Sunday, June 30, 2002

I suppose all this means that I probably won't make it to the gay and lesbian parade. Oh. Well. It's too hot out anyway.
Anyway, I've been working on a series of nudes, mixed media on canvas, and I'm quite pleased with myself. I hope to finish three more today, along with the draft of the short story, "boys" -- or something like it -- and finally, the typed version of the interview with that enigmatic trickster, Todd Colby. Soon, I will upload photos of the nudes and link to them so you can see. Aren't you lucky.
Doncha' hate it when that happens?
okay, exactly one person besides me has voted for a cover. I feel the love

Friday, June 28, 2002

I found a new blog. I like it because the two writers of it are very angry and lonely and easy. Ha. hehe. I found out the male writer dates on Nerve and Match. He sounds like someone to watch out for. So I can run the other way.

And I love this story, Girls, on Nerve.com. I'm seriously thinking about writing something like it called "Boys."
This makes me realize I don't have it so bad at work. Luckily, I'm not in the New Media/IT world, although from my experience of trying to work in art galleries, I'd guess that the art world is the same. Mary Boone, for example, make sure that all the receptionists dust the walls and counters hourly.
I'm lying. I can't be bribed.

Thursday, June 27, 2002

I can be bribed to disclose the addy of my real personal site with gifts from my wish list, of course.

Tuesday, June 25, 2002

I have a new guestbook! Please sign. Especially you, with the Mac and the bellsouth.net operating system, what's up with you, checking my blog five times a day? Declare yourself.
But what was very specially interesting about the reading tonight, besides making me feel all warm and gooey and loved and besides reading outside and having a halo of fireflies the whole time (which I was unaware of and only told about after the fact) was that the poem that was best received was the one I wrote today during lunch. I was struggling with "The Anatomy of Distance" (see below) because I wasn't really pleased with it. It was a nice idea, and had some nice images, but I felt that I kept circling around something that I was trying to say and never quite getting to it. I've been thinking about how my poetry seems to fall into two categories, pretty or ugly. I think the best way to put it is: the raw and the cooked. Okay, I know the title is taken. The cooked: more about language and image and some other post modern gender stuff, usually. The raw: drugs, sex, pain, love. Maybe if I were a really good poet I could actually combine the two. But the stuff people really seem to love is the raw stuff. After a reading, I've heard the response at least 6 times, "you really tell it like it is," or "you say what every one thinks but is afraid to put into words." The poem I wrote today was what came out when I asked myself, what do I really want to say but am afraid to? So what came out was pretty ugly. It exposed a part of me that I'm not proud of. It basically said a lot of things that frat boys say, and if I were a man and I said those things about any woman or showed that attitude, they would have killed me. I would have been stoned. It would have been biblical.

But since Iyam what iyam, all the women in the audience were giving me the high five, talking about empowerment and role-reversal, etc. I'm thinking of changing the title of this piece to either, I'm a pig, or Hi, I'm Christine, and I Celebrate Female Sexuality. That last one would be pretty funny. I feel like introducing myself that way at my next reading, and keeping a totally straight face.

Oh, oh, I almost forgot: what was so precious about tonight was that I dressed totally straight, in fact, beyond straight, I put on my Amish-wear dress from my previous job at a church and wore mary janes. They were so surprised at the stuff coming out of my mouth...!
But anyway, nelson, shmelson. The reading went very well. There was much laughter and appalause. Several lovely friends from my new job came by.

Anyway, Cat Tyce (rhyms with nice) was a wonderful and gracious hostess and she should join the Women's Studio Center right away.
I'm lovingthis:

"Dear Diary,

Today I tried to get olivia to change my tampon but once I took my pants off she wouldn't..."

hehe. Fearless.

Today, Tuesday, June 25th, I and Paul Ash will be giving a reading at The Read, 158 Bedford Avenue, first stop on the L train in Brooklyn.

My reading list: (you can look down this blog page, or here for the text of most of these poems)

The Bad Secretary
In the elevator
Doll Descending a Staircase
Multiple Choice
Confessions of a Sex Addict
American Dream
My Black Boyfriend
The Addict Renames the Days
Bite Me
Come
The Anatomy of Distance
The Curse
Thirteen Ways of Killing a Kitten


That's the line up.



Monday, June 24, 2002

Plus,

I wrote a new poem.

It has no obscenities, which makes me nervous. I always worry that I'm not gritty enough if I don't use some nice four-letter words. Didn't Queen make a song about that? "Four-letter words you make the rocking world go round!"


Here it is:

The Anatomy of Distance


Picture
an oil painting
In the Medical Academy
by a Dutch master in 1641.
The walls are in shadow,
appear to be black.
Our walls are blue.

    I. The Doctors:

In the auditorium,
in our room,
spectators surround the body.
One touches
it and looks at
us.
He doesn't mean
to touch the body
in a way that has any kindness in it,
As your fingers attempt to sign
nothing
with their grasp,
but his hands are as gentle
as the soft astonished faces
of the men staring at us
as we stare at them.

    II. The Body:

The body does not appear
to be sleeping
but dead.
Not just the pallor
but the lack of eyelashes.
The upper lip curls
in ecstasy or disdain.
Although the kidneys vena cava intestines
splay into our faces,
point to the sky
and our eyes,
the body
is the only one
who escapes
in this picture.
The one
truly alone and hidden.

As you and I are hidden
from each other
by our bodies,
the deeper we thrust
our cutting
fondling instruments
the farther we float
away like unmoored boats.
Until we lie
next to one another
on the same bed
in different rooms
the same color as
the inside of an eyelid
or eggshell,
the same color blue.

I feel on a more even keel today. So my boss is lying psycho. I still have to kiss his ass for a paycheck. I'm used to psychos; I know how to get on their good sides. I almost lost it today when he accused me of having a narcisstic personality disorder because I asked, in a completely neutral tone, if my computer (which he's been promising me for the last six weeks) was in that big box in the corner. I have no idea why asking if the 'puter was in the box was narcisstic. But then I remembered that he's narcissitic, so I wasn't so bothered. His new method of complimenting me is by saying, "finally, you're wising up." Passive aggressive loser.

But on to much more exciting news: I made some collages and pictures! Yes, yes, the thrill. I'm also trying out two new covers for my poetry book-in-progress, Pavlov Made My Mother Cry. Here, yes are the draft covers and new photo of the collage assemblage.

Sunday, June 23, 2002

For a while, I stopped writing fiction because I thought it was all lies. Then I realized that poetry, also, lies. Nothing is true unless I say it's so.
Okay, on to the publicity: On Tuesday, June 25th, I and Paul Ash will be giving a reading at the Read
158 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211
tel: 718.599.3032

Starts at 7PM. Hoping for an improvement over last Wednesday.

Wednesday, June 19, 2002

last time: this is IT!


My next reading: The Charleston, 174 Bedford Ave, Williamsburg, first stop in Brooklyn on the L. Wednesday, June 19th. 9:30. I and the most wonderful writer in the world, paul ash, will be opening for Ladies' Choice, which is funkadelic.

Tuesday, June 18, 2002

More short storey-ish:

The Curse
At 14, I am visited by strange green flies and visions of the virgin. She is out of focus. Her hair appears to be pink. She speaks only in Greek. When I shake my head because I don't understand, she gives me the finger.

My sisters pinch me and talk about fixations on Britney Spears.

Each night the moon is full. The flies avoid the TV, but cling to the mirrors. My sisters swat at them and glare. Sometimes I look at myself in old photos late into the night. I was different then, before I was called. Since then I have shaved my head and sleep on the floor. I only bathe in fat-free milk.

Still, the virgin torments me. Her sarcasm is enormous. My dreams are filled with blocks of color. Sometimes I dream with my eyes open. The teachers in school resent this. My mother can do nothing with me. My sisters tie my hands behind my back and leave me in a closet for days. The virgin persists.

I begin to think the Virgin resides in one of my bicuspids, and I attempt to remove it. My father offers me his pliers.

They bury me at sunset next to my grandmother. Purple roses spring spontaneously from my grave. During the wake, the virgin appears and hovers over the TV set. She points to my youngest sister. The others move their chairs away from her. She pisses herself.
Short story like:

Woman in Search of her Sex


She became obsessed with getting water into her body. She took two hour baths followed by hour long handstands. Her bookcases were filled with enemas and douches. They were arranged according to color and scent. She drank ten gallons of Poland Spring a day. Her kidneys hibernated and had nightmares. She put a funnel in her ear and poured in rose water. She stuck her face into a sinkful of water and inhaled. She became more and more pale and indistinct. When she opened her mouth to speak, one could hear the faint crash of waves in the background. Her belly murmured with the lonely sonar calls of whales. Her skin became scaly. Her hair started to fall out. Her eyes became huge and stopped focusing on anything. She stopped saying hello to the women in the apartment next door when she got her mail. She stopped getting her mail.

She cut herself shaving and something vaguely orange oozed out. Her toenails dropped off. A huge fish tank, fishless, but full sat in the middle of her bedroom. At night, her neighbors in the building across from hers could see her face illuminated by the fish tank glow. She gestured and spoke eloquently to no one.

The neighbors called the cops. The cops took her away.

The apartment stood empty for two years. Mold creeped into huge snow flake shapes along the windowsills.

Then the neighbors saw the woman again, at night. She had grown enormous. She was shiney and naked at all times. She let her breasts rub against the glass as she painted the window panes black.

The neighbors called the cops. The cops went into the apartment and disappeared. The neighbors called more cops. More cops came. There was an accident. The building was burned to the ground. The smell of burnt fish for days.

The neighbors moved away. They moved to the ocean. They were visited by odd spells of melancholia and nose bleeds. They regreted the city. They were all eventually lost at sea.
Carol Lay is amusing. This piece is called The persistance of Kat Klocks. I just added my Amazon Wishlist. Buy me something and I'll write you a poem. heh.

I wrote two short stories this weekend. This is extraordinary. I never write fiction. But then again, these might be poems in disguise. I will post them soon.

I came across a sentence at the Spark.com that made me giggle: "We live in an appalling, backwards world in which, everyday, college students learn with greater skill how to spell the word misogyny and accuse each other of being sexist." This was in the intro to the Slut test.

Monday, June 17, 2002

ooOO00o000oooh. I'm so sick. Domino's gave me food poisoning. I'm dying. I spent most of last night either hallucinating or dry heaving. ugh. help.

Sunday, June 16, 2002

Actually, Aki only put up two of my paintings in the Sofa Cafe. But... they have spotlights on them!

Saturday, June 15, 2002

Today I went to my first live drawing class at the women's studio center. I've been planning to go for about 6 months, but I just keep cancelling at the last minute. One reason is that it's SO early in the morning! 11AM! Also, I sometimes just get this wierd social anxiety any time I attempt to try something new. It was fantastic! Such good practice. Of course, everybody else was a much better artist than me, at least in that they had a basic grasp of anatomy, which I don't, I admit. All my people look like distorted stick figures with pot bellies. Probably has something to do with the way I perceive people. In my world, you're all distorted stick figures! Aagh!!
Don't talk to me.

Anyway, I met the coolest girl, OlgaTuimil, who was there for the first time and is an incredible artist. Of course she had to sit next to me so I could see her work and get jealous. No stick figures for her. But she did loan me her crayon. That's not to be scoffed at.
Proof that Claudia Schiffer is Barbie.

My next reading: The Charleston, 174 Bedford Ave, Williamsburg, first stop in Brooklyn on the L. June 19th. 9:30. I and the most wonderful writer in the world, paul ash, will be opening for Ladies' Choice, which is just super-funk.

After that, on June 25th, I will be reading at The Read in Williamsburg. Deets to follow.
How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? That's not funny.

Friday, June 14, 2002

Found a cool new site by a buddhist, living just a few blocks a way from me. I think I have Buddhist envy. I know it's true though, when you stop seeking something it will come searching for you.

Okay, tomorrow, I will try to get fired once again. Maybe this time it will stick. My new boss is just pushing all the wrong buttons. I know I'm insane -- I know that. You don't need to remind me.

Oh, and finally, I'm having a solo show of my paintings at the Sofa Cafe in Astoria. BUY!!

Thursday, June 13, 2002

I tweaked the Political Fiction piece below and sent it into a site that asked for political fiction. The rejection slip made me giggle.

Christine,

Thank you for submitting, but this is not what we are looking for. Our fiction for the most part will be solicited work from writers we know or admire, but that's not to say that we won't publish unsolicited work.

However, in our fiction we are looking for much longer, more traditional narratives that have a story, a point, and characters, and through these reflect the politics of the time. Unfortunately, your piece did not seem to
have any of these elements.


I wanted to write back and say, duh, my point was that narrative itself is a form of political oppression, but it hardly seems worth the while. Anyway, I thought Betty the lobster was a character. Also, they had sent me a request for a submission.

Wednesday, June 12, 2002

I had a disgusting relapse into consumerism yesterday, and like all addicts, I'm revelling in the insane depths of my fixation. The funky toys from www.spookyland.com, the alternate comix without rival in the art department. I got the MOST fantistic graphic novel, Wthe Whore, turns out it's a translation from German, although the awkward, found poetry of the spare narration could be taken for deliberate surrealism by an English writer. The pictures are fantastic, none of the usual comic book slickness, just penciled drawings with the deliberation of a psychotically lonely teenage girl.

Uggh. I just realized the lobster story below is pretty much a bad summary of "Lost in the Funhouse" by Barth.

Monday, June 10, 2002

Political Fiction

I'm trying to write a fiction piece about politics, even though I usually write poetry about sex. Sex political? Well, there's the missionary position, the patriarchy and the appalling lack of lobster bibs. Maybe that last bit isn't so clear. But it's plenty clear for crustaceans. How, you may ask, are the political aspects of sex expressed through members of the Palinuridae family? Think about it.

Think about being unassuming and unaware, just slowly scrambling along in a cloud of sand, that floating sand that smells so sweetly of decayed fish, when suddenly! bam! The trap, the net, the claw. Like your world just convulsed. An out of control dilatation, expansion, convulsion...tremor. And then you wake up in a glass cage with hundreds of others just like you, but your claws are bound with this ugly yellow tape, this tacky engagement ring, these uneven botox injections in your upper lip.

It's impossible to smile. Your attenna have been trimmed and permed. Your tan's fading fast.

It's not so much orgasm that puts you here as the double headed devil lizard of romance and The Disney. As The Disney has taught you since you opened your little blue kitten-eyes and learned to focus, romance is the blatant, secret key to what passes as life, passing.

Pairing off into the money colored tunnel of love is what you were hatched for, your barbie tells you, your pink knitted baby bonnet tells you, the cute frills in your braids tell you, all while your mother, that TV, tells you just how to trap the man of your dreams. But in your dreams it's you who's trapped. In some smelly lobster trap in some smelly harbor off the Isle of Mann, and what does romance have to with lobsters, really? And how is this a work of fiction when fiction is supposed to go like this and this piece of writing is going like this: blah, blah, lobsters, blah, blah, blah. Where's the conflict? More importantly, where's the heroine? Let's say the lobster, Betty, is the protagonist, what is she doing right now, holding absolutely still at the bottom of a pile of 25 lobsters, or scrabbling against the glass walls of the tank at the top? And who really cares what a lobster named Betty is doing, what kind of name is Betty for a lobster anyway? Where is she, exactly, really, not hypothetically -- there's a sinking feeling that Betty's just shards of buttered flesh being cleaned from a tablecloth by a waiter stiffed on his tip.

Where is this story going? Who's narrating it? hello? Is there anyone out there? Who's in charge? Is this going to go and on, ad naseum, etc., etc. -- is it ever going to end?

And what's so political about lobsters and romance, is this some kind of a joke?
Some kind of IRONY?
What I would look like if I had long dark hair and bunny ears. And were a different person. Who experimented with the dangerous side of vegetables.
Here's another one I truly like, and I bet she's related to Max Ernst.
I enjoy this.

Almost as much as this.

Shave the baby has to be the most feminist pieces of plastic out there.

Sunday, June 09, 2002

Riverbabble is publishing one of my poems. It's called Sex in Middle America. I'm not exactly pleased with it -- there seems to be a piece missing somewhere. If anyone has any clues as to how to improve the piece, please drop me a line. Also, Wicked Alice recently published another one, Science Gone Mad. That one I like. I have to update my pubs info. Way behind there.

Everybody come!



Blogapalooza NYC: Click for details!

It's a blog party, for those who can't read the script.

19

I act like I'm 19.
This test was brought to you by Mel - mostly.... Take it here.

This explains a lot.
I am going to a poetry reading tomorrow, Sunday, given by the head of the Women's Studio Center, Anne Babson, who is also the best poet in the northern hemisphere.

Here's the deets from her:

The Back Fence, that venerable (aging hippie)
institution where Bob Dylan first performed and they
haven't swept the floor since has a Sunday afternoon
poetry reading series with two featured poets and an
almost unbearably bad open mic afterwards.

This Sunday, June 9th, at 3:30 p.m., I will be one of
two featured readers. The other reader is fabulous.
His name is Bakar Wilson. He is an African American
poet from Tennessee who writes interesting work on
sexual identity issues and kind of turns Langston
Hughes on his ear. It's an honor to read with him,
even in such a dump.

Drinks are cheap. Peanuts, of which people throw the
shells on the floor, are free. There is no cover
charge. You would have to laugh if they asked you for
one.

Come slum. Be part of the magic.

If you are a poet, however amateurish you may be,
spiff up the open mic and read a couple of your works.
Believe me, there is no way you could possibly fail
to outshine the regulars.

WHO: Anne Babson, Bakar Wilson and the open mic folks
WHAT: A poetry reading for the ages
WHERE: The Back Fence, Corner of Bleeker and Thompson
in the Village.
WHEN: This Sunday, 3:30 p.m.
WHY: Because you haven't lost your sense of humor.

I couldn't say it any better myself. I might be reading some new stuff at the open mic. We'll see.

Saturday, June 08, 2002

The sad thing about this is that I actually spent the whole ten minutes waiting for it to load, and then made a little cooing noise. I must kill myself, now!
Yes, I do. I fling poo. Besides, everybody likes monkeys. Don't they? Don't they!!

You are a captive audience to another boring chat that appears cute to the participants:

onz: loser
spackle: thanks
onz: do you say thanks for everything?
spackle: yes i do. i am polite
onz: so when people insult you you say thanks?
spackle: always
spackle: they've shown me a new side to myself
onz: hmmm. Interesting strategy
onz: so you busy all weekend?
onz: not that I care
spackle: yeah, and all next week
spackle: work's picked up
onz: I saw a roach the size of a small kitten today
spackle: where?
onz: you're a male escort, aren't you
spackle: No
spackle: i'm a stud
onz: crawling into my dresser
onz: at first I thought it was a mouse
onz: but my cats were scared of it
spackle: did it get into your panty drawer?
onz: I don't think so, why
spackle: just curious
onz: what?
onz: would you be jealous?
spackle: yes
spackle: that's the ticket
onz: jealous of a roach
spackle: never!
onz: see you do have self-esteem issues
spackle: who doesnt?
onz: sometimes I see the roaches wearing my panties, but I never see them actually going into the drawer
onz: you're right everybody does
spackle: great image in my head now
onz: they also wear my lipstick and eyeshadow
onz: ocassionaly dye their attenae purple
spackle: mmmmmmmm
onz: play Eminem too loud so the nieghbors stomp on the ceiling
onz: write bad roach poetry
onz: live in the seedy Roach motel on a tiny little 2nd Ave in my bathroom
spackle: sounds fun
spackle: lets do it
onz: huh
onz: do what
spackle: all the things your roaches do
onz: I don't know, those roaches live fast and die young
onz: if I get my way

Found the mostintenselycolored photograhs ever. By another local queens artist, of course.

Friday, June 07, 2002

And just one more pathetic little post, re: NYC bloggers. When I joined last week, there were fewer than 500 blogs in it. Now there's about 700. I think it's become one of those idea viruses, which multiples exponentially. I hope it doesn't get too big and die from the pressure of its own bloated weight pressing on its little weak little lungs. Uh...Maybe I'm actually thinking of something else with that metaphor. Yah think?
blah, blah, blah, patriarchy, blah. I can't believe I used that word seriously in a sentence. Maybe I'm just miffed and destablized by the fact that I was just contacted by yet ANOTHER boy who likes me so much as a friend, thinks I'm a great writer, yet refuses to date me. I must be really ugly. That must be it. That, or I should stop screaming all the time. That might help my chances. www.halfmadspinster.com She's my new best friend. She doesn't know it yet.

Sunday, June 02, 2002

I have been working on the Todd Colby interview plus a website for some friends. So the day wasn't a total waste. Unless you count morally.

Saturday, June 01, 2002

I like the dancing man. Okay, you all MUST attend. My next reading: The Charleston, 174 Bedford Ave, Williamsburg, first stop in Brooklyn on the L. June 19th. 9:30. I and the most wonderful writer in the world, paul ash, will be opening for Ladies' Choice, the most funk ever in a room allowed by the health department.
Holding hands doesn't always hurt. Damn I wanted a kiss tonight. And once again, the drinking and talking do not go together well.