snapshot: Futility

As she lights a cigarette, blowing out the first inhalation with almost violent aggression, she wonders "Did I say the one wrong thing or did I say one thing wrong? Because it's not the same thing you know. If I said the one wrong thing, the worst possible thing, that one thing that caused this: This sudden departure, this strange alienation I didn't see coming. If I said that one wrong thing maybe there's a way out of this. Maybe I can take back that one thing, say I didn't mean it?"

She shakes her head. Stilling her thoughts with the rythm of the inhale and exhale. For a moment she looks down at the pavement under her painted toenails in defeat. She sighs. "But if I just said something wrong, if it just came out wrong, sounded wrong...maybe he's just being unreasonable. Everybody makes mistakes. No one is full of absolute truths and witticisms always. except him apparently. If he weren't so darn picky... if I could just go back and explain what I really meant to say... but no.

That wouldn't work either. I said it, whatever it was, and I can't take it back. I can't unsay it. "

She sighs again, her thoughts spinning into circles of abstractions as she stares at the horizon and continues to inhale.

I love a good Diva

I've discovered a deep and abiding affection for drag queens. I'm not sure what it is. I'm a straight woman who grew up very small town and really never had any contact with the world of drag except on TV and in movies.

But now I see them often and in person. I have become oddly familiar with the world of drag, hung out while make-up was applied, heard stories about the "old days" when things were wild and crazy and just getting started around here. I count some of these girls as friends, and as colleagues (I work in theatre after all). I find them fascinating, thoroughly amusing, and frequently shocking (in that way I think we all need to be shocked once in awhile. It's good to be off kilter some of the time). I have been moved to tears by some - some of the best "rags to riches" or "downtrodden prairie girl makes good in the big city" stories I've ever heard have come from this world. The best of them, the true entertainers, the ones for whom it is a life rather than a lifestyle, can move you to tears and send you into fits of laughter in one breath.

Exuberant excess. The world is their oyster. And I think they're FABULOUS!

rather

I would rather be sentimental than unfeeling.
I would rather be an open book than a closed door.
I would rather be too loud than unheard.
I would rather be too trusting than be not trust at all.
I would rather feel too much than too little.
I would rather have my heart broken than not fall deeply in love.
I would rather be disappointed by someone I'm close to than to have not been close enough to care.

I no longer know...

...what I want this to be.

I'm feeling a bit of ambivalence towards this blog. I'm not sure if it's still something I enjoy. Or maybe I just lost it's purpose. I know I don't write nearly as much in all the many other formats I used to. But I know that I still hold back here, knowing who reads this, and who doesn't but may. So some thoughts and emotions have lost their place and become homeless where they used to find shelter on paper, in stories, in Mead 5 Star notebooks or journals with an ocean theme. And I want those things to have a home again. So I will be writing more on paper - and maybe a bit less here.(I'm a bit old fashioned after all)

Part of me wants to be more matter-of-fact like that post a few days ago about noteworthy music-related things that are coming up. But that scares me a bit because it identifies me, perhaps a bit more than I'd like to be known. Part of me wishes I could continue with the more poetic, romantic, perhaps ethereal, perhaps vague posts which reveal what I'm feeling - maybe too much for some people, maybe too little for me. Part of me needs to write about some of the bigger things, the things that have molded my life, things I have learned to talk about easily, some might say flippantly, but which have much more gravity than I make it seem. Some of these things still haunt me and perhaps a public flogging would purge that fear once and for all?

Maybe I just wish I could write songs like so many of the unbelievably talented people I know.

I just don't know - so if the blog seems to have a touch of multiple personality disorder over the next while or if I lapse into moments of silence... just bear with me. I'll figure it out.

No reciprocal agreement

I've learned that so much more than love can be unrequited.

I just have to try and remember this fact.

Irony??

Sifting through the piles that accumulated on my desk while I was away I found three (!) different advertisments for upcoming seminars on ridding your desk of clutter and being more organized.

I slipped my life back on as if it were that well worn and comfortable jacket that still looks like I paid alot of money for it. (It actually came from Value Village).

I bubbled over in excitment as I walked down the hallway of the airport, barely restraining the urge to skip...dance...run.

I laughed delightedly when I saw that they'd made a sign to welcome me home - happy springs and all! (Thanks girls!) I could only stop talking long enough to fill my ears with the happenings in my absence; giggling voice over voice (sometimes in stereo) filling me in on what I'd missed.

It's good to be home.