Vale of Evening Fog

I was tagg'd by Zoe, who I found a couple of weeks ago when I was browsing. She's a really good writer, and she likes to keep it mystical, as do I. . . So here's the thing:

first the rules:

1) Post these rules before you give your facts

2) List 8 random facts about yourself

3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them

4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they've been tagged

then the facts:

1. I feel better about things in general than I ever have in my life. I'm about to turn forty, and I'm no longer a spring chickie, but I guess I've been through enough and made it past enough to know that it's all added up to something. I'm not entirely comfortable in my skin, yet I've never been more comfortable than right now. A secret: getting older is really really awesome! I feel like Miss Jean Brodie, except without the outsider's perspective.

2. I'm a really good roller skater, and I'm super strong. I was never very coordinated when I was younger. Oh, I was a disco skating queen and I took lots of gymnastics and played soccer and stuff. But back then, I was clumsy. Now I feel coordinated and capable and even graceful.

3. No scars, no tats, and no secret history. What you see is what you get. I'm really pretty wholesome, and I'm honest, and I LONG to be a paragon of good health. Though I know sadness, I expect happiness. I'm still working on embracing what's great about now. It's all there in front of me, and I just have to open my arms.

4. I was born a blonde, then I went brown. Since then I've had orange, bleach blonde, black, an unfortunate morning of dark green (dressed to match to pull it off), then brown again for a long time, now reddish, and underneath, a little gray. The grays started when I was 26.

5. I don't know if I'm able to become pregnant. I made halfhearted attempts once, with a someone, and nothing. Me? Him? Don't know. Part of me longs to, and part of me worries that I'd wind up alone and in a jam if I did.

6. I have always worked very hard, and though I've never been rich, I've always managed to do the kind of work that fulfills me. But if you know, as I know, what phsyical labor means (I like work that's part physical because I love the feel of my muscles stretching and contracting), you know too how rough that can be on the feet.

7. I'd rather eat spinach than chocolate, and I swear I'm not lying.

8. Ienjoy any activity that's solitary or that I can share quietly with one patient person. That means writing, rock climbing, pool, yoga, meditation, camping, cooking, and hopefully chess (I've never found the person who could teach me). Though I dress kinda funky, I'm a bit of an introvert.

Now,

I tag:

the best friend, ginab
the hot & wise Matty
the exquisite Miss S
the elusive Josh Williams
the talented Ticharu
the lovely Meredith
the five-year-old Phillipe!
the incredible Karen Little

My MySpace LoveLife, My Tarot, My LoveSpace LifeFortune, Etc.

Apologies, apologies, I have been away. I fell for some dude I met on MySpace.

Well, technically I did not meet him on MySpace, nor was I willing to do so. I avoided it like the plague, the "meeting" part, because I've never met a guy online who was right for me. My picture says nothing about who I am, and I know it. Men don't know it, though. Or maybe they do. Maybe they know as much as they need to know. . .

In any case, I met this person THROUGH MySpace, and I only met him in person because my friend S recommended him, and now I'm completely confused about everything. Why, oh why, can't I have a normal, lasting relationship with someone who actually loves me? Why, Mrs. Palfrey, WHY?!?

In any case, I don't mean to talk about these things here, but I'm quite certain this man doesn't read my blogger blog. And MySpace, I've decided, is populated by people who are too young and too visual. You, my friends, like to communicate. So I said adieu to MySpace and committed blogicide. Which is something I'd never do here, at least not as long as I have Gina and Matty (two writers).

Now, do any of y'all read the tarot? Because this is my love life reading. My friend S, whose father was a tried-and-true Pagan, read them for me, but I'm not ABOUT to go spreading the word. You can, though. Please feel free.



This is me and my friend S, who has been my constant companion, and though I'm sure she'd spit in my eye for saying this, I feel like she's my much younger neice sometimes and I am the indolent wreck of an aunt, full of the best intentions & foggy wisdom, cobwebs and kindness. She's an upstart, and she does everything FASTER than I do. I am an old woman. I grow weary at night. But I do not wear granny panties. I cannot speak for S and her panties. No, we are not lesbian lovers. But if we were, it would be quite popular on The MySpace.



All righty, then, as you can see, this posting has absolutely no structure. I need to write more, and write more I shall. I am going to fight tooth and nail not only to be the best publicist the world has ever seen, but to make a new story, one with structure, perhaps about love (and please dear god do not comment any further on me and my story or you will jinx it because I simply can't discuss a work in progress or it will sink like my grandmother's brandy-soaked fruitcake).

Here's a picture of the cash register at my new favorite bar, where you see S and I in the previous photo. It's in Chinatown. I wish I had connections in Chinatown. I would love to live there.



See you later!

The Night (In May '06) I Lost My Goldfrapp Cherry; So Many Cherries Have Been Lost Since Then. . .

This posting is the height of laziness, because it is a repost. This week I had jury duty on top of everything else, and I haven't had time to write anything new. I'm posting this in response to Matty's post about this very concert, which we attended together. Call it a tribute to lost virginity. I learned many things that night about the world, about life, and about love. I am a new person now, more seasoned, and I've taken the experience of that night and used it in certain situations that I will not describe in detail now, out of politesse.

Needless to say things are good, though I feel like a slide rule sometimes, with the top half of me going to the left and the bottom to the right and everything out of wack. I guess that's how we live and we learn. I recently read that we should only fulfill those obligations we really wants to fill, no matter how much we value the asker.

It's funny. My job is really to fulfill obligations. That's what I do all day. I'm learning an awful lot from that!

Anyhoo, here she is, my lazy lazy repost:

Preface

Life, my friends, is a series of choices, fortunate and unfortunate. In hopes of making the fortunate kind, we forge our paths with too much caution. This, more than any other characteristic, defines us as human, as opposed to animal.

If we could embrace the evidence that now -- in an era so fucking modern we call it post-post modern -- we are still the earth's creatures, furry animals out in the weather; if we could embrace this, sistren and brethren, we would be Goldfrapp.

Now We Begin

Monday night Matty and I saw his favorite band, Goldfrapp, at the Fillmore Auditorium. Alison Goldfrapp sang on a distant stage -- but never too distant! -- beneath the eight blue chandeliers that hang from
the ceiling. These chandeliers were made all the more sparkling that night by how magnificently the walls, which are draped in a two-story swath of wine-red velvet, set them off to full lustre.

After waiting in line for one hour, Matty and I had found a couple of seats on the second floor balcony, across from the booze. In terms of distance from the stage, our view was comparable to that from a third-story window of an old Victorian house, which, if we extend the image, the stage would have been on the centerline of the street fronting this house, where girls in small towns play jumprope.

We were right next to the cool-people entrance through which roadies and suspect-looking fellows in suits ran in and out, flashing their passes. Guarding this entrance was a bearded old hippy in a leather hat. He read a hardcover, sans jacket. I asked for the title. Sin Killer, by Larry McMurtry^*.

While we waited for the show to start, Matty and I made two bets, based on the following questions:

Let

M

= Matty,

I

= Ing, and

A

= the true and correct answer

1. Alison Goldfrapp is due to begin at 8:00 pm. How many minutes will we have to wait before she'll strut her fine self onto the stage?

M

: 60

I

: 30

A

: 75

SCORE

: I 0 M 1


(An M1)

2. Who do we have to blow in order to get past the graybeard reading the Western?

M

: [Identified three (3) hirsute and stocky roadies, a man in a jumpsuit adjusting the drum set, another man with a Petzl^® flashlight strapped to his head (also wearing jumpsuit), several slobby-looking dudes wearing leather jackets, and the graybeard hippy.]

I

: [Said, Eeeew!]

A

: See M, ibid.

SCORE

: I 0 M 1

The loser, should it be moi, was to run past the ticket counter and swipe the Goldfrapp poster. If, on the other hand, I should be the winner, then Matty --who was wearing silver sneakers -- would do the same with the Beck poster in the hallway.

FINAL SCORE

: I 0 M 2

And at 9:15 pm, the show began.

I came close to being Goldfrapp'd when Alison Golfrapp, looking uncannily like a Xanadu-era Olivia Newton John, interrupted her skilled and poppy vocals to interject with these incredible Nina Hagen blasts (which she resorts to sparingly). But it wasn't until her dancers came out, wearing their tight bikinis and animal masks, that I was finally Goldfrapp'd.

That night, dear readers, I was Golfrapp'd for the first time. And then I was Goldfrapp's again, and again, and again. Indeed, in an hour and a half I was Goldfrapp'd six times in succession, the peak of it coming during the second-to-last Goldfrapping when Ms. G. sang I Want To Ride on a White Horse. Behind her the half-naked dancers pranced in high-heeled pumps. Their costumes featured large, glitter-mirrored horses' heads and long white horse tails. The details of how these tails were used during the dance are too intimate to share in polite company, but if you've seen Goldfrapp yourself, you know e-zackly what I'm saying.



Adieu

At the end of the evening I realized that after such a Goldfrapping, I wouldn't be able to walk for days. Despite this, Matty promptly reminded me that if I truly loved him I'd now have to now sprint in order to steal that Goldfrapp poster, and besides, he'd won it "fair and square" in what he called "our bet". Little did he know that at the end of the show the poster would be handed out to everyone, for free. On the way out I snagged a couple, and later, on the road to Matty's house where I would drop him off for a good night's sleep, I did not, for once, get incredibly lost in this crazy west-coasty labyrinth of one-way streets. Was it the higher power of Goldfrapp, guiding us safely home? Yes, I do believe that it was.

____________________


*Larry McMurty! The guy who in his Oscar Acceptance Speech thanked the booksellers of this country for doing such a good job!

Truth

In the past couple of months I've made two new friends. They know who they are, and I'm happy they're mine. Those who know me also know how much I invest in my people, which is why my circle is tiny. When I love, I love deeply. Sometimes love wears me out. When it does, I have to hole up for a bit. This seems antithetical, but it's not.

I hope to be richly rewarded and to reward richly, that's all. I have three old friends I count as my best, and at times the happiness has been almost too much to bear. Two more might send me up to the clouds.

The truth is when what you say, feel, and do are one and the same. But how do we know what we feel? We give it time. The truth is that I love each of my friends, the old and the new. It's been long enough and I am rested and the sun has come up.