imperial violet

lonely navigator

2005-09-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

i didn't know that my last post would be my last post.

at the time i was simply planning on taking a little break until i had something lovely or jaunty or sublime to write about. but the summer kept delivering one-two-punches the manner of which were previously unknown to me. how do you write when it's all bad news?

then, when the tide sort of ebbed, i thought about coming back. but when i looked at the symmetry of a site that began with the death of my grandmother and ended with the death of her husband, the writer in me couldn't say no to the simple beauty of it.

so, i'm ceding this little parcel of internet land.

but i'm doing a little prospecting, looking for a new blogosphere homestead on which to stake my claim. i'll be around soon. just gotta find the perfect site name and a little spruce up dust for my rusty pen.

once i'm settled in, i'll invite y'all over for lunch and a fight and a good long chat.

much love and squalor, M

go gently

2005-06-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

john bryant and i sat in trigonometry, baffled as usual.

our big joke was to pretend that this was german class, so everytime mr. hamblin would say something about a tangent, john would nudge me and say 'those crazy germans, they have such weird words.' and i'd laugh not because it was funny but because i loved john secretly and horded any bit of a jokey connection between us.

our principal entered. he called my best friend, sunny's name. she gave me a 'what the fuck?" look on her way out. john and i watched her go and then gave each other the same look. sunny was a good girl, if she got called to the office it was bad news.

bad news ain't the half of it. her two year old neice, debbie, drowned. debbie lived with sunny and her parents because her mom was a flake. today, the mom decided that the best place for a cranky baby in utah november, was the waterfall up ogden canyon. debbie lost her footing and fell over the edge.

my first funeral. sunny took me by the arm, tear streaked but somehow beatific, she said 'go see debbie, see how peaceful she looks. it'll make you feel better.' i had a feeling this wasn't true but i went anyway. all i can say is a two year old in a casket was and is the saddest most awful thing i've seen.

fifteen years later, i arrived in utah for my mother's wedding to a phone call from sunny. she remembered that john bryant had been close and wanted me to know that he recently died of lung cancer. he never even smoked. sweet awesome handsome john. i looked up his inscription in my year book- 'to my german buddy. i couldn't have made it without you. you better call me this summer or i'll die."

the next morning i awoke to another phone call. my grandmother calling to say that my grandfather had just died. he was still in bed and she needed my mom and me to come right away, before she called the coroner. my grandfather's body is the first i've seen since debbie.

i went outside and called my mother's eight sisters, in town from all over the country for her wedding, and told them that their father was dead.

the man who walked me down the aisle when my own dad failed to show for my wedding wouldn't live to walk his own daughter. his air force uniform, freshly cleaned for the festivities would be his burial suit. he would have a full military funeral with a twenty one gun salute and taps and a jet fly-over. he would've been damn proud.

he was buried next to his own father, for whom, years earlier, both he and my dad were pallbearers.

now, they're all gone into that good night. gently, i hope.

hail hail the gangs all gonna be there

2005-06-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

wish me luck, kind folks.

i'm off to utah for the wedding of the mom.

suddenly, i'm inexplicably terrified. i love my soon to be step-dad. i'm psyched for my mom. there is nothing bad or foreboding about the occasion at all.

but i woke up this mornng all knotty and stomache churny and doomy-fied.

is it the sprawling brood of my mother's eight sisters, most of whom i haven't seen since the surreal funeral of my grandma? the pressure of being a maid of honor in front of such a various and sundry cast of characters? am i worried about going home again?

or maybe i just ate a bad batch of falafel last night.

it's gonna be great. really. i'll send a dispatch from zion, detailing the festivities.

assuming the plane doesn't crash.

sleepy jackson

2005-06-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

it's my own damn fault. obviously i was on a fishing expedition.

you ask a cute straight boy what he finds attractive in a girl, you fishin'.

"you know what i love? if a girl was holding a dog on a leash and trying to juggle a cup of coffee at the same time and the leash kind of got tangled, and maybe her glasses were slipping down her nose? that would be the cutest."

of-course i immediately bought a dog and some glasses from a flea market and took up drinking coffee. and practiced being befuddled and clumsy in an adorable way.

but besides that...

been thinking about what is my own personal catnip.

it's sleepiness.

something about a grown man, rubbing drowsily at his eyes with the back of his hand.

or the way a boy sounds when you wake him with a phone call. groggy and cute and vulnerable. a boy whose pistons aren't all quite firing yet. a boy who doesn't have his game face on.

or if you walk in and the boy is napping on a couch and you sort of take in his sleepy boy state before you sit down gently next to him and run a hand from shoulder to foot. stroke his cheek before his eyes open. not quite focusing.

then, hopefully, he smiles. slow and dreamy.

mmmm. forget about slipping spanish fly in boy's drinks. i'm going for sleep-eez.

i'm gorgeous inside!

2005-06-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

the slogan is written in swirly red letters with an overly perky exclamation point!

one of those addendums they tack on to 'house for sale' signs. like

'reduced price!' or

'i have a pool!" or

"the family who was murdered here before were really bad people, even the kids, so don't let that deter you from buying!"

but the 'im gorgeous inside!" entreaty always strikes me as sad and desperate. the awkward girl making a midnight plea for the uninterested boy's attention.

it screams- "i know i'm not much to look at, but look again, i really am! look deeper. look deeper, damnit!"

it might as well say- "i have a really good personality!"

or the utah version- "i have a sweet spirit!"

now me, i don't have a pool, a reduced price, a murdered family, a winning personality, or a sweet spirit.

all i got is an unbelievably sweet ass. and that's good enough for me.

tickle me

2005-06-07T11:27:00.000-07:00

tickled blue
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

a quick left outta chinatown and you're in the pristine beauty of elysian park.

i'm using webster's preferred definition of 'pristine'- 'an area bejeweled with drug dealers, grafitti tags, and decayed car seats half buried in rough dirt.'

but he promises the overgrown trail will wind itself up towards an unbelievably gorgeous view of the l.a. skyline. he also mentions that i should be on the look out for ticks but i ignore that part.

we scramble and climb and lose our footing a little and suddenly the 10 freeway zooms far below us, oddly adorable as the wind up cars chug furiously.

it's clear and sunny and slightly cool. i feel impossibly strong on the hike down. stalking cheetah strong. 'top o' the world, ma' strong. conquerering armada strong.

we power down a huge brunch. i actually say out loud 'i feel so good!' which comes out sounding sorta crazy and overly loud in the hipster restaurant.

back home, still feeling the afterglow of my outdoorsy physical prowress, i take off my shirt and notice a red bump on my lower back.

a hypochondriac, i'm sure that it's an imbedded tick, filled with lyme's disease, pumping facial paralysis inducing bacteria through my bloodstream.

a self aware hypochondriac, i'm also sure that it's nothing, just a minor skin irritation. but what if i'm wrong?

i google 'tick removal' and sterilize a pair of tweezers. after a minute of squeezing, a black thing burbles to the surface. i press harder and out it comes. goddamned disease ridden vermin.

now i'm just waiting for the bullseye rash to appear.

and i'm never ever encountering nature again.

will someone please bring me a pizza and some hardcore porn?

amber says

2005-06-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

they all came calling for her.

the pervs

the blowhards

the decent guys, just out of a bad marriage. unsteady and frayed but, hearing something in her voice, thought 'maybe ...'

her voice, casually warm, the kind that smiles but doesn't snicker. she liked long walks on the beach, soaking in jacuzzis with wine coolers, making pancakes for her 'special someone' in the morning.

just a girl maybe. but then again, maybe the girl of your dreams.

here's what i know. i didn't do it to fuck with those guys. they weren't even part of the equation.

i'm prone to building sandcastles- beautiful transient places to live and dream in- until they're washed away or trampled.

amber was a sandcastle. i created her and left her message in the 'love search' mailbox. the thing about being a kid no-one notices is that you notice everything. and i knew they'd love amber. i knew they'd want to reach out and smell her honey wheat hair.

the calls came and kept coming and piled up on top of each other. my mom got tired of explaining to the broken hearted and the horny alike that 'there is no amber here.' she had the phone disconnected.

we both pretended not to know that amber was a 13 year old malcontent. equal parts rage and loneliness.

and, from then, until college, phoneless.

short and narrow

2005-06-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

i arrive late for the governor's bbq, engulfed in soupy austin heat. my clash tee sticking. mascara threatening to run.

they all drink red bull with vodka and eat sloppy pork ribs. a spirit of bonhomie swings. but i'm alone and can't find babycakes. my head's starting to tingle. i'm hungry but even the coleslaw has bacon in it. so i settle for an overly sweet ice tea and a seat by the fountain.

then i spot them. a lanky boy with a faux hawk and red old school coca cola tee shirt and a dude in cowboy boots who looks like a johnny depp/skeet ulrich love child. they're laughing and riffing on something, oblivious to everyone else, cracking each other's shit up.

i think- 'they will be my friends. oh yes. they will." it's that spark. that 'i know you' kindredness.

i make my move later, at the driskill bar. coca cola boy is struggling with too many drinks, i offer to carry a few. from then on, he, depp/ulrich, me and babycakes are a stone cold foursome. we hang out, make mayhem, talk movies and books, and imagine writing pornos with elaborate plotlines and titles like 'love and width' and 'short and narrow.' coca cola and i make plans to hang out when we get back to l.a.

i read the following in a terrific book-

"when i run into her, i feel a great joy. we exchange witticisms, we laugh, we tell each other things, they prove interesting to us. before saying goodbye, we both insist we must meet again as soon as possible."

two years later, this is our friendship. almost all potential and very little day to day. we have a close connection but rarely hang out. although we always say we will. it never really blossoms, and so, it doesn't have the chance to fade.

i just found out he's moving back to new york and that makes me inexplicably sad.

now we'll never really know.

is that better?

birfday brisket and pot ash redux

2005-05-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

**WELLSY WELLSY WELLSY, IN THE NOW PASSING STORM OF 15 + HOUR WORK DAYS AND VOLUMINOUS TIME WITH AN ISRAELI SNIPER, VIOLET'S HAD HER ONE YEAR BLOG BIRTHDAY, I'M ALMOST ALL GROWED UP. IN THE NEXT YEAR I VOW TO POST MORE OFTEN, EAT MORE CHEESE, AND CURE BERSITIS. ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO SEE FROM ME? JUST FOR FUN, HERE'S A REDUX OF THE POST THAT LAUNCHED THIS HERE BERG**

my grandmother was the stuff of legends, a mythical gaudy creature. a heartbreaker. according to family lore, she shuffled off the squaresville coil of her air force officer husband and six daughters to run away with a small time gangster named big al. they took it on the lam with a bun in the oven and several thousand dollars of the bank's money. apparently they were fairly inept, as gangsters go, and ran out of money in a small town called garden city. shortly after the birth of their baby, big al was found hung on a meat hook. so there she was, one baby, zero cash, and six kids abandoned in the beehive state. and there she stayed.

my mom finally took me, via amtrack, to meet her, when i was 14. i imagined a femme fatale, all red lipstick and super slim cigarettes. i imagined a cruel beauty. the woman who made my own mom crazy. what i found was an old broad with yellowed skin and big pores, who smoked lots of non filtereds and lived in a trailer. she fixed us bologna sandwiches and talked about brisket. all of her stories revolved around cooking and eating really delicious brisket. though we, ourselves, on this particular trip, never ate any. she smelled like soup and i didn't like her.

the doctors told her alcohol would kill her and it did. 10 years later we took another train to her funeral. she had been cremated and the plan was to bury her ashes at my mom's oldest sister's farm in iowa. grandma's ashes were collected in a glass 'sun tea' container which spent the afternoon on the kitchen table. annie, the only baby she kept, the daughter of big al, showed up in a tight tee shirt with fringes secured by sparkly beads. it read 'my body is an outlaw, it's wanted in 7 states.' she was the prodigal and the other girls clearly resented her. then there was jim, grandma's boyfriend. he was a man, missing an arm and with a penchant for long, lingering hugs. he was the sad hero of the affair, the boy who'd lost his girl. at the ceremony, we were all asked to pour little peices of grandma into the rose bushes while aunt mary played 'glory of love', by peter cetaris on a boombox. i started to cry. not regular crying, but those deep, earth shaking sobs usually reserved for the worst dreams. i didn't know this woman, i didn't like this woman, i held her responsible for all sorts of nastiness and yet here it was. she was a woman and a mother and a person who someone loved. she drank and smoked and ate brisket and died. and there you have it.

jim ended up giving everyone from the funeral party head lice and we spent the next few days washing and picking through our hair with an impossibly tiny metal comb. then he called everyone and asked them to join the 'friends and family' plan from m.c.i. but no-one felt much like doing it.

i've been tagged

2005-05-18T22:24:00.000-07:00

the will sayeth i must answer random questions on a wednesday eve and so i must. (i rarely defy a direct tagging)

total volume of music on my computer: 35.63 GB

last cd i bought: safe as milk, captain beefheart

song that's on right now: underdog, dirtbombs

five songs that i listen to a lot:

celebrated summer- husker du
pasties and a g-string- tom waits
1-2 crush on you- the clash
speeding motorcycle- yo la tengo
customer- replacements

five people i'm now tagging it:

JEN- she knows how she do
AMANDA- the loveliest snowflake
DIRT- cuz i just wanna hear what he's listening to
RO- give us some rockshow cut-eye!
ANON- no doors!

more violet than violet

2005-05-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

so, you say you like the violet. but you really want to read something similar to violet and yet not violet, eh?

a glance through my site meter found that somebody found me with the incredibly provocative 'imperialviolet.blogspot.com' search. but then, searched for sites similar to mine. google can provide you with a list of similar sites. similar how? what strange and wonderful and revealing and potentially frightening magic?

'similar' is a scary thing. it's like when someone says you resemble a movie start you don't like. or that you remind them of a cousin who you've met and know eats paste. this whole doppelganger or similarganger thing forces you to see yourself through someone elses eyes, by proxy.

only, in my case, i got lucky lucky lucky bitches. 'cause my top similars are way more cool than me. here you go:

1. Dirty Dan's World of Sin (my bestest minnesota twin, great taste in music, philosopher and all around outlaw poet)

2. Be the Boy (what can i say? if you know me, you know, he's my favorite person over the age of eight)

3. The Pissed Kitty Cometh (so funny, so ascerbic, way out of my league)

4. When i grow up i want to be a vampire bat (umm, i don't know on this one, i do like feasting on human blood, sooo)

5. Hot Toddy (i luuuurrrvee him, even though he ignores my advances and only ambles by here on rare occasion)

the list goes on, but here's the final entry:

20. Sweet Adeline- the official elliot smith site (this breaks my heart, i wish he would come back alive)

Go on, try your own, if you dare!!!!!!!!!

scat

2005-04-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

i crouched low, my dainty backside hovering a scant inch above the graffitti carved, reeking seat.

trashbin overflowing with all manner of unmentionables. walls wearing a thick coating of what appeared to be dust coated grease. with a 'thwwick' sound, i pulled my sneaker away from the sticky floor.

i tried to relax and get a little reading done. apparently -

"JT sucks cock" and "so does her mama" and "no, you suck your mama's cock" and also "i heart elephant"

but i couldn't relax because it was all too nasty for me in here. this downtown l.a. stall. i wrinkled my delicate nose and thought- "how DO people live like this?"

and that's when i knew. i've been spending too much time in clean, well lit, or candle lit, or softly diffused lightingly lit bathrooms. where the air is fresh and mints and thick towels greet you after hand washing. where care is given to their decoration, perhaps involving a chinese embroidered chaise in the 'lounge area.'

my mind flashed, back, to the not so distant before time:

the unbelievably filthy trucker's stalls i cleaned at the 'cuntry cuzzins' gas station in rural utah, when i was fourteen.

the open sewer/shower combo complete with roaches in taiwan.

the beautiful lounge in rome where you had to pay 15,000 lire for toilet paper only to enter a stall. inside which was nothing but sawdust and a hole.

the stinking, slickly wet barroom stall with a sturdy sink that was good for holding up a boozy girl as an eager boy with heavy breath lifted her skirt.

i felt like ebenezer scrooge reliving his life only i was visiting the ghosts of bathrooms past.

and i decided i don't ever want to have 'no idea' how people live like 'that' or anything else. because that's where i start to suck. (and not in a good way)

so, of-course i have no choice but to donate my own bathroom to the homeless and install a grimy outhouse in my courtyard.

come visit anytime.

village idiot

2005-04-21T13:19:00.000-07:00

you don't fuck with the l.a. county criminal court system.

it'll kick your ass.

it'll shoot you dead.

unless you're famous and kill/have killed your wife. in which case, go on, fuck with it. enjoy, bitch.

not meeting the above criteria, when my jury summons came, i filled it out like a good little citizen, and received my mandatory appearance date.

the other way to fuck with the court system is if you are a truly gifted and dorky badass.

it was early in our 'getting to know ya' process. i sat on his couch, taking in the smell and touch and vibrancy of his life. the record collection and rock'n'roll posters. stole a glance at his dvds. shouted cheers of approval inside my head and heart.

a jury summons lay on the table. he had filled out, in pencil, that he could not perform his duties as juror because it would interfere with his daily job as 'village idiot.'

i laughed and said 'you're not actually gonna send that?'

he shrugged in his dorky badass way, licked the stamp, and sent it off.

i knew then that he was cooler than i'd ever be. and gutsier. he struck me as someone who could very well be a train wreck, or a carnival ride, or a 10-alarm fire. and he could've been. but he was more than that. because he had all this potential for explosion and implosion, yet chose to make a really cool, beautful life for himself.

which is at least as cool as being the village idiot.

i was on time to jury duty yesterday, sat in on my designated pre-trial, answered my potential juror questions in a clear voice and to the best of my ability. i returned from lunch promptly and didn't request any extra breaks.

they didn't choose me.

i wonder if it was my incessant drooling or the pointy dunce cap that did it?

metamorphasis (non kafka style)

2005-04-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

if i didn't know better, i'd a sworn there was a punking or an x-ing or a yanking of the crank going on.

if i hadn't seen the diminuitive thai dude ordering the same blackcurrent tea, firing up the same efficiently inexpensive laptop, tip tapping away, wearing sound erasing headphones; every morning in the same quiet way... i would've been sweeping the joint for a hidden digi-cam.

you get a mental blueprint of the regulars. she's a cool rockabilly chick who leaves peet's for a morning of self-gratification and splatter art. he's a middle aged middle manager, frayed around the edges, looking for an affair or a shot-gun. she's a spoiled trophy wife pushing 30 and thinking about botox.

it's bull shit. but its a comforting stormy-ship-in-a-calm-harbour bull shit.

thai dude is soft spoken and shy, a writer, maybe working on a 'buddy cop' flick.

this morning, he gets the first cell call i've ever heard him get. and he metamorphoses. loud mouthed. machismo. crass. apparently adores boxing and kung fu and girls with bodies like 12 year olds. he has a snickering laugh and mean spirited sense of humour.

he does a really loud, really gay impersonation of mike tyson. "shit dude, don't step to me, i'll tear your ass off!"

he refers to lindsay lohan as 'that slutty chick with the really big ass boobs."

thai dude was so awful, so voluminously loud, and so long in chatting (10 minutes and counting) that i can still hardly conceive it wasn't a joke. or a lesson about judging books by their covers or about the false sense of privacy a cell phone conveys.

if i can't count on thai dude to properly play the role i've randomly assigned him, what have i got? anarchy, i tells ya! dogs and cats, living together. everything cast assunder-

the trophy wife's boobs are real and she bakes muffins for the homeless and is a part of a liberal think tank studying global warming!

wait, no, i just checked. their fake. whew.

okay, i'm fine again.

paparrazzi and pontiffs

2005-04-14T10:26:00.000-07:00

the damn paparrazzi!
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

ms. slim attempted to leave the posh latin quarter brasserie when she was beset by the press.

after shuffling past the oggling, snap clicking photogs, slim repaired to the blvd st. germaine for a stroll along the seine.

at midnight, a softly illuminated notre dame beckoned and slim slipped inside the centuries old cathedral. there she found a service, in high latin, for the recently deceased pope.

she took a reverent seat in a close pew. the air heavy with incense, sweat, and sleepy sorrow.

an antiquated dirge was played on the beheamoth pipe organ.

a 30 foot laquered poster of the deceased pontiff unfurled. sacrament was offered and taken by many.

slim abstained.

when asked for comment- after her first trip to a roman catholic memorial service, for a pope, in a cathedral once home to quasimoto, slim replied-

"it was way creepy."

the still sea conspires

2005-04-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

the still sea conspires
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

he never would've said it this way, but i knew he thought i was a pussy.

in a world fire branded for action, i was brainy but ineffectual. a clumsy, clunky, ridiculous kid.

dad didn't believe in God; but the gods he worshiped were mostly manly warrior poets. they were hurlers and shouters and void flauters.

in the grand spirit of abyss hurling, he was genuinely proud (and surprised) about my planned month long solo backpacking trip through europe.

proud that his kid had picked up some balls and was trying 'em out. he pulled out a wad of bills and started counting them. Got up to about $500-

"Aw fuck it, take it all, kid. Have a great goddamned trip."

i knew better than to count my money while I was sitting at the table, so I thanked him profusely and asked if there was any particular souvenir i could pick up for him.

he lit an unfiltered and said-

"there is one thing. visit jim morrisson's grave for me, willya? in paris. take a picture."

i'd always found his obsession with the doors to be vaguely embarrassing.

his beatles thing, i understood. my blood got the beatles. i could see where my dad would have a 10 foot canvas painted of the abbey road cover.

but morrisson? heavy duty lyrics and sturm and drang and the whole 'peyote desert' connection? it seemed a thing you should be over by the time puberty releases its hormonal grip upon your person.

as a kid, dad used to blast the doors, way past '11', and say- "listen up, moan, that's poetry. that's the real shit."

"her sullen and aborted currents breed tiny monsters" jim bellowed.

sullen and aborted currents? um, er, okay. where's penny lane?

now, i said "sure, i'll go to his cemetery" and i do believe i meant to. but I didn't. bought him a book about the beatles instead.

i wish i could forget the look on his face when I gave him that book.

the most gut kicked I ever saw him. i'd seen him outraged a million times. but never wounded. never an open sore.

"got a million books about the beatles kid. i just wanted a picture of morrisson's grave. you said you'd go for me. i can't get why ya wouldn't go like you said?"

why? fuck if I know. but I know it was a chance to step up and I missed it. by a mile.

he was dead within a year. at the wake, his twin brother told me- "your dad was real proud of ya. always said what a smart kid you are."

once, my school had my IQ tested. when mom sent dad the results, he was thrilled. turns out me and jim morrisson have the same IQ. dad had read about morrisson's smarts in the biography "no-one here gets out alive." he thought this was a pretty heavy connection.

"hell kid, maybe there's hope for you after all."

three days ago, i wandered through pere lachais cemetery, in the heart of paris. marble sepultres wrestled with sleek onyx tombstones. the sky was slate. The air, cold steel. i passed oscar wilde and maria callas along the way.

then I found him. his home was properly strewn with flowers and letters and cigarettes and a black lace bra. we spent a minute or two together. i took his picture.

and it felt a little like there might still be hope for me after all.

been awhile since i rapped at ya

2005-03-31T13:09:00.000-08:00

my lovelies, my coney's, my doves.

i am not really so gone.

i am coming back.

i have been terribly remiss. please bear with me another 10 days or so. the girlie and i are taking flight and taking wing and will hopefully return with many a story.

all things good and squishy.

m

a rose, by any other name

2005-03-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

"how about campbell?"

"campbell? like campbell soup? 'hi there soupy sales. you smell like soup. we hate you!' no way."

i've always had a knack for naming things. barbies, pets, cars- you name it, i could name it. like a motherfucker. a motherfucker, i tells ya.

i was such a good namer that, as a kid, the other girls used to step to me and try to steal my names for their own. they'd show up at school with a stuffed cat named 'daisy' and try to play it off like they didn't know that i knew that they took the name from my malibu stacie doll.

in junior high, i made up names for my imaginary twins, a boy and a girl. (my dad was a twin as were his pairs of older and younger brothers, so i just assumed twins were in the offing for me.)

"what about scarlet?"

"scarlet? like scarlet o'hara? 'frankly scarlet, i don't give a damn?' never."

but now, here i was, with the funnest naming expedition ever. finding the perfect monniker for my own child, and it was becoming a cold winters slog through the gulag.

i came up with lists and lists and he hated everything. it looked like i'd have a 'baby girl x' suckling sometime in the near future. which is sorta, kinda cute, in that 'i heart minister farrakhan' way.

on march 7th, she showed up. three weeks early. baby girl x. a little wisp of a fairy girl. all heart shaped face and teacup blue eyes.the hospital folks kept pestering us to name her, but our collective wells were dry.

then, i had a neat memory. i used to see this cute asian skate boarder when our high school football team would play his. he was smart and sparkly and he gave me a wonderful nickname. everytime i heard his voice say the name, it sounded like the prettiest one in the world.

it made me feel like a different girl. someone self assured and happy, a girl who danced through life with a giggle and a swagger. a girl with a light breeze in her hair and the sun at her back. i felt like that girl would have a really cool life.

i looked at baby girl x and wondered if she might like this name. if it might bring her luck. i whispered it in her ear. it sounded nice. real nice.

the bard himself asked 'what's in a name?' and you might too. but, i'll tell you what- she is the smartest, happiest, deepest, prettiest little girl i ever did meet.

coincidence?

you decide.

silver lining

2005-03-04T09:47:00.000-08:00

my level of non-enjoyment upon receiving the mass email was vast and high.

its cloyingly loving tendrils reached out in a neon pink san serif font:

"did you know that AT LEAST 6 people love you enough to die for you?!" (a) i'm pretty sure not b) ewww. gross. there ain't a single person i want dyin' on my behalf. i'll take my own damn death when it comes for me.)

"did you kow that if you hugged everyone who secretly loves you, that the energy from that love could power a small village for a week??!!!"

on and on it goes. feel good pablum that makes me feel so bad. there's this terrific picture entitled "my squid suit makes me feel isolated." for some reason, that's the feeling i get upon receiving generic messages of love and brotherhood.

same thing for greeting cards and anthemic love songs.

but yesterday, i discovered a delicious, idiosyncratic truffle of 'you-are-not-alone-ness.' a look at my site meter revealed that someone found me using the google search-

"if i were jack the ripper, would you still kiss me?"

the fact that i can't quickly explain why and how much that means to me, makes it mean more. i opened their search page.

i saw the quote, in all small letters, and a list of potential 'hits.' two of them were my site. one was a beulah fan site, another was a music lover who had also written about magnetic fields and beat happening.

i felt all connected and happy knowing that someone, somewhere, was sitting at their computer querying this lyric. i don't know why. i don't know what they were hoping to find.

but they found me.

and suddenly my squid suit feels less isolating.

ahhhhhhh.

ma vie en vert

2005-03-02T09:54:00.000-08:00

my new career
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

the white escalade rolls to a halt. tinted window slides down.

"are you a model?"

i look around to see who he's propositioning, but since the homeless dude with the gaping forearm gash doesn't respond, i say-

"me? no."

"would you like to be a model?"

my inner public service announcement is warning me of 'stranger danger' but i hate to be rude, so I answer.

"no, thanks."

"not even for two thousand dollars an hour?"

i laugh, and for the first time, take a good look at him.

"what kind of 'modeling' are we talking about?"

"very classy. print work. french magazine."

ah, oui? you don't say? 2K an hour for some classy french stills eh?

like, me eating a baguette with brie perhaps?

or me, in a beret and red stripey shirt acting haughty and reading celine?

sign me up! my non-winner days are over, folks. no more promotional hoaxes for this jeune fille.

just piles and piles of filthy francs and sexy pics.

c'est bon!

you are not a winner

2005-02-28T21:42:00.000-08:00

my breath mints taunt me.

"sorry, you are not a winner!" its evilly perky box top cheers everytime i open the lid. all i want is a little minty refreshment. not a constant reminder of my non-winnery-ness. i don't even know what prize i have lost.

a million clowns?

a lifetime supply of garlic and kisses?

a guest appearance on the 'full house reunion special?"

i didn't even enter the contest in the first place for chrissakes. not knowingly. just like i didn't enter the yoplait contest- the foil lid encouraged, "try again next time!" try what? to eat more live yogurt cultures? okay, i was going to do that anyway. but thanks.

i am clearly failing miserably as a consumer. everywhere i go i lose. even my diet coke mocks me- "you are not an instant winner! buy more coke!" but the quesion is "why?" what marketing god dreamed up this scenario wherein every product must be at all times running some inane contest with a prize not worth winning so that 99.9991% of the buying public can constantly be reminded of the fact that once again they are NOT WINNING?

is it for the pure joy the .00009% of a person will feel when they finally pop that top to reveal a certificate for a shiny new bmx bike and a case of fritos, redeemable by mail-in-rebate-void-where-prohibited-minus-tax-and-licensing? do they really think most people purchase that sierra mist mainly for their shot at winning the $50.00 gift certificate to the yarn barn?

now, if you'll excuse me, the california lotto is up to 70 million and i think i've got a real shot at it.

or else i hear skittles has got a pretty good promotion running.

or there's that polo mallet i've been meaning to bash my skull in with.

moon june spoon

2005-02-22T12:03:00.000-08:00

david broke my heart.

jeff was a stupid actor with feathered hair and jeans two sizes too small with a faded patch in the crotch.

mark was muscle bound, with a mean streak and flinty eyes.

stephan was a foppish brit who blighted everything he touched.

shawn was a soft spoken vet, all heart, no edge.

they came, with roses or cocaine, with a song in their heart or sex on the brain. they pitched the woo to my mom, and then, they were gone. leaving varying levels of destruction in their wake.

by 12 i'd given up the dream of my mom meeting a nice guy and settling down. i was beyond the need for a step-dad. also, i had no belief that she could be trusted to pick a winner. i'd settled into the idea of our being a twosome. my taking care of her. she needing me to.

by 17, we'd been through... what? the ringer? the mill? the shredder? i didn't feel anything when i thought of my mom anymore. except iciness. and fatigue. i counted the minutes to graduation; my freedom from the smell of welfare housing and government cheese. my ticket to ride.

blake was a tall lunk of a man. heavy steps. not too bright. filled the vending machines at the college my mom went to. drove a rusted out gremlin. it was so old, it had no drivers' side floor. just the pedals and a clean view of the icy utah streets below.

i was openly apathetic towards him. dismissive in that smug way of teens who are gratuitously less smart than they think they are.

he was a mormon. he lived for football. he had no politics. he didn't like to read. he was- basic. and one thing i knew about my mom, she was anything but.

i gave it six months.

a decade later, they are still together.

blake's still a mormon, miami dolphin loving, non-reader. but he's gained a rabid hatred of neo-conservatism and a soft spot for social programs. he couldn't love slim more if she were his own daughter. he takes care of his parents, even when he has pnemonia. he's a practical joker prone to cake fights and surprise attacks with water balloons.

he loves my mom.

in june, at age 52, for the first time ever, she will become a bride.

i will be her maid of honor.

yes.

we thin gin

2005-02-11T16:41:00.000-08:00

pleasantly zoning, mind awander, something mellow, when

the radio speaks up, mid-sentence, "miller, 89, died of congestive heart failure."

i say out loud "oh, man, arthur miller died?"

which is a kick in the pants for me, because reading 'death of a salesman', at 16, was a revelation. i wrote my a.p. english essay on it and received a '5.' (yeah, that's the highest score allowable by law, what of it? i'm a smarty girl) wait, fuck that, i'm not ruminating on all the various and sundry ways miller's work has touched my life.

moving on.

slim wants to know what's so special about this miller guy and what's the deal with 'death of a salesman'?

so i'm telling her the plot and i get to the part about willie's discontent with biff and happy. trying to figure out how to distill it, i say-

"i guess he felt they weren't living a good life."

to which she responds-

"did they smoke tar cigarettes and drink whiskey?"

there, my friends, is a girl with her finger on the pulse of modern day times. i was surprised the next question out of her mouth wasn't "did they listen to jazz and frequent honkey tonks with women of ill repute?"

i stifled a laugh and muttered something about heartache and the loss of the american dream.

but how can anyone alive not love that goddamned kid?

FUCK! but, okay

2005-02-10T14:35:00.000-08:00

her first film is forever linked with the halcyon days following my extreme youth.

we, the group of us, were old enough to know how young we were.

wise enough (barely) to begin to grasp the fact that we didn't know shit.

and hopeful enough to be cool with that.

we'd managed to live through the invincible teenage years, when you believe death will never come for you. heartbreak, bullshit, and pain, yes. but not death.

we understood how lucky we were to be young and vibrant and raging to live. to be gorgeous and fresh and ready to roll.

we took in a midnight showing, then spent the rest of night shooting pool, quoting her best lines, and making out with our respective partners.

her parlance became a part of our lexicon, she was a groove on the record that was soundtracking us all the time.

how can i possibly express what it felt like to sit across from her last night? to have her say she wants to direct something i wrote? to tell a joke and listen to the spark and flicker of her laugh? to hear her enthuse about another film, a role tailor made for her. a role she is going to fight for with every ounce of passion she possesses (and she has stockpiles)?

i said "you'll get it. you have to."

ann asked her "but what if you don't?"

she started "if i don't get it, then..."

she threw her arms in the air in rage and frustration- "FUCK!!"

she let her arms fall simply to her sides, said softly, with acceptance- "but, okay."

give it all your love and energy, if you want it badly. give without shame or fear or reservation. and if it still doesn't happen?

fuck! but okay.

i'll take that.

total freedom

2005-02-08T09:25:00.000-08:00

"yeah, baby, you like it like that? you a dirty little bitch?"

i know he was crestfallen. i know it was mean. i know he was trying to sexxify it up and make it fun and whatever. but how could i not laugh?

it sounded so stupid. he was using that phony 'looove making' voice that they always use in the movies. he was giving me the super serious, 'now we're having sex' eyes. it seemed so ridiculous and forced.

i assumed there was a proper call and response (wave your hands in the air like you just don't care, say 'ho') to his question, but i didn't have it in me to play the role. 'yeah, i'm a dirty bitch. blah blah blah.'

this experience and ones like it led me to believe that i would never be a dirty talker. noises. noises i was always down for, the squeals and low moans and lovely whispers. the slow exhale and the jagged uptake. but the naughty talk, i found--- embarrassing, phony.

then i fell in love. he stroked my face and looked into my eyes, like liquid, and said 'how do you want me to touch you, j?"

and it all bubbled up. all the words and desires and bottled up fantasies that i'd only shared with my pillow flowed out, free and fast and wild with abandon. i used words i never thought my lips would comfortably form. with great ease and fun.

i asked. i demanded. i pleaded. i teased. i egged him on. i may have even called him a dirty bitch. but it was okay because i meant it. i giggled.

he did the same.

and it was the prettiest, best thing you could ask for.

the feeling of total freedom. and someone to share it with.

i miss that.

if fishes...

2005-01-31T11:10:00.000-08:00

the great poet rapper skee lo writes:

"I wish I was little bit taller, I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat, and a '64 Impala"

he's not really great. but he wishes he was.

in "nobody's fool", richard russo gives us Rub, a hard luck case, whose wishes fill up the minor space of his half life:

"I wisht I didn't have to work on Thanksgiving."

"I just wisht I had money for a donut. one of them big ole cream-filled deals."

but even in getting the donut, rub's thwarted, cuz he's sure the waitress has given him the smallest one on purpose.

such is the ephemera of wishes, you can get what you wish for and still feel cheated. i read a script about a genie who grants a woman, roughly my age and demographic, three wishes. and you know what she goes for?

a dog. a new car. dinner in a parisienne cafe.

this doesn't resonate for me at all. but, then, i'm naturally dubious about magic wishes. having watched too many episodes of twilight zone where your wishes fuck you over, with a hat trick and a back door. you wish for power and find yourself recast as hitler in his death bunker. wish for money and find the tax man all over your ass. wish for sex and find aids.

what would i really wish for? what do i really wish for? world peace? inner peace? a really hot piece?

jeff tweedy croons:

"all my lies are only wishes. i know i would die if i could come back new."

what about you?

crazed ragamuffin

2005-01-25T09:02:00.000-08:00

you may think the biggest perk of being an absolute dictator is-

world domination or
palaces stocked with solid golden showers or
never ending supply of smores'n' whores or
the ability to wear military style epaulets without the snide michael jackson references

you're wrong.

the biggest perk is the cool ass 'officially sanctioned' nicknames your huddled masses have to call you. take kim jon-il for instance. his include-

"Supreme Commander at the Forefront of the Struggle Against Imperialism and the United States" (no, it aint michael moore)

"Lode Star of the Twenty-First Century" (when you meet him you can say 'what a lode!' and he won't take offense)

"Eternal Bosom of Hot Love" (this one makes me throw up a little)

"Master of the Computer Who Surprised the World" (i thought al gore invented the internet)

"that blows!" you may whine. "i gots me no palaces, no jaba the hut like ladies chained to my fat belly in metal bikinis. gots me no nickname. i hate myself and want to die."

don't be like that, baby. just do like i did. make up your own damn swanky nickname.

have we met? i'm..um..er.. "World's Best Ideal Scholar Slut?" no. "Heaven-Sent Lover of Cream?" "Woman with Encyclopedic knowledge of Pedal Fungi?" oh, man. i can't think of anything good.

call me hank.

look at my boobs

2005-01-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

we move together like packs of territorial cats. birds of a feather flock together. and so do we. travelling in concentric circles, we each rule our own parts of this city.

if you draw a triangle around a hollywood intersection-

one side holds cafe 101 where the hipster cats go to out-cool one another with pixies references and pointy shoes.

the apex holds roscoe's chicken and waffles where hip hop cats bring the bling with energy and bravado.

the far side holds denny's, which lures in the scrappier family felines and our senior kittizens looking to fill their bellies and their time.

l.a. is not a melting pot. we don't melt. we co-exist, separately, by mutually unspoken consent.

except at the zoo. it draws everyone from upper class valley moms, to teenage punk rock lovers, to sprawling latina familias, and beyond. which is why i fucking love the zoo.

my favorite woman there, yesterday, was a florid botticelli. she wore her velour pants low and her tank top short. leaving about six inches of belly exposed. she was unabashed and unashamed of her newly formed, angry red stretch marks. she had a booming laugh and a playgirl strut.

i thought of the sullen faced, skeletally boy bodied angora's who skulk my hood with french tipped claws; and liked her cheery flooziness even better.

she gathered up a gaggle of kids who ranged from ages 3 to about 11 for a picture. they weren't looking her way and she really wanted it to be a good shot. so she shouted at them-

"look at my boobs! look right here. at my boobs! that's right. look. at. my. boobs." then she beamed over at her man. "this picture's gonna turn out great. they were all looking right at my boobs."

later, she ordered a cold beer and shared a swig with the 11 year old.

and i went off to pick a fecal flingling fight with the chimps.

enchilada nirvana

2005-01-19T11:45:00.000-08:00

during a cleanliness jag yesterday (call it, a 'scouring out emotional distress with pinesol' jag, if you must, it works for me)-

i discovered a long castaway notebook of mine. a small artifact from my few years past.

mostly it's filled with 'to do' lists and random stuff like this song list-

"kick out the jams: mc5, customer: replacements, bye bye love: george harrisson"

but there are also little veins of high grade quartz. forgotten memories.

"at rock'nroll hall of fame, looking at Nirvana exhibit with kahle and slim. slim quietly reading...suddenly "oh, i get it. nirvana. like 'enchilada nirvana!!'" she didn't know the band, but she knows the taco bell ad. yay america!"

she knows the band now. sliver's her favorite song. then we've got this poorly poetic missive that i kind-of like anyway-

"lips like sugar. steamy windows. warm mouths. soft tongue. stroking hair. stroking leg. wrapped up tight. lovingsweetsexyfun. softskinsoftkissdeeperkiss. damnyou, dagostino. eels how many times. head on my shoulder tucked in warm. kisses outside clothes blowing. warm air, pressing stroking friction. little moans. 'you are a brunette.' 1 night in echo park. crushing swoony."

and this snippet of song lyric by the halo benders-

"glass eyed tiger. trash vampire. i wish i glowed brighter in your eyes."

it's odd to look back on your not so distant past and find out you were pretty much the same as you are now.

thank the sweet baby jesus i'm not growing or anything.

pasty face killah

2005-01-17T10:49:00.000-08:00

skin the pallor of children's paste. shellacky inked hair. skin tight black tee and jeans draped over a skeletal frame.

he sits outside holly's donuts, mourning the dregs of a long gone cup of coffee. the joe he finished hours ago, along with the sugar twist and a half pack of unfiltereds.

most passersby don't catch his gaze- glassy, vague, unfocused.

but he always has a lopsided smile and a 'hello gorgeous' for slim.

his words curdle her in a visceral way. she hugs my legs, buries her face between my knees, as if wishing i wore layers of petticoats under which she could hide. i think if there were a short cut back to my womb, she would take it.

he doesn't seem to notice her aversion or anyway doesn't mind. so we're stuck repeating this awkward kabuki every morning.

until the night when my viewing of 'wonderboys' was interrupted by the wail of sirens. outside my window, a swarm of cops and ambulances descended. i thought 'vitellos' had been robbed. but i hadn't heard gunshots.

the next morning brought yellow tape and a makeshift shrine and every t.v. news van from nbc to telemundo. our old a.m. routine was replaced with a new one. called 'dodge the reporters.'

they chattered at us- "did you know robert blake?" "was he a good neighbor?" "do you think he's a murderer?"

i just tugged slim's hand and replied- "we're late for donuts."

now, they're back, taking the jury on a fieldtrip to the crime scene. which happens to be my backyard. i watch the delighted jury members mill about the infamous restaurant as i type. they looked flushed and happy, like tourists just in from the heartland.

slim nudges me. "is this about the pasty faced creepy guy who killed his wife?"

"yes."

"i never liked him."

stalkers unite

2005-01-13T15:48:00.000-08:00

a sister. interesting proposition. not that i was disinterested. more like semi-interested with a healthy dose of dubiosity.

she born a year before me. an early seventies high schoolers', free lust, 'whooops!' child. her mom had no love for my dad and the feeling was mutual. even still, he braved a snowstorm to find baby tanya in colorado. her mom called the cops and bid him a non-fond 'fuck you.' her boyfriend adopted the baby and my dad never saw her again.

when i was 17, tanya returned to utah. my ex-stepmom gave me her phone number, said she was eager to meet me.

my best friend stacie drove me to denny's, where i was to rendevous with my estranged half-sibling. a panicky doom descended and i suddenly thought this was the worst idea ever.

"this is stupid, stacie. turn around."

she refused. and so, i stood at the entrance, 'moons over my hammy' wafting yummily my way... do i go in?

'pick you up in an hour. have fun! you'll love having a sister. i love all my sisters and brothers!' (stacie was perky like that.)

i went in, because of the look on my dad's face and the way he jumped around the room when i called her. cagey. nervous. hopeful. sheepish. he wanted us to meet and like each other and then he wanted the three of us to have dinner. he wanted to know his other kid. how could i say no?

tanya was thick and blond and curly of hair. big blue eyes and already halfway through an order of fried mushrooms with ranch sauce. she dispensed with the pleasantries and launched into the body of her wildy inaccurate tirade.

"my mom talked your stepmom and we want you to stop stalking me."

'i'm sorry?"

"don't be sorry. just stop. seriously, parking in front of my high school every day, watching me get on the bus and crying because you don't know your sister? pathetic. running away from home to try and find me in ohio and refusing to come home until your dad promised to hire a private investigator? insane, bordering on psycho. i don't want to know you. i don't want to meet YOUR dad. i want to be left alone. got it?"

before i could even muck my way through these wavelets of bizarre, she was already up and throwing down a five dollar bill.

"don't ever call me again."

she wore guess jeans. i saw the triangle on her ass as she triumphed out the door. i fired slowly back-

"i don't even have a car. how could i be sitting in front of your high school?"

"ohio? i always thought you lived in colorado."

"dad's gonna be so fucking sad."

but she was gone, so i polished off her fried mushrooms and waited for stacie to pick me up.

insults and injury

2005-01-11T21:52:00.000-08:00

the rain has stopped. and i rejoice.

the boy who beds down amongst maple leaves has sent sweet regards via electronic mail. and i flutter.

but the gods mock me. i think it is because i wrote these words-

"alas, i have lured no suitors to my chamber these windswept days..."

-and accidentally set a very sad set of cosmic matchmaking in motion.

*note: while technically true, the sentence was meant as tongue-in-cheek self deprecation. i'm not really sitting at home dipping potato chips in caramel sauce, while watching 'sixteen candles' on tbs at 3am.

or am i? someone thinks so. in my yahoo inbox this morning-

"You shouldn't always be sitting home on the weekends. You need to find someone
special to go out with. I recommend you check out Friday Night Plans and arrange a date for next Friday!
Why waste another evening sitting in front of the television? Stop moping and start
having fun! Get out there and fill up your dating schedule. You CAN find the person of your
dreams, if you put in the effort.

Wishing you love, happiness & Friday Night Fun,
Christina :-)"

who is this smug, condescending chistina, that she has the audacity to smiley face me? me? the chicanery. perky christina admonishes me to stop moping? the shame. how does she even know i'm moping? sure, i got a little blue, what with the rain and all, but moping? that's harsh. and what's this jive about my lack of effort? i'm all kinds of efforty.

christina just doesn't understand.

the humanity.

hard days rain

2005-01-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

it's inevitable. the new thing rushes in and floods the senses with wonder and possibility. euphoria takes root in the soul.

rain, in sunny so-cal? day one. i threw myself, with the abandon of one who knows sunshine is just around the corner, into sodden good times.

cuddling in front of the fireplace

jumping in puddles

baking warm and hearty breadstuffs

watching a movie with the heat turned up high wearing nothing but a chenille blanket in the middle of the day

wearing a knit skull cap and heavy jacket while walking the puppy through a bluster and counting the seconds between lightning and thunder.

left undone is my favorite rainy day activity, but alas, have lured no suitors to my chamber these windswept days.

the ennui sets in. and as chris cooper was 'you know, done with fish.' i am done with rain. a long forgotten memory fills me up all meloncholy like.

a week of rain and me running late for elementary school. sheila is waiting to walk with me and mom's getting impatient with my lollygagging. i feel wrecked. despondent. sad and useless and i just want to cry in a puddle on the floor.

mom rolls her eyes at sheila. vis a vis me. she says "mona bona butt cheese, pull it together and go to school."

i start to cry. "i just hate the rain."

mom's thing is that you lightly laugh and tinkle away anything sad or icky. with a sweep of her hand we are sent off.

sheila and i run our fastest through the downpour. it's kind of exhilerating. i find i'm crying and laughing both.

she wants to know why i hate the rain.

i can't find the words to express that it isn't the rain. that it is the whole stark bundle of goo that life has become.

so i say- "i just hate all the worms on the pavement."

sheila nods. she hates that too.

ass grabbing good times

2005-01-05T09:42:00.000-08:00

i didn't know anyone at the party and the friend who invited me hadn't shown up yet.

the hipster in the 'fuck art, let's dance!' tee shirt queried- "how do you know willie and kaye?"

i, always feeling like an interloper, like i have an illegally clubbed baby seal in my pocket, said-

"oh, i don't. but i'm allowed to be here. really. benno invited me."

"who the fuck's benno?"

"um, er, have you noticed my hot rack?"

when in doubt, play the rack card. then move on, quickly. met an 87 year old pathologist named milton, who still practices at a non-profit hospital downtown. five minutes in, i decided he was so inspiring, i should make him my own personal profit. then he started talking about how his brother invented the microwave. his sister flew jets in world war 2. his brother had a hospital named after him. either this kindly coot came from the magic family of all times or he was off his meds.

next up, came a cal arts grad student with a ebulient puppy dog air who decided that my real name would make a great swap for exclamations like "holy smokes!" or "oh my goodness!" so, randomly throughout the night, in different parts of the house i heard "angelia!" shouted gleefully. mmm, fun.

at midnight, mayhem abounded in kisses and cheers and general merriment. someone grabbed my ass. i asked who dunnit but no one would fess up.

though several others volunteered. before you know it, there was a small group of us, ass grabbing one another- patting, pinching, and even throwing in a genuine caress or two.

good times. happy '05, lovelies.

bee charmer

2005-01-01T16:14:00.001-08:00

dana.

equal parts bewitched and bedevilled.

a three alarm fire doubling as a six car pile up.

they ask, "why do good girls like bad boys?" but good girls like bad girls, too.

there is freedom and wind, and a dark oily undercurrent in a friendship with a haunted bee charmer.

she bent down on a knee to throw her arms around kato's neck. struggling a little against her pregnant teenage belly. her skirt too short. her liner too heavy. she was still the prettiest hard girl i knew.

her arms encircled his furry neck, her face moved in for the inevitable lick. the one he's given her since we were tiny girls.

his jaws opened too wide for a kiss, canines flashing...

my mind either ratcheted down to a gear drowned in honey or whirred like a hummingbird. either way, in that nanosecond before everything changed, i saw-

the new years eve five years earlier when kato was our babysitter. my dad and her big sister left us in his care. we made a party for them, as a surprise, sandwiches and crepe paper and triscuits with spray cheese. but they came home coked up and keyed up and pissed about the mess. dana thought it was funny but i was heartbroken.

the thanksgiving dana sneaked me a whole cherry pie because my dad wouldn't let me eat. we hid in her room, ate the whole thing, then made recordings of ourselves as a spinal tap style british rock band named 'voltage'. our hit single was 'grab one, down one, get yourself around one.'

the christmas her dad caught us breaking into the basement window, drunk at 3am. dana, defiant. her dad, a bitter drunk, fourteen years sober notwithstanding. her dad, an aspirin swallowed dry. he pulled her by the hair and sunk a cowboy boot into her ass. she laughed. she willed herself to laugh.

my ears kicked back in before my brain. dana's boyfriend screaming. she, down on both knees now, covering her blood soaked face.

i put an arm around her "you okay?"

she swats it away. "get me a paper towel."

sweet unlucky bedevilled girl. a paper towel against all that destruction? i don't think so.

on the rush to the hospital, all she said was, "don't put kato to sleep."

but we did.

and she never fully forgave us.

dead

2004-12-28T10:03:00.000-08:00

slim doesn't cotton to no fancified conversations during the afternoon drive time.

prefers to take 'er easy, kicking it in the backseat booster, reading the latest roald dahl. attempts at conversation are met with a slow, nasal silence.

i've learned to accept this and enjoy her companionable quietitude. listen to my tunes. you know. imagine my surprise when

she pipes- "wow. that's a really hard decision."

me- "huh?"

slim- "would you rather be dead and never have done all the things that you want or be alive and not have anything you want to do? i hate that decision."

a philosophical discourse spurred by they might be giants.

me- "maybe the trick is to figure out what you want to do while you're alive and do it then."

she ponders.

"no. the question is if you have to pick ONE, which do you go for?"

me- "i'll take being alive over dead anytime. so i guess i pick that one, even with nothing i want to do."

slim- "yeah. that's the thing about being dead. it makes it so hard to be alive."

amen.

lord help me, i loves the festival of light

2004-12-16T09:04:00.000-08:00

booze may make you popular and heal all wounds*, but the chanukah mini van will win lifelong friends and admirers.

"never heard of it!" you pooh pooh in your snarkiest voice. 'i don't believe in the chanukah van."

poor deluded rejected readers. let me paint it out for you, as i saw it with my own eyes, just yesterday, heading south on laurel canyon in hollywood.

silver. shiny. a chrysler town & country customized mini. probably an '03. and atop? a menorah standing at least five full feet high. replete with eight shining candles lit with brilliant 500 mega watt brightness. blue tinsel and a sparlking cursive message-

"HAPPY CHANUKAH!! CHABAT!!!"

the chanukah van is real, my friends. it isn't owned by a coproration. it isn't advertising anything. it isn't searching for material gain.

it's really just a family with some extra cash, a working knowledge of electricly rigging up a vehicle, a love of judaism, and a desire to spread joy.

all i can say is l'chaim!

and where the hell is my kwanza story?

*quoted from mst3k

merry crap for crap

2004-12-14T11:02:00.000-08:00

it was steinbeck, or maybe sideshow bob who said-
"childhood gods fall the hardest."

the thing i liked best about david was everything.

he took me to see "alien" when i was the tiniest wisp of a girl. we spent days impersonating the mutant baby busting outta the guy's belly, adding "meep meep" roadrunner sound for emphasis. my mom was mortified.

while playing 'life', if i would say something random, like "you make money, you lose money, everywhere you go today", he would grab his guitar and turn it into a growling rock anthem.

when the three of us walked down the street, i was always in the middle holding both of their hands. sometimes they would swing me.

my eigth christmas, the kids had started floating the old 'santa be all made up and shit' rumour. and, though i didn't want to believe it, well, it made sense cuz, c'mon, a fat man in a red suit, flying over hollywood boulevard with a heaping sack 'o gifts? it is kind-of an unweildy proposition.

it was on this cusp of non-belief that i awakened, bleary eyed, and stumbled down the hall. smush. my slippered foot steppped on a smelly pile of crap. which was weird since we didn't have a dog.

i yelled for my mom and david. they surveyed the dung. wide eyed. awestruck. "holy shit" said david. "it's santa's reindeer. they took a dump in our living room."

holy jesus fucking christ. here was definitive proof of santa. not starflowers and moonbeams. but real steaming bodily proof. i went through the apartment and sure enough, there were tiny reindeer tracks and a huge 'dancerella' doll under the tree.

that bit of magic shored up my belief in santa for years. i defended him to the naysayers. i converted the fence sitters back to the side of wonder. it was a beautiful thing.

a year after he moved to london, i was looking for something in the medicine cabinet, and found the 'realistic' pile of plastic poo that he used as the deux ex machina of 'operation keep santa alive!'

i cried. not because i felt tricked or duped. but because david made everything sparkle. he made me believe.

now he was gone, and all i had left was an old lump of crap.

farenheit 451

2004-12-09T07:56:00.000-08:00

if that's the required temp, then fire me up. i'll stoke the oven, open it's greedy burning maw and throw the fucker in.

normally, my small, wordy friend sits in the passenger seat. bursting with life and love and all kinds of deliciousness. begging me to open it up. i tell it to wait, we're almost there.

then, i scoop it up, and set it on the comfy seat, with its own table, while i order coffee. we spend the next hour eagerly sharing secrets. it tells it's story. i reward it with underlined passages and coos, and nods of recognition. 'i get you. i care about this. oh my god, that's hot!'

but this goddamned thing... it mocks me. i stare at its hateful cover and spit at it while i drive. because it is supposed to be all terrific and life changing, but really it's just confusing and oblique and it makes me feel stupid. plus, people keep turning into spiders and the guy's wife's a trashy whore (not the good kind).

if i weren't stubborn in the most ridiculous, retarded way ever, i'd just throw this rancid fish back in the la river. but i can't do it. i can't let it beat me. so i will read on. i will put my head down, and plow through, and curse my bad luck for ever reeling it in to begin with.

stupid nabokov.

i'm glad he's dead.

cherry pie (not warrant style)

2004-12-07T10:18:00.000-08:00

my local coffee shop can normally be counted on for good, carb filled, diabetic coma inducing sugary breakfast products. cinamon rolls, chocolate croissants, apple danishes et all. but, this morning, something surprising was in the offing.

THE CHERRY BURRITO

uh wah? now this is all wrong. it's like two great things that when melded together, cojure up images of blech.
like a streusal top meat loaf. or a butter pecan tuna melt. whose ever gonna buy a miscreant product with a name like this?

i ask to inspect said 'burrito' and find it to be delightful. not filled with beans or salsa, but juicy ripe cherries in a light sugar reduction wrapped around a flaky, elongated pie type crust.

"mmm" methinks "give this sucker a better name and it'll sell millions. millions! then i'll take over the world!" don't ask how i intend to take over the world on peets revenues, it doesn't matter.

i brainstormed, with the staff, and here's some new names we came up with:

SWEET CHERRY WAND

BUTTERY CHERRY STICK

CHERRY SHAFT

THE 'GLAZE MY CHERRY' SUGAR PIPE

These are good, damn good, but i think we can do better.

anyone?

all day sucker

2004-12-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

five years ago, i would’ve been mortified, shamefaced. i would’ve protested- “no, really, i’m dark and brooding. hip, deep, edgy.”

"Congratulations! You're the eternal optimist, a regular "Sunshine Day" of a person. When it rains, you think about how good the water is for the flowers and trees rather than how wet you're getting."

ten years ago, I would’ve had no choice but to take a hacksaw to my wrists on general principal.

“ Sure, that opens you up for a few let-downs, but that's okay — your great attitude will help you deal with them if and when they come. In the long run, it doesn't really matter at all; everything's going to be all right!”

throughout high school and college, there was nothing worse than to be deemed one of the ‘shiny, happy, people.” it was the death of intellectual cred. the folks who listened to velvet underground and read bukowski and watched jim jarmush films (stuff i like) were ironic, sarcastic, holding a deep boredom and disdain for the banality and petty chicanery of life.

to be surprised or awed or exuberant was the mark of a sucker. A rube. A dupe. And who wants that?

“You like meeting new people and thoroughly enjoy their companionship. More likely to trust someone than not, you always see the good in people.”

i believed that my heart, with its refusal to grow a protective coating, belied a shallow soul. the soul of a cheerful monkey, devoid of meaningful thought or reflection.

my heart- easily squished, easily mended, easily surprised. apt to stop on a dime or go racing after butterflies on a penny.

it knows that life is full of crass casualty, dicing time, random brutality, doom, chaos, and puppy stranglers.

it also knows that once a boy stroked my face, eyes filled with something akin to wonder, while saying- “we’re naked, j.” and we truly were.

that there was a night when a friend did a hand puppet show so funny, I laughed until I cried and then past that ‘till I peed.

there is a toddler who said- “don’t be sad about your daddy. I’ll lift you up to the sky so you can see him.”

there is the smell of new plastic pool toys and the taste of honey on fingertips.

right now, something incredibly fucking gorgeous is colliding with its evil twin. right now, there’s a steaming pile of crap with a grundle of white truffles growing happily in its fetid warmth.

right now, I’m alive.

“You learn from your mistakes and do your best to make everyone around you happy to be alive. Keep it up! "

the gods of ‘tickle’s personality test” have spoken. it’s official.

I’m a sucker.

An all day sucker.

Lick me.

it isn't mine

2004-12-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

catherine runs her hand from the kitty's head, lightly down along its spine. going with the grain of fur rather than against it. the casual assurance of someone used to petting stuffed animals.

"is this your kitten?" she asks.

slim smiles, the big girl.

"yes. her name is cutie diamond."

catherine lets her hand gracefully fall on slim's head. gently runs fingers though her baby fine hair while they chat.

"i bet you take very good care of her."

"i just brushed her, now we're going to the park."

i take a small step backwards. to let them have this small moment in time. this lovely, normal bit of patter between a slender young woman with honey wheat hair, wearing a sage courderoy jacket, and a slender little girl holding a stuffed calico.

because it's all that i have in my power to give her. a tiny respite. because i can't turn back time, like superman, and stop the earth from shattering. because, in real life, even superman couldn't turn back time and stop his own world shattering. because she is a mother without her boy.

i don't offer the hollow strains of 'he's in a better place' or 'everything happens for a reason.' because those words are bitter to me. i'm afraid to speak. afraid to catch her eye. afraid i'll burst into tears. and she deserves better than my tears on a random tuesday. she deserves so much better.

catherine glances at me. (i want to cuddle slim up into my arms, like a baby. hug her too tight.) i try to give catherine a smile of love that is much bigger than pity. but it's all wrong. because i'm biting the inside of my lip hard enough to draw blood.

"you look so pretty in that jacket." i manage.

"thanks" she says 'it isn't mine."

play book

2004-11-29T10:21:00.000-08:00

they say that the notion of 'team spirit' is lost on our generation. that we are slackery, over-fed, over-indulged, over-sexxed babies who think only of ourselves.

we are not the folks who 'take one for the team."

not the folks who do it "for the gipper."

fie on them! (strictly speaking all of the above is true of me) but i'm ready to step up to the plate and do my part.

we have here a classic scenario, you've heard it dozens of times. an unbearably cute straight boy gets a recurring role on the showtime series 'queer as folk'. he takes wing to the gayest land on earth, toronto. there, he gets all erotic with the boys on the show, discovers high fashion and fabulosity and madonna and leaves his love of the womens behind for the meatier pleasures of man-love.

that's how the story usually goes. but not this time, goddamn it. not. this. time.

please don't misuderstand (or misunderestimate) me. i love gay men. almost every single close friend of mine is a gay man. i am surrounded and well loved and astounded by the kindness and creativity and warmth of my homo-husbands. but, you see? i don't need any more gay men in my life. my roster is full. no room even for a switch hitter.

so it is that i receive my calling with a full heart. to take one for the team and keep this boy batting for the heteros.

the question is, how? what is it that keeps staight boys on the narrow?

does anyone have a play book i can borrow?

stinky foot turkey

2004-11-24T13:17:00.000-08:00

my want of a veggie burger wrap, with all the fixins, came on at a thundering clip.

i beat it to the land of 'sandwich artists' with a quickness. fellow lunchers called out for terriyaki chicken on honey oat and turkey (non-stinky foot variety) on oregano parmesan. it was a festive noon-tide, the hour of the pleasantly hungry- people for whom breakfast is still a close memory and dinner only a few, scant hours away.

my sandwich artist had huge black discs in her ears and a cheerful demeanor. even offered to warm up my tortilla for me. mmm, yes please.

as i reached the register, a woman beseechingly asked for a manager. dull-witted non-artistic register gal said-
"manager won't be back 'till five. come back then."

beseecher replied-
"you see, the last time i came, they forgot to put the last two stamps on my card. i bought a foot long. what i'm wondering is, will you honor it?"

my creme of the crop wrap maker said to dull register gal-
"i trust her. go for it."

but DRG didn't hear her and so, sent the beseecher on her way, sandwichless. i wanted to jump in and facilitate the thing. to make register gal listen to sandwich artist and get this woman her meatball sub. it shouldn't be so hard. but i just didn't.

a rusted out diesel compact parked next to my car. clothes piled up in the back. a big guy stepping out to throw something in the dumpster. i looked in the window and saw the beseecher. she was unwrapping the skinniest, squarest, scrawniest sandwich. on the kinda bread you get for 99 cents and feed to ducks.

she bit in.

i thought of the luxury that is instant gratification. i'm not flush with cash, but a veggie wrap isn't beyond my means. it isn't even an afterthought.

i thought of the women in tinkling escalades i've seen throw tantrums over their coffee to milk ratio at starbucks.

but this woman, the beseecher, she wouldn't fight over those two stamps. either because she's used to settling for less, or because she doesn't think she deserves them, or maybe she's embarrassed. and i think she really would've enjoyed that sandwich, had fate swung her way, or had i spoken up, or had the register gal been a little less oblivious.

but it wasn't her day.

hey baby, want some fries with those shakes?

2004-11-22T17:05:00.000-08:00

it's official. scientific results AND national public radio verify it.

the world's best/most effective pick-up line is (drum roll)....

"NEXT YEAR AT THIS TIME, LET'S BE LAUGHING TOGETHER"

beating out other hot contenders like-

"hey, good lookin' whatcha got cookin'?"

"let's have breakfast in the morning, should i call you or nudge you?"

and the ever popular-

"i don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die"

do people really utilize pick up lines in day to day (or night to night) dating scenarios? can they possibly work? the whole idea of a pre-packaged route to someone's heart seems an excercise in futility.

although, yesterday at a chinese take out place, a guy told me i looked like i 'just dropped off a charm bracelet' which struck me as pretty cute.

but me, i don't waste time with the fancified lines. i sneak 'em a peek at the rack, usually reels 'em in real good.

by 'rack', i mean 'gun rack' of-course.

oh, and if any of you dare to try out the 'let's be laughing' line (un-ironically) and get laid as a result, i expect a kick-back.

serendipity

2004-11-18T14:18:00.000-08:00

serendipity
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

"i love her"

sam's mom once told me that when he was a baby, his eyelashes were so long it looked as if a furry caterpillar was sleeping on his eyes.

he still had lashes like that. i wanted to put mascara on them.

"you love her?"

"yes. and i want to share her with you"

besides those great lashes, sam also had a pure and un-fettered love of PORN, PANCAKES, AND PRO-FOOTBALL.

"okay, let's see her"

he popped "oral addiction" into the vcr, and i got to know christy.

what a delight. she tackled everything put in her mouth (or nether regions) with gusto, like the most delicious and exciting bounty she could ever enjoy.

sam and i spent many hours 'loving' christy together. rented her entire canon at the local 'adventure' video store.

years later, i parted ways with sam and moved to sunny hollywood. there, i met a new best friend, and she confessed that her sister was a famous porn star.

i joked that i probably hadn't heard of her since the only porn maven with whom i was familiar was christy.

triple spit take. that's her sis!

i had no choice but to demand a meeting and a photographed make out session with the delightful christy.

that way, sam could recieve the pics and feel free to 'love' us both any old damn time.

i got your serendipity right here, baby.

"he'll take the small"

2004-11-17T10:57:00.000-08:00

so sayeth the todd, when babycakes ordered a medium drink to go along with his burrito at baja fresh.

"but i want a medium." says bcakes

"they're re-fillable. you'll take the small." todd dismissed the subject with a casual flip of his wrist.

big time spender todd was footing the bill for this comida grande, and as such didn't want to pay medium when you could just get a small and refill till you burst. now, bcakes didn't want to make a big deal out of it. todd was paying and it was pretty trivial. but it nibbled at his mind. foreshadowing.

in time, it would turn out that todd uses a hijaked handicapped sticker to park illegally, switches stickers on merchandise to get a lower price, and stiffs the valets. not a good egg.

the devil is in the details folks. it's in the little moments, where you glimpse what sort of egg you're consorting with.

like the time i had a swooning case for a black haired rugby player with a convertible cabriolet. he finally asked me out. i was walking in front of him and playfully stopped short. hoping for a little collision and maybe the feel of his arms around my shoulders. he said (very seriously)

"be careful. i might have run in to you." and walked wide around me.

i knew then he wasn't for me. but how could i explain that to my friends? it sounded so idiotic. so i waited till he slept with a cheerleader from davis high.

then i dumped him with good reason and a clear conscience.

but seriously, a guy that won't run into you and maybe even tumble you to the ground? no thanks.

...and complete morons are rare

2004-11-15T10:31:00.000-08:00

before we begin our regularly scheduled post, a quote, apropos of something-

"i don't have no problem with your fucking me, but i have a little problem with your not fucking me"

ODB, RIP. the world is now a little less dirtier. and that's a damn shame.

****************************************************************************************************************************

by 6:30, babycakes mom was quietly drunk. she clinked two wine glasses together and said-

"certs is two, two, two, mints in one." on the third clink, the glasses broke. babycakes was always swift and no-nonsense in clean up while i majored in subject changing.

"guess what? aaron's dad, mr. west, he's my new drama professor at the "U".'

mr. west was considered a drama superstar 'round these parts. he had academic cred for starting a successful, non mormon, acting company in salt lake city. his son went to high school with us.

"guess what else? he remembers my performance in 'arsenic and old lace' and he says i'm really good and he invited me to come see him star in this play in salt lake and then we're gonna order pizza and eat it at his house and talk about foreign films and acting! isn't that cool?"

they looked at each other and then at me. so kindly. babycakes' mom started in, slowly, laying out the bread crumbs.

"a grown man, a forty-something teacher, wants to take out an eighteen year old student?"

"yeah. to a PLAY."

"and you don't think he has any designs on you?"

"on me? no way! (giggle blush, he would never) he's like gonna be my mentor."

babycakes couldn't decide whether to laugh or put his foot down.

"maybe you should tell him 'no.' or invite someone to come along."

i appreciated the intervention and all, but not mr. west.

he was pretty good in the play (i wished he were better). we ordered some shmancy pizza with artichoke hearts and went back to his cramped apartment. he popped in "belle du jour" and poured me a glass of wine. (my mind repeating, this is normal, this is grown up, we're gonna talk about acting now)

only somehow he was saying "i love your lusty italian name." and attempting to stick his tongue down my throat.

all i could fumble out was.. "i'm not really, very, lusty" as i stumbled out the door and down the dimly lit staircase.

and they say complete morons are rare.

HA! do you happen to have a bridge for sale? odds are, i'll buy it.

phobia

2004-11-12T13:14:00.000-08:00

it wasn't much of a poem, "phobia." started with a set of sloppy, labored, rhyming couplets-

"as i sit in the cold cruel night
my thoughts and emotions marred with fright
this house a dungeon crude and crass
is like some huge engulfing mass"

yes, it does go on. and on. and the metaphors become more clunky. but i was in eigth grade. whaddaya want? auden, for christsakes? um, er.. sorry. back to the story at hand.

i took the poem up to mrs. whitesides.

"there's no grade on this. why?"

she levelled her permy head me way-

"i believe a student could write a poem of this calibur. just not you."

i misheard her, thought she said that no student could write a poem of this calibur. it made me feel kinda proud. really? no student my age could write a poem of this calibur? i must be really good.

no, no, no, it was me that she didn't believe in. me. the poem wasn't that amazing. i was that worthless.

the thought was so blindisiding, i couldn't even properly defend myself.

in elementary school, i was known as the smart girl. the good girl. teachers felt badly for me because my mom never made it to parent teacher's conferences. they looked after me, got me into a gifted program, gave me lunch money.

my first year of junior high was at a downtown hollywood school, thousands of kids. if you weren't packing a blade or smoking crack in class, you were considered an ace student.

but this was small town utah. and i never noticed, until that moment, how much i spelled like pot smoke, cigarette smoke, and the musky equine of the horse stalls i cleaned every morning before school. i'd been too busy not drowning to notice that the other girls had pretty, clean, hair and matching clothes. they wore fresh, light makeup.

'i did write it." i said lamely.

"okay, fine" she slashed a "D" across the top in red marker. "whatever you say."

it makes me sad to think how floppy and misbegotten i must have appeared then. the type of kid grown ups don't believe in.

it makes me sad that there is a type of kid grown ups don't believe in.

we should do this semi-regularly

2004-11-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

the doomy feelings started in, even as stacie curled my hair into long shiny ringlets and babycakes fed me strawberries. even as my aunties hovered and put finishing touches on my really luscious dewey lipgloss.

ten minutes before the ceremony. slipping into that bone silk dress.

"where's my dad?" nobody knew. they said he should be here. he would be here. but i could feel different. counting down the minutes was a moot point. i knew it would be my grandpa, in his faded air force finest, who would walk me down the aisle. and it was.

two weeks later, after the moon had been honeyed, it was my birthday. dad came over. he was like i'd never seen him. nervous, apologetic, repentent.

it seems a buddy of his had gotten his car stuck in the mud, up in the desert in the middle of the night. dad went to haul him out with his truck, but you know, that desert mud is mighty tough... dad was a mud caked man, knee deep in a broken front axle right about the time i was saying 'i do.'

i couldn't wait to forgive him. couldn't forgive him fast enough. forgave him like it was my job.

we went out to eat and it was like 'dinner, with dad, in a parallel universe' we laughed and he ordered all kinds of silly appetizers and extra entres. he told stories that i found interesting. there was none of the usual hostile sparring followed by dad's grim pronouncement "you and me's gonna have problems, ang." it was a night i would choose to have, anytime.

at my car, he gave me a stiff hug, which became a real, fatherly hug. he said:

"this was real nice. we should do this semi-regularly."

he lit up a smoke and started his truck.

i never saw him again.

rock out with your cock out

2004-11-09T17:29:00.000-08:00

from the lips of the original slave baby maker, thomas jefferson, writ large in 1798...

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

this makes me feel strangely heartened.

no? not working?

hows about this one. yesterday, i was at the coffee shop and this real cute girl with purpley-black lovely hair, a pirate striped shirt and very dark red lipstick was talking on the cell. her tuff chic appearance belied a bubbly young voice. as i walked by her, i heard her giggle into her cell-

"well, you know, i just jam out with my clam out"

viva life!

i really can't be going, i must stay

2004-11-04T17:07:00.000-08:00

the hockey game let out early.

we were eating frittes drenched in mayo, fresh from the free clinic, having a really good discussion with alanis morrisette. (i think she finally gets that '10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife' is not ironic) it was a break-through.

my thoughts were already on later, when i would buy my beaver tail and become ro's bitch. but first, i had to check my email.

and there it was. my thank-you note from john kerry. it began, "Dear Angelia." (oh, that's my birth certificate name) and i started to cry. not because some automated program plugged in my name right after "Dear Adam" and before "Dear Apple". but because i realized there is an adam and an apple and a jen and jen and amanda and will and dan and on and on and on out there.

and it is our country too. and it may have fallen sway to a mutant strain, a virulent fever fed on fear, mistrust, and hatred. it may be in the grips of the GUNS GOD AND GAYS folks. it may have been sold a bill of goods that is an awful, scary lie.

but i had to come home from lovely canada. because this is still our country. and i find so much in it to love daily. and if we can be smarter and work harder and understand and listen... i don't know. just maybe.

and there's always chocolate pudding.

and who would run my sex phone line?

all my american love, folks.

oh canada

2004-11-03T11:35:00.000-08:00

lower east side
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

here's what mona and the boy formerly known as 'heartbreaker, breadmaker', now known as very dear, very gay friend/writing parnter will look like when we flee this blighted land for canada.

coated, hatted, bundled, and layered. ready for maple syrup and chilly goodtimes and nationalized healthcare. ready to embrace strange brew and paul schaeffer but not (oh god, no) celine dion. we'll give her to tennessee as a peace offering.

anyone wishing to join us are welcome. we've purchased a used vw bus a boatload of high grade pot and are planning a new life in the hinterlands.

can you get good thai in vancouver?

she doth protest

2004-10-21T20:38:00.000-07:00

huff.

dainty toe tap tap tap.

petulant incline of the head.

furrowed brow.

quick check of her person. lips? check. full, soft, slightly glisteny. tongue? well, duh, i still have one. breathe? nice. like a georgia peach.

so where did it all go astray? my first birthday since i arrived at kissability with no kisses. nothing deep, searching, playful, urgent, soft, warm, wet, bitey, swelling, hungry, tender, no nothing.

i even waited an extra day. just in case. but now, i have no choice but to put my foot down. somebody's either gotta step up to the plate and put a tongue in my mouth or...

i'll be forced to write across the chest of my tight white ribbed tank top with a black sharpie-

"KISS ME, BITCH!"

-and stand on the corner of sunset and vine until it happens.

then, if i end up smooching on a particularly well hung tranny, or decent smelling hobo, so be it.

don't say you weren't warned.

feliz revolucion!

2004-10-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

he plunked it down with a wide shit eating grin. must've weight fifty pounds. when people 'talk around the water cooler', they do it around one of these. a big ole sparklets water bottle.

filled to the brim with change, mostly the silver stuff, and some wadded up bills.

"happy birthday, moan. double digits, that's a big fucking deal. that's the big time, kid."

"thanks, dad." truth be told, i wasn't so hot at math and didn't comprehend that there were several hundred dollars contained in that birthday gift. it seemed like a kinda dumb present. it sure as hell wasn't a malibu barbie or combat rock. but oh well. i was an ingrate like that.

so we went lost weekend tripping. me, my dad, my step mom in her impossibly teeny short shorts, and dana, my ten year old step-aunt.

the idea was to have an 'ass kicking road trip. laguna beach, wild animal farm, tijuana, and vegas baby.

a quick highlight reel reveals-

my dad almost drown in laguna beach. he kept pushing himself to go out farther and farther until a wave knocked him under and we didn't find him until he washed ashore 20 minutes later. laughing, coughing up seaweed.

at the wild animal farm, he parked his truck between two angry rhinos and baited them until they charged the car.

in tijunana, my dad and terry left dana and me on the avenue de la revolucion where we were greeted by hungry children, men selling firecrackers, and friendly hookers. they finally came back around midnight with the biggest pair of longhorns you ever saw. stuffed to the rim with high grade pot.

as for vegas? what happens in vegas stays in vegas.

didn't you know that?

happy birthday to yours truely. double digits plus, and counting.

hello solopsism, where you been?

2004-10-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

i've heard that the desire to create a weblog is akin to the desire to participate in a reality show, wet tee shirt contest, or other display of wanna be famedom. that the wired world is the perfect place for frustrated fame seekers and exhibitionists. and that's cool, ain't nothing wrong with seeking some sun on your face, a little unconditional love, the chance to be a star in the digital universe.

but i don't think that's anywhere near the whole story. at least not for me. people who know me in the flesh and blood world (methinks) would say that i don't like to share the private stuff, that i hold those cards right up close to the old vest. i've been accused of not letting people in, of helping but not accepting help. of a refusal to be vulnerable.

people who love me have been frustrated that they don't hear about the hard times and heartbreakes until they are long past their ability to sting. until they become fodder for an amusing anecdote. when i'm in it, you don't hear about it.

then i started this site. and the idea was to be vulnerable and put it out there and not fear what others might think or how my words might affect an image people have of me. and it's been beyond the pale wonderful. wonderful and freeing. and the people i've come to know inspire me daily.

here's the rub. how does a private person, who chooses to write in a public arena, share the stuff that's going on-- in real time? hmmm.... i never really learned how. that's why i've been quiet lately. so much swirling. so hard to find the words.

maybe i should invite you all over and we'll drink too much root beer and get silly. lotsa group hugging. then it'll all go south. pudding. ninjas. generalized shenanigans. that's what i'm hoping for.

we all go south.

oh la la....ewwww

2004-10-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

i get it. sort of. short black skirt. off the shoulder lace collar. fishnets. feather duster. i get the somewhat vanilla kinky appeal of a girl gussied up like a french maid. i imagine how a boy would enjoy the various and sundry associations of 'banging the help.' she cleans, but she's dirty. she's a hearty sexy gal, a subserviant with a lust for life and (presumably) your cock.

i even get why a woman might enjoy playing french maid dress up. halloween and beyond. not this woman. but A women. some woman. people must be buying these costumes, cause they're still selling them. and cool, if you wanna play it sexy servant style, have at it.

here's where i become bewildered and bothered.

why in the name of all that is holy do they have french maid costumes in young children's sizes?! what brain trust at the costume factory thought that one up?

"let's see. we've got dorothy from the wizard of oz. and a fairy princess. a pink kitty. and, yes, a li'l french maid! i love it! put it in the box right next to 'mama's little hooker', it's precious."

i don't know of any children who actually long to go into house cleaning as a profession. nor has any child i know ever seen a housekeeper dressed in fish nets and spiked heels. in my neck of the woods they're mostly no-nonsense el salvadoran women.

whose choosing this for their little girl? "here honey, never to young to start shakin' what god gave you."

not me. no siree. i'm going with the matching mommy/daughter lady godiva costumes. 'cause i'm all about family values.

i, me

2004-10-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

i was never a ballerina and i never loved horses.

i don't own or buy a lot of shoes.

i never found a man in uniform to be particularly sexy.

i am not a shopaholic

i am not a chocaholic

i don't love manicures

wait, i am a chocaholic

i don't cry if my pantyhose run

i don't wear pantyhose

i don't think boys are dumb

except the ones who are

i never say 'you go, girl'

yesterday i tried to steal a dessert tortoise from the natural history museum and make him my partner in crime.

i named him diego.

but the security guard caught me and made me give him back

i never did like a man in uniform

at least not today

2004-09-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

she spat the words. "you are a movie snob!"

she was angry. that trembly ragey angry you get just before you deck somebody, pow, right in the kisser. but, we're girls of the non-decking variety, so she contented herself with redfaced yelling.

"hating "titanic" doesn't make me a movie snob. i find it grossly manipulative. it has no heart or soul to speak of, the dialogue is terrible, the characters one dimensional. but it is pretty. and the boat is real big."

we've had this argument countless times. carbon copies. in triplicate. "mr. holland's opus." "ghost." "beaches." stacie loves accusing me of being the type who only likes movies about 'gay cowboys eating pudding'

that's not entirely true (although i do love gays and cowboys and pudding). what moves me (in film, music, books) is the feeling that something alive and human is going on. something real or messy or profound or sexy or sublimely dorky. it doesn't have to be deep. it doesn't have to have a point. i just have to believe there is a heart beating within the work.

unless.... you catch me on a day when my heart is leaky. then, i'll weep at general foods international coffee commercials and listen to lionel ritchie all day.

or a snippet of pop fluff from a six year old's cd will waft into my ears and strike a chord so deep i have to pull the car over.

"YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR HAIR. YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR CLOTHES. IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND. THAT'S THE WAY IT GOES. BUT I'M GONNA KEEP YOUR JEANS. AND YOUR OLD BLACK HAT. YOU'RE NEVER GONNA GET THEM BACK. AT LEAST NOT TODAY."

It strikes me that sometimes, today, you need those old jeans. you need their comfort and their scent. you need to wear them while your shaky hands pour the coffee that feels bitter in your gut. you wear the hat because washing your hair is too much effort. you need those things today.

and one murky afternoon, you'll look down and be wearing new jeans, or maybe a skirt. and you won't even remember having made the choice to change. and you'll realize that your hair is silky and smells like rain and you want to wear it down. and you'll know that you're healing.

and the journey from here to there isn't so terribly long. but it doesn't have to be today.

bollywood or bust

2004-09-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

walking into an open air mall in hollywood today, i encountered a tidy white honda civic. a clean, efficient little vehicle. nothing shmancy, nothing spicy. with indiana plates.

one window painted in bright yellow letters-
CALIFORNIA HERE I COME!

ok. little odd. i keep walking and come around the back. where the entire rear windshield screams-
PRICE IS RIGHT OR HEAVEN!

I'm sorry, come again? Turning towards the passenger window, i spy-
BOB BARKER OR BUST!!!!!!

some optimistic soul, with full coverage insurance and an intrepid spirit braved the journey from indianapolis to the city of angels. he/she washed their car up real pretty and festooned it with rah rah sentiments and came.

for the love of bob barker. i truly hope they got what thir wish. i hope they made it on that show and old man barker kissed their check and they won an amana gas grill. i hope they put their hands in the prints of the stars and felt the california sun warm their faces.

the sweet hopefulness of it makes my my tired heart squiggle a little.

speak my language

2004-09-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

i love it when strangers make a comment which leaves me with absolutely no idea how to respond. case in point.

i'm at the coffee shop this morning, wearing a shirt depicting a very cute pig holding a bouquet of flowers. caption-

PLEASE DON'T EAT ME. I LOVE YOU.

a woman looks over at me, glances at the shirt. says:

"i've read that." and smiles politely, waiting for a reply.

um, er..wha'? i got nuthin'.

life is like that sometimes. even with people i know. we fall out of sync. they seem to be talking in apples; while i'm speaking in dryer lint. we hear the words but can't make the connection. it's an odd sort of disconnect. it may be amusing with strangers, but with loved ones i prefer the comfort and security of knowing that we speak the same language.

at least most of the time.

heartbreaker, breadmaker

2004-09-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

my faith in my soul mate had been gently shaken, not stirred, as of late. yes, all the plus side checkmarks were in place.

*we spend all our free time together
*i platonically stay over night at his house
*he never, ever dates any other girls or even talks about them
*he is terribly smart and funny and good looking and has very tidy fingernails
*i love him and my heart aches sweetly

the fact that we aren't 'dating' is a trifle really. when you meet your soul mate in high school, there are bound to be roadblocks.

but then his older brother threw that party. and ugly dumb face jenny dalton started talking smack about my beloved. (beloved was already in bed, with cooling gel mask on his eyes to avoid puffiness) jenny spouts off to me and about 20 other party guests that she has deduced, based on incontrovertible evidence that-

he is gay. why? "because", says jenny dumb face "i was over here the other night, sleeping with cameron (his brother) and he came upstairs IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT to bake bread. that's gay."

i looked around the crowd and they seemed to nod, yes, this makes sense. but i didn't think it made sense at all. lots of guys bake bread. it isn't necessarily unmanly. right?

the next day, i warned him of the accusations. at our small town, narrow minded, whitey white, mormon high school, being gay was foreign and scary and not a place any of the kids wanted to be. this was before will and grace. he denied it. i told him that i would be his best friend gay or no, that i didn't care about all that stuff. he said that he definitely wasn't. and did i want to stay over tonight?

did i? does a submissive bottom love a good top?

i layed in his bed, wearing boxers and a tee shirt, flipping through his spanish journal. the page fell open to a check, that practiced writing in spanish. it was for 1 million dollars, pay to the order of my first name with his last name. mrs. mona beloved.

i never felt so sexy or happy in my whole life. i took off my shirt to surprise him when he came in....

the rest is too sad and embarrassing to recount.

but i have an absolutely fabulous friend.

servo? crow? joel? mike? come back!

2004-09-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

i thought i was getting by okay without new installments of the wonderful, amazing, sublime mystery science theater 3000. after all, i have my dvds, cd songfests, and my memories of the bots and the boys. and gypsy, of-course. but then i saw a dvd so bad. so awful, that it became tasty beyond the words to describe it. THE BROTHERHOOD calls out for the kind of dissing only mst3k can provide.

we tried valiantly to mock it ourselves. did a fair to midling job. there was so much to work with. pseudo homo erotic frat boys who are really vampires? a thriller with no thrills? no sex? no real nudity? idiotic, slow paced dialogue? and production values that showcase someone's ability to get vast amounts of dry ice at cost?

my only hope is that you will watch it, revel in the joy of truely horrific filmaking. and mock it with someone you love. then rent 'brotherhood II' and brotherhood III' and invite me over.

boozy sluts and mistletoe

2004-09-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

here's why you don't let me drink. i am a boozy slut. it's sad, really. kind of gimmicky. like the whole 'not getting gremlins wet' thing. it sounds lame and made up. like a quirk you'd give yourself in an effort to seem more interesting.

yet it's true. i can't hold my liquor. it makes me all sexxed up and wanton and prone to make mistakes and be indiscreet.

he invites me to a christmas party. we're not an item, just a couple of good friends who are growing increasingly tingly around one another. immediately, there are jello shots. i don't really drink, but it's jello and almost yuletide, so i partake. he looks so damn cute tonight. i'm remembering laughing in his car until 4 a.m. the other morning. and how i couldn't think of a way to kiss him.

i spy the mistletoe and say (oh so subtle, oh so smooth) "you should go stand under it and see if anyone kisses you."

he does and i do. the rest of the party is a haze of booze and smooching and people inviting us to 'come back tuesday night and make out in the hallway again.' sure, we'll come back tuesday!

then, we're back at his place with a few friends. they smoke out, i don't. he rests a hand, nice and easy on my bare leg and i lay my head on his shoulder. everyone chatters around us. but we are still. finally, i get up and say that i should go, but (ready, here's another smooth line) "hey, i've never seen your bedroom, you should show me"

he tumbles me onto the bed. we don't go for the whole show, but i drop my blue ribbon 'butterly' move on him. and he's real happy. we cuddle. but i start to feel sober. in both senses of the word. i say "i have to go." he wraps his arms tight around me.

"don't leave" he holds me and looks full into my face. "stay"

but i go.

policeman + rubber + picture + sex

2004-09-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

when a person has a very special love for the wired world, she and the wired world may choose to start a weblog together. and it is a beautiful thing. but if that person has a narcissistic nature, she may soon feel the nasty tendrils of envy wrapping around her burnt cookie heart. this may happen when other webfriends flaunt all the racy/sexy/deamening ways people google to find their site.

licking homo soap. making homemade vaginas. getting straight friends into bed. being a rubber panty pisser or submissive bottom boy. "wow!" this person may think. "i love those sites. i'm so happy for them. but, i wish people found my little home by entering "butt fuck sluts go nuts."

then, that person will cry. and she will reflect on the wonderful velvet underground lyric "if you're looking for a good time charlie, that's not really who i am. good times seem to pass me by."

then, she'll decide she likes her homely little site. with it's glasses and faded granny wallpaper.

then, she'll check her sitemeter and read that she was found by-

POLICEMAN + RUBBER + PICTURE + SEX... and she'll say a silent 'thank you' to the internet gods for such bounty.

then, she'll go back to daydreaming about tattoos and confessions and trips to mexico in fast cars with sweet boys.

everything i needed to learn i learned from winona ryder

2004-09-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

my standard response to a friend or loved one in need is a) offer a shoulder (or supple breast) to cry on and b) offer this sage advice- "what you need is six inches of bod and a great summer" (sixteen candles)

i never learned none of them 'idle hands are the devil's work' type axioms for a life well lived from my folks. and i never read good books until high school (when it was too late) instead, i culled my philosophical type knowledge from exhaustive movie and t.v. watching.

this is why i am retarded. but these are the words i live my life by.

different strokes- 'never mix wine and ice cream, when in the presence of a pedophile.'

ferris buehler's day off- "you never respect anyone who kisses your ass." i never kiss ass. except under very special circumstances, mmm.

the heathers- "i love my dead, gay son." i do love me the gays, always have.

say anything- "i don't want to sell anything bought, sold, or processed." words to live by. and stay impoverished by. and cherish, while eating 19 cent ramen.

the jerk- "i'm picking out a thermos for you. not an ordinary thermos will do. but the extra best thermos money can buy, with vinyl and stripes and a cup built right in." my paradigm for true love.

if he won't pick you out a thermos, he ain't worth the trouble.

thanks, pop culture!

gimme freebird or gimme death!

2004-09-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

i finish teaching my spinning (not in circles, noy whirling dervishes) class. it's bleakly so cal hot. i rode into the wall of heat, poured sweat, and assaulted it with my baddest ass cd mix. now, i'm spent, headachy, hungry. the mona cranky-meter is set to 11. but then, a ray of moonlight sunshine, dressed in tight biking shorts and a u.s. postal service jersey pulls me aside.

moonlight sunshine man- "i didn't want to do this in front of the class, because i'm respectful.'

me- "oh, what is it?"

m.s.m.- "you know the phrase 'music makes the class?' yours ruins it. nobody wants that head banger or rap stuff. people want music with a beat, something uplifting."

me- "mmm?"

m.s.m.- "something like 93.3 classic rock. or maybe 95.7 the beat. contemporary music. have you heard of the internet? you could download wonderful music and have a nice little class. one day. are you hearing me?"

me- "mmm-hmmm."

m.s.m.- but when you get that new mix. with some skynnard. it'll be great. sure you'll lose the 18 year olds. but who wants them?"

with that, moonlight sunshine man vanishes back into hell's oven night.

gimme all the bad, unsolicited advice you have to offer. come on, you've got some. or maybe you'd just like a copy of my malformed 'head banging/rap' cd? don't think i won't send it over. i will.

or maybe you're looking for a date. i'm pretty sure mr. sunshine's single.

try tv/vcr repair... please?

2004-09-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

do you want to make more money? sure, we all do.

i took a break from the crushing my heart's been taking this week for some frozen yogurt. it was frosty, fat free, and lent me the opportunity to peruse my other favorite junk food, the l.a. weekly. for those not in the know- it's an uber liberal free paper funded mostly by ads for breast augmentation and botox.

found myself unwittingly fascinated by the 'adult massage' ads.

your basic- "very erotic nude massage with ultimate hapy ending." direct. to the point. fine.

your icky trying-for-porno style- "'i'm wet just thinking about you, cum feel my x-rated ways." whatevah.

then, this new breed. a striving, faux creative, orverworked metaphor kind of thing.

"my chocolate pudding is so sweet, so intensely warm and deep, that plunging into it will be like driving a brand new range rover into a hot fudge sundae." OR

"my love hole is filled with exciting gifts. 1 hour spent inside will be like being thrown out of a car going 400 miles an hour."

wahh? is that, uh, good? who are these girls? creative writing foreign exchange students gone bad? thwarted romance novelists? and why are they trying so damn hard? it makes me sad to see all that energy and misplaced work ethic wasted on ads for $27 massages with release.

i know. what's a 22 yr old trinadadian hottie with DD bust, who is 'tight all over' supposed to do for a living?

two words. sally struthers.

coolest muthafucka'

2004-08-30T16:32:00.000-07:00

he's ridin' that painted pony across a crested butte. gently stoned and trading swipes at a rattlesnake with jim morrisson. he looks down and discovers my trash talkin, 'downer' stories. and he's kinda pissed. who am i to harsh his afterworld gig? we made our peace before he moved on. stiff hugs were exchanged.

so here's a story. about a girl, who, for one afternoon, thinks her dad is the coolest motherfuckin' dude in the universe.

dad loves the soft girliness of his wife, terry. she's slender and honey skinned and smells like almond lotion. she makes him sandwiches just so and he adores her. he wants to get her a real good birthday gift. a trip to z.c.m.i. (think mormon macy's) is in order.

he chooses a deluxe halston set- eau de parfum, lotion, and powder. dad knows he's found the filly something good. add that to a couple hundred cash and the steak dinner he's swinging her way later tonight and it should be a sweet 28th. since it's common knowledge that i can't 'wrap for shit' and, as a man, he is incapable of doing any job requiring the tying of a festive bow, we decide to pop for professional wrapping.

brightly papered gifts hang on the display wall. white on white. floral patterns with raffia. baby pinks and blues. a warm, chunky lady asks which wrap we'd like. my dad gives each sample its due, looks 'em over real good, and makes his choice.

"gimme that bad boy right there, if ya would, #3."

#3. blue background. teddy bears floating high, chubby cub paws holding yellow and pink balloons. puffy pale yellow bow.

she balks. "that's baby paper. you can't put perfume on babies. they'll get allergic."

"perfume's for the old lady. my wife."

she tilts her head, like you might at a rather dim witted dog. "then you don't want baby paper. you want #2, the one with flowers. that's the one for wives or girlfriends. that's real pretty. okay, hun?"

he looks back, mellow, but unswayed. "no thanks. i think those bears are real cute. terry's gonna think so too."

for some reason, this response makes wrapping gal really miffed. as if cats and dogs are suddenly living together in sin. the people behind us in line are beginning to grumble too. and snicker.

"but you can't! it's not done. you don't get BABY paper for a grown woman."

"i'll take good old #3." he slides her a $20 and lights up an unfiltered marlbrough.

she shrieks. "no smoking in here!"

he takes a long drag and on the exhale says- "and woulya change the bow to pink? terry loves pink."

it's one thing to rebel against the straights, the squares, the rubes. to flash 'em the middle finger and a shit eating grin. but this was something all together different. my dad wasn't actively being a jerk, he wasn't trying to piss this woman off, or fly in the face of convention. it wouldn't occur to him that there was a right or wrong way to pick paper. or to be embarrassed by his choice.

he just really liked those damned teddy bears. and god bless him for it.

cats and rats

2004-08-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

flames lick and lap and scorch and seeth. carrie's face is slick and oily. her mother raises the knife in a final death arc. as she swoops- BANG!

i jolt and scream. stare at the t.v. screen to verify. no, carrie's mom didn't suddenly pull out a glock. she stabbed her eerie kid. but i heard a gunshout. a loud retort coming from my living room. scared witless, i whisper call- "terry?"

laughter flows through her voice as she calls back "it's okay, honey, come out here."

a large round hole now resides in the sliding glass door. golden goofily holds a shot gun. my dad and terry drunkenly behold his handiwork. "goddamn if that thing didn't just go off."

i put a finger up to the jagged hole. peer through to the pasture. and spot it. a little calico cat.

"dad, look, there's a cat in the pasture."

he quick grabs the shotgun from golden and tears open the screen door. "BAM BAM BAM" i don't look, but i know the cat got dead for sure.

i give my dad the death stare. the stare reserved for well.. cat killers and puppy stranglers. he squares off his jaw and gives me a hard look back.

"you sent that cat to his grave."

"no."

"oh yeah, you did, kid. you ratted him out. nobody likes a rat. remember that."

i never did quite figure out the lesson in that one. but i never alerted my dad to the presence of barnyard animals again, either.

so there's that.

5 second woman

2004-08-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

something's in the air. something vaguely sexual and fumbling. nostalgia, but with a wince and an afterburn. check out dan or will for excellent examples.

now me, i knew that peeing had no correllation with pregnancy. and i never attempted to fashion a raging penis out of, say, a toilet paper roll and clay. i had a firm bookish knowledge of sex. i started my nightly self-investigations and found them to be good times indeed. one hitch. it felt okay, no great shakes, until the end, then it felt really really tingly awesome for about 5 seconds. then i was sleepy.

i thought that i was only getting it right during that last 5 seconds and that if i could just try harder and do it better, then it would feel really tingly awesome the whole time. when i heard the word 'orgasm' i thought that was some separate dimension of yumminess that i had yet to experience. and i couldn't wait to get there.

maybe only a boy could unlock that level of mind blowing pleasure? well, i'm pleased as punch to say boys have added crazy levels of delight and wonder- warm and honest raunch, dirty talk with someone you love, multiple o's, confessions and kinks and all kinds of adventure, giggles till i burst, sweaty cuddles and confidences.

but at the end of the day (or night) or after the party, or when we start the car back up... i'm still sleepy. and i never have discovered the secret of making the BIG TIME TINGLE last the whole time.

probably only 'call me tantric' sting has the answer to that one.

*this post has been edited from its original form.

a modest plea for decency

2004-08-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

i've officially reached the level of nakedness anyone can be expected to endure in a gym locker room setting.

heartened by the musings of a certain lovely snowflake, i'd taken a new approach to the the locker routine. not cover my freshly showered nudiness, not shy away from the other women shedding their sweaty sports bras all around me. find comfort in the delightful variety that is the woman's body. normally i only enjoy nakedness a) alone 2) with a boy of equal nudity, or as you know, x) for SS photoshoots.

but i was ON BOARD the gym flesh train..... then along came anne.

before you even start your dirty minds surmising... yes, she is sixty plus. no, her body is not a greek paradigm. but these are not at issue. the issue is the vast amount of time anne spends, totally nude having long conversations involving chicken soup recipes. she stands, makes eye contact, and rubs bath'nbody shimmer lotion deeply into her upper thighs. you can't look. you can't not look. she goes to work on the breasts...

it becomes a test of wills. how long can i stand here, chattering away with the nude granny? answer? 'a long fucking time because she never shuts up and refuses to even put on a bra and panties. for chrissakes!'

couple that with the fact that i'm not good at cutting someone short if they really want to talk and you've got a recipe for horror. horror i tell you.

yes, the nakedness lasts all the way through hair and makeup. no, there is no escape.

didgeridoo you

2004-08-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

you that whole thing where saliere was a second rate musician with the uncanny ability to recoginze musical genuis? his undoing lay in the fact that he knew and loved brilliance, but couldn't reproduce it. thus he became bitter (and some say) homocidal against his rival, the enfante terrible mozart.

i don't want to put the hurt on tom waits or dylan or mike watt or the clash (the living members) et all, but i do feel awed in the presence of music. it's a language i love but can't speak. i'm hopelessly tone deaf. mathematically, i don't understand chord progressions. even lyrically, the structure of popular music eludes me. i adore it blindly, in total faith that what i love is good. and in the knowledge that i can't create it myself.

but wait! now me, the musical muggle, can make the sweet magic of music. and you can too. songs to wear pants to will do it for you. just take that fabulous idea you had for a song, send it to them, and voila! you're in. check out some other budding westerburg's ideas-

"write a song about my wife and how she always lies...it should be in her most hated genre, teen angst rock."

"make a song about baking. possibly the process of making cupcakes. mention something about pink frosting 30 seconds into the song and sprinkles 60 seconds into the song."

"make a song about a polar bear fighting a unicorn, preferably early 80's rap."

the doors to the universe are suddenly wide open. of what shall i write? and you?

i smell bacon

2004-08-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

"i hate cows." i didn't hate cows so i marked 'false.' good thing for me because a 'true' answer on that one indicates sociopathic tendencies. "i believe other people can hear my thoughts" paranoid pschyzophrenia. "i want to go steady with young boys" you get the picture.

we were the control group- the "mentally healthy" kids. our scores would be judged against the crazies over at the mowita teen correctional facility. and i did pretty well. until this question. "i feel guilty in the presence of police officers." my answer- "hell yes"

i harbour a deep fear and loathing of utah cops. maybe it's cause they sent my pappy to prison. or maybe it's all the years of pappy calling them alternately 'the pigs' or 'the fuzz' with spitting venom. but everytime i see a roller. even though i am a female, of the milky white variety, driving the speed limit in my mom's '03 dodge stratus, i break into a cold sweat. convinced a kilo of black tar heroin has appeared in my glove box. a dead body in my trunk.

speaking of trunks. i took a certain boy up on his offer to 'tempt fat' and well, the rough trade went slightly astray. he ended up naked, bound and gagged in my mom's trunk with nothing but a box of ho hos and nudie pics of chloris leachman for company. luckily he discovered the 'child safety latch' and was able to escape to safety.

i eluded the pigs and am now back in the bosom of my loving l.a. and no-one sent me any porn. fie on you!

dispatches from zion

2004-08-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

i'll be spending the next week behind the zion curtain. (that's utah for the uninitiated).

i'm all a tingle just pondering it. so much jello with shredded carrots. so many white people. so much opportunity to convert to a religion which seriously believes black people were descended from cain. squeaky clean chain restaurants. mom. three sets of grandparents, all of whom, though much beloved are basically sitting quietly in their coffins waiting for the end.

it's gonna be a wild ride. look forward to some nice, juicy, potentially angst ridden messages from the other side.

oh and wish me luck. and be afraid. be very afraid..

(and if you have any porn to send along, you know just to get me through till i'm back in the land of sin and skin)

li'l punkins

2004-08-13T09:38:00.000-07:00

his mom made us matching pumpkin costumes. fat and ripe and boldly orange with green stem hats and tights. but, then i went to thrifty's with my mom and they had this cute kitty cat mask. i badgered her until she bought it for me.

when he opened the door, in all is pumpkiny glory, and saw me.. black leotard, black tights, cat mask... he burst into tears. bitter, bereft tears. i never saw anyone look so sad. but i refused to let it penetrate. because i felt so cute as a black cat. and because he wasn't the boss of me. i tossed my head and pretended like he was being ridiculous.

i loved shane more than anyone. when our moms said we were too big to go to the bathroom together, i would hide in the shower while he peed. then we'd switch places. we couldn't stand to be apart. we shared the same birthday and countless matching cakes. raggedy ann and andy. cinderella and her prince. we even pledged to get married when we were old, like 19.

i didn't let myself feel bad at the time. but years later, after the call came. the 3 a.m. call. the one where his mom says "he's gone." and i say "where?" before it hits. i kept thinking about breaking the boy's heart on our 5th halloween.

i wish i had a 'way before' machine and could go back and wear that damned pumpkin costume. or at least offer him an apology.

or maybe i'll just work harder on keeping my word true and my heart soft.

shillin' for the luftwaffe

2004-08-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

frau pornmistress
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

i step out of the yummyhot shower onto cold tile. rush over to stoke up the old fashioned thermodore heater. watch the little coils burn red. i heart thermodores.

it's real cold so i stand really close. drop my towel. turn around and... is that steak frying? no. it's my ass. singed onto the damned heater. i jump around. squealing. swatting at my booty as if it's actually on fire.

i quick call the badass cowboy and demand that he look at it. stat. he checks it over and confirms.

i have a nazi swastika branded on my ass. the grill work of the thermodore has betrayed my person and singed itself into the symbol of facist hate.

now, there's nothing left for me to do but take up a lucrative career as an ss porn model.

teacher's pride

2004-08-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

i've got the kinda depth that can only be measured in a charge. that's why i don't bother with the likes of harper's, atlantic monthly, even people. no. i'm strictly a disney adventures gal.

this month features the spread- "Stars pick their top tunes and we say 'rock on'!" *note. stars is a term used veery loosely and includes the girl from spy kids and an animated naked mole rat. (and oddly, fidel castro) i know this ain't my crowd. and i'm not expecting aaron carter to leave off busting up paris hilton long enough to vote for 'pixies, gouge away.' but, i say 'bring it.'

charmingly, lindsay (look, boobs!) lohan votes for madonna's holiday. avril lavigne postures with CCR's bad moon rising. stitch makes a good call with elvis costello's almost blue.

then, there's christy carlson romano (don't ask, doesn't matter). she choses "teacher's pet." "the send up number done to backwater perfection by parker posey in waiting for guffman?" you ask. no. teacher's pet by christy muthafuckin carlson romano. she dug her bony little fingers into the rich gorgeous crushing ore of rock music and could only retrieve... her own song.

good god. i don't put myself in the top three of any all time list. including my own 'top three sexual partners.' and i'm really good.

dosoevsky, who had the actual cred. who was roulette adled, and vodka soaked, and an epileptic bastard. still, never heard him listing "oh, let's see, ana karenina and... brothers karamozov, now that's a great book." because he wasn't a total fucking jerkoff.

or maybe she's just a gal. with a dream. and a whole lot of pride in her work.

oedipus no more

2004-08-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

the greeks sought fit to outfit all their really good tragic heros with the flaw of hubris. excessive pride. and i'm pretty sure the other book, you know, the one from hotels? warns sternly about how 'great pride goeth before a fall.'

and then you have gary coleman. at one point, mid-seventies, he was aflush with pride. rolling in cash. giving it but good to the ladies (i'm not sure about that one) but then, the intervening years. the cartoonish 'cameos' on bad shows. the stint as a securty guard. the failed bid for governor. his pride has been chipped away to the point where it don't even enter the picture.

gary coleman has entered some kind of zen like, pride free zone. he openly does commercials about how he 'used to make millions of dollars' but that recently he found himself in 'a bit of financial trouble' and turned to cash quick for help. they wired 3,000 to his bank account. THE NEXT DAY. he urges us to do the same.

gary ain't gonna be gouging out his eyes with a brooche anytime soon. no, gary's just happy to make a buck and maybe help out the rest of us with some sound finanancial advice.

lesson learned. free self from pride. live happily in shame.

studio rock city

2004-08-09T09:16:00.000-07:00

star dog
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

one through-the-looking-glass-element of having a child in l.a. is that she might resonably be expected to attend school with, say, paul stanley's(KISS, aw yeah) kid.

if you disregard the large mane of dyed black hair. the coiffed, archy eyebrows. the overly heeled boots. and the tricked out mercedes he rolls.... paul is just a guy playing at being a parent, like the rest of us.

we all conduct this intricate, victorian manners play around him. paul plays like we don't know that he's a "nominal hair rock god" and we pretend that he doesn't know that we really know. you try ignoring the 300 pound star child in the room. it's weird.

a surprising amount of folks have a KISS story in their childhood vaults. one dad told me that he dressed up as paul every halloween from ages 6-12. try swallowing that one while chatting about school beautification with the man.

i was too little when they were really big. even when they made the 'lick it up' comeback, sans makeup, i was a kid. and a bratty, punk rock kid at that.

but then i spent a summer in utah with dana and her big sisters. they thought it would be 'fun' to dress us up, get us plastered, and take us to a KISS concert.

dana's big sister drove a nissan nx with the vanity plate TART. we drove the whole way with open beers and motley crue blasting. my brain and lipstick felt sloppy. i warbled on plastic heels.

the last thing i remember was standing on a metal folding chair while gene simmons told a story about some 'sleaze bag' claiming that he was the father of his baby and-
"that baby had the longest tongue i ever seen!"

the crowd cheered with wild approval. yay for getting chicks pregnant! yay for your big tongue!

i woozed and fell over, striking my head on the chair. i slept comfortably until dana found me sometime after the show.

i'm tellin' that one to paul next time we work lunch line together.

miss scarlet, in the billiard room, with a...

2004-08-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

since we’re on the subject. i have a friend who worked as ‘making with the sexy talk’ phone girl. Kegan’s the first woman I ever met who pegged her boyfriend. a born actress and smut peddler, she actually found the job kind of fun and kicky. even felt like she was doing some good, spreading some love, without having to spread her legs. and forget what you’ve heard about phone sex operators, she’s hotty hot hot.

why did she give up the gig? just plum ran out of story ideas. if only she had harpers. she could still be making lonely men come for pennies on the dollar.

***surefire formula for hot phone sex relations:

“ONE TYPICAL THING/PLACE+ ONE SEXUAL ACT+ ONE SEXY CHARACTER= SEXY STORY

TYPICAL THINGS
Going to the bank
Shopping
On an airplane
In the bookstore
In your parents basement
Visiting the doctor/dentist/therapist

SEXUAL ACTS
Gave hand job/fingered
Fucked
Had people watch
Had anal sex
Had an orgy
Was in a gang bang

TYPICAL CHARACTERS
Landlord
Little brother’s nerdy friend
Boyfriend’s dad
Delivery guy
Total stranger from bus/train/gym/coffee shop
Cop that pulled you over
Dog or animal of choice”

try it out for yourselves. It’s fun! like clue, only with a happy ending. i’ll take an airplane, having an orgy, with the landlord from three’s company and erkel.

now where's the quick and easy equation for the rest of life's woes?

all this hot burlesque

2004-08-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

2, 4, 6, 8
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

sweet lord jesus god how i loved the '976' numbers. sunny, the sanders twins, and i discovered the ads in the back of an newspaper my mom brought back from l.a. we took turns calling the 'hot anal', 'kinky sexxxx', and 'high romance' lines. laughing. feeling brutally naughty. (this was the land of zion) all in good fun.

when they went home, i got serious. my favorite parts of these magical, x-rated wonderlands-

*they were pre-recorded messages, so i didn't have to embarrass my 14 yr old self trying to talk nasty to some sweaty dude in his basement

*they were awesome. i learned everything about sexuality, completely wrong, and discovered all sorts of lovely things about my bod while doing it.

BEST PHONE LINE- a group of lusty cheerleaders cheering- "2, 4, 6, 8, kinky sex is really great! press 9!" i always pressed 9.

my good time ride came to an end with the phone phone bill. mom's refused to pay it. i had no job. so we became that really cool 'eccentric' family without a land line.

and it was totally worth it. now where are those cheerleaders? and the sausage delivery guy?

losing the thread

2004-08-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

my memory clicks on mid scene. the brown corduroy couch scratches my bare legs. a fancy, cut glass candy dish rests on the coffee table. i’m wondering if i can take some. the kids- donna, john, and james- aren’t having any. so i don’t either. even though i love candy.

it’s quiet. my mom smokes and makes barely audible small talk with the birdlike mother. i think she looks funny next to the dad. who looks like a bear with orange hair.

my mom stands and says- “it’s time to go.”

i’m at the doorway watching her walk to the car. she has to get something. she comes back with my orange and yellow flowered suitcase. i start to feel doomy. “why did you bring my suitcase?”

“i’m going. you’re staying here.” i don’t ask for how long. i don’t ask why. i just stand in the doorway and watch her malibu pull down the drive.

to be six is to have a swiss cheese memory. plenty of holes, dropping out places, spots where the narrative loses its thread. the memories i do have are visceral. i feel them. smell them. like a lit cigarette on skin.

eating my first bowl of captain crunch. it sounds so loud in my ears. i try to chew more quietly but it’s no use. why don’t the others crunch so loud? why do they keep saying ‘frog’ instead of ‘fart?’ why do they sit around a dining room table instead of eating in the living room?

standing in the bedroom i share with donna. john walks in. he says “i think you’re the most beautiful girl i’ve ever seen.”

i don’t love john. i love james because his hair is silky and blond and he can hang upside down from the tree. so i say “we’ll be late for church.”

riding a bike, fast, down the street. i jam back on the pedal breaks and fly over the handlebars. smashing my face into the blacktop. a man waters his lawn with a hose. he says “you look hurt. we better go get your mom.”

i wipe blood from my eyes. i cry. spit blood out to speak. “i don’t know where she is.”

i spent all of first grade at that house in riverside. but my school life is blank. and i never could recall donna, john, and james’ parents’ first names. my last memory is burning up the freeway on the back of the dad’s harley. he tells me we’re going home to my mother.

i’m not sure if I’m happy.

god bless my underwear*

2004-08-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

i've always thought of denmark as an erotic, chilly, alcoholic land. a place of cold deer and colder beer. but what i didn't think of was how insane their children are.

a children's song from DENMARK

"if or if not my butt was pointy
and filled with lemonade,
then you my friends could lick it
until my buttocks were flat"

are they advocating the licking of buttocks for procurement of lemonade? do we all secretly have lemonade in our buttocks? or just the danes? did hamlet have lemoney goodness in his booty or was he too busy being moody (sorry, i know)

how does this effect the lemonade stand business in denmark?

can one of my friends of the hebrew persuasion 'splain this one? children's song from ISRAEL

"steve, the fat guy
within his stomach there's a child
what's the child's name?
steve the fat guy!"

huh wah? isn't there an old greek story where some dude eats his babies?

aren't you glad to be an american right now? "the batmobile has lost his wheel and robin laid an egg..."

*collected for the global schoolyard rhyme project check out a full listing

jingle jangle

2004-07-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

best friends. summertime girls. dancing along the edges of the surf.

naming waves. "metapod" "little big one". giggling and giddy.

sitting down in the gathering foam and calling it horses. or maybe it was unicorns. there's a legend about the breaking foam of the sea and the extinction of said creatures.

slim strikes a kitty cat pose in the shallows. bess stands a few feet back.

behind slim a wave swells big. i call to her "stand up." but the ocean's roar fills her ears.

i start to run as it breaks over her. my eyes lock on the space where she went under. i run, but don't feel my feet touching down. or the cold beat of the water against my legs. the jingle jangle of a crowded beach falls silent in my ears.

i'm there now. but she isn't. the water swirling and sandy. foamy and breaking anew. i search with my eyes and hands.
the tide goes out as i find her hair. pull her up. her face and hair caked in wet sand. water pours from her nose.

she says "that was weird." her voice breaking.

i instinctively try to pick her up. she swats my arms away like bothersome flies. she's already walking away. calling to bess.

"let's look for sand crabs."

existential dread

2004-07-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

the delicious one (ew)
Originally uploaded by imperialviolet.

the main benefit of being a lower order animal is not knowing that you are going to die.

dogs to not have existential dread. they hump legs. they sniff and chase balls. it's all good.

why do we insist on bestowing human characteristics upon them?

i cried like a baby, in charlotte's web, when wilbur ran around crying 'i don't want to die!'

now we've got that hot dog running for his life, in a blind panic, pursued by the hungry masses.

we, the consumer, are supposed to watch his flight and think 'poor hot dog. he really wants to live. where's them mustard?'

then you've got the chick-fil-a cows selling out their foul bretheren in a vain attempt to prevent their own demise, a la 'eat more chicken.' what do cows know about the subtle art of the double cross?

what i find particularly strange are the 'charming' characters. california raisins. foghorn leghorn for kfc. they seem to be saying 'i sing, i dance, i put seltzer down my pants. now bite my face off.'

i'm no marketeer (or mouseketeer for that matter) but can't they just say, 'it's a hamburger. it's reasonably priced. buy it.' and leave the whole animorph thing out of it?

the only thing worse is when non-meat eaters attempt to force a vegetarian lifestyle on their carnivorous pets.

they're animals. let them eat meat. or pooh. or whatever.

let them live and die and not contemplate the great herafter.

and let them be delicious.

the promised land

2004-07-27T10:56:00.000-07:00

bollocks to brigadoon. niet to nirvana. something bitchy with a 'v' to valhalla.

i want ROUGH AND READY ISLAND. it is a real place. saw the green highway sign for it and everything. somewhere in the dead zone of mid-central california, there is an oasis. 'a courtyard of violets in bloom'. pretty sure animals strike curious poses.

but what wonders really await me at ruff'n'ready island? i can only dream.

*leather boys, of-course. (hopefully bi-curious, so i can get in on the action)

*stiletto heeled girls with riding crops and crimson lips

*funnel cake (hope hope)

*lagoons and impossibly clear blue water and love sweet love

*pirates

heres what i think, we all pile in the family car and take ourselves a trip to the promised land.

whose with me?

life lessons from a compassionate dictator

2004-07-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

my dad ran a solid dictatorship.

"now, i ain't got nothing against your mother. she's a good woman. but you have to raise a kid. you have to have rules and order. discipline. shit like that. or else they turn out like you."

my willfull, smart alecky attitude had to go. as did my slovenly dress and personal appearance. ditto, my lack of work ethic.

dad developed a 'chore rotation.' i couldn't go play at dana's until all chores were properly conducted. my workmanship checked for shoddiness.

the ping pong table, in the garage heaped with fresh bundles of pot. a separate table held plastic baggies, twist ties, and a scale. i quickly learned how to sort stem and seed, to weigh and bag in proper amounts. it wasn't bad work and dad always provided lots of loud doors music for company.

dad would stop in to check on me, muse about 'on the job training.'

sometimes my smart mouth got me into trouble. i'd wind up mucking out the horses stalls. once, for calling my dad a 'stupid shithead' i earned the job of washing and cleaning the labels off of a thousand beer bottles. dad was also a budding beer brewing magnate.

i'm still mostly willfull and slovenly. but i never leave the house without making my bed, brushing my teeth, and at least taking a half hearted swipe at the cat box.

thanks dad.

(not a) red hooded sweatshirt

2004-07-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

i own a certain item:

*black, like my heart
*small, like my mind
*tight, like my (whoa now)

it is, simply, the best tee shirt ever made or worn by any person, foreign or domestic. period.

clash's first album cover emblazoned across the front. i feel super sexxy in it. a boy's medium, it fits tight across the boobs. so the girls look real good.

this shirt makes me feel dangerous.

like a dame what could break your heart. or at the very least, a dame who might not show up with soup when you're sick.

the clash tee is my linus style security blanket. i've even avoided over-wearing so as not to dull it's magic power.

but now, after much love, and several years. it's faded to a dingy grey. lost that tight luster. a pinprick armpit whole, now a gaping wound.

let langston worry about what happens to a dream deferred. i need to know about a tee shirt deferred. how do i do right by joe (r.i.p.) and the boys?

does anyone know of a kind, loving home for past their prime punk rock tees? mention the anaheim hard rock cafe, and i will be forced to deliver a mouth punching.

i'm that dangerous.

jelly roll morton's jelly roll

2004-07-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

fie on you, fred 62!

a pox on your comfy booths filled with pointily shod, trucker capped diners.

damn your jukebox. so delicious. creating a world where the new york dolls can live side by side with husker du and hank williams, in harmony. (no, we'll leave the jukebox alone)

it's true, i love your home made pop tarts. warmed and topped with melty ice cream. but i'm through with you, see? because you insist on giving perfectly good menu items ridiculous, kitchy, and ironic names.

*devo'-lution salad?

*thai cobb?

*freddy's five fingered dime bag?

why? why? whimsy? nah. these names are designed to make we, the customer, look and feel like asses. a grown human should not be expected to say the words 'belly buster meltdown'.

i'm checking out of this hipster hotel. moving on down to denny's. where i can point to the simple menu and order that one eggy dish. and the bouffant haired waitress will say-

"'moons over my hammy?"

doh!

joan of bellevue

2004-07-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

i could never be a saint, prophet, zealot, or any other sort of spiritual visionary. it goes way beyond my penchant for cock picks and leading priests wayward.

anne tugged on the little medallion around my neck. "a st. christopher medal. the patron saint of travel."

this medal is a gift from my sweet, sweet grandfather. the man who still sings me 'i love you, a bushel and a peck', years after an unfortunate misunderstanding between himself, a car, a locked garage, and copious amounts of carbon monoxide left most of his brain cells inert. i didn't even know st. christopher had anything to do with the travel industry.

anne said "one day, christopher was sailing on choppy seas, when he suddenly saw the baby jesus on his shoulder. baby yahwe guided chris to safety."

history is peopled with and often forged by 'visionaries'. those who flout the persistence of logic and their peers, in the larger belief that god speaks to them, guides them, appears in bushes, and on their shoulders. but i lack the belief in my brain as a steel trap incapable of sending me down the crazy river.

if the day comes when i'm driving down santa monica, relaxing, thinking about cheese. and i look in the rearview to see baby jesus resting gently on my shoulder... i will affirm

"yep. i've finally snapped. too bad for me."

then i will turn on the right turn signal and calmly make my way to a place where conversion involves massive doses of shock therapy.

de-frocking priests

2004-07-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

midway through the rehearsal, i began to harbour grave doubts about the rubber chicken.

the church was so, well, churchy and imposing. father mike ran such a tight ship. and he kept stepping to me. i didn't bow right. i screwed up that thing where you cross yourself. i couldn't recall the 'hail mary' thingy. on top of it all, it was my plan to present the bride and groom, tomorrow, on their big fat holy day- a rubber chicken.

it seemed like a good idea at the time i thought of it. several of us were asked to bring 'surprise' symbolic gifts to the wedding, along with a nugget of wisdom for the the newlyweds. my foul was to represent the importance of keeping warm and honest looniness in your life. and it seemed pretty damned valid.

then, father mike cornered me at the rehearsal dinner.

"you are planning on pulling it together for the ceremony. yes, child?"

"oh, yeah. you bet."

"and you did remember to work jesus into your speech?"

right. jesus. now, that girl from gone with the wind might know nothing 'bout birthing no babies, but i know nothing about jesus. except that he has this thing for washing other guy's feet and he really likes wine.

did he enjoy a good fart joke? ever wear the old 'arrow through the head?' boy that jesus, loved the seltzer down the pants.

in the end, i bowed, crossed myself like a real live christian, and delivered up the rubber chicken and a soul stirring speech with equal panache.

my advice ended with the words- "always, always fall for the banana in the tail pipe."

it killed. in the best possible way. even father mike was impressed, his wine flushed face beamed at me, during the reception. he felt i captured the spirit of the day beautifully. score.

later, the groom told me that father mike said- "if i could get a girl as sexy as that, i'd forsake my vows and marry her."

that's me. de-frocking priests throughout the pacific northwest.

hello hell.

checking in (as transcribed by will)

2004-07-14T14:58:00.000-07:00

hello again this is will filling in for mona who is still on the road, i promise to not throw in links to cock shots this time.

mona has just called me to let me know she has made it home to los angeles for half a day before heading back out of town. she is well, misses all of you and sends all of you kisses unless you don't miss her, then you get nothing (trust me you are missing out if you are among those who get nothing).

she informs me that she will be back on monday with stories and possibly pictures.

badass tribute

2004-07-08T22:39:00.000-07:00

well, my jam tarts, my works of art. you've cast a spell on me (that's why I must steal from auden). I'm going away for a bit to witness the gettin' hitched of two of my favorite people.

so. since he is the badass cowboy from the westside AND since he does his own mom so good (wah?) I've asked a certain boy to write a wicked tribute post for my own mom whose bday is Saturday. Take it away...........

Thanks Mona, I appreciate the chance to say a few words about your mom. Hey do you always post topless, like this? I'm getting of the topic now...where was I?

Wait!

Sorry there was milk shooting out of my nose for a second. I'm ready now.

Hi readers of Imperial Violet, I'm Will. Some of you may know me from this site, while others may know me for my work here or for my environmental activism. How you know me doesn't matter much though because today I am here to pay tribute to one of Americas finest ladies, Miss Colorado Springs 1968, co-star of the classic film Behind The Green Door and voted most likely to not relapse by the Tarzana Treatment Center class of 1982....Mona's mom Joanne.

That Joanne sure is one classy lady...growing up, most kids only had one dad, but not Mona, she had lots of them. Sometimes every week she's get a new one. I was so jealous when we were kids because I only had one dad. Also my mom never played fun games like your mom did, games like, "Drop your child off with strangers and disappear" or "skinny dipping with strangers while the kids are nearby". Mona you were one lucky kid.

Your mom was funny too, remember how she'd come to pick you up from school and she'd stumble around and talk funny like she was pretending she had too much to drink? Oh and remember how we could always eat as much ice cream as we wanted and stay up all night as long as we were quiet and didn't scare off your new dad. I always liked playing at your house better than at mine, and not just because you played spin the bottle so well, or because your mom would sometimes play just me and her after you left the room. What I really liked was the way everyone was accepted there. You didn't need a classy education, or morality of a clean police record, or even to know your mom to spend some time over your mom's place and hang out with us. She let anyone play with us as long as we didn't tell our teachers about her "special cigarettes" and her "massager" that we found. Yeah those were good times.

Ever since she moved away in the middle of the night I've missed her. Joanne wherever you are, come home. We still have some sanity left.

straight, no shooter

2004-07-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

olga had potato vodka breath and potato farmer's hands. she was sturdy and oh-so thorough. she rubbed a gal down like we was paying for it (we were actually) some massage therapists tread lightly around the t&a, but not olga. she dug right in. with gusto. and i thanked her for it.

olga was a part of our batchelorette slumber party. for all you boys out there, yes, there were tickle fights and we did spend all night clad in frilly bottomed panties and white tank tops. back to olga. she was to give each of us a proper rub down. saving the bride-to-be for last. we took our turns. massage drunk, rejoining the group for more wine and trampoline jumping and braiding each other's hair.

then it was the bride, stacie's, turn. she went in. we waited and played. she came out. shell shocked. pale faced.

"what happened?" we asked.

"she offered to rub my shooter."

"what's a shooter?" we asked

"I don't know. at the end, she said 'now, somethink special i rub ze shooter for you. da? it feel good. the shooter'"

"you mean, your...?"

stacie nodded. she didn't even like massages. had a fierce personal space issue. "then she said 'or i could just put nice varm cloth on it. feel good.'"

was the shooter rub really a happy ending, as we all thought? a kind offer of sweet release from a sturdy russian?

i'll never know. the offer was validate for brides only.

damn stacie.

she's rich, be-otch

2004-07-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

philip van mandal wrote me! philip van mandal! can you believe it? i'm aflush. aflummoxed. i've been warned not to tell anyone, but you'll keep my secret (at least before the media releases it) won't you? check it out-

"I am please to inform you, you have now been entitle for a total sum payment of
USD$750,000.00 (SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND US DOLLARS ONLY) in cash. This is from a total cash prize
of US$2,250,000.00(TWO MILLION,TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND US
DOLLARS ONLY) shared among the three winners in this category.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Your funds have already been deposited as a bank bond with a
security/finance firm. All participants were selected as part of a promotional
program, which was conducted to reward the internet users.

Sincerely,
PHILIP VAN MANDAL"

my prize cash is just waiting in a swiss bank account. i must act now to avoid my money automatically reverting to the nazis. all unclaimed lotto money solicited via email goes to the nazis. did you know that?

some of you may call me a hopeless rube. you may say i'm a dreamer. but i'm not the only one. i hope someday you will join us. and the world will live as one. a stinking rich one. ha HA.

cow tippers unite

2004-07-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

"just because my dad didn't rape the land and exploit the workers doesn't make me a peasant. and it's not like he didn't want to rape the land and exploit the workers. i'm sure he did. it's just that as a barber he didn't have that much opportunity." this tidbit from an underrated steve martin flick, strikes a chord with me.

how many of us, given space enough and time wouldn't tear up a shot at a little land rapin' and worker exploitin'? or maybe we think, given the opportunity, we'd play for the good guy team? who knows, maybe we would. maybe some of us are good enough and bright enough to overcome all the corrupting power of power and do something worthwhile. not me. i'd blow all my influence strong-arming congress to give me a monopoly on hot dog vending carts.

then again, what if, say dubya had been born the son of a corn farmer in iowa? would he have clawed his way to yale via the local public school system? muddied his own hands digging for texas tea before making a play for public office? nah. i picture him more as the hard drinking, cow tipping, shot gun on the pick up truck kind of dude. gets his high school sweetheart pregnant and goes to work at the mill by age 18.

probably would've killed at least one of us in a drunk driving accident by now. but that's not such a bad trade off. is it?

on the bright side, kerry picked edwards as a running mate. rapers and exploiters? good guys? a little of both? i'm willing to find out.

merriment and machine guns

2004-07-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

i've never been crushtastic over the 4th of july. a neurotic kid, i feared and hated fireworks because they might cause a fire or blow your hand off. or a stray ember could singe your eye. then you'd be blind. does that sound like fun. huh? being blind?

the other obstacle towards over the top independence day merriment was my family's lackluster attitude towards the motherland. the only political statement i ever heard my mom say was 'reagan has a rat face.' my pops was an unrepentant outlaw hippie, a cowboy who hated the man in all it's carnations. it didn't help that he was a 'guest' of the state for two non-consecutive terms.

i found myself in a car loaded with friends and a trunk loaded with illegal fireworks. racing towards a rocky beach in southeast asia, on the fourth of july. as mentioned, i loathed the big explodey things, but the teenage boys convinced me it would be fun. they offered me fried chicken and taiwanese beer. i caved. we found a spot and started to rig up a bottlerocket when the 5-0 (asian style) rolled up on us.

in this province the custom was to ride it 7 or 8 officers to a tiny car. hanging out the window with outdated sub-machine guns. they questioned us, firmly, in chinese. but i was clueless. 5 weeks in taiwan had taught me the following-

watermelon. sleep. dead. thank-you. i love you.

i tried to put these words in a pleasing order for the coppers. but it didn't work.

they became agitated. handcuffed two of our boys. we started to get really nervous. a bunch of kids in a foreign country. no u.s. embassy. (america doesn't officially recognize taiwan). i imagined scenes from midnight express. i imagined myself a pawn in some sort of pan asian sex slave trade.

in the end, they just confiscated our chicken, beer, and fireworks. but it was cool.

i hate fireworks anyway.

contenders

2004-07-02T10:09:00.000-07:00

dennis miller (the funny one, not the rambling right wing apologist) once said "old stars never die, they just take on more demeaning roles."

i spent a whole childhood watching love boat and fantasy island reruns having no idea of the treasure trove of wasted talent on my screen. debbie reynolds, ben vereen, gene kelly. to me they were just wacky old folks. i did wonder where they came from. nursing home? methadone clinic? the big connection i had came when watching airplane! on video and shouting 'i know her, that's ethel merman, she's from the love boat!"

it took a long time for me to recognize orson wells as a filmatic genuis, rather than the portly dude i saw hawking cheap wine on commercials.

i had to rediscover many of the megawatt stars of hollywood's yesterday. reclaim them from the scrap heap of guest spots and hollywood squares. but not brando. i had no image of him at all, until the bleak summer i spent in my grandparents mobile home trailer. my step-grandma was (not so) fondly known as 'crazy v' by the other trailer park residents. other children were warned to stay away. 'v' also believed in keeping a dark tarp over the windows to discourage the 'people from the mountains' from coming down to kill us.

this gave me lots of free time, in a dark, cavernous space to watch movies. it was the summer of 'on the waterfront' for all the major cable outlets. i must have watched it 600 times. first movie i ever memorized. and brando. a violent, vulnerable open wound. promise turned to naught. i loved him from that point onward. even after 'don juan di marco' and 'the island of dr. moreau'.

you can't ruin brando, for me, anymore than you can make me believe inga swenson was ever anything more than the maid who yelled "i hear you!" on benson.

goodnight, contender.

without getting pregnant or herpes

2004-07-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

i was the hottest ticket at the fat farm. which seemed only fair considering a) i'd never before been the hottest ticket anywhere and b) i was supposed to be in europe with my friends, not frollicking at a "weightloss resort, nestled in the heart of the pines and the poconos."

my dad, the bidness man, had a modest proposal. lose 'x' pounds by 'x' date and earn a trip across the seas. several months of x-ercise, x-lax, and foodless fridays later, i lost the weight and gained a ticket. then terry called, night before the trip. her voice was weird.

"dad wants you to get on the scales." i did and reported the weight. could hear her consulting with my dad in the background. her voice was weirder.

"dad says that's too much. you can't go. but keep your bags packed."

and there i was, the only kid without tennis shoes. or work-out gear. i did have a french guide book and a raging crush on mike catrona, from brooklyn. he was my ideal, as culled from countless late night ice cream watchings of 16 candles. he came over to me after i played a 'southern girl' in our talent show rendition of 'california girls.'

'i love southern girls.' i zinged back- 'oh, well, sorry. i live in utah.' and started to walk off before he grabbed my hand and kissed me. at fat camp that makes you an item.

there was some kissing, tongues, and feeling up in the darkened gym. but i was a young 14. i hadn't even really started checking out my own parts yet, and you can bet your sweet ass, i wasn't letting this guy beat me to it. so, while stephie brooks was 'blowing david down by the dock' i was trying to get mike to cuddle.

it came as exactly none surprise when he cut me loose with the line 'you're so young. i don't want to break your heart.' my heart felt pretty much intact and i spent the next 6 weeks flirting and wearing lip gloss and feeling the crackle of boy's crushes in my direction. a minor miracle.

at the camp's 'dating game', the eligible bachelor asked me what kind of car i was and why. i'd always felt a kinship to the vw rabbit. but this was summertime me. the shiny hair and tanned calves me. so i said-

"a ferrari."

and the boy picked me. i later found out that mike had quipped "yeah, she's a ferrari. without the engine."

engines? we don't need no stinkin' engines.