MASTER
I've always been envious of people who lived during the Harlem Renaissance, or the roaring 20's because things were new then. Bonnie and Clyde, prohibition, Louis Armstrong...in a world of so many people, so many choices, what do you do to say I've got something I want the world to see. Maybe it's always been like this, I don't know, it's the first time I've been here but I've written a book called Master and it has to be read. So I learned to use a computer, talked to complete strangers in the post office, ran my cart into people in the grocery store and now my tentacles are reaching through your computer. So my sister Wanda and I...(I haven't told her yet) are going to be here until you buy it. www.bridgetmorrow.com
posted by Bridget | 5:57 PM
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Okay, so I know I need a period after the word cats in the "About Me" section but I can't figure out how to edit this and I'm tired. I'll figure it out later. I just got back from the Harlem book fair, United lost my bag, and I lost my voice. "Waiter, where's my margarita?"
I'm better now, I've gotten some sleep and the good people at United found my bag. I take back everything that I was: thinking, saying, feeling, writing etc. about them. The guy dropped it off last night at 11:00 p.m., saw my old limping dog through my screen door and shouted numerous remedies to retard the aging process. Now that's a service that needs to go on the brochure! And also a personal note here before I forget. Politicans can stop the debate about global warming, it's a done deal; the scientists have won this round. I was in Phoenix to catch a connecting flight and stepped outside for a moment and it was actually painful. I've redesigned the sign for the city of Phoenix, free of charge.
Welcome/Bienvenidos: to Venus.
Spent my day around creative folks with a positive voice coming from a positive space and it's always very satisfying for the soul. Spent alot of the day writing. Felt lost initially; couldn't feel the moment at first, and you wade through as if stuck in mud and then after slogging through for a while your steps get freer and you don't even realize that your fingers have become a blur on the keypad...aaahhh what a feeling.
It can be difficult to split yourself into these dual people. The one that behaves in front of company: ie. co-workers, people at the gas station, on elevators. And then there's the real you, the one who doesn't get the opportunity to do what you want, when you want, how you want. Making it next to impossible to sit across from people at work, feigning interest, nodding politely, smiling over steaming cups of coffee, when all you really want to do is get one of those special swords Uma Thurman had in Kill Bill and start swinging. I need a day off.
Went to the Long Beach Art and Soundwalk, an installation of unique ways to utilize sound. I watched a guy play his upside down bicycle, now how's that for a Saturday night? A plant had music piping out of its roots and low and behold when you put on the headphones attached it was listening to 50 cent. I should've guessed, it was ever so slightly leaning to the side. Listened to the actual recording that Orson Welles did in the 30's about the Martians landing. The one that made more than a few people jump out of windows to avoid being probed by the aliens. I believe that was over reacting just a hair, but who am I to judge? I think there's plenty of room for aliens in the southwest. People in Montana just need to move over some. Long Beach has wonderful buildings, a mixture of the old and new; and the air was clear and fresh near the shoreline. I believe I'll open up my bottle of champagne just because it's Sunday, and I don't have anything to do but wait for friends to stop by with their bad movies and wait for my catfish to thaw.
I read the perfect article in Poet and Writers Magazine. It interviewed authors who wrote and worked full-time jobs to pay the bills. It celebrated the art of discipline. Well,maybe I have it and maybe I don't, but it seems to all be working out okay for me so far.
Not sure how I'm balancing it all. Maybe I hadn't had the energy before because I didn't have the passion before. It seems as if writing has woke something up inside of me that has been asleep for a while. Grateful to the fingertips and the lap top. I want to do with words and characters what Louie Armstrong did with the sax in New York in the 30's. The characters in "Her" are starting to wake up now. Scratching their hair, rubbing their eyes and about to put the bottoms of their feet on the floor and get ready to go to work.
About to review some of Dina's work she is a quiet literary goddess.
Went to the Museum of Contemporary Art to see the Basquiat Exhibit again. He was apparently the last of the Impressionist. It was interesting to see an artists who'd been interviewed about his own work. It was a giddy atmosphere, everybody drinking wine, a dj was playing music and everybody looked like they were having a good time except for the attendants who were working, keeping all the drunks from touching the art.
Some chick was screaming at the top of her lungs about the art being scary; she was high. The night was beautiful and I was hanging out with cool friends. Went downtown to the Standard and had a drink, was approached by a homeless woman named appropriately enough--Gabby. She had several opinions that she freely expressed. It was a night of drama. Couples barefoot arguing on the sidewalks, drunk chicks smoking and arguing over available men, and frustrated waitresses. Saturdays are great.
I haven't written in a while. Why haven't I written in a while? Life gets in the way of dreams if you let it. Life gets in the way of possibilities if you let it. Life can derail you from your gift if you let it. I think this particular mantra will be repeated by me for the next forty years or so until I remember it. Until I remember that jobs to pay the bills are always just that, there will always be a new worry to keep me up at night, there will always be a new movie, or t.v. show, or celebrity pregnancy to wonder about. But these things aren't more urgent than my words on this screen or on that yellow legal pad, they can never be.
Well I have certainly had a busy summer/fall. Lots of changes, travel, and drama...but isn't that life? I'm trying to keep in mind that challenges are adventures wearing a suit. I went to see an exhibit of Cezanne and Pisarro's work last night at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Mounted was a photograph of them standing side by side, two friends just hanging out. That photograph was taken over one hundred years ago, and we smart, city dwelling Angeleans with our cell phones and black berries were rummaging around trying to figure out how they were able to capture a moment with just wood sticks in their hands and a glob of paint.
Oh and LACMA had good quesadillas and brownies too!
What is unhappiness? Why does it resonate,shattering your insides? It is the physical opposite of love. Leaving your breath to escape you like ice crystals, heavy and cold. Your mind spikey, tears at the soft tissue there. Your heart swells with the impact and the hurt. Make it stop. Pain is forgotten when the sun is shining, when a baby smiles at you. But it comes back surprising you each time. Surprising you that it can be so severe. The feeling so foreign yet familiar. It leaves you wanting something different, a different life; and then it just leaves.
The Sound of Music is on and there's something a bit disturbing about Julie Andrews singing to herself, twirling around with her arms akimbo dancing on that hill... Can someone say lobotomy? I know, I know, how can someone be so cynical and dark with Christmas just around the corner? It doesn't take much believe me. I think it's the nuns.
I've been gone for a really long time. What happened to my dedication? What happened to my work ethic? What happened to my money? Well I'm back, having received yet another rejection, from yet another agent. Now how is that supposed to make me feel? I'm really not sure. But one thing I am sure about is that it makes me feel like an artist. A person who has handed a total stranger their complete soul, all of their inner workings and hidden secrets, only to be told (in a very professional way of course) "it's not for me sorry, maybe in your next life." Well, I return to the keyboard, on a new computer with new ideas and even more enthusiasm. Possibly I possess a sickness called optimism, but more likely I realize that I'm done anyway. If one person read my book and enjoyed it I'm going to finish the second draft of the sequel and have it finished by summer. Crazy hunh?
Having a wonderful day. Got yet another rejection from yet another literary agent the other day, makes me feel like a real author!!! It's giving me the message that I'm supposed to be going another route and what is that route you ask? Myspace. No agent on earth can reach the amount of people that Myspace can. Thank you Bill Gates, or Al Gore, or whichever white boys got together in their bedrooms with their pocket protectors to foresee a world that I could not even imagine. They were doing mathematical calculations while I was out getting felt up in some backseat somewhere listening to TuPac, God love America!! Buckle up Myspace subscribers, here I come!
Hello, I'm back, where did I go and why? Have I really been anywhere at all not?? Not really. Not really. Always distracted by what could be, by what's around the corner, down the alley or up the stairs. The siren's song of the possible agent, the new marketing idea, blah, blah, blah. Where's my pen? Where's the paper? Where's the new book, with the crisp pages and the ancient yet new paper wood pulp smell? That's my home, not what could be.
Went to the L.A.Times Book Fair. Love to breathe in the air around people clutching books to their chests.
You turn your back for one second and you have people advertising home loans on your blogsite. Welcome to America. I despise commercials, yet I can't escape them. The second I become computer literate in anyway they are history. I met with my forward thinking genius of a graphic designing gal and my follow up to Master, Alelx is as good as done. We're trying to create cover ideas. The process is fun but it makes me wish that I could draw. I go to the museum with my tongue hanging out in envy and awe. So I must settle for creating pictures with words. I have to cut down this novel, when did it get so long?? When did my fictional me's get so long winded?
I'm almost finished with "Alex," the sequel to "Master." I just have to do the final edits and it will be complete. This is a really great feeling actually. I'm excited and all a tingle. Since I'm a registered nurse as well, I've been pushing off the books to co-workers who are now friends. Lucky for me my co-workers include doctors and they can't stand there telling me they don't have the fifteen bucks for the book. We just stare at each other until they volunteer to "take one off my hands", I adore sells through intimidation. I never thought of that one before, you learn something new everyday. I'm now reading the fifth book in the Gunslinger series by Stephen King the original OG of fiction. Definitely now hooked on Tananarive Due who is taking over the reins with style and finesse. I don't know what attracts some to the disturbing. I find it entertaining for some reason. It's a part of life like everything else right? No sense in pretending it doesn't exist. It doesn't mean you don't smile at a puppy running behind a kid in a Volvo commercial. Oh well that's enough of my Friday morning rant, I have to go to the post office and mail some material off to an agent, so I can then in turn receive the obligatory, "you're the shit, we just don't want ya', keep writing." I'm not complaining, it's just part of the job.
It's been awhile since I've been here. Been really busy lately figuring out the whole printing process. It would be fabulous to just be able to write! I'm sure that day is coming soon. Why is there nothing on TV anymore? Really. Or maybe it's just me. Nawww, there's nothing on T.V.
This is far from cute. I have so many blogs now I forgot about this one, my primary one! I don't have that much to say I don't think. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't. But then you turn on the radio and hear about these dedicated bloggers who now have four homes in Hawaii and you turn on the computer again. I have wrapped my head around not having the four homes. I just want one in L.A. before it becomes cheaper to live on the moon. Is that too much to ask for? Apparently it is. Well, it is very cold here now. I've had to dig out gloves (that I didn't know I owned) a big, crazy furry coat which I'd forgotten I'd gotten for Christmas a thousand years ago from someone who loves me dearly and I'm still cold. I'm going home to sit by my space heater and watch my two kittens bite each others tails until one of them squeals and I feel it necessary to break them up. See, this is why I don't blog, I clearly have nothing to say.
I'm trying to faithfully blog more often. I wonder would it be a cheat to put the same stuff on each blog site? I do believe that's what I'm going to do. Why not, who cares? I'm sure no one reads this but me anyway. The new version of the 21st century, global warming, everybody hates America, who was blown up today in Iraq, what's Paris Hilton wearing today, diary.
I've gotten back the review copy for Alex. I'm excited and I have to calm down, take twenty deep breaths, because part of me (the immature part that needs Prozac) wants to return the book as is and say "they're great print them all as is," when I've already found ten things I need to change. But thank God for being 99, I know the world won't stop turning if I actually take the time to review the book properly so that I will be proud of what's on the shelf when I'm 199. I'm watching a rhino's butt on television right now. Some PBS station and I have to say they may be the ugliest mammals I've ever seen. I'm sure to another rhino that butt was amazing but I found it appalling. Maybe through some telepathic avenue I will never understand the rhino felt my displeasure, she is now taking off after the photographers and just for the record, ugly or not, rhino's can run. The photographers are laughing and screaming, but they seem to be doing more screaming. They got away, good thing they didn't get a flat. Okay I'm signing off, I have to find the remote, they're about to mate.
Is it possible that a person can become too old for caffeine? I don't think it's a helpful substance, it makes me want to scream out loud while listening to mundane conversations. I stand there wondering if people know that I am considering the ramifications of shouting in their faces that "no one gives a damn what they fixed their son, dog, cat or husband to eat last night for dinner". Yet I stand there nodding, smiling and even once in a while throw in interesting tid bits of my own. I only notice these moments after a strong cup of coffee. There must be something about those small brown beans, or the steaming hot water swimming with chemicals from some leaking manufacturing company they'll expose two years from now.
There was a traffic jam of such magnitude yesterday that the 405 North was completely shut down right before rush hour. A woman called into a radio show saying it took her two hours to drive two miles. She could've crawled faster. The only thing sadder than this is when I asked people to guess how long it took her and one said, "Oh probably three hours." I tell myself it's because my story led him to suspect a ridiculously long amount of time. Another person wasn't surprised, just shrugged his shoulders. I personally am going to raise a donkey behind my apartment building, initially he'll be in my apartment, I'll raise him as if he were a dog that just kept growing, got out of control if you will, and then I'm going to ride him to work. He has to go faster than two miles in two hours. I don't know what to do with all of this traffic outrage. I think I need a cup of coffee.
Had a wonderful time at the reading on Saturday and got a chance to meet new L.A. authors, always a pleasure. It was really hot that day and traffic was incredibly dense and retarded. I stopped at Jamba Juice because I'd given myself over an hour and a half for a twenty minute trip, on arriving I had fifteen minutes to spare. I lost my mapquest directions immediately after leaving the driveway but my driver knows how to get everywhere if he's been there once. Yeah, for my driver. Everyone needs one here, this person may be your mother, father, husband, roommate, lover, their label is totally irrelevant, their navigational skills--essential. There was a great crowd, coffee, cookies and a bathroom, what more can humans ask for? Have another one in San Pedro on March 24th maybe I'll leave my house on the 22nd and get there on time.
It's funny how the people you've known all of your life are the same, yet different. They know they've changed but are not sure when it happened. Secretly, and in the dead of night it has happened to me. I started to become one of those. The one that creates a small smile and a shake of their head while tossing an "I know the feeling," glance at the girl who thought it was an excellent idea to run into Walgreen's on Sunday morning in her little black dress with hooker heels from last night. The angel was pulling her hem down all the way to the cash register. We've all been there, at least once.
There's some momentary nostalgia yes, but the interesting thing is you don't want to keep going to the same address all of the time. There are other boulevards to explore. I don't think I'm better than the girl from Walgreen's I have been the girl at Walgreen's, I have just chosen to go down another street and through a different door.
It's a calmer door with sunshine, plants and kittens curled up on the sill. Candles, wine (on emergencies a little weed) good friends and different foods to experiment with. As opposed to the door the police may kick in at any moment because they're fairly sure Pookie lives there, the smoke detector is alarming, you don't have any clean panties to where to work and you think you may have enough gas to get there but you're not sure.
Maybe scenario B is a place where we all must travel. But don't stay there long it is a place to vacation, not a place to build a condo. And when it's time, it's okay to cut crazy loose. The formula which informs you that you're done is when you are exhausted yet everyone around you seems to be having the time of their life. Don't worry, you won't be lonely, crazy will want to visit often. But more importantly, with a new found distance from the insanity, you'll better be able to see foolishness walking drunkenly toward all the way down the street. They'll be handling a great big neon sign announcing, 'I'M TROUBLE', if you take the time to look. Stay strong all of my sisters. I think the next Walgreen's girl will catch my eye, and hopefully not look away ashamed I'm going to judge her, I never would. After all, she's the fun one to get into conversations with at the bars.
The title of this blog initially was going to be why I hate UPS. But I suppose it was my fault. I should've known the crazy, exciting world of shipping and delivery was all screwy. There's ground shipping, air shipping, super fast, super-mega fast, all boiling down to the we'll get it to you when we damn well please. You live and learn. Plans were meant to be re-arranged I suppose. Going with the flow is a concept I am bound and determined to adopt more readily. I forget that because something means the world to me at this juncture, it's just another day in hell to people who have to deal with my phone call or frantic e-mail message. Parts of me are grateful there is a system to rail against, other larger parts want that system to be perfect and at my beck and call. Did Bill Gates sit in his garage decades ago missing the prom, so I could bitch about my day dealing with the good people @ UPS? Well, truthfully I think so.
“C’mon Baby”
It fell off her tongue, a desperate want, a sweet urgent plea, almost musical, almost inspired. She only meets my eyes briefly, I meet hers briefer still. If my embarrassment for her escapes she will become angry, she will hold me responsible. The one she’s cornered, her potential, will have time for second thoughts, he might leave her standing in the hot sun, palm extended, frantic.
She takes both hands to her breasts holding herself there, causing them to bounce erratically. It once was a sure thing. An action done in earlier years when less drugs lived inside of her; an action that would’ve guaranteed a reaction; possibly a moan, now just silence, sadness. She is accustomed to offering her body for: money, pesos, dolares, shekels? Her dirty skirt rides up just enough to be enticing; her thick mottled thighs will rub together when she walks away. She goes quickly from one to another, the harder men dismissing her with grunts and loathing, while always keeping her eyes on the soft quiet man. I bask in the uncertainty that radiates from him. He seems to know that it must be bad for her though she dances and sways as if this is exactly where she chooses to be. One could imagine that if offered Egypt, China or Rome, she would choose to stand on Central Ave. at the Chevron station begging for change, begging for money.
Her color is the same as mine and though I am not dancing, I hear the song as well. Her full asymmetrical hips tell me she has a child at home, one with long black lashes and a tooth missing in front. Her tone announces that she doesn’t care about such things; neither she nor I believe that. The nice man allows her to hold the pump handle and guide the nozzle into the small circular blackness. Her entirety softens, becomes even more feminine, a vixen watching the numbers ascend as they make the sound that only a gas station pump can make. A bearded man twitches while he sits on the curb trying not to watch, trying to appear as if they are not together. He doesn’t want the men to see that her thick dance is for him as well. That he too will be able to kiss the needle once the sound stops, the sound that only ascending numbers from a gas station pump can make.
I never saw money exchange hands but I did see her glow, blaze with contentment. I did see the man that had been sitting on the curb begin to stand roughly, the smile on his face making his tangled beard move. They begin walking away in the direction of Central that I dare not take. In the direction of darkness even though the sun shines brightly. The man and I exchange a glance that lasts no longer than mine did with the dancing woman. His stare informs me that I belong on the other side of the city. The L.A. where school boys in starched white shirts, dark pants and helmets ride motorized skate boards and moderately muscled men walk dogs the size of mosquitoes. I have not fooled them. I belong on wide streets with pristine landscaping…so do they.
I don’t suspect I’ll ever see her again, or maybe I’ll see her every time I pump gas at that station. Her hair will still be tangled and twisted, smelly though I will not stand close enough to smell it. Her companion will still ignore her until she has done what he can not do. She will still not be wearing a bra though her hands will find there way up to her breasts to begin the sirens song all over again.
You know you haven't been posting regularly enough when you can't remember your password and the note you've written to yourself as a reminder is wrong. I've been very busy in the real world which I have to remember to visit periodically. In that world I've had to buy myself a home and change jobs. But now I'm back, I visited the museum today, saw Terrence Howard and now I'm back on track. I love L.A.
If bad things come in three's then how do good things come? In four's, in hours, days, weeks or years? Every second can be this complete and perfect life time. If I can only remember that. It's easier to remember when it's quiet and I'm quiet. When I don't have the radio and t.v. on at the same time. When I don't see the flickering images that seem hungry for my waning time here. There seems to be an urgency by the media to tell me something.Something that is so important I won't be a whole person without the knowledge.
The volume goes up for no reason at all and there's a smiling, shiny woman in a yellow sweater smelling her towels fresh from the dryer. They need me to change. To become more regular, for my teeth to be whiter, for me to stand taller, be smarter, be happier and sleep better. I can do all of those things when I'm quiet.
All year we work to get that vacation. And then we race to pack for that vacation, and then we race through the airport to sit on the plane so that it can rush us through the air to get to a place to look at other people relaxing. We race to relax in a different place with new and different clothes on. I wonder if the people in Iraq and Afghanistan think we're relaxed? I wonder if they want to be us. We fight them so they can be more like us. So that they can rush to work after that cup of Grande Latte. I'm not saying that other people have all the answers, they don't have them either, but neither do we. It's okay to say that. People know it's true anyway. The hardest thing in the world to be is humble.
This is a late night rant I know, have to go to bed soon, but I just have to say that this consumer is full. I've been watching since the 60's and I'm full.
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