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December 28th, Two Thousand Four: You cynics can say what you will about astrology, but...
... if I had remembered to stay aware of my astrological influences
about a month ago and through the last month, a WHOLE lot of things
would have made a lot more sense. Or I might have run for the
most remote island I could find, had I been so warned.
Rob Brezny sums it all up rather nicely for me so I don't have to summarize
myself: from the start of the maelstrom, into the thick of it, and where I'm sitting right now. My sun sign is Aries, but I'm on the cusp of Taurus with hella
Taurus in my chart, so, with simple horoscopes, I read Aries and
Taurus, as well as peeking at Leo, since my rising sign is a big
ruler with me. And yes, many many horned creatures live in my
psyche. We're surprised at this, why? Here's a really basic electronic
version of my chart for the astro-geeks out there: I used to have one beautifully
painted that somehow vanished. I should really paint a new one
soon. I found these lines particularly slap-upside-the-heady:
"Your ability to prosper and flourish may require you to spend
time in the metaphorical equivalent of a large blaze. Don't worry
for your sanity or safety. Just as the seeds in jack pine cones
can tolerate temperatures of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, you will
be very hardy. P.S. Your first trial by fire may begin any minute
now."
"Be my slow-motion dance. Be my birthday earthquake. Be my ripe
pomegranate floating in a blue plastic swimming pool on the first
day of winter. Be my handstand on a barstool, my whirlwind week
in clown school, my joke shared with a Siberian shaman while shopping
for socks at Wal-Mart. Be my puzzle with one piece missing. Be
the waves crashing on a beach in the south of France in the twenty-second
century. Be my golden hammer resting on the moss of a ten-million-year-old
rock. "
"This source of power might help you stay alert for and immune
to the elevated levels of BS you'll be called on to fend off in
2005. Maybe it would also inspire you to be in service to us all
as you earn the title of 'Radical Truth-Teller.' "
"During the brief transition period ahead, your fears have the
potential to make you stronger and wiser. You will find power
in marshaling measured responses to any influence that seems to
oppose you. Here's the paradox: You're not in any real danger,
but it will be useful for you to act as if you are. "
"But in the coming weeks, Aries, you should definitely strive
to chomp through the leather straps. In fact, you're likely to
have excellent results whenever you do anything to wriggle out
of your "mind-forg'd manacles," (a Blake reference, no less!) slip away from your volunteer slavery, or break free from your
self-imposed incarceration. When you look back on your life from
the perspective of next year, you will probably call December
your Month of Liberation. "
Well, there you go.
Yesterday, I managed to get back on my usual work-driven wagon.
I've come to the conclusion that forest fires of my soul notwithstanding,
some of why my usually hyper-driven motivation was quelled may
have been due to getting paid. I think perhaps I unconsciously
felt I was suddenly being paid for the last six years of largely
unpaid work, so thus, I was done.
A silly, silly bint I am sometimes, but all we knew that. But,
getting back into the swing of things, so today I'm off to pen
another new ST article, clean up the pages some more, and prep
the studio to shoot tomorrow.
Becca and I are running out tomorrow night to dig up some ice
skates for me, as we've decided that finding a small park to skate
in on NYE is a Good Plan.
Might be a good idea for me to pick up an extra fire extinguisher
while I'm out, given the horoscopes. And a sledgehammer. |
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December 27th, Two Thousand Four: $80 is...
... a couple nights out dining and drinking, a couple pairs of
cheap pants, 20 of the mocha drinks I drink incessantly at Pandora's,
ten albums from iTunes, four dinners ordered in from Luce, 13
bath bombs from Lush, eight bouquets of fresh flowers, 16 bottles
of pomegrante juice, seven photo ink catrtridges, several throw
pillows, and not even 1% of my newly acquired gross salary.
More to the point, $80 is seriously simple happiness for me when
it means my piano is again in tune, sounding like the lush, goregous
creature her petite mahogany self is, and I can take an afternoon
break improvising with the sun streaming through the window and
a hot cup of blackberry tea steaming beside.
(Next time I sound REALLY crabby -- beyond my usual level of irksome,
that is -- do ask me if I've had the piano tuned lately, will
you, and remind me that I CAN afford it? Cheers.) |
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December 26th, Two Thousand Four: ... the last of the postcards arrive, no thanks to the sluggish
holiday post.
• Everybody knows this photo, right?
It's American Girl in Italy by Ruth Orkin, in case you don't. The scene was staged by Orkin
for a photo series addressing the problems of women traveling
alone, but apparently only the model was instructed on what she
was looking for: a couple of the men were simply told not to look
at the camera and to pass that word around. Here's the thing:
lately, I have seen people buying large prints of this image for
their bedrooms or living rooms. I saw it as the lone print in a tailor's storefront
a week or two age. I have even seen it in a women's bathroom, of all places.
I say this incredulously, because I am starting to wonder if either
I'm insane or people displaying this image in such locales are
sadistic, stupid, or both. How, I ask you, is it missed that this
is a photo of sexual harassment? Given it WAS posed, don'tcha think if Orkin meant for it to
be cute or romantic she'd have told her model to smile or catcall
back rather than looking distressed and in a big hurry to get
the heck outta there?
Is it just a matter of people being daft, or seeing what they
want to, or are there actually people who think there's something
quaint about a woman being harassed by EVERY man on a streetcorner
and clearly not liking it one iota?
Because I like to be helpful, here is a list of suitably appropriate
places for the above photo: travel agencies, or better still,
agencies for lesbian-only vacations, lawyer's offices, running-shoe
stores, self-defense studios, high school principal's offices,
and Clarence Thomas' living room.
• My front hall closet is actually clean, and I'd like my 9th
grade Geometry mark seriously reconsidered. Someone who sucks
at geometry could by no means have literally fit a full room's
worth of stuff into one closet, which, to even my surprise, is
exactly what I had done. Many buried treasures were found: my
two favorite black turtleneck sweaters, my Max (from Where the Wild Things Are) costume from a Halloween in 1993 when I was still running my
school, a small space heater, my much-beloved worn and tattered
overalls from my farmer's market years, five winter scarves, two polarfleece vests, my platform sneakers,
many lost socks, a pair of Badtz-Maru underpants AND a pair of underpants with the word "snack" spelled out on the
front in sparkly red rhinestones, my long black suitcoat, a tiny
-- but coveted as it's been discontinued -- canister of Ralph
Lauren gold pearl paint, some natural burlap backdrops I'd been
needing, and Sofi's winter coat which she's been needing so that
she doesn't always have to look like Rhoda in her sweater.
• Why I thought it was a good idea to spend some time at the ST
boards on my peace-day yesterday is beyond me, since the day ended
with a teenager, likely cranky that she didn't get every little
thing she wanted for Christmas from Mummy and Daddy, sending me
emails telling me where to stuff it. I was a mean, mean lady with
no care for anyone but herself because I'd asked her politely
several times not to keep posting misinformation on the boards
we then had to correct so our users didn't act on fallacy, or
one user didn't freak out thinking, as she was told, that she
was this close to offing herself because in moments of stress,
she'd been snapping rubber bands on her arms. Just call me Scrooge.
• I got to spend some time with James on the phone yesterday catching
up, until my cordless petered out. This made me happy. I heart
James, even though our lives appear to run parallel much too often
for anyone's own good, and we have decided that France would not
let us both emigrate to Paris at the same time, no matter how
much coffee and wine we drank, cigarettes we smoked, and how good
we became at answering with a scowl and an "I hate ______," or "________. Je meurs de l'ennui des _____," to any and every topic. The latter response being mine, because
I'll take any opening to use the word ennui and talk about dying.
That response sounds particularly good for discussing fish, because
then you get to say poisson, which sounds very nicely surly and explosive if you say it with
piss and vinegar. Like this, see: "Poisson. Je meurs de l'ennui des les poissons." (You need a word like poisson to sound suitably irritated, see,
because there can be no exclamation points involved, as that is
Tres Not French. Your terminal boredom, irritability and frustration
must be potent but subtile, mon étudiant.) James was particularly convinced that just to
really stick it to me, the French would deport me to England.
Bâtards! Oops. Bâtards. Je meurs de l'ennui des les bâtards.
• Sometimes I forget how much my friends and acquaintances really,
really love me, then I find something like this in my camera and
get all warm and fuzzy inside.
• That damnable laundry not only still has yet to do itself, but
thanks to the closet-exorcism, has apparently been taking fertility
drugs and quadrupled its population. Pity the same cannot be said
of quarters with which to consider doing said laundry. I bet if
Robyn really loved me, he'd go sing some magnificent song on the
streetcorner about me dying of ennui under the weight of my linens
(and fish) to get me quarters, because he's just that dreamy. |
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December 25th, Two Thousand Four: ...and more postcards still.
• I have watched too many people year after year try and figure
out what, during this time of year, to wish the pagan zen buddhist,
born irish catholic, roman catholic and italian jew and bred pagan,
atheist and seriously lapsed catholic. I came to the conclusion
in a letter to someone this morning that the thing to wish me,
and those like me, is luck. And a safe spitting distance from
crusaders, fascists, and people with pointy, pointy sticks.
• It's snowing. It's pretty and fluffy. I'll need to take a walk
soon, especially since the boxing studio is closed today and that
makes me sad. If the snow keeps up, however, I'll have to shovel
and will likely be thankful I did not also have to box.
• I generally don't find the holidays depressing, since I never
really celebrated any of them. However, I do get a little envious
and sad watching people with tight families around this time,
or hearing family stories. Even the family kvetching, which I
KNOW I would do too, if mine were around and accessible, is a
bit much to take. Particularly, I wish I could even just call
my father and say hello, rather than simply hoping against hope
that he is not sleeping outside somewhere where he'll freeze to
death. I wish I knew where he was, since it seems he is no longer
where I found him a few months back. Last week, I sat listening
to people discuss homelessness in the winter in this abstract
way and I just had to excuse myself because it's way too weird
and upsetting.
• I was planning to shoot today, but there is just no light to
speak of. That given, I think I'll brave cleaning the front hall
closet, take the dog out for a snowy walk, answer some sex questions,
do some coding cleanup, and finally sit down and write my estranged
sister a letter. She's 30 now, and I feel like it's time to let
her in on some things she just doesn't know about why I left home
so early, what the abuse situation was for me in the house before
I left (because to my knowledge, even after I left, she wasn't
ever the butt of it, only me), as well as letting her in on some
of why my father and I were, are and always have been so close
when the two of them have no relationship at all. It's tricky,
sticky stuff and my sister isn't really... eh, open to difficult
conversations, basically ever, and to boot, I make her intensely
uncomfortable per my life, what I do, who I am. I've tried to
talk about this stuff with her before, but perhaps a letter will
be better. I just am always very concerned about my mother appearing
a villain when I not think of her that way, and because I do NOT
want to louse up the very close relationship she and my sister
have which I never had with her.
• It's so beautifully quiet today. I almost hate to even put music
on. I do love Christmas, because for people like me who don't
celebrate, it's a really, really peaceful, solitary day.
• I've been big with the letters this week. Part of my big epiphany
in the last month has been realizing/remembering that most people's
grudges, awkwardness, what have you, are just plain silly, and
that those I have had seemingly profound connections to in my
life should not be estranged from me, especially due to really
small stuff, or things which are pretty easily resolved. Some
have been sent, some are waiting for my extra parcel of courage
to arrive.
• I had a minor hissyfit at the market yesterday. Thing is, this
market is particularly stubborn about letting you bag yourself.
This is an issue for me because a) I am an excellent bagger, and
one who often brings a few different varieties of bags to make
my life easier, b) I walk, thus how things are bagged is important
and c) I have had WAY too many broken bags, lost items and the
lot due to this policy. Yesterday it was REALLY FUCKING COLD.
But I needed food, as did the garanimals. So, I went over and
braved the awful tangle of stressed out holiday marketers. I walked
back and up all the stairs, started unloading the groceries, and
realized that they did NOT send me home with ten different items
I purchased, several of which were mandatory for our continued
survival at Chez Heather (cat food, dish soap, AKA ye olde washing-up
liquid, olive oil, coffee, tofu, nuts and greens). So, I bundle
up AGAIN and walk back and not only are the bagger and cashier
totally unapologetic, but the manager gave me some crap about
not coming back fast enough to retrieve what others forgot, because
apparently, twenty minutes is too slow and it's not their fault
I couldn't just hop into my car I don't have. I started to rant
but decided that a very extended evil eye and softly whispered
malice was more effective and creepy. Since I had two people run
out after me telling me they were really sorry, it was clearly
the best approach.
• The aforementioned hissyfit may have been due in part to an
incident the previous evening at the Red Dragon. For nonlocals,
the Dragon is an insanely low-rent dive of a quasi-chinese restaurant
whose food is beyond substandard, but where inexpensive fishbowl
drinks that get one knackered in three sips are also served. This,
and the appeal of smelly, rundown establishments to middle-class
college students who want to feel bohemian, is the fuel that keeps
the Dragon engine running. My neighbor had a birthday gathering
there the night before last, and Becca and I came by after rollerskating.
We unbundle, we sit down, we get asked by a server who is barely
more than half my age for our order, then our ID, and I am informed
that my passport will not do.
Yes, I should just break down and get a state ID here, because
this has happened once before. BUT. I truly resent Minnesota thinking
itself a sovereign nation, and that resentment makes me want to
dig my heels in all the more and NOT get the other ID because
there is NO reason a passport is unacceptable ID ANYWHERE on this
big, round planet we call home. If I can drink in Pakistan, Tokyo
and Gambia with the damn thing, I should certainly be able to
do so in the country from which it was issued. If people at the
table who are barely 21 can drink, I should be able to, even if
all the ID I have is my stretch marks and facial lines, especially
since I have gone there for years and never once even been carded.
Moreover, I should BY ALL MEANS be allowed to sit in the RESTAURANT,
after saying "That is ridiculous, but I'll just have tea, then," with NO ID whatsoever, let alone with valid international identification.
But no. Not only was I informed that the restaurant without a
license to be a bar WAS a bar, and one where people are NOT carded
at the door and small children attend, we were told to leave,
posthaste. But wait, there's more! After incredulously agreeing
to this and starting to rebundle, the server sent the BOUNCER
over to be SURE we left, because, you know, two 5'3 women in mittens
and hats still dizzy from sober roller-rinking are just that threatening.
I am hereby boycotting the Red Dragon, and think that perhaps,
per Becca's suggestion, since sans license it was asserted they
were a bar, a letter to the city council feigning bimbo-esque
confusion about this scenario might be required.
• The laundry still hasn't done itself, Robyn Hitchcock still
hasn't proposed, and it's still really bloody cold.
• A merry whateva to you. May you keep clear of crucifixion, genocide,
imprisonment and pointy, pointy sticks. :) |
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December 23rd, Two Thousand Four: Postcards from the Frozen Tundra
• I have exactly 234 nose hairs. I know this, because coming home
late last night, I could feel every single stinking one of them.
It was nearly 15 BELOW zero when I went to bed. It is 8 below
now, at nearly 10 AM.
• I have severe symptoms of social overdose: the bleary head,
the aversion to looking at my calendar, the anxiety when the phone
rings, the profound desire to never take off my jammies and watch
several seasons of Buffy in one sitting. In the last week, I have
not had a day or evening with social engagements packed in exactly
ONCE. This is one of the many reasons why I prefer the way I (don't)
celebrate holidays right now. Everyone else with this mounting
social calendar has to ride it through Christmas with family,
whereas after Becca, Becka and I go rollerskating tonight and
then to my friend Kelly's birthday bash, I get to slide into at
least several days of total and complete solitude. Thank GAWD.
I love all my friends, but I find having to be around a lot of
people at parties all the time mighty draining, especially given
my common role to new people as That Weird Woman Alone Over There
Who Has Done Big, Impressive, Intimidating Things. On the other
hand, a friend of a friend came up to me last night waxing poetic
about one of my short stories she'd read in an anthology a long
time ago that blew her mind, and that wasn't terribly painful.
• A smart person would have gotten her piano tuned BEFORE the
holidays.
• Robyn Hitchcock remains fucking brilliant. I want to marry him
so that he can come up with songs that are surreal, silly and
ungodly beautiful just for me that we can sing together while
making steamy, hot soup and doing a little waltz.
• Why can't laundry do itself, again? Is it in cahoots with those
lazy dishes? (Any excuse to use the word cahoots, always.)
• I am the world's biggest flaky space cadet this week. This must
end. I think. Maybe. What was I saying?
• It has come to my attention that I have traveled for three weddings
in the last five months, and in the next seven months will do
so at least three more times. Now, I used to tell people that
if I ever in my life had some sort of real wedding, I'd likely
just elope at the Church of Elvis and have some bigass party later
which was fully optional. But if people keep all this getting-married-all-over-the-place-all-the-damn-time
stuff up, I'm not going to be so nice. So, unless y'all want to,
say, be required to travel to Tibet, climb half a mountain (with
your own sherpa: no sharing!), naked save a tiara, while collectively
singing camp songs in the round and carrying the mandatory gifts
of one small lemur, vegan cupcakes, three packages of small white
men's undershirts and a six-foot succulent, knock it off already,
will ya?
• I did manage to clean most of my bedroom yesterday, and resisted
the urge after boiling and arranging the endless pile of faux
phalluses in my sex toy arsenal to go buy a few sets of days of
the week panties and organize them by packing each inside a pair.
I swear, there's more dick in this house than there is in the
U.S. government right now, and that's really saying something.
• Johnny Cash understands me. At my door the leaves are falling /A cold wild wind has come/
Sweethearts walk by together/ And I still miss someone/ I go out
on a party/ And look for a little fun/ But I find a darkened corner/
because I still miss someone. Sigh. At my better moments, The White Stripes' We're Going to be Friends has a good deal to offer, too. If Robyn Hitchcock were here, he'd
soft-shoe with me to it after we made everyone hike to Tibet naked
for our wedding: of this I am sure.
• I was informed last night that there is such a thing as an "Effing
Anniversary," which distinguishes the date when a couple first
has sex from, say, their first date, first kiss, and what have
you. Imagine my shock to discover at my advanced age that other
people often do these things on different days. |
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December 22nd, Two Thousand Four: I have loads of really good stories; stories most of my readers
don't know, because they're from years lived previous to writing
this journal (and a good many of them are entirely inappropriate
for mass public consumption while I am still living). I'm a good
storyteller, but only as good as the raw material I've lived to
tell the stories with.
When it happens that I start to find myself telling close friends
of mine stories they have heard before, I find myself feeling
a little itchy. Can it be I am actually running OUT of stories? Did I get all my best stories years and years ago? Have I not
lived such recently to keep the story bin full, with more than
enough new stories so that I don't have to keep telling the older
ones like someone whose best years are long past?
Seems crazy, really: in so many ways, I've had this outrageous
and unusual life. I mean, how many other people run off alone
for New York at 14? Have had a two hour, peaking on LSD crying
fit on Dave Brubeck's porch in Hyde Park because he just slammed
the door in your black-pupiled, Nuclear Weapons Freeze canvassing
dirty hippie face? Took road trips, played music on streetcorners,
had a zillion trysts, seen a whole lot of sunsets, played in the
snow barefoot and in a sundress, gotten a French Canadian in steel-toed
boots as a Christmas present, learned life lessons from 3-year-olds?
Does anyone else have a story from their dad about Janis Joplin
drunkenly agreeing to be their godparent? Who else has sex stories
about more than one Chicago musical icon in the eighties, several
strange groups of people who had no idea they'd end up in bed
(including one which involved waking up in a whole apartment full
of half-naked sleeping people where a live chicken was also inexplicably
meandering around), bedsheets made of Twister games, being greeted
in the morning after a one-night stand by your biology teacher
in a tea apron (who you didn't know was the stepparent of your
love puppy), and bicurious cheerleaders tanked on peach Schnapps
in the middle of Northern Illinois in the eighties? Has anyone
else gotten Jehovah's Witnesses to leave by answering the door
naked? Who else has wept and even dropped a tear on an original
Blake, or sat at the Art Institute with tears running down her
face, talking for hours, to the great dismay of security, to the
spirit of Ivan Albright in front of That Which I Could Have Done, I Did Not Do? Who the hell else realizes five seconds after their best friend
has just driven away to head from Chicago to Minnesota that while
they never wanted to get married, that actually, maybe they might
want to marry their best friend and ditch their life in Chicago
to go up to the frozen tundra...and then does just that, has some
high times, shares some beauty, watches it all go to shit and
still has no regrets?
I don't feel I need these stories to be interesting to others,
or even to have something to show for myself. Rather, I want to
have a life lived so much, so well, and with such fearlessness,
wonder and hunger that the stories are a mere byproduct. When
I am old, I want very much to be one of the old women like I've
had the pleasure of having in my life before who you can sit with
for hours, listening raptly, inspired and reminded to live just like that. I don't even want my stories to keep me warm
when I am old, for I want to be out away from the proverbial hearth
creating more, more and then some more. I'm an artist, above and
beyond all else, and I'm not talking merely about what is made
of words or images, but about the art that is living. It is vital
that I be making art of my life, even if a lot of it is so colored
outside the lines, surprising, messy and/or strange that even
Yoko Ono or Laurie Anderson would think it a little out there.
Harold and Maude is my favorite movie of all time largely because I grew up wanting
to BE Maude: she was, and remains still, my role model. (And no,
I don't object to the ending, in fact, I think it's perfect.)
* * *
That all said, the last month has been a bit of an extended...
erm, you know, there's no good word for this that isn't absolutely
cheeseball or new-agey. Let's just say that if I was younger than
I am now, without big concerns about my credibility and legalities,
and was hooked up a lot better (and it wasn't below zero outside,
to boot), I would have spent it chomping mushrooms or throwing
up from peyote.
Instead, I did a whole lot of imbibing of various other substances,
stayed up and out late a lot, cried a lot, yelled a lot, got mad
at myself a lot, got giddy a lot, kept really strange and haphazard
hours a lot, laughed a lot, flirted a lot, danced a lot, boxed
a lot, laid on the couch a lot, wrote a lot of unsent letters,
wrote snippets of poetry, took photographs, talked to a couple
friends a lot, talked to one person in particular rather endlessly,
got told off, avoided talking to a WHOLE lot of people a lot,
and told more than one person, to say the least, to put a damn
sock in it.
I discovered that they may not make a wagon I can't fall off of.
I hacked my hair (not all of it, chill out). I had a dream about
my next tattoo (a swirling armband of text listing herbs for abortion
and birth control, so I can have information I feel the need to
keep safe in this administration somewhere indelible). I made
mix tapes with the zeal of a 13-year-old. I let the dishes pile
up. I played piano and sang loudly at 2 AM. I let myself have
and express any number of crazy, complicated, convoluted and uncomfortable
emotions. I let myself be stupidly happy and told my jaded, cynical,
neurotic and intellectual self to eat me. I have entertained guests
in my flat like Colette in her salon, and been put to woozy sleep
by friends and beautiful women. I accidentally got on a rollercoaster
in the UK that I've decided to stay on and ride until they close
the park or kick me off: I got this brilliant, mysterious, somewhat
mad, unusual and totally unexpected human memo that reminded me
I LIKE riding rollercoasters, who opened the gate for me without
even realizing it needed opening and seemingly, without even trying.
See, I forgot that, this bit about my liking the scary rides, needing them.
Turns out, I've forgotten a lot of things, or, at some point,
made an uninformed executive decision that I needed to act more
like a grownup, be really concerned with my reputation because
of work, water myself down because too many people aren't okay
with me at full strength (or, to give some folks a little credit,
because I held back anticipating they wouldn't be okay with me),
be more cautious than I actually am, be less pissed off, less
outspoken, less ballsy, less reckless, less kooky and just plain
LESS.
I don't know how it happened, but you know, it did, and I'm just
not down with that. That is just plain SILLY.
Now, a lot more than just this has been up. With varying levels
of information about me and my life in the last month, in some
cases misinformation or gossip, a whole lot of folks online and
offline, in my community at large, even people who have been close
to me, I've had to deal with big steaming piles of bullshit, misplaced
concern, insecurity and personal investment in areas of my life
or self that only I should have any investment in. I've had to deal with people wanting
partial or total ownership of things that are simply mine and
which I just don't want to share. I've had to deal with people
wanting to parent me, a notion I find hysterically funny. I've
had to deal with people expressing that I'm not acting like myself
when, in fact, that's exactly who I'm acting like of late, far
more than I have in years, and what they often really mean is
that they're not comfortable with me right now or don't like me
right now, which is fine, but also not my problem.
So much of what has gone on in the last month is a lot like starting
your day early, your hair is still all messed up from sleeping,
your eyes still bleary, your body still warm from the covers,
and you haven't had any coffee...and you open the door and get
blasted in the face with a HUGE gust of freezing wind. Some of
it has been like opening that same door and getting a gorgeously
hot, humid breeze that smells like just-baked cookies, hibiscus
and sex. It's been amazing, it's been awful, it's been awful because
it's been amazing; it's been easy and good and impossible, potentially
TOO good which makes it terrifying and confusing, it's bent my
rules, my ear, my worldview and my faith.
I have written and rewritten so many versions of an update with
some of this stuff, you wouldn't believe me if I told you how
many. I can't succinctly say why, but I can take some educated
guesses.
1. I'm sick of other people's judgments, psychoanalysis, need
to half-assed caretake or coddle, chide or cheer me, of the need
of too many to somehow validate themselves with me or my experiences,
and I'm really sick of entertaining all of the above and making nice with it.
I am also grossly tempted of late to make a t-shirt I can live
in which reads, "I am not your poster child for ________."
2. In case my obtuse, vague allusions didn't make it clear, since
I'm shit at concealment, I am involved in a relationship of sorts
that might or might not be termed a love affair, might or might
not be a friendship, might or might not be an epiphany, might
or might not "go anywhere" as the people say (and what they mean
is ungodly arbitrary), and might or might not be a few-night-stand
with intense aftershocks, continued curiosity and mystical hoo-ha.
Due to the fact that those phrases don't fit it in fifty million
ways and I have no investment whatsoever in making it fit, or
finding a term for it, or sharing jack about it online; I am waging
a war to be able to have something of my own with one other person
only that is illogical, indescribable, private and not to be confused
with a public utility, both because I am GREEDY and tired of #1
getting muck all over it. I have no plans whatsoever to share
the details here or with a lot of people who'd like them. Maybe
I will a later date, or maybe we'll all have to wait for my memoirs
when I'm old and better wrinkled.
3. Because I am tired of having to modulate my desires, behaviour
and feelings or find the turns of phrase to describe them that
go down easiest with people. because I want to comfort the least
number of people possible who are oh-so-concerned about me when
I suspect that really, those feelings of concern are actually
wishes that I'd be a lot more normal and predictable, something
which ultimately makes me grossly unhappy but leaves everyone else more comfortable.
4. Because I can't make sense of a lot of things lately, and I've
realized that I can't be bothered wasting any more time trying.
5. Because I've been feeling like a lazy bastard with zero guilt
about it, which is truly refreshing.
When I write here right now, when I try again and again, I come
out sounding defensive and negative and guarded, which is strange
because that's just not what being around me is like right now.
In a few words: I am whole, I am open, I am seeking, I am now
about to be hibernating for a little while, and I AM FINE. For
real, I promise, on the graves of Remedios Varo, William Blake,
Laura Nyro, Sid Vicious, Dr. Suess and George Harrison.
All that said, to those of you who celebrate holidays around now,
have a happy.
Here's my gift to you: don't forget to be reckless sometimes,
to take the world up on a dare, to say fuck all to what is expected
of you, even what you expect of yourself. Allow yourself to be
surprised, shocked or shaken, and do your level best to feel and
experience all that comes with that, even the stuff that is disturbing,
scary or uncomfortable. Stop looking for things; start accepting
what is dropped in your lap. Fuck being a grownup on occasion,
stomp the crap out of all the little boxes, tell convention to
stuff it, sing out loud when you walk down the street, even if
you can't carry a tune and the neighbors complain. Have a secret
and grin about it like an idiot. Say "I don't know" as an affirmation,
not an apology.
And never, ever, run out of stories. |
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December 15th, Two Thousand Four: Let's talk about something different. Or, rather, let's keep
not talking about the primary stuff that's had me all topsy-turvy,
pissed off, emotional and obtuse.
Something very good, and completely emotionally uncomplicated,
thank gawd, happened in the UK which I haven't yet mentioned.
I now have a living wage, for nearly the first time in over a
decade. For the first time since 1998 when I began Scarleteen,
it will be a paying job for me, for at least a couple years.
In the six years I have run Scarleteen, all the time I've invested
there (save one six month period when we were with Chickclick,
in the huge swell before the dot bomb fell) has had to be smooshed
in crazily with everything else so I could do my level best to
do other work which at least had the hope of paying me, as well
as covering ST's costs. Now, in the spirit of apparently all too
many things in my life being flip-flopped, I will now, for at
least a few years (and hopefully more if I can use this money
wisely to get us really going), have a very moderate but workable
salary to compensate myself for working 30 hours a week on Scarleteen.
In other words, Scarleteen is now my day job. I will no longer
have to feel guilty and frazzled if I want to work on it for a
few days on end, because doing so will now pay my rent and put
food on my table.
This is a pretty big deal, and my anonymous grantor -- who we
shall refer to forthwith as Our Lady of Perpetual Sex Perspicacity
-- is one serious fucking goddess. It was earnestly getting to
the point where it was looking like one of the sites was going
to have to go, or that I was going to have to stop doing the work
I do, all of it online, period. The job market being what it is,
especially someone with the strange skillsets I have, as well
as the culturally-provocative history, the badness that would
have been that option would have been even worse than it seems.
And for some time now, I have wanted Scarleteen and the sex ed
work to be my primary job. I tend to create art of a greater quality
when something else is in the forefront as a capital-J Job, and
when any sort of social activism or education is my primo gig
I am one seriously happy camper. I now have not only that living
wage, but a decent budget to run Scarleteen with. I now have a
budget to do things I haven't yet been able to, and without going
crazy trying to find the rarest-of-the-rare people who will volunteer
even a little of their time to help us do things. I have the funds
to organize a benefit this year. I may even be able to get in
on a health insurance plan. I am able to call a lawyer like I
did yesterday and ask for consult on finding the smartest way
to get us set up as a charitable organization, and when he tries
to figure out how to make free time for us, be able to simply
ask for an appointment like anyone else because I can and fully
intend to pay his regular fees. I can hire a little bit of help,
even.
I will now be able to come to this work without feeling like I'm
putting myself out so much for so little: with it being far, far
less of a sacrifice to do. That really may be the hugest thing
of all when it comes to this, and the most positive because there
are times it's just really, really hard not to feel like a martyr
when you're working really hard not just for free, but even at
times paying for the privilege. So, being able to sit down to
moderate the boards and counsel, to write new articles, to clean
up dead links, to do PR and fundraising knowing I'm compensated
and I'm not having to choose to impoverish myself to do so is
likely to make a profound difference in my mood and in the energy
I bring to the work.
In case no one has noticed, I am one seriously stubborn, driven
little bitch. I think my legs are as big as they are not because
of skating or boxing, but because I've spent my whole life digging
my heels in. So, when things like this happen: when I get to be
in the right on plugging determinedly away on something for years
in my unusual way, something that seems like a good thing but
such an uphill battle and lost cause, and be not only validated
per its worth, but also finally get the agency to keep on doing
it and make it more and more bonafide, it puffs me up a good deal.
I want to walk down the street pointing at people and say "Ha!
I knew it!" just because I did. know it, and they really should
have.
So, after a series of days of random work and a lot of downtime,
I started today with a run through the boards there, and am giving
myself my first official full day of work for ST with the knowledge
that this is now not just my work, it's also my Job.
* * *
In other news, my other news is private, some of it even from
myself. Hanne put it best to me, really (she often does, that
wacky Hanne), by summing up the torrential surprises with the
quip, "Dancing lessons from God, babygirl."
And she's right. She's right, Becca is right, my friend Becka
in town from Seattle is right, and the maddening, dizzying, bloody
confusing surprise of a person who has the cajones to tell me
that I think too damn much is also quite right.
So, I'll be over here doing my level best to relearn to dance;
even when my shoes feel too tight, even when it's bloody scary
on the floor out there, even when I can't make sense of my dance
card and even when every song is playing but one that I actually
know.
This week, I think I'll try and do that with a little less tequila.
A little less. |
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December 9th, Two Thousand Four: It's an update about not updating. Let's go on and call it existentialist,
just for Sartre's and giggles.
Folks have been asking for more updates, saying they miss me,
miss my writing, what have you, and that's lovely, it truly is.
To a degree.
At this particular time -- and it's been mounting for a while
now, but I've been recently blindsided with an extra-large helping
of it from several locales -- I feel particularly overexposed
and emotionally naked. I'm not sure quite how to express what
it's like to have a personal life which is not only intricately
tied in with your creative and professional life (and as a working
artist, in many ways, it has to be with the sort of art I do)
but in which thousands and thousands of people are essentially
always watching, observing and analyzing.
I don't do trite well. I don't do half-assed, blithe or surface
well, though not for lack of trying. I don't fake well, and I'm
perhaps the world's worst liar. Heck, I can barely swing this
stuff in passing socially in real life, let alone when my pen
or my camera come out. In all honesty, I don't really see the
point, most of the time, in pulling either out if I'm just going
to shoot the shit or try and entertain someone else or help them
pass the time. As well, hiding under a rock with a vow of silence
seems to be the only best way for me to sustain some semblance
of privacy and protection, even when the only culprit doing the
interrogating is myself.
The past few months, I've taken some shit if I am not being incredibly
vulnerable, if I'm not exposing Very Big Things to anyone and
everyone. On the other hand, I take shit from some other folks
if I DO put myself out there, whether it's because I'm too political,
political the wrong way, or whatever it is I'm emoting or expressing
is taken offensively or strikes someone's raw nerve, or they just
don't agree with how *I* feel. For some people, one set of things
I do makes me heroic and magnificent, while for others, those
same things discredit me or make me unappealing. This is the case
in my creative and professional life; this is the case in much
of my personal life. I find the loyalty, the devotion, the care
and feelings I bring about in people all around is more tenuous
than I ever imagined, and often certainly not without an agenda.
I'm not exactly what you'd call hypersensitive: quite a lot can
roll off my back pretty easily.
But I feel fragile as the glass I stand behind as of late, I feel
poked and prodded, I feel like a circus act, I feel like my doing
right and being done right in umpteen areas is nigh unto impossible,
and I feel ungodly pressure to live up to this insanely varied
set of expectations from so very, very many people, in work and
in life; expectations which are, in many ways, incredibly one
sided with all the giving, exposure and vulnerability coming from
me, only or primarily. I have some weird, confusing, maddening,
scary and inexplicable shit going down in my life right now, but
I don't want to share it with people for a million different reasons,
most of which is because I do not wish to be observed flailing
in the wind right now on some random person's coffee break, and
because a lot of it is simply very private.
In a word, it's all a little much. I don't mean to piss on anyone,
because the majority of readers of mine who I've even gotten a
single email from I know to be primarily really wonderful people,
but I just don't think I can do it right now in the way I often
have. One of the things people often forget, or don't realize
in the first place, is that with someone like me what IS put out
there, no matter how raw, how often or how .... is often not the
whole of things. I know my written style, my visual style and
approach is such that it's often easy for people to feel like
they know me. I have enough of my history out there, in words
or in images, enough of what I've really felt or thought that
I can understand why others might feel that way. But, in a word,
it's bullshit, it's illusory, it's knowing me the way I might
feel a musician is singing a song just for me, or that an artist
has painted my own heart with their work. Certain things are often
universal -- what I feel looking at an Albright, for instance,
is hardly specific to Ivan Albright and myself in some exclusive,
magical union - but the fact of the matter is that everything
we see is candy-coated with what of our own we put on things or
bring to them, what we want to see and what we do not want to
see.
Without passing myself off falsely as some sort of shrouded lady
of mystery, which I most certainly am not, people reading my words
or looking at my art don't know me. Heck, even most of my friends
for years often feel like they've barely scratched at the surface,
as Jane reminded me today. Readers/viewers know what I do show
them, and even that is only known through a very subjective filter
of projection and individual interpretation, often with a set
of assumptions in hand which may or may not have any accuracy,
or which may be entirely accurate. And I can pretty easily make
a determination of how many people actually know me, as opposed
to those who constantly tell me they do or feel they do, because
there are certain benefits which generally come with actually
being known intimately and well that I'm just not getting.
Know what? It's fucking lonely. Heartbreakingly so, sometimes.
The older I get, the more I do what I do, the lonelier it becomes.
I don't mind being alone, in fact, I like being alone to a great
degree, I always have. But nobody likes feeling alone in a crowd
or being lonely in one. When I was at Bri's wedding in Edinburgh
I mentioned to someone that at a certain point, being at big gatherings
like that starts to depress me, to make me maudlin and introverted.
He had his own interpretation, which I think was partially right
and pretty insightful. But I think why I get that way at things
like that -- I didn't used to so much -- is that it's a thread
that really runs through my life, being in a giant crowd, observing
but not really feeling part of the whole thing and to boot, feeling
observed, feeling certain expectations, feeling on display and
as if I am supposed to feel a real part, but really, just not
feeling that at all. (So, you-who-had-that-conversation-with-me,
there's my delayed interpretation of that feeling early that evening.)
It is/has been a longstanding pattern of mine, in my life, that
I open up hugely, that I put a LOT more out on the table and more
plainly, that I risk overexposure either before someone else does,
or simply more than others do. Part of that pattern also usually
involves -- more and more as I get older and more tired, more
wounded, more cynical, less resilient -- me massively withdrawing
from that when the imbalance becomes clear, when I realize the
disparity of what I'm putting out and what I'm not getting in
return, and I also know where that can lead me, and it's not a
place I like to go. (In my personal life, part of that pattern
then also seems to involve my being resented by the other party
FOR that withdrawal because, perhaps, a precedent has been set
that I am, again, The Strong One, The Open One, The Initiator,
The Leader, The Risktaker, The Magicmaker, but likely also in
part because by the time people in my personal life do finally
come around to offer up some of that stuff themselves, I've gotten
tired and guarded from wishing and waiting for it to happen.)
The simple truth of that matter is that what I'd really like is
not to do that less, but to feel others doing it more, to be met
at the same altitude I'm teetering in, and I, sadly, think that's
a very unlikely scenario, in most things, if not everything.
Art of all types has been the better way for me to put myself
all out there, to express what I feel and think without apology
or reservation, to do so with no awful, hopeful expectation of
return from anyone but myself, for...well, forever. While I certainly
wouldn't call it safer, by any stretch, it can deceptively appear
that way, and so, to top off a lot of the stuff I've been dealing
with, when my art also exposes me, when the alchemy it and I produce
is both too illuminating and makes me feel vulnerable, I feel
this strange combination of both communion and betrayal all at
once. But I do believe anyone with even a shot of being a decent
artist has to feel those things in their work.
That part is okay. It's not easy, by any stretch, but it is okay,
and I do feel that this is one of my particular gifts in any type
of art that I do, and a gift I don't toss off or take for granted,
my ability to surrender myself to it a good deal of the time.
In many ways my visual art generally says a lot more than my written
or spoken words. I know I am gifted with words, but that's part
of the matter: I'm actually less gifted with creating visual images.
I don't know how to craft it as well, how to work it to hide things
or elevate them, how to be quite as purposefully elegant. If I
stumble, it shows and I can't edit that stumbling out most of
the time; even trying to seems senseless and off-key. What's going
on with me shows, because in some ways with photography and visual
art, I'm like someone who keeps underestimating the amount of
paint to buy for their house, one or two rooms or spots always
bare or half-covered, sometimes accidentally, and I can push as
much furniture as I want in front of the bare spots, but they
won't go unnoticed and unfelt. It may even be so that at least
part of my art isn't in what is created, so much as the art being
creating it, going through the process (which is the real part
for me, and that's something that no one not a part of the work
participates in), a willingness to be open and mercurial and be
shown as confused and complex and human and to somehow borrow
the cajones to hold it up, with pretty much all of the work I
do, not a few small pieces of it. I am, artistically, all too
often a child who doesn't realize how much he's truly shown of
himself when asked to draw his family, he turns in a coloring
where he's left himself out entirely.
So, for a while, the visual art is likely all I'll put publicly, and perhaps erratically in terms of the journal. (Oddly enough,
around this same time last year, I did similar, though without
similar motivations.) The word "all" is, of course, a bit of an
understatement because if I'm even remotely decent in my art what
I'm giving out should be quite a bit. I may or may not do some
entries private to subscribers and friends right now, I don't
know. I may or may not, in the subscribers area, say more about
what visual work I do. Perhaps oddly, it's actually emotionally
easier to explain work, thus somewhat controlling how others see
it or what they assume, than it is to leave it without words at
all. I'm going for bravery, which may or may not just be more
of my bravado, rather than actual, bonafide courage. Assumptions
are going to be made, projections and estimations and presumptions
are going to be made, some of which I won't like, many of which
will have little to do with what I'm actually thinking, experiencing
and feeling, and there isn't a thing I can do about that, but
not putting good work out there because of that, and my concerns
with that, would be really beyond cowardice: it'd be outrageously
selfish and more than a little self-defeating.
* * *
No, there isn't a comments link here. Because I don't want them
right now, I don't want questions, I don't want to listen to people
try and intimate things about my life or make guesses to get me
to give more than I want to, I don't want a pat on the head, I
don't want to be told, as if I didn't know, that what I'm feeling
is okay and understandable. I certainly don't want to be asked
what al is going on specifically, because right now, very few
of my friends even know all of that. Hell, I don't know what all
is going on, save that the Universe has a WHOLE lot of crazy shit
to answer for right about now. If you feel the need to email me
about this stuff, understand that a) it might not get answered
for a while if at all, and that b) if anyone emails me with any
sort of sense of ownership or entitlement to me or my mishegoss,
or even anger at me right now, they're likely to either get their
email blocked forever after and/or get a reply with an arseload
of serious piss and vinegar from me. If you feel the need to tell
me I appear a mess right now there's no need, as I'm well aware.
(It's easy to forget sometimes, that no one is obligated to read
or patronize me, that I don't seek readers out: readers and viewers
seek me out and get to choose when they read from me and when
they don't, with zero accountability or expectation to do so on
my part, and certainly without need or request to respond: email
to me offers me none of that and less if something I've written
about has pissed you off, made you feel bad or simply not given
you what you wanted or needed and you feel the need to contact
me in that regard.)
Feeling alone in a giant crowd of people who feel they're with
you, again, flatly stinks. So, right now, if you're going to contact
me and you aren't someone I call friend directly, just give the
stuff above some good think first. (If you're a friend made uncertain
or insecure by the above, come on: get over it, eh? People in
my life, even online friends, who don't know if I value and cherish
them are just plain being daft and fuckin' silly.)
If I'm going to feel alone, I'd just really like the benefit of
being alone all by myself right now.
That Jean-Paul, he ain't got nuthin' on me.
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