Lookit me! I got thrown out of a club!

This weekend I was at a show at the Grand. Wanted to see a band that had a great great album, She Wants Revenge. Was drinking a bit pre-show, was in good mood, was dressed and primped and ready to party.

And at some point during the preshow hubbub, security showed up and very kindly escorted me out of the building. I was with a friend and he was apparently not the problem… what they said to him is “she has to leave now.”

We went around the corner and sat on barstools in confusion. What the hell just happened? Did I look at somebody crosseyed? Did they mistake me for someone else? Did I accidentally throw some gang signal or something?

A little time passed, and we thought we’d try again. Now the bouncers were happy to see me back, said that I looked so much better, and let us in. WTF? We got back inside in time to see the headliners… but the sound system was so very very sucky that we decided to leave again anyway. I wondered if I should do something to get tossed out, but decided against it.

I’m baffled. Apparently drinking more means that you’re a better concert-goer!

Bad dreams

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. Hamlet IIii

I have a lot of nightmares but one particularly hideous one recently, of the
type that make me not want to go to sleep again.

Normally I love it when I dream about the pets I’ve had. It’s like they’re
visiting me again, and usually they show up in my dreams as their healthy
young selves, without all the aging and illnesses that I’d nursed them
through. Which was true in this dream too, but it was not a good dream anyway.

The dream was something about needing to cure some meat, and for some reason
we (me and John) needed to test the curing process, and the test meat had to
be our cats. There were two methods of curing the meat. One of them was to
lock the cat into a box that caused it to have hallucinations of the sort that
drive you completely insane and suicidal, but allow you to live. And remember
that this would be cat hallucinations — cats are basically on acid all the
time anyway, so it would be beyond torture. The other method is to put the cat
in a canopic jar with chemicals. John was favoring that method, but insisting
that we have to dismember the cat first, and put each organ into a different
jar. Eventually I convinced him that mutilation wasn’t necessary, and we could
just put the whole cat in one jar. So I smothered my beloved Cerebus, put him
in a jar, and poured evil chemicals all over him. Then later took him out (he
still looked like himself) to taste the result. And this wasn’t even for the
real product. He was just the test.

After waking up I went to lie down on the cold tile floor in the kitchen for
a while, to make sure I wouldn’t go back to sleep. No way do I ever want any
image in my head related to that dream ever ever never ever again.

… in the winter, when it drizzles

Absolutely none of the stereotypes about Parisians has held true. Grumpy? Never smiling? Ridiculing your French while refusing to use the English you know they have? No way. All I had to do was walk into a bistro, sit at the bar, and use my very best accent to say the only French I remember: Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?

Parisians are plenty friendly when you know how to talk to them!

It’s not even true that everything is always closed. It’s just that whatever you want… THAT is the thing that’ closed. Thus it took me three days to find a net cafe that was open, and a dang pricey one at that. So I’ll blather all about my trip when I get back tomorrow and onto a keyboard where I can touch type.

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod

So there I was, standing in Westminster Abbey, and noting that the tomb sculpture of Mary Queen of Scots has my nose. She is my ancestor. I have her to blame for this damn nose.

But nothing prepared me for the poet’s corner. I knew that I’d see a monument (but not the grave) of Shakespeare. I knew that writers and poets are filling up the space. I didn’t expect to be able to put my hand on the tomb of Chaucer. I didn’t expect to stand in front of Edmund Spenser’s grave. I didn’t expect to see the names of Wilde and Browning and Byron and Dickens.

These are the men who shaped the words that shaped ME. My heritage from them shows way more than any nose. I had to leave and find a nice quiet corner to weep in. And when I got done sniffling, whose grave was under my feet? Afra Behn.

I’m always uncomfortable in a very old abbey or cathedral or whatever, wearing down the names on the gravestones just by walking on them. But this time was different. I was walking on my heroes. More than that — I was wearing down the very same stones that my heroes walked on. So maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe my contribution to the patina is like theirs, and I can affect the future the way that they did.

Upon leaving, I did as I’ve done every time for the last six years that I find myself in a church. I lit a candle for another writer, Lin. This time it wasn’t to send her strength. This time it was in her memory.

Love can almost save your goddamn life. Love can almost save your goddamn life. Love can almost save your goddamn life.

London Calling

What does it say about me that I can get 15 minutes in a net cafe for one pound, but I can’t figure out how to make the dang phones work!

Anyway, la la la I’m in the tube station at Heathrow. MIND THE GAP. With no camera or computer or spouse to keep track of, just me and a sketchbook and hours of sitting in museums etc. I need the break.