Whitney and Wreckage

In the spirit of full disclosure, I was not a fan of Whitney Houston's music. My musical tastes were, and remain, an indecipherable mash up of the mystical and wrenching tones of Sigur Ros sharing iPod space with Lady Gaga confections. I know Houston's songs, of course. One couldn't have been a U.S. citizen through the 80's and not have her amazing voice jostling around in your head, instantly retrievable and unshakable.  

She was one of thousands who have already this year shut their eyes for the last time, whether in a bath tub or a cardboard box somewhere no one usually looks. They have all tried to turn down the unhappiness using something or other, or many somethings. Clearly, to paraphrase Tolstoy, each is unhappy in their own way, but there are always the same words applied at the end: self-doubt, demons, and destruction. They spoke them about Whitney this week. They spoke them about my brother who was put into the ground at 24 years old, his body already broken by what he did to himself in order not to feel--at the end so numb that he laid down with someone with a mental illness, who also happened to have a knife. 

I have learned that happiness is not a soft thing, a visitation by the occasional good-fortune fairy. Happiness, if it is authentic and self-emanating, is muscular and watchful. It does not leave itself to a strangers care, much less the tricks of trifles like money and stuff. It looks carefully, makes its choices, knows how to place a bet and walk away when it lost, learning what didn't work. It knows how to defend itself--kick ass and take names, as we used to stay in the projects. It likes good leather and walking shoes.  

I have seen the wreckage, and I've seen it narrowly missed, far more up close than I'd ever expected. And that miss was not simply because my beloved put the bottle down, but because he let something else in. The Prayer-Book of the Episcopal Church uses the phrase, "and iron entered his soul." Not one to quote scripture, I do have to shout out to that one: Exactly! He learned the shackles of addiction were nothing  compared to the iron inside him, but that he would have to watch out. That his happiness was, in fact, life or death, and his were the hands on the wheel. 

And it's life or death for all of us. Maybe not a physical death, but certainly a spiritual one. But first we better stop thinking about happiness on par with a shopping spree. We all know easily enough what really makes us happy, once we get ourselves past the material crap and the romance novels disguised as self-help books. It's not enough to find your bliss. You have to defend it. Start any time. That's the cool thing about it. You hold the starting gun.

Girl Scout Cookies and Losing my Resolution

Word on the street is that Girl Scout cookies are back on sale tomorrow. 

This will, no doubt, strike some as awful timing. Likely those for whom "losing weight" was the very first resolution made after the alcohol wore off. But to those savvy little Girl Scouts, the timing couldn't be better.

After all, enough time has passed now to remember 1) celery gets caught in your teeth, and there's a reason why kids only eat it with peanut butter; 2) the gym not only smells, but sounds like a trauma center; and 3) you would trade your automobile for a warm baguette and butter, no questions asked. 

Those sweet little tycoons in the badge vests outside of Wal-Mart have seen our collective hunger. We've had twelve days of Christmas dieting and are poised perfectly between choosing a psychotic episode or a package of Nutter Butters. 

Someone could show me documentation from NASA that Samoas contain tar and I would grab their shirt and demand to know where they were keeping them. Scientific testing, yeah, yeah, that's why I want 'em. I'm a researcher, bent on discovering the addictive properties in coconut. They've been putting the stuff in our water, or haven't you noticed?

So, yes, I will be out there, cruising parking lots for a sighting of those green uniforms. I'll be carrying cash, since I've heard the little buggers won't take celery.

Victory Laugh

I have been thinking a lot lately about how we answer what people don't say to us. 

Recently, I tried an experiment. Now, I should stop here and say I haven't always had the best of results with my experiments. Just ask my chemistry teacher or, more recently, my hairdresser, who has taken away my scissors. Or Mom, who even in her advanced years well remembers my paper dress experiment of 1966 involving used grocery bags and a stapler. But I put the past behind me and bravely went where few women have gone before. I tried to create intimacy using an inanimate object. Yes, dear reader, I told the truth on a blind date.

Said experiment began with me reporting my intention to make my living as a writer. The rest, as Shakespeare wrote, was silence, though my still-superior distance vision caught his raised eyebrow and that blink of smugness around the upper lip. I stopped speaking, and in the quiet, could hear these factions bickering within myself, little generals, each with their own hats and flags. 

General Hostess-- wearing a pink WWII helmet and exposing far too much cleavage--whispered frantically, "say something nice for a change!" Her life-or-death mission? To keep the party rolling, so to speak, making sure that everyone is pleased, even if she doesn't ask anymore if she is or isn't. She went to a state school, where degrees are done in four years on the dot, and started their first elocution club. 

She was quickly overpowered by General Burnhim, dressed in battle fatigues and wearing Prada night goggles on her head, shouting, "palm his nose cartilage into his brain; do it now, woman, do it!"  

Then there was General Whine, suggesting I cry, in her best breaking Rene Zelwigger voice, while she fiddled with the netting over her pith helmet. And the one who never speaks unless spoken to, General Sayyes, who had taken off her hat in the presence of male authority. She simply looked at me with pleading eyes, begging me to remember not to bite and kick outside of a sexual context.

And then, I couldn't help it. I started to laugh. And it grew, becoming the contagious kind that encourages itself and makes your nose run. I was not laughing because I knew he would answer me with some social reply. What he thought didn't matter. I was laughing because I knew something all those facile generals, planted there long ago by who knows what 1940's movie or blatantly bad ideal of life, did not know. They had been stripped of their weaponry, and were so busy trying to be in charge they did not realize they had lost the war. I had the hill, and they were way out-gunned.  

He did, eventually, wish me luck "with such bad odds," which only set me laughing again. Obviously, he had not heard about my war record. But that's okay. I won't be seeing him again. He's been shipped out to one of the far territories, somewhere cold. Reporting to General Notlaid, I hear.

Screenwriting for Dummies

There really is something to be said for sitting down to a movie after an excruciating work-day spent pretending that you give a shit. Unless, of course, the movie asks you to give a shit, and then gives you characters you would only become interested in if they set themselves on fire. 

A Backdraft-worthy blaze was the ending I was hoping for while watching "Helena from the Wedding," an indie film that should come with a warning label: Contains Senseless Whining and Human Stupidity. Instead, what I got (SPOILER ALERT. KINDA.) was a guy who we were supposed to believe had matured. We knew this because he seemed to be happy his wife was not dead. Gotta love those education plots. 

I know, I know. We women just don't get you dudes. We just don't understand how hard it is to be going along, thinking you actually like your wife, when--WHAMMO--a model you met at a wedding a couple of years ago ends up in your luxury cabin for New Year's Eve. And she's wearing--gasp--low-rise jeans! Who saw that coming!

Except it's not your cabin. It's your father's because you aren't able to actually make the kind of living that could buy such a place. It seems the task of income-earning falls to your wife. Whoops! I'm sorry. Did I say something that threatens your masculinity and thus forces you to try to prove your manhood by going out into the woods with a pair of binoculars and spy on the model as she takes a bath? My bad. Clearly I should have known from you moist-eyes that you were sensitive, and prone to massive boundary violations in the name of keeping your mojo intact. But I guess I should have deduced that you felt robbed of your wild nature from the male director's painful shots lingering on the taxidermy, subtly signaling to the audience WATCH FOR METAPHOR!

So, for your enjoyment and possibly true education, here's the real-life ending. At least in the film featuring the kind of women I know. You know, the ones that read. 

INT. CABIN - NIGHT

ALEX, the cocaine he has just snorted with his buddies wearing off enough for him to recall leaving the vial of it on the floor of the jeep his wife is now driving on ice-covered roads, is staring out the window onto the snowy hillside. He was outside watching for her to come back, but it was so cold out there. And, besides, he can watch from in here and also watch Helena, the hot model that he could have married, damn it, if he had only known that someday she would be born and then come to his house, and then have amazing sex with him and not fall asleep after taking care of a house full of guests like his wife did last night. He chokes back tears of all his lost hopes and that time he lost the streamers off his tricycle.

HELENA crawls around on the floor looking for a missing piece to the backgammon game. We can see the small of her back is exposed between her jeans and sweater. Alex forgets he is supposed to be looking out the window and wondering if his wife has gone off the road into a tree then found by a cop who decides from the coke he has just pocketed that she's just a Jane Doe and leaves her for the sheriff to find as goes home to his respectable wife and black lab named Darkie to watch internet porn. Instead of remembering he is worried, Alex adjusts his kaki Land's End trousers and watches Helena. 

Helena, turning quickly to search under the couch, catches Alex wiping drool from the front of  his reindeer sweater.  

                                                                 HELENA
                                                         (to Alex) 

                                           Can I help you with something, dough boy?     

                                                                 ALEX
                                           Ugh, no, no. I was just looking at, I mean, with you.

                                                                HELENA
                                           Hmmmm. I see that.

                                                                             ALEX
    (finding something he thinks of as courage but which is              actually a horribly distorted sense of his importance)

                                                         You're hot. I mean, you must know that, right? That men look at you. That must happen to you all the time.

                                                                          HELENA

                                                         And I should find this idea appealing?

                                                                          ALEX

                                                         Uh, I guess. I mean, I would find it "appealing" if women thought I was hot.

                                                                          HELENA

                                                         I would find that worth reporting to the Vatican.

                                                                          ALEX

                                                     Hey, what's that for?

                                                                          HELENA

                                                         Hmmm. Let me see. Ever since I arrived you have been leering at me, then giving me this scary-clown smile when I stare you down, like I should giggle in delight that you want me, just waiting for the moment when your wife, my friend, who has been watching this behavior and gone out for a late night drive on black ice rather than watch any more of it, dies so I can have you for my very own.

                                                     Does that sum it up?

                                                                          ALEX

                                                         Well, not when you say it like that . . .

                                                                          HELENA

                                                     Let me tell you what is going to happen, Alex. I kind of like this place. I could us a spot just like this, to unwind. You have a talk with Dad. Tell him that you need him to let me come here whenever I want.

                                                                          ALEX

                                                              (excited)

                                                         And I'll meet you here?

                                                                          HELENA

                                                     Nooooo, actually, Alex, you will tell Daddy I am not to be disturbed. And then I won't tell your wife about your little trip into the woods with the binoculars earlier today.

                                                                          ALEX

                                                         Whhhaa, what are you talking about?

                                                                          HELENA

                                                     I have a new bathroom word for you, Einstein: mirrors.

EXT. CABIN - NIGHT

ALICE, Alex's wife, pulls up to the cabin. She is safe. She walks toward the cabin and sees Alex at the window, watching for her, his face filled with worry. As Alice walks closer, looking at the window, Helena rises up from where she has been crouched on the floor. Alice stops. It looks as if Helena has been blowing Alex. Everyone is frozen for a few moments. Helena and Alice lock eyes.  Helena is the first one to smile. She is looking at Alice, her smile continually growing wider. Alice smiles back at her friend, and starts to laugh, as does Helena. Slowly, at first, but by the time Alice gets to the door, she is doubled over, howling and crying in fits of laughter. Helena opens the door, hysterical, as they hug. 

They compose themselves, look at each other, sputter, and start all over again. It's just like college, except for the blue ray player and tonight's appetizer of balsamic glazed figs.

Finally, freezing, they wrap their arms around each other tightly and walk, stomping off the snow, into the warm fireplace light. 

THE END

Silence is Black

I was told Friday night that I was not "very cheery." The tone of voice with which this statement was delivered made it clear it was an accusation, and not the compliment I take it to be. I agreed, as it was not only true, but not a point one can argue when dressed completely in black, which, as a poet, is required in our contract. I then said nothing, noting I was feeling a psychic static run through me, as if I'd accidentally bitten down with a filling onto a piece of foil. 

So, I silently assessed, Good Girl was still hanging out in me somewhere, just waiting for her opportunity to point out to me once again that I might actually have a boyfriend if I would simply wear pastels and not say things like "I find that highly flawed logic" to men trying to make dinner conversation on a first date. She was pretty smug, feeling sure her time had finally come, and soon life would be a series of make-overs and giggling girlfriends doing each others hair. She has, you see, remained perpetually 16--that awful delusion age when you believe that your breasts have brought with them unending potential for a gorgeous life, if you can just find the right top to go with them.

Artists are not actually known for being highly socialized, or good at pretending, which I believe are very often the same thing. I actually have only two speeds: the truth, or silence. I've learned to allow myself that constipated look as I remain quiet, as people take it for thoughtful listening instead of the low-level frustration I'm really experiencing at not blurting out my insightful but potentially-insulting observations. This accounts for my near hysteria when I finally do hit upon something both witty and impersonal. I shout it out, like a trader in the stock exchange whose "sell" number has finally arrived, further cementing my reputation as one of those friends best kept to Facebook.  

I decided to have a talk with this inner teen, to put her down once and for all. She could, I decided in the cab going home, leave willingly, listening to reason and experience. Or I could silence the idiot using a water glass filled with ice and vodka.  She chose the latter, which left me with puffy eyes the next morning but a quieted soul, residing once more in my authentic intense nature. And smiling, which can look exactly like cheerful. As long as I'm not talking.