Friday, July 18, 2008

Long hot summer

Is that an oven in my pocket or is i just f%^$* hot?


I remember nights like these, slippin out of the cabin in the dark and sneaking down to the dock,slippin out of the nightie and diving, sleak and silent into the lake...floating on my back and watching the stars for hours...95 meant nothing on those nights.

I wish my pond was deeper...

Second Un-iversary

It was my second Un-iversary yesterday...so odd after being together so long.
I have learned to love living alone, as oppossed to lonely. That is good. Sometimes tho, you just miss touch and intimate conversation...

Such a wierd wierd week or two. Met lots of fun new people, spent hilarious and serious time with family and friends...went to court with boys and they won this round..pretty sure they will win entire sad cessation of parental right trial...so wonderful/so tragic all at the same time...

Saw old friends, got hit on by old friend, ran for the hills from old friend...wierd!!!!

Now, I'm wondering IF there is someone out there who gets me and wants to figure out if there is maybe more to me that is worth exploring.

The biggest dilemna is what do I expect? Honesty, Humor, ethics: both personal and social, political curiosity, intelligence, music lover, daring, ...

Hello? Hello...is this thing on? The universe I mean...sigh.


Question is then this...just how do I meet someone in this crazy world? Bars? booze doesn't bring out the best in any of us probably...but i do laugh and love the conversations. Coffeeshop? Seems way to close to home, but there are some cool guys there, smart, political...and if it all went terribly wrong... oh hell no...

I love the interesting guys I've met, but not so sure they love me and my big mouth...besides, lately I think they are all too young...how funny tho, all the guys my age are too old mentally and socially...they lack curiosity and daring...

So, I guess i just bide my time and hope the trust that the "damned-good-man" fairy bonks me over the head someday...

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

it ain't over till the not so fat lady sings

today is my second un-niversary...still not over...day passed running work errands, making bad art with bff Jay, dinner with 'nother old friend...no one remembered. As dinner was ending my youngest called and asked if I was divorced yet...it made me laugh...don't think she even realized the date... I didn't even, not till mid day when a customer asked me what the date was ...I said july 16th and finished making a latte and was walking down the counter when I stopped and thought...july 16th...oh yeah.


So wierd to be un-niversaried 2 years and still un-divorced after all this time. So I came home and sat on my deck and toasted the full moon and lit candles and listened to music while making wishes on the moon for the future...

to the future...and singing a happy song...an aria perhaps?

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Ladies who dare to say see me

Burlesque on a HOT HOT summer night
Such vaudevilian frickin old school fun...torch style singers:Super power belt-em out naughty Karen!, the suave tease Jasper, the Andrews sisters style harmonies and by the Ava, Nadine, Karen trio...then lots o tease and strippin.

All of the ladies are amazing...Nadine the ex-baptist, now burlesque queen emcee rocked the MN lutheranesque crowd out of it's comfort zone...The amazing Ned taught what folding chairs are really for...part gymnastic superstar, part Gene Kelly, part freak show superman...amazing new tricks for old chairs...Go superman, go!...

Sweet Pea shook it like no-one else, Ophelia Flame made me want to sit on my washer for a double spin cycle, the umbrella routine was sexy and the props amazing...volcanic burst of feathers (in blue?) made me want a rubber-ducky strip tease outfit too. Carmela the hula girl and her ukele man made me want to own my own coconut bra and hula skirt!

Sooo funny, a very very, tongue in cheek, hot show.

Jasper, the suave producer and his lady, the Divine Ballerina Burlesque Diva, Lily Verlaine, took burlesque and married it to art and classical music...amazing how completely it took me to a place I'd never visited before. Beauty and naughty all in one...so intelligent! Gina Louise and the gang showed how it ain't just a Man's world...So there James Brown.

Doll-faced Ava reminded me why I won't go camping, and then there was the so so great and bad, Funny Bunny and the "C" word routine that would make George Carlin blush...I'm still laughing and my fear of the c word is almost gone...how sweet that humaor can educate too.

I wondered as I drove home, who wouldn't love naughty on a summer nite? Last show for Sizzle was saturday nite at the Ritz...GO to the Fringe fest to see them in The Underpants Show, You will adore it! Promise.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

lions and cougars and beers...oh my!

lions and cougars and beers..oh my!
Current mood: pirate
Category: amused Automotive

A pick-up complete with a stuffed half- lion is apparently the best chick magnet ever.
No foolin' Saw it with my own eyes. Sat on a perfect summer night on the 331's patio and watched the parade of beauties ready to jump...cameras in hand...into the hands of whoever owned the lion and to the arms of his wing-man too!
then, the best cougar attack of all time...no shit! "I'm a big game hunter," she said. "I'm so deadly, they make me wear a bell." Oh fuckin A., i thought now here's a game..."May I please take a picture for a friend. I wouldn't dream of just climbing in without permission."
Freud would have snapped his pencil! I sat open-mouthed, in total AWE. Doll face, R went to the truck to let her take pics...I told his friend..S. J...."Now that's a PRO cougar." I was laughing my ass of tho cuz they didn't bite. I really think R didn't see it coming, excuse the pun... Still, I wanted to bow down in admiration for the most golden approach ever, adapted to a rare and quite specific situation. Genius!!!

Gentlemen. I bow to you first, tho. You were fun, sweet, irreverent and the best company I've experienced with men in ages! I can promiseyou that I'll be dragging my tired, road-trip burnt ass to your 3rd ever freakshow with friends in tow, because
I can't imagine a better group of "soft on the inside" hard on the outside, smart-sweet asses who adore fine old rides and intelligent funnyn women.

A toast to both of you! To summer nights, laughter, hot classic cars and good conversation Slante!

May you always see a cougar coming, and may that sweet tattered half-lion get you where you want to go!

God save us from the candy-van...tho i'm excited to actually see the scary thing. Funny!

Monday, July 7, 2008

For my daughters...

For My Daughters Who Are Grown


I found my favorite photograph
of you in a red enamel box;
ages two and four, self-dressed
in aqua blue swim goggles
and twin, red-dragon kimonos
black hair floating, you turn to the camera.

You are my proof of joy,
spoons swimming mid-air;
cheerios pasted, like opals,
over your
smooth fat hands and cheeks...

At night, the accumulation of time
and loss infects adult dreams:
the sweetness of roses and cereal
redeems the taste of red wine
and remembered embraces.
Sweet, bent notes rise from your throats
hang in the air like dust,
skittering over every surface
I reach out to catch the sounds...

I ride dreams into morning
emerging
from one year to another,
my body a red container,
floating in time;
across a kitchen,
abandoned like a wound,
to the depths of a house set on a foundation
of rain and stone.
I excavate the belly of our lives...

When I awake you are there,
mercifully there
smoking thin 100 lights
reaching out now adult, graceful hands,
offering me your bread and wine;
the perfect communion
for a soul at sea.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Touch this

A friend just had a really bad break-up...She talked about how she knew it wasn't a good relationship inherently, how she was just lonely and so she hoped it would get better over time and connection. She said that she just missed touch and conversation and a "real" relationship so much, that she picked someone who in her gut she knew wasn't right...

I was sad for her. Glad she was talking about it all. I felt her ache...Then, I got stuck on the comment about touch and conversation. They are, after all ,what makes for sound development in infants. Lack of touch and stimulation is actually the leading cause of mental retardation. Odd! Remarkable! Predictable. Then, I wondered if, as adults ,it leads to emotional retardation.

Yes...I get it, her sorrow too well. I miss touch too. I miss one-on-one conversation, I miss the feel of a hand on the small of my back...that specific touch being for me, so intimate, so protective.

I posit this: Do we make bad choices just to attain that human touch? Are they bad, or just sad, maybe just lonely and misguided...? Should we be forgiving, then, for the bad choices we sometimes make out of that terrible, large, loneliness?

So, no regrets for attempts at human outreach when we are unattached and lonely...sometimes it is good... sometimes it is just touch for the short term..sometimes it is not enough.

Slante to all who are lonely.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

endings need to end, so i can begin!!!

So much time to get to the end...so many roadblocks, so much legal dancing and prestidigitation...

I kept wondering why I have been so so so so tired and I realized it's because I'm always waiting for the next shoe to drop, the next bad game to begin.

Yesterday I was tired tired tired from work, I thought I would just sleep my week away. When I woke up, I was going to try to shrug the shit off my shoulders, put the dog out, sit on my deck, water my garden, crank my music, watch Countdown with mom, unfurl my scrunched brow and smile at the world that rolled out before me, because tho the legality of END is still playing like a broken record, the mary cassidy in me would BEGIN AT WAKE-UP...No more tethers to him, no more ties to broken...

When I woke up, I SAW THAT I HAVE CHOICES...I SAW HOW SILLY I WAS TO NOT HAVE REALLY UNDERSTOOD THAT. AT THE END OF NAP TIME, MARY CASSIDY BEGAN, SMART, LOUD, HAPPY, SEXY, DARING AND CURIOUS...FREE... BEGAN AGAIN

SWEET

THEN there was Good byes and bbs...target practice with a dear man... distraction from her going, a reprieve from waiting..
Life is sweet and oh so strange some weeks...The changes will be rolling in like waves...daughters, divorce, my own daring to dream...

Ironic, I think, that one daughter is coming home at last, the other leaving on her "I need to do this, to see if I can," journey...off to Colorado...beautiful they say...

Sweet and sad for me. I will think of it as an opportunity for her (and at some future point, me,) to see new parts of this country. I will rejoice in her choice and watch, long-distance, her blooming on her own terms.
I will pray to the stars, since god is probably just that, for her happiness, and not mourn her leaving.
I will remember how I left too, years ago, then returned to where home was set in my heart. All will play out as it is meant to.



Sitting with her over dinner, listening to her reasons for leaving, I thought back to my life before her and her sister or even her father. I was so ready to strike out- far away, independent of my family. I did and it was one hell of a ride...foreign travel, island home and new cultures that dug under my skin and became such an integral part of who I now am.

I did not cry. Instead, I wished her happiness and love. And then, how strange a gift, birds pecking crumbs at my feet, bringing a sweet vision of homing pigeons into my head...of her, and her sister, off to the world, with an instinct for when and how to return...driving home, the moon rose and the stars came out...all meant to be what it is.

I am at peace with it...I thought of big love, how it drives us..

I thought of me, now, and of simpler pleasures...of the things that keep me happy...like, how much I would love laying on my deck and watching the stars, or listening in the dark to the sound of water over my pond's watrfall, the joy and satisfaction of hitting a beer can with a bb gun at a friends house on a summer night...

The thought of freedom, anyone's freedom, is so pure, so sweet...
For me, that means it will be okay...even if it includes losing what I have always known as home. Yep, the trade off is no different than the daughters' daring to start new...Fuck yes, change is good.
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS! That cannot be taken away.
I have seen, finally, that I, like my daughters, can't be scared of new anymore...

What is New?:
That Mary Cassidy would bloom from my heart and from my skin, fully formed, like Athena...does that mean fully armed for self-defense? hope so...
That I would be so damned good at designing gardens for people who's idea of beauty is very different from mine? That they would love it and find peace there...
That I can hula-hoop and smoke at the same time...
That I could be so good at birthing babies?
That I could roll, like a ninja, with the punches life has thrown lately? I guess I knew but didn't trust that I did...now I do...
That I could judge a grown-up spelling bee and bee naughty as necessary
That I could see that BIG changes are just big changes...and, roll baby roll...
That I could love so many kinds of music...opera, r&b, hip-hop, rock, indie, folk, metal, punk, jazz, blues...

I am currently listening to : I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too, By Martha Wainwright. I love it...somehow it makes me feel free, like my life is just one more example of how things start anew...she is amazing...listen.

endings need to end, so i can begin!!!

Good byes and bbs....
Current mood: adventurous
Category: sure Life

Oh the changes are rolling in like waves...daughters, divorce, daring ...who knew I would love the stars so, or the sound of water over rock, the joy of hitting a beer can with a bb gun, the thought of freedom even if it means losing what I have always known as home...? Fuck yes, change is good. HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS! I'LL BE FINE, home or no home...can't be scared anymore...

Who knew I would be so damned good at designing gardens for people who's idea of beauty is different from mine? Who knew I could be so good at birthing babies? Who knew I could roll like a ninja with the punches life has thrown lately? I guess I knew but didn't trust that I did...now I do...

BIG changes are just big changes...roll baby roll...

Currently listening :
I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too
By Martha Wainwright
Release date: 2008-06-10

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Monday, June 30, 2008





So much time to get to the end...so many roadblocks, so much legal dancing and prestidigitation...

I keep wondering why I am so so so so tired and I realize it's because I'm always waiting for the next shoe to drop, the next bad game to begin.

Today, tiredtiredtiredfrom work, I think I will just sleep. When I wake up, I will shrug the shit off my shoulders, put the dog out,sit on my deck, water my garden, crank my music, watch Countdown with mom, unfurl my scrunched brow and smile at the world that rolls out before me, because tho the legality of END is still playing like a broken record, the mary cassidy in me BEGINS. Tonight...No more tethers, no more ties to broken...

CHOICE...HOW SILLY TO NOT HAVE REALLY UNDERSTOOD THAT. TODAY AT THE END OF NAP TIME, MARY CASSIDY BEGINS, SMART, LOUD, HAPPY, SEXY, DARING AND CURIOUS...FREE... BEGIN.AGAIN

SWEET