it's 1:40 am, on November 11, 2001 - georgia in the winter.
~
I saw Tori Amos in concert the other night.
I promised in the less interesting journal that I'd do a journal entry about that, but aside from missing a lot of Rufus Wainwright, which annoyed, and not knowing many of her songs, I really have less to say than I should, maybe.
There was a list of things, at one point, that I was going to explore, but now its gone. --hey, there's a good song. Is it just me that wants that with nothing but a piano and a guitar? Without the polish. Just the shine.
This song, by Tori, called 'I don't like Mondays'. I really like it. I've been listening to it. It's a little plaintive, a little sad. The lyrics fit less than the tone of her voice, but often, I find, that's the way Tori and I operate. She has the tone, and I don't listen to the words.
There's more set in Georgia, I think, for those of you that read the other one. Two women, sitting on a porch. Talking about an absence of letters, while a little boy plays in a tree. Maybe I'll paste it. I wrote claire an email with this tacked on the end; don't know what it's going to be, or what it was.
the sun shines brightly
and cliche on the ocean's tides, in spring
as well as winter
the woolen blanket, blue, that keeps us warm
is the same one that felt nice in summer
wrapped up now, barely wards away
the chill.
Think it goes with this.
~*~
It's the wind in the trees, you decide, that makes things seem so much sadder than they are. The little rustle, and then a plop of a weightless leaf that hits the ground so quietly it's barely a tickle on your eardrum.
There's a familiar figure coming up your drive, with a little boy being dragged by the arm. He is, no doubt, in desperate need of a bath. Reuben always was.
"Aren't you ever coming off that porch, darlin'?"
It's November again. You know that things never work out in November, and you just have to wait until November swings into December and the tap-dancing leaves turn into gentle snowflakes before, again and again, you're okay. You will be.
She comes and sits down beside you, lets Reuben run off to climb the apple tree. There's something in her face that you don't like, but you never did, and so you both watch Reuben yelling at the barn cats while he tries to fall out of the tree.
"I'm serious," she says between drags of the Virginia Slims that are the only cigarettes she touches, now that her husband is out of the picture. "Aren't you ever getting off that porch?"
"I happen to like this porch," you say, and shove her lightly.
She taps the ash out, fingernails gleaming red and long. "What happened this time?"
It's November, you remember, and there's nothing in the air to say that you have to answer her, nothing that means you have to do any bloody thing about it at all. Reuben has disappeared, and you snort. Not surprising. You wonder, idly, whether you'll ever be happy, and say, "Nothing really happened."
"Oh, that."
Her ash used to leave little trails all through the house you two shared together, so that if you watched close enough, you could tell where she'd been just from the little piles of grey. Stepped on, and they'd disappear, but she was always smoking to make more. You never wanted to vacuum, back then, and now that you have money and a place of your own, you still don't, so you put down real hardwood floors as soon as possible.
She flicks the butt away. "What did she say?"
You lean back, on your hands. This is your house, no one else's, and sometimes the lawn grows too quickly, and sometimes the disgusting mess inside stays disgusting for weeks on end -- but it's yours. Your mess. Your floorboards. Your dusty bookshelves full of books you wrote and forget where they came from. The only inspiration coming was going into letters, page and pages, and those are hardly publishable now.
"She's not going to write anymore."
It's November. The rustle in the trees reminds you that the leaves are falling, one by one, and it's something you should maybe write a poem about. Lynne, she's started on another cigarette which means that she's not leaving until you either show her the letter or tell her what you're feeling. It's easier to stand up, wander into the house and go straight to the place you tossed her envelope carelessly on the side table, to pretend you didn't care.
Far too easy to say that it didn't matter, and getting too easy to believe it.
~*~
There should be more, after this, maybe about the first snowfall, and bringing firewood into the house, and then maybe something about a cat and being chilled. I'm not sure. I thought it up in the shower, of course.
Something else I was going to mention was Al's non-existent play. But I'm going to keep that for myself for a while. Like Pablo says, I am 'disposed, like any other, to cherish my human affinities.' I really hope that's still true.
--something Al said that stuck with me was, why do you ask about my day if you don't care? it stung so much at the time, and now I look back and think, bee sting. You should have noticed. Lots of little bee stings.
Tori was okay, in that it wasn't.
'Gone', live. This is the stuff.
I've done a lot of writing in the last two days, little pieces of things that'll go absolutely nowhere, as always. --There's a car alarm going off somewhere far away.
Something in me wants to delete everything I've got that could possibly remind me. Allen said once, I form attachments easily because I share myself easily. I tell people things without hesitation, and form a connection.
Justin just sang, 'the truth remains, you're gone'. You sing it, boy. There's this interview in Arena where he's talking about Wade, and then about insomnia, and I was transcribing random pieces of it at Cathy and Sheila yesterday because they made me giggle. I guess it shouldn't have made me giggle. That's the way love goes.
Yeah, there's no point deleting it all. That'll just mean that, in the end, there'll be less to document.
Social Catholicism, here I come.
~*~
One thing I'd like to say is, I'm not weak. Not anymore. There are a lot of things I am, and a lot of those aren't good, but one thing I'm not is weak. I might have to give up a lot of things to keep it that way, but I'm not weak.
I wrote, just now in a Charles/Magnus, with the lines, "And then, in the morning, they'd go their separate ways again. How much one gives up for integrity, Erik thought, and shook his head."
Something in me wants to think that somewhere I'll always keep a piece, but I don't believe it because; and.
Maybe even that'll fade. The language thing. I want to train myself out of using language that I've picked up from either of you. Let's see how easy it is.
~
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