The other day when I was brave enough to get my hair cut a teeny-tiny bit (that's right good people, I agreed to long layers, thereby updating my Ted Bundy victim look from the 70s by a little, opting for a more current 70s style which I love -- thanks Stacey!), my friend and I laughed about how you can always tell gifts from exes to your beloved because they exude an aura of evil. Okay, I concede that I might be overstating the case here, but damned if I don't know who something is from without being told and can get the creeps from an inantimate object all the same. I once dated someone who had a bag full of mixed tapes women had made him and some that he had made for other women. They rolled around on the floorboard of his car, some containing truly horrible songs, many I'm sorry to say had a lot of Peter Gabriel on them. People assume I like Peter Gabriel because he once wrote a crappy whiney song about Anne Sexton where he bleats over and over again, Looking for mercy street, looking for mercy street until the listener wishes he'd find the fucking street and shut up. Chicks are supposed to dig that sort of sad sack crap in the same way we're supposed to love Coldplay because of the moody British rocker saying things that don't make a lick of sense, but he says them with an accent which is supposed to count for being deep. It makes one long for the high school years when Bad Company's "Feel Like Making Love" was all you needed.
Strangely enough, most women distance themselves from their current beloved's past, an impossible task if you ask me. I once had a student who had all the stuff from his one true love (a woman who was not his wife -- how did I know this? -- Well, I'm mildly psychic and many of his essays started, I hate my wife so much . . . ) in a locked safety deposit box so his wife wouldn't burn it. This strikes me as sad, sadder than being forced to listen to a mixed tape without any Marvin Gaye on it. Our pasts give the present weight and none of us are without an odd menagarie of things that meant something at one time. I even have stuff from my old boyfriend's ex-girlfriends (one of the stranger moments in that relationship was being given a ton of clothes by one of my exes that women had left over at his house -- I wanted to throw them out, but I liked too many of them so practicality won over jealously). Perhaps the strangest object I have from someone else's love is a box of body paints from the early eighties, all in colors not found in nature. The box with a turquoise unicorn on it says, Try something new! Take a chance with a new love! The paints have dried up, never have been used. I feel an odd tenderness toward it and saved it from being thrown out. The box, while dated with its puff paint garish color scheme is dated, the sentiment, one can hope, never will be.
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Everything is bad including me,/ But being bad is good policy,/ It protects me from your past,/ 'till your memory's gone at last/ Everything is bad including me. " Reverend Horton Heat
Cocktail Hour
Drinking movie suggestion: What Happened Was
Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Wednesday, everyone! I found a great book with drink ads from the 70s in it and will be posting them off and on all week for your viewing pleasure.
13 comments:
I just can't tell from that photo whether or not you teach Ernie's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." It's so ironic that you're a Macomber.
Merry Christmas to all my friends!
If only I could "find the fucking street and shut up."
She kissed the gun.
Drink ads from the 70's. Perfect. It's so ironic. I was picturing one just before I died.
A BIG MERRY CHRISTMAS to Michelle's "hair stylist extraordianaire" the fabulous--Stacey--woo hoo! Happy New Year! STACEY!!!
I regret to say this but, I HATE Marvin Gaye.
And as for holding onto stuff from past relationships. I do that, I think everyone does. I have a photo saver box for each of the important people in my life past or present and I keep anything relating to them in it. Sometimes if I'm angry, I think of purging the boxes of their content and then I need to leave them and go in the other room because I know if I actually do that, I will be very sad later on.
Although, I've never been given an ex's gilrfriends clothes. At least I don't think I have.
*hugs*
One of my puppy loves was a little dark-haired girl who lived across the street. Once when we were coloring upstairs in her bedroom she got mad at me for going outside the lines. Later that year, her mother dropped us off at the show. It was "Treasure Island," with Wallace Beery. Things turned bad when the little dark-haired girl and I left the show early, all because I didn't know the meaning of the word INTERMISSION. We were four-year-olds. Her father was a pilot and they moved away the next year.
I have momento's from a past lover..the results of two sperm shots and 22 years worth of child support reciepts. 1 of the 2, I talked to and saw this week end, the other I haven't seen or talked with since her grandmother died in May. We seem to prefer it that way.
All of the rest of the things people (except one or two, like a bag of sand from someplace or another)have given me, hit the sixth month rule: If it's been more than six months that I touched it, to the trash. Except for a hard time I keep those around until the fire burns out, then piss on the ashes of what once was.
Can anyone tell that the holiday vitriol is really starting to kick in for TWM?
Anyone who does not like Marvin Gaye, could have been born before 1990 or in Detroit, would be impossible to fathom. I remember where I was and what I was doing when I got the word he was dead, just like John Lennon and Kennedy (both) and Martin Luther King , and Malcolm X.
Classic Detroit story came from the poorest part of towm, made it big and got murdered by his father (probably because he sang "What is going on and mentioned mother and not his father)
SO...regardless of the reason for the lyrics on Peter Gabriels SO, it was a great CD now because of you Michelle I will have to get poetry in motion up to 85 mph and throw it out the window, my christmas present to you. After I burn it onto a mix cd.
Michelle, again, your writing piece makes me smile and nod with a sense of agreement. And I love that dress! You're the greatest. Jill
Not only is she the greatest, but also she is the "Director of Creative Writing" at MCCC. Kudos to you, Michelle, we're glad you're with us! All the best to you and yours for the holidays and the New Year. We know you'll make it a great one!
I don't have anything from past loves. As a matter of fact, I really find it difficult to remember much about past loves since I've been married just about 30 years now. Oh well.
We want the Spell, we want the Spell, we want the Spell, we want the Spell, etc.,...
Post a Comment