five fun facts (and two questions)

keep art alive; art by sas christian

* i dyed my hair the same color as the girl in the painting above, though my hair is much longer (for now).

* i watched 'playing by heart' last night and realized that it had been quite some time since i'd seen it last; most notably because i no longer relate to joan, but found myself feeling an uncanny affinity to meredith. also, the inclusion of goodnight moon brings me to the kind of tears that are better described as sobs, every single time.

* december is upon us, and is here for some of us. i am a bit crazy about this time of year, but not for all the commercialism and everything revolves about money and marketing kind of ways. i'm a sucker for twinkle lights, decorated houses, holiday specials, advent calendars with chocolate inside, good christmas music, and the smell of sugar cookies and hot cider.

this brings up a question for all of you, in two-fold: what is your favorite holiday film and/or special? and, what is your favorite christmas song, and who sings/performs it?

* it has been raining all night here. the kids and i went out in it to run an errand and julia was trying to get max to sing "i'm singing in the rain", but he said "no, not singing, it's christmas rain." and then he did threw the rocker hands. it was one of those moments i'll always remember.

* i had peruvian food for the first time this afternoon. it was amazing.

what are five things about you today/tonight?

wave goodbye to november

keep art alive ~ art by sas christian

repaired by a love of broken things: goodbye november mix

statues ~ foo fighters
talisman ~ air
achin' to be ~ the replacements
already dead ~ beck
baby jane ~ belle & sebastian
still alright ~ adam merrin
you could make a killing ~ aimee mann
you are my joy ~ the reindeer section
whiter shade of pale ~ procul harum
venus stop the train ~ wilco

unbilotitled ~ babyshambles

raining in new york ~ oh laura

new york ~ stephen fretwell

the way i am ~ ingrid micaelson
delicate ~ damien rice
waiting for my real life to begin ~ colin hay
one of these things first ~ nick drake
say something ~ james
pretty good year ~ tori amos

if you close your eyes

the weather is a thick consuming grey outside, and i am feeling a bit wistful, and perhaps a wee bit blue. there are no real reasons, suppose i could blame it on the weather, or my continued lack of sleep. but, what are reasons anyway? they do not always cure anything, just act as a label to affix to your words, or over your heart. and, every so often, i think it is quite okay to just embrace your melancholy, hold it's frail hand, and sing together.
sometimes it is alright to be a dark and brooding little thing; at least that is what i keep telling myself today.

you are one life older than before,
but you can't stop the chill,
now you're falling in slow motion,
though the air is still.

dark therapy ~ echobelly

we're just ordinary people, you and me

sometimes i stumble upon a song that has been sitting, un-played, in my music player and i’m just thrown. this is one of the simplest and truest of love songs i’ve heard in a long time.

it reminds me a bit of seventies love songs (or what do they like to call them on the informercials? the soft sounds of the seventies). perhaps it is the piano, which i have a weakness for, or just the feel to the song. it also reminds me a bit of ben folds’ the luckiest, both lyrically and yeah, the piano.

as a writer i am ever striving to find a way to say everything in the most concise of ways, but i’m wordy and i often write as much as i tend to talk…which is quite a lot. so, when i come across something that gives over emotion, feeling, and soul i tend to be deeply moved. this song is an example of that.

“you and i were two old and tortured souls

repaired by a love of broken things

in a life, just some bodies growing old

no fear of the end, of anything
we’re just ordinary people, you and me

time will turn us into statues, eventually”

statues ~ foo fighters

you're weak but not giving in

keep art alive; art by lilly piri

“and sometimes when you’re on
you’re really fucking on
and your friends they sing along
and they love you
but the lows are so extreme
that the good seems fucking cheap
and it teases you for weeks in its absence
but you’ll fight and you’ll make it through
you’ll fake it if you have to
and you’ll show up for work with a smile
and you’ll be better
you’ll be smarter
more grown up and a better daughter
or son
and a real good friend
and you’ll be awake
you’ll be alert
you’ll be positive though it hurts
and you’ll laugh and embrace all of your friends
and you’ll be a real good listener
you’ll be honest
you’ll be brave
you’ll be handsome and you’ll be beautiful
you’ll be happy.”

the next few weeks are going to drain me of everything, i fear. these are the days where music (and copious amounts of coffee) are what get me through, as work will act as a pack of zombies eating my brain for sustenance and pleasure.

i have this silly fear that has been with me since i was a child, and it echoes in the back of my mind sometimes when the shadows of adolescent insecurity rear their ugly head and grab a hold of me. it is that old saying (who says these things really?) that goes out of sight, out of mind, and sometimes it taps on my fears that if i don’t participate, if i don’t play along, if i don’t pick up the phone/send the email/say the first hello that i will disappear. or, if not forgotten, i will be misunderstood. and, i think it is not just me who feels this, i think sometimes we all do.

so, in an attempt to ease the minds of those i care about, or to ease my own worry, i am here. i do care, probably more than you realize. and, work is going to kill me until christmas. i will try to keep up, i will try to check in, i will try to keep writing (i sort of lose it when i don’t write). but, if i seem less than usual it is fleeting, and i will be back soon enough.

and, although i don’t buy into such things as resolutions, i do love fresh starts and i am holding out hope that this coming year will be better for all of us.

*much love*

a better son/daughter ~ rilo kiley

are you smiling?

"it's okay, you can laugh, i promise not to tell anybody."

annette, cruel intentions

washed up

keep art alive; art by kris lewis


i thought you looked so naked and different, vulnerable and ugly and beautiful.

"if you were a mermaid," you said, "if you were a mermaid, i was the sea."

what did it mean for us? because everything i did, everything that happened to me, that was what i asked myself - what does this mean for us.

it meant i was farther away from you, different. it meant that if we let ourselves, we could get closer than we had ever been. disappear into each other. you’d bleed and i wouldn’t. then we both would.

wasteland, francesca lia block

steal all my records

there is a certain kind of love, or perhaps it is obsession, that holds tight no matter what happens. the kind that when that person is gone you miss them in ways that border on a bit of insanity; that please come back and take whatever you want from me kind of notion. it passes, it does pass, but when you are in the throes of it – well, there is nothing quite like that level of desperation.

i am relieved (is it relief?) to not feel that way anymore. something has shifted, something has changed; i don’t know what it is exactly, or how to explain it, but the only one who is going to steal my records right now is me.

“i wish you’d make up my bed
so i could make up my mind
try it for sleeping instead
maybe you’ll rest sometimes
well i wish i could”

also, there is no end to the love i have for this song, ryan adams, and kcrw’s morning becomes eclectic.

and bury the dust of the failing wisdom

keep art alive; art by alison casson

sleep is often so fleeting. she comes in and kisses my eyelids lightly, pulling me into a watercolor dripping and dizzy sense of a dream. there is always music there, and sometimes i can step my own steps within all of it, wrapping arms around translucent bodies of light, and love. but sleep, she is a transient thing, coming and going with a fevered touch, electric, but so quickly gone. five in the morning, with the darkness still covering each and every spot of the room, i sit within it and contemplate everything from candy flavors, unread book pages, and love. the questions, they hover in the heavy morning air, lighting it up before the sun decides to grace it all with morning.

"there's a shake with the shock
and a gift off with them
they carry the dust of the failing wisdom
for you there's not any warning
for you there's not any warning
and love is five in the morning."

star bodies ~ the new pornographers

she heard the melody rise and fade

keep art alive; art by stella im hultberg

fate is something that invades my thoughts in the very early hours of morning. everything is silent and still, nothing but the twists and turns of memory recall, and the faces that dance across the inside of each eyelid as you close them tight; one more hour, you think, one more moment to slip back into a dream. it is then that i wonder on things like chance and predestination. do we just stumble upon people, bumping into them randomly, sticking to the ones who we catch light off of? or, is there something that pushes us along, leads us to doorways and someday nicknames that a familiar set of eyes and a smile will gift us; someday. when our words spill out with similarity, and synchronicity, is it a chord of connection that we are just discovering, or is it because our paths were designed to eventually cross. the synapse gives off a spark that brings us closer, and it is something like deja vu, or the remnants of a dream. it is something close to a simple twist of fate, isn't it?

"they sat together in the park

as the evening sky grew dark,

she looked at him

and he felt a spark tingle to his bones.

'twas then he felt alone

and wished that he'd gone straight

and watched out for a simple twist of fate."

simple twist of fate ~ jeff tweedy

we learn dances, brand new dances, like a nuclear bomb

how was i not invited to this? trent and peter jamming together? over in the corner, just to the left, would have been me spinning about, getting ridiculously music drunk, and singing along.

and take a little piece of you

his voice is so incredible. and this song, i'm not sure i will ever grow tired of it.

"there is no middle ground
or that's how it seems
for us to walk or to take
instead we tumble down
either side left or right
to love or to hate."

this is one of those songs that i think i'll always be a little swoony over, a little heart-fluttery, a little in love with.

the little girl cried

"on heavenly rain
you fell into my life
unforgettable smile
unforgettable lies
in the name of the cross
or a banner of love
with the hand of a friend
or under a blanket of trust."

summer sun that stayed in the sky well into the night. we kept our skin pale by staying undercover in cars, building alcoves, and beneath the shade of a dozen or so piers. the sound of the ocean and the laughter of kids running across the sand blended in with the flip and switch of every new mixed tape we made. this song, a favorite of yours, became a late summer staple; a permanent record of the love we shared.

you taught me how to trust in the words and hand-holds of a relationship that was built out of an amazing friendship. they say you never forget your first love, or the music that accompanied those first kisses and the eventual heartbreak. i shed more tears over you then i would ever let fall from my eyes again. but, that said, i also experienced more utter bliss then i will ever forget.

this song will always remind me of summer, of sand that never left the floorboards of my car, of fresh oranges cut up and floating in iced tea, of vodka drinks and promises spoken - sometimes honestly, and other times in vain - and of you. i never regretted a single moment of it all, not even having to let you go.

"pull down the old slums
to build the new
pull down the love
i built with you
promise of tomorrow
you never kept
and you try to burn the house down
when i slept
the nation's in disorder
there's chaos in my heart
we've got to get together
before we fall apart."

you didn't bring me here to introduce me to captain oats

growing up in the o.c. i never had a thanksgiving like this. where is my captain oats and seth cohen?

the o.c.

i'm bound to thank you for it

"oh, i want to thank you for so many gifts you gave with love and tenderness,
i wanna thank you
i want to thank you for your generosity, the love and the honesty that you gave me
i want to thank you, show my gratitude, my love and my respect for you,
i wanna thank you."

kind and generous ~ natalie merchant

thank you

be thankful for what you've got: a giving-thanks mix

macy's parade ~ the simpsons
you to thank ~ ben folds
the thanks i get ~ coconut records
thank you ~ chris cornell
thanksgiving day ~ ray davies
and your bird can sing ~ the beatles
be thankful for what you've got ~ yo la tengo
home ~ great northern
november ~ duncan sheik
thanksgiving theme ~ vince guaraldi

thank you ~ alanis morissette
family snapshot ~ peter gabriel
not going home ~ the elected

thanksgiving ~ loudon wainwright iii
thank you friends ~ big star
almost thanksgiving day ~ graham parker
i thank you ~ sam & dave
be thankful for what you got ~ massive attack
ode to my family ~ the cranberries
family tree ~ ben kweller
redemption song ~ johnny cash & joe strummer

she's a volume freak

i remember that this was the first purchase i made at tower records, as an employee. my first night shift was over. while we'd been cleaning the store, and re-stocking/alphabetizing shelves kevin put this song on. i remember he said to me "i knew you'd like that one.", and we became fast, albeit short-lived, friends in that way that music bonds people.

for years this was a stand-by song to put on mixes i made, and i still love it so.

judy staring at the sun ~ catherine wheel and tanya donelly

my show comes back this week!

"maybe you only do get one shot."

nick, october road

someone wrote in red, "start over"

"don't forget what you've learned all you give is returned
and if life seems absurd what you need is some laughter."

cleanse song ~ bright eyes

the little conversations mean everything to me

"...our conversations are never easy, but as i - we - get older, we are all finding that our conversations must be spoken. a need burns inside us to share with others what we are feeling. beyond a certain age, sincerity ceases to feel pornographic. it is as though the coolness that marked our youth is itself a type of retro-virus that can only leave you feeling empty. full of holes."

life after god ~ douglas coupland

without hope or agenda

"enough. enough now.

mark, love actually

there will be distance

keep art alive; art by tara mcpherson

i am tired of not knowing, of second-guessing, of playing this game between us that we have both created. there are a dozen things i tell myself everyday to dissuade the way i feel, to talk myself out of feeling this way, or to just give in and face the facts of what i know is true for me. some days i have a handle on it, i swirl around in my daily routines and i am content in knowing that you are out there somewhere. i know we think on each other often, and that when we touch down and connect all the doubts fly out the window. but, in these in-between moments, on my less than stellar days, the distance feels overwhelming and sad.

"i may not hold you

for as long as forever exists

i may not know you

for as long as the heavens permit

there will be distance

and we'll both have to come to expect

the wild ending of our dark and feathered friends

and we wield the mighty sword

that cuts through bone and lays the liars down

and we wield an angry sword

that softens stone and turns the tides around

so you called me over

and i'll wait by your building tonight

but you may not bother

but it's better than feeding the lie

i am receiving

the message that i need to go

but i'm not leaving

'til one of us surrenders its soul'

'til one of us renders it so"

mighty sword ~ the frames

daisy

"and she doesn't understand," he said. "she used to be able to understand. we'd sit for hours -"

he broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers.

"i wouldn't ask too much of her,"

i ventured. "you can't repeat the past."

"can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "why of course you can!"

he looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

"i'm going to fix everything just the way it was before," he said, nodding determinedly. "she'll see."

he talked a lot about the past, and i gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving daisy. his life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was......

one autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. they stopped here and turned toward each other. now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. the quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. out of the corner of his eye gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees - he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.

his heart beat faster and faster as daisy's white face came up to his own. he knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of god. so he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. then he kissed her. at his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.

through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, i was reminded of something - an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that i had heard somewhere a long time ago. for a moment a phrase tried to shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. but they made no sound, and what i had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

the great gatsby, f. scott fitzgerald

i made up my mind

"after twenty years of carving my name in the wet cement
hand your head down and lament
you won’t find me look around

baby boy, baby boy
don’t follow me
i’m a seed, i’m a seed, i’m a seed
from a dandelion wish
with intent to be big fish
in the sea
in the sea
in the sea."

big fish ~ jesca hoop

it can't be anything like love

"the time to make up your mind about people is never."

tracy lord, the philadelphia story

but you'll never see the end of the road while your traveling with me

keep art alive; art by tara mcpherson

it is strange how it happens, how confusion turns to clarity, as if the stars in the sky suddenly turn into beacons of something close to truth.

i wished for your return for years, it was always that secret longing that i tried to tuck away and scoff at as nonesense, and deny; but in actuality it was you i wished for on stars, and on the toss of coins into various bodies of water. and then one day i did tuck it away, or more honestly i let it go. i had to. you had let me go so long before, and i wanted to live; and, you cannot live an authentic life if your heart is floating out there in the ether, trying to re-attach itself to someone who is now far and away.

and live i have, maybe not happily all the time, but not unhappily all the time, either. i have amazing children and the keenest of friends, i have a career even though i loathe to admit it sometimes, and i have my writing and music. and, i have gone on and let myself really love again.

so, thank you for knocking on my door, and thank you for acknowledging what we meant to you, what i meant to you. and i honestly wish you the best of everything, and i am over here so proud of you for taking these rough steps at self-awareness and healing. but, i cannot be yours anymore.

even though there is a part of me that would love to try, i know that part of me is still wavering in that often alluring sense of nostalgia, and the rest of me - well she is quite happy to be living in the now. and, although it often feels impossible, and although i more than often feel that i falter and fail at it, i am in love.

and, i've given up on love before, it was my protection, and a control issue, and a defense that i learned from the pain of loving you. and no, i don't blame you for it, not at all; i am actually quite grateful for all that you did teach me about love. but, i am not willing to give up on love anymore, either.

love is not disposable, and it is not replaceable either - not even by someone who was once very incredible to me. so, i'm willing to take the tough roads, to not give up even when there are obstacles and doubts, because i still very much believe in love's possibility. i hope you find that for yourself, in this life, too.

thank you, my dear friend, for everything; but i think it is time to say goodbye to who we used to be, and hello to the friends we are meant to be now.

"now i'm walking again to the beat of a drum

and i'm counting the steps to the door of your heart

only shadows ahead barely clearing the roof

get to know the feeling of liberation and relief
hey now, hey now

don't dream it's over."

don't dream it's over (live) ~ neil finn

i know all the wrong turns and stumbles and falls brought me here

"i love you more than i have ever found a way to say to you."

the luckiest ~ ben folds

i need you, i don't need you: a mix

i remember you well: a moody monday at the chelsea hotel mix:

my shadow is a monday ~ lavender diamond

new york ~ stephen fretwell

she left on a monday ~ bic runga

wake up in new york ~ craig armstrong + evan dando

i'm keeping you ~ tanya donelly

keep on loving you ~ reo speedwagon

moody monday ~ damien rice

sweet jane ~ cowboy junkies

lust ~ the raveonettes

new moon on monday ~ duran duran

nothing compares 2 u ~ sinead o'connor

oh me ~ nirvana

daisy ~ ben lee

it's all over now, baby blue ~ bob dylan

ruby, don't take your love to town ~ the killers

chelsea hotel #2 ~ rufus wainwright

blue hotel ~ ryan adams

cleanse song ~ bright eyes

the only living boy in new york ~ simon & garfunkel

monday mix zipped

he doesn't drink coffee

"the lad doesn't say much, and when he does he finds just the right words to crush my soul; of course i'm crazy about him."

joan, playing by heart

there is this list of movies in my head that i love, along with their keen soundtracks, that once upon a time ago i owned and i think i need to get back; this is one of them.

monday shadows

in the spirit of the monday drag, the chinese take-out sitting on my desk, and a sense of restless distraction...how about some questions to contemplate?


1* end of the year coming, and all that, have you made any resolutions? predictions? end of year lists?

2* do you have a current favorite visual image? perhaps something on your desktop, used as an icon or a header on your own blog/journal, or as something tacked up to your wall or ice box, that makes you feel something.

3* what are you currently reading? (books, magazines, papers, blogs, backs of cereal boxes; anything counts).

4* what five songs are you listening to most in the past five days?

5* what is your favorite take-out food?

my shadow is a monday ~ lavender diamond

it really don't matter

i wish that i had the spirit and clarity that you seem to be dangling out to me from threadbare sweaters and well-labeled suit jackets. i'm the one who speaks in lyrics, my friend, since when do you? and you say to me in the simplest of terms that you learned how to love from me, and i laugh because truly i feel clumsy, and a catastrophe, in regards to love. you knew that already, didn't you? but it is never all that simple, is it?

"oh, hold on to me.

i'm gonna get you out

i'm gonna set you free.

to a place that i've heard on the radio.

never sleeps.

i'll get a job in a bar,

you could be a waitress and serve cheap cigars

to fat mustachio men in suits,

you'll look cute.

fuck what they say

fuck it if they talk

it really dont matter.

we're going to new york."

new york ~ stephen fretwell

wake up

wake up in new york
put a comb through your hair
don't you ever want to lie down
when there's no-one else around
i want to say this to you

i know i hurt you
you know you hurt me, too
don't you ever want to lie down
close your eyes and leave the ground?
i want to get hold of you

i'll meet you in new york
by the drugstore on first avenue
and then we will lie down
with the buildings all around

i want to say this to you
i want to say this to you


wake up in new york ~ craig armstrong + evan dando

a reminder to feel and breathe

"they that have power to hurt and will do none,

that do not do the thing they most do show,

who, moving others, are themselves as stone,

unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,

they rightly do inherit heaven's graces

and husband nature's riches from expense;

they are the lords and owners of their faces,

others but stewards of their excellence.

the summer's flower is to the summer sweet,

though to itself it only live and die,

but if that flower with base infection meet,

the basest weed outbraves his dignity:

for sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."

sonnet 94 ~ william shakespeare

undefinable

"some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes.”

tori amos

for my best impression

"don't make me scratch on you door
i never left you
for a banjo
i only just turned around for a poodle
and a corvette
and my impression
of my best angie dickinson
but now i've got to worry
cause boy you still look pretty
when you're putting the damage on."

putting the damage on ~ tori amos

i never left you for a banjo

i think you still remember me as a girl who taught you to drive, and i know i remember you as the boy who helped me learn to trust. i know we still close our eyes and see the kids we were, driving down the coast every other day because we had nothing else to do. back then they all knew us for what we showed them, and you knew how to fit in with anyone and everyone. they all loved you, and as you held my hand i felt bold and brave, and almost healed. you would light my cigarette and laugh at how fast i smoked, kiss my lips and tell me i was beautiful. we were beautiful together.

and i remember that night, twisting up the road in all that fog, you telling me to pull over to the side of the road. i turned to face you and the tears fell, as you half-whispered to me things that night that no one else knew. i took your hands in mine, felt how much you were shaking. and, i showed you my scars then. we traded the stories and let each other breathe them in, and we held each other until we were stronger. i think we sat there for hours, together.

and later, sitting at your extended family's house, we smiled at each other and i knew right then that i loved you with every piece of who i was. yeah, i remember it, of course i do; how could you possibly think i'd forget? but, we were kids, and we have grown. i have learned to breathe and be brave all on my own now, even though i do miss you; i will always miss you.

but, these new things you see, i wonder if it is really me, or just a memory of who i used to be. have i just become a symbol of the things you feel you may have lost? because sometimes the past can be seen that way, a fading black and white image of what came before; and that less then vivid picture can often seem so much better than what is now. she was right, though, when she wrote me that i am tired of being a symbol, and that i just want to be seen as me. once upon a time you saw me as me, more than anyone ever had before. but, i wonder if the only me you see now is that once upon a time me. i'm guilty of it, too. i know i see you as that boy from before, the one that was near impossible to let go of. and perhaps that is the point of this all, to recognize what we meant to each other and say goodbye.

"i'm trying not to move

it's just your ghost

passing through

i said i'm trying not to move

it's just your ghost passing through

it's just your ghost

passing through

and now

i'm quite sure

there's a light in your platoon

i never seen a light move

like yours

can do to me

so now i'm wishing

for my best impression

of my best angie dickinson

but now i've got to worry

cause boy you still look pretty

to me

but i've got a place to go

i've got a ticket to your late show

and now i'm worrying cause even still

you sure are pretty

when you're putting the damage on."

putting the damage on ~ tori amos

promises under the night sky

"o, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, who monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable."

juliet, romeo + juliet

if you weren't real i would make you up

juliet's lament: nights under a poisonous moon: a mix

misguided angel ~ cowboy junkies
falling slowly ~ glen hansard & marketa irglova
all through the night ~ cyndi lauper
california stars ~ wilco
the angels hung around ~ rilo kiley
love will tear us apart ~ joy division
stars fall ~ ceremony
pictures of you ~ the cure
hold on ~ sarah mclachlan
longing town ~ duncan sheik
angel of the morning ~ merriee rush & the turnabouts
brooklyn stars ~ matt pond pa
my moon my man ~ feist
chained to the moon ~ folk implosion
honey & the moon ~ joseph arthur
your ex-lover is dead ~ stars
romeo ~ donna summer
julia ~ the beatles
romeo & juliet ~ the killers

juliet mix zipped

little stars

"give me my romeo; and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."

juliet ~ romeo and juliet

it was just that the time was wrong

"and all i do is miss you and the way we used to be

all do is keep the beat and bad company

all i do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme

julie, i'd do the stars with you any time."

impossible love seems to be a theme of this lifetime, for me. it never used to be this way, or perhaps the impossible aspects of love just hid themselves better, tricked me in the glow of stars and breathless kisses. i used to think it was all just a timing thing, love that came around too early, or too late. i know that i have experienced both scenarios, and neither seem to end well, bits and pieces of what they were (or could have been) lingering in the air like the residue of a half-smoked cigarette still smoldering on the edge of the second to the last step, where i was still sitting, watching you walk away.

i've been told that it is fear of being happy that attracts me to loves that i can never truly have. but, i'd argue that simplisitc explanation, because in those still and silent moments when it is just me and my most vulnerable of truths i do want to be happy, and i do want to be loved. i think it is a deeper thing than fear, and perhaps it is the lessons i learned as a young girl that have skewed love for me; back when i was feeling love for the first time, and the definitions i took from those initial pulses and misfires, they must have had their effect on me. the best of kisses became something stolen back then, passion as a confession of something we were not supposed to want, and love that was interlaced with words like longing and what if and wait. when i think on it, not much has changed, not in terms of love.

i'm not sure why i ever accepted a love that had timing issues, or why i chose to believe that if i waited long enough it would be mine. all that unrequited want and need is hypnotic and inebriating, but no matter how sweet the taste or it - it is poisonous. it slowly destroys who you are. loneliness, in that kind of scenario, cracks and breaks off pieces of your hope, your self regard, and your ability to really live. the outcome is a half-lived life because there is always a part of you waiting for the other person to arrive, to be beside you, to hit the start button to start your real life; the one you have waited for, for so long.

but, what if it never comes? what if it comes some twenty years late? what if, in the process, you forget how to do anything but be in love with something, or someone, you may never be able to have?

"i cant do the talk like they talk on tv

and i cant do a love song like the way its meant to be

i cant do everything but id do anything for you

i cant do anything except be in love with you."

romeo and juliet ~ dire straits

romeo and juliet (live) ~ dire straits

romeo and juliet (cover) ~ the killers

they're so scared of letting me shine

"nobody ever had a dream round here,
but i don't really mind that it's starting to get to me
nobody ever pulls the seams round here,
but i don't really mind that it's starting to get to me

i've got this energy beneath my feet
like something underground's gonna come up and carry me,
i've got this sentimental heart that beats
but i don't really mind that it's starting to get to me now

why do you waste my time?
is the answer to the question on your mind
and i'm sick of all my judges
so scared of what they'll find
But i know that i can make it
as long as somebody takes me home,
every now and then...

well have you ever seen the lights?
have you ever seen the lights?

i took a shuttle on a shockwave ride
where people on the pen pull the trigger for accolades
i took a bullet and i looked inside it
running through my veins an american masquerade

i still remenber grandma dixie's wake
i've never really known anybody to die before
red white and blue upon a birthday cake
my brother, he was born on the fourth of the july...and that's all

why do you waste my time?
is the answer to the question on your mind
and i'm sick of all my judges
they're so scared of letting me shine
but i know that i can make it
as long as somebody takes me home
wooooooo!
(every now and then)
(every now and then)

you know i see London, i see sam's town
holds my hand and let's my hair down
rolls that world right off my shoulder
i see London, i see sam's town now."

and i meant every word i said

keep art alive; art by tara mcpherson

"one of these days we should talk about what happened between us." was the message that was left on my phone, from the boy who broke my heart in ways no one will ever be able to break it again. it is only once that you love in that complete abandon way, when you have not really been hurt by love yet. you can love again, and will love again, but it will never be exactly the way it was that first time.

if i had to guess at how much loving him changed me, or how many things it influenced in my life, i would still be underestimating it. and, i am honestly not being overdramatic, or romanticizing it, at all; it was just that impactful. he was everything to me at that time in my life, and for the most part we loved each other beautifully.

but, it ended, and even though we managed that impossible task of staying friends with one another, it still was over. nothing since has ever been that hard to heal from. i did heal from it, though, and we both went on with our lives. the hardest part was in the knowing that we both still loved each other, but that there were impossible things that we could never overcome.

the details, well they have been thrashed around and most people who know me well have heard it before. things from his past colored who he decided he was, and there was absolutely no way for me to fit into that definition. there are people who would argue it with me, and say that my belief in what we shared was denial, but i was there and i know what i felt; i know what was true.

this all happened years ago, though. before my children and his career. i mean, we were still kids then, even though i know that neither of us ever had much of a childhood. what on earth could be said about it now? is this some kind of rob gordon re-hash of what went wrong in past relationships? is he looking for some kind of closure, when we both know if we do not have it now, we never will have it? is he on the verge of some kind of important life change and wants to understand?

all it would take is a phone call to find out, yet i am scared to death to ring him back. the whole thing makes me feel like that girl i once was, vulnerable and naive. i am not sure what i would even want to say anymore except that i will always love him, though i know i have grown far and away from the girl who believed in us at all. i still remember that night on the beach when they all told me what he couldn't, the way he wouldn't look at me anymore, how much i wanted to just shut my eyes and make it all go away. but, it happened. it is all part of the story of who i am, and i've run it through my head, and written it in and out of pages and prose, i do not know that there exists anything else to say about it.

i am still a girl. he is still a boy who ultimately chose other boys instead of me. i am still the one who had to deal with a rejection that called into question every shred of my feminity, self esteem, and existance. i had to look at all the things we shared and wonder how they could happen at all if i was not even the right gender for him. i had to make peace with who i was, and who he was, and what that meant for who we once were. i do not think i want to pull open those particular scars and scratch at them again.

the last time i saw him it was so surreal. we both were shaky and all nerves. we still could not look at each other some thirteen years later. he took an old photo album of mine, the one that had pictures of us in it, and never returned it. he winced when he saw pictures of my girls, and i winced when he talked about doug. and now four years from that awkward meeting he wants to talk about what happened between us. what could either of us really say?

i could tell him i love him, because i always will. it is impossible to love someone that much and just turn it off completely. it changes, it evolves, it loses hope and becomes something different, but it is still love. and perhaps he would say he loves me, too. but, what will it change?

i will still be the girl i am today who is struggling with her heart, and loving someone else who is equally impossible just not in terms of gender. would it just be a reminder that as much as things change we all stay the same? that i am still misguided when i fall in love, that i do not take enough care in protecting myself when it comes to truth of the heart. or, is there something that could be said that would heal my heart, and wake me up from all that i feel right now, make me either believe that what i want is possible, or cause me to realize i need to let it go?

i suppose all the answers i need are already inside of me, and all i need to do is let myself recognize my own truths. we all already know the answers, don't we? we just have to learn to open ourselves up enough to see.

thanks for the song, andrea. i think tonight i really needed it.

"you should've seen by the look in my eyes, baby

there was somethin' missin'

you should've known by the tone of my voice, maybe

but you didnt listen

you played dead

but you never bled

instead you lay still in the grass

all coiled up and hissin'

and though i know all about those men

still i dont remember

cause it was us baby, way before them

and were still together

and i meant,

every word i said

when i said that i love you i meant

that i love you forever."

keep on loving you ~ r.e.o. speedwagon