Facebook Friend

At my work bus-stop in the afternoon, I often run into an aging Austin hippie (I'm almost 50, he's about 60) who has a job about on my level, who's been in Austin about as long as I have (30 + years). He's always chock full of news about what bands/events he just saw or is about to see. Which is fine. Except he then always asks ME, expectantly, about what I just did or am about to do. He's been asking me this for 6 months now. Six months ago, I was full of opinions about my new apartment and new neighborhood, etc. (He's on some sort of self-appointed Austin neighborhood council, so that satisfied him for a while.) Now, though, I've been in my new apartment/'hood for 4 months and so have nothing new to share. When he asks, as he did this Friday, what I'm going to do for the weekend, my answer is usually: "Work on my Joan Crawford website and organize my apartment. And maybe go to a consignment shop. And the grocery store. And maybe do laundry. And maybe go into work for a few hours to catch up."

Today at the bus-stop, he was happily telling me about bands that he'd gone to see the night before with his 20-something daughter. I forget the club he said he went to, but at it, he knew as many people as his daughter did, he was proud to tell me. He also enjoyed the 2-mile full-moon walk home afterward with his daughter, where they shared "theories of the world."

That's cool! Hey, I just shared on this blog my excitement over my recent hour-long conversation with a co-worker about how civilization is going to end, so I understand how wonderful it is to communicate. I truly miss that. But this guy, though, isn't just a "laid-back" kinda guy. He's an aggressively laid-back kinda guy. With a person genuinely interested in communicating, I could have responded to his pleasant "walking home with his daughter and talking" story with my own heart-felt good feelings about the hour-long conversation I just had with my co-worker about life--the first such conversation I'd had in years. I, though, got the definite impression that he wouldn't have been interested in my meager story, which didn't involve a club or "bonding-with-the-younger-generation" or a full moon.

I feel that I disappoint this fellow. I'm amused by this because I feel that he's also searching for surface reasons to be disappointed in me: I've been in Austin as long as he has and know as much about the town...I used to love going out to see bands, and now I just don't feel like hanging out with 20-year-olds any more... The very last thing in the world that I might now want to do, for instance, is hang out at SXSW, which I once did in the '90s and don't need to ever do again, especially now that it's populated by big generic acts and big prices, which was not at all the point of the festival to begin with.

This guy means relatively well. But he's stuck in his "Austin schtick": "I go see bands and events. And what do YOU do?" To me, the more subtly interesting mindset would be to actually listen to what those around you have to say...and to have something that you're interested in other than trying to prove you're still "youthful."

At the end of today's going-nowhere-bus-stop conversation that continued on the bus, he asked me if he could "Friend" me on Facebook! Jesus. Sure. Whatever. WHY? (When I approved his request later tonight, I saw that he had 900+ Friends. I have 32. OK, 32 is anti-socially low (but honest). 900+ is a number reserved for kids who import their entire graduating class. Oh well. He's implied that I'm not as well read as he is: Now that he's on my Facebook page, let him wallow in what I really like. Maybe that's what he wanted all along. I hope it'll either guide his future attempts at conversation or else shut him the fuck up.)

Good Conversation

I'm single, and I have a job with an isolated office. I say "hello" to my boss once a day when I come in, and she and I might chat briefly another time or two during the day; and once a day or so a co-worker might stop by to either say "hi" or very briefly discuss a small editing job. In short, in all venues of my life, I hardly talk to anyone at all.

Today, a co-worker in charge of the company website stopped by my office to let me know that I might have to "write something." I was puzzled. Though I write, I don't "write" at this company. (Just "compile" and "edit.") Turned out the subject was an obituary for a long-time employee. Yeah, yeah, I'd already gotten the e-mails a month ago and already compiled various public obits to be written up for inclusion in next year's annual report. So?

There was no other "So." The co-worker just wanted to stop by and chat. He came by at 2:00pm and by the time he left, it was 3:45! One good, non-guilty thing for me was: He's been at the company for over 20 years, makes over $100,000 a year (I checked), and any time he wants to chat, I can chat, without my own boss getting mad at me.

A more interesting thing for me was: Our conversation started out with the specific demise of a co-worker and nearly 2 hours later ended with... the demise of civilization as we know it. And how I don't know anything about even light-bulbs. (He, on the other hand, claims to know how to construct one, but of course couldn't do so without the materials that wouldn't be available post-apocalypse.)

There were about 300 steps in between the IT guy dying and our civilization dying. It didn't strike me until the end of the 2 hours just what an interesting little arc we'd just transversed! :)

It wasn't a sexual thing, 99% of it. What was so exotic to me was feeling such intellectual stimulation for the first time in YEARS! As a teen, on my own, and then through college and up through the mid-90s, I was constantly stimulated intellectually. Post-2000, though, has been pretty much of a wasteland.

The time today gave me a hint of what I've been missing. I miss talking to someone for hours.

Joan Crawford, 1968, in a circus picture

(By "circus picture," I mean specifically, "Berserk." And non-specifically, I mean that she didn't have to do a lick of acting to pick up her paycheck in this cheesy latter-day film of hers; she was being paid for her name only. Yet, despite the less-than-MGM surroundings... she ACTED in it.)

Good Vibes

Buried in the earlier juvenile post about "What I Did Over Memorial Day Weekend," I mentioned feeling good about going to my new post office to return something to an eBay seller that was sent to me by mistake. The seller had sent me the wrong item, but didn't ask for the original item back after correcting the error. I knew I should indeed send it back, but was put off by my new neighborhood --- my new post office only open 9-5 (my work hours), and the bus to the post office closest to work (for lunch-hour visits) only running every 40 minutes, which would make me an hour late after lunch... Anyway... it took me a month or so, but I figured out how to mail the item back. Glad I did. Below is the mail that I received from the seller yesterday:

"Thank you so much for returning the little Zodiac Bowl that was sent to you by mistake. I really didn’t expect to see it and it was not necessary for you to send it back. I was, however, delighted that you returned it. It’s kind of a cutie and even though nobody had bought it, I decided to make it special since it came from a special buyer. It’s going on my desktop for paperclips and such and I shall think of you when I use it....

Thanks again for sending me back the little bowl, you have restored my faith in buyers."

Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree (1973)

 

I'm comin' home, I've done my time

Now I've got to know what is and isn't mine

 

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

What a beautiful face I have found in this place
That is circling all 'round the sun
What a beautiful dream that could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
Soft and sweet
Let me hold it close and keep it here with me

And one day we will die and our ashes will fly
From the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be in the arms of all
I'm keepin' here with me

What a curious life we have found here tonight
There is music that sounds from the street
There are lights in the clouds, Anna's ghost all around
Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me
Soft and sweet
How the notes all bend and reach above the trees

Now how I remember you
How I would push my fingers through
Your mouth to make those muscles move
That made your voice so smooth and sweet
But now we keep where we don't know
All secrets sleep in winter clothes
With one you loved so long ago
Now we don't even know his name

What a beautiful face I have found in this place
That is circling all 'round the sun
And when we meet on a cloud I'll be laughing out loud
I'll be laughing with everyone I see
Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all
 

 

Live and Let Die (1973)

When you were young and your heart was an open book...

 

Fetish

The fetish is You moved on, the wishing for what's not now, though you once had your chance, or at least worshipped from afar.

The sickness in pressing this upon others, insisting that it, long since lost to you in particular, must still be true for The Universe.

Despite my yelling (to myself here) at my neighbor...

...over the weekend, I actually had a VERY productive 4 days off.

Thursday night: Cleaned the toilet and sink and bathroom floor. Which I'd been waiting to do before I'd allow myself to put down the new rug and toilet-seat cover I'd bought over a month ago.

Friday: Went to the post office for the first time since moving to my new place in February so I could return an incorrect item that someone on eBay sent me. Figuring out my new post office was another thing I'd been putting off this whole time; the one online info said was closest to my new apt was only open 9-5 M-F, and I didn't want to take time off work. Plus, according to my bus schedule, it would have taken over a half hour to get there. Instead, found a different one -- not in my ZIP code, but only 10 minutes by bus from my apt. And in a wealthy Old Austin neighborhood, meaning... counters fully staffed, very short wait. (Unlike, say, the nightmare of a PO in my old Eastside neighborhood that was always a writhing, chaotic mess, from customers to staff.) This little excursion also made me feel good because the eBay person I was returning the item to had made the error and hadn't asked for the item back...but it felt good to do the right thing!

Afterwards, having nothing else to do, I decided to ride the bus to the end of the line just to see where it went. NOT FUN. UGLY places. Didn't learn about anything interesting. 2 hours wasted.

Once the bus swung back to my area, went and tried out a Dairy Queen I'd been seeing on my way to work. Had a Country Basket for the first time in probably 10 years. (That used to be my favorite meal back in my hometown.) The times, though, they have a-changed: A 4-piece steak-finger basket with fries, toast, and gravy plus a small Coke is now... $8.64! And it wasn't even that good. So I won't ever be eating that again! (For $5.99, maybe. But not $8.64!)

On the way home from the DQ, did my grocery shopping for 2 weeks.

Saturday: As I posted earlier, went and checked out a consignment store that I'd been curious about. Not only did I find some bargains, I also found a place to take a couple of lamps I'd bought on eBay but don't need, to sell on consignment. Afterwards, went to Walmart to buy some DIRT and a clay pot (my front porch area needs plants), then had a GOOD meal at McAllister's on the way home. (For under $8, a really DELICIOUS half-French Dip sandwich and DELICIOUS, big Italian salad. I WILL be eating that again!)

Sunday: Wasted hangover day, lying on couch and watching TV. :( :(

Monday: Got up bright-n-early, did 3 loads of my regular clothes, plus my winter comforter and other blanket so I could pack them away and put on my new summer sheets/bedspread that I'd bought months ago. (Despite my excitement at the new bedding, I don't really like how it looks --- the "winter bedding" is wine-colored and rich, the new stuff too beige; the room doesn't really pop like it used to. : (  Even so, gonna keep the new stuff there for the season; maybe I'll get to like it better. Next spring, maybe I'll buy a similar wine-colored spread, just thinner.)

Noon-ish, after 3-1/2 hours of laundry-doin', went and had a pedicure for the first time since November or so. After moving to my new 'hood in February, I just had no idea about where to go and so kept putting it off, in the meantime feeling shabby since all my toenail polish was peeling off. There are two places within walking distance, so I picked one. It was fine. Asian ladies, like at the old Eastside 'hood. Better chairs. Slightly more expensive, but also longer calf and foot massage.

When I was finished and walking home, it was starting to sprinkle. An hour or so later, all sky-ish hell broke loose for the next 4 hours! Massive flooding all over town, including the creek I walk across to get to the bus-stop, which completely overflowed the bridge. After the rain slowed, I went to take a look at the raging creek---completely forgetting my camera! I'm so mad at myself --- I could have had a REAL event to show here, instead of just recounting my boring moods.

Oh well. No crick-crossin's here. Instead: Here's how I finished up my Monday evening: Finally hanging my Guatemalan festival masks that had been sitting around, along with my bath mats and comforters, et al., all waiting for me to clean stuff up before decorating!

Paul McCartney & Wings "Jet" 1976

To the constantly, obnoxiously loud, yelling black man who lives below me: Here's some loud White-Girl Payback Shit blasted at 1 a.m. via my stereo, now YouTubed just for you, you constantly aggrieved, yelling-at-your-wife/yelling-at-the-world obnoxious "muthafucka." (How's YOUR potential complaint gonna work out, I wonder: "I heard Paul McCartney at 1 a.m." No one in 2015 is gonna BELIEVE that, you fucking idiot.)

p.s. In 2015, your kid most likely didn't get into college because he was stupid, not because he was black. As you were yelling outside my window last week to some unknown phone recipient, do you REALLY think there's a "conspiracy" to keep your kid out of college? Really? There aren't government grants for minorities? Your kid must be REALLY stupid to not have gotten ANYTHING.

Fuck you and your loud-ass voice that I have to listen to all week long. I have a Master's degree and I work as an Editor, but you make me feel as if I live in Section 8 housing. In that regard: Wish I had a man in my life who would go downstairs and punch you in your loud face.

In the meantime, enjoy Paul at 1 a.m., and we can take it up with the landlady tomorrow re which has been worse.
 

Paul McCartney - Tomorrow (1971)

Honey, pray for sunny skies

So I can speak to rainbows in your eyes 

 

$19.63

Since I first came to Austin in the mid-'80s, I've been fascinated by girls who dressed via vintage shopping. I thought they looked good, but I never knew how to achieve the look myself. I saw ads for such places in the weekly alternative paper, and I went to those shops every now and then, but never found anything that excited me enough to make shopping in such places a habit.

In my new location in North Austin, there are multitudes of vintage clothing and furniture shops around me, and I've only now started exploring them. Most, on first look, have carried things that were extravagantly overpriced. There's a retro furniture shop right next door, for instance, that places various items in the parking lot that I see every day when coming home from work --- the smallest and flimsiest of plastic mid-century end tables, they mark up to $175. No. Clothing shops in the area have been the same.

Aside from "retro" shops, which you might expect to mark up, I've also been annoyed by Goodwill and Savers shops -- which you would NOT expect to mark up, though they do. Both of these chains in my area feature dingy, overpriced items.

Long story short: Finally found a good place to buy stuff. Run by a local Episcopal church. I bought the 4 items pictured below for a total of $19.63.

Ms. Clean

In the olden days (i.e., last year), I used to have exactly 3 cleaning products in my home: Ajax, Drano, and a window cleaner.

With a bigger place and more money come... specialization!

Mad Men Series Finale Commercial - Times of Your Life

  

I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke Commercial - 1971

The best ending in the history of a television series. I couldn't stop alternately crying and laughing for 20 minutes afterward. Two hours later, I'm still both smiling and teary (as I watch the episode for the third time in a row).

 

I was so nervous about Don Draper the whole episode. I wept during his early phone-call to Betty, then calmed down until his later phone-call to Peggy ("Please, Peggy, don't let him hang up without telling you exactly where he is! Go and get him!"), which is when I started crying again (especially when Don was enlightened by and then hugging Leonard, his fellow seminar-goer) until the ending and after.

 

Wow. Way to rise (yet again) from the ashes, and be true to yourself, Don Draper! :) 

  

 

 

Addendum: Wednesday, May 19. From the NYTimes artsbeat.com blog re the finale:

RDB, Piedmont, CA

 

I don't view Don's return to NY to make the historic Hilltop ad as a cynical ending, but as a sign of self-acceptance. I've always believed the story of Don Draper is the story of talent, and what an artist must do to feed it. Don's personal story is so full of pain and heartbreak. It is his talent that sustains him, and gives purpose to his marginalized, peripatetic existence. By living at a distance from others (even those he loves), he is able to extract an essential truth and transform it into an idea and an advertisement that moves people (and product!) Without his talent, he would be another sad guy in a cubicle. His epiphany at Esalen is that he is NOT the sad guy across the circle, that people DO notice him and look for him (as Peggy says, "come home, Don!"). I think he finally learned and accepted that he should love only from a distance, so that he is free to embrace his gift without causing such pain to others. I imagine this is a struggle for many creative people and those who love them. Jon Hamm's gift is bringing empathy to Don's struggle, in spite of all the pain it caused everyone around him. Bravo, Jon. I can't wait to see what you do next!

The Beatles Tomorrow Never Knows (Mad Men Season 5 Episode 8)

 

 

Julie London Fly Me to the Moon (Mad Men Season 1, Episode 11)

 

 

George Jones Cup of Loneliness (Mad Men Season 2, Episode 12)

Fadeout music as Don Draper walks into the ocean, a la Norman Maine in "A Star Is Born."
 

 

Peggy Olson walks into McCann Erickson

  

Mother's Day

My mother and I haven't spoken since January 1. The not-speaking for months is almost usual. Even when our "relationship" has been on a "normal" track (for us), and since my mother moved to Austin in 2010, we'd see each other/speak about 10 or 11 times a year. In chronological order: Easter, Mother's Day, Nephew 1 b'day, Mom's b'day, Nephew 2 b'day, my b'day, my brother's b'day, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Plus maybe one or so other odd events that turned up, maybe a nephew play or soccer game or something.

Since the beginning of 2015, though, we are really Not Speaking. AT ALL. So far, Easter and Mother's Day have gone by. I'm curious about what's going to happen for my older nephew's upcoming 13th birthday in a couple of weeks, though. I've always gotten him a gift, we've always gone out as a family to his restaurant of choice, come back to someone's home for cake, etc. Either my brother's going to call me to come over separately, or he's not going to call me at all. That'll be a shame. Easter dinner, Mother's Day, I don't miss too much, but the birthdays and Thanksgiving and Christmas will be odd and sad.

At first. Then I'll get used to it. And then, honestly, it won't be such a big deal. I've gotten used to lots of stuff. At first you think how horrible something's going to be, and it is. For a while. Then after a while, the horrible feeling fades into... "Eh. I can live with this."

Not to go on about it, but in the case of me and my mother not speaking: If we were only speaking 10 times a year, on holidays, to begin with, then not speaking at all isn't actually THAT life-changing. Psychologically, there's the unsettling feeling: "Wow. I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't speak to her parents." But in actuality, there are many not-particularly-weird people out there who don't speak to one or both of their parents for whatever unresolved-family-dynamic reason. It isn't like my mother and I were emotionally close and, thus, the falling out is tragic in some way. I don't think I've felt emotionally close to her since 1976 or so, when I was 11.

Yet I've still enjoyed the rituals and pleasantries of the holidays and birthdays since then. My mother and I didn't love each other, but we maintained the dutifulness of the relationship. That was something, at least. Not love, but nonetheless a deeper tie than simply an act or façade. Four-and-a-half months into the Nothingness does feel odd and empty, but, as I mentioned above, I've felt "odd and empty" plenty of times before. "I ain't skeered."

A sidenote:  On Mother's Day Sunday, on my way to work to put in some extra hours, I stopped at a sandwich shop. There was a 30-ish tattooed chick behind the counter who, though it was 5 minutes after their 11am opening time, had me wait because they weren't open yet. When I was finally allowed to place my order, she said bright-n-shinily, "So, are you a Mommie?" Oh, Jesus, I thought. Not only have I not had any kids, but I don't even have a lunch-date with my own mother to go to today. And now I'm supposed to explain all of my life choices (or rather, how-things-just-turned-out) to a sandwich chick!

Me, out loud: "Nope."
Sandwich chick: [silent for a few seconds, then reaches for an empty cup and slaps it on the counter in front of me] "Here. On the house." And then she actually says, "For all of us who've chosen not to bring life into this world."

Oh, Jesus. Really? She was about 30 years old. Her current public stance of "not choosing to bring life into this world" was just silly to me. She most likely will meet a fellow-tatted kid on the street within the next year and they'll go at it like rabbits and have a kid or two out of accident and wedlock (or else out of marriage via some vegan guru or something).

Of course, I didn't say any of that. Just said thanks and took the cup and helped myself to some Mountain Dew out of the fountain. And felt, against my will, a bit of solidarity with both the universe and the young woman kindly trying to make me feel like I was a part of it.

Intellectually Challenged

My dad didn't care anything for me, OR do anything to help his child advance in the world! A right-winger, he once said he'd pay for his child NOT to attend college.

Pay for your child NOT to attend college --- What's the point of that? You want your child to work at a WalMart or at a state job?

Woops! I have a state job now!

What was your thought-process there, Dad? What exactly were you THINKING? Probably, you weren't thinking at all, just mouthing the back-burner "insider" idiocy you'd been hearing pre-Internet, thinking you were getting the "inside scoop on reality."

In fact, what you gave ME was utter fearfulness: No one loved me. No one was going to listen to me. Whatever I picked for a 12-year-old birthday dinner, for instance, was utterly stupid. (What did I have to choose from at 12? I'd seen nothing else but fast-food places.)

I knew innately that I was smart, but when I entered the University of Texas as a freshman, I was petrified. I'd never had an intellectual conversation (except with myself). It took me years before I could argue intellectually with any professor.

An engineer, a priest, and a doctor on the golf course...

Ahead of them is a group playing so slowly and inexpertly that in frustration the three ask the greenkeeper for an explanation.

"That's a group of blind firefighters," they are told. "They lost their sight saving our clubhouse last year, so we let them play for free."

The priest says, "I will say a prayer for them tonight."

The doctor says, "Let me ask my ophthalmologist if anything can be done for them."

The engineer says, "Why can't they play at night?"


From a story in the 5/4/15 New Yorker (partially about exploding Pintos of the '70s -- my first car!). I think the engineer is 100% right! Well, not 100% RIGHT, but that thought process would be MY thought process, in that case, at least. Everybody always makes me feel like I'm so "mean," but if you look at it another way, I'm just...LOGICAL! :)

A Little Bit Grateful Right Now!

#1:  My job right now is the best job I've ever had. Intellectually challenging, and pays every bill, with plenty left over every month.

From 1998 to 2007 (pre-NYC), I worked for a publishing company, which is what I initially wanted to work for... It was mind-numbingly dull work. It paid the bills, but I was going nuts from the boredom. No wonder I wildly broke loose.

#2:  I'm not, out of desperation, engaged to a schlub who's moved me out to the country, and I'm not, equally desperately, trying to find a sugar-daddy before my lease is up in July.

Those are really sad things to be "thankful" for! :) But two intelligent, beautiful women I've been in love with in the past decade are in exactly those #2 positions today. I find them, and their situations, EXTREMELY depressing. (The dream I had Sunday about the first woman was actually a positive dream in and of itself -- a feeling of closeness with someone. But then I had to go and look up online what she was actually doing...yuck; stirred up old feelings of hanging around and hanging around those stupid karaoke bars then being upset when she ran off to Houston to get married to the first guy, saying "I told you so" to myself when she came back to Austin a mere few months later, then being depressed/annoyed again when I saw the next schlub she was with. A bunch of dumbness that I'm LONG SINCE no longer an emotional part of. In the future, I'll try to just leave a pleasant dream at that!)

Dumb Person

Sunday night, I had a dream about a woman I was in love with back in '05 or so. In real life, she hosted karaoke at the gay clubs that I went to back then.

On one night at a club when I was particularly "on," I went home with her. We listened to Loretta Lynn on the way home in her car -- exactly what I wanted to hear.

Her apartment was generic, in a generic part of town, except for framed photos of herself that she'd posted around the house, which I'd found weird but sexy. Her cats' litter-boxes were overflowing, to the point where I had to say something. She, at 40-something, then told me about the 19-year-old that had recently been living with her who had once, in a fit of ADD pique, thrown one of her cats against the wall.

I listened to her, as she reconstructed her nails, talk about how she felt she was the reincarnation of the Black Dahlia, then later went upstairs and laid down with her on a mattress on the floor with used condoms scattered around it. We didn't do anything. In the morning, I woke up first, and looked at her for a few minutes before she, too, woke up. Then we took turns in the bathroom getting our faces together, making jokes about my soon-to-be "walk of shame."

I attended her karaoke nights for a couple of more weeks. That June, she ran off to Houston to get married to a guy she'd met at her high-school reunion. Temporarily broke my heart. They got divorced a year later.

She quickly moved back to Austin with a guy she'd met at a furniture store in Houston.

In the dream I had last night, she and I were lounging around a bed, and she was telling me about an acting gig that she had coming up, where she was supposed to portray a "lesbian lover." I helpfully told her that I could help her with that! We were lounging around, touching each other, kinda lovers but not really lovers.

End of dream. I hadn't thought of this woman in 10 years, but when I woke up today, I sure did think of her again! Went to the Internet (Twitter, Facebook) to see what she had been doing... She's been engaged to the Houston/Furniture-Store-Guy since 2012, and they recently bought a crappy little home 20 miles outside of Austin. Here's what The Guy recently posted on Facebook -- Houston Texans logos get 99% of his sporadic posts, but he did feel the urge for the below:

"Watering M and my OWN yard! It is a fantastic feeling!"

Thank god for some smart-ass who responded: "How often does M need to be watered?" (No reply.)

M, though distraught when I knew her, was glamorous and interesting and intelligent. And, according to her own Facebook page, she continues to host karaoke at gay clubs in Austin. While living at the below.

 

 

My intellectual problem... It's basically a trailer. With a sprinkler. With your guy super-proud of this (and not seeing anything to move beyond). That's what you ended up with: In a crappy place with puddles and a dumb person!

Edie Brickell & New Bohemians - He Said

This has nothing to do with me. I think it's about Sandra.

 

 

 

 

Just before the lights went out
We sat up and talked about
All the things that we would be
I just wanted him to be with me

But he had a mind of his own
And he did not mind being alone
Left me there in our little world
Left me there like a little girl

He said don't get hung up
Hang ups will get you down
He said don't look back
Look up and then look around

That time I was feeling high
Like I never had to try
To kick myself up out of bed
Kick these worries out of my head

He said it's better this way, yeah
One day you'll understand
He said I'm leavin' today and
He let go of my hand

I know that I'll never see him again
I feel the same way that I saw him then
I know that when I get back on my feet
I will walk away from misery

What do you say when it's all been said
How do you feel when it's all been felt
Where do you go when it's all gone
And you don't care enough to carry on

Well, I say close your eyes
Look down deep inside
Someone is there for you
Someone who cares for you

Well, I know it's easier to say than do
Easier to look away than see it through
I know it's easier to think than feel
Easier to make it up than make it real

Oh it's hard to love
Oh it's hard not to love

Oh it's hard to love
Oh it's hard not to love

Oh now take me there don't leave me here

Back on a Plebe Bus

In September of 2014, Austin initiated a parallel "Rapid" bus system, with fewer stops and a 50-cents-higher fare than the regular buses. The higher fare doing a good job of weeding out the crazies that I'd before encountered on the regular city buses. On the Rapid, there were almost always just students and professionals.

My employer paid for all bus transport. Whatever Austin decided, I got to travel on for free. In late 2014, I still lived on the East Side of town, had to travel 20 mins to reach the new "Rapid," then another 10-20 minutes of standing around at the bus-stop, then 20 minutes to get to work.

By February 1, 2015, I'd intentionally moved north so I could walk straight to the "Rapid" and get straight to work, avoiding the changing of buses that added nearly an hour to my commute.

Today, a Saturday, I wanted to go back to my old hood, where a Marshall's was, so I could buy a specific type of face lotion that they always carried. And also get some shorts at the Old Navy at the same location. No Rapid, just a regular bus...

It was fucking ridiculous. On the way to Marshall's, a black toothless woman got on halfway there and proceeded to call out to every other person on the bus at the top of her lungs. If they answered, great, if they didn't, great. She, regardless, yelled out what was going on.

On the way back from Marshall's, a balding white homeless guy got on the bus and sat near me and, for some reason, immediately tried to engage me in Saturday's Mayweather/Pacquiao fight... Thinking that he was going to intimidate me, since I was a middle-aged white woman? He started by going on about how Mayweather was going to win the fight.

Me: I hope not. Mayweather's an asshole. I'm for Pacquiao.
Bus-guy, nonsensically (since I'd already mentioned Pacquiao): He's fighting some guy from the Philippines. There's a fight tonight.
Me: Yeah, Pacquiao. I hope Pacquiao kicks his ass. Mayweather's an asshole.
Bus-guy: He's fighting some guy from the Philippines.
Me: Yeah, PACQUIAO.
Bus-guy: Do you even know anything about boxing?
Me: I know about THIS match. I can't stand Mayweather. I hope Pacquiao wins.
Bus-guy: It's on ESPN.
Me: No, it's not. It's pay-per-view only.
Bus-guy: Not it's not. It's on ESPN.
Me: You've got to PAY for this thing! It's NOT on ESPN.

After this, the crazy-ass went on and on and on, commenting on every single landmark we passed along the bus route. After I'd expressed a distinct opinion on Pacquiao, he'd left me alone, but soon meandered into what restaurants he'd been to, etc., and asked me about my opinion on one restaurant and owner:

Me: I have never been there. I don't give a shit about either this place or the owner.

Now, he really left me alone, and instead rambled out loud to the bus passengers in general.

I don't feel any guilt about being this hard, after listening to this asshole go on and on and on for miles. I've sometimes felt that maybe homeless people are simply neurotic because they don't ever have anyone rational to talk to. However, in the last few years that I've been around homeless people taking buses, I've learned that they're usually loud and fucked up and asshole-ish, incapable of carrying on a normal conversation, though they're obviously seeking to do so. I've also learned that they often seek to bully young people and white middle-aged women, like me.

Yeah, well... I will always get back in your face, idiot. I can't stand idiocy being spewed on me.

An Ashtray for Every Room

Sans any sort of meaningful human interaction for years now, I do nonetheless, as I always have been forced to do, take pleasure in things like, oh... AN ASHTRAY FOR EVERY ROOM! Having carted one ashtray around with me from room to room (or, for a while, from corner to corner of the same room) for the past 8 years or so, these 3, representative of expansiveness, do give me pleasure and a feeling of well-being. I shall aspire to what I can aspire to.

Bonding Gone Wrong

Circa 1976 or so, my father, via his work, got tickets to a Cowboys-Steelers football game.

The first thing to go wrong, on the drive out to the game... It was a cold day, but no one had thought to give me a coat to wear. My mother later said she'd followed us on the highway (with my coat), to no avail.

After the game:  The sponsored bus to and from the game was fine. What was NOT fine was my father driving me home (we lived out in Briar, Texas, which was 15 minutes outside of Azle, which was 40 minutes outside of Fort Worth).

My father was so drunk after the game that he couldn't steer straight. I was about 12, and had to keep nudging him to stay awake and had to keep grabbing the steering wheel. I remember the car swerving off into the other lane on many occasions... but we survived.

This is an example of nearly everything that I experienced as a kid. There was always something at least mildly creepy and scary going on (and sometimes actually life-threatening, as I only realized later).

It was only as I grew up and went to college (where I was finally around other people with whom I shared "intense, intimate thoughts," per either late-night sharing or tipsy café sharing, back when English majors used to drink for hours at cafes) that I realized: Wow... most people came from backgrounds where the father didn't punch the mother in the face because she came home late from a dental appointment, and where the mother didn't intentionally stop the kid from any social interaction, even on graduation night... Wow!

Wrangling Three Months of Chaos

I moved into my current apartment (double the size of my last one-roomer) on February 1. You'd think that whatever I had in my old 375-sq-ft apartment would readily fit into my 750-sq-ft apartment. Well, no. For one thing, I've had to order a whole lot of stuff to get my new apartment populated; for instance, the patio set (2 chairs and a table) is still sitting in its box, right next to my dining table.

I'm still not yet situated, even after 3 months. Tonight, though, I made some progress. After 4 hours of arranging, re-arranging, getting stuff at least out of the room itself and into a closet.

The top picture below shows the lamp and the suitcase that I'm putting out by the dumpster tomorrow morning. I feel bad about both.

The lamp, for instance, was an eBay purchase in my 2010-2014 one-room apt "phase." I think I paid about $75 for it. It was symbolic, since all I'd had in that room previously was an ugly lamp that my mother'd given me. This lamp, though, was ME... Yeah, well, the wiring of the top light stopped working long ago, and all of the cups were constantly tilting over, not perkily uplifted, as they were initially. With the top light not working at all, I didn't even want to bother putting it up for sale anywhere.

[p.s. About my insane, ongoing Guilt Complex: There's a note that I wrote attached to the lamp that I'm putting out by the dumpster tomorrow morning: "The top lamp doesn't work but the other 2 do." I need to explain myself and apologize to DUMPSTER DIVERS??  Flashes me back to my youth in 1980, when I was 14 and 15 or so... pre-driver's license. I lived out in the country, no way to get anywhere or do anything. In the summers, I was completely trapped. Yet one summer's day, my neighbor Marla, age 14, asked if I wanted to go driving around with her and her friend Bobby (who was 16 and had his license). You bet! I knew I had to get home by 5pm, when my mother would be home from work... As it turned out, Bobby got me home 20 minutes after 5pm. After 4:30pm, knowing that Bobby was going to get me home late (and knowing what emotional idiocy my mother was about to subject me to), I started bitching at Bobby; he calmly replied, "You just can't please some people." Sure enough, when I arrived home at 5:20pm, my mom was home, and I got so much hateful tension and stupidity. I could NEVER RELAX at home, could never do anything. I shut down. I read books. I watched the movies that came on TV. That's all I was allowed to do. I was not allowed to interact with anyone. If I did, I was punished for it. For instance, after this, I was forbidden from hanging out with neighbor-Marla. All she and I had ever done was prank-call people, lay out topless on her trampoline, and put on "Grease"-inspired shows on her front porch. On the other hand, my little brother, who participated in penis-comparing sessions with neighbor boys, slurped Robotussin for fun, came home high on LSD, and held parties at my mother's house in her absence... He could do what he wanted. My mother even paid for programs for him during summers, such as at the Fort Worth Nature Center. (Maybe I would have liked a young persons' writing or film program?) How she treated him versus how she treated me is sick.

Great example of my mother's mental illness toward me: She wanted me to come home immediately after my high-school graduation ceremony. ON THE NIGHT OF MY HIGH-SCHOOL GRADUATION! What a fucking idiot. (To my father's credit, he, visiting post-divorce, suggested that my going out after graduation was OK. At age 13, when I wanted to go to the skating rink, he made me put my hair in a pony-tail and made me keep my coat on (with threats if I took it off) -- to my humiliation, to my sitting alone all night...but at least he'd figured out how young people felt by High School Graduation Night. Why I give him "credit" for this, I don't know --- Graduation Night should be a given "nice moment" --- why I should be grateful for a moment of sanity, I'm not sure.


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

Oh, yeah, The Suitcase: One of the zippers is messed up. Yes, this is the suitcase that took me to and from NYC, and it's a big ol' thing that's taken up plenty of room wherever I go. If that one zipper still worked, I'd keep it. As is: I tried to fix it over and over again tonight, and the zipper STILL would not work. I don't know where I'll ever be going again that requires that big a suitcase. And if, indeed, I'm going to Morocco or someplace for a month... I can buy a new suitcase with a working zipper.

Picture 2: When I ordered my bedroom set (bed/dresser/chest/2 night tables) months ago, turned out that one of the night tables wouldn't fit in the bedroom. I shoved it out into the hallway, where it's been sitting for months, completely out of place. As it turned out, it fits just fine into the study closet (along with the seldom-used printer that had previous been sitting on the floor, but that also needs to be available).

 

 

 

 

Clouds of Sils Maria

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2452254/plotsummary.


In high school and my 20s, I used to go to movies constantly, at least every week. (When I first came to college at the University of Texas at Austin in 1983, there were 5 theaters showing classic and art films within a half-mile of where I lived.) Nowadays, though, theaters are more rare, there's nothing that interesting for me, or else I just don't want to be around a bunch of obnoxious assholes who don't know how to be quiet in a movie theater.

THIS film, though! How EXACTLY what I'm interested in! (Not yet showing in Austin, though there was a sneak preview a couple of nights ago.)

From the IMDb:

At the peak of her international career, Maria Enders is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years ago. But back then she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She departs with her assistant to rehearse in Sils Maria; a remote region of the Alps. A young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal is to take on the role of Sigrid, and Maria finds herself on the other side of the mirror, face to face with an ambiguously charming woman who is, in essence, an unsettling reflection of herself.

Bruce Jenner Transgender?

When I first started hearing these rumors last year, I assumed they were intentional Big Trash Media stimulation for the masses that didn't actually mean anything. If Jenner was growing his hair long, had his nails buffed or even polished, had his Adam's apple shaved... Well, so what. He was having a mid/old-age crisis; he was a metrosexual LA guy; minor surgical procedures were de rigueur for  himself (a couple of nose jobs over the decades), as well as for the women in his family, and for LA...

 

Then online sources started reporting that he'd had a fetish for dressing in women's clothing for decades... OK. Some guys do.

 

I guess I'll, along with the rest of the world, find out what exactly is going on with Jenner tomorrow night when the Jenner/Sawyer interview is aired on ABC. But so many things don't add up: On "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" for the past 7 years, Jenner has seemed like a stereotypical disinterested and superfluous GUY. He's liked his golfing, and playing with toy helicopters and real planes and cars. He's been a bit henpecked by his wife, who hasn't liked his "toys" around the house, and who sometimes hasn't noticed when he's not there. On one show years ago, his hipster sons tried to get him out of the house to a club, get his ear pierced, get his hair cut and jelled... In short, he's seemed like an old-fashioned, vain ex-athlete, a 60-year-old GUY set in his ways but still willing to go along with things to prove he's not an old fuddy-duddy...

 

But now all of a sudden, he's going to have a sex change? After 3 wives and 6 kids (plus the 4 additional Kardashian step-kids)? If he'd felt that he was a female for years, why all the wives and babies? He married Kris Jenner in 1991 and was married to her until last year: Why was he involved in a 24-year relationship with a straight woman?

 

Online, most (maybe 80%) of the non-prejudiced rabble seem to wish Bruce well. As they constantly disparage Kris and Kim. Kris for allegedly "emasculating" Bruce to the extent that he felt the need to become a woman. Kim, still for the sex tape that her asshole lover Ray J released, without her permission, years ago.

 

I think that "The Sex Tape" was turned around to great effect --- Initially an intended humiliation, Kris Jenner, and her business sense, relayed the prurient interest in her daughter into a weekly television show. And good for her for transforming the shitty, self-promoting Ray J move into something positive.

 

What's happened in the 7 years since, though, is a spiraling out of control: Kris's husband of 24 years "suddenly" transgender (cool as Kris appears on TV, this is a disturbing psychological blow); daughter Khloe's husband Lamar Odom, once an NBA star, "suddenly" a drug addict incapable of functioning with any basketball team; daughter Kourtney's common-law husband Scott Disick constantly doing nothing but getting drunk in public. And the one son, Robert Kardashian, Jr., admittedly 100 lbs overweight and unwilling to be seen in public for over a year, holed up in a spare room in sister Khloe's apartment sending out for drugs.

 

I've been constantly watching the show since its inception for entertainment, but about now it seems to have reached a tipping point from silly entertainment to an actual American Tragedy. It's not cute or funny any more.

  

 

The only known artwork by Joan Crawford (1948)

 

 

And upside down:

 

 

Freundinnen

My 9-year-old nephew was over a few months ago, and saw a postcard propped up on my bookshelf that he didn't approve of, because of a naked lady. He actually said (via the PC terminology of his educator mother), "That's inappropriate."

I had to be polite: "It's not appropriate for you 'cause you're 9, but when you're 49, like me, it's appropriate."

And now look at how fucking great and sexy the huge print of said inappropriate naked lady looks above my bed!! :)  If I went over to anyone's house and they had a huge Klimt print up, I'd probably sleep with them in a second. Klimt's appropriately sexy like that.

Full disclosure: Back in '89, when I went to my first not-yet-girlfriend's apartment the day after I had met her and made out with her, I had kind of forgotten what she looked like the night before, and I seemed to remember that she was a little weird. But when I saw her the day after, her living room furniture was circa-'60 turquoise-and-black leather, and her bedroom had a king-size bed with a red-velvet bedspread (which I found out later her mother had given her on her 16th birthday!! How cool was that! I, on the other hand, had, until I went off to college, slept in a single white/gold princess bed bought for me at age 5). I had been on the fence about sleeping with her, but her choices in furniture pushed me over in her favor.

In Passing

Crossing a very busy intersection today while walking to a fast-food restaurant for lunch, a man in a blazer passed me in the intersection and said, "You're looking very attractive today."

:)

I haven't felt for years now that anyone has noticed how I looked!

Back when I briefly lived in New Jersey 'til 2010, on a Sunday game day hours before my Cowboys were playing the Jets, a teen-aged boy in a Jets jersey passed me, wearing a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, on the sidewalk, then turned back: "Your eyes are so green, I know you're really for the Jets."

The kid could not have been more than 16! (And how the hell did he see the color of my eyes??) But... what an utterly charming thing to say! :)

Some guys just have it.

2016

Of the presidential candidates announced so far, here're my current preferences, in order:

(1) Rand Paul
(2) Hillary Clinton
(3) Marco Rubio
(4) Ted Cruz (prejudiced, pseudo-"Constitutionalist," uber-religious asshole / NEVER)

When Jeb Bush enters, he's going to be tied with Rubio (and I'm sure, many others) in the "generic nothingness" category.

What I hope for Rand Paul is that he maintains his principled anti-interventionist stance and his principled libertarian, laissez-faire stance on social issues. If he swerves hard right, then there's no point to him.

Comfort Music: McCartney



Paul McCartney is Comfort Music. Kind of like the filling chowder I ate today at my work cafeteria: Perhaps doubted beforehand, but ultimately VERY GOOD.  I listened to McCartney's 1971 album "Ram" twice tonight, and then 1997's "Flaming Pie." The below song, "Souvenir," is from "Flaming Pie."

 

 

I wish I could say that I spent the evening...

... reading the biography of Thomas Hardy that I just bought for $2 from the library re-sale store a few weeks ago, but, alas, I did not.

I also wish I could say that I spent the evening fucking someone wildly in defiance of all the hatred I've been feeling in the past few weeks for my parents and for Sandra.

Nah. Just came home from work today and worked on my Joan Crawford website, which 90% of the time brings me great peace of mind. I consider this a good day.

Here's what I think it is.

(1) I was not exposed to any loving relationships at all while I was a kid. (My parents' dislike for each other, and dislike for me, permeated the various houses we lived in up until I was 12, when they divorced.)

(2) Deprived of any positive (or even kindly neutral) emotional interactions with my parents, I turned to books and movies and pop music for some/any kind of sustenance.

(3) Having the dichotomy of witnessing, on the one hand, a real-life almost-always-hate-filled relationship between my parents and, on the other hand, a falsely "pure" love/hate reconstruction in art and literature, I didn't get any sense of the "everyday" flow of energy, of mild irritation, of mild affection, of casual conversations about things. My real life at home was almost always dark, and my fantasy life via art was almost always swinging between extremes of agony and ecstasy.

Thus, chaos feels natural. And an even keel feels strange, dull, lifeless. That, I've since read, is a typical feeling among adults raised in abusive, emotionally or otherwise, households. I've also read from psychiatric (and animal) studies that a child/adolescent exposed to constant stress in formative years develops an ingrained physiological "flight or fight" response.

On a note that I haven't read about before, but that I'm sure is/will be later proven true: The utter lack of human kindness as a youth has led me to later accept any kind crumb thrown my way and latch onto it, despite all of the subsequent rejection. I'm a human, after all: I fall for that initial crumb. Only, most healthy (straight) people expressing interest in another perhaps MEAN it: They want to get to know the other, they want to spend time with them.

I have a different experience. When, for the sake of honesty, I've told some women that I'm gay, they have then inexplicably gone into "seductress" mode with me, claiming to be bisexual, claiming to be unhappy with their current male lover, even going so far as to say they "love" me, etc. When I've responded (as I think anyone would), they have completely backed off, suddenly declaring their utter heterosexuality, their distaste for women, their wonderment on why I was now calling...

???

I think my "sickness" is that I keep trying to go back to a well that is now dry. I may be a naif in that I don't comprehend why the well is suddenly dry when it was flowing before... I should not be such a purist. (The same thing happens in straight relationships, of course. But a break-up is harder when one of the two is gay --- the straight person faking bisexuality can easily meld back into the 90% straight world, meeting people at grocery stores, etc., but the gay person is suddenly tossed back into the 10% pool wondering what the hell just happened and forced to go back to gay hang-outs to meet potential mates that she's already figured out she doesn't have anything in common with other than the fact she's gay.)

Right-wing Republicans go on about the "gay lifestyle": There's no "lifestyle." If Ginny had wanted me when I was 18 and she was 17, I'd probably have never had a sad club story or sad lover story or sad parent story to tell here. At nearly 50, I would have been bitching about Georgia property taxes and not giving a fuck what my non-caring blood relations and old school-mates were doing back in Texas.

But then that's "fantasy" acting up again.

Shot tonight: 50 in 4 months.

Edie Brickell & New Bohemians - Circle (1988)

Everything is temporary anyway
When the streets are wet
The colors slip into the sky
I don't know why, that means you and I are...

 

Joan Crawford, 1938

Some people have their Jim. I have my Joan.

 

Bangles - Restless (1986) PIttsburgh, PA

The Housemartins - Happy Hour (1986)

It's happy hour again
I think I might be happy if I wasn't out with them
And they're happy it's a lovely place to be
Happy that the fire is real the barman is a she

Where the haircuts smile
And the meaning of style
Is a night out with the boss
Where you win or you lose
And its them who choose
And if you don't win then you've lost

What a good place to be
Don't believe it
'Cause they speak a different language
And it's never really happened to me
{It's happy hour again}
Don't believe it
'Cause they speak a different language
And it's never really happened to me
{It's happy hour again}

It's another night out with the boss
Following in footsteps overgrown with moss
And they tell me that women grow on trees
And if you catch them right they will land upon their knees

Where they open all their wallets
And they close all their minds
And they love to buy you all a drink
And then we ask all the questions
And you take all your clothes off
And go back to the kitchen sink

Saturday/Sunday

Saturday I woke up with menstrual cramps that turned out to be among the Top Ten worst I've ever had in my life. To achieve placement on this list, gotta cause pain enough to make me first break into a cold sweat (check), then gray out (check), and then throw up (check).

I hadn't had a period for 2 months, since late January, so I was kind of hoping that menopause was kicking in. Over the past 2 or so years, the blood flow has thinned out, the regularity has become mixed. In my teens and early 20s, I had an odd schedule -- regularly, but every 2 months rather than every month; late 20s, 30s, and 40s, up 'til the last couple of years, regularly every month. The Top Ten super-severe cramps, until yesterday, occurred almost exclusively in my teens/early 20s. There were a few bad months in the decades since then, but nothing that maybe four 200-mg Ibuprofen wouldn't fix, and certainly no graying out or throwing up.

Yesterday, though...wow. The pain lasted from 5:55am through about 12:30pm. At least the cramps started when I was home, and on a day off. The VERY WORST happened during the summer in '86 or so, when I was waiting for a college shuttle bus to take me home from class. Almost passing out from the sudden onslaught of pain, I somehow made it to a bathroom stall in the nearby Art School building, where I huddled/crouched for over an hour, alternately shitting and vomiting, until I eventually willed myself back to the bus stop to get home.

So, Saturday was very nasty. I'm hoping that it's a Farewell Tour from my period, a flashback saying, "Hey, remember how things used to be?" before fading out forever. Unlike many women, I'm not going to miss my period and what it psychologically represents--the ability to have kids--at all. I never had many maternal urges. I thought a few times about how fun it would be to share certain movies or music with a kid, and I've enjoyed hanging out with kids (including my nephews) from about age 2 to age 10, listening to their thoughts, going to the pool, or, at the older end of that spectrum, watching their sports efforts, but... other than that, I'm certain that I've never felt any deep-seated desire to have kids whatsoever.

Believe it or not, the above was all a preface to what I really meant to say in the beginning! Because I was bedridden most of Saturday, I had no choice but to lie there all day and listen to the kids from the apartment 2 doors down. Off and on from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., the 3- and 4-year-olds of the neighbors were riding their trikes and running back and forth in front of my apartment landing, playing/banging in the stairwell that adjoins my apartment wall, shrieking at the top of their lungs.

In the few weeks since I've lived here, I've usually been at work, and so I've noticed the running-amok only from maybe 5pm to 7pm. Yesterday, though, when I was trapped at home: The craziness went on ALL DAY LONG. I still didn't want to say anything to the apartment manager -- still felt too new after only 2 months, didn't want to feel like I was being "mean to a poor family with kids who didn't have anywhere else to live." Yeah, well, when I woke up fresh Sunday morning from my previous day of suffering, the very first thought that came to me was: Take a moment to report those obnoxious bangers and shriekers who helped to make your day so miserable yesterday, and who have been obnoxious for the past month once warm weather arrived. I did report it, slipping a handwritten note through the office mail-slot since it was a Sunday.

Sunday, after waking up early pain-free and after writing the complaining note, I went into work for 5 hours, getting a ton of work done in the quiet... Got home around 5pm. Again, the kids were running up and down the landing, shrieking at the top of their lungs. I enter my apartment and, after about 10 minutes, hear a little kid screaming right outside my door. I open the door to see what's going on: The kid is PEEING right there in front of me! I try to say something nice, "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" (this as the puddle is forming at her feet), and then she runs off to her parents' apartment two doors down.

I immediately e-mailed my apartment manager with the latest pee-news: I dropped you a handwritten note this morning, but, wait, there's MORE!

I've lived in my new apartment for 2 months now. #1 noise problem is the 50-something black guy downstairs who's constantly yelling at his wife or yelling on the phone (I can't tell which, but the volume of his voice sounds like he's in my own apartment). #2 problem is the above-mentioned Hispanic family with 3 kids under the age of 4 who are running amok around the complex, but especially in front of my apartment. #3 is the loud (Anglo) biker whose comings and goings his motor announces.

I've rarely had to deal with any of these things before. In my over-30 years of living in apartments in Austin, I've only once lived next door to a black family (who were loud, but my lease was up only a month later and I'd already given notice), only once lived next door to a Hispanic family (single mother, drug-doing son; when she was at work, he'd have his friends over -- at one point, he and his friends got fucked up and started climbing on top of their duplex roof, which I called the police about). And I've never certainly never been around a biker who revs up obnoxiously loudly at 7:20 each morning and whose subsequent comings and goings we all get to revel in.

These aren't high-end apartments. Yet they're decent apartments. But why does the one black guy in the whole place have to be a stereotypically loud, angry black guy that I get stuck living above? Why does the one Hispanic family in the place have to be stereotypically stuffing 2 adults and 3 kids into one apartment, with the kids running around banging on MY walls (not anywhere near their own apartment)? And why the fuck is this biker revving his bike up 5 times a day?

As if I needed one second more of "a little wacky"!

Your horoscope for March 29, 2015
	If you're single, STEPHANIE, you may find yourself feeling a very powerful attraction to someone who is unusual and perhaps a little wacky. If you're already romantically involved, you could well catch a glimpse of a silly and rather insane side of your beloved that you've never seen before. This could be a bit disconcerting, but it should also make you laugh. That's part of the appeal of love - continuously learning about that special one. Enjoy!

Where I Live

I no longer have "Tree Friends Through Screen" because... well, it's hard to relate to a palm tree. They just don't have much character.

That said, though, Austin's hardly ever ugly. (Only one time in my over-30-years here did I ever have no view at all: At a huge, generic apartment complex off Riverside Drive for 6 months back in the '90s. I moved in because it was a, woooo!, townhouse. And it did have an upstairs that I was initially impressed with. But in the front, both up and downstairs, it looked over a huge parking lot. There was no view from the back, except for a small fenced-off patio area. This was probably the worst place I've ever lived in my life. It reminded me very much of the Fort Worth apartment my dad moved into after my parents' divorce in the '70s, and the Fort Worth apartment I moved into after I divorced myself from my friends in 1988.)

Where I live now, at a small, funky complex in North Austin, does still look over parking lots... But they're small ones, and there are bikers, walkers, skaters, and greenery all around. It's not just a dead concrete hull. I'm not happy quite yet, but... I'm not depressed.




Front view through screen, to the Wellness Center and west.



Back view through screen, to the east.



Side view through glass, to the north. Forward!

"Meet Marlon Brando"

I just watched the full 27-minute film from 1964 by the Maysles on TCM last night. Brando came off like a charming dick rather than some sort of "media-savvy guru."

The "official" take, both in the clip below and in TCM's introduction, seems to be that Brando was showing a "savvy understanding of the mass-media machine." But... please. Said "machine" linking show business and media had been around for nearly 40 years since the silent-movie days and the accompanying fan magazines, when stars had been revealing their so-called REAL personalities to reporters. This '64 short film reveals nothing other than Brando's ongoing playing of a game that had been going on long before he ever reached Hollywood.

The voiceover intones of Brando: "You see him pushing the boundaries of the junket format." Really? I see a charismatic celebrity trying to push around reporters, who, to their professional credit, don't seem at all disturbed. For instance, Brando, while being asked a question by a male reporter, comments (apropos of nothing) on how long the reporter's fingernails are. Brando's obviously trying to be a jerk, trying to throw the reporter off by implying what? The reporter's response: He plays classical guitar and so it's necessary to have nails on the right hand that are long. Take that, Mr. Celebrity!

Same with the female reporters: Brando singles out two that are especially pretty and starts going on about their physical characteristics: One, a former Miss USA, he feels talks out of the side of her mouth (which he condescendingly finds "idiosyncratic but charming") and wears her hair falling down over one eye--why does she do that? This young woman resolutely pushes her hair back and reminds him of "subjective opinions." When Brando goes on about "You're one of the prettiest interviewers I've ever seen," the 22-year-old responds, unflustered: "Thank you. You're one of the most gracious hosts I've ever met."

The voiceover for this clip sanctimoniously intones, "The one moment when Brando seems most genuinely engaged is when he spots a beautiful woman on the street and interviews her on civil rights issues..." We then see a perfectly made up and dressed young black woman who just happens (!) to be walking by. Brando's "profound interview" consists of him asking her if the government is doing enough for race relations. "No, it's not," is the answer. 

Wow, you're deep, Mr. Brando.

 

 

Happy Birthday, Joan Crawford!

JOAN CRAWFORD MEGA-MIX

 

George Jones - I Don't Need Your Rocking Chair

Note the jig at 1:25 (and the crowd reaction). Unlike his fellow legend Johnny Cash, George Jones was a showman who didn't take himself so seriously, although his work was equally meaningful.

Gettin' Situated

Amazing how much you get accomplished when you don't drink the night before!

This Sunday:

Three loads of laundry.

Grocery shopping for the first time in 7 weeks. (I haven't been grocery shopping since I moved up north to my new apt. February 1; the parking lot always looked crowded, and I haven't felt like being frazzled any more than necessary. Today, though, ventured in around noon and was pleasantly surprised to find it relatively peaceful. Meaning, primarily single-lady shoppers and a few couples --- no Hispanic families with their hordes of screaming kids. No offense to Hispanic families, and it's nice that you like to do activities together, but... you guys are seriously annoying to be around at grocery stores. In further happy shopping news: This HEB, unlike my old Fiesta, had some staples of my diet, which I'd gone without for the past few years: Campbell's Bean Bacon and Split Pea soups, plus Sociables crackers. I almost gave an audible "Wooo-hooo!" upon spotting them. I felt like I was in middle-aged-white-lady heaven.)

Dishwasher load of dishes stacked up for the past 2 weeks. (This is the first time I've had a dishwasher since 2000. I hate to run it just with a few things, so I let them stack up, then start to think how crappy all the sitting-around dirty dishes look...am relieved when my self-imposed 2-week waiting period is over.)

Assembly of a chair that I'd had sitting around in a box since I ordered it over a month ago. (I'd been using a white kitchen chair for my desk chair, which of course didn't move and didn't at all look right... After ordering my new desk chair from Walmart, though, I'd read a couple of reviews from women on the Walmart site that they couldn't get it put together by themselves. And so I'd been putting it off and putting it off, not wanting to get more bummed out than I already was. As it turned out, it was only mildly strenuous, taking about a half-hour, and I could and did do it by myself. See first picture below.)

Assembly of a lamp that I'd had sitting around in a box since I ordered it over a month ago. (I'd had, so I thought, bad luck with ordering lamps online. Two that I'd ordered from eBay turned out not to look good in any room and were thus a complete waste of over $100. And the Tiffany-style lamps that I'd intended for my bedroom ended up looking terrible there, way too busy. They ended up working out in my study -- see also the first picture below of the desk lamp -- but the bedroom failure also bummed me out. I've been TRYING to go to BED at night instead of sleeping on my couch in front of the TV, and so I needed a reading lamp bright enough to read by, instead of my current dim light... See the second picture below of what I put together today--- this lamp not only looks right, but is also bright enough to read by.)

Slowly making progress toward getting my surroundings how I want them.

George Jones - The Corvette Song

 

 

I Am All

I woke up this morning absolutely clear-headed (no, you absolutist AA-ers, not because I hadn't had anything to drink; in fact, I had about 7 beers the night before). My very first FEELING upon awaking was of being aware of the earth rotating, and then that flashed to Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" from "As You Like It":

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts...

Which reminded me of ant lives and dog lives and people lives that I've been thinking about lately, how all are (obviously) finite. Which would seem to tie in with the Shakespeare --- we're all just here briefly against a much bigger backdrop; yes, I get it.

Then I started thinking about a line from Plath's "Purdah": "I revolve in my sheath of impossibles."

Then I started questioning whether or not I actually revolve around the earth or whether it revolves around me. Of course I am aware of a larger scheme of things, but in reality, every single thing that I do does in fact revolve around me. I am the center of my universe. As everyone else is in theirs.

I am not at all primarily concerned with the other "players" upon The Stage, and their comings and goings. I have no control over those things whatsoever. Rather, I'm most focused on what role I'm playing. What else is one supposed to be concerned with?

Which led me back to Plath and her "Soliloquy of the Solipsist":

I
Know you appear
Vivid at my side,
Denying you sprang out of my head,
Claiming you feel
Love fiery enough to prove flesh real,
Though it's quite clear
All your beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear,
From me.

And then this online take on solipsism, in relation to Plath's poem:

Solipsism is the philosophical position that contends that a given individual’s mind is the only knowable reality there is (a concept that’s intimately connected to idealism). Some have gone as far as to state that there is in fact no independent, external reality; that that which we perceive to be ‘the external world’ is really nothing more than the conjecturing of ideas that exist with the individual’s mind alone … in its extreme from it asserts that the individual (whoever that may be) is not only the basis of reality, but the creator and destroyer of it.

And then it was nearly time for my alarm to go off and my mind started drifting to the scientific paper I was editing at the moment, but before that quite clicked into place, I made myself get up and write down:

I continue to revolve
Not in my impossibles
But in my "I Am All."

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

And a p.s.: All of the above ties in to a youthful belief that I held so firmly for so long: That if a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear it, it DOES make a sound.  It DOES, it DOES! It HAPPENED!

As I grow older, though, I'm more cognizant of the fact that... 100 trillion-trillion-trillion things "happen" all of the time. What gives any particular thing its significance is the recording of it and, then, the interpretation of it. In and of themselves, "things happening" are anonymous and, thus, meaningless. As an aside, I suspect that might be one reason why people get married: their mate and kids and pictures of mate and kids prove that they were once there.