2003 (for what it's worth)

It was somewhere around the city limits of Jasper, Georgia that I decided.

I was listening to Steve Earle , eating strawberry pocky and wishing I hadn't worn those boots to drive in. I decided that my next journal entry has to be something about 2003. Not really a novel concept as the year is indeed winding down - but I I had toyed with several ideas for the next entry - most of them trying to make myself seem not quite as wistful and spatially challenged. It was then that I decided "why fight it?" and this entry was born like a breech birth seconds-to-midnight baby.

Last night, I sat in an Indian restaurant with my brother and my best friend and we toasted over watered-down spiced tea and beer, "Here's to 2004. May it rock so much that we forget how shitty 2003 was."
We were no doubt thinking about the loss of loved ones to death, the financial struggles, relationships that floundered, business disappointments and so on. The toast was warranted and I felt a collective sigh as we indeed harbored a tiny glimmer of hope that 2004 really will be the year to top all years. As I careened through North Georgia mountain towns in those boots that made me feel like Cat Woman, fighting back sleep and concentrating way too much on that sock on my right foot, I began to make a list in my head - a list that sums up 2003 from my little corner of the world.

This was the year that:

I lost my grandfather to cancer.

I conquered one of my largest fears. I didn't die from it. I chose another. Didn't die from that one either.
I made eight new friends - friends that I hope to always have in my life.

I got a house mate and the house came alive with laughter and music. Sometimes sorrow and pain. But alive all the more. Patty Griffin was joined by Van Morrison. The smell of lean pockets was drowned out by popcorn. The dryer was always full. A black lab named after a Rocky and Bullwinkle character watched through patio doors as if we were cheap entertainment. Wigs and spirit gum shared space with towels in the linen closet. My quote file grew. Floors were paced and voices were raised. Doris Day was worshipped like she deserves. Buick sedans were deemed cool. I learned which purses will carry a flask and a digital camera and still have room for gum and lipstick.

I enjoyed my last year in the Sideways House with mood lighting, surround sound and a new-found appreciation for living in the now. I missed the last party there. The dust bunnies didn't eat us. The neighbors didn't call the cops. Names were changed to protect the innocent. Stains came out of rugs. Somehow the grass always got cut and the trash sometimes made it out to the curb. My neighbor continued to have topless hot tub parties. The white picket fence out front fell prey to hungry termites and I resisted the urge to cite it as a metaphor.

I fell in love.

I took more photos than my hard drive would agree to hold. It begged of me to delete. I refused.

I stopped saying prayers for road-kill (the weekend that I drove home to my grandfather's bedside and I felt my empathetic view of the world skew a little more towards humans. I had always reserved most of my sympathies for animals with the view that they are defenseless against man and our machines. That weekend I realized that sometimes people are defenseless too and sometimes prayers should be reserved.)

I took my first airline flight - and then another - and then another. I didn't believe it before when people told me that you can see the curve of the Earth from up there. They were telling the truth. Rivers and roads look like tiny veins. People are invisible. Flight attendants really do make those robotic motions with their arms to show you where the emergency exits are. The illustrations in the emergency exit pamphlets are hilarious. You shouldn't wear combat boots and a trench coat through security checks.

I acquired 31 more skirts.

I had a song written about me.

I started this website.

I lost 12 pounds. I gained 8 back.

I successfully kept secrets.

I exorcised old demons.

I survived internet dating. Though, I wouldn't tempt the gods by trying it again.

I decided what I want to be when I grow up.

I found humor in honky tonk bathroom graffiti and words of encouragement in tombstone etchings.

I sang out loud during a tornado.

I started photographing in color.

I learned that Johnny Cash died.

I ate larvae and octopus tentacles.

I learned that sometimes the wait is worth it.

I learned that a best friend was put on the organ transplant list.

I realized that my face is aging.

I was romanced.

I was stalked.

I was rejected.

I started to sing Tommy Collins songs in the shower as if it were a dive-bar stage.

I considered the ethics of seeking out a sugar daddy. I was glad to see that it didn't take me long to decide that it was wrong - ugly and wrong. I continued to get up for work every (okay...most) mornings.

I slept in my clothes during a black-out and blizzard with only a stuffed creature from the black lagoon to keep me warm.

I worried a Jewish mother.

I worried a Baptist mother.

I saw flesh-eating zombies AND Jimmy Stewart on the large screen.

I saw flat land.

I laughed until I cried over fondue and tapas.

I found subways magical.

I received surprise packages in the mail.

I got a second set of parents.

I got my first speeding ticket.

I quoted people without their knowledge.

I learned to eat eggs. I never learned to like eggs.

I touched raw meat.

I was reintroduced to the magic of Southern nights and gentle porch swings, jazz music and fireflies.

I wore my underwear out in public.

I posted my writing.

I changed office policy.

I learned to walk a dog (almost as easy as 'falling off a log' but far more dangerous).

I learned the joys of Django Reinhardt.

I caught myself singing a Tom Waits song.

I collected a whole shoe-box full of found photos.

I was still described by most as "cute".

I had mint juleps.

I tried coffee.

I had a Korean nose bleed curse accidentally put on me.

I sat on ballroom stairs amongst scattered wedding flower petals and felt fortunate and electric and young.

I was given a mix CD that had not only Ernie from Sesame Street but also Charles Manson on the cover.

I lost feeling in my right foot.

I had first kisses.

I had last kisses.

I had my groceries rung up by my junior high school bully. I didn't bolt or cry or go postal.

I saw a woman mix a martini with her breasts.

I submitted a photography contest entry for the first time.

I had dreams where I for the first time not only had lunch with Patsy Cline but also was a member of Snoop Doggy Dogg's entourage and saw pancake buffets in a whole new light.

I wished I had a dollar for every time I used the word "passion".

I finally got the "drug talk" from my dad. (Still waiting on the "birds and bees" talk.)

I continued to sedate myself with thrift store junkets, Patty Griffin marathons and Backyard Burger runs.

I wrote my will.

I made plans.

I bring to you tidings of great joy

I wish I could be as calm as my brother who writes:

"I think the Christmas shopping is pretty much done. I went out yesterday just on a lark and wandered the stores. It looked like one of those experimental films where everyone was rushing around at Mach 5 while I just sauntered around. I casually took in the qualities of the remaining Lord of the Rings figures while parents, increasingly desperate, grabbed anything they could find. ' Jimmy would like a bocci ball set!' or ' Little Megan would love a soup strainer!' I rather enjoyed it as I purchased a bag of Hershey's Kisses with almonds and made my way leisurely to the car...."

God bless us every one.

My so called life

I had planned on this journal entry to be something about holidays.

In a way - it is.

Lately, I have been having a real struggle in my mind over the holiday season. Mostly because holidays seem to act like mile markers in my life. So, it is in this way that holidays make me sometimes melancholy. They make me look at my life and at where I was last year on the same holiday. They make me wonder where I will be next year on the same holiday. Sometimes I feel like I am behind and sometimes I feel a little ahead. But, for the past few weeks I have felt something akin to uneasiness. Like my life has no focus. or maybe like I am focusing on too many things at once leaving everything undone. Like I am forgetting things or letting people down. Like I am letting even myself down. Afraid to make promises for fear that I can't keep them. Afraid of believing promises for fear that someone else won't keep them. Drowning. Struggling. Fluctuating.

Sometimes I struggle and feel a little embarrassed because I am 33 and sometimes have to worry about money and keeping a roof over my head. I feel embarrassed because I don't fully know what I want to be when I grow up. I feel embarrassed because I don't have all the answers. I feel embarrassed that the answers that I come up with aren't so promising that they will ever assure me money or a roof over my head. They seem to be answers that say to me to just live. To live for today. To experience. To quote Kerouac and London until people want to kill me. I wonder if it is okay to live in the today and am a little scared that the answer that I come up with is always " yes." Always.

Tonight I sat in an easy chair talking to a stranger in a small apartment just a stone's throw away from downtown Nashville neon. I sat there watching him smoke pot and play his guitar. I read a bio on Merle Haggard while he sang songs. We took turns singing "We're not the jet set" . We bonded over Iris Dement and The Big Lebowski. It was nice. It was real. It was in the moment. Here is this guy - a classic country, rockabilly rebel with pompadour hair, western shirt and more ink than a tattoo parlor. He's sitting in a tiny little apartment picking out songs and waxing poetic about how great Merle is. He thinks that country music has gone to shit. He does a lot of dates all over the country, town to town - yet he isn't living like a rock star - or even a country music star. I was thinking about them - the country music stars - in their big estate homes and meanwhile he's eating Sonic take-out dinners. He has three snowy channels on his TV. He is unassuming and unapologetic. He was kind to me for no reason. His CD player skips during the good parts making every singer sound like Mel Tillis. He is surrounded by photos of his little girl who lives far away and collected odd furnishings. His CD collection contains more Buck Owens than you can shake a stick at but right there in the middle is the Violent Femmes. He doesn't drink anymore because he gets mean and because he has seen what it can do to people. He apologizes when he curses in front of women. He hangs his Kay guitars on the wall like beautiful religious shrines. He said he dreams of owning a white farm house with a green roof. He is from Macon but says he never wants to go back. He was raised by foster parents. He admitted that he only wants to be accepted. Validated. Loved. He admitted this to a total stranger. I nodded in understanding.

I was in awe of him and what he is doing to follow his dream. He had character. It has been so long since I have met anyone around here with character.

It was good to meet someone in this town like that. I had lost faith. God, had I lost faith.

It was also great to feel like there is something good and pure and honest in struggling.

I came home to an email from a friend. We had been talking about aging and how sometimes we are dumbstruck by how fast our lives are moving. How we feel like we haven't done enough or perhaps we will never get to do enough. Does it matter that we aren't married? that we don't have kids? that we don't know where we are or where we are going? Does it matter that later on, we might regret the things we do today? the things that we don't do today?

He said to me, "Sometimes I watch children and their parents and try and gauge the age of those parents and compare my guess to my age. I imagine scenes, frames of some possible life: a wife with a taut round stomach and a slim neck; a wide-eyed car handle-high wonder sponge in the passenger seat next to me, after-work after-school obligations and TV tray dinners and quiet couch moments after the tucking-in. The result is a sort of double melancholy glow. I'm a little sad that I haven't tasted, felt those scenes, but at the same time the thought of all that leaves me kind of gray. So, yes, I do get anxious about the slippage of time. I wonder where I'll wake up next."

I thought that was absolutely beautiful.

Earlier in the evening , I worried about paying the bills and whether I can love and be loved and if it is okay for my passion to turn on at 5:00 each day causing me to stay up late into the night to create and to learn and explore. I worry about these things a lot. They sit on my shoulders. They sometimes keep me awake at night. They sometimes force me to sleep at night just to dream.....to escape the gnawing of them.

And now, it is fifty six minutes past midnight and I feel like it is okay. It's okay to worry and to have good days and bad days and to be embarrassed when I fail or don't have the answers. It is okay to feel like God is speaking to me through the Rolling Stones as they wail "You can't always get what you want.....and you'll find sometimes....you just might find...you get what you need..." It's okay to hear messages of deliverance in rock songs and to see answers in the melodic twanged swirl of late-night moments. You have your sermon on the mount. I'll have mine.

Because it's my life. Every second that comes and goes. Every breath taken in ecstasy or agony or worry or wonder is my breath. It comes from me. It comes to me. It assures me that I am alive and that I need not wait to start living. The living is now. These are the moments that I will look back on - for better or for worse. These very moments, these tiny little fragments of time and memory and conclusions and inconclusions are going to add up to what I will be.

What I will be when I look back and say, "That was my life."

My blood runs cold...my checker is the centerfold.

My last journal entry included the Playboy edition "The Girls of WalMart". I was home for lunch today and noticed that Rickie Lake was showing the actual competition that led up to the issue. I figured since I had slammed the idea before, perhaps I should educate myself to what it is that the girls are about. Sure, it would in no way be as exciting as yesterday's episode entitled, "Who wants to see a cat fight??!!" but it might be worth a quick gander.

The ladies were brought out in shopping carts. I kid you not. Just like merchandise. They wore their bikinis and WalMart smocks and were wheeled out in shopping carts with the Playboy logo on the sides. I asked myself how it could possibly get any better. But wait...it did get better. The girls were helped out of their shopping carts and brought down to microphones where they had to introduce themselves and blurt out some innuendo laden blurb about what makes them Playboy material. My favorite was the one who works in the accounting department in a Wisconsin WalMart store. She stood there perched on her 8 inch stripper heels, hands on hips and said, "I work in the accounting department and I can count two good reasons why I should be the next centerfold!" She then removed her smock to punctuate her point. She was right. She had really pretty eyes.