A Belated Valentine

While shopping online today for throw pillows for my new couch, I was figuratively throwing everything that even minorly struck my fancy into my Amazon cart, kind of waiting for a "unifying motif" to develop, after which I could edit the selections down to about 4. I initially had just done a search for "throw pillows red black gray" to at least narrow down the color scheme I wanted for my upcoming gray couch. I liked all sorts of things with the requisite red/black/gray: plain, stripes, geometric, elephants from India. But then a theme did emerge: umbrellas, of all unexpected-to-me things. I'll wait 'til the couch and all cushions get here and take a picture to show you exactly what I came up with. Here, though, is a pillow I was initially on the fence about. I LOVED how it looked overall. But... were the heart balloons too much? How did it fit in with the other "umbrella"-related pillows? The latter, I justified with, "OK, looks like stormy weather here; and the circular object could be considered open-umbrella-like as seen from above..." But the damn heart balloons floating around?!

Well, as it happens: On Valentine's Day this year, I was waiting for a bus across from a Dollar Store, where a group of people were trying, mainly successfully, to herd a mass of helium-filled red heart-shaped mylar balloons into the back of their SUV. One balloon, though, escaped unnoticed. (I kept waiting for one of the little kids in the bunch to express dismay, but it was a clean getaway.) The balloon initially hovered only about 12 feet above the store and parking lot, then got its wind and rose and rose and rose, eventually crossing above me and going so high up that it disappeared into the gray clouds completely.

The whole process, and progress, was interesting to me! Yes, yes, I was aware of the rather cheesy symbolism of me alone on a street corner on Valentine's Day watching the lone heart-shaped balloon making its way bravely into the ether. A bit too much, perhaps. But interesting, nonetheless. (I similarly often get a minor thrill out of seeing weeds sprouting up from cracks in city sidewalks. And I actually teared up when seeing the floating plastic bag in "American Beauty.")

OK, so this pillow was in. I ordered it.

But wait, there's MORE! :) 

Later today, post-pillow-ordering, I found myself once again across the street from the same Dollar Store, this time having a cigarette while waiting to carry out my $6.99 Papa John's pizza Monday special. As I'm standing at the side of Papa John's, puffing away and staring blankly into space, I peripherally notice something low-to-the-ground turning the corner from the back of the building toward where I'm standing. It was a red heart-shaped mylar balloon with "Happy Valentine's Day" written on it. Still with helium enough to keep it barely aloft. Only inches off the ground, it passed in front of me and lodged in the legs of a wrought-iron patio seat outside of the vintage store next door. By this time I was grinning crazily: My balloon! Should I grab it and take it home as a memento of my Valentine's Day, 2015?! Within seconds, though, it had disentangled itself. Now only about 2 feet off the ground, it started to cross the heavily trafficked Burnet Road.

Great, I thought. Here's a REALLY symbolic end to my Valentine's Balloon memory---Heart-Shaped Balloon Carelessly Smushed by Car. (Shades also of my cat getting run over by a car in 1991 as I watched her trying to cross the street.) One car blows by it. Another forces it briefly onto and up its windshield. It hovers in the middle of the two lanes as numerous cars pass on either side. It doesn't stand a chance. After all, it was obviously helium-challenged to begin with a minute earlier, barely inches off the ground. Which car will be the one?

No car. Some second or third or fourth wind took hold of the balloon. It rose. Above all of the cars, past the balconies of the apartments across the street, toward the Dollar Store from whence it came, and then...off into the ether, until I again lost sight.

True story.

Chicago Soundtrack 2002: 14. I Move On

  

[VELMA]
While truckin' down the road of life, although all hope seems gone,
I just move on.

[ROXIE]
When I can't find a single star to hang my wish upon, I just move on,
I move on.

[VELMA]
I run so fast, a shotgun blast can hurt me not one bit.

[ROXIE]
I'm on my toes cause heaven knows a moving target's hard to hit.

[VELMA & ROXIE]
So as we play in life's ballet, we're not the dying swans, we just move on,
we move on.

[ROXIE]
Just when it seems we're out of dreams, and things have got us down.

[VELMA]
We don't despair, we don't go there, we hang our bonnets out of town.

[VELMA & ROXIE]
So there's no doubt we're well cut out to run life's marathon, we just move on,
we just move on.

So fleet of foot, we can't stay put, we just move on.
Yes, we move on!

Really fun to watch on a 42-in TV...

Chicago! (Thanks, TCM!) I wasn't so sure about my purchase earlier today--who cares about local news and "Bar Rescue" writ larger--but... "Chicago" looked really special.

 

Flashback to 2002 when "Chicago" first came out: My friend Kathy and I went to see it at a theater and loved it so much that afterward we immediately drove to a Walmart to find the soundtrack. We then went back to her place to listen (and rather drunkenly dance to) over and over again, driving her husband, who by this time was trying to sleep, nuts. A scene that was later repeated almost exactly on Oscar night, except that time the incredibly patient man had been forewarned and had thus steeled himself.

 

 

 

In "Study" news...

 

As you can see: Here's a case of me now HAVING a separate study for nothing but books and desk, but... some of the stuff I have in it aren't working at all. The little desk is fine, the size I wanted (after the 2-ft-wide rolling cart for my computer I had at the old place, it's grand.)

 

What bugs me most blatantly (aside from all the cords) is the chair I'm using for a desk chair--back when I had one room to live in, this chair was just fine. As it is, though, it's a white kitchen chair in the middle of a wannabe earth-toned study! See? The money going out is never-ending, since there's no way I'm aesthetically going to allow this to continue.

 

A more minor point is the beige chair and ottoman: I bought the chair, used, when I lived at the old small place. Paid under $100 for it, a good Crate and Barrel chair. Seemed huge and comfy at the time. (Not that I ever sat in it--I was always on my computer or lying in bed channel-surfing.) Weeks ago, in the same trip to the same store where I picked out my bedroom set, they charged a flat $80 fee for however much you wanted delivered. So I thought that this ottoman would be nice to toss in with the rest of the stuff... Once it got delivered, though: It's HUGE! It nearly completely dwarfs the chair. So now, in the back of my mind...got to get a new chair to fit the ottoman. (First-World Problems: Glad to participate in them for the first time in 8 years.)

More on Emerging from Chaos

For one thing, I can now download pictures again! I felt stymied not being able to, because of some glitch in somewhere that I wasn't able to figure out a way to work around until tonight. For instance, I wanted to document what my old place looked like all cleared out, as I made my last farewell (to 4 years of utter STRESS and sleeping many a day away while also, honestly, being a bit comforted by pretending it was a little treehouse club or that I was a teen with a really good bedroom), and I wanted to show what my brand new place looked like empty... But knowing that, while able to TAKE the photos, I was unable to download and share them made me feel so defeated, I didn't even bother taking them to begin with.

It's interesting how addicted one becomes to one's "electronic life." My 2-month-long lack of digital camera use bummed me out; my 2 DAYS without Internet/TV during the transfer from one place to another FREAKED me out; my new flatscreen not being delivered on time bummed me out (and I was nervous the whole time my brother was hooking the thing up for me, dreading that something was going to go wrong)...

New Place

After a full month at my new place, I'm only now starting to settle in properly. There are still some boxes and bins of CRAP sitting around in every room, but there are at least STARTING to be pockets of calm and order.

I am absolutely in love with the bedroom furniture that I had delivered less than 2 weeks ago. Prior to its delivery, I had the cheap full-size mattress with springs poking me, its unoffensive box springs that weren't really springs, and a metal frame. And that's ALL I had in the bedroom. My old place had 8 built-in drawers, so that's where all my undies/socks/T's were housed; at the new place, they all sat around in cardboard boxes or on the floor -- depressing! But not any more! Below are some shots of my bedroom as I've just started organizing it. There's still some junk lying around, all the art isn't hung, my new bedding still hasn't arrived, my new lamps haven't arrived, but... it's a beginning! (My absolute favorite thing is that sexy dresser, and being able to put my deco tray of perfumes upon it! Also love having a queen-size bed, which makes me feel like a real adult--dammit that I only have my old comforter to put on it.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some other major headway being made in the last few days: I FINALLY got my new TV!!! Below is what I used to have (pictured amid the chaos of the last couple of weeks at my old place while I packed)-- a 1999 Panasonic, bought from Craigslist for $20 when I first got back from New York.

 

 

 

And below is my new 42-in flatscreen TV, which was paid for a week ago but only shipped in Saturday. (My brother was kind enough to pick it up and hook it up for me... I tried lifting it in the store, and could not.) Still a TV amid chaos, but... not as much chaos. And a much bigger space to be chaotic in! (I especially can't wait to roll out that red carpet!) :)

 

 

 

The next step in this whole process: A couch! To come this Thursday. (It's dark gray, and I want to do my living room in gray, black, red, and pink... which means ultimately getting rid of the current TV stand and the CD shelf, plus getting a black coffee table/side tables, plus window treatments... More money being sucked away. :(   (I put a "frowney-face" and it is scary, but... I know exactly how deprived I've been for the past 8 years, since I sold EVERYTHING and moved to NYC back in early 2007. I have a LITTLE guilt about all the spending going on now, but... only a little. I feel like I've paid plenty of dues. "To everything there is a season...")



Ants

I hope I haven't been too influenced by reading Zelda Fitzgerald bios recently (one of the reasons doctors diagnosed her as "schizophrenic" was that she mentioned that people seemed like ants to her...). Uh-oh. This past week, while walking from the bus along the sidewalk to work and then into the building/up the elevator/down the hall to my office, I couldn't help but notice the "friendly face of acknowledgement" that I felt I had to make each time I passed someone. This is pretty much the same as ants touching their antennae as they pass each other. (Or like dogs sniffing butts. Each species has its own ways of determining vibes from its other members.)

Mr. America

 

 

Elvis Presley - Something Blue (take 7)

 

 

John Lennon: Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out) 1974

Home version of the song from the "Walls and Bridges" album.

 

Nobody loves you when you're down and out
Nobody sees you when you're on cloud nine
Everybody's hustlin' for a buck and a dime
I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine

I've been across to the other side
I've shown you everything, I got nothing to hide
And still you ask me, do I love you, what it is, what it is?
All I can tell you is, it's all show biz
All I can tell you is, it's all show biz

Nobody loves you when you're down and out
Nobody knows you when you're on cloud nine
Everybody's hustlin' for a buck and a dime
I'll scratch your back and you knife mine

I've been across the water now so many times
I've seen the one eyed witchdoctor leading the blind
And still you ask me, do I love you, what you say, what you say?
Every time I put my finger on it, it slips away
Every time I put my finger on it, it slips away

Well I get up in the morning
And I'm looking in the mirror to see, ooo wee
Then I'm lying in the darkness
And I know I can't get to sleep, ooo wee

Nobody loves you when you're old and gray
Nobody needs you when you're upside down
Everybody's hollerin' 'bout their own birthday
Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground

 

Serve Yourself [June 27 1980]

 

 

Horses (Azle, Texas)

The brief horses in my field were always rushing at me, or away.
It got to where I was scared to either ride or feed. Anything could happen:
The sun off the tin dish, the actual snake in the grass.

My neighbor rode much better -- bareback, behind her, we'd leap creeks
A dare, no doom, in each stumble up banks

The girl was bold; the horse, too. He didn't stand a chance.
I was safe as I'd ever be.

Distasteful Is the Night

I don't think I've ever read F. Scott Fitzgerald's last complete novel, "Tender Is the Night," all the way through. But after reading two Zelda bios in the last two weeks and learning that this particular novel deals with the so-called "turning-point" in their marriage, I had to give it another go.

It's fine. Fitzgerald is usually psychologically relatively astute when it comes to group dynamics. (He get kudos, at least, for TRYING, in this case.) But at one point I started running into enough annoying, ridiculous stuff like this (about the main character's wife, an 18-year-old love interest, and a random hanger-on):

"Their point of resemblance to each other and their difference from so many American women, lay in the fact that they were all happy to exist in a man's world -- they preserved their individuality through men and not by opposition to them. They would all three have made alternatively good courtesans or good wives not by the accident of birth but through the greater accident of finding their man or not finding him."

This kind of thing isn't the main jist of the novel, but it crops up enough to make me start to view the whole thing with distaste. Fitzgerald's prose is often beautiful enough to make me not want to dislike him. But the above makes me tilt toward dislike, similar to whatever D. H. Lawrence book I was reading years ago when he suddenly started declaring a 6-year-old girl (a 6-year-old girl!) to be a "bitch" and a "seductress," representative of all women.

I only very vaguely care about authors' personal proclivities, but when they start presenting said proclivities in their work as TRUTHS, I do indeed have a problem with it.

Fitzgerald died in 1940, at age 44. His smug novel about the beginning of his real-life wife's psychological breakdown, published in 1934, was, appropriately, his last.

John Lennon -Watching The Wheels: For Sandra

 

People say I'm crazy, doing what I'm doing
They give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin
When I say that I'm okay, well, they look at me kinda strange
"Surely, you're not happy now, you no longer play the game"

 

People say I'm lazy, dreaming my life away
They give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall:
"Don't you miss the big time, boy, you're no longer on the ball"

 

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

 

People ask me questions, lost in confusion
I tell them there's no problem, only solutions

They shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind
I tell them there's no hurry, I'm just sitting here doing time

 

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

John Lennon/Scared

I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared
As the years roll away
And the price that I paid
And the straws slip away

You don't have to suffer
It is what it is
No bell, book or candle
Can get you out of this, oh, no

 I'm scarred, I'm scarred, I'm scarred
Every day of my life
I just manage to survive
I just wanna stay alive

You don't have to worry
In Heaven or Hell
Just dance to the music
You do it so well, well, well

Hatred and jealousy, gonna be the death of me
I guess I knew it right from the start
Sing out about love and peace
Don't wanna see the red raw meat
The green-eyed goddamn straight from your heart

I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired
Of being so alone
No place to call my own
Like a rollin' stone
 

 

 

Lennon mocking Dylan, 1978

I've by now been nearly (I say NEARLY, mind you) beaten down into thinking that I'm so terrible for thinking honest thoughts. Such deem me "divisive" or "negative" or "not a team player."

For instance, I got unFriended on Facebook by a few people for questioning someone's decision to (1) post photos of his wife in a coma, and (2) post requests for money after she'd died. (In the former case, I'd gently asked the guy, someone I'd known since he was 16, to think before he posted such photos; after his wife died, I was more harshly questioning why he was asking for money since he was an upper-middle-class guy with a good job that more-than-paid-for her hospital expenses.)

Non-Facebook/Real Life: When you work for anyplace, there's usually some sort of brain-washing going on: I really like my workplace and the work that I do, but, nonetheless, I often get bombarded with, "We're a Family," which I find false and creepy and juvenile--as if employees could not find their own motivation (hello--MONEY) for being there but, rather, had to be falsely enticed into believing that the corporation really "felt" something for them...

I'd much prefer to just be allowed to do my work in peace, but, alas...

Thanks, John, for this entire thing mocking bullshit (in this case, the Dylan-is-God bullshit, representative of every other kind of bullshit).

 

"Sounds like a ballad to me...This should get me in the Village Voice...I'm so cynical, I could just keep on doing this forever....they're gonna be selling my socks like Judy Garland...Sometimes I wish I was George Harrison, you know, got all the answers..."

The word of the day is...

...FINIAL.

The furniture men came with my bedroom set yesterday. Near the end of the process, one said, "Oh, I almost forgot your crown." He then took a decorative piece out of his coat pocket and screwed it into the top of my dresser. Very nice, thanks, I told him.

Later, when he'd gone, I noticed a hole at the top of the headboard of my new bed. Hmmm. Thinking that probably something went there, I took down the dresser ornament that the man had added and tried it out on the headboard: perfect fit.

So I was missing something. But how in the hell was I ever going to find it? Was it even there to begin with? Was it knocked off in the truck or warehouse or store or street?

I almost didn't bother calling the store today because chances seemed so rare that they'd know anything about it. I'd resigned myself to living without "the topper" to either my dresser or headboard (depending on where I decided to finally put it).

So I called the store: Hi, my name is, you guys delivered furniture to me yesterday, at the end one guy screwed something, a knob, into the top of my dresser, and I think that same thing's missing from the top of my headboard. Did anyone find a knob lying around the delivery truck?

Furniture-store man: Now, are you missing a "knob," or a "finial"?

Me: What's a "finial"?

Explanation. Then, YES! The man on the phone was the owner of the store, and someone had placed a random "finial" on his desk, with no explanation. He'd been wondering why it was there! We're both 95% sure that it belongs with my headboard. And I shall find out for sure in a couple of days, when I go to pick it up! :)

FINIAL.

Paper Dolls by Zelda Fitzgerald

Paper dolls by Zelda.




Zelda creating paper dolls.

Zelda's "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers"

While Zelda Fitzgerald was in the throes of her ballet obsession, beginning in 1927, a couple of years prior to her very first breakdown (and while she was living with but emotionally estranged from husband Scott), she apparently spent hours daily at home performing to this instrumental. Says houseguest-at-the-time John Biggs (an F. Scott Fitzgerald classmate at Princeton and later a judge and executor of Scott's estate):

"...she would 'start at six or seven o'clock in the morning and...had one tune she used to play constantly, 'The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.' She would keep it up until ten o'clock at night when she would drop from sheer exhaustion.' So often had he heard the tune played there that he said the melody was 'engraved on every organ he possessed.' The repetitious music and Zelda's practicing disturbed Scott enough to make him move his writing desk from the main part of the house into the library."

The Wikipedia entry, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parade_of_the_Tin_Soldiers,
explains that the tune was initially written in 1897, then became an American hit with lyrics by Ballard MacDonald in 1922 (which is when Zelda would have first heard it):

The toy shop door is locked up tight And everything is quiet for the night. And suddenly the clock strikes twelve, The fun's begun! The dolls are in their best arrayed, There's going to be a wonderful parade. Hark to the drum, Oh, here they come, cries everyone Hear them all cheering, Now they are nearing, There's the captain stiff as starch. Bayonets flashing, Music is crashing, As the wooden soldiers march; Sabers a-clinking, Soldiers a-winking, At each pretty little maid.

Here they come! Here they come! Here they come! Here they come! Wooden soldiers on parade. Daylight is creeping, Dollies are sleeping. In the toy shop window fast; Soldiers so jolly, Think of each dolly, Dreaming of the night that's past. When in the morning, Without warning, Toyman pulls the window shade, There's no sign the Wood brigade Was ever out upon parade.

More from Wikipedia: "In 1923, Lee DeForest filmed "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers", performed by Balieff's company, in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film premiered on April 15, 1923 at the Rivoli Theater in New York City, and is now in the Maurice Zouary collection at the Library of Congress." [Again, this something that Zelda would almost surely have seen.]

I was unable to find the DeForest film, but here is a 2008 amateur junior ballet version from Fort Worth (I hope to god Zelda wasn't doing this kind of thing for 12 hours a day, but I fear she might have been; I think Scott is a bit of a dick, but I do feel sympathy for him in this instance):

 

 

 

And here's a painting by Zelda of ballet dancers:

 

 

I pretty much see EVERY bit of passive-aggressive Zelda symbolism in all of the above!

 



No TV in Bedroom: Good Thing Still!

I just have to remark upon how not having a TV in my bedroom is STILL a good thing. (As I mentioned in an earlier post, there's no cable outlet there, and landlady wouldn't let cable guy drill one. I'd been used to going to sleep with the TV on in the same room for 15 years now.)

As I've been doing the past 2 weeks now in my new place, I woke up today with no audiovisual distraction right in my face. Kinda lay there for a bit, then picked up my Scott/Zelda bio and read for a bit, then, as with last weekend, had the impulse to jump out of bed and go get stuff done for the day! Tried a new eatery for a breakfast taco to go; took it into work, where I stayed about 3.5 hours and got a lot done in the silence; on my way home, went again to the used book store on the corner and got a Vivienne Haigh-Wood bio plus Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" for $4; tried another new eatery/cafe for a salad to take home... I like this new "lifestyle"! There's stuff to do all over the neighborhood very close to where I live. Aside from the billions of food joints (some fast food, some longtime Austin staples, some newer Austin staples), there's also the bookstore, the Savers, the Dollar Store, the billions of vintage furniture stores...just lots of places to pop into without making a 1-hr bus trip. (I do miss my one tiny Tex-Mex place with the great fish tacos from my old 'hood. But other than that, there really wasn't anything for me to do just by quickly walking to, unless I wanted a crappy microwaved sandwich for $10.) Oh, and I found a place right next to the bookstore where I can get a pedi for $25 and then walk home easily in my flip-flops! This 'hood is really suiting my everyday needs! I haven't even mentioned how a 12-pack of Bud is $1.50 cheaper at the corner CVS than it was back in my old 'hood!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Went to bed and woke up celebrating appropriately with "Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom," about that oh-so-Romantically-dysfunctional duo, Scott and Zelda.

 

 

Other favorite literary Valentines:

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

 

Anne and Kayo Sexton

 

Vivienne Haigh-Wood and T. S. Eliot

 

(Wound up my Valentine's Day by buying a bio of the tormented female half of the last couple at my favorite used book store up the street.)

 

p.s. Why was it always the woman going mad in these relationships? You could say that Vivienne was not her husband's equal, talent-wise. I think Zelda Sayre was definitely her husband's equal, though unacknowledged and constantly tamped down by Fitzgerald, actually forbidden by him, with the complicity of her psychiatrists, to write about her own life for fear that (1) it would "excite" her too much, and (2) that her writing about her own life would interfere with Scott's desire to incorporate her own thoughts/life into his writing, which he'd done constantly, often verbatim. (This is the sickest thing of all--his argument was that since he made the money in the family from his writing, that he had the right to HER thoughts as well as his.)

 

Plath, a more profound poet than Hughes, though he received the accolades while she was alive and married to him (after SHE, with her early East Coast US literary connections, ensured that he was published in America). Sexton's husband was a non-literary businessman and supportive, while violent.

Beware of Pricks (Joan Crawford, 1926)

Screaming at strangers...

...sometimes feels sooooooooo good.

Of course, there are always the doubts: "WHY, Steph, WHY? Aren't you even a bit embarrassed about losing it? Aren't you afraid that it's only going to get worse as you get older, and you're going to end up as the neighborhood 'Really Crazy Old Lady Who Always Screams at People'? Some things are a Slippery Slope, you know."

Yes, I'm a little bit embarrassed. Yes, I'd eventually, ideally like to be a calm, gracious old person and not a crazy, bitter one.

But... oh well.

With my new apartment, my bus-ride to/from work is only about 20 minutes each way. On the Rapid, which my employer pays for. The Rapid's 50-cent-higher rate also ensures that mainly professionals and students ride it, so it's not the writhing-masses-of-humanity scumbag hell that some of the regular city buses are. The rate difference, though, sometimes creates confusion among those waiting at the stops shared by both regular and Rapid buses. As in, sometimes people at the stops want to get on whatever bus stops there, without a realization that the Rapid buses cost more. When the driver tells them about the price difference, there are often arguments and annoying minutes of delays while we passengers all sit there and listen to the pointless blah-blah-blah back and forth.

Same happened this afternoon on my way home. Mid/late-20s couple, both grimy, with backpacks. White guy with dreads. Bleached-blonde Asian woman. As soon as I saw them, before they even opened their mouths, I thought, "San Francisco."

When they initially stepped onto the bus, the guy had a soda, the girl had a Styrofoam container of food. The driver told them no food or drinks on the bus. They, grumbling, went back out and tossed their stuff. When they stepped back onto the bus, there was the above-mentioned argument about what fare they were supposed to pay. They finally got all of their appropriate loose change into the fare box and headed toward the back of the bus, muttering.

GIRL: This is so fucked up.
GUY: Austin's a shitty city anyway.

ME: [turning to look at the guy, having had my absolute fill of smarmy San Francisco attitude 20 years ago and carrying the "trauma" forward to this day, and yelling] Why the FUCK are you here then?!

I was sick of  (and nauseated by) San Francisco attitude in '94, and I've been sick of the recent influx of West Coasters into Austin who've been partaking of the town while tossing out smug judgments on it. (One asshole I overheard on the bus months ago was actually CRITICIZING the fact that the streets here weren't more "dangerous," unlike his hometown San Francisco. Another guy on the bus, a grad student, hometown unknown, was bragging about the money he was getting from the University to study here, but belittling the state as a whole.)

Why the FUCK are you here then, indeed?!

When I shouted at the guy today, just about every professional/student head on the previously quiet bus looked up at me, then just as quickly turned back to their devices. The response of the guy himself was first a smirk and then a subsequent quieting down. (I must admit that I was, at that moment, in the incredible mood for a fight.)

I'm asking this question in the hope that you'll be kind

 

Well I tried so hard to stay alive
But the angel of destruction keeps on hounding me all around
But I know in my heart that we never really parted
Oh no

They say the Lord helps those who help themselves
So I'm asking this question in the hope that you'll be kind
Cos I know deep inside I was never satisfied
Oh no, Lord help me
Lord help me now
Please help me Lord, yeah yeah yeah
Help me to help myself

Whatever comes with a fox

Just ordered this pillow. The fox is not my totem (I don't think I have one; I'm more attracted to the cat family on a conscious level, though I also pay attention to foxes and wolves.), but I came upon it by accident. The pillow reminded me both of Klimt's style and of two of my favorite poems by Ted Hughes (one exultant, one utterly heartbreaking). I felt I needed this for my study, where I keep all my poems.


The Thought-Fox

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Epiphany

London. The grimy lilac softness
Of an April evening. Me
Walking over Chalk Farm Bridge
On my way to the tube station.
A new father – slightly light-headed
With the lack of sleep and the novelty.
Next, this young fellow coming towards me.

I glanced at him for the first time as I passed him
Because I noticed (I couldn't believe it)
What I'd been ignoring.

Not the bulge of a small animal
Buttoned into the top of his jacket
The way colliers used to wear their whippets –
But its actual face. Eyes reaching out
Trying to catch my eyes – so familiar!
The huge ears, the pinched, urchin expression –
The wild confronting stare, pushed through fear,

Between the jacket lapels.
    'It's a fox-cub!'
I heard my own surprise as I stopped.
He stopped. 'Where did you get it? What
Are you going to do with it?'
    A fox-cub
On the hump of Chalk Farm Bridge!

'You can have him for a pound.' 'But
Where did you find it? What will you do with it?'
'Oh, somebody'll buy him. Cheap enough
At a pound.' And a grin.
    What I was thinking
Was – what would you think? How would we fit it
Into our crate of space? With the baby?
What would you make of its old smell
And its mannerless energy?
And as it grew up and began to enjoy itself
What would we do with an unpredictable,
Powerful, bounding fox?
The long-mouthed, flashing temperament?
That necessary nightly twenty miles
And that vast hunger for everything beyond us?
How would we cope with its cosmic derangements
Whenever we moved?

The little fox peered past me at other folks,
At this one and at that one, then at me.
Good luck was all it needed.
Already past the kittenish
But the eyes still small,
Round, orphaned-looking, woebegone
As if with weeping. Bereft
Of the blue milk, the toys of feather and fur,
The den life's happy dark. And the huge whisper
Of the constellations
Out of which Mother had always returned.
My thoughts felt like big, ignorant hounds
Circling and sniffing around him.
   Then I walked on
As if out of my own life.
I let that fox-cub go. I tossed it back
Into the future
Of a fox-cub in London and I hurried
Straight on and dived as if escaping
Into the Underground. If I had paid,
If I had paid that pound and turned back
To you, with that armful of fox –

If I had grasped that whatever comes with a fox
Is what tests a marriage and proves it a marriage –
I would not have failed the test. Would you have failed it?
But I failed. Our marriage had failed.

Great Day!

I haven't had a great or even pretty good day for months, it seems, but I sure had one on Sunday!

I think it has something to do with no TV in the bedroom. (Surprisingly, there was no cable outlet there, and the landlady didn't want the cable co. to drill one. So... I only have the one TV in the living room.) I woke up with only a mild hangover, but normally, at the old place, that would be enough to keep me in bed channel-surfing all day unless I just desperately had to do laundry or grocery shopping. This time when I woke up, however, I just lay there for a bit and then got pretty bored with myself!

So UP I jumped and guess what I did! Went into work for a few hours! Again, back at the old place, there's no way in hell I would have gone through all the drudgery of between 1 and 2 hours each way to and from work, especially with the Sunday bus schedule. At my new place, though... 20 minutes, and there I am! There's a crapload of stuff that I need to get done this week, with 2 hard deadlines, and it had been weighing on my mind. I ended up staying for 3 hours and cleaning up a lot of odds-n-ends so I could focus on the big stuff this week. Felt great!

After that, it was about 4 in the afternoon, and a GORGEOUS 78-degree springlike day in Austin. There's a little used bookstore a couple of blocks from my apartment, run by the Austin libraries, which I'd been eyeing, and I finally went in... Hardbacks $2; PBs $1! That is how used books SHOULD be priced, I think, but unfortunately, even at Goodwill and Savers, they're charging $5 or so for hardbacks--and they're usually extremely stained, grimy hardbacks! (Half-Price Books went bad over a decade ago. When they started out, they charged exactly half, for instance, of what a PB cover price was. So if you found a PB from 1973 or so and the cover said $1.95, you'd pay a dollar. NOW, though, even if the book is from '73, they mark it with what the same title would sell for TODAY; so you'd end up paying $3.50 or something for a tattered book.)

This store, though, was FANTASTIC! It was set up like a library, with some tables and sofas for browsing, and all the books were arranged by category. I spent over an hour in there and ended up getting "Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom" (Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald bio), "Culture of Ancient Egypt," and the Collected Gertrude Stein. $4 total!

My mood was getting better and better, so I moseyed on over to the café up the street -- it was jam-packed, so I didn't stop and eat there, but I did pick up a menu to take home and saw that their prices were reasonable (gourmet sandwiches for $6.95-$7.95), so I'll definitely be stopping in again; just have to figure out an off-time, when so many people might not be there and I can actually eat in and stay a bit to read and/or write... I ended up getting a take-home sandwich at Thundercloud. My kitchen (yes, I now HAVE one!!) looks beyond the small apartment parking lot to surrounding trees and the wooden buildings that house a Wellness Center and small vintage store next door, and it's high enough up to where I can look toward the street that I was just shopping on, as well as watch bicyclists and walkers going by. The sun was starting to set as I ate and looked out and browsed through my new books, and I was just smiling and thinking to myself: I have a kitchen! I have a bookstore! I have a café! (And, from Saturday--I have a diner, too!)

Once it got too dark to read with the blinds open any more, I took my Scott-and-Zelda book to my bedroom (that's about to be so much lovelier even) and read until I fell asleep, waking up sans alarm in time to read some more and STILL get to work Monday an hour early! (And my boss is out all this week, so the day had a relaxed feel to it, despite the workload.)

I'd forgotten what a sense of contentment felt like!

Sleep with me!

Bedding that I just bought to go with my new bedroom set. (Yes, I plan on having sex again. Sorry, but you can't NOT have sex with covers like that!) ;p

Feed me!

Saturday after furniture shopping, I got a good chicken-fried-chicken meal with mashed potatoes and a side salad for only $10 + tip. In an old-style diner, the type of place I like, and only 2 blocks from my apartment. Old-school Austin that I'd been missing so. Why I fell in love with it in the first place, back in the '80s when I first traveled here from Azle for a high-school UIL writing competition and found a "John Lennon: Shaved Fish" T-shirt at a local record store on the Drag.

Furniture Shopping

Now that I'm in 750-sq-ft instead of 400, and 4 rooms instead of 1, I realized just how crappy (and inadequate) all of my stuff is! While my 4 tall bookshelves add warmth and interest to the rooms they're in, my actual furniture has been ridiculously cheap and unattractive. It was "cute" stuff to "start over" with when I was forced to live in the 1 room... The cheap bed bought sight unseen (and unfelt) online, whose springs started poking me within a year... the 2-ft-wide little "desk-on-wheels" I was doing all my work on (a hand-me-down from my mom)... plus random odds-n-ends tables and such bought cheaply off Craigslist or found by my old apartment dumpster or also handed down from my mom. It all served a functional purpose in that 1 room. (Thought sometimes ill-used: My mom had given me her old 3 x 3 solid wood kitchen table--a nice one--which I had shoved into a corner with papers and reference books and my printer piled onto. It's now properly a KITCHEN table! Though one of the two chairs is still IMproperly used, as my desk chair.)

My route to work for the past year, and the new area where I live, are filled with many vintage/consignment furniture stores, which I've been eyeballing while on my daily bus-trip to work. I already had personal experience with a couple of them, from shopping for bookshelves the past couple of years, so I knew which one I wanted to hit up first---and because it had a flat $80 delivery fee regardless of how much you bought, I wanted to do the bulk of my shopping there.

So I got up today with my furniture shopping list already made (*s are how I'd starred them on my list, by most needed/wanted):

**couch (my living room currently hosts nothing but a TV table, a 1999 TV, and one bookshelf)
**chest of drawers (my old apt. had built-in drawers; all of my underwear, socks, etc., are currently either lying on the bedroom floor or housed in cardboard moving boxes)
*desk
*coffee table (living room)
small bookcase (for the study)
ottoman (study)
end table (living room)
dressing table & chair (bedroom)
plus various lamps for all rooms

When I got to the store I liked, I quickly saw that the couch selection was meager, so I gave up on that right away. (Plus I'd been online browsing recently for a charcoal-gray couch/chaise combination--that seems to be trendy both style- and color-wise nowadays, but I actually like how that looks; none of the used couches came close to what I was in the mood for.)

OK, no couch. Next, I focused on the chest of drawers and/or dresser. Was torn between a vintage oak dresser (no mirror) for $389 and a cheap $90 black particle-board chest that actually looked very good and seemed solidly built for what it was. But... the black chest wasn't going to match anything else in my bedroom, and it was a cheapie, and... I was darn sick of the hodge-podge, the throwaway furniture I'd been living with. I didn't want to buy yet ANOTHER thing that I'd just be keeping for a couple of years, or just for utility's sake. I kept pacing and pacing, staring at one, then the other... The vintage dresser was a bit scratched, not exactly hitting the spot, either (for nearly $400, I wanted EXACTLY what I wanted, not just something to settle for)...

In the same area of the store was a bedroom set for $1149 by Broyhill: queen-sized bed, dresser with triptych mirror, chest of drawers, 2 night tables. Solid wood. Made in the '90s, but a classic look. Hardly any wear. The plush mattress/box springs was $250 extra.

I hadn't come in there for a bed. My own full-size bed with a metal frame (no headboard) was still serviceable (after placing a thick bed pad on it and rotating it so the various springs poking out weren't directly poking me). But I'd been waking up back- and neck-achy for the past couple of months--personal stress, work stress, hitting middle age, bad bed? All, probably. But I suddenly blamed the bed. And I suddenly equated being a middle-aged adult with having a bed with a headboard, and a footboard, and, moreover, with thick mattresses. Plus I needed somewhere to put my underwear and socks. And something else to place my perfume and jewel-box on. This set gave me the whole she-bang. It wasn't a hodge-podge. It looked like something that would last me for the rest of my life, which, at nearly 50, I wanted: MY bedroom furniture. To grow old with.

I bought the set. A hundred dollars knocked off the price helped, but STILL... It was a MAJOR purchase. The most major purchase of my life. (My computer cost nearly $1000. And I've never bought a car on my own. So this bedroom set is really THE most major purchase of my life.)

I also ended up picking up a small desk and accompanying chair, plus an ottoman, for the study. (All three of those, though, only totaled about $200.) This makes the bedroom and the study done. What did NOT get done at all, however, was the living room! With only a TV and no place to sit, it's completely unusable for the time being. I can't quite bring myself to spring for a couch, etc. (and the big-screen TV I wanted), right now, though. Too much, too soon, I feel. I feel like I need to, in the coming weeks, simply spend time in my bedroom, appreciating both the cushy bed and the ability to sort out my undies. No sensory overload! ;p

Below: Not quite the Broyhill style that I bought today, but similar.

What We Don't Tell the Young

 

 

 

It would just be mean. Like too soon with "There's no Santa."

In The Dark - Freddy Martin Orchestra (1935)

One thing that's interesting to me about listening to music from the '30s is getting a sociological feel for how people romanced/related to each other then. (Most people aren't profound poets and can't express their deepest feelings; so they often let pop culture do it for them. There's shallowness in mass culture, sure, but... there's also, in the best of it, a truth that gets expressed amid all of the glossing over.) This is a sexually sweet song by today's standards, but a sexually provocative song for 1935. It's a popular song because it's catchy and talks about a favorite activity of young people at the time, going to dance clubs (in that, nothing has changed!)... but it's also emotionally honest and intimate. I relate to that, as well. Most of my best memories from my own clubbing days (up until 2000) were of the moments when I connected with an individual amidst all of the chaos (though many such "connections" also somehow involved cocaine and/or a penis---but hey, who's to say that the crooner in this song, or at least the songwriter, wasn't also recollecting a night in a club when he gave a young flapper some then-newly-hip coke and pressed his dick against her...only to clean it up later for public consumption).



Charlie Barnet - Make Believe Ballroom

I've been listening nonstop to this 4-CD set for the past few nights--101 songs from 1929 through 1940. "Make-Believe Ballroom" is my current favorite. "Tho' you've only a small room / make it your ballroom" is my favorite line; I also like the clever "dancipation" and how the song incorporates the then-trendy new invention of the radio...plus it makes poor and/or young people trapped in small spaces feel happy despite their meager surroundings! "If you've got a radio, you're OK--the world is available to you." I've often felt the same way. Back in the '80s when I used to listen to late-night stations for some/any emotional sustenance, and today, when the Internet provides the same small, fleeting comfort.

 

Let's dance, in a mansion or hall room

Here's your make-believe ballroom, let's dance
Romance at the tip of your fingers
While the melody lingers, let's dance, dance, dance

Start in swayin', while the band is playin'
Music is worth your while
Let this station give you dancipation
Simply turn the dial
And keep on dancin' tho' you've only a small room
Make it your ballroom, let's dance...

On one of my last bus rides...

...on the 21/22, connecting me to my old Eastside neighborhood, a 30-ish woman got on, accompanied by a trolling hipster (on crutches--symbolism). This same woman, I'd seen for the past couple of years in the mornings, usually accompanied by her toddler son, Jude. (Jude is a determined little charmer, always marching on the bus and claiming his seat, sometimes smiling broadly, sometimes giving people a "what you talkin' bout Willis" look.) I wondered about them. The mother looked like she was married to an academic; she didn't seem overly pretentious herself, only borderline so, but she looked pretty and intelligent, like someone an academic man might choose. One day on campus I saw Jude not with his mother, but with a man in his early 30s, wearing a typical "summertime academic" outfit: A long-sleeved see-through Philippino shirt with a white T-shirt underneath, khaki pants, hiking boots, and an academically approved jaunty straw hat. As soon as I saw him, I thought: "Perfect." He looked like a bit of a pretentious ass (I find that people who dress for the occasion -- like "summer in Austin" -- are almost always pretentious asses). After a few months, I saw the three together on the bus: The couple sat side-by-side, never saying a word to each other. "What a dick," I thought.

Last week on the bus, the woman got on, sans Jude, in the middle of a conversation with the trolling hipster/crutches guy. Because of him, I learned her age (29); where she worked (at a learning center on campus); her college major (Biology); what her husband does (it's her ex-husband; she's divorced; they have 2 kids, ages 9 and 3 --- the latter is Jude, I suppose).

The guy on crutches was actually physically attractive, but his overt New Humanitarian hipsterism made him sound like an idiot. For instance, when the woman mentioned that her college major had been Biology, the guy began a spiel about how, like, even though he was currently an unemployed English major, he'd always, like, been interested in Biology, because it was, like, LIFE. In all my years, I've overheard dozens of girls going for this kind of line, and was kind of waiting for her to, also. To her credit, she did not. (Jesus, she had one kid when she was 20, and her husband has recently forced her to raise a 3-year-old by herself. Perhaps the Reality Gene has kicked in early with this lady.)

Did I mention earlier...

...that moving is for the Young?

Or at least for someone who has someone with them!

Moving in my 20s involved a few friends with a pickup, one small couch, a small bed, one bookshelf... Plus, "Oh, how my life will be different in my new place!"

This time, I've hired movers, I've rented a car for 3 days, my brother is helping me do some small stuff on one day... Plus, "My life's going to be pretty much the same in my new place, except the commute to work will be shorter and there are a few more shops within walking distance..."

I've done it so much at this point, there's no sense of adventure about it at all. It's just a grind.

Back in December, I thought my January would be full of excitement about planning for the new place upcoming at the end of the month. Nah. This whole month has been merely full of mental chores: hiring movers, contacting all utilities, figuring out when to pick up/drop off keys, etc. And physical chores, like packing up the more-than-50 boxes of books, CDs, and just plain crap I've accumulated.

I'm tired and unexcited.

Happy Birthday

My father is 75 years old today. That's not really conceivable to me. Last time I was around him regularly, he was a mean guy in his 40s whom I hated. But, how do you hate a 75-year-old, especially one who no longer has any power over you? That's kind of like the Russians insisting on continuing to punish Rudolf Hess 40 years after the fact.

Oh, but the Hess reference is being overly dramatic.

When I was little, I liked the way my dad's sweaty after-work T-shirts smelled. (My mother has since told me that I liked to sleep with them.)

When I was little and had been put to bed, I'd almost always call out later to my parents for a drink of water. If I had NOT wet the bed by that time, I'd call for my mother. If I HAD wet the bed, I'd call for my father, because he was always nicer about it.

I liked going swimming with my dad. I remember riding on his back as he dove.

I liked the two or three times we went to a bowling alley and played pinball.

I liked staying up late watching movies with my dad. We barely spoke, just watched, but it was peaceful.

When "Gone With the Wind" aired for the first time on television in 1976, my dad grumped about how he, and thus all of us, were not going to watch it. He finally "let" me and my mom watch it on the big color TV in the living room, and went off to watch football on the small black-and-white TV in my bedroom. During a commercial, I went to visit him in the back room: He had on "Gone With the Wind."

When Elvis died in August 1977, I remember my dad going off into the back bedroom to be by himself because he was sad. At 12, I was just starting to understand, and respect, sadness.

I was grateful on the eve of my high-school graduation when my dad told my mom to let me go out after.

Some time in the mid-80s, I, in a fit of college-girl romanticism, gave my dad a collection of Anne Sexton poems because I felt that he'd like them. He actually seemed to. I remember that there was a poem about Sexton's father being a travelling salesman that my father commented on and liked --- his own father had been a travelling salesman.

Moving

I've been in this one-room (400-sq-ft) place for 4 years and 8 months now. That makes it the 3rd-longest time I've ever lived anywhere.

(1) Azle, Texas. August 1977 - August 1983 (ages 12-18)
(2) Austin, Poquito Street. June 2000 - February 2007 (ages 34 - 41)
(3) Austin, Manor Road. July 2010 - January 2015 (ages 45 - 49)

How fucking sad is it that the third-longest time I've ever lived anywhere has been in a one-room apartment---and as a woman in my mid-late 40s!

Jesus.

Joan Crawford in "Rain," 1932

Only 3 performances by actresses have given me goosebumps:

 

(1) Vivien Leigh in "Gone With the Wind"

(2) Jessica Lange in "Frances"

(3) Joan Crawford in "Rain"

 

 

Stymied

This is completely a "First World Problem."

At the end of the month, I'll be moving from a one-room apartment into a 2-bedroom apartment -- with only an 18-inch TV from 1992 that I bought on Craig's List for $20 when I came back to Austin 5 years ago.

The little '92 TV is going into my new bedroom, and today I attempted to buy a flat-screen TV at Best Buy to go into my new living room, wanting to get it before the cable people came to my new place.

I didn't know exactly how big of a TV I was going to get, but I'd heard that they were heavy, and so I called my brother and left a message at about 9:30am: "Hey, I'm buying a TV today, but can you give me a ride home? I think it's going to be heavy." (He lives about 2 miles away from me; the Best Buy is also about 2 miles away.) By the time I got to the store around 11am, I called him again, telling him I didn't think I'd even be able to get the TV home in a cab, could he come help? There was never any response from him.

Once I got to the TV section of the store, a clerk immediately asked me if I needed help. "No, just browsing, thanks." I wandered around the TV aisles for 20 minutes or so by myself, finally figuring out what I wanted to get, but still having questions. I then approached one guy, but he said he was busy "translating." (I told him HE didn't have to help me, but could he call someone to do so.) I then approached Guy Two to help me: He also said he'd call someone. I went back over to my TV aisle, stood there for another 5 minutes on my own. Finally got sick of waiting and stormed up to Customer Service at the front of the store. Told the lady there my Sad Story: "I'm TRYING to buy a TV and no one will help me!" She got on her modern-day equivalent of walkie-talkie and said that someone was on their way to that department... I went back over there. Stood on the same TV aisle for another few minutes. With no attention, stormed my way out of the store, passing 3 guys standing around yacking in the TV department and giving them a nasty look. One guy called out as I passed, "Do you need help, ma'am?" Me: "I've been LOOKING FOR HELP for 20 minutes!" When I got to the front doors, the customer-service guy stationed there said brightly, "Hope you found everything OK!" Me: "I did NOT find everything OK! Nobody would help me!" The young guy made a non-ironic frowny-face and said he was sorry.

Goddamn! Here I was wanting to buy a 40-inch flatscreen and completely unable to do so! The most fucking bizarre and depressing thing!

Bus Stop (1966)

Appointments Made (Cleanup Time)

Pick-up time for new key--check.
Pick-up/drop-off time for 3-day rental car--check.
Brother helping me move little crap--check.
Movers--check.
Cable company--NOT YET.
Clean-up time/hand over keys from old place--check.

I'm stressed out about the upcoming move, but as I continue to make arrangements (and take home moving boxes from work and my corner beer store), I am relaxing slightly, knowing there are various "Systems" in place (e.g., solidifying a time for picking up my new key is part of a "System"). The more appointments I solidify, the more I relax and start to actually enjoy the PROSPECT of my new, much bigger place in a new, much better location for me.

Only 11 days left of my 3-hour-a-day bus travails. For the past few days, during the last hour of my bus trip, I've been projecting myself into a future a month from now: "I'm not on this bus right now. I got off this bus an hour ago." Similar to the mind-trip I've tried to engage myself in for the past 4 years in this 380-sq-ft apartment: "Pretend like this is just a really cool bedroom" or "Pretend like this is just a really cool treehouse."

It wasn't ever a BAD place; it was just way too small for someone at my point in life.

Not Friendly When Eating at Work

I'm not, just not. If this characteristic has not yet changed from the age of 16 to the age of nearly 50, it ain't ever going to change. Not proud of it, but... the anti-social response is apparently deeply ingrained.

At 16, I worked at the Azle K-Mart and was sitting alone having hot dogs or something at the store cafeteria on my Saturday lunch break. A girl that I knew vaguely from school also worked there and was sitting with friends across the aisle. She beckoned me over to join them... Now, you would think that any normal person would be grateful for the company and friendly gesture and jump up to join them... I, on the other hand, shook my head "no, thanks." VERY awkward.

At a new job in the early 2000s (in my early 30s), I was sitting by myself at a long table in the work cafeteria. After I was over halfway finished with my meal, a whole group from my department started filing in and seating themselves at the end of the same table. There were still several chairs between us, but there they were, and there I was. A boss spotted me and called me over. Now, being new to the group, you would think that any normal person would be grateful for the invitation and chance to bond with fellow group members... Nah. I, on the other hand, shook my head and said, "I'm nearly done anyway," then scarfed the rest of my food and took off. VERY awkward.

The age-16 K-Mart incident had stayed in my memory all that time, me later cursing myself for acting terribly. Yet when the same type of situation arose 15-or-so years later, I behaved in exactly the same way, despite my awareness of how badly I'd behaved in the first case. I couldn't help myself. I could not bring myself to be civil!

Today at my work cafeteria, it wasn't anyone from MY group that requested to sit with me. But there were outside conference members filling up the cafeteria, and seating was short. I was eating at a table for 4 (where I usually eat by myself), and a 30-ish dyke-y woman plopped down right in front of me and asked to sit down. I said sure. (Already annoyed at a stranger sitting right in front of me; I thought there was an unwritten/common-sensical rule to sit catty-corner/diagonally when strangers are sharing a 4-seat table!) So there we were, eating away, me trying to ignore her. She says, looking at my taco salad: "Vegetables. I ate those yesterday, so I can eat what I want today." I had not being paying ANY attention to what food she had sat down with, but when she brought it up, I looked and saw her two slices of pizza and chocolate desert. Fine. Who cares. I smiled politely and continued munching. She wouldn't quit:

"Are you here with the conference?"
Me: "No, I work here."
"What do you do here?"
"Editing."
"What do you edit?"
At this point I semi-snapped, and glared, "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be short or rude..."
"Oh! I should leave you alone!"
"I'm not trying to be rude, but I just need to THINK right now."

So for the next few minutes that it took for me to finish my salad, I then had to make an effort to look "contemplative" while doing so.

When I finally stood up to leave, my table-mate said cheerily, "Have a good one!" I did manage a "You, too."

But then I felt horrible afterward. Could I not have made some polite conversation? But I HATE polite conversation. But wouldn't polite conversation have been better than the awkwardness that ensued after my rejection of ANY conversation? I guess not, deep down in my soul.

I left the table feeling like shit for being rude, with a side-psychological-note of "What if she thought I was just rejecting her conversationally because she was so obviously a dyke? I'm gay, too! It was just very weird to me that you sat right in front of me and tried to force me to talk to you!"

The New York Groove

Many years since I was here
On the street I was passin' my time away
To the left and to the right, buildings towering to the sky
It's outta sight, in the dead of night

 

Here I am, again in this city
With a fistful of dollars
And baby, you'd better believe...

 

I'm back, back in the New York groove
 

In the back of my Cadillac
A wicked lady, sittin' by my side, sayin', "Where are we?"
Stop at Third and Forty-three, exit to the night
It's gonna be ecstacy, this place was meant for me

 

I feel so good tonight
Who cares about tomorrow
So baby, you'd better believe...

 

I'm back, back in the New York groove
 

Going Down on Love (John Lennon, 1974)

Somebody please, please help me
You know I'm drowning in a sea of hatred...

Joan Crawford in her 1932 Cadillac Fleetwood

 

She bought this car herself when she was 27 years old.

Moving Is For the Young

I'm not moving until the end of this month but have been stressed about the whole impending process since Christmas vacation. Though I currently live in only a 380-sq-ft apartment, I've lived in it for the past 4-1/2 years and have built up a TON of stuff...

I arrived at this place in 2010 with the following cast-offs from my mom: a good 3 x 3 wooden kitchen table and two chairs, a computer table on wheels, a 3-drawer supply table on wheels, a night-side table, a foam chair that folded out into my bed for a couple of weeks, a 1990 microwave oven. Plus maybe 4 boxes of personal papers, 4 boxes of books, a few boxes of dishes and random personal items. And a 1990s TV that I bought from craigslist for $20. My mom and I moved all of this ourselves in one morning, except for the kitchen table, which my brother did for us.

Since then, here's what I've accumulated:

• bed/box-springs/metal frame (ordered new online, delivered)
• three 6-ft bookcases (2 from a used furniture store that my brother delivered, 1 found by my apt. dumpster)
• a 5-ft bookcase (craigslist person who delivered)
• small bookcase (used furniture store, brother delivered)
• nice Crate-and-Barrel chair (used furniture store, brother delivered)
• small round wooden table with eaves (alley behind my apt. building)
• light chair (by my apt. dumpster)
• etagere (from an apt. neighbor selling off her stuff)
• wooden DVD case (craigslist person who delivered)
• 500-CD holder (by my apt. dumpster)
• over 500 books
• over 400 CDs

In short, I've now got a whole lot of crap to move. It's not so much the big stuff like the bookcases/bed/chair that are bugging me -- for me and the movers I can now afford to hire, this part is quick-n-easy. It's the gazillion books and CDs that all need packing up! I just spent 2 hours tonight starting to pack up some books/DVDs/gew-gaws... I got exactly 4 boxes done in 2 hours! Given the fact that I know I'll be packing about 40-50 boxes by the end of it all, this makes me a bit tense and nervous. One, because I now know exactly what a HUGE amount of work I still have to do. Two, because as I start to pack up everything, my place is so small that I have nowhere to put the stuff except right there in the middle of my apartment; so, with 4 weeks left to go, I'm already surrounded by a bunch of boxes and messiness.

While packing this evening, I flashed back to the days of college and the decade after, when I used to move practically every year, with just a carload of friends and a pickup to help! Moving and helping people move was kind of a constant up until I was about 35! And there was still a bit of excitement about the whole process: "What will my 'next' place/life be like??" Now, approaching 50, though, and having been there many times before, said "process" is already, in its early stages, quite tedious and a bit depressing, despite the accompanying anticipation of a much larger place in a neighborhood I'm looking forward to being in. I was hoping the "anticipation" would have been a lot greater than it currently is.

Crazeee

I'll be hitting 50 this year and, frankly, "crazy" ain't so charming any more, like it was in my 20s.

An example:

Early in November, Sandra indicated that a friend of hers had a cabin available in the Hill Country, and why didn't we got out there? Me: OK!

Weeks went by. No cabin materialized. Finally, near Christmas, I gave a hint: "Hey, I'm about to have 16 days off! Let's do something!" No response to that.

When I last spoke to Sandra a couple of days ago, two days before my vacation was about to end,  she said: "You could come out here, but I can't invite you because I don't have a car, and we couldn't go anywhere."

Me: "Hey, my vacation's over now."

What an idiot. My disdain for her, but for me, too, for my hopes.

Klimt Woman

 

 

My god, those cheekbones...

 

 

 

Got My Mind Set on You

 

How on earth will I make my way??

After telling my mother to fuck off on New Year's Day, one of my first thoughts the next day was: "Oh shit... I'm moving at the end of the month, and she had saved all of her moving boxes from 2010 for me... Where in the world am I going to get boxes for all of my books?"

Then I realized: My corner beer store gets in new boxes every day. Just took home 10 of them this evening. I'll have enough by the end of the month.

Another thing I'd been worrying about re moving: I'd anticipated needing a car at the end of the month, before the movers of the big things; was worrying about who to ask, my brother or my mother? My brother wouldn't be available; my mother would be available, but would bitch every single step of the way, making me so nervous that I'd probably actually HAVE a wreck.

Then I realized: There're such places like "Rent-a-Wreck" and other rental places that I can afford. I can rent a fucking car for 3 days to haul my clothes and personal belongings. Just because I haven't driven a car since 2007 (for the past 8 years, since I sold off my car when I moved to NYC until now), doesn't mean I can't drive a fucking car! I've been driving since I was 16, and I drove up until I left for New York in 2007. I can certainly figure out how to drive in 2015.

Happy New Year, 2015

I broke in New Year's Day cursing my mother and Sandra via e-mail. Woke up the next day with a hangover, feeling guilty and shitty for being rude, and being mad at myself for bringing in the New Year with Bad Vibes.

However... were my messages to my mother and to Sandra bad vibes for the New Year, or simply a cleansing of bad shit from the Old Year, and from many old years?

After my initial guilt, I'm now pretty sure that it was out with the old and shitty.

Winter's Mysticism

Up all New Year's Eve and now into New Year's Day, having napped extensively yesterday afternoon. About 6 this morning, the predicted freezing rain started falling --- I briefly opened my blinds AND window to get a whiff of the bracing head-clearing-ness. I like winter. I miss the season of snow and ice from when I lived up north. The phrase "winter's mysticism" came to mind, because the snow and ice ARE mystical to me.

When I did an online search for the phrase "winter's mysticism," Shakespeare's Sonnet 6 came up first:

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair,
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

Several online interpretations of the sonnet determined that Shakespeare was urging either a young woman or a young man to literally procreate! Myself, I saw it as Shakespeare urging the importance of having a deep well of resources, a core of spring, to draw on that outer circumstances could not affect. And not feeling guilty about drawing upon such.

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury...

And the "That's for thyself to breed another thee": Your interpretation of your world! And thus your passing along of the core of yourself.

Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?

What you pass along in your art ensures that you will live for posterity.

Leningrad Cowboys & the Russian Red Army Choir

First song from the "Total Balaika Show" concert in Helsinki, 1993. Watching this on TCM right now while waiting for the Joan/Bette marathon to start... It's blowing my mind in a good way!