Tag Archives: Blessed By Light by Marilyn Jaye Lewis

My Coffee NEVER Arrives Like This!!

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I always have to go down to the kitchen and get the coffee myself, and in the process, try not to trip over hundreds of scampering cats who can’t stand me.

Okay. Perhaps I exaggerate – there are only 7 cats here who can’t stand me.

But I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve never had this sort of announcement when the coffee was ready. Least of all, by a guy who wore a seriously nice robe such as the one pictured above! (And I guarantee you; I have had plenty of nightgowns that looked like hers, so that can’t be the issue here.)

I guess it’ll just remain one of those eternal mysteries, gang – why it is that vintage advertisements never seem to reflect the life I’ve lived.

Still awaiting comments & edits from NY on Blessed By Light. In the meantime, I’m trying to sort of urge my mind into the Tell My Bones groove. The play could not possibly be more different from Blessed By Light if it tried, so I seriously have to find a way to steer my mind away from one creative track and onto another.

It feels like that “changing horses in midstream” kind of thing. My mind doesn’t really feel ready to let go of Blessed By Light, but it has to. It is almost July and rehearsals will begin in a few weeks, and the director wants to see all my revisions for the entire play before we get started. (The rehearsals, though, will primarily be for the staged reading version of the script, which is only a 30 minute condensed version of the whole play.)

Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I went through a lot of stress, creating that staged reading version of the script back in January/February, and made significant changes to the storytelling at that point that haven’t been incorporated into the overall script yet. So I have to tackle that. And of course tackle it as the heat of July approaches.

But I actually do okay, writing in intensely unbearable heat. Sleeping in it is where I have serious problems.

Okay!

Yesterday’s post, curiously enough, yielded lots of traffic from Russia that I don’t usually experience – and none of it came through the WordPress Reader. Indeed curious, right?

Freaked me out just a little bit, I have to say. But on we go.

The last few days have yielded another sort of interesting development.

Even while being incredibly happy with finishing the new novel, and really happy with how it reads as a completed book, I’ve had these weird physical things that have started to perplex me. Relentless and usually overwhelming fatigue is an ongoing issue. Now pain issues. And now bruises appearing from out of nowhere that I can’t explain.

Yesterday evening, I found several more bruises. But you know, that sudden out of body experience I had while meditating yesterday morning felt really profound to me.  That idea that it was futile to go on because there was too much “nature” out in front of me, and yet that feeling of peace about being right where I was, because everything was so beautiful right where I was.

Obviously, I don’t like seeing these bruises.  And yesterday, I found 4 more.  I like to believe it’s just some weird byproduct of being a vegetarian and maybe not getting enough of some sort of vitamin. Still, whatever it ends up being, that sense of peace came over me again yesterday and it was profound. I felt totally okay with everything.

I’m so happy that I finished the novel, and I know I’ll finish the play, and I feel certain I’ll finish Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse.

I have several other projects that I’ve already started – 3 plays, another novel, and a memoir; and then TV adaptations for 2 of my older novels. But yesterday, it suddenly felt like, well, if I don’t complete those projects for whatever reason, it’s okay. It’s these 3 primary ones that are front & center right now that matter most to me and I know for sure I’m going to finish those.

It’s a type of thinking I’ve never really had before, but it all felt really, really good to me. Like absolutely everything is all right, no matter what path I end up finding myself on.

Plus I think that the people that I love in this life know that I love them. And that’s really important to me.

Loyal readers of this lofty blog know all about Greg, the boy I fell in love with when I was 11 years old and he was 12; and I stayed in love with him until he was killed in an accident the summer I was 14 and he was 15.  And then all sorts of horrible things began to unravel in my world after he died. And I never got a chance to tell him that I loved him. I was a child, you know?  Throughout that whole relationship. Even though we had a ton of sex. I was still a child, really. I was overwhelmed by all the feelings I had for him, but it would never have occurred to me to say “I love you.” It just wasn’t part of my emotional landscape yet.

And I don’t think anything ever felt worse to me than having him suddenly be gone, forever, without being able to tell him that I loved him.

But ever since then, boy, I’ll tell you. I try to express how I feel towards people as best I can. Even though on so many levels, I am a really self-involved person, I do actually care deeply about people. Obviously, readers here know that I have this life-long processing of physical abuse and rape issues that I still deal with many decades later; things that have caused me to have intimacy problems that I try to process in the most productive ways I can. Still, it makes “relationships” very hard for me to maintain. But underneath all the drama, I still care deeply about people.

And I guess in some ways, even though this sounds sort of lame or even like an emotional cop out, my writing is always about human emotions and the emotional complexities of “being here” and the messages we give each other by “being here.”  I do care very much about the human condition, the human heart, and I try to put all of that into my writing and hope that it continues to affect people positively.  Even when there’s a lot of sex going on in what I’m writing, the human heart is always the central issue for me. That struggle for the heart to connect while it’s still here.

Love people. Help them feel loved. Let people know they’re not alone. Life is the same innate journey for all of us, even while we experience it each in our own unique way. I really believe there is an undercurrent to all of it that is exactly the same for all of us, and it comes from love.

Okay.

I still did not set up the laptop. I have some revisions I need to make by tomorrow to the micro-short video script that Peitor and I are working on, so I will probably avoid the laptop yet again and focus on that today! Or at least this morning. And then avoid the laptop by doing stuff like washing my hair, doing yoga, finding something to stare at and then stare at it. Study Italian. Play the guitar…

I so don’t want to deal with that laptop, and yet I also can’t wait for it to be ready for me to use!! What a conundrum!

All righty!

The Conversations with Nick Cave continue in Brighton for the next couple nights and then will completely disappear from the landscape for a couple of months, wherein I’m certain he will have all sorts of private (lower case ‘c’) conversations and wear whatever he wants to wear! Instagram will somehow survive and continue to get all clogged up with all sorts of things that may or may not mean anything.

As usual, we shall see!

The breakfast-listening music was a little sad today – one of Tom Petty’s many “divorce” songs before he finally got up his nerve (basically) to divorce Jane. It’s a song I’ve posted here numerous times over the years just because I really love the darn song: “Only A Broken Heart.”

(You know, if you like Tom Petty and have never read either his official biography, Petty, by Warren Zane, a really good book and a NY Times Bestseller from 2015; or Conversations with Tom Petty by Paul Zollo, a phenomenally good book from 2006; you should read them. He talks about pretty much every song he ever wrote and why he wrote them and what was going on in his life when he wrote what he wrote, as well as songs that might mean a lot to you that he barely even remembers writing because it meant almost nothing to him. Even his huge hit “Wildflowers,” a really gentle little love song/folk song, he says was actually a song he wrote for himself; because he knew he was unhappy but that he deserved to be happy and he needed to get a divorce… It’s just all very, very interesting if you like Tom Petty.)

Okay, enjoy your Friday, folks. Wherever it takes you! Thanks for visiting, gang. Please know I love you guys so much!! See ya!

“Only A Broken Heart”

Here comes that feeling I’ve seen in your eyes
Back in the old days, before the hard times
But I’m not afraid anymore
It’s only a broken heart

I know the place where you keep your secrets
Out of the sunshine, down in a valley
But I’m not afraid anymore
It’s only a broken heart

What would I give, to start all over again
To clean up my mistakes

Stand in the moonlight, stand under heaven
Wait for an answer, hold out forever
But don’t be afraid anymore
It’s only a broken heart

What would I give, to start all over again
To clean up my mistakes

I know your weakness, you’ve seen my dark side
The end of the rainbow is always a long ride
But I’m not afraid anymore
It’s only a broken heart

c- 1994  Thomas Earl Petty

All Good Things

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I had one of those out of body things during my morning meditation today.

I was suddenly standing on the side of a huge hill that was absolutely covered with huge drifts of untrodden white, powdery snow. The sun was coming up at the top of the hill and the snow became blindingly white.

It was really beautiful. I was the only person, anywhere.  I decided not to try to make it any farther up the hill, and I turned to the right, and kept walking in that direction, until I came to the edge of a precipice and the view was astounding. A great divide. A canyon of some kind.  Surrounded by enormous snow-covered cliffs for as far as the eye could see.

And it felt futile to try to go on. There was simply too much “nature” to contend with, yet at the same time, it gave me a true sense of peace about being exactly where I was, because everything was so beautiful.

And then the meditation music ended, right then. And I came right back & opened my eyes (to a very warm and sunny morning).

It was, I guess, a good way to start the day. I do feel like I’m in a new era now, because the novel’s done.

I read it from start to finish last evening. It took about 4 1/2 hours. I did find one typo, but I’m still awaiting the official edits/comments from NY.

I was kind of overwhelmed by the book – in a good way. Although I’m not happy with the second to the last line. So I’m going to look at that today. And then try to really get a grasp on the whole thing, the complete picture of it, you know? It is such a strange novel. It’s beautiful, though.

I woke around 4a.m. today and felt a little sad because the book was over.  Gradually the birds started singing, and that pulled me out of it. It’s not like my life is over. I’m excited to get to work on the upcoming play. And once those revisions are done (for the time being), I can get back to work on Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. It should be fun to write hardcore erotica in the overwhelmingly oppressive heat & humidity of deep summer!!

I’m sure I will keep you posted…(in between cold showers).

Okay. Truth be told, I still have not completely set up that new laptop, so I will probably make some time to give it my complete attention. It’s really a wonderful laptop and it’s stupid to not be using it. But I just hate migrating all the old stuff into the new stuff and finding out what’s not going to upgrade or which passwords I’ve hopelessly forgotten, or which software I have to reload, and how to get all my favorite URLs back in my browser, etc.

Just tedious, mind-numbing, potentially frustrating stuff.  And I’ve noticed that lots of people use stealth browsers now and I’m not sure if I want to start doing that — go into some brave new world, or just stay here on the old browser where it’s beautiful & happy.

I do have one stealth browser that I use if I’m going on Yandex or something, because the one time I went to sites through Yandex, boy, did my little laptop become a target for stealthware, or whatever you call it.

I don’t want stealthware on my laptop, but I honestly don’t care if the Russians are spying, or anything like that. I expect the Russians to be spying. And I expect us to be spying on them, too.  It’s just how we are, I guess. NYC, in the 80s especially, was full of spies, from all over, not just Russia. I dated a couple of spies and they were both exceptionally interesting men. Talk about fearless, you know? Jesus.

The Russian spy was a race car driver from what we once affectionately called “Yugoslavia.” He worked in tandem with some communist Chinese spies (always very, very nice to me), and he had quite a few illegal Irish girls spying for the Russians, too (they were sort of wretched, unhappy creatures, though). He was always trying to get me to spy for the Russians. I was very noncommittal about it.  I was in such a strange place in my life back then.

A very good friend of mine was on leave from the Marines at one point, and came to stay in my apartment for a few days. He found issues of Guns & Ammo in my apartment, and that’s never been the kind of zine I was known to have read.  Ever.

We were eating bowls of cereal, watching PeeWee’s Playhouse on the Saturday morning cartoons, hanging out in bed in our underwear; easy -breezy.

HIM (noticing the magazines): “What are you reading Guns & Ammo for?”

ME (somewhere in the clouds): “Oh, some guy I’m dating wants me to spy for the Russians. Wants me to learn how to use a gun.”

HIM: “Are you out of your fucking mind???!!! You get the death penalty for that, Mare!! It’s a capital offense.”

He then made me call the guy and tell him that I wasn’t going to see him anymore – and why. ME (on phone): “Because I don’t want to get the death penalty.”

(I actually said that, gang. The guy accepted it, too. He said something like, “Okay. I get it. No problem.” And I didn’t see him anymore.)

But anyway.  I don’t know that I want to commit to a full-time stealth browser because I kinda like being tracked (by non-Russians) on the Internet! It helps me get right back to where I was before. 1700 less things to try to remember.

I guess we’ll see.

Okay.

Not too many photos out of Liverpool last night, but still getting some really wonderful photos posted to Instagram from Nick Cave’s Conversation in Nottingham, 2 nights ago. I don’t know, it just looks like it was a cool show.

Of course, on Instagram, they all look like the exact same show. They honestly do. If you saw all these photos I save on Instagram, you’d think I was out of my mind, because they all look exactly the same. However, sometimes, you just get the feeling that one show or another was particularly amazing. Just judging from thoroughly identical Instagram photos, I still think the Luxembourg show seems like it was off-the-charts special.

Okay. I’m gonna get going here gang and try to fix that 2nd to the last line of the novel and see if I can’t sign off on it and move forward into some sort of new era of my sometimes wonderful, always engaging LIFE.

I leave you with the breakfast-listening music from this morning, “Time to Move On.”  It was wistful. I did not cry, although I kind of wanted to. Mostly, I guess I’m just willing to walk into the future, come what may.  I hope I’ll see you there! Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!

“Time To Move On”

It’s time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It’s time to move on, it’s time to get goingBroken skyline, movin’ through the airport
She’s an honest defector
Conscientious objector
Now her own protectorBroken skyline, which way to love land
Which way to something better
Which way to forgiveness
Which way do I go

Time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It’s time to move on, it’s time to get going

Sometime later, getting the words wrong
Wasting the meaning and losing the rhyme
Nauseous adrenaline
Like breakin’ up a dogfight
Like a deer in the headlights
Frozen in real time
I’m losing my mind

It’s time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It’s time to move on, it’s time to get going

c- 1994 Tom Petty

Jubilation!

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Yes, I completed the revision of Chapter 2 in Blessed By Light last evening and sent that and the revision of Chapter 1 off to NY to be re-edited by the editor!

I think I’m really happy with the changes. I’ll know for sure when I get started here this morning. But if I feel the same as I did last night,  then I think the rest of the read-through will just be looking for stray typos and such.

Even though the last 5 chapters have not come back from NY yet, I know that I at least liked the chapters and they won’t need any major overhauls.

That makes me feel so happy, gang. Because now I can finally just take in the whole novel and see what the hell I’ve written! Finally. I have not read this whole novel straight through, ever.  I was putting together the TOC last evening, writing out the chapter titles, and with some of them, I was literally thinking, Hm. I wonder what this chapter was about… I only have a vague recollection.

And the chapters are super short – the whole novel is super short. It’s only about 148 pages. And yet it still took me 10 months to write it.

I know I did a ton of script work in that time frame, too, but when I wrote Twilight of the Immortal, back in 2010, it only took me a year. That was a 600 page novel. And I was still writing a lot of short stories back then, too.

Blessed By Light has just been the strangest writing experience I’ve ever had. And, of course, it’s been my favorite.

When I think of the  research that went into Twilight of the Immortal, and how I labored to capture every personality, every historical individual, spell everyone’s names correctly, make sure all the dates & places matched up with what history has documented about those people’s whereabouts at that time, etc.  Put together the bibliography, and the “Cast of Characters” – short bios on everybody in the book, and that alone was something like 30 pages. And I did all that in one year, while meeting numerous deadlines for short story sales in France & Spain.

Blessed By Light is in that weird 2nd person POV. And there is no real place identified. Los Angeles is implied. But never outright stated. He does talk briefly about Paris and NY. He talks about experiences in London from 40 years prior. He talks a lot about growing up, but never says where it was. His best friend is named George, and when his sister was 15, she dated a guy named Joe. But no one else in the book has a name!

The main character has no name. The woman he’s talking to throughout the book has no name. His  previous wives have no names, though he talks about each of them in great detail. His daughters have no names. There are parents, grandparents, siblings, previous love affairs, band members – no one at all has a name. And we don’t know where anyone’s from.

And yet the book is primarily about fame.  Yet, no names.

And even though George is really the only main character who has a name, through at least half of the novel, George is dead. Presumably killed by an overzealous, unstable fan, but we never really know that for sure. She might have been his lover. She might have known him really well.

And it’s only about 148 pages total, and still took me nearly a year to write! Even though I didn’t have to document or research anything at all.

It has just been so strange. But so wonderful.

On an entirely different note!

There was a different suit in Nottingham last night!

Yes, Nick Cave was wearing a different suit.

At first, I felt sort of guilty. Like, somebody told on me, or something.

THEM: “There’s a 12-year-old writer in Crazeysburg who keeps complaining about the suit. Maybe you could wear a different color tonight.”

Anyway. It was funny – a little startling, but funny. It was definitely a brown suit. Or at least, it looked brown in the 2 color photos that were posted to Instagram last night. Some sort of dark color.

And then, me being me, I had to obsess for a little while over the validity of that, and check through all the photos I’ve saved of his Conversations in the UK to make sure that, yes, previously, he had been wearing the same grey suit every single night… And Nottingham yielded something entirely different.

God only knows why I get so obsessed about the weirdest, stupidest things!  Leave it alone, Marilyn. That way, madness lies…

So I did some yoga, studied Italian. Tried to behave like (my version of) a normal person.

Overall, I had really just a great day yesterday.

So I’m gonna get started here, gang.  It’s another gorgeous day but we are in the beginnings of a heat wave here. Nothing too severe (I hope) that will last for the next week.  So here’s hoping that by this time next week, I’m still pleased as punch with my continuing decision to not get central AC installed in this incredibly old house! Even though the new furnace and all the new duct work is primed and waiting!!

Methinks I’m probably playing with fire to be so cavalier about repeatedly putting it off, but I guess we shall see.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, wherever you are in the world, gang.  Thanks for visiting. I love you, guys! Ciao, baby!!

Voglio andare in biblioteca!!

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Yes, indeedy! I want to go the library!

I actually might say this while I’m in Italy, gang!!

We are at long last inching our way into the ballpark of things I can see myself possibly saying while sequestered in Villa Monte Malbe in Perugia.

We shall see! But the important thing is that I’m still really enjoying the Mondly app. It’s really fun. I do real well on my quizzes, which is remarkable. They are throwing so much stuff at me every day,  only a fraction of which I am retaining at this point, because my primary focus is on revisions of Blessed By Light and then, of course, revisions of Tell My Bones. So why I score well on the quizzes is a complete mystery to me.

I guess it means that somewhere, deep down inside me, Italian is making itself known to me and that this time next year, when I step off the plane in Rome and open my mouth, fluent Italian will spring forth!

That’s the goal, anyway.

Okay!

Gosh, it’s a lovely day here today, gang. Just unbelievably pretty out there.  Last evening we had – yes, more rain! – but it has made for just a really, really nice day today.

I watched the final episode of season 6 of Endeavour last evening. It was really good, although I do have to say that it had some very tidy “happy endings” all the way around, for all the characters. But, still. It was nice to know that everything is back where it needs to be and all set up for a killer season 7 next summer!

It’s amazing how quickly I get addicted to that show. And they only do 4 episodes in a season.  In the old days, back when it first came on and I would actually watch it on a television set, I used to DVR it and re-watch each episode so many times. But now I just don’t have time. I’m lucky to watch it once. But, wow, do I love that show.

For some unknown reason, after I watched Endeavour down in the kitchen last evening, I suddenly decided to wash the downstairs bathroom floor. This is the floor that had Daddycakes’ footprints on it. After he died, I was unable to bring myself to clean the floor because of his little paw prints being there on the tile.

It’s been over 2 months now since he died, and even though there were still traces of his  paw prints on the bathroom floor, what I really actually had, was a very dirty bathroom floor.

So I tried not to get sad and I finally mopped it. I have to say, it certainly looks a lot better.

But I really miss that cat.

Okay.

Well. Nick Cave is in Nottingham tonight. And, yes, for all you Americans who, like me,  grew up on the story of Robin Hood, it turns out that Nottingham is an actual place.

Of course, I’ve known for a very long time that Nottingham is an actual place, but I remember how strange it seemed, when I first learned that it was indeed an actual place.  It just sounded so intensely mythical.

Plus, there are connections between Robin Hood and some sort of folk-hero bandit  type person who indeed lived in Sherwood Forest.

All that stuff just fascinates me.  How myths, and legends, and stuff get handed down through storytelling.

On my birth mother’s side, I am partially of Scottish descent, and that particular last name on that side is Hood.  On my birth father’s side, as I’ve detailed here on the blog, I have connections to quite a few interesting historical people, including Daniel Boone and Chief Blue Jacket. And I’m also a cousin to Louisa May Alcott.

But, on my birth mother’s side, the relatives were a lot humbler in origin. But I tell people that the family name on that side was Hood, and that I’m a direct descendant of Robin.

You’d be amazed how many people actually believe me when I say that. It’s all in how you say it, you know?  Especially if you’ve been throwing around names like Daniel Boone and Chief Blue Jacket.

Anyway. I digress.

We’ll see how it goes on Instagram tonight, but I’m noticing that people who aren’t supposed to be taking pictures with their phones during the Conversations, wait a day or two, and then suddenly the photos they weren’t supposed to take start getting posted to Instagram.

There was one photo of Nick Cave posted last night, in black & white, from Scotland that was just beautiful. So we’ll see.

I guess I’d better get to work here on the revisions of Blessed By Light. I decided to do a significant overhaul of Chapter Two, so that’s on my plate for today. And for some reason, I’m looking forward to this and not freaking out.

I leave you with this, gang. And, yes, I know, I’ve left you with this before. But yesterday, I drove into town to get groceries. On the way back, I was going my usual 95 mph. No one else on the highway.  A bit of atmospheric rain, making everything intensely green again all over Muskingum County for as far as the eye could see. I was listening to the “Wildflowers” CD for the first time in a long time, and when this song came on, I punched the REPEAT button and totally cranked up the volume.

It’s a really sexy little song, gang. A great groove.  But for some reason, when you’re driving in the rain, and this song is playing REALLY loud, and you’re sailing along super fast because you’re in Muskingum County which means that the Sheriff is never too worried about what you might be getting up to in your going-very-fast vehicle; well, then the sexiness of the song gets amp-ed up and — I don’t know — it just makes you really want to have sex.

(I know. It doesn’t take much to make me really want to have sex, but this is just, I don’t know, I guess, yet another one of those endless things that make me really want to have sex. Before you stoop to mocking me, though, you should get in your car, drive fast through Muskingum County in the rain, and crank this song, and see if it doesn’t do it for you, too.)

All righty! Thanks for visiting, gang! Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world!! I love you guys! See ya!

[Come on, now, play it A LOT louder than that or it won’t work! – Ed.]

“Cabin Down Below”

Come on go with me, babe
Come on go with me, girl
Baby, let’s go
To the cabin down below

I got a radio
Put it on soft and low
Baby, let’s go
To the cabin down below

Well, I’ve had my eye on you
For a long, long time
I’m watching everything you do
Baby, you’re gonna be mine

Come on go with me, babe
Come on go with me, girl
Baby, let’s go
To the cabin down below

Time’s been moving slow
Since we both got here
Come on slide a little closer
Let me whisper in your ear

Well I got a radio
Turn it on soft and low
Baby, let’s go
To the cabin down below

Oh, baby, let’s go
To the cabin down below
Baby, let’s love
In the cabin down below

c – 1994 Tom Petty

Easy-Peasy, Gang!

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Yes, I am of course talking about the endless editing that I’m now doing to Blessed By Light.

I finally signed off on the revisions to Chapter One (I’m really happy with them, btw; this is the strangest novel I’ve ever read, gang, and I think that’s a good thing). But then I realized that Chapter Two could be more streamlined, so I’m up to my eyeballs now in that.

But, honestly, it’s not so bad now. I got past all the stymied weirdness of the other day. And I know for sure that the whole book doesn’t need editing; it’s just these opening chapters that I want to tighten.

So.

I’m okay with it.

That’s me, btw, up at the top there. 30 years ago. I was at my best friend’s beach house in North Carolina. He has long since died from AIDS. But back then – wow, he was the only person who could calm me down.

Actually, when we knew for sure he was dying, that he would not survive, that was his main concern: “Marilyn, how are you going to be okay without me?”

And I absolutely did not know.  Although I didn’t want him dying while worrying about me, so I told him that I would figure it out – how to be okay without him.

I guess I did; I’ve managed, anyway, even though I don’t have any other “best friend” and that is super lonely. But I can guarantee you there are no other photos in existence of me looking that relaxed.

Anyway! It’s a beautiful day here. I didn’t blog earlier because I slept in until 7 a.m.!! I don’t remember the last time I did that, but it felt good. I woke up happy.  But now that I’ve switched my meditation time back to first thing in the morning, then I do that Inner Being journaling thing, and then I had to get started on the revisions. Then do yoga…

So, anyway, here we are! Day’s half over!

I’m gonna say first, though, that I am hopelessly lost now re: all these Conversations with Nick Cave in the UK. I don’t think anyone in Scotland posted to Instagram last night. Plus, all these johnny-come-latelies from London and Manchester are still posting to Instagram, confusing me, and other people who have tickets to upcoming shows back in Scandinavia are posting things that haven’t even happened yet, and since Nick Cave apparently insists on wearing the same darn suit all the time, I am losing my ability to figure out where the heck he is.

The UK is really decidedly weird, though. Meaning that they seem to be incredibly okay with detaching themselves from their phones and so not posting pictures to Instagram. So they are really just screwing me up.

Oh, sort of on an unrelated note. Right this moment there is an amazing photo of Iggy Pop on Instagram that he posted to his own official page. He’s in concert and, as usual, is only wearing clothes from the waist down. But this photo is an extreme close-up of him from the waist up. He’s in his 70s now and still really muscular, but his skin is an absolute roadmap of lines and wrinkles. It is just jaw-dropping and breathtaking. It truly is.

I love Iggy Pop.

Back in the early 80s, when I was taking that songwriting workshop with (the late) Jim Carroll, one of our assignments was to write some specific lyrics and turn them in. And at that particular time, I was reading Iggy Pop’s memoir, I Need More, from his years living in Germany. So I wrote a song about that.

Here’s a photo of page 1 of my graded assignment – Jim Carroll’s comments. (I treasure this, obviously. Usually we didn’t have to turn stuff in, we went over stuff in class. So I don’t have his handwriting on too many things.) (Oh, I adored Jim Carroll, too, in case you’re new to this lofty blog.)

The song I wrote about Iggy Pop as an assignment for Jim Carroll’s songwriting workshop in early 1984.

Jim Carroll actually terrified me. He was SUPER nice. He really was. But he was also really tall – hence, The Basketball Diaries. And I was really shy. Whenever he would stand too close to me, I would sort of silently panic and freak out. Once, I arrived for class just as he was arriving and so we road up alone together in the elevator (he was usually surrounded by a swarm of students, but this time it was just him & me). He had an intense Bronx accent, and he said, “Hey, so, what’s yer name again – Mary Ann?”

ME: (inaudible reply)

HIM (smiles): “Hm. So how ya doin’?”

ME (just a sort of chirp): “oh. you know. fine.”

I was just terrified of him. It was too funny.

One time, at the end of a class, students still all over the place, he was talking to me about something I had written and while he was talking to me, he was picking at some lint or something on the lapel of my jeans jacket. So, in essence, he was touching me. I have no clue what he was talking about because the blood just went barreling through my eardrums and drowned out everything else. I was so excited that he was, you know, sort of touching me….Anyway.

I’m not 100% positive about this, but I think that Jim Carroll died in the same way that F. Scott Fitzgerald did — had a heart attack at his desk while he was in the middle of writing something.

Well, to switch gears entirely.

After I was done meditating this morning, I decided to get yet another hotel room in NYC for after that first Conversation with Nick Cave that’s happening on Saturday night, 9/21.  I got a hotel room close to Lincoln Center.

I had been planning to maybe ask Sandra if I could just stay that one night in her pieds a terre there in the city, because it’s close to Lincoln Center.

She & her husband now live up in Rhinebeck, which is where I’ll be when we aren’t rehearsing in the city, and I’ve been worrying how intensely rude it will feel for me to leave Lincoln Center and grab that last train out of Penn Station and then arrive back at their house up in Rhinebeck really late and maybe even wake them up.

But then I was afraid to ask her if I could borrow her pieds a terre, because it feels sort of presumptuous to do that – you know, she being an actress and I’m just a lowly scribe. But mostly because I still feel really weird about being in NYC for rehearsals of my own play and then inserting these 2 Nick Cave Conversations in the middle of all that and making myself unavailable for 2 nights.

But, anyway, I finally decided on getting another hotel room and so I’ll just do that and now I feel a little more relaxed about that whole thing.

So life is just working out merrily on all fronts!

And work with Peitor on the micro-short video scripts yesterday was kind of incredible. Extremely intense. It is a shot by shot kind of script that we’re working on right now. So I’m sort of transcribing the thoughts that are in his head – the visuals.  Sort of putting a storyboard into text (before we actually storyboard it), since this particular video has almost no dialogue, and it’s loaded with abstract visuals and industrial sorts of sounds.

I was kinda tired by the time we ended the call. And we only had maybe a page and a half of script. Just intense brain-work for me. But it’s all still so exciting.

Okay, I’m gonna close.  Have a good Sunday, whatever’s left of it where you are, gang! Thanks for visiting! I love you guys. See ya.

 

A Jolly Solstice to One & All!

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I don’t know about you guys, but I feel worlds better today! Like a real weight has been lifted from me spiritually.

Part of it is because a truly amazing thing happened here first thing this morning: the SUN came up! For the first time in I don’t know how long, it isn’t RAINING!

I don’t mind rain, but it did go on for days. The Wakatomika Creek flooded – it doesn’t take much to flood that creek, but there is seriously a whole big bunch of water all over the place down there on the main road.

So it’s really nice to see the sun.

I had to re-think everything around here yesterday, gang. My brain just had some sort of weird meltdown. I got so stymied in Chapter One of Blessed By Light yesterday, that I knew something had to give around here.

I could tell the opening chapter was going to need re-vising now that the whole novel is finished. Meaning that, now that I know exactly how the novel ends, it re-informs how the novel starts.

However, I couldn’t get my mind wrapped around the changes I needed to make. It was like my mind suddenly decided to just stop working.  And for some reason, I couldn’t force myself to get away from my desk and focus on something/anything more productive. (Meaning, meditation and yoga.)

And so… the more frustrated I got with the chapter, the more frustrated I got with the chapter. And I was magnetically adhered to it.  No power on earth could separate me from the madness of that chapter yesterday…

So I decided that I need to go back to meditating first thing in the morning, when my resistance to everything is low. When my energy is still calm and (usually) joyful. (Which I started this morning.) And then I also need to really, really, REALLY force myself back into my daily yoga routine.  FORCE myself to take breaks from my fucking desk.

Yesterday, while I was in the throes of that immovable weirdness, I was thinking: I need to pay someone in this village to come over here every day and force me away from my desk and tell me that it’s time to do yoga and to meditate….

I mean, it felt that crazy. Like, the only way I can manage it is to be accountable to someone that I’m paying, right? Make someone stand there until I physically get up from the desk, unroll the yoga mat and get started. (Once I get started, I’m fine. I love to do yoga.  Why? Because it makes  me feel so fantastic and calm and it frees my crazy mind.)

It’s just ridiculous how fixated I can get on something until it becomes, literally, impossible for me to stop. Or to even move.  I mean, I could physically move. I did keep going down to the kitchen to get more coffee. As if amping up that nonsense was going to help me redirect my energy. It didn’t.  It just made me more intensely worse.

And I still do that journaling thing in the mornings, too. Those conversations with my Inner Being, right after breakfast.

My Inner Being wasn’t super impressed with me yesterday, either.

However, as George Harrison pointed out many, many years ago: Here comes the sun, little darling!

So I just feel lots better today.  So far, my resistance to everything imaginable on planet Earth is quite low. And I have another new coffee mug. This one is pink and it has a really loving quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald printed on it.

I love F. Scott Fitzgerald. He’s my favorite novelist. Even though I have a lot of favorite writers, for some reason, he is my absolute favorite. I guess because I fell in love with him as a man, not just as a writer, back when I was first exposed to his novels and short stories.

I mean, obviously, he had been dead forever by the time I was first exposed to his work in high school. But I still fell in love with him. Had to find out everything about him that I possibly could. A few of my current cats are named after him & his family – although “Zelli”, a kitten named after Zelda who turned out to be a boy cat, so I called him Zelli – he got adopted out to a good home.

Anyway,  I have a really loving quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald on my new coffee cup, and it feels really good to have my coffee cup love me.

Sometimes I call upon F. Scott Fitzgerald to help me in my moments of insanity as a writer.  “Help me here, please, Scott! What should I do about this chapter??!!  I mean, besides drink heavily and smoke a lot?”

Image result for f. scott fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald smoking

It sucks to not drink heavily and smoke a lot, gang.  Honestly, that was the best part of my writing in the old days – the flipside of a hard day’s work, you know?  Drink and smoke and fucking unwind.

Related image
F. Scott Fitzgerald thinking about drinking.

Since becoming a complete vegetarian many years ago (I had been a pescatarian for quite a while before that), I can no longer really drink.  Because I get drunk immediately. Alcohol goes directly into my bloodstream since the only stuff that’s ever in my stomach gets digested in about 14 seconds nowadays. And even though I was never a serious smoker – I only smoked when I drank. When they stopped making Chesterfield Kings available anywhere where I could actually get at them (apparently they are still sold in Europe but with different packaging that totally sucks), I simply gave up smoking. They were the only cigarettes I really liked.

I just can’t picture F. Scott writing his masterpieces while meditating and doing yoga, though, you know?

I often think to myself, after an endless day of being at my desk, whether the writing went well or didn’t go so hot; I often think, I should go outside on my porch, smoke a cigarette and at least drink a beer. I always have beer in the fridge for the lawn care guys. And I have Pall Malls and Marlboros around here for other people I know who smoke.

But I know I would just make myself sick. So I sit on my bed and stare out the open window and listen to music. And that’s actually really quite beautiful. And I know that next month, once rehearsals start, and my play starts becoming a reality, my whole life is gonna change. (At the very least, I hope I’ll learn how to drink again!!)

Okay, gang! The Rolling Stones have hit the road here in America! They are about 45 minutes away from me, in Chicago (I think).  I can remember the days when that would have meant a lot to me – the Stones being on tour. I saw them several times when I was young and it would cost maybe $15 to see them. Now, it’s just sort of something I see constantly on Instagram.

It’s mostly Ronnie and Keith working that Instagram thing. They are really active on it. Mick is, too, but much more in his endlessly narcissistic way. You know, for him, it seems to be all about looking 35 still, even though he had emergency heart surgery a few weeks ago. I mean, he does look great. But his posts always seem to be about how great he looks.

But with Keith and Ronnie, it’s always about the music and their daughters and wives and art and about how great life is just hanging out in the backyard. That kind of thing.

Anyway.  The Stones are rolling.

Lots of photos posted from Nick Cave’s Conversation in Manchester last night. As usual, one really good one that I wish I get get off of my phone and onto my wall.  But I’ve got enough things to keep me completely insane, I don’t need to fixate on that, too.  (Plus, there are plenty of amazing photos of Nick Cave out there that I can get onto my wall – if I had enough wall space, that is!)

And on that happy note…

I guess I really need to get back to work on Chapter One of Blessed By Light now. I hope I’m on much firmer footing here today, psychologically. I just love this novel, gang. I really do. Even if I say it myself. It just really celebrates what I love about men. It’s definitely not gonna go over too well with feminists, but then they have never really been my readers anyway. God knows.

Thanks for visiting.  I hope you enjoy this wonderful Solstice! I love you guys! See ya!

Me in my hellhole apartment on E. 12th Street, 1985! Back when I could drink & smoke & do all kinds of crazy shit to my heart’s content!

The Next Era Begins, Gang

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Now that the novel is finished, that process of reading it from word one begins.

There’s always that undercurrent of doubt for me, like, Oh man, am I even gonna like this book I wrote?

But the first 19 chapters already went past the editor a couple of months ago. So I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve already read the first 19 chapters; I’ve already made the corrections and did some revisions.

I already signed off on all of that. It’s just the final 5 chapters I need the edits on, so there is no reason to fear reading this book.

I’m hoping to begin the final read-through today, only because I am really pressed for time now. I have to get back to revisions on the play as soon as I can get my mind re-focused because rehearsals begin next month. And that play needs everything I can possibly give it. And more, even.

(And talking about being afraid to read something I wrote — every time I get anywhere near that play, I always  sort of mentally retreat and find that there is something else quite pressing that needs my attention first — for instance, sitting and staring. That play freaks me out — the pressure, mostly.)

Plus, Saturday morning, Peitor and I get back to work on the micro-short video scripts.

So there is no time, and really no reason, to get bogged down in doubt over Blessed By Light.

Last evening was rather rain-filled around here! And tons of thunder & lighting. Just torrential downpours. I sat on my bed and listened to music for awhile. Thought about life.

That new single, “Paradise,” by Tropical Fuck Storm was amazing. I listened to that many times.  The official audio link is here. And then I also listened to the new Raconteurs song, “Bored & Razed,” and I really like that a lot, too.  (Official lyric video is here.)

That album, Help Us Stranger, comes out tomorrow. I pre-ordered it a while back, so I’ve already got most of the songs on that one. I think it’s a really fun, rock & roll album.

Re: London last night and Instagram… At first, it seemed like it was just gonna be Susie Cave’s shoes (And I’m not being catty – if you follow her on Instagram, she does seem to like to take a lot of photos of her shoes). However! Late last night, the photos and videos of the Conversation started getting posted. So clearly, there is something about the oddly rule-following,  law-abiding people of Birmingham…

Actually, last evening, someone in Birmingham uploaded video footage from Nick Cave’s Conversation from Monday night, and they even stated, clearly, that they weren’t supposed to be using their phones there but that they couldn’t resist, and I’m glad they gave in to temptation because I watched that short little clip about 5 times. It was so funny!

I, personally, never use my phone for anything, really. I do text, God knows. And occasionally I make an actual phone call. I study my Italian on my phone and tune my guitar with my phone. Occasionally, I check piano scales with my phone. But I’m not a picture-taker.

If you follow me on Instagram, you will undoubtedly concur about my lack of picture-taking.  Occasionally, I take photos of my cats. I take photos of completed scripts and manuscripts. And I sometimes take pictures of the world surrounding my little corner of Crazeysburg.

But I would never go to any sort of public event – especially something I’ve paid for – and even have my phone turned on. I’m way old-school in that I like to sort of just experience stuff. You know, with my senses; not through my phone.

Okay, the moment of truth is gonna arrive here any moment: Will I begin reading over the manuscript and begin that final edit? Or am I gonna collapse on the bed and stare out the window?

The former is what I hope I’m gonna do; the latter is what I’m thinking I will more than likely do instead. At least for a little while. But you never know. I do have plenty of coffee sitting right here next to me and it’s still hot and that’s always an enticement of sorts for me.

(A word of caution, though: If you’re trying to entice me to do something, an offer of hot coffee is probably not gonna do it.)  (I’m not really sure what entices me these days. Certainly, telling me that I don’t look nearly as old as I am will get you way deep into the right ballpark, but too many un- enticing things could still crop up speedily to negate that.)  (Probably, you should just leave me alone altogether.)

(Still, if you feel compelled to entice me to do something, and I have that look on my face that screams: what the fuck do YOU want can’t you see I have a lot of staring I need to do today?  You could try something like: “I know you must hear this all the time, Marilyn, but you’re just so beautiful, and funny, and smart. You know, I was wondering, do you think you could ________[fill in blank] for me? Just this once? I hate to bother you…” Even I’m surprised by how effectively that works!)

Okay! I’m gonna get started here. (I hope.) Have a wonderful Thursday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang.  I leave you with this: [                                             ]. Yes, that’s absolute complete and utter silence for a change. That’s me, sitting and staring, trying to figure out why I am the way I am and, worse yet, always have been. And stuff like that.

Okay! I love you guys! See ya!

Buona Sera!

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I’m kind of stunned, gang, but Blessed By Light is finished.

The final chapters are being edited in NYC as we speak.

It feels so weird.  I knew it was ending soon. I knew there was a chance it was going to end this week, but I didn’t think it would end today.

I feel a little sad. I’m a little too nervous to feel happy, yet. Mostly I feel sort of confused, you know? I just wasn’t expecting this after a couple of days of feeling very, very frustrated. And last night, I got next to no sleep. I was kind of worried that I wouldn’t be productive today, at all.

But I was. And then the final 2 lines came out. In fact, I thought the final 2 lines were the title of the next chapter. But then I realized, no wait; that’s it. There is no next chapter.

It sure is an unusual novel, gang.  That much I can say with certainty.  But that’s all I’m gonna say about it for right now.

I’m not feeling hopeful that anything from the London Conversation with Nick Cave is going to make its way to Instagram tonight. There has been nothing pre-show at all. No photos of the theater, or anything. Nothing for me to ponder.

Well, there’s always something for me to ponder, but it probably won’t be on Instagram.

Okay, I guess I’ll just sort of – well, honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do. In the old days, back in NYC, when I was married or when I was living with Mikey Rivera, whenever I finished a new novel, we’d go out to dinner to celebrate.

I’ve already watched episode 3 of Endeavour, and studied my Italian, so I suppose I can sit on my bed and look out the window and listen to Springsteen’s “Hello Sunshine” for the bazillionth time.

(But I’ve been alerted by the a1000Mistakes blog in Australia that a brand new Tropical Fuck Storm single, “Paradise,” has been dropped, which I want to listen to, too. And the Raconteurs dropped another new single this past week for their upcoming album, Help Us Stranger, which gets released Friday. I want to hear that new one, too.) (I downloaded the new Straycats album, 40, the other day. I’m not done listening to it but so far, it’s not “Rock This Town.”… but we’ll see.) (And they’ll never be Johnny Burnett & the Rock & Roll trio, but then nobody can be that!)

Well, okay, gang! I hope you have a wonderful evening underway, wherever you are in the world! And I’m gonna leave you with Johnny Burnette, apparently with my anthem for the evening, a naughty little rockabilly number – “All By Myself”!! Thanks for visiting! I love you guys. See ya.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DH_AXXbJdU

Little girl, don’t you understand?
I wanna be your lovin’ man
All by myself, all by myself
I don’t need no one to love you
Gonna love you all by myself

Well, meet me in a hurry behind the barn
Don’t be afraid, I’ll do you no harm
All by myself, all by myself
I don’t need no one to love you
Gonna love you all by myself

Well, I got a girl who’s six feet tall
Sleeps in the kitchen with her feet in the hall
All by herself, all by herself
I don’t need no one to love her
Gonna love her all by herself

Well, I got a girl who lives on the hill
She won’t love you but her sister will
All by herself, all by herself
I don’t need no one to love you
Gonna love you all by herself

Little girl, don’t you understand?
I wanna be your lovin’ man
All by myself, all by myself
I don’t need no one to love you
Gonna love you all by myself

c – 1956 (?) Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino

Yesterday! Who Needs It ??!!

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Man, I won’t say that yesterday totally sucked, but a great big bunch of it did.

I like to think it was the full moon because I refuse to think that my life just suddenly starts sucking for no reason.

I need the cause to be celestial and wholly beyond my control.

I am, of course, mad at myself because I got no writing done on Blessed By Light. Every time I looked at it yesterday, all I saw were the current pages that were not working and I felt completely incapable of understanding how to make them work. And so, after quite a few hours of that kind of frustration, I focused on something – and someone – else.

My good friend Iris in NYC has another new book out. This one titled, Shame.  I prepared a Q &A with her to post here later this week, most likely.  So at least I managed to do  one thing productive yesterday.

Btw, Shame has just been short-listed by North of Oxford as one of their Top Reads for summer. Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that Iris writes poetry, flash and microfiction. And even though she is one of my closest friends, I am serious when I say that she is an incredible writer. And not just because she’s my friend.

I had a lot of chores I needed to do yesterday, but I put all of them off, thinking that I needed to focus on the novel. So by last evening, I was just really pissed off. No writing got done and no chores got done, either.  All I’d done was studied Italian and watched episode 2 of Endeavor.

And that means that today I have to get out there this minute and run all the fucking errands that didn’t get done yesterday. And hopefully make headway in the novel today.

So I’m gonna scoot now, gang. But I will likely post again later this evening, when (I hope) my mind clears and my frustration subsides.

We’ll see if folks in London post to Instagram tonight. Honestly, it looks like only 2 people posted from Birmingham on Monday night, so this might be the new trend.  (I am of course talking about the Conversations with Nick Cave, if you’re new to the blog and thinking I’m out of my mind…) (I am out of my mind, but it has nothing to do with people in London or Birmingham and their Instagram habits…)

Meanwhile, have a great day. Thanks for visiting. I love you guys.  I will see ya later!

Yes! 3 of My Favorite Things!!

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Yes, indeedy! 3 of my favorite things!

I am of course, talking about:

  • Rum
  • Sodomy
  • the Lash

And not necessarily in that order. In fact, if 1 or 2 of those things is going on, I don’t need rum at all!

I am, of course, just kidding – I don’t need the lash, either. (We’re certainly hoping, however, that the sparkle and allure of that 3rd thing goes on forever!)

Yes. Indeedy…

Seriously. I am, of course, actually referring to that incredible Pogues album from 1985, Rum, Sodomy & the Lash.

(And YES!!!!! Most non-NYC-area, non Irish-Americans do not know who the Pogues were, who Shane MacGowan is, nor have they ever heard of that incredible album!!! America beyond the boundaries of NYC can be such a strange place.)

Anyway.

Even though it isn’t my favorite song on the album (mostly because Shane MacGowan didn’t write it), the Pogues still did an incredible version of “Dirty Old Town” that, for some inexplicable reason, I suddenly needed to listen to about 75 times yesterday – really loudly, while going really fast in the car.

I had a really weird day. I didn’t teach piano yesterday because the guy went on vacation.  The day was just sort of mine, but I was extremely tired. Just exhausted from stuff that was on my mind and I was trying really hard not to let it get me down, you know?

It was a very humid day. Extremely overcast all day, but not too hot. Just sort of oppressively grey.

Yet Muskingum County looks incredible in all sorts of weather. Even with an oppressively grey sky, the pastures, dotted with cows, still look intensely green. And the thousands of green trees everywhere. The green hillsides surrounding everything for as far as the eye can see. There are ponds here and there, dotted with ducks and cranes and sometimes even with swans! And now the crops are coming in everywhere – corn, mostly – so all the fields in the valleys are green now, too.

Just getting out on that highway, up hills, down hills, twisty-turny, and then sometimes just really, really straight so that you can see clear to Coshocton County, too; just getting out on that highway becomes entrancing to me.  And there’s nothing here that you can really call “traffic.” You really can just soar.

My heart was going through some shit yesterday. Even though my life couldn’t be better – actually, I’m happier right now than I’ve ever been. And if I can resist the temptation to wish that everything in my past had gone differently, I can’t complain about anything whatsoever.

Even so, I still have those yearnings, those desires that keep me wanting to evolve into something more, you know? Yesterday was one of those days. I was longing for evolution.

Even though I couldn’t be farther from living in a “dirty old town,” the song, the specific way the Pogues do it, was just really helping me feel shit. Just feel it and then get sort of entranced by everything I felt, and then, finally move past it. And I wound up having a really wonderful evening. Everything inside me eventually shifted.

Plus, for a few hours in the evening, the weather also shifted. It became sunny.

I sat at my kitchen table and watched the first episode of season 6 of Endeavor. It was really good. So fucking good. Those British guys can just act the heck out of themselves, you know? So fun to watch all that intensity. And the writing is just really, really good. There were only 2 lines of dialogue, right at the very end, that sort of jumped out as strictly “exposition,” but otherwise, the writing is incredible. So well-paced. It does everything it’s supposed to do; you hate this one, you’re disappointed in that one; you wonder wow, what’s up with her? and you know you’re going to find out before the season’s over. That kind of stuff, woven so nicely into the plot and you’re always, always, always rooting for Endeavor. Needing him to come out on top. Just great writing.

There are 3 more episodes left. I will probably watch them all this week. And then, I guess, wait another year before I watch TV again. (I find this kind of insane – that I don’t watch any TV anymore and I hadn’t even realized it had been a year. But, honestly, I just don’t have time or room in my brain these days to commit to television.)

Even though I was still really tired by evening, I was in the best mood.  I just laid on my bed and listened to all the quiet outside my windows. Birds singing, an occasional car. That was it. The sun stayed out until past 9:30. It was so cool to just lie there and not do a single darn thing except be alive.

I’ve decided that I really love that new Springsteen song, “Hello Sunshine.” It really, really suits where my life is at these days. “Sunshine” of course, for me, being the return of the muse.

There are a handful of songs on the new album that I like, but “Hello Sunshine” is my favorite. So I streamed that a million times, while the sun went down and it started to rain.

And I was thinking about how albums like The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, or Darkness on the Edge of Town, and Born in the USA just blew me away and solidify certain eras of my life for me. From a long time ago, obviously. I liked Born to Run, too, but it was released while I was still in the mental hospital so it has some shaky memories for me.

In fact, when I was released from the mental hospital, a boy I had become friendly with in there, who had been released before I had, came over to see me to give me that album as a gift. He said, “You’re really gonna love this album, Marilyn.”

And he was right, I did. And it was such an unexpected and wonderful gift. But it still was a shaky time for me. I don’t think I found my footing, post-mental hospital, until I was about 25. (10 years later.)

Last night, though, as I was listening to “Hello Sunshine” and thinking how it’s been a long time since an entire Springsteen album could blow me away; I suddenly remembered that boy who’d given me Born to Run. We became really good friends for a couple of years, until we graduated high school, went off to our respective colleges and never saw each other again. (I stayed in college for about 14 seconds before dashing off to find my life instead.)

Anyway, last evening, I suddenly remembered how, when we were about 17, that boy was really, really frustrated with still being a virgin and he thought that if he weren’t a virgin, he could get more dates with girls. I’m not entirely sure what the thinking behind that was, but it is what he believed. And, of course, me being me – exceptionally cavalier about the state of virginity – I said, “Oh I can take care of that for you, if you want.”

He was absolutely stupefied. I mean, we had never even kissed or anything. We were just friends.  But I was serious. To me, it was an absolute no-brainer. It would only take a few minutes, really. Technically.  I wasn’t saying, “let’s have a date, ” or “let’s make love.” I was only talking about doing that one specific thing. So we did it! We went off to my room. Did it.  And he was really happy. And then we went out and rode our bikes.

Too funny. However. What I also remembered last night, was that I did have a boyfriend at that time. A serious boyfriend, too. We were in love. He lived in West Virginia though, and I didn’t get to see him all the time. But we were definitely in love – wore rings and such.

When he found out what I’d done, he was so mad at me: “Why did you do that, Marilyn??!!”

And I was astounded that he got mad.  I had considered myself strictly as a problem-solver in that whole “lose the virginity” thing and could not understand why my boyfriend had gotten so mad at me.

Last night, it really made me laugh – remembering all that. It had been, literally, 40 years since I’d thought about any of that stuff. It’s amazing what I just presume people will put up with from me.

Anyhow.  While I was listening to “Hello Sunshine,” I was also remembering that song  “I’m On Fire” from Born in the USA and how much I used to just fucking love that song. I just loved it. And I had kind of forgotten all about it. So I’m gonna leave you with that one today.

But before, I do, I just wanna mention that people in Birmingham, England are apparently way more law-abiding than I would have guessed. There were not that many photos posted to Instagram from the Conversation Nick Cave had there last night. And at the very start of the evening, someone posted a photo to Instagram showing a sign at the front of theater, that stated how you weren’t allowed to record any of the Conversation, including with your phone.

I guess most people took that seriously, as odd as that seems in this day & age. There were a couple photos of the theater itself, before the show started. It looked like a really cool place.  But I can’t say a whole lot more than that, except that perhaps two people did post photos and said they really loved it. But that was all.

Okay. I’m in such a better space today, gang. So I’m going to make use of that and get some writing done here. I did absolutely none yesterday.  I’m thinking that I might even finish Blessed By Light this week.  So I’m off.

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

“I’m On Fire”
Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?
Did he go away and leave you all alone?
I got a bad desire
Oh-oh-oh, I’m on fire

Tell me now, baby, is he good to you?
And can he do to you the things that I do? Oh, no
I can take you higher
Oh-oh-oh, I’m on fire

Sometimes it’s like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull
And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull
At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
Oh-oh-oh, I’m on fire
Oh-oh-oh, I’m on fire
Oh-oh-oh, I’m on fire

c – 1985 Bruce Springsteen