lizard love

through you
a momentary awareness of the weight of the universe
not much at stake
just my heart
I’ll grow another one
oh wait,
that’s lizards and their tails

romancing the pavement

7.7 miles and 2.5 hours later, we arrive at our doorstep, exhausted, blistered and bursting with a new found love for this city.

your car breaks down in the middle of your day, not part of the plan. you go through your list of friends, no one answers. you are left at 109 n. naomi with an idea of the general direction home. it can't be that far. you start walking. worlds unfold along the way. you encounter humans and hold conversations that would never have taken place had the car started.

an exuberant estate salesman points the way. a fat woman watering her lush garden stares at us in disbelief and then exclaims through the thickness of her jersey speak - "yuh walkin to wheya?" it's as if we had asked her how to get to calcutta. any distance on foot seems unbelievable to the dwellers of this city. we battle cars for most of the journey.

we continue in the direction we are headed. somehow we are now in a small town within a city. sun-bleached businesses speak more to forgotten towns in new mexico than to the metropolis they are hidden in. the trail becomes littered with horse shit. stables are stuck in between apartment complexes and homes transported from kentucky. there is a blond girl riding a big white horse. she is talking on her cell phone. behind a white picket fence a gray-haired man sits reading lengthy literature on his lengthy porch.

where are we?

his wife comes out and points the way.

we walk through secret parks and stumble on rotten leaves and cigarette butts. we cross a river, and a river of cars. one travels slowly, the other whizzes by. our feet start to get dirty. there are brown bunnies and deer grazing and joggers jogging and bongos banging and baby butt cracks and native americans meeting and too many tourist to count and golfers and golf balls and golf carts and buddhist in burgundy gowns and toddlers rolling around and skunks striking poses and lovers kissing on benches.

a grown man rides by on his daughters hot pink bike. it is too small for him and his knees splay out to the sides. I am so very happy. I don't mind the hill or the heat or the blisters. I am a hero walking with my hero and this is one of our many adventures. a romance in the truest sense of the word.

library lovers

to the moon and back linda would love al. is that where al went? to the moon and now he's back and that is why linda says "welcome home..."? did he go to the moon to show linda how much he loves her or did he go to the moon because he was scared of his love for linda? did he finally realize while on the moon that the only thing scarier than his love for linda was his life without her? is that why he came back? the one thing in the card that I am consumed with is the ... at the end of welcome home. three dots. three universes of possibility. are the dots symbols of hope or half completed question marks?

I found this card inside a book I checked out at the library yesterday. you would have thought the envelope had been stuffed with c-notes the way I felt upon discovering this hidden treasure. not only does the library offer the world in words, but also, the exchange of worlds. I do not know al and linda, but I like to imagine their lunar love for each other is real. I like to imagine that someone else somewhere has opened a book to discover an envelope marked "linda" and that inside there is a card that says

Linda,

I went to the moon and back because I love you.

Al

I'm home.

circus freaks

our love in the big top

you navigating me like an acrobat
my body a tightrope
your breath a lions roar
together we fly through the air
there is no net below
we land on the backs of elephants
everyone stands and cheers
the tent all color and smiles
we both don round red noses
our shoes too big
we dance to the sound of laughter
we are our own greatest show on earth

the astronaut in my chest

All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.

--Sally Ride, America's First Woman in Space

feeling myself to be more from earth than venus, normally I use the men are from mars argument to scrub my toilet. but today I waver. I do feel a bit distant from my martian lover. perhaps I am, after all, light years away from understanding the mechanics of the male mind.

I grew up in a home where the mother was the caregiver, the dishwasher, the cooker of the bacon that the father brought home. my mother buttered the bread my father won. not that I have a problem with any of this, it was for the most part a happy and loving home, but I always hated that my mother and father had such a difficult time understanding each other. no amount of time together could undo the simple fact that my father felt one way and my mother the other. so here I am, maybe not cooking bacon, but uttering words I remember my mother saying. I am hurt by what I see as inconsideration. he is disturbed by what he sees as me being my mother. I love my mother but I don't want to be her. but who's right? should I just "relax"? or should he stop relaxing so much? should he perhaps squeeze a bit? why is it so damn difficult to just meet somewhere in the middle of our planetary hearts?

you know, when I think of the romantic space mission my parents have been on for over 30 years, I realize that progress has been made, new terrains have been discovered, and craters have been overcome. in fact, I remember my father making his own sandwich once. now if that doesn't give you hope?...

holding out for a hero till the end of the knight

so this is our modern day hero? no wonder so many of my friends are single. too many of my smart, talented, funny and beautiful girlfriends are single. take off your armour boys. lay down your plastic swords. let down the wall of your castle heart. your faithful steed isn't fast enough to escape the reality that you're scared shitless of actually finding your match. quit hiding out in the dungeon of indecision. stop spending way too much time at the round table and buy the girl a drink.

rock and roll romance

Dearest Jimmy Jam Band,

I’m your Number One Fan.
I’m the girl that sat on my boyfriends shoulders and flashed you my titties.
That was my red lacy bra that hit you in the head during my favorite guitar solo.
I hold my lighter out to you.

Guzzle your heart out,

Misty


ahhh red lace romance. romancing the stoner. falling in love with a song. falling in love with the fingers forming the chords. falling in love with the mouth forming the words. a sea of lighters illuminating faces as they are falling in love with the magic of a musical moment. worn-out t-shirts.
drum beating hearts pounding fists. rock and roll romance. keep singing. my head wants to bang.

story of a hero's adventure

“There was an acrobat whose specialty was falling off tables. When he was not performing, he wore thick lensed glasses. The muscles on his neck stood out like ropes, though his skin was soft as silk. Deciding I had to stop being prudish, I spent a night with him. When he called me his “sweet cookie” while eating sausage with his knife, I decided I could learn about life elsewhere. I consoled myself with the thought that none of my friends could claim the dubious distinction of having slept with a man who fell off tables for a living.” --I Shock Myself: The Autobiography of Beatrice Wood

how do we decide to define our encounters as romantic or disastrous? exciting or disgusting? miracles or mistakes? depending on your dictionary, romance itself is defined differently--like all things, it depends on how you look at it.

when you look up the word romance, you encounter words like imaginary, chimerical, impractical, improbable, unrealistic, idealistic, fictitious, fanciful, and yet, you will also find words like imaginative, adventurous, heroic, ideal, picturesque, poetic, visionary, wonderful, extraordinary, marvelous, mysterious, unrestrained.

according to the online etymology dictionary, romance was first defined as "story of a hero's adventure".

and somehow the word has slowly lost its epic quality and instead is something that we now toss in the proverbial drawer along with soggy chewing gum and loose screws. no wonder we are so quick to roll our eyes at love songs. and yet, we sing our hearts out in the shower.

one definition dictionary.com gives for romantic is "a soulful or amorous idealist". idealist can be defined as "one whose conduct is influenced by ideals that often conflict with practical considerations." it can also be defined as "a person who cherishes or pursues high or noble principles, purposes, goals, etc." like all things, it depends on how you look at it. you choose.

beginnings can be difficult

in the beginning you are likely to say something you don't mean and will later turn over and over in your head like a jagged stone....


is it hopeless to be romantic? do men just want to spread their seeds like born-agains with their xeroxed prophesies? do women just want to make of their guts a nest and of their breast dispensaries? is romance candlelight and chocolate syrup? is romance piano music and poetry? does love consist of something more that one dysfunctional attempt at connection after the other? is it possible that romance is something beyond castle walls, maybe even something we could sit with in our own living rooms. does romance require another? can you be romantic with yourself (I am speaking of something a bit deeper than lube and a video)? is romance something to be hopeful about? I would like to think so. so I will begin with that.

tonight I went to a wedding, an auspicious beginning for this blog. the vows (written by the bride and groom) were beautiful and genuine and crammed full of some deep ass love. I cried. as I sat there, I thought of the moment you stand, either literally or metaphorically, on the alter and speak of your love for another or yourself or perhaps something you have created. what do you say? do you speak confidently of the ways in which this person or thing has truly changed you into something better, something brighter? has this exchange of love, this romancing of life, stripped away the excess, polished the rough spots, pushed you closer to the big wow? how do we find this worthy sculpture? how do we ready our own knives? get your chisels ready because life is waiting for you to whisper your sweet somethings in its ear. hopefully someone along the way will hear you and want to hear more. stay hopeful. hopelessness is so last year.