Filed under: Esme Writes, Love | Tags: Art, Cancer House, Echo Park, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Evolution of Words, Family, Growing up, Home, Los Angeles, Love, Mid-west, Music, Passion, transformation, Vanaprasta
The definitions of words have been transforming for me lately. More specifically the words “home” and “family”. I understand quite literally the meaning of “going home” especially since it is so close to the holiday season. Home for such a long time lived within the parameters of location, mainly the area in the world where you spend your formative years and develop, maintain memories and establish your identity.
Howell, Michigan earns the distinction of this title for me. Howell was and still is an extremely middle class average mid-western town. Nearly smack-dab in the center of southern Michigan, it was never a terrible place to grow up. Home was also the structure, the nearly 120 year old Victorian house, the Red House on the Corner. For me, as well, I established a deep sense of “home” attachment to Hawaii, and the Pacific Ocean due to spending nearly every summer there.
I would never refer to my dorm room in college as “home”. It was my room or my place or 403 or 115 but never “home”. My houses and apartments were also rarely referred to as “home” as well.
Something happened though, since moving to Los Angeles. I realized my deep cravings for a base, a center, a place of my own, a Home. My first apartment was hardly this and when my room mate and I decided to move we had more than just two bedrooms in mind. We had making a Home effect our decision. We wanted a place that was ours, our Home in Los Angeles. This changed everything.
Once we had a place that was ours, we took ownership of the area we lived in. We started speaking of Echo Park as Home. This then extended to Los Angeles being Home. I unintentionally made Los Angeles, California my new Home by centering myself there in a room in an apartment that is mine. Home is no longer Howell. Yes, I do still say I am going “home” for Christmas, but it is with a slightly anxious tone. I will leave my Home for a week to return to the place I grew up, to see my “family” at “home”.
The word “family” is another word with a mutable definition and one that has very distinctly evolved, especially more apparently since moving to Los Angeles. My parents and brother and even cousins, aunts and uncles have all played various important roles in my development as a Real Person, but to my life here in Los Angeles, they for the most part have no real relevance in my day to day existence. This by no means diminishes the love that I feel for them, or the respect I have for their lives. It does mean that I rarely talk to any of them on a daily basis and ultimately because of the infrequency of interaction their opinions and values now have minimal impact on my life. The “family” of “home” no longer is relevant.
My Family in Los Angeles has extended to the people who I feel a strong sense of identity and support and love from. They are musicians, artists, writers, actors, most of whom face the same daily struggles as I do, and all who are ready and willing to share their life experiences with everyone aound them. It is the desire to re-create the acceptance of the “families” we once knew and extend them further into the community that surrounds us. It is the bonding nature of passion.
Passionate, positive people exponentially expand horizons together, sometimes without realizing it.
Today, despite my intense anger at myself for being hung-the-fuck-over for a majority of the day, was lightened by hearing the Music of Vanaprasta on isgoodradio.com.
Vanaprasta has made a vast difference in my life in Los Angeles. These lovely gents have yet to even approach their one year anniversary as a band and already they have not only produced some beautiful music, but they have also grown and evolved in a mystifying manner. It gives me chills to hear the lyrics of their songs and the chords and beats literally bleed with a passion that is hardly paralleled in Los Angeles. Their passion has attracted a circle of brilliant people who mean the world to me. It’s been such a beautiful thing to feel welcomed into a family that cares so deeply about their art. It’s been a blessing.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about the fact that since the definitions of words can be so easily altered based on life experience, that there must be so many more words that have done so since the past year. “Love” is one, for certain. “Love” since it is such a malleable word and a word that can change in weight depending on situations is such a unique word that continuously ebbs and surges with different meanings from practically the first moment you learn of it’s existence. The “love” that you feel for your parents is not the “love” you feel for your friends or your first crush. My father’s “love” for me is not the same way he “loves” my brother. My “love” for Cape Cod potato chips is not the same as my “love” for garden fresh tomatoes. The manner in which people display “love” differs vastly as well as the words used to express thusly. I know that when my father says “Be Safe” he is saying he Loves me. I flat out tell my brother that I Love him. The Love that I feel for my friends, I express in meals cooked in my Home and in hours spent counseling or just laughing.
Love is easy though. Even with all these varying definitions, it is so easy.
I like the idea of Home being in someone. It’s a scary idea but it’s a beautifully simple idea as well.
If Home = Someone,
and Someone = Love,
then Home = Love.
Edward Sharpe, you might just save the world with your music.
Filed under: Esme Writes, Love, Sweet Little Something | Tags: Art, Love, Cancer House, Horoscope, Friends, Hope, Desperation
Monday, November 16, 2009:
You’ve always had what you need to do anything you want to do.
Now, just fucking do it.
It’s the perfection of desperation.
So I’ve stood this guy up three times in a week, and it’s not like he’s not inviting me to fun things, it’s just that I don’t really have the time or interest in doing anything that remotely involves a “date” or any of that wholesome traditional bullshit that seems to be coming at me from all sides lately.
I do not want you to be my boyfriend. I do not want to be your girlfriend.
What I want is to make every single day the best day of my life. And those people who want to do that too.
We Will Make Every Day The Best Day Of Our Lives
(for Justin)
1. Society Sucker (Agnostic Front Cover) – Walter Schreifels
4. Vacationing People – Foreign Born
5. Blow Away (Demo) – George Harrison
6. West Coast – The Roadside Graves
7. Catch The Wind – Donovan
8. Lolita – Throw Me The Statue
9. Haunt While I Sleep – Right Away Great Captain!
10. I Don’t Know – Lisa Hannigan
11. She’s Gone – Langhorn Slim
12. Chelsea Hotel No. 2 – Leonard Cohen
12. The Falls – Hudson Bell
12. But For You Who Fear My Name – The Welcome Wagon
(Eventually I’ll link to all these songs but right now I am about to go eat a delicious buger and then go see a friend’s performance at hyperion tavern so this will have to suffice)
Love, so much love.
Filed under: Esme Writes, Poemme Fatales | Tags: Los Angeles, writing, words, Little Joy Open Mic, Esme Writes, Poemme Fatales, Truth, Sentiment, Honesty, Fuck, Knives, Waltzes
He always told me:
Avoid political gestures and coughed mock sentiment.
Avoid religious drudgery and spoken gritted tooth lies.
Avoid steel barrels and the nights where alleys are most dangerous.
Avoid flour, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, mascara and limp wrist handshakes.
Avoid simpering smiles and nights burned into oblivion.
Avoid sharpened shards of glass and the fingers they slip from.
We wrote the same lists over and over.
It was always the same the same the same, a residual haunting on fast forward, retracing the same steps and same path repeatedly.
The one two THREE four one two THREE four one two THREE four of quickened high heel pace.
She was always making music with him and I was standing behind a curtain watching through moth-eaten holes.
Then I would sit down and write.
PART TWO OF MY POEMME FATALES PERFORMANCE:
There is an aching that stems
from the lack of creation
The lack of movement
The stagnant air of a city
The blood not flowing through my veins
The sameness
The people
The sameness.
The ideas that swim in the same lukewarm water.
There needs to be a difference and it needs to happen soon. There needs to be something unbroken and re-broken and things need to bleed.
It needs to be more than just papercuts this time.
It needs to be bruises and black eyes and broken bones and it needs to happen swiftly before the concussion sets in and sleep is here.
The distraction the distraction the distraction the distraction the distraction
The words the noise the words
The prying the emptiness of interaction
The sulleness the fleeting moments of nothing and everything
The sadness crept in at night and I didn’t see it coming but I left my window open.
I did that.
I was sleepwalking again. I ended up standing in the street. I was staring south.
All the empty interactions and the years that have taught me what? Taught me to be angry or mostly just deeply dread and fear tomorrow and there are words to mask it but in the end it comes down to my heart beating at night before I go to sleep and the cold chilling fear that I will one day hear it stop.
And I’ve almost killed myself so many times and you would think that taught me to be fearless but it taught me to be more frightened and to treat myself so much more gently.
An illusion of fragility.
Scarves and the swaddling of lies.
He asks me about the scars on my legs and I smile and open my mouth in the same rehearsed monologue.
Something about snow and drunkenness and streets and falling and sleeping.
The sameness.
The sameness.
The scars are with me forever until I hear my heart stop but the lies. These lies don’t have to be my shadows.
These lies. These fucking shadows.
I lie about my numbers to seem more imposing. To seem more experienced.
I get frightened when I don’t talk to someone.
Matching stares.
The broken heartedness of it all scares me.
Once a man stood with me and told me a story of being unable to love.
I am him now.
There are walls around me.
I want to call him and question him because I still have his phone number.
We spoke a month or so ago.
I painted pretty fake horses with my words so thin he could see through them but did not comment on their lack of opacity.
The world keeps spinning.
The walls are still blank.
I haven’t written anything substantial in months and blame it on everything except that I am afraid.
I am afraid.
I don’t know where these words will take me.
I once thought that I could do anything with them.
One day I doubted that.
The next day I played with knives.
Then fire.
Then I got burned.
Then I got quiet.
Then it was silence.
Such silence.
The words stopped coming because I turned them off.
Like the department does when your bill goes red for too long.
When you ignore the red bills for too long.
When the zombies come to gnaw at your legs.
They leave teeth marks.
And you remember an afternoon in the rain. And skin touching skin and impossible conversations.
The moments where I was not there.
Where I can’t remember the things I want to.
Where I was so much more important than sharing
Where I couldn’t share
Where those walls were built and could not be knocked down
And then there was the day where I teased a man I thought was beautiful and it was perfect like a waltz.
Then the music stopped
and because he stopped leading I forgot the steps
and then got embarrassed and then got frustrated
Then got lost then got angry
Then got lost then got angry
Then got lost then got angry
Then got lost then got angry
and the sullen faces still stare at me
I was building a stronger wall and a world behind that wall where I was precious sunny sunning everyone and they admired me for the simple bravery of providing light.
The bravery of being.
People wear sunglasses and complain that it is hot now.
And my head hurts right this moment.
We talked about napping and he is sleeping.
He is my best friend and my moodiness is sharp knives to him.
My selfishness makes me scared and makes me silent.
Makes the words stop.
Like kids playing with a garden hose, kinked between shining hands.
Nothing comes out the end.
Waiting for them to let go.
Waiting for them to let go or for me to let go because the act of just letting things slip through your fingers is not something I do well. The loss.
The never-come-back-adness of it all. The moment where you cannot control it anymore.
Control.
Ha.
Its just a concept. Everyone can fuck a concept up. And when something is based purely on perspective it is sure to get fucked up.
Then the swearing starts. I am sure I can hear my father cringe every time I let a fuck sail flying through the telephone lines to his ears. But at least I let that go.
Fuck.
Filed under: Echo Park, Esme Writes, Little Joy Open Mic | Tags: Drunk, EsmeWrites, Little Joy Open Mic, paper, Poemme Fatales, Poetry, spoken word, Story, writing
A few months ago I was standing, semi-drunk (OKAY, A LOT DRUNK- probably a few bottles deep) in my kitchen and a certain Man Of Note (The ONE, the ONLY, Keith Niles) asked if I would be interested in participating in a little idea that was hatching inside of his brain. He ran it by me, and I literally jumped at the offer (Yes, I think I may have scared the Man a little). Anyway the idea evolved into Poemme Fatales and consisted of 6 Los Angeles Poetesses, 2 a night, 3 Saturdays in a row, taking center stage and reading.
We did a photo shoot:
And we all prepped for our nights.
What we read, did, anything that happened that evening was up to us.
I chose to write all new material for the show and here is the first piece I read that evening:
LABYRINTH LIBRARIES
The beginning is where we are all supposed to start. A story told in a succession that commences with Once Upon A Time.
We open books and their bindings creak as the first page is sought. Chapter 1, or the prologue, the background story, the things we want to know about the past that will catch us up to speed, illuminate shadows, open doors and crack windows, fill rooms with light so we don’t have to try. Launch us into the future with sentences and paragraphs.
Except the future is now. And the past was now. And it’s all the same if you never had a clock or a calendar and these blank pages do their damndest to intimidate me.
It’s the promise of emptiness. It is the endless possibility of creation. The limitless fear of the endless possibilities of creation.
I find myself climbing into bed with my notebooks and taking a nap, nose smushed into pen marks. One time I actually woke with the imprint of blue on my cheek.
I sit down at my computer and stare at the blankness and the flashing of the cursor and decide to check out the new guy who added me as a friend on facebook who I try to not be giddy about because the one time I met him last week I really thought he was devastatingly attractive and wanted to talk to him more but now all I have is the façade of a facebook profile and the cutesty little coy post on his wall and now I just do the thing I do where I can’t concentrate.
So mostly its like stringing along an ADD stream of consciousness that refuses to wander in a straight line- like herding fucking cats.
Mostly it’s like
“So what to say? What can I say? The beginning is always the hardest, sitting down and thinking on myself like rock hard, ice-cold introspection (and shit) I don’t want to think that hard about me..”
There is this learned fear that acts like a speed bump. Somehow the judgment potentially passable on anything that pours out from my head causes a catch. It catches in my throat or at the base of my skull where the impulses are sent out and down and around and my fingers are unable to translate the mess.
In my head it is the day after the New Year in a library where we celebrated by tearing all the pages into oversized intellectual confetti.
At the time it seemed like a good idea.
It’s the morning after and below my feet there are now strewn collages of everything I once knew or felt or filed away for some later date of importance. Pack-ratted miscellany, blended with booze, laughter, spilt on the floor. Dried in puddles. There will always be a stain on the hardwood where I let that glass of wine tumble from my fist. It is all mixed with those sparkling shards.
We can sift through and make piles of papers but I have no idea where they go, what book they belong to, which author wrote what words. The collages of ink-laden memories mixed with the vague cartooning of comic books illustrative enough to illuminate but this chaos never seeps down my spine, it doesn’t translate into simple neurotic firings.
Single letters spit out in bursts. Kidergarten morse code.
Blips like radar.
Fuzzy glimpses of what could potentially be.
Mysteries from the depths.
And this page still stays overwhelmingly blank.
And then something might flip and the gears will twitch and I might get one true thing out.
I try to think about the truest thing that I know in any moment and it usually revolves so deeply around love or sex I find it embarrassing and try to change it into something more eloquent or at least less obvious.
At the time it seemed like a good idea.
It was that change that built walls of wheat paste and torn up pages. I can’t see over them. I can only claw at them.
Grab a fistful of paper.
The loss of what once and the inability to find it again the feelings of holes, holes so wide and gaping you can see through me and people liken that to swiss cheese but I find it to be far more dis-tasteful.
Grab a fistful of paper.
The fingerprint smudges and the rickety clatter of the brown line to diversey. My brother so much taller and with a hair cut made him almost unrecognizeable. He hugs like a bear and laughs like me.
Grab a fistful of paper.
Reddened eyes as my friend watched a needle pass through the open wound on my leg. 9 stitches, still drunk. 6am. Job interview at 10.
Grab a fistful of paper.
It is a night of dreams and sweet songs long ago in car rides at night watching the flurry of light from fireflies as we passed woods and wilderness and turned our lights off still flying 70 down the long empty passes.
Grab a fistful of paper.
Searing sun and silence. Staring at empty paper that lined the walls of a library turned labyrinth.
These were the corridors that lead me to where I find myself now.
I know, I so truly know that st the end, as my prize and winning glory is a solitary and beautiful room with a type writer and a window with a fire escape outside.
There are months of work, and letters in the mailbox and a pretty paining above the sink of a bird with words and music floating from his precious open beak.
There will be bare feet and a hardwood floor that doesn’t leave my soles dingy.
There is a closed wooden door and light summer curtains and pots with tiny things that grow and reach out to me.
The labyrinth seems endless. There are trick mirrors and wrong turns and so far it seems as if I have taken every single one of them.
At the time it seemed like a good idea.
The story is long and tedious and heartbreakingly funny.
Filed under: Uncategorized
…what can I say? I spent the last few months on hiatus. Writing, not writing. Doing the safe thing. Doing dangerous things. Trying- I guess- to figure things out. Figure shit out. And it’s all well and good for some philosophical bullshit at 3 am over a few too many glasses of red, all it comes down to is that it’s November 2 , 3 technically, because it’s nearly 1 am, and I am still nowhere further along that trail than I was however-many months ago my last post was. (Don’t tell me, I really don’t want to think about it.)
September passed uneventfully. As did October. November creeped on in with its usual cat-like intuition and is now here to remind me that no, I didn’t feed you and yes, I know you’re hungry. We have had an orange neighborhood cat haunt our kitchen door for a few weeks now. It meows like a banshee. It’s annoying. We threw water on it. It still came back. It reminds me of that one song…
Things are always reminding me of that one song, though. No matter how hard you want something gone it always resurfaces. I need to toss some concrete shoes on that shit, next time. Someone remind me to take a trip to Home Depot.
That’s a store with solutions. Someplace that can solve every minute issue that you might have. Rake it out to the gutter. Duct tape it. Throw some caulk on it. Paint over those toothpaste filled holes in the wall. No one will ever know the difference.
Here’s the thing though. Lately I’ve been working on chipping off those layers. Getting down to the baseline. The exposed brick. The skeleton of it all.
So the big orange depot is not going to help. Nor will empty nights and listless days. Words. They’re a good remedy. Yes. Words just might do it.
We’ll see. Also here’s to maintaining my sanity over 2 weeks of no booze, cheese, pasta, bread, sugars etc etc etc.
I am clearly not thinking things through.
Filed under: Esme Writes, Little Joy Open Mic | Tags: Echo Park, EsmeWrites, LJOM Refugees, Open Mic, writing
So I sit here and spend a morning anxious and over-analyzing whether or not I should text you because I feel like shit and think maybe its close to getting weird even though it’s probably not but you can pretty much make anything weird when you spend 4 hours dissecting it down into things that are smaller than fucking protons. Strings maybe? And these strings maybe harmonizing and maybe they’re not and who the fuck am I to say because I am not a physicist, but the air inside has been feeling charged with a weird current and we blamed the moon last week but what can we blame this week?
It’s the smallest little fault lines that seem to be separating everyone and the tremors from those shifting plates send quakes up through our feet and at varying times we all find ourselves struggling to set our feet down firmly on earth that won’t betray us. We don’t know where the fault lines are, we just know that sometimes the earth shakes and sometimes it doesn’t.
I spent awhile trying to build walls around me without knowing about these interruptions and when the walls wavered I leaned up heavily against them praying they would hold. Dear fucking god or Allah or whoeverthefuck let me hide let me hide and what can you do when you’ve built a strong wall across a geothermal divide? The earth decides and there is nothing you can do.
Its humpty dumpy sitting on a wall but instead of him going tumble and crack, the whole damn thing takes a fall and he’s damaged far beyond recognition and the kings horses and men just mill around wondering who the fuck built a wall there anyway.
Who the fuck built that fucking wall.
Who wasted the time and the effort?
Don’t they have anything better to do?
Its 1 step forward and 3 back and the 5 forward and then 2 back and so on and so forth until I looked down on the ground and realized I’ve been learning to waltz the whole time and if I had just taken the time to notice all the steps were mapped out on the floor for the entire time. I just didn’t look. Because…
Because I was afraid. Because maybe I would have seen that. I would not have been able to take the time to build such a pretty precious wall around me and I also would have seen the warnings about the fault lines or if I had bothered to ask the guy standing next to me would have told me about the ol’ earthquake of ’91 when he was “shook so damn hard his glasses damn near fell offa his face”.
But it was more imperative. More important to create a shining and closterphobic perfect world. A world the size of the span of my arms. A cylinder. A boring and utilitarian cylinder. An anxious and lonely cylinder.
And when the walls fell they left me out in the open like a sitting goddamn duck and I had to step from the rubble because it was dusty and made me sneeze and cough and both of those things are uncomfortable. Then I said hello to the quake of ’91 guy and he said hi back and we then didn’t know what to say because my walls blocked his views and the dust made his throat scratchy and we were silent for a while which is uncomfortable. I made my way across the sidewalk and started saying hello and some people just glared at me and some people said nothing and it made me want to cry because being alone is uncomfortable. And then one night I felt so alone and stood there and didn’t know anyone else there and I was silent and that is uncomfortable- but you stood there too and I was sick of coughing and blushing and of silence so I said hello. You said hello back. The earth stayed steady. We danced that night.
Instead of wishing for walls then, I sat under stars. And while in my cylinder I thought I was the only person who saw these stars, you talked about them too and saw the same thing that I saw. Us, together.
It’s the togetherness that has kept me going these past few weeks when the fucking moon went crazy and made everyone crazy and then the air was charged with some sort of crazy current and people were snapping and buzzing and growling like monsters and ready to wrap fingers around my throat simply because I looked at the guy wrong.
Maybe it’s the heat, except the heat should make us limp like the tomato plant on my back stoop. Drape limply. Make us lethargic and sigh with dry delicacy.
I guess if it goes on too long we start to crisp and crackle and snap. Rice krispy style murderous undercurrents take hold.
People go crazy. Things make less sense. Hands wrap around throats. I start overanalyze. Dissect.
And What I mean is, I lost my job. Again. Except I didn’t fucking lose it. I know exactly where it is and my manager’s girlfriend stole it. And it wasn’t so much fired as I was taken off the schedule and they stopped answering my calls leaving me with a bank account balance that is less than the cost of most things in life.
And I was left to sort out their reasoning which could be resolved to: there wasn’t any reasoning, and I cried and then I called my dad, who also has proven to be my financial advisor, to discuss very seriously the possibility of declaring bankruptcy. Which made sense at the time.
He advised me against it. I called my banks and told them I didn’t have any money to make my credit card payments.
And what I really mean is that this is a terrible apology to you. I am sorry.
It’s not fair of me to think we’ve spent too much time together this week, and nor it is fair of me to feign indifference to seeing you when it’s the absolute opposite but you know that this one friend helped me get this new job and I felt obligated to grace him with my presence last night and maybe have a drink and shoot the shit and then another hour passed and we went into his room to smoke down some Mr. Nice and I laughed and call it research even though at the collective we only have shake. Then it was 3 am and I texted you probably a lot too late. I hope you had a good night.
Oh- the new job is volunteering at a collective: Cash gifts for my time and fine herbal benefits. That statement is peppered heavily with dots that resemble flies hovering around words. An all around kush job. There is no brushing the flies away.
…
I just want to live my life with reckless abandon.
I want to chase the highs and the blue skies and the brilliant flashes of lights that snap crackle and pop at those moments when you take a hit or someone makes the best joke of the evening. The moments that go in the books as score one for the good times. Always have the tally be in favor of the home team, rolling like rivers and dancing and gyrating and alternating in colors to the beat like a goddamn disco floor.
Why the fuck not?
I want to say fuck off and fuck you and leave me to it.
I will be there with a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other and jump on the trampoline all night long. I will be there to watch the sun fall from the sky and the moon rise in blood orange glory.
I will be glad when you join me and we end up piled and intertwined girls legs and boys hands, eyes and hair and lips and giggles and whispers and the ends of cigarettes blending into words that echo the calls of the frogs who stayed up to watch us ruin the night. Our secrets suspended in a bubble above our heads mixed with the scent of too much weed and too much wine and too many vodka shots which I vaguely remembering chasing with cake. We breathe a collective sigh together. One of simple joys. Sharing nights together in celebration of our limbs moving, our brains firing to accept the simple truth that we are together.
Today was a beautiful day. I read an old friend’s blog and was reminded of some very simple pleasures. Like writing haikus. about cake or shadows or dancing. I remembered that today was amazing.
1- The heat of the morning woke me up from nearly 12 hours of sleep in the heaven haven of my room, needs cleaning, but still mine.
2- I decided I would go on an adventure today.
3- Jt and I wrote/worked for a few hours together, he put up with my crazed still slightly insane touchiness.
4- Two friends joined us and we clambered into Clifford and had gorgeous drive on the 1 to Malibu.
5- Pacific Ocean. Point Dume.
6- Games, waves, laughter, little kids, kites, almonds, Oh MY GOD, frozen feet, sunset, golden air.
7- flames licking the california hills. seeing the actual fire.
7.5- Cracked my favorite beer that I have been saving for awhile and drank it in the shower.
8- gifted a book from someone who has become so nearly and deeply dear to me out here. He bought it for me today after accompanying me on an anti-crazy session last night.
9- Dancing alone in the middle of a living room.
10- Hot as hell apartment and a cold beer.
In 1985 my mom told my father “Don’t drop her”, that same year my mother’s mother told her “let her cry”.
Years later I watched my mother drop my brother in the kitchen right before dinner. He sat on the linoleum floor and looked at her with betrayed eyes. He didn’t cry. He just sat there looking and looking as my mother gasped, looked him over and reached for the phone to call my father.
My brother reached for the toy car that had fallen from his fist and held it with a fierce grip. I sullenly stared at the snow falling outside. It was Halloween night and it was snowing and I was being forced to wear a snowsuit over my princess costume.
Years after that my mother confessed to dropping me or actually I fell down a flight of stairs or rolled. Or something.
I didn’t cry either she said. Just stared and stared.
She said my brother and I had big haunting eyes when we got hurt. We would cry but there would be these moments where we would just stare at her.
Like it was all her fault, she said.
It creeped her out, she said.
Mind you, this is my mother I am speaking of. And yes, I know she is not the first and surely is not the last person to drop her children on a kitchen floor or down a flight of stairs- but she’s carried everything with her since those moments where she felt she first failed with us, my brother and I.
And this isn’t about her, really because I want it to be about me or maybe about my brother- but it’s been since march that I’ve seen her and since December since I have seen him and I feel so far removed from their lives lately that it doesn’t make any sense to talk about them except to say that I love and hate them equally.
Which is all you can really ask from me these days.
I threw a glass at someone’s head the other day. To make a point.
Well not at his head, per se, but close enough to his body to do the proverbial “knocking some sense into him”. He got the point and left. Everyone left standing had a good laugh about it after, but still I feel bad about it.
What it comes down to is, though, that he said I wouldn’t do it. As I stood there, wine glass in hand, stating that I am so mad that I am going to break something, and you cut in with “riiiight. Youre not going to break shit…” DO NOT be surprised if the nearest breakable object comes sailing elegantly through the air close to you to shatter comfortably on the floor. In this case it happened to be a wine glass. Full of wine.
And what it really came down to is that he got the picture. And I did it.
And the poor guy, I don’t hate him, its just that I don’t love him. And not that I don’t love him I am just not in love with him and what it boils down to is that 1) I really love cooking but 2) that this was a soufflé recipe that would not stand.
It fell. Not the good fall. The bad fall. The type where it isn’t rising. Just depressing. Some kind of thing that requires broken glassware and laughter in the end.
So I guess this is just a story of someone, somewhere who is just trying to do something. Like those stories we all know that go:
Once upon a time there was someone who did something and it was heroic and brave and lauded him with the praise of everyone in the land.
Once upon a time there was someone who did something and it was passionate and brave and lauded him with praise of everyone in the land.
Once upon a time there was…
There was me.
Here.
Right now.
And that one time is now too.
And I don’t know what to say.
I got a new job.
I haven’t had to go into work in 4 days. Its making me anxious.
I cut my finger on a picture frame this afternoon.
I got my first Brazilian wax this morning.
Today I was afraid to wear a bikini to the beach and also afraid of being the only one who wasn’t wearing a bathing suit so I lied to get out of going.
There is a massive spider that lives in the electrical wires outside my window and it scares me because I am afraid he is going to bite my face and melt half of it off and then I will be that girl who had a spider bite her face and melt half of it off.
At the bar last night I bought everyone a round of drinks that was their Drink. With a capital D. You know that one drink during the evening that pushes you over the edge.
Also, this weekend I drank probably a little too much tequila.
I want to work out more, do yoga, eat fresh veggies go to farmers markets and plant tress. I also like potato chips in large quantities, watching hulu and lazing around on my couch for full days.
I want to cook more for people and teach more people to cook which makes me think that I should try to get a cooking show but then I think of soufflés and recipes and fucking Rachel ray and kinda gag a little and decide that I’d rather wait on that whole plan.
When I was little I was in love with Indiana Jones and Hans Solo.
I also would dance for hours on end in a tutu to songs like American Pie and I Wanna Hold Your Hand and The supremes.
I lost my virginity at 19. After my first year in college.
I like clay and sculpture and have dreams of things I want to make.
I also have dreams of the future. No, really, like things that actually happen but they are boring things like making toast or someone sneezes in the middle of a conversation.
Once in a book I read the line “I fall in love everyday”. Nothing felt truer.
Once in a song I heard the line “After changes upon changes we are more or less the same” Nothing felt truer.
Once in a movie someone said “I’ve always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. Uh, that’s just my style. But I’d really feel blue if I didn’t think you were going to forgive me.” Nothing felt truer.
And I am sorry that I stole birdseed.
And gum.
When I was six.
Because I liked the color of gum and wanted to feed the birds outside my window.
It all started in kindergarten. I blame you Jacob. My first boyfriend. He confessed his undying love for me with a stuffed dolphin from sea world.
Then I remember getting mad at him because he followed me around all the time.
Jacob, it’s not that I don’t love you. I’m just not…
