I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times…

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Usually I try to post something on my actual sobriety anniversary date, but yesterday’s schedule was such that I couldn’t sit with my laptop and pound out anything close to meaningful.

So.  14 years sober as of 6/19/16.

I’m not really sure where I’m going to go with this.

This was quite possibly the hardest year I’ve had in sobriety.

That’s not to say that at any given time I was tempted to pick up.  Miraculously, when things were at the absolute nadir, mentally and emotionally, the goddamn LAST thing I wanted to do was pour whiskey all over it.

But I had a series of things happen, beginning last fall, that rocked me to my psychic core.  My mental health, always on shaky ground to begin with, got pretty well battered.  I had so many rugs pulled out from under me that I began avoiding rugs altogether, for lack of a better analogy.  I had no soft spot on which to tread, it felt like.

And when my mother-in-law finally succumbed to her years-long battle with Alzheimer’s (she passed away in February), I fell apart.  I mean – I got through the wake and the burial okay.  I put together an album of photos of her when she was well.  Baby pictures.  Pictures of her clowning around with her friends.  It made me feel better to the point where I figured I might be able to pull up some memories of her from before she got sick (which has been an ongoing struggle for me, since most of what I remember about her NOW is her steady decline, and her inability to do things for herself).

But everything that had been churning since last October erupted after she died.  If I’m honest, it was everything that had happened since 2010, when we moved in to take care of her.  My mistake was in thinking my life would “get back to normal” when she moved into assisted living two years ago.  There is no “back to normal” after you’ve been a caregiver.  There is navigating a perilous fucking minefield of emotions before you arrive at a vaguely familiar terrain.  There is having your expectations dashed, restored, then dashed again.  There is the temptation to free fall.  There is the slightest sick thrill in thinking that you won’t be caught, either by loved ones or by circumstances.  There is your sense of faith being blown to bits.  There is the feeling of being small and insignificant, perpetually in the shadow of people who are younger, prettier, and not weighted down by grief and self-loathing.

It’s a giant shitshow, it really is.  And you’re beginning to suspect that there isn’t any intermission.

I didn’t drink.

I fell back into some really puerile, destructive thinking.  Because there’s honestly something quite comforting in being the WORST PERSON EVER.  I’m not sure if “normal” people can understand that.

But I didn’t drink.  And in so doing, I managed to not make things worse for myself.

So there’s that.

I’m crawling out of this, slowly, and with the help of my therapist, my psych nurse, some increased dosages, and my recovery community.  The people in my meetings remind me that I’m not the first to have gone through this – ANY of this – and I’m trying to be humble around that while also acknowledging that my pain is valid.  And it has been painful, no question about that.  I don’t like being constantly afraid.  I don’t like not trusting the people who are closest to me.  I like being happy, or at least more or less content.

Anyway.

We went to see Brian Wilson this weekend.  He performed the entire “Pet Sounds” album, accompanied by the Boston Pops.

This was a nearly transcendent occasion for more than a couple of reasons.  Brian Wilson has been through the wringer, psychologically speaking.  The drugs he was on (both recreational and prescribed) did a number on him.  Most folks know the story there, but in case you don’t, you can get a basic sense of it by watching the fairly recent film Love & Mercy.  Given all of that, it’s a miracle he can get up on that stage and play those songs.

And “Pet Sounds” is not only my favorite Beach Boys album, it’s in the top ten of my favorite albums overall.  There’s really nothing else like it.  Watching it be reproduced, as it were, with the help of a full orchestra is incredibly illuminating.  It’s directed madness.  It’s otherworldly.  It explains almost everything you need to know about the beautiful tangled mess that is Brian Wilson’s brain.  I wish my own tangled mess could produce something even 1/16th as beautiful as that goddamn album.

Brian Wilson.  He has a strange shuffle to his gait.  He has to be assisted to his piano.  Once there, sometimes he plays, and sometimes he conducts, even when there’s a conductor behind him.  And sometimes he just sits there with his eyes closed.  He made everyone sing “Row Row Row Your Boat” twice.  I got the distinct impression that he absolutely would not start playing until we sang it.  There was something so fragile about him, this 70-something year old guy singing these so very painful and gorgeous songs. His voice is broken. He’s broken, but mended in the right places.  The cracks are showing, but it’s so lovely.  My heart burst and shattered over and over again, and at one or two points I full-on sobbed.

Brian Wilson can shuffle up to his piano and sit in the middle of the crazy beauty he created 50+ years ago, and just BE.  This is what I need to remember as I go into my next year of sobriety.

He wasn’t made for these times.  Maybe I’m not, either.  But I’m glad I’m here just the same.

A Letter To Dan Turner

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Dear Mr. Turner:

I doubt you’ll ever see this.  Mine is just one more angry, bewildered voice in the internet wilderness.  Angry and bewildered because of the “punishment” meted out to your son, Brock Turner, who assaulted and violated an unconscious young woman.

But I saw your letter to Judge Aaron Persky, just like nearly everyone else with access to the internet.  And as I read it, my jaw dropped further and further until it was fairly well positioned solidly in my lap.

I don’t even know where to start.  “Tone deaf” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

You write:

“Brock has an easygoing personality that endears him to almost everyone he meets.”

I’m sure.  His victim probably would have found his frantic, violent endeavoring to penetrate her quite endearing indeed, had she not been – you know – unconscious.  I wonder how “easygoing” he was as he ripped her bra from out of her dress to get at her.  Tender.  Gentle.  Endearing.  Yes, your son sounds goddamn delightful, sir.

“As he got older and progressed in school, he needed my intervention less and less as he is gifted in his ability to understand very complicated subject matter.”

Yet he obviously couldn’t grasp the relatively simple concept of NOT RAPING SOMEONE.

And why is that, Mr. Turner?  For all your drilling Brock on his spelling and coaching him in the sports in which he excelled, you seemed to have failed to impart some crucial lessons in respecting women, respecting boundaries.  And we need look no further than this sentence to realize this:

“That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.”

20 minutes of action.  This is so repulsive and evil that I gasped when I read it.  It says everything we need to know about you and your son.  Reducing this heinous, reprehensible CRIME to snarky innuendo.  Your boy got his 20 minutes of “action,” ho ho ho.  Back slapping all around.

How does that happen?  How does someone manage to completely FAIL to see rape for what it is?  She was on the ground, passed out.  Your son yanked up her dress and drove her unconscious body into the dirt as he attempted to get what he felt he deserved.

What’s the price his victim has to pay for that same 20 minutes?  You don’t seem to want to even consider that.  Because poor Brock is so “devastated” at being a convicted rapist that he can’t even enjoy a steak anymore.  Brock doesn’t enjoy his steak, while his victim has to spend the rest of her life battling fear.  Fear of intimacy.  Fear of other men.  Fear of what others think of her, now that she’s been picked apart like carrion by your son’s defense team.

“Brock can do so many positive things as a contributor to society and is totally committed to educating other college age students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity.”

Let me spell this out for you in the way you helped Brock spell out his vocabulary words every week:  THIS IS NOT ABOUT ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION.  THIS IS NOT ABOUT SEXUAL PROMISCUITY.  This is about your son’s forcing himself on someone who was INCAPABLE OF CONSENT.  Rape is not about sex.  Rape is about power.  Rape is the need to degrade and dominate someone.  It has nothing to do with how much either of them drank.  It has nothing to do with how she was dressed.  This was not some tipsy tryst at a party.  This was your son raping a woman behind a dumpster.  Process that.  Comprehend that.

You paint a nice picture of Brock.  A chipper, aw-shucks kind of kid from the Midwest who worked hard and got into Stanford, only to find that Stanford was a hotbed of temptation that turned him to dark practices like binge drinking and “promiscuity.”  The media certainly helped with that, talking about Brock’s swimming stats and running the same beatific image of him, which I won’t post here, because it’s more important to see this picture, that’s only been seen in the past few days.

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I know this guy.  I know this red-eyed, entitled look.  This is the guy who’s felt obligated to assess me, my appearance, and my desirability since I was 12 years old.  This is the guy who grabbed my crotch in the bookstore, then ran out before I could even process what happened.  This is the guy who followed me down Massachusetts Avenue calling me a “cunt” because I wouldn’t flirt back with him.  This is the guy who violated me.  Most women I know and love also know this guy.

The fact that you call this “20 minutes of action” says it all.  Grab a woman, get what you want from her.  Action.  No regard for her whatsoever.  He learned that attitude, just as you most certainly learned it.  That’s cultural.  This is what is meant when we talk about “rape culture.”  This is not some hysterical posturing geared towards demonizing all men.  This is addressing the very real problem of continued, systemic disregard for women.  Attitudes like yours are not isolated.  The question is can they be unlearned?  I hope so, for your sake, and for that of your son’s, and for women everywhere.

The Egg In My Closet

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Night after night, I would fall asleep obsessing over an easter egg I’d left in my bedroom closet.

I bring this up because it’s ridiculous, yes, but it’s also emblematic of my…condition, I guess you’d say.

I’m not sure why I left an easter egg in my closet.  I don’t remember if I hid it there (unlikely, because easter egg hunts weren’t a thing in my family).  I probably intentionally stashed it there with my basket, because I wasn’t a fan of hard boiled eggs as a general rule.  I liked coloring them, but when it came down to enjoying the bounty within the actual basket, I focused strictly on the chocolate (although the bunnies, with their panic-stricken candy eyes fixated on me, also caused problems, to the point where my mother actually started getting me ornate hollow chocolate eggs, which didn’t freak me out nearly as much).

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Anyway, there was an easter egg in my closet.  I was aware of it, aware that it was eventually going to turn into a biological weapon of some sort if I didn’t get it out of my closet.  In the waking hours, it was easier to forget about it as I went about my 9-year-old’s day, making up mock episodes of The Donahue Show on my tape recorder with my sister and the kid across the street.  But at night, I’d lay in bed and think of all the terrible things that would happen because of that easter egg.  My mother would find it and yell at me.  It would explode, rendering my cheery yellow bedroom a hazardous waste site.

But did it ever occur to me that I could simply throw it out?  Well, yes, but somehow I’d convinced myself that I wouldn’t be able to stealthily transport it from my bedroom closet into the trash without being caught in the act (“Is that….AN EASTER EGG?  In JUNE?”).  Because this is the way my mind worked.

And this is the way my mind STILL works.

Nearly everyone I meet in recovery has similar issues.  I mean – I don’t think I know anyone else with the exact same easter egg story.  But there’s always an easter egg in there, somewhere.  A metaphorical easter egg, if you will.  Something you’re deeply ashamed of.  You know that there will be incredible relief in disposing of it, and yet you let it sit there.  And that’s where procrastination comes in.  That’s another thing that nearly all of my sober friends wrestle with.  We all know by now that doing something is pretty much never as bad as NOT doing it.  But that’s a lesson that never entirely sinks in for me, or else my closet would be 100% OLD ASS EASTER EGG FREE.

I’m dealing with this right now.  The anxiety and depression have me so simultaneously bummed and amped up that I can’t get up and get this fucking easter egg out of my closet, because I honestly don’t think I’d know what to do with myself if it wasn’t there, rotting away underneath its perky PAAS-tinted shell.  Because at a certain point, anxiety becomes almost comforting.  If it’s the only consistent thing going for you, of course it’s comforting, even as it keeps you from doing actually enjoyable things because OH MY GOD THERE’S AN EASTER EGG IN MY CLOSET AND IT’S THE ONLY THING I CAN THINK ABOUT.

I don’t even remember what I did with the original, actual easter egg.  I mean, this was over 35 years ago.  By the time we moved from that house, there was no easter egg, unless there WAS, and my mother found it, and in the rush to get everything packed didn’t think to ask her progeny “WHAT THE FUCK WITH THE EASTER EGG IN THE CLOSET YOU EVIL SPAWN?”  Or I was determined to be the culprit, and I was punished so hard I entered another dimension not of sight or sound but of mind.  I just don’t know.

But I clearly remember the panic.  I remember grasping, even at nine years of age, that this was completely insane, and that there was probably something really wrong with me, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to pretend that I was normal before the kids in my class caught on (about two more years, as it turned out).  There would be many more closeted easter eggs in my future.

“Everywhere I turn, there you are…”

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I’m on Day Three of the “Facebook Cleanse” and I definitely think the problem now is not so much what I think I’m missing, but that people aren’t missing ME.

It’s kind of interesting.  I’m having kind of an existential crisis because I’m not on Facebook.  If a cat picture falls in an empty forest, does it meow?

Forget it.  I’m delirious.  The panic attacks have abated, I seem to be figuring out what’s working for me, pharmaceutically and otherwise, but I’m still tired.  It’s like I’ve suppressed this “fight or flight” instinct that has been raging under the surface for so long that it just started boiling over.  I’m not entirely sure if the contents completely boiled off, or if I’m just sedated to the point where I’m physically unable to panic.  If ravenous lions tore through the office just now, I’d probably just sit here and be like, “Whoa. Lions.” before being torn to bits.

The “vacation” from Facebook is forcing me to do other things in the evening, like read.  Write.  Remember what I used to do before my mind got wiped out by caregiver stress.  I used to do Mortified shows.  I’d read from my high school diaries in front of total strangers.  One of my favorite “threads” that came about from working with Karen Corday and Sara Faith Alterman (the producers of the Boston show) was a series of passages in which I go full-blown Norma Desmond over my high school drama club happenings.

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The entries I read from span from around 1985 to 1988, and include my very mature and measured musings on not only the high school endeavors, but those of the musicals I did every summer with a teen theatre troupe.

When I initially showed Karen and Sara this stuff, one name jumped out at them.  “Sue Tedeschi?  You mean Susan Tedeschi?”

Indeed.  Susan was the bright star of my Summer of ’86.  That was the summer we did Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  Even then, that girl could BELT.  I was at turns awed by and insanely jealous of her.

We got older, aged out of that particular group; I went on to get some rather silly degrees and spent my twenties running around in my underwear in booze-soaked experimental theatre productions in the basements of bars.  And, well, Susan won a Grammy award.  But listen – if there was an awards show for being insanely drunk and wrapped in chains while doing a cover of a David J. song, I would have won ALL OF THE THINGS BY GOD.

Listen – this all ties together, I swear.

My mother-in-law died in February, after fighting that goddamned fucking Alzheimer’s for so long. My husband and I left the hospital to begin the process of making calls and arrangements.  And as we drove down Route 1 in Saugus, this song came on:

I don’t know if there could have been anything more oddly comforting to me in that moment.  I haven’t talked to Susan in decades.  But I know that voice in my bones.  And I sat in the car and just let it wash over me.  It didn’t stop the grief, of course not.  But it let me be in the moment for a few minutes.  I remember the grey clouds hanging over Route 1, I remember thinking that I was eventually going to need to eat something, and I remember Susan Tedeschi singing.

I’d like to thank her for that.

 

Pulling Plugs.

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I’m not quite sure what it says about the culture, or just about me, that I’m sitting here writing a “thinkpiece” about why I pulled the plug on Facebook this morning.  A Google search will yield all kinds of posts like this.  Why I Left Tumblr.  Why I Left Twitter.  And I’m not even 100% certain I’m going to permanently scrap my Facebook page.  What I do know is that it’s not helping matters right now.

I have clinical depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, and a host of other things simmering away in the janky old crockpot that is my head.  The medication that was recommended I take backfired, horribly. So I’m back to the drawing board.  And I am trying to think of what needless stressors I can jettison while I am trying to get well.

And I had to come to the conclusion that a big one was Facebook.

It’s not just because we’re in an election year, although that has something to do with it.  There’s an epic fuckton of negativity going around there, from all sides.

And issues.  So many issues.  So many people all of a sudden terrified that the “transgendereds” (sic) are demanding too much special treatment, treatment that is evidently going to throw wide the bathroom doors and usher in a terrible new epoch where molesters in dresses will lurk in stalls and under sinks.  And no amount of common fucking sense will quell the hysteria.

But then there’s just me.  Me being the obsessive, perpetually panic-stricken weirdo that I am.  Second-guessing every last goddamn thing I post, because I know that SOMEONE is going to take it the wrong way and launch some passive-aggressive ickiness my way.  I don’t like to make people mad.  But I also don’t like being pelted with “Well, actually…” when I’m trying to just work something out in my own space.  That happened fairly recently.  I also have had to deal with former friends creating fake accounts specifically to harass me after I terminated the original connection.  There’s something about the place that encourages disrespect, and brings out some nasty things in people, myself included.

And as I’m trying to deal with this latest, near-crippling, depressive episode, I’m finding that I just don’t want to be anyone’s court jester right now.  That’s pretty much always been my role, ever since I was a kid.  But jesters need a break, too.  But when I try to get serious, I’m apparently not serious enough. Or I’m exclusionary. I’m deliberately trying to make people feel bad. Can’t win.  Tired of trying.

The thing is – I love Facebook.  God help me.  I do.  I reconnected with a lot of old friends there.  Very few platforms are easier to share one’s writing on, and for that reason, I’m wary of completely walking away from it.

What I need to figure out is just how important it is for me, really.  How much I am really going to be missing by not being able to click in every 20 minutes?  And then that brings up the more uncomfortable question:  how much are people really going to miss ME?  I have to admit that, as I sit here writing this, Facebook is rolling along perfectly fine without my wiseassery and Peter Murphy videos.

I won’t lie – today it’s been embarrassingly difficult to not log back on, reactivate shit, and pretend like I never announced I was leaving.  I’ve seen that plenty of times, and I get it.  It’s like being in junior high again and knowing in my heart of hearts that everyone is having a slumber party, complete with a rousing game of “Light As A Feather Stiff As A Board,” without me.  And I desperately want to make sure that’s not true.  But for my own sanity, I can’t.  I’ve committed to being off this particular grid for at least seven days.  I suspect I am going to be happier for it, but right now, I am jonesing hard.

Pass The Trazodone

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So, after a really gnarly anxiety attack yesterday, we’re on a new regimen.  We’ve added a med, readjusted another med, and – hopefully – in tandem with the regular exercise and recovery meetings, I’m going to get this shit under control again.

The last few years dumped a whole lot of awful on me.  I thought that I could handle it just doing what I was doing.  I was horribly, laughably wrong.  I’ve been in a depressive, paranoiac swirl (sounds like a good ice cream flavor, if you’re totally losing your shit) since October, when I got badly triggered by a series of events (and anyone who thinks that “triggers” are bullshit can have all of these seats, and should remain in them until further notice).  A lot of the time I was able to manage, but I shouldn’t just be “managing.”  It’s a joyless way to go about your days, boy fucking howdy.

So I’m on this new medication now.  I can’t say for certain what it’s doing.  I feel a little less like running down the street screaming, but that’s probably psychosomatic.  There’s a lot of behavioral stuff that I need to incorporate over the next weeks and months as well.

I’m in this place where the worst case scenarios in my head are intruding into my actual reality.  RUDE.  I can stave that off at work, because cold, hard data is something I understand and take comfort in extracting and manipulating.  The SQL Management Studio and Excel are my boon companions.  But being at home invites aaallllll the neurochemical uglies.  And it’s become increasingly hard to keep them down in the root cellar where they belong.

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I know how a lot of people feel about medication.  I’ll just say that I’m not here for anyone who wants to scream BIG PHARMA at me right now.  I’ve been worn down to an emotional nub since moving into my mother-in-law’s house in 2010, and if you don’t believe that caregiving can actually mess with someone’s brain, well, Google is your friend, but here’s a good start.

Even with my mother-in-law gone, I’m struggling to put myself back together.  I’m still afraid to make plans.  And I can’t keep the panic at bay anymore, not without help.  Take an imaginary stroll in my stacked heels before you judge me or how I’m choosing to get my life back.

Sorry.  I’m tired.  I’m angry.  I’m angry at my brain for, you know, not being able to DEAL.

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We’re heading into summer soon.  I want to have a nice summer.  I want to go to Maine like we do every July and not be a panicky mess.  I want to take day trips to Salem and New Bedford.  I want to go to my annual Database Nerd conference and be a poised, knowledgeable nerd.  I want to be someone that Coombsie doesn’t have to walk on eggshells around. And damn it, I got Walker Stalker Con to go to.  The Governor is going to be there.  No, not Charlie Baker, because fuck that guy.  THE GOVERNOR.

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So, here’s hoping I’m going to stomp this down for a while.  Pass the Trazodone.

As if.

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My aunt recently posted a picture of a letter written by my (patenal) grandmother 36 years ago. In it, she says she’s been “like a big fat frog sitting on a lilypad letting everything swirl around me.”

That’s me, right now. I have been feeling very stuck, very “less than,” watching things happen and not making much of anything happen for myself.

I’ve committed to writing something here once a week, no matter how vapid and/or disorganized it is.  I go to the gym three times a week.  I go hang out with other drunks and talk about not being drunk.  I make a concerted effort to put on makeup and look “professional” every day.  But it’s all by rote, almost.  I’m going through the motions, but there is very little joy in Mudville.

I realize that this is depression.  And what I am doing is staving it off somewhat.  These things at least distract me to the degree where I’m not spending ALL of my time weeping on the couch and believing the terrible stories my brain is telling me:

My husband is going to leave me for his cute perky coworker.

My new boss is going to see right through me for the fraud that I am and fire me.

I’m not going to lose the 15 pounds my doctor told me I needed to lose last summer.

I’m going to wind up living in a refrigerator box, or at least in a terrible apartment with three other roommates who are at least 20 years younger than me.

I’m going to be a bitter, lonely old woman and my nieces and nephews are going to resent having to buy me Jean Nate gift sets at Christmas.

And on and on.  And the thing that people who don’t have chronic depression and anxiety don’t understand is that I absolutely, 100% BELIEVE that all these things are going to happen.  I’m going to be jettisoned for the perky coworker, and be unemployed, 15 pounds overweight, and living in a refrigerator box with 18 Jean Nate gift sets.  This is going to happen, and I am helpless to stop it.

When I write it all out, it of course sounds fucking ridiculous.  I need healthy distractions, but since I spent the last 6 years distracting myself from the reality of being a caregiver by engaging in UN-healthy things (the one thing I can say for myself here is that I never once thought of drinking in the midst of that horror show), it has proven incredibly difficult to break away from the “comfort” of bad food and bad television.

A thing I was taught in early sobriety is to act “as if.”  This is actually hard for me, even with a B.A. in Theatre.  I want to act as if I’m a confident Woman Of A Certain Age who is absolutely not threatened by my husband’s cute coworker, the new dynamic in my office, or the stubborn blubbery ring around my middle.  I want to act as if I have faith in something bigger than myself and that this something has my best interests at heart.  But that’s really difficult sometimes.  Actually, that’s difficult MOST of the time.  But yet I get up three mornings a week at Stupid Fucking O’Clock and I work out.  I put on makeup and try to look like an adult.  And here I am writing something and posting it, knowing it’s whiny and gross.

But oh well.  Guess I should start making room in this box for this Christmas’s Jean Nate gift sets.

The Stinky Entry

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Once upon a time, I wore really cheap perfume.

I’m not proud of this, except sometimes I am.

As a little girl, I wore the Avon stuff my mom would get for me and my sister.  If I concentrate, I can bring up olfactory memories of barely-floral talcum powder, greasy “solid” perfume that came in novelty pins and smelled like birthday candles, and an eu de toilette that gave off a cheap shampoo scent and came in a hippo-shaped bottle.  Certainly nothing particularly sophisticated.


I’d visit my grandparents’ house in Helena, MT many summers.  My grandparents had separate bathrooms, which was absolutely astounding to me (until we became “two-toilet Irish” in 1980 or so, the five of us shared one bathroom).  My grandfather’s bathroom was austere, spare, and done up in shades of tan and brown.  There was a shower stall, and soap-on-a-rope that I seem to remember smelled like saddle leather.  It was a cowboy bathroom.  You went in, did what you had to do, and left.

But my grandmother’s bathroom was like visiting an English garden.  Everything was roses, right down to the crystal bowl of miniature rose-shaped “guest soaps” on the toilet tank.  It was more or less understood that you were not to actually use those.  She had a pink padded toilet seat, which sank softly and gratifyingly as you lowered yourself onto it.  And on the sink vanity was a Jean Naté gift set.

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My grandmother’s bathroom represented what it was to be a lady.  In fact, “Lady” was my grandfather’s nickname for her.  And the idea of taking a bath, splashing Jean Naté all over myself, THEN dusting my bod with the powder puff seemed like the height of ladylike sophistication.

When I was 13 I went out and bought a Jean Nate gift set of my very own, which I placed on my dresser, after shoving aside my Star Wars action figures and dirty dishes that I’d neglected to bring to the kitchen.  If I ignored the mess and focused on the cheery yellow powder puff container, I could almost believe I was on my way to elegance.

I figured out the hard way that I wasn’t supposed to smell like Jean Naté.  A girl in my 8th Grade English class wrinkled her nose and informed me that I smelled “like old lady.”  Apparently I was supposed to smell like “innocence,” in the form of Love’s Baby Soft, which gave off a bouquet of baby oil and deodorant tampons.  But every girl in my class had a little bottle in her Jordache purse.  I didn’t get it.  I wanted to bypass “innocence” and go straight into smelling like the type of person who had a padded toilet seat and guest soaps for decorative purposes only.

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In high school, as has been said here before, my scent of choice was Giorgio.  Only I couldn’t afford Giorgio, so I went with Primo!, and walked around in a dizzying, metallic cloud of this shit until I was a senior, when I discovered the little roller ball vials of essential oils in the same stores where you could buy Indian print skirts 3 for $20.  In tandem with the clove cigarettes I learned I was supposed to be smoking, I then spent several years smelling like a spice rack.  With a base note of weed.

As a young adult entering the work force, I had two flimsy “suits” I probably bought at Express, and thought I was being extra fancy by “scent layering” with products purchased at Bath & Body Works (shower gel, lotion, and body spray).  So I basically walked around smelling like the syrup from a can of fruit salad.

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Then there was the sad, sorry period towards the end of my drinking where I just smelled like despair.

In my thirties, I got serious about my scent.  It’s been that way ever since.  I have a tray of perfumes sitting on my bona fide dresser, where I also keep my cosmetics and accessories.  I switch them in and out by season.  When I shift them over to dust the top of the dresser, they make a deeply satisfying tinkling sound, like I am a possessor of delicate things.  Delicate, ladylike things.

You shouldn’t gauge where you are in this life based on THINGS, I know.  But I feel like I struggled long and hard to smell as good as I do.

Thank you for a funky time…

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So, yeah. Prince died.

I was getting a pedicure when I started seeing the initial news on Twitter.  I tweeted something to the effect of “This better not be true.”  I mean – Bowie, then Patty Duke, and now Prince?  Are all the awesome people just going to vacate the premises this year?

So while the nail technician was scrubbing away at my cloven hooves (mind – this was the first pedi I’d gotten since last September) with the cheese grater thing, and I’m trying to control the impulse to kick as she’s doing so, I’m following along.

Someone died at Paisley Park.

It’s probably Prince, but it might not be.

Didn’t they have to land his plane somewhere in Illinois a few days ago?

We still don’t know if it’s Prince.

Well, yeah, it’s Prince.

I’ll tell you – this one hurt.  They all hurt in some way.  But some of them will hit you in a deep place you’ve buried under time and experience and responsibilities.  I was 13 when I became aware of Prince.  And 13 is a wide open wound, it is.

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Me at 13. Dig if you will the collar.

I was fortunate in that as terrible as that age was for me in myriad ways, the artists I was exposed to were kind of strange angels for me, promising – in their appearance and output – a future where I might be able to express myself without fear of being bullied into silence, which had been my experience up to that point.  They represented a riot of color and sound and brazenness that I wanted so desperately for myself.  David Bowie.  Annie Lennox.  Boy George.  Cyndi Lauper.  And Prince.

PRINCE-RIP

Oh, boy.  Prince.  My prior musical crushes inspired innocuous daydreams of holding hands and shy glances, of someone seeing in me what I couldn’t see in myself.  But Prince inspired…well…stirrings.  He was campy, yes, but utterly filthy.  This was pure sex wrapped in a purple doily.  My God.

More importantly, though, Prince had women on the stage with him.  And they weren’t idly writhing around like oiled up, glistening props.  Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman were full participants in the sound, and I understood implicitly that there was respectful collaboration going on there.  I soon wound up having more of a crush on Wendy than on Prince himself.  And THAT was something that I didn’t quite know how to unpack at that age.

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Wendy Melvoin.  Have mercy.

I listened to “1999” and “Purple Rain” forwards and backwards (and in the case of the latter, I listened to it quite literally backwards, manually spinning the record counter-clockwise to decipher the message at the end of “Darling Nikki.” It’s: “Hello, how are you?  I’m fine, because I know that the Lord is coming soon.  Coming, coming soon.”  In case anyone was wondering.).

The whole thing was mindblowing.  It made me think differently about music, musicianship, performance, and appearance.  And how can I get into how it made me think about gender and sexuality?  In hindsight, here was pure theatre.  Every song a story, set to music more complicated and dense than anything I’d heard before.  It made me appreciate production.  That drum sound!  The hollow popping peppered throughout his stuff in the 80s. That’s the Linn LM-1.  I became more interested in what instruments could do, and how an artist can create sounds that are unmistakably their own.  That’s only a fraction of his legacy.

I wrote about meeting Peter Murphy just days before finding out that Prince was gone.  In the previous entry, I mentioned how Bowie’s passing influenced my decision to spend the extra for the personal contact with an artist I admired.  I don’t know that I was more than a tweedy blip on Murphy’s radar, but I can say I met him.  I can say I looked him in the eye, hugged him, and THANKED him.  I wrote that I should not ignore opportunities like that if I have the means to make them happen.  I don’t know that I ever would have met Prince, but now that’s simply not a possibility anymore.  All I can do is lay down my gratitude here, in words that are barely adequate.

Thank you for a funky time.

In which I manage to NOT make an ass of myself in front of Peter Murphy

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I have spent decades now listening to Peter Murphy.  Bauhaus, and his solo material, was the absolute PERFECT soundtrack for a theatre major with gloomy tendencies.  I would listen to “The Three Shadows” (from The Sky’s Gone Out) and giggle with the glee that only comes from someone who’s been raised on a steady diet of old horror movies (thanks, Ma).  I immediately related to the inherent humor of the Bauhaus catalog, as well as to the aesthetic.  And in Peter Murphy I saw nearly every Shakespeare protagonist AND antagonist.  He was Richard III, prowling menacingly.  He was Puck, mischievous and mincing.  I was completely and totally enamored of the whole thing.

I bought a huge Bauhaus poster which was kind of a centerpiece for my dorm room.  I still own it; it’s a bit battered but holds a similar place of honor in my band’s practice space.  It has amused my bandmates for a while now.

 

Me being charming as all get out, 1989.
Same poster in my rehearsal space, 2016.

I’ve seen him countless times since 1990.  He brings that command every single time.  And that voice.  My God.  Sonorous and deep and unbelievable.  I never get tired of it, ever.  And so when I learned of his Stripped tour, and the Boston date, I immediately bought tickets.  Like, no question.  BUT.  I also learned that for an extra bit of cash, one could arrange to meet Mr. Murphy, talk to him, have his undivided attention for a bit of time.

I felt a little squicky about paying extra for the “VIP” thing.  Part of me thinks it’s sort of pretentious, and part of me just wishes that I could talk to someone like Peter Murphy based on my own achievements.  You know, if I’d done something more with music or my writing so I could be a celebrity in my own right or something.  Which is also pretentious.

Ultimately I had to ask myself: “If you have both the means and the opportunity, why WOULDN’T you do it?”  And I also thought about David Bowie, and how he was now unavailable in human form, and – again – if you are presented with an opportunity to THANK someone for helping you navigate through all manner of problems AND causes for celebration, wouldn’t you do it?  I decided I would.

Now, the big problem that faced me once I made that decision was how I was going to hold it together when meeting him.  We ALL know about the Howard Jones Fiasco Of 2015 by now (and if you don’t, you can read all about it here).  If I erupted into uncontrollable sobbing while meeting Howard Jones, what would possibly transpire while meeting Peter Murphy, a much larger influence?  I consulted friends, particularly those who knew me when I was at Peak Freakishness (’88-’92).  A sampling of responses:

John W.:  You will need valium.
Katie D.:   Dude. If you don’t cough up the $$ to look God Himself in the face and touch His splendor, Acid Puppet* will be very disappointed.

I was bound and determined to NOT explode into alternating paroxysms of sobbing and giggling.  I was going to try and be my Usual Charming Self™ and hope for the best.

Unless he was mean to me.  Would he be mean to me?  I’m not as committed a goth as I used to be.  I’m 45.  I work as a database administrator.  I dress in what would probably be described as a fruit salad of vintage, business, and art teacher attire.  My complexion is just as pale as ever, though, so there’s that.  But would he just eye me up and down and decide I was some sort of old-ass poseur?  I fretted and obsessed to the point where Coombsie said, “Peter Murphy poops like everyone else.  Also – you’re paying money to meet him.  HE’S GOING TO BE NICE TO YOU.”

The show itself was, of course, fantastic.  In fact, I think this was the best I’ve seen him.  But as it got closer and closer to the end of the show, I started kind of squirming.  It didn’t help that there were a couple of Committed Goths™ behind me snarking about how so many people in the audience looked like “they were social workers and shit.”  Well, database administrator actually, but I suppose that’s just as dull.  And I was going to Peter Murphy shows before you were even born, so…eat my (not black velvet) shorts.  I guess.  I’m feeling bad enough, ladies.

But in the end, I got to go upstairs with the tour manager, and two other women who paid for VIP passes (Anne and Gwen).  Anne very much looked the part of Committed Goth™, and Gwen looked like someone I would work with.  The manager instructed us to have a seat in this little…balcony alcove thing, and that Peter would “be with you shortly.”

Peter will be with you.  Amen.

I pulled out my vinyl copy of Peter’s first solo album.  Gwen’s eyes widened.  “Oh my God, where did you get THAT?”

“I, um, bought it.  When I was a teenager.”

Anne turned to us.  “So let me ask you – how did you know about this?  The VIP thing, I mean.”

“Oh, um, well…I saw it on his Facebook page.  I actually agonized over whether or not to do it.”

Anne said, “I only found out about it TODAY.  And I was like…okay…this is going to sound crazy, but the David Bowie dying thing made me realize – and not that I’m saying Peter’s gonna die soon – that I should do this.”

“Oh, my God, yes….I thought the SAME THING.”

And then there he was.  Peter Murphy.  “HELLOOOOO.  Let me kiss you all!”

What.  WHAT.  I…

He embraced Anne, kissing both cheeks.  Then it was my turn.  OH GOD.  Then he kissed and hugged Gwen.

Anne gave him some artwork she’d made for him.  He seemed pleased.  I put my album on the table for him to sign.

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He assessed me, my outfit.  “LOOK at you, darling!  Look at this TWEED!  Fantastic!”

From there it was babbling.  But good babbling, and a lot of it from him.  “How did it sound out there?  Oh, this place is wonderful.  It sounded wonderful onstage.  They’re great here.  You’re Irish, aren’t you?  My father was Irish. You have an Irish face.”  He then began speaking in a fake brogue to me.  “Are ye married?  Have ye any babbies?”

“Um, no.”

“AH, well, you’re young still, ye are.”

“I’m in my forties, though.”

“WELL NOW, you could STILL have ‘em.  I mean, it would be HARD, but…” he trailed off.  It was exactly the sort of weird improvised conversation I would have had with my theatre major friends.  It was amazing.

“Your hair, though.  I’ve been admiring it.  The color.  Take off the hat, would you?”  I obliged, even though I knew I would have hat hair, because PETER FUCKING MURPHY.  “Oh, that’s lovely.  I wanted to do just that, you know.  The two-tone.  But it washed me out, you know?  I would have to wear twice as much base because I was so pale.”  He patted my head.  “Beautiful.  Love it.  Love your whole look.  Now then – pictures!  I want a picture with all of you beautiful ladies.  I’m married.  I live like a monk, you know.”

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And then it was nearly over.  I gave him a big hug, and said, “Thank you…for everything.”

I DIDN’T CRY.  I DIDN’T PEE.  I’m terribly proud of myself.  It more than made up for the Howard Jones thing.

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* – “Acid Puppet” was this weird art puppet thing that my roommate Katie and I bought at the Rattlesnake Festival one year. It was so freaky that we named it, well, Acid Puppet, and whenever I’d go to Katie’s parents’ house in Orlando, I’d bring it along just to torment her little sister:  “SUUUUUUUUSSSSANNNN.  It’s AAAAACID PUPPET.”  I was 20 years old, btdubs.