their instruments and serenade the doomed passengers even as they refuse to abandon the doomed vessel. And these are the angels of mercy who are still here to help me piece myself back together now that I finally hear the S.O.S. signal on the intercom.

I don't know what I am that I deserve this blind love. I don't.

And so much is changing in my life - like Mary Poppins I'm riding the wind as it changes directions, grabbing my umbrella and flying into the horizon, the next phase of my life.

I just realized tonight also that I owe a debt of gratitude to another someone in particular for first striking the flint that lit the candle by which I now read my life's hieroglyphs. He was perhaps the only person in whom I truly saw reflected the reality of now, saw not only the 'me' of today in his eyes but the 'me' of yesterday, figuratively speaking. And it certainly was unexpected, this clarity. And maybe I'll never get the chance to tell him about it, to thank him for it. Because I didn't like the fact that the two reflections were so polar, so dichotomous... I don't think I was alone in my disappointment. Which was an awakening, a moment in which the two universes were jarred just enough to slightly shift on their axes... and then I knew. 'The curtain rolled back'... something had to change. Somewhere in that mysterious no-man's land between new and old lies a balance of the two, a soul whose path has given rise to priceless lessons in life and some minute bit of wisdom, understanding, peace.

And it's not about apologizing... I know that. It's not about pitying myself or hating myself or cursing the gods for my stupidity or flinging myself onto the flames of the funeral pyre... those are all still just selfish actions that focus on me, and me alone. And that's exactly what I must turn away from... I don't know how the hell I am going to rectify certain scenarios or relationships... some things are still so raw I don't even know how to approach the wound without risking gangrene. And dear god I don't want to amputate. And I need serious help along the way... the family tree is withered and weather-beaten to say the least. We're all suffering. Some of us silently, some not. Like the tides, we always return to the same place in our rhythmic pull toward one another.

What I can do, however, is take care of myself. 'Get myself out of the way,' as Liz Gilbert writes, that others can be the focus of healing and love.

Time to grab the garden shears and prune away the weeds so that sunlight can reach the seedlings below, that there can again be a revival of growth. Strip it down to the basics. Take the first steps along the path to atonement... because it's long and uphill and littered with obstacles and surprises and temptations. My life has become a series of Chaucer tales.

I don't know where to start, and I know it's going to be damn difficult to keep myself from overcompensating, overwhelming my loved ones with apologies rammed down throats, overly verbalized pleas for forgiveness.

Ironic, really... a couple days ago I decided that I was going to try and stop talking so much. Decided I needed to listen more thoughtfully, listen like I did before, back when I was more of a vessel for helping others, providing audience to fears and tears that weren't my own. And you know what? Yesterday that became a literal reality for me. Today is my second day with a serious (and painful) case of laryngitis. Truly, I have no voice. Speaking in this state is almost out of the question, physically at least.

It's truly all connected, isn't it?

When life sends a message... it really sends a message.

[And I'm listening... I'm listening...]

moving on up...

Wild day at work. And thus a terrific opportunity for me to completely lose my voice and resort to using a tone that can only be defined as part cabaret telephone actress (read: breathy), part hollywood slasher monologue (read: 'the call is coming from inside the house!' or, more accurately... 'RED RUM RED RUM RED RUM'). Yikes.

Had a date with myself at Barnes/Noble. Spent half an hour trying to find two specific things... found neither of them... but did manage to find a fantastic Donald Hall collection (excerpts soon to be featured here, I am certain) and this marvelous little number called Other People's Love Letters. Think found.com meets postsecret with a little more organization and author permission slips.

I.
Am.
Obsessed.

Am most impressed by the variety of 'letters' featured, from the syrupy honeymoon sap to the raging break-up emails to the dear-johns to the sign-the-divorce-papers-already to the sext messages to the elementary doodles to the letters to deceased lovers. I'm telling you, this is completely engrossing.

That hopelessly dangerously devastatingly romantic side of me (the one I don't like to admit I have) is going wild with the creative possibilities behind these mysterious and essentially anonymous pieces. Who are these people? What happened to them? Under what spell or constellation did these events occur?

I'm completely inspired... both as compulsive letter-writer and dreamy letter-recipient. I'll end with a few shared stolen thoughts...

_________________________________

What I Want

Tonight, there are two things I want.

The first thing I want is a park bench.
Wooden, weathered, solid, comfortable.
And with a view. Doesn't have to be of the
ocean. Could be a simple garden.
Or a squirrel in a tree.
Would you sit next to me, on my park bench?
Would you take my hand and help me
watch that squirrel?

The last thing I want tonight: you.
You and me. You, me, and an entire day
for us to spend together,
any way we choose.

____________________________________

The man of your dreams,
perhaps not
maybe just one of the
many that have fallen
but for now I am
ridiculously happy
to be the one who
curls himself around you.

____________________________________

Dear Lindsey,

I am so hating men right now.
Mart dumped me, because I lost my mind and had a weak flashback moment with Miles. Then I dumped Jim for Aquaman. And then, Aquaman dumped me for his beach house (not kidding!). He actually said "I only wish I had met you after the summer." ????? What's that supposed to mean?!!????

My feelings are so fucking hurt. I feel it in my arms and legs. It's like my blood is sad. I feel so stupid for having hope, for letting myself feel things for him, for calling when he wasn't calling back. Total humiliation.
I hate feeling so weak and so vulnerable.
I hate that I miss him, that I miss Mart. I hate that I am alone.
I hate that I made him into a superhero he was not (He dives for ship wrecks and he has a delicious body, but he is NO aqua man.)
I hate that I bought him jumbo bags of peanut M&Ms because they were his favorite.
I hate that I want to sleep all the time.
I hate that I even thought for a second about not moving to new york because
of this.
i hate that i will see him in the gym.
i hate that he doesn't want to kiss me.
i hate that i called mart this morning just to hear his voice, just to hear
him say he misses me.
i hate that all i want to do is read lame magazines and watch daytime tv.
i hate that every time i cry over one boy it is like crying over all of
them again.

________________________________________