I’m melting in this heat. Everyone is clinging to my body
(including thoughts of the past).
So, i’m cutting out concise black lines & drawing red bars, the glue residue is drying up before i affix anything to the page.
There’s music in the background, placing me in the debt of sleep, but i keep working. My hands are stiff with the fact i cannot find your address, no matter how many time i ask for it, i can’t bring myself to this last one.
I have all these little inserts, plans, stratagems; for i used to compose you all the time. Blearily, in a little cottage, the sound of rain jarring me on the roof. Was it raccoons? an intruder? I couldn’t call you, as signal failed, so i was left in an idea of love – love from a distance, how convenient. I wouldn’t have to pull myself open & face my own judgement (or yours).
I once gave one of my lovers a blood moth (the wings coming off carefully, with tweezers, the stamen tickling calloused fingers) – my stamps have butterflies on them. I’ve been drawing mutated wings with black lines, hovering over perfect pages with gray backdrops, rainbow eyes, sullen hearts in thought bubbles.
I’m good at love, in theory: i create the art in my head, composing letters & how-it-would bes, but when it comes down to it, i don’t know where to put my hands. Do i hold them in front of me? Behind? What about those cards? A five card hand, three card draw? Something more subtle?
I am out of practice; with pennies or with massages, with letting go, with asking for, with exposing, without deleting, i can’t use names, of fear that they change,
my journal pages were void of names, because i was afraid of being discovered. Discovered & all curled up, as a fraud, as someone who tried to prove herself of being more than what was lessened to a nub. So, the internet, when it was a safe space for me to come & spill myself, was eventually flitted into by those masses, so i find my journal appearing to be a simplified version of what the internet once was,
and the internet, surreptitious for me. I have to leave delineated sketches to my love(s), messages to them late at night, when maybe they won’t glance, or know, or suspect that i’ve devoted an art i’m trying to move forward past, because art is something you can control, but love isn’t a sentence i should complete.
I can fall endlessly for you, for you, for you, but the incantation fails if i don’t believe in it. If you don’t believe in it, if you don’t read your name certainly in every word.
A mismatched backdrop of something wavery & vulnerable pushes me to share this — for i feel my art is a letter, one that could apply to anyone & everyone i’ve loved, FILL IN THE BLANKS, or simply, the love i feel for others is an infinite returning compound, a reflection of myself: my love for myself.
Now that the subject of the letter below has moved back into the filing cabinet to draw inspiration from, i feel it only fair that i display what it is that compels me, what drives me, what i thrash myself into intellectual oblivion over. Sometimes, those mystics & those who are enthralled by them say it best —
“Sometimes we sense that love is our expertise, despite the obviously murderous bent of these days & hours…. Sufis say the heart is ‘the comprehensive human reality,’ and that the way of love is a path of annihilation, of the beatitude of ‘as though it had never been.’ Our original state is nonbeing, nonexistence, and we spend much of our lives trying to break free of matter, free of mind & desire, back into the deep region of being & nonbeing we are at the core…
There’s a shredding that’s really a healing,
that makes you more alive!
Dance, when you’re broken open.
Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you’re perfectly free.
All i know of spirit
is this love.
-Excerpts from “Rumi: The Book of Love” as translated by Coleman Barks
Dear _______,
The pumpkin pie has little beads of sweat on the fleshy portion – i tore off the crust, butter apparent on the blister, shallow spices & poignant chai. The beams on the ceiling are carefully resonating with a pomegranate & candy garland, interspersed with small white lights, strands of popcorn, copper tins in a variety of curvature & fragrant canisters of tea.
This, reminiscent of the baths i’ve taken in your absence. The mid-morning light turning the water milky, plumeria shampoo frothy in my hair, moments under water. O, the comfort of the oceanic sounds. I imagine you, over me – my hands become more distinct on my stomach, my knees folded above into right angles -
the water sluices forward, colored from late nights, slow & incandescent like stolen swings, cinematic in the eerily low lit town of _________.
All those interactions are in my hands, recalling you with a moment of touch, a cold playground swing or slide beneath my back, vinyl mary janes stuck in diamond fences, slotted for forbidden, where we are children, invested in play as if it is one romance, the harder we twirl, jump, fly,
we become closer to that love, how we learn how to have sex.
So, i give you my tangents, from my hands, that recollect you, whenever they are on me.
I look for little signs of you in my daily life, but there aren’t many except for in memory – i wish there were more mornings to wake to you – your lips on my face or vice versa. Citrus. Citrine. Mint. Ambrosial.
Are the love letters wasted? Or one day, might we collect them all? I contemplate an art show of just my letters or letters to rearrange, a giant wall of words to evoke you, me, everyone (i) you (we) know.
My tangents are love for you – i barely share them with anyone else.
I wish you many more love letters in your life – from me & others, from those who appreciate your eyes from the movement, to the moment they close, your face close in _________, or relaxed in a scent or flavor that escalates you to another time -
your hands, the careful way you sketch portraits, the music constantly on your brain, your romantic heart, your intellectual ____________, your strangely normal family, whatever drives you to be here now,
the process of getting to know you, _________.
A late night –
bamboo chimes closeby, creating imaginary like secret paddles, canoeing through the amazon.
in the solstice, there’s a damp cadence to the breeze, houses mutter alone, still hermits in the late hour, companion to the tagger.
a warm quantity in my hands, knowing that a door waits, unlocked. carpeted stairs, platitudes of curled toes, a stumbled entry.
in the gelatin of sleep, that two am, those arms recalling crumbling flowers,
the lines in your forehead, emerging from dreams,
if i am lucky, we become tangled. if i am lucky, i get to observe your face; tremors & abstraction flitting through, as if
(the headlight of an express train to shanghai)
(my head resting on your hipbone)
the minimal, grappling memories of scents (orange blossoms), for sighs, collaborations,
(for what)
(do you breathe)
do you hold close to your heart?
/eclipsed by a split self.
to wake only with you, subtracted by parenthesis.\
On a flatbed truck, racing toward a victorian house, we’d been scrambling around on the roof, affixing security cameras on empty ladders & myself & a whiskey devil glanced at the nebulous sunrise. it was exploding. it was a madman of pink and orange, racous over miles & miles of the most expansive meadows of acres of brightest broken egg yolks marigolds, orangey & luminous, the color was mashed with saffrons and poppies, skyscraper sunflowers, there was clouds of the sunset, dispersed in balls & we could see the sun laid before us,
on a platter of panorama, like it was our job to name colors & save dreams for the blind. what are dreams like for the blind? the truck was going so painfully slow, even though we were racing & some of us had donated our toes. the texture of burlap hung heavy with the thought of missing that photograph. of the sunrise, for the cities & plagued us ’til we leapt off that flatbed, barefoot, racing for our silver boots to get back out there, to stand in the mist until, the color changed & we were lost forever.
as we ran, the grass belched with moisture under our feet, rapid to announce the coming daylight.
if only my words were liberated enough to describe that spectrum, i’m sure it made a meaning for meditation or something to dissect with fingers upon waking, before fleeing through my palms, slithering through my sleep & back to the nexus of the elastic, to make me pull at my strawberry braids, frothing about my city,
muttering;
A few years back, i let someone gain access to my online journal that i didn’t know very well. At the time, it was locked to only friends, and this person let something slip when interacting with me.
“Mary — were you high when you wrote that prose?”
For those of you who aren’t tremendously familiar with my extracurricular activities, i’ll mention that i’m generally sober. I don’t need alcohol or other unnamed substances to enter a state that will allow me to access something joyous, something strange, something feathered & palpable to… do something different.
I had a visual feast earlier, spending time on my own, staring at images that evoked a sort of understanding of material driven-ness to the current state of affairs. As i walked to my car on my own, stairs up to the moon, i fingered a thought:
“As we keep getting bigger, so do our disasters.”
I drove home, weaving together those black sheep, the thoughts that don’t fall into a defined paradigm,
and as i was leaving the desert, my back was slightly turned to a friend,
who said:
“All those really good writers, i’ve met them, and they’re just weird.”
Here’s a few thoughts; damaged, probably not what you think i mean, or what i meant to say, but because i can. I’ve spent too long hesitating, being afraid of my art — of being too much, of an answer i don’t want to gain, of generic metaphors or words that will return to me, at moments where i’m unprepared for the repetition in someone else’s mouth.
But now, here’s to letting go. To engorging more words, with spontaneous moments, to more life like this one i’m here for.
Still life, waiting for the tune to begin. As elusively as a glance upward, toward the moon – an indication of the disasters growing bigger or smaller, in our hearts, in our minds, in our water –
in the water.
in the water.
So, objects remind us of those moments. Those moments we had & cannot return, a still life fixated on what was once, what passed, what was meant to be.
Blood on our chins, roses in our mouth, sunset in our thoughts, scraped & bruised from the merry go-round, stripes & pies pulled together for what, a moment alone to reflect?
this is the sound of — the what?
A girl, manifested on the cliffs, a pagoda filled with, illuminated with, all alone & glowing red, bushes & trees stumbling nearby exclaiming –
on a mountain road, swinging the moon, like bees, the lines & the telephones, shadows poking at coyotes & glowing like porn through the windows –
two am, a swirl of red & white twirling, wrapped up around the shoulder, or should it be hot pink? marie antoinette wigs? white? a curl, the juxtaposition of witchcraft,
and she wanted to choose the scent spellbound, for all those teenaged years she midst, in the arms or hands of the winding, the almond glow & tang, bottles lined on windowsills underhanded by the dogged moon.
Ripping the net, open to little stones flashing in photoshop in each diagram, leaning back in a green sequinned dress or an orange ruffle, fluff, flurry of glass boys & boys.
oh, that diamond of late night thoughts & feather butterflies, to the luxury of alone, to the quiet murmur of just you, and thoughts, and high heeled shoes, and knowing that the sentimental & the shallow & the meaning & the beastliness of existence is all tied to those fucking objects, that will propel us to the answer of untimeliness.
Twisting & crawling & being a golden damask & a fallen fringe & a haunted eye & a corner array of rainbows & the biggest, gaudiest richest, heartburn for the brain that you can possibly fathom, sliding down your throat like an accidental belch on alcohol, the acid strumming in throat, a harpist fucking off purposely.
Your brain caught up to smoking lilies. Your eyes caught up to the sound, waving purple & luminescent, guilty scent of lavender, you say what is in your heart & mind, but you don’t call, because we’re communication on the keys of my typewriter, just the words black & solid, just the sounds echoing, barking late into the night, because no one else is awake to hear it, night all, we feel solidarity in our alone because allegedly the whole world is awake, just not where we can see it.
SEE IT. GOLD. AFRICAN SAHARA. YOUR BURNING TRICK to your GLAZED MIND. We’re awake. We’re awake. Those fucking metaphors are awake, tricking you into thinking your mind. Those fucking minds. Those nuisances. Those minds. Those disparate thoughts. Those minds. Smoking. Being. Flowering. Opiates. NO MORE, SAY the sober,
but the drugs think about it, even in the sober, those crystals & those beds & those animated melatonin & the vitamins & the herbs & the fantastic moments where everything is so sharp it stabs you in the eye with a thousand midgets dancing under a burning tree, a baseball bat pyramid with the laser in a corner, where each solid wood core meets,
where did we get to all these materials mashed down, so far from the source? The distance from the source measures how much we feel that apocalypse is nigh. THAT IS NIGH. THE BEST is NIGH. FORTNIGHT OF WAVERING IS NICE. We’re all perfected, in our insecurities about dying alone, but let us be human, let us
I woke up this morning feelin’ a little homesick, so i thought i’d share songs with you that bring me early morning sunrises watching bikes do lazy circles in the long shadows of art sculptures, people dancing under the fading stars drinking tea, trampoline bounces, houses on wheels, flocks of unicorns, long desert drives & everything that the pilgrimage to the playa provides.
“Avalon” by Juliet
My first journey to burning man, my rideshare popped this CD in & we grooved through the pine trees up the 395, PVC pipes sticking out my hatchback until we arrived in a dust storm.
“For Your Pleasure” – Fred Everything Featuring Karl the Voice
I feel that electronic music resonates deeply with people that attend burning man, because the treble & bass replicates the intense highs & lows of being in a socially unrestricted environment that encourages one to live in the moment. This is one of those pleasurable songs that sounds like a warm afternoon on an art car, or a breeze on a 50 foot platform alone watching a sunset.
“Glitterball” & “Hayling” by FC Kahuna
FC Kahuna has some great dancey beats like you’d hear at the deep end — Hayling is an exception, one of my friends mentioned that they’d play it while coming over the 447 every year…
“Gypsy Queens” by Balkan Beat Box
One morning as the sun was rising, i was dashing down a street to find a portaloo, and i came across an entire New Orleans Paddleboat on wheels & it had an entire band playing interstellarethnomash music, similar to Balkan Beat Box. I stopped & did a jig in the street. Totally parade worthy!
“Dust Devil” by Butthole Surfers
I’ve never heard this song at Burning Man, but if DPW had a theme song… “A flaming mass of oil & gas… and screams of ecstasy!”
“Freak Out” by Colorshow
Some of my burner crew has this awesome Pop Hop band called Colorshow. Last year, one of my friends rode up to our camp on a giant banana blaring this song. Yes, we’re gonna freak that ass out.
This is just a short compilation of music that brings me back to Black Rock City – how about you? Any songs that bring you the playa? Please share!
A coupla months ago, i was whisked out of town by my dear friend, Matt. We’ve gone on many adventures together to an amazing spot in the Sequoia National Forest, called Remington Hot Springs. Some bastards want to blow it up, so go sign the petition after the link.
Anyway, when we were out there adventuring & waiting for the moon to rise, we came up with a neat project. Since i just happened to have bubbles & heart shaped sunglasses & Matt had a 6 million candle power flashlight, inspiration struck & amazingness was born.
You’ll need the following:
♥ a really dark location outdoors (or indoors would work, but the night sky is pretty amazing, and the flashlight makes a really neat disappearing spotlight into the stars)
♥ a flashlight with million candle power
♥ sunglasses
♥ bubbles
Prop the flashlight upright toward the sky. Put on sunglasses & proceed to blow bubbles OVER the flashlight (the sunglasses help protect your eyes, because it is really, really, really bright). The bubbles look like phenomenal exploding rainbows!!! Photos don’t do the beauty justice! Try it out for yourself…
I think it would have been really neat to have varying sized bubble wands & bubble guns. What about a field of people doing this over lots of flashlights? I think my head would explode with the colorful beauty!
Afterward, Matt & I ended up hanging out for hours in the hot springs under the full moon. Lovely. More photos of the hot springs on my flickr.
WHEN RECORDING ONE’S SELF THROUGH A VISUAL, PHYSICAL BEING — OR, WHY IS FASHION IMPORTANTE!?
In a moment of dispelling a lousy mood, i shift myself to contemplate my existence (one of my favourite past-times). I find myself drawn to fashion; cultivating the physical being i bring to the planet. It is the self that people identify instantaneously when they glance at me, my body is the conglomerate that represents me on this planet, it the first canvas i choose to decorate every day.
This brings up a multitude of questions —
♥ What is the style i fight for (in not wearing “conventional” styles)? ♥ What are the elements i choose to incorporate?♥ What are the items that bring me happiness when i look at them? ♥ How do i feel like i best express me on the outside without speaking? ♥ What represents my personal history on this planet, in this realm? ♥ What is my elemental being? ♥ How do i poise myself publicly? ♥ What is my freakdom? ♥ Why is it important for me to express what i am inside through fashion? ♥ HOW IS FASHION PHILOSOPHICAL? ♥ Why is it important to contemplate the choices we make?
So, FASHION IS NON-VERBAL & IT SHOUTS multitudes! STYLE is HISTORY, repeating in a great mishmash of an ethnographic quilt. BEAUTIMOUS. DELICIOUS! Sweet.
As result, i bring you my influences, stylistically & historically — a memory bouncing against another. This physical being, this life is brought to you by all these tiny, eensy multifauceted things that cram themselves together & come out from day to day.
♥ ♥ ♥
FROM THE VERY BEGINNING OF INFLUENCE, LET’S EXAMINE THE ETHNIC;
We’ve got this super cool thing that’s evolved exponentially in the past 100 years, as travel becomes more & more affordable – a melting pot. Argueably, there’s a fear of losing cultural traditions, but there’s also a really neat possibility of better understanding another’s tradition & gaining respect & insight into yourself/others.
At this very moment, as i write this post, i’m listening to Panjabi MC — Bollywood is something that influences me, from the 90s bindi movement (Brought to you by… Madonna! Yoga! Gwen Stefani), to a Binge of Bollywood with a live-in boyfriend, to my color synesthesia that attracts me to the bright colors.
I love INDIA: Saffron Yellow & Curries, ghee, Elephants decked in gold, Buddhas, Blindingly hot summers waiting for rain, ice cold cinemas, dashing from train to train, crazy cities with tiny jalopies, jungles & sacred cows, epic weddings, ashrams, the fanged multi-armed deities, the festivals – I long to visit. A sari has been on my wish list since forever — to have brightly colored hair co-ordinated with a matching sari, i think i’d faint from delirious happiness.
The dust. Beige combined with a vibrant SMATTERING. Fuck, yes.
//\\
How Does India. Come Into. My Vision-? OF MYSELF?!
Well, there’s the obvious – some of my favourite cuisine: PASHAWARI NAAN. BHEL PURI. CHUTNEYS! The spices. So much flavor that gets into you & shimmies.
Then, there’s the music (and the film);
And the style – Gold & Glitter & Veils & long skirts & Orange & Pink & Turqouise & Face Paint & Headdresses & Sandals & Mehndi & Nose rings & Marigolds & Shambles & Cities & Countries & Large Bodies of Water & Burning Twigs & Short lives & Long Deaths & Romances & Long Glances & Hidden Kisses & Burning Summers & Tiny Mirrors.
Above & beyond the pretty lists, there’s something that “American culture” lacks that i identify with in Indian culture. In my childhood, i was caught between the dirt & the pearls, wrapped up in stories that didn’t quite match reality – and in those pictures, words, thoughts, there’s something sincere about storytelling. That myth, the hardships ending in extreme beauty – a long drought followed by massive celebration that was spent much time fantasising about the reality. Yes. I am that.
So, that is a beginning. An answer to the questions above, a somewhat abbreviated finish to the sentence fragments above. And it begins!
For those interested, I recommend watching Lagaan. The Guru is a really fun Americanized Bollywood film. I’ve gone on marathon Bollywood movie sessions, and i will comment that it is an acquired taste & they’re pretty hit & miss for the American movie-goer. Stylistically, i enjoyed The Darjeeling Limited.
Listening, i’ve really been digging Punjabi MC – There’s lots of his stuff on Lala. Niyaz is pretty amazing & the entire Lagaan soundtrack is fabulous. I also really like Tanhayee by Sonu Nigam.
This post contains abstract subject matter i plan on revisiting — i’ve got gypsies & irish lads & voodoo doctors & disco balls & burning man & platform shoes & fashion magazines on my brain. There’s such a mish-mash of goodies that i want to share with myself; and thanks to you for viewing my journey. I do understand that some of this inspiration might seem glossy, unrealistic and an outline – but that’s what this is supposed to be…
I’d like to take each of these inspirations & flesh them out beyond just a glossy portrait that i wear, that i identify with, to understand it more thoroughly – and that is part of this living, this being, this burning!
(Photo by Flip Cassidy)
And now, on a final note, i give you the words of the ephemeral Flip Cassidy:
An open letter of gratitude to the good people in the world.
Do you know how fucking beautiful you are?
Standing out amongst corruption, depression and hysteria?
You’d better know.
You’re what makes Everything Worth It.
All of you who’ve been hurt and healed yourselves, charging relentlessly toward joy and the maximum potential of your human existences, unburdened by fear.
All of you who have standards and goals, and will fight for them, realizing the ultimate weapon in the universe is the human soul.
All of you who know that your past mistakes do not constitute the body of your weakness, rather the opportunities you’ve chosen along the way that have made you strong.
All of you who “just aren’t that person anymore”.
All of you who live dedicated to putting more and more good into the world, because you know that’s what attracts others like you. You are spiritually magnetic.
All of you who know how much shit there is out there, who have ever felt the weight of it, and shrugged it off, knowing that it isn’t a reason to hide, rather the reason it’s so important to be a catalyst to the contrary.
You know it’s needed. You know how badly you need it, and he and she needs it, and the world needs it.
You know that every instance of pain that would cause you to recoil are the most important moments to concentrate on the good you have and can give.
Strike back by leading the army of your mind down the road less traveled.
Thank you for being out there.
Thank you for being out there with me.
A lot of people go to sleep every night doubting or hoping that we exist.
Now I go to sleep grateful that you do.
Thank you.
A few months back, i was hanging out with a fellow blogger & the subject of internet dating came up… But how can we know who we’re meeting? We ended up talking in length about our experiences, and my lady friend seemed to feel my thoughts were worth putting out (there).
I’ve gone on quite a few dates through the interwebs – faux paus & good stories alike. Primarily, my long-term relationships have been instigated via real life connections, but i’ve met amazing people through internet dating sites (a/s/l, anyone?!). Below you’ll find my tips, because when i started dating online, it wasn’t really an acceptable thing to admit, and i had to learn from scratch.
1.) Anonymize. Deviate from your standard user name or screen name. I suggest a handle that isn’t easy to link by googling. Also, if you have a web “persona” attached to your name, i’d suggest signing the e-mails with a less obvious name. Maybe your initials? a nickname?
The above prevents any potential suitors from being able to google you & find out information about your entire life. Trust me, you don’t want this to happen at this point in the game — some dates don’t go well, and depending on the level of your comfort, it is nice to not have an annoying date following your life online. Plus, it removes the mystery! Find out things the old fashioned way.
2.) Present yourself nicely. While i suggest an “anonymous” user name, photographs are the most important part of the game. Try to think of internet dating like regular dating, but with an easier, more polite approach & potential let-down. People at bars don’t have a blinking neon sign over their head with their interests – the photo should be the first thing that draws you in, and the subject matter keeps you looking. I look for profiles that offer photographs that show a variety of the subject in flattering, direct light. Smiling is important, fun is awesome & a full-body shot helps to give a better taste of the overall attraction. I believe that most individuals find myspace angles misleading & gratuitous party shots distasteful. I fully endorse your shallowness at this point in the game.
3.) Keep it creative. Profiles with eclectic expression often merit more messages than smokin’ mommas with dull profiles. The creative profiles will give your potential suitors incentive to message you & something in common. Tell a little story about your didgeridoo, or share a photograph of your favorite costume. Chat speak is to be avoided at all costs.
4.) Less is more. Dating profiles aren’t a place to share really personal information — rather, a place to share your interests & the outlying reason you’re on the site. No matter what you’re looking for, try to keep the profile like an essay — talk about the subject (you) at the beginning of the profile & keep what you’re looking for at the very end. Try to be open & keep it basic to stuff that is a must.
5.) Be honest about your status. Save your date some time — if you’re in a special relationship that allows you to date others, mention it at the bottom of the profile.
Despite preparedness, I’ve noted that there’s still concern about dating people that you’ve never met before — keep in mind that the internet leaves “footprints” like an IP address, whereas a random encounter at a bar does not. If you feel uncomfortable, take a few steps to protect yourself, such as let a good friend know you’re going on a date with someone you met online. Try to trust your intuition in any situation when interacting with a stranger – if something feels wrong, get out of the situation quickly & gracefully.
My rules tend to follow that i try to meet early, because this prevents something i call the BOOK TO MOVIE phenomenon. Remember that time you read that really great book & then the damn industry took it, put it on screen & it wasn’t at all how you recalled it?
Yeah. Internet dating can be a lot like that.
Over time, i learned that it was best to look at profiles & pick my dates based on photographs — i’d take a quick look at them & gauge my response. The subject didn’t have to be a hunkadilla, just someone who seemed kind, had photos that caught my eye & represented themselves in a way i found at least peripherally attractive. Smiling is also something incredibly important to me. No photos of my suitor smiling? No bueno.
I usually scan the profile afterward for dangerously incompatible key words & if most everything looked interesting, i’d send a simple message. Utilizing the basic rules of flirting, a friendly hello followed by a genuine compliment about something external (not biological, this is getting too intimate) & a question about an interesting piece of information on the profile is sufficient.
I don’t suggest mentioning meeting in the first message, either. After a few messages have been exchanged — i usually offer an e-mail address, or something more intimate, like a telephone number suggesting we talk. Some people might think this is risky behavior, but i find the voice incredibly important. I think this is the best way to tell if someone is creepy or if the date will go poorly.
I tend to think meet-ups are a no-brainer — someplace with ambiance that is public & well-lit (truck stop bathrooms are generally a poor locale). I think that a coffee shop is a little ubiquitous, so choose something different, like a tiki bar. Keeping the first date light & open ended is important – i took an online date to a play once. Conversationally, we were painfully incompatible & i had to spend the night introducing my date to friends i knew in the cast of the play. I think i’ll save the play for a few dates down the road next time.
I find internet dating to work the best when i’m approaching it as a fun experience, rather as the means to end a lonely night & find a relationship. I’ve found love with a friend connection on craigslist, met lovers through burning man message boards, and become friends with people i sought dates with originally. In my opinion, an initial shared interest is still the best way to meet, but internet dating is fun.
Dating online can be a liberating change for people who want to incorporate certain things in a relationship (like kink), that can’t be established in the first date. I highly advocate bringing things like kink to the table in a profile & searching it out if it is necessary to a relationship or something you’d like to explore.
And last, here’s some ideas for dates —
♥ Do a Crazy Blind Date & double up with a pal.
♥ Speed date through craigslist – meet up with potential dates at different bars in one night. Be open, have fun, think of the night like investigative journalism.
♥ Check out Gala Darling’s site for style tips. I really like looking at posts like “How to have a great picnic” or Gala’s podcasts come with high recommendations.
♥ Make a silly goal with dating – a great incentive to meet people. Over-fixate on a whimsical detail you like about a potential partner & plan a date based on that detail. Send the person a silly message such as, “Hello! I am a great aficionado of the color purple & pixie cuts on women. I’m going out on dates to write a paper on the topic of fae women in urban environments.”
♥ Check out Francesca Lia Block’s new book, Wood Nymph Seeks Centaur – a Mythological Dating Guide
Above everything, i encourage politeness. I feel that not saying anything at all is better than a rude message. Don’t feel you have to respond to every message, or request a date from anyone who pays you attention. Have fun! And remember: sometimes dating is a great excuse to find your new favourite hang out. My best first date find? A David Lynch-esque bar, complete with an enourmous polar bear & red damask wallpaper & Dracula pin ball & a giant walk-in fridge full of foreign beer.
i) how swiftly the orphans set sail! no sooner does the starting gun fire than they’re flying! their yachts are slimmer, their lines trimmer than ours – than our stodgy barges. they drag no anchors, they haul no ballast, they toss all baggage overboard, and the one flag they ever hoist is blank. no wonder they pull out of the bay ahead of the rest, no wonder they round the cape so briskly! but what now? they won’t stay on bourse, they won’t play by the well-wrought rules, they despise the prize. they’re headed for the open sea. they’re sailing into the sun. they’re gone.
ii) orphans have bad experiences: in barns, in cellars, in automobiles, in woodsheds, in vacant fields, in empty classrooms. it’s because they’re so tempting. it’s because they’re so damaged. it’s because they’re so scrawny. it’s because they’re so easily broken. it’s because they’re so available. it’s because they’re so erotic. it’s because no one will believe what they say.
iii) the orphans line up for their gruel. all kinds of orphans – car-crash orphans, boat-accident orphans, heart-attack orphans, unwed-mother orphans, war orphans – for all of these gruel is provided, out of the goodness of our hearts. they don’t get much, a dollop here, a dollop there, but such is the way, in orphanages. they wait for ther dollops, standing quietly in their cheap grey uniforms, provided by us as well. how kind we are, how virtuous we feel! one day the orphans start banging with their cheap tin spoons, on their cheap tin plates. they’ve been told to be thankful, to be grateful, not to be greedy, but they want more. they want more and more and more. they want what we have! how dare they? how dare they brandish their hunger at us like a sword?
iv) what are their names? names are arbitrary, but orphans’ names are more arbitrary than most. they make up their names as they go along. call me ishmael, they say. or else: call me ishmael, but call me often. or else: don’t call me ishmael, call me anonymous. call me no-name. call me in vain. orphans are such flirts, they’ll hook up with anyone, then they tear up their phone books, they discard at random. they show no mercy.
v) you’re not my real parents, every child has thought. i’m not your real child. but with orphans, it’s true. what freedom, to thumb your nose authentically! for orphans, all roads are open. for orphans, all roads are the one not chosen. for orphans, all roads are necessary. how can they be kicked out of home? they’re out of home already. they hitch through life, one casual ride after another. their rule is the rule of thumb.
vi) on the other hand how sad, to make your way like a snail, a very fast snail but a snail nonetheless, with no home but the one on your back and that home an empty shell. a home filled with nothing but yourself. it’s heavy, that lightness. it’s crushing, that emptiness.
vii) but what love they inspire, these orphans! little orphan babies left in shopping bags, on doorsteps, in the cold. little orphan babies left in baskets, under cabbage leaves, by birds, by cupids, by gnomes. folks line up for them, cross-eyed with pity, money in their pockets, damp handkerchiefs in their fists, rescue in their minds, blankets in their knapsacks, warm arms open, waiting to gather them in. where did you come from, baby dear? out of the darkness. out of the fear.
viii) nevertheless, we’re warned against them, these orphans. they’re sly, they’re shifty. how do you know anything about them? who were their people? bar the doors, hide the silver! if you find a baby in the bulrushes, leave it there! don’t invite the orphans over your threshold! they’ll cut your throat for a penny, they’ll run off with your daughter, they’ll seduce your son, they’ll wreck your home, because home is where the heart is and the orphans are heartless.
ix) no, you’ve got it wrong. its the other way around. the orphans are not the stealers but the stolen: they are not the killers but the killed. you can tell where the orphans have wandered by the trails they leave: breadcrumbs in the forest, drops of blood, tears that have turned into small white mushrooms, small piles of fragile bones among the roots and moss. read the statistics: their changes are not good. their stepmothers demand their tongues on a plate: their fathers have skipped town: their uncles send villains with pillows to smother them in their sleep. it’s only in books – and only some books – that a generous benefactor appears in the nick of time to save the orphans from the forces of malice ranged against them. what are these forces? look into the magic mirror, sweet reader. look into the deep still wishing well. ask yourself.
x) it’s a good excuse, though, orphanhood. it explains everything – every mistake and wrong turn. as sherlock holmes declared, she had no mother to advise her. how we long for it, that lack of advice! imprudence could have been ours. passionate affairs. reckless adventures. of course we’re grateful for our stable upbringings, our hordes of informative relatives, our fleece-lined advantages, our lack of dramatic plots. but there’s a corner of envy in all of us the same. why doesn’t anything of interest happen to us, coddled as we are? why do the orphans get all the good lines?
xi) now the letters will arrive, from orphans. how could you treat orphanhood so lightly! they will say. you don’t understand what it’s like to be an orphan. you are the sort of person who jeers at those with no legs. you are frivolous and cruel. you are harsh. ah, yes, dear orphans. i can see how you would feel that way. but to note is not to disparage. all obeservations of life are harsh, because life is. i lament the fact but i cannot change it.
(and consider: it is loss to which everything flows, absence in which everything flowers. it is you, not we, who have always been the children of the gods).
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