we'll always have Paris

i certainly am a francophile.  what's better than Paris?  Parisian vin et fromage and related fare, boulangeries, and snazzy looking people at every step, not a yoga pant, flip flop or camel-toe on an unsightly fat woman in site??  and if you know me and don't know about my lavender fields outside of Paris dreams then hey, i'm Mel, and we haven't met.  a Parisian professor speaking English, with that Frenchy accent?  i'm melting.  an afternoon in a random cafe sipping some simply exquisite cafe au lait or looking out a window at the rooftops of the fifth arrondissement?  sign me up, s'il vous plait!!

my parents lived in Paris before coming to the States, and this presents a real dilemma of pseudo-nostalgia for me.  i could be be asleep in my Parisian flat right now, dreaming in fluent French, any number of Hermes or the like scarves waiting to be flung around my neck when i leave in my chic crocodile-skin slingback flats in the morning on my way to have petite-dejeuner with mes amies Celine et Monique.  but no.  Brooklyn, miss.

i really don't have a problem with that either, i guess, being that i'm here, and here is better than being nowhere.

last year, Tash and I spent the most glorious week in Paris.  one day while shopping, i took off the dress i was wearing, my faaavorite-ever raggy cotton sundress from back home and changed into whatever it was i was getting in its stead at some certainly beyond cute boutique in the Marais.  you know, so i could have that all-appropriate i'm French so I'm effortlessly sexy look whilst having my afternoon casse-croute on the cobblestones, right?  well, i forgot to take that dress out of the bag later that night and the next day, the maids naturally made sure that the bag and the dress with it and all the rest of our garbage remnants made their way ever so efficiently to the nearest French dumpster and that was the end of my favorite-ever sundress.  i was pretty devastated but managed to put myself back on track, merci.

that day while we were snacking on the sidewalk, a gorgeous couple came out on the street not looking or speaking to each other.  the guy turned on the moped and let it rev forever while they both just stood around, not speaking or looking to each other.  finally, one of the older Parisian women with impeccable makeup and sass next to us got up sauntered over and asked them how it was worldly possible that they could have such little class.  the guy muttered something that i imagine was the French version of please fuck off madame, and then he and the girl both saddled up and moved along, not a word or contact of the eye between them.

i tried to find this great pic i have of a Parisian pigeon, but who knows where that's at now.  this here is Izi, a poodle, which seems Parisian enough

truly outrageous

one of my first heroes [heroines] ever was Jem, as in Jem from Jem and the Holograms.  actually, it might have been She-Ra first, He-Man’s sister, before Jem, and I guess that’d be important in paying proper homage here.  

hm.  

well, as much as I’d like to give them both their own stage considering they’re both probably both A-Class Divas Galore, they both made appearances in my life within the same, very important, decade – that would be the 80’s, thank you - and come to think of it, were I to closely study facial features…they might just actually be one and the same, anyway 

God, my skin itched to be them, those sexy sluts with the most exciting of lives.  Jem with her hot boyfriend (with a name like “Riot”…??  I can only imagine_that’s all_) and awesome star makeup and ever-important sparkly Star earrings, struttin her stuff on a twirling stage. and what about She-Ra, Princess of Power, with her completely bad-ass outfit, her sword, and a talking unicorn??  the question is, who’s better (I guess?)? 

i had a prized Jem cassette that my mom had bought at Nichols (precursor to Kmart, precursor to Walmart, probably even precursor to God), with a whole song on each side that I would sing along to at the top of my lungs, flip the cassette, sing the other one, flip the cassette and start all over again until one of my brothers came in threatening to send me definitively to hologram hell.  i imagined that my hair was pink and funky and large and sorta shaped like a star and that I wore precariously short pink dresses and danced easily in high heels, that my bandmates stayed well to the back of the stage, regardless of how down we all were, and that basically everyone else just thought I was the straight-up shit, especially The Misfits who still caused a lot of trouble, but nothing I obviously couldn’t possibly handle anyway   

the best part of both of them, aside from Jem somehow being a touch more accessible, and not from the planet Eternia, was their alter-egos.  I mean, really.  in real life, Jem was known as Jerrica, a classy music-exec blonde who looked a bit like a Pan Am stewardess, and She-Ra was Adora, a deceivingly simple looking servant’s daughter in red and white leotards although her real mom and dad were actually king and queen, so there. 

the moral of the story is that I probably need to come up with my very own alter-ego to live a ridiculously sexy life through.  as for She-Ra, I actually always kinda worried that there was something weird going on with her and her brother but still, a couple of months ago, my boss made a super cute composite of me as She-Ra on the computer, where evidently you can do anything these days, and I’m not even going to lie – I keep that pic.  laminated.  in my wallet.            

once I walked in on someone watching old youtube clips of He-Man assaulting Skeletor, and I’ll be honest, I thought it was gay porn. 

i'm nobody who are you

no, I am not in the throes of an existential depression (that’s generally status quo, considering the questionable state of things: gas is nearly $4.00 a gallon, and I don’t even drive; children can’t read and their parents can’t even care; people can’t love, can’t think, can’t hear, can’t see…stuff like that, you know?), but that is the first line of one of my favorite poems by the ever-esteemed Emily Dickinson.   she was great at pointing out the obvious, things like Nature is pretty awesome and that people are pretty lame. 

take:  Death is the common right of Toads and Men… Why swagger, then?   

haha, awesome.  first of all, I like that she put the toad before the man, but the rest of it - that’s really just the way it is.  you can strut your stuff as an ass or an Ass, but in the end both the ass on the field doing his master’s bidding and the Ass in the city doing the bidding as a master face that dreaded Common Lot one day.  where did Humility take the wrong turn, I wonder?  we all strive to set ourselves apart in some sort of stratosphere that makes us better than our neighbor who’s better than their neighbor who’s better than their neighbor ad infinitum.  i don’t believe for remotely a minute that one person’s not, it’s just that some of us do it so much better than others.  tell that to the Toads.   

the “Nobody” poem goes like this:

I’m Nobody!  Who are you?

Are you – Nobody – Too?

Then there’s a pair of us!

Don’t tell!  they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!

How public – like a Frog-

To tell one’s name – the livelong day

To an admiring Bog!

Awesome. 

my name is ISH

this morning, i spent some time reading to my niece.  honestly, I get so bored when it’s not Dr. Seuss.  she’s little, so she just doesn’t fully get it yet, but the finest words are words that rhyme in time, you bet.   there’s a character that makes an appearance in one fish two fish red fish blue fish (which I could truly read all day, if you wish) whose name is ISH, and God I love him.  I love him for a couple reasons, first of all – “ish”???  man, does that man get leeway.  i started using “ish” a lot in my own life a few years ago; it seems to make sense.  “i’ll see you there 7ish”, “that’s…coolish”, “i’m feeling sick-ish”, “i’m working…hard-ish”  ish is the shit, which is still ish but without the t, incidentally.  Ish might as well just be the mascot of our times, so as not to call him a sign, but that seems to be about where it’s at; he really is just one cool cat.  when you can’t commit, to a time, a person, a place, a real emotion, you call on Ish, who bounds along, blurs the line and everyone breathes a sigh a relief, kind of like you do when you unbuckle your pants after lunch on Thanksgiving, THAT’S how good Ish is, certainly better than crack, since crack is no good, and probably even better than chocolate and obviously chocolate is great.  if you look around, you’ll see Ish is everywhere.  this is what Ish does for us: kicks the can down the road, then goes after it, kicks the can down the road, then goes after it which is the coolest thing because then we can just deal with that can later, you get my drift?          

you know what Ish is good at in one fish two fish red fish blue fish?  he makes a wish, he wishes for fish.

"Today is gone.  Today was fun.  Tomorrow is another one."  

smetana shmetana

i have two very special things on my mind tonight.  eyeliner and sour cream, of course

sometimes i think i am nothing without eyeliner.  yes this is challenging, but without it, i feel like a specter, scaring children on the street.  i also look a bit like a child and older men have fleeting fantasies when running into me in an elevator, say.  yes, i do humor myself, i know.  but eyeliner.........for example, MAC's Blacktrack: just the simple act of dipping my stiff little liner brush into that little glass pot in anticipation of running that shiny silky black fluid gel across my lids....oh, it delights me SO!!!  you know who would understand this?  the ancients, say, in Egypt, or the Persians.  in those cultures, kohl was used not just to further sexify some alluring sexpot, but also applied by men and on children to avoid certain eye ailments, protect one's peepers from the sun, or from falling unfortunate victim to an evil eye.  some mothers even applied kohl to their infants' eyes soon after birth, which sounds like a good time to do it to me.

what does sour cream have to do with it?  not much.  i just think about how much fun makeup is which somehow led me to think of sour cream, which is also fun, on pretty much any food in existence.  name one thing that would not be better served with sour cream on it - you just can't, can you?  apples and sour cream.  i want to roll in it.  sour patch kids and sour cream. mmmmm.  ethiopian food and sour cream.  how do you say mon dieu c'est delicieux in Amharic??  pork dumplings and sour cream oatmeal and sour cream sturgeon and sour cream .................give it to me, NOOOOWWWWW.

once in Moscow, i got the worst food poisoning of my life, chills, delirium, fever, sweat, spaceballs birthing in my gut, and a stay at the American hospital, all from fresh homemade sour cream bought from a nice little old lady shivering at her stall at the outdoor market.  as i recall, i ate it with relish.  and nutella.

MoreLove TwentyTwelve

i had this friend who was always good for telling me to be grateful for what i got.  i liked that.  once i said, "i need more money", to which he responded, "no, you need more love"  i appreciated that.  in fact, i think it was the best line, hands down, of 2011.  "more love", Two Thousand Eleven.  "more love", although, honestly, this friend seemed to think a lot - or mostly - about more money, so that was just a big ol' fat paradox in mores.  that is, "more"s, as in, "gimme more" and not "mores" as in the mor-ays of social customs or conventions or values as defined by a society, which is certainly not something my friend subscribed to, anyhow.  although, honestly, i appreciated that too, because who needs mores?  when you have mores, you have marriage and religion and other things meant to conventionize the bejeesus out of you but please don't bejeesus me back, because i DO give respect where respect is due, like to a knight in shining armor on his white steed, of course.  or Jesus.

but morays.  moray is actually a slippery eel come to think of it, which is kind of what my very good friend was like.  a slippery eel.  murky waters.  which is funny, because although i loved him so, i do NOT like to even THINK of eels, almost as much as i don't like to think of social mores, but i certainly do like to eat them.  eels, not mores.

so, now: an attitude of gratitude, in the moment.  i'm grateful for what i got:  

heat (I could be cold), running water (I could be dirty [ier]), internet (online banking), health of family and friends (enough said), employment (comprehensive health insurance), prophylactics (unwanted pregnancy), Empire HMO (see: employment, see: keep your one kidney, see: prophylactics), fuzzy socks (winter, warm feet), Jon Stewart (sanity), humor (it's funny), dvr (see: J Stewart), locks on doors (beat it, rapists), tyrosine (essential amino acids, sleep more), retainers (keep your teeth straight, what am i, twelve??), rainy days (make me dreamy), galoshes (see: rainy days)  

i really could be in Malawi.  God, i'm so grateful.  that's Malawi, not Maui, check it.             

MORE LOVE is right.   

parcel post

one of my favorite eats is escargot.  who was the strange strange person back in the day that sat around watching a snail take its excruciatingly slow time across a rock somewhere and think to themselves, man, i bet that sucker would taste amazaaaazing with its shell ripped off and baked in a cast iron plate with 2 lbs of butter, garlic, enough salt to really kill a pound of snails and a good ol', crusty, toasted baguette to really sop up the juices after.  i mean, wtf???  wouldn't ANYTHING taste good like that?  i bet you i could do the same with crickets, grasshoppers, frogs, snake skin and robin eggs and have all of them be tastier than sin.  i mean, i'm salivating right now.  why do we do half the things we do, like workin for the man every night and day, or feeling when we shouldn't and not feeling when we should?  i bet you all of that is like eating snails.  you just wouldn't do it without the butter salt and garlic, so why the FUCK are you doing it in the first place?

  

notes back to the Ledge

a few words, if i may.

so there i was a couple of months ago thinking to myself,

you know what i'm terrified of, Self?  the Abyss.  man, why the f is that so scary?  my therapist tells me that this particular fear is fear of fear and nothing else (and therein, fear of nothing), and i know a lot of smarter people have been saying this all along [see: seriously bad-ass Inaugural Address, FDR, 1933], but why is that gaping blackness called Not Knowingness so fucking terrifying sometime??

ya.  so there i was, just really wanting to just fling myself off that scary metaphysical Ledge that hovers over that abyss since i was slipping off anyway, which is what this amazing grease of Life does.  you're standing around wringing your bony hands peering through half closed lids into the churning darkness for too long thinking you really do want to jump that you've had enough of just standing there and staring into it but isn't it going to hurt but oh man you sooo want to jump because who knows what's down there, it might be something good, like fresh cake or Doritoes or mind-blowing sex and people who aren't assholes and chocolate or fairies who sprinkle pixie dust and make your wildest dreams come true OR you might just land on your ass and have it really really really hurt like teeth shakingly hurt like when some douchebag's Jaguar goes over a massive pothole on the FDR so who wants to jump because aren't most of us just big fat whiney pussies anyway and THAT'S when Life, who's been the patient friend who never laughs at your antics standing around behind you now starts getting seriously bored with your lame ambivalence just steps forward and says later bitch! and helps you out with a nice solid but loving shove right between the shoulder blades or a swift but kind kick to the arse more likely and off you go, cartwheeling and tumbling into the Darkness, into the Unknown.

everyone said to either stay away from the Ledge, or get off it, but i am happy to report that the Abyss is only what you make of it, or in other words, it's only YOU, and the real journey doesn't seem to begin until you get there, so i'll tell you what was saddled up waiting patiently at the bottom of mine: Pegasus.  and a really really good cupcake too.

bohémien gitano Γύφτος cigano

"You're pissed again why?  Cause i didn't spend ONE fucking night with you?!  You just fucked yourself...I'm busting my ass and that's what you send me?  I was going to tell you to come out after work today BUT NO CHANCE NOW!  No apology will suffice.  You are and always will be a jealous selfish gypsy!"

i love eloquent poets.  but i really do love gypsies.  i never used to get why my mom would pull me close and whisper fiercely in my ear to stay away from the gypsies as we headed into the market to buy fresh green goods in the balmy summer morns back in the old country.  the way i saw it, the gypsies had it quite all right.  they were dressed in spectacularly dazzling colorful rags and they were barefoot, so what's better than that, what's wrong with gypsies?  we dance to gypsy music at weddings, we listen to gypsy songs that make our hearts bend, we throw down gypsy cards when we want to finger the future...what, then, is wrong with gypsies??

i've always had a soft spot for gypsies, come to think of it.  my father used to call me a little gypsy, although not always in real terms of endearment, come to think of it, my mother very closely resembled a drop dead gorgeous gypsy before she got all Americanized and starting wearing corduroys, with her long black hair all flowing and a colorful bandana wrapped around her head, dancing like a gypsy makes you think that you're actually as free as one, thinking like a gypsy nearly straight up turns you into a bonafide member of the Roma and years ago, when i thought about what my street name would be if i just starting tagging up the streets of Brooklyn, i came up with Gitana.  the Gypsy.  i really did think of that, since you never really know where life might go.

but i do love poets.

here's a verse from Bizet's Carmen, the habanera, now this really reads like poetry:

L'amour est un oiseau rebelle
que nul ne peut apprivoiser
et c'est bien en vain qu'on l'appelle,
s'il lui convient de refuser.
Rien n'y fait, menace ou priere,
l'un parle bien, l'autre se tait:
Et c'est l'autre que je prefere,
Il n'a rien dit mais il me plait

that's something about love being a rebellious bird that no one can tame and you're calling him quite in vain and nothing helps, neither threat nor prayer...geeez!

what a great great opera, that gypsy queenie Carmen prancin her stuff all over the place and then tossing that ring right back into Jose's face so that after he stabs her even though he really deliriously loves her, all he can do is cry his arrogant, puny, manboy guilt all over her dead little body.

what a dumass.

the field mouse's prayer

when i was a little, i used to have this babysitter, Agafia Ivanovna, God rest her merry old soul.  she was straight off the boat in her layers of black wool and a thick scarf wrapped around her head, trailing an even thicker history around behind her.  she had been shot by the Germans, survived Stalin and the Gulag and left for dead yet somehow literally trudged through the freezing kill-all-the-Nazis Russian winter snow and made it to upstate NY.  she and her husband built a small cottage where not a single window opened, centered around a brick-oven type behemoth stove - reminiscent of the one the witch in Hansel and Gretel kept to cook the children in - that kept the place at a fiery, stifling 93'F [regardless of season] which they centered their beds around.  if they had to go to town for sundry, they would ride there in the their tractor, and they also just happened to conveniently be our neighbors. aside from looking forward anxiously to my daily mid-afternoon snack, right before my daily very-long nap, of a haaa-yuuuuge glass of port wine and a slice of black bread dowsed in soy sauce, i was nonetheless desperately bored at Casa de Seriously Old People and counted the minutes i didn't even know how to count yet since i was only just three or four until that glorious moment when my mother would appear from her job and take me home.  Halleluia.

one day, i found that i could very easily hide behind pretty much anything and scare the living bejeesus out of Agafia Ivanovna, no matter how many times i did it.  she would walk into the living room (area) and i'd jump out from behind the couch yelling, "Boo!!!" and she'd nearly faint.  ten minutes later, when she went back into the kitchen (area.  again, it was a tiny cottage built around a very large stove), i would stand behind the fridge and just fall out out at her as she walked by and the poor old woman would catch the fits just like that while i laughed to hysterical, delicious tears over all of it.  i couldn't get enough.

finally, one day, Agafia Ivanovna took me aside and sat me down under a bunch of icons of the Orthodox faith, saints, Jesus, Mary, God, all haloed and special looking.  pointing at them and up at the sky, she told me that if i ever, EVER so much as remotely considered scaring her like that again, the Mother of God herself would come down from the sky and cut out my tongue.




well.

as you might imagine, i don't believe i uttered a SQUEAK after that, which is ironic because i was actually so squeaky as a kid that one of my nicknames was Squeaky.  not there in that Hansel and Gretel kill children cabin, not at home when my dad was yelling at me to learn my prayers and learn how to wash dishes and cook cheese pies and clean the house, not at school when i was the only one that evidently knew the answer but just didn't want to hear the sound of my own voice, not even years later, like now, when someone is so wrong i want to choke out my spittle on their face as i choke the right out of them; but, nope not me, i was as silent as a silent little mouse.

finally i was enrolled into kindergarten and my brothers would pick me up after school and that pretty much ended that, but for years i had a problem.  i had a problem scaring anyone (which is A LOT of quality fun for a little one), i had a problem looking in people's eyes, i even had a problem lying little white lies when i really wanted to, all because all i could imagine was Mother Mary coming down from the heavens in her sweeping blue gowns and without as much as a word, just slicing out my tongue, probably with a small shiny gold knife, kinda like the one they use in church to cut the proskomedia.

Agafia Ivanovna, wherever you are now, i'd like you to take that back.  it's put a real damper on me for some time now in terms of getting my point across.  i'm sorry i scared you with such relish and probably very well near caused you serious myocardial infarctions more than once, but it really all was such good, honest fun.  for example, right now, i'd really really like nothing more than to tell a certain someone to SERIOUSLY SHOVE IT and actually have them HEAR ME, and honestly, i think the Mother of God would probably like it, too.  

ok, that's it Agafia Ivanovna, i really appreciate it.  thank you, and God bless you and amen.

p.s. i went through every last one of your closets and drawers while you cooked whatever beet soup it was that you'd cook every day.  multiple times.  maybe hundreds.  it was fun, sorry.  and the soup was always absolutely delicious.  

    

poseurs and the Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana

a couple of years ago, i took some yoga on the upper east side at a super swanky studio full of a lot of stiffy uppity white woman.  there was an instructor we'd have once in a while who looked like a really tall skinny muscular Jesus with ultralong hair and a beard he hadn't thought of in many a year of our Lord.  this guy was such a crack-up.  we'd be in the middle of a super peaceful tadasana and all of a sudden from behind our closed lids in the flickering candle light, you'd hear him start sniggering and sure enough you'd open your eyes and Jesus' doppleganger was standing up there hands in prayer position eyelids closed shoulders bouncing from the laughs coming out of his belly.  the ladies were not into it, but i obviously happen to have a soft spot for Jesus.  his eyes were all shiney and crinkly with happiness and i'm pretty sure that he just got straight up stoned as possible, like out of his mind, before Wednesday night's 6:30 intermediate Ashtanga.  needless to say, he did not last.

shortly thereafter, he started showing up in my neighborhood, a little removed to the south and east, locks aflowing, the air just positively swirling with aura around him.  i saw him so much, sometimes even in other parts of the city which really is just pushing it and so much so to the extent that i figured it had to be a cosmic something, so one day, when i saw him, i literally ran down the street breathless to catch up to him.  he in fact did not remember teaching a class on the upper east side, but i just laid it out that i was so like, just like, so drawn to him, that i thought i had to like confess my sins to him or something, him with his sparkling eyes and long beard reminding me so much of my spiritual fathers of yesteryore.  i really thought this man had come to earth or at least Brooklyn to forgive my sins and just like that he nodded and said yes that seemed to make sense and then invited me to his "retreat" upstate where i could be very easily accommodated, for he had a large bed.      

i decided to steer clear thereafter, devastated in my being takeness, and only then did i realize that he was always surrounded by a gaggle of glowing flower girls, their long fingers running through his hair, incense practically trailing off them as they walked.  he actually started wearing braids and i even saw him in a skirt one day at a sandwich shop where he tried to give me a hug. he smelled so bad, i almost lost my quinoa.

i remember the first time i hit full pigeon pose.  i remember thinking there was no way my foot would go there and then i just fell into it like there was nothing better in the world and i kinda think that's just what Life is apt to do.