03-20-09

Fade to Black

act 2. finis.

03-18-09

Hell week(s).

I just finished reading 400 emails. It’s the first time in two weeks I had the “ah” feeling. Why? I’ve been on va… um, I’ve been traveling. It wasn’t much of a vacation but more of a test of endurance. Between perpetual stomach flus and lack of sleep plus the minor annoyances thrown in here and there (like losing my travel case, breaking my tooth, the bile yellow walls I returned home to find when david mistakened my “just get the color we have now in semi-gloss” for “paint it BRIGHT FUCKING YELLOW!!!!”). The high points:

1. Cassadaga with Bryan and Pam near Deland, FL

2. One slightly chilly Ren Faire (boys in ren garb doing manual labor, nom.) in Deerfield Beach, FL

3. Monkey Joes inflatable indoor playground with Mya and Iz in Raliegh, NC.

4. Watching the ducks fly across the quiet grey lake at the cabin outside of York, PA

5. Eating Collard Greens with Nina near Harrisburg, PA.

6. Going antiquing at the walk of shops in Lewisburg, PA

7. That life saving Long Island Ice Tea in Station Square during the St Patties Day Parade in Pittsburgh, PA

8. Traditional steak salads with my aunt, uncle and cousin in New Brighton, PA.

9. The Corona and Steak on the train with the Australian couple near Balitmore and trying to explain what grits were.

10. Waking in and out of sleep watching the world go by from the sleeper room on the train between Maryland and South Carolina.

11. Watching the sun come up in Savannah, Ga.

12. Swimming in the pool overlooking the lake in Winter Haven, FL with Leslyn and Darcy.

13. Playing on the beach with Darcy, Iz and Sol in Vero.

14. Coming home to my article in the current Herbal Companion Magazine.

15. Breakfast with D.

16. Six new strong pieces and a sunburn.

17. Adding a dozen new marks to the map:

03-03-09

Special Delivery

The mail man knocked on my door this morning. I signed for an international package from Thailand. He seemed sort of surprised, perhaps her envisioned Michelle as an older woman, grey hair, dignified, showing some reason of VIP airmail across her features. I signed for the six inch square kraft mailer and went inside. An elephant and her babies in black line art graced the corner of the Thailand Post stamp.

Pealing back the flap, a small newspaper packet wrapped in white tape and unknown symbols fell out into my hand. More peculiarly, the scent of Ralph Loren Romance for Men filled the room. My seeds were sprayed as though they were a love note, shipped across the miles. The newsprint told a story in images of masked protesters screaming at armed guards.

02-15-09

The Cat Came Back Y’all

The Cat Came Back – Click here for more blooper videos

02-06-09

Isabella Street:

Sitting in the graveyard, I’ve caught the interest of a large, tawny doe. She walks towards me until she is no less than eight yards away from me

02-06-09

Isabella Street: Metaphorically Metaphorical

Warm breezes trick the mind into believing its late spring. Young October and the sun was hot. The lighting in the city gave everything a fake quality, moving images captured on a thin layer of celluloid that allowed everything to continue with an air of suped up contrast. The world was a banal photograph, a study of Urban Life in mid-afternoon. The world moved together as though it fell from the gallery wall and forgot to stop once it hit the floor, defying the laws of inertia.

The sounds of life wafted through the air, tumbling along in the breeze, the soft down of dandelion. In the distance I could hear Jazz music, sweet and intoxicating. Immediately my soul lifted into euphoric trance. I ventured down the street, the sound increasing with every step. The sheer volume of it, the immensity of it’s soul carried me closer. I had no worries, no thoughts on my mind a side from the desire for more. Crazy smile on my face, crazy smile from my eyes. Needed more, needed to feel more.

I came across it here, at this point. Strawberry Way, a small alleyway cutting  across a few streets in town, no bigger wide than to fit a car. Strawberry Way was a one way alley connecting The Boulevard with Fifth Avenue, but today in casual warmth, this Friday it was blocked from both ends by flower vendors, balloons, tables filled with people.

In the middle of all this sat the essence of soul itself, the life blood of this afternoon. A band of four black men played the most glorious jazz one could  ever hear. The pure sound itself was enough to either bring you to your knees or elevate you into the air in frenzied, ecstatic dance.

But the sight, the sight set it all in stone. The players were pure electricity: pure spirit, shapeless, formless, transcending the flesh that held them captive on this earth. The muses themselves played through them, Dionysus fueled the moment and the gods watched. The came down from their untouchable heights and stood right in the middle of those mortals and watched. These men, in their impromptu festival, were playing for the gods.

Notes: oh gag. I was so young and naive and briming over with utterly banal metaphor.

02-06-09

Isabella Street: Train Ride Exercise 1

The lights flicker off and on and off again. He sits beside me telling me stories of Portugal. He takes out his wallet, shows me three dried rose petals pressed between the plastic of a picture sleeve. The lights flicker again as he describes the wedding where he came across the roses. I wath the man infront of me practicing lines from a worn script, two middle aged men infront of him carry on a conversation in some language or another, the sound of the train drowns out any distinguishable syllables.

02-06-09

Isabella Street: Dear Matt

Dear Matt,
I don’t know what to say to you. I sit here, in the cafe’ of the bookstore down the road from my office. I’m exhausted and starving. I’ve survived the last week on a nauseous mixture of coffee and honey. I’ve barely slept. I’ve cried to you over the phone about becoming one of those people driven to great lengths to escape their thoughts, my mind hasn’t shut down for weeks. The alcohol leaves me wasted and nothing more. Their endless comments have yet to cease, not so much an energy I don’t have control of, but more of an addiction I can’t come off of. You are entirely too innocent and even though you are here I am still entirely too alone. And yet they won’t leave me alone.

Notes: I know some of these entries were not meant for anyone else to see, so it’s really hard to sit here and type them. This one seems especially…I don’t know, full of hyperbole? I was working on The Whore around then, so I am sure my muse was especially active during this time. I’m pretty sure it was also during this time that I was learning if she wanted something created, it had to be immediately or she would haunt you until it was finished. I dragged The Whore on, as I do with some of my more cherished works, miserably for six months.

Matt was the leprechaun, as he is known in retrospect, it was through dating him that I lost interest in high heels. He was short, into 3-d animation, screaming hybrids of hard rock and Christian music (as in singing…or screaming, not listening) and cannonball adderley, of which I still have a CD he burnt for me.He was full of Christianity and anger at his ex-girlfriend which ultimately made everything, complicated.

The office was in a triangular building at Liberty Avenue and Smithfield, the cafe was in the Barnes and Nobles up the way. Funny thing, I still have days where I live off of tea and honey. I’m cutting back in my old age.

This page is followed by another figure study for “The Red Coat” aka “The Whore”

02-05-09

Isabella Street: Approaching Wood Street

The Whore by ~myshelleyg on deviantART

Bus Stop.

It’s 11:10 at night, willing away the 2.5 glasses of chard and 1.5 shots of whiskey that didn’t ease away the pain. Cold night chills the sun. Could doubt chills my soul, brings tears to the eyes. Waiting patiently for the fucking train. Never comes.

11:11

Bargaining. If it doesn’t come by 11:15 I go back up the stairs to mainstreet and hit the local pub. Marriage or pub, marriage or pub. Which will it be?

11:12

Darkness down the line bings no hope. A high ball of Jack and Coke before a lousy 6 hours of sleepand lonleyness throughout or

11:14

Do I meet him at the station? Sit down on the cold, steel bench and make amends

11:15

You are not the one. I needed you so badly to be the one. A train passes in the opposite direction. I could waste 40 minutes waiting fo it’s return journey, catch it on the inbound. Could waste 6 months on nothing.

11:16

A train comes inbound, one minute short of true happiness, one minute short of faith. I jump on and head downtown. Towards you, waiting ten minutes too late for me and my dunken stupor. Ten minutes too late for me and my idiotic tendencies.

19 stops to you. “Approaching Potomac.” 18. 18 stops to you. Your icy, glass eyes. 10 minutes late but you, you are 15. 15 minutes late.

I imagine we will kiss on the bridge, much like the night before. $100 on my ring, $100 on yours. I’ll buy the crazy dress from the shop on the way to the station. We will celebrate on my grandfather’s farm, long since state property and the home to hundreds of weddings.

“Approaching Coast.” 12 stops. 12 stops till I meet you in the dark, icy “T” station and hand you back your sweatshirt. 12 stops until I jump the train back home, outbound.

“Approaching Fallowfield.” 11 stops. Halfway between fairytale and losing a friend. I blame this on you. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have hung honey off of my tongue. Wouldn’t have started this madness that has left me exhausted and numb, heading in bound on a trip destined for failure before it was ever conceived.

An old man sits down in front of me. The smell of old cigarettes wafts across the ways. He gets off as quickly as he enters, a figment of my drunken disillusions.

“Approaching Station Square.” Four stops to you. My drunkeness giving way to slow, mind consuming exhaustion. I die to taste your lips upon mine once more, feel your body lifting through your clothes and pressing against mine.

First Avenue and two. Steel Plaza and one. The driver bids good night to the patron exiting, dressed in black. The city is lit in the backdrop, lights pooling across the top of the water. We dissapear underground and all is lost to me.

“Approaching Wood Street.”

Notes: I’m not entirely sure who this was written about, it’s followed by a rough match stick figure study for what I was calling “The Red Coat” at the time. This was later renamed “The Whore” Which is above. I’ll try to get these scanned and posted. Looking further ahead in the journal, it may be from my relationship with a leprechaun.

02-05-09

Isabella Street: Boy Owner

I stood int eh bookstore today biting my lip. I staired at the shelf in front of me, shifting my weight from on leg to the other. My eyes rolled along the vertical titles under the brown sign that read “Relationships.” I stared through squinted eyes, anxiety building, looking for the illusive guide on how to care for a boy. They had guides for dog owners, cat owners, and fish owners. How to water, feed and groom. I figured someone, somewhere had to have one on boys. Extremely skittish, I turned on my heel and headed towards the man of my life, of the hour, Kerouac–an isle which made me extremely less nauseated.

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