Janice in 2008 Part I

First off I wanna say my usual disclaimer because I'm so lame -- to all my friends that have emails sitting in my various inboxes - email, Facebook, myspace --know that I spend at least a solid 30 seconds everyday thinking "shit I need to write these people back". And considering how busy and/or distracted lately that's saying a lot!

Currently I am sitting in the living room of my mom's house in upstate NY waiting for the laundry gnomes to finish my laundry. They're amazing. I put some clothes in the little hamper in the bathroom and then, before I go to pull them out they're washed, dried, and folded and put back in my bag. It's fucking amazing! I gotta get me some laundry gnomes. I think they only like my mom though because this sort of phenomenon only happens when she's around.

I just remembered I had a dream last night I was dating Prince William. He's looking kinda hot again now that he's scruffy. Scruffy nixes balding anytime. The blur of hair in the facial region sorta fills in gaps on top perhaps.

Anyway, let's see. I started off 2008 madly in love with a guy I was pretty much convinced was my soul mate. We spent New Year's last year kissing on Ayumi and Martin's roof and watching the fireworks over the city. Then we wandered home across the street and I was too drunk to do anything but sit in a hot bath and try to sober up. Kinda killed the romance there. Fact of the matter was that the Paxil I was on was really starting to fuck with me. Between that and the Yasmin, I never wanted to be intimiate with my bf and wanted to spend lots of time sleeping. I wrapped up on Cashmere Mafia and that's when the fighting began. Or at least got worse. We were preparing to move in together and then he bought a car without even considering me or our finances together and that coupled with his desire for more independence at the same time I was holding on tighter and freaking out with my medication -- it was just messy. We were fighting constantly and then I had a break in medication due to some bureacratic mix up and I went into full blown serotonin syndrome and basically freaked the fuck out. I couldn't sleep, I felt anxious and panicky all the time, I felt like my head was under water and my hearing and vision were blurred, I would shake, I couldn't stop crying, and after a couple days of this and seeing how my bf was reacting to my being crazy I decided that I was probably better off dead. I started scratching and cutting. And then one night he had to call 911 on me because the condition was getting worse. I basically went from relatively normal to psychosis in a couple days. All because of a lovely medication called Paxil.

So February I stared to feel better as I weened off on Paxil and went to another pill. However, my relationship wasn't healing. Or at least I thought it was and my bf had pretty much decided that he'd had enough. I was also working on Cadillac Records in NJ and it was a miserable time. Doens't help that there were some serious issues at home with my family and ugh. It was a really really horrible time that ended up with me getting dumped more or less on Valentine's Day. It's still up in the air if he started fucking the other girl before he broke up with me. And considering the way he wouldn't let me in his room and his roommate wouldn't let me near there, I don't think he was alone the night he dumped me. When I took the two hour trip out to Edison in the middle of the night to apologize for someting horrible I'd done and said and he wouldn't pick up his phone. I came all that way to show him how sorry I was and how much I loved him -- only to get dumped. It was a horribly painful time. Made worse because I was still struggling to get my head and body chemistry back together. Although he denies it, he did more or less leave me as I was still recovering. And all of that happening together nearly outright killed me.

I clung to the belief that we could fix it through my birthday in March. Then I heard about him fucking another girl that I'd been jeaous of. And essentialy, it was a couple months of just getting my heart broken over and over again. Of trying to reach out and be friends with him but only to be hurt and ignored. On a daily basis I stil think of him. I still love him. I probably always will. But I love myself more and have resolved to not allow anyone in my life who could so easily ignore me, disrespect me, abandon me, disregard me. I started to rediscover my own self worth. And realize how kind-hearted, loving, sweet, considerate, and awesome I am. It was his loss to throw away someone as dedicated and adoring and strong and independent as me. I just wished he could see it. Of course, he never has.

I worked a on a reality show called Stylista that lead right into another show called ESL. During this time work on my memoir I'd been working on for 6 years was drawing to a close. While working at ESL, a time card for my ex-ex bf passed my desk. It was this weird moment. And then I realized that all the pain and hurt about THAT break up was gone. I was over him and wished him well. And I told him so. But it made me realize that the best sex I ever had was when I was dating him over four years ago. Damnit. :)

And now I need to get dressed to head back to mass. so I'll need to finish this later...

blizzard

I look crazy
Sitting here smoking
Black woolen hat
pulled low
lips kiss
marlboro light
exhale
smoke hits the cold
windshield
I watch it dance
coil and recoil

I am in the parking lot
of the grocery store
radio shack
block buster
liquor shop

packies, the locals
call them
Where they go for
little bottles
a couple shots, a couple bucks
nips, they say

it is almost twelve o'clock
sunday morn
blizzard whirls
tires skid
I am a city girl
country girl
caught in between
suburbia
blue laws
I await the escape.

Curl

A gasp.

Eyes - two windowshades snapped
Pupils black, desperate for the light

Breathless, I reach in the darkness
turn on the hotel room heat

Two months and I still forget
that I am away from my home

We'd been having a conversation
in the depths of my unconscious
walking along the cortex and the convex
and concave of my mind
across ridges, meandering through
valleys, and settling, side by side
by a pleasant stream on the lobe-bank

And on my lips
As I awake
are the strangest of words
that startle me
as spoken

"I can still remember the curl
of your eyelashes"

bongos

this woman's voice sounds like mine
but i don't play the bongos
my hands don't slap like that
and i lack the bravery to sing

downshift

i miss the west side highway
that loopy swerve from the GW
high, fast, concrete blur
you always so perfectly in control
and i never let you know
i was holding my breath

roller coaster
land
highway, raceway
track and sway
lights of jersey
reflected on the hudson
and you on my side

you, mercurial
you, a continuum of time
I see your profile
dark, day, happy, mad
no traffic lights
til way down by the village
and we sailed
we sailed
rapid, rabid, tires solid
your hand my hand
i could have died happy
in a crush of steel and glass

slow dance

as a child i never learned
in junior high i'd giggle and say no
then the boys stopped asking
no, i'm a thirty year old woman
who doesn't know
how to slow dance.

certain lovers
have grabbed me over the years
hands on my hips
holding me close
spin, spin, dip

and I'd blush and squirm
away.

Despite validation
yes, you're doing it right
All I know I know from
watching on the side lines
and my form just doesn't feel right.

Future

You are simple
you are bare guitar
new strings
strummed on a late morning

I see you framed
in the window, low to the floor
It is a loft that I once lived in
And you have never known

And it's easy
Everything's easy
we resolve
we dissolve
anger melts
twisting, intertwining
pooling in kitchen sink
bath tub full
we fall, we splash
and somewhere in the
gravitational crash
the coming back to earth
we are ok
and parachutes always save

you are the one i'll write poetry to
great odes, read in bed
after the day, after the tv is off
we have settled
away from the roar of New York City
we are together
a blanket fort
a clumsy flashlight
tucked behind the couch
in our dark created together
reading comic books
and eating chocolate chip cookies

With you I am five, and fifteen, and fifty at once
I am wrinkled and smooth, fat and lean
With you I am unwoven, I am pulled apart
And I am tied and tapestried so tight
I am sweatpants and I am ball gown
I am strewn newspapers, I am leaves on the wind
With you, I am morning coffee, freshly ground
I am burned three hour old brew
With you I am beer breath, I am hangover green
I am champagne bubbles and I am crisp autumn white

You are there
somewhere
reclining in a pub
doodling mindless circles
on a dive bar napkin
And whenever the door opens
you look up, auto pilot
never noticing what you see

And me
I am here
usually between point A and point B
an ellipsis
a well travel path I have worn
the streets of Williamsburg
bend to me, cushion my footfalls
So why do I always walk
with my eyes to the ground?

Sunday Morning

Sunday mornings smell differently
Despite the state, the hour, the mate
I have long pondered the scent
drifting, light, on the air
from chapel to temple
into the singed nostrils
of last night's sinners
and today's saints.

My nose, pressed into your belly
Teeth near your vulnerable skin
I pretend I am a tiger
I crawl and I pin
Snarl and snarl louder
when you proclaim me cute
and harmless
I bury my forehead against
your navel
and say quite ripely
if not so rightly
that I could tear your apart

Teeth snap, low growls rise
And in the morning light
I like to hold you down
sunday morning sun on my back
waves, you are the sea, I fight
I ride, I am held up to the gods
your hands, I steer I throw my
weight into the struggle
the moaning wheel, splinters
in my tender girl skin.

I bend my head
and in my softness
in my tidal voyage
I wish that I was like
other great captains
who knew, in the last minutes
sea tearing at the decks
that sometimes it is smarter
to abandon ships
before they go down
to give up on the horizon
and visions of the shore

Eyes to the sky
Northern star
It is not salt in my scent
It is not anything I thought
the storm subsides
down from the crow's nest
I come, slowly, decisive
holding on for dear life
my boots hit the wood
I have lost my sea-legs
and I tumble
I crumble

Huddle
Mumble
I am alone
white sheets
hotel room
four hundred miles away
there is no sun today
New England breathes in
across my bare back
and here I lay
so close to the sea
but I am no pirate
I am no sailor
I am alone

I think back
it's the cold, the sea
that captures me
forces me to look at photos
these memories in my mind
of the February we got in your car
and we drove to Coney Island
it was the same day
but only of the week
not of month
not of the year
and you will still in love with me

we watched the polar bears
prep and brag and run across the sand
shudder, body, shutter, camera

And out in the distance
the freightliners in the grey water
We stood, hand in hand
eyes to the sea, watching
wondering if any man could ever
survive the swim to England

plush

I am expanding
Away from my bones
I am burying my heart
Inside my chest
I don't want to
hear it's hollow
beating
no more.

It is warm
It is safe
Perhaps smothered
Perhaps dying.

I am expanding
Away from my bones
Plush and stuffed
Scarring inside
Building, stronger
Fractures healing over

White blood cells rushing
a crazy ambulance ride
emergency, emergency
construction crews
rebuild me with ladders
cranes, high apoxy glue

I am expanding
away from my bones
And I wait until
my skin weeps
And my joints refuse
I am growing
helium inflates
I billow
huff
and moan

It is wide
It is impressive
It is something
that no one can
look away from

And I hate you
I hate you
for seeing what I've done
to myself
I hate you
for noticing
I hate you
for judging
I hate you for not
wielding your swords
you white knights
steely, strong
through this thick forest
this impressive land scape
rush, rush
push, push

i am expanding
away from my bones
I am orbiting
I am gravitational
I am pulled down
and I can't move
I can't breathe

I proclaim
long, verbose speeches
electric screams, keypad bruised
that this time
I will let the air out
I will allow their knives
On planes to Mexico
they go, my people
searching for salvation
Begging for scars, to starve

I am different
I am different
I am different
I am different
I am different

I am not what disgusts me
I am not what you think

I am expanding
Away from my bones
Constructing a cave of myself
I am geometric, geographic
I am wood, stone, brick
I am a house, I am a vehicle
that sits in a back lot
filling with snakes
unkempt grasses
rusting
I am everything
but human.
And subject to the
laws of man.
that I was not there to write
or sign my given name

DBA

Besides all the stuff I'm doing right now I'm also starting a legit business. I think. I haven't had a chance to look at the paperwork. I started a company in 2001 called Tangled Up In Blue Productions and now I'm re-starting it in NYC with the same name. It costs $100 more. Fuckers. Then I paid some company to do all the leg work for me and that costs me more but I don't have time to deal with the county clerk so fuck it, it's worth it.

Back to work.

fitting & jesse

I wanna try you out
slide you on
wiggle around
get comfortable
stretch you out
wear you down
break you in

but

I don't think you'll fit
I don't think it'll look right
I don't think it's what I want
In fact I know
but I wanna try anyway
I always do

I am too big
you are too small
I hate polyester
and you're allergic to wool

i know, i know, i know
that things like this
just don't work
with round pegs
and square holes

No

No I don't think so.

I twirl a lock of yours
around my finger
and I hate
oh my god how I hate
(love)
the way you look at me
in that after
the after where nothing
exists outside my
bedroom door
the night is endless
we are independently
wealthy
we are recklessly
abandoned
and other amazing
impossible
conditions
like being being
emotionally mature
adults
ready to fall in love
and stay that way
despite
loose threads
and gained pounds

yes, then things could be great

So I'll try you on
I'll invite your skin
and
every other heartbeat
I'll let you in
Then
tha-thump
right back out

It'll be fitting
It'll be a settling
It'll be a great find
A black Friday special
It'll be a dressing room
Squeeze
A breath
A zipper
Exhale
Hope it don't burst
Pray it don't split






Jesse

I told you jokingly
as you took my hand
that it snowed today
and it was somehow your fault

you laughed
said sure, blame it on me

but the truth is
as my tires slide in the slush
and as my windshield fogs
the snow here isn't the snow
of New York
and even without
mitten or boot or hat
I could stay

i know nothing

gaslike
vapor
playhouse
wallpaper
it could all burn
everything could burn
at anytime
you know

i think of my toys
abandoned in the
dump behind our
farm house and wish
i could go back there
and somehow
despite my fear of snakes
rescue my
crystal castle
and turn 8 again

over the years
i've learned to
not throw things
away and you may
call me a packrat
and perhaps is just
a precursor to
insanity and a
collection of cats
that'll rub
and purr against the
endless piles of
memories that
overwhelm me not
from girth or bulk
not from abundance
or cumber
but because i have
forgotten why
they were packed
and saved
in the first place

I feel badly.

it is a burden
this consciousness
i struggle to feel
every moment
and appreciate every
star filled night and
blossom filled lawn

but despite all my
good intentions
and if you know me
you know i am
all about
(for better or for worse)
good intentions
yes, for all my
good intentions

the world keeps
turning and despite my
trying to name every
photo
trying to be in every
frame yet push the
shutter myself

(setting of timer
then tripping of feet)

yes despite all this
despite that fear of snakes
and desire to scientfically
know
and to bibically know
i just have to say

that i know
nothing.

crazy one

(still working on this one)

It was long decided
Settled
Shook on
The contract signed
Notarized
Filed and stamped

Yes, we decided
That I was the crazy one

Then we began

I acted accordingly
Well inside the legal boundaries
Loving and loony
I'd point to my heart
and scream you're breaking me
you're breaking me

And logic
You brought logic
And love
You brought love

I passed out in your arms
Mid-argument
Losing breath
Panic
You caught me
You caught me
And off to the doctor I went

Medicate
medicate
Medicate this girl

We nodded
And I swallowed the pills
I listened to your
perimeters
I traced the lines
And there I walked
On your fence
Balance
balance
No spotter

but I don't think that
in the set of documents
in that hail storm of
words and precedents
and cited history
in the descript of
contents and belongings
and expectations
no, i don't think that
anywhere in that
brief case of agreement
we discussed our retreat
or the prevention of such

or affirmed that

i, despite expanse
and occasional
circumstance
was amazing
and beautiful
and singularly
brilliant
and loved.

and worth it.
was i worth it?
i was supposed to be worth it.
whatever 'it' was.
the way that you were worth it
whatever 'it' was
to me

And it amuses me
as I lie in my bed
Pillow to head
bed spread to chin
as I realize
how fucking amazing
i am.

I took all those models
you had of me and all
those limitations of what
you could believe
and i didn't mean to
it just happened
i proved you wrong
by just continuing to
breathe
the next time I fell
and you weren't
there to catch me.

shari

I, as one who
has never allowed
myself to be
struck
cannot understand.

but when i hear
that your lover
bruised your child
and busted your lip
my breath catches
and i shake
my head
when i hear that
you left the door
open
when the police
dragged
your lover away.

you can paint
your war and your
anger on my body
and you can linger
forever in my fear-seeping
vessels, my adrenaline
syrup, in the ooze
in my veins and
hidden nooks
and crannies of
bulge and clots
inside me yes, you can
remain and haunt
and bruise, and stab
but never
but never
can you touch that
which sprang from me
if ever one were to spring

sacred and small
rage and roar
but that wolf
that demon
would never
step back in through
my door.

but I, who has never been
struck
who has never stepped into
a blow
cannot ever understand.

a sigh

a sigh
upon my thigh

i wonder
and i wait

i can be her
that girl you wanted
i could but
it'd be so much work
and even more
lies

a sigh
upon my thigh

i reach down
my hand in your hair
and as i glance down
over belly and breast
i want to tell you things

i am so pretty and perfect
in my ability to
be ugly and contorted

a sigh
up on my thigh

and we are one
but you do not exist
you ached for
you are longed for
but you are not
anymore
or ever

Some New Poems

All currently untitled, all typed up in a flurry this morning.

1.

I like to throw things away
Big bulging black bags
I like to throw things away
And pretend that it
All just disappears
And no one has to deal with
The remnants of me.


2.
This is what writers want
Quiet first snow New England
Alone in a cottage
city lights too far to see
Windows thrown open
Inviting the winter in
Saying a bright and happy “hello”
But then wishing at the same time
That my visitor does not stay long
And that it does not threaten
To complete me


3.
You, my first true love
I romanced and ravished with you
Then threw you to the drawer
Filed you away alphabetically
Now I drag you out
Dusty and remembered
To feed you to the wolves
And hope again that
You will make me seem more
That I will seem more
Relevant
With a history laid sprawled
And me standing so proudly
Caressing you for their eyes
Maybe they’ll think I’m brave
Maybe then you’ll somehow
Forgive me
For my lack of discipline
And commitment
And my voice will reclaim
And reconquer
As I learn to spell once again
Without red angry
Underlined reminders
Of the student I was
The artist I was
Backspace
Still not right
Then I realize I invented this word
And again we settle
Into a love
Poke and prod
A gentle and soft murmur
I will not let you down
Any further
And I will tell them all
With my hands on my hips

4.
I suppose I am to be inspired
By cotton balls of snow drifting
And landing and exclaiming
But I am me and with me there aren’t rhymes
I’m in New England
I feel a need to cling to tradition
And I giggle in glee when
I see the lobstermen and their traps
Before I have never spent so much time
Being the outsider inside
They ask me where I am from
In thick Boston tones
And I smile proudly
“Brooklyn”
then the questions and then
confessions
well, I’m really a farm girl
from up north
and driving back to my hotel
I have never felt so neither
Here nor there
And when on the phone with
My mom in Hermon
And my friends in Williamsburg
I feel pushed and pulled
Unclaimed luggage somehow
On an errant but gorgeous
Side adventure
I have never been alone this way before
I have and have not
It is a freedom and a delirium
And here I sit
In a room rented for me
Comfortable and warm
Watching the snow fall
Distance and insulating warm-cold
Onto the Atlantic
But not the Atlantic I know at Coney
Not the Atlantic I first put my toe in
In Florida
This is history.
I drive to the downtown
Sinewy, singular, stone paved
1623 Gloucester was found
pre- war, pre-America
and here I am
in a car rented for me
listening to late twentieth music
so out of place
and revealing and revering
I, exquisitely out of time
A traveler of clocks and years and space
My dashboard alit
My mind aflame
Pressing the accelerator
Breathing in the oldest that we know
And demanding to be heard
And to claim my belonging here.
To pull together past and present
Me and myself and I
To yearn to feel one for a bit again
And not drawn and quartered
Belongings and memories scattered
All over the North East.
In seventh grade I did a report on the
Salem Witch Trials
She-Ra dolls glued down firmly
Amongst twigs and crayon flames
Hanging from yarn knots
And sometimes
Now that I am here
I feel the need to apologize
For my simplicity.
I didn't know.

5.

Once upon a time there
was a girl I used to be
Once upon a time there
was a boy you used to be
and once upon a time they
fell in love.

It falls away then
It blurs
It is all relative
It is lost in physics
It is lost in E=mc2
And sometimes when
I shake my head and
try to figure out what happened
clutter clanks and crumbles
inside my head
and I knock against my skull
and say
"keep it down in there!"

and from here it all gets
philosophical

as i sit in bed and smoke
you see

most of the time i am appropriate
i am in tune and in time
and i walk about smiling
and not drenched in the
mist and cobwebs
rattle, rattle, rock and rattle
i glide and sail and exist
as one, at once
but then from outside
from a distance
the girl that i was
lets out a long, low howl
and i feel her thrash
i feel her scream
i can feel her panic
of being let in
and of having been grown out of
and faded
faded faded faded
she haunts
she marrows, she seeps
and then the fist around
my heart loses its grip
and i can stop telling her
i can stop soothing her
i can raise my voice
above a whisper
a desperate plea
and a loving condolance

my darling he is gone
he is gone
he is dead he is gone
you are dead
you are gone
and that's the way it is

and back in never never land
where memories play on loops
and the bad parts are always erased
the ghosts follow and refollow their
paths and when the tape begins to end
a splatter, a reverse
and they begin again

so whenever she steps out
whenever she catches my eye
i walk to her
under the street lamp
and i hug her
corner of grand and graham
and i point and say
that is where you lived
that is where you loved
and now we must all let it go

but it is in vain
because she is rewound
and in the haze
the skipping static
she is standing outside my old door
and he is there
as he used to be
and they are kissing
pressed against the building
new year's, drunk, champagne
and they begin to fall inside
the door flying open against their
heat and weight
and i turn and i turn
because i know how it ends
even if i can't warn them

it's a duality
especially when i come
face to face with your present
self and the bitterness of
constantly wondering how you
could change so much and
speed so far away

and i get so angry when she stalks me
the old me
begging answers
and i wonder what happened to the old you
back across the other side of manhattan
back across the hudson and the east
back in the spirals of jersey
back, caught in the stench of elizabeth
back, all the laughter fades
crashes, it's dust, it's dust now
that billows as you drive
as you speed down the turnpike
and never wonder where i am
and what ever happened
what could have happened
way across the lights
in the dark
in the heart
of brooklyn
where I still lay.

haunted.

Love Many, Trust Few, Paddle Your Own Canoe.

People don't change.

It's the people that exhibit selfish and irresponsible behaviors early when you meet them that -surprise!- end up being selfish and irresponsible.

It's the people that you give 1,000 second chances to that end up disappointing you on 1,001.

I don't want to be hardened, I don't want to be frozen, I don't want to silence the voice in my heart that says this time might be different.

I have changed and grown and deepened over the years. I have seen amazing changes in my own life. I guess that leaves me with an undying optimism about people and about life that is hard to dampen even when I'm drowning.

Lessons are being learned and the fabric of my life and memories and beliefs are being woven. Just sometimes I wish I could learn to pick out the loose threads, to flick of the frayed ends that inevitably become caught up in between the lines.

My insides are juicy and alive and fresh and fruitfully tart and sweet.

Perhaps this is the main conflict of my life, the theme of my story. The never ending battle between the hopeful and the hopeless.

I hope I win.

I Lied

It kept me up a good part of the night.

I said I didn't want to help. But I did. I do. I just.... can't anymore.

And then I began to worry. Will he be ok? He won't do anything stupid will he?

Then I just try to remember that he's the one who didn't want me in his life. He's a big boy. He's got his family and all those car buddies (ahem) that he made toward the end of our relationship. I mean... we were best friends and he sent me a message clear and strong that he didn't need me or my friendship or my love. He chose this life.

The guilt will wear off in a couple days I suppose. I just wonder when the compassion and lingering annoying love will.

How Come

That after all this time of saying yes unconditionally and then being broken hearted at feeling used and unappreciated and taken for granted does it still hurt when I finally learn to say no?

I guess it's because part of me just wants to believe in higher ideals. That the good guys always win, that people that you love will never stop caring, and that people, in their very marrow are good and fair and honest and just. I want to believe that I leave an indelible mark in people's lives long after I'm gone the way people do in mine.

I'm exhausted. And I wish I could be cold hearted and disconnected. I wish I didn't feel so pathetic about still caring. I wish I could see it as a strength, as a lingering proof that what I felt was real. I just keep coming back to this Fiona song where she's talking about hooking up with an ex and she wonders why she did it and then she sings "I guess I just really loved him, I guess that's it."

And I did. And I always will. Diminished, yes. But I will. Nothing changes that. I can still see the man I loved, I can still his perfections and his flaws. But time and distance has made me see that it wasn't meant to be. I want to leave an indelible mark.

I'm rambling in exhaustion and emotional drainage (does that even make sense?) Time to go to bed to rise in 7.5 hrs to work my ass off again. but then the week will be easy and short and I can finally have time to slow down (I haven't had a day where I haven't worked or drove or been running errands in oh, three weeks?) and think and reaccess and reprioritize and honestly, I just want sometime to feel accomplished and proud. I conquered some real fears lately and have had great success and feel alive(although albeit always exhausted!) and exuberant and filled with light. I feel proud and happy and although tired it's that good tired you get after working your ass off and seeing the results. I've done good. And I deserve to reflect on that.

But yeah.... how come?

Exhaustion.

Tonight I got outta work at a normal time and still I'm just fried. I have so many things I know I should be doing book-promotion wise but I'm just totally 100% spent. Tomorrow I need to get as much done as possible so that I can come in insanely early Sat. morning to get payroll for next week done so I can jump in my car and drive to NYC for Friendsgiving and my show at the Bowery. I know I haven't been keeping up my blog due to sheer exhaustion and lack of time but omg I'm tired. :)

The good news is that the next few days are going to be INSANE and then by the time I leave work on Wednesday I'll have FOUR DAYS to sit on my ass, not drive anywhere, and just look at my book promo plans and re-evaluate and figure out where to go from here. I can't wait. I feel like I've been frantic, spacey, distracted, and a bit delirious since I got back from upstate. No. Since I arrived upstate. haha. And i think my friends that have talked to me can attest to that! I can be a bit ditzy, yes, but lately I'm just..... omg... so scattered.

And yeah it's rough. I worry that at work I look like a slightly hysterical mess and I worry that I'm missing out on key opportunities for my book. But I think I'm ok. I'm pissed that I won't have my new editions to sell at the poetry club but I'm going to sell post cards vouchers then send out the books free of cost. It doesn't cost that much to mail out books if I do them book rate and if it saves a sale..... Still sucks though. But what can I do? I sold out two weeks ago!

So yeah I guess I'm doing ok. Work has been long and challenging but I think I've been handling it ok. Been working my ass off and I do take pride in that. I am just too hard on myself and lately I've been super irritable and grouchy -- trying to cut down on smoking, I've got PMS, (sorry if TMI), and I've never had a day to just rest and do nothing since I came here. My mom tells me on a daily basis that she thinks I'm brave and I think that my hard work and insane schedule has won some respect with my friends. We'll see. I guess it all comes down to two things to make me feel successful in the coming week -- finishing payroll Sat. and aceing my show at the BPC -- which psssst I'm hardly prepared for. That's what Sunday before the show will be spent doing. And probably Sat. night. Writing, reading, etc. I've got a basic script together and know what I want to do but the material isn't nailed down yet. Which worries me because I am always so prepared about such things. But I'll be fine, I have total confidence in that.

So it's ok, I'll let the to do list get a bit longer, I'll cut myself some slack. I'll continue to work hard and run on fumes and next week..... once the dust settles.... I"ll re-set. The catch 22 is that it's the holiday season which means it's the perfect time to promote a book and the worst. Competition is high and the dates available to do readings, etc is limited. People are out of town... etc. So I'm going to try to get some gigs around here in the next month but otherwise I'm just going to reset for January.

:)

PS I've also started talking to myself more. Well, maybe it's just because my cats aren't around for me to talk to.

The Most Amazing Week Ever

As I write this I am lying on my bed in my rented apartment/motel room in Gloucester, Mass. I've been here for a week as of tomorrow morning and I seriously can't believe how fast these past few days have gone by. I'm so very very tired but I keep getting all these messages from people asking how I am and how things have been going that I felt I really should write.

I don't even know where to start. A week ago yesterday, I was hired to work on this movie Hatteras Hotel in Gloucester, Mass. It's about 30 miles north of Boston on Cape Ann, right on the water. I would love to tell you how beautiful is but I haven't really had a chance to see much! I arrived early afternoon last Tuesday (I was supposed to start Monday but I postponed so I could do Stained Glass Confessional at Stain with my AMAZING and talented friends -- it was SOOOO worth it!) after getting up at 6 am, cabbing it to Penn, taking the Acela into Boston, cabbing it from one end of Boston to the other, the taking a commuter train to Gloucester. I walked into my new production office and they handed me a wad of cash (per diem money), gave my keys to my new apartment (also comped), and keys to my ... yes.... CAR. Yes. So any of you who know me and my fear of driving you're going to find these next few paragraphs pretty darn interesting. :) I almost wish Moshe didn't hate my guts JUST so I could tell him how I've been driving around and conquered my fears. But anyway, I digress.

So I spend the day working and getting to know my new office-mates. Then 6 pm rolls around and I am soooooo tired I can barely think. Dragging my luggage out to the parking lot, I clutched my keys in one hand and a Google map in the other. I squeezed the key chain and the lights of a brand new silver Subaru winked at me. I got in and my jaw dropped. It's not fancy or anything and yes, I am easily impressed but I have a kick ass stereo, a turbo thingie, and a sun/moon roof (just what you need in New England in the fall haha). I then proceeded to shake as I was driving down the dark back roads from the office complex toward the roar of 128. I was so freaked out! And then came the rotary. I knew it was coming but it was dark and there was so much traffic and I was so tired and scared that I drove on and immediately drove off haha! I was supposed to go around to come around the other side of 128 to head north away from my office but just ended up heading further down 128 cursing and shaking to ANOTHER rotary where I proceeded to spin around that and missed my exit and ended up in a parking lot of Friendly's trembling and convinced I was never ever ever going to find my hotel. After a big meal and some cola, I called my friends, got some courage, and ventured out again. Only to get lost AGAIN. After somehow driving around in circles I found my way to 127 to my place. It's huge and beautiful and awesome!. Gigantic closet, big windows, sleeper sofa, desk, full kitchen, large bedroom, GIGANTIC bathroom. I park my car outside the door! NO 4th floor walk up! It's insane. ANd there's a huge grocery store/shopping center literally one minute form my house. I could walk it if I wasn't afraid of getting smacked out on the dark and sidewalk-less road. :)

So yeah, it's great. I found work easily the next day (and the drive through Dunkin Donuts next to my house) and then worked all day (the job is EASY and the people I work with are super nice) and got lost on my way home. The next day (Thursday) I actually made it home without getting lost and I was so excited I walked in my door, dropped my purse on the desk and said loudly, even though no one could hear, "honey I'm home! I fucking did it!" No more getting lost and feeling like a meth-addicted square dancer or some shit. Swinging my partner round and round and getting dizzy on the Gloucester rotaries!

And now I'm too tired to write more so tune in tomorrow :) I haven't even talked about my road trip or my book signing yet.....

Cry For Help (New Article)

Cry for Help
By Janice Brabaw


It was my first night back to school after Spring Break although outside my dorm at St. Lawrence it didn’t look anything like spring. Snow was falling from the night sky in wet soggy clumps against the windows of the third floor lounge. I’m not sure how long I sat in that cold, drafty room watching the storm, listening to the howling North Country winds. One moment it was early afternoon and then it was dark, the street lamp outside casting an orange glow through the moist cottony swirl. I hadn’t moved, seemingly never blinked. I’d hear voices in the hall as my floor-mates carried their bags up the stairs and into their rooms. Life so close and so vibrant but yet out of sight, detached. And there I sat. Long after the sunset, long after the room faded to black. My eyes unfocused, staring into the white haze outside, lost and lethargic.

It was that night that it happened. March 22, 1998. The night I first tried to kill myself. I was six days past my nineteenth birthday.

The circumstances leading up to the overdose and the four others that would follow in the next five years were the same, a chicken or the egg scenario: I’d been rejected romantically and I was crippled by depression. Whether my moods had resulted in being dumped or vice versa, it became impossible to figure out what had precipitated what. Things had been blurry, water-colored, misty, and faded for weeks. Then the ache and the falling into depths. The loss of self, the endless seepage of energy, the flattening and the blue black bruising of my spirit. Either I was going crazy and then he left me or I knew he was going to leave me and I went crazy anyway.

Every moment of every day was trying and painful. I was confused, exhausted, and completely drained of pleasure and the desire to live. I had become a person I didn’t recognize – a shell of my former self. I had become a pathetic, codependent burden on those around me. My limited coping skills were exceeded by my pain and I was a desperate, frantic woman only wanting to stop hurting. As I wrote in my journal at the time, I was convinced I was chronically and intrinsically messed up on a basic, chromosomal level that could never be altered. I was a twisted and ugly doll destined for the Island of Misfit Toys.

After spending a week in the ICU being treated for acute Tylenol overdose, I had to tell my family what had happened. My parents were shocked and sad, scared and angry.
Part of me was annoyed and puzzled by their surprise. To me, my suicide attempt felt like surrendering to the inevitable while everyone around me were blind-sided. No one knew I had been thinking about death for years. In fact I had written my first suicide note at eight years old.


Recently I published my first book, Universe, Disturbed, which is a collection of poetry lifted directly from my high school and college journals – a first-hand account of what I was going through during these dark years. I was nervous about sending copies to my parents. While they knew I was a moody and irritable child, they never suspected my tidal nature ran any deeper than the usual growing pains and hormonal fluctuations of a normal teenager until my suicide attempts and subsequent diagnoses. They didn’t know the darkness I carried inside me as a child partially because I strove to keep my depression a secret. I was afraid they’d judge me, consider me weak and pathetic. Even more frightening was the thought of my two loving parents who always had done their best for me thinking that it was their fault; that they could have prevented these years of self-destruction. Who could blame them? Despite my secrecy, many signs that I was in trouble are now as clear as day – in hindsight. The reason my parents, my teachers, my friends and even I missed them is due more to a lack of education than a lack of compassion.

Even today, even with depression in the media and the stigma of diagnoses rapidly fading due to public awareness, people have a hard time contemplating childhood or adolescence depression. Or even worse, suicide.

The National Society for the Prevention of Suicide’s statistics finds that that 4,212 teenagers took their own lives in 2005 (the most recent year data is available). The same year, 272 children under twelve committed suicide. Although unpleasant to consider, suicide is the number five cause of death for children between five and twelve and number three in teenagers and people in their early 20’s. These numbers do not take into account how many young people tried to end their lives but failed. Or kids who are suffering and untreated who might eventually try later down the road. Suicide rates rose six percent in fifteen to nineteen year olds between 1999 and 2001 – and 100 percent in those aged ten to fourteen, following a continuing trend the NSPS has been documenting for years.

It’s true that the hormonal changes in adolescence and the stress of school and friends does lead to a certain amount of emotional turbulence, but the line between occasional sullen moods and self-destructive behavior is easily crossed – the center of the brain that controls impulsivity isn’t fully developed until the mid to late twenties. Combine flawed mental processes and the inability to make calm, rational decisions and you have a recipe for disaster. The situation appears even direr when considering this is the time when many teenagers start experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Untreated, undiagnosed depressed teens are in danger. They are hurting. Many times they are ignored or simply not noticed. And as the statistics demonstrate, more and more die needlessly every year.

It is during these turbulent years that a majority of mental illnesses initially present. According to research, people with depression or other psychological conditions and/or substance abuse commit 90 percent of suicides. It is more important than ever for society to educate themselves about the warning signs.

For me, I was a cutter. I would spend my nights locked in my room with just a razor and my journal. Sobbing and cutting, I’d alternate between writing poetry and slicing my forearms. I would hide the damage under long sleeves. I learned to cry when no one was around. My constant fatigue and reluctance to go to school was attributed to laziness, your usual teenage sloth. My weight continued to balloon throughout high school due to the late-night binges, long after my parents were in bed. I snapped and crackled and popped around our house – always irritable and ready to cry and scream at the most innocent comment. Instead of running toward people for help, I ran away. Seething, cutting, crying, hiding. I didn’t think there was any hope and I didn’t think there was anyone I could talk to.

Unfortunately for me, it took almost a decade and nearly dying at twenty-three to learn to open up about my depression, my borderline personality disorder. It took me until twenty-seven to admit that yes, I do need to take medication every day to calm my anxiety disorder and to ward off crippling panic attacks. I’m almost thirty and sometimes I feel cheated for the years I lost and whenever I have bad days. I get sick of having to apologize and explain myself. The fact is that I’m more sensitive than most people and that while I don’t want those around me to feel like they need to walk on egg shells, I am careful who I bring into my life. It is important to surround yourself with loving, supportive people who understand that sometimes its necessary to be extra patient and perhaps more vigilant in speaking up if I’m being erratic. It’s a fine line that I cross often – asking people in my life to keep an eye on my moods because sometimes I’m the last to realize I’m heading downward.

Living with mental illness has gotten easier over the years due to therapy, medication, and my writing, but also through trial and error and the benefit of growing older, of acquiring wisdom. Benefits you do not have when you’re young and just feeling the initial symptoms, the first surge and purge of emotions that you can’t rationalize. This is why it’s important to know where to go for help and just as crucial for parents and friends to be aware of the symptoms.

I’m sure my parents kick themselves when they flip through my poetry. My father, never an outwardly emotional man, told me on the phone, “Your book is hard to read. It’s some sad stuff. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Uncomfortably shifting my cell from one ear to another, I stepped onto the street outside my apartment in Brooklyn. Four hundred miles north, in the living room of our farmhouse, I could hear the pain in his voice. I wanted it to go away. “It’s ok, Dad. It’s fine. It’s in the past. It’s not your fault.

“I guess we just…” In the background I could hear the tv. A bus whirled by, and I paused at the corner. “I guess we just didn’t know. We were too wrapped up in our own troubles.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. As uncomfortable as we felt, I was happy that were having this conversation – albeit a bit late - instead of my parents finding my dead body and a suicide note that no matter how long or well-thought out could never truly explain a thing. For years I envisioned my suicide as the final act in a Shakespearian tragedy, an event so grand and dramatic that only then could people understand how much pain I had been in. I felt that no one would “get it” until I was cold and pale and so very gone, lying in a wooden box. I thought that nothing could convey the agony I felt except my death. But I was wrong. It’s in the continuing to live, to struggle, to slip and slide through life, to ride the ups and downs and to write and speak about it that I can say the most. Where I can elaborate, grow and reflect instead storming out of the room screaming and closing the door and the dialogue forever.

I’d made it through somehow. Many others don’t. I wish I could reach out to every suicidal kid and say, “it won’t always be this way.” But I realize that they have no reason to believe me. Just as I didn’t believe anyone who tried to convince me of the same. You have to keep trying anyway. The alternative is too tragic and sad and wasteful to not.


Side Bar:

Early Warning Signs of Depression:

- Changes in Activity or Energy Level – either sleeping too much or sleeping too little, intense bursts of energy or extended periods of lethargy and fatigue. Loss of pleasure in activities the person used to enjoy. Withdrawing socially.

- Unexplained pains, aches

- Weight loss or gain accompanied with the corresponding change in appetite

- Slowing of movement, loss of agility, a feeling of being in “slow motion”

- Prolonged sadness with no specific cause or perhaps an over-reaction to an event that ordinarily would not illicit such a dramatic reaction

- Unexplained and extended periods of crying

- Guilt, feelings of worthlessness. Feeling that the person is hopeless, helpless, pathetic, worthless, a burden to others

- Loss of self-esteem

- Mood swings and overdramatic reactions – irritability, anger, anxiety, cynicism, ambivalence, frustration, putting oneself down

- Inability to concentrate, shortened attention span, problems in school or work, disorganization, feeling of distraction

- Feelings and thoughts about death or perhaps just “escape” in some vague, indefinite sense. Feeling detached or already “dead” in their body

- Other red flags – self cutting or otherwise burning or harming oneself, self-destructive behavior – promiscuity, drugs, drinking, getting in trouble with the law or in school, “acting out,” and other reckless behavior.

If you suspect that you or a loved one might be depressed, it’s important to bring in reinforcements. Seek out a family member, teacher, or counselor that you feel comfortable talking to. As hard as it may be, try to be as honest and open as you can. No one can help you if you’re holding back information. If you feel there is no one you can talk to, try calling a suicide prevention hot line in your area or find an online support group. Both of these services are anonymous and can be of great help when you’re feeling really alone. If you still aren’t ready to reach out, find someway to vent your emotions, be it journaling, acting, music, painting, collage making or even something as simple as going for walks. As hard as it is try to avoid staying in bed, over or under eating, alcohol, drugs, and other self-destructive behaviors.

If you are feeling suicidal RIGHT NOW, call someone immediately. If you feel you are going to hurt yourself and don’t know how to stop it, dial 911 and explain. It’s a terrifying place to be and the fear of hospitalization probably isn’t helping, but it’s crucial that you get yourself to a safe place. More than likely at the ER you’d be observed and you’d speak to a psychiatrist who’d allow you to go home once the urge has gone, perhaps with some medication and a follow up appointment. Your safety and your health is the ultimate priority and remember that people love you and want to help you. Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask. As scary and embarrassing as it may feel, trust me, in the long run it’ll be for the best. Think of it as if you were really ill or had been drinking – your thinking isn’t as clear as it should be before you climb behind the wheel to drive. Sometimes we all need someone to take our keys and there’s no shame in that.

Chase Von's Review of Universe, Disturbed

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Chase Von's Review, 10 Stars If I could, Universe, Disturbed Is Disturbing!!!, October 29, 2008

By	Chase von (California) - See all my reviews

Universe, Disturbed is a collection of poetic writings that certainly lives up to its title. Raw, gritty and angry in some places and soft and fine like silk laced with strychnine and resigned in others.

Perhaps the greatest need arguably that people have is to be loved and certainly running neck and neck with that is to be understood. A glimpse into a world so few wish to know intimately and so many of us have unfortunately walked it's depressive paths, is revealed in this collection of in your face memoirs. Although written primarily when the author was quite young, the pains endured are often displayed in an articulate manner far exceeding what one might think possible based on her earthly years. She is certainly reminiscent of both Plath and Sexton.

So many have taken the path which she so aptly writes about but few can capture the despair, the hurts, and the myriad of thoughts the way this promising and very talented writer has. It speaks honestly of the things we perhaps don't want to hear but it also does so in ways that compel the reader on further down into the depths of despair and in so doing, to greater understanding.

I've always felt that people that commit suicide or contemplate it often, really don't want to die, they just want the pain to stop. Having friends and family members who have unfortunately chosen this path, it gives me greater understanding of the phantoms they faced and the demons that plagued their very minds that I imagine they themselves, couldn't articulate so elegantly or as in this authors case at times, so bluntly.

RELASPE -- December 1998.

Wasting away, unblossomed flower
I lay flat, pressed on the bed
crushed by the sadness
invisible weight upon me
holding me down
the sun dropped below the horizon
on me
I lay here blind in darkness
When did I lose myself?
Get so small in a huge world?
So desolate I can't stand it.

Excerpt from Universe Disturbed by Janice Brabaw

I think there are unfortunately armies of young people now in this world that will relate to this. I also think there are a plethora of people out there who might be older but would gain so much understanding into the trials and tribulations faced by our youth. Particularly with the seemingly constant on going of breaking down morals that is rampant and the ever increasing pressure by the media, to propel children into adult situations and lives through fashion and materialism which is robbing them of what so few now get to have; Childhoods.

I think this is an important addition to great literature and also a portal of sorts for those who can't understand, to have a greater understanding of all those who quite frankly feel, either through peer pressure, rejection, or a medical society that seems increasing only capable of throwing pills at the symptoms instead of addressing the root causes of the actual problems.

If you're depressed because you're penniless, that's one thing. If your depressed because you're picked on, harassed or rejected and treated inhumanly by people you wish only loved you and accepted you, then how many are being shoveled pills to dampen the blow of a senselessly cruel world?

A world where if it bleeds it leads and there are wars and rumors of war and people are more accepted if they wear an in date fashion than they are if they actually have a brain. Not to mention the constant pressure to be like the ones that entertainment bombards us all with daily. Anorexic, bulimic, over weight? Kids have always been cruel but now how many of these things wouldn't exist if there was simply more kindness? That's not to discount the fact that many are truly suffering from mental illness, I myself have PTSD, but how many are cured when they don't have mental issues and they really have, this world can truly suck issues?

Fortunately this author has a voice and an outlet through writing and she excels at it. But for those with no outlet so to speak, I think this author represent the silent voices. Both of those who have moved on and hopefully, those who are currently at risk but with greater understanding, might be saved. Many simply by seeing, that someone feels perhaps exactly the same way, that they do.

Chase Von


Your Chance to Hear The Last Panther Speak

Hide & Go Seek

Upstate it’s snowing
I laughingly gave my condolences
As my heat finally roared to life
With the clang of the radiator
In my Brooklyn apartment.

I was so happy to leave my blanket cocoon
So happy I began to cook
Modern appliances whirling
And then darkness

Sudden.

“Fuck!”

The kittens scattered, confused
By my sudden outburst
Scurrying as I cursed, slammed
My way through the rooms
Upturning every place
I could ever think to put a business card

In the black, in the howl
Of the northern wind outside
The rain pelting my windows
I sat at my desk
Held my head
Realized I couldn’t call my super
The number lost
The building empty
And me in the dark.

I somehow lit a candle
Shadows surrounded me
I laid on my couch
And mused how this could be romantic
If only I wasn’t so afraid
To fall and be vulnerable and try

And on I laid
The radiator stopped clanking
My heart raced
Cold settled back in
And I wrapped myself up again
And Eventually I began to cry

I cried of a lost love
I cried for not having someone
Smarter and more able and more brave
To help
My heart is racing and it’s so hard to explain
That sometimes I have no voice
And sometimes everyone has fangs
In the dark, in the howl
It felt ok to be weak
To toss aside my independence
It’s hard to explain
That sometimes I would starve
Rather than go outside
And sometimes I’d rather freeze
Then knock on a door

Somewhere a siren howled
It’s hard to remember
You’re surrounded by millions
When the windows are tightly
Curtained to keep out the drafts

I cried for five minutes
Slow, silent, chilly wetness
From my eyes, down my cheeks
Turning my head
A practiced and perfected motion
Before they tickled my ears

Then I got up
I tripped across the cats
Walking through the empty
I could feel bad
And yes I do but
I could feel worse
But at this time I don’t

I am unloved
I am not in love
I do not feel love
Only cold
And frustration

My eyes begin to adjust
Flames abound
I light more candles
I settle, I phone for pizza
I miss my electric space heater
I miss my ex boyfriend
I miss my mom
I realize it’s the first time
In a long time
I’ve sat this way
Cold dark and alone

I consider my empty bank account
A newly published book
It’s all so ironic
To be someone yet no one
Spending my days trying to convince
Others that I am bigger than I am
That I am smarter
And more beautiful
And more talented
That I string together moments of belief
Wear them like a amulet
Around my neck
To protect me
From those
I want to love me

Chilled bones
Nine o’clock
No internet, dying battery on my phone
A hiss
Growing in fervor
Boiler whispers in my ear
It could be a long night
If I don’t give in to sleep
It could be a long life
If I don’t give in to the hide
And the seek.

Voting Pet Peeve

By Angel Thompson Georges

I've got a pet peeve. Well, actually I have a few, but the one that is on my mind is apathy. Apathy, by definition is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest or concern. November 4^th is Election Day! Right wing, left wing, chicken wing, I don't care, Go Vote!

Two things that I have been waiting most of my life for, a woman or a minority on a major party ticket, are happening this year. Amazingly they aren't even on the same one! The last time anything like this happened was back in 1984, long before I was old enough to vote. I was 12 when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro to be his running mate. With a novice understanding of the way politics work, I was sure this meant there would be a woman or a minority on the ticket every presidential election thereafter. I never thought I would have to wait five presidential elections before it happened again. People, we are on the verge of a historical election! Who knows when you will get the chance to vote for candidates like these again?! Go participate in a historical event! Go vote!

In 1776 only white men with property had the right to vote (that is unless they were Catholic, Jewish or Quaker). It wasn't until 1856 that the last state dropped the property qualifications. In 1869 the Fifteenth Amendment gave African American men the right to vote, but by 1940 only 3% of African Americans in the south were even registered to vote. In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act denying citizenship and voting rights to Chinese Americans. It was finally repealed in 1943, some 60 years later. First generation Japanese Americans had to wait until 1952. It took 72 years of activism between when voting rights for women were proposed in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention, and when the 19^th Amendment was ratified. Despite the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, many state laws effectively barred Native Americans from voting until 1948. Chances are somebody had to put up a fight for you to have the right. Honor your foremothers and forefathers. Go vote!

Disillusioned with the political process? Me too. Does my vote make a difference? Does my voice really count? To be honest, I'm not 100% sure it does. What I am sure of is that by fulfilling my responsibility, pulling the curtain and casting my vote, I have done my part and therefore retain my right to complain. If the one I vote for wins, I have a right to hold them accountable. If the other party wins, I have the right to hold them accountable too. And when whoever wins does something I don't like, by having voted, I feel I have earned the right to voice an opinion about it. If history past and in the making aren't enough to overcome apathy, then I implore, just go vote so you'll have better grounds to complain.

Yay Yay Yay Yay

Hey everyone!

It's a sunny fall afternoon and I'm resting on my bed looking out at the gorgeous red and yellow leaves outside my window. I made the mistake of moving a tad bit too fast and my head felt funny so yeah, I guess the margaritas haven't worn off yet. :)

I'm trying to stick by a new policy I have to not be so passive agressively bitchyy in my blogs but I failed again this morning. So yeah, sorry about that. Old habits died hard. I just get pretty pissed off when I'm ignored. Pretty universal but not everyone lashes out on their blog so yeah, I apologize. I've recently seen how high schoolish that sorta thing is and I'll work harder to not do that.

ANYWAY!

A week from today is our reading/performance at Stain that should be really great. I'm super excited about our line up and everyone has such great friends so the audience should be fantastic. After that it's upstate for that part of my "tour" hehe. I've got some pretty sweet events lined up including a lecture, a book signing at my college, and an evening of readings with SLAP (St. Lawrence Area Poets.) There's some fun news that should be coming out of that reading soon including a possible radio interview and some .mp3 clips circulating but I'll tell you more once I'm back in the city and have had a chance to talk with folks. It's all totally up in the air.

Then once I get back it's the Black Rabbit Open, some other random open mics I'm going to stop in and read at (I'll let you guys know the dates soon, I'm deciding where I wanna go but I think I will be popping into to the open that my friend Joe frequents (Hey Joe!) and also the Cornelia. Then it's the Bowery! And at the Bowery I might be getting reviewed by someone from Flavor Pill (again, up in the air!)

So yeah things are lining up well. I'm going to be at a ginormous indie book fair in NYC in December and I'm hosting an evening of dirty, tawdry, and baudy songs and readings at Otto's right before Christmas. So yeah, lots of fun stuff coming up including...

this really great event I'm working with a certain promotion company to put together in Manhattan! A new development today so I'm psyched. That should be happening in the next two months.

I also am setting up dates right now to spend some time in Boston in January and *fingers crossed* I'm hoping to head to Austin in the spring for their Indie Book Expo.

Woooo hooooooo

Much love!

Yes, I'm Ranting

My union is a worthless piece of shit.

Since being in 161 since June, I have been unemployed almost 4.5 months with a short period of employment in the middle that I got myself, no thanks to them. And I'm simply really really really pissed about it.

However I won't think about that because today I'm trying to be positive and not obsess about the fact that I'm broke and still unemployment and feeling like a fucking failure.

That being said -- THANK THANK THANK YOU SO MUCH to my friends who came out last night. The reading was fun and great and I had so much fun and it meant to much to me that you guys came out!

Now back to my feeling negative and ranting :) I totally get if you're busy or don't want to come out -- but ignoring texts and emails is just really rude. It hurts my feelings and it pisses me off. You know who you are.

Happy Day

I just did a run through of my reading for Sunday and it seemed to work perfectly. Around 35 min or so. Just about what I wanted it to be. I just need volunteers to listen to me rehearse? Volunteers???? :)

I think once I get this done with I'll feel more confident and then be ready to line up some more. But yeah, life is going well. Now I just need to fall desperately in love, get my heat turned on, lose a ton of weight, and get a job (and/or book deal) and life wouldbe PERFECT. But I'm alright with today, I'll take it :)

Counting blessings in Brooklyn.....

Lonely Tonight

I lay here and I can hear the fish tank filter and cars off in the distance. Grand Street is dead. I have at least two cats on my legs sleeping and Richie next to my laptop. The only light on in my apartment is the floor lamp next to my bed. I can smell the cat litter from my office and it fills me with more dread than displeasure - another monotonous chore for the morning.

I seriously need to get back to work. This is just absolutely insane. But it's late and I'm tired so I won't think about that and money problems and all that.

It's so easy to beat yourself up when you've got perfect hindsight. Fuck even if I had saved more money there's no way I could be ten weeks into unemployment and not be freaking the hell out. The worst part? I tried to resort to crap jobs just "in the meantime" but so many of them pay less than or as more as unemployment. 100 a day? Seriously? After taxes and metro cards and meals it's as much as unemployment if not less. How the mighty has fallen. I was making nearly 400 a DAY on my last gig. This just all around fucking sucks.

OK but yeah said I wouldn't think about it. Time for bed I guess but I really just want to TALK to someone. But everyone else has lives and isn't up at 2 am.

I need a sugar daddy. Maybe I'll look on Craig's List. lol Eh fuck.

The article from the Gouverneur Tribune!!

Redd's Tavern, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, Saturday night, an unlikely chant erupted: "St. Lawrence County – We Represent!" What brought about this proclamation in such an improbable place? It was a book release party for Hermon native Janice Brabaw, for her recently published collection of poetry Universe, Disturbed.

Thanks to a tip from this paper's own Dick Sterling, I was lucky enough to be able to catch up with Janice and learn a bit about her, and how the book came about.

"Growing up in Hermon I always wanted to be a writer or work in TV but it seemed an impossibility." Janice is a graduate of Hermon Dekalb Central School. From there she went on to St. Lawrence University where she graduated from in 2001. "I moved down (to New York City) three weeks after 9/11 and it was an amazing time. The country was about to go to war, we were all worried about further attacks, and every day I'd see posters for missing people or come across candlelight vigils in Union Square. It's kinda cheesy, but it inspired me to really chase after my dream. You never know how long your time on the planet will last."

Janice's optimistic tone is in stark contrast to much of her personal history. "I struggled with depression my entire life but it was during college that it got really bad and I tried to kill myself twice." She told me quite openly. In fact, the majority of the poems included in Universe, Disturbed are from that time in her life.

"When I was compiling Universe, Disturbed I pulled directly from my journals from when I was at my darkest - cutting my arms in my bedroom with a razor, crying myself to sleep at night, recklessly throwing myself into risky situations and being hellbent on self-destruction."

Wondering why Janice would print such intimate details of her life for the entire world to see, I inquired about her intent. "I was diagnosed for the first time at nineteen (with borderline personality disorder and anxiety disorder) and although I feel much better now I still relapse sometimes. Ten years later I think I've gained some perspective that I wish I had when I was nineteen. That I wish I had when I was fourteen! It's those people that are my target audience- teenagers, twenty-somethings… anyone else who is going through that and show them there at better ways to vent your pain and express yourself."

Her hope is to reach the community that surrounds this 'target audience' as well. "I'd like to make parents and the community in general more aware of the warning signs of mental illness. People don't necessarily think of adolescents as being suicide risks but it is at this age that many mental illnesses first present- between 15 and 25, I believe. Suicide is the fifth leading cause of death in elementary children and number three in 15 to 24 years olds. I'm not saying panic and medicate your kids, I'm saying just educate yourself about the signs of depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc the same way you would about drugs, drinking, and other issues."

The book itself is designed to look like a smaller version of a composition book; black with white speckles, with pictures and quotes taped to the face ala junior year. Self depreciatingly subtitled Angry, Angsty, Adolescent Poetry That I Thought Was Super Awesome And Deep At The Time, the cover fits the text. "I wanted to publish this book to show what it's like to be young and depressed. I want to show that it's ok to turn to your journal and just "let it out." Not all of my poetry is good." Janice told me.

When I asked her about why she would publish poems that she so candidly referred to that way she responded; "The funny thing about saying "not all of my poetry is good" is that I think some people assume that it's horrible. It's actually not. I think I was just feeling a bit self-conscious about it because well, I'm not a poet. I'm a fiction and memoir writer." Indeed the excerpt included at the end from her upcoming memoir And Again: A Memoir of a Life Disturbed demonstrates what a fine writer Janice has become.

Like many talented writers, Janice is not yet backed by a major publishing house. Universe, Disturbed is a self published and self promoted work. This is no easy task, but her line up of upcoming readings in NYC shows that she has done her homework. Her schedule includes The Bowery Poetry Club and Otto's Shrunken Head, two of the cities hot spots for up and coming writers. She credits her friends for their support in this venture "I've fallen into an amazing community in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) with great friends who are my second family and who are amazingly generous and supportive of each other in our artistic endeavors."

Don't think that because of this Janice has forgotten those back home. "I think about moving home sometimes because I love and miss my family so much… I love the North Country but it's just not for me at this time in my life. But sometimes, I gotta admit, it's very hard to come back to Brooklyn."

Far from forgetting to look back to where she came from, Janice already has four book related events scheduled for a North Country mini tour November 8^th and 9^th. Her appearances will include The Brewer Bookstore and The Partridge Cafe in Canton, The Field Coffee House in Potsdam and a discussion forum entitled "It Won't Always Be This Way" : A Discussion on Teen Angst, Depression & Journal Therapy at the Gouverneur Library.

If you get the chance, as I did here in NYC, I encourage you to get out to one of these events and meet the amazing woman and author that has evolved from the fragile confused teen that once was.

Gloom

I woke up and despite the sun shining thru my blinds and being surrounded by warm fluffy kitties I just woke up gloomy. I think it's because I woke up to nothing in my inbox but spam and bullshit. No one word on work. I go to all the usual sites and just see nothing. At least I feel less that it's personal. But fuck, times are HARD. I can't remember the last time I went this long being out of work. It's super scary.

I just feel really tired. Overwhelmed. Think I need to switch my meds back to the morning, might help. I just starting blaring "Army of Me" to get me revved up. Nothing inspires you to get your shit together like Bjork threatening to kick your ass. Dude, did you see what she did to that SWAN? Kicked it's ass then worn the shit as a dress! ;)

OK, let's see. What do I need to do today? Shower. Eat. Water plants. Clean litter. Clean fishtank. Gah. Already I'm stressed. :) OK. Gah. Best way to fight loser/pathetic/useless feeling of being broke and unemployed is to be useful right?

Too Lazy To Get My Phone

So I'll blog!

I just had steak with Lawrence at Chimu and I'm like sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
full.

It makes me wanna go to sleep! I feel like I just had a feast and now I'm ready to curl up under my comforter and sleep for days. It's actually kinda icky.

Probably an early night. I watched the Sex and the City movie today and it was th eonly thing that allowed me to break thru this weird fog I've been in for a few days. Now I'm just beat I guess.

I'm just sitting here cuddled up with the kitties watching Heroes and LOVING not thinking. It's sorta awesome.

Mmmm yeah I don't really have anything to say. I wonder if kids who learn to type on computers still automatically double space between sentences or not. It's hard because you're not supposed to but it's just such a habit.

I'm getting cold so I'm gonna crawl on the couch and not do anymore writing or such. LOVE being brainless sometimes!

What Now?

A week from tonight is my first reading and I thought it was in two weeks. So a giant OMG there. :) I basically need to get my shit together tomorrow, figure out what I'm doing, force my friends to sit and listen to me and then somehow get the guts to do it next week. Wowsers. The good thing is that there's a cover so I should be able to earn my drinks at least LOL.

But yeah part of me is really like -- shit, what now? I guess I get together my show and I start trying to get my books into bookstores again. Focus on reviews -- so seriously friends I'm going to start nagging BIG TIME. :) MUAH!

I still feel somehow hungover. It's just an extended dehydration. Should clear by mid-tomorrow. I gotta really follow up on some job leads. It's starting to get PRETTY fucking ridiculous. And I spent a bunch of money this weekend I don't have. I just really hate feeling like such a mooching beggar. My friends are so gracious and lovely and generous and yeah, I don't feel right. Which is stupid because when I'm working I'm the first one to buy for others. I don't accept gifts or compliments well. But perhaps if people keep giving me both I can adjust? LOL

I'm lying in bed with my cats and the heat seems to finally be worked out. Gotta love New York City boilers. One apartment you're freezing the next you gotta throw open the windows (I prefer the latter except in cases where it gets over 100 like it did at 729.) But for now I'm good. My house is clean and my fridge is full and my cats love me and I've got fantastic friends and I met someone new this weekend who is quite intriguing and I was interviewed for a paper and.... yeah.

I'm blessed. I'm happy. But yeah, what now? My goals for this book were to break even (I should by the time I get back from upstate) and to get my name out there. Monetarily it'll work out so I just need to push for reviews and getting them into people's grubby little hands.)

But I can't lose track of my ultimate goal -- to create a name for myself as a writer. So the article I was writing I gotta finish and send out. I gotta get some more interviews. I gotta market myself. I gotta make myself more than I am! haha Because let's face it, I'm just a dorky fat girl who wants to write for a living and spend her days in isolation wandering around her NYC apartment in her robot panties listening to loud music and tripping over cats.

Life from the penthouse is schweeeeeet tonight. Albeit confusing and tired and hungover and chemically a bit boiled and stewed but it'll clear. The weather is cold, the moon is bright, and I spent the best fifteen minutes of my night standing under the stars kissing last night. :) Oops, not supposed to kiss and tell. Ok let's rewrite that and say "twenty minutes spent dry-humping a bike messenger at Second Chance." There. LOL Dude, those bike messengers wear so many silly tools on their belts that you couldn't dry hump them if you wanted to. You'd end up with a mini mag lite up your cooch.

Gah i guess I should sleep but I'm SOOOOOO awake and restless.

I think I'll spend tomorrow morning re-evaluating my goals and game plans and then some serious time editing my memoir. The plan for that is to get it to the point where I'm completely happy with it (note to self, make mother not sound like awful woman she is not) and resend query letters. If all else fails self-publish. But I REALLY don't want to do that unless no one else picks it up. So yeah.

If you haven't picked up my book yet, please do. If you want to read free samples, check out my website JaniceBrabaw.com You can also look inside the book and read it on Amazon! If you're interested in actually sitting down and writing me a review I'd LOVE to send you a free review copy. Just let me know.

Ok I guess I'm going to try to sleep. I spent all weekend feeling like I was on stage and (mostly in my own mind) and now I wanna retreat into myself. I don't know how I feel about myself right now. Not sure about a lot of things. I kinda want a few days to not think about anything. To just be calm and not driven and driving myself crazy with to do lists and worries and shit. Maybe a nice dinner tomorrow night with friends where we do everything but talk about me and my life?

Someone's stuck a spoon in my stew and stirred me all the fuck about. Many spoons, much stirring. Fucking beaters. IN my brain. haha.

Any question of my insanity? lol

Amendment

The other day I was irritated because of a bunch of my friends hadn't bought my book yet. One person in particular didn't seem to grasp why it was an issue. This person thought that I was mad because my friends weren't giving me "twelve dollars." No, that's not it at all.

You see, on Amazon the more books you sell the more Amazon requests of you to sell. The more books they order, your number drops (from like 1,000,000th best selling book to like 999,999. As that happens and as you get reviews (which I keep begging for pathetically and desperately haha), the more Amazon recommends your book to OTHER customers. So essentially it's on the backs of people I know and love that I begin to build a fanbase and a foundation of readers. So its' less about the "twelve dollars" and more about helping me get the numbers I need to get recommended to NEW readers who don't know me.

Just wanted to clear that up.

A Very Unproductive and Uneventful Day

Not a whole lot going on today. I was all hung over from having drinks with Meghan last night. And what a night it was. Let's see. There was the Croatian soldier talking about how he thinks his grandfather was some sort of werewolf. A pothead bike messenger sharing a theory on how "these people" believe that people on earth are the crazy rejects from other alien's planets. Then the creme de la creme -- a drunken/stoned/insane middle aged man on crutches standing on the corner of Manhattan and Grand beating a drainage pipe on a bodega with his crutch screaming. It was like 3 am and this guy was relentless. Some poor guys were yelling down to him to stop it and the bodega owner and the sandwich guy were all like "hey, move along!" Meghan piped up and told him to cut it out and he started banging on a mailbox screaming "well then let's go then! C'mon.... C'mon!!!" It was bizarre.

Anyway, for all of you who were on the fence about my book release party Saturday night, I'd really appreciate if you could make an extra effort to come out because I have a reporter from a newspaper coming and I'm having nightmares of him coming and it's just me with a pile of books sorta shrugging like "I don't know where everyone went!"

So yeah do that if you could. And books will be 30% off. And I'll show my tits or something. Gotta become a famous (or infamous) writer somehow.

Is it Me?

I'm a freelancer. I've been a freelancer for years. It has its ups and downs. I'm used to unemployment. But this is starting to really freaking scare me.

I have now been out of work four out of the past 5 months. What the HELL.

I read Mandy everyday. I call my union everyday. I get a listing once a week of all the tv and movies going on in NY. I apply to them all. I read Emily Rice like it's the bible. (If you're not production accountants, just know this is where we get gigs.)

I wrote all of my former employers and tried to casually and in a friendly manner beg for jobs without sounding pathetic. It's a hard line to straddle, trust me. That was months ago. Do I do it again? Am I just going to sound even more pathetic and desperate?

And like I've said before, I'm a very paranoid person. A former key, whom I won't mention by name, started me into accounting. Now she doesn't respond to my emails. At all. Even though I worked with her the longest I'm afraid to give her name as a reference. I cannot think for the LIFE of me what she could possibly be pissed at me about. We parted on fantastic terms and she helped me get jobs after. Then she just... stopped.

So now I'm like.... in part of my head.... like is there some sort of talking in the business I don't know about? Are people saying I suck? Do I suck? Am I wasting my time? I know I'm not perfect but I work REALLY hard.

And I keep telling myself it can't be me. I've had interviews. I interviewed for Rachel Ray last week (didn't get it), I interviewed for an HBO show (didn't get it.) I did well in both interviews... I am at a loss. A complete loss. But then again one of my keys has been having trouble finding work too. As far as I know she's been up for two shows and didn't get it. Maybe work IS slow and competition is stiff? I dunno. I call my union and the lady I talk to always sounds confused that I'm not working. Makes me feel really stupid. They're fucking worthless.

So.... I mean.. is it me? Am I so horrible at my job and I don't know it? I mean it doesn't SEEM possible. My last two keys liked me and gave me great recommendations. One has called me twice about work since and nothing came through. But how come I keep hearing about my new PA and coordinator friends landing new gigs all the time.

I think -- and I know this sounds corny, but it's the romantic/Taoist/fate-ist in me -- that I'm not working right now because if I were working there is just no way I'd get all that I've gotten done done. But FUCK man. I keep hearing constantly how the economy is just going to keep getting worse and today I hung out with not one but THREE friends who are un or under employed. That's not even counting the -- count' em -- three others I usually hang out with. It's getting downright depressing. Frankly, I'm scared.

I'm mad because I pay dues to a worthless union and I'm mad that I've worked so hard in this stupid industry for so long and still it really likes to kick me in my teeth sometimes. And just when I think it's not what I'm supposed to be doing a job comes along. But GOD. The economy is tanking and my credit cards are maxed out and I'm having success in everyway but monetarily. This is not the time to be unemployed.

What the FUCK are we gonna do? Remember last year my unemployment ran outand I had to go a month with no income at ALL? I barely made my rent -- and it was HALF as much as my rent now. Morale is low. We are scared. I guess there's nothing I can do but keep working as hard as I have been and say well, fuck 'em.

Hell I'd settle for an office PA gig or accounting clerk job at this point. Too bad I can't seem to find any listings anywhere.

Worn the Fuck Out haha

Well today my friend Eric and I papered another third of Williamsburg. Tomorrow or the day after I need to do 15 places I somehow missed. I'm worn out! But today was fun and I finalized my itinerary for upstate, sent off the flyers up for my niece to paper the county with, and am THISCLOSE to setting up a regular open mic night at the cafe next to my house. This is SOOOOO exciting and great.

I also got gigs at Otto's and Perch.

I'm worn out and going to eat some dinner and go to bed.

Exciting Updates

Sooooooooo

I'm happy to say that Amazon just emailed me and told my books have just about sold out again so I need to send them another shipment. Fucking awesome. I also am currently being reviewed by a couple of magazines in the city and I'm in talks with a indie market distributor. Things are good.

Man, the whole economy and my friends and me being out of work and things really have been getting to me lately. Makes everything seem worse than it is! I was pretty down this weekend but feeling so much more positive and radiant today. Lawrence and I papered Williamsburg with photos (well half, the other half tomorrow.)

Tired! I'm going to send some more emails and go edit. Thank you all for your continued support! It's very humbling and sweet. I promise to get through my inboxes in the next day or so!

Jbrabs

The Tree Outside My Window

The leaves on the tree outside my window are starting to turn this really beautiful red color. Whenever I sit at my desk in my office (which is so rare, I'm lame) I always think how gorgeous that tree is. Makes me feel less like I like in some sort of concrete mad-land. I realize I'm home sick. I'm excited to be going home next month.

My moods have calmed. The tide is out and I'm walking along the shore of my mind kicking at broken glass and stabbing the dead jelly fish with shells. This is how it feels after a storm, after the chemicals whirl and tear and roar. I tiptoe along the sand trying not to cut my feet or get stung. Into a plastic bag all of the trash goes. Then into the trash. I stare out at sea and hope that the boats further out, past my eye, past the horizon, have fared well. Sometimes I worry that they don't get the advance notice from the weather bureau out there but then I try to remember that it sometimes in the midst of the storm, in the slap of the sudden grey waters, is when you're the most aware. Just perhaps not the most prepared with the lack of dry land, steadier footing, inland breezes free of salt and rage.

"It's Complicated"

I've been getting a lot of questions about my supposedly mysterious dating status. I guess most people use "it's complicated" when they're between other statuses. In the murky area. I'm using it because well, I'm not really on the market and whenever you say you're single .... I dunno. Like it says, it's complicated.

If the right guy comes along, I'll be so excited. But until then I'm just trying to focus on my own life and getting my head on straight. I spent so much of my life basing my worth by whether or not I had a man in my life. If I was rejected romantically it meant I was a bad person and well then the whole bad thing would start over again. So I'm just not LOOKING. But if someone wonderful came into my life I'd be open to dating him.

That being said, I am bad at rejection. I am learning to deal with it. And I'm super vulnerable right now. I went out with this guy a month ago I actually liked then he just sorta... disappeared. And it hurt. It shouldn't have but it did. I also am still a bit wounded from my break up in February. I was very in love with him and it takes a while to get over having someone you care abotu that much hurt you. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to open up again and allow myself to love and trust as much. I get scared because I know I"ll need coaxing. What if no one is ever patient enough? What if no one ever thinks I'm worth that?

That being said, I made a deal to be celibate for a year. Doesn't mean I can't meet someone and date and have sex with them. Just that I refuse to let myself be "boy crazy." I am going to take things slow and build a foundation.

Ugh. So "complicated", yes?

I should add

that I missed my Celexa last night, that I had four drinks last night, and that I have PMS.

Which means I can't stop my wildly swinging emotions and my desire to eat EVERYTHING. Which adds to more blues.

I also feel like a giant failure in my life. But oh well. We can't all be insanely successful, amazingly beautiful and together, or blessed in love. Some of us are just insane, amazing, and blessed. Just not perhaps in the ways that we'd like.

Nothing you can do. Keep trying, blitzkrieg the hell out of the world, then sit back and stoke the fire. And if the fire doesn't rage, that's just the way it goes.

So I'm stoking right now.

Frustrating.

I've had so many amazing emails and good wishes from people so excited about my book. And I can't tell you how much I really, really appreciate them all. And I don't wanna sound like a jerk, but why aren't any of these people buying my book? haha

I get that it's poetry. Not everyone likes poetry. I get that it's niche-y. Not every like this niche. Not everyone likes profanity and depressing subjects (I never anticipated sales to the older community or super conservative.) I get that it's even a tough time economically. Totally get it. I get it because - ha! - I've been unemployed for two months. A total of FIVE months this year already. I get it more than a lot of people.

But if people are going to take the time to write me and say - hey that's amazing! It's a dream come true for you! Then why don't they take the time and twelve bucks and help me to continue to pursue a career in writing without you know, starving? lol

It's so amazingly frustrating. I mean on one hand, I don't want to pressure my friends and people I know. On the other, it's not that much money. (And when i think of the books I've bought by other friends, their cds, their cover charges to see their shows.....) Yeah I woke up on the bitter and bitchy side of the bed.

I was thinking --- that other than one of my friends I talk to online -- NONE of my buddy list has bought my book yet. And I'm thinking that most are waiting til an event (to save on shipping) but ugh.... I'm getting really nervous here. The sale of my books to my friends and family and colleagues was supposed to do help me pay rent this month. I thought that it'd be a no -brainer. And now I'm looking toward November and thinking shit, I might need to get another credit card just to eat.

Not to say that it's my friends and family responsibility to feed me or to blind buy things just because but.... I dunno. just a whole lotta talk and not a whole lotta walk. Not a whole of actual support yet. And I'm hurt.

I'm working SO hard to get myself established. That was the purpose of this book. To get my name out there. To sell some books, to get my name out, to get my WORDS in people's HANDS.

And so far... my god.

Next week is my book release party. I guess we'll see then. I hate myself. I don't want to be this bitter and frustrated. I know it's a marathon not a sprint.... but I just can't believe the people that haven't supported me yet.

And of course, I do know, that this is the BPD speaking. So sensitive to rejection. So black and white about feelings toward people. But this morning I just can't help it. So I'm writing it all out here, spitting it out into the world like phlegm, to get rid of the pain and frustration and doubt and frustration.

Pa-tooie!