Friday, January 19, 2007
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
"Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry"
Today I smelled
DKNY "be delicious"
Guerlain paris "Shalimar"
Betsty Johnson "betsty Johnson"
Lacoste "Inspiration"
Donna Karen "Gold"
Thierry Mugler "Angel"
Vera Wang for Woman
And Givenchy "very irresistible"
one by one, little paper samples
DKNY "be delicious"
Guerlain paris "Shalimar"
Betsty Johnson "betsty Johnson"
Lacoste "Inspiration"
Donna Karen "Gold"
Thierry Mugler "Angel"
Vera Wang for Woman
And Givenchy "very irresistible"
one by one, little paper samples
Monday, December 11, 2006
On the Lovely Lady Lexi, her Student Elizabeth and a Bottle of Gin.
Lexi, the magic mountain girl assigned Elizabeth explicit homework on the night that they met. Licking an expertly hand rolled cigarette sealed then smoking it like a man she said,
“ I am going to make you a list.”
Required reading: William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, Kobe Abe, Edmund White, Melville and anything Jamaican or Cuban. Film: Altman (anything), Ousmane Sembene, Djbril Djiop and Fassbinder (Fox and Friends only). Her address, so Elizabeth could write her a letter when she was done. Lexi was leaving for tour that evening after the show, but Elizabeth was her project.
The mentor and the student barely even spoke. They wouldn’t have at all, if Lexi hadn’t seen her so sad and decided to do something about it. The student, just mostly watched Lexi completely consumed. Her solid body and the way that she moved with it, her unwashed hair, the way she always looked people in the eyes and was beautiful without makeup. When she performed that night, thrashing and harsh noise, the crowd went wild for her and not the guitars. Every time she screamed or moaned, touching her stomach and closing her eyes, the audience orgasmically threw themselves into each other pouring more beer into their mouths and all over the floor and on to each other’s
clothes. It was an orgy of honesty and animalistic self-directed violence. People shared their sweat generously and slipped all over into broken glass and later blood. By the set’s end Lexi was laying on the floor, hitting herself all over until she was blossoming in developing bruises and two black eyes. She wrapped the microphone around her neck, pulled tight, and meant it.
Elizabeth stood on a couch in the back longing to join in the depravity but was unable to give herself the privilege. She just watched like she always did, then left without saying goodbye. No one had bothered to say hello. She always went un-noticed, which can be painful for a girl who notices everything. Elizabeth was undoubtedly a strict spectator. She was the sort of person who rode the subway just to watch the people. Old women in red lipstick, Mexican mothers pushing baby carriages and tourists with fanny packs were her people. She made up stories about them. She pretended to look at the posters behind their heads when she was caught looking too long. She was very concerned that the way that she thought was killing herself slowly, and wondered just how other people, who were not so messy, thought and did things without getting too sad. She wondered why people wore what they wore, if everyone was preoccupied with childhood and what they acted like when they were drunk. Her own thoughts had all the shrinks she had been seeing since before she even wore braces calling her crazy. She was disordered. Borderline Personality Disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Major Mood Disorder, Depression, A.D.D., General Anxiety Disorder. It was the reason she didn’t have a best friend or a hobby. It was why her Mother was always very worried but she rode the subway instead of taking pills.
That night she had gone to bed by herself next to a trash can, spinning and wanting to kiss a woman on the mouth. Lexi, the feral female that she was, had unknowingly seduced a sad little girl who woke up the next morning still in love.
She extracted the humid, wrinkled assignment sheet from the back pocket of her jeans and decided to skip to the address first.
After a long walk and some coffee without cream or sugar, she stood outside Lexie’s apartment surprised by her self. She was going inside, somehow. This wasn’t a minor offense, like how she explored other people’s medicine cabinets when she used their bathrooms; she planned on raping her entire home, every room. She was going to spend an entire day in an almost stranger’s home. It was better than using someone else’s face wash or shampoo or eating your roommates leftovers, she was going to spend a whole day or longer in that apartment when Lexi was not there. Conveniently, the sidewalk was clear and there was an open window.
Her refrigerator was the first stop on her self-guided house tour. There was hummus and vegetables and juice but most of all there was good beer, good enough gin, a little bit of tonic and a couple of limes. She opened herself a beer and mixed a gin and tonic good and strong.
Ten A.M. Booze for breakfast. She stood at the counter, and since no one was watching she drank both drinks in just a few smooth, successful gulps and fixed herself some more. Ten O’ Five in the morning. Gin in hand, she began to study framed photographs and wonder the living quarters of her maybe future friend.
Lexi lived by herself amongst piles of used books, records and trash. The whole apartment smelled faintly of old laundry and stale crackers. There were still dishes in the sink and newspapers spanning back several weeks on her kitchen decorated in crumbs. Elizabeth thought it was fitting and somehow fabulous and imagined Lexi there, eating toast and writing letters before work or on nights she didn’t feel like going out. Lexi could go out any night that she wanted to, but everyone would want to be alone with those books some nights.
She pissed with the door open and got another gin drink. She was ready for the bedroom.
The bed was unmade, of course, and the floor was carpeted in discarded clothes and art supplies. There were unfinished painting and sketches hanging on all the walls and old cameras that probably didn’t work distributed around the room. Elizabeth examined Lexie’s underwear, which was rather modest when foiled by its owner. She was disappointed. She was expecting something more. She didn’t even have a bed to look under; it was a mattress on the floor. She wanted a diary or a love letter (either received or unsent.) She undressed and went to Lexi’s closet, and with much deliberation, settled on a very warm brown sweater and black levi’s. They fit all wrong but felt just right, like the way a boyfriend’s band tee shirt should feel with no bra after sex. It wasn’t dress up.
Elizabeth plunked into Lexi’s bed after finishing another drink that was more gin than tonic. Her mattress on the floor felt safe. Lexi had a massive white comforter that
seemed like a Christmas gift, and Elizabeth pulled it over her tiny frame and disappeared. It was the sort of bed and comforter that is perfect for sharing. It was just meant to wake up next to someone in, to look over at that person in the yellow morning light triumphantly making it’s way through the cheap blinds and giving them a sweet kiss on the forehead. Maybe making breakfast. Elizabeth burned to know who else had been in between those sheets and who had seen the scars that she hadn’t seen. Elizabeth was seeing double. Eleven o’ clock. She wanted to be okay sleeping in Lexi’s clothes in her bed, but it was fraud. She wished there was a better way she could have gone about getting there, some way with guts.
She didn’t want to ruin her bed so she returned to the kitchen and read Lexi’s mail, still in her clothes. Lexi had a delinquent phone bill. Cingular was pissed. She went back to the bathroom, rummaging around half used bottled of lotions and body wash. Elizabeth was displeased with her blurry reflection while brushing her teeth with Lexi’s toothbrush and cursed the toothpaste’s mint for robbing her of tasting Lexi. At least she could take great satisfaction in Lexi’s abused Oral B, which was bitten down and frayed just like hers. She wondered if Lexi also devoured pen caps. She must have, she decided and drank some more gin.
The next thing that she did was throw up. All over someone else’s sweater, Elizabeth threw up someone else’s gin. Gin and beer came up twice before she passed out, face down in a little vomit on Lexi’s kitchen floor. There was no one to hold her hair or to give her water or to get her a cab. When she woke up with the sun down. She didn’t care about how far things had gone. She didn’t have anyone to explain this to. She cleaned herself up, and went out of the same window she came in, throwing away Lexi’s soiled clothing in a public trashcan.
“ I am going to make you a list.”
Required reading: William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, Kobe Abe, Edmund White, Melville and anything Jamaican or Cuban. Film: Altman (anything), Ousmane Sembene, Djbril Djiop and Fassbinder (Fox and Friends only). Her address, so Elizabeth could write her a letter when she was done. Lexi was leaving for tour that evening after the show, but Elizabeth was her project.
The mentor and the student barely even spoke. They wouldn’t have at all, if Lexi hadn’t seen her so sad and decided to do something about it. The student, just mostly watched Lexi completely consumed. Her solid body and the way that she moved with it, her unwashed hair, the way she always looked people in the eyes and was beautiful without makeup. When she performed that night, thrashing and harsh noise, the crowd went wild for her and not the guitars. Every time she screamed or moaned, touching her stomach and closing her eyes, the audience orgasmically threw themselves into each other pouring more beer into their mouths and all over the floor and on to each other’s
clothes. It was an orgy of honesty and animalistic self-directed violence. People shared their sweat generously and slipped all over into broken glass and later blood. By the set’s end Lexi was laying on the floor, hitting herself all over until she was blossoming in developing bruises and two black eyes. She wrapped the microphone around her neck, pulled tight, and meant it.
Elizabeth stood on a couch in the back longing to join in the depravity but was unable to give herself the privilege. She just watched like she always did, then left without saying goodbye. No one had bothered to say hello. She always went un-noticed, which can be painful for a girl who notices everything. Elizabeth was undoubtedly a strict spectator. She was the sort of person who rode the subway just to watch the people. Old women in red lipstick, Mexican mothers pushing baby carriages and tourists with fanny packs were her people. She made up stories about them. She pretended to look at the posters behind their heads when she was caught looking too long. She was very concerned that the way that she thought was killing herself slowly, and wondered just how other people, who were not so messy, thought and did things without getting too sad. She wondered why people wore what they wore, if everyone was preoccupied with childhood and what they acted like when they were drunk. Her own thoughts had all the shrinks she had been seeing since before she even wore braces calling her crazy. She was disordered. Borderline Personality Disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Major Mood Disorder, Depression, A.D.D., General Anxiety Disorder. It was the reason she didn’t have a best friend or a hobby. It was why her Mother was always very worried but she rode the subway instead of taking pills.
That night she had gone to bed by herself next to a trash can, spinning and wanting to kiss a woman on the mouth. Lexi, the feral female that she was, had unknowingly seduced a sad little girl who woke up the next morning still in love.
She extracted the humid, wrinkled assignment sheet from the back pocket of her jeans and decided to skip to the address first.
After a long walk and some coffee without cream or sugar, she stood outside Lexie’s apartment surprised by her self. She was going inside, somehow. This wasn’t a minor offense, like how she explored other people’s medicine cabinets when she used their bathrooms; she planned on raping her entire home, every room. She was going to spend an entire day in an almost stranger’s home. It was better than using someone else’s face wash or shampoo or eating your roommates leftovers, she was going to spend a whole day or longer in that apartment when Lexi was not there. Conveniently, the sidewalk was clear and there was an open window.
Her refrigerator was the first stop on her self-guided house tour. There was hummus and vegetables and juice but most of all there was good beer, good enough gin, a little bit of tonic and a couple of limes. She opened herself a beer and mixed a gin and tonic good and strong.
Ten A.M. Booze for breakfast. She stood at the counter, and since no one was watching she drank both drinks in just a few smooth, successful gulps and fixed herself some more. Ten O’ Five in the morning. Gin in hand, she began to study framed photographs and wonder the living quarters of her maybe future friend.
Lexi lived by herself amongst piles of used books, records and trash. The whole apartment smelled faintly of old laundry and stale crackers. There were still dishes in the sink and newspapers spanning back several weeks on her kitchen decorated in crumbs. Elizabeth thought it was fitting and somehow fabulous and imagined Lexi there, eating toast and writing letters before work or on nights she didn’t feel like going out. Lexi could go out any night that she wanted to, but everyone would want to be alone with those books some nights.
She pissed with the door open and got another gin drink. She was ready for the bedroom.
The bed was unmade, of course, and the floor was carpeted in discarded clothes and art supplies. There were unfinished painting and sketches hanging on all the walls and old cameras that probably didn’t work distributed around the room. Elizabeth examined Lexie’s underwear, which was rather modest when foiled by its owner. She was disappointed. She was expecting something more. She didn’t even have a bed to look under; it was a mattress on the floor. She wanted a diary or a love letter (either received or unsent.) She undressed and went to Lexi’s closet, and with much deliberation, settled on a very warm brown sweater and black levi’s. They fit all wrong but felt just right, like the way a boyfriend’s band tee shirt should feel with no bra after sex. It wasn’t dress up.
Elizabeth plunked into Lexi’s bed after finishing another drink that was more gin than tonic. Her mattress on the floor felt safe. Lexi had a massive white comforter that
seemed like a Christmas gift, and Elizabeth pulled it over her tiny frame and disappeared. It was the sort of bed and comforter that is perfect for sharing. It was just meant to wake up next to someone in, to look over at that person in the yellow morning light triumphantly making it’s way through the cheap blinds and giving them a sweet kiss on the forehead. Maybe making breakfast. Elizabeth burned to know who else had been in between those sheets and who had seen the scars that she hadn’t seen. Elizabeth was seeing double. Eleven o’ clock. She wanted to be okay sleeping in Lexi’s clothes in her bed, but it was fraud. She wished there was a better way she could have gone about getting there, some way with guts.
She didn’t want to ruin her bed so she returned to the kitchen and read Lexi’s mail, still in her clothes. Lexi had a delinquent phone bill. Cingular was pissed. She went back to the bathroom, rummaging around half used bottled of lotions and body wash. Elizabeth was displeased with her blurry reflection while brushing her teeth with Lexi’s toothbrush and cursed the toothpaste’s mint for robbing her of tasting Lexi. At least she could take great satisfaction in Lexi’s abused Oral B, which was bitten down and frayed just like hers. She wondered if Lexi also devoured pen caps. She must have, she decided and drank some more gin.
The next thing that she did was throw up. All over someone else’s sweater, Elizabeth threw up someone else’s gin. Gin and beer came up twice before she passed out, face down in a little vomit on Lexi’s kitchen floor. There was no one to hold her hair or to give her water or to get her a cab. When she woke up with the sun down. She didn’t care about how far things had gone. She didn’t have anyone to explain this to. She cleaned herself up, and went out of the same window she came in, throwing away Lexi’s soiled clothing in a public trashcan.
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