Nostalgia

I think back to my past relationships with rose colored glasses. This perspective isn't totally unrealistic though. I'm able to appreciate my past separated from my old pain. The memories are sweet. I can listen to records associated with old boyfriends without having to skip tracks.

This isn't to say that I am free from sad thoughts, but certain individuals have transformed from something to pine over to something that I fondly remember.

Patience

My ability to be patient is high right now.

Man on the train

My favorite passenger got on the L taraval bus today. I don't know who he is. I never talk to him. He is an older business man, maybe in his mid-40's, but he's so handsome to me. I admire him from afar.

And he looks just like someone I slept with in the past. He has salt and pepper hair, big brow bones, and a diminutive chin. He is tall, scrawny, and his lean stature makes the bones in his face very prominent.

I want to kiss his cheeks, nibble on his ears, and run my hands in his hair. It's utterly innappropriate. My far out fantasties have us exit the train to find a hotel, or just a park bench where I would make out with him in a shameful fury. Until now, I'll just admire the veins and bones in his hands while he refolds the paper to read the comics.

My dream from this morning.

In the dream, I am trying to sleep in my twin bed with my co-workers and Sam. Sam and I lay next to each other. We chatted pillow talk and giggled next to each other's heat. It is a soft warm girly feeling that I am having in the dream.

Later, Sam and I are watching television, clutching thighs and laughing. He turns his head to me and puts his hand over his mouth. He whispers, "I love you"

I am taken aback and surprised to hear such words come out of his mouth. Sam wouldn't ever say such a thing to me. I safely reply "I care about you very much and if you ever need me, I'm there for you." It was a happy feeling.

Flash forward in the dream. I discover that in my sleep I have I sent an email titled "Hot Chocolate" to him. There is an Olsen Twin on the television (You think I would know at this point that it is a dream). I am horrified with the content of the email. I think the email recounted my dream and was sent to the real life Sam. At this point, I am lucidly dreaming, afraid that the real world has discoverd my fantasies.

I remember this dream feeling particularly like one I had in high school about a boy named Nicholas Holsopple. Utter fufillment followed by tragedy, a faster and more sublime version than that in real life.

Handsome

The meaning of handsome. What constitutes rugged male beauty? not from a romance novel perspective, but from a loving female perspective. What makes the mystique of attraction for me?

Merriam Webster says this:

handsome
One entry found for handsome.
Main Entry: hand·some
Pronunciation: 'han(t)-s&m
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): hand·som·er; -est
Etymology: Middle English handsom easy to manipulate
1 chiefly dialect : APPROPRIATE, SUITABLE
2 : moderately large : SIZABLE
3 : marked by skill or cleverness : ADROIT
4 : marked by graciousness or generosity : LIBERAL
5 : having a pleasing and usually impressive or dignified appearance
synonym see BEAUTIFUL
- hand·some·ly adverb
- hand·some·ness noun

so that would be sizable, clever, gracious, and both pleasing, and dignified in appearance.

i love the word handsome. i much prefer it to beautiful. it's so much more of a solid word.

active examples for me are

romain duris
gael garcia bernal

for me handsome is a smoky quality. i am driven to extremes by dark hair and radiant skin.

here are visual examples.

The lovely Romain Duris, the rugged Peter Krause, the big eyes and imposing jaws of Gael Garcia Bernal.

But beyond imposing bone structures and large eyeballs, something else makes a man rugged, makes a man attractive.

Obviously, this is attitude. It is not utterly composed of confidence. Aloof is too cold of a word.

It's a distinctive attitude that makes the difference. I fall for distinctive personalities.

This would be why someone like Jonathan Richman or David Byrne rises to the same ranks as the above mentioned pretty boys.

Attitude makes imperfect features into platonic features. All of a sudden Owen Wilson's crooked nose is perfect.

Flawed and therefore perfect. We don't want the objects of our attraction to be too perfect. Being too perfect would be an even greater flaw than any literal flaws. We want the objects of our attraction to be ideal, but always human.

Writing About Love

It's much easier to write about love in hindsight. We are unsafe in speaking about the present and the future. Decisions can be made about the past to little effect.

I often question the ethics of what I consider writing publicly. I've written things, reconsidered, and then destroyed/deleted the entry. Would the person this is about be hurt if they read it? Would they ever find it? How will it affect me if I were to discuss this material with the persons involved?

One encounters the same problems in writing auto-biographically about anyone close to them whether it be family, friends, co-workers, or lovers. When one gives writing to an audience one expects an effect, even if it is only a subtle reaction on the part of the author.

I want to write honestly and openly, but matters of harm often prevent me from being truly honest. When I say harm, I include the possible harm I may do to myself in publicizing my opinions, the decisions I may make in the text that I might regret later.

Dear Love

I'm giving up on you for now.

Love,
Me

Self-Respect and Selection

I've been meaning to make a post for a really long time. I've been thinking a lot about the meaning of self-love and self respect. There is a beautiful essay by Joan Didion I read a few weeks ago on the topic. The power of the idea we have of ourselves in affecting our behavior and perspective.
It's a hard thing to carry. Sometimes, it just happens. One has a firm idea of who they are, and little regret alongside of it. Sometimes, it is a struggle.

I've also been thinking about the process of selection. Selection as a service. I am sure this relates to love in some way. Our ability to love. Most immediatley, our available energy to love is given to selection, and the process of selection can be a loving one. It all boils down to choices.

Choosing to love ourselves. Choosing what parts of ourselves to love, and those parts that we choose to ignore to make it easier to love what we have embraced.

I wanted to read books yesterday

This was a good sign. This represented a desire outside of my loneliness. This showed me having focus and interest. I was pleased. The weather was beautiful.

Books on the agenda:

1. Joan Didion - A Year of Magical Thinking
2. Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
3. Zadie Smith - On Beauty
4. Joan Didion - Whatever book "Goodbye to All That" was excerpted from
5. Something by Paul Auster
6. On Bullshit
7. . . .

Deft reflections

"In a world where God died a hundred years ago and computers, not oracles, predict the future, romantic fatalism veers dangerously toward mysticism."

"Through romantic fatalism, we avoid the unthinkable that the need to love is always prior to our love for anyone in particular."

-- Alain de Boton, On Love

Love means

taking away the safety net.

You Cannot Wrestle a Dove

I lost my wallet that day. Stressed out and irritated, I rode my bike from my friend Taya's house on one end of SE Portland to a party I'd been invited to on the other side of Southeast.
At the party, I saw Jon from far away noting two things: He was beautiful, and two, he looked like trouble. A boy so pretty that you knew immediately you could either never have him, or that if you had him, he would break your heart.
Tight pants, thick brown sweepy hair, and giant pink lips aching to be flicked with a pinky finger.
We were introduced, "This is Jon."
"I hate you."
"Why do you hate me?"
"I just do."

Dear God, he was flirting with me.

A concert later, a party later, we twisted warmly together. So sweet, tender, and naive. So much wanting to feel and experience love, I hurled myself into the possibility. I was smitten without hope.

After three weeks, I become high strung wondering what was happening. I tried to discuss the matter with him. I only wanted a little assurance as in "hey, I dig you too, and let's keep hanging out," but later that night, Jon said it,

"I love you."

I was lying on top of him when he said it, and he had whispered it in my ear. It was like someone cut a slit in his face where his mouth was, and this little bird flew out. It was caught in the room. Neither of us knew what to do with it as it flew back and forth, hitting the walls. I wanted it to be good, so I caught it, and decided to keep it. It was the first time I believed in it.

I don't know what he was trying to do then. I wanted those words LATER. I think he wanted to latch onto the idea of loving someone just as much as I did. Use those three words to solve all problems. He wanted to experiment with loving me, and being the innocent, naive girl that I was (and mostly still am), I went along for the ride, hoping it meant so much more than it ever did.

Obviously, the shiny luster faded, our youthful vigor faded towards one another. Chalked up to infatuation, desire, and lust. One could even say puppy love, but this experience still hurts me to remember. It was the first time I believed, and I ended being shown as nothing but a pure fool.

Re-Statement of Romance by Wallace Stevens

Re-Statement of Romance

The night knows nothing of the chants of the night
It is what it is as I am what I am
And in perceiving this I best perceive myself

And you. Only we two may interchange
Each in the other what each has to give.
Only we two are one, not you and night,

Nor night and I, but you and I, alone
So much alone, so deeply by ourselves,
So far beyond the casual solitudes

That night is only the background of our selves,
Supremely true each to its separate self
In the pale light that each upon the other throws.

Love Over Time, Love makes History, History makes Love

In the middle ages before the era of courtly love, love was conceived of as a relationship shared between man (or woman) and god, a strictly religious endeavor. This can be seen in the Shewings of Julian of Norvich, and the Book of Margory Kempe. Two texts that depict women in LOVE with God, seeing god as their husbands, going into ecstatic states akin to sexual orgasm over their feelings.

At this point sex between human men and women was often referred to "the debt of mariage." A chore to be performed with your spouse, but not something that would inspire emotion or affectation. I can see this a trickled down perspective from the greeks who found love between men as a sensitive, visceral experience, but love between men and women as generally more focused on procreation.

With the dawn of the Renaissance, the notion of courtly love evolved, thereby creating what we generally think of when the terms love and romance are tossed around. The term originating obviously from the idea of "courting," the wooing of young royal women that would occur in the courtyards of royal palaces, and exagerrated in the sonnets of Shakespeare. Courtly love, (exemplified in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde) portrayed heterosexual mating as a vehicle to transcend our earthly experience, and bring our consciosnesses closer to God.

The courtly notion of romance, characterized by fay passive women, being wooed by charismatic and clever gentleman remained. In the 18th and 19th century, parlor culture arose in Western society. Groups of women and men would gather in the salon or parlor of homes, and socialize. Seen most vividly in the novels of Jane Austen. In these novels, women dominate the enclosed sphere of the home, and men enter into their space causing change. Women await the attentions and power of men as lynchpins toward action. Women are the static bodies, and men are the kinetic ones. Balance and happiness achieved through union of the two extremes.

I'm not making a point but trying to explore the movement. I'm sure that many of these points have already been documented especially in Foucault's "History of Sexuality."

The victorian era also saw an increased focused on emotional and sexual repression, valorizing stoicism and celibacy. I need to do some more reading as to discern the origin of this movement. Obvious influences are Christian puritanism, but it can't possibly be that simple.

I have to get back to work but I hope to write more on this later.

First Humiliation

It was the first time I stayed the night at his house. I was 17. He was 19. He lived with his mother.
We had been fooling around in his bed, and it was late. We settled in for bed. He got up to go to the bathroom. He went for the door to the hallway naked. "Wait," I said, "Aren't your going to put some clothes on? Your mother might come out into the hall?"
"I'll be fine," he insisted, and he exited the room. I heard him go into the bathroom, and sure enough as he left the bathroom, I heard his mother come out of her room. "Andy, The noise from your room, it sounds like static. I can't sleep. Can you try to be more quiet. What?! Put some clothes on!"
I wanted to die. I clutched the covers and curled into the fetal position. I was mortified. The noise was obviously the bed, and his mother just saw him standing buck naked in her hallway with a girl in his room.
Andy returned to the bedroom, and got into bed. I could barely look at him. I was so embarrased. He tried to be affectionate with me, and I refused, not budging from my curled position. My refusal upset him very much, and he started to cry. He was like "What's the big deal?" My humiliation made me insensitive and resentful towards him. I wouldn't be touched, and his weeping did little to soften my feeling toward him. I wish I could have disappeared in that moment.

Goo

"I love David Lynch." That was the first thing we allowed each other to say. We didn't want to throw the phrase around. We agreed to resist saying the simple three word phrase of infamy. We talked on the phone everyday, for hours. I was 15, and had been messaged by Matt after he read my poems and stories in an "ezine" that I had uploaded into a "zine forum" on AOL SPIN online. My zine was called either "Oddball" or "Peculiar." I can't remember which.
Matt introduced me to Jack Kerouac. We read the poems that we wrote back and forth to each other; his poems were abstract, symbolic, and laden with pop culture figures, and possessed a rhythm I envied, and my poems were always more sincere and heartfelt. 2 hours at a time talking about the cure, and sex. We were always discussing our sexual habits although neither of us had ever seen one another, being burgeoning horny adolescents. We were dependable voices on the other end of the line.
"I love David Lynch" transformed into "Goo"(a la Sonic Youth, no connection to any form of baby talk. We were mixing our love of pop culture with the affection we felt in conversation). The phrase was shortened for ease, and "Goo" had a better punch to the tongue. Our previous phrase of affection was too cumbersome, and ridiculous to say. I don't remember when it happened, but one day it hit and there was no more need for code words anymore. It was the first time I heard the phrase "I love you" from a boy. I think I've heard it from 5 boys, and I can only count 2 circumstances where I felt it has mattered in retrospect. My long telephone conversations with Matt are definitely one of the two.

Gum Traders

I followed him around at lunch time. He wore a bright puffy winter coat, and we would sit outside the cafeteria, eating tater tots from a paper cup, and pizza wrapped in a plastic bag, steam condensing on the inside. I liked to hear him talk and stare into his black curly hair, note his smooth skin and wide features. Of course, in 7th grade, I didn't think about it that way at all.
I'd call him on the phone. He'd tell me about science fiction stories late at night. I'd lie on the floor with ear glued to phone in the dark in my parent's or sister's room on school nights. We talked about Nirvana, and our favorite books, our ideal mates.
We were "rockers." With such a title interests included: our collection of band t-shirts, our cassette tape collections, our distaste for that which was not rock, and a new found identity in being outside and different than everyone else in our jr. high, digging the latest hip hop jams on the radio. Our friends wrote "Rap is Crap" on their backpacks in white out.
The rockers found their lunchtime home in the middle of the athletic field. We stood in a circle talking non-sense. We believed that we didn't care what people thought of us. We were rockers. People thought he was crazy, and that I was a lesbian, because of my short hair.
We wanted to show everyone how much we didn't care. One day, we decided to trade gum to show our disregard for germs. We started by spitting it into one another's mouth, aiming from afar. Within minutes, the gap between us closed, and with our friends chanting, egging him on, "Do it! Kiss her!" our lips met, my first french kiss. We pushed the gum back and forth in one another's mouth with our tongues. His mouth and tongue were broad, and I remember the motion seemed to happen so naturally.

Firsts

The month of April will be a month of firsts on my blog, a series of posts about first experiences. For all of us who feel that we are at the beginning.

So what is the first first? Do I start with physical contact, the first time a hand was slid underneath clothing, or infatuation, the first time that dominos fell in the mind to trigger those marquis flashing lights that "Yes! I am attracted to this person," or most traditionally kissing, the first time two lips met to feel the heat of the other person's lips and the strange wetness of another's mouth, like slugs groping in the dark?

encouraging accquiesence and discouraging struggle

For me there is always a huge dark line between that which I know is real, and how I feel towards the veritable elements of my life.

Knowing and feeling on a most base level, and their split. I want to accquiess to the boundaries of what is real, in lieu of struggling with the way that I feel. My wants and desires are not logical, not in tune with reality.

I want to take care of everyone. I know that I can't.

The spaces between reality, and desire, are where emotions originate.

Memory # 2 / The Origin of Trouble

"Can I have a pack of American Spirit Lights?"

"That'll be $4.25."

Memory # 3 / The origin of Trouble

"Do you have a car? Can you take me home?"

"No, but I can take you to my room."

Memory #1 / The origin of trouble

"This is Jon."

"Hello, it's nice to meet you."

"I hate you."

"Why do you hate me?"

"I just do."

Love Art Lab

Annie Sprinkle is doing a 7 year art project all about her relationship with her partner, Elizabeth Stephens. In describing the live performances put on by the couple, Sprinkle says "We create a theater/performance art show about our relationship exploring artificial insemination, breast cancer treatments, queer weddings, art experiments, aging, sexuality and more. As a response to the war, anti-gay marriage sentiment and the politics of breast cancer, we invite everyone to a genuine celebration and critical public exploration of the deepest realms of romantic, sexual and familial love to bring about positive social change."

The website includes photos of art exhibits and performances put on by the couple. Each year will explore a different facet of love, and each year is represented by a different color of the rainbow.

www.loveartlab.org

I love to see art projects where the artists is able to say "My life is art." Without artifice, the feeling and emotions experienced by a person are ART. I personally think that there is a poetry to each moment we experience. Sprinkle's art project embraces this. Our everyday emotional experiences can be reflected and appreciated.

Reminds me much of Tracy Emin. When I was in Amsterdam, there was a tent, in which Emin had sewn the name of every person she had ever slept with. Is one's kissing book art? Why not?

ANTM

America's Next Top Model is back in season. I'm a happy camper. I watched the premiere last night. Most of all I wondered how it must feel to NOT be picked. Women live their entire lives subconsciously believing that the ultimate achievement for a woman is to be beautiful, and then you work really hard to get on this show to be told that you are not good enough. You do not hit the mark of beauty.
I imagine the long term effects could be crippling. One could make a similar argument about American Idol.
On the contrary, I wish Janice Dickinson was still a judge. Even though she was a mega-bitch, I think her criticism was usually more thoughtful, and instructive than Twiggy.
Janice worked against the demure female personality. I miss her aggresiveness.

Link

I'm going to be a crafty spinster someday. Just like these old australian ladies who knit an entire room with knitted cakes, record covers, and hamburgers. It's like YaYoi Kosama. Everyday art!

Meditation on the Idea of Love -- Excerpt: Everything is Illuminated

Brod's life was a slow realization that the world was not for her, and that for whatever reason, she would never be happy and honest at the same time. She felt as if she were brimming, always producing and hoarding more love inside her. But there was no release. Table, ivory elephant charm, rainbow, onion, hairdo, mollusk, Shabbos, violence, cuticle, melodrama, ditch, honey, doily . . .None of it moved her. She adressed her world honestly, searching for something deserving of the volumes of love she knew she had within her, but to each she would have to say, I don't love you. Bark-brown fence post: I don't love you. Physics, the idea of you, the laws of you: I don't love you. Nothing felt like anything more than what it actually was. Everything was just a thing, mired completely in its thingness.


If we were to open to a random page in her journal -- which she must have kept and kept with her at all times, not fearing that it would be lost, or discovered and read, but that she would one day stumple upon that thing that was finally worth writing about and remembering, only to find that she had no place to write it--we would find some rendering fo the following sentiment: I am not in love.


She had to satisfy herself with the idea of love--loving the loving of things whose existence she didn't really care at all about. Love itself became the object of her love. She loved herself in love, she loved loving love, as love loves loving, and was able, in that way, to reconcile herself with a world that fell so short of what she would have hoped for. It was not the world that was the great and saving lie, but her willingness to make it beautiful and fair, to live a once-removed life, in a world once-removed from the one in which everyone else seemed to exist.

A True Rolemodel

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2356442&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

Cheerleader continues cheering after breaking neck

Friendly Postcard Project

Today I decided I should embark upon the "Friendly Postcard Project." This will entail me sending a postcard to every friend I can get a address for. I want to re-invigorate my social connections. I think it will highlight positivity in my life, and it will just be fun. I don't set my goals high that it will happen or many will get sent out, but it's worth a shot, esp. if I get through a dozen. That will be an accomplishment.

If you want one, send me your address. I'd be happy to oblige.

4th of July 2003

grits and shrimp recipe

http://www.virtualcities.com/ons/sc/gov/scgvfs1.htm

Process

I went to the SFMOMA yesterday. It was nice to think about the notions of process, of self perception, and portrayal. The Kiki Smith exhibit was long gone, and I was way sad. I heard so much about her pieces, particularly one sculpture involving a poo tail. It was still cool to see the Chuck Close portraits in person, having seen so many photos of them before.

It made me want to do art, but the dishes called when I got home, and I was just 100% exhausted from the last few days, ribs still sore from oblique toning exercises, and general doing too much. Sometimes I wonder why I go through the pain of core strengthening in yoga. I only go once a week anyway, so I'm never really going to build up any real muscle in that region, just pain. ha ha.

i realized much of my frenzy lately is just a vain attempt to replace s. At the same time, I don't want to let him have broken me. It wasn't even anything real, but I haven't felt chemistry like that in close to a year and a half. I resent thinking I will have to wait that long to meet someone, anyone, and worse, not having sex for that long again.

This might be to my benefit to date right now. When my heart is open, I get myself into trouble. So my being on the defensive might be able to get my overly sensitive self through the initial temptation of talking about my feelings. Or it might make me incredibly dull.

Hopeless in many senses.

Meet your 45 yr. old single friend.

Morning of Today

I started reading Everything is Illuminated on the train to work. I am determined to do more reading during my transit time. The dislocation from reality would do me good.

Speaking of dislocation, I've been thinking about reading Charles D'Ambrosio a lot lately. He seems to experience pain and alienation in a very specific way that I could relate to right now. Previously, I had a hard time relating; it was so hard edged, and impenentrable. Location/Dislocation is a beautiful binary to meditate on.

I want to be less afraid to write. If I have to be the girl who writes endlessly about love, than I need to not fear the criticism and just do it. Here begins my chronicle, possibly.

Dog Park, Desperate Housewives

Chrissy, Derrick and I went in search of a dog park in San Bruno that has awesome views, particularly a nice view of that odd "South San Francisco The Industrial City" sign in the hills. We found the park. It was deserted and closed down. We were still able to enter the park, but technically, we weren't supposed to be there. Biscuit ran around, searching the perimeter for escape, and I made daisy chains. (see photos). The park was behind a closed down school. Very suburban. It was a grassy space behind the school with a baseball field, and this enclosure for dogs. It was the kind of place I would have gone to make out with boys in jr.high/high school, and the sort of place I would have gone to just walk through in elementary school.

It made me think of fooling around with Shane when I was in high school. There was this amazing field of weeds over 3 ft high, and we snuck back there to roll around where no one could see us. I remember regretting the incident for a few years after it, but now I think of it as this weird other worldly, and amazing memory. Both pastoral, and suburban simultaneously. I wish there were more open spaces like that in the middle of developed areas.

Later, we went home and watched 6 hours of Desperate Housewives. I had some revelation about life while watching it but I forgot. I haven't had such an intense DVD tv marathon in quite awhile. While it was enjoyable, I am happy to report that I no longer derive the same pleasure from it that I used to, and I feel less tempted to spend gross amounts of time absorbing all that dramatic contingency.

Blonde Readhead @ Alladin Theatre. Probably 2001. This is my first experiment with posting from the Hello program. Pretty cool. It seems like it would be pretty easy to send a photo from a live conversation to the blog. Neato.  

Grandma Mitchell @ 85 

Collage done about 6 months ago. The fellow on the left looks "harried." 

Amazing biscuit recipe

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cake flour (very important)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in 1/4 inch cubes or grated when cold.
3/4 cup cold buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Blend all dry ingredients. Scatter butter on top and combine with mixer. Stir in buttermilk with a rubber spatula until a soft, slight sticky dough ball forms.

Put the dough ball on a floured counter. Use a sharp knife to cut dough into 12 pieces. Shape each piece into a ball and place on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake dough balls 10 -12 mins. until they become golden brown biscuits.

Eat with butter, jam, gravy, and joy.

** paraphrased from America's Test Kitchen cookbook.

Hello blogger!

Hi everyone,

This is going to be my new blog to experiment with more fun and tech-positive ways of communication. I salute you, and hope you will stop by soon.

Love,
n