suspension of disbelief

In fiction, you are often required to believe a premise which you would never accept in reality. You overlook the limitations of reality, or accept the premise as being real, in order to enjoy the story. It’s called “suspension of disbelief.” (Definition is a mashup of mediacollege.com and wikipedia.)

There is snow on the ground outside. Lots and lots and lots of snow.

We departed work mid-morning Friday, cancelled all the shows scheduled over the weekend. And it snowed. Lots.

We returned to work at 9 am this morning with the threat of more snow today and through tomorrow. Lots more snow. We cancelled tomorrow night’s show.

But as I sat at my desk and each hour went slowly by, I thought, Maybe they are wrong. Maybe it’s not going to snow.

Noon came and went. No snow. 1 pm. 3 pm. And I really believed, Maybe they are wrong. Maybe it’s not going to snow.

And then…

It started snowing.

I was chatting with my counterpart at my second favorite local venue. We are lamenting our love lives, or lack thereof. We have similar stories, And then I thought to myself, I left work early for this? And that will be the last time I date a musician/someone long distance/a guy in his 20s. We laugh.

She says, Are you going to be at the show next week?

No, I can’t, there’s this guy coming into town from Amsterdam….

And together we laugh. Because it’s everything we just lamented. It wouldn’t be called a cliché if it were more original.

The thought sits with me though. Actually, it doesn’t so much sit with me as it just stays. Uninvited, it stays, occupies space in my brain and doesn’t leave. Until I do something about it.

Until I email him and suggest that he not come.

I don’t tell him not to come. I just suggest that he’s making a special trip, amidst tons of work and traveling, to basically see me for a date. I don’t mean to ask the brutal question, but the words What’s the point? find their way from my fingers to the keyboard. I just want to cut disappointment off at the pass.

His response, What’s the point? Well, you are a good woman, sexy, intelligent, and I like to keep people like that in my life…

He comes next week. I am really looking forward to his visit.

And then…

mix of the month: i never wanna get old

Happy Birthday, friend. This is for you. And it’s good.

Songs about getting older. Getting better? And stuff.

01. Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers ~ “Shady Esperanto & the Young Hearts”

Summer in the city we were hanging on the lawn talking all the time about where the time had gone. It’s not the way I thought it’d be; it’s not what I was told. I’ve got a young heart and I don’t wanna get old. I never wanna get old…

02. American Princes ~ “Watch As They Go”

There wasn’t anyone around. Another lonely night in your town. I think that you knew what you found, a friend to buy you another round.

03. Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band~ “Slowly (Oh So Slowly)”

The days keep slipping down into the cracks. It take a while to realize where you’re at. Slowly (so slowly) it’s slowly ending.

04. Cage the Elephant ~ “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”

I know I can’t slow down. I can’t hold back. Though you know I wish I could. Oh, no, there ain’t no rest for the wicked until we close our eyes for good.

05. Noise Addict ~ “That’s How It Goes”

We all have successes and we all have failures. And we turn them into profit if we’re lucky and tenacious. But we all get quiet and send prayers to the maker of our personal understanding. And for some that’s rock and roll. And that’s how it goes.

06. The Champion And His Burning Flame ~ “The Expert”

And I wish you were here.

07. The Benjy Davis Project ~ “Still Sweet”

Just because we had some good times doesn’t mean I miss them.

08. Dar Williams ~ “It’s Alright”

It’s a sad and a strange thing but it’s time and I’m changing. Into something good or bad, well, that’s your guess.

09. Five for Fighting ~ “Slice”

Have you read my blog today?

10. A Fine Frenzy ~ “What I Wouldn’t Do”

I left before someone got hurt.

11. Green River Ordinance ~ “Come On”

Everywhere I look I see the passing days.

12. Animal Kingdom ~ “Tin Man”

And is this love? Is this pain? Got a feeling I cannot mend slowly, changing every part of me.

13. Josh Rouse ~ “Magdalena”

14. Andy Zipf ~ “I’d Sing Hallelujah”

I am only a man who gets lost in his questions like why doesn’t love heal when we need it the most?

15. Ari Hest ~ “When and If”

I wrote a letter yesterday, told her that I’m fine.

16. Anthony Fiacco ~ “Time is Your Only Friend”

Just let it go, like the aces in your hand, the solitary choices of a solitary man. Time is your only friend. Time is your only friend.

17. Cary Brothers ~ “Love Song”

18. Band of Skulls ~ “Honest”

Gotta be honest. Gotta be guarded. Be sure, I’m gonna say. Right on the inside, that is the hardest, the hardest game to play.

February fears

February has not been a good friend to me over time. It’s full of anniversaries that aren’t mine to celebrate anymore. Unhappy anniversaries.

February is the month I met my ex-husband. 17 months later we were married. February is the month my ex-husband remarried. 16 months after our divorce was final.

It’s been a year since I saw my ex-husband. The last time I saw him was in February. February is the month that I left LA. And I haven’t been back. The month that has never been a good friend to me.

When the calendar changed this morning, something shifted inside of me. It’s not dread exactly. I’m hopeful, in fact, that this February will want to be my friend. There are things I am looking forward to. This with my favorite musician friends. This with my college aged cousins. And, of course, that.

But.

This is a month in which, unbidden to me, memories will rush over me in waves. But unlike the child I used to be, I will not be diving headfirst into the water as it crests and crashes. I will be resisting it. Feeling it hit. Hard. Some waves will be warm; others, chilling. The key will be not being knocked off my feet, not being pulled into the undertow, not drowning in the memories.

With these memories come questions that I fear. I think on the good times and I wonder if anyone will ever love me as much as my ex-husband loved me. I wonder if I walked away from the one man who loved me more than anyone else. Because the truth is, since him, there hasn’t been anyone who has loved me that much. I think on the bad times and I marvel at my ability to hurt someone I loved so much, at his talent for doing exactly the same to me. Is this how it ends?

This is what floods me. This is February. These are my fears.

muscle memory

I was a teenager. The tutus were long light blue tulle. The music was Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

I still remember the opening steps to the piece. Arabesque, tombé, piqué turn, cambré. Repeat.

It’s a colloquialism. Muscle memory. That repetition of movement that never leaves us. The correct terminology is brain-muscle memory.

It’s what makes a woman lift her hips when she feels a man’s weight on top of her. It’s what makes her close her fingers when he puts his hand to her hand, his fingers to her fingers. It makes her turn her face toward the heat of his hand, draw nearer to the heartbeat she feels in his chest, match her pelvis to his pelvis.

When he last left, because as often as I am the one getting on the plane if feels as if it is always them leaving me, he said perhaps he would come through town again. And if neither of us were otherwise entangled- he used that word entangled- if neither of us were otherwise entangled, we might see each other again.

He told me weeks ago when he is coming.

It’s taken until tonight for me to imagine his fingers on the back of my neck, the bone of my hip, the flesh of my thigh.

He is coming to town shortly. And I find myself weightlessly free, absolutely uninvolved, not entangled.

And I find my body remembering.

summing it up in one sentence: you could never be a love song

I’ve been many a kind of girl, but I’ve never been the kind of girl you write a love song about.

“You could be a book without a broken spine, the cellar wine. And you could be a Tennessee valley stream. And you could be a long night I can’t remember right. You brought me to my knees. But you could never be a love song.” ~Cary Brothers, “Love Song”

love harder

You know the feeling of helplessness? Feeling as if you are mid-ocean, treading and treading and treading, without a raft or land in sight. You aren’t waiting to make a decision because you have no choices to choose from. Your only path is simply to keep on going through the motions because to not means the end.

I don’t know Brandy. I can’t tell you much about her, but I know her story. I know that she is a woman very much in love who is facing a harsh reality. I know she’s neck deep in the water, and, as I learned from reading her blog, she doesn’t know how to swim.

I also know she is surrounded by a whole world wide web of love right now, as she should be.

Brandy, I’m sending my love.

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mojo, a biblical precedent

This man I adore has a fantastic laugh. He only laughs when he really means it, his laugh is full and it will make you smile.

It is just before the New Year, he has crossed to my side of the moat and we are sharing a bottle of red. We are celebrating that the suck that has been aught nine will soon be a memory.

I am lamenting my disappointment in 2009, particularly my lack of meaningful relationships. I trace it all to this one week before Christmas in 2008. I’m not certain of the exact day, after the 16th, before the 22nd- the 19th perhaps?

When I tell him what I trace it all back to, he laughs that laugh. Fantastic and full, it makes me smile.

I trace it all back to the day when I cut my hair.

Go ahead, laugh.

I have fine, thin hair that I’ve never been able to grow past my shoulders. Recessive genes, damn it. But for several years, I was blessed with long, full, gorgeous hair thanks to a dedicated stylist who would spend hours painstakingly bonding someone else’s long, thick hair onto my own locks.

Up until that day in December 2008. That day I awoke from spending weeks, days upon days, trapped in bed, recovering from sickness followed by a surgery far worse than my worst imaginings- a tonsillectomy. Those days, those weeks, I was lucky if I had the energy to take a shower, much less wash and dry my hair. And so I sat propped in bed, surrounded by hair. All of this hair, strangling me, twisting around my neck, my poor tender neck.

As soon as I could drag myself out of bed, before I was even medically cleared to drive, I headed to my stylist, that talented, dedicated stylist. And I said, Cut. It. All. Off.

A hush descended on the salon as my stylist straightened out those gorgeous full locks and my own hair that had finally grown mid back. The other stylists gathered around. There may have been talk of an intervention.

The next thing I felt were cold scissors sliding across the back of my neck.

I walked out of the salon with a sleek, chin length style.

It looked great.

But in hindsight, I can’t help but feel that those scissors cut more than hair that day. Those scissors severed some impression I have, or some expression I emote, of myself as sexy. With those lost locks, I squandered certainly some versatility in my look, the ability to walk out of my house and shake my hair loose rather than worshiping the dryer and flat iron each morning. Lord knows, I’m self-confident, but a part of me wants for how beautiful I felt with hair running long past my shoulders.

In short, I miss my long hair.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

On the red carpet at a recent awards show, a reporter showed Sandra Bullock the People magazine cover showing Kate Gosselin’s new, long-haired look and asked what she thought of the extensions. Sandra replied, “Women change their hair and their lives change.”

A few hours, a few hundred dollars, and I will have my long locks back. Mojo or not, I want them. I made an appointment for next month.

So he [Samson] told her [Deliah} everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite set apart to God since birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.”

When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands.  Having put him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him.

Judges 16:17-19

it never feels as good as you think it is going to feel

I’ve been writing the conversation in my head for months. Two months exactly.

It’s been two months since he called. He said his Dad is in the hospital. He said Can I please come over?

Over those past two months, he destroyed whatever vestiges of a loosely defined friendship we may have had. I know his Dad’s illness has been all-consuming. Because I know that, I stepped up my support. In return, he’s been an ass. He hasn’t treated me like a human being, much less like a friend.

So I just started ignoring him. Completely. And it’s worked.

Until last night, when I’m making my rounds of goodbyes, hugs all around, except for him. And he catches me.

Give Daddy a kiss, right here, he says, pointing to his check.

I glare.

Oh, come on, I’m just fucking with you.

You don’t get to fuck with me.

Sure I do. Come on. It’s you and I, he tries to laugh off as our mutual friends slink away, tension and embarrassment setting into the air.

I am not above slapping you, asshole.

That speech, that speech I’ve been writing in my head for months comes spilling out. I am not one of those sluts who calls you begging you to come over. You are that whore, always calling me. Wanting me to coddle you; encourage the talent that you waste on women, drugs and drinking; counsel you on your career; bare your body and soul without judgement. Wanting to fuck until your head clears, have me fortify you with hope so you can go home to your girlfriend. Fucker.

He says he’s sorry.

If I had a penny for every time…..

I leave. I leave alone. As I’m curling up in bed past midnight, the phone rings.

I answer, not hello, but I have nothing else to say.

I haven’t rehearsed what comes next, but it comes naturally. How am I supposed to believe you’re sorry when I know you know exactly what to say to every single girl you fuck, lie to and cheat on.

I get it all out. And end with, No, I will not meet you out right now.

We hang up.

And I am pissed. Not by what said or even what has transpired over the course of time.

I am pissed that I still care.

discipline

I was raised a disciplined child.

I was not permitted to grab a snack or a beverage out of the refrigerator. I asked Mom first. I could not get one toy out and play with it until the last toy had been properly put away. And by properly put away, I’m talking about the Legos being separated by color.

I chose to perpetuate this discipline. I chose individual sports like swimming and tennis where I was the only one responsible for my success. And I danced. Stood in front of a mirror for hours a day, shoved my feet into beautiful satin instruments of torture, and practiced. And practiced. And practiced.

I have an impressive work ethic, but in my adult years some of that concentrated discipline has fallen to the wayside. All I am really expected to do is earn a check and pay my bills. I have the distinct pleasure of getting to earn that paycheck in the most wonderful and surreal of industries. My work is not altogether unlike a musical where characters spontaneously break out in song and dance. It’s not all that complicated.

It’s not that complicated until I choose to live. To fall in love, fall out of love, drink, laugh, indulge. To seek pleasure, to feel pain. My brain get full of extraneous facts and figures from pop culture to gossip and life becomes dramatic.

When I’m unhappy with something, I’ve tried to fix it by adding ingredients to the mix. Hoping I’ll get the recipe right.

Let’s face it- I’m just not that impressive a cook. Ok, ok, I’m not remotely in my wildest dreams anything resembling a cook.

I’ve simplified.

I’ve made my bed every morning. Eating my whole wheat toast for breakfast. I’ve hit the gym every day. Reading at least an hour a day. Trying to get more sleep.

It’s cleared my head. It’s made things easier. It’s diminished the drama.

It’s given me less to write about.

Discipline is remembering what you want. ~David Campbell

summing it up in one sentence

I haven’t had sex in almost 2 months because I don’t want to take my clothes off in front of anyone else right now.