Too Perky to be Goth?

So today this friend of mine says to me--in the nicest possible way--"You could never be Goth. You're too perky to be Goth."

What? You mean I'll never be dark enough, edgy enough, angsty enough? Gee, I could have been such a groovy little Evanescence groupie, too.

I don't know... I mean, I know your friends can sometimes see you more clearly than you see yourself, but I think my capacity for darkness is being underestimated here. You people really have no idea what I'm capable of. [weg]

Washington Square, I'll meet you there...

Originally, Tori Amos was thinking of titling this song "Washington Square" before she finally settled on "Garlands." Somehow, "Washington Square" resonates more with me because the SJSU campus address is One Washington Square, and it seems that I am always rushing over there as the speaker relates in the song.

"Garlands" is about two lovers meeting at an art exhibit of Chagall lithographs and finding their story in the paintings.

The music has a lovely repetitive refrain that is mesmerizing, meditative, and reflective. The song was only released on the special edition DVD which came with her Beekeeper CD. Sometimes I turn it on, like tonight, and just let it play and play. If I knew how to play piano, I would want to play this song.

I try to keep it toned down for the sake of my friends, but I really am a fanatic for this woman and her music. Her style is feminine, cryptic, nonlinear, and more than a little kooky. She teaches me to trust my feminine, cryptic, nonlinear, kooky side. [grin]

Garlands
~tori amos

“The Winged Painter is on uptown” I said
“Will you meet me to go…”
Washington Square
I’m racing there
to get you at
Noon,
oh the Nocturne noon…
Isabella on the way there stops me
(I say) I can’t stay today -
I’m off in flight Towards Another Light.
Rest.
Youth.
Washington Square,
I meet you there and we go.

now He’s on the run
He’s on the run
From this walking Greeting Card
and Chloe’s Kiss,
The Wolf Pit,
The Wine Harvest,
and Phileda’s Lesson -
We’re not his possession.
in Winter,
Trampled flowers
in Winter

Lovers,
Circus,
these Garlands -
The Blue Pirouette,
The Marriage,
The Mimosas,
Black Sun Over Paris…
these Garlands -
The Little Swallow,
St. Paul from the window,
from the 1/2 open window.

Eve incurs God’s displeasure.
Passion.
Odysseus and Penelope,
Ulysses and Penelope,
The Festival,
In Hell.

in Winter,
The Winged Painter,
The Winged Painter,
Washington Square -
Let’s go see a Day in May
from The Winged Painter

Owe it to the wind

I attended a wedding today at St. Lucy's Church in Campbell: My boss--one of my bosses, really--the president of the Steinway Society, Janie Horton, and her selected sweetie, Humberto Ramirez. Their story is unusual--this is Janie's third marriage (divorced hubby #1; hubby #2 died), and third wedding to Humberto (they had a civil service last year, followed by a family wedding in Chile). Apparently, they both didn't realize the amount of paperwork and processes they needed to complete for Janie to join the Catholic Church and annul her first marriage in order to exchange sacramental wedding vows, which was the ceremony they held today. So there were a lot of good natured jokes about her being "so very married" to Humberto that they are stuck with one another for good. They didn't look like they seemed to mind. [grin]

I've been inside a Catholic Church before, but I don't think I've ever attended a service. I was--only slightly--disconcerted by the moments when other people seemed to Know What Was Going On and I didn't. They've obviously been here before. [grin] Stuff like, when the priest says, "May the blessings of the Lord be with you," the audience replies, "And also with you." Not having been raised Catholic, this was new to me. There were other things, too. Like when the audience was supposed to take a minute or two to "express the love of Christ" and everyone went around shaking hands, even hugging and kissing, saying "Peace be with you." Again, not strange in a bad way, just unexpected and different.

Another thing I noticed was when they offered the Eucharist--the symbols of the wine and bread for the blood and body of Christ--they used a white wine. [???] I didn't get the chance to ask the priest about it, but I thought this was odd. I was always under the impression that the wine needed to be a red wine to fit the whole blood analogy. Curious.

So anyway, I'm sitting there while all this is going on, and it's a really beautiful church. Very modern with a wide arching ceiling and two huge stained glass windows on the left and the right. On the left is the depiction of the nativity and on the right is the crucifiction. And I began to wonder if they did this on purpose. I mean, I know the religious significance of these scenes, but taken down to their core meanings, we have Birth on one side and Death on the other, and here we sit, all of Life in between. I just found myself tapping into something far older and more universal than the merely Christian aspect they no doubt intended. It's times like this when I recognize that the Bible as Myth resonates far more deeply and more truly with our humanity when it can be linked to other traditions. But there, that must prove I'm a heretic. The angry mob with the torches and pitchforks should be arriving any moment.

Afterwards, I went outside for a closer look at the statue of St. Lucy. I asked my "other" boss Henry (VP) if he knew her story and he said he couldn't remember. See, if I was Catholic, I would get into all that stuff. Every saint has a story. But I'm not Catholic, so I guess I'll go back to reading critical theory and poetry and whatever else catches my fancy.

So Henry starts telling me about this song he's trying to remember, and he hums a few bars--and isn't it funny how a song stuck in someone else's head can get stuck in your head by only hearing a few notes?--so then it was stuck in my head, too. So there we stood, the three of us, me and Henry and Henry's wife Shirley, humming this song and trying to remember what it was. Thank god for the internet. I was able to come home and enter a few snatches of verse I could remember and I came up with this:


We're All Alone
~Rita Coolidge

Outside the rain begins and it may never end
So cry no more on the shore
A dream
Will take us out to sea
Forever more forever more
Close your eyes and dream
And you can be with me
'Neath the waves through the caves of hours
Long forgotten now
We're all alone we're all alone

Close the window calm the light
And it will be alright
No need to bother now
Let it out let it all begin
Learn how to pretend

Once a story's told
It can't help but grow old
Roses do lovers too
So cast your seasons to the wind
And hold me dear oh hold me dear

Close the window calm the light
And it will be alright
No need to bother now
Let it out let it all begin
All's forgotten now
We're all alone oh oh we're all alone
Close the window calm the light
And it will be alright
No need to bother now
Let it out let it all begin
All's forgotten now
We're all alone we're all alone
Let it out let it all begin
Owe it to the wind my love


Praise be to the internet gods. Now I can get some sleep...

Oh, Edna!

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends---
It gives a lovely light!

~Edna St. Vincent Millay


Grown-Up

Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half past eight?

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Left! Right! Switch!

So I tried this Chai Tea exercise last night. Excuse me, Tai Chi. (I'm always getting those two mixed up). I had bought the DVD months ago and have only now gotten around to trying it out. This is my relationship with exercise: procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate.

Anyway, so I give it a shot, and really it's not bad. I like exercise to feel energizing, not like I'm being hit by a truck and then backed over again slowly. So Tai Chi is definitely of the former. However, I have discovered, to my chagrin, that my mind has difficulty processing the whole left/right thing when I'm trying to emulate a moving image on TV.

Now before you start teasing me about not knowing my right from my left, please note that I have qualified the above statement. The thing is, my mind wants to see the instructor as a mirror image and I am moving in response to that image. All of a sudden he throws directions into the mix: "Step out with your left foot..." Wait a minute... that's not my left foot, that's my right foot. Maybe it doesn't matter. No, but now I have to extend my left arm over my right foot, so do I use my left or my right? What?.... And so on. By the time I'm done with this workout, I really don't know my right from my left.

I think next time I try this I'm going to turn around and watch the reflection in the picture above my couch. Maybe that will help. If not, I'm going to turn the TV off and go for a walk. Then it won't matter which foot goes first.

Splitting Hairs

I like to say my hair has a split personality; that's why I can't get rid of these split ends! [snicker!]

First, the "Hag."
When I wash my hair, it goes all curly crazy--not exactly Shirley Temple ringlets, that would be too easy--oh no, my hair acts like each individual strand has a mind of its own and wants to pick its own direction. Wearing it long, at least I have gravity on my side: eventually, it has to tend toward a downward slope. When I've cut it short, there was just no controlling it. Curling irons, blow dryers, endless hair products: all useless. It's all I can do to get a comb through my hair without breaking it. It's like carding wool, it really is. Eventually, after a couple of days, it starts to calm down and then it becomes...

The "Princess"
This is when my hair becomes almost manageable. I can braid it or style it as I please and it behaves itself, for the most part. I can manage to get a brush through it without too much difficulty.

Brushing, of course, creates its own problem. I like to joke that I have more hair in my brush than most people have on their heads. [weg] Brushing also tends to loose all kinds of strays: wild tangles run rampant through my house, capable of lifting objects and possibly small children. It's a sad commentary that when company's coming I must actually consider combing the rug. I shed worse than any family pet I've ever had. In fact, a friend of mine once told me that while sitting in a business meeting, he looked down and found a stray hair on his shirtsleeve. He started pulling on it and it just kept going and going... So let that serve as a warning: Check your clothing! There may be interlopers lurking...

I have to take a moment to sing the praises of modern beauty products. When I was a girl, I wanted long, straight, red-brown hair-- like Princess Leia! I swear to God!-- and now, with the miracle of modern science, I can! Every 8-10 weeks, I go into a salon and this brilliant woman not only colors my hair the exact shade I like [I'm "artificially going natural" a la Carrie Fisher], she spends hours flat ironing it so it's absolutely perfect. It is complete excessive indulgence on my part, I know, but I love it. My hair feels like silk for days.

Then I have to wash my hair, and the Hag is back. But you know, she's okay, too. I am willing to embrace my Hag/Princess duality.

The Taxman Cometh

I'm so frickin' pissed off I can hardly type.

I completed my taxes and filed them online on March 2nd. March 2nd!!! I was done! Over! I was so proud I had done the damn thing early this year.

Today I get an email telling me that my taxes are *not* filed. Today.

Somehow, someway, I don't know how or why, the transaction was incomplete.

So I have to do this. Today.

What's more, I actually have to pay something this year to the tune of $415. So that means I have to have $415 in my bank account. Today.

Fuck.