Me, As Usual — Getting My Ducks In A Row!

March 4, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I’ll tell you, it is really starting to feel like Spring, gang!

The starlings arrived, en masse, this morning. They are out there flying about, everywhere. The cats are very excited! I’m not sure how long it will take the birds to move in under the soffit outside my backdoor and start building nests again and then really making my cats crazy, but I tell you — they are everywhere this morning!

I love that they have arrived. But it also makes me feel a little anxious, because Spring means I need to get to NYC to begin the table reads for Tell My Bones at the Dramatist Guild. And even though I know that is going to go great — I just know it; I feel it in my own bones. It also means that then Summer will be right around the corner and you know that summers are so tricky for me.

I don’t want to set myself up to fail, or anything. But once Summer arrives, it is so emotionally hard for me to let it go. Once Summer leaves, it means I am one summer farther from the man who died. And even though I know for certain that life is meant to be that way — the cycles of the seasons, of life/love/death — it’s still a heartbreaking specter, always in the background for me. I’m never 100% sure how I’m going to handle that kind of stuff until it’s upon me, you know?

I try not to use all this as a reason to throw myself into my work. However, I’m doing it anyway.

Well, yesterdays’ script-writing session with Peitor was actually incredibly productive. We completed Scene 5, the scene of primary importance in the whole (very short) film. I was impressed with us, because we achieved this 2-page scene in 3 sessions, instead of our usual 20 and a half.

And when I re-read what we had managed to capture in the script (4 lines of very brief dialogue and then the shots, the blocking, camera angles, and lenses), I was really pleased with it.

That said, though, wow. Yesterday. I had a wee bit of a bad attitude. And I guarantee you, I was trying really really really hard to keep a lid on it. First, he showed up late for the call. Not something I actually mind, because I can usually just lie around on my bed, and scroll through an unending cavalcade of Nick Cave photos on Instagram. Not the worst torture ever.

ME (scrolling on Instagram): like, like, like, save, like, save, save, ooh — really like, save, oh my god— like like like [ad infinitum].

Still, it was getting kind of really late and then I remembered that I had yet to figure out how to edit the video that he had sent me on Saturday — a thing we need for the web site. So I got off the bed and sat down at my desk and proceeded to drive myself completely insane because I couldn’t get the program on my desk top to do what I needed it to do.

When he finally called, I was really pissed off at my computer and trying not to transfer my pissed-off-ness to his now being really late for the call. But when I’m in that state , I really need to use the “f” word a lot. The “f” word is my escape valve and helps me get back to normal. However, Peitor is not really keen on my use of the “f” word — at all. He has this weird reasoning that I have developed an impressive and wide-ranging vocabulary for a reason and that I should use it as a way of communicating without the “f” word.

So I tried to just sort of not be pissed-off and not use the “f” word and not have a bad attitude but I was struggling miserably with all 3.

And as we worked on the script — both of us on speaker, and me getting monosyllabic because I was perched so precariously on needing to bleat out a long and sputtering “f” word stream — I suddenly hear him moving around his apartment, doing a ton of stuff while we were working. It was distracting, but I was trying to let everything go because I really hate having a bad attitude. I really do.

But then I finally said, “Peitor, what are you doing? It sounds like you’re outside.”

HIM: “I’m driving. I need to get to a lunch engagement.”

Oh my god. A lunch engagement. Tootling around West Hollywood in his vintage convertible coupe, heading out to lunch. And I’m stuck at my mini-desk, typing away. I’m not sure yet what I will say in my acceptance speech when I get my Academy Award but I know I’m going to get one because I managed to sound like a reasonable human being for the remainder of that call.

It was not easy. At all.

Because what I really, really wanted to say were things like: “Glad you could fit me in, between the Tibetan singing bowls and a lunch date,” and “So what am I now — the typist?” or get really churlish with: “Does it really matter what my opinion is on this shot? We’re just going to do what you want anyway. We always do” (which is not true, btw). And then a whole lot of FUCKS thrown in, too.

I did none of that. Thank god. Because he is one of my best friend’s, and now a business partner, and I seriously do not want to fuck that up. But, wow. Did I struggle with that.

Luckily, directly after that call, I spoke for over an hour with Val in Brooklyn. And we laughed a lot and got caught up on stuff and I got over the Abstract Absurdity Productions call.

And then when I re-read Scene 5 in the script, as I was readying it to send over to Peitor, I saw that we had done a really good job, regardless. The scene was amazing. And I was able to text him during his lunch engagement to say: “Scene 5 is AMAZING.” And he texted back: “Great!!”

So that was yesterday. And I am hoping that today is all about Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town. Because I really, really want to just get lost in my work. We shall see.

Well, late last evening, while sitting at my desk and staring, I made the mistake of listening to Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” a song I really, really love — I love the whole album, actually. But I have always just loved that song. And because I identify perhaps too much with that song — meaning, that if I’d been able to sustain any sort of meaningful relationship with anyone ever, I wouldn’t be the gal that I am.

Anyway, I began to get super depressed. Real quick.

So I closed up shop, went downstairs and watched a little more of the final episode of Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary. (This final episode is primarily covering Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis.) And I actually learned stuff about Miles Davis’s music from the mid-1950s, post-heroin addiction, that I never knew before. And it was really beautiful. Very romantic — in that big city/cocktails/cigarettes/little-black-dress-on-and-then-off kind of way. Just lovely stuff.

So I managed to survive yesterday. And I am back at it today.

I am going to get started with Thug now. I hope you have a really good Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I’ll leave you with both my breakfast-listening music from this morning — “When I Fall in Love,” by Miles Davis, which brought more than a couple of wistful tears to eyes, as I sat at the kitchen table and watched the cats and drank my coffee — and Amy’s “Back to Black” because it really is just a great song. Enjoy — or just think about life if “enjoy” is asking too much of you right now. I love you guys. See ya.

“Back To Black”

He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet
Me and my head high
And my tears dry
Get on without my guy

You went back to what you knew
So far removed from all that we went through
And I tread a troubled track
My odds are stacked
I’ll go back to black

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to…

I go back to us

I love you much
It’s not enough
You love blow and I love puff
And life is like a pipe
And I’m a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to…

Black, black, black, black, black, black, black
I go back to…
I go back to…

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to…

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to black

c – 2007 Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson

Where Is This Day Going To??!!

March 3, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Well, I am trying to get started here today!

For some weird reason, I was just about to get out of bed at around 5am, when I decided to take mental inventory of the day ahead of me, and voila! — I was sound asleep for two and half more hours! WTF???

The glucosamine is finally beginning to work and I am starting to notice a bit of a positive difference in my legs. That same feeling, like: I hadn’t realized that things were changing and so now that there is the ease coming back into my joints, I am recalling how it feels to just move really freely. It does feel great, but I still went to bed last night feeling some pain in my legs. I think that disrupted my sleep — well, that and this weird habit I have now of being on Instagram at all hours. Anyway. I think that’s why I suddenly slept like a rock — the inflammation in my legs finally died down.

All righty!!

So I’m trying to do laundry here. Trying to get ready for my several hours of script work today with Peitor. I’d been hoping to get to answering some emails this morning, too, but I’m also feeling frustrated by the lack of productive time I am finding to spend on Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town.

Yesterday, I stared at the file, open in front of me on the desk top, for hours. Literally And only made about 3 changes to what was already there, and then came up with the name that P-Town had before the “accident.” (And that is: Sandover — in honor of James Merrill’s epic multi-volume poem from 1976-1980, The Changing Light at Sandover.)

(In my novel, so far I am only calling the accident: “the terrible accident at the factory.” I’m not sure yet, but I don’t think I’m ever going to say what the accident was or what they did at the factory because everything comes from Thug’s POV and he is an AI robot and only “knows” what people tell him.)

(I’m starting to see very clearly now that Thug Luckless is going to be another experimental novel. Which of course translates into “small press/no money.” But you know what? I just can’t go there anymore. I can’t worry about it. According to international legal resources, the book has already been pirated anyway, and it hasn’t even been written yet!!)

(And I’m not sure why all this stuff is in parentheses, but it is.)

Whatever. If money were the thing motivating me ever in my entire life — well. I don’t even have to explain what the rest of that sentence might look like. (i.e.: My life would look nothing at all like how I live.)

Last night, it occurred to me that my home-ownership priorities are just so strange. I’ve been here 2 years now and I don’t have a dishwasher yet — just a gaping space for it in the kitchen. Or central AC — although I’m not likely to ever get that because I have this love affair with open windows. I still haven’t put the door back on the linen closet in the upstairs hall (the door is out in the barn, so it’s not as if the door is just somewhere handy.) But the light at the top of the stairs went out last night so I replaced the bulb because I have a whole stockpile of energy efficient light bulbs. And then the battery in one of the smoke detectors went out and I got out of bed and replaced that because I have a plethora of batteries around here of various voltages.

I mean, I have so many batteries and light bulbs, and paper towels, and toilet paper and Kleenex. And a stockpile of filters for the vacuum cleaner. And I have just tons of cloth dish towels, even though I only always use the same one. And I have 17 thousand-million dishes, and glassware, and bar ware — including cocktail shakers and ice buckets and ice tongs, etc., that never get used. And I have so many bed linens in this place that you’d think I was running a dormitory (I even have linens for twin beds, which I don’t even own). And of course, the tidal wall of age-defying products from France bursting from the storage closets of both bathrooms…

Weird, right? I think that’s weird, anyway. Such an extreme amount of only certain things.

Including leaves. Even I was forced to sigh heavily and shake my head this morning, as I glanced outside my backdoor window and saw just the enormous pile of dead leaves that had blown into a massive heap outside my backdoor — where my neighbor’s privacy fence meets my yard. And try as they might, all those leaves cannot get up enough velocity to blow themselves up over that really tall fence and settle nicely into my neighbor’s yard.

I have no idea what to do about those leaves. Because I am definitely not raking them. But I can just see my lawn guy getting right back into his truck when he comes to cut the grass for the first time next month and sees something like that.

Or the gutters. We are not even going to talk about the gutters, although I am at least aware that I need to deal with my gutters.

What I really need, though, is someone to be the actual homeowner here so that I can just wear the title: Homeowner. And then just sit at my desk for hours on end crafting masterpieces of fiction that most people the world over will not understand. (Starting with my father.)

Okey-dokey!!! On that lofty note! I gotta scoot, gang. The morning is almost officially over. I need to get ready for Peitor. (Who is out there in West Hollywood right now, doing yoga and meditating to the sound of Tibetan bowls and all sorts of spiritual goodness type stuff.) (He’s even a vegan– he recently one-upped me on my vegetarianism.) So I’m gonna get crackin’ here.

Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world!! (And while I was typing here, a little fruit fly landed in my coffee cup and had all the limp signs of being horribly drowned to death. But I scooped him out of the coffee with my fingertip, put him on the back of my hand, blew on him a little bit and then let him just dry out for awhile. And after several minutes, guess what? He came back to life, walked around on the back of my hand and then flew away! Tiny miracles everywhere, gang. You just gotta know where to look. And you’ve gotta make up your mind that you’re gonna see them when they happen!!)

So! I leave you with my listening-music from last evening!! Turn it up and just smile (or, you know, grab onto someone you’re super hot for & swing.) Have a great day. I love you guys. See ya!!

Talk About Living in Biblical Times!!

March 2, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Man. Now China is being urged to prepare for an invasion of a plague of locusts. I don’t even want to think about what’s coming next.

Well.

So, yesterday was interesting. Well, every day is interesting. Oh, first of all — we are sorry to say goodbye to our Booty Core Graduation Day photo!! Hopefully, you were able to peruse it to your heart’s content because it is now gone.

I saw my young deaf friend over the weekend and he asked if I had a facebook page and could he friend me. Without thinking, I said yes. And I even helped him do that — on his phone. Right there and then, on the spot. We became friends on facebook. And then, with alarming speed, he proceeded to look at every single one of my photos, 100% of which I could no longer even recall because I am almost never on facebook — but I assumed that if the photos were on chaste & friendly facebook, it was okay to look at them.

Still. The one photo he was drawn to like a moth to the proverbial flame, was the one of “my pretty necklace.” In fact, he said, “Oh, I really like your pretty necklace!”

I instantly remembered it. And it is a pretty necklace. I love that necklace. But the photo (10 years old already) was cropped to highlight the lovely necklace and remove the lovelies directly beneath it because I was completely topless in the original photo.

Which made me just sort of gasp, you know?

I had completely forgotten that my facebook page is a hop, skip & a jump to my website. Even though he can’t read — he is mentally handicapped — he very quickly got very fond of looking at my pictures and poking around on my facebook page. Judging by how he responded to the necklace photo, it didn’t seem like he would be likely to survive the Booty Core Graduation Day photo, should he discover it. And even though I was wearing a sports bra and black boy shorts in the Booty Core Graduation Day photo, the joy of that photo was that you couldn’t tell that!! At all! Not even a little bit!! I looked totally freakin’ naked!!

So I thought it best to just nip that in the bud. And I deleted the photo.

grumble grumble grumble. I loved that photo. But here’s the necklace, as a sort of consolation prize, in case you’re interested.

All righty. The main interesting thing that happened yesterday, is that I saw this guy that I almost never get to see and I really, really like him. I like to talk to him because he’s on his own intense planet. He’s about 30, smokes, he’s tatted-up, and he lives with a girl and they have a couple of really young kids. Toddlers. A boy and a girl.

But he owns a Hellcat, which is my dream car. I like him a lot, but I love that fucking car. He has told me for over a year now that I can drive it whenever I want to — try it out on the freeway here in Muskingum County, where the Sheriff never is, and I could go 200 mph.

I really, really want to do this. But so far, I haven’t taken him up on it. And part of it, I think, is because he’s the horniest guy on planet Earth (or that intense other planet he’s on), and also because, in my novel Blessed By Light, the main guy has sex with his naked girlfriend in the backseat of a Hellcat while his best friend is driving the car at 200 mph on a deserted freeway in the middle of the night.

I feel that were I actually to drive this guy’s Hellcat, with him in the car too being incredibly horny and 30 and me being just shy of 60, is setting us up for some sort of intense (although probably quite memorable) disaster. So, maybe someday I’ll just get my own Hellcat.

Anyway, I saw him briefly, yesterday. And really, out of nowhere, he said, “You’re really beautiful, you know that? Why you’re not married is just beyond me. If I were older, I’d scoop you right up.”

(Of course, I’m not sure where the girlfriend and the two toddlers would fit into that scenario, but anyway.)

I was completely taken aback, and I took it as the compliment it was meant to be, but that kind of statement is just so loaded, isn’t it? I mean, it implies that if I’m beautiful, I should be legally owned by somebody. And I just don’t really know how to respond to that. I know he didn’t mean it that way, but that’s how I respond inside.

But then he added, “Of course, maybe I don’t have to be older. I never did ask you how you actually feel about younger guys…”

Wow. Just fully loaded, right?? And on a Sunday. The Lord’s Day. I didn’t actually reply to that because I had no words. I just kind of smiled and walked away then. But think of it — I could be the proud owner of a Hellcat, by way of marriage & joint property, and have a couple of cute toddlers calling me “stepmom” on the weekends. And on every other holiday! Plus, he’s got money — he inherited it. So many possibilities for dreams to come true there and yet something’s just not quite right with that picture, but I can’t put my finger on it…

Honestly. I can’t. But something’s not right.

Okay. Today would have been Lou Reed’s 123rd birthday!! Or his 88th, or something like that. So I want to leave you with one of his songs. Probably my most favorite is “Walk on the Wild Side” since it was the first song I ever heard of his, and I was only 12 when I heard it (on my radio, alone in my room) and I was just blown away. (12 was just an amazing year for me; I guess that’s why I have sort of remained 12 all this time…)

But I’ve posted “Walk on the Wild Side” here on the blog a couple of times already. So I’m going to leave you with a couple of songs from an album of his that I really loved. The album was Growing Up in Public, from 1980. Just some really, really great songs on that one! Below are both the titular song, “Growing Up in Public,” and then “How Do You Speak to An Angel?” (Both of them, songs that spoke to my extreme shyness and heart-wrenching inability to let people know just how much I loved them.) (Things that I hope I’ve grown out of, at least a little bit.)

All righty. Thanks for visiting, gang. I’m gonna go hang with Thug Luckless now, see if I can make my way deeper into Chapter One. Have a cool Monday, wherever it takes you, okay? As always, I love you guys. See ya.

“Growing Up In Public”

Some people are into the power of power
The absolute corrupting power, that makes great men insane
While some people find their refreshment in action
The manipulation, encroachment and destruction of their inferiors

Growing up in public, growing up in public
Growing up in public, growing up in public with your pants down

Some people are into sadistic pleasures
They whet their desires and drool in your ears
They’re quasi-effeminate characters in love with oral gratification
They edify your integrities, so they can play on your fears

They’re gonna do you in public, ’cause you’re growing up in public
They’re gonna do it to you in public,
‘Cause you’re growing up in public with your pants down

Some people think being a man is unmanly
Some people think that the whole concept’s a joke
But some people think being a man is the whole point
And then some people wish they’d never awoke

Up from a dream of nightmarish proportions
Down to a size neither regal nor calm
A Prince Hamlet caught in the middle between reason and instinct
Caught in the middle with your pants down again

Caught in the middle, I’m really caught in the middle
I’m caught in the middle, caught in the middle deciding about you

c- 1980 Lou Reed

“How Do You Speak To An Angel”

A son who is cursed with a harridan mother
or a weak simpering father at best
Is raised to play out the timeless classical motives
of filial love and incest

How does he speak to a
How does he speak to the prettiest girl
How does he talk to her
What does he say for an opening line
What does he say if he’s shy

What do you do with your pragmatic passions
with your classically neurotic style
How do you deal with your vague self-comprehensions
what do you do when you lie

How do you speak to a
How do you speak to the prettiest girl
How do you speak to her
How do you dance on the head of a pin
When you’re on the outside looking in

How do you speak to a
How do you speak to the prettiest girl
How do you speak to a
How do you speak to the prettiest girl
How do you speak to a
How do you speak to the prettiest girl
How do you speak to a
How do you speak to the prettiest girl

How do you speak to a
How do you speak to the prettiest girl
How do you speak to a
How do you speak to the prettiest girl
You just say, Hello, (hello) Baby (hello)
…
Baby, angel, how do you talk to the prettiest girl, you say
Hello baby, hello baby, angel, angel, pretty little girl
Angel, angel ….

c – 1980 Lou Reed, Michael Fonfara

Just Another Joyful Little Morning in Crazeysburg!

March 1, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

All righty, gang. Things are really looking good over here. Day #2 out of the psychological morass, sometimes known as “moi.” (And thanks for all your emotional support — I really appreciate it, so much. I do.)

It’s quite freezing outside there in Crazeysburg, but it’s a sunny, sunny morning once again. Birds are still singing. It’s March 1st, and Spring is on its way.

I know it’s uppermost in your minds, so I want to start off by assuring you that I have managed to choose a suitable breakfast bowl/coffee mug/ juice glass combination to take me through until Easter, without actually purchasing more dishes.

That said, though, we’re not completely out of the woods yet, because, if I find myself in some sort of shopping location where dishes can be perused, I might peruse. We’ll see.

If life proceeds like it usually does, though, I won’t have time to go to any sort of store and shop. I don’t even understand what having that kind of free time even means!

Well, part of that is because I live a million light years away from any sort of “shopping area.” Because I guarantee you, when/if I do find myself in a place that sells dishes — even used dishes or vintage dishes in consignment shops — oh my god. That’s like heaven to me. The world stands still. Time stops. For instance, antique malls in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania? Holy McMoly!!They have the best stuff. I’m not going to have an orgasm over it or anything, but if, like, you’re there with me and offer to buy me a bunch of that stuff? Whoa. We will likely find ourselves in a position where orgasms for everybody are rapidly approaching on the multi-hued horizon.

‘Nuff said!!

(I am, of course, 90% not kidding…)

Okay!! Anyway.

So, a couple weeks ago, I made up this schedule for the Abstract Absurdity Productions web site, and how to best keep us on track if we wanted to launch a basic website with a companion YouTube channel by April 1st.

Luckily, a whole lot of the stuff on that To-Do list was in Peitor’s court!! Yay!! I could sit back and do nothing because I’d made the list!! And that part was (deceptively) easy to do!

However!! He appears to be really good at following schedules and timelines and To-Do lists, because a whole heck of a lot of stuff is now making it’s way into my inbox and on to my desk top and now I have to actually do something with it. Who the fuck has time for this??!!

Man! And who’s brilliant idea was this in the first place??!! It is amazing the amount of work I can create for myself. And truth be told — some of this stuff I asked him to send me — I don’t know how to fucking do this stuff! I only know that we need it.

So I’m sort of winging it, as they say. (He doesn’t read my blog so it’s okay — I can be perfectly candid here among my discreet and loyal readers.) And he is really appreciative.

HIM: “Thanks for taking care of all this stuff, Marilyn. I really appreciate it.”

ME (out loud): “No problem. ”

ME (not so loud): I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

(That’s not really true. I’ve been working on web sites since 1997 — and DON’T tell me that was long before you were born. However, that doesn’t mean I can figure out how to use all these “user friendly” templates that they have nowadays. It’s amazing how complicated they can now make “simple” stuff.) (And then if you need to click on the “?” button — man, the explanations there are even harder to figure out.)

But anyway. Eventually it all gets done. And we live/laugh/love in the process, right?? All I know is that when Peitor and I are working together, we have so much fun and that matters most to me. (I have had quite a few business partners in the past who were seriously not fun in any way, shape, or form, and so I know just how precious it is to have someone who simply respects me.) (And he has this sort of regal disposition that makes me have to keep my mind out of the gutter for a few hours at a time, and so the whole world benefits!)

And so — onward!

Okay. I’m not gonna tarry here this morning! Have a beautiful Sunday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang! I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from today — unlikely choice as it may seem for a sunny morning in Crazeysburg! But I fucking LOVE this song!!!!! “No Pussy Blues,” from Grinderman, 2007. (I love this whole album! I like Grinderman 2 — well, I love the songs themselves, but, man, is that album LOUD. It always makes me jump and then scurry for the volume control.) Anyway. Enjoy, gang!! Have a fun Sunday. I love you guys. See ya!

“No Pussy Blues”

My face is finished, my body’s gone.
And I can’t help but think, standing up here
in all this applause and gazing down
at all the young and the beautiful.
With their questioning eyes.
That I must above all things love myself.
That I must above all things love myself.
That I must above all things love myself.

I saw a girl in the crowd,
I ran over I shouted out,
I asked if I could take her out,
But she said that she didn’t want to.

I changed the sheets on my bed,
I combed the hairs across my head,
I sucked in my gut and still she said
That she just didn’t want to.

I read her Eliot, read her Yeats,
I tried my best to stay up late,
I fixed the hinges on her gate,
But still she just never wanted to.

I bought her a dozen snow-white doves,
I did her dishes in rubber gloves,
I called her Honeybee, I called her Love,
But she just still didn’t want to.
She just never wants to.
Damn!

I sent her every type of flower,
I played her guitar by the hour,
I patted her revolting little chihuahua,
But still she just didn’t want to.

I wrote a song with a hundred lines,
I picked a bunch of dandelions,
I walked her through the trembling pines,
But she just even then didn’t want to.
She just never wants to.

I thought I’d try another tack,
I drank a liter of cognac,
I threw her down upon her back,
But she just laughed and said
that she just didn’t want to.

I thought I’d have another go,
I called her my little ho,
I felt like Marcel Marceau
must feel when she said
that she just never wanted to.
She just didn’t want to.

I got the no pussy blues.
I got the no pussy blues.

I got the no pussy blues.

I got the no pussy blues.
I got the no pussy blues.
I got the no pussy blues.
I got the no pussy blues.

c – 2007 Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey, James Sclavunos

Bissextile Joy!!

February 29, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yes!! It’s Leap Day!! Yay!!!

And even though “bissextile” is a super happy-looking word because it immediately makes us think of bisexuals and how wonderfully exciting & full of possibilities they are — it really only refers to the Leap Year. (Which, of course, is also wonderfully exciting and full of possibilities, but only in that meager way where non-sexually-related things can ever seem “wonderfully exciting” or “full of possibilities.”)

Well, if I may be serious for just 4 seconds… It’s official. I went from pre-crisis to post-crisis without having an actual crisis, even though it took about 24 solid hours of exhausting brain work to manage it. I awoke at around 3am this morning and realized that the anxiety had passed without ever really taking root and that I was actually feeling happy and in a good place. That feeling that I needed to have a vice grip on my thoughts was over and my thoughts were just in a really clear space.

And what was even better, when I was down in the kitchen feeding the cats, etc., I had a sort of breakthrough thought — the distinct feeling that it wasn’t going to happen again, that something in my brain had finally really shifted. For real. It was a very pronounced feeling. I’ve come through these episodes feeling stronger each time that it’s happened over the last 5 months or so, but this time, I don’t know — it just felt like it was really over. (Meaning that this emotional trigger I have is done, played out, over.)

I still have some work to do on, I don’t know what to call it — “who I am”. But I just feel totally different today.

And then I switched to my Easter dishes! Already! (At this rate, I’ll be using my Christmas dishes again by the 4th of July!) I doubt I’m actually going to keep using them all the way up until Easter, I just wanted something really sunny and yellow at the breakfast table this morning (it was still pitch dark outside). So I decided to go ahead and use them.

But what I also detected –lurking deep inside myself somewhere — was a desire to perhaps maybe — yes — buy some more dishes!! I really want something cheerful and I don’t want to be using my Easter dishes for like, 6 weeks before Easter.

Of course, I could perhaps peruse the 17,000 dishes I already own and maybe discover a set of cheerful dishes I’d totally forgotten I had. God knows that’s happened before! But we’ll see. Something new might be just really wonderful.

Well, the script work with Peitor was very good yesterday, but also very much like that neurosurgery thing. Where each word, every shot, was under a microscope. We worked for a few hours and we were still on the same page that we’d started on at the beginning of the session. However, we brought our main character in through the door and across the room and standing where he needs to be standing when he finally says his first line of (killer) dialogue.

But at that point, we came to a little impasse because Peitor was seeing that specific shot (with the line of dialogue) differently than I was, so we had to just totally stop and really think about it.

ME: “We need to keep this completely seamless here or we’ll lose the erotic energy of that line.”

HIM: “No. We need to break out of that POV, just for a moment, create a breath, a space, and then come right back. Something Luis Bunuel.”

ME (thinking this, not saying it because saying it would have only been indescribably petulant at that moment): “Should we just slice the guy’s eye? That’ll create some emotional space.” (Un Chien Andalou, 1929)

But, yes! — you can be proud of me; I did not say that. It would have gone nowhere fast. Instead, I said something like, “I don’t agree with what you want to do here but if you feel that strongly about it, let’s just explore that direction.” (I was really mature for a wee bonny lass of 12.)

And so then we explored it, and we made a little progress but ultimately we left it right at that line of dialogue yesterday and will resume on Tuesday. (But I did text him at about 6:03am this morning, my time zone, to urgently point out: “We forgot to have him take off that white trench coat!”)

It seems pretty clear, though, that the destiny of Abstract Absurdity Productions is that great & lofty art museums all over the world will one day include our work in their future exhibitions of Little Known Cinematic Masterpieces of the Early 21st Century Short-Subject Film Movement. Because, man, this stuff we’re doing is just fucking insane. And it is taking forever.

All righty. Well. Today will be about yoga, washing my hair, and just feeling happy. Sort of maybe even triumphant — I’m actually getting to that place where I can believe that I’m not only allowed to be alive, but that I can also have more than just the tiniest existence. I can feel that I’m still taking these mental baby steps. Still, it’s all right. I think the idea that I wanted to buy more dishes today was sort of a breakthrough, too. You know, like: I don’t give a fuck that I already have a million dishes; the reality is that I want more. So we’ll see.

And then I’ll also probably write something!

So, have a great Saturday, wherever you are in the world! I hope you have that breakthrough you need– if, indeed, you are seeking one! Thanks for visiting, gang. I’m still in that awkward listening-space of “Babe, You Turn Me On” at night and “Take Five” in the morning (!!), so you can either scroll over to yesterday’s post and/or the post from the day before and listen to those amazing songs again. Or, I could leave you with this.

When I was about 4 years old, I had the soundtrack to this — the Broadway cast of the musical, Peter Pan. And I loved this lullaby, “Distant Melody”. It made me think of my “real” mother — my birth mom. I was always trying to remember who she was, even all the way back then.

This song used to make me believe that I could somehow remember what she felt like — to be held by her. Even though I was told that I was created by accident — born by accident — I knew, even in my tiny little bones, that my real mother loved me and wanted me back. (And I was right.) All righty. I love you guys. See ya!

“Distant Melody”

[Spoken]:
Peter? Do you know a lullaby to sing to our children?
Lullaby? Lullaby.
I think so.
Sometimes, late at night I seem to remember…

[Sung]:
Once upon a time and long ago,
I heard someone singing soft and low.
Now when day is done and night is near,
I recall a song I used to hear.

My child, my very own,
Don’t be afraid you’re not alone.
Sleep until the dawn for all is well.

Long ago this song was sung to me.
Now it’s just a distant melody.
Somewhere from the past I used to know,
Once upon a time and long ago.

c – 1954 Leigh/Comden/Green

A Bright Snowy Morning in Crazeysburg!!

February 28, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis 2 Comments

Yes, it is a really sunny morning out there today. Here’s what it looks like outside one of my bedroom windows right now:

The intersection of Basin and First Streets at 8am.

Just a really pretty morning here, even though it snowed a little during the night. (And the birds are still singing, despite the snow!)

You want to know something else that’s really charming that my neighbors know about me? I never shovel the fucking snow!! Yay!! Because I have the longest sidewalk in the entire town. And I am not making that up! I actually have the longest fucking sidewalk in the entire town — the one that runs from the front corner of my house all the way to the back edge of my barn. So it’s not fair to ask me to shovel that, when everyone else in town only has to shovel, like, a 3-foot long thing. Plus, God does this thing called “melting it eventually” so I choose to rely on that. (It’s similar to that thing God does wherein He provides wind to blow all my un-raked leaves away — or into neighboring yards.)

But, of course, there are those smarty-pants people who like to point out that if someone falls and breaks their back on my snowy sidewalk, I could get sued! But if it ever really gets that bad out there, I will put out my sign that says: CAUTION: ICY!! WALK AT YOUR OWN RISK BECAUSE I AIN’T F*CKING SHOVELING THIS STUFF! And under that, the handy NRA-member logo:

Don’t Shovel!! Make America Great Again!!

I am, of course, just kidding. I am not a member of the NRA. I don’t own any guns at all. (If you aren’t an American — the NRA is a very powerful political gun lobby here in the USA, and membership in the NRA implies that you own many licensed guns and are more than happy to use them and that your aim is probably spot-on.)

Still, I’m not kidding about not shoveling…

Anyway!!

Life’s good here in Crazeysburg. I hope it’s good where you’re at, too.

This morning is another one of those Abstract Absurdity Productions script-writing days. We are headlong into Scene 5 now. I don’t expect us to finish writing Scene 5 today because that would be really out of character for us — the scene is a good 60 seconds long. But I do expect it to be really fun because it is just a very, very weird scene. It’s the scene that the whole movie leads up to and then gently falls away from as it trickles to its lofty end. (Or “fin” — as they say in so many film-languages.)

In case you’re interested, gang, yesterday was my first day back doing yoga after 3 weeks of doing Booty Core. I could not believe the difference in the strength in my body.

I don’t do any complicated yoga poses, because mostly I just want to maintain flexibility. But I do headstands, and I couldn’t believe the difference in my arms. And also — as I mentioned a couple weeks ago — in my neck. And I love to do elbow planks and I am suddenly really good at that. (Not that planks are part of yoga, I’m just saying that I like doing those.)

So even though Booty Core got really challenging for me, it made a huge difference. So I will keep doing it.

However, I did have a weird pain issue in my legs again last night. And I’m thinking it’s probably psychosomatic. Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt are aware that I am the kind of person who is always always trying to stay alive. I’ve been plagued by a lifetime of suicidal tendencies — that I don’t believe adequately define who I really am. It’s just that my brain was taught, when I was really little, that I didn’t deserve to exist — that my existence was merely being tolerated, for now — and that it would be preferable if I didn’t exist.

So my brain’s fallback position, when I’m feeling stressed about something, is to try to negate my existence. I honestly think my brain thinks it’s doing me a favor — or at least, it’s doing what it was taught it was supposed to do. (And I’m making a huge differentiation here between my brain and my mind. My brain is this sort of machine set on automatic, whereas my mind is this amazing, wide-ranging, free-spirited energetic-essence type thing. So it’s a case of my Mind vs. my Brain.)

But I really have been plagued by this brain of mine for decades. And one of my life-long triggers — something I constantly have to deal with in my personality, which involves believing in a lack of love — is hovering out there on my horizon and I just simply refuse to deal with it anymore, you know? I’m just done. I am so fucking done dealing with this shit.

But it means that every single time my brain tells me that “I don’t deserve love, I deserve to die” I have to get in there and replace it with a better thought. It’s a type of addiction — you have to reprogram your brain to respond to something else. And it is fucking exhausting.

I don’t want to spend any additional time thinking about my adoptive parents and how damaging they wound up being to me. I only want my brain to stop doing this. Like, now. I’m so over it. Every single damn day I deal with it, but it only gets really bad when a trigger thing starts happening. And a trigger thing is hovering, so now I’m not only trying to reprogram my brain, but totally eradicate the trigger, too. So that the triggers don’t exist anymore, either.

Anyway, I did really really good yesterday. But by mid-evening, I was just exhausted from it. That feeling, like, why doesn’t somebody just shoot this girl, and put her out of her misery once and for all? Which, of course, goes against everything I was working so hard on during the day!!

And then I noticed the extreme pain in my legs attempting to return — maybe a way for my body to say: we’re going to pull the whole world out from under you, starting with your legs. So, at that point, the only really productive thing I can do is go to bed and start again in the morning. (Meaning, here we are again.)

It’s just so frustrating. When it comes to everyone else on Earth — for instance, YOU, whoever you are, reading this right now — I completely believe that you deserve to be loved, that you are loved and that you deserve to live. It’s just a given inside me. I believe that about you without even knowing who you are, how you’ve lived, what you do or think about.

But to believe it about me, is extremely difficult. It is a 24/7 job. Or maybe an 18/7 job, because when I’m sleeping, I’m just fine. And most of the time, nowadays, I am sort of fine. I’ve made so much progress out here alone in the Hinterlands. But when I’m facing a trigger point, if it gets out of control, I do actually get suicidal and I absolutely refuse to go there. So then it becomes like a job. And I just feel, like, oh fuck, here we go again.

However, it was really good to notice what my legs did when my thoughts changed last night. So I’m going to keep that in mind.

And I also woke up feeling like I really did make progress yesterday. Because, you know, my life doesn’t have to be some huge tidal wave of joy washing over me for me to feel like living. Just tiny baby steps in the direction of joy is enough. It really is. Because it builds from there.

So waking up to a couple of texts from Peitor on my phone. And opening the blinds and seeing more snow. And going down to the kitchen to be greeted by 7 crazy happy healthy cats. And turning on the CD player — the Dave Brubeck Quartet greeting me again with “Take Five.” A couple of my favorite little pictures of Nick Cave scattered there on my kitchen table. And then plugging in the coffee pot.

Little joys.

That makes for a really good morning. Because then my thoughts can move from there to the larger joys — the plays going into production now, the production company with Peitor, the books I’m still writing, the words going out there into the world, and the best Muse I’ve ever had in my life. And new people I’m meeting. And traveling this year — it starts to turn into a really good day.

So I gotta scoot!! I have stuff to get organized here at my desk before Peitor calls. I leave you with my listening-music from last evening, before the legs went. I’ve posted this song here before, but I just love it. The imagery. The melody. How it goes to such enigmatic places. “Babe, You Turn me On,” from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Abattoir Blues/ The Lyre of Orpheus, 2004. Enjoy!! I love you guys. See ya!

“Babe, You Turn Me On”

Stay by me, stay by me
You are the one, my only true love

The butcher bird makes it’s noise
And asks you to agree
With it’s brutal nesting habits
And it’s pointless savagery
Now, the nightingale sings to you
And raises up the ante
I put one hand on your round ripe heart
And the other down your panties

Everything is falling, dear
Everything is wrong
It’s just history repeating itself
And babe, you turn me on

Like a light bulb
Like a song

You race naked through the wilderness
You torment the birds and the bees
You leapt into the abyss, but find
It only goes up to your knees
I move stealthily from tree to tree
I shadow you for hours
I make like I’m a little deer
Grazing on the flowers

Everything is collapsing, dear
All moral sense has gone
It’s just history repeating itself
And babe, you turn me on

Like an idea
Like an Atom bomb

We stand awed inside a clearing
We do not make a sound
The crimson snow falls all about
Carpeting the ground

Everything is falling, dear
All rhyme and reason gone
It’s just history repeating itself
And, babe, you turn me on

Like an idea
Like an Atom bomb

c – 2004 Nick Cave

Yay! More Snow!!

February 27, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

It’s not really snowing that much here today, but it is snowing, and mostly I just love that Louis Wain illustration. It just cracks me up. So there we go!

Okay.

Yes, it’s another one of those mornings. Taking me forever to plant myself in front of the computer and get started.

Before I forget, there was another one of those really funny, extremely short promotional clips on Instagram today to promote Nick Cave’s upcoming art exhibition in Copenhagen. God, I wish I could go! I was on the Black Diamond site, reading about it last evening and it sounded just so cool. (Actually, I think the link I have there to the Nick Cave website has the same information that’s on the Black Diamond site. But for some reason, reading it on my phone, late in the evening, on another site, made it seem like I hadn’t read it before.)

Anyway. It sounds so cool. And even with my unfortunate marital-memories of Copenhagen (meaning my decision to get a divorce), I do love Copenhagen.

Actually, Wayne & I had a nice time in Copenhagen, all things considered. I had gotten a really nice book advance from a publisher in London and so I was able to surprise Wayne with that entire trip at the last minute — it was my gift to him for Valentine’s Day that year. We always traveled really well together because we were always good friends. We didn’t work well together as married people, but we were always good friends.

And at that specific juncture in my life, I felt like I had totally lost my mojo, you know? It’s a distinct feeling — when the magic is just gone. And I don’t mean from the marriage, I mean the magic was gone from myself. I couldn’t function as a married person. I couldn’t figure out who the fuck I was. My career had taken over everything.

Of course, now I have swung my pendulum in the other direction and my career is all that there is. I’ve been extremely careful to weed out as many actual people from my life as I possibly could. I’m only being partially sarcastic, really. I mean, I did it for a reason. I had just so much toxic stuff going on in my life because of things I was refusing to look at involving my adoptive family. And when my adoptive mother finally disowned me, I had no choice but to finally look at it.

And then, of course, you see the patterns — the other toxic relationships you’ve maybe created because it seems to be the only thing you know how to do. Narcissistic mothers are a real trip — the damage they do to your ability to know how to be loved.

I was lucky in that I conveniently had this other mother — my birth mom; who doesn’t have a narcissistic bone in her body, and just loves me no matter what. Like, all I have to do is wake up in the morning and she loves me. However, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I actually know how to be loved yet. I’m working on it, though. It’s taking me a while.

I don’t actually define myself through my work, my writing. But I do love doing it and it’s the only thing I will leave behind, since I have no kids or anything.

This morning, I was lying in bed in the dark, thinking about marriage — what it means, technically. How it went from a strictly legal arrangement — to join property, and to create heirs to the property, to whatever wealth might have been involved. And then it morphed slightly when the church got involved. And the church only got involved because the priest in any given town was usually the most educated person around, often the only person who could even read, or help anyone navigate the legal documents. The legal arrangements of marriage were overseen by the priest in the church’s front portico — a structural part of churches that was meant specifically for doing business in.

(And churches aside, it used to be that part of the wedding ceremony, after the legal documents were signed, was that the wedding guests accompanied the bride and groom to the conjugal bed, to witness if the bride was actually a virgin, and to witness the loss of virginity thing that sealed the whole deal.) (I’m really glad we don’t do that anymore. I didn’t even know half the people at my wedding to Wayne.) (Not that I was anything close to a virgin at either of my weddings. But I’m just saying.)

It wasn’t until the Romantic era came in, in the late 1700s, that people got that notion that they wanted to be married in the eyes of God, and to even include love in a marriage. At that point, marriages took on a separate non-legal ceremony, deeper inside the actual church. And to have a church wedding became a really big deal. And to marry for love became a very popular idea.

So there you have it. Marriage. But I was thinking of it specifically because the part of Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary that I watched last night was just so sad — about Charlie Parker’s little 2-year-old daughter, dying suddenly from pneumonia in NYC while he was away doing some gigs in LA. His wife was alone when their little girl died. He got back to NY as quickly as he could but the whole thing just devastated him. And he, himself, died soon after that. He couldn’t cope with his grief. His body just gave out. The coroner thought he was examining the corpse of a 50 year-old, but Charlie Parker was only 34 when he died. A lifetime of heroin addiction and serious alcohol abuse.

This morning, I was thinking about his poor wife — they had a little boy, too, that she had to raise alone. But to survive the death of her little girl, and then the death of her husband? How did she do that? (They interviewed her in the documentary.) And he didn’t have any money, ever. Because of the heroin addiction — it took everything. (Like that old John Prine song, “Sam Stone” — There’s a hole in daddy’s arm/ where all the money goes…)

Anyway. I was thinking about marriage this morning and trying to understand why I have always just been so opposed to it, you know? Because I’m not opposed to loving someone until the cows come home or to fidelity or to romance or to the idea that I could, seriously, love a man for a lifetime. It’s just the marriage idea itself that confounds me. (And also, even though a lot of men asked me to marry them in my lifetime, the two proposals I accepted were the weirdest ones, ever. In entirely different ways. I guess that because I was so taken aback, I decided to say yes because it seemed really interesting — like, the marriage was going to be interesting. Who the fuck knows what I was thinking because I was wrong both times. That much I do know. They were “interesting” in just really bad ways.)

I know that part of my inability to know how to be loved has been really damaging to me, and I’ve been working on trying to fix that for a couple of years now. But in the whole act of trying to process it, I’ve shifted almost my entire focus into my work. And this morning, I was just wondering there in the dark: is this really all I’m going to do with my life? Just work, and never trust anybody to love me at all?

I like to think “no” but I just don’t really understand anything, when you get right down to it. Nothing at all.

But on that note — guess what I’m gonna do??? I’m gonna get to work over here!!

I hope you have a really great Thursday, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning — a record that was definitely part of my wee bonny girlhood! (I don’t think my parents ever took me to see Dave Brubeck, but I do remember that a couple of times, when I was a really little girl, they took me and my brother with them to see Stan Getz and Chet Baker.) Anyway, I leave you with “Take Five” from their seminal album from 1959, Time Out. Enjoy. I love you guys. See ya!

Yes, We’ve Had A Fun Day!

February 26, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

All righty! I’m back.

If you saw my post from this afternoon, after I officially finished Booty Core, and my digital instructor instructed us to take photos of our new post-Booty Core physiques — well, that photo has nothing whatsoever to do with Booty Core because apparently I still never do what instructors tell me to do. And I couldn’t duplicate that photo again if I tried, gang! So hang on to it for future reference, because I don’t actually really look like that…

Well, the new contracts for Tell My Bones are done and off in the mail. Finally. And I’m not going to tell you how many rights I chose to give away, in order to get them to sign that darn thing, but you know what? I really, really just need my play and all things connected to my play (and my previous screenplay that it’s derived from) so I’m good. It’s all okay.

And I’ve been working on Thug Luckless: Welcome To P-Town. So it’s been a good day.

I’m a little concerned that the IRS wrote to me today and informed me that they took $30 from my 2019 tax refund that I had apparently owed since 2013.

Is that insane, or what? Jesus. Thirty bucks. Seven years later. What the hell? I sure hope it helps improve our nations highways and educational systems. Whatever. It still felt kind of scary. Like, how did you just now discover that? What else is lurking out there for me in IRS land? I should call my accountant and demand answers!! But I won’t. I’m just moving forward. They got their money.

And FYI: everybody wants more money this year! Not only did my new (leased) car payment leap up wildly, but my cell phone went up, my Internet went up, my healthcare cooperative nearly doubled. It’s fucking insane. And according to a new alarming blog post at the Copyright Alliance site today, you’ve got to be out of your fucking mind to be an author anymore because book pirating is through the roof all over the darn world. (As I can sadly attest to, when Ribbon of Darkness got illegally downloaded in a torrent about 3000 times in 10 minutes this past fall. Something horrible like that.) But you know — what am I gonna do? Not write books? So on we go, right?

If you are able to view the music player in your browser (you have to turn your phone sideways, if you view this blog on your phone), you will see that I switched out the music again. I have posted this song before, but in a 1984 demo version. This one is a 1993 demo that I’d forgotten all about! It’s full of fiddles and steel guitar — and a piano! I have no idea who’s playing that. And I’m singing like an angel. Honestly, I have some sort of angelic vocal thing happening there. So that totally shocked me, but I decided to post it here to the blog. It actually starts with a 45-second dobro guitar intro, and then the actual song begins, if you feel like listening to it.

[Update: apparently that dobro intro de-materialized somehow.]

And I also apparently cleaned up the lyrics — no mention of orgasms in this version. We changed “coming” to “dreaming.” So if you’re at all sensitive to stuff that the human body does (and if you are, I can’t imagine how you’ve found yourself at this particular blog), but anyway — it’s safe and sanitized today! We have forfeited our orgasms for the safety of dreams!

All righty. I hope you guys have a great night — or a good morning, if you’re somewhere really far from Crazeysburg! Thanks for visiting! Enjoy, gang. I love you guys. See ya.

Another Favorite Poem

February 26, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

from my wee bonny 16-year-old girlhood!

POEM
“A la recherche de Gertrude Stein”

When I am feeling depressed and anxious sullen
all you have to do is take your clothes off
and all is wiped away revealing life’s tenderness
that we are flesh and breathe and are near us
as you are really as you are I become as I
really am alive and knowing vaguely what is
and what is important to me above the intrusions
of incident and accidental relationships
which have nothing to do with my life

when I am in your presence I feel life is strong
and will defeat all its enemies and all of mine
and all of yours and yours in you and mine in me
sick logic and feeble reasoning are cured
by the perfect symmetry of your arms and legs
spread out making an eternal circle together
creating a golden pillar beside the Atlantic
the faint line of hair dividing your torso
gives my mind rest and emotions their release
into the infinite air where since once we are
together we always will be in this life come what may

Frank O’Hara (date unknown)

She’s Sort of A Great Big Blank Today!

February 26, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I’ve been up for hours already, and I actually got a lot done. Even shaved my legs, which was sort of a monumental undertaking this time. (I’d been putting it off for days.) (And days.) (Maybe even as much as a week.) (Or two.)

Anyway. Got it done.

It’s a strange , intensely foggy morning here in Crazeysburg, but the birds were singing so rambunctiously while I was meditating this morning, that I finally had to stop and simply lie on my bed and listen to them. So beautiful. So joyous. And this was with all the windows closed, on a sort of chilly, foggy morning.

It brought to mind just how loud it gets when the warmer spring weather finally comes and the windows are open. It’s like you can hear every single bird in Muskingum County, by 4:45am.

And then I thought, So. What am I gonna write today? And I realized I was sort of a great big blank.

Work with Peitor went great yesterday. Even though I have a lot of work to do on the Abstract Absurdity Productions website and the whole production company thing has turned into a massive undertaking, I am feeling really good about all of it.

And yesterday, I toyed some more with the idea of somehow taking my TV pilot project for Cleveland’s Burning and turning it into more of a theatrical adaptation for the stage. (Loyal readers of this lofty blog perhaps recall that the one veteran African-American actor who was interested in attaching to the pilot, died suddenly this past summer, so I am sort of still at square one with that.) (And even while the executive in charge of programming at a mega-TV-streaming company out in LA wants to hear my pitch, she has already assured me that she doesn’t care what kind of a great writer I am, she won’t hear the pitch if no one significant is attached yet.)

So anyway, I’ve been sort of turning that project over in my mind (in all my free time) — wondering if maybe it might be better served, for now, on the stage. And I know for sure that there’s a theatrical producer in LA right now looking for this exact kind of project. And even though I have absolutely no clue at this point how I would adapt it, it did seem like a really great idea to take on a new project!! I’m only juggling about seventeen hundred right now.

Then, of course, I thought, Perhaps I should back off of that idea and look at all this other stuff that’s on my plate.

So I’ve been doing that here this morning. Looking at all the projects that are on my plate, I mean. Trying to figure out which direction I want to go in here.

Oh, on another topic altogether — Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds announced yesterday that a show in Milwaukee has been added to the North American tour this fall. Tickets go on sale today, I think. You can see the details here.

Meanwhile, I guess it’s just one of those weird days. I slept great. I feel great. All is right with my world. I have no chores that need doing. I have the entire day & evening ahead of me, within which to create some sort of masterpiece, and now I just have to figure out what that will be. I have no clue. Nothing is calling out to me — except a theatrical adaptation of Cleveland’s Burning. How wonderful.

Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary is at last winding down. Last evening, I watched the episode that sort of focused on the devastation that heroin wreaked on jazz musicians in the late 1940s into the 1950s. That was really gut-wrenching. The show maintains that a lot of jazz musicians (both black and white) wanted to be like Charlie Parker so they started taking heroin in hopes that they would become more like him. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but that’s what the documentary puts forth.

(Charlie Parker became an addict back in the 1930s, when he was in a terrible car accident in Kansas City at age 17. In the hospital, they kept him on a massive dose of morphine and, apparently, he had some sort of epiphany there about music and his saxophone. He came out of the hospital a completely & utterly changed musician with a changed personality, and also with a drug habit that lasted a lifetime.)

Anyway. It was not a cheery episode. Plus it also began looking at the extreme racial problems in America after WWII and how the militant attitudes of the young black Americans made them turn on the older black jazz musicians, seeing them as Uncle Toms since white people liked their music.

Just a big sad mess.

Not too different from today, of course. America can be just so damn rigid. So racist on all sides, against all races, while there are always people trying, often with equal inflexibility, to fight it. It feels like that’s just a part of America that never goes away.

Still, it’s been a really great documentary. Each episode always gives me so much to think about. As if I need more to think about… For me, just the past decade has been an interesting journey, being a white woman, a writer, undertaking a number of African- American projects. I’ve got three projects right now that are essentially comprised of entirely African-American casts; 2 of them I wrote myself and one of them, I’m a co-writer on. So far, I haven’t had to deal with too many objections about my race — sometimes a raised eyebrow, but that’s it. Still, it’s there — an undercurrent of “but you’re white.”

Anyway. On that note, I need to think about what I’m going to work on today. I hope Wednesday is full of all sorts of interesting ideas for you, gang, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting. I’m leaving you with this stunning, timeless song. I used to sing this song to Mikey Rivera, back in the days when we were in love, lying together in bed, he in my arms, both of us worn out from life, wondering how the hell we were going to survive in New York City after 9/11.

And talk about racist — man, NYC was brutal to us; me being so white and him being so Puerto Rican. And that was already in the 21st Century. Eventually, of course, we left the city behind.

Anyway, here you go. A truly lovely version of “Somewhere,” from West Side Story (yeah, written by a white guy) (heavy sigh). All righty. I love you guys. See ya.