automatics

sometimes i fear that i am such an audiophile that one day i’ll just speak in song. my friend marisa and i used to ‘tori amos speak.’ somehow we still understood each other by having regular conversation and yet injecting a “thought that was a good solution, hanging with the raisin girls” or a “here we go again, these little earthquakes.” somehow we made sense and when we didn’t, we just laughed.

[  during the creation of this blog entry, the author has selected this track listing of which to listen  ] 

black swan-thom yorke
near wild heaven-rem
saint agnes and the burning train-sting
ben harper and the blind boys of alabama-picture of jesus
some days are better than others-u2
miss murder-afi
once around the block-badly drawn boy
roses from my friends-ben harper
i will not be broken-bonnie raitt
ride-cary brothers
tupelo honey-cassandra wilson
8 minutes to sunrise-common and jill scott
hearts of fire-earth, wind and fire
over and over-hot chip
the big payback-james brown

i have this ritual. i use two types of toothpaste. one is especially for whitening effects and the other is for an ultra, more splendid and delicious whitening effect. what can i say, it’s my new obsession to get my teeth to sparkle “hollywood white.” it also got me thinking that as oft as i brush, my teeth are not getting as white as i’d have expected fast enough even though i just started this ritual a few weeks ago. why am i so impatient? why am i so automatic? why do i pressure myself with the thought that if i do something, it will immediately happen? like life is machine built of levers and pulleys and that if i flick a series of switches, things will magically just happen. life just doesn’t always work that way.  automatics. everything takes work. 

everything that matters takes sufficient effort.  the more important the mission, the harder and more strenuous it takes to make.  and if it’s built to last, it shines in it’s glory. the break, the blood, the sweat, the pain then fly away like the wings of daffodils when we blow on them in the summer.  everything that is built to last wasn’t built in a day.  we get caught in this mindset that, ‘if i do this, he will call’ or ‘if i tell her that, she’ll go’ we should not be so coaxed into following our own knee-jerk judgments.  we should take time to weigh our actions and consequences. everything doesn’t have to be so automatic and sometimes it should not be.

my pastor once said, ‘be careful of that instant love, it may have water mixed in.’ the congregation laughed. love should never be instant.

automatics.

why am i foolishly convinced that my action will warrant an immediate action? and should i always want it to? time. time molds and moves and eventually if we work hard enough toward the right thing, it will lay out for us like an ocean, welcoming, calling, cooing. and instead of a salty taste for when we decide to swim, the water will be warm and sweet and probably a bit intoxicating.

automatics.

i say all this now, while understanding the importance of patience yet constantly checking my email, checking my phone, analyzing, reading, drawing models (to scale), thinking of them, and how, pondering movie schedules, time conflicts, forth-coming human behavior, days of the week, my own mental health weather reports, the logistics of traffic signals, trying like heck to fight the thrill of automatic…anything. wondering, thinking, figuring, wondering, wondering…automatics. sigh.

i do not love you

I Do Not Love You by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

that this: where I do not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
 

wAKE(s) up (&) cALL(s)

faith + hope keep me alive

love keeps me

**currently listening to the music of antibalas…you know that you know this stuff is addictking like…well, lemme just say it’s intoxicating, um. i fear that when i go to bed, the music will continue to play.  for i shall not sleep and be forever lost. um.  whatever they channel to play music…i want some.  genre wise…they cannot be classified…others have attempted…with words like afrobeat+funk+jazz+latin+soul.
 

can u dig it…can U DIG IT?

i can read

(pieces of articles i can read)

…demanding he give them a kiss

annoy him by picking him up…

that and his knack for pulling diamond earrings…

Violet, which is why i love him…

heartbeats

do you ever have those etch-a-sketch days where no matter how hard you try to shake something into oblivion and away from your sturdy mental framework, it doesn’t go away, it holds on for dear life clutching at the parts of you that are actually working? well, i’m having one of those episodes and an odd fascination with love songs. which is rare because only recently (like, within the last five years or so) could i really listen to a whole bunch of slow love songs. i knew people, well, one person in particular who listened to them more than anything and i would have rather listened to the sound of static than a whole top 400 countdown of the sappiest of songs de amor. let’s just say, i’ve grown to appreciate love songs more and more over the years but somehow, back in the day, i didn’t want to stop and smell the proverbial roses that sounded like ballads or wispy whining crooners speak/sing about love. don’t get me wrong, there were a few i’d hum through but for the most part i wanted up tempo moderations and break beat varieties. weird, i know. 

recently i was driving home from work and i heard anita baker’s ‘sweet love’ on 98.9fm and i just really had a moment. i was almost blinded this song. the words the music. it was heavy. it was deep. i was taken by it. the song was really speaking of something so simplistic yet strong and almost ridiculous. i mean, isn’t it silly to love someone quite like that. i mean, really? it kinda hit me like a windstorm, and mind you, i’ve heard this song many times and i’ve dug it, sung along, but i never really got it. like got it, for the most part. soon i drifted into an escapade of loving, well, love songs. so, naturally love songs are almost all of what i listen to these days. i’ve become the maker my own top 40 countdown that i so dreaded years ago. after the first love track begins, i usually begin imagining things grandiose, scenes to a new and lush way of living and looking…and it is all way too distracting for a simple girl-lad like me.

a couple of weeks ago i saw ‘dreamgirls’ and jennifer hudson’s scene, well, she’s dynamic the whole of the movie but her version of “and i’m telling you i’m not going,” well, i was darn near sweating during the length of the song and the audience was soooo into the song also. so much so they were clapping after the song. it was way intense and passionate and moving and i too was now caught up. i was squirming at the power of the words. odd, i know.

i am really confused because clearly i am not in love with anything right now. not even myself. this new obsession is kind of interesting and very strange, i’m clearly losing my edge. where is my edge?

my favorites artists who are in my rotation are jill scott, chaka khan (do you love what you feel?), the pretenders (don’t get me wrong), rahsaan patterson (aprils kiss), robin thicke (lost without you), sade, jose gonzalez (heartbeats), stevie wonder, earth, wind and fire, erykah badu, bilal, teena marie, sufjan stevens and on and on and on…

chaka said it best, “do you love what you feel? ’cause i love what you do to me”

go it alone (??)

i was employed to write articles for a dating site and i wanted to do it to exercise my creativity and for my own personal amusement. i’d wiggle up to my good ol’ keyboard and conceptualize something self-acclaimed ‘humorous’ and hope that someone would at least teeter and like my style, my grasp and my pop-cult-cynical-smart chick-ness.  i’d write these grandiose pieces that required me to pull from all energies to conjure up the perfect mix of good advice and good past experience.  all that work when lately i’ve found a simplistic answer to getting someone to talk to you.  go it alone.

 

how so?  glad you should ask.  the last several places i’ve gone to, alone, i’ve somehow been engaged by conversation.  and i’ve been having a blast being the end of another stranger’s topic.  the plus is that the last guy had gorgeous eyes but was a wee bit too young, oh, did i mention his eyes were gorgeous?  oh, sorry.  they were!  i totally resisted any type of flirtation.  what would i have said anyway after taking my library books from him, “so, uh, you wanna show me where i can find ‘atlas shrugged’?” or ask a breathy, “do you like love poetry.  i’d like to read you some neruda over hot chocolate and you can tell me your life story?”  i mean, at the video store, should i have asked, “do you role play?” or over a discussion with another guy, same place, different weekend, after a one-sided assurance about ‘superman returns’ lean in and ask, ‘look, i wanna salsa and i want to rent ‘salsa’ but i’m really gonna need a partner, like tonight.”  i may be bad at closing, but the talking’s fine, for now.

 

*for safety reasons and because i care, don’t like go and hang out at a creepy place.  make sure you eye all exits and pick up on weird body language.  there are creeps out there you know.  also, don’t linger.  these have all been random, unsuspecting and unplanned incidents.  but if they are super-hot, maybe you should linger, before and after. 

lover, you should have come over

a friend of mine left this song for me on a mix. and lately i’ve been wondering where my mind was at when he left it…over ten years ago. jeff buckley’s ‘lover, you should have come over’ found on the very superb album ‘grace.’ and my mix tape, well, of course. parading in a wake of sad relations as their shoes fill up with water
and maybe i’m too young
to keep good love from going wrong
but tonight you’re on my mind so (you’ll never know)
i’m broken down and hungry for your love
with no way to feed it
where are you tonight? child, you know how much i need it
too young to hold on and too old to just break free and run
sometimes a man gets carried away
when he feels like he should be having his fun
and much too blind to see the damage he’s done
sometimes a man must awake to find that, really,
he has no one…
so i’ll wait for you… and i’ll burn
will i ever see your sweet return, oh, or will i ever learn
lover, you should’ve come over
cause it’s not too latelonely is the room the bed is made
the open window lets the rain in
burning in the corner is the only one who dreams he had you with him
my body turns and yearns for a sleep that will never come
it’s never over, my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
it’s never over, all my riches for her smiles when i sleep so soft against her…
it’s never over, all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter
it’s never over, she is the tear that hangs inside my soul forever
maybe i’m too young to keep good love from going wrong
oh… lover, you should’ve come over…cause it’s not too late