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.