Now's The Time

I can hear a cricket outside tonight, or maybe it's a tree frog, if they have those here. Mom always told me it was probably a tree frog when I thought I heard crickets. Anyway, the air is cooling and things have settled a bit, in a way. There are continual reasons to worry and I can't seem to stop focusing on them. I'm watching The Devil and Daniel Jonhston now and wondering why I can't be so fucking creative when I feel like I'm balancing on the verge of insanity all the time. Maybe that it's it, huh? You have to topple over. And a handful of times I have, or I've begun to. No, that's not true. Even in the times when I've been named crazy I've never really lost myself enough to tell it all, to lay it all out there. There's always reservation. There is always reservation with me. Everytime things seem to go wrong again or make me uncomfortable there's more reservation. Honestly...I think that my release in writing begins and ends there. The more experiences that I have that could inspire the more reservation I build above it. When i think I break the walls down I've already begun to build stronger ones behind it...stronger or weaker, or something too heavy for me to lift. Maybe I really should take time for me. Friendships, affairs, I guess it's time to go back to focusing on me. Yup. That's it.

absinthe, gin, and cigarettes

there's not much to say at this point tonight. had a good time. talked of revolutions and by the time i left it was already, once again, forgotten. if there was a movement to have i haven't found it yet. and now i'm thinking about having to open the store that i work at and wondering when my spaghetti will be done...because i'm starving (in the not so literal sense, right?).

I Don't Work For Retail.

Most things will come to an end. And many things will be revived. Last night I had a political discussion and tonight a spiritual one. It may seem like nothing, especially when the kids conversing have been drinking, but in eight months in Philadelphia those two conversations have made me feel more balanced than any other day thus far. I'm either feeling absolutely horrible or at peace right now. It's because of an end that I've had no final words with, but my desperate struggle to keep my own head above water has forced me to re-establish the things that make me happy. For fuck sake at least I should be trying to keep myself happy. And that's exactly what this is...going out and being drunk enough to dance is not my idea of happiness, sometimes it's ok to be piss drunk and start talking to someone on a spiritual level or a political level...to get hyped about something bigger than our fucking retail store, or the fucking jeans we're wearing, or the other lonely sluts that we're all fucking. There's more there than that and running about every night to avoid it depresses me. Conclusions made can be problems solved, at least for one breath and a moment.

Some New Days

I shut off the air conditioner today and opened all of the windows in the house (sparing the one with the broken screen for the kitties sake) to let the sun and breeze blow away the cobwebs inside. The space we've been living in is really great and I know that it will make whoever takes over our lease very happy, but right now the prospect of being in a new space is overwhelmingly exciting. Any time there's hardship or change in my life I'm ready to leave everything behind and move to a new city, but when that's not possible (which of course it rarely is) I get stuck in ruts. Hemingway calls them the mean blacks. I call them fucking depressed. But I realize that the urge for movement doesn't have to be hundreds of miles away. Setting up shop in a new house with good people nearby and a new gigantic room with so much potential for personal expression is keeping my head above water, even without my ever-loving crutch, soothsayer, and best friend to help me. That doesn't mean everything has stopped aching, what it means is that the ache is dull and fading, a healthy way to heal instead of hours of violent sobbing, drunken vomiting, and pounding hangover headaches. In comparison, this morning and day has left me feeling pretty normal...and pretty great.

In the excitement of decorating my new home I've been looking for inspiration for my room color. I found these screen prints by Julie Kaffe from Pittsburgh, PA from (surprise) another person's blog. I think that I'm going to paint the wall behind my bed in one of the red or green colors from these prints and then evenly space the postcards around the rest of the walls creating a kind of border a little over half way up the wall. I may have to alter this plan due to money restrictions, but these prints are cute and kind of non-descript and have become my basis for inspiration. Check out her site http://www.etui-etui.com/.

Doolittle

One time when I was living in Kalamazoo I was in the record store looking for a birthday present for my sister. One of the salespeople, John, a guy that I knew as an acquaintance from local rock shows, asked me if he could help me find something. I told him my plight, what to get for my sister, seven years younger than myself, that might bridge some sort of musical gap between us. He immediately suggested Doolittle and said it was always the perfect gift, especially for someone her age. I smiled and nodded knowingly as he returned to the register to help another customer. I stood for a moment confused and uncertain of my next move. Doolittle? Was that the name of the album or the band? At 21 I was sure that asking that question would be answered with only a look of severe disappointment so I grabbed a Led Zeppelin record and told him she probably wasn't ready for Doolittle then drove to the nearby CD Warehouse. I scanned the racks for Doolittle searching desperately for bands in the D section and then even scanning various titles in obscure bands that I had heard in passing. After coming up empty-handed I swallowed my pride and asked the John Cusack-esque salesman (the only reason I ever went into that music store) if he could point me in the direction of Doolittle. I admitted that I didn't know if it was the band or the title. He paused for a moment, maybe to mock me inwardly, then feigned recognition and walked me to The Pixies. I thanked him and bought the cd and listened to it on the drive home.
Listening to the cd now I remember how right John was and wish that someone would have given me that album as a gift when I was 15. I also wish I would have given it to my sister, but I suppose the electric guitar for Christmas a couple years later would have been a close second. I think maybe the best gifts are those treasured as much by the giver as the receiver.

No Need for Introductions

The air feels like LA tonight, except it’s much more humid here, and I just met one of my neighbors. She’s African and there weren’t any Africans living in the lower hills of Hollywood as far as I could see. There was an Armenian school at the end of the block (an LA block, not a city block), but almost everyone I saw in that neighborhood was white and upper middle class. I only met one black man that lived around there. He told me a story about Bob Marley fucking a woman that looked stoned when she went into the bedroom and ashamed when she came out, and he told me that I should be wary of my rockstar boyfriend. The man had a big dog that he walked at night and I met him as I was walking Benjamin, the dog that I was watching while I was there. I told him that it was my dog because it made the conversation easier and I told him stories about Benjamin that his real owner had told me. The man told me that he could tell Benjamin and I had spent a lot of time together. He also asked me to get coffee or dinner with him sometime, but I avoided a definite answer because I was afraid to do anything that might hurt my boyfriend. For some reason I also wanted to maintain my solitude while I was in LA, I guess like I’m doing in Philadelphia now. I guess that’s why the air feels the same, even with the humidity.
Most of the time I played guitar, watched movies, and drank while I was on the west coast. That’s what I’m doing now, but I was living on loans there and I could drink expensive whiskey and wine instead of cheap beer. I would get very drunk early in the night and sit on the porch smoking cigarettes while the dog laid next to me. There wasn’t much to see other than the neighboring houses and a sliver of stars in the sky between the buildings. We were far enough north of the 101 that where the view was decent you could see where the stars fell from the sky into the city streetlights and left the atmosphere glowing orange, but I could only stare at one patch of stars at my place until I was too drunk to stay outside and smoke anymore. Then Benjamin would follow me as I stumbled into the bedroom around midnight. He snored terribly, but I got used to it after awhile.
I always woke up with the smiling glare of the California sun and never had a hangover because of the expensive booze and a good eight hours of sleep. Sometimes now, even if I only have a few beers, I wake up with a mild headache and a burn in the back of my throat. I also drink very cheap beer and wake up suddenly and frequently during the night so maybe that's relative. I think maybe it’s ok to be content with solitude in a city far away from friends and family when you’ve only been there a couple of months, but when it’s been eight months the solitude feels a little heavier, something like the humidity here tonight.