Prayers for rain

The weather has been full of empty threats involving thunderstorms for more than a week. I've been scowling at the sky in disappointment, motivated to take some photographic evidence for the next time I'm tempted to hold another Local on the 8s Dance Party til Dawn Blowout.





The ground out in New Castle even looked ominous. But, nothing.



Today the windows are thrown open, but I'm still waiting. Rain has fallen, but without the rumbling of thunder and the strobe-light flash of lightning, I'm indifferent. I don't care. It's so humid I can't breathe. A good thunderstorm will clear the air, and there's few things on earth better than the sudden cracking apart of a hot summer night.

Of lillies and remains. And fluff.

I have a complicated relationship with cosmetics -- certainly one too wordy to properly delve into since I have to start getting ready for work within the hour. Surely, I'm a breathing dichotomy: A tree-climbing intellectual; a short-haired girly-girl; a cynic who has never lost her sense of childish wonder.

After resisting it for years, I finally got into make-up on my own when I was starting into my goth phase. I was a fan of heavy eyeliner and not much else. That was when I was fifteen or so, and I don't remember much else, really, other than wanting to look like Peter Murphy and Siouxsie Sioux (and, thankfully, not Robert Smith).

When my cancer diagnosis came in the summer of 1998, my mother had a rule that I had to wear my wig and make-up at all times. It didn't matter if I was puking every twelve seconds; I had to look "normal". She said it was "in case somebody came to the door", but I'm pretty sure an unexpected visitor wasn't going to go blasting into the bathroom like Kool-Aid Man. I harbored some resentment for that (and maybe I still do since I'm kind of protective of my patients at work): I had accepted my yellowing skin and lack of hair; it was simply who I was at that moment in time. Why couldn't everybody else? If they had a problem with it -- if they found it shocking or terrifying -- well, it was just their problem, and they'd have to get over it, now wouldn't they?

I still feel like that, I think. Why is it the cancer patient's job to look "normal"? They have enough to worry about, physically and psychologically. They already have to construct a new sense of "normal". Then again, that's another topic for another time. I could easily write about it for hours.

Maybe that's where the fear comes from that if I leave the house without make-up, something bad will happen. I was relentlessly teased for my nose until adulthood, so it's safe to say I have some insecurities over my looks. But, I'm sure everybody does. Actually, given the atmosphere of American advertising and popular culture, it's damn close to impossible not to. But again, another rant for another time.

Anyway, I'm a grown-up now, or at the very least, I do a pretty good job of pretending to be. In the past year or so I've gotten into cosmetics purely as a game to play or a sort of project: In short, it's fun. Turns out, there's a big difference between high-end, good quality eyeshadow and the crap you buy at Target. Yeah, I should've probably gone through this phase over ten years ago, but I was too busy scribing in notebooks, drinking black coffee, and planning on transforming into Henry Rollins whenever I became an adult.

A few months ago, I found out about Urban Decay cosmetics, and on a whim I gave their products a try because the colours were so radioactively vibrant. Ever since, I've been having a blast with this stuff. My inner girly-girl has been coming out and trying all sorts of bizarre and unholy combinations. I probably look ridiculous. Surprisingly, I don't really care, but somehow, that's the best part. I don't know if I could've said that a full year ago.

There was a sale going on a month ago, and I bought a bunch of new goodies for far less than what my original eye shadow palette cost me. Awesome.

And I've got nothing.

Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in a Philip K. Dick book.

Characteristically, I'm solely aware that it's all fiction. There's the dilemma of warning the other characters: On one hand, to do so is to get labeled as the crazy, unstable personality; on the other, I'm the dark-haired and dark-eyed but fair-skinned female, so in PKD lore, that automatically and predictably makes me the catalyst (and prone to sunburn). At some point, I'm going to meet the main character. At first, the encounter will seem like simple coincidence, but in the grand scheme of reality it will be much deeper. He will have plenty of things wrong with him and on the whole has no business being in charge of an entire story. Somehow, we'll save the world by the end of the book -- mostly by his doing, although I'll have a key moment in there somewhere.

Until that point, however, I'll creep ever-closer to the edges of the pages. Each time I do, a shock will be issued, and I'll be thrown back. I'll catch my breath, pull myself back up, and try again. And again. And again. Someday, I'll get word out -- a message in a bottle -- that I'm real, that I'm trapped, and that I need help.

Sometimes, to think of my existence in this way instead of what it actually is, seems more comforting, or at the very least, makes more sense. I came home from work on Friday in a state of seizure and haven't been right since. For the most part, I can't really remember what has gone on for the past few days, or that they even existed in the first place. There have been moments of clarity and normalcy, sure. But mostly they bled into states in which I was dimly aware of my own being, staring out from behind a sense of sand and marbled glass, mouth slack and open, eyes straight and staring, limbs twitching, repeating "I'm fine." in a voice garbled by static emanating from a creature that was several fathoms deep.

My legs hurt, and I feel like a part of my brain never switched back on. Maybe that's why I'm writing something now -- to see if I still can. To see if words still work, to see if rhythm still works, all of it. It's taken me a very long time to type this out. Commas keep showing up in the middle of words and my hands are shaking. But what I want to say is still there, so I'm not too worried. And normally, I wouldn't even be worried. I've just never had it last this long before.

I don't want to go to the hospital because they can't do anything for me there. Really, they can't. It's a pointless endeavor. I've been to the ER several times for my epilepsy, and nothing really happens. I'm better off at home.

 

If I can't even write about it, then I've got nothing.

 

I always tried to keep myself tied to this world.

I am slowly growing more suspicious that the building directly next door is synthesizing itself a nervous system, but I don't have the heart to tell it that neurons should never be an external feature. It's not befitting of a lady.



 

My pantry isn't as stocked as it was a few weeks ago due to time and financial restraints, but that didn't stop me from cooking a satisfying dinner tonight. I asked Dinosaur Adam (yes, that's an obvious nod to The Tick) to pick up some beer on the way home, and I used it to bake some bread. He selected some Sam Adams blackberry concoction. I've never tried it before, but the result was a slight berry tone, so it was a nice touch for a peaceful summer evening.



There is no better -- or more agonizing -- smell in the world than bread baking in the oven when one is hungry. In the end, though, it was a success.



 

I've been listening to this song an awful lot lately:

http://youtu.be/woIiLtWzXAQ

I'm not sure if it has more to do with the sound itself or the multitude of happy, nostalgia-tinged memories attached to it.

And the beat goes on.

I spent the day doing a whole lot of nothing except reintroducing myself to my Nikon D40. Considering what I've been through in the last year (and in the past two months alone), I can safely say that I've earned a day of inactivity (if inactivity includes huffing on lenses, screwing around with metering, and swearing at myself for not being able to remember which buttons do what).

I've long said that photography is the sole hobby I have which keeps me calm, a funny statement considering I'll throw myself headlong into the dirt or scale up the side of some rocky precipice to get the picture I'm after. But, yeah. That's relaxing. It's constructive obsessing. It's not like when I write -- my whole body gets into it, and I'm literally throwing my body around the room when the proper word eludes me, and the screaming starts; it's one big exorcism, really, and it's a fun process, and it's a brutal process, and I live for that shit. With photography, my heart is forced into hypothermic rhythms, and I am still. It's not too often that that happens.

With work and all the other craziness that's been happening, I simply haven't had the time to spend with my camera. I need to change that -- I need to  to take pictures of even the mundane in an attempt to force some kind of balance in my chaotic existence. It's something I used to do because I understood the importance, and lately I'm being reminded more and more of it.

It's this apartment, too. The safety of this place, the perfection of the layout and location; the fact that it's mine. I'm becoming uncharacteristically domestic with each passing day. Everything is neat and clean, and I'm actually cooking for myself instead of burning down the kitchen.

It's evenings of crickets humming in the backyard, fruit pared over the sink, carefully lined over my grandmother's cutting board; late nights with the television murmuring somewhere in the bedroom, a half-crocheted afghan slung across the bed, waiting for me to return as I pull a pan of brownies from the oven.







Well. I suppose I should get to bed. I'm going to the zoo tomorrow, and there's a lot of pictures to take there.

Brianne's Half-Assed, Semi-Something, Parade of Musical Extravaganza Crap: Gogol Bordello - Sally

About a year ago, I used to run a song-of-the-day type blog for a short time which probably wasn't all that interesting, but did let me write about one of my favourite topics. I think I'm going to start doing that here, even if I know it won't be every day. Most likely, it'll be "Brianne's Half-Assed, Semi-Something, Parade of Musical Extravaganza Crap", which totally has a catchy ring to it.

Whenever anybody asks me to recommend new music, I immediately reply with "Gogol Bordello. They have accordion solos that'll make your head explode." It's true. Or I'm assuming it's true, at least. I'm sure that somewhere, someone has died that way.

I first came across Gogol Bordello at an alarmingly appropriate time in my life -- I had just discovered that my great grandparents were Carpathian Roma probably two weeks prior. Nobody in my family liked to acknowledge this fact. I grew up in a small town that had evolved from a limestone mining camp composed of Sicilian immigrants, so by default, we said we were Italian. (And my mother's mother's family is northern Italian, so it's not an outright lie.) Still, I can recall a few things being said to me as a child whenever my grandfather's back was turned ("You know, your Grandma G____ is a you-know-what."; I did not know what a you-know-what was.) and also a cryptic remark my mother made when I was fourteen or so: "Well, I guess Grandma G____ was really Romanian, but don't tell anybody."

Uncovering my heritage is a whole story in itself, but this is a music post, so I'll leave it for another day. Since I knew absolutely nothing about Romani culture, I really didn't know what to do. There isn't a book out there that's called "So, You're a Gypsy" and it's not like I knew anybody. And my family was (and is) in such deep denial about it. In the end, I figured it was best to just forget about it. That lasted for about two weeks.

Then I came across Gogol Bordello, and my whole life changed.

No, really, it did. It was kind of an accidental thing that I heard them for the first time. I had no idea what I was listening to, and I actually came to the conclusion that it had to be some kind of joke because nobody made music like that. I mean, it was an awesome joke, but there was just no way it could be real. It was my hope that they had a whole joke album, which they did. But it wasn't a joke. It was actually real. And it was a thing called...Gypsy Punk?

So, honestly -- you're taking punk rock and mixing it with...Gypsy music? It's some hybrid thing? The most familiar and most loved thing in the world to me combined with that stuff I was supposed to forget about? Why are you doing this to me? This can't be happening. And what the fuck am I doing? It's three in the afternoon and I've been dancing around my apartment for roughly five hours now. I can't turn this off. It's like every coil of my DNA is buzzing, and I've found the frequency at which my cardiac cells operate. And, wait! What the hell was that word? I know that word! I know I know that word! I haven't heard that word in years but I know I know that word and I know it's a bad word! ...Holy Mother of God. I'm a goddamn Gypsy.

In that moment of realization, I wanted to learn everything I could about my heritage. That was six years ago, and I still feel that way. Roma music is the best music in the world, and that opened up the avenue to explore the rich culture and language behind it. I could just sit here and write three thousand posts about the different types of Roma music and the history thereof and be perfectly happy doing so, but I've gotten so off track as it is.

I've had to retain my sense of humour through it all. Sometimes I don't use words correctly -- it's hard to learn a complicated language with several dialects on one's own. And then there's the outrage. I could go on about that for pages. But then there's stuff that people simply don't understand, so I have to patiently correct them -- if I'm mean about it, I'm not really accomplishing anything. But, yeah -- if I can laugh at little things, it's not so daunting.

At any rate, I love Gogol Bordello. I know they're not traditional Gypsy music, but they're still a great band (even though I hated their latest album). I feel somewhat indebted to them, so they'll always be special to me.

I guess now I don't have the energy to write about the song itself, which is a shame. I love "Sally" because it never gets old. Back when I used to be a punk rock vocalist, I used to use this song as a warm-up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsgsi7o1K_g

But the one thing about "Sally" that's so endearing? It's not the violins or the hysteria or the catchiness -- although those elements do help. It's a single line: "AND I SURVIVE EVEN FUCKING RADIATION!"

There's no other song in the world that has a line like that, and no other song in the world where I can yell along to so defiantly. I know why Eugene Hutz wrote it: He survived Chernobyl. I survived cancer. It's not the same thing. But it's the closest thing I've got, and it's fucking awesome.

In which the narrator learned a very important life lesson.

The processor up in the darkroom was malfunctioning on a grand scale; it was at the point where it was emiting a nefarious grinding sound while backward Sumerian phrases flashed on the screen. Since I have a reputation for being clever (or MacGuyver), I was summoned upstairs to fix it. (Or to have my soul devoured. I don't know.)

After jiggling the film cassette it had lodged in its opening a few times, I asked my startled co-worker if he had any candles handy.

"Uh, why? I don't, but why do you need candles?"

"Because," I calmly explained. "I've never seen a processor do this before. So, we may need to do the Divine Ritual of Robocop in which -- "

"Did you just say 'Robocop'?"

"Yeah, Robocop -- "

Suddenly, the processor hummed gleefully and began to process the film as if nothing had happened.

I learned a valuable lesson. All mechanical appliances will bow before the mighty name of Robocop.

On writing, or on life; I don't know which.

Walking home from work this morning, I was framing each step like a good photographer: The way the waxing light hit the bricks of the building, the remarkable fusion of ancient bits of glass with the cracks in the sidewalk; the scanning the sky for promised thunderstorms. However, it wasn't simply limited to the visual. The visual is just something I have trained myself to do (and, regrettably, don't do very much of anymore, though I hope to reverse that soon); the act of framing scenes in my is what I've always done, unconscious and unprompted.

And so the words shot through my head like meteors, describing my lungs as the struggled for air against the oppressive heat; the scrape of the sidewalk against my shoes; the bed waiting for me in the apartment perched high above the street. I had the sense that time wasn't acting correctly. Suddenly, there was a hand on my arm. I turned; it was a crossing guard, and I was prepared to tell her that I was an adult and I didn't require her assistance. Instead, a jolt of electricity ran through me, and my response was to fall to the ground. I could see her look of shock, but I couldn't hear her through my headphones. Believe me, I was fine with that. I'm sure she said something. Her mouth was moving.

Last week, when I was walking home from work, I'm not completely sure what happened, but I regained consciousness on the sidewalk, scraped up, bewildered, and steps from my apartment. The last thing I remember is crossing the street and having the sense that it was something I had done ten years prior. Nobody was around. Maybe the world had ended.

Remembering this and half out of consciousness, I somehow pulled myself up off the street, darted into traffic, and ran the whole way home, shaking wildly and wondering why time was acting so erratically and where that buzzing was coming from. It wasn't far. But I'll be damned if I was going to have a seizure in front of a crossing guard and half of goddamn Pittsburgh traffic.

A sense of horror, playing out day by day. I've taught myself to not think about it anymore and instead turn it into a series of jokes at my own expense. There's no escape from epilepsy. It's less like a Lovecraftian monster that can immobilize you at any time when it's hilarious.

When I had the idea for this website, it was with the intent to give my writing a home -- to get myself writing again. The silly stuff I post was just going to be there. I've been slowly realizing that I haven't been writing because I've gotten myself into a place where I don't want to write because it's painful to think. Not that I ever stop thinking, but I've been in a painful place for a while. That's probably not the best way to be going about things, considering. It's time that I start tearing myself apart again. In the past, that's where my best work always came from, and I want to start producing more of my best work again. I know I'm good, I know I can, and I'm not afraid of the hard work involved.

There's some Henry Rollins quote that's something along the lines of "It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew." Sometimes, I feel like epilepsy is doing that to me. Or my job, in some capacity -- that it's making me lose my focus on what's really important. That's what's happening, and I don't want it to happen anymore. My goal is to be a published science fiction writer. I don't have any crazy aspirations to win a Nebula Award, or anything -- but that's all I've ever wanted. I don't want to get married or have children. I don't want a big house. I just don't care about anything else, really. All I want is to tell stories, and in turn have enough to survive on. That's it. (And maybe next week, I can save the universe.)

So, if seizing on the sidewalk makes for a great story, fine. I guess I can deal with that. But only if I can turn the crossing guard into an unholy creature that devours time. Because that would be awesome.

 

Testing and hello

Hi. This is the intoductory post for my new webspace. I was feeling ambitious, so the intention was for it to be the home of my writing and photography. In reality, it'll probably be the place where my Coast to Coast AM rants end up.