DEAR ABENA! I have decided to honor being back in touch with you by being back in touch with myself (my on-line version, that is). I am frightened by the idea that someone is Germany is actually reading my blog. Not for their sake, but mine -- my narcissism is already itchy to expose myself even more now! Incidentally, the words "itchy" and "expose" should really not go into the same sentence, particularly in a pubic, um, public forum. If I were an editor I would censure myself.
This, written after five days in Mexico with my love. It will be a month since we've seen each other when I go pick him up on Thursday.
August 31, 2006
I smell tequila in the air from my broken $35 duty-free bottle, probably cracked but unwrecked from a plastic bagged check-in. Still no liquids on planes, as with no shoes, which, having been instituted in 2002, is an indication of how the days of check-in-free travel have probably come to an end. I have to admit that a part of my anxiousness about getting home right now is not only to do with having to bear with the vigilante immigration officer in Atlanta, the re-check-in, the added security checks, the added hour to departure time and then the added hour sitting duck waiting for clearance. No, I need to get home so I can fix this bottle and salvage 100% agave 3 years in the bottle for my brother-in-law’s birthday. Think he’ll accept it in a couple Snapple bottles and a jello-cup?
The smell of tequila gives a different ambience to my midnight wait for Jersey transit. Fuck the baggage carrel. Carousel. Would it have worked properly I might have made the 11:41 instead. Now I feel like a renegade minor-league-model runaway with a drinking problem. Back from Acapulco with the last of my coco dulces and tamarindo candies attaching themselves gobule by gobule to my subingual line as I suffer this wait knowing that the wait for the AC at Penn Station – where the real alcoholics groove alongside parentless clans of touristing teenagers (why are they here? Why are they so loud? Why are they so tasteless?) – and the trek to Bedford-Nostrand means for Mel a grand total of 15 hours journey from love to normalcy and a vast, vast unknown.
Acapulco. Mecca of the fake breasted and leather-thonged starlet: Miami meets Hong Kong meets rural beach shack. The site for the shoot was owned by a sun-blacked man named Domingo, which, along with the location’s priceless sleepy castaway setting, made me look in the shadows for evidence of Friday and Crusoe himself. A 45 minute van ride and worlds away from our residence at the Hyatt, our Argentinian models were prepped on the glamour of sandblasted white plastic beach chairs, fed fresh-caught fish on long damp wooden benches and tables, and immortalized with their plastic beach smiles by the gift and artistry of my baby.
Baby I miss you. Interjection. This is what love is – a limitation to one’s tolerance for unnecessary people, because when your world only makes sense with one in particular you’d rather stare at wall textures then deal with predators and imbeciles.
Very happily was I made a companion golden labrador for the day of the shoot. Awake at 5:30 to be on-site by 7, I made the most of my guilt-free impromptu holiday squiggling calligraphy in wet sand with my tondus and toes, triangle-posing to the rising sun over a vista of palm trees, distant rocky hills, rising mist from excited breaking waves dusting bullet lines of sea birds fishing for a decent desayuno. A sweet-faced man that I only notice later is bearing a rifle approaches: “Do you want to see turtles?” A short walk to a protected harvest area, I dig with my too-long-nailed index, carving swirls around little black heads attached to flailing cartilaginous flippers. Newly hatched. I don’t believe the conservationist there when he says that naturally, were they to be digging their own way out, it would take them two hours. Maybe they hesitate from the vibrations of our presence, but their complete vulnerability and spasmodic flapping makes me think them yet weak diggers.
The babies safely bucketed, under the nearby tent I am feeling nothing but guilt and magic staring at a bucket of day olds and a water-filled hull of two-day-olds. By three days, these creatures will be set free into the ocean, and by a hundred years will be the size of suburban family dining table. Guilt? Only because I know Jose would love to see this. Magic? I am made a princess thrice over. Plus I score a terrific photo of beach dogs staring at me as I walk back to site, affirming my happiness.
Brooklyn. Morning: He calls. He’s arrived to Madrid and his family heaviness. He sounds fatigued. I don’t recall hearing the phone, picking it up, or answering. All I know is that this morning I woke as the last, his presence naturally and unassumedly intertwined with mine.
What is dance? Interjection. According to the man I love, dance is masturbation, and I agree. It is also mastery. My choreographer Maija encourages me to allow yourself to be mastered by the technique (masturbated by the technique, Jose?), to lay yourself substrate to its power, history, and knowledge. And to the fact that it has and will continue to outlive your conscious existence. Well, I added that last bit. But it’s true.
She says she sees herself at a younger age in me: the most dangerous dancer in the room, because its so personal and unforgiving. The problem is, the worst danger you can be in this situation is to yourself. But I refuse to feel inadequate, I refuse to self-sabotage. I will ride this wave of chance and newness.
.... Today, September 25th, I realize I might get in trouble now with this confession. Please don't be hurt by the fact that I didn't tell you, Mum, about flying to see Jose last month. It was sudden, and I didn't want to alert everyone about a relationship I wasn't sure was going to work out! But it's working out .... so far ... !
Monday, September 25, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Thursday, March 09, 2006
dash dash dash
of many useless emails I infrequently send as shout-outs to long-losts, i like this one:
is this you?
nine months later i discover i still have your email address, if this is the one you are using .... hello from new york city, where i still am, yet dancing. projects yes, company - pending, choreography - ever in process, website forthwith. saving the world one cell at a time. i should put that on a t-shirt. that, along with "I cried for Kong", a statement that came up more than once from friends whilst watching the Oscars on Sunday night. I have others: "what the fuck you!" (overhead in a chinatown peddler's brawl), "--the fuh?" (for all those audiences new to contemporary dance -- regular post-show comment), "define gig" (for all us wannabes wanna-being in pick-your-own metropolitan-mess).
This is a random email, but I hope it brings you equal light and life as I'm sure you are continuing to give in your own daily travels/rambles. Don't forget: a line is two opposing ends waiting to meet in a circle.
Yours,
MEL
is this you?
nine months later i discover i still have your email address, if this is the one you are using .... hello from new york city, where i still am, yet dancing. projects yes, company - pending, choreography - ever in process, website forthwith. saving the world one cell at a time. i should put that on a t-shirt. that, along with "I cried for Kong", a statement that came up more than once from friends whilst watching the Oscars on Sunday night. I have others: "what the fuck you!" (overhead in a chinatown peddler's brawl), "--the fuh?" (for all those audiences new to contemporary dance -- regular post-show comment), "define gig" (for all us wannabes wanna-being in pick-your-own metropolitan-mess).
This is a random email, but I hope it brings you equal light and life as I'm sure you are continuing to give in your own daily travels/rambles. Don't forget: a line is two opposing ends waiting to meet in a circle.
Yours,
MEL
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
fell off the back of a truck on my way to palo alto recovered from the coma thank God but had to go under hypnosis to remember that i had a blog
WOW.
What month is it?
What day?
What year?
Can it be ... 2006?
Nearly mid-March?
Can it be?
Can I be?
I am so close to normalcy in my head that I can barely recognize the necessary scrambling for air that is evidenced by this journalling.
Yet in other lights I am in exactly the same place, six months deferred: still student, still single, still without full-time employment. Oh fuck. Who wants full-time anything right now anyway. As long as the dreams keep flickering in the predawn haziness of trustfundedness. Let the daylight of financial autonomy wait for my Romeo to first jump into bed before we squirm beneath sheets pierced by morning sun. I am so thoroughly alive and awake in my slumber.
Self-acceptance is a difficult thing. I don't know why I am fighting for wage labor, except for the guilty pleasure of walking out of the office by the clock when full-timers have to stay with the client roster of another two hours. No, I get to walk with pride amongst the school children, the homeless, the vagrants, the mid-Jamba-juice pre-hair-salon trophies and their nursing (elsewhere) children. I get to walk with common aimlessness into the throngs, wondering constantly when is the next time I get to eat, and what that might be.
I understand that with my active lifestyle, I need to be eating. I understand it's winter. But I begin to wonder how long it must continue that so much of my brain space is spent thinking about what to eat. "All my life," seeing that I am a constantly renewing, cell-generating, non-vegetative human being, is still sometimes difficult for me to accept.
Instead of these wry, pointless musings, I should probably be using the opportunity of being back on my blog to usefully list the pros and cons of various decisions currently on the agenda, or to strategize them all to fit within the context of each other, only accomplishable through self-discipline and God's desires burning themselves in legible English onto my white walls.
... Dancing for JoAnna. Not dancing for JoAnna. Working on my solo. Making myself a website to promote myself. What creative product/performance to make for Sue and Duleesha's wedding. Staying in New York. Moving home. Experimenting in Europe. Travelling to South America. Learning Spanish. Reinvigorating Polish. Applying for graduate school. Trying to reinvent myself as Asian. Forgetting that, and accepting once and for all that I am somewhere else in my past lives a European theorist and heroic cowgirl and Taoist sage, all of which have manifested in my current incarnation and result in my need to live forever in self-exile in the land of limbo, Fat America. ..... to love Jose. to not love Jose. to keep pretending that's a choice. to keep pretending the patient pursuit of dreams will actually leave me in a better place after their climactic end than i was in the first place. to keep running myself in circles. to not keep running myself in circles. to pretend like that's a choice. to keep saying that i'm "pretending." i'm pretending that I'm pretending. semantic ritual aside: i'm actually happy with how i'm living my life now because i've stopped comparing it to some imaginary life that i somehow screwed up on and failed to achieve. yay!
so now here is my italian, note: napolitan roommate to use my computer, typing at a significantly slower rate than I do. I take care of everything in the house, including all bill payments and rent, which she returns her share of to me via cash that she withdraws from ATMs citywide, $200 a day at a time (and, I suppose, sometimes stores beneath her mattress). in return for my logistical management, I get to make the effort to be civil when sometimes I want to be alone but otherwise not have to be more friendly than I have to on certain occassions when I'm tired to speaking slowly for her comprehension, or when I'm tired of having to listen to all her romantic stories. I also get to use her coffee pot. I also get to listen to more smooth jazz on the radio than I can sometimes stomach, but I also get private lessons in jazz pirouette in our living room (i spot Spain on the world map on our wall ... because it's right there at eye level, and because, well, part of my dream cycle has to do with spain and one man living in it right now). I got to watch Il postino with live commentary from a real Napolitan. I get a happy "Hey girl!" when I walk through the door. i get good energy, a great smile, and immense positivity. I get to learn how to be with other people. And the cynicism starts to fade ....
as the days unfold ..........
What month is it?
What day?
What year?
Can it be ... 2006?
Nearly mid-March?
Can it be?
Can I be?
I am so close to normalcy in my head that I can barely recognize the necessary scrambling for air that is evidenced by this journalling.
Yet in other lights I am in exactly the same place, six months deferred: still student, still single, still without full-time employment. Oh fuck. Who wants full-time anything right now anyway. As long as the dreams keep flickering in the predawn haziness of trustfundedness. Let the daylight of financial autonomy wait for my Romeo to first jump into bed before we squirm beneath sheets pierced by morning sun. I am so thoroughly alive and awake in my slumber.
Self-acceptance is a difficult thing. I don't know why I am fighting for wage labor, except for the guilty pleasure of walking out of the office by the clock when full-timers have to stay with the client roster of another two hours. No, I get to walk with pride amongst the school children, the homeless, the vagrants, the mid-Jamba-juice pre-hair-salon trophies and their nursing (elsewhere) children. I get to walk with common aimlessness into the throngs, wondering constantly when is the next time I get to eat, and what that might be.
I understand that with my active lifestyle, I need to be eating. I understand it's winter. But I begin to wonder how long it must continue that so much of my brain space is spent thinking about what to eat. "All my life," seeing that I am a constantly renewing, cell-generating, non-vegetative human being, is still sometimes difficult for me to accept.
Instead of these wry, pointless musings, I should probably be using the opportunity of being back on my blog to usefully list the pros and cons of various decisions currently on the agenda, or to strategize them all to fit within the context of each other, only accomplishable through self-discipline and God's desires burning themselves in legible English onto my white walls.
... Dancing for JoAnna. Not dancing for JoAnna. Working on my solo. Making myself a website to promote myself. What creative product/performance to make for Sue and Duleesha's wedding. Staying in New York. Moving home. Experimenting in Europe. Travelling to South America. Learning Spanish. Reinvigorating Polish. Applying for graduate school. Trying to reinvent myself as Asian. Forgetting that, and accepting once and for all that I am somewhere else in my past lives a European theorist and heroic cowgirl and Taoist sage, all of which have manifested in my current incarnation and result in my need to live forever in self-exile in the land of limbo, Fat America. ..... to love Jose. to not love Jose. to keep pretending that's a choice. to keep pretending the patient pursuit of dreams will actually leave me in a better place after their climactic end than i was in the first place. to keep running myself in circles. to not keep running myself in circles. to pretend like that's a choice. to keep saying that i'm "pretending." i'm pretending that I'm pretending. semantic ritual aside: i'm actually happy with how i'm living my life now because i've stopped comparing it to some imaginary life that i somehow screwed up on and failed to achieve. yay!
so now here is my italian, note: napolitan roommate to use my computer, typing at a significantly slower rate than I do. I take care of everything in the house, including all bill payments and rent, which she returns her share of to me via cash that she withdraws from ATMs citywide, $200 a day at a time (and, I suppose, sometimes stores beneath her mattress). in return for my logistical management, I get to make the effort to be civil when sometimes I want to be alone but otherwise not have to be more friendly than I have to on certain occassions when I'm tired to speaking slowly for her comprehension, or when I'm tired of having to listen to all her romantic stories. I also get to use her coffee pot. I also get to listen to more smooth jazz on the radio than I can sometimes stomach, but I also get private lessons in jazz pirouette in our living room (i spot Spain on the world map on our wall ... because it's right there at eye level, and because, well, part of my dream cycle has to do with spain and one man living in it right now). I got to watch Il postino with live commentary from a real Napolitan. I get a happy "Hey girl!" when I walk through the door. i get good energy, a great smile, and immense positivity. I get to learn how to be with other people. And the cynicism starts to fade ....
as the days unfold ..........
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