Yes, it’s another one of those slow-starting mornings. I’m still in bed, a cup of coffee next to me on the night table. I’m just lying here, staring out the window at the intensity of another lovely October morning.
Cloudy. The wind blowing the autumn leaves into a swirl.
I’m blogging from bed so I’ll be brief. Got my plate super full again so I’m trying to conserve my brain power. Working on both ThugLuckless and TellMyBones pretty much at the same time. And one project is pure porn, the other is pure poetry. And then on my inner horizon last evening, I saw that Letter #5 for GirlintheNight: EroticLoveLetterstotheMuse was taking shape!! And tomorrow morning, bright & early, Peitor and I get back to work on our micro script for Leta’sGotToGo, the first micro short that we’ll be producing for Abstract Absurdity Productions.
Yeah, so. Getting out of bed this morning was a little delayed.
Oh! I had a dream about Nick Cave last night. You know how, whenever I dream about him something about it comes in duplicate, plus the dreams are always utterly indecipherable? Plus I always wake up immediately after the dream so it’s always really pronounced in my mind, which makes their indecipherability all the more frustrating.
This time I dreamed that there were 37 things he was willing to do on the train, but 37,000 things he was willing to do in the other place.
And there you have it. The dream in its entirety. I woke up at around 4:30 with that hovering in my brain and thought, oh my god, what the heck does that mean??!! It was sort of anxiety-inducing, my inability to make sense of it, least of all, at that early hour.
It might have something to do with Ghosteen, I don’t know. But yesterday I couldn’t let go of that song “Hollywood.” It is just so haunting. (I still think I shouldn’t link it here but it is on YouTube.)
All right. I’m gonna close and try to figure out how best to focus this day — in which direction: porn or poetry? Have a wonderful Thursday wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting! I love you guys. See ya.
JESUS (speaking quietly to Simon-Peter): “Though I had nothing to do with it, it was an actual miracle — her cats did not go near that fucking tree.”
SIMON-PETER (quietly): “I cannot fucking believe it. Jesus. That’s awesome.”
Yes!! From Christ’s mouth to your ears! My cats did not go anywhere near that tree.
You know how cats are so good at math? How you can actually see them calculating the distance of something they wish to jump up on to?
The actual formula that cats use to calculate the distance up to a tree that isn’t covered with books
Well, when they looked up at the tree, they saw this:
Which led them to think THIS:
And the problem of my cats shredding the fronds off of my helpless palm tree, eating the fronds and then vomiting them back up all over the carpeting has at last been solved!!
Isn’t math great??!!
Well, alas. The photos on Instagram of Nick Cave’s final Conversation of his US tour looked just great. It was mostly photos from the very start of the show, and then two photos from the final song, where he had a guy from the audience come up and sit on the piano bench next to him while he sang “Stagger Lee.” (Nick Cave sang — not the guy from the audience.)
But it looked like a great show. And oddly, it seems like the folks in Los Angeles are more of the rule-following ilk than the folks in San Francisco were. I find that a little ironic. You’d think that in LA, people would be more likely to do whatever they want, but almost all of the photos from last night were from that brief period at the start of the show where they were allowed to take photos. Not so in SF, where you would think they might be more respectful of the other people in the audience…
Anyway, it’s over. I just can’t believe it. For four months, I had my tickets to see him in NYC, and now not only are the NYC shows long gone, but now the tour is completely over. In a heartbeat.
All righty. Well, it is just a really cool day here today, gang. Perfectly fall-like outside. Rainy, chilly, wet autumn leaves scattered everywhere. It just feels so cozy to be inside, looking out at the rain. Drinking my cup of coffee. I have to work on some technical stuff for Tell My Bones here today, then work some more on Thug Luckless. Then maybe go back and do some more work on Tell My Bones. I think it’s just going to be a nicely paced day.
Last night, I spent a lot of time working on Thug Luckless and so it was kind of late when I got around to doing yoga. I had the lights down and I was listening to the 2nd half of Ghosteen. I don’t know if that was the very best idea. You know how, when you’re doing yoga, you’re so focused and anything you hear goes right into your consciousness. I know I keep saying this, but Ghosteen is truly an intensely beautiful album and just so incredibly sad — to me, anyway.
I was in the cool-down part of the yoga when the final song came on (called “Hollywood” but I keep thinking it’s called “Malibu”). The cool-down part of yoga is such a meditative mental place, and that song — the part where Kisa is unable to accept yet that her baby has died, she thinks it’s only sick. Oh my god, that just washed over me like a tidal wave — of love, of loss, of longing. That whole song is almost unbearably exquisite. You should go listen to it wherever you listen to your music.
Okay, I’m gonna scoot!! Have a beautiful, beautiful day, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!
Yes, based on the above illustration, you can probably tell, it’s laundry day around here! But that’s not all the excitement.
No!! There’s more!
Late yesterday afternoon, I discovered a little baby mole on the floor of the downstairs bathroom. It seemed thoroughly exhausted from trying to maneuver itself on the linoleum floor. It was very much alive when I found it, but it just couldn’t get any traction and, I’m guessing, couldn’t really see.
I was able to scoop it up and get it back outside BEFORE seven cats found it and tore it to pieces. I cannot emphasize enough just what a relief that was. That poor little thing. I have no clue how it got there, but that bathroom is close to the backdoor that leads directly to the backyard. I’m guessing it is connected to that somehow.
Either that, or one of these spirits here in the house decided that, rather than return my one stocking (see post below somewhere), it would give me a baby mole instead…
Today is the day that I’m bringing all the potted plants indoors for the season. Which means that I have to somehow barricade the palm tree from the cats. I’m going to try just loading piles of books around the tree, and not in neat piles, or anything, but in really precarious piles so that the cats will have nothing to actually grab on to. We’ll see if that works. It’s already gone down to 36 degrees Fahrenheit twice now, so I can’t risk keeping that tree outside any longer.
It’s definitely Nature vs. Nature around here, isn’t it? Either a killing frost or wild & untamed cats…
Big, BIG news from late yesterday evening! Nick Cave & Warren Ellis are doing that symphony thing again with their film scores — this time in Sydney, in early December. I realized this means that, ostensibly, they will have plenty of time between those 2 gigs and Christmas, to fly here to Crazeysburg from Australia and appear with our symphony orchestra, too!
We don’t actually have a symphony orchestra, but I have about 8 or 9 weeks to get the 14 townspeople together, teach them how to play various orchestral instruments and stuff, and then, I don’t know, either build a symphony hall, or use that really old town hall thingie that we already have here, and put on a show. I’m not planning to join the orchestra because I want to be able to actually attend. And since I have this amazing bathroom scale now, that helps me achieve my goal weight several times during the course of a single evening, I know I’ll be able to fit into some sort of amazing couturier gown.
I can just tell it’s gonna be a terrific Christmas…
Anyway. In all seriousness. I’m guessing the Sydney event will be just stunning. I wish I could attend. I really do.
In other good news — yesterday afternoon, Peitor texted. He’s back in LA and we are planning to finally catch up over the phone later today. I’m really looking forward to that. It was the height of summer, the last time we actually talked.
Nick Cave is also having a Conversation in LA later today, as it turns out! But of a much different sort, and it’s the last Conversation of the US tour. (Folks from San Francisco are still posting amazing stuff on Instagram from Sunday. It really looks like the SF show was so cool.) (And it’s a toss up between the theater in SF and that one in Montreal — which one was the most jaw-dropping; they were both just gorgeous venues.)
Okay, well. New topic. About 18 or 19 years ago, I won that award in London for my book, Neptune & Surf — Erotic Writer of the Year. And the organization is now 25 years old. They are having some sort of 25th Anniversary celebration at this year’s awards (in November, in London). They are now called the Sexual Freedom Awards, and they are asking previous winners to contribute a statement about what sexual freedom means in 2019. I get 140 characters (not words, mind you!) to express that. Can you imagine me distilling something like that down to 140 characters??!!
Well, I’m trying…
You know, I remember what I wore to those Awards. I had the prettiest little dress but I don’t recall where I got it from or whatever happened to it. It was black velvet, a real short, billowy skirt and a halter-style top that had criss-cross ties in back. So, clearly, I didn’t wear a bra that night, but back then, I didn’t actually need to. I still had those “modest breasts” back then; I didn’t get the “twin Cadillacs” that I have now until after menopause. (It’s really ironic, because back then, I used to wish for something that could at least fill a push-up bra because I used to spend a fortune on fetish lingerie, and now I wear minimizers because I really, really can’t stand having my tits enter a room before I do. It turns out, I really enjoyed having the figure of a boy but I didn’t know it until it was gone…) And I wore those gorgeous black 4-inch spiked-heel ankle strap open-toed shoes to the Awards. Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I bought those shoes in London in 1976, when I was all of 16 years old!! Yes, for some mysterious reason, my mother let me buy a pair of fetish high heels in London when I was only 16. And I still have them, and they are still gorgeous because I have taken really good care of them all these years, but back at those Awards, I was actually able to walk around in those shoes. Not anymore…
The other day, actually, I got out a pair of vintage Gucci high-heels that I’ve had since the 1990s and they still fit. They are gorgeous, too. Copper-colored patent leather pumps, with very pointy toes and a 3 or 4 inch spiked, gold heel. For some reason, I happened to notice the bottoms of the shoes and discovered not a single scuff mark, and that tells me that I never, ever, EVER wore those shoes outside. I find that so (gently) amusing — that I would pay a fortune for a pair of shoes back then, just to wear to bed.
At one point, while married to Wayne, I had something like 32 pairs of high-heeled shoes — most of which, I wore only to bed. (“Bed” being a time-honored euphemism for not actually sleeping.)
It’s just funny to remember all that. I was just insane. I had so many little (expensive) outfits back then. I would sometimes change outfits 2 or 3 times while “not sleeping.” Menopause was actually a blessing to me — to finally be able to calm down a little. It wasn’t exactly 100% fun being so over the top hormonal all the time. It got exhausting.
All righty!! I guess on that lofty note, I will get the day started here, gang. Finish that laundry and start writing so that I can spend time chatting with Peitor without feeling like I’m not getting any work done… I hope you have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. I was listening again to Ghosteen this morning so I won’t regale you with that — you need to go purchase it, instead. (And it really is just so beautiful, gang, you really should buy it.) But I love you guys! See ya.
Me doing laundry just now, here in Crazeysburg! Not quite as glamorous as my wee bonny hormonal-peak years in Manhattan!
If you saw my early morning post yesterday, then you saw the view from my bed, as I was watching the sun just barely coming up outside my window, my coffee cup on my night table next to me (you couldn’t see that part, though, because my room was still cozy & dark.)
Here’s the very same view this morning but I stayed in bed even later today!! (I’m guessing you can see, between the 2 photos, how cool this room is when it’s dark and the sun is just barely up.)
Same view from the bed as yesterday but today the sun is up
And I have switched coffee mugs. This is sort of my “November” coffee mug. I’m not sure why I think of it as that. But for some reason, I jumped ahead this morning to the November coffee mug. This morning, it just totally appealed to me…
Coffee next to me on my night table! For some reason, getting out of bed held no appeal today! (That’s my Inner Being Dialogues journal there next to the mug. I’m well into the 3rd journal now. My Inner Being is very chatty.)
I have now managed to force myself out of the bed and am sitting at my desk, blogging. (Yesterday, I blogged from my phone, so reluctant was I to leave the bed.) But I have yet to get dressed here this morning. Which is almost unheard of. I am almost always dressed by the time I sit down at my desk. But this morning, I’m still in my jammies (a photo of which I regaled you with a few days ago — me, wearing my summer PJs in Peitor’s bathroom in West Hollywood last December.) And I’m wearing my blue flannel robe, because it’s chilly.
Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that last fall, I decided to finally wear the blue flannel robe and claim it as my own. Back then, I said that I had bought it for an older man I had been involved with who left before he had a chance to wear it. But now I am okay with saying that he is dead. Last fall, I said that he “went away”. But what really happened is that he died before he had a chance to wear it. This is the photo I posted one year ago, of me finally wearing his blue flannel robe. (I now consider it my robe. I’m doing totally okay with it.)
Reprint from last fall. This is the robe I’m wearing right now although, unlike last year, I am currently wearing some other stuff under it.
And for no reason whatsoever, I’m posting this photo of me from last February, wearing my favorite blue sweater!! (I originally sent this photo to Valerie in Brooklyn, but I saw it this morning while scrolling for the blue flannel robe!!)
I’ve had this blue sweater for about 12 years now. It is my very favorite sweater. My expression is one of delirium, so I guess I really, really DO love the blue sweater!!!
Well, my gosh!! The photos out of Nick Cave’s Conversation in San Francisco last night were just great! He looked like he was having a really good time. And the theater was beautiful. And that amazing full moon last night — I’m guessing it all came together for a really great show.
Only one more show here in the States, on Tuesday night…. me getting very sad… oh well.
All right, well, lest you think I’m just ridiculously bitchy and hard-assed about spelling (see yesterday afternoon’s post), I just want to stress that her email to me came on the heels of a long, long stream of emails from men who seemed not to care at all that I was actually looking for a woman. And so when an actual woman wrote to me, finally, I could not have been more crestfallen when I discovered that she could not be bothered to use spellcheck and so came across as sort of offensively stupid. I don’t mind if you aren’t super smart, or anything, but come on — at least be smart enough to use fucking spellcheck. Of course, she had no clue that I was a writer. It’s not in my profile. My photo is not even in my profile. But honestly — don’t you try to bring your “A” Game when you’re responding to a person’s ad and you hope they will reply to you? I was figuring, thatwas her “A” Game and, frankly, it was kinda scary.
But, anyway, I quit the site! Enough. I have to focus on the PLAY. Not on my endlessly erupting libido.
Oh for heaven’s sake, I am just too much sometimes, right?
Okay. Well, I think it’s a national holiday here (Columbus Day). The streets are certainly void of school buses and cars going off to work. A very quiet, lovely sunny morning in October.
And speaking of Peitor in West Hollywood (which I was, quite briefly, a moment ago), and, therefore, of our fledgling micro-short video production company: He has had just heartbreaking issues with both of his elderly parents. His dad in Iowa and his mom in Italy. It has been nonstop now for a few months. Not only does he have to constantly travel to both of these far-flung places — meaning, drop everything and jump on a plane because something dire is happening — but it is also just draining his whole heart, mind, body; everything.
He and I text sporadically but have not had a chance to even talk on the phone since before I went to NY. We were all set to get back on schedule with the micro-scriptwriting and then he was suddenly called off to Iowa again because of something dire with his dad.
So that has been just very intense. I really miss him and our weekly phone chats. He really knows how to make me laugh. We had such a great time last December, when it was just him and me together, alone, for nearly a week because his husband was off producing some TV show in Toronto… God, did we laugh!! Well, we also had time to talk about serious stuff, too.
Peitor last December, on the lobby grounds of the Sunset Marquis hotel in West Hollywood. This is two doors down from Peitor’s apartment building.
All righty! Gonna put on some real clothes now and get to work around here. I hope you have a really good Monday, wherever you are in the world, gang!! Thanks for visiting! I love you guys. See ya.
Last night was the first night of the season that I slept with the flannel sheets on the bed.
I always have this dim remembrance somewhere in the back of my overworked brain that the flannel sheets are always indescribably cozier than I remember them being, after spending about 6 or 7 months with really crisp cotton sheets on the bed.
Well, last night was no different. I simply could not believe how indescribably cozy my fucking bed was and I did not want to get out of it this morning. Seriously, I laid awake for an hour and half, just so cozy that I just kept snuggling deeper into it. I literally had to force myself to get my behind out of bed and go downstairs and feed the cats, myself, etc.
Plus, all through the spring and summer, when the windows are open, I also have all the Venetian blinds open in my bedroom. So even when I’m awake at 5 a.m. in the warmer months, I can immediately see the world outside my window, including the streetlight and any headlights of cars going off to work. (Well, the drivers of the cars are going off to work.)
But last night, I had the windows closed, the heat on, and so all the Venetian blinds were down and closed. So I was seriously in a dark little snuggly place this morning. Man. I simply did not want to get out of bed.
So, of course, now, half my morning feels like it’s gone. And I hate that. It deprives me of precious, valuable minutes within which I can sit at my desk and work!! Grumble, grumble…
Anyway. It is sufficient to say, I slept great.
I didn’t get any more writing done yesterday once I finished that new segment for In the Shadow of Narcissa. It actually took a lot out of me to write that one. Partly because, aside from just the difficult subject itself, there were specific things between my adoptive mom and my brother that I chose to leave out. It was just too disturbing to commit it to print.
You know, if it was about something that happened to me, it’s easier for me to write about it. But it’s not as if my brother gave me any sort of permission to write about him. I haven’t actually seen him in decades. I know he’s still alive but, understandably, he doesn’t want any connections to his adoptive family. I’m trying to select occurrences that best illustrate how I was learning to respond to my mother and not just specifically “what she did.”
In my opinion, she was inexcusably cruel to my brother when he was a defenseless little boy and it tore my fucking heart out to watch all that shit happen to him. (And to be honest, there’s a whole chunk of stuff I don’t actually know about because I didn’t see it; I only heard it and all I heard was heart-wrenching screaming. And what the heck do you do when the only person on Earth who can make everything all right — Mommy — is the one causing the Hell? How do you process it?) Shit.
And then there was a time when I was in my 30s, when my adoptive mother was in a really lucid and loving phase (she was on meds at that point), and she sat me down one afternoon, when I was visiting from NYC, and in a bewildered, heartfelt way, she wanted to know why my brother hadn’t spoken to her in (at that point) something like 15 years. She said, “What did I ever do to him that was so bad?” She had no true conscious awareness of herself or anything she’d done. I didn’t have the heart to shatter her, and it wouldn’t have helped, anyway. My brother wasn’t coming back and I knew it. All I could say to her was, “Mom, I just don’t know.”
Still, none of it means that it’s okay for me to write about my brother’s private life. It’s not as if I can undo it by telling a bunch of total strangers about what happened, anyway.
So, yesterday afternoon, once I’d signed off on the new segment and sent it off to the editor at Edge of Humanity Magazine, I tried to focus on the play, but I just couldn’t. I went outside and trimmed the hydrangea, finally. That took nearly an hour! It really had gotten so big this summer. What a glorious thriving thing that hydrangea is. Even while I was trimming all the dead blossoms off of it, I could still feel so much life just pulsing from that thing. (I call it a thing, because it’s hardly a bush, but it’s not a tree. Not sure what to call it, but it’s massive now and just full of palpable life.)
It was such a beautiful fall evening. Just perfect. I came back inside and, as I am wont to do pretty much 24/7, I sat back down at my desk. But I had not a thing to do at my desk so I got on pornhub!! Yay. I never have time to get on pornhub!! So! And then 3 hours later…
Jesus. You know? Where does the time go?
Oddly enough, me and porn don’t have the best relationship. Only because I find so much of it really predictable, unimaginative, overflowing with narcissism and tedium — and those are only the videos that last about maybe 6 minutes. To me, they feel unendurably endless after about 63 seconds. I love porn, and you’d think that in this modern world that is so saturated with porn now, that I would just be this happy camper in pornland. But, sadly, such is not the case. And that’s because, in my opinion, there is just such a plethora of bad porn out there.
Yet, once in a blue moon… even picky girls like moi hit pay dirt. It’s all about the key words, you know. I’m an extreme fetishist, to boot. Not necessarily in my private life anymore, but it’s still where my mind goes. I’m not sure why. It has a lot to do with human behavior and human thought processes — I find extreme fetishes so fucking interesting. Especially the people who dedicate their whole adult lives to one specific extreme fetish and turn an entire room in their homes over to doing this one specific thing. And it almost always involves owning expensive stuff that you can only find on Stockroom, or you have to make it yourself.
I just find that fascinating. But it doesn’t mean that just any extreme fetish will appeal to me. I have to hunt pretty diligently to find something that goes into that mind-bending realm that is not, you know, sort of just horrifically awful.
And then I have to find that perfect balance of energy between the male and the female. The guy has to be the perfect Dominant — balanced, not over the top and not cruel. And the female has to actually seem really super in to whatever’s going on and not just being tortured or something. And I also discovered that I like it a lot when I don’t understand the language they’re speaking. I like it when I have no clue what they’re saying. (Oh, and it has to be “amateur” — not amateur quality, but just not a professional porn company.)
And I usually don’t get into the same extreme fetish twice. It has to be something new and, preferably, something I’ve never heard of before. (And at my age, with about 35 years of extreme fetishist friends and colleagues and co-workers behind me, it’s not 100% easy to find something I’ve never heard of before.)
Well, so you can see that me and porn are usually better left un-coupled. But once in a blue moon — say, last night, for instance– holy moly! And it really comes down to key words. Find a topic that might hold a certain appeal; click on it, then scroll down and look at the key words other people entered. Then click on one, then scroll down again and look at more refining key words that other people entered, and then look for the one that has the keyword “extreme” in front of it; click on it and then either shriek in horror at what pops up in front of you, or go, Whoa….. and be a happy camper in pornland for 3 hours.
I’m not going to tell you what I got into. Just that it involved somewhat expensive stainless steel instruments that you can buy on Stockroom. And it was something that I never, in a million years, would have guessed would not make me want to squirm or even to perhaps puke.
It all comes down to the people, you know? When people are really in to something, just totally getting off on it — that alone can get very compelling.
There were men I knew, who were my colleagues — really wonderful, intelligent men, back in NYC in the ’90s and early 2000s — who were Doms, into very intense extreme fetishes, and the young submissive girls would literally line up for the chance of getting a playdate with them on a Saturday night. You know: Please, please torture me for a few hours because I know you’re so fucking good at it. It really does come down to the specific person, to the personality, the specific human mind involved.
And now that I no longer live in NYC, then they have to also want to make high quality digital videos of what they’re doing and upload them to pornhub…
Okay. New topic. It’s going to sound related to the above topic, but it’s not. It has to do with the spirits that I am certain are in this house. And I don’t mean the house is haunted. I think it’s some sort of portal for amazing spirits. This whole town is. I don’t know how to explain it. But they don’t frighten me at all.
On Tuesday, I took off a pair of stockings. The kind that need garters to keep them up. Just a pair of regular Hanes stockings. Not expensive at all. I was feeling lazy and decided that rather than hand-washing them, like you’re supposed to do, I would put them through the gentle cycle in the washing machine and then just hang them up to dry. I had three other things I also wanted to wash at the same time. So I bundled it all in a towel and took it straight down to the washing machine. Then, 20 minutes later, the wash cycle was done and when I went to get everything out of there, one of my stockings was gone.
100% completely, thoroughly gone. I looked everywhere for it. Even thinking it could have somehow fallen out of the bundled towel and a cat had absconded with it, but it was absolutely nowhere. Just gone. I found this really endearing, you know? Like, Okay, dude, whoever you are — you can have it. It’s not like it was Wolford or something stupidly expensive. It was just regular old Hanes.
Too awesome, right? It will be so cool if; a.) it never shows up again, ever; or b.) it shows up someplace where it could not have ever gotten to all on its own.
All righty! I’m gonna scoot and get more coffee and get the day going. Lots of work to do on the play, still.
Have a terrific Thursday, wherever you are in the world! I believe Nick Cave goes back to Canada tonight. The Conversations are indeed winding down. Where the heck does the time go? I simply cannot believe it. That frightens me more than some unseen spirit making off with one of my stockings, that’s for sure.
Thanks for visiting. I leave you with what was essentially the soundtrack for extreme fetish playdates everywhere in the early 90s!! Enjoy! love you guys. See ya!
Yeah, well, I guess it would have been nice to have been alerted that a little PR blast about “me, the playwright” was going out yesterday. I probably wouldn’t have chosen yesterday to blog about being suicidal and going off to a convent…
Crap. You know?
This is why blogging is always so dicey for me. I actually blog about not only my real life, but also the constant insanity that is really in my head. And as pretty as I am on the outside, well you know, the Portrait of Dorian Gray is often in full bloom on the inside.
So there we have it. My experience of yesterday. All kinds of new traffic coming in through my (outdated, inaccurate) Wikipedia page because of a new crop of strangers googling me; and then finding out about all the joys of being moi.
Okay. We’re just going to move on. But I’m also going to bring this up again, as I so often do around here: When you’re a woman and you’re a writer, nothing will likely speak more to the heart of you than Virginia Woolfe’s A Room of One’s Own. If for some inexcusable reason, you don’t know the book; her overall premise:
“In referencing the tale of a woman who rejected motherhood and lived outside marriage, a woman about to be hanged, the narrator identifies women writers such as herself as outsiders who exist in a potentially dangerous space.”
And once having read it, nothing will feel so horrific as knowing that, even while Virginia Woolfe understood all of it, she ultimately walked off to the river with rocks in her pocket. She should not have ended that way. I am not going to end that way, I just refuse; even if sometimes the only thing that will help me is taking cover amid a bunch of Carmelite nuns — women who also reject motherhood and live outside marriage but inside the auspices of the Patriarchy. (Wouldn’t that be cool? To just go off and let some guy take care of you? Jesus Christ, right? And no pun intended there… But the minute you let some guy take care of you, he gets to tell you what to do. And loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I will always, without fail, say “NO!” even before I hear what the guy is even trying to say!!! AAAAAaaaarrrrgh!!!!)
But, Jesus. Come on. Even in a First World country, in the 21st Century, it is fucking hard to be a woman, be a writer, and live on a single, wildly fluctuating income — and afford a room of your own that’s quiet so that you can focus and write.
The pressure in my life sometimes feels insurmountable. I am someone who pulls miracle after miracle after miracle out of her hat. But it gets not only exhausting but also daunting: looking into that hat and wondering if another miracle is gonna manage to come out of there one more time.
And in this instance, unfortunately, I am talking about a situation involving other, private people that I cannot blog about. But it’s making me feel undermined and sniped at. And it hurts.
So — on to more beautiful things.
Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand Files newsletter yesterday that was just beautiful. You can read it here. You know, is it wrong & selfish to say that it’s too bad men like him (meaning, “rock stars”) weren’t around when I was growing up in the 1970s, or do you just feel appreciative that he’s alive right now?
Oh, and also, during one of Nick Cave’s Conversations in Austin the other night, a woman was sitting next to him on his piano bench while he sang “Shivers.” I ask you, just what kind of hat do you have to have in order to pull that kind of miracle out of it???!!! I thought my Miracle Hat was pretty cool but au contraire! It pales in comparison.
(The people in Austin eventually put a whole bunch of cool stuff on Instagram.) (I believe he’s going to be in Portland tonight. We’ll see what kinds of magical hats the people possess in Portland…)
Well, this week, when I’m not gently tearing my hair out over rewrites of Tell My Bones, I intend to write another short segment of In the Shadow of Narcissa. It’s a difficult one because it goes deeper into the abuse my brother suffered at the hands of our adoptive mother when he was just a little boy. And to write it from the perspective of a 4-year-old girl. And not through the lens of my own fear of our mother, but from that desperate feeling of wanting to help my brother but being given the constant mandate from her that I was not allowed to care about what happened to him.
Not being permitted to feel things was probably the hardest part of living with her.
The fucked-up-ness was simply manifold.
But I’m also going to take a look at the 4th segment of Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. It’s going to be that “Litany” segment. It should just be very interesting. I’m very eager to write that because I can’t imagine how it’s going to hit the page.
Meanwhile, I’m going to get laundry started here. And at some point, I have to go back into town and buy groceries. I’m gonna wait until the fog lifts, though. We’ve had an amazingly dense fog here since late last evening.
The fog as seen from my kitchen window just now. The same Carl Sandburg fog that “crept in on little cat feet.” Oh no!! Not more cats!!
Okay, gang. I’m gonna scoot.
Have a terrific Tuesday wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting. I leave you with two options, both equally from my own perception of life. The first is one I really enjoy believing in. I really, honestly do. Someday, I’ll meet my soulmate and we’ll go off to the Chapel of Love.
The second is more like how I experience love, for real. You know, intensely deeply, but no chapel anywhere on the horizon. (This song was actually playing on the record player when I lost — or got rid of — my virginity. Go figure. The gods are funny, for sure.)
All righty. I love you guys. See ya.
“Piece of My Heart”
Oh, come on, come on, come on, come on!
Didn’t I make you feel like you were the only man -yeah!
Didn’t I give you nearly everything that a woman possibly can?
Honey, you know I did!
And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I’ve had enough,
But I’m gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough.
I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, oh, have a!
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby,
You know you got it if it makes you feel good,
Oh, yes indeed.
You’re out on the streets looking good,
And baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it ain’t right,
Never, never, never, never, never, never hear me when I cry at night,
Babe, I cry all the time!
And each time I tell myself that I, well I can’t stand the pain,
But when you hold me in your arms, I’ll sing it once again.
I’ll say come on, come on, come on, come on and take it!
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby.
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah,
Oh, oh, have a!
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby,
You know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good.
I need you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!
oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart, now darling, yeah, c’mon now.
oh, oh, have a
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby.
You know you got it -whoahhhhh!!
Take it!
Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, baby,
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart, now darling, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Oh, oh, have a
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby, hey,
You know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good.
First, the scale: Back down to my goal weight. I lost those pesky 7 pounds during the night.
Actually, it’s really sort of fun — having this new insane scale to step on first thing in the morning: what is it going to tell me? I don’t interfere with its read-out in any way; I can’t, actually. It’s a really cheap scale. It does what it does and that’s it, and all I can do is either step on it or not. So that element of complete surprise is just an interesting new way to start my morning.
Plus, it’s super uplifting to lose 7 pounds during the night!! (And on those nights when I’ve gained 5 or 8 pounds, well. You know, it’s just a cheap scale and it doesn’t work! So disregard it!) (It only works when I reach my goal weight, which, thank goodness, is quite frequently. I’ve already reached it several times in the past couple of days.)
Okay. I am doing reasonably okay today. I’ve been having mental issues again over the last several days. I’m thinking it’s just stress. But it’s maybe other stuff, too. I’m not sure. Who the fuck knows. It got so bad yesterday that I was seriously thinking it was time to go back to the convent. (Loyal readers of this lofty blog probably recall that St. Therese’s convent is where I go when I get extremely suicidal. But since I’ve moved, it’s now 50 miles from here. But when you get there, you turn in your phone and then there’s a vow of silence. And they feed you if you want to eat, which I usually don’t. They give you a little cell, and you can be alone with St. John of the Cross and Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ. But usually, I most prefer the Beatitudes because sometimes I think that that’s all there is to it, really. Then there is that tiny but amazing old stone chapel, where it’s just you on your knees with Jesus for however long it takes. Get your shit back together; get back in your car and drive home.)
But 50 miles is 50 miles now. And I have these cats. And I have this house. And responsibilities. I wait until it’s really, really dire, you know, before I go there. But then there’s that grey area — if I wait too long, I can become immobilized. And then it’s just dicey, all the way around. I just hate that grey area. You have no idea.
But even when I get immobilized — when my brain sort of puts me on lock-down and I can’t easily do things that will save me, I can still text. So texting is a true blessing. It really, really is. Even when I can no longer communicate verbally, I can always, always write. Usually all I need is just help getting out of the house — getting into the air, under the sky, remembering that there’s an actual world outside of my brain.
Anyway. Yesterday was heading in a bad place all day, and so I was thinking about the convent. But I decided to just sleep in the guest room last night and see if that would break the chain of negative crap. I don’t think of my own bedroom as negative at all. I love my room, and the energy in it. But I remembered how incredible it felt, the night before I left for NY, sleeping in my guest room for the first time and what a great room it turned out to be.
It was okay last night, but I think that other time, having my birth mom sleeping in the next room probably had a lot to do with the peace I was feeling. I was thinking I should call my mom and tell her she has to come back. But I don’t like to hold people for ransom emotionally. Because of course she would come, but she does have her own life to live. I always somehow manage to get myself back on track.
It’s so weird how you can just turn a corner and wake up and be okay. I really do think it’s stress. Primarily, both Sandra and Peitor needing my attention to various projects, when right now, I need to give 110% to the Tell My Bones rewrites. Well, anyway. The noise just starts in my head.
I know what it is I need to turn off the noise and I also know I’m not going to get it anytime soon, if ever. So maybe adopting a little puppy would be the next best thing — unconditional love & devotion! But I can’t take on a puppy, or even a full grown dog. Aside from a house full of untamed cats that would freak the fuck out, I don’t have the time for the added responsibility.
So I’m just trying to focus on the writing and have that particular type of joy be all I need for the time being.
When I was meditating this morning, I got myself into a place of pure potentiality. That true realization that there is no such thing as the future and there is no past. The past is a memory — and if your memory is gone, your past is gone. And if your memory shifts, then your past completely changes. So what is the past, really? And the future is only an idea. It can be absolutely anything or nothing at all. The only thing that’s filled with wide-open potential is the infinite expanse of right now.
It was a beautiful feeling. The beauty and the openness of right now is where all that feeling of fulfillment is for me — you can do anything, experience the joy or the thrill or the satisfaction of anything right now, because all of reality is experienced in your mind anyway.
I’m not saying that reality doesn’t eventually play out in some way; I know it does. But for me, the true fulfillment comes from the creation of the idea. The “playing out” of the idea is where the baggage is. Not that baggage is essentially unmanageable. I’m just saying that, for me, the moment the idea is created — that’s where I find the most emotional fulfillment. I can do anything I want to in my mind, especially experience pure beauty and pure love.
Which, of course, reminds me of Ghosteen again. I was listening to it in the guest room last night, in the dark. God, it is such a gorgeous album (even though it is so fucking sad). Every time I think I’ve chosen a favorite “song” (I hesitate to call them “songs” because they simply don’t feel like “songs’), I realize that I can’t actually say that I love one over or more than another. They are each just so haunting and beautiful.
I really love “Spinning Song” and “Night Raid.” But then the other songs come on and I love those, too. So who knows. All I know for sure is that the whole album is sort of uncategorical. It defies my mind’s ability to define it. Meaning, I can’t simply say, “Oh, that’s a great record.” Or section it out into a group of songs, or something.
I did notice that there’s a bunch of cute little Ghosteen things that we can purchase now! I say “cute” because most of them have got the little lamb picture on it — but of course, little lambs (in cemeteries) are symbolic of dead children so my brain hesitates to identify with the little lamb as “cute,” even though it is. It’s incredibly cute. But, you know, it’s also unbearably sad. So I’m not sure what to do about that. I really want one of those tote bags — but do I tote it around until the little lamb becomes common place or meaningless? I’m not sure I can do that.
Anyway. You can see that it’s best for me to pursue wide open expanses of blankness where I’m not encouraged to think about anything.
And on that note!! I will remind you to please go on Instagram and follow @tellmybones. And to go on Facebook and follow: https://www.facebook.com/tellmybones
The web site will be launching soon. Mostly, they have to figure out my bio, which is stupidly extensive and goes off in many directions. And I think once that’s solved, the site will launch. I noticed they picked that author’s photo of me from my novel Freak Parade — where I’m wearing my Mark Jacobs aviator shades that I just love! And I’m sitting on the stoop, looking totally dyke-y. Yay. Nothing like just going out into the world. (You’d never know that I am a girl who loves elegance. I honestly do. I used to own the most gorgeous dresses. Anyway.)
So, thanks for visiting. I apologize for being all over the map today, but it’s better than not existing. So I guess I don’t really apologize for it. I would leave you with something from Ghosteen today, but I think you’re supposed to go purchase it. So, in the meantime, I leave you with this thought-worthy piece of questions. Have a good day out there, okay? I love you guys. See ya!
“LOSING MY RELIGION”
Oh, life is bigger
It’s bigger
Than you and you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I set it up
That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
Every whisper
Of every waking hour
I’m choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt lost and blinded fool, fool
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I set it up
Consider this
Consider this
The hint of the century
Consider this
The slip that brought me
To my knees failed
What if all these fantasies
Come flailing around
Now I’ve said too much
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream
That was just a dream
That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream
Try, cry
Why try?
That was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream
Dream
c – 1991 : Bill Berry / Michael Stipe / Mike Mills / Peter Buck
I’m still keeping this new bathroom scale. If only because I want to try to hack the code.
Apparently, I gained 5 pounds during the night. (After losing 9 pounds the previous day.)
At the very least, the scale reconnects me with everything I ate the day before. You know, it sort of acts as a grounding rod for my wildly dispersed reality. From moment to moment, I can no longer tell you what’s happening to my life. I am just so caught up in my head these days. Absolutely everything flies past me. So this new bathroom scale — its seeming slight relation to reality — sort of helps anchor me. I step on the scale. I look at that wildly unexpected number. And it makes me stop and think and remember yesterday: What was yesterday? What did I do? What did I think? What did I eat?
So the new bathroom scale is sort of an adventure in consciousness.
An alert just came through on my laptop that the drummer Ginger Baker died. This also serves as an anchor in reality: a.) I did not know he was even still alive; b.) I can’t believe he was 80; and c.) another part of my girlhood — gone.
When these things happen, I immediately feel that I either have to die right away. Like, I don’t know, tomorrow maybe. Or just live for some stupidly long time so that the main point to my whole existence becomes: Everything and everyone I ever knew is gone. This “in between” business — where you watch everything you ever knew disappear in bits and pieces; that part gets hard to process. So I’d rather just deal with one extreme or the other. Die now, or live so very long that nothing has relevance anymore and everyone assumes I simply am just never going to die.
On a sort of similar note… I’ve been thinking the last couple days that I’d really like to take a drive to the old Civil War battle ground in Cynthiana, Kentucky, and visit my great-great-grandfather’s grave. He’s buried there in a Confederacy War Memorial. For some bizarre reason, google maps assures me this is only 3 and a 1/2 hours from Crazeysburg. I’m not sure how that could possibly be. It feels like it should be much farther away. So I think I’m going to set aside a couple days here in the fall and do that. Find some sort of a strange motel there and stay over for one night. Maybe even drink bourbon for the first time in a couple of years. (I can’t imagine being in Kentucky again and not drinking bourbon.)
I’ve listened to Ghosteen a few more times. And that anchors me, too, actually. It has such a presence to it that I just hone right in and everything else in my mind and in my world simply stops. I’m just listening. Picturing all this stuff that I don’t understand at all — meaning, the images just come because the lyrics are so precise and so intense, yet I have no idea what any of that whole first part of the record means. (I don’t necessarily know what the second part means, but I feel like I intuitively grasp it. The first part — any hope of concrete meaning flies away from me in all directions but it sustains such an intense beauty, regardless.)
It is enigmatic, to be sure. I feel like there is absolutely no way in. By that, I think I mean that this is sort of an operatic painting about his life, his family, his marriage — and how can you ever truly understand how the inside of someone else’s perspective of life really feels? Well, anyway, I can’t. So I can’t find my way into it. Which doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful or that I don’t love it, or that it doesn’t cause me to feel a lot of things.
Nick Cave has said things before about how songs speak to you, personally; you know, you feel like a song was written just for you and it becomes yours, in a way. Actually, there is no Nick Cave song, ever, that I felt spoke to me, personally. I do feel that way about pretty much every single song Tom Petty ever wrote — starting with “American Girl.” I heard that song in my teens and immediately wondered, “How come that guy knows how it feels to be me?” But with Nick Cave — he’s on this whole other planet from me. It’s one that I absolutely love, with all my being and all my soul, but it could not be more different from my planet if it tried. Yet I still love, basically, everything he ever wrote. Or likely will write. Still, this new record goes even beyond that. Really, like discovering a whole new planet. Complete with a language that sounds remarkably similar to the one I know, and yet, eludes me. I think it’s just something I have to feel in my heart. And maybe meaning will come later. Or the “meaning” is simply that I feel it all very intensely. That is the meaning to it.
Okay. And on that note, the Conversations continue tonight in Austin. Maybe one lone photo appeared on Instagram from last night so, clearly this “put your phones away” idea is working. Eventually, I will no longer have any reason whatsoever to be on Instagram! But that’s okay.
All righty!! I’m gonna scoot and get Sunday underway here. Have a great day, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.
“American Girl”
Well, she was an American girl
Raised on promises
She couldn’t help thinkin’
That there was a little more to life somewhere else
After all it was a great big world
With lots of places to run to
And if she had to die tryin’
She had one little promise she was gonna keep.
Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy, baby
Make it last all night
She was an American girl
Well it was kind of cold that night,
She stood alone on her balcony
Yeah, she could hear the cars roll by,
Out on 441 like waves crashin’ on the beach
And for one desperate moment there
He crept back in her memory
God it’s so painful when something that’s so close
Is still so far out of reach
Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy, baby
Make it last all night
She was an American girl
I actually did get to listen to Ghosteen last night — the new album by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. It was still available on YouTube once I got home and was safely in bed. In my room. The only place in the world that protects me from the world. Usually.
You perhaps recall that when he first announced the new album last week and described what it was going to be about, my initial, sort of primal reaction was, Oh no, now what. A sort of “please keep that away from me” kind of feeling.
I had barely survived the first time listening to Skeleton Tree. It took a long time for me to be able to listen to that album without feeling like the world was being pulled out from under me. And I was worried that Ghosteen was going to be worse. Meaning, just too emotionally intense for me.
And guess what, gang??!!
I was right.
It’s really just a beautiful, beautiful album. Just stunning. On so many levels. But I’m wondering, would I rather be hit by a freight train, or listen to this album again?
I’m thinking freight train. But I’m not 100% sure. I mean, luckily, God saw to it that I have ready access to a freight train — it runs right past my door, sometimes several times a day. And night. I already pre-ordered both the MP3 and the CD of Ghosteen. So when one of those things arrives, I’ll wait to press the “start” button until I know for sure a train is coming, and then decide at the last minute…
Jesus Christ, right?
It is just too beautiful. And part of what tormented me most is that, a huge portion of it, I don’t understand. The whole first album, which is being told by “the children.” Or it simply is “the children.” And I don’t understand why it’s “the children.” I couldn’t figure that part out. Why is it “the children”? And I’m thinking it’s maybe because I never had any so I’m not able to access something important there. And that alone, that state of being childless, is just something that’s unbearable for me, on any given day, at any given time, in any given year.
So that got triggered, and from there, everything sort of spiraled down for me. The only way I know how to handle that whole subject is to close the door and walk away. But, come on! It’s a Nick Cave album! He hasn’t had a new album out in a couple of years. I don’t want to just close the door and walk away.
The second half, the part about “the parents” was easier for me to at least maybe understand. I could understand why “the parents” were saying that second part.
Well, anyway. I’m sure I will adjust over time. Find my way back from the train tracks and maybe not be any worse for wear. Or, maybe even create great art. That would be cool. (I’m being sarcastic there because, of course, I think that’s the sole reason I even exist — to create art. And it gets tiring. Wouldn’t it be cool if God had created me for something/anything else? You know, like: Let’s let her have this great LIFE so that she doesn’t have to create art in order to process the simple act of getting out of bed in the morning…)
So, anyway. In all honesty, it is a beautiful record. Majestic and exquisite. Just so beautiful. And whether or not I can process it, isn’t the actual point, is it? Great art is supposed to make you feel something, so in that respect, it was a truly GREAT work of art. (And I did, indeed, see that coming.)
Okay.
So Sandra texted me yesterday and guess what? She’s working on a new play. Writing a new play, I mean. I am her collaborator on theater projects so this means that I, too, am working on a new play.
We have two other plays on the back burner, that are just barely even developed. But it sounds like this new one has her complete attention. Even though she’ll be going to Stratford to play the role of Mama Morton in “Chicago” at the same time that we’ll be doing the full-length staged reading of Tell My Bones in NYC; and we have our other play to do in Toronto, although that one has come to a little bit of a standstill right now, awaiting words from lawyers and accountants. Apparently, we will be undertaking another new play.
You know, when she texted me that, I wanted to just lie down and refuse to get back up. I’m sort of wiped out. These new Tell My Bones rewrites are probably the most important work I’ve had to undertake in my entire career. I need to focus.
This is when it would be good to just say “fuck the world,” and just drink & smoke.
But I don’t really do either anymore. So, onward.
The morning here — meaning 5:30 am — was quite, quite lovely. There was something sacred in the stillness. The heatwave broke. Fall is really here. Another opportunity to try to figure out what the heck any of this all means, and why love seems to still be at the root of all of it.
I woke up crying. Not sobbing, or anything, but tears were in my eyes from the moment I awoke and they stayed there all during breakfast.
But I stayed in bed for a little while, wondering about the “story” of a person’s life, juxtaposed against how that life might have felt to be lived. F. Scott Fitzgerald came to my mind. He is now considered one of the greatest literary writers of the 20th Century. If you know his life, his career, at all, you will know that his outrageously uncontrolled alcoholism defined him while he was alive. And his wife was nuts and every extravagant thing about her cost him a fortune. It wasn’t until he died that his writing, alone — his creations, his art — could stand on its own, without the pain of how his life felt to be lived. (I’m not even going to try to talk about Zelda and her tragic fate because now she’s too bogged down in revisionist, feminist theory kinds of stuff.)
But there was the “life” he was creating while he lived. Meaning his endless and amazing short stories (that he wrote to keep himself afloat financially) and then his beautiful novels — that not only document the times he was living in, but created them at the very same time: The Jazz Age.
And then there was his actual life. Complicated, frustrating, passionate, tragic, short. And absolutely saturated with booze.
I’ve been thinking about this stuff lately because I am so very, very tired of “my life” and how it lived. But because I know how to write, it “saves” everything, you know? I can create a reason for life to feel worthwhile. And most days, that’s enough for me. Other days, nothing’s enough.
Okay, I’m gonna scoot. Get more coffee. Look at the beautiful, sacred morning some more. Embrace autumn. Let love be enough. Thanks for visiting. I love you, guys. See ya.
“Bye Bye Blackbird”
c – 1926
Blackbird, blackbird singing the blues all day right outside my door
Blackbird, blackbird gotta be on your way
Where there’s sunshine galore
All through the winter you just hang around
Now you’re going back home
Blackbird, blackbird gotta be on your way
Where there’s sunshine galore
Pack up all my cares and woes,
Here I go, singing low,
Bye, bye, blackbird.
Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar’s sweet, so is he,
Bye, bye, blackbird.
No one here can love and understand me,
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me.
Make my bed and light the light,
I’ll arrive late tonight,
Blackbird, bye, bye.
Pack up all my cares and woes,
Here I go, singing low,
Bye, bye, blackbird.
Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar’s sweet, so is he,
Bye, bye, bye, bye, blackbird.
I said, no one here can love and understand me,
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me.
So, make my bed and light the light,
I’ll arrive late tonight,
Blackbird, bye, bye.
Make my bed and light the light,
I’ll arrive late tonight,
Blackbird,
I said blackbird,
I said blackbird,
Oh, blackbird, bye, bye.
Yes, indeed! Why talk about Trump or the weather, when we can talk about love??!!
I’m not really sure what to do about me and my Italian lessons, gang. I do great on all my many quizzes. But the moment I’m not looking at the app, I pretty much forget every single Italian word I know.
Okay. The Fall Issue of The Exterminating Press Magazine, Heavens Revealed, is now online. So, at long last, here is the link to the excerpt they published from my new novel, Blessed By Light. It is Chapter 18: The Guitar Hero Goes Home.
Well, apparently every single solitary soul in Minneapolis follows rules to a “t”. Because not a single solitary post from inside Nick Cave’s Conversation last night has been posted to Instagram. Only photos from outside the venue have posted. These, of course, are meaningless to me!
However, people did indeed say that the show was incredible. So I’m going strictly on word-of-mouth for this one, gang. It’s really nice, though, that people are finally putting their phones away. (I’m guessing this means that we get to redo the Town Hall show in NYC, and this time have it be phone free!! Yay!! I’m so excited!!)
Okay, well. As I sit here waiting for pigs to fly… (Honestly, I wouldn’t trade the memory of Town Hall for anything, even with its annoyances. Of course, I had that amazing time at Lincoln Center, too, so it’s not like I’ve been deprived of anything.)
I’m doing really good here today, gang. I’m feeling really quiet at the soul level. I finally slept good. No coughing at all, so I think the cold is at long last gone.
At the breakfast table this morning, listening of course to Tom Petty and thinking about the nature of Life and how it not only ends and moves on but it also constantly circles back in these predictable seasons; I noticed that the sun is taking a while to come up now. At 7 a.m. the sky was just barely light, so it is clearly really fall. And I am doing okay with it. With the summer being gone, I mean.
I’m feeling like I can handle everything again. Or maybe even for the first time, ever. I think that it actually is for the first time ever. What I have normally done all my life is cope and survive. And now what I feel like I’m doing is actually living. So that’s pretty cool, right?
I spent several hours hanging out on my bed in the dark last night, being okay with saying goodbye to the wonderful “dead guy”. I didn’t even feel his spirit in my room, as I sometimes do. But I was okay with it. And I was remembering the most amazing summer of my life with him (spent entirely in my bedroom and in my kitchen). And I cannot tell you just how grateful I am that he even came into my world so unexpectedly and so briefly, because it truly changed me.
I was sitting on my bed in the dark, looking out my window at the night and thinking about just how different I actually am now. He taught me so many things about myself. Things I wasn’t happy with and so I changed. I actually changed.
One thing he did was taught me about boundaries, in this very interesting way. Very self-affirming. I had this way of making self-disparaging remarks and it really bothered him that I did that. And I had no clue just how often I did that — said negative things about myself. Early on, he said there were going to be boundaries — things I wasn’t allowed to say anymore. I simply couldn’t say them; he didn’t want to hear these things coming out of my mouth ever again.
So then, when I would even start to make a negative comment about myself, he would just say, “Boundaries…” and I’d have to shut up. Like, immediately. And that was when I realized just how negative I was about myself, you know? Because he was constantly saying, “Boundaries…” and I’d have to shut up.
And then when I would shut up – you know, sudden dead silence — then I’d be forced to think about what I’d been getting ready to say. And it totally trained me to stop talking that way about myself. And eventually, I stopped even thinking in that really negative way.
The hardest thing I ever had to do was this other thing he came up with. I had this deep-rooted understanding about my life, as I was growing up, that I was not loved. And from that, I determined that I was never going to be loved. Love just did not exist for me. I knew people felt grateful to me, appreciated me, and all that, and I had a huge capacity to give love, but being loved never entered into it. I could not even imagine being loved. 57 years of that.
My mind could go to some really dark places very quickly back then. My whole demeanor could turn on a dime. Stuff that really alarmed him because he was just not a negative person, at all. I really wanted to be loved. I really, really did. But I literally could not believe that I was. Long story short, whenever I would even begin to go someplace dark or say something that indicated I couldn’t accept that he loved me, I had to make direct eye contact with him and say to him, “Thank you for loving me” ten times!!
I actually really had to do this. He would count up to ten! And I can’t tell you how difficult it was for me to do that those first few times. It was nearly impossible. It was as if my brain was completely re-wiring itself. It was so hard. But as the process went on, it not only became easier, but I actually believed him. And things inside me permanently changed. I finally understood myself to be someone who was loved.
Anyway. That is only a drop in the bucket of things he helped me break free of. Helped me restore to myself. And I know that it’s important now for me to live my life — to actually live it and not go on to the next realm prematurely. But stay here and get the most joy out of being physical as I can until it’s really time to go.
So. Back to Tom Petty. Back to October — the month that he was born in and died in. I’ll close with the song that ended up really defining him — the song he wrote when he was finally able to process the death of his mom. He allegedly wrote the song in one fell swoop. He woke up at 3 in the morning, hearing it inside his head. Got out of bed, went to the piano, turned on the tape recorder and the entire song just came out; he never had to change a word. Then he went back to bed and woke up his wife, Jane, and said, “Listen to what just came out of me!” And so she listened to the tape and said, “That’s nice, dear,” and rolled over and went back to sleep.
And the rest is history. There isn’t a single Tom Petty fan anywhere who doesn’t know every single word to this song –we could sing it in our sleep. And we process his beautiful mom’s death right along with him, eternally. Forever and ever.
Okay. Thanks for visiting, gang. Have a great Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys! See ya.
“Southern Accents”
There’s a southern accent, where I come from
The young ‘uns call it country, the yankees call it dumb
I got my own way of talking, but everything gets done
With a southern accent, where I come from
Now that drunk tank in Atlanta, is just a motel room to me
Think I might go work Orlando, if them orange groves don’t freeze
Got my own way of working, but everything is run
With a southern accent, where I come from
For just a minute there I was dreaming
For just a minute it was all so real
For just a minute she was standing there, with me
There’s a dream I keep having, where my mama comes to me
And kneels down over by the window, and says a prayer for me
Got my own way of praying, but every one’s begun
With a southern accent, where I come from
Got my own way of living, but everything gets done
With a southern accent, where I come from
Marilyn's Room 