New Year's Eve Day

I'd been sitting around the house doing nothing but watching TV for several days, and hadn't showered or changed out of sweats the whole time. (I'll just go ahead and blame it on the Cowboys. Oh, and my months-long unemployment.)

Today, New Year's Eve Day, though, I sprung off the couch at 10am, ready to get out there and do chores like buy fresh groceries (and beer, for earlier in the evening; already had the bottle of champagne ready for midnight and after), etc.

One problem, though. Turned out a boiler had gone out overnight and now half of my apartment complex was without hot water (back on sometime today, said the e-mail from the apartment office, but time unknown)... It wasn't like I had showered and washed my hair just the day before and could get away with going out in public: It had been 3 DAYS since I'd washed my hair! I HAD to get in that shower! I debated just hanging out all day at home, checking on the water every hour (more like every 10 minutes, getting angrier and angrier), but I REALLY had stuff I wanted to get done. Plus I halfway wanted to punish myself a little bit for allowing myself to get so decrepit!

I tried to mitigate how awful I knew it was going to be by sponge-bathing a few body parts first (the goal in the shower itself was just going to be the hair---get in/get out). Unpleasant. I then remembered from the olden days that sometimes women would just wash their hair over the sink. I suppose I could have heated some pots of water. But I only have 3 pots--small, medium, and large--which weren't going to be enough for all the rinsing. GEEZ. JUST GET IT OVER WITH.

I closed the outside of the two bathroom doors so I wouldn't scare the cats with all of my hollering. And there was HOLLERING! I have taken some luke-warm showers in winter before, if the hot water was simply running out, but nothing this icy! While I was yelping, I thought of Jack Nicholson jumping in the pool in "Terms of Endearment"; I thought of "Little House on the Prairie" and other pioneers with their Saturday-nights-only baths (although those were with HEATED water); I thought of those miserable-looking snow monkeys in water (but it was HEATED water despite the outside cold); I thought of all of the poor people in the world who might only have icy rivers to bathe in; I thought of those "Polar Bear Club" nuts in Finland or Russia or wherever who jump in icy waters for fun/stimulation; I thought of recommendations of cold showers for both horniness and drunkenness...

Gawd. I am STILL cold! And it wasn't stimulating! Afterwards, my ear hurt, I was dizzy, and my heart was beating fast enough that I also imagined the guilt my apartment manager would feel if several middle-aged or elderly residents died of heart attacks after their showers! (Ha! Probably no guilt at all!)

Anyway, as I said earlier: That's what I get for lying around and not showering for 3 days straight!  :)

Rest of the day: Paid every single bill I owe (January rent/phone/utilities/etc). Mailed an eBay George Jones sticker that I'd sold. Got my groceries/beer/fresh carton o' cigs. Got my to-go order of salsa/chips from my favorite Tex-Mex restaurant. Found a nearby drop-off box for a big bag of unwanted clothes/shoes. Washed all the cat dishes and cleaned the litter boxes. Took out all of my trash and recycling. Added new air filters to my two fresh-air devices (which had previously just been sitting there). Banged out the dirt from my bathroom rugs and hung them over my fence for fresh air. And, as of this moment, have cleaned about half of my bathroom (only the tub and mat so far...as the evening goes on, I'll get to the toilet and floor...).

Happy New Year to Me!

George Jones: Ain't Love a Lot Like That (1999)

Well, a twister tore the roof off a grocery store
Blew an Idaho potato through the hardwood floor
Twirled granny's apron up around her head
The cat's gone missin' and the dog is dead.

Well, ain't love a lot like that
Ain't love a lot like that
Unconditional, unpredictable
Ain't love a lot like that

Just like Moses and the Red Sea water
A little bit of faith and the ring I bought her
I hit my knees and she took my hand
And she led my heart to the promised land.

Ain't love a lot like that
Ain't love a lot like that
Unconditional, unpredictable
Ain't love a lot like that

Well, the honeymoon's over and the work begins
My baby says I'm gettin' on her nerves again
One false move and an angry shout
I'm sleepin' all alone on the fold-out couch.

Ain't love a lot like that
Ain't love a lot like that
Unconditional, unpredictable
Ain't love a lot like that

George Jones: Sinners & Saints (1999)

Warren for President

A neighbor in my apartment complex just posted a "Warren for President" card in her window. Good for her. But... if I proudly posted a "Trump for President" card in my own window, the window would soon be smashed. Which side is the fascist?

Reaching out...

A couple of days ago, I mailed two people in an attempt to keep in touch. To keep from isolating (which is supposed to be bad). No response.

Reminded of something I read 20 years ago in a book about gays and suicide: One thing that I always remembered: A young man was quoted within: "If only one person smiles at me today, I won't kill myself." (No one did; he killed himself.) This kid's plaintive wish reminded me of when I first came to college at UT in 1983: Being from a small town, I was all smiles for everyone who passed my way. Not reciprocated. I felt low-level awful for a very long time because of this. Until I realized that this was the norm and learned to deal with it.

I was only a kid then. As an adult, things are pretty much exactly the same. Except now, when I pass people on the sidewalk/street, I do still smile/nod --- in remembrance of my teenaged self and my small-town self---politeness and friendliness still a "thing."

As for "killing oneself": I wouldn't give anyone the satisfaction. My advice to more sensitive people: Don't EVER base your life on someone else's random smile.

As for those do-gooders who espouse suicide prevention: It's all an individual thing. 95% of people don't actually give a shit but pretend to. If the depressed person you know doesn't kill themselves, it's most likely because of something within themselves; you were no help at all.

Fixing A Hole: Paul McCartney (1967)

Marry: Paul McCartney.

George Jones: Walk Through This World With Me (1967)

George Jones: Things Have Gone To Pieces

Marry/shag/kill: I'd definitely kill Keith Urban and Vince Gill 'cause their music is so terrible. I'd "shag" George Jones in a heartbeat (those eyes, that voice!). (And WANT to marry him, but it, of course, wouldn't work out.)

George Jones: Choices (1999)

At what point...

...do you give up on Life?

When I was temp-proofing on the midnight shift at Morgan-Stanley in NYC back in 2009/10, there was a full-time proofer who worked there, a middle-aged lady like I am now. I only worked with her occasionally, but one night I tried to strike up a conversation, something innocuous like how long she'd worked there... She grunted and turned her back to me. She literally could not have a conversation.

She got fired a couple of weeks later, don't know why.

What if I, via isolation, turn into that? (I once could not figure out why in the world anyone would have multiple cats... I also, as a young woman, could not figure out why some office women had "bad hair" or why they stayed at jobs they hated.)

Kind of like Santa, except dirty and worse...

Nowhere for Christmas

Only semi-surprisingly, I'm not THAT sad about being alone for Christmas. I haven't spoken to my mother since August 2017 (will issues that triggered longtime childhood issues), and so haven't spent Christmases of 2017, 2018, and now 2019 with my mother/brother and his family.

I do miss a nice-smelling, clean, decorated house with good food for Christmas. My mother has always kept a good home, and I always had a nice Christmas growing up. That part I miss. However, I don't miss being around people who don't give a damn if I'm there or not. I don't miss my mother blatantly going around shooting pictures of everyone BUT me. I don't miss my mother and brother getting me gift certificates or sweatshirts when I've gone out of my way to buy thoughtful presents. (Home from NYC, for instance, I gave my mom a $300 silver bracelet from Tiffany's; got a sweatshirt. A couple of years ago in Austin, I gave my mom a framed collection of postcards from various decades from her hometown in Germany; she looked at them and said--in front of other guests--"I already have these.")

I guess my dream is to have somewhere to go on Christmas that is nice-smelling, clean, decorated, with good food... but with people who want to be around me and care about me. Not this year, but maybe one year before I die.

Sassy Cinco

New stray baby Cinco invited inside for the first time (after weeks of peering in back and front windows) on December 20 has been hissed at by Mama and Pete, but has also made him/herself at home in some ways up until tonight: lying on the couch (when I'm not there; I still am not allowed to pet), batting balls around, eating at the same time as others. No other cat will yet lie with him/her and groom, but, aside from the occasional hissing, the others have not been too mean. (Letting Cinco eat right next to them has been a great sign.)

While writing on the computer a few minutes ago, I looked up to see Cinco perched right next to the semi-sleeping Mama Hennessy at the top of the couch cushions! I KNOW Hennessy knows this newby is right there...and she let Cinco stay without fussing! What a great Christmas spirit! :)

Cinco and Mama Hennessy.

Immortality

I've been reading "The Beatles in Dream and History" (2003) by Devin McKinney. At the end, McKinney quotes Milan Kundera in an attempt to define immortality: "And the thought went through his mind that beauty is a spark which flares up when two ages meet across the distance of time, that beauty is a clean sweep of chronology, a rebellion against time."

There IS such a thing as "immortality"!

Cinco

I live in an apartment complex that has a plethora of stray cats. That's how I got Hennessy and her kittens back in April.

After I adopted Hennessy and babies in April, a few other regular cats kept showing up at the back door. One was Papa Penny, the old scarred-up cat that I'd been feeding since I began feeding Hennessy (he's now since disappeared). One semi-regular, obviously pregnant mama (Hennessy's sister) has also disappeared, but a little one of hers kept showing up again and again. Peering in the back screen door. Peering in the front window ledge. For the past couple of months I'd invited her in, but she was too scared. Today, it was particularly cold and rainy and when I opened the back door, she finally came in. (p.s. I'm famously bad at sexing kittens. I got the sex of Hennessy, Pete, Sasha, AND Solomon ALL WRONG! Initially thought Hennessy was a sassy boy; Pete, a pretty little posing kitty that I named "Lily"; Sasha, a bold/smart/first kitten to use the litter box that I named "Georgie"; Solomon, I thought an oddball little boy. So who the hell knows yet what "Cinco" is! I'll call it "she" for now!)

Cinco still won't (after 3 hours) let ME pet her, but... For the past 3 hours, she's been batting balls around, eating/drinking, lying on my bed, lying on my couch, play-fighting with the other cats. Mama and Pete hissed a couple of times, but not seriously. For someone who's been living outdoors all her short life, she fit exactly in. All of the cats had, for weeks, seen her at the back door and front window and sat by her and interacted. She's now sleeping on the couch. Mama is at the top of the couch. Sasha is by the window. Pete is at my feet. And Solomon is on my lap.

This Niece o' Hennessy looks exactly like Hennessy: Same mark on nose, same fur coloring and short tail.

Five cats is technically insane. And I'm now officially a weird old lesbian Cat Lady. In the past, I judged and mocked how that could ever happen. Oh!

Cinco and Mama Hennessy.

Cinco.

2020 Calendars

Back in late 2013, I first bought two calendars: One for my home (New York City), one for the office (Old Hollywood) that I didn't yet have. Since I got a job in early 2014, I've always bought the same two calendars (from Brown Trout).

This fall, after I'd quit my job in October, I ordered the same two calendars. Seemingly prophetically, they were lost in the mail (USPS fucked up).

Luckily, calendars.com was nice and re-sent. Got them last week. Phew.

Santa Claus Is Back In Town - Elvis Presley (1957)

I've been temping for the past couple of weeks, and today the supervisor played Christmas music all day via Pandora or something. (He asked us what we'd like to hear, and I said '40s/'50s/'60s/'70s/'80s----anything but Mariah Carey.) When this Elvis song came on, I had to blurt out happily: "The dirtiest Christmas song ever!"

"What? What do you mean?!"

Me, doing my best Elvis growl: "You've been a real good little baby, Santa Claus is back in town!"

Everybody laughed! :)  (I've been alone for so long, I forgot that I was once occasionally considered funny.)

And don't forget the "Santa Claus is comin' down your chimney tonight" line!

p.s. Mariah's "All I Want for Christmas" tried to come on twice on the feed, but the boss twice cut it off in my honor. After the second time, I said: "If it shows up a third time, it was meant to be..." It DID show up a third time... I bowed to Mariah's mighty Christmas spirit.

John Lennon: Real Love

Happy?

I was supposed to have been devastated by quitting my cushy state job back in late September.

$51.6K a year. 13 vacation hours accumulated each month. Health-care. Retirement plan.

I've been working for $15 per hour at a temp job for the past couple of weeks. No parking on campus so have to get up earlier to catch the bus, etc. Only 25 hours per week, so not going to fill my coffers for very long while I look for a REAL job. But...

I'm not unhappy doing this temp work. And I'd been very unhappy since about 2017 at my old "real" job. Not with the pay or benefits, but with the utter incompetence of my boss and a couple of my co-workers whom I had to work with while trying to put out a book.

Had I not quit in September, I'd still have the above incompetent people to work with. AND the fact that my boss had just denied my request for a raise---she started me at $46.6K in 2014 (at that time, I had 15 years of editing experience). She started the new guy at $49.9 in 2019 (he had under a year of editing experience). I'd have been perpetually disgruntled.

It's COMPLETELY a good thing that I left. Otherwise I'd have ended up like some of the people (women) there: Trapped and constantly complaining about the boss, having been there for 25-30 years and unable to escape --- just able to constantly complain until their retirement. UGH. Not me. I'm not a fucking slave just yet. A couple of years left before I'm trapped.

George Jones: The King Is Gone (and so are you)

George Jones remembers Conway Twitty

Haircut Conversation

I have a job interview next week, so I needed to look nice, but the conversation with my hairdresser involved how I was getting a haircut for Christmas photos with the family.

Of course, I didn't want to say anything about how I'm not seeing anybody from my family. But I did have some Christmas conversation at hand: Where am I going for Christmas? Oh, my mom and brother are here in town, so I don't have to travel. (My hairdresser's family is in Missouri, but she's staying here, BTW.)

Congratulations, Boris Johnson!

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50776671
https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2019/results


I forgot to say "congrats" earlier this week to Boris Johnson for his decisive UK victory. His struggle for Brexit and UK sovereignty mirrors Trump's simultaneous fight for US sovereignty.

Temping for Trump

I have a brief (5-week) temp job at UT through mid-January. Six strangers sifting through professor evaluations. We were instructed not to talk, but Thursday, the two bosses were out of the room, and one person (large 50-something gay woman who's been late to work every single day) started going on about how crappy both this job and her life were and how she was going to move to Finland---where they'd apparently just elected an all-woman government. She, a young punk chick, and a black woman all then started going on about how awful America was, how the middle class had disappeared, etc.

I first dove in with: "Up until October, when I quit my job, I was making $50K yearly and I have a 1200-sq-ft apartment, which is quite enough for one person. I consider myself very much middle class. You guys seriously don't think you're middle class?"

I then asked (only semi-innocuously, because I kind of knew what I was about to set off; the big woman had been making anti-government comments all week): "So an all-female government is going to make your life great?"

Her: "Unlike this country, which refuses to elect any woman."

Me: "Well, maybe if there were a decent female candidate." [Uh-oh, here we go...]

20-something punk chick: "Well, we HAD one, except for that ****er Trump."

Black 50-something woman: "Oh, Trump is ridiculous."

Me [to punk chick]: "I voted for that ****er Trump. I'm sick of people bad-mouthing him, and me. I'm not a Deplorable. I'm not a racist. And Hillary really was a bad candidate."

Punk chick: "Yeah, she was a bad candidate."

Big gay woman: "How could you vote for that idiot?"

Me: [I really did make this salient point at this time] "Trump and Sanders were the only two candidates talking about stopping the outsourcing of American jobs. And I thought to myself: Who's the better candidate to do something about it? Trump. And Trump knew a lot more than Sanders about the economy."

Big gay woman: "He had a TV show! What does he know about the economy?"

Me: "He was in real estate and construction for decades! He actually functioned in the economy, unlike Sanders, who's done nothing with his life other than have a government job."

ETC. ETC. The bosses came back in, and we all shut up, as required.

Ozzy Osbourne sings John Lennon's "How?" in 2010

I don't know what to say. One mean thing: This might have been John himself in 2010.

What music should we listen to?

The six of us temps gathered together for six weeks to do a mundane chore were offered some music yesterday. The person in charge put on some very mild, ennervating, generic classical music. Today, he asked if we had liked it... I said I did not: It put me to sleep. Did he have anything a bit more energetic, like Vivaldi or something? He asked if a Baroque channel was OK; I said sure!

We listened to Baroque for a couple of hours. Then the girl next to me whispered to him: "Can we hear something with voices?" He put on some Choral and asked if it was OK: Me and one other guy: "Please, no!" Then a couple of other people asked for "contemporary with voices." (Apparently the lack of voices had been getting to some people!) The first "contemporary" song that came on, I didn't recognize as Pink, it was so generic (I guess it was latter-day Pink). With this song, the boss asked: "Is this OK?" I blurted out, "This is putting me to sleep more than yesterday's music!" Another woman then said, "I LIKED what was on yesterday---it was peaceful and relaxing!" And the group's big bull dyke (who, BTW, has come in late every day) then said, "Pink is a genius vocalist. This song is beautiful." (Me: I wanted to say, "Then let's hear the REAL genius Pink: "Get the Party Started" --- but I didn't.) And then a smart-ass guy said, re me: "She wants to hear death metal!" Har-har.

We ended up listening to the soft-rock vocals for an hour, then silence for the last half-hour.

God, glad we weren't on a jury together!

I ended the day thinking, "Geez, I'm being obnoxious and opinionated again!" What's been drilled into my head for the past billion years. I'm bored with that shit, but still influenced by it.

In the case of this particular job, we were all told at the beginning not to talk amongst ourselves because we might make mistakes in our work. If the goal is to focus on our task, then I think that generic soft-rock songs with lyrics are as bad as talking amongst ourselves! I don't want to be thinking about Pink (early vs. late), or about how many times I've heard "Every Breath You Take," and did I put it on a mix tape in the late '80s... And I wouldn't have said anything... but I was ASKED!! :)

Not supposed to buy extra stuff while I'm unemployed...

Just the bills, ma'am. 

I've actually been GREAT since October. Until now, the only extras that I've bought were four pairs of $20 sweatpants from Target. But I keep seeing those "4-name shirts" on TV shows like "Impractical Jokers," and I had a perfect 4-name combo that I thought was a little bit cool. Here's the Christmas gift to myself that I just bought:




p.s. No, I didn't choose black text on a black background. Blogger is screwing up again.

My Dream Work Hours

Nine to noon; hour break for lunch; one to three.

Ah, could I only make $50K per year doing this! But nah---just a temp job for a month over Christmas, at $15 per hour.

What's good about the gig, though:
(1) Gets me up off my lazy ass. (Left to myself, I'd be up 'til 7am and sleep 'til 3pm---not healthy.)
(2) Gets me away from my apartment, away from the loud maintenance guys who constantly hang out in the maintenance room next door---ALL DAY LONG. (I've complained 4 times to management about the constant "hanging out." Nothing's done.)
(3) I kind of like a little bit of "taking the bus and being out on the street." And watching things. At my former job, I'd drive 2 miles to work, walk 10 feet to the building, etc. I was brain-dead and depressed.
(4) I like walking around campus for the lunch hour, knowing there are only two hours left in my work day.
(5) It'll end in January, right before the thrill is gone. I may be temporarily re-enamoured with taking the bus and walking around, but I also know how annoying this can get.

Main thing, working five hours per day won't pay the bills after February! I can goof around for the time being, but pretty soon, gotta get serious! :)  This, at least, is better than me lying on the couch all day. It's definitely something healthy to do.

Sidenote re a job interview I had last week: I sent in the requested writing sample, got called in for a second interview. The job has barely any benefits, and the commute is horrible (over an hour each way). Pays in the 50s, though. Not yet ready to grasp at anything, though. Commuting an hour each way is NUTS. Living only 11 miles away, I can't agree to that commute on principle.

Paul McCartney: Back Seat of My Car (1971)

Paul's 1971 "Ram" is a better album than John's 1971 "Imagine." I've listened to each at least 100 times since I first heard them in the '80s. John is the political poster-boy because of "Imagine" and "Gimme Some Truth." But Paul's album flows and rocks. John's just sits there. And YOU sit there, listening because you're trying to show respect to John (or because you're a 15-year-old kid trying to achieve gravitas via what's been hammered into your head is an "important" album).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_(John_Lennon_album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_(album)

Melting in March (Part 1)

In the winter things congeal and drops that started apart
(but weren't always real) freeze together briefly, order
winter's waste, prove creation possible out of once
dead gray. (The world shimmers and winks, lit by pale thighs,
the glow of stars atop tinselled trees. No resistance to this, or
if there is: "It's Christmas...")

It's the melt of this that takes you away, the last mush of
Valentine's Day, squish of my fists, velvet hearts soon to
crack in the long dry stretch. Such months need no holiday, fade
to sameness under scorch of sun, dumb leisure for the one who
wanted less.

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
the 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

How to Light a Cigarette

Do I look into your eyes, or
at the glitter in your hand, the
little metal flash of tinder, sparks,
the light on eye's demand, the
needy suck that waits for kindling, or
the flame that sets it off, the hand
that trembles, matches shaking, palm-
sweat-wet, or lost in cough and

Does a future lie in learning how
I like this to be done, and how I
choose to do it, also, dewy eyes
or all in fun, just like some pseudo-
movie-cool-thing---I am boy and
you are girl, we've got the moon why
ask for stars---each pin-prick piercing
light-starved worlds.

Across the Universe: The Beatles

Two Of Us/Suzy Parker: The Beatles

"One After 909" + The Cavern. Liverpool, 1962

1961: Tony Sheridan and the Beatles: My Bonnie

(Just Like) Starting Over: August 1980 take

Stand By Me: John Lennon

"Me thinks thou dost protest too much." If you're truly in love with somebody, must you proclaim and proclaim and proclaim about it? Could this all be mere surface: "Oh, I've found my grand artistic love! Just like Stu and Astrid!" I loved Lennon as a teen, and I tried to buy it, but I never bought it. Lennon and Ono are no Stu and Astrid.

Impeachment: Pamela Karlan

Stereotypical obnoxious Jewish intellectual female. A donor to the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016, yet claiming to be unbiased. (As an intellectual female, I'm embarrassed for her.)

Impeachment: Noah Feldman

I was home today and watched this. The Democrats brought out the most stereotypically "diverse" witnesses possible, spouting the most nonsensical arguments. 

Here's the stereotypical gay guy (though, according to Wikipedia, he's been married.) Six weeks after Trump's election in 2016, Feldman was posting on Twitter about impeaching Trump. Yet in 2019, he's supposed to be a reputable, nonbiased legal scholar.

Eye of the Beholder

I've been reading Lennon bios for the past week; in all of them, Yoko's second husband, Tony Cox, is described by everyone (authors, outside observers, as well as Yoko herself) as being "EXTREMELY good looking." I don't AT ALL see it (Cox is at left in below photo).

Reminds me of reading, during college, various accounts by contemporaries of Virginia Woolf, and later professors teaching her work---how allegedly EXTREMELY beautiful she was. I don't AT ALL see it.

Both, to me, look extremely lackluster and nebbishy. If I were to write about them for history, I would politely not even mention their looks because they're so plain. How in the world did they get elevated into "extremely good looking"?

"I look like fucking Stevie Nicks!!!!"

Travel Time

Had a job interview yesterday. Went pretty well (I talked with the interviewer for an hour-and-a-half). Got out of the interview at 4:30pm. Didn't get home until 5:30.

The interview was 11 miles away from my apartment. It took me a whole hour to drive 11 miles home (what I went through is EXACTLY like the photo, on Austin's MoPac).

Until now, I've only been READING about the terrible traffic in Austin. Thought people were just bitchin'. (For the past 5+ years, I've lived only 2 miles from my workplace. On a good day, took me 6 minutes to get there or back; on the slowest of days, 15 minutes.)

Turns out, they weren't "just bitchin'."

I don't think I could do this twice a day. I don't want to seem like a "snowflake," but, seriously, I would go mad.

MoPac traffic, Austin

Fleetwood Mac: Gypsy (from 1982's "Mirage")

As an extremely callow young woman in the '80s, I used to make fun of Stevie Nicks as some sort of hippie holdover (my horror similar to the scene in "Sid and Nancy" [1986] when the punk Nancy runs down the street screaming in despair, "I look like Stevie Nicks!"). 

As I just now discovered, though, at a late age: This Stevie Nicks song is beautiful and profound. I got goosebumps, I thought about my entire life. (And what did Nancy Spungen ever do for me...)

So I'm back, to the velvet underground
Back to the floor, that I love
To a room with some lace and paper flowers
Back to the gypsy that I was
To the gypsy... that I was

And it all comes down to you
Well, you know that it does
Well, lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice
Ah, and it lights up the night
And you see your gypsy
You see your gypsy

To the gypsy that remains
Faces freedom with a little fear
I have no fear, I have only love
And if I was a child
And the child was enough
Enough for me to love
Enough to love

She is dancing away from me now
She was just a wish
She was just a wish
And a memory is all that is left for you now
You see your gypsy
You see your gypsy
Lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice
And it all comes down to you
And it all comes down to you
Lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice
And it all comes down to you
I still see your bright eyes, bright eyes
And it all comes down to you

Empire State: Fleetwood Mac (1982 from "Mirage")

Breaking up the Beatles

For the past week, I've been reading Goldman's 1988 "The Lives of John Lennon" and now Philip Norman's 2008 "John Lennon: The Life."

Goldman's is tediously written, filled with gossip that he presents as true, as in "John gave Stu Sutcliffe a heavy beating that later killed him" --- a hypothesis that Goldman picked up from an account by Stu's sister Paulene (but denied by both Paul McCartney, who was supposed to have been present during said beating, and Stu's German fiancee Astrid Kirchherr, who said that of course Stu would have told her had such a thing happened, but he didn't). Lots of prurient stuff, and everything has to be taken with a grain of salt. (Aside from the bad rumors, the bad writing is the most painful.)

Philip Norman also wrote the earlier "Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation," which I originally read in 1981 when it first came out. (It's since been updated a couple of times, through 2003. I have the latest edition but haven't read it yet.) I'm nearly finished with his 2008 Lennon book. I like it; I like Norman's writing, which I remembered from the "Shout" book---straightforward, honest, and fair. (For instance, he presents the "John causing Stu's death" story but provides, as Goldman did not, the follow-up from Paul and Astrid.)

Also interesting in Norman's bio: he's interviewed Yoko, and she's not being coy and fey, as she usually, annoyingly, is. For instance, here she is re the day that John broke up the Beatles in an accountant's office:

We went off in the car, and he turned to me and said, 'That's it with the Beatles. From now on, it's just you---OK?' I thought, 'My God, those three guys were the ones entertaining him for so long. Now, I have to be the one to take the load.'

Hidden Treasure!

Today, I performed a task that I'd been meaning to do but putting off for MONTHS because I knew it was going to be so tedious and sweaty: Dragging my 10 x 8 living-room shag carpet to the dumpster. It had seen floods at my last apartment, and cat poop/pee/hair at my current apartment. And I'm sure some of my food dribbles and toenail clippings were mixed in the shag. I'd also stopped vacuuming it months ago, in anticipation of my throwing it out any day... It was gross. And, as promised, it was HARD to drag out! (When it was first delivered new to the door of my last apartment in 2014 or so, it was even hard to drag a mere 5 feet inside the door! This time to the dumpster involved about 100 feet! But I did it myself! Phew!)

I bought a replacement rug a long time ago, which still sits unwrapped in my hallway. I kind of like the clean way the living room looks for the moment, though. (I especially like the idea of no poop/pee/hair/other bodily detritus lurking in the shag---though the current effect does also seem a bit cold.)

While getting rid of the rug, I had to move my couch... Honestly, I thought I'd find maybe 3 fake mice and 2 or 3 balls that the kitties had knocked under there, maybe a pen... Nope! The treasure was MUCH greater! What a big silly mess, you cats! (All the little paper balls are the silver inserts from inside the front of cigarette packs---every time I open a new pack, which is daily, the rustle of the outer plastic lures all three young'uns to run to my feet. They like it when I then crumple up the foil part and toss it for them to chase. Obviously, they've been chasing it right under the couch for 6 months!)