Author: D'jaevle

Pole Dancing Friend of Mine

I have a friend who has been going through a rather tricky time of late. Summer, which should be a time of freedom and relaxation for her, has been just the opposite.

Several years ago I wrote a small poem for SB’s birthday, which I am going to share (because who doesn’t enjoy a bit of cheesy sentimental poetry now and again?).

—

she whose pole dancing deserves a show of it’s own
who can vogue with the best,
even when dancing alone,

whose Rook playing skills
aren’t bad, I’ll admit,
but with glances aside,
improve quite a bit.

whose remarks always remain without malice or spite,
who acts like a drunken sailor when kept up at night,
who is a card carrying member of the Stark-haters club,
and a future purveyor of my friend-inclusive pub,

this woman I speak of, for those who are slow,
is a friend among friends,
and one I’m grateful to know.

Newton’s First Law

Sometimes when I am driving on a cool summer night, my window rolled down so I can thread the air with my fingers while listening to a mix of Leonard Cohen, Ella Fitzgerald, and Holly Cole, I want to just slide past my exit and keep on driving…

—

NE likes to tell this story about me. A few years ago, I told all my friends I was getting out of town for the weekend – my plan was to get in my car, drive southward, and see how far I could get. I gave myself a good three or four days to go and come back.

I got as far a Virginia Beach – a six to seven hour drive from where I live. It was dusk when I arrived, and being November, the area was pretty much deserted. I found a nice beach hotel and checked into a room with a view and a jacuzzi.

I went to the room and started the jacuzzi, setting it to ‘hot as hell’. I took a look at the last vestiges of a sunset, grabbed a book, and spent the next three hours reading in water hot enough to melt the words from each page.

The next morning I spent some time wandering the empty beach, watching the ocean waves take the sand and studying the odd person who, like me, was standing on the beach in the winter. I cruised the closed ocean stores trying to find a tattoo parlor that might, by some miracle, be open. I had no luck with that, but the drive, in the quiet still of an empty city, was oddly comforting.

Around noon I packed up and headed home.

—

During a recent conversation with Magdelena, I was reminded of something. It’s never been about the destination for me, but about the journey. I like to complete my goals because leaving too many things undone can become a habit – but I never start my way towards something because I need what is at the end of it.

NE likes to tease me that I only got a state away on my ‘big trip to nowhere’. But I never intended to go some place. I just wanted to go away.

M for Hire

I had a bit of an epiphany at the lake house this year. It was about how I relate to women I want.

Although I am quite comfortable in my appearance, it isn’t my looks that win them over.

Although I am well off, it isn’t my wealth that wins them over.

Although I have some authority where I work and in my life, it isn’t my power that wins them over.

My success is in a different area entirely. It derives from my abilitiy to make certain desires, fantasies, come true.

Fantasies are not like dreams. Dreams are often not meant to be attained (at least, not attained as we imagine them). Dreams are the silken ribbons that unravel, their destinations inspire idle day-dreams. Their paths promise moments of happiness. Their end-results are often not quite as perfect as we imagined.

Fantasies are different. Fantasies are the darker half of dreams; they are the hungers and wishes we barely admit to ourselves (not out of the fear that they may be considered silly, as in the case of dreams, but because they harbor truths about ourselves that may be too hard to look away from once fully embraced).

Fulfilling a fantasy may lead to disappointment – or it may succeed beyond our most twisted expectations. Both results are ones to fear.

And I? I have come to realize that I am adept at bringing these fantasies to the surface. I have enough space within me to acknowledge them without judgment, enough compassion to understand them, and enough steel and cruelty to bring them to life. I can cultivate them, define them. Make them felt. Make them speak. Make them real.

I offer more than the chance of fulfillment.

I promise to lead you there.

Take you apart.

And watch you come back for more.

Price of Vigilance

The worst kind of traffic isn’t Stop and Go. It’s stop!…go, go, go… stop!…go, go, go… stop!

It’s like playing Red Light, Green Light on the freeway. Not nearly as much fun as it was in my backyard as a kid.

—

What if true joy is only born in experiencing new things? What if our sense of wonder and our ability to feel true happiness are tied inexonerably together?

It would do a lot to explain why the older we are, the more experienced we become, the more difficult it is to hold onto those moments of joy. Those who manage to maintain their connection to their sense of innocence and wonder are the happiest amongst us.

The rest of us must work harder to find those moments. Or perhaps that is the wrong approach; it isn’t that we need to work harder in general – that might actually have the opposite affect, pushing happiness away rather than bringing it closer. We just have to be more vigilant. We have to be aware.

Life is in the experiencing.

—

Off to the lake house, will be gone until next Sunday.

Behave yourselves while I’m gone; don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

I am not a writer.

I am not a writer, I am a lover of words.

I don’t write enough to consider myself a writer.

My writing is selfish. My writing is driven by external motives. I find much of it beautiful but understand it took shape under the harsh requirements of my needs. I birthed them out of hunger. I endeavor to make art my bitch, to string up my muses in leather and steel. My writing is an extension of my desire to manipulate and control. I live for the thought that my words will linger inside, words becoming an idea that seeds its way into the darker seas of self. I live to see my hunger reflected in her eyes.

The last year of my life has been an interesting one. I’ve settled and am ill content to remain so. At ease is not a state in which I thrive. I live for periods of unrest followed by brief moments of leisure and decadence. Creating turmoil for the sake of chaos is not the best path out. Creating the possibility of chaos by introducing unpredictable elements into my life is the better path, one more likely to leave me bloodied but still standing.

I am starting with a list. A list of experiences I want to participate in. It will have no particular order. I begin that list today.

Science Fiction Double Feature [Movie Quote Game]

I love movies. My work colleagues give me looks when I mention plans to catch a movie on a weekday night, but I have no issues in making an evening out of it. Purchase a movie ticket, spend the intervening hour or so before the movie perusing the book store, buy some popcorn, and then watch the movie.

I don’t just see the good movies; I get my share of the bad (anyone else see the remake of The Fog?). But I prefer to watch good movies, despite what NE thinks.

—

As part of the mix CDs I’ve been making since college, I’ve included pertinent movie quotes that match the theme or mood of the CD. Some I’ve found on-line, others I had to capture from the movie myself; over time, I have amassed quite a collection.

—

Challenge: Below are five movie quotes. See if you can identify the movie and the character speaking the lines. Naming the actor/actress as well is not necessary, but does earn you cool points.

Attach your guesses as comments. The first to figure out all five will get something in return.

—

[audio:01_FascinatingStories.mp3]
As Good As It Gets, Fascinating Stories

[audio:02_WomenSkillfull.mp3]
Dangerous Liasons, Skillful Women

[audio:03_FormandNothingness.mp3]
Ghost Dog, Form and Nothingness

[audio:04_ Prayers.mp3]
Way of the Gun, Prayers

[audio:05_MyWay.mp3]
Sin City, My Way

—

UPDATE: Tess was the first to answer these all correctly (well – technically, NE was – but she is such a movie fanatic that I made her answer in e-mail). For her efforts, Tess will get a tailor-made mix CD. I went ahead and updated the quote descriptions to show the answers.

Sieve

Your skin holds more in than out.

Some fears are meant to be embraced.
Not wrapped like a present,
Or butchered like sheep.

But held to your chest to show you are unafraid of its poison leaking into your skin

Fraying

I can feel the unraveling, the edged fraying of attention caught. The ends are pulled lightly, a gentle tugging at my awareness; the extent of the progress unknown until my peripheral consciousness catches site of the streaming threads that once made whole the fabric of my daily life.

The signs are evident, often external. Antique heirloom rose vines removed, roots and all, from the front of the house and laid to rest upon the ground – an earthy wake to honor the seemingly arbitrary death of an entity nursed into full life over a span of at least ten to fifteen years.

But not all external – there are the small forgets. Keys left in cars, books left behind.

Here, your feet can touch bottom; the deep waters so often cultivated, a density of self-protective confidence and directed attention, are not so deep anymore. Better the dark waters, the mysterious waters filled with undiscovered danger, than the hard metal bottom your feet scrape against when you have sunk too low.

At least – this is what you think. But it is not melancholy that you feel. The water has the iron taste of desperation.

It is your own fault; you invited it in. An old friend, an intimate confidante. Chaos. The bottom you feel is false. The rust you imagine is scrapings your freedom have bought, freedom raked against the choices that make you doubt.

No place for regret, here. The unraveled threads serve other purposes. You weave some into a scene depicting her face first on the floor, hands bound in leather against the small of her back, her bared ass raised. There are hues of humiliation in this scene, the red of violence, the pink of sensitive flesh. You could not have drawn this scene without the freedom that so unbinds you.

You have no fear, just trepidation and excitement, as you wait to see what will unravel next.