dimanche 20 avril 2008

Tristess

Time has me by the throat today.
Perhaps it is because it is Sunday, the saddest day, chased relentlessly by history, lost love, death, and unrealized hopes.
I am very sad to be leaving and feel almost I shouldn't go.
I saw a play built on improvisations a company of actors generated from everyday objects. The play was entitled Les Ephemeres--ephemeral moments--and was a mélange of vignettes built upon cinematically iconic moments...moments that stemmed from both individual and group subconscious as stirred by the memories and nostalgia which accompanied the original objects. I was disarmed and unprepared for the intensity of the struggle ongoing in this nation to reconcile the war with reality, with any system of being or living. Twice during the viewing, individual audience members collapsed, stricken by the play's content, and were attended by emergency services.
I now understand the heaviness one feels in Europe, is the burden of the past. France was an occupied nation. We can't understand this in America, a nation that has never been so violated by 'the other.' Our homes destroyed, heritage razed, children shot, and humanity betrayed for the fear of staying alive. The war BREATHES in France. It is in the collective memory and consciousness. This LAND, the very land I walk on is a palimpsest of fate's collusion: the blurring of right and wrong, aggressor and victim, man and animal.
This epiphany haunts me.
I am afraid to return to America, where the virginity of even our land, our youthful innocence makes it too possible to forget.
I am at once terrified and soothed by the ghosts of this landscape.

samedi 19 avril 2008

Tragedey

I have been living in Paris for 7.5 months without being kissed ONE SINGLE TIME.
For Christ's sake, this is the fucking capital of LOVE and ROMANCE.
This is a serious emergency and must be remedied before I part across the atlantic for goodsies.
I will work assiduosly to redress this grievance in as timely a manner as humanly possible.
Thank you for your convenance.

mardi 15 avril 2008

Children

Today I proposed to Adele that we visit the Zoo de Vincennes tomorrow, weather permiting.
This is when Sam said:
"Je suis heureux que je ne serai dispo demain d'y aller avec vous." (I'm glad I won't be able to go with you two tomorrow.)
"Why not Sam, don't you like the zoo?"
"Not at all, it is so sad there. All the animals is in cages. You think they aren't unhappy but I know they really are. Imagine you is an animal and just you must spend all day in a cage, you not can move and be free, and you not can be with the other animals that are like you or your family. And, all the peoples that they pass you know you is not happy, but anyways they just stare and take pictures of how much you are sad."
"Yes!" adds Adele. "And all day you must be all naked!"
That's empathy.

vendredi 11 avril 2008

On the event of Mr. Jewett’s retirement party

Dear Mr. J,
Thank you.
In real time, I am asleep in a comfortable bed in Paris, France. Or, less responsibly, perhaps I am enjoying a glass of red wine with friends, the early evening having been spent wandering the Louvre after hours.
Yet in time as the heart perceives it, I am here, at this present moment, in Hingham Massachusetts, with all assembled, celebrating you.
I am here because my voice is present—present in my thoughts, feelings, and opinions as I give issue to them, through words. And this Mr. Jewett, is what I have come to thank you for.
As a 10th grade English student, I was an unformed individual. An adolescent. A blob. My role in the world was therefore befittingly puerile; after all, the only skill I could boast was in composing a pat thesis essay, and with regards to self-knowledge…I was certain I would one day marry my High School boyfriend. Yet like most teenagers—bombarded by the world as they take first glimpses of life beyond their own existence—what I lacked in experience and eloquence, I compensated for with FEELINGS. LOTS AND LOTS OF FEELINGS.
Many of us laugh at naiveté, but Mr. J, you didn’t. Perhaps you feel as I do that while kids sometimes have a hard time processing the new world they see, their observations of it can be strikingly perspicacious and unbiased. I will not go so far as to make presuppositions about the personal beliefs that guided you as a teacher and a mentor, but I will say that as a 15 year old in your class, I learned that while recognizing truth makes us human, speaking for truth makes us extraordinary.
This is how you taught me to find my voice.
To begin: you made our class psychoanalyze Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, proving to me that the individual life counted, that (contrary to the rules of proper essay writing) employing the first person mattered. In many ways, I think of this assignment more as a lesson on courage, than on close reading.
Drawing inspiration from Joseph Campbell’s writings on comparative mythology, and Star Wars, you then had us try our hands at creative writing. You were the first person to ask me to author a story, and thereby the first individual who asked me to set out, concretely, my inner reality. Through these first exercises in autonomy of thought, I began to learn who I was, what I thought, and where I stood.
That is where you took your teaching one step farther. You helped a small group of students become peer facilitators for the Anti-Defamation League’s A World of Difference program, initiating a student corps that traveled school, community, and statewide working to eradicate hatred, bigotry and intolerance while promoting social justice. I am the empowered, socially active and conscientious woman I am today, because at 16 you showed me, Mr. Jewett, that in exercising my voice, I and any other human being have the agency to shape and mold our world for the better. My voice can sound louder than simple idealism or politicking; words are thought and thought is power: words are change.
Aside from the love of my family, this is perhaps the greatest gift I have ever received.
And, I would endeavor to say, that generations of young people with courage of conviction and words to bolster, is perhaps one of the greatest gifts the world could ever possibly receive.
We all have you to thank for that.
With much admiration,
Caitlin

jeudi 10 avril 2008

On a less serious note

The past weekend while patronizing an Absinthe bar in the 11th, I happened to be a few knocks into a very pleasant drunk when I finally decided to indulge in a long overdue rant on the French toilette system.
I might have said something along the lines of:
"WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THE TWO FLUSHY BUTTONS ON THE FUCKING TOILETTE? IT'S SO FUCKING ANNOYING AND REDUNDANT AND WRACKS ME WITH SELF-DOUBT AND UNCERTAINTY EACH TIME I HEED THE FUCKING CALL OF NATURE."
To which my friends applied in tones that might even have been patronizing had they secretly not been wasted:
"Um, one's for when you poop...and the other is for pee...it's an energy conserving toilette (YOU BOOBY)."
Just as I was beginning to feel as freakish as Ron Paul or any other Republican running for office, a dear friend came to my rescue with her astute observation going something like this:
"In reality...they're only energy saving for men who don't wipe after 'number one.' 50% of the population has to use the poop button NO MATTER WHAT, ergo rendering the pee buttom a vestigial and clearly phallus oriented technology representative of society's larger sexism problem."
What she said.
Two pee buttons is recockulous.

Most Respectfully...

Stop popping up in my dreams

After much time, loss, and struggle
I have come to peace with you

Please
Address your sad conscience
that my consciousness
nations
and lifetimes away
may pass a quiet night
finally at rest

dimanche 6 avril 2008

Fragments

Bits and pieces that must not be forgotten that one day will will be woven into a coherent whole:

1. once there was a man who had never before left his village or country. perhaps he was not very bright, or perhaps he had not seen many white women, but he mistook my freckles and moles for mosquito bites.

2. accordian school

3. drink whenever the screen scrolls "ANTHRAX."

Other things in my head:
westerns and lawlessness
magic words. the heart
my beautiful, immpenetrable brother
children of young years know that the hill is there so they may roll down it...yet it is the weight of the head that always brings the magnificent falling body back to vertical position...and stasis.
stories longer than haiku

.........soon it will be time to pack again....and what will that bring?
doesn't the earth ever tire of turning? what a fantasticlly tragic comedey, this 'time'.
I have to laugh at myself because I learned at age 7 the world was not flat, and that 'horizons' are but lingustic fallout from the shock and awe of mortality...yet how dearly I still cling to the poetry of their idea.

mercredi 19 mars 2008

'On Two Lovers', or "Love, as I'd like it to be.'

I have just noticed, sitting in the park, two trees tied together.
One larger and imposing, upright, inclined slightly towards the other, partially colonized by moss creeping up his trunk.
The other arching away--arms ovaled in skyward embrace providing canopy to the field of daffodils lying below in the hollow created by her impression.
They are connected by heads--were they tethered at lowlier places, say the heart, I think the weight of her loftier branches --left to follow the bent of the direction emmanating from woody core, would cause her to fold in on herself...would leverage an uprooting.
But this, this delicate binding of seperate minds creates a perfect balance alone--for an ideal moment i can not divine ends or beginnings where respective branches intermingle.

mercredi 27 février 2008

UPDATES

I'm moving to California to be an MA/PhD student at Berkeley in Performance Studies.

Goodbye Chicago, city of pleasure and pain.

My cat came home. Or rather, he was found three weeks ago trapped in a pipe by jugglers in a park who called the fire department, who subsequesntly spent three hours destroying public property to free him.

And lastly...I met a man. a policeman. yow.

dimanche 27 janvier 2008

RULES

muffin top.
it's slang for the roll of fat between your hips and waist that gets leveraged out, up and OVER the waistband of your jeans when you won't admit you need to downgrade your body image to a LARGER pant size.
It's also how I define the mixture-of-self-disgust-and-'yuck' feeling that I get when I realize I've willfully committed myself to making a soulful gesture that has inevitably played out as a lewd farce of mediocrity. Basically, a 'muffin top this' or a 'muffin top that' means I've embarrassed myself once again, and 'shame on me' as I can generally smell a flop a mile a way, and end up following through with it anyway...perhaps out of a twisted need for desecration ....you know...to make the divine really "POP"....or maybe just so I can have misadventures to squawk over with girlfriends. My guess is as good as yours.
muffin toppin', in my case, usually occurs in the romantic sector. It's all very Bridget Jones. I end up kissing some so-and-so, to whom I am COMPLETELY unattracted, to the point where I'd choose to be demonstrating blow-jobs on a banana to my whacky virgin roommate or hiding in our walk-in closet when he drops in unexpectedly rather than see him again. For the record, that guy was a perfectly nice, super smart, funny, attractive college mathematics major...he just gave me the 'muffin top feeling.' I've also been stirred by the disturbing emotion in question when waking up for the first time next to a dude I didn't luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuv. It's funny how when you heart someone big time, back zits are charming (especially if he lets you pop them), but how if you don't .....they just make you wish this stage of your life had a do-over. Muffin top also springs to mind when I think of the awful set-ups I've been on....the awk cab ride home at 3 am friends insisted you share, or the dude pals hooked you up with who was later revealed to be married with a kid. zing. muffin top. Less comical is the rejection flavor of muffin top when you've been overly honest with someone to whom you thought you had an intimate emotional connection....only to find the bond was 100% ONLY IN YOUR HEAD.
Currently, I'm ranting because I'm backed into a corner. I'm getting a lot of shit--from all angles--about being in the "PAYS D'AMOUR", and not finding love, a fling, a hottie with an accent, a French feather for my cap, BLAH BLAH BLAH. Also...I'm starting to feel I'm approaching that invisible line after which talking about an ex-boyfriend, let alone admitting I still love him will qualify me as pathetic and out-of touch. I gotta change my ways...because any day now...my emotional reality will qualify me as a freaky minus-one-cat lady with a dried up vag and a shriveled organ of reason. My back's against the wall, so I'm telling social expectations to FUCK OFF. Probably, I should relax. It's flattering really, everyone telling you to "get out there, you're a catch!" But truthfully, they don't understand: I can't be spontaneous, or make myself available because I'm a walking muffin top. A clown. True, comedy takes more talent than tragedy, but FRANKLY, I've had my fill of humiliation. You know what I want? Some mother fucking pride. I want to look put-together as opposed to totally.....here I would be tempted to make a hurricane katrina analogy, but won't, so as to avoid egregious insensitivity and plain wrongness. Down with sham-y love! No more 'A's for effort,' no more 'building character.' I'm a big girl now, and I want big girl toys.
When I was a kid, I lived my live by the 'don't do something you'll regret,' or 'do something you'll regret NOT doing it' mottos...they served me well. Along the line however, they were thrown out, judged impractical, untrendy even...making choices based on the probability of their confluence with the muffin top feeling is a consuming process, one which requires painstaking time and observation. I regret discarding this personal manifesto....especially in matters of the bedroom....that was stupid. Also, I regret not taking time with my heart. That was stupid-er.
So, after a detour, I'm back to the muffin top moral compass. Which is why I'm all cloistered. SO FUCK OFF. I'M IN THIS TO WIN BIG....AND I DON'T WANT ANYMORE FUCKING CONSOLATION PRIZES. AND YES....I'M TOTALLY HUNG UP ON YOU-KNOW-WHO AND WHO FUCKING CARES. FUCK FUCK FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKY PEER PRESSURERS, YOU ALL CAN GO FUCK YOUR FUCKING FUCK FACE JUDGEMENTS.
I feel better now.

dimanche 20 janvier 2008

Hex


My cat ran away.


He slipped out under iron shutters and through metal bars and disappeared into Paris on Wednesday.


I made posters: CHAT PERDU, with his description on it, and some sentimental touches. I put them up all over the neighborhood, and in the shops. Most business owners are nice; 3 offered to hang my flyer but never did.


I H. A.T. E them.

I wish them small personal tragedies of a similiar nature.


I also hate the street cleaner who, each day, removes the overturned flower pot I've placed beneath my window so the cat can reach the ledge and return. FUCK YOU, you FUCKING STREET CLEANER. If my cat doesn't come back, I hold you responsible.

I've called animal control. I've notified every vet in the quartier. In the early morning and late at night when the small side street is quiet...I sneak into the private gardens that surround and call his name while I shake a bag of tuna and beef flavored treats. Today, I put my other cat in a CAT LEASH and brought him along....thinking maybe he could smell out Hex...or leave a pee scent for the lost pet to follow home. I only succeed in pissing off the good cat, and upping my reputation as a scary cat lady.

Every night, I put the remaining cat in the bathroom with his box and his treats and his nip, and sleep with the window open and the light on. This makes me feel guilty. I'm not getting much shut eye. I jerk awake each time I hear a scratch or a thump that could possibly be attributed to a feline.

So far I've had three dreams about him. In one, I'm waking from a dream to see him entagled at my feet with Marshmallow, the two twined into a fuzz-ball tucked between my shin and the wall--their favorite spot to rest and groom one another. Another night, I peered over the high garden wall of the house to see the cat slinking down the street toward me at just before dawn. Last night, a woman came to the door with a cat she believed to be Hex, and when I greeted her, I saw not my brown and white domestic shorthair, but a mini cat-leopard with spots and all. In this dream I remember thinking the woman was a STUPID BITCH for 1. getting my cat's markings wrong when the flyer boasted a color photo and 2. getting my hopes up.

I cried a lot about the cat at first, but don't much anymore because it would be shameful in spite of the fact that everyone keeps telling me it's 'jut a cat.' The children I care for have begun to forget, and my boss even told me that I needed to spend less time looking for my cat, and more time looking for a boyfriend.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that until now, I've had more luck with cats. Or that the stupid cat was a boyfriend replacement to begin with: I wanted to keep him because a CAT can be kept, plus they make your bed-for-1 feel a great deal less empty.

I keep hoping he'll come back.
Because the sad truth is I'm paralyzingly lonely,

And brokenhearted. Which was a condition, I admit now, his presence helped to bridge, and one which his absence rips asunder... in painfuly obvious ways:

I'm a lonely, unconfident, type A, plan B girl...on the chubby side, who's reached the god-forsaken point at which I put more faith in animals than people. The point at which I rely upon the goodness and steadfastness of ANIMALS for the courage to pounce on everything that's not complete in the world, or in myself.

I'm holding a vigil for this cat, even though I'm sure he's moved on to exciting allyways, or a family that doesn't stick a thermometer in his anus when he's sick (vet recommended).

He's never coming back but I'm holding vigil.
As for how much the holding hurts, I don't know if it's the pain or the embarassment that does the most dammage.
I'm holding vigik because,
"A cat is like a love story." This is what an old lady smelling of booze with matted easter-egg red hair said to me while looking over my shoulder as I fed my announcements into the photocopier at the printers.
Most other days I would have laughed. That day though, I don't remember anything except the life being knocked out of me by a freighttrain of thought, an epiphany really, on my emmotional midgitism.
A cat is like a love story. At this point I guess then ...someday in the near future...I'll have to get a new one.
The thing I wonder now is, does that make my life Tragedy, or Comedy?