Do you remember our first Derby? I do. I remember you tying my red tie in only the most proper of ways, before dipping down to kiss me on my forehead, filling my nostrils with just a bit of Arpège, and saying, “D’accord, mon cher! Allez-y!”
Do you remember all of those end-of-summer trips in Vail? I do. I remember you taking me shopping in all of the little boutiques, lunching with me as if I were an adult when I was only fourteen years old, and speaking to me of your next great literary project. (And asking me about mine.)
Do you remember the only time you and I ever shared martinis and cigarettes? In our favorite cafe in Evanston? I do. I remember being shocked that you ordered a martini and asked to share my cigarette. I remember your words to me, “I cannot believe you inherited your father’s eyes and his hair. You so should have my hair. But those eyes, mon cher, those eyes will one day make someone fall in love with you. Just like they did to me.”
I may not have your hair. But I have your spirit. And your love. And your joie de vivre.
And this is why, every once in a while, I need to thank you for bringing me into this beautiful, crazy, messed up world.
You, Sir, are a fucking asshole. I took two buses to get to Indigo, called you way too many times, and wound up sitting at the bar with my thumb up my ass, thanks for nothing, hope you had a great night…
I have been in this situation before, on the receiving end, of arriving at a bar / club / lounge / etc. to meet someone for the first time, and no one shows up. I made the requisite one phone call to check on his whereabouts and let him know that I had arrived. I perhaps became angry for about a minute. And then I began making friends around the bar. Much like I did last night, while I was waiting for a new friend to meet me at Indigo.
All right, I double-booked. That was rude. I admit that. But compare (as I do) the engaging conversation I was having with my new friend in The Green Room to the admittedly lacking conversation I had with this other fellow via mobile (e.g., “How are you? What did you do today?” “Just worked out.” *long pause* “Um ok and how was that?” “Tiring.” *long pause* “Ok then! What did you have for lunch?”), and I do not think anyone would fault me for missing his seventeen calls and three text messages. (Also? It’s The Green Room. You can’t hear shit in there after five o’clock, let alone your Gwen Stefani ring tone.)
Yes, the whole going-out-of-your-way-to-meet-someone thing is a pain. And, yes, you get pissed off if it does not work out. But there are fantastic people to meet at the bar (like I did, a lovely graduate student who was meeting friends who were far too late for her celebratory soirée) if said someone does not show up.
(Also, it helps to be at least vaguely interesting to begin with.)
So, I apologize, Two Buses To Indigo, for missing your calls and text messages and everything else. However, the text of your email reminds me why I do not like dating in general: the inability to deal with the changes that life may sometimes throw you, the inability to just flow with said changes, the idea that I would ever hook up with someone who would sit at a bar with his “thumb up his ass”, and profanity.
“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid.
Because I’m not myself, you see.”
“Oh, my fur and whiskers!”
It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul.
— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland.
At some point following the ecstatic professional news of Friday that I received (see below) and the depression I felt immediately following any Kentucky Derby after which a horse (particularly a talented filly) is euthanized (also, see below), I was in somewhere of the middle of finally archiving all of my legacy files onto my new laptop yesterday afternoon (still again, see below) when I realized that I had not been updating my blog with actual, true, real-life events. I had really only been focusing on self-imposed writing projects about ghosts and random vehicular accidents throughout the month of April, and not allowing the seven people who (may…who knows, at this point?) still read this thing glimpses into what is occurring in my real life. (I was depressed throughout most of the month of April, which is either deeply humorous or deeply ironic or both, considering that my newly-discovered natal chart is just filthy with the baby of the zodiac, i.e., Aries, who rules April. Consequently I kept most of my life updates confined to daily [hourly?] Tweets, since that rather concise context generally forces me to be more upbeat and positive regarding what I am writing about my life.) Anyway, apologies to any who just happened to stumble upon this via a Google search for “Small Dicks” or “Sideways Vaginas” (thank you so much, WordPress and Google, for maintaining that as my absolute and consistently number-one post, along with the anal rape post, which actually has nothing to do with anal rape); this is not a titillating entry, but instead, one with actual real (and potentially boring, if you do not know me) content.
To put all of this in a far more succinct way: consider this a random update.
So. Yet another horse wins the Kentucky Derby who was given a rather unfortunate name by his owner. Does the name “Big Brown” not convey unfortunate visual images of bowel movements to everyone who hears it, or is it just me? I mean, seriously, people, that is as bad of a name for a horse as “Rock Hard Ten” was way back in 2004. Can the owners at least try to preserve some of their horses’ integrity with their names while said horses are beating themselves up to win the race under tiny South American / Irish jockeys so that said owners can win the purse? I liked the ring of “Adriano,” myself, for my pick. (I also fancied his pedigree, obviously.) I also rather fancied the lilt of “Eight Belles” (Hillary Clinton’s official pick, by the way), and was sorry to see her (Eight Belles, not Hillary Clinton) shot down with two broken front ankles at the end of the race. It would have been nice to see the fourth filly win the Derby. However, as usual, I pick based on name, on pedigree, and on…emotion. And, as usual, it did not work out. But hey, Big Brown Bowel Movement, also as usual I am stepping up to your gate for The Preakness Stakes in two weeks and I will be demanding of you, shitty name or not, to give me a Triple Crown Winner. Actually not stepping up to the gate directly behind you, due to your namesake and an irrational fear of potentially being splashed with something, but still, I will be with you anyway, in spirit, as I am with all Derby winners, defecating name or not, in hopes that you will be our next Secretariat. As The Triple Crown Of Horse Racing is really now one of my few remaining pleasures in life (in addition to Marlboro Reds, cocktail hour, and my weekly tai chi chuan class, and doesn’t that all read particularly incongruously?!), you have certainly got to give me that.
Wow but there were a lot of excrement references and run-on sentences in that passage. I apologize ever so much.
I acquired a new laptop! I am still getting used to using the “pointing device” (hey, isn’t that usually called a “finger?!”), but I will learn because it is a beautiful thing with lots of memory that I will probably need in about fourteen days after I have finished archiving all of my legacy files and it has a built-in web cam. (Yes, I recently popped my web cam cherry. So odd that I waited until 2008 to do it, n’est-ce pas?) Also, I have returned to paying attention to my online presence because of this acquisition, for your information. This may or may not mean that I update, in some online area, on a daily basis. It also may or may not mean that I do this consistently. In either case, it is a beautiful piece of Pacific Blue hardware, and I am digging it rather appropriately. In my studio, at my local Starbucks, at the beach, et al.
(Did I mention that I defected from Mac to PC? *hangs head in abject shame* I felt super horrible about it when I met my Pseudo Big Sister for drinks and pupus earlier this week and we both pulled out our laptops to play. They were both sexy, of course, but they were both definitely what they were: an Apple and a PC. “Why did you defect to Apple, Darling?!” I inquired, scandalized. “Because of you!” she replied, mildly chastising, gesturing with a glance toward my own laptop. “Hmmm,” I replied, smiling crookedly, “funny how that happens, isn’t it? I defect to PC, and you and several other people in my life finally defect to Apple. Oh, well. What are we ordering?” As you can see, this really is not a big deal for me, someone who has worked on both forever, even though I have never personally owned anything but an Apple since my very first Apple IIe when I was a babe, but this is a story for another entry. Yes, I have a PC. Deal with it.)
I acquired a new mobile, as well (obviously it matches the new laptop in color). If you have been trying to get in touch with me and not reaching me, this is probably why. Get me your number in some fashion and that will be resolved, if you should like.
Attending, officially, The Third Annual Seed Conference in Chicago on 06 June 2008, so anyone who happens to be there should hit me up for a tour around my old hometown. As I am only there for, like, a day, really, subtracting the five thousand hours that it takes to fly from HNL to, well, anywhere, really, if you want to hang it had better be a good suggestion. I already have personal items such as “those cinnamon rolls for breakfast at the Belmont Ann Sather’s that make me ejaculate” and “that sausage pizza pie at Gino’s East that makes me ejaculate” and “finally see if I die on virgin voyage on that ferris wheel thing at Navy Pier” and “visit your Winnetka beach at sunset and try to remember exactly how you felt the first time you saw it while growing up” on my list for the day and a half that I am there, so you had best be quick and creative with your suggestions. Of course, I am most excited about the conference; it sounds like a wonderful experience.
And, yes, archiving legacy files. The Painter, when he heard of this endeavor three days ago, and heard what I was uncovering, remarked warily, “Oh dear! Is this going to mean another Camille-esque period of weeping and isolation?” Much to my surprise, I replied, “No. Actually. I am smiling a lot.”
I was even able to help out my Pseudo Big Sister with a writing project with which she had been tasked by her latest romantic interest. I loved writing it because I know her like the back of my hand and because from what she told me of the gentleman I knew I could pull out all stops, writing like I used to write, to all of my own previous lovers, and (because it was for her lover, and not mine) be completely uninhibited. I recycled a lot of words, from a lot of different sources. But if they were once irresponsibly used on one (or more) man (men?) in my life, who is to say that they might not be, this time, used responsibly on another man, in someone else’s life?
And I rather fancied that possibility.
I want us to both become confident of our connection to each other, to become intimately trusting of one another. I want us to spend our lives together, to share each other’s experiences, dreams, families. I want to fall asleep with you late at night, with your arms around me, holding me close, and keeping me safe, and wake up with you in the morning in the same pose, so that the safety of your strong arms sends me on through my day and gives me confidence that I could never stand taller in the world but with you beside me. I want to be the woman who greets you when you arrive home at the end of the day, with a kiss and an embrace and all of the adoration that I can give you, to show you how much you mean to me. I want to be that woman who is there for you, no matter what. I want you to be that man who is there for me, no matter what. I want to grow old with you. I want to sit with you on a lanai in the light of the setting sun twenty years from now, caress your hand, and whisper, “Stay with me forever?” And hear you whisper in reply, “Babe. I think we’re already there.” I want to be in love. With you. Stand still. With you. Jump into the abyss. With you. Forever.
Feeling so free to write these words (again, heavily borrowed from my own archives and from those of writers far more talented than myself), allowed me to step out of my current cynical, jaded world of love and romanticism, and to just…feel the…object…of the affection. Of course it also prompted me to send an e-Greeting to her from my new favorite e-Card site.
(As I am rather sure that she and I would both be doing that, even for her own, or “my own,” wedding.)
I smiled when she called me the morning after she read it to him, to tell me how much he loved it. I smiled while on the way to my tai chi chuan class later that morning. And I smiled, most definitely, when I received the next call on my mobile that announced that I had (FINALLY, right?!) been offered The Perfect Job: as a Marketing Designer for one of the largest financial institutions in The Islands.
And that, my friends, is how one navigates the heights of The Twin Spires, the depths of The Abyss, and back again, over the space of four days.
For as much as I am a naturally pessimistic crab, I am still, I realize, so much the optimist in terms of life, career, and…love.
And, only sometimes, in whatever way (vicarious or not), they all work out.
And make me smile a lot, unprompted, while walking through the sunlit streets of Downtown Honolulu, like a mindless, lunar idiot.
Post Script: Also, discovered that one of my favorite editors (and highly-respected writers) of my past is publishing yet another fantastic novel this year. Read it. It promises to be…infinite. (His mastery of syntax is epic.) I’ll leave you with a short teaser visual of the words. They remind me rather a lot of how I feel about this blog.
Try to squeeze a puddle of mercury in your hand. What happens? It dissolves immediately into hundreds of sparkling silver balls that quickly escape through your tightly clenched fingers. One Gemini man whose wife thought she knew him very well wrote the following lines just before he left her, and she found them among his papers after the divorce:
“Into the dream you came
And across the soft carpet of my reverie you walked
With hobnail boots…”
You’ll often read or hear it said that Geminis must always have two loves at once. This Gemini duality, hinting at deception, is so frequently mentioned, it may cause unfounded anxiety. May I modify that description? A Gemini needs two loves. Not necessarily two women [or men]. That’s a riddle. If you truly understand him, you’ll know the answer to it.
We were sitting on the launch at Port Hilton, several days after the cab incident, sipping alarmingly over-sugared Café Americanos, and laughing. I was smoking.
It was twilight.
I looked behind us, toward the beach. Heard an Israel Kamakawiwo’ole song being played liltingly, wistfully, by a Hilton Hawaiian Village band. Started. Looked sideways. And stopped.
Smiled.
“Are you all right?” she asked, laughter in her voice.
I took a moment, collected myself, and turned toward her. “Yes,” I said. “I am. I just now realized that I haven’t been out on the water at night since…well, since Him.”
“You looked like you were Having A Moment,” she said. “Was it a good one?”
“Yes,” I said, a note of genuine surprise in my voice, turning to her with green eyes shining and smiling.
“I think,” I remarked, gazing at two men on the shore splashing each other with water from the blue-gray Pacific, “I think I’m over Him.”
“Good!” she exclaimed. “Shall we go? More coffee?”
“Yes,” I replied, taking her arm to help her up.
We walked along the launch, toward the beach.
My little ten-day exercise in vanquishing demons and laying the ghosts of relationships past to rest did not turn out exactly as I had imagined. By the end of those ten days, I had not succeeded in vanquishing or exorcising anything; I had merely gathered the demons and ghosts around me for a sort of ghoulish reunion. I began to think, by the end of those ten days, that I really did not have anything to exorcise; that, if I did end up exorcising any of those ghosts of relationships past, I would not be remaining true to my nature. The author and astrologer Linda Goodman once wrote of those born under the sign of The Crab, “Cancerians have such control of imagery, and their moods are so intense, they can make you feel them, too. Their imagination seizes joy and despair, horror and compassion, sorrow and ecstasy, and holds each emotion fast with a retentive memory. Like mirrors and cameras, they absorb images and reflect them faithfully. Every experience is engraved on the heart as a photograph is etched on a negative plate. They never forget any of the lessons life has taught them.” And none of that would really be possible if I did not have all of my demons and ghosts. So I did not vanquish them, nor exorcise them. I am just kind of allowing them to hang around. To remind me of how even the shortest of relationships can inspire you to love again. To remind me of how giving and compassionate a man can be, just when he is needed the most, in post-operation recovery from emergency surgery, throughout the long, blinded night. And to remind me of just how beautiful the beach and the ocean at night once used to be, when shared with a friend, even if the friend did, eventually, dissolve immediately into hundreds of sparkling silver balls that quickly escaped through my tightly clenched fingers.
And frankly, I certainly need to hold my relationship demons and ghosts close to me if only to remember which signs of the zodiac never to fall in love with again!
“Midnight stroll through Waikiki?” she inquired.
“Yes,” I said, taking her arm and smiling widely.
I looked back at the beach, now behind us. Saw two thin men playing in the water, one tall and dark, one short and fair. Saw the fair one glance back at me before clutching the dark one’s arm and dragging him into the water. Heard, again, the Kamakawiwo’ole song reverberating off of the water.
“Ready?” she inquired.
“Yes,” I replied.
And returned the flirtatious wave the blond man gave to me, before slouching, ghosts and all, into the depths of the Waikiki evening.
She had to wait for the next car. A feeling gripped her like the one she had had on getting ready to go into the water when bathing; she crossed herself. The familiar gesture of making the sign of the cross evoked in her mind a whole series of memories from childhood and girlhood, and suddenly the gloom, that hid everything from her broke, and, for a second, life appeared to her with all its bright past joys. But she didn’t take her eyes off the wheels of the second car, which were coming nearer. And just at that moment, when the middle point between the wheels drew level with her, she flung aside the red handbag and drawing her head down between her shoulders she fell underneath the car on her hands, and with a light movement, as though she were preparing to get up again at once, she sank to her knees. And just at this moment she was horror-struck by what she was doing. Where am I? What am I doing? Why? She tried to get up, to throw herself back, but something huge and implacable struck her on the head and dragged her down. “Lord, forgive me for everything!” she murmured, feeling the impossibility of struggling… A little peasant was working at the rails muttering something to himself. And the candle by which she had been reading that book that is filled with anxiety, deceit, sorrow, and evil flared up with a brighter flame than ever before, lighted up everything for her that had previously been in darkness, flickered, dimmed, and went out forever.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
I remember, years ago, following Bartholomew out of Bar 35 after three dollar pau hana beers and gourmet pizza, on Hotel Street in Downtown Honolulu, the short legs of my 5′9″ frame unable to allow me to dash as quickly across the street as those of his 6′1″ frame allowed him to do. I missed my bus. And heard a sharp, high-pitched whistle that I just knew was directed at me. It was. From one of HPD’s Finest. Because the new jaywalking law had just been laid down. And I had done just that, crossing against the light.
I crossed the street, obediently, and on my light, so that he could talk to me. “I’m only warning you right now, brah, but you’ll get a citation next time, yah?” I refrained from remarking to him that it was a Friday evening on Hotel Street and everyone was already inebriated and besides, I am from New York anyway, and am therefore accustomed to jaywalking with frequency and adroitness. “You know,” he continued, “you get hit by a Bus?! That’s, like, two tons coming at you and you’re, what? 120 pounds?”
I smiled at that remark. Warmed to it. (I was 140 at the time.)
“You’d be smashed, brah!” he scolded me. “So don’t do that again!”
I assured him that I would not, and went on my way.
I never jaywalked after that.
So it was quite a shock to me when I was escorting my little sister across Bethel Street at King Street, making sure to visually confirm that we had a firm white walk light before entering the street, a cab turned the corner and, full speed, nearly (no, did) run us over in the middle of the street.
She chides me to this day for wanting to take blame for the accident, for flagellating myself over not being on the street side while walking with a woman (particularly her), for being so in my own head regarding ghosts and demons that I could not even quickly dial 911 (an amazingly handsome and apparently CPR-trained Good Samaritan did that for us), nor effectively snap a camera phone image of the offending taxi’s plate (I memorized the characters, instead).
But I was, I believe, uncharacteristically “Butch” throughout the incident. Following the impact of this fast-moving steel into our thin bodies, the crushing of her body between the vehicle and my own, me clutching her to attempt to keep her from falling to the pavement, or, worse, under the car itself, I yelled at the driver, “WE HAD THE LIGHT!” collected my little sister’s right shoe that had fallen off, and, with the assistance of the amazingly handsome and apparently CPR-trained Good Samaritan, moved her out of the middle of Bethel Street and onto the sidewalk.
“YOU!” I screamed at the cab driver. “YOU pull over RIGHT NOW and WAIT RIGHT THERE!”
And that is all I was able to do, aside from making my little sister’s fur-lined jacket into a pillow, and stroking her hair until the ambulance arrived.
HPD’s Finest arrived first, and I could have sworn one of them was the same officer who scolded me for jaywalking on Hotel Street. He handed me a piece of paper and said, “Please fill this out.”
I had two thoughts. One: “You actually expect me to WRITE right now?! Can you SEE how badly I am SHAKING?!” Two: “Is this ALL THE SPACE YOU GIVE FOR A POLICE REPORT?! It’s not enough! Can you just check my blog tomorrow?!” But I didn’t utter either of those thoughts. I merely began filling it out while keeping an eye on my little sister, being strapped into a neck brace and a steel board.
As is usual during heated moments like this, one’s cell phone blows up. Former colleagues, Non-Boyfriends across The Pacific, etc. I fielded them all while attempting to complete my version of what had occurred.
“Atherton?!” I heard her query, voice quivering with worry, as the EMTs were lifting her into the ambulance. And I knew what she was asking.
“I’m right here, Baby,” I said. “I’m riding in front.”
Thankfully, she is fine. She even managed to voice blog and photo blog her entire experience in the entire experience. She even managed to remark, upon emerging from her triage room, when she hugged me, “You smell so good!” making me release the stress and worry of the evening in a burst of spontaneous laughter.
I, however, will never forget the meeting of flesh and vehicle; not unlike the experience of Anna, with her train (well, with one rather obvious difference). It is a powerful force: that sense of helplessness one faces when confronted, with no armor, with the onslaught of a speedily-moving vehicle.
Two tons.
Against 140 (or 120…or 110) pounds of flesh and bone.
As she and I and her little sister and friend exited the emergency room, I looked back over my shoulder to the waiting room where I had sat for several hours. And I saw a blond man sitting there, clutching the hand of a raven-haired gentleman, and pleading, “Please stay with me. Please?”
“Pretty much,” I agreed, ashing my Marlboro and inhaling deeply.
“Wow,” he replied, sighing, “when you two go out, you really go out!”
I laughed, as an HPD cruiser’s siren four blocks over ominously shattered the stillness of the Downtown streets.
Epigraph
The great actress and woman Lauren Bacall once noted, "Memory is a precious commodity, not to be tampered with, not to be rejected. We have to be glad of its existence, for it keeps alive those special people — the moments, the places, the feelings." I like to think of this blog as an exercise in perpetuating precisely those sentiments.
The Most Recent Comments