Rod Stewart Leave Virginia Alone

For whatever reason — I guess the Autumn Equinox — I now get up at 4am and get out of bed! Whereas, I used to get up at 4am and just lie there for an hour.

Anyway, luckily, I was more than wide awake at 5am for the Bad Seed TeeVee chat-a-long to the Lawless soundtrack (Nick Cave & Warren Ellis). (I will say it again: that is such a beautiful soundtrack, gang; so atmospheric.)

It was fun. At one point I looked at the number of people in the chat and it was something like 900, but most people weren’t actually chatting. So it wasn’t completely insane.

And now it is 7am here and still completely dark out. So you really know it’s fall.

I spent a good chunk of my afternoon yesterday with Kevin, the director of my play (Tell My Bones) and his husband, Chris. So I did not get as much done on the new erotic short story as I had hoped. About 4 or 5 hours, at the most. It is still really challenging. I know what I want to say, but for some reason, I keep hesitating to say it — or write it, I mean.

(And on a side note — I spent about an hour chatting on the phone yesterday with an older gentleman I met through Gus Van Sant Sr. Well, we didn’t meet, we spoke on the phone about my play, via Gus. And at one point, I said something like, “I’ve been doing it a long time, already. I’m 60 years old…” And he said, “You’re kidding me! You sound like a kid!!”)

YAY!!!! Twice in one week…..

Oh, and, at one point yesterday, while I was talking to Chris about something, I noticed he was staring at my neck. I was wearing a sort of hippy-chick blouse that had a deep “V” neckline, and I didn’t ask him, but I just knew he was thinking: Man, no way does her neck look 60 years old….

(YES!! All those many miraculous skin products from France strike again!!) (Yes, yet again, another new product from France. First, they gave a jar of it to me for free. Then, they gave me another jar at half-price. We’ll see what happens after this, because it is really expensive but now I am hooked on it…) (As usual.)

1958 Beauty Ad, Avon Cosmetics & Skin Care Products, with 1950's Super-Model Anne St. Marie | Vintage makeup ads, Vintage cosmetics, Avon cosmetics — Me, yesterday!!! So youthful-looking!!!

Okay, anyway.

So, yesterday was nice even though I didn’t get enough work done on the new story. And I did finally get to chat with Valerie for the first time since her mom died. And the weather was just really, really lovely yesterday. All the trees have changed colors and it was mild enough to not need a jacket or anything. Just perfect weather. It was really a nice drive over to Kevin’s mansion on the hill.

So today, we will try again to make some significant headway with the new story. I guess what we really need is to make headway with myself — get myself to stop hesitating and just write the story the way it is asking me to tell it. Because the story is all up here in my head. I’m the one who is laboring over how to tell it. So we’ll work on that.

As of, like, right now.

So, thanks for visiting, gang. I hope you have a really nice Friday, wherever you are in the world. Last night, I was listening to the 6 songs that have now been dropped for next week’s upcoming release of Tom Petty’s Wildflowers & All the Rest. (Listening to them over & over, actually. In my bed , in the dark. Thinking about life. And, of course, death, because now I can’t stop thinking about one without the other.) And I really love that song, “Leave Virginia Alone.”

Today, I’m gonna leave you with Rod Stewart’s version of it, though. He had a hit with it back in 1995. Listen and enjoy. I love you guys. See ya!