All posts by marilyn jaye lewis

writer, editor, publisher, thinker -- all-around joyful gal!

To Find Dory or Not, That is the (non-Disney) Question!

June 11, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

If you went looking for that post from last night that had a photo of the night & the streetlight, etc., I moved that to Instagram. The photo is down there at the “Instagram” feed. (Unless you view these posts on your phone – I don’t know if the Instagram feed shows up on the phone layout.)

Anyway.

A new morning. I had a weird night.

I fought off the demons of depression and, by morning, I believe I won.

I’m one of those people who believes that all the probable realities of Life play out simultaneously and that we sort of “tune in” to one of those probabilities and then live it and call it our “life.” But that we can also sort of “tune in” to other probable versions of ourselves and the other probable choices we made and benefit from them while still being on our own unique conscious path.

(Yes, you’re right. These beliefs went over really well in Divinity School. I wasn’t even allowed to talk about them. You seriously had to tow the accepted Jesus line there & not deconstruct him in any way. Once, I lost 5 points in my final grade for my “Discipleship that Transforms” class (that I was getting a 4-point in) because the professor found out that, at that point in my life, I was attending a church that practiced gay marriages. And it wasn’t even an offbeat church, or anything. It was United Church of Christ, recognized the world over as an actual church. ) (I have since stopped attending all churches because it was painfully obvious I needed my own church and no one was going to give me one, mainly because they didn’t want me collecting any followers.) (I’m not sure Jesus wants that, either, but I’m not 100% clear on that.)

I digress. But I certainly don’t need to be the Lone Preacher, dressed in black, out there preaching weird shit to strangers and having people look at me funny.

I can wear any color I want and not preach anything at all, and get the same result.

Okay. I still digress.

Lately, I’ve been keeping a journal specifically for conversations with my Higher Self. (And now I’m laughing because that word “conversations” makes me think of God/Nick Cave, but it isn’t anything like that.) (And no, by that “slash” mark, I’m not suggesting that I now believe that God and Nick Cave are the same entity. Although I could probably have an indescribably successful church the world over if I did believe that, or pretended to, and then practiced it and took your money for allowing you to follow me.)

OKAY!! I yet again digress.

I have a few really deeply ingrained thought-habits that I really want to change. Things that have been a part of me since I was a little girl, having to do with feelings of worthlessness & futility; things instilled in me early on by my adoptive parents because, for the most part, they wanted me to disappear. They wanted a little girl (pictured above, btw) to fit a specific pattern that they’d had in mind and I was way left of center of that pattern, even at a really, really young age.

For a while, my adoptive dad tried to just go with it and let me be whoever I was (he eventually changed his mind about that and went through various phases of disowning me). I remember one afternoon, though, when I was about 12, my dad came into my bedroom just to see what I was up to.

HE: “How come you’re always holed up in your room like this? It’s summertime. You should go outside.”

ME: “I’m playing my guitar.”

And I was surrounded by stacks of paper – songs I had written – and he looked at one of them.

HE: “Did you write all of these?” He was just dumbfounded. After that, he let me just hang out, holed up in my room alone, to write & play my guitar. (And then he left us the following year…)

My adoptive family enjoyed certain types of music a lot. When I was first adopted, my dad was an accountant for Columbia Records and I grew up with so much music in the house but the family members, themselves, weren’t exactly musical. Whereas, music was everything to me. Literally. It was my heartbeat.

I sometimes believe that Elvis Presley is literally my heartbeat. Because when my birth mom was pregnant with me, she sat alone in her room and listened to Elvis Presley records all the time. She was 12 at this point.

I do believe that about Elvis and my heartbeat, on one level. But I also just believe I’m musical, in general.

My adoptive mother, on the other hand, was merciless when it came to my being different from what she was expecting or wanting. My childhood, up until I left home at 18, was pretty much all about living in terror and trying to figure out how to survive her.

I can’t go into all of that now but it is sufficient to say that it instilled in me an understanding of my “worthlessness” and the futility of my being here.

On intellectual levels, I don’t believe this. But on deep levels of my psyche, I do. And I’d like to not feel that way anymore. So I decided to keep a handwritten journal to see if my Inner Being – the true Essence of me, of the created physical me, regardless of any probable selves – could sort of talk to me and give me some sort of strategy for undoing all this damage.

The results have been kind of incredible. I won’t go into all of it on the blog, but the primary thing that has come to light for me, that became immediately empowering and has helped me redirect my own thinking about myself, is an understanding of my “birth self.” A version of me that is still inside me, that my adoptive family, for whatever convoluted reasons, tried to negate, deny, even to destroy.

And her name was Dory. My birth name. The name my birth mother gave me.

When I’m “journaling” I’m not consciously aware of what I’m writing. I only write about 3 or 4 pages each morning, but it just comes out and then when I read back over it, I am amazed by the words I’ve written there. And the primary advice from my Inner Being is for me to relate less to “Marilyn” and all that psychological baggage and to reconnect with the energy of Dory.

When I was created (meaning the moment I was conceived and before I was actually born), my mom was 12 and my dad was 14. “Dory” was created at that moment in time in a spirit of “wild youthful rebellion” (my mom) and “joy & adventure & fearlessness” (my dad). (I’m quoting from the journal.) Dory was created from, and still embodies, those energies.

As “Marilyn” those are the energies I tap into and create from – and I could see that this was true about my work, my writing, you know? It was so interesting.

The journal is not advising that I create a split-personality for myself or anything; just that I tap into that probable version of Dory who was not adopted and who stayed within the influence of the teenagers (my parents) that created me.

It has been just so interesting. When I find myself inching toward one of those thought-habits that I know is destructive to me, I stop and think, How would Dory react to this?

And the answer is always: She’d be full of wild, youthful rebellion and joy and adventure and fearlessness.

And, wow, does it change everything. Everything immediately looks & feels different; everything just feels so much more fun, too. You know, like: Just do it! It’s just life.

And everything inside me that usually wants to shut down, opens up instead.

All right. I gotta get to the bank because the lawn guys just texted and are arriving momentarily!! They seem to work harder and more effectively when they get paid!

Breakfast-listening music this morning was sweet. Thanks for visiting, gang. Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys. See ya!

“Everyday”

Everyday, it’s a-gettin’ closer
Goin’ faster than a roller coaster
Love like yours will surely come my way
A-hey, a-hey heyEveryday, it’s a-gettin’ faster
Everyone said, “Go ahead and ask her”
Love like yours will surely come my way
A-hey, a-hey heyEveryday seems a little longer
Every way, love’s a little stronger
Come what may, do you ever long for
True love from me?

Everyday, it’s a-gettin’ closer
Goin’ faster than a roller coaster
Love like yours will surely come my way
A-hey, a-hey hey

Everyday seems a little longer
Every way, love’s a little stronger
Come what may, do you ever long for
True love from me?

Everyday, it’s a-gettin’ closer
Goin’ faster than a roller coaster
Love like yours will surely come my way
A-hey, a-hey hey
Love like yours will surely come my way

c- 1958 BUDDY HOLLY, NORMAN PETTY

Drive Happy Continues!

June 10, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Luckily my brain was in fine working order this morning, gang.

After I left you so abruptly (see earlier post from today), I went downstairs and looked at my little Honda Fit in the sunshine; the same little Honda Fit that has never, ever failed me yet. And suddenly I wondered …

On Saturday night at the filling station, did I accidentally pop the hood when I was popping the gas tank cover? Lord knows, I’ve done it before and haven’t discovered it until I was out on some highway, going too fast.

So I opened the hood all the way and then slammed it closed.

Then went and got out onto the highway and drove 95 miles an hour for several miles in the direction of the Honda dealer just to make sure….

But the problem was solved! Horrible rattling at high speeds – gone.

I was relieved for many reasons. One being the obvious financial reason – you don’t want to go to the Honda dealership and say to them: “Can you get down, under, and up inside of there and try to figure out what’s wrong?” Because their eyes will pop out of their heads and they’ll say, “Wow! Ma’am, how much money do you actually have??!!”

The other being that I hate wasting prodigious amounts of precious writing time in the indescribably brightly lit waiting room of the Honda dealership, no matter how much coffee they’re giving away for free. And another being that I was wondering how I was going to explain my problem to the Honda dealer and gain any sympathy whatsoever.

ME: “When it’s pushing 90, it starts rattling.”

THEM: “Where is it that you live exactly, where the speed limit is 90?”

Just FYI: Here in the village, the speed limit is 25 mph. Then for a fleeting patch, between the Dollar Store and the cornfields, it’s 35 mph. Once you hit the cornfields, it’s 55 mph. (And at the very beginning of those fields, on a little hidden patch of dirt, is where our one policeman hides, so if you’ve decided to go 55 mph even a speck too soon, he’ll get’cha!) (Luckily, though, I was taught early that if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime! So I always dutifully wait until I’m way out of his jurisdiction before I hit the gas pedal…)

That stretch that goes 55 mph is fast enough to feel like you’re going somewhere yet slow enough to watch all the adorable little baby calves frolicking in the green pastures for the first time in their tiny little lives. And once you hit the actual highway, it’s 70 mph. And there it remains.

So you can see where the question about where it is I live exactly might have some validity.

But, whatever. The car was not broken, so the question never came up! Yay!

And I had brought along The Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits because of the song I’d posted this morning, and you know, gang, The Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits makes for really terrific driving-fast-on-the-highway music. “Fun, Fun Fun,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “California Girls,” etc. Man. Such great songs.

But when it hit “Surfer Girl,” – oh man. Wow. I’d forgotten what an incredibly sweet song that was. I hit the REPEAT button and just kept playing that one, over & over & over, until I got back home. And I was thinking that, you know, if you slow-danced to that song with someone you didn’t even know, you’d be in love for sure before that song was over. It’s just too sweet and too dear.

Meanwhile…

I know I talk about Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files here a lot and badger you to go read them (stubborn Americans, that is, who have that weird resistance to all my pro-Nick-Cave badgering), and today’s newsletter was just so incredibly good. I’m not even going to try to explain why. It just really was.

I have many different photos of Nick Cave, from many different eras, stuck to the walls around my desk and creeping up the side of my book case that’s next to my desk. (This is also where I have tons of photos of Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and Keith Richards, and also photos of cats that I loved who have passed on.)

But I have one little photo of Nick Cave that I absolutely adore and I keep it in a little holder-thingie and it is always on my desk looking at me. (The little holder-thingie was a gift from my friend Kara – she of the unidentifiable Other Planet that I’ve written about here before and I adore her, too. And, once, we were having espressos and I showed her this photo of Nick Cave that I love back when it was only on my phone and I said, “God I just love this photo. It’s so cute. I can’t quit looking at it.” And even though she has no clue who Nick Cave is, she will dutifully listen to Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds songs that I sometimes text to her in the middle of the night – she stays up really late. And then she went and bought me a holder-thingie so that I could print out the photo and just sort of not have it trapped in my phone anymore!) (No, you’d not know that I will be 59 in a few weeks because I always just feel about 12. I really do.)

Anyway, I do love this photo. I don’t understand what’s going on in the photo and, frankly, I don’t think I want to know! But I do ponder it, for sure. It’s a good “pondering” photo because there is an awful lot going on in this photo that you don’t notice right away. And that Red Hand Files newsletter today brought to mind this photo, among other things that mean a lot to me.

Photo on my desk in the holder-thingie from Kara!

Okay, gang! On that happy note, I’m going to go down to the kitchen and scrounge around a bit and see if there’s something to eat down there. And then I have a quiz in Italian waiting for me on the Mondly app! That should be fun.

Have a great evening, folks, wherever you are in the world. I leave you with this!! Go find somebody to hold onto, then listen to this song and fall in love!!!! That’s an order!!

Okay. I love you guys. See ya!

“Surfer Girl”

Little surfer little one
Made my heart come all undone
Do you love me, do you surfer girl
Surfer girl my little surfer girlI have watched you on the shore
Standing by the ocean’s roar
Do you love me do you surfer girl
Surfer girl surfer girlWe could ride the surf together
While our love would grow
In my Woody I would take you everywhere I goSo I say from me to you
I will make your dreams come true
Do you love me do you surfer girl
Surfer girl my little surfer girl
Little one
Girl surfer girl my little surfer girl
Little one
Girl surfer girl my little surfer girl
Little one
Girl surfer girl my little surfer girl

c- 1963 Brian Wilson

Drive Happy!

June 10, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

That’s definitely NOT me today…

It’s weird, isn’t it? How suddenly an undercurrent can come into your life.

First, the laptop starts to behave weirdly, so I bought a new one.

Now it’s the car!

Well, I’m not gonna buy a new one, because I lease the Honda Fit and it’s still practically a brand new car. But I discovered last night, that when I drove over 85 mph, the front end started vibrating noisily.

Rather than never speed again (why bother to drive at all if I can’t go 95 mph all over Muskingum County? I know the Sheriff sure doesn’t mind!!!), I have to go visit those guys at Honda this morning. As soon as they open. So I’m outta here.

If anything really cool happens to me today, I’ll blog again later.

Otherwise, I leave you with The Beach Boys!!! “Little Honda”!!

Have a terrific Monday, gang, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting!!

“Little Honda”

GO!

I’m gonna wake you up early
Cause I’m gonna take a ride with you
We’re going down to the Honda shop
I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do
Put on a ragged sweatshirt
I’ll take you anywhere you want me to

First gear (Honda Honda) it’s alright (faster faster)
Second gear (little Honda Honda) I lean right (faster faster)
Third gear (Honda Honda) hang on tight (faster faster)
Faster it’s alright

It’s not a big motorcycle
Just a groovy little motorbike
It’s more fun that a barrel of monkeys
That two wheel bike
We’ll ride on out of the town
To any place I know you like

First gear (Honda Honda) it’s alright (faster faster)
Second gear (little Honda Honda) I lean right (faster faster)
Third gear (Honda Honda) hang on tight (faster faster)
Faster it’s alright

It climbs the hills like a matchless
Cause my Honda’s built really light
When I go into the turns
Lean [Tilt] with me and hang on tight
I better turn on the lights
So we can ride my Honda tonight

First gear (Honda Honda) it’s alright (faster faster)
Second gear (little Honda Honda) I lean right (faster faster)
Third gear (Honda Honda) hang on tight (faster faster)
Faster it’s alright

c- 1964 Brian Wilson, Mike Love

Same Question, Answers Galore

June 9, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Life does indeed go on, as proved by the fact that I yet again woke up this morning and here I am, blogging.

I’m happy about that, and all. But one of those situations that began rearing its little head on Friday remains. But it does not flower and bloom into niceness. Rather, it looks increasingly like it goes down that dark alley that leads to a door with a lawyer’s name on it.

And I hate having to do that.

However, it did give me a great reason to call Gus Van Sant, Sr. on the telephone last evening, and since he is one of the nicest men on planet Earth, it changed the energy of my whole evening.

It was actually late at night (my time, anyway; he’s on the West Coast) and I was outside, under the stars, leaning against my car while I spoke to him on the phone.

I think that’s the best way to speak on the phone to men who are amazing and great. It brings together all sorts of elements that are hard to define but that are nonetheless breathtaking. Meaning: stars, the universe, nights in summer, a voice on the telephone.

It creates an indelible memory; captures a person in your mind for all time.

And when we were done talking business stuff, he told me about a friend of his who was killed the other day. And then he said, “I don’t know why I’m telling you about all this, Marilyn. But life flies by; it goes so fast.”

I loved, loved, loved working for that man. I worked for him for 5 years, until his wife died and he moved back to the West Coast to be near his daughter and his son (the filmmaker, Gus Van Sant, Jr). (He was his son’s business manager.) I learned a lot about the back end of making movies by working for him at the production company, which was a good thing to learn, but the thing I remember most is that we always listened to the old Big Band music while we worked. In particular, he loved Ella Fitzgerald.

I love that kind of music anyway, and I love Ella Fitzgerald too, but it broke my heart when he moved away and now one song that I had always loved before became completely saturated with his personality – “Skylark.” Because of the stories he used to tell me about his life, I hear this song and think that those memories of his are actually mine now, too. In a way.

Another thing that happened yesterday is that I was looking for an old CD – the 5th Dimensions Age of Aquarius. I really wanted to hear their version of the song, “Blowin’ Away.” A song written by that amazing & sort of underrated songwriter, Laura Nyro.

I never did find the CD, but while I was down on the floor, looking at the very bottom row of the CD rack, my attention was of course drawn to the bottom row of the bookshelf that was right next to it because I have some Nick Cave-related books down there (collected interviews with him & such) and so why wouldn’t my attention be magnetically drawn there?

But then my eye was drawn to a slim volume of poetry, The Beautifully Worthless, from 2005 by Ali Liebegott. She has since become a well-known writer. But the book won a Lambda Award for Best Lesbian Debut Fiction, back when my friends at Suspect Thoughts Press had published it. (Even though I think it’s still really more poetry than fiction.) (It has long-since been re-issued with City Lights Press, fyi.)

And I thought, man, that was such a good book. And I pulled it out and started flipping through it, and then became so immersed in its beautiful, plaintive voice again that I went back and I started from the beginning, while still sitting there on the floor.

And I read books like this, and I’ve been in the LGBTQA community my entire professional life, so I know the answers to my own question, and I understand the answers to my own question, but my own question still remains and that is: Why do we have to call it “Lesbian” poetry?

Why can’t it just be POETRY? (Yes, I know the “marketing” answer, and the political answer and it has become cultural.) But it still sort of bothers me – these constant, never-ending pigeonholes. This endless drive toward “diversity” that fractures the unity of Spirit.

I don’t read a book like The Beautifully Worthless and think to myself, Wow, these are such great lesbian poems. No, what I think is: Wow, this book is so good.

I understand that if you placed me against some sort of scale, I would perhaps be way closer to the “lesbian” side of things than maybe you are (I don’t actually know you, so I don’t know for sure); but still. You know? Can’t an amazing book about an experience of life just be an amazing book about an experience of life?

(When my agent was trying to shop my novel Twilight of the Immortal, publisher after publisher bridled at how many lesbians were in the novel – and these were actual historical figures, known to be lesbians, who surrounded the public & private life of the movie star, Rudolph Valentino. And the publishers said, “How are we gonna market a book that has all these lesbians in it?” It was dumbfounding. And it wound up on the smallest press imaginable because of that, and I eventually pulled it from that publisher and published it myself. It was crazy. Most readers who’ve read that book, loved it. The few who didn’t love it, took issue with my view on Valentino’s private sex life. But none of them ever said they had trouble reading it because lesbians were in the book.)

Well, whatever. I sure know that you can’t even attempt to fight City Hall unless you want to be gunned down on the steps of it. So on we go with our labels and our pigeonholes.

In fact, when I had to write a recent press release re: Tell My Bones, I was told to focus on the “diversity” aspect of all of it because of Sandra Caldwell’s transgender stuff, which just feels so foreign to me.

I’ve been friends with Sandra since 1992 and now I have to speak about her as a “transgender actor” instead of as, you know, my friend Sandra, who’s been in a ton of films & TV shows & plays.

Plus, I had to speak of myself as a “bisexual playwright.” To me, that is so weird. To label myself as specifically “bisexual” anything. If you’ve read anything I’ve ever written, you can come to that understanding pretty quickly. Or if you date me, or marry me, or whatever. I guess, if you just have a simple conversation with me, it might never come up. But the idea that it’s part of the approach to press materials now is so strange to me. If I’m bisexual, does it make you want to see a play I’ve written more, or less?

I would hope it doesn’t matter at all.

However, I do live in reality and I also live in the middle of fucking nowhere because people nowadays make me a little nuts…

Anyway, The Beautifully Worthless is a really beautiful book. (I’m not sure, but I think a lesbian wrote it.)

(Wild Animals I Have Known : Polk Street Diaries is also a really good book, that is also in my bookcase, on the same shelf – and has also recently been reissued. But it’s written by a gay guy – Kevin Bentley. And it’s all about life and sex and amazing men and the human heart. But you know…it’s written by a gay guy.)

Okay. I’m gonna scoot and get my Sunday morning started!

And I leave you, oddly enough, with a song called “Thursday” by Morphine. It was my curious choice for breakfast-listening music today! But anyway. Isn’t everything just a little bit curious? Okay. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.

“Thursday”

We used to meet every Thursday
Thursday
Thursday in the afternoon
For a couple a beers
And a game of pool

We used to go to a motel
A motel
A motel across the street
And the name of the motel
Was the “Wagon Wheel”

OH!

One day she said
C’mon C’mon
She said why don’t you come back to my house
She said my husbands out of town
You know he’s gone till the end of the month

Well I was just so nervous, so nervous
You know I couldn’t really quite relax
‘Cause I was really never quite sure
When her husband was coming back

It turned out it was one of the neighbours
One of the neighbours, one of the neighbours that saw my car
And they told her, yeah they told her
They think they know who you are

Well her husband is a violent man
A very violent and jealous man
Now I have to leave this town
I gotta leave while I still can

We should have kept it every Thursday
Thursday
Thursday in the afternoon
For a couple of beers
And a game of pool

She was pretty cool too!

c – 1993 Mark Sandman

What we think about when…

June 8, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

…we’re thinking about fans

reflected in a dusty mirror

my best friend’s birthday today
he would have been 60
but he’s been dead now for 20 years

Much Better Morning – If You Don’t Look at My Hair!

June 8, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yesterday ended up going okay.

All my little claims were staked and my lines were drawn and everyone stayed on their respective sides of them, and basically said, “Oops, sorry, Marilyn.”

So far so good. I only had to send off 3 letters. And writing letters is better. It gives me that time to really, really choose my words carefully. So that by the time a couple of the phone calls started to come in, all I had to do was “be nice.”

I was then able to focus on the always unwelcome fact that my current laptop is lurching into the sunset. (Yesterday was just one of those days on all fronts.)

Rather than hedge my bets, as I have sometimes done with laptops in the past, I decided to just get out in front of disaster and stop it from arriving and I ordered a new laptop yesterday, too.

(I’m one of those people who sometimes likes to see just how long I can go before the laptop completely implodes. I guess because I want to see just how much stress I can endure before my brains start springing out from the sides of my head – you know, when the laptop finally locks up for good and you can’t access anything and you’re in the middle of writing a novel or something and you neglected to put the file back into the dropbox or anywhere else where you can actually get at it ever again and so then you call The Boyfriend (if you have one of those in your life at that particular fleeting moment) and you shriek at him over the phone, loudly and in a wholly unattractive register, “My laptop just died!! What the FUCK am I gonna do??!! My novel is in there!!!” and then he, who is way too calm and maybe even just drinking a pleasant cup of coffee or something, says something stupidly calmly, like, “I’ve been telling you for weeks that you’d better get a new one.” Or some such scenario as that. I’m avoiding that this time.)

The heady days of my fearless youth, you know?

I’m still fearless when it comes to LOVE, baby, but in every other area of my life, I pretty much hedge my bets now.

Okay!

Yes, I did wake up in a really wonderful mood, even though I slept a little bit later than I would have preferred. The sun was already coming up and it enabled me to see myself quite clearly in the mirror when I got out of the bed. And my hair actually made me gasp.

I mean, it really looked that horrible; I gasped out loud. Like, what the hell? It seems to me that I had really great dreams last night. I really did. Vivid and beautiful and sort of flowing. And there was lots of music in the dreams, too. I was really happy in my dreams, and I don’t recall thrashing wildly about. So I’m not understanding the hair at all.

And I hate thinking (or in this case, knowing) that I look horrible because I am still vane (a lapsed narcissist, in fact; ready to rejoin the movement at a moment’s notice) and want to feel like a viable option to anyone, anywhere, regardless of the fact that I live alone now in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Peitor is still en route from somewhere to somewhere – I think he’s finally en route to Los Angeles from Manhattan. But he has been gone now for several weeks, so our usual Saturday-work-over-the-phone-on-the-video-scripts is not gonna happen, and so I am free to just wash my hair and work on the novel.

And it is a stunning day here, gang. Just amazingly beautiful (as I will be, too, once I tackle this hair).

I had no breakfast-listening music today, because I was in a sort of euphoria over just how lovely the morning was and I didn’t want any sounds around me but the birds singing. (And the quiet perk of the electric percolator, assuring me that the gentle thunder of the gods was on its way to me – to my delicate veins, my tenderly beating heart – momentarily. Meaning, you know – the coffee’s almost ready.)

But the music from last night… For some weird and inexplicable reason, the sole gas station here in the village, which usually has very expensive gas prices because we are captive here in the middle of nowhere; for some weird reason, they were giving away gas for cheap last night.

So I filled up the gas tank on the Honda Fit and then drove around the dark valley for a little while, and going not my customary 95 mph, but more like 50 mph, because in the pitch dark of the valley, there are scurrying animals galore.

And this is what I was listening to, really, really loudly.

I just love this song, gang. I love this whole album. (Oh, this is that album that also has that song “God is in the House,” on it – the very same song that people all over Europe this past month were using as a sort of metaphor for Nick Cave’s, well, Divine heritage? Is that the best way to say that he’s God and that God is he?) (PS: I was glad to see that both of his Conversations in NYC in September have finally sold out!)

Anyway. Thanks for visiting!! Have a terrific Saturday, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys. See ya!

“Oh My Lord”

I thought I’d take a walk today
It’s a mistake I sometimes make
My children lay asleep in bed
My wife lay wide-awake
I kissed her softly on the brow
I tried not to make a sound
But with stony eyes she looked at me
And gently squeezed my hand
Call it a premonition, call it a crazy vision
Call it intuition, something learned from mother
But when she looked up at me, I could clearly see
The Sword of Damocles hanging directly above her
Oh Lord Oh my Lord
Oh Lord
How have I offended thee?
Wrap your tender arms around me
Oh Lord Oh Lord
Oh My LordThey called at me through the fence
They were not making any sense
They claimed that I had lost the plot
Kept saying that I was not
The man I used to be
They held their babes aloft
Threw marsh mellows at the Security
And said that I’d grown soft
Call it intuition, call it a creeping suspicion,
But their words of derision meant they hardly knew me
For even I could see in the way they stared at me
The Spear of Destiny sticking right through me
Oh Lord Oh my lord
Oh Lord
How have I offended thee?
Wrap your tender arms round me
Oh Lord Oh lord
Oh My Lord

Now I’m at the hairdressers
People watch me as they move past
A guy wearing plastic antlers
Presses his bum against the glass
Now I’m down on my hands and knees
And it’s so fucking hot!
Someone cries, “What are you looking for?”
I scream, “The plot, the plot!”
I grab my telephone, I call my wife at home
She screams, “Leave us alone!” I say, “Hey, it’s only me”
The hairdresser with his scissors, he holds up the mirror
I look back and shiver; I can’t even believe what I can see

Be mindful of the prayers you send
Pray hard but pray with care
For the tears that you are crying now
Are just your answered prayers
The ladders of life that we scale merrily
Move mysteriously around
So that when you think you’re climbing up, man
In fact you’re climbing down
Into the hollows of glamour, where with spikes and hammer
With telescopic camera, they chose to turn the screw
Oh I hate them, Ma! Oh I hate them, Pa!
Oh I hate them all for what they went and done to you
Oh Lord Oh my Lord
Oh Lord
How have I offended thee?
Wrap your tender arms round me
Oh Lord Oh Lord
Oh My Lord

c- 2001 Nick Cave

I Have Nothing to Say

June 7, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

What a morning.

And it started last evening, with emails and texts arriving from various corners of the globe, informing me that life was not perfect.

They didn’t say it in so many words. They didn’t say, “Dear Marilyn, We just wanted to let you know that life is not perfect.”

No, it was that other way the Universe has of telling you things. Business stuff, impinging on my rights to various things. And I hate that.

I’m willing to look the other way over certain things, or let certain things slide, but please, please, please don’t make me have to be a Bitch. I so hate that.

And my first thought upon retiring last night was: I’m just going to assume I’ve misinterpreted things and I’m going to send off calm & succinct emails & texts and I’m going to go to sleep and then wake-up to a world that is back on track and not backing me into a corner in any way…

And in the morning, of course, it was clear that I hadn’t misinterpreted anything at all. And that people are attempting to walk on me in tiny little baby steps that will eventually grow… And that just being friendly is probably not gonna work.

And it’s coming from all sides — areas in my life that are unrelated to other areas, you know? I think that sometimes the Universe just decides to throw a bunch of stuff in your lap just to see how you’re going to choose to react to it. Just to see; just to watch.

I’m up to my eyeballs in projects I need to focus on. I need to approach them from a really peaceful place, with 100% of my attention.

And I really just hate being a Bitch.

And this isn’t about the “f” word. It’s about this other vocabulary I have, absolutely profanity-free, that just floors people, you know? It devastates people. Words can be really damaging, and can change how people see me for the rest of their lives. (Meaning: Someone you can’t walk on but also someone who is nowhere near as “nice” as she looks.)

But way down there at the bottom line of who I am, my words are the only real weapon I have for protecting myself: This is the reason why what you’re trying to do to me sucks. And then words can come out that would absolutely astound you with their clarity and their precision and their quiet intensity.

And I really hate when those words start getting riled up inside. I hate when I can feel them forming into sentences at the far edges of my mind. I do everything I can to try to soothe those little words. Keep them free of sentence structures that could be deadly.

Mostly I just wanna be nice. I really, really wanna be nice. I want to be left alone as much as possible and I wanna be nice. I do everything in my power to at least appear nice. Even though I am painfully aware that I have a vocabulary that hovers like a protective field in front of me; that’s primed to spring like an invisible steel leg hold trap.

We’re just gonna see how that goes, I guess. I’m trying to be negotiable, but most of my “niceness” quota got used up last night. So far it’s been a super intense morning.

I leave you with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, 1987.

Yes. Quit Jammin’ Me.

A Quick Howdy!

June 6, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I’ve spent the morning thus far bestowing my heady thoughts and lofty opinions onto someone other than you, and that cut way into my allotted blogging time for today, so I’m gonna be quick.

Mostly, I wanted to point out something about the whole blogging culture on WordPress. For a lot of people, WordPress is an offshoot of some form of social media. I’ve noticed that a lot of the bloggers I interact with at whatever level, are very interested in getting “likes” and “followers.” And, as loyal readers of my own lofty blog are well aware by now, I have never been about that. I’m about writing because I go crazy if I don’t.

I love it if you “like” me. And if you choose to follow me, that’s great, but I always prefer readers over followers, and I don’t really understand that whole culture of “liking” and “following.” I’ve had my “online journal/blog” for 22 years now. It was a whole different culture when I started out and I’ve sort of remained back in that Dark Age because I was always so happy there!

My long-winded point, though, is that most of my readers do not visit my blog through any type of social media. And I’ve noticed that WordPress has it set up so that you can’t actually contact me through my blog if you don’t have your own WordPress site, which, of course, seems to me to be a little invasive and unfair. So, last night, I added a “contact me” thingie up there at the top of my page – in the header area.

I toyed with the idea of adding the built-in WordPress “Contact” form but that looked way too off-putting and formal, so it’s just an email address link. But it’s there!

Okay!

The lights never did go out last night. The tornado siren went off, though. Briefly, thank god. If you don’t live in an area of the world where you have tornadoes, when a siren goes off, you’re supposed to go down into your basement.

Well, my basement is unfinished and is 118 years old. It’s not the creepiest basement ever, but it’s high on the list of creepy basements and I’m definitely not gonna go down there if the lights go out. So I just sat on the couch in my family room – cats scampering hither & yon because that siren is LOUD – and I just sort of hoped that the tornado would not materialize.

It didn’t. So I then spent the rest of the evening working on my Italian lessons. And then called it a (rainy) night!

Okay, thanks for visiting, gang. I really gotta scoot. It’s uncanny how, after the meeting I had on Tuesday, everything, energy-wise, is shifting into the realm of Tell My Bones. I really, really gotta start paying attention to that play really, really soon. So I’ve got to get Blessed By Light finished.

I hope you have a great day out there, wherever you are in the world!! I love you guys. See ya!

(PS: There was no breakfast-listening music this morning as I was instead reading an interview with KD Lang in a recent issue of Mojo. But I leave you with this bouncy little gem, one of my favorite songs of hers from Absolute Torch & Twang, “Luck In My Eyes”. Okay! See ya!)

“Luck In My Eyes”

I can feel a mountain rain
that’ll wash away
and shine again
empty my pockets
that were weighing me down
sift through my soul
to see what’s lost and found
gonna walk away from trouble
with my head held high
then look closely you’ll see
luck in my eyes

I can hear a howling wind
that sweeps away
the pain that’s been
take all my sorrow
and I’ll cast away
the worries tomorrow
that I had today
gonna walk away from trouble
with my head held high
then look closely you’ll see
luck in my eyes

all my troubles, all my troubles, gone
with luck in my eyes
all my worry’s all my worry’s, gone

c- 1989 K.D. LANG, BEN MINK

Another Magical Night Approaches Crazeysburg!

June 5, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

It was a really productive day. I finished Chapter 22 in Blessed By Light, and now Chapter 23 awaits.

I’m not sure where it’s going to go but I know I only have about 20-40 more pages left to write. And probably closer to the “20” side of things.

It makes me sad because I have really loved writing this novel. I know it needs to end and I need to move on and give my play, Tell My Bones, 110% of my attention, but I’m still a little sad.

Okay. Onward. I’m gonna do yoga, then study my Italian and probably practice on the guitar until the sun goes down. Another storm is fast approaching and the lights keep threatening to go out.

Here are the final pages of Chapter 22/d. Diamonds in the Fire. Approx. 3 pages.

Have a great evening, gang. I love you! See ya!

Excerpted from Blessed By Light, Chapter 22/d. Diamonds in the Fire. These are the final pages of this section. This is still during the night that they're trying to have sex for the first time after his heart attack and after his best friend, George, was killed.

✽✽✽

No, just turn over. Come on. I’ll do the work now. You’ve gotta be worn out, girl.

Don’t you worry too much about me.

When I’m with you like this I stop listening to my heartbeat, stop wondering if this is the moment when it will stop for good. Because all of life and everything I’ve lived and felt and put out into the world and received from the world and felt overwhelmed by and grabbed by the horns and got to the helm of and learned how to manage, to ride, to flow with, to orchestrate and to sort of control –

All of those people.

Thousands of people.

My ego just rises to the rafters. Or flies out into the night.

So many people.

Singing the songs.

Songs I wrote while closed up in some room, thinking too much, working it out on my guitar. Making it rhyme.

All of that was underscored by a beating heart that I never once noticed, never once heard or consciously listened to; and I’m gonna trust that heartbeat now; that it’ll keep on beating until it knows its rhythm has come full circle and is finally done.

What’s done is done for a reason, honey.

I know for sure about that now.

I’m not gonna walk on eggshells around my own heartbeat, especially when I have you underneath me like this, taking in all this love.

It still feels so good, you know? Being inside a girl. My dick, a slave to your pussy, honey.

Forever and always. It just feels so good.

What is it about that rhythm? The sex rhythm. It just takes over my dick. And you meet me every time, with every thrust – with so much abandon. What is that rhythm, honey?

The heart beats. Our sex beats. My music beats. Like the waves pound that shore. Rhythm everywhere.

Why is that and where does it come from? And, honey, where is it gonna lead to when I leave here? Someplace incredible, I bet.

I think George will tell me about it. Some night when I’m alone in the kitchen.

He already knows. Isn’t that something to think about?

He already knows.

What sex is meant to be – before we got here, what was it? And after we’ve gone, what does that rhythm turn out to be? It’s gotta mean something big, don’t you think? Sex has got to mean something more than just bringing more people here – babies, I mean.

It feels too good.

Why does it feel so good if it isn’t meant to be pointing us in the direction of something so much more?

What is it that’s really happening when I’m inside you like this and your pussy just feels so goddamned good?

Christ.
Oh. Fuck. Just like that.

✽✽✽

That kind of thing. That’s what I’m talking about. Where did you learn to do that?

Or are girls just born knowing?

✽✽✽

Here comes that rain. Listen to it, honey. Isn’t it the prettiest sound? It’s comforting when it sounds just like this and the wind dies down and the thunder’s done.

Have you ever been somewhere where there was a tin roof and the rain came?

My grandma had a house like that. Almost a shack, really – now that I think about it. But she was real happy there. And we’d always go over and see her, stay overnight; me, my little brother, and then my sister, when she came along.

My grandma spoiled us something fierce. She was sweet and she was fine. She’d let us stay up so late. She didn’t have TV. She taught us how to sing songs. “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” - oh we just loved that one. Sang the heck out of it, me and my little brother. She told us stories, too – claimed they were true. About the family. In the real old days. My mama told me later that the stories were a little bit “enhanced” but that, for the most part, they were true.

And we didn’t know that Grandma was sort of poor; that she didn’t have much. We didn’t notice any of that. We always just had so much fun.

But she had a little house with an old tin roof and when the rain came we were all in there together – me, my brother, my sister, my grandma; safe, happy. My drunk old man far, far away somewhere, keeping his belt on for a change, or at least not using it on us.

It was nice. So safe. Just like how I feel here with you, right this red-hot minute, honey.

Where does it all go?

You gotta wonder.

✽✽✽

You are a greedy little thing tonight.

No, don’t stop – I was just teasing you. I can’t resist your mouth. I wouldn’t even wanna try.

And if I can get it up again, nothing would make me happier. You know that.

Go on.

Leverage my flaw a little bit, honey. Let’s play the man and not the odds. See if we can’t turn this situation around.

✽✽✽

This is just like that dream. My god. Just like it.

Your mouth feels so
soft
Whoa.
Whoa.
Who are you, honey, really?
Who taught you to suck dick like this? Don’t tell me you were born knowing how to –
Oh Christ.
No no no no – No. Honey. Don’t.
Don’t.
I wanna fuck you again. Come on. Get up here.
Don’t!

Shit.
Well, that was nice.

But you don’t play fair, you know that?
I love you, sweetie.
Just so much.
Wow. Look out there. The sun’s coming up.

WTF??!! Life’s GOOD!!

June 5, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

You know, my coffee actually seems to taste better in my new coffee mug. It honestly does. (See last evening’s post for a full-color photo!!)

And I am not one to ever purchase black dishes of any sort. Not even a mere coffee mug.

I’m the kind of person who owns an unfathomable amount of fine porcelain china. Most of it imported from England. And if it isn’t white etched in 22k gold, then it is white and has delicate hand-painted flowers all over it.

I have porcelain dishes for every season and I never mix & match.

Example of ME in the old days, getting ready for a dinner party: “That’s not the bread plate that goes with those dishes – are you out of your fucking mind?! Yes, I know they look exactly the same!! But that one has two bands of gold and this one clearly has two bands of gold and a tiny band of laurel leaves between them!! Come on!!”

I’m exaggerating, but still. I am usually all about the dishes. It makes moving a colossal headache. A couple years ago, when I was putting everything into storage, I went to the packing store to buy really sturdy packing boxes for good china, and the guy who was gathering all the boxes for me, really politely inquired: “How much good china do you have?”

I could see that he thought I was crazy so I lied and said I inherited it all.

And somewhere on Manhattan’s glorious Upper West Side was an ex-husband still reeling from the amount of dishes I was always carting into the house. “Marilyn, come on – there’s no more room; where are we going to put all this stuff?”

But the very polite guy at the packing store did give me pause: How much fine china do I have? Wow. Way too much.

And what was worse was that, while everything was in storage, I used one dinner plate, one bowl, one juice glass, one water glass and one coffee mug for nearly 2 years.

Uh-oh, I thought. This means I don’t actually need all that stuff. Could it possibly be that for once in his life, about this one specific thing having to do with me and my mental state, that my ex-husband was actually right?

I’m kidding. Of course he was constantly right about all my fucked-up weird shit. Both of my husbands were. It was a little uncanny how accurately they could pinpoint what was fucked-up and weird about me.

But the truth remains that I do have a lot of porcelain china and I love every single piece of it. And yet, as a single woman who lives in the middle of nowhere and never leaves her desk that is tucked away in the far corner of an upstairs bedroom, I use none of it anymore.

And I have porcelain teacups galore, too. And porcelain teapots. And more types of tea than you can possibly imagine practically spilling from the cupboards above the stove.

I use none of that, either. Now, it’s all about the coffee. Just get it into me as quickly as possible because I have words to write and Pulitzer Prizes to win!

And up until yesterday, I was perfectly happy with my vintage Kellogg’s coffee mug depicting a smiling, carefree 5 year-old blue-eyed blonde girl swinging way high up on a swing, with a baby blue background and puffy white spring blossoms on it. I loved how you could readily see the happy little girl’s white underpants because she was wearing such a short little blue dress and swinging up so high and it always made me wonder: What pedophile designed this Kellogg’s packaging in 1952?

Back when all of America wasn’t trying to protect our children from everything on Earth that we can possibly imagine…

But for some reason, now I totally love my inexpensive black ceramic coffee mug that actually has the word FUCKING on it.

I’ll even go so far as to say it gives me a lot of joy.

And I don’t mean to disparage all those people (women, mostly) who take such issue with my using the “f” word all the time. And I don’t use it all the time.

If a cop stops me (which never happens), I’m not gonna say, “How the fuck are you, officer?”

Or if I’m helping a little old lady to cross the street (which I never do), I’m not gonna say, “How’s your fucking day going, ma’am?”

I am a little bit self-aware.

Back in the days before I was so self-aware, I was out walking in Stuyvesant Park with the writer Joe Queenan. His daughter (who has long-since graduated from Harvard) was 4 at the time and skipping merrily out ahead of us. And I was saying something to Joe about “so & so being a fag,” and she came skipping merrily back to us and said, “Daddy, what’s a fag?”

It was astounding; the speed and the keenness of her sense of hearing.

He sighed and looked at me with disgust and said, “Thank you very much, Marilyn.”

I did find it extremely funny, but from that moment on, I have at least tried to be conscious of the words I’m using out loud.

But the “f” word clings to me, for some reason, and I just got tired of everybody getting so tired of hearing it, that, for the most part, I have given up censoring myself.

And so my new coffee mug absolutely delights me. And I hope that whoever designed it was a woman who uses the “f” word a lot.

On other topics of interest…

I am on that border of getting overwhelmed so I am just trying to stay focused on one little word at a time, you know? I am going to finish writing Blessed By Light before I so much as look at Tell My Bones again. But I will finish the revisions on the script before rehearsals begin in late July. I’m just simply going to do it.

And I am still learning a little more Italian every day, and I am going to keep learning this new approach to teaching music so that I can teach this guy how to play the piano while relying on his inner sense of music and not on reading music at all.

And I also really, really do want to thank readers again for their really kind & continuing feedback on Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse, and I am going to finish writing that book, too, but not before Tell My Bones goes into rehearsals, that’s for sure. But it is next in line, after Blessed By Light.

All things above considered, I guess I just feel entitled to my “f” word these days. (Mostly in front of the cats, though. I stare at all the piles of manuscripts on my desk and spilling onto the floor and I see the calendar and I say: “FUCK!”)

Needless to say, I gotta get moving here today.

I leave you with this: my staring-out-the-open-window-listening music from last evening, as the sun was going down and I was thinking about Nick Cave, and love, and words, and my life. And about how words, really, have become all I have.

It’s another oldie from my bonny girlhood, but what a wonderful song!! I can’t even tell you how many times I listened to this record, all alone in my room, just wondering what it meant. The song – I mean. I had no clue yet what love was, or what relationships might even be, or how it was gonna feel to have to rely on words to stake my little claim in the world, you know? I think I was about 8 at the time…

Okay! Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!