Excerpts 6 & 7: Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse

February 12, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

These are slightly different from the “Letters” so far. They are more esoteric & about love, really. Plus, these are still in progress. They include some sexually explicit passages, though, so be forewarned. Thanks!!

*************************************************

Captivity

We are not prisoners, and yet we are. Everyone knows this.

When I awake, the sky over me is a deep summer blue – it is just before dawn.

I’m in a sleeping bag, on the banks of a creek. It’s late August; I’m 15. The boy has been dead for exactly one year now and I have survived. No one cares that he died or that he’s been dead one year. No one cares about anything at all, really. Except for their own problems. Their own worlds. And why they’re stuck here.

Suddenly, the nurses are herding us out of our sleeping bags, even though it is so early. They are ordering us back into the van. Someone has escaped during the night – a 15-year-old boy from Cleveland. How is he going to make it all the way back there? we all wonder. Hitchhike, I guess. So, our sleepout is over and we are being returned to more secure grounds – safer for the nurses in charge of other people’s teenagers, maybe, but not for us. Nothing is safe for us.

* * *

I would rather take a moment or a lifetime to remain on the banks of the creek and think. To be free under the sky, away from all the locked doors, locked windows of unbreakable glass, locked drawers and cabinets. The locked telephone.

Free from the threat of the locked room with its padded walls and the thin mattress on a cold metal bed frame – an overhead light that’s always dim but that never goes out. A little window in the door where the dour face of the night nurse peers in. And another window way up at the highest point in the wall, where only the uppermost branches of some distant tree can be seen. A tormenting reminder that life is still free out there, somewhere, and I can’t get at it.

But I will never see the creek again.

Of course, there is still sky back on the secured grounds. There is sky everywhere. But the free part – and to feel alone? Alone in the bathroom, the shower, the bedroom, in the dining hall, or in the TV room. Because I have tried to kill myself, I am no longer allowed to be alone anywhere. And to be alone under the sky? That is a privilege now – one that only those who are certain they are wanted in the world are permitted to experience for very long.

* * *

I have traded one boy for another: A dead boy for a boy with a cloudy cataract obscuring his left eye. Behind the cloudy cataract, his eyes are blue, his hair blond. Just like the dead boy’s. He’s Irish Catholic, too. Like the dead boy was. But this boy is alive and as horny as anything I’ve ever seen. Almost as horny as me.

We sort of get along. But we argue; we’re frustrated. We’re young and locked up in a fucking loony bin – why wouldn’t we be frustrated?

* * *

What frightens me is the violence. I’m terrified of violence – even the threat of it. The girls can be mean and they think it’s funny to threaten other new girls in the shower. Even if they never follow through on it, they get off on the fear. And the fear is real: every girl in that place has been raped at least once in the outside world, so why wouldn’t they be scared? It makes me angry that the girls do that in the showers, when everyone’s vulnerable, but there’s nothing I can do about it but watch.

And the security staff; they’re frightening – five of them will gang up on one girl or one guy if they refuse to take their medication anymore. They’ll pin the trapped patient to a wall, pull down his or her pants, and then jab them in the ass with a needle full of Thorazine.

Before the needle goes into them, there’s a lot of screaming, shouting; a lot of fighting to get free. I hate that the most – watching the struggle, the fight for dear life, while we all just stand around and watch their pants come down. Silent. Terrified. Maybe that will be us next time. And then the patient gets hauled off to the padded room. A lot of chairs and some desks getting knocked over, nurses darting, pens and papers flying – anything that might be in the way of five grown men dragging one flailing teenager down a long hall.

* * *

Back on that creek, in that sleeping bag alone, in the peace of dawn arriving – I was talking to somebody in my head – I was. I think, now, that it was you.

I was so lonely, and knew I would always be lonely; it was my destiny. I didn’t want to keep going, but I knew they were going to force me to.

* * *

Everybody masturbates, every night. It gets out of control.

Bernadette, my roommate, calls to me from her bed and wakes me in the middle of the night. “Get the nurse,” she says.

“Why?”

Her glass deodorant bottle is stuck up inside her vagina and she can’t get it out.

I go get the night nurse from the nurse’s station. The night nurse gets pissed-off at Bernadette. She wishes she didn’t have the night shift. Locked up in a building full of horny teenagers.

And crazy. We’re all fucking crazy.

* * *

One afternoon, I’m in the day room. It’s still summer. There are a few boys in there with me, and a couple of girls. The boys are talking about sex.

The blue-eyed, blond-haired Catholic boy tells another boy that he knows how to make girls come. With his mouth.

The other boy doesn’t believe it. I’m not sure I believe it. But I’m just sitting there. Quietly. Listening to them. Wondering about stuff. Guys have licked my pussy before, even grown men have, but nobody – except me, with my own fingers – has ever made me come.

And then it turns into a dare. The boy dares the blue-eyed, blond boy to make a girl come – right there, right then. “Marilyn” – he says. “Make Marilyn come. I’ll keep a lookout so that you don’t get caught.”

I was startled. I didn’t say anything. The blue-eyed, blond boy came over to me and said, “Is it all right if I make you come?”

He was so cute. I already knew I liked him. “I guess,” I said. And there, in front of everyone, he pulled down my shorts, my underpants; he got between my legs and then, almost instantly – in front of everyone – I had my first orgasm in a boy’s mouth.

Wow.

I tried to stay quiet while it was happening – I didn’t want us to get caught. But it was nearly impossible. I’d never felt anything like it. I squealed. And my whole body shook.

The girls were jealous and got pissed-off. “You shouldn’t let him pull your shorts down in front of everybody like that.”

The boys, though, were impressed. They came over to look at me – at it – between my legs. “How did you do that?” they wanted to know. He touched my wet clit with his fingertip. “This,” he said. “You just lick it a lot.”

I was the luckiest girl alive. I was really going to like that boy.

* * *

All the security staff wore their keys clipped to their belt loops. They all jingled when they walked. You could always hear them coming a mile away.

Thank god.

And I took to not wearing any underpants under my shorts, just to make it that much simpler, that much quicker, to have oral sex.

One afternoon, someone finally told on me and some nurses took me to my room. “Take your pants down,” they said.

“Why?”

“We heard that you don’t wear underwear. That you’re having sex. Take down your pants.”

Awkward.

So I took down my pants while they all watched. Thank God – and all the saints and saviors known to man – that day I’d worn my underpants.

The nurses were not amused.

* * *

I was not amused when they sent me to the staff gynecologist.

I hadn’t done anything. Well, I hadn’t had intercourse with anybody. In the examining room, I refused to take off my clothes until the nurse there absolutely forced me to. But it wasn’t fair. I hadn’t done anything.

The doctor was nice to me, though. He actually talked to me – like I was a person; a girl with feelings. No one at that place had spoken to me like that. No one there had any patience with me. No one ever really wanted to know what was wrong – why I would have tried to kill myself. Nobody knew that my boyfriend had died, or that I’d been raped. They sent me to a building every weekday afternoon to sand wood. For no reason at all; just sand blocks of wood for a couple of hours.

It turned out, they were trying to make me angry – to get me to open up, to talk. But they never asked me any real questions.

I’d already been through hell. If that hadn’t made me angry, nothing was going to get me there. I was living in an apartment with an adoptive mother who was angry enough for everyone on Earth – no one else’s anger was ever allowed. Nobody ever just talked to me – no adults, anyway. Even the psychiatrist they’d assigned me there at the mental hospital, sat and stared at me for the entire hour of my sessions. He said nothing, so I said nothing.

The gynecologist was the only adult to that point in my life who ever simply talked to me. Even though I was just wearing a sheet and he was fully clothed, I trusted him enough to give him the answers he needed.

“Have you been to a gynecologist before?”

“No.”

“Are you a virgin?”

“No.”

“Is there any reason why I should be worried that you might be pregnant right now?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“When was your last period?”

“I’m having it now.”

“Right now? You’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“When did you lose your virginity?”

“Almost two years ago.”

“And how old are you now – 15?”

“Yes.”

He was noticeably dismayed. “You’re saying you lost your virginity when you were only 13?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know the boy?”

“No, I had just met him that day, but it was a man…”

And then the doctor said something I had never heard before. He said, “That man should have known better. He should never have touched you. He should have just let you alone. It’s criminal, what he did; you know that, don’t you?”

I didn’t know. But the doctor never gave me a chance to explain that I was the one who had begged the man to do it. That I hadn’t wanted to be a virgin for even a single moment longer, and that I didn’t want to see the man again because I was in love with a boy. A boy who steered clear of virgins. A boy who meant everything to me, and who had died.

Still, the gynecologist was kind. He said to me, “You don’t need to be here. I’m not going to put you through this – your life’s been hard enough. But you have to swear to me that there’s no way on Earth you could be pregnant right now, because if I let you leave here without examining you and you’re pregnant – I’m going to lose my job. And let me tell you something – you’ve been honest with me, so I’ll be honest with you. I’m an alcoholic. I’m in AA now, but I haven’t always been. And because of that, it’s not easy for me to practice medicine. I don’t want to lose this job.”

I knew for sure I wasn’t pregnant. And I assured him of that. And so he let me get dressed and leave.

Maybe in his eyes, I was too young, but I did know all about sex. The really bad stuff and the sometimes-okay stuff. And I knew that oral sex was not where babies came from.

* * *

I had a problem with drugs, too. No one at the hospital knew that, either, because no one asked me.

In the hospital, I was far away from my mother, and far from the boys at school, so I didn’t need to take pills. I didn’t even think about them. But at home, I would take as many as 7 or 8 sleeping pills at once, just to get through the day. On really difficult days, I would take as many as 15 – just to survive. Being alive was horrible; it frightened me. I could not figure out how to live through it.

I knew there had to be something better out there – out in the world. I was already thinking that it was in New York. In the city, itself. Patti Smith was there. She was making rock music from pure poetry and no woman had ever done that before. Not like she was doing it. I already knew I was a musician; I was writing songs. I knew I had to go to New York because Patti was there, and she was a girl and she was making it work, but I had no idea how I would get there. I couldn’t even figure out how to get out of the hospital.

* * *

My dad traveled all the time. He was always on the road. Always gone. Even though he was married to someone else now – he’d left us – but he was still always on the road.

He made time to come visit me in the hospital. “I just got back from Chicago,” he said. “And tomorrow I have to go to Louisville.”

It always seemed like such freedom to me – that he was always on the road. From every motel room he slept in when I was younger, he’d bring me back tiny bars of soap. I loved those little soaps, and I wanted my life to be about motel rooms, too.

But I was stuck in a loony bin. A mental hospital – locked up against my will. I’d been there for months. Even the boy who was so good at oral sex had been released. But I was still there. And I wasn’t getting any better. Even I knew that.

When my dad left the hospital – when he walked out the front door and got into his car, I cried. Not because I would miss him, but because he was going places. Louisville. Chicago. Las Vegas. Los Angeles. Youngstown. Toledo. Detroit.

Places I wanted to go to, where I thought life was. Any place where my mother wasn’t trying to hurt me was where life was. I knew that had to be true. But I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the hospital. And once I’d get out, how would I learn to survive for an entire day?

How could I even survive a motel room in Toledo?

How would I ever make it as far as New York?

Litany (Two): The Girl in Love
Holy Spirit, Giver of Life

through whom this world was breathed into existence and is sustained

I love how my expectations create what I experience.
I love how we are both extensions of nonphysical, having our beautiful human existence.
I love how much I love you.
I love that I was called down this path and found you on it.
I love how complex and beautiful and loving you are.
I love how your beauty helps me to want to continue in this world.
I love feeling inspired to create beauty because of you.
I love how my perception of life continues to evolve because you are here in the physical world.
I love knowing that I am reaching people all over the world because I am always trying to reach you.
I love how life feels so full and beautiful now.
I love knowing that I am achieving my dreams of putting beauty into the world.
I love knowing that I am capable of achieving so much.
I love knowing that none of this is permanent.
I love knowing that what distresses me right now is just old news and that the life I want and the world I want is on its way to me because I believe in it.
I love that I have learned how to create my experiences.
I love that I am getting better at it, moment by moment.
I love that my future is arriving.
I love knowing that it’s already out there, forming perfectly for me.
I love that I have these new moments to fine-tune my vibrational offering – that it always gets more precise and that my experience of the world, and what I offer it and what I put into it, just gets better and better and better.
I love you.
I love you with all my heart.

Holy Spirit, Giver of Life
through whom this world was breathed into existence and is sustained,
blow through the parched earth of my existence
and breathe Your Life into mine.

© – 2020 Marilyn Jaye Lewis
Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse

Let’s Try That Again!

February 12, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

So, today, I’ve been awake since 3am. No fears of oversleeping today, I guess.

Late last evening (my time zone, anyway), I got a text from Peitor, saying that he was on his way out to have a meeting. I know the person he was meeting with and it was sort of a big deal, so that sort of stressed me a little. (See last evening’s post.)

He and I are very different in that way. When something in my life blindsides me, I sort of retreat to my little cave, re-group mentally, try to see where I’m coming from spiritually — you know, get a feel for what’s motivating me — before I do anything like take any meetings. I’ve known Peitor forever now, and he is the exact opposite from me in that regard. So I didn’t say anything. I trust him. But it still stressed me out. So I went to sleep kind of early. Hence, wide awake at 3am.

But I did see — upon scrolling through Instagram in the dark at that ridiculous hour — that for the first time in over a year (and I mean that literally), Susie Cave posted a sort of happy song in her Instagram feed. It’s literally been over a year. And not only have the songs she’s posted over the past year tended to be unhappy ones, but often they seemed so unhappy that they’ve made me actually gasp. So I think maybe this is a good sign? Something hopeful?

(Well, that, or she’s using Ghosteen just to sell dresses and I seriously don’t want to believe something like that.)

Well.

We are inching toward the Lenten season. I don’t always observe the Lenten season, but when I do, I follow the Franciscan prayers. I’m a big believer in St. Francis — I pray to him every day because he is the Patron Saint of animals. And even though I know he can’t protect all the animals, I pray to him to also help sustain my heart, to help it find strength and a way to heal, in the event that animals are suffering anywhere around me.

I haven’t wanted to post this to the blog, because it was such an open sore for me, but several months back, that favorite pasture of mine with the dozens of happy cows that I had to drive past to get into town? The guy there sold all of his cows to slaughter on the very same day. All of them. Cows, bulls, frolicking little calves. Gone to slaughter. A few dozen. Those cows always made me so happy.

I was of course driving when I saw this and I really just didn’t know what to do. I was just devastated, but I was behind the wheel of a moving car and fellow drivers all around me are counting on me not to lose my fucking mind.

Well, it’s at times like those when I really need St. Francis to figure out how to pull me through. Because I just don’t understand why people don’t think that animals’ lives are just as sacred as our own. I just don’t get it.

Anyway. A whole heck of a lot of people don’t agree with me on that, or that any lives are sacred, really, so on we go.

Lent. With or without St. Francis, I don’t always practice Lent. Mostly because, during some years, I don’t have it in me to have the Holy Week under a microscope. One of the very, very few things about Jesus of Nazareth that ancient sources agree on is that Jesus was crucified by the Romans. And that still makes me physically ill.

Why he was crucified is certainly debated. What happened to him immediately after that is the stuff that entire religions are crafted from! But the seeming fact remains: Jesus was crucified. (As was one of his brothers, and one of his great-great-great grandsons (or great nephew); and his other brother, James, had his legs broken by the High Priests and was then stoned to death. Basically, any men they could find who were still walking around that had even a shred of Jesus’s bloodline in them were systematically done away with. And while this isn’t proof that Jesus was considered the bloodline contender for King of the Jews, it does lend credibility to that theory. Because having a “fake” appointed king (Herod) opposed by a traditional (bloodline) king (Jesus) was going to be a real problem in Jerusalem for the Romans. And by “King of the Jews,” I’m referring to the traditional Hebrew belief that the next King (or Messiah) would be, in fact, two men — one who could trace his lineage to Aaron and the priesthood; and the other who could trace his bloodline to David, the king. And both men had to appear at the same time and within the same family, basically. And James was certainly a priest. That is well understood — even Paul could not completely wipe James out of the history books. But, to be fair, Paul was more focused on deifying Jesus and on making Jesus palatable to the Pagans, and on that score he was wildly successful. But I’m saying that from two thousand years of hindsight; I’m guessing that when Paul was (allegedly) beheaded by the Romans, he wasn’t feeling wildly successful. However, James was not of the recognized “High Priesthood” in Jerusalem, because those men were strictly appointed by the Romans, once Herod was declared King of the Jews by the same Romans. So, it’s Roman regulations versus traditional Hebrew beliefs and the Romans, of course, won through oppressive violence and bloodshed and all of that and, hence, the crucifixion — whether or not Jesus got back up three days later.) Anyway.

That all breaks my heart. Even these couple thousands of years later. I don’t always have it in me to have that be something I’m focusing on, daily, for several weeks (up until, you know, the Glory of the Resurrection, which, obviously, I don’t necessarily believe. In that specific way.). So, some years, I just can’t focus on it. But I haven’t made up my mind yet about this year.

I do love Easter, though. God knows.

Okay.

I am going to try to get back to work here on Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. That’s front & center on my plate. Nothing else is on the horizon today except booty core. And I hope it stays that way. (Although methinks I will likely hear from Peitor about how the meeting went…) (Heavy sigh)

So I’m gonna get to it here. Well, I’m going to leave you with 3 things today. Oddly enough, this morning, I reached for the breakfast set that’s made of glass: bowl, coffee mug, juice glass. All sparkling glass. Normally, I don’t choose glass. I either use porcelain or ceramics. Today, I chose glass. I don’t know why.

And I thought about the Blondie song, “Heart of Glass,” and wondered, was this telling me that I had a heart of glass? I really didn’t think so. Normally, I’m more of a “Tide is High” kind of gal if I’m going to define myself strictly through Blondie songs. (Not something I, you know, ever do. But there is always a first time to start doing something really weird.)

Did I have a heart of glass? Was I no longer a “Tide is High” kind of gal?? (Meaning, a gal who was gonna hang on to love, come hell or high water.) Well, I’ll let you decide that here this morning: what I ultimately am. You can listen to both songs if you so choose. (And/or you can choose to listen to only the final song posted here, which is the song I actually listened to at breakfast and which, I believe, once again illustrates that I am a simply huge believer in love. Come what may.)

All righty. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.

Wow, that’s a Day that Went South

February 11, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

And I don’t mean south to sunny Florida, or anything like that. Although it did stop snowing…

My meeting with Peitor was really, really productive. Even though we didn’t work on the script. It was more business stuff that we were trying to –well, as he put it; “Marilyn, you’re very good at getting all the ducks in a row.” And I actually am. So we did that. So that we can accelerate our schedule, have a couple of micro-micro shorts completed, have our business plan together, etc., and start getting the meetings he wants.

I can’t stress enough how well connected he is, but I also can’t stress enough how much I believe in the effectiveness of setting schedules and sticking to them. Not going on for years, finishing one short script.

So, we were in a really good place. And then right at the end of the meeting, Peitor says: “Okay, well, let me tell you a little bit about what’s going on over here.”

And then he proceeded to tell me, and it was all I could do to keep myself from sobbing. Because I know that tears aren’t going to help anything. Or anyone. Not even me. But sometimes I can’t just keep getting lost in my work, or in my projects — which is where I always “go” when the life around me seems hopeless. I hit the wall of futility.

I know nothing is actually futile, until you actually give up. But sometimes it is just how I feel. And so I have to work hard, hard, hard at not giving in to that feeling.

This is stuff stemming from Peitor’s dad dying last week, and other things not related to the death but that are equally intrusive and disruptive and unforeseen.

And I know I have to be an empowering friend, not a crybaby friend. So I find the best possible words to say out loud to him, while inside I feel like crumbling to the ground.

And when we got off the phone, I went to the dollar store and found ice cream that had even less calories than the last kind I bought and was still, you know — it has flavor, anyway, and it’s not terrible for you.

I realize that ice cream doesn’t solve anything. And I still did my booty core — and I’m actually losing weight, although I’m still getting those curvy-wurvy things that annoy me a bit.

But anyway, I ate ice cream. And I let myself get angry. And I cried a little bit at the kitchen table. And I texted him and I said, “Should we push the schedule ahead by a couple months?” And he texted back, no, that he wanted to stay on schedule. So on we go.

But inside, I still feel angry and defeated — a little bit anyway. At the sort of “nebulous” world, I mean. Not at Peitor. I just get tired of life. You know me by now. That’s my fall-back position: I’m done with this. Life sucks. However, I can’t actually allow myself to feel that way because Peitor is counting on me to be the exact opposite.

So I give up — but I can’t actually give up. And I hate everybody — because people suck, people are lousy, people are self-motivated and full of fucking stupid fear — and yet, what I actually feel is love for every fucking person on the planet. (Which is why, when people suck, it hurts so much, you know?)

Anyway. I haven’t been able to get any of my own writing done yet today. The night is still sort of young, so I’m going to keep trying.

Oh, and then the upstairs toilet broke. It’s one of those low-flow, water-saving things and that center thingy in the middle of the inside of it, just stopped. Thank you very much. So now I have to try to locate a reputable plumber who’s willing to come all the way out to Crazeysburg (and I guarantee you, that is not easy; no one knows where the fuck this place is. But all you have to do is set your GPS to the Land that Time Forgot and you will find me, easily!!). I know it’s a simple fix once you buy the new part, but not so simple if you aren’t a plumber…

So, I’m super excited about that.

And I’m hoping that tomorrow, I will wake up and feel just better about everything, for some as of now hard to fathom reason.

Well, on another topic entirely — Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand File thing this morning. It was just another one of those amazing ones. You can read it here.

I’m gonna go. See what I can do about convincing myself that I’ll figure this all out at some point and everything will make sense. And seem okay. Okay? I hope you’re having a good night, wherever you are in the world, gang.

I leave you with this lovely hymn that my birth dad’s mom used to sing. I love you guys. See ya.

“Farther Along”

Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long
While there are others living about us
Never molested though in the wrong

When death has come and taken our loved ones
It leaves our home so lonely and drear
Then do we wonder why others prosper
Living so wicked year after year

Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand it all, by and by

Faithful ’til death, said our loving Master
A few more days to labor and wait
Toils of the road will then seem as nothing
As we sweep through the beautiful gates

Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand it all, by and by

c- 1911, disputed authorship

Nothing Says ‘Happy Tuesday’ like More Snow!!

February 11, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yes, indeedy. It’s snowing again! Those big fat fluffy flakes. Just the best.

(Wow. Well, I decided to take a photo of the snow outside the upstairs window at the end of the hall and guess what??!! Another ladybug!! That’s the little dark spot on the window there. My house is just a ladybug factory this winter!! So auspicious, right?)

Another ladybug — on the window, there at the top of the tree!

Well. Man. Did I oversleep this morning. I didn’t get out of bed until nearly 8am!! I hate that. I feel like the morning’s half gone. So I didn’t meditate after breakfast; just did the Inner Being journal thing and then went straight into laundry mode.

I feel like I’m drunk, or something. You know that feeling? You sort of lurch yourself from sleep and you can’t get your brain to really focus? You’re sort of reeling around? Perhaps looking normal on the outside, but teeter-taughtering on the inside. (Too funny! Spell check advises me that I might really want the term “teeter-slaughtering” here. Wow, really?? I’m not sure I even want to know what that term might mean. I’m guessing the word I really want here, though, is teeter-tottering. Anyway.)

Peitor and I are working on Abstract Absurdity stuff today, so I’m sort of scrambling to force my brain into feeling creative here because I would really like to get some more work done on Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse before he calls. (Meaning, Peitor is going to call — not the Muse.) (Well, the Muse always calls!!! Just not on the phone…) (Sadly.)

OMG! I just had the most amazing detour here, gang. I got the very best inspiration for a micro-short video series just now, that’s based on a musical comedy stage show that Peitor and I are also working on, so I had to text him!!! (Hopefully, I didn’t wake him. It’s only 6:30am where he’s at, and he’s a really light sleeper.)

Well, here’s hoping, gang. But I couldn’t risk forgetting to tell him the idea I just came up with. (I realize that there’s this thing called “jotting it down on a piece of paper…” But the lure of texting is sometimes just too great, isn’t it?)

Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming — the amount of projects that are piling up. Well, it’s actually always overwhelming, but I usually try to just focus on one thing at a time. But I’m getting into one of those phases where a number of my own projects are starting to vie for my attention all at once again, and then I feel like there’s just not enough time in the day. And so, then, when I oversleep, and the brain refuses to kick into gear — wow, it makes me feel so impatient. So frustrated.

(Oh, wow. I just came up with another great idea, based on something else Peitor and I are already working on – it would sort of jump-start the whole project. This is sort of incredible. I think the Muse is banging speed today or something.) (Of course, I would have a Muse that abuses recreational drugs…)

I am just in the weirdest frame of mind here this morning. I don’t know what’s up with me.

Well, on another topic.

I went to a baby shower over the weekend. I was not the oldest woman there but I was in the upper echelon, for sure. (And I also know for sure, that in that elite few, I was by far the least mature…)

Well, I brought this gift that I guess is sort of old-fashioned now, because no one at the shower had ever seen anything like it before. I was stunned. (A set of little pewter boxes for saving the baby’s first tooth and the first curl. This particular set was in the shape of a little horse-drawn carriage.)

Most of the women there were young mothers, and they were sort of gushing over this gift because they wished they’d had it for their own kids. They’d never seen anything like it. And it just made me feel a little like I was from some distant outer-space old-person land.

And, also, there was a young woman there with really long, full, thick hair, and she’s in the process of stripping out her hair color so that she can have it dyed “silver.” And she said to me, “Like your hair, actually! I want it to look just like yours.”

And of course, I was quietly thinking: Jesus Christ, why would you want to rush that along? What I wouldn’t give to have my long brown (non-thinning) hair back. I know it’s a trendy color now — a sort of luminescent silver. She’s actually not the first young woman who has said that to me about wanting my hair color. But it’s just funny. This woman couldn’t have been more than 25, already a mother of two toddlers, and wanting silver hair. Already.

Well. I guess I’d better scoot. Try to get started here. Thanks for visiting on this snowy Tuesday morning, gang!! You probably won’t believe what I’m leaving you with today!! But don’t just dismiss it out of hand! Listen to it!! Because it is awesome. Roy Rogers — yodeling his way through some Texas Swing!! Here, with the Kentucky Headhunters from , like, 1990, or something,”That’s How the West Was Swung.” If you are feeling at all gloomy or sluggish, this will knock it right out of you. I’m so serious. All righty. I love you guys. Maybe I’ll check in again later. Meanwhile — see ya!!

(Listen to this!! It will make you happy!!)

It’s All Just Pretty Darn Good Around Here!!

February 10, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Well, oddly enough — and as difficult as it is to believe — I had absolutely nothing to say yesterday. Isn’t that weird?

So I didn’t blog.

I took a break from booty core yesterday, too. Just because my muscles were worn out. What has it been, like, 10 days or something? I still can’t believe the difference. But I’m also thinking: Oh man, I’m going to have to do these exercises for the rest of my life. If I want to keep walking across the floor, that is.

But, seriously, I hadn’t realized that simple things had gotten even a little bit difficult. I just wasn’t aware. I did my yoga and things seemed fine. But now, when I bend down to pick up something simple like a cat food bowl — it’s just amazing how easy it is on my knees. It’s just effortless. And of course my posture is better, and now I can’t believe what a difference the better posture has made in my neck!

Which reminds me that, late last night, just as I was falling to sleep, the man who died that I was in love with, came to visit. Just like that. He was just “there.” In spirit. Just saying hello. It made me feel so happy. And I told him that I missed him so much but that I was doing really good now. Just so good. And I am, gang. I really am. And then I fell right out. Just gone. Sound asleep. So I don’t know if I went off with him to some other dimension, or what.

But, anyway, he always used to tell me that he was worried about my neck. He was really concerned about the angle of my neck in bed all the time because he didn’t want to accidentally break my neck. I didn’t want him to break my neck, either (!!), but it was just absolutely regular sex. To me, it was impossible to imagine that it would break my neck. And it sort of made me feel a little old, you know? That he worried that my neck might be that fragile. (And it also made me wonder, like: have there been a lot of women in your past that you’ve had intercourse with and it caused them to break their necks? But it did make me feel old when he said that.)

And then, this past summer, when I got the new laptop, it’s much larger than the other one I had and I found I was suddenly having severe neck issues. So I focused on certain yoga stretches that helped a lot, but now with booty core, my posture has improved so much that my neck is really strong now. It’s just so weird that all of this strengthening has happened in such a short time. But then it also makes me see that I’m going to have to keep doing this forever. (And it actually is hard work, gang, so I’m super happy about that!) Anyway. I’ll mix it up with the yoga, but I’m thinking now it will be more core stuff with less yoga, and not the other way around.

Well, that was some sort of extreme digression, there. I didn’t know I was going to go into all that. (Oh, but since I’ve gone off on a tangent, I’ll also mention that the hair serum stuff really, really works. It’s incredible stuff. But I’m gonna have to use that now, too, for the rest of my life. ) (At this point, though, I’m thinking it will probably be best to live to be about 61 and a half and not 104, otherwise, it will be just too much stuff to try to keep track of around here.)

Actually, last night, when I got out of the shower and was using all 723 million of my various stay-youthful products, I was beginning to wonder what would happen if I lived, say, another 40 years and the company in France went out of business or something. Oh my god, I didn’t even want to think about it! If they went out of business, I would get old, like, overnight. I’ve been using their products now for over 20 years!

Okay, well. I overslept this morning because I was having these endless, endless dreams. They were weird, sort of unpleasant, even bordering on nightmarish. And it literally went on for hours, because I would wake up for a moment and see the time, and then be out for another hour and a half. So it really was going on forever. And the weirdest part was that in every single dream, there were only women. Just women, women, women. And all kinds of women, of all different ages. Some of them I cared about and some of them unnerved me and some of them outright upset me. But so weird, to just dream on and on like that, only about women.

And the dreams took place in hospitals, and in parking lots, in public buildings, auditoriums, subway stations, apartment buildings — everything. And only women, everywhere.

The best dream was when I was in the front seat of a car with two other women. It was night time and we were just sort of relaxing there together, sort of stretched out on each other in this front seat — the stars were out. It was sort of magical. I know that the woman to the right of me was Blaire (of Blare N. Bitch fame, out in LA now). I don’t know who the 3rd woman was, but we were all just happy and blissed out. But during that wonderful dream, the cats woke me!! Darn cats!! Because, the other women in the other dreams — I’ll tell you, I was not really digging them.

Sort of weird that it came on the heels of that awesome dream about the bird and freedom and the male energy from the other night. And then to be stuck in hours-long dreams about women. Who the hell knows what’s going on with me, but it seems like something is.

Oh, I saw the young deaf boy again and he told me that he told his mom he was bisexual and that she was really supportive of him. He was so happy, you know? And I was so happy for him. As I was walking away, he stopped me and he said, “I hope you find someone to love.” Which was so sweet. But I’ve got it going on, you know; I’m intensely in love (from afar) with one man who is totally unavailable and intensely in love with another man who is totally dead. So no worries here!

But, actually, I am really happy, regardless. To “love,” itself, is the thing.

Okay, so I’m gonna get moving here! As I said, I overslept this morning. Hugely. I have tedious paperwork stuff to do for Abstract Absurdity Productions before my phone meeting with Peitor tomorrow. And God knows, I have Booty Core to do!! And I’d also like to get a little writing done, too. So, onward!

Thanks for visiting, gang! I leave you with the song I was playing nonstop yesterday – yes, that very same day wherein I didn’t blog at all! A very, very favorite song from my wee bonny girlhood — I tell you, I just loved this song! Glen Campbell, “Gentle On My Mind.” A huge hit song from, like, 1967. (And, honestly, gang; I really do believe that songs like this are what helped me develop into this sort of person who is just, well, I guess really independent when it comes to love. Is that the way to say it?)

I can recall so clearly, a car trip I was on with my family. I was 7. My dad always played the AM radio when we were in the car. I was sort of curled up in the backseat, because we didn’t have to wear seat belts back then. My older brother was next to me, but I don’t remember what he was doing. But I was always just so day-dreamy. Always a million miles away in my mind. And this song came on the radio, and I remember my whole heart just melting and mind opening right up; my whole soul just soaring. I loved this song so much.

And I still do, apparently!

Okay! Have a super cool Monday, wherever you are in the world!! I love you guys. See ya!

“Gentle On My Mind”

It’s knowing that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch
And it’s knowing I’m not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that are dried upon some line

That keeps you in the backroads
By the rivers of my memory
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind

It’s not clinging to the rocks and ivy
Planted on their columns now that bind me
Or something that somebody said
Because they thought we fit together walking
It’s just knowing that the world will not be cursing
Or forgiving when I walk along some railroad track and find

That you’re moving on the backroads
By the rivers of my memory
And for hours you’re just gentle on my mind

Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us
And some other woman’s cryin’ to her mother
‘Cause she turned and I was gone
I still might run in silence tears of joy might stain my face
And the summer sun might burn me ’til I’m blind

But not to where I cannot see
You walkin’ on the backroads
By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind

I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin’
Cracklin’ caldron in some train yard
My beard a roughening coal pile,
And a dirty hat pulled low across my face
Through cupped hands ’round the tin can
I pretend to hold you to my breast and find

That you’re waiting from the backroads
By the rivers of my memories
Ever smilin’ ever gentle on my mind

c – 1967 John Hartford

Her Dreams Are Always So Darned Prophetic…

February 8, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yes, I am going to tell you about the dream I had right before I awoke this morning, but first–

Sandra has now gone off to Stratford (Canada), where she begins rehearsals for the musical “Chicago”. And now, for almost the rest of the year, her life is going to be about flying back & forth and back & forth, to fit in the round tables and revisions and rehearsals in Toronto, as well as round tables and table reads and staged readings and rehearsals in NYC.

I’m only bringing this up because my schedule now has to piggy-back on her schedule for the rest of the year. Wherein, I will have to be flying back & forth and back & forth, to fit in the round tables and revisions and rehearsals in Toronto, as well as round tables and table reads and staged readings and rehearsals in NYC.

It’s going to be exceedingly interesting, gang. I’m going to try to stay flexible and not lose my mind or anything. But knowing Sandra as I do, I get the impression that, for instance, two and a half minutes before I have to be in Toronto for something, she’s going to text me to let me know that in two and a half minutes I have to be in Toronto — that kind of thing.

I used to travel a lot. Flying, I mean. I always had separate bags for flying that were always packed with whatever essentials I needed, so that I could just throw in some clothes and go. But this was when: a.) I lived in NYC and it was so much easier to get direct flights to places all over the country and in Europe; and b.) 9/11 hadn’t happened yet and airports and planes were still really fun things.

I was in an airplane, in fact, in the process of landing at LaGuardia in NYC, back in early 1981 — I was reaching up to get my overnight bag out of the overhead compartment thingy, when I decided to accept my first husband’s marriage proposal. Isn’t that funny that I remember that? I have no idea where I was flying back from, but I recall flying over the Statue of Liberty and getting up to get my bag ready, and thinking, “I’m gonna go ahead and marry him. I’ll call him when I get back to the apartment.” And I did.

He had proposed to me in the strangest way. I was actually living with another guy at that point. But Foun Kee considered the other guy to be completely inconsequential. “He is just a boy, Marilyn. He has no ambition. He is not like you at all.” (Bold move. Yet he was correct.)

But you also have to factor in here that I was only 20 years old and that Foun Kee had the most amazing accent I had ever heard. He was Chinese, from Singapore, but he was from the aristocracy and spoke English with a pronounced British accent. He was really conservatively educated and spoke precise and perfect English, which was daunting enough (i.e., he doesn’t use the ‘f’ word — ever). But that mixture of a Chinese/British accent was really just the coolest thing I had ever heard. And then, if for some reason, he was sort of angry about something, he launched into pure Mandarin, which I didn’t speak yet, so that was also just amazing to me. I was just a girl from Ohio, you know? Before there was even cable TV. Nothing at all was “global” yet.

ME: “Wow! You speak Chinese!”

HIM (not amused): “Yes, I do.”

ME (ever eager): “Will you teach it to me?!”

HIM: “No.”

Anyway, his accent was not why I married him. (And I should add that two years into the marriage, he began calling me “Marilyn dearest”, in that same accent of course, but I always felt it was sort of derivative of Mommie Dearest and so it always used to get under my skin. And yes I have a temper, but I don’t consider myself quite as off-the-charts as Joan Crawford was so I didn’t think it was funny.) Anyway. So he came over to our apartment in Hell’s Kitchen (back when it was Hell’s Kitchen and still really bleak and dangerous) one rainy Saturday afternoon while I was there alone. He was impeccably dressed. He even had his long, black umbrella and a slim briefcase (very British), and he sat down on the sofa, and took out a yellow legal pad that had several hand-written pages, detailing, in bullet points, all the reasons why I should marry him.

I am so serious.

I sat across from him in — yes, a desk chair!! And I was just astounded, you know? I was not interested in getting married. At all. To anyone. I was only focused on getting something happening with my singing and my songs. And he put his legal pad back in his briefcase and said, “Well, just please give it some thought.” And apparently, I did. (Because, you know, he also said things like, “You are so beautiful and I have dreamed all my life of having a woman like you for my wife.” I have a huge ego to go along with my lovely (Irish) temper.) (But I did absolutely adore him, gang, from the very moment we met. I have always loved an audacious man and he definitely was one.)

But anyway. I digress.

My point was that now I’m thinking that I should get that travel bag together again and just keep it ready, so that it’ll be easier to just go whenever I have to from now on.

Which reminds me that the phone call with Peitor yesterday in LA was several more hours of business stuff. And starting next week, we’ll have two meetings a week — one of which will always be devoted to working on whichever script, so that we can try to get everything moving forward at the same time. So life is definitely inching toward “crunch” time for me, as far as projects vs. time vs. travel.

Okay, so let me tell you about my dream! I realize that dreams are full of highly personal symbolism and might not easily resonate for anyone else. But this dream just astounded me — mostly because I don’t know why I dreamed it.

I had this sort of really large microwave oven that was also an incubator and a little bird was in there, in a sort of box, getting ready to hatch.

I was with a “guy” — I have no idea who, because he was just a form, a sort of energy. But definitely male.

When the bird came out of the incubator, it was going to be sort of like a movie — but like a hologram, in that it would be completely 3-dimensional. And I sat down on the couch, really close to the guy because we were clearly “a couple”, and I told him what would happen — like giving him a synopsis of the movie — saying that the bird would come out and then get really, really large and sort of take over and become part of everything, and be really powerful. (Like a “super hero” type movie.)

And the guy said, “I don’t really want to see that.” And I really wanted to please the guy, so I said, “Okay, well, I’ll just try to get the bird to go back into the incubator.” (The bird had already come out of it.)

I got up off of the couch, went over to the incubator, and my right hand sort of went out in front of me, and suddenly the bird flew right over to me and perched right on my finger. It really gripped me but it didn’t hurt at all. And I was astounded by the power in the bird, and that — even while it wasn’t tame — it still knew how to perch right on my hand.

And I sort of shook it off, and then put out my hand again, and it flew right back and perched on me again and gripped me really tight. And I couldn’t believe how incredible that power felt. And I instinctively knew that the bird symbolized freedom to me. So I decided to keep the bird. And then the whole apartment thing was gone, and the guy. And I was in a sort of professional building where a really big conference was going on — men & women, both. I didn’t go into the auditorium, even though they were waiting for me, specifically. But I did open the door just a little and let the bird fly in there and teach them.

Isn’t that an amazing dream?

I have to say, I pondered that dream all through breakfast. I don’t think that men don’t equal “freedom,” but it was so interesting that my first mindset was that I really just wanted to please the guy (which is actually what I’m really like), but then once I felt the power of real freedom, I couldn’t go back. Plus, I really wanted to share it with people who wanted it. (And the “freedom” thing could also mean that I’m more committed to being a writer than to being in a traditional relationship, and that I can share my writing, my freedom, with all sorts of people without even being in the same room with any of them.)

I guess that was the dream that just explained my whole life to me and that later today, I’ll probably die!

Just kidding. (I hope!!) I’m thinking it’s more this Super Moon thing — a revelatory dream brought on by the moon.

Okay. I’m gonna scoot. Enjoy your Saturday!! Wherever it finds you. (It’s snowing here again! Yay.) I think I’m going to work on Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse today because Wayne still has not gotten back to me with his comments about Tell My Bones so I give up; I’m done waiting — onward!

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

Crazeysburg in Tomorrow Land!!

February 7, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Oddly enough, even though it snowed most of the night and was still snowing this morning (and will apparently continue most of the day), my iPhone never once alerted me that it was snowing out (see yesterday’s frustrated post).

But here is a look at 1st Street from out one of my bedroom windows as the “sun” was coming up:

And on a different but still rather peculiar note, I was having the weirdest dream when I woke up this morning. I had an electric razor for shaving my legs that was made out of 2 different styles of razors and the Tammy Wynette song “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”

Isn’t that weird — how dreams defy physics in the oddest ways? That I was able to shave my legs with a song? And yet when I’m sleeping, it makes perfect sense.

I love that song, though. And of course, I started singing it the minute I awoke and was remembering my dream and trying to figure out what it meant. (I’m not sure I need another divorce, since I’m not married anymore, but I definitely do need to shave my legs. There is no doubt in my mind about that.)

Okay, well.

This is going to be a really short post. I can’t tarry on the blog today because it’s Friday and I have my phone meeting with Peitor out in glamorous West Hollywood this morning!! (I’m not going to West Hollywood — he lives there.) (Crazeysburg is glamorous enough for me right now, thank you!)

It will be interesting to see what we get done today. It would be nice if we could finish our micro-script, of course, but I feel pretty confident that that won’t happen! Finishing scene 4 is probably the most we can hope for (a 90-second scene that is almost done — we’ve only worked on it for 3 sessions already.)

But if he wants to focus on more business stuff, as we did last time, then we’ll do that. Eventually, we’re going to have to work more than once a week or we will simply never get anywhere…

But I was also hoping to get in my half-hour session of Booty Core before the phone call, so that I can have that out of the way.

(My body is definitely changing, gang. Even after only one week. I’m now curvy and wurvy! But its also increasing my appetite. Which annoys me, because, you know, I don’t want to put on weight; I just want to walk across the floor. However, I will just play all of this by ear because the fact of it is that my hip joints already feel so much stronger now. And I think that has to be more important for now than the fact that I want to eat 3 meals a day now instead of two.) (Plus, I also want to see how many times I can use the word “now” in a single paragraph.)

All righty! I’m gonna scoot. If you’re also getting snow where you live — enjoy!! Otherwise, just, well — enjoy!! I might post again later. Meanwhile…Thanks for visiting. You know what I’m leaving you with!! If you’ve never heard this song, it’s a true Country & Western classic from 1968. Give it a whirl. It’s awesome! Tammy Wynette at her peak Tammy-Wynette-ness!! Okay. I love you guys. See ya!

“D-I-V-O-R-C-E”

Our little boy is four years old and quite a little man
So we spell out the words we don’t want him to understand
Like T-O-Y or maybe S-U-R P-R-I-S-E
But the words we’re hiding from him now
Tear the heart right out of me.

Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E; becomes final today
Me and little J-O-E will be goin’ away
I love you both and this will be pure H-E double L for me
Oh, I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

Watch him smile, he thinks it Christmas
Or his 5th Birthday
And he thinks C-U-S-T-O-D-Y spells fun or play
I spell out all the hurtin’ words
And turn my head when I speak
‘Cause I can’t spell away this hurt
That’s drippin’ down my cheek.

Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E; becomes final today
Me and little J-O-E will be goin’ away
I love you both and this will be pure H-E double L for me
Oh, I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

c – 1968 Bobby Braddock, Curly Putnam

This Is Why You Have To Stay Married!

February 6, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

It used to be that when I wanted Wayne’s feedback on something I’d just written, all I had to do was get up from my desk chair, go into the other room and hand it to him and then stand there while he read it and then listen to what he had to say.

But once you get divorced, you relinquish those rights!

Now you have to do this thing called “patiently waiting”!! (Nobody warned me about this, btw, and that just doesn’t seem fair.)

When I was married, I didn’t have to be patient about any fucking thing under the sun (and I’m sure he would be very willing to concur on this. I think, if I recall correctly, that far distant dialogue went something like this: “Christ, Marilyn, can you just give me a fucking minute??!!” Exact topic involved is immaterial.)

Anyway.

Nowadays, I have to email him a doc file and wait for him to have time to get on the PC and download the file and then read it, formulate a (glowing) opinion and then text me.

(Which reminds me!! Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand Files thing today, sort of all about texting. It was very fun (and even educational — although he neglected to include the phone number where we can all text him at when he’s hanging out in an airport). (I’m thinking that’s just an oversight that he will correct later today.) Anyhow. You can read it here if you so choose!!)

Well, Wayne did at least text me again yesterday, saying that he was going to read the new version of Tell My Bones “soon” and get right back to me. However, “soon” is one of those words that is wide open to interpretation.

And when you’re no longer married you also relinquish the right to “badger” the person who used to be part of your legal property. You can’t just keep going over and disturbing whatever it is he’s trying to do at his own desk, and say, “Come on, man. I’m waiting.”

So now, with no legal rights left, I’m just sitting here, waiting. If you can imagine that. And I really, really do want to know his opinion on how the play is ending now. That part is not a joke. I’m really relying on his insights here and I don’t want to look at the play again without hearing his opinion of the ending first. (Which I don’t believe is working as good as it could be but I’m not sure why.)

The director is really busy with some other project in NYC right now, and I won’t be able to get his complete attention about this until something like February 15th. And I just don’t want to wait that long. And I can’t concentrate on any of my other projects right now because I want to sign off on the play. And I want to feel that I’ve made it the best it can be, for now.

So I’m waiting. (We’re going into Day 3 here…) (Of course “three’s the charm” is something we so often hear but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything at all.)

Meanwhile, I keep getting weather alerts on my iPhone telling me that it’s snowing out. I’m not 100% sure how they define “snow” because I keep going to my window, all excited, and seeing only freezing rain. And I love snow, so it just feels like it’s one of those days where everything, on all fronts, is sort of working against my ability to achieve bliss.

You know, in sort of a round-about way — thinking about bliss, lack thereof, marriage, etc. — one of the things the late bandleader/clarinetist Artie Shaw says in the Ken Burns Jazz documentary, is how he began to really hate having to play the song “Begin the Beguine” because that was what the audiences always wanted to hear and they never wanted to hear anything else.

I can understand why he felt that way (this is going all the way back to the late 1930s, btw), but it made me kind of sad because, in all honesty, if God himself asked me what my actual very favorite song of all time was, it would not only be “Begin the Beguine,” but it would also be Artie Shaw’s version of it.

I’m really serious. Nothing moves me like that specific song does. That song is really the only song ever written that fills me with enough hope about love that when I hear it, I can actually imagine getting married again. (I don’t know to whom, I’m just saying that song makes me feel that hopeful about the nature of love.)

If you don’t know the song, Artie Shaw didn’t write it — Cole Porter wrote it. And tons of people have recorded many versions of it over the years, but Artie Shaw’s instrumental version of it from 1938 was the most popular version of it, ever. (Followed closely by Ella Fitzgerald’s version of it, which includes the lyrics, which are wistful indeed.)

So, even though I understood why Artie Shaw felt that way about the song, it made me feel a little sad because I am just so grateful that he recorded it at all and that he did such a brilliant job of it. It is so joyful, so smooth, so free. (And it makes me just want to drink a vodka martini straight up, with 3 olives, and light up an unfiltered cigarette, too!) (But not alone.)

Okay, well. I am going to get back to sitting patiently, awaiting a text. See how the day unfolds. Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope the world is going your way today, wherever you are in it. I love you guys. See ya.

“Being the Beguine”

When they begin the beguine
It brings back the sound of music so tender,
It brings back a night of tropical splendor,
It brings back a memory ever green.

I’m with you once more under the stars,
And down by the shore an orchestra’s playing
And even the palms seem to be swaying
When they begin the beguine.

To live it again is past all endeavor,
Except when that tune clutches my heart,
And there we are, swearing to love forever,
And promising never, never to part.

What moments divine, what rapture serene,
Till clouds came along to disperse the joys we had tasted,
And now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted,
I know but too well what they mean;

So don’t let them begin the beguine
Let the love that was once a fire remain an ember;
Let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember
When they begin the beguine.

Oh yes, let them begin the beguine, make them play
Till the stars that were there before return above you,
Till you whisper to me once more,
“Darling, I love you!”
And we suddenly know, what heaven we’re in,
When they begin the beguine

c- 1935 Cole Porter

Okay, Now It’s Getting Stupid

February 5, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Whoa. Talk about feeling the burn. The new Booty Core workout is now inching into the realm of getting stupidly hard, however, I am sticking with it and doing the best I can.

I still feel great when I’m finished, but, man. Who thinks up this shit? And who needs, you know, a booty that intense? Pas moi!! I’m okay with just having a butt. Well, I mean, I wouldn’t want someone telling me that my butt is really boring. Still, you know, if anyone on Earth is noticing my butt at all anymore, I’m gonna just call that my lucky day!!!!

But I do want to stress that I do feel really good afterwards so I’m glad I’m doing this. It’s making such a difference in how I walk across the floor. I know that sounds stupid, but it makes me feel more centered and more in my center of gravity. So that makes me really happy. (Because, to be honest, for a couple of days there, I was afraid I was never going to walk again.)

And oddly enough, my ex-husband in Seattle emailed me this morning, saying that now that he’s gotten old, he walks a lot slower. WTF??!!

ME: “No!!!!!!!! I don’t want to hear this!!!”

For god’s sake, when he and I got married (like, yesterday) he was only 25 years old. And now he’s 63. Okay, well, to me 63 is not old. (And my other ex-husband, in NYC, is 65 now and has already had a heart attack.) You know, like, what is with these guys? I am 12. I’m staying 12. Even if that means I spend a fortune on all my many cremes & lotions from France, and on my magic hair serum that is indeed keeping my hair from falling out and making it thicker, and I’ll stick with the Booty Core if it means I still get to walk across the floor.

Jeez. Come on, people. I mean, keep up. (Oh! And the company in France sent me yet another new product — get one at half-price and a second one free to try it out. So I did. And it’s this calming 2 in1 cleanser& toner and it is 99% plant-based and it is amazing, gang. I’m so serious. I only got it because I found the notion that it was “calming” really appealing. Not that my face ever feels not calm. However, it makes the little wrinkles around my eyes lots less noticeable!! I mean, like, I couldn’t actually believe it, it was that dramatic. And that’s not even what it’s made for. Anyway.)

Well, today was pretty good. That phone chat with my accountant was revelatory. A lot of his other clients work on Broadway or in the theater in one way or another, and he was able to really give me a clear idea of what to expect over the next couple of years, as far as the two plays are concerned. So I just feel really blessed.

(And I am going to try to keep my business-related expenses down because, I’ll tell you, the IRS was not at all amused. Meaning that I couldn’t claim as much as I really needed to this year, you know? But onward. I’m not gonna fight the IRS, that’s for sure.)

I also took care of the spreadsheet for Abstract Absurdity Productions today and sent it off to Peitor, and I think he was sort of amazed that I actually got to it so quickly. Now all I need to do is get that darn web site built. (Oh, and then we have to make about 8 micro-short movies, and then we’ll be good to go!)

And I did study French some more today and tried to figure out why I’m so insecure when it comes to speaking French. I have just so little confidence. Yet, I breeze right through all these course lessons because, you know, I know French. Why wouldn’t I, after 50 years? So I’m not really sure what my problem is there. But, you know, none of my cats speak French so it’s not like I really need to confront this particular fear. And, I mean, I’m not afraid of spiders, or bees, or snakes. Or bats — unless it seems like one might get tangled in my hair:

So I guess I’ll be okay with my fear of speaking French. But I’m still kind of curious what’s going on there with me. I was never afraid of speaking Chinese. It’s just French that has me stymied.

Okay, well. I guess I’ll get back to another episode of Ken Burns’ Jazz. Only 2 episodes left to watch. And I really am loving it, despite my feelings re: the musical styles of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk. I have learned so much about all these musicians and singers that I’ve listened to all my life and knew next to nothing about.

So have a good night, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting. I’ll leave you with a little France Gall, how does that strike you??!! One of my favorite songs by her: “Le temps de la rentrée.” It’s super pop, in case you’ve never heard it before. (Oh, and I saw today that they’re doing a biopic of Marianne Faithfull! That should be very cool.)

All righty, then. I love you guys. Sleep tight!! See ya!

That Dash of Chaos!

February 5, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I’m not a big fan of chaos. In any form. Which doesn’t mean everything has to be easy for me to understand as quickly as possible. And it doesn’t mean that there has to be an easily perceived order to everything. But it does mean that I really like the silences in between.

In between what, can be an unknown variable. I’m comfortable with not knowing things. But I do like to be able to find the rhythms of life, the patterns. The cadences. It’s how I actually prefer to live my life.

So I’m not a fan of chaos.

In the Ken Burns Jazz documentary, which I’m almost done watching, we are up to Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk. It’s interesting to me how they heard the music and how they were able to see it in this sort of un-anchored stream. That is interesting to me, maybe on an esoteric level. But listening to it — it’s that intersection where jazz becomes something that doesn’t resonate with me anymore. I can only listen to it in small doses before it starts to create some sort of disconnect in my brain.

But I do still like learning about it — what each human being’s individual story brings to an over-arching story. Because what I do really love is the human story. So I’m going to keep watching the documentary until the end, but it has really shifted now.

But, you know, I think that understanding why you don’t like something is just as edifying as understanding why you do like something.

It’s similar to why I went to Divinity School, actually — even though I’ve always felt called to follow Christ and I still feel that; and I felt called enough to finally invest all that time and money into Divinity School and do the best job I possibly could (and I graduated magna cum laude, which I’m really proud of); still, I undertook all that because I wanted to make absolutely certain of the reasons why I didn’t believe in Christianity, per se.

Studying the traditions of Christianity and where they come from and how they got to be the rigid structures that they are, it actually made my faith in the reality of Christ’s presence that much stronger, but my understanding of him doesn’t resemble anything structured or formulaic or traditional. (Even though a lot of the traditions of Christianity — or perhaps the pageantry of the traditions — are comforting to me, but only in a cursory way.)

So, I really do like understanding what Charlie Parker was able to perceive about musical chords and what they were at their roots, and how the structure or labeling or rigid patterns of music are also myths, in a way. Myths that he took apart and got in between, in terms of improvising from note to note. I really appreciate knowing that, because it helps me think differently about music and about a lot of things that seem fixed but aren’t, really. But I don’t like listening to that style of jazz. Or I like it only in small doses.

Yesterday was actually a very interesting day. Got the taxes done, and it became really clear that I will need an accountant again. So I have an appointment to speak with him this morning. Get that on track now, because the year is going to start sweeping past.

And I finally made a clear decision about Italian: I’ve stopped studying it. It absolutely does not resonate with me. I gave it 9 months. And I’m basically only able to say what I could say before I started the lessons, unless it’s all right in front of me and I’m taking a quiz. When it’s not in front of me, I can’t remember any of it. I still have 3 months of pre-paid language lessons left, so I decided to just switch to French, which I enjoy and understand reasonably well.

I spent a couple hours on it last evening, just because it was fun. But because I already understand French, I could now see how they structure the lessons, and I can also see that there is no way on Earth I would have ever truly learned Italian from that type of lesson structuring. And why? Because it’s too chaotic for me.

Interesting.

But it was also interesting to me, as I spent all that time studying French last evening, how all the times in my life where I’d studied French in the past, were coming back to me. I’ve been studying French since I was 9. So that means over 50 years now. Isn’t that fucking bizarre? That I call it “studying French” instead of saying that I speak it?

At what point do I think I will be done studying it and that I will actually speak it? I guess at some point, we’ll find out.

The last time I was in Paris, I was in a tea shoppe, buying some bulk tea, and I was talking to the proprietor, in French, and apologizing for my French the entire time, and he finally looked at me, sort of bewildered, and said, “You’re speaking very good French.” And it really shocked me. I think it was because I felt really comfortable with him, that my brain just switched over to French without my even realizing it. Because, normally, in France, I don’t speak at all unless I absolutely have to. And I mean, like, at dinner parties — attending hours-long dinner parties with French writers where I’ve said absolutely nothing at all. Nothing. Because I’m only just now learning French — I only started studying it 50 years ago.

Jesus. I’m so fucking nuts. Basically, I have no confidence that I will be understood. (I guess I feel that way about all of life, really, and so that must be why I live alone with cats and just write. No one’s gonna understand me anyway, so why bother?)

Well, I think today is going to be about doing more paperwork. I have a lot of spreadsheet type stuff that I need to do for Abstract Absurdity Productions, so I might do that today. I had a long phone chat with Peitor in LA last evening, so it seems like now is as good a time as any to get that tedious stuff done. Move the company forward.

I guess I sort of need this down time from all the projects. Actually, what I think I need is a little space from the play so that when I read it again, I will be able to hear it in a fresh way and figure out if anything is still missing. (I think something is still missing, but I don’t know what yet, but I don’t think it’s anything huge.)

Around 4am, I was sound asleep and this sort of distant bell began calling me. And then as I awoke, I realized it was that clanging bell outside my window, that alerts you that the train is coming. And even though its a freight train, it immediately brought to mind “Chattanooga Choo-choo”, which, coincidentally, couldn’t be further from Charlie Parker-type jazz.

But it is what I’m going to leave you with, for now. Because I have to go make that phone call to NYC and speak to the accountant.

I might post again later, though. Meanwhile, have a good Wednesday, wherever it leads you. I love you guys. See ya.