My Favorite Quotes for this Week

Listen.
Words are everywhere.
Everywhere.
And some of them are pretty good.



"For years in the early 80's, I thought John Amos was dead. And then he was in Die Hard 2."
-Don C

"Only a memory, what our love was going to be."
-The Smithereens

"The right relationship is everything."
-Chase Bank

"She feels two ways about it. Like something she's got no room to pack, but just can't leave without."
-John Buskin

"That god damn fax machine is broken again, chirping like a deranged seagull. It's the tangible maniacal manifestation of every deadline I've ever missed."
-Doreen

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things."
Edgar Degas

"Well there you go. You've read your mind."
-David Letterman

"When you know where you're going, it don't matter what road you take."
-Neil Young

"If you don't want to be part of society, why don't you just get in your car and move to the East Side!"
-Cosmo Kramer, Seinfeld

"Memnoch, my angel, all you've learned of life, you've learned in bed."
-Anne Rice

"... and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know, God is Pooh Bear?"
-Jack Kerouac

"Oh, bother."
-Winnie the Pooh

For 6 Perfect Minutes

I'm suspicious of people that won't let me email them the job. That insist on meeting, face to face. That insist. I'm suspicious of people that insist.

He took the folder from me and motioned for me to sit, which I did, which I welcomed, after that long walk up Columbus Avenue, after writing and driving and parking and walking instead of emailing.

He opened the folder and looked at the page, his hands showing he would flip through quickly, but hesitated. Hesitated. Waiting. Reading. He sat back. Then back a little farther. Then relaxing. I looked at my manicure, and my shoes, and my watch. I looked at his desk, and his tie, and his wedding ring. His eyes were locked. He was really reading. Not thumbing though it. Not checking it over. He was really reading it. Each Word.

I watched him turn to the second page.

"Are you going to read the whole thing now?"

He shrugged without looking up. I don't think he knew. I don't think he could break concentration enough to articulate an answer.

"I could come back in an a little while and..."

"Shh."

He shushed me. He cut me off with a "shhhh." I was so surprised I could do nothing but sit there. I thought about leaving. Slipping out quietly. I thought about going. I thought.

We were silent.

He ran his hand over the page and prepared to turn it, going on to page three. The left side of his mouth curled up in a partial grin. I knew right where he was on the page as I saw that. I knew what was coming on page three, and sat at the edge of my seat, as I realized I would see the reaction to it on his face.

And I did. And the next. A blink. A subtle wince. A squint. A smile. Page 4. Page 6. I was on the edge of my seat watching. Watching him read my Words.

His phone rang. It wasn't answered. I could see it on his face. He couldn't put it down.

He wet his lips. He raised his eyebrows. He dropped his shoulders. He tilted his head slightly. He was completely in it. Completely immersed. Not lifting his vision from the pages. Not looking at me. Not anything but reading.

I've watched people reading before. I've seen people react to my writing. But not like this. Never before like this. From beginning to end. Without any hesitation, or distraction. From the first Word, through the last. And I saw every nuance. Every little indication. The concentration. The focus.

He exhaled as he finished.
He closed the folder and looked up at me.
I could see it in his face.
The captivation.
And which was sweeter?
His unwavering attention to it, or his letting me watch.

"It's remarkable," he said. He wiped his face, and flared his eyes to regain reality and perspective. As if it had taken him some where. As if he was coming back now. "But I need you to make a few changes."

My mouth had dried. I swallowed. "Thank you."

"For what?"

Quote of the Day

"Not a single one of the brilliant arguments of madness, -- the madness that gets locked up, -- did I forget : I could go through them all again, I've got the system down by heart."

-Arthur Rimbaud

And wasn't it Milton who said.....

I had an professor in college that asked us, who is your audience. Who do you write for. The answers varied. Publishers. Readers. Different factions of the masses. The most popular answer: I write only for me.
My answer: The Words.

The Words. Their well being, and highest expression. Higher than anything I will ever be.

I've recently discussed this with a friend.

I had an English teacher in high school that tried to flunk me. Told me with despise that he was sure I was a plagiarist. That there was no way I had written the things I had submitted in his class. He couldn't find any of it, any where. But he was sure. Had to be.

And nothing would convince him otherwise.

That F meant a lot to me.

I didn't care what he thought of me. I only cared what he thought of my writing. He thought it was good enough to have been published. He thought, it was so good. That good. Better then me. Better then now.

I discussed this recently with a friend.

I don't write so you'll like me.
I don't write so you will see how intelligent I am.
I don't add references you won't relate or vocabulary you won't understand to try to impress you.
I don't write what I think you want to hear.
I don't do any of this because I have something to prove. Or win. Or conquer.
I don't write to impress you.

I write. For the Words.
I don't care what you think of me.
That doesn't matter.
But I want you to like what I wrote.
That matters.
I want you to feel the Words.

Recently a friend and I discussed this.

I want you to feel my Words.

This is my whale, calling.

Enchanted

At the end of September we returned to Glacier Bay.

We were out on a catamaran, watching the whales. She couldn't have been a day over 23, with her degree in marine biology, explaining this corner of Alaska, explaining sperm whales and humpbacks, flukes and dorsals, mating and breaching, and baleen, and babies. She pointed out bubbles, and harbor seals, and the house of the cutest boy in Sitka.

We drank hot chocolate in the wind, feeling sea spray and amazement. Watching these whales do what they do. And listening to her adore them.

She excitedly answered questions. Probably the same questions asked yesterday. And last week. But she seemed so happy to do it. As if she was doing what she was meant to do. Sharing her information, her education. Her theories. Her observations. Her passion. Her humpbacks.

We were lucky enough to sit alone with her on the back of the boat as we headed back in to shore. The sun shining so brightly on the clear blue water. We were exhausted and alive at the same time.

"They're leaving," she said. "Some have already gone." In the Autumn. As it becomes colder. They go to Hawaii now. For the winter. She told us. We were her final tour of the Alaskan whale watching season.


What do you do for the winter now that the tours are over?

She looked at me as if she couldn't even fathom my asking. She squinted. And smiled. "What do I do? What do you mean?" She shrugged, and laughed a little as if there was only one answer. Because for her, there was. Only one answer.

"I follow my whales. I leave for Maui in the morning."

We were honored to spend the day with whales. And with this soul enchanted.

How fortunate
are those who are in love with their lives.
Enchanted:
Having heard the call of their whales,
And followed.

Warm in Here

"I'm a menace,
A dentist,
An oral hygentist.
Open your mouth for 'bout four or five minutes.
Take a little bit of this flouride rinits.
Swish but don't spit it.
Swallow and I'll finish."
-Eminem

"oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good"
-e e cummings

"Every roommate kept awake
By Every sigh and scream we make."
-Three Days Grace

"Tonight's the night.
And it's only just begun,
All the boys and the girls wanna fuck tonight,
Gotta turn the naughty on."
-Cory Lee




“Write your own Karma Sutra... You know you want to.”
- Chuck Palahniuk

Pity

I have the capacity to run his circles, but that does not mean that I will.
Ability does not obligate.
His invitations do not entice.

He wants to ramble incessantly about God and death. He wants to be epistemology incarnate. Pathological conversations that at one time enthralled me now just make me tired and bored. And detached. The same quotes. The same arguments. Occasionally I will throw a bone to the dogs of youth out of amusement or responsibility. Sometimes it's just out of habit. And once, out of pay-back. But I just don't want to have the same conversations over and over for decades. I've moved on.

Self imposed excommunication, and forced removal. Glorified depression. Declarations of being different and deep. Anti this, and fuck that.

Years ago I would have heard him differently. Now I just see it all as his excuse. License to fail.

I used to think he was smart. Now I think he has a great deal of knowledge and no idea what to do with it. It's looking less and less like "smart" to me everyday.

Does this happen? Do artists lose each other to happiness? Or maturity? Can this happen? Years ago he sounded deep. The same words today just sound immature and inexperienced. There is only so much growing you can do when you stay locked in your head and your misery. You don't grow; you just get very good at not growing.

He tried to insinuate settlement on my part. Or contentment. Or compromise. As if these things are crimes. As if these equate mediocrity. He believes happiness is a sin of the mind. He tried to start a riot. I thought about how engaging he had once been. How it used to be.

The lives of humans never really live up to the minds of the artists which encase them.

Weather the Storm

The NY Public Library still uses windows 2000?
No wonder Bobst boy left.

Feeling is beautiful. Being genuine is the best thing you can be.
Raw and wet and saturated. Honest and out there.
People that deal are beautiful. People that don’t, are serial killers.

And Gore Vidal was right. "...Would they but read."

Quote of the Day:

"Out on the ocean of life, my love,
There's so many storms we must rise above.
Can you hear the Spirit calling
As it's carried across the waves?
You're all ready falling, it's calling you
On to face the music, and the song that is coming through.
You're all ready falling.
The one that is calling
Is you."

-The Moody Blues

I wrote this in 1984

Criminals can have just as much conviction as Saints.
My belief system was never on trial here.
I never saw this as a chance to redeem myself.
I never saw this coming at all.

I watch your hands as they fall to your lap,
Wiping imaginary touching off on worn and faded jeans.
I watch your mind fight not to let your fears surface.
I watch your hair fall protectively on your face: more armor and band-aids than anyone should ever need.
I watch your teeth sink into your lip as you try not to let me
watch your eyes. So filled with moments past.
So filled with
Proof
That there can not possibly be a God.

But your gentleness, so intense and pure
Gives me reason to stop. And re-examine.
How your heart remained, I’ll never know.

They say there are no atheists in foxholes.
I’ve spent my life in this trench. And never saw the face of God
as I reloaded.
Or took a bullet.
Maybe it was from lack of looking.
And that was always alright
for me.
But I watch your hand pull away from mine,
I watch your hurting soul admit to its memories.
And I find myself looking.
For God.
Wanting Him to be there, wanting everything to be ok.
Not for me.
But for the child in you alone and wounded that still sleeps with the lights on.

I still don’t believe in God,
But you have made me want to.
And surely, this is what they mean by “faith”.

When You're 9

I don't want to be angry

I don't want to miss the heart of things. I don't want to lose my way. I want to see the fire and snow.

I was 9 the night my father didn't come home. The night I waited in the street with my skateboard. The night he left us.

My mother had to tell me what had happened. I couldn't figure it out. When you're 9 it's hard to grasp that your whole world can change like that.

I didn't know.

There are many parts to this opera. Many movements, many songs. Many promises to break. Many little angels waiting for their turn to fall.

Soured and potentially poisoned.
Personal use.
Assault.

This legacy needs to end. Now.

And the nothing

He follows me down the stairs to the first floor. I lead him through the rows of books, to Gay Literature. It takes me a few seconds to find it. I pull the book from the shelf and hand it to him.

He begins reading.

I snatch the book from his hand and shove it back onto the shelf.

He looks surprised. "I wasn't finished."

"I can't let you read that."

"You can't let me read it?"

"No, I can't. It's not mine anymore. It would be like reading someone else's private things." I turn away. I look at the books.

"Veronica, it's published. Any body can read it."

"No." I can feel myself slipping, I can feel myself going away. "No."

He can see it. He isn't sure what to do. "OK. I won't read it."

I sit down on the floor right there, and lean back against Philosophy. He sits down across from me.

"Why do you come here? Why do you do this?"

Because this is as close as I can get.
This is everything.
And the nothing I've done with it.
This is 1992.

Anger

Woman. Driving a Town and Country. With a West Point license plate frame. With a Penn State hockey sticker. USMC. She has long hair with a lot of split ends.

Her husband describes her, behind her back, to the waitress she has insulted, as a cold cunt.

Someone asks her for help, she pretends not to see. Her husband is embarrassed to be seen with her. Her husband says if it weren't for the kids.

Her husband is fucking someone I know in Middletown.

Nothing is unseen. Any expectation of privacy is ignorant.

Anger is hard.

What is deserved. What is forgivable. What is retractable. What is integrity. Who is the bigger person. Who is the better person. Who walks away. Who won.

Limon

I was about 22 or so, walking down a main road on the Yucatan peninsula. A kindly Mexican bus driver picked me up. I didn't have much money at the time. The bus was taking a group from a cruise ship to tour some ruins. I sat next to an older woman who was traveling alone. We walked the Mayan ruins together. We ate little burritos in the sun, and we split a coke.

We talked for hours. She was incredibly well spoken. She talked about her first husband who I think was from Spain, then her second husband who was from England. She talked about her businesses, now sold. All of them. Because it was time. Because she wanted to travel. Because, she said, "You can only amass so much."

I asked if she minded traveling alone. She answered, "I always meet more people when I travel unaccompanied."

You can only amass so much.
You meet more people when you travel alone.

This is what I learned in Cancun.

This, and that if you ask for a lemon in Mexico, you get a funny lime.

Fucking Beautiful.

“Suspended in the nowhere, in the halfway fourteen hours between Heathrow and Jo-burg, you can have ten true-life adventures. Twelve if the movie’s bad. More if the flight’s full, less if there’s turbulence. More if you don’t mind a guy’s mouth doing the job, less if you return to your seat during meal service.”
- Chuck Palahniuk

There are many memories.

There is no memory of even one time that I look back on with regret or emptiness.

They’ve all been highly intense, passionate moments.

They’ve all been Something.

All their own. For a reason. For ever.


Sometimes you have a lifetime with person. Sometimes you have all moments laying in wait in front of you.

The initial, the instigating. The flirting. The seduction. The getting closer. The closer still.

Sometimes you have all the steps and all the paces, and the time in the fucking world.

To do it right.
To do it.

And sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes, all you have is that one night. That one ride. That one moment.

I have been fortunate not missing them, not projecting unfair expectations of forever on every moment that life has offered.

I have been fortunate.

Why am I so compelled now, to write about these past sexual intensities.

Because sex is one of the first places I go for armor.

To protect things not as strong, not as beautiful.

I go to where I am strong, and beautiful. Healed and whole. Animal. And connected. Impassioned. Guilt-free, flaw-free. No restrictions. No second guessing.
Empowered.
Engaged.

I go to the place where I Get It. Where I understand the world, and its lovers. Where I know what I'm doing. And how.

And that is why. That is why the remising.

To balance.
The places where I am not whole… the places that ache….

...My lack of good tight friendships.

...My novel. Being not published. Being.

And vulnerability breeds this need. To go someplace strong.
Matters of sex and flesh are easy. Natural. Base. Beautiful.
Matters of the heart? Not so easy.

Recently I have written about a dozen or so strong, beautiful, connected empowered, sexual adventures from my past. And this is Why.

I return to that place of power and armor when weak.

To hide.
To hide all things vulnerable.

Inside, I'm not that strong person.

Inside, I'm more frail than you think.

The Courtyard

Autumn of 1990…I was just back from Seattle, where I had bought these thigh high, high heeled, black leather fuck-me boots. I was test driving them in the East Village. I made the rounds: Scrapbar, King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, and Alcatraz after 1am, where I met up with some people I knew.

I was buying 2 pitchers of beer at the bar when I first noticed him. He was sitting in the corner, head bowed, arms on the bar surrounding his beer. His face was covered by long dark hair, angle and shadow. I grazed his shoulder with mine. When he lifted his head I held up one of the pitchers.

“Refill?” Hey, no one should be sitting alone in the corner of Alcatraz.

He pulled his arms back away from the bar, revealing his almost empty mug of beer. I poured. He said, “Thanks” trying not to lift his head. I looked at him quickly, grinned and made my way back my table.

Something was wrong with his face.

He was a large guy, very broad shoulders, white t-shirt underneath a worn leather motorcycle jacket. Black hair, stringy, hiding him.

My table was winding out, ready to move to an afterhours party. I said my good nights. I made my way back to the bar, and sat down beside him.

It took him a little while before he finally lifted his hunched shoulders enough to remove most shadow. As if he had to prepare first. As if he had to build up to this. And with courage summoned he made the move.

He turned his face deliberately toward me. “Are you lost?”

I got a good look at him. He was letting me. He wanted me to see.

“Nope. I'm not lost. Are you?” I tapped my beer with my nails. I held eye contact. I grinned.

He looked surprised that I wasn't scared away.

His face was badly scarred. His eyes were untouched; deadly deep, penetrating, dark and gorgeous. But the lower part of his face, his mouth, nose and cheeks... covered in thick jagged scars. Badly disfigured. Badly. To this day I haven't seen any one in the flesh who was scarred so badly. If he had said he was thrown face-first through a windshield, I would have believed him. If he said he had been knifed, I’d have believed that too.
He said neither.
He said nothing.

“Yeah, I’m lost.” He let his vision drop until it hit my boots. He let out a quiet moan and closed his eyes. The deep animal compliment in that is almost indescribable.

The sexual tension was thick.

I didn’t set out that night to find this. I set out that night in a black mini skirt and my fuck-me boots to hang with some friends, have too much to drink, and get laid.

He wasn’t sure what to make of me. My obviousness. My non-reaction to his face. My not asking what happened. He must deal with that too many times a day. He turned his body toward mine, turning the barstool, and looked at the empty table. “Your friends have gone.”

“So they have.” I twisted around on my stool to face him. We were facing each other.

He looked me up and down slowly. I could feel his eyes. Unapologetically staring. Probably something he's used to. I uncrossed my legs. As his eyes came up my thighs, I parted my legs slightly. Then a little more. He stopped. He paused. Then he lifted his eyes to mine.

It was understood. It works like that.

He was lean, but muscular. Tall. He had large deep eyes, that looked truly wounded. He wasn't just scarred on the outside. He didn't look completely trustable. He looked like he could really hurt me. I'd be lying if I said I felt safe.

I can't explain my attraction. But there it was.

He opened his jacket and pulled out his wallet. I saw a ticket, like a plane ticket, but wider and shorter. Maybe it was a train ticket. I've never seen one of those. I really don't know what it was. He tossed money down on the bar for his tab and he stood.

I stood up after him.

“You coming?”

I nodded.

He didn't ask where we were going. He just let me lead the way. We walked a few blocks to a courtyard I knew of, in silence.

We came through the walkway, between the buildings, and down the stairs. He looked suspicious as we sat down on a bench in the dark. He took deep breaths and kept looking around.

It's a small area, outside, but under no street lights. It's behind an apartment building, in the courtyard that meets the building behind it. I knew someone who lived in that building once. The gate had a broken lock. Still.


We sat still for a good while. He spoke three times.

1 - “You could have left with any guy in that bar.”

“Thank you.” Nothing to say to that except to be gracious for the compliment.

2 - “If your friends are here somewhere, and this is a joke, you’re gonna regret it.” He looked serious. Actually he looked deadly.

“No one is here. Just us.”

And 3 - I moved myself to face him, straddled him, sitting in his lap. Ready. I could feel through his jeans that he was rock hard. I slid my skirt up. I began to unzip his jeans. He put his hands up, as if to show he wasn't touching me.

“Get off me.”

I froze. Something about him was intoxicating. But something about him was scary. Very scary. "Why?"

I could see his chest heaving with deeper breaths. "This is your last chance. You have 3 seconds to get off me, or else."

I could feel him throbbing in his jeans. I searched his eyes for an answer. "Or else what?"

His voice dropped. The restrained politeness, kindness, and control was almost gone.

"Or I'm gonna nail you to this fucking bench."

I didn't get off. I pressed my body down onto him, and put my hands in his.

Nothing about him was gentle. He ripped my panties off with one yank, and slammed me down on my back. I clung to him, I pushed his hair back. I touched every scar on his face with my cheeks and my mouth. He plowed into me. He grunted, and pawed me. He hollered as he came. Out loud.

And then he buried his face in me, into the nape of my neck, his hands gripping me, squeezing me close. And he cried. He just cried. And I just
held on,
and let him.

Quote of the Day

"What the hell is wrong with you tonight?
I can't seem to say or do the right thing."
-Joe Jackson