Bar Chords And Tears Part II

As I said before, I cried today.
I could never have imagined it would happen again.
I could never have imagined I would encounter the same subject three hours later.

I've just returned from a heavy meal with family.
Grandmother was present as well as sister, brother in law, niece one and two, mother and father.
All seemed to start off well. It was a smaller dinner, intimate and personal.
I was happy, very relaxed and quite comforted to see my sister and her family at the dinner.

We dipped the apple in the honey.
We got all the way through soup without a moment of angst.

"Auntie? Why are you not married? Are you a bad person? Did you go to jail?" said niece number two.

Bar chords and tears part two...

Bar Chords And Tears

I cried today.
It was unexpected.

I was on the couch practicing bar chords on the little martin while watching the finale episode of Californication. And I started to cry.
As I practiced, up and down the fret, a tear slowly slid down my cheek.
It may have been the chord I was strumming. 7th chords are known to be so pretty they could bring tears to the hardest of hearts.
But I don't think that's why I cried.
I think it was the scene I was watching. Charlie was screwing Daisy for the very last time.
And It wasn't "the very last time" part that made me cry. It was the screwing.

I miss....it.
I miss the good ol' days, only three weeks ago, when possibility was in the air and on any given day I may have found myself in the arms of some beau. Excited, distracted...loved.

Don't get me wrong.
This particular famine has brought upon a great education in under a month.
Without my most favorite distraction, white bread love, I have learned to:

Cook, make a great cup of coffee, play tennis and of course, play the dreaded bar chord.
Three weeks ago, I could do none of the above, so you can imagine my delight.
But I still cried today.

Oh yes, I'm very pleased. I can write an even prettier song, make incredible french toast and I believe I have found a killer stroke.
But as usual, I want more.

Wanting.
What a fucker. You really are a fucker.
Is it ever enough?
I've learned bar chords for gods sake. Fucking bar chords.
Do you know how hard that is to do for someone with tiny hands? and no attention? Nearly impossible.
And I need more? Still?
Did they put a chip in my brain on that sweet June day at 10:25 am?
Was it encoded with some ridiculous default to never be satisfied?

Unlikely.

So maybe it wasn't More bring me to weep. Maybe it was the sad, sad ever so sad phone call with my grandmother yesterday before sundown. She missed Jack, my grandfather, who's no longer with us. I miss him too, intensely, so I understood. But she said she was ready to "go". She said she wanted to be with him again and she was only waiting around to see me married.
"When do you think you might settle down? Is there anyone you're looking at?" she said.
She doesn't know of the famine. She doesn't know I'm abstaining in the name of change. She doesn't know my record of dating and pining and loving and leaving the same type of crazy man over and over and over again. White bread lovers. Best to keep that to myself.
"No one in particular" I said. "It'll happen, and I don't want you to be sad."

So the tears...
Isn't it strange how a tear looks like nothing, weighs nothing and carries millions of teeny tiny emotions in it's translucent body. Not nothing.
Wanting, more, desire, sexuality, sadness, deprivation, expectation, memory, hope, joy and of course fear.

I'm afraid. Famine has brought along many friends.
I'm afraid. Famine could mean she waits to leave...
And if I had said "Bubby, I know I'm single. I know you think I may be too old to marry now and I'm a great dissapointment, but look, I've learned bar chords!"
I don't think she would have been impressed...

Most probably why I'm not impressed.
Fucking bar chords...

Good Love

"One way or another I'm gonna find you; what we have is good love"

Crowded on a bed on a New York afternoon in June, the artist, the performer, the lover and I wrote a song, the day Michael Jackson passed.
The lover passed as well.

Two days after, I was sent home to Los Angeles with no "good love". No love.
Hmmmm...

Today, three weeks in to my experiment of feast or famine, I realize it was "bad love."

Not bad as in evil or dark. Just bad, as in gone bad. White powder love doesn't last. White bread love.

How do you know when it's good?
You never really do. At least I don't.
So, god bless the little ones that meet and greet and propose and say yes and invite and combine and unify until death says die..

They said Michael died with Mother's Milk in his veins. He needed good love. He thought he found it. White, liquid and like a little baby, he took what he was given. No questions. No distrust. Just good love.

How do you know when you're being looped?
By man, by bread, by bye birdie.
Nuff said.
How do you know when the milks gone bad.
Don't drink. Think. Think. Think. Think.
I never think. I do and then I'm done for.

But I'm a sucker. A sucker for love. A sucker for pain. A sucker for hysteria.
I get my kicks at Chelsea and 8th.

Because, it was a glorious afternoon in June. The artist and I started the group off. She pulled out her electric piano and started a beat. I hummed along and phrased "good love" over and over against her chords. The performer began to follow along with her sultry melody and the lover strummed on his guitar standing over three muses as we all harmonized in unison. "What we have is good love, what we have is good love, what we have is good love, what we have is good love."

Sounds beautiful doesn't it.
Sounds like a little dream. Young artists making sweet music in the afternoon.
Singing about love and smoking and drinking beers on the fire escape.
Sounds just perfect doesn't it.

Well that's all well and good but that's not "good love."
My lover white bread said "you'll miss this, nutritious."
Do I really miss this?
I think I miss what I think I had. But I had no such thing. At least not what I was preaching to have had.."good love..good love...good love"

And when I walked around New York the following day, I could hear Jackson's voice from every window, every bicycle, every bar and every corner bodega.
Dirty Diana made me cry in a cab over to my very last supper with the lover.
And yes, I was sentimental.
And yes, I was surprised.
And yes, I was unprepared for the good love to go bad.

But I am no new comer to the ups and downs of love.
I am no child when it comes to moving on and I am willing to believe in the little ones that meet and greet and propose and say yes and invite and combine and unify until death says die..

But until I become one of the little ones,
I will break bread with friends. Maybe I'll fly away to Chelsea again and sit on the bed with the artist and the performer and no lover. And maybe we'll sing and smoke and drink beers on the fire escape without good love....

Or I'll just write another song about another dinner and I'll feel much better.

The Hype Of Type

"What's your type"? she asked.
"Dark eyes, dark hair, olive skin, facial hair, rough around the edges and a husky build" I replied.

Let's get real. If I were being honest I would have said, "unavailable" and left it at that.
Put 500 men in a room, blindfold me and spin me around and I will walk straight up to one man in the room. Mr. Unavailable.

"Hi, what's your name?" I'd ask.

"Mr. Unavailable." he'd reply with barely a whiff of interest.

"Cool. Where does your name come from?"

"It's biblical." he'd say and lean against the wall.

"What does it mean?" I'd reply with curiosity and a step forward.

"It means the type of man that is uninterested." he'd say with indifference and then look around the room as though he's looking for someone else to do.

"Really cool name." I'd reply with enthusiasm.

"Yeah." he'd say looking at his phone.

"Oh my darling. My sweet Mr. Unavailable. Where have you been all my life. I can really see us getting on well. You're so interesting. You have such charisma. I think I might, I think I might love you. I think you might be the perfect man for me. I am totally willing in every way to make you more important. I am ok with you being the center spotlight and I have no problem doing anything and everything I can to make you feel like a god"

"Cool. Whatever. I gotta go." He winks and heads out of the room.

I'm in love.

Now of course I'm being a little funny here. It doesn't go quite like that. There are details involved that would encourage even the smartest woman alive to justify pursuit.
But, wow. Wow. WOW.

I am some piece of work. If you took Mr. dark eyes, dark hair, rugged and hot and served him up on a platter, odds are I wouldn't bite. Odds are I wouldn't even be attracted. Odds are I'm insane.

I only want what I can't have.
I only want the chase.
I only want to ensure that every man on the planet loves me.
If you love me, you're checked off the list and not going to help my cause.
Don't feel bad. We can still be friends. I will love you. I just won't pine for you. I won't need you. I won't eat you like a drug and you can't make me high.

Sick? yes.
Abnormal? Not even a little.

The whole world wants more. "More-ism" runs every country, every marriage, every man, woman and child and it most definitely runs me.

Ah...MORE, my master, my maker, my everything. How you tease. What a little devil you are. You are so very powerful. You make the most vapid man seem like a star and the most inspiring man invisible. Cheap trick I'd say.

Obviously, type is hype. There's no such thing. It's an illusion. People, places and things are only attractive when they offer more than what you have already. And I have a lot. So, you can imagine how irritating my more-ism can be. You can imagine how distracting it may become to need more than yesterday.

So when I whine and say "What's a girl like me got to do to find a loving man?", ignore me.
I have no type. Mr. Unavailbe isn't even my type. I'm not ready. I'm not even close to ready. I'm no where near ready to say goodbye to More.

But I could be ready.
Ready could be around the corner.
Ready could come knocking on my door at any moment and I'll say,
"Hello Ready, Goodbye More"

Oh who am I kidding?

Cast Iron

"You actually look like a woman who isn't having any sex" he said across the conference table.

It has been confirmed.
Many who know me know, I have a tendency to go on and off the wagon when it comes to love and other things. Call it what you will, burning the candle, playing too hard, runnin' on empty...either way I always end up out of the game. And boy, when I'm on the bench, it's not a fun ride for the other players...

Now, of course, I am choosing the reprieve but nevertheless, it is quite the sacrifice. And I only lay off the stuff out of blind faith that I might learn something about myself that will help me avoid white bread men and finally eat a full course dinner.

So when my good friend the ex summed me up in one line, I heard the bell tolling.
Apparently I was cleaning the house and cooking and talking and moving around with a very nervous nature.
Apparently I looked like a woman who was bottling up a whole lot of something.
I looked like a woman who wasn't having any sex.
I laughed really hard when he said it and then my eyebrows turned inward as they do right before I'm about to cry.
Then I smiled again...See on and off.

I have not been having any sex. But, I was cooking a lot. I'm learning to cook. I've never attempted to until recently and it's been very telling. Cooking that is.
At first I struggled. I add to much. I mix it up way past the done point. I have a compulsion to keep going and I take it too far. And then, voila! Unedible...
Sounds familiar?
You bet.
What a metaphor.

So here I am, loveless, sexless with no patterns or gems of truth revealed in regards to love, sex, and my favorite, white bread men. But, I am learning the various dishes I can cook in a cast iron skillet. Grill cheese with havarti and tomato, steak and fried eggs, sausage and fresh corn.
Oh god, who am I kidding?
I even sound like a woman who isn't having sex.
Dinner takes about an hour to prepare and fifteen minutes to eat.
Same goes for sex.

My fast ends on November 25th, Thanksgiving day.
How apropos. My favorite day of the year and the one holiday celebrating the food god ends up the day I am releaved of my celibate duty.
Yes sir!

But stage two, which begins Thanksgiving day, only begins the option to date and under self enforced dieting, I've decided no hanky panky until exclusively bound to another...Jesus. Or should I say Doris.

By my calculations, unless all revelations are revealed by 11.25.09 and it just so happens mr. future arrives at the conference table to break bread and we just so happen to talk all through dinner and come dessert, we just so happen to assign our undying love to eachother exclusively, thanksgiving day will be another skillet convention with fifteen minutes of stuffing and a king bed for one.

I better go fire up the pan. It's gonna be a long time before the butter gets hot.

Tomatoes In My Mind

"Raindrops are coming down, fires are starting now, earthquakes are breaking in, tornadoes in my mind, a hurricane I find"

The lyric is not a reference to 2012.
I am jumbled. All jumbled up in my mind. The little one and her good friend both thought I said "tomatoes in my mind" when listening to the demo. Well, either way, it feels the same.
A vision of hundreds of thousands of tomatoes raining down on me, flyin in my face ala Ann Margaret. I would love to crush one right now.

She's a genius. Ann. What a scene. I wish I had a white room and a sequined gown and one million ripe tomatoes spraying against me. At least I'd feel something exact.
Like I said I'm jumbled today.

Stew me.
I would love to be cooked.
I would love to be at least half way done.
There's nothing more ambiguous than the beginnings of tomato stew.
The colors are not quite deep. The smells haven't burst and there is much waiting to be endured before the deep rush of red comes calling.

This is that day. The kind of day that makes no sense. I'm waiting at The Green House for something to happen but all that is "happening" is a demi cafe, too many camels and Rosa in the background talking loudly to El Salvador.

Fifteen hours to go.
Not a vegetable in site.

Tomatoes in my mind.

Love And Cigarettes

"God help a woman who finds a man who talks to a woman like he understands"

As I am writing the very first blog entry of my life, the little hat is standing next to me, dancing. She is listening to a new song we just wrote. We liken writing a song to making a baby and we have a natural ritual of listening to the recording over and over and over and over again at the highest volume while smoking extreme amounts of camels and marlboro N0. 27's. Some one else might think we are listening because we are completely self obsessed with ourselves. This is probably true on some deeper psychological level, but the real story behind our obsession is a shock and disbelief that "we've done it again!"
I started writing songs later in life. I never had the "I'm Gonna Be A Star" title running through my head. On second thought, I have to be honest, I did want to be a star but never thought I could once I hit the ripe age of bitter 6. It was downhill from there. I'm not trying to depress or encourage any sort of pity, but it was a bit of a rough ride and I never imagined I would be able to make something of my own. Start something and finish. It had been a decade straight of "talk" and very little founded "doing". So, when my dear friend and I seem to start and fully finish a song with all the little details covered, I am once again, suprised, elated and feel as though "I've done it again!"

"My Lover White Bread" is a line in this latest baby that the little one and I wrote. It was written about a past love but the lyrics seem to lend the ear to alternative meaning. Originally it was a reference to the White Bread obsession of my life. Food, love, men, money and other things. White is my favorite color. Somehow it turned in to a story of his character. A cryptic description of my obsession with destruction and the allure of insanity.

And so, "god help a woman who finds a man who talks to a woman like he understands".
Those were the first words I wrote to him when we first met.
It was a personal premonition and I knew, on some level, to be very weary of any man that seems to make me feel full and loved. The taste of fluffy, doughy, delicious white bread.
If only I had listened to the little guy, Intuition.
The very best oracle, psychic, truth teller in town.
And now I am still hungry
And now I am curious
What will I gnaw on next?