The Valentine’s Day Gift That Keeps on Giving!

(i’ll give you a clue: it’s a TATTOO)

http://manarchymag.com/core/2012/02/the-valentines-day-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/

(and for those of you that think Johnny Depp’s presence is inappropriate, let me remind you he IS in fact from Kentucky)

by Jordan Ariel

February is pretty much his month. We went to the aquarium on the actual day of his birthday, and though he’s been on the verge of succumbing to a full-on winter cold (we’ve all been teetering for weeks, it seems) there was still fun and starfish-petting and even a little bike-riding. More pictures of his subsequent grandparent parties later. For now: Aquarium!!

And thank you to everyone who has posted on the Birthday Wall. Especially to Boden (we’ve watched Octopadi FOUR HUNDRED TIMES), Sean (the cry “Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!” was a novel idea to this chld and he repeated it streaking like a demon through the house many, many times) and eddy (came through with the Gaga!).

This cold, COLD sunday morning we have snow, four pairs of cardinals just outside the window, the most horrible movie in the world (the Care Bears Movie), a sleeping devil cat and a floor full of matchbox cars….

NEW PLAN: i created a FB page Public Event for the kiddo’s birthday, the PAGE being the event, where anyone and everyone can hit ‘attend’ and then wish him happy birthday or post a cute or funny photo – he’ll be incredibly thrilled by this! the plan is to start showing him the page tomorrow, and let him click Like on each and every birthday wish from today through the 20th. he’s an awesome kid and thinks that computers are magic (as they are) and will get a HUGE kick out of this, i promise. so click on over to this link if you are so inclined:

https://www.facebook.com/events/262859440452388/#!/events/262859440452388/

can you say no this face???

so, for the happiness of a kid that is AT THIS MOMENT listening to Gaga (his girlfriend that lives on the moon, he calls her), for his birthday, if any of you can find it in your very large hearts to retweet these links and this message and help me trend this and tag it to @ladygaga also, i would very much appreciate it. my twitter is “@mandajoon”

this was a very weird/difficult post to make. “help me get lady gaga to tell my son happy 4th birthday.” it’s a strange request. so have mercy on me and HELP. his 4th birthday is February 6th, so we have 3 weeks!!!

<3 amanda

just want to talk about Lisbeths. just want to talk about Noomi Rapace vs. Rooney Mara. just want to talk about something very, very different in these two performances that i haven’t seen mentioned yet (and if it’s all over the place and i’m regurgitating, forgive me):

Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth: sociopath

Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth: psychopath

both women play the role admirably, but the interpretations are sooo different. Rapace’s Lisbeth is a coiled snake – a tightly wound ball of rage and vulnerability and intelligence. NEVER does she seem to be anything other than in complete control and completely aware of what she’s doing, be it testing her attraction/feelings for her male companion or carving a bloody tattoo in a rapist’s chest. there’s never a snap or a click when you feel she’s floated away and given in to her rage and it is driving her.

The opposite is true of Rooney Mara – in the same scenes (mainly the violent ones, of course) Mara goes distinctly different behind the eyes and seems absolutely consumed. She’s a different Lisbeth when she commits these acts, she is Rage, she is Not There. you see the blink and suddenly smart and guarded Lisbeth has become the creature that carves names on people’s chests and asks permission to kill, because she’s incapable of making such a decison.

for this, i respect Rapace’s performance, as well as her Lisbeth, more than Mara’s. I don’t know if it’s an American preference – we want people (especially a female we want to like) to lose it before they do horrifying things so we don’t have to blame them? i don’t know.

it’s Lecter vs. Gumb for me – the Aware will always be more compelling.

link to Manarchy Mag’s main page: http://manarchymag.com/core/

link to my column: http://manarchymag.com/core/2011/12/50-ways-to-leave-your-lover-well-5/

picture of my hair as of New Year’s Day:

i wish for you to become positively infected with hope – so that it itches under your skin like hatching spider eggs, forcing you to run into the sunlight and do so much wonderful shit that you can’t help but love the baby hope spiders and blow them on their gauzy threads to the four corners of the world to burrow into the skins of the ones you love….

good, good, the cat just took down a stack of dvds. that helps. i’ll get that in a second. for now i’m just going to type and twitch while i have this free moment, kiddo cramming his face full of bagel.

where to begin? kitten is a woman, now, all of a sudden. the christmas tree is her mate of choice – oh, the things we’ve seen. the tree is a sad state of drooping lights and bent branches and cat hair. she yowls all through the night the last two nights, and climbs the walls. no one sleeps. she yowls through the day. she’s yowling now. i just locked her in her carrier for a half hour break. also, i dropped all my winter weight – BOOM – all my hard-earned T&A disappeared. suspected intestinal parasites, for that reason and others i will not detail. i was correct. now my body is ridding itslef of all infection and parasites, and the medicine has made my stomach ulcer start to bleed again. IT’S HORRIFYING. and like most any medication that pushes infection out of your system, it’s caused my entire face to break out. also today is the day of the Serpent Mound solstice event, and i was pretty sure i had plans to go to that – but now i’m pretty sure i’ve been ditched. i say ‘pretty sure’ because i’ve yet to be addressed directly about it, but i saw a facebook post about shit luck that i wasn’t sure had anything to do with me until pretty much TODAY. didn’t ask for a call, or even a text. shit, a facebook comment of  ’sorry, can’t make it’ would’ve sufficed. i’m really not sure when communication dissolved into this level of passive-aggressive indirectness, that a random post on facebook that did not address me was supposed to be magically translated by me into a calling-off of plans. even now, i’m not sure it applied to me, i’m just looking for some sign that i wasn’t outright forgotten about, but just avoided for fear of facing my disappointment. i’m trying to give credit for.. shit, i don’t know. i would’ve loved some snow today. i can’t sleep, no matter how much i move things around and clean, there are still things everywhere and my one modest ‘i will keep the living room tidy for the holidays’ promise to myself seems impossible – there are dvds all over the floor, even now, that i should be picking up. i forgot to get candy for the stockings. i might vomit at any second.

the thing is, i KNOW in my left brain how good things are: my husband and son are healthy and love me and each other, the house is warm and cozy, and on christmas morning we’ll all be together.

it’s just hard to remember with the sounds of my guts rolling while they BURN, layered with the yowling cat, my son wanting kitty OUT of her carrier…

it’s my blog and i’ll cry if i want to. that’s all i have to say about this post. shaky hands. i need 4 xanax and ten minutes to myslef in the woods to just SCREAM AND SCREAM.

wish it would snow…..

there’s a sort of disconnection from the real world going on right now, that feeling of all the kitestrings being pulled waaay too tight – and i’m hiding box cutters behnd my back and sighing and wondering what to do, because there aren’t that many strings left and who knows if it’s the eggshell dome sky or  holiday loneliness or typical winter melancholy clouding my judgement as to whether i should slash the strings or wait…. ugh too much purple prose.

for three, i do not hold the blade. andrea, not for you. a—-, i love you, come back when you’re ready and send pictures of your cats in the meantime if you get the chance.  m—, you may or may not hold scissor of your own, but i’m happy to let you drift in and out as you please.

in the dreams, i can see the scenes i want to write, and sometimes andrea is wearing the corset with the red yarn laces that run up the side, over top the places where the scars would be – and other times i pass her while i run down the street, she’s at an iron table reading a newspaper, posture flawless, and i think  ”hey, that’s…”  but whatever i’m chasing takes precedence and i run on, barefoot.

h— is troubling. i believe she is attacking the string with a chainsaw, trying to make sense of her world by eliminating disagreeable people. and i keep plucking at the string, seeing what will happen. sending mixed vibrations down the line to louisiana, thinking “maybe if i were MORE offensive, she’d pick up the phone…”

i’ve found some new strings, and i’m half-heartedly tugging, trying to keep emotional investment out of it at this juncture. k—, with the use of candles, pulling you slowly into my orbit if possible… and m—, we just dropped the string for many years. i’m jiggling rather than pulling.

all of you shall be written in. each in your own shop, in a town that doesn’t exist, each with a list of words or phrases that will emerge if prompted by the yank of a string or the twist of a key.

boring melancholy!! but no emotion fits wet december as snugly. like a latex glove. on an embalmer. in a mint green room in the basement.

I NEED SNOW.

so andrea, what’s up? how is life? do you OWN a corset, and will you be in town for the holidays?  i have a new book for you, and wonder if there’s a knot in the string somewhere, or a snag…. 

 http://thundadome.com/LA1K/ 

BOOKED REVIEW AND INTERVIEW WITH MIKE:

http://www.bookedpodcast.com/2011/11/30/episode-53-michael-paul-gonzalez-and-in-search-of-a-city/

and NOW, i name drop:

 Table of Contents

Ryan Wilson – “American Trash”
Stuart Gibbel – “Break on Through”
Craig Clevenger – “Obsolescence”
Nik Korpon – “South of Thirteen”
Dennis Cruz – “Smile Now, Cry Later”
Pela Via – “Bathhouse”
Stephen Conley – “Don’t Feed the Animals”
Grigori Black – “This Was Heaven”
Doc O’Donnell – “Your Personal Apocalypse”
Nikki Guerlain – “Sick Ticket”
Patrick Verhagen – “Swim”
Craig Wallwork – “El Bordello Alexandra”
Nicholas Merlin Karpuk – “Ahm’s Bay”
Nik Houser – “Subtitles for a Silent Film”
H.R. Tardiff – “Walls in the Sand”
Richard Thomas – “The Jenny Store”
Bob Pastorella – “Alexandra”
Simon West-Bulford – “Project Asmodeus”
Jay Slayton-Joslin – “The Fantasy of California vs. The Reality of London”
Amanda Gowin – “Gilded Bones”
Chris Deal – “Padre Nuestro”
Boden Steiner – “Here”
Gordon Highland – “Fry Girl”
edward j rathke – “All the Dreams You Dreamt Retold”
Michael Paul Gonzalez – “Tidal”
Victor Bengtsson – “Venice, Forever”