Yaz, "Only You"

Looking from a window above, it's like a story of love
Can you hear me
Came back only yesterday
I'm moving further away
Want you near me

All I needed was the love you gave
All I needed for another day
And all I ever knew
Only you

Sometimes when I think of her name
When it's only a game
And I need you
Listen to the words that you say
It's getting harder to stay
When I see you

All I needed was the love you gave
All I needed for another day
And all I ever knew
Only you

All I needed was the love you gave
All I needed for another day
And all I ever knew
Only you

This is going to take a long time
And I wonder what's mine
Can't take no more
Wonder if you'll understand
It's just the touch of your hand
Behind a closed door

All I needed was the love you gave
All I needed for another day
And all I ever knew
Only you

Austin

 

On "The Way We Were"

"There may be no greater refutation of the auteur theory — the notion that a great film is a product of a single directorial genius — than the number of fine movies that were assembled by scrabbling, sometimes squabbling parties, operating with no clear end in sight. Movies as diverse as “Casablanca,” “Laura,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Beat the Devil,” and “Apocalypse Now” emerged from a welter of (take your pick) fired directors, fired actors, overbearing producers, minute-by-minute script changes and a sequence of postproduction Hail Marys. The more closely one peers into their chaos, the more the idea of any one person authoring them degenerates into absurdity."

More here. 

What I look like today

 

Joan Didion

 “I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package,” she once wrote. “I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”

More here. 

Green Apple last Friday

 

Today's writing

Being the mother of a suicide victim means always having regrets. It means that the what-ifs can rule you if you let them, and I often do. I mean, how can you help it? Tell me you don’t let regret rule you every now and again and I’ll tell you you’re a fucking liar. I once had a friend who told me over coffee I don’t have any regrets. Lofty bitch drinking her macchiato. I didn’t see her much after that.

Today's writing

She delivered our drinks, then slid onto the barstool between us. That felt weird. Granted, no one else was in the bar. It was a slow night. Hell, for all I knew it was a slow week, a tired month, a not-too-taxing job. She might have just been bored and amusing herself. All the might-bes, and still she’s sitting between my husband and me. She smells like something. Citrus, maybe, but maybe not. Something a little darker, a little danker. Cloves. Maybe something different. No one ever accused me of having the perfect sense of smell.

 

“You two seem smart,” she says. “You seem like you, I don’t know, read.”

 

I raise an eyebrow at Rob. He smirks and turns back toward Lydia. “I’ve been known to do that,” he says.

 

She swivels her head in my direction with the rest of her body facing him. This all seems very bizarre, but I’m not quite sure why. It’s just someone being friendly. Can I not accept that?

 

Answer: no. No, I cannot. Friendly people so often have an agenda. What’s hers?

 

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, "Our House"

 

Literary Speakeasy, redux

 

Today

 

January 26: Literary Speakeasy!

 

Literacy Night, John Muir Elementary School

 

Reading on The Racket!

Thanks, Noah! Check it out!

Memphis, January 2012

 

January 2017

 

Today's writing

This always gets me about Rob: he can’t make a split-second decision about anything. We’re literally getting menaced by a wildfire and he still can’t get his act together to decide to take off. There have been times I’ve wondered if his inability to make a choice affected Jax, and if so, how things might have been different had I intervened. In fact, would things have been different if I’d had my child with another man? Another man might not have passed down his depressive tendencies, his touch of autism. Another man might have been able to handle his son in ways that Rob couldn’t manage Jax.

 

I don’t know. I don’t know anything, it seems.

 

“So what exactly are we going to do? Sit by the wood stove and wait to turn into ash?”

 

“I’m just saying we don’t lose our shit just because there’s a fire in the same area code that we are. You know?”

 

“I do know. I know that you can’t get off your ass –”

 

Even Sid looks at us like we’re fucking nuts.

 

“Look.” Rob’s eyebrows knit together, come apart, do the dance. “Your mouth is starting something that your brain may not be able to finish. Just consider that. Keep that in mind. If you want to brawl, let me know. But think about it before you do.”

 

It’s moments like this when I can totally see a life without him. A life in which I could hang the toilet paper any which way. Eat in bed without getting side-eye. And yes, escape a fucking fire that’s headed my way. But instead I have to do the compromise thing. Shit, I hate compromise. Don’t you?

Today's writing

My veggie breakfast sandwich and his griddle combo arrive. I look at his bacon with envy. Lately I’ve decided to go more in the direction of vegetarianism. I say go more in the direction because I fuck up all the time, especially when it comes to crispy morning meats. The more words someone uses, the more they’re trying to avoid the point. Language so often takes us away from meaning, veil our eyes from what we need to know. Maybe we should speak less and feel more, take our mouths out of the action, replace them with our hearts.

Back in the day ...

 

Santa Barbara, 2015