Aubrey’s blog

A River's Source

nobody@vox.com(Aubrey) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:57:50 -0700

I pass by two rivers every day.

In the morning, I will hear one as it carves a liquid path from behind the inhospitable walls guarding the backyard of a blank, unmemorable house. Arms of green branches - swathed in garnet colored jewels, parures of blossoms - thrust over residential parapets. The water sounds are rich and melodic; cool fingers that play on stones like a submerged keyboard. The chill rising from the plaits of rivulets thins nd comforts the thick summer air.

This must be some corner of a forest, full of charcoal shadows smudged by unknown fingers, sliced from its parents' living breast - thriving with chlorophyll - and transported to that little backyard. The trees must be huddled together for fear of the city, linking branches to form a brotherly, woodsy web. The bark is slashed into deep wounds, curved and lengthy, reflecting the shape of the river that glints between the roots that clutch and dig at the soil like talons. I don't know the source of this river. Perhaps it bleeds up from the lacerated earth.

In the evening, walking home on a different street, I see the second river. It is a voluptuous stripe of gold that writhes along the gutters of the street, pooling around the massed tires of parked cars. I imagine the prospectors of '49, with hands that are gray and split like diseased lumber, huddled around the drains and dipping their pewter trays into this river until the gilded arteries are bled dry.

Once more, I wondered about the source of this river. But this time I found it: in the trees that cast perpetual dusk ovr this slender current that was colored like melted sunlight, thick and congealed like discarded paint. Scattered throughout their branches were citrine bouquets of blossoms.

Blossoms From Above

Every time the wind awoke from its summer drowsiness, it would whisper its congratulations. And with each invisible word, a bridal veil of yellow petals would fall like a filigree of tears, weaving a cloth of gold before making its bed in the sewer.

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For The Romantically Inclined

nobody@vox.com(Aubrey) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:39:09 -0700

Not long ago, the sublimely ethereal Jaypo, in a fit of whimsy - or possibly mimsy; I haven't inquired after her borogroves lately - made a list of spammer's names that she had lately been inflicted with:

E. Peggy Carmela
Jesus Boggs
Dirk Moon
Pagan Rhodes
Faith Mock
Benito Saunders
Polk McCracken
Reba Violet
Monique Ball
Brand.Beard.Hoffman

I read them; she read them - we both knew that these read like a casting call of the most filthy and degenerate kind. This was literary gold. And like two corrupt alchemists, we set about writing a story - a romance - that would spend freely of this debased currency.

These names are about to dance the tarantella across your reasoning; their stories are at the gate, and about to be set loose: a band of whippets chasing after the frightened white rabbit that is your sanity. These characters' thought processes will drag your sensibilities down to their knees.

Prepare to wave a fair linen handkerchief and bid your sense of decency farewell. Prepare Calliope, Muse of Epic Poetry, for despair. Prepare, my friends, to be beaten to a pulp:

"As Big As Balloons"

The sun was blazing. Fiefld worker Dirk Moon, handsome and rough, unbuttoned his shirt, little knowing that young Faith Mock was watching him from her bedroom window.

"Sweet Jesus!" she said, unable to take her eyes off him.

"That'd be me..." Jesus Boggs said from her king-sized round mattress.

"Mr. Boggs," Faith mocked him, "I would expect greater discretion from my private gardener."

At the sound of voices coming from her adopted daughter's room, Reba Violet raised a hand to knock at Faith's - always locked - door. Suddenly she ffelt a firm, masculine hand grip her elbow. Benito Saunders whispered in her ear, "Leave them alone, babe - you knew it was only a matter of time."

Reba flashed violet eyes in his direction, then melted into the Roman hood of her magenta velour robe, covering her face and her eyes. He wasn't supposed to see her like this, like a sneaking, cheap detective. But Benito had a seventh sense, like the deadly sins, of what she was capable of, she who worked her fingers to the bone sending this ungrateful wild child to the best schools. Reba despised that about Benito.

The one thing Faith never lived up to was her name. Reba pulled her robe tighter around her body - a body whose curves broke every law.

"But you don't understand - she is my child!" His grip tightened, hurting her.

"She is adopted", he hissed, "you bought her; just as you tried to buy me!"

"I took you" - her voice trembled - "and I will continue to do so, until I tire of you - just as Monique Ball did before me!"

He released his grip; as she was about to smooth the wrinkled sleeve, she saw his raised palm. Suddenly she was on the floor, cowering.

"You wouldn't dare!" she hissed. "I know too much, way too much about you, you scum, you and Monique, you and that pitiful E. Peggy Farfalle ..."

"...CARMELLA," Benito bellowed. "E. PEGGY CARMELLA!! You should know your own sister's name! Or don't you believe me??" He laughed loudly, crudely, his head tilted back like a hyena and she saw the roof of his mouth, a gaping maw of profanity spewing venemous howls of derision.

Suddenly the double bedroom doors swung open, spreading light into the dark corner where Reba seethed. Faith stood still, silhouetted against the window of her room.

"Hey, baby, shut the door." A voice from inside the room pleaded. But Faith ignored the voice that on other days controlled her every movement and emotion.

"Peggy!" she cried. "Is my Aunt Peg here?"

Reba got to her feet. "I've told you, child. Aunt Peggy left us, long ago."

"She didn't leave us!" Faith suddenly shrilled. "You threw her out! you called her vile names! She was my only friend and you kicked her out of the house!"

Reba's fury could go all ways. It was unpredictable, could attack anyone. She suddenly spun around and dug her long nails into Benito's bearded face. She smacked him, her hand coming back red with his blood.

"Don't you see? He was the reason she had to leave! She wouldn't leave him alone! She was uncontrollable, she was a witch!" She paused for breath, gasping, "I told her, "Take your spells and leave us! Leave us! Go out on your own and follow your pagan rhodes!"

There was a terrible silence. There was the terrible silence of spent passions.

"Faith, honey, what's going on?" The brawny silhouette of Jesus appeared beside her.

"Nothing, honey," she said, "C'mon, I wantcha to Polk McCracken one more time before I leave this hole for good."

Her eyes rested on Benito's slumped shoulders. Her mother turned away from them all, slowly disappearing down the hallway. Faith watched as the stairway swallowed Rreba's profile, suddenly, horribly, in one grandly flying, descending gulp.

Faith was about to go back into her room, when Benito took a step towards her.

"You smell nice."

She cringed. "Follow my mother downstairs...complete your descent..."

His expression changed. "I like it when the good girl tarts it up. You smell cheap, but good - I think it'd suit your mother. I'm sure it wasn't expensive - what brand?"

"'BEARD HOFFMAN!!!"

The shriek came from downstairs, from the gilded glass parlour. Benito, Faith and Jesus Boggs - they made up one complete suit of clothes between them - rushed downstairs.

They saw Reba, against thte wall, trembling before a heavy-set man, seething and muscular, whose face was dominated by a long, black beard.

Benito and Jesus took one look and bolted from the house. Reba looked like she was about to follow them

Only Faith took a step forward.

"Father!" she said.

THE END

No, I Won't Write Another Word!

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QotD: Make Me Smile

nobody@vox.com(Aubrey) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:36:55 -0700

What's making you smile today?

Steve Harley/Cockney Rebel- Make Me Smile (Come Up & See Me)

You've done it all, you've broken every code
And pulled the rebel to the floor
You spoilt the game, no matter what you say
For only metal - what a bore!
Blue eyes, blue eyes, how come you tell so many lies?

Come up and see me, make me smile
Or do what you want, run on wild

There's nothing left, all gone and run away
Maybe you'll tarry for a while
It's just a test, a game for us to play
Win or lose, it's hard to smile
Resist, resist, it's from yourself you have to hide

Come up and see me, make me smile
Or do what you want, run on wild

There ain't no more, you've taken everything
From my believe in Mother Earth
How can you ignore my faith in everything
When I know what Faith is and what it's worth
Away, away, and don't say maybe you'll try

Come up and see me, make me smile
Or do what you want, run on wild

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"She Hath Done Wondrous Naughty!"

nobody@vox.com(Aubrey) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:22:20 -0700

Look at her. She once had a name, until historians took that name away, and she merely became 'An Unknown Lady'. Now I have just read that her name has been restored to her. This - finally - is the serious, oddly demure portrait of Catherine Howard, Henry VIII's friskiest, stupidest wife.

A Far Cry From Shy

This painting is like a letter from home, assuring the teacher that the student had behaved well during her absence. Her hands fold like a solemn promise. Her lids are heavy - subduing eyes that once dazzled and dared. Now those eyes obediently stare into intermediate space, non-committal, haughty and bored.

Her features are thick: if you could run your hands over her face they would encounter broad plains, unsubtle angles, sudden heights and buried orbits of bone. The strap of her French Hood is buried in her soft, fleshy chin. Even though she was a Howard, an ancient name mired in wars, acreages, castles and the pride that came from a history of avarice, her face is more like that of a knowing peasant girl.

And yet she was a queen when this portrait was painted. Her face looks detached from her black gown; an unsettling example of painterly premonition. Streams of gold embroidery run in thick currents down her sleeves, ending in a white froth of starched cuffs. Though Henry gave all the jewels he had to his 'rose without a thorn', she only wears a few ornaments - a golden cord around her neck, chips of rubies shining like spots of blood. The neck of the bodice is nothing but a quiet, modest declaration of femininity.

It is a humble costume for a woman who has perhaps sensed her demise.

No one is quite sure when she was born - the years vary, from 1520 to 1525. She spent her childhood at Lambeth Palace, red-bricked and stolid, shrouded by the fumes of Lambeth Marsh. Her upbringing was casual, offering no bridle or punishment for a girl who, by all accounts, was a libertine before her fifteenth birthday. She had an affair with her music teacher in 1536, when she was between the ages of eleven and fifteen. Two years later she and the household secretary became lovers.

But by 1540 she was at court, a lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves, the poor hausfrau whose idea of marriage was a kiss in the morning and one more at night. The court openly mocked this queen with her clumsy gowns and awkward innocence.

The marriage was dissolved, and in two weeks Catherine was queen. In two years she was dead, the blood from her gaping neck seeping into the grass of Tower Green, joining the blood of her cousin, Anne Boleyn, long dried and linked with the earth.

Catherine had come to the king claiming to be chaste. She had committed adultery with Thomas Culpepper, one of Henry's courtiers (her scrawled love letter to him was discovered in her chambers). She had brought the lovers of her youth to work in her royal household, an act of stupid bravado, possibly to order and torment these takers of her young body, these men who had corrupted her childhood. (Though she was more than willing.) They were all arrested on charges of treasonable acts.

Culpepper, as a gentleman, was permitted to die as one, and was beheaded. The two others, a mere teacher and secretary, were reminded of their low birth by the executioner's axe, wielded like a butcher's knife, as it disembowled, slashed and then divided their bodies into quarters. Before death silenced them, they might have found the breath to curse themselves, to curse the king and to curse the girl who had tempted them. Their streaming remains were displayed throughout the city, turning London into a human abbatoir.

Some say she still lives - that her ghost can be heard screaming in the halls of Hampton Court, that her gray, clammy hands still beat on the doors, still trying to beg her husband's forgiveness. A shadow that claws at freedom, that shatters its fingernails as it tries to hold onto the precipice, that dislocates limbs and splinters tendons before it is forced to let go and fall into despair.

A song from earlier in Henry's reign - some say it was written by him - reminds me of Catherine: bold, spirited, long hair separating like rivers in the wind as she danced the galliard, cloth of gold glinting in the candlelight, being passed from partner to partner:

"And I was a maydyn
As many one is
For all the golde in Englalnd
I wold not do amysse

When I was a wanton wench of
Twelve yere of age,
These courtiers with there amours
They kindled my courage

When I was come to
The age of fifteen yere
In all this land, neither free nor bond,
Methought I had no peer"

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A Heated Argument

nobody@vox.com(Aubrey) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:38:11 -0700

I'm not a person to argue openly with the weather. It's pointless to dispute with someone who holds all the cards. Especially when those cards are marked with planets and stars, moons that pull the tides in like glowing celestial magnets, horizons to delineate where the sky's rule begins and ends, oceans, continents, and winds that crosshatch the atmosphere like Tenniel's forests. Especially when a god like Zeus rides at its brow, holding thunderbolts, bowls of rain, and quivers of lightning in the crook of this thick arm.

I just don't want to start a row. But still...I have to say...it really is too hot. The heat makes my ankles - never of a Balanchine wispiness - swell. It makes my hands puffy; and the scar on my left hand is especially visible, a livid reminder. My face is covered in a thin poultice of powder and sweat.

When I step outside I am immediately cloaked in a solution of thermal heat and humity - rising from the earth, pressed down by the clouds - as if a sweating valet had been waiting, ready to wrap it around me.

All I'm saying is, that if I'm to wear a cloak, I would rather it be my choice to reach for one.

On a day like today, I dream of standing in a downpour of melting crystals; that I am leaving footprints that are cold and deep. My face is pink and white, my lowered eyes slashes of kohl and charcoal. I imagine myself swathed in chic, hobbled in Paul Poiret's affectations.

A Coat Of Snow

On a day like today I dream that it is winter once more.

Will it be soon?

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A Secret Garden

nobody@vox.com(Aubrey) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:34:56 -0700

On my way home, I always walk by a small garden. It reached to the edge of a wooden door, with pale, thirsty branches. It extended the length of the wall in a patterned mesh; a crochet of varied greens - mint, sage, olive, lime - woven on a loom that never felt the pressure of human hands. Leaves were sharp and serrated. They balanced like verdant stars.

A Spray Of Blue

The thin stems interlocked like witches' fingers, and pulled apart like splintering wood. I looked closely and saw myriad paths wandering deeper into their desiccated depths. I saw the swirling eye of a bird's nest, an overgrown circle still marked with the fairies' footprints, bleached hay waiting to be slaughtered and harvested, corridors leading into stories and adventures happening again and again, withdrawn from the wide world.

Mysteries And Depths

Sparking the tops of these brittle stems were sharp bursts of color: sapphire, cadmium, magenta and white. Flowers that bloomed quickly and then exhaled into splashes of dried paint ready to crumble at the first touch. Their fragile colors, drained of sap, rattled in the warm evening breeze: their brightness a protest against their weary life.

A Pretty Frenzy

This was not a lush, luxuriant collection of plants, drinking deeply from the dark wines of the earth's cellars. These plants did not grow expansively with leaves like pleated fans, with healthy and irrigated petals that curled and folded into supple curves. These flowers did not paint the air molecules with fragrance, so that when caught in the sunlight they would fall like colored particles of dust.

These were wild flowers, though planted by a careful and loving hand. These were the types of flowers that are embroidered into an untamed girl's blouse, cultivated by a crooked needle and coarse thread. These are the 'sweet flowers' that were woven into singing Ophelia's hair. These flowers were collected into a hurried bouquet by the younger son of the house, to be given to his favorite milkmaid.

Reaching

These were the flowers, blooming into feral gardens, that pushed their imperfect faces through the ruptured brick walls of castles that guarded darkly and waited for the invaders to cross the borders.

Borders

This was a garden with secrets to tell anyone willing to stop and ask, "please, just one more story?"

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The Peacock Room

nobody@vox.com(Aubrey) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:42:01 -0700

On four walls he painted a glittering, gilded cacophony, golden feathers dripping down leather walls, wings that panted against the ceiling, multitudes of patterns that made a mockery of empty space.

Peacocks make human noises; they scream and cry in jagged, lonely tones. But nature apologized to the male of the species for this atonality by providing him with iridescent rainbows that glistened and rippled as he moved, with an aurora borealis glowing from his feathers. Painters, and all aficionados of color, love his betrayal of earthiness, his irresponsible exhibitionism. He was seemingly made for negligence and beauty.

Beardsley drew skirts of peacock's tails that curled around the ankles, and clouds of feathers that breathed over Salome's shoulder:

Hothouse Feathers

Wilde made the peacock a symbol of languor and decadence; James MacNeil Whistler dedicated an entire room to this stunning bird with a cry like Lazarus waking in his tomb.

In 1876 Frederick R. Leyland commissioned Whistler to decorate his dining room. Leyland's preferences were serious and symmetrical and he should have known better than to let such an artistic sprite into his home.

Using pots full of gold metallic leaf, he covered the ceiling and panels of the walls in a thin layer of liquid metal, the alloy that began humbly as grains rolling in the bellies of streams and rivers. He then chose one color and investigated its darknesses, chosing its varied shadows as carefully as if they were the newest silks from Lyons. This palette of blue - prussian, cobalt and indigo - was used to sew a textile of feathers that flowed with impatient currents, wings that were as lush and stiff as brocaded draperies, tiny aristocratic heads poised on necks a swan would envy.

Four peacocks were created: four golden tapestries embroidered into the walls; four gardens clipped into a manicured maze that branched into gilded tangles; four streams of light siphoned from the sun and diluting that bright star. He called his glowing aviary: "Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room".

Light Cut Into The Dark

In a creative thrill Whistler wrote to Leyland, telling him that his dining room was "really alive with beauty - brilliant and gorgeous while at the same time delicate and refined to the last degree".

Leyland hated it. He hated the sunburst of feathers that blazed across his dark room like a sunset caught in a bottle. He hated the tendrils of plumes that charted burnished rivers from wall to wall. He hated the effete delicacy of the poised and posing birds. He hated their inescapable loveliness.

He hated Whistler's price.

There was a violent quarrrel - not surprising with two such high examples of ego - and Leyland eventually agreed to pay...half of Whistler's stated amount. He intensified the insult by paying in pounds instead of guineas. Pounds were the currency of trade, not of artists and other professionals. Furthermore, in the 1870's, a pound was worth twenty shillings, with the guinea twenty-one. Whistler lost the arguement, lost money and lost face.

But he got the last laugh.

He gained access into the offending room and painted one more masterpiece. It was a confrontation between two peacocks, frozen in the movements of an angry ballet: one standing with its feet straddling a pile of silver shillings, its throat a path of aggressive ruffles, alluding to Leyland's favored ruffled shirts. The other peacock, recoiling before its rich and greedy rival, has a silver crest feather resembling the lock of white hair that curled above Whistler's forehead. This altercation was called, "Art and Money, or, The Story of the Room."

Ruffled Feathers

This was finished in 1877. Whistler never stepped foot in the room again.

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A Working Man

nobody@vox.com(Aubrey) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:32:03 -0700

On May 30, my father retired. He had worked for 47 years at ABC as a video tape editor, slicing and splicing little vignettes of living, montages of still lives that would hold the television viewer's roaming attention.

He was a patient and dedicated worker, immersed in his noble work ethic and accepting the brutal hours and painstaking instructions willingly. When an awards show was on, he wouldn't come home until 4AM.

Yes, about those awards. He won seven Emmys: he was part of the team covering the Olympics, he worked on what we survivors of the Pleistocene Era called 'variety hours' - hosted by people as varied as Julie Andrews and Alice Cooper.

And he met other people. He shared a carton of popcorn with Judy Garland; he was given a cigarette lighter by Jerry Lewis; he received a thank-you note from Joan Crawford...these and other emblems of esteem and affection have survived. But I recall particularly a Christmas ornament from Dinah Shore. It was pastel pink like cotton candy, a mere shade above nothingness, frosted with silver glitter. I am sure the years have crushed it, as it tries to do to us all.

He had first worked amongst stacks of tapes,

Tape Crusader

unraveling each of roll of celluloid and cutting the tiny frames with a razor blade.

G-Loved By All

Later, everything was input into a creature that looked like a cross between a work processor and a computer,

Edit Be

before graduating to mullti-screened computers.

He loved his industry, he loved the job it spawned and he loved to learn. And when he had finally established himself as The Top Videotape Editor As Well As The Swellest Dad Iin Television, he loved to teach the intricacies of his trade to his co-workers.

They depended on his knowledge, his calmness and his greatness. As I do.

So, on May 30 a party was given for him; a soiree, an outpouring of gratitude so extreme, it bordered on the flamboyant. (The woman in the middle picture, sitting to my dad's left is my mom.)

Join Us In Celebrating

An honorary certificate was given, autographs were gathered, speeches were made. Everyone was there, to say good bye to someone they had come to rely on and love.

He had worked for 'Good Morning America' for more than 20 years. So there was more. At 8:55AM, PST, during a concert sponsored by GMA, from the stage at Bryant Park, Diane Sawyer gave a shout-out to my Dad. (It was at an Usher concert, and he applauded politely, which was nice of him.) And there was still more. He was interviewed, and you can find it here (hurry, I don't know how long they'll archive the video!).

So many times one imagines a person of great skill and experience to be grim and harsh; but all I see is a working man, a kind man, a man whom I'm so proud of and whom I love so much.

So Happy Father's Day, Dad: your days will now be full of golfing, cooking, growing tomatoes, grapes and nectarines. These days will be made up of memories to reflect on as well as those waiting to be made.

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Of Me And Meme

nobody@vox.com(Aubrey) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:28:10 -0700

That buoyant wit, Peg - of Tilling, as well as of 'dubious and questionable memory' - want to know more about me. She has, in fact tagged me - as if my poor hide wasn't scarred and raddled enough.

I think you'll agree that she has some cheed, asking me these questions. The nerve of these young people, showing no respect for their elders; not even stopping to think that they just might want to quietly hide their shame, to cloak their misdeeds and erase their base desires.

Oh bother. So what am I supposed to do?

"Each player ansers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names."

Oh, and for some reason, I prefer to let people know they've been tagged by using my psychic powers. So keep your minds open and receptive, my friends.

1. What were you doing ten years ago?
I was working in an advertising agency, as a media secretary. I had been working there so long that my foibles were accepted willingly, and I never got into trouble for, say slamming the phone so hard that it burst apart, mixing myself a vodka and pineapple juice 'snack' in one of the - deserted - conference roms (how very Mad Men of me), emailing limericks which notified the staff that the new Media Books had arrived, pasting hheadlines from the Weekly World News on the walls of my cubicle.

Scales From Satan's Schools

2. List five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today.
Please not that the day is done, and the evening is half done, so this list is of a somewhat retiring nature:

Continue reading 'Thunderball'

Make my bed. It's been unmade since Thursday. On the other hand, I'm about to crawl back into it...

Lay out my clothes for tomorrow. This will be a chalalenge, as I would estimate that at this point I can fiat into aboaut 1/4 of what my closet has to offer. This has not stopped me from ordering a tuna melt and fries for dinner, however.

Watch 2-3 episodes of either 'Monk' or Psych'. These are such comforting, comfortable programs.

Look into researching some publications that might be interested in my drawings. If I make a list tonight, I can submit them next week.

3. Snacks I enjoy:
Nacho or Ranch-flavored Doritos, washed down with a vat of guacamole, or my aunt's 5-layer dip. Left-over pizza and lasagna. A wheel of cheese. Potato salad. A plate of bacon. These are all snacks: stolen moments, secret, furtive, unexpected...you know that you shouldn't, but the clarion call of the calorie cannot be denied.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
There is just one thing, really.

I would like to move. Now, I love my apartment, my cornucopia of everythings old, aged and collected, but I think I would like someplace bigger.

A Place To Hang My Hat

Someplace bright and shiny:

Pretty

I think I would like to live in the Royal Pavilion. I appreciate golden dragons curving across the ceiling. I enjoy concrete latticework. I love all that is scarlet, plush, filagreed and apt to leave the spectator's jaw hanging open.

I would spend my billions trying to cut a deal with the British government.

5. Places I have lived:
I was born in Hollywood, and I haven't wandered too far from the birthing place. Beverly Hills, Whittier, West Los Angeles. I now live in 'Bevery Hills Adjacent', in a district that was dubbed 'The Miracle Mile' sometime in the 1920's. No one knows why they did that, which, I think, is part of its charm.

6. Jobs I have had:
Temp job as a cashier at a Disney souvenir shop (let go after a week). Secretarial job where I had to page people over a loudspeaker. Couldn't do it. Stat typist and then a media secretary at an advertising agency. Secretary at a PR agency. Media Coordinator at my current PR agency.

To the following, the bell now tolls for thee:

Gamba
Fox In The Snow
Jando
Seery
Riss

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If Birthday Wishes Were Fishes...

nobody@vox.com(Aubrey) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:01:57 -0700

...then Aubrey would fry.

But they remain wishes. I don't foresee them sprouting fins and scales, and I can't imagine myself wearing a chef's hat and an apron that says 'Fry A Little Tenderness'.

So, even though today is my birthday, I will not wish for a cheerful message.

A Jazz Baby Speaks To Me

I will not wish for anything.

I will not wish for a party. Because I will be working today until 11:30PM at Erotica L.A. And the only wishing I'll be doing is wishing that the journalist from Panties Weekly will understand why his request for a Press Pass was denied; even though he did promise faithfully to cover the event in the 'Adam and Eve-nts' section.

I wouldn't wish to put undue pressure on anyone who might be considering buying me a gift or any token of their esteem and appreciation. They have made their feelings plain, and I certainly don't need to be reminded. I will not wish for anything that was unattainable, unavailable, unobtainable, irresponsible or unsustainable.

Oh, no.

Certainly not.

No...I wouldn't think of it...

I will not wish for a cake or any type of festive edibles. The only cake I intend on seeing is the make-up caking on my face after a very long and tedious work day. It will surely require a blow-torch to melt off; but then I always wanted to be a brulee.

I will not wish to be younger. It is the very definition of futility to wish for an impossibility. It is a waste of strength, and one can channel that energy into so many other jealousies, weaknesses and depressions. Life is a series of depressions, like the face of the moon. Enjoy it while you still care enough to be miserable.

I don't, in fact, wish for anything. I have my family. I have my friends. I have Boyfriend, who even now is walking the streets in a muddled panic, only because he hasn't bought my gift yet. (He doesn't have to know about my non-wish list).

I couldn't ask for anything else.

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