season of the bitch

Maybe you do, I don’t know.

I do.

It means that every time you hear it mentioned you miss something different—a sight, a smell, a sound—like beads dangling from trees as far uptown as Loyola, that special lower Decatur street aroma of beer, sweat, vomit, Irish coffee and the Mississippi, the far-off sounds of a brass band letting you know that a parade or a second line or just a marching band for the hell of it is heading your way.

But those are the cliches.

To miss it now is to look for people you know in every New Orleans story you read or hear, and to still wonder what happened to your neighbor whose name you could never tell—was it Ron or Rob or Rod? His accent too thick but his smile always real for you as he made his way over on his one leg and crutch to ask how you are. It’s sometimes to forget to look for people and then trip over a name of someone you knew.

Yesterday I was reading a book called Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans, full of first-person stories of The Storm and What Came After, on the subway in Brooklyn a million miles from New Orleans in some ways and so similar it stings a bit in its pleasure in others. And I flipped to a new story and a name jumped out at me, a professor who taught me to call myself a feminist and drank Harp with us in Ireland and wrote my recommendations for grad school five years after I’d graduated.

Of course I’d spoken to her since Katrina—grad school applications were in 2007, so I knew a bit about her evacuation story and where her family and her Perfect Grandchild were. She knew I did my master’s in journalism in Philly and was still afraid to see New Orleans again.

But reading her story in her husband’s words felt like a ghost—felt like those days after The Storm when I was sitting in front of the television in my parents’ house in South Carolina, waiting to see faces I knew crying at the convention center or the Superdome or walking through Kenner to escape.

I never did.

Instead those faces pop up in my mind when I read stories of the storm, and I still read them all the time.

I haven’t been back, it’s true. I’ve said so many times that it’s like seeing an ex-love after years and some horrible trauma—what’s that person going to be like now? Should you just remember them the way they were?

But if you love them, really love them after all those years and all that’s happened to them, you should go. You smile bravely at the scars and tell them they’re beautiful still and drink a toast.

I just bought plane tickets to London but I’m not using up all my vacation time on that trip.

I think I’ll go to New Orleans this year for Halloween. I need to see old friends and dance in the streets, take cliche pictures of beads in trees along parade routes and remember that smell on Lower Decatur.

The last time I was planning a Halloween trip to New Orleans was 2005. Then Katrina hit.

I need to go back.

I put my car up for sale on Craigslist today. I’m moving to New York City and it’s just not practical. Yet it’s probably the hardest part of this whole move for me.

I love driving. I mean LOVE. When gas was cheap I used to just drive (stop looking at me like that, environmentalists!) for hours. When I wrote music reviews every week, my favorite place to absorb an album that I needed to review was in the car.

The last time I lived without a car was my freshman year in college. I had a car when I was in high school–mostly because my parents were working full time and if I had a car it was less work for them. When I was 17, it turned up–a 1992 Acura Integra, flame-red. We called it the Bitchmobile.

I moved out of the dorms sophomore year and brought my car to New Orleans with me. At that point, I was driving a maroon 1990 Ford Probe, nicknamed “Betty” (I am so witty, Betty Ford, eh?). When a guy ran a stop light and totaled that car, I replaced it with a Toyota Corolla named Norma Jeane. I drove that car from 2001 until last year, when it too was wrecked, this time when parked.

The car I have now is called Lulu. She’s a Volkswagen Golf, and I love her. She’s a 2000, not the prettiest thing on the road, but she’s a great little car with good gas mileage and she’s tiny and easy to park. Writing the Craigslist ad was hard.

In addition to my tendency to get emotionally attached to inanimate objects (the shoes I will not throw out, the dresses that I will never wear again), I’ve seen my car for so long as freedom. I could get in at any time and escape whatever was bothering me. I’ve driven pretty much all the way across the country–moving from New Orleans to Denver, driving to California from Denver (to LA then San Jose and then back down) and used road trips as a way to clear my head, to get over breakups or to decide to break up with someone.

I’ll save a bunch of money without a car, and yes, I’ll be greener or something. I don’t need a car in NYC, and I actually look forward to spending more time on foot and coming into contact with people. Cars isolate us to some degree, and living alone I’m already pretty isolated. Still, sometimes I need that space and time to myself.

I’ve already gotten one email about the car–haven’t even given her a bath and cleaned out the inside yet. I’m sad about leaving my apartment and my sister and my friends and professors and students and even my low-paying but often excellent job. But the car? That really hurts.

It was New Year’s Eve when I first kissed the boy I was supposed to marry.

This will be my second New Year’s without him.

We didn’t make it to two years–we celebrated two New Year’s together, and now I have two alone. Last year I spent the evening with friends who knew and loved both of us, and it was wrong and yet right that I was with them.

This year I may well spend it completely alone. Me and a bottle of pink champagne, a bubble bath and more bad TV.

2008 was good to me. Very good, despite economic turmoil and occasional drama and one painful, wrenching moment (Kacie, I miss you).

I made a lot of new friends this year. I learned a lot, both in school and out. Most importantly, I feel as though I’m just inches away from the life I want, and I’m not giving up now.

I kissed some great boys this year, too. (Yeah, that’s right.) And nothing really fell apart afterward. That’s always a bonus. So I don’t really mind not having a New Year’s kiss.

Of course, 2008 will always be the year we elected Obama. I hope he will live up to at least some of our hopes, and be worthy of our work, our sweat, our support.

I read some great books and comics, saw some great movies, heard some great music. I’ll have more to say on that later, of course. I got tattooed, got paid decently for my writing for the first time, worked hard and played hard. I remembered how much fun it is to dance.

And though there were many people who were part of the year, who helped make it great, in the end I have myself to thank for it. I learned to trust myself again, and to trust myself more than I ever did. I questioned that trust over and over again, but I say goodbye to 2008 with it strong.

Maybe I should be more afraid of 2009 than I am. We live in scary times, after all. But right now, I’m looking forward to it.

Snagged from Amber, because she’s awesome.

What did you do in 2008 that you have never done before?
Went to Chicago. Got paid to write about politics. Voted for the guy that actually won.

Did you keep all of last years resolutions?
I resolved not to date losers (again) and I think I’ve kept it.

Have you any resolutions for next year?
I haven’t gotten that far. Mostly I just want to get a job and get back in shape.

What countries did you visit?
The U.S.A. but fun parts.

What would you like to have in 2009 that you didn’t have in 2008?
A real job.

What date in 2008 will remain etched in your memory?
It might be a cliche, but November 4.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I don’t know if I can claim the above as an achievement just for me, because that sounds cocky, but really, this year was defined in so many ways by the presidential election.

What was your biggest failure?
Something really, really personal that I ain’t sharing.

Did you suffer any illness or injury?
Nothing major–knock on wood. Just dealt with other people’s.

What was the best thing you bought?
New laptop will probably be it. It wasn’t a year for big purchases.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Besides the president? And other politicians? Well, appalled might be the wrong word, but I was definitely depressed by my ex a few times.

Where did most of your money go?
Rent, bills, rent, bills, rent, bills, and food.

What did you get really really really excited about?
Obama! Also, comics. Chicago, BUST, Nick Cave, Boss Hog, new laptop, a crush or two, and Twilight. (Yes, I’m lame. No, I don’t care.)

What do you wish you’d done less of?
Eaten crap food and worried about the ex. And missed Kacie. I wish I didn’t have to miss her.

How will you be spending Christmas?
In South Carolina with the fam.

Which LJ/OD users bloggers did you meet for the first time?
Pop Feminist, Belledame, GallingGalla, Kristin (no blog, but she counts), Erik…

Did you fall in love in 2008?
Nope, but I fell in lust a few times.

How many one night stands?
None

What was your favourite TV show?
On a Buffy binge, but that’s DVD. So I must say The Rachel Maddow Show.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nope

What was/were the best books you read?
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano, and a whole bunch of comics (Scalped, Northlanders, Local, Watchmen…)

What was your greatest musical discovery?
I’m hooked right now on the Long Blondes.

What did you want and get?
A certain guy (for a time), some art, my internship at BUST, to go see Nick Cave, new friends, new tattoo.

What did you want and not get?
A few cabinet appointments, the internship at The Nation, a certain other guy.

What was your favourite film this year?
The fucking Dark Knight.

EDIT because I saw Slumdog Millionaire tonight and it was pure movie bliss. Perfect from start to finish, and I’m not even leaving out the dance number in the credits. I LOVED that. I loved The Dark Knight, too, but it loses points for not ending at the logical ending point.

What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?

28; had some dinner and drinks with a few good friends. And got a visit from the boy.

What one thing would have made your year more satisfying?
Not having the world’s biggest economic downturn? And something, once again, personal.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Oh yeah, I remember what it’s like to wear skirts! I can be cute!

What Who kept you sane?
Brian, Lucas, Janelle, Lawson, and my dog.

Which celebrity did you fancy the most?
Rahm Emanuel and James Franco

Which political issue stirred you the most?
See above.

Who did you miss?
Kacie. Lots of other people too, but that one’s for real.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned this year?
As cheesy as it sounds, sometimes all that hard work and believing pays off.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year…

And nothing comforts me the same
As my brave friend who says,
“I don’t care if forever never comes
‘Cause I’m holding out for that teenage feeling
I’m holding out for that teenage feeling”
-Neko Case, “That Teenage Feeling”

~*~

Tag, you’re it, if you so choose!

I had my first written final exam of graduate school–and, I hope, my last–tonight. My knuckles are still sore, like I punched a wall. Also hope I won’t punch a wall when I find out my grade. Shouldn’t, though.

I hold myself to different standards than most of my classmates, it seems. Wish I’d done so as an undergrad. But even then I graduated with a 3.75. OK, yes, I’m a nerd.

Not a big enough nerd, it seems, to actually be upset if people slag me off on the ‘Net. See, this is the cool thing: I at least have a bit of a life when I walk away from this computer. A few friends who actually like me for me. That always helps.

Tomorrow I am off to see the reunion of a band I totally love, Boss Hog, at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. Because I’m just rock’n'roll like that. Not as rock’n'roll as Cristina Martinez, but I can dream.

I officially have one semester left on my master’s. God knows what I’ll do after that. But I haven’t been able to sustain a freakout for more than a day. Good feelings, somewhere deep inside, are carrying me through. That and self-confidence.

It’s been a long time coming.

So, my dears, the holidays are coming up and I’ll be attempting to spend some more time with said friends and family. I’ll still be around, and sans schoolwork will probably be blogging aplenty, here, as well as at Newsarama, Bust and Alterdestiny. And don’t forget Global Comment.

No wonder I need a break.

I’ve been contemplating just why Obama’s victory seems to have had such an effect on my mood, my cynicism, my outlook on life.

I’ve been political for a while now–I can’t tell you really how it started. I took poli sci classes for fun in college, and always had a vague distaste for Bill Clinton that might’ve been shaped by my parents but came around to the other side of it, critiquing him from the left before I was even conscious of it.

I suppose that I didn’t just take the system–and especially violence–for granted.

In any case, I voted for Nader in the first presidential election I was eligible to vote in. That was 2000. I lived in New Orleans but voted in South Carolina. I didn’t like Al Gore, was an angry punk rock chick, and so screw it, I’m voting for the guy who says things I agree with instead of one of the two guys onstage who’re basically agreeing with each other.

Flash to 2004. Colorado. We’ve all learned from 2000, and I’m sure I’m voting Democrat. But which one? I was a Deanie, traveled to New Mexico to attend Dean parties, stood on a corner in the snow holding up a Dean sign.

We lost.

I went to Philly to volunteer for John Kerry. At the end of an endless election day, we heard the news that Pennsylvania went blue and I left happy, only to get more and more miserable as the rest of the results came rolling in.

And so, 2008. Well, 2007 really. I wanted Russ Feingold to run, but one day I got a call from my friend Jill telling me that Obama had declared his candidacy. She was determined to–and succeeded in–get a job with his campaign.

I did my research. I watched the debates. And over my Christmas break I went to Charleston to volunteer with Jill.

When we started winning states–well, it really felt like WE were winning.

When we won the nomination, it was amazing. And then FISA. Combined with an internship in New York and a need to relax after a hellish year, it meant I didn’t do much all summer.

A couple of guys came to my door one day and very sweetly tried to get me to come volunteer. I should’ve, but I put it off. And worked. And wrote.

And I think it was partly out of fear. If I wasn’t so involved, it couldn’t hurt so much if we lost, right?

But of course the opposite is true, too. So I gave up my Halloween and got out the vote all weekend. And monday. And E-day. And we won.

Which is why I get a bit annoyed with people who tell me they know how I feel now.

No, most of them don’t. And there are others who have far more right to this than I do–Jill and countless organizers who gave up their lives for over a year to do this full-time.

Yes, he is the first African-american president and that is amazing.

But my feelings are about more than that.

They’re about finally having the right guy win. About all those hours and days and people I met along the way.

In a way I envy the younger organizers, the ones who don’t know how badly 2004 hurt and who barely remember the cynicism of the Clinton years.
I didn’t have a lot go right for me, personally, between graduating college and starting grad school. I’d gotten so much more cynical and yes, scared to invest myself in anything because it always seemed to blow up in my face or fall apart.

I kept working, kept writing, kept fighting. But I always felt that it’d be for nothing.
But this is different. And yes, it is personal. I helped do this. People like me and yet so different. Hundreds of people I’d never have spoken to otherwise.

It means something.

It’s not just a moment that I’ll remember seeing on TV like my parents remember Kennedy.

I remember working for it.

And that work finally paying off.

These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. -Abigail Adams

Ok, so I’m not calling myself a genius. But I just heard this quote on Meet the Press, and it reminded me of the decision I’ve been struggling with for the last few months. And it just crystallized for me.

I’m not going to apply to Ph.D. programs this fall.

Quite simply, I want to go out and DO things now. I’ve been in school and I’ve been sitting behind a computer when I should’ve been out on the street, working, paying attention. This summer when I was out and about, meeting people, doing things, arguing and debating and having a life, I was happy.

There’s a temptation for me always to bury myself in books, to stay home and sit behind the computer, to study things. I can hide out anytime.

The economy is scary, and I know that I could get into a Ph.D. program and get an assistantship and  work my tail off for another four or five years without having to think about the job market. Hell, in some ways after Tuesday’s victory it’s even more tempting, to be happy with what we’ve done and allow someone else to have that responsibility for a while.

But I’m not going to do it.

I want, like so many other people, to be a part of fixing this country.

And so in May I’ll take my degree and hit the job market. And I’ll find something. No hiding in the ivory tower because I’m afraid of what might be out there.

Look what we just did. We can do anything. I can do anything.

I’ve gotten good at traveling, at dreaming dreams on other people’s couches, splashing my face clean in strange bathrooms, packing light.

I know how to squeeze the last drop of gas out of my car, what to put in a carry-on, how many shirts will last a weekend. I sleep better on a couch than I do in my own bed when there’s someone else in it.

When people ask “where are you from” I laugh and tell them that’s a long story. I’m from lots of places, really.

But each time I pass through here, I remember where I’m really from. I’m from Boston. New England is in my blood. It’s in the way I walk and talk and thrill to first snows. I am in love with NYC but don’t know if it’ll ever be the right fit.

When I see my oldest friend here, we fall exactly back into how we were. So few people I can actually do that with, catch up on stories and laugh about memories. We never change.

Off to the train now to New Hampshire, family and friends and New England seafood and small-town hills.

This is home.

Sometimes I am prescient.

Other times I’m just tired and want to curl up on the couch with the dog, my fuzzy faux-leopard blanket, and Marlon Brando’s broken nose on the TV.

Certain things are always and forever comforting even when I’m not quite sure why I’d be in need of comfort. Retreating into my own little world, with work to do, yes, but not enough to make me feel bad for putting it aside except for the story brewing somewhere in the back of my mind. The story has a hand twisting a ring, red lights reflected on the rain on a cab’s windshield, whispers, and a space of inches that might as well be miles. I’m not sure how it’s coming together yet, but it will.

The books that surround me on the couch are all begging me to read them for different reasons. A collection of Neil Gaiman’s short stories, my Law text, “The Political Economy of Media” by my fave media scholar, Robert McChesney, a couple of Warren Ellis comics, and my notebooks full of bits of thoughts, research, quotes and more stories.

The dog missed me for the last two days while I was couch-hopping in NYC seeing my favorite people (many of them, anyway) and thinking and seeing the glitter of lights on tall glass buildings reflected through train windows into my eyes. Watching a pretty boy reading a magazine in the reflection in the window. Dreaming.

Eva Marie Saint in On the Waterfront is beautiful, strong, and innocent. A good girl that I’ve never been. A static character, sure, but one that thinks and feels and loves and hurts. She’s a rock that Brando can break himself against or can use to pull himself up to his feet and be a man.

I always believed I could be that person for someone. Now I’m not so sure.

I’m too foul-mouthed and cynical, too practical and too good at hiding my romantic streak. I hide my heartbreaks inside laughter and flirting and jokes about my tits. I am too willing to argue. Maybe once upon a time I was innocent and unscarred and willing to open up, but it’s been a while since I’ve even unscrewed the jar I locked my heart up in and poked at it to see if it still bleeds.

I write better when I’m half-asleep, lost in thought, barriers down. The passion my professor wants from me–yes. But if I let it out, will I be able to stop?

maybe she’s just pieces of me you’ve never seen and there are so many pieces of me that most people haven’t seen. Just a few who’ve seen me break down completely and still love me.

I resist and you resist and we resist and we end up alone.

The person I spent the longest time with, the one who heard me say “I love you” more than any other, never knew me. And only partly because he didn’t want to. The rest was because I wouldn’t let him. And yes, he would have left, and that would’ve been the right thing, because I faked it too long and too hard and I wasn’t going to be happy with faking it. But of course I kept it right up.

What’s wrong with us that so much of our lives are a performance?

I prefer the performance I give here. The bits of honesty. Then I don’t need to put on a brave face. I can put on movies and try to cry.

I cried when my cat died. I cried when a security guard yelled at me at the end of a long day. I cried at my friend’s wedding, and I cried at a memorial service in a hospital in Maryland for a friend who was still nominally alive in a room down the hall.

Lately I just want to cry to remember what it’s like to feel things. To remember what “I love you” felt like when I said it and meant it.

Searching for something to blow my mind again.

cat&hedgehog

Originally uploaded by seasonofthebitch

My mother called me today to tell me they had to put my cat to sleep.

I left my cat with them when we moved here. My ex wanted a dog, and like I did on many things, I gave in to him when I knew better. I still have the dog, don’t have the boyfriend, and my cat ran away for a bit and now I feel bad, that I left him behind. My mother found the cat at the local humane society, and brought him home and spoiled him rotten.

I know he had a good life with them, and that he’d had a good life with me. I adopted him when he was two or so, from a family of goths who were moving and didn’t want to lug the cat across the country. I changed his name from Armand to Doc Holiday, and took him with me from New Orleans to Denver to Hilton Head. He yowled all the way, no matter how many kitty sedatives he was prescribed.

In Denver, he’d run off outside and then sneak back into my room from the roof of our back porch. In Hilton Head he lived at the bike shop and climbed on the desk while I did paperwork, or sat in my lap during the rainy winters when I had nothing to do but read or write.

I’m not sure exactly how old he was, because I’m not sure how old he was when I got him. That was 1999, in the fall, right before Christmas. He was probably 10 or 11, not young, but not old. Still, he had kidney failure and they tried everything they could.

I feel guilty that I left him behind, wonder if maybe the time he spent on the street when he ran away contributed to him being sick. But mostly I just wish I’d been there. Poor kitty.