Just run away

Me – Even though you dated this guy for a year, you still consider it a rebound relationship?
Heat – Well, yeah. That’s just what it is.

Me – But you dated him for a year.
Heat – It doesn’t matter how long it lasts. If you date someone immediately after a breakup, that’s a rebound. It’s not good or bad, it just is. That’s just the definition of a rebound. I mean unless you get married to the guy, it’s going to end… eventually. That’s just how it goes.

I felt my stomach sink.
It all seems so hard.
It felt like she was telling me all flirtations are doomed.
No hope of love in the future for you.
Any relationship you start now WILL end.
Sooner or later, but most likely sooner.
I hate to lose things.

Heat – They start fast and heavy. That’s what rebounds do. Suddenly you are like a sex demon, a real man eater. You are reminded that you are not dead down there. But they burn real quick and fade fast. Cause it’s filling a hole. It’s patching something you need to cover. But they usually don’t last.
Me – Yeah. That's really a downer.

I feel really lost these days.
I am trying to be independent and stoic,
But I keep falling into doubt.
Keep running to what feels good.
Which maybe isn’t good for me.

I wish I could just be single and happy for my freedom.
But, it’s really harder than it looks.
I want to get good at it, so I don’t frown.
It’s all new worries
The rules are all changed.
I am leaving for Montana tonight.
I will be gone a long time.
I couldn’t be happier.

I sometimes feel like I am in a chick lit paperback

The Wolf – He broke up with me… I think.
Nice and Easy – You think?
TD – Amazing.

The Wolf – Yeah. We were “talking” in the street. I was crying.
Me – Uh huh, It gets easier the more you do it.

The Wolf – And he said he didn’t really have time for me in his life. I told him he could call me when he figured out what he wanted and I haven’t heard from him since. This was last week.
Me – I hate him.

Nice and Easy – Well, mine said he was gonna come stay with me for four days. He had something in the Midwest. He came to Chicago first, I drove him out to Wisconsin, I met his family. He was gonna come back to Chicago after his engagement to stay with me for four days. I got a call a day before he was supposed to show up. He just “didn’t want to do it”. I mean doesn’t this kid WANT to have sex? My God!
TD – Boring! That guy is terrible.
Me – I hate him.

Me – Being with Mr. 9 was really easy. Man, I thought I had love figured out. You didn’t have to worry about all that stuff. We never fought or played games with each other. I didn’t have to guess. It was awesome.
The Wolf – Yeah, but now you can experience the excitement of the first kiss again.
TD – Boring!
Nice and Easy – I don’t want first kisses anymore. I want 5ths. I would kill for a six month relationship that feels worn in and usual.

The Wolf – I want a guy who….
Nice and Easy – I want a guy who….
Me – I want a guy who…
TD – I just wanna bone!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~’

Yesterday was a hump.
I caught the melancholy bug from a boy and spent the whole day feeling bad and retrospective.
Then while playing dodgeball, I got pegged in the head so hard that I almost went down.
I didn't want to cry.
But some tears leaked out.
I had spent the whole day being poopy and moody and that was a nice capper.
Maybe the stars were tellinng me to snap out of it.
Things I discovered about myself yesterday while brooding and being "cancer"like.

I have diarrhea mouth about my feelings and I am hurt when others don’t too.
I fall in love with all my friends. Sometimes I want to be them.
Because I know I am going to die, I feel a stronger urge to hug people and tell them I love them.
I don’t mind being the victim because it means people are always hugging me and telling me that I can count on them.
I have judged women in the past for sleeping with a lot of guys.
I have judged men in the past for sleeping with a lot of women.
I am currently not going to do that anymore.
I have a gut reflex to give out advice when sometimes I should just be listening.
I have a desire to control my surroundings and relationships so that I can feel safe.
I have become obsessed with astrology
I hate being left out.
Sometimes I try too hard.
I am only as strong as I am and willing emotional health doesn’t make it happen, it takes time.
I drink to excess.
I don’t get enough sleep.
I have a love for girl time.

Kane Moku

You are a boy island.
I can see you in my binoculars.
You are a paradise.
You have palm trees to root the sand down.
You have yummy, juicy fruit that grows wild and abundantly.
You have hidden caves only a keen eye and brave heart can find.
You have so many stars that I can stay up all night turning them into stories.
I take a swim out to you and vacation for a while.
It feels really good.
I get tan.
I get calm.
I get sexy.
I lose track of time.
I lose my limits.

But I’m super scared out here in the open waters.
Storms ravage islands.
I think I can bunker down.
I am a survivor.
I know knots.
I know knives.
I know nights.
But I’m from the mainland.
Maybe that’s the mistake.
To think you can beat some island’s storm.
I wonder if maybe I should flee.
But I don’t want to leave.
I saved a long time to get here.

Camping is awesome, weddings are not.

(ed and d-bar doing mad teamwork to "Leave no trace")














(misty road at 6 am)














(fire is a rainbow!)













(kick ass pic of D-bar and his lady. We got sun by the lake.)













(Mmmmm, woods. Can you smell em?)









Venus – Are you okay honey?
Me – Yeah.

Venus – Oh, cause you sound like you’re crying.
Me – I am.

I was.
At first it was cause I was so happy for her,
but then it turned into that sad cry where my shoulders bounce.
I looked up and Kris, who I had just met 15 minutes ago, and who was walking towards me.
I was standing, one hand on the phone, the other on a shopping cart full of water and s’mores ingredients.
When Kris noticed I was crying, she turned on both heals and made a b-line for the magazine rack.

Venus – Honey, I don’t want you to cry.
Me – No, I know. I’m really okay. Really I am. I don’t understand why my body cries without me. I’m really happy for you guys. I really am.

Venus got proposed to on Friday.
It was her and her beau’s 3 year anniversary.
They went out to dinner.
She got the ring in her dessert.
I was the very first person she called to tell.
I WAS happy for her.

Venus – You’re still crying. I don’t want you to cry in the middle of the supermarket.
Me – It’s okay, I’m used to crying in public now.
Venus – Maybe hearing about a happy relationship isn’t what you need right now.
Me – You’re crazy. I’m fine. I love you.

I don’t even believe in marriage.
I think it’s stupid.
I think rings are stupid.
I never wanted to marry Mr. 9.
I never want to marry.
I can’t tell if I was crying because secretly my heart and body want all that even though my mind doesn’t, or if I was crying because I’ve done so much of it lately that now any cry will just turn into that sad uncontrollable cry out of reflex memory.

Its official… all my friends are getting married.
They’re paired off and falling in a row, lining up to walk down the isle.
This means; lots of Clark parties next year where I will have to see Mr. 9 and act like everything is fine, getting drunk and trying not to think about the fact that all my memories of these people are built around my relationship with Mr. 9, and finding a SUPER HOT-ROD SEX GOD to come with me so that I can have someone to carry me home when I pass out after drinking a whole bottle of rum screaming like a banshee about lost trust and puking in my hair.
Oh boy, I’m scared.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Went camping this weekend in Wisconsin.
It was so super fun and I got to bond with a lot of new people.
Dunbar, Kate, Fred, Ed, Susi, and Kris.
I was worried cause it was gonna be 3 couples and me.
I didn’t even notice.
Once Dunbar and his lady got out of the city, they stopped nitpicking each other.
It was great fun.

I have been real camping before.
Like buck knife, portaging, only pack what you can carry, and shoot a flare if you get hurt cause you canoed 100 miles from the nearest road kind of camping.
I took Mr. 9 to the Boundary Waters up near Canada for a week in the absolute wilderness.
My cousins came too.
My family loved him.
The lakes are unspoiled and so clean you can drink straight from them in places.
We trolled for bluegill and swam with the loons.
It’s sad to think that all these great memories are worthless now.

Anyway, this was not that kind of camping.
This was too much food, campfire drinking, air mattress, let's drive 5 minutes to the corner store cause this instant coffee sucks, don’t eat the fish cause of mercury camping.

I love to be in the woods.
It makes me feel strong.
Watching people’s demeanors change in the trees is amazing.
Everyone just settles into a much mellower version of themselves.
City life can really tug at your anxieties.

I often think that if I didn’t have aspirations to be an actor, I could see myself moving to Minnesota to set up a gear shop.
Selling leeches and teaching people the J stroke on a canoe paddle.
Taking pictures of kids who caught their first Walleye.
Picking wild raspberries for breakfast and hiking through birch.
It would be great.

I get to go to Montana this weekend.
With the snakes.
I can’t wait.
Third year in a row.
I get to see Dry Gultch.
I feel sick waiting to be there.

I'm jealous of his fame.

The week that Mr. 9 put our relationship on hold to “think things out”
I basically stewed and felt bad.
I was trying to keep a stiff upper lip,
Cause I knew inevitably he would come back to me and everything would be fine,
“Right guys?” (Crickets)
But it was hard not to feel slightly abandoned.

I have a lot of issues with guys leaving without trying to at least work it out.
My biological father did this to my mom when I was 3 and it sort of lives in me in weird ways.
Like when I freaked out on my improv coach for ditching the team.
“It’s just improv man.”
“I know, but I’m crazy.”

I listen to NPR almost every workday.
848 is my favorite show as it discusses the happenings in Chicago and interviews really fun local people.
Steve Edwards, the host, is a real cute button to me.
He seems to be extremely hip and completely square at the same time.
I love him.
I saw him once at Brian Costello’s talk show and he was just as nice, and charming, and awesome as you think he might be.

The week Mr. 9 was taking a break from his duty of me,
I heard him on the radio.
I was listening to 848… and there he was.
Getting interviewed about books in the city and writers and blah, blah, blah.
I felt so out of his loop.
It felt like getting the wind knocked out of me.
I didn’t even know he was gonna be interviewed.
He didn’t tell me.

It’s not the first time Mr. 9 has been interviewed by Steve Edwards.
He was interviewed once before for a website he used to run.
It’s still up, but he’s too lazy to keep it up.
He’ getting interviewed in the paper all the time for a monthly reading that he does and for various amazing projects that he’s involved with in the Chicago area.
He’s basically the darling of the lit scene in Chicago.

It made me so sad that I was not allowed into this awesome part of his life.
And that still really makes me want to cry sometimes.
Because when we get down to it, I’m so super proud of him.
He’s really made a name for himself by being great and doing good work.
And at some point he stopped sharing these victories with me.
I’m not allowed to say to people anymore “I know! Isn’t he amazing? That’s my boyfriend!”
I was his lady.
And his best friend.
And now his best friend is a boy, and they share all their victories with each other.
And not me.

He got good at what he wanted and didn’t have time for me anymore.

I bring this up, because I recently found out that a sketch group I really like is doing Mr. 9’s reading soon.
When I saw this I just got really jealous.
My heart started racing and I could feel my face get all red hot.
I don’t know why this makes me upset.
I’ve been doing really fine lately.
I think it’s because I want a piece of him just like everybody else.
And because I’m not in that cool circle anymore.
And because I don’t want him to have things I like, even though we like a lot of the same things.
I want people to choose sides and always choose mine.
Or I get jealous because he gets accolades so easily and I get down about my own career.
Probably all that stuff.

I think I’m doing good though.
Because in my mind’s eye,
I can see a time, in the future, when I am friends with Mr. 9.
And I see me hanging out with him and hearing about his new girlfriend and all the projects he’s involved in that I don’t get to hear before the world, etc, etc, etc.
I can fathom this happening.
Not now… not soon even… but some time.
There was a time not long ago, when the only thing I could fathom was hate, hate, hate.
For right now, I hope he’s happy, but I don’t want to know about it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~’

~Mahalo Kane~

People are computers.
Made of genes.
Tiny, tiny people who are using us to survive.
Unless I get vaporized, my genes and cells will live a little while after my mind dies.
Then they will run out of food and oxygen and poop out.
They trick people into thinking that getting together and having families and babies and big nice houses that are warm with good food is a good idea. To invest in other people is a good idea. They were here before computers and their program that keeps a lot of people together is called love.

If the tiny people were as big as us, love might be called “telephone” or “fraternal orders”
It wouldn’t be called love.

Equations and computers don’t poop.
So they can’t poop where they eat.

I love you Mark

(I have no photos of my own of Mark that I can find anywhere. This makes me really sad. I stole this one from the Timeout website. I'm sorry Mark.)





Because Mark was in a coma for a week,
I thought that maybe his death would be easier to take.
It seemed inevitable that his death would come.
His brain kept swelling and they were doing everything to stop it,
But even after cutting open his skull, it wouldn’t stop.
Mark finally died.
I say that on the same day, Mr. 9 broke up with me.
But thinking back about it now...
actually Mark died on a Friday, and I got dumped on Saturday.
I think.
I want to remember the exact date.
But now I can't think of it.
Which is probably good.
I probably shouldn't carry that anniversary around.
For the next two months I was never really sure if I was crying over Mr. 9
or if I was crying over Mark.
Ultimately it was both, all the time.


Mr. 9 worked with Mark at Timeout.
Mr. 9 had told me that he wanted to take a short break to clear his head.
I was super sad about it, but of course I would give him his space.
We were having a week where I would not have to be an obligation to him.
He could come and go as he wanted and not have to call.

Me – You can sleep with other girls if you want.
Mr. 9 – I don’t want to sleep with other girls.
Me – I’m being totally serious. If you’re attracted to someone else, I don’t mind. We’re all human. I know you love me. It’s just sex. I’ll be here when you get home.

I really would have given him anything.
He came home during that week.
It was a Monday night.
I was sulking and trying not to make eye contact with him, when he was home.

Me – Are you okay?
Mr. 9 – I have really bad news.
Me – okay.
Mr. 9 – My editor just called. Mark is in a coma. He had an aneurism. It happened suddenly, his girlfriend found him at home.

My first selfish thought was of myself.
I won’t recount it here.
I hate myself that I couldn’t be more invested in Mark’s last week on earth.
Mr. 9 would go to the hospital a lot to be with Mark’s family, and Mark’s girlfriend, and to see Mark.
I wanted to go.
But I didn’t.
I was really scared.
I still am.

Mark was one of the nicest people I have ever met.
He loved comedy.
He was a champion for comedy in Chicago.
It was partly his job to see as many shows as he did a week,
But he loved it. Loved it so much.
I saw a lot of shows with him.
He loved food.
He loved to ride his bike.
He rode his bike every day, everywhere.
He loved his friends.
He was loved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~’

The first “not a wake” for Mark was held very shortly after his death.
It was on Tuesday.
I showed up very early on my bike and had to kill time before they even opened the doors.
I was the first one in the door.
A girl from Timeout was setting up.
She is a very good friend of Mr. 9 and I knew she knew all the details of our breakup.
Probably more than me.
Honestly.

There was a poster board on the bar of the restaurant.
It had a collage of pictures of Mark on it.
Him at a baseball game.
Him drinking beer.
Him with his helmet on.
Him with his girlfriend.
Him looking young and alive and happy.
which he was.

I had not seen Mark since before the coma.
It had been about two weeks.
I could not keep myself together.
There is a crying that you do not control, it controls you.
The bartender kept slipping me Kleenex.
Mr. 9’s girl-friend came over to hug me.
I felt so naked and gross.
I didn’t want her to touch me.
She seemed very still.
She had also been going to the hospital to see Mark.
Everybody at Timeout had been dealing with this on a very immediate level.
I think this gave them all a support group to handle it and gave them the week of coma to let the idea of death sink in.
They were going to the hospital and watching it.
They were IM’ing in the office and hugging over morning coffee.

I started to think about that.
People were filtering in.
People I knew from Mr. 9’s office.
I started having selfish thoughts.

“Oh God, do these people know about the breakup?
What are they thinking about me?
Do they know things about me?
I miss Mark.
Fuck.
Mark’s dead.
Fuck.
Mr. 9 will be here.
Will he try to hug me?
Fuck.
I love him.
Mark’s dead, and I could have said goodbye at the hospital and I didn’t cause I was scared.
Fuck.
I can’t breath.”

I pretty much left 20 minutes after getting there.
I was unlocking my bike through a choking cry.
I saw Mr. 9’s best friends walk inside.
I wanted to run so far away.
And I couldn’t get my bike unlocked fast enough.
For them to see me was to judge me.
I rode so hard away from there I almost fell off my bike.
I must have been some sight.
Just pushing through on pedals.
A girl with bloated face, crying so loudly… running red lights.
If I was a kid on the street I would have pointed and laughed.

There was a second “not a wake” for Mark.
I wanted to go so bad.
I wanted to honor Mark in a way that I felt I had not been able to do yet.
I wanted to be able to meditate on him with others without thinking about myself.
I also had a terrible selfish thought that kept making me sick.
Simply, that if I didn’t go, people would talk about it.

“She didn’t even come to the service. Thank god you’re not with her anymore. What, she too busy?”

I didn’t go.
Mr. 9 was going to be there.
Possibly speaking about Mark.
I was too scared.

Heather – You know you don’t have to go to this thing to honor Mark. You have to mourn in a way that is healthy for you. You are still honoring him. You loved him.
Me– I know, but I never got to say goodbye.
Heather – You’re gonna be okay.
Me – I imagine myself crying behind a platter of deviled eggs so that he doesn’t see me….. I don’t want to go.
Heather – I know.

I loved Mark.
He was a beautiful person.
He was passionate.
I miss him.
I love you Mark.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~’

I love all of you guys.
If I don’t say it enough and just in case…..

“I love you, love you, love you.”

I'm sorry, I love astrology...plus it's been trying to tell me something for some time.

I have been into astrology for a while.
But lately I have been nose-in-book, bordering-on-obsession into it.
I don’t know if I believe that everything is already planned for you.
But it has really helped me to get through the breakup by thinking that everything happens for a reason and to know that this all happened so that I could move on to a bigger step in my life.
And so that I may grow and become better as a person.
I don’t believe in God, which a lot of astrologers do.
But still I am fascinated by what I have been reading about myself lately.

I highly recommend this site.
I read it every day.

www.astro.com

I have mentioned to some before that back in October I took Mr. 9 to a psychic for his birthday (Libra) and here’s the major thing that stuck out.

Psychic – In April something major is going to happen that will change your whole life. It will be completely unexpected and you will never see it coming. But, once it happens your whole life will open up.

Now the way she explained it, I got the feeling that she was talking about my career.
Maybe that’s just cause I am always thinking about it.
But, I was getting excited to see what April would bring.
Maybe I’d finally get hired to Second City after 7 auditions and get to quit my day job,
Or land one of the million pilots I had auditioned for through my agent and get to move to LA on someone else’s dime…
You know something along this line.

Well, on the same day in April (as previously discussed) a good friend died and my boyfriend of 9 years broke up with me.
This really shook me.
And maybe it’s coincidence…
Maybe.

Well, here are some other things from astro.com that I can’t shake:

- This will be a time of great toughening up for you.

- There may be changes in your life at this time, and your relationships may be considerably altered, but this is only so that you may experience a regeneration that will keep your life from becoming stale and dead.

(I like this one a lot and it makes me feel strong)

- End of December 2005 until beginning of September 2006: This is a time of surprises and sudden opportunities. And you will strive now for a kind of freedom you have never known before. You will seek in every way to express what it means to be young and free.

(I certainly want to be young and free!)

- Whatever the effects of this influence, you can expect a sudden broadening of the scope of your life and the opportunity to encounter life from a new, richer and broader perspective. This may come about through a major transforming event or through a series of minor ones that collectively have a large impact.

(My horoscope keeps telling me that this is a time of gaining greater freedom and personal growth. That’s pretty cool, and I keep this in mind when I ponder all I have lost.)

- Last year, many aspects of your life have begun to change. Relationships have changed or ended, and you may have changed your residence or your job;

(True and true)

- You have been dominated by an urgent feeling that if you don't do everything you have always wanted to do or felt that you should, you will never have another chance. And now, at about twenty-nine, you will feel that a substantial portion of your life has passed and that you had better get on with making it all work. If your marriage or love relationship is unsatisfactory but you have been making the best of it, you will examine that relationship even more thoroughly now and may decide to end it. Certainly you will have to change it substantially. The same is true of any other aspect of your life that you have tolerated but not found very rewarding.

(I feel like they are telling me to quit my job and move to LA….hmmm)

- You may experience a sense of loss for the elements of your life that are coming to an end now. However, do not dwell upon these losses, for they are necessary in order to clear the decks for the major period of action in your life.

(See what I mean? Doesn’t this make you feel tough and ready?)

- This is a time of endings and new beginnings.

(Pretty much)

So, you know… it’s kind of weird.
I romanticize about the stars and what they can do to people.
In Montana you can see EVERY star, I feel really safe when I am there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~’

This website also has a lot to say about my sex life,
Sex can break a relationship and I fear it helped to break mine with Mr. 9.
Sometimes you can’t be scared.
Sometimes you have to give up and jump in.
Even if it makes you blush.
It made him blush sometimes.
I feel bad I didn’t protect him better, instead of making judgments.
Instead of stewing.
I didn’t give him the honesty he deserved.
But he didn’t give it to me either.
We lost the fun sex should be.
And by the way, sex should be fun.
Sex should be fun and exciting and you should have a boner just thinking about it the whole next day after it happened.
Mr. 9 lost his boner for me and had to start looking for it somewhere else.
Ho hum, it happens. I’m not perfect.

From www.astro.com.
I consider all of these things to be true about myself.
I find it weird that a computer website can tell me these things since very few other people know them to be true.
This is why I love astrology.
It’s a mystery that you can attempt to harness and use for the forces of good and not evil.

- The ideal partner for you would be someone who enjoys sexual variety, someone who can introduce you to new and exciting forms of lovemaking.

- Unlike some others, you seldom fall into the trap of jealousy, for you value your lover's feelings about you more than technical chastity or faithfulness. For this reason, you are one of the most easy-going partners a person could have.

- Similarly, the highest values you seek in a lover are faithfulness and loyalty, qualities you are most willing to demonstrate once you have chosen the person you feel is just right for you.

- Once you have gained experience in love, you can be a very considerate and thoughtful lover, who as both teacher and lover can gently initiate a younger person in the ways of love. In that case, it may be difficult for your lover to make the transition from student to equal, but that must happen if you intend to have a long-term relationship.

- Love at its best is a happy, sometimes complicated game of constantly changing stimuli, but underlying it is a much simpler emotional base of mutual friendship and companionship.

- Love talk and a verbally affectionate lover may be particularly important to you. Compliments and sweet nothings whispered in the ear, as well as dialogue during lovemaking constitute a significant area of sexual enjoyment. You should find a lover who is equally knowledgeable about sex and willing to put that knowledge to good use. Your partner should be quite communicative and willing to discuss lovemaking with you.

- Because you approach sex in a very open, almost playful way, it does not have the pitfalls it has for so many people in our rather repressed culture.

- You are most comfortable with someone who is as sunny and pleasant as yourself.

(Yay! I'm pleasant!)

It's the winter of our discontent

(Rosa the cat has so much attitude. It's because she doesn't have any regrets, worries, or crushes. She can be a bitch whenever she wants and knows she'll always get her way. I had to leave this cat behind with Mr. 9 cause I started to hate her.)


I’m really tired this week.
Like drop dead exhausted.
I think I have pushed my body a little too hard as of late.
I have a lot of 6 grade worry about stuff I have no control over.
I have not had to have this nervousness since college.
It isn’t something I want.
It makes me feel weak to have so many butterflies all the time.
It’s there whether or not I say I can beat it.
My mind says relax,
My heart says I am shitting where I eat.

I want to be a rock.
I want to be an island.
But I’m mushy, rotten garbage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

People I know who have broken up with their long term loves in the past two months:
Marty Pupko
Dark Yellow
Riptide
Jason Shotts
Stand-up Behemoth
Transistor

Plus half a dozen more that I am not allowed to talk about on my blog.
Plus a million sidebar conversations with just about all my friends about how they’re not happy, or fights are happening, or doubts are creeping in.

If you love someone right now, hold tight!
communicate like therapists and don't stew.
It’s in the water and it’s mean.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~’

Is it okay to start again?
What if the stars are aligned in such a way that we are all doomed?
Why is the world unable to love recently?
Is it just the typical spring crazies?
People are shaking off winter and want to move on?

Why does having a crush on a person make you feel so out of your God damned mind?
First I get dumped and feel insane.
Then I decide to toughen up and work on myself so that I can have control of my own life and a quiet lonliness moves in and I feel insane.
Then I decide to push past the lonliness and accept my new found freedom,
Opening my heart to the possibility of anything and I get a stupid crush on a stupid boy and I feel insane.
When is a human being in a state that does not make them feel insane?
When they are in true love?
Do we ever have true love?

Can a person actually move on after such a short time?
Or is it just rebound lust?
Who wants to date a person who just got out of a 9 year relationship?
Do I even want to date?
Do boys want to date?

Trying to toughen up… but boys won’t let me.
I have a lot of questions today, and I'm supposed to be strong.
Boys are dumb.

More metaphors

(Bastard's mouth, not mine)












I had another dream about Mr. 9 last night.
My dreams have been super severe lately.
They are very vivid and I always wake up with my heart racing.

We were in a parking lot leaving a function I did not expect to see him at.
When I first caught sight of him I told myself, “This will be good. I’m at a place of Zen now. I can’t wait to impress him with how collected I can be in the face of heartbreak.”
As he came closer I saw that he was wearing one of my dresses.
This red dress that is 50’s cocktail and has a wonderful crinoline under skirt and tight chest ribbing with bows, bows, bows.
It looked great on him.
As he approached me I could see that he had this very scornful look on his face like he was screaming “you are pathetic” with his eyes.
I suddenly felt very red-hot-face.
He pointed at the girl he was sleeping with who was standing by his car.
I think it was a Chevrolet Bel Aire. She didn’t have a face.
I got defensive and started screaming that that was my dress and he had no right to keep it.
Then I chased after him running full throttle trying to rip the dress off of him and hopeful kill him in the act.
He was driving and I was running next to the driver side window.
I woke up with one of those quick starts and realized it had been 45 minutes since my alarm went off.
My heart was trying to punch through my chest and I felt dizzy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Stand-up Behemoth in New Jersey who writes me religiously.
I love him for it. I have a lot to give.

Stand –up Behemoth via email:
The other day I was talking w/Patrick about how weird/unhappy/alone I feel right now. And he was like, "Look, it's just like when you buy a new pair of jeans. For the first month or so they feel totally foreign: they're too tight, they're too blue, it's weird. They're not your old pair. Then, after you get used to them and break them in a bit, they feel totally natural. And you're probably a little glad that you're not still wearing your old pair because it was covered in ketchup stains and had holes."

I dunno, that resonated w/me. Personally I think the point is less to look back on the old pair as better/worse than the present pair but to, instead, go "That's one pair and this is another". Different pairs, different times. I think the metaphor only works if you wear one pair of jeans for long periods of your life, as Patrick and I do. All I know is that after a while, each single pair becomes THE pair. And to me there's something comforting about the idea that after losing one pair another comes along w/different qualities and strengths and stuff you like. And that second pair might not even be a new person, it might be a period of life where you're just on your own.

Ok, well, I didn't really mean to go off on that tangent but there it is. Like I said, I found some level of comfort in that idea, however stupid it sounds on the surface, so hopefully you will too. If not then ignore it completely.
(End transmission)

On a side note:
I don’t ever wear jeans. In the past I have not liked them because they don’t breathe and when you eat too much the press your belly and are stylistically…very predictable.
I did not own a pair of jeans for 8 years and only bought a pair to have for Snake shows when we would do white t’s and jeans to look like James Dean.
Recently I bought a pair of jeans on a whim.
Not for a show, just to wear in public.
It has been good.
I find myself going to them more and more often.
It doesn’t seem crazy to me that if I see a separate cute pair sometime in a shop window that I might even buy another.

It’s the New Year!

Crime and punishment

(These flowers look like they wanna bust out of this fence. I know how they feel)





I have a new punishment routine now where I try to recreate the elation of getting rid of a headache.
To me the best feeling is when you have a headache or cramps and then you take some Aleve or Tylenol and after the medicine takes affect there is a moment when you realize the pain is gone.
It only lasts a short second and after you go about your life forgeting the pain was ever there not appreciating your own health.
But in that second of conscious thankfulness for being healed you feel warm all over as you just soak in the feeling of NOT having pain.

I have a bad new habit of drinking a lot of alcohol.
Mostly the hard stuff.
It feels great to wake up too early with a hangover;
dehydration jamming a pin in your brain, tired muscles tight and achy.
Then take medicine, drink a half a gallon of water, take a shit and go back to sleep.
When you wake up the second time your body is healed and warm.
The pain is gone and you feel great.

The more booze I drink the more I have to sweat.
I love to sweat.
It is life, life, life.
When you are having sex with someone and you slip on each other’s sweat…yum.
If I had a hard time waking up because I stayed up too late, I will make a point to push it out harder during cardio.
I love the point of the run where you’re only half way through and your body is struggling for air and it kind of hurts mentally to keep going but you do it anyway.
Then when you are finished you feel like you are walking on air and the pain is gone.

This has become the basis for my new obsession with hotbox yoga.
It’s so hot.
There are times when I feel like I may pass out.
I get dizzy.
I sweat, sweat, sweat until my body is glass.
There are positions that make me want to cry, and I do.
It lasts forever and the willpower it takes not to just give up is a bucket load.
Then when you are done you feel calm and strong.

My favorite thing about yoga is what it does to your body.
It gives you strong even muscles, tight skin, and soft soft belly.
When we lie on the ground in rest position on our tummies and turn our heads to the left,
I can study the bodies of those laying next to me without them knowing it.
Curvy ladies and quiet strong men.
Their bodies are wringing out toxins through open pores and they rise and fall on hot breath.
I always fall in love.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How yoga is like getting dumped:

The beginning is the hardest part.
You can not find your breath.
Your body muscles are tight and tired and you cannot see the end.
There are times when you want to cry.
Just when you think you have found your balance, you lose focus of mind and fall out.
There are tons of people in this room with you but you feel very alone.
Someone is standing in the back of the room shouting out directions on what to do and giving advice.
There are moments of true clarity.
These moments are then ushered out by moments of real struggle and the thought “Can I do this?”
Sometimes you feel dizzy.
Just when you think you can’t go on anymore, your mind just starts thinking about jamba juice and suddenly you’re not that upset.
You start to become more and more adept at accepting how hot it is and you can feel your muscles loosening and widening.
Those sit-ups they make you do over and over are way easy now and you can reach super far past your own toes.
You become very happy at the idea that you are almost at the end and you haven’t died.
You feel exhausted emotionally and physically.
But your mind is still.
Some time after it’s all over you nourish yourself with food and love and you feel light and free.

Girls, Girls, Girls or "New Dicks in 2006!"

(Clarkies at zoo)















Since the breakup certain things have become very important to me.
One of them is the female relationships I have in my life.
I cannot explain the calm it has brought me to connect with the women I respect,
but it has been through these friendships that I have found the courage to gain back my own power.

This weekend Venus came in From New Hampshire.
She is woman in full bloom.
She is earthly love and goddess in Greek body and open heart.
Venus is my deepest emotional sister and favorite bosom friend.
In college we often butted heads, but only because we are both bulls and have such stubborn pride.

After the breakup, I would call her at random times to cry.
She’s very good at cooing into the phone in a soft belly voice that makes you feel like you are being cradled in her arms.
Her understanding is complete.
Her sympathy, warm and yummy.
So she flew out to see me.
Just to see me.
And our other Clark friends…. but mostly me.

When she was staying in my studio apartment it felt like home.
We talked about sex and babies, and bodies, and boys and sex, and friends, and love and sex, and home, and sex and dreams.
There is not a thing about me she does not know.
I love her in a way that I imagine two spirits love each other who have left their bodies behind and moved into the ethos so they can pass through one another.

When Venus comes to town I get to see The Bastard.
And as three girls who lived together in college we are a terrible table to sit next to at dinner.
We got Tripwire to come out for noodles.
I am trying to seduce Tripwire into deep routed friendship and the fact that she came out with us made me happy, happy, happy.
After two bottles of wine:

Bastard- (Talking in her drunk voice which is also her yelling voice.) So, then when I said female ejaculation was a myth my boyfriend shook his head “No”. Apparently he dated a girl in college who shot in a stream.

Tripwire shoves her face into her armpit. She is choking on her laughter.
Venus is holding her stomach and her forehead is on the table.
I have tears coming down my face and my tongue feels swole with loud gags that are the phase one step beyond laughter.
There is a family sitting behind us who keep glaring at us like they wish we would just die and I want to feel sorry about our conversation but I can’t stop laughing long enough to become embarrassed. The fact that the waiter is scared of us makes everything even funnier.

To hear these women laugh is to become elated.
We laughed a lot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We went to the zoo and lost ourselves in the monkey house.
Me - Oh my God! That monkey's got a heart shaped butt.
Venus - It's beautiful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The night before we ate sushi at a restaurant where I am in love with one of the waitresses.
I’ve had her as a server twice.
This waitress is voluptuous and exotic in a way that makes you want to lie on her belly in silk sheets.
Bastard, Venus and I wrote her a love letter on blue paper and ran out of the place giggling like 6th graders.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is a website that sells clothing through short porno movies.
www.sexpackaging.com.
We girls kneeled around my laptop to gawk at what was happening on the screen.
You can choose to watch: boy on girl, boy on boy, or girl on girl.

Me – I’m sorry, two hot boys making out is hot. It’s crazy hot. I’m afraid I’m gonna get too excited.

Bastard – I think it’s great that they sell clothes like this. I mean we might as well just remove the innuendo and get to the point already.

Tripwire – Two cute boys…yeah.

Venus – Look at those women. It’s not really sexy cause it doesn’t seem like their into each other. It’s more just a show for the guys.

Me – Where are the clothes that they're selling?

Venus – Exactly.

The movie pans in for a close up on "the goods" and we all fall over in screaming giggles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With Venus in town the Clarkies come out of hiding.
Another Clarkie, Big Red had also flown in from NYC.
Big Red is doing comedy there and he is very fun and cute as a button.
So the reunion was grand and inclusive.
I had a small party in my new digs to celebrate our family.
We drank pina coladas on my back deck and shot shit for miles.
The laughter rose into the night on louder and louder bursts.

A Chicago friend, Dark Yellow who fits into the Clarkie clan like someone who went to school with us, has also recently had his heart broken by a long time love.

Me – We have to have a motto to ring in the New Year.
Dark Yellow – Well the New Year was like 6 months ago.

Me – No, no. The new year is now. It’s come with the summer. The breakups have to be a part of last year so we can move on. My tentative motto is “2006, deal with it.” Or “2006, no regrets”
Dark Yellow – You know what your motto should be? “New dicks in 2006!”

Me – Done and done!

Then we tried to find a good one for him, but the best we had was “Give me a badge for my new vag”. We’re still working on it.

Venus left me this morning and I can still feel the heat of her body in my apartment.
I am healed through laughter. I am healed through love.
Thank you wahine.
Mahalo, Mahalo, mahalo.

Suck it up kiddo. The train's already moving.

I've got a hot-rod boner for a boy.
It feels fun.
It feels exciting.
Nothing may come of it.
I have no preconceptions of what it should be.
I also sometimes don't know how to conduct myself when I'm around him.
I'm focusing on just being.
I’m not that scared though, cause there’s really no danger in failure for me anymore.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had a really bad habit of obsessing over my weight... for like 27 years.
Mostly cause I was so fat as a kid and suffered so much ridicule for it.
But I think this is something that really used to annoy Mr. 9.
For the longest time he was very good about it.

Mr. 9 – I think your body is awesome. I want to get up in it don’t I?

And of course this feels awesome to hear him say, but it doesn’t stop you from obsessing.
I think he got tired of hearing me whine about it,
And eventually he would get real cranky when I would bring it up.

Mr. 9 – If you feel so bad, then why don’t you just stop eating?

The weirdest thing happened when Mr. 9 broke up with me.
I suddenly stopped caring so much.
It’s the oddest side effect.
I find that I don’t have any fear for most things anymore.
Auditions, strangers, telling the truth.

On the same day Mr. 9 broke up with me a good friend died of an aneurism.
Mark dying so young was a catalyst as well, I’m sure.
People always say it, but it really dawned on me when it was so close to home…
I really could die.
Right now.
Mark did.
Two friends of mine died on the same day… in a way.
With them that voice of insecurity died too.
It feels good.

Me (to myself) – “What took you so long to relax?”
Me (to myself) – “ I don’t know.”

I remember the first time I kissed Mr. 9.
We were lying on his floor mattress in his dorm room.
He was too pussy to make any move on me even though I was throwing myself at him like a baseball.
I was so nervous to do it.
Like if he didn’t want to kiss me back I might disappear and cease to exist.
As if my whole life rested on the breath between his lips and mine.
Of course he wanted it… I lived.

That exciting feeling died between us.
It must have at some point.
Even though I remember the exact moment that feeling was born, I can’t remember the exact moment it died.

I’m glad that Mr. 9 took control of his own happiness by getting rid of the thing that was keeping him from growing.
I think we were stunting each other.
Not always, just eventually.
Which makes me cry.
Which makes me relieved.

I used to lie on his back.
Back to back.
My body was just tall enough that I would fit into the curve of his back like a wooden doll fitting snuggly into its larger, wooden, hollow mother.
I used to think that meant we were created for each other.
And we were.
But just for 9 years.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am not afraid to move on… or to try to.
I am not afraid to be happy for him.
I am not afraid to learn from pain.
I am not afraid to see my faults for what they are.
I am not afraid to love unconditionally.
I am not afraid of my mistakes.
I am not afraid of my body.
I am not afraid to cry in public.
I am not afraid to care openly.
I am not afraid to listen with respect.
I am not afraid to give up and start again.
I am not afraid to be alone.
I am not afraid to risk it all suddenly.
I am not afraid of being honest.
I am not afraid of being rejected.
I am not afraid of what people think.
I am not afraid of being wrong.
I am not afraid of wasting time…. It’s not a waste, it’s making me a full person.

Mr. 9 helped me get here.
I’ll always love him.

My body is not my own.

Me – Have you ever bled early for some reason?
MB – No. Are you bleeding?
Me – Uh huh.

MB– Is it spotty, or are you like hemorrhaging?
Me – Just spotty. I’m just not sure if this is my period. I’m more than a week early…I’m never early. It’s probably okay... right?

MB – I don’t know. That’s never happened to me. But once I was so stressed out that I didn’t have my period for three months.
Me – Oh my god, that can’t be good.

MB – You should see your doctor.
Me - It’s probably just my period right?
MB – You should see you doctor.

Me – Yeah. Do you think its stress?
MB –Well you’ve had some... wouldn’t you say?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

R – Are they bad?
Me – Well it feels real terrible when I’m in it, but it’s gonna sound stupid when I tell you.

R – Just go.
Me - Last night I dreamt that I was at Mark’s wake and Mr. 9 and all his friends were there. I was throwing myself at his feet and grabbing onto his pants, sobbing like a widow for him to take me back. I could feel all his friends just staring at me with the most disgusting looks on their faces shaking their heads at how pathetic I was. And I just remember I couldn’t breathe really.

R – Is that what you want? Him back?
Me – No.

R – Okay.
Me - I think he still lives in my body though. Yesterday I just started crying at work again. It used to happen all the time, everyday. My face would just cry and cry and cry. Often suddenly and without warning. But I thought I was beyond that phase now. I wasn’t even sad really; I just think my body needed to do it. Like it’s trying to release his toxins from different pores and ducts.

R - Do you want to know what's at the end of the universe? Past the last star?
Me - Yes please.

R- You know when you're falling asleep and you have a half dream and then you shock yourself awake with a jolt.
Me - Like you're falling and just before you hit the ground you wake up?
R - Yup. that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Sun sign, Taurus
And Mr. 9’s sun sign, Libra
Are both ruled now by the same planet, Venus.
Venus is the planet of love.
Venus is also Libra’s true planet and only Taurus’ filler planet.

Taurus is actually and ultimately ruled by the very last planet Apollo.
Because Apollo has no pull on Earth yet this planet does not play on Taurus today.
But once Apollo comes into Earth’s line of sight, all Taurus’s in the world will finally be released from Venus’ influence and they will be able to come into their full potential.

(The same thing is occurring with Virgos who are currently ruled by Mercury but who will come into their own when Vulcan comes into sight.)

I have never felt so hopeful.

Boys are cool, except when they suck.

(pictures taken during a great snake caper in 2004)






Since the recent breakup with Mr. 9, I can't stop thinking about my high school boyfriend.
He was the first kid who ever made me feel femanine.
I mean I was always kind of.... fat growing up.
And so to survive the ridicule, I had to put on a strong face and beat the bullies at their own game.
I got real good at wise cracks in class.
I told the best dirty jokes,
I played awesome pranks,
I could spit, clean my own fish, and even though I was fat, fences never kept me out.
I was always up for a dare or a challenge and got caught:
once peeing standing up in the boy's bathroom
once leaving a fire of burning toilet paper in the girl's bathroom that smoldered so bad the entire school had to be evacuated,
once drinking beers with Stephanie during 2nd period
and many many times skipping class to go smoke butts, drive around with Jarrod listening to guitar music, or just shoot it.
(There were lots of times I didn't get caught, but there's no use in devulging them here)
And if you wanted to hang out with someone who didn't mind playing star wars in the woods and loved/loves comic books, I'm your guy.

So the first time I got kissed by this fool was like someone
slapping me across the face with my own vagina.
He was a full grown Don Juan at 15.
I was completely aware of it for the first time.
He knew how to kiss you to make your guts sink.
Previous wimpy guys had slobbered on me like a fish and made me just feel wierd.
With Don Juan it was easy to feel light and pretty.

I still like being one of the guys.
It's fun to swear and fart and drink.
Most of my best friends in the world are guys.
I used to sleep at Jarrod's house almost every weekend in the same bed and smoke butts and play darts
and we'd eat off the same plate and make home rock videos together.
Sydwynder loves to tell me about all the girls he's boned
and nothing makes me laugh harder than when he grosses me out by scrunching up his face to show me what it looks like when he's pantomiming ramming it in the latest conquest.
Patty Duke and I can talk for hours about the mechanics of stand up
and he once won my admiration and never ending disgust when he told me that his first sexual encounter was a one night stand with a 40 year old woman who he finger banged in a booth at the local Pepper Corns and later that same night balled in the butt.
I cherish their honesty with me.
And they never play emotional games or feel threatened by me.
My best girl friends are sort of masculine in that way.

When Mr. 9 broke up with me he told me that he didn't feel like I was his girlfriend anymore,
just a really good buddy.
When he said that I felt like a 10 year old tom boy.

Joan Jett is the perfect woman.
She's scary tough and could probably beat you up.
but damn if you don't want to fuck her.

Fighters practice shrugging it off.

(This picture was taken when I had my wisdom teeth out... but imagine instead that I was in a tough fight where I got my jaw busted. Imagine the sound it made was "BLUGT!". Now imagine that I killed the guy that got in the first punch. I hooked him left and his nose went into his brain)

I want to be tough.
I want sex to come like netflix,
only when you want it and exactly what you signed up for.
And I want to be able to walk away, cold heart – warm body.
I know a lot of boys who do this easily.
I want to be a boy.

My boyfriend in high school used to beat at his punching bag without gloves to toughen his knuckles.
He said “Yeah, it bleeds at first, but then they callous over”

Just don’t sleep with anyone you care about and never let them spend the night.

My boyfriend in high school also used to buy wax blocks so that he could
“bite through it until my teeth meet”.
He said if anyone ever tried to mess with me I should bite a part of their body until my teeth met and he would get real excited when he said it.
He loved the sound a face made when it was punched.
He said it’s real embellished on tv and in movies, but the real sound is even more disgusting because it’s way more raw sounding.

I’ve only hit one person in my whole life.
I was in the 7th grade and I barely made contact before she ran home.
I hit her in the chest.
I feel real bad about that.
But I wish I didn’t.
I wish I was a fighter who wasn’t afraid to hear the sound a face makes when it’s punched.

But I’m not.
I’ve got to take off those gloves.
At first it bleeds.

Just bone as much as you can

I recently had a conversation with a friend, T:

Me – The night he broke up with me, I was little bit tipsy and I started crying and screaming at the top of my lungs in the middle of the street.
T – I’ve screamed before. Uncontrollably and in public.
Me – it feels weird to be that out of control.
T – I don’t think my boyfriend would ever get mad like that at me.
Me – It would be too uncool.
T- Yeah, no one looks cool when they’re expending that much energy being mad.

That was the only time I ever yelled at Mr. 9 so over-dramatically.
Except one other night when he was already staying somewhere else.
I had two weeks until I moved out.
He just showed up.
He thought I had rehearsal.
I was at the point in the breakup where I was trying to convince myself that I was getting over him.
You know, the false front stage.
So, I hear his voice in the hallway from my room.
I could just feel my whole face get flush.
I tried to be so cool.
I called forth all the cool I had in my being.
But instead of tunneling the energy into a zen, I laser-beamed it into a hot rage freakout.
I just threw open the door and before I knew it these terrible words were coming out of my mouth.
All in a very uncool tone, that took a lot of energy to produce.
I’m pretty sure you could call it screaming-crying.
It wasn’t pretty, it was almost funny.
And I was almost not believing it myself.
So out of control.
So relentless.
I had been called a drama queen once before by Ricochet... that stung,
and I know sometimes I get a little over emotional,
but I had actually become the crazy, unreasonable person that was justifying any reason he didn’t love me anymore.
It felt unnatural.
But at the time, it’s what my body needed to do.
I don't forsee myself going to that place again.
It's so unattractive.

Advice I have gotten at different points since the breakup:

You’ve never been alone before, you should take advantage of that.

You should have a series of 2 to 3 month relationships with a bunch of random guys in a row.

Just bone… as much as you can.

Old school / New school

I dated this guy in high school for about two years in my freshman and sophomore years.
He was my very first real boyfriend.
He boxed.
He had muscles.
He had really thick knuckles.
He always used to wear wife-beaters and basketball shorts,
until he got into punkrock and then he started wearing wife-beaters and ripped jeans.
His last name was the same as a super fast Italian sports car.
We had sex for the first time on his weight bench.

His dad sold weed.
His dad got the weed in bricks and then he would break it up into smaller amounts to sell to other construction workers.
His dad was always high.
They lived hard from pay check to pay check because his Dad would always blow his paychecks the night he got ‘em and then they’d have no money for the rest of the two weeks.

My friends and family weren’t exactly excited about Italian sports car.
He wasn’t much at school and for fun he and his friends would drop acid and watch Faces of Death.

I was head over heals for this kid.
We would always be having sex.
Like constantly.
I would sneak out my window every night to go sleep at his house.
His parents didn’t care at all and his little sister walked in on us sleeping naked many times.
Then I would walk back home at like 5:00 in the morning before my mom was up and sneak back in to my own room.

We had sex in a lot of fun places too.
Like in the back of his truck under the stars,
In this nearly completed town home in my mom’s complex on a blanket covering some old nails.
On the beach.
In the everglades,
In the gym after hours at the high school on our block where we then got chased out by a guy on a golf cart.
In the hot tub at the complex’s pool, where we were chased out by the neighborhood watch.
Lots of different stuff.
It wasn't what I would call romantic sex,
But you know, it was the fun kind you have because you're 16.
Once, in our second year of dating, he told me that his friends who had been dating a long time had wanted to have a foursome.
I was 16, so I kind of freaked out about it.
But looking back, that would have been so much tougher if I’d said yes.

We started having these fights, real bad ones.
And I couldn’t understand why he was always so angry.
It dawned on me one day when we were driving to a party in his truck.

Me – You’re taking steroids, aren’t you.
Him – yeah.

He would get real tense and the veins in his neck would stick out.
We broke up soon after that.
He started dating some girl soon after me.

I haven’t seen him in 12 years.
I have no desire to.

Mr. 9 and I never really had sex anywhere crazy.
‘Cept in his car at his old elementary school once.
We only really had one or two real fights our whole relationship of nine years.
He never really did any drugs ‘cept for normal high school stuff.
When I stayed at his house, I don’t think his mom was real psyched about us staying in the same room, although we slept in separate twin beds from his childhood,
so that was okay.

The night we broke up with me he told me he had been staying at some girl’s house.
And although nothing had happened between them, he had wanted it to.

I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks.
I dread it.

Funny is sexy.

One of the reasons Mr. 9 and I got along so well, was he could make me laugh.

At first, and for a long time, no one really knew how funny he was.
It was kind of special knowing how silly he could be around me.
And not around other people.
He had terrible jokes, but we would spend hours upon hours heightening each other’s stupid noises or making theme songs to tv shows that didn’t exist, or pretending to be the voice of God warning people not to be assholes.
We just got each other that way.
And when I would write something, I just knew…
If 9 didn’t think it was funny, then it just wasn’t.
And when something I did made him laugh, I knew I had gold.

So that’s why it should have sent off some bells…
That spring.
We were taking a walk.
I made some observation that I knew was hilarious.
And he didn’t even cramp a smile.

Me – Come on! You don’t think that’s funny? That’s hilarious! You’re being crazy.
9 – Just drop it okay?!

But of course I couldn’t.
It wasn’t the first time he’d thought something I said wasn’t funny, but he seemed so angry about it.
Usually we could just laugh about how bad it was and move on.
We laughed a lot together.

Me – I can’t believe you don’t think that’s funny! What’s the matter with you? Are you okay?
9 – I’m fine, I just think that’s stupid.

I often say things that are stupid but that I think are hilarious… that’s true
But he wasn’t fine.
He had been sitting in a stew of his own making for some time.
The ingredients included “not being in love with me anymore” and “feeling obligated to stay in the relationship”.
I didn’t know this though.

Once he found his voice as a writer and started making a name for himself,
other people got to know how funny he is.
He gained a confidence through the reading circuit that I had never seen in him before.
He writes very charming fiction and although he doesn’t consider himself a comedian, he knows how to punch up a script.
Plus he’s driven.
So, a lot of people want a piece of him now.
Other writers, the press, and I can assume… girls.
And it’s no secret what a good sense of humor he has.
He can be silly around everyone, except me.

Looking back I can see how we didn’t laugh.
How we didn’t share the same jokes anymore.

It should have dawned on me.
But I wasn’t paying attention I guess.
I miss it a lot.
To be honest, it’s the thing I miss the most.

Dancing like idiots to the Jackson 5 in my room and making one minute films of it on the digital camera.
Coming up with songs for our band that only uses nonsense sounds for its songs and not words.
Trying to find the exact pitch between the two of us for the sound of a ring tone.
Making up puns using the names of towns we were driving through.
"Goin' to Topeka"

Ink is forever, love is not.

He wasn’t mad at first when I got my tattoo.
Mostly because he was asleep.
I’d been out real late with the snakes and sudz were being sucked on and a lot of shit got shot, so when I got home I had to slip into bed so as not to wake him.
Not cause he got upset about me being out late.
He was real good about that, although sometimes he would worry, if I forgot to call.
Although later on our roles would reverse when he got a little notoriety as a Chicago writer.
I would get worried when he’d forget to call.
He never forgot to call.
Until the end when he was sleeping at some other girl’s house.

No, I’ld slip into bed just ‘cause I didn’t want to wake him.
Then next morning though…

9 – You got a tattoo without me? How could you get one without me?!
Me – I don’t know. It just happened.

I realize that was kind of dick.
He’d been saying that we should get tattoos for a long time.

Me – But I’m telling you, that’s the kiss of death.
9 – I’m not asking you to marry me. We could just get tattoos at the same time, not even of each other.

I have an issue with marriage. Mostly that I think it’s bullshit.

Me – But there’s no tattoo I want.

Not until I saw that snake.
I walked into the Double Door.
Riptide pulled up his white cotton shirt sleeve to show me the damage.
It was the toughest thing I had ever seen.
The snake they had chosen was from Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions.
He wore it like a badge. It almost looked homemade.
He wears that tattoo like it’s his job.
I immediately wanted one.
Then Trip showed me hers.
Low hip.
“Jesus Christ!” I thought.
It looked like she was branded. I fell in love.
Then Gultch ponies up and Wydow reveals it.

Me – I can’t believe you got them without me.

So on St. Patrick’s Day later that week, it didn’t take much
Only about 2 “whatever’s cheap” to get me to the parlor.
Ambush was coming too.
He had his money stashed in a cigar box and it made me really happy that that was how he saved.

We were the last ones in the chair and the inkers were just glad we weren’t getting some sort of retarded shamrock or a fighting leprechaun.
It only hurt as much as you want it to.
As much as it takes to make you smile.
As much as it takes to feel good.

Over the course of nine years, 9 had thought about getting lots of ink:
Bootsy Collins glasses, a “77”, a flag of Chicago, my name, The logo for Featherproof, a simple map of the Chicago rail system. We talked about it a lot. We never went.

I’m not sure what it means that I won’t get a tattoo with my boyfriend and best friend of nine years, but it I will get one with the improv troupe I’ve been a part of for one year.
I’m sure it’s obvious though.

I hope he finds a girl some day to get inked with.
Not for each other, just at the same time.

Crying in paradise

The MC was making all the newlyweds stand
and I was fine,
even when he proclaimed that the whole audience had to say "honi honi" together, which means kiss.
The snickers came in a flood and it was pointed
out for those who missed it
that "honi honi" comes before the wedding and "horny horny" comes after.

Then Mr. MC made those celebrating an anniversary of 25 years or more stand
and suddenly I couldn't stop crying.
It was a crazy eye storm that ravaged my face and had some 5o year old tourists in flip flops and flowered mumus asking me if "Everything is okay".
"Yes" I explain, very unconvincingly as I shake at the shoulders and blow my nose.

I went back out to watch the Hula girls float in grass skirts.
I wondered how they got so beautiful.
They were as perfect as the flowers in their hair.
I want to dance the hula.
The good ones train in the ocean with sand bags on their feet.
They dance on their toes.

In my dreams that night I married a Samoan man.
He had me climb his shoulders like a mountain.
his face was wide and his skin was shimmery like eyeshadow.
We had little Japanese baby girls that came out riding surf boards.
He climbed coconut trees and cooked fresh fish, and I made leis from the garden.
The sun was on my face and my belly felt full.

Chicago has been mean to me.
I am trying to forgive her.
When my flight got back into the airport on Wednesday, it was grey and raining.
It's like Chicago doesn't even want to make up.