I'm going through my photo archives for another day in a row, putting together some images for a friend of mine, and wow. The things you don't really forget but don't actively remember. Like this:
That's my mother on the far right in this one. She looks like we all felt.
This is what happens when you follow Dylan McDermott into the W hotel in New Orleans because you figure that's where the party is because his stepmother just happens to be throwing it. And then somehow you end up in the party yourself (**coughpresspasscough**) standing a few feet away from an open bar and Rosario Dawson.
Dudes this is still funny, almost two years later.
That will never not be funny to me. That ain't no On Golden Pond.
I have no idea what I said exactly to get us in those doors but I will never be sorry. Like Ferris said, life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
It occurred to me as I sat on the couch tonight and processed my current state of mind that NaBloPoMo makes me a little bit nuts, above and beyond any existing and constant state of nuttiness, of course. And I may be grasping at straws here, but whatever. I thought it was time for a little tour of the archives of Novembers past.
If you are new to this ridiculous magical mystery tour of my life, this will point out that there was life before you, which can be fun and enlightening, or it can just be boring as hell, your call.
Here, I made myself laugh with this bit from November 21, 2006, wherein I rationalized my ongoing and conflicted relationship with yet another 80s cheese rock band.
And now all of a sudden "wacked out and posting" reminded me of the line from REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Lovin' You", a song I've heard repeatedly in random places lately because God hates me, although maybe I should be glad it isn't holiday tunes, because those have taken over most places already. Anyway, you know, the REO song with the line that sounds like it goes, "Instead you left stealin' the rent/ALL HIED UP AND LISTEN'" but it doesn't. It really says "Instead you lay still in the grass/All coiled up and hissin'", which is just weird. And it's important to add that though he knows all about those men, inexplicably he don't remember. Cause it was her, baby, way before then, and they're still together. This in spite of the fact that he's a fucked up stalker with memory loss who compares her to a snake, which I know is how I like my men. Especially the ones who insist that they're gonna keep on lovin' me, and are apparently going to go on cocaine binges to avoid sleeping to do so, even after I've told them to get the fudge out cause I'm watching Montel. Those are my favorites.
Sorry. Decompressing. I will admit that "Take it on the Run" is one of my favorite songs of all time (and okay, I like "Time For Me to Fly" too, but not as much), which doesn't allow me to bring the hate on REO Speedwagon without that full disclosure, but one of the best and most humorous stories that Casey Kasem ever spat into the mic (could they not get that man some water? A lozenge? Some freaking hot TEA?) involved the DECADE that it took Kevin Cronin to write "Can't Fight This Feelin'". A decade to come up with "You're a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter's night," and to rhyme "longer" and "stronger", and "show" and..."show." Scary.
And because this is how my brain functions, this post only makes me wonder how I have never written about Damn Yankees?
Don't worry about it, ma'am. Just them Damnnnnnnnnnnn Yankees.
I know. I can't help it. Seriously, scary visceral memories associated with this song, especially considering I'm a little fuzzy on some of the details of what happened yesterday. Jack Blades (haha, Jack Blades) in mom jeans FTW. IT'S NEVER OVER. (I really really love this song. I'm dealing with this right now.)
It's been three years since I wrote this on November 10, and it's kind of alarming that I could still spit it out almost verbatim:
I over-gave, and it still kind of embarrasses me and makes me want to reach back through the pensieve of the past decade and yank me even further back, so I could turn different corners and tell people to fuck off when actually I said, "Yes, baby. Anything for you." But in spite of this shift inside of me, the one thing that makes a difference is my refusal to succumb to inertia, because even if I'm sitting on my very own single settee for the rest of my days, I want it to be in a cool spot. And I want to say that in the process of getting to be the rotten, hilarious-to-myself, intellectually overstimulated and completely batty yet endearing old woman I know I'll be some day, that I did not stop exercising my capacity to do cool shit, or to push myself to create or to make something better out of where I've ended up. I've been lagging for the past couple years, but it's safe to say that it'll get better from here. And thank God. I'm so on my own nerves.
I'd totally forgotten about this picture that went with the post. That's me on the day trip to San Francisco after my first BlogHer. Melanie Morgan took it. (Where have you gone, Melanie? Where have you gone?) I still dyed my own hair then, all four or more of the colors, poor little girl who never pays attention to the back of her head. It was pretty bad. I also fell in love with the city in those eight crazy hours. Besides going back for BlogHer last year I haven't been again, and I really want to go when I can just be there without the imperative to spend three days immersed in talking to so many great people I don't get to see all year long.
I loved and I miss this silly little dog so much...Look at her with the big bug eyes and the kisses...That was the summer before we left and we did step aerobics and kickboxing every day, which tired her out and actually gave me some arm definition.
And I've never found a better hairdresser either. Damn.
I still haven't, and this picture was taken in 1999. (That's dust on the print, by the way. Didn't bother to edit it. LA-ZY.)
Me: She's really not bad. But why must every girl who looks like that look like that in the same way? Andrew: Yeah. The leg warmers. The argyle tights. The harshly cut bangs. Me: I mean, it's like they go to the same school for it. Andrew: The bangs. Me: Those bangs look good on no one. And oh my God, she has him banging that tiny little drum. That's really unnecessary. Andrew: I was just thinking that that drum was unnecessary. I love hanging out with you. We think the same things. We're the same. Except you like Dar Williams and I like German thrash metal bands.
************************************* Me: I just had the insane thought that I miss working for Restaurant Digest. Andrew: Me too. Me: Yeah, I miss those messed up times when Bruce was alive. Andrew: Yes. There was a time when Bruce was alive. Me: And how sometimes he'd give me money when he was alive. And I'd actually get it. That was nice. Maybe I just need money. Andrew: It was better when he wasn't crying when he gave me money.
"Because he made a lot of money. I'd ask him how he did it."
(From across the room) "Isn't he in jail?"
(Me) "He's incarcerated? And you want to know how he accomplished that?"
"Yeah, but he's got a lot of money, and it's only for eight months."
"You can't interview him. I'm not signing off on what I'd have to sign for that to happen. Also, you'd have to do it through a glass window."
And finally, from November 26, 2006, Movin' On Up.
Note to self: First of all, good morning, sunshine. Second of all, when you get the bright idea to make the Jefferson's theme song your primary ringtone, please remember to turn it to Edelweiss or just fucking OFF before you go to bed, so when the phone rings at 4:00 a.m., you do not go shooting across the room in a crazed, suddenly-awoken frenzy. Thanks.
I have eight days left of this. Whatever shall I write about? No, seriously. WHATEVER SHALL I WRITE ABOUT?
Memories slip down the sidewalk
in a golden Ohio
autumn.
I think they took you, but I’m not certain.
I can’t grasp onto it – anything, really.
There are things I can almost touch,
but they don’t seem relevant.
Boston, 1964.
Summer. Your eyes. Canada.
Some things you did. You always did good
things. That’s why when she comes in the door
and talks for a minute, and I see your eyes,
older, I get twisted. My mind sketches
ideas, chases shadows into the valleys of memory.
The things I want to say to make it (what is it?)
right circle back to my brother
on third base, a man’s angry
eyes. My father? That seems obvious.
Why do you ask?
You do seem like the sort
who would want to know. You seem – quite –
helpful, in your way. You seem sad,
wishing for something,
and it passes.
I have several things to show you, but I don’t
know that they’re what you’d like to see. Still,
they are mine. Come with me.
I'm clearing off an old hard drive. I wrote poetry pretty consistently for awhile, a few years ago. I wanted to do a series in the voices of people who had Alzheimer's disease, because I'd just come to the end of my time working as a social worker with them and their families.I stopped here.
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