anais nin

i finished Henry & June last night, i’ve never read anything quite like it. it was very real – most journal/diary books seem shaved at and shaped, so all the pieces match up and it seems to be GOING somewhere. this was just a lovely mess. one day she hates him, the next day she loves him, a week later it’s over for sure and she thinks he’s weak, the next day the doubt seems ridiculous. sporadic expressions of acute guilt, obligation, confusion, confliction – it’s almost as if this could be any intelligent, creative woman’s diary, if they were better able to translate spinning thoughts and webs into words and paragraphs. i loved it, it love her. i want all of her diaries. to read this and to have read Tropic of Cancer so many times, it’s such an amazing counterpoint. not consciously, just that i knew all the characters already, and to see them all from a different point of view is incredible. i love her writing voice. last night i finished the book and while emailing andrea (it got a little long, from the reading i think) looked at all the photographs i could find of anais nin - i’d only seen one or two before, it was strange that she looks exactly how i would expect her to look…. her face matches her voice and her penstrokes.

sunday morning

eric and adam have gone to chilli for a heating pad for Sam I Am’s terrarium. terarrium? i go with terrarium. anyhow that leaves me with a lovely free hour, which i’ll waste beautifully on a cup of coffee, facebook, and a jack the ripper forensic analysis special on the science channel.

the hummingbirds are tapering off….. the only thing that makes me sad to see august end. they’ll begin to migrate if they aren’t on the road already. i have a favorite, i look for her every morning and have way too many pictures of her. haven’t seen her the past two days, but the feeders are being shuffled to accomodate fewer birds so she just might not like the arrangement. i thought i saw her look in the front window yesterday morning, but that could’ve been any hovering bird.

eric got me a white’s tree frog, i am incredibly happy. his name is Sam-I-Am, he is very green, and looking at his face, i’m positive he’s actually a girl…. i say “he” until i’ve been looking a few minutes then unconsciously begin to say “she” – there hasn’t been a thorough examination, there’s a settling process.

eric just called – petland doesn’t open for another hour, he and adam are in kroger’s shopping and killing time. adam jumped up and down and squealed and ran into eric’s arms, he was so excited and surprised at the idea of taking off with daddy unexpectedly. that spontanaiety makes up for the super-planning super-packing of excursions with me….

yesterday was eric’s company party, it was hot and generally miserable but there was a very small train so adam was happy. he got to eat doritos and drink lemonade and ride the train over and over. he is sunburned across his nose this morning, he looks like a little tree sprite.

i don’t have a good closing. just pictures:

hands

Henry

tuesday afternoon (insert moody blues here)

it’s not sunny, but it doesn’t FEEL nearly as dreary as it actually is, which i take as a good sign. i am in some sort of post-employed euphoria, maybe. a week and a half (translated into training and two sales shifts) as an employed person, and i’ve still got the euphoria!

things are looking sad and dead. the mornings are cooler. we sleep under covers. monday the first school bus went by, which is a HUGE morning event. autumn is on its way.

friday i couldn’t decide how to fix things, and decided the best thing was to clean myself and adam up and go to El-Bee and give notice in person. angela messaged me that she wanted to come visit, and accepted my offer to come along to my resignation. she looked at posters from a maurice sendak book (that she’d brought us) with adam while i mailed christine’s package.

it’s wrong, but a toddler with large blue eyes makes a lovely prop. i went to human resources and adam batted his eyelashes and i got out of all my shifts with no hard feelings. returned the heels and bought adam some fall clothes while i still had the employee discount and got the hell out of there.

the euphoria has been pretty consistent since then….

sporadically exploring a box of old cameras and lenses that belonged to angela’s grandpa – i have to be sly, adam knows everything in that box is shiny/has gears or buttons. i get that. that’s why i can’t stay out of it either.

saturday eric and i went to maysville for the tattooing, DEAR GOD. apparently when others are nervous i become a psychotic person, handing out jolly ranchers and potato chips – there’s a lobby, and in it was a girl on her 18th birthday (old for 18 – skinny, red hair, seen a lot but with that naive “by god or the right man i shall overcome my obstacles and my station in life” shy/hopeful smile) and her 27 yr old bucktoothed meshy coordinated athletic jersey/shorts/hat pale blue outfit combo with spotless white low top clunky nike-wearing boyfriend. he was embarassing all of us, not by his super-young girlfriend, but by his twitchy vomity color-changing pussiness. she was embarassed. her oversized rednecky friend that was there for who-knows-what reason on their special matching-tattoo day was embarassed. i was embarassed. eric was embarassed. so i gave everyone candy and rambled and admitted it was our first tattoo, too. it was a relief when she was sent home for an ID and he was ushered into a room.

nothing says romance like a generic romantic phrase in a basketball. or in her case, a star. info-gathering afterwards revealed their ages, the fact he did in fact go through with it, and that she burst into tears halfway through. it doesn’t take a genius to realize not much of that was about tattoos. representations of permanence freak people out – and reveal the freak-out to others.

eric has balls. 4 1/2hrs of tattooing. mine was 15 minutes, JJ didn’t even charge me. it was a crazy/good/different day. i think we are just redneck enough to actually have bonded over tattoo-getting…..

oh! in case anyone halfway local happens to stumble onto this: Doll Star Tattoo, Maysville, KY. 

i don’t mind getting up with eric at 5am to put aquaphor on his back before he goes to work, it’s actually been nice to see him in the morning. adam has been waked by this, so i wake up nose to nose with him, and that’s pretty awesome.

heather will be back around sep13th.

adam is watching the care bears movie, his head is tilted, he’s ready for a nap.

there’s no color to the sky. that will be fine once the leaves turn to balance it out….

tattoos

“My beloved is mine and I am his, he feedeth among the lilies”

if eric does something he does it ALL THE WAY – phoenix, first session

….and the time flew…..

at one point, i was a really pretty boy… at another point, a zombie… plus here is our first family portrait, courtesy of JC (jon not jesus)

honesty…..

i have a rant that has built, a bursting inner monologue, and lying to myself over this stupid shit is done and over.

i HATE my job. HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT. two days and i hate it. i hate being back in that place. i hate smiling. i hate worrying. i hate the fact that a week before i went back i started to remember that i was 31, and that i hadn’t been using an undereye cream every night, and worrying about crow’s feet and getting a wattle spurred a breakout, which is actually SIGNIFICANT to sales in this line of work, i hate that shaky terror at the breakout and the wrinkles and being 31 and (THIRTY ONE last week i didn’t care) sent me into further torment, which led to a coldsore, and a cold sore selling cosmetics??? seriously?? it’s like a fat girl selling a jillian michaels dvd, a white guy selling a book about oppression – it DOESN’T WORK.

standing on the same carpet surrounded by jars and jars of 90 dollar lies makes me crazy. the other lancome worker, the manager? i look at her and see why i left, why i had to leave. i hate her. she’s a monster, a robot, a shell of a human, her brain doesn’t see people, she is a walking calculator whose only function is to smile and chat while evaluating which buttons to push to make you give her the most money. where to find the weaknesses. what promises to make. i look at her in her 60′s after 20 yrs plus exploiting her fellow sex’s insecurities to sell overpriced gloop that was dripped into the eyes of bunnies and painted on the tails of rats and i see what i do not want to become. what i was becoming…

YEARS, it took years to forgive myself for all of the shit before – not just the drugs, or the bad partners, not just the overt lying which is in its own way very honest, to just tell a lie that’s a lie – but the falseness of everything the only thing the one thing that i am good at. selling. getting people to buy things from me. manipulating, analyzing, looking for cues, asking key questions – working my friends, telemarketing, selling cosmetics. my ony marketable talent. some would say “well, there are OTHER marketable talents…” wink wink nudge nudge…

but no. it’s the same thing. sucking cock is an honest way of selling yourself. arching your back and making prolonged eye contact over an 80dollar bottle of ralph lauren romance is the same fucking thing, but in disguise. all sales are selling yourself. commission is commission. eric doesn’t understand any of this – we haven’t talked about the way i feel since i went back. since i lost possibly nine years of intense work unteaching myself to care about certain things. he says “i don’t understand. they want to buy things, and you sell them those things.” and he’s right, in a way. for some people this can work. they don’t turn on the machines, they don’t hone the daggers.

there’s nothing wrong with selling if it doesn’t eat your soul, if you can find the place in yourself that is honestly fulfilling a need, helping someone feel better. but i don’t get this. that’s not in me. ruth? ruth is a real person, and a good person, and she’s been in arden over ten years. she’s like the jenna jameson of cosmetics – she’s EVOLVED. there’s no guilt, no shame, no lies, just good business sense and a real understanding that people want what she has, and will give her money for it, and that’s cool with her, because what she’s got is the best there is so everyone wins!

my cuticles are pre-occupying me as i type, as is the fact that my eyebrows should probably be waxed and my hair needs trimmed. my shell is not where it needs to be. i didn’t use lotion after i showered.

you know what’s really a bitch? i’m aging. i’m going to get old. i know this isn’t important – in a year i could be perfect again, besides that damned ticking clock. i forgot about the clock, the one that dictates the progressive deterioration of the outside. now i’m supoosed to make it the most important thing in my life again.

i know it’s petty. i know it’s a part-time cosmetics job. but to me, it’s connected with every other battle for my soul won or lost. i walked out of that place 8 years ago a 95lb goddess, dead on the inside, crying and screaming, after months of sitting in parking lots halfway there to talk myself into driving the rest of the way to that shiny, shiny counter and all its promises.

and if you know me you’ll mention that ALSO at the time i was dating an indian nazi coke addict doctor, and that person probably had oh, a LITTLE to do with my instability. and it did. a lot. my whole life and being was about lying, seamless lying, i went round and round on a pressed wax album of lying…… i cannot differentiate….. it was all the same. and the telemarketing?  there was a bit of a drug problem around that time…. YES. there was. lying and lying and smiling and selling and everyone loves me and i always crack.

maybe i’ll make it through christmas, maybe just through gift. honestly i would like to milk them for the hundreds of dollars of free product i get for completing brand ”training,” milk the 20% store discount for all my christmas shopping and family winter clothing needs then tell them to fuck themselves, i can’t work with robot jan.

my first day back i worked a five hour shift in a completely unknown brand and sold 500 dollars worth of product. it’s like flipping a switch on one of my vertebrae. thing is, i thought i’d jammed a butterknife in there and shorted out those wires a long time ago.

i’ll have to make everyone understand. i hate who i am when i’m there.

Hello, Star

adam had a ten minute conversation at the screen door with the first star to show itself tonight. he said a snippet of the star bright rhyme, then engaged in a full coversation complete with pauses. they spoke about the moon, and what the star was doing  (“You just sittin up there? Okay.”). it might be the most awesome thing i’ve ever heard.

Christian Slater, Angela & the USO Pre-Execution Show

Exact transcript of the email i typed and sent to angela immediately upon getting out of bed and adam settled into dumptruck activity earlier this morning – totally void of proof-reading. i didn’t pause from opening the email to pressing send, but i see now that “pess” should be “press” and “playbo” should be “playboy” – “himmery” is “shimmery” and so on….. also the shackled husband at the end was in jon favreau form, i think that’s worth noting… most importantly, of course “feath row” should be “death row” :) angela will translate without difficulty, i am sure….

 

“hey i just woke up like just woke up, i’lll explain that part later, but anyway i had this dream in which you were prominently featured and when i checked my phone i saw that you’d emailed and that seemed like a sign that i was supposed toinform you of this ridiculous and vivid dream before it faded.

in the dream i was dating/married to a jon favreau/jason statham mesh (weird yes but it gets weirder) and he was on feath row, and we were there for the execution and it was a very big deal but definately nothng anyone seemd to be trying to get him out of – there was never a mention of what he had done. anyway the whole thing was taking place at this big resort, we were somewhere in connecticut but like on the beach, at this huge beach resort type place (i don’t know who the we was as you weren’t there yet, heather was though) and there were all these celebrities there for the “event” that my husband knew or whatever, like usher and p diddy and christian slater on and on oh and ludacris, not sure why all the rap dudes… anyway, all these people, and it was being organized and covered by the pess and there was all this good coffee everywhere ready in the pots and the guards and cops were very subtly dressed etc, and my husband was allowed limited visitation – as in i never once got close enough to talk to him but i saw him sitting with christian slater and two strippers and usher in a quiet room at one point, and started to get pissed, but then realized how silly that was. christain slater was christian slater’s character in Very bad Things. SO – i decided i wanted to put on a production – a one last show type deal for my husband, and as the execution was to happen that same weekend i had NO TIME to get this stuff together, but it seemed very important i try to do something to make the whole thing less somber and something for him, etc etc, and it was to be a SURPRISE, that night, and i enlisted the help of christian slater to help me – i wanted to put on a 1940′s style USO show, with the singing an all, and interestingly enough, this is where you come in. because in the dream, this type of boogie woogie bugle boy show singing outfit thing was your THING, as in “angela has to be here we have to have angela without angela this cannot be done” and christian slater was helping me and calling people and finding you and flying you in, and you were bringing the music and an assortment of what dresses.costumes you could gather, adn christian slater was having the stage built and finding us a 3rd girl (Comfort, the hip-hop dancer from So You Think You Can Dance, it turns out) and getting the emceeing ready (Ludacris) and all this, and amid trying to greet/console, you and i and comfort had this huge thrown together suite full of poofy dresses and 1950′s playbo outfits and were trying to get some dance moves together and get our song learned (we were doing boogie woogie bugle boy, i think) and it was all very furtive and we kept listening to the immaculate collection and not getting any practicing done because there was no TIME – but it all kind of came together and the stage, and at the last minute the electricity was lost in the auditorium but luckily Ludacris had bought a bunch of those moon jars incase of emergency and they were able to light the place and set it all up like the chairs and everything for the show and get our equipment running, and then the electricity came back on just in time for everyone to come in and us to be dressed and ready to perform – we were unprepared as shit, none of us knew the song or had matching dance moves ready, we had been (as in you and i once you got there) hanging out on the beach quite a bit and talking to celebrities over the course of the day as opposed to practice, but once the curtain went up and the lights came on, all of our try-to synchronize stuff and fumbling lyrics and all was very endearing and entertaining and people laughed and clapped and we did just the one song and everyone stood up and clapped and my husband (shackled and in a wheelchair off to the side urrounded by guards) was ecstatically happy about the whoel thing, and we were all hugging and jumping up and down and i remember having one of those movie moment “i couldn’t have doen it without you” moments with chrisian slater who was my husband’s best friend, and i remember thinking very distinctly while i was hugging him “oh, we’re going to have sex after this execution, but it doesn’t matter because there will be no one to get pissed about it….”

that’s it, then adam came in and woke me up and i saw the phone blinking and got on here. now i’ve gotta mke eggs. can you dance? our dresses were dark blue and simmery, by the way. and we had little gloves. no time to reread this.”

the week in pictures, like reuters but with more feet…

cherrybomb

somewhere near midnight.

been waking up with random scenes from movies and random images in my head – something’s brewing, which is good, i haven’t opened a word document in like 2 weeks. stagnant stagnant brain water – hoping all this weird shit (weird as in different from my very very well-placed patterns routines) will serve as sort of an ass bump to the turn table – bump the turntable, spill a little ditch liquor, skitter the needle to a different song…

it will save me. too many restful nights are a sign of either dead exhaustion (good) or few brainwaves. i need to WRITE.  woke up sweaty tuesday thinking about ferris bueller’s sister and charlie sheen making out at the police station – wednesday was jon cusack and lisa bonet morning after talk in high fidelity – then just random thoughts of michael caine – waking up thinking about cider house rules, alfie, jaws 4, i don’t get it.. and shoes, lots of shoes. what sort of shoes does my sister wear do work, i wonder. and  the shoes you keep in your car – the after work shoes, thinking of k—- getting off work at 9:15 and meeting her in my paleface foundation, ghost of me with halfway make-up, to paint up at her house drinking rum and hawaiian punch, hitting the gay clubs in columbus, wearing my prom jewelry in my hair, making out on the sticky bathroom floor – nailpolish and eyeliner fake tattoos, taiwanese girls that danced even though they were getting married – i still want to dance, i still want to dance – car full of shoes…. the person i was the last time i walked in the double doors through the shoe department and punched a clock to smile at old women and know that one swipe more with any brush would ruin the 45 minute perfection of my 22 yr old face. heels and stockings. i’m walking into the past but seven years and more have passed so i’m a whole new person now, and god bitchslapped me for tan-guilt and checking my crow’s feet by giving me a cold sore. tomorrow i’ll paint to within an inch of kabuki and hope they buy the lipstick that hid the jitters.

brewing, something’s brewing. there are conversations to be had. this week has been off-kilter. amy and andrea in the same week. julie did NOT get stomped but almost. adam has learned to lie. eric in the p–s again, home with a headache and i bite my fingernails short but it’s none of my business…. at least not to say STOP….

black patent leather peep toe slingbacks with a stiletto heel and a velvet underside. the only black shirt i own without a picture on it is laced with silver, i don’t have a uniform. i wear tanktops and sundresses and am hardpressed to find a bra, my hair barettes have monkeys and hippoppotami on them…. tomorrow, tomorrow….. nothing like blowing a part-time job at a make-up counter all out of proportion with purple prose and hope for fiction fodder.

lon, amy & girls over mid-week, coffee in the kitchen, humidity horses. register training. andrea here to ‘meet’ in person, all over again for the first time, i saw her every day for years and we never spoke -she can stay, she can stay, i’m keeping her but not in the scary trunk way, in the front of my brain way. she had light purple toenails, very opaque, no glisten. amy and steve today, and mexican food, and the horses had baths and we were lost 5 miles away – the church down the road has a faded tin roof the exact color of the sky, but i got it at all the wrong angles. i leave out the sex, i’m shy, it’s private, we pull the curtains, this is me pulling the curtain…. johnny fox messaged me through facebook to thank me for a post. damn i love johnny fox. same night as the meteor shower – that night was ours, eric’s and mine, even more than last night with adam at my mom’s, but last night i took pictures of the stars.

i like the sound of the keys. something is brewing, bridget is waking up – maybe i am waking up. i should have known she would leave – or maybe this has nothing to do with her.

maybe this has nothing to do with anything but shoes, and making out.

that’s cool, too.

Probably Not ‘Asposed To (random order and completely incomplete..)

The Song of Solomon

  The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

  My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice.

  My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

  For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

  The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

  The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

  O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.

  Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.

  My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.

Perseids…

we came in at midnight, having seen quite a few in under a half hour. beautiful, beautiful night.