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Yes, that’s me in the photo above with one leg wrapped around a trapeze rope while the opposite foot grips the other rope between my toes.

Yes, I am performing eight feet off the ground.

No, I never saw myself doing any of this.

When Rick first said to me, “You might really enjoy this,” I thought it was kind of funny: A Pilates-based workout where you use props from a real circus. Cute. Sure, why not? I hated conventional gym workouts anyway. And although I’d been a gymnast…oh…25 years ago, I didn’t think any of that would really apply here–or even be in my muscle memory.

When I first started taking classes with Rick at Cirque School, not only was I a bit intimidated by these other men (I was taking a men’s class) whose bodies were already ripped, but also totally discouraged by my lack of finesse, strength, and stamina. I had considered myself “in shape,” as I did cardio, yoga, and swam. But this kicked my ass. I was asked to do a pull up as I was piked under the low trapeze and hanging from my hands. I could only do one. I came home that first night and my hands hurt so bad I couldn’t even wash them without pain. Ryan asked me, “Are you sure you want to do this?” and smiled at me. He knew how I’d answer.

I was slightly discouraged. But I was also challenged and intrigued. How the hell did people do this? How on earth would I ever be able to learn these trick names? Why do I need to build up callouses on my hands. I wanted to find out.

The pictures I see now of that first summer of learning all the basic vocabulary, while also just building up some muscle in my core and my arms and shoulders, I begin to see how far I’ve come:

Looking at the picture of me trying to climb the tissu I can tell how much I still needed to learn. But what so many of my classmates taught me was that this wasn’t about self-recrimination. It wasn’t about beating myself up. It was about learning a whole new way of using my body and mind.

I was not always sure that I really wanted to learn, of course. When I developed muscle soreness or stiffness–or when I was having a bad self-esteem day–I was all too eager to look at the people around me and feel like there was no way to keep up. But then I would learn the mechanics of another new trick. I’d be asked what I wanted to learn. I’d find myself hanging upside down from my legs and feeling the blood rushing happily to my head.

By the time Cirque School had acquired a new space in the spring of 2009, I’d been taking a class every week or two for a year. My body was changing, though I couldn’t see it. But, more importantly, I’d discovered an outlet for so many other things. A bad day at work or a day spent feeling listless had to disappear when I set foot on the mats at the school to warm up, stretch, and begin to do work on the apparatus. I had to be physically and mentally present. I also needed to use my creativity as we began prepping for a long-delayed student showcase.

When you begin to put together any kind of “routine” you necessarily become fixated on it, second guessing some things, wondering what you should do or not do, and wondering how the hell you will ever get through it. We had to choose music from a film, so I chose a song I’d always loved (and wrote about in my last blog post). I wanted to create a zombie horseman of sorts…a character who comes back to life for a few last moments before being able to move on.

In piecing together the moves and making them flow, I had developed a sequence of tricks that nailed my thigh every single time I performed it, leaving me with horrible bruises week after week. Is this really worth it? I wondered over and over. As I found out between November 15 and 22, the answer is a resounding yes.

I had been neurotic and nervous through the rehearsal process. I am no seasoned showman, after all. But by the time we could hear a large crowd buzzing around out on the floor and the lights dimmed, I was suddenly lit up with an electric urge to be out there, to get on with the show. By the time my cue was set to make my entrance to perform, the nerves were no longer there. Instead, I was secretly excited–the adrenaline was pumping, and I wanted it to look effortless and beautiful. I wanted to do justice to everything I’d told everyone for 18 months in the abstract.

I think I did.

And now I can’t wait to get back on the bar.

“Cry to Me” by Solomon Burke (“Dirty Dancing”)

This might be the first time I’ve really noticed–listened–to old-school R&B. Oh sure, I know some of it already. You don’t grow up in a racially mixed neighborhood in the ’70s and ’80s without at least some understanding. But as kids we gravitate toward hip-hop and pop; we don’t often look backward.

I am already ashamed that I am being introduced to this by watching “Dirty Dancing,” but I cannot deny the song’s emotional impact. It manages to embody both alienation and seduction; it offers physical escape and emotional release with Burke’s explosive voice asking over and over “Don’t you feel like crying?” before imploring the listener to “cry to me.”

It’s not only this one line that hits its target. Even though I am only 13, I understand clearly that this line touches on some deep truth: “Nothing can be sadder than a glass of wine alone / Loneliness, loneliness, is such a waste of time.”

By the time the song builds to its climax, with the seductive drum beat punctuated by piano–and even xylophone–and Burke’s evangelistic wailing, I am a believer. I could care less about Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. What I want is my own darkened, smoky room–a place in which to move, to let go physically and emotionally. A place where there actually is no such thing as loneliness.

It’s a tall order for a two-minute song from the 1960s. I know this. Yet from here on out, every time I listen, I get taken away. My mind drifts. And my hips sway.

“Regarding Mary” by Patty Griffin (“Niagara, Niagara”)

It’s 1999 and I’ve only recently been introduced to Patty Griffin by Wayne. We’ve been trading musical suggestions via CDs and mixtapes. I give him Kristin Hersh. He gives me Patty Griffin. It’s a good trade. Patty is more traditional in her songwriting. Her acoustic music is sharp and soft at the same time. But she has a voice the power of which I can’t deny. I like someone who can belt it, after all.

Her first album is just her and an acoustic guitar, however. I keep wanting to here these songs more fleshed out–with more meat on their bones. And when Wayne hands me the “Niagara, Niagara” soundtrack, he says “You’ll probably like the first song the most.” He’s right.

“Regarding Mary” starts off as a jaunty little tune, bouncy in its mood until the first line: “She comes swingin’ in with her tire iron.”

Excuse me?

“She hates the morning, she hates the light/Hates the darkness of the night/She hates herself most of all…We try to lose her, but she remains/So maybe we will all go insane just like Mary.”

I am pretty sure I know this woman already. To me, she’s the relative you can’t shake. She’s the problem child next door. She is all the horrible people we somehow put up with because they happen to be “family.” Maybe it’s just that person you just haven’t learned how to excise from your life. Maybe he or she really is sick. But is that your problem?

I know that I am ascribing way too much to a four-minute song, but it strikes like lightning, precise and fateful. Wayne knows already the somewhat tangled relationship (or lack thereof) I have with members of my own family. I know the same of him and his. Somehow, all of those stories are here in this one song. I take it as a good sign.

“Goodbye Horses” by Q Lazzarus (“Married to the Mob”)

It’s lonely in the projectionist’s booth. I already know this at 16. You are made to stand in a hot, box-like space, lining up film splices on separate projectors and make sure that the jump from one scene of a film to the next is executed perfectly. Most of the time it works. Sometimes you see celluloid melt across the giant screen out there and you wonder if the audience can hear your cursing, screaming, or moaning.

The perks of working at a movie theater, of course, are the freebies: free movies, free snacks, free movie paraphernalia. The downside: Watching and re-watching the same two minutes of all of the films for which you are a projectionist, day after day.

“Married to the Mob” is one of the movies on which I learn to battle that mind-numbing watching and rewatching. While I like it well enough, what I am really struck by is the music used in it. Curious about it, I hunt down the soundtrack on cassette one day after work. Buried deep on side two of the tape is a song called “Goodbye Horses” by the mysteriously named “Q Lazzarus.” It’s immediately arresting to me for reasons I don’t understand. It makes no real lyrical sense; it’s impressionistic, stripped down electronic pop that hovers in a dreamlike state:

“He told me,’I’ve seen it all before. I’ve been there. I’ve seen my hopes and dreams lying on the ground. I’ve seen the sky just begin to fall.’ He said, ‘All things pass into the night.’/And I said, ‘Oh no, sir, I must say you’re wrong. … Won’t you listen to me?’”

I don’t know what to do with this song. It doesn’t fit anywhere, and yet it’s perfectly realized. It’s about mood. It’s about a kind of catharsis I have not yet experienced. It’s emotion I am not even able to express. I wear the whole tape out by listening to this one song over and over.

The memories of the projectionist booth and the impact of this song endure. A few years ago, I rediscovered the “Married to the Mob” soundtrack on CD in the bottom of a box. When I mentioned “Goodbye Horses” to Ryan he looked at me with a funny expression, telling me how it’s one of his favorite songs. I later relayed to a few friends about how oddly serendipitous that was, and each one told me the same thing: “I love that song.”

Is this a cult? I wondered. Some kind of late-to-the-party Q Lazzarus fan club?

Then again, how many artists create a song that’s supposed to be a one-off on an obscure soundtrack and see it blossom into something that endures–time, music company mergers that put their music out of print, the rise and fall of a film director’s popularity, and oh so many more variables?

Almost none of them, that’s how many.

But here’s one. Over 20 years old and still beautiful in its mystery.

I am fairly certain I did not leave my heart in New York. It had pretty much been deflated and left to gasp a few months before my departure. There was simply not enough to leave behind.

After I moved away in 1998, I swore off returning, despite the number of fabulous people I knew/know there. And then … well, 2001 happened. And then … well, I waited. I stalled. I stuttered. It was like I was trying to figure out how to see an old boyfriend who’d been emotionally abusive.

In 2005, I finally returned to New York, shocked to find the city transformed, not only in so many physical ways, but in less tangible emotional ways that left me confused. This wasn’t the city that had always seemed ready for a fight. Now that we were both older, and at least one of us a bit better off financially, it felt more like an anti-climactic reunion where there simply wasn’t too much to say. Not uncomfortable. Not bad. Just…not what I expected.

What shocked me most at the time was my longing for Brooklyn–specifically the area in and around Park Slope, where I lived for two of the years of my time in the city. When Megan and I had first moved there, we had friends tell us it was too far away and they would never come visit us there. Then, of course, several of them moved in only a stone’s throw away from us. By 2005, the whole neighborhood was overrun with people I assume had once upon a time said they would never, ever live in Brooklyn. Normally, I think I would have blanched to see them all wandering around the leafy green, brownstone-dotted streets. But seeing them all as part of a long-delayed visit, it seemed appropriate. This was not my neighborhood anymore, after all.

When I made it to New York again in 2006 and 2007–both for work, both visits padded with extra personal days–I was once again in the zone. I still knew how to navigate the subways with barely a glance at the underground signs; I could easily weave in and out of the people on the sidewalks; I could bundle up in layers appropriate to the cold; and I was content in knowing this was not my day-to-day reality.

By the end of my last visit, nearly two years ago, it was clear to me that my enjoyment of New York depended solely on the amount of time I spent in Brooklyn. When work kept me cooped up in Midtown, Chelsea, and the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I stared to itch, antsy with the knowledge that I was stuck in this part of the city I never liked–that offered so little to me personally.

When I finally escaped back to Brooklyn and walked above ground I could actually exhale again. It was no longer that I simply missed Brooklyn. It was that, to me, it was New York. It didn’t need to be the Slope. It could be Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene, Prospect Park, Windsor Terrace, or even a still-sketchy second-hand store on a weird part of Atlantic Avenue. Any of them felt…right.

As I get ready to return to New York once again, people keep asking me what I am going to do there. They ask about certain places in Manhattan–neighborhoods, stores, restaurants, and the like. I usually say that, of course, there’s plenty of art I will see in Manhattan, but I am really looking forward to seeing my friends…and to being in Brooklyn. Some instantly understand. Some assume I mean only Williamsburg. Some look utterly baffled as to how I could gladly leave Manhattan alone my entire time there if not for the art housed on the island.

I don’t tell them I simply want to walk around what once seemed like my own personal Sesame Street. I don’t spin the story as to how I ended up living in an apartment over an international deli. I don’t tell them that my deflated heart had actually still managed to beat there, nor do I explain why. It’s simply not necessary. It’s just Brooklyn. And it’s just a little part of me, still.

Early September rolls around and I go in and out of an awkward stage of agitation. I can almost will myself out of it, but inevitably something happens to make me recall my father’s passing.

This time around it was nothing more than the realization that I was getting angry at people who were only asking me for something simple, or that I was harboring resentment toward anyone who wanted me to respond to their questions.

It’s been 23 years, god damn it.

And mostly it’s easier and easier to skip the emotional welling up that comes with remembering anyone who’s died. Simply thinking of them–after a while–doesn’t so much set off any chain reaction of memories. More often, it becomes something like picking through a stack of half-finished sketches and trying to recall what you’d wanted to accomplish through them.

In the last several weeks, I have been trying to get up early at least one day and do nothing but write. Ostensibly, this means writing something I have not wanted to write. Which means I write about my father’s death and what happened afterward. What’s been driving me crazy at 7 am as the sun starts to peek into this room is that I can so crisply remember the moment my mother had to tell me that he was dead. I can recall the robotic motions of the immediate aftermath and the slow walk I had to take up the street to my friend Amy’s house while my mother had to go to the hospital. I even remember not being able to sleep until 4 am and my insistence that I go to school the next day–anything to get out of the house of mourning. But then… it goes blank. And 23 years later, the blankness pervades my expression as my fingers hover over this keyboard.

What the hell happened next?

I know some of it. And I string those emotions and scenes together like a delicate paper-chain garland, wondering where the rip will appear in the sequence. I create a list of questions to ask my mom, my sister, my brother, even though he probably won’t remember. And then I … do nothing. Because it’s early September again and I begin to question why I am even trying to record it all. As if there is some definitive way to prove to yourself that you are “cured.” Or at least no longer prone to socially unacceptable displays of emotion.

The joy of these early mornings–at least those in August–is that I stumbled across other memories that had long been buried. Nothing horrible. Just necessary. My father’s death, not surprisingly, led to my complete inability to retain the faith with which I was casually raised. I literally lost my religion.

And that is the story, isn’t it?

It is no longer simply that he disappeared. It’s about everything else that swirled into the nothingness with him–and the things that appeared, as well.

I know, deep down, that I cannot treat 23 years like a puzzle that needs to be completed. I can’t construct the story and cover all the bases and have it all circle back to the beginning. I can’t even try to make it past September 4 without a small catch in my throat, a moment of wondering “What would it have been like now?”

It’s late now, and I know there’s no way I’ll make it back to this keyboard at 7 am. But I will soon. It won’t solve the mysteries, but it will quiet the agitation. Imagine that. Even my father would not be surprised by this, I am sure.

August 15th, 2009
1:28 p.m.

I sigh and pick up the phone, prepared to do battle.

Automated guy robot voice answers my call and immediately short circuits:

“Thank you for calling AT &–“

“I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

“I’m sorry I am having so much trou–“

“Please enter your phone number–“

“Please hold while I connect you with someone who can help–“

1:30 p.m.
Real person answers phone She is perfectly nice and tells me how we can go about disconnecting my land line, but with one caveat:

“We need to get you connected with the Disconnect Department. Please hold.”

1:33-1:39 p.m.
Static-y hold music that sounds like it’s being played underwater. The love theme from “St. Elmo’s Fire” plays in its entirety and I find myself getting choked up.

1:40-1:53 p.m.
I become somewhat well acquainted with a very nice woman named Denise (name changed to protect her) in the Retention Dept.–maybe nicest person I’ve met at AT&T. I picture us grabbing a drink together after work and howling about stupid men. Then she drops the bomb on me: “It says here you are not eligible to upgrade your DSL to a high speed. In fact, if you do this the way we are planning, your DSL speed will *drop*.” She sounds incredulous too.

But, wait, don’t I have that middle speed? “Well, yes.” Then how can I not have it suddenly if I ditch the land line? “Um, I am not sure.”

Me: “So I am getting punished, essentially, for having been a good customer?”

Her: “Well… Sadly, yes… It kind of seems that way, but–“

“I see.”

“I am just trying to be honest with you, sir.”

“Really, I appreciate that. Seriously.”

“Let’s clarify: YOU are eligible for the higher speed, but your address is not.”

i.e., I do not live in a rich enough neighborhood? Which makes no sense since I live 2 blocks from Hancock Park.

“Well, it’s complicated,” Denise says. “Our friend Verizon is also available in that area and we only have access to certain pockets, so some people are eligible for higher speeds and some are not. One of your neighbors might be using a really high speed from them or something…”

Note to self: Call Verizon.

2:04 p.m.
I am told how I can look online at the Measure Rate service re: my phone line. The wheeling and dealing begins, because Denise knows 2 things very well now:

1. I am mad.
2. I am not stupid.

The result? My land line bill cut 60%. My DSL bill cut 50% for at least 6 months.

2:09 p.m.
I still really, really want higher speed DSL, god damn it. But at least in the meantime I am paying much much less for what I am stuck with (and which was never explained to me in any way that doesn’t sound vaguely illegal).

I suddenly miss the days when all I had was access to one rotary phone. Communication is hard.

It’s a work in progress as I stitch together styles, tones, and running times: A glimpse into my annoyingly nerdy process of making mixes for people and why it sometimes takes too long. First I find the intention (is it fun? a mix of up and down? flat out weird? Or should it all be pop?); the rest is almost like storyboarding. Eventually it takes shape or gets trashed and I start again:

1. Bar-B-Q – Wendy Rene (or “100 Days” from below)

2. Cherry Bomb – The Runaways

3. Velvet – The Big Pink (maybe replace with “Too Young to Love”)

4. William’s Blood – Grace Jones (old song instead?)

5. Jumping Jack – Tune-Yards (listen to flow of “Sunlight” and “News” instead/move?)
Incidental something

6. French Navy – Camera Obscura

7. You Saved My Life – Cass McCombs (too slow for here? makes block of slow songs later, maybe)

8. The Neighbors – St. Vincent vs. Actor Out of Work

9. Crooked – Kristin Hersh (outro/instrumental splits list here)
Incidental something (OMD’s “ABC Auto Industry”?)

10.Sincerely, Jane – Janelle Monae(too awk. after KH?)

11. I Need You – Eurythmics (put before Janelle Monae?)

12. Oh Darlin’ – Magentophone (maybe starting song instead)

13. 100 Days, 100 Nights – Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

14. Let Me Be the One – Expose

15. Perfect Beats selection (listen to Vol. 3 for the right song)

16. Young Hearts Run Free – Candi Stanton (more disco or pop? like “Bette Davis Eyes”)

17. Random? “End of Freedom” by Wilderness or “4 Men” by Kitchens of Distinction vs. something like Dinah Washington or Joan Armatrading(circle back around with soul/R&B)

18. Fast Car – Tracy Chapman

End with something more slow or fast? New vs. old. Reverse order and listen to flow.
Brainstorm title ideas. Cut out images for cover.

We have these throughout our lives, don’t we? They are periods of time where you feel suspended in another world and you think, “I will never forget this.”

It sounds a tad melodramatic and cliche now because Hollywood movies and TV shows use it constantly as a crutch for characters to be “changed.” But standing at the Hollywood Bowl last night watching Grace Jones on stage, I had nothing else to think but “I will never forget this.”

Maybe it was because I never thought I’d see her perform live. Maybe it was seeing her sing “La Vie en Rose” like this:

Seriously, how many other performers do you know who could do this and succeed at it? I admit I had in the past thought that maybe Grace was more persona and cheekbones than anything else, but last night changed that perspective in a major way. Some people simply “have it.” And she is one of them. Done.

From appearing under a drapery of silver lame to the red dress to dancing on stage with half a mannequin, there was no getting around her presence, and her voice was in just as phenomenal shape as her 60-year-old body:

By the time she donned a bustier and a cape with a headdress for closing the show with “Pull Up to the Bumper,” everyone had already kind of lost their minds and was trying to pull it together again. How nice to see a woman perform who knows how to entertain, to be sweaty, ugly, funny, gorgeous, and genuine all at the same time. It was such an insane contrast to the pap that gets shoved down our throats by most music companies these days.

Not that she was any different 28 years ago:

It makes no difference. I and thousands of others got to see her last night and see proof that the word “icon” does, indeed, do her justice.

I made an innocent enough stop at the local Rite Aid this afternoon just for a chance to try Diet Dr Pepper for the first time (oh, and to keep Jessica company, as well). While there, we decided to peruse the large selection of greeting cards. This is a favorite pastime of mine, as I like buying cuddly cat cards for people’s birthdays. Irony isn’t even present anymore. People nearly expect it. But that’s not the point.

No, the point is really how overcome with annoyance I was and how much vitriol was percolating inside me from a simple perusal of a sad-sack, linoleum-floored card aisle in a drug store in Hollywood.

To be honest, the magazine section started it. There, I was confronted by an array of mostly magazines aimed at women (since they, you know, do all the shopping) that included a baffling number of headlines that revolved around either why “he cheats”; recipes to make “your busy day easier”; and shocking confessions about women who “can’t stop eating junk food.” All the wedding and bridal publications are another matter. There, you have it pounded into your eyes and brain with a sledgehammer that, unless you desperately WANT to get married, are ABOUT to get married, or getting married AGAIN, then you cannot possibly be a “real woman.”

So you see, the card aisle was a way for me to laugh and unwind… but I guess my brain just can’t see it that way today. No, instead, I was stuck in a “Beautiful Mind” moment in which words and images popped out at me from all across the rows of cards, nauseating me, and, frankly, making me feel like there is no hope to get away from the flood of stereotypical gender roles that apparently sell like hotcakes:

Mom’s birthday coming up? Buy her this card that features a rose or a sunset or some other soothing pastoral scene coupled with heartfelt sentiment so she both knows she’s appreciated but is subtly told that it REALLY is her job to clean, cook, and raise a family.

Grandpa’s getting older? This card shows a boat/workbench/park/tools/fishing poles that accurately convey that he’s earned some R&R for doing nothing the last year or so. That’s hilarious!

Niece who’s having a baby? This baby shower card shows a cute girl in makeup surrounded by TONS of STUFF that is ALL about babies and domesticity and refers to how she is in HEAVEN now that she’s breeding and surrounded by STUFF.

Dad’s retiring? Well, here’s a kicky card that sports an active older man who is running…. straight to his Corvette! It’s so funny and true how we should spend useless money on cars like this when we have to use Viagra. (Don’t worry, plenty of other cards will vouch for Viagra without me needing to.)

I guess because I am looking at my 36th birthday right now I am bit sensitive to cards at the moment. Or I am just a cranky homo who shouldn’t be so attuned to a system that just relentlessly reinforces the worst, most inane, stupid, vile, and deplorable stereotypes in the name of being “funny.” Thankfully, I have friends who’d rather find the smart, sardonic, ironic, and skewering cards that I have thus far received.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go to buy a fishing pole, a Corvette, and some miscellaneous sports equipment before I re-fill my Cialis prescription and then tell people about how it’s funny I’m just like everyone else.

Going back to Portland always makes me forget where I live. It shouldn’t, since I haven’t lived there in nearly 20 years, but it does. And in this beautiful place that is not where I live, but simply where I come from, I have to let the memories of the past mingle effortlessly with the present that is unfurling in front of me.

My nostalgia has very little to do with wanting to go back to a specific time because things were “easier.” It is not about being coddled, taken care of, or feeling safe. It’s not even about fond family memories. What my recent trip up to the Northwest made me realize is that my nostalgia is about color and light, taste and smell–very much the senses themselves.

This is not revelatory to many people, I am sure. But it struck me so hard at 10 pm gazing at the streaks of color in the sky over the coastal range of mountains. It’s summer in the Northwest and I was surrounded by family and friends, laughing, drinking, and enjoying the time we had together. No pictures can really capture what makes a few days spent this way. But these things, among many others, remain in mind:

The papery “twinkle” of the wind rustling through plum tree leaves
The moan of fir branches in the wind, as well
The anise aftertaste of 12 Bridges Gin
The hysterical laugh coming from Belle’s mouth and the way she says “Yeah” with an incredulous tone
The light at 4:30 a.m. as it turns from blue velvet to pink, orange, and red fingers through the clear sky
The smell of hot, dried out grass next to a wetland along the Willamette River
The hum of my sister’s, Tom’s, and Ryan’s voices coming from inside the house at 1 a.m. as I approach the door, sprinkled liberally with laughter
The feel of the heat at 7 p.m. when the sun seems, still, to be so high in the sky
Freshly brewed coffee and the scent wafting halfway down the block from Stumptown
Jill’s hands pounding at the flippers of Sopranos pinball in a darkening bar in North Portland
Amy’s loud, generous laugh that sounds the same now as it did 25 years ago, with the same effect of making me laugh, too
The green expanse of my mother’s backyard with the gurgle of a fountain punctuating the cool of the evening
The clinking of change into a small bowl as we play cards after a barbecue, still smelling of food and beer, my mom’s cigarette smoke blowing in from the background
Susan’s heels clicking on the pavement as we leave the club to head for a bar–a determined clicking that I know so very well
The green-blue-gray of the river through the bridge grate as I bike across it
Snowy mountains that look like mirages in the distance
The bookish smell of Powell’s
Vegan pumpkin donuts and the gentle disintegration of sugar on my tongue
The view of the city coming back from Vancouver, seen across the Columbia River
The ease of conversation at dinner with only Mom and Jerry
The glare of the sun dipping behind the tallest skyscraper downtown, turning the roof brilliantly silver for just a moment
The forgotten pleasure of lying in the grass, reading, with three other people who don’t need to talk.

“You’re a supplement, you’re a salve, you’re a bandage–pull it off. … You’re a cast on a broken arm, you’re an actor out of work, you’re a liar and that’s the truth. You’re an extra lost in the scene.”

I’ve been known to say, “I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite.” By extension, I like hypocrites intensely. I find them fascinating and somehow slimy and endearing. Annie Clark’s world doesn’t necessarily seem to be inhabited by hypocrites, but she certainly likes peeling back the layers of carefully applied paint. These songs on her second album arrive in the present, at a moment of flux–one of my trying to figure out how to strip away the superfluous to get to what really matters. They seem to have pointed a big finger at me, pinning my thoughts down and making them squirm. Maybe, I tell myself, I am not enjoying the ugly and the pretty together like I should be. Or am I just waiting for all this good stuff to be fucked up? By me?

There are no cartoon birds helping me get dressed in my sun-dappled boudoir as Clark’s sugar-sweet melodies swirl around my head. If they were here, maybe they’d look like her, all wide-eyed and unassuming, before whisper-singing this lyric into my ears:

“Desperate don’t look good on you, neither does your virtue. Paint the black hole blacker.”

It’s delivered like treacle, just before a buzz saw guitar line cuts through it all, fracturing the seemingly perfect picture. Or maybe it’s more like the harsh sunlight of a hot Los Angeles morning melting through the celluloid displaying candy-coated colors of a verdant forest, rendering the beautiful ugly (and yet somehow still beautiful).

This is what I feel right now: a sense of displacement; a combination of desire mixed with desperation; panic that there is something burning just under the serene surface. I’ve always been drawn to these kinds of juxtaposition. I like imagining what kinds of unpleasant things are said by the people who live in a house that is picture-perfect. When I experience this in person–say, a bourgeois couple who can barely control their hatred for each other at a dinner party–I am often offended. But when it’s painted, composed, or sung to me, or otherwise framed in some outlet of creative expression, I find myself rapt.

“Let’s pour wine in coffee cups, ride around the neighborhood and shine the headlights on houses until all the news is good.”

There’s the desire of shaking the world out of its somnambulant state to reveal the dolorous. I know it’s there, I tell myself. I want to see it. I imagine myself here, in this mostly quaint area dotted with overly expensive houses in which I now live, forcing these people to: not have their money, their religion, their sometimes-holier-than-thou expressions as they walk their children and dogs down my street and don’t acknowledge me. Usually, it doesn’t bother me, but lately there’s this hovering sense of suffocation, like I was put here on accident and someone was waiting to see how long it would take to make me ill-at-ease.

It’s one of the problems with Los Angeles, I realize. I can intensely love the train-wreck nature of it, but its beautiful neighborhoods and gorgeous apartments–which can be huge, sport French windows, hardwood floors, and Art Deco flourishes–can drug you and make you forget that where you are choosing to live has no center, no community, no store to walk to, no sense of closeness to anything but the building or car next door. You can stare at this beautiful street lined with grand magnolia trees, watching birds build nests, listening to the rustle of the breeze in palm fronds, and feel like you are missing out. And then you start to hate yourself for feeling that way.

“I’d pay anything to keep my conscience clean. I’m keeping my eye on the exit sign, steady now.”

Is it a sign of living somewhere too long? I start to play this game with myself: What would I miss about this city? What can I do without? I do the dance in my head and convince myself, and sometimes others, that I could easily walk away. But it’s been 11 years. Who do I know anywhere else I actually want to live? The things that have not been done here will still be undone somewhere else, after all. I listen to older people like my mother spin tales about tax brackets in states I would never want to live in, but I am also old enough now that I actually stop for a moment to debate if the tax codes would really affect me positively.

I still think I am destined to live somewhere more wide open. I miss seeing the land stretch in at least one direction without a house or mini-mall affixed atop it. Whenever that actually happens, I will be able to live with it; it will be to do something that helps affect the land itself. It won’t be my dislike of not having a coffee shop to walk to down the street…

Only a few listens in and this album pricks me. It’s a nosy friend, an acquaintance who suddenly decides he or she needs to know more, more, more about you. It’s a velvet dagger. A friendly gutting. Yet I don’t mind. It’s been what feels like too long since I’ve surrendered to new music so quickly. Smart and beautiful. Pretty and ugly. Prodded and probed. I needed a new soundtrack. I also needed to hear someone say this:

“I think I love you. I think I’m mad.”

They’re both true. And you know who you are.