Box of Intimacy

October 29, 2006

You are there, and he is there.

You drove an hour in the dark, knowing what was to follow, what awaited you.

You parked, and you sat there a moment, thinking. You checked your hair, knowing it would just get messed up, but you wanted to look good.

You meet, you embrace, you kiss. You are taken by the hand, and led away from the portal to the outside world.

You are taken to a room where nothing matters except that very moment. You kiss some more, hands slip where strangers won't ever see.

It occurs to you that somewhere someone may be thinking of you, someone else may be in trouble. Somewhere, the sun is rising, but it doesn't matter. Because you are there, and no one but him and you knows. It is quiet, except for your breath, and the smacking of lips. You hear your pants fall to the floor, and you have to try not to laugh because it reminds you of a joke.

You laugh.

Maybe he understands, and maybe he doesn't. Maybe it's opened up his bag of insecurities. It wasn't intentional, and you try to let him know it's not him, it's you, but you forget when he starts kissing you again.

You do things that you shouldn't tell your mom about.

It's over. You lie there next to him, sweaty, out of breath. He thinks you want to cuddle, but you're not that kind of girl. He doesn't know that, so maybe you let him. He feels good pressed against you.

He falls asleep, and you try, but you can't. You just think.

You hear people talking outside, but they don't matter. They hardly exist. There is just you, and him, and the room. There is nothing outside of it. No bills, no work, no drama.

It's just you, and him, in the box of intimacy you've created. In the morning, it will disappear with the sunrise, but while you are in his arms, there is nothing else.

In the Morning -Junior Boys

Earthquake!!!

So, last night I'm sitting on the couch writing about my crappy childhood. I think I'm turning into a book. This isn't about that. I'm just laying the groundwork.

So I'm sitting there, and I hear this odd rumble. And then a bit of a shake. I thought it was going to be a roller of an earthquake, and I was prepared to just ride it out. But it went from little, turbulence-like shaking, to full on abusive earth punching rattling. Rattling. Gabe was in the bathroom freaking out yelling for me to get in the doorway.

After earthquakes, the thing to do is go outside. So I went, in my Christmas lobster flannel pjs, and met up with my neighbors who were all in the courtyard.

It's an eclectic bunch. Racially and ethnically diverse. White, black, Muslim, Latino, and Asian, all wide eyed and exchanging stories about what they were doing.

My upstairs neighbor, who I have blogged about due to his seemingly boring sexual exploits that tend to keep us up at night, was the first person I saw who said anything, and we were mostly laughing about it.

Our apartment manager was getting McDonalds with her kids. She was at a red light, and thought she'd been rear ended. I let her know it was an earthquake, and she cracked up.

A Muslim guy upstairs was freaking out, thinking it had to at least be a 7 on the Richter scale, and going on about how he read to expect a 10 should that happen.

One neighbor was in the shower.

Another neighbor was yelling at kids not to run.

We were all out there, just checking up on each other. Laughing. Making sure those that we knew were in poorer health were ok, despite the fact that some of those individuals are surrounded by family.

It was a lot of camaraderie. And laughter. Us watching out for each other. After telling a friend, she mentioned it's rare these days, which is sad. I'm happy to have some really nice neighbors. There are several that, if I moved, I'd want to take with me, just because I know I'll be surrounded by good people, and will occasionally have a pot of posole shoved at me with some tostada shells and limes. And really, that's the best kind of neighbor.

The earthquakes epicenter was just miles from my home. It was a 4.7. It FELT worse, but I didn't think it would be. The damage was pretty minimal. A few knocked over frames, a vase fallen on to carpet.

Eh. It was actually a pretty fun night, and I'd do it again.

If You're Happy and You Know It

...things are bad all over".

It's a line from "The Dover Bitch" by Anthony Hetch, a poem I rather enjoy that has absolutely nothing to do with the following, save that one line.

And things are bad. I've been laid off twice in the course of just a few months. I now have a job that doesn't pay enough, but it's a job. I'm lucky. I do oddball shit to make ends meet. My boyfriend is making way less than he was due to an injury that happened at work. He's in lots of pain, can't do anything fun, and I have to do all of his heavy lifting. Suffice it to say that things suck.

Now, I'm writing because I had an experience the other day that was sad and positive all rolled into one. I was at my local CVS pharmacy, and was my usual self. Dancing to the music, because it had a beat. In the store, just really not giving a shit about looking like an ass. Then I found these habit breaking patches that were rather amusing.

www.habitpatch.com

It struck me as funny. We're just after the New Year, and here are these things that are a 21 day program to break bad habits. And they had patches with habits to break such as: naughty, drama queen, and late. It was amusing. The naughty one was of particular interest to me, not that I see any problem whatsoever in my naughtiness. I, for one, revel in my naughtiness. I love it. I embrace it. I flaunt it like a Robbins Bros engagement ring that my mate couldn't afford but I pressured him into anyway. Suffice it to say, I love being naughty.

So, I'm laughing. And I asked the cashier how much it was. I was expecting maybe $2, and if that was the case, bet your ass it would have been mine, and I would have shared it with all of my fellow naughty friends, and we would have had a nice chuckle together. But no. That shit was $4.99.

That is not even the point of why I'm writing. I'm cracking up, dancing, making small talk with the cashier. And she said something that struck me as sad. She said "You're the only happy person I've seen today."

Now, I don't know how long she'd been there, but I was there pretty late in the day. I'd gotten there at maybe 4:30pm-ish. And no one was happy all day?

After she said that, I replied "I'm sorry." And I am. She told me people are so sour they are making her not want to exhibit the basic niceties. Asking her customers how they're doing. Things like that. It was bringing her down. It's sad.

Now, I know, again, that times suck. And that particular CVS is the one that I frequent, despite the fact that there is this funky smell of ass that punches you in the face the very second you walk through the door. No one really likes getting prescriptions, and mine was just to keep me from getting knocked up. Not making babies I can't afford is a reason to smile. Then, I actually used the coupons they keep giving me, and I had 3 applicable. I saved $9 on a $30 purchase. And that's on top of already getting things at 75% off on clearance. Yet another reason to be happy. The Jew in me was beaming with pride. And I think I may have just gotten back from seeing my main Jew, so it was a pretty decent time all around. At least that day.

Back to the point. The point is times are shitty. We all know this. We can mope. We can bark at people who are being reasonably nice, or at least cordial towards us. None of this will help to make us feel better.

What can we do?

We can try to suck it up, and just make an attempt to be happy. Find a silver lining on the bleak horizon. A ray of sunshine. A fun cliché that wasn't any of the ones I just mentioned. Crack a joke. Dance badly. Make our belly buttons talk. Be nice to those helping us. Be nice to those we help. Being sour about things can only affect us negatively. Stress impacts our health and our general well being. And the majority of us are in the same boat. Or at least a similar one.

While things are bad, try to keep these things in mind. Things can ALWAYS get worse. I know that despite how shitty things have been for me, I have my mate, a job, and some really good friends. Things could be worse. They would be worse if I wasn't dancing at CVS. If I wasn't the dancing coke can Jim says I am. And maybe it helps that I've been through way worse. I have a roof over my head, food in my cupboards, and a group of incredible people that make me smile.

I'm happy. Clap clap.

The Dover Bitch by Anthony Hecht

A Criticism of Life: for Andrews Wanning

So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl

With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,

And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me,

And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad

All over, etc., etc.'

Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read

Sophocles in a fairly good translation

And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,

But all the time he was talking she had in mind

The notion of what his whiskers would feel like

On the back of her neck. She told me later on

That after a while she got to looking out

At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad,

Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds

And blandishments in French and the perfumes.

And then she got really angry. To have been brought

All the way down from London, and then be addressed

As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort

Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.

Anyway, she watched him pace the room

And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit,

And then she said one or two unprintable things.

But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,

She's really all right. I still see her once in a while

And she always treats me right. We have a drink

And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year

Before I see her again, but there she is,

Running to fat, but dependable as they come.

And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour.

Soak Up the Sun- Sheryl Crow

(verse)
My friend the communist
Holds meetings in his rv
I cant afford his gas
So Im stuck here watching tv

I dont have digital
I dont have diddly squat
Its not having what you want
Its wanting what youve got

(chorus)
Im gonna soak up the sun
Im gonna tell everyone
To lighten up (Im gonna tell em that)
Ive got no one to blame
For every time I feel lame
Im looking up
Im gonna soak up the sun
Im gonna soak up the sun

(verse)
Ive got a crummy job
It dont pay near enough
To buy the things it takes
To win me some of your love

Every time I turn around
Im looking up, youre looking down
Maybe somethings wrong with you
That makes you act the way you do

(chorus)
Im gonna soak up the sun
Im gonna tell everyone
To lighten up (Im gonna tell em that)
Ive got no one to blame
For every time I feel lame
Im looking up
Im gonna soak up the sun
While its still free
Im gonna soak up the sun
Before it goes out on me

(verse)
Dont have no master suite
Im still the king of me
You have a fancy ride, but baby
Im the one who has the key

Every time I turn around
Im looking up, youre looking down
Maybe somethings wrong with you
That makes you act the way you do
Maybe I am crazy too

(chorus)
Im gonna soak up the sun
Im gonna tell everyone
To lighten up (Im gonna tell em that)
Ive got no one to blame
For every time I feel lame
Im looking up

(chorus)
Im gonna soak up the sun
Im gonna tell everyone
To lighten up (Im gonna tell em that)
Ive got no one to blame
For every time I feel lame
Im looking up

(end)
Im gonna soak up the sun
Got my 45 on
So I can rock on

Birthday Wishes

Ever get stuck in contemplation mode? Revisiting mode? Self inflicted emotional masochism?

Go back and re-read things you wrote when you were in love with someone else or heartbroken. Listen to those songs that made you cry. The songs that you used to listen to while falling asleep, lonely and alone or lonely with that warm body right next to you (the worst kind of lonely). Listening to the songs you listened to when you were fucking your favorite regret. wet again, and wondering if he can finally get that dent in your car fixed, but you don't want to fight him off, so you don't even bother to call and make sure he's still breathing, even though you really do care and maybe even miss him a little, because he's sweet when he's not begging. But it's certainly not the sex you miss....

sitting there with the bad poetry you wrote when you were heartbroken for the first time at 17, then again at 21 when it got a better because you stopped rhyming, and now that you're an adult, you're mostly happy and can't write shit that isn't about how all you want is just a good smack on the ass to make you feel better.

You want chocolate and a good fuck, even though your day already started with a bang and a chocolate meal bar.

You're in love and digesting the best meal you've had in weeks. I'm in love and digesting the best meal I've had in weeks.

we sit here and wonder why it can't be like it used to be, even though it used to be shit, but we loved it because it was all we had, and our friends were in the same place.

I missed norms at 2 am, and I got norms at 2 am back. Delirious, but not wanting the night to end. I should have had a schooner so that it would taste like I was 18 again and really only had to worry about not burning popcorn.

I'll be 29 in a week, and will spend my birthday acting like I'm 9, and I can't wait. I need the happiest place on earth. I need a picture with Mickey Mouse to remind me that it's ok to fuck adulthood. And I get to fuck adulthood with someone I wish I'd known in childhood so we could have made things better for each other, but then again, we probably wouldn't be here in adulthood to make a second childhood better. So fuck it. I wouldn't trade it.

I need a picture with Santa, and then I need to yank his beard and pee on his lap to get revenge for every fucked up Christmas where our toys were sold to support an addiction, and ask for a spoon that isn't bent and burnt and some real milk because cereal sucked when I was 10 because we only had condensed milk and forks. (You can't make crack in a fork).

I miss the times when the height of sexual activity amounted to a lot of heavy petting and blue balls, and you only WANTED to need condoms, but they were still only something your mom blew up because you wanted a balloon when you were 6. And god for the life of you it wouldn't pop, but it still doesn't explain how one of your brothers got here.

I miss my best friend, and I miss my best friend, and I miss my best friend. I miss everyone that I grew apart from. but I've made new friends, and I love you and I love you and I love you, and I hope that someday, I won't have to miss you, too.

I miss sleep. I miss when my body only ached when I wanted it to, when I begged for it. Not because I was typing for shit pay, or typing to not feel like shit.

I want a hug from my best friend, and my mommy, but will giggle as I snuggle into moobs and chest hair that wasn't there 6 years ago tickles the inside of my nostrils, and I'll want to fuck again, but I'll be too lazy, and it won't hurt, so I'll spend tomorrow staring at my computer screen thinking about a good fuck, and a good smack on the ass instead of how much it pays to remove and install heads on a 07 Audi A8 with a 4.2L engine, and then how much it will pay to replace the engine when the head is found to be defective. but engines don't turn me on the way they used to unless they have really high horse power and RPMs and I can sit on the hood, but the A8 has an aluminum body and if I dent the hood it will be really expensive to fix and I weigh 145lbs, and what I'd really like to be doing is sitting on the R8, but they won't let me touch it.

But what I really need right now is to be able to sleep, for real.

6.2.08

MGMT - Time to Pretend

The God Thugs

September 15, 2007

I live in a really bad neighborhood.

To an outsider, it would look completely normal. It's ethnically diverse. White black, Indian, Latino, Pakistani. Hell, we've even got two little people in my neighborhood, and you just don't see that everywhere. And we all live in harmony. No racial tension here. We're within walking distance of the police station and the 7-11, which is owned by an ethnically mixed couple (the husband is from Pakistan, the wife from the Philippines, both very nice) and it employs primarily Latinos and Asians. We're walking distance from Albertsons, and several car dealerships, including the one I work at. In my own apartment complex, which is not gated, people leave their bikes unchained, and they stay there for weeks. Untouched. That is the type of neighborhood I live in.

I've lived here for over 2 years, now. Really what I'm getting at is that I live in a pleasant neighborhood. Not ritzy, not pretentious. Just a nice place to be.

Well, it was nice until recently.

I was walking home the other evening. I got off late, because I've been doing some overtime. It was dark. Which is another nice thing about my neighborhood. I sometimes get home at midnight, and can still walk home a few blocks (parking sucks) and will really only encounter people walking their pit bulls, because they're being nice enough not to walk the dogs that they know their neighbors will be afraid of during the day. But I walk home late in the dark with no fear.

But then I saw it. Graffiti. In MY neighborhood.

A scary graffiti. A graffiti worse than any gang related "Scabby was here" "'lil bitch is my shorty" "Scabby 187" "13th street gang" shit. No. For that is graffiti that stems from a violence we are prepared for. A violence based on ethnicity and territory, and a stupid animalian sense of ownership.

But this is not that. It's worse. For it's a graffiti based on the love of God. And sure, people who are religious are frequently nice, good people, regardless of their religion. I have many Muslim neighbors, and there have been no problems. Ever. And I'm really not concerned about them. Sure the religion is hard to understand. It's a tad sexist and has gotten some horrible media post 9-11. BUT, the beliefs of your average Muslim are not that radical. No more so then a guy dying nailed to a piece of wood and springing back to life 3 days later then defying the laws of gravity and physics in general by ascending, in the flesh, through the sky and clouds, to heaven.

The words "I LOVE GOD!" are spray painted in several places around my neighborhood. On a building that someone will have to pay to clean, and they desecrated a tree.

Basically, my feeling is that anyone, in any religion, that has to do more than wearing the smallest piece of religious paraphernalia such as a cross, Star of David, or even your CTR ring, (which to me is pushing it) is cause for concern. Anyone who has to display "my boss is a Jewish carpenter" bumper stickers, "God is good" t-shirts, WWJD? Bracelets (but I much prefer WWBBD? aka, What Would Brian Boytano Do?, or better yet, WWTDD?, What Would Tyler Durden Do?) For to me, anyone who displays these items is someone who is so obsessive about their beliefs that they will argue heatedly their beliefs, then after that, will argue violently their beliefs, and then kill for their beliefs. And these arguments have led to some of the longest, most violent, and bloody wars in our planets history, some of which are still raging to this day.

Suffice it to say that I am fucking scared.

FOR THE REAL GOD THUGS GRAFFITI THAT IS REALLY IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD, CLICK BELOW:

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h48/biglizqotwf/090607_17411.jpg

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h48/biglizqotwf/090607_17431.jpg

Metaphor for a Missing Moment

January 27, 2007

You hear a song. Maybe it's one you haven't heard in years. Months. You've basically forgotten about it.

You hear it on the radio, or maybe it's one of the 2000+ songs in your iPod and it's popped up on shuffle. Coincidence.

But all of a sudden, you are 15 again. 30. 21. That song transports you back in time. It is such a part of that memory, that place in time, that you are immediately back there. Feeling what you felt. Doing those drugs. Loving who you used to love. Fucking who you used to fuck.

You're sad. You're elated. You want to turn it up. Turn it off. Throw the radio out the window.

You're feeling things you haven't felt in years. Things you loved to feel. Things you never wanted to feel again.

You forget you're 27.

You're with someone else now.

You have a new life.

In a few years it will be a new song.

But right now, all you want is to fast-forward. Leave that place. To be yourself again.

Orestes -A Perfect Circle

In the Morning

October 29, 2006

So you go to bed one night, and it doesn't really matter who it is next to you. All you know is things are beautiful. Your relationship is beautiful.

It's dark, and you get to just lie there, warm from the person that is there with you. You go to sleep, knowing that your relationship is intact.

In the morning, you wake up, and you stare at the ceiling for an hour, even though the need to urinate is what woke you. You get up, you go, and you crawl back in bed with that person. They're in their own little dream world, oblivious of you. You go back to staring at the ceiling. It's too light to go back to sleep.

You lay there an hour longer. You know all the faces in the stuccoed ceiling by now. You've even named them, and you have a favorite. You're bored with the things in your head. And you're sick of the snoring one across the bed.

You get up, get dressed. Smooth back your hair. Try to make it look like you weren't somewhere you shouldn't have been.

You leave, locking the door behind you. Knowing that, for better or for worse, your relationship has been altered forever.

Here in your bedroom -Goldfinger