unprecedented chill

The more I remember my melancholy imaginings of what this Chicago winter would be like, the sillier it seems. Ok, so I imagined it would be this poetic misery, me sitting alone in a cozy apartment, huddled over a laptop with a glass of wine with enough memories to pretend to be an old geezer writing her memoirs.

Except the problem is this: to get to the poetic, the sweet nostalgic poetic, you have to get past the misery. And the misery my friends, the frigidity that covers the Chicago streets and penetrates the soul, is awfully hard to get past. You have to cross a frozen Styx to get to a place where you can have enough hope to express yourself.

Misery. Misery. Misery. 

Self-delve

I'm not even remotely afraid of jumping into my own psyche. I'm a psyche-bungy jumper and have been since childhood. I will talk about the deepest, most seemingly embarrassing crevices of my mind and honestly, I just don't mind swimming through my id. An id scuba diver. Yes, I happily, enjoyably, speak Idish.

I know this is a language that for many seems too appallingly private. Why strip it all away and stand so naked in front of the planet? I'm an Id Nudist and I'm proud.

How can one write poetry or anything in which one strips for the reader, without being an Id Exhibitionist? I think this is simply part of the process. I yearn for the social mirror and damn it, don't we all seek a bit of this freedom where artifice is stripped to reveal the mess below?

I was in NYC all weekend. It's a kind of delving into friends that I adore and haven't seen in far too long, and yes there was a guy, a lovely one. The streets of New York, always magical, grumbling, full of possibility especially when the heart wanders, filled me with hope and excitement. I've never seen New York under so much snow. It was a mess but it doesn't matter, it's the same fantastic city full of every kind of person in every kind of establishment on every corner. I even heard a Carioca singing in a bar. Her voice was beautiful, I could tell almost immediately from her pronunciation that she was from Rio. I went to the New Museum for the first time and it was a little breathtaking. I saw an adorably painful play with Ethan Hawke about American middle-of-no-where blue collar family psychological dysfunction. Dysfunction and gaudy couches and too many phony kodaks on the walls. I reveled in my old friends. I felt a little overwhelmed because it never feels like there is enough time for the best moments in life. Moments need to be rewound, extended, slow-mo'd.

I had conversations that scurried and galloped into an enjoyment so high pitched it was excruciating. It was excruciating because I knew I couldn't put it in my pocket and bring it back out any time. Bring it back into my life...because some things are not portable. My old friends. A lovely guy who didn't turn out to be receptive to my openly emotional scuba world. Despite the conversation bliss. Or the clearly yearning kiss. A bit disappointing, this. Mermen welcome and wanted.

Life is a pale bitch sometimes. A scrawny bitch with dirty fingernails who scrapes your chalkboard and laughs like a mean little demon. Sometimes you have to wait for that bitch to shut it. You drink some wine, you get all artsy fartsy and try to write, draw, think your way out of it to some higher Platonic existence. Get me out of the fucking cave, already. Please?