bite me.

you're having a good dinner with a good friend.  a medium rare hamburger, blue cheese fries, sharp vinaigrette on the crisp mixed greens, conversation about things and stuff and whatever. 

you bite the burger, chew it and bite the inside of your lower lip.  you bite it once and yelp a little from the pain and the surprise that you'd actually bite your own tender flesh.  you taste a little blood that mixes badly with the blue cheese, but you don't bleed long enough to confuse your taste buds.

you're talking and eating and eating and talking and you intrude upon your own chatter with a forkful of salad and you bite the inside of your lower lip again, in the exact place as the first bite.  fuck.  the vinaigrette burns the bitten skin, you sip ice water and swoosh it. you notice your friend pretending not to notice your lips are leaking liquids.

you engage in an inner dialogue: stop. listen to him. eat and listen. chew and swallow, THEN speak.  but the verbal exchange animates; it cannot be constructed or controlled.

and you bite the inside of your lower lip AGAIN, as if you had been programmed from birth for this precise moment when, during this very meal, your teeth would meet in the wrong place at the wrong time and bite the meat of your mouth with the meat in your mouth in multiples.

you say nothing of this to your friend, but the meal is over for you.  your tongue wants only to run back and forth along the inflamed bump, to soothe the bitten nerves, to protect your inner lower lip from further massacre.  your mind can contain no other thoughts.

you know the drill: the healing will only take a day or so.  saliva is a miracle balm.  you will remember this evening -- the luscious hamburger, the lively intercourse, and the repeated injuries caused by that very combination -- as long as your tongue can find the wound.

but the wound will heal.  there will be another conversation during another meal.

or you can shut up and starve.

3 minutes of madness.

i am nothing but trouble. the good kind of trouble, in which you think you might have fun if you just close your eyes and pretend you've made a promise you can keep so they will throw an old-fashioned ticker tape parade in your honor with your arms open wide enough to catch the moon before it drops behind the mountain where you've hidden treasures that can only be detected by magic spectacles made of candy glass and chicken wire by the brainiac with the golden heart and the dog who resembles groucho marx without the moustache while smoking a cigar that was rolled by nimble cuban fingers in the back room of a cottage snuggled on the eastern shore of lake champlain as it spits sun perch into the fryer for a supper planned well in advance of the ice floes slipping into view from a pigeon-crusted rooftop straight out of hitchcock's damaged soul that rocked the gown worn by the late blonde when she reached for the receiver and asked for mercy on the morning everything we love about macaroni and cheese became a poster child for the past sins of omitted quotations attributed to the twains and nary the twains of longing and hope in the midst of melted irish butter on a stack of platters playing songs that remind us of who we love and why we would rather breathe.

"Your neighbor's vision is as true for him as your own vision is true for you." -Miguel de Unamuno

At last! I have located my true vision...
Zandecompressed.

"An artist is a creature driven by demons..."

“...He doesn’t know why they choose him and he’s usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done." - William Faulkner

Just in case anyone was wondering where I've been...

If this guy didn't live in The Valley, I'd answer his ad.

Yes, I am, in fact, THE ONE! - 51

Reply to: pers-@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-08-20, 8:05PM PDT

Below is a list of phrases so overused in ads that, if I never see them again, it will be too soon! If YOUR ad does not contain ANY of the following lines, please contact me immediately!

10) "I live life to the fullest!"
(Is this really the most profound philosophical statement you can come up with? Dig a little deeper, Nietzsche.)

9) "Loves to laugh" or "Fun-loving"
(Wow, a person who enjoys laughter and fun. What a rare individual. I must meet her at once. Just once I'd like to see "loves to sob uncontrollably for days on end.")

8) "Down to earth..."
(If I see this phrase one more time, I'll... I'll... I don't know WHAT I'll do! I might be forced to actually turn off my computer and go interact with people in the REAL world. Okay, I probably wouldn't do anything THAT drastic. But you get the idea.)

7) "Looking for THE ONE" or the ever-popular "Looking for my Soulmate"
(Really? These are the most fresh and original lines you can come up with? Your mother and I had such high hopes for you. Oh well, there's always trade school.)

6) "I'm ____ years old but I look much younger!"
(Sure you do. And if I just did a couple more situps, I could still make the Yankees starting lineup. Is self-delusion great or what?)

5) "I'm an intelegent..."
(If you can't SPELL intelligent... do you see where I'm going with this? Class? Anyone?)

4) "I'm a typical (insert astrological sign here)."
(Astrology? Yeah, it's a science. I think they use it at NASA. I don't even know where to begin here. If you're looking for some insight into the nature of my character, don't ask me what my sign is. Talk to the Easter Bunny, he has the real inside track on me.)

3) Your ad has no picture, but you say, "Trust me, you won't be disappointed."
(Trust me, I will.)

2) "Don't worry, I plan to loose (sic) the weight real soon."
(Ok, it's probably just me, but why am I still worried?!)

And finally, add them all up, and you have the Number One Ad I'm Tired Of Seeing, and it goes something like this....

1) "Fun-loving, down-to-earth woman with 5 kids from 5 different fathers seeks a intelegint guy who loves to laugh. Must be in shape! I'm temporarily 50 pounds overweight, but don't worry, I plan to loose the weight right after I finish these fries! Must look like Brad Pitt and be no older than 30! I'm 49 but I look MUCH younger! I don't have a pic, but trust me, you won't be disappointed! I'm a Libra so I live life to the fullest! I get along best with Geminis who have six-figure incomes and large mansions! Must have a big heart and a bigger house, cuz the landlord just kicked us out!"
(Well, as long you have realistic expectations.)

Location: The Valley
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

"Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone." -Gladys Browyn Stern

"Sometimes it takes darkness
and the sweet confinement of
your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you."
-David Whyte

This insightful Irish poet based in Seattle is one of the primary inspirations for the documentary I'm producing and directing for my dear friend Adrian Marinovich...and the 3 weeks I've just spent on the road provided scads of illustrations for this particular section of his piece titled "Sweet Darkness." As life is wont to do.

I haven't written in quite awhile -- not here, not anywhere. Last night, I stopped my body and mind long enough to realize how much I miss it. But as soon as I'm finished shooting images, there will be words to reckon with.

Meantime, I'm off to be with my Vegas-based, health-challenged mom, who lovingly gave me the English language.

Oh yeah, and my life. Thanks again, Mom.

Sincerely.

“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”

Life is aflood with change.

Work I love has come to me after an uncomfortable drought. Work my dear friend B loves came to him at the same time. Our unbridled diligence and founded faith, at last acknowledged by the Universe.

Two friends have miraculously resurrected their marriage; two other friends are in the process of dissolving theirs. Another friend found the woman who appears to be his mate in under 3 weeks. Regular contact with the first and last has been affected...understandably, I guess.

My oldest Yahoo! email account has been spammed into dysfunction. I have opened a Gmail account and am getting used to Google management.

I have, at last, met a father's-side-of-the-family cousin (and her family) after a lifetime of never having known any of my dad's relatives. She, and they, are wonderful people and we had an amazingly, immediately comfortable time together. I am incredibly lucky.

Not at all incidentally, on that very reunion day last week, Mom was taken to the hospital...a reminder that our bodies are but temporary housing, and subject to the wear and tear of life. She's home, now, in remarkable spirits, and awaiting definitive word on a couple of conditions.

My next-door neighbor is moving back to NYC. I am a little sad and not a little envious.

There are other shifts in the wind. Always. And I am braced.

I can't sleep yet.

I can't watch Sex & the City reruns anymore; I know how it turns out. They all live happily ever after and make a zillion lifetime dollars in residuals.

I can't be friends with a former lover. I don't know why it's so hard for me. Maybe it's hard for everyone, but the ones who say it's easy are lying. I also notice that the ones who say it's easy are (mostly) men.

The other thing about that is, I can't stop trying.

I can't bear to look at the ivory half moon hanging in my window right now. I have to turn my back on it, close the drapes. It reminds me of things I want and don't have.

I can't believe I'm writing a book. I can't believe it's taking me so bloody long to write it. I do believe it will be a ridiculous hit.

I can't think too much about my past. I miss it sometimes.

I can't express enough gratitude for my mother. And for the other women and men in my life who seem to care for me almost as much as she does.

I can't imagine being dead, but I know it's coming. Not soon, probably. Sometimes, not soon enough.

I can't wait to make my first movie. I don't care if it's a story I wrote or a story I love. I know I'm close. I can reach my fingers out in an impossible stretch and almost touch it. I know it will feel like mink and kisses.

I can't understand why I'm sleeping so badly. Theories abound, but listing them now would only reinforce the insomnia.

I can't do this anymore.

I can't not do this.

9-month-old wisdom from a dear friend. It's working.

"However aggravating [this person] may be, I think [this person] is also your teacher about learning to constrain, contain, and purify your energy of relating. You get so exhausted from giving, but you also resist a teacher who essentially says, 'Stop giving. I don't want all that.' And that's part of the reason you're in a struggle with someone whose energetic style is so different; you have a hard time learning this lesson on your own, so you unconsciously turn to someone who enforces it on you. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to ACCEPT it: accept the limits and constraints and use them to learn how to modulate your giving. You know how hard this is, because you grew up believing you could only get what you needed by giving so much. You need to learn to contain your energy so that you become more of a magnet to people (and to money, for that matter) -- drawing in energy by an invisible force of attraction, and using energy drawn to you to nourish your naturally generous nature."

The truth has no time frame.

"People like to imagine that because all our mechanical equipment moves so much faster, that we are thinking faster, too."
-Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

This is a lovely Valentine to receive...

...it certainly defuses the tone and content of my Anti-Valentine series. I am touched and mollified.

The fact that it's anonymous reminds me of the little Valentines I received from "Your Secret Admirer" in elementary school. And its poetic style reminds me of the many beautiful, heartfelt Valentines written for me by my ex. Sweet/bittersweet memories.

Maybe I'll just think about Saint Valentine today...

Anonymous said...

Hallmark doesn't make love.
It doesn't recognize beauty, nor does it understand the heart.
It is not very creative, and it invents holidays for profit.

You enthrall more than you realize.

We stand captivated from a polite distance.

My heart belongs to me.

If I could have kept the straight and narrow and not have broke your heart.

One day 'til I receive no bouquet of flowers.

But keep my Valentine; I'll keep my bleeding heart.

Two days 'til I receive no invitation to a candlelit dinner.

She laid her heart and soul right in your hands.

Three days 'til I receive no Frederick's of Hollywood crotchless panties.

Deep in my heart I'm concealing things that I'm longing to say.

Four days 'til I receive no chocolate truffles.

Stop dragging my heart around.

Five days 'til I receive no card.

as if ms. jones can see.

"...so hold on to your special friend
here, you'll need something to keep her in
now you stay inside this foolish grin
though any day your secrets end
then again
years may go by..."

The dream of my literary alter ego.

The dancing bear has a chain around his neck. He is led out into the center ring and commanded to prance in the follow spot. To bare his yellow teeth. To growl and paw at the air. To hop on one leg while he balances a beach ball on his nose, like a seal. The trainer shouts commands and grins broadly at the audience, see my dancing bear? How smart and handsome and funny he is!

Applause fills the tent, cheers rattle the rafters. Fathers point, children laugh. The bear howls.

In the dream, she doesn’t know if she is the trainer or the bear.

Cranberry birthday toes.

They still look like this after 15 days.

Thank you, Hej :)

We're all going to die.

So be nice.

Grounded...

...like a 16-year-old girl who stole a pack of her mom's Larks and smoked them in her house while her parents were out, even after said parents had extracted a no-more-smoking promise from her. And her best girlfriend, who'd stolen a pack of Kents from her dad, joined her. And, being stupid teenaged girls, they didn't think to empty the ashtray before the parents returned. Which might not have been much of a mistake -- the Lark-smoking mom could easily have left several brown-filtered butts behind -- but the butts of the white-filtered Kents told the tale.

And when the parents returned to their lovely New Jersey home to find the evidence, the dad was so mad he got back in his Jeep and drove to Connecticut, called his wife, the mom, and had his daughter grounded and her private phone disconnected. Plus a month's worth of dishwashing.

Which is not why I am grounded this weekend -- I've been home all week with a nasty cold that has devolved into a nastier brochitis -- but when X used the term to describe my condition tonight, it conjured fond memories of being a bad girl.

What do I get for being a good girl?

Last night,

I dreamed
it had taken off
without me.

I ran down the route
it had rolled,
felt the heat of exhaust,
raised a hand
against the fumes.

Dizzy, disappointed.
Angry at my arrogant
procrastination.
I wasted it
waiting for muses, for
the manifestation
of liquid thoughts.

I awakened to the
roar of buses and
rattle of jackhammers
and knew I still
had time.

I still have time.

"We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves." -Eric Hoffer

The torch is so heavy.
Hard to hold high without help,
with a single arm that needs to join its partner in other work.

A strong love weakens without reciprocation,
in spite of will,
despite depth and breadth.
Respite is called for when the struggle is futile.

Lay it down so you can rest.
Lay it down so you can receive with both hands.
Lay it down so you can see your own light.
Lay it down so you can lift your heart.
Lay it down so you can hold your own.
Lay it down so you can
lay it down.

Xtract frm ths wht u wll.

Last year this time (give or take half an hour), I celebrated personal birthday traditions in a ZanTales blog post...those traditions that live in the past (Beatles' "Birthday" morning dances), and those I still enjoyed, counted on, looked forward to (The Midnight Call from X, The "Thanks for Having Me" Talk with Mom, The "Girls' Night Out" Dinner with Shanna).

The Midnight Call didn't come this year. Things got in the way, I guess. Other Things. Unrelated Things. More Important Things. Things that Change Things.

Ah, whatever; I'll have another birthday next year this time...at least, that's the plan. And if there's still an X, and a midnight, perhaps there'll be a call. Unless there are Other Unrelated More Important Changed Things.

Friday, there came a FedEx gift from Linda. Sunday, Kate and I celebrated over tea and nibbles. Tuesday, a Buddha's Belly lunch with friend Don and a pre-birthday call from friend Patrick. Later today, there'll be lunchtime paws and claws with Hej. And the dinner with Shanna. And my Lamberts have something in mind for Saturday.

Why should I care about dashed X-pectations when there's all this birthday love around me?

Perhaps because X marks a whole other spot.

The drunk and disorderly piss me off.

I need to sleep, and they won't shut up.

As viewed from my loft, this is Los Angeles' own Skid Row, where the ranting and screaming of the inebriated and crackheaded bounces off the brick and concrete and glass and echoes up into my little corner of Fabulous Downtown LA.

"The degree to which we're sidetracked or confused is the degree to which we suffer." -Everyday Zen

I am suffering today. Out of confusion and being sidetracked. Wham-bam.

A dear friend has been unexpectedly (and, I think, undeservedly) dismissive of my customary (and, I thought, valued) service, and no explanation is forthcoming. Only silence in the wake of the question.

And this confusion-based suffering has sidetracked me from my work, by triggering that well-oiled mechanism of mine that spews dozens of assorted complex answers to a question only one person (and that ain't me) can accurately (and, I hope, simply) address, so the suffering effect is doubled.

Does having said it out loud mitigate the feelings of confusion and resultant sadness? Ever so slightly. A nice yoga class with a lot of breathing will help me let go. These are the actions I can take to soothe my soul. The only things in my control.

But truth from the source is the most effective salve.

Enjoy.

Last night, I attended a stimulating salon of writers, producers, directors, musicians and other creative beings for which "A Call to Character: Living an Ethical Life" was the topic. During the lively discourse, my decidedly imperfect life flashed before my eyes, and I thought, "Omigod, I don't belong here."

But, as the collective conversation continued, I relaxed as each of our human imperfections revealed themselves in (some, not so) subtle ways. The list of shining traits that define character cannot be accessed by everyone in every moment of every day. We all struggle to find and manifest core values: respect, honesty, compassion, responsibility, fairness, cooperation, perseversence, tolerance, etc...as much with ourselves (more of a challenge?) as with others. In fact, the way we treat ourselves subconsciously instructs others in their treatment of us -- much more succinctly than the way we treat others. Self-respect -- or lack thereof -- sets a vibrant, indelible example. But if we make an effort to be conscious -- to stay awake for our thoughts and feelings, especially before we act on them -- the rewards will gratify in immeasurable ways.

Any sincere effort to improve our character is bound to bring a welcome, if not permanent, peace into our hearts.

And maybe a little joy.