Dodge

I need to stop walking down my block during daylight hours on Sunday or else suck it up and go to church more often. Since Sunday services at the nearly next-door Pentecostal church I've often attended last all day, the odds I'll see a fellow congregant I know on the sidewalk are apparently 100& at any given time. Plus, since I'm seemingly the only white person ever known to attend this particular church, my fellow parishioners remember me well.

It always makes me feel guilty.

Today I ran into a deaconess I like a lot while on my way to pick up some fruit.

"You been working hard lately?" she asked, which is a kind way to inquire about my unexplained absence from the church.

"Yeah. Too hard," I responded briefly.

"I'm off all summer. I work for the Board of 'Ed, so I'm free till September." She smiled.

"Lucky lady!" I laughed and shuffled off with a smile and a backward wave, happy to see her but not exactly thrilled to have to dodge her questions in advance about the nature of my work, etc.

Rough stuff. I do it to myself.

Staal Brothers Make Me Dizzy

I have a big crush on all four of the tall, blonde Staal brothers, three of whom already play in the NHL (the youngest is eligible for next season's draft). Yesterday evening I watched an interview with second-eldest Jordan Staal (who probably gets sick of all those questions about his wunderkind Penguins teammate Sidney Crosby) with the sound off while dancing on the bar stage at Tryst. I almost fell all over myself when they showed side-by-side shots of him with his gorgeous brothers. Such an overwhelming dose of masculine beauty is hard to handle while one is trying to stay balanced on 5-inch heels at the end of an 8-hour shift.

PS 2 Reading over my recent posts makes me cringe. I've been such an ungrateful whiner!!!!! No more!!!!!!

Rut

The cancer lurks secure and spreading where furtiveness hides in rows of decaying brick.
-- HP Lovecraft, "The Horror at Red Hook"

My state of torpor has increased to such a degree that I woke up the past few mornings with an alarm bell going off in my mind-- a loud, urgent reminder that sloth is a sin. I feel like a dying pile of flesh, trapped in a paralyzing cycle of indecision. I have become another lost and morally diseased person in a dirty neighborhood of drug dealers and addicts, though my crisis has to do with total confusion and exhaustion, rather than addiction. I feel trapped bodily in my own home, with no ability to envision an outside world outside wider in scope or possibility than the strip club or occasional church sanctuary. Lack of vision is an imprisoning force-- when paired with almost total surcease of energy, the effect is as disgusting as it is weighty.

When I walk down the block to buy food, I encounter people, some of whom I know and like, yet I can't seem to find connections with others or a regular schedule of work manageable anymore.

"When are you coming back to the church?" a tall young man asked me Sunday as I passed him on the street in front of the Pentecostal church near my home.

"I don't know. I have no excuse for not coming in anymore. I'm just lazy." I said without inflections or emotion, neglecting to add that I also feel tainted with the shame of working in a dishonorable profession.

In short: things are bad.

I've found that people in this world who stop contributing to the greater good and become trapped in their own egoic cycles of misery tend to fall into a rapid state of despair and decay (in that order). I don't want to be one of those people.

I am praying right now for a sign. I hope I am able to find a way to contribute to this world positively, and manage to escape this rut.

PS I am trying to avoid all potentially romantic scenarios, but it seems I haven't tried hard enough. Somehow I've managed to give two men my new phone number this week, and the sound of their various texts popping up on my phone is horrible-- like a recrimination for lack of integrity. I don't want to waste anyone's time, so I don't respond. I should have never let them have my information in the first place... that's what I get for meeting people from craigslist ads and the like-- texts from fast-talking lawyers in New Jersey who want to get me drunk on Grey Goose somewhere and film location scouts trying to tempt me to see "Transformers 2" in IMAX. Really? If those are the interests of people I currently attract, I'll just wish them well and go buy some books instead. Whatever other issues may be arising in my personal life, I really am 100% content being single right now.

PS The animal that best represents my current state of being is the naked mole rat:

Stray

"Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement, and love without penalties."
-- W. L. George



This morning I awoke to a frightening sight. The hale and glossy cat who recently started living on top of the storage shed in my back yard suddenly appeared mangy, dusty and as stiff as roadkill.

For a minute I was sure he was dead.

"Cat!" I cried, hopeful that making noise might incite him to move a bit if indeed he still lived. I was duly rewarded by a cursory--but still very welcome-- twitch of his dark tail in response.

I like seeing him every day. I highly suspect him of being charmingly naughty, but since he's a Bushwick alley cat he probably spends more time trying to keep his little head above water survival-wise than playing kittenish pranks.

I wonder where he goes when it rains?

PS I mentioned the cat to a customer at Tryst the other day.

"A cat on your storage shed?" he asked incredulously. "What, down by the crick? Where do you *live* that you have a *shed*?"

"Bushwick," I laughed.

Ah, me.

PS Why is the lawn furniture overturned? I swear it was right-side-up last week. I don't even want to know.

Highway To Heaven

The dress I'm wearing today (bought in Washington Heights for 12 dollars last summer) has a lovely peacock print that somewhat reminds me of the more Rococo illustrations of Dr. Seuss:



Also:

Ever since I was a child of five I've had lingering, sorrowful memories of a particularly compelling "Highway to Heaven" episode featuring a homeless, mentally challenged boy living in a cardboard box. Forced by his tragic circumstances to steal cans of tuna from the mean old man-owned corner store in order to feed his beloved pet cat, he makes a fateful birthday wish (on a stale hamburger bun, in his box in a Skid Row alley, with candles he also shoplifted) for someone to love him, upon which an angel (Michael Landon, duh) shows up to help him make it come true.

Now. Having a few days off and no other pressing interests except painting various picture frames in one of four separate pastel colors (still have to buy new mats at Pearl tomorrow):



I decided to find it on You Tube and see if it affected me as powerfully as of yore. Oh my gosh, I watched it twice in two days and got tears in my eyes both times.

I really enjoyed it. I felt genuinely inspired to be less selfish, and to be grateful more often. Whether one views this sort of religious family drama as cheap emotional pornography or, conversely, as a highly accessible and righteous form of popular culture, if the affect on the viewer is enobling (which it was/is for me), I feel the other issues are essentially moot points. Also, the fact that Michael Landon claimed he conceived (as well as subsequently wrote, directed and starred in) "Highway to Heaven" after he made a solemn pact with God at the hospital bedside of his critically injured daughter to produce television shows that made a genuine difference if she recovered (she did), either makes him the most shameless huckster of his generation or a spiritually as well as commercially enterprising man who was simply doing his best.

The episode is called, "Alone".



Note: the children in "Highway to Heaven" seemed to be on summer vacation 99% of the time. Maybe that's because most of them were runaways, terminally ill types, etc. who never went to school anyway.

PS It looks as though the latter half of the week is going to be clear. I'm so tired of this rain-- such a record-breaking, relentless deluge is terrible for business at the strip club as well as my soul.

Underneath My Tree/Teeth

I bought some adorable little drawings by Jason Sposa of Underneath My Tree (http://www.underneathmytree.com/index.html) at the Renegade Craft Fair a week or two ago. I'm really in love with his work. I think I'll buy another print or two for my mother as a birthday present, and maybe one more for myself while I'm at it.

On a totally unrelated note, I keep having recurring dreams involving tooth loss. According to the articles I've been browsing, such dreams are apparently very common. Unfortunately, not one of the various interpretations I've found regarding dreams about tooth loss is positive.

This web site (http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art10573.asp) says:

"Sometimes tooth loss dreams point to a fear of failure or embarrassment. In waking life, when people lose teeth, they often cover their mouths when talking or smiling. Is there something you want to do but are afraid of undertaking because you fear you'll look foolish if you fail? Or is there something going on in your waking life that you feel you must hide or 'cover up'?"

It seems the burden of my secret life is beginning to poison even my dreams.

I'm not very surprised.

PS I finally bought a new phone. Maybe I'll even get around to telling people I got a new phone number... eventually-ish. It's an iPhone, but this is probably the last time I'll mention that fact. People who talk about their phones or check them obsessively annoy me greatly. Most inexplicable to me is when someone grabs his or her significant other's phone and feels entitled to play with it. I can't imagine being okay with any human being checking my texts. The prospect makes me want to crack skulls, I can't lie.

Sneakers

I really want some new sneakers. I feel like a brown sparrow among birds of paradise every time I cross the Williamsburg Bridge on the JMZ. Sadly, all the most fabulous, rampantly colorful ones seem to be made, at least partially, of leather.

Boo...

PS My feet hurt so badly from dancing double shifts. I'm going to see if I can find some more comfortable stripper heels around West 4th before I go back to work on Tuesday.