At work, I am dealing with yet another tragic student suicide. I don't want to trivialize the great tragedy by writing about it here. I'll just say it's very sad and my heart goes out to the poor, lost young woman.
Personally, I am suddenly furious with my former lover for his freeze-out since our parting in January. My contempt for him, long coming, has arrived. I am really angry with him now. As Ali says, "He's renting too much real estate in your psyche. I assure you, you aren't in his."
She's right. But I am truly angry, four months later. I guess it took me this long just to get over the sorrow, numbness and horror. But I am now. So the anger has arrived. Cue the orchestra: Carmen's made her entrance.
Another possible trigger: the book's so close to being finished. I think it's very good. My goal is to finish it by symbolic June 7. If I can finish it and simultaneously do the music video and all the other opportunities I have next in queue, that is. If not, shortly thereafter.
I take up no space in his heart or mind or he would have contacted me by now after reading my final posts to our private blog in the last few weeks. I'm erased, invisible, banished. Got it.
Why would he orchestrate this pathetic ending to a beautiful romance, knowing full well I'd lose all respect for him forever in the bargain? I suppose I'm angry with myself for being duped. I loved him, so I thought I knew him. I couldn't have been more wrong. As I wrote him, "I broke my own heart." I own that.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
B&W Breakfast at Tiffany's
Just had a great photo session with Ali! I'll be editing for days. Movie Shoot II.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
"Love is my religion - I could die for it" John Keats
And evidently one of my former advisees did last week, by his own hand. Tragic. A beautiful boy, a sensitive soul of thirty years. I'm haunted by his death these days.
I always think at the end of a love affair that I will die (or must die, or should die), but I don't. Perhaps that's my tragedy: I live on. I put one foot in front of the other, I breathe, I take meals, I work, I see friends, I shop, I make plans for the future. My life goes on. I survive. But, truly, a part of me has died forever -- the part of me I shared only with my lover.
But, perhaps, with each ending something is also created? A timeless, transcendent space, a kind of metaphysical empty room full of blinding light? An intimate space that may only be shared with one other human being in all the world? And maybe will be again someday? Or so it seems to me.
"In my father's house there are many mansions." And in some of them dwell those I once loved so much I believed I would die if they ceased to love me. Perhaps one day, outside of time and space, we will love again in those rooms full of white light.
I always think at the end of a love affair that I will die (or must die, or should die), but I don't. Perhaps that's my tragedy: I live on. I put one foot in front of the other, I breathe, I take meals, I work, I see friends, I shop, I make plans for the future. My life goes on. I survive. But, truly, a part of me has died forever -- the part of me I shared only with my lover.
But, perhaps, with each ending something is also created? A timeless, transcendent space, a kind of metaphysical empty room full of blinding light? An intimate space that may only be shared with one other human being in all the world? And maybe will be again someday? Or so it seems to me.
"In my father's house there are many mansions." And in some of them dwell those I once loved so much I believed I would die if they ceased to love me. Perhaps one day, outside of time and space, we will love again in those rooms full of white light.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
I had the most splendid...
Parent-of-a-Specified-Gender Day with my family! Thank you, Jimmie and Cindy and Maya Naomi and Autumn for the gifts and swimming and fun! Love you guys!
And thanks for a wonderful show on Friday, the Kings 'N' Things Seventh Anniversary. Hard to believe you guys are now senior kings of the troupe!
I got leopard spats made for me by Cindy for Mother's Day. I am gonna rock them all over town, and in Paris, too!
And thanks for a wonderful show on Friday, the Kings 'N' Things Seventh Anniversary. Hard to believe you guys are now senior kings of the troupe!
I got leopard spats made for me by Cindy for Mother's Day. I am gonna rock them all over town, and in Paris, too!
Happy Mother's Day to one and all.
Man, woman and child. Because isn't trying to learn be good mothers to each other why we're all here? You know, nurturing, unconditional love, a shoulder to cry on, to teach one another? Without the icky parts of motherhood like constantly worrying, being neurotic or controlling or too critical? I think we should all be like the mother birds and protect each other so that we develop the confidence and independence to fly!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Can't shut my mind off = insomnia, followed by nightmares
A terrible dream last night:
Ali and I were doing a photo shoot in a long, narrow space, walls and floors like my apartment, but easily a hundred yards long and only about six yards wide. The dream had three passages to it, and we moved down the space in thirds.
1. People bundled up in coats and scarves came in as we arrived, as if coming into the space from winter weather. This seems to set my dream in Italy. And the people were all academics known to me from meetings at school or X's colleagues in Italy. Academia. They ignored us as we set our lights and began the shoot.
2. We moved on to the middle of the space. Today the second passage is wiped from my memory, although it was vivid and I didn't think I'd forget it when I awoke from the dream. I think it had to do with X and a tattered top hat in need of repairs. The photo shoot continued in the middle of the space.
3. At the far end of the room we continued the shoot but were having trouble getting my arms in the position needed for the picture. There was a small curtained window in the wall there, and the space behind it was dark, seemingly a deserted, cluttered storage room. It occurred to us that if I put one arm on the sill of the window we could get the shot.
My hand accidentally went into the space behind the curtain as I took the pose. Then, out of nowhere, a dry, hot hand seized my wrist violently and angrily held on. The hand's skin was old, papery. I was terrified and screamed for Ali to help me detach myself from the hand, which would not release its death-hold on my wrist no matter how I twisted and jerked. She couldn't force the hand to release me, either, so reluctantly I struck out with my nails at the person who attacked me behind the curtain. With a sickening feeling I realized I was scratching my attacker's face as my fingertips dug into eyes and a mouth. I didn't want to hurt this invisible attacker, but felt I had no choice since she wouldn't release my wrist and clearly meant me harm. I told myself to wake up so I could end the dream.
The hand belonged to X's friend J, I realized upon awakening.
Horrible! I could venture a psychological analysis but will abstain.
I hate the end of the semester when I am so stressed out at work that it carries over into my dreams!
Ali and I were doing a photo shoot in a long, narrow space, walls and floors like my apartment, but easily a hundred yards long and only about six yards wide. The dream had three passages to it, and we moved down the space in thirds.
1. People bundled up in coats and scarves came in as we arrived, as if coming into the space from winter weather. This seems to set my dream in Italy. And the people were all academics known to me from meetings at school or X's colleagues in Italy. Academia. They ignored us as we set our lights and began the shoot.
2. We moved on to the middle of the space. Today the second passage is wiped from my memory, although it was vivid and I didn't think I'd forget it when I awoke from the dream. I think it had to do with X and a tattered top hat in need of repairs. The photo shoot continued in the middle of the space.
3. At the far end of the room we continued the shoot but were having trouble getting my arms in the position needed for the picture. There was a small curtained window in the wall there, and the space behind it was dark, seemingly a deserted, cluttered storage room. It occurred to us that if I put one arm on the sill of the window we could get the shot.
My hand accidentally went into the space behind the curtain as I took the pose. Then, out of nowhere, a dry, hot hand seized my wrist violently and angrily held on. The hand's skin was old, papery. I was terrified and screamed for Ali to help me detach myself from the hand, which would not release its death-hold on my wrist no matter how I twisted and jerked. She couldn't force the hand to release me, either, so reluctantly I struck out with my nails at the person who attacked me behind the curtain. With a sickening feeling I realized I was scratching my attacker's face as my fingertips dug into eyes and a mouth. I didn't want to hurt this invisible attacker, but felt I had no choice since she wouldn't release my wrist and clearly meant me harm. I told myself to wake up so I could end the dream.
The hand belonged to X's friend J, I realized upon awakening.
Horrible! I could venture a psychological analysis but will abstain.
I hate the end of the semester when I am so stressed out at work that it carries over into my dreams!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
What I wanted out of life when I was a little girl.
The reality of how it's turned out for me.
These are two things I ponder sometimes as I take Buster on one of our hour-long walks through the park with the iPod earbuds in and music playing in my brain. Listening to music while I walk really facilitates deep thoughts, I find.
I've been fighting off a teeny tiny little attack of the blues; part of that, I'm certain, is my still dealing with the emotional aftermath of the end of my relationship with X. If I get a little blue I always get extremely philosophical. And part of it is probably being 54; it's clear my life is more than half over and I can't waste a moment of what's left for me.
What I wanted "when I grew up" when I was a little girl:
1. To have two children, a boy and a girl, with two different fathers. I wanted one of my babies to be black because I thought black children were much more beautiful than white children :)
2. To join the circus and become an aerialist, trapeze performer or tight-rope walker.
3. I said I never intended to marry.
4. The technical skill to draw, fabricate or sew whatever I imagined -- drawings, dolls, costumes, books.
And, when I became a teenager, these things were added to my wish list:
5. To speak French, to go to Paris and maybe even to live there permanently.
6. To be a stage actress or dancer. Or a writer. Or an artist. Or a photographer. To be famous. To live "la vie Bohème" as much as it's possible in the U.S. in the 20th century.
7. To live in a gypsy vardo or an Airstream. Or an Airstream tricked out like a gypsy vardo.
8. To get my fair share of love, affection, kisses and great sex out of my life. To be thought beautiful by my beloved.
9. To march to the beat of my own drum and be true to myself. To be authentic and sincere.
10. To travel the world.
And then, as a grown-up, after my children were raised and I had fulfilled my obligations to others:
11. To own prescription designer sunglasses, a Louis Vuitton wallet and an Hermès scarf.
12. To make love in and have a great romance play out in Paris and Venice.
It's interesting to assess, at mid-life, how well I succeeded in my original goals. Pretty well, n'est-ce pas, all things considered. I find myself at this stage of my life worrying more about the "will I have time" issues: Will I have time to make every drawing I wanted to make? Will my health and vitality hold up so that I can continue to travel and hoof it relentlessly once I'm at my destination?
Why do I have to sleep eight hours a night? I'm wasting time!
Why does work have unpredictable hours and so many special events that derail me from my personal agenda?
Why do I often just walk around my house in circles finding stupid little putzy things to do rather than the grand projects? And then another evening's wasted, and how many more of them will I have in my lifetime?
That's the issue that seems to emerge as critical for me now, as a woman of a certain age: is there enough time?
And did I get all the kisses and great sex and loving I hoped to get out of this one life of mine?
These are two things I ponder sometimes as I take Buster on one of our hour-long walks through the park with the iPod earbuds in and music playing in my brain. Listening to music while I walk really facilitates deep thoughts, I find.
I've been fighting off a teeny tiny little attack of the blues; part of that, I'm certain, is my still dealing with the emotional aftermath of the end of my relationship with X. If I get a little blue I always get extremely philosophical. And part of it is probably being 54; it's clear my life is more than half over and I can't waste a moment of what's left for me.
What I wanted "when I grew up" when I was a little girl:
1. To have two children, a boy and a girl, with two different fathers. I wanted one of my babies to be black because I thought black children were much more beautiful than white children :)
2. To join the circus and become an aerialist, trapeze performer or tight-rope walker.
3. I said I never intended to marry.
4. The technical skill to draw, fabricate or sew whatever I imagined -- drawings, dolls, costumes, books.
And, when I became a teenager, these things were added to my wish list:
5. To speak French, to go to Paris and maybe even to live there permanently.
6. To be a stage actress or dancer. Or a writer. Or an artist. Or a photographer. To be famous. To live "la vie Bohème" as much as it's possible in the U.S. in the 20th century.
7. To live in a gypsy vardo or an Airstream. Or an Airstream tricked out like a gypsy vardo.
8. To get my fair share of love, affection, kisses and great sex out of my life. To be thought beautiful by my beloved.
9. To march to the beat of my own drum and be true to myself. To be authentic and sincere.
10. To travel the world.
And then, as a grown-up, after my children were raised and I had fulfilled my obligations to others:
11. To own prescription designer sunglasses, a Louis Vuitton wallet and an Hermès scarf.
12. To make love in and have a great romance play out in Paris and Venice.
It's interesting to assess, at mid-life, how well I succeeded in my original goals. Pretty well, n'est-ce pas, all things considered. I find myself at this stage of my life worrying more about the "will I have time" issues: Will I have time to make every drawing I wanted to make? Will my health and vitality hold up so that I can continue to travel and hoof it relentlessly once I'm at my destination?
Why do I have to sleep eight hours a night? I'm wasting time!
Why does work have unpredictable hours and so many special events that derail me from my personal agenda?
Why do I often just walk around my house in circles finding stupid little putzy things to do rather than the grand projects? And then another evening's wasted, and how many more of them will I have in my lifetime?
That's the issue that seems to emerge as critical for me now, as a woman of a certain age: is there enough time?
And did I get all the kisses and great sex and loving I hoped to get out of this one life of mine?
Another semester draws to a close.
I've felt "meeting'd" to death recently, but things should really begin to wind down next week when the students are no longer attending class. Because of the swine flu epidemic I'll be gladder than usual when class is no longer in session and students aren't thrown together in confined spaces. We'll have a full stop for a couple of weeks before summer term and orientation start up, so maybe that will put the brakes on virus transmission here on campus. I do worry a little about our many international students who'll head home to Mexico at the end of the semester, but perhaps most will stay away all summer.
Awards banquets and concerts and other special end-of-semester activities have kept me up on campus later than usual most nights lately. I look forward to getting back into a routine with walking Buster and drawing nightly once all these special events cease for the summer. We'll have to shift our nightly walks to just before sundown soon due to the oppressive heat and humidity.
Commencement is the 22nd, and, after that, it really will become deathly quiet up here for a while. Honestly, I look forward to that. It's spooky, though, not to be leaving for Europe the day after graduation as I usually do. It will be interesting to be in Austin all summer this year. I'll find ways to stay busy and entertained, I'm certain!
Awards banquets and concerts and other special end-of-semester activities have kept me up on campus later than usual most nights lately. I look forward to getting back into a routine with walking Buster and drawing nightly once all these special events cease for the summer. We'll have to shift our nightly walks to just before sundown soon due to the oppressive heat and humidity.
Commencement is the 22nd, and, after that, it really will become deathly quiet up here for a while. Honestly, I look forward to that. It's spooky, though, not to be leaving for Europe the day after graduation as I usually do. It will be interesting to be in Austin all summer this year. I'll find ways to stay busy and entertained, I'm certain!
Monday, May 4, 2009
A Woman is a Woman homage...
quite tongue in cheek.
The shoot with Ali was exhausting, but fun. I will likely be editing for days, and we didn't get to do six more setups I had planned because they're exteriors and we lost the light. Plus we need to shoot downtown when there's no one around to see the madness! Maybe in the next couple of weeks we'll finish, but it's a good start. 250 photos, but only about two dozen will go in the project.
The shoot with Ali was exhausting, but fun. I will likely be editing for days, and we didn't get to do six more setups I had planned because they're exteriors and we lost the light. Plus we need to shoot downtown when there's no one around to see the madness! Maybe in the next couple of weeks we'll finish, but it's a good start. 250 photos, but only about two dozen will go in the project.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Violetta? Mimi? No.
Musetta a little. Carmen: yes.
*****
I passed a man on the hike and bike trail today walking Buster. When he was completely past me, I suddenly thought, "Wait! Was that my second husband?!"
*****
I passed a man on the hike and bike trail today walking Buster. When he was completely past me, I suddenly thought, "Wait! Was that my second husband?!"
Monday, April 27, 2009
Je m'ennuie aujourd'hui!
I bore myself and I am bored, that is. It's been terribly quiet all day at the office due to horrible black skies and rain. We've had barely anyone come in for assistance with anything. I've busied myself cleaning out my email box and other housekeeping tasks, but the day has seemed terribly long. If I had been home there are so many things I could be doing. And now, because of the rain, I won't be able to take Buster on his long walk when I go home and both of us will feel off. I'm really addicted to our hour-long daily walk and get so cranky without it.
But I suppose I can hoop to music indoors if all else fails.
I've been thinking about the next drawing suite I will start, and I think it's Things I Thought I Saw at the Water's Edge -- because as I walk along the shore of Town Lake daily with Buster, a trick of the eye often makes me think I see something I didn't really see at all in the water. Maybe the series will be about a dozen black and white drawings, but the one that gave me the original idea will be big, and in color. I need to tear down paper now that I know what I'm doing next, and do some preliminary studies of water movement and ripples. I've had six months off since I wrapped the last series -- always need battery recharge time between projects -- but I couldn't start the next series without committing to a theme. So, that's settled. The reflective nature of water also will be a good opportunity -- images of duality.
I doubt I'll get much drawing done this week, though. Two evening events for me as the semester wears itself out and ramps down.
I was thinking as I walked Buster yesterday about French popular music, and how common it is in French love songs for the singer to face up to the likely eventual failure of the love affair in advance. They sing things like, "If tomorrow you should cease to love me..." "If you go away.." "If you should have a change of heart..." "If you should no longer love me.." It's odd. I don't think English-language songs as often acknowledge the transitory nature of romantic love. Because my iPod is loaded up with French pop music from the 1920s until now I seem to listen to a lot of those "it's inevitable that our love will end" songs. Piaf sang her fair share of them -- L'Hymne à L'Amour, for instance. And so did Charles Aznavour. I think it's healthier just to confront that probability head-on. Maybe it's a very French thing to realize the love affair is doomed just as you begin it with the first kiss? I always have that feeling myself, I must admit. Still, it doesn't stop me from loving. Because, as Piaf sang so movingly,
If the sky should fall into the sea
And the stars fade all around me
All the times that we have known here
I will sing a hymn to love
We have lived and dreamed we two alone
In a world that's been our very own
With its memories ever grateful
Just for you I sing a hymn to love
I remember each embrace
The smile that lights your face
And my heart begins to sing
Your eyes have never lied
And my heart begins to sing
And my heart begins to sing
If one day you should ever disappear
Always remember these words
If one day we had to say goodbye
And our love should fade away and die
In my heart you will remain here
And I'II sing a hymn to love
O for love, we live eternally
In the blue we'll roll this harmony
With every day we are in heaven
As for you, I'll sing a hymn to love
Don't you ever worry, dear
And the stars shall fade from the sky
All the times that we have known here
I will sing a hymn to our love
Oh darling,
Just for you I sing
A hymn to love
****
Speaking of Piaf, over the weekend I bought my ticket to Paris for October and reserved my hotel rooms, one on the Droit and one on the Rive Gauche. I'll mix it up and enjoy two neighborhoods this trip. I can't stay away from Paris much longer than a year, and passing through those two snowy days at Christmas at the airport don't count. Life is too short not to spend as much of it as possible in Paris.
But I suppose I can hoop to music indoors if all else fails.
I've been thinking about the next drawing suite I will start, and I think it's Things I Thought I Saw at the Water's Edge -- because as I walk along the shore of Town Lake daily with Buster, a trick of the eye often makes me think I see something I didn't really see at all in the water. Maybe the series will be about a dozen black and white drawings, but the one that gave me the original idea will be big, and in color. I need to tear down paper now that I know what I'm doing next, and do some preliminary studies of water movement and ripples. I've had six months off since I wrapped the last series -- always need battery recharge time between projects -- but I couldn't start the next series without committing to a theme. So, that's settled. The reflective nature of water also will be a good opportunity -- images of duality.
I doubt I'll get much drawing done this week, though. Two evening events for me as the semester wears itself out and ramps down.
I was thinking as I walked Buster yesterday about French popular music, and how common it is in French love songs for the singer to face up to the likely eventual failure of the love affair in advance. They sing things like, "If tomorrow you should cease to love me..." "If you go away.." "If you should have a change of heart..." "If you should no longer love me.." It's odd. I don't think English-language songs as often acknowledge the transitory nature of romantic love. Because my iPod is loaded up with French pop music from the 1920s until now I seem to listen to a lot of those "it's inevitable that our love will end" songs. Piaf sang her fair share of them -- L'Hymne à L'Amour, for instance. And so did Charles Aznavour. I think it's healthier just to confront that probability head-on. Maybe it's a very French thing to realize the love affair is doomed just as you begin it with the first kiss? I always have that feeling myself, I must admit. Still, it doesn't stop me from loving. Because, as Piaf sang so movingly,
If the sky should fall into the sea
And the stars fade all around me
All the times that we have known here
I will sing a hymn to love
We have lived and dreamed we two alone
In a world that's been our very own
With its memories ever grateful
Just for you I sing a hymn to love
I remember each embrace
The smile that lights your face
And my heart begins to sing
Your eyes have never lied
And my heart begins to sing
And my heart begins to sing
If one day you should ever disappear
Always remember these words
If one day we had to say goodbye
And our love should fade away and die
In my heart you will remain here
And I'II sing a hymn to love
O for love, we live eternally
In the blue we'll roll this harmony
With every day we are in heaven
As for you, I'll sing a hymn to love
Don't you ever worry, dear
And the stars shall fade from the sky
All the times that we have known here
I will sing a hymn to our love
Oh darling,
Just for you I sing
A hymn to love
****
Speaking of Piaf, over the weekend I bought my ticket to Paris for October and reserved my hotel rooms, one on the Droit and one on the Rive Gauche. I'll mix it up and enjoy two neighborhoods this trip. I can't stay away from Paris much longer than a year, and passing through those two snowy days at Christmas at the airport don't count. Life is too short not to spend as much of it as possible in Paris.
Detective Movie
Fun photo shoot tonight with Ali as her persona Carmelo Carillo. I'll tidy them all up and post to Flickr soon!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Dialogues of the Carmelites
It will take a long time to get it out of my head. The sickening sound of the metallic clank that accompanies each chop of the guillotine as all the little nuns are beheaded at the end of Poulenc's gorgeous opera Dialogues of the Carmelites, that is. I went last night to see it performed (beautifully!) by Austin Lyric Opera. I could only afford a third balcony seat, but the acoustics were marvelous even there and I do have those mother-of-pear folding opera glasses.
The first time I was exposed to DotC it was twenty some-odd years ago on the radio -- probably one of those weekend broadcasts from the Met. I had been cleaning house and not paying very close attention until the middle of the third act and I still remember how the sound of the chops of the guillotine triggered actual dry heaves in me that first time. I find this work so incredibly powerful and I read it on so many levels.
There's, first, the primarily female cast; rare in opera. The men are the throw-aways in this one. There's the mothers and daughters motif, although they are nuns and spiritual sisters. I can put some feminist reads into it, and a would-be lesbian love-at-first-sight story. There are the existential issues of freedom and transcendence. To me, DotC is less about religion and more about fear, and about the fear of fear. I know those are probably not the things Polenc wanted me to ponder, but I'm a post-modernist and I can't help it.
And there's one of the greatest lines in opera: to paraphrase, "She got somebody else's death, as one might mistakenly be handed someone else's coat in the cloak room."
The first time I was exposed to DotC it was twenty some-odd years ago on the radio -- probably one of those weekend broadcasts from the Met. I had been cleaning house and not paying very close attention until the middle of the third act and I still remember how the sound of the chops of the guillotine triggered actual dry heaves in me that first time. I find this work so incredibly powerful and I read it on so many levels.
There's, first, the primarily female cast; rare in opera. The men are the throw-aways in this one. There's the mothers and daughters motif, although they are nuns and spiritual sisters. I can put some feminist reads into it, and a would-be lesbian love-at-first-sight story. There are the existential issues of freedom and transcendence. To me, DotC is less about religion and more about fear, and about the fear of fear. I know those are probably not the things Polenc wanted me to ponder, but I'm a post-modernist and I can't help it.
And there's one of the greatest lines in opera: to paraphrase, "She got somebody else's death, as one might mistakenly be handed someone else's coat in the cloak room."
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Rocking that Missionary Look
...like I said I would!
Love these Dutch wax African batiks. I got two skirts, one black, one turquoise, on ebay! I wear them with the Massai-inspired towering sandals and the ubiquitous leopard sweater of which I am so fond. This is a happy ensemble!
But I am still trying to get over that damned stye.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Everything's moving so fast.
It's dizzying, like being on a crazy carousel, as Jacques Brel sang. But it always happens like this in the spring semesters. Everyone waits until the very last moment to conduct business they were either in denial about, or procrastinated beginning. That goes for faculty members AND their students, by the way. Of necessity, this is the season for final recitals, exhibitions, defenses, presentations. And end-of-year banquets and ceremonies and receptions.
As a result, I don't have time to fully write about the many wonderful happenings lately. (B)Easter with Jimmie and Cindy and the little girls was marvelous. I went out to their place for brunch and enjoyed hiding Easter eggs for children to find, something I haven't done for many years. Jimmie made some nice photos of the day which you can see in a set on flickr if you click through from the image of my grand-beauties below.
Friday night's premiere of Queenie Pie, Duke Ellington's opera, was also marvelous. The young, vibrant African-American cast really delivered, and it was a memorable production. Unbelievably, the ninety-something year-old white woman whose notes are what made this staging possible attended the premiere. She had broken her hip a week ago, so none of us expected she'd be able to travel. But travel she did, and made her pre-performance appearance on stage wearing a colorful sequined gown she said Ellington bought for her years ago, with her red-dyed hair and six handsome young men in zoot suits escorting her in in her wheelchair. I loved Queenie Pie's plot about dueling beauticians -- rather Carmen-esque, and the magical Bali Hai island Queenie Pie sails to on a 1930's ocean liner like the Normandie. Hard to believe it hasn't been fully staged somewhere with all the trimmings -- wouldn't it probably do well in London? It needs the kind of production values that, say, Cole Porter's Anything Goes had; the orchestra was also on stage in that one when I saw the 2004 revival.
It enjoyed getting all dressed up to meet up there with friends and to go to the reception afterward to congratulate everyone involved in this ambitious production. I have to work on overcoming my shyness and getting out to do these kinds of things more often. I'm fine, once I'm there. I just don't know what to say to people when it comes to small talk, but it seems to get a little easier with each outing. Practice helps with overcoming the shyness, I'm finding.
Saturday night was my Grey Gardens viewing party. I got HBO just for the week and Alison kindly let me borrow her monstrous television for the evening. It was a potluck affair with cuisine inspired somehow by Grey Gardens, and bizarre couture was required. It was fun to be in a room full of Little Edies, and my photos later revealed an orb hovering over performance artist Jill Pangallo's head. I can only assume it was Little Edie giving us her blessing. The Barrymore/Lang Grey Gardens piece was all I expected and hoped for and I really enjoyed its visuals and insights. Great acting on the parts of the stars! Loved the very believable prosthetic aging effects, too, particularly Barrymore's arms. I haven't watched the Maysles' original documentary for a couple of years and now feel I need to add looking at it again to my already lengthy to-do list for the near future. The viewing party did cause me to have to undertake a major no-holds-barred housekeeping incident, so that was a good side effect. There is still more stuff from those boxes from Italy I need to deal with or find homes for hidden about. There are still materials for future steam-punking projects lurking in cabinets and closets.
Work will be hectic all this week and we've got construction-related activities going on to further complicate everything. Friday night it's Dialogues of the Carmelites. Whee!
As a result, I don't have time to fully write about the many wonderful happenings lately. (B)Easter with Jimmie and Cindy and the little girls was marvelous. I went out to their place for brunch and enjoyed hiding Easter eggs for children to find, something I haven't done for many years. Jimmie made some nice photos of the day which you can see in a set on flickr if you click through from the image of my grand-beauties below.
Friday night's premiere of Queenie Pie, Duke Ellington's opera, was also marvelous. The young, vibrant African-American cast really delivered, and it was a memorable production. Unbelievably, the ninety-something year-old white woman whose notes are what made this staging possible attended the premiere. She had broken her hip a week ago, so none of us expected she'd be able to travel. But travel she did, and made her pre-performance appearance on stage wearing a colorful sequined gown she said Ellington bought for her years ago, with her red-dyed hair and six handsome young men in zoot suits escorting her in in her wheelchair. I loved Queenie Pie's plot about dueling beauticians -- rather Carmen-esque, and the magical Bali Hai island Queenie Pie sails to on a 1930's ocean liner like the Normandie. Hard to believe it hasn't been fully staged somewhere with all the trimmings -- wouldn't it probably do well in London? It needs the kind of production values that, say, Cole Porter's Anything Goes had; the orchestra was also on stage in that one when I saw the 2004 revival.
It enjoyed getting all dressed up to meet up there with friends and to go to the reception afterward to congratulate everyone involved in this ambitious production. I have to work on overcoming my shyness and getting out to do these kinds of things more often. I'm fine, once I'm there. I just don't know what to say to people when it comes to small talk, but it seems to get a little easier with each outing. Practice helps with overcoming the shyness, I'm finding.
Saturday night was my Grey Gardens viewing party. I got HBO just for the week and Alison kindly let me borrow her monstrous television for the evening. It was a potluck affair with cuisine inspired somehow by Grey Gardens, and bizarre couture was required. It was fun to be in a room full of Little Edies, and my photos later revealed an orb hovering over performance artist Jill Pangallo's head. I can only assume it was Little Edie giving us her blessing. The Barrymore/Lang Grey Gardens piece was all I expected and hoped for and I really enjoyed its visuals and insights. Great acting on the parts of the stars! Loved the very believable prosthetic aging effects, too, particularly Barrymore's arms. I haven't watched the Maysles' original documentary for a couple of years and now feel I need to add looking at it again to my already lengthy to-do list for the near future. The viewing party did cause me to have to undertake a major no-holds-barred housekeeping incident, so that was a good side effect. There is still more stuff from those boxes from Italy I need to deal with or find homes for hidden about. There are still materials for future steam-punking projects lurking in cabinets and closets.
Work will be hectic all this week and we've got construction-related activities going on to further complicate everything. Friday night it's Dialogues of the Carmelites. Whee!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Me as Little Edie, Buster as Raccoon
...at my Grey Gardens viewing party last night. Click through to see the whole set, including the ectoplasmic orb!
Beaster at Jimmie's house
with my beauties, my little granddaughters. Click through to see the whole set.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Headed out for a night at the opera
... and I am so excited! World premiere of Duke Ellington's Queenie Pie at Butler School of Music tonight!
Streaming video here:
http://www.music.utexas.edu/calendar/details.aspx?id=9595
I don't know if the technology will work, but you can try checking it out. I attended a recital yesterday by the young woman singing Café Olay and her exquisitely lovely and powerful voice made the little hairs on my forearms stand up, so that's probably a very good indication that the production will be marvelous. Full report later.
Today's the twenty-ninth birthday of my firstborn, who is far away tonight in Portland or environs. I miss him so, and it's hard to believe he's now only a year shy of thirty. Twenty-nine years ago he'd just come flying out of my body after only four hours' labor. He was always in a hurry to fly, mon petit oiseau Nicholas. He said he celebrated by going up in a private airplane -- always hoping to get his pilot's license, that one.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Oh, yes I did!
buy that Hermès twilly in the design Brides de Gala. And, yes, I did wear it as a headband and walk the dog in the park just now. And, yes, it felt fabulous!
The little Hermès hat box with ribbons it came in is also a little treasure!
And, yes, I do have a stye in my left eye I'm getting over. I attribute that to the fact that it's been a very stressful week at work. But this gorgeous little scarf has gone a very long way toward making me feel wonderful today!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
A letter I won't send: It's tragic that you deprived yourself of all this...
because, when all is said and done, it all boils down to this: truly, you could not take the risk. (You could not eat the peach.) You preferred the familiar sadness, the moral "correctness" of staying in name only in a marriage from which you continually seek to escape, whether through moving halfway across the world or through your several emotional or sexual affairs. It's sad, too, because you were so completely safe with me. But you were afraid. It must have been terrifying, to have all you said you dreamed of right in front of you, for the taking.
This is my family. One of my little granddaughters wears a dress and bonnet made for me in 1961 by my mother; the other wears my leopard heels. My own younger child, out of frame, takes the photograph, and I play the accordion.
The younger of my granddaughters is singing a song, à la Piaf, while accompanied by two melodicas, an accordion, and her sister on one of your minor key harmonicas. Our eight-year-old chanteuse composed her song on the spot. It's about an ended romance. It's about all the things that were sent back in boxes. The last words of her song are, "He's just a little man." She's brilliant, and her lyrics come from a deep, authentic, healthy place. We're a tribe of adherents to a philosophy of radical honesty, you see. We inhabit your Paradise Lost. And we rag-tag gypsies WILL BE HAPPY. We seek, and find JOY on a daily basis.
You've lost not only me, but all this. A tribe of women and girls will now wear what once were your clothes, your ties, your sock garters, your watch, your rings. They will play your harmonicas.
It's a tragedy. You, as my beloved, had earned the right to partake of this magical, nomadic feast, to enter a world of radical truthfulness to which you'll never, ever again be offered an invitation. My people were all standing by ready to welcome you as my chosen one, my beloved. It is a world of great beauty -- unimaginable, in fact, to outsiders -- and I am sorry that you will not be part of it. It might have filled some of that abyss inside you. It might have helped heal some of your terrible wounds.
It's on nights like these that I'll remember you most often and be a little sad. Not because I miss you and you are lost to me. But because of all you yourself deprive yourself of and have lost. Tu es perdu à nous et tout est perdu à toi. But the red wine will flow, we will make the music and I will sing and dance. Because, unlike you, I am always passionately committed to being fully IN LIFE.
Ultimately, that's why our relationship could not work out: I am committed to being fully in life and you most probably have chosen to turn your back on all these joys and spend much of your time in darkness. I'm not angry at you for rejecting ME. I'm angry that you reject life, and joy. What a waste. What ingratitude to life for all its riches.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Cool.
Someone wrote me asking if they could publish one of my flickr portfolio photos. I said yes. Another was picked up to go on a fashion web site.
The internet is a wild and wonderful place, huh? For artists, it's a way to finally get published and exhibit without cost. I like that part.
The internet is a wild and wonderful place, huh? For artists, it's a way to finally get published and exhibit without cost. I like that part.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
I can rock that.
I figured out a way to tie a silk bow tie from Italy so that it makes a rather charming choker with a bow. And there's a pocket square to coordinate with each of the two bow ties. When I want to wear Dietrich drag to work in the future, I can rock those ties as chokers under an open necked shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, which I'll wear with a vest. And argyle socks. And spectator shoes. And with that cologne, Heritage, he selected at Guerlain on the Champs Elysées.
Because he sent that back to me, too.
Part of me really wants to know why the ending of the romance couldn't have been like Intermezzo (1939). Or Brief Encounter (1946). "How apt that this beautiful film is named Intermezzo, a term that connotes a short musical piece played between two longer movements. --Netflix"
Because he sent that back to me, too.
Part of me really wants to know why the ending of the romance couldn't have been like Intermezzo (1939). Or Brief Encounter (1946). "How apt that this beautiful film is named Intermezzo, a term that connotes a short musical piece played between two longer movements. --Netflix"
Saturday, April 4, 2009
New Works Festival.
I have seen such incredible young, raw, fresh, vibrant works. For a whole week now. But now my feet are killing me from traipsing around to all these spaces wearing ridiculous shoes, trying to look nice out of respect for all the shows and their young directors, choreographers and performers. And I'm sleep deprived. I started just crashing on the couch when I came in at midnight -- stripped out of my clothes, left them lying on the floor. Didn't have time to do laundry this week, go to the grocery store or eat any vegetables most days. The festival's over tonight though. Wah :(
But (sigh) of relief. I will try to clean house tomorrow. And I just went and got a massage, which I sorely needed after this long, long packed week. Another unbelievably marvelous festival.
But (sigh) of relief. I will try to clean house tomorrow. And I just went and got a massage, which I sorely needed after this long, long packed week. Another unbelievably marvelous festival.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
A box arrived.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, second part of 11, 13. And a bunch of other objects, once gifts from me to the sender -- or little things of mine with no value at all.
Still missing:
6, 7, 9, first part of 11, 12.
What kind of head-trip is this anyway? It's baffling. It's my things and the sender's things, not clearly one or the other, in these expensive-to-send boxes full of pathetic, unwanted objects.
I suppose I'm meant to feel erased? Whatever comfort he can find for himself is good. Or perhaps I'm meant to feel grateful that he went to the trouble and expense to send the things after I asked him not to? I don't feel at all grateful. It seems so ungrateful to the universe for the rare gift of love and intimacy it once bestowed on us to now return the symbols of our romance. I find all this endless box-sending, frankly, inexplicable in motive, materialistic and, really, quite sad.
Life is, after all, simultaneously so long, so short, so rich, so painful. And all we have is today, and when today ends, only our memories, which are our treasures.
But I guess I'm a romantic...
Still missing:
6, 7, 9, first part of 11, 12.
What kind of head-trip is this anyway? It's baffling. It's my things and the sender's things, not clearly one or the other, in these expensive-to-send boxes full of pathetic, unwanted objects.
I suppose I'm meant to feel erased? Whatever comfort he can find for himself is good. Or perhaps I'm meant to feel grateful that he went to the trouble and expense to send the things after I asked him not to? I don't feel at all grateful. It seems so ungrateful to the universe for the rare gift of love and intimacy it once bestowed on us to now return the symbols of our romance. I find all this endless box-sending, frankly, inexplicable in motive, materialistic and, really, quite sad.
Life is, after all, simultaneously so long, so short, so rich, so painful. And all we have is today, and when today ends, only our memories, which are our treasures.
But I guess I'm a romantic...
Friday, March 27, 2009
I like this photo.
I took it at my desk yesterday. I have really big hair. I was trying to look like Brigitte Bardot in an old movie. I was wearing my ballet flats, a printed full skirt and a sweater set. And liquid eyeliner.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
A list of random objects?
1. Venus in Furs
2. Yellow cashmere sweater, argyle pattern
3. Two silk bow ties, four pair silk knot cufflinks
4. Ferdinand, the Flower-Smelling Bull.
5. Burgundy flats, spectator style
6. Rubber riding boots
7. Velvet dress, vintage, sleeveless sheath, the color of old theatre seats
8. Ballet pink 3/4 sleeve top
9. A little fur piece -- dyed rabbit?
10. Blue jeans skirt
11. Chocolate brown nail polish, greenish-black eye shadow
12. Waterman pen
13. French Foreign Legion button, beribboned
It's a kind of Joseph Cornell assemblage of the wardrobe.
2. Yellow cashmere sweater, argyle pattern
3. Two silk bow ties, four pair silk knot cufflinks
4. Ferdinand, the Flower-Smelling Bull.
5. Burgundy flats, spectator style
6. Rubber riding boots
7. Velvet dress, vintage, sleeveless sheath, the color of old theatre seats
8. Ballet pink 3/4 sleeve top
9. A little fur piece -- dyed rabbit?
10. Blue jeans skirt
11. Chocolate brown nail polish, greenish-black eye shadow
12. Waterman pen
13. French Foreign Legion button, beribboned
It's a kind of Joseph Cornell assemblage of the wardrobe.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Facebook is truly evil.
I really don't have anything to write here. Too much "Six Degrees of Separation" research to do on facebook at the moment. And too much flair to make and send to people. I am seriously addicted. I love to make things on the internet.
A "six degrees" facebook example: it turns out one of my former students is friends with someone who was an undergraduate in art school with me during the last century...
A "six degrees" facebook example: it turns out one of my former students is friends with someone who was an undergraduate in art school with me during the last century...
Monday, March 23, 2009
Plath's Son Commits Suicide
...in Alaska
Associated Press
Monday, 23 March 2009
Nicholas Hughes, the son of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, has killed himself. His death was 46 years after his mother committed suicide and almost 40 years to the day after his stepmother, Assia Wevill, did the same. He was 47.
Hughes, who was not married and had no children, hanged himself at his home on 16 March, Alaska State Troopers said. An evolutionary biologist, he spent more than a decade on the faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Marmian Grimes, the university's senior public information officer, said he left about a year ago.
Hughes' older sister, poet Frieda Hughes, issued a statement through The Times, expressing her "profound sorrow" and saying that he "had been battling depression for some time."
Nicholas Hughes was only 9 months old when his parents separated, and still an infant when his mother died in February 1963. A few months earlier, she had written of Nicholas: "You are the one/Solid the spaces lean on, envious/You are the baby in the barn."
Not widely known when she died, Plath became a cult figure and feminist martyr through the novel "The Bell Jar," which told of a suicidal young woman, and through the "Ariel" poems she had been working on near the end of her life.
The immediate cause of their breakup was Ted Hughes' affair with Wevill, and Plath's fame would long haunt her husband, hounded for years by women who believed he was responsible for her suicide and by a procession of scholars and fans obsessed with the brief, impassioned and tragic marriage between the two poets.
Ted Hughes would relive the tragedy not only through the constant reminders of Plath, but also through the suicide of Wevill, his second wife, who in March 1969 killed herself and their four-year-old daughter.
Hughes, England's poet laureate, was reluctant to discuss Plath until near the end of his life when he published the best-selling "Birthday Letters," a collection of deeply personal poems that came out in 1998. He died of cancer the same year.
Associated Press
Monday, 23 March 2009
Nicholas Hughes, the son of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, has killed himself. His death was 46 years after his mother committed suicide and almost 40 years to the day after his stepmother, Assia Wevill, did the same. He was 47.
Hughes, who was not married and had no children, hanged himself at his home on 16 March, Alaska State Troopers said. An evolutionary biologist, he spent more than a decade on the faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Marmian Grimes, the university's senior public information officer, said he left about a year ago.
Hughes' older sister, poet Frieda Hughes, issued a statement through The Times, expressing her "profound sorrow" and saying that he "had been battling depression for some time."
Nicholas Hughes was only 9 months old when his parents separated, and still an infant when his mother died in February 1963. A few months earlier, she had written of Nicholas: "You are the one/Solid the spaces lean on, envious/You are the baby in the barn."
Not widely known when she died, Plath became a cult figure and feminist martyr through the novel "The Bell Jar," which told of a suicidal young woman, and through the "Ariel" poems she had been working on near the end of her life.
The immediate cause of their breakup was Ted Hughes' affair with Wevill, and Plath's fame would long haunt her husband, hounded for years by women who believed he was responsible for her suicide and by a procession of scholars and fans obsessed with the brief, impassioned and tragic marriage between the two poets.
Ted Hughes would relive the tragedy not only through the constant reminders of Plath, but also through the suicide of Wevill, his second wife, who in March 1969 killed herself and their four-year-old daughter.
Hughes, England's poet laureate, was reluctant to discuss Plath until near the end of his life when he published the best-selling "Birthday Letters," a collection of deeply personal poems that came out in 1998. He died of cancer the same year.
Gay Bi Gay Gay
...is where I spent yesterday. It was pretty fab. It's the gay/bi/trans/? version of SXSW. Imagine Woodstock in someone's backyard in East Austin (the ghetto) filled with typical Austin pierced/tattoo'd funky-clothes wearin' folk with live bands taking the stage every hour. Jimmie and Cindy were face painting there and I had had the little girls, feeding them lunch, taking them swimming, for the earlier part of the day before I delivered them back to their adults. It was fun. I saw people I haven't seen for twenty years in some cases. And all my former daughter-in-laws. And all Jimmie's former housemates. Old Home Week.
I can see that facebook is going to be a major competitor for my leisure time and blogging here. I can't get over all the gift applications people have created. I was sent "the line between past and present" from the Grey Gardens Treasures by a friend. And I spent the better part of the past two days on the site making flair (buttons) to send friends. The first set was Art School Stuff (Duchamp readymades, Surrealists) and the second set was Cross-Dressing Female Movie Stars (Katharine Hepburn, Dietrich, Garbo, Brooks, Moreau, etc.). I like the "play time" aspect of facebook more than the social networking part. Evidently everyone is up in arms about a recent redesign, but since I just got on it last Thursday, it's fine with me. Downside is you can only write about a hundred characters in each post, keeping it short and sweet. Guess I still need the blog to totally unburden my wordy self.
I can see that facebook is going to be a major competitor for my leisure time and blogging here. I can't get over all the gift applications people have created. I was sent "the line between past and present" from the Grey Gardens Treasures by a friend. And I spent the better part of the past two days on the site making flair (buttons) to send friends. The first set was Art School Stuff (Duchamp readymades, Surrealists) and the second set was Cross-Dressing Female Movie Stars (Katharine Hepburn, Dietrich, Garbo, Brooks, Moreau, etc.). I like the "play time" aspect of facebook more than the social networking part. Evidently everyone is up in arms about a recent redesign, but since I just got on it last Thursday, it's fine with me. Downside is you can only write about a hundred characters in each post, keeping it short and sweet. Guess I still need the blog to totally unburden my wordy self.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Sad. Terrifying. Pathetic.
I spent most of the evening making Art School flair for my new facebook page. Facebook could suck up my entire life.
Like that website that you could make and dress cartoons of yourself on that Jimmie turned me on to a few years back...
Like that website that you could make and dress cartoons of yourself on that Jimmie turned me on to a few years back...
Monday, March 16, 2009
Just added a lot of new photographs to my Flickr portfolio...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/diebuechsepics/
Most of them from my daily walks in Austin -- my park, bridges, graffiti collections. That's what I did with my three-day spring break weekend!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
It was like this.
His behaving in the ways this article describes really began to frighten me when I visited him in December: his extreme emotional reactivity was not only scary, but made me feel as if I was walking through a mine field or on eggshells.
It's so difficult to know that someone I loved so much now hates me, and wants to hurt me as he feels I hurt him by honestly communicating my concerns. I was "too real." And not in a good way, like the Velveteen Rabbit.
By the last month of our relationship I often felt we were thrashing in a lake, that he held me by the neck in the crook of his arm and that he would accidentally drown me. I felt and (perhaps still feel) terribly guilty that I couldn't save him, and I felt ashamed that every self-preservation instinct in my psyche was screaming, "Fly! Fly!" I thought I was so strong that I could help him, and that my great love for him could help heal his terrible psychic wounds. What I hadn't realized at the beginning was the terrible risk I had willingly and lovingly put myself in; I feel ashamed that I ultimately had to make the choice to save myself. What I'm trying to become very clear on is this: I could not have saved him. He is the only one who can save himself. I feel such compassion for his wife of many years; how frequently she must have felt as I felt, and how sad and helpless she must feel. She can't save him, either.
But I predict his brilliance, charm and boyish qualities will insure a steady future supply of women riding in on their white horses, hoping, as I hoped and as his wife surely must have once hoped, to save him. There were, what? Three other women I quickly discovered in his life in addition to his wife and me?
I don't think his is a histrionic or narcissistic personality. I think he has suffered unbearably most of his life from a borderline personality disorder that the circumstances of his early life set up. Too bad I wasn't able to do the research as the behaviors occurred; it was all completely baffling and very painful for me at the time. Poor man. Will he ever be able to move on past those wounds? Will he ever begin to heal a little or feel at least a sense of peace of mind? Will his vicious self-loathing -- which he sometimes turns outward on others -- ever end?
Thinking about him makes me terribly sad.
It's so difficult to know that someone I loved so much now hates me, and wants to hurt me as he feels I hurt him by honestly communicating my concerns. I was "too real." And not in a good way, like the Velveteen Rabbit.
The Frustrating No-Man’s-Land of Borderline Personality Disorder
By Harold W. Koenigsberg, and Larry J. Siever
THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF AFFECTIVE INSTABILITY
In addition to vulnerability to impulsive aggression, people with borderline personality disorder are unusually emotionally reactive. They may be content for a while, then become intensely angry or hopelessly depressed or unbearably anxious—each state, although intense, lasting only a few hours or a day.
To those who are close to them, borderline patients appear to have random and unpredictable emotions. On closer investigation, those emotions often seem to involve heightened emotional reactions to other people. Borderline patients may become distraught at ordinary criticism, which they experience as a blow to self-esteem; may react with rage to a disappointment or minor slight; or may feel terror at a separation that they experience as virtual abandonment. Their emotional, or affective, instability may contribute to their turbulent, often unstable relationships and the inconstancy in their experience of themselves that leads to a confused sense of identity.
Infants who are very emotionally sensitive may respond more intensely to the comings and goings of their mother or caretakers and show much greater distress at separating. This may lead to a more insecure attachment between infant and mother. If the infant is more impulsive and aggressive— that is, likely to express emotions forcefully— he may have crying spells and, later, temper tantrums when frustrated or left alone, which can wear down even the most supportive parents and overwhelm those who are depressed or who themselves have trouble with emotional reactivity and impulsiveness. Parents may become frustrated at their inability to soothe such a child and decide not to respond to its distress; at other times they may try everything to indulge the child to appease its upset and rage. These inconsistent (and, to the infant, unpredictable) responses may make it likely that the child will learn to deal with unpredictability by means of emotional storms or tantrums.
Only by looking at the behaviors of someone with borderline personality disorder in that person’s social milieu do we fully understand their meaning.
As the child matures, he may draw on these interpersonal strategies in order to regain emotional equilibrium. For example, when an upsurge of depression follows a blow to self-esteem, the borderline person may try to bolster her self-esteem by devaluing someone else. When feeling alone and abandoned, she may behave recklessly to stimulate the worry and involvement of others. To onlookers, these behaviors may appear manipulative because their purpose is to bring another person to attend to the borderline’s needs. But because of their heightened sensitivity to the availability of others, people with borderline personality disorder often feel that they are not in charge of their own emotions—their emotions depend on the behavior of those around them. Attempting to control their own feelings, they find themselves trying to control the behavior of people they depend upon and care about. Repeated again and again, these patterns of behavior become ingrained. The borderline person experiences these styles of relating as the only way to survive emotional ups and downs and the feeling that others cannot be trusted to support her.
By the last month of our relationship I often felt we were thrashing in a lake, that he held me by the neck in the crook of his arm and that he would accidentally drown me. I felt and (perhaps still feel) terribly guilty that I couldn't save him, and I felt ashamed that every self-preservation instinct in my psyche was screaming, "Fly! Fly!" I thought I was so strong that I could help him, and that my great love for him could help heal his terrible psychic wounds. What I hadn't realized at the beginning was the terrible risk I had willingly and lovingly put myself in; I feel ashamed that I ultimately had to make the choice to save myself. What I'm trying to become very clear on is this: I could not have saved him. He is the only one who can save himself. I feel such compassion for his wife of many years; how frequently she must have felt as I felt, and how sad and helpless she must feel. She can't save him, either.
But I predict his brilliance, charm and boyish qualities will insure a steady future supply of women riding in on their white horses, hoping, as I hoped and as his wife surely must have once hoped, to save him. There were, what? Three other women I quickly discovered in his life in addition to his wife and me?
I don't think his is a histrionic or narcissistic personality. I think he has suffered unbearably most of his life from a borderline personality disorder that the circumstances of his early life set up. Too bad I wasn't able to do the research as the behaviors occurred; it was all completely baffling and very painful for me at the time. Poor man. Will he ever be able to move on past those wounds? Will he ever begin to heal a little or feel at least a sense of peace of mind? Will his vicious self-loathing -- which he sometimes turns outward on others -- ever end?
Thinking about him makes me terribly sad.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
It's the twenty-fifth birthday of my beloved younger child.
March 11 was a Sunday in 1984, the year she was born. I had insisted on doing the birth naturally, without any drugs, exactly as I'd delivered my son four years earlier. I labored nearly twenty-four hours and was going into shock. The doctor told me it was a Victorian childbirth since she was breech and huge -- nearly nine pounds. He told me we were both going to die and I'd be buried with her inside me like something out of a Thomas Hardy novel if I didn't allow them to perform an emergency Caesarean.
That got my attention. I agreed to the c-section and she was out of me in minutes. The doctor scooped her out of my womb, held her up and she looked around the operating room with her huge cobalt blue eyes. The radio played, "Isn't She Lovely?" by Stevie Wonder, as if on cue. She sucked on her wrist -- in fact, she'd already given herself a hickey since she was post-term and hungry those last days inside me. Her father had to hold her while they sewed me up and then moved me to the recovery room for an hour. When he finally laid her on my breast -- how huge and beautiful she was, like a pink rose! -- I said, "So there you are, Miz Pie!" I guess it was a pet name I coined based on Sweetie Pie, but it stuck.
She latched onto my nipple and nursed voraciously. I fell in love with her immediately.
She is still my treasure, my brilliant, unique, loving, talented, funny, complicated younger child.
I'm meeting her, her partner and a few of her friends to celebrate at a favorite Indian restaurant after work. I have a "Pat the Bunny" birthday card for her with cash in it, a harmonica and a few thrift-shopping finds that looked like her to me.
That got my attention. I agreed to the c-section and she was out of me in minutes. The doctor scooped her out of my womb, held her up and she looked around the operating room with her huge cobalt blue eyes. The radio played, "Isn't She Lovely?" by Stevie Wonder, as if on cue. She sucked on her wrist -- in fact, she'd already given herself a hickey since she was post-term and hungry those last days inside me. Her father had to hold her while they sewed me up and then moved me to the recovery room for an hour. When he finally laid her on my breast -- how huge and beautiful she was, like a pink rose! -- I said, "So there you are, Miz Pie!" I guess it was a pet name I coined based on Sweetie Pie, but it stuck.
She latched onto my nipple and nursed voraciously. I fell in love with her immediately.
She is still my treasure, my brilliant, unique, loving, talented, funny, complicated younger child.
I'm meeting her, her partner and a few of her friends to celebrate at a favorite Indian restaurant after work. I have a "Pat the Bunny" birthday card for her with cash in it, a harmonica and a few thrift-shopping finds that looked like her to me.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Belle de Jour shoes!
Don't these want to be Roger Vivier Belle de Jour shoes? But they are just cheap (but very cute) Etienne Aigner instead? My sister and I went to DSW (she had coupons! Thank you, sweetie!) this weekend and I scored these. Plus some other really outrageous ones I'll show you eventually to go along with that Missionary/modern African Queen look I'm planning to rock this summer. I am wearing the faux BdJ shoes today with my wants-to-be Hérmès sweater that's really Ralph Lauren, bought on ebay.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Since a picture is worth a thousand words...
I think today or tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of my divorce from my younger child's father. I don't remember the number of the date. I do remember it was Ash Wednesday that year, because I planned it that way.
I think today or tomorrow is also what would have been the thirty-fifth anniversary of my first marriage, to my elder child's father.
It seems to me both these events occurred within a day of one another. I'm very bad with dates, just as I am with names. I do remember The Ides of March have been a recurring motif in my life story.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
I'm bored now.
Everyone besides me (and my assistant) is at a conference because I had a meeting this morning which meant I couldn't attend. And because I have a HUGE meeting and presentation to prepare for that occurs tomorrow. A whole academic year's work will conclude tomorrow with that meeting!
But now, at late afternoon, everything's ready. And now I'm bored. I cannot wait for this day to end!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Creativity determines sexual success
The research, by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Open University in the UK, found that professional artists and poets have around twice as many sexual partners as those who do not indulge in these creative activities.
The authors also delved into the personalities of artists and poets and found they shared certain traits with mentally ill patients. These traits were linked with an increased sexual activity and are thought to have evolved because they contribute to the survival of the human species.
Some 425 British men and women, including a sample of visual artists and poets and schizophrenic patients, were surveyed for the report, which is published today in the academic journal, The Proceedings of the Royal Society (B). Although creative types have long been associated with increased sexual activity, this the first time that this link has been proved by research.
Study participants filled in questionnaires which asked about their degree of creative activity in poetry and visual art, their psychiatric history, and their history of sexual encounters since the age of 18. They were also required to answer questions on a ‘schizotypy inventory’, a breakdown of characteristics linked with schizophrenic patients.
The average number of sexual partners for professional artists and poets was between four and ten, compared with a mean of three for non-creative types. Statistics also showed the number of average sexual partners rose in line with an increase in the amount of creative activity a person took part in.
The lead author of the study, Dr Daniel Nettle, lecturer in psychology with Newcastle University’s School of Biology, suggested two key reasons for the findings. He said: “Creative people are often considered to be very attractive and get lots of attention as a result. They tend to be charismatic and produce art and poetry that grabs people’s interest.
“It could also be that very creative types lead a bohemian lifestyle and tend to act on more sexual impulses and opportunities, often purely for experience’s sake, than the average person would. Moreover, it’s common to find that this sexual behaviour is tolerated in creative people. Partners, even long-term ones, are less likely to expect loyalty and fidelity from them.”
Dr Nettle added that the results suggested an evolutionary reason for why certain personality traits that serious artists and poets were found to share with schizophrenic patients perpetuated in society.
He added: “These personality traits can manifest themselves in negative ways, in that a person with them is likely to be prone to the shadows of full-blown mental illness such as depression and suicidal thoughts. This research shows there are positive reasons, such as their role in mate attraction and species survival, for why these characteristics are still around.”
Yet although some 'schizotypal' traits are linked with high numbers of partners, schizophrenic patients do not experience this level of sexual activity. These people tend to suffer from acute social withdrawal and emotional flatness - characteristics that the researchers found were linked with a reduced number of sexual partners.
SOURCE INFORMATION: ‘Schizotypy, creativity and mating success in humans’ Daniel Nettle and Helen Keenoo, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, November 2005. Doi:10.1098/rspb.2005.3349
The authors also delved into the personalities of artists and poets and found they shared certain traits with mentally ill patients. These traits were linked with an increased sexual activity and are thought to have evolved because they contribute to the survival of the human species.
Some 425 British men and women, including a sample of visual artists and poets and schizophrenic patients, were surveyed for the report, which is published today in the academic journal, The Proceedings of the Royal Society (B). Although creative types have long been associated with increased sexual activity, this the first time that this link has been proved by research.
Study participants filled in questionnaires which asked about their degree of creative activity in poetry and visual art, their psychiatric history, and their history of sexual encounters since the age of 18. They were also required to answer questions on a ‘schizotypy inventory’, a breakdown of characteristics linked with schizophrenic patients.
The average number of sexual partners for professional artists and poets was between four and ten, compared with a mean of three for non-creative types. Statistics also showed the number of average sexual partners rose in line with an increase in the amount of creative activity a person took part in.
The lead author of the study, Dr Daniel Nettle, lecturer in psychology with Newcastle University’s School of Biology, suggested two key reasons for the findings. He said: “Creative people are often considered to be very attractive and get lots of attention as a result. They tend to be charismatic and produce art and poetry that grabs people’s interest.
“It could also be that very creative types lead a bohemian lifestyle and tend to act on more sexual impulses and opportunities, often purely for experience’s sake, than the average person would. Moreover, it’s common to find that this sexual behaviour is tolerated in creative people. Partners, even long-term ones, are less likely to expect loyalty and fidelity from them.”
Dr Nettle added that the results suggested an evolutionary reason for why certain personality traits that serious artists and poets were found to share with schizophrenic patients perpetuated in society.
He added: “These personality traits can manifest themselves in negative ways, in that a person with them is likely to be prone to the shadows of full-blown mental illness such as depression and suicidal thoughts. This research shows there are positive reasons, such as their role in mate attraction and species survival, for why these characteristics are still around.”
Yet although some 'schizotypal' traits are linked with high numbers of partners, schizophrenic patients do not experience this level of sexual activity. These people tend to suffer from acute social withdrawal and emotional flatness - characteristics that the researchers found were linked with a reduced number of sexual partners.
SOURCE INFORMATION: ‘Schizotypy, creativity and mating success in humans’ Daniel Nettle and Helen Keenoo, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, November 2005. Doi:10.1098/rspb.2005.3349
Monday, March 2, 2009
No Camille for me this spring.
I hadn't much wanted to talk about it here, my ongoing health issue. Today was the long-dreaded day when I went for the follow-up imaging, and prepared myself for bad news, as I've had in the past after the imaging, and then the scheduling of a biopsy, and then the torturous weeks of waiting for the biopsy day to arrive. And then the hellish days of waiting for the biopsy results.
Good news: there's no change from the imaging six months ago, which equals No Biopsy. I'm off the hook for one year, told to "keep on keeping on" with my normal healthy lifestyle. I have a separate, early June blood work retest to do, but was told that one was hardly abnormal and not to lose sleep over it. If the June blood tests come back okay, I'm off the hook on all accounts until summer of 2010. If you know me in real life and knew the scary thing I'd be enduring alone this afternoon, thank you for your thoughts and prayers and good energy today. It is always a little sad and frightening to go through this by myself, but you know I prefer to do it alone.
But tonight, I'm so relieved. I've felt since I returned from Italy in January as if I couldn't or shouldn't make any long-range plans until I had these medical test results. Now I know I have a year-long dance card, at least, to start filling in without fear of the issue for which I'm being poked and prodded. I could, of course, be hit at any moment by a Mack truck, crumple like a sheet of paper with a heart attack, etc. But I'm unlikely to be felled by this particular ailment. So I'll start working on the next book, make jewelry out of found bottle caps, make Joseph Cornell boxes, sew a nomad dress or whatever else appeals to my imagination now that I know I have some time.
Good news: there's no change from the imaging six months ago, which equals No Biopsy. I'm off the hook for one year, told to "keep on keeping on" with my normal healthy lifestyle. I have a separate, early June blood work retest to do, but was told that one was hardly abnormal and not to lose sleep over it. If the June blood tests come back okay, I'm off the hook on all accounts until summer of 2010. If you know me in real life and knew the scary thing I'd be enduring alone this afternoon, thank you for your thoughts and prayers and good energy today. It is always a little sad and frightening to go through this by myself, but you know I prefer to do it alone.
But tonight, I'm so relieved. I've felt since I returned from Italy in January as if I couldn't or shouldn't make any long-range plans until I had these medical test results. Now I know I have a year-long dance card, at least, to start filling in without fear of the issue for which I'm being poked and prodded. I could, of course, be hit at any moment by a Mack truck, crumple like a sheet of paper with a heart attack, etc. But I'm unlikely to be felled by this particular ailment. So I'll start working on the next book, make jewelry out of found bottle caps, make Joseph Cornell boxes, sew a nomad dress or whatever else appeals to my imagination now that I know I have some time.
Coraline: highly recommended for some
I took the entire Jimmie/Cindy clan on Friday. Dark. Frightening. Autumn nearly climbed up Jimmie as the movie got darker and darker and sadder and sadder. Maya had read the book and so was prepared. I hadn't read it, and so was a blank slate -- but the book's on its way to me now, courtesy Amazon.
I really loved it. Don't know that it's appropriate for "normal" children under about the age of ten, though. Could inspire nightmares. Could inspire nightmares in unsuspecting adults, too. There was something heavy in there about mothering and mother/daughter relationships that was more than just a little upsetting. Not exactly a sick puppy, but not joyful in its darkness like Nightmare Before Christmas, for instance.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Laissez les bon temps rouler, y'all
http://www.nola.com/paradecam/index.ssf?video
Parce qu'aujourd'hui c'est Mardi Gras!
It's so hard to even ponder going back there after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. I haven't been back since the summer of the year before it hit. I just don't know if I can stand seeing the lingering profound changes.
...although my former love and I had planned to honeymoon there when we married next August. It's closer than Venice, he'd never been there, and he was a great fan of Louis Armstrong and other New Orleans jazz musicians.
I didn't even make a King Cake this year!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Oh, and I forgot to say about Kate Winslet...
I was overjoyed she got the Academy Award for Best Actress. I haven't seen The Reader yet. She was superb, as I wrote before, in Revolutionary Road. She pulled a Bette Davis, didn't she? More than one movie in a given year for which she deserved a nomination.
But I have to say how goddess-like she was, and how I approved of her speech and her dress and her hair and makeup. She's beginning to somehow remind me of Julie Andrews -- that kind of class and grace. Meryl Streep's another woman like Julie and now young Kate who I sometimes aspire to channel depending on the situation. When I'm not aspiring to remind everyone of Catherine Deneuve, that is.
Yes, Kate's a rising goddess and definitely on my Essential Women list these days. Maybe she's her generation's Meryl Streep?
It was great to see Sophia Loren and Shirley McLaine on last night's show also. (But Sophia scared me a little, I will admit. Too much plastic surgery or Botox? She seemed afraid to move!)
Beaucoup de photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/diebuechsepics/
I spent some time this weekend FINALLY uploading all the photos from my roots journey in May and June to Bavaria/Switzerland avec ma mère if you want to see some images finally. Also Sicily and a couple from Paris. I know I must have a roll of London somewhere, since that's where I started out from...
That's me at my desk at work before Christmas wearing the dirndl I bought in Bavaria with my mother.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Often when a relationship ends
...I feel the urge to buy a bicycle.
And so I did today.
Just like this, but red. No gears, no hand brakes, just a simple old-fashioned coaster. I love it! It's a Sun Bicycle -- I never had one before.
http://www.sunbicycles.com/sun/index.html
I purchased it an Eastside bicycle shop, so it comes with support, unlike a Huffy or Schwinn from a big box store. And it's much better quality for only about $50 more than what I thought I'd pay at Academy or Target for a Chinese bike. And I got a basket installed so I can run errands on it. Or so I can train Buster to sit in it and go for a ride with me. Good times!
And if it's the Second Coming of the Great Depression, at least I've got alternative, non fossil fuel transportation now.
Hmm. Can I rock this summer look?
Just bought this skirt on ebay from a company in Thailand. We'll see how long it takes to get here. They have all kinds of fabulous Dutch wax African print skirts, dashikis, etc. I'm thinking there must be some way to rock the African skirts with vintage Nike or Adidas t-shirts, gladiator sandals or Converse One Stars, piles of bracelets or cowrie shell necklaces. And what if I used one of those purses made out of flattened tin juice cans and other recycled materials with it? What I think I'm trying for is a Missionary Look. You know, as if I'm a white woman in 21st Century Africa, who brought along a bag full of Goodwill clothes to share -- colorful athletic t-shirts or other kinds of shirts with American writing on them.
Hmm. Just an idea from Rachel's Summer 2009 collection.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Vicky Cristina Barcelona: I'm warning you, don't say it!
Yes, Scarlett Johansson's character Cristina, in Woody Allen's film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, behaves eerily as I have done sometimes. Even though Scarlett is worlds more beautiful than I ever was and nearly thirty years younger than I am, yes, I will admit it. And the movie is good, I think. I enjoyed it and recommend it to you. Just don't say Cristina reminds you of me to my face. Just think it silently, okay? You don't have to tell me.
A beautiful image by fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh
for you.
Ow! Ow! My head hurts! I can't even begin to describe how taxing work is these days, so I won't even try. Plus, it would be very boring if I did explain.
And we had a student death in the wee hours Saturday night. Rumors abound, but it does seem foul play must have been involved, and underage drinking. What a tragedy.
But I got thirty-five free downloads at emusicdotcom. I swear they don't pay me off. Go check it out, and you, too, can get free downloads like all the cool kids. I got a whole Tanghetto album, a Zero 7 album and assorted songs to fill in some gaps in my music collection with my freebies. They have more independent labels, obscure European stuff, etc., there than the iTunes store, it seems. And I did learn most of the bands I love fall under the electronic,trip-hop, down-tempo label. Good. I never had the terminology to explain the kind of contemporary music I enjoy until now.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Dear (British) Abby,
I met a man recently out of an unhappy long-term relationship and supposedly ready to move on. We live in different cities, but would spend hours on the phone. He was shy and nervous, which was endearing. We got on amazingly well...(snip) Now I’ve walked away, but I fear I’ve left an amazing connection behind. Was I holding on to something that wasn't there? It’s so easy to say that people have baggage, but surely it’s better to help and be understanding?
*****
Of course it’s good to help others and to be understanding about emotional baggage, but just because it’s good to be that way, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for you.
Look, for whatever reason, some people are emotional black holes. No matter how much love and kindness we hand out, it’s all absorbed into the vortex. Our actions come to seem both meaningless and pointless, because no amount of love and reassurance has any effect except to make them crave more — and more. That leaves us bewildered, anxious and, frankly, feeling as if we don’t much matter.
I think of people like that as emotional vampires. Unable to sustain themselves or fill the hole of need they carry inside, they leech the life out of others. I suspect you feel low because it is extraordinarily disappointing to encounter somebody who seems able to speak the language of love, but is unable, emotionally, to absorb its lessons. All the promises are simply dust. When he says he loves you, I’m sure he believes it to be the truth. It’s just that, emotionally, he can’t follow it through. We can understand something intellectually, but fail to feel it emotionally. It’s a head-to-heart disconnect.
He may want to love you (or, rather, the idea of you), but as soon as you respond, he shuts down, and when you get too close, he runs away. It seems likely that he’s badly wounded emotionally, but — and here’s a big but — just because he’s wounded, it doesn’t mean that you can heal him, or that you should try. You don’t say what happened in his previous relationship. It could be that he was bullied or neglected, and that has caused him to feel scared of being hurt again. Or it could be that he was acting out similar dysfunctional behaviour with his ex-partner, who, after a long battle to love and reassure him, came to feel as low as you do and gave up.
Who’s to know? Perhaps not even he does. It’s difficult to see our own destructive patterns until something sufficiently painful happens to make us pay attention. It takes years to establish behaviour and, no matter how dysfunctional or destructive, it at least has the merit of being familiar and, therefore, safe. Change is frightening because it’s a leap into the unknown, but I suspect your frustration lies in wanting to believe that, with sufficient love and kindness, he could and would change. People can change, but challenging established patterns of destructive behaviour takes enormous personal effort. Unless somebody is really willing to put in the work, it’s impossible to help them, no matter how much kindness, love and good emotional sense we send their way.
It’s like the oxygen masks in an aeroplane. You must put the mask to your own face before helping anybody else. Why? Because if you don’t have your own supply of oxygen, you’ll soon start grabbing at others and pulling them down in your desperation to get at their supply.
He’s not deceitful or unkind; he’s just an oxygen-grabber. You, on the other hand, are a giver and someone who believes in honesty, trust and kindness. Good. Those are excellent, healthy instincts that make for real happiness in a relationship. If I were you, I’d keep walking until you find them.
****
And someone else wrote elsewhere, If a vampire came up to you and asked you to let them drink your blood or else they'd die, would you feel guilty if you wouldn't allow them to drain you?
It was like that. At first I was, in a way, hypnotized, walking toward him in an extraordinarily beautiful and atmospheric dream. But by the end I began to distinctly feel as if I were suffering from acute blood loss and that my survival was in jeopardy.
And someone else, a psychiatrist I recently visited, in fact, reminded me that she who tries to save a drowning man is in great danger of being drowned herself, as the drowning man, in a panic, sometimes drags her down with him -- and not on purpose. It's simply a tragic accident.
This is really about all I can say about the end of my romance. In case you were at all curious. But I think that's all I want to share.
*****
Of course it’s good to help others and to be understanding about emotional baggage, but just because it’s good to be that way, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for you.
Look, for whatever reason, some people are emotional black holes. No matter how much love and kindness we hand out, it’s all absorbed into the vortex. Our actions come to seem both meaningless and pointless, because no amount of love and reassurance has any effect except to make them crave more — and more. That leaves us bewildered, anxious and, frankly, feeling as if we don’t much matter.
I think of people like that as emotional vampires. Unable to sustain themselves or fill the hole of need they carry inside, they leech the life out of others. I suspect you feel low because it is extraordinarily disappointing to encounter somebody who seems able to speak the language of love, but is unable, emotionally, to absorb its lessons. All the promises are simply dust. When he says he loves you, I’m sure he believes it to be the truth. It’s just that, emotionally, he can’t follow it through. We can understand something intellectually, but fail to feel it emotionally. It’s a head-to-heart disconnect.
He may want to love you (or, rather, the idea of you), but as soon as you respond, he shuts down, and when you get too close, he runs away. It seems likely that he’s badly wounded emotionally, but — and here’s a big but — just because he’s wounded, it doesn’t mean that you can heal him, or that you should try. You don’t say what happened in his previous relationship. It could be that he was bullied or neglected, and that has caused him to feel scared of being hurt again. Or it could be that he was acting out similar dysfunctional behaviour with his ex-partner, who, after a long battle to love and reassure him, came to feel as low as you do and gave up.
Who’s to know? Perhaps not even he does. It’s difficult to see our own destructive patterns until something sufficiently painful happens to make us pay attention. It takes years to establish behaviour and, no matter how dysfunctional or destructive, it at least has the merit of being familiar and, therefore, safe. Change is frightening because it’s a leap into the unknown, but I suspect your frustration lies in wanting to believe that, with sufficient love and kindness, he could and would change. People can change, but challenging established patterns of destructive behaviour takes enormous personal effort. Unless somebody is really willing to put in the work, it’s impossible to help them, no matter how much kindness, love and good emotional sense we send their way.
It’s like the oxygen masks in an aeroplane. You must put the mask to your own face before helping anybody else. Why? Because if you don’t have your own supply of oxygen, you’ll soon start grabbing at others and pulling them down in your desperation to get at their supply.
He’s not deceitful or unkind; he’s just an oxygen-grabber. You, on the other hand, are a giver and someone who believes in honesty, trust and kindness. Good. Those are excellent, healthy instincts that make for real happiness in a relationship. If I were you, I’d keep walking until you find them.
****
And someone else wrote elsewhere, If a vampire came up to you and asked you to let them drink your blood or else they'd die, would you feel guilty if you wouldn't allow them to drain you?
It was like that. At first I was, in a way, hypnotized, walking toward him in an extraordinarily beautiful and atmospheric dream. But by the end I began to distinctly feel as if I were suffering from acute blood loss and that my survival was in jeopardy.
And someone else, a psychiatrist I recently visited, in fact, reminded me that she who tries to save a drowning man is in great danger of being drowned herself, as the drowning man, in a panic, sometimes drags her down with him -- and not on purpose. It's simply a tragic accident.
This is really about all I can say about the end of my romance. In case you were at all curious. But I think that's all I want to share.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Happy, happy heart day to you all!
Because love is, when all is said and done and done and said, all that matters, mes petites crises du coeur!
Now, go eat 75% bittersweet dark chocolate, drink a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape or try out that new bottle of lube with your beloved! L'amour, toujours l'amour, even when it's l'amour fou.
Now, go eat 75% bittersweet dark chocolate, drink a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape or try out that new bottle of lube with your beloved! L'amour, toujours l'amour, even when it's l'amour fou.
Friday, February 13, 2009
My dreams these days
...seem frequently to be about my recently ended romance. About a week ago I dreamed I was riding in a car with his long-suffering wife (she was driving), who assured me everything I found troubling about my former lover's behavior was par for the course, his normal m.o. She sweetly thanked me for trying to help him and told me my efforts were, unfortunately, totally useless.
Last night I dreamed my former lover was played by some other man, like an actor would play a role -- but still, I knew it was him. He greeted me joyfully and seemed delighted to be with me again. I said, confused, "Are we still a couple? I don't understand. You seem so happy now, when before you often seemed so miserable and mopey. You seem like a new man!" Then the actor playing him beamed at me. And I said to him, "Wait! You ARE another man, not my former lover," and woke myself up.
Last night I dreamed my former lover was played by some other man, like an actor would play a role -- but still, I knew it was him. He greeted me joyfully and seemed delighted to be with me again. I said, confused, "Are we still a couple? I don't understand. You seem so happy now, when before you often seemed so miserable and mopey. You seem like a new man!" Then the actor playing him beamed at me. And I said to him, "Wait! You ARE another man, not my former lover," and woke myself up.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
What's to stop me, really, from behaving like an angel?
Since the abrupt ending of my recent relationship I've spent a lot of time walking. Walking my dog on the trail around Town Lake, specifically. And while I walk, I think. I can't help it.
I used to try to avoid making eye contact with anyone as I walked and thought. But lately I've been thinking a lot about people and about human nature and about what fucked up and wonderful creatures we humans are. I try to think more about what others are thinking and feeling than about myself these days. Doing so made my mind turn to Wim Wender's beautiful 1987 film, Wings of Desire. I always wanted to be one of those compassionate, trench coat wearing angels gently listening to the stream of thoughts constantly pouring out of the minds of human beings, helping people, comforting them. Invisibly. Without ego.
So I thought, What's to stop me, really, from blessing people like one of those angels?
Now, when I walk, usually at twilight, I try very hard just to psychically hear what the people walking past me are thinking and feeling. I try to make myself invisible, try to let them walk right through me as if I have no substance. I try to maintain gentle eye contact and a slight smile as I listen to their thoughts. I bless each of them as they walk through me, I say a silent little prayer for them to be released from their cares and their pain and their hurts. If I am not destined to love just one person, my soul mate, what if I were to share that love energy quietly with many instead?
It's so amazing, this meditation. The sensation is incredibly powerful and moving when I walk as an angel. Some people make full eye contact with me and their faces light up. Some are at first surprised by the eye contact, but soon smile gratefully. Sometimes I nod and whisper to them, "Good evening" or "Good morning" as Buster and I pass. It strikes me how sad it is that so many of us poor human beings are starved for any kind of contact with one another.
It feels like a kind of volunteer social work, this walking like an angel. It's good. I love to do it.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Tangee lipstick: Yes! The distinctive waxy, sweet orange smell comes rushing back to me from forty years ago!
Dimestore lipstick! The stuff many a young girl's dreams were made of, from the 1920's to the late 'Sixties, when I was first allowed to wear lipstick myself. And it's being sold again by Vermont Country Store on-line these days. Read these testimonials, like lovely little poems:
http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/browse/Home/Apothecary/Cosmetics/Tangee-Lipstick/D/30100/P/1:100:1000:10020/I/f05899?evar3=RELATEDITEMS
Customer Testimonials
Dear Mr. Orton, I received the Tangee lipstick. I wore this when I was in Baylor University 55 years ago dating my husband. I had him kiss me with it on today and he said it was the same! Thank you for finding it.
— Kathryn Turner, Temple, TX
Dear Mr. Orton, Just a note to say thank you for finding Tangee Lipstick for me. Though I am 80, I still like to look natural and not painted up.
— Charlotte Thompson, Chicago, IL
Dear Mr. Orton, I grew up with Tangee lipstick and it seems it changed color according to the color in a person's lips. Imagine my surprise to find it in your catalog. I ordered it just 'for fun' but found to my delight that I could wear it for extended periods without it 'beading' on my lips. I have a very dry mouth and lips and quit wearing lipstick five or six years ago. Thank you so much.
— Mary Dean Bruns, Kent, WA
The year was 1957 and I was a budding teenager, dancing to the tunes of the new 'Rock and Roll' music sung by the controversial hip-swinging Elvis Presley, wearing crinoline-filled skirts, bobby socks, and a ponytail. It was also the time of my first lipstick, Tangee. My older sister and I would ride the bus to downtown Birmingham, AL and spend most of our day at the huge Woolworth's store. That was where we found all our necessities like Tangee lipstick. It was probably the most popular lipstick of the younger crowd. When I saw Tangee in your catalogue I mentioned to my husband that it was my first lipstick. Since we grew up one block apart he must have remembered it too, becuase he ordered me a tube for Christmas. When I put the lipstick on Christmas morning the unique scent and smoothness brought back a flood of memories of places and times when life was more simple than that of a 14-year-old girl today. But I was able to show the lipstick to my granddaughter and tell her the story. Thanks for the memories, Vermont Country Store. These old products are not only useful but provide a wealth of story-telling and information to our younger generations.” — Patricia Mashburn, Williamston, SC
Now, I believe it: Summer really is almost here. My very own Tangee lipstick arrived yesterday and the look, taste, and feel of it make me feel like summer vacation is just around the corner.
— S. Hamlin, Brooklyn, NY
When I was growing up my mother always wore Tangee Lipstick and many times when she applied it I would be standing near her. I am now 67 years old and my mother has been gone for 15 years. When I opened the tube of Tangee I recently received the smell of it brought my mother's presence back to me. It was like she was standing right next to me. Thank you for this wonderful long-lost product, plus for bringing my mother back to me, if only for a second when I open the tube of Tangee.
— Ester Shropshire, Palmyra, VA
The Tangee reminds me of my teen years. Just sniffing the tube is wonderful.
— Janice Bockmier, Santa Clara, CA
Dear Mr. Orton, When I saw you had Tangee lipstick I couldn't wait to get some. I am 86 years old and I haven't had lipstick that suited my complexion since I wore it before the war. I hope you keep having it -- my sister, who was not old enough to wear it then, loves it now.
— Mary Dunn, Smyrna, GA
On hot summer days I normally am not thinking of Christmas until I found Tangee Natural lipstick. It was, as a great comic once said, De ja vue all over again. My mom swore by Tangee Natural for my entire growing up years. She was devastated when they no longer stocked her color or her brand. When I saw this on your web-page I knew, this was mom's Christmas gift. Last Christmas I gave it to her. The look of surprise and delight was one that I will never forget. I finally was able to surprise my mom with something she did not have.” — Ellen, Oshkosh
I should write one of my own and send it in:
"Dear Mr. Orton,
"I am so pleased to see you are selling Tangee, the famous dimestore lipstick of days of yore. I remember from my own girlhood the cheap metal tube, and how one was in danger of cutting one's fingers on it and how one would wonder if a tetanus shot might not be advisable if the tube had begun to rust with age. I remember digging the last precious bit of it out with the crook of a bobby pin, to apply to my lips with my fingertip. We were that poor. Tangee and cream rouge in a little pot were my grandmother's only cosmetics. Tangee and a cake of black mascara with a little brush my mother spat into were her only cosmetics. If I'm not mistaken, when we were in high school Karen once shoplifted a Tangee lipstick from the dimestore just because she could and get away with it. She wore Clinique lipstick herself. Thank you for carrying this product. They say memory lives in the nose, and this cheap little orange lipstick brings flooding back to me all my girlish fantasies and dreams and aspirations.
"--Rachel, Texas."
The Cinematic Orchestra
http://www.cinematicorchestra.com/
These guys are incredible. Spent last evening familiarizing myself with their repertoire and now my iPod is updated with their music. My young staff members laugh at me -- I am so into my iPod nano.
You can also listen at jango.com, another guilty pleasure of mine: free internet radio that you customize to your own musical tastes. My "station" features Tanghetto, Gotan Project, D J Shadow, Fatboy Slim, Thievery Corporation, for instance. And you can send songs to others. Cool.
These guys are incredible. Spent last evening familiarizing myself with their repertoire and now my iPod is updated with their music. My young staff members laugh at me -- I am so into my iPod nano.
You can also listen at jango.com, another guilty pleasure of mine: free internet radio that you customize to your own musical tastes. My "station" features Tanghetto, Gotan Project, D J Shadow, Fatboy Slim, Thievery Corporation, for instance. And you can send songs to others. Cool.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Revolutionary Road
Kate Winslet has been robbed of a completely deserved Academy Award nomination for best actress for this motion picture.
Very, very tough emotionally. Maybe too close to home for me right now. A couple get sucked into suburbia, child-bearing and rearing and a mindless corporate career, when what they had promised one another was that they would feel life deeply -- and move to Paris. Kate Winslet's character scarily reminded me of myself in some ways. Haunting score by Thomas Newman. Subtle, understated palette.
Very, very sad. Highly recommended, if you can go there.
Friday, February 6, 2009
I took the little girls
... my "instant" granddaughters, to see Hotel for Dogs this afternoon. A Boston Terrier who reminded me a great deal of my beloved Frida was featured. Cute picture for kids, and the girls enjoyed it.
Maybe I'll go see Revolutionary Road this weekend. I have tried to avoid reading reviews or hearing any spoilers, but just the sketchy plot outline I know about seems intriguing. But maybe it will hit a little too close to home right now?
Maybe I'll go see Revolutionary Road this weekend. I have tried to avoid reading reviews or hearing any spoilers, but just the sketchy plot outline I know about seems intriguing. But maybe it will hit a little too close to home right now?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Italy: signs, windows, doors, corners, edges of things
...you know, the things I like to photograph.
I'm trying to get the hundreds of images I captured during the month organized. Check my flickr portfolio (see badge link in blog side panel) if you like -- just put up new sets of defaced statues, frozen fountains, shrines, architecture, landscapes in Italy...
A wonderful blog post I found today.
Wonderful writing, too, by Nana Whodun, in her blog
http://neohoodoo.blogspot.com/
And I dig that beautiful painting of Marie Laveau by Ulrick Jean-Pierre!
Holy Ghost, part I
Southern slavery in the USA, was one of the more repressive places for spirit possession due to restrictive Protestant influences. Even on Sunday "under the tent" or at the meeting place, full possession was not acceptable as there were always “eyes on you.”
The Holy Ghost of the Southern Baptist Church was a spiritual current summoned by song and rhythmic handclapping. This energy current once contacted was brought “down” from it’s higher vibrational rate or field by Elder Sisters or "Church Ladies," known for their stylish and in some cases eccentric hats, that were a mark of their official position.
They sat across the center rows of the Church. The energy once it appeared was pulled down by the female mediums in the congregation at their crown chakras. The signal of their possession was that their hat was progressively dislodged and eventually displaced by the entry of the “Holy Ghost.”
(to be continued)
Note to da Folk: The media did not understand the symbolic function of head wear in the Baptist Church in terms of stature and station for the female members of the congregation. This is why they riduculed the size or "grandness" of the hat Aretha wore at the 2009 Inaugral when she did a “spiritual invocation.”
I've seen Elizabeth, Queen of England wear some butt "ugly hats" and the media there or here didn't whisper a peep. What was said about Aretha's hat was simply dis-respect of the sister and the Hoodoo tradition. A full frontal assault.
“Re-re” always wore “original” head gear and dressed according to how she felt NOT fashion. She is one of a kind, the undisputed HEAD of the Neo-Hoodoo choir, a songstress. Can’t nobody take her crown as long as she draws breath, regardless of what "lady in waiting" Beyonce say out of her mouth- Tina Turner wasn’t crowned Queen of Soul (that's one reason why she don’t wear dem “hats”…) Tina is a Grand Dame, the Hoodoo "Queen" of Rock n’ Roll . Tina has endurance, longevity and tremendous “life force energy” that she expresses via body gesture as dance.
©2009. Orb of Djenra. All rights reserved in all media.
I had to take the day off yesterday.
I'm not exactly grieving. That would be too strong a way to characterize what I'm feeling and going through emotionally these days. I'm sad, yes. But I know the ending of this brief romance is necessary, that the relationship was never going to work out in the long run for a million reasons and that prolonging the inevitable ending wouldn't have been healthy. But my life seems profoundly changed now -- and it is. It's so strange not to count to seven on my fingers to figure out what time it is in Italy, and then to Skype him every day. It's sad not to make or receive wake-up calls. I no longer post to our private blog or check it for a post from my beloved. It's a profound shift to no longer ponder living with him someday in the future. Endings, I suppose, are never easy.
I had a sore throat and ear ache and so was able to take a sick day yesterday. I really had never completely unpacked since my return from Italy January 7 and needed to deal with that. Something in me just didn't want to see the clothes I lately wore when I was with him again or wash them or fold them or put them away. Something in me wanted to avoid storing the bags that have been so frequently used on these trips to see him since June that I normally just leave them out, ready to be packed up for the next trip. I needed to go through the house and remove all the photos of him or of us as a couple from the fridge and from the edges of mirrors and picture frames where I'd stuck them. I needed to take the big picture of us in Paris down from the ledge where it's sat, keeping me company at the kitchen sink as I washed dishes these seven months.
It's all done now, the unpacking and the packing away and the storing of things too poignant to contemplate on a daily basis. Something in me feels a sense of relief; it's always good to get organized. But it is all sad, this sense of finality, of something beautiful and wild and unexpected ending forever.
It's over. I'm no longer madly in love with anyone. I'm alone again. I'm deeply grateful for the love affair he and I shared, for the tenderness, for the intimacy. I will work hard to preserve the rich, sweet memories. But I will likely always worry about him and his well-being in the long run -- I fear his workaholic tendencies, his depression, his guilt, his dark moods will eventually destroy him. And I won't be there to save him.
As if I ever could have.
I had a sore throat and ear ache and so was able to take a sick day yesterday. I really had never completely unpacked since my return from Italy January 7 and needed to deal with that. Something in me just didn't want to see the clothes I lately wore when I was with him again or wash them or fold them or put them away. Something in me wanted to avoid storing the bags that have been so frequently used on these trips to see him since June that I normally just leave them out, ready to be packed up for the next trip. I needed to go through the house and remove all the photos of him or of us as a couple from the fridge and from the edges of mirrors and picture frames where I'd stuck them. I needed to take the big picture of us in Paris down from the ledge where it's sat, keeping me company at the kitchen sink as I washed dishes these seven months.
It's all done now, the unpacking and the packing away and the storing of things too poignant to contemplate on a daily basis. Something in me feels a sense of relief; it's always good to get organized. But it is all sad, this sense of finality, of something beautiful and wild and unexpected ending forever.
It's over. I'm no longer madly in love with anyone. I'm alone again. I'm deeply grateful for the love affair he and I shared, for the tenderness, for the intimacy. I will work hard to preserve the rich, sweet memories. But I will likely always worry about him and his well-being in the long run -- I fear his workaholic tendencies, his depression, his guilt, his dark moods will eventually destroy him. And I won't be there to save him.
As if I ever could have.
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