rock out in my boudoir

so last night, the troika (that would be the ladies K and myself) trotted our boots on down to carroll gardens' boudoir bar for its stellar open mic night. unsurprisingly, i came in with a quiver in my hand and a desert in my throat; generally speaking i HATE open mic nights, it's like everyone is just sitting there willing you to fuck up so that they can look better. cutthroat. and i'd never been to this one before. fortunately, my trepidation was all for nought, as the crowd was lovely and friendly, the bartenders as well, and there were a whole bunch of great musicians. my favorites were the flamenco guitarists, though their performance put a lump in my throat with the memory of a dark night in prospect park. there was the expected cavalcade of lecherous men, all of whom seemed to have set their sights on the kate. honestly. can't take her (or her boots) anywhere!



but best of all? it looks like i might have won myself a booking--immediately after leaving the stage i was accosted for one of the bartenders, who'd been tasked with keeping an eye out for people who "really really kicked a lot of ass up there;" apparently, i qualify. so we'll see how that pans out.


p.s. quote of the evening: 'too bad britney spears isn't as cool as you are.' spoken by a total stranger. i kid you not.

saint shivers

it smells like ripe mangoes in here. for a minute, i thought the smell was originating in my cubicle, that perhaps i'd been canonized without knowing it and had actually died in a horrible wreck on my way to the office, that ripe fruit was the smell of my sainthood and rotting flesh.

then i realized that sally sue was drinking fruit tea. and that i'm not catholic, which pretty much ruled out the canonization.

where's my coffee?

express train + rushhour + high heels + guitar + service distruption = VERY DISGRUNTLED SHIVLET.

but in other news, KATE has arrived! safe into our city and into our arms. WOOOOOT!

to do today:

by the lovely bluering.

item that made me cry, number 40862

i hate it when song lyrics are right.

sort of.

guess who's coming to dinner?

and by "dinner," i mean "five days of chaos and cavorting and utter fabulosity in new-york-bloody-city, breaking hearts, kicking ass, taking names, and rocking the face off this place"

yes, that would be our lady kate, innit?

what kind of fucked up, motley crue behind the music bullshit IS this?

there's something in the air. i don't know if it's the ash from the california skies or the mysterious funk that permeated the W train this morning, but curious things are afoot. at this moment in time, there is a higher concentration of fucked up shit happening, both on the world stage and at home, than i can actually recall occurring simultaneously before. we're talking death, we're talking breakups, we're talking miscommunications, we're talking disppointments, heartbreaks and agonies left right and center. and i am not being hyperbolic.

it's unbelievable.

and if it weren't so heartbreaking, it would be almost comical.

can anyone give me an explanation for this? (other than the fact that arnie holds a political office. i'm not giving him responsibility for this emotional armageddon).

the parent trap

my parents (my biological parents, not the father-stepmother combo i typically refer to when i speak of 'the parents') have been in contact. i know this because my father asked for my mother's number. i have absolutely no idea why he would need to contact her, given that with the exception of my college graduation, they've not so much as spoken to one another (to my knowledge) in about twelve years?

anyway. given that i can't get a hold of either of them right now, is it unreasonable for my skin to be crawling? is this a further sign of the apocalypse? lordy mama.

amendment: it seems that the parental summit was because the sister-unit had gone awol. funny how it didn't occur to him to ask me if I knew where she was, seeing as how i do actually occasionally ask about her and what's gonig on in her life. and therefore knew where she was. honestly. my family.

platonic coquettry (paraphrased)

the owl: don't waste the energy, being upset about the process.
the owl: it's too po-mo.
the owl: being upset about being upset.
shivery: indeed.
shivery: but that's really more meta than po-mo.
the owl: right
shivery: and god knows i live for meta.

quiet on the south brooklyn front

my guitar and i seem to be at odds with one another.
we've been staring at each other accusatorily for the last two weeks, when ostensibly i should have been channelling my turmoil into some of the most profound and beautiful and wrenching music i have ever written.
the problem is, right now...right now we're not working together too well. i picked her up today, confident that now that i've regained some semblance of equilibrium, we'd be in business. i picked her up and promptly dissolved into a miasma of racking sobs. it was a little shocking, because it came completely out of nowhere. because i actually AM, for the most part, feeling better. and it's scary because i have a show in ten days and right now...right now i'm afraid of my instrument.
so it's a big fat catch-22 that i don't know what to do with. i won't be able to put all this to rest until i write about it, and it seems that i won't be able to write about it until i put it to rest.
how's that for a conundrum. tormented artist, indeed.

crash my system, will you.

enhanced cd's, much like my web browser, are the work of the devil.

dancetastic!

so, i'm listening to my new remix ('dilemma,' for those of you playing along at home), and my wistful dirge has been transformed into a chirpy dance anthem of the sort you'd hear over the closing credits of a studio ghibli animation.

i love it so much it makes my head hurt.

there's no shame in talking about it...i think.

so, everyone in blogland has made mention of it somehow, at least once. this is how we know it's a social disease. i am referring, of course, to the phenomenon known as friendster. and today, it's my turn to talk about it.

it's funny, it's become a joke to tell people that after an argument they're no longer "friendsters." but, here's the thing: when someone actually goes through with it, why is there nothing to inform people of this fact? no message or memo? i mean, presumably people will notice when one of their friends (or friendsters) goes missing, but why not reinforce the point? is it to spare our feelings? to keep from adding insult to injury? i mean, there are people out there with hundreds of friendsters--what if a friendship was damaged because someone couldn't pick an empty space out of the multitudes? (well, okay, that would probably point to the fact that the friendship was on shaky ground anyway, but...yeah)

i ask merely because today, someone chose to de-friendster me (and not just me, apparently), and when the obvious suspect turned out not to be the perpetrator (*relief*), i had to look at my friends and find out who. and now i know who, no thanks to the service itself, i just need to figure out why. and while there's no memo for the latter, i would have preferred to be informed about the former.

man, when that service starts charging, i hope that someone has the sense to add that function--if friendster could do double duty as a breakup device, they'd make MILLIONS.

the devil on my desktop.

i have finally, FINALLY, after years of fighting it, decided to upgrade my operating system. i came to the conclusion that something had to be done this past weekend, whilst the parents were in town. i was trotting all over creation in search of a firewire card for the beast, so that i might begin again feeding my ipod. ONLY TO DISCOVER that there is not a single firewire card in the whole wide world that is compatible with windows 98 first edition (stop snickering). chagrined and at a total loss, i accepted defeat and admitted that the time had come. so now i take the long walk of doom alongside the reformatted hard drive and the alien program which "may compromise machine performance."

but the fear, oh, the fear.

SPOT. ON.

Your Horoscope for October 21, 2003
PISCES


One of the best times of the year begins for you on Thursday when the sun moves into your fellow water sign of Taurus, but it will be better still if you can cut the emotional and material ties that seem to be holding you back. What matters now is peace of mind, not how much you own or who loves you the most.


the astrologer at the post knows too much.

when really i should be finding out if i'm okay.

i say i'm going to be fine, that i'm going to devote time to making myself happy. that i'm going to focus on making myself happy. that i am stronger than this. i say that really, i wasn't getting what i needed out of the relationship anyway, that towards the end there was a chasm between us that neither knew how to bridge and it tore me apart.

but it still takes every ounce of my willpower to not pick up the phone and make sure he's okay. all my willpower not to tell him that i love him.

HA!

pisces, october 20, 2003
It is OK to feel sorry for someone, but not to the extent that it impairs your ability to function. Everything that happens in life, be it good, bad or indifferent, takes place for a reason, and once you realize that, you won't be so concerned with the world's worries and woes, or even your own. Life's not as cruel as you think.

well then.

lynchian

if the last venue of my employment was a theme park, my new digs are a david lynch film. i was standing across the street with a smoke, huddling into the brightest puddle of light i could find. i looked to my left, and there was a dead pigeon, brown and white, uncrushed. to my right, there was an old polish man chuckling diabolically to himself. in front of me lurked a meat delivery van emblazoned with the phrase "let us steer the freshness to you." fifty yards away, a woman who came up to my elbow stood in for lynch's signature dwarf.

perhaps there's hope for this place yet. but don't quote me on that.

i will stop talking about this soon, promise.

i'm vascillating a lot. i keep skipping back and forth between moments of perspective and moments of intense upset. in my less lucid moments, all i can do is berate myself, examine every angle from which i must have made a misstep to make this happen, come up with everything that is, or was, wrong with me. how i wasn't enough. how i was too much. not interesting enough, pretty enough, just enough.

and then i start thinking about other men's girlfriends and the stories i've heard. the women who threaten to kill themselves if their men leave. the women who berate, who tear down their lovers in some strange drive to destroy everything around them. the women who cheat, the women who never let on how much they care, the women who never even try to be their friends, the women who never expend any effort to make them feel good, the women who play head games. (before anyone jumps down my throat, men pull this shit, too. women do not have the franchise on emotional manipulation and horridness. but they sure as hell can be guilty of it, too.)

and then i think, "wow, did boy have it good. and the second he realizes this, he's going to be terribly, terribly upset." and that makes me feel better. not because i want him to suffer or i want vindication, but because it makes me understand that there is nobody, nobody who could have given him more than i did in the support stakes. no girl who would have worked so hard to make sure he knew how much she cared, and how great she thought he was. no girl could ever have loved him enough to win out over his intense desire to be miserable. and i tried. and he tried to let me, for a while. and if he'd had enough sense, or just the capacity to open his eyes and acknowledge that there's a world outside his head, he would have been able to cope with the fact that he struck gold with me. and this is not my problem.

but the thing is, much like overnight celebrity, getting what you want at the wrong time, such as a girl who will love you until it breaks her in two, when you're not ready for it is worse than not getting it at all. because once you've got it, you've got to do something with it or risk losing it. and when you just can't, you have to live forever with the knowledge that you fucked it up. possibly irrevocably. and that's sad. and that makes me pity him a lot. it doesn't change the fact that i hate my empty bed and my clean sheets, but at least i know that in the long run, i'm going to be okay. i'm going to sleep with a clear conscience because I am not the one who fucked up something great. because I am the one with the support network that would never, ever let me get away with the kind of crap he's pulling here. because i am the one that, eventually, will be able to love again without feeling guilty about it.

i think the biscuit summed it up best of all: "the thing is, all he wants right now is to go run off and be selfish and miserable, he wants people to say 'oh, poor boy, he's so SAD. oh, he's so BRAVE for getting up in the morning' and he can't let you be a part of that because the people who he wants to pity him would take one look at you and say 'why the HELL are you so miserable? you've got HER.'"

and to close, "Personally I'd view it as a great compliment that I was a HINDRANCE to someone being able to SQUIRM AROUND in ABJECT SELF-INFLICTED MISERY."

so i'm working on that.

clarity, or how i finally got back to myself.

1. i did nothing more than be a kick ass girlfriend and a great friend to him.
2. he really wants to be depressed and miserable right now, and because of reason 1 i got in the way of his doing that.
3. i am not pathetic for not slamming the window shut on this. i'm not going to hold it open or anything, i'm just going to let it close of its own accord. and in the meantime, i'm going to take the energy i would have spent on closing this chapter for good as fast as possible and use it to make myself happy.

good LORD but it is good to feel like myself again. because unlike the last time anything even vaguely similar happened to me, i like myself a whole bunch.

we can now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

hoodie

to ease the pain, i'm considering purchasing a personalized hoodie from these people, and i'm at a loss as to what i should have it say. i'm kind of partial to "rock ninja", but i'd appreciate suggestions'

(ridiculous loserface is not an option, thanks.)

ballast

he loves me, and he's gone.

taking stock

i'm having trouble determining if the knowledge that it's not that he needs solitude, it's just that he can't be around me, makes this easier or harder. it's hard for me to accept that i am part of the problem, that my unwavering care and love and support are what's standing between him and his own peace. but apparently, that's true. apparently, as long as i was around to tell him how amazing he was, he could put off facing his demons. because what i was saying should have been enough, right? that's his rationale, anyway. and that's why he can't, or won't let me stand by him through this.


and he told me that he'd been thinking about this for months, and i told him i was furious that he had let it drag on. i told him i felt used, like i was some sort of confection he'd used to prop himself up while he decided what to do. i told him i felt he was a selfish bastard for not letting me support him or help him through this, or even telling me what was going on. and for letting me dangle while he decided if he could stay. and he agreed with me. partially. he admitted that he was selfish. but that it was never about making me dangle, or using me as a prop, because there was so much more value in it than just flattery and status; it was about waiting to see if he had no choice but to do this if he wanted to sort himself out, before giving me up.


there's a difference between being unhappy in a relationship and unhappy with the person you're in the relationship with. at least that's what he tells me. as far as i can tell, it feels the same.


it's going to take some time for me to wrap my head around the notion that the reason he's gone is that i made him happy, not because he needs to be alone. and that somehow the fact that i made him feel good about himself is what brought a lot of this on.

and while to a certain degree i understand, and while i finally got my reassurance that it was not because i was wrong for him but too too right, my heart and my head hurt more than i can say, because all the love i have wasn't enough. or maybe it was too much. and i'll never be able to comprehend this fully.
saying goodbye was one of the hardest things i've ever done; judging from the look on his face as i said it, the feeling was mutual. and there's some cold comfort in that. he took a wild chance on me at the outset, knowing full well that he wasn't ready for this, because he saw something special and specific in me that stirred (in the smallest of ways) something that nobody had for a while. there's some cold comfort in that, too. he says i'm one of the only things that has consistently made him happy. there's some cold comfort in that, too. but only a little , because i can't stop my heart from asking why that couldn't be enough.


dear readers, i now need two things from you:
1. please, please don't tell me what an ass he is. because that makes me feel stupid for loving him.
2. how do you get over a broken heart?

he says

"because i wanted to be with you. because i love you. because i needed to."

answer. respond. redeem.

i'm shaking like a leaf and becoming more and more aware of a single fact: redemption and reconciliation cannot be undertaken alone.
and though i've done all i can, i still don't know what to do.

karaoke does not heal my pain

there is nothing worse than trying to drink in manhattan when all you want to do is be curled up in your bed with a bottle of wine and a box of tissue. tonight, i hated everyone (except my companions). tonight, i tried to prostrate myself on the altar of public humiliation in the hopes that it would distract me. tonight, i tried to play hostess to an out of town friend and wasn't terribly successful. tonight, i cried again as the taxi took me home.
i could walk over bridges for miles.

action

i am all cried out.  the morning after my 22-hour crying jag, my eyes feel bruised and swollen and my skin dry and chapped. but i feel whole. for a while there i didn't think i would. i cried like i was drowning, i cried like i'd been betrayed in the worst way, i cried like someone who had lost something they'd waited a long time to find.
i had a cavalcade of chaperones to get me through the immediate aftermath--krissa, who called and texted and emailed and called me from the airport until she was certain i was being looked after; jason, who came over with movies and hugs and let me cry all over him in the most disgraceful manner; neela, who came over with beer and sympathy and sound advice; steph and biscuit and roos, who put up with my weakness and weeping online all day.
and then there was sleep. never mind that my sheets still smell like him, never mind that i, in my unshowered and weeping state still smelled like him, there was a deep and dreamless sleep.
and of course i'm not fine, of course i've not accepted this yet.
but i'm okay. and i know what i need to do next. and the way it goes down will answer everything.
so wish me luck, people. wish me luck.

aftershocks

things i'm going to miss:



your smile. the color of your eyes. the curve of your back. the way you smell. the way you taste. your hair and the fact that i still find it everywhere. your voice. the way you'd sing for me when i couldn't sing for myself. your beautiful, beautiful mouth. the way you touch me. showering. sleeping in your leaky apartment. spooning. morning coffee. watching your face at my shows, your undisguised pleasure that you were going to be the one taking me home. listening to you sleep. your obsession with basketball. your fedora. taking you out with my friends. smoking your cigarettes. cooking you dinner. hearing you tell me that you love me. telling you i love you. your sideburns. your hands. the part of your abdomen just below the bellybutton. your hugs. getting excited every time i see your name on my caller id. lazy weekend brunches. how angry you'd get when people harassed me on the street. you. you. you. you.


i have no idea if you're going to read this. but if you do, remember i'm holding you to your promise. and two will get you ten that i'll still be here when you do.



and i love you.

aftershocks b

things you're going to miss:


my red hair. my huge eyes. my red curtains (me, wes anderson and david lynch). my music. my voice. my unbelievably loyal fans. my unbelievably great friends. the fact that i read comic books, sci fi and heavy fiction. the small of my back. my collarbone. the curve of my hip. my inner thigh. poking my bellybutton. learning to take milk and sugar in your morning coffee. sunday brunch. kissing me. pulling my hair. watching me when i'm at social events with my friends. my sarcastic humor. my sleeve-falling-downy getups. the eighty shades of black in my wardrobe. the fact that i wear berets, when nobody else you know can pull them off. finding bits of my glitter everywhere. your chance to go to northern california with me and see where i grew up. your chance to go back to slc with me and watch me mock the students. my heart-shaped face. my litany of gay boyfriends. my unquestioning willingness to sleep in your leaky apartment. teasing me about the magazines i read. nights in my cozy apartment. the fact that i know all the best places to eat. the fact that i know every bartender in town with a wink and a nod.


these are the only ones i remember.


and you love me. finally. i just wish you hadn't chosen today to tell me that.

hard knock life

they say that living in new york makes you hard. and i think i'm about to find out why.

working in midtown is a very different experience from working in the financial district. the bustle has more hustle, the streets are crammed with tourists and wholesale fabric shops, the peepshows abound and there is a man waiting to proposition you around every corner. on my way here this morning, i was called mamita three times. one of them asked if i had a minute to meet him around the side of the parking lot before work.

i couldn't decide if i wanted to cry or kill him. so i kept walking, jaw set. and it saddens me that i'm getting such clear evidence that in order to survive this new office space, i'm going to need a new set of armor. i'm going to need furrowed brows and frumpy clothing, combat boots. the lovely heels will have to go away, as will the skirts, because if the last few days are any indication, my feminine lovelies will be looked at as an invitation.

we don't leave the building very often. and when we do, we travel in pairs.

on our block we have: a methadone clinic, a peepshow, an adult video store, two parking lots and a polish art gallery.

i suppose that the revolutionary in me should be pleased by this, that this block is the very soul of pre-giuliani new york. but the pragmatist in me is angry because she no longer feels safe at her place of employment, and furious because that would be a fair trade if only she were happy in her job.

alas. so to survive, we kvetch openly. i have the roos and the owl and the biscuit within a short radius. all of my doctors are within walking distance. i can take the express train in the morning. so these are all good things.

but i am afraid, and i am frustrated, and i am very much missing our safe little corner of the financial district, lost in the shadow of the stock exchange.

food for thought.

Your flavor of the week will be ginger peach or vanilla clove or some other blend of piquant spiciness and smooth sweetness. The kitchen accessory that best symbolizes your special skills will be a thick sponge that has an abrasive surface on one side for scrubbing dirty pots. The recurring dream you're most likely to dream for the last time, triumphing forever over the past trauma that originally spawned it, is the nightmare in which you feel like a cornered animal. Your haiku of power will be "melodious struggle where the soul turns crap into fertilizer."

i hope this is true. because right now...right now the inside of my head is a mess, and if i were a nail biter they'd be down to the quick. and i'm sure i'll dream of absent teeth tonight.

ain't no party like a k & s party

because when we throw a party, we look like this:

wisdom from cat and girl

"they're so deadened to the world that life makes sense to them."

tiger, tiger

what is going to happen to this world if roy dies?

anatomy of a reverse siege, day five.

ahem.
this is now one solid week i've been unable to get any work done through no fault of my own. and while i do rather appreciate the paid vacation, i sort of get the feeling that there is something horribly wrong with this situation. plus, i'm terrified to open my inbox. god only knows what it's grown since last i tended to it.
but, once again, i am corresponding with blogland from home. though the powers that be would really have liked us to stay, the lack of internet and the amazing burning fumes coming from our freshly painted radiators really inspired us to go home and save what few brain cells we have left.
not that i really want to go be crazy working girl or anything, but this is really getting a little ridiculous.

absent bedfellows.

it's cold enough tonight that i'm going to have to don pajamas for the first time since spring first peeked around the corner. and while i rather relish the notion of flannel against my skin...i can think of better warming mechanisms.

family visit. sort of.

the tips of my fingers are hurting greatly right now. i just got home from four hours in the studio, laying down three tracks (including a cleaner copy of 'reclamation'). it's been ages since i've been in the studio; clearly, so had my fingers. thank goodness i've been keeping my calluses in tip-top condition, is all i have to say.
i also burned my hand this morning, on a scalding cup of coffee. it was gruesome.

productive non-productivity

what a lovely and mellow and thoroughly non-productive day i've had here. as our new office digs are still a shambles, i've been "working" from home. which really means i've surfed the web for my halloween costume, activated my new atm card, changed my billing information for my phone and gym membership and investigated the possibility of getting my strange, possessed phone replaced. and i threw some money at my credit card.

a dispute which had potential to rip my little world apart was settled and everything.

and a question: can i really justify spending $100 on a halloween costume, even though it would quite possibly make me the sexiest thing on two legs?
tra la!

hell has a name, and it's 38th street

i am writing this missive on a dial up connection, jamming the one phone line in our otherwise internet-free office. i've done nothing since arriving here today. i am standing around and conversing with our cockney jack of all trades and bitching with my cohorts.

rob brezsny's got my number.

pisces
The daily grind is on the verge of crushing your spirit; you're way too close to giving in to the petty pressures of everyday insanity. In my astrological opinion, therefore, you're ready to indulge in what French poet Charles Baudelaire called "a taste for the infinite." More than that: You desperately need to cultivate a voracious hunger for the infinite. Call it going back to your spiritual roots if you like. Think of it as talking to God or expanding your consciousness or meditating till your heart melts into a state of union with your eternal source. You've got to get yourself some deep and intimate communion with the Divine Wow.

wildebeest sprog dropper

riddle me this, emperor: if you were the mother of a five-day-old sprog, wouldn't you have better things to do than call the office and yell at people for leaving the premises when they had no way of accomplishing anything at all?

work ethic be damned.

so, in theory, i'm working from home today. i say in theory becuase i'm making about as much progress as someone going up the down staircase leading to the 6 platform at union square at rushour: not much.
this is due, first and foremost, to the fact that i find my job dull and tedious. and editing is not really my idea of a good time, particularly when i'm editing travel guides to exotic and wonderful places that my company does not pay me enough to ever see outside of a guidebook. this is also due to the fact that i got a rather late start. the sad fact of the matter is that when neither boy nor i have anywhere to be immediately, we have a tendency to be very fond of sleeping in and flolloping around as long as possible. as such, we did not emerge from slumber until about a quarter to noon, after which there was coffee to be drunk, dishes to be done, showers to be had and housekeeping skills to mock (and, of course, associated reassurances and apologies to extract). so, really, my workday didn't really start until about 12:45.