Everything Else is Noise

I'm having trouble concentrating. I can hear stories and everything else is noise - coworkers, traffic, the voices of people I love. It's a very inconvenient Narrator who speaks to me. I've got a life, ya know.

No, she doesn't know. She just knows what she wants me to write and doesn't care where I am or who else is talking to me.

This was the conversation with the narrator who made me write "Linda's Flowers" last week:

Narrator: Were there roses at the time of the dinosaurs?

Me: I can't write that down right now. I'm driving.

Narrator: So pull over. You'll forget it if you don't.Were there roses at the time of the dinosaurs?

Me (pulling over): I'm going to have a hard time forgetting it when you're yelling it.

Narrator: I'm not yelling.

Me: You're louder than that ambulance! You're taking up all of the space in my head!

Narrator: But I got you to pull over, didn't I?

Me: Yes, I've pulled over! Are you happy?

Narrator: You don't have to yell, you know.


Later at work that day...

Narrator: Can I ask you a question? Sure. Have you ever been in love?

Me: Look...I'm at work. Can you bother me with dialogue later?

Narrator: Write it. Write it now or I get louder.

Me: But see, that's not actually my job.

Narrator: CAN I ASK YOU A QUESTION? SURE-

Me: Would you stop that?!

Narrator: HAVE YOU EVER BEEN-

Me: You're going to get me fired!

Narrator: IN LOVE?

Me (writing it down): I hate you.

Narrator (smiling): No you don't. Finish it up and post it on your blog.

Me: But what if-

Narrator: POST IT OR DIE!

Me (blogging): Would you go pick on someone else?

Narrator: But you do everything I say. Some of the other writers I've possessed have fought me just like you're trying to.

Me: What happened to them?

Narrator: They died unhappy.

Me: Jesus Christ.

Narrator: I hear talking, I don't hear blogging...


So I finished Linda's Flowers. And then she had another story for me. So a few days later at home...

Narrator: I saw her, yea I saw her, with a black tongue tied round the roses, fist pounding on the vending machine-

Me: Would you stop singing to me? I'm helping Emma with her homework.

Narrator: But the rhythm of it goes with the dialogue I want you to write. And it puts an image in your head of an irate woman punching a vending machine. Why is she doing that? Is she always violent and impatient or is she just in that mood right now? Is a boy watching her? Is he wearing dusty sneakers and a Budweiser cap? Does he know her yet?

Me: I don't know. Maybe he-

Narrator: Write it down.

Me: I can't right now.

Narrator: WRITE IT DOWN.

Me: I'm not finished with-

Emma (who has just asked me a question): Mom? You're not listening.

Me (to Emma): Yeah, I am. What - what was that you just said?

Narrator: WRITE IT DOWN NOW.

I struggle to listen to Emma as the Narrator's will tips like a bucket of water over my head, drenching me to the toes. I am soaked in it. Every movement and thought is heavy. I struggle miserably to listen to my daughter and to focus, because to do so is important to me. When we're finished with her homework I'm tired and frustrated from the fighting. I wonder if Emma's noticed how frustrated I am, and hope that she hasn't taken it personally. My mind feels like a dry, crumbled biscuit. I sit down, turn on youtube and play "Girl" by Beck.

I saw her
Yea I saw her
With a black tongue tied round the roses
Fist pounding on a vending machine
Toy diamond ring stuck on her finger

The story I was thinking of comes back to me, the rhythm of the dialogue in time with the music. The Narrator is quiet now because I'm writing it down. There's no noise. I'm only vaguely aware that I'm in the kitchen. I've only got a foothold in the world where I'm in the kitchen, where I have a job and have children, bills, and nine pets. The rest of me is in the Third Place.

Have I ever told you what the Third Place is? It's the place between awake and asleep. It's not drug-induced, like you might think. It's where the Narrator talks to me and lulls me into a trance. It's the place that I only found myself in sometimes before, and where writers go when they tell you that they've hit a groove with their writing. I'm in it all the time lately. It's the place where I hear the lives of other people, what they say and what they've decided to do, and I write it down, and every other sound from the First Place (the awake place) that tries to get through is just noise. I understand why the Narrator said the ones who ignore her die unhappy.

And while I thought it cold when I first read it, I now understand a quote I read from Edgar Degas who remained a bachelor his entire life. He said, "There is love and there is work, and we only have one heart."

Can I ask you a question?
Sure.
Have you ever been in love?

Yes. And it's in The Third Place.

Urban Poetry Nuggets

Everyone has a shameful confession. Mine is that, techinology-wise, I have not I have not evolved past owning a CD player. Even with my love of music, which exceeds my love of coffee, which in itself is so great that framed pictures of lattes lean boldly in front of pictures of my kids, I still haven't shelled out the money to buy...whatever it is that plays music now. An ipod? An mp3 player? Have we moved past those things yet? Or is it only a phone that plays music now? No, not a phone? A food processor? A pogo stick with a USB port? Is a USB port really what I think it is or is it part of a space shuttle? Are space shuttles connected to the internet and if so can they download music?


I don't know these things so I just play songs on Youtube. Maybe I'm lazy, but honestly, I was burnt once by technology and I never want to go through that kind of loss ever again.

(Cue painful recollection) When I was 11 I began collecting what would become a glorious cassette tape collection. For the price of doing the dishes every day, I was able to spend ALL of my allowance every week on new music. So after a few years I had two double decker cases of cassettes that I coveted and that were absolutely awesome. It was extensive. Elton John, Paul Simon, and The Beach Boys were right there with Megadeath, Agent Orange, Led Zeppelin, Ice T and The Beastie Boys. I might not have known how to talk to other people, but I could look at my music collection and imagine how someone would react if I'd acutally had friends who came into my room.

"Wow!" They'd exclaim, reaching for my bootleg copy of Marylin Manson singing in the shower. "How'd you get that?"

"Well, I get $5.00 a week, I have no friends, great taste in music, and a lot of time."

And replies like that is why Genevieve had no friends for a very, very long time.

It was soon after that I amassed this collection of cassettes, that they began to only release new music on CD's. This was no problem, I thought, I still had a tape deck I could still play all of my favorite music without having to buy a CD player. But soon my insatiable appetite for new, interesting bands outweighed my sentimental attachment to my old boom box so I started buying CD's.

And then, not too soon after, the internet came. Actually, the internet came along when I was about 15 I think, but it didn't introduce itself to me until I was 106 years old. And when we met it said, "Hi, I'm the internet."

"Hi, I'm Genevieve."

"Good to meet you. Hey, are these your CD's and cassettes over here?"

I smiled adoringly at them. "Yeah."

The internet smiled back. "Great." And then it raised a sledge hammer and whacked at them until they were nothing but dust, broken plastic, and ribbons.

So the internet and I have a rocky relationship at best. I use it for pretty much everything, but when it comes to buying music, that's when things get prickly. The internet says to me, "You know that Florence and The Machine album you've been wanting? You could download it from itunes or something." This sounds appealing at first, but then I think of what it did to my tapes and CD's and I say, "Why so you can take a sledgehammer and kill itunes like you killed my friends? Fuck you, take me to Youtube." It doesn't say anything back. Really, what can it say?

The Youtube community has a lot to say though. Though I personally don't comment on the songs I like, sometimes I scroll through what other people are saying. You probably do the same thing, but since we might not listen to the same stuff, I thought I'd share some of the ones I've found. These are the actual comments that haven't been doctored or edited by me. I'm not going to tell you what songs they went with. These will be completely out of context for two reasons: 1) they are urban poetry nuggets and 2) they're more stupid when they stand alone. You would think these two points would contradict each other, but no! So what you get is profoundly stupid accidental poetry. All because of my refusal to grow with technology. There is a bright side to irrational hardheadedness! Who knew.

So here we go.

Some of my favorite youtube comments from songs:


You are a retarded mad princess

britney is awesome doe. she wasn't a sell out and change who she is like a lot of this generations music.

Shut the fuck up, douch nozzle

Please guys, *THRASH, for God.

mellow, grungy, dope

Probably a big-legged woman

A seed is a seed you fucking mongoloid

Happy ending!! yesssss.....

Are you drunk?

wooow it is amazing to man can standing all of the video

Skaters are mostly punk rock fans if you knew your history they dont skate to rap they skate to the misfits hence skateboard music duh

well I just have the album, I uploaded the song and I prayed to the old gods that no one would delete it

if you want the truth of life go to Truthcontestxcom and read THE PRESENT

Well it's obvious that this song has absolutely nothing to do with shoe's. But you could have said it nicer, and punctuated it better... And spelled better... You dumb fuck

Playing this song got Will Ferrell laid.

La musica y el arte no tienen Nacionalidad ni raza, es universal !!!

-----

And because it's important to know this is the song that got Will Ferrell laid. And this is the scene where it happened. To quote a commenter, "One of the best romantic/comedy scenes of all time."

Rock Lobster

Things have been going ok lately. Claire and Emma had their combined birthday party on Saturday, and despite predictions that we would be slammed with rain, there was only a light 15 minute drizzle. Since most of my small guests were on an inflatable water slide, it pretty much went unnoticed.

Claire started her acting workshop this week. She is in a heaven that is specifically designed for Claire. She LOVES it. It's in a building that looks like an old church that's right next to the Norco refinery. It's so right next to it, it looks completely out of place. There's this enormous, stinky, pipe-lined refinery pumping white smog into the air, and off to its left is a two-story Spanish-style building that looks like it's been there for eighty years, with a sign in front of it that says "River Parishes Performing Arts and Cultural Center."

I think Claire has really found something here. When she tried softball, she got all suited up, got out there, took one look at the field and refused to play. I mean that her feet were locked into the earth. I know because I tried to pull her. When she attempted guitar she made it eight lessons in before she finally admitted that she loved music but not enough to form calluses on her fingertips. But when I picked her up the other day from her first acting lesson? She was alive. Something had connected for her and it was all she talked about on the ride home.

Still, I thought, give it a few days and she might lose enthusiasm. But it's only grown, and she was beside herself with 11 year-old glee when she walked out of the workshop yesterday with her eyes locked on a script. She was smiling as she read it.

"Hey, what's that?" I asked, catching her attention.
"It's my lines for a skit. FOUR skits! I'm in four of them!"
"A real actress can do five! Get back in there and demand more lines or no supper!"

I didn't really say that. But the rest of it's true.

What are Emma and Christopher doing? As far as activities go, Christopher hasn't started soccer yet, and Emma enjoys drawing and being anti-organized-group-of-anything which I totally support because it means I don't have to drive her anywhere. Plus, I secretly admire her anti-comformity. They are also getting really cool taste in music. They've discovered The B52's and every time we get in the car, the first song they want to listen to is "Rock Lobster." This makes up for Katy Perry and Kesha, and gives me hope that my children will not develop the musical taste of a stick of sugarless gum. I know, some of you are thinking, "Hey, sugarless gum is pretty good." No. It's not. And now you might be thinking, "You know, Gen, you can really be a snob." Yes. I am. When it comes to music, Top 40 pop generally makes me want to crawl out of my skin.

So what am I up to? I'm working, writing, not drinking, not smoking, not overeating, hanging out with my kids, catching up with my friends when I can, calling a lot of AA and Al-anon people, and later on tonight I plan to watch "The Runaways." I know it doesn't sound exciting, but NOT exciting is just what I'm going for nowadays. There's very little drama, and a lot of clarity. For instance, because of my growing spirituality and sobriety I am quite clear on the fact that Kesha's song "Tik Tok" was written by a five year old Satanist in a mental institution.

I know, I know. Am I saying that "Rock Lobster" DOESN'T sound like it was written by crazy people?

We were at a party
His ear lobe fell in the deep
Someone reached in and grabbed it
It was a rock lobster

I'm not saying that doesn't sound nuts. What I'm saying is, I could hang with those people in that wing of the psycho ward. We all choose our crazies. I'm much more comfortable with the dudes who can come up with "his earlobe fell in the deep" than with the crazies who write lyrics like this:
I'm talkin about everybody gettin crunk crunk
Boys tryin' to touch my junk junk
Gonna smack him if he gettin too drunk drunk

And no, I don't allow that song when it comes on the radio. "Your Love is My Drug" is ok, my kids know that one, and even with that one I find myself reaching for the seek button and thinking, "Am I being too overprotective? What's the line here? She's singing about an unhealthy obsession with someone, but atleast she's leaving her junk out of it."

And now I'm just babbling and I need to get ready for work. Work is a whole other blog post. It's been crazy in there since the beginning of hurricane season, because that's mainly what my department does - makes the game plan for 14 different hospitals spread across the city in the event of a hurricane and/or mass evacuation.

I must now evacuate my bedroom in search of breakfast and more coffee. And if I can't get the song "Tik Tok" out of my head, which is now stuck there, I might be joining my people in the psycho ward sooner than planned.

The Dishbreak Bop

The kids are adjusting ok to all the changes lately. When I say ok what I mean is that they haven't started listening to Rage Against the Machine and smoking dope, which is exactly what I've been tempted to do lately but have not. Their dad and I split up in August, and I think they're doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. There are lots of difficult questions to be answered and intense emotions, but then there is also the usual ridiculousness. This morning I made pancakes from scratch and Claire complained that, though they were tasty, they were too fluffy.

"So what you're saying is," I said, for clarity's sake, "they taste good, but the texture is too light and heavenly?"
"YES!" she screamed, pushing away the plate.
Here is a child, I thought, who would find something to complain about if we won the lottery.
"Well," she'd say, skeptically eyeing the pile of cash. "A hundred million is nice but won't this bump us up to the next tax bracket? Were you thinking about that at all before you wantonly bought that ticket?"

So how am I doing? I'm ok.

Our dishwasher is broken so I've been washing all the dishes by hand lately - and also not washing them at all and letting them pile up, which works for me too. I HATE doing the dishes. Doing the dishes for me is Claire's nightmare equivalent of a stack of fluffy pancakes. So the way I've been muscling through it lately is by playing videos on youtube and dancing while I wash. This is a process that takes longer, exspecially if I'm listening to ska and I have to stop washing for a second to hop in place, but the end result is good. Me and the kids have clean dishes and I'm in a good, peppy mood, despite dish pan hands. How could I not be when accompanied by lyrics like this:
dancin am dancin to the restafarian up--beat,
hangin with ma rude ska brothers in the--street,
our brother oer here say turn up the box-a,
dancin'n'dancin, rock us all the day long!

Can I sing it? No! In fact, I didn't know what the words were until I googled them just now. I only knew that the name of the song is "Skankin to the Beat" and that was enough for me.

And when I'm feeling really angry about having to do the dishes (when the kids aren't home) I'll play Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name." Why is it that's there's something healing about screaming "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" whilst scrubbing a plate of caked-on ketchup? I can't tell you friends. But it works. And if I'm feeling real fiesty I'll play White Zombies "Thunder Kiss '65." I'll try to dance like the girls in the video, all hippy-shaky and sexy, but I'll end up stumbling around like Rob Zombie instead.

When the kids are home, though, the selection changes. It'll be "Rio" by Duran Duran, or "Dancin With Myself" by Billy Idol because sometimes if I play stuff like that the kids will dance with me. Especially is I play "Cool For Cats."

As you can imagine, there have been some dish casualties as a result of this. Cups and plates have broken, sure, but I look at it this way...um, there are now less dishes to do. Yes, that is how I have chosen to perceive it. You could say that my dishwashing process has a Darwinian touch. The strong survive. The weak can't handle hearing Metallica's "Seek and Destroy" one more time, and toss themselves over the sink onto the floor. I'm not just doing the dishes. I'm thinning the herd.

God, I can't wait to get my dishwasher fixed.