970

When we were young my sisters and I raced across the Colorado meadows chasing dreams and blowing dandelions. The sun shone brightly as we followed muddy streams up the hills until they trailed off underneath a forest web of leaves. We played house amidst rusted tin cans and grey boulders wedged under trees while my mother kneeled in the mud and planted columbines in the shadow of our cabin. We disappeared for hours, running up the dusty unpaved road with the corgies at our heels until we could not breath.
Sheep mountain carved a sharp, sloping silouhette against the sky. Patches of snow danced across its peaks like freckles. A dense forest stretched across the lower half of the mountain, connecting the earth to the grey purple mountaintop. Evergreens breached timberline in thinning triangles. An august thunderstorm opened up and my sneakers squished with every step. Rocks glistened in the rain. Sparse grass decorated the steep terrain. My purple poncho flapped like wings in the wind as I breathed deeply and slowly ascended the last switchback. I don’t remember exactly when a sparkling lake revealed itself silently as I climbed. Opposite the lake sat a view of the entire valley. From a perch of 12,000 feet I drank in sweeping granite hills stained with rust colored iron deposits, hidden forests so dark and black and the soft green meadows that lay below. Trout Lake lapped against the highway, reduced to a giant puddle from afar. Cabins dotted its banks like tiny fleas. The dusty dirt access road wound a satin ribbon along the foot of aspen covered hills.

what is new york?

la is like quicksand & I'm a falling star. everything is quicksand. everthing is la. what's not la? sushi & fireflies & rooftops & bridges & grey water & fire escapes & leather punk jackets & sake & sock man & wigs & jujitsu & 2 boots pizza & the random middle aged jazz bands @ cake shop & scrawled graffiti in dirty bathrooms & rosemary clooney & projectors & comic book sketches of the skyline & pom mojitos in a lotus filled restaurant in bk & patios blurred by tiny candles & too many redbull cocktails & dancing in the basement of an aparment bldg on 134th & bars lined with taxidermied prarie dogs & as many men in suits as jeans & city boys who rollerblade past the avenues with goldfrapp blaring in their headphones & the soft melt of a city girl's snarling subway-ride exterior as strobe lights wash over her bare shoulders

giving up

Nothing makes up for it: not the beats, not the crowd, not the clothes on the girls. Not the twinkling lights, not the fountain, not free champagne under the stars. Not the excess, not even the pain. The mystique of the old converted cottages has vanished. Instead a sleazy fog envelopes the bustling patio. effervescent energy melts into gold and black and tan and green, a smoggy twilight the color of money. Invisible busboys replace broken bottles instantly. tough black leather banquettes remain unmarred despite the stilettos that crush down on them nightly.

I try to calm down and take it all in. the green lights of the sign outside Miceli's, the bored salesclerk at house of pain (where I got my 2nd tattoo). The lights outside Mood nearly blind us. The other times I danced at Mood I found LA magic: free drinks, sketchy photographers, guys that we recognized busting sick moves on the dance floor. I linger by the bar, move in slow motion. TImbaland mixed with Mickey Avalon crowds into my ears and the beats push me into my friends. I don't lose myself here anymore. I remember a bowling alley and extract myself from the mass of bodies just before midnight. A whoosh of cool air propels me out the heavy double doors of the club. My vinyl platform heels glide over the dirty sidewalk stars to my car as I type out the address of my next destination into the web browser of my phone.


i find the real LA by leaving, as usual. I like to drive up the coastal highway, get lost in a canyon, trace the sillouhette of the mountain until it burns into my brain. I feel alive on PCH, on the beach. I soak up the glitter of the sun and watch it dance across the water. i feel the heat of dry brush and sand and asphalt melt into my skin. tonight I skim across the freeways in my tiny beat up Toyota. City stretches for miles. I parallel park in front of a discount grocery store in Highland Park and tiptoe across the faded carpet of a former bowling alley. Slow molasases pours through my veins and I float up to heaven on a lazy guitar riff. It feels like salvation under silver spray painted stars in the almost empty bar. I try not to lie.

LA swallows you up and spits you out raw. It's either magical or fake or somewhere in between. The magic happens nightly when I believe the fake to be most real. I sail up the highway, coast on the left, canyons on the right, to find serenity I hate getting overwhelmed in the rush to be the next somebody somwhere. Somone else can have that. I’ll take the quiet.

LA is a city of broken dreams that live on in a graveyard of graffittied alleys and freeways and late night bathrooms. It's where dreams go to die. She lies naked on a bed, wrapped in a white fluffy comforter, mind racing. rock music pumping. I grasp tightly to shards of dreams.

Of course I get caught up in the magic of a show. in the light of the diner, in the stars’ faint glow. Of course, when we’re apart, it fades.

fairyland

I don’t even want to think about where I am. it's too much. I got on a plane and tried not to pay attention. I read a book, checked my email. Listened to the same songs. Can't ever remember where I am. Don’t need to know. It's all the same. It was like time had stopped. Had any time passed at all? I didn’t realize I wanted to go back there so badly. I miss it. I miss life, the familiar haze of glossy memory masks the piercing pain. nothing is as good as the memory I keep.

She ran scared through the streets of downtown LA. We tripped around the cavernous bar in patent leather high heels. I wished so hard that time had stopped. That block brought back memories that I’d rather forget. Reading in the park, Walking to lunch, to the subway, to sav-on. Why did it have to be there? i want to go back before too much champagne and hedonism, before decadance and sleaze and rock and roll, before I pretended all that that meant I was worth something. he was standing right next to me. I was in shock, over it before it ever started. Fuck pretending. The past is not worth revisiting.

Nothing is constant. Grow up grow down grow around. sit in traffic till nothing happens. Wasted life or found time? Gotta live closer to the beach (she says). You’re the same and so am i. We haven't changed in seven years. You never left.

You were everything I ever talked about. I still don’t want to understand how I live for you. I want to go back to when it was perfect. Was it ever perfect? If perfect isn't allowed then what does not perfect feel like? I pretend you listen to me but when I only know myself, I cannot know you. Maybe we thought the same thing. Maybe not. A Lover’s temptress goes down best when served cold, over ice, underground. But theres no underground in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is the future and underground is ancient. The future is trash, it is up and out and everywhere. It can’t exist without the past. Can I exist without you?

Fires burn down so you rebuild. Each wave washes our sins away. Renewal depends on destruction, light depends on darkness, but how close can you get? Always a new place to go…never the same.

summerland

There's grafitti on your cell phone and glitter on your nose. I sometimes think that's all I need. My mind won't tell the truth & my body leads me on until these little cues pile up. We rode the train and piled our stuff high on the seat. Watched the suburbs fly by. You said I'd know it if you cried. I leaned against you and watched the world around us and wondered if we'd still exist after coming this far, this fast. We watched the traffic from a meadow. You pointed out the poison ivy. Guilt nags at my elbow, tainting any happiness with the thought that its not real and that it’s not ok to feel. I was afraid to look into your eyes. I didn’t want to see myself reflected back. Luckily the darkness hid them as we sat beside the pool. The stars covered our bare shoulders in sparkles when we walked across the lawn. Your body distracted me when we laid across the bed. Right before I left you pulled me into your parents' shower and under a stream of steaming water I finally peered into your eyes. I saw shimmery crystal amber gold lit by the early afternoon sunlight. I didn't see me or you. Just golden depths anchored by a dripping nose.

be careful what you wish for

without you by my side the city breathes slow life into my lungs. taxis drive, i ride the train, routine finds me and when i least expect it i realize i'm fine. in your eyes we dance to silent songs, lifted by the wind. planets crawl along their paths. from a distance it all makes sense. i'm just so low except when you're around. i never thought i'd see you in this town. a quick burst of lightning brought me up and now i'm down where the streets are shitty there's trash on the ground and I'm all dressed up to dance until i can't be found above the crowd, on stage, a wooden puppet without a frown or a smile to make her real because a puppet doesn't feel. i can't erase the beauty of your eyes with shining planets hidden, solar systems where we'd feel so cool floating down the avenues, no gravity just you and me, making our parade of dreams last into the night,..

it's never over

you apologized for skipping out of town and now i'm down to my last cigarette again. i think i got blinded by the fire i found inside your eyes. call me later call me never just don't say forever unless you can stay forever. please. i'm still so empty, hollow. can't feel it unless i'm consumed by you. i don't know what i'm doing. haunted by a ghost. i can't shake the dream. i want to run free but from what? the chains? i'm still so disappointed. 3-d shapes push my mind, searing memories, brilliant, alive. summer girl in city mode. crackling heat leads me astray, mirages disappear into smoke when i draw near. illusion of contentment melts into a dripping mess. i tuck my hair into a blue beret, keep walking in the rain. untouched by madness on the outside. blisters on my heels water drips down my back. i burn bridges on a rooftop one shiny cigarette at a time

in my city it's you and me. in this city. whichever city i call mine. you and me and the memory of another summer spent walking under the same moon. what am i to you anyway? a fucking toy? a substitute for some boy? it's my life too. i don't want to spend it denying the obvious one shot of whiskey at a time. fiery burn numbs my soul, quiets the anger underneath until i wake up, confused, not really angry at you. i just want to feel alive and know it's not a lie. i don't need booze to love myself, i just need you, without the empty promises. i just need to know i can trust, that it's not just misplaced lust, that we share but something more, that when you walk out that door you'lll come back sober and alive.

can it just be you and me and ella playing softly and candles and white wine and we can talk all the time? whatever you are to me grows harder to forget each night i let another take me to that place i see your face, your wispy curls and soft green eyes. don't act surprised, you know it's true. i haven't had my fill of your candy lips, haven't memorized the taste of your porcelain skin. you don't have to spend the night. i don't know if i won't say the wrong thing when there's no air to breathe.

maybe we were drunk but i guess that's ok as long as you'll still be there for at least another day.
she dances by the window then turns out the light. i kiss her bare shoulder, watch her fade into the night.

are you SURE he called a locksmith?

fell asleep running scared. cold crisp linen turned sweaty with our bodies wrapped up in the sheets. the sun came up before I could pass out. outside the city rose for work while my back pressed against his chest. while he laced up his shoes, he asked too many questions. who was the last person you kissed? who treated you well? and I spoke quickly. the bar had pink neon lights and rattlesnake-skin covered stools. we settled on a couch. something caught my eye and when I turned back he kissed me, quickly. I'm so restless now. I smoke more cigarettes but nothing cures this restlessness......

brentwood's finest

James drove a wide, faded copper Cadillac with a shiny mud flap girl silhouette planted firmly across the grill. The vanity plate read MR SLIM. A hint of gray appeared on his jaw when he didn’t shave, tracing a pepper-flecked line to the diamond and gold dollar sign stud poking through one ear. A navy baseball cap hid his sepia-toned scalp. As head of security for Brentwood Gardens Shopping Center he arrived on site by 7 a.m. every day. He unlocked the gates to the outdoor mall nestled against the mansions and dry brush that trailed up into the Santa Monica Mountains. If no other maintenance task required his key James rode the escalator up a flight to the Daily Grill to grab a paper and a small coffee. He then positioned himself on a bench in the bougainvillea-lined center of the mall, his head obscured by section A of the Los Angeles Times and one of his long legs folded perpendicular to the knee of the other to reveal a grey athletic sock. He glanced up from the Times when I rushed by each weekday at 9:57 a.m. balancing my store key with my coffee tumbler, water bottle, and bags of customer requests from my company’s Marina store. He always threw me a wide grin and an enthusiastic, if inexplicable, “Hey Roxy Baby!”

When I interviewed at the perfume and gift shop, on the ground level of the Brentwood Gardens center, I did not pay much attention to the other tenants. The mall looked the same as when it had when I had run up the escalators in leggings and leotards at 13, out of breath and late for ballet class. I noticed no changes from the days when I ditched eighth period to linger over Chinese chicken salad at California Pizza Kitchen and smoke cigarettes on the benches in front of Ron Herman, trying to impress the cool older salesgirl whose dad owned the eponymous boutique. As a high school senior, I arranged to meet E, Internet boyfriend #2, in person for the first time at that same second-floor C.P.K. on a quiet fall Monday for a round of wine and spinach appetizers. At 22 I took the job that included blending custom perfumes and making gift baskets.

There I met James, who stood at least six foot six and was skinnier than Snoop Dogg. His waist seemed to start at my chest, its slenderness accentuated by a narrow black belt supporting a jangling fistful of keys. He had a blonde young wife from Australia who designed jewelry and dreamed of recording an album. I rarely caught a glimpse of her except when she came to visit James and browse the annual half price sale on Louboutins and Jimmy Choos at Madison. The couple walked arm in arm as they toured the mall’s tiny circular promenade; they always stopped by my jewelry counter to try on vintage enamel heart jewelry. After clasping the chain she swiveled around to ask “Slim” if he liked it. He always did.

James read the Times through the Sports section every morning and then stood around in the sun with his hands in his pockets, surveying foot traffic and chatting with the dark-haired Prudential real estate boss from the third floor. Occasionally James retreated to the TV-equipped second-floor office to escape the sun, where he put up his feet and continually checked the pager management gave him.

The mornings crawled by in the mall. I longed to see a grandmother in True Religion Jeans and a Da Nang tank, desperate for Bat Mitzvah gifts, or a new mom in need of an expensive-looking, unscented hostess gift for her husband’s boss & wife—a gift that won’t clash with the recipient’s unknown home décor. After an hour passed with no customers I even yearned for a New Age Pilates addict with a designer perfume she wanted me to clone, or at least a return to process. Instead tourists in twos and threes wandered through the door in need of directions and confused, non-Brentwood residents stopped in to inquire about parking validation or the French shop that closed in ’01.

In the stretches of time between customers I stared blankly out the window, lost in thought while dusting window displays or filling 1oz sample bottles with China Rain lotion. James’ lanky figure caught my eye midmorning as he rode the escalator down to check in with the valet. On his way back up he dropped by for the free M&Ms we kept in a glass bowl next to the register.

James had worked at the mall for over 25 years. He checked the subterranean parking garage for cracks in the predawn hours as aftershocks reverberated from the 1992 Northridge earthquake and he descended from his early-afternoon second-floor vantage point to stand outside my store every time we had more than three or four browsers.

Most security issues at the mall involved the occasional homeless man looking for a quiet corner to smoke crack. Occasionally a graver threat emerged. James told me that next door, Ice Accessories had been held up in an armed robbery and that if anyone ever messed with his girls, he’d give it to them. Six months later another armed robbery occurred at Ron Herman and the owners invested in a private security guard. I thought James would be insulted but he approved, given the pricey clothes and casual, open atmosphere of the shop. Not long after that incident I noticed that the metal chains on the $400 Morphine Generation tank tops at Theodore were for security purposes.

I breathed relief at the hordes of skinny blonde carpool moms in Hard Tail yoga pants that poured in between 12 and 2, demanding 2 soy candles in every scent possible and 8 reed diffusers, all gift-wrapped and labeled. During these hours James could also be called on to give Sammy a hand when her caretaker couldn’t get the wheelchair and the stuffed shopping bags in the elevator. One day a bleach-blonde, puffy-lipped divorcee wearing fur came by with her six kids to pick up a gift basket that her father had pre-ordered, James whispered across the register that the woman always tried to spend on her father’s credit card, even at age 40, causing other shops much chagrin about reversed credit card transactions. We weren’t to charge a thing that was not pre-authorized, he told my coworker and me, no matter how much she whined. After letting her three-year-old twins run wild while she tried on necklaces, the customer implored me to add on a $56 Rigaud votive and a $172 tourmaline necklace, I shot James a questioning look and he picked up her bags, jokingly offering to give her a hand to the car until she herded her kids out the door.

“What’s up, Roxy Baby?” James asked me as we sat shoulder to shoulder outside smoking on the bench in the first lull of the late afternoon one day.
“Not much.” I responded. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Looking at cars,” he answered. Three days later the in-house car wash service scrubbed and vacuumed his old Cadillac for the last time. The next day a shiny black ’05 Cadillac sedan took its place in the stacked parking spot closest to the south elevator.

plotting another escape

fuck you, walking back into my life brandishing a kitchen knife. cool blade as soft as your touch and i like it too much to say a thing. i just keep my eyes open wide, trying to look in yours while i navigate this city of sleazy bars and angry cars. don't say we never went that far. we teetered on the edge of everything insane, of everything sincere. and now you're here. there's a taxi waiting in the distance. i'm going to get in, leave you all behind. no more broken skin or misty walks by morningside. what we had is gone. i need to take this cab and sail away into the city night, quickly, without a fight. you've made it clear that what we had stopped before it ever started, so take me to JFK because i want to get away. go anywhere. the desert, where it's too warm to feel the ice that's formed around my heart, and if we're still apart in spirit i'll know it's not because of me. it's not the end. i'm starting over every day and i'm about to make my way through this maze of one way streets and sunsets on the beach, rooftops and goddess eyes, more than one lonely sunrise. i can make a life out of all the old. find a new clean path to illuminate my dreams and sort out all this madness because nothing's what it seems. when my world is upside down i need to slowly put it back one piece at a time into a brand new unfamiliar peace of mind.

flipped

i almost forgave you for everything you're not on the 101 last night. blood glowed in the light. a backward glance revealed a smiling face. i don't let myself dream anymore. fragile glass dreams that shatter when you slam the door. the pieces won't go back together after breaking all those times and i didn't mean to punch a hole through the wall when i thew that bottle. i was just sad. too many broken dreams turned into all i ever had.

(good friends stay on your side, always ready to listen, like the ocean. i've got good friends flung far across the continent, bad friends right here sucking me dry. so quick to toast our friendship, so quick to say goodbye.)

pristine darkness, consume me. take my bodily offering to the gods. remove this searing pressure. make it fade away as the ocean gently laps on the sand. dirty hair, dirty skin. less of a sin when you're both out for nothing.

the russian

tiny cheekbones, shiny eyes. a wrinkled navy boy scout shirt. you told me stories of working the coal mines in ukraine as your smile bored a hole into my head. you were late so i smoked a cigarette outside lulu's. once inside you scored free apple martinis, touched my knee under the table, told me about your band. the bar emptied quickly, no time to hear your jukebox selections. with a flick of your wrist you dumped half a shot of jaeger into each red bull. we raised the silver cans and you gently grabbed my skin, put your lips on mine, then swallowed down your drink. i looked you over carefully - tufts of dark hair, vintage blazer. lost in the spanish streets of hollywood we didn't have much to say. you found me hiding against a mirrored wall. it gave me away but i protected myself the second time around. i can't believe i almost let you in. i blame the comedown, the almost-high, the crackling heat drifting off melrose and fairfax at 4 a.m.

behind the music

it was one of those blurry nights between christmas and new years, in an apartment complex on cherokee. his walls were painted red, no furniture, just a desk and a guitar. he poured whiskey into brightly colored glasses. we sat on the hardwood floor. he tore my dress by accident. like a college girl i pretended not to notice. we almost did this one year ealier in a jacuzzi with my best friend at his manager's house. what is it with these LA DJs and their managers? get fucked like rockstars under moonlight in the hills. on the roof. details please. well, i let him write his name. dyed my hair so i wasn't his type. said hi and not much else at moscow. i went back to school, back east, hit up new york city, killed some time. he showed up in italian vogue as paris hilton's backing band. the next time i saw him he already had a new gig.

comorbidity

suicide fantasy, roach motel. how you gonna get to heaven if you always look like hell? cyanide ice cream, cotton candy nose. whisper quickly before i have to go.

you took me to your cardboard house, mattress on the floor, yesterday's pizza still in the box, half eaten. the sun shone past the tiny kitchen, almost reached your pillow. i sunk too quickly into that beat-up mattress. you automatically reached for a cigarette. we fucked quickly, like you could sense my repulsion through my opaque facade. i thought i hid it well.

a dragon clawed its way across her tiny shoulder, breathing fire for the both of them. i don't know why i took so many pills, do you? i didn't think i would get so sick. their shiny coat deceived me. pangs of guilt shot through my body as i huddled over the toilet. you knew better and i learned and you didn't care when i caught you making love in the living room. mine makes better music i half-sneered, afraid the truth would sink in a little deeper. you saw through my lies but never stopped casting suspicious looks my way. i pressed my back against that cold bedroom door and smoked away my soul.

i think i got played. i looked into your eyes a second too long and went blind again. another lover who's not a friend. maybe i don't want my heart to mend. i'll never outrun the pesticide spray but without you by my side i just might be okay.

need help sleeping?

the night we met again you sat on a blood-stained patio spitting fiery half sentence sobs until you couldn't breathe. the marina moon lit the gleaming sea. the next day jellyfish filled the murky water, swimming suspended next to old soda cups and submerged plastic bags. you ran free to the sunlight and stuck your dirty toes in the sand, let the white light bleach away your scars. i wandered up and down the alphabetically-named streets with names like driftwood and spinnaker and topsail. i found you curled up on a wrinkled towel, blond hair splayed in all directions. i dropped my keys, touched your motionless shoulder, waited for you to wake up.

refracted light

and the noise and the boys and the hands and the lives that we live when we lie and can’t pass the time alone. you’re made of sparkly star dust, your wings keep time as they beat against mine. you’re a laugh and a smile that I don’t get to see. you hide from everyone, lately, even me. I could try again but i choose to come here instead where the fairies wear boots, stomp around in the night. They don’t have that holy california light. My city makes me sad, its all I ever had. The concrete breaks the silence. Where’s your voice when I need it most? Dulled into the speakers of my phone. Another goodbye, another plane trip. I’m trying to keep my grip on reality, trying to plant my foot, choose the path today. Open bar feeds sick little chicks. Sandy, young things, suck your dick. Don’t be afraid, we’ve all been there except now I’ve started to really care for you, for me, for anything that could be.

not losing myself in anyone: just the gentle curve of the n train as it lumbers into the sleeping city. above ground, so that i see the glint of the subway's silver roof in the 4 am moonlight; in the empty hollow voice of a nameless singer who recalls lonely streets and decrepit city dives; a bottle filled with coke and jack, downed quickly while looking for a taxi in astoria; the brilliant pain of a strobe light and high heels, when nothing matters but the movements of my body across from a boy.

evolve evolve with the past, with the present. move forward into the future while screaming out into the abyss below. hold tightly to the ghost if you must. I will not sink back into the cushy past of whispered kisses and dreams we shared. a robotic army marches over the hill at dawn stomping feet keep time with the second hand of the tower clock. under their wing of presupposed confidence they've got me with dreams marred by the realization that even those who want to know me best still don't get inside. a whispered kiss, a shaking hand, the heavy fragrance of thai jasmine just after sunset--I just want to wake up in the same place for months at a time. with my toothbrush and my clock. I just want to hear the radio boys and know where I am, aware of my location without looking out the window, without searching for a mental template to match the view outside.

I told her I felt like I just woke up as the elevator pulled us through the late afternoon heat. she said you need prozac. I kind of agreed even though we just met.

48 hours in LA

I threw myself into the city with extra force knowing it would be our last time out like this for awhile. the industrial boiler room sucked us in and spun us around until we couldn't tell which way was up. I called TF knowing I had already moved on in my heart, making plans. we parked the car on a gritty street corner and slipped downstairs dressed like dandies and spice girls with hippie curls and fedoras.

the next day i visited rehab. the newbies crowed with tales of needles and liquor store bathrooms, shooting up on pch. we lost ourselves in chakra balancing.

our last night we took shots of tequila and downed bellinis in our hotel lobby bar. for years of los angeles and hopefully many more to come. friends trickled down from the roof to say goodbye to Claudia. A said los angeles was already crumbling without her. we drove down to alameda and ducked into his loft. I slipped out of my patent leather heels and buried my toes in the fuzzy white rug. at 3 we took off for another club, stopping for gas along the way. Like we would do it again next week except we wouldn’t.

the parking attendant hobbled across the asphalt with the help of a cane to give me sixteen dollars change and we ducked into an alley, climbed under a torn canvas curtain to find a dingy loft space with a full bar and a makeshift seating area decorated by lawn chairs. drinks were free. Marie thought she was gonna puke but ended up making out on a couch for two hours. Claudia snapped photos in the soft light and danced in a halo of glittery beats. I would miss her the most, but i was already used to that. she would miss this. her LA. when we finally left the alley it was light. holy shit Marie said. I sobered up quickly in the grey downtown dawn and we took the freeways back to hollywood and then the boulevard back to santa monica, passing smashed foilage and dirty wind until we hit the beach.

its a lot farther than you think from the palladium to the burgundy room

girl power give me flowers
throw them to the crowd
shred your guitar, don’t go too far
all we have is now

I fell asleep at the punk rock show
woke up on the dirty floor
waited by the backstage door
didn't know how to say no

fingers on my hip bones
he's screamin to a microphone
camera flash to feel alone
in the middle of the night

cheap weed and spanish streets
passed out on expensive sheets
crushing hearts beneath our heels
don't say u don't know how it feels

because once is never enough

I smoothed over my miniskirt, adjusted my tube top, buried my gum in a tissue, and stared straight ahead. when the elevator opened he loped out. I clicked the unlock button and he careened into the passenger seat of my tiny car, leaned in to give me a hug. I changed gears as joy division blared out of the radio.

we flipped around in a swift, calculated u and roared onto the 10, windows down, hot air mixing with the air conditioned car interior. we got off at fairfax and worked our way up towards the darkened hills. we passed little eithiopia and canters deli, nova, largo, and the whole foods where some fool backed into me once. we hung a right on santa monica and creeped through the traffic. the slick west hollywood streetlights made the night as bright as day. we passed the pleasure chest, the parlour club, and the shiny closed storefronts. we drove until the sidewalks turned dirty.

i slipped the car into a spot across from velvet & applied clear l'oreal lip gloss in the rearview. dry heat rose up from the boulevard. it permeated our pores, frizzed my once-blow dried hair. he took off across the street. my bony ankles threatened to topple as I chased after him. couples with dyed black hair and lip piercings, combat boots and striped tights and corsets stood around the entrance. a mohawked photographer snapped our photo. my eyes flashed ice beneath the blaze around us.

next time I won't stop before the hills. i'll follow the pizza and powder brushes, sneak past the canyon roads clogged with cop cars. i'll end up on a mountain balcony smoking cigarettes til the sun floats up over the 101 and traces its way west over mulholland. there will be no lingering midnight glances at trannie del taco, no fingers gripping yours as we tear across the pavement. your face wasn't bathed in moonlight. it was just the street that night.

wonderland abyss

we’re floating and falling
beauty queens and Barbie dolls with
bouncy curls and tiny pinkie toes
stuffed into fuck me heels.
I was born a girl a fairy princess
I still don’t know
you probably think I’m a ho
I don’t care I dare you to try anyway
and if I let you in does that mean you're right?
this night won’t last its been a hundred nights
and dancing princesses twirl away into the cloudy abyss below
the fantasy land of morbid dreams
and queens rule the streets with their sculpted calves
want everything you could ever have? it's here
it's los angeles
the most intense city I’ve found
long ago I grew up and then down again
couldn’t ever really escape these prison streets
I'm here, pounding on the car window
screaming let me in
you begin and then the sun rises
the night is over and I disappear
the fantasy became a dream and went
where all dreams go

what it's really like

check the sky:
cotton candy pink
fades to a bruised purple.
a helicopter casts a golden light
over the grey sea.
these days zip by at lightning speed,
moody clouds and post-sunset haze
mask the piercing impact.
I wake up empty.
I go to sleep and it's alluring and terrifyiing.
your eyes haunt me when I rise.
if i'm lucky the most sense I can make
of it all is to lose myself in the right place:
the milky grey clouds
at dusk.
the city becomes a carnival in the summers.
I run from
ride to ride, chasing the exhiliration
from being upside down and
inside out. I was scared.
I still am. It was supposed to be
the turning point.

I want to make this moment last
It disappears too fast
and then i'm on a plane
watching the sun set,
thinking of you in the pouring rain,
dancing in grass as soft as earth.
I lost my gaze in the canteloupe colored horizon.
Lost myself in a skyscraper
enveloped by clouds.
Lost my best friend when
I slept with her man.
I can die but it won’t be the same
without you.

I wake up in a daze with a vague
jumbled sense of the night before
did we have fun?
I don’t even remember at first – I
think so.
I shipped 10 boxes home and headed out to the country
my existence is about to switch.
my existence is about to switch and I
want to reflect on the good and the bad before I take the plunge.
6 hours on a plane is impossibly long yet I always need more time
to embrace the transition.
dream to dream without waking up in between
sunlight spilling through the window of my corner apartment
then it’s the beach, the sand
the beats and my man.
who knows where we are
could be anywhere, wish I was
anywhere.

I want to redefine myself
starting with this salty air,
the soft sand, the gentle
waves like a lullaby.
the carnival glitters in the distance
it's always there
but I want to get off
reorient myself along the coast
in time with the tides
set my watch by the sun
the gritty clean scent is so natural
I almost can’t smell it until I’m gone.

nobody likes an heiress on a shoestring budget

houses with turrets lined the alley. the wind blew his hair into a rock and roll stylist's dream. i like to think I could feel the tension, but really I just felt unsure, and the only certainty was the fleeting nature of the moment.

death by jewelry

the bracelet pinched at my skin, leaving red welts that seared into the white wrist-flesh below the antiqued metal. I refused to let go. like the old lady on the train who couldn’t remember where she was going, I would die wearing my dior knockoffs that only cost $10 in new york’s Chinatown. the bracelets used to hide red scars which had since faded. I refused to let go, like a small child or baby who doesn’t believe in object permanency. they weighed me down and made shopping bags more difficult to collect. they pinched and pulled and scraped and made my skin dry and eventually bloody, causing more damage than the wounds they were originally meant to hide.

I swear to god it really wasn’t that bad. more like bad and good intertwined until I couldn’t tell them apart anymore. my sisters and i danced and screamed and shrieked and put on plays and talent shows. I wrote poetry and dreamed of being a ballerina and president at the same time. my camera was the map to my heart. in second grade i quit poetry to be a rockstar and started a band so I could spend hours cutting and pasting my photos into posters advertising our concert, in theory to earn a girl scout badge. I knew I wasn’t the strongest singer, even at age 7, my strength lay in event planning and promition. I talked mom into color Xeroxing the flyers and dutifully sold handmade tickets for 5 cents apiece at our cookie table outside Vons.

a.m.

she woke up with a start. sunlight streamed through the corner window and kids played in the street below. it was already two o'clock, she realized and she turned over to savor the warm bedsheets another minute or two before facing the day and its responsibilities. the blue sky outside chirped and hummed with excitement and intangible promise, however, making sleep impossible, so she sat up and rubbed her eyes and reached for the cell phone. missed calls and email and IMs overwhelmed her undercaffinated brain so she threw it across the room and wandered barefoot down the hall to the kitchen . fuck mornings she muttered as she dumped water and four times too much ground Folgers into the machine. it gurgled and belched steam before filling the cracked pot with brewed coffee. the dirty grime on the prison style counter became a little less noticable as she sippped it slowly, black with sugar. the day might be survivable after all. the blue sky shone brightly but she wouldn’t leave without at least a shower and some makeup, which put her back two hours or so when she included her lazy morning newspaper ritual that she indugled in on her days off. FUCK FUCK FUCK the day was gone, eaten up by some useless party the night before. blue skies turned brown and then black.

i don't know

what good to own the kate spade ipod case if they stopped making ipods in that size? what good to live a life that looks good to others if what's inside doesn’t work?

evolution/getting over rave

claudia and i chased neon butterflies and danced to hip hop versions of beowolf to survive high school. i cropped photos for yearbook and dreaded running a mile a day to please the cheer coach. Claudia drew the most amazing Edies and didn't give a fuck about sports. by junior year we began to crave the attention of the city. some kids smoked weed, most drank, but Claudia and I threw ourselves into the inherent contradictions of los angeles. at sixteen we graduated from nights of pseudo-flirting with Dave from never-to-be-heard-of TLD outside the Whisky to three story costume balls where spikes and leashes were de rigeur. we twirled endlessly to garbage on the dancefloor while a dominatrix whipped overweight, middle aged men in leather g strings. senior year brought weekends backstage in san francisco with blonde new wave surfers who had traded local credibilty for several world tours and nightly backstage hordes of barely-legal punk goddesses. that year we rolled in late to science class hollow-eyed and hungover and tried to escape to the bathroom to blot out the shadowy traces of last night's eyeliner with MAC studio fix and pick flecks of glitter off each other's faded tshirts.

Claudia turned 18 four days after me. After the dinner party she gave for 20, we slipped away to test run our completely legal 18 year old IDs. Spring break brought us closer to the punk-blond suburban surfers-turned-rockstars that we adored when we hit up four of their shows in four days. I got the scoop for my website, but beyond that, no one ever said a thing except with eyes. School resumed as the last weeks of May faded into another scorching Valley summer

At graduation, our parents caressed the leather bound diplomas while we tossed off our white, billowy robes and reapplied waterproof black eyeliner. The next night, we carefully filled in our lips with black pigment and picked out each other's outfits. I wore combat boots, striped stockings, and a lace black mini with a faux PVC corset. Claudia, a PCV halter dress, pumps and black tights. piles of silver jewelry weighed down her tiny neck.

Traffic crawled from Santa Monica to West Hollywood. Eventually the silver statuette appeared on the corner of LA Brea. Inside the Ruby, strobe lights and filters hid the scruff marks on the aged furniture. DJ Amanda spun VNV Nation and Skinny Puppy. We bathed in the heat of the crowd and let our mascara bled down our cheekbones as we danced. We believed in the night’s power to redeem years of confusion. We hadn’t seen enough to know otherwise.

Vegas changed everything. I chased the party and it responded. if I can't write the music, I want to be it, be in it, dance it, live it before it exists. and I knew it would happen but I didn’t know it would feel this empty, like nothing ever really happened. none of us would ever forget it and not because the rockstar's wife was so sweet or so many girls were passed out on the couch. not because his email account was left open and I saw the tiny words on the screen. it wasn’t because i discussed feng shui all night with one of them and forgot the name of the other or because i was on that many drugs or particularly drunk, I was as in control as any of us ever are at 18. it was the turning point because I realized i would always be empty, and that rave died in the end of the story. i thought i wanted to be rave, or write her again, rewrite her for the masses who loved her. but rave died at the end of the story and that’s no ending for a girl like her, a real girl who used to be able to be without hurting others and who can't tell her friends from her enemies anymore.

Tonight I realized what they mean when they say you get sucked in.

blast from the past

every day a new beginning tainted with the transgressions of the night before
not four hours earlier we poured our hearts out but the plexiglass filter never really left the conversation.

There is always a rock star and there are always too many girls. She was on a billboard looming over santa monica and Beverly. She looked drugged. All the girls copied her look. Dresses and high heels and pouty lips. Big eyelashes to hide the sleepy eyes. Purses packed with pipes and pills.

I push myself out the door in the nick of time, faking the confidence to carry my look: summer dress, loose waves and smoky eyes. The night's excitement mounts with every curve in the coastal highway. Anticipation sweetened with smoke and the piercing ocean breeze wafts across the road.

Our high heels stride across a sidewalk strewn with sand. Tan legs and painted toenails and half smoked cigarettes lead us into the bar. The music is visceral and I almost start crying. Shrieks of joy compete with wailing guitar solos. I'm pounded and propelled forward into the song, compelled to move.

Flash forward three zip codes and my heart is breaking. I want to say asshole but I know it's just not meant to be. I want to remember enjoying him. I want to lay my cheek on his shoulder and close my eyes and breathe. Instead I pretend he thinks I'm beautiful. I pretend I just didn’t dress right.

Scrapey scrapey scrape the skin crumbles off. bones underneath poke through soft scratched skin. I tug at my jeans and they still don’t fit right, they fight my body's natural contour so I scrape a little more and eat a little less, fuck the guy I hate and imagine the guy i love fucking other girls instead of me, I pretend I can be more perfect and he’ll change his mind but really he won't. He doesn’t need me. I pretend I represent truth, it makes him uncomfortable. I'm the girl who never knows what she wants, instead invites everyone to crash my world and relive my favorite story.

Songs are everywhere, their words stick themselves to the people I think about. I can't keep my words straight when the radio comes on. the songs hypnotize me. I can't resist. like booze I'm drunk on the idea of living my own music video and I give into the emptiness of a fantasy even as it resurfaces hours later when I silently carve his name into my flesh.

and the aftermath: aka
today: 7/32/06

did he earn back his ringtone?

oh yeah

Complicated and homeless, front and center. Shallow at the airport. Peace below the girl, Paris Hilton veiled in pink. Lenny Kravitz wearing sunglasses. A guy who looks like a cross between kurt cobain and the 70s. Oh yeah, and Carmen and Dave. Right before the divorce. Paul McCartney, Riverside Church, a one-person Revolutionary War battle reenactment.

my new york

my new york is 3000 miles of distance from the west coast set of exes, who i secretly miss. it is exactly two strips of veggie bacon for dinner because I am believe i am failing art history and science. it is paying $40000 a year to feel bad about myself and going out every weekend to get that confidence back. it's meeting a lame dj and going home with him anyway because everyone knows djs get the best drugs. it's meeting a 2L in a moment of vulnerability and finding out he’s never heard of carlos casteneda and that he just wants a blow job while he spouts dreams of becoming a corporate law-whore. it's sneaking off to the lower east side on a Sunday night to avoid my ex and instead finding him locked out of his apartment. its hanging out with NY other best friend and trying to decide if her elusive roommate is gay, selling drugs or just weird.

my new york is heels on the sidewalk in the rain because it's fashion week and there are no taxis. it's going to the west end at midnight for free drinks with my roommate cuz I’ve just been dumped and randomly meeting a bunch of electricians who invite us in their limo to crobar where we drink free dom and dance on tables. it's learning to say no politely, learning how to dress for cold, actually checking the weather. giving up smoking and starting again during spring finals. getting up every day at 3 am to host a radio show that six people listen to.

my new york is taking country music history and meeting my mentor if only I was brave enough to send her some of my work. it's mailing photoshopped watercolors all over the country and making $75 at a student vendor fair in macintosh while trying to get my jewelry line off the ground.it's my LA best friend flying in bimonthly to keep tabs on her east coast cohorts. it's not having a dog and learning to drink coffee while I walk quickly to the subway. my new york is talking to my friends in California who have real projects going on in their lives and realizing that if I was home I wouldn’t be going anywhere. It's trying to remember that college will open doors.

it’s also the haunted memory of the quad before I was hospitalized for severe depression in 2000 because the only way I used to handle stress was to rip open my veins over and over. it’s the aching feeling of knowing that the only way out is through and that school will never be as painful as another empty suicide attempt. it’s the hope that I will finish before I collapse and the promise of the biggest motherfucking graduation party ever. it’s the reality that i would like to get a college degree at some point and the gratitude I have for my family for giving me another chance. it's never ever giving up my love for the lakers. it's getting lost in queens while driving to the city for the very first time, watching a fiery sun descend into the pink haze above new jersey from my 10th floor apartment, counting bacteria in hudson river water samples and staying up all night talking to my cousin about numerology and why investment in haiti is so difficult. it's standing in a piss-filled elevator in the projects and scoring awesome chanel knockoffs down in chinatown. it's water towers on buildings and fire escapes and lots and lots of bricks but no earthquakes.

out for nothing

NO ONE does theme nights like me and J. Sadly, J could not make it out to Naughty Schoolgirl night at the monthly club and I was left to theme it on my own. K and I made a special trip to the 2.99 store where I found a gothic wife beater and a pink and green plaid miniskirt that barely covered my ass. purple lizard heels made the outfit complete. Claudia staunchly refused to stray from her standard cocktail dress but still accompanied me to the club which was held in a sushi restaurant that also featured punk-rock karaoke. On our way over we learned that E would not see the hand picked slut outfit.
Maybe it was better that way.

We rolled in about half an hour before the dancing started. N stopped by to say hi and not much else. The dancers exploded on to the floor with an androgynous catholic school cheerleader mania. after the show the crowd dispersed to the dancefloor and smoking area. we finished a joint in the bathroom and decided to move on, viewing our $5 cover as yet another contribution to the scene. Whatever. We made the gesture of getting N's number incase either of our nights fizzled and then we booked over to the next best club Claudia could think of.

A glossy stone exterior radiated warmth. Inside, slick wood floors inside led to a huge balcony. Somehow we ran into A before we even made it up to the bar. he ed us to the dance floor where T moved to the music in a ray of moonlight. I joined him, exclaiming hello as I danced among my friends and his. He smiled. Live drums and the built-up energy of the dance show we just saw pushed me just lose it, I mean, really go crazy under the moonroof and the stars and drums. I guess some people think that’s cute.

We all ended up on the patio watching A try to number close a chick using palmisty. I detected a hint of resentment in his friend's running commentary. Apparantly his technique always works. Claudia snuggled against her boyfriend's arms as we smoked the rest of a spliff. Later, outside the club, T would not let me go. I had to pry myself out of his embrace, which A made a point to follow. I deferred Al’s request for my number, explaining he could get it from T, and we left.

mistaken identity

Ethereal blonde wisps frame her angel face. She looks up, filtering her fake surpise through wide eyed naïveté. You smile and her eyes shift from your gaze. You haven’t seen her in weeks and still she can’t trust you enough to look in your eyes since you left. I was never really there, you argue silently, and she half smiles like she can hear you. You know what she’s thinking and you don’t want to be reminded of her, not the way she laughed nor the way she looked curled up in your crumpled sheets fast asleep in the late morning sunlight. You smile again, forcing the memory out of your head, and then you’re both acting like you’re BFF that never talk, or two people that haven’t met. You’re about to drown in the agony of the moment when she disappears inside the club. You forgot she always smelled like honeysuckle.

The night ends on a quiet note and you stop off at the bar on the corner to grab a beer before heading home. You can’t stop thinking about those fragile shoulders, the tiny midriff encircled by blue fabric, the bony hips dancing in a gauzy, floor sweeping skirt. Her face is all too clear in your mind and you approach the memory tentatively, afraid of what it might do to your already wrecked mind and limbs exhausted with self restraint.

Another beer and you’re gone, back, reliving the first night you meet her. She’s dressed in black, all porcelain skin and red lips and that wispy blonde hair that floats down her back. She tastes like cotton candy mixed with THC and her eyes dance like the twinkling lights that dot the Hollywood hills at night. Tonight she’s laughing and full of love, not the painful kind but the friendly warm kind that you find in a stranger’s eyes on the subway. She never knows what’s going on, but she gets up every day and tries to make sense of the buildings and sky and people. Red lips, dewy skin.

10 drunken text messages later and you never want to see her again. She’s not there, she’s everywhere. She’s the girl who left you for the TV star, times a hundred. She’s silent, content to play any role you create for her, alive in your bed but waiting conspicuously for you to make the next move. You wonder if she’s like this with all the guys she meets and that weakens the moment considerably.

If only you knew. We fall in love daily and get our hearts stomped on, but we get up and keep dancing on tables, downing peach vodka and kicking up our platform heels. We rock the miniskirts so you know what you’re missing and we never stop flirting to remind you of what you almost had. You are always surprised at how easily we move in and out of your life. You drop the act for a second, in a moment of vulnerability, but when we respond you’re gone. And we always move on, smiling softly to mask the empty pain of waking up alone.

K's story

I remember being a little girl and going to the beach with Mom. I was glad to leave the desert for the water. The summer heat was unbeareable unless I was near water. Pools don’t count. I don’t care if I ever see a pool again after last summer. I can still feel the sting of the chlorine. The summers become more frenzied each year. I’m not sure how much longer I can live from season to season. People look at me and see luxury and elegance. Inside I want to scream, I’m still that scrappy girl who threw sand in my sister’s eyes and pulled her hair.

I hate their assumptions about me but I hate missing out even more and that's what keeps me in the game. Showing up at glossy hotel lobbies and running through the hills all night in heels is now routine. When I can fill my days with work and nights with magic I feel alive. Scenes from rooftops and art openings and treehouses sear my memory with a tingling, almost painful pleasure. I drip elegance on camera but after the makeup comes off I laugh and dance and become my gawky goofy self again. I miss my siblings now. My brother is in a band and he never comes home anymore. My sister sticks around to share some important moments but never without drugs or a new boyfriend tagging along. I miss the sandy beach days where it was okay to get all messy and the worst that would happen was that Mom would forget her cell phone and shrug her shoulders as if to say, oops, I guess we have the day all to ourselves. We would dig holes to China and smear wet sand on our noses before diving into tide pools as warm as bubble baths to emerge shiny clean before getting dirty all over again.

I breathe in the salty air. The sun and the wind beat down on me until I can no longer keep my eyes open. I think about what I might do that evening and then I think about what I could do differently this summer to slow the chaos. I crave the energy of the city in the heat but I don’t know how to get a read on my own emotions in that setting. The energy drips and melts from one night to another with barely a moment to reflect. I’m sick of planning my life in five second increments of found time. Miami, Los Angeles, Tokyo. I keep all my jewelry in little ziplock bags and am ready to travel at a moment's notice. Sometimes I forget if I’m going across town or across the ocean. City grids snap in and out of my memory before I can remember where I've woken up. I have survived a few years of this lifestyle but plane rides are still long as hell without Ambien and yet too brief to feel like I have actually gone anywhere.

I give up and embrace the chaos that the summer brings, inviting it into my fragmented head. How do you know if you're okay when your basis for reality hinges on appearance and artificiality?? I muse and then the relative importance of the sharp, pierecing summer energy becomes apparent.

venice

we want red bull candy and febreze on our keychains.

we love poptarts with frosting, unheated.

we want glam beats and dirty disko.

we get our picture taken by sketchy photographers who ride motercycles and think they have immortalized us with the camera's flash. (they are too late.)

we want to go back to the 90s but with cell phones that take video.

we expertly apply lipstick in darkened car backseats.

we cover the smell of pot smoke with island-scented body spray and too many parliament lights.

we get our movies on dvd, before the release date.
(we never pay retail.)

the story of our life plays out on screen and online,

via dirty texts and secret emails, in pixels and ringtones.

we define ourselves through itunes playlists and facebook status.

we play chess with two boards, on a chalky cliff overlooking the sea,

we believe in up to 10 possible dimensions.

we have art wars with digital cameras in real time, on cement, in darkness.

we pour champagne on rooftops while fireworks rain down at new years.

we kiss on dirty beaches at four am. while trying to google the sunrise.

we live on Mexican food and sushi.

lost:exhilaration&panic

can’t catch up, it passes
disappears into the night
its 3rd and 120 and 2 am and
a rusty fence leads to fourth,
just walk a little west
coats pulled tight around the dress
shock me, alone and grieving
faces melt into the rain
endless messages turn blue
I walk the streets
past garage doors and parking
spots to the place where I find solace
staring at the eyes of strangers

Thanks, 212

I hate los angeles street. I want to cry when I think about it. Fuck those bull shit parties, man, that shit is so last year. Standing around holding drinks, trying to look cooler than the crowd. I mean HELLO. We would never stay at a party like that, except we wanted to see Trip. Correction: I wanted to see Trip. And I said so, almost even texted him while we waited in line for the bathroom but I had no signal.

Strangely, however, on the topic of Trip's return to LA four days after dumping his latest girlfriend, Elisa remained quiet. There’s Alex, she said. Let’s call Theo. Was that him over there? She went to find out.

Jaz and I ambled about through the crowd of eastside rock chicks and underage boys in skinny jeans, trying to get into the music. An ice cream truck parked outside to serve snacks. I picked up free energy drinks and smoked a couple cigarettes. At 1:30 am, forty-five minutes after we should have left that lame party, we sprawled out on a vinyl couch and waited. Trip is being a nerd, Elisa said. It was the first time she had mentioned him on her own the whole night.

When he did walk in, with Theo at his side, Elisa sent me to go say hi. I touched Theo lightly on the shoulder. He hugged me and l ooked quickly in his eyes. He smiled. The five of us left the party and headed north on the 5 to Trip's. Jaz had to pee when we got there so she dashed off to the bathroom and spent the rest of the night texting her ex-boyfriend. Trip found clean cups even though we all had waterbottles of vodka in our handbags and we headed into the living room.

Elisa sat on the couch and stared defiantly into Trip's eyes. Theo and I sucked down a joint and he led me over to the corner of the room to show me some new vinyl. I could feel fire in my head as I bent over to examine the records. I selected some downtempo house and we all kicked off our shoes and danced in the middle of the room.

Later Theo gave me a tour of the rest of the apartment while Elisa and Trip remained on the couch. I started to stumble on a step. We grabbed each other instinctively and I caught myself shooting a quick, longing glance at the full-size guest bed. After one second too long I reluctantly left his embrace and went back to the living room to check on Jaz.

In the car, Elisa explained the situation.
“Theo is such a team player. Winging Trip like that? Taking you away so we could talk? They totally planned it.”
I fell silent for a few minutes, thinking about her words.
“You have to hit that,” Jaz slurred. “Why aren’t you hooking up with him?”

I stayed silent a minute longer before speaking. "We're better as friends. He’s not in my city.”

thank god i moved

call me old fashioned, call me spoiled, call me ocd but im starting to need tranquilizers to enter the shower. really strong ones too not that clonopin shit that the doctors think will solve all your anxiety, but xanax and valium and stuff that precludes driving and operating heavy machinery. I need the squinty haze of the pills to navigate the horrendously gross truck-stop inspired Hewitt bathrooms because I am ocd, or spoiled, or old fashioned, and I find the entire process of bathing in such filth to be a farce. The fact that everyone wears shoes in the shower, to rise above the two inch foamy sea that forms in every shower stall, ought to be an indication of a problem. sure, the experts recommend shoes to head off althletes foot. isn’t that kind of gross that you can actually get a disease from the SHOWER? I only wonder what other diseases they aren’t telling us about. I’m sure the lurking bacteria are just dying to impart their hepatitis or aids onto my dewy little skin. my skin turns red and scaly now that I live back east, and I am certain that it is the shower.

when I first moved into hewitt I thought no big deal. well, no, actually I was terrified of of the showers but I figured that if the freshman could emerge totally fuckable from such squalid conditions that I could too. living amonst the bright eyed underclassmen however has changed my mind entirely. this in depth case study on the bathing habits of barnard women has taught me that most of us try to get as clean as possible in the quickest amount of time and that the rest are just grubby. I fall into the former of the two groups. each morning, with exactly 6 minues to spare, I climb onto four inch platform flip flops, wrap myself in an oversized towel and grab my scented-product laden blue shower basket. I savor my last breath of clean air as I near the smelly radius that encompasses the bathroom door. once insiide I try not to look at anything, lest the image of someone elses hair or leftover food or worse lodge itself permanently inside my sensitive brain. I spent three years working at a perfume company for this? I wonder as I lather up with as much overscented bath gel as possible. I alternate between fragrances. KAI contains a heady, overpowering, frantically floral fusion of jasmine, tea rose and gardenia. the perfume itself is sickeningly strong and old lady-ish but as a bath gel it infuses the steam with a cloud heavy enough to transport my mind. scent is the strongest sense tied to memory, I used to tell my customers, and the KAI acts as a tranquilizer in its own way by knocking the nasty bathroom reality in and out of my mind as I scrub down. the other fragrance I use is a blend of my favorite essential oils: eucalyptus, chamomile, bergamot, lavender, peppermint and rosemary. individually each oil functions to clear my sinuses, calm me down, wake me up, calm me down some more, sooth my stomach and eliminate headaches, in that order, and collectively they too help me forget for a brief millisecond where exactly I am forced to bathe.

for the times when I am forced to touch the industrial shower curtain or the silver bacteria masking metal of the stall door I immediately pump a large pouf of my shea butter hand wash to eliminate anything infectious. if my elbow hits the wall in the tiny shower stall (at 125 pounds I can barely sqeeze inside) I scoot forward on my oversized platforms and try not to think about when it was last squeegeed. in addition to taking up valuable real estate, the tiny soap dish protuding from one tiled wall only offers enough space for one product, so I swing the shower curtain open and closed several times to swap face wash for shower gel for shampoo. I debate on pumping another pouf of shea butter wash onto my chafed hands but usually I don’t have time and instead try to touch the shower curtain (or shower head or handle) with as the problem is not the friendly, hardworking cleaning staff that invades daily between 1 and 2 pm. nor is it really the residents, who for the most part try to pick up after themselves. the main reason the hewit bathrom sucks is that it is just shared by about 25 people too many. sharing is all right in kindergarten and its required when your roommate gets a free bottle of champagne, but when it comes to bathrooms it should be outlawed. no one, not roommates, not moms and dads and siblings, not boyfriends and especially not 25 random strangers can be expected to religiously clean up their own bacteria and dead skin upon leaving the bathroom, yet without such strict measures the rest of the occupants are forced to literally bathe in their hallmates' excrements. there is a reason why any two bedroom apartment outside of new york city has two bathrooms as well: people’s sanitary well being depends on the peace of mind that the spots on the mirror and dust on the counter came from their carelessness and not someone elses

back and forth

a slice of pizza and an email send me down the subway steps. a black wool coat can't conceal my royal blue '80s tube dress. my toes scrape against knives. the train skips quickly to my stop. I climb out from the underground. I pass model collectors and blond psychics from LA. Bongo drums over French house emanate out from a second floor venue and I see the psytrance club where the euporhia wears off quicker than the e. fragmented memories rain down Tenth Avenue and lure me into a deafening, velvet-walled club. i quickly negotiate the line and step inside.

keep your cigarettes says the coat checker tells me with a wink. i sip a glass of white wine then quickly switch to jack daniels. this reminds me of my tiny flask and I escape to the bathroom to quickly dump it in my drink while bleary-eyed city babies kiss mirrors and girls from New Jersey tug at their miniskirts and crowd up against each other in line.

the dancefloor swells as the minutes crawl past midnight. i press up close to the stage to try to align my pulse with the bass that drives each song, drowning in vinyl. I soak up the rush of feeling alone while surrounded by a million bodies moving to one beat. felix takes the stage and time stops. I breathe in the robotic strobe light, delerious, alive as he mixes electricity into magic. confetti floats on a dense, artificial fog and I feel like a Care Bear on a cloud or an ethereal princess who will disappear at the first sign of morning light.

The music keeps me prisoner until the very last beat drops and then the city envelops me in a shimmering predawn mist. Trampled flyers litter the sidewalks, enthusiastically imploring partygoers to attend an event that has now just ended. Celine Dion’s Titanic theme echoes out from an all-night deli and a glowing Chinese McDonald’s sign lights the frozen sidewalk dotted with sparkling, nameless stars. with a tiny bleep of a button I capture leafless trees in black and white and stare into pixels representing eyes. I stop at the Gramercy to take in a giant Basquiat hanging above the empty bar and then backtrack to watch the sun rise over Fourteenth Street.

In Union Square I finger a folded bill in my coat pocket and glance quickly at the many empty taxis before slipping my Metrocard through a silver turnstile. Underground a trash train sits abandoned across the platform, bright, serene and dirty. Shiny garbage bags piled high ooze excrement and decay, glinting in the static station light.

how to escape from the mental hospital

For six thousand dollars and relatively few superficial wounds, you too can gain autonomy by escaping the instution known as NPI. Note: this has not been tried out on A-South, also known as the Mariah Cary ward. Note to Note: The Mariah Carey technique of flashing the security does not work, especially if you are not Mariah Carey, but also even if you are. Anyway here are the steps:

First, go to the nurses’ station and tell them you are definitely not suicidal nor would you hurt anyone. Insurance won’t pay for you to stay if you explain those two points to be incorrect -it saves them money. Open your eyes wide and speak clearly. Make sure no open wounds are visibile but also try to avoid long sleeves. They arouse too much suspiscion. Wear jeans and a clean t shirt and shoes to show you are eager and serious. Whatever you do don’t cry. Crying practically mandates another 72 hour hold in some of these places. Be sure pick a time when your doctor is unavailable even by pager. This way they will have to track down the resident on call to decide your case and he probably won’t have gotten any sleep so he won’t really be thinking too much about all the other times he saw you screaming obscentites and tearing your hair out, even if it's in your file.

Next, repeat your statements to the resident and add that you are done hurting yourself. Even if you never hurt yourself to begin with, this can really convince them that you’ve had an epiphany while locked in their dim little ward, which is everybody’s wet dream over there.

Third, and most importantly, subtly and knowingly remind the resident that you are over eighteen and can therefore leave any time you’d like. Arch your eyebrow like you are sharing confidential information between two colleagues. Indicate that you have the six thousand dollars or so for the gap between insurance coverage and actual hospital costs, regardless of whether this is true.

Finally tell the nurse your family has not come to get you, rather, your boyfriend is waiting downstairs and he can’t be bothered to park. He hates hospitals even more than you do. Gather your things and demand all the confiscated cigarettes back from the nursing station. Do this while the resident debates your case, to build momentum. Once he signs off, you are free. Oh, lastly, don’t forget to wiggle out of that green hospital bracelet before you get on the bus or walk down the street. It’s a dead giveaway.

ok, but what about ne-yo?

the queen of the used, clothing, persons, star of the show caught crying in the interval

lets make a fucking deal, keep 'em guessing. i'm ready to give it up, are you ready to come clean?

and they say LA is fake but its new york that can't stop defending itself
its all the same

show me the real emotion and ill uncloak my own heart
until then its icy cold