Well Rehearsed

Loves Lost Guarantee
Rogue Wave

Fire's rage down in the north
Hell is here, what a source
Man lost his little machine
hair and bone and maybelline
Then you go for your one shot
to where you are

Bad vibes, from love's underside
it made her bleed he'll confide
beavers are hard to come by
eyes are closed and hands are tied
Then you go for your one shot
to where you are

Oh what you need, so guaranteed
Oh what you need, so guaranteed

Loves comes like a Kennedy curse
The victim whom is well rehearsed
You paint over any mistake
but you cant remove the original thing
then you go for your one shot
to where you are, where you are

Oh what you need, so guaranteed
Oh what you need, so guaranteed

Oh what you need, so guaranteed
Oh what you need, so guaranteed
Oh what you need, so guaranteed
Oh what you need, so guaranteed
oh, oh, oh...
so guaranteed

There are no guarantees in life, and I'm not even sure if I'm looking for one. I do know that I'm looking for what I've lost though. There's a piece of me missing. But I'm not quite sure which piece yet. I'm tempted to jump to conclusions...tempted to jump through hoops. I'm tempted.

And possibly just a little lost.

Vulnerability is not easy for me. Yes, I know that it typically isn't for most, if not all people. But man oh man. I've been thinking a fair bit these past few days about the ways in which I "protect" myself. I'm a fucking veritable fortress of defense mechanisms and power plays. Anything to not get hurt. Anything to not get close to getting hurt.

I'm ever so clever when it comes to pretense and masks, all in the name of self-preservation. So clever in fact that sometimes I don't even know I'm doing it until later, much later. I've devised some amazingly elaborate ways to hide in public. To protect myself. The problem I think is that with that much self-imposed artifice, one runs the risk of losing bits and pieces of oneself to the "image" - the "lie".

I think that's what I've managed to do. Protected myself so very much from all the possible points of ingress and injury to my psyche that I've somehow tied myself off from the world and from seeing myself as I truly want to be and could be.

Image by Brian Rawson, Spring 2006

The Journey

Changes
David Bowie

I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time


This song started simmering in my head a couple of hours ago. At first it was just a gentle background melody tickling my brain....almost like pleasant muzak (is that an oxymoron?).

Then it evolved to snippets of the song. Bits and pieces that floated in from my subconscious and then flitted quickly out again - with one phrase in particular repeating itself more than others. Eventually, it began to get louder and more insistent...building into a dull roar - refusing to let me ignore it any longer. I can't get this song to now stop. It's on constant repeat. With that one phrase repeating more frequently than it is in the song.

And I know why.

I always have sought meaning for my circumstances and situations from lyrics and from poetry. Sometimes I think that I read too much into either or both. And this time, my subconscious did it for me.

I've been ruminating about a challenge of sorts posed to me. A rather tempting offer. Been thinking about it almost constantly for the awake parts of my life since it was presented. Trying to wrap my head around the many different layers...while at the same time trying to *not* get wrapped around the axle either.

Not easy. Not impossible. But not easy.

Interesting.

Not many people can challenge me properly. Or rather have me *take* the challenge. It has to be a careful balance of engaging & intriguing me without alienating me. It was quite the skillful [mental] seduction, very artful indeed.

The cynic in me would say that I have been mindfucked.

I'm choosing not to listen to her, but to listen to the music instead.


Image by Sanders McNew, taken Spring 2007

Disappointment & Hope

Circle The Fringes
The Gutter Twins

It's alright to take me down
Between the hook and the line I took
It's alright to drag the lake-
And find the things you lost

They don't wait in line-
To see me float
Or sleep above the Waves
They don't wait in line-
To bring me up-
They've seen enough today

All my Dreams stroll by unclothed
All my Dreams roll by unknown

It's alright to cave into a Love
Although it's not enough
Not enough to save you from yourself
Or what you love too much

And always deeper-
And still even deeper-
And I believe there's a Heaven below
All I see is a Dream
That lies beneath it all

There's a way about Her
She can make me-
Do things I ought not to do
Cut the line, and-
Count to Three, and-
Morph into another world

Start the wheel turnin'
On it, break me
Shown things I ought not have seen
Hung from rafters-
Mothers screaming
Born into an ugly world

All my Dreams stroll by unclothed
All my Dreams roll by unknown


Image by Brian Rawson, Summer 2007

The stars are filming us for no one

Miles Away
Carol Ann Duffy

I want you and you are not here. I pause
in this garden, breathing the colour thought is
before language into still air. Even your name
is a pale ghost and, though I exhale it again
and again, it will not stay with me. Tonight
I make you up, imagine you, your movements clearer
than the words I have you say you said before.

Wherever you are now, inside my head you fix me
with a look, standing here whilst cool late light
dissolves into the earth. I have got your mouth wrong,
but still it smiles. I hold you closer, miles away,
inventing love, until the calls of nightjars
interrupt and turn what was to come, was certain,
into memory. The stars are filming us for no one.

Image by Aeric M. Goujon, taken October 2007

Conflict

Thou and You
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

She substituted, by a chance,
For empty "you" -- the gentle "thou";
And all my happy dreams, at once,
In loving heart again resound.
In bliss and silence do I stay,
Unable to maintain my role:
"Oh, how sweet you are!" I say --
"How I love thee!" says my soul.





Shooting with Melvin tonight for the first time in almost 2 years. Filled with anticipation and trepidation. I'm always conflicted before a shoot. I long for the adrenaline of being in front of a camera, of thinking and not at the same time. Of letting go and floating in a space of creativity and possibilities. But I also am filled with nerves and insecurities. It's always a struggle of sorts, but in the end we know which side wins don't we?


Image by Melvin Moten Jr., taken July 2006

I think about you, some.

Non-Photo Blue
Pinback

She's posting all the time, but the boards are down.
It's a burned out building.

He's spending all this time on his back.
Staring at the ceiling.

They spared themselves that way
I'm with that. I'm with them.

You aren't. You're alive, dammit.
Gnawing on the prey.
I think about you, some.

Where to put you?
All the backed up data for a raining time.

Insulate a fragile mind.
Capsulize a broken find.

Don't do this, man.
There's another one off behind.
Breaking down the door without... warning.

She just ignores the time that the boards came down.
It's a numbed out feeling.
He just accepts that pain with a hate mantra.
A spiritual killing.

They just relax that way.
I'm with that. I'm with them.

You aren't. You're alive, dammit.
Crayon past line. Stay after school.
Crossword filled in non-photo blue.

So they'll never find you.
Can't go through this now.
I'm leaving a message.
Stapled on your head.

SHHAA......
I get the same result.
We get the same effect


On the subway this morning I saw someone who looked uncannily like one of my most significant exes. Significant in that he was my first husband (albeit a marriage that didn't see it's second anniverary). I haven't seen him in about 14 years. Scary how time flies when life happens to you.

It wasn't a bad marriage...I was just too young and wanting someone to save me from myself, so was he. Always a mistake. I didn't know then, what I know now - the only person who can save you from yourself is your own self. We clung to each other for a while and then started to disintegrate. Therapy, tears, fights, more tears, more therapy and the eventual and necessary decision to split apart. He moved out west to California and promptly became addicted to "Ice". I continued therapy and became who I am today. The last time I spoke to him was 1995, when he called me desperate for money.

And then this morning, 8 a.m. on the F train, someone walked on at Carroll that was his spitting image. I tried not to stare. I didn't think it was him. After all, what would he be doing back in Brooklyn? He was never from here in the first place. I snuck glances every few seconds...reeling through memories. Trying to remember his profile, was his nose like that? I thought it was smaller. Was his hair really that light? Would he really be wearing hipster jeans? I wondered if I should ask him his name...but to what end? The girl that married that boy was gone 15 years ago...and honestly, if he wanted to find me, I'm in the book. Searches for him in Google come up with nought.

But still I wonder. Part of me hopes that it was him. He looked good...healthy, recovered. And part of me wonders if that isn't just wishful thinking.



Image by Elizabeth Zusev, taken January 2008

Drugs (II)

Drugs
(This Mortal Coil cover of The Talking Heads )

And all I see is little dots
Some are smeared and some are spots
Feels like a murder but that's alright
Somebody said there's too much light
Pull down the shade and it's alright
It'll be over in a minute or two.
I'm charged up...Don't put me down
Don't feel like talking...Don't mess around
I feel mean...I feel O.K.
I'm charged up...Electricity
The boys are making a big mess
This makes the girls all start to laugh
I don't know what they're talking about
The boys are worried, the girls are shocked
They pick the sound and let it drop
Nobody know what they're talking about
I'm charged up...I'm kinda wooden
I'm barely moving...I study motion
I study myself...I fooled myself
I'm charged up...It's pretty intense.
I'm charged up...Don't put me down
Don't feel like talking...Don't mess around
I feel mean...I feel O.K.
I'm charged up...Electricity.


Today is the first day in a week where I will not be taking copious amounts of Vicodin in order to just make it through the day.

Worry not, I don't have an incipient drug addiction. Just the worst kind of dental pain issues for over a week. First a broken tooth with killer cavity which was then replaced by a root canal last Wednesday.

Now, I've had root canals before, and NEVER has the recuperation been this freakin' horrific. The pain was sheer agony. I was popping Vicodin and prescription Naproxen (Aleve) every 2 - 3 hours just to survive. O.K. maybe a little melodramatic...but still, you get the point. By Friday evening, I was fully convinced that something had gone horribly wrong with my root canal. Like a "root" had been left in there or something.

Luckily, by Saturday afternoon, the pain was beginning to subside from an omnipresent stabbing to a dull roaring ache. That, I could handle. With some Vicodin.

My poor liver and kidneys. I can't imagine how much toxic gunk they were shoveling through from Wednesday night to Saturday night. Enough to make me a Hollywood D-list celeb, I'm sure.

So, here I am on Monday afternoon. Vicodin free. I have a couple of pills left over, just in case.


Image by Aeric Meredith-Goujon, taken October 2007

She will never forgive you, but she won't let you go

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Don’t look back into the sun
Now you know that the time has come
And they said it would never come for you oh oh oh oh

Oh my friend you haven’t changed
You're looking rough and living strange
And I know you got a taste for it too oh oh oh

They'll never forgive you but they wont let you go, oh no
She'll never forgive you but she won't let you go, oh no

Don't look back into the sun
You've cast your pearls but now you're on the run
And all the lies you said, who did you save?

But when they played that song at the Death Disco
It started fast but it ends so slow
And all the time it just reminded me of you

They'll never forgive you but they wont let you go (LET ME GO!)
She'll never forgive you but she wont let you go, oh no.

Don't Look Back Into the Sun
The Libertines


Unlike some people I know, I do forgive and I do let go. And in spirit of such, I wish a Happy New Year for all those I know...and even those I don't.

Haven't recently been in the habit of making resolutions, at least not those that are written down like a checklist, but I do have a rough tag cloud in my head of things I want to work on this year.

I spend too much time on the internet. "tag cloud" yikes em.

Anyway, I hope the year to come brings sparkles, sunshine and cozy comfort to everyone.

Image by Melvin Moten Jr. taken March 2006

Resurrection

I'm not abandoning my Livejournal account, its been good to me for a couple of years now and I have made quite a few friends there. Yes, friends...people who I interact with outside of the Interwebs to some extent. Anyway, for some reason, I feel like coming back here for the time being. Not sure why...perhaps I'll be an attention whore and double post in both places for a while. Perhaps not. Either way, here I am. Looking for resurrection and some redemption.

Reading through the "old" posts here has been interesting. So much happened to me (with me) during the "LJ years"...and yet so much seems to have stayed the same.

I feel a shift...I need change again. But not in the same way as the last time - when the marriage was threatened, along with my sanity and my soul. No, I need to find my center again. I've drifted off course.


*Image by Aeric Meredith-Goujon, taken October 2007

Where I am...where I've been

http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=mockngbirdgirl

because i love you

can't stop listening to this song. have been listening to it at least 5 times a day for months now. so amazingly full of sadness and anger and strength and sorrow and weakness and love and hope and despair and everything that makes us who we are as humans.

the king's crossing was the main attraction
dominoes are falling in a chain reaction
the scraping subject ruled by fear told me
whiskey works better than beer
the judge is on vinyl, decisions are final
and nobody gets a reprieve
and every wave is tidal
if you hang around
you're going to get wet
i can't prepare for death any more than i already have
all you can do now is watch the shells
the game looks easy that's why it sells
frustrated fireworks inside your head
are going to stand and deliver talk instead
the method acting that pays my bills
keeps the fat man feeding in beverly hills
i got a heavy metal mouth that hurls obscenity
and i get my check from the trash treasury
because i took my own insides out

it don't matter cause i have no sex life
all i want to do now is inject my ex wife
i've seen the movie
and i know what happens

it's christmas time
and the needles on the tree
a skinny santa is bringing something to me
his voice is overwhelming
but his speech is slurred
and i only understand every other word
open your parachute and grab your gun
falling down like an omen, a setting sun
read the part and we turn out fine
it's a hell of a role if you can keep it alive
but i don't care if i fuck up
i'm going on a date
with a rich white lady
ain't life great?
give me one good reason not to do it
(because i love you)
so do it

this is the place where time reverses
dead men talk to all the pretty nurses
instruments shine on a silver tray
don't let me get carried away
don't let me get carried away
don't let me be carried away

Truth be told, the entire album is amazing.

It makes me fall more in love with him everyday.

Up to you to figure out which him.

drugs

Imitrex is my friend. That's my migraine med. I've now taken it 3 times this week...maybe 4. I'm beginning to think that maybe I need to get my head checked. (no comments from the peanut gallery please).

BPD-OCD-CD

So, as those near and dear to me know, I am apparently bipolar II. Which basically means that without my meds I am one mean cranky moody bitch from hell with black black moods and a hair trigger temper. After this morning I'm beginning to wonder if I have a wee bit of OCD as well. (spaceboy - if you're reading this, yes I know that you think I'm totally OCD, but stop smirking).

So anyway, I'm sitting in the "spare" room at 6 something a.m. having my bowl of granola, cup of coffee and hanging out with Drac the Cat. I do the exact same thing every morning. Well this morning, right as I'm about to get up and get into the shower I decide to check out our CDs for stuff I want to bring into work to rip and then put onto my ipod. (can't do it at home since our home computer is running windows 1900...actually '98...incompatible with ipod). Anyway, I grab a couple of Bowies, then a PJ Harvey, then route around looking for god knows what. Then it became this mission, where I had to look at every friggin shelf and at every CD to see if I wanted to bring it in to work. Some shelves I went back to. 30 (thirty!) minutes later and now thoroughly running late for work, I have 52 CDs to get onto my ipod. If I actually do that today, I will get no work done.

Who's taking bets as to what gets done today?

Another one

I have yet another bloody migraine. I get out of bed at 6-something and by 8 a.m. I have a migraine. What the fuck? I think I need to keep some kind of migraine log....just to see if there are any patterns. I've had more migraines in the past month than I can ever remember having is a similiar time frame. bleh.

I need help at work. Regular, consistent support. Working 11 hour days consistently and still not getting stuff done on a timely basis is just.not.acceptable. Now I just need to figure out how to get the help.

Lightbulb Moments

Ever had those moments in life - whether they're just split seconds or actual days spilling over into weeks and perhaps (hopefully) months - where you have delicious clarity? Moments as clear, crisp and revealing as a perfectly cold glass of water. Moments that carry with them the snap of biting into a tart yet wonderfully ripe granny smith apple. The kind of moments that if you were a cartoon character - you'd have a lightbulb (!) over your head and an "A-ha!" come out of your mouth.

I've been having more and more of those moments lately. Though to be perfectly honest, it's not as if though I'm all of a sudden struck by clarity lightening out of nowhere. For instance, sitting in traffic thinking about what to have for dinner and "A-Ha!". It's more like I'm sitting in traffic, thinking about something and thinking and mulling and contemplating and pondering and the clouds start to part, and the fog lifts <insert more bad descriptive metaphors here> and all of a sudden I.get.it. Whatever the "it" may be that I'd been rolling around in.

I was writing in my private journal over a month ago about how I feel like I'm at another "important" milestone in my life. Another transitional point. The last time I felt like this was over 10 years ago (after Tom). I feel like I'm ready to move on to what's next. To let go of some of the crap that has held me down in [self] destructive behaviors.

I want to dump my baggage, get rid of all the freakin' walls and armor and shields I still use to keep me safe. I got rid of a lot of them in order to commit to spaceboy and in order to be ready to have the baby birds. But in each instance, I was dropping a self-destructive defense for someone else. I'm ready to drop them for me now.

(If this were a movie - the inspirational music would have started playing at the beginning of the last paragraph. )

It's as if though the willingness to go on to the next bit of the evolution of mockingbird girl has kicked my subconscious into overdrive. So as I mull things over, hidden bits of me contribute into my internal dialogue. It's kinda cool really.

I just wish that it didn't leave me with so many freakin' headaches. I've had more headaches in the last couple of weeks than I've had in the prior 3 months combined. Migraine headaches, tension headaches, neck/headaches, face/headaches. My subconscious going into overdrive is making my conscious hurt.

Always a price to pay. But I'd rather pay this one....

my head hurts

Goddamn it. I just lost my post. My lovely superlong post about my fucking nightmare last night. People getting shot in the head and all that.

Probably a good thing.

Hour 15 of the first migraine of 2005.

Truth & Consequences

I've been thinking a lot about Truth, Trust and Consequences. Not particularly in that order, or in any order or coherent pattern. Just thinking about the importance of truth and trust in my life, and the consequences of losing and/or gaining both.

Anyway, remember that drinking game from highschool/college - Truth or Dare? Where you had to choose a "truth" or a "dare"and then deal with the consequences of your choice or take a drink (or both)? You learned so much about people not only based upon their responses to their "truths", but also if they typically took "dares" or took "truths".

Me, I took truths. I much prefer dealing in the known, and dealing with the consequences of the whole world knowing my own choices and actions than giving the reins over and letting someone else determine what I should do. I'll take my humiliation at my own hands thankyouverymuch.

What does that all have to do with anything? Well, I guess on a very simple level, at that point in my life I was much more comfortable with the truth of my past being known that having to trust my future to anyone.

Thought I was over that by the age of 35.

Almost was too.

Sunshine....keeping me up for days*

*Bonus points for anyone who can tell me what that is a quote from

So, driving to work this morning (heading east ) at the incredibly lovely time of 6:30 a.m., I saw the sunrise. It took me by surprise (ooh, I rhymed!). I haven't really seen the sun rise on the horizon, with all the beautiful shades of pink, purple, orange, yellow in so so long. The last time I saw it rise while driving east was probably sometime in 1990 - 91, heading back to my parents at 5 or 6 a.m. after a night out being the wild young thang I used to be. I'm glad I saw it this morning.

It centered me in a way I never would have anticipated.

shiny happy mbg

I made the decision. I am officially upping my med by 37.5mg. gasp! oooooh! aaaaaahhh!

So what's the big deal? Well, the med I'm on for my "crankyness" is one hell of a bitch to stop taking...you have to wean yourself off in babysteps, gradually decreasing the dose in itsy bitsy amounts. So, in upping the dose, I'm basically committing to at least 4 weeks longer of getting off of it (when and if that day ever comes).

I resisted it. Boy did I. But after taking a wee bit more for a couple of nights, and then taking the whole 37.5 shebang, I have to say I've noticed a difference in my level of crankiness and irritability. And if I can be a lot less cranky instead of marginally less cranky, why not do it?

Next thing you know I'll be skipping through the halls at work and singing the "Sound of Music". Maybe not. I'll at least be better able to supress my urge to throttle the living daylights out of the people who annoy me.

Shiny, happy mbg, all for the conveniently low copay price of $15 a month. What a bargain.

Middleage Runaway

Doesn't quite have the same ring as "Teenage Runaway" does it?

I very briefly considered running away this morning. Not seriously thought out or planned - more of an impulsive fleeting consideration. Kind of like standing at the edge of a bridge and thinking about jumping.

I was pumping gas at 7 a.m. this morning at a gas station right across the highway from LaGuardia airport. Planes taking off and landing every 15 seconds it seemed. I thought about how easy (in one little sense) it would be to just take the next exit off the highway, put the car in long-term parking and take a plane away. Note - a plane away. But to where? I didn't particularly want to go anywhere.....I just wanted to get away.

So, I started thinking a bit more about it (I had a way empty 23 gallon tank). I had 2 good books in my backpack, my wallet with at least one credit card not maxed out, a bottle of lime sparking water, a veggie bologna sandwich spaceboy made me for lunch today and all of my makeup. What else could I possibly need? Well comfy clothes would be nice instead of my suit...but hey, wherever I go, they'll have stores - right?

I thought of where I would want to go. I always want to go to California. But that's because spaceboy's family is there. So running away there wouldn't do. The UK - nope, didn't have my passport. Some random city? Nope, I'm not that much of a risk taker. Then I thought that I would just take a plane that would put me close to Spinchick....and then drive to see her on her farm. just get away. Not forever - just for a couple of days. Enough time to read both of my books, write in a journal, and figure out where the hell I'm headed.

$47.50 and a full gas tank later I drove onto the Grand Central Parkway and headed east. Away from the airport and my little daydream and back into my life.

Being a grownup sucks sometimes.