It’s So Good to be Me!!

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You know, it turns out that “Captivity” is not so easy to write.  (Letter #6 for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse.)

It’s all kind of “right there” in my brain — I can access it easily. But dealing with those memories of the mental hospital (when I was 15) is rough.  I’ve been at it for a few hours here this morning, and for every paragraph that makes it onto the page, I sit and stare off into space for many unbroken minutes, remembering it all and feeling my skin sort of crawl.

So it’s taking kind of forever. And do I really want to relive all this stuff by including it in this book? For some reason, though, it has been laid in front of me — of my brain — calling me down the path, and so I’m following. But, jeez.

Still, I’m glad I ended up in that place than as a suicide. You know. So let’s just use the experience as a jumping off point for something creative.

Anyway. I slept great last night. Had strange and vivid dreams with a lot of wonderful dogs in them. Lately, I have really been wanting another dog (I haven’t had a dog in over 40 years). I want one so badly. Not just to have something that would love me unconditionally — it’s more that I want something happy and frisky to give love to. However, my life is just not structured for a dog. Mostly, and most obviously, because I have a colony of feral cats here that would freak the fuck out if I brought a dog into their lives at this point. Plus, I just can’t take on that kind of responsibility. It’s nice enough that my birth mom is willing to take care of my cats now when I have to travel. Adding a dog to that heady mix is pushing it.

I’ve also been suffering from “baby lust” — that feeling that, every baby I see, I want to just take them in my arms and hug them and cuddle them and take them home with me!

It’s weird how many people now tell me that I should adopt a baby. A lot of people ask me if I have kids, and I, of course, say no. They say did you ever want any? ME: “Oh god, yes. But it’s a long story.” Then they always say: “It’s never too late.”

I look at them like they’re nuts — I’m almost 60 years old. And single. Wanting a baby and actually doing something about it are two entirely different universes now. And back when I was 40, married and looking to adopt, I was already pushing the age limit that agencies would allow for legal adoptions.

But people around here are quick to point out that age doesn’t really matter anymore. “So many girls are addicted to meth and opioids around here and they’re always in and out of jail and giving up their kids.  There are so many unwanted babies in the system around here that need homes — you could easily get one.”

Wow.

Jesus, talk about heartbreaking. But there’s just no way. A friend of mine who lives out here, my age, did adopt one of those infants. But he has a wife who’s 25 years younger than he is. Plus, he’s retired now. He has plenty of time.

So many people my age are already retiring. I just don’t understand that concept. And now retiring and adopting infants. It’s just foreign to me. (It was hard enough wrapping my mind around friends getting spouses who were 25-30 years younger than they were — what the heck is that?)

Both of my younger sisters are grandmothers now and my mom is a great-grandmother. And I should be, like, a grandmother now. Not marrying people who weren’t even close to being alive when I was born and then adopting infants. But I can’t imagine myself as a grandmother. I’m still, like, a child, you know?

I often wish that a little hungry non-feral kitten would wonder up onto my porch and not leave (like Fluffy did back in 2006), or that a puppy needing a home would be somehow foisted upon me, or that a baby in a basket (preferably not the Antichrist) would be left anonymously on my front step. You know, like the Universe would be thrusting something upon me that I wouldn’t be able to refuse.

However, reality has so far prevailed. And that’s probably a really good thing. And meanwhile, I had lots of interesting dreams about dogs last night. So I guess I’m letting it all happen in my dreams.

I am so fucking tired today. Because I was lazy yesterday and, rather than make time to do yoga, I took 2 Ibuprofen because I was feeling really stiff. And that was such a stupid thing to do because Ibuprofen just wipes me out. I really didn’t think it through.

This is one of those key times when I need a keeper:

ME (getting up from my desk): “Wow, I feel really stiff today.”

KEEPER: “Do yoga. You haven’t done yoga all week.”

ME: “I could just take a couple of Ibuprofen and go right back to my desk. That’ll take care of it.”

KEEPER: “Do yoga — Ibuprofen makes you super tired and then you feel miserable and get depressed because you’re too tired to do yoga. So do yoga.”

And then if I still resist common sense, the Keeper could just take the Ibuprofen bottle away from me, roll out my yoga mat, point to the floor and say, “Do yoga.”

I would just love that, gang. I really would! You have no idea how much I would  love to have a Keeper. Then days like today — when I absolutely have to make myself do yoga and I’m still so fucking tired from pills I took last evening — would not exist.

Plus, I’m trying to take a break from Flonase. Because it’s a steroid and it’s not good to just take it indefinitely. But I’m allergic to dust — and I live in a house that is 118 years old, so dust is pretty much part of its very foundation. And I’m allergic to cats, of which I have seven. And I can’t breathe without Flonase. So I’m exhausted and I can’t breathe.

I’m having the best day!!

But underneath all that, I am actually having a good day. I’m super excited about 2020 arriving here within a handful of days. 2019 was actually pretty darn good. But I’m thinking 2020 is going to be amazing. So I can’t complain. (Plus, I only gained 3 pounds during this Christmas constant-nibbling-of-chocolate-and-eating-amazing-amounts-of-cheese season! I can lose that by Monday! So I’m good!!)

And right now, I’m super hungry again so I’m gonna scoot and grab my lunch and then get back to “Captivity.” (Do yoga somewhere in there, too.) I hope you guys are having a really nice Friday, wherever you are in the world — the final Friday of 2019. Thanks for visiting! I love you guys. See ya!

Sort of A Complete Success!

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Yes, except for the times I was blogging, I actually stayed away from my desk throughout Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

A true Christmas miracle.

And I made every effort to watch new things, at least on Christmas Day. I did watch one old re-run of Perry Mason, which I loved. Even though I’d seen it a million times. But then I switched to my watchlist to find only new stuff.

And I’ll tell you, it’s just weird. You know, I often see trailers of new shows that look just so cool. And then the shows go on to be mega-hits and win awards and stuff, but when I try actually watching them, often I can’t even get halfway through the first episode.

It happens more often than not. Something that should be really fun and yet I can’t connect somehow and my mind drifts away. Not all the time — I remember I loved The Detectorists. And some other British TV shows. But I thought I was going to love Fleabag and I didn’t. I thought I was going to love Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and I didn’t.

And yesterday, I thought I was going to really seriously love Good Omens, but I only got halfway through the first episode before my mind started to wander again.

I keep thinking that maybe I should try again, but jump in somewhere mid-season in all these popular shows. Maybe they’ll resonate better for me, farther along in the series. But then I run into that problem I have with not wanting to spend time away from my desk, so it never happens.

I was so disappointed with Good Omens. I really thought I was going to love that. So maybe I will try again some other time. However, last night, I switched back to my watchlist, and found a movie that had been in my queue for a couple years already (yes, this is how little I watch — or stream — TV). It was loosely adapted from a novel I loved, that came out in 2005 or so. I was sort of stunned to see that the movie is already old — 2007! But it counts as new because I had never seen it before.

Image result for what we do is secret movie

What We Do Is Secret — the story of Darby Crash and the Germs, an LA punk band from back in the mid-70s. He committed suicide (an intentional heroin overdose) in LA — ironically enough, on December 8, 1980, the same day John Lennon was killed in NYC.

I thought the movie was great, you know? Not necessarily great cinema, but just so well acted and so good at capturing the era and the feel of the story it was trying to tell. It’s a small movie, but I never lost interest in it for even a moment.

It’s not really anything like the novel, though — they are two distinct entities, but both are good and stand strong, each by themselves.

So I don’t know. I tried. I tried to plant myself in front of something brand new. But what wound up grabbing me was something already 12 years old that reminded me of my late teen years and the first year in NYC, and the music scene back then, and all the intense musicians that I knew (including myself, I guess).

I never really liked punk rock too much, although a couple of the bands I really loved (Patti Smith Group, primarily) were put under the punk rock banner but, in my opinion, were actually something so much more. But then, at the tail end of punk, came the New Wave banner and a whole lot of bands that fell under that banner were just really cool. To me, anyway.

At the end of the movie, a whole bunch of notes started coming to me for “Captivity” — Letter 6 of Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. So I was scribbling notes at the kitchen table, but I still was not at my desk!

And then I found it so intensely cool and interesting that the movie ends with Bowie’s song from 1972, “Rock N Roll Suicide,” which was the very first song in my own life that helped keep me from trying to kill myself. It was a very important song to me. And it worked for awhile. Eventually, though, in the summer of 1975, my adoptive dad told me that I should just go ahead and kill myself because no one wanted to deal with me anymore. So I went inside and tried to kill myself and then wound up in the mental hospital — which is what the chapter “Captivity” is all about. (Well, it’s about sex in the mental hospital.)

You know, I realize that we can’t make people behave in a way that isn’t natural for them, and I know it sounds trite to say this, but it really just seems to me that if people could just communicate so much pain in the world would go away. I include myself in that, too. By the time I was 14, 15, I could not talk to my parents about anything. Certainly by the time I was 15, I was so fucked up on drugs most of the time, that trying to communicate was pointless. Still, the fact was that I was unable to talk about anything. My dad was pretty heartless, but he didn’t know that I was being sexually assaulted and raped by all those guys — he had no clue. I don’t think he even knew that Greg had been killed or who Greg had been to me, to my life. My dad lived in another city, had re-married and was in a whole other world. By then, I couldn’t talk to him about anything.

And my adoptive mom was just so abusive. She wasn’t physically abusive anymore, but she had the emotional and mental abuse thing down like a science. She terrified me. I was in constant anxiety mode whenever she was around me. I totally lost my ability to communicate. So when my dad told me it would make everyone’s lives easier if I killed myself, he overrode anything David Bowie was trying to convey.

And then, even in the mental hospital — man, excuse the pun, but that place was crazy. What I learned in that place was how to fly under the radar, you know? To not get caught at anything, and to finally tell the doctors what they wanted to here so that I could get the fuck out of there. I wasn’t any better when I got out; I was worse. Because no one in that place had been able to find out what was really wrong with me — what had happened to me. Because I wouldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t figure out how to tell anyone. I could not communicate — it felt life-threatening to me.

But it was just ludicrous — what was going on in my life that my parents knew nothing about. I remember one Friday night in the early summer of 1975 (this was already several months after I was actually raped), I was home alone and talking to a girlfriend on the phone in my room, and I heard someone down at the front door. So I said, “Hold on a minute, there’s someone at the door.”

But when I went down to see who it was, these 3 guys from school jumped me and dragged me off to the woods, and had me stripped out of my clothes in a heartbeat, and I was fighting them the whole time and yelling at them to stop. And then one of the guys said, “If you don’t quit fighting us, Marilyn, this isn’t going to be any fun.”

He actually said that. I was flabbergasted. I said, “Just give me my clothes back!” So they gave me my clothes back. I got dressed, went back home and my girlfriend was still hanging on the telephone. “Where did you go?” she said. “You took forever.”

That kind of shit would happen to me a lot after Greg died. It got so that I was afraid to leave the house. Afraid to go to school. Afraid to walk home from school because the path home was through those woods — which bordered an old abandoned rock quarry, where there was a cave that the guys from school had built a little fort in. That stupid fort was some scary shit. It seemed like there were always guys waiting for me around that fort.

Anyway. I digress rather regrettably. I really just wanted to say that it was so cool that at the end of What We Do Is Secret, Bowie’s song “Rock N Roll Suicide” played as the credits rolled, and I felt, you know, like I had survived my own life. So that was good.

And on that note, I’m gonna scoot and get started here! 2 days away from my desk felt like an eternity! I am eager to get back to work. Thanks for visiting. Enjoy Boxing Day, if you live someplace where that is celebrated. If not, enjoy the day after Christmas! I love you guys. See ya!

“Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide”

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget
Oh, you’re a rock ‘n’ roll suicide

You’re too old to lose it, too young to choose it

And the clock waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe but you don’t eat when you’ve lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you’re a rock ‘n’ roll suicide

Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road

But the day breaks instead so you hurry home
Don’t let the sun blast your shadow
Don’t let the milk float ride your mind
You’re so natural – religiously unkind

Oh no love! You’re not alone
You’re watching yourself but you’re too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only make you care
Oh no love! You’re not alone
No matter what or who you’ve been
No matter when or where you’ve seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I’ve had my share, I’ll help you with the pain
You’re not alone

Just turn on with me and you’re not alone
Just turn on with me and you’re not alone
Let’s turn on and be not alone
Gimme your hands cause you’re wonderful [2x]
Oh gimme your hands.

c – 1972 David Bowie, Jorge Seu

Oh, and PS….

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I just now remembered that Barnes & Noble refused to carry Neptune & Surf in any of its stores when the book first came out, all because of that story, “Gianni’s Girl.”

It offended their sensibilities that the story was an eroticized gangbang. They told my publisher that it was rape, however you looked at it, and they refused to sell it.  I could understand their point, of course, but I was devastated when my publisher called with the news — they were the hugest book chain in North America. Thankfully, Amazon was already around by then, so the book sold like hotcakes, regardless. And then Barnes & Noble not only carried the Blue Moon mass market edition of Neptune & Surf, but they also hired me to write 2 erotic romance novels exclusively for them, 3 years later. So everything, you know, well things change. Don’t they? Now gangbangs are all over the place.

Merry Merry & Happy Happy!!

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Okay! Merry Christmas, again!

If you were an early bird here to the blog (or whatever time it was where you live), and caught the limited-time post,  I hope you enjoyed reading “Gianni’s Girl” as much as I enjoyed writing it, 25 Christmas Eves ago.

It was truly one of those stories that I felt was dictated to me by the main character. The words came, the story came, the whole thing flowed out in one (long) sitting, and did not require any editing except for punctuation and misspellings here and there.

And it’s true — Wayne and I were having a dinner party that night because it was Christmas Eve; company was coming over, we had a ton of cooking still to do and last minute grocery shopping to do, and I was glued to my desk, writing furiously away because this amazing story was spilling out of me and I couldn’t stop it. I wrote it by hand, then typed it up a few days later. (I still have the handwritten manuscript in storage.) I didn’t even own a computer yet.

Wayne was so incredibly irritated with me that morning. He kept coming impatiently into the room: “Aren’t you done yet? We have to get going!” ME, scribbling away: “No! It’s still coming!!”

I recall vividly, both us hurrying along Broadway in the throngs of last-minute shoppers. It was a very cold and overcast day and I was sort of delirious, trying to explain to Wayne how incredible this story was that had just suddenly come out of me — though it had taken several hours for it to come out. And he was not impressed in the slightest; he was just so irritated with me.

For me, though, the story had been so vivid as it came out onto the page. I could see the entire thing — like a movie. And the part where Gianni is talking about having all that sex with his mom, and his mom always being pregnant and his dad being an abusive drunk — that part actually looked like it was in a tenement on the Lower East Side of NYC. I’m not really sure why I decided it was in Chicago.  I guess because it was bootleggers and it was 1927. Although there were plenty of bootleggers and plenty of mob guys in NYC in 1927.

Anyway. I know that for obvious reasons, it can be considered an offensive story (gang rape), and the fact that it ends up being a love story kind of fucks with some readers’ heads, but I wrote it down just as it came to me. And then people seemed to really like it — well, except for the girl it’s dedicated to — “Michelle.” She did not dig it at all. She was really offended by it. She didn’t like it until years later, after it actually became popular and conveniently had her name on it. It sold something like 75,000 copies, new, in all its various English editions combined. I don’t know how many have sold in French, or as “used” books or in eBooks. (It’s in a few different eBook collections.)

Blessed By Light came to me the same way, except it was an entire novel.  Someone else was dictating that story to me for nearly a year and I just wrote it as it came. After I was halfway into writing it, and had begun reading back over it with my editor, I was really startled to see how closely the female character (the “girl in the night”) resembled me. It was uncanny and disconcerting and weird, because I didn’t see it as I was writing it. However, I purposely titled Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse after that character in Blessed By Light, because it felt like it was me.

Well, okay!!

I tried very hard to stay away from my desk yesterday. I was successful but I had sort of a disjointed day because of it. I did re-watch Distant Sky: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Live in Copenhagen. It took a couple different sittings for me to get through the whole thing. I just find that concert and those songs just so amazing. Beautiful. Intense. Wonderful. Here’s “Girl In Amber” — I posted this photo briefly last night. But then everyone was visiting the photo of Basin Street in all that fog last night, so I pulled it to re-post it now:

“Girl in Amber”

And in case you don’t follow me on Instagram (I don’t think any of you do!), here’s a couple of photos I posted there:

Doris, on the table, ensuring she is first in line for Christmas dinner (this table is just for show — I eat alone in the kitchen).

 

The meanest cat in the world, Francis, on her Christmas chair! (Her mom, Tommy, underneath it.) (This is a vegan-friendly chair, it didn’t cost much. However, it is less than 2 years old and the cats have already destroyed it.)

Well, that’s it for now. I’m gonna go eat lunch or something resembling it. And then try to figure out what I will do next. I’m feeling like I might actually work at my desk today… (heavy sigh). We shall see.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Thanks for visiting!! I love you guys, see ya!

Best Morning of Christmas Eve, Ever!

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For some reason, all day yesterday, I kept thinking about that concert film from 2018, Distant Sky: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Live in Copenhagen. I really wished I could re-watch it. I kept thinking about how great it would sound on my new speakers, plus I just really loved that concert and wanted to see it again.

You know, I have a private email address that only about 6 people know. Two of my friends have it; one of my ex-husbands has it (the other ex-husband only texts me on my phone); and then about 3 business-related people have it. It’s so that I can be sure that emails coming from any of those people never wind up in the junk folder, and never get lost among a ton of spam emails. I won’t ever accidentally delete it, or not see that it’s there the moment it arrives.

There’s only ever about 3 active things in that inbox, and right now they’re all emails from the director of my play. Around 2:30am, though, I saw that my ex-husband (in Seattle) had emailed me. It was no less than 8 animated Christmas gifs, the one posted above being among them! I find it so funny & sweet that he does that, because he’s Chinese, Buddhist, born & raised in Singapore — and he sends me the most Westernized depictions of Christmas imaginable.  It’s so funny. But he also said something really sweet to me and it was just the best little Christmas email to get at 2:30am.

And then at about 6am this morning, I was still in bed and checked that email inbox again and, lo & behold, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds had written to me!! They never write to me at that email address — they only use my main one that the whole world knows!!

Well, upon closer inspection, it turns out that YouTube has that email address  — and they were the ones actually writing to me. But it was to tell me that Distant Sky: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Live in Copenhagen had just been uploaded to YouTube!! And that I could start watching it right that very second if I wanted to!

Fucking-A, right??!! Yay. I seriously really was thinking about that movie all day yesterday. I’m so happy!

I know… I’m committed to making this effort to watch only new things. (You’ll notice, though, that being “committed to making an effort” has a glaring loophole in it — you can see it a mile away.) Plus, it’s Christmas — who watches anything new on Christmas? I think it’ll be cool if I can manage to get through the next 2 days without watching It’s A Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol or The Bishop’s Wife or Holiday Inn, or even some sort of old foreign film about Nazis in Paris at Christmas or something like that.

We’ll see how it goes. I am, though, going to SERIOUSLY make an effort to not sit at my desk. I am going to try to avoid the hypnotic pull of it. I really am.

Even though, last evening at the Granville Inn, I ran into Kevin — the director of my play — and his husband, Christopher. And so now all I want to do is work on some revisions of the play! But last night, Kevin — who greeted me with this amazing hug and a big smile and said really joyously, “I love you!” and it left me a little breathless because it’s been quite a while since anyone has done that to me — but he also said, “We’re not discussing work until after the holiday, okay?!”

And I said, “Okay!!” And I’m gonna try to stick to that. I really am. And if that means I’m forced to re-watch Distant Sky: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Live in Copenhagen in order to not sit down at my desk, well, you know….

I’m actually so glad that I looked really nice last evening. I was hoping to run into that older man — that widower who’s a transplanted New Yorker — because he’s really interested in my play and I wanted to give him one of the Christmas cards. He’s been really sick, but I was wondering if maybe he was feeling better and would stop in at the Inn before Christmas. So I had actually washed my hair and it was behaving splendidly — you know, silky and bouncy and just really full and not as if half of it had just fallen out in the shower and was hanging around the bathtub drain…(such is the life of hair at age 59 and a half). Plus, I had decided to wear make-up– eye make-up, that is. I never wear any other make-up anymore, even though I have a ton of it and I love make-up; I just hate wearing it now because it adds about 20 years to my face. And I spend 17 trillion dollars a year on products that ensure I look 15 years younger than I am when I roll out of bed each morning and so that I can go out bravely into the Hinterlands and have much younger people gush breathlessly that I don’t look anywhere near as old as I am!

I don’t want to ruin all that by wearing anything more than eye make-up.

But anyway. Last night, there I was, actually looking really good for a change. And I had on these cute little silver earrings shaped like cats in Santa hats with tiny bells on them (a gift from Kara last Christmas) and my little gold “Joy” pin with the tiny rhinestones. I just looked really tastefully festive and sort of “grown-up-ish.” In short: I looked nothing like how I usually look and then I ran into my director and his husband! So I thought privately to myself: oh, yay! they’ll think I look like this all the time…

All righty. Enough of that.

Nick Cave was either up really late or up very early, because I also got a Red Hand Files thingy in my (other) inbox just before dawn! I only know it’s about Christmas. I haven’t read it yet. But you can read it here if you so choose!

Right now, I’m gonna get more coffee, finish up the laundry, brush my teeth, admire my still-behaving hair in the mirror, and then get in my grown-up car and join the throngs of people who, comme moi, decided to save all their grocery shopping for Christmas Eve day — the worst traffic day of the whole year, even in a small town.

Then I will come home, not smoke Chesterfields, not drink bourbon, not sit at my desk and write… but still have a really great Christmas Eve!!

Okay. I leave you with this. It still breaks my heart to pieces (I loved this man and they killed him). But there’s still a lot of joy left there, too, gang. Death doesn’t kill love, it only transforms it. So play it loud and rejoice. And thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!

Oh, Joy!!

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Yes!!

Late last night, I stopped in at the gas station here in Crazeysburg because I ran out of milk again!! And I couldn’t possibly face the morning without milk for my coffee, whether the milk was organic and fresh from the farm, or non-organic and fresh from the gas station.

When I got up to the counter to pay, lo & behold! Right there in front of me, for the first time in Crazeysburg ever — or at least since I’ve been here — there were packs of Chesterfield cigarettes for sale!

My favorite cigarettes of all time.

The very reason I gave up smoking was because you could not find Chesterfields for sale anywhere in Ohio once I had moved back here from New York.

These cigarettes at the gas station were the “new” Chesterfields, with the modern packaging and filter tips. Now produced by Phillip Morris. I have no idea if they’re still the same tobacco or not. The old Chesterfields were initially filterless, and smoking just one would knock you on your ass. They seemed to have triple-nicotine. And since, back then, I always drank 101 proof Wild Turkey bourbon, filterless Chesterfields made drinking that bourbon an absolute joy! You could be both drunk and buzzed all night long.

Image result for chesterfield kings cigarettes
The old Chesterfields. Produced by Liggett & Myers.

But I was so indescribably thrilled to finally see Chesterfields for sale in Ohio again — and on such prominent display in the gas station in Crazeysburg — that I automatically asked for a pack. Then I paid for it and took it, along with my jug of milk, to the car. Got in the car. I was in such great spirits! There were Christmas lights on all the houses up & down the street, and strung all over the fence in the town square (which is sort of a triangle). The black night was frosty but super clear — all the stars were shining.

I put the key in the ignition and then thought: What the fuck?! Why did I just do that? I don’t smoke.

I have not smoked in years! It was so wild. But I took them home anyway. I was just so happy to possess them again, even though they don’t look remotely the same as they used to:

 I just LOVE this! Obviously, the point was supposed to be the new packaging but it’s so funny that Nick Cave is all over the photo! Well. Such are photos taken at my desk…

You can see that the new packaging is super boring, but anyway.

So. On another topic altogether.

Here is a really cute photo of my great-niece. She is almost two years old. Her name is Stevie. I haven’t met her yet. She’s the granddaughter of the sister I don’t really get along with too well. In fact, I have never even met Stevie’s mom — my actual niece, my sister’s daughter. I was always sort of the persona non grata in that sister’s life because she found me maddeningly opinionated and a wee bit on the super-duper liberal side.

However, my mom and my other sister have always kept me abreast of my niece’s world and have always sent me photos. And so now my niece is married and has a daughter. (I have photos of the wedding, too, though I was not invited…) (I do get invited to funerals, though, so that’s really fun — you know, to be thought of when  everybody’s feeling wretched and devastated…) Anyway, she’s a cutie!!

All righty!!

I’m getting super excited that Christmas is basically here. I’m guessing I’ll go on a diet on Thursday. I actually am getting really sick of chocolate. I’ve eaten so much of it in the past week. I’m so ready to be normal again — or my version of normal, which is really just wide open in every area of my life.

I’m gonna close this because I gotta scoot! I gotta take some stuff to the post office, and the post office here in Crazeysburg only stays open for a couple hours in the early morning, and then a couple hours in the mid-afternoon. And if I want my stuff to get anywhere before the end of the year, I gotta get to that post office post-haste!

Have a great Monday, wherever you are in the world and to wherever it takes you. Thanks for visiting! I love you guys! See ya!!

Thug Luckless says: “Smoke your way to a merry Christmas!”

She Seems Sort of Opinionated, Don’t You Think?

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I’m not sure why this bothers me so much. Well, I know why it bothers me so much: it just feels like yet another way to make money off of Tom Petty.

There’s a new release now (and a video that one of Tom’s daughters directed) where sons of famous musicians (plus Willie Nelson) did a cover of a song Tom Petty wrote that never got released in his lifetime. It got released earlier this year, on the Geffen double-album, “The Best of Everything.”

The song is called, “For Real,” and I have a hard time listening to that song just generally. It makes me sad and it also sort of makes me uncomfortable. I almost never play it and if it comes on the stream or the CD player, I almost always skip over it. Plus I just don’t think it’s a really strong song — almost too personal, in a way.  And a few months back, when I read on one of his daughters Instagram feeds that this was in the works, I wondered why this specific song? And it felt to me like just a way to make more money since a.) Tom Petty can’t write any new songs from where he’s at now — or at least not songs that it would be easy for us to hear; and b.) I think there’s some sort of legal stuff going on between his 2nd wife and his daughters that’s holding up the production of a Wildflowers Part 2, which allegedly has a ton of previously unreleased songs on it that will probably sell through the roof and make everybody that much richer if they can get past fighting each other in court.

I know, I sound a little bit nasty about it— and I do remember reading, in an interview not long before he died, that he wanted to release those songs that didn’t make it into the first (massively huge-selling) Wildflowers from 1994. So it’s not that I don’t believe he wanted those other song’s released. It’s just this specific song project that feels to me like his heirs making money off of him posthumously however they can…

Anyway. Such is my opinion on that.  I don’t know why I don’t just quit following these things on Instagram that perplex me or upset me or that leave me with too many unanswerable questions that I can’t quit pondering…!!

Something else happened that bothered me a whole big bunch, too. Something I overheard today that wasn’t any of my business but it just pushed all my buttons.

It involved a young guy I really just adore— from a distance. He’s the kind of guy that, if I’d been able to have a son, I would have wanted him to be just like this young guy. He’s smart, funny, independent, off the wall. (Once, I overheard him say the funniest thing. He was really frustrated about something— I don’t know what — and he spluttered out, “Jesus, I haven’t been able to get any peace since ‘Nam!” I thought that was so fucking funny. You know, he was born around 40 years after that war ended, and of course Vietnam has the reputation of having been nothing remotely close to being peaceful in any way. Why would he think to blurt that out? Just too cute.)

Anyway, this angry girl was verbally abusing him in this psychotic way and it totally reminded me of how my adoptive mother used to talk when she was on one of her psychotic soapboxes. It made my skin crawl. On the outside, this young girl seemed so pretty and “normal.” Then this rampage of ugliness came out of her mouth and then she went stalking off in a self-righteous huff. It made me feel so bad for the guy. All my maternal instincts just came rushing to the surface; I was just horrified by that girl because she reminded me so much of my adoptive mother. And I realized that I wanted to protect him from all the garbage in this world, but there’s not really a darn thing I can do about it.

Other than that, I’ve had just a really good energy day. I woke up chipper and happy and full of joy and hope. (And chocolate!! I need to get a grip on all this holiday indulgence pretty soon…..) I just think 2020 is going be such a great year, gang. I really do. And I can’t wait for Christmas, even though I’m just going to be alone with the cats and I don’t believe it’s really going to snow, but I know I’m just going to have a really sacred and beautiful day.

I hope you guys are gearing up for a lovely Christmas, too,  if that’s what you celebrate. I leave you with the song I was listening to all morning — a song that makes me feel so in love. Thanks for visiting!! I love you guys. See ya.

 

A Cozy Little Saturday, Indeed!

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I’m having the best morning, gang.  I finally woke up feeling super happy and super frisky! I did make myself do yoga yesterday and it made a world of difference.  Although I am also putting on weight because it’s that time of year…. Since my mom’s visit, there is chocolate candy in bright shiny wrappers all over the house and eggnog in the fridge and all sorts of cheesy goodness in the freezer.

In other words, I’m eating all kinds of holiday stuff that tastes so good and is just not so good for me!! But next week, austere living returns so I’m gonna just enjoy it for now.

Oh! And the royalties for December are coming in — thanks, gang.  I really appreciate it. I made good money this month, and considering that so much of my potential sales were disappearing out from under me this past fall — with all those illegal downloads all over the Internet — I really do appreciate you spending actual money on the books, even though I know the books are really old!

However, I am working on getting new stuff out there.

Which reminds me — yesterday, for some reason that I don’t recall right this minute, I was looking over a chapter in Blessed By Light (my new novel) and I wound up re-reading a good chunk of that book. Gosh, I really love that book. I cannot wait for it to get published and put itself out there into the world.

It’s not as erotic as most of the stuff I write (the excerpt at the top of the page is a good indication of the level of explicitness in the book overall. It doesn’t ever get too hard core.) But it’s just a beautiful little book. It made me feel really happy to re-read it.

And I’m also really happy with where Letter #6 for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse is going.  (“Captivity” is the title of it. It’s basically about sex in the mental hospital — it won’t be the cheeriest chapter ever written, but oh well!)

I’m also excited because the director of Tell My Bones and his husband arrive back in the Hinterlands today, to spend the holidays at their mansion on the hill — their house is in town, about 20 miles from me.  Not only will I finally have something festive to do for the holidays that involves other people besides just me (and the cats) (plus I’ll probably finally have a reason to wear high heels and a little black dress again), but I’m also eager to spend at least a little time going over the revisions of the play with the director.

Oh, you know, if you want to read a brief excerpt of Tell My Bones, you can do it HERE. (Click on the link that’s on that page.) And sign up for the newsletter there if you want to, too.

I’m just feeling really good about all the various projects today. Plus, I’m going to pay bills today and I have complete confidence that I’m not going to do that weird shit I did last month — wherein I paid a big chunk of bills that weren’t due yet and neglected to pay tiny things like my mortgage and my car payment! Aaach!! But it worked out at the final hour, thanks to having two ex-husbands who still really like me a lot….

Anyway. I just feel like I have a brain again — i.e: look at the bills that are actually due and pay those — and that’s always uplifting!!

Okay. Well! I’m gonna get started here. Have a super Saturday, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting, gang! I leave you with my breakfast-listening music, even though there’s narry a hint of snow anywhere around, but the song just makes me happy! All righty! I love you guys. See ya!

The world of author Marilyn Jaye Lewis