January,
2003
©
Paula Anderson, 2003
First
published January, 2003
ISBN 0-9728200-0-0
Published by
Word
Riot Press
114
Word
Riot Press ® is a registered trademark
of
Word Riot Press Publishers
Paula
Anderson
http://www.poorpaula.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted without express permission of
the author or Word Riot.
This text is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to
persons alive or dead is purely coincidental.
Printed in the
I would like
to thank the following people:
Daniel Anderson Jr., Jackie Anderson, Barry Briggs, Ave Caron, Naomi Graham,
Liz "Imee" Greene, Wayne Hausfeld, Conan Hernandez, Steve Kozischek,
David
Mumm, Fred Ourt, Robert Posner, Pam Prevatte
Richard Brautigan and JT LeRoy for the inspiration.
And special thanks are in order for:
Mike Conti - Thank you for tirelessly putting up with me, and holding the
string to my helium balloon. I love you!
Chris McLendon - What would I have to write about, had I never met you?
and Jackie Corley - Somehow, you work magic. You turned a little idea of
mine into a magazine EMPIRE, and you turned 200 pages of rough, unstructured
nonsensical CRAP into something we both should be proud of. None of this
would have happened if not for you.
-Paula Anderson
INTRODUCTION
The Internet has
been a catalyst for many things, not least of which is the revitalization of
indy media. We’ve grown so used to
instant communication that a desire for artful communication has
reemerged. E-mail, AIM, E-zines, Blogs –
the methods and means of culture are evolving.
The works of artists and writers our children will cherish are now
appearing in Jpegs and html. And yet,
the essential beauty of what these new talents are trying to tell us is
timeless.
Paula Anderson is
one of these talents.
The book you’re holding
contains writing from an online journal – or blog - Paula has maintained for
over a year. The journal’s place online
created an initial element of performance: a well-conceived tale rather than
aimless introspection. That’s not to say
Paula hasn’t discovered something in the process of this journal – she has, but
as a character in her story.
Positioning herself
as narrator, Paula weaves the reader into the journal. We learn something about loving life
passionately from Paula and her friends in the same way we learned it from Dean
Moriarty and his gang.
This brutal, fire passion is what Word Riot Press is all about. Don’t let the simple quality of the book
cover fool you – Blood Tender is an electric experience.
-Jackie Corley
Editor & Publisher
Word Riot Press
President Grant Has A Mighty Fine Face
...which I know because his face is on the
fifty dollar bill that Papa gave me.
I love my grandfather.
Papa's name is Jake Gidst. He was a running
back for Washington and Lee in the fifties. We have some old newspaper
clippings with pictures of him. He's cuter than old Johnny Unitas. Number 33,
that was Papa. He even played in a couple of bowl games.
He owned an apple orchard. He owned a
Southern States. He was the mayor of Boone's Mill, VA once (which, since I know
you've never heard of it, is in the heart of moonshine country, about 10 miles
outside of
Lately he's taken to telling jokes. When my
brother came off the plane at the
I've always been proud of my grandfather.
He's a simple guy, but at the same time, he ain't no hick. His suits are
expensive, his house is huge, and whenever they come down, he takes us out to
wherever we want to eat, and he never even looks at the check, even though Zeke
always orders something like surf and turf.
Papa's got a full head of dirty-blonde hair
too, and I challenge you to find me another 70-year-old man that can say the
same. There's a streak of gray in the front, but you can barely see it...kinda
suits him anyway...So I'm sitting here staring at this fifty dollar bill,
and remembering how he pressed it into my hand as we were about to leave.
"Here's a little Thanksgiving money.
Y’all have a safe trip home."
I love my grandpa.
My Grandma's Reign
of Terror Is Over.
I call my grandmother 'Omom', just for
future reference.
So Omom has never really liked me. She has
this thing about being fat - if you are, she doesn't like it. And I am the only
person in the whole family that is. My aunt Francine used to be, but then she
went all bulimia. So maybe Francine’s teeth are rotten, but she ain't fat no
more. I wonder which Francine Omom likes
better.
To add to all of that, I talked a lot as a
kid. And I wasn't sensible. Not that I'm sensible now. Fuck that. So it was
always me in last place, with my brother being a star athlete, Marcus (my
cousin) being a star athlete, and Chelsea (my other cousin and Marcus’s sister)
being a straight A student, and it was a recipe for total shittiness.
She was always really good at veiled
insults. "Do you really need that second helping?" "We
have diet soda, you know..." So it goes.
Zeke, Marcus, and Chelsea have grown up to
be these total models of physical perfection. Zeke and Marcus are halfway
through their freshman year of college. And doing ok.
But this time? She wasn't so slick. I mean,
she just was really obvious about it, and she ended up looking like an ass. Me
and Zeke were talking about me spending my life living in a trailer on the
beach, working at the movie theater and playing in a band on weekends. Her ass
just butted right in in medias res and said "You can't put a
trailer on the beach." Yeah, I forgot you're such an expert on beaches,
living in a valley in the
Omom: Oh you play the guitar, huh? I've
never heard you play a note.
Me: Yeah, well you've never seen me
take a shit either, but I bet you aren't so quick to dispute that.
Ok I didn't say that.
But I wanted to. That would have been the best day of my entire life.
Omom: Well, people who are in bands are
people who have played for years and years before they ever even think about
joining a band. You aren't in a choir, you didn't take chorus in high
school....
Paula: Well actually there's a lot of
bands, like the Chili Peppers, Led Zeppelin, and the Beatles, who weren't
people who'd played for years. When John Lennon started a band, he could barely
play at all. Stu Sutcliffe, George Harrison – they both were extremely
inexperienced.
Omom: I don't think that's right.
Paula: Well, I'm afraid it is.
Omom: Whatever.
She lost that smoothness and just was out to
draw blood. It was like the parade in
So tonight would be the Blue Moon. And
knowing that almost makes it seem more beautiful when you look at it through
the tree branches in the wind with a rain of leftover leaves falling all
around.
Not that it really is any more beautiful,
but somehow it makes me tingle on my extremities like I'm sprouting new buds.
Even makes my heart skip a little when I go out to smoke, because under a blue
moon everything is more real and more alive.
It's the witching hour.
I keep noticing bizarre little things, like
the little something hanging from the lampshade by invisible strings. It almost
looks like Tinkerbell. And the spot in the hall that feels colder than the rest
of the house. The rustling noises every time I step outside.
Why is it that beautiful things are so
scary? Scary and beautiful like Carol of the Bells.
In the glow of the computer, the black and
white family faces in the silver-framed portrait look like ghouls and heroin
junkies.
Everything makes me shudder, even though my
eyes are glassy from taking in beauty.
Only in a blue moon.
I've been disenchanted with
Christmas for a few years. Just seems like there's nothing in it, once you're
not a kid anymore. I'm not a Christian; I could give a fuck about Jesus Christ.
I don't particularly like my family, so I don't get that glad-to-be-home
feeling. And once you don't get to rip open shiny boxes, what the hell is the
point?
Jessica Y. was a Christmas girl. When we
were 14, she'd always put little post-scripts at the end of the notes she wrote
me. 164 days till Christmas!!!!!!! She had a great family. She was
Catholic. She lived the American Dream, the tacky kind of exact monetary
planning of what a person could get for gifts, knowing the exact amount each
relative would spend, and exactly what could be obtained for that amount. And
to her, that was lovely. That was Christmas.
But what was it for me? What is it for me
now? Just another day. I spent the last 2 Christmases alone, with the family up
in VA.
So I gave Pivot Daniels a ride down to the
nondescript building where his van was being fixed (a building with one of
those catch-all kind of names that could mean anything from furniture rental to
Volvo mechanic) and on the way back, he told me about Christmas in Grenada,
where he's from.
His accent (which is similar to the Jamaican
accent that my father has, only much thicker and much more indecipherable) made
the storytelling a little harder to understand, but gave it more weight, more
depth than any easily-forgotten American tale of what-I-did-over-winter-break.
In the islands, he said, you know it's
Christmas when you start seeing the eggs. Dyed eggs, like Easter, I gathered.
People would take the eggs directly from the fowl they kept in their
yard and dye some up to display for Christmas.
In the islands, you start cooking lots and
lots of food 9 days before Christmas, because everyone comes from door to door.
A few drinks, some good island food (some curried goat or jerk chicken maybe.
Dumplings with fried bananas and meat patty) and some good conversation, and
then it's off to the next house.
Boy I tell you, he said, that's
Christmas. You go out all day every day all night every night to the fetes,
to the clubs and everybody dances. In the streets there’s people playing steel
drums and guitars. You throw them a dollar all in good spirit as you head on to
whatever's next.
It's hot, too, it's always hot, but who
cares when you got an ocean right there? And you get so drunk your friends have
to carry you home, drop you at the door, and then off to the next house, to the
next bit of Christmas. And on this day,
Jesus was born.
You got to get the roots, he said, if
you're going down dere.
And that sounds more like Christmas than
anything I ever heard of. That sounds like where I want, no, where I need
to be. So I made a pledge right there in the car. Next Christmas I spend in
I'm getting my roots and I'm packing my
bags, and no matter what it takes, I'm going down dere.
I couldn't hack it at telemarketing. So I
tainted up my karma some more by telling them that my grandfather died, and
that I may or may not have to move to
If I ever thought I felt shitty before, I
was wrong. I knew it would be an interesting day anyway, due to the conversation
I had in front of WalMart that morning. I was waiting for a song to finish,
sitting in my car, singing away at the top of my lungs. I open my eyes and a
woman is standing there. Which is, of course, not a usual occurrence, so I was
pretty freaked out. She proceeds to tell me that rock music is Satan's music
(yeah, like that would be any kind of deterrent, even if I DID believe it.)
Spend some of that energy praying, she says. And so I say, Why don't you spend
some of YOUR energy on suicide?
Bad tinged with good. Good tainted by bad.
Like undigested corn in a perfectly good toilet floater. Like an unexpected fly
in a starving person's unexpected sandwich.
Which is another thing. I've decided to
spend Christmas Day at the soup kitchen. And it's not just because I like soup,
either. (Ba-dum-ching!) I'm fucking sick of usurping natural resources without
giving back. I make myself sick. So it's either help somebody or ice-pick
myself to death. I like option one, thankyouverymuch.
Oh, so I got off the point.
I quit my job. Or, I will quit it in a few
hours. I couldn't hack it - I can't, absolutely can't sell to people anymore. I
just don't have it in me. Manda alerted me to the fact that the local factory
is hiring and the pay, benefits, hours, and conditions are much better than
telemarketing. Plus, she'd be there, and she happened to come along in my life
at this perfect time where I'm on the watch for some amazing new thing, so I
can't completely discount the possibility that she's part of that. But I
digress...again.
Mom didn't understand, and what's more, she
wouldn't even listen to the factory information. She just said that if I
couldn't do telemarketing that "there were going to be changes" and
that she'd take all my stuff away and sell what she could to pay for
professional help for me.
So this hurried conversation took place in
the 5 minutes between when she came home from work, and when she took Pivot
Daniels and Jag Creek down to the car rental place to pick up a car to take to
So in my extreme caffeine-induced haze
(we're talking maybe 6 cups of doublecoffee here) I raced around trying to
think of what to do. I decided that Step 1 would be to sell everything I can
possibly part with. I managed to scrape up 35 CD's that I don't really need
(although it hurts like bloody hell) and my fairly new (and mostly unused)
keyboard, and even my 3 Beatles albums on vinyl (not that I really planned on
selling them.) I raced around, thinking, thinking, whatdoidonow?
So I call up Manda and figure that in the
state of mind I'm in, I need somebody to talk to. Somebody to help me figure
out what the hell I'm going to do with myself. So I drive out to Swansboro-by-the-beach
to pick her up, which is maybe a 20 minute drive, and drive on back into the
city where we realized that Retro Records, the store where I was going to sell
my CDs was closed, so I hooked a quick U-Turn and we went to the dollar theater
just in time to see Don't Say A Word.
So I got home right when I usually get home
from work, so Jackie (the mother) was none the wiser.
So my solution?
I'm leaving.
I pondered where to go. It has to be far
enough away that I can't fall back on her anymore. The best way to teach a kid
to swim is to throw him in the water - he might start sinking, but he'll
grapple till he ain’t anymore. And if he doesn't, then he wasn't meant to be in
the Olympics anyway.
So is this just another crazy plan? I don't
fucking know - I never know this stuff...I just.... don’t want to feel like I
should ice-pick myself to death anymore. I just want to go till I can't go
anymore.
'Come Into My Den', Said the Spider to the Fly
The time is Sunday morning and Mom pulls me
out of bed at the crack of
So we sang Negro spirituals to pass the
time. Good advice, they have. In the middle of 'Wade In The Water', it came to
me that the birds here don't fly south for the winter. They're fine where they
are - which tells you something about the coast of
So I had to go to the beach.
I knew I'd see sharks - there's always something going about. And there were,
too, double fins rising and falling, a little too close to where I would have
been swimming, had Pete been there.
I unpacked my bookbag of CDs to sell. I
don't know how I thought I'd be able to part with them. Even my Donna Summer
Greatest Hits album is worth something to me, and that's more than $2. I'm just waiting for the high to end.
I want to scream somewhere where I won't be
heard. There's so much pressure inside of me, filling me up to the top of my
head - you could see it swimming behind my eyes, if you were to look very
closely.
It's all a merry-go-round, and here I am,
going along in such a ridiculous way. We all are, I suppose. Makes me think and
say ridiculous things, and stay up late at night, listening to a taped Vince
Vaughn interview on NPR through my headphones, in my darkened bedless bedroom
on my couch under blankets.
And there are stars.
There are always stars.
People think I'm a heroin addict, on account
of the needle marks on my arms. Sometimes I think maybe I really am, only I
can't remember it. It would certainly go a long way toward explaining things.
It usually seems like the whole world is
going just a little bit faster than it's supposed to, like a record played on
78. I wonder if people look at me like a record played on 16. I wonder what
that would be like.
My uncle Edison says that my memory is bad
because I lie so much I can't distinguish fact from fiction. Well, I always could
tell a good story. I used to always think it was really cool when people made
observations about me that were totally on the money - I thought it was the
coolest thing in the world, and I'd always ask people to 'tell me about me.'
I can't remember anything anymore, and
really, I'm not too sure if
Weather's Here.
Wish You Were Nice.
Love is a needle goes all the way down...I'm
always surprised...I'm feeling so Kristin Hersh today. And listening to Juliana
Hatfield. Wish I was a lesbian so I could do this every day. Wish I was a
lesbian anyway.
I wish I hadn't waited so long to write; now
all of a sudden there's too much stuff to say and for some reason I'm
frustrated enough to cry, because I know I'll truncate this in the telling. I'm
such a lazy bastard.
But I'm trying. Lord knows I'm trying.
Some day or other last week, there was a
party. But actually, if we're going in sequential order, that doesn't come yet.
First is Pete. Pete Pete fucking Pete. Pete
came home for Christmas and somehow I thought it would be different this time.
I'm so naive sometimes.
I went to see him, and all of a sudden he's
Captain Marvel come home again. I decided that song was about him. He's been taking writing classes and reading,
and then it's like he's gotten so smart and so on it that I could barely take
it. I'm almost mad that he's not just some geek anymore. At least then he was
mine. Now he's everyone's, and everyone wants him, too.
So Pete spent an entire night reading to me
and making me listen to the finer nuances of the Deftones and all. Commanding
my total attention as usual. And I guess at the time I thought it was really
awesome and I allowed myself to forget that I said I'd never call him again,
that I'd wait for him to come to me. Because deep down I know that that call
would never come.
That wolf stalking me from the backyard is coming back. I think (too much.) I could hear it between the notes of a
Donovan song this morning.
I'm going to die.
I
love (too fiercely.) And it's always
unrequited. I even love the wolf
stalking me from the backyard. Quirky
like Deacon O'Reilly the Republican bum and not half as putrid.
I
depend (on controlled substances to help me maintain.) Fuck Zoloft or Prozac or whatever. I'll be sane on cocaine...just don't sneak up
on me too quick.
It's paranoia.
Must be the season of the witch.
January 19, 2002:
We Like The Boys
With The Bulletproof Vests
All of a sudden I've been thinking again
about society. It's a worm I just can't get off my brain. It's like everything's
decaying and decaying everywhere you look. Was it always like this? Was I
asleep? It wasn't even gradual; it's like I just looked up one day and there it
was. Decay.
I made Pete cry today. I thought there'd be
some kind of satisfaction in that. In making him feel. And there was, when he
was yelling, but the crying was different. He tears at my heart so much, in
ways I never thought I'd let anybody. Because I never did before. I've been
tiptoeing around him, telling him I love him and being so sweet because he has
that demon lurking around him. Sadness. It's a clown. And you can smell it. So
I try and try and strive and pine and worry and wonder every time the phone
rings if it's going to be Hippie telling me he's dead or something weird like that.
And then today he starts patronizing me
again, like he does. I know why he's an asshole - I'm not perceptive, by any
means, but he made it so clear that night...That he feels inferior and feels
like they all (we all) hate him, and so better to be an asshole.
And so I yelled at him and said all these
terrible things and he's yelling and then all of a sudden he's crying and I'm
not feeling satisfied anymore. I just feel all apologetic and scared and so I
compensate by re-stating the obvious.
I would die for
you. I would drink your fucking bathwater. I love you I love you I love you.
Don't ever leave me because I'll never leave you because you're my best friend
(if not more like I wanted...)
And now I've gotten all off-subject. I
wanted to talk about decay. And not Pete’s decay because it's just scary and I
don't like it.
I found a note from my-gay-ex Swain inside a
book of mine. I guess he meant for me to find it whenever. It's sort of like
him - surprises.
I want
to get a job
So I
can buy you things.
I want
you to go insane for me
Every
time you're under my thumb.
I want
to write you poetry.
I want
to always know the right thing to say.
Love,
Swain
When I hear the words in my mind,
it's Pete’s voice behind them. So much decay.
I'd say I'm weary but I'm not. Abnormal
sleep patterns. That was on the checklist. Decay.
A three-day high comes to an end. It's back
to feeling-sorry-for-myself. And then there's lists.
I hate when people make lists of people...feels
like high school. That was 3 years of embarrassment at not making the lists,
and 1 year of embarrassment at making the list and feeling inferior to everyone
else on the list. I decided I'd never
ever make lists of people again. Shout-outs, invitations, they all make my
stomach knot up. When we had to make "Senior Will and Testaments", I
was on the staff that compiled them, and I waited until everyone else had
turned theirs in, so I could make sure to include everyone that had included
me, as well as every single person I could recall any inside joke about. And
even some random people, just thrown into the mix. Mine was the longest one of
all, by far.
I remember in 1999 I had a party at my
house, and I was so nervous to invite anyone and risk leaving out someone, that
I invited everyone around me at any given time for days. It seemed to be the
best plan anyway; it was a great party.
But I digress.
The whole point is that my high is over. Not
just because of lists, but also because of fatigue, which made me finally drop
off to sleep today. When I woke up I cried because I'd ruined it all by
sleeping. I always ruin it all.
Or, I should say, it always gets
ruined.
I need some more of that No-Doz and coffee,
some more of that sunshine-thru-rain, some more of that spinny happy dazey days
feeling of extreme connectedness-but-solitude and voids of rhyme and reason,
and love.
And love.
I wonder if it's going to be a Wilmington
summer...
January 22, 2002: Tap-Dancing On A Landmine
And I can't just stop at that.
Because it's not even like that - with Pete,
I mean. Because I can sit up here saying I don't care about him anymore, but
the truth is, I enjoy his depression.
My sad dirty dirty sad secret.
I like it. Because I want him to need me. I
want to be the sweeping in heroine and fix it all for him. Or if not the
heroine, then at least the heroin so I can make him forget.
I wanna say things, lines they'll remember
in 100 years. Things they'd say on TV.
It's such a dangerous cliff-edge I'm walking
though, the wanting putting a strain on a friendship of 7 years.
I'm in love. Shit was supposed to feel good.
But I'm just confused.......Diary cliché
phrases like "we're all going along in a ridiculous way" that I could
apply to my whole life and every single entry.
The tiny fragment of lust left for Brody
James that nags because there's no Pete without Brody and no me without
Pete...or something.
I lust after everyone except the ones I'm
with.
"How I Spent
My Summer Vacation" by Little Johnny
Yesterday my mother's old best friend Talya,
who is a Quetchan Indian called. My mother hadn't heard from her in years, and
we had been talking about her a lot for the past few days. About how my mother should
call her and all.
So I went to my old high school where the
middle-school kids were putting on The Wizard of Oz and I cried because it was
cute, and also because I miss my fading youth already. And Citrus (Jag's little
sister) was the Wicked Witch of the West and she was so good I cried even more
and gave her a ride home. When I got back, my mother was laughing the loud soul
laugh that she only laughs when she's talking to Talya because she has this way
of imitating other peoples' laughs and Talya laughs with all the life and
spitfire of the Earth and things.
She told my mom she'd been thinking about
her the past few days. My mom wasn't surprised, she said, Talya does that a
lot.
But I knew what it was. It's that Native
American connection with the Earth and with people and with the tiny invisible
threads that connect everything existent to everything else.
It's like magic really. It's like when fall
leaves dance in the wind in a little cyclone, or when it's suddenly 75 degrees
on a January Sunday, and you think maybe it's because Talya called.
Talya lives on an Indian reservation in
Maybe it would be all cosmic and I'd just
see her beckoning from the highway.
So yesterday started out beautiful. Seventy
degrees and breezy and the sky blue as June. And I knew everything was going to
go swimmingly, since my car was finally fixed and I had an Allman Brothers tape
for the ride and plans stacked a mile high in my head.
Manda had called and said hey let's go
job-hunting and so I said hey let's go con some money off people and
rent Bully and so it was going to be a killer day and by the time the sun
fell and the full moon came up, we'd be employed and full of fantasies about
Brad Renfro and Mike Pitt.
Because, as everybody knows, nothing ever
goes wrong when it's a 75 degree sunny breezy day in late January on the NC
coast.
So I got my cigarettes and my Allman
Brothers tape and put on my nice clothes and my ass-kicking Frankenstein shoes,
and headed out onto the highway to Swansboro-by-the-ocean to pick up Manda.
So I knew that my car wouldn't start acting
up again - because that's the rule. It was such a nice day. And just as I was
thinking that, it started pouring rain. And just as it started pouring rain, my
car broke down. So I said NO! Fuck that! I'm going to Swansboro.
Now, the thing about my car is, whenever you
stop (once it gets warmed up) it starts trying to cut off on you. So I just did
what Pete told me to. Put it in neutral every time you're going to slow down or
stop, revv the gas, throw the bitch in drive and zoom off. Don't give the car a
chance to cut off. See, I'd do anything Pete told me to do....
...but I digress...
So I make it to Manda’s house (barely), and
tell her about the car. But we decide to go ahead with plans anyway, and we get
maybe 2 miles without having to stop, and then we come up to Highway 24. Left
turning lane. Red light. Heavy traffic. Pouring rain. Car stops. So I'm trying
to start it and it's not cooperating, and Manda’s yelling "Well just try
it again! Dude, try it again!" and I'm yelling "It's not working!
Dammit! Dammit!" and cars are angrily zooming around us to turn. And then
I look in the mirror and notice a Sheriff-mobile behind us. And then on with
his flashers....
"Paula, he's not
getting out..."
"Go tell him we're
broken down."
"I'm not going to
tell him - you tell him."
"No, you. I'm the
driver!"
"Yeah, you're the
driver - go tell him."
"It's against the
law for a driver to exit a vehicle on..."
"Quit lying."
"Why don't you go
Manda?"
"There's cars like
an inch away from my door!"
"Well, I'm not
getting out. It's raining."
"I'm not getting
out either."
...and on like that until the cop gets out
and comes to the window. And he says, we're going to have to move it out of
the road. So I'm thinking, hey, what a nice guy. He's gonna push the car
so me and Manda will be safe. Awww, nice copper...nice fuzz...
So he runs back to his car to get his
jacket, and then comes back and tells us to get out and push and he'll steer.
Fucking WHAT? So we get out in our nice job-hunting clothes in the pouring rain
and start trying to push this car off the road. And then a young Marine in
cammies runs over and starts helping us push the car...
-Marines
are the most chivalrous bunch of guys on Earth-
...and so we get it to the side of the road,
and the Marine says it’s a damn shame when you got females out here pushing
a car in the rain and Deputy Dewey leaves and so we head to the payphone at
the nearby gas station to call Manda’s parents. And I realize we have no change
and run back to the car. When I get back, there's a car with two old birds in
it asking us if we're headed to
So the old bird on the right says she
doesn't talk much, as she doesn't have teeth anymore. And I say Well that's
all right ‘cause Manda doesn't talk much either. Tee hee. Anyway, they say
they're picking us up because they're trying to better their karma, on account
of the fact they're trying to retire to a house in
Man, if only they knew about me and Manda’s
karma! It's contagious.
So the old birds are laughing like crazy at
dumb shit I'm saying, and it's.... it’s very Kerouac, and it was
like...listening to "The Weight" and smoking cigarettes. I don't
know; it was nice.
So the old birds drop us off about a
quarter-mile from my house, and we walk on back to my place, and spend the
afternoon talking about how bizarre our circumstances always seem to be, and
how it's compounded weirdness when we hang out. I burned a little hole in the
trampoline on accident. I drank some wine. Manda looked at family photos. We
talked about being cool. (Because we are just so very.)
Then we headed on up to the library to wait
for her father to come and pick her up and drive her back out to
Swansboro-by-the-Sea. And at the library the sun went down and the full moon
came up, and we realized that that probably added to the bizarre energy of the
day, the swirley air and laughter high and smell of lemons and fresh rainy sea
air and grass and grass and cigarettes and old birds...
...and life. And life.
So I gave Manda my last copy of Catcher
In the Rye, which she hasn't read yet, and about 10 or so CDs that I
consider essential (along with a page of notes on what/when/how to listen to
them.)
It's that karma, man. Course, we're still
unemployed, but at least we're cool...
I’ll still be sitting here in my old age,
drinking screw-top wine from a jelly glass. Addled mind with tiny pieces of
marijuana stuck between the cracks. Yeah, I’m like a burnout.
It’s always been my ambition to be Marilyn
Monroe with her hair uncombed. Scarlett O’Hara with sunburn. Watercress
sandwiches with the crusts left on.
The crust.
Fuck class. Class (lines) are for people
with no imagination.
I shouldn’t have glued pictures to my wall
with Elmer’s. They don’t come off. I threw a tantrum and ripped at them, but
now there’s jagged rips of all kinds of color everywhere like tears in the
space-time continuum. My own little break in the universe, right here.
Only the holes are too small to get through.
I made myself a little 4’ x 4’ cubicle
office in the corner of my room. Communication Breakdown Central, it is. I
don’t need any more anyway – it’s a parody of the magazine itself and how tiny
and insignificant it is, but it’s there and it’ll be there and nobody can just
ignore it.
Mack says we’ll be the thorn in the side of
the music industry.
Seems like I’m always a thorn in somebody’s
side, sitting here listening to The Cramps suggesting let’s get fucked up and
all. Good. I need some goodtime buddies. I need somebody to get high with and
get all fucked up before I’m too old for that to be ok.
What kind of burnout loser am I, anyway? I’m
a disgrace to the term. No sex since last summer (unless you count waking up
hung over and naked next to a Homecoming King over Winter Break) and no drugs
in almost as long.
I miss being on that path. To
self-destruction. Nothing’s more appealing than bringing myself to the point of
insanity and hanging suspended in midair over Loss like I do. Like I did. I
miss it.
I’m getting way too close to good for
comfort.
February 9, 2002: A Life Like Aerosmith Lyrics
There’s a roach floating in the coffeepot
and welcome to America. Fin schooling me on New York and the big words she
knows like vernacular and creperie. It’s so cold outside I can’t
feel my fingertips and it smells like winter again. The azaleas were blooming
but now they’re choked off from the cold.
The wine left out from dinner is going to my
head and Fatboy Slim is on the radio. Praise you. Praise me.
I’m so indecisive about everything. I was
sure of what I was doing yesterday but now it’s all wrong again and I’m going
back on my word. I fired Jenny from the magazine and I decided Manda was
holding me back from work and things. But then I changed my mind
again
party-time-wasting
is too much
fun
February 15, 2002: Flock of Blue Jays
I saw a flock of blue jays bullying a
cardinal today. Things like that probably don't happen much, so either it's
good luck or I ate too many morning glory seeds. I think it means big things.
We're going to be famous, see.
Everything's going so swimmingly, and of
course it's only a matter of time till the bottom drops out. But I don't
especially care. Not now anyway.
I don't really like Valentine's Day, but I
don't especially dislike it. I suppose if you've got somebody, it's pretty
nice. I usually don't though. But I honestly don't care that much.... or I do,
but not really. I'd like to be in a relationship, but not enough to go out
looking for one.
Everyone's telling me I should write a
story. Nobody realizes I can't write. People are so stupid. Or maybe I am. I'm
a good writer, but I don't have anything to say.
I'm defending everyone lately. I spent
forever defending Howard Stern and Artie Lange to my mother, and then defending
Pete. Defending my "essential albums of the 1990s" preliminary list
of about 500 albums. I argue things into the ground for no reason.
I'm going to stop sleeping for a while. I
woke up at 1pm today. What a horrible fucking waste of a day. Weird how
sometimes I care if I’m wasting a day, and other times… But I had things I was
planning to do. I miss my old coffee-cigarettes insomnia. That was kind of
nice. At least things got done and I watched the sun come up all nice and
hazy-cold and too much time on the back patio looking into the backyard to see
the eyes and the wind chimes across the creek.
Even if my hands always shook and my throat
tasted bloody and I came unglued and everyone thought I was crazy.
I probably am.
February 19, 2002: I Used to Steal Cerulean Crayons
There was a year when I was so infatuated
with the cerulean crayon that I'd steal them from everywhere. Nothing was ever
cerulean on Viewmont St. - in fact, I'd never in my life seen the color until
then, and I couldn't bear to see a cerulean crayon and leave it behind. I kept them all in a drawer beside my bed.
It only stopped when I woke up one morning when it had snowed in that
hour before sunrise and there was a blue wash over everything and the sky was
suddenly cerulean and it was like Heaven had broken open and spilled all over
the world!
I never stole crayons again.
February 20, 2002: I Miss Hell
The best
thing about not being in Hell anymore is that the bugs are gone. All the
maggots and fruit flies and big flies and the dragonfly on the window are gone
now.
And I
still have the instinct. Whenever I come home, I cast furtive glances around
the edges of the door to make sure there's no caterpillars waiting to fall in
my hair. They'd get lost in there. And always covering my food and putting a
fan beside me while I eat so they can't come die in my spaghetti.
Hell
changed everything. I don't even like food anymore. It's all the same; you
don't taste it. You just thank God that you have some today. Because you
probably didn't yesterday and you might not tomorrow.
I don't
live on the same plane of existence as the rest of the world. That's from Hell
too. There was no day and no night there. You wake up at 7pm one evening and
watch an hour of TV before you start wondering what day it is. And you're only
wondering because you want to watch Law and Order.
You eat
only once a day and never the same time. Always the same food though. Can't
afford anything except spaghetti with canned tomato sauce (which costs 87 cents
and 37 cents, respectively) and some days you don't eat at all because moving
from the couch would take way too much effort.
Of course,
those were the down times. Then there were the manic times of writing 10,000
words and half-empty coffee cups everywhere you forgot you were drinking from
and a path of empty through all the trash from pacing.
My jaws
would hurt from grinding my teeth like I was speeding or something. But I
couldn't afford speed. It was something already inside me.
So I'm not
in Hell anymore.
But I
really miss it there.
February 23, 2002:
JT Money Lyrics and an Entire
Wasted Day
Such an annoyance it was. Him sitting there, conspicuous,
reminding me of that JT Money song
Who dat off-brand nigga tryin to hang with the clique?...Playa I don't know
you nigga tell me who you wit... (Just pretend for a minute that me and rap
lyrics go together well.)
But so that's what had come to mind.
If I'm getting high, I don't like people just being there with no explanation.
He knew where I lived too. Eerie.
I should just stay in the house from now on,
I think.
But anyway, I slept for an entire day.
I'm not naturally an insomniac; I try to force it on myself, and it catches up
with me, after a while.
Dindi had tried to call me some, he said.
And Jag too. (My friends have odd names, they do.) I was hoping to hear from
Dean, in one form of communication or another, but he's still AWOL and
apparently lost in New York somewhere.
I woke up to 118 unread emails, 10
unanswered blog posts from the CB staff, 3 messages, no coffee, and a pounding
headache.
Welcome to my midnight.
I'm so jealous of everyone who's traveling
right now - and everyone who is getting a tattoo. And everyone who's smoking up
and eating strawberries from Southwest Strawberry Farm.
Screw you guys.
February 23, 2002:
101 Things About
The Mingo [excerpted]
3. I was born on
September 11, which has become the worst birthday in the world now.
15. Pete Mac is my best
friend. I really want his nuts. Like bad.
34. My-gay-ex-Swain was
my first instance of sex-within-a-relationship, and he dumped me for his ex. He
and Rick are very happy, so I've heard.
35. I lost my virginity
on a pool table in Emerald Isle during a drunken Spring Break 2000. I don't
remember the guy's name.
36. I have been in love
4 times, and had sex with 5 guys. Nobody exists who is on both lists.
37. My parents met
because my father was a migrant worker who picked apples on my mother's
father's apple orchard. They were married in 1981.
39. My father has this
thing. He's setting up franchise families all over the globe. Every 10 years.
In 1972, he had a daughter by his first wife. In 1973, he had a son by her. Ten
years later, he had me in 1982 with my mother, and a year later, he had Zeke.
In 1992, he had a daughter by his new wife and in 1993 he had a son by her as
well. I wonder if she realizes it's 2002 now...
46. I am obsessed with
gay people and I hope to be one someday.
47. The name
"Mingo County" comes from this passage in my favorite book Sarah
by my favorite author JT LeRoy: “He is from Mingo County, West Virginia.
Everyone in West Virginia, no matter how bad off they are, gives thanks at
least they don't live in Mingo County.”
54. I lie a lot.
55. I honestly believe
a lot of the stuff that used to be lies.
60. In 1995, a friend
of mine named Corcoran Rowe blew his brains out. They found him in a field. His
head-case parents had an open casket funeral. I saw the body with a plug fitted
into the bullet hole and puked.
72. When I was twelve,
I used to have a stalker. I miss that guy.
78. I purposely started
smoking in 2000, with the intent of becoming addicted. I thought it would be
cool.
79. I still think that.
80. I am intrigued by
self-destruction.
81. I smoke weed.
82. I used to do coke.
83. Someday I will do
heroin.
84. I plan to die of a
drug overdose sometime in the 2020s.
90. I enact scenes out
loud when I'm alone. Arguments and conversations.
92. I am intrigued by
motorcycles, hitchhiking, and being homeless.
94. I'm deathly afraid
of maggots, slugs, worms, and caterpillars (especially those black, white, and
yellow caterpillars.)
97. I have two theme
songs: "I'm Only Sleeping" by The Beatles and "Urge For
Going" by Joni Mitchell.
February 25, 2002:
An End To Bad
Writing (or NOT writing)
So I just woke up from dreaming I went to
Memphis to meet two guys named Dave and a cartoonist working on an audio book
of my life. He was disgruntled because it wasn't his usual medium.
Moving on…
I really get off on real-life-type things.
Like going to the post office. Buying cigarettes. I went to the drugstore
yesterday (what a misnomer...) and the Valentine's Day Conversation Hearts were
on sale for 13 cents a box.
How incredibly depressing.
Even more depressing, I bought some, and
eating them, I realized I hadn't even had any this holiday. I think I didn't
even remember that it was the 14th.
And what does that mean?
It means that I'm not in touch with the
world (it's further proof of that.) And here I am planning this huge endeavor
of three-pairs-of-two-cross-country-hitchhiking-summer and I'm very dangerous
when not closely watched and monitored and controlled by someone.
I'm like a helium balloon and I need the kid
to hold the string, because what do you think happens to those balloons when
the kid lets go?
They rise up up up glorious and elated
euphoric ecstatic orgasmic and then they realize it's too far too high too much
but by that time it's too late and they touch the sun and die.
February 26, 2002:
The Ballad of
Paula and Manda (cont.)
I tried to write this normal. In fact, I
tried twice and it deleted both times. So I’m just going to fuck trying to make
it make sense and just write.
Mother Nature gave the warning that it was
one of those me-and-Manda times by hanging the full moon flag at 4pm, as we
were coming off the island. It was going to be one of those odd dazey karmic
stellar sonic power days, made not of reality but cotton foggy clouds and
nihilistic immature relaxation. It was going to be a time was what
Mother Nature’s flag was saying.
And it was.
It started at 12:45 with shit I’m late
but I don’t know what to wear because I know Manda is going to wear something
for job hunting but what do I wear because that shirt is dirty but I’m late
and the Sheriff’s deputy that flirted with me at the gas station on the way to
Swansboro-by-the-sea and said hey didn’t Officer Grohl arrest you for phone
calls last Christmas? Damn, you’ve grown up huh and looking me up and down
and I’m thinking hey we should fuck on top of your cop car or in the back
behind the cage and hey you have handcuffs and a billy club and all sorts of
fun toys…
…but I digress…
So we’re talking about hair (curly vs.
straight) and my cop fetish and all sorts of girly things and reminiscing about
getting high and getting drunk or otherwise fucked up and about how we were too
shy to get jobs and how I’m too internet-obsessed lately and what we’re going
to do once we’re famous. And through all
that maybe a half-hour of job-hunting, exhausted after a 200 question
computerized job application at Target.
We headed out to Topsail Island under the guise
of checking out this restaurant that was hiring, but we didn’t find it or
really look and we just went to a gas station and entertained the clerk and
went on about Zagnut bars and teaberry gum and stealing and beer and being cool
and how we needed jobs and the island and the beach and hair and guys and
everything under the sun and then drove around drinking Pepsi for Manda and
grape Gatorade for me and talking about how we hated sand.
Manda treated me to Chinese food at Mai Tai
and there were cute guys at the next table eyeing our boobs. I rated one a 9.5 and Manda didn’t agree, but
she said I should get his number. But everybody knows I’m too shy for things
like that, so we just giggled and attracted attention and discussed with the
waitress the sex-factor of Robert Downey Jr. and whether or not he warranted a
Gemini (which we decided meant a twin fuck from the both of us.) The waitress
agreed with me that he did but Manda doesn’t like those older guys
And she wanted to go to the mall and hang
around but I hate the mall because other than Jilly (who’s the dykest straight
chick on the planet) Manda is my only female friend, so I don’t know how to do
all that girly stuff like ogling guys and whispering about how cute they are
and watching them ogle you and giggling. So the mall never held anything for
me. But since she’d just laid out 26 bucks for our lunch, I relented.
And we had such a time! Young Marines
everywhere watching us walk by and by and by, wanting…something (because, as
Manda says “Everybody wants the titties.”) And the lesbian chick at the
bookstore stuttering through telling me they didn’t have any JT LeRoy and the
guy at the guitar shop asking me my sign in a roundabout kinda way and giving
us guitar picks. Nay-nay power baby. Titty pride.
So all in all it was a success and a time
and all that and my stomach muscles hurt from giggling and my tummy was full of
nicotine and teaberry gum and my mind full of … guys … and isn’t it funny how
when you hang out with guys all the time you forget how damn sexy they can be.
It takes a girl to remind you.
Manda says I’m using her for her karma, and
her penchant for combining with me like acids and bases to make crazy things
happen. Well, she’s probably right, but that’s friendship anyway. And it’s like
I end all the Manda episodes: We’re still unemployed, but at least we’re cool.
March 2, 2002: Petty Theft Adrenaline Rush
Oh I got so high off the rush from stealing
the City of Jacksonville cone from the corner of Henderson and Carmen. I ran
dodging behind the preschool's sign when a car came and then darting out and
grabbing the cone and manhandling it into my car all huge and banging me in the
shins and in the rearview mirror in the dark my hair was crazy static wild and
my eyes glinting and even in the dark you could see the pink in my cheeks.
And I laughed so hard I choked a little,
half delighted at the cone sitting in the passenger seat. I even talked to it a little.
And then I took it home and set it beside my
Town of Carrboro cone and put on the Jacksonville High School Student of the
Month shirt stolen from the school supply closet and drank down some more
coffee before I even caught my breath.
I suppose you can't please everyone. And I
suppose that every natural high balloony-sky-feeling gets punctured in places…
Because everybody's gotta take a shot.
I'm trying not to care - I'm creating things
now. For the first time since high school, I actually have some kind of direction.
Pete Mac and me are real good again and
we're planning an awesome trip all summer with Canadia. I'm writing, I'm
thinking and brainstorming and doing all this stuff.
And it's like drugs. It's like this thing I
can't get enough of, and for the first time it's not self-destructive. So hate
me. Fucking do it. Hate me, hate CB, down all of it. Please. Because what can I
do? I'm just sitting here trying to keep sane and trying to be something
instead of stagnating.
At midnight on March 1st, the first issue
came out and now the shitstorm starts. Somebody on the staff has to be
disgruntled. Everybody's pointing out typos. People don't "get" my
stories.
And now I’m darkening everybody else’s
creative sunshower before it even starts?
I refuse to feel sorry for myself though - I
created something for once, instead of just talking. Canadia says you can't
please everybody and it was so funny because it was the first time that it
occurred to me. I really can't!
I think I had it in my head that I had the
ability to make dreams come true. For everybody in the world, if I tried hard
enough. Train trips around the nation, magazines, stories, books, bands, jobs,
love, donations, crazy-high rushes of speedy feeling like I feel because
there's so much to do in this life.
Because it's gonna be a banner fucking year,
2002.
But people are undoubtedly going to be
unhappy, and that hadn't occurred to me. So it ends here. I'll be Scarlett
O'Hara and think about it tomorrow. And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
For now it's beautiful.
Pete came home for Spring Break and almost
immediately left again on a trip with his father. But we spent Saturday night
(and a good 5 hours into Sunday) together, just being. We went and saw Jack
Black rescue a shitty movie at the cheap-seats and then rapped to a gay cat
over at Taco Bell, who gave me a pack of Newports. Then home again to Pete’s to
watch his film projects and regale his family with our antics and crazy
stories. Then three hours in my car talking talking talking
saying nothing
and everything
and just being damn
glad to know each other (I assume.)
Everybody notices us. I guess I know it's
our hair and our voices and grins and slap-happy dress code and things but I
don't care because I get to feel famous.
Everybody's going Tommy Edison all of a
sudden, alive with ideas. We're all going to be stars, we are, and it's rushy.
It's crazy but it's true and I'm walking around all day with a grin on my face
bigger than Texas.
It's a new era. So fuck all the worms,
because there's a billion apples in the orchard and we all just got the keys to
paradise.
March 6, 2002: She Runs the Forty in Five Flat
There's something oddly fulfilling about
doing average adult things today. Getting up early and shuffling to the coffee
maker. Showering, brushing my teeth, heading to the bank to cash a check and
then the post office. Walking, shaking my ass and a Newport lit in my left
hand. Grocery shopping for ingredients and then cooking from scratch.
Funny how I can't make myself do this stuff
but when I get around to it, I actually have fun. Times like these, I even like
cleaning.
So what was so uncool about Sam in Sixteen
Candles anyway? Woulda been cool lounging with Jimmy Montrose at the dance
and having the attic room and a phone line. I sort of miss high school.
Every movie character I see I envy. Even the
guys in Requiem for a Dream or Bully or Trainspotting.
Everything and everybody in the world is so cool.
Pete says we're cooler than people. I was telling
Canadia this the other night, that the requirements for being cool are 1)
interesting hair, 2) creation of things or ideas or emittance of some kind of
creative energy, and 3) a car that is recognizable as yours from anywhere (or
no car at all.) They're not difficult requirements, that's how come I know so
many people are cool.
I'm in such a euphoria state
of mind today. I'm all happy-trails summer camp sunny brat pack pink
lately. Dindi got an interview with
Taking Back Sunday and they ranted about pop-punk bands. Everything's coming up
roses and shit.
All the CDs except 3 are claimed and
Morphius Records is calling hounding my ass and Pete and me are good and we're
all taking a trip and I'm writing a book and my brother is coming home this weekend
and I'm watching TV when I'm not supposed to and my car is fixed and I'm so
jack-of-diamonds today. Queen of Clubs! Ace of Spades!
Be nice to someone today.
March 11, 2002: Boat Rides and Fizzy Lifting Drinks
I can't make anything say anything the way I
want it to - like trying to put one more smoke in the ashtray when it's full
and it keeps falling back out.
And for every step forward there's another
one back. Jackie has 26,000 words and JT has 20,000 and they're going two-step
two-step and I'm stuck. right. here. 21,000 and stagnating.
But whatever, so my Captain Marvel came home
again and we went and drove around willy-nilly looking for ways to cause
trouble and yelling things out the window and using the word 'ass' too much.
And he liked the birthday present I got him of The Pete McFerrin
Bicentennial or Actually Bi-Decade-ial Mix: A Collection of Birthday Songs
Mingled For No Apparent Reason With Songs About Transvestites. And a hemp
choker.
And we went in the woods and it was the
strangest thing - him and Hippie pretending like they were actually crazy and
bringing me there to kill me because I'm scared of the dark, and for a minute I
believed it because Pete is so unintentionally intense and twisted and dark and
he was sort of...it was oddly sexy. Both of them. I think I like the woods.
Just a million things to say or show you
like Willy Wonka's factory, but I'm all stuck with just the one thing. If I had
to pick just one thing to talk about it would probably be the boat ride. Or the
big place with the chocolate river or the fizzy lifting drinks.
But there's nothing to say about the way my
room looks at night with the neon stars and neon everything with the black
light on so I can see - it's a neon ballroom with me as the prom queen and
something twinkly on the radio.
It's a really small room, but there's still
room enough to spin.
If you were here, I could deceive you. I'm always telling lies. The
truth is, I'm a liar and I'm a thief, but at least I'm cool.
It's like, what if I said 'I Love You' after all that - wouldn't you
still be inclined to believe it? Who would lie about something like that? Not
even me with my tired-wash look and eyes in need of sleep. And not even you
would doubt it, you with your halfhazard dress and old Reebox, you with your
hazel eyes and dark-orange voice.
And as for me, maybe I can never remember what I was going to say or
going to do, and maybe I hate it when my mouth is sticky inside from candy or
from your sour advice. And maybe I never know where I'm going or anything ever
but you could help me find my way.
I want a job so I can spend my money on
stupid bottom-feeder dropout stuff like tattoos and weed and some Chinese food
for later. I feel like sighing but I'm afraid I'll never stop until I'm
completely deflated and in a mess on the floor. Silly me.
I get in this pattern and it loops and loops
and loops and loops and loops and loop sand loo psan dlo op sand loops until
suddenly…
I'm older.
But not wiser, since I discarded all
delusions of genius when they told me to go home for a semester because they
say I'm manic depressive. And Mom
concurs because why else would I do the things I do? Yeah there's probably
something wrong with me too but I'm still here
(barely)
So I must be doing something right. Or I'm
just lucky. Or both.
Course maybe I'm just rambling that
late-night ramble that I always do. Waiting around till 6:02 a.m. when the sky
reaches absolute orgasmic supersonic perfection and the birds get all loud
(because they know it too) and by 6:10 I'm back where I started again.
March 18, 2002:
Three-Oh-Four A.M.
South of Heaven,
north of Hell. A thousand million ways to say I like you very very well...
So I spent last evening on the trampoline
watching the sky and waiting for the sun to come up, and then spent the day
wishing it would go down. Most probably, I'm a vampire.
I don't have the energy to stop my fingers
sticky sticking on the keys like peanut butter and jelly with the crusts cut
off
It's 3:04 am do you know where your kids
are? and I'm sleepy sleepy
…but it's no fun going to bed
when there's nobody there to curl up with and feel them breathing on the top of
your head and their heart beating against your ear.
And he says it's hard to sleep without
your breath on my chest
But I suppose you can't change the past. And
I always say I wouldn't want to but that's probably not true although really
I'd be just as happy (happier) if it was Pete instead of Swain saying that to
me and come running through fields of flowers in slow-motion like something in
a movie screen.
But he's always talking crazy
stream-of-consciousness and saying things about cherry dicalcium phosphate and
sorbitol but in way more beautiful ways than I can say them.
He knows things and every day he knows more
and more things than me and I want to know them too but it would sound weird if
I said Will you teach me everything you know? Can you just breathe life into
me for an hour or two? If we put our hands palm-to-palm, can we begin to melt
into one person and would you pull away or would you stay
and whatever because I
already know all the answers.
and they're not bad.
March 21, 2002: Hour Of The Pearl
It’s Steinbeck’s hour of the pearl. The best
time of the day, though it isn’t actually an hour, that time between the
darkness and the light.
And really it isn’t always the pearly-gray
he describes it to be. Except maybe on the beach. And maybe it is in
California; I wouldn’t know. But it’s that witching hour that takes on a
different hue every day. Today it was turquoise.
I remember a doctor’s office once (where
Swain and I had gone to be tested for any number of dirty druggie-copulators’
diseases) with six photographs of the same palm-tree type scene. The side of a
building, steps, a ledge with a rocky beach behind it. The same photo six
times, spread around an otherwise crumbling room. Each photo was washed
slightly in some random color. Here blue, here white, there yellow. Some
orange, some purple. And the thing about them was, when looked at separately,
each photo looked unaltered, as though it came from the hour of the pearl on a
green-tinged day, a colored cloud-cover that would unceremoniously burn off by
9a.m.
Then it was the first day that I noticed the
6:02 phenomenon, that those pictures were recreated on my back patio, only mine
were more home, all woods and cigarette butts and familiar shadows and brick
and sloping hill. The same picture every day but splashed with some color –
every color imaginable at some point.
And I keep meaning to keep a record. But I
never do and I always forget the colors summarily and remember only the last
two. Turquoise Thursday, Amethyst Wednesday.
The hour of the pearl.
Hyperventilation. Sex.
Buttered popcorn, Milk Duds, and Diet Coke.
Life baby.
I spent a euphoric weekend re-entering the
world. It's so incredibly hard to explain how it feels; almost like I just woke
up. Like I'd slept. Suddenly everything's awake and feels like pricklyheat.
All these floodgates open suddenly spewing
knowledge from one, music from one, money, literature, cigarettes, people from
others. Like life here where life wasn't before.
AND ALSO
the silly laughing
carefree youth bathroom-sex-escapades always with my nickel knocked from
between my knees because I'm happy now and jubilant and a million things hard
to put into words.
EVEN if I only own 121
sq. ft. in the world all cluttered with too many books and CDs and dirty
clothes and shoes and collections and
EVEN if the writing
comes slow sometimes and my feet hurt and my legs need shaving and my baby
isn't here (or even my baby at all)
I love everything
because it's here it's here and it's new and great and beautiful and smashing
up silly daffy down dilly whole lotta lovin
tomorrow.
You tempt Fate.
You tempt and tempt and
hold up steak in front of it at the end of the chain and you laugh and get
drunk and smoke weed
and get into the car
with another Fatempter
sooner or later.
You're never lucky for long.
I’m home and a little sore after a drunken
car accident with Josh Tremont, my fuckable boss at work.
I said a tearful goodbye to Josh’s BMW, and
the forty-ounce of Olde English that broke on the ground. I feel bad that we dented a tree, too. Wasn’t the tree’s fault we were headed to
Josh’s to see if his midgrade was really any good, and if it would make the
drunk feel smoother and deeper-mellow.
You know, I thought Josh was a square, but
it turns out that when the tie comes off at the end of the day, all bets are
off and he turns into one of the bogtrotters like me and the rest of this
sinking scene.
I’d fuck him. Much.
Glad to know he’s in the mud with the rest of us sometimes.
He promised me we’d smoke together, but I
guess today wasn’t the day…
April 8, 2002:
Invincible
So we were thinking about it last night
during our post-car-accident weed smoking session.
And I'm the one who came to the conclusion:
We are invincible. We miss the generator, we miss the house, we miss the car,
we could have gone into the ditch, but instead we hit the tree.
So Josh’s cherry car is totalled.
BUT
We're all fine. We live to fuck up another
day, my friends.
And there was nothing but good humor when
Josh said well it took 24 hours to make it here, but here we are and
then hit the pipe and the room began to smell like happiness…
So I love my new job with a fierceness. My
bass-player boss Rush and the silly funny things he says. The crazy janitors and the superior
doormen. Lazy boys and American girls
and it's crazy thinking about it. The fact that things can just fall into
place. The way that there is a place I can go where there's endless
entertainment to be had, and everybody there says hi and they know my name like
Cheers, and for all that? For all that, they pay me.
And it's time again for us all to stand
around doing the Fatman's Twist once again once again once again
in a line in a circle
Because we're young.
Because we're invincible.
I want to expand on fucking my boss Josh
some more.
See the thing about Josh is, I have no idea
why he's so incredibly sexy. This is a guy who's maybe 5'9", and weighs
maybe a buck fifty all wet
-pause to appreciate the thought of Josh all
wet-
Josh is 23. He's practically married, having
been with his girlfriend for 2 and a half years. They live together. He drinks.
He drives while drinking. I’ve seen this firsthand. He smokes weed. Every
night. He shares. He kissed my cheek about an hour before the car crash. He
kissed Mavis’s cheek too. Mavis wants him all of a sudden, only I think she
just wants us to agree.
He used to be in a gang. He has a gang
tattoo. He has a long criminal record. He smokes Marlboro Milds. He always
gives me smokes, even when he knows I have them and just don't want to waste
them.
-pause some more to think about Josh all wet-
Now, you know how there's always the guy who
brings the beer? When you're in high school, it's not so easy to procure
alcohol, but there's always the one guy who makes it happen.
That guy was Pace Gilmore.
Pace is a man. He's probably been one for
the last ten years or so. He's a republican. A conservative. He drives a
middle-aged-man luxury car and smokes Marlboro Reds. He's a genius. He knows
everything about everything, especially military history. He's a very cold kind
of guy, usually, but a big drinker. He always has that bottle of Absolut, and
when he drinks, he gets really funny and plays the life of the party really
well.
Pace and me went to Chapel Hill in the fall,
and spent pretty much all our time together. But by November, it was apparent
that I was flunking out of school. And in mid-December I came home to
Jacksonville. And it would ruin my friendship with Pace.
***
On New Years' Eve 2000, I fell in love with
Pete McFerrin
***
That winter, Pace fell for a girl named
Lara. Lara had gone out with Pete during our senior year of high school. She
hated him and he hated her. She was a whore. Pace knew this, but you can't help
who you love....
Lara had first gone out with a close friend
of mine, Dean, and broke his heart. Pete calls her the only girl he's ever
loved. And then Pace? I hated her.
So Mike was thoroughly preoccupied with Pam,
and I was preoccupied with Chris.
When I'd first come home, Pace and me
immediately started planning my return. He told me that if I stayed in Chapel
Hill for one year, he'd take me to California. He told me we'd get matching
Chapel Hill tattoos. I ate it up.
Then Pete said that that was stupid. Pete thought Chapel Hill sucked, and Wilmington
was where it was at. The movies are in
Wilmington, the entertainment. So I abandoned the Pace Gilmore plan completely
and decided to move down to Wilmington to be near Pete instead. Lust is a powerful thing.
That spring, Pete got drunk and attacked me.
Pace called it all "attempted rape," and he looked up the statistics
on whether or not Pete would do it again. He told me not to hang out with Pete
anymore. He also promised he'd never tell anyone.
And you know what? I forgave Pete for attacking me before I
forgave Pace for calling Pete an attempted rapist.
And so, time passed. I eventually moved back to Chapel Hill, but
Pace wasn’t around. He’d gone home for
the summer, determined to win Lara’s heart.
In September, I visited home and found out
that Jacksonville was alive with a new rumor. Apparently Pete had raped
Lara. He also raped me. And being the
sexual deviant that I am, I liked it, and now we're closer than ever. Suddenly I was the end of the chain in a huge
game of Telephone.
Pace got drunk one night and admitted to me
that he told about Pace. And just like that I hated Pace. Pace and Pete hated
each other, too. We were just a big
triangle of bad feelings.
Eventually, I forgave Pace, because I guess
I missed the cute way he smoked. And I
missed the way I always felt like I was learning, just from being around
him. We tentatively began to be friends
again.
***
So I got hired at the movie theater, thanks
to Pace. Suddenly I wasn't searching anymore. That 'urge to go' was gone. I was
content. Which meant that my whole life-with-Pete plan was suddenly really
unimportant. It used to be that all I talked about was moving to Wilmington,
taking the magazine print, and being an author forever.
And now I don't care.
Pete McFerrin is the most arrogant person
who has probably ever lived. He's talented, beautiful, fun. He drives a cool
car with a loud stereo. He always says the right things. And everybody wants to
hang on. Pete is really particular about who's good enough to hang out with
him. So when you realize that you are blessed enough to be at Pete’s side, in
the halo of wonderful light that surrounds him, you can't get enough.
Being friends with Pete one of
Pete’s admirers is like being at Busch Gardens on a Saturday in July. It's like
spending all day riding The Big Bad Wolf. You wait in line and wait and wait
and wait for this one minute of intense orgasmic pleasure. And then it's over
so soon and you get back in a long long line.
And that is how I thought I'd spend my life.
Pete McFerrin makes you feel like you're
special - that you're on to something that the rest of the world hasn't gotten.
You start picking up your own arrogance. Because you're better than everybody,
and even if the whole world doesn't know it yet, you know it and Pete knows it.
You'd never think you could beat that. Until
there was Pace, and the theater. With
Pace, you're not special. You're just one of the gang. Maybe you're funny, or
rich, or the pothead. Maybe you're the one who always gets drunk and acts the
fool. Maybe you're the one who always has sex with lots of people. But
regardless, you're one of the crowd. With the theater crowd, there's never
those intense searing moments of glee and pleasure, but there's no longing and
waiting in line. It's like that buzzy, glowy feeling that you get after having
a few beers. And it's like that all the time. It's just good.
If you're not talking/thinking about Pete,
if you're not longing for him, he's got no use for you. And the theater, to
him, is just about Pace.
So all of a sudden the tables are turned.
All of a sudden Pete McFerrin isn't the center of my world. I've got such a good thing, and for the first
time in three years, it has nothing to do with him.
April 20, 2002:
Throb Me.
Tonight was going-out night with Mavis to
Atlantic Beach. Ziggy's-By-the-Sea to hear her brother's band play. It's
quiet...quiet as dusk turns to stormy night...quiet and then the lights go
FLASH and it's all pulsing beat and sweat streaming off her brother's head and
making his muscles look even bigger
red light stop green light go stop go stop
GO more more over and over and over
like sex. Like rough sex that leaves you
feeling all disoriented and drained and half thinking never again will I... but
knowing you will because it flows like lifeblood adrenaline acid through your
veins like no drug could ever make you feel
'cept maybe cocaine
but this is better because it's all really
actually happening
and then you're meeting musicians all of a
sudden who genuinely want to know your name and what you're doing later and
always staring
at my tits
and suddenly I'm so glad I have them, so
glad I brought them with me, like I had some other choice.
Swift played and the singer Gary got me all
wet like I bet Jim Morrison did thirty years ago all contorted face and sitting
cross-legged in a corner sometimes and then exploding everywhere
god why is it always so sexual
and telling me afterwards that he was going
back to the hotel to watch Reservoir Dogs and I should come sometime
...like I won't come tonight just thinking
about the way you hold the mike Gary.
April 22, 2002:
Karmic
Retribution... Sex... Summer... Life...
It’s the week of the seemingly never-ending
headspin. It’s April. Julius Peppers was drafted second-pick overall to the
NFL, and my Carolina boy is now an official Panther and I can recount tales of
our various conversations (or lack thereof.) Josh’s girlfriend is pregnant. He
says not to say Congratulations. My toenails are swathed in classic red with
silver racing stripes. My hair is a rat’s nest.
Mavis got tonsillitis and my aunt Linley has
found a malignant tumor in her breast. I finally finished my laundry and I got
my tax refund. It’s ninety-two degrees and sunny and Murder By Numbers
is in theaters.
Headspin.
Linley’s tumor makes me smirk
and thoughts of karmic retribution swim in my head. Times like the one where
8-year-old Paula got an irate phone call from her informing Paula never to tell
another soul again that Linley is related to someone like her – Paula whose
skin isn’t lily-white and whose hair is nappy…
It also makes me think maybe I should stop
smoking. Not a very serious thought, mind you, but it’s there nonetheless.
Pete quit the magazine and then came back
with the condition that I’d agree to be his friend again. I laugh with glee at
the fact that his attention does nothing for me anymore.
Zeke comes home from Florida State next week
and my room isn’t clean. Luaka Bop Records called and I felt tongue-tied. I can
count nine empty packs of Newports scattered around my room, and I wonder where
all the cheery red-and-white Marlboro packs have gone gone to graveyards
everywhere… when will they ever learn…when will they ever learn?
The 26th MEU is back from their seven-month
trip to Afghanistan and everywhere is kisses and Welcome Home to Our Brave
Boys signs. Pace says that our Marines are known and feared the world over,
that Japan called them the Devil Dogs and I feel an un-hip wash of pride and
patriotism whenever I see one. I smile at them and give them free refills at
the movies.
Summer has come to Carolina, where spring
swept through less than a month before. Down south we never do that halfway shit
for long. It’s hot and it’s going to get hotter. Stickiness and sweat makes me
smile and the manufactured scent and feel of the air conditioner makes me
happy. In like a lion and all that.
So that’s the scene.
Sultrysexy weather and our boys back home. Linley with cancer and my money
flowing in. Hair everywhere and pretty feet and idle hands with noplace to
travel. Laundry-fresh everything and apple-scented Palmolive.
I’m in love. With everything.
And we laughed because we all had
that book on our shelves, sandwiched in between yearbooks and copies of The
Stand and On the Road and whatnot and we laughed because we’re
still here.
What places? But what places do you need when everything’s explodey
around you just like fireworks, just like TV? Just reminiscing about the times
when we used to think that Jacksonville was synonymous with Hell, and all there
ever was was out. Then all of a sudden BAM!
life begins.
Miss Anderson, you
are under arrest for the trafficking of narcotics…
Here’s me in county lockup
with Cher and with Jamie in the men’s ward and how scared we were, honestly
thinking we’d do a full ten years for being caught with a boy selling cocaine
from the trunk of his car. Oh the humanity! Then there was the chick with her
front teeth out who cornrowed my hair and how Cher asked her to show us how to
make a homemade shank out of a toothbrush and we just laughed
and laughed
***
Josh: Sorry, did I get you wet?
Paula: …
Josh: …
Paula: …
Josh: Oh, damn…
***
And Josh smiles when I sing “40 Boys In 40
Nights” under my breath while I’m working and tells me I got problems with
male-dependency (really, Sherlock?)
And then I realized I was totally sprung on
Josh with his bluer-than-blue eyes with the tiny greenish ring in the center.
And then I realized that he knew. Oh the humanity even MORE, I thought! And
suddenly he’s being way too nice and regaling me with his sexy antics no, he
didn’t die – I shot him in the stomach…well, I was wearing a bright yellow
shirt with SECURITY written on it, so you just know I got in a fight
every night…picked up for possession on the side of the road in Dunlap,
Tennessee…
***
So around about two weeks ago, Mavis and me
started hanging out at the Waffle House, which is where we met Dealer Dave From
the Waffle House with his shaggy auburn hair and smell-trail of marijuana
cigarettes. All I want in life is a skinny little white boy is what
Mavis said, so I invited him to come watch the Spiderman preview after hours at
the theater.
And he came.
Dave confided in me that he really likes
Mavis, which made me smile even more. I’d backed off flirting with him (or
propositioning him for casual sex, rather) when I found out that Mavis really
had it bad for him, and this was a welcome surprise. I was feeling all skippy
from hooking up Gay George with a high school kid named Gray the day before so…
Just call me Cupid, I said, and hooked Mavis up with
him all perfect and nice and beamed while they made out in that 2002 Kia
Spectra of hers. He says he’s buying me a tattoo as a thank-you for the
Friday-night date I scored him, and you know there’ll be times…
So in all this huge rush of May heat and
love, too many car trips on futile smoke hunts and boy hunts and fun hunts and
the rest, the long hours of work in the wake of the legendary SpiderMan film
(which meant lots of working with Josh…) In all this delirium and entire days
spent away from home and without food or structure or any real purpose, I made
a decision.
***
Mavis: (to a 17-year-old boy named Rien
that we picked up in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder and took to the pool
hall) You don’t have to smile. You’re in high school. But that first day that
you wake up and you realize it’s noon, and you’re no longer programmed to get
up at six – that first day when you wake up and realize that you have
absolutely nothing in the world that you have to do? Believe me – you’ll smile.
***
And Gay George wants to write a book all
about his life as an addict and a prostitute and all. About the rapes and the
tears and his boyfriend in Tulsa who sent him here because he needed space, and
about the Miami rave scene. I lent him JT LeRoy’s books and told him to study
hard. He tells me there’s electric sexual tension between me and Josh, but I
know that current only travels one way.
…and I can’t stop talking about it…
***
Oh, the places you’ll go, is what they say.
And it’s true that we can go anywhere and all, that I can hop a Greyhound to
San Fran tomorrow if I really like. I could take a freighter to Bali (to see
those Bali Eyes) or a slow boat to China even.
Only, what’s the rush?
July 8, 2002:
Friends of P
Friends bring things out in me. Josh makes
me mad. Imee makes me giggly and Pace makes me smart. My boss Rush makes me
frustrated. Everybody adds something
like a potluck dinner at Paula's house.
Work is going really well, and now I've
begun to feel. Like I have a ... niche. You talk music with Rush and talk weed
with Josh, who you know plays favorites with you. You smoke out back and you
drink in the car, and as long as the concession stand is clean, nothing else
matters too much after midnight. And it always is (all hail the good employee.)
A month ago I moved in with this guy named
Disco who I met at the movie theater. He's a gay Mexican poetic type with all
the light of Ginsberg (and I'm Kerouac, and we're going to have many many
adventures together.) He writes all this amazing stuff that makes me all tingly
inside. Throw in new roommate Blue and it’s Two Homos, A Girl, and a Movie
Theater. Sound enough like a sitcom?
I had a little theater-sex, got my tongue
pierced, and added a little flame to my manner - quit being quite so nice. Like
grits.... with Texas Pete...and jalapenos.
Despite all the efforts I make to convince
me, I think maybe everybody doesn't hate me. There's a few friends of P out
there.
So today I'm made of sunshine. Still a
little high, maybe even a little drunk, and definitely a little tired, but the
sun is still shining down on me...
Love.
July 9, 2002: Smalltownism For Dummies
It's been a month where the beer is never
sour at the bottom. A month where everything is enchanted and blowing a kiss
really makes the stoplights turn green.
It's the hottest summer I can remember
(which, by the way, is something I say every year) and there's unrest in the
sky. Lightning storms and patches of red and June moons scattering into bloody
stormy July ones. There was even a whirlwind in the parking lot of work the
other day while people waited to see Men In Black 2.
But even with all that, everything's coming
up roses - even the concrete!
So I live in a broken-down house downtown
with this gay Mexican poet named Disco. He drops acid and says stuff like God
I tripped so hard I fell forever twice…Later on we moved a boy named Blue
in to the living room, reducing Disco’s and my rent to a hundred bucks a month.
So here we are - I work thirty hours a week
at a job I'd go to for free, and I make enough to pay the rent and buy weed and
Skyy Blue every week. Maybe I'll even make enough to come and visit you....
***
Early June set off this weird chain of
events that jumbled my whole friendship structure up and led to
...Imee Greene, who’s 17 and a bubbly
little-blond-chick (the type I always hated) and, somehow, my new "best
friend." She wears lots of lip gloss and platforms and makes me smile. She
drives my car home when I'm too fucked up to. She whines too much and always
says “That hurts my heart,” but she loves Dave Matthews Band, and can (usually)
hold her liquor. She sleeps to dream and
dreams grand and vivid pictures of a world where everybody is romantic and full
of fire and passion and all the things real life should be about. Anyway, Imee Greene’s just a general good person
to have around.
July 11, 2002: Like Lemon Trees on Mercury
So I thought I was over my boss, Josh, but
I'm not so sure because he likes Dr. Hook and Steve Earle and that changes
EVERYTHING. I hate Steve Earle, really, but it doesn't matter because he's
heard of Steve Earle. And he's read The Stand. I didn't know he knew how
to read.
He told me he used to be an addict and he
came to Jacksonville to get away from it, but he hates it here. He's my exact
polar opposite clinging to me slightly by little strings like our equal love
for marijuana and our neediness - his need for a friend and my need to be
ANYWHERE AROUND HIM.
Blue moved out. Went to Atlanta. Told me he couldn't take being poor with us
anymore, especially in light of the fact that Disco isn't working really. So it
goes (?) Or whatever.
To say goodbye,
Smokey-the-guy-who-drives-the-live-van-for-channel-5 and Disco and me smoked
weed and vegged all weekend with movies in the one air-conditioned room. Blue
is allergic to weed, it turns out, so it wasn't much fun for him. Then I got
drunk and fell asleep and missed Blue’s big exit. I'm always tainting the
moment.
I finally picked up the new Chili Peppers'
album after almost a week of hesitation, of questioning my true fan-ness. But now
it's Pep fever all over again. I make me sick
of
your hold on me
oh shut up already...
August 3, 2002: Local God
I feel just like a local god when I'm with the boys...
...ain't it the truth. I get ultradizzy
too-hot but never burnt out from too much drink and too much laughter and eight
pounds of love inside my skull.
Here's the thing: I have no car (it's
broke), I have no phone (too poor), and as of ten days ago, I have no
electricity!
So is it the worst of times? Or is it still
amazing in these last few weeks before Pace goes back to school - these last
few orgasmic weeks of near-perfect friendship so beautiful it almost makes me
cry. The drunken confessions and realizations
Pace, I'll always
be on your side, no matter what. I'm always in your corner.
Pace, would you
help me move a body, no questions asked?
Of course.
Summer movies at the summer
theater in the stormy hurricane season of the southeastern coast where it goes
from 101 degrees and sunny (too hot, and I spend all day splashing in the
bathtub in my bathing suit!) to 70 and storming with power going out everywhere
and cold enough for a jacket. Everything comes to a head in the heat - drama!
So much drama, and I always did like the drama...
…and then Disco and Mavis
were out and Imee and Hatfield were in.
You know, I really don’t know
how I got here. You live each day like
it was the first one you ever lived, and maybe the last one, too. It’s like every day you wake up and wake up
and wake up again and a new adventure starts, like you’ve made a home at Disney
World. There wasn’t time or energy to
write, even with inspiration and stories tugging at your heels every step,
begging you to look back at it all and analyze it. Write it down and make it all literary like I
used to do. It used to be the highlight
of my life to spin these tales for you all, to weave this beautiful spider web
of my real and actual life and to look at it and realize that I’m
interesting! Then all of a sudden
the fast lane was so fast that you couldn’t look in the rear view. You ignore the radio and cease the
conversation, and concentrate on the road, on the car and the drive until all
of a sudden…
Only where the hell is Here anymore? I’ve forgotten. It was all cocaine and excitement and money
flowing everywhere. Boys named Tupelo
with deep-South accents and round blue eyes, everybody with blue eyes,
except me – the calm little epicenter of everything in the world all of a sudden.
Then shit hit the fan, and here’s me: all
alone. Hatfield stole a car and hit the
road and disappeared into America.
Tupelo with the deep-South accent took a job in Chicago, and went off to
where it’s colder than ice and windier than the crossroads and I’ll never see
him again. Imee just cries, and as for
me – I’m half envious of Hatfield being free and on an adventure, and I’m half
afraid I won’t have the chops to make it without a boy to lean on. Yet again.
Times get tough, but I think that’s kinda
neat.
October 20, 2002:
Of Mustard Gas and Roses and Those Who Don't Mind
Imee and me didn’t survive Hatfield’s
tornado unscathed. Something stupid –
whatever, and here we are, all petty and vindictive and pretending our
friendship is permanently over. Silly
girls, we are.
I guess now I'm running with the
intellectual nobody set, and Jag and Rush say I chew people up and Heaven help
my next victim. Ah, so maybe I'm disloyal, and maybe I tire of people
sometimes, but nobody's perfect, and I can't help having a short attention
span.
Maybe I have friendship ADD.
Chet Steadman is beautiful. He has blue eyes
and spiky hair, a goatee and a deep voice, and brown flip flops worn to
breaking. He loves Bob Marley but he hates The Beatles and Nirvana and the
Doors even more. He's an ultrahawk and a conspiracy theorist, as well as an
agnostic bordering on complete atheism. He drinks and does coke some, but he's
a weed man - he loves that high like no other. He's a doorman, but not a relief
manager, because he's not as responsible as, say
Topher Johnson, who I'm not even sure likes
me. He's really sarcastic and almost never serious, and I don't have a long
enough history with him to be sure he's joking around. He loves the Beatles and
hates Bob Marley (and anything else on the up beat) and is occasionally so nice
that it's suspect. He doesn't take any drugs - he's never even smoked a
cigarette before! He doesn't cater to me as much as most guys, especially his
best friend
Pace Gilmore, who you already know.
It's like sometimes you feel like you're
atrophying, and you have to talk to someone about global warming theories and
politics, about books to read. About the Illuminati or anarchy or foreign
policy or the old honors classes from high school. Sometimes talking about
drugs and 9-to-5's and Bud Light and Rack Em's vs. Muggs Away pool tables just
isn't enough till you feel like you're the type that belongs in the mall.
I was at the point where I'd actually shop
at Hot Topic or American Eagle. Where I'd watch America's Funniest Home Videos.
And laugh.
So maybe Jag’s right - maybe I'm disloyal
and I can't stand the same old conversation for months on end. Or maybe I just
never know what I want and I’m never loyal to anyone ever…
Or maybe I’m just a child.
The slugs are flanking me tonight. A
completely sophisticated military maneuver and you wouldn't think the fuckers
were capable, but they are. One of them even managed to sneak its filthy way
into the house - they think I don't know how it is.
But I do.
One of these mornings you're going to look
for me and I'll be dead. Attacked and killed by dangerous slugs and don't laugh
because you're only 99% sure that's impossible. 1% still wonders and someday
you'll see.
Here's me all pretty and noplace to go.
Guess I'll make a date with Kurt Vonnegut, but I don't think he'll care that
I'm wearing Love Spell by Victoria's Secret which makes Chet Steadman go crazy
with sexual frustration. Not quite a love spell, but a lust one anyway. Shame
it doesn't work on Josh. Shame it doesn't work on everyone.
Sometimes I feel like things aren't lining
up like they should, like they used to in that sleepy soldier hup-two hup-two
plodding planned-out luck of mine, where I never even have to try or think or
even speak, and now the captain's dead (so it goes) and the soldiers are just
looking at me like "Ok, what now?" Maybe I should take them to my
leader. Maybe I should choose a leader and stick to it.
Maybe I should try making sense.
Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.
-Fran Lebowitz
And even when I do sleep it's just to dream
broken fragmented twisting dreams about Chet Steadman, who is so much more
active there than when I am awake. When I'm awake he's only Steadman, and my
covers are only covers, all twisted up.
After a million clocked-in hours of fighting
and yelling and even occasional tears, Josh and me have reached a rainbow-like
peace, calm like flowers by themselves up high where people can't pick them. I
helped him with inventory tonight and he didn't use the word 'motherfucker'
once.
More and more now, I get so
frustrated that I can't speak and I feel all low and stepped-on and inferior.
It's like you can't win. People are either too dumb or too smart, and all of
them make me feel wrong for the situation. The world is a tuxedo, and I'm a
pair of brown shoes. Topher Johnson thinks I'm "vindictive" and
"jealous" if I don't like the pretty girl at work, and Chet Steadman
thinks all of it is "petty" and I should be glad I don't live in
Ethiopia. Pace just smiles like I'm his favorite daughter, the apple of his
eye. I'm always fighting a tantrum, because I don't suppose that would help.
Mostly, I just miss love.