So today is Sept. 11. That sucks. And in case you were planning on having a good productive day, well fuck you. Cause the whole city needs to be on anti-depressants. The collective energy of a city of this size mourning will crush the most Mary Poppins of spirits. Think Ghostbusters 2. So then I have to come to the den of corporate idiocy and listen to inanity from kids who don't know who Blair Underwood is.
Idiot #1: Did you know Blair Underwood got his start as Denise’s boyfriend on the Cosby show?
#2: no. (pause) wait a minute, I know who he is.
#1: He was on that lawyer show in the '80's.
#2: Night Court?
I can't make this up. They work at a TV station that specializes in classic shows. I wanted to yell “LA Law you dummies!” but since I’m freelance, I kept it to myself.
Then I have to suffer the crush of seeing my college classmates all married and successful in a way I never will be. I chose differently. And while I’m in this pit doing nothing, literally, I feel like a slacker and a loser because I could have chosen differently. The energy it takes to just make it through the day is enough to make me want to just get botulism from my salads I refuse to put in the fridge and just die.
I know this is for money and the city needs to just chill out. We’re like a bunch of kids picking a scab cause today's a day to get attention. People die everyday. We should remember them everyday. It’s sad, it sucks, we have to move on or this city's going to eat itself alive.
On the TV in the elevator, I hate it; they showed a picture of what looked like thousands of people down at Ground Zero. I understand that it was the most important day in some people's lives. I understand that it was pivotal. I understand that it's tragic beyond understanding. But life and grief is about moving on. Why go down there? Celebrate them in some positive, less photo op way. It’s like we don't know how to grieve so we just go do what we see everyone else doing.
And we haven't moved on. Not yet. We haven't moved on emotionally, spiritually or politically. This morning I got spooked cause I heard airplanes low overhead. It’s an overcast day. I hear them all the time. I was spooked. And that was before I’d really realized what today was. And then the “President” decided to make a speech, a lot of speeches- not enough silence.
We’re all fucked up. And on top of it, personally, I’m trying to be a mature person when I’m sure I’m being dissed and I’m fucking pissed. I have no real reason to be pissed except that I feel betrayed. Am I over reacting, probably, but I do so too rarely. I don't overreact nearly enough. The whole world runs on overreaction, and I’m gonna join the party today.
So besides this being one pissy little town today... let me tell you what's gonna happen tonight. Again, think Ghostbusters 2. Only add alcohol and drugs. It’s gonna either get really ugly or the alcohol will be the positive slime that got infused with the Jackie Wilson song.
I, personally, hope that people who diss people should maybe get boots put on their cars. Or scabies. Or a perpetual runny nose. See, I do have a soft side.
I’m fucking pissed.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Love- Remix
A few years ago a very disgruntled me wrote a poem about love. I was pissed. I didn't believe in it and wasn't loving myself very well at the time.
Today it might go:
Easy chairs aren't so easy when u have to drag them up 3 flights of stairs.
But do U then hate the chair? No.
The chair is soft and comfortable and U love it.
That's more how I'm feeling about love right now.
Nothing in this life's easy.
And 1/2 of our choices are chance.
So why not just make a choice and take a chance.
Even if you lose you win, because you'll learn something.
Something about yourself, about who you think you are, what U believe about yourself in your choice and expectations on a beloved.
In the selfish reality of it, it is all about you.
Because you're going to see what you want in another person and make them creations of what you believe as opposed to who or what they really are.
If you're lucky and aren't judging yourself or the world too harshly; then you can see the beauty in the flaws along with all the parts you readily accept and love.
If you're really lucky,
You get to love the flaws too. I think.
I have only recently experienced that idea (or the idea of the idea- but i'm away from my familiar and what I believe might indeed be severely flawed),
But I do believe it can happen.
Or some form of it.
But what the fuck do I know?
That's how I feel about love today.
Today it might go:
Easy chairs aren't so easy when u have to drag them up 3 flights of stairs.
But do U then hate the chair? No.
The chair is soft and comfortable and U love it.
That's more how I'm feeling about love right now.
Nothing in this life's easy.
And 1/2 of our choices are chance.
So why not just make a choice and take a chance.
Even if you lose you win, because you'll learn something.
Something about yourself, about who you think you are, what U believe about yourself in your choice and expectations on a beloved.
In the selfish reality of it, it is all about you.
Because you're going to see what you want in another person and make them creations of what you believe as opposed to who or what they really are.
If you're lucky and aren't judging yourself or the world too harshly; then you can see the beauty in the flaws along with all the parts you readily accept and love.
If you're really lucky,
You get to love the flaws too. I think.
I have only recently experienced that idea (or the idea of the idea- but i'm away from my familiar and what I believe might indeed be severely flawed),
But I do believe it can happen.
Or some form of it.
But what the fuck do I know?
That's how I feel about love today.
love
I wrote this a while ago and have it on my other blog. you'll need to know it to get the next one.
Love
Soft like an easy chair-
my ass.
It's just the mood I’m in right now, I guess.
I don't write about love-
don't want to write about it because it makes
me feel like a romantic fool.
There's no room for romantic notions
in a hyper technologized world of IM.
The time to develop the intensity of feelings
and bonds of trust have become truncated into
smiley faces and empty and
quick "I love you emails" and text messages.
I say it so much that the feelings I used to have
when I felt it is gone.
The heat and swelling in my chest.
The flush of my cheeks.
My hands going numb.
Ears throbbing and mind made blank by an emotion
so intensely overwhelming there was, as
the alcoholics would say, the magnificence of God.
But I say it back to everybody that says it to me and
when I think about how much I don’t mean it-
it only adds to the emptiness I feel
about my everyday existence.
When I don’t think about it but feel how empty it is
All I want to do is drink.
Booze is no muse though.
It only magnifies the desperation of being surrounded by
I love you’s" and not feeling loved.
It does, however, temporarily hide the fact that all of
this means nothing.
Nihilism is on short order after a bottle or two of montepulciano.
And whisky knocks it down that much better.
So love-
I’m writing about love and it’s new status as an apparition.
A ghost of what was and what everybody hopes to attain
Without knowing its true nature.
With no experience base of its highs and lows.
Because sans this understanding of the heart and mind
that relegated it to the dream realm,
the nether regions,
we all believe in reality TV’s version of love.
And that’s some real bullshit.
Love
Soft like an easy chair-
my ass.
It's just the mood I’m in right now, I guess.
I don't write about love-
don't want to write about it because it makes
me feel like a romantic fool.
There's no room for romantic notions
in a hyper technologized world of IM.
The time to develop the intensity of feelings
and bonds of trust have become truncated into
smiley faces and empty and
quick "I love you emails" and text messages.
I say it so much that the feelings I used to have
when I felt it is gone.
The heat and swelling in my chest.
The flush of my cheeks.
My hands going numb.
Ears throbbing and mind made blank by an emotion
so intensely overwhelming there was, as
the alcoholics would say, the magnificence of God.
But I say it back to everybody that says it to me and
when I think about how much I don’t mean it-
it only adds to the emptiness I feel
about my everyday existence.
When I don’t think about it but feel how empty it is
All I want to do is drink.
Booze is no muse though.
It only magnifies the desperation of being surrounded by
I love you’s" and not feeling loved.
It does, however, temporarily hide the fact that all of
this means nothing.
Nihilism is on short order after a bottle or two of montepulciano.
And whisky knocks it down that much better.
So love-
I’m writing about love and it’s new status as an apparition.
A ghost of what was and what everybody hopes to attain
Without knowing its true nature.
With no experience base of its highs and lows.
Because sans this understanding of the heart and mind
that relegated it to the dream realm,
the nether regions,
we all believe in reality TV’s version of love.
And that’s some real bullshit.
Thank You Craigslist
I put an ad on craigslist here in Paris and got a delicious surprise.
I know, it's dangerous. Little black girl in Paris alone eliciting strange people to talk to her and perhaps make her have to do a few loads of sheets and towels in her fabulous Parisian apt.
But I did it. And I won. After my friends left I realized I hadn't "been carnal" in a little bit and I’m in Paris. The city of light and lovers. And I’d never had “the relations” on foreign soil. I decided this was the time for that to change. I’d actually decided when I bought my ticket, got the apartment and went to the ob/gyn to make sure I didn't need any shots or anything. I love her. She said, "Take your own condoms". Intrigued. "Why? Do theirs not work?" she calmly replied "different latex, different lube. Nothing ruins a trip faster than a broken pudenda."
I knew I should have gone to med school.
Anyway, I started rapping with this dude who says he went on craigslist to rent out a room in his apartment and "just happened" into the who wants to get laid portion of said list. We emailed each other all day and it was really nice. I was beat from 4 days of walking this great town and the flirtations were a welcome respite. He loved my English, I loved his English. It has a French flair that I really thought lived in French movies from the Alain Delon days.
So he came to pick me up. He was cute. He looked like the pix he'd sent, only his hair was a little thinner than I’d expected. Who cares? I have cellulite. I’d been taking baths the last few days so when he got here I’m all fresh, clean and had drank almost a bottle of wine alone and watched Mad Men and a little internet diddling (great use of my time in Paris, right?).
It was cool being in a car in Paris. I hadn't been in one I didn't have to pay for yet and we were so busy talking about hip hop (I was going to go to a concert the next night with wordsworth and masta ace... but I couldn't fathom coughing up hard earned Euros for hip hop to globally bone me) that he didn't give me the full tour. Actually, we talked a lot and he likes a lot of the same things I do. He loves the Wire and Entourage too (although I haven't watched all of the Wire yet). He lives by Bastille. I saw it. It’s a statue. No bones rattling around, no jail, a statue. Cool. Done.
We got to his flat that was as big as my apartment in Brooklyn and it's cute. He travels a lot for work and thus the list visit. He’d already told me he used to grow "greenhouse plants" in his bedroom, but now simply aided others in the relinquishing of their said plants. We partook. He rolled his funny cigarettes with Marlboro tabac. He’d said that he didn't smoke but we went through almost a pack. We drank a bottle of champagne, he made caprianias (he had that crazy rum from brazil- cachaça), we listened to some of his favorite hip-hop, and looked at some propaganda Hugo Chavez left in the VIPs lounge in the Venezuelan airport. He also talked about his masters’ thesis which sounds mad cool and we ended up talking for a couple of hours... and then the games began.
I thought I was gonna stay away from such talk in an open forum for whenever I run for president, or just so my dad doesn't have a heart attack, but this was too good not to go for.
(Besides, the whole "finding my own voice thing" this is my voice, it's vulgar and crude and mortifying to most of my family; but I can't wait for them to die to tell my stories, right?)
Anyway, the thing that made it so good was the chivalrousness of it. I asked him last night/ this morning if he's always like this? He said yes. And I’m like damn. I can't get a return phone call in Brooklyn. Now granted I usually fuck with severely fucked up individuals that I find charming until I have more than a 5 minute conversation with them. Thus the relations sans relationships. But this felt different. Sure I was probably a little drunk and a little stoned- and in Paris. But I wasn't that fucked up. And as the evening wore on and the soberer I got, the better it got. Then it happened.
Somewhere in the middle I stopped trying to do my best porn star impression and we started making love. Slow and sweet. With kisses everywhere. He literally kissed me everywhere. It was a delight, and the worm turned. I became inspired. I like wanted to cook breakfast in a French maid's costume and start washing dishes. Once I saw that he got off by getting me off I wanted to do the same.
Needless to say the sun was suddenly up. He had to be at work at 9. It was after 6a. We slept for a little bit. He took a shower, I brushed my teeth and did my first ho stroll in Paris. He was going to the country to visit his family for the weekend. Jaded me thought, "yeah, sure. Your family."
I was sure I’d never see him again, and then like clockwork, he sent me an email yesterday afternoon. I said something dirty (and wrong) in French that he said made him hot all day. I liked that. I went to dinner with a friend of a friend. We went to St. Germaine and the Latin Quarter. Listened to some jazz. I met Memphis Slim's drummer and when I saw him as he was entering and I was leaving the bathroom, he took my head in his hands and kissed me in the mouth. I apparently have a way with French men. The friend of the friend looked like he was a little in love with me too by the end of the night and was trying to kiss me in the mouth as I got out of his car. Easy boys... let a girl catch her breath.
Besides, I’d just gotten a text from my boy and wanted to get back to him as quick as I could. He said he couldn't wait to have me in his arms and I needed to get to my translator to shoot a "right back at cha" to him in French.
I came home, drank some more wine, texted the boy back and he was here in 30 min. We went to sleep at 6a again. He has all kinds of meetings he's rearranging and friends he's blowing off cause I’m here. We’re having dinner tonight. I have to wash more sheets and towels.
We said we'll tell people we met on Facebook. Friends of friends... of Craig.
I know, it's dangerous. Little black girl in Paris alone eliciting strange people to talk to her and perhaps make her have to do a few loads of sheets and towels in her fabulous Parisian apt.
But I did it. And I won. After my friends left I realized I hadn't "been carnal" in a little bit and I’m in Paris. The city of light and lovers. And I’d never had “the relations” on foreign soil. I decided this was the time for that to change. I’d actually decided when I bought my ticket, got the apartment and went to the ob/gyn to make sure I didn't need any shots or anything. I love her. She said, "Take your own condoms". Intrigued. "Why? Do theirs not work?" she calmly replied "different latex, different lube. Nothing ruins a trip faster than a broken pudenda."
I knew I should have gone to med school.
Anyway, I started rapping with this dude who says he went on craigslist to rent out a room in his apartment and "just happened" into the who wants to get laid portion of said list. We emailed each other all day and it was really nice. I was beat from 4 days of walking this great town and the flirtations were a welcome respite. He loved my English, I loved his English. It has a French flair that I really thought lived in French movies from the Alain Delon days.
So he came to pick me up. He was cute. He looked like the pix he'd sent, only his hair was a little thinner than I’d expected. Who cares? I have cellulite. I’d been taking baths the last few days so when he got here I’m all fresh, clean and had drank almost a bottle of wine alone and watched Mad Men and a little internet diddling (great use of my time in Paris, right?).
It was cool being in a car in Paris. I hadn't been in one I didn't have to pay for yet and we were so busy talking about hip hop (I was going to go to a concert the next night with wordsworth and masta ace... but I couldn't fathom coughing up hard earned Euros for hip hop to globally bone me) that he didn't give me the full tour. Actually, we talked a lot and he likes a lot of the same things I do. He loves the Wire and Entourage too (although I haven't watched all of the Wire yet). He lives by Bastille. I saw it. It’s a statue. No bones rattling around, no jail, a statue. Cool. Done.
We got to his flat that was as big as my apartment in Brooklyn and it's cute. He travels a lot for work and thus the list visit. He’d already told me he used to grow "greenhouse plants" in his bedroom, but now simply aided others in the relinquishing of their said plants. We partook. He rolled his funny cigarettes with Marlboro tabac. He’d said that he didn't smoke but we went through almost a pack. We drank a bottle of champagne, he made caprianias (he had that crazy rum from brazil- cachaça), we listened to some of his favorite hip-hop, and looked at some propaganda Hugo Chavez left in the VIPs lounge in the Venezuelan airport. He also talked about his masters’ thesis which sounds mad cool and we ended up talking for a couple of hours... and then the games began.
I thought I was gonna stay away from such talk in an open forum for whenever I run for president, or just so my dad doesn't have a heart attack, but this was too good not to go for.
(Besides, the whole "finding my own voice thing" this is my voice, it's vulgar and crude and mortifying to most of my family; but I can't wait for them to die to tell my stories, right?)
Anyway, the thing that made it so good was the chivalrousness of it. I asked him last night/ this morning if he's always like this? He said yes. And I’m like damn. I can't get a return phone call in Brooklyn. Now granted I usually fuck with severely fucked up individuals that I find charming until I have more than a 5 minute conversation with them. Thus the relations sans relationships. But this felt different. Sure I was probably a little drunk and a little stoned- and in Paris. But I wasn't that fucked up. And as the evening wore on and the soberer I got, the better it got. Then it happened.
Somewhere in the middle I stopped trying to do my best porn star impression and we started making love. Slow and sweet. With kisses everywhere. He literally kissed me everywhere. It was a delight, and the worm turned. I became inspired. I like wanted to cook breakfast in a French maid's costume and start washing dishes. Once I saw that he got off by getting me off I wanted to do the same.
Needless to say the sun was suddenly up. He had to be at work at 9. It was after 6a. We slept for a little bit. He took a shower, I brushed my teeth and did my first ho stroll in Paris. He was going to the country to visit his family for the weekend. Jaded me thought, "yeah, sure. Your family."
I was sure I’d never see him again, and then like clockwork, he sent me an email yesterday afternoon. I said something dirty (and wrong) in French that he said made him hot all day. I liked that. I went to dinner with a friend of a friend. We went to St. Germaine and the Latin Quarter. Listened to some jazz. I met Memphis Slim's drummer and when I saw him as he was entering and I was leaving the bathroom, he took my head in his hands and kissed me in the mouth. I apparently have a way with French men. The friend of the friend looked like he was a little in love with me too by the end of the night and was trying to kiss me in the mouth as I got out of his car. Easy boys... let a girl catch her breath.
Besides, I’d just gotten a text from my boy and wanted to get back to him as quick as I could. He said he couldn't wait to have me in his arms and I needed to get to my translator to shoot a "right back at cha" to him in French.
I came home, drank some more wine, texted the boy back and he was here in 30 min. We went to sleep at 6a again. He has all kinds of meetings he's rearranging and friends he's blowing off cause I’m here. We’re having dinner tonight. I have to wash more sheets and towels.
We said we'll tell people we met on Facebook. Friends of friends... of Craig.
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