On living, and embracing life

If I have one regret about the last decade (just short of, but who’s counting?), it’s that, at some point, I stopped moving forward, and just started… drifting? Maybe a better way of phrasing it is that I gradually downshifted from living to simply existing, passing the days and binge watching the TV shows and counting the bottles. (The pandemic didn’t help much, of course, but I can’t place all the blame there — my downshift started well before that.)

I’m not sure that it was a sudden change — I might never have noticed it if the trend hadn’t reversed itself in the last month. And it’s not that I completely stopped — I still traveled (to see Russ and Melissa and my family, primarily), still occasionally went to eat good meals at restaurants I wanted to try or revisit, made trips to the Botanical Gardens. But most of these things too were just smaller pieces of my patterned life, easy and low-risk, low-energy, low-demand of me.

Enter Natalie (coinciding, happily, with the gradual adaptation to the coronavirus). In just the last weeks, we’ve gone to see Dwight Yoakam, the museum, the gardens, a couple of restaurants, and bought tickets and made plans to see more bands and some stand-up comedians, and to spend some time on her family’s land in rural Alabama, and to travel to North Carolina (and hopefully Pensacola, if that plays out). And it feels like that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

A lot of this is definitely attributable to Natalie — a lot of these plans were her idea, or spoken desire that I acted on (look, there’s a decent chance I end up seeing Garth Brooks in a few months, and we all know that’s not *my* idea). But maybe even moreso indirectly. I’ve written previously about how inspiring (not the word I’m looking for — maybe it’ll come to me later) she is to me. Or maybe that is the right word — she has this outlook on life that is infectious, and I find it nearly impossible not to catch some of her determination — to travel, to see live music, to open up and live.

And maybe, too, she’s reminded me that living and experiencing is a lot more when you can share it with someone.

Most of the worst moments of my life have come when I was single, and (at least in hindsight) that doesn’t really bother me. I don’t like feeling like a burden to anyone, least of all a partner. And so my periods of unemployment or financial strain, my dance with CIPD — I’m okay with having dealt with those alone. But (‘Everyone’s got a big but, Marge — tell us about your big but!’) most of the really great and memorable moments have been celebrated alone, too. Specifically, I remember (hazily) when I won the Sidewalk Sidewrite award for my short screenplay Muckfuppet — I was in the audience, with little expectation of winning (the screenwriters who participate in Sidewalk have always been a strong group, from the very beginning). And they called my name, and my friend Ann had to tap me on the shoulder, because it didn’t register that that name belonged to me. And being disappointed for the next week, the excitement marred and dulled by not having anyone to be excited with me.

But I find that even the little things become so much more involving and memorable when shared. I’m looking forward to seeing live music — my bands, because maybe I can turn Natalie on to something new and different, and her bands, because seeing her happy makes me equally so — and to doing new and different things (like pointing out the guy fucking a pig in a piece of artwork), and to flying to see my family, and long drives to Florida and elsewhere, and seeing new places, and more, because all these plans will be shared and experienced through two sets of eyes.

Two is better than one, after all. Except maybe in the number tumors you have.

Quotes from the Doctor

“There’s a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive… wormhole refractors… You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold.”
– The Tenth Doctor

“All the elements in your body were forged many, many millions of years ago in the heart of a faraway star that exploded and died… You are unique in the universe.”
– The Eleventh Doctor

“We’re all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?”
– The Eleventh Doctor

“You understand the universe, you see it and you grasp it, but you’ve never learned to hear the music.”
– The Twelfth Doctor

and a few from his family…

“Happy ever after doesn’t mean forever. It just means time. A little time.”
– River Song

“One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.”
– Reinette Poisson

“You don’t just give up. You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand. You say ‘no’!”
– Rose Tyler

Jamaica Pete and the carnival ride

The metal wheels rumble and shudder up the steep incline, the safety bar pressing hard against your gut. Tension, anticipation rise in your gut, mixed uncomfortably with the last four shots of Old Forester you had at the bar.

Yet another dream. The fifth? sixth? twentieth time this week? Numbers have accepted their nebulous, abstract attribute. Or maybe it’s the booze.

Yeah, probably the bourbon. Hard to argue against that one.

This one starts, as all do, in media res. The townspeople to either side of you mere ants, hundreds or maybe thousands of feet below, scuttling back and forth. The sounds of laughter and enjoyment drift up and up and up, filling your senses on their ways to the ears of angels. The air is thick, almost choked, with the smells of pasture grass and spun sugar and fried anything-you-can-imagine.

Carnivals are to food what Rule 34 is to kink.

Off in the distance, there is the neon of a Ferris Wheel, strings of lights marking walkways from one tent to the next, barely notable flickers of lit cigarettes and cell-phone screens. Above, the stars shine brilliantly in a moonless, cloudless sky, seemingly close enough to touch, if you squint just so.

Or, again — probably the bourbon.

You always hated roller coasters, because if the worst-case scenarios that fill your mind didn’t get you, you were too busy fixated on the impending comedown to enjoy the high (practicing the end before the start, song lyrics echoing in your brain).

“Not dis time, t’ough, hey?” Jamaica Pete, reading your mind, strapped in tight next you (although how he’s safely locked in, as scrawny as his frame is, is a mystery for the ages).

Not dis time, indeed. Sitting at the front of the line of cars, you can see that the apex of the track is only seconds away. And right on cue, here come those worst-case horror scenes: derailment, faulty safety equipment, a lone toddler that has been placed onto the tracks by his junkie parent (hey, weirder shit happens).

And it hits: you’re fucking terrified. Bowel-emptyingly, reconsidering your stance on religion terrified. But that’s what makes this ride so worthwhile — without the fear, where’s the fun? No risk, no reward.

“If’n ya really want t’ play it safe, go ride the teacups wit’ th’ fuckin’ kiddies.” Damn it, he’s as right as he is high.

And you realize that you’re in the now, in this seat with a bar crushing your beleaguered liver and centrifugal forces threatening to shower anyone unlucky enough to be seated behind you with pre-processed bourbon. When the ride ends, you can deal with that then — burn that bridge when you cross it. Maybe they’ll let you ride again and again and again until this dream ends, and maybe this is the one dream you never have to wake up from.

But for now, touch a star over your left shoulder for good luck, swallow hard so you didn’t waste that bar tab, and enjoy the fall, ’cause it’s happening now, here, and you’re just along for the ride at this point.

Fuck the Average Reader

Fuck the average reader. I was always told to write for the average reader in my newspaper life. The average reader, as they meant it, was some suburban white subscriber with two-point-whatever kids and three-point-whatever cars and a dog and a cat and lawn furniture. He knows nothing and he needs everything explained to him right away, so that exposition becomes this incredible, story-killing burden. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell.

— David Simon

(via Warren Ellis)

Jamaica Pete and the dreamcatcher

Another dream, and you’re there, along with Jamaica Pete. A street festival, some small town in the South, but here the fire-and-brimstone preachers dance through the streets with ladies of the evening, string ties and glasses and fishnet hose doing some sort of offshoot of the Can Can to the tune of Camptown Races on banjo and splintered guitar. Men and women and children line the streets in a pulsating mass, screaming and smiling, excited but not pushing dangerously.

Yet.

You sense it, though, the adrenaline rush that starts riots. It’s strongest in the eyes of the young, but those flames dance madly in the eyes of every person here.

“‘Ey, mon,” and you can’t help but roll your eyes and grin at the white man with dreadlocks and a filthy daishiki. “‘Ey, look – sometings comin.” Gary Oldman was much more convincing.

But you follow his skeletal finger, trace the path from a yellowed and chipped fingernail through the ballroom ministers and their Babylon whores, past the clowns with their running colors and beyond the all-Negro marching band, almost to the horizon, and you see it.

You see her.

The distance is playing tricks, tendrils of fog coming up off the dirt road the parade travels. There’s a silence pushing through the bluegrass ragtime banjo and horns, like a Klieg light shining through a pinhole. Her dirty redblonde hair blows in a wind that exists only for her. Her eyes, green as absinthe, and the rest of the world around her starts to desaturate, leaving the dreamworld of Oz.

There’s only enough color in the world for her. Only enough music for her. Only enough air for her.

Only enough you.

You’re suddenly and violently aware that you’re about to be trampled under foot by the oncoming parade, squashed like a grape by redneck clowns and dancing Baptists, and you grab for Jamaica Pete to head for higher ground. Pete shrugs, pencil arms amazingly strong, and you suddenly realize that, just like him, the crowd has stopped, the hookers have stopped, the band has stopped. No one moves, not an inch, good ol’ Walt Disney would be amazed and jealous at the suspended animation. Everyone in the world, everyone in this world, locked and trapped in her beauty.

Like flies in amber. Like dinosaurs in tar.

And she’s right on top of you, fifteen yards, then ten, then five. And she never stops smiling, never stops looking directly at you, until she’s nose-to-nose with you. Her skin smells like vanilla, her breath like fresh strawberries, her hair like lavender. Her dress, silk and translucent red, brushes against you in her breeze, caressing your arm. You open your mouth to say something, say anything, but her finger, gently as a lover, presses against your lips, the heat of a million stars just at the edge of your tongue.

“Shh.” One syllable, a thousand seconds of aural bliss. And you hear her voice, echoing and distorting and whispering and shifting phase, singing to you an eternity of chords in undiscovered tones, her lips never moving, never twitching, never breaking that beautiful smile that captures and immobilizes. The happiness on her lips is multiplied in her eyes, and you feel yourself drowning in a sticky hallucination that burns your throat and blurs your world.

“We all unfold as we should.”

And then you are awake, back in your quarantined hotel room, condemned walls barely covering condemned wiring and condemned pipes, you on a mattress that puts fire hazards to shame. Your left arm heavy and tingling, pinned beneath your head, your shoulder pinching the sensation away from it’s inferiors.

“Welcome back, mon.”

Does that bastard bathe in Patchouli or something?

30 Days Later

I’m fudging that number a bit, only because I needed a title, and my mind is already by-and-large a desert wasteland today.

Which is unfortunate, because there’s a poem lurking somewhere just beneath the surface, and I strongly suspect it’s gonna decide to break the skin when I don’t have easy access to paper.

I’ve been trying to read more, and am currently in the middle of (I think?) 6 books, which is not the way I prefer or am used to reading, but hey, it’s what works for me right now. I’m getting a lot of recommendations (finally) from Natalie, and also from Warren Ellis’ newsletter (you can read a sample – I can not recommend subscribing highly enough. Without this and the NYT crossword, no Sunday starts off right.) which almost weekly has something new that I’ll enjoy.

Part that I realize I’ve spent too much time glued to a TV for the past decade (no totally complaining, as I’ve witness some phenomenal story-telling), and not enough letting the printed word stimulate my imagination; part too that I want (need) to start creating again. Music, writing, whatever — I’ve been uninspired for too long and far too fucking lazy for longer.

So that’s part of this year. The other is a resurgence of discovering new music. I’m not sure how I stopped that for so long — perhaps a lingering bitterness over losing (The Show With No Name), perhaps I just wasn’t tuned into the right sources. Regardless, this has been a banner three months, in which I’ve stumbled across Wilderun, Zeal & Ardor, Astronoid, Chelsea Wolfe, Oceans of Slumber, Nilufer Yanya, Rolo Tomassi and Persefone, along with new discs by known quantities — fucking fantastic for these ears. And Natalie is introducing me to a wider range of pop and (fuck me) country, some of which I find actually sticking.

It doesn’t help that my YouTube algorithm is forever shattered at this point.

Let’s hope I can make some headway into a reread of Cat’s Cradle today, for inspiration (if not to whittle down my number of concurrent reads…).

when i call you beautiful

when i call you beautiful
what do you hear?

when i call you beautiful,
do you hear me talking about your surface
your exterior
your outer shell?
am i complimenting your smile
so radiant and infectious
your eyes
supernovae, like staring directly into the face of god
your porcelain skin
soft as cool satin breeze in summer
your fingers
electric soothing touch
your body
a shape that fits against mine, a tantalizing view?

do you think me shallow
(because I am, at times, on levels)
or is it flattering, deep praise that touches your core
(because it is, at times, on levels)

when i call you beautiful
do you understand that i am paying respect to
your choral voice
your joyous laugh
your humor, as dark and irreverent as my interior monologue
your intelligence and creativity
your determination and ambition
your empathy and concern and care for others
your endless well of literary and lyrical references
your country music
your memes
your competitive spirit
your night twitches and one-sided conversations
your everything i have yet to discover?

do you think me sappy and overly rose-visioned
(because i am, at times, on levels)
or do you know that i’m speaking from a place that strains for language
(because i am, most times, on most levels)

when i call you beautiful
do you see that i’m saying that i love you
that i love all these things about you and more
that i love the good and the bad
that every time i’m around you, i want to tell you all this
like teenagers studying for an exam
until you know it all by heart

it’s a catch-all statement, i know, and i’m not proud to admit it
(most times, on most levels)
and i should never hesitate to tell you any and all of this
but maybe that’s why these words
to explain what i mean
when i call you beautiful

i wish i was there for the sunrise

i wish i was there for the sunrise
rainbow shards my window creates
dancing across your porcelain freckled skin
your eyes and fingertips twitching like they do
pondering our first word
tracing your shape with my hands
shivering above the touch of you

i wish i was there for the morning
waking to the sound of your laughter
or hearing you whisper that you love me
that first kiss of the new day
that first touch
all these whetting my appetite
for the hours in front of me

i wish i was there for the weekend
fresh warmth of coffee
your scent a blanket i wear smiling
sharing crosswords
making and abandoning plans
ultimately content in your arms
under my sheets

i wish I was there for the sunset
pouring first drinks
wines and bourbons
choosing games
and talking, always talking
and laughing, always laughing
and connecting, always connecting

i wish i was there for the starshine
sharing music
sharing histories
sharing secrets and promises and bodies
raw naked openness
levels of connection
never before experienced

whenever i’m away from you,
i wish i was there

how many stars

how many stars are in the sky
she asks gently
breath on my cheek but light years away
counting
one by one by one
blades of infinite grass combed by
paintbrush fingers

child believed the night sky
just another illusion
sleeping sun
a blanket with pinholes
ever to be carried away by dawn

how many stars are in the sky
she questions raptly
travelling from one galaxy
across the universe
tallying silently so not to disturb
the sleeping birds and trees
i am hypnotized by her satin lips counting
and want nothing more in the now
than to feel them on mine.

it is always now
a fourth-dimension prank
forward and backward meaningless
different names for the same direction
except to memories and dreams
a parlor trick of the universe

how many stars are in the sky
she murmurs, sleeping
naked skin hugged tightly to mine
dreaming kitten twitches,
whispers questions in alien tongue
she in her curious travels
a waking vision from which i cannot turn away

revelation, a gift of knowledge
dreams can bend
like water
holds no memory
neither manipulative illusion nor trick of misdirection
but true magic
cause and effect unbound by physics

how many stars are in the sky
she asks childlike
smile exploding darkness
eyes ablaze with wonder and joy
under her spell
i count exactly one

file under: things that should be remembered (pt iv)

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

– William Butler Yeats
Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)