The Mean Reds
A blast from the past – this is an excerpt from a zine I used to write called The Toilet Bowl Diaries (issue #7):
Blower’s Daughter is my favorite song this season… along with Deftones’ Change… (both of which are featured on my Too Cold Outside 2005 mix) they suit the mean reds of winter, which I get quite a lot. Anyone who has melancholy tendencies, is a writer, artist, raw and genuine, or blatantly a theatrical fake suffers from the mean reds at times. Which is why Holly Golightly in Breakfast At Tiffany’s is such a well-loved character. Capote wrote himself a pure classic to stand the sands of time along with Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Harrison’s Legends of the Fall. It speaks to everyone, because in everyone there is a Holly Golightly and a Paul Varjak, the dichotomy of being human.
What do I do when I have the mean reds? I go to Barnes and Noble with my journal and order Starbucks Caramel Chai Tea Latte with extra caramel syrup and sauce. I find myself a corner under the painted eyes of Kafka, Steinbeck and all the other greats and brood about how I’m not one of them yet; and after a few hours of scribbling away in the journal of the month, with my extra fine precise black ink pens that bleed just perfectly (not so much its hard to read, but enough to feel like you are writing in ink as it was meant to be written in), I’ll smile and feel better. My most creative thoughts and the beginnings of my most meaningful ambitions have come from a day of the mean reds.
And there is nothing better than a bottle of jack while casually strolling the house naked/in a robe still soaking wet after a bubble bath in candlelight. They are some of the most poetic moments of my life.
Journal Entries from Christmas Past
I’ve been going through my old journals, looking for scraps from stories that haven’t quite made it into my computer, pieces of characters for the books I’m writing that already exist on paper somewhere but are not yet official.
Instead, I find this:
Carlos said he’d grow his hair back if I’d be his girlfriend. I told him I can’t because I’m getting married, I’m just not officially engaged yet. Carlos has done nothing but proposition me since the day we met which makes me laugh because nothing will (or even would have aside from Jon) come of it. But he is a good guy, fun, and attractive.
Ironic, I don’t remember this. I vaguely recall the person I’m referencing, but I don’t really remember the particulars aside from a fleeting memory of him grabbing my hand at college and saying, “Let’s skip class and go make out instead.” I remember that moment because my ears burned red and I pulled my hand away, flustered, and said absolutely not. I can’t remember why not, but honestly, until the re-reading of my old journals, remembered it as a one time occurrence. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t.
How do we forget these things? How do we not know them in the moment. From my journals, I would tell my younger self that this was a man that was truly interested in something – maybe just physical – but something about me. Yet, in my journals it is also clear that I was perfectly unaware of it all and I wrote about him as though he was scenery.
What else did I miss?
Collegiate Moments
“I love his butt dimples, babe, you know what I’m talking about?”
“Yeah,” I responded, not paying attention as I typed words into a book people would probably never read.
“Butt dimples,” JJ Golightly snickered.
We were talking about the dog, as my husband playfully slapped him around and JJ pretended to complete her homework assignment, “You are not beautiful,” she muttered to a textbook picture of a naked British man. I wondered if the picture featured his butt dimples, I never took my eyes off my computer screen long enough to notice. I thought about my butt dimples.
We continued to discuss the fat Asian children also featured in the same textbook. “We should adopt Asian children, we could have our own fat Buddhas!” We quickly got over the excitement of the chubby Chinese kids and proceeded with a discussion of flopping genitalia when hanging out in the nude, and whether it hurt or not.
I have a “Love Buddha” on my night stand that Davey Barnes gave me with my wedding gift. I love him, and his little mahogany belly. At Honey Tree he was perched a top a fountain, those kind they sell at Hippie nature stores that “soothe and relax your senses.”
Buddha always makes me think of butt dimples now, I’m sure he had quite a few.
Remember Xanga? December 26, 2005
I dream of an orange painted room with a distressed green four drawer dresser, black futon bed, Asian lanterns, candles, and bettas swimming in bamboo. Steamy room with a wicker fan blowing overhead, the sun streaming through ivory cotton lace curtains onto a girl in satin, bare legs exposed. Waves of long hair tickling bare shoulders as her husband takes it all off and flings it aside.
Those sexy blue eyes of his staring down at me and taking me in. Me taking in the sight of him. And knowing I will love him forever and he me.
We’ll stumble to the kitchen when we’re done, on an orgasmic high, and eat finger foods and leftovers, preparing for another round.
Bit of Nostalgia
How sad is it that when I remember you – I remember me.
I remember me walking down the trolley, knowing you’d asked for me.
I remember I had curly hair that day, a rare occurance, and you commented on my poney tail.
Now you don’t answer and I always really did mean to be friends.
I suppose it’s for the best.
How sad it is that when I remember you – I remember me.
I remember me walking out into the cold, knowing you’d asked for me.
I remember my jeans were tight on my skinny little thighs, and you commented on my ass.
Now you’re elswhere and I’m glad, because I never meant to be friends.
It’s definitely for the best.
How sad it is that when I remember you – I remember him.
I remember crying in the car driving to your house, knowing he’d ask for me.
I remember that song playing, never ending, and you commented on how we both wanted something else.
Now I’m finally happy, because there were so many of you and now there’s just him.
Not sad at all really.
Anakalian Whims 