Tag Archives: Tell My Bones: The Helen LaFrance Story

I Live Vicariously Through These Two!!

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I’m referring to those two in that vintage advertisement above.  I so fucking love that picture. (If you can’t read it, it says, “Coffee’s ready!”)

I would just love to have my coffee announced in that way, and the robe matters a lot, too, gang! I love that robe he’s wearing.

Anyway. I need to discuss that photo I posted late last evening. If you didn’t see it, scroll down to yesterday.

I didn’t do a single thing to the color in that photograph.  I was at the kitchen table, watching an episode of Z: The Beginning of Everything. The rain stopped, and I happened to glance out the kitchen windows at the backyard and I couldn’t believe the light. I never saw it look like that before.  I went and opened the backdoor and just sort of stood there in awe and stared at it. It was like stepping into a movie  from 1939 that was in Technicolor or something. Nothing looked real.

Within a few moments, literally, everything was back to normal and the sun began to set.  Like it had never happened.

Well, gang. More good news happened yesterday. And, no, I still can’t blog about it. This makes 3 really amazing things — related to both plays with Sandra — that I can’t tell you about yet but it’s all just so incredibly good!

Both of these projects have been “in process” for me, in various versions, since 2012. It’s one of those things that, if I’d known when I undertook each of them, that it would take this long for things to finally come to fruition — or that they’d come to fruition at the very same time — I’m not sure I would have been able to stand it.

It’s not as though I didn’t do a ton of other projects since 2012. Still. We all sort of aim for fruition when we undertake anything creative, right?

Anyway. It’s still just a ton of writing that needs to be ton. Much switching of mental gears all the time, but I don’t mind. At all.

One thing about this summer so far that’s kind of sad — it looks like the band that lived next door broke up. They don’t rehearse in the garage anymore, and a few of them moved out. Only the drummer and his wife and their 2 little daughters are there now.

Even though they played that intense Death Metal sort of music, which doesn’t really rank up there among anything I listen to, I loved hearing them rehearse out in their garage (which pretty much took over my whole house so it was a good thing to enjoy it) . And I loved the fact they sat out on their kitchen porch until late into the night, smoking cigarettes and weed and drinking beers and talking and laughing. I couldn’t hear anything they said too clearly, plus I usually stream music at night. But the houses are close enough, and all my windows are always open — it was just that sense of life always drifting in at night that I loved. And they were so young and so full of energy.

They’d go on the road for a few days at a time — I could see all the luggage and the drum kit packed up and sitting on the front porch. Then they’d be gone and the house would be dark. And then they’d be back and all the life returned.

Anyway, all of that stopped. It makes me a little sad. Now the drummer and his wife are sort of living like quiet married people (sort of). I guess it’s better for the 2 little girls, but really boring for me…

Okay, I have a ton of stuff to attend to here because I have an early phone call with Sandra this morning to do some work on the script for The Guide to Being Fabulous. I haven’t even glanced at that script since I was in New York City to work with her back in October. So I gotta scoot.

I hope Thursday is a terrific day for you, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting.  There was no actual breakfast-listening music this morning, because my heart was kinda wobbly and I knew that anything I really wanted to listen to was just going to break it, so I listened to the birds instead.  However, I leave you with one of the songs I wanted to hear –sort of the anthem for my entire life, gang.  Okay. I love you guys! See ya.

“Even The Losers”

Well it was nearly summer, we sat on your roof
Yeah, we smoked cigarettes and we stared at the moon
And I showed you stars you never could see
No, it couldn’t’ve been that easy to forget about me

Baby, time meant nothin’, anything seemed real
Yeah, you could kiss like fire and you made me feel
Like every word you said was meant to be
No, it couldn’t’ve been that easy to forget about me

Baby, even the losers
Get lucky sometimes
Even the losers
Keep a little bit of pride
They get lucky sometimes

Two cars parked on the overpass
Rocks hit the water like broken glass
I shoulda known right then it was too good to last
God, it’s such a drag when you’re livin’ in the past

Baby, even the losers
Get lucky sometimes
Even the losers
Keep a little bit of pride
They get lucky sometimes

Baby, even the losers
Get lucky sometimes
Even the losers
Keep a little bit of pride
Yeah, they get lucky sometimes
Baby, even the losers
Get lucky sometimes
Even the losers get lucky sometimes

Even the losers
Get lucky sometimes…

c – 1979 Tom Petty

Is that opportunity knocking??

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That’s my bedroom door, btw. I love that door. Both the door and the iron doorknob are original to the house, so they are 118 years old.

Luckily, I’m not OCD in any way, and absolutely love to wonder about all the various people who have touched that doorknob in the last 118 years.

And I like to wonder about all the people who have slept in my bedroom in the past 118 years because, I tell you, this bedroom  has the very best vibes I’ve ever felt in a bedroom in my whole life.

Anyway, the never-ending parade of Marilyn’s Rooms… I’m guessing this will be the final one, but you never really know, do you?

Okay, let me just say this: What the fuck is up with Twilight of the Immortal, gang??!! That novel is probably my masterpiece, as far as my fiction writing goes. And it almost never sells. And I mean, even in the bi-annual free downloads over at Smashwords, it barely gets noticed, ever. People flock to my erotic fiction instead. Which is fine.

However, in the last several weeks, people started buying this eBook on Amazon, and now, suddenly, everyone and their grandmother is downloading it for free over at Smashwords. I mean, what’s going on with that? Why, all of the sudden? The book’s been out for something like 7 years.

I’m happy and all that, but it’s just weird. I can’t help but wonder what’s up. It makes me suspicious…

And a word of caution: Do not purchase trade paper print editions of this book if you see it for sale online (and you will). Those are uncorrected proof copies from when it was briefly published by Anaphora Literary Press. They are loaded with errors and typos. Unless you’re a collector of errors & typos, it’s best to get the eBook, which is the final edition.

Anyway, thank you. I do appreciate it. But I still think it’s weird.

All righty!

I have so much to do around here. Yesterday, I revised what, for now, is the final staged reading version of Tell My Bones. At least until rehearsals begin.

Today, I’ve begun the revisions on the entire play.

Thursday, I have to start focusing again on the other play with Sandra — The Guide to Being Fabulous. This is the one-woman musical about Sandra’s own life that we will be doing in Toronto, Canada next year.

A lot of little tweaks and changes need to be made to that script, before pre-production can begin on that, too.

And I have to renew my passport!!! I’ve only had it sitting out on my dresser for about 4 months, now. Hoping to avoid this very thing: waiting until the last minute and then I suddenly need to use my passport and it then expires.

I’m trying to stay focused.  You know. One thing at a time.

I had a wonderful evening last night. I’m still watching Z: The Beginning of Everything.  Almost done with that. It was a truly humid evening, so I stayed down in the kitchen for awhile. It’s a lot cooler down there than up here in my room. And for the first time in probably two years, I played solitaire on my iPad!

Christ, that is so addicting. I only lost one game, too.  I played until the sky was almost dark and the humidity got to be too much. I needed to take a shower.

But it was fun to just be alone in my house, at my kitchen table, playing solitaire. RELAXING!  I hadn’t played it since I was back at that house I rented and was looking for a new house to buy somewhere and was having such a frustrating time of it. I used to play solitaire to distract myself.

It felt lovely to finally fully realize that all that was behind me, and to be in my house now, in this amazing town that I had never heard of before I moved here. It just felt so peaceful. And of course all the windows were open and so I could see all the fireflies blinking outside, and the train came by (not so peaceful but I still love it).

Earlier in the evening, I had talked on the phone with Valerie for awhile — to officially wish her a happy 60th birthday. And she even mentioned how much happier I sound nowadays, now that I’m in this house, this town.

It’s just so true. I still stress out a little because I have so many projects that I’m juggling, but it’s a whole different type of stress. I’m  totally okay with it.

Okay, well, I have to get back at it now. The clock is sort of ticking. I hope Wednesday finds you enjoying yourself, wherever you are in the world and with whatever you’re doing. Thanks for visiting.

I’m gonna leave you with a very brief excerpt from Twilight of the Immortal.

In it, Rudolph Valentino has just been released from a Los Angeles jail, after having been arrested for illegally marrying Natacha Rambova in Mexico.

Okay. I love you guys. See ya!

********************************

(Excerpt from the novel, Twilight of the Immortal)

It was nearly noon when Rudy walked in the door, alone. My belly was full; Han had come and gone, I was tidying up the kitchen when I heard the front door opening and then five dogs going happily mad.

I ran to the front door landing. “You’re all right?” I said.

He looked dazed. “I’m all right. Just very tired. I have to be back in court in two weeks. Until then, all I want to do is sleep. Did Natacha call?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

I walked him upstairs to his own room; he wanted the big bed, the one he shared with Natacha, not the one that made him feel like a guest in his own home. “Forgive me,” he said. “I think I need a bath, but I’m too tired.” He sat down on the bed and took off his shoes. He removed his tie and took off his jacket. When he began removing his suspenders, I started to leave the room. “Don’t go,” he said wearily. “I don’t want to be alone. Stay.”

I stayed. “I have to say, Rudy; you look terrible. I’m really sorry you had to go through this. Joseph Schenck called this morning. He was ready to pay your bail – every cent of it and then some.”

The news seemed to perk up his spirits, but only a smidgen. “Schenck can come up with the money but Lasky couldn’t? Schenck, a man I barely know, who heads the newest company in town, instead of the man who heads the most powerful studio in Hollywood, whose company I’ve just made millions of dollars for?”

“It would seem so,” I said quietly.

He tossed his expensive shirt to the floor. I retrieved it and set it carefully over the butler chair. “I’m so deeply in debt now,” he lamented. “Do you even realize? I owe Lasky for this house, and the twelve thousand he gave me to pay off Jean, and now I owe my friends another ten thousand dollars…”

“Don’t torture yourself. Just get some sleep. Were you able to sleep at all in that awful jail?”

He looked at me. It was the look of someone trying hard to focus; he was thoroughly exhausted. “They drugged me in there,” he said.

“What?”

“They drugged me,” he repeated; “The man in charge of the cell – the man with the keys?  He gave me a cup of coffee that had something in it. I don’t remember everything he did to me last night, but I remember enough. And everybody watched. It was the Devil’s circus – behind bars.” Rudy laid down on the bed in his undershirt and his trousers; his head sinking into the pillow that was now stained with my dried tears. “Don’t ever let them take you to jail in this town, Rosemary; fight them with all you’ve got. I thought New York was bad – they call it ‘The Tombs’ for a reason – but it was civilized compared to what I’ve just been through.”

“Good God,” I said quietly. “Are you hurt?”

“Just stay,” was all he said. “Keep your eye on the door. Keep them all away from me. I just need some quiet. I need to be alone now.”

© 2012 Marilyn Jaye Lewis

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Valentino as ‘The Sheik”, 1921

Don’t just sit there reading this, dust something!!

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Yes! So far, it’s a terrific Tuesday! I’m teaching the cats how to use a vacuum cleaner!  (It seems fair, since they shed more than I do and I have way too much to do and they’re always just sitting there, staring at stuff.) (At dust, most likely.)

Oh, before I forget, I uploaded another old song. (If you’re on your phone, you have to turn it sideways to see it.) This is a really terrible demo, which is unfortunate because I love this song. But it’s the only version of it that was ever transferred to MP3.  The demo was made back in 1985 on the 4 track in my bedroom, and then we took it to my boyfriend’s bedroom (a drummer), to his 4 track at his place, and he added some drum & synth stuff.

We had a really fun time making it, but it was only ever intended to be a reference demo to take to the studio. And, alas, it shows! But if you listen to it, try to hear the fun & not the horrible quality of sound!

Anyway! Yes, it’s Tuesday!! And I approach this day knowing full well I have too much to do!

In another brief conversation I had with Gus Van Sant Sr. the other day:

HIM: “Well, who’s your agent now? Who’s managing you?”

ME: “Nobody. I suppose I’d better do something about that, but I just, you know – me and agents….”

HIM: (laughter — too much, in fact)

I won’t repeat the rest of the conversation!! It is sufficient to say, I need to bite the bullet and stop doing everything myself because my life is getting a wee bit unwieldy over here.

Yes! I will indeed be contributing a brief segment of my new memoir-in-progress, In the Shadow of Narcissa, to Edge of Humanity Magazine once a week or so. This will be a condensed version of what will appear on my own site.

Yes! This means I have to be sure to write something new (& publishable) at least once a week, and I am now up to my eyeballs with revisions of Tell My Bones because Sandra will be arriving pretty much any moment now to begin rehearsals.

If you don’t follow EdgeofHumanity.com, they feature a lot of really cool photo journalists from all over the world. I really love the photographs on that site. Plus, there’s poetry, people’s music playlists, and occasional nonfiction stuff.  Which is where my pieces from In the Shadow of Narcissa come in: occasional nonfiction stuff.

I’m excited.  I’ve been following them for a while and it’s a whole worldful of other readers.

I’m not really sure why I suddenly found this memoir of my childhood springing out of me, or why I felt I needed to lock myself into a weekly publication schedule for it. I’m still doing my Inner Being journaling every morning, and re: the new memoir, it said: “To a point, it serves you to examine these things because it is assisting your journey out of the DARKNESS.” (That word actually came out capitalized.)

(You should keep one of these journals, gang. They are  incredible and surprising and illuminating.)

I don’t consider myself someone who is still in darkness. However, by writing this memoir, and facing things about my adoptive mother — I have always tried to focus on the good side of her and block out the bad, but that was part of her narcissism: training me to do that — more and more I see that it is in fact a miracle that I survived my childhood. I did attempt suicide twice, but my will to live, which was always bubbling underneath the nightmare, was just ridiculously strong. It’s sort of startling to recognize that now; to marvel at the odds that I am even still here. So I guess that’s the purpose the memoir is serving for now.

Obviously, I’m hoping that the memoir will be helpful to someone else out there who will read it. Assuming I manage to drag something uplifting and helpful out of that whole mess.

Yesterday, Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files newsletter brought up some really difficult memories for me re: my mother and the death of my boyfriend back in the summer of 1974. (The newsletter was about the death of his own son and the death of someone else’s son.) And I just could not shake the memories for the whole day.

Still, it was good to sort of see it. Not to dwell on it, but to acknowledge it and try to process it somehow.

Yesterday was actually the “anniversary” of me being committed to a mental hospital after my first suicide attempt in 1975. I was put in there right before my 15th birthday. They actually gave me a birthday cake in there. However, I was on “suicide precaution,” which meant that for the first several weeks of my incarceration (I was literally incarcerated – I was there against my will and in a building where we were literally locked in and the windows were covered in this heavy mesh stuff that you couldn’t break out of.  And everything inside the place was locked. Everything.  Every drawer, every cabinet, every door, every window. And any room where you could possibly be alone in it — that was also locked. In that building, we were treated like criminals but it was only because we were all suicidal.)

Anyway! That’s cheery, right? But I digress.

On my 15th birthday, they gave me a piece of birthday cake (the rest of my cake, they gave to everybody else), but I was confined to my room because I was brand new there and on “suicide precaution.” And I was only allowed to use a spoon. For several weeks, I was only allowed to use a spoon because forks & knives were elements of destruction.

Those first few weeks in there were so frightening to me, because I was always confined alone in my room. And of course, everyone outside of my room was “crazy.”  And if I needed to use the bathroom, Security would accompany me. It was a communal bathroom, which in and of itself I hated. Just no privacy at all. Ever. And the Security person (a man) would follow me right in to the bathroom and just stand there while I tried helplessly to just do what I needed to do in there. He was protecting me from myself, I guess. But it was awful because I was only 15, and really shy, and of course my period had come because it always managed to come when it was least wanted.

It was just awful, those first few weeks.

But what eventually sank in was that my mother was not able to get at me in that place — they wouldn’t let her visit me for a long time– and for the first time in my 15 years of life, I had a sense of peace. It didn’t last long, but it did come.

Anyway, I have to scoot. I have been alerted via a text from Sandra that we are having a phone chat in 5 minutes…

Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world, gang! Thanks for visiting. I’m going to leave you with this unlikely song. I actually listened to it last night for the first time in over 40 years. It was the song that was playing on the AM radio when they were telling me to get into the car because I was being taken to a mental hospital, for my own protection or something insane like that. It was a song I associated closely with Greg, my boyfriend who had died. By then he had almost been dead one year. And the song was unbearable for me to hear, even on days when I wasn’t being scurried off to a loony bin .

But I played the song last night, and I lived through it. I’m hoping you will, too. I love you guys. See ya!

“Please Mr. Please”

In the corner of the bar there stands a jukebox
With the best of country music, old and new
You can hear your five selections for a quarter
And somebody else’s songs when yours are throughI got good Kentucky whiskey on the counter
And my friends around to help me ease the pain
‘Til some button-pushing cowboy plays that love song
And here I am just missing you again

Please, Mr., please, don’t play B-17
It was our song, it was his song, but it’s over
Please, Mr., please, if you know what I mean
I don’t ever wanna hear that song again

If I had a dime for every time I held you
Though you’re far away, you’ve been so close to me
I could swear I’d be the richest girl in Nashville
Maybe even in the state of Tennessee

But I guess I’d better get myself together
‘Cause when you left, you didn’t leave too much behind
Just a note that said “I’m sorry” by your picture
And a song that’s weighing heavy on my mind

Please, Mr., please, don’t play B-17
It was our song, it was his song, but it’s over
Please, Mr., please, if you know what I mean
I don’t ever wanna hear that song again

c – 1975 WELCH BRUCE, ROSTILL JOHN HENRY

Gimme A Pill — Please!

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Or as Huey Lewis & the News so succinctly put it a million light years ago:  “I need a new drug!”

Something/Anything.  [Todd Rundgren said that in 1972.]

Mostly, I’m just exhausted, gang. Spiritually. Psychologically. The constant dialogue that goes on in my brain.

ME (to my brain, while I’m washing the breakfast dishes): “You know, I could adapt that Cleveland project for the stage. I’d have to re-think the story arc, but I can already see the sets.”

MY BRAIN:”Knock it off already. We’ve got too many ideas in here.”

ME (to my brain this morning, while I’m going over the new memoir): “You know, I could re-write this as a micro -memoir. Or even a  long prose poem.”

MY BRAIN:”Knock it off already. We’ve got too many ideas in here. You should not have even started this one in the first place.”

ME (to my brain, while I’m listening to White Lunar during lunch): “This music is giving me some great ideas for Tell My Bones. I could see re-writing it as a screenplay.”

MY BRAIN: “You idiot!! It started out as a screenplay! Knock it off already!”

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I’m just exhausted.  Happy, but exhausted.

And then yet another Australian musician started following me on Instagram today. And he texts me something about a photo I posted of Patti Smith’s Horses album cover (the album that I’ve had since 1975). And he says that Horses inspired him to become a songwriter.

So then I’m scrolling through his photos and I see a lot of old Bowie stuff, and I’m thinking we have very similar musical tastes and inspirations.

Then I click on one of his old Bowie photos — Bowie being a man who hugely & continuously inspired me since 1973 — and I discover that the guy in Australia is about 17 years old or something insane like that – still in school – and only found out about Bowie long after Bowie died.

And then that exhausts me, too. WTF?  Just how old am I? And how long has Bowie been dead – wasn’t that just last week?! And how come I have similar tastes and inspirations to teenage boys on the other side of the globe?

That shit just makes me collapse.

I was 14 years old when I saw Bowie’s Diamond Dogs tour back in Cleveland. That was over 40 years ago.

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Honestly, I don’t give a hoot how old I am, but I just don’t comprehend how old I am. I can’t get an accurate grip on it.

I recently met this 17 year-old boy here in the Hinterlands and he just makes me laugh. I adore him. He’s really delightful. And so unusual and I love his energy. And I love when he comes around. And he knows so many old rock & roll songs that I wouldn’t expect him to know — knows all the words.  And he’ll blurt out the most wildly inappropriate and hysterical things.

And I am like – what? Old enough to be his grandmother maybe?! Why the heck do I get along so well with him?

And yet most people my own age… I’m going to be 59 a week from tomorrow. Unless they’re old rockers or old hippies — and that’s the men; the women I have, like, nothing in common with because they are grandmothers.

It’s just weird. I feel like I’m floating off in some strange orbit, all by myself most of the time. (And while I’m off in that strange orbit, more & more & more ideas keep coming to me for projects that require months of getting written down…) (I’m exhausted.)

Anyway. All sorts of amazing good news came in this morning’s email but I can’t discuss that on the blog yet, either. It’s sufficient to say that I am just so blessed, gang. And I was planning to take it a little easy today, but when the email came, I was springing out of my skin. All excited and happy and ready to get back to work on something/anything.

One of these days, though, I’m gonna stay in bed late. And just lie there and stare out the window at my beautiful maple tree and the sky beyond. Just hug my soft fluffy pillows and snuggle there and relax. Really relax. Do nothing. Type nothing, Think nothing new.

Just lie there and smile and imagine what it might feel like if I could train the cats to bring me a cup of coffee…

Yes. Well.

In the meantime, I hope your Sunday is going swimmingly, wherever you are in the world! I leave you with this. It was an amazing album, gang. Some of it was depressing, but all of it was thrilling, regardless, when I was 14.

All right. Thanks for visiting. I love you guys! See ya!

“Rock ‘N Roll With Me”

You always were the one that knew
They sold us for the likes of you
I always wanted new surroundings
A room to rent while the lizards lay crying in the heat
Trying to remember who to meet

I would take a foxy kind of stand
While tens of thousands found me in demand

[CHORUS]
When you rock ‘n’ roll with me
No one else I’d rather be
Nobody here can do it for me
I’m in tears again
When you rock ‘n’ roll with me

Gentle hearts are counted down
The queue is out of sight and out of sounds
Me, I’m out of breath, but not quite doubting
I’ve found a door which lets me out!

[CHORUS (x3)]

c – 1974 David Bowie

Good Thing Summer Days Last Longer!

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Happy Saturday, gang!

Peitor has familial obligations in – yes!! – Iowa this weekend. So we are not working on any scripts this morning.  (It seems weird, doesn’t it – that he spent his childhood in both Florence, Italy and Iowa??!!) (It’s because both of his parents were tenured University Professors. In Literature. Both of them. Talk about intense. Both of his parents were always extremely friendly and all. But they’re both ridiculously intelligent. You always wanted to be wearing your best vocabulary whenever they came to visit in NYC.)

Anyway. So I have a little bit of a reprieve from “projects” today, which is good because now I have way too many that I’m trying to focus on every day. I know it’s because I started that memoir website thing from out of nowhere, and then setting up the page became stupidly time-consuming. I wasn’t expecting that.

But Sandra is in fact flying in here in a couple weeks to begin the initial rehearsals of the play (staying with the director because she’s allergic to cats!!), so I have to redirect my focus away from In the Shadow of Narcissa for a moment and get back to Tell My Bones.

I’m in a good place about that, though. And I’ve been kind of waiting for that feeling: that the play was getting queued up inside me.

If I’m not feeling aligned energetically with a project, it’s useless to kill time sitting and waiting on it. I go in the emotional direction of whatever calls me on any given day. It works out better for me that way. But sometimes, deadlines sort of force you to focus on something, regardless. So I’m gad that I can feel the play bubbling up inside me again because that’s what needs my attention most right now.

Plus, the Internet has been super wonky around here the past few days.  It will suddenly go out, for hours, in the whole area. It’s frustrating but it is also a forced “vacation.” I can’t do anything online. I can’t work on the new memoir. I can’t stream any new music. I can’t watch anything on Youtube or Amazon Prime. I can’t work on my Italian lessons, either. Or even tune my guitar!

So I’ve been using it as a signal to just STOP, you know? Because I never just stop until it’s time to collapse in bed at night. And even then, I usually spend an hour or two doing other weird stuff that I won’t go into right now.

Anyway. It does feel good to sort of just stop.  To be peaceful. To just listen to the earth. To take in, sort of from a distance, all the things that are going on right now.

Okay. This will be brief because the Internet has gone in & out about 5 times since I started writing this!! Hopefully, Spectrum will have it all figured out by tomorrow.

Have a wonderful Saturday, gang, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting! I love you guys. See ya!

The internet NEVER used to go out on my typewriter!!

July Is On It’s Way, Gang!

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If you live State-side, then you’re well aware that during this upcoming week, as we celebrate our long-ago decision to not be England, everything pretty much comes to a stop around here and it’s now all about cookouts and kayaking and canoeing and camping and FIREWORKS and bug spray…

Even though I actually love a lot of that stuff, especially camping (I know, I don’t seem like the kind of gal who would like that sort of thing, but I actually do) (and NO, it’s not because I like to have sex in tents, although that is a HUGE part of it), I will more than likely spend a huge amount of this upcoming holiday week working on revisions of the play, since rehearsals begin  in just a few weeks!

I also have a birthday in July, so sometimes July is also all about cake.

Re: camping, loyal readers of this lofty blog, who know my deep and often uncontrollable passion for dishes, will no doubt be in no way nonplussed to learn that my obsession with buying dishes also extends to dishes and cookware made specifically for camping.

It is RIDICULOUS, the amount of Coleman dishes and cookware I own, and I have not actually been camping in, I guess, decades at this point.

Since I’m ostensibly a “New Yorker,” the people I am friends with like to go off to the mountains and stuff, but only to stay in glamorous old mountain  inns and have incredible meals served in dining rooms that have damask table cloths & such. Maybe go on a little hike to take in the splendid vistas, but then go back to the hotel and get a massage.

I used to beg people to go camping with me and everyone was pretty much shocked and horrified to discover that I liked that kind of thing.

The last person I begged to go camping with me was Mikey Rivera, when we were still together and living in the teeming heat of NYC.

ME (super excited by the prospects of being alone in a tent with him, far from the madding crowd of Manhattan):  “Come on, Papi, let’s go up to the mountains and go camping!!”

HIM: “There’s bears up there, Boo.”

And that was the end of that delightful adventure!

Anyway, lots and lots and LOTS of people go camping out here in the Hinterlands. And tons of people go kayaking and canoeing.  Cookouts, bonfires.

I don’t do these kinds of things out here because a.) it seems like I’m always under a deadline for something these days; and b.) none of these folks are vegetarians. Not even close.  And the stranger the animal, the more likely they are to want to eat it.

The stuff that goes on, foodwise out here, can be emotionally debilitating for me, so I kinda steer clear of that.

I will, however, douse myself in bug spray and watch the fireworks from my porch because it has a clear view of the sky over at the ballpark. And I do love fireworks. God knows.

Well, work with Peitor yesterday on the micro-short video script was INTENSE. Man, this little video (8 minutes) is getting intensely complex. It’s too wonderful, really. Because the bottom line is that the premise is absolutely absurd.  Without doubt, completely absurd.

As I’ve said here before, there is very little dialogue in the video.  Perhaps a total of 2 minutes, tops.  And that part is the most absurd section of all.  And yet the entire (wildly brief) thing is, cinematically, an homage to Hitchcock, Bunuel, Bergman, Fellini, and Polanski.

It is just too intense and too fucking funny. And I think that he and I have seen way too many movies for our own good.

Okay!

Brighton did not yield much in the way of Instagram photos of Nick Cave’s Conversation there last night. There was one photo I really loved – I think he was leaving the stage at that point. And there was an interesting photo that Susie Cave posted of a little girl sitting on the edge of the stage.

And now we must find a new reason to go on obsessing, because his Conversations are on hiatus until late August, gang.

I got word last night that the final comments from the editor re: Blessed By Light won’t be arriving in my inbox until Tuesday.  So I seriously have to start focusing on the play. July’s presence in my world is imminent.

But I’m still having trouble disconnecting from one project and launching into revisions of another.

I still have not yet dealt with setting up the new laptop, either.  I’m really not sure what my problem is because now it’s getting sort of extreme — my aversion to doing this, even while I already know I love that new laptop.

Surely, this is not another one of those instances where I keep something that I love at arm’s length from me?? That would just be too easy, gang! There must be some other, less honest way to explain this dilemma with the laptop!

All righty, gang. I’m gonna get more coffee and take a look at the day and decide how I feel about being alive in it! (Pretty good, I think, but that’s just off the top of my head.)

Enjoy your Sunday, wherever you are in the world.  In honor of the upcoming holiday week, I leave you with some songs from my childhood, as put together by Mickey Newbury (but then made famous by Elvis): “American Trilogy.”

I’m guessing all these songs are politically incorrect now, even though one of them was written by a white woman from the North. But anyway. I still love this trilogy. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys! See ya!

Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton
Old times there are not forgotten
Look away, look away, look away Dixieland
Oh I wish I was in Dixie, away, away
In Dixieland I’ll take my stand to live and die in Dixie
Cause Dixieland, that’s where I was born
Early Lord one frosty morning
Look away, look away, look away Dixieland

Glory, glory hallelujah
Glory, glory hallelujah
Glory, glory hallelujah
His truth is marching on

So hush little baby
Don’t you cry
You know your daddy’s bound to die
But all my trials, Lord will soon be over

Trad. Arranged by Mickey Newbury 1971

Good Morning All You Groovy Cats & Kittens!

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I’m feeling lots better today! No new bruises during the night, so I’m just gonna go with that and feel happy!

Before I forget, starting Monday, July 1st, as part of the annual Summer Sale, all the eBook titles that I publish with Smashwords will once again be free to download, in all eBook formats, for the entire month.

There are no new books included in that download. Twilight of the Immortal will be included in the free download, but other than that title, all the others are graphically erotic and not suitable for all readers.

I will post the complete links on Monday.

Okay!!

Only a couple photos out of Brighton last night. I’m guessing it’s another one of those things where people are following the rules and not using their phones. Because there were photos from before & after the actual Conversation with Nick Cave and everyone loved it. They are back to calling him God, btw. I forgot to mention that.

Oh, I also want to follow up on the new Raconteurs album that came out last week, Help Us Stranger. I’ve listened to the whole thing now and I really like it a lot.  Sort of mid-60s-Beatles-esque throughout much of it.  Just a very happy album with really catchy grooves.

I’m still not warming up to the new Stray Cats album, though.  They should have just saturated the fuck out of it with reverb and yet they did not! Of course it could sound better as vinyl, and I’m only listening to it as an MP3, which usually changes the sound a lot. But it’s that lack of that specific sound quality that’s bothering me. Not the songs themselves.

To me, rockabilly isn’t just the rhythm as the overall sound. I don’t care if I can’t understand the words, either. I just really want to hear that noisy reverb chaotic sort of mess, along with that incredible rockabilly rhythm.

With this new Stray Cats record, I can actually understand every single word, so I find that all I’m doing is listening to every single word. And, you know, rockabilly songs are not exactly profound, or anything – I would really just rather feel the overall sensation, and for me, that’s missing.

Other types of music – the kind of songs that God writes, for instance (aka Nick Cave) – if I can’t understand every single solitary word I go insane.

And speaking of words…

Today is Saturday, which means another phone marathon with Peitor in Los Angeles to work on the current micro-short video script.

It’s really amazing to me, gang, how it’s taking shape.

It’s dark & absurd. With the truly absurd part coming in the 5th segment (naturally, my favorite part). There are a total of 6 segments, and the  whole video is under 8 minutes, total. It’s a cross between Ingmar Bergman and Bauhaus photography, although most of it is in color.  (The title of the video is actually in Swedish, with an English subtitle.)

Anyway, it’s super fun, but it is also a heck of a lot of tight brain-focusing and a lot of fast typing, because Peitor starts getting on a roll, forgetting that I’m over here, typing.  Or trying to.

Still no edits/comments from NY on Blessed By Light, but I have to get to work on Tell My Bones, regardless.  Just make myself switch gears however I can. Probably won’t start today, though.  I’m actually kinda really, really worn out over here.

I keep forgetting to mention how amazing the fireflies are out here this summer. Just thousands of them. They are so pretty. Prime viewing time is at about 9:15 pm. They are all over my backyard then.

I just watch from the huge kitchen window. Because the mosquitoes out here are nasty. I can’t set one foot outside in the evening if I’m not covered in bug spray. And I hate being covered in bug spray.

I also have an amazing spider in the upper corner of my kitchen porch. You should see the amount of webs this guy builds, and how quickly he does it. Once they get all raggedy looking, I wipe them all down and get rid of them. But by sunset, he has them all back in place. It’s staggering, really, how quickly he works and how elaborate they are and how much space they take up. And when the sun’s all the way down and it’s truly nighttime, he just sits there in the middle of it all. He’s pretty big. I can see him really easily because there’s a streetlight on the corner across the street.

And a pigeon has built her nest in the rain gutter above my kitchen porch. Yes, the same gutter that I had gotten all tidily repaired last fall because the starlings did so much damage to it by building their nests there. (I won’t even tell you all the damage the starlings have done to the gutters over my back door. And all the various other birds’ nests sprouting out from gutters in other areas of the roof – plus, a ton of tiny little maple trees growing like crazy in a couple of the other gutters. It’s a bit of a mess. I used to feel guilty about it until I noticed that all my neighbors have the same thing going on.)

Okay, well. That’s it for the nature talk today. I’m gonna get going here. Grab some more coffee.  Take in this gorgeous morning before it’s time for the phone call.

I hope you have a wonderful Saturday, wherever you are in the world! I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from today.  “Palaces of Montezuma” from Grinderman 2. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys! See ya!

“Palaces Of Montezuma”

Psychedelic invocations
Of Mata Hari at the station
I give to you
A Javan princess of Hindu Birth
A woman of flesh, a child of earth
I give to you
The hanging gardens of Babylon
Miles Davis, the black unicorn
I give to you
The palaces of Montezuma
And the gardens of Akbar’s tomb
I give to you
The Spider Goddess and the Needle Boy
The slave-dwarves they employ
I give to you
A custard-coloured super-dream
Of Ali McGraw and Steve McQueen
I give to you

C’mon baby, let’s get out of the cold
And gimme, gimmme, gimme your precious love for me to hold

The epic of Gilgamesh
A pretty little black A-line dress
I give to you
The spinal cord of JFK
Wrapped in Marilyn Monroe’s negligee
I give to you
I want nothing in return
Just the softest little breathless word
I ask of you
A word contained in a grain of sand
That can barely walk, can’t even stand
I ask of you

C’mon baby, let’s get out of the cold
And gimme, gimme, gimme your precious love for me to hold
C’mon baby, come out of the cold
And gimme, gimme, gimme your precious love for me to hold

c – 2010 Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, James Sclavunos, Martyn Casey

My Coffee NEVER Arrives Like This!!

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I always have to go down to the kitchen and get the coffee myself, and in the process, try not to trip over hundreds of scampering cats who can’t stand me.

Okay. Perhaps I exaggerate – there are only 7 cats here who can’t stand me.

But I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve never had this sort of announcement when the coffee was ready. Least of all, by a guy who wore a seriously nice robe such as the one pictured above! (And I guarantee you; I have had plenty of nightgowns that looked like hers, so that can’t be the issue here.)

I guess it’ll just remain one of those eternal mysteries, gang – why it is that vintage advertisements never seem to reflect the life I’ve lived.

Still awaiting comments & edits from NY on Blessed By Light. In the meantime, I’m trying to sort of urge my mind into the Tell My Bones groove. The play could not possibly be more different from Blessed By Light if it tried, so I seriously have to find a way to steer my mind away from one creative track and onto another.

It feels like that “changing horses in midstream” kind of thing. My mind doesn’t really feel ready to let go of Blessed By Light, but it has to. It is almost July and rehearsals will begin in a few weeks, and the director wants to see all my revisions for the entire play before we get started. (The rehearsals, though, will primarily be for the staged reading version of the script, which is only a 30 minute condensed version of the whole play.)

Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I went through a lot of stress, creating that staged reading version of the script back in January/February, and made significant changes to the storytelling at that point that haven’t been incorporated into the overall script yet. So I have to tackle that. And of course tackle it as the heat of July approaches.

But I actually do okay, writing in intensely unbearable heat. Sleeping in it is where I have serious problems.

Okay!

Yesterday’s post, curiously enough, yielded lots of traffic from Russia that I don’t usually experience – and none of it came through the WordPress Reader. Indeed curious, right?

Freaked me out just a little bit, I have to say. But on we go.

The last few days have yielded another sort of interesting development.

Even while being incredibly happy with finishing the new novel, and really happy with how it reads as a completed book, I’ve had these weird physical things that have started to perplex me. Relentless and usually overwhelming fatigue is an ongoing issue. Now pain issues. And now bruises appearing from out of nowhere that I can’t explain.

Yesterday evening, I found several more bruises. But you know, that sudden out of body experience I had while meditating yesterday morning felt really profound to me.  That idea that it was futile to go on because there was too much “nature” out in front of me, and yet that feeling of peace about being right where I was, because everything was so beautiful right where I was.

Obviously, I don’t like seeing these bruises.  And yesterday, I found 4 more.  I like to believe it’s just some weird byproduct of being a vegetarian and maybe not getting enough of some sort of vitamin. Still, whatever it ends up being, that sense of peace came over me again yesterday and it was profound. I felt totally okay with everything.

I’m so happy that I finished the novel, and I know I’ll finish the play, and I feel certain I’ll finish Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse.

I have several other projects that I’ve already started – 3 plays, another novel, and a memoir; and then TV adaptations for 2 of my older novels. But yesterday, it suddenly felt like, well, if I don’t complete those projects for whatever reason, it’s okay. It’s these 3 primary ones that are front & center right now that matter most to me and I know for sure I’m going to finish those.

It’s a type of thinking I’ve never really had before, but it all felt really, really good to me. Like absolutely everything is all right, no matter what path I end up finding myself on.

Plus I think that the people that I love in this life know that I love them. And that’s really important to me.

Loyal readers of this lofty blog know all about Greg, the boy I fell in love with when I was 11 years old and he was 12; and I stayed in love with him until he was killed in an accident the summer I was 14 and he was 15.  And then all sorts of horrible things began to unravel in my world after he died. And I never got a chance to tell him that I loved him. I was a child, you know?  Throughout that whole relationship. Even though we had a ton of sex. I was still a child, really. I was overwhelmed by all the feelings I had for him, but it would never have occurred to me to say “I love you.” It just wasn’t part of my emotional landscape yet.

And I don’t think anything ever felt worse to me than having him suddenly be gone, forever, without being able to tell him that I loved him.

But ever since then, boy, I’ll tell you. I try to express how I feel towards people as best I can. Even though on so many levels, I am a really self-involved person, I do actually care deeply about people. Obviously, readers here know that I have this life-long processing of physical abuse and rape issues that I still deal with many decades later; things that have caused me to have intimacy problems that I try to process in the most productive ways I can. Still, it makes “relationships” very hard for me to maintain. But underneath all the drama, I still care deeply about people.

And I guess in some ways, even though this sounds sort of lame or even like an emotional cop out, my writing is always about human emotions and the emotional complexities of “being here” and the messages we give each other by “being here.”  I do care very much about the human condition, the human heart, and I try to put all of that into my writing and hope that it continues to affect people positively.  Even when there’s a lot of sex going on in what I’m writing, the human heart is always the central issue for me. That struggle for the heart to connect while it’s still here.

Love people. Help them feel loved. Let people know they’re not alone. Life is the same innate journey for all of us, even while we experience it each in our own unique way. I really believe there is an undercurrent to all of it that is exactly the same for all of us, and it comes from love.

Okay.

I still did not set up the laptop. I have some revisions I need to make by tomorrow to the micro-short video script that Peitor and I are working on, so I will probably avoid the laptop yet again and focus on that today! Or at least this morning. And then avoid the laptop by doing stuff like washing my hair, doing yoga, finding something to stare at and then stare at it. Study Italian. Play the guitar…

I so don’t want to deal with that laptop, and yet I also can’t wait for it to be ready for me to use!! What a conundrum!

All righty!

The Conversations with Nick Cave continue in Brighton for the next couple nights and then will completely disappear from the landscape for a couple of months, wherein I’m certain he will have all sorts of private (lower case ‘c’) conversations and wear whatever he wants to wear! Instagram will somehow survive and continue to get all clogged up with all sorts of things that may or may not mean anything.

As usual, we shall see!

The breakfast-listening music was a little sad today – one of Tom Petty’s many “divorce” songs before he finally got up his nerve (basically) to divorce Jane. It’s a song I’ve posted here numerous times over the years just because I really love the darn song: “Only A Broken Heart.”

(You know, if you like Tom Petty and have never read either his official biography, Petty, by Warren Zane, a really good book and a NY Times Bestseller from 2015; or Conversations with Tom Petty by Paul Zollo, a phenomenally good book from 2006; you should read them. He talks about pretty much every song he ever wrote and why he wrote them and what was going on in his life when he wrote what he wrote, as well as songs that might mean a lot to you that he barely even remembers writing because it meant almost nothing to him. Even his huge hit “Wildflowers,” a really gentle little love song/folk song, he says was actually a song he wrote for himself; because he knew he was unhappy but that he deserved to be happy and he needed to get a divorce… It’s just all very, very interesting if you like Tom Petty.)

Okay, enjoy your Friday, folks. Wherever it takes you! Thanks for visiting, gang. Please know I love you guys so much!! See ya!

“Only A Broken Heart”

Here comes that feeling I’ve seen in your eyes
Back in the old days, before the hard times
But I’m not afraid anymore
It’s only a broken heart

I know the place where you keep your secrets
Out of the sunshine, down in a valley
But I’m not afraid anymore
It’s only a broken heart

What would I give, to start all over again
To clean up my mistakes

Stand in the moonlight, stand under heaven
Wait for an answer, hold out forever
But don’t be afraid anymore
It’s only a broken heart

What would I give, to start all over again
To clean up my mistakes

I know your weakness, you’ve seen my dark side
The end of the rainbow is always a long ride
But I’m not afraid anymore
It’s only a broken heart

c- 1994  Thomas Earl Petty

Voglio andare in biblioteca!!

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Yes, indeedy! I want to go the library!

I actually might say this while I’m in Italy, gang!!

We are at long last inching our way into the ballpark of things I can see myself possibly saying while sequestered in Villa Monte Malbe in Perugia.

We shall see! But the important thing is that I’m still really enjoying the Mondly app. It’s really fun. I do real well on my quizzes, which is remarkable. They are throwing so much stuff at me every day,  only a fraction of which I am retaining at this point, because my primary focus is on revisions of Blessed By Light and then, of course, revisions of Tell My Bones. So why I score well on the quizzes is a complete mystery to me.

I guess it means that somewhere, deep down inside me, Italian is making itself known to me and that this time next year, when I step off the plane in Rome and open my mouth, fluent Italian will spring forth!

That’s the goal, anyway.

Okay!

Gosh, it’s a lovely day here today, gang. Just unbelievably pretty out there.  Last evening we had – yes, more rain! – but it has made for just a really, really nice day today.

I watched the final episode of season 6 of Endeavour last evening. It was really good, although I do have to say that it had some very tidy “happy endings” all the way around, for all the characters. But, still. It was nice to know that everything is back where it needs to be and all set up for a killer season 7 next summer!

It’s amazing how quickly I get addicted to that show. And they only do 4 episodes in a season.  In the old days, back when it first came on and I would actually watch it on a television set, I used to DVR it and re-watch each episode so many times. But now I just don’t have time. I’m lucky to watch it once. But, wow, do I love that show.

For some unknown reason, after I watched Endeavour down in the kitchen last evening, I suddenly decided to wash the downstairs bathroom floor. This is the floor that had Daddycakes’ footprints on it. After he died, I was unable to bring myself to clean the floor because of his little paw prints being there on the tile.

It’s been over 2 months now since he died, and even though there were still traces of his  paw prints on the bathroom floor, what I really actually had, was a very dirty bathroom floor.

So I tried not to get sad and I finally mopped it. I have to say, it certainly looks a lot better.

But I really miss that cat.

Okay.

Well. Nick Cave is in Nottingham tonight. And, yes, for all you Americans who, like me,  grew up on the story of Robin Hood, it turns out that Nottingham is an actual place.

Of course, I’ve known for a very long time that Nottingham is an actual place, but I remember how strange it seemed, when I first learned that it was indeed an actual place.  It just sounded so intensely mythical.

Plus, there are connections between Robin Hood and some sort of folk-hero bandit  type person who indeed lived in Sherwood Forest.

All that stuff just fascinates me.  How myths, and legends, and stuff get handed down through storytelling.

On my birth mother’s side, I am partially of Scottish descent, and that particular last name on that side is Hood.  On my birth father’s side, as I’ve detailed here on the blog, I have connections to quite a few interesting historical people, including Daniel Boone and Chief Blue Jacket. And I’m also a cousin to Louisa May Alcott.

But, on my birth mother’s side, the relatives were a lot humbler in origin. But I tell people that the family name on that side was Hood, and that I’m a direct descendant of Robin.

You’d be amazed how many people actually believe me when I say that. It’s all in how you say it, you know?  Especially if you’ve been throwing around names like Daniel Boone and Chief Blue Jacket.

Anyway. I digress.

We’ll see how it goes on Instagram tonight, but I’m noticing that people who aren’t supposed to be taking pictures with their phones during the Conversations, wait a day or two, and then suddenly the photos they weren’t supposed to take start getting posted to Instagram.

There was one photo of Nick Cave posted last night, in black & white, from Scotland that was just beautiful. So we’ll see.

I guess I’d better get to work here on the revisions of Blessed By Light. I decided to do a significant overhaul of Chapter Two, so that’s on my plate for today. And for some reason, I’m looking forward to this and not freaking out.

I leave you with this, gang. And, yes, I know, I’ve left you with this before. But yesterday, I drove into town to get groceries. On the way back, I was going my usual 95 mph. No one else on the highway.  A bit of atmospheric rain, making everything intensely green again all over Muskingum County for as far as the eye could see. I was listening to the “Wildflowers” CD for the first time in a long time, and when this song came on, I punched the REPEAT button and totally cranked up the volume.

It’s a really sexy little song, gang. A great groove.  But for some reason, when you’re driving in the rain, and this song is playing REALLY loud, and you’re sailing along super fast because you’re in Muskingum County which means that the Sheriff is never too worried about what you might be getting up to in your going-very-fast vehicle; well, then the sexiness of the song gets amp-ed up and — I don’t know — it just makes you really want to have sex.

(I know. It doesn’t take much to make me really want to have sex, but this is just, I don’t know, I guess, yet another one of those endless things that make me really want to have sex. Before you stoop to mocking me, though, you should get in your car, drive fast through Muskingum County in the rain, and crank this song, and see if it doesn’t do it for you, too.)

All righty! Thanks for visiting, gang! Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world!! I love you guys! See ya!

[Come on, now, play it A LOT louder than that or it won’t work! – Ed.]

“Cabin Down Below”

Come on go with me, babe
Come on go with me, girl
Baby, let’s go
To the cabin down below

I got a radio
Put it on soft and low
Baby, let’s go
To the cabin down below

Well, I’ve had my eye on you
For a long, long time
I’m watching everything you do
Baby, you’re gonna be mine

Come on go with me, babe
Come on go with me, girl
Baby, let’s go
To the cabin down below

Time’s been moving slow
Since we both got here
Come on slide a little closer
Let me whisper in your ear

Well I got a radio
Turn it on soft and low
Baby, let’s go
To the cabin down below

Oh, baby, let’s go
To the cabin down below
Baby, let’s love
In the cabin down below

c – 1994 Tom Petty

Easy-Peasy, Gang!

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Yes, I am of course talking about the endless editing that I’m now doing to Blessed By Light.

I finally signed off on the revisions to Chapter One (I’m really happy with them, btw; this is the strangest novel I’ve ever read, gang, and I think that’s a good thing). But then I realized that Chapter Two could be more streamlined, so I’m up to my eyeballs now in that.

But, honestly, it’s not so bad now. I got past all the stymied weirdness of the other day. And I know for sure that the whole book doesn’t need editing; it’s just these opening chapters that I want to tighten.

So.

I’m okay with it.

That’s me, btw, up at the top there. 30 years ago. I was at my best friend’s beach house in North Carolina. He has long since died from AIDS. But back then – wow, he was the only person who could calm me down.

Actually, when we knew for sure he was dying, that he would not survive, that was his main concern: “Marilyn, how are you going to be okay without me?”

And I absolutely did not know.  Although I didn’t want him dying while worrying about me, so I told him that I would figure it out – how to be okay without him.

I guess I did; I’ve managed, anyway, even though I don’t have any other “best friend” and that is super lonely. But I can guarantee you there are no other photos in existence of me looking that relaxed.

Anyway! It’s a beautiful day here. I didn’t blog earlier because I slept in until 7 a.m.!! I don’t remember the last time I did that, but it felt good. I woke up happy.  But now that I’ve switched my meditation time back to first thing in the morning, then I do that Inner Being journaling thing, and then I had to get started on the revisions. Then do yoga…

So, anyway, here we are! Day’s half over!

I’m gonna say first, though, that I am hopelessly lost now re: all these Conversations with Nick Cave in the UK. I don’t think anyone in Scotland posted to Instagram last night. Plus, all these johnny-come-latelies from London and Manchester are still posting to Instagram, confusing me, and other people who have tickets to upcoming shows back in Scandinavia are posting things that haven’t even happened yet, and since Nick Cave apparently insists on wearing the same darn suit all the time, I am losing my ability to figure out where the heck he is.

The UK is really decidedly weird, though. Meaning that they seem to be incredibly okay with detaching themselves from their phones and so not posting pictures to Instagram. So they are really just screwing me up.

Oh, sort of on an unrelated note. Right this moment there is an amazing photo of Iggy Pop on Instagram that he posted to his own official page. He’s in concert and, as usual, is only wearing clothes from the waist down. But this photo is an extreme close-up of him from the waist up. He’s in his 70s now and still really muscular, but his skin is an absolute roadmap of lines and wrinkles. It is just jaw-dropping and breathtaking. It truly is.

I love Iggy Pop.

Back in the early 80s, when I was taking that songwriting workshop with (the late) Jim Carroll, one of our assignments was to write some specific lyrics and turn them in. And at that particular time, I was reading Iggy Pop’s memoir, I Need More, from his years living in Germany. So I wrote a song about that.

Here’s a photo of page 1 of my graded assignment – Jim Carroll’s comments. (I treasure this, obviously. Usually we didn’t have to turn stuff in, we went over stuff in class. So I don’t have his handwriting on too many things.) (Oh, I adored Jim Carroll, too, in case you’re new to this lofty blog.)

The song I wrote about Iggy Pop as an assignment for Jim Carroll’s songwriting workshop in early 1984.

Jim Carroll actually terrified me. He was SUPER nice. He really was. But he was also really tall – hence, The Basketball Diaries. And I was really shy. Whenever he would stand too close to me, I would sort of silently panic and freak out. Once, I arrived for class just as he was arriving and so we road up alone together in the elevator (he was usually surrounded by a swarm of students, but this time it was just him & me). He had an intense Bronx accent, and he said, “Hey, so, what’s yer name again – Mary Ann?”

ME: (inaudible reply)

HIM (smiles): “Hm. So how ya doin’?”

ME (just a sort of chirp): “oh. you know. fine.”

I was just terrified of him. It was too funny.

One time, at the end of a class, students still all over the place, he was talking to me about something I had written and while he was talking to me, he was picking at some lint or something on the lapel of my jeans jacket. So, in essence, he was touching me. I have no clue what he was talking about because the blood just went barreling through my eardrums and drowned out everything else. I was so excited that he was, you know, sort of touching me….Anyway.

I’m not 100% positive about this, but I think that Jim Carroll died in the same way that F. Scott Fitzgerald did — had a heart attack at his desk while he was in the middle of writing something.

Well, to switch gears entirely.

After I was done meditating this morning, I decided to get yet another hotel room in NYC for after that first Conversation with Nick Cave that’s happening on Saturday night, 9/21.  I got a hotel room close to Lincoln Center.

I had been planning to maybe ask Sandra if I could just stay that one night in her pieds a terre there in the city, because it’s close to Lincoln Center.

She & her husband now live up in Rhinebeck, which is where I’ll be when we aren’t rehearsing in the city, and I’ve been worrying how intensely rude it will feel for me to leave Lincoln Center and grab that last train out of Penn Station and then arrive back at their house up in Rhinebeck really late and maybe even wake them up.

But then I was afraid to ask her if I could borrow her pieds a terre, because it feels sort of presumptuous to do that – you know, she being an actress and I’m just a lowly scribe. But mostly because I still feel really weird about being in NYC for rehearsals of my own play and then inserting these 2 Nick Cave Conversations in the middle of all that and making myself unavailable for 2 nights.

But, anyway, I finally decided on getting another hotel room and so I’ll just do that and now I feel a little more relaxed about that whole thing.

So life is just working out merrily on all fronts!

And work with Peitor on the micro-short video scripts yesterday was kind of incredible. Extremely intense. It is a shot by shot kind of script that we’re working on right now. So I’m sort of transcribing the thoughts that are in his head – the visuals.  Sort of putting a storyboard into text (before we actually storyboard it), since this particular video has almost no dialogue, and it’s loaded with abstract visuals and industrial sorts of sounds.

I was kinda tired by the time we ended the call. And we only had maybe a page and a half of script. Just intense brain-work for me. But it’s all still so exciting.

Okay, I’m gonna close.  Have a good Sunday, whatever’s left of it where you are, gang! Thanks for visiting! I love you guys. See ya.