On The Menu

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hi everyone! Thanks for the comments on Grouchie by Son House's grave! He's quite the ham, indeed.

Signs are everywhere, if you look. Today I carried an essay by my friend Hank across a busy intersection. I wanted a sign from him for a few days and of course, I get one on his most hated holiday. His essay blew all across the street, page by page. Nothing else in my bag escaped. A kind stranger helped me collect it, and neither one of us was hit by a car. Hi Hank! Happy VD day as he used to say.

Hank and I once attended an anti VD Day party together where someone confessed her love for him, someone locked herself in a bathroom with a bottle of vodka, crying over her lover (she was married, the man in question was not and therefore held the proverbial upperhand), our good friend's mother died a few hours before the party, and all hell broke loose (the all hell I'm not describing here). Anyway, another Valentine's Day down, right? So today, no matter what your romantic status, I wish you calm. If that's not likely, I wish you a sense of humor. It comes in handy, especially if there's a party involved. See you tomorrow!

Seven Mile

In honor of Valentine's weekend, I offer you this picture of Baby Grouchie by Son House's grave. In the words of Son House, Only one kind of blues and that's the blues between a man and a woman in love. Amen, Son House. Preach it! Happy Saturday!

Perfect Days

Hi everyone! Thanks for all the Detroit love on the Eminem ad. Best ad of the night! Here's a little Richard Brautigan for another cold day. See you tomorrow!

We Stopped At Perfect Days

We stopped at perfect days
and got out of the car.
The wind glanced at her hair.
It was as simple as that.
I turned to say something --

Chrysler Eminem Super Bowl Commercial - Imported From Detroit

Girl Talk

Ginger Rogers famously said that she had to do everything that Fred Astaire did except backward in high heels. This sentiment works better for me than Helen Reddy's anthem to femaleness, "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" as when I was in high school, all the boys changed the following lyric to "With an ass too big to ignore." Which brings me to weight, a topic I find galling in so many ways. Gaining it is akin to what missing church was in the old days (ie, my teenage years) where if you didn't attend for a few Sundays, people asked in that particular judging way, Where have you been? Losing it brings all sorts of laurels, albeit poisonous ones. When going through a bit of a relatively (and it's all relative)low period, I get the old "You look so much better" as if I had faced the ultimate moral showdown and won. When the scales are up, my stock is down, as if I had let Jesus stay up all night alone before His crucifixion. It's truly odd.

And it explains the popularity of shows like "The Biggest Loser" and "Heavy." Fight fat, win the war against Satan! To hear the trainers talk, obesity is the cause of all problems and not going to the gym is akin to letting Baby Jesus die on your cell phone if you don't forward Him after getting a text message version of what we used to call chain mail. I kind of miss the letters which had more examples of all the evils that would befall you if you didn't respond -- brain tumors, death, loss of money, etc. So here's my chain mail/text message -- Fuck all that! Don't worry about it. Let those sadistic trainers make other people cry. And women, whatever happens, be proud of that ass too big to ignore.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"No woman is required to build the world by destroying herself." Rabbi Sofer

Cocktail Hour
Memoir suggestion: Talking To Girls About Duran Duran Rob Sheffield

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Saturday!

Groundhog Day!

Here's another excerpt from a longer essay. Thanks for reading! Hope you're staying warm . . .

Two years before I was molested by the mortician who lived next door to us on 10th Street, my mother's parents, Charlie and Yvette, returned. Mother hadn't seen them since she was fifteen, when they had abandoned her and her grandmother, Mimi, in a trailer in Iowa. Charlie and Yvette left in the middle of the night while Mother and Mimi slept. They left one step ahead of a trail of debts, bad decisions, and people who meant them harm. They drove up to our house without any warning except for the sound Charlie's truck made that you could hear long before you saw it.

Charlie asked Dad for a beer which Dad fished out from the vegetable crisper, a PBR someone had left behind from one of my parents' parties, parties Mother insisted on throwing for her wide variety of friends, friends who defied almost all traditional categories of classification, but none who were adverse to spending late nights drinking vats of Wild Turkey and Blue Nun and then retiring to the sunken living room, entertaining themselves by conducting seances or trying to astral project.

Mother cried when she saw Yvette's face which resembled a boxer who had gone one too many rounds with a far stronger opponent. They promptly informed Mother that they had moved into a nearby trailer park, one of those places with a name more suited for a country club.

"What will you do?" asked Mother.

"Things that need to be done," Charlie replied. "People always need help."

Mother looked afraid, an expression I rarely saw on her pretty face. She picked up rattlesnakes and tarantulas from the roads. She told me stories about three name serial killers, about men who hid under cars and cut women's tendons so they couldn't run. I'd always been a nervous child, and she delighted in telling met that they were plenty of good reasons to be afraid.

"Do you want more?" Dad asked, pointing at the beer can.

"Sure," Charlie said. "I can always use more."

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Rita, I've come to the end of myself." Bill Murray, Groundhog Day

Cocktail Hour
Biography suggestion: Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter Randy Schmidt

Benedictions and Maledictions
No worries -- Baby Grouchie Jr. is safe and sound! No, he's not Baby Grouchie, he's the understudy which is probably explains the resentment on his face. The only time he gets to pose is when Baby Grouchie is too lazy, hungover, or cold to show his face.

Snow Day!

Hi everyone -- here's Baby Grouchie's tiny little friend buried in the snow. More soon . . .

The Secret Of The Old Attic

One of my writing journals has a cover of a Nancy Drew book on it, with one inscription on the first page -- "This seems like a strange place to look for a clue, but that's what I've been told to do." I have several writing journals which I love collecting and find myself treating some of them like the "good" china. It's too nice to write inside of it, I think. As opposed to what? A book of blank pages is a book of blank pages. Maybe it's the fear of starting something I won't finish. Ever felt that way? Or some of them exist seemingly as an enumeration of my only failings -- budget journal, exercise journal (I gave this one up), reading journal. It's tough to see things in black and white.

So why write, which is essentially keeping records. Well, it's a strange place to look for a clue, but that's what it's best for. Clues as to my mental state, my dream state, my desires. Yes, I try the whole Buddhist desire nothing route, and yes, I fail. I'm a vat of desires, regret, waste, and also some recently acquired Gummy Tummies, an evil gummy bear variation which has liquid in the bear's stomach. Quite tasty, not good for anyone probably. But who cares? So much of what I do is not good for anyone. That's the function writing serves -- John Updike said that writing his pages served as a place for all the toxins of the day. You feel somehow lighter, cleaner, less burdened. As for clues, I'm still looking, but as some people say, the journey is the thing.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time." Edith Wharton

Cocktail Hour
Novel suggestion: The Leisure Seeker Michael Zadoorian

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Sunday!

Dead Man's Float

A little flash fiction for a Thursday afternoon. As always, thanks for reading!

You can float forever, Mother said. Remember that if you fall into the ocean. But there was no ocean where we were, only water moccasin-infested tanks in which we swam after Mother through stones to scatter the snakes to the edges. And I couldn't float no matter how hard I tried. I could swim and tread water, not with graceful figure eight motions like my friends, but by kicking as hard as I could. The only float I ever managed was the dead man's, and I could only do that one long enough to scare anyone who happened to be watching.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"You don't take a photograph, you make it." Ansel Adams

Cocktail Hour
Music suggestion: The Idiot Iggy Pop

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday! A special hello to Carnal Knowledge -- good to hear from you!

With Dreams, With Drugs, With Waking Nightmares

The title from Allen Ginsberg, of course! I've been working on a new project and plan on posting excerpts soon. In the meantime, what has been going on with you, my dear readers? I also plan on posting some pictures of beautiful Christmas gifts and various and sundry fun things I've run into in my travels (Zombie finger puppets, for starters!). Hope you're having a wonderful week . . .

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot." Ashleigh Brilliant

Cocktail Hour
Movie suggestion: True Grit

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Tuesday!

The Comeback

Been watching The Comeback on dvd, and it's fantastic! How did I miss this show? Going to write a review tomorrow . . . until then, happy Saturday night!

Michelle's Spell of the Day
“The key to change... is to let go of fear.” Rosanne Cash

Cocktail Hour
Movie suggestion: Please Give

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Saturday!

Suicide Is Painless

The book by Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, has been getting a lot of press in the last few weeks. The premise (I haven't read it) seems to be that Chua is a strict mother in large part due to her cultural background which produces smarter children. I love when books on motherhood are published -- no subject can people as upset or righteously indignant. I have no children so I'm conveniently out of the fray as they say, but alas, I do watch with amazement at how women beat themselves and each other up over this subject. My own mother could be classified as an interesting mother. Those who have read this blog for some time have heard the stories. She went by the dictates of Dr. Spock (not the Vulcan for the Trekkies out there, but the 70s doctor who wrote to mothers that they already instinctively knew how to raise children which garnered him millions in sales -- let's face it, there's nothing better than reading about something when someone tells us we're okay!) and her own strange brew of good old fashioned crazy. This technique worked out fine. She didn't disallow sleepovers like Ms. Chua (until the neighbor girl took a shit on the bedroom carpet which sucked some of the joy out of the enterprise), she didn't encourage me and my sister to enroll in endless lessons to hone our skills (I forced myself to every extra-curricular activity I did -- the end result? I can play the theme song to Mash, "Suicide Is Painless" on a clarinet), or sweat the small stuff or the large stuff. Guess what? We're both relatively functional adults.

What's the best way to oppress women? Put the oppressor in their own damn heads and let them spin. Let other women analyze shoes, hair, body hair, mothering technique, and sluttiness levels and judge. Men who give not one shit about much of the above (I've never had a man say, Those Prada loafers are so last year or Women should cut their hair when they get to a certain age). Men are free to watch television and drink while we engage in the ultimate Steel Cage Death Match with each other for our souls.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. " Benjamin Spock

Cocktail Hour
Movie suggestion: The Fighter

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday!

Happy MLK Day!

Here's to the great Martin Luther King, Jr! My favorite quote from Dr. King is the one about how we will remember the silence of our friends far more than the angry words of our enemies. I remember Dr. Hollaman, the first African-American principal at Robert E. Lee Middle School putting Dr. King's picture in his office, replacing Robert E. Lee's picture to much local scandal. Hope you're having a wonderful Monday, my dears.

Congratulations!

I'm not at the Golden Globes, not even one of the back tables, but here's what I'd wear if I was! Special congratulations to Al Pacino for his win for his portrayal of Jack Kevorkian in You Don't Know Jack. I LOVED this movie, and Pacino was brilliant as Detroit's own, Jack Kevorkian.

Another Temptation

I've seen ads for the new Vince Vaughn movie, The Dilemma. The reviews say skip it, but I've been in Vince's dilemma, to tell or not to tell someone a hard truth about a loved one who is umm, involved, with someone else. There's plenty of examples in ancient literature of this position, all of which can be summed up with the simple response that people often shoot the messenger, the grade school equivalent -- No one likes a tattle-tale.

At a restaurant once, my table ordered two temptation rolls. It's the best thing on the menu, of course, and the waitress set them down, saying, Here's your first temptation and then, here's another temptation. I texted this line to myself, as I am wont to do, as the writing angel leaves if you don't get down what you hear when you hear it. You have about twenty minutes before the angel leaves and gives your precious dialogue to someone else if you don't capture it. That's just the way it is. I didn't make the rules. So what do you do with another temptation? The table is large, and there is enough for everyone. Confession, guilt, and pain are like this as well. I once saw a confessional where the screen looked like a prop from a high school play, too small for anyone to hide behind.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"There are things to confess to the world, and things that need not be said." Joni Mitchell

Cocktail Hour
Just started watching Dexter -- how did I miss this show for so long?! It's quite good, even for the squeamish.

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Friday!

Californication

Sorry for the brief absence -- life has been relatively busy and all sorts of craziness has ensued. First, I want to congratulate Trent of Pink Is The New Blog. As I watched the new episode of this season's Californication, Pink was featured! Very thrilling! Loved the episode. Hank Moody has returned in his dark glory. Favorite line of the episode -- "It's been a long life." I'll be back later with a longer post -- so far, I'm searching for a direction in writing that will carry me through 2011 or at least until all the 2012 madness, right? Ha! See you soon . . .

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Faith is like a radar that sees through the fog." Corrie Ten Boom

Cocktail Hour
Movie suggestion: Cyrus (it's out on dvd today)

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Tuesday!

My Heart Belongs To Daddy

Hi everyone! Today is my dad's birthday. I've written a fair amount about him on this blog and still miss him very much. Like my friend Ang and I are fond of saying about men, They don't make that model anymore! Sturdy, reliable, and deeply kind, I owe a lot of my happiness and self-worth to him. I still remember he took me to the library every Saturday morning when I was a child and endured my many long minutes in the stacks, looking for the perfect book on witchcraft or astrology or Cotton Mather's sermons to fill the violet hours. Happy birthday to my dearest dad and happy Friday to all of you. See you tomorrow . . .

Through A Lens Darkly

I just saw the Joan River's documentary, A Piece Of Work. I've always liked Joan; her brutal honesty about social conventions has always appealed to me. Now she turns the camera on herself to great effect. The documentary is painful and funny like all great comedy. There's a reason that comics say they killed an audience when successful. No other art form makes the demands of comedy; no other genre is as unforgiving or exacting. Joan excels in this arena. Her real addiction isn't plastic surgery; it is work and the Dewey Decimal filing of her jokes shows an epic system of effort. She lives for the road, for the thrill of the audience, her need for money to maintain a both lavish and giving lifestyle and for movement. Like a shark, Joan does not sit. Sitting is death. And she's not going gently into that goodnight. Nor should see. No woman has been so sharp and smart or fearless in the arena of comedy.

The film starts with her bare face in process of being made up, bringing to mind Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler in the fierce determination she brings to the enterprise of becoming herself. The butt of her and many other comics' jokes, her looks have both created and vexed her life. No man has ever called me beautiful, she says. We feel her pain. It is my contention that no woman feels beautiful, no matter what face we create to create the faces. As she poses for the cover of her book, Men Are Stupid and They Like Big Boobs (a line she stole from Marilyn Monroe), she reflects a distortion in a society increasingly dependent on plastic surgery. I know people who don't like Joan's humor. It's not, as they say, for all tastes. Her world, harsh and brutal, makes me squirm and laugh. It calls to mind the days when the word abortion wasn't uttered (women got an "appendectomy" remember that?), a world where you might not be beautiful, but you could still be a star, where an average-looking woman with a sharp mind could charm Johnny Carson and rise and fall and rise again, a life where you must burn yourself up to be born again.

Michelle's Spell of Day
"All photographs are accurate. None of them are the truth." Richard Avedon

Cocktail Hour
Photography suggestion: Nan Goldin Costa Guido

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Wednesday!

Begin Anywhere

Great news -- I got my novella, Dead Boy, Live Girl picked up by Storylandia Press! I'll keep you posted on all the details. You will be able to purchase it as both a print and e-book. Thank you all for the support while writing it (you've seen teasers on the blog) and a big thanks to editor Ginger Mayerson for saying yes to it! My computer's name is Severin, and she is my faithful servant (Velvet Underground reference to Venus In Furs) for delivering the good news.

I'm in the process of returning to my regular writing/reading habits (starting with the Iggy Pop biography, Open Up and Bleed), and will be back each day with whatever flotsam I managed to gather from my feeble mind. For now, I will leave you with the fun stuff over the holidays -- watching Dexter for the first time (enjoyed the entire first season with my dearest Ang), catching up on old Soul Trains (my favorite show as a kid), and in the words of the great Don Cornelius, wishing you peace, love, and soul for the new year. See you tomorrow!

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Begin anywhere." John Cage

Cocktail Hour
Instead of more yummy cocktails for you gremlins, I will be sharing health tips this week as a detox from the delights of the month of December. December is the month where I relax on all dietary concerns and do another plan, one titled Whatever the fuck I want to eat/drink is okay. I like the plan, but alas, the plan doesn't like me as much as I do it so here's the first tip. For an effective body detox, freeze cod liver oil pills. Take one in the morning and one at night. The freezing works as a time release, allowing the pills to get to your lower small intestine and clean out your system. No worries -- this is not some nasty harsh cleanse, but something you can do every single day to improve your overall health. If you have any afflictions or just want to feel better and have more energy, this works better than a voodoo charm. The pills are cheap and can be found at any health food/ larger grocery store.

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Monday!

Almost New Year's Day

Hi everyone! Hope you're having a wonderful holiday week. I love the week between Christmas and New Year's. It's sort of like found money -- it's not really scheduled for anything except eating and drinking and sleeping and watching those sad as hell In Memoriam segments that play on every television show, especially as the decade closes. This decade has been quite a time -- I laughed, I cried, I nearly died (literally) and I'm so grateful for all the love and support from everyone, all the fun, the November reading with Mark and Jim, and all the wonderful writing I read each and every day thanks to you guys. I know in Michigan that whenever you thank someone, they are prone to say Don't mention it. But hey, sometimes you just have to mention it. I'm on the road right now and haven't been in the loop as much as I hope, but here's to the new year and all the adventures that await us.

Soul Train Scramble

In honor of Tina Marie and her untimely death, I offer a Soul Train-inspired playlist of holiday tunes for the ideal New Year's Eve party. Soul Train was my favorite show as a kid, and I still have been known to participate in the Soul Train line at parties where lots of alcohol has been served.

Love Hangover Diana Ross
Got To Give It Up Marvin Gaye
Early In The Morning Gap Band
Night Train James Brown
I'm So Glad You're Mine Al Green
Ain't Nobody Chaka Khan
I Feel Love Donna Summer
You Said A Bad Word Joe Tex
Shining Star Earth Wind and Fire
You Dropped The Bomb On Me Gap Band

Merry Christmas Eve!

Hi everyone! Thanks for a wonderful year of comments, insights, and love. Sending you all big Christmas wishes from the Motor City. Much love, Michelle

The Evil Twin

Black Swan, the new film by Darren Aronosky, is a mix of all sorts of camp and melodrama -- horror, ballet, crazy mother genre, bad teacher genre, and Swan Lake. Everyone knows the story of Swan Lake -- one ballerina must play both the White Swan and the Black Swan. Of course, all of us contain both of these sides and of course, most of us are defined more by one side than another. I'm a classic Black Swan, the darkness more apparent than the light. But Natalie Portman who plays Nina in the movie, is all White Swan -- a good girl to her core. She has to tap into her inner darkness to play the negative of the White Swan which leads her down some creepy roads having to do drugs, sex, and self-mutilation.

Nina's mother, a chilling Barbara Hersey, oversees every aspect of Nina's life. A tale of suffocating intrusive caretaking, Nina longs for perfection in her professional life in order to validate both her and her mother's life. I've known this type of girl my entire life and truth is, she is my negative. The longing for perfection, the anxiety-filled misery that accompanies it, well, when the music starts to swell and the metaphorical audience shows up, she shows up ready to take the stage and do whatever it takes to fulfill the dream, Nina's last words -- "It was perfect."

Glowing Cocktails

Mrs. Santa's Sister

Hello all! It's the weekend before Christmas and all through the house . . . nowhere is around because they are frantic with last minute shopping . . . So in the spirit of the season, what are your favorite Christmas traditions? Are you Christmas Eve or Christmas day? I'm a Christmas eve person as befitting my personality. Let's face it -- it's a lot more fun opening presents at night when you're awake and happy and possibly enjoying a lovely cocktail like the ones I'm posting tomorrow. My favorite Christmas tradition is listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas cd and weeping. Seriously, that's some sad shit, but i LOVE it so. How about you guys? Back tomorrow, xo

Best Gifts, Worst Gifts

I always enjoyed my parents' tome, Best Pills, Worst Pills. One thing I really enjoyed as a child was reading medical books, including The Joy of Sex. Okay, this probably doesn't count as a "medical" book, but man could those au natural figure drawings move into some flexible poses. Hard to believe that we went from that look to the torture of Brazillian waxes in thirty short years. Why must the body be constantly monitored -- do you hear me, spirit of Andrea Dworkin? Seriously, I gleaned a fair amount of weird information from my perusals. In one set of ancient medical texts, I learned that birth control was "tawdry and borderline evil" (obviously they never saw some of the children that came from a number of couplings that fit that description), abortion was "criminal, a sin worthy of the death penalty", and that you could cure an earache by blowing cigarette smoke into the offending ear. Almost as reliable as the astrological birth control section included in the first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves. (To the editors credit, they say it might be "iffy."

In the spirit of Best Pills, Worst Pills, I ask you to tell me about your worst gifts, best gifts list. This can be in general or specific gifts that you love to get, ones that you hate. I tend to love all gifts, not to be a Pollyanna about it, but I do. The worst gift I got was a bouquet of flowers stolen off a tombstone that was still crawling with ants. Daddy, a man not prone to sarcasm usually, called that guy Smooth Operator from that point forward. My best gifts are too numerous too mention -- every single day, something good and joyous comes my way -- a kind word, a sweet gesture (no, I'm not talking to you in the big truck who flipped me off the other day or the meth addict who shook his fist at me and said, Bugs), or something about which to think. I also really enjoyed getting an IPOD -- made a world of difference when on the treadmill or plane. I also recently received a beautiful prayer shawl from Donna B, Hank's mother. The person who makes the shawl prays for the recipient during each stitch. Couldn't think of a more thoughtful gift! What about you guys? Worst, best . . . . Tell all!


Michelle's Spell of the Day
A faith of convenience is a hollow faith. ~Father Mulcahy, M*A*S*H, "A Holy Mess," 1982

Cocktail Hour
Memoir suggestion: Breaking Night Liz Murray

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday!

Favorite Television Characters

Hi everyone! For today's post, a list of my ten favorite television characters in no particular order. Feel free to add!

Tony Soprano -- what is not to love? James Gandolfini, you are heaven are earth!

Archie Bunker -- I watched this religiously as a child. Loved Lionel and Meathead as well.

Lindsey -- Freaks and Geeks, greatest show about teenagers ever written. Seriously. So much better than My So-Called Life and everything else that came after and before.

Ray Drecker from Hung -- a hot man, Detroit, diminishing returns, dashed hopes. If only Ray could get his house fixed!

Hank Moody from Californication -- a writer's fantasy. No, writers usually don't look like this for the record.

Nurse Jackie -- my favorite Edie Falco character ever. She's perfect as the pill-popping trying to be good Jackie.

Fitch from Detroit 187 -- another Sopranos actor makes good! Great series, great fun.

Maude -- And then there's Maude! Bea Arthur rocks as a feminist icon in this terrific show.

Patti Stanger from The Millionaire Matchmaker, my one nod to reality tv. I love her straight-talking no bullshit style.

Jack from Three's Company -- John Ritter was a comic genius. This show is the proof.
See you tomorrow!

Detroit 187

Hi everyone! On the verge of the holidays, Baby Grouchie is surrounded by treats for mind, body, and soul, otherwise known as cosmos. I'm loading the new book information into the website so I'll let you know how to get a copy, if you so desire. Stocking stuffers, people, stocking stuffers! As for my drink recipes, I'm leaving you with a simple combination for a delightful desert drink named after the great new show, Detroit 187. Loved the first season -- the last episode was really good. And the Lions won today -- it is a Christmas miracle! Back at you tomorrow with more holiday love . . .

Detroit 187
one part Godiva chocolate liqueur
one part chocolate almond milk
Serve over ice.

Alive Day

Two years ago today, I almost died. A lot of factors played into the whole not dying thing -- an urgent care that stayed open for two hours past closing time, a doctor who realized that I was septic and sent for an ambulance, an excellent surgeon whom I only remember from his Pittsburgh Steelers do-rag, and a team of nurses who kept me sane for the next few weeks. The love and prayers of my friends and family, most certainly, and perhaps, as they say, it wasn't my time to go. My friend Angela says God was merciful; I can't argue with this statement. The upshot was that I survived a ruptured appendix and the subsequent septic shock after being told that I probably wouldn't. On the news that month, a Brazilian model suffered a similar affliction and after having her hands and feet amputated, she died.

People asked if this experience changed me. The honest answer is I hope so. I might never wear a bikini again! Kidding . . . the scar is kind of cool. If only my abs were well, existent. But in all seriousness, I try to think about what I want to do with my only life, the only one I'm promised in this form, and I try to do well by others. I don't always succeed, of course; I'm far from perfect. But the desire for perfection has faded in light of almost dying, that twilight zone of almost not making it. I'm happier, a lot happier, in many ways with myself and others. I don't worry so much. Healing took a long time, the real healing that comes from coming back to yourself. And like an old friend, I'm happy to see myself, I pour myself a Dr. Pepper and invite myself to watch a little television, maybe even stay for dinner. I don't demand anything of her; she's welcome to keep me company. The only surprise? Well, she's a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it." Charles Schulz

Cocktail Hour
Movie suggestion: Howl

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday!

DETROIT 187 favorite hot spots

Monday, Monday

Hi everyone! First, happiest birthday wishes to my dear friend Shawn Behlen. Look for his magnificent novel in the coming year. It's the best read ever. Spectacular work, Bamms! And thanks so much for the great comments on the essay and a special thank you to Barry of Camroc Press who commented on Love One Another Constantly. I'd be honored to send something! As for "Girl On Fire," I'm so excited that you guys like it. Means the world. I really enjoyed writing it.

So I'm still working on the female friendship essay which I'm going to try and post this week. As for now, I'm sending lots of love to Elizabeth Edwards and her family, am mystified by Mel Gibson's new movie title (The Beaver -- someone was having a very good time with this one, I feel certain), and am fighting the good fight at the end of the semester. Until tomorrow, happy Monday!

Interested In Becoming A Catholic?

Here's the second part of Girl On Fire. Thanks for the sweet words on the first half. I'm behind in that end of the semester way on everything so thanks for the patience on things like returning emails, book orders, and matters of a dark nature. Ha! Information on the new chapbook is forthcoming -- I'm taking pictures of Baby Grouchie reading through the poems as he is wont to do. The full collection will be out soon as well so as soon as that's ready, I'll let you guys know. Thanks as always for reading! Happy Sunday . . .

Girl On Fire

I wanted to kill myself, but I couldn't decide what to wear read another student near the end of the semester. I thought about Kelly saying the rosary and felt relieved that someone was praying during class. Seven of my students had been institutionalized at one point in their lives and much of workshop included lively debate about what and what was not standard procedure for mental hospitals in the eighties, the decade most of the students had done their tours of duty. The class contrasted sharply with the RCIA classes I took from Deacon John every Wednesday night in the rectory basement where my fellow initiates debated the finer points of annulments as a prerequisite for taking Holy Communion. Everyone was there because they wanted their marriages recognized by the Church. The anomaly, I had chosen to convert at the behest of a small sign that said Interested In Becoming Catholic? It seemed I was.

I saw Kelly twice after the class ended. She invited me to Olive Garden for lunch during Christmas break where she stared into the bottomless basket of breadsticks and told me how she looked forward to death because she could meet her most intimate lover, Jesus. In my ragtag explorations of garden-variety Protestantism, I had never heard the Good Lord referred to as a lover. I looked at Kelly who during class had appeared both as a very young girl and an old woman as if she were one of those paintings where you could see either a skull or a rose depending on your point of view. Our minestrone soup arrived and Kelly said she loved Olive Garden because you could eat as much as you wanted, an odd comment in light of her gaunt appearance.

She had been very kind about my sparse props at the Misery, noting that she liked that my mattress had no bed frame because it would enable her elderly dog to hop on it with ease. So this I thought was what it mean to be Christ-like -- to see what other people lacked through the scrim of love.

I became a Catholic that April, six months after my mother died of cancer and one month after my best friend Hank had lost his life to a blood clot following surgery to repair his broken leg. I felt glad to have chosen a religion that recognized the value of suffering. Say the word and I shall be healed, I said before my first communion. I had invited Kelly to my baptism, but her mother refused to allow her to stay out after nine at night. Her only hope to free herself of her Grey Gardens-like existence lie in her plan to become an elementary school teacher thereby securing a modicum of financial stability that would allow her to live on her own.

Two years after the workshop, I moved offices and the boxes had been dumped into a recycled bin by an overzealous janitor. Kelly paid me a surprise visit, informing me that she had obtained her degree and would start teaching in the fall.

"Do you still have the boxes?" she asked.

I froze, not knowing what excuse I could given. I was having a hard time of making sense of my own fragile psyche -- two deaths and the end of a long-term, dead-end relationship had left me overextended, raw, and anxious. My solace had taken the form of saying fifty-four day novenas on a rosary not unlike the one Kelly had used in my class.

"It's okay if you don't. I just wanted to take them to a field and set them on fire. I wanted to watch my old self burn. Like a girl on fire."

I told her that the boxes had been damaged in my storage unit by a storm. I couldn't bear the thought that she might think I didn't appreciate her gift, an offering to the gods of writing. She had entrusted me with the most damaged parts of herself and now they were being recycled. It didn't have the poetry of an act of God.

She smiled. "Then Jesus took care of it for me."

Her lover, I thought. She smiled like a bride who just found out her groom had built a house for her. She walked out of my office, and a month later, my dad died in a plane crash where his friend flew a two engine Cessna into a power line. Dad's body had burned, and he had to be identified by his dental records. All my pretty ones, I thought as I went to the crash site and collected some charred dirt in a Ziploc.

That week, I was scheduled to move out of the Misery into a beautiful little duplex near Lake St. Clair. I still didn't have much in the way of possessions, but I bought a fire-proof safe for the dirt and pictures and little gifts from my mother, Hank, and my dad. It didn't dawn on me that I now had my own version of Kelly’s box until I moved a couple of weeks behind schedule. Nobody wanted to touch my safe after they found out what it contained so I strapped it in the passenger seat of my car and drove it to my new home. No matter how hard you try to strip everything away, some burdens could never be set on fire, I realized, and you must carry them on your own.

Girl On Fire

Hi everyone! My chapbook, Love One Another Constantly, is now available! I'll give details in tomorrow's post. For now, I'm posting the first half of an essay (second half to follow tomorrow) called "Girl On Fire."

Girl On Fire

The year I became a Catholic, a student of mine named Kelly gave me two cardboard boxes filled with her medical history.

"Maybe you can write about my mental illness. My mother would never let me. It's all in there," Kelly said. She'd recently completed a creative writing workshop with me where she sat dead center in the front row each Friday afternoon and produced a set of black rosary beads which she wove around her fingers for the duration of the three hour class. Flanked to her left by a suicidal young man with a large winesport birthmark that covered half his face and to her right by an ex-skinhead, recently rehabilitated heroin addict who had a swastika on his bicep which he was in the process of removing by a series of laser treatments, she sat whispering Hail Marys over and over, a melodic chant that became as commonplace as asbestos-lined tunnels that ran underneath the community college where I had been hired as a full-time faculty member.

I took the boxes and put them in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet, thanking her even though I too had begun to shed myself from my past life and was looking to get rid of my possessions, not add to them. Like St. Francis, I wanted to believe, but his writings didn't inspire me to such noble action. Clear Your Clutter With Feng-Shui by Karen Kingston motivated me . Kingston preached the dangers the clutter -- everything from weight gain to depression. So I purged almost two thirds of my stuff in a month, abandoning everything from my Snoopy Snow-Cone machine, old dresses, books, and my boyfriend of seven years, an emotionally remote man twenty years my senior.

After our break-up, I moved into a dismal one-bedroom apartment in a complex across from the school where I taught dubbed The Misery because of the scores of divorced faculty who had used the place as a holding pen during times of emotional and financial distress. In a particularly grisly touch, all the surrounding trees had been hacked halfway down because of blight which forced the owners to offer Free Heat as an enticement for potential renters on the sign advertising Apartment Available. No one never removed the sign -- an apartment was always available at The Misery. I called it The Tomb, in hopes I suppose, of an eventual resurrection.

I peeked into the boxes from time to time where medical terms and treatments popped up at me like jack-in-the-boxes: manic depressive, schizophrenic, four point restraint, ECT, bipolar disorder. Words have power, I often intoned to my students. These felt like bombs, the boxes landmines of suffering. Like many of my students, Kelly was a few years older than I was and like most of my students, had Seen It All.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
“By "guts" I mean, grace under pressure.” Ernest Hemingway

Cocktail Hour
My favorite guilty pleasure is back -- Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday!

Can You Tell Me How To Get To Heidelberg Street?

Here's me and the great artist, Tyree Guyton, founder of the Heidelberg Project in Detroit. If you have never been, you must! It's a fantastic art exhibit that runs the course of an entire street. I've posted pictures from the place, but you have to see it in the flesh.

I'm working on an essay about female frienship that I will post in parts this week. Until then, happy Tuesday!

127 Hours

Note on above picture -- the scar on my stomach matches the zipper on the dress so I decided it was time to wear it again!

Can you gnaw off your own arm to save yourself? This is the very literal question filmmaker Danny Boyle asks in 127 Hours, his account of Aron Ralston's harrowing hiking accident where a rock pins his arm. After five days, Ralston amputates his arm to free himself and hike to eventual rescue. James Franco (one of my absolute favorites since his Freaks and Geeks days and his turn as Harvey Milk's lover in Milk) plays the arrogant, free-spirited Ralston who believes he can do anything without anyone. We have our classic man against nature plot -- how will he survive? The movie isn't hindered by our knowing the end. Boyle does not spare us any detail of the amputation which isn't gratuitous -- it's part of his contract with the audience. We suffer along with Ralston as the move delves deeper and deeper into the realm of the spiritual to ask this question: How do we get out of the traps we lay for ourselves? What sacrifice will be demanded for freedom?

Movies about being trapped have a particular hook into the human psyche. We're all trapped at certain points in life -- dead-end relationships, shitty jobs, our collective fuck-ups coming, like Malcolm X's proverbial chickens, home to roost. Why do we stay stuck? Because growth and pruning are so very very painful. Maybe not as painful as severing the tendons in your own arm, but painful. At one point, Ralston realizes that the rock that pins him has been waiting for him his entire life. He writes his birth and death day on the wall of the cave in anticipation of his demise. But even though he lives, this isn't incorrect. He did die in that cave, the version of himself that had gone hiking that morning without a care in the world. Reborn in its place, he becomes a man who uses a cheap dull knife to cut through a piece of himself that had already died, a recognition that he didn't have to die with it, even if losing it hurt beyond his wildest dreams.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it." Emily Dickinson

Cocktail Hour
Memoir suggestion: Just Kids Patti Smith

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Saturday!

Happy Thanksgiving

Hi everyone! Happy Thanksgiving! Today I'm doing nothing, my very favorite thing to do. The Detroit Lions are winning (this may be a Thanksgiving miracle) and life is good. I'm incredibly thankful for all of you who read this blog, grateful for friends and family, my health, and to God who makes it all possible. Pictured above is one of the best food places in the whole world, The American Coney (yes, it did win in the Coney wars) and my beautiful city, Detroit. Much of my writing is an unrestrained bitchfest, but today I take off from my inner irritant, and ask that we all appreciate all that we have.

Poetry With The Stars

While the country holds its collective breath for the outcome of Dancing With The Stars, I offer these shots from Friday night. Jim and Mark are pictured in their reading glory. Both of these writers were fantastic! Of course, I'm pictured with the gorgeous Jodi and Robin, hanging out before the event.

On the verge of Thanksgiving holiday, I find myself grateful for many things, the predictable ones (I'm alive, despite that ruptured appendix/septic shock debacle), friends, love, and ones that are more specific -- I just read Patti Smith's memoir, Just Kids, which is all kinds of genius. That book is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone who has ever wanted to write or create any kind of art would be advised to read it. I'm using the break for the rigors of teaching to organize, to write, and to post some new stuff and create some new cocktails. What are you guys doing? Tell all!

Friday Night Fever

Hey guys -- sorry for the longish break! This is the first of many pictures from the reading at the fabulous Lawrence Street Gallery this Friday night. I'm pictured with Jim and Mark (JR's Thumbprints and The Walking Man) after our fun night of poetry and prose. I'm going to do a write up tomorrow with more pictures (only those with Palace Approval! -- my dear Jodi's term for good pictures, not the notoriously shitty ones that always seemed to be tagged on facebook, you know the ones, where your friend with the account looks like she's sending a portfolio for the Ford Modeling Agency and you just happened to get caught eating a Coney dog). Thanks to all that came and made it so very special. It is always an honor and privilege to read for an audience, whether it be one or one thousand. Happy Sunday!

I'm Still Here

I saw the documentary/admitted hoax I'm Still Here starring Joaquin Phoenix. I've always been a huge Joaquin fan; he broods, mumbles, acts oddly, and does other things I enjoy in an actor. I like his mysterious background and thought he was especially great as Johnny Cash. So how is he now? Ill-groomed. Enough so that David Letterman asked him how he enjoyed his time with the Una bomber. Irritating. A bad bad rapper. Fear not, my Eminem, you are in no danger, Mr. White Shadow. (for those not old enough to get the reference, it's an old television show, the premise being that a surly white coach brings ghetto kids up to speed playing basketball -- incredibly racist in its assumptions, it's also a great display of 70s camp) Why does Joaquin drop out of the acting game? Because he's sick of himself. Happens to the best of us. But the best of us do not start mumbling/rapping lyrics about being a show pony for the film industry. But we're all in someone's dog and pony should at some point in our lives and it sucks. When things get bad, my mind wanders to Sammy Davis Jr. singing Mr. Bojangles. As the only black member of the Rat Pack, he spoke to me. He seemed to endure the burdens of show business with a sort of stoic grace. I got that.

Joaquin will no doubt star in more movies. No doubt he and his brother-in-law thought up this pseudo-documentary as a giant fuck you to the powers that be. I get that impulse. It's not an easy movie to watch. It goes on for a long time. There are not a lot of chuckles. It's more of a cringe-worthy delight. Do you ever feel like you've been playing yourself for so long that it feels like the 200th performance of Cats, the only Broadway show my dad ever saw besides A Chorus Line? He liked both of them, God rest his soul. See I'm Still Here on dvd, preferably with cocktails. Many cocktails. You will enjoy it in the fun house mirror sort of way, the way when we're distorted, we can sometimes recognize ourselves.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about." W. H. Auden

Cocktail Hour
Wine suggestion: Writer's Block

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Wednesday!

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Another snippet of the new/old story. Back tomorrow with a review of the bizarre documentary, I'm Still Here.

So The Count invited himself to lunch with us because he could and there I was, picking up papers from my office, my students’ second essay of the semester, the memoir, where they inevitably tell tales of deep woe, and believe me, I had have heard some hard luck doozies. Cal and I had offices next door to each other so we could keep track of the comings and goings and potential stalkers. If a male student came around a lot, Cal would refer to him as “my old man.” I seemed to get the sweet misunderstood fresh out of jail types and Cal got the Arabic male students and a few subtle skinheads with their red-laced Doc Martens. And before we went to teach, Cal and I would launch into the Bob Fosse routine at the beginning of All That Jazz, popping open one bloodshot eye and saying, It’s showtime! before scurrying off to our respective holes to our increasingly surly audiences.

These routines kept us going and we both dreaded The Count making what Cal referred to as “a visitation” because we knew he would talk too loud, too long, and about something so abstract we wouldn’t have a clue because The Count loved to speak in story problems, bullshit like -- If person A is a sheep and Person B is a dog and some new factor enters the equation, a profound factor, what will happen? Needless to say, I lost patience with this shit quick when I was looking down the barrel of forty reading quizzes on “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." Bertold Brecht

Cocktail Hour
Pandora Radio -- http://www.pandora.com/ -- this is a great radio station that plays exactly what you want. Check it out!

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Sunday!

Bicentennial Days

Happy Saturday! Here's a picture of me and Beth in 1976 on our old deck. My mother took this shot; she died nine years ago today.. I've written about her a lot on this blog; she's been a huge inspiration and constant source of material. I hope she's looking down and enjoying it all. I'll be back tomorrow with more of the story . . . Thanks as always for reading!

All Wounds Are Visible

Happy Veterans Day! I usually don't promote a lot of causes in this forum, but I would like to give a shout-out to the Wounded Warrior Project. They do a lot of good for veterans, particularly those who suffer with post-traumatic stress disorder, a cause very near and dear to my heart. If you can, please donate at http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

Benedictions and Maledictions
A very special congratulations to my dear Shawn who finished his novel! So so so proud! Lower Than Heaven, Just Higher Than Hell is going to be a huge deal. Remember you heard it here first!

Begin Anywhere

Here's the start of the short story I'm rewriting. Will be posting it periodically throughout the next couple of weeks. Thanks for reading!

Let’s start with the website. I gave it to King Tim because he worked for the Fat Twins, a couple who never met a buffet they didn’t like, creating websites for small businesses. Perfect match, right? King Tim emailed me a link before his visit, and I clicked on it to be greeted by a picture of myself smiling in a little black dress surrounded by the flames of Hell. He had added a lone champagne glass framed by my contact information. When my boyfriend Stephen saw it, he said Jesus H. Christ in a sidecar which was quite a reaction from him given that he rarely reacted to anything except to intone All anxiety is godlessness, a leftover from his Christian Science upbringing.

Stephen had moved back in with me after a brief separation to my new place, a one bedroom apartment that I referred to as The Misery. I picked it because my best friend at work, Cal, lived in the complex which was across the street from the run-down community college where we both taught English to the recently graduated, laid-off factory workers, drug addicts (both recovering and active) and a garden-variety of the damned trying to improve their lot in this vale of tears. I was no different. You know how people always say that things looked all right from the outside after someone cracks up? In my case, things were looking shaky from any and all vantage points.

“So where will he sleep?” Stephen asked.

“In our bed,” I said.

We had two small matching couches I had purchased at the Salvation Army when I moved out of our old place.

“King Tim,” he said upon realizing his fate for four nights, and I began to think of Tim with a tiny tiara on his balding head.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"If you want to be happy, be." Leo Tolstoy

Cocktail Hour
Am going to be posting some champagne recipes soon. Any favorites brands as far as champagne goes?

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Wednesday!

JR Tomlinson's Adopted Behaviors

Hey guys -- still suffering under a wicked cold, but hope to be better soon! This week I'm reviewing my good buddy Jim's book (buy it, buy it!) and going to post a short story in pieces. I wrote the story about a year and a half ago and thought it was done (oh no, not even close!) and now am reconsidering a large aspect of it and will see what you guys think. Happy Monday to all!

You've Come A Long Way Baby

I came across my first collaborative writing effort that I completed in the fifth grade on my dad's super-groovy Tandy, a wish-fulfillment fantasy of yearbook camp that I completed with my friend K (not his real initial -- okay, maybe his real initial). We sat in the garage office in my parents' house surrounded by pictures of New Zealand warriors with bones through their noses and a bookcase filled with tomes about diet, changing your life, and serial killers. My mother had truly eclectic tastes -- my dad stuck to aviation magazines which he secretly ordered when my mother wasn't watching. For some men, their secret life is pornography; for daddy, it was Aviation Today. K and I managed to produce almost fifteen pages of our dream world (junior high would be so much better than middle school -- wrong!) and like all writers, managed to vilify those people we didn't like. We also gave girlfriends to all the gay boys (the clue -- most of the romantic scenes included such lines as "I just finished The Razor's Edge and was dreaming of you . . . also there were a lot of OMD and Wham references). We included copious footnotes such as what a BA meeting was (Bitch's Anonymous) and any obscure Bible references (we loved those -- our one restaurant scene was set at a place called Job's). Heady stuff for eleven year olds, to be sure, but we weren't daunted. We even managed a Joan Rivers reference (one of the characters does impersonations of her).

I've never written anything with anyone since that fateful week locked in a small room. K and I fought over the details and plot points (must we have the reference to the Star Trek convention again? Does it add to character development?) and also my tendency to confuse the save and delete buttons. It wasn't pretty, but at the end, we had our product, printed our a dot-matrix printer in courier. We wanted a better font, our own font like Woody Allen has, but we never made it to that point. We were lucky to have graduated from the scratch and sniff sticker books that had dominated our third and fourth grade lives. I wince a the purple prose from those long ago days (Nothing could soothe the pain, nothing!) and marvel at the amount of sexual jargon and curse words we used freely. My favorite detail -- a character so dull that she collects algebraic expressions from around the world. We ended with a nod to the future, hope that it would all turn out like we wrote it. It didn't, of course. Nothing does. Even so, there's evidence of a collective wish, the most shopworn one there is -- that everything will be wonderful fun, even if we never did see the fire escape of which we dreamed.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare." Mark Twain

Cocktail Hour
Any good movie recommendations? I'm still reeling from Secretariat. Spoiler alert --the pony wins!

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Sunday!

Satee

Once a student lugged two boxes of her medical records to my office. I can't use them, she said. Maybe you can write about me. She'd been in and out of various mental hospitals over the years with all sorts of diagnosis. When she sat in my class, she clasped a large black rosary over her small white hands and appeared to be praying. I was glad someone was; I needed all the help I could get in those days. Teaching had lost its luster in the same way her rosary beads had -- they got the job done, but the shine had long left. A lot of people found her strange, but no stranger than my student who used the class break to burn his arms with cigarettes and then ate Smarties by the handful for the second part of class. I didn't have words. My own life, while it looked okay from the outside, wasn't much better.

I thought about my student with the rosary who both had the aura of a very young child and a very old woman. She was like one of those pictures where you either saw a skull or a rose depending on how you looked at it. I liked her and over time, came to understand her enmeshed family situation that had driven her, well, mad. I came to view her as an odd sort of saint, someone like Simone Weil who had suffered in ways most of us couldn't understand. Years later, she asked me for the boxes. I had ditched them in one of my office moves because they so depressed me. How anyone had been through what those papers indicated I didn't understand -- institutions, four point restraints, shock treatments. She looked sad for a minute as she told me she'd wanted to burn them, but cheered up when she came to the conclusion that God had taken care of her old self for her. I remembered the first time I saw someone burn themselves alive on television, a Buddhist monk in protest of the Vietnam War. I didn't know what it would be like to start anew. I, too, wished I could have seen the papers burned. To watch your old self light up in that way, to rise from the ashes of what had happened and walk away.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner has a future." Oscar Wilde

Cocktail Hour
Movie suggestion: You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Thursday!

Coamerica Park

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Wednesday!

I Write The Book

There's a lot of lore around first impressions, that they are accurate, that a terrible first impression leads to love (like in all the romantic comedies -- they hate each other at first -- can you believe it?), that they cannot be trusted. I usually like almost everyone which is a fault according to some, a virtue to others. This does not mean that almost everyone likes me. I tend to be what people generously refer to as an acquired taste. I'm shocked when people find me intimidating. I'm not shocked when they find me obnoxious, out to lunch, shy, or disturbed.

As for my first impressions of others, I have been wrong, but the error quickly rights itself. My first contact with many is not great and sometimes those people have become my very closest friends. So I try and hold off on judgment. The older I get, the less I'm prone to make judgments. So many factors! Experience teaches that you can't judge a book by its cover (the most you can do with the cover is say, Someone isn't very good at marketing) and that you can't determine what someone will be like under pressure or in happiness or sorrow. Anyone have some good first impression stories? Would love to hear them . . .

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Actions are visible, though motives are secret." Samuel Johnson

Cocktail Hour
Starting a Christmas card/present list -- if you want to be on it, email me your address at michellespells@gmail.com. Yes, I still send letters. I know it's weird. But consider me an old-fashioned girl . . .

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Day of the Dead!