LaurieWrites

Playing to the Firmament

Dar Williams is one of the musicians who has changed my life, and my head, and the way I look at how words and music come together as the more writerly arm of that duo. I still can't play anything, but in my head I've always been more or less obsessed with the creation of songs. When there are people who can make them work together in a masterful way, it confirms creative beauty for me.

I started singing "Playing to the Firmament" in my head when I was on the Metro yesterday, the first day in a long time that I've allowed myself to spend mostly by myself, doing things that I enjoy, staying in motion, blending into the city, moving through museums and movies. It was as glorious as it gets for me these days, these days when I'm writing in spite of myself and all jammed up, so blah.

Anyway, as it ran through my head I found a piece of paper in my purse that was already shot-through with Sharpie marker from the notes I took all through the Pulitzer Photography movie at the Newseum. (Yes, I took notes. They were saying smart things and I wanted to remember them) I only wrote down a couple lines of this song, but I had to come home and find the rest.

Playing To The Firmament

There are kids, lots of kids, who put the law inside a circle
As they jump, I hope that you will up and down, up and down
When did you cave into this role that you were cast in
When did dress-up turn to fashion, throw your gown up and down

There's always the sky, let it hear what you're saying
For all that you are saying
And let it take you apart, to the elements of praying
Til we are only playing to the firmament
Til we are only playing to the firmament

In the rain, in the rain, people rush around on cold streets
Here's a shell to hear their heartbeats very loud, very loud
Where's the pain, it's only rain, it's only slowing down a work day
Only singing happy birthday to a crowd, very loud

So turn on the sky, let it hear what you're saying
For all that you are saying
And let it take you apart, to the elements of praying
Til we are only playing to the firmament
Til we are only playing to the firmament

And when did sex get so mean, when did crime get so clean
You know I just can't seem to find the soul in this striving
Why not play to a dream, cause the world is too green
For all this bad driving

What's the rush, dip your brush into this twilight
There are leaves upon the skylight, trace your hand, trace your hand
Mr. Ed, he shot ahead, he shot ahead inside a circle
On a bad day, who would you kill, take a stand, trace your hand

There's always the sky, let it hear what you're saying
For all that you are saying
Let it take you apart to the elements of praying
Til we are only playing to the firmament
Til we are only playing to the firmament

I'm taken apart to the elements of praying, I think, not necessarily in a bad way. And what my reacquaintance with this song means is that the music that hits you, as Marley said "Thats the thing about it, when it hits, you feel okay", the music that hits you usually comes back around. I have a story about that from the Newseum yesterday but I think I'll save it cause it just gave me chills so it probably deserves its own air time.

The last time I saw Dar I got kind of mad because the show was short, and she rambled on about needing to leave to get back to New York most of the time she was playing, which I think, no matter how nervous you are to get back to your family, hey, this room full of people paid to see you and is kind of excited about it, so maybe you could realize how lucky you are to be able to sell out cool rooms like this and sublimate your need to leave? Or at least your need to express it? And I haven't been back to see her since, not because I'm cranky about it but because she held such a good spot for me for so long that I'd like to keep it that way. And it is, it's nice to hear the songs in my head still and know that they apply to me, in the way that I interpret them, for different reasons now.

What's the rush, dip your brush into this twilight
There are leaves upon the skylight, trace your hand, trace your hand
Mr. Ed, he shot ahead, he shot ahead inside a circle
On a bad day, who would you kill, take a stand, trace your hand

If you're interested in photography, check out the shot on her homepage. Awesome.

All-points Bulletin for the Universe:

I have had enough.

Seriously, where is the hidden camera?

I have had the worst year. THE WORST YEAR. It zigs when I zag. My words come out wrong and at inopportune times. I clasped my hands together yesterday and was horrified to realize that I lack any kind of supportive touch, for myself and for other people, that I maybe don't have the capacity for it right now.

I am in the most TERRIBLE headspace I have been in in years. I am not fun, not fun at all. I am not enjoying myself, and the effort to make the opposite be true is exhausting me. I am dredging up every possible thing I know of to make this not be true, including typing mantras on the cute little sticky note application on my macbook, and I am failing miserably.

I am, among many things, a fighter, a scrappy little girl, kind of like a chunkier Kristy Macnichol on Eight Is Enough. And what looks insane to others, i.e., the outside world, often makes perfect sense to me in my brain, such that I'm willing to go to the mat for it long past when its shelf life is expired. But right now I'm kind of slap fighting with myself and it is unattractive. It is sad and silly at the same time. I am on overdrive such that when I opened up my grades today and saw that I had earned a B for all of my troubles related to the trip to Vietnam, I couldn't even cry, although the whole experience at this point makes me want to sob, it was so awful (not the trip itself - the aftermath. Do not trust how you tell the story of your beautiful personal experiences to cold and unkind people, if you can help it.) I could not fire up an e-mail to my dean, detailing all of the ways in which I felt wronged, all of the ways in which my instructor's impressive credentials were wiped out for me on so many occasions, like when she commented on my "undies", maybe, but most of all on the last day I hopefully will ever see her, when she said, "Dental care isn't sexy. Not like facial repair surgery."

I have had both, a lot more than you ever will unless someone smart knocks your teeth out, lady. And I'm here to tell you that a doctor sewing up a tiny little face IS NOT SEXY. Especially when it's yours. Even if it's on the front page of the goddamned newspaper.

So there you have it. I am an unattractive, ravenous, morally outraged ANGRY WOMAN ON HER PERIOD. I have cramps that are currently ripping across my midsection, I am pissed off and I need a break. I need something SO GREAT to happen to me right now, and I don't think it will.

Also, I am mean and I don't want to help you (the universal you, so please whoever you are do not take this personally.)

I want the person who just found this blog by googling "if it flies, floats or fucks --- rent it, paul mccartney-heather mills divorce" to trip and fall, because you, sir or madam, are disturbed.

I want the democratic primary to end, so we can get on with the business of things and with our lives. It's proven two things: hatred of women and people of color is alive and well. And I'm afraid that the results of the general election will prove the same, with much more destructive results. May I be wrong.

I just got my financial aid refund, which means I've officially mortgaged my future, and I immediately bought a purse I've been coveting. Ergo, I have a shopping problem, and I don't care.

I do not want to meet my obligations this weekend. I want to clean my room. I want to lay in the yard, in the sun and the grass. I want to build this new site I've got on my mind and maybe even read a book that I feel like reading. I want to remember what it is that makes all of this bullshit worth it. I want to be able to talk to you if I feel like it, and not if I don't. I want a cheeseburger. I am not that hard to please, so I would like the other stuff to stop. Just to stop. I want to stop feeling disappointed and disappointing. I want to be a nice person again.

Yesterday I sent the last shred of good thoughts I had out into the universe via the United States Postal Service for someone I have cared about for a long time. Do not ask me if it was closure because if one more person asks me that I don't know what I will do but I wouldn't be the guinea pig there if I were you. I could not think it was pitiful because it was so long in coming that I had to do it, because I needed to honor something inside of me that was true and real for someone else, while I still could. I smiled a real smile after I handed the package over, because I knew it was beauty I was capable of at one point although I don't really think I ever will be again (I'll lie and tell you I do but I don't, not really, and I can't tell you the kind of fear that can instill in a full-to-bursting heart and soul.)

I had the hope of years in ink and paper in my hands and I handed it over. I gave it away to a short woman in a blue jacket, because I truly didn't want it anymore. I don't want it. I didn't care what the recipient would think of it, really, although I obviously care very much. I can't help how I feel. I did, however, want it gone, wanted it to fly away where it might finally have some positive benefit, no matter what, where it is in no way about me.

My blog friend Jen Lemen is in Rwanda right now. In an effort to neutralize this terrible, terrible feeling that I feel, what I sent to my old friend was a copy of her zine, "Let's Learn How to Help Ourselves and Others." I had read it over and over because I believe that what Jen has accomplished in a few short months is amazing, and it's the stuff like this that makes me think we can do something really great and useful with our time here. I sent it to him because he's one of the people I know who I believe to be most capable of taking creative efforts and using them to make a difference on a profound level, and I hope with all my heart that that happens. The book is meant to be passed forward, really. It's not supposed to stop with you, and I surely didn't want it to stay in these hands that are so struggling with what it is that they're meant to do, with where they're meant to go.

I do not want the lessons I've learned from what I've chosen to love and to devote my time to to stop at this bottleneck. I want the year to get better, sure, because it would make me much easier for other people to be around and make my nights a lot easier to get through, but if it can't I hope some good comes out of it. If it doesn't it makes an unsatisfying point.

Donations may be made to Jen and Odette's project at Jen's ChipIn site. Pitch in if you can, and even if you can't, certainly spread the word.
 

Only time for trying now.

I have not been writing here because it hasn't felt right for awhile. I've been bouncing around for two months, no focus, overwhelmed. And this hasn't felt like the right place to dump it. I've been thinking about what to do next in bloggy land. I want to do something different. Lots of things that gave birth to this page the way it exists have moved on, stuff in my head and in real life, and I think it's time to ramble on. I have a lot of ideas, seem determined to purchase domain names to go along with them, and my friend the web designer is waiting to help me get some of them up and running. Summer will hopefully give a LITTLE bit of time for that sort of thing, but I'm not optimistic about that, given the excess of things I have to do.

Everything is so busy, everything is so packed, and I have got to make some money. I have to attend to the bare bones business of my life, because I've been distracted by the cobwebs in my brain that I simply could not seem to sweep out no matter how hard I tried. It's the trying, ironically, that causes the problems. Letting go and moving on is dirty, difficult, mentally exhausting work, until you finally throw up your hands and go "Fuck this, this is so not worth it." It's like running a perpetual internal yard sale, throwing shit out on the grass, tagging and retagging it. Occasionally someone buys some vacuum cleaner or stack of books you've been trying to get rid of for years, so it's gone and that's awesome and you really don't have to ever think of it again. But more often than not you have to restack it all because it doesn't get sold and bring it into the house again, find a place for it, again, without going crazy.

After a month starting about mid-April and moving into May of anxiety and depression so great I felt most mornings like my chest and my head were going to simultaneously explode, where it all felt like so much pathetic backsliding over imaginary pain, I've felt the waters parting just a bit. I've got some optimism back. I won't remember this spring with any great joy, to be truthful, except yesterday when I was walking back to my car from the Metro, the weather was so beautiful that I thought (and maybe even said aloud, but I admit nothing) that on this kind of day, everything seems just so perfect with the world. I got so tired of winter this year. And now that spring has been so difficult, one thing that's done is made me grab onto joy where I can, because I don't know what else to do but celebrate it for the fleeting moments that I feel it.

My sister came home on Thursday and my father graduated from community college on Friday. This was a dream deferred for him - one of the smartest people I know - who put his education on hold to raise a family and to help my sister and me realize our goals thus far. It was pretty powerful to be there and no matter how much he downplayed it I know he was proud. I will - hopefully - graduate in December from my program, and my sister will finish hers in May. So much will change next year, so much I can't wait to grab ahold of, and it's cool to have my family progressing along with me. Life just has its way with you, pretty much, but it's useful to give it some structure when you can. I sat at his ceremony crying and crying, listening to these incredibly moving student speeches, one from a guy who bounced back from college failure and addiction freshman year to get a 4.0 and be tops on his campus, another from a mom who went back to school a few years ago and says the place changed her life...it's just profoundly moving to hear and helps me understand why I've worked in higher education for the past seven years. When it clicks for people it really is life-altering.

But I know I was also emotional because of how much this work has meant to me and I don't know how it fits anymore. Angst ensues. But it's all going to be okay, and in my better moments I think it'll be better than that.

There are several shows in May and that's cool. Duran Duran and the Raconteurs are next week. We went and saw the Swell Season show in Baltimore last night. It was so good. It made me laugh and cry. Glen Hansard is so, so talented. He and Marketa Irglova and the dudes from the Frames who are touring with them now deserve every bit of this success. I was so happy I managed to score some tickets after the show sold out. It was totally worth that and the trip to Baltimore. And not just because he actually THANKED everyone there for spending their "hard earned money" on a ticket, which I pointed out to my friend I had never heard from any performer, ever. He still seems a little dazed and obviously humbled by how popular they've become over the past year. It's reassuring when quality and celebrity match up. It happens so rarely. I knew, as soon as I saw "Once" that this was something amazing and powerful, and I'm glad that the rest of the world thought so too. (And if you haven't seen it and like independent music and film, you should, really.)

Your Face

I was thinking about your face
Rolling up the river
I was worried what you thought
And I'm sorry if I can't remember
But there's no time for crying
Only time for trying now
I remember your name
'Cause you sang it to me often
I was lying down beside
The river where we met
And now you face is hiding something
Something is burning
And I'm gonna wait for you
I've got to send this tape to you
And I'm gonna wait for you
'Cause I know something about you
Something about the things you do
Something about your voice
That reams in the good stars
It reams in the good stars
There's a road that follows everywhere you go
I stole your golden chaser
But I never meant to steal
Its not in my nature
But if you try again I'll fall
And if you want to save it all
Then all you have to do is give
Give me that look again
Give me that look
'Cause I'm gonna wait for you
I've got to send this tape to you
And I'm gonna wait for you

Mother's Day For the Accidental Non-Mom

I wrote this. It was difficult. It is cross-posted at BlogHer.

Years ago a friend of mine frequently wore a t-shirt that had one of those retro comic strip characters - a woman right out of Mary Worth, maybe - holding her hand up to her mouth to stifle a scream. The thought bubble next to her head said, "Oh my God! I forgot to have children!"

Irony, right. I hated that shirt. I didn't get it. I couldn't imagine a time when I would ever (EVER!) forget something so important. You know, how some people say they forgot to eat? I don't get that either. And whereas I could fully acknowledge another person feeling that way, I knew even then that it would never be me.

Today is indeed Mother's Day, a day set aside for the billions of women who have mothered, intentionally, accidentally, biologically, adoptively - you name it, and please do, as my intention here is not to leave anyone out. I celebrate it for my mother, and my grandmother, and my aunts and my cousins who have kids. I celebrate it for my best friends who are incredible moms. I even got an e-mail from Bill Clinton, wanting me to celebrate it for Hillary.

I do not celebrate it for myself. And I was right about the shirt.

Elisa wrote yesterday about being childfree by choice, from a perspective that is completely different from mine, but which I respect immensely because it does what I love in situations like this - it states her truth, and it moves along.

Unlike her, I have absolutely always felt a biological and emotional imperative to parent. I am in a no-or-few-woman's land where this hasn't happened for me for a very particular set of circumstances that I'm not sure I can adequately explain, but mostly amount to issues of bad timing and relationship failure. I do not know for a fact that I am infertile, although at 37 my time is getting short to find out, reasonably speaking. I am not career-obsessed or convinced I have a professional mission that precludes having my own children. I am not, finally, willingly "child-free" as it's commonly understood and I'm not ambivalent about the matter either.

This is so not fun to write about, just so you know. It's awkward and uncomfortable. It's hard to be funny about it and I've been going for funny lately. It speaks to years of feeling like you're on the outside looking in, of not feeling like you can have a seat at a table you've been waiting for for years, and meanwhile, hello, your feet hurt and you're pissed off and all of the free appetizers are gone. But I do believe it's necessary, so I do it.

I've shared my perspective on the matter on BlogHer before, in posts about pre-emptive fear of infertility and how not having children doesn't necessarily make one "childfree".

The short story (beyond the whole "life isn't FAIR" bit that I'll spare you) is that I was a late bloomer when it came to dating, and when I finally did get going, I dated people who weren't "ready" for anything remotely resembling a family. I did this a few times, and spent a long time waiting for relationships to work out that just weren't going to, although I just didn't know that at the time. I was driven by my heart and not at all by my head, and it's really easy when the years are burning by to think that things will work out, because, well, they've got to, right, at some point? Well, not necessarily. I got burned in spite of my best efforts, I got scared, and in the few years since my last relationship, I have not come across anyone who would inspire me to take a chance quite yet.

And I've also elaborated on why I won't pick just anyone to parent with, just so I could.

In the meantime, I've pursued my education and changed my career path. I've traveled. I've immersed myself in art and music and culture, and a bunch of bad television when that gets to be too much. I have so many friends, sometimes I can't believe it. And my life overflows with family, which is the part that often gets left out of the story for women without children. I've helped my parents to care for my grandmothers, including my mother's mother who died in front of my eyes last September. I've been a support system for my sister, and she for me. I've spent a lot of time with my own mother, in a time of transition for our family that hasn't been easy. Oh, and I even had a dog, who died in March after 13 excellent years.

And in spite of the fullness of my life, there is my shadow side, the involuntary jealousy followed by a rack of guilt when friends have children or talk glowingly about the fulfillment of parenting, the pain when people say things like, "Oh, I don't know what I'd do if I just had my work and not my kids," the inability to adequately express online just how I feel about mommyblogging without coming off like a jerk, because that's not how I mean it at all. I WISH this had been my conscious choice, and that I could accept the choices I did make related to relationships and other things that lead to children as part of the plan that some ultimately benevolent universe has for me. I am not that peaceful about it. I made choices for which I'm responsible, for sure, but I didn't think they'd add up to not having children, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, me either.

My family does not pressure me, never has, but of course they worry. Last Christmas, I sponsored a Salvation Army "angel" at my workplace, where you learn the age, gender and name of a child and put together a package for her. I got a three-year old girl who loved Dora and pink. I went to Target and bought the cutest outfits I could put together, and some Dora toys (So much Dora!), and a pair of toddler-sized Uggs knock-offs. I put them all together in a package, and gave it to my mom to drop off with her stuff. She allowed herself to say to me later that all she could think when she saw it all was how much she wished I had a child, because my heart was so obviously in this, and besides she would be so very fashion-forward. And this was fine with me, because I was thinking the same thing.

I have considered alternatives. I've watched some single women in my life parent, and haven't been sure that I'm equipped for it at all. I want to be. If I could snap my fingers and be financially and emotionally solid enough to provide a life for a child on my own at this point, I would. My Google history contains more than a few adoption research missions, and when I was in Vietnam this March and saw a Western couple holding infant twins they had clearly come over to bring back home, I admit I hung around on the perimeter a little with tears in my eyes. It's just not time yet, although I feel it will be someday.

In the meantime, I move on, and I do not dwell on this situation daily, beyond occasional flashes of fear of a future spent not just childfree, but family-free, which I know is unlikely, but still. This Mother's Day is an okay day. I have work to do and a semester to finish. I don't feel pain or even more than the usual low-level anxiety about where my life is going, with or without a partner or children. I'll see my mom and my grandma and my aunt today and we'll eat cheeseburgers and drink some beers and it'll be great because I haven't seen my aunts and uncles since Christmas just about and I miss them. I'll see my godson who is one of my favorite people. I'll send my cousin an e-card because I'm proud of how she's met some challenges to be one of the best and most competent parents I've ever known. I'll - for the most part - be grateful for what I've got, and try not to focus on what I don't, just like every other day.

Childfree, childless, and other thoughts on the matter from around the Web:

Of COURSE Wikipedia has an entry for "childfree." And of course I disagree with it. Not all of us choose it willfully.

Childfree is a term used to describe individuals who neither have nor desire to have children. An alternative description is "childless by choice". The choice not to procreate has only been popular since the development of reliable birth control and therefore was not commonly seen before the 1960s. Additionally, such an option is rarely seen in non-industrialized countries. Childfree groups began to form in the 1970s, most notable among them The National Organization for Non-Parents and No Kidding!. There have been a significant number of books written about the childfree, although quantitative academic research on this group is just now emerging.

The childfree are a diverse group of people, much like the reasons behind the choice not to procreate; however, childfree people tend to be less conventional, more highly educated, and professional. Despite similarities, childfree individuals do not share a unified political or economic philosophy, and most prominent organizations tend to be social in nature. However, there are a range of social positions related to the childfree that some choose to endorse. To this end, some political and social activism is starting to emerge from a subset of this population.

So many assumptions there, really. Someone needs to edit it, but I don't have time.

SavvyAuntie wants Madison Avenue to stop wishing her a happy Mother's Day. I recommend reading the whole thing, especially if you've been involved in recent conversations online about who's marketing to whom, and what and where and why. (Hi there, there's a person on the other end of that pitch.)

For every Mom out there, there is a Non-Mom. Some by choice. Some yet to be. Some who just can't. None of these women want your Happy Mother's Day wishes. In fact, you are probably hurting some feelings along the way.

She's also Twittering today about missing her mom, among other things.

Cranny Anie has kids but I thought this was a beautiful message for the lot of us.

Let us be open-hearted to those who want, wish and can’t be mothers, those with children who have truly lost their way, those who are without family-emotionally or physically. Today’s “widows and Orphans” can come in many more faces: single, divorced, childless, -wrongly defined as being “have-nots”. We all possess the ability to pour our legacy out into our world. Be it into children, passionate work, abilities, gifts and lives so worth sharing. No one is meant to be excluded in God’s Family. Everyone is allowed a true HOME in this family, a safe, nurturing, truth-telling, accepting loving place and a significant meat and potatoes kind of a role.

Unscripted has a good article on "Mother's Day, Childfree Style."

In San Francisco and it's not too late? Proving that Craigslist can be a source of awesome as well as profane, check out today's gathering for women without children and those who have lost their moms.

...by choice or circumstance. We'll gather, create a special Mother’s Day acknowledgment of participant’s current realities, & celebrate the joys and/or sadness of this facet of our lives. We'll honor the thousands of year old mythological, cultural and historical annual celebrations of women, peace and creativity.

Noon The morning gathering will end with a light BRUNCH. Afternoon participants are invited to share our food as well.

2 p.m. – 4 p.m. GATHERING FOR WOMEN WITHOUT MOTHERS: In the afternoon, women w/o mothers will gather for a special honoring of the mother’s whom we have lost, or are unable to be with, through death or life circumstance. Please bring a photograph of your mother if you have one.

SeniorWriter Marlys Marshall Styne's Mother's Day card from a stepson she admits that she'd rather usually forget made a difference for her this year.

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There's nothing I can do for David; his own mother, who is in her eighties, is in charge. However, I need to be more compassionate. Thank you for the lovely card, David. I plan to write you a letter soon, and I may even buy you a cup of coffee when and if I see you. You may be helping to melt the hard heart of a lonely old woman who has always hated or ignored mother's day..

Sandy at Inspiration Every Day asks that women without children not be forgotten today.

In honor of Mother's Day, I decided to do a week of quotes on mothers. I'm wishing all you gals out there a happy mother's week! Even the childless ones like myself need to be recognized. We still do a lot of mothering; to our furry children, partners, friends and families!

Finally, Msfitzita says we all deserve banana pancakes today, and helpfully includes a recipe.

I believe that all women are mothers. We respond to pain as though it was our own, we heal wounds of the soul, we nurture and cherish relationships, we give of ourselves over and over again.

We are all mothers. Even those of us with no children to tend. Even those who have never had the chance to be pregnant at all.

I believe there is a mother in all of us.

And we all deserve mounds of pancakes glistening with butter and dripping with syrup at least once a year.

Embrace her philosophy or not, I'm totally on board with the last line. To this, I say, "rock on."

And come see me along with Suebob Davis, Teri Tith, and Laura Scott on the Who We Are: Childless In the Blogosphere panel at the BlogHer Conference in San Francisco this July. I may be sickeningly nervous, so please be kind.

Laurie White writes online at LaurieWrites. Her Grandma rocks, and so does her Mom. Happy Mother's Day! Check them out.

Epiphany

If Snow White added an eighth dwarf I'd be Angsty.

Cringe

Tomorrow I am taking a massive chance in my favorite city. I'm taking the train to New York tomorrow, to do a couple of things and visit with a couple of lovely people, but really just to read at Sarah Brown's Cringe event.

I am the queen of Internet attention deficit disorder, and there are very, very few blogs I read on a daily basis. Lots I check in on a few times a week, but daily is reserved for People.com, Flickr, and Sarah. I don't remember where or how I discovered her, but since I did I have rarely skipped a day checking out her words or her pictures. She is the kind of writer I would like to be, in many ways, and in some ways hope I already am when I cut the crap. Plus she's funny, and she's cooler than you. Sorry, that didn't come out very nicely. But you know how it is.

Sarah started up this series a few years ago, and it's turned into a book for her and a potential tv pilot. The deal is that people get up on stage and read selections from their diaries/letters/journals/detritus in general from their teen years. Since this whole blog is sort of an exercise in self-disclosure, I figured early on that I had to participate in this. A three-hour trip is all that stood in the way of the world hearing the story that I wrote, actually on purpose - about my HUSBAND John Taylor from Duran Duran, and our honeymoon trip to an island somewhere. I think it might have been Anguilla, which I didn't know from Dallas, Texas at that point except that i knew that DURAN DURAN FILMED VIDEOS THERE and JOHN TAYLOR WAS THE BASS PLAYER AND I HAD A FEDORA LIKE HIS THAT I ACTUALLY WORE IN PUBLIC AND HE WAS MY MAN, SO SUCK IT SUPERMODELS. I'll just be over here in my Forenza sweatshirt with the (help) cabbage roses on it, orange Sun-In hair and fake Jordache jeans with the little hippo or unicorn or whatever they gave little fat girls on the pocket as a consolation prize. Also, he wore jazz shoes, and therefore so did I.

Someday I'm going to write a book, a collection of essays entitled: "The Really Low End: Me and the Rhythm Section." (and yes it'll be grammatically incorrect like that. So rock 'n roll.)

In searching for my JT story, which I still can't find, I located my Precious Moments diary. SHUT UP. I KNOW. And when I found it, I immediately spent like an hour delving into my crazy little brain, circa 1985. I read the part to my mom aloud about how much I hated my family because they left me at home when they went to see the Christmas lights at the Mormon Temple. And in case anyone wonders why I take everything super seriously, my mother looked at me gravely and said, seriously, "You really didn't hate us did you?" Even at 14, totally healthy adolescent hatred was unacceptable in our home.

I laughed out loud when I saw that I had written the actual address for the American Top 40 Long Distance Dedications in the inside front cover, in pencil, just above the ominously inked "PROPERTY OF LAURIE," which I had clearly very carefully inked over and over and over, in case the masses who would be dying for a peek inside the pink cover didn't get the message. I even had "Property of LAURIE" stickers on the facing page, like that I obviously bought at a store. Someone sold stickers like that. I would pay big bucks to have those back, I'd just walk around slapping them on everything at this point. They'd have come in seriously handy in some roommate situations, and at work. Except I'd have to add "bitches" in ink now, now that that word contains such weighted ironic power, unlike in 1985 when it just meant more than one bitch was all UP IN YOUR GRILL.

I rejected my neurosis that I really HADN'T progressed that much in 20 YEARS, and I went back to the days when two things made my world go round: John Taylor, and Dante Aguilar, a boy I went to grade school with, who sat behind me in 7th grade and sang "Sexual Healing" to me in his cracking, uber-sexy Bolivian accent. "Get-tup get-tup get-tup get-tup." Really, there was no one hotter than him, all 13 years old and rocking the Catholic school uniform. And I'm sure my Peter Pan collar and green plaid jumper was just as appealing.

All I can say is, that wherever Dante is, and whomever he's involved with/married to, I hope she loves him right, because no one could POSSIBLY have been as devoted to him (as a concept anyway - like I knew what to do with a real person at that point? Ha.) as I was. Sarah says the key to a good Cringe reading is if it makes you - yeah - CRINGE when you read it. Done, totally taken care of. Oh my God, cringing all the livelong day. Still cringing, in fact, inside. My longing emanates from the page. The resigned detachment, the rationalization that it was a good thing when he dated my BEST FRIEND. The almost-running-into-him-at-the-mall if I hadn't had to go to the damned LIMITED to return my FORENZA sweatshirt for an even bigger one with the cabbage roses on it. Anyway, more of the world will learn of him tomorrow than he ever imagined, and I hope he's cool with that. It's a good thing it's a fairly common name. I looked around on Facebook and the other options in the voyeuristic world of "social networking" and I think that might be him? But I'm not sure? And hi, could someone else send that message? That "Hey I wrote about you in my diary alot 20 years ago and now I'm going to read it aloud to a lot of people in a bar in Brooklyn" message? Cause I'm not gonna lie, I'm having a little trouble with the semantics on this one.

I am amazed that more of this book was not written in colored ink, however. I have a tendency to write in obnoxious Sharpie colors even now. (Hello. Am 12.)

So Sarah has held a slot for this craziness, and I can't wait. I'm sure I'll be the really nervous one. In fact, my eye is twitching a little already. If you see me, say a kind word. I can't promise I won't write about you though.

Working on my paper, 1:30 a.m.

When I get spam about some awesome watches that I really ought to have from someone named Hilario Mooney, is it bad to wish that was a real person?

Catchup is so taxing.

First of all, this is crazy, and so is this, and why even as a journalist-wanna-be, I often find the news so disturbing. Just check out the whole CNN homepage, really, for all the sick and crazy this spinning top  has to offer.

I've been going through a serious case of blog abandonment. Really. Anybody still sticking with me out there I give you credit because I am phoning it in all over the place, including here.

I'm struggling through the last two weeks of the semester, trying to get these stories done so I don't have to think about them anymore. I somehow don't think Jane Austen thought that about Emma, or maybe she did. "I say, I'm just going to SLAP an ending on heah so I don't have to THINK about these stupid people anymore!"

This is journalism, though - not ART. (Sorry.) I seem to have lost basic confidence in my writing ability, which is really nice when you're in a program that's supposed to help you become a better writer. I think I just went like three credits over my limit this semester, which turned everything upside down. Last semester I worked hard but it flowed. I kind of volleyed around from class to class but they all fit in my head. My law class was one of my worst academic experiences ever (except for the outcome - a testament to sheer begging and a teensy bit of fortitude) but even that wasn't this bad. I still have SO MANY PICTURES to wade through and edit. My Vietnam story is on its third draft. That's due tomorrow along with a profile that I really wanted to knock out of the park and a Web package too, which I feel completely ill-equipped to do. I hate tomorrow already! Hi tomorrow, Annie lied! Lack of confidence is so AWESOME!

This is what it's come down to: I was in Banana Republic at the mall yesterday trying to sneak photos of labels for a story I'm writing, and the totally cheerful sales guy wouldn't leave me ALONE to do my dirty work, dammit, he just kept trying to engage me in chit-chat about an Earth Day promotion, which is so last month, chief! Come ON.

Anyway, the photos are crap. They won't work. I should have had my teeny point and shoot with me which has better image stabilization but being prepared with the right gear at all times is just not possible.

If I can just make it to May 12 without completely cracking up I'll be in good shape. April was rough. May is proving to be a tiny bit better. I already know that I'll look back on this spring as one of "those" times - 'those" meaning when I was not eating sunshine for breakfast, unfortunately - and that upsets me. Things are happening, things are on the way. I am notoriously bad at waiting for those things, however.

I went and saw the Waifs twice last week because I'm obsessed with their music and I had two friends who wanted to go on separate nights. I'm here to tell you that music therapy is real. I sometimes forget and then I go to shows that make me so much happier than I was before I walked into the place two hours earlier and I'm blown away all over again. Seriously - they're on tour in the States for a good part of the year (and if you're here from the UK/Australia, you already know who they are probably, but they are playing quite a bit and I highly recommend attending.) I actually sang a song I made up extemporaneously into my new favorite thing, an Olympus recorder intended for podcasting but guess what? You can SING into it too. Even if you're not really a "singer." 

I did one thing this week that was a long time in coming and I feel good about it. To be a little bit gross, it made my heart fill up, something that was painful all of a sudden didn't seem so much so, and I think I'll be okay from now on.

Speaking of not being okay at all, I'm going to Brooklyn on Wednesday to read at Sarah Brown's Cringe event, which I've wanted to do for a very long time and I'm very excited about. I'll be reading something from my old journals, and finding the perfectly embarrassing moment to share with a room full of people has been an exercise in said embarrassment already. Oh my God. I may post what I read here, may not - depends.

Hard to say.

Music is the drug

The Virgin Festival people faked me out.

August 9th is shaping up nicely.

So I thought just before I fell asleep...

It's such a shame that I can't kiss the back of my own neck.