oh lovelies

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

books and films........French and Latin film

I love French and Latin cinema so far. Maria Full of Grace I've watched three times now. Watch it, it is so well done and brilliantly acted by everyone. The character and vibe of NYC is so real, too.


A French film: Choses Secretes. Raunchy and haunting, this is a psychological thriller, and the French are geniuses at this less is more style. It's not just gratuitous tits and ass it, like so many other French films, goes heavier into the inner life of the characters.

Books: Requiem for a Dream, and the movie, too. I'm reading the book now, something I shouldn't be reading now.

to make it in NYC, you don't sleep

And I'm so tired. Like I sit down and start to nod off. I've slept maybe four hours in twenty four hours and have been running around non stop, and the night's not nearly over.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

romance

There were thousands of bands in the world, but only one mattered. They were right about one thing. As soon as I saw him, I knew he was special. I couldn't pin it down, but he was different, apart from these others, all who had this sort of......blurred, almost deadened expression on their faces. He had something else in his face, eyes. And he was the one, the only one.

But that was twenty five years ago, and he's .......dead now. The circumstances are still a mystery.

And, he left, he's gone, on the other side of the Atlantic.....why???????????????

Why did he leave me?

She filled the tub with hot water, and grabbed everything she needed: red wine, cigarettes, a joint (heck it doesn't matter anyway, now), tea, gel, an ashtray, scented candle......and the steak knife. She sat in the tub, drank the wine, lit the joint. Music? Oh well, forgot. A few minutes went by. The wine and mj were making her head spin.......I'll end it now.....but where will I go? What will happen to me after? What will I face? What if I'm sinning? Forgive me, forgive me, whoever's there. Her face screwed up, almost pouting. She started crying again. I can't......how many girls killed themselves over him? She held the knife to her wrists, and for the first time in her life she saw her own mortality and realized she, too, could end her life. But I don't want to become another statistic, another body in the morgue. I can't, not yet, I still have to.......my mission here isn't finished. When will it be? I can't not yet.

I tried to slit my wrists over you, she told him. A gun's easier, he said. If you're going to end it, why not do it quickly? Why give yourself so much pain? Because a gun isn't a ladylike way to do it, she said.

In Gone With the Wind, the catty girls said, men may flirt with girls like that but they don't marry them. Melanie alone defended her, the girl who tried to take her husband. She was the Friday night girl, a "Chia." She was the one hidden from their wives and girlfriends, snuck in during odd hours when they were away or in clandestine meetings in hotel rooms, or at her place when they were on the way home from work, sometimes at their jobs. There wasn't one case of a married man who wasn't having problems with his wife.

Joan of Arc, child of Satan, so dark even Jesus can't save you, born under unlucky, cursed, fixed stars. Joan of Arc shall be France's saint. Child of hell. All these lines are from Lady Snowblood. It's a fascination, a "cursed" child who becomes an instrument of revenge, and a saint.

I feel just like Cindrella! In my beautiful dress on my beautiful wedding day. I go outside for a breath of air, so thankful to be alone even for a minute. I take a breath, just for myself. It's so quiet. If I still smoked I'd be smoking. And then.......there he is. I am not going to faint or have a heart attack. He's not a ghost. My lover, my "dead" lover, the one whose death I avenged on the whole fucking village, is not really dead, but standing right in front of me. You faked your death! I cry. I want you, now, more than ever, he says. You've never looked more beautiful than now, in your wedding dress. I want you, I want you now. It'll have to be fast, I say. So........we sneak into the church basement, into.......a dressing room? A pretty nice one. It happens so fast......marriage must be borne with fortitude, said Ellen O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. He's all over me......then......it's all over me. Meanwhile upstairs is my husband, looking for me, asking, where's my wife? I run upstairs to clean myself off. You can smell it, him, his fluids, on me. My husband will smell it. I find a sink, pour soap on me, am washing myself, and my husband approaches. There you are! he says. Yeah, I say. I just.....spilled something on myself, I'm such a clutz. And off the two of us go, the fairy tale lovers. I later in my designer clothes a hetaira....but married.

dream

I dreamt last night I was.....I dream this so often.......getting into a motor boat, and my sister also. I had to navigate somewhat with my arms. It was lake Michigan, maybe a NYC river, don't really know, but the water was dirty. I was skweaking a little. Then, we were on the beach, on the sand. It was cloudy, and the sand and water started rising, gathering, and we could see it was a storm, a major one. I was on the beach and others with me but???? my sister? Then water rose from the other side where before there was only sand. Then I'm back at an old friend from Chicago's house.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

ok i

I was just.......a little freaked about everything, and still am. I am having a fucking freaky experience right now which........oh today has been so crazy. what has gone right? For one thing, I took an HIV test today which was negative thank Heaven, but boy did it give me a fright. Those tests are so scary it's like Judgement Day. I use condoms and don't take those kinds of risks but.....well, I had a thing with someone a year ago who was not exactly wholesome. So for two hours I'm freaking out in the clinic thinking, this is it, this is fucking IT I'm done what will I do if I test posititve oh God I just know I have it oh God, then I went outside and was crying, thinking how did I get myself into this mess? I was so naive. What will I do? What will I tell my mother? So finally, after what seemed like eternity, my letter was called (the longest forty five minute wait of my life) and the woman had this somber look on her face. I'm thinking, oh my God, I have it I have it. So I get called into the office, she shuts the door. Why did she shut the door? I'm shaking by now. Agonizingly slowly, she is asking me, what is your DOB, and I'm panting what's the result? Are you nervous? she asks. Uh, yeah. Then she says, you're making me nervous. Sorry. So......she's looking....and I'm thinking, this is it, my life is over, this is really it, now, the final sentence. So she says, it came back negative. That was when I breathed a sigh of relief. Negative? Definitely? Yes......so I ran out of there panting .......and very high ........very tired, my arm hurting from where they drew blood. Nowadays they scrape your gums and you get the result in forty five minutes, which helps, but that forty five minutes really blows. I don't want to go through this again! I want to stay negative. So........with that said, the question is where do I go from here?

I know I have to get back to my family story.......I can only write a little, but here's my dad's side. I hope this is interesting.


Carl Christian was my great grandfather, born in Germany raised in the US, whom I never met. His wife, my great grandma Alta, lived to be about 100 years old, but I don't recall meeting her. Both of them were gorgeous when they were young. I saw their wedding picture at my aunt's house and am really intrigued by it, can't stop looking at it. There's just something about both of them that fascinates me, their faces. I even look like her. So.......they had four kids and lived in what was basically a mansion in Illinois, on farmland. One of the kids was my grandmother, who grew up to marry someone of the "wrong" religion, Methodist, and this was enough for my great grandmother to oppose the marriage (they were EUB) which started a feud that lasted........sixty years. My other aunt Julie apparently hasn't forgiven my great gm for this........as she was close to my grandfather. Sadly, I never met either of my grandparents, they both passed away before I was born. But they were world apart from my mother's family except for one thing: an interest in writing and journalism.

Friday, November 18, 2005

i wrote

I have to spend a weekend in Indy and not looking forward to it, but the comforting thought is that it will come to an end in TWO DAYS. Just two days with them.

No, I love my family. But we're so different. I read this article in an astrology magazine about Courtney Love's family legacy of .......fucked up situations or something. I have so much to write on mine, but an abbreviated version is this:


About four centuries ago, the Ellsworths left rural England for Massachusetts, USA. Like all the millions of immigrants to the US, they may or may not have known that they were forever giving up their culture and identity to become Americans, although they could at least keep their language. Slowly they moved inland toward Michigan and settled in Alma, a tiny factory town. This is several generations down the road. The Ellsworths, Zieglers from Germany, Beardsleys (who settled part of Michigan, though how is uncertain) and Conklins made up the towns of Ithica and Alma, two lower middle class dots on the map, if they're even on there. From Liberty Tanner Beardsley came John, who was sent to live with the Gerbers for a time, but left to strike out on his own, meeting and impregnating Alfreda Ellsworth. John married and subsequently divorced Alfreda leaving her with a small daughter, Donna, to raise, in the Depression era in the farmland where there was really not much of anything. John later met and married the love of his life, and the two of them made something of a life together and managed to escape to Europe from time to time. Meanwhile, Alfreda found another man, Dan, who raised Donna as his own, more or less. Dan worked in an oil refinery and.......it was not an easy life. There was very little money and Alfreda made most of the clothes, but also cooked and made jam, quilts, collected China and various trinkets, and kept Dan as best she could out of bars. That is, she did her best, but a big part of Midwestern life is drinking.


OK, to be continued, but this is the beginning........don't worry there'll be more

Thursday, November 17, 2005

well well I'm just so busy

Running around all day today like a hen with no head. What else? Once in a while you fall in love and can't help it. It's not something you can help. I have so so much to write and there's a hell of a lot going on with me now but too hard to put in a blog. I had a crazy time of it last night.



I have to take a trip to Indianapolis and I'm dreading it, arggghhhhhhhh!!!!!! Visiting my family, who right now I am pissed at and don't want to see at all. It's kind of like I love them but don't like them. Sometimes I hate them. And that's not good. Why can't we be like a sitcom family.....but even they're not functional, really. Interesting how you can share the genes with someone, and be biologically related, and have nothing in common with them and you may as well be from opposite sides of the earth. Someone was talking about six degrees of separation, or less, and I'm seeing it now. But really, I love my family but we're strangers in so many ways. Same thing with people who come from the same ethnic background as me. I've found that I'm not anything like them. Reading the Second Sex, she divides women into categories in history, but I don't really fit any of these. I'm the Other that you mark with an x and fill in the blank. My kind is rare indeed, honestly. Women who change the world are one in a thousand. I really think that. Most women don't become great thinkers. They don't have the leisure or privacy necessary. It does happen, however.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

vagina dentata

http://www.faklen.dk/en/the_torch/vd.shtml


if I dare post this here GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what is she doing? Is she dangerous?


but they have such good points, man. Why should I not go out at night? I'm a night person (tho last night I stayed in like a wallflower). Mistress Hekate, if I were a dominatrix. Goddess (would like to think I am but I guess I'm not) of the night. Able to walk around, go into a coffee shop, go to a guy's house, take the subway, walk around the Hudson river, go to school, go to bed..........

sexual harassment and dominance

Go out it's late need time haggard angry depressed a mixture of things I shouldn't be I'm a mess not what I should be........


everything happened so slowly and so quickly what will I do how could they have done it how could they get away with it is there a God/Goddess or anything right well sure but where are they if they're here how can they let them get away with this?


Eyes on me bodies too close I know they're looking I go into a coffee shop just need to rest somewhere and he's behind the counter I know he's watching me I try to give off signals that I'm not interested but even that takes so much extra energy all I want is food...............................why are you in such a hurry? Where do you have to be? Where do I go to get away from it? What do I do? Sit in my room forever? Why can't I go out at night, anywhere?

reading second sex

and it's bringing up all these not so nice feelings in me. I'm really pissed at how corrupt human beings are toward one another. I can give examples, plenty. Problem is, men oppress women, but women oppress other women. I've found that the fact that someone comes from a disadvantaged background and has been beaten, or whatever bad experiences they had, doesn't necessarily make them a saint, or even moderately decent, quite frankly. No, it doesn't mean racism, sexism is right. But the problem is, bluntly, sexism exists in the "ghetto" as much as on Wall Street. It's what people don't want to admit, because any sign of weakness in blacks, women, or any other oppressed group turns people against them, but it's true, sadly: evil incarnates all life forms. I've been at the end, along with some women I know (other women) of extreme aggression and hostility from other women. I mean there are women out there who are vile creatures. They can be brutal toward others. Well, it's hardly news. And for how long can we keep excusing what' s not excusable regardless of race, religion, gender, ect? I've had bad experiences with blacks, male and female, quite frankly. Does that mean all women, all blacks are evil? No, I'm not saying that, though others would see it that way......but that's not what I mean. Margeret Atwood started this in part when she raised the idea that if women are to be truly equal then they should have as much potential for badness. THat, however, doesn't mean women should all be fired from their jobs. But these are the things going through my mind all the time.......and sometimes anger just wells up in me and I wish I knew what to do with it. It's really a struggle to use it right.....even if it is justified. So cats toture their prey, but it doesn't justify animal cruelty. But people need to reconcile these things, somehow. There are weeds in the otherwise perfect lawn.......

Friday, November 11, 2005

I miss college

Can't believe it was so many frikking years ago I was living, fancy free almost, in the Hunter dorm. I never should have left!!!!!!!!! What was the purpose of graduating? Just so I could go out into this too-expensive city and work cruddy jobs, barely scrape by, with no security or benefits? Then spend four years doing the same repetitive work I'd have been doing for eternity, and never getting anywhere? Equal opportunity employer? Possibility for promotion? More like, menial, unsatisfying, tiring work that you have to get up at the crack of dawn every day for, lose your looks due to lack of sleep for, and for a salary you can't live on, oh, and no free time and if you're lucky two weeks vacation. Right now I'm not comforted by hearing about the perks in Europe. Well, I'm not there, I'm here. So what are the other options? I know what they are.

I don't mean to sound negative. The last thing I want is to turn cynical. But I'm thinking college was great.....yeah, it was flawed, but I was FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I miss that. I just wasted time obsessing over this silly guy who wasn't worth it ultimately (but I didn't know that then) but other than that I did get so much accomplished. I was acting in movies and I had easy access to all of nyc, no curfew, no one telling me what to do......I miss it. And I'm ready to go back. I'll be the oldest co-ed in the world, but I'm ready. I'll be a student forever.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

sitting in the hunter library

but I can't down load due to security problems and in order to save anything I have to get a floppy disk don't know where to get one......

I had an interview today which went pretty well! The job isn't too exciting-sounding but if I get it I'll be getting a good salary and it's temp, which means the benefits come out of my pocket and I pay my own health care. So it'll be hard work for a few months but I'm thinking I can save up and go to Berlin for a few months, maybe back to Egypt. From Berlin all these other places are accessable. England is an hour flight, Egypt maybe four hours, Thailand 8 hours. I'm thinking I can live in Alexandria for a few months. I loved that city.
And I miss London, don't know why......it's ugly and the people aren't too pleasant plus it's expensive and dangerous. So......why am I obsessed with going back? Well, I know the reason. Sort of.

But ......that's also not permanent. I know that at some point I'll have to work again no matter where I am and......I have a million emails and job possibilities. Just today I can send 100 resumes. But the question is, at what?

Sunday, November 06, 2005

sitting in the laundromat

and on the web figured I'd change my cheezy ass url title and .......so now it's this. SO what's new....spent too much money on clothes but am obsessed with buying boots. I need to make some money I'm freaking out a little. Let the dinero come my way................the waterfall flowing toward me ...................

Friday, November 04, 2005

been a while

since I've written......


but I've been so super swamped

little things, must be mercury retrograde or something like it. got a new phone, but it's not working, neither is my old one. had to go to a sprint store to get it fixed and now I'm waiting in a cyber cafe in the east village. I'm sending out, or pretending to, my resume, and marketing (uhum, should I say, whoring?) myself. But I am in need of some dinero now so I need to do this.

Halloween was crazy nyc as usual. Maybe elsewhere in the world there are awesome halloweens but here they are anyway. I lived on 4th street and 6th ave when I was a teenager, and the parade was right outside my window. that was back in the punk days ....... hmmm...... I think the thing with punk is that we (or they) came from all different backgrounds, but really ......were they middle class? MTV plays at my gym. I didn't watch MTV; we didn't. We went to shows and hung out in the park and......that was our entertainment. I don't watch TV nor did I nor will my kids, and I don't see what we're missing. Madonna is right at least about that.

RIght now I'm mad at my landlord and I'm obsessed with the theme of revenge, want to incorporate that in my art. What it comes down to is "the right to revenge" that Vagina Dentata wrote about. I watched Lady Snowblood again, and there was a line in it about.....something like, the seeds of karma are so strong they affect even the unborn sometimes. I think in my case that's so damn true.....if karma exists, which I'm back and forth about. But .....the civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s and the punk movement had a lot to do with determining my life, and neither of my parents were much involved in either. My mother had zero interest in punk, but that was the 70s when she was my age. But I was reading all this redstokckings material that was written around the time I was born. I guess that's what got me wondering; that plus looking at old Clash photos.