The Cure, "Just Like Heaven"

Behind the song. 

“The song’s about hyper-ventilating – kissing and fainting to the floor. Mary dances with me in the video because she was the girl, so it had to be her. The idea is that one night like that is worth a thousand hours of drudgery.” And, after all, isn’t that what love really is? Knowing that aside from all of the mire that the modern world seems to spew at us every single minute, that we have some solace in someone else.

Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick

The one that makes me scream she said
The one that makes me laugh she said
Threw her arms around my neck
Show me how you do it and I'll promise you
I'll promise that I'll run away with you, I'll run away with you

Spinning on that dizzy edge
Kissed her face and kissed her head
Dreamed of all the different ways, I had to make her glow
Why are you so far away she said
Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you?
That I'm in love with you?

You, soft and only, you lost and lonely
You, strange as angels
Dancing in the deepest oceans
Twisting in the water
You're just like a dream
You're just like a dream

Daylight licked me into shape
I must have been asleep for days
And moving lips to breathe her name
I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone, alone, alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved and drowned her deep inside of me

You soft and only
You lost and lonely
You just like heaven

Not just a Nirvana song

I've added lithium to my psychiatric retinue. The difference is pretty amazing. When my shrink first suggested it, I laughed. I mean, come on. To me lithium is a punchline. But really, who gives a damn? It helps me get up in the morning. It's giving me hope where before there was darkness. I'll take it. And I do.

Just written

You’re trying to write. Doing it in the living room: that’s your mistake. The husband, the kid, the dogs. Nowhere to go in the outside world. Cafes and restaurants, takeout only. Those are always your haunts. That’s where you go to be you, the purest version of it, really, unencumbered. Except you are always cumbered. Stress makes its home along the slope of your neck, the curve of your shoulders. Especially now.

“Baz,” you say, “stop getting in Jack’s face.”

The signals: swish of a tail, flip of the ears. But the dog is rolling on his back, paws stretched to the sky, and you don’t know what to make of anything anyway.

“Baz,” you say, “just stop it.”

Adam, distracted. Adam, always distracted. “That’s not true,” he says.

Perhaps not. Life, the accumulation of the stories you tell yourself. Nothing more than the truth you believe is factual, or that you make factual. You believe it and so it is.

You don’t know when your house turns into a circus, only that your definition of it sours over time. When Baz is young you post pictures on Facebook, him and the dogs: my circus, 3:23 a.m. Charming, but really, is it ever? A draw-and-quarter of the mind, brain tearing rather than flesh. More painful? More searing? More immutable?

“It’s okay,” Adam says. “I’ve got them.”

This should make you feel relieved. It doesn’t. 

 

Workin' from home

 

Marcus op-ed

 I love Marcus's writing! Check out his piece in Undark today. 

Last night

The marriage is my rock. I can do anything because you're here.

This song, over and over

Adanna Literary Journal, "Mothering in a Pandemic" edition

 

"Loved it when I was 6"

Adam always gives me shit about my taste in music. "If it's from 1981," he will often say, "you loved it."

Well, duh.

South Lake Tahoe

I'm going for an overnight in a few weeks. I need this. These overnights help save my sanity in these stupid days of COVID. Just me and the car and my music. I don't really want to go for any longer than that, but I can sure take a night away. 

Joni Mitchell, "The Last Time I Saw Richard"

He put a quarter in the Wurlitzer

and he pushed three buttons and the thing began to whir

and a barmaid came by in fishnet stockings and said

drink up now, it's time for close

Sunday morning

The open door is found where there is an absence of preoccupation. ... Whatever experience you're having, know it and receive it. ... Just allow things to pass. - Gil Fronsdal

Up early and trying to pull my feelings together about everything. Moving forward isn't just the only way; it's the only option.

Love

 

Was this only two years ago?

 

I used to be a phone person

I would spend hours. Hours. Talking, analyzing, playing therapist. Now I cringe if someone proposes even a brief phone call. It's not because I'm a parent. It's because I'm me.

As seen on FB

 

Add caption

At Yosemite last month

 

Dead Man's Party

Adam loves Boingo. Always has. I'm sitting here listening to "Dead Man's Party" thinking that I am the hugest asshole known to man. 

Some annoying, condescending internet lines

"I don't think (insert word here) is what you think it is."

"There, I fixed it."

I'm sure I'll think of more. I'm just sick of the bullshit pretention I see online, now and always. 

Grateful Dead, "Touch of Grey"

 It must be getting early, clocks are running late

Paint-by-number morning sky looks so phony
Dawn is breaking everywhere, light a candle, curse the glare
Draw the curtains, I don't care 'cause it's alright

I will get by
I will get by
I will get by
I will survive

I see you've got your list out, say your piece and get out
Guess I get the gist of it, but it's alright
Sorry that you feel that way, the only thing there is to say
Every silver lining's got a touch of grey

I will get by
I will get by
I will get by
I will survive

It's a lesson to me
The Ables and the Bakers and the C's
The ABC's we all must face
Try to keep a little grace

It's a lesson to me
The Deltas and the East and the Freeze
The ABC's we all think of
And try to wean a little love

I know the rent is in arrears, the dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears, but it's alright
Cow is giving kerosene, kid can't read at seventeen
The words he knows are all obscene, but it's alright

I will get by
I will get by
I will get by
I will survive

The shoe is on the hand it fits, there's really nothing much to it
Whistle through your teeth and spit 'cause it's alright
Oh well, a touch of grey kinda suits you anyway
And that was all I had to say and it's alright

I will get by
I will get by
I will get by
I will survive

We will get by
We will get by
We will get by
We will survive

We will get by
We will get by
We will get by

Gil Fronsdal on letting go

So how to let go? To let go without aversion, without insistence, without expectation to be successful even, to do it with an open hand, an open heart, an open mind, to do it calmly, to not be in a hurry, to offer something up, and then, after you've let go, take a moment to appreciate the goodness or the rightness or the feelings of uplift that come with letting go. Don't just let go and rush off to the next moment to whatever you're going to feel or do.

Tears

Jack and Maizie's doggie brother has bone cancer. Of course now I'm going to be wonked all day. I love those fuckers. 

Simon and Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence"

 Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

Within the sound of silence

This trip has changed me

No more taking phone calls when the other party only wants to bitch.

No more fucking up my relationship with my kid over virtual schooling for transitional kindergarten. It's just not that important that he learn to draw a dot.

No more making lists I can't complete. 

Pike Place Market

 

Part of a blogging lesson on sensory images

For example: Nearly three o'clock and she still couldn't sleep. Next to her Baz had no such problem; his hair tousled over his eyes, cheeks flushed with slumber, he was in a place she could likely never reach. On the television CNN shared news dominating the day, week, month, this most atrocious of years, anchors mixing cynical cackles and honest indignation. Somewhere a hum, somewhere closer a heartbeat. For this moment she was alone in this world. 

Now we're in Seattle

The Fremont Troll beckons.

Hello from Portland

In case you weren't aware, traveling with a 5-year-old is challenging. Breaking news ...

Louie's of Ashland

 

2015

So in love. Then as now.

2009

  

I was just home from MacDowell. We were sitting at the late, lamented Bel Forno. So happy to be home with my baby.

Of course you heard the news

You texted your husband, who wrote back immediately despite having to wrangle the dogs: "No shit!!!!" Yep, babe. 

Santa Sabina Center, October 2011

 

How did we get to fall?

It came upon us fast, so damn fast, the way these things often do. I hate fall. I hate everything but cinnamon and apple cider and pumpkin. Fuck the shorter days. Fuck cozy. I want my summer back.