Time To Kill in Detroit

One of the last times I went out to eat, the waitress that served me and my sister told us the story of her romantic life, how she'd been with her boyfriend for seven years, the recent break ("I moved in with my mother, but we still slept together. That's the power of alcohol."), and the reunited and it feels so good moment ("We got a punch of pot and decided that we should go back to the way we were.") This happens to me a lot, this plunge into intimacy without any warm-up (bringing to mind the old Catholic joke -- What's an Irish Catholic's form of foreplay -- Brace yourself, Bridget). I can't say that I mind -- small talk bores me. Despite my absolute horror of confrontation, I'd rather have a fight that means something than the pablum that passes for most meetings.

My last meeting with my ex-husband was much this way. He had time to kill in Detroit and decided to call and have lunch. My initial feeling was that it would be a huge relief to see him somewhere other than a funeral and that it would be strange. But it wasn't. I showed him my house, conscious for the first time that I still had the entertainment center he'd built me as a divorce present. I'm not much into things, except clothes. He showed me pictures of his baby on a tiny computer screen. We ate dinner and pretty much stuck to safe, read incredibly dull, subjects until his mother made an appearance. She'd always been a piece of work. I saw the first and only authentic expression on his face during the course of the whole short visit. She's a deeply troubled, horrible woman, he said. Now we're cooking with fire, I thought! But he quickly regained himself and shifted into talk about his job and wife, about the Mommy and Me classes to help get her out of the house. I tuned out, knowing that the visit was almost over. Tell me about your broken heart, alcohol-ridden, pot-laced exploits any day. I don't really need to hear the specials. I almost always know what I want.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Time is too large, it can't be filled up. Everything you plunge into it is stretched and disintegrates." Jean-Paul Sartre

Cocktail Hour

Drinking music suggestion: Late in the Evening Paul Simon

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Saturday!

Turn Out the Stars

One of my favorite photographs ever was taken by my friend Keith. In the photograph, a man stands in front of a marquee advertising The Exorcist. His face, marked with what looks like a huge knife scar, seems unbearably sad. It's almost night in the picture, my favorite time, the last of the twilight. It's clear that the man doesn't know he's being photographed (having been a subject of Keith's photographs myself, I can attest to the fact that the man can snap a shot before you even understand you have a camera near you). Some of Keith's pictures, including this one and another one I liked, were published in the Ontario Review, and I bought both of them because I liked looking at them.

For years, the man with the knife scar hung above my computer. I was going through a bad patch romantically speaking, and it came as no big surprise that I found out during the feng-shui craze of the late 90s that I had hung it dead center in what was classified as the love/relationship portion of my home. I often wondered what had happened to the man in the crowd since the picture -- it was almost thirty years later. Was he dead? Did he go see the movie, did his life take any turns? Mine would, exquisite and painful ones, that would leave me as mystified as my friend in the picture. If you were to trace his scar, you'd find it wasn't that big compared to everything else in the picture, but it's what you notice as the day turns into night.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Photography is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality" -- Alfred Steiglitz

Cocktail Hour

Camera Obscura

1 shot glass of coffee liqueur served in hot chocolate.

Benedictions and Maledictions

Halloween movie selection for the weekend: Misery

The Worst Day of My Life

The Buddhists believe that before something wonderful will enter your life, the life you have known will begin to fall apart, ie, a bunch of bad, annoying shit will start to happen. I love this belief because I can explain away my own stupidity, willful complicity, and downright simple behavior in a jiffy -- didn't change the oil in Snowflake, my dear sweet car, and Snowflake gets sick (my book is going to get published because I am a fool!), that sort of thing. Despite my cynical ways, I do buy it because I have seen evidence of it. Someone once asked me what the worst day of my life was, and I said I hadn't had it yet. The asker stepped back in mock horror, but I thought my answer indicated that as far as the depths of shame and degradation that my life had brought me and that I had brought myself, I could do more. I could, in fact, instead of being the second-to-last one out of the clown car, could be the last one out of the clown car of life.

For a time, I loved reading books about changing my life. I had the requisite optimism required to make the purchase, and I'd read away -- time management, attitude, how to say no and mean it, organize your closet and your life!, and this list could go on, but I can't. What I can say is that most of it did jack doodle -- I'm still messy, messed-up, stretched for time, and unable to say no. My time is not my own, as the books suggest, I am not thinking and growing rich with it. My clothes are still being held together with the first available safety pin (I'm thinking it gives the tattered outfits a sort of punkish touch), and whenever I accidentally put on a pair of ripped tights, I claim that the tights ripped that day and that there was no time to change them. (perhaps a subconscious emulation of Mrs. Kurt Cobain?) And if all my rationalizations fail and things go bad, I simply think of the Buddhists belief about things falling apart, the center cannot hold, but maybe that's a good thing. After all, if you've ever used topical medicine for a nasty cut, you know the sting means it's working.


Michelle's Spell of the Day

"When you moan, the Devil don't know what you're talking about." The Silvertones

Cocktail Hour

In the Gloaming

1 glass of champagne
1 splash of cognac
1 splash of peach schnapps

Serve chilled.

Benedictions and Maledictions

Halloween movie suggestion (in theaters in a couple of weeks): Bug -- This one stars Ashley Judd and looks terrifying!

Together in Heaven

There was no accounting for my friend Hank's great love, Erin, a woman who by most accounts would be described as short and a little dumpy, by all accounts as a lesbian, and by test scores as a genius. Hank, like most men I know, had a bit of the beauty facist going, but this didn't matter when it came to Erin. He clung to her despite their rocky friendship (that never really did morph into romance), the unfortunate pairing of their names -- Hank Erin (obviously a phonetic joke nightmare), and his and her relationships with other women. Hank referred to Erin as "the bitch," as if she were a platonic ideal rather than a person. I liked Erin despite her sometimes prickly personality and her overanalytic ways, but my loyalty was to Hank whom I had known almost since birth. Erin came in and out of focus for many years, through many schools, but eventually she cut off all contact. We tried to bring her back through letters and phone calls, but alas, sometimes someone's wish to be free of you is stronger than all the magic you can use to conjure her back.

I've made many toasts with many people over the years, the first one I can remember at Erin's high school/college graduation (she did concurrent enrollment -- I meant it when I said genius). After we toasted to good fortune and many years of knowing one another, we each received a plastic ice-cube after the toasts that had rolled around in the cheap champagne and made a wish on it. I forget what mine was -- probably that Hank and Erin would live happily ever after and nobody would make fun of their names. I didn't have anything on the burner then and could afford to be generous with my plastic pink ice-cube. But wishes don't often come true, and I suppose that is a good thing. I still love to make toasts, though, and my favorite is one that comes from the great movie, Days of Wine and Roses. Although I never say it out loud, I think of it often -- Together in Heaven. Now that I think about it, it's a wish, but like all wishes, you have to keep it to yourself if you are to have any chance of it coming true.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"She's hanging with a bad crowd. She's lying and cheating and next thing you know, she's Patty Hearst with a gun to our heads. " Freaks and Geeks

Cocktail Hour

Drinking DVD set suggestion: My friend Shawn turned me onto the television show Freaks and Geeks, and I spent one very happy weekend watching all that I could at his wonderful house. This show only lasted a season, but it's a very funny brilliant take on high school in the late 70s/early 80s, set in Detroit.

Benedictions and Maledictions

More Halloween movie suggestions: Children of the Corn (high camp value), Hatchet for the Honeymoon (also incredibly high camp value)

Bluebeard's Room Is Open For Business

One of my mother's bedtime stories, besides "The Little Engine That Could", was "Bluebeard." She wasn't big on bedtime stories, believing much like Ari on Entourage, that silence is golden. She also believed most made up shit was pointless. Like most things we don't get much of, I had a longing for stories and that's where "Bluebeard" came in, one of the most punishing of the fairy tales. The premise is a great feminist fable, cautionary tale, and rescue fantasy all rolled into one. A girl marries a king without hesitation because he's in a pretty big fricking hurry. This point was pounded home by my mother -- if someone wants to do something fast, that person is hiding something! The king goes away and the girl is told not to go into a particular room in the castle. Let me tell you, my mother would say, everyone has that room. You best not go in. The girl went in, of course, and found all his ex-wives hanged. She can't hide the evidence that she's been in the room -- the blood of the wives can't be washed off the key to the room. The king comes home and knows, even before he sees the evidence. Retard sense, my mother would say. People, even stupid ones, know when something is different. She nearly ends up dead herself, but her brothers come to rescue her. My mother had no brothers, nor did I. My mother made up her own ending, You've messed up that bad, you're probably going to die. She'd end the story by saying, Sleep tight, Shelle. Sweet dreams.

I thought about that story a lot over the years since it had a few more layers than "The Little Engine That Could." Over the years I encountered a lot of those rooms and even developed a writing exercise based on finding a rattlesnake in a dresser drawer, the southern version of Bluebeard's room, nature red in tooth and claw. Some of the best fiction, I believe, comes out of encounters with this shadowy space. If we're not afraid of the dark, we can see all sorts of things about the future. The gothic writer V.C. Andrews once said in an interview that she knew she'd be afflicted with a wasting disease as an adult because she'd looked at her shadow as a child, and that shadow had crutches. Her shadow moved at its own pace, crippled and broken, even when she was still able to run from it.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Poets are the masters of the superior secret. Remember that when you write." James Dickey

Cocktail Hour

Deliverance

3 parts vodka
1 part Cointreau
1 part lime juice

Serve over crushed ice.

Benedictions and Maledictions

Halloween suggestion -- pre- Halloween movie night selections: Carrie and The Shining

Old Pictures of Happier Times

The other day when I was riding around in my car, Snowflake (he was named such because I bought him in a snowstorm), I heard Neil Diamond's "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show." It's not pretty to see a grown woman cry is all I have to say. I've always loved Neil, a Jewish guy from Brooklyn with the artistic hutzpah to assume the persona of a southern Pentecostal preacher, and produce one of the best pop songs ever. Neil serves as a great emotional barometer for me --if I am depressed, his music plunges me into the depths of despair, if I happy, it makes me feel like dancing around the house, except for "Love On the Rocks" which is always sad. You might be emotionally dead if this one doesn't conjure up visions of drinking scotch by yourself and tearing up your old pictures of happier times. "Solitary Man", a bitter ode to the pleasures of aloneness, conversely, always cheers me up. There's nothing like an angry Neil as a great antidote to some of his less thrilling attempts, like his E.T. -inspired suckfest ballad "Turn On Your Heartlight." In the great movie (thanks for the suggestion, Robin!) What About Bob?, Bob claims that there are two types of people in the world -- Those who like Neil Diamond and those who don't. Bob says in a bitter tone, My ex-wife liked Neil Diamond. I suppose he has a point.

My dad looked a lot like Mr. Diamond during the thinner phases of his life, a resemblance that was oft-remarked upon during Neil's more successful years, the decades when his soundtracks to Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Jazz Singer made more money than the movies themselves. Some of my massive, unhealthy, Electra-ridden attachment to my daddy transferred to old Neil, who became my top pick for music to perform baton-twirling routines to ("Coming To America"), jazz dances ("Forever in Blue Jeans"), and a final ill-fated dance team favorite("Sweet Caroline"). I couldn't twirl without hitting myself in the head repeatedly (good practice for writing, now that I think about it), couldn't dance worth a shit. But Neil forgave everything. He put one hand out for me, one hand to the Lord, because according to Brother Love, that's why we have two hands. One for the heavens, one for the earth. And if that doesn't work, we always have the scotch. Neil, while claiming to be a solitary man, was also a pragmatic one.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"My voice is unadorned. I don't try for perfection. I try to be honest and truthful and soulful with the voice I have. If I make mistakes in notes, or there are cracks in notes, I don't fix them. That's the way it is." Neil Diamond

Cocktail Hour

Solitary Man

3 parts gin
1 part Cointreau

Serve over ice.

Benedictions and Maledictions

Malediction

May you forget what you know
and try again. Do you like feeling
your heart in your throat? I can
arrange that. You want to sit
up nights waiting for your invisible
stigmata to manifest, your love
to come down, a foreign ship
in a familiar port? So much is not
a problem. Trains come and go
in the night, or at least that is when
I hear them and make you notice.

Hypnotic Bridal Spells

When I took a yoga class years ago on Friday nights, the one married woman in the class always asked the "single girls" what they were doing for the weekend, every weekend. "I so envy your exciting lives," she'd say. "I'd have to coat myself in beer and stand in front of ESPN to get my husband to even notice me." I hated to tell her that I had absolutely nothing going and that I might even be inclined to watch a little ESPN. (Note to aspiring girlfriends/wives -- you get advanced girlfriend points if you can go directly to ESPN on the remote without any help from the audience. Men will fall at your feet. Trust me on this one.)

One of my favorite devotions is a fifty-four day novena to Our Lady of Pompeii. As far as novenas go, it's beautiful in its simplicity. You say one rosary every day for twenty-seven days in petition for a request, one per day for twenty-seven days in thanks, whether your request has come true or not. Most people advise this as a marriage novena. For this reason it's called the irrestible novena, like one of those recipes to make a man marry you (engagement chicken is the one that I've eaten in a pre-trial for someone's beloved -- it was good, but engagement good? I didn't think so.) and love you forever. I've never used it for that reason, but I feel certain that it's effective. When you commit yourself to something, no matter how mysterious, you can't help but feel the change. It's like when the right person comes into the room. The energy shifts; you start to notice things you never did before. If you're lucky, you don't snap out of it.


Michelle's Spell of the Day

"The glass is half full. And it's full of poison." Woody Allen

Cocktail Hour

Drinking suggestion -- Vodka Martinis with blue cheese olives. The Spell cannot indulge in blue cheese because of an unfortunate food allergy, but it's a very tasty food combination.

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Sunday!

Direct Others To Get Help

We always like to imagine we have decisions, usually when things have gone wrong and the only real choice is to walk away, no matter how much energy and time we have spent, no matter how badly we want it to be otherwise. Usually this recognition comes right after some grand gesture to show the flag, a present or party, a vacation to distant lands. As for the parties, I have attended these dead and dying affairs, have given them. As a child, I had served what my mother had spent hours making, perfect in every way, all the mistakes given to me and my sister to eat before whatever party she was throwing. We’d make ourselves sick on her mistakes, not because she made so many, but because there were so few things acceptable to her for public presentation. She had a recipe that I loved, sandwich meat cut so that it was transparent, spread with a layer of cream cheese and rolled layer by layer until it was a log. Then she’d cut up the tiny log into perfect circles called burning bushes. She’d perform the first step long before there was a party and freeze them. Before they thawed entirely, she’d cut them up so they’d stay intact. The timing was not as easy as it sounds but she paid attention to the details she could control.

I’d go around offering everyone a burning bush, people taking them out of hunger or kindness until each last one was gone, the empty tray only important for what it once held and what it might hold again after it had been scoured of the remnants anyone had been careless enough to leave behind. The reflective tray mirrored my face back to me. Distorted and smeared as that reflection was, I’d inevitably look, thinking, that’s me, before disappearing back into the kitchen for more treats to offer whoever was still there.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"I'm a minor player in my own life story." 24 Hour Party People

Cocktail Hour

Peppermint Patty

1 part rum
1 sprig of fresh peppermint
1 dash of simple syrup
2 crushed strawberries

Serve over crushed ice.

Benedictions and Maledictions

It's the first day of fall, my favorite season! Enjoy!

Five Easy Pieces

As a child, I had a weak eye, much along the order of Karen Black, the B-list actress from the 70s. The eye, my left, wasn't weak all the time -- it had a tendency to tire after long days of reading and loll a little closer to the nose than was aeshetically pleasing. My mother took me to the doctor, the same one who had treated my first stomach ulcer (I was five -- the doctor said, Margie, you must get the child to relax, in a thick lovely Indian accent that somehow worked its magic. The ulcer got better). Dr. Kumar prescribed eye exercises. If they didn't work, I would have to go to optomertist, and it would probably require surgery to fix it. So I had incentive to do them all the time.

The exercises made me look as if I'd had a dose of electroshock therapy, but I loved them. Fixing my weak eye, I was taking charge of my destiny! My mother urged me on -- Do you want to look like Karen Black? Do your exercises! You'll be pretty if you do your exercises! I followed lights with my eyes, moved them from side to side. One of her friends said, Is Michelle retarded? She's so quiet and all that crazy eye stuff. I glared at him with my one strong eye and my one eye-in-training. When he got up to go to the bathroom, I took a big sip of his drink, a large screwdriver. The liquid burned going down, but I was not deterred. I gulped what I could before his return and continued on in my manic way until I was dizzy. When he returned, I looked at him straight on and both eyes focused, a breakthrough. There was no question as to what I was looking at.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"I'm so insignificant I can't even kill myself. " Miles, Sideways

Cocktail Hour

Drinking music suggestion: What's Going On, Marvin Gaye

Benedictions and Malediction

Restaurant suggestion for Friday: Andiamos

A Longer Word For Joy

The last wedding rehearsal I attended, I had to stand in for the bride during the fake vows. The bride's father and father-in-law to be (they were both ministers) were both performing the ceremony. My friend Shawn was slated to perform the requisite reading of sappy love poetry (Donne, I believe, someone else had to do the Corinthians verses) and we'd already gotten into a fender bender on the way to the rehearsal, gotten lost, realized we were way overdressed for the event, and now had to endure the last part of the evening in a small-town church with a bunch of nervous people who were trying to learn their roles. Shawn and I knew the bride, a beautiful girl who was marrying a total stranger to us, a man who did not like us upon our first meeting (we met at Christmas and their cat was threatening to knock over the huge tree and drank Mountain Dew out of his bowl -- his one big trick that we fixated on given the lack of conversation) and kept introducing us as the writers, the way someone might say leper or whore.

I had never heard the superstition about not going through the rehearsal before and wondered if the bad luck might get on me, the stand-in. Lord knows, I looked the part, all dressed in black and standing before God, promising my love to a man I didn't know. Hey, I'd done that before except my dress this time was much, much better.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Martini is a longer word for joy." Clara Bow

Cocktail Hour

The End of Summer

1 part vodka
1 part cranberry juice
1 part grapefruit juice

Serve over crushed ice.

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Fall!

Baby Grouchie's Extended Family

"Heh, heh, heh, I love the smell of trash and junk in the morning," Oscar the Grouch, after trash delivery. I found Baby Grouchie's extended family and wanted to post them before my regular post. They all say hi to Baby Grouchie!

This Is A Non-Smoking Facility

I love watching The Exorcist, not only for the great theatrical pea soup antics of Linda Blair or the angst of Father Damien Karras , but most of all for the smoking. Every character seems to smoke and they smoke everywhere: their houses, restaurants, work, the doctor's office (!). It was, as they say, a different time. When I told a visiting out-of-town friend that I let people smoke in my house, she said in mock horror, That's so retro! I don't smoke. The one time I tried in earnest I set my bangs on fire, big Texas 80s bangs, sprayed to death with White Rain hairspray. I put myself out with the palm of my hand and smelled burnt hour for days, no matter how many times I washed it. It was, one could say, a deterrent.

Whenever I'm in an airport, I look for the smokers, the people who appear more miserable than I am, the ones clutching the boxes in their shirts and purses like talismans of a better time. Sometimes there's a bar or two that smokers can use -- these eventually look like versions of Dante's hell, an glass-enclosed box of smoke. When my father died suddenly, I had to catch a flight to go home. The only bar in the section of the airport I was waiting in was a Sky Box that allowed smoking. I peered in and saw people taking comfort in what would probably be their last cigarette for hours. They looked sad, even if their sacrifice was taking them somewhere wonderful. I set my bags down close to me, having the misguided belief that if I'm not clutching something, I will most certainly lose it, and ordered a vodka martini. There was no reprieve from the smoke because of the room's unfortunate ventilation. I breathed in the smoke like everyone else. It stuck to my hair and my clothes, as if I had been smoking. There was no getting away from it.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"The victim's belief in possession is what helped cause it, so in that same way, a belief in the power of exorcism can make it disappear." William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist

Cocktail Hour

Drinking Movie Suggestion: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Benedictions and Maledictions

Mortification

One need not try for this --
it is always there, the imperfections
that seek out the stage, so hopeless
and alone. Have you ever believed
something that wasn’t true, held
that truth in your hand, guarding
your nothing? You made the calls,
rented the hall, only to find
you were a few feet from an ocean
you couldn’t swim in because you were
too busy in your need to cancel everything,
inconsolable except for the tides that
come and go as they damn well please.

Keys Made While You Wait

Once when I was in a writing workshop, I told an anecdote about being a kid and writing suicide notes for my stuffed animals in crayola. I can't imagine what was going through my mind; I merely thought that my little friends had grown weary of the world and wanted to exit stage left. In many ways I was a dramatic child, the kind who would say, These vegetables are killing me, just looking at them is killing me, much less eating them which would most certainly kill me. A woman in the workshop told me if I didn't use the stuffed animal suicide note she would, which got me thinking. It did end up in a story, along with some other childhood memories interwoven with an incredibly painful front story, not a dramatic one, no Jack London "To Build A Fire" kind of drama, more like lost, desperate, heartsick and alone drama.

I had a terrible time as a beginning writer with plot. Okay, truth be told, I had a terrible time with damn near everything. But plot was the worst. Like Christopher says on The Sopranos about his life in a true moment of budding screenwriter misery, I have no arc. All the books say you gotta have an arc. I couldn't for the life of me see what my arc could be. I had characters doing really thrilling things like hanging out at the Dairy Queen which would be fine if I could get them to do anything at said Queen except for have deadly dull conversation over their Blizzards. When people talk about natural ability, I have to say that I had none. What I did have was a 24 pack of crayolas (and a longing for the 64 pack -- and say what you will, longing is one of the best things for a developing writer) and some paper, a few stuffed animals as characters. And I eventually pulled my story characters out of the Dairy Queen, but not before noticing how they ate their Blizzards, what kind they ordered (my favorite was the purple Kool-Aid/pop rocks combination -- I called it the Jim Jones Special), and how all that was sweet settled to the bottom of the cup in a thick dredge that you could drag your spoon through before tossing it in the trash.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"I became a poet at the age of sixteen. I did not intend to do it. It was not my fault." Margaret Atwood

Cocktail Hour

Drinking movie suggestion: Friends With Money

Benedictions and Maledictions

Keys Made While You Wait

I’ve always loved something that could mean
anything or nothing at all. That explains many
things, you and me, and the guns underneath
our bed. The romance of the Chinese
restaurant menu portion of our relationship
has long since worn off. We are no longer
pointing out the obvious traits, but rather cloaked
in conversation. If I say, it seems like a long time
until my next birthday and you look down to trace
my sign, we can say the words we know so well.
There’s a sale on caskets at Costco -- like all the advice
books say, it’s good to keep in mind where this is going.

We Make Cakes For All Occasions

My wedding cake came from Kroger, the two tiers of white cake goodness, truly wretched, purchased out of desperation and budget concerns. At the reception, I heard more than one variation on how suckola the cake was, how it was a little dry. A little dry was kind, a cliched comparision to sawdust would have been more apt. Perhaps the more astute could have thrown in a metaphor about how it would represent the desert of self-doubt and misery I had entered. The entire food situation wasn't pretty -- a slew of tuna sandwiches cut up into fourths, a few grapes, some leftover Christmas cookies. I spent a fair amount of the reception hiding from champagne corks (had a deep irrational fear of losing my retina to one) and wondering what I had done.

The beauty of hell, of course, is that it is self-perpetuating. My wedding took place on the anniversary of Wounded Knee, the day that a group of Native Americans started to dance to bring back their dead ancestors to repopulate the earth. Their ghost dance seemed so powerful that the military shot many of them. If you drive to the spot, you can feel the dead. They make their presence known. There's a tiny marker that comemorates the event. It's not at all like Little Big Horn, the site of Custer's last stand. There's no big museum or burial grounds, no board games that you can buy. When I stood at Wounded Knee years after my fateful day when I had undone what was supposed to be forever, the place spoke of a deep desolation that made me know that I had come home.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"But my dear, so few things are fulfilled: what are most lives but a series of incomplete episodes." Truman Capote

Cocktail Hour

Drinking music suggestion: Let It Bleed, Rolling Stones

Benedictions and Maledictions

Consolation

Who can tell us what is wrong and why? God
comes to wound us anew and we cannot help
but love. I have lost many things, but none
have left me inconsolable until now. The last
night I saw you had not one star in the sky, as if
they’d all been extinguished. I clung to you for
a minute longer than necessary, even though I
couldn’t have known it would be the last time.
Still, you are my lovely, ever-changing consolation,
the book I will read even when the spine falls apart.

No Photos Please

I've seen Mick Jagger twice, once during Tattoo You with my dad, the other time when I graduated from high school (Steel Wheels tour). I've always loved the Rolling Stones without reservation, but I never quite got the sex appeal of Mick Jagger until seeing him on stage. Needless to say, I never quite got said appeal of Keith Richards except as an advertisement for moisturizer and against heroin use, although it may be the only thing preserving him at this point. Even when Mick was a non-performing dot from our nosebleed seats, he seemed to radiate Mickness. There was no mistaking the man who went from beauty to beauty, including but not limited to, Marianne Faithfull, Bianca Jagger, to finally "settle" with Jeri Hall (there's something to be said for a Texas girl and of course, having legs that don't stop).

Friends of mine have determined the following formula for whether a romantic relationship will work. Who do you prefer -- the Stones or the Beatles? It doesn't matter what you answer if you have the same answer. My answer is the Stones. I love the Beatles, love them, but they don't hold a candle to the Stones for sheer energy. The question, of course, is about whether one loves rock and rock/blues or pop music better. I was named after a Beatles song and my other possible name choice was yet another Beatles song, "Julia." Hey, had my mother been a Stones' fan, I would have been "Angie." But that's kind of fitting for me, a Stones fan with a Beatles name. I'm a person beset by contradictions. I'm a person named after a song sung in two languages. I love the night, but I fade fast.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Yes, Im a sack of broken eggs/ I always have an unmade bed/Don't you?" Rolling Stones, "Monkey Man"

Cocktail Hour

No Photos Please (Sunday night recipe)

1 box of chicken
1 bottle of champagne
1 copy of Gimme Shelter

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Sunday to all!

First Dates

"Men like a pretty girl," my roommate said as I eyed my options for my first date with a music composition major on whom I had a terrible crush. My wardrobe consisted mainly of the standard early 90s uniform -- jeans and long sweaters, a good cover for my rather large ass. I also had a garage sale dress that I had doctored by cutting off the puff sleeves. My friend Melissa had a considerably larger selection thanks to her wealthy parents and she offered me some choices from her closet. She was shorter than I am and built like a linebacker so her clothes never looked quite right, but I would make them work! She had a prized outfit that she laid out on the bed like a crime scene -- a a bright red blouse with the back cut out and a short black skirt. To complete the ensemble, she had stocking with lines up the back. When I suggested that it might be too much for a first date, my roommate said the pretty girl line and that decided me. I would wear the risky outfit.

Damn the roommate I thought, looking like an off-brand Heidi Fleiss, trying to keep the lines in the back of my legs straight. The stockings bagged, the shirt kept slipping off. The thinly-veiled look of sheer horror in my date's eyes was hard to ignore. Pretty girl, my ass, I had made a huge miscalculation. I longed for jeans and a big, ass covering sweater, but alas, that ship had sailed. I sat through the movie on what would be our first and almost last date, a movie I can't recall. I do remember having seen it before and lying to my date about never seeing it. Men do like to be first, after all. Ha! I did change eventually back into my own clothes, asking to go back to the dorm because I was cold. The sweater I chose had a thin patina of grime on it because I was afraid to wash it for fear of ruining it. I didn't notice that, though, until I got to his apartment where the lights were bright and everything seemed a lot more clear.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"My\toughest fight was with my first wife." Muhammad Ali

Cocktail Hours

Drinking music suggestion: After Five, The Rat Pack Box Set

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Saturday and a special birthday wish to my good friend Cal!

Ann Richards Will Take Your Ass Out

The first time I ever voted was in the Texas election for Ann Richards. My dad went with me, and he voted for her as well. He was trying to atone for casting his lot not once, but twice for Nixon. Richards had a particularly nasty brawl on her hands in that election against the Republican Clayton Williams. She'd been in rehab for alcohol, was a self-described housewife who wanted to change the government, mother of four, and had a tremendous record as state treasurer. I loved Ann because of her outspoken ways -- the proverbial breath of fresh air to the old guard. Clayton W., a real jewel of a guy, made a few fatal mistakes in that campaign -- one of which included a brilliant and innovative strategy for rape victims -- if it's happening, just enjoy it since it's sex and you can't get out of it anyway. Man, why didn't I think of that? Rape hotlines around the country added this one to the list, I'm certain.

But even with the rape jokes and groovy immigration strategies -- let Mexicans break rocks in the hot sun with prisoners! -- he was still in the lead. The thing that broke him was refusing to shake Ann's hand in a pivotal public moment. Texas, for all its faults and backward ways, has a few things going for it and not shaking a woman's hand is a hanging offense. I've voted for a lot of people since Ann, but none as pivotal or wonderful. In one of the last public promos she did before announcing she had cancer, she played the part of an avenger against people talking in movie theaters -- the tagline is "Don't Talk During the Movie Or Ann Richards Will Take Your Ass Out." I love the idea of a seventy year old woman with shocking white hair and a blue business suit as powerful as any superhero. Texas is hell on women and horses, or so the saying goes, but if you survive, you can kick some ass. And that's a happy thought. Certainly better than any of Clayton's ideas.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back." Ann Richards

Cocktail Hour

Lone Star (Beer Flight)

1 Shinerbock
1 Lone Star
1 Dos Equis

Benedictions and Maledictions

Restaurant suggestion for the weekend: Mon Jin Lau

Every Tongue Shall Confess

When I was in the ninth grade, one of my close friends had gone through an exorcism. She was a big tall girl, a fellow gymnast named Sheila, and she'd had the elders of the Pentecostal Church of God with Signs Following take her down into the bowels of the rec center, where many a VBS class was held and the church elders spoke in tongues and cast out demons for over an hour. Sheila, strapped to a metal folding chair for her "protection," sat there and prayed to become whole. Sheila had the kind of frightful family that was wrought with sexual abuse, bringing to mind the old joke -- what is a virgin in (fill in name of southern backwater state) -- a nine year old who can run fast. (Oh the wit!) Sheila had a beautiful body and a damaged soul and even I could tell that it would take more than a bunch of dudes chanting stuff to make things better. She suffered the classic post-traumatic stress symptoms, demons all, except not the kind the men imagined them to be.

Even so, I'm bigger on the power of belief than anything else. Lots of people I know practice speaking in tongues and the laying on of hands like I might think about buying a Dr. Pepper. Sometimes people ask, Will it scare you if I speak in tongues? Rock out, I say, and watch the show. I'm not so great at handling the problems in my life -- find that I turn to strange and mighty things in moments of desperation (that would be nearly all of them) and that those things often save me. I'm not going in for my weekly exorcism any time soon, but I love the idea of a deliverance from whatever is troubling me, even if, and perhaps especially if, it's only myself.


Michelle's Spell of the Day

"The best way to say anything is just to say it." Johnny Cash

Cocktail Hour

Exorcism

1 part gin
1 part lemon juice
1 teaspoon of sugar

Serve over ice.

Benedictions and Maledictions

In Memoriam: Ann Richards, former governor of Texas and one of the most fantastic versions of womanhood anywhere! She famously said of George W. that he was born with a silver foot in his mouth among many other brilliant, funny things. She will be missed!

The Cards Are Laid Out on the Table

There was a time not so long ago that my friends and I had dinner parties about once a month, long affairs where people would get very drunk and talk about their personal lives or lack of them. The later the hour, the more despondent the talk and since I don't cook, I took to making drinks and eating what other people prepared, dishes I would have never dreamed existed -- champagne chicken with grapes, grapefruit in a salad, beef and curried rice adorned with a side of lentils. I always thought I ate a lot at these shindigs until I read one of my ex-boyfriend's potrayal of it in a magazine where he described me drinking and not eating (I believe the implication was that I was moderately alcoholic and anorexic, not an exact quote), my friends as dysfunctional retard losers (exact quote), and himself as never getting a decent meal at home (the truth).

At night the shadows grow long, people bring out tarot cards, try to see the future. The guards go down, the cards are laid out on the table. Sometimes if the food is really good, it makes a second appearance. The booze has never gone away. If someone remembers to buy them, we bring out the shot glasses made of godiva chocolate and we toast with these and eat the remains. The sweetness changes everything and makes it seem good and right, even when the future is murky, the omens less than auspicious. Its sweetness transports us to another time, a time not mentioned in any magazine. We tell each other that it's been fun and leave believing it.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Loading mercury with a pitchfork/ your friends stare at you in amazement." Richard Brautigan

Cocktail Hour

Mercury with a Pitchfork

Butterscotch liqueur
1 godiva chocolate shot glass

Benedictions and Maledictions

An address to the very Reverend's question about guns -- household use is as Bonnie suggest -- for intruders.

The Movie Premiere That Is Your Life

Bret Easton Ellis was all the rage when I was finishing high school, a fitting tribute to the end of the eighties, an era that embraced Reagan, Rambo, big hair, Dynasty, crappy excess. All would-be writers envied him and his six-week crystal meth binge writing of Less Than Zero even as we talked about what a vapid book it was and how you couldn't have paid us enough to write it (good life lesson that the Chicken Soup books haven't quite articulated yet -- pretend you don't want something and you'll, umm, stop wanting it? Worth a shot at any rate!). Ellis' American Psycho craziness coincided with my time in grad school, and I remember the NOW boycott of the book and how Ellis got not one but TWO advances because of it (this is feminist progress?) and in an even weirder turn of events (start humming "It's A Small World After All"), the leader of said boycott, Gloria Steinem, ended up marrying David Bale in her sixties (her first marriage), the father of Christian Bale, the actor that played in the enormously campy and succesful version of the movie.

Most of Ellis' books have been turned into movies -- my favorite is the first, Less Than Zero, starring the wonderful Andrew McCarthy. For years, I'd have an annual Andrew McCarthy Film Festival, weekend-long affairs featuring the best of Mr. McCarthy, a defacto Brat Packer and moody actor with a pout that wouldn't stop. I loved Andrew! Of course, Robert Downey Jr. didn't hurt this film, playing a drug-addicted (method acting, anyone?) young actor with nothing but time on his hands and James Spader trying to force him to pay back his drug debt by turning tricks. A beautiful Jamie Gertz sniffed coke and worked as a model while trying to decide what to do with Clay. I watched this film a few times on video with my dad, thinking wow, that's just like my life. Mineral Wells wasn't LA, I wasn't beautiful, rich, or all that young-feeling, but otherwise, it was pretty close. Emotional truth, right? I mean, who didn't think that?

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"You do an awfully good impression of yourself." Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park

Cocktail Hour

Ralphie's Last Drink (After Sopranos character Ralphie, whom Tony kills with a frying pan)

Honor and Duty

1 part soda
1 part scotch

Serve over ice.

Benedictions and Maledictions

Thanks to all for the new comments -- especially want to welcome Sera from Lipstick Explosion! I'm so glad to hear that there are other Carpenters' fans out there. And yes, they still play them at weddings from time to time, which always makes me cry, even if it's a corndog rendition by someone without a very good voice. Best to keep the Carpenters pure and play the originals, I'm thinking.

A Ministry of Presence

"We're on a ship, pal" my friend's date said in a defensive tone. We (meaning my friend, her date, our other friend, and her boyfriend) were at Red Lobster. Two couples and me, one couple established, the other that instead of launching into a relationship were on the way out, destined to end up in the land of the five date wonder were all trapped on a ship according to the new guy, who I will refer to as Billy Bob since he kind of resembled him, the Thornton one, a mighty cool dude. The same could not be said of our Billy Bob. He'd been way nervous about meeting his new pseudo-girlfriend's friends and had pre-gamed (an expression sorority girls use for getting drunk before a big party in order to umm, relax) at the Bennigan's next door where his car was parked in case he needed to beat a hasty retreat. The ship comment came from the established boyfriend making a comment about the decor of the Red Lobster, how strange all the little plaques looked. "We are on a ship," Billy Bob repeated again, fingering the lone shark tooth dangling from a suede cord around his neck. "That's the point of this place."

Billy Bob had picked the locale since it was his favorite seafood restaurant. I hadn't been in years and was glad that the food had not changed one iota. It was just like that proustian madelaine, except it was a proustian shrimp scampi. Man, did the past come flooding back, and was I ever eager to push it down again. I tried making conversation, but it was difficult with someone whose opening gambit of conversation was that he'd had a hex put on him and did I know anyone who could take it off? Alas, it wasn't quite the warm-up I'd expected. My friend held his hand kindly, as if she were doing charity work at a nursing home. We all got drinks and did the best we could. We were on a ship, after all.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"You either make it or you don't." Billy Bob Thornton, Pushing Tin

Cocktail Hour

Drinking Movie Suggestion: Pushing Tin

Benedictions and Maledictions

"Rainy days and Mondays always get me down . . ."

We've Only Just Begun

Except for matters of literature and not even really then, I hardly ever force myself out of my comfort zone. I do not learn much about music -- if I like something, I buy it, a decidedly unscientific method of building a music collection. My tastes in everything else is much the same. As for food, I like things people don't think I would (oysters, pate, escargot) and hate morsels most people at least enjoy some of the time (almost every vegetable). Art is very much the same -- don't know much, like things that catch my eye. So when I have been told that I have good taste that's fairly eclectic, I'm flattered. When I let my guard down and admit to a deep love of the Carpenters, the presenter of said compliment often looks aghast, as if wishing he or she could take it back.

Despite the many protests, I contend the Carpenters define cool even after all these years. Okay, I confess in the interest of full disclosure that yes, I love the seamy underbelly of the duo, the pill-popping, maybe he's gay, maybe not Richard, the anorexic Karen, the claustrophobic family dram that underlied it all. I've even seen a very grainy version of the Todd Haynes movie Superstar where their tale is acted out with Barbie Dolls -- the copy I saw was interspersed with the fall-out from someone trying to record an episode of Webster over this precious footage. But even without all that, I love their music. The sad haunting lyric stylings of Karen scare me and soothe me. Her voice, so big and pure and perfect, housed in such a tiny body with a failing heart seems to be a most apt symbol for all I think is lovely and true. We've only just begun, sings Karen, and somehow it's both chilling and hopeful all in the same moment. There's a long life ahead or maybe not, but it's going to feel long at times and maybe a little something beautiful can help.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"I'd say goodbye to love/There are no tomorrows for this heart of mine." Karen Carpenter

Cocktail Hour

Beer Suggestion: Shinerbock (the best beer in all of Texas)

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Sunday!

At Least The Damaged Parts

For one cruel year, I performed as a Mineral Wells Wranglerette, a dance team/cheer squad. I love to disco dance, love watching dancing, but I am, by in and large, a terrible dancer. It's just not one of my three talents in life, one of which includes a quite good William Burroughs impersonation, something that has thrilled many late into the evening at more than a few parties. The only reason I even made the Wranglerette team was that I was flexible (years of gymnastics) and could stay below the fascist-inspired weight requirements for performing at football games. God forbid, you sully the beauty of Texas high school football with one ounce of body fat! We were forced to use the scale in the gym when I started this sadistic misery, but the scale got moved because the boys in the gym would hang out and wait for us to begin the weekly weigh-in and start in, yelling moo, especially when someone who wasn't under ninety pounds stepped on it.

I got flattered into this nightmare by my biology teacher, a sweet woman whose stunningly beautiful daughter was the drill team captain. Jenny, a distant girl who drew no ire from anyone, amazed me. She'd somehow escaped all the labels the other drill team officers wore -- i.e., The Sexy One Who Sleeps With Everyone, The Bitch Who Had An Abortion, The Dork Who Would Marry A Preacher, and so on. Jenny wasn't scary skinny like I was (all ninety pounds, five of which were a very bad poodle perm), but she never went over our weight limit, never got caught vomiting in the bathroom stall like many of the other girls, never had nasty rumors spread about her. What a life! I know what happened to many of the other girls, but not her. I still wonder. As for me, I finished the year and vowed never to don the white cowboy hat and boots again. As for my bad hair, I had a girl in the locker room cut it all off, at least the really damaged parts. Her mother was a hairdresser and that was good enough for me. It looked better than it had in years and when it grew out, I never put it through its paces with perms and body waves and never cut it short again. I felt lighter by years and wouldn't have to go and vomit in a bathroom stall to make some stupid weight limit to feel that way.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"You may go to hell and I will go to Texas." Davey Crockett

Cocktail Hour

Drinking music suggestion: A Love Supreme, John Coltrane

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Saturday!

We're Going To Graceland

The thing that impressed me most about Graceland wasn't the tacky excess, the Elvis worshippers, or the camp beauty of the jungle room, but it was the Lisa Marie, Elvis' private jet. I wouldn't have even taken the full package tour except that my dad was intent on seeing everything, especially the planes. Given that he was a pilot, who was I to say no? It was our first and probably only time at Graceland (me, my dad, and sister went shortly after my mother died). The Lisa Marie had all the conveniences of my then-apartment and a king-sized bed with a airline regulation seatbelt. I fly a fair amount -- such a luxury thrilled me. The image of a flying bed stayed with me through all the gift shops -- and no, I did not go crazy. I bought one tasteful tank top and a few Taking Care of Business! postcards.

Even though my dad loved to fly, I have never quite taken to the experience. I did enjoy riding in the air luggage carrier as a child (since the weight limit was eighty pounds, I could squeeze into the space). That seems a lot more fun than any airport experience I've had in years. Airports make me weepy and tired, full of self-pity. I'm always standing in long lines, only to drop and spill food I just bought all over the floor. The smell gets to me, the noise, the tensions of security. I'm not the type of person who is full of adventure and joie de vivre at these times. And of course, I'm reminded of my parents who loved airports and travels. It's enough to make a person think it would have been good to be the King, to have a bed in your private jet and wake up on the ground, right at your next destination, like magic.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"I have reason to believe that we will all be received/ We're going to Graceland." Paul Simon

Cocktail Hour

Banana and Peanut Butter Drinky-Poo

1 part banana liqueur
1 part godiva chocolate
1 part vodka

Serve chilled and get ready to take care of business!

Benedictions and Maledictions

Recipe Book for the Week -- Are You Hungry Tonight? (a great book of recipes that Elvis loved. It's not exactly South Beach Diet,
but . . . )

Live Boy, Dead Girl

There's an old joke about the only two reasons you can be fired from a teaching job -- being caught with a live boy or a dead girl in your bed. (Okay, there are a few addendums to this which include sending obscene cell phone video messages to your court-restricted ex-student of yourself dancing around in your underpants.) This is one of the few jokes I remember (I mostly loathe jokes and joke-telling with some exceptions). The other joke I recall caught fire with a friend of mine around an especially depressing holiday season (are there any other kind?) -- what do you give a blind, deaf, mute orphan for Christmas? Cancer. When she told it, she'd laugh hysterically while others either laughed with her or cringed. I suppose the fact that these are the only jokes I know says more about me than it does anything else.

The news story that has me riveted these days isn't the picture of Tom and Katie's baby (yawn -- another nut had a baby, big whoop) or whether Katie Couric looked fat as a news anchor. Steve Irwin's death is too sad to think about for long (in our deeply sarcastic lonely age, we need more people like him that aren't afraid to be happy and passionate), so I turn to the horror show that is the new Stockholm Syndrome example, the Austrian girl locked in a dungeon by some whackjob for eight years. She has an incredible maturity and perspective on everything, the kind of strange disturbing poise that people who don't have much of a childhood often exhibit. I suppose she's amazed to be alive after having been thought dead for so many years. She's told interviewers that she still can't laugh -- she's mourning the death of her captor who killed himself after she broke free. Someone once told me if you can figure out what's funny about something, you're cured of it. I suspect that the comics will have their day with this story soon, but the day the dead/live girl laughs again, that will be something special indeed.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"You can't learn everything you need to know legally."
John Irving, Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

Cocktail Hour

Drinking Reading Suggestion: "Three Popes Walk Into A Bar" Amy Hempel

Benedictions and Maledictions

In answer to Bonnie's question about guns -- I'm in favor of all you mentioned, but prefer a handgun like a Saturday Night Special for household use. The shotguns should be stored away for hunting, but are fun to have.

Conscious Sedation

A couple of summers ago, I overheard some kids at a pool talking about going to the dentist and a procedure called conscious sedation. The parent started explaining how that you are awake, but you don't feel anything. There's an awareness of what's going on around you, but it's dim. I've also heard this anthesia referred to as twilight, a word and a time I have always loved, the time of day when the certain things begin to wind down and others wind up (snakes and women come out at night -- ha!), and of course, everything looks beautiful and fading. As far as the horrors of dentistry go, I've always been wide awake (with the dentist sweating and cursing, trying to pull out a very impacted wisdom tooth) or completely knocked out, so much so that I didn't wake for hours and when I did, I crawled to the phone and called my mother and told her that I did not have to follow her rules anymore. I was a mere 26, and it seemed like a good time to assert my independence.

That said, I think I've lived large chunks of my life, as we all do, in that state of going through the motions until something jars us into feeling or noticing things around us. Once I stayed in a Bates-like motel where a diapered poodle shuffled around the desk and rested his tiny tired poodle head on a needlepoint pillow sampler that said, Men and Chocolate Are Both Better Rich. I felt such sadness for the diapered poodle, but a great joy that someone loved him so much that they didn't mind his incontinence in later years. Nothing worked in the hotel -- the shower only had hot water, really hot water, and the television a mere two channels, one public access and the other played a 20/20 special about parrots and how difficult they are as pets, requiring tons of care and prone to self-mutilation when they got lonely or sad. Some of the owners were expressing horror at how much they had to do for their parrots and over the fact that these pets would outlive them by many years so there would be no natural reprieve. I thought I'd go into the shower and have a good cry over the poodle and the needy parrots and all other things lost to me, but I couldn't stand the heat for long. It wasn't the kind of lulling heat one might wish for.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"When I talk to the camera, mate, it's not like I'm talking to the camera, I'm talking to you because I want to whip you around and plunk you right there with me. " Steve Irwin

Cocktail Hour

Sedation Shot

1 shot of chambord
1 dollop of heavy cream

Float cream on top of chambord

Benedictions and Maledictions

My sweet dog friend in the picture is Greta, and I would like to send birthday wishes to Greta's mother, the beautiful Karen, today!

The Curse of Diff'rent Strokes

Like many girls growing up in the late seventies and early eighties, I wanted to be Kimberly on Diff'rent Strokes. Of course, thanks to talk shows, E True Hollywood Story!, and now a made for television movie, we know that her gig wasn't all it was cracked up to be. At the time, I thought the actress, Dana Plato, had the kind of beauty I wanted, wholesome and unmarred, the type of person who never looked tired or grubby or ill-groomed. As Mr. Drummond's biological daughter haunted by her mother's death and adapting to the sudden adoption of Arnold and Willis, two boys from a poverty-ridden background, she exemplified a kind of grace and ease that I believed was beyond me with my perpetually ratty hair and nervous ways -- I was going through a phase where I would rub my eyes so hard that the blood vessels underneath them would break, leaving huge scarlett circles around them. While I loved Arnold and Willis without reservation, Kimberly inspired a kind of worship, the kind of mix of awe and sadness you have toward someone you desperately want to be. I looked at her clothes a lot, and they always matched. Matching was not something I excelled at.

Now Dana Plato is dead of an overdose after a long battle with drugs, after money problems and criminal behavior, after a lifetime of hard times and compromise. She found God near the end of her life, but this did not preclude finding a whole lot of xanax and valium as well as taking too much one night. Perhaps she'd grown tired of being herself and someone else and all that matching perfection. How ironic to find that I am a lot more like her than I ever would have guessed.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Two things I can do without in life are sympathy and calligraphy." David Sedaris, Barrel Fever (If you've never read this story, read this story! It's great)

Cocktail Hour

Drinking reading suggestion: Exile by Blake Nelson

Benedictions and Maledictions

Thanks to Jamie for his question about what constitutes a good Love Connection-like date! I'd say activities that involve lots of tiny food and drinks, movies, concerts.

Your Soul Is Required In Hell

During the eighties, I loved the movie New Jack City. My friend Hank and I would watch it for the camp fun -- it was about crack cocaine, the inner city, reviving Judd Nelson's career, wearing bad clothes involving lots of epaulets, and many good songs by Public Enemy. I saw it the other morning on cable for the first time in years and was shocked by how well it holds up as a morality tale. Ice T is a cop with a grudge, stuck with an immoral but competent whitey (Judd Nelson) as a partner to crack a case of the biggest drug kingpen, Nino Brown (Wesley Snipes) in an unorthodox manner. Throw in a big screen television running Scarface over and over and a few Italians looking for a connection, Chris Rock as a crackhead looking to reform by infilitrating a crack factory (bad idea!) and you have a story. It's all about how everyone does everything right and Nino still walks by making a deal. Of course, the mandatory old black neighborhood dude shoots his ass at the end, yelling, your soul is required in hell. It's funny that I couldn't remember the ending until I saw it again.

The movie came out around the time of that lightning rod figure, Bernard Goetz, shot four guys on a subway, and becoming a symbol for vigilante justice. Nobody, it seemed, could protect us, not the cops, not the laws, only ourselves and big guns. Bernard walked and became a New York City icon for the streets. I became entranced with the case because of its moral complexities, and it holds the same questions as New Jack City did. Of course, it didn't include such bon mots as Quit sucking on the glass dick. I don't think I'll forget the ending this time around, the spiral staircase that Nino falls down in his last big power play as he says the American justice system is the best in the world. Something about the epaulets on his shoulders, I think.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Get me Nino Brown." New Jack City

Cocktail Hour

Morning Glory

glass of champagne
1 part Peach Fuze drink

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy End of Summer!

Play Misty For Me

One of my most shameful admissions consists of calling up the local country and western radio station and begging them to play an awful, awful song called "Elvira." The chorus went something like, My heart's on fire for Elvira, and there was a popular dance at the time that everyone did, much in the way of the hustle or the ma corina. It wasn't pretty, but my small group of girlfriends, my sister and I would all disguise our voices and call and call the station and ask for the song. The djs were nice, but there were only so many times a day during that summer that they could endure the song themselves so we heard it infrequently, but when we did, there was great joy and running to get our special outfits on and the dance, which we couldn't really do but improvised to the best of our ability.

In a few years, one of the group would be pregnant and another lost to drugs. They went the way of the Go Ask Alice girls, the ones snatched from childhood without warning. I could not have envisioned the future they'd have, although there were subtle signs -- for instance, the girl who got pregnant offered to have sex with the dj to get him to play our song all day and all night. I wasn't entirely sure what sex was, but it did not seem like a fair trade. The desires of children would morph into something else, something darker, but for that summer, we had a little innocence, a catchy song and dance routine, and a number we could dial all hours of the day and night where someone would pick up and at least pretend to listen.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"There's something a little scary about funny women. Well, they're threatening. And there was a survey done one time where they asked women what they were most afraid of from men. And the women-- their response was they were most afraid of being hit or beaten or hurt from men. And they asked men what they were most afraid of from women, and they said being laughed at. " Ann Richards, former governor of Texas

Cocktail Hour

Drinking restaurant suggestion: Joe T. Garcia's in Ft. Worth, Texas

Benedictions and Maledictions

For John Ricci and his question about the name of Hank's sister --
Higgins is a nickname that Hank came up with from God knows where for Robin, his sister. Of course, she has grown to love it and now that Hank has died, most of Hank's friends still call her by that name.

The Cults of the Infamous and the Dead

I've had some odd dates in my day, many of which have made it into a story or poem. Dating, obstensibly fun, provides much room for things to go very very wrong very very quickly, a fiction writer's dream. What situation could be more fraught than what Sex and the City refers to as "a job interview with cocktails?" But my strangest dates didn't involve any job interview-like questions -- the ones that really get weird are what I call the Love Connection date (after the great show with Chuck Woolery), the ones that start in the middle of the day and are billed as "activity dates." (ie, no dinner and drinks and I'm tired and ready to go home) It's more difficult to get away with the I'm tired shit when it's four in the afternoon and hours before sunset. A list of these dates includes but is not limited to: finding Lee Henry Oswald's grave (my date felt he was treated rudely by two lesbians visiting someone else's grave when he asked where LHO was buried and nursed a grudge all day), picking cherries for a fee from a field with which we would bake something (umm, did he mistake me for his other girlfriend, Laura Ingalls Wilder?), going to the IMAX theater and seeing Behold Hawaii (behold the contents of my stomach churning and my date turning pale and nearly passing out), a day at a Renaissance Festival (I could weep on this one as it was a surprise and I could barely contain my horror upon our arrival). The list goes on, but I can't.

For the most part, though, I'm grateful. So much of my life is routine (I'm a Taurus, of course, and have almost no ability to divert from it) and so dating has provided me much needed material. As a beginning writer, I had no ability for setting. I had interest in character and dialogue, but none of these people had anything real and concrete to talk about. But when you're running around the Rose of Sharon cemetery, trying to find the grave of the man who shot JFK, you're somewhere real. It's not where Chuck Woolery might have sent you (he favored rolling skating dates if memory serves), but you could feel the sun on your back, see the widows visiting their husbands' graves, wearing big watches that probably belonged to those men, and finally happen upon the tiny stone that gives a name to the infamous and the dead, hidden away from the vandals, upon those who would wish more harm.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Back in two and two." Chuck Woolery, Love Connection

Cocktail Hour

Cherries in the Snow

1 part godiva white chocolate liqueur
1 part vodka
1 splash of cherry juice

Serve garnished with a cherry.

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Swim At Your Own Risk

As a child, I learned to swim in a medium-sized above ground swimming pool in our backyard. The pool was my favorite place to be (a good thing given that the Texas summers in those days were unrelenting). The heat caused people to go a little mad -- days that didn't dip below a hundred degrees resulted in a variety of violent crimes, particularly murder, hence the expression, It's so fucking hot I could kill someone! I even wanted to swim in the winter and jumped into the pool fully clothed when I had ascertained that the adults heads were turned. My father, smoking a cigarette, came in, lit cigarette and all and pulled me out of the freezing water. The good result -- he stopped smoking then and there forever. I remained in love with the water despite the fact that my stupidity caused me to almost drown a few times -- strong swimmers are the ones always overestimating their abilities and getting into trouble.

Years later, I trained to lifeguard, my favorite young person job. Given that I'd just gotten out of working at a slaughterhouse, the city pool was a huge step up. The pool was owned in part by the home for emotionally disturbed/criminal/touched teenagers down the road. Every day they would get two hours in the pool. The other lifeguards hated this time because we had to keep a close eye on them, especially since many of them used this somewhat unsupervised time to try and make time (ie, have sex or some semblance) with their beloveds in the pool. The others who hadn't the good fortune to have a girlfriend or boyfriend would run around and jump on each other's heads off the diving board. I didn't mind, though. They were so happy to be there, you could hear them yelling as they ran down the road from nearly a mile away. When you did have to jump in and get them to the side for whatever reason, they were mostly active victims, a term for people who struggle against being saved, so much so that you have to put their heads underwater a couple of times to calm them down, something I understood all too well.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"When you cannot immediately access the situation, direct others to get help." Lifeguard Instruction Guide

Cocktail Hour

Drinking movie suggestion: The Believer

Benedictions and Maledictions

In answer to John Ricci -- the lovely woman in question is my friend Hank's younger sister, Higgins. She's getting married this year on New Year's Eve -- the same time that picture was taken. Congratulations, Higgins!