On Saturday while working at the UT game, a certain Brit bartender told me that I looked like an actress... who was it... Annette Bening! (!) That's certainly a new one!
And then the same girl asked if I was a dancer... To which I responded with a completely retarded made-up tap-dance, complete with jazz hands. (You had to be there. She laughed instead of cringed, which was good!) :)
And later, she kept telling me, and the people standing around us chatting, how funny I was! :) (OK, I'm sometimes kind of funny when I get on a roll, though you wouldn't know it from HERE, where I only seem to record the depths of my angst!) :)
Gosh. Someone I've had a secret crush on since last week thinks I'm amusing! :) When was the last time that I entertained anyone other than my nephews?? :)
The "Annette Bening"-thing reminded me of who people over the years have told me that I looked like:
Lauren Bacall (a random guy coming on to me at the K-Mart where I worked in high school, and then a 50-something-year-old man that I was sleeping with in the 1990s) Erica Jong (my mother, from the book-jacket of "Fear of Flying") Molly Ringwald (guys in college when I had bobbed red hair) Sylvia Plath (me) Bette Midler (Ugh! My least favorite -- sorry, Bette, but you're not that cute. From a girl in a gay bar.) Jenna Elfman (a girl in a gay bar) Cate Blanchett (my older nephew while watching the Oscars a couple of years ago: "Is that Aunt Steffi?") Draco (the littler nephew, earlier this year while I was always wearing my blonde hair in a pony-tail)
After all of the below photos, I STILL think that I look like Plath the most! (a p.s.: Some Germanic people have the same expression in the eyes and the same bridge of the nose... me, my mom, Doris Day, and Plath, to name a few!) :) As for the other photos: There seems to be a trend of "squintiness"! I beg to differ! When I talk and laugh and EMOTE, I squint my eyes, but other than that...I look NOTHING LIKE Bette Midler...dammit! :)
Just wanted to note a dream I just had (@8pm Thursday, November 3) so I can look back later and see if it meant anything about The Girl, or The Cancer:
In the dream I was in an apartment, and arguing with everyone around me (surprise), including old friends and a big male neighbor. I was extremely verbally rude to the neighbor, thinking, what could happen? He took it and took it, then threw a 4-foot-long staple gun through my window; it lodged in some bookshelves. Then the neighbor and some of my former friends kept milling about outside my window, peering in and laughing. I was outraged, trying to get some sympathy for myself, pointing out what he had done...everybody thought it was kind of funny. I called the police, thinking at last or at least I'd have some "justice"... they kept me on the phone talking and explaining, not taking the thrown staple-gun very seriously, and not coming.
At one point after this the neighbor passed by my apt. window and made fun of my not having a job. How did he know this? I'd told some street-looking women who had been milling about earlier, thinking at the time that it would bond us, but they just ended up turning over the info to the neighbor. At the job comment, I screamed at him and started screaming at everyone else -- basically trying to get their sympathy against him, to no avail.
The dream venue then spread out to a convention-type area, a public place where some sort of festival was going on. Here I was walking around among a bunch of strangers, occasionally running into some people I knew (including some of the "friends" from around my apartment). I was still very upset and panicky by what had happened at my apt., just wanting to clear the bad vibes and make ordinary contact. I saw one old co-worker and we had a pleasant brief conversation, her showing me some poems in a notebook (she wasn't a writer in real life). She had her son with her, about the same age as my oldest nephew. It made me feel good to see him, but I was also irritating him, and he was cranky with me. Then his mother spotted someone she said was "Morrissey" (the singer) leaning against a wall with a couple of other guys -- the man looked like a 20-something Austin hipster with a scruffy beard rather than the British singer, but apparently it really was him, and the friend/mom got his autograph.
Dream venue now still at the convention-center-type place, but this time there's a huge prom going on, with a lot of my old friends from high school (and more of the "friends" from the apartment) milling around. Most are dressed up in prom gear. By now I have run into a random young man, about 16 or 17, whom I'm friendly with and hanging out with. We go up and up and up some spiral ramps, passing suites where my old high school friends are partying and having fun. People look at me but don't acknowledge me. When I and the kid finally get to the very top of the ramp, there are two suites there. Turns out Morrissey is in one of them. My teenaged friend starts talking with him and I feel like a third wheel. I tell him I'll wait for him downstairs. I go back down and down and down the ramp, and stand in an open area at the bottom and watch dressed-up, happy people go by (all old friends from real life, none acknowledging me), looking up occasionally to see if the teenager is coming back down. After a long while, I realize he's not coming. I feel a clean sort of loneliness ("good for him") and decide to keep walking around...
A young Irish-looking woman with short, dark red hair and a veil-type thing on her head (not a real veil, but a bachelorette-party kind of thing) comes up to me, standing a few inches away and looking intensely at me. She says, "Do you remember me?" I do. (In real life, she's a girl I met at the UT game a couple of weeks ago.) Her body is giving off great heat. We start kissing and then making out. Complete warmth and comfort emanating from her. I tell her about what had just happened to me earlier, how the apartment people were mean, how nobody would talk to me. She kisses me some more, then touches the left side of my face and my left breast (my left, to her right) and tells me that I have cancer in those places. I can't figure out if I'm going to die from it or not. At the moment, I'm not worried about it, I just, very much, want her to go home with me. (Though I guess if she's symbolic of "Death," I'd be going home with HER!) :)
And I pick this moment in the dream to have to go to the bathroom! I REALLY have to go. And the bathroom is like any club bathroom --- toilets overflowing to the brim, toilet-paper and pee and water all over the floor, dressed-up girls putting on makeup at the mirror. I try to get situated on a toilet without letting my butt touch the poop that is floating at the very top. And the poop keeps overflowing, and a young black woman outside my stall, wearing a dark-blue dress with white polka-dots, is accusing me of causing the literal and figurative crap to flow out from under my stall door! I keep trying to simultaneously defend myself to this woman and just GO, so I can get back to The Girl outside...
And in the middle of all of this, I can hear the Death/Love Girl talking to my real-life junior-high friend Debbie (who is dressed in jeans and a red-and-black flannel shirt, unlike the other prom-attire). To my happy surprise, she's telling Debbie that she really likes (loves?) me... At this point I wake up, still trapped on the dream-toilet unable to "go" because of all the surrounding filth, but feeling deeply happy that The Girl is waiting outside...
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95% of the stuff above was explicable via Freud: I'm not getting along well with anyone right now and feel very isolated; I just a couple of days ago had to call the cops on the big neighbor next door (though I had no personal contact with him); I can't find a decent job and am embarrassed about it; the temp gigs working big football games have put me in a festive setting (with spiraling ramps) surrounded by well-dressed people that I'm apart from while being in the middle of...
I'm interested in this Dream Girl, though! I met the real-life version (in looks) at a UT game last month: I was posted in a chair guarding the stairwell against rich people trying to sneak out for a smoke; she was a bartender in the suites right across from me. For only about 20 minutes --- I was a "floater" without a set position; my job was to walk around and relieve regular stair-guarders for their breaks, so I only got to be near her post/suites for those 20 minutes.
During my time there, she was mildly irritated because she'd put in a call for Bloody Marys over 15 minutes ago, and the drink runner hadn't arrived with the drinks, and her rich people in the suites were getting irritated at her! Since we stair-guarders aren't allowed in the suites, even after-hours, I was mightily curious about what went on in there --- not so much what the rich people were doing (the doors are open, and I can see that), but what exactly the bartenders had to do and how they did it. So we chatted about that while I was there, in the middle of her drinks finally arriving, and her going back and forth to serve them, et al. She was very Irish-looking (I tried and tried to think who her looks reminded me of; finally came up with... the short-haired girl singer in "The Commitments," played by Bronagh Gallagher), but when she opened her mouth, she had the most beautiful upper-crust British accent! (I suppose, with a bartender, I was expecting Cockney!) It's kind of trite to find that accent sexy -- who doesn't?! -- but... it really was very sexy! :)
And then I kept watching her move: Normally I'm not that attracted to girls who are shorter than me (I'm 5'8" and she was about 5'4"). And normally, I am often more attracted to "willowy," graceful girls, and she was sturdily built -- not fat or "stocky" or "muscular," but "compact"... And she moved "with purpose." (Yeah, because she had drinks to get out!) :) The type of energy of her movements was something I hadn't particularly noticed or found attractive before in general, but she herself was interesting to watch "in action." UnRomantic as it sounds, her movements said "competence" and "safety" to me, and I liked watching her. (A girl that can bartend has seen the world and can handle the world. I myself have seen large segments of the world, but cannot yet quite reconcile myself to how things and people and myself really are.)
The highlight of our 20 minutes for me: She offered me a "drink"! Not a "drink" drink, but a can of soda, which the bartenders (but not us stair-guarders) had access to, and that she had to sneak out to me! How cute is her sneaking me a Dr. Pepper! :)
Anyway, as I said, this post is a "marker." Events, both real and dream, all most probably fading into the ether, but just in case I get cancer or run off with a Brit who looks like the Irish girl below... you, and I, heard it here first! :)
The loud-music next-door neighbor of July and August has been gone for months, and in his place came a huge, heavyset black guy with short dreads who's been pretty silent for the past 2 months. I'll see him in the hall every now and then and say "hi," but I hardly ever hear him. (Once, a few weeks after he'd moved in, he had his door open, and when I walked past I didn't see any furniture, and it looked like there was trash strewn around on the floor. So I wondered how often he was even using the place.)
Today, though... So much for the silence! It was a pleasant 75-ish day and everyone's windows were open. I was lying on the bed after that day's strenuous task of grocery shopping when I started to hear voices waft over from next door:
"Don't be tormented by death, man! Close your eyes!" [mumbled something] "I said close your eyes! What are you afraid of? Close your eyes! Everything does not die." [mumbled something] "I ain't gonna do nothin'! I'm not gonna hit you! I swear, man!"
By this time I had hopped up off the bed and had parked myself right next to the window-screen to hear more of this "philosophy"...
"You should see this barn, man. You're gonna love this!" Then came a whole series of instructions on various fighting positions and strategies, ending with:
"When you're in a fight, you never expose your back." [some scuffling] "Never turn your goddamn back in a fucking fight!" [bumps and scuffles] "Come on, man." [mumbled, probably "I'm not gonna fight"] "Why not? You were sitting here crying about life being long a few minutes ago, and now look at you! Look out the window! It's a beautiful day. The birds are flying. They birds aren't afraid of death. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Life is beautiful! I feel like boxing!" [mumbled something] "No, not YOU! Let's go to a boxing match!"
It was about 3 in the afternoon, so I wasn't quite sure where they were going to find an actual boxing match. In the course of the above, the heavy metal had gotten turned way up, and the one guy doing most of the arguing had said he'd been smoking and drinking since he was 10 and he still went to "Fight Club" and could still hold his own physically. And he didn't need Xanax or "no mind control" like that!
I think there were 2 guys plus my neighbor in the room. My neighbor was the quiet one telling the main loud guy that he didn't want to fight. And I suppose the neighbor had been going through a depression lately, because the main guy kept telling him that he didn't need the Xanax, that he just needed to get out of the house... and FIGHT! He just had to experience it, man! They could go to that barn, and then there was a dog park by the one guy's house, and it didn't have "no" dog shit, so it was perfect late at night...
I was fascinated by the incongruity of the main guy's occasional words of support like, "You're a talented musician, you're a smart person, you're, like, my best friend, dude" (I wrote that one down immediately) -- which apparently the feeling-low neighbor seemed to need to hear -- almost immediately leading into ways to start Fight Clubs and trying to get the neighbor to hit him! (The psychology was so crude... after hearing the "you're, like, my best friend" I wanted to, right then, run over and slip an anonymous note under his door: "These guys are NOT your friends! Be careful!")
The heavy metal "fight music" kept up, the loud personal exhortations waxed and waned. Things would be quiet for a few minutes, then there'd be more "instructions" on fight moves, then more attempts to get the neighbor to practice them; when he refused, the "psychology" would kick in. I wrote the following down, almost verbatim:
"Good! You're crying! I made you feel! You feel something! When I came over here, you didn't want life, and now look at you! You're a person! You're a person! You're a person! Feel! Feel! Feel! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Hit me, man, hit me!"
[then... bam-bam-bam, bumps and slams against the walls, stuff falling on the floor]
After 2 hours of listening to all of the above, I finally called the police when this slamming started. Initially, I called "311," which is just for minor stuff like noise complaints. But the 311 people switched me over to 911 when I told them about the fighting sounds I'd heard after the "hit me, man"...
But they were puzzled: "Is it guys playing around, or is it a serious fight? That makes a big difference in how we respond."
I was puzzled myself: "They sound like they know each other, but they keep talking about death and Fight Clubs and telling one guy to hit someone, and now it sounds like they're really hitting each other and knocking each other around the room. Have you seen the movie 'Fight Club'? [911 had] It's kind of just like that! It may be serious or it may not be... I just can't tell."
The police showed up within 10 minutes. Immediately the music was turned off. I didn't hear the other two guys leave; I wonder if the police escorted them out of the apartment immediately. There was no yelling or protest from them, belligerent as they'd been. Then I heard the police talking to my neighbor alone. They were quiet, so I couldn't hear much, except for my neighbor saying, "Sorry. We were just rough-housing." Complete silence after the police left.
Ironically, my calling the cops on the so-called "boys just being boys" was EXACTLY the kind of "stifling" female/"societal" mind-set that the movie railed against! I certainly don't think I would have called the police over a little heavy metal in the afternoon (absolutely nothing compared to the stereo of my former neighbor) and a few bumps, if that had been all I'd heard. It was the creepy "man-love psychology" that shoved it up to the next level -- the "I love you, man, life is beautiful" followed by the "hit me, man" and goading the neighbor into an actual physical fight ... allegedly as an antidote to his depression, but more probably because of the one guy's desire to manipulate another -- physically, emotionally. It was sick to listen to.
Way too much YANG, man... Reminded me of the creepy "Promise Keepers" -- the right-wing Christian guys who used to get together en masse in stadiums to "encourage" each other in their "manhood"... Obviously, a real man doesn't need a GANG to hype him up into manhood. (Though, to be fair, too much hyper-femininity/passivity/YIN is also equally warped. SLS a great example of the "uber-victim.")
From the new bio on director Nicholas Ray ("Rebel Without a Cause," "Johnny Guitar"), quoting Ray on actor James Dean:
"The drama of his life was the drama of desiring to belong, and fearing to belong... It was a conflict of violent eagerness and mistrust, created very young... The intensity of his desires, and his fears, could make the search at times arrogant, egocentric; but behind it was such a desperate vulnerability that one was moved, even frightened. Probably, when he was cruel or faithless, he thought he was paying off an old score. The affection he rejected was the affection that had once been his and found no answer."
I think here's a secret: Who we are at 8 is who we are. Those who truly love us later on are also channelling our weird little interesting 8-year-old selves.
In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks. A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit The wax image of myself, a doll's body. Sickness begins here: I am a dartboard for witches. Only the devil can eat the devil out. In the month of red leaves I climb to a bed of fire.
It is easy to blame the dark: the mouth of a door, The cellar's belly. They've blown my sparkler out. A black-sharded lady keeps me in a parrot cage. What large eyes the dead have! I am intimate with a hairy spirit. Smoke wheels from the beak of this empty jar.
If I am a little one, I can do no harm. If I don't move about, I'll knock nothing over. So I said, Sitting under a potlid, tiny and inert as a rice grain. They are turning the burners up, ring after ring. We are full of starch, my small white fellows. We grow. It hurts at first. The red tongues will teach the truth.
Mother of beetles, only unclench your hand: I'll fly through the candle's mouth like a singeless moth. Give me back my shape. I am ready to construe the days I coupled with dust in the shadow of a stone. My ankles brighten. Brightness ascends my thighs. I am lost, I am lost, in the robes of all this light.
7. The Stones
This is the city where men are mended. I lie on a great anvil. The flat blue sky-circle
Flew off like the hat of a doll When I fell out of the light. I entered The stomach of indifference, the wordless cupboard.
The mother of pestles diminished me. I became a still pebble. The stones of the belly were peaceable,
The head-stone quiet, jostled by nothing. Only the mouth-hole piped out, Importunate cricket
In a quarry of silences. The people of the city heard it. They hunted the stones, taciturn and separate,
The mouth-hole crying their locations. Drunk as a foetus I suck at the paps of darkness.
The food tubes embrace me. Sponges kiss my lichens away. The jewelmaster drives his chisel to pry Open one stone eye.
This is the after-hell: I see the light. A wind unstoppers the chamber Of the ear, old worrier.
Water mollifies the flint lip, And daylight lays its sameness on the wall. The grafters are cheerful,
Heating the pincers, hoisting the delicate hammers. A current agitates the wires Volt upon volt. Catgut stitches my fissures.
A workman walks by carrying a pink torso. The storerooms are full of hearts. This is the city of spare parts.
My swaddled legs and arms smell sweet as rubber. Here they can doctor heads, or any limb. On Fridays little children come
To trade their hooks for hands. Dead men leave eyes for others. Love is the uniform of my bald nurse.
Love is the bone and sinew of my curse. The vase, unreconstructed, houses The elusive rose.
Ten fingers shape a bowl for shadows. My mendings itch. There is nothing to do. I shall be good as new.
'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud I came in from the wilderness a creature void of form "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm."
And if I pass this way again you can rest assured I'll always do my best for her on that I give my word In a world of steel-eyed death and men who are fighting to be warm "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm."
Not a word was spoke between us there was little risk involved Everything up to that point had been left unresolved Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm."
I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail Poisoned in the bushes and blown out on the trail Hunted like a crocodile ravaged in the corn "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm."
Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm."
Now there's a wall between us, something there's been lost I took too much for granted got my signals crossed Just to think that it all began on a long-forgotten morn "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm."
Well the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount But nothing really matters much it's doom alone that counts And the one-eyed undertaker he blows a futile horn "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm."
I've heard newborn babies wailing like a mourning dove And old men with broken teeth stranded without love Do I understand your question man is it hopeless and forlorn "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm."
In a little hilltop village they gambled for my clothes I bargained for salvation and they gave me a lethal dose I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm."
Well I'm living in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line Beauty walks a razor's edge someday I'll make it mine If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born "Come in" she said "I'll give you shelter from the storm."
The guilty undertaker sighs The lonesome organ grinder cries The silver saxophones say I should refuse you The cracked bells and washed-out horns Blow into my face with scorn But it's not that way I wasn't born to lose you I want you, I want you I want you so bad Honey, I want you.
The drunken politician leaps Upon the street where mothers weep And the saviors who are fast asleep They wait for you And I wait for them to interrupt Me drinkin' from my broken cup And ask for me to Open up the gate for you I want you, I want you Yes, I want you so bad Honey, I want you.
Now all my fathers they've gone down True love they've been without it But all their daughters put me down 'Cause I don't think about it.
Well, I return to the Queen of Spades And talk with my chambermaid She knows that I'm not afraid To look at her She is good to me And there's nothing she doesn't see She knows where I'd like to be But it doesn't matter I want you, I want you Yes, I want you so bad Honey, I want you.
Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit He spoke to me, I took his flute No, I wasn't very cute to him - Was I ? But I did it because he lied Because he took you for a ride And because time was on his side And because I .. I want you, I want you Yes, I want you so bad Honey, I want you.
And I told you, as you clawed out my eyes That I never really meant to do you any harm.
I didn't mean to treat you so bad You shouldn't take it so personal I didn't mean to make you so sad You just happened to be there, that's all When I saw you say goodbye to your friends and smile I thought that it was well understood That you'd be comin' back in a little while I didn't know that you were sayin' goodbye for good.
But sooner or later one of us must know You just did what you're supposed to do Sooner or later one of us must know That I really did try to get close to you.
I couldn't see what you could show me Your scarf had kept your mouth well hid I couldn't see how you could know me But you said you knew me and I believed you did When you whispered in my ear And asked me if I was leavin' with you or her I didn't realize just what I did hear I didn't realize how young you were.
But sooner or later one of us must know But you're just doing what you're supposed to do Sooner or later one of us must know That I really did try to get close to you.
I couldn't see when it started snowin' Your voice was all that I heard I couldn't see where we were goin' But you said you knew and I took your word And then you told me later as I apologized That you were just kiddin' me, you weren't really from the farm And I told you, as you clawed out my eyes That I never really meant to do you any harm.
But sooner or later one of us must know But you just did what you're supposed to do Sooner or later one of us must know That I really did try to get close to you.
S. and I had talked about the Byzantine Empress Theodora years ago, tossed around the idea of a screenplay. The idea, as with everything else between us, petered out. But I still kept thinking about Theodora. I'd first discovered her after watching a History Channel show on the end of the Roman Empire. (The Eastern part of the Empire, headquartered in Constantinople, lasted centuries after the fall of the Western part in AD 410.) And was struck by the TV-show account of Theodora's singlehandedly standing up to the hordes at the Hippodrome who were trying to overthrow her husband (the Emperor Justinian). In the midst of the chaos of the revolt, she convinced her husband and advisors to stand and fight, when they were all ready to give up and take flight. Thanks to Theodora, they did make a stand, and Justinian's rule was saved.
Who the hell WAS this woman?
I did a little research at the time, and learned that she was born the daughter of a bear-keeper at Constantinople's Hippodrome. When her father died when she was little, her mother guided her 3 daughters onto the stage in order to make money for the family. ("The stage" at that time included prostitution.) A young (not-yet-Emperor) Justinian met her while she was performing, and the rest was pretty much history...
Interesting to me. But then after I shared the idea with S. and the idea went nowhere, I let it go. A couple of days ago, though, when I was at the library, I typed in a search for "Theodora" just for the hell of it; apparently there's a brand new 2011 book out about her that the library's still waiting to get. I put myself on the waiting list to check it out. And then found another book about her -- "Theodora: Empress of Byzantium" by Paolo Cesaretti (2001), that I hadn't read yet. This author fills in a lot of historical detail that I didn't know about. I'm only a hundred pages into it, but he's already provided several striking occurrences in her life that made me think of A MOVIE.
One scene is: After Theodora's bear-keeping father died, her mother took her 3 daughters (Theodora the middle one) to the public Hippodrome before all the masses to beg a city official in the stands that the bear-keeping position be continued with the new step-father in their family. (Otherwise the family would have been destitute.) The city official (who had officiated at the funeral of the father; both he and the father were members of the "Green" team of the Hippodrome -- one of 4 stadium competing teams, who fought lions and bears, etc.) stared at the kneeling mother and daughters and then pointedly turned his head away from them. The crowd was silent; the kneeling mother and her daughters were humiliated. Until... a call came from the other end of the stadium... from a rival team, the "Blues." The leader of the Blues called the family over to join them.
How frigging dramatic and screen-worthy is that? The betrayal of the Greens, her father's team, and salvation by the Blues... ESPECIALLY knowing that, years later, Theodora would again be confronted with the Hippodrome teams when trying to publicly save her emperor husband...
After reading this kind of stuff, I started taking notes on a screenplay: Main Characters, Historical Notes, Important Plot Points...
A couple of years after the above public Hippodrome humiliation and temporary salvation, Theodora's mother started to pawn off her daughters sexually for the family's financial survival. Here are the notes I wrote about that under "Important Plot Points":
Mother guides daughters to perform on stage, for financial survival. [Actresses considered barely better than whores; they often performed nude or nearly nude and were expected to have sex with rich patrons.] Oldest, Comito (then around 15), becomes actress/courtesan, with Theodora (around age 12) appearing in Comito’s retinue as a boy. Both must perform sexual acts. (Since Theo too young to be considered a “real woman,” she, per her “boy” appearance, is allowed to be sodomized.) Comito, as a beautiful woman and featured performer, has sex with upper-classes, while Theo must have sexual relations with lower classes. [This will come into play later when Theo is in power --- though she is a relatively fair ruler, she will, however, force many “ladies” in her court to marry working-class men.] During this time, Theo known for being somewhat of a clown, overtly sexual, not a great actress, more of a “pal” (i.e., “fuck buddy”) than a real actress/temptress. [Her sister Comito takes herself and her “art” seriously; Theo does not.] Procopius bitchily reports that during this time period, Theo often after a show dined with 10 upper-class youth, having sex with them, then – allegedly unsatisfied – finishing the night off with their slaves. He also reports that Theo publicly wishes for more orifices with which to satisfy her lovers. (!) [I see this as part of her “whatever” attitude – she’s in a horrible position, forced to make the best of it, and she takes it to the extreme.]
That stuff is too powerful. And not made up! And just the first third of the movie! She hadn't even met Justinian yet!
Just what I needed: some inspiration. I have always not minded working crappy jobs as long as I had a creative project to come home to.
It's possible you could meet someone today, who will act as a kind of Pygmalion for you. You need to be surrounded and encouraged by people who believe in you, STEPHANIE, and it is good for you to have one or several people around to support you. If you do meet this kind of person, don't be a show off, and listen to what he or she has to say to you. It is for your own good.
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You know what? If a Pygmalion had come along that said anything that I knew was true and/or true to myself, I might have listened. As it was/is: Any "authority figure" I've been around in my entire life -- parent, teacher, boss -- has always been primarily full of bullshit that I could easily see through. (I will never forget my thesis advisor in grad school... One poem that I'd felt particularly close to and worked particularly hard on, she said didn't like and that she'd read it while driving to work... When I told her that I couldn't respect her opinion if she'd only read the poem across her steering wheel, she got mad at me. SHE got mad at ME!) I've never had a Pygmalion, a real role model. I've always had to raise and instruct myself. For better and worse.
Should such an insightful person who believed in me show up in my life and show me support, I would of course be extremely grateful. Who wouldn't be?
From 1977 to 1979, I was a huge KISS fan. (Thinking back, I'd assumed my obsession lasted a lot longer than it did, but in reality it was only from 7th grade through the first part of 9th grade.) Thanks to my "cool" friend Debbie for getting me into them. Debbie was so cool because when she was 12 she was already reading "Creem" magazine and getting to stay up late to watch "Midnight Special" on Friday nights and "Saturday Night Live." (I, on the other hand, still had to go to bed at 9pm on school nights and 10pm even on weekends; the only time I got to watch those shows was when I spent the night at her house.) And she had quite the interesting, mature rock record collection for a junior-high kid -- stuff like Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones and Patti Smith and The Runaways, along with KISS -- while I was still just coming off of the Bay City Rollers and Shaun Cassidy. (Though I've got to "out" Debbie -- my mom accompanied her and me to our mutual first live concert ever in 1977, and it was...SHAUN CASSIDY!) :)
At the peak of my KISS fandom, I had a Gene Simmons-face birthday cake one year, 2 KISS T-shirts, a KISS belt buckle, tons of posters covering my walls, and a membership in the KISS Army. Debbie and I would frequently don KISS makeup at her house (with me always Gene and her, Ace), and then I exported that habit to the more prosaic kids in my own neighborhood during summers, with me still Gene and my next-door neighbor/friend Marla being Ace and us enlisting our little brothers to be Paul and Peter. Before we figured out that the band used something called "greasepaint" and that this could be purchased relatively cheaply at the Fort Worth mall's pseudo-head shop "Spencer's," we invented our own makeup: The white part was toothpaste spread all over our faces for stickiness, with baby powder then thrown on to it. The black part was... magic marker!! :) When we put on concerts to "Alive II" in my bedroom, the guitars were tennis rackets and the drumsticks, pencils.
The picture shown here is from my 14th birthday, 1979 (when I for the only time switched over to being Paul -- though I still kept my Gene T-shirt -- and we all had real greasepaint), with some "straight" friends from school who weren't that into KISS whom I persuaded to get made up just for something to do at a slumber party! Funnily, there was a fourth friend at this particular sleepover... but her religion precluded her from dressing up like these alleged "devil worshippers" -- at that time, there was a rumor rampant that "KISS" stood for "Knights In Satan's Service" and she didn't want to take any chances! :) (I'd invited Debbie to this same party, but she made up an excuse and didn't show at the last minute; I was crushed! I hated her for dissing me for a long time and only later figured out that she just didn't feel comfortable with this group of people, though they were all very nice. Maybe the "nice" was the problem!)
I never owned all of their albums (my weekly allowance was tiny, and birthdays/Christmases only came so often), but at one point I had:
Hotter Than Hell (bought for me at the mall by my dad after the parents' divorce; when I brought it home, my mother was angry at him about the suggestive pictures on the back cover!) Rock and Roll Over Love Gun Alive II The Ace and Gene solo albums Double Platinum Dynasty
By the time the bad/disco-y "Dynasty" came out in '79, and today, KISS was/is thought of by some to be a gimmick band, but prior to the solo albums, they were pretty raunchy and dark. Gene dark, especially, with songs like "Goin' Blind," "Watching You," "God of Thunder" (written by Paul but performed by Gene); and raunchy, especially, with "Calling Dr. Love," "Ladies' Room," "Plaster Caster," "Christine Sixteen." Paul wrote or co-wrote and performed more of my favorite pop-y and anthemic and sometimes equally sexy songs ("C'Mon and Love Me," "Do You Love Me," "Shout It Out Loud," "Detroit Rock City," "Comin' Home," "I Stole Your Love"), but Gene was the one whose songs we -- Debbie and I -- listened to much more solemnly, via candlelight after midnight on those weekend sleepovers, as I'm sure many Beatles fans solemnly listened to "Sgt. Pepper" and the White Album in their day... There was something semi-spooky, something "deep" about "real life," going on, and we wanted to get down to the mystery of it...
A p.s.: Debbie moved away from my town after our sophomore year, around 1981. I didn't speak to her again until 2007, after I'd moved to NYC and found out she lived in Brooklyn. When we met up there, she told me, in KISS-related news, that she'd gone on after high school to be an actual groupie for a time (mainly hanging around heavy/death metal bands, but also some '80s hair bands like Motley Crue) -- and... she'd slept with Gene Simmons!! Of course, I was impressed! She said he was a dick, though. Why?, I wondered. Was he mean to her? No, not really. And he talked to her about her going back to school. Never could get it out of her what was so dick-like.
I feel uptight on a Saturday night Nine o'clock, the radio's the only light I hear my song and it pulls me through Comes on strong, tells me what I got to do I got to
Get up Everybody's gonna move their feet Get down Everybody's gonna leave their seat You gotta lose your mind in Detroit Rock City
Get up Everybody's gonna move their feet Get down Everybody's gonna leave their seat
Getting late I just can't wait Ten o'clock and I know I gotta hit the road First I drink, then I smoke Start up the car, and I try to make the midnight show
Get up Everybody's gonna move their feet Get down Everybody's gonna leave their seat
Movin' fast, doin' 95 Hit top speed but I'm still movin' much too slow I feel so good, I'm so alive I hear my song playin' on the radio It goes
Get up Everybody's gonna move their feet Get down Everybody's gonna leave their seat
Twelve o'clock, I gotta rock There's a truck ahead, lights starin' at my eyes Oh my God, no time to turn I got to laugh 'cause I know I'm gonna die Why
Get up Everybody's gonna move their feet Get up Everybody's gonna leave their seat
She's a dancer, a romancer I'm a Capricorn and she's a Cancer She saw my picture in a music magazine When she met me, said she'd get me Touched her hips and told me that she'd let me I took her hand, baby this is what I said I said baby, baby, don't you hesitate 'Cause I just can't wait Lady, won't you take me down to my knees You can do what you please Come on and love me
I'm a man, I'm no baby And you're lookin' every inch a lady You're good lookin' and you're lookin' like you should be good You were distant, now you're nearer I can feel your face inside the mirror The lights are out and I can feel you, baby, with my hand
So baby, baby, don't you hesitate 'Cause I just can't wait Lady, won't you take me down to my knees You can do what you please Come on and love me Come on and love me
Why the mass slaughter? Idiotic Ohio policeman interviewed on TV: "We didn't have tranquilizer guns." (DOH.) I feel sick. GET some tranquilizer guns, you stupid, stupid human buffoons allegedly in charge of "law and order." p.s. Love the way you scumbags in Ohio laid out the dead afterwards as trophies for everyone to look at. Are you really proud of yourselves for this? Really? I just read that Ohio has the most wild animals in captivity of any state in the Union. Really? And no tranquilizer guns on hand? Why that dichotomy? Why, if your citizens are known for keeping wild animals, are you, the state, not prepared to counteract said citizens' poor decisions, other than to slaughter any animals that might escape? Ya think maybe BANNING the keeping of wild animals might be a good decision to begin with, to at least avoid the below horror?
If never I met you I'd never have seen you cry If not for our first "Hello" We'd never have to say goodbye If never I held you My feelings would never show It's time I start walkin' But there's so much you'll never know
I keep telling you hard luck woman You ain't a hard luck woman
Rags, a sailor's only daughter A child of the water Too proud to be a queen
Rags, I really love you I can't forget about you You'll be a hard luck woman Baby, till you find your man
Before I go let me kiss you And wipe the tears from your eyes I don't wanna hurt you, girl You know I could never lie
I keep telling you hard luck woman You ain't a hard luck woman You'll be a hard luck woman Baby, till you find your man
I have counted every day since you've been away It seemed like a thousand years and at na,na,na,na,na,na, late at night na,na,na,na,na,na late at night I'll sit and count the tears
I have counted all your lies all your alibis I'm a guy believes just what he hears and at na,na,na,na,na,na, late at night na,na,na,na,na,na,late at night I'll sit and count the tears
She's gone and found somebody new He may be happy now but soon
He'll be counting every day that she's been away It'll seem like a thousand years
and at na,na,na,na,na,na, late at night na,na,na,na,na,na, late at night He'll sit and count his tears He'll sit and count his tears He'll sit and count his tears He'll sit....and count his tears
"Do you like me?" I asked the blue blazer. No answer. Silence bounced out of his books. Silence fell off his tongue and sat between us and clogged my throat. It slaughtered my trust. It tore cigarettes out of my mouth. We exchanged blind words, and I did not cry, and I did not beg, but blackness filled my ears, blackness lunged in my heart, and something that had been good, a sort of kindly oxygen, turned into a gas oven.
Do you like me? How absurd! What's a question like that? What's a silence like that? And what am I hanging around for, riddled with what his silence said?
When I first read the above poem, I was a kid in high school, and didn't think any such cruelty existed. I'd seen first-hand such cruelty, witnessing my parents' behavior, but nonetheless thought it all surreal, even when Sexton said it, even when I personally witnessed it as a kid. It was between them, not me. My kid-self shut out the awfulness. Once I got out of there and had my own life, it would all be better...
Today, at 46, nothing's been better. There have been variations on the bad, but... nothing's been better. My whole life since age 12 has been "Lessons in Hunger." I've achieved societal things like degrees and getting jobs. But I've never been loved and cared for by someone that I love. In patches, that kind of lack and accompanying independence is rather liberating. With long-term emotional deprivation, though, the seeming freedom of self becomes a burden. A point constantly proven, already! :)
Not always the best prescription, but in this case, it mainly worked!
As I've bitched about maaaaaaannnny times before here, not having regular work makes me a slug. A lying-around-the-room, watching-TV-12-hours-a-day, drinking-into-the-early-morning-hours slug. Not proud of it. But it's just how it turns out, having nothing else at all to do.
In this instance, haven't had a day of work in 2 weeks! (Despite being registered with 7 -- count 'em, 7! -- employment agencies and calling in my availability weekly or daily, per their requirements. With that, and applying for any available jobs that I see online, what the hell else am I supposed to do? Can't think of anything...)
Friday morning, I'd gone to bed at 6 a.m. or something. Heard the phone ring at 10 a.m. Was too hung over (or still drunk) to get up and answer it. When I finally got my groggy ass out of bed around 3 p.m., I listened to the message from one agency: Did I want to work the UT Longhorns game this Saturday? I was almost afraid to call back, 5 hours after the fact, and almost just negatively blew the offer off... but when I did call, there was, luckily, still a spot for me...
It turned out to be a fun experience! Number one, ANYTHING to get out of my apartment and earn a little needed money is a "fun experience." Number two, though, this really was a fun, exuberant, invigorating environment to be in. Just the fact that the Longhorns had gotten creamed so badly last week by OU and needed to make amends, this time playing a team just as good as OU, set the stage for a bit of excitement in the air...
And then: In all my years at UT, both as a student and an employee, I'd only been to ONE Longhorn game, back in the '80s. Had seats high up in the rafters, didn't really enjoy it that much. This time, though, I was assigned to work as a "floater" on the floor with the indoor suites --- i.e., where all the "rich folk" gathered. I'd initially hoped to get a great view of the game, which didn't happen, except when I was stationed outside a suite door, where I could peek in and down at the field. (Since I was a floater, I had the freedom to run to said doors whenever I heard a huge roar from the crowd!)
It was also interesting to get to watch the "elites'" behavior: I'd been told by staff regulars to get a load of all the alcohol constantly schlepped in to the suites, so I was expecting/hoping to see some Bacchanalia! No such luck! :) I did get to see the President of UT and Wife walking around, along with other UT luminaries, but... no one was doing anything weird or obnoxious! In other words: Nothing to make outraged social commentary here about! :)
OK, so every single person that I saw in the suites was white. And, of the various staff members, the majority, 80% or more, were Hispanic or black, with lil' ol' me in the 20% minority. What, at this point, can I even say about that racial breakdown? It's all been said before. And I think, had I been 26 rather than 46, I might have had sensations of, "One day, I too will have such a suite!" But, being 46, I didn't really care. Mainly because the suites and what was going on in them and what the people in them looked like and their view of the playing field wasn't THAT envy-inspiring.
A lot of 50-60-year-olds (the women with nicely coiffed hair) and their grandkids. A few suites dominated by 20-somethings, the boys looking like fresher-faced versions of their rich fathers and grandfathers (you knew EXACTLY what the boys would look like in 30 years), and the girls -- in their miniskirts and accompanying cowboy boots and long straight hair and fake eyelashes -- looking like Austin's only slightly differing version of LA/Kardashian girls as seen on TV. Completely nonthreatening visually, psychologically, what-have-you. They just were what they were: middle-aged and young people drinking and watching a football game. (I always love judging. And I'm usually at least somewhat paranoid. That I got no bad vibes at all from my surroundings Saturday was a pleasant thing! All I basically came away thinking was that these people were good-looking! Better looks are one thing I'll grant Texans over New Yorkers, for instance!) :)
(Oh yeah: UT lost to OSU, 26 to 38.)
A good day, in an exuberant setting, plus I earned a hundred dollars just for sitting around. I'm thankful for having the chance to do it. Another chance for me to reconnect with Austin, which I suppose I didn't do properly during my first 20 years. (Never once going to any public library then, for instance; or never walking around downtown during the day, seeing things other than clubs after midnight.)
"Poor Mike is 5'9" and Cindy isn't paying any attention to him at all..."
I was liking Fox News for its straightforwardness after the snarky, extreme left bias of MSNBC... until seeing the below ad on Fox! Seriously... If the only Fox viewers besides myself are creepy little men with Napoleon complexes... ugh!!
Craving fast food, having no car, and having 2 miles to travel (either walking or waiting for a bus) to get either a Whataburger or Taco Bell meal, sometimes I just have to go with the menus that have been delivered to the doorknobs of my apartment, mainly national pizza places (Domino's, Gatti's) and local Chinese joints (China Palace, China Kitchen, Oriental Express).
Last night I settled on "China Kitchen." It, unlike the two others, only had a $10 instead of $15 minimum order. All had a $3 delivery fee.
So I called for a $7.50 dinner (Lemon chicken, deep-fried, with two scoops of rice, two egg-rolls, and soup -- egg-drop). And ordered two extra egg-rolls for $2.50 to meet the $10 minimum.
Let me just start with: In NYC, some Chinese places also offered burritos and other Mexican food. NO. Chinese and Mexican food don't mix. And at Austin's Dobie Mall, a Chinese place is called "Oma's Kitchen" --- it doesn't offer German food, but does offer burgers along with the Chinese food. NO.
Similarly, tonight when I called "China Kitchen" for the first time... A deep male BLACK voice answered, "Yeah?" From a couple of years up north, I just gave him the number off the menu: "Can I have the #3. Egg-drop soup. For delivery."
"I don't have the menu in front of me. What do you want?"
So, because he didn't have a menu, I then had to explain about the lemon chicken and how it's deep-fried, and about the rice, and about the egg-rolls, and about the soup... and about how I wanted an extra $2.50 order of egg-rolls to make everything add up to $10.
Did I want some crab-cakes? "If they're free crab-cakes, then sure, but otherwise, no..." "Heh-heh-heh. $15.50."
OK, the meal was $10. Tax on $10 is less than 10% here. The stated delivery fee was $3. The whole thing should have been under $14. When he said "$15.50" I spent the next 45 minutes worrying about whether to give a tip or not. Absolutely did not want to, and ended up not giving because the total amount was so much.
When the meal arrived, it was a huge amount of food. Minus the extra $2.50 egg-rolls that I'd ordered, though. In NYC, you'd get the same ton of stuff for $7. In Austin, it was $15.50.
I'm going to try to stretch it out for 3 or 4 meals, and can probably do so, so it won't be such a waste. But still... $15.50 was a big fucking waste of money. I could have gone to a decent restaurant for that price.
Main Lesson: Don't order Mexican or burgers from a Chinese joint. And don't order Chinese from an African-American joint. It just doesn't work out well.
POSTED ON FACEBOOK -- by a "Friend," NOT ME! -- about the death of his cat, followed by an exchange starting with me:
Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.
When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.
All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.
They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.
You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.
Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together....
Author unknown
------------- ME: ...Are you kidding with this "Rainbow Bridge/Special Friend" stuff? Hey, I loved my cat Gracie A LOT and was VERY upset when she died after 10 years... but the above is pretty creepy, a la Baptists mourning for Jesus to this day.
MC: No I'm not kidding Stephanie, and at this point you are just becoming obnoxious with your constant negative comments on everything....I can see why at this point we have no more mutual friends.....ugh, get a life!
ME: The below that you wrote [referring to the whole "Rainbow Bridge" passage] is one of the most fake, false things I've ever read. I've loved some pets deeply, and the below doesn't do them any justice at all --- It's like some Southern Baptist preacher wrote it.
SLL: MC, who ever this person Stephanie is, I wish you would block her from writing on your wall. Clearly, she's not a nice person.
ME: SLL: OMG! Because I said our dead pets are not frolicking after death in a place called Rainbow Bridge with happy kisses raining upon our faces?? What's next? We humans are going to Heaven to play harps with angels? Come on.
MC: steph....i feel sorry for you at this point....i'm sure most people are seeing you the way sharon and myself see you at this point...you just like arguing, that's something i've come to realize....sometimes you need to know when to shut it. i'm sorry this post had to be ruined by your insensitivity.
ME: I remain amazed: You guys REALLY think there is such a thing as "Rainbow Bridge" where dead pets and their former owners frolic and exchange kisses? Seriously? I feel like I'm going crazy right now. I am not "insensitive" in the least. I've mourned pets deeply. But just not in this weird "I'm going to frolic with you later" way. That is really bizarre to me.
Am I fucking crazy?????? Seriously, half the time, Facebook people make me think as if I am fucking mad. There's no Rainbow Bridge! There's no Big Jesus in the Sky! Barack Obama isn't the Savior (my old Austin/NYC left-wing acquaintances). Barack Obama isn't the Devil (my old right-wing high-school acquaintances). I want to stop relying just on books and turn to real people for communication... but... REAL PEOPLE ARE FUCKING CRAZY and, WORSE, they're STUPID!!! (Give me crazy over stupid any day!)
I'm frigging serious... On Facebook, if you don't sit there and give kudos to every dumb-ass post, then you (well, maybe just I) get shit like, "get a life, you're obnoxious, I feel sorry for you" ----- WHY do people feel sorry for ME???? :) Because I say straight out that there's no frigging "Rainbow Bridge"????? What in the world are people wanting? (Well, I know what they're wanting: "Tiger loved you. You will see Tiger one day soon on Rainbow Bridge." Oh dear god. I just figured out what Sandra wanted me to say to her: "Jim loved you. You will see Jim one day soon on Rainbow Bridge." If I don't tell the truth, I get points for sympathy. If I tell the truth straight out, I get hated for telling the truth.)
I live in a land --- both real and virtual --- of total Zombies.
... for the third time, Sunday, October 9. The news said that during the ceremony in London he sang for his bride 3 songs: Let It Be, Let Me Roll It, and a new song written just for her.
I've always liked the sexy "Let Me Roll It," from the classic 1973 Wings album "Band on the Run":
You gave me something, I understand, You gave me loving in the palm of my hand I can't tell you how I feel My heart is like a wheel Let me roll it Let me roll it to you Let me roll it Let me roll it to you
I want to tell you And now's the time I want to tell you that You're going to be mine
I can't tell you how I feel My heart is like a wheel Let me roll it Let me roll it to you Let me roll it Let me roll it to you
-----------------------------------
Here's the thing, though: What bride wants re-tread songs? OK, it means something that PAUL MCCARTNEY is singing "Let It Be" and "Let Me Roll It" to you... but... only if you're a fan or something! He wrote those for other women! Let's hope the one new song was a good one! :)
p.s. October 9 is John Lennon's birthday. While Paul had probably forgotten, I'm sure Yoko will send him a note reminding. And in upcoming days: Sandra's mother died on October 11, and Ginny was born on October 11. I doubt very much that S. will remember. And I think that Ginny's parents will very much remember.
One thing I miss about working at the university library (which I haven't done since 2000) is being able to go on massive "writer kicks" -- reading every available book by and bio on 'til it (he or she) is all out of my system. Back when I was floor supervisor and trapped there for 8 hours a day, I'd get all the work done in 2 or 3 hours, then have the rest of the day to just browse the stacks and discover.
At some point in the late '80s or early '90s, I had my initial Charles Bukowski kick. It has now been around 20 years since I first read him, 'til I just found his "More Notes of a Dirty Old Man" (2011) last weekend at the city library. (He died in 2004; these are all essays/sketches/stories published in non-mainstream magazines from '67 through '84.)
The guy puts me in a good mood and makes me feel good about life!
Here's from a funny sketch about a groupie who'd come to his house unannounced:
She put down her bottle. "You are a great writer," she said. "That's no reason for coming to see me." "Yes it is, yes it is. You see you fascinate me, you write this way and you look like, you look like --" "The trashman?" "Yes, or a diseased gorilla, an undergrown aged gorilla dying of cancer. And those goddamn eyes, slits of eyes but when you finally OPEN them for just that second -- shit, I never saw eyes LIKE THAT, that COLOR, that VICIOUS FIRE --"
They end up doing it on the rug; afterward, she says "ooooh ooooh ooooh I liked it, I liked it I liked it, you filthy greasy pig," and then she leaves while he's in the bathroom.
I was fascinated by that sex (which I'm guessing really happened): It kind of turned me on to read, but then when I started to think about it, and ME: There are some writers, however much I admire them, that I have no actual desire to have sex with, and Bukowski is one of them! :) Yes, just based on the fact that he looked like a trashman/diseased gorilla! I don't think that I could have, unlike the red-haired groupie in the sketch, ever gone beyond that external analysis, despite his writing and his "goddamn" eyes! But... now I feel like I've been missing out! :)
That whole passage made me think about exactly which writers I like that I'd want to sleep with: Bukowski, noooooo. Kerouac, noooooo. (Both too sloppy.) Mailer, maybe. Fitzgerald, probably not (too neurotic). Hemingway, yes. Plath, no. Sexton, yes. Ted Hughes, yes. Rilke, Yeats, Eliot --- noooooo. (Though I'd like to stay up very late drinking and talking with Yeats and Rilke, and all of the above, I suppose.)
Back to Bukowski's writing, though: I like the fact that he writes about a lot of rough stuff and about a lot of dreary, mind-numbing day-to-day stuff (both of which I've experienced too much of), but with insight and humanity and detail. Like Raymond Carver's story about having a guy friend over to hang out and drink; a few hours into the evening, the main character sees his friend kissing the main character's wife in the kitchen --- it's a stunning, potentially life-changing moment... and simultaneously, as he sees the kiss, the main character has just spilled some beer on his new Hush Puppies and is worried about the stain coming out... Life is LIKE that. I've had a hundred moments like that. It's so hard to capture in writing.
One Bukowski sketch in this book that I liked a lot: He's at a camp out in the wilderness with his girlfriend and a bigger group. His girlfriend seems kind of distant one morning, so he goes off by himself to write, wondering about the "inconsistency of woman"... And then gets lost in the woods. He wonders around for hours, eventually truly scared, to the point of abandoning his notebook... After about 8 hours (and contemplation about his potential demise), he finally winds his way back to the camp by chance:
"My god I'm glad to see you! I thought I might die..." His girlfriend's callous: "I think you got lost on purpose...I thought maybe you went over the mountain to get a drink... Now you'll have something to write about."
As they're trudging back to their tent: "We had to climb between and over old barbwire fences. I got stuck in one, three or four barbs stuck into the back of my shirt. My arm was too tired to reach up and pluck myself free. I just stood there between the strands. Linda waited. I couldn't move. She walked back and lifted the top strand off my back and I got out and followed her."
I laughed out loud about Bukowski idiotically being semi-trapped in the barbed wire. And then laughed out of happiness at Linda's kindly, despite her pique, lifting of one strand to "free" him. Yeah, there's symbolism there, but it was also just a very cute moment of a real-life dynamic between a couple. That kind of thing is very hard to put into words. And Bukowski, and Carver, could do that so well.
Finally: In this book, I also enjoyed Bukowski's recollections of libraries and the idea of solitude:
"After sitting in [LA's] Pershing Square and listening to the boys argue about whether there was a God or not I would walk over to the library... I found myself in the Philosophy Room. Those boys had some style. They talked about what mattered... One of the things they talked about was the need for Solitude. That made sense to me. That need. I mean, when I was sitting at a table reading a book and somebody came to my table and sat down it disturbed me. Why sit near me? And when I looked about and saw other empty tables, I felt really repulsed. I know that I am supposed to love my fellow man but I don't. I don't hate him; I often dislike him; I just don't want him about. I feel better alone.
I loved Solitude. Still do. I grow when I am alone. People diminish me. Especially men, they seem quite unoriginal. Women, at times, are useful. Also they are funny and tragic. But too many continued hours and days with them leads to madness."
Evolution settles for a while on various stable balances. One is that some of the girls like cute boys and some like ugly older men and sometimes women. The difference between them is the ones who like older men were felt up
by their fathers or uncles or older brothers, or, if he didn't touch you, still you lived in his cauldron of curses and urges, which could be just as worse. They grow already old, angry and wise, they get rich, get mean, get theirs.
The untouched-uncursed others are happy never needing to do much, and never do much more than good. They envy their mean, rich, talented, drunk sisters. Good girls drink milk and make milk and know they've missed out and know they're
better off. They might dance and design but won't rip out lungs for a flag. Bad ones write books and slash red paint on canvas; they've rage to vent, they've fault lines and will rip a toga off a Caesar and stab a goat for the ether. It's as simple as that.
Either, deep in the dark of your history, someone showed you that you could be used as a cash machine, as a popcorn popper, as a rocket launch, as a coin-slot jackpot spunker, or he didn't and you grew up unused and clueless. Either you got a clue
and spiked lunch or you got zilch but no punch. And you never knew. It's exactly not anyone's fault. If it happened and you don't like older men that's just because you like them so much you won't let yourself have one. If you did
people would see. Then they would know what happened a long time ago, with you and that original him, whose eyes you've been avoiding for decades gone forgotten. That's why you date men smaller than you or not at all. Or maybe you've
turned into a man. It isn't anyone's fault, it is just human and it is what happens. Or doesn't happen. That's that. Any questions? If you see a girl dressed to say, "No one tells me what to do," you know someone once told her what to do.
Wow. Part of me wants to quibble with the suggestion that non-abused women are duller than their abused sisters, which reminds me of the rather self-serving, smug quote -- was it by Dorothy Parker? -- "If you weren't molested as a child, you must have been an ugly kid." (I must disagree with the latter: I myself was really pretty as a child, to the point of adult male friends of the family wanting -- and being allowed to -- have me on their laps while they brushed my long blonde hair; strange men at Dairy Queens buying me ice-cream -- while I was sitting there already eating an ice-cream; men at my dad's office telling him that I was "the prettiest girl" they'd ever seen. I think I was never sexually abused because I was a very verbal, opinionated tattle-tale of a child rather than because I was not pretty.)
But that quibble is just a quibble. This is still very powerful psychologically (not as good as Plath, of course, but...like a Plath who'd gotten tired of speaking enigmatically in terms of history/art and decided to just come right out and SAY IT). I love stuff like, "They...won't rip out lungs / for a flag. Bad ones write books and slash red paint on canvas; / they've rage to vent, they've fault lines and will rip a toga off / a Caesar and stab a goat for the ether." I like the whole fifth stanza.
And the last 2 lines are especially for me: "If you see a girl dressed to say, 'No one tells me / what to do,' you know someone once told her what to do." I was not treated very well, emotionally, when I was a child, and nearly every second of my freedom after age 18 has been an attempt to not ever, ever have to be so trapped and degraded again. I've often failed miserably in that attempt (especially in the last year or so!), but nonetheless recognize that the innate desire for autonomy after 18 years of entrapment is a driving psychological force of my adult life.
Ruined as I may be from constantly rejecting... there are few poems or epigraphs written about those who did NOT give in, despite the pressure. The cute girls who simply DISMISSED the older men's comings on, thought them pathetic, and then moved on. I refuse to give any real credence to girls who say they were sexually abused simply because they were unable to say no to the creeps that they might have disliked at the time but thought they'd go ahead and mess around with anyway because they were ever-so-slightly fascinated.
The anonymous black cat that I've seen a couple of times lying below in the next-door-neighbor's scruffy, rented yard looking up at me while I looked down at her from my 2nd-story apartment window is apparently named "Sunshine Maria." And this morning she didn't want to come home.
The plaintive calls for "Sunshine Mariaaaaaa...." started about 10am. Then some whistles. Then some more "Sunshine Maria"s and more whistles. After 15 minutes of this, I got annoyed and looked out the window for a bit. Saw nothing, went and laid back down. After more calls, got up again: This time I saw a black cat jumping off my apartment roof to the roof of the shed of the property next door. (My own now-dead cat Grace was a big roof-jumper, so I thought this was cool.) Kept looking. After the jump, couldn't see anything. Went and laid back down. But then the calls for "Sunshine Maria" kept up so, annoyed still, I got back up and looked back out. In time to see SM making her way down off the shed via trees and then onto the path joining the property/shed of the house next door to my apartment complex. Her owner kept calling and calling. SM kept inching forward and then stopping just short of the fence dividing the property of the house from the apartment complex. I finally saw her owner come into view, on my apartment side of the fence: "Sunshine! Here, Sunshine! Come here." SM, just inches from the dividing fence, looked at her and didn't move. And didn't move. And didn't move. And didn't move.
How both cool and annoyingly cat-like was that cat! :) (Cool for herself and annoying for the owner.) And how annoying were the owner's cries, at least to me, semi-trying to sleep despite her ongoing cat-calls and whistles! (And what's the story behind naming a black cat "Sunshine Maria" -- I highly doubt that the naming was with any knowledge of Edison's "Black Maria" film studio! Or... was it? Am I just a misanthrope?) :)
The owner finally gave up. I, on the other hand, kept watching out the window. Sunshine Maria finally crossed under the fence over to our apartments, long after her plaintively-calling owner had gone.
Just finished reading "Just Kids," Patti Smith's 2010 memoir of her young life in NYC with her best friend Robert Mapplethorpe.
A few things that I noted:
"In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer.
Robert trusted in the law of empathy, by which he could, by his will, transfer himself into an object or a work of art, and thus influence the outer world. He did not feel redeemed by the work he did. He did not seek redemption. He sought to see what others did not, the projection of his imagination."
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"In my low periods, I wondered what was the point of creating art. For whom? Are we animating God? Are we talking to ourselves? And what was the ultimate goal? ... I craved honesty, yet found dishonesty in myself. Why commit to art? For self-realization, or for itself? ... [Robert] never seemed to question his artistic drives, and by his example, I understood that what matters is the work: the string of words propelled by God becoming a poem, the weave of color and graphite scrawled upon the sheet that magnifies His motion. To achieve within the work a perfect balance of faith and execution. From this state of mind comes a light, life-charged."
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"It is said that children do not distinguish between living and inanimate objects; I believe they do. A child imparts a doll or tin soldier with magical life-breath. The artist animates his work as the child his toys. Robert infused objects, whether for art or life, with his creative impulse, his sacred sexual power. He transformed a ring of keys, a kitchen knife, or a simple wooden frame into art."
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"He put his arm around my shoulders and walked me home. It was nearly dawn. It took me a while to comprehend the nature of that trip, the demon vision of the city. Random sex. Trails of glitter shaking from muscled arms. Catholic medals torn from shaved throats. The fabulous festival I could not embrace. I did not create that night, but the images of racing Cockettes and Wild Boys would soon be transmuted into the vision of a boy in a hallway, drinking a glass of tea."
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"The artist seeks contact with his intuitive sense of the gods, but in order to create his work, he cannot stay in this seductive and incorporeal realm. He must return to the material world in order to do his work. It's the artist's responsibility to balance mystical communication and the labor of creation."
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"Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply. I got over the loss of [Robert's] desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cortes. Yet I have a lock of his hair, a handful of his ashes, a box of his letters, a goatskin tambourine. And in the folds of faded violet tissue a necklace, two violet plaques etched in Arabic, strung with black and silver threads, given to me by the boy who loved Michelangelo."
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...I stood there and looked at him. So peaceful, like an ancient child. He opened his eyes and smiled. "Back so soon?" And then again to sleep.
So my last image was as the first. A sleeping youth cloaked in light, who opened his eyes with a smile of recognition for someone who had never been a stranger.
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I cried and cried when I was finished. For Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe and their youthful wrestlings with Art and The Universe. For them having each other. For Smith's understanding of and empathy for him and his creation process. For her thoughtful contemplation of what art and god are, how they intertwine, how their life-force are so important. Recently, I'd forgotten the latter. Her words helped me get back in touch, however briefly, and I'm grateful.
I suppose I also cried (and am now crying) for the one true friend of my youth, Ginny. The nearly matching off-the-shoulder sweatshirts with Japanese writing that we wore around Azle in '83, prompting a 7-11 clerk to ask us, "Y'all ain't from here, are you?" Our exactly matching "Frances Lives" T-shirts, bought after watching "Frances" at a local cineplex. Our sneaking around to visit various churches to learn about god, having to lie to her conservative Baptist parents when we tried but failed to find the -- to them disreputable -- Unitarian church in Fort Worth. Our driving trip with her parents from Texas to Georgia, giggling over our "secret language" culled from the glossary at the back of Burgess's "Clockwork Orange" ("groody yarbles" = "balls" was a favorite). On that road trip, having to share a room with her parents, us in one bed flipping through TV channels with the sound turned all the way down, getting a secret thrill from watching the mild sex scenes in "Blue Lagoon" and hoping the snorers in the bed next to us didn't wake up. Our attempt at songwriting: "He's a Geek of the Pencil-Necked Variety" (inspired by "She's a Refugee" by U2); when I left her to go to college in the fall of '83, she had matchbooks made up with that title on the cover and sent them to my dorm...
The last time I saw her was in September 1985. By that time, she'd found a new "best friend," whom she brought with her to Austin. Ginny'd stolen 100s of cassette tapes from the Fort Worth mall record store where she worked and thought selling them in Austin would be a good idea. I remember the three of us approaching a crosswalk on the way to an Austin record store to sell the tapes, she and her other friend engrossed in conversation and me tagging along slightly behind. The crosswalk sign was flashing "DONT WALK." I stopped. She and her friend walked on, not even noticing that I wasn't with them. Broke my heart.
That same fall, I was in a poetry class taught by David Wevill. On November 6, 1985, I wrote a poem that I just now dug out of a box at the bottom of my closet. At the bottom of the poem I'd written, "for Ginny and 'Skippy'" --- Sandra, who was in that class, was "Skippy."
NO GLITTER
...and she loved her street in passing her neon name, the sweet fame-glint of the glistening walk
she was careful where she stepped -- the puddles were hers, too, diamond sax for her pleasure -- all wind and grit and dream for hire
loose, the girl without her shoes had graced the night, had made her peace -- and she smoothed her well-worn list, kissing the names for warmth, watching them wash in cool dissolve rearranging to a clue that would soon mean nothing -- nothing she would ever need to know
cold and wet, the streets may starve no glitter -- though her face glows
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Ginny died in 1987, of cardio-pulmonary failure. I found out when I tried to call her in 1988, at her parents' home in Georgia, where they'd all moved a couple of years earlier. Her dad answered, and there was an embarrassing silence when I asked for her, then: "I thought we'd told all the Azle people... She died 6 months ago."
