Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Cheating Death - v.1

The Doors

Jim: I feel most alive confronting death, experiencing pain.

Pam: I think you're most alive recognizing beauty, seeing truth. Does death turn you on? You love death?

Jim: Life hurts a lot more. When you die, the pain's over.

I need somebody

to find me

Between the cartoons and the threesomes

Along the lost highway with The Doors

There are explosions in the Vatican

and cheating lies in the hookah bars.

He rests, thirty pounds lighter, driving across open fields

now degraded with autumn.

He said to me on the phone, I need somebody…

I nodded to the Venus following the Moon.

Is everybody in?

Sunday, September 27, 2009

I married myself

April 9, 2003

So, it snowed last week Friday.
And iced.
And the streets were fucking ice skating rinks.
I did not drive anywhere.

"The paint's peeling off the streets again and I'll drive and close my eyes in Michigan. And I feel nothing, not brave. It's a hard day for breathing again... The heat is chasing off all of your friends and their scattered bodies part to the shore again. And I feel nothing, not sane. It's a hard day for dreaming again. I'm not going back to the assholes that made me, and the perfect display of random acts of hopelessness...."

I did not go back.
And once again, the weather came through for me. Roads and highways covered with perilous danger. Distraction.

This Friday I drank too much and still thought I could get dolled up for the bar. Go out regardless.
I told him to meet me there.
Got there.
Found a seat.
Had one drink and stumbled out.
Seein’ double, refusing to react to the taps on my shoulder.
"Listen, it's Lola. I’m calling from home. If you get this, don't go to the bar. Come to my place. I’m too drunk. Got too drunk to stay there."

He did get it.
And by then, I was passing out in my bed.
And I guess I talked like a doll.
Chatty Cathy.
"And I see ghosts... This one time in Virginia I saw so many. So many. I had to turn away. I had to go crazy."
"Oh, this album. Hang on, I have to sing." (Bright eyes turned up way too loud.)
And tears.
And then sleep.

He still gets up at 9am. That drives me nuts. Because once your guest is up, you should be, too. And if you aren't, then you can't, and then you can't go back to sleep because they are roaming through your kitchen and will eat you out of house and home because you forgot to shop for food.

When you do wake, they're by your side with a hard on. "I can't fuck, it's that time, it's the bad time of the month, the scary time, and I’m terrified." You know it's an excuse but you say it. Because you really don't want to wake up, you really want to sleep it off and fuck later – later that night, when the sun isn’t out, the lights are dim, and you're drunk again.

And he reads.
And then you wake up again.
And say, "no, let's fuck," because like a boy, your body rouses you from sleep and dreams of nakedness and the slow, wet entry of cock.
And he obliges because he's been hard for three hours now.

"You wanna get food?" he asks.
The last thing you want. What you want is to sleep again. Or to fuck again. But not food. And not the alone time with him in a public place, and not the time it takes to get dressed. It seems too hard on a typical Saturday for you, which is lazy typically and public radio and zoning out while recalling the night before.

"No."

You get restless because you're tired, but not tired enough to sleep with him. And you want to do something, alone. So, you start to clean. Pick up the leftover shit. Then, look at the dirty dishes in disgust without the energy to do them. So, you shower. While he still reads. Still sits there. Still lays there. And you don't have the heart to tell him to get the fuck out. And it's not really what you want to say because you like him being around, for company, for fucking, but not for intimacy or boyfriend shit. You are not going steady. You are not obligated to have lunch. Or hold hands.

Then, you crawl under the blankets, dressed, and wet hair. You read and he piles himself next to you. And you listen to public radio while you read Bukowski poems. And you just wish he'd leave because this, this is your solitary routine. But you don't say it. You don’t say it because you're a coward and afraid to hurt his feelings. After all, he cut himself in your kitchen and says he'll be fine with your non-monogamy.

So, you get up. You get up because you had read Bukowski saying he, when dining on one candy bar a day and getting drunk and beat up in the alley, wrote 5 short stories and 20 poems a week. You pause to figure that amount out in your head. 7 days. 5 stories, 20 poems. Ok, I work 5 days a week. I could come up with that number. Fuck. Fuck. I gotta start now. I don't have the guts to quit my job and move and live in slums and fuck up like that. Fuck. I got a long way to go. Fuck. I gotta start something now. So, if I start with old stuff and submit that for a while, then I can catch up.

So you get up and sit there, head in hands, and finally he says, "you're going to write" (because you've turned on your computer), "so I’ll leave." But it's that weak, hesitating kind of "I’ll leave if you say so, but ask me to stay, please.” You kiss him goodbye and thank him for sitting through your drunk bullshit the night before.

You don't write. You can't write for some reason.
So, you start to drink and check emails.

And then it's nighttime.
And you're tired at 6pm.
So, you take a nap until 10pm.
Get up for Saturday Night Live and try to sober up.
What world are you in? Where are you? Tired. Drunk. But can't sleep more.

So, you go out to the bar. But now you feel sober after the nap. After the few drinks that you had when you got up. You feel so sober. And you find a seat at the bar, start writing, and the annoying barman looks over your shoulder and tries to kiss you. You refrain. And keep writing. And it's good. It’s good because you can still read your writing and still make out the reasons you're writing. And you drink for a few hours (daylight savings, bars close early tonight). Then, you get kicked out. "Lola, you know you can stay until the last person leaves, but... We really want to close up." I know. I know. Thanks for letting me stay this late. I know you want to go home.

Walk down the street.

To the Orpheum, where I used to work. Where I only stop in when I haven't had enough for the night and want a last one (a free one) for the road. I knock on the glass door and the door guy says we're closed and I say, I used to work here, is Steve or Alex here? I know the names and he lets me in.

Little Steph is here. God, how I had wanted to talk to her in January. We shared the same pain of abortion but at different times. I had wanted to find a time to tell her, ask her, console, but it never came up. Steve gets me a drink and I go behind the tall velvet curtains (where we hide our after-hours drinking from the cops on the street). Steph comes over to sit with me and the handful of others.

"Oh my god," she says in her college speak with her big, round eyes popping out even more. "So, guess what?!"
What?
"The other Stephanie – remember, my roommate? – is getting married."
No way!
"Yeah. To Javier. He wants a green card and she's in love with him. I’m not sure about it, but whatever... But guess what?"
What?
"I’m gonna marry them!!!"
What do you mean, Steph?
"Well, Stephanie asked me to marry them!!"
And, like, what? You got a license off the web?
"Exactly! I’m an ordained minister!!" (She’s Jewish.)
Wow, cool!
"So, like, this Sunday I’m gonna marry my first couple!"

I’m drunk. I’m kinda drunk. And I’m thinking... well, nothing, but I say....

"Steph… Steph… Steph! Hey, what about... So, who have you married already?"
“No one,” she says.
"So, wanna marry someone tonight?"
“Who?” she asks.
"Me!"
“What?” she smiles, knowing I’m drunk, knowing she’s drunk.
"Will you… marry me to myself?"
“You're crazy.”
"C'mon, Steph. Marry me to myself!!"

I give her my hand.

She says, "Will you, Lola, take you, Lola, to be your lawful wedded self." She giggles drunkenly. "For better or worse. For richer or poorer... I forgot the rest."

"In sickness or in health..." I prompt her.

"In sickness or in health... through pizza or boys.." She adds.

"..or girls!!" I say.

".. or girls… Through shit and bad times, through fat and thin times! ‘Til death do you part? Yes? Or is it ‘I do?’ God, I can't remember." She giggles.

"Yes! I do!... Yes! I do, too!"

"Well, I pronounce you married to yourself!"

I kiss my hand.

I got fucking married to myself. I am married. I am married to the hottest, smartest, sexiest, most amazing woman in the world. And I married her. Good goddamn!

Cindy comes up from around the corner of the theatre. "Hey, you guys wanna go watch the Rocky Horror Show? They aren't getting good turn out tonight."

We go to the theatre with fresh drinks and watch Rocky Horror acted out by obese kids in lingerie.

After our last drinks I say, "I’m gonna go home and honeymoon with my woman!!"

Instead, I’m stalled by a bartender who wants to take me to a manager's party – three floors above my apartment. And I forget...that I just got married. That I should carry her over the threshold, or take her garter off, or fuck her silly. I’m just like a frat boy: a party? Yeah!!!

Good part of the party: I get to see what the penthouse of our apt building looks like. Bad side: the liquor finally hits me and I’m drunk. I have to leave. Stupidly tell a boy to follow me and give my apartment number.

I end up passing out on the bathmat again. Knock Knock. I don't get up. He'll go away.

I’m sorry, but me and my wife are puking. Passing out.

I forget all about it on Sunday.
I wake up. I read Bukowski. I listen to the radio. I do the dishes. I nap.

And then I remember.

I am married.
To myself.
Forever more.
Not a bad bond.
This kind I could like.

Friday, September 25, 2009

The secret conversations I have in my head

When Flickr is uploading and/or I've had sufficient wine.

My neighbor man knocks on my door:

Man: I'm sorry, I really need to sleep tonight. Could you keep the noise down?

Me: [You can't always get what you want - Rolling Stones - is playing in the background] You know those times when you tap tap tap your fucking razor on the wall of your bathroom and it tap tap taps my wall? Well, that's fucking annoying. And, the times when you plug in that fucking amplifying speaker cord into your goddamn computer or whatever and there's that horrible loud zap sound? Or, how about your fucking teenage daughter has parties late and loudly? Or, how about the loud ping ping ping of your goddamn online chat? Or when you come home and jingle jingle jingle your fucking keys? Or, when you always slam your fucking door? Or, how I hear your moan moan moan of fucking? ... Well, I never said a goddamn fucking thing because I remember back when we ran into each other in the bouglangerie and you pretended that you didn't hear my cough cough coughing. I base our relationship on a fooling of secrecy and silence. So, fuck you. You don't hear a goddamn thing tonight.

Like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
I could totally marry someone if we promised to live without open relationship drama and shared a housing situation wherein we each had our own apartments. I could stop by, rub his back while he painted. He could stop by, rub my back as I wrote. We wouldn't have to talk while we were in the same room though. It would be a shared appreciation of physical shared space. Just because I was there, he wouldn't have to talk - or engage me or ask my opinion or ask for my help or even acknowledge my existence. But we'd know we were there for each other.

Does anyone know an easy way to compress an MP3? Because I have a kick ass song I want to post online. Fuck Audacity - it's too complicated.

I really shouldn't have emailed that guy back last night. I was too manic to sound sane.

I dreamed I was pregnant. I know I'm not. I know this bloated belly is just PMS. But I dreamed the Spaniard knocked me up. I sent my sister an email. We started chatting on Skype and I asked her if she wanted it. We swore never to tell the child that I didn't want it. I would have to go into hiding for the 9 months. There would never be any photographs of the pregnancy. I would treat it like a niece or nephew. I would enjoy eating whatever I wanted to and lazying around the house. Childbirth would bring no feelings of regret. .... My cousin had a baby a couple of days ago. My younger cousin. The one I grew up with playing "store" in our grandparents' house. The one I told about cool music and gave mixed tapes to. The one whose brother I drunkenly sucked off in the entryway to my hotel room the night of her wedding (and who won't speak to me now - I fear I've damaged him). She's had a baby. My baby cousin. She doesn't look like she's grown up enough to do so. I can imagine her, when thinking about making the baby, giggling to her husband, shrugging her shoulders, and childishly goofing as she says, "So, whaddaya think about makin' a baby?! Hahahahha!" And then she'd do a little goofy kid dance where she'd kick up her feet a bit and square-dance her elbows out. She's a successful pharmaceutical marketer rep or something. He makes the internet buzz with interactive activity at football games and such. They live in a top floor apartment of a high-rise in Chicago. Their dog is named after a park nearby that sounds like Jackoff. They are not old enough to have a baby. Their baby does not wake my ovaries, but it makes me feel more lost. Am I really missing something? What's wrong with me that I'm not even the slightest interested in this for myself? I'm beginning to think I'm slightly developmentally slow. I mature slowly. I am only now realizing the value of my family. Will I realize the value of making my own too late?

It wasn't nice that Tall Tom didn't invite me to his party tonight.
The reason I brushed him off was for his random insistence that we hang out. I'm not "on-call" for him. He has no idea what's happening to me. He has no idea what good information I could impart to him for his second year. I feel like I'm 15 again and rejected. It's all very silly.

Yeah, that's all the conversations I've had for tonight. Or, at least those that I want to write out.

Shhh don't tell.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Entertainment for today

I am going over 8 years of Cheating Death Once Again and cataloging all my posts. The count on my dashboard says that since 2001 it's been 937 posts. The count I have between half of 2006 and today is 487 posts - including this one. I guess it makes sense.

I haven't stopped to read them, as that's the next phase. But in glancing and not remembering what I wrote three years ago, it looks damn interesting. I made some really quirky titles for my posts. And, as of now, I've yet to come across two of the same. That's encouraging.

I really like this McSweeney's 2006 entry that has nothing to do with cuteness:
SILLY THINGS MY 3-YEAR-OLD SAID THAT I'M CERTAIN THE REST OF THE WORLD WOULD FIND SWEET
AND CUTE.


And, then, because I need a silly break:

I AM: sitting cross-legged in a horrible chair.
I JUST NOW: poured the last of a bottle of Merlot.
I SAID: nothing to anyone today.
I WANT: to keep the big tits associated with PMS, but not the bloating belly balloon.
I WISH: sometimes when I see a star, sometimes on my birthday, and then whenever the hell I feel like it.
I HATE: nothing really, but sometimes I use the word for emphasis.
I MISS: daily newspapers (for the crossword), Wired magazine, Newsweek.
I FEAR: fear.
I HEAR: way too much on this street: scooters, motorcycles, horns, cars, buses, babies crying, people screaming, and random birds - usually pigeons.
I WONDER: all the time, and it's a great activity.
I REGRET: nothing - still - and that's a great thing.
I AM NOT: a man, but sometimes I feel like I have penis.
I SING: the song of freedom - but only in the shower, and only in my head.
I CRY: when I cut fucking leeks; and then, not enough.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: pretty.
I MADE: dookie this morning.
I WRITE: when inspired, since 1986.
I CONFUSE: memories.
I NEED: sunshine or Vitamin D daily.
I SHOULD: do and be so many things, but I'm not Catholic so I don't care too much.
I START: books and often never finish them.
I FINISH: when I have to.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

The bathroom blow job

Found.
Written March 1, 2008.
I suppose I didn't post this because of shame. I should have used a condom.
But I'm posting it now because I feel shameless. Because I am Popeye.

&&&&&&&&&&&

I'm at least 25% lesbian. It's true. A soft pair of girl lips and a nice rack resting just below mine. I cave. I should stop trying to tell people I'm not gay. I'm gay and happy and straight and curvy and not well defined at all.

I'll finish the Craigslist story, I promise. (If there's more to what happened weeks ago I promise to tell. If there's not, I'll tell what happened back then [with the Royal Air Force].) But since then, times have been dry. Mojave Desert. India in between and then period-ville. Bad timing and bad backburner boys to choose from. I've been holding out, but I already know that holding out is automatic punishment. I shouldn't wait for people.. despite the prize possession I would offer them (renewed virginity - after a month of not fucking I can be so tight).

So to break the spell, I went out to the club on Wednesday to see Tapes 'N Tapes (from Minneapolis). Chatted it up with the bartender. Ended up with too much Jack and not enough Coke. Kisses, and found films on my digital camera with his face and whispers. He called the next day and I met up with him Friday afternoon. Class in the morning, buy some hand weights - gotta get back in shape!, run them home, eat lunch at 3pm, change clothes, meet bartender boy.

We meet in a café in a neighborhood I'd been in before. I had to get my study visa in this neighborhood. I had an x-ray of my lungs and was given an identity card. We settled into a booth in a nook.

"Boy" was man and he let us make small talk for only so long. He pulled out the bar napkin with drunken scrawl: "Lola-Chicago - I don't want <3 - I want fuck." I remembered this before he reminded me, but this was confirmation. Well, at least it's out on the table now.

He leaned in and rested his steady hand on the back of my head and kissed me. Almost trance-like, I was pulled into his lips and tongue and boldness. Directness is a drug for me.

He pulled away and smiled. He pointed out that he would not blush, but would I? Of course I would. It's not a question of modesty, it's a question of realizing my reality. If I stop and think about it, I see myself from outside and feel on stage. If I keep kissing though, I will have no rouge cheeks. His hand on my bare knee and up under my skirt at the thigh. Do I like what he's doing? Yes. His hand up under my skirt moving my cotton thong apart from my skin. I didn't shave. I want to tell him I'm a bit more hairy than usual because I didn't foresee this. I should start foreseeing more.

"I'm going downstairs. You should follow me."

I hem, haw, read my French-English dictionary, and follow. As I walk across the café, I make my face look like, "Hm, he went to the bathroom. That's actually a good idea. I think I will, too, real quick. La dee da. Nothing to see here."

I head calmly down the stairs and see him washing his hands at the basin. We kiss. He tries one bathroom door but it's locked. He tries the other one and we duck into it. We kiss again, and he pulls my tit up through the low neckline of my shirt. I ask if he has a condom. No. He fingers me inside my panties.

I could just kiss the whole time but I know that time is of the essence and something's going to happen with or without condoms. Bathroom. Short time span. What to do. I unzip him. He leans back against the wall and brings me with him. I kneel. He bends over and reaches into my shirt and bra and oohs at finding my nipple pierced. He's sensitive, he says. He wants to go slower. I could make him cum, he says. I suck his balls while he jacks himself. He gets


&&&&&&&&&&&

And that is the end of what I wrote. I remember he came.

The brain reconfigures memory, reorders events, resets them among other events to form narrative, causality: it creates sense. The mind tells itself stories about what happens to it. So me saying that I did X because of Y rests on thousands of assumptions about who or what I think I am, how I thought of myself then—transmuted into how I think about myself now.

...Any sort of attempt to sort meaning from the past is fraught in thousands on thousands of ways, exponentially splintering. The more you think about it the more it asymptotically approaches impossibility.

This is not to suggest we shouldn’t attempt it. The attempt is glorious, and attempting rewires the brain. It moves the circuitry around, attaching a new conclusion to an action, reconstructing self. In a way, thinking about the self hacks it. [Essay as Hack - Ander Monson]

I have a fleeting idea that I either puked or spit in the toilet. Or, perhaps I simply wiped my mouth with toilet paper and avoided the streak of semen on the floor as I walked out.

He had to leave for work shortly after that. He bought the espressos and called me several times after. I never saw him again.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

My thanks

Dear Lola,
I just read your blog for the first time in a very long time, and I wanted to give my regards with respect to your father's health. I know this is a very belated, 'out of touch friend' type of email, but I hope everything went okay and that he is doing well, and that you are doing well too. No need to reply if you're busy, just wanted you to know I am here.


&&&&

I almost had a baby with this man. Well, not almost. Well, not even close. But we could have. And it wouldn't have been a bad decision. I mean, considering his wonderful personality. I'm so happy he has his own family now. He really deserves the best of life.

She would have been a red-haired fiery demon. She would have been six years old now, this month.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Making a mood

The last time I had sex was the 21st of July. It was with the Spaniard. I was drunk and took a cab to his place. I remember drinks, smoking, music, talking, him listening, talking, me trying my hardest to swallow his cock, us in his bed, he trying to go down on me, me pulling him up, begging for his cock.

I saw the Butcher last week. We drank whiskey and I smoked at least a half a pack of cigarettes -- after I'd quit so honorably and so well prior to the trip to the US. We drank wine and ate some and talked. At some point he was talking and my eyes started to lose themselves. His face was resonating louder than the rest of the scene. His face zoomed out at me like a 3-D movie. I went over to his couch and started kissing him. He was too drunk to fuck me and I was too drunk to want to suck him for a long time. He left me in his bed, thinking I'd sleep. I couldn't. I got up and he walked me to a cab.

I am in a strange place now. No sex for almost two months. Cloistered again up in the tower of my apartment. Growing weary of Paris. Growing more fearful and blaise about life. I'm in some between wasteland. Killing time. Seeing the sights I haven't seen yet in Paris. Trying not to spend much money. Feeling fat from sedentary living and my trip to the States. Too shy to make eyes with a cute guy in line at the grocery store - who clearly made moves on me.

And, the Spaniard invites me over tonight. Part of me wants some semblance of romance. Scratch that. Some semblance of respect. The TV Producer has sent an email inquiring about me, ending his note with xxx in bisous. There is no satisfaction there. I have not replied. But the Spaniard has always seemed gracious, friendly, respectful. Example: he tried to go down on me. That counts for something.

See, I have lost mojo again. It's September, the Monday of all months. The wistfulness of summer, the warning of cold, slow days. I feel October around the corner more than I did last year, I think. I'm floating. I'm lost. I'm between before and next. I want someone to hold me. I want the Spaniard to open me up, peel me like an expert culinary artist. I want his hands to feel my obscenely soft skin. I want him to guide my mouth to his hard cock and pet my fine hair in his fingers. I want to be on my hands and knees when he enters first. Or, do I want him pushing my legs open and apart, watching my face as he enters? I am a virgin again.

Tall Tom has called for the past couple of days. And I remember when he scolded me for not moving while he fucked me. A person is not a fish. And every tiny movement of my muscles - face, mouth, legs, cunt - they all move in adoration and relief and hallelujah. He just couldn't see them through his frenzy.

I do not want to be a sad sack tonight. I do not want to cry for mercy. I do not want my eyes to moisten over thinking of meaning that isn't there. I just want to be less of a fuck and more of a freedom.