February 11, 2005 Vibrating

A reader from Argentina, who once wrote to me during a dark time to advise, "Just focus on things that make you vibrate!" wrote to me again today wondering where I've been and what I've been doing. Well, reader from Argentina, I guess I've been doing what you suggested and focusing on what makes me vibrate. ::: The Brothers K I'm reading it for the second time, and I know I loved it the first time, but reading it again is a whole new experience. I'm not reading it to get through it or to find out what happens. I'm reading it to savor every word in every line on every page and just enjoy the simple act of reading a story whose characters I care about so much and whose language makes me smile and think and even cry a little bit. It's like every day, Kincaid or Peter or Irwin or Everett or Mama or Papa or one of the twins experiences joys or heartbreaks that are either tiny or huge and sometimes impossibly both and my own heart bursts right along with each of theirs. It's beautiful and it's ugly and most of all it's just real. I read some every day, but I'm taking my time, because I don't want it ever to be over. I finished this book for the first time just over a year ago, and I honestly don't think I've read a better book since. "And the great thing," he said, "the reason you can lay a river in the path of any sort of wildfire is that there's not just rivers inside us, there's a world in there ... Not because I say so. Christ says so. And Krishna. And I feel it sometimes too. I've felt how there's a world, and rivers, and high mountains, whole ranges of mountains, in there. And there are lakes in those mountains -- beautiful, pure, deep blue lakes. Thousands of them. Enough to wash away all the dirt and trouble and witchiness on earth ... But to believe in them! To believe enough to remember them. That's where we blow it! Mountain lakes? In me? Naw! Jesus we believe in, long as He stays out of sight. But the things He said, things like The kingdom of heaven is within you, we believe only by dreaming up a heaven as stupid and boring as our churches. Something truly heavenly, something with mountains higher than St. Helens or Hood or lakes purer and deeper than any on earth -- we never look for such things inside us. So when the humps of witchiness come at us, we've got nowhere to go, and just get hurt, or get mad, or pass them on and hurt somebody else. But if you want to stop the witchiness, if you want to put out the fires, you can do it. You can do it if you just remember to crawl, right where you're burning, to drag yourself if that's what it takes, clear up into those mountains inside you, and down on those cool pure lakes." Bet was half asleep by now, and Peter was gazing at the spray as if into a blaze, when, quite suddenly and quite loudly, Freddy burst into tears. "What!" Bet shouted, jumping clear to her feet. "Is it a bee-sting? What is it?" "I'm sorry," Freddy sobbed, hiding her face. "I'm sorry. But ... but I'm just so glad!" "Glad?" Bet was flummoxed. "About a bee-sting? About what?" "The mountains!" Freddy whispered, eyes closed, tears streaming. "The lakes." ::: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind I recently saw for it the second time, and like with The Brothers K, I fell in love with it all over again. I think this movie will always be kind of ingrained in me, and I can't wait to watch it with the commentary and more of the special features. I feel like I won't ever be able to get enough of it. I can't tell you how happy I was to find out that my sister, who really didn't care for it when we saw it in the theater because she was sick at the time, has now seen it four times and loves it like I do. It's important to me somehow that we see eye to eye on such things. It's already become a part of our shorthand, what with talking of just being fucked up girls looking for our own peace of mind. When I was a kid, I thought I was. I can't believe I'm crying already. Sometimes I think people don't understand how lonely it is to be a kid, like you don't matter. So, I'm eight, and I have these toys, these dolls. My favorite is this ugly girl doll who I call Clementine, and I keep yelling at her, "You can't be ugly! Be pretty!" It's weird, like if I can transform her, I would magically change, too. ::: The Last Five Years I've been listening to this a lot lately because I just saw it onstage for the first time. I honestly never got all the way through "The Schmuel Song" on the CD, and I was surprised that it brought tears to my eyes live. I love this musical, and I owe Melissa (unsurprisingly) for that because she's the one who first sent me the lyrics to one of the songs that I clung to like a lifeline a while back. I think I just love the idea of these two- or three-person shows. They're so intimate. I really hope I get to see tick, tick... BOOM! one day. I don't even know if it's still being staged anywhere. Anyway, it's so great that Norbert Leo Butz is getting to work so much and that he's starring with John Lithgow in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (and being reunited with Sherie Rene Scott, his partner in The Last Five Years). I have such vivid memories of seeing him play Roger twice in the spring of 1997 in RENT. My sister and I totally dorked out over him, and he one hundred percent stared directly at her with his hands on the thighs of those plaid pants on the line "in the eyes of a young girl, a young girl" in "One Song Glory" and I thought she was going to explode right next to me. Norbert Leo Butz kills me in The Last Five Years. I want to hate him, but his voice is so beautiful and raw that I can't. No, that one's Jerry Seinfeld That one's John Lennon there No, the Dakota The San Remo is up a few blocks Have you been inside the Museum? We should go Meet the dinosaurs ::: Come on home. My friend since age 10 hasn't lived here for about eight years. She's lived four other places since then, most of them very, very cold, one of them basically in Canada. I always figured she'd make it back here someday, and now she's here. The fact that we're going out for sushi tomorrow night at our favorite sushi place still hasn't really registered with me yet. The two of us and her baby, gabbing over edamame and crunchy rolls like it's the most normal thing in the world to do. She did spend one summer here, and she lived at my house, and even though Zuko almost drove her out of her gourd, knocking over every glass of water she ever poured for herself and gobbling up her jewelry, it was a good summer. And now she'll be here this summer, too, and even though we've been through some crazy shit in the past, I like to imagine that we'll be able to get coffee and icees and go to Target in our pajama bottoms and swap books like we always have and begin teaching her little girl every single song from Red, White, and Blaine. Grab your feller by the hand, Welcome him to the promised land. Grab your lady by the arm, Take her out behind the barn! EVERYBODY DANCE! ::: About this time in ... 2004 2/11: It doesn't add to my serenity to hear strange instrumental music that sounds like Madonna chanting about the Kabbalah through pursed lips while playing the kazoo. 2/10: She comes across as really smart, and it's odd, because her boyfriend, Josh Brolin, does not. 2/9: We kept throwing out possibilities until one of us cried out, "It's something like ... Justified Reliance!" 2/5: I guess all I can do is continue to choose to believe that no one is interested enough to dig any further, knowing full well that if they do, I will just have to deal. 2/2: And my brother rocked the house at a sold-out show with one of his favorite bands. get notified. journal archives © Copyright 2005 elb

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. --Emerson