"She had a noiseless laugh. I wanted her to count all the Christopher Radko ornaments with me, the ones on the tree at Rockefeller Center. We skated the tree's shadow, around the zoo-caged ice-rink, until every yahoo left the city. There weren't any lights, just the electricity of the noise people make when they sleep. I was hurt and I don't recall why. In the background Belle & Sebastian was playing, you know that song that goes, 'hey people looking out the window/at the city below,' etc. etc. etc. and all the rest of the lyrics that fit the Freudian couchlike psychobabble that we make our wordsmith money from."
---
"Do you think it's okay to make a pasta sauce out of a store-bought marinara, but using sauteed onions and garlic and maybe some peppers?" she asks, as I smile at her use of 'store-bought,' something my mother would say.
"Yes, but if you don't want to spend a shit ton of time on the sauce, find some truffle oil and then you can just sautee some garlic and onion, and maybe some porcini or chanterelle mushr--"
"--you don't think portabellas would work?" she interrupts, frantic.
"Oh yeah, but if you are trying to impress someone who has an Italian family, you have to go for a more exotic fungus."
"True, but I don't want to stress over trying something new so I think I will go with the marinara, and aside from that, I don't have time to drive all over Knoxville on the hunt for exotic truffle oil."
"Yes, I forget where you live," I hold the usual subsequent joke, "For some reason I feel like we've had this conversation before, oh wait, because we have, except our discussion centered on umeboshi paste instead of mushrooms, and by the way, why do you always call me for cooking advice?"
"You know why...because you have these scrumptious recipes and I love your food."
"Yeah, well, I usually make the shit up as I go or use ones I stole from the co-op."
"You stole recipes? How did you get copies?"
"I made copies in my head but back to your pasta, yes, portabellas are fine but I would slice them thinly unless you like a chunky sauce."
"I don't, ok, slice...thin..ly," I can see her writing down the tip, like a line note that tells the fingers which ivories to hit next.
"You have to write that down?"
"I want to get this right, now."
I want to tell her 'god, I miss your nows,' but instead I say, "I know you do. Kudos on the decision to focus on the mix cds rather than the food; they are so personal, so intimate."
"I look forward to the one you made for Tiff."
"It'll be in the mail tomorrow, but remember the last song is the most important for me to give to her because of that one line."
"Which one?"
"If you still want me, please forgive me."
---
"Then I clamored up this hill after crossing a narrow stream that had a current that backed into itself, but the strange part is that there were all these badmitten rackets and birdies lying on the ground, hundreds of them, like a field of sunflowers that had been chopped down. When I finally got to the top of the hill, I realized someone had been chasing me since I left the city, and she was there, waiting for me. I could not see her face, but I know she had a noiseless laugh...What do I mean by that? The rest of the dream had music, noise, even the stream was noisy with water and the grass made a loud crunching noise under my feet. Maybe I should say her sound was off, but I think noiseless laugh is more accurate. Hm? Oh, because her mouth was open, as if she were either laughing or singing; it couldn't have been singing...because even when a song is muted, I can hear the lyrics, I can read lips. Maybe that's what Beethoven did. Maybe he read the lips of every ivory key or string. Maybe he learned the language of noiselessness."
---
"Which cds do you want me to put in the changer?"
"I don't know."
She looks up from her checklist of things to do before we leave for Vermont, "Well, which ones should I put in there?"
"I'm not the only one going on this trip...what do you want to listen to?"
She smiles, "Okay, I'll take care of it, finish your writing."
"Tiff?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Everything, but I don't expect you to suddenly forgive me."
"I already have," she says standing up to go into the house.
"But I--"
"Ashley, I just haven't said it in my own language."
I put in my headphones to listen to 'my heart is an apple,' the mix I made for her, and she makes a noiseless path across the wooden planks of the porch. Nina Simone sings "no one alive can always be an angel," and I watch her begin the task of packing the bags and the cooler. I hear my mother, with whom I haven't spoken in months, say in her southern colloquial voice, "Ashley, actions speak louder than words," as if she appeared in a dream just to mouth that worn out aphorism. Tiffany appears in the doorway, as if she arrived from a dream, just to hand me a cup of coffee and mouth the words, "I love you," as if her noiseless breath defibrillated the cliche right out of their heart-failured chest.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Saturday, July 21, 2007
i want my mtv
"What's happened to the Farmer's Market?"
"It has been a year," she italicizes her verb.
"Yeah, but Macro Mammas? and Gimme coffee? Those are both staples, tailored to the Ithacan, waterfronted needs of a specific food and drink genre, you know? I mean, macrobiotic or not, Macro Mammas has some good fucking food, and Gimme will always live up to its namesake."
"What? Namesake?"
"You know, like gimme my coffee,' or like 'I want my MTV,' but I forget, for you kids born in the early 80's, the Dire Straights wouldn't've had the same impact on your generation?"
"Fuck you! I'm not that much younger than your generation," she laughs with the pulse of her finger bones, squeezing the iambic pentameter of her drip-coffee words into my open hands.
"All I'm saying is that the market I knew and loved has changed in little over a year, and if you don't want me to feel hopeless about the state of things, then let me bitch and moan about the past and you can be on the lookout for something decent to eat, because we sure as shit aren't getting a decent cup of coffee unless we return to Dwight's office via Cayuga and Farm. Besides, I want a redeye and most places don't even know what the fuck that is," I raise our locked fingers and look at her as I kiss the top of her left hand.
Her smile matches the drapes of her thoughts as we curtain the next booth with our sequestered gazes upon the stars of the upstate lakes--the reisling and the sheep's cheese that put the kale and carrots to shame.
---
"You are going to Brown for an MFA in acting?"
"Yeah, I'm sooo excited," he twists the lid off of the cocktail shaker and places the ice drainer over the lip in one smooth movement.
"That's a really good school..wow! I'm happy for you, congratulations!"
He fills the chilled glass--with its tale-tell cloudy veneer--to the rim, "I know, here," he nods to my Bombay sapphire cocktail, "take a sip and I'll pour what's left."
I comply, since the drinks here are outrageously pricey but worth the cost because of the quality, "Oh, that's good, Carl, thank you, and congrats again."
I return to our table outside, only spilling once as I step down from the raised sidewalk to the side alley turned outdoor cafe, "Carl's going to Brown," I say before I reach my seat, "and he's getting an MFA in acting," I finally sit and take a sip, offering the next swig to my tablemates.
"That's great," Steve says, checking his sugar before taking a drink or bite to eat, "I knew Carl, I mean," he gets distracted with the insulin pump, "I knew Carl would go far, you know?" he refocuses on the thought at hand before returning to his mealtime task of setting the level of insulin pumped into his body.
"I know..he's so talented," I bite into a slice of pizza with little regard to my able-bodied pancreas doing all the thinking about insulin for me.
"So are you, honey," Tiffany smiles in the dark and her teeth shine like stars above the upstate lakes and the trees, she's honeywine and lime--the libation that gave all the rest of the offerings the reason to believe in their potential fame.
I want to say, "No, I'm not," but decide to keep my mouth shut as I chew that first bite until Steve can join in the melody of mastication and offering of libations.
---
"I really like the Dire Straights, oh, do you remember them?"
I quell the sarcastic remark about 'remembering' as opposed to 'knowing' music, "Yes, I remember, of course...'I want my MTV' was one of my favorite songs as a kid."
"Oh, you do then, yeah, I have some of their albums on vinyl."
"You do? I'd imagine they would be worth some money one day."
"Yeah, I don't know," Charles leans back in his porch recliner, hands behind head, like the stereotype of nostalgia, "they might be, but you must have been young when that song came out."
"I was ahead of my time when I was six."
"HA!" he begins his generous laugh.
"I like to think that I remember the birth and death of MTV."
"Oh, really, that's interesting, and why do you say that?" he asks with genuine interest.
"I don't have cable so I can't say for certain, but the last time I checked...they don't even play music on MTV anymore--"
"Is that right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, what is it like now?"
"First of all, MTV started the stupid reality TV show craze with 'The Real World.' Real my ass..those people get paid a shit ton of cash to argue in front of a camera."
He laughs again, "I never saw that show, but I heard about it from friends, and honestly, I think it is a generational thing, you know, like Friends--"
"Charles," I interrupt, "I pride myself on how much I hate Friends...I only watched it when someone else forced me to. I'm more of a Seinfeld/Simpson's fan, but I don't even have cable now."
"Yeah, it is interesting how people Steve's age are more into Friends, you know mid to late thirties, and I'd say people your age--you're 27?"
"Twenty-eight," I correct him just as I did with everyone at Ithaca College who thought I was 25 or 26, as if a few years makes that much of a difference.
"Oh, see, I'd imagine you wouldn't really relate to that show, because you are a bit younger."
"No, and I don't relate to whatever bullshit on MTV that's used for ratings as opposed to honoring good music with videos and intelligent commentary, instead of some anorexic blonde with large tits and a small brain," I continue over his loudly cheerful laughter, "Listen to me, I sound so bitter, so old now."
His laugh decrescendos, "Yeah, it happens, you find yourself looking back and not relating to the younger generations the older you get."
"However, you and I have a lot of the same tastes, and, by the way, I would have never guessed you were in your fifties."
He moves his hands from behind his head and places them on top of his dark hair, highlighted only with a few flecks of gray, "Thank you, Ashley, that means a lot to me, and I guess we do have a lot of the same tastes, you're right."
"I'm an old soul, at least that's what I've been told by several people older than you," I smile as Tiffany makes her house-lit entrance onto the dark, conversation-lit porch.
"Is that right? Yeah, I guess that's a good description of you."
We stop to listen to the trees, the noise they make when there's no television, music, music television, conversation, conversations about music, or music television conversations.
"What about you, Tiffany? Are you an old soul?" he looks over at her and sits upright in the recliner for a better view of her expression, which, if published, would be in the "shy and unsure but hopeful" section at the bookstore.
---
"Did I tell you I have a new blog?"
"No, you didn't."
"Yeah, I wanted a wider audience, but it kind of changes the dynamic without knowing who is actually reading it..plus, the new audience doesn't have the background of the other blogs and the old audience won't go to the new spot, at least that's what I've found when people email or post 'I've started a new blog @ whatever dot com,' know what I mean?"
"You know how little I know about blogs but that makes sense..Ashley, what's that noise?"
"Oh you mean the traffic? Or the band?"
"Uh, the traffic, I guess, are you near a busy street?"
"Yeah I'm at this new record store waiting for my friend Steve's friend Tom's band to begin."
"What?"
"Wait, I'll move closer to the building," I find a spot in the parking lot close to the building with a place to sit down, "Is that better?" I ask as I take a sip from my contraband beer, hidden in a Gimme travel mug.
"Yes, much, now, what did you say about your friend Steve's band? I didn't know he was in a band."
"No, Steve's friend Tom from Chicago has a band, and I made dinner for them tonight in fact, since they are all Vegan--Steve volunteered me as the official cook of the evening and I made your favorite stir-fry. They are playing at this new local record store, which reminds me of High Fidelity in fact..isn't that one of your favorite movies?"
"Yes, it is, I'm shocked you remembered that."
"I do listen to my closest friends, you know," even though we haven't spoken for over twenty minutes in weeks, "Anyway, I may have to go soon because it sounds like they are finished warming up; I just wanted to set up a time when we can talk at length and to tell you that after looking at our finances, I'm afraid I can't loan you that money. But, I do want to emphasize that if I had it, you know I'd mail you a check today..it's just, after my fucking computer crashed, and then the moving costs, and Ithaca College took out a helluva lot more taxes than I remembered, and we aren't even sure Tiff will get this job, even though the phone interview went well, she still has to go for an in-person interview and even then, we won't know for a while--"
"It's ok," she stops me before I go on, "I found the money, and I've begun the process of developing a budget."
"That's great!" I say over the drums and keyboard, "Oh, it sounds like...yeah, I see Tiff coming out to get me..I have to go."
"How is Saturday afternoon?"
"Perfect, I'll call you then."
"Wait! How are you and Tiffany doing?"
I watch Tiff's typical tilted-head-walk as she approaches me in the Ithacan summer dusk and smile into the phone, "Like listening to 'I want my MTV' with an old soul."
---
"Sorry we're late. Gimme wasn't at the Farmer's Market and we needed some coffee."
"It's okay, now, did you decide what you want to talk about?" Dwight asks, looking at each of us for answer, like an oscillating fan.
"I thought, I mean, I assumed we'd talk about the big issue, the one that's caused all the problems and breakdown in communication."
"Well, Ashley," he shifts uncomfortably in his chair, initiating his lecture on practicing Imago dialogues with the elephant in the room, "Most people start with something small just to get the practice, since larger issues are already packed with tension, you know? I mean, we don't want to begin too heavy because it may negatively impact the process since it really is supposed to be about you and what your partner can do for you; you have to understand that you will not solve all your problems in one weekend intensive," he looks at Tiffany, "What are your thoughts?"
She shrugs her shoulders, initiating the quiver of her lips and the redeye release of tears sequestered out of the fear of our future haunting our past, of our past initiating our future.
"I didn't expect to solve everything in one weekend," I say trying to save her from not knowing what to say, "I just thought we were trying to initiate a conversation, like two people from different generations trying to agree on Nina Simone or Belle & Sebastian."
He looks confused. I look at Tiffany. She looks beautiful, smiling, crying, speaking our secret language of lyrics and looking for the pleasure we knew was so far gone.
"I just don't want to be able to take my eyes off of her," I say in reference to the mix cd I made for her, counting down the songs we've heard together to the last, most important one with the final, most important words...
"If you still want me, please forgive me." --Arcade Fire
god bless the arcade fire's lyrics, and the maclike speed of itunes
"It has been a year," she italicizes her verb.
"Yeah, but Macro Mammas? and Gimme coffee? Those are both staples, tailored to the Ithacan, waterfronted needs of a specific food and drink genre, you know? I mean, macrobiotic or not, Macro Mammas has some good fucking food, and Gimme will always live up to its namesake."
"What? Namesake?"
"You know, like gimme my coffee,' or like 'I want my MTV,' but I forget, for you kids born in the early 80's, the Dire Straights wouldn't've had the same impact on your generation?"
"Fuck you! I'm not that much younger than your generation," she laughs with the pulse of her finger bones, squeezing the iambic pentameter of her drip-coffee words into my open hands.
"All I'm saying is that the market I knew and loved has changed in little over a year, and if you don't want me to feel hopeless about the state of things, then let me bitch and moan about the past and you can be on the lookout for something decent to eat, because we sure as shit aren't getting a decent cup of coffee unless we return to Dwight's office via Cayuga and Farm. Besides, I want a redeye and most places don't even know what the fuck that is," I raise our locked fingers and look at her as I kiss the top of her left hand.
Her smile matches the drapes of her thoughts as we curtain the next booth with our sequestered gazes upon the stars of the upstate lakes--the reisling and the sheep's cheese that put the kale and carrots to shame.
---
"You are going to Brown for an MFA in acting?"
"Yeah, I'm sooo excited," he twists the lid off of the cocktail shaker and places the ice drainer over the lip in one smooth movement.
"That's a really good school..wow! I'm happy for you, congratulations!"
He fills the chilled glass--with its tale-tell cloudy veneer--to the rim, "I know, here," he nods to my Bombay sapphire cocktail, "take a sip and I'll pour what's left."
I comply, since the drinks here are outrageously pricey but worth the cost because of the quality, "Oh, that's good, Carl, thank you, and congrats again."
I return to our table outside, only spilling once as I step down from the raised sidewalk to the side alley turned outdoor cafe, "Carl's going to Brown," I say before I reach my seat, "and he's getting an MFA in acting," I finally sit and take a sip, offering the next swig to my tablemates.
"That's great," Steve says, checking his sugar before taking a drink or bite to eat, "I knew Carl, I mean," he gets distracted with the insulin pump, "I knew Carl would go far, you know?" he refocuses on the thought at hand before returning to his mealtime task of setting the level of insulin pumped into his body.
"I know..he's so talented," I bite into a slice of pizza with little regard to my able-bodied pancreas doing all the thinking about insulin for me.
"So are you, honey," Tiffany smiles in the dark and her teeth shine like stars above the upstate lakes and the trees, she's honeywine and lime--the libation that gave all the rest of the offerings the reason to believe in their potential fame.
I want to say, "No, I'm not," but decide to keep my mouth shut as I chew that first bite until Steve can join in the melody of mastication and offering of libations.
---
"I really like the Dire Straights, oh, do you remember them?"
I quell the sarcastic remark about 'remembering' as opposed to 'knowing' music, "Yes, I remember, of course...'I want my MTV' was one of my favorite songs as a kid."
"Oh, you do then, yeah, I have some of their albums on vinyl."
"You do? I'd imagine they would be worth some money one day."
"Yeah, I don't know," Charles leans back in his porch recliner, hands behind head, like the stereotype of nostalgia, "they might be, but you must have been young when that song came out."
"I was ahead of my time when I was six."
"HA!" he begins his generous laugh.
"I like to think that I remember the birth and death of MTV."
"Oh, really, that's interesting, and why do you say that?" he asks with genuine interest.
"I don't have cable so I can't say for certain, but the last time I checked...they don't even play music on MTV anymore--"
"Is that right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, what is it like now?"
"First of all, MTV started the stupid reality TV show craze with 'The Real World.' Real my ass..those people get paid a shit ton of cash to argue in front of a camera."
He laughs again, "I never saw that show, but I heard about it from friends, and honestly, I think it is a generational thing, you know, like Friends--"
"Charles," I interrupt, "I pride myself on how much I hate Friends...I only watched it when someone else forced me to. I'm more of a Seinfeld/Simpson's fan, but I don't even have cable now."
"Yeah, it is interesting how people Steve's age are more into Friends, you know mid to late thirties, and I'd say people your age--you're 27?"
"Twenty-eight," I correct him just as I did with everyone at Ithaca College who thought I was 25 or 26, as if a few years makes that much of a difference.
"Oh, see, I'd imagine you wouldn't really relate to that show, because you are a bit younger."
"No, and I don't relate to whatever bullshit on MTV that's used for ratings as opposed to honoring good music with videos and intelligent commentary, instead of some anorexic blonde with large tits and a small brain," I continue over his loudly cheerful laughter, "Listen to me, I sound so bitter, so old now."
His laugh decrescendos, "Yeah, it happens, you find yourself looking back and not relating to the younger generations the older you get."
"However, you and I have a lot of the same tastes, and, by the way, I would have never guessed you were in your fifties."
He moves his hands from behind his head and places them on top of his dark hair, highlighted only with a few flecks of gray, "Thank you, Ashley, that means a lot to me, and I guess we do have a lot of the same tastes, you're right."
"I'm an old soul, at least that's what I've been told by several people older than you," I smile as Tiffany makes her house-lit entrance onto the dark, conversation-lit porch.
"Is that right? Yeah, I guess that's a good description of you."
We stop to listen to the trees, the noise they make when there's no television, music, music television, conversation, conversations about music, or music television conversations.
"What about you, Tiffany? Are you an old soul?" he looks over at her and sits upright in the recliner for a better view of her expression, which, if published, would be in the "shy and unsure but hopeful" section at the bookstore.
---
"Did I tell you I have a new blog?"
"No, you didn't."
"Yeah, I wanted a wider audience, but it kind of changes the dynamic without knowing who is actually reading it..plus, the new audience doesn't have the background of the other blogs and the old audience won't go to the new spot, at least that's what I've found when people email or post 'I've started a new blog @ whatever dot com,' know what I mean?"
"You know how little I know about blogs but that makes sense..Ashley, what's that noise?"
"Oh you mean the traffic? Or the band?"
"Uh, the traffic, I guess, are you near a busy street?"
"Yeah I'm at this new record store waiting for my friend Steve's friend Tom's band to begin."
"What?"
"Wait, I'll move closer to the building," I find a spot in the parking lot close to the building with a place to sit down, "Is that better?" I ask as I take a sip from my contraband beer, hidden in a Gimme travel mug.
"Yes, much, now, what did you say about your friend Steve's band? I didn't know he was in a band."
"No, Steve's friend Tom from Chicago has a band, and I made dinner for them tonight in fact, since they are all Vegan--Steve volunteered me as the official cook of the evening and I made your favorite stir-fry. They are playing at this new local record store, which reminds me of High Fidelity in fact..isn't that one of your favorite movies?"
"Yes, it is, I'm shocked you remembered that."
"I do listen to my closest friends, you know," even though we haven't spoken for over twenty minutes in weeks, "Anyway, I may have to go soon because it sounds like they are finished warming up; I just wanted to set up a time when we can talk at length and to tell you that after looking at our finances, I'm afraid I can't loan you that money. But, I do want to emphasize that if I had it, you know I'd mail you a check today..it's just, after my fucking computer crashed, and then the moving costs, and Ithaca College took out a helluva lot more taxes than I remembered, and we aren't even sure Tiff will get this job, even though the phone interview went well, she still has to go for an in-person interview and even then, we won't know for a while--"
"It's ok," she stops me before I go on, "I found the money, and I've begun the process of developing a budget."
"That's great!" I say over the drums and keyboard, "Oh, it sounds like...yeah, I see Tiff coming out to get me..I have to go."
"How is Saturday afternoon?"
"Perfect, I'll call you then."
"Wait! How are you and Tiffany doing?"
I watch Tiff's typical tilted-head-walk as she approaches me in the Ithacan summer dusk and smile into the phone, "Like listening to 'I want my MTV' with an old soul."
---
"Sorry we're late. Gimme wasn't at the Farmer's Market and we needed some coffee."
"It's okay, now, did you decide what you want to talk about?" Dwight asks, looking at each of us for answer, like an oscillating fan.
"I thought, I mean, I assumed we'd talk about the big issue, the one that's caused all the problems and breakdown in communication."
"Well, Ashley," he shifts uncomfortably in his chair, initiating his lecture on practicing Imago dialogues with the elephant in the room, "Most people start with something small just to get the practice, since larger issues are already packed with tension, you know? I mean, we don't want to begin too heavy because it may negatively impact the process since it really is supposed to be about you and what your partner can do for you; you have to understand that you will not solve all your problems in one weekend intensive," he looks at Tiffany, "What are your thoughts?"
She shrugs her shoulders, initiating the quiver of her lips and the redeye release of tears sequestered out of the fear of our future haunting our past, of our past initiating our future.
"I didn't expect to solve everything in one weekend," I say trying to save her from not knowing what to say, "I just thought we were trying to initiate a conversation, like two people from different generations trying to agree on Nina Simone or Belle & Sebastian."
He looks confused. I look at Tiffany. She looks beautiful, smiling, crying, speaking our secret language of lyrics and looking for the pleasure we knew was so far gone.
"I just don't want to be able to take my eyes off of her," I say in reference to the mix cd I made for her, counting down the songs we've heard together to the last, most important one with the final, most important words...
"If you still want me, please forgive me." --Arcade Fire
god bless the arcade fire's lyrics, and the maclike speed of itunes
Friday, July 20, 2007
shot in the arm
"I included that Wilco song, 'shot in the arm,' remember that song?"
"Yes, Paul loved that song."
"Do you know the lyrics...something, um, 'something in my veins,' and then something about it being bloody, but I can't tell without the printed words," I sound like an idiot without words.
"I can't either but I know I love the first line, 'the ashtray says you were up all night.' "
"That's a fucking great line, but it isn't as sexy now that we both quit smoking, oh Jesus, I almost forget about your camels hidden in my bag..how long has it been now? Almost a month, no?"
"28 days exactly."
"Once you decide to quit--at least this is what I believe--you will stay dry."
"Didn't you quit smoking over a year ago?" she asks about my pallid past.
"Yes, but don't think your symbolic pack of Camels hiding in the side pocket of my bag isn't a tempting reminder of my American Spirited fallible fall nights, under the Ithacan city lights."
The Tennessee train moans around the elbowed tracks of her armored arms. I take another sip of my bottled beer and throttle my close-throated mouth.
---
"I can't wait to kiss you."
"Mmmm,me too...where are you?"
"The last sign I passed said twelve miles away."
"Twelve miles!! What?! How, I mean, how'd you get so close?"
"Ashley," she emphasizes the tail vowelled sounds of my name, "I told you I'd be there soon."
"Well, it's just--"
"--just what?"
"Nevermind," I un-meaningfully say.
"Honey, please," she sings in the key of fear and self-doubt. I am working on a musical mix of our mindful drought: "that calls darkness light," boasting an arcade of addictions, the ones we accept in no one but in our own likeness.
"I wanted to surprise you with a mix of the Arcade Fire and Nina Simone."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
I stare past the ABC cafe' piano, near the window where the the wind passes over a produce truck, parlaying the winnings of sound into a symphony of the locally picked & driven kale and collards. Tomorrow morning's chalkboard of free-range omelette ingredients will include today's greens, including the french spelling of "f-r-e-e-d-o-m-f-r-i-e-d-e-g-g-s," freshly local, with a touch of flamboyant flare.
---
"I'll have muffins and juice here tomorrow morning so bring coffee if you like," our weekend imago therapist says in his gay-friendly and genuinely gay voice.
"I will definitely need my daily dose of caffeine," I say, emphasizing my addictive personality.
He laughs. She's concentrating on her notebook of positive and negative parental figure traits. I finished long before she could lay down her pen.
"Let's pick up the pace, sweetie," I tease.
"I'm not as fast as you."
"How'd you ever get through the SATs?" I ask.
"I didn't. How did you?"
"I didn't take the SATs," I smile.
"Oh yeah, she says," as Dwight returns to the air-conditioned room, despite the upstate New York weather blessing, addressing me and whispering the question, "Do you have any questions?"
"No, wait, yes," I give my typically confused response, "did you want us to continue past page 23, or did you want us to stop where it says 'STOP'?"
He smiles his already infectious smile, "You can continue."
"Good, because I did," I look over at Tiffany's intensely concentrated concentration on her task at hand.
"Let's go to the other room," he whispers, pulling the leather loafer back over the navy-colored back of his heel, and we both apologize about disrupting her writing. We are apologizers. I can tell we'll get along: The leather thong-wearing therapist and his fag hag patient.
---
"She told me that she 'read every word.' "
"What does that mean?"
"Well...I guess it means she read every fucking word I wrote that night in the middle of the fucking high desert near Safford somewhere--Jesus! what the fuck was I thinking?"
"Ashley, are you taking your medication?"
"Of course I am, Linda!" I get defensive, "Do you think I'm a fucking idiot?!"
"I'm only asking because it seems that you need an adjustment, and I just need to know how often you are taking your meds and what your dosage is...when did you last see your psychiatrist?"
"Just last week, why?"
"I think there's something wrong with your medication, because you are exhibiting manic behavior, don't you think?"
"I guess."
"In that case, he may need to change the dose or even the medication."
"No, I don't want to experiment with another goddamn drug...no! fuck that!!"
She shifts in her chair, indicating her impatient impasse.
---
"And you see here," he points to the power point slide on his Dell laptop, "we reach an impasse in the relationship at that point. Any questions about imago so far?"
We nod 'no' with our heads. Later he prods 'so' with his notion of meds.
"...so I don't judge anyone who needs an anti-depressant."
"Neither do I," my chimes butt in, "and I agree with you...there's a huge social stigma attached to mental illness--god, I hate it!"
Again he nods as I prod, "I did have an aversion to medication but now I know I need lithium and adderall to survive--"
"--adderall is an anti-depressant too, you know?"
"Well, yeah, I mean, I knew it was a stimulant," my reflection mirrors the evening light of his eyes, and I lean over to look past his shaven 8:47 shadowed face to the alley above his office, where I've ridden my bike uphill, fallen face downhill on the ice, walked hand-in-hand with a lost love, driven the wrong way and...begged for forgiveness, crowned with a "please," a "love," and the, "only one I can say," name.
---
"ORIGIN French omelette, earlier amelette, alteration of alumette, variant of alumelle, from lemele ‘knife blade,’ from Latin lamella (see lamella ). The association with ‘knife blade’ is probably because of the thin flat shape of an omelet."
--Oxford American Dictionary
"Where can I put this so it won't cut anyone,"
"Oh, I don't know, Ashley, maybe in this drawer."
"Yeah, that could work but I don't want someone else to stick his hand in there and--"
"Mmmm Hmmm, um, yeah," he fidgits, I squirm. We fidgit and squirm together.
"I'll just tell Steve it's in there."
"Yeah, ok," he smiles his six-foot-tall-smile--a wicked, thin, flat smile I can't place the origin of its shape to, "or is there somewhere else instead?"
"Hm...I can't think of one," I answer him as if I were a dictionary asked to respond.
---
"Tiffany," I begin, with a lump of piano keys in my throat, "you know I love you."
"I know."
"Let me finish."
She nods. I swallow another key note down my breathless and hollow throat, "This mix is something that I've taken several days, over a week now, to finish..I don't know how to show you how much you mean to me," I sound like a fucking cliche' of broken records. I begin again. I tap my foot to help me finish...
I am not even talking to her now. I am writing to her perfectly fitting body lying on the futon in the adjacent room. The keys are stuck even harder, now that she's falling asleep and I'm falling for the song that sings in the keyed up likeness of my father. I am falling for what I cannot hear in the spell of the lyrics...
"Tiffany, the Vampire.forest fire song..it represents my dedication, no, my determination, no, my commitment, no, my 'father never meant to leave,' no, my, I don't know."
I click on the first song, Nina Simone's "Don't let me be misunderstood," and wonder if my intentions are good. I watch her move under the covers. I take cover in Nina's words: "Baby I'm just human...I try so hard so don't let me be misunderstood."
I don't know how to be misunderstood in a way she can understand. I begin again, "Tiffany, I'm so full of shit, but it's how you know you love me. The entire composition is a call and response, but there are also call and responses within the larger call...and response, make sense?"
I don't know if she nods. Her body is still, save one organ...
---
"My heart is an apple."
"That's the title?"
"I don't want to hear any cracks about cliche', ok..it's the title to the second track."
"Track?" she lowers her voice in that 'did you say?' question way
"What do you call it then?"
"A song."
"I guess we've found another dissimilarity."
"You mean difference?"
"I mean my heart is an apple and Tiffany has altered it from a knife blade to a three-egg omelette."
"What?"
"She's an addiction I can't quit," I alter my statement to an inotherwords phrase.
"Oh, you're saying--"
"--yes."
"Has she forgiven you?"
"I can't get close enough to feel a convincing pulse."
god bless the pulsing pace of itunes
"Yes, Paul loved that song."
"Do you know the lyrics...something, um, 'something in my veins,' and then something about it being bloody, but I can't tell without the printed words," I sound like an idiot without words.
"I can't either but I know I love the first line, 'the ashtray says you were up all night.' "
"That's a fucking great line, but it isn't as sexy now that we both quit smoking, oh Jesus, I almost forget about your camels hidden in my bag..how long has it been now? Almost a month, no?"
"28 days exactly."
"Once you decide to quit--at least this is what I believe--you will stay dry."
"Didn't you quit smoking over a year ago?" she asks about my pallid past.
"Yes, but don't think your symbolic pack of Camels hiding in the side pocket of my bag isn't a tempting reminder of my American Spirited fallible fall nights, under the Ithacan city lights."
The Tennessee train moans around the elbowed tracks of her armored arms. I take another sip of my bottled beer and throttle my close-throated mouth.
---
"I can't wait to kiss you."
"Mmmm,me too...where are you?"
"The last sign I passed said twelve miles away."
"Twelve miles!! What?! How, I mean, how'd you get so close?"
"Ashley," she emphasizes the tail vowelled sounds of my name, "I told you I'd be there soon."
"Well, it's just--"
"--just what?"
"Nevermind," I un-meaningfully say.
"Honey, please," she sings in the key of fear and self-doubt. I am working on a musical mix of our mindful drought: "that calls darkness light," boasting an arcade of addictions, the ones we accept in no one but in our own likeness.
"I wanted to surprise you with a mix of the Arcade Fire and Nina Simone."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
I stare past the ABC cafe' piano, near the window where the the wind passes over a produce truck, parlaying the winnings of sound into a symphony of the locally picked & driven kale and collards. Tomorrow morning's chalkboard of free-range omelette ingredients will include today's greens, including the french spelling of "f-r-e-e-d-o-m-f-r-i-e-d-e-g-g-s," freshly local, with a touch of flamboyant flare.
---
"I'll have muffins and juice here tomorrow morning so bring coffee if you like," our weekend imago therapist says in his gay-friendly and genuinely gay voice.
"I will definitely need my daily dose of caffeine," I say, emphasizing my addictive personality.
He laughs. She's concentrating on her notebook of positive and negative parental figure traits. I finished long before she could lay down her pen.
"Let's pick up the pace, sweetie," I tease.
"I'm not as fast as you."
"How'd you ever get through the SATs?" I ask.
"I didn't. How did you?"
"I didn't take the SATs," I smile.
"Oh yeah, she says," as Dwight returns to the air-conditioned room, despite the upstate New York weather blessing, addressing me and whispering the question, "Do you have any questions?"
"No, wait, yes," I give my typically confused response, "did you want us to continue past page 23, or did you want us to stop where it says 'STOP'?"
He smiles his already infectious smile, "You can continue."
"Good, because I did," I look over at Tiffany's intensely concentrated concentration on her task at hand.
"Let's go to the other room," he whispers, pulling the leather loafer back over the navy-colored back of his heel, and we both apologize about disrupting her writing. We are apologizers. I can tell we'll get along: The leather thong-wearing therapist and his fag hag patient.
---
"She told me that she 'read every word.' "
"What does that mean?"
"Well...I guess it means she read every fucking word I wrote that night in the middle of the fucking high desert near Safford somewhere--Jesus! what the fuck was I thinking?"
"Ashley, are you taking your medication?"
"Of course I am, Linda!" I get defensive, "Do you think I'm a fucking idiot?!"
"I'm only asking because it seems that you need an adjustment, and I just need to know how often you are taking your meds and what your dosage is...when did you last see your psychiatrist?"
"Just last week, why?"
"I think there's something wrong with your medication, because you are exhibiting manic behavior, don't you think?"
"I guess."
"In that case, he may need to change the dose or even the medication."
"No, I don't want to experiment with another goddamn drug...no! fuck that!!"
She shifts in her chair, indicating her impatient impasse.
---
"And you see here," he points to the power point slide on his Dell laptop, "we reach an impasse in the relationship at that point. Any questions about imago so far?"
We nod 'no' with our heads. Later he prods 'so' with his notion of meds.
"...so I don't judge anyone who needs an anti-depressant."
"Neither do I," my chimes butt in, "and I agree with you...there's a huge social stigma attached to mental illness--god, I hate it!"
Again he nods as I prod, "I did have an aversion to medication but now I know I need lithium and adderall to survive--"
"--adderall is an anti-depressant too, you know?"
"Well, yeah, I mean, I knew it was a stimulant," my reflection mirrors the evening light of his eyes, and I lean over to look past his shaven 8:47 shadowed face to the alley above his office, where I've ridden my bike uphill, fallen face downhill on the ice, walked hand-in-hand with a lost love, driven the wrong way and...begged for forgiveness, crowned with a "please," a "love," and the, "only one I can say," name.
---
"ORIGIN French omelette, earlier amelette, alteration of alumette, variant of alumelle, from lemele ‘knife blade,’ from Latin lamella (see lamella ). The association with ‘knife blade’ is probably because of the thin flat shape of an omelet."
--Oxford American Dictionary
"Where can I put this so it won't cut anyone,"
"Oh, I don't know, Ashley, maybe in this drawer."
"Yeah, that could work but I don't want someone else to stick his hand in there and--"
"Mmmm Hmmm, um, yeah," he fidgits, I squirm. We fidgit and squirm together.
"I'll just tell Steve it's in there."
"Yeah, ok," he smiles his six-foot-tall-smile--a wicked, thin, flat smile I can't place the origin of its shape to, "or is there somewhere else instead?"
"Hm...I can't think of one," I answer him as if I were a dictionary asked to respond.
---
"Tiffany," I begin, with a lump of piano keys in my throat, "you know I love you."
"I know."
"Let me finish."
She nods. I swallow another key note down my breathless and hollow throat, "This mix is something that I've taken several days, over a week now, to finish..I don't know how to show you how much you mean to me," I sound like a fucking cliche' of broken records. I begin again. I tap my foot to help me finish...
I am not even talking to her now. I am writing to her perfectly fitting body lying on the futon in the adjacent room. The keys are stuck even harder, now that she's falling asleep and I'm falling for the song that sings in the keyed up likeness of my father. I am falling for what I cannot hear in the spell of the lyrics...
"Tiffany, the Vampire.forest fire song..it represents my dedication, no, my determination, no, my commitment, no, my 'father never meant to leave,' no, my, I don't know."
I click on the first song, Nina Simone's "Don't let me be misunderstood," and wonder if my intentions are good. I watch her move under the covers. I take cover in Nina's words: "Baby I'm just human...I try so hard so don't let me be misunderstood."
I don't know how to be misunderstood in a way she can understand. I begin again, "Tiffany, I'm so full of shit, but it's how you know you love me. The entire composition is a call and response, but there are also call and responses within the larger call...and response, make sense?"
I don't know if she nods. Her body is still, save one organ...
---
"My heart is an apple."
"That's the title?"
"I don't want to hear any cracks about cliche', ok..it's the title to the second track."
"Track?" she lowers her voice in that 'did you say?' question way
"What do you call it then?"
"A song."
"I guess we've found another dissimilarity."
"You mean difference?"
"I mean my heart is an apple and Tiffany has altered it from a knife blade to a three-egg omelette."
"What?"
"She's an addiction I can't quit," I alter my statement to an inotherwords phrase.
"Oh, you're saying--"
"--yes."
"Has she forgiven you?"
"I can't get close enough to feel a convincing pulse."
god bless the pulsing pace of itunes
Thursday, July 19, 2007
two genius peas in a nina simone podcasted soul
"I was forced to buy a mac and you know how I feel about macs, I mean, the goddamn delete button is not a delete button, it's a fucking backspace," my sailored soundbite returns with the the tailored pound of her paletted pace.
She laughs the laugh I haven't heard in weeks, "I Know!! why don't they just call it a backspace?"
"Fuck if I know!" I drip words through one of the many screens of the elven-windowed porch.
We are two genius peas in a nina simone podcasted soul. A soul whose intentions are good..don't let us be misunderstood.
---
"I was making a mix for you, and...it goes along with the blog."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
This is the way our conversations go. We go and stop stop and go this way a lot. We are two ideal voices in a gravel parking lot.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry, I promise, please."
"But you were in the middle of--"
"--making a mix cd I can finish at any time, really, honest."
--for me..."
"--yes, but it will be here when you arrive."
"That's true."
"And so it is..."
"Damien Rice is on there, isn't he?"
"he is. he is"
"I can't take my mind off of you."
"Can't take my new blog off of you."
---
"I honestly just think the students are exhausted," I say, the youngest and most intelligently wise out of the staffroom staffers, taught to teach the most eye witnessing darkness to the darkest of the darkroom cronies: progress of this age.
I can't help think about the brilliance of brilliant writers and the dullards who've led this program (because they have money and lovers) and the sad, sad state we're in because of the faux-educators who educate no one but themselves, Then I decide to say, "I may be wrong but you can't MAKE any student be accountable for herself, and I honestly believe in the philosophy of their collegiate status...in other words, they are accountable only for themselves, because if we want them to act like adults, we have to start treating them like adults...call it a crazy philosophy, but I honestly believe that if we--"
"--well, Ashley," Robert, who always interrupts, interrupts and condescends in his usual condescending tone, "When we have to start teaching these kids in the fall, " as if I'd never fucking taught "kids" in the fall, as if that comment weren't from some fucking-prick-out-of-touch-asshole, as if he has the right to continue with, "there's never any doubt of accountability...in other words, it's never a matter of," he puts both his index and middle fingers in the air to quote my words, my fucking brilliant words, 'you're in college now,' because there's always a push to get them to do better,"
I look over at my 4-yr-younger colleague who smokes pot and drinks with me and we give the "what a fucking prick" glance. I can't take much more and then she gets up to use the restroom. I glance out the westward window as Robert accosts someone and suggests we move on, because (he puts up his index and middle fingers) he'd like "to hear someone else," referring to my summer institute, 3-week friend.
"She had to take a piss," I say, putting up my index and middle fingers around that last spiteful word, in spite of my colleague's spiteful piss attitude.
---
"Yes, I had a good conversation with her, but we mostly talked about computers and my spiteful resistance to macs."
She giggles. I laugh a hearty laugh.
"How was the conversation as a whole?" she asks earnestly.
"Good...I mean, as good as it can be after weeks of silence."
"That's good, oh, well," her voice rises to the, "I've something to tell you," gently reassuring voluminous
"Yess?"
"We're almost to Vermont."
"What?!"
"Yeah."
I'm silent.
"What's wrong?"
"Why aren't you coming to Ithaca first?" is my typically selfish response.
"What'dyou mean?"
"Nevermind."
"No, what?"
"It's fine."
"No it's not."
"Yes, it is, honestly, honey, you can leave it alone."
"I don't think so."
"The crown of love is falling from me...."
"That's the Arcade Fire."
"I know it is."
"I know you know but--"
"Shhhh, the CIA is listening."
She laughs. I don't laugh for the first time in a month of sun-lessdriven-days.
---
"Hey, it's me," I sound stupidly sound, "I'm so sorry to hear about your grandfather, but if you need to call...."
She does. But much later, after I've left more messages. She leaves a message of all her thanksgivings with me. I am her soundbite set to plainly comply, her driving rain under a northern piano sky.
---
god bless the piano-driven 'boy with the arab strap'
She laughs the laugh I haven't heard in weeks, "I Know!! why don't they just call it a backspace?"
"Fuck if I know!" I drip words through one of the many screens of the elven-windowed porch.
We are two genius peas in a nina simone podcasted soul. A soul whose intentions are good..don't let us be misunderstood.
---
"I was making a mix for you, and...it goes along with the blog."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
This is the way our conversations go. We go and stop stop and go this way a lot. We are two ideal voices in a gravel parking lot.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry, I promise, please."
"But you were in the middle of--"
"--making a mix cd I can finish at any time, really, honest."
--for me..."
"--yes, but it will be here when you arrive."
"That's true."
"And so it is..."
"Damien Rice is on there, isn't he?"
"he is. he is"
"I can't take my mind off of you."
"Can't take my new blog off of you."
---
"I honestly just think the students are exhausted," I say, the youngest and most intelligently wise out of the staffroom staffers, taught to teach the most eye witnessing darkness to the darkest of the darkroom cronies: progress of this age.
I can't help think about the brilliance of brilliant writers and the dullards who've led this program (because they have money and lovers) and the sad, sad state we're in because of the faux-educators who educate no one but themselves, Then I decide to say, "I may be wrong but you can't MAKE any student be accountable for herself, and I honestly believe in the philosophy of their collegiate status...in other words, they are accountable only for themselves, because if we want them to act like adults, we have to start treating them like adults...call it a crazy philosophy, but I honestly believe that if we--"
"--well, Ashley," Robert, who always interrupts, interrupts and condescends in his usual condescending tone, "When we have to start teaching these kids in the fall, " as if I'd never fucking taught "kids" in the fall, as if that comment weren't from some fucking-prick-out-of-touch-asshole, as if he has the right to continue with, "there's never any doubt of accountability...in other words, it's never a matter of," he puts both his index and middle fingers in the air to quote my words, my fucking brilliant words, 'you're in college now,' because there's always a push to get them to do better,"
I look over at my 4-yr-younger colleague who smokes pot and drinks with me and we give the "what a fucking prick" glance. I can't take much more and then she gets up to use the restroom. I glance out the westward window as Robert accosts someone and suggests we move on, because (he puts up his index and middle fingers) he'd like "to hear someone else," referring to my summer institute, 3-week friend.
"She had to take a piss," I say, putting up my index and middle fingers around that last spiteful word, in spite of my colleague's spiteful piss attitude.
---
"Yes, I had a good conversation with her, but we mostly talked about computers and my spiteful resistance to macs."
She giggles. I laugh a hearty laugh.
"How was the conversation as a whole?" she asks earnestly.
"Good...I mean, as good as it can be after weeks of silence."
"That's good, oh, well," her voice rises to the, "I've something to tell you," gently reassuring voluminous
"Yess?"
"We're almost to Vermont."
"What?!"
"Yeah."
I'm silent.
"What's wrong?"
"Why aren't you coming to Ithaca first?" is my typically selfish response.
"What'dyou mean?"
"Nevermind."
"No, what?"
"It's fine."
"No it's not."
"Yes, it is, honestly, honey, you can leave it alone."
"I don't think so."
"The crown of love is falling from me...."
"That's the Arcade Fire."
"I know it is."
"I know you know but--"
"Shhhh, the CIA is listening."
She laughs. I don't laugh for the first time in a month of sun-lessdriven-days.
---
"Hey, it's me," I sound stupidly sound, "I'm so sorry to hear about your grandfather, but if you need to call...."
She does. But much later, after I've left more messages. She leaves a message of all her thanksgivings with me. I am her soundbite set to plainly comply, her driving rain under a northern piano sky.
---
god bless the piano-driven 'boy with the arab strap'
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
