Nin.

To me you are smoky hair and train tracks,

Red-lined lips and beer bottle ashtrays.

A sparrow, a crow – something, anything free.

You exist on fence posts, sitting cross-legged with a shy smile.

Other times you are destructive, waking up with tangled hair and eyeliner smudges trailing your face like tears, bruises and hickeys lining your breasts and thighs. You expose yourself in bars and let girls fuck you on your bedroom floor.

I bet you didn’t know I think of you like this, or at all.

I do my best thinking in the early morning, usually with the sun-drenched mountains as the backdrop, flying down 1-90 with the sun at my back, the jagged green all around and the promise of the city before me.

I do my best loving after a night of slippery bliss, gazing into the morning hours, those nights where we get three hours sleep because we just can’t close our eyes yet. Those moments when I imagine you above me, within me, throughout me. . .the width of your shoulders and the softness of your neck the beginning of my constant rapture with you.

I do my best writing when I fear it will make no sense, when bits and pieces invade and force me to pull over, to jot it all down, writing furiously while trying to hold the wheel, seeing every mom-and-pop restaurant from here to the mountains as a challenge, a place to conquer myself. When I allow my thoughts to linger on one tiny aspect – the grey flecks of a stranger’s eyes; the images I create based on your words – they unfold like golden butterflies dipped in stardust, an excursion of fantasy, the threat and promise of completion.

Perfectly, this free-association makes no sense. If I linger long enough, with my head bowed and my newly pink fingernails landing heavily on the keyboard, will some carnal knowledge force its way to the surface? Will I spill my theoretical guts?

I do my best impressions of you when I am bleeding, when my heart overextends itself and light spills forth from my fingertips. Only then can I evoke an ounce of the beauty you maintain within that perfect frame.

I am falling.

Firefly.

She comes to me in snapshots; her smile as she pulls a glass of red wine away from her lips, eyes gleaming as she watches me from across the table. I’m so bold, always, until the moment comes to kiss her, then I linger, unsure of myself. She is a pinnacle of swirling light, a bright little beam pushing its way through the clouds. She is a kaleidoscope, surefire woman and impressionable child fighting for the spotlight. Sex goddess, mother earth, completely unaware of her power. She commands the room with her innocence, her devastatingly piteous eyes. The moment you meet her, it’s as though she’s already apologizing for breaking your heart. She looks at you as if to say, “I’m sorry, please forgive me for not loving you.” It’s not her fault she is untouchable, unreachable in a sea of mere mortals. She is floating, dancing on the heads of the deceased, this tiny ray of light commanding our devotion, one delicate step after another. She knows exactly what it takes to make men desire her, and since I am a woman I stand a chance. But I am not impervious to her destruction; my heart beats just as steadily as a man’s. Will she tire of me as she does all the rest? Will she wake up, as I’ve done so many times and see nothing, nothing but a burden to be rid of, another poor heart to let down gently?

Will I beat her to it?

The possibilities, for greatness or desolation, seem endless.

Fame.

So.  This Thursday, tomorrow, marks the one year anniversary of my troupe.

As a measure of our success over the past 52 weeks, along with the bright lights and flashing cameras of our house and audience members, we’re also gonna have the bright lights and cameras of a real film crew.  We’re gonna be on TV.  We’re being filmed tomorrow for a reality TV show!

I can’t say the name, blah blah blah, but one of our troupe members will be going away for three days to live someone else’s life, and someone else will be filling her shoes here in Seattle, if that’s any hint.

This is pretty high pressure, for someone who wants their troupe portrayed in the most favorable light (you know how those reality TV producers can be), and who isn’t very comfortable being in front of an audience, much less a camera crew.  I was nervous enough when we were filming our troupe video thing, but National TV?  Overall I’m totally excited, knowing this could mean great great things to come for my girls who work so freakin hard, so all I can do is grin and bear it, and do my best to not look like a complete dork

It airs in September, we’re the season opener!

Oh, and they’re filming during our regular Thursday show, so come down and watch the fun! 

on writing

“If I don’t write, I will die,” he says to me, and I remember a time when I felt the same way.  I can’t relive the feelings, or conjure the pain, but I remember a time when I felt if I couldn’t create, I wasn’t truly living.  Conversely, only through my masterpieces, although scarce, could I truly feel alive.

Do you remember being a teenager, and having that one thing that you always did, that you lost once you became an adult?  It could be anything. . .playing the piano, writing in journals, or perhaps just going for walks or sitting by a particular river.  For me it was writing.  It was something I did every single day, and as I grew up, I stopped doing it.  Then about 5 years ago, I picked up the proverbial pen again, and re-established a relationship between myself and my words.

Lately, as in the past year, I’ve felt my ability to write slip away from me.  I used to blame it on my lack of inspiration, but after my recent encounter with my muse, I still can’t create.  This worries me.  What worries me more is my lack of resolve to fight for myself, to refuse to give up, to throw rocks at my own window reminding myself I’m there.   For what good is a writer without words, and what am I to become if not a writer?

It used to be that I was a slave to the word.  “It’s none of my business what I write,” I used to say.  Now I am awoken by nightmares that I have aphasia, and the words come out all jumbled.  At times I lie there, 3. . . 4 am. . .crazy thoughtless words filling those voids like sand between pebbles, and all I can think is, “I would be crazy to get up now.”

Perhaps a little crazy is what I need.

So on and on I go, hoping that I don’t stray too far, treating my writing like some unattainable goal, like those last ten pounds, or the elusive vacation people put off until the kids are grown and gone.

Digging deep.

This sucks.

There’s not a person on this planet who doesn’t know where they stand with me.

Or is there?

If you are reading this, and I haven’t been 100% clear with you on my intentions, or where you stand with me, please speak up.   Someone recently told me I tend to “soften the blow” when I’m “done” with someone, which I initially thought was a good thing, but now I’m realizing that it’s better to be 100% honest, even if it’s not pretty.

I try to always follow that rule nowadays, but I have a tendency of falling into “little white lies,” and I think that needs to stop too.  What I mean by that is telling someone, “I’ll call you,” and then never calling, as opposed to saying, “You bore me to tears,” or something equivalent.

I wrote a whole post on this, justifying it to myself, when I got to the last line: “The question is, is it better to be in limbo with someone, and not quite sure what happened, or to know absolutely everything, even if it hurts?”

Phrasing it like that answered the question for me, so here I am.

I have a couple of hard emails to send, I think.

Time on my hands.

So it appears I’m taking the summer off of school, because of financial aid reasons, which means not only do I have no school, I also have no job, AND my baby will be in these really awesome summer camps all day, soooo. . . . Anyone wanna hang out??

I guess I could like, get a job yo, but. . .naaahhhh.  I’d rather play.  Yes, that’s lazy of me.  Yes, I’m totally living off your tax dollars, but damnit if I haven’t worked my ass off for the past 14 years and I think I’m allowed to play a little.  At least for a little while, right?   I don’t really need to grow up any time soon, do I?  I’m raising my baby and paying my bills and paying rent and I own my car and I’m buying groceries and shit. . .I’m allowed to be lazy, right?  As long as I spoil myself and don’t expect someone else to? Ok, so maybe I’m justifying a little guilt here.  I’ll probably break down and get a job anyway (I’d really like to work in a morgue, I just think it’d be cool) because I’ll be so damn bored with nothing to do all day!

What else. . .?  Um, my mom is quitting smoking.  That’s a huge thing to me.  My mom is one of those women who has smoked so long her voice is very deep and her skin is all old looking because of it. . .you know the kind. . .and both her brother AND sister have had to have open heart surgery in the last 6 months to fix big old fat clots, so she’s finally (yes, too late) decided it might actually affect her, and she’s quitting.  I wish her major luck.

Aside from that, everything is plodding along with the show (fuck, our new run is AMAZING), the baby is amazing in every way, the boyfriend is fucking perfect and school is picking up.  Overall, I’d have to say I’m happier than I’ve ever been.  Yay for that.  My birthday (29th) is in three weeks, and I’m not afraid of it this time    I feel like I’ve grown in so many ways the last year alone.   I can only imagine things will be even better as I slip (hopefully with grace) into 30.

Time will tell.