Yes!

I made it through the financial aid rigmarole.

I had to fill out one more piece of information when I got home today and finally, all of it is done.

I will be getting an award and I was notified that I would get it once the last form was filled out and sent it, that it would take 24 hours to process, I would get an award e-mail and then I hit accept.

The school will receive monies to pay for my summer practicum internship and supervision–$2380.

There will be a little left over from the award, enough to get me two more months of therapy over the summer.

I don’t have to touch my travel savings and I will have tuition paid for.

Thank God.

It all worked out.

I never really thought it wouldn’t, it was just some unnecessary stress that I got to work through.

I also spent some time checking in with my employer about summer hours, I’ll be working a little more than I do now.

Currently I’m pulling 35 hours a week, three weeks a month.

The other week during the month I work 28 hours–the week I’m in school.

During the summer I won’t have school on Fridays.

I won’t have official classes, I’ll be doing my internship at nights and on weekends and my outside supervision and therapy two days a week before work.

I ain’t gonna lie, it’s a lot to juggle.

But I see all the pieces coming together and it should work.

For my work schedule I’ll change-up to a slightly early start on the days I’m not in supervision or therapy before work and I will work 8 hour days on those days.

I’ll go from working 35 hours a week to 38 with the flexibility to go to 40 if the family needs me to.

I’ll do my internship in the evenings after work.

Four nights a week I’ll be doing the internship, and one day, Saturday.

I’ll be putting in a lot of hours, but the investment is worth it and although I am sacrificing a lot, more of my social life than I can imagine, as it’s not much at the moment, although, got to say, proud of myself for hanging out for an hour between work and doing the deal tonight.

I was so tempted to blow it off and just do my homework, but I made myself put down the books and walk to Java Beach and play a hand of Speed and socialize for an hour.

It was really much-needed.

I have been told repeatedly this week to have fun.

“Go get laid, have fun, blow off some steam!” My person told me when I met with her on Monday.

I’m trying to figure that out.

Not much by way of nibbles on the dating front and though there’s interest in me to pursue, I’m not really sure how to go about that right now.

Putting out to Universe.

I need to get laid.

There.

That should do it.

Hahahahahaha.

I actually reached out to an old lover last night and then immediately thought, ah, that’s not going to happen, why did I do that?

Not that I’m afraid of rejection, more that I can go bark up the wrong tree.

There is no squirrel there dear, go look elsewhere.

And there wasn’t.

As I have said to myself many a time, no response is a response.

My feelings are facts, but sometimes it feels like I either try to awful hard at this whole thing or I could give a fuck and I just bury myself in school and work.

There is an in between I’m sure.

Dating can also be a distraction from dealing with the thing at hand, but I am wanting to do it.

I am.

When have I not been willing to date?

I have tried lots of things.

Maybe this therapy thing will help.

Ha.

I can usually recognize when I am not on the right track, but sometimes, I get stuck and I go chase after someone and there is nothing there and I’m like, stop it, enough energy expended there.

Move on.

So moving on.

And being open to see whom God wants me to see, not whom I want me to see.

Those are different people, I am sure of it.

I’m listening to Lilac Wine as sung by Jeff Buckley.

I had to pause.

I had to sing.

I don’t even remember what I was whining about.

Luxury problems.

I’m alive.

Jeff Buckley is dead.

I saw him once.

At the Barrymore Theater in Madison, Wisconsin on tour for his album Grace.

It was one of the best concerts I have ever seen.

There are concerts that I remember because of the power of the music or that something momentous happened, or because of whom I was with when hearing he music.

Jeff Buckley touring for Grace.

Soul Coughing, Ruby Vroom.

Beck, Odelay.

Paul Simon and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Summer Fest in Milwaukee, 2001.

J. Davis Trio, at the Angelic, but also the show in Chicago where I got so trashed I was hung over for two days.

But my God it was worth it.

Anni DiFranco, Not a Pretty Girl, Civic Center, Madison.

Primus, Coliseum, Madison, WI, can’t remember if it was Sailing the Seas of Cheese tour, but I think it was.

Moby, Play, Civic Center, Madison, WI, and also Moby at Lightening in a Bottle three years ago, I was up front and it was amazing, I felt like I was on fire with the music.

Underworld, the Fox in Oakland and also two years later at the Warfield in San Francisco.

Paul Simon at the Greek Theater last summer.

Mike Doughty, three times, small show at Cafe Montmarte in Madison, his first solo tour after Soul Coughing broke up and he heckled my friend who was shrooming.  Then the show at the Fillmore when he covered Ruby Vroom and I was the only person in the audience that caught the Edna St. Vincent Millay reference, and got a smile and shout out for that.  And last summer the 2016 Living Room tour where I got to meet him in person, and talk about Burning Man.

Spearhead in Madison, Wisconsin, I forget the venue now, but they were on tour for their second album and Michael Franti pulled me up on stage and danced with me for a song.

Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes, Barrymore Theater, Madison, Wisconsin.

Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine, Coliseum, Madison, Wisconsin.

Sleater Kinnery at Union South, UW Madison Campus, holy shit was that amazing, they were just on the floor, no stage, four mikes and a couple of amps.

I went to a lot of shows in Madison.

Goldfrappe at the Fillmore.

Gary Newman, also at the Fillmore, here in San Francisco.

I’ve clubbed a lot here in San Francisco too, so many djs–Mark Farina, Teisto, Sasha and Digweed, Paul Van Dyke, Oakenfold, Kid Beyond, BT, Dmitri from Paris, Derrick Cater, Frankie Knuckles, Sunshine Jones with and without Dubtribe, Tortured Soul, Eric Sharp, Carl Cox, Armand Van Helden, James Ziebela, 2ManyDj’s, Basement Jaxx, fuck, I’m forgetting a lot of shows.

So much music.

I haven’t been out to enough shows.

Maybe I’ll focus on that instead of dating.

Heh.

Right now though, sleep she calls.

Homework is still on my plate and work has got to get worked out.

I’m still listening to the glory of Jeff Buckley.

Hallelujah.

 

One of Those Weeks

And I just don’t care.

Things spill.

Pink hair dye in my purse.

Blueberries in my basket tonight, all over my liner bag on the back of my scooter, splashed blueberry juice all over my pink riding jacket.

Ugh.

Who cares?

I don’t.

I don’t give a fig.

I’m having a great fucking day.

Heh.

I just scored four tickets to Mike Doughty’s September 1st Living Room Tour here in San Francisco.

One night.

Someone’s living room.

27 people?

30 people?

Intimate like.

I messaged my three people who are Doughty fans and said, “save the date bitches.”

I don’t even give a fig that it’s the day before my first day of classes.

Fuck it.

I’ll be a little tired.

But I will be happy.

Oh so very happy.

Live music, getting to hear someone who I really like and respect, musically and from my own private personal view, we have a few things in common, a few friends, it feels special.

I’m really grateful and I didn’t blink at dropping the money on the tickets.

I love my people and I am super psyched to get to share the experience with them.

Now.

Not one of the bastards has responded to the wildly ecstatic message I just sent them, but I ain’t worried.

If, for some reason, any or all of them can’t go.

I am sure I will find three other Mike Doughty fans that would love to go.

I can actually think of a few that I should probably message and say, hey, there was 27 tickets available when I bought my four, which means 23 are left, and um, in San Francisco, that’s not going to last long.

I just had this pricking in my thumbs.

My blueberry stained thumbs.

To go check the website and see if the tickets were up.

And voila!

They were.

I whipped out the wallet.

Didn’t think twice.

The only thought I had was keeping it to myself until tomorrow when I see my ladybug at the cafe to do the deal, but I didn’t think I could keep it under my hat for that long.

I am not the best at keeping a surprise.

I mean.

I can.

I suppose I could have written this blog about how despite prepping for the poetry podcast yesterday and feeling really excited about it, that the recording was cancelled.

I suppose.

I mean.

That was what I was going to write about.

Also that I didn’t find myself all that wrapped up in that either.

I was like.

Cool.

God’s got better plans for my time that day.

Yoga.

Doing the deal.

Sex.

Heh.

Who knows.

All three.

Although not all three at the same time.

Ok.

Anyway.

That signals to me that I am in a good place in my life in general, that when something unexpected happens, getting this cancellation, I can look at it and say, well, something else is supposed to happen and here’s to knowing that what ever that thing is, it’s the thing that is supposed to happen.

Just like getting blueberry juice on everything, I mean, shit everywhere, I didn’t really get upset, just pulled the stuff that needed cleaning and tossed it into the wash.

Came inside my little studio.

Hopped on line.

And, ayup, bought tickets to see a small, intimate little show of one of my favorite artists.

Luckiest girl in the world.

And.

Tomorrow’s Friday.

Yes.

Plus.

I’m listening to the Cars greatest hits and that puts me in a good mood too.

I mean.

That synthesizer.

So good.

You’d think that I would want to listen to Mike Doughty’s Stellar Motel, but this is what called and when I feel a call, I got to go with it.

“What is this,” my lover asked (which one, wouldn’t you like to know).

“Wooden Heart, Listener,” I replied.

I love the album, but have found that nope, not everybody does.

In fact, the disdain for which someone says something about the music I’m wanting to listen to can be off putting.

“What is this shit?” An ex-boyfriend, “can you change this?”

I might.

But I might have to dump you first.

I was listening to a jazz mix which had some old Soul Coughing songs from Ruby Vroom on it.

You know that band Mike Doughty was the lead singer for, the band my long time boyfriend took me to see at the Eagle’s Ballroom, the album that gave me goosebumps when I first heard it and I resonated so hard to it that I still can tell you all the sense memories that I get stirred up even writing about it.

Yeah.

That relationship didn’t last long.

“Do you like this,” I asked my lover, the asker of the Wooden Heart album, “do you want to listen to something else?”

“Anything but this,” he replied.

Fucker.

So I put on Thomas Dolby’s The Golden Age of Wireless.

Take that.

Ah music.

How I love thee.

I remember when I first came out to San Francisco and was reading through an SF Weekly and all the music shows that were listed and I was just like a little gluttonous piggie in heaven.

I probably do not take advantage as much as I thought I would.

But.

I still love a live show and I was telling a date last weekend about a pen ultimate San Francisco night I had with a friend many years back where we went to see Tron at the Castro Theater, then hopped on his scooter and burned rubber to get to the Fillmore and we rocked out like maniacs to Gary Numan.

So close I could see how angry the lead guitarist was, and jaded.

So close I could see the black eyeliner on Numan blurring underneath his eyes.

Magic.

Goldfrapp that same year on her tour for Supernature.

God damn that was a good show.

I really must be on a synthesizer kick, now that I am thinking of it.

Heh.

And I still haven’t heard back from any of my friends.

Oh.

Ha!

I just remembered one of them is out of town camping, well, hopefully he’ll be happy when he returns from being off the grid to the knowledge of another good show that we get to go to.

As for me.

Whelp.

I got the weekend relatively free.

What’s happening my people?

Let’s.

Shake it up.

Shake it up/make a scene.

That’s right, I said
Dance all night
Go go go
Dance all night
Get real low
Go all night
Get real hot
Well, shake it up now, all you’ve got.

Shall we?

Pulled That Trigger

Holy shit.

I can’t believe I did it.

Especially when I looked at the cost of flying there.

Fuck.

But.

Fuck it.

I want to go and I decided.

And I registered.

Yes.

I am going to be out of town Fourth of July weekend again.

Last year I was in Atlanta.

This year.

NEW ORLEANS!

Woot! Woot!

Heh.

I am a little excited.

I found out the family I am working for will be at Carmel Valley Ranch down the coast for the holiday weekend and I’ll have that Friday-Monday off from work.

Then, tonight, I heard an announcement about he “Road to Detroit.”

What?

My ears perked right up.

I plan on being in Detroit for the big one in 2020.

Yeah.

I like to make the plans.

But Atlanta was so amazing, I committed then and there to go to the next one.

Well.

Wouldn’t you know?

They’ve decided to build some enthusiasm for the big one in 2020 by doing smaller regional events and the first one, this year, is in New Orleans.

My whole body broke out in goosebumps.

I have been thinking non-stop, every day since Saturday, about going to New Orleans.

In fact.

I started writing it down in my morning pages, I am a world traveler, I am going to New Orleans for Jazz Fest.

But.

l have to say, when I listened to my heart, my gut, my interior, Jazz Fest seemed just too far off, so the other day I just started writing I am going to New Orleans.

Then.

Tonight.

The announcement, the see me after for more information.

I registered.

Fuck, it was only $10 to register!

The Atlanta convention was $100.

Granted, money well fucking spent, but still.

Anyway.

I talked to the dude and forked over my ten bucks and did a happy dance and rode my scooter home with a wild silly grin slapped on my face.

Until I started looking at tickets to fly there.

Holy shit.

That’s a lot.

Then again.

It’s going to be a lot no matter where I go.

I had reached out to my friend in Wisconsin and not gotten back from her and the tickets to Minneapolis/St. Paul were about the same as New Orleans.

And well.

Fuck.

I owe myself an amends to go back to New Orleans and do it right.

I have only been one other time.

I was only there a night.

I was busy running away from home with my not so secret crush, as it would later turn out, at the age of 19, having just dropped out of college, blew that full ride good.

Seriously.

Fucked myself out of a full ride to university.

I just had to get the fuck out of Dodge, or Madison as the case may be.

It was a huge geographic.

I had no idea where I was going to end up.

Homestead Florida.

Never heard of it?

Don’t worry, you don’t want to know.

Along the way there, so many adventures.

My we were so young.

He was 17 and I had just turned 19.

We had very little money.

He had a Datsun 280 Z.

It was maroon.

It had bucket seats and a tape deck.

We listened to Jethro Tull and Steve Miller and The Eagles and anything Southern rock we could.

We smoke a lot of cigarettes.

A lot.

We camped out.

But in New Orleans.

We stayed in a cheap motel on the very edges of town and decided the next day to stop and go through the down town area.

We were so young and naive and broke.

We parked in a parking garage and I remember my friend climbing out of the car, my soon to be lover but never truly boyfriend, I got scooped by the older guy in Florida who you know did some minor hot point hits for the Mafia and was 28 to my 19 and introduced me to smoking crack cocaine and I was his old lady, but I digress, and his curly, unruly hair barely held down under the sailor’s hat he had bought at Sacred Feather on State Street in Madison–a Greek sailor captain’s hat in dark navy blue.

I remember the first time I heard “True Dreams of Wichita” off Soul Coughing’s album Ruby Vroom, I felt like my heart was going to blow out of itself.

Push out dead air from a parking garage
Where you stand with the keys and your cool hat of silence
Where you grip her love like a driver’s liscense

That.

That was what it was like.

Standing in the humid murk of New Orleans and we were running away and it was scary and romantic and full of bravado and more than a modicum of stupidity.

Young and dumb and so on fire for life.

And too stupid to admit how afraid I was.

So fucking scared.

It only got worse, but that day, wandering around New Orleans, the boys in the Quarter tap dancing with Coca Cola bottle caps on the soles of their shoes, no diamonds here, and my heart trilled in my chest when we walked down a windy little street and I saw a peek inside a courtyard.

The trellis heavy with flowers and the wrought iron gate, the quiet splash of water in a standing fountain and I felt something batter in my chest, a bird with a broken wing.

I want to live here.

I want to come here again.

I want to sip bowls of coffee with my bare feet on the patio cement.

I want creole food and The Meters and Clifton Chenier and Gumbo yaya and voodoo and heat and humidity, I want the hair lifted off the back of my neck and spit curls at the nape damp with heat and sweat and love and the miraculous.

I had no idea what I wanted.

But.

Oh.

I did so want.

We spent no money.

Except.

At at tobacco shop.

I bought one pack of fancy Nat Sherman silk cuts.

And he bought one really nice, for a couple of naive kids from the North, cigar.

We got lost on the way back to the motel.

Remember folks, I’m a bad navigator.

And we had the car literally, and I am not joking, shook down for the change in the console at a 7-11 we stopped at for directions.

It scared both of us.

But we got out and that was it.

My only visit to New Orleans.

I dare say.

This time will be a little different.

Though I hope for bowls of chicory coffee and jambalaya, shrimp creole, and dirty rice, Zydeco music, much doing the deal, and summer dresses and sandals to dance in.

I’m about over the foggy gloomy summer.

I’m going to New Orleans!

Happy.

Joyous.

Motherfucking.

Free.

Bitches.

 

Well, Your Man Won’t Dance

But I will.

Oh.

My.

God.

Total nerdgasm.

I was meeting my person at Church Street Cafe this evening after work, grabbing a tea, just about to turn off my phone and I see a little notice on my Instagram feed.

Mike Doughty just liked your photo.

Followed by.

Mike Doughty is now following you.

What?!

Fuck me.

Wet panties.

Wet.

I am a dork.

I admit it.

I saw that man up front and personal when I was a wee lass, at the Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee when Soul Coughing was on tour for Ruby Vroom.

I saw him solo at Cafe Montmartre in Madison and I talked to him, briefly about maybe booking a gig at the Angelic Brewing Company.

I remember one of my friends, a co-worker, was so in love with him and screamed out his name and belted out his lyrics, then in a hushed moment declared her unending love and the fact that she was high on mushrooms.

He heckled her so hard she left out of pure mortification.

I saw him back a couple of years ago at The Fillmore when he was playing the Ruby Vroom album pretty much solo and I just finished reading his memoir and like a dork, really thought hard about bringing it with and asking for an autograph.

I didn’t.

But.

I did get my own form of mortification.

I was right up front with my man Stark Raving Brad and our mutual friend Dirty was somewhere out there too with another friend, and I was bobbing along to a solo acoustic rendition of Janine when Doughty changed up the lyrics and said “Edna St. Vincent Millay” instead of the  radio announcer’s name and I whooped out acknowledgement.

He startled, obviously surprised that anyone got the reference.

Secret.

Shhh.

I won a gold medal at an 8th grade forensics meet in Wisconsin when I was at DeForest Middle school reciting a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

She’s my kind of woman.

And Mike.

Well.

Gah.

He gave me a nod and a smile.

I wanted to sink below the floor.

Or give him a blow job.

Heh.

He got me through the sads in Paris I must have listened to Yes, And Also Yes until I knew every single song back and forth.

It was a part of my soundtrack.

It still is.

I have it on the stereo right now.

Just a little hero worship.

Or.

Maybe some day we’ll meet.

Love, love made them beautiful at last.

She doesn’t fall in love, she takes hostages.

Let me take you hostage, baby.

Your new song can be 27 Carmens.

Instead of 27 Jennifers.

Bwahahaha.

Oh.

Gack.

I think the closest I have ever gotten to being a douche, but I reframed was when I saw Pete Yorn in the hotel bar at the W down on Mission and 3rd.

I bought him a drink and sent it over to his table.

He had some tiny, skinny, glam doll draped over him and they were both slunk so low down in the chair you could barely tell it was him.

But it was.

I asked the waitress and she nodded.

“Send his next drink from me, but you don’t have to tell him, just a fan,” I said.

Then.

“I mean, I owe the man a few drinks when I think about all the sex I had to Music For The Morning After.”

Then I got good and wasted myself.

Not so much anymore.

The days were darker then.

Not so now.

“You’re on your watch tonight, aren’t you,” he said to me from the deep brown leather chair in the front window of the Church Street Cafe.

I am.

One hour and thirty minutes.

Unless I get some crazy hair up my ass and run over to the 7-11.

I’ll buy a bunch of PowerBall tickets, a bottle or fifteen and then go throw myself in the ocean because my life will effectively be over.

Nah.

I think I’ll stay in.

And do what I did last year.

Drink a cup of tea and say some prayers of grace and thanks and let the clock roll over to midnight and then get on my knees and cry a little out of gratitude.

You know.

No biggie.

Just eleven years of being happy, joyous, and free.

And.

Sometimes depressed, wrecked, ravished, ravaged, and lost.

But never fucked up like I used to be.

No.

Never.

Sometimes so overwhelmed with sorrow that I think I will break.

“Does it bother you that I talk so flippantly about him,” my person paused, looking at me with piercing eyes, gentle, but probing.

“No, it’s ok,” I said.

And it is.

I think he would be proud of me.

“You aren’t going to relapse,” he said, “please, that’s just not in your stars.”

Not so far.

Your love is ghost.

But I still remember the kiss you gave me on that night sitting in the front row at Our Lady of SafeWay on a Friday evening.

You wrapped your arm around my shoulder and pulled me close and kissed my forehead.

I won’t ever forget that kiss.

Or.

The glow of you that last night I saw you alive.

I will always remember.

My dark star.

My heart.

I know how proud you would be of me.

I know how proud you are of me.

I hope you and Bowie are out on the dance floor together.

Toasting our souls with ginger ale.

I heard you whisper, “be the ball, Martines,” to me the other day when I was re-arranging the postcards hanging from my mobile.

I was putting up one I had forgotten I had sent myself from Paris.

On Christmas day from the Pompidou, I ransacked the gift shop and bought a cloth sack, a notebook, two magnets–one of the Pompidou and one of a Mark Rothko I really liked–and postcards.

I had written myself a note, one of congratulations for having made it through a blue period, I think Christmas Eve was the only night I thought I might die of heart ache and sorrow, but I knew, from having walked through it before that I would again.

And.

I did.

And it was Christmas and I was high on art in the Pompidou.

I bought a blue on blue on blue postcard of dense indigo; a smash of rich monochrome, super saturated, intense color.

I got that postcard in the mail, read it, and spun the mobile, looking for a place to clip it.

And there it was.

My post card from Hallowell, Maine.

The one I sent myself the Christmas I went to Maine to stay with your family, their first Christmas without you.

I heard your voice, “be the ball, Martines.”

Yes.

I think I will.

Year eleven.

I hereby declare is the year of being the ball.

The belle of the ball.

The apple of your eye.

The ball to be watched.

The ball to be chased.

Because.

I’m done doing the pursuing.

I am enough.

He knew.

He knew so many years before I did.

Mike Doughty knows.

He liked my street art photos from the Marais.

He’s following me.

Who knows who else will.

This is my miracle year.

I just fucking know it.

Like the clarion ring of a soft finger stroking the string on the neck of a guitar.

It resounds within.

Clear as a bell.

These.

Natural harmonics.

This singing of the spheres.

The lightness in my heart.

This divine glow of love all around me.

All.

Around.

Me.

This.

Love.

 

Spring Clean My Heart

Oops.

I forgot, sort of, that today was Daylight Savings Time.

I was amply reminded last night as I chastised myself to get to bed, it’s almost two a.m. crazy lady, go to sleep.

As I blew out the candles in my room and adjusted down the comforter on my bed my clock on my phone sprang forward.

Shit.

It’s 3 a.m.

Oh man.

And of course, though I woke up with plenty of time before my first lady was coming over to sit in my “kitchen” and do some reading and some checking in, I forgot that I had not set my watch forward.

My computer automatically did it as did my phone.

When I got the phone call I was like, what the hell, I have another hour, did she forget it’s Daylight Savings?

Then I realized.

Oh snap.

I had not moved the watch forward and my lady was right on time.

I was behind.

But not for long and as the case was, my second appointment on the day cancelled at the last-minute.

Like, two minutes before she was supposed to arrive.

I was a tiny bit miffed, I had rearranged my own schedule to accommodate hers, but I also had some compassion, sometimes showing up to do something is a lot harder to do than we are willing to acknowledge.

I took advantage of the “additional” hour I had to get caught up on the things I needed to do for today–grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking.

I went to town on the studio and really cleaned it, dusted, swept, Swisher’ed the place up, even borrowed my housemates vacuum and did the rugs, plus washed the rugs in my bathroom and did my laundry.

I did take a break between grocery shopping and cleaning to enjoy a nice little lunch on the back patio–it wasn’t quite as warm as yesterday, but there was still a nice bit of sun.

And I must say that having the extra hour of light was really lovely.

I stayed off my computer until just a few minutes ago, connecting via phone instead, and letting myself enjoy a book that I finished as the pot of chicken and white beans on the stove reached the culmination of cooking.

I flipped my book shut and “shelved” it next to the stack of books on the floor by the chaise lounge and finished the ginger tea in my mug.

I looked around my studio, again, with wonder and delight at my clean, warm, sunny, sweet, artsy little spot.

I remembered the last place I really lived, in Paris, and realized how far I have come since returning to San Francisco and was overcome with the gratitude that I have let myself stay in one place, to establish a home.

“I’m not leaving anytime soon,” I told the car load of ladies as we drove back from the Oakland get together last night.

“We’re all trapped into our spots,” my friend acknowledged, “there’s nowhere to go.”

I agree, it’s scary out there with the rents being what they are, and my rent is just what I can afford.

I doubt that I would be able to find what I have here for less.

I am not going anywhere, especially with graduate school looming on the horizon.

The music on my box switched to another song and I suddenly was swept back to Paris, Paris in the rain, Paris breaking my heart.

My friend, my lover, my love, the mixed cd he sent me, the realization, as I listened to the artist, Mike Doughty, sing out his song off of the album I had on heavy rotation in Paris, that I was also spring cleaning my heart.

I had let him go a few weeks ago.

I had been let go by my ex boyfriend a few weeks prior.

I saw the similarities in the two men.

And my heart was sad, awash in soft grief and I felt the tears roll down my face as I remembered all the things my lover was unable to say to me until I was in another country.

The flag on my heart, the stamp, the imprimatur of music that I had ground itself into my soul, my emotions and feelings bubbling up.

And yet.

The grief, the soft tears, the sunset falling through the door to my studio, the dust swept away, the cobwebs pulled down (man, I even dusted the top of my refrigerator), the sink scrubbed, the mirror in the bathroom polished, I had cleaned them both out of my space.

I love them both.

In a little while this hurt will hurt no more.

I loved them both.

And I want to move on from the lover who became my friend, but went down a path I cannot follow.

From the ex boyfriend who was just a taste of what the divine wants from me.

The ex hated Mike Doughty.

I don’t think he even knew who it was when I played Soul Coughing, but he was amazed that anyone would want to listen to Ruby Vroom.

I remember thinking, this may be a non-negotiable.

I am emotionally attached to my music, I won’t deny it.

I remember how I cried when I received those mixed cds in the mail in Paris.

The drumming rain splashing hard in the courtyard as we messaged back and forth over the internet, the way my heart-felt finding that package in the mail slot, the one below the one I was assigned to.

Then.

Returning to find he’d moved on.

Truthfully, so too had I.

We stayed friends though.

Then.

Well.

Things happen and sometimes those things are toxic and awful and tragic to watch.

I know I’ll never lose affection for people and friends that went before.

I don’t know how close the two men were tied to me, although I know it was by my own hand, but the similarities, though I rarely discussed them with others, existed.

Sexually oriented the same way, ex-junkies, younger, in fact, almost identical in age, and neither, in the end wanted me to be their lover.

And that does not mean that there’s anything wrong with me.

No.

It just means that my God wants something different for me.

I wiped the tears from my eyes and I have to say, I love what I have.

Love what you have, and you’ll have more love.

It’s time to change the music on the box.

Because.

Oh baby, baby, it’s all about the moon.

I get to have feelings and I get to hold love, for myself, and move on.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

I have space now for what the Universe wants for me.

I move forward into that light knowing that I am clean.

I have allowed myself to surrender.

Sprung forward.

Launched into the next episode of this.

My exquisite life.

 

 

Janine, Janine, I Drink You Up

If you were the Baltic Sea and I was a cup, I would drink you up.

Yes, I would Janine.

Romantic notions flutter about my head as I realize that I am coming through some sort of nostalgic love fest, affair with my old music.

I have been listening to jazz a lot.  I missed playing my music when I was couch surfing and I could not unearth my Ipod with my favorite jazz playlist.  I am listening to it now.

The song quote is from Soul Coughing’s Ruby Vroom album, one of my favorite albums of all time.  Top five are 1. UnderWorld Dubnobasswtihmyheadman 2. Soul Coughing–Ruby Vroom 3. Paul Simon–Rythm of the Saints. 4. Masters of Reality–Sunrise on the Surferbus 5. Jeff Buckley–Grace.

Partially because they are all brilliantly put together concept albums and partially because they evoke a certain memory of time and place with me and as I move forward in this time and space I can see the layers of music building one on the other.

Everyone has their personal soundtrack and this is mine.

Thanks Justin.  I need to acknowledge this previous boyfriend who was truly influential to my musical development.  He was wild for music.  He could spend hours upon hours in used cd and record shops.  He made me mixed tapes.

I threw them all away.  The last one he had made me was a Valentine Day mixed tape of our “love songs”.  This was the month after I broke up with him, the longest relationship of my life, after five years.

That mixed tape I hucked into Lake Mendota.  It was cold, it was February, but that winter had been unexpectedly warm during January and February, and there was open water.

I never wanted to listen to one of his mixed tapes again.  I still don’t.  But I am grateful to him for introducing so much influential music to me.

In fact, I have realized more and more as I gain insights into myself and what I like ad who I am, that often times it is just that some one else, usually a guy, is interested.  I used to be embarrassed by this, but fuck it, now, I am sort of like, ok, well, what if it’s good.

I grew up listening to Steve Miller and the Eagles and The Doobie Brothers.  I was born in the early 70s, I mean come on.  And I have a secret sweet spot for that kind of music, Americana, rock-n-roll.  I like songs I can sing to and I like songs that are meant for playing really loudly and driving through the country with the wind wiping your hair around and the hills rolling into the sky.

I discovered jazz on my own.  I can’t pin anyone in particular there with that predilection.  I adore jazz, it is my favorite genre, if you have to pin me on a genre.  And yet, where is my jazz album–well, that’s the Soul Coughing one.  My Ipod stuck that album in there, not alternative, or rock, but jazz.

The more I listen to it, the more I actually agree with that.  It’s acid jazz.  It’s non-sensical and silly and yet coherent and of a picture.  Part of what makes Soul Coughing so delicious to me is the memories I have associated with it.

When you hear something that affects you deeply, almost desperately, you will always remember it.

The first time I heard it I had come home from a long shift at the Essen Haus.  I was tired and cranky and wanted bed.  My boyfriend was up and pretty buzzed and very high and insisted that I listen to this album his friend had turned him on to–Soul Coffin.

Huh.

I picked up the album, the space girl in her astronaut helmet and her dark sad eyes, the weird little cartoon devil, and something right then resonated.  Then he cued it to True Dreams of Wichita.

He was trying to be romantic.  In fact, when we went a few weeks later to see them play at the Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee, M. Doughty, said wryly, it’s time for the make out song, and launched into it.

I don’t associate True Dreams with making out.

Instead I will always remember the long hallway in the flat on Franklin St. The wood floor and how the thin strip of yellow light crept from underneath the seal of the groom room (Justin grew a lot of weed).  I can remember the way the floor felt under my feet.

Then the thunder low and soft, of the stand up bass reverberating inside my body and I was back in Iowa.  I was back in Newton with my sister and her baby, I was surrounded by green cornfields and utter despair and separateness–bleak despearate isolation.  That song hollowed me out.

I was frozen there by the speaker of the stereo while my inebriated boyfriend talked about getting tickets to the show.  All I knew was that I was caught in that web of memory, a very recent memory, but one I wanted to put behind me quickly.

To sum up Iowa in one paragraph–left Madison on a bus with underage sister and 9 1/2 month old niece, to take up residence in Newton, Iowa, so that her boyfriend, the father of the child, could be released out of the minimum security prison he was in.

That horrific, and vaguely humourous experience is expounded on in my second book, The Iowa Waltz.  I have it written up in first draft and it needs some work, but is basically a follow-up piece e to my memoir, Baby Girl.

Soul Coughing, despite the fact that I heard them in Wisconsin, months after coming back from Iowa, stirred something unfathomable and deep in my blood.

Every one of those albums marks something pivotal and evocative about my life.  It is interesting to be reminded of those things and move forward with a curious mind to see how my next musical adventure will unfold.

Justin, to give the man his due, also introduced me to Jeff Buckley, Primus, Beck, Morphine, Black Flag, Sepulchura, Ani DiFranco, Sleater Kinney, that one noodling band that was always bouncing around the house, Smashing Pumpkins, which I always was wildly annoyed by and could not listen to, and a lot of hip hop and rap. A lot.

In return I turned him on to jazz and blues.

On my own I discovered electronic music.  Electronic and jazz are my favorites.

I wonder which direction I will go next?  Of course, as it always seems to be, it will probably be a boys playlist.

I may move on from the man, but I always get to keep the music.