The wretched desert takes its form, the jackal proud and tight
In search of you, I feel my way, though the slowest heaving night
Whatever fear invents, I swear it make no sense
I reach through the border fence
Come down, come talk to me
...
Ah please talk to me
Won't you please talk to me
We can unlock this misery
Come on, come talk to me
Peter Gabriel, "Come Talk to Me" Us
— `phfina commentary:
Okay, what are you doing? Why are you reading this post? Go! Go out and buy Peter Gabriel's CD Us (and while you're at it, get Lana Del Rey's Born to Die ... she wrote that album for us, girls; she really did).
I mean, okay: is that guy even human, or is he his name: an angel? There was not one false note on that entire album, so sad, so serious, so super-silly with his "Kiss that Frog" ...
Wait. Is 'kiss that frog' the same as kissing a 'python' because if it is ... okay: eww!
So: "Come Talk to Me." I mean, it starts beautifully, and stays that way: the (bag) pipes strike a mournful chord, and they never, ever stop, the continuous drone in the background of that entire song reminding us all of the hurt that is happening throughout the world, all the time.
And Peter offers a really stupidly simple solution to it all: "Come, take to me."
No, not: "Hear me while I tell you all the solutions to your problems, you idiot."
He didn't say "Listen to me." He said: "Come, talk to me."
And where are we coming from? We're coming from our wretched desert, where Jesus went off to be alone.
We're all alone, all of us so filled with our own pride, our own self-worth, just like that tight jackal, that we can't even hear what another person from the well of their loneliness is saying to us. We'd rather rip their throats out than sit down, look into their being, and listen to them.
But Peter, he reaches through that border-fence that we erect around ourselves, and begs us: "Ah, please, talk to me. Come on, come talk to me."
Sweetheart. You are hurting.
But talking to yourself, locking yourself up into your wretched desert and erecting that border-fence only feeds that hurt.
Please, talk to me. Come on, come talk to me.
I don't have answers ... I mean, I have tons of answers, all the time, and I'm damn sure I'm right, too, 'cause I'm a weak human being, too, so please forgive me my frailty ...
I don't have answers; I don't have help or relief from your pain. But I can reach out through that border-fence, and listen, and cry, hurting with your pain, and love you.
You are alone in this world. I know this feeling very well. Please, talk to me.
I love you.
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
"Turn Me On, Dammit!"
They made a movie about me:
trailers-dot-apple-dot-com-slash-trailers-slash-independent-slash-turnmeondammit
That's all that post was going to be, but, well, it's a lovely day, so why not ruin it more? That's all I'm good at, so here goes.
OF COURSE they would come out with an indie move about angst from Angst-central that is the Great Northern Old World, and, please, look at the girl, isn't she perfect. She is just so oh-my-god so fuckingly (and fuckingably) (or is it 'fuckabling'?) beautiful, especially when she puts that flower in her hair, and goes on the prowl, that half the girls in the world would give their right arm to be her and the other half (actually 5%) would want to do her.
Do her good, long and hard.
Like I said, a movie about me.
But then, how does she see herself? Look at her when she looks at herself. Do you see how her face becomes sallow and haggard?
She thinks she's ugly.
No, worse: she thinks she's undesirable.
No, worst: she thinks she's unlovable.
(Doesn't fucking help that every single person in that export from Norway is Nordic, and yes, Saga isn't Norwegian, and she isn't even Swedish, except by relocation, or maybe she's is properly half Swedish, but I don't remember any more, and I can't ask her, ... actually I can, and expect the same donut-hole responses I've been getting)
(But no response from Saga is better to me, a bittersweet drink, than anything I have before me in my empty and meaningless life, so I hold onto her silence as if it were the only lifeline I have ... had ... have, because at least I have her silence).
Like I said. Angst.
They did get one thing wrong: phone smex. And the bills for it. As if I could afford that.
Besides, why buy the cow, when the lactatio-... I meant: 'milk' *blush* is free? There's the internet for that. All day, every day.
Except at work. Can't get fired.
Besides (part deux) phone smex is so personal ... intimate, even! ... okay, here's how phone smex for `phfina would go down.
Ring-ring: please enter your account number or press star to enter your credit card information for a new account
(`phfina enters her account information, for the 500th time this week)
'Hello,' says a sweet, friendly voice, 'my name is Kristile, what's yours?'
(`phfina shrieks and hangs up, blushing hard, just like the past 500 times, and runs from her flat to the nearest pub, I mean: 'hide-y hole')
At the end of the month, they find a what they identify as a preteen girl in an apartment she was squatting, dead, with a credit card bill for $3,000 clutched in her left, that is, her non-knife hand.
I think I'm going to love that movie, when it finally comes out on youtube in "Part 1 of 10" segments, because, really, who wants to see a movie about a sad girl with no happy ending when there's the multibillion dollar happily-ever-after franchises, like Twilight ... THAT'S reality: self-conscious girl, awkward, lands ultra-rich-cute-powerful boy and gets deus ex machina powers AND, for fuck's sake, a perfect in every way daughter who hits preteens right away and is just so adoring and adorable there's nothing at all to hate or be frustrated about with her.
THAT'S reality, so why watch a teenage angst movie, and told from a girl's perspective at that?
She probably commits suicide at the end. Because: labeled a slut? ostracized so much that her best friend leaves her to hang out with a nice guy?
Where have a lived, I meant: 'heard', that before? Hm.
Now, I'm terrified to write they made another movie about me:
trailers-dot-apple-dot-com-slash-trailers-slash-independent-slash-godblessamerica
Because it's been like, what, at least three times that people PM me and are like, 'Are you like a 40-year-old pervy guy'?
And I'm like, what?
I mean, seriously! Do they see me as this guy?
trailers-dot-apple-dot-com-slash-trailers-slash-independent-slash-badass
Last I checked, Machete slashed a lot, but he didn't have that little tiny slash that I have down there when I check my birthday suit in the mirror.
Mirror time. Fun-fun.
Seriously, three times a girl comes to me, opens up, and then says am I a stalker perv?
Did you get the part where they came to me, I didn't go to them and say, 'diddle yourself while you tell me your fantasies of me fucking you'? No, they came to me, and opened up, and I tried, God, I tried to tell them they are lovable, and give them some self-meaning, and -worth, and -confidence, but somehow I'm the stalker because they're a fucked-up psycho bitch?
Fucking psycho bitches.
Please, do me a favor, and fuck off, fucked up psycho bitches.
You can get hurt on-line. I have, but not for being called something I'm not.
I got hurt, badly, for being called something I am.
It was, somebody ... who saw this shy, scared girl, and made a tiger trap for me, and baited it well, and when I fell into that trap, and had nowhere to turn and nowhere to run to hide, she said: "I know who you are."
And she told me.
Another time I almost committed suicide.
Why do people JUST. HAVE. TO. KNOW?
"Are you an alcoholic?"
"Do you have a mental disorder?"
And then the killing me softly with kindness, telling me what and who I am, putting me in my place, under her domination and control, so she would be safe, because there's somebody (much, much) weaker, more vulnerable than her, and she's seen these weaknesses before, and knew exactly how to exploit them.
No, I'm afraid of mentioning 'God bless America,' not because I'm a rampaging murderous fourty year old pervy man (please!). No, it's because I am that teen girl, outcast, with that really, really weird twisted outlook on life, who is this close to pulling a gun on the guy who double-parked, but did she, no.
What she did was smile, evilly, and pat our anti-hero on the arm, affectionately, encouraging the behavior on him which that sweet little innocent her would never dream of acting out on.
That's why I'm afraid of mentioning that movie, because you see me as brave, and strong, trying to work through my shit, when, actually, I'm not working through the shit, I'm not in the shit.
I am the shit.
I'm a little vicious, conniving, nihilistic, evil shit.
Special place in hell, reserved just for me, the anti-elect.
Those two movies got one thing wrong ... about me, and so right about girls these days.
No matter how low these girls, these anti-heroines have sunk, they ...
They still have self-worth, pride, and bravery or courage. They can flip off their town, because they know they hate it.
Me? My life? I grew up in Middletown, CT, 'Little Italy', an outsider, by definition, but I didn't know I hated that little town where there was no way I could fit in. I didn't know anything. That's just the way things were, and that's just the way my life is.
These girls? They have the guts to subscribe to a phone-smex line to help take care of bizness, they have the guts to go up to a 40-year-old perv watching school girls through binocs to say, 'Isn't that a little lame to get your rocks off, you perv?' and then when he offs the class princess-bitch-cvnt, she has the guts not wet herself and fall into a quivering teary pile, lying the whole time saying, 'That's not right,' and 'you're so mean, how could you do that!' when deep in her heart she felt her panties get wet watching him off that vicious bitch who picked on and belittled her her whole school life.
No, she has the guts to smile, and say, 'That is the coolest thing I have ever seen. Can I come with you?'
And get in his car and throw her useless, pointless, predetermined life away and walk into an unknown, carefree, exciting future and actually live.
Do you see why I'm terrified?
Nah, you don't. You just feel sorry for fucked up little me, that I can live my fucked up little life that everybody else is just fine living ('quiet lives of desperation'), and I can't ...
I can't go on.
Yes, I can.
How do people do it? How do people just keep going on, and are actually happy and content with what they have? It's like a gift, isn't it? Did everybody else get the manual, and they forgot to give it to me, because I missed out on 'How to have vaginal and anal intercourse with a male and enjoy it, even though he cums in like, 30 seconds, and you never will' manual on how to live your life happily and contented even though there's better and you had it for a while and then it's all gone, twice.
TWICE. Twice I've lost the best friend and lover in the world that I knew I would never have on my own merit, and now I have to settle for ...
So now I have this Big Scarlet letter, ... not 'A', for 'Adulteress' (been there, done that), but 'S' for 'Settle for', so now every person who comes to me sees that 'S' and knows what she is, 'Oh, I'm just what `phfina's settling for'
And what does that say to her about her? And what does that say about me, that I'm living my life in the past with my regrets, knowing I don't deserve what I had had, so judging everything, even better things, as not measuring up, and measuring up to what? What I had when I can't see beauty, and kindness, and sweetness and love right in front of me, because all I have in my guts (which we have establish that I don't have guts) is anger and the only taste left in my mouth is bitterness?
----
I've been looking for the king of diamonds
But I guess the queen will do
I've been looking for the king of diamonds
Till the dealer gave me you
You've got everything together
You've got everything I want
You've got sharp & sparkling pleasure
Even from the middle of your card
"King of Diamonds," sung by Motopony
... but what does that make me? That's easy:
You are just a stranger,
With your vodka soda.
Under the street light.
You were a silhouette.
Cigarette.
You look, You look like trouble.
You look like beautiful trash.
You look, look so holy through the smoke
And the ash of beautiful trash.
"Beautiful Trash," performed by Lanu
That's what it makes me, a pretty little girl with nothing to recommend her than her beautiful girlish looks, her beautiful insights, and that she tries, oh, she tries so hard!
Yeah, I'm a try-hard.
Hm, I wonder if cigarette smoke clears the nose, throat, and lungs of all the snot I'm carrying in me.
You know, clear my head. Just like my Pepe did, when I was a little baby, one, two years old.
He went to his garage shed one pre-dawn morning, took a gun, and cleared his head, with a smok(ing bullet).
Nana found him. Something felt wrong. So she ran to the garage, and found him there. Cold, pale. Dead.
Just like me.
trailers-dot-apple-dot-com-slash-trailers-slash-independent-slash-turnmeondammit
That's all that post was going to be, but, well, it's a lovely day, so why not ruin it more? That's all I'm good at, so here goes.
OF COURSE they would come out with an indie move about angst from Angst-central that is the Great Northern Old World, and, please, look at the girl, isn't she perfect. She is just so oh-my-god so fuckingly (and fuckingably) (or is it 'fuckabling'?) beautiful, especially when she puts that flower in her hair, and goes on the prowl, that half the girls in the world would give their right arm to be her and the other half (actually 5%) would want to do her.
Do her good, long and hard.
Like I said, a movie about me.
But then, how does she see herself? Look at her when she looks at herself. Do you see how her face becomes sallow and haggard?
She thinks she's ugly.
No, worse: she thinks she's undesirable.
No, worst: she thinks she's unlovable.
(Doesn't fucking help that every single person in that export from Norway is Nordic, and yes, Saga isn't Norwegian, and she isn't even Swedish, except by relocation, or maybe she's is properly half Swedish, but I don't remember any more, and I can't ask her, ... actually I can, and expect the same donut-hole responses I've been getting)
(But no response from Saga is better to me, a bittersweet drink, than anything I have before me in my empty and meaningless life, so I hold onto her silence as if it were the only lifeline I have ... had ... have, because at least I have her silence).
Like I said. Angst.
They did get one thing wrong: phone smex. And the bills for it. As if I could afford that.
Besides, why buy the cow, when the lactatio-... I meant: 'milk' *blush* is free? There's the internet for that. All day, every day.
Except at work. Can't get fired.
Besides (part deux) phone smex is so personal ... intimate, even! ... okay, here's how phone smex for `phfina would go down.
Ring-ring: please enter your account number or press star to enter your credit card information for a new account
(`phfina enters her account information, for the 500th time this week)
'Hello,' says a sweet, friendly voice, 'my name is Kristile, what's yours?'
(`phfina shrieks and hangs up, blushing hard, just like the past 500 times, and runs from her flat to the nearest pub, I mean: 'hide-y hole')
At the end of the month, they find a what they identify as a preteen girl in an apartment she was squatting, dead, with a credit card bill for $3,000 clutched in her left, that is, her non-knife hand.
I think I'm going to love that movie, when it finally comes out on youtube in "Part 1 of 10" segments, because, really, who wants to see a movie about a sad girl with no happy ending when there's the multibillion dollar happily-ever-after franchises, like Twilight ... THAT'S reality: self-conscious girl, awkward, lands ultra-rich-cute-powerful boy and gets deus ex machina powers AND, for fuck's sake, a perfect in every way daughter who hits preteens right away and is just so adoring and adorable there's nothing at all to hate or be frustrated about with her.
THAT'S reality, so why watch a teenage angst movie, and told from a girl's perspective at that?
She probably commits suicide at the end. Because: labeled a slut? ostracized so much that her best friend leaves her to hang out with a nice guy?
Where have a lived, I meant: 'heard', that before? Hm.
Now, I'm terrified to write they made another movie about me:
trailers-dot-apple-dot-com-slash-trailers-slash-independent-slash-godblessamerica
Because it's been like, what, at least three times that people PM me and are like, 'Are you like a 40-year-old pervy guy'?
And I'm like, what?
I mean, seriously! Do they see me as this guy?
trailers-dot-apple-dot-com-slash-trailers-slash-independent-slash-badass
Last I checked, Machete slashed a lot, but he didn't have that little tiny slash that I have down there when I check my birthday suit in the mirror.
Mirror time. Fun-fun.
Seriously, three times a girl comes to me, opens up, and then says am I a stalker perv?
Did you get the part where they came to me, I didn't go to them and say, 'diddle yourself while you tell me your fantasies of me fucking you'? No, they came to me, and opened up, and I tried, God, I tried to tell them they are lovable, and give them some self-meaning, and -worth, and -confidence, but somehow I'm the stalker because they're a fucked-up psycho bitch?
Fucking psycho bitches.
Please, do me a favor, and fuck off, fucked up psycho bitches.
You can get hurt on-line. I have, but not for being called something I'm not.
I got hurt, badly, for being called something I am.
It was, somebody ... who saw this shy, scared girl, and made a tiger trap for me, and baited it well, and when I fell into that trap, and had nowhere to turn and nowhere to run to hide, she said: "I know who you are."
And she told me.
Another time I almost committed suicide.
Why do people JUST. HAVE. TO. KNOW?
"Are you an alcoholic?"
"Do you have a mental disorder?"
And then the killing me softly with kindness, telling me what and who I am, putting me in my place, under her domination and control, so she would be safe, because there's somebody (much, much) weaker, more vulnerable than her, and she's seen these weaknesses before, and knew exactly how to exploit them.
No, I'm afraid of mentioning 'God bless America,' not because I'm a rampaging murderous fourty year old pervy man (please!). No, it's because I am that teen girl, outcast, with that really, really weird twisted outlook on life, who is this close to pulling a gun on the guy who double-parked, but did she, no.
What she did was smile, evilly, and pat our anti-hero on the arm, affectionately, encouraging the behavior on him which that sweet little innocent her would never dream of acting out on.
That's why I'm afraid of mentioning that movie, because you see me as brave, and strong, trying to work through my shit, when, actually, I'm not working through the shit, I'm not in the shit.
I am the shit.
I'm a little vicious, conniving, nihilistic, evil shit.
Special place in hell, reserved just for me, the anti-elect.
Those two movies got one thing wrong ... about me, and so right about girls these days.
No matter how low these girls, these anti-heroines have sunk, they ...
They still have self-worth, pride, and bravery or courage. They can flip off their town, because they know they hate it.
Me? My life? I grew up in Middletown, CT, 'Little Italy', an outsider, by definition, but I didn't know I hated that little town where there was no way I could fit in. I didn't know anything. That's just the way things were, and that's just the way my life is.
These girls? They have the guts to subscribe to a phone-smex line to help take care of bizness, they have the guts to go up to a 40-year-old perv watching school girls through binocs to say, 'Isn't that a little lame to get your rocks off, you perv?' and then when he offs the class princess-bitch-cvnt, she has the guts not wet herself and fall into a quivering teary pile, lying the whole time saying, 'That's not right,' and 'you're so mean, how could you do that!' when deep in her heart she felt her panties get wet watching him off that vicious bitch who picked on and belittled her her whole school life.
No, she has the guts to smile, and say, 'That is the coolest thing I have ever seen. Can I come with you?'
And get in his car and throw her useless, pointless, predetermined life away and walk into an unknown, carefree, exciting future and actually live.
Do you see why I'm terrified?
Nah, you don't. You just feel sorry for fucked up little me, that I can live my fucked up little life that everybody else is just fine living ('quiet lives of desperation'), and I can't ...
I can't go on.
Yes, I can.
How do people do it? How do people just keep going on, and are actually happy and content with what they have? It's like a gift, isn't it? Did everybody else get the manual, and they forgot to give it to me, because I missed out on 'How to have vaginal and anal intercourse with a male and enjoy it, even though he cums in like, 30 seconds, and you never will' manual on how to live your life happily and contented even though there's better and you had it for a while and then it's all gone, twice.
TWICE. Twice I've lost the best friend and lover in the world that I knew I would never have on my own merit, and now I have to settle for ...
So now I have this Big Scarlet letter, ... not 'A', for 'Adulteress' (been there, done that), but 'S' for 'Settle for', so now every person who comes to me sees that 'S' and knows what she is, 'Oh, I'm just what `phfina's settling for'
And what does that say to her about her? And what does that say about me, that I'm living my life in the past with my regrets, knowing I don't deserve what I had had, so judging everything, even better things, as not measuring up, and measuring up to what? What I had when I can't see beauty, and kindness, and sweetness and love right in front of me, because all I have in my guts (which we have establish that I don't have guts) is anger and the only taste left in my mouth is bitterness?
----
I've been looking for the king of diamonds
But I guess the queen will do
I've been looking for the king of diamonds
Till the dealer gave me you
You've got everything together
You've got everything I want
You've got sharp & sparkling pleasure
Even from the middle of your card
"King of Diamonds," sung by Motopony
... but what does that make me? That's easy:
You are just a stranger,
With your vodka soda.
Under the street light.
You were a silhouette.
Cigarette.
You look, You look like trouble.
You look like beautiful trash.
You look, look so holy through the smoke
And the ash of beautiful trash.
"Beautiful Trash," performed by Lanu
That's what it makes me, a pretty little girl with nothing to recommend her than her beautiful girlish looks, her beautiful insights, and that she tries, oh, she tries so hard!
Yeah, I'm a try-hard.
Hm, I wonder if cigarette smoke clears the nose, throat, and lungs of all the snot I'm carrying in me.
You know, clear my head. Just like my Pepe did, when I was a little baby, one, two years old.
He went to his garage shed one pre-dawn morning, took a gun, and cleared his head, with a smok(ing bullet).
Nana found him. Something felt wrong. So she ran to the garage, and found him there. Cold, pale. Dead.
Just like me.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Redemption Song
Okay, reading the last post, I can come off as blaming Frito-Lay and Coca-Cola and restaurants and mega-factory-farms and ...
Okay, this, this shit that we're all mired in, it isn't any of their fault.
It's our fault.
Look, Frito-Lay and Coca-Cola and McDonalds and your local Irish Pub, and, and ... sbux (Oh, God, I'm crying!) are in business to make money, and they make money by serving us what we want, and the successful businesses are the best servers.
So. It's not their fault I satiate my tongue with salt and sugar until I desensitize it. They are just giving me what I want, and when I want more, they give me more. If not them, then somebody else would step up and serve me, because, God-damn-it, it's my American-born right to be pleasured, and right now, at that.
Oh, and to be clear, I'm not writing this footnote to defend Corporate American, Inc, nor am I writing it because I'm afraid of being sued by them.
The ones who are afraid are them, not me.
First of all, if they sued me, they'd lose their shirts in legal fees.
But that doesn't give me carte blanch (that is Latin) to slander: if I want to be responsible (for, like, my health), well, responsibility is everywhere in my life, and I can't say that it's McDonalds fault for the diabetes epidemic.
Nobody forced me to supersize my order, nor even order in the first place.
And, in fact, these corporations, following the profit motive (because if they don't, then they won't be corporations for long), also are good citizens, like I try to be, too.
After all: I don't own foundations to assist orphans or save polar bears or any of that.
But they do.
So, they are there, and they serve the mass of people, and they serve them very well, indeed, and are justly, or magnificently, compensated for it.
And I still want to have a choice in my life as to what I put into (any part of) my body.
How can I do that with these megaliths overshadowing everything?
Easy. You live in the city, like I do? Easy.
There are nooks everywhere. Restaurants cater to their clientele. So: live a little. Go to a hole in the wall ethnic place and do a quick check of the patrons. More than 50% white? Well, they are now catering to middle America. Move on.
But if you go to an Afghani place, and there are all locals there, or if you go to a Vietnamese place, and they're all Vietnamese, or if you go to a Korean place, and they are all Han.
Then you're onto something. Something good.
Then, ... well, usually it's a mistake to ask the waitress what to get in these places, and here's why.
She'll look at you (at me), and say, 'Hm, white girl wants ...' and suggest something vomitous that one of the usuals wouldn't be caught dead eating.
No, you're American, you're rude, by definition, so: use it.
Point to the next table and say, 'I'll have what they're having.'
If the waitress looks shocked and says, 'No, no! You no like that!'
Then you've probably struck gold.
Or you'll hate it, but at least you tried something you never tried before.
That's a win in my book, either way.
USUALLY you strike gold.
I went to an Afghani place, and said I wanted a pita sandwich, and the owner said, 'No, you want the lamb kabab!'
And I was like, incensed! but then I saw all the patrons eating kababs, so I was like, okay, you're the boss.
He was. SO. RIGHT!
Okay, that's the city: eat the real ethnic food.
But you say you don't live in the city.
Sister, then you've won, big time.
You do have a farm near you, did you know you can order directly from them?
You win.
And then, your yard? All that space, that city dweller me doesn't have.
Just try a 6-sq foot garden, just start it, and then, a year later, you'll be like, '`phfina, you can't touch me for the food I make, and it's so easy to do. Why aren't you doing it?'
Yes, there's a McDonalds and Walmart in your town, or tri-town area, but just because you don't have a Thai restaurant or whatever, you're not deprived. You, too, don't have to go to McDonalds nor Walmart to get everything you need, when you can go to your local farm or you can be your local farm, for goodness sake!
You know, I think, part of the reason for this food-crisis we're having, is because we are so blessed with bounty, we don't even see the beautiful because the plentiful satiates then dulls our senses.
All you have to do to see is to take a wee bit of time, and to look, and to see.
... and then, when you see beauty, to be grateful for what you've seen.
We are not slaves to Corporate America, Inc, nor to Gov't regulation ... they are so big and grand, and care about the little mouse that is me insofar only as much as it can get me to give myself, my body, and my mind to them, so they can continue to exist.
That's why Corporate America, Inc, is afraid, and always will be: they are there to serve, and nobody knows that better than them, even little me, a (willing) Corporate slave of one of them, didn't get that until now.
Their jobs, their existence depends, always depends on a happy consumer.
So, we don't get all Fight Club on them. We don't need to.
An educated consumer? The one who says, "Hm, I want to taste the taste of tomato in my sandwich, not this bland cardboard taste"?
Who votes with his feet?
One of them?
Pfft! Who cares!
But one becomes two, and two, three, and three, more, and more, a movement, and that's how sbux started, one cup at a time. That's how Whole Foods started, that's how Walmart, that's how all of them started.
And that's good.
And that works well enough.
And then, there are the people who stand up, and say, "I am going to make that sandwich I want to eat."
And that's how 5 guys started, and now they are growing across the country.
And you read this, and you say, "But not me."
You say that. "Oh, I can't write like you." "Oh, I can manage a restaurant, but I can't own one and sell the food I already make with my own hands because ..." or "Oh, I'm not going to vote for any of the candidates: they are all crooks."
But what about you? Forget the 'if not you, then who?'
Forget that.
Just this: the next time you say 'If I were running this country, ...'
Or: "Who's the manager here, do you call this service?"
Or ... whenever you're not getting served the way you want...
Do you know people are paying good money, feeling exactly as you do, and they are willing to pay 8x the price they are paying for a cup of coffee made the way they really want it, not that dishwater they are drinking right now.
Or WHATEVER it is that you are settling for as a consumer.
Are you going to live a 'settled for' life?
Yes, you are. But now you know that you are settling for, every day, several times a day, you do settle for.
Knowledge, ... sight, ... is a beautiful, cursed thing. Because you see now what you see, and what you do with it: you either leave well enough alone and settle for 'Well, that's the way things are, ...'
Or, you're going to plant the first apple seed on your walk across the country,
Or, you're going to design clothes that are both elegant and comfortable and fashionable and affordable,
Or, you're going to run for State senate, and lose, and then, like Lincoln, run for President: the first woman President of the United States: you,
... and change the world.
-----
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our mind
Woh, have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fullfill the book
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs
BOB MARLEY - REDEMPTION SONG
Okay, this, this shit that we're all mired in, it isn't any of their fault.
It's our fault.
Look, Frito-Lay and Coca-Cola and McDonalds and your local Irish Pub, and, and ... sbux (Oh, God, I'm crying!) are in business to make money, and they make money by serving us what we want, and the successful businesses are the best servers.
So. It's not their fault I satiate my tongue with salt and sugar until I desensitize it. They are just giving me what I want, and when I want more, they give me more. If not them, then somebody else would step up and serve me, because, God-damn-it, it's my American-born right to be pleasured, and right now, at that.
Oh, and to be clear, I'm not writing this footnote to defend Corporate American, Inc, nor am I writing it because I'm afraid of being sued by them.
The ones who are afraid are them, not me.
First of all, if they sued me, they'd lose their shirts in legal fees.
But that doesn't give me carte blanch (that is Latin) to slander: if I want to be responsible (for, like, my health), well, responsibility is everywhere in my life, and I can't say that it's McDonalds fault for the diabetes epidemic.
Nobody forced me to supersize my order, nor even order in the first place.
And, in fact, these corporations, following the profit motive (because if they don't, then they won't be corporations for long), also are good citizens, like I try to be, too.
After all: I don't own foundations to assist orphans or save polar bears or any of that.
But they do.
So, they are there, and they serve the mass of people, and they serve them very well, indeed, and are justly, or magnificently, compensated for it.
And I still want to have a choice in my life as to what I put into (any part of) my body.
How can I do that with these megaliths overshadowing everything?
Easy. You live in the city, like I do? Easy.
There are nooks everywhere. Restaurants cater to their clientele. So: live a little. Go to a hole in the wall ethnic place and do a quick check of the patrons. More than 50% white? Well, they are now catering to middle America. Move on.
But if you go to an Afghani place, and there are all locals there, or if you go to a Vietnamese place, and they're all Vietnamese, or if you go to a Korean place, and they are all Han.
Then you're onto something. Something good.
Then, ... well, usually it's a mistake to ask the waitress what to get in these places, and here's why.
She'll look at you (at me), and say, 'Hm, white girl wants ...' and suggest something vomitous that one of the usuals wouldn't be caught dead eating.
No, you're American, you're rude, by definition, so: use it.
Point to the next table and say, 'I'll have what they're having.'
If the waitress looks shocked and says, 'No, no! You no like that!'
Then you've probably struck gold.
Or you'll hate it, but at least you tried something you never tried before.
That's a win in my book, either way.
USUALLY you strike gold.
I went to an Afghani place, and said I wanted a pita sandwich, and the owner said, 'No, you want the lamb kabab!'
And I was like, incensed! but then I saw all the patrons eating kababs, so I was like, okay, you're the boss.
He was. SO. RIGHT!
Okay, that's the city: eat the real ethnic food.
But you say you don't live in the city.
Sister, then you've won, big time.
You do have a farm near you, did you know you can order directly from them?
You win.
And then, your yard? All that space, that city dweller me doesn't have.
Just try a 6-sq foot garden, just start it, and then, a year later, you'll be like, '`phfina, you can't touch me for the food I make, and it's so easy to do. Why aren't you doing it?'
Yes, there's a McDonalds and Walmart in your town, or tri-town area, but just because you don't have a Thai restaurant or whatever, you're not deprived. You, too, don't have to go to McDonalds nor Walmart to get everything you need, when you can go to your local farm or you can be your local farm, for goodness sake!
You know, I think, part of the reason for this food-crisis we're having, is because we are so blessed with bounty, we don't even see the beautiful because the plentiful satiates then dulls our senses.
All you have to do to see is to take a wee bit of time, and to look, and to see.
... and then, when you see beauty, to be grateful for what you've seen.
We are not slaves to Corporate America, Inc, nor to Gov't regulation ... they are so big and grand, and care about the little mouse that is me insofar only as much as it can get me to give myself, my body, and my mind to them, so they can continue to exist.
That's why Corporate America, Inc, is afraid, and always will be: they are there to serve, and nobody knows that better than them, even little me, a (willing) Corporate slave of one of them, didn't get that until now.
Their jobs, their existence depends, always depends on a happy consumer.
So, we don't get all Fight Club on them. We don't need to.
An educated consumer? The one who says, "Hm, I want to taste the taste of tomato in my sandwich, not this bland cardboard taste"?
Who votes with his feet?
One of them?
Pfft! Who cares!
But one becomes two, and two, three, and three, more, and more, a movement, and that's how sbux started, one cup at a time. That's how Whole Foods started, that's how Walmart, that's how all of them started.
And that's good.
And that works well enough.
And then, there are the people who stand up, and say, "I am going to make that sandwich I want to eat."
And that's how 5 guys started, and now they are growing across the country.
And you read this, and you say, "But not me."
You say that. "Oh, I can't write like you." "Oh, I can manage a restaurant, but I can't own one and sell the food I already make with my own hands because ..." or "Oh, I'm not going to vote for any of the candidates: they are all crooks."
But what about you? Forget the 'if not you, then who?'
Forget that.
Just this: the next time you say 'If I were running this country, ...'
Or: "Who's the manager here, do you call this service?"
Or ... whenever you're not getting served the way you want...
Do you know people are paying good money, feeling exactly as you do, and they are willing to pay 8x the price they are paying for a cup of coffee made the way they really want it, not that dishwater they are drinking right now.
Or WHATEVER it is that you are settling for as a consumer.
Are you going to live a 'settled for' life?
Yes, you are. But now you know that you are settling for, every day, several times a day, you do settle for.
Knowledge, ... sight, ... is a beautiful, cursed thing. Because you see now what you see, and what you do with it: you either leave well enough alone and settle for 'Well, that's the way things are, ...'
Or, you're going to plant the first apple seed on your walk across the country,
Or, you're going to design clothes that are both elegant and comfortable and fashionable and affordable,
Or, you're going to run for State senate, and lose, and then, like Lincoln, run for President: the first woman President of the United States: you,
... and change the world.
-----
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our mind
Woh, have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fullfill the book
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever had
Redemption songs
BOB MARLEY - REDEMPTION SONG
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Comfort(ably numb)
Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home?
Come on, now
I hear you're feeling down
Well I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again
Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?
There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon
You are the only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb
Roger Waters, Pink Floyd, "Comfortably Numb"
— `phfina diatribe:
I am, truly, dead.
Today ... was February 14th, now it's the Ides of February, and I find myself wishing my name was Julian or Julia and I was a special mayonnaise salad, and it was a month later so my big hulking buddy could do me a favor.
You'll get that later. Or you won't. Not only do kids these days don't read, they also don't make associations of what they haven't read to their lives.
One of the many reasons why were are all swimming in this cesspool.
GOD! I'm old to be saying: "In my day ..." and "kids these days ..." ... what a year does to you!
Did you know today was St. Valentine's Day?
I didn't.
How could I not?
My nieces gave me a card with a poem the older one wrote:
Roses are Red
Violets blue
Honey is sweet
& so are u.
Isn't that sweet?
But it didn't register, even the heart shape it was cut out into and the hearts inscribed in red pencil on it. I said: "Oh, how nice!" and that was that.
At work, in a predominately female profession with three super hot azn chicks, were flowers give and displayed? Oh, yes! Was there much cooing and preening going on today about all that? Oh, yes! Did I notice a whit of it?
No. I went through my day today in a fog. I got home, I don't know how, I could've been mass murder serial raped for all I know on the way home, because I went right to bed and pulled the covers over my head and went right to sleep.
I haven't slept in the past two days. Wonder why.
Last week was the story of the leper. How they were to be cast outside the camp and how they had to wear a bell and proclaim: "Unclean, unclean!" And the priest, Fr. P., told the story about St. Damien journal as he tended to the lepers, and how he knew he had caught the disease when he spilled hot water over his feet from his tea kettle ...
... and he saw it happen, but felt nothing.
And Fr. P. went on to explain how that is what sin is, you commit a sin, you feel pain or guilt the first time, but then the next, it's less, then less, then less, ...
then nothing.
I felt nothing today. Things happened around me, but I wasn't aware of any of it. I wasn't aware I was breathing, or that I had a heartbeat.
Do you know when I realized it?
A friend.
A friend told me Saga was thinking of me, and today, and how she forgot about today being St. Valentine's day, and how I so generously forgave her that.
This year, there was no St. Valentine's day. There was no generosity on my part, and nothing I could forgive.
But this mutual acquaintance told me Saga has things to say to me, and that's when my dead heart quickened.
Oh, what cruelty! Why am I given a heart that must beat on? Where everything I do hurts somebody, and if I choose the path of no-doing, I hurt everybody?
And that's when I realized I was dead today, when I felt my heart beating at the mention of Saga, and things she has to tell me.
You have to be alive, to realize you are dead. Another cruelty.
Of course, when somebody says, 'I have things to say to you,' that means something. For them. And for you.
You know what that mean. It means they say their cathartic things, and then they are forever free. Released of the burden of these things, these horrible things they've been holding onto, about you ... about me, that is, and they will say these horrible things, aimed right at that dead, cold, still beating heart, and then released from their burdens they skip off, happily, into the sunset.
And then you, me, I mean, are left behind, with that burden, forever knowing what you were to the person who was and is everything to you.
Saga, say your things to me, be released from these burdens, and then be free, skipping off into the sunset, happy and content.
Me, I'm fine. In fact, ...
I'm comfortably numb.
I don't feel my cheeks, my tongue is thick and useless, and my arms are two stone weights I can barely move. All I am is a funeral waiting for the actual date to make it official.
'Date.' Heh.
Happy St. Valentine's day.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Earthquake Weather
Something's coming sky is purple
Dogs are howling to themselves
Days are changing with the weather
Like a rip tide could rip us away
I push I pull the days go slow
Into a void we filled with death
And noise that laughs falls off their
Maps all cured of pain and doubts
In your little brain
— Beck, "Earthquake Weather"
Fine day for an earthquake, yes?
So, I'm fine. Actually, I was annoyed! I was, like, cooking the books at work, and I nearly screamed: "HOW CAN A GIRL THINK IN HERE WITH THE FURNITURE MOVERS UPSTAIRS?"
And then the building started shaking. Swaying, actually. Which is not a good thing to feel when you're on the eighth floor.
There was no question. One of our leaders was in the World Trade Center on 9/11, and she was told, "Oh, everything's fine, continue on," by building security. And she was like ...
(Um, I'll edit was she was like here)
You do know it took a half-hour for the building to collapse, right?
So she, on her own, evacuated group, and because of her, thirty people are still alive today, who wouldn't have been.
They told us that we could work from home for the rest of the day. And I'm like, yeah, right, like I'm gonna go back into the building to get the books, and I need system access and like they're gonna give that to me on my creaky laptop.
And then the commute home. 'Commute'? Did I say 'commute'? 'Nightmare,' more like. I should have just bedded down on the stone bench in the park. I mean: really!
JEEZ, people! It's only:
"It's one of the largest that we've had there," USGS seismologist Lucy Jones told CNN. Aftershocks were a concern, she said. "People should be expecting (them), especially over the next hour or two," she added.
It's not like the end of the world! I swear: Washington, D.C. is one of the most panicky cities in the world! People see one snowflake and they cancel Government work for three weeks.
Okay. We had an earthquake. That happened. It was a little fun, a little exciting. I'm fine. Really. Thank you for your thoughts and concerns. Kisses for you!
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Taking it personally
You walked into the party
Like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror
As you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and
You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?
Carly Simon, "You're So Vain" 1973
— `phfina commentary:
You know, I get this all the time. From a goodly number of you, too: "Why are you writing about me in your entries?"
Okay, so you are ready for the one-two sucker punch, right?
Honey, you think this entry is about you, don't you? And you take it so, so personally, don't you? Oh, yes, you do. I know. I smart — still! — at some of the very sharp words I have received about things I have put up about ... "you."
Well, there's several things in that above statement (sez `phfina, wearing her professor tweed blouse) and the first thing that strikes me is, well, how else would you take it?
I mean, really, there's a couple of ways to deal with things, one of them is to be cool as a cucumber about it. "Well," sez you, "that's your point of view, and that's all very well and good, but it really doesn't apply to me. I don't take it personally, and nor should you, when I say the things I so coolly say. I have other concerns, you know, so I don't have the time, really, to engage with you."
You know what I have to say to that.
Well, I could be all impersonal, and say, "Well, fine, and have a great day."
Do you see me wearing that hat? Well, besides all day, that is: "Enjoy your beverage!"
My other response is screamed: "Well, fuck you!"
Some of you have faced that, I guess.
Look. Cool? Me? I was just accused of being 'not cool' ... and I'm like ... have I ever been accused of being 'cool'? And if I have, I would rip your face off.
"Oh, `phfina, you're so cool!"
Excuse me? Excuse me?
I BURN ... okay? I'm burning up, and I DON'T be all like: 'well, there's nothing personal.'
Because why?
Because GUESS WHAT!
It IS personal. Somebody said something to you and you were affected by it, and if you WEREN'T ... well, then go to the hospital, and get your pulse checked 'cause you just may be dead, okay?
"Don't take it personally"? Well, how the fuck else am I supposed to take it?
Excuse me, but if you're forgetting, but I'm a person here, and — newsflash — so are you!
And you just said something to me, and, yes, guess what? I took it personally, and just because you can use everybody else as a doormat, saying that sh!t to them, I am not going to let your shit fly with me, got it?
Like bullying. Like I am now.
*sigh*
Cool as a cucumber? Well, you don't look like a cucumber to me, but if that's the way you want to live your life ... as a cucumber, and not as a person ... then I say: have at it. I won't be able to stop you.
But I grieve, though. I do.
So ...
hm-hm-hm.
So some of you ... a lot of you ... read my posts, and are like, 'well, that's ... interesting.'
(how I detest that word. A cop-out word. A word that commits nothing of the sayer, ... just makes them think that it makes them look intelligent)
... And what do they get from that? Being cool as a cucumber?
What does anybody get from being cool ... instead of being committed?
But some of you go the opposite way, and go all `phfina on me.
Like, okay. I write in 'update soon' that not coming out to your mother is a cop-out, and who took it personally? (edited) And she was furious with me. Furious.
Did I write that post about (edited)?
Like, okay. I write in 'bad news, you win,' how you push around somebody you can own, bullying them until you suck the life out of them, and (edited) got it in her head that I wrote that post about her.
Did I write that post about (edited)?
But what did these girls get out of taking it all `phfina-y?
They got really, really pissed. At me. And took it out. On me.
And that hurt. 'Cause I didn't write those posts about them.
But then they did something. Then they looked in the mirror, and saw where those posts did apply to them, in their lives, and what did they do?
Well, they looked at were they were doing this, and they got to work on themselves. And the rewards, for themselves, on recognizing in themselves something that they didn't see before about themselves, and didn't like, and seeing it, and not liking it, going to work on it now, instead of just automatically lashing out, hurting people ...?
Well, have I given away too much? But when you see something in yourself, that somebody else points out, so rudely, so harshly, with so much love in their heart for you?
(Because otherwise, why would I bother? If I don't love you, why put up with all this pain and hurt of saying these painful and hurtful things?)
New worlds have opened up for them. For them. Plural.
I have opened up new worlds, for at least four girls ... because they took what I wrote ... personally.
And I didn't even write it for them.
Who did I write it for?
Who is the one girl who hasn't benefited from all that I've written, who, writing these words, instead of getting better, shoveling her way out of her shit, just digs deeper and deeper into the morass, finding more and more shit she has to own up to, but instead of getting better, just gets worse and worse and worse.
Who, when asked, 'how are you?' answers, 'I'm fine.'
But who really is in a place where she knows if she says, 'I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself. I want to die.'
Well, that raises all sorts of issues, problems, that have to be dealt with, but people just don't leave her alone with the 'I'm fine' answer but demand, 'No, really, how are you?'
But we've covered that ground before.
All this stuff I write, you take so personally, and I have to say ...
I'm so proud of you.
I'm so proud of you, taking on yourself and your life. You may think 'you're so vain' for thinking this post is about you. But I have an entirely different view on the matter.
You are so brave, reading yourself in this post. Daring to take yourself on. Being. Living. Daring to be and to live and to face yourself and revel in the things you like about yourself, and be pissed off about the things you hate, and then taking those things on.
When you read a post of mine, and say, 'well, that was interesting ...' look out. Look to your life, because I think you're not living it, if you're merely existing in a smug sense of self-satisfaction. But when you read my post, and you get so, so pissed off at me ...
Well, I could ask you to be gentle with me, the little hypocrite that I am, hitting you so hard with my sucker punches but then hiding under the covers the second you cut loose at me, screaming like a banshee for singing your life with my song.
... and that's me: so cutting, so insightful, so scared of her own shadow, that when somebody wants to put my name on a brochure that lands them millions of euros, all I can think of is people seeing my name, and I get sick, physically ill, just thinking of that.
... and that's not you. You aren't me. Thank God. You've dared to read my stuff, and to cry, or to cum, or ... even to dare to post a review! (Oh, the terror!) Or even dare to tell one of my friends you like reading my stuff (but not dare to say peep to me, God damn it) ('cause you know I'll tear you a new one) (but then you're shocked — shocked, I say — to find out that sometimes (okay, sometimes) I can be sweet, you know).
But what have I dared. Well, today I dared to go out to a museum. Wow. Hooray. Stop the presses. And that's about all I could muster. I mean, I liked it and all. Didn't like Paris. I was like: "City. Ick. People. Scary." Yearned for a forest in the countryside, but here I am, in the metro D.C. area, with all the city-life conveniences, so who am I fooling. I'm not a eel catcher in the forest of Fontainebleau. I'm not an Alsatian girl with a pretty little hat (she did look rather Irish to me. But what do I know?)
And going through the city, I kept my head held high. But all those people. No. Not people. Families. There where tons of them. Families. Mommies and Daddies and babies and children. And it was nice. But it bore down on me. It wore me down. I just ... wherever I looked, I was like, there is something I'm not, and never will be. All those families, so happy together.
And what am I? And what am I?
And know, being what I am, which is nothing, I just draw further and further into my shell, and that hurts you. You wonder how I am, ... but knowing full well that I am not well. So now I have people who care about me, and it hurts them that I'm hurting.
But when I was out, and writing, and getting so much attention, most of it good, but the bad was really bad. Really bad.
'cause I take it personally, your callousness, and your anger, and your righteousness. It's your shit, but I'm the one who gets shit on, for daring to say what she sees. And — oh! — you have made it abundantly clear to me how much you don't like being told things you don't like to hear about yourself.
So I thought writing would ... you know, ... be cathartic, you know? And let me release all this stuff that is tying me down to the past, so I could cut myself free of my suffering and float away into blissful nirvana of living my perfect, perfect life.
But ... look at me now.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones ..."
I'm this little stick. This little reed. And I so wanted to be solid like a stone.
But I ... my body's burning up. I ...
I set out writing, and I ... well, you see this great whatever ... and I'm wasting away into nothing. All these words I've written haven't helped me any at all, they've only made me worse.
And what's worse-worse is that you've subscribed. You've read my stuff and now you care about me. So my hurting now not only hurts myself, but now you hurt a bit, seeing me shrinking into myself. I can't have a good sulk and die all to myself, oh no! I hurt you now, with my silence and sadness.
Would I have written word one, seeing me now?
No.
This hasn't been pretty. This hasn't been pretty for me at all. And I can mirror-time all I want, but I know in my heart of hearts that it's all a big lie. All just another attempt to try to believe in hope when I see that I'm just trying to reach up from the darkness of this pit of despair, when I jolly well know this is my eternal consignment, so the reaching, grasping just shows the glimmer of light for one second before I'm re-immersed in darkness, making it all the more bitter for me, my fate.
If I hadn't written, I wouldn't have all this love and care from you. I wouldn't have you to hurt.
And I can't even manage hurting just myself. It hurts too much.
Hurting you? Seeing you rise above yourself, but then, you turn, having made it, and reach back for me? to pull me up and out?
I think: how sad. You are living the impossible dream. And I beg you to cut the chord. To move on. You've saved yourselves, ... please don't wreck your lives going back into the mire to rescue a lost cause.
I wish ...
I wish you were smart enough to see the reality of it. To take your earnings and to cut your losses (me, that is).
I wish God had answered my prayer a couple of years ago, and spared you, and spared me, all of this that is me.
But I can't go back, and I can't go home.
I can only go forward into tomorrow, until it's today. Again.
Or ... not.
I'm going to bed now. Good night.
Like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror
As you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and
You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?
Carly Simon, "You're So Vain" 1973
— `phfina commentary:
You know, I get this all the time. From a goodly number of you, too: "Why are you writing about me in your entries?"
Okay, so you are ready for the one-two sucker punch, right?
Honey, you think this entry is about you, don't you? And you take it so, so personally, don't you? Oh, yes, you do. I know. I smart — still! — at some of the very sharp words I have received about things I have put up about ... "you."
Well, there's several things in that above statement (sez `phfina, wearing her professor tweed blouse) and the first thing that strikes me is, well, how else would you take it?
I mean, really, there's a couple of ways to deal with things, one of them is to be cool as a cucumber about it. "Well," sez you, "that's your point of view, and that's all very well and good, but it really doesn't apply to me. I don't take it personally, and nor should you, when I say the things I so coolly say. I have other concerns, you know, so I don't have the time, really, to engage with you."
You know what I have to say to that.
Well, I could be all impersonal, and say, "Well, fine, and have a great day."
Do you see me wearing that hat? Well, besides all day, that is: "Enjoy your beverage!"
My other response is screamed: "Well, fuck you!"
Some of you have faced that, I guess.
Look. Cool? Me? I was just accused of being 'not cool' ... and I'm like ... have I ever been accused of being 'cool'? And if I have, I would rip your face off.
"Oh, `phfina, you're so cool!"
Excuse me? Excuse me?
I BURN ... okay? I'm burning up, and I DON'T be all like: 'well, there's nothing personal.'
Because why?
Because GUESS WHAT!
It IS personal. Somebody said something to you and you were affected by it, and if you WEREN'T ... well, then go to the hospital, and get your pulse checked 'cause you just may be dead, okay?
"Don't take it personally"? Well, how the fuck else am I supposed to take it?
Excuse me, but if you're forgetting, but I'm a person here, and — newsflash — so are you!
And you just said something to me, and, yes, guess what? I took it personally, and just because you can use everybody else as a doormat, saying that sh!t to them, I am not going to let your shit fly with me, got it?
Like bullying. Like I am now.
*sigh*
Cool as a cucumber? Well, you don't look like a cucumber to me, but if that's the way you want to live your life ... as a cucumber, and not as a person ... then I say: have at it. I won't be able to stop you.
But I grieve, though. I do.
So ...
hm-hm-hm.
So some of you ... a lot of you ... read my posts, and are like, 'well, that's ... interesting.'
(how I detest that word. A cop-out word. A word that commits nothing of the sayer, ... just makes them think that it makes them look intelligent)
... And what do they get from that? Being cool as a cucumber?
What does anybody get from being cool ... instead of being committed?
But some of you go the opposite way, and go all `phfina on me.
Like, okay. I write in 'update soon' that not coming out to your mother is a cop-out, and who took it personally? (edited) And she was furious with me. Furious.
Did I write that post about (edited)?
Like, okay. I write in 'bad news, you win,' how you push around somebody you can own, bullying them until you suck the life out of them, and (edited) got it in her head that I wrote that post about her.
Did I write that post about (edited)?
But what did these girls get out of taking it all `phfina-y?
They got really, really pissed. At me. And took it out. On me.
And that hurt. 'Cause I didn't write those posts about them.
But then they did something. Then they looked in the mirror, and saw where those posts did apply to them, in their lives, and what did they do?
Well, they looked at were they were doing this, and they got to work on themselves. And the rewards, for themselves, on recognizing in themselves something that they didn't see before about themselves, and didn't like, and seeing it, and not liking it, going to work on it now, instead of just automatically lashing out, hurting people ...?
Well, have I given away too much? But when you see something in yourself, that somebody else points out, so rudely, so harshly, with so much love in their heart for you?
(Because otherwise, why would I bother? If I don't love you, why put up with all this pain and hurt of saying these painful and hurtful things?)
New worlds have opened up for them. For them. Plural.
I have opened up new worlds, for at least four girls ... because they took what I wrote ... personally.
And I didn't even write it for them.
Who did I write it for?
Who is the one girl who hasn't benefited from all that I've written, who, writing these words, instead of getting better, shoveling her way out of her shit, just digs deeper and deeper into the morass, finding more and more shit she has to own up to, but instead of getting better, just gets worse and worse and worse.
Who, when asked, 'how are you?' answers, 'I'm fine.'
But who really is in a place where she knows if she says, 'I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself. I want to die.'
Well, that raises all sorts of issues, problems, that have to be dealt with, but people just don't leave her alone with the 'I'm fine' answer but demand, 'No, really, how are you?'
But we've covered that ground before.
All this stuff I write, you take so personally, and I have to say ...
I'm so proud of you.
I'm so proud of you, taking on yourself and your life. You may think 'you're so vain' for thinking this post is about you. But I have an entirely different view on the matter.
You are so brave, reading yourself in this post. Daring to take yourself on. Being. Living. Daring to be and to live and to face yourself and revel in the things you like about yourself, and be pissed off about the things you hate, and then taking those things on.
When you read a post of mine, and say, 'well, that was interesting ...' look out. Look to your life, because I think you're not living it, if you're merely existing in a smug sense of self-satisfaction. But when you read my post, and you get so, so pissed off at me ...
Well, I could ask you to be gentle with me, the little hypocrite that I am, hitting you so hard with my sucker punches but then hiding under the covers the second you cut loose at me, screaming like a banshee for singing your life with my song.
... and that's me: so cutting, so insightful, so scared of her own shadow, that when somebody wants to put my name on a brochure that lands them millions of euros, all I can think of is people seeing my name, and I get sick, physically ill, just thinking of that.
... and that's not you. You aren't me. Thank God. You've dared to read my stuff, and to cry, or to cum, or ... even to dare to post a review! (Oh, the terror!) Or even dare to tell one of my friends you like reading my stuff (but not dare to say peep to me, God damn it) ('cause you know I'll tear you a new one) (but then you're shocked — shocked, I say — to find out that sometimes (okay, sometimes) I can be sweet, you know).
But what have I dared. Well, today I dared to go out to a museum. Wow. Hooray. Stop the presses. And that's about all I could muster. I mean, I liked it and all. Didn't like Paris. I was like: "City. Ick. People. Scary." Yearned for a forest in the countryside, but here I am, in the metro D.C. area, with all the city-life conveniences, so who am I fooling. I'm not a eel catcher in the forest of Fontainebleau. I'm not an Alsatian girl with a pretty little hat (she did look rather Irish to me. But what do I know?)
And going through the city, I kept my head held high. But all those people. No. Not people. Families. There where tons of them. Families. Mommies and Daddies and babies and children. And it was nice. But it bore down on me. It wore me down. I just ... wherever I looked, I was like, there is something I'm not, and never will be. All those families, so happy together.
And what am I? And what am I?
And know, being what I am, which is nothing, I just draw further and further into my shell, and that hurts you. You wonder how I am, ... but knowing full well that I am not well. So now I have people who care about me, and it hurts them that I'm hurting.
But when I was out, and writing, and getting so much attention, most of it good, but the bad was really bad. Really bad.
'cause I take it personally, your callousness, and your anger, and your righteousness. It's your shit, but I'm the one who gets shit on, for daring to say what she sees. And — oh! — you have made it abundantly clear to me how much you don't like being told things you don't like to hear about yourself.
So I thought writing would ... you know, ... be cathartic, you know? And let me release all this stuff that is tying me down to the past, so I could cut myself free of my suffering and float away into blissful nirvana of living my perfect, perfect life.
But ... look at me now.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones ..."
I'm this little stick. This little reed. And I so wanted to be solid like a stone.
But I ... my body's burning up. I ...
I set out writing, and I ... well, you see this great whatever ... and I'm wasting away into nothing. All these words I've written haven't helped me any at all, they've only made me worse.
And what's worse-worse is that you've subscribed. You've read my stuff and now you care about me. So my hurting now not only hurts myself, but now you hurt a bit, seeing me shrinking into myself. I can't have a good sulk and die all to myself, oh no! I hurt you now, with my silence and sadness.
Would I have written word one, seeing me now?
No.
This hasn't been pretty. This hasn't been pretty for me at all. And I can mirror-time all I want, but I know in my heart of hearts that it's all a big lie. All just another attempt to try to believe in hope when I see that I'm just trying to reach up from the darkness of this pit of despair, when I jolly well know this is my eternal consignment, so the reaching, grasping just shows the glimmer of light for one second before I'm re-immersed in darkness, making it all the more bitter for me, my fate.
If I hadn't written, I wouldn't have all this love and care from you. I wouldn't have you to hurt.
And I can't even manage hurting just myself. It hurts too much.
Hurting you? Seeing you rise above yourself, but then, you turn, having made it, and reach back for me? to pull me up and out?
I think: how sad. You are living the impossible dream. And I beg you to cut the chord. To move on. You've saved yourselves, ... please don't wreck your lives going back into the mire to rescue a lost cause.
I wish ...
I wish you were smart enough to see the reality of it. To take your earnings and to cut your losses (me, that is).
I wish God had answered my prayer a couple of years ago, and spared you, and spared me, all of this that is me.
But I can't go back, and I can't go home.
I can only go forward into tomorrow, until it's today. Again.
Or ... not.
I'm going to bed now. Good night.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Molasses and Moby, "Porcelain"
Moby, “Porcelain”
In my dreams I'm dying all the time
As I wake its kaleidoscopic mind
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant to lie
So this is goodbye
This is goodbye
Tell the truth you never wanted me
Tell me
In my dreams I'm jealous all the time
As I wake I'm going out of my mind
Going out of my mind
— `phfina commentary.
Why didn't Moby just name the song: "Me," that is: "Me," as in: "Melissa"?
Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm not what you think I am or what you think I can be, even as I try to say it. I'm not this prancing prowling panther who can be strong and powerful. I'm not well. I'm not happy. I'm not fine.
Look, all I am is a little China doll, all Porcelain ... I'm the hero in Unbreakable ... that is: Mr. Glass, as fragile as that. You look at me, you breathe at me, I turn into the dust and ash that I am, and float away, in a million pieces.
So, when you ask me to be strong, when you say, 'I don't believe you're fine like you say you are,' ...
Well, no duh!
And then, ... okay, then you guess the town I live in, and the exact fucking sbux I may or may not have worked in ...
And then, you say, 'oh, I'll just pop by for a visit and say hi ...'
Brenda popped by to say hi at the sbux I worked at ...
... once.
That's when I changed my name and changed where I worked.
After I almost ended back at the hospital.
And what did she do? Nothing! okay? Nothing. But you know, after what happens happened and ... well, she wanted more from me ... she wanted me to be more than I could be, what I can be ...
I can't be her dead husband from Desert Storm, or whatever, okay? I can't be this person that gives you all this strength. I can't be this person who was you so broken over whatever but who overcame her stuff and prevailed and look, `phfina made it, and wrote exactly what I went through, and if I could just talk with her, or not even that, but just order a coffee from her, and say, 'hi, I know who you are, and what you wrote touched me so much, and thank you!' and not be all fan-girly but just say that to her, and maybe touch her hand, and maybe ask was she's doing after she gets off work, and maybe just go out with her to an art gallery this weekend like she so bravely did instead of staying in her apartment, you know? Just go out with her, and hold her when she's got the shakes and pull her hair back when she's puking, and hold her through the night, telling her how much I love her, and how I would take care of her, and check in on her, and make sure she's everything she can be, everything I know she can be, because she's so timid and fragile, that she needs somebody like me to push her out of her shell and push her out into the world, where I'll publish her book and she'll be world-famous and rich, and millions of people will know her like I do so they all can ask for her autograph and her advice on their life and identify with her and scrutinize her every move and advise her what's wrong with everything she does: when she hides, she's withholding, when she talks with the paparazzi, she's stupid (you answer questions right off the cuff about 'your career' or 'the situation in Haiti' or 'politics in Washington D.C.' quote-correctly-unquote every time and perfectly!), when she goes out with a friend, they are going to get married (!?!?), when she goes to a charity thing, she's fake (!?!?!)
Fuck, how can Kristen Stewart or Stephenie Meyer do this?
And you're just one person, deeply touched by my words, caring for me, offering me your advice and your heart. You're just ten people. You're just one hundred people. You're just one thousand people. You're just ten thousand people.
Every month. More than ten thousand people visit my profile, reading my stories, whether I 'update soon' or not. And look, okay? I'm griping, ... AND I'm grateful!
Okay?
Look, Ten-fucking-thousand readers ... every month?!?!
How many ffn writers want that, besides every single one of them? I'm more popular than better writers than me. AND I don't write ExB AU/AH smut fics with a mention of Sartre to get the guaranteed 10K+ review-love. I write fucking Rosalie femslash guaranteed fail-fics.
Who wants to read about that bitch?
You do.
And thank you.
But.
I'm not ...
I'm not win. I'm fail, okay? I'm a fucking loser. And that means I'm not you, bc you're making it, somehow. Maybe you don't know how, and maybe I don't know how, but you're making it.
So ... me? Pinning your hopes on me?
Do you know what you're doing for me? Hoping me into something I'm not? That I'm so not? Wishing me well?
Listen, I'm not "a good example" for the next generation. I'm not somebody to look up to. I'm not a project. I'm not something you can fix or make better.
I'm a lost cause. And when you hope for me, it's so, so sweet of you, and this is my reaction ...
"This is goodbye."
And I look at getting on a plane — something I've never done — and not flying off to another country where I don't speak the language ... like Greece, no: I would get on a plane only with the guarantee that it runs out of fuel over the Atlantic, and everybody on board — especially me! — dies, you got that?
Look, I worked up the courage to wish a fb friend a happy birthday, and my reward for my courage? I got savaged! Okay? She was all like, I have one thousand friends, and "who are you," Miss Nobody? and "Whatever floats your boat." and "lol" and text-speak that I hope nobody in my generation really uses to speak, but there it is.
This is my reward for reaching out, for wishing somebody well?
And you say, "Oh, but it would be different with me."
No, it wouldn't. You so don't understand. You are not the problem, don't you get that?
I know exactly where the problem is. And I know what happens when kind, caring, loving people try to fix it.
I fuck them. I so fuck them up ... that .... that ...
Look. You can't fix what's broken, and you can't make yourself better by making me better, 'cause this is what happens. You get hurt when I pick on your so-visible sores, then you lash out from your hurt, and you get hurt when you see you hurting me.
And I get to say: "See?"
And I shut down.
And I kill you off.
And then you can't do this alone, you need me to be here, and I'm so gone. And you marry a person that is there for you.
Or you say 'fuck off and die, bitch!' and throw the trash out. And I leave, hurt, and you throw me out, furious.
And then you come to your senses, realizing what you did from your hurt, but I'm so long gone already, and have left no forwarding address, and you call my mom every fucking week to ask how I'm doing, hoping I'm doing well.
Hoping. Hoping, hoping, hoping I'm doing well, and maybe, if I'm town again, sometime, I could stop by and ...
Kate, anyone?
Look, you're not up to the job of asking me 'how are you?' or 'I miss you, write something!' or ' ...
Or whatever.
What are you up for? I have no fucking idea, bc if you ... if you dared to be you, and not this constrained, hopeful, helpful, timid person you are ...
Mountains would move out of your way.
But this? Me? This me?
Save your breath, save your effort, save yourself.
You have to be strong enough to be yourself, and be happy with that.
And, honey, most of you aren't, especially those of you who want to know how I'm doing, with the hope that it will make how you're doing better.
How I'm doing won't make you better. How you are doing is the thing. That's what I want to know, and that's what some of you get, sometimes, when you go out and get that gf, or save lives, or say, 'Hey, `phfina, how ya doing? Hey, guess what I just did! I just ...' and you tell me how you moved and changed the world.
Look, I can't save you. The only thing I can do is drag you down to hell with me, and ...
Ha. Hahaha.
The only thing I'm good at doing is writing about it in all its specific and gory details.
I can't save you. You can save you, though. And when you do, you save me. And when you don't, and you depend on me, or fix me, or hope for me, trying to save you by proxy ...
Well, that's all you're left with: a proxy. A proxy is not a rope to pull you out of the sh!t. A proxy is maya, and leaves you stuck down there.
That's all I am, okay? I'm illusion. I'm nothing. I'm chimera. I'm Lila.
And I, Lila, the dance, will dance with you, and it is a wild dance, but it is a dance of death and destruction, and the longer you are in this dance, the more wild it is, for I am quite the dervish, inexhaustible in my ever-enticing novel songs of woe, but the whirling only spins us further down the spiral that has a terminus in only one place.
Hint: you don't need to bring a toaster; it's rather warm down there.
Save yourself. Don't care about me. When I say, 'I'm fine,' don't pursue with inquiry, no: just disengage.
Otherwise ...
I will suck you in and destroy you.
I have proof. Lots of proof. And you may say you are strong, but the strong ones walked away, under their own power, remembering, or not remembering, that wild, sometimes fun, ride they had with that kitten-panther.
How am I doing?
Actually, this is one of my better days. The weather outside is nice and warm with a slight breeze. I think I'll go out for a walk in the park later that is right next to the sbux that I may or may not have or do work at.
Sh!t. Now somebody's going to look that up, figure out it's "Greensprings gardens" and show the fuck up, order a coffee and tell me they know who I am, and how am I doing?
I think I'll move to a State that starts with a "C" ... other than "Connecticut."
... too many dead bodies there, waiting, hoping, for me to come back there.
Or maybe I'll move to a State that starts with "M" ... other than "Maryland," which is too close to where I live now, so you still might find me by expanding your search area by a few miles.
Fuck. I feel sick to my stomach. All I want to do is hide, and there's nowhere to hide, and I can't breathe.
That's how I feel, thank you so much for asking, and why can't you just be fine with 'I'm fine'?
That not good enough an answer, then how about this one: "I never meant to hurt you / I never meant to lie / So this is goodbye / This is goodbye" and as I sing this, I see the glass, the porcelain, that is me shattering into dust and echos.
How's that for an answer?
You not happy with that answer? You not grateful that I'm being honest and open with you?
Guess where that unhappiness is coming from?
... and you're going to make me all better, coming from where that unhappiness is coming from?
It's been tried before. More than several times.
And I am a panther. The predator is lightning-fast in sensing weakness. I do eat my prey.
... In other news, ... I've thought of a new story. A retelling of a fairy tale. It's a 'one-shot.' A `phfina one-shot.
*sigh* ... that sigh means: 'maybe I'll get to it after I reply to all the reviews and PMs and finish all the other incomplete stories I've got dangling, entangling me, snaring me with their need to be finished.'
I think ... I think the only good thing I can do for myself and the world is finish one thing: me.
Yeah, it's a good day, as long as I don't think about myself and how I'm doing. Thanks for asking and caring. I wish I could measure up to a person who could answer your concern worthily.
You wanna know what set all this off? Besides "How are you, ... really?"
Molasses.
I mentioned molasses in my last recipe, and not one of you said one thing about that.
You know what I've made that mean? If I had molasses in my pantry up North, I would be savaged. I would be asked what the fucking hell was that fucking shit and what the fucking hell was it doing in my house?
That's how people up North talk: right in your face and with the eff word used as a verb, noun and adjective, but do you see how fucked up I am? I say molasses, and you didn't say a peep. That means to me that it's situation normal. I'm a sweet little Southern belle to you, aren't I? I don't have a home to go home to now, anymore, because I've acclimatized to my new environs. I can never go back to that cold, austere New England I grew up in, 'cause I would be a stranger in a strange land, looking for molasses. No, I've blended right into the background here, a little barista — littler than you; littler than me — handing you your drink and wishing you well on your day as you're out the door, not even seeing me as you take your cup, not even missing me when I off myself, 'cause somebody else, just like me, will be handing you your cup tomorrow. I'm just a Southern girl, using molasses in her recipes, writing her silly little smutfics, just like Louisa May Alcott, aka Jo March, wrote her smutfics for women's magazines to make a pretty penny turning on all those ladies in their petticoats, wetting their knickers, and I'm not even getting paid for this, what I'm pouring my heart out into and for what reason, for why am I doing this?
I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know anything anymore. All I know is: "As I wake I'm going out of my mind / Going out of my mind."
That's how I'm doing.
Happy?
I ... it's hard to swallow right now ... I don't know how much longer I can hold it together.
And, no, thank you. I don't want your help. One thing help does: it hurts you, irreversibly, and it hastens my leap over the edge of the precipice. My last suicide attempt was acted out when I was in therapy.
So don't come near me to comfort me. I'm terrified already, and I don't need to add to my burdens and yours, saying the things I see from my tunneled vision when I see you approach, talons extended.
I wonder. I wonder how many people are willing to accept an answer they aren't expecting when they ask "How are you?" I wonder how many people are willing to be fine with the answer given from the heart, and not say, 'no, you don't feel that, nobody could be that fucked up,' or 'no, you aren't that, nobody's not nothing, you're better than that, and you know it,' but can just accept where the person is coming from? Can just see the person where they are, and simply be with that? Just be a body and catch a body in the rye? 'Catch' ... or meet a body in the rye. Whatevs.
I know. I know. It's mirror time for me.
"I am beautiful. I am smart. I am loved. I am a writer. I am a writer like no other. I touch people's hearts. I bring happiness to people's lives, and comfort in their despair and loneliness."
Yes. I know. All that's true. I do. I am of service, and, serving, I do bring something to you, that would be missing, lost, if I didn't dare to step out.
And that is a comfort now, when I think on it.
And someday, maybe, I'll have a good, happy, Spring day, where I will walk in that unnamed (sort of) park, and smell the flowers, and look up at the sky, and be, and be happy, and write something sad, or happy, or smexy, or funny, or serious, and will save another person's life, and I will preen and prance, the proud panther that I am. Today is a nice, warm, grey cloudy, New Englandy day. Maybe that day will be today.
Can you be patient with me, when I am sad? So you can rejoice with me when I am glad?
In my dreams I'm dying all the time
As I wake its kaleidoscopic mind
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant to lie
So this is goodbye
This is goodbye
Tell the truth you never wanted me
Tell me
In my dreams I'm jealous all the time
As I wake I'm going out of my mind
Going out of my mind
— `phfina commentary.
Why didn't Moby just name the song: "Me," that is: "Me," as in: "Melissa"?
Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm not what you think I am or what you think I can be, even as I try to say it. I'm not this prancing prowling panther who can be strong and powerful. I'm not well. I'm not happy. I'm not fine.
Look, all I am is a little China doll, all Porcelain ... I'm the hero in Unbreakable ... that is: Mr. Glass, as fragile as that. You look at me, you breathe at me, I turn into the dust and ash that I am, and float away, in a million pieces.
So, when you ask me to be strong, when you say, 'I don't believe you're fine like you say you are,' ...
Well, no duh!
And then, ... okay, then you guess the town I live in, and the exact fucking sbux I may or may not have worked in ...
And then, you say, 'oh, I'll just pop by for a visit and say hi ...'
Brenda popped by to say hi at the sbux I worked at ...
... once.
That's when I changed my name and changed where I worked.
After I almost ended back at the hospital.
And what did she do? Nothing! okay? Nothing. But you know, after what happens happened and ... well, she wanted more from me ... she wanted me to be more than I could be, what I can be ...
I can't be her dead husband from Desert Storm, or whatever, okay? I can't be this person that gives you all this strength. I can't be this person who was you so broken over whatever but who overcame her stuff and prevailed and look, `phfina made it, and wrote exactly what I went through, and if I could just talk with her, or not even that, but just order a coffee from her, and say, 'hi, I know who you are, and what you wrote touched me so much, and thank you!' and not be all fan-girly but just say that to her, and maybe touch her hand, and maybe ask was she's doing after she gets off work, and maybe just go out with her to an art gallery this weekend like she so bravely did instead of staying in her apartment, you know? Just go out with her, and hold her when she's got the shakes and pull her hair back when she's puking, and hold her through the night, telling her how much I love her, and how I would take care of her, and check in on her, and make sure she's everything she can be, everything I know she can be, because she's so timid and fragile, that she needs somebody like me to push her out of her shell and push her out into the world, where I'll publish her book and she'll be world-famous and rich, and millions of people will know her like I do so they all can ask for her autograph and her advice on their life and identify with her and scrutinize her every move and advise her what's wrong with everything she does: when she hides, she's withholding, when she talks with the paparazzi, she's stupid (you answer questions right off the cuff about 'your career' or 'the situation in Haiti' or 'politics in Washington D.C.' quote-correctly-unquote every time and perfectly!), when she goes out with a friend, they are going to get married (!?!?), when she goes to a charity thing, she's fake (!?!?!)
Fuck, how can Kristen Stewart or Stephenie Meyer do this?
And you're just one person, deeply touched by my words, caring for me, offering me your advice and your heart. You're just ten people. You're just one hundred people. You're just one thousand people. You're just ten thousand people.
Every month. More than ten thousand people visit my profile, reading my stories, whether I 'update soon' or not. And look, okay? I'm griping, ... AND I'm grateful!
Okay?
Look, Ten-fucking-thousand readers ... every month?!?!
How many ffn writers want that, besides every single one of them? I'm more popular than better writers than me. AND I don't write ExB AU/AH smut fics with a mention of Sartre to get the guaranteed 10K+ review-love. I write fucking Rosalie femslash guaranteed fail-fics.
Who wants to read about that bitch?
You do.
And thank you.
But.
I'm not ...
I'm not win. I'm fail, okay? I'm a fucking loser. And that means I'm not you, bc you're making it, somehow. Maybe you don't know how, and maybe I don't know how, but you're making it.
So ... me? Pinning your hopes on me?
Do you know what you're doing for me? Hoping me into something I'm not? That I'm so not? Wishing me well?
Listen, I'm not "a good example" for the next generation. I'm not somebody to look up to. I'm not a project. I'm not something you can fix or make better.
I'm a lost cause. And when you hope for me, it's so, so sweet of you, and this is my reaction ...
"This is goodbye."
And I look at getting on a plane — something I've never done — and not flying off to another country where I don't speak the language ... like Greece, no: I would get on a plane only with the guarantee that it runs out of fuel over the Atlantic, and everybody on board — especially me! — dies, you got that?
Look, I worked up the courage to wish a fb friend a happy birthday, and my reward for my courage? I got savaged! Okay? She was all like, I have one thousand friends, and "who are you," Miss Nobody? and "Whatever floats your boat." and "lol" and text-speak that I hope nobody in my generation really uses to speak, but there it is.
This is my reward for reaching out, for wishing somebody well?
And you say, "Oh, but it would be different with me."
No, it wouldn't. You so don't understand. You are not the problem, don't you get that?
I know exactly where the problem is. And I know what happens when kind, caring, loving people try to fix it.
I fuck them. I so fuck them up ... that .... that ...
Look. You can't fix what's broken, and you can't make yourself better by making me better, 'cause this is what happens. You get hurt when I pick on your so-visible sores, then you lash out from your hurt, and you get hurt when you see you hurting me.
And I get to say: "See?"
And I shut down.
And I kill you off.
And then you can't do this alone, you need me to be here, and I'm so gone. And you marry a person that is there for you.
Or you say 'fuck off and die, bitch!' and throw the trash out. And I leave, hurt, and you throw me out, furious.
And then you come to your senses, realizing what you did from your hurt, but I'm so long gone already, and have left no forwarding address, and you call my mom every fucking week to ask how I'm doing, hoping I'm doing well.
Hoping. Hoping, hoping, hoping I'm doing well, and maybe, if I'm town again, sometime, I could stop by and ...
Kate, anyone?
Look, you're not up to the job of asking me 'how are you?' or 'I miss you, write something!' or ' ...
Or whatever.
What are you up for? I have no fucking idea, bc if you ... if you dared to be you, and not this constrained, hopeful, helpful, timid person you are ...
Mountains would move out of your way.
But this? Me? This me?
Save your breath, save your effort, save yourself.
You have to be strong enough to be yourself, and be happy with that.
And, honey, most of you aren't, especially those of you who want to know how I'm doing, with the hope that it will make how you're doing better.
How I'm doing won't make you better. How you are doing is the thing. That's what I want to know, and that's what some of you get, sometimes, when you go out and get that gf, or save lives, or say, 'Hey, `phfina, how ya doing? Hey, guess what I just did! I just ...' and you tell me how you moved and changed the world.
Look, I can't save you. The only thing I can do is drag you down to hell with me, and ...
Ha. Hahaha.
The only thing I'm good at doing is writing about it in all its specific and gory details.
I can't save you. You can save you, though. And when you do, you save me. And when you don't, and you depend on me, or fix me, or hope for me, trying to save you by proxy ...
Well, that's all you're left with: a proxy. A proxy is not a rope to pull you out of the sh!t. A proxy is maya, and leaves you stuck down there.
That's all I am, okay? I'm illusion. I'm nothing. I'm chimera. I'm Lila.
And I, Lila, the dance, will dance with you, and it is a wild dance, but it is a dance of death and destruction, and the longer you are in this dance, the more wild it is, for I am quite the dervish, inexhaustible in my ever-enticing novel songs of woe, but the whirling only spins us further down the spiral that has a terminus in only one place.
Hint: you don't need to bring a toaster; it's rather warm down there.
Save yourself. Don't care about me. When I say, 'I'm fine,' don't pursue with inquiry, no: just disengage.
Otherwise ...
I will suck you in and destroy you.
I have proof. Lots of proof. And you may say you are strong, but the strong ones walked away, under their own power, remembering, or not remembering, that wild, sometimes fun, ride they had with that kitten-panther.
How am I doing?
Actually, this is one of my better days. The weather outside is nice and warm with a slight breeze. I think I'll go out for a walk in the park later that is right next to the sbux that I may or may not have or do work at.
Sh!t. Now somebody's going to look that up, figure out it's "Greensprings gardens" and show the fuck up, order a coffee and tell me they know who I am, and how am I doing?
I think I'll move to a State that starts with a "C" ... other than "Connecticut."
... too many dead bodies there, waiting, hoping, for me to come back there.
Or maybe I'll move to a State that starts with "M" ... other than "Maryland," which is too close to where I live now, so you still might find me by expanding your search area by a few miles.
Fuck. I feel sick to my stomach. All I want to do is hide, and there's nowhere to hide, and I can't breathe.
That's how I feel, thank you so much for asking, and why can't you just be fine with 'I'm fine'?
That not good enough an answer, then how about this one: "I never meant to hurt you / I never meant to lie / So this is goodbye / This is goodbye" and as I sing this, I see the glass, the porcelain, that is me shattering into dust and echos.
How's that for an answer?
You not happy with that answer? You not grateful that I'm being honest and open with you?
Guess where that unhappiness is coming from?
... and you're going to make me all better, coming from where that unhappiness is coming from?
It's been tried before. More than several times.
And I am a panther. The predator is lightning-fast in sensing weakness. I do eat my prey.
... In other news, ... I've thought of a new story. A retelling of a fairy tale. It's a 'one-shot.' A `phfina one-shot.
*sigh* ... that sigh means: 'maybe I'll get to it after I reply to all the reviews and PMs and finish all the other incomplete stories I've got dangling, entangling me, snaring me with their need to be finished.'
I think ... I think the only good thing I can do for myself and the world is finish one thing: me.
Yeah, it's a good day, as long as I don't think about myself and how I'm doing. Thanks for asking and caring. I wish I could measure up to a person who could answer your concern worthily.
You wanna know what set all this off? Besides "How are you, ... really?"
Molasses.
I mentioned molasses in my last recipe, and not one of you said one thing about that.
You know what I've made that mean? If I had molasses in my pantry up North, I would be savaged. I would be asked what the fucking hell was that fucking shit and what the fucking hell was it doing in my house?
That's how people up North talk: right in your face and with the eff word used as a verb, noun and adjective, but do you see how fucked up I am? I say molasses, and you didn't say a peep. That means to me that it's situation normal. I'm a sweet little Southern belle to you, aren't I? I don't have a home to go home to now, anymore, because I've acclimatized to my new environs. I can never go back to that cold, austere New England I grew up in, 'cause I would be a stranger in a strange land, looking for molasses. No, I've blended right into the background here, a little barista — littler than you; littler than me — handing you your drink and wishing you well on your day as you're out the door, not even seeing me as you take your cup, not even missing me when I off myself, 'cause somebody else, just like me, will be handing you your cup tomorrow. I'm just a Southern girl, using molasses in her recipes, writing her silly little smutfics, just like Louisa May Alcott, aka Jo March, wrote her smutfics for women's magazines to make a pretty penny turning on all those ladies in their petticoats, wetting their knickers, and I'm not even getting paid for this, what I'm pouring my heart out into and for what reason, for why am I doing this?
I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know anything anymore. All I know is: "As I wake I'm going out of my mind / Going out of my mind."
That's how I'm doing.
Happy?
I ... it's hard to swallow right now ... I don't know how much longer I can hold it together.
And, no, thank you. I don't want your help. One thing help does: it hurts you, irreversibly, and it hastens my leap over the edge of the precipice. My last suicide attempt was acted out when I was in therapy.
So don't come near me to comfort me. I'm terrified already, and I don't need to add to my burdens and yours, saying the things I see from my tunneled vision when I see you approach, talons extended.
I wonder. I wonder how many people are willing to accept an answer they aren't expecting when they ask "How are you?" I wonder how many people are willing to be fine with the answer given from the heart, and not say, 'no, you don't feel that, nobody could be that fucked up,' or 'no, you aren't that, nobody's not nothing, you're better than that, and you know it,' but can just accept where the person is coming from? Can just see the person where they are, and simply be with that? Just be a body and catch a body in the rye? 'Catch' ... or meet a body in the rye. Whatevs.
I know. I know. It's mirror time for me.
"I am beautiful. I am smart. I am loved. I am a writer. I am a writer like no other. I touch people's hearts. I bring happiness to people's lives, and comfort in their despair and loneliness."
Yes. I know. All that's true. I do. I am of service, and, serving, I do bring something to you, that would be missing, lost, if I didn't dare to step out.
And that is a comfort now, when I think on it.
And someday, maybe, I'll have a good, happy, Spring day, where I will walk in that unnamed (sort of) park, and smell the flowers, and look up at the sky, and be, and be happy, and write something sad, or happy, or smexy, or funny, or serious, and will save another person's life, and I will preen and prance, the proud panther that I am. Today is a nice, warm, grey cloudy, New Englandy day. Maybe that day will be today.
Can you be patient with me, when I am sad? So you can rejoice with me when I am glad?
Thursday, September 23, 2010
In the Arms of an Angel
Of course. You know, I'm weird. You know it, and I know it, too. I have these discussions with myself, and when I write my stories, with you as well, that I don't hear anybody else having.
I think about Angels occasionally. I mean, I really, really think about them.
You know, or maybe you don't, but angels do. From forever, Angels have known everything, so I mean, there they are, forever, knowing everything.
... and their looking down at us ... they are looking down at me.
And, you know how it is: when you so know something, and you so try to tell somebody, or you so try not to, knowing if they only listened to you, they would just avoid so much trouble and heartbreak. I know you struggle with this, because I've read your PMs to me.
So there this angel is, my profile pic, and she's weeping.
She's probably thinking about me.
And, the thing is, angels don't cry. I mean, they want the best for you, but that also includes ... what do you call it? free choice? No: free will, so I screw up, and I either learn from it, or I keep screwing up until I do learn or I die, and there the angels are, cheering me on, wanting the best for me ... loving me.
And that statement, right now, really hits me like a ton of bricks ... or a ton of feathers from angels' wings? Because ... well, I grew up how I grew up, but I've always felt alone and ... well, unloved, and when I do feel love it's like WHAMMO! and I just reel under that.
I'm probably not going to keep this pic up. It called to me. Maybe there's a story in there, called something like: "My Guardian Angel" and why she's weeping, or something like that, or not, but it called to me, and I shared it with you.
They say the sea is cold, but in it runs the hottest blood of all.
Angels, mermaids, vampires.
I am surrounded by super-natural things in my thoughts, and my thoughts take life and you read them in my writing.
I am surrounded by miracles, and maybe there's an Angel looking down from Heaven, weeping for me, and my silly, silly choices and struggles. Maybe she is weeping.
But I know she loves me. That's so hard for me to believe. I'm loved by something that knows everything about my nature, but still loves me.
And, sometimes, I wonder why I exist. Heh: 'sometimes.' Okay, a lot of the times (sometimes I don't, 'cause I'm happy or sad or writing or making an iced latte or ... whatever), but I heard once that women should cover their heads so the angels won't see them and be tempted away from Heaven (I so know the temptation ... often).
AND I also heard that why I'm here? And this is a shocker for me: why I'm here is to teach the angels.
The angels know everything, but they have never, ever experienced one single thing. Not one hug, nor laugh, nor cry, nor ... writing a story nor going to the bathroom nor eating gnocchi (God! poor things!) ... and the only way they can experience that: feeling hurt or love or hungry or happy, is through us ... through me.
Right this second, me crying at my keyboard, I'm teaching an Angel, my angel, something through my experience.
And that, right now? It gives me a little bit of hope, and a little bit of strength that I didn't know I had.
Thanks, there, Angel. Be seeing you around.
p.s. and oh, btw, this pic is of the Angel of Grief, also call the Weeping Angel. The original is in Rome, but this one is a replica found in a New England (of course, do you see the stark, barren, forlorn tree? So New England. I'll touch on New England later, as I have before).
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
My week; The Cure
Do you know what cures the blues?
My little voice: Aren't you supposed to be in the timeout corner?
Me: I was, but now I'm out.
My little voice, looking at me shocked: Out? Out? Like after thirty seconds in the corner?
Then she shakes her head in disgust. But I don't have time to entertain Ms. Muse.
So I answer with a tight: Do me a favor, just for once? Shut the fuck up?
My little voice, looking absolutely ecstatic: Nope.
But she does shut up. She's willful and contrarian like that.
ANYWAY, as I was saying! Do you know how to cure a case of the blues? I do:
I mean, really! After The Cure got over being all gothy, they really kicked out some beauts! Here's a song that sings out week after week of just pure love and happy-poppy joy and it. never. gets. old!
Now, about a week ... do you know where we got the names for the week? Well, obvious the sun and the moon, but what about the rest? ... Somebody's just going to burst with pride now, isn't she, with what I'm about to write ... ask me if I care:
Um. *blush* So, yeah, that's where the days of the week come from.
Oh, 'phfina ... you and my little voice chant teasingly, how did you come across this scintillating piece of knowledge?
Oh, um, la-di-dah! *blush*, I just ... read something (which is SO NSFW that if you're at work or school, you'd better NOT select this link nor read this!)
So, yeah, my week can be down-down-down and then, suddenly, WHAMMO! it's Friday, and I'm in love.
So my wish for you, my dear reader, reading this silly, little posting from this silly, little girl, is that you get this: I may not know you, but take away this: whatever day it is in the world, today, for you and for me, and although we've maybe never met, but I wave my magic wand and *doink!* it's Friday, and I'm in love.
With you.
kisses, 'phfina
My little voice: Aren't you supposed to be in the timeout corner?
Me: I was, but now I'm out.
My little voice, looking at me shocked: Out? Out? Like after thirty seconds in the corner?
Then she shakes her head in disgust. But I don't have time to entertain Ms. Muse.
So I answer with a tight: Do me a favor, just for once? Shut the fuck up?
My little voice, looking absolutely ecstatic: Nope.
But she does shut up. She's willful and contrarian like that.
ANYWAY, as I was saying! Do you know how to cure a case of the blues? I do:
I don't care if Monday's blue;
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday, too.
Thursday I don't care about you.
It's Friday, I'm in love!
I mean, really! After The Cure got over being all gothy, they really kicked out some beauts! Here's a song that sings out week after week of just pure love and happy-poppy joy and it. never. gets. old!
I don't care if Monday's black
Tuesday, Wednesday heart attack
Thursday never looking back
It's Friday I'm in love!
Now, about a week ... do you know where we got the names for the week? Well, obvious the sun and the moon, but what about the rest? ... Somebody's just going to burst with pride now, isn't she, with what I'm about to write ... ask me if I care:
Monday you could fall apart;
Tuesday, Wednesday: break my heart;
Thursday doesn't even start;
It's Friday I'm in love!
- Well, Tuesday is from Tui the sky and weather (Norse) god.
- Wednesday is from Wootan (Odin), the AllFather of the (Norse) gods. Mr. Wednesday was the man behind the story of American Gods.
Oh, he also shows up in one of my stories, too. - Thursday is for our Thor, the red-beard, the (Norse) god of thunder.
- Friday is the only day named for a (Norse) goddess: Freyja who so totally kicked ass in the looks department, and, being Norse, would kick anybody's ass, anyway that she got her own day. The best day, too, I'll point out right here, 'cause girls kick ass, period!
Um. *blush* So, yeah, that's where the days of the week come from.
Oh, 'phfina ... you and my little voice chant teasingly, how did you come across this scintillating piece of knowledge?
Oh, um, la-di-dah! *blush*, I just ... read something (which is SO NSFW that if you're at work or school, you'd better NOT select this link nor read this!)
So, yeah, my week can be down-down-down and then, suddenly, WHAMMO! it's Friday, and I'm in love.
So my wish for you, my dear reader, reading this silly, little posting from this silly, little girl, is that you get this: I may not know you, but take away this: whatever day it is in the world, today, for you and for me, and although we've maybe never met, but I wave my magic wand and *doink!* it's Friday, and I'm in love.
With you.
kisses, 'phfina
Clicks on "Hide Profile"
Kayso, four different girls, from four different country origins, kindly put me into timeout corner.
Hm-hm-hm, not saying anything, looking around, contritely and curiously and a little bit expectantly, waiting to come out of timeout corner. La-la-la.
And Saga wrote, she's studying for an exam, so her silence was that, not the huge drama I had turned it into. Hm-hm-hm. La-la-la. (looks at clock, waits, and watches Show Me, Show Me, Show Me by The Cure on youtube ... actually, it's called Just Like Heaven; Show Me Love is an entirely different song (and despite what the vid shows I'm going on record here as saying as this is totally a les song ... I mean, really! It's the theme song for the sweetest lesbian movie out there, Fucking Åmål, which, yay!, is now up on youtube (but which you shouldn't watch at work) (even though there's no smexing in it per se) (yes, I speak in parentheses) (AND I'm on timeout ... sigh)), that I'm watching right now ... and ... well, *blush* I'm not allowed to watch other vids from ... other places ... right now that I'm in timeout corner ... poutily sung 'la-la-la' as 'phfina looks (more than) slightly frustrated now).
À propos de rein, ... (hehehe ... get that paradoxie-cherie?) ... where is the umlaut key on my keyboard? I can type 'étudiante' no problem (and I have no problems thinking about more than several étudiantes and what they are ... doing ... Rosalie and Bella, anyone? (ooh! do they have room for a third? Hm, yes, perhaps they do!) that I'm not supposed to be doing here in timeout corner (Bad, 'phfina, bad!)), so what's the magic secret to being able to type 'Amal' correctly without all this copying and pasting of umlauts?
Oh, and p.s., postie scriptiusumae (that's not a word), you ever wonder what your girl is thinking when she's sent off to the timeout corner and she looks here and looks there and hums this and hums that and fidgets about? Well, now you know (well, at least for this girl, anyway). AND I think it was a really, really bad idea for me to take my laptop with me to timeout corner, but I have so much to write and so little time, you know?
So, here I am, hm-hm-hm, sitting quietly, not saying a word, in timeout corner. La-la-la (but first two quick clicks to post this to my blog and post that blog entry to my fb page) (okay, done, now I'm really (kinda) being quiet. Hm-hm-hm).
Hm-hm-hm, not saying anything, looking around, contritely and curiously and a little bit expectantly, waiting to come out of timeout corner. La-la-la.
And Saga wrote, she's studying for an exam, so her silence was that, not the huge drama I had turned it into. Hm-hm-hm. La-la-la. (looks at clock, waits, and watches Show Me, Show Me, Show Me by The Cure on youtube ... actually, it's called Just Like Heaven; Show Me Love is an entirely different song (and despite what the vid shows I'm going on record here as saying as this is totally a les song ... I mean, really! It's the theme song for the sweetest lesbian movie out there, Fucking Åmål, which, yay!, is now up on youtube (but which you shouldn't watch at work) (even though there's no smexing in it per se) (yes, I speak in parentheses) (AND I'm on timeout ... sigh)), that I'm watching right now ... and ... well, *blush* I'm not allowed to watch other vids from ... other places ... right now that I'm in timeout corner ... poutily sung 'la-la-la' as 'phfina looks (more than) slightly frustrated now).
À propos de rein, ... (hehehe ... get that paradoxie-cherie?) ... where is the umlaut key on my keyboard? I can type 'étudiante' no problem (and I have no problems thinking about more than several étudiantes and what they are ... doing ... Rosalie and Bella, anyone? (ooh! do they have room for a third? Hm, yes, perhaps they do!) that I'm not supposed to be doing here in timeout corner (Bad, 'phfina, bad!)), so what's the magic secret to being able to type 'Amal' correctly without all this copying and pasting of umlauts?
Oh, and p.s., postie scriptiusumae (that's not a word), you ever wonder what your girl is thinking when she's sent off to the timeout corner and she looks here and looks there and hums this and hums that and fidgets about? Well, now you know (well, at least for this girl, anyway). AND I think it was a really, really bad idea for me to take my laptop with me to timeout corner, but I have so much to write and so little time, you know?
So, here I am, hm-hm-hm, sitting quietly, not saying a word, in timeout corner. La-la-la (but first two quick clicks to post this to my blog and post that blog entry to my fb page) (okay, done, now I'm really (kinda) being quiet. Hm-hm-hm).
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