i used to blog on xanga. we're talking like four, maybe 5 years ago. a few years ago i wandered away from it and put a few of my favorite pieces up here, just for safekeeping kind of.
but i just moved and need something to do between unpacking boxes, that is less immersive and addicting then the sims 2.
8.30.2004
luciderotic dream w/strange expository essay ending
Me and like five other women were giggling, teasing each other. We were the first people to board a plane or some other conveyance and were spread out over many seats. They were airplane seats but ours faced each other like the center seats on the LIRR commuter train. We had on suits and hose; were dressed like either leaving for or coming from a convention of some kind, but felt like vacation. There were shoes kicked off, loud laughter, raunchy jokes. Part of me felt like I'd just met these women but the other part knew that we were intimates. Knew each other well.
I was reading a book with half my attention. It was excellent fluff- flirting and discovery, a romance disguised with literary undertones. I was about 20 pages in and was being pleasantly surprised and turned to my left to ask girlfriend #1 which of the other girlfriends had written it. (this is what made me think I hadn't known them for long. I knew their names, knew that one of them was a writer, but didn't know names + faces) she said "actually, joie wrote it" and pointed to a man sitting a couple of rows up. I was surprised and impressed at joie's insight into women's minds; the novel was reading really realistically. Joie wasn't part of our group. He sat ahead of us and apart, reading a magazine.
I was reading the novel word by word. If I'd written this down sooner after waking, I probably could have quoted it.
I was trying to find a place to lay down, but my girlfriends' purses and things were in the seat next to me. One of them (call her "Kathy") had been sitting there but she'd since moved opposite me, and left her purse. I threatened to lay on it, joked that she must've left it there for me to use as a pillow. She talked about all the breakable stuff that was in there. I flunxed a bit. Where was I supposed to lay down? Pulled the armrests up and flopped around the seats a little.
As I squirmed around, the plane was filling up. I had less and less room to squirm. Suddenly I was comfortable, and settled down to read. I noticed Kathy looking at me funny and looked around: my seat back was down to a full reclining position and gone. And one of my legs was stretched out, foot nestled in a warm spot near the hip of the man behind me.
I jumped and squealed and was embarrassed. "Oh my goodness, I'm sorry!" Looked at Kathy like she should have warned me from doing such mess. "Got me all intimate with strangers up in here, sorry about my crusty foot in your lap, lol…"
He smiled in a gentle/intense/directed way and said "Your foot isn't crusty and you know it." and he held out his hand like an invitation & a demand. I looked at Kathy with eyebrows raised. Well, oh-KAY and stretched back out on my stomach, put my foot into his hand, and started pretending to read my book.
He started massaging my foot.
I was wide-eyed.
I twisted onto my side, looked back at him. He was dressed in a suit, so were the two next to him, but one was sleeping and the other was politely pretending to look out the window. In the movie of my mind he was being played by taye diggs, but I'm going to try to ignore this embarrassing fact and will not reference it again. LOL. Instead, I'll call him SuitMan.
His hands were moving upward, to my ankle, to my calf. It was less about massage and more about feeling up my leg; and he looked directly into my eyes and wasn’t pretending otherwise. My girlfriends were in a fury of giggles and elbowing and knowing winks like we were on our way to vegas, like we were at a school dance, like I was scoring, not whoring. (ha HA! That just came to me now, I'm so damn clever). The chemistry between me and SuitMan was palpable.
I stretched my other leg out, and he immediately began stroking and kneading that one too, starting from the arch of my foot and moving upward. Ultimately, he pushed both my legs off his lap, grasped my hips, and smoothly pulled me back onto his lap. His right fingers interwove with mine and he did that junior high school thing, where he presses a hard stroke down the center of your palm, and by this time my panties were in a respectably junior high school level of froth.
With his other hand, he was pressing long and very slow strokes up and down my spine. Trailing tickling fingers upward, tracing firm rivers back down again. At this point, I was writhing on this man's lap and didn't care who saw.
The cart came by and he asked if I wanted a drink. I asked for a sweet rum and coke; I had it. my girlfriends were stealing glances and fanning themselves. I knew I was going to get teased mercilessly when we got where we were going but it was already worth it.
The plane was emptying now. It was like a bus or train, in that people got on and off at different points, but there was only sky outside the windows and I could hear murmurs of "mile-high club" around me. The thought was extremely attractive to me. I would have fucked that man then and there had he given me the signal. I was being played like a violin and loved it. I was pure response.
Kathy came back one row and stretched out next to the beautiful, tall guy sitting next to SuitMan, who was wearing a cream-colored dress coat which set off his red-chocolate skin like candy. They flirted for a while and then she switched away, looking back like an invitation and a challenge.
I looked at RedChocolate and he was watching me. Looking a little bit wistful. "Sebastian always gets his woman," he said. "Oh," I said, and turned in my seat to look at SuitMan. "Is that your name?" I told him mine. He nodded, a half-smile on his face. Before I could even articulate the thought of "always? So does 'Sebastian' do this kind of thing often?", RedChocolate had walked away after Kathy. Really what was on my mind, though, wasn't abt how often Sebastian seduced women on public transportation- I didn’t actually care. What was on my mind was trying to figure out what about his approach made it work; why exactly I had been sitting on this stranger's lap, two seconds from coming, for the past twenty minutes. RedChocolate seemed so perplexed about it and really he was foine, way finer than Sebastian. . . I wanted to make him understand the 'secret.'
I couldn't tell him b/c he was off to play flirting games with Kathy. So I turned to SuitMan/Sebastian and said "I don't know you, or anything." He did the seduction speech, about how we shouldn’t ignore what is there in favor of what's not - yet - and we have all this potential and truth in this moment and would I throw that away? "Absolutely not," I said. "I'm totally committed to the potential and truth in this moment, and more so to what your hands are doing. But I also want it understood that I recognize we don't know each other. I am responding to a lot of things right now. You’re beautiful, confident, demanding, respectful, insistent, direct and polite. It's an incredibly sexy combination and I would be a fool to deny what's building here. I am not a fool. I'm just saying that after this moment… I'm looking forward to that part, too."
At that point, I looked to my right, and across the aisle was a huge bedroom chamber with king-sized bed. One of the flight attendants was turning down the fluffy comforters and fluffing the pillows. "Ah," I thought, as if we'd ordered such a chamber and it was finally ready. "enough talking."
I had been keeping myself asleep to make sure I got to the conclusion of the adventure and at this point I woke up to write it down.
whew.
I was reading a book with half my attention. It was excellent fluff- flirting and discovery, a romance disguised with literary undertones. I was about 20 pages in and was being pleasantly surprised and turned to my left to ask girlfriend #1 which of the other girlfriends had written it. (this is what made me think I hadn't known them for long. I knew their names, knew that one of them was a writer, but didn't know names + faces) she said "actually, joie wrote it" and pointed to a man sitting a couple of rows up. I was surprised and impressed at joie's insight into women's minds; the novel was reading really realistically. Joie wasn't part of our group. He sat ahead of us and apart, reading a magazine.
I was reading the novel word by word. If I'd written this down sooner after waking, I probably could have quoted it.
I was trying to find a place to lay down, but my girlfriends' purses and things were in the seat next to me. One of them (call her "Kathy") had been sitting there but she'd since moved opposite me, and left her purse. I threatened to lay on it, joked that she must've left it there for me to use as a pillow. She talked about all the breakable stuff that was in there. I flunxed a bit. Where was I supposed to lay down? Pulled the armrests up and flopped around the seats a little.
As I squirmed around, the plane was filling up. I had less and less room to squirm. Suddenly I was comfortable, and settled down to read. I noticed Kathy looking at me funny and looked around: my seat back was down to a full reclining position and gone. And one of my legs was stretched out, foot nestled in a warm spot near the hip of the man behind me.
I jumped and squealed and was embarrassed. "Oh my goodness, I'm sorry!" Looked at Kathy like she should have warned me from doing such mess. "Got me all intimate with strangers up in here, sorry about my crusty foot in your lap, lol…"
He smiled in a gentle/intense/directed way and said "Your foot isn't crusty and you know it." and he held out his hand like an invitation & a demand. I looked at Kathy with eyebrows raised. Well, oh-KAY and stretched back out on my stomach, put my foot into his hand, and started pretending to read my book.
He started massaging my foot.
I was wide-eyed.
I twisted onto my side, looked back at him. He was dressed in a suit, so were the two next to him, but one was sleeping and the other was politely pretending to look out the window. In the movie of my mind he was being played by taye diggs, but I'm going to try to ignore this embarrassing fact and will not reference it again. LOL. Instead, I'll call him SuitMan.
His hands were moving upward, to my ankle, to my calf. It was less about massage and more about feeling up my leg; and he looked directly into my eyes and wasn’t pretending otherwise. My girlfriends were in a fury of giggles and elbowing and knowing winks like we were on our way to vegas, like we were at a school dance, like I was scoring, not whoring. (ha HA! That just came to me now, I'm so damn clever). The chemistry between me and SuitMan was palpable.
I stretched my other leg out, and he immediately began stroking and kneading that one too, starting from the arch of my foot and moving upward. Ultimately, he pushed both my legs off his lap, grasped my hips, and smoothly pulled me back onto his lap. His right fingers interwove with mine and he did that junior high school thing, where he presses a hard stroke down the center of your palm, and by this time my panties were in a respectably junior high school level of froth.
With his other hand, he was pressing long and very slow strokes up and down my spine. Trailing tickling fingers upward, tracing firm rivers back down again. At this point, I was writhing on this man's lap and didn't care who saw.
The cart came by and he asked if I wanted a drink. I asked for a sweet rum and coke; I had it. my girlfriends were stealing glances and fanning themselves. I knew I was going to get teased mercilessly when we got where we were going but it was already worth it.
The plane was emptying now. It was like a bus or train, in that people got on and off at different points, but there was only sky outside the windows and I could hear murmurs of "mile-high club" around me. The thought was extremely attractive to me. I would have fucked that man then and there had he given me the signal. I was being played like a violin and loved it. I was pure response.
Kathy came back one row and stretched out next to the beautiful, tall guy sitting next to SuitMan, who was wearing a cream-colored dress coat which set off his red-chocolate skin like candy. They flirted for a while and then she switched away, looking back like an invitation and a challenge.
I looked at RedChocolate and he was watching me. Looking a little bit wistful. "Sebastian always gets his woman," he said. "Oh," I said, and turned in my seat to look at SuitMan. "Is that your name?" I told him mine. He nodded, a half-smile on his face. Before I could even articulate the thought of "always? So does 'Sebastian' do this kind of thing often?", RedChocolate had walked away after Kathy. Really what was on my mind, though, wasn't abt how often Sebastian seduced women on public transportation- I didn’t actually care. What was on my mind was trying to figure out what about his approach made it work; why exactly I had been sitting on this stranger's lap, two seconds from coming, for the past twenty minutes. RedChocolate seemed so perplexed about it and really he was foine, way finer than Sebastian. . . I wanted to make him understand the 'secret.'
I couldn't tell him b/c he was off to play flirting games with Kathy. So I turned to SuitMan/Sebastian and said "I don't know you, or anything." He did the seduction speech, about how we shouldn’t ignore what is there in favor of what's not - yet - and we have all this potential and truth in this moment and would I throw that away? "Absolutely not," I said. "I'm totally committed to the potential and truth in this moment, and more so to what your hands are doing. But I also want it understood that I recognize we don't know each other. I am responding to a lot of things right now. You’re beautiful, confident, demanding, respectful, insistent, direct and polite. It's an incredibly sexy combination and I would be a fool to deny what's building here. I am not a fool. I'm just saying that after this moment… I'm looking forward to that part, too."
At that point, I looked to my right, and across the aisle was a huge bedroom chamber with king-sized bed. One of the flight attendants was turning down the fluffy comforters and fluffing the pillows. "Ah," I thought, as if we'd ordered such a chamber and it was finally ready. "enough talking."
I had been keeping myself asleep to make sure I got to the conclusion of the adventure and at this point I woke up to write it down.
whew.
4.29.2003
there is a perfect pair of boots of which i dream sometimes.
this is not some *hypothetical* perfect boot that i am imagining to exist out there in the ether, like some mythical 'mr. right' for whom i am sitting here, alone, wistful and pining away.
i am not the pining type.
this was a real pair of boots, i know they exist. i know where they are. i touched them, even. i smelled the leather. i didn't try them on, though; there was no use torturing ourselves about it.
you know what i mean? the attraction was there, nearly electric in its intensity. we knew we belonged together, but alas, the price was prohibitive. it was not to be, my money being presently tied up in other investments. it wasn't them, it was me. it was nothing personal, i just wasn't ready to make that kind of committment.
we tried not to be melodramatic about it. we didn't drag it out. we acknowledged our connection, and turned our faces forward, moved forth into our seperate futures, no regrets. it had to be this way. i sang 'next lifetime' under my breath and marched on.
(music up.....
....end scene ROTFL)
i am not given to this kind of behavior with little cause. it doesn't happen often and when it does, i take it seriously. there was only *one* other pair of sole mate shoes with which i had an equally dramatic & similarly doomed relationship.
it was five years ago, and i still remember them vividly. it was in london... a city full of mist and cobblestones and strangely angled streets and much mystery. and amazing shoes.
this pair was an unassuming oxford... the sole perhaps a trifle thicker than classic. perhaps the toe turned up a little, rounded? reminding one of chaplin, crib shoes, elves? the leather was matte & black, so soft it looked delicately weathered. the cut work was hand-stitched. with *brown* sitches, gleaming against the shoe like old pennies.
they were so beautiful, i just had to stop and stare. introduced myself through the shop window at first, being shy, but moving in soon enough, pulled inexorably to them, my earth-tone-addicted flower child self twanging in response to a nudge from an inner dandy rearing its dapper head.
what would i do with a pair of english oxfords? i'd have to rock purple organza many-tiered skirts and denim jackets torn off at the waist and buttoned tight over antique camisoles. i'd have to wear turquoise and white, and have embroidery at my hemlines. i'd have to abandon my many favorite t-shirts and step outside of the cotton jersey/denim family to clothe myself. eeek!
plus i was in london, in college, and had my first credit card ever. i was still cringing off the joke i'd played on myself with the exchange rate and a pair of buster brown-esque wooden platform sandals (which worked with my tshirt aesthetic, let me tell you, but freaked me out when i saw the statement. those were HOW MUCH in american money? LOL)
with the sandals, see, i could continue dressing like i did in second grade, which is *really* my aesthetic preference. all my fashion fantasies aside, my inner child is skipping down sesame street in bellbottom blue corduroys and a striped turtleneck. it is risk-free to follow her there.
but hand-stitched english oxfords... that's changing the game a little. that means i was going back to atlanta and completely re-examining my wardrobe. sorry, i should have written 'wardrobe' in quotes. as in, "so-called wardrobe." english oxfords meant making whole different level of committment to the act of dressing myself.
was i ready? could i do it?
puh-leeze. i dropped those shoes like a hot potato and bought a pair of british adidas.
i am not the pining type.
this was a real pair of boots, i know they exist. i know where they are. i touched them, even. i smelled the leather. i didn't try them on, though; there was no use torturing ourselves about it.
you know what i mean? the attraction was there, nearly electric in its intensity. we knew we belonged together, but alas, the price was prohibitive. it was not to be, my money being presently tied up in other investments. it wasn't them, it was me. it was nothing personal, i just wasn't ready to make that kind of committment.
we tried not to be melodramatic about it. we didn't drag it out. we acknowledged our connection, and turned our faces forward, moved forth into our seperate futures, no regrets. it had to be this way. i sang 'next lifetime' under my breath and marched on.
(music up.....
....end scene ROTFL)
i am not given to this kind of behavior with little cause. it doesn't happen often and when it does, i take it seriously. there was only *one* other pair of sole mate shoes with which i had an equally dramatic & similarly doomed relationship.
it was five years ago, and i still remember them vividly. it was in london... a city full of mist and cobblestones and strangely angled streets and much mystery. and amazing shoes.
this pair was an unassuming oxford... the sole perhaps a trifle thicker than classic. perhaps the toe turned up a little, rounded? reminding one of chaplin, crib shoes, elves? the leather was matte & black, so soft it looked delicately weathered. the cut work was hand-stitched. with *brown* sitches, gleaming against the shoe like old pennies.
they were so beautiful, i just had to stop and stare. introduced myself through the shop window at first, being shy, but moving in soon enough, pulled inexorably to them, my earth-tone-addicted flower child self twanging in response to a nudge from an inner dandy rearing its dapper head.
what would i do with a pair of english oxfords? i'd have to rock purple organza many-tiered skirts and denim jackets torn off at the waist and buttoned tight over antique camisoles. i'd have to wear turquoise and white, and have embroidery at my hemlines. i'd have to abandon my many favorite t-shirts and step outside of the cotton jersey/denim family to clothe myself. eeek!
plus i was in london, in college, and had my first credit card ever. i was still cringing off the joke i'd played on myself with the exchange rate and a pair of buster brown-esque wooden platform sandals (which worked with my tshirt aesthetic, let me tell you, but freaked me out when i saw the statement. those were HOW MUCH in american money? LOL)
with the sandals, see, i could continue dressing like i did in second grade, which is *really* my aesthetic preference. all my fashion fantasies aside, my inner child is skipping down sesame street in bellbottom blue corduroys and a striped turtleneck. it is risk-free to follow her there.
but hand-stitched english oxfords... that's changing the game a little. that means i was going back to atlanta and completely re-examining my wardrobe. sorry, i should have written 'wardrobe' in quotes. as in, "so-called wardrobe." english oxfords meant making whole different level of committment to the act of dressing myself.
was i ready? could i do it?
puh-leeze. i dropped those shoes like a hot potato and bought a pair of british adidas.
2.22.2003
public service announcement (feel free to forward)
yesterday, from three different people, i got that email forward.
you know the one.
"you'll lose your hotmail if you don't forward this to 10 -- 20 -- 30 of your friends and also you'll catch the plague and get yr kidney stolen and die but if you forward it bill gates will send you a check for $4,835.93, i know because my cousin got hers!"
we've all gotten this annoying-ass missive at one time or another, usually from some well-meaning and friendly soul who thinks they're doing a good & helpful thing.
they are not. they are killing electronic trees & cluttering up my inbox with cyber trash. this morning i was inspired to commision an educational initiative from honeychild-hates-forwards, inc.
what follows is a couple of unmitigated truths of email, hoaxes, and the art and science of forwarding nonsense to innocent cyber-bystanders. this information is good to know in general but has particular good use as a guideline for what not to send to ME. please feel free to forward THIS around, far and wide.
1. if something increases font size three times in the course of the email, it is ALMOST CERTAINLY BULLSHIT.
don't send it to me.
2. if it tells you you have to forward it to 10 people, 20 people, or "everyone in your address book," it is DEFINITELY BULLSHIT.
don't send it to me.
3. if it threatens you with the loss of your email, or promises you money from some corporation, but doesn't come directly from the corporation or service provider in question, it is NECESSARILY, OBVIOUSLY, INDUBITABLY BULLSHIT. nothing somebody forwards you is or can be official correspondence, it can never be traced by the company supposedly involved, it is NOT real, and it is annoying as hell.
don't send it to me.
4. if it promises good luck, or threatens bad luck, it's KARMICALLY EVIL BULLSHIT.
don't send it to me.
aaarrrghhghghg!!!
this has been a public service announcement brought to you by jamyla-hates-forwards, inc.
you know the one.
"you'll lose your hotmail if you don't forward this to 10 -- 20 -- 30 of your friends and also you'll catch the plague and get yr kidney stolen and die but if you forward it bill gates will send you a check for $4,835.93, i know because my cousin got hers!"
we've all gotten this annoying-ass missive at one time or another, usually from some well-meaning and friendly soul who thinks they're doing a good & helpful thing.
they are not. they are killing electronic trees & cluttering up my inbox with cyber trash. this morning i was inspired to commision an educational initiative from honeychild-hates-forwards, inc.
what follows is a couple of unmitigated truths of email, hoaxes, and the art and science of forwarding nonsense to innocent cyber-bystanders. this information is good to know in general but has particular good use as a guideline for what not to send to ME. please feel free to forward THIS around, far and wide.
1. if something increases font size three times in the course of the email, it is ALMOST CERTAINLY BULLSHIT.
don't send it to me.
2. if it tells you you have to forward it to 10 people, 20 people, or "everyone in your address book," it is DEFINITELY BULLSHIT.
don't send it to me.
3. if it threatens you with the loss of your email, or promises you money from some corporation, but doesn't come directly from the corporation or service provider in question, it is NECESSARILY, OBVIOUSLY, INDUBITABLY BULLSHIT. nothing somebody forwards you is or can be official correspondence, it can never be traced by the company supposedly involved, it is NOT real, and it is annoying as hell.
don't send it to me.
4. if it promises good luck, or threatens bad luck, it's KARMICALLY EVIL BULLSHIT.
don't send it to me.
aaarrrghhghghg!!!
this has been a public service announcement brought to you by jamyla-hates-forwards, inc.
12.06.2002
cramps! who invented them?
fooey on that person, whoever it was. i mean, what is the purpose of cramps? what is their reason? is it about fitness? am i building hidden muscle power in some secret velvet place? my body is doing something fabulous & necessary and kind of clever, after all; purging and renewing its very cells! why should this not be a fun time filled with wonder and the delicate crystal song of new electrons dancing?
i read somewhere once that our bodies do not retain sense-memory of pain. we just can't do it. you know those little orgasm after-shocks that rock you an hour after a Good One? no such physiological equivalent for ouches. once the pain is gone, it is GONE. perhaps this is how women come to give birth to more than one child. (hee hee.) more relevant to my own experience, perhaps this is why each month i sing the same broken lament: in the face of sudden & always somehow surprising crampage, i mourn my absentmindedness and demand of myself the IMMEDIATE development of better pain management skills.
i imagine it needn't be that hard. i imagine it would simply require greater attention paid to the dosage/schedule/timing of the soup of random chemicals i ingest for two days every month.
i'm talkin the good stuff. ibuprofen, acitometophen, aspirin, naproxin sodium. sometimes combined in strange and intoxitating ways with that kick-starter, caffeine, by the people at MIDOL or EXCEDRIN (yeah daddy, talk those sweet chemical compounds to me.)
now, normally i'm not a huge supporter of the medical/industrial complex in general. i much prefer unadvertized and organic substances that can be plucked from the fertile earth and swallowed, smoked, steeped and sipped, or used as a fabulous conditioning rinse, depending.
but once a month, like many other Good Witches In The West with extremely low pain thresholds, i take my meds. i pop them when i feel the twinge, then languish in agony until it's gone. and in that moment, that's my only thought. not, 'fight the power' or 'affordable healthcare for all' or 'the earth is our mother, she has all i need,' but 'GET THE PAIN GONE.'
and then once it's gone, because i am a dunderhead, i forget i'm supposed to be in pain at all and go gallavanting around living my ordinary life of constant discovery and joy in everything. until WHAM-O, back it comes and i'm like, "oh, that's right, my period just started. my uterus is doing stuff, huh? i should've probably taken another one of those little pills like twenty minutes ago, and then i wouldn't be curling slowly into a fetal ball right now."
o, cruel attention span, thou art mine own worst enemy.
grumble grumble.
i read somewhere once that our bodies do not retain sense-memory of pain. we just can't do it. you know those little orgasm after-shocks that rock you an hour after a Good One? no such physiological equivalent for ouches. once the pain is gone, it is GONE. perhaps this is how women come to give birth to more than one child. (hee hee.) more relevant to my own experience, perhaps this is why each month i sing the same broken lament: in the face of sudden & always somehow surprising crampage, i mourn my absentmindedness and demand of myself the IMMEDIATE development of better pain management skills.
i imagine it needn't be that hard. i imagine it would simply require greater attention paid to the dosage/schedule/timing of the soup of random chemicals i ingest for two days every month.
i'm talkin the good stuff. ibuprofen, acitometophen, aspirin, naproxin sodium. sometimes combined in strange and intoxitating ways with that kick-starter, caffeine, by the people at MIDOL or EXCEDRIN (yeah daddy, talk those sweet chemical compounds to me.)
now, normally i'm not a huge supporter of the medical/industrial complex in general. i much prefer unadvertized and organic substances that can be plucked from the fertile earth and swallowed, smoked, steeped and sipped, or used as a fabulous conditioning rinse, depending.
but once a month, like many other Good Witches In The West with extremely low pain thresholds, i take my meds. i pop them when i feel the twinge, then languish in agony until it's gone. and in that moment, that's my only thought. not, 'fight the power' or 'affordable healthcare for all' or 'the earth is our mother, she has all i need,' but 'GET THE PAIN GONE.'
and then once it's gone, because i am a dunderhead, i forget i'm supposed to be in pain at all and go gallavanting around living my ordinary life of constant discovery and joy in everything. until WHAM-O, back it comes and i'm like, "oh, that's right, my period just started. my uterus is doing stuff, huh? i should've probably taken another one of those little pills like twenty minutes ago, and then i wouldn't be curling slowly into a fetal ball right now."
o, cruel attention span, thou art mine own worst enemy.
grumble grumble.
9.04.2002
time for another yummy recipe
...from the bodycare kitchen.
this one is called "sweet & smooth moisturizing scrub" or something like that, and you use it in the shower. it is for when you want your body to feel like butta, baby.
materials: about 1/4 to 1/2 cup each sugar, bath oil/vegetable oil, and milk (soy & cow are both fine.) and some honey of course. all the alchemy can take place inside 2 cups or even better, one cup and a clean jelly jar or something with a wide screw cap.
PREPARATION:
1 . put the milk in a cup. heat in microwave for about 30 seconds.
2 . add a dollop of honey, swoosh it around with your finger, and then taste it. yummy? good.
3 . put the sugar in the jally jar, then add about vegetable or cosmetic oil until it's oozed and mixed all through the sugar. are you gonna use extra light olive? jojoba? sweet almond? it's up to you. you can add scented lotion and/or a few drops of essential oil if you'd like to smell like lavender or oranges or vanilla or chocolate. or whatever.
now you're ready for the fun part.
PAMPERING:
1. prepare your skin. get in the shower & soap up, shave, do whatever shower business you habitually do.
2 . when you're squeaky clean, turn the water off, or direct it toward the shower wall. (nah, i take that back. turn it off. save the planet.)
3 . add the milk/honey stuff to the sugar/oil goop and mix well. use your fingers to stir if you're in cups, or shake them up in the lidded jar together.
4 . quick, before the sugar melts... scrub the mixture up and down your arms! your legs! your belly and back! your bootie and knees and thighs and heels! drip it over your shoulders and scrub it into your elbows!
5. if you're in a real hard-core exfoliating mood, some saint ives apricot scrub at this point can really drive the point home. go over your skin again and imagine yourself at some high-priced SoHo day spa being massaged all deep up in your tissue and then spending an hour thinking shallow thoughts while wrapped in banana leaves with cucumbers on your eyes.
6. imagine this for like thirty seconds, breathing deep, but don't get too far into this fantasy becase you're not in a spa, you in fact are standing in a tub with a lot of oily sugar-milk running down your legs. be careful! please don't slip and break your head.
7. in fact, turn the water back on now, hot, and rinse off. you've had your moment of relaxation for today, and wasn't that fun? now it's time to clean out the tub and get your soft & fragrant butt to work. in a private act of revolution, use a soft cloth to massage your skin as the water pulses down.
8 . pour liquid soap down around your feet and do a [careful] shimmy-shuffle suds-generating dance to restore the traction to your shower floor. (what? is there no liquid soap in your shower? what do i have to say to get you to get some dr. bronners?)
9 . oh, man. that was good. get dressed and walk around all day feeling like a malted milkshake.
this one is called "sweet & smooth moisturizing scrub" or something like that, and you use it in the shower. it is for when you want your body to feel like butta, baby.
materials: about 1/4 to 1/2 cup each sugar, bath oil/vegetable oil, and milk (soy & cow are both fine.) and some honey of course. all the alchemy can take place inside 2 cups or even better, one cup and a clean jelly jar or something with a wide screw cap.
PREPARATION:
1 . put the milk in a cup. heat in microwave for about 30 seconds.
2 . add a dollop of honey, swoosh it around with your finger, and then taste it. yummy? good.
3 . put the sugar in the jally jar, then add about vegetable or cosmetic oil until it's oozed and mixed all through the sugar. are you gonna use extra light olive? jojoba? sweet almond? it's up to you. you can add scented lotion and/or a few drops of essential oil if you'd like to smell like lavender or oranges or vanilla or chocolate. or whatever.
now you're ready for the fun part.
PAMPERING:
1. prepare your skin. get in the shower & soap up, shave, do whatever shower business you habitually do.
2 . when you're squeaky clean, turn the water off, or direct it toward the shower wall. (nah, i take that back. turn it off. save the planet.)
3 . add the milk/honey stuff to the sugar/oil goop and mix well. use your fingers to stir if you're in cups, or shake them up in the lidded jar together.
4 . quick, before the sugar melts... scrub the mixture up and down your arms! your legs! your belly and back! your bootie and knees and thighs and heels! drip it over your shoulders and scrub it into your elbows!
5. if you're in a real hard-core exfoliating mood, some saint ives apricot scrub at this point can really drive the point home. go over your skin again and imagine yourself at some high-priced SoHo day spa being massaged all deep up in your tissue and then spending an hour thinking shallow thoughts while wrapped in banana leaves with cucumbers on your eyes.
6. imagine this for like thirty seconds, breathing deep, but don't get too far into this fantasy becase you're not in a spa, you in fact are standing in a tub with a lot of oily sugar-milk running down your legs. be careful! please don't slip and break your head.
7. in fact, turn the water back on now, hot, and rinse off. you've had your moment of relaxation for today, and wasn't that fun? now it's time to clean out the tub and get your soft & fragrant butt to work. in a private act of revolution, use a soft cloth to massage your skin as the water pulses down.
8 . pour liquid soap down around your feet and do a [careful] shimmy-shuffle suds-generating dance to restore the traction to your shower floor. (what? is there no liquid soap in your shower? what do i have to say to get you to get some dr. bronners?)
9 . oh, man. that was good. get dressed and walk around all day feeling like a malted milkshake.
8.28.2002
i wanna get my kicks... on interstate 85
i was struck by the desire today to go road tripping. it'll be fun! we'll bring cameras, take photos, and blog all the way across the country. maybe we'll even make a film out of it! and surely there'll be enough adventuresome occurences happening in some top-down, radio-blaring world of my imagination to make a novel happen sometime along the way, right?
two things must happen for this public relations/literary feat to be possible:
1. i must have a laptop.
2. either i or my husband -- preferably both of us -- must become a licensed driver. (this is high on the list, i swear. we're leaving nyc and so have no choice)
also in the corner of my imagination that is planning this mythological excursion, there is this third as-yet-unrealized fact: as we're barreling down the nation's highways and byways in my mind's eye, i'm always pregnant.
i can just *see* it.
now i recognize that there's lots of doctors visits and exercise and sensible eating and things like that that're supposed to accompany pregnancy in real life, so i understand this whole gestate-on-the-road idea is largely a flight of fancy. but think about it: wouldn't a huge cross-country road trip be a *fun* way to spend part of your last nine months as a free person? i figure when i get pregnant (NOT that i'm trying, but then again neither do i have a license yet so it's all in divine time) we can start selling off all our stuff and/or sublet our apartment for a year, and then spend five months or so driving around having our last hurrah, celebrating our freedom before we enter our indentured servitude to a screaming tyrant who doesn't speak our language.
you may be sensing a certain reluctance around this issue. thing is, i'm conflicted. i think children are endless sources of wonder and beauty, but infants... man. i am overwhelmed & frightened by the completeness of their need. i can hardly remember to feed MYSELF dinner... i'm supposed to be responsible for the care and nurturing of a helpless being who can't even say thank you or ask properly for the tittie when it's hungry? eek.
on the other hand, my family lives in phoenix and my mother has declared that my first child must be born out there. (some kind of family tradition thing i was told, although HER mother traveled out to see HER when WE were born. she's like, uhm, no. i'm parked in the desert to stay. yall have to come hang out with ME.) grossly unfair, true, but at the same time it gives our road trip a quantifiable, reachable destination with long rest at the end. in addition, my sister is a massage therapist and doula (birth assistant), adding fuel to the give-birth-in-AZ fire.
yeah, i think ending up seven months pregnant to be coddled and cared for by my family in the desert is a damn fine idea. a damn fine idea indeed. now if only i can find an ob-gyn and a nutritionist to come along for the ride...
two things must happen for this public relations/literary feat to be possible:
1. i must have a laptop.
2. either i or my husband -- preferably both of us -- must become a licensed driver. (this is high on the list, i swear. we're leaving nyc and so have no choice)
also in the corner of my imagination that is planning this mythological excursion, there is this third as-yet-unrealized fact: as we're barreling down the nation's highways and byways in my mind's eye, i'm always pregnant.
i can just *see* it.
now i recognize that there's lots of doctors visits and exercise and sensible eating and things like that that're supposed to accompany pregnancy in real life, so i understand this whole gestate-on-the-road idea is largely a flight of fancy. but think about it: wouldn't a huge cross-country road trip be a *fun* way to spend part of your last nine months as a free person? i figure when i get pregnant (NOT that i'm trying, but then again neither do i have a license yet so it's all in divine time) we can start selling off all our stuff and/or sublet our apartment for a year, and then spend five months or so driving around having our last hurrah, celebrating our freedom before we enter our indentured servitude to a screaming tyrant who doesn't speak our language.
you may be sensing a certain reluctance around this issue. thing is, i'm conflicted. i think children are endless sources of wonder and beauty, but infants... man. i am overwhelmed & frightened by the completeness of their need. i can hardly remember to feed MYSELF dinner... i'm supposed to be responsible for the care and nurturing of a helpless being who can't even say thank you or ask properly for the tittie when it's hungry? eek.
on the other hand, my family lives in phoenix and my mother has declared that my first child must be born out there. (some kind of family tradition thing i was told, although HER mother traveled out to see HER when WE were born. she's like, uhm, no. i'm parked in the desert to stay. yall have to come hang out with ME.) grossly unfair, true, but at the same time it gives our road trip a quantifiable, reachable destination with long rest at the end. in addition, my sister is a massage therapist and doula (birth assistant), adding fuel to the give-birth-in-AZ fire.
yeah, i think ending up seven months pregnant to be coddled and cared for by my family in the desert is a damn fine idea. a damn fine idea indeed. now if only i can find an ob-gyn and a nutritionist to come along for the ride...
6.12.2002
oh man.
oh man. i have good news to share but it's not really public yet. so i'll put it here, so i can have the illusion of sharing, but since it's in this forum that i'm sure no one will ever see, it remains a secret. oh, i'm so clever.
so here goes: we got a book deal.
our pet project bullshit or fertilizer will be coming out in spring 2003 in a pocket-sized hardcover version published by andrews mcmeel, purveyers of fine gift books, journals, calenders and comics collections. euphemistically renamed, of course, perhaps "BS" or something with asterisks artfully placed. illustrations and book design (and the book design credit for yours truly!) will remain intact, and wow. how real-life is that?
hee hee.
so here goes: we got a book deal.
our pet project bullshit or fertilizer will be coming out in spring 2003 in a pocket-sized hardcover version published by andrews mcmeel, purveyers of fine gift books, journals, calenders and comics collections. euphemistically renamed, of course, perhaps "BS" or something with asterisks artfully placed. illustrations and book design (and the book design credit for yours truly!) will remain intact, and wow. how real-life is that?
hee hee.
6.06.2002
grin and bear it
i have got to start writing over here in this thing [i have decided], if i'm going to presume to call it a blog. these intermittent essay things hardly qualify.
i had another interesting dream last night, shall i share it? sure, phantom reader, i think i shall. but i want to disclaim first: i am not always having these violent and awful dreams, just now and then. perhaps i'm just more prone to write about them b/c while i'm having them i'm always halfway awake so i remember them quite vividly, straining as i am the whole time to stay asleep through such angst and discomfort. why, just the other day i had quite a pleasant dream about running into snoop on the street. he brought me up to his playhouse, full of beanbag chairs and bright green carpet, smoked me up lovely and gave me a pair of tiny cowrie shell earrings & a matching necklace. wasn't that sweet of him?
but last night, man. at first i was going around minding my own business and this woman (who might or might not have been my high school cheerleading coach) came up to me all frantic. "jamyla," she said. "you have GOT to do coco tonight in Fame on broadway. please please you'll save my life, i don't have anyone else."
well, far be it from me to disappoint a damsel in distress, particularly if that damsel in distress is offering me a job. but broadway? coco in fame? would i have to sing the body electric in front of hundreds of people? i started stretching immediately so that i would be in form, even though i was in the middle of a large cubicular office, in front of the microwave, warming up my cup o noodles for lunch.
so i sped out of the office and spent some time stressing out, running around this mall (yes, the office was in a mall) looking for costumes and the like. i spent so much time stressing that suddenly it was five minutes to call time. i had to call the damsel in distress / producer / cheerleading coach woman and tell her i was on the way, only a few blocks far and would catch a cab and be right there. i could hear her reassuring somebody 'she's coming, she's coming, but don't open the house yet' and i became even more stressed by proxy.
then i woke up briefly (couldn't handle the pressure) but it was too early and my body said to me, 'get thy ass back to sleep,' and so i did, but the stress didn't end. b/c this time me and pierre were eating a meal in this wonderful yellow-brick sun-splashed kitchen in some amazing loft with these two white people. and the guy was a serial killer and the girl refused to see this. and it was OBVIOUS, not only because when we entered the room he had her head down onto the cutting board and was slicing bits off of her ear. he also was insisting on doing ALL the slicing involved in the food preparation (a transparent ruse to gather all the knives), and being generally shifty-eyed. it was a tense and drawn-out meal to say the least.
we kept luring him into the other room so we could tell the woman what was going on but she just held pieces of paper towel up to her bleeding ear and looked blankly at us. pierre got into a fight with him and was swinging at him with a bat (i'd already 'washed the dishes' so i could drop all the knives behind the stove) and i assume that we escaped, because the last thing i remember before i woke up for real this time was being in the audience of a talk show while the host's mic went out.
i had another interesting dream last night, shall i share it? sure, phantom reader, i think i shall. but i want to disclaim first: i am not always having these violent and awful dreams, just now and then. perhaps i'm just more prone to write about them b/c while i'm having them i'm always halfway awake so i remember them quite vividly, straining as i am the whole time to stay asleep through such angst and discomfort. why, just the other day i had quite a pleasant dream about running into snoop on the street. he brought me up to his playhouse, full of beanbag chairs and bright green carpet, smoked me up lovely and gave me a pair of tiny cowrie shell earrings & a matching necklace. wasn't that sweet of him?
but last night, man. at first i was going around minding my own business and this woman (who might or might not have been my high school cheerleading coach) came up to me all frantic. "jamyla," she said. "you have GOT to do coco tonight in Fame on broadway. please please you'll save my life, i don't have anyone else."
well, far be it from me to disappoint a damsel in distress, particularly if that damsel in distress is offering me a job. but broadway? coco in fame? would i have to sing the body electric in front of hundreds of people? i started stretching immediately so that i would be in form, even though i was in the middle of a large cubicular office, in front of the microwave, warming up my cup o noodles for lunch.
so i sped out of the office and spent some time stressing out, running around this mall (yes, the office was in a mall) looking for costumes and the like. i spent so much time stressing that suddenly it was five minutes to call time. i had to call the damsel in distress / producer / cheerleading coach woman and tell her i was on the way, only a few blocks far and would catch a cab and be right there. i could hear her reassuring somebody 'she's coming, she's coming, but don't open the house yet' and i became even more stressed by proxy.
then i woke up briefly (couldn't handle the pressure) but it was too early and my body said to me, 'get thy ass back to sleep,' and so i did, but the stress didn't end. b/c this time me and pierre were eating a meal in this wonderful yellow-brick sun-splashed kitchen in some amazing loft with these two white people. and the guy was a serial killer and the girl refused to see this. and it was OBVIOUS, not only because when we entered the room he had her head down onto the cutting board and was slicing bits off of her ear. he also was insisting on doing ALL the slicing involved in the food preparation (a transparent ruse to gather all the knives), and being generally shifty-eyed. it was a tense and drawn-out meal to say the least.
we kept luring him into the other room so we could tell the woman what was going on but she just held pieces of paper towel up to her bleeding ear and looked blankly at us. pierre got into a fight with him and was swinging at him with a bat (i'd already 'washed the dishes' so i could drop all the knives behind the stove) and i assume that we escaped, because the last thing i remember before i woke up for real this time was being in the audience of a talk show while the host's mic went out.
4.12.2002
my life is more fun when i'm sleeping
i had a lucid dream about a week ago; i really had no choice. at first i watched this woman get killed by her crazy fundamentalist husband in a really gruesome way because she'd been raped. (i think he shoved a screwdriver in her ear and made her cook dinner while she bled to death into her own lap)
needless to say, that level of violence and misogyny would never do so i went back to sleep and dreamed it again, becoming this vigilante character who helped her escape through all these trials and obstacles while her husband was outside in the back yard, obliviously planning her death.
i took her through an apartment building where all the floors were slanted uphill and at every floor there was a cosmetics counter giving out free samples of moisturizer and signature scents and blocking the elevator bank. then through a very flossy garden party that looked like something out of a wedding planning catalog. we manouvered graciously, nervously around bodyguards and people holding champaigne flutes and finally, i had to call her a cab on a cel phone i found among some rose bushes in the front yard.
it was a grand adventure, and quite a lot of fun.
and then, last night in my dream i had an assignment to write a ten-minute play and i had all these ideas and never wrote it. weeks passed in the dream with me thinking about this play i was going to write and talking ideas over with my husband and being all excited and not writing shit.
eventually it was two hours till due and i was not only scrambling to finish the writing, i was also acting out all the parts as i figured it out, videotaping myself, and simultaneously editing it into a short film because i hadn't had time to teach it to any actors and have them rehearse. so i went to this playwriting class/theatre festival with a half-finished short film and in the middle of it i had to jump up on stage and act out a missing chunk and then let the tape continue.
afterwards, people thought i was all avant-garde and fabulous and asked where they could buy the tape and see me perform and could i come speak at their school. i spent the rest of the dream meticulously writing down people's email addresses.
i have such a fascinating [to me] subconscious life. i need to go back to sleep so i can speak new theatre techniques to my adoring public.
needless to say, that level of violence and misogyny would never do so i went back to sleep and dreamed it again, becoming this vigilante character who helped her escape through all these trials and obstacles while her husband was outside in the back yard, obliviously planning her death.
i took her through an apartment building where all the floors were slanted uphill and at every floor there was a cosmetics counter giving out free samples of moisturizer and signature scents and blocking the elevator bank. then through a very flossy garden party that looked like something out of a wedding planning catalog. we manouvered graciously, nervously around bodyguards and people holding champaigne flutes and finally, i had to call her a cab on a cel phone i found among some rose bushes in the front yard.
it was a grand adventure, and quite a lot of fun.
and then, last night in my dream i had an assignment to write a ten-minute play and i had all these ideas and never wrote it. weeks passed in the dream with me thinking about this play i was going to write and talking ideas over with my husband and being all excited and not writing shit.
eventually it was two hours till due and i was not only scrambling to finish the writing, i was also acting out all the parts as i figured it out, videotaping myself, and simultaneously editing it into a short film because i hadn't had time to teach it to any actors and have them rehearse. so i went to this playwriting class/theatre festival with a half-finished short film and in the middle of it i had to jump up on stage and act out a missing chunk and then let the tape continue.
afterwards, people thought i was all avant-garde and fabulous and asked where they could buy the tape and see me perform and could i come speak at their school. i spent the rest of the dream meticulously writing down people's email addresses.
i have such a fascinating [to me] subconscious life. i need to go back to sleep so i can speak new theatre techniques to my adoring public.
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