charlie brown

i meant to post this last Friday, november 25th. but many circumstances got in my way, most of which are too boring to mention. there was that bit with the giant orangutans on the subway, but i'm not sure that one was true, so i don't think it counts.

i spent a long time being a die-hard feminist. i'm sure this is big news to most people... as i'm so demure, and all. i swore i would never have a family before a career. and here i am. i've actually become a sap, too, which adds insult to disillusionment... only because i'm now eating crow for all the years of insulting sappy people.

i first saw my husband in a stinky rehearsal room in Tulsa, OK. he was 19. i think his forehead was the first thing i noticed. the second thing was his overly arrogant attitude, and the third was his smile.

not exactly love at first sight, but i've never been a traditionalist.

there were several nights when we drove down to the park with our friend chris crews (also a daddy now) and justin would play his guitar while crews beat his drum, and i swung on swings or danced in the sand. sometimes crews would stare into space or rant about the doors or draw instead, and i would take my insignificant talent for percussion out on his poor drum. justin would sometimes sing, and always eventually put his guitar down and take out a pack of Cherry certs. i think the smell of cherry certs would always be connected to Tulsa, OK and small parks and mishmatched music and long conversations about nothingness and long drives home in a car that scared the shit out of me every time i got in it, had the certs company not stopped making the cherry flavor.

after that, we got married. Which was, obviously, many steps removed from the previous story. these steps involved such things as neo, ghetto-rigging, gaff tape, star crunches, many jackie chan movies, huge palmetto bugs, great pizza, too much coffee, many truly inspiring moments, fun foam, wrestling shoes, road trips, power naps, and a couple of romances and quasi-sorta-not-quite-romance-so-what-do-you-call-it things. But after all of that, we got married. As you might have guessed... it wasn't traditional.

After that, we had a baby. And started a couple of companies, and i still drank too much coffee, and justin quit smoking a lot. now we have this great kid.

i tell you all of this, because as random and unconnected as the above story might sound, there's one constant in all of it: the man i call charlie brown. well, if he doesn't listen when i call the first time.

i don't think i've ever met a person of so many contradictions. but i can tell you that he got a man-hating bitter chick to marry him and have a kid... and realize that there was really nothing more that she wanted in the world than to be married to this man and have a small to moderate amount of his children.

this is less sweet and sappy than i intended... if you get one day of the year when your wife can't be sarcastic to you it should be your birthday. but i forgot to post this on your birthday, poopsky, and if i wasn't sarcastic i doubt you'd recognize me. unless i was losing my temper or lost in thought.

so here's to you, charles justin harvey. you're marginally older, quite a bit younger, much wiser, and a great amount more fun than i am. thanks for keeping me from growing up to be a too old and stodgy, immature, selfish woman. i think i might follow you anywhere, even if i might bitch the whole way that i have no idea where i'm going.

charlie brown, you're my hero. truly.

it definitly works for you that you're hot, too.

confessions, or i really need this out of my head

i just needed to vent this... it's something i've realized that i've been carrying around for a long time. and when you realize that you've been carrying around an elephant that occasionally shits in the corner of your life, i find that it is often helpful to talk about it, so at least you're not in denial that your elephant is stinky.

as an artist and a performer, i am craving specific input. i was raised in a combination of two schools of thought as far as working with a teacher. The first being that if you don't recieve correction and constructive criticism, your teacher believes that you are not capable of handling it. The second, that artists are too sensitive and therefore need to be handled with kid gloves and shouldn't be given too much criticism... or compliments, for fear they'll become full of themselves.

i spent my entire life getting extremely mixed signals. i sang for years; it's actually what i started in. i won most of the competitions that i entered in. but when i asked my teacher if i had a good voice, and if not what i could work on, she replied with "well, you definitly contribute something to the choir". what is that, exactly? when i asked my dance teacher if i was a good dancer, and whether or not i should even try to do it for a career, she said, "well, you're definitly called to this. not as called as so-and-so, but i think there's something there." WTF! when i asked my acting/mime teacher if i was any good, he said "well, your thighs are really too big to be a ballet dancer, and i think you're too shy to do any speaking parts, but you're great at mime". so i'm too fat and un-interesting to be a dancer or an actor? what exactly are you saying here, people?

i asked one of my teachers why this had been the case all my life, with everything i endeavored to do. poetry, performing, novel writing, painting, acedemics... in every case i was more or less vague-ismed out of any confidence i might of obtained otherwise. she told me "we knew you would eventually succeed, so we wanted to give opportunites to other students who might not get it later."

eventually succeed? are you saying that i'll eventually annoy someone enough that they'll give me a chance? what is it about me that cause people to be so vague... they often claim to be protecting me cause they can tell that i'm sensitive, though the things that i hear have been said behind my back usually don't imply respect for sensitivity. so here i am, at 25 with no true idea of what i'm good at. i know i'm a good leader, and that i'm good at business, and i'm at least a decent designer, and i think i'm at least unintentionally funny. but i really don't know anymore than that.

am i too abrasive? do i come accross as cocky or overly self-assured? do i seem needy when i'm asking for feedback? cause i'm not, i'm just literally starving for specificity. i HATE VAGUERY. seriously, man. can't handle it anymore.

so i have to say that though i don't really know if i can sing, or act, or dance... or at least to what extent. should i stick to christian performing, or background roles? or can i aspire for somthing more? i think i can, but who knows... i'm going to inflict it on everyone if nothing more than to recieve some honest opinion and suggestions for improvement. because currently, i'm very confident where i am confident, and i have no self-esteem where i don't. and i don't need a bunch of people walking on eggshells and telling me that i'm cute and even if i need attention, i can just ask... i need to know something definable. i grew up in the christian arts world, people. somebody give me something.

please don't reply unless you're going to be specific

example

did you mean it? in the moment,
when you looked into my words and
understood the way i see, the figurative
reality that gives the breath i breathe,
did you really comprehend the extent
of which i would depend?

the lost cadence is blamed on the true nature of being
one who only walks to a drum if she has to.

and there the beating drives, drives deep into the chords
of parched want for release. you've driven me to
the edge, and i'm begging to jump off the cliff but you hold
me back for fear i'd fly out of my skin, and lose my sense
of self.

one for the money
two for the show
three, in case we need it
four is excess, but who's practicing restraint when
beating out the time by which we stone? the small
pebbles hurt more, but the big ones crush your bones.

drive it home.
the pages are browning and tearing. who's to say, that
some distant day as far from here as the day behind
tomorrow we won't look back upon these years
as the golden days, the time of innocence.
who's to say that my own imaginings won't find
home in my true reality, and break free of
the desert of metaphors, but never lose their poetry.

the motion of time often makes me queasy. here's to
the broken drum, and the forever time.

damn the sprawl

an interesting article, about the infamous American urban sprawl.
http://www.slate.com/id/2129636/?nav=fo

funny

i have a problem with being funny. see, whenever i'm trying to be funny no one laughs, and when i'm trying to be serious it's hard to keep people's attention.

see, i think that's kind of funny. but you're still waiting for the punch line, aren't you?

um... how about...

"Only two, but I don't know how they got in there! "

no? hmm. well, we'll get back to that.

another bit from my youth

i've been accused of being Lucy, but if it weren't for the obvious gender issues, i think i'd have more in common with him. or maybe i'm the tiger. am i keeping it real only when someone who believes in me is watching? or can the misperceptions of jaded people cause my words to lose their meaning?

if i tripped and fell over a twig in the woods when no one was looking, would someone still laugh at me?

truth

i must say that i really think it's easier to see the everyday ups and downs when you're alone. there is no need to editorialize or translate or watch your temper and tongue... the reaction can come and pass, and then you're just standing there with this moment in your past and no ones expression to mark it by.

heartless it may be, but truthfully so.

some days it's hard to believe. why should i have faith when doubt comes so easily... slips from my tongue with silken words... deceitful only in their pretense of strength. but these threads cannot be woven to cover the falls and the tries to climb up again. i'm trying to stop comparing, to remember that different is good and i need not be skinny but then i just want to be someone more beautiful, so maybe i'd believe that i'm worth you.

or maybe not.
i think i'm lost... i think i forgot to look down while i ran and instead, only tripped and tore skin from my knees.
i think i've forgotten where i came from, and i think the rain is making it hard to see.
i think that i'm wishing that lonely only felt so, and that i could pretend i don't need you to stand.
but truthfully, i must wander and run far from home but without you, i'd forget who i am.

.

i think you must be in jest.
to say that my narrative is wrought with
consistent ill-uses, and brings only
a moment of confused attempts within
the readers brain to create an unlikely
epiphany, is a euphemism for
“i’ve forgot the wonder of poetic freedom”
for to describe the world in only
sensible terms is prose. and while such
word play has its uses, the play would
soon loose the lust for understanding
that comes from encountering the
unexplained.

yes, it’s frivolous aesthetic.

you might see a person
and call them tall, or fair skinned, or
having a big nose. but i say they are
a wandering soul in the sea of
homogenous indemnity that is the
american experience. you can see
in the style of their dress a
representation of the true
minimal idealism and worn out
patriotic soap boxes. you might say
they are just poor, and i say that
the fruit of labor is bestowed upon
those who have inherited the grace
which follows the rich, while the
meager inheritance of the meek
seems to do little to pay earthly bills.

you might say that this poetic nonsense
is only the vain struggle of a young
foolish girl who cannot bear to look
at the world through prose, for it then
looses the luster that can be found
in its dark places and hard times,
if you can turn a phrase just so.

are poetics the original spin? or is
there truly a human need to find
beauty when the cracks are discovered
in the world of the real and it’s too
late to open our eyes?

you might say that’s a beautiful sunset,
but i say that the moment my eyes
feasted upon this reminder of our celestial
position, painted upon the skies with
such grand expression it caused me
pain to see the world beneath its gaze,
for only night follows the sunset.

i think we both have our uses.

i think

i must have been about 7.
kids make fun of you for the oddest things.
when i finally convinced my mother
that the ridicule was just too much
and she should break down and
let me have chewing gum, she
grudgingly abliged. the next day,
i bought my very own pack of gum
with my very own money
and brought it to school. another
kid, who had always made fun of
me for having weird parents who
said i couldn't do the
oddest things
taught me how to blow bubble
gum that day.

that was a good day.