She woke from her fevered sleep and looked around the room. All was dark. Still. Unfamiliar. Was she dreaming or awake? Always hard to tell in these early morning hours. Then she felt him beside her, his leg draped lightly across her thigh. For a minute there was something else, pushing against her as she lay on her side. She pushed back with her hips and met it, inviting it to penetrate her. She could feel herself opening to it, willing it to come inside. Now… just. there.
The light changed. She turned onto her back and opened her eyes. It was gone. He was gone. She was alone on her tiny mattress on the floor. The rats in the next room scratched and gnawed in their cage, crazy with the futility of struggling against the wheel that had been clamped immobile for the night so she could sleep without the constant screech of metal on metal as they bounded forever to nowhere. At the foot of the mattress the little dog’s paws trembled as he dreamed of running, chasing something he could never quite catch.
Throwing the covers off, she crawled to the coffee table and retrieved her cell phone to check the time. 3:40 am. It was a dream. She wanted more. Making her way back to the mattress she settled again on her side as the dog repositioned himself under the quilt at her feet, his warm breath against her toes. Her breath fell into rythm with his and she drifted off to sleep.
Trapped in a life with myself in a roiling sea of pain. When all around me is spinning out of control, I find I have very little reserves to shore me up. I am empty, with nothing to offer to anyone but ,most disturbingly, nothing to give to my child when she is in such obvious pain. A child who has lived with parents who have behaved so badly, who are so mired in their own misery that there is little room left for her. She’s an angry child and I don’t blame her. But I am down on the ground, below the ground, and the boot is on my heart grinding the heel in and telling me “Take it bitch, you deserve it. You’ve earned it. And there’s plenty more where that comes from. Eat some dirt … there, that’s a good girl. Now throw yourself down the hole. If you can get back up I’ll kick you down again, and again, and again.”
Pain is where I live. Sorrow the altar upon which I sacrifice myself nightly. You just have to go down there sometimes and be open to it as you drag yourself to the edge on bloody knees and look down as far as you can fathom. Looking up you might see a little speck of hope like a tiny planet billions of miles away in a dark sky. But for now you cling to the edge as the abyss keeps you mesmerized. How could it have ended up so badly? How did we come to this place of misery? Face it. Sometimes there’s just no escape.
And then you go outside and the dog is wagging his tail and his ears are flapping in the breeze and you walk. And you walk. Breathe in the cold air. Look at the dog. Breathe. See his simple glee. The boot is still there on my heart but the dog is determined to make me sing. I love that damn little dog. He’s saved me on more than one occasion. He’s onto something and it’s not just sniffing the random traces of other beings who have walked before him. The child walks beside me, forced from her tearful rant out into the air. Her mood lifts, the dog leads us on. And as the sun goes down, we round the corner together.
14 years ago today at approximately 8:00 pm, after a mere two martinis were consumed at the Uptown China Restaurant bar, my lovely daughter was conceived. No, not in the bar. In my cozy Queen Anne apartment. My husband describes the scene as “having had a gun to his head”… as I forced him to abandon our natural birth control methods (trying not to be too graphic here in case the daughter reads this). Every year on Valentine’s Day we remind her that it is the day of that momentous conception, and every year she screams in disgust about how gross the whole thing is. Believe me, I know. I was there, kid. Not to say that the end result was anything less than perfection, but thinking about doing the deed with the ex kinda creeps me out as well. Still, her conception does indeed make Valentine’s Day, an otherwise useless day, special to me.
On other fronts, I have been reading Jonathan Lethem’s “You Don’t Love Me Yet”, which I am loving. Already. This novel is much sexier than “Fortress of Solitude”, the last Lethem I read. I’m going through a phase of constant arousal lately (menopause hasn’t taken me yet!!!) and reading this book is keeping me on edge, to say the least. From Amazon:
“Fans of Fortress and Motherless Brooklyn may find this novel’s levity too drastic a shift, but even though Lethem is having a great time here with wordplay, a motley cast, and Lucinda’s sexual meanderings, You Don’t Love Me Yet is anything but a simple entertainment. “
Rather than attempt to divulge the plot, as I am only about a third of the way through it, let me just titillate you with my own moist approval and the blurb above. I like what Lethem is doing with his one dollar stories as well.
Got smoked out last night, as the young ones say, and on my way home while trying to drive without incurring incarceration, I decided to play a little game of chance to keep me alert. I decided to pull a random CD out of the console and just go with whatever it was. Knowing I only keep crappy CDs in the car, lest they be stolen. I was really hoping to get Dionne Warwick just for the soothe factor. But the first one I pull out and plug in is some Rap group, a CD that was left at the library a few weeks back. I don’t know which group it is as the CD is not labeled and I’m not that down with the Rap scene (see? I can talk street my peeps). I tried to go with it as I was driving along through the hood but then suddenly, as an old white chick blasting whoever the fuck these rappers were, I was transported back in time to Crayton Junior High, home of The Crayton Satans…
There I am…. a tall, gawky, white girl with braces and glasses – stringy brown hair down to her waist, walking around with her cassette player (the kind with one speaker, mono) squealing out Sly and the Family Stone’s “Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey”. It was the first year of desegregation in South Carolina. I really believed at the naive age of 12 that this would make me known as a friend to my new classmates. But my childhood was troubled, as we know. Nobody knew what to make of me. Not the black kids and certainly not the white kids. I’m lucky I was punched only once during my entire Junior High and High school experience.
Back in my car, in real time, I decided to ditch the rap; it was not hitting home. I pulled out another random CD…. shoved it in….
And it was a demo made by my husband’s band. It was fucking magic. Like the fucking message was coming through….from god straight down to me. Yes! Eureka! These guys are the real deal. Gary has a voice that is incredible. And he writes all the songs and they are fucking amazing. So i decided right then and there that we must get back together.
Still listening to the music, I thought about how I would love to be with someone I could write songs with, play music with. Gary never let me into that secret place. I was not friends with his friends. He kept all of that seperate from me. How in the fucking hell could I end up with a musician who wouldn’t play music with me? ugggh…. So, with that realization (still careening down the road) I knew that it would never work and it never did, despite trying for 10 long and painful years. Too bad. I tend to end up with guys who are more like begrudging, resentful brothers rather than lovers.
That was a freaky realization.
I finally made it home, and as I sat typing away in my THC haze I heard Telemundo blasting somewhere but was not coming from my house nor was it coming from the neighborhood. It’s in my head. Ahora! Vamanos a la isla…… Arrrrrrriba!
I failed to mention that the car I drive is a “dark gold” Volvo S60. Sporty. I always thought it looked a bit pimpish and in fact, nicknamed it the Pimpmobile. After 6 years of driving it into curbs, buildings, other cars and small airplanes it now has a very different look. The passenger side rear view mirror is smashed out, the gas cap cover has fallen off and just yesterday the driver’s side (electric) window broke in the “down” position. Today I taped plastic wrap over it with masking tape. The final touches are in place. I’m going to get me some Lil’ Kim and hit the road.
Nighttime. Silence. Lonely hum of tv in the background. Dog whining for food he can’t have. Head buzzing with plans, confusion, desire. Wishing for more but knowing what I have is more than enough. More than what the majority of the world has. Again, the old “misery is relative” cartoon popping up in my head. The pushcart with square wheels, the little cartoon figures straining, trying to get the cart going…..
When I was about 6 or so my favorite song, or at least the song that made me feel most deeply moved and filled with a longing that I could not possibly identify at such a young age, was Deep Purple. The imagery and the music and the feeling that the song was written right there in my little bedroom just for me is indelibly etched in my mind. “when the deep purple falls… over sleepy garden walls……” and I cant’ remember the words now. But the feelings. Loneliness. And longing. And perfect in the way it fit right into that empty space inside of me. Cicadas with their riotous screaming outside my bedroom window, attic fan knocking out its crazy rhythm, warm breeze blowing over me in my little bed. Deep purple falling.
Alone and lonely and moved by the intensity of the feeling…. finding it lovely in its own way.
This is borrowed and lazy but I can’t help thinking it’s going to be going through my head all day at the reference desk as I am asked for the 20th time “how do you print from the computer?”
Thanks to Lola, the famous “I escaped from public service ex-librarian” for digging it up and posting on facebook……
HOLY SHIT! I just glanced over to Dennis Perrin’s page and see he has the SAME video on his post for today….. I have been outdone!!! Oh well…… it’s a universal sentiment….. rage, outrage…. use it as you like. c’est la vie….. I’m leaving mine up Dennis……. the librarians of the world deserve it……
Sometimes I can only communicate with certain persons via my blog because they have otherwise cut me out of their lives. So I send not so veiled messages to them via posts rambling on about the state of my mind. I try not to worry about one such person in particular because obviously said person doesn’t care so much about me to even respond to a simple text, or a quick e-mail. Why should I care if said person is dead or alive or in jail or in the hospital? Or perhaps just too busy with the latest victim to even come up for air for 5 seconds…. note to self: fuggidaboutit.
I saw the movie “Oliver!” 16 times when I was in 6th grade. I was obsessed with Jack Wild, who played The Artful Dodger. I knew every song by heart. I still know most of them and can sing them in character. Nancy, singing “As Long as He Needs Me”, Oliver sweetly singing “Where is Love?” and the Dodger singing “Consider Yourself At Home”….. Fagan “I’m Reviewing the Situation”….. I was so obsessed with Jack Wild that my friend Mamie and I would call the studio in LA where he was taping H.R. Puffinstuff, every day , several times a day, asking to speak to him. Mamie had her own phone line so the cost of long distance from South Carolina to LA was of no consequence in our adolescent Jack Wild addled minds. Finally, one day, the operator was so sick of us calling, she actually put Jack on the phone to us….. my god… imagine the shrieking screamfest that ensued…. when we were finally able to speak I asked weakly, “is this REALLY Jack Wild?”. He replied in that perfect cockney accent “who would it be if it ‘aint?”… more screaming and shrieking and crying on our end of the line.
He was cordial if confused about who the hell we were. He asked how the weather was in Carolina. I asked if he would come and be in our local Christmas parade. That’s all I remember. But god, the sheer determination of two adolescent girls still amazes me. We did it. We set our minds on talking to him and we did it.
Where is that girl? The girl with such determination? Such resolve. I guess she’s still in here somewhere. Still having various forms of hero worship. Occasionally brushing elbows with someone of some notoriety. I met Sam Shepard in a bar in West Virginia and in trying to act all nonchalant like I didn’t know who he was I asked him “don’t you work at Jiffy Lube?”.. he was confused, looking a little scared and amused and then was very polite when I told him I was kidding. But he left the bar pretty quickly after that. My attempt at seducing him away from Jessica Lange thwarted. I wonder still if he remembers that interaction. I can be a real ass at times. I once took a personality test with one of the many shrinks I’ve had in my lifetime and she told me I tested as the most introverted person she had ever tested in her entire career. Funny eh?
UPDATE: Thank god I’ve aged a little better than old Jack, looks like life wasn’t too good to the child star… rest his soul….
grindchopblend 