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?