First Few Hours

Last night was one of those nights... ironically enough, today was also one of those days. Angst ridden... as in wanting a vodka tonic at 10:30am. But I made it through the ups and downs and even managed to: get some work done, have coffee with an old friend, lend an ear, plan meetings in Paris and Italy, allow a co-worker to upset me to the point of swearing out loud and slamming the bathroom stall door multiple times while swearing, say hi to my daughter and her best friend, bribe my daughter to clean my bathroom for $20, eat sushi, see a comedy show, celebrate a friend's birthday, go to 3 different bars, miss my train, struggle to find a cab driver that would take me from San Francisco to Oakland, nearly die on the way home, get car sick, finally make it home, and thank my lucky stars.

It's late for me to be up, but without klonopin to help me sleep this week... I am up and down constantly throughout the night. Annoying for sure, but such is life. Not that life is annoying, but the whole sleeping thing - - definitely annoying. I mean, why don't I just get out of bed at 5am when I wake up? So many reasons..... the most recent being that I have better dreams during my morning hours when I'm half awake. Quite delightful, really. I love the first few hours in the morning.... whatever the time might be. I like to spend my first two hours awake, in bed. Today I got a cup of coffee and went back to bed.... best thing ever. I love sleeping after coffee. Half asleep, half awake, crossing over. It's the same on the weekends.... (sadly?)

And now, I will give myself over to the lull of my laptop and a generic foreign film or a really bad B movie to put myself to sleep.... and a beer, perhaps. And a good night.

....one of those nights

It's one of those nights (a Wednesday, no less) when I just want to drink and listen to music... and drink more and listen to more music. Thinking about things that make me want to run away.... even though they don't even yet exist. I know this feeling. This reeling. Sigh. Deep sigh... I've missed you.

I am a machine

I loved someone...once upon a time. I didn’t know that I loved him until he broke my heart. He broke my heart more than once. More than twice. It happened over and over again. I sat by and let it happen, I watched as though it were happening to someone else. Fuck me while you're breaking my heart. Leave me while you’re breaking my heart. Come back and knock on my door and see if I’m strong enough to let you in to do it all over again. Trust me, I am strong enough.

I am invincible. I am a machine. I’m a fucking, sucking, story telling machine. I’ll tell myself any and everything so that I believe the words as they fall from my mouth. I’m a soul sucker, a non-believer. I can do anything and most of the time I do. I have less to lose than the typical person, and especially less than the typical girl. In my mind I lost everything a long time ago. I don’t really remember when… I don’t actually know if I ever really had anything at all. I came from a place devoid of a belief system. It was always about survival. If you truly want to survive you have to let go of your beliefs. They will only taunt you and drag you down. Can I get naked to support my daughter and myself? Yes, I can. Can I convince myself that a man loves me so that I don’t feel alone anymore? Yes, I can. Can I snort/smoke/swallow these drugs to make it all go away? Oh yes, yes I definitely can.

Don’t get me wrong, I have truly loved. I have truly lost. I’m obsessed with loss. I sometimes think that I love just to lose. Because that’s what I know. A sure thing? No thank you. That’s much too easy.

who do you work for?

...good question. I don’t even want to think abut the answer to that. I fear that the answer would be too disappointing. That it might “lessen” my opinion of myself… how myself views...myself that's a joke.  Hah.  Wow. Next topic.

When I drink… no, when I am alone – truly alone, and I drink, I think of certain things. Things that make me cry. It’s like my teenage autopilot kicks in and I’m 17 again. The only difference is 20 years and the fact that now I kind of decide which little daggers I allow to come at me from every angle. And I just let them go/come – all of them, all at once. This happens every time I am alone, without fail. Be it vacation, a holiday, a day off of work – it doesn’t matter. Apparently - - this is what I live for. This is what I work for...moments when I can release my daggers. And then I work so very hard to cover up the scars that the daggers leave behind. The thing is, is that I enjoy the process. I start off with the most painful memories and top it off with all of the things that I should have done and shouldn’t have done. Throw in a dash of what I could have done differently. It’s a no-fail recipe. Suddenly, I long, I want, I regret, I dream, I wish, I envelope myself in turmoil that in my day-to-day life is long gone. But suddenly I am - again. And all of the days that I spend smiling and doing things for others fades away… my job, my polite way of always looking down at the ground when passing strangers, all of the times I hold my tongue - - that all disappears and suddenly I become a real person. A real person to me. Bent and destroyed. Damaged and broken. And in a way, beautiful and real.

1970s and a Killer Smile

I was born in 1972 which according to Jimmy Page, was when Led Zeppelin hit their artistic peak. I’m definitely drawn to the 70’s… not only because I don’t remember a whole lot the first 7+ years of my life, but also because the 80's were so vastly different. I mean, we went from polyester bell bottoms to neon bracelets and wearing bras as outerwear. I wish I had been born just a few years earlier so that I could have fully experienced the 70s. Don’t get me wrong, I love the 80s, but the 70s will always be a mystery to me, hence the fond and foggy memories that I fill with whatever fancies me. I have a actual few memories… one is actually based on a photo of me when I was about 4 years old, we'll call it 1978. Polyester bellbottom pants (patterned, of course) and an Orange Crush logo t-shirt (hell yes). Pigtails and a big smile on my face. Where was I? I have no idea. I just love that picture of myself. I won’t even pretend to remember when it was taken. My other memory was when I was about 5 or 6 years old at the county fair. My mother, recently divorced, introduced me to what I still remember to this day, as a very good looking man. I’m talking blond curly hair, shirt off, tan skin and cut-off jeans (white). And a killer smile to boot. I'm not sure why I remember this person as someone that I would fuck today, but there you have it.  Perhaps I embellish.  We went on the ferris wheel with him - - who was the other half of my we? I can only guess my sister, 3 years my elder. All that I can remember is sitting next to him, his arms outstretched over the back of the car…. and him, smiling. Always smiling in my memory. In the fantasy of my memory he was my mother's new boyfriend. My new daddy. Now I remember him as my mother's hot, younger boyfriend, she was a cougar before cougars even existed. In reality, I don’t know who that man was. I never remember to ask my mother…. mostly because I don’t want reality to ruin my memory. I mean, as real as he seemed and as vivid as my memory is…. what if it wasn’t real? What if my little mind made it all up? I would rather keep that killer smile alive than get more details from my mother and kill the fantasy. I know I saw him. Even if it was just in my memory.

Can't Stop

So there I was, making dinner, drinking beer and listening to my iPod. Alice in Chains comes on… there was something about the buzz that I was feeling added to the smell of tofu stir-fry… I suddenly found myself going back years and years. To a time that I barely remember (not for lack of trying). I found myself in the middle of a slow motion memory… and then it hit me - - it wasn’t a memorable, happy time at all that I was reminiscing about. It was when I was stripping. 27, 29-30, and then 31 years-old. Good times? Not so much. But there was something about it… every time I hear an Alice in Chains or a Soundgarden song… Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fiona Apple, Cardigans, Stone Temple Pilots, Garbage… too many to name, really. But I remember my “sets.“ Basically - - any time I'm buzzed and I hear "my music," I think back to this time. It wasn’t a great time in my life. But wasn’t the worst time, either. How can that be? Shouldn’t I be ashamed… shouldn’t I feel regret? I simply don’t. It was the only time in my life that I was in control of situations that were far beyond my control. I understood it. I knew why those men were there… honestly, they were there for the same reason that I was. They were lonely. Who was I, and who am I, to judge? What a way to connect… it was awesome. It was drunken magic. It was daylight outside - - but the second they walked through the front doors it was instant night. Instant hot girls (ok, not always, but keep in mind, it was dark!), instant fun, instant anything they wanted. Where else can you go for something like that? I still remember so many of the other girls… what their favorite songs were… their lucky dresses, favorite shots to have before they went on stage. And I was one of those girls. I truly was. I was Trina. And then I was Nadia. I talked to men I didn’t know. I took off my dress for them. I smiled, occasionally. I had a great time. And when the great time stopped - - I stopped. Three different times I left, and two different times I went back to eventually move on to something else. I went from being unemployed to winning amature night and on to events that would change my life, over time. Some good and some horribly, horribly bad. It all happened and I was there, for the most part, to witness it. And I won’t apologize.