It has something to do with phones. I don't know what yet. Now I have to run and cram Starbucks down my throat so I make a good impression on my today-bosses. Hooray!
I’m sure somehow there’s a way
to remind you that I still exist
But even though I wrack my brain
I’m not quite sure what that is
It was fun for my life to revolve
around the stories that you told me at night
it sucks to need you when I know you don’t care
and I don’t know how to make it all right
My brain is weird
and you understand it
maybe I was a reflection of you
My path’s obscured
but you were my guide
I want to do the things you already do
You were a rock
you were a beacon
and maybe that’s not all that fair
Or maybe you liked me
until I got boring
or maybe it’s just too hard to care
I’m sure somehow there’s a way
to remind you that I still exist
But even though I wrack my brain
I’m not quite sure what that is
Your every word was my personal gospel
infused my life in so many ways
it sucks to need you when I know you don’t care
maybe this is just the price I pay
My need is weird
and I don’t understand it
how you became important to me
We’ve never been quite
person to person
so maybe I’m just hard to see
I’m silly words
that are probably beneath you
glowing at you from a computer screen
And when I left you
you just didn’t notice
are you ignorant or are you just mean?
Maybe there shouldn’t be a way
to remind you that I still exist
Maybe this shit shouldn’t consume me
there really isn’t much of you to miss
If I fucked up, I’d say I was sorry
but I think you just forgot who I was
I’m mad as hell that I care to repair
the nothing that was between us
12-7-09
What I'm Reading Now: Take the Cannoli, by Sarah Vowell
Lady GaGa's "Bad Romance" starts off wordlessly, and the opening “oh-oh-oh-oh-OH” soars, seemingly hopeful. But at once, words contradict the good feeling being generated: “caught in a bad romance” brings in stark reality, even as the music thumps electronically to life behind it. We’re less than fifteen seconds into the song, and the boomeranging isn’t done yet. Suddenly, Lady GaGa launches into a recitation of sounds that almost make sense – rah-rah, Roma, GaGa, oo-la-la – which seem at first to exist solely for purposes of rhyming, but on closer examination seem almost willfully self-aggrandizing. She’s cheering herself on, rah-rah, oo-la-la: look at me, I’m Lady GaGa. She’s apparently also in Rome, but that might be beside the point. This rhythmic quartet opens the song proper, repeated twice, and crops up throughout as a way of dividing “Bad Romance” into distinct chapters, and introducing each.
At first glance, the verses themselves seem like standard pop-dance fare, repeating “I want your love (love, love, love, I want your love)”. But the real story is darker, as she insists what she wants is mostly negative: ugly, disease, drama, horror. There’s a flirtation with S&M as she admits she craves “your leather-studded kiss in the sand,” conflating the positive aspects of kink-play with the larger “bad romance.” The bridge – in tone, music, and lyrics reminiscent of the Divynals’ “I Touch Myself,” perhaps ironically featuring a far more positive look at self-love – uses the words “want” and “need” in regards to romance, reinforcing the negative connotations of the verses.
The chorus, then, is a bit of a surprise; for the first time, we sense perhaps a different meaning in the phrase “bad romance.” Even as she sings the line, “I want your love and I want your revenge,” she follows it up by suggesting, “you and me could write a bad romance.” Here, the listener gets the sense that she means something along the lines of a trashy romance novel, one with a lot of softcore erotica and a happy ending. Her inflections support this thought, but that word “revenge” keeps appearing, contradicting the more positive readings. Illuminating the chorus is a revival of the first verse in the song: “caught in a bad romance.” The use of the past tense – in a song otherwise in the present-tense – is interesting, indicating that the things she craved were the wrong things, and now she’s stuck in something she only thought she wanted. It’s a bizarre reality check, even as that “oh-oh-oh-oh-OH” continues to paint verbal hopefulness in the background.
The second verse recalls a qualification of the first: earlier, she’d stated that she “want(s) your everything as long as it’s free”; now she warns that “you’re a criminal as long as you’re mine.” It’s as if she’s giving outs to her object of desire, subtly indicating that she’s willing to throw herself into a fantasy as long as it remains a fantasy. Dark desires have a way of turning into dark realities. To underscore this, GaGa name-checks three Alfred Hitchcock films – Psycho, Rear Window, and Vertigo (applying the appellation –stick to this latter title, recalling the disco-stick of her earlier hit “Love Games”; it’s still nonsensical, but at least its conjunction with Vertigo makes a bit more sense. In addition, the line “while you’re in my rear window, baby it’s sick” begs for a more lurid reading than mere allusion; the longer the song continues, the more pornographic and naked her desires become, even as she tries to repudiate them.)
Following another doubling of the “rah-rah” bridge, we enter into a bizarre subplot, which seems to feature GaGa onstage at a fashion show (could this be what she meant by “Roma”?) The vocal grows a bit more diffuse, standing in for a crowd watching her strut. Amid the standard “walk, walk fashion baby,” we get “work it, move, that bitch crazy.” The shift to second person (with GaGa looking in at herself) is fascinating, as if she knows that other people know something about her that she doesn’t; perhaps she is afraid of her “sick” intentions being brought to light, even as she wants them to. A defensive, “I’m a freak bitch, baby!” tries to sound like she’s owning it, but fails to convince. This dichotomy continues to define the song.
Something revealing happens by the next chorus: after the repetition that she wants both love and revenge, she states, “I don’t want to be friends.” It’s the first time in the song she nakedly states something she doesn’t want. It’s a brief moment of naked honesty, and GaGa immediately fears it. At once, she dives into French, as if backing off from this statement, baffling the listener away from truth.
Soon enough, though, she comes back to it, seeming to need to get it out. She repeats the line three times, and on the third repetition, she finally evinces emotion. Most of the song has been sung in an almost-monotone (with the exception of the chorus, whose vocal ranges from come-on to slight desperation). On the final, “I don’t want to be friends,” she actually shouts, underlining her entire intention of the song. She wants destructive love, but she doesn’t want to actually like this person. The whole song has led up to this moment, finally revealing GaGa’s true colors – she wants a theory of love tainted with versions of hate and pain. Real love, which requires you to be friends with the person you are in love with, is messier than her initial concepts of what makes romance “bad.” Immediately following this revelation, she falls back to her default position: “I want your bad romance.”
“Bad Romance” is a complicated, complex song, bursting with pop concepts that could have been the basis for four or five lesser songs. More, it’s deeper than it pretends to be; even flourishes like the way she slurs the word “hand” and the grunting sigh in the middle of the second verse are more interesting than they have any right to be. After the mediocre “Just Dance,” the trying-too-hard “Poker Face,” and the absolutely horrible “Love Games,” “Paparazzi” was a breath of fresh air. “Bad Romance” happily continues this trend. It’s not only Lady GaGa’s best single so far, it is also one of the best songs of the year.
( And the video is a mindfuck. )
What I'm Reading Now: Take the Cannoli, by Sarah Vowell
Guess what? I thought the whole thing where people hear about an interesting book and then say, "Oh, that sounds good, I'll wait for the movie" was OVER! I quite honestly thought that sort of thing ended in the 70s or something. Apparently, I have been living in a world where the ranks of the post-literate proliferate and I just didn't know it. I was convinced that every person I knew or was acquainted with read books first. I was convinced that people "waited for the paperback," but always wanted to make sure to read the book before the movie came out, because the book is always better (exception: Silence of the Lambs).
This is just damn fucking disheartening. I don't even know how to react to someone telling me this. I'm actually a little angry, even though I'm sure that's not an appropriate response. Rire! Rire, big time.
Look, there's a lot going on in my life. Stuff that just begs for 1K-long narrative looks on the LJ. My life has been big and busy lately, what with work (who knew that part-time jobs could suck up so much downtime?) and social stuff and the holidays. There will be a time when all this calms down and I can write more than I am right now - hell, even Tangerine is taking a hit, and I desperately need to turn the cogs on that.
But right now, this is where I'm stuck. That book sounds interesting; I'll wait for the movie. No. No! You read the book because it's good, and you then later see if the movie did a good enough job translating it. That is how this WORKS. OMG RIRE IN MY BRAIN!
I'm going to go eat a leftover slider and some chicken pieces. And I should probably sleep, ever.
Kev
Fantastic Mr. Fox was SO AWESOME! SO AWESOME!!!
If anyone needs to know something to buy me for Christmas but is all like, hmmm, I wonder what Kevin wants, THIS IS WHAT I WANT: Story & Song From the Haunted Mansion. It doesn't even cost nothing! GRAMMAR! It's on my Amazon Wish List!!!
Holy heck! It's December! Who loves December!? ME! Fantastic Mr. Fox!!! More on all of this later!
What I’m Reading Now: Batman: Gothic, by Grant Morrison and Klaus Janson
While I was typing my listing for Under the Dome into my 50 Books 2009 list last night, I was startled to find that I hadn’t finished a single book in November. This marks the first time in, I believe, twenty years or more that I went a whole month without finishing a book. It’s not entirely my fault, thought. John Irving’s Last Night In Twisted River is, as usual, super dense, and it came out late October. Under the Dome is a page-turner, but at 1,037 pages, it’s a slow page-turner. Mammoth following dense is not a recipe conducive to novel completion. I finished Under the Dome yesterday (review to come), and now I’m faced with a similar challenge as I was in July: to make up for lost time. Already 2009 is going to be totted up as my lowest ebb in the books-read category for the last three years; it’s going to take everything I have to even get to 50. This is alarming! Aren’t you alarmed!?
Still, here’s the good news: I finished writing a novel this year. Roller Disco Saturday Night, after a nine-month gestation, finished sweetly and contains some good writing, if I do say so myself. I started writing Tangerine and for once, I didn’t give up on it. It’s marching ahead dutifully and nicely; I had thought my return to supernatural horror nine years after I’m On Fire would be harder, but this books seems to really want to be born. I’m not standing in its way.
I didn’t write any short stories this year (wait, did I? No, I guess not.), but this was sort of a banner year for poetry for me. I think I wrote something like six poems, which is a huge output for me. I did enough to actually compile a collection, which I was going to put up on Amazon for download. Which I still can, actually. Hmm, projects for tomorrow, maybe?
But in addition: I keep forgetting that I wrote a whole crapload of nonfiction this year. Like, a crapload. I coauthored (with me doing most of the research and writing) a book about Stephen King movie trivia, and then I busted out a chapter-book about King on the bestseller charts. This last one, called Chart of Darkness, became harder to forget about when I got comp copies in the mail yesterday.
You guys, I cannot – cannot – explain the thrill of opening a box and seeing a pile of books with your name on it inside. It’s a chapter-book, currently only available to Cemetery Dance subscribers, and it’s not like it’s a big hardcover with my author photo on the back. It’s stapled together and has a goofy illustration on the cover. But it’s on nice paper, and it’s got a colophon, and my signature on the inside, and that’s my name on the cover. It’s mine and it’s real.
It maybe wouldn’t be a surprise to 16-year-old me that my first published book would be about Stephen King. But to 34-year-old me, it’s still a shocker. I have a book published. I. Have a book. Published. What the what?
Kev
What I'm Reading Now: Under the Dome, by Stephen King
Current Word Count: "Pistons Underwater,"165 words/6 stanzas
During the summer, nagging rhymes kept cropping up in my head while I was at the gym. Despite my initial attempts at a steampunk novel, Pale October, the first completed bit of steampunkery I ever wrote was a poem called "Watchwork and Steam".
Yesterday, while working out, it happened again. I don't know what it is about the gym and its way of fueling steampunk fantasies, but I never question the muse. There is a deeper itching in my head, begging me to get back to the novel I've been away from for about five days, and that itch will be sated tonight, after my nine-hour shift. An unexpected nine-hour shift. A nine-hour shift I hadn't planned on, which means that tomorrow, not today, will be the day I can finally relax and watch my movies and sleep in.
Right now, I have a callback to the temp agency. And then hustling out the door. But before all that, I'd like to share my second steampunk poem, "Pistons Underwater," which was beta'd by my good pal
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
dr_tectonic and read by my dear friend joezer before I shared it here. My steampunk poems tend to be my only really optimistic ones, for whatever reason. I hope you like it, but I welcome comments and criticism! I’m pretty much a fan of anything that comes in a crust, other than hobos. This is what I'm talking about. It's witty and fun and often comes with recipes and vaguely pornographic photos of food. Succulent, delectable food. Now I want quiche.
Today's entry mentioned me and my love of brie, which is yet another reason to love. Not just the blog, but in general. FoodIsForEating.com! GO NOW!
What I’m Reading Now: Under the Dome, by Stephen King
You guys remember my anchor tattoo, right?
Being as it was my thirteenth tattoo, I wanted the number 13 worked into the design in some sort of interesting way. My idea was to have the shank of the anchor be the numeral 1, and the crown a stylized 3. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and when Shawn sketched it out for me, he decided to put the 13 into the ropework. Kelly the Wonder Tattooist concurred, and Anchor 13 remains the best black-and-gray ink on my body.
Shawn obviously liked it, too, because when I started making rumblings about wanting a new Top Secret Tattoo, he responded that he wanted a new one as well, his fourth. “I want the anchor you have, but with a 10 instead of a 13.”
“A ten?”
“You know, for us. Our first decade together.”
Just when I think Shawn can’t even approach the whole sappy romantic thing that I’m all about, he goes and conjures something amazing. My dude, you guys. ( Tattoo shenanigans with pictures galore! )
Full story, early tomorrow!
Also enjoy my new icon!
What I'm Reading Now: Under the Dome, by Stephen King.
Folks, there's an exhaustion thing happening. I'd tell you why I didn't get to bed before 1:30 AM when I knew I had to wake up at 6:30 AM, but that would be tales out of school. Mmmmschool.
You may have heard that Thanksgiving was yesterday, and I want to reiterate my confusion with folks referring to it by other names. Gobble Gobble Day? Seriously, what's that? Ditto Turkey Day. What if we didn't make turkey on Thanksgiving? What if instead we made fusion pears with seared Mexican chocolate on the side? I guess that makes us non-conformists, huh!? And yet, we'd still call it Thanksgiving because THAT'S ITS NAME. (I honestly have no idea why this riles me so much. I really like Thanksgiving).
Shawn and I were up at the crack of dawn (10:00 AM) getting a start on dinner. Kids, it was manic-time hell to breakfast, and I had to physically stop myself from cooking several times and have some water so I didn't get dizzy and fall down. Does this happen to anyone else? Getting dizzy while cooking and feeling like you're going to fall down? Just me? Okay.
Somehow I managed to make it through most of the day unscathed. Shawn elbow deep in a turkey carcass, wisely advised me not to make the bisque until about an hour before the guests arrived, because it was soup and wouldn't hold. I agreed readily, little knowing that the bisque - angered at having to wait to be created - was plotting its revenge.
Up in New York, my green bean casserole (with Chinese wontons instead of onions, because I don't like the texture but I do like the taste, which explains the teaspoon of onion powder that accompanied everything) went lickedy-split. My family is fans of the whole white-trash chic I bring to the literal table, and the wontons make it festive! The noodle kugel was a slower sell, which is why I have been trying to market it with more pizazz down here in the city.
"When you come to our party," I promised the kids I invited, "there will be noodle kugel! It's my signature dish! You wouldn't want to miss out on noodle kugel, would you? If you don't enjoy the noodle kugel, we'll kick this orphan to death with a steel-toed boot!" Honestly, I think I like it the best because it rhymes. Also, too few people like my chocolate pear sponge treat for that to be my signature dish. KUGEL!
After the green bean magic, I whipped up the kugel, changing the dimensions in such a way that caused a furtive vein in Shawn's head to start throbbing. "Uuuhm," he said, watching me add a fourth egg and apparently thinking our kitchen was a comic-book message board, "I'm not so sure you need four eggs? I mean, you just could have upped the noodle part, and left everything else as you had it? Uhm?"
See above, re: steel-toed boot. Oh, also I made a chocolate creme pie, which tastes remarkably better if (1) you let it set, (2) don't use a flaky crust instead of a graham cracker crust, and most importantly, (3) you don't half-thaw the flaky crust before dumping a mound of hastily-made pudding (which wasn't meant as a play on words but turned out that way), so that it's as if you're dumping chocolate slop into some wet cardboard and serving it to your boyfriend for his 40th birthday, causing him to escape into a blizzard to be away from your cooking. That, friends, was digression.
Anyhow, things were going well. Three dishes made. Shawn was handing the protein, including the turkey and ham (which my vegetarian-except-for-poultry friend Steve later referred to as "pink turkey," because hey, it's Thanksgiving and we can all slide a little). It was about an hour before the kids showed up and it was time for me to bisque this party right.
Remember last year, when I made pumpkin bisque, and the first batch turned out to have the color and consistency of despair, because Someone Hates Anything With Niceness and decided that I should probably substitute turkey stock in lieu of chicken stock, because that's the same. (This year: "Should I use, like, armadillo stock? It's the same, right?" Shawn: "A year later, and still not funny.") This time, I did it right. Right amount of spices. Right amount of pumpkin. Correct stock. Everything. I brought it to a boil in the Dutch oven and then when it was time, I tipped it into the blender.
"Why are you using the blender?" Skeptical Shawn was skeptical.
"That's what the recipe says to do. I'm to puree it here before adding the cream."
"Yes, but..."
Too late. I held the top down. Hit puree. And the world went orange.
To say that the bisque exploded from the blender would be an understatement. It was like Bisque Shock and Awe. It got all over my Springsteen shirt. My clean pants. The toaster. The cabinets. The clean dishes. Oh, also: my hand.
Remember when I said I let it boil? Keep that in mind when you imagine a tidal wave - no, a Hokusai tsunami - of boiling-hot pumpkin bisque cascading over the palm of my hand. I'll admit it: I screamed. And, yes, just a little: sobbed like a little girl.
Shawn asked me if I needed the emergency room. My first thought? I can't, I haven't added the nutmeg yet. Shawn jammed my hand under the cold water for five minutes, and I snipped off a piece of our aloe plant and rubbed it liberally all over my fingers. (Yes, we have an aloe plant in the kitchen. This isn't our first time at the Kitchen Accidents Rodeo.) Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang and I went to get it.
"Happy Thanksgiving!" Rachel shouted as I opened the door.
"Happy Thanksgiving!" A pause. "I sure hope these aren't third-degree burns!"
Kev
(The conclusion, with pictures and recipes, coming soon!)
What I’m Reading Now: Under the Dome, by Stephen King
In the morning, I woke up early and clambered into Whitney’s immense Army vehicle they’d bought at a government auction. It was Doug’s anniversary gift to her. I took my guy to Disney World. We have different lives, ( us and them. )
What I’m Reading Now: Under the Dome, by Stephen King
Sane families are all the same; insane families are nutso in their own, unique ways. And at Thanksgiving, ( all families are insane. )
Back from New York, safe and sane and accounted for. There's at least one entry, maybe two, inside of me, just waiting for unspooling and parenthetical asides and titles beginning with definite articles, as is my late-November wont. But I've been away from Tangerine for a few days and I'm all about jamming on that for awhile. Forgive me, delightful friends. My recommitment to LJ is so happening in this ever-changing world in which I live in, but as in all things, fiction has to come first. I may be back later today, but more likely tomorrow.
Wait'll you see pictures of my Dad dancing. Ballroom dancing. Seriously, you guys, it's gonna be worth the wait.
Kev
This, however, is MY LIFE.
brooklinegirl. mrsronweasley. I was going to link to individual posts, but really, it's the whole thing. The. Whole. Thing.
You may all now weep openly.
What I’m Reading Now: Under the Dome, by Stephen King
The plan was to wake up in the bright early morning, grab my haversack and head off to the gym. To set the alarm for the ludicrous hour of 6:00 AM so I’d have time to work out and maybe hit Starbucks for fifteen minutes before heading to work at Borders at 9:00. It was a terrific plan, actually, despite my incipient headache and my palpable desire to forego the whole thing and just play New Super Mario Brothers Wii for an hour before heading out.
Reality came crashing down around my ears the second I checked in, though: today, Wednesday the 18th of November, the boys’ and girls’ rooms would be again switching, so that the girls’ room can be worked on.
None of this would be that big a deal, either … except for the fact that my gym is the type that allows you to keep your stuff in your lockers overnight. As such, all my gym stuff – including my toiletries – is trapped in the boys’ locker room, where I can’t get at it.
Which is how I find myself at the Arlington Street Starbucks at 7:55 AM, ungymmed, unshaven, un-underarm-deodoranted.
Which is why, if you stop by Borders today between the hours of nine and six, you will be confronted by a alarmingly patchy neckbeard and bleary, sleep-deprived eyes. (I don’t really need to worry about smelling. I’m not one of those Iron John bear guys who insist on going naturally scented as my God-given right, but honestly, I don’t have that much of a stench anyway. I wear deodorant because I like smelling like Glacial Ice.) I’m just annoyed with myself. I want to rail against this surprise switch, swirling my fist in the air and loudly wondering at the gym’s policy to not employ equally qualified female electricians who could work on the women’s room without interruption of basic services. Briefly, in the shower, I questioned the outdated puritanical “ethic” that prevents men and women from being in a place where one of them might – gasp! – see another naked! Horrors!
But the plain fact is, it wasn’t a surprise switch. I knew about this on Monday and just forgot. At least I got to shower. My plans on scoping out The Guy (who I know is there in the morning) and Crazy Hot Trainer (who has been an afternoon guy lately) were, sadly, for naught. Plus, honestly? I really wanted to work out. I’ve been awesome at working out lately. My arms are crying out for exercise. Now I feel all sluggish and logy.
To end this on a happy note, though: last night, Bob Holt and Steve came over with bags of chips and Nutter Butters (not shaped like peanuts; what?) and we played three solid hours of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. We howled. We were on the edge of our seats, holding our collective breath. We cheered each other on, switching the WiiMote off as each of us either completed a level or crashed and burned. Steve at one point raised a can of Diet Cherry Dr Pepper and said, “This soda is really what clinches this mansperience!” It was so a mansperience!
After we died too many times to make redoing three levels a viable option, we switched off and rewatched last week’s 30 Rock, and I was sure to rewind the commercial featuring a hot lady in a bustier, as we were in the presence of a straightie. All this and the crinkliest bag of Sun Chips ever made this the best Tuesday night since Buffy went off the air. Hooray for Wii, bringing us all together again! Whee! Wii!
And now: work.
Kev
It was a monorail rather than a train, its single track stretching from one end of the office to the other before looping back around. Skeletal brass trestles, festooned with gearwheels and axels whose purpose I couldn’t determine, rose from the floor at intervals. Their heights varied and the track rose and fell with them. It was all very interesting, the effort of a singularly focused mind. But that wasn’t the best of it.
“Whoa,” I murmured, crouching down to get a better look at the engine. It was unlike any train or monorail I’d ever seen. Its brass body was torpedo-shaped, fixed together by miniature rivets. Portholes of irregular sizes were set into the body, and a brass smokestack rose from its middle. Beneath, metal wheels cinched the monorail to the track, holding it in place. Incredibly – and this was the part that really got me – curved brass fins jutted out from either side; a sole dorsal fin, also in brass, bisected the top of the engine, just behind the smokestack. The thing reminded me more of a submarine than a train, the kind Jules Verne imagined in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. All at once, it was easy to imagine a giant squid wrapped around the monorail, Captain Nemo inside barking orders to his crewmen. The image made me smile; when was the last time I’d read Jules Verne? High school? I looked for a name on the engine, knowing I’d find that Dave had christened it Nautilus. In that, I was wrong: in small black hand-painted letters across the dorsal fin was the single word Limited.
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