Tag Archives: #MarilynJayeLewis

We’re Gonna Try Again Today

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Yesterday was intense, gang.

I don’t know if that full moon was factoring in to things, or not. But emotionally, I was all over the place yesterday.

The happy stuff was that my lunch with Kevin, the director of Tell My Bones, was so much fun. He had some initial casting questions, regarding actors, but other than that, we just talked about all kinds of stuff and laughed a lot and had a really nice break from the intensity of our lives.

And then, almost the moment I got back home, my ex-husband in NYC called to chat. He actually bought the print edition of The Guitar Hero Goes Home and was reading it!!

He said he would give me his feedback when he’d finished reading it, but he asked, “How can people think there isn’t a lot of sex in this book?”

Well, by the standards of “erotica” there’s not a lot of sex in it. By anyone else’s standards, I guess there’s a ton of sex in it… (I do have it listed as “appropriate for over 18 only”)

I give up, though — trying to figure how to market anything I write. There’s always either too much sex or not enough.

But it was so nice that he actually bought the book.

And then my other friend Kevin called! The one who lives in Montana most of the year (and the one who my ex-husband visited while on his vacation out West this summer!). It was so nice to chat with him. He’s planning to come back to Ohio soon, but only for one month and then he’s planning to go off to Chile and Argentina for a while, if COVID doesn’t get in the way of that. So I’m not sure if that vintage 1965 VW camper van of his will remain in my barn indefinitely or not.

So that was really just great — to have all those people to talk to you yesterday, including actually seeing another human being!

But in between all that, I would sink rapidly back into a depression.  For a few reasons, many of which involve people who are not getting back to me about things that are very important to me (some other things I wrote, and also stuff related to another play). I’m beginning to feel like I don’t exist.

But part of me is trying to convince myself that “not hearing from people” is actually a good sign…

And I’m still trying to get them to come pick up the 8 yard waste bags filled with dead hydrangea blossoms that are sitting at the curb (since Tuesday). 6 phone calls. Each phone call guaranteeing me that the truck is coming, and it never comes… Yesterday afternoon, the customer support person said the truck came by and couldn’t find any yard waste.

How can you not see 8 enormous brown yard waste bags filled with enormous hydrangea blossoms at the curb? Finally, the last phone call I made to them yesterday to see if they’d get here before the weekend started — the lady told me I’d be better off just putting them in my trash bin and having them picked up as trash on Wednesday.

It broke my heart, you know. Literally. Because I’m neurotic and I can’t treat all these beautiful blossoms like “trash.” But now I have to. So I stuffed them into my trash bin and now there’s no room left for my regular trash between now and Wednesday.

I actually cried doing that — not only because that’s how fucking sensitive I am, but because, you know, why didn’t the guy who picked up the trash on Wednesday — yes, the very same guy who moved all 8 yard waste bags one foot away from my trash bin — just put them in the garbage truck, since he was actually holding them??

I hate when things make no sense and then I’m the one who ends up feeling crazy.

Well, one nice thing — I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating dinner and trying to stop streaming that Brian Jones documentary because it keeps making me so fucking sad: I saw a woman walk by on the sidewalk and then she stopped and pulled one of the yard waste bags from out of my bin and took a whole bunch of those hydrangea blossoms home with her. I don’t know if she’s going to dry them or what. But I felt so happy that someone was going to use them, probably as decorations in some way.

I can’t bring anything like that indoors because all 7 of my crazy cats destroy that kind of thing over night.

Another nice thing is that the little house across Basin Street is finally going to get some inhabitants!

When I first moved in here, the woman who owned that little house was in a nursing home, and she has since passed away. Her son comes by periodically to take care of the grass, etc., but it’s been a totally empty house. But the son has been getting it ready for some people to move in — an older couple, it looks like.  It will be so nice to finally have some life over there.

Here is the little house, this morning, as the full moon was just barely visible through the fog. It looks like  a really weird house from this side of it, but it’s actually really cute.  And has 2 porches and a deck.

Little house across the street.

At one point, I was hoping my birth mom could either rent that house, or we could buy it for her. But my sister didn’t want her living that far away, and I don’t think my birth mom wanted to live that close to me, 24/7 — because I’m sort of crazy, in case this blog has not alerted you to that.

Whereas, both of my sisters are intensely not crazy. They’re super grown up and serious about everything. (And I’m actually the eldest.)

Well, okay.

Last night, I was listening to some lovely Morgana King music in the dark, in my bed. Trying to seek out reasons to be really happy about all these people who are treating me like I’m invisible. (This song in particular, is so lovely):

And then I started poking around in my music, and I discovered that Bruce Springsteen has actually dropped another new song for his upcoming album, Letter To You. It’s called “Ghosts,” and it blew me away for 2 reasons: one, being that it was that anniversary of Tom Petty’s death yesterday and it made me think a little bit of Tom Petty.

But it also made me think of The Guitar Hero Goes Home — my new novel. It really did. It just kicked my heart so hard.

Because, you know, it’s always just me and the thoughts that are in my head. It’s been like that for as long as I can even remember. I’ve always been very isolated by my thoughts, even as a really little girl. And then at some point, my thoughts make it on to paper and go out in the world, and they either sell or don’t sell, but then I’m always right back to being alone with the thoughts that are in my head.

But even though The Guitar Hero Goes Home is fiction — I made it up, it just came to me out of the blue two summers ago, when I was so in love; but even though he’s fiction, that guy in that novel is so real to me. Just so real. For me, he lives. And I love him like he’s “real.” And so that new Springsteen song “Ghosts” just hit me so hard.

And not in a bad way, but a very intense way, and it reminded me of how isolated I really am. And I don’t guess that, as this point, it’s going to ever really change. I guess that this particular lifetime is just all about managing alone.

Okay, well. I’m going to get started here. Yoga and then put some more of those thoughts down on paper and call it a short story.

I hope you have a great Saturday underway, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting!! I love you guys. See ya.

“Ghosts”

I hear the sound of your guitar
Comin’ from the mystic far
Stone and the gravel in your voice
Come in my dreams and I rejoice

It’s your ghost moving through the night
Your spirit filled with light
I need, need you by my side
Your love and I’m alive

I can feel the blood shiver in my bones
I’m alive and I’m out here on my own
I’m alive and I’m comin’ home

Old buckskin jacket you always wore
Hangs on the back of my bedroom door
Boots and the spurs you used to ride
Click down the hall but never arrive

It’s just your ghost moving through the night
Your spirit filled with light
I need, need you by my side
Your love and I’m alive

I can feel the blood shiver in my bones
I’m alive and I’m out here on my own
I’m alive and I’m comin’ home

Your old Fender Twin from Johnny’s Music downtown
Still set on 10 to burn this house down
Count the band in, then kick into overdrive
By the end of the set we leave no one alive

Ghosts runnin’ through the night
Our spirits filled with light
I need, need you by my side
Your love and I’m alive

I shoulder your Les Paul and finger the fretboard
I make my vows to those who’ve come before
I turn up the volume, let the spirits be my guide
Meet you, brother and sister, on the other side

I’m alive, I can feel the blood shiver in my bones
I’m alive and I’m out here on my own
I’m alive and I’m comin’ home
Yeah, I’m comin’ home

© 2020 Bruce Springsteen

I Found A Little Tiny Place That Saved Me

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Finally. I found a teeny-tiny link that would let me access the classic editor.

To be fair-ish, I think that WordPress thinks there are readily accessed links to get to the old editor but none of those links worked.  Hence, my complete meltdown this morning, after clicking link after link after link…

But anyway. For now, I have my blog back and I cannot imagine why anyone on Earth thinks the new editor is easier to use than this older one is.

I’m going to try to have a good day here. But it’s sort of been a battle since waking up this morning. Regardless of the whole blog incident. Trying to see certain people in the best light. Trying to just have faith, trust that things will go in the best direction for everyone even if it means letting them go, try not to think that people you rely on to be decent and be your “friend” totally have their own interests at heart.

That kind of of thing.

Most days, I can handle it, because it’s called “life”. Other days, it adds to the piles of straw that breaks the wee bonny camel’s back.

The bright spot on the horizon today is that I’m having lunch with the director of my play, Tell My Bones, and I am really, really looking forward to being in the presence of another human being. (And a human being who has actually been really, really supportive of me from day one.) As I said yesterday, it’s been 3 months now since I’ve seen anyone that I actually know. (Texting and talking on the telephone is great but it doesn’t actually count, you know?)

I do like living in the middle of nowhere, gang, but I don’t like having no meaningful or even just fun interactions with human beings. It is going on 7 months now, this whole virus thing. (As if you didn’t know.) And even though I know that for a few people I know, the virus has caused them to be in really close quarters with people they love or are married to and it has driven the relationships to the breaking point — it’s still people to interact with!!!!

All I have are cats — and they aren’t even domestic cats.  So, basically, they all run away from me when I enter a room (unless it’s time to eat). Sometimes, it just feels like too much. That this virus crap is never gonna end.

Okay. Onward from that.

This is not actually a topic that is any cheerier, but I did see the results a survey this week, of 20,000 American college students regarding their thoughts on freedom of speech & expression, and tolerance vs. intolerance, violence as a suitable option against people who disagree with you, and how your specific University handles all that.

The majority of students who responded said they felt they did not feel comfortable expressing themselves to other students or to faculty. Which is so sad. The worst colleges for safe self-expression tended to be Liberal ones, as well as in the Ivy League.

The University of Chicago got the highest rating for protecting the rights of its students & faculty, though.

But what I found really interesting — and not in a good way — when it came to intolerance of other students and faculty, liberal female students were the worst offenders, followed closely by LGBTQ+ students.

Intolerance is just an outcropping of fear. So this sort of shows that we haven’t made any real progress at all in “equality,” have we? We just somehow managed to instill in liberal women and people who identify as LGBTQ+  (these are both categories that I fit into, btw) that intolerance and violence are the necessary means for shutting people down who threaten your sense of yourself.

It is just amazing to me. And it’s also been interesting to see, over this summer of all these riots, looting, hate, anarchy, etc., that young conservative female students who have spoken out all seem to be much more emotionally centered, self-confident, and tolerant. So, everything from the “old days” seems to have reversed.

It’s just very, very interesting.

Okay. So. More “coming soon” things on Nick Cave’s Cave Things that are really cool!! You might want to go check them out. My favorite thing so far is a china milk jug!! However, me thinks it will once again be way, way, way out of my price range, but do not let this deter you!!

And also something that is sort of related, but not really — Warren Ellis and Blixa Bargeld are now both on Instagram!

All righty. That’s really kind of it here today. Due to my time-consuming meltdown here this morning, I have not yet done yoga. So I want to get going with that and then get a little writing done before heading out to meet Kevin for lunch.

It is indeed the 3rd anniversary of Tom Petty’s death today.  What I prefer to focus on is that new album of his coming out in 2 weeks. They’ve dropped another new song, his own demo version of “Leave Virginia Alone,” which was a hit for Rod Stewart. (I pre-ordered the album, of course, so I get all the songs as they drop. I also pre-ordered Bruce Springsteen’s new one, Letter to You, and of course Nick Cave’s new one, Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Berlin Alexanderplatz.) (Just kidding — it’s Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace.)

However, all that said, I have decided to leave you with my breakfast-listening music from today, a very old Rolling Stones song, “You Better Move On.”  I have loved it since I was a wee bonny girl. (Released in the UK in 1964, and in the USA in 1965, on their album December’s Children.) It was written by Arthur Alexander.

Okay. Enjoy. And thanks for visiting. I realize some of you have visited 3 times already this morning (!!) — I deleted the meltdown entries, though, and this is the official entry for today. So thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya.

Coffee, Sunrise, Fall

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What could be nicer, right?

I’m trying to not notice the lack of summer around here and focus only on how beautiful the morning is here in Crazeysburg. And it is actually really beautiful. And it’s already gotten up to a walloping 50 degrees Fahrenheit!! Yay!

Anyway.

Yesterday was so weird.

I got a lot done. Finished the rather complicated manuscript formatting they needed for 1954 Powder Blue Pickup and then sent it off. I will keep you posted!! (I never like to be 100% sure about something until I have the signed contract.) (I did get the signed contract back for “Half-Moon Bride” on Tuesday, btw. So that’s a go!)

Then I FINALLY fixed the formatting for the print edition of The Guitar Hero Goes Home !!! And I uploaded it. Hallelujah!! However… the new cover design Valerie did that fixes the problem of the old cover art skewing once it was in the Amazon template, was saved in a format that was enormous. And I mean, enormous. The only thing that fit into the template when I uploaded it yesterday was the barcode. Seriously. That’s how huge it was. The entire cover was a giant-sized version of the barcode.

So, since Valerie is obviously not working these days (her mom’s funeral is today), I left the original cover art for now. But the inside of the book finally looks perfect. I was so happy.

But then, for some reason, when the trash pickup truck came to collect stuff yesterday, they didn’t pick up all the clippings from the hydrangea (8 bags worth). And this really upset me because I don’t want to keep looking at all those dead hydrangea blossoms — they make me so sad. So I called the company and they said that a different truck was picking up yard waste and would be over before 5:30pm, but I just knew that they weren’t going to come, and they didn’t.

So they are supposed to come today and get them — and they were really nice about it. But for some reason, it just made me so sad yesterday. I couldn’t really snap out of it. (The amount of windows I have in the house makes it almost impossible to not see 8 yard bags filled with dead hydrangea blossoms sitting out by the curb everywhere I go in the house. Plus it was drizzling rain all day, and cold. And I kept feeling like the flowers were blaming me for killing them and tossing them to the curb…)

And then I wanted to set up the web site for Marilyn’s Room Books yesterday, but I have to wait until Oct. 5th before I can redirect the domain to WordPress, and mapping the domain instead just got way too complicated. So that didn’t happen.

And then I decided to re-watch that Brian Jones documentary, which I’d forgotten to say was really, really good. Very disturbing, though, since they provide a good argument for saying that Brian Jones did not drown in his (chlorinated) swimming pool from an asthma attack and too much alcohol, but was in fact murdered in the little fresh-water trough at the side of his house by the builder whom he had just fired. (His autopsy does state that there was fresh water in his lungs, not swimming pool water, but his whole case has been mysteriously sealed for 75 years, of which there are still 24 more years to go!) The whole documentary was just really well done. but sad, and I watched it again.

Obviously, none of this is unbearable awfulness, but for some reason, it just contributed to me having a yucky day.

But today just feels world’s better. It really does. Today, I’m going to be working on a new erotic short story for the upcoming Muse Revisited Volume 4 — which will now be “Selected Taboo Erotica” from 1994-2020. (6 previously published stories, and one brand-new one, all of them D/s and pushing the boundary of questionable consent. It will be about 200 pages, 75,000 words.)

So I’m guessing I’ll have a really fun day.

And tomorrow, I’m having lunch with Kevin, the director of my play! So I am really looking forward to that. I have not socialized with a soul since the July 4th weekend, when I had dinner with Kevin and his husband at the Granville Inn.

Since today is October 1st, folks, that means it’s been 3 months since I’ve seen anybody. Well, I mean, anybody that I actually know.

Very early this morning, I had a very interesting dream, though. I dreamed that one of the Nick Cave sites I follow on Instagram posted the lyrics to “The Train Song.” And I was dreaming about the song (and then the train actually went by outside my window, too, which is nowhere near as sleep- disturbing when all the windows are closed).

But the dream was actually really cool. Even though I was back living with my adoptive mom, she wasn’t  home. And it didn’t seem as if she was ever going to come back, but she’d left behind all her diamonds — plus she’d left the house in a big mess. (I’m guessing that all symbolizes my consciousness re: her.)

But it was really sunny and I had a big wooden deck out back, with a patio and a big privacy fence around the patio, and it was filled with all these young friends. (Which in itself made for a great dream because I have, like, 3 friends left in the whole world now.)

Everyone was socializing and happy, instead of practicing social distancing and wearing masks. And a young lesbian black woman  brought me a gift — a pruned rose bush that was still young — in a flower pot. And she gave me all the instructions I needed for it to bloom. I was so excited. (Roses are my favorite flower, followed closely by lilacs.)

Inside the house, I had a pet bird in a cage. But the bird somehow got out, but I was able to easily get it with my hands and put it safely back in the cage and take it out to the back patio with me. (It was so cool to have a bird that wasn’t afraid of me.) (Plus, when I woke up, I was immediately thinking about that phrase, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”)

Anyway, I woke up feeling really happy.

And on that happy note…

I’ll get to work here on the new erotic short story. And get the day happening around here. I hope you’re having a nice Thursday, wherever you are in the world. I’m leaving you with “The Train Song” since Disc #1 of B- Sides & Rarities was already in the CD player in the kitchen anyway! How fortuitous! So enjoy, gang. And thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya.

“The Train Song”

Tell me how long’s the train been gone?
Tell me how long’s the train been gone?
And was she there?
And was she there?
Tell me how long’s the train been gone?

Tell me how many coaches long?
Tell me how many coaches long?
What did she wear?
And what did she wear?
Tell me how many coaches long?

Tell me when did the whistle blow?
Tell me when did the whistle blow?
And did she tie her hair?
And did she tie her hair?
Tell me when did the whistle blow?

© 1990 Nick Cave

Autumn Has So Totally Arrived!

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48 degrees Fahrenheit; the sun didn’t come up until 7am; the leaves are changing all over the neighborhood; I did indeed prune the hydrangea yesterday morning…. The flowery  summer wreaths are off the doors — replaced with the ones for fall. I put away the porch furniture.

Now all I have left to do is wait for summer to get here…

All righty! I won’t get far with that attitude, will I? No.

So instead of wishing that life were totally different, I’m going to spend the day ignoring the world beyond Crazeysburg and just doing non-writing work today:

  1. finish formatting 1954 Powder Blue Pickup and send it off to the publisher today.
  2. fix the formatting on the print edition for The Guitar Hero Goes Home. And then upload it to Amazon and hopefully stop tinkering with it and keep it there once and for all.
  3. set up the web site for Marilyn’s Room Books and get that up and running.

Even though I will no longer be self-publishing any of my new erotica (which I am extremely happy about!), I will still put up the Marilyn’s Room Books site because I want all of my available titles to be in one place, regardless of who the publishers are.

Plus, I’m still planning to self-publish In the Shadow of Narcissa, since it’s not erotic. And also bring out a new print edition of Twilight of the Immortal.

If I’m not mistaken, gang, Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse is going to be brought out in print and eBooks by the new publisher. (So that means I will finish writing it before the end of the year.)

But before that, I’ll be sending them The Muse Revisited, Volume 4 — yay!! But instead of it being strictly a print edition of my selected erotica from 1994 -2012, it’s going to be print and digital, and focus on my previously published hardcore BDSM stories, along with a brand new one that I will write here at any moment!!

So all of it is really exciting to me, gang. It really, really is.

Meanwhile, though, I just now realized (because I’m not dressed yet) that I am still wearing my summer PJs to bed every night. I suppose I have to make an adjustment there. Drag out the fall PJs.

It’s funny, but for most of my adult life, I hated summer — because I lived in NYC and I have a very low tolerance for high humidity. It makes me super cranky and makes my brain feel like it’s going to explode. And NYC summers are usually just the worst.

But ever since I moved into this amazing old house in the middle of nowhere, all of that has changed (mostly because of that man I fell in love with that first summer I lived here who died; he changed summer for me forever) — honestly, honestly, honestly; I cannot emphasize how much in the middle of nowhere this house is, gang. When you get off the highway that leads to the 3-mile, winding back road that leads to my village, there is a really big freeway exit sign and it says “LOCAL ATTRACTIONS” and there is absolutely nothing written on that sign! I’m so serious. It’s just amazing. Nothing is on the sign. It’s just a big blank sign. NOTHING is here, folks!!

However, there used to be a famous homestead out here but it’s been closed down, so they removed the listing but left the huge sign. (In fact, if you were to google my village, you’d discover that it was once home to the world’s largest apple basket — but no more. I have yet to lay eyes on that basket (below) because that homestead was closed down! Yet google seems to think it’s emblematic of where I live!)

Worlds Largest Basket of Apples in Frazeysburg Ohio Stock Photo - Alamy

So I’m guessing that, once I’m dead, the one thing on that freeway exit sign will be my house that will, by then, be a famous museum… (Probably because I was insanely crazy, had a house full of dead spirits talking to me all the time and had too many undomesticated cats, but I would prefer it to be a standing homage to my splendid writing…)

Yeah, well…

Robert Jordan Quote: “If wishes were wings, pigs would fly.” (9 wallpapers) - Quotefancy

Okay, on that happy note… I refuse to talk about politics or the debate.  I refuse to even think about it. I will simply buy a gun, I mean, VOTE, and get on with my life.

And now I will even get dressed and get to work around here. (Just FYI, I never sit down at the desk to blog before getting dressed, so I’m not sure what’s up with me today.)

Anyway.

Have a nice Wednesday, wherever you are in the world, gang. Thanks for visiting. I leave you with probably my most favorite Buddy Holly song from my wee bonny girlhood (even though I pretty much liked all his songs), “Everyday”  (1958) — because I want to feel hopeful about love, like when I was young (yay!!), instead of depressed by its utter absence around here, now that I’m old (yay!!)! So enjoy. I love you guys. See ya!!!

Truly A Bittersweet Autumn Day Here in Crazeysburg

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Yes, today’s the day I have to trim back the hydrangea. And while this is a sad day for me, it is a day much celebrated by all my neighbors.

Because this means that: a.) they won’t have to look at an enormously huge brown & drooping hydrangea anymore; and b.) they will finally have free access to the entire sidewalk when walking their dogs, riding their bikes, or pushing their baby strollers, etc., etc.

Plus, since my lawn guy was having such severe back problems (he’s getting surgery soon) that the last time he was here, I told him just to cut the grass and not worry about trimming anything or blowing away the clippings from the sidewalk. So today I have to sweep all those now very- dead clippings up, too, and my sidewalk is only about 17 miles long…

Lest you’ve forgotten about my very long sidewalk, here it is from September of last year:

I know it doesn’t look 17 miles long, but it is.

(And you should see my neighbor’s fence now, gang. Remember that intense wind from early spring that blew the roof off of my barn? Well, it wreaked havoc on that wooden fence there. It is just one great big blown apart mess now, and I guess the neighbors have no immediate plans of doing anything about it.

(And they have two little girls and so now we can all readily see that those little girls have every available  backyard plaything known to man! Seriously, if it’s made out of hideous plastic and you can buy it for a child and put it in a yard, these little girls have got it.)

All righty.

So, I did the final tweaking and the read-through of 1954 Powder Blue Pickup yesterday and I was really, really happy with it, gang. Just really happy. Today, after I do all my strenuous “yard work,” I’m going to do the manuscript formatting and then send it off to the publisher and I will keep you posted!!

This morning, on Instagram, the official Nick Cave page released an announcement that on Oct. 9th, on Bad Seed TeeVee, there will be this:

And while I have never actually watched the film Lawless all the way through (even though I own it — I also own The Proposition and have never watched it all the way through, either. I just have problems with all the violence. And sometimes, I say to myself “this is the day when I will be able to just sit and watch this and not get squeamish about all the violence”, and then I last about 5 minutes….)

That said, though, the music from the film Lawless is really great. It’s very sort of “Great Depression-era American bluegrass music” type original stuff. Beautiful. And it has performers like Emmylou Harris and Ralph Stanley (who has since passed away).

And as near as I can tell, AEST is an Australian time zone which requires higher math skills to figure out, so I honestly have no clue whatsoever what 8PM AEST really means in, you know, the time zone that everybody else actually lives in…

Plus, I don’t know about you, but I still have trouble watching stuff and looking at chat at the same time! (I’m one of those people who still can’t watch the news and look at the other news scrolling along the bottom of the screen without going insane.) But this is only because I’m ancient, so don’t let the chat room thing deter you.

And also, I think you are required to provide your own snacks. I think I read somewhere, though, that you can pre-order snacks from Cave Things, but the only option is regular pretzels in a 1-ounce snack-size  bag that is autographed by Nick Cave and costs £300 plus shipping, and you must pre-order it today, otherwise they won’t guarantee that it will reach you by Oct 9th…

(I am so very much kidding about all of that!!!! So don’t go looking for it.)

All righty!!!!

I did get an email from Valerie during the night, and it sounds like it is just even more difficult for her right now than I could imagine.  The wake for her mom is tomorrow. Plus, she has selflessly chosen to adopt her mom’s wild little dog, even though Valerie already has a pitbull and about 6 house cats, and about a dozen feral cats that live out back in her yard in Brooklyn. So the menagerie has grown…

Okay, on that note, I’m gonna leave you now. And do yoga and then trim a hydrangea… I’m leaving you with “Sheila” again, by Tommy Roe, since that’s pretty much the only song going through my head these days (Valerie’s “real” name is Sheila, and that was her mom’s name, too, and Valerie and I have been connected now for a very, very, very long time and I have always loved that fucking song.)

All right. Thanks for visiting. Have a good Tuesday, okay? I love you guys. See ya.

[UPDATE: Here’s that photo I went looking for yesterday.  Valerie’s mom is on the left, and Valerie is on the right, and two aunts are in the middle — all are on their their way from NYC to Ireland for a vacation.]

All is Well Here in Crazeysburg!

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Sorry I was not able to get back here to post more yesterday, but I was hard at work on 1954 Powder Blue Pickup for another 12 hours.

However, it is DONE, gang! And I just love it. I really do.

It’s 62 pages, about 35,000 words. I will go over the whole thing a final time today and then send it off to the new publisher tomorrow. And then we shall see.

For me, personally, it’s my most favorite thing that I’ve ever written. And I have written a whole heck of a lot of stuff, gang. But I just love this one.

And as is par for my usual course, it’s a love story with an implied “happily ever after” ending — but before we get to that happy ending, it’s indescribably filthy as hell!! And it’s totally hardcore and pushes every boundary of “questionable consent” imaginable. (As all good love stories should, in my happy opinion! Yay.) Okay.

So, golly, I am exhausted here. But I’m just really, really happy.

I’m going to dash into town to get the groceries here in a minute, and then spend the whole day doing the final edit on the book, because tomorrow, I absolutely must  prune back the hydrangea so that the dead blossoms, etc., can be picked up for yard compost when the truck comes by on Wednesday.

All of my neighbors now have their autumn mums on their porches, and their various pumpkins and decorative fall squashes and even Halloween lights!

And yet I still have all my summer petunias out, and all my happy little summer bird ornaments, and yard angels and summer “Welcome” signs and mosquito-repelling candles, etc., so I have to sort of kind of get with the program somehow — although I’m keeping my petunias until the frost comes and kills them.

Still, I’m going to gather all the various flower boxes onto the kitchen porch, so that at least the rest of the house & barn look like they’re appropriate for fall.

And then I guess we’ll get ever onward to the close of another year.

Well, I have not been able to actually speak to Valerie yet about her mom’s death. It will probably be several days before she’ll be taking any phone calls.  It has just been a really, really rough year for her. Big changes now for her, too. She is the last one left in her family now. Her younger brother died a very long time ago (he used to be my computer guy, back in the Dark Ages), then her dad died a few years back, and now her mom.

I tried to find a photo I have of her and her mom and one of her aunt’s heading off on a trip to Ireland many years ago, but I can’t find it. But they are all super-NYC Irish-Catholic blue-eyed blondes, and they all looked exactly alike. It was sort of uncanny.

Anyway, I feel very sad about that.

Okay, well, while hunting for that photo of Val and her mom, I saw that Nick Cave sent out a new Red Hand File just now. It appears to have something to do with magic, but I have not read it yet. Perhaps we can all follow this link and go over there and read it together!! Yay!!

Other than that, folks, well, I honestly have nothing going on over here. I have just been in another world, trying to get that novella written.  And it looks like I am gonna close this now, scoot into town, and then get right back to work on it so that I can officially say it is done!

I leave you with, like, the very first thing I saw on Instagram, the moment my eyes opened today. So I played it at breakfast. Rather intense breakfast-listening music; I’m not sure what the cats thought of it. (They do tend to prefer Broadway show tunes, frankly.) But it was Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ version of an old Leadbelly song “Black Betty.” As far as I know, it’s only on their B Sides & Rarities album (2005), but was recorded (as a B-side) in 1986.

So I leave you with that, oh, and I guess, in honor of my cats, I’ll also leave you with my hands-down favorite Broadway show tune of all time — “Letters” from the ill-fated Broadway fucking  amazing show, “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.” It was based on a lesser-known Tolstoy novel (just kidding — it was based on War & Peace), and I had tickets to see it in September 2017, when I went to NYC to work with Sandra on our other play. And I was so FUCKING excited to see it but the darn thing CLOSED before I could get there. (It was really, really unfortunate why that show closed, but I won’t go into it here.)

Okay, enjoy and thanks for visiting, gang. Have a terrific Monday, wherever you are in the world! I love you guys. See ya.

Happy International Cat Throw-Up Day!!!

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Jesus Christ, you know?? No less than 3 cats threw up before 6am this morning.

Lucy coughed up a hairball at the top of the stairs.

Some mystery cat was a piggy and ate too much dry cat food and then threw it back up, only partially digested, in my bedroom (hence my reluctance to ever go barefoot in this house, especially in the dark).

Then in the middle of my own breakfast, Huckleberry threw up her canned cat food on the kitchen floor because she wolfed it down like a crazy person who was never going to see canned cat food again, so it came right back up. (She does that a lot, even though she’s gotten canned cat food for breakfast, every single morning of her life, for over 8 years now…)

And so the day begins! Yay.

Yesterday was a perfect day, gang.  I spent many hours going over the gangbang segment and, overall, I thought it worked really well, I just wanted to tweak it. The dialogue, mainly. But now that section’s complete and I’m happy with it, and now that means I only have one section left and 1954 Powder Blue Pickup will be done!! I’m so excited.

I only wish that Michael Hemmingson were still alive. This is the kind of novella he would have really appreciated and probably would have published. (Meaning that it’s 99.9% anal sex.)

Michael Hemmingson - Wikipedia
Michael Hemmingson, gone but never forgotten, not even for a minute

However, in regards to publishing it, I won’t go into all the details yet, but yesterday, I accepted a multi-year, exclusive publishing deal for all of my new taboo erotica, so I’m guessing that 1954 Powder Blue Pickup will likely be for sale, in print and digital, by late fall.

I’m super excited, gang. But I’ll go into more detail when I know absolutely for certain.

And I also think that The Muse Revisited Volume 4 is going to be slightly re-envisioned in its overall premise.

Okay. Another head’s up regarding the staged reading for my play, Tell My Bones. (Sunday evening, EST, November 22nd) There will be a link soon for you to make reservations to stream it. It will be free to stream — and it will also be available to stream from several websites (tellmybones.com, our Facebook page, through blueprint productions. com, and I believe through Harlem One Stop, and probably even here on Marilyn’s Room) but primarily it will be an evenbrite thing on YouTube, and streaming everywhere through there. It will run about 45 minutes.

And I’m really hoping you guys will make your reservations and then stream it — because, not only do I hope you will like the play, but also, I need those viewing numbers. I really do. The amount of views it gets matters to potential producers. And this is the first step toward getting it actually produced on stage in NYC (once the virus is over).

So — hugely thanking you in advance!! I will keep you posted.

So, last evening, I started streaming the new documentary on Brian Jones, Rolling Stone: The Life & Death of Brian Jones. I’m more than halfway through it, and will finish watching it tonight. It is really good, but nowhere near as uplifting as that documentary on Bill Wyman is (The Quiet One). I really did love that Bill Wyman documentary.

However, Bill Wyman and Brian Jones were two incredibly different types of people. (Brian Jones, in case you aren’t aware of who he is, was the original founding member of the Rolling Stones back in 1962 and died in 1969, shortly after being ousted from the group due to severe drug use and psychological problems.)

I was already very aware that Brian Jones had a reputation for not having been very nice. He allegedly had a sadistic streak, and could also get physically abusive toward women (at least to Anita Pallenberg), and he also had 5 illegitimate babies by 1965 (when he was only 25 years old), and it didn’t seem like he was doing much about taking care of any of them, accept at least acknowledging that they were his.

So, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the documentary was sort of depressing — it does basically say that all those rumors about him were true. However, it goes much deeper into his personality and his emotional issues, stemming from childhood, and the serious psychological problems that developed from that. (Compounded by unbelievable quantities of alcohol and drug use that he was infamous for.)

It also looks more closely at the personality dynamics within the Stones, and why Mick & Keith came to the forefront, even though it was Brian’s band, etc. Really sad stuff, that you can easily see why it got so emotionally complicated for Brian and why he felt so defeated by it. (He was dead by age 27.)

It’s not a film that seems to have been supported, endorsed, or acknowledged in any official way at all by the Rolling Stones themselves, so I’m guessing they want their distance from it, but so far, it is a really good documentary. Eye-opening, and balanced, but really sad.

All righty. Well. On that note!!

I’ll get the morning underway here and inch ever closer to completing 1954 Powder Blue Pickup!! And when it’s done, I’ll see if Michael Hemmingson (in spirit) wants to come hang out at my kitchen table for a bit and celebrate!! Yay. (I’m guessing he will.)

Wall Art & Home Decor | Famous art paintings, Famous artists paintings, Raphael paintings
Marilyn & Michael in the old days…

Okay. Thanks for visiting. Enjoy your Saturday, wherever you are in the world!! Oh! And before I forget — that pornographic wallpaper over at Cave Things is now available for sale!! (It’s rather on the pink side — I saw a photo of it on a wall on Instagram yesterday — so here’s hoping you have a room that will look pretty in pink!)

All righty.  I leave you with some early Stones, heavily influenced by all the many instruments Brian Jones was so good at playing: “Paint It Black,” their huge hit from Aftermath (1966). Enjoy. And I love you guys. See ya!

“Paint It Black”

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by, dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black
With flowers and my love both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a newborn baby, it just happens everyday

I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door and must have it painted black
Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts
It’s not easy facing up when your whole world is black

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by, dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

Hmm, hmm, hmm…

I wanna see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black

Yeah!

Hmm, hmm, hmm…

© 1966 Mick Jagger, Keith Richards

Another Awesome Day in Crazeysburg!

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Technically, it’s not “Indian Summer” yet — I think that usually happens in October, when it happens at all. But it still feels wonderful to have this second chance at such beautiful weather.

Not that I go anywhere. I’m still basically at my desk for hours on end, and only go outside to take care of the waning petunias and to go across the road to check my mailbox. Still, I just love having the house opened up again, even for just three days.

And the boy on his motorcycle is loving this warm weather, too. Like clockwork, he was roaring past my house yesterday — and when the weather had gotten cool the last week or so, he wasn’t on that motorcycle once, even though he was out in his yard, fooling around with cars.

(NO! I’m still not stalking him…) (However, if we could find a way to get him to age about 40 years overnight…)

Okay!!

Well, yesterday, I finally finished writing the gangbang segment for 1954 Powder Blue Pickup!! It only took, literally, 12 hours to write 4 pages. It was really hard work, but I think I got it. I will be reading it over today to see what I think, overall. I really wanted it to be erotic more than violent, but I did want it to have that feeling like it was a little out of control. So we’ll see if I captured it.

Other than that, I’ve had some food, and I’ve slept and that’s about it!! (Oh, and yoga…) I’m just really trying to get this novella finished. We’re at 30,000 words, 52 pages.

Well, so I guess this is gonna be short & sweet today!

On Instagram this morning, I saw a really cool photo of the late Willie DeVille — of the band Mink DeVille, but I always just call him “Mink DeVille” because “Willie DeVille wasn’t his real name, either.

He’s been dead now for 11 years and I find this impossible to believe. If you aren’t familiar with his music, you can find all of it on YouTube now. He was one of those musicians who was really plagued by  heroin addiction and I think it kind of hampered where his career could have gone, in the long run. But while Mink DeVille, as a band, was around, I saw him a few times on stage in NYC and he always just blew me away. He was amazing.

His music was very rhythmic and emotional. I found it really addicting. Back when Walkmans came out, I was always listening to either Mink DeVille or Lou Reed pretty much everywhere I went in the East Village.  I didn’t usually buy cassettes — I was much more into records, and then CDs when those came out, but for some reason, I had to have those Mink DeVille and Lou Reed cassettes… It was just so NYC to me.

I have such precise and intense memories of walking around the East Village one night — over 30 years ago now — having some sort of emotional meltdown, while listening to “Mixed-Up, Shook-Up Girl” over and over and over in the little headphones we had back then. And as fate would have it, I no longer have any clue what was bothering me so much that night, but I remember the music…

I know I’ve posted that song here on the blog before, but I’ll post it again today, along with another one of his atmospheric love songs, “Just to Walk that Little Girl Home.” So, enjoy!! Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope you have a lovely Friday, wherever you are in the world.

I love you guys. See ya!

Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl

Candle lit, and my eyes are slits
Jumpin’ now, paper clip
Make a move, sail a ship
Tap it in, tap it in, ruby lips

She’s a mixed up, shook up girl
Got me so strung out
I don’t know what to do
She’s a mixed up, mixed up, shook up girl

Take a breath, in the night
Hurry over, she said
But there was no one in sight
Now break away, is in her eyes
You know that little girl, she cut me deep
Inside out

She’s a mixed up, shook up girl
Got me so strung out
I don’t know what to do
She’s a mixed up, mixed up, shook up girl

Hey, you, I remember
All the empty streets
Fill me now
And though you’re gone away
I know not forever
Why don’t you just come over here and tell me, baby
Is it over now?

She’s a mixed up, shook up girl
Got me so strung out
I don’t know what to do
She’s a mixed up, mixed up, shook up girl
She’s a mixed up, shook up girl
She’s a mixed up, shook up girl
And she got me so strung out…
She’s a mixed up, shook up girl…

And she got me so strung out …

She’s a mixed up, shook up girl …

© 1977 Willie DeVille

Just To Walk That Little Girl Home

It’s closing time in this nowhere café
There’s no way in the world I’m gonna let that girl
Let her slip away
No I can’t explain just what’s happening to me
I can tell that guy who’s sticking close by her side
Knows her more than just casually

But there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
No there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
No there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
Just to walk that little girl home
Just to walk that … mmmmm
Just to walk that little girl home

Her flashing smile, her searching eyes
Oh a promise it seems of having all of my dreams
Finally realized
But I can’t ignore hey that guy by her side
Now I know he can see just what’s happening to me
There’s a look on his face he can’t hide

But I’m telling you there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
No there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
No there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
Just to walk that little girl home
Just to walk that … mmmmm
Just to walk that little girl home

© 1979 Willie DeVille, Doc Pomus

Does It Get More Exciting??!!

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I’m of course referring to the WEATHER!!

The next 3 days in a row, it’s going back up to 80 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny.  So I can pretend, however briefly, that it’s not really fall.

Then, of course, as soon as it’s really undeniably fall, and all the leaves have changed and the October sky gets that shade of really deep blue — then I’ll act like “Yay! It’s Autumn!! My favorite time of year!!”  And life will go on, ad infinitum.

I was actually conceived in the month of October — it’s the month I consider the moment I chose to come back to Life, so it’s a special month for me. All sad Tom Petty things notwithstanding. And also the death of my best friend Paul happened in October, as well. It’s a month I have a lot of attachment to.

Well, okay. So yesterday was a lot better. I moved forward with 1954 Powder Blue Pickup. I still have a ton of work to do on that gangbang section today.  I really walk a fine line between keeping it believable, keeping it erotic, pushing the boundary of questionable consent, and yet not making it so realistic that I make  myself sick…

But at least I’m getting there. And once that part is completed, there’s really only one more segment and the novella will be done!!

And then  off to the publisher it goes for their consideration…

I forgot to give you a head’s up that the new date for the premiere streaming of the staged reading of my play, Tell My Bones, will be Sunday night November 22nd. Not November 8th.  (Since this will be the anniversary of JFK’s assassination, perhaps it’s a lofty & important omen of some kind.) But I will keep you posted as it gets closer. And remember, it will be FREE!!

All right, well, once again, there is not much going on here besides working on the new novella and finally being in a better frame of mind again, too. It was a couple of difficult days, but they have officially passed.

Last evening was so lovely — I had all the windows open again and I just love that feeling that life is permeating the house. And I once again came to that understanding that death is only a transition, and that if anyone is waiting for me on that side of the veil, they’ll still be there when I get there. I don’t have to rush anything just because I’m lonely.

Also, quick update on The Guitar Hero Goes Home. The cover art has been fixed and is ready to upload. Yay!! And now I have to try to fix that formatting problem I have with the layout of the text. And then I’ll reload all of it to Amazon at one time. But that won’t happen until I finish writing 1954 Powder Blue Pickup. Meanwhile, the book is for sale, there’s nothing actually wrong with it — I just want it to look a little different. And, of course, the eBook is for sale, as well. No problems with that layout at all.

(And a huge thank you to all of you who are already buying it. I really appreciate it.)

And now! I will get yoga happening here, and get down to work.

Have a wonderful Thursday, wherever you are in the world and with whatever you’re getting up to! Thanks for visiting. I leave you with my late-night listening music from yesterday– a huge hit from The Monkees, circa 1967, and it is still a popular favorite among Monkees fans: “What Am I Doing Hangin’ Round?” From their album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones, Ltd. Okay!! Enjoy. I love you guys. See ya!

“What Am I Doing Hanging ‘Round?”

Just a loud mouth Yankee I went down to Mexico.
I didn’t have much time to spend, about a week or so.
There I lightly took advantage of a girl who loved me so.
But I found myself a-thinkin’ when the time had come to go…

[Chorus:]
What am I doin’ hangin’ round?
I should be on that train and gone.
I should be ridin’ on that train to San Antone,
What am I doin’ hangin’ round?

She took me to the garden just for a little walk.
I didn’t know much Spanish and there was no time for talk.
Then she told me that she loved me not with words but with a kiss.
And like a fool I kept on thinkin’ of a train I could not miss…

[Chorus]

Well it’s been a year or so, and I want to go back again.
And if I get the money, well I’ll ride the same old train.
But I guess your chances come but once and boy I sure missed mine.
And still I can’t stop thinkin’ when I hear some whistle cryin’….

© 1967 Michael Murphy, Owen Castleman