Until that French gal’s shadow puppet caught my eye, I was actually going to lead with a cute little image like this because it’s raining here today:
But shadow puppets are just so much better, right, gang??!!
Right!!
Okay, so guess what?
Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that toward the end of 2019 and into the beginning of 2020, I was hard at work, fixing that character arc for the supporting female character in my play, Tell My Bones. And that once I finally nailed it — adding a new song and some Jim Crow themes about lynchings and slave auctions — I had a distinct impression that Sandra was going to switch gears (after all these years of my adapting this play for her) and want to play the supporting role instead of the lead role.
I knew that the new material for that supporting role had become just a real standout kind of thing.
So last night, here comes a text from the director of the play. He’d gotten a phone call from Sandra, who’s in rehearsals for something else right now up in Stratford, Canada, and she’s read the new version of the play now and she said that she wants that supporting role.
Obviously, I’m not surprised. And I’m not upset or anything at all like that. Just sort of interesting what happened with that supporting character, isn’t it?
For Sandra to go from a lead role, that also means being at the helm of 6 songs, to a supporting role with only one song. That’s kind of a strong statement, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, the Coronavirus might delay the table-read in NYC in April. I’m still waiting to hear. (And I’m of course still wondering about that Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds tour that starts in Europe next month. As most of Italy tries to go on lock-down. And I saw this morning that Coachella is maybe going to postpone itself until the fall. I guess we’ll just see.) (I also saw that someone I follow on Instagram & on WordPress, posted that Coachella should postpone itself until it stops sucking.) (rrreow!!!)
Too funny. Okay.
Anyway. Back to me!
Today is all about Abstract Absurdity Productions. Again. It’s insane, how often it comes around now. (My idea, of course, to meet more frequently.) (My idea to start the whole darn production company…) And that handy schedule I created for getting that web site launched by April 1st is not exactly my friend. Every so often, I stop and wonder: Hmmm. Web site –shit! I gotta launch that thing in a couple of weeks! I still have no fucking clue what I’m doing!
So that’s cool. God knows I need more stress in my life. Every damn day. I am trying, though, gang. You know, to stay on top of things. (And to stop suggesting new things.)
If I hear myself say one more time, “You know what I was thinking?” I’m going to scream. Enough thinking already, Marilyn. Jesus. Just stop.
Well, the weather has been inching its way into Spring here. Last night, I slept with one of my bedroom windows open just a crack. And then all these little cat faces kept trying to press their little noses into that space and get some real air. Finally. After 6 months of having all the windows totally closed.
And I’ve been able to lower the heat a couple degrees, too.
Oh, and even though I still have the flannel sheets and two blankets on the bed, I slept in my little black chemise again last night!! I got super tired of looking at the Christmas PJs when I woke up in the morning. They just had to go. Winter is over & done and Spring is as good as here!
And next week — yay!! Cat birthdays all around!! Huckleberry and Tommy turn 8, and everyone else turns 7. (Except me, of course — I’ll still be 12.) (Wow, soon enough my cats are going to be older than me. That’s going to be so weird!)
Happy pre- birthday to my many cats!!
[Sad UPDATE: My sweet little boy cat, Weenie — my last remaining male cat — is showing signs of kidney problems. The same thing his daddy died from last Spring. No more treats for this little guy.]
All righty. I’m going to finish up the laundry here and then get started on Thug Luckless until it’s time to work with Peitor on the final scene of “Lita måste gå!” (aka “Lita’s Got to Go!”). Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I have nothing to leave you with today because I am still listening to “The Boy in the Bubble” and “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart.” So, instead, I’ll just leave you with this: a tender nursery rhyme from somebody’s wee bonny girlhood (not mine, for a change)! Enjoy it, regardless. I love you guys. See ya!!
Losing that hour yesterday by turning the clocks ahead, and then the super full moon during the night??!!
First, I fell dead asleep for 2 hours — couldn’t keep my eyes open. Then tossed and turned forever — mostly tossed. Then laid awake from about 2:11am until 4:17am, before falling dead asleep again until seven-fucking-thirty. What the fuck is that? And then I had to absolutely drag myself out of the bed — I was completely exhausted.
(Of course, it was International Women’s Day yesterday, so I guess I was just embodying the pure wonderment of being an international woman, which is primarily: Exhaustion.)
And all my usual morning stuff just took forever today because I felt like I was trudging through Jello, and so now I am sitting down at my desk 2 hours later than I normally do. And I hate that.
And I have a lot to do today!! Wash hair, do yoga, make a phone call, sit and ponder the intensely curious nature of Instagram for a very long time — you name it, and I’ve got to do it!
And all I really want to do today is work on Thug because I made some very interesting progress with him yesterday. (New novel-in-progress, Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town)
That part is actually serious — I am really on a journey with Thug now and I just love when a novel unfolds and takes me places I’m not expecting to go.
I’m still in chapter one, where he’s talking about his owner, Mavis, who has already died. And of course, chapter one is about finding his true voice in my head and figuring out what he knows and doesn’t know, since he’s an AI sexbot. And just how far along has he gotten in his experiences in P-Town before we join him in the beginning of the novel. Stuff like that has to come into my consciousness as it hits the page. So it takes a little while.
But it is such a cool feeling when the words come, and Thug’s personality comes, and Mavis herself becomes a personality posthumously. It just fascinates me. The words come, they’re on the page. I stop and re-read what I’ve written, and I’m sort of amazed that these are characters with emotional depth and a presence. Where does that come from?
Well, because of this extreme lack of time here this morning, I can’t tarry here. I’ve gotta scoot. But I hope you have just a really great Monday, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting, gang. I’m leaving you with a song I hadn’t thought of in a really long time — until last evening, when I was suddenly unable to not think about it. It was a hit for Gene Pitney a million years ago, but Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds did a cover of the song on their 1986 album, Kicking Against the Pricks. All righty! Enjoy. I love you guys. See ya!!
“Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart”
Something’s gotten hold of my heart
Keeping my soul and my senses apart
Something’s gotten into my life
Cutting its way through my dreams like a knife
Turning me up and turning me down
Making me smile and making me frown
In a world that was small
I once lived in a time there was peace with no trouble at all
But then you came my way
And a feeling unknown shook my heart, made me want you to stay
All of my nights and all of my days
I gotta tell you now
Something’s gotten hold of my hand
Dragging my soul to a beautiful land
Something has invaded my nights
Painting my sleep with a colour so bright
Changing the grey and changing the blue
Scarlet for me and scarlet for you
I’ve got to know if this is the real thing
I’ve got to know what’s making my heart sing
You smile and I am lost for a lifetime
Each minute spent with you is the right time
Every hour, every day
You touch me and my mind goes astray
I gotta tell you now
Something’s gotten hold of my hand
Dragging my soul to a beautiful land
Something has invaded my nights
Painting my sleep with a colour so bright
Changing the grey and changing the blue
Scarlet for me and scarlet for you
Yes, this is my least favorite day of the year — the day when we move the clocks ahead one hour and everything inside me becomes discombobulated!
(And if you use google translate to read this blog, good luck with that word!)
Discombobulated: adjective – confused and disconcerted.
For some reason, it usually takes me several days to get used to losing that hour. And even though I usually only sleep 5 or 6 hours a night and can easily sleep a little longer and catch an extra hour of sleep, I really resent doing that because I am so possessive about Time –when I’m awake, that is.
My “wide awake, me-time” is really precious to me and I resent having to surrender even one hour of it just so that the country can get a little more time to have barbecues or something all summer.
Anyway!
So here I am.
Well, today I completed yet another one of those little Inner Being Dialogue journal thingies. I have filled 4 of those little journals in 9 months. I’m serious when I say it has changed my life. It really has. It has changed how I focus my mind. And if you have any interest at all in getting a better grasp on how reality works, beneath the surface of what we generally consider “physical reality,” and to perhaps get more efficient about scripting your own life, then I really, really recommend keeping one of these journals — or doing something similar to it.
It is simply your Inner Being talking to you. Like tuning a radio dial to a specific frequency and then the voices come. For me, writing it down resonates best for me.
Back when I first started keeping the journal, I was listening to a podcast about the Inner Being while doing yoga. And a guy said that when he first began meditating to specifically tune in to his Inner Being, his Inner Being said: “We are here.”
And this totally stopped me in my yoga tracks, gang, because that was exactly what happened to me when I first started my Inner Being journal. They said: “We are here.” Plural.
When I was a little girl, I was always very aware that there were these “people” watching me. I couldn’t point to them or anything; I could only feel them. They weren’t frightening to me at all. I didn’t think of them as angels or anything. Just people– plural — making sure I was doing okay.
One time, when I was 7, I was playing with a couple of my girlfriends after school and I mentioned, in passing, something about the people watching us. And they both said, “What are you talking about?”
ME (seven years old and quite cavalierly believing I was sane): “You know, those people who watch us. They make sure we’re okay.”
And neither of them had any clue what I was talking about and so I never, ever mentioned it again to anyone, ever. (It was around that same time that I also mentioned that “thing” that happens between your legs that feels so incredible, and none of my girlfriends had a clue what I was talking about then, either. There was a lot of stuff I started to just stop talking about.)
But the “people” were there. And I started to think that maybe my birth mom had sent them to look out for me and that, because of that, none of my non-adopted friends had any need to have people watching them. Whatever.
By the time I was 12 (just a really incredible year for me, apparently), I first started having a dissociated state of mind. An alternate world I was creating so that I could get away from my adoptive mother. It seems — as I’m trying to remember it now — that that was when I started to lose that connection to a sense of “people watching me.” At that point, I was starting to really sink into mental illness. By the time I was 14, I’d become really adept at splitting myself off mentally from my mother’s presence and going to that alternate world.
I had a different house there, an entirely different family. And that’s where I went as soon as my adoptive mother came into my field of vision every day. I can’t stress enough how terrifying that woman was to me. But the dissociated state wasn’t just a survival mechanism; it was the only place in my waking world where I could find love. It eventually got to the point that if I wasn’t hanging out with my friends, then I was in that dissociated state — living in another house, with a different family.
I remember one afternoon, when I was in my mid-twenties and living in the tenement on E. 12th Street in NYC, it suddenly occurred to me that the other world was completely gone. And I couldn’t remember when it left me. It was just totally gone. I remember telling my friend Jeffrey about it, and how startling it felt to realize it. And then directly on the heels of that realization, I found my birth mom, and then a couple years into that relationship with her and all my half-siblings, my birth dad came into my life.
So it’s interesting. Charting that gradual shift over the course of 25 years: benevolent energies watching over me; my mind splitting off to find a place of love; my birth family coming into my life and filling it with so much actual love.
And then, of course, it was also really interesting to begin those Inner Being dialogues, sort of out of the blue, and find a plurality of voices there. (I don’t “hear” the voices; I feel them. The words come.)
So I will begin journal #5 tomorrow morning.
On sort of a related note — people who know me well know that, throughout my life, my psychic abilities have been really pronounced. (I believe that we’re all psychic, but I also believe that if you don’t believe you are, you won’t recognize it in yourself. I think that our psychic perceptions are actually the larger part of what our minds receive, but because of our physical senses filtering most of that out, we have come to believe that what’s physically in front of us is information that’s more reliable than what we psychically perceive. But I believe it’s the other way around. )
And even though I cannot draw my way out of a paper bag — I have no artistic talent in that area at all — when I was living in that same apartment on E. 12th Street, the night before my birth dad contacted me, I was in a really inexplicable, heightened mental state. Just agitated beyond belief. Pacing the small apartment like crazy. My mind was on high alert about something but I couldn’t figure out what.
(After a lifetime of trying to find out who my birth father was, he suddenly called me from Nevada one evening, while I was watching a rerun of “The Andy Griffith Show” on television)
However, the night before the call came…
I had a set of colored pencils and I suddenly sat down at my kitchen table and began to draw — I was in a sort of hypnotic state. Just really intensely drawing. And this is what I drew:
And then, the following day, a phone call that I had been waiting for my entire life finally happened. And my birth father introduced himself to me. (And changed my life forever.) And in that very first phone conversation, he told me that he had been in the Navy during Vietnam and that his back had been severely injured on a flamethrower during a skirmish on the Mekong Delta.
And then he said, “I have no idea why I just told you that. I never talk about that.”
Isn’t that interesting? Plus, I had been making that drawing while he was on a phone call with the people in a little town in Ohio who were telling him that I existed — and he was freaking out. He didn’t know, until the moment that they told him, that he had a daughter anywhere at all. (I was already 28 when he found out about me.)
So there you go! Just a slice of the wonderment that we call Marilyn’s Mind.
All righty. I’m gonna scoot and get started around here. It’s cold out there today, but really sunny. Outside my window right now, I can see a little boy riding his bicycle! Like maybe Spring is right around the corner…
Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with my intensely appropriate breakfast-listening music from today! “The Boy in the Bubble,” from Paul Simon’s Graceland, 1986. Another incredible album. If you’ve never heard this song, listen to it! It’s so cool. And catchy. And hypnotic and very upbeat. Okay. I love you guys. So much. Have a great Sunday. See ya.
“The Boy In The Bubble”
It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry
It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry
It’s a turn-around jump shot
It’s everybody jump start
It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
The Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart
And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry
Today is just a really fresh and new day and I woke up feeling like I could think clearly again. I was getting a little bit fuzzy yesterday — and not in a good way. (Although I’m not sure if “fuzzy” has qualities of goodness and badness…)
That said, though, work with Peitor went great yesterday. We are almost done with the script for “Lita måste gå!” (aka “Lita’s Got to Go!”). Which is kind of astounding, all things considered, right?
We’ve only been working on this script (for an 8-minute film) for 15 months now. Yeah, I know — we each traveled a bit — one of us traveled a lot (I won’t name names but it wasn’t me). Plus we each had deaths in our families, etc., etc. So it’s not like we worked for a solid 15 months, but still. Way, way too long. But now we are really closing in on the finish line.
And what’s very interesting about all of this is that, this morning, I looked at the calendar and saw that the deadline I had randomly assigned for completion of the script is March 13th. Next Friday. Interesting, right? How making schedules can really have a positive influence on the momentum of things?
We also spent a lot of time going over organizational type stuff about how to best package the script for potential investors, because it’s a shooting script — all angles and blocking, sound cues and lenses, etc., and only 4 lines of dialogue. Although, at one point, a woman says, “Zuzu!” and at another point, a different woman says, “Oh!” But beyond that, only 4 lines of dialogue, total.)
At that point in our discussions, I mentioned to him that I got the official request to do the audition for that Literary Arts Fair — I’m reading a family-friendly version of “The Guitar Hero Goes Home,” which is an excerpt from my novel Blessed By Light.
And I said to him, “You know, it’s completely acceptable nowadays to submit the audition on video. You know, just do it on your phone and email it in. Everyone does that now.”
HIM: “You’re not everyone.”
ME: “I know, but it’s 2 hours of driving to read a ten-minute piece.”
HIM: “Are you whining?”
ME: “No. I’m just saying it’s a lot of driving.”
HIM: “But you miss the chance to actually meet the people — and to make that first impression. You know how important that is — you’ve been to finishing school.”
Jesus Christ. grumble grumble grumble. Don’t you just hate when people are right?
So I’m going to drive 2 hours for a ten-minute audition. Next weekend. And the festival itself is like a nanosecond after I will be with my new Swiss friends, seeing Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in Zurich. So I’m guessing that the minute the Arts Festival thingy is done (and I’m having jet lag or something), Sandra will tell me I need to be in Toronto to start the table reads for The Guide to Being Fabulous (our other play, which is being produced later this year).
I am, of course, exaggerating. Still. The reason God gave us 365 days in a year is apparently so that we can take 3 of those days and cram our whole entire lives into them. And then spend the rest of the summer just listening to crickets and watching the fireflies as the sun goes down because you have absolutely nothing left to do.
Anyway. I’m guessing it’ll all work itself out splendidly.
I’ve been wanting to mention that the gas prices around here have dropped to $1.95 a gallon!! I have not seen that kind of gasoline price in over 20 years. Seriously. I’m not exaggerating now. And also, when I did see those kinds of prices 20 years ago, it was when the cost of gas was starting to skyrocket and we considered $1.95 expensive. Weird, though, right? Now I stop and get gas even if I only need a quarter of tank or something, because I just can’t get over how cheap it is! Wow. (And this is on the heels of the cost of everything else in my life inching its way into the stratosphere. So it’s doubly nice.)
All righty. I’m gonna scoot. Get the day underway over here. Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope you have a really great Saturday, wherever you are in the world! And wash your hands and don’t touch your face, and all that. (Oddly enough, the friends I am closest to — meaning relationships, not distance — are each living in cities that are now in an official State of Emergency because of the coronavirus: Seattle, LA, and NYC.)
But anyway. Take care everyone. I’m on a Paul Simon kick here, still. So I leave you with the breakfast-listening music from this morning. An intensely upbeat and joyous tribute to love and those unexpected encounters that change your life forever!! Yay!! “Gone at Last,” his duet with Phoebe Snow from his truly timeless and amazing album, Still Crazy After All These Years (1975).
So turn it up and enjoy. (And remember, gang: all is fair in love, so keep those proverbial muskets of love primed & ready!) Okay. I love you guys. See ya.
“Gone At Last”
The night was black, the roads were icy
Snow was fallin’, drifts were high
I was weary, from my driving
So I stopped to rest for awhile
I sat down at a truck stop
I was thinking about my past
I’ve had a long streak of that bad luck
But I’m praying it’s gone at last
[CHORUS:]
Gone at last, gone at last
Gone at last, gone at last
I had a long streak of bad luck
But I pray it’s gone at last
Oo,oo,oo…
I ain’t dumb
I kicked around some
I don’t fall too easily
But that boy looked so dejected
He just grabbed my sympathy
Sweet little soul now, what’s your problem?
Tell me why you’re so downcast
I’ve had a long streak of bad luck
But I pray it’s gone at last
[CHORUS]
Once in a while from out of nowhere
When you don’t expect it, and you’re unprepared
Somebody will come and lift you higher
And your burdens will be shared
Yes I do believe, if I hadn’t met you
I might still be sinking fast
I’ve had a long streak of that bad luck
But I pray it’s gone at last
First off, I want to say that Nick Cave’s Red Hand File thing today was wonderful. He replied to a question involving some of his past often intensely provocative lyrics and how he handles them in the year 2020 — a time which has lost “its sense of humour, its sense of playfulness, its sense of context, nuance and irony“.
He wrote just a really well stated reply. And as usual, he doesn’t back down. If you’re a writer, it will definitely resonate with you on some level. You can read it at the link above.
For me, you know, so much of what I have written in my life was never, ever, even for a moment considered politically correct or acceptable in a public way. So I haven’t really had to brace myself for a future audience that might suddenly view it differently. (Unless of course that meant that suddenly my work was acceptable!! Yay! That would be so cool. You know — for my work to not always have to be read in private, or to exist in that segregated place.)
Actually, Valerie and I were talking on the phone about that the other night. How in the next century, after AI sexbots like Thug Luckless had become the norm and everybody owned one, my work would be considered classics of popular literature and they would be adapted for whatever the future form of entertainment would be — you know, 3D-hologram virtual reality streaming TV shows that might takeover a person’s entire living room and the viewer can become part of my overall erotic storyline. Right?
My future might be very bright in that regard. (Someone will find out for sure, but probably not me.)
My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.
On a sort of Nick Cave-related note…
Today, the MP3 version of Rowland S. Howard’s acclaimed solo album from 1999, Teenage Snuff Film, is now available for download! Go get it at a (legal) download place near you!!
Okay. I can’t tarry today. It is once again Abstract Absurdity Productions day. (They seem to come around quite often now, don’t they?) I have to get some things done before my phone call with Peitor.
Have a really good Friday, though, okay? Thanks for visiting, gang. It means the world to me to have you here. I’m going to leave you with a killer song from Teenage Snuff Film — “Autoluminescent.” I love you guys. See ya.
“Autoluminescent”
I am blinding
Autoluminescent
I am white heat
I am heaven sent
I was a nightmare
But I’m not gonna go there
Again
Into the black hole
The house of no contest
Make mine a meteor
Rise me above the rest
I’m soaring through outer space
There is no better place
To be
I’m bigger than Jesus Christ
I’m greater than God in light
I am dangerous
I cut like the sharpest knife
I’m going nova
And I hope I can hold her
In
Into the darkness
I gave away myself
Slipped on the spiral stairs
Tumbling down the well
I fell on a soft spot
I’m white heat, I’m white hot
Again
Yes! I glanced out back this morning, as the sun came up, and saw that the cats were out there finally taking care of my yard!!
Gosh, I wish. (Loyal readers of this lofty blog are no doubt aware that there are a lot of homeowner chores that I am always trying to foist onto my cats.) (To no avail.)
What my cats do instead behind my back:
Okay, anyway!!
I had the most interesting day yesterday — for reasons I won’t blog about. I can only say that it was Instagram-related and I about wore out the pondering mechanism in my wee bonny brain.
However, what I will blog about is that I had a very productive time with Thug Luckless yesterday, too. And at one point, I was trying to find out how AI sexbots get delivered to their purchasers. Do they come fully assembled, standing up in a tall cardboard box? Do they come in responsibly-sourced wooden crates, filled with environmentally safe packing peanuts? I’m guessing they arrive fully assembled, though, right? You wouldn’t want to leave something important like that to hapless (and undoubtedly fully aroused) purchasers who will likely be extremely impatient at the very moment of the bot’s arrival.
Well, I could not find out any of that shipping information, but I did learn a bit more about the male AI sexbots — primarily, that they only manufacture about two males. The rest of them are females.
These AI sexbots are really quite interesting, but still kind of spooky. The eyes, mainly. I was talking on the phone very late last night with Val in Brooklyn (who is not actually in Brooklyn right now, she’s at her mom’s, up the Hudson, so we’ve been chatting more than usual) and one of the things we concluded is that the price of those sexbots will eventually come way down, so that everyone can afford one, but that it probably won’t happen in our lifetime.
But who knows, right?
I personally think AI sexbots are pretty cool. And like anything, I’m guessing that some people will go overboard with them and some people won’t. And then I told Val that, according to stuff all over Google, the feminists are all up in arms about the AI (female) sexbots because they objectify women. And we both laughed so hard about that. And she, in her Brooklyn accent, said, “Oh — ya think?”
Jesus. Just too funny. Why does it even have to be mentioned at this point? I don’t think any of us are stupid — not any of us; the world over. Those female bots are lurid as hell. And they are more provocative than any Playboy Bunny that God ever created — Bunnies being one of the most memorable creations in my lifetime that objectified women. And bots can be programmed to never say “no.” Plus, you don’t have to tip them. Obviously they objectify both women and men. Are we really going to write academic papers about this?
[No, we’re going to write experimental novels!! — Ed.]
Anyway. That whole phone conversation with Val aside.
I eventually realized that nothing whatsoever dealt with realism when it came to Thug Luckless so why be so worried that the way he arrived from the factory had to somehow be based on fact? So I just figured it out for myself and had him arrive fully assembled in a crate stuffed full of environmentally safe packing peanuts — primarily because I wanted him to have psychological vestiges of how it felt to have those peanut-things all over him, even though he was dressed. And the irony of the environmentally safe stuff arriving in a post-Apocalyptic town. And then how it felt to see his owner’s face — that relief as she finally pried open the crate and took him out. The feeling of sanctuary, you know?
One thing I will mention here: Apocalypse is a stupidly hard word to type. And I wrote a 600-page novel called Twilight of the Immortal, about Rudolph Valentino, and his breakthrough movie role was “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” So I was having to type that darn word all the time. It made me insane. For some reason, typing that word just forces me to become sort of dyslexic.
Anyway! I am really happy with my progress with Thug primarily because of that feeling that a new novel is underway; it’s a feeling of adventure and excitement and joy. So I am happy.
I’m happy about a lot of stuff right now, gang. I really am.
And today is going to be about washing my hair and doing yoga, and working on Thug. And, more than likely, thinking about Nick Cave, because I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t. (I’m of course wondering about that darn coronavirus and the start of the Ghosteen tour.) (And also this thing in NYC right now where things are getting dangerously close to blaming the Jews for spreading the virus.)
(And speaking of Jews — yesterday was John Garfield’s birthday. He was a famous NY stage actor and movie star and political activist. And he was my adoptive grandma’s first cousin. His dad and her mom were brother & sister. Poor Jewish refugees from Poland. If you keep up with my childhood memoir, In the Shadow of Narcissa, you will no doubt know that my adoptive grandma (paternal) was my favorite person in the whole world. And she loved her cousin, John. Happy belated birthday, John Garfield.)
John Garfield (Jacob Julius Garfinkle), 1913 -1952.
Oh, and I also want to mention that the combination of yoga, booty core, and glucosamine seems to be doing some really, really good things to my legs, gang. So we shall see!
All righty, I’m gonna scoot!! Have a really nice Thursday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with my very-late-last-night listening music as well as breakfast-listening music from this morning!! “Late in the Evening,” by Paul Simon, from his album One-Trick Pony, 1980.
This song was a hit when I first moved to NYC and I can remember hearing it while on a city bus, heading to see a movie, wondering how on Earth people afforded the price of movie tickets in NYC on a regular basis. NYC was some serious culture shock for me when I first got there. Like being on a whole different planet back then.
I don’t know — this song gave me something to cling to for a little while. And it’s nice to listen to it now because the song is actually really joyful, and all those difficult early days are so far behind me!
Okay. I love you guys. Take care. See ya!
“Late In The Evening”
The first thing I remember
I was lying in my bed
I couldn’t of been no more
Than one or two
I remember there’s a radio
Comin’ from the room next door
And my mother laughed
The way some ladies do
When it’s late in the evening
And the music’s seeping through
The next thing I remember
I am walking down the street
I’m feeling all right
I’m with my boys
I’m with my troops, yeah
And down along the avenue
Some guys were shootin pool
And I heard the sound
Of a cappella groups, yeah
Singing late in the evening
And all the girls out on the stoops, yeah
Then I learned to play some lead guitar
I was underage In this funky bar
And I stepped outside to smoke
myself a “J”
And when I came back to the room
Everybody just seemed to move
And I turned my amp up loud and I began
to play
And it was late in the evening
And I blew that room away
The first thing I remember
When you came into my life
I said I’m gonna get that girl
No matter what I do
Well I guess I’d been in love before
And once or twice I been on the floor
But I never loved no one
The way that I loved you
And it was late in the evening
And all the music seeping through
I’ll tell you, it is really starting to feel like Spring, gang!
The starlings arrived, en masse, this morning. They are out there flying about, everywhere. The cats are very excited! I’m not sure how long it will take the birds to move in under the soffit outside my backdoor and start building nests again and then really making my cats crazy, but I tell you — they are everywhere this morning!
I love that they have arrived. But it also makes me feel a little anxious, because Spring means I need to get to NYC to begin the table reads for Tell My Bones at the Dramatist Guild. And even though I know that is going to go great — I just know it; I feel it in my own bones. It also means that then Summer will be right around the corner and you know that summers are so tricky for me.
I don’t want to set myself up to fail, or anything. But once Summer arrives, it is so emotionally hard for me to let it go. Once Summer leaves, it means I am one summer farther from the man who died. And even though I know for certain that life is meant to be that way — the cycles of the seasons, of life/love/death — it’s still a heartbreaking specter, always in the background for me. I’m never 100% sure how I’m going to handle that kind of stuff until it’s upon me, you know?
I try not to use all this as a reason to throw myself into my work. However, I’m doing it anyway.
Well, yesterdays’ script-writing session with Peitor was actually incredibly productive. We completed Scene 5, the scene of primary importance in the whole (very short) film. I was impressed with us, because we achieved this 2-page scene in 3 sessions, instead of our usual 20 and a half.
And when I re-read what we had managed to capture in the script (4 lines of very brief dialogue and then the shots, the blocking, camera angles, and lenses), I was really pleased with it.
That said, though, wow. Yesterday. I had a wee bit of a bad attitude. And I guarantee you, I was trying really really really hard to keep a lid on it. First, he showed up late for the call. Not something I actually mind, because I can usually just lie around on my bed, and scroll through an unending cavalcade of Nick Cave photos on Instagram. Not the worst torture ever.
ME (scrolling on Instagram): like, like, like, save, like, save, save, ooh — really like, save, oh my god— like like like [ad infinitum].
Still, it was getting kind of really late and then I remembered that I had yet to figure out how to edit the video that he had sent me on Saturday — a thing we need for the web site. So I got off the bed and sat down at my desk and proceeded to drive myself completely insane because I couldn’t get the program on my desk top to do what I needed it to do.
When he finally called, I was really pissed off at my computer and trying not to transfer my pissed-off-ness to his now being really late for the call. But when I’m in that state , I really need to use the “f” word a lot. The “f” word is my escape valve and helps me get back to normal. However, Peitor is not really keen on my use of the “f” word — at all. He has this weird reasoning that I have developed an impressive and wide-ranging vocabulary for a reason and that I should use it as a way of communicating without the “f” word.
So I tried to just sort of not be pissed-off and not use the “f” word and not have a bad attitude but I was struggling miserably with all 3.
And as we worked on the script — both of us on speaker, and me getting monosyllabic because I was perched so precariously on needing to bleat out a long and sputtering “f” word stream — I suddenly hear him moving around his apartment, doing a ton of stuff while we were working. It was distracting, but I was trying to let everything go because I really hate having a bad attitude. I really do.
But then I finally said, “Peitor, what are you doing? It sounds like you’re outside.”
HIM: “I’m driving. I need to get to a lunch engagement.”
Oh my god. A lunch engagement. Tootling around West Hollywood in his vintage convertible coupe, heading out to lunch. And I’m stuck at my mini-desk, typing away. I’m not sure yet what I will say in my acceptance speech when I get my Academy Award but I know I’m going to get one because I managed to sound like a reasonable human being for the remainder of that call.
It was not easy. At all.
Because what I really, really wanted to say were things like: “Glad you could fit me in, between the Tibetan singing bowls and a lunch date,” and “So what am I now — the typist?” or get really churlish with: “Does it really matter what my opinion is on this shot? We’re just going to do what you want anyway. We always do” (which is not true, btw). And then a whole lot of FUCKS thrown in, too.
I did none of that. Thank god. Because he is one of my best friend’s, and now a business partner, and I seriously do not want to fuck that up. But, wow. Did I struggle with that.
Luckily, directly after that call, I spoke for over an hour with Val in Brooklyn. And we laughed a lot and got caught up on stuff and I got over the Abstract Absurdity Productions call.
And then when I re-read Scene 5 in the script, as I was readying it to send over to Peitor, I saw that we had done a really good job, regardless. The scene was amazing. And I was able to text him during his lunch engagement to say: “Scene 5 is AMAZING.” And he texted back: “Great!!”
So that was yesterday. And I am hoping that today is all about Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town. Because I really, really want to just get lost in my work. We shall see.
Well, late last evening, while sitting at my desk and staring, I made the mistake of listening to Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” a song I really, really love — I love the whole album, actually. But I have always just loved that song. And because I identify perhaps too much with that song — meaning, that if I’d been able to sustain any sort of meaningful relationship with anyone ever, I wouldn’t be the gal that I am.
Anyway, I began to get super depressed. Real quick.
So I closed up shop, went downstairs and watched a little more of the final episode of Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary. (This final episode is primarily covering Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis.) And I actually learned stuff about Miles Davis’s music from the mid-1950s, post-heroin addiction, that I never knew before. And it was really beautiful. Very romantic — in that big city/cocktails/cigarettes/little-black-dress-on-and-then-off kind of way. Just lovely stuff.
So I managed to survive yesterday. And I am back at it today.
I am going to get started with Thug now. I hope you have a really good Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I’ll leave you with both my breakfast-listening music from this morning — “When I Fall in Love,” by Miles Davis, which brought more than a couple of wistful tears to eyes, as I sat at the kitchen table and watched the cats and drank my coffee — and Amy’s “Back to Black” because it really is just a great song. Enjoy — or just think about life if “enjoy” is asking too much of you right now. I love you guys. See ya.
“Back To Black”
He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet
Me and my head high
And my tears dry
Get on without my guy
You went back to what you knew
So far removed from all that we went through
And I tread a troubled track
My odds are stacked
I’ll go back to black
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to…
I go back to us
I love you much
It’s not enough
You love blow and I love puff
And life is like a pipe
And I’m a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to…
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to…
Black, black, black, black, black, black, black
I go back to…
I go back to…
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to…
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to black
All righty, gang. Things are really looking good over here. Day #2 out of the psychological morass, sometimes known as “moi.” (And thanks for all your emotional support — I really appreciate it, so much. I do.)
It’s quite freezing outside there in Crazeysburg, but it’s a sunny, sunny morning once again. Birds are still singing. It’s March 1st, and Spring is on its way.
I know it’s uppermost in your minds, so I want to start off by assuring you that I have managed to choose a suitable breakfast bowl/coffee mug/ juice glass combination to take me through until Easter, without actually purchasing more dishes.
That said, though, we’re not completely out of the woods yet, because, if I find myself in some sort of shopping location where dishes can be perused, I might peruse. We’ll see.
If life proceeds like it usually does, though, I won’t have time to go to any sort of store and shop. I don’t even understand what having that kind of free time even means!
Well, part of that is because I live a million light years away from any sort of “shopping area.” Because I guarantee you, when/if I do find myself in a place that sells dishes — even used dishes or vintage dishes in consignment shops — oh my god. That’s like heaven to me. The world stands still. Time stops. For instance, antique malls in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania? Holy McMoly!!They have the best stuff. I’m not going to have an orgasm over it or anything, but if, like, you’re there with me and offer to buy me a bunch of that stuff? Whoa. We will likely find ourselves in a position where orgasms for everybody are rapidly approaching on the multi-hued horizon.
‘Nuff said!!
(I am, of course, 90% not kidding…)
Okay!! Anyway.
So, a couple weeks ago, I made up this schedule for the Abstract Absurdity Productions web site, and how to best keep us on track if we wanted to launch a basic website with a companion YouTube channel by April 1st.
Luckily, a whole lot of the stuff on that To-Do list was in Peitor’s court!! Yay!! I could sit back and do nothing because I’d made the list!! And that part was (deceptively) easy to do!
However!! He appears to be really good at following schedules and timelines and To-Do lists, because a whole heck of a lot of stuff is now making it’s way into my inbox and on to my desk top and now I have to actually do something with it. Who the fuck has time for this??!!
Man! And who’s brilliant idea was this in the first place??!! It is amazing the amount of work I can create for myself. And truth be told — some of this stuff I asked him to send me — I don’t know how to fucking do this stuff! I only know that we need it.
So I’m sort of winging it, as they say. (He doesn’t read my blog so it’s okay — I can be perfectly candid here among my discreet and loyal readers.) And he is really appreciative.
HIM: “Thanks for taking care of all this stuff, Marilyn. I really appreciate it.”
ME (out loud): “No problem. ”
ME (not so loud): I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
(That’s not really true. I’ve been working on web sites since 1997 — and DON’T tell me that was long before you were born. However, that doesn’t mean I can figure out how to use all these “user friendly” templates that they have nowadays. It’s amazing how complicated they can now make “simple” stuff.) (And then if you need to click on the “?” button — man, the explanations there are even harder to figure out.)
But anyway. Eventually it all gets done. And we live/laugh/love in the process, right?? All I know is that when Peitor and I are working together, we have so much fun and that matters most to me. (I have had quite a few business partners in the past who were seriously not fun in any way, shape, or form, and so I know just how precious it is to have someone who simply respects me.) (And he has this sort of regal disposition that makes me have to keep my mind out of the gutter for a few hours at a time, and so the whole world benefits!)
And so — onward!
Okay. I’m not gonna tarry here this morning! Have a beautiful Sunday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang! I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from today — unlikely choice as it may seem for a sunny morning in Crazeysburg! But I fucking LOVE this song!!!!! “No Pussy Blues,” from Grinderman, 2007. (I love this whole album! I like Grinderman 2 — well, I love the songs themselves, but, man, is that album LOUD. It always makes me jump and then scurry for the volume control.) Anyway. Enjoy, gang!! Have a fun Sunday. I love you guys. See ya!
“No Pussy Blues”
My face is finished, my body’s gone.
And I can’t help but think, standing up here
in all this applause and gazing down
at all the young and the beautiful.
With their questioning eyes.
That I must above all things love myself.
That I must above all things love myself.
That I must above all things love myself.
I saw a girl in the crowd,
I ran over I shouted out,
I asked if I could take her out,
But she said that she didn’t want to.
I changed the sheets on my bed,
I combed the hairs across my head,
I sucked in my gut and still she said
That she just didn’t want to.
I read her Eliot, read her Yeats,
I tried my best to stay up late,
I fixed the hinges on her gate,
But still she just never wanted to.
I bought her a dozen snow-white doves,
I did her dishes in rubber gloves,
I called her Honeybee, I called her Love,
But she just still didn’t want to.
She just never wants to.
Damn!
I sent her every type of flower,
I played her guitar by the hour,
I patted her revolting little chihuahua,
But still she just didn’t want to.
I wrote a song with a hundred lines,
I picked a bunch of dandelions,
I walked her through the trembling pines,
But she just even then didn’t want to.
She just never wants to.
I thought I’d try another tack,
I drank a liter of cognac,
I threw her down upon her back,
But she just laughed and said
that she just didn’t want to.
I thought I’d have another go,
I called her my little ho,
I felt like Marcel Marceau
must feel when she said
that she just never wanted to.
She just didn’t want to.
I got the no pussy blues.
I got the no pussy blues.
I got the no pussy blues.
I got the no pussy blues.
I got the no pussy blues.
I got the no pussy blues.
I got the no pussy blues.
c – 2007 Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey, James Sclavunos
Yes, it is a really sunny morning out there today. Here’s what it looks like outside one of my bedroom windows right now:
The intersection of Basin and First Streets at 8am.
Just a really pretty morning here, even though it snowed a little during the night. (And the birds are still singing, despite the snow!)
You want to know something else that’s really charming that my neighbors know about me? I never shovel the fucking snow!! Yay!! Because I have the longest sidewalk in the entire town. And I am not making that up! I actually have the longest fucking sidewalk in the entire town — the one that runs from the front corner of my house all the way to the back edge of my barn. So it’s not fair to ask me to shovel that, when everyone else in town only has to shovel, like, a 3-foot long thing. Plus, God does this thing called “melting it eventually” so I choose to rely on that. (It’s similar to that thing God does wherein He provides wind to blow all my un-raked leaves away — or into neighboring yards.)
But, of course, there are those smarty-pants people who like to point out that if someone falls and breaks their back on my snowy sidewalk, I could get sued! But if it ever really gets that bad out there, I will put out my sign that says: CAUTION: ICY!! WALK AT YOUR OWN RISK BECAUSE I AIN’T F*CKING SHOVELING THIS STUFF! And under that, the handy NRA-member logo:
Don’t Shovel!! Make America Great Again!!
I am, of course, just kidding. I am not a member of the NRA. I don’t own any guns at all. (If you aren’t an American — the NRA is a very powerful political gun lobby here in the USA, and membership in the NRA implies that you own many licensed guns and are more than happy to use them and that your aim is probably spot-on.)
Still, I’m not kidding about not shoveling…
Anyway!!
Life’s good here in Crazeysburg. I hope it’s good where you’re at, too.
This morning is another one of those Abstract Absurdity Productions script-writing days. We are headlong into Scene 5 now. I don’t expect us to finish writing Scene 5 today because that would be really out of character for us — the scene is a good 60 seconds long. But I do expect it to be really fun because it is just a very, very weird scene. It’s the scene that the whole movie leads up to and then gently falls away from as it trickles to its lofty end. (Or “fin” — as they say in so many film-languages.)
In case you’re interested, gang, yesterday was my first day back doing yoga after 3 weeks of doing Booty Core. I could not believe the difference in the strength in my body.
I don’t do any complicated yoga poses, because mostly I just want to maintain flexibility. But I do headstands, and I couldn’t believe the difference in my arms. And also — as I mentioned a couple weeks ago — in my neck. And I love to do elbow planks and I am suddenly really good at that. (Not that planks are part of yoga, I’m just saying that I like doing those.)
So even though Booty Core got really challenging for me, it made a huge difference. So I will keep doing it.
However, I did have a weird pain issue in my legs again last night. And I’m thinking it’s probably psychosomatic. Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt are aware that I am the kind of person who is always always trying to stay alive. I’ve been plagued by a lifetime of suicidal tendencies — that I don’t believe adequately define who I really am. It’s just that my brain was taught, when I was really little, that I didn’t deserve to exist — that my existence was merely being tolerated, for now — and that it would be preferable if I didn’t exist.
So my brain’s fallback position, when I’m feeling stressed about something, is to try to negate my existence. I honestly think my brain thinks it’s doing me a favor — or at least, it’s doing what it was taught it was supposed to do. (And I’m making a huge differentiation here between my brain and my mind. My brain is this sort of machine set on automatic, whereas my mind is this amazing, wide-ranging, free-spirited energetic-essence type thing. So it’s a case of my Mind vs. my Brain.)
But I really have been plagued by this brain of mine for decades. And one of my life-long triggers — something I constantly have to deal with in my personality, which involves believing in a lack of love — is hovering out there on my horizon and I just simply refuse to deal with it anymore, you know? I’m just done. I am so fucking done dealing with this shit.
But it means that every single time my brain tells me that “I don’t deserve love, I deserve to die” I have to get in there and replace it with a better thought. It’s a type of addiction — you have to reprogram your brain to respond to something else. And it is fucking exhausting.
I don’t want to spend any additional time thinking about my adoptive parents and how damaging they wound up being to me. I only want my brain to stop doing this. Like, now. I’m so over it. Every single damn day I deal with it, but it only gets really bad when a trigger thing starts happening. And a trigger thing is hovering, so now I’m not only trying to reprogram my brain, but totally eradicate the trigger, too. So that the triggers don’t exist anymore, either.
Anyway, I did really really good yesterday. But by mid-evening, I was just exhausted from it. That feeling, like, why doesn’t somebody just shoot this girl, and put her out of her misery once and for all? Which, of course, goes against everything I was working so hard on during the day!!
And then I noticed the extreme pain in my legs attempting to return — maybe a way for my body to say: we’re going to pull the whole world out from under you, starting with your legs. So, at that point, the only really productive thing I can do is go to bed and start again in the morning. (Meaning, here we are again.)
It’s just so frustrating. When it comes to everyone else on Earth — for instance, YOU, whoever you are, reading this right now — I completely believe that you deserve to be loved, that you are loved and that you deserve to live. It’s just a given inside me. I believe that about you without even knowing who you are, how you’ve lived, what you do or think about.
But to believe it about me, is extremely difficult. It is a 24/7 job. Or maybe an 18/7 job, because when I’m sleeping, I’m just fine. And most of the time, nowadays, I am sort of fine. I’ve made so much progress out here alone in the Hinterlands. But when I’m facing a trigger point, if it gets out of control, I do actually get suicidal and I absolutely refuse to go there. So then it becomes like a job. And I just feel, like, oh fuck, here we go again.
However, it was really good to notice what my legs did when my thoughts changed last night. So I’m going to keep that in mind.
And I also woke up feeling like I really did make progress yesterday. Because, you know, my life doesn’t have to be some huge tidal wave of joy washing over me for me to feel like living. Just tiny baby steps in the direction of joy is enough. It really is. Because it builds from there.
So waking up to a couple of texts from Peitor on my phone. And opening the blinds and seeing more snow. And going down to the kitchen to be greeted by 7 crazy happy healthy cats. And turning on the CD player — the Dave Brubeck Quartet greeting me again with “Take Five.” A couple of my favorite little pictures of Nick Cave scattered there on my kitchen table. And then plugging in the coffee pot.
Little joys.
That makes for a really good morning. Because then my thoughts can move from there to the larger joys — the plays going into production now, the production company with Peitor, the books I’m still writing, the words going out there into the world, and the best Muse I’ve ever had in my life. And new people I’m meeting. And traveling this year — it starts to turn into a really good day.
So I gotta scoot!! I have stuff to get organized here at my desk before Peitor calls. I leave you with my listening-music from last evening, before the legs went. I’ve posted this song here before, but I just love it. The imagery. The melody. How it goes to such enigmatic places. “Babe, You Turn me On,” from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Abattoir Blues/ The Lyre of Orpheus, 2004. Enjoy!! I love you guys. See ya!
“Babe, You Turn Me On”
Stay by me, stay by me
You are the one, my only true love
The butcher bird makes it’s noise
And asks you to agree
With it’s brutal nesting habits
And it’s pointless savagery
Now, the nightingale sings to you
And raises up the ante
I put one hand on your round ripe heart
And the other down your panties
Everything is falling, dear
Everything is wrong
It’s just history repeating itself
And babe, you turn me on
Like a light bulb
Like a song
You race naked through the wilderness
You torment the birds and the bees
You leapt into the abyss, but find
It only goes up to your knees
I move stealthily from tree to tree
I shadow you for hours
I make like I’m a little deer
Grazing on the flowers
Everything is collapsing, dear
All moral sense has gone
It’s just history repeating itself
And babe, you turn me on
Like an idea
Like an Atom bomb
We stand awed inside a clearing
We do not make a sound
The crimson snow falls all about
Carpeting the ground
Everything is falling, dear
All rhyme and reason gone
It’s just history repeating itself
And, babe, you turn me on
It’s not really snowing that much here today, but it is snowing, and mostly I just love that Louis Wain illustration. It just cracks me up. So there we go!
Okay.
Yes, it’s another one of those mornings. Taking me forever to plant myself in front of the computer and get started.
Before I forget, there was another one of those really funny, extremely short promotional clips on Instagram today to promote Nick Cave’s upcoming art exhibition in Copenhagen. God, I wish I could go! I was on the Black Diamond site, reading about it last evening and it sounded just so cool. (Actually, I think the link I have there to the Nick Cave website has the same information that’s on the Black Diamond site. But for some reason, reading it on my phone, late in the evening, on another site, made it seem like I hadn’t read it before.)
Anyway. It sounds so cool. And even with my unfortunate marital-memories of Copenhagen (meaning my decision to get a divorce), I do love Copenhagen.
Actually, Wayne & I had a nice time in Copenhagen, all things considered. I had gotten a really nice book advance from a publisher in London and so I was able to surprise Wayne with that entire trip at the last minute — it was my gift to him for Valentine’s Day that year. We always traveled really well together because we were always good friends. We didn’t work well together as married people, but we were always good friends.
And at that specific juncture in my life, I felt like I had totally lost my mojo, you know? It’s a distinct feeling — when the magic is just gone. And I don’t mean from the marriage, I mean the magic was gone from myself. I couldn’t function as a married person. I couldn’t figure out who the fuck I was. My career had taken over everything.
Of course, now I have swung my pendulum in the other direction and my career is all that there is. I’ve been extremely careful to weed out as many actual people from my life as I possibly could. I’m only being partially sarcastic, really. I mean, I did it for a reason. I had just so much toxic stuff going on in my life because of things I was refusing to look at involving my adoptive family. And when my adoptive mother finally disowned me, I had no choice but to finally look at it.
And then, of course, you see the patterns — the other toxic relationships you’ve maybe created because it seems to be the only thing you know how to do. Narcissistic mothers are a real trip — the damage they do to your ability to know how to be loved.
I was lucky in that I conveniently had this other mother — my birth mom; who doesn’t have a narcissistic bone in her body, and just loves me no matter what. Like, all I have to do is wake up in the morning and she loves me. However, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I actually know how to be loved yet. I’m working on it, though. It’s taking me a while.
I don’t actually define myself through my work, my writing. But I do love doing it and it’s the only thing I will leave behind, since I have no kids or anything.
This morning, I was lying in bed in the dark, thinking about marriage — what it means, technically. How it went from a strictly legal arrangement — to join property, and to create heirs to the property, to whatever wealth might have been involved. And then it morphed slightly when the church got involved. And the church only got involved because the priest in any given town was usually the most educated person around, often the only person who could even read, or help anyone navigate the legal documents. The legal arrangements of marriage were overseen by the priest in the church’s front portico — a structural part of churches that was meant specifically for doing business in.
(And churches aside, it used to be that part of the wedding ceremony, after the legal documents were signed, was that the wedding guests accompanied the bride and groom to the conjugal bed, to witness if the bride was actually a virgin, and to witness the loss of virginity thing that sealed the whole deal.) (I’m really glad we don’t do that anymore. I didn’t even know half the people at my wedding to Wayne.) (Not that I was anything close to a virgin at either of my weddings. But I’m just saying.)
It wasn’t until the Romantic era came in, in the late 1700s, that people got that notion that they wanted to be married in the eyes of God, and to even include love in a marriage. At that point, marriages took on a separate non-legal ceremony, deeper inside the actual church. And to have a church wedding became a really big deal. And to marry for love became a very popular idea.
So there you have it. Marriage. But I was thinking of it specifically because the part of Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary that I watched last night was just so sad — about Charlie Parker’s little 2-year-old daughter, dying suddenly from pneumonia in NYC while he was away doing some gigs in LA. His wife was alone when their little girl died. He got back to NY as quickly as he could but the whole thing just devastated him. And he, himself, died soon after that. He couldn’t cope with his grief. His body just gave out. The coroner thought he was examining the corpse of a 50 year-old, but Charlie Parker was only 34 when he died. A lifetime of heroin addiction and serious alcohol abuse.
This morning, I was thinking about his poor wife — they had a little boy, too, that she had to raise alone. But to survive the death of her little girl, and then the death of her husband? How did she do that? (They interviewed her in the documentary.) And he didn’t have any money, ever. Because of the heroin addiction — it took everything. (Like that old John Prine song, “Sam Stone” — There’s a hole in daddy’s arm/ where all the money goes…)
Anyway. I was thinking about marriage this morning and trying to understand why I have always just been so opposed to it, you know? Because I’m not opposed to loving someone until the cows come home or to fidelity or to romance or to the idea that I could, seriously, love a man for a lifetime. It’s just the marriage idea itself that confounds me. (And also, even though a lot of men asked me to marry them in my lifetime, the two proposals I accepted were the weirdest ones, ever. In entirely different ways. I guess that because I was so taken aback, I decided to say yes because it seemed really interesting — like, the marriage was going to be interesting. Who the fuck knows what I was thinking because I was wrong both times. That much I do know. They were “interesting” in just really bad ways.)
I know that part of my inability to know how to be loved has been really damaging to me, and I’ve been working on trying to fix that for a couple of years now. But in the whole act of trying to process it, I’ve shifted almost my entire focus into my work. And this morning, I was just wondering there in the dark: is this really all I’m going to do with my life? Just work, and never trust anybody to love me at all?
I like to think “no” but I just don’t really understand anything, when you get right down to it. Nothing at all.
But on that note — guess what I’m gonna do??? I’m gonna get to work over here!!
I hope you have a really great Thursday, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning — a record that was definitely part of my wee bonny girlhood! (I don’t think my parents ever took me to see Dave Brubeck, but I do remember that a couple of times, when I was a really little girl, they took me and my brother with them to see Stan Getz and Chet Baker.) Anyway, I leave you with “Take Five” from their seminal album from 1959, Time Out. Enjoy. I love you guys. See ya!
