Love and Cruelty

I was on the Upper West Side for an author event so I decided to stay up there for awhile and walk around and have dinner. I ended up at Niko's because the salads are so good, it's crazy.

I had a Big Salad and a glass of wine that was described on the menu as "savage and sexy." The wine came in a goblet rather than a glass. This is what you get when you order a savage and sexy wine made on Mount Olympus. Various breads arrived in a basket, tucked under a napkin with a small dish of olive tapenade hidden at the bottom. I savored a single bite from each piece of bread. A knotted whole wheat roll; a toasted baguette slice soaked in olive oil and herbs; a chewy sesame stick; a pumpernickel slice chock full of raisins. All laden with tapenade. Decadence.

I spent a long time thinking about Ben and how we had sat here together swapping real estate stories. I really enjoyed remembering him. It was like a nice visit with a friend from out of town, when you feel a surge of renewed warmth for someone you once knew well and don't see so often anymore.

After finishing the salad and wine, my bones felt warm and the light seemed to change to a deeper amber. The waiter brought complimentary dessert wine and a tiny square of almond cake. I alternated: bite of cake, bit of wine. Cake; wine. No more cake. Throw back wine.

Signing the Visa receipt I felt myself enveloped by God's love.

I left and walked to the corner and raised my arm to hail a cab. A speeding cab swerved across two lanes and came to a halt in front of me without fully pulling over. I slid in quickly and told him to take the West Side Highway, not the FDR. He cut west.

I snuggled in and texted my boyfriend hi and how much I love him, so much, so very much, and I cried a little as I typed it with my thumbs because I love him so much.

The cab slowed down because the access road was blocked. We had to do a loop and go back to Broadway. Looking up I saw we were in a slow caravan down lower Riverside Drive, with the pier where Ben died coming up on my right. It was quiet and the lights were stark white and crystalline across the river.

We cut over on 66th street and drove past Ben's apartment building. Good grief it hurt.

Back on Broadway, we went a few blocks further downtown and then cut over again. This time the street was clear. On the left I saw a sign for an emergency room. St. Luke's-Roosevelt . . .

ok Ben, I get it.

Happy birthday.

Happy. Fucking. Birthday.

Me and my plus-one

When you're high from gig night, nothing beats the ambivalence of a cat.

My plus-two, also feline, is lolling around on the bed.

Allons dormir!

Sequestering

Last night's work laid me up with a big headache. The work was wonderful but I think I ate too much sugar. Estrogen + rain + sugar + too much excitement = migraine for me. It's better now.

I'm listening to the results of last night on my big stereo.

As soon as I put it on and settled in, Saro zoomed around the apartment, blazed across my desk, crash landed in my lap, looked up at me, and screamed.

Every line I sang, she screamed again.

I think I need a second opinion . . .

Mustering

And this is my horoscope for today, no kidding:

Confrontations
This is a day of critical culminations, when many activities and projects will come to a climax in your life. It is particularly important that you have worked with complete knowledge and understanding of what you were trying to accomplish. Even under the best of circumstances, you will confront others at this time. For most people the area of greatest unconsciousness in this regard is that of close personal relationships, as with family and partner. In these relationships you are most likely to experience the negative effects of this influence in the form of arguments and conflict. If you are in such a conflict, look carefully to see what is really at stake, if anything, and try to arrive at a workable compromise.


In other news, I saw this movie last night; today I still feel drunk from it; a kind of sweet drunk that warms your soul, makes you cry and feel better, and then makes you cry more.

Mastering

Tomorrow we master the new record at The Viewing Room. I'm excited -- perhaps most excited to visit with Scott and Rebecca and kitty, and second-string excited to finish this massive art project that has been, as Billie Holiday sang, my joy and my pain.

We started this record by tracking eleven-or-so songs in June 2004. Jill took pictures at the sessions; looking back at the contact sheet, I see Alan playing bass with his headphones and Black Sabbath t-shirt on; Dave taking a break in the captain's seat at the mixing board; Dann sitting with his glasses off, rubbing his eyes. I look happy and zaftig and surrounded by wires: headphones, microphone. We went on to record another dozen songs over the next 3 years -- not a lot compared to many bands, but a lot for me. The final count on this record will be 13.

SNOWBLIND and a dozen dwarfs, har.

Just don't eat one right before you go up

I have this semi-irritating habit of telling a story here and making the whole thing a bigger deal than it really is, full of metaphor and all that blah.

But you know what? I'm tired of that.

I finally did a headstand in yoga. And that's all it was. A headstand. And I did it.

Whoopie pie = whoopie pie.

Authenticity

The book release party was completely fun last night. I spent a great deal of time speaking with a lovely letterpress artist and a cheerful couple whose featured letter turned out to be a very dirty text message. Plus I got to meet the editor, a swell chap. This all was made even more sweet by the sweetness of my escort, ¡J!, whose unilateral support made me feel extra special -- so zen and special that I was unfazed even by the possibility of having just accidentally eaten spicy crab dip.

Today I've been trying to listen to new music. I'm kind of bummed out by a lot of what the kids of today are listening to. I don't want to name names , but I must. I find that these people make achingly beautiful music, and even decent lyrics, but ruin it with inauthentic-sounding vocal delivery -- ridiculous breathiness, over-growly soul. Do you agree, or am I just being too -- um-- crabby?

Postscript: At least one possibility for explaining why I didn't get sick off of the dip -- that is, if I am still allergic to shellfish after all these years -- is that it may have been fake crab. Inauthenticity saves the day!

Available at your local bookseller!

An excerpt from this blog has been published in this book, just out.

You can see cool excerpts here.

This is the official site.

Hooray for love!

Still Crazy Shit; Smaller Ass; Further Reflections

I deleted the last entry. It Just Wasn't Right. I shouldn't talk about people so negatively, even if they occasionally terrorize me.

Also I don't think I got to the heart of the situation: How even a seemingly-supportive comment can set off feelings of inadequacy, even paranoia. This week three (3) other people (female) also commented on alleged weight loss. I accepted and appreciated their compliments but also started to feel self-conscious. Considering I'm really trying to drop more weight, and always have felt some degree of ambivalence toward my stature, the comments set off some weird thought spirals. I actually entertained the thought that they might just be fucking with my head.

It appears as if I've regressed to seeing everything through the lens of day camp circa 1982.

But this is what always happens -- a wave of insecurity, and then an upsurge of energy.

Save the date: the record will be released January 25!

Monday

Tonight I left work and walked to yoga in my python heels. I was carrying a leather tote plus two other bags––large, shiny cardboard-stiff boutique bags full of manuscript, Elle magazine, flats, yoga clothes, tupperware, and sneakers.

The brick buildings glowed in amber light. I was lulled by the easy click-clack rhythm of the heels; first gritty and stacatto, on cement; then, when I hit the West Village, drawling on slate. It was still 45 minutes till class.

I stopped at Miguelina on Bleecker and ran my fingers down the silk blouses: violet, ginger, aquamarine.

I strolled to Magnolia Bakery. I picked the cupcake with the largest icing crown: a huge helmet of lemon-colored sugarbutter with tiny pebble sprinkles, all perched on a little round of yellow cake. Two dollars, please.

I slipped 2 bags to the crook of my arm, squeezed the cupcake gingerly in a sheath of wax paper, and slowly crossed the street. I sat down on a green wood bench, my bags spreading out and nestling in on all sides. Dry leaves scudded over bricks and cement.

I peeled back the wax paper. A little icing was stuck to the paper. I combed my teeth over the spot and felt the sweetness dissolve between my tongue and the roof of my mouth.

I leaned in and lopped off a chunk of icing and cake with my front teeth.

Mmmmmm.

Doubling down

This weekend I learned that in blackjack, if the first two cards you are dealt look favorable you are given the opportunity to double your bet, or double down.

The caveat is that if you decide to double down, you receive one more card only.

One decides to double down by quickly calculating that odds are favorable for reaching the ideal (that one's own hand will come close to 21 without breaking, and that the dealer's hand will break).

It's a combination of strategy, luck, and faith, with a pinch of audacity for good measure.

And if it all comes together, you hit paydirt.

Doesn't that sound lovely.

More On That Subject

But first: This ad made me burst into tears in the laundry room.



Re: the poem below: I reached for it last night without thinking of anything in particular. It means more to me now than it did when I first read it a dozen years ago.

Courage is the secret to happiness -- Courage to love, wisely and unwisely; courage to believe that others are putting forth their best intentions; courage to have compassion when others can't escape their own destructiveness; courage to pursue a dream even when it seems indulgent and silly; courage not to let the gut-wrenchingly bad things that happen freeze you solid.

The words hope, faith, and love sound so horribly trite. But when your life starts to hit the skids, they appear out of nowhere like Charlie's Angels and totally kick some ass.

Ah well -- I'll leave it to Marianne.

Apropos of nothing, I remembered that my computer has a photo booth function:



{Self-portrait with Liza-cut Hair}






{Self-portrait as Lint Roller Mummenschanz}

What Are Years?

What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
naked, none is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered question,
the resolute doubt, -
dumbly calling, deafly listening - that
in misfortune, even death,
encourage others
and in its defeat, stirs

the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
accededs to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
in its surrendering
finds its continuing.

So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.

- Marianne Moore

Found!

At first I was alarmed, but then I realized that a found cat probably is better off than a lost cat.

I like the artist's rendering.







. . . To aid in animal identification, of course.

Here, There, and Everywhere

Once the alien octopus resurfaces in your consciousness, you start to see it everywhere.

Walking across the Williamsburg bridge:











And then, perhaps the mothership:

RIP WWN

"WWN avoided celeb gossip, with the exception of Elvis and politicians (for instance, Donald Rumsfeld: 'Rumsfeld Changes His Name to Rumsfeldstiltskin and Tells Rogue Nations 'Guess My New Name or We'll Invade You,''[. . . .] By those standards alone, I considered it a higher calling."

Eros in action

I've noticed something recently.

On my lunchtime walkabout, I get catcalled a lot. Walking to and from work, I never get a single hoot.

I puzzled over this. Is 9am too early for catcalling? Must one have one's morning coffee in order to issue a proper 'hey baby?' And by 6, is one just too plum tired from leering at all the foot traffic during the day?

Then it hit me: at lunchtime I'm wearing my real shoes; walking to and from work, I'm wearing sneaks.

Another compelling argument for the indelible power of fabulous shoes.

Thus ends the . . .

. . . Muppet thread. And, hark! What thread has recommenced!?!





It's the return of the alien octopus!!!!!

This is the first time in a long time I've seen one that's not on a moving object (truck) or on a stationary object (wall) at a moment in time in which I am on a moving object (train, bus).

<. . . >

Mmm, ok, one more Muppet pic.

Electric Mayhem

(Clockwise from left: John, Joe, Ross, Erica, Andy)

Please note that Plastic Sharples / Blonde Wombat / 99 cent Beef combo, aka the John Sharples Band, will be playing at Hank's Saloon on Friday. I have no idea when, or with whom.

More info as it becomes available.

I'm the backup singer, woooo!

"Mo' Muppets" Monday!

I hope this inspires your singing as it has mine!