...of your precious love. Of your precious love."
I noticed today that I posted on St. Patrick's Day in 2010, 2008, and 2007.
I don't have much to add today. The world has gone mad & will get worse with the current struggles in Japan, Libya, Wisconsin & Egypt. According to the end of the Mayan Calendar, we may be done in on December 21, 2012.
We all have the true Luck of the Irish. So "may the road rise to meet you and may the wind be always at your back."
...I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell."
-- Charles Bukowski
I don't have the tolerance to swallow the bullshit anymore. I am terrified of the whole I have been breathing through for seven years. I am a pussy. But I endure. I get up and I go to work and I bust my brains and my boss says I am not up to this work anymore because my short term memory is scarred. I am a pussy. My exboyfriend called me a pussy once. I told him pussy was tougher than cock. He said yes. Pussy is like good tires. It stretches and flexibly spreads around the road's barriers. Pussy is the toughest mover and shaker. I am a pussy.
I am not me. I lost myself nine months? seven years ago? I am waiting for my map.
I probably drank too much tonight. Right now, I perceive a level of vision that lets me see through the trauma drama bullshit that I am supposed to live up to... that I could never live up to. Tomorrow I will face my come-uppance when I am pointed out as incapable of fulfilling my occupational requirements. I fulfilled them yesterday and I was still called a failure and they were never my calling or destiny in the first place.
I am going to hell. Thank god, I don't believe in it.
This is not where I belong. I haven't walked the road home in twenty years. Actually, I don't even remember what my house looks like. What home is. I do see my sisters of mercy on the road and I don't want to leave them. I don't want to disappoint them. And I can't find my way back home.
There's no place like home.
Suck it up, bitch. Quit being such a pussy. Go to hell. I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell.
In April, an infection was planted in the memory storage space of my brain and by June it exploded into seizures and I forgot how to laugh or cry or even engage in small talk. Now my strength is gathering again and the people who love me seem relieved to recognize me, myself back in town.
On the other side, I can't remember many "professional" terms and phrases we use at the hospital although I am still mostly able to successfully do my work again. I just require a proof reader.
The gift that I have been given by the hijack attack of memory and the loss of professional buzz words is that dozens of smothered scenes from 38 years have burst onto an imaginary cinema screen inside of my skull.
At eighteen, I was enrolled at a commuter art college near Lake Michigan. My major was theater and our department chair was also one of the leaders at Second City Theater and directed many SCTV episodes. I was taking an improv class taught by Marty DeMatt , who literally grew up at Second City because his mother was one of the pioneering founders and directors. Marty was a sharing and saavy teacher and a compassionate, talented artist. Once, Marty stayed home sick and sent an improviser over to cover class for him.
I can't remember the guy's name. I do remember that he told us he had a degree in photography and even though he wasn't a professional photographer, he approached living his life with perspective, lighting and focus so whatever we did -- whatever we learned along the way in school and in life would form our viewpoints and approaches.
Then he split us up into groups and told us to take a few minutes to plan the bases of our improvs to perform for the class. I was leaning against the back wall with my friends Tom & Jerry (really) and he assigned us together. We spent about thirty seconds planning to be three scarecrows in a field and then talked about going to the nickel draft special at the bar across the street after class. We were the last group called up to do our improv for the class.
And I don't know how or why it happened but art possessed us and we suddenly became puppets of enchantment. We were three scarecrows who discovered how to free ourselves from the polls and we happily flopped and danced and learned to walk and Tom's scarecrow pointed to the highway and wanted to hitch a ride but Jerry's scarecrow and mine wanted to stay on the farm. And Tom's said he couldn't leave without us and he helped us back up on our polls because he was the tallest and just then a truck was coming and we said, "goodbye, we love you" and he ran toward the road with his thumb up and we said goodbye again and then the substitute teacher said "scene" and followed up with:
I hate working in the mornings. It is decidedly not erotic.
I went with my friend to her big work shindig last night. I didn't get the memo about the dress code. 
In keeping with the flavor of the evening, we slipped away before the dancing and went to the secret bar. There was a cowboy band playing complete with a violinist and a lead guitarist with a 1950s era Fender in virginal white which contrasted nicely with his black pearl snap western shirt. The band was good. The lead singer was Australian but everybody knows Australians make the best rednecks because they're from the Deep South.
I can't remember the name of the band but my friend had to pass the tip jar because she's outgoing, trustworthy and was wearing a nice femme outfit. I guess that makes me the butch -- well, that and my Clint Eastwood glare.
How perfect to end this dastardly decade with a blue moon! Goodbye to the aughts and Happy New Year, everybody. Let's make the world a sweeter place in the teens.
Love to you all from the bottom of my emotional ocean.In 5 short days it'll be like waking up in a jail cell with a bad hangover, an overwhelming sense of shame and the need to bankroll quickly and cleanly to cover court costs and attorney fees...
My son now drives and we just spent the holiday at my mom's eating cold turkey and watching a brazillion bootleg movies.
Also, I wish Blog Ho would post because he's practically my last enjoyable vice in this life since I cut back on the booze and the loose men. Practically, not totally or definitely, so please, still no comments about cold turkey. I don't want to hear it.
Have you noticed that many "loose" men aren't "loose" at all, but rather uptight when you get down to it? So the term "loose" is not a very good one when applied to men of leisure and easy pleasure. Let's change it to "tight" since "tight" is the second syllable in "uptight" and "tight" can also slangily mean drunk and/or a really good mesh of skilled and talented musicians during an improv jam session or (mistakenly used in reference to) a recorded song which sounds very good only after about 10,000 takes.
I have some new girlfriends and some blast-from-the-past girlfriends popping out of the woodwork and I've been having lots of fun hanging out with the girls and doing cool things at cool places and not really caring if you think I'm cute while doing it.Mostly, I hang out with cool chicks, but I do still know some "tight" guys, in case you were concerned about my ability to be heterosocial. In fact, it was a couple of "tight" guys who helped me relocate my super powers a couple of weeks ago at an improv show during which 2 troupes performed; one female troupe of improvisers called Children of a Lesser God and one male troop of improvisers called Uncle's Brother. The male troop contained some famousish people. The female troop was "tight".
Yeah, during the show the one "tight" guy friend started asking me for a bunch stuff because he is not a boy scout, but rather a journalist. Meanwhile the other tight guy friend was suffering from the adverse effects of a reiki sneak attack coupled with acupuncture, allergy season and a musty rug at the IO, which may cause runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes, ague and overall fatigue. Yet somehow all of the symptoms, wacky energy, extemporanea and general hilarity were strangely regenerative, kind of like an eclipse on Heroes or possibly more like the way the destruction of Alderaan and the death of Obi-Wan brought the gang closer together and led to the eventual triumph of rebel forces against the Empire.
So once again, I have the magical ability to pull any necessary item out of my purse at any given time, for which my superheroic alter ego, Single Mom, is rightfully renowned, and if you ever run into me while drowning in a river I promise to dig you out a straw or a self-help manual on survival or somesuch -- or maybe I'll just dig you out of the current so you don't die.
Not on my watch, pal.
This is a food meme. I got it from Nigel.
...You'll notice that what they have in common
A couple of weeks ago I told my friend Dennis I was tired of working in an office and I wanted to stay home and crank out several romance novels every year instead. I chose this particular genre because I find it formulaic, popular (read lucrative) and intellectually simple. I also imagined that by injecting the occasional period setting, I could happily spend hours and hours learning the details of certain historic and cultural eras.
Sometimes, I'm a snotty bitch.
Dennis is a good soul. He said I needed to set a deadline, show him my first five pages, and in the spirit of good sportspersonship he would play, too. And so was born Romance Challenge 2008. On Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at high noon we are meeting at Street Side in the back horseshoe booth with the first 5 pages of our original romance novels. The idea is catching on like wildfire among the drunky, boho neighborhoodies -- after all, we have to find something else to do with our hands and mouths now that we can no longer smoke anywhere -- and we're expecting a small crowd.
An unexpected treat is all of the fun we're having pointing out some of the flotsam and jetsam of random conversations that should be used as first lines or titles like, "Sweaty Breasts and Cigarettes" or "I felt like I was riding a very erotic horse" or "I realized she was probably a man, but we had a good time so I asked her out again." (By the way, those are all copyrighted snippets, so no plagery, please.)
But therein lies the crux of Romance Challenge 2008 for me. I want to write a pure, sweet -- hopefully highly readable and intellectually stimulating -- romance novel. I want to be pure to the genre. I realize I've spent this lifetime smothering nearly every romantic sentiment or impulse I've ever had and I think I would be cheating myself if I didn't give in to that strange, stereotypically soft and feminine and foreign mood, at least once. Even if I only do it on paper.
And it's difficult. Everything I've come up with so far smacks of cynical satire. But I will not give in to my monkey mind's desire to protect me from flowering into a silly, vulnerable fool. I will write a fucking love story even if it makes me weep.
Wanna play?
But what else can I say about that?
I still pay attention and contact my representatives and yell, scream, coerce and debate. But really, what else can I say about that. I feel like Cassandra screaming into a hurricane. Very, very bad shit is happening because of and within my country -- and I don't presume to compare the wussy miseries occurring within to the tragic blood-letting without, but the voodoo hoodoo hippie dilletante in me knows it's all connected like some global geopolitical version of reflexology. Just remember; we did not elect that sick, fascist fuck twice and that did not change any outcomes.
All of that being said anyway...frivolity...
I've decided to adopt the bullshit hoodoo voodoo hippie dilletante perspective of giving energy to that which is good and denying energy to that which really needed to disappear 8 years ago. I intend to project joy, gratitude, love and luck like some demented karmic Pollyanna in hopes that maybe THAT will work a little better than the bitching and testifying. That's probably a messed-up wrong-headed approach to generating joy, gratitude, love and luck, but I'm going to let form follow function in this case.
So:
Here's to all of the love we make, break and take. Here's to the attending pain it comes with which reminds you love is bigger than sweetness and more love and luck to those who are too chicken to love and too candy-assed to get hurt.
Here's to the woods and all of those who protect them, as well as those who enjoy them.
Here's to being one lucky woman because I have so many I love, not to mention the greatest kid in the world.
Here's to my fat ass which keeps me warm and is an excellent, portable, ergonomic cushion.
Here's to the whiskey which fertilized this bullshit post.
Here's to getting kissed so deep, sweet and well the arches of your feet break out in a sweat.
And here's to you. Thanks for stopping by.
Greetings, pumpkins! I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving -- even those of you who live in countries where you don't sacrifice turkeys to the Land Lord in his infinite wisdom for the real estate windfall created by decimation of the native population while drinking beer at noon and pointing larger, shinier pieces from the butcher block at first degree relatives because triptophen causes a feeling of distrust.
But I'm just cynical this year because I spent all of Wednesday and Thursday in the throes of a wicked stomach flu complete with repetitive projectile vomiting. I had a piece of dry toast and half a cup of peppermint tea around 6 pm for Thanksgiving dinner. Boo-hoo, poor me, etc., etc...
Anyway, I woke up Friday STARVING, so my friend Baldie took me out to brunch and then we bopped around -- stopping in a comic book store. While perusing the numerous fiddy cent bins, I discovered a comic called My Monkey's Name Is Jennifer by Ken Knudsten. Of course, I purchased the three random issues I found, because "It's a scientifically proven fact that everyone's favorite word is their own name."
That quote is from Lars and the Real Girl, which is the fan-freaking-tastic movie that Baldie and I went to see at the neighborhood theater. I give it five stars, several dozen outloud laughs and three hankies. It's the heartwarming story of a pathologically isolative nice guy named Lars, who buys a custom made sex doll on the internet, puts her in a wheelchair and introduces her around town as his girlfriend Bianca. It's kind of a post-modernist re-telling of The Velveteen Rabbit for adults. Go see it A.S.A.P.
Then Baldie and I went bar hopping, ending up with Pauly in Boystown where 2 wonderful things happened:
1. I got to watch a buff young man gyrate in velour hotpants which had a kind of penis bustier -- a cocktier? -- sewn in them.
2. I really, REALLY had to pee at one point, and the sexy and extremely sweet drag queen dancing with me in the hallway bathroom line danced me in ahead of her -- even though she was in front of me. (Maybe my moves betrayed my urgency?)
I'm thinking, however, that you're probably going to only ever be platonic friends with someone who says, "What a great day! I've had so much fun with you! Do you want to go to Boystown, now?" Even if he is straight, he probably doesn't like you in that way (Unless, he's kinky.)
Either way, I guess...
I keep dreaming that I'm performing again.
*******
This year I worked in “the Lounge” – aka the Club Room aka the Sex/ Ecstasy Room, so named by me because of the amount of people rolling on E and/or with each other in that room. This year, a better name for it would have been the Tequila Striptease Room. Around 3 a.m., I helped (I Dream of) Jeannie slice away the filmy fabric that comprised 98% of the bottom 50% of her costume with my wine opener so that she could get back to the very serious business of hula-hooping. I’ve never seen such a skilled hula-hooper. This moment sponsored by tequila.
Immediately after that, a real yuppie-looking guy walked up in nothing but button-down shirt and boring tie, one hand balancing his cell phone/wallet/ keys and the other clasped in the fingers of Slutty Jailbait Rainbow Bright (who was actually rather sweet, but I’m attempting to paint a picture, here.) They ordered 2 beers and 2 shots of Patron. This moment sponsored by tequila.
I wore a rather simple costume, because we get very busy and messy and you try bartending out of scaffolding and coolers for a roomful of 300 thirsty, intoxicated and overexcited dancers to a deep bass pulse and see how far you get within the confines of most costumes. Therefore, I went as a literal interpretation of Resident Evil (the party theme) in a lab coat with the ID badge I.M. Evil, M.D. This concrete costume really bothered the kid for some reason – he felt I should have named myself Delores Evil or somesuch.
Also, I met a bunch of fun guys and one of them is supposed to take me out this week, so we’ll see. (Bonus: He is NOT a musician.)
I wish I could show you pics, but I never bring a camera since it would be completely sodden by the end of the party (like every other thing I bring there).
All in all, it's a hellatiously good party and I get paid to be there...
It embraces you and makes it easier to sleep against the static and cathode ray burning through insomnia's pacing and you never have to face the vast linen scold of your queen size mattress waking beneath the ecstatic 5 a.m. bleating gymnastics of the love and needle junky giantess upstairs.
This is a third-beer-confession to your drinking buddy who also confesses to not sleeping in his bed since June, which is nice because it kind of becomes an extra closet a place for the things you should put away during insomnia's drop-ins but don't and somehow you never feel so empty on the couch and you can't toss and turn. It's a rough but not unwelcome hug, like your daddy's razor burns.
Image by Maya Gohill.
So I went.
I had to work with a 22 year old (she was good) and I haven't tended in 3 years. Boy, have I slowed down. Also, a lot of the teenagers I used to keep an eye on (boyfriend's kids, nephews, etc.) are old enough to go to bars now -- which made me feel old. Also, a couple of them had me inventing or improving on crazy cocktails, but I enjoy the art of mixology.
Also, my ex-boyfriend's ex-wife (who in the past stole my morning sunshine more than once or twice) showed up in this white sarong midriff-baring thing (which she shouldn't have been wearing) and ordered a 57 Chevy with Rasberry Pucker instead of amaretto because it "makes it smoother" and she wanted it free because it was her 43rd birthday (HAH! she's still older than me) and she bossed me around through the whole operation so I told her she had to show me her license and prove it was her birthday. I'm generally easy-going, but don't lets start the bitch contest. I'm too competitive. Anyway...
Oh, did I mention there was a band who played covers of 80's "Metal" and wore wigs so that they looked like a hair band? Have you ever noticed that nearly all of Bon Jovi's songs are identical? I kept thinking they were playing the same song all night, but when we were cleaning the bar at the end of the night I read their set list and noticed it was actually supposed to be several different Bon Jovi songs. They did play a nice cover of "Crazy Train" and I am not too embarrassed to tell you how much I like that song.
Okay, so then these cowboys ambled up to the bar and ordered lemon drops. They were real cowboys in dark Wrangler jeans, button-down embroidered chemise shirts, hats, belt buckles and boots. So I asked them if they wanted Stoli or Absolut (these were the only call vodkas -- although we do carry a dozen brands of various whiskeys) SO
Cowboy 1: Don't you have Citron? You're supposed to use Citron.
Sirena Cum Tender: I know, but I don't have it. Don't worry, I'll squeeze lemon in the shaker, instead. It'll be yummy. (under her breath) Damn, my shaker's full of banana shit shots. (Mixes shot impressively in 2 plastic cups and rolls lemons in sugar for neatness and ease. Sets shots in front of customers.)
Cowboy 2: (Regarding the sultry and efficient bartender from under the brim of his hat.) This ain't your first goat-roping, is it?
SCT: (Shakes her head.) Nope, been to quite a few rodeos, too.
Cowboy 2: Well, usually when I say that to a girl she just looks at me all wide-eyed and wall-eyed. I can tell you're as down home country as it gets. (He smiles winningly.)
SCT: (Mouth spreading slowly in a wicked grin.) Yeah, but the irony is I was born and raised in the city -- I spent some years living in the sticks, but... (She giggles. Cowboys 1 & 2 swallow their booze and scurry away. She giggles some more and gets back to work.)
I spent Sunday with good friends. They have a barzebo in their backyard, and we spent the day sitting and talking and drinking a box of wine.
Oh, except we drove through the main drag to pick up some beverage reinforcements and they had yellow ribbon placards posted on the streetlight poles. In a town of 400, at least 12 are fighting overseas. That's 3% of the population. This was one of the sadder parts of my weekend.
And that's the whole cock 'n' bull story, more or less.
In Humboldt Park, they have a neighborhood-wide party, complete with drinking, sex, violence, a carnival with centrifugal rides and vendors, and a whole lot of cars. Everyone gets their Puerto Rican flags and drives around the park -- as seen in the photo. When I say everyone, what I mean is A WHOLE FREAKING TON OF PEOPLE IN CARS! Everyone drives around and around and around -- drinking, shouting flag-waving. Generally, a good time is had by all.
I live a block from the park. This means I must spend the day one of two ways:
1. Find a good, safe parking spot, stay put, drink and enjoy the festivities
OR
2. Get out of dodge early in the morning and stay gone until Sunday.
I tend to vary my pattern, but this year I'm choosing option 1. So I need to grab a cold one and head for the porch right now.
Cheers! Salud!
