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gorimbaudandgojohnnygo · 1 month ago

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A long ramble about current-life-stuff and memories of the past that I don’t feel comfortable posting about on my main blog:

—Ruby, my witch wife, was on my mind a lot during the first half of February. I think of her most often in February and October, as those are the months when we spent the most time together, back when we were still in each other’s lives. She was on my mind, and I found some notes I’d written down in October, for a poem I wanted to write about her. Back in October, I couldn’t find a way into the poem, but looking over the notes recently, I found one. So I wrote it, and it is in my new chapbook, and will also be on my new spoken word EP. Then, just a week ago, I was looking through a file folder of old notes/writing ideas/fragments, and I found a note I’d jotted down several years ago, for a poem I wanted to write about her, featuring a lot of the same themes and images that wound up in the new poem. Apparently I have had this poem brewing in my head for a very long time; I’m glad I was finally able to get it out.

—Recent thought: Marks left in old books from dog-eared pages are like desire paths.

—A few weeks ago, standing in my kitchen making dinner, I realized I was standing with my feet in a ballet position. And it just hit me that, though I only took ballet for a few years, and didn’t appreciate it at the time (it was too structured for me, I preferred dancing that was more freeform)—my body still remembers ballet.

—Memory: There was a guy I slept with once in late June 2004. For the purposes of this story, we’ll call him Jimbo. I was in love with Craig, who lived far away and was unattainable for many reasons (I mean, we’d fucked, but being in a relationship with him was out of the question), so I was throwing myself at anyone who’d have me, or saying yes to anyone who threw themselves at me, to try and distract myself from the Craig debacle. And Jimbo was one of those people. The sex was good; he was a kinky freak which was fun cuz a lot of my one night stands back then were the most vanilla dudes ever. He let me wear his GG Allin t-shirt to sleep, and I just wore it home the next morning and never gave it back. Cut to September 2004. I ran into Jimbo, after not seeing him or even talking to him since like a week after our hookup. He confessed to me that he’d actually been married at the time, though separated from his wife—was, in fact, still married, but now officially going through the process of divorce. I had recently had an abortion; Craig had gotten me pregnant a week or so before I hooked up with Jimbo in June, though I hadn’t known it yet. So I confessed that to him. This is the part I flashed on when I remembered him recently—me telling him of my pregnancy and abortion, and his reaction to it. He got really freaked out. Not because he was anti-abortion, no. His reaction was: “Ew, you were pregnant? What if I poked the baby with my dick?” I just started laughing. I was like: “Okay, first of all, I was less than two weeks pregnant; it was a tiny clump of cells at that point, not a baby. Secondly, your dick’s not that big, and also there’s this thing called the cervix which kinda prevents a dick of any size from actually entering the uterus. And finally, you had me snowball you after I gave you head. You’re okay with me spitting your own cum into your mouth, but you’re grossed out by the totally physically impossible prospect of poking a fetus with your dick while fucking?” I sure could pick ‘em. But in any case, he felt so bad about not having told me he was married that he gave me a free tattoo to make up for it.

—Memory: A different guy, also a tattoo artist. We’ll call him Kevin. He was, in fact, my main tattoo artist for a few years when I lived in Milwaukee. We never hooked up, but he wanted to. He had a huge crush on me and was always hitting on me when I went into the shop to get tattooed, and honestly it got borderline creepy at times. We had this mutual acquaintance, Renee, who had a crush on him, and I often encouraged him to go for it, because she was really cool and also I hoped that if they hooked up he’d drop the whole thing with me. So one time when I was in there, we were talking about her, and I was once again encouraging him to go for it. “Nah, I can’t date her,” he said. “She used to be a stripper.” “And?” I asked. “Strippers are all skanky sluts,” he said. “Um, you know I do burlesque and nude pinup modeling,” I said, “and you don’t seem to have a problem with that.” “That’s different.” “How so?” “It just is.” “I really don’t see how. She and I have both taken our clothes off for money, and we’ve both danced naked or semi-naked in front of an audience.” “It’s just different, okay?” Obviously he didn’t know I had also done full-service sex work, because it was none of his business, but I lost even more respect for him that day. Sex work is sex work, none of it is inherently more degrading than any other kind, and at that point I was at least glad he wasn’t into Renee, because she deserved better.

—Sometimes, when I get sad that I don’t live the exciting life I once did, I’m glad I’m a writer. Yeah, there’s the frustrating thing when I’m never fully present in any moment as I’m living it, because I’m always thinking about how I’m going to write about it later. But on the flipside of that, it means I get to relive all the memories of my old wild days multiple times.

—One of my aunts is dying of stage four cancer. The infuriating thing is that she had symptoms for over a year and refused to go to the doctor to get them checked out until they got so bad she couldn’t ignore them anymore; she might have had a fighting shot if she’d just gone in when she first noticed the symptoms. But mostly I’m just sad that I’ll never get to see her again, and also heartbroken watching my mom lose her oldest sibling.

—When we were up in Door County, I ended up telling my mom about my abortion. Not the one I had in 2004—she’ll never know about that one, if I have my way—but the one I had in 2021. It was the four year anniversary that day, and I was feeling a little sad about it, and we were talking about politics and abortion came up, and it just kinda came out. She handled it pretty well, but asked why I hadn’t told her at the time. “Did you think I’d disapprove?” she asked. My response was that no, it wasn’t that, it was that I didn’t really talk to anyone about it at the time, except for P. and Beagan. And that’s not a lie, but what I didn’t add was that yeah, I kinda did think she’d disapprove. Not because she’s anti-abortion, but because whenever I’ve been in any kind of Difficult Situation, she’s always berated me for getting myself into it rather than either asking about any of the other surrounding circumstances that may have contributed, or helping me get out of it. At least this time she didn’t berate me.

—The next day was Henry Rollins’s birthday. We had to go to Nelson’s that day, to get a few things, and it made me all nostalgic, because— Okay, backstory time again. Nelson’s is a hardware store, and also a general store. They basically sell everything except groceries, and they’ve been around for-ev-er. Back in the days when Filia used to often come up to Door Co. with us, we’d go to Nelson’s a lot, because there wasn’t much else to do. We were often there in the off-season, and there weren’t as many year-round places that existed back then. Except bars, and we weren’t yet old enough to go to bars. So we’d go to Nelson’s to shoplift dog chains and padlocks to wear as necklaces, or India ink and needles for stick&poke purposes. This was also during the height of our shared Henry Rollins obsession, and one of the things Nelson’s sold was a wealth of old-timey candy; including Oh Henry! bars, which of course we bought, solely for the name. Before we went there this time, I’d texted Filia: “Happy Henry Rollins Day from Door County!” And she replied: “Be sure to go to Nelson’s and get an Oh Henry! bar to celebrate.” Which I fully planned on doing. But they don’t sell Oh Henry! bars anymore. So as we were checking out, my mom decided to tell the young (probably in his early 20s) guy at the counter that I was looking for an Oh Henry! bar, because we used to buy them there, and because it was Henry Rollins’s birthday. First he said: “Who’s Henry Rollins?” Then he said: “And what’s an Oh Henry! bar?” My mom said that they were a candy bar that had been around forever. “I used to buy them when I was a kid, back in the 1950s,” she said. “Oh, uh…that’s way before my time,” he replied, which, well, no shit. “They still had them here in the late ‘90s, though,” I said. “That’s when I was buying them.” “Uh…that’s before my time, too,” he said. I didn’t really care that they didn’t have the candy bars anymore, but I just felt old and missed Filia. And I just looked it up, and apparently Oh Henry! bars were discontinued in 2019. The world I grew up in is gone.

—I’m growing out my armpit hair again. I feel better when I have pit hair, but until recently I was using a deodorant that always left weird clumps in it, which I hated, so every time I’d try to grow it out I’d end up shaving it after a month or so. I’ve switched to a gel-based deodorant instead, so fingers crossed that this time it works out.

—Speaking of hair. The hair on my head is mostly gray now. Red hair dye already fades the fastest of any color, but it fades even faster when the base hairs are gray. It’s getting expensive and annoying trying to maintain the color in my hair, and I think sometimes of just letting it fade/grow out and going gray, but I don’t think I’m ready for it quite yet. Not because I’m ashamed of having gray hair or anything, just because I’d be sad to not be a redhead anymore.

—One of my “New Year’s Rulins” in the zine I made was GET REAL WEIRD WITH IT, and I think I’m doing well on that front, especially art-wise. I’m experimenting with different stuff in my writing, visual art, and music, not even worrying about if it’s ‘good’ or not, just having fun and getting crazy.

—When looking through Flickr to find an image to use in a recent collage, I came across a photograph (which I ended up using in said collage) that gave me this moment of: what the FUCK? Because the woman in it looks like if me and my old flame/almost-lover Odele could have had a lovechild. Obviously, even if we had been lovers, that is not biologically possible—being that we both have the sort of anatomy where we can get pregnant, but not get anyone else pregnant—but yeah. The resemblance to both of us is uncanny. And after the shock wore off, I just got sad, missing Odele. Yet another person on my miles-long love list, another ghost I miss.

—Speaking of the ghosts of old love(r)s. Before the poetry event the Saturday before last, after I decided to dress in a Patti Smith-inspired style, I had to dig out my old skinny tie, the one I’ve had for oh, 22 years now. I haven’t worn it in many years at this point, but I used to wear it (and other skinny ties) so often that it was part of my signature look. My username on various websites/email addresses was, for a good couple years, ‘skinnytiegirl.’ It was during that time that I first met Sullivan, and once he sent me an email that just said:

my my my girl’s got a skinny tie and one eye for Tom and one for Jack and thirteen hearts in a gunnysack

—On the three-block walk from my car to the bookstore the event was in, I encountered a pack of 20-something-year-old business bros stumbling out of a bar. It wasn’t even 7 p.m. yet, and they were all visibly wasted, and very very loud and obnoxious. They were also all white. I note this because nothing terrifies me more when I’m alone than a pack of drunk white guys, especially when they look either businessy or fratty. Because those are often the type of guys who will not hesitate to in some way harm or harass anyone they perceive as ‘other,’ be that ‘other’ female/feminine, queer, non-white, etc. And what’s more, if they do decide to fuck with you, they’ll probably get away with it. They didn’t harass me, but they did run into me and nearly knock me into a snowbank, and didn’t even fucking say ‘sorry’ afterwards.

—That cryptic post I made a while back, about “oh, we’re gonna bang, aren’t we?” The guy that was in reference to, Edwin—he was there. Whatever we have going on is strange and I have mixed feelings about it. The attraction is pretty obvious, and we write long emails to each other that are just this side of outright flirtation, but when we see each other in person we barely talk. We just, like, make intense eye contact from across the room, like we’re in some damn Regency-era romance or something. If anything is going to happen, I will have to make the first move, which… Ugh, god, this guy pisses me off and I also want him. He’s a brilliant poet, and also a brilliant scientist, but he’s very pretentious (I am also very pretentious, but in a different way), and he’s really kind of…effete is, I guess, the best word for it? I’m normally a sub but this guy brings out my dom feelings like no other. I want to wreck him.

—Other things about that night: I met a poet named Lou. He’s a super rad dude who, along with poetry, also makes visual art and music. He calls the music he makes “spiritual anarchist hiphop,” which is hella cool. I’m hoping we can collaborate on something; we threw some ideas back and forth and though our styles are vastly different, I think we’re coming from a similar place, if that makes sense. The bookstore where the reading was held (the new bookstore downtown that I first went to back in December) opened up their back room for the first time for the event, and they’d set up this makeshift stage that was made out of like, stacks of book crates covered with an ancient rug. The stage was understandably a little wonky and some people were kinda complaining about it, but it just reminded me of DIY punk shows, and I thought it was great. After the performance part of the evening ended, I stayed around a little while to have a drink and talk with folks. I was talking with Ren and Rudy, and Ren said that when Edwin was reading, he’d been watching Rudy and I digging it, or, as he put it: “I watched you guys receiving the poetry.” I was about to make some ‘receiving the poetry’ joke, because it sounded very sci-fi to me, but before I could say anything, Rudy slipped into a stereotypical space alien voice and held up his finger like E.T. and said: “I am receiving the poetry.” It was perfect. So yeah, I stayed around a bit, had a drink, talked to friends old and new, but I stayed on the charming side of drunk (did not actually even get drunk, but if you know you know), and I left without saying goodbye.

—That film festival I attended part of when I was up in Door County? The cool thing was they were streaming all the films on their website the week after, and because I had attended, I got to stream anything I wanted for free. So I watched a lot of the films I hadn’t had the chance to see in person. (And God, all of it—the in-person aspect and the streaming aspect—reminded me how much I love film as a medium! And why I used to wanna be a filmmaker! Fuck!) The night after the reading—the last night streaming was available—I watched Green Blah!, the documentary about the early Green Bay punk scene, that I’ve wanted to see since I first heard about it. I just, I had so many fucking feelings about it. Partly because hey, I know some of the guys that were in the film. And partly because any punk or indie-related thing reminds me of my own younger days, and this one was no exception. The stupid outfits, the shows at shitty venues, the fanzines, the radio DJ shit, all that. I actually fucking cried during certain parts of the documentary, which isn’t shocking. As I’ve said before—I get emo about punk stuff.

—Since watching it, I have been having hella feelings about Wisconsin punk rock, and about various people I know/knew through my involvement with punk scenes in Wisconsin. One being Coyote Boy. I never knew how to explain to anyone how I felt about him. Nothing even happened between us (he was another almost-lover), but the feelings were real.

—Memory: Driving through Milwaukee with Kellyn, sometime after she and Levi had started dating and she and I became friends. Levi had recently introduced her to Coyote Boy (much like he had introduced me to him two years prior), and she was talking about how cool he was and how she wanted to start playing drums and hopefully he would be her drum teacher, and I said: “You have a crush on him, don’t you?” She said: “Is it that obvious? Yeah, I do. Don’t tell Levi.” I was like: “Oh, cross my heart, swear I won’t. I was like, in love with Coyote Boy for a while, and I still kind of am, and I know how Levi gets when he feels insecure.” Then we both started laughing because here she was, dating my ex-fiancée, and crushing on another guy I also liked, so clearly we had similar taste in dudes.

—That memory made me think of another time, sitting at a bar with Kellyn and Levi, when I was first getting to know her. We were talking about the Myers-Briggs quiz, and I said I was an ENFP, and she said: “Oh shit, I’m an INFP!” Levi was like: “What does that mean?” And her response was: “It means Jess and I are the same person, except I’m an introvert and she’s an extrovert.” Yeah, I know Myers-Briggs is bullshit, but it was still kind of hilarious; even more hilarious because Levi seemed a bit freaked out that his new girlfriend was saying she was the same person as his ex. No, Kellyn and I weren’t really the same, but we did have a lot in common. It still seems unfair that she was one of the friends Maggie got to keep in the Great Friend Exodus of 2014.

—Another Milwaukee friend that I lost is Belah, and I miss her a lot, too. We were still friends for a couple more years after 2014, she wasn’t really part of the same friend group, so I know that’s not why we parted ways. I’ve racked my brain for reasons she might hate me, but I can’t really settle on anything. I try to remind myself that maybe she doesn’t hate me, we just drifted apart, because not every friend is meant to be part of your life forever, but it still makes me sad. Unless someone does something unforgivable to me—and I have a pretty high bar for what’s unforgivable—I want to be friends with everyone, forever.

—Another person that Green Blah! made me think of was Les. And then I remembered that time Luke and Daria and I went to see his band, [redacted], and some others, to see the show and record interviews to play on WIPZ. Les was the bassist for [redacted] at that time, and oh god, I had the hots for him, and he was into me, I mean we started flirting almost immediately upon meeting. I was 17 (nearly 18, but not yet), and he was 9 or 10 years older, but I genuinely did not give a shit, and he didn’t seem to, either. I mean, he never asked how old I was, but I was obviously younger than him—though he may have thought I was just under 21 rather than under 18. Let me explain something here… I had only really started feeling desirable at age 15-almost-16, and I was mostly only interested in people older than myself, and I had realized that when I dressed like a punk rock bombshell and flirted with older punk guys, I was catnip. So I played the jailbait card hard a lot of the time. I wasn’t playing the jailbait card that night, I just looked cute (tight t-shirt, plaid skirt, fishnets, high top Chucks) and was an incorrigible flirt. And I’m not trying to say Les was a creep or a predator, either. He didn’t seem to care how old I was, but he also didn’t seem to only be into me because I was younger. In fact, the then-guitarist for [redacted]—who was even older than Les, probably in his early 30s—was also hitting on me. The two of them were vying for my attention for a while, and I was flattered, but the guitarist actually was being a bit pushy and creepy, and also, I only had eyes for Les. All this was happening in front of Daria and Luke, by the way, which is only notable because Luke was my boyfriend at the time. We had an open relationship, but honestly I would’ve kept flirting with Les even had we not had one, because I was kind of awful back then. Anyway, at one point, Les and I finally had a few moments alone when all our various friends and boyfriends and bandmates were off doing whatever else, and we so wanted to make out, but there was nowhere in the venue to do it where we wouldn’t risk interruption, so he said: “Maybe we could…go out to the van?” I was all in, because he was so cute, and because I was a make out bandit, and I was so horny all the time that I would’ve absolutely been down to fuck, too, but then the door guy at the venue said to Les: “You can go, but if she leaves, she’s not allowed back in.” (I think it had something to do with the fact that I was under 21, and sometimes under 21 folks would leave, get an “old enough to drink” wristband from someone else, and come back in and drink.) Les was quick-thinking, and said: “Oh, it’s cool, she’s with us. She’s our merch girl.” Unfortunately, Door Guy was not having it: “Doesn’t matter. If she leaves, she can’t come back.” Yeah, I got fucking cockblocked by the door guy, and the next time I saw [redacted] live Les wasn’t in the band, and we never got to make out. Dammit.

—The rest of that show was great, though. And I met [redacted 2], and interviewed them. And the then-bassist of [redacted 2] asked me to sexually harass him. He was in like, his 50s, but he was also really cute, and honestly I would’ve fucked him, too, if I’d had the chance.

—Memory: At a punk show in Kenosha in 2014, it was the first time I had the opposite experience—where instead of being the young one flirting with older punks, I was the older one getting flirted with by a young punk. Now, he wasn’t jailbait, but still… First, he was doing the whole: “Who are you? I’ve never seen you around before. Is this your first show in Kenosha?” “Not even close,” I said. “I’ve been going to shows here since I was 15, 16.” “Me too!” he said. “Yeah,” I said, “this would’ve been like, 1997, 1998.” “Oh,” he said. “Uhhhh…I wasn’t going to shows back then. I was…7.” So that put him at 23 or 24, as I was 32 at the time. Later in the evening, we were checking out the pins and patches on each other’s jackets, doing that “Oh, I love that band; oh, I’ve never heard of that one” thing. One of the patches on his jacket was for The Crucifucks, and I was like: “Rad, I love that band. Also they’re from the same town I was born in. Lansing, Michigan.” “Did you ever go see them back when you lived there?” he asked. I started laughing and said: “I know I’m older than you are, but how old do you think I am? The Crucifucks broke up when I was eight!”

—And that, in turn, reminded me of the time I was hanging out with G.T. and I’d mentioned living in Flint, Michigan at one point, and he was like, “Oh, hey, my old band used to play there. Maybe you saw us? This would’ve been, like, ‘85?” “I was…four.” That look on his face, when he realized I was way, way younger than he’d thought. Then: “Oh shit. How old are you?”

—As always happens to me when I get nostalgic for one time period of my life, I end up getting nostalgic for other parts of my past, too. Every memory reminds me of another memory.

—Memory: That time when my roommate Dolores and I were gonna start a band, back when she was still sorta cool, before she completely flipped out. She was gonna be the drummer and I was gonna be the bassist and she had this friend, this super hot punk rock dyke whose name escapes me, so we’ll call her Tina, who was gonna play guitar; we were all gonna take turns on lead vocals. Tina came over one time so we could all jam, and talk about our influences, and the like. We also tossed around ideas for band names. Tina suggested Firecrotch, cuz we were all redheads, and we thought it would be funny—though Tina was the only one of the three of us that was a true redhead, and therefore a firecrotch. Anyway, at one point that afternoon, taking a break from jamming, Tina went into The Sick Room (the bedroom Maggie and I shared) to smoke some weed, as The Sick Room was the designated smoking area of the house. When she came back out, she said: “I was admiring some of those pictures up on your wall.” The way she was smiling told me exactly which ones she meant: the nude pinup photos of me. “They’re great pictures, and you have lovely pink nipples.” I blushed so hard my cheeks were probably the same color as my hair, and lord, when I tell you I was ready to drag her back into my bedroom and rip off my shirt right then so she could admire my nipples in person… Alas, I did not.

—Memory: That first mix tape I made for Kimball, back in ‘99, and how he later told me that he’d played it at a party, and everyone gave him compliments, and he said: “This tape was made by someone a decade younger than any of you, who has better taste in music than all of you combined.”

—Memory: That time Cameron was visiting, and he and P. and I were all hanging out drinking after I’d put D. to bed. I don’t remember how the topic of punk/being punk even came up, but Cameron said: “Jessie’s so much more punk than I am. Granted, I’m not really punk, but Jessie’s so punk. She’s the punkest person I know.” And P. replied: “Hell, I was in a decently known punk band and Jessie’s punker than I am.” And I was just watching it all, thinking: “Keep it up boys, keep it up.”

—Memory: That first letter Freddy sent me, how he called me one helluva lil’ punk rocket.

—Those are the kinds of compliments I really get off on. Yeah, I like people saying I’m hot, but if you tell me I’m the punkest person you know who makes the best mix tapes? Oh baby, I’m yours, haha.

—It’s fucking Pisces season, and I’m losing my mind a little bit. I’m horny and restless and yearning, and crying all the fucking time. My memories are vivid and thick; so are my dreams.

—Last Monday night, I had a dream where I witnessed a giant wolf (all wolves are large, but this wolf was like, fuck-off huge) bite the throat out of a deer. It was extremely vivid and gory, so much so that even though I wasn’t in danger in the dream, it woke me up. It woke me up, and I just knew my period had started. I was right.

—Tuesday night, I dreamt that I ran into Les after all these years, at some punk show out in the middle of the Wisconsin woods, and we finally got to fuck in the van. It was really hot, and it��s always nice when my subconscious throws me a bone like that. Unfortunately, I woke up from that dream, too, and never got back to sleep.

—One of the benefits to drinking less is that I get better sleep. I don’t necessarily sleep more, but I get better quality sleep, overall. I still stay up late, but instead of staying up drinking, I stay up writing, or reading, or watching movies, and when I do fall asleep, I generally get more quality sleep than I used to. That said, there are still nights I sleep like shit for whatever reason, and god, I am ruined the next day. And that’s without having a hangover on top of it! How did I used to stay up all night writing and drinking, and then party for two days straight afterwards? Now, even if I’m stone-cold sober, if I get less than five hours of good sleep, I am barely functional the next day! So yeah, Wednesday was difficult.

—Here are a few of the things that have made me cry in the past week:

The newest issue of the Peninsula Pulse, which included a little write-up of Green Blah!, and also an interview with Patch McPanic, frontman of my beloved Door County punk band, Ballistic Biscuit. I mean, I was already having feelings about Wisco punk because of seeing the documentary, and that didn’t help. And then I read the article/interview, and it turned out…Ballistic Biscuit played a reunion show at Husby’s. The weekend of the festival. While we were up there. I could have fucking seen them live after twenty-nine years, if only I’d known. And of course then all the what-ifs. If I’d ever written a letter to Pogo like he’d asked me to when I ran into him back in 2021, and we had kept in touch, he’d have let me know about the show well in advance. So yeah, I cried about all that.

P. bought a jar of maple syrup from [redacted 3]. [Redacted 3] is Coyote Boy’s last name.

Thinking about Freddy, and how badly I fucked that all up. How he was my last big, all-consuming crush, and I’m kinda scared to think I might never feel that way again. And also how, more than anything, I wish I’d dealt with it better so he was still in my life as a friend, because I miss having punk rock-coffee-art-adventure friends, and he was all of that.

Finding out that not only did I miss the Ballistic Biscuit show, I am also going to be missing the Subhumans show in April that I’d planned to go to. See, I was gonna buy tickets for me and Beagan, but then she said she didn’t want to go, and then I was like, okay, I guess I’ll go with P., but then I had to use the money I’d set aside for tickets for bills. Well, as of last week I finally had the money to spare, but I went to the website for the venue to order tickets and…it’s sold out. Fuck.

And then David Johansen died! And I know he’s been ill for a long time, and I know he was 75 and it’s not tragic, but. Like if I thought I was sad when David Lynch died, that was nothing in comparison. I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve touched on it before in my writing, but I don’t think I’ve ever fully been able to express it—I owe my femininity in large part to the glam rock/proto-punk bands, most especially the New York Dolls. And that’s not even touching on the other reasons for my sadness around this. Maybe one day I’ll be able to put it in words, who knows.

—Signs of spring: a few days of leather jacket weather, birdsong in the morning, the light lasting longer and longer into the evenings, the trains going by all day and night long.

—Signs of spring and I’m restless as hell and full of longing. It’s been like: “I wanna create but I have no inspiration, I’m not even inspired for activist work right now, everything sucks, and there is nothing interesting happening in the foreseeable future now that the Subhumans show is a no-go.” There are times when experiencing other people’s art, writing about my old, wild life, and the occasional walk around my neighborhood or visit to the library just don’t cut it in terms of excitement and inspiration. I need some kind of Big Thing to Fuck Up My Life, but not a boring, awful one; not something like my car breaking down, or the power getting shut off, or a major illness or injury. Nothing like that, you hear me, Universe? I’m talking good damage, sexy damage. Or just something a little interesting to shake up my routine. I need to sit in a dark bar during the day, and people-watch, and write. I need to take a day trip to some random town just to go to a diner and a thrift shop, then drive home. I need a brand new hairstyle, or a new tattoo. I need an all-consuming crush, a muse, someone to come pick me up, take me out, fuck me up. Even if it all ends in heartbreak! I need Big Feelings! I need to get banged up in the pit at a punk show, or to have the kind of sex that leaves me covered in bite marks and bruises. Yeah, I’m fucking 43 and I still wanna fuck on the floor and break shit! I would call this a midlife crisis, except a similar one has happened every spring since I was a teenager, so it’s more of a seasonal crisis.

—Something I’ve realized in my new, drinking-less life is when and why I have a tendency to drink to excess. And it’s not actually when I’m sad, or at least not when I’m truly depressed. (Maybe that used to be one of the reasons I drank too much, but I learned years ago that, to quote Tom Waits, it don’t douse the flames.) It’s when I’m feeling like this—restless, manic, longing. Because it’s something to do, and also because, when I’m drunk, I’m more content in the moment, less desperate for something to happen. I’m glad that I’m in a place now where, despite wanting to get wasted just to ease these feelings, I don’t.

—So yeah, that’s where I’m at, these days. Sad about the past, restless in the present, bummed about the things I’m missing out on. Still, I’m managing not to mope too much; I’m not gonna ignore the good things just because they’re not exactly what I’m craving in the moment, or stop making future plans even if my original plans have gotten derailed. Here are some things that have been helping/that I’ve been enjoying in recent days, in no particular order:

Drawing a lot, especially with charcoal, graphite, chalk, and oil pastels—anything that’s really messy and visceral.

Wearing my dad’s old plaid shirts.

Setting up my altar and doing rituals to channel the spirit of Kathy Acker as muse for some of my current writing projects.

Finishing up my spoken word EP. The main vocal tracks are done, now I’m adding some ‘backing’ vocals and music. I’ve added theremin on a couple tracks, and on a couple others I’ve recorded accordion parts that I then ran through heavy distortion filters.

Making YouTube versions of ancient mix tapes.

Sex with P., which, while not as rough as what I’m desiring right now, is always passionate.

Making greasy spoon food at home, drinking my coffee out of a curved white mug, and pretending I’m at a diner.

Signing up for a recurring jazz and poetry workshop that’s gonna be happening in Milwaukee, starting in April and going through June. A friend of mine is running it, and she gave me a discount, without which I would not be able to afford it.

Mochas with almond milk from the cafe downtown.

Talking with the owner of the new bookstore downtown about using the space to teach my ‘writing with the tarot’ workshop.

Flirting with a beautiful woman I met at the bookstore. (When she first walked in, I’m pretty sure my tongue unfurled and my eyes popped outta my head like I was some kind of cartoon wolf.)

Making eyes at the punk guy who lives in my neighborhood. We haven’t talked yet but I see him around a lot; he wears a leather jacket and creepers and has a Ramones haircut.

Making plans to go to a different show at the same venue where Subhumans are playing—Flatfoot 56 and The Crombies and a couple other bands. Though, the other night, when I suggested it to P., I said: “The Subhumans show is sold out, maybe we can go to this other one instead?” And his response was: “Or we could just not go to a show, and spend the money on stuff we need.” I was just like: “Okay, well, I just thought it would be fun, we’ll talk about it later.” What I was thinking was: “I don’t know about you, but I do need it. So if you don’t feel like going, you can stay with the kids, and I’ll go alone!” That wouldn’t have gone over well, so I’m glad I restrained myself, and hopefully he’ll come around.

FIN.

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