Yes, that’s how I usually refer to Abstract Absurdity Productions because to say Abstract Absurdity Productions all the time, can take forever and get kind of annoying…
However.
So, yes. The entire day is now dedicated to Ab Ab Pro stuff. Webinars. Watch some short films that one of our producers produced on the proverbial shoe-string budget. (Same producer who gave us a budget proposal for Lita måste gå! (Lita’s Got to Go!) that was well into the 7 figures…)
Anyway. We also received our script breakdown from the Assistant Director the other day. So that’s exciting. Technically, it’s an 8-day shoot. But we still have to decide if we want to shoot some of the scenes on location in Sweden and Paris — and now Portugal has become an option. There is some property there that matches what we need, and Peitor has a producer in Portugal who can arrange it. But we’re still just trying to get all our little ducks in a row.
We need to make 2 or 3 of our micro-micro shorts first. Actually shoot them. Which will probably be in the cinematographer’s studio down in Alabama. (The micro-micro shorts are between 45 seconds to 2 minutes long. Again — complete stories, but totally absurd. And still filmed in a style that is an homage to the European New Wave in cinema from the mid 1950s- early 1960s, which, way back then, was an inexpensive way to shoot a film but now it makes your budget go through the roof, even for micro-micro shorts.)
So, you can probably see how this new schedule I’m on, where I concentrate on only one specific thing for the whole day, really helps me make progress on each project. It is definitely bringing me some sanity.
And yesterday, I was finally able to get some notes off to a writer in the UK re: his manuscript. And then I was even able to spend a couple hours reading my friend’s travel book about the Netherlands, which I have been trying to finish for a few months already. (Whatever Comes My Way: Travels in the Netherlands by Roger Gaess) I really enjoy reading the book so I didn’t want to just plow through it. I’ve never been to the Netherlands so I actually really want to take in what he has to say. (We are colleagues from NYC but he lives in Brussels now.) Plus, I like to get out the pocket atlas and look at these places he’s talking about — see where they actually are. It’s funny how you can think you know a foreign country geographically, but then look at an atlas and realize you are a little bit off (or even wrong, as the case may be!!)
So, anyway. I was able to really enjoy that for a couple of hours yesterday.
And today is just going to be busy from start to finish. But — I did do the treadmill already, so that’s out of the way!! I’m not going to get to 7pm tonight, all happy & ready to settle down and stream another new episode of “Agatha Raisin” only to discover that I hadn’t worked out yet!!
So, forcing myself to work out at 7am, instead, is really helping me mentally, too.
Okay! Well, there was another — very brief– Red Hand File from Nick Cave very early this morning. Apparently, some of his more zealous fans sent a “tsunami of mail” to the piano company in Italy yesterday, telling them to give Nick a free piano. (See yesterday’s post.) And so he asked people to kindly stop doing that…
Wow. People can get so intense, can’t they? A little militant, I think, but I guess their hearts were in the right place.
On that note, I gotta scoot and get this day underway. I want to take a webinar before I speak to Peitor. Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting, gang. I’m leaving you with a song I am never ever going to get tired of — it was in an Instagram feed early this morning, so it’s been on my mind for a couple of hours. I’ve posted it here many times before, but here it is again!! “Shivers” by The Boys Next Door (1979). Enjoy!! I love you guys. See ya.
I know it’s only been 4 days since I started using the calendar method to get my work done every day (meaning, the weekly calendar I drew up where each day, I tackle only one specific thing for the entire day), however, I can’t tell you how much more manageable my life already feels.
On Friday and Saturday, I finally wrote that new flash-memoir piece and sent it off to a potential new publisher. And then I got great work done yesterday on Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town.
And even though it made me feel a little anxious that I won’t be working on Thug again until Friday (Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays, I have set aside for my own writing), it still felt just great to be able to sit at my desk and write, without having that voice in the back of my mind telling me I ought to stop and work on some of the other tons of stuff on my desk. (Or, actually, in piles on the floor.)
The schedule actually helps my mind feel free.
I also switched my workout schedule to early mornings, right after I meditate. That way, in my mind at least, the whole day ahead is just sort of free.
I’m not sure what it is about self-imposed structure that relieves my anxiety, but it does. But it has to be self-imposed, because when anyone, or anything, tries to impose a random structure onto my day, I really rebel against it. With every fiber of my being!!
Hence, I had real problems with school. Thankfully, I was really smart so I could always keep up with my homework, etc., but I was always skipping out on classes. And I have no recollection of how it happened, but I somehow managed to arrange it so that the signature that the Attendance Officer had on file for my mother was actually forged by me, so my excuse notes from “my mother” always matched the signature they had on file because it was actually mine.
Anyway, I always skipped so much fucking school! And still graduated up near the top of my class and was the Valedictorian on Graduation Day. (There were 2 Valedictorians — one boy, one girl.) So even that was sort of a cool thing to pull off, I guess. There I was, giving the entire Graduating Class (over 800 kids) advice on how to have a really bright future, and I’d skipped more school than all of them combined. Plus, I’d been institutionalized in a nuthouse for awhile. And had been notoriously raped. And was openly bisexual. (And had the leads in the school plays!) I mean, the entire school knew all this stuff about me. It’s just so weird to think that I was the one giving them advice.
I also recall a Home Room teacher that I had (Home Room was where you went first thing, for the attendance check in). She was about 70 years old and taught English, but I never actually had her as a teacher for any of my English classes. I was working on a poem during Home Room one morning, and I was having trouble with a specific word. I went up to her and asked her about the word or how to spell it, or something like that. And she saw that I was working on a poem.
SHE: “Do you write a lot of poems?”
ME: “Yes, I do.”
SHE: “I’d love to read them, would you bring some in and show them to me?”
ME (a bit startled): “Okay.”
And so I did. I brought her a stack of poems I’d written and she took them home with her for a few days and then gave them back.
What I actually didn’t know was that she was the teacher in charge of the school newspaper. And a few days later, random classmates were coming up to me in the halls, telling me they loved my poems.
Finally, one of my closest friends (my friend who now works for NASA in Houston and is still battling cancer), came up to me and said the very same thing. I stopped him there in the hall and said, “Why is everybody saying that?”
And it turned out that the teacher had published a bunch of my poems in the school newspaper!! Without asking me…
So weird. The entire school seemed to know every last intimate detail about me. Always. But that same teacher nominated me for inclusion in the Quill & Scroll Honor Society. (Again without telling me.) And I got in. I still have my little pin. It actually meant a lot to me. I was already taking my writing really seriously, even back then.
Although I considered myself primarily a songwriter, I did write a lot of poems.
Once, after having read Kafka’s Letters to Milena, I was so moved by it (I was a huge fan of Kafka), that I wrote a love poem about Kafka and Milena — and a train that Kafka never gets on — for my grandma up in Cleveland, and I mailed it to her. When she got it, she called me on the phone and was crying. She really loved it. (She was a Polish-Jewish immigrant who had had family members in concentration camps during WWII, etc.) (Kafka, who was Jewish, died long before the war. But Milena, who was not Jewish, died in a concentration camp in Germany for helping Jews.)
I will never forget that, obviously. Just another one of the reasons why my grandma was my most favorite human being in the entire world — she seemed to understand me and she always just loved me, just how I was. She never asked me to try to be some other way.
When she died, my family didn’t even tell me. (I lived in NYC at the time and she still lived back in Cleveland.) They didn’t tell me she had died until after she was already buried. Not only did they not want me at the funeral, I think they just wanted to spite me somehow. To hurt me, you know. (And they did. It is truly astonishing that I am able to keep any sort of relationships with even a few of my family members. )
I didn’t get to see my grandma’s grave until 15 years later. I made a special trip to Cleveland (from NYC) to see it. And there it was, her tiny grave — right next to my grandpa’s grave!
My grandpa had died one month before I was born, and I was named after him, in the Jewish tradition. My grandpa’s spirit was a big part of my childhood because I loved my grandma so much and she had loved him. And a framed photo of him that always sat on her coffee table throughout my childhood, now sits here on a bookshelf right next to my desk. I still look at my grandpa every day.
Well, what was so weird about finally seeing my grandpa’s grave, after he’d been dead close to 50 years, was that the entire time I was in elementary school in Cleveland, the schoolbus drove past that cemetery twice a day, every day, from 1966 to 1971, and NO ONE in my family had ever told me that my grandpa’s grave was in that cemetery. No one ever once took me to see his grave.
I find that just astounding. That constant feeling that I was never important enough to matter. I still deal with those feelings.
But onward. I try not to dwell on it.
Okay. Nick Cave sent out an amusing Red Hand Files letter today. You can read it here. It’s about his attempts to score a £200,000 Fazioli piano for free. (We’re now taking up an international collection to get him that piano for Christmas.) (Totally just kidding about that!!) (I sure hope I am, anyway.)
Anyway, the piece was really cute. And it sort of reminds me of myself, in a way. Because, in the near future, I am going to begin reviewing adult sex toys online. (And I’m not doing it just to score free toys — it’s more about staying au courant in the always expanding world of sextoys.) But I keep sort of fantasizing (no pun intended, actually), about how great it would be if RealBotix gave me a free, top-of-the-line Henry A.I. sexbot to sample and review!!
It would make me so fucking happy!!! But I honestly don’t see it really happening. Even a no-frills Henry is something like $8,000.
Okay. Enough!!!!
Today is the day for me to go into town and get the groceries. And then I am going to be spending the workday, getting caught up on reading other writers’ works that have been sent to me and have begun to pile up. So I feel really good about making some headway with that.
And, in the evenings, I have been thoroughly enjoying Season 3 of “Agatha Raisin”!!! So life is good, gang.
Okay, I am off to town now, in my happy little surgical-grade COVID 19-approved surgical mask!!! Enjoy your Monday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang! I leave you with Tyler Jarry’s “dad packing the car for a family trip.” This is totally American. I don’t know if it will translate to dads in your country, or not. Perhaps it does!! But enjoy!! It lasts one minute. I love you guys. See ya!
Okay, gang! I’m off on my birthday expedition to visit my dad.
I might post photos from the road, if the sun comes out. Right now, we’re between rain showers, but he lives over 100 miles from here, in another direction. So maybe there will be sun!!
Meanwhile, thanks for visiting!! Enjoy my 60th birthday 🎂 wherever you are in the world, gang.
Oh, Nick Cave posted a Red Hand Files letter today about loss and life and transformation. It was lovely. You can read it at
But the good news is that the special lube for the treadmill belt will arrive sometime today, and I can finally put that treadmill together and start using it.
I actually am really looking forward to it. I love treadmills. And even though I actually really like the current aerobics workout I’ve been doing lately, it’s still a video that I have to log on to. With a treadmill, I can stream anything I feel like watching, or just listen to music, or listen to something more spiritual. I like having those options.
The onslaught mentioned above, refers to a bunch of private stuff I can’t go into detail about on the blog. I can only say that some of it is family stuff that is truly distressing me, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Some of it has to do with really distressing stuff a business partner is going through, that affects me, sort of by proxy.
And then also just some private affairs of the heart which are just challenging me beyond belief around here, gang. But onward. End-times come when they come, and I just have to learn how to change. I’m actually pretty good with change, once I get past the heartache of it, you know? This one is a doozy, though.
If you follow me on Facebook, you probably saw that I re-posted the Balladeer’s post of an interesting video of black businessmen discussing on an interview show about how, in his private life, Trump had given the black businessmen private business loans that saved their businesses and he did not make them ever pay him back. And also a black fashion model that Trump dated for several years in the 90s, all out in the open and everything, and she’s quoted as saying that he is not racist, there just aren’t that many people of any color that he actually likes.
I don’t know. I just like to throw everything into the mix and just think about it, about what a dangerous weapon the press can wield on all sides. (Meaning, there doesn’t seem to be any real reasons to think that Trump is “racist.”)
Okay. Well, Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand Files thing today. You can read it here, if you so choose! He was his usual eloquent self. And don’t forget to buy a ticket for the streaming event next Thursday evening, Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace.
I did manage to get off those review copies of The Guitar Hero Goes Home yesterday afternoon. (Going to long-time colleagues who know my work very well, who will be supplying cover blurbs. So it will be interesting to see how they react to/review something that’s so unlike anything I’ve written thus far.)
Still trying to figure out a name for the publishing company, and still trying to figure out if I will eventually want to publish other writers or not. That decision plays a huge role in how I will format the final manuscript and where I want to house the files to publish the POD version of the novel. That last part is a huge consideration that I need to come to a decision about.
(Meaning, if I just want to self-publish, I can go to CreateSpace and publish the novel by later this afternoon! Assuming Valerie had the cover art completed, which she doesn’t. But if I think I’ll want it to be an actual small press, I need to house it somewhere that gives me better access to international markets.)
So, I guess I need to come to a decision…
All righty, then. I guess I’d better get started here. I had another one of my little meltdowns for most of yesterday so I didn’t make any headway on the flash/memoir piece I want to write. I think my meltdown for today is already over, so I hope to just get some good work done today, and then get that treadmill put together this evening!!
I’m also hoping the treadmill will help stave off these many meltdowns I’m having. I don’t want people to feel like they can’t call me, or confide in me, or write to me or need me for something that astounds me. And I also don’t want to have a heart that grows cold & insane and forgets how to love, you know? But when the shit storms come to this house in the middle of nowhere — and they do — it’s always just me alone, now, trying to handle everything without losing my temper or falling to pieces.
Oh, and I want to mention something really weird here. Last night, after the lights were out and I was in bed, thinking I was going to fall asleep, I suddenly, out of the blue, decided to google George Harrison.
I love George Harrison but I know next to nothing about his life. Usually, when I love musicians, I love their music and don’t really need to know anything else. There are a couple of exceptions: That Conversations with Tom Petty book, by Paul Zollo, that came out in 2005, absolutely blew me the fuck away, because Tom Petty was never a man to tell anything personal to the press. So I never really knew anything about him at all. Then that book came out and he was talking about everything under the sun; truly personal stuff as well as his various inspirations behind every single song he ever wrote.
And Keith Richards, of course. Not only because his memoir, Life, from 2010, was astoundingly detailed and wonderful, but because Valerie in Brooklyn used to work for Keith & Patti back when the girls were still really young. And so I know these really personal things about Keith’s life that are delightful but really private.
And then, of course, Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files and then his In Conversations tour, brought a whole lot about his life to light and so now I know that.
But normally, I’m just into the music. So, I googled George Harrison and found out all this stuff about him that I never, ever, ever knew. Stuff that kind of astounded me — because (!!) — as I lay in bed in the dark after reading all that stuff, I was struck by the similarities between him and the character that I randomly named “George” in The Guitar Hero Goes Home.
Long time readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that, three summers ago now, I suddenly began writing The Guitar Hero Goes Home out of thin air (back then, I thought it was called Blessed By Light). It just started coming to me from out of nowhere when I was sitting at the kitchen table one day, like it was being dictated to me and I was scribbling it down while it came. I have no clue where that novel came from or why I wrote it, and it’s not like anything I’ve ever written before. So this “George” character is just so fucking odd. Not that they are identical twins, or anything, But the number of similarities between the character in the book named “George” and the stuff I never knew about George Harrison and now know — it was just so peculiar.
Okay. On that note, I’m really gonna scoot now. Have a good Thursday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting. I hope life is being really good to you today. (You know, if God had come to me moments before I was born, and showed me even a general blueprint of my life and how it was going to live, and then said to me, “Are you sure you wanna go through with all this?” I would have said no, and gotten the heck out of that womb…) Anyway. Let’s move on. I love you guys. See ya.
I’m not really going to post a true post today, gang — I am trying to finish editing The Guitar Hero Goes Home because I want to get down to work again on the new novel (Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town).
I just wanted to remind everybody that today, on Bad Seed TeeVee, they are beginning to stream the original videos that fans submitted! So don’t forget to check it out!!!
Also, Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand Files thing today about Nina Simone singing “My Sweet Lord” in her effort to protest the Vietnam War back in 1972, which was very powerful. You can check it out at that link!
Oh, and my treadmill arrived this morning at 7am! However, they neglected to mention ahead of time that I can’t use it without lubricating the belt first. And I don’t even want to tell you how many various brands of lube live in this house, none of which can be used on the belt of a treadmill!!!!!!
So, next fucking week, the proper lube will arrive. Meanwhile, the treadmill is in my kitchen…
Have a really nice Friday, gang, wherever you are in the world! Sorry for being so brief today, but thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!!
Here in Crazeysburg, the cocks — excuse me — the roosters are out and about, which is always exciting, and it is yet another incredibly beautiful day!!
(I’m kidding about the roosters, gang. They don’t actually allow you to keep chickens and such here in the Village of Crazeysburg itself. You have to take 14 steps out of the village if you want to do that.) (And I’m not kidding about that part.)
But that reminds me: A million years ago, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers did a live radio broadcast out of Chicago, where they did just a killer (sexy) version of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Little Red Rooster”!
(This whole broadcast is actually really great. It totally kicks A. I don’t think it’s on an actual album or CD, but there is an MP3 download of it that you can get everywhere.)
Okay!! So!!
Today’s kind of a big day for me. Today is my big foray into Granville, Ohio, to have dinner with Kevin (Director of Tell My Bones) (in some future make-believe land, that is. All theater in NYC is shut down until 2021. I’m guessing NYC will never get back to normal, at this rate.)
Anyway. Kevin and I are having dinner at the Granville Inn and I have not done anything social, let alone been to the inn, since March 14th. I’m not entirely sure that I remember how to behave in public, but we’ll find out. Plus, this will be the first time I will put on my eye make-up in 3 and 1/2 months. So weird.
But I’m excited!! And also nervous. Because life is just plain different now. I’m guessing that if I let go of believing in anything I ever knew before, I should do all right.
Yesterday, I was working on Girl in the Night, and I guess I’ve just been doing too much typing these last few days, because the bones in the tops of my hands started to really hurt. So I took one extra-strength Tylenol and within minutes, my hands felt great but I was so sleepy I couldn’t even sit at my desk anymore! I had forgotten that those darn pills make me sleepy.
So the bulk of the day was not entirely productive, although I did have a nice day, regardless. And the lawn guy came to cut the grass, so the weeds — yard — is looking really spiffy.
And of course, by 9pm, I was quite perky and wide awake. And remained that way for a few hours, but I didn’t really feel like working at that point. So, after streaming another episode of Professor T., I just laid around on my bed in the dark — well, with the lights out. My bedroom is never actually dark because of the streetlights outside my window.
But I laid around on my bed in the dark, stared out the window at the truly beautiful night, watching the blinks of the fireflies wane, and I listened to Phoebe Bridgers’ new album, Punisher.
It’s kind of a depressing album, but it’s still beautiful and the lyrics are great. If I were closer to her age and not old enough to be her grandmother, I would likely relate to it a bit more, but I still really love her way with words. (Although the entire album makes me think of the song “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol. So I ended up playing that beautiful, non-depressing song over & over, and then finally fell to sleep.)
But back to listening to Phoebe Bridgers — I was thinking, once again, how incredible it is for young women nowadays to be able to make any kind of music they want to; to write any kind of songs they want to and have them sound however they want them to sound. Because it definitely didn’t used to be that way.
Plus there’s room now for so many more women musicians and songwriters and performers. They used to sign about one or two per genre, and then get behind them for about 2 albums, as long as they proved to be massive hits. Of course, back then, there was so much more money at stake for the various music industry gatekeepers, and all that’s been thoroughly “disrupted” now by everyone wanting so much music for free (and I won’t get political today, I’ll just say, that Socialist tendencies are so great, gang; it helps make everybody equally poor).
However!!
I do genuinely think it’s so great that women in music nowadays have so much more freedom to express what they want to express, however they want to express it. And I think that’s just so beautiful.
And something else that is amazingly beautiful, is the Red Hand Files thing that Nick Cave sent out today. You don’t even have to know his music, or know the album Ghosteen, to be able to appreciate what he has to say about love today. You can read it here if you are so inclined.
On that note, gang, I’m going to get started here. I’ll leave you with both the beautiful song “Punisher,” by Phoebe Bridgers, and the equally beautiful though very different song “Chasing Cars,” by Snow Patrol. Relax and enjoy!! (Or float off into the stratosphere is probably more like it!!) But either way, thanks for visiting! I love you guys! See ya!
“Punisher”
When the speed kicks in
I go to the store for nothing
And walk right by
The house where you lived with Snow White
I wonder if she ever thought
The storybook tiles on the roof were too much
But from the window, it’s not a bad show
If your favorite thing’s Dianetics or stucco
The drugstores are open all night
The only real reason I moved to the east side
I love a good place to hide in plain sight
What if I told you I feel like I know you
But we never met?
And here everyone knows you’re the way to my heart
Hear so many stories of you at the bar
Most times alone and some looking your worst
But never not sweet to the trust funds and punishers
Man, I wish that I could say the same
I swear I’m not angry, that’s just my face
A copycat killer with a chemical cut
Either I’m careless or I wanna get caught
Ooh, I’m not
What if I told you I feel like I know you
But we never met?
It’s for the best
I can’t open my mouth and forget how to talk
‘Cause even if I could, wouldn’t know where to start
Wouldn’t know when to stop
Well, gang! Today is mostly going to be about Abstract Absurdity Productions work, now that the budget proposal has come in and we need to start hiring key people, bringing other people onboard.
Plus, I am actually planning on getting back to work on that website, if you can imagine that!! I have already been in touch with a “happiness engineer” here at WordPress so that I can quit floundering and, honestly, I really am going to finish that darn site as soon as I can.
Which doesn’t mean that I’m going to set aside Letter #8 for Girl in the Night. It just means that I am going to make more of an effort to get that website finished, because, of course, now we need it.
(And I also have that new film editing software that I have still not figured out how to use and I need to know how to use it for the web site content. However, to be fair, I’ve only been quarantined here at home for over 3 months now, so God knows, there was absolutely no time to sit around, learning new software…)
Hard at work during the entire pandemic…
Seriously, though, I am really excited with Abstract Absurdity Productions’ recent developments and I will be eager to update you all as soon as I can.
Meanwhile, Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand Files letter-thing today, about the lack of politics in his songwriting style. As usual, it was very well stated and was very interesting. You can read it here, if you so choose.
Yesterday (June 22nd) was Kris Kristofferson’s 86th birthday. If you do not know who he is, he was an amazingly intelligent Country songwriter, who wrote some songs that became monster hits for Country & Western singers in the early-to-mid 1970s, primarily. He also put out his own albums with his own songs on them, and they were popular, but his songs tended to become just huge hits for other singers.
One of my favorite albums of his came out in 1971, and it was titled, The Silver-Tongued Devil & I.
The songwriting on that album was very inspirational to me as a budding singer-songwriter throughout the 1970s. I played that record a lot. It’s not traditional “Country & Western,” the lyrics run much deeper. He’s more like the songwriters that were coming out of Los Angels in the late 1960s — a sort of Country Rock/Folk mentality. But Kristofferson was definitely embraced big-time in Nashville. (Although Janis Joplin had a huge rock/blues hit with his song “Me & Bobby McGee” before she died, and she was San Francisco-based.)
Some of his big hits for other singers include “Sunday Morning Coming Down” — Johnny Cash. “Help Me Make it through the Night” — every Country music singer imaginable. “For the Good Times” — Elvis Presley, along with many other singers. The list really just goes on forever.
It’s impossible to choose what would be my favorite song off that album because all of them are exceptionally well written, but I will leave you today with at least one of my favorites — this one was a hit on AM radio, at least it was in the part of Ohio where I lived back then: “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)”.
I cannot imagine that he is 86 years old now, but I hope his birthday was happy.
And on that note, I’m gonna get some more coffee here and get the day underway. Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang! I love you guys. See ya!
“Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)”
I have seen the morning burning golden on the mountain in the skies
Aching with the feeling of the freedom of an eagle when she flies
Turning on the world the way she smiled upon my soul as I lay dying
Healing as the colors in the sunshine and the shadows of her eyes
Waking in the morning to the feeling of her fingers on my skin
Wiping out the traces of the people and the places that I’ve been
Teaching me that yesterday was something that I’d never thought of trying
Talking of tomorrow and the money love and time we had to spend
Loving her was easier than anything I’ll ever do again
Coming close together with a feeling that I’ve never known before in my time
She ain’t ashamed to be a woman or afraid to be a friend
I don’t know the answer to the easy way she opened every door in my mind
But dreaming was as easy as believing it was never gonna end
And loving her was easier than anything I’ll ever do again
Well, today was another one of those days where I decided to go into town and get the groceries because I was down to, like, one 5- ounce container of Greek yogurt and some cranberry juice!
I’m so funny — I’m always wanting just a wee bit more than that in my fridge! But anyway. So I drove into town to get the groceries. But then I wanted to get some more stuff for my yard, and also, the other day, I discovered that my backdoor — which I almost never use because it basically opens out onto the old well (another reason to stay sober!! and to steer clear of the backdoor if not sober!!) — anyway, I discovered that it has a hook at the top of the door so I suddenly needed to go buy a weatherproof summer wreath from the dollar store. Because god knows, I don’t want a perfectly good hook (3 summers now before I noticed it!) going to waste.
So I just ran a bunch of little — but very fun — errands in town this morning. And I tried to make that hideous backdoor area of my house look a little bit nicer. As the summer goes on, the morning glories start blooming like crazy back there along the old fence, so that helps, but otherwise, it is such an eyesore and, unfortunately, since my house is on a corner and my backyard takes up an entire block, you can pretty much see the eyesore from this whole area of town.
So now, as you can see, there is a colorful fake-flower wreath hanging there on the door, to try to draw the eye up and away from the general hideousness.
Here is a tightly cropped idea of what it now looks like.
I’m trying to crop out all the damage the starlings did to the soffit up above the door, and also crop out the old well, which is very close to that lawn chair there.
Even though, in real (non-cropped) life, it still looks sort of uninviting back there, I can actually see myself sitting out there at night, after dark, because you can see all the fireflies and of course the stars.
From the kitchen porch, where I usually sit, you can’t see any of that because there’s a roof over the kitchen porch.
So, we’ll see how that goes this summer! As always, you are welcome to #ComeVisitCrazeysburg (!!) , but bring your own mosquito repellent, gang, because we got skeeters out here like nobody’s business! (Oh, and I guess, bring another lawn chair!)
Well, I did indeed, accidentally unsubscribe myself from Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files letter-thingy, so I had to fix that problem. But he sent out another one today. A list of some of his favorite books! You can read it here if you so choose!!
Okay!!
My day here is more than half over already. Luckily, I don’t have too much to say here today. I’m in the middle of watching Withnail & I for the hundredth time. Even though I’ve seen it many times, all those many times were many years ago, and for some reason, I found myself wanting to see that again. So I started watching it last night but then I fell asleep. So I want to finish that, and also get some writing done.
Which means, my friends, that this is all I’m posting today! I hope you’ve had a good Monday, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting. I leave you with my driving-to-town music from earlier — “Let Yourself Go,” by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (from their awesome album Mojo, 2010). (It’s SUPER swingy, so play it loud, gang, and just chill!!) (Or, I guess, drive to town!!) All righty. I love you guys. See ya!!
“Let Yourself Go”
Rain on the river I’m soakin’ wet
Waitin’ on friend who ain’t come yet
And he might not get here for three or four days
Got to make a little bit go a long way
I’ve got a blond-headed woman who likes to come around
Cute little hippy girl lives in town
Brings a bag a records and she plays ’em ’til dawn
Give me little lovin’ then she got to go home
When times are hard
When you start feelin’ low
Let yourself go
When the river’s risin’ and the world feels cold
Let yourself go
Let yourself go
I got a 442 sittin’ in the sun
Well it’s been ten years since she used to run
Man she was a beauty in ’69
But there ain’t no more comin’ down the line
When times are hard
And you start feelin’ low
Let yourself go
When the river’s risin’ and your world feels cold
Let yourself go
Honey let yourself go
I usually don’t like to show you photos of my actual home here in Crazeysburg, on the legendary Wakatamika Creek (pictured above), because I don’t want you guys to get jealous!!
However, I do live rather luxuriously here, with my boat dock right in my house, at the bottom of the stairs — and of course, my prized AI male sex robot to keep me company on the couch…
Seriously, though — don’t you just love that picture? Someone’s idea of the future? And yet it contains completely outdated technology. Plus, you really, really gotta love somebody to want to live so remotely — and so alone — with them, right? And it looks really spacious, but it’s all sort of just one room, when you study it closely.
I have yet to love somebody that much that I wouldn’t want to have at least one wall between me and him or her.
You know — I’ve actually been seriously contemplating the perks of owning a male AI sex robot. I’m at least investigating that thought. Not for the sex, just the company. I’ve lived alone now for 4 years (well, alone with anywhere from 11 to 7 cats). But it’s been nine years since I actually lived with somebody I was romantically inclined toward (wow, that “love” word just really doesn’t want to put in too many appearances in my life, does it?).
Anyway, it’s been 9 years since I awoke, daily, with somebody in the bed next to me. And I’ve been thinking how, well — maybe it would be cool to have a male sex robot to at least occupy space in the bed, you know? Just lay there, and just be like somebody who’s in the bed. You don’t have to do anything. The more I thought about having that additional “presence” there, the more appealing it seemed.
However, they only make, like, 2 different models of AI male sex robots and they’re really young looking, and they don’t look anything like what I’m normally attracted to in real life. The fact that they cost more than my house has nothing to do with my reluctance; it’s strictly the way they look…
I mean, I do kind of like the hippie-biker-trucker type quasi-surfer looking robot (he’s brunette, too!!), but I’m creeped out by the fact that he looks about 17. If they made a hippie-biker-trucker type quasi-surfer looking brunette male sex robot who looked about 60, I might start looking into a second mortgage on my house. But, I guess, until then…
Anyway!!
Well, yesterday was fun. I accidentally unsubscribed myself from Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files email thingy. I think I signed back up, but when I tried to re-subscribe through his site, it seemed to think I was already subscribed and wanted to know what my fucking weird American problem was — (my words) — so I think it’s my actual Yahoo account that thinks I’m unsubscribed.
I was really quickly cleaning out my inbox yesterday on my iPhone (have you noticed how fast you can delete emails now on the iPhone???) and when it asked me if I wanted to unsubscribe to “Nick Cave”, I clicked “yes” before I had a chance to not click “yes.” Really — it just came at me so fast. I mean, God forbid they ask me if I want to unsubscribe from those weird SnapChick emails from extremely creepy young women who want to have sex…
So, I tried to fix the mistake through my inbox, although I’m not sure if I did.
But it feels like it’s been forever since he sent out a Red Hand Files thingy (that could be my skewed perception, I’m not sure), so I keep checking, checking, checking — both at Yahoo and at the RHF site — to make sure I’m still getting the updates because I don’t want to miss out on my reason for living!!!
Other interesting things I did yesterday — got some good work done on Letter #8 for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. I was at it until about 8 o’clock last night. And it’s strange because I feel like I know what I want to say, or to write about, but it keeps coming out weirdly — the words seem to keep changing their minds about how they want to be arranged on the page. And then it will suddenly seem like I’m taking forever to say one simple thing.
I don’t feel bad about it, because it’s progress, but I do find it really perplexing that it isn’t just finding its rhythm and then finding the page. This Letter #8 has been wanting to come out for quite a number of days already. I guess I’ll just stick with it until it tells me where it really wants to go.
Well, I won’t say too much more about this other topic, but it just disgusts me so much: more conversations with colleagues in NY — both black colleagues and white colleagues — who are saying that white anarchists were behind the protests there getting so violent. (First, piles of bricks being at the meet-up sites before the peaceful protestors even arrived, and now the discovery of stacks of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream containers left behind at the protest sites — the kinds of ice cream containers with the lids — only they’re filled with concrete.)
You know, where are the white anarchists now? Now that all the damage has been done, and people have children (of color) at home, afraid to leave the apartment because so many New Yorkers are enraged by all the damage the “black protestors” caused? It just makes me so sick — as if the actual real problem of inequality wasn’t bad enough. Taking all your hate and anarchy shit and dumping it in the laps of people with real problems, who didn’t ask for it. (And of course, Trump out there being mocked and ridiculed for saying that terrorists were behind the riots getting so violent and now he’s once again proved right… you know? Hello.)
Well, okay. On that note, I will cease and desist because, God knows, my soapboxes can get pretty long and drawn out.
I hope you have a happy and productive Friday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with something else that was wonderful from my wee bonny 1984 girlhood!! The Screaming Blue Messiahs!! Anything off of their album Gun Shy is incredible, gang — but today I specifically leave you with “Someone To Talk To” (an AI sex robot perhaps??? You decide!!) Okay! I love you guys! See ya!
[PS: Sorry, lyrics are not available… But listen anyway, these guys do not disappoint!!]
That illustration above is connected to my post from the other evening, Memory Lane.
In case you aren’t American or don’t know what a merry-go-round is, or why grabbing the brass ring was a fun thing to do, or why I would want to save it for something like 30 years… ??? So I saw this illustration and thought it may help give you a happy “visual”!
Okay!! Onward to today!!
I did indeed finish editing Peitor’s book yesterday and sent it back over to him. but it took me a lot longer than I’d thought it would — mostly because it was incredibly hot & humid here yesterday and so I was having the breathing problems again. But eventually, everything got under control and I got everything done.
Today is ALL ABOUT finally getting back to Letter #8 (“The Choice to Kill”) for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. Yay!
I’ve also started doing a good, old-fashioned aerobics routine around here. The tai-chi didn’t seem to be helping me at all with my metabolism. So between tai-chi and yoga, I was super flexible and super calm & relaxed, but not able to kick up my metabolism back to how it felt before I got the virus.
I’ve done yoga now for about 13 years, but I also always used to walk — a lot. After I began having hip joint issues, I became really tentative about doing too much walking anymore, even though the glucosamine supplements work great. They really do.
But, finally, the other day, it dawned on me to try going back to low-impact aerobics, which I used to swear by for years — many years ago. And, voila! It’s working!!
And even though maybe you’d think that the breathing issues and the high humidity (i.e., right now it’s 98% humidity and I can barely breathe) — you’d think that doing a bunch of aerobics would make the breathing more difficult, but I found that it’s the opposite. I actually breathe better when I’m doing aerobics and my heart is pumping more.
But since I can’t figure out, yet, how to sit at my desk and write (or post to the blog) while doing a bunch of aerobics, I’m sort of stuck with not breathing for most of the day — and praying for rain so that the humidity will disperse!
Well, okay!!
Let’s see. Right as I sat down at my desk, I got a text from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (to me personally — I feel certain that I’m the only one who got it!!) that a new video had been uploaded to YouTube. It’s an instrumental, soundtrack piece by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis — very atmospheric, really lovely: Far From Men 2
I don’t know if it’s being added to Bad Seed TeeVee or not, but more new content has indeed been added to that channel recently, so check it out!!
Also, Nick Cave sent out such a beautiful Red Hand Files letter today — it was Issue #100 !! (They are called “issues” but I think of them more as letters, but he answers questions that people ask him, so they are “replies.” So that’s why a lot of the time, I call them “thingies.”)
Anyway, this reply was so endearing. Really, just so sweet. It’s another very short one so you can read it in about 5 seconds if you so choose. It is here. (And it concerns another type of ring that would have sentimental value!!) (Probably more so than a brass ring from the merry-go-round at Coney Island, though.)
(It all reminds me of a sort of sad story about one of my wedding rings — my second marriage. We got engaged at Tiffany’s — the main store, the one on 5th Avenue in NYC, so my engagement ring and the matching wedding band came from Tiffany’s and were very valuable. But then, after I had left my second husband, and the man I was living with after that, and very much in love with, turned out to have a severe gambling addiction that suddenly reared its ugly head, and before I had time to even discover it, he had gambled away my life savings — along with a $9,000 check I’d just gotten from the insurance company (I know, this sounds like a Joni Mitchell song) — and as part of trying to not lose the house, I had to sell my Tiffany engagement ring and the matching wedding band. I was divorced, so I guess it wasn’t the end of the world, but it still really upset me to have to do that. A lot.)
Anyway. In keeping with the recent happier trip down Memory Lane… Here’s a photo of the wedding rings from my first marriage. The yellow gold one was from Macy’s Herald Square, and it was the ring we used on our wedding day. The ring beneath it, though, even though it hasn’t been polished in decades, is actually more valuable. It’s white gold and was a wedding gift from my husband’s parents in Singapore. They bought us matching rings.
Well, okay!
I’ve gotta get started here, folks. I leave you with my last-night-and-breakfast- listening music from this morning!! The awesome George Michael smash hit from 1987, “Father Figure,” from the album Faith. I will not explain why I was suddenly thinking about this song after all these years!! It is sufficient to say that I love this fucking song!! I hope you do, too.
All righty! Enjoy your Friday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!
“Father Figure”
That’s all I wanted:
Something special, something sacred
In your eyes.
For just one moment
To be bold and naked
At your side.
Sometimes I think that you never
Understand me (understand me).
Maybe this time is forever.
Say it can be, whoa.
That’s all you wanted:
Something special, someone sacred
In your life.
Just for one moment
To be warm and naked
At my side.
Sometimes I think that you never
Understand me (understand me).
But something tells me together
We’d be happy, oh, oh.
(baby)
I will be your father figure.
(oh, baby)
Put your tiny hand in mine.
(I’d love to)
I will be your preacher teacher.
(be your daddy)
Anything you have in mind.
(it would make me)
I will be your father figure.
(very happy)
I have had enough of crime.
(please let me)
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time (of time).
That’s all I wanted,
But sometimes love can be mistaken
For a crime.
That’s all I wanted:
Just to see my baby’s
Blue eyes shine.
This time I think that my lover
Understands me (understands me).
Please
If we have faith in each other
Then we can be
Strong.
(baby)
I will be your father figure.
Put your tiny hand in mine.
(my baby)
I will be your preacher teacher.
Anything you have in mind.
I will be your father figure.
I have had enough of crime.
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time.
If you are the desert
I’ll be the sea.
If you ever hunger
Hunger for me.
Whatever you ask for
That’s what I’ll be.
So when you remember the ones who have lied,
Who said that they cared,
But then laughed as you cried,
Beautiful darling,
Don’t think of me.
Because all I ever wanted…
It’s in your eyes, baby, baby.
And love can’t lie.
No.
Greet me with the eyes of a child.
My love is always tellin’ me so.
Heaven is a kiss and a smile.
Just hold on, hold on.
And I won’t let you go, my baby.
I will be your father figure.
Put your tiny hand in mine.
I will be your preacher teacher.
Anything you have in mind, baby.
I will be your father figure.
And I have had enough of crime.
I will be the one who loves you—
So, I am gonna love you—
‘Til the end of time.
I will be your father.
(I will be your…)
I will be your preacher.
(…father)
I will be your father.
I’ll be your daddy, whoa.
I will be the one who loves you
‘Til the end of time.
Marilyn's Room 