{may 16, 2000} ......,........................<--ramblings, observations, & mistranslations---
morning brings me these thoughts:
is there a conditional morality which applies to the survival of the fittest? murder, for example: how wrong can the death of an abusive husband be by the wife he's landed in the hospital too many times to count? unfortunately, in cases such as this, 'blind justice' is just that: no attempts to qualify the situation are accepted. but who is the more fit to survive the situation? the individual who starts the violence, or the one that ends it?
perhaps somewhere inside of me is a woman who long ago had to claw her way through life -- like madame marteuil of dangerous liaisons fame: i was a female who mastered survival by practicing the downfall of others. supposing this is true, what have i been blessed/cursed with? a genetic sociopathy? do i have control, or am i just forced to survive? does it differentiate any longer between rivals, or does it just selfishly identify that i am the most "fit" and therefore have every right to exploit any means to my ultimate end: survival and perhaps, if we're getting teary-eyed, "freedom"?
i have a friend....well, a lover, truly, in the most pure sense of the word, whom is in the middle of whirlwind she can't seem to control, get out of, or accept. what perplexes me is her inability to exploit any means necessary to take control.....she would not be in this state if various influences hadn't forced it.....so why should she think badly of herself for doing what is necessary to survive? when she calls me up at 4:30 in the morning sobbing and hysterical, my reaction has always been the same: get out. it seems that a tortured life should be the easiest gamble. perhaps it's nihilistic, but i do believe that one should strive to attain whatever sanity one can find in this chaotic existence. living by the dictums of another surely cannot lend to greatness.
but, again, it really isn't greatness we're looking for, either: it's survival, contentment. the morning roll over to find the warm, loving body next to us. in dreams there are too many facets to reality and in reality there doesn't seem to be enough. this is most frustrating because in my efforts to motivate said lover to move on and take control, i have exhausted every available approach that doesn't involve weaponry. she's already got that bit covered.
i am so in love with her, i can't even think straight at times, and when i hear her cry i have the distinct urge to hunt out whoever is responsible and remove them from the equation. not having a murderous streak (all evidence to the contrary, of course) i don't have a clear sense of what the experience would in fact feel like. would i regret it in the morning? or would it pass by me as so many other hungover humorous musings of my antics from the previous night's drunken revelry? a life extinguished providing little more material to ponder than the breaking of a few martini glasses? it seems like most people might kill on auto-pilot; i wonder if i would be the same.
of course, in the archives of pop-culture history, there has always been the bonnie and clyde, thelma and louise, clarence and alabama. what to be said of a culture that simultaneously celebrates and denies the base human instinct of survival? bravery is not the willingness to annihilate/eradicate/die in the name of a cause; it is rooted in an individual's commitment to redefining the cause. you must dance a fine, fine line between creation and destruction, in my opinion, to be truly brave.
as usual, i've placed a tall order that i certainly cannot fill -- and properly utilizing a conditional morality in the long term seems a bit short sighted. perhaps it is not a creed borne of picking and choosing the more important strands within the framework of present societal ethics (not only not researching the effects of any specific means to an end, but altogether forgetting the actions taken in the light of attainment) that will allow one to succeed. maybe it's the soul-deep refusal to operate under such conditions which will contribute to a richer, stronger survival.
after all, it's not just about living through it. it's about living through it well.
love, kat
{may 7, 2000} ......,........................<--ramblings, observations, & mistranslations---
er.....
"there are certain rules to the proper conduct of living. we cannot fly to the moon. we cannot defy death. we must face the facts, not the folly of fantasists like you, who do not live in the real world and who consequently come to a very sticky end."
-- mr. jackson "the adventures of baron munchausen"
want a drink?
not me, i think i might go dry. spent friday night in the arms of very expensive tequila, celebrating the birthday of the captain of our quivering cybership. we rented a stripper for him and i've procured a rather tasty collection of polaroids centered around scenes between he, the stripper, and her billy club. he's requested the originals, of course, but i've only deigned to offer him the url.
for a glimpse of tiny kat bits (mostly tongue, actually) you can look here or here. either picture, please don't look if you're under the legal age, mentally or physically (mom, get the fuck out of there.)
i feel like telling a story. let me see if i can concoct one fine and proper. okay....yarn stretching/s.o.c.:
one night while i was living in costa rica, the dogs went crazy. when i say crazy, i am referring to the shrill notes in their howls, their repellent cries for help. i was shaken out of sleep and my lover shot upright, the muscles in his back rigid, a fine velvet sweat kissing his concentrated features. he looked scared shitless. after a few moments, the dogs were silenced.....although one or two of them still wailed a tearful ballad until the wind picked up and drowned out their whines, leaving the effect of banshees. even with temperatures over 100 degrees, i was shaking from cold. my lover moved away from my touches and rolled over onto his side. i think he might have been embarrassed.
the next day, i asked him what had startled both he and the dogs so thoroughly. he had been mildly absent since waking up still damp with his own fearful sweat, and my question garnished little more than a grunt as response. when i looked out into the garden, i noticed all the blooms had been blown off the bushes, vines, and trees. there was not a flower in sight.
i walked through the jungle, down the beach, and into town. there were ripples of mud in the street, oozing down into the river sidling out to sea. a wild mare was eating trash left by tourists, her mane tangled and her ankles torn. i had a noticeable pain in my right side, like that of ovulation, only higher and deeper.
as i entered town, the pain increased, became more intense. it felt like i had elephants playing canasta in my uterus. boi boi was sweeping out her storefront, wielding her girth out into the street and pulling out palm leaves and banana husks. she told me that there had been a mild hurricane and that a boat had crashed on the coral.
i remember one distinct feeling washing over me: i was in a pirate novel. it is a guilty pleasure in retrospect, but i can't help relishing that moment, with the fantastic journey of looting booty looming. ooom. i had always thought i'd had a talent for piracy.
i collected my various and sundry, hurrying back to the little jungle hut to share the news with my lover. by the time i reached the beginning of the jungle trail, after hiking up the beach, my fruitful imagination had supplied me with lusty images of me and my mysterious lover diving into the caribbean at night with daggers in our mouths.
you can't blame me. i was stoned out of my brain most of the time.
when i reached the porch, my lover was in the hammock and as i passed, he pulled me into it and licked the back of my neck. he was the sort of lover that, once he had discovered a secret erogenous spot, exploited it to display his dominance. i didn't mind, however, it kept him eating pussy for hours.
i proceeded to spill the news i had gathered from town. the glint in his eye told me that he had the same idea as i, and when i started to beat around the bush a bit, he grabbed the back of my head and said in his wonderful accent dat of carse ee'd go out dere divin wit 'is pritty gairl. planning commenced.
my neighbor, the chatty ex-coast garden captain, lent us his fishing boat, telling us that we'd better watch for other looters and not to trust anyone. he tended to get a bit melodramatic and clung to a fierce 'us against them' manifesto. it paid, however, to position yourself in his 'us' category for he was always hassling 'them' with tales of military greatness. if you got to know him real well, he'd take you aside one day and whisper in your ear that you were very beautiful and that if he was twenty years younger and could still fuck, he'd like to fuck the hell out of you.
but only if you got to know him real well.
my lover and i brought a few items in the boat with us, but we didn't want to feel responsible for it if some shit went down, so we tried to take only as much as we could carry. mostly we just had extra bags. we were looking for lost tennis shoes.
it took about twenty minutes for my lover to row us out to the coral reef. we couldn't see anyone in the peppery dusk, the horizon smooth and uninterrupted by silhouette. this didn't seem right to me, something was wrong. i yelled to my lover to stop rowing and to turn around, face the reef. just by the way his lips were held, i could feel his discomfort, i knew he knew.
he had known all along.
we were the accident.
no, but that's not right. fuck you because all that shit is written in some book, it doesn't show up in real life. i could see the lip of waves caressing the coral and our craft's intended path of travel headed straight into its middle. there wasn't a word to say, i just dove off the side of the boat and slid into the inky sea. just for kicks, i pulled my dagger from it's leg holder and put it in my mouth. i swam until my lungs ached, and then i swam some more. my body began to meld into the seductive form of the ocean, i laid back and floated. if an airplane had passed overhead, it would have only viewed the glint of moonlight on the dagger in my mouth.
i didn't dream at all, i just woke up on the black sand beach, the goddamn dagger still clenched between my teeth. i yanked it out and drug myself up the shore, every bone in my body had sublet the space and left for barcelona. they would be partying for weeks without a thought for me.
i was moody and cranky. something inside me kicked, that pain again. it scorched and i felt the irresistible urge to sate it. i rolled back into the ocean, flailing and drinking it in. the pain only worsened.
the sun had, by this time, melted the black sand into a seething tarpit. my face was burned and i felt blisters on the back of my ears. the salt in the sea was abrasive and unforgiving, but it gave the strange pleasure of acidic cleansing. it felt as if the water was rubbing alcohol and my body was a giant wound.
i heard my name called and saw the neighbors gathering at the shoreline. the ex-coast guard captain and his cheery wife waived and clucked at me. the lesbians and my lover were frantically trying to devise a rescue. i allowed the waves to carry me in, and they dragged me onto a blanket to get me off the sizzling graphite sand.
my lover's face was knotted and he shouted at me to come to my senses. all five of them hoisted me above their heads and moved me through the jungle. i felt like i was floating, my eyes sore and swollen. the flamenco in my belly was quieting down, both my lover and the lesbians mumbling some words that i couldn't understand.
when i woke up after a few hours' nap, i asked my lover why he had abandoned me. he looked pained and perplexed as he told me that he hadn't abandoned me at all, he had awakened to my screams in the surf. i laughed and told him to fuck off because i really didn't need an extra bit of bullshit right then, i was already picking my way through a hefty serving. he pleaded with me to believe him and said that he had had no choice, that once the hetzaquatle is heard, the game has begun and no one can dictate what will happen.
i asked him what the fuck the hetzaquatle was and he just shrugged. he said that if i didn't know, he didn't know how the hell to tell me.
hmmmm.....now that i've got that out of my system, how about i close with a little viva las vegas?
love, kat
{may 6, 2000} ......,........................<--ramblings, observations, & mistranslations---
life is such a fucking bitch, her biggest get off is watching you get nasty and playing all sorts of card games (or what the fuck ever) just for her amusement. she's best defined in the flare of a lit match -- sulfuric, warm, volatile, cozy. whoever you want to be, life will just.....well, she'll mock you. she acts innocent and semi-interesting, but she's really waiting for her pimp's twenty-spot: no sense of humor, no sense of crime.
so high she doesn't even know your name, you have to write it on a napkin for her to understand.
there is not a radio loud enough to cleanse me. there are too many loose ends tied together into a thick, tangled rope. i think about nothing and everything and i wish/wonder what will be and....sometimes it feels like i can't give anymore.....but then, almost magically, i do. and i love.
it is may. i have been......over and up in that shit. in maui, i drove on a highway hemmed by a five hundred foot drop directly into the pacific ocean.....so nerve-wracking i ended up with hives all over my hands. on the stretch between kaanapali and wailuku, the rain is a blessing and a curse, pristine and deadly. in the middle of a hairpin curve on this road, so far away from any goddamn thing, there is an elementary school positioned too rocky and difficult for just anyone to reach; in it is bred the cream of the imaginative crop -- children that have grown up in love with the volcanic god that created the very land on which they live. what would be defined as imagination on the mainland is blinked at without a second thought on the islands.....on the islands, it's just reality.
i didn't want to end up as roadkill. almost as a prayer, i can remember the very names of the thousands of waves, pacific and atlantic, that demonstrated the force of the wind. in such a situation, you'd think you'd be unaware of the details, the finer points, and i say this: always make it home alive armed with an absolutely fucking amusing story to tell......and baby, it's not ego, it's the spin. the best stories center around the moment one discovers there is a tale to be told.
woke up achey this morning, watching the breakfast sun fade into the midday solar rouge, staining the walls, and i realize i can never hope to imitate such simplicity, i get in the way of myself because i try too hard. perhaps that's why i always slide into inaccessibility: i have given up on those impossibly perfect colors, in fact, i don't think they've ever existed outside of my nostalgia. it pains me to leave them in scrapbooks and high school reunion flyers. i want simple, yet it doesn't seem to be found independent of memory.
who/what dare i love? at this point, such activity feels rife with danger. i am more centered and alive than i have ever been before, a distinct knowledge that i've finally not only pulled myself onto the first rung of the ladder, i actually found out where the fuck the ladder was. now that i'm here, i guess the only place to go....is up.
prepped for the spring flowers, my narcissism kicks in, contributing to my new seasonal tagline (fresh from the garden): "how about i do whatever the hell i want? how does that sound?"
love, kat