Wicked Pissah

I am so pleased that my city was ignored by Ivan. When I got back yesterday in the early evening, I went for a walk in Audubon Park. They'd put all the trash containers away in preparation for impending doom and the little rebel dog's biznasty had to be carried for a little while too long. (That was the only downside to the walk.) Other than that though, it was calm and beautiful. Tons of people out enjoying the same hot and muggy September evening in New Orleans. The radio was telling everybody which restaurants had already reopened. This last thing is what lets the denizens of this den of iniquity know that life has returned to normal. (Food is love. Don't let anybody tell you different.)

I'm choosing the champ of the poetry slam tomorrow and then I will get down to the serious business of rewards. So, there's a smidge more time if you had a half-prepped poem in your head already. I have to say I've had a lot of fun reading the stuff you all have contributed and I thanks you muchly.

Everything but the Girl

So, an 8 hour drive later, I am safely perched right on the funky line between Texas and Arkansas, in a town appropriately named Texarkana. (The 'ph' is silent.) My room has a fridge, an internet connection and K_sra's rebel dog.

Despite the fine company, I am tired and the cable news is freaking me out. Talking some smack about a category 3 hurricane that hit Nawlins in the mid-60's and left the entire downtown area under 7 feet of water for a few weeks. Ivan is a category four, people. We're talking destroyed property, potential loss of life, serious flooding, and contaminated water that may take a looooong time to clean up. I don't know when I will be able to go home. I don't know what will be there when I do.

And that was the trippy thing this morning. I had to look around at all my favorite stuff and separate the wheat from the chaff. The questions that needed to be answered, for me anyway, were these: What would I be okay with losing? And what loss would fill me with a tearing regret for the rest of my life?

And I know you're probably saying to me quietly inside your head, "It's just stuff, girl. People are the important thing." And if you're saying it, you're right. Of course, you're right. But if anything happens to my art and design books, art supplies, computer, all of my yummy illustrator and photoshop and pattern design software I will really feel that loss. And my dressmaking form. Damn it to crap, I do not want to have to do without her.

I wanted to be a fashion designer from the time I was thirteen. I think it was the fabrics that did me in, back in the '80's. The fabrics and the piled on jewelry, crude makeup (by today's standards), and just general over-the-top fun I found in fashion magazines. You know, back in the days of "body conscious" knits and huge, swimming, Japanese inspired clothes that didn't know what a human body looked like and never wanted to find out. The days of Amazon super models- with muscle tone and the first really famous fake breasts. (I am distracted momentarily by this thought- why is it that some parents buy fake breasts for their teenage daughters nowadays? C'est quoi le fuck?! Back to milder musings...) Whatever did it for me, I do know that my Inner Drag Queen woke up, hollered, "Honey, I'm home!", and gave me a never ending kiss. I haven't been right since. Even during the times in my life when, because I have been unhappy and have not been actively doing something about it, I have retreated into little brown sparrow mode. (Just on my way out that door, if you wondered.) Love being human. Hate to blend in.

Anyway, I ordered my dress form (with its clever collapsible shoulders) from a company in Chicago that has been making them forever and a day. This was years before I found my voice and insisted on my calling and finally fucking well went to design school. During years of hi-fi love where fashion was concerned. Years of strange experiments (the best kind) and much ruined fabric. (I am not sorry.) Years and years of grabbing like a pervert at material in department stores and boutiques and high end fabric stores. Years of scribbling words and pictures about this love of mine. This love that covers psychology and commerce and history and society and culture and art and fear and desire as well as the body of every single person reading this right now. (Most of the time.)

And when I'd finally sent in the measurements (which were a bitch to take because I still didn't know all the things you need to know to take accurate measurements correctly, easily) some guy called me from the factory and urged me to rethink the shoulders. I had, he explained, obviously made a mistake. I was confused. He sorted me out. Sort of. "According to these measurements," he said patiently, "you have a petite torso and the shoulders of a very obese woman." Oh. Right. I see. By the time I'd finished explaining to him that those were my shoulders (no matter what the standard measurement charts might say) and that there was nothing mistaken or obese about it, he was ready to take my word- and my money- for it.

And she's there in my house, all alone, waiting for Ivan to show up. Her white fabric is streaked with grime from many movers' hands. (It's my fault for forgetting to cover her up during some of these moves I've made. White just calls out for dirt, doesn't it?) And I can feel right now while I'm writing this what it's like to put my arms around her petite torso and dance with her. Even though she can't really dance. Not on that heavy metal base. But to lean her and spin her in place...

Tell me I'm silly. I am not ready to let her go.

Poetry Contest

I was going to write something 11-ish yesterday and I just couldn't. (Moment of silence and all that.) Anyway, since I am feeling quite an urge to lighten up and be veddy silly- take a break from heavy stuff, you know?- I decided to hold a poetry slam. Honest + Popular style.

"What does that mean?", you may be asking yourself. And, Yourself, I tell you, I am happy to explain. Except that, never having held a poetry contest (Honest + Popular style) before, I can't really be sure what it'll be like. I'm 'bout to find out. (How bad could it be?)

Also, before you start, I should tell you that I came up with this idea once after reading poetry written by pals of mine. I do not (really) write poetry. I felt sort of bad about that. But I got over it. And having other people write poetry on my site is the way I came up with to laugh at the fact that I can't personally do it very well myself. So, this is also a way for me to get by with a little help from my friends. And now you know.

My personal fave will be rewarded with a mad libs PROSE thingey which I will compose in their honor. (After they've given me the appropriate nouns and so forth.) Sowennyway, I will give you poet types the first two lines and you can take it from there. No rules on structure. You could even combine the two lines or reverse them. Free and easy. Have fun. (I know I'm honest, but now I guess I'll find out if I'm popular. Please, please, please come to my birthday party! This dress is gonna look stupid if I'm the only kid here.)

(Ahem! Where is my dignity? Had it just a second ago.) Start here:

I used the royal 'we'
To take a standing piss

First Cut

The canvas tilts beneath me and, feet secure, I lean back across the hard hull. Salt and cold splash onto my skin and warm under the sun. Even the wind on me is warm. And I am at your back. By your side. You have turned this light thing into a chariot over the water. Out here, lines in hand, you have no doubts. You have not forgotten one single thing about this love. Strength and joy radiating fiercely, you carry me along. And for that, I purely adore you.

It cannot last. Balance relinquished, I snuff my regret quickly (as I never can on land.) Picking my spot, I jump- light and precise- into the ocean. Carefully avoiding ropes and sails. No entanglements. Just the way you taught me. Just the way you liked it. Until the day you walked down those stairs and mistook me for an angel- inside and out.

But I am a real girl slowly treading these southern coastal waters. This is all I have ever been. Too good for you. Wilder than all of them. Still not bad enough. I cannot win. You are a fool. Love bleeds away into the water.

I watch as you stand on one edge and pull the mast upright. Shoulders, torso, thighs- those muscles doing what they do- and I think you are beautiful. Man in his element. I have never found anything on this planet more compelling. Leviathan stirs in the depths below me and I say, “Hush. Go back to sleep.” And to my body, “Be quiet. There is nothing to fear.” And then I am rolling up and down on this beautiful ocean.

Wet fabric clears the water. And wind, overeager with the punch line, jumps at it right away. I watch as you go- lovely, lovely. Wanted- always wanted- by those who mean you harm and ones who wish you well. (I can no longer tell where I belong.) You are shouting to me while the distance pushes us apart. I still my heart and lift my head. Perfectly quiet- to hear your words. (Woman does not live by bread alone.) I realize I am a fool to wait.

I wish it were me you were afraid to lose. I do not give a shit about your cooler full of beer.