March

March has not been nice to me and I am glad it is almost over.

Short list:

1: I realized going out is not what I am into.
2: One of the last times I went out I was put under investigation for DUI (scariest experience EVER)
3: I have finally cut off my transgender-female-lesbian in a man's body brother-in-law
4: Work stress
5: Son stress

After getting my taxes done and paying down my credit card, paying one off I am in a good place regarding debt.  I wasn't in a bad one, but I'd really like to see myself totally debt free by my next tax return.  Especially because my accountant let me know year after next things will change. 

I finally went to California Care to go through the process getting insurance.  I had it through Kaiser for a while but the high rates made it impossible for me to keep it.  I'd avoided going to the California Care site long enough.  At the end of the process I had the pleasure of finding out I am poor enough to qualify for MediCal.  I am not okay with this.  I feel ashamed I haven't made better choices in my life...that whole stuck thing.  It's now sunk to a whole new level.  I'm signed up now, but haven't received any of my paperwork yet.

Going out.  I started going out to, I guess, start living again.  I like live music.  I want to meet new people, start trying new things... at first it was fun, particularly if I had a drink or two.  I don't really like drinking very much and every time I went out there was something that would take the shine off. 

I wouldn't feel well the next day.  No hung over, but unmotivated...or more unmotivated.  There would always be some uncomfortable moment, a creepy guy.  The last time really just did it for me.  I went to see a few bands play and after I went to drop my girlfriend off at her car.  A police officer decided to roll me for a DUI.  I blew all zero's but the whole process really stressed me out. 

Mainly because it highlighted how alone I am.  How much responsibility I have.  All I could think was I am going to point on the breathalyzer, I'll get arrested/released (they just give a ticket now known as arrest and release), my car will be impounded, thank god I have a credit card, I'll have to go to court, how will I get my sons to school?  Myself to work?  The shopping done?  Who can I call as a sober driver to get me home now?  Oh my god I can't think of anyone... that fucking drink was not worth this!  I don't even fucking like drinking and it is certainly NOT WORTH THIS!

I blew zero's.  The officer looked a little disappointed.  The other officer had been talking to my girlfriend.  I thought they were going to test her too, they didn't. 

Thank God it's over.  My response.  No more drinking, ever.  I need to start working out, get my body and mind healthy.  And no more fucking swearing. (my exactly thought)


My brother-in-law.  Well he is a bag of cats, and this has nothing to do with his being a transgender-female-lesbian in a man's body either.  He was always a supreme asshole before, now it is just so much more layered.  Before he treated me like I was someone to be tolerated.  Then he wanted me to help him.  Then he was just the neediest, most high maintenance person I have ever had to deal with.  I was trying to be supportive for my sisters sake.  Before it was easy because he was never around.  I could go to their house and he'd stomp around for an hour then go to work.  Then he was there, ALL the time.  He'd either make us feel unwelcome, or later... dominate while I was there with his female needs.  And then my sister got a pigmy goat.  It isn't pinned, poops everywhere, urinates everywhere, smells awful, and tries to nibble everything and everyone. 
He really burned his bridges with me last week.  The three of us went out of town for a concert.  He was Awful.  Selfish, pouting, high-high-high maintenance.  I'm done.
My sister has been managing all of her friends...telling everyone slightly different versions of her reality.  I get it.  Well, she finally told her best friend about our concert trip.  She still softened the details but she said she'd going to give it six months and then she's leaving.  I hope she does.  If she doesn't he'll leave her with nothing. It is so much worse than what I am describing but it's not my life.  It is hard to watch my sister go through it though.  He's got cancer now.  It's looking like Hodgkins Lymphoma.  He's such and ass the best oncologist in town fired him after handing him his results.  He'll have to find another doctor with in the same offices.  I am writing this so you understand, this person is just Rude to highest degree.  My sister is giving it six months because she finally realizes the consistent negative factor is Brian.  She's going to help over the next few months to get settled with a doctor then she will begin extracting herself.  She's lucky.  She has a support group just waiting to help her. 


Work.   State Board came in and some people got fined.  Including the owner.  Everyone has been upset and uncomfortable.  We had a meeting Saturday night.  The owner is not wanting to pay her fine.  Well, no kidding...no one wants to pay a fine.  It's been a good wake up call though.  I pretty much slept all day yesterday off and on just from the stress leading up to the meeting and post meeting.  I hope everything gets resolved.  I don't want to change salons and I realize I need to go back to school.

My son...ADHD and just being in junior high.  He's been lazy and flaky and when asked or confronted lies or gives me the deer in headlights thing.  He's a slob...blahblahblah

I feel more peace now, after sleeping all day yesterday.  I think my subconscious worked out some of my stress from work.  It is what it is and I Need to make moves to figure out what I can go back to school for.  I get anxious thinking about it.

I am comfortable and at peace with my decision to not have anything to do with my brother-in-law.  I'm sorry for his difficulty, but I feel no responsibility toward him.

Things will be okay with my son.  He's very intelligent and as my older son got past junior high I know my youngest will too.



March, you can march right out.

                                                                                                                                                                

I UnderWhelm

I like to believe I'm unaware because somehow I have become so good at avoiding eye contact, or having a poker face when I do.  I don't catch that lingering look anymore, unless some stupid POS guy is wasted, or pushed off onto me by my married friend when he tries to dance with her. 

Maybe I am just so tuned into assholes I can't see anything else.

I know a few times I have looked for one specific idea of someone, someone real.  He has a name that escaped parted lips years ago.  Adam.

Just a candied thought, no substance.  It's clear the universe is in the way of that one, in the way period.  Always a lot of static in-between.

The static being the creepy guys described above.  I feel like I exist, and don't.  Like I am corporeal but on another plane, in another dimension.  I can see and touch the one I slip through, but for others I don't register.

It is Odd to go unseen.  To be this transitory thing I feel I have become.

It's lonely and frustrating.  It actually feels like something is acting as a barrier.  Is this normal?

Other times I am grateful, looking around I see nothing much I want to see.  Even for one such as myself, one that likes to watch the organism pulse and drive itself to its violent splitting off in pairs and eventual dissipation and reassembly. 

There might be one person I'd like to talk to.  One person that triggers a spark of interest.  It is quickly extinguished though for one reason or another.

I'm in a weird place.

I don't want to under appreciate it, but I am sure, sure as hell is a dark and cold place, I don't want to occupy this place for much longer.

Any suggestions on how to get out? 

I Want You To Disappear

You, the one that would place me next.
You, the one that kisses with his tongue
And not his lips

I am left starving
I am left wanting
An intelligent conversation

Talk me out of myself
Into you
No, not YOU

I Want You To Disappear

You, the one just doesn't get it
You, the one with no plan
But what my panties might taste like

If you paid attention
You might learn I rarely wear panties
They creep up my ass like you do

I am waiting for Him
The one that knows
What his lips are for

Lips to capture me
With conversation
And a mind that captures

Mine

I Want You To Disappear

So that I might breathe
So that the world can be
Uncluttered by your utter lack

You who would starve
Because the net you cast
draws in only old fish
full of worms

I'm wearying of thinking
Around you and wondering
What the fuck is wrong with me

That only you
With fingers numb to anything
But your own pleasure

Ears only tuned
To your own voice
Wagging tongue and unhinged lips

I Want You To Disappear

Listening to Fred

Today I'd gone to a family birthday party for a friends brother.  I am friends with the birthday boyo's brother and sister.  My friends come from such an extensive family they have first cousins they've never met.

After the presents were opened and the birthday cards read and the photographs taken of generations of men, of women, of family and friends Fred told me I reminded him of his wife that had passed.  That seeing me stirred things up in him.  She was a red head too, 5'8", blue eyes.  We sat together as the full moon came up behind us and the sky turned a little violet and the mosquito's began to rise up and feed.

Fred is 70 years old and could pass for sixty.  He has grey hair combed back, facial hair, big ears, and a long multi-banded ponytail.  When he was young he was a powerful man and not just a little bit dangerous, but maybe a lot.  He told me he boxed.  He said he wasn't particularly good looking but that he knew who he was, had confidence.  He isn't as powerful anymore but he is still strong and healthy and sharp.
 He began talking to me at length, something I'm not sure he does with just anybody.  He said he thinks of her often, as the days go on more and more.  He described their relationship of twenty seven years.  He was not an easy man.  He acknowledged he was a hard man in the early years, unappreciative of the gifts in his life.

He came to embrace them before it was too late. He took care of her in the end.  It was brutal what he described. 

The way he detailed it all...the way he spoke of how a man should love a woman, the way he loved his wife, brought tears to both of our eyes.  I actually excused myself for a moment, and came back so we could resume.  Those left behind were too loose to see the depths Frank and I were treading.

I think I reminded him enough of her he felt at ease and spoke frankly, freely of the man he'd been, the man he became.

He made me think of John so vividly, good and bad, I had to press my index finger into the pad of my palm so I could hold back that choking feeling in my throat and keep myself from crying...
Frank's memories causing mine to surface.

He's still a strong man.  Strong of mind, and strong of body.  He understands life goes on.  He understands she's gone and he's living.  He said he'd be fine to have another woman in his life to enjoy doing things with, a companion.  This was a little eerie, if felt like permission for me to do the same (not a play, not a hint on his part)...like a message in bold to be honest.

I think he's waiting for her.  I think if she came for him he'd go. 

He told me he knew, he just knew when they met she would be his.  He knew it might not be that night, that week, that month.  He just knew, at some point it would come together for them.

He said she came in, red hair, bluest eyes he'd ever seen, long legs, big rack and he knew.  He said he always knew with a woman.  He wasn't talking about just sex, he meant they'd belong to each other.



It was lovely listening to Fred.  He mentioned a few times he was worried he was boring me.

This is one of those moments I like.  To end up somewhere I didn't think I'd be, listening to someone tell me their story, maybe reminding me of my own.

Reminding me why I am where I am and through their sharing.  Reminding me my own story is nowhere close to over.

I figure this must be true.

Frank said he was a good judge of people.  He said he thinks I am woman with a good heart, a gentle heart, a kind heart.  He said I have a bit of barrier up (thank god, I've been working on it).

He isn't the type of man to share like that and he shared himself with me.

A pretty red head that reminded him of his wife.

 

Right Now, Right At This Moment

I greatly desire the simple intimacy of having a partner, a lover, a mate...

Someone next to me that would get up and take my coffee cup, kiss my neck more than briefly, and bring me another cup of coffee while I sit here in bed, with my laptop, writing.

Someone that would watch tv next to me while I let my fingers move over the keyboard.  Someone that would be content to just spend another half hour being lazy on a Sunday morning with me.  The feeling of them moving next to me in my life.

What Do You Say, For Yourself

I have always loved Cities, though I have been to few.  I love the anonymity.  I love how such a big and crowded and busy thing can have in every place, every moment of what it is...singular moments, oasis's, vignettes.  Each and every thing it's own story.

It would not surprise you I often love movies, books, and photography that highlight such.

I have just discovered a photographer and painter named Saul Leiter.  He produced work in the 40's and 50's which are saturated in that feeling I get when I am able to be lost in a big city.  A few of his photographs are posted above.

I have not had the opportunity, or perhaps taken the adventure on, of  seeing many places.  I've been around California, the state I live in.  I have been to Texas, Hawaii, Washington, Puerto Vallarta.  I am not a fan of Nevada.  In each and every place I soaked in as much as I could.  Taking photographs in my mind.  Sadly I do this instead of actually taking photographs.  I hate having a camera to my face, or held up before me.  It probably seems ridiculous to you I write that because it would make more sense at least to me, if I did have a camera as an extension of myself.  I always wanted a view camera.  Held at the center of me and gazing down into the view-finder.  Unobtrusive, silent clicks.  I wish there was a digital version, I can honestly say I'd become a photographer then.  I suppose we all have the tools we'd prefer to work with.  And our excuses for not producing when we don't.

My favorite place, the place I fell in love with, Seattle.  Point of truth, I fell in love as I came off the plane at Sea-Tek.  The City itself a very brief and intense affair.  I think of going back all the time.  I remember vividly the jazz club, Pikes Market where I bought the very best jasmine tea I have ever brewed.  I horded it, however, it is gone now.  I can recall the feeling of the place.  The way the ground felt under my feet.  The air, the light, the fragrance of the place.  The press of the bodies in a crowd.  The open sidewalk going up a hill, the tree in bloom before me.  The little drops of misting rain that landed on my face and in my eyes as I walked uncovered just feeling it.  I have often heard when someone passes you can't remember their face clearly in your mind, you can't remember the sound of their voice or laugh.  It is not true.

In my memory, Seattle is clearly recalled.  In just a few days it settled permanently into my skin.

What do you say, for yourself?  I have often wondered what someone like Saul Leiter would say in moments of artistic high, upon reflection, about his chosen subject, about himself. 

I like to think perhaps like the organism of a city it is ever changing but still one constant all together.  Like the photographs depiction of little things within a whole.  For myself, it is what I would say in a moment about a moment... and yet, there is essence in my response of who I am that would permeate it.  My personal perspective, my eye.

I have always felt, when I present something as I see it, to let the person seeing it have their own experience.  Sure, I present something I see, something I'd like to communicate.  I suppose I would like it to be clearly defined, some feeling, some idea.  Yet...I feel it is important for the viewer, the reader, the individual to feel their own ownership of it, their own idea, their own interpretation.  That they might become part of the tapestry as I have.  That they might place themselves in the moment I am capturing.

Interestingly, I just realized, maybe most of the time when they move away from it they are happier the further they away they are.  I would be nice though, if perhaps, it would become part of them.  Unforgettable, craved, experienced with simply a closing of their eyes and simply recalling.

I'd like that.

That Slippery Slope

I don't want to get old, he said
It was easy to watch the past
the best of who he'd been
The very thing he cherished
cascading over and over
just as the shadows passed over his face
as we drove under street lights
at 38 miles and hour in his car

Songs playing out
designed to push away the failure
the lack in his life
Because he is what was
The Night Watch on the South China Sea
Ocean smooth as glass
New wave music playing out
on his cd player in the freezing cold
To get him through the starry night

Each song playing then, plays now
His happier, identified past on his iPod
in his little mat-black economy car
On a silky spring night
a bit too warm, and too early for it's season
Windows down
Hoping for enough courage
to get him through the next hour
To get him through tomorrow

He asks me not one question, not one
He speaks over anything I offer
I am simply a sound board
A new pair of ears for old tunes
and what they represent 
A time that slithered away from him

He'd wanted to be married, hell yeah
and he figured he would have been by now
He'd wanted kids, sure he did
Thought he'd've always been a good father
He likes kids, of course he does

But he's 48 now
it's too late and he's past all that now too
He doesn't want to be a Dad in his 50's
He'd dated a few times and had his heart broken
It wasn't him
He likes to think
I can see it, say it enough times and it is true
lies he tells himself and hopes are truths

The Cult, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Psychedelic Furs, Joy Division
The list was endless
My god, he knows the albums, the tracks, facts about the bands
Each and every one, precious
highlighting how great times are gone
Now he does just enough
to keep the cobwebs from gathering in aging joints
$1 Coors Light bottle beer night Thursday's
With his Boys

Trolling Hotties and pretending
None of it makes him feel old and tired
Unless he's reminiscing how good it Was
His eyes a bit hollow, a little swollen from hang-over
The eyes that have given up
The smile that tries, and fails
To convince even him that this life isn't  proof
of his being incapable

He just turned 48 last week
He's that guy now
That old guy, not completely creepy, yet
But he's not...
He's still That guy
That guy that swaggers in his comfort zone
and insists
There's enough time to be all the things
He never actually became.