So I spent the last few days searching through thousands of photographs... some of them good, some bad. Me? Damn, I was pretty damned cute. And the photos bring ups some seriously tumultuous emotions, which I won't go into here. Most of the photos from the era I am investigating are of my significant other, the man whose child I bore. A handsome young man whose sheer magnetics attracted me. I look at the photographs now... of a tall, thin young man, and wonder what drew me in? I know what it was, but it's nothing an ordinary person could understand. It was a challenge to live life as far as could be pushed. It was a desire to see how hard it could be to live. Dying is easy, it's living that scares me to death. Yeah,sometimes death might have been an easier choice.
It's not so hard to tell really. He was a liar as well as sincere. What he bantered to the crowd were words meant to deceive as well as draw in. He built his performance flawlessly. What he could not take into account was his inherent ability to convince; to charm and flirt. He took his crowds and gave them an incalculable reality -- believe me, because not believing me is worse. And you don't want to see that. His insanity sated the crowd. The very prowess of his ego soothed them; they could go home with his pride intact. They, on the other hand, got taken by his deception. I bet there are hundreds of people who have photos of that magician in their photo albums -- a summer vacation story that they remember. A still life of sorts that they will hold fondly forever.... "Remember the time I broke the cinder block on that guys stomach?" ...yuck yuck yuck. And you probably walked away before you gave him a dime. Shame on you.
Physics people, it's all physics.
Reality: He came home bruised, with pin pricks on his back. They didn't go away until he stopped performing that trick for several weeks.
Reality: How did he get those lemons under the cups? Well if you weren't paying attention, why should I tell you? The trick is obvious, you're just not paying attention.
Reality: A day at Disneyland is very much like taking 1/2 a step every few minutes, and checking your watch like that's going to help. Why would you even do that?
Reality: How did he pick the card you chose? Well, if you don't know, I'm not going to help out. So there. Even us laywomen have to keep things in the circle.
But at least you have some idea about why a woman would choose a magician. There's just so many scintillating secrets...
C'est vrai, mes mecs, c'est vrai.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
The worms, the spice, is there a relationship?
My God. I've been spending the last many months torturing myself over my own body. Not such a bad thing, and I've made big strides to regain my sense of self, but something happened recently that has seriously made me examine some other aspects of my life. Some things I think that are more vital to understanding my life, the course of it and the why of it.
In the last week, I reconnected with a person I've not seen or spoken to in maybe 23 years. The internet, a modern miracle of technology, is to thank as I would have lost him forever without it. His name is Tom Frank, a magician, a jokester and all over hard-core guy who spent a few years with me in the immeasurable hell of the mid 1980's, a time for us of abundant drug abuse, thievery, trickery and most of all the testing of human limitations. Our common link is a man I had an intimate relationship with, and eventually, a child. We both admire and loathe this man, rue the day we met him, and yet I think we both owe him a nod of respect for introducing us to the very reasons why, in fact, we both still want to be alive. It takes reaching down into the depths of your soul and the limitations of your moral and physical endurance. This is not a story about drug addiction or unethical actions. It is a story about loss of reason. There were few who shed the garments of social convention, disdained the rules and so flagrantly broke them... and usually got away with it.
The past week has reawakened an interest in coming to grips with a past only a few could comprehend.
I am glad that Tom came back into my life not only to relive the adventure, but to move beyond it. I had long thought it would take more than one to mold the story into something coherent, something we could use as a catharsis. We need to move on, but never forget.
In the last week, I reconnected with a person I've not seen or spoken to in maybe 23 years. The internet, a modern miracle of technology, is to thank as I would have lost him forever without it. His name is Tom Frank, a magician, a jokester and all over hard-core guy who spent a few years with me in the immeasurable hell of the mid 1980's, a time for us of abundant drug abuse, thievery, trickery and most of all the testing of human limitations. Our common link is a man I had an intimate relationship with, and eventually, a child. We both admire and loathe this man, rue the day we met him, and yet I think we both owe him a nod of respect for introducing us to the very reasons why, in fact, we both still want to be alive. It takes reaching down into the depths of your soul and the limitations of your moral and physical endurance. This is not a story about drug addiction or unethical actions. It is a story about loss of reason. There were few who shed the garments of social convention, disdained the rules and so flagrantly broke them... and usually got away with it.
The past week has reawakened an interest in coming to grips with a past only a few could comprehend.
I am glad that Tom came back into my life not only to relive the adventure, but to move beyond it. I had long thought it would take more than one to mold the story into something coherent, something we could use as a catharsis. We need to move on, but never forget.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Time flew by
Before I knew it, it was a week before the wedding. I was a nervous wreck, everything seemed completely chaotic. I didn't want to work out, didn't want to continue the torment of the dress fitting, which was excruciating, didn't want to go to work and definitely didn't want to hear everyone tell me it was all going to go fine. Everytime I went for a fitting, the skirt got smaller and smaller, in accordance with my weight loss (that was okay) and the jacket kept getting tighter and tighter -- in accordance with the expansion of my arm muscles. The jacket just didn't fit and my dress-maker was getting frustrated. I understood but there wasn't anything she or I could do about it.
The corset, bless Dark Garden, was not an overall easy fix. Autumn, stroking her chin in perplexion: "I told you you could lose 20 pounds, but I didn't say you could change your body." Scrutinizing me and my ill-fitting corset a bit longer, "About all I can do is take it in, it will work, but you have changed your body." She did this alternation in only 2 days, bless her again, and the corset fit about as well as it could. It was in fact stunning, the most amazing thing ever. I highly recommend corsets for anyone, thick or thin.
Ditching the jacket for the wedding, choosing instead a silk Indian shawl, I felt FABULOUS and didn't mind for one minute that I was cinched up a good 4 inches smaller than I was. I've lost 25 pounds since February.
I'll blog on the wedding in another post, because there's a lot to say about weddings in general and mine specifically. Let's just say I looked like someone who walked out of a Western Saloon in 1865 and felt perfect, amazing, beautiful. That's thanks to Laura Benitez, my dress-maker and Autumn and Alysha at Dark Garden -- all amazing women who help other women feel beautiful with their craft and skill, in spite of the "flaws".
And here's to Stein who keeps laughing at me when I try to call in sick for my work-outs; it's never too hot for him (try 100 degrees without air conditioning), too tired, too stressed or too whatever. He just laughs and tells me to come in and stop being a wuss.
The corset, bless Dark Garden, was not an overall easy fix. Autumn, stroking her chin in perplexion: "I told you you could lose 20 pounds, but I didn't say you could change your body." Scrutinizing me and my ill-fitting corset a bit longer, "About all I can do is take it in, it will work, but you have changed your body." She did this alternation in only 2 days, bless her again, and the corset fit about as well as it could. It was in fact stunning, the most amazing thing ever. I highly recommend corsets for anyone, thick or thin.
Ditching the jacket for the wedding, choosing instead a silk Indian shawl, I felt FABULOUS and didn't mind for one minute that I was cinched up a good 4 inches smaller than I was. I've lost 25 pounds since February.
I'll blog on the wedding in another post, because there's a lot to say about weddings in general and mine specifically. Let's just say I looked like someone who walked out of a Western Saloon in 1865 and felt perfect, amazing, beautiful. That's thanks to Laura Benitez, my dress-maker and Autumn and Alysha at Dark Garden -- all amazing women who help other women feel beautiful with their craft and skill, in spite of the "flaws".
And here's to Stein who keeps laughing at me when I try to call in sick for my work-outs; it's never too hot for him (try 100 degrees without air conditioning), too tired, too stressed or too whatever. He just laughs and tells me to come in and stop being a wuss.
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