LOVER

cold cold ground

Cold as you are, that earth will be colder. Say what you will, you can say I wasn't afraid. And that I was glad when you turned your back on me, happy to watch you turn away.

When I said you don't listen to me because you are afraid, I meant it. When I said I was struggling, I meant it. When I said a relationship based on chit-chat and always having to be ok is a shell of a relationship, I meant that too. I apologized for being a troubled woman in a troubled time because it is true: I am sorry that trouble is too much for you. Not because it hurts me when you turn away but because I know that it hurts you. When you withheld your sympathy when my sister/dog died, when you withheld forgiveness and acceptance from me - nothing happend to me. Nothing. At all. But I watched and listened to what happened to you.

I am reading the myth of Atlas & Hercales. There are words for this alliance, the weight, the freight. I didn't write them but I speak them. You had a chance to stretch your limbs with me; so the weight of your world is lighter? That's not Artemis or even Aphrodite; all I see is boring old Narcisuss down by the water.

I Have 4,989 Friends!

Showering, thinking about lists of answers and no questions, lists of questions with no answers, unattached. Thinking of how my dog was my connection to the world through my animal instinct: my Toto who pulled the curtain back. And how she's so with me, it's as if she's never left. Thinking of how cell phone & digital cameras have helped people indulge in their narcissism and take hundreds of self-portraits, how the self-portrait is a stand-in for relationships? Instead of action pointed out it's action pointed in. "If I take enough pictures of myself maybe I'm real." The culture of self, simulacrum. As if it's enough, a friendship that's comprised of sexual inneundo and self-aggrandization, virtual, clean.

I'm thinking of the gap between this and that I will not name, the rope-swing, the crossing-over a big terrain of marsh and mystery. I'm packing to go home. I'm coughing up strange tiny bits of blackish phlegm. The pain I feel in my body is real. My body is real. I had to throw out the flowers that she sent me when my dog died; that rotting-flower smell. Flashes of waitressing at that café coming at me all morning. I loved those Friday mornings: grits, coffee, racing stats. I remember that Mardi Gras mid-afternoon at Joren's house. I remember Hilary's beauty, John's radio show. Christine in her white ghost kimono. I remember Ginger picking me up in her little blue-green jeep. I remember dancing alone and it was wonderful. Those long train tracks, fog, coins. Bells are ringing in the air around my head, little Snow White bluebirds. If this is crazy then sign me up. I love bells almost more than anything.

Making Mardi Gras

I'm going home I'm going home I'm going home.

Ignore It And It Will Go Away?

From the hands of slaves.

Building a fire, I was building a small fire and was asked to proof-read, honest opinion, some prose that people had written. Are you sure, ok, you're not going to like what I have to say. This confessional writing of my ironic ex-boyfriend, it's just so-so. Reading it while walking across the irrigated fields was, however, an exciting challenge. "Do you know your fields have flooded?" I asked the mild-mannered caretaker. My little old car is parked way back there, can I leave it for awhile? I found the backyard with all the stray cats that I could cut through to get to the other side which was important because I'm to keep moving. In the meantime, the lady of the house invited me inside to look at the rooms available for rent. Two-story Victorian house, rambling, country. I gathered a small pile of dry grass, some old driftwood I broke into pieces, see how easy, the materials are all right here, while he watched. "I'm going to show you how to build a fire," it's all in the layering, and we kissed. There is more than one kind of fire, more than one way to keep moving ahead.
x

Marriage, Spiritual or Otherwise

Round-table-ing it at Saxon Pub with strangers who are engaged! Yeah, it's so romantic! They do a shot of chilled Citron & we head outside so they can smoke. Alone, they confide in me that she thinks he's gay. Uh, ok! I don't picture gay men asking heterosexual women to marry them, dunno, just seems kooky! Internal Scooby Doo sound. "Why?" I asked. Turns out they don't have sex. "Why?" I asked. They fight so much. She fights with him about not having sex and that doesn't make him want to have sex. He fights with her about her fighting with him about sex. "Have you thought about counseling?" Apparently, suggesting that is tantamount to suggesting an alcoholic go to a goddamn AA meeting: absurd! Why would they need counseling?

I don't bring this up because I think they're idiots or creepy or anything. They seemed like fine people and it was interesting to be so confided in. I also know full well that life & relationships are confusing and very very very idiosyncratic. I bring this up because it seems to me that very very very very very few couples I know who are "in love" have a relationship that looks anything like love to me.

I do know a few that have what looks like love to me (it's so subjective). I watch them & it's like drinking fresh spring water right from the source. They don't have fantasy relationships but they do have deep strong trust, they do not fight like frothy rabid racoons, they put their time & energy into clean bright things. Nothing desperate, nothing sordid. There's a glow about what they do, even if it's just walking the dog, just eating a pork chop, or watching "Project Runway". There's a generosity that comes easily to them that I admire and aspire to.

My being alone right now? It has nothing to do with unrealistic expectations or even having found "the right guy" and having trounced on him (I've been accused of such) or even of not being able to be loved. I'm working on my picture & manifestations of love so that when the time is right and I'm out there and a man appears we'll be able to be happy and easy and sweet. I wish this for all of us who don't already have it. And for those who in love but struggling, I wish it for them too. I don't think it's impossible to be healthy together if your experience of love isn't necessarily peaceful - I don't think anyone is unlovable no matter how much baggage they carry or how much needs to be learned about relationships and how to have healthy ones. I just wish us all a helluva alot more than a healthy kind of sick.

(I might as well come clean here: I'm alone right now because I'm getting ready for Vincent D'Onofrio. I had a dream last night that we came "this close" to doin' it. Lemme tell ya, it's gonna be worth the wait. Phew!)

John Hawkes = Diego Luna

If someone doesn't cast these two as brothers soon then I'm gonna get a job as a casting director and do it myself.

JOHN

DIEGO

Aren't they just scrumptious? Nothing like some poetically fine men to feed the soul.

Sing Like A Tiger

Well I'm going home for Mardi Gras ok! For a lotta reasons, not the least of which is to put my lips on that city and lick-kiss it till dawn. To make amends, do my part, find the parts I left behind. So my bones can relax for one minute, so my body can be rocked to sleep. Also to hear some f'in original rock & roll music like ©RotaryDowns.mp3 Rotary Downs on Saturday night at Joe Kight's gas-station studio when they're gonna play "Bleeders" 6 times for me I've been promised! "Bleeders"! My song! 6 times!

"We're bleeders, noone can believe it. B-leeders, noone can believe it. We've all been through it all before. Our consciousness is mighty sore. Hold my heart with a horse & cart, let me skip the bleeding part, hold my heart with a horse & cart, holding back the reins."

Oh this day, this day of photographing Rotary Downs! They tumbled up to my golden Gentilly porch and we tumbled to this abandoned tennis court to shoot them carousing around. Oh photographs and nuance, the smell of film fresh out of its pack, unrequited love that never hurts, Crystal hotsauce and Hubig's pies. It's never dry, it's never brown! And it's gonna be all couch-sleeping and wig teasing, dancing and ash-carrying, the spirits of everything from that night above Checkpoint Charlies with "Exile On Main Street" on loop and that bloody bubble bath to me and Annie on the hard hot buggy Lake Ponchatrain sand at dawn poking a dead pelican ghosting ghosting round. I'll be beating new paths into my old ancient ground, with my "insight/incite" as I've been told I do so good, pulling up water and out through my gold eyes, rolling and tumbling lush-sick with desire, I'm going home for Mardi Gras, for some healing and rice, and when I get back to Austin it's gonna be a new day, a new blaze, a hot hot hot hot shine. It's never been boring, this being alive. I've never not wanted the pain or surprise.

"I have a problem with veal except when I'm eatin it!" Zack LeBlanc

1. Are you an only child?
2. Do you wish you had fur?
3. Early one morning the sun was shining?
4. Why is it so cold outside?
5. When is the last time you missed your mom?
6. Now he's paralyzed?
7. Do you like buttons?
8. Are you a virgin?
9. Do you wish you still were?
10. Is stucco awful?
11. My little pinky.
11. White Russians?
12. Bunnies should not smoke smoke cigarettes.
12. What do you look like with no skin?
13. I like it when it's hard, but I like it better when it's soft.
13. Why do we look in the mirror?
14. Icing it down keeps the smell away.
14. Pepperoni or ham?
15. Five years if I behave myself.

1. Oatmeal & chocolate chip.
2. Yes.
3. My home, my place, where I lived?
4. Um hmm.
5. Ana told me she was going to leave me.
6. I think there's more than one.
7. On fire.
8. Your fearlessness, not that you don't have fear but you seem to have different fears from other people. And I respect that.
9. Girl Scout Thin Mints
10. Tagalongs.
11. It's silly to me to think that this is it. But do we get to experience it? Automatically? Yes.
12. Who would you fuck if you could fuck anyone?
Eric Bana.
13. Who would you fuck if you could fuck anyone?
Jon Stewart
14. Who would you love if you could fall in love with anyone?
If he would have me, I can't say it out loud.
15. Do you want to drum in a band again?
Sure!
16. What about a band with a bunch of girls?
That might be kinda tough.
17. So are you a bigot?
Borne & bred!
18. Your favorite song?
Powderfinger
19. Do you take antacids?
No
20. Am I a doctor?
Absolutely!

1. What's your favorite flower?
Calla Lily
2. Your favorite tree?
Magnolia
3. Favorite taste?
Sweet tea
4. Best friend?
James
5. Favorite color?
Green
6. Your favorite color?
Green
7. We're Southern Girls?
Oh yeah, absolutely, 100%.
8. Doesn't it feel early to you?
Isn't it only 11:30?
9. Wasn't that the best dinner?
Zack's meatballs are sublime. They're huge!
10. Favorite sexual position?
I definately don't have just one.
11. What's your favorite speed to drive?
Fast. I have a heavy foot.

Rest In Peace

"Sometimes you have to take your own hand / as though you were a lost child / and bring yourself stumbling / home over twisted ice." Louise Erdrich from the poem "Grief"

She loved the earth, digging it, revelling in wet grass, rooting through snow. She loved the sound of trains probably because she saw how happy they made me and I'd holler "Annie! Train!" and she would run to me and we'd approach the big train beast and stand in awe. At the dead of midnight or the crack of dawn, there wasn't a time she wouldn't eat a stick to nothing, follow me or lead me through woods, lay on the side of a lake or a river, watching and watching me. Joyous, intent, keen - her eyes said it all. Constantly smiling, always game, she spent New Year's Eves with me while guns shot off and snow fell down, leaning into my legs, calm. Driving down to New Orleans, she slept on my lap the entire way because she knew there was no other room for her, she was content. Always content, she loved her cat Cody, would clean his ears and let him clean hers. She loved protecting me - I could read a person by how she read them and not once, not once was she wrong. She came into my life gentle and sweet and left in exactly the same manner. All I can think is that somehow I did something right because not only did she find me but I did not break her spirit. I have known many dogs, all beautiful, but Annie? Annie was the only Annie and if you knew her you know what I mean. Hearty, kind, conscious - we should all be so lucky to be loved by a spirit like that.

She went to her heaven with a wreath of rosemary, mexican sage, and red ribbons around her neck. Her coat combed through with lavender oil, her sweet strong paws dipped in florida water. She laid in my arms underneath a blue sky while a soft breeze curled around us, being petted from all sides by Ana & Allie, sweet sweet Annie, and now she is gone. I will carry her ashes to New Orleans and spread them in the river and in the lake. I will see her bounding there, hollering at strangers, splashing not too deep, always always looking over her shoulder back at me to say, "See? We're together! You're safe! We're here!"

AU REVOIR

Here it is and all of the lights have gone out. Air is just an idea that crushes my skull. We do simple things and I mouth the words that it's ok for her to go. "I'll be ok," I tell her, my best friend, sometimes my only friend, my trickster, my beam, "without you," the lie of that so serrated it gouges my throat out. Oh all the stories, the nights, moons, the lakeshores, the rivers and sand, blankets and snow, fires and songs, driving the roads - she has always been steady and certain beside me. Who will I be without her beside me? Will I exist when she is not here to see me? She has been staring at me for 16 years. She has been waiting for me to come home, watching me go, calling me back for 16 years. You could say she's my child but she's been my mother. And even as I kissed my dead mother's hand I still suffer this. The dead pile up, the loss bleeds out. I cry for her, I cry for my home, my paintings that cannot be painted again. I cry for the city I no longer live in, that lives in me like a castle in my chest. The tears are thick and don't make me feel any better. My doctor says that's because there's alot more to get out. When she put the needles in me it brought up blood. Hot sorrow, she said. Hot bottomless sorrow. This isn't brave, there's nothing brave about taking your dog to the the vet to have her euthanized. It's not brave keeping her alive, either. Nothing is brave, we just do what we can. How can I get through this night, knowing what I know about the what will happen at daylight? I won't get through this night is what I'm trying to say. There is this night and there will be tomorrow and who I am? She's back there, running alongside the train, turning to make sure that her dog is there, running alongside the train, the dog that always smiles and the girl that always smiles at her dog and the train, "Annie! Train!"