I love...

Traveling alone by train.
Long grass with purple edges, bending in the wind.
The hum of bees in purple clover in the middle of the afternoon.
Words with the sound "snick" in them.
Crooked smiles.
Reading inside listening to children's voices outside.
Boys in shiney shorts.
Leaving a hot party to go outside and feel cold snow fall on my face and neck.
Fresh baked croissants.
Listening to languages I don't understand.
Being kissed on the inside of the upper arm.
Cooking for people I love.
Little girls laughing.
Receiving a letter from a foreign country.
Listening to my lover sing or speak with my head pressed against his chest.
The yellow color of the clock on Independence Hall.
Drunkards singing in the street.
Scabby knees and elbows on kids.
Fireflies rising after a thunderstorm.
Discovering an echo.
Lying still, not speaking, only touching.
Sifting dry rice through my fingers.
Girls with dark curls.
Old men in belts AND suspenders.
Thick wet eyelashes.
Popsicles.
Music from a distance.
Coming home after being away and sleeping alone in your own bed.
Cold water causing condensation to form on a dark blue glass.
Hands with dirt or ink deep in the lines.
High tension wires.
Thinking the same thought at the same time.
Walking into a room and catching the smell of someone you love who has just been there and is now gone.
Painting a pretty girl's toenails.
Boys who put flowers in girls' hair.
Waitresses.
Making a stranger blush.
Brushing teeth.
The smell of men who have been cutting grass all day.
Shaved heads.
Smoke.

"Hell Yeah I Wanna Go to Europa and Spit Jupiter Seeds at the Moon!"

In Rainbows, by Radiohead 

I'm on my brother's couch, hallucinogens zipping through my blood, sonic spans and bursts of colors arching across the inside of my skull for hours as I fall asleep.

They've been my favorite band since I heard Creep on college radio in 1993, and my brother came home with Pablo Honey later that week. When the crunchy guitars on You started buzzing down my spine, I knew Creep wasn't a fluke, and Lurgee became my own personal teen-angst anthem. With each subsequent album, shift in sound, and change in direction, Radiohead has never failed to capture or keep my attention. They're my favorite cause no matter what my mood, I always want to listen to them. 

I'm particularly pleased with In Rainbows. 

Sonically speaking, its the happiest damn record they've ever put out. Sample that bright up-beat in House of Cards. Hear the entire spectrum of colors in Weird Fishes, and all the fireworks and sparkles in Reckoner.   

The studio recording of Nude/Big Ideas (Don't Get Any) sounds like Virgin Blue satin, and although I still love the haunting, falling-off-the-carousel sound of that on live cut with the Hammond organ, this incarnation of that song works for this perfect record.

Although right now, I'm gonna find that live cut, and mix it on a tape, or cd or whatever, with Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale and the Arcade Fire's My Body is a Cage, cause that right there is a profound religious experience in just 3 songs.
You don't need to be taking psychedelics to hear the colors in that either, a span of cutting reds, smoke-saturated blues and some surprising bursts of pink and orange from the top left corner, and if you've got good enough speakers to get the thrum in your feet and head and chest, you may not need to have sex tonight.

Dav and I frequently argue about music today, and is it worth a damn. I say yes and sight Radiohead, Regina Specktor, Sufjan Stevens, The Arcade Fire, Aesop Rock, The Decemberists, and Modest Mouse as my reasons, in particular: In Rainbows, The Crane Wife, and Illinois, which stand up through the entire album.
Dav says, "Meh," to everything with the exception of In Rainbows, but he's a grumpy bastard who hates just about everything.
Except for the Slowskys. I heard him say yesterday, pre-psychotropics, that Bill Slowsky is a compelling character with a lot going on under the surface. He follows the martial tension between Bill and Carolyn the way other people follow Brad and Angelina.

Its these quirks of character that make me want to spend time with him.

Invasion of the Space Dogs

Me and the roommate were having a girly-night.
If you think that means that we were lounging around the apartment in our underpants, eating chocolate and having sexybouncy pillow fights, normally you would be correct. But not this time. Which is a good thing, cause I would not want to confront Mind Control Space Dogs in my underpants.
So, it was Friday night, and Stephen J. was working and Blondie was at a wedding and Lauren was a sleepy girl and Robbie and Jim! (you have to spell his name like that because that is how you say it) took the train to Atlantic City to see Flogging Molly. Andrea was supposed to go, but they couldn't get her a ticket. And I didn't want to go on account of it only takes the boys a little bit of whiskey before the phrase "Flogging Molly" gives them ideas in my direction. Its not abuse! It is love expressed with violent ferocity.
There we were, confronted with an entire Friday evening to do whatever we wanted, and we decided to be very Lady and go out on the down. We got all stylished up and I said, "Let's go visit Chris Butler!" cause he's my fiance, even tho I stood him up on the day of our Vegas wedding to go have birthday sex with my ex-boyfriend.
Ours is the kind of love that can weather hedonism and forgetfulness.
Ever so stylishly we entered the Shanachie, my Girl and I.
I was in one of those shirts I wear with the collar and the cleavage and she had her hooker boots on and a sweatercoat. It was hot. And we drank drinks and ate frenchfries with Irish musicians and when Chris Butler got off work we skipped over to Agave and did you know that they have pool in the basement? Cause I didn't even know that they had a basement. But now that I know, I think I'll be there more frequently, and so should you be.
Drinks were had and pool and fuzball were won and compliments were slung like hash in a depression-era diner.
And then we were soooooooo tired.
And Robbie and Jim! did not have a ride home from the train station. But we are supergirls, and so we went to fetch them home again. Only it took some doing because we were tired and she is from Boston and I don't drive or pay enough attention, and our map was crappy, and I couldn't remember that 30th street station was also on Market Street, because my voice in my head kept saying, "No, that's Market East."
It was a long and convoluted journey. But we made it and packed the boys in the car and were heading home, playfully bitching at our drunken men. They had taken a beating, let me tell you. Jim! has a boot print on his arms and Robbie got the pants torn right off him! By the time he left the show his cords had become really baggy ass-less chaps. Ass-less chaps that were also crotchless. They were in a bad way.
And then Robbie did an unexpected thing, which was to jump out of the car. While we were moving. At the time I thought it was drunken belligerence, but that was before I knew about the Space Dogs.
Because of traffic laws, we have to drive 2 blocks before we can turn around and get back to the station, and by then, Robbie is gone. So we leave Jim! in the car (don't worry, I cracked a window) and we set out in search of a big tall kid in ass-less, crotchless pants. I ran into many strange and scary people, but nary a Robbie to be found, and then! I heard it. The battle cry that confirmed suspicions I had been suspecting for quite some time. A very tall man with a big mighty voice was stalking down the street with his arms high over his head in challenge. "Hanson!" he screamed. "Hanson! I'm comin' for you! Hanson! You mind control mutha-fuckin' Space Dog from hell! Hanson! It's on! Oh, It's on. I am a God of Mass Destruction. I will mass destruct yo ass! Hanson!"
Now, Space Dogs is one thing, and Space Dogs from Hell is quite another, but MIND CONTROL SPACE DOGS FROM HELL? It's just too much. And I knew right then that I needed to get out of there ASAP. But where was Rob? Clearly the Space Dogs had already got to him, and caused him to irrationally leap from a moving vehicle outside 30th Street Station at 4 o'clock in the morning.
Using all of my superhero powers, I managed to break through the haze of their spaced-out mind control and send Robbie the thought, "Answer your damn phone!" It worked and I established his location and busted a mission to recover him. But before I could get there, the Dogs had gone after Jim! prompting him to leave the car and wander aimlessly down the sidewalk, starring at the sky. It took quite a bit of man-handling to persuade Jim! to abandon his rambling and get back in the car. I had to poke him in the boot print.
Then I recovered Rob, who was also dazzled and confused. He had no idea about Hanson and thought the whole harrowing affair had been his fault. I deposited him in the car as well, and foraged out again, this time to recover Roommate, who seemed to have vanished. "If that Space Dog has snatched her," I said to myself, "It is so on." And I walked all around the building again and through it and was about to despair when she called and said, "I'm at the car, lets get out of here!" So I high-tailed it back and its a good thing too, cause the mind control was starting to affect everybody. I mean, I saw this man having sex with 30th Street Station. Like, the actual building. I know the Corinthian columns are sexy but, Jesus! I mean right there in front of everyone. And when I say everyone, I mostly mean "right there in front of me!"
Ew, it was yucky. Roommate is a speedy getaway driver though, and we managed to escape the city without further incident, though the strain on our brains was astronomical. My fellow adventurers passed out for the better part of Saturday, and while I couldn't sleep for fear of lowering my defenses, I was rendered completely useless for the entire rest of the weekend.

And that is the end of the story for now, though if you are further interested in Space Dogs, you might tune in to This Comic, though it is mostly about a rock band and a cyclops jack-o-lantern.

A word of warning for people currently residing within Philadelphia city limits, particularly those that must travel by train: Hanson, the Mind Control Space Dog from Hell is still at large.
So if you have to take the train, I recommend perhaps a tinfoil hat.

Oh I can't sleep.

I know it isn't even quite one, but I can tell by the buzz under my skin, the hum in my head, its not going to happen.
Between 3 and 6 am I hate hotels. In a building full of people, you're completely alone. In the dark and the quiet, the room becomes an island. Nothing exists outside, and if that was comforting before, when I first got here, its awful now, with my head full of nightmares and no one familiar breathing deeply on the couch, or turning over upstairs, or snoring faintly through the floorboards.
I miss my boys.
I miss lying in my little bed under the stairs, drifting in the smoke between asleep and dreams. Hearing Stephen's key in the lock, the shudder of the front door closing behind him. He comes over and sits down, sometimes with his coat still on, and tells me about his day, or a funny thing he heard, or the last thing he was thinking of before the bar got rushed. Sometimes he sings a snatch of a song that is stuck in his brain and asks me to identify it.
Whatever happens after that, weather he goes upstairs to bed, or settles on the couch to watch a few episodes of M.A.S.H., weather I get up with him and we smoke and talk, or he goes out again to meet someone, weather I stay up the rest of the night, or fall into a fitful sleep, hearing those sounds, his key in the lock, his low voice in the dark, it make me think everyone everywhere that I love is for the moment safe and sleepy, and my chest doesn't feel so pressed and heavy.

I miss Robbie in the mornings. I am always awake when he wakes up, but I lay under the covers with my head in the pillow and pretend I could slip back to sleep just any second. He comes downstairs trying to be so so quiet. He thinks I am asleep as he tries to tiptoe past and not crash into anything, and I smile to myself. He makes a quiet racket setting up the coffee machine and then he goes back upstairs.
When he comes down again I say, "Hi baby," in my smiley sleepy voice, and he gives me a quick hug and grabs coffee and goes to work, or else he crawls in bed and cuddles for 5 seconds before he makes me get up and play with him.
Robbie the sun, and Stephen the moon. In this way I divide my days.
Except now I live in hotels, and when I go back to home, I have my own apartment, and a big bed, and a room with a door and everything.
But I miss them.

Hotel USA

You don't need ID yet to travel by train. You can take the yellow line north and west to some small town far out from the city. Find a hotel where they won't ask your name. Pay in cash and they will give you a room key that's still a real key, cold cut metal on a steel ring, painted with a little white number.
Climb the stairs to the fourth floor, which is the top floor, so its the furthest from anywhere. Close the door behind you. Twist six locks, and if there is a phone, unplug it from the wall. The windows are already closed, white shades down behind thick white curtains. Everything outside this room does not exist anymore.
Everything inside is white and scuffed and nothing smells like anything. If there are paintings they are just lines and colors. They don't remind you of anything. There is tea on the counter, small bags wrapped in paper, next to a white chipped porcelain coffee cup. Pour yourself some hot water from the dispenser, just to watch the steam curl up. It moves like dreaming. Rest seems to be a thing you could hold, distance is a sound that maybe you could hear if your head was clear and empty like this room.
Peel your clothes down. Leave them on the floor. No one cares about those things anymore. Leave the bathroom door open while you take a piss. No one exists to listen. The shower is running for seventeen minutes before you even get in because you like watching the steam twist into the white room. The clouds and curls bring comfort to you.
Everything beyond this tiny room has just switched off. This is everything you want. The water is hot. You laugh out loud; hot water is good. The sound bounces off the tiles and you smile to hear the sound of yourself happy. The bed will be soft. The white towels are clean and so are the sheets. Everything outside the empty walls has ceased to be.
Ivory soap and mint toothpaste. Your skin smells like a stranger. Naked in bed, you have no identity. The TV is off because quiet is better. You're no longer a person who watches television, and in the morning you will not read the paper.
The world outside here has turned out the lights. The dark doesn't scare you like it did before. You can dissolve. Inside the dark, inside the white walls, all you can hear is your own pulse. Beating heart, slowing breath, a building music inside your head. The swelling sound drowning out everything but this island. All the world is in this room. You catch yourself smiling again. It will end soon. But now there is this:
Yourself inside the shell of a white room, ivory smells, the folding light, steam and clean sheets, ironed smooth, and the music inside.
Hold it in your mind. Write it on a folded piece of paper and tuck it into your back pocket. Keep it in your mouth under your tongue behind your teeth. Press it into a pattern and tattoo it in black ink under your skin to remember when you are called back again.

On the Town With Molli Brown

Right now, it is weeks later, Cali is burning and I'm sitting in a hotel in Northern New Jersey, drinking Orangina and watching Perfect Strangers.

But I have to tell you about my Saturday Night with the Ladies.
Our Parents went away for a long weekend and left me in charge of two teenagers, and you might think that's the worst idea ever, but you can shut the hell up cause I can be very responsible sometimes when I try really hard.

Friday night we'd stayed in with Chinese and movies, so Saturday I wanted to go out,out,out! I was pretty well recovered from my pneumonia by then and feeling itchy. But this was tricky, where to go? There's really not much for underagers in our part of So. Cal. Anyplace that had live music also had alcohol, and I wouldn't be able to get the girls in, movies are freakin' expensive (after popcorn and all that jazz, you're talkin' 50 bucks to take 2 girls and myself to a movie. Movies used to be a goddamn nickel and you got a cartoon and a news reel. That's what wrong with America today.)
Shan wanted to go to a hookah bar, which is I guess the hot new hangout for all her hoodlum friends, despite that they should be too young to smoke hookahs in anycase. I referred her back to my afore mentioned pneumonia. The last thing I wanted to fill my newly un-infected lungs with was a whole lot of scented tobacco smoke, no matter how delicious triple apple may be. And didn't I quit smoking (again) 3 weeks ago? I vaguely remember that, and, oh yeah, you kids are too young to smoke!
So that was out. After much deliberation (and lectures on my part about Shan's makeup, and how I didn't want to go out on the town with Tammy Faye Baker 2.0) We decided to head toward Riverside for some dinner and a Drive-in Movie, cause it was within my budget and also I'm a sucker for Drive-ins.

Despite my trepidations, Belle turned out to be a good driver, (she just got her license) even on the freeway, and we got to Riverside without incident. Now, where to eat? I am starving. Belle wants Sushi. Shan hates fish. I want tacos. (I always want tacos.) We pass a place that says Pacific Cafe and also says Sushi. I think the cafe part means things besides Sushi, and that everybody will be happy. We go in. It is empty. A teeny tiny Japanese lady sits us down, comes back in 5 minutes with menus, and take our drink orders. The whole time we where there, she consistently thought the 3 of us were 2 of us. Belle and I got place settings, Shan didn't. Belle and Shan got their drink orders taken, I didn't. Shan and I got our food orders taken, Belle didn't. I found this absolutely hilarious. So, we look at menus, its allll Sushi. Shan's getting upset, Belle decides she doesn't think she can eat Sushi after all, I still want freakin' tacos, but now we're sitting and we're the only people in the joint and this little Japanese grandma is bowing at us and asking what we want, and, yeah. So I order some spicy tuna, Shan sees a thing on the menu that says "stuffed potato." When she asks Grandmother what's in it, the woman brings her a dinner/app. menu with all sorts of non-Sushi items on. I'm trying not to crack up all over the place, Shan orders some sort of chicken kabob, we eat fast and high-tail it out of there.

We still have 3 hours to kill before the movie, so we start walkin' around. I still want tacos, but the Ladies are over food for the moment. Belle sees Le Sex Shoppe on the corner and says, "Lets go there!" These kids have as low an opinion of my sense of responsibility as ya'll do.
No,no,no. No Sex Shoppe. Keep walkin' Ace.
I'm feeling like I could use a drink right now, but again, responsibility gets the better of me. I remember a funky cool coffee house I used to go to, and decide caffeine will have to do, and I drag them over there. Shan resents all the walking, because she is wearing her "tall shoes."

Now we're at the coffee bar. There's a long line and only one kid working. There's some spaced-out trip hop on the radio and a lot of hipsters on couches and around tiny tables. The wall across from the counter is lined with old books and local art, and the lone kid working has a nice smile and an easy manner. "Do they only have coffee?" Says Shan, making a face. The huge menus above the counters attest to the fact that they have much more than coffee. Shan gets coffee anyways, some sort of mocha raspberry affair. Belle gets a fancy latte too, and then they both decide they are hungry again, and now I'm buying caramel brownies and ham and cheese croissants. Notice the complete lack of tacos. I get a plainjane coffee and we sit a bit. Shan's launching into a tirade about how busy and chaotic the place is and how do writers sit in these kinds of places for hours and hours anyways, when a Vampire walks in.

Picture a man in his mid to late thirties. Aristocratic nose, high cheekbones, slanty, amber wolf eyes, long, flowing locks of flouncy hair, clearly wearing makeup (eye-liner and foundation) long fingernails painted black, big silver rings, black leather garb (not clothes, garb.) way way too warm for California, big silver cross on a long long chain around his neck. A right-out-of-Anne-Rice freakin' Vampire. He orders a coffee and a ham n cheese. I'm not fooled one bit. Vampires pretend to eat people food all the time. I seent it. I point him out to the ladies. Belle giggles. Shan flips out and she thinks we're going to die. "We're pretty much dead," she says. So he's waiting for his ham n cheese, and groovin' on this triphop. Like, he's doing some weirdo dance with his arms. "You see!!!!!!" says Shan, "He heard you and now he's putting a spell on us!"
He was putting a spell on us. We had to leave the coffee shop and find our car, so we could go to the drive-in. Riverside is very small. We parked in the middle. We walked no more than 8 blocks. We couldn't find our car. It wasn't missing. We just couldn't find it. We had been confounded by a level 2 confusion spell! We walked around and around for an hour. Belle was all caffeinated and sugared up. She was floating about 10 feet ahead and 2 inches above us, singing to herself. Shan was stomping around in her "tall shoes," wailing about our impending doom. I'm not scared of vampires and I like walkin' around at night, so I was inventing conversations in my head to have with Bean about how I sugared up her children and got them confounded and then sucked by Vampires. And also lost the car. In that conversation, Bean said, "Are you on drugs? How much have you been drinking?"
How is it that I'm always in the most trouble when I'm sober?
Then it was getting spooky out, because we were in between some high buildings that echoed, and there were hoodlums on the corner, and street toughs on the steps. At least that's what Shan was crying about. And then, we were in a shadowy courtyard, with a tall tall luminous fountain at the end of it. Like moths, we made for the light and then, a voice high above me says, "Good evening ladies."
"Hi-hello!" I squint and look up. About 3 stories above me, a smiley man all in white hovered beatifically in the darkness.
"Nice night out, isn't it?" said the angel.
"Very beautiful!" I was smiling real big.
"You ladies enjoy yourself, be careful and have a wonderful evening," said the angel. He was actually a town hall security guard, and he was more standing on the 3rd floor balcony than hovering in the darkness, but he was still a angel, cause we got to the fountain and turned right, and there, in a pool of streetlight was our car. The Vampires paltry spell was no match for the magic of the Night Watchman! Haha!
And then we were free. We went on to have many more adventures that night, but that is top secret lady business.
Enjoy your evening. Stay away from vampires, it's getting Halloweeny outside.

I Have No Time For Consumption!

Sicksicksicksicksick. Faithful readers, I am currently in Cali, dying of the black lung. Or actually green lung, judging by the appealing pond-scum shade of the slime I am coughing up. Ew. I just grossed myself out. Apologies. I have been living with boys.
So yeah.
In all honesty, I picked up a wicked case of Pneumonia. Gross. But I went to urgent care and got myself some penicillin, so in a few days I should be Aces, and no worries.
Consumption aside, I have been having some awesome good times.
Thursday I flew down to NC for Writers'Forum. Ktbear picked me up at the airport and bought me a sammich. That was spectacular. Then I went to her house to play with Journey Dog and get styled up by Andrea. I looked, if I do say it myself, smokin' hot, which is totally Andrea's doing, even if she did spit on my eyelid. Apparently, that is the price of fashion. Eventually, Martha Mae and Lil Jeffie showed up, and we high-tailed it down to the LBG for the pre-show dinner. At first, we were really excited, because we were confronted by fancy salads, with chicken and strawberries and other weird stuff. We thought, "Man, if our salads are this fancy, dinner should be sweeeeet!" Turns out, the fancy salad WAS dinner. People, I don't even like lettuce. That's OK though, cause I was waaaaaaaaay too nervous to eat much.
I was reading with Carlos Reyes, who is absolutely my favorite living poet, and probably the only man I would marry without significant monetary compensation.

Me and Carlos

Much to my dismay, in the three years since I saw him last, he married someone else. Can you even believe that? This he tells me at dinner right before I am to read. My heart was bruised in a way that only whiskey could cure. I told Martha and she told Jeremy and he arrived 10 minutes before my debut with a hip flask of Jack, and thus, a beautiful friendship was born. I'm still not over Carlos, but I'm considering marrying Jeremy.
So I drank half the whiskey while the introducer was introducing me, and I took the podium glowing with liquid confidence.

Liquid Courage!

I read "Big Smile, Scabby Heart," then "Each Midnight," cause they were short and sweet and "Big Smile's" kinda funny and nervous and I was feeling pretty funny and nervous. And then, (this was another Andrea idea) when I was settling and the whiskey was working its edge-brightening magic, and everybody was easing into the nighttime and the story telling, I hit them with the first 3 pages of "Doll," and just when everybody was leaning in and feeling cold and concerned and hooked, WHA-BAM! Sucker-punched! I left them hangin' and sold like, 7 books right then. Andrea's such a smarty-pants.
So as not to be mean and to brighten things up again and lead into Carlos, I read this wicked-funny poem Peppers and I wrote the week before, called The Passion of the Produce," which is every bit as sexy as you think it might be. Everyone smiled big, I sat down, and finished my whiskey while Ian Pratt made eyes at me from across the room. Well played!

Readin'

Carlos read beautifully, as he always does, and I was so glad I had to go first, so I could sit back and close my eyes and ease into his voice and the soft alcohol and Andrea's warm hands on my shoulders. Reading Carlos, I like his English poems, their sharp-edged, soft hearted images. But I mostly love when he reads in Spanish. The sounds I don't understand make amazing pictures on the backs of my eyelids, dusty, dark, spicy pictures somewhere between deserts and oceans, between dawn and midnight.
If you get the chance to hear Carlos read, you should go, and not just cause I want to marry him.
After all that, my entourage was tuckered out. Even though I was buzzing with mischief, they coaxed me back to the Mabry Manor for some chilled out R&R. It's a good thing too, cause 1)People were getting arrested on campus that night and, with my luck I woulda been amongst them, and 2)I got Pneumonia the next morning.
(Props to Andrea AGAIN for not being among the arrested! Man, that girl was ON IT all weekend.)
The next day we went back to Raleigh and after some relax-o time, threw Lil Jeffie a rather nice birthday party. At his request I cooked up some fish n chips (and it even turned out good, who knew?) And a bunch of peeps came up, and I think there were beers and some kind of ridiculously complicated game for smart people that the majority of us were too drunk to play.

Party People: Martha's Arm, Jeremy, The Girl with Matt, Matt, Andrea, Lil Jeffie's Very Skinny Leg

This is where my memory gets fuzzy. Not from drinking, but from lack of sleep and sickishness. Because at this time I thought the Pneumonia was just a wicked bad cold, and I was trying to solider through. Solidering through turned into talking with Jeremy and Andrea till 3 or 4ish in the am, at which point my voice gave out for good, and I put myself to bed on Martha's floor. After that I seem to recall a lot of transferring from floor to bed to floor to bed again. I have no idea what that was all about.
And then it was time for breakfast. Martha found us a for-real diner, who knew they had those in Raleigh? Breakfast was great. Ktbear joined us up again, and we all went to some lake to walk around. I wanted to walk around the lake real bad, because we had a puppy with us and all. But then we were walking and I thought maybe I was going to die.
But I didn't die, and then there was diner at Lil Jeffie's Mom's house. It was delicious I'm pretty sure. Spaghetti. I dunno. I was concentrating on not dying, and also not telling people I thought I was dying, cause I was pretty sure I wasn't really that sick and only just being a baby. Then Ktbear took me back to her house to take care of me, cause she kinda guessed that maybe I had one foot in the grave. Yay for Kt, and Journey Dog who is seriously the world's best cuddler. Andrea kept Martha and Lil Jeffie occupied, and everybody was happy.
Sunday morning I was on a plane to Cali and that was fairly excruciating. I was just trying to keep my eardrums in my ears.
Bean and Papabear scooped me up and brought me home to chicken soup and a basket full of of drugs.
And that's been pretty much it. I'm recovering slowly but surely. We had a teeny party for Papabear's 50th yesterday, and then I went to bed. I didn't even eat cake or drink any vodka, which should impress upon you how crap-tastik I feel. Who gets Pneumonia anyways? Ugh, I feel so lame.
Still, for most of the weekend, I think I partied like a champ. And it was fun. Way too short a visit, but superfun. Who doesn't love Lil Jeffie? I can't think of a single person. That kid is the bees knees.

Fever

This room is full of sleeping people. 11:19 on a Saturday night. Its like a spell was set over them, and I am awake alone in a bubble of non-time. Wide awake, I'm slipping in and out of dreamscapes, a breathing city like a spider in the center of a shivery web, a dream high that is alicefalling far underground and spinning in the center of a changing city all at once, spun in and out of upsidedown, the darkness breathing with unseen sleepers and memories, people remembered, taking the color of ghosts, vibrating my edges with their urgency. One half a fractured heart straining to dig up what the other half has taken pains to bury. The air today is too wet, too much like a breath. The city is a swallowing mouth. Being buried is like drowning and drowning is like being swallowed whole. Time has teeth. This feels like that sort of fragmentation. Chewed up. Caught. Stuck between time's front teeth. That is a disgusting metaphor. The wetness, the breathing, the strange smells in this room make it feel like that. Someone left a pack of cigarettes. I don't smoke anymore. I'm going to right now. Maybe the door, when I open it, will look onto a different city, a night less drowning.

Dropped an hour somewhere, though I'm surprised not more than that. My body is telling me 4 am, but the clock is saying something else again. Everyone is still sleeping and not likely to wake up again, and unless Stephen J. comes home or the phone rings I might be stuck in this one hour all night, with the same song tumbling around inside my skull and iwishiwishiwish i was some sort of musician cause then I could get it outside of myself but the best I can come up with is trying to hum it to which Robbie says, all day, "Stop that, it's creepy."
My voice is too high pitched, he says, and small, like a demented kindergartener. It's a humming, ticking sort of song though, like a bunch of bees in a music box, and there's a language to it that I either don't know or can't remember and to try to compose other words doesn't work because they simply aren't the right ones. The buzzing is in my fingertips too, and my teeth, perhaps I should take something to help me sleep, why is everyone so so sleepy? I feel like I could run, or go to a show, I like the night life, baby, or climb through an empty city, exploring things. It's nights just like this when not driving is the worst thing in the world.
I don't think he's coming home. I don't think the phone will ring, I think I might have fallen deep into a hole and I m not here at all, maybe still falling, or up and off the planet. Last night I saw the most perfect stars and the Milkyway in a ribbon cause I made Rob go outoutout of the house, its only one am we've been so restless, itching underneath the skin like something's coming and how come nobody seems to feel that but me? After years of waiting, nothing came. Manic thoughts again, it builds and ebbs, I try to suppress everything always, keep myself in tight but I am leaking all over the place and now my heart is full.
Disintegration of the unseen hour. And the only questions people ever seem to ask: "Are you on drugs? How much have you been drinking?"
The answer, always, not nearly, nearly enough.

More Awesome Than Sad

Stephen J. is mowing the lawn. That and the window fan are the pleasantest of white noises combined, and I am getting sleepy. Which could also be the cold medicine, cause I have the sniffles, and I accidentally overdosed myself on Robitussin, cause I didn't read the label correctly. Didn't they used to make After School Specials about that sort of thing? Man, whatever happened to After School Specials?
What have I been up to? Being crabby/sleepy mostly. I've been up to some other things too I guess, but all of them only half-assed. These include: landscaping, drinking, Meeting New and Interesting people, working on my next book, working on publicity for the the current book, cutting paper snowflakes, looking for for-real jobs, learning to box, making mad mixes, wishing people belated happy birthday, and drinking more water.
One time I went hiking, and one time I helped Barry Kriebel edit a script for a play. And one time I made Stephen J. kill a baby squirrel, which was horrible. But it was only because the baby squirrel was already dying, and I didn't want it to suffer all day on the hot tin roof. It was an act of mercy. Except that I made Steve do it, which makes me sort of a jerk. In my defense, had I been home alone, I would have done it myself, but squirrel killing is boy business, and, since there was a boy home, yeah.
On the opposite side of sad, dead, baby squirrels though, we have that my book is finished!! Finished for real finished. You can go to amazon.com right now, and search Molli Rocket, and click the thing and by it, and it will come in the mail, right to your house! If that is not awesome, I don't know what is.
In fact, it is so awesome, I'm gonna end this post right now, so you can go do that, and bask in the awesomeness. Do it.

Everything and the Kitchen Sink!

It's been a ridiculous month. Even moreso than the usual ridiculous. Living with my boys is kinda the best ever, when I am actually living here. They don't even make me sleep on the couch! I have a for-real bed, well, mattress. Under the stairs. Between the basement and the bookcase. It's a Molli Potter sort of affair. But still! Not a couch. So when I am actually here I work a handful of days landscaping or an hour or two massaging. The rest of the time I am split between riveting social engagements and domestic goddessary. Laugh if you must. But it is very true. Between bouts of drinking I keep a clean house, cook fabulous dinners, and occasionally sew and cut hair. When it gets winter I'm so going to take up knitting, you just watch me!
So maybe that all sounds so boring, and you're so bored, and you're thinking, I'm going to give up on reading this blog forever!
I don't think you should do that. You haven't even heard about the orgasmic Muse concert I went to, or the Tuesday afternoon S&M session I had in New York. Or the Dyke bar in Boston.
I told you, between riveting social engagements. Duh. Pay attention.

So. Since I last talked to you, I moved in with some boys. Robbie and Stephen J., Drunk at our local bar

We get drunk a lot and throw fancy dinner parties when they are not working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.
What is it like to be a kept woman, you ask me? Freakin' awesome. If I can rock this indefinitely, I totally win.

When Robbie and Steve are working forever and I get really bored, I play with Sam and Emily and Simone and Lucky Penny, Blondie, Justin and Abby, Lauren Rose, Chris Butler, Peppers, Kriebel, Midget, and Heather and her family. That is a nice mix of couples, siblings, single girls, working girls, homos, and children. Occasionally I even see my own family. I like to have a lot of options.
Like a China Buffet of friends. Sometimes Joey Haughton comes up, and things get really spicy.
Even with all that going on though, sometimes you just need some fresh blood. So when Peppers called me up and said "Come to New York this weekend," I said, "No." Because I hate New York. It is my nemesis city that is trying to kill me.
But then she said, "I have a ticket to see Muse at MSG....!" in her "I'm taunting you into the best worstideaever ever," voice. So then I said, "I'll see you tomorrow!" took the train up, had the "best burger in New York" at some Irish Pub (it really was freakin' delicious. Quite possibly they were not even lying) got drunk on her rooftop and yeah.

Peppers drunk on her rooftop

The show... I dunno how to even tell you about the show. It was even better than I had dreamed it the 2 nights prior. How do three people make so much noise? How does MSG get such pure resonance? How can I not have fallen in love with the 65 year old man in front of me, rocking out all by himself to 'Apocalypse Please'? How does Peppers stay so beautiful with her eyes all squinched up and her mouth all shouty and the sweat from all day dampening her curls? How does the cheesiness of people replacing lighters with a thousand illuminated cellphones make you feel like you are in the swirling bottom of a jar full of fireflies. I have been to hundreds of shows. I have heard crowds far larger than the one at MSG, but I have never felt the volume of sound physically topple onto me like a drunken wave when a crowd chants for an encore. Holy sweet Jesus. The perfect concert-going experience. The kind of show that lifts you right out of your body and into a pure stream of sound for 2 hours. A natural high better than any drink or drug I've ever tried, better than most sex I've ever had.
And people wonder why I obsess over musicians.

Peppers and me, in love with Musicians

We came out of MSG into a New York night that was as wet and smelly and hot as a garlic-spaghetti kiss, and I didn't eve care because for the first time in my whole life, New York had done right by me. We went home and I went to bed as soon as I could, to make the feeling last.
The next day, my new NY buddy Kit came over,

Kit, gazing optimistically into the future

I made awesome fajitas, and we all watched a movie and played around with leather belts. An unexpected and throughly amusing end to a fabulous visit. Molli Rocket 10000, NY, nothin'.

I had a wonderful time and a welt across my ass for a week to remember it by. Life is good.

After that, a week of house-sitting for the Cunningham's back in the Philly area. Pool, hot tub, big kitchen, central air and digital cable. Need I say more? I pretended to be a silly fancy lady all week. We through a dinner party pretty much every night and Heather brought the kids over

Nolan and Veronica. Yes, Veronica is in a kangaroo suit

to play in the pool and all in all, it was a totally fun, totally wholesome week. See? I keep balance by alternating between 2 extremes. It's the see-saw approach to Zen.

I left the Cunningham's to head up to Boston for a week with Andrea. That also was a whirlwind of activity. She picked me up in Providence on Saturday, and on Sunday we made the drive up to Burlington for this kid Nick's birthday. Burlington is a weird place. It is a lot like San Fransisco, excepting that it is in Vermont. So you feel weird. Still, that started out alright, we were in this fly Irish pub... lately, I've been spending a lot of time in Irish pubs... anyways, things were going pretty alright until people started showing up for the birthday party. When I overheard a dude say (in reference to me and my girl) "I don't really care which one of them I end up with, I mean, they're both pretty cute. I just wanna get laid..." yeah, I was pretty much off that crowd. I mean, none of those dudes were even cute. I was like, in a party of about 12 dudes, and I didn't make out with anybody. Now that's saying something.
So Vermont was kinda icky, and I am re-thinking going up there to investigate the Vermont secession from the Union, cause, I don't really want to be surrounded by a bunch of pseudo-San Fransisco jerkoffs.

From there, Andrea dropped me off in Greenfield, which is a crazy little town in western Mass. I liked the giant sign outside the local bar that said, "Smoke Free. By FORCE!" It made me smile real big. So I went from there to an even smaller and more remote town to see miss Melody and her little ones. That was kinda awesome, and a lot like being at summer camp. I jumped on a giant trampolene and shot a bow and arrow and ate hippy food, and man, it was awesome. I wished I coulda stayed longer, but their house is under construction and I had to get back to Bean Town to get some work done. Andrea and I are working on a very exciting project. You don't know what it is, but you are excited anyways, I promise.
So we did our work and I met some cool horses and dogs, and a cat. And I went horseback riding! You're having a hard time picturing it, aren't you? Well, my tongue is sticking out in your direction because Andrea says I'm kinda a natural with horses, so there! I can be rustic. I'm not silly and fancy all the time.
So then we went down to Jamaica Plain for some awesome dinner at my Aunt and Uncles' and then we were off to meet Holly and Nebraska for some Karaoke. Except we got lost. When we finally got found, we were walking to the bar and Andrea says, "Are there a lot of girl couples out here?" And there were. So then we walked in the bar, and it was nothing but girl couples. Turns out Karaoke is actually, in this case, Queeroke (which i don't think really works as a clever play on words. Try and say it. It's pretty awful. But alls I could come up with to replace it was kargayoke, and that's even worse).
Well Andrea was kinda thrilled to be in this gay bar and she wanted to play around and pretend that we were a couple, which I would have been down for except that it totally interfered with my goal to get pretty girls to buy me drinks. Andrea is a pretty girl, but the bar only took cash and she had none. I had to buy my own beer.
Can you even believe that?
In a lesbian bar.
Nothing like a good friend to fuck up your free drink groove. So yeah. I don't have any scandalous stories either. If you are upset about this, take it up with Andrea. It is entirely her fault.

I have no pictures of that entire trip, because I forgot to put a memory card in my camera. You'll have to use your imagination, oh dear!

So then we drove back to Philly. My girl drives like a maniac and I was afraid for my life the whole time, but we made it without arrest or collision, so, I suppose all is well. I spent the weekend getting drunk with Stephen J., and teased and abused by both boys cause "We're in that stage of missing you where it is necessary to be mean." On Saturday night we went to see Blondie in a Barry Kriebel production of "Dog Sees God." The script was horrible but the acting was amazing, and I have to grudgingly say it is the best BK production I have seen since "The Crucible."
After the play we found ourselves at yet another Irish pub, getting drunk, and yeah, I've pretty much been drunk since Saturday, with Monday being the day of most ridiculousness, due to the appearances of, in this order, Joey Haughton, Chris Butler, and Peppers throughout the day. Meem showing up for dinner was the icing on the cake. I almost died when she built a pyramid out of Robbie's French fries, and then put them all back on his plate. This is the lady that gave birth to me. And you wonder how I turned out this way.
When Peppers and I finally went to bed at 5 am, I felt happier than I've been in a really long time, which is saying a lot since I've been pretty consistently happy lately.
If you're still with me at this point in the post, bless you but you need to get out more.
And if you are wondering about the book, it's supposed to be going to print this week. But I still haven't been given a release date or pre-order information. I'm about to write them an email right now, just as soon as I make me another martini.
I hope that keeps you satisfied for now, because, it is becoming more and more obvious I suck at posting. I still love you though. If you came over, I'd have Robbie make you pancakes.

The Kitchen Sink