Tattoo Removal and Dozens of Pills...

I'm still a baby.  People tell me this all the time. And I am aware I still have a lot of mistakes to make, that I am in the prime of my life.  And I usually behave like a 15 year old boy, so that tends to lend to the illusion that I am a few years younger than I actually am.  Still, none of this changes the fact that I'm now faced with decisions on the inevitability of aging. (Not to mention that nothing makes a woman feel older than a trip to the doctor or the salon. I've made both of those trips this week, and it's only Tuesday.)
I could go on about the perils of being a woman beginning to show signs of time in a youth obsessed society, but I've officially decided that I am not a feminist. --Put your armpit hair and hate mail away, riot grrls. I've been there done that and experienced enough to be OK with being objectified.--
Anyway, so far my approach to aging is the same as my approach to most things, "Well fuck it, I'll do the best I can and see what happens".
It has been in the last year or so that I've noticed changes, not quite like a new puberty, more like what happens between the ages of 16 and 18. Like your still getting zits, but big changes are happening gradually enough to see them coming.
It started with my eyes, not with crows feet like most people, but tiny crevices and small, seemingly permanent pillows underneath-like my father. It's subtle but it's there. All I can do is just sit and wait for the day when the full on bags slide down to what will be full on jowls-thanks Mom.
But for now I hold to a couple of things I've always been known for--boobs and sex hair. Neither of them seem to be going anywhere.  Turns out there is a reason I was dubbed "Perky The Wonder Boob" in my younger days. Although I did start going grey about three months before my wedding (am I the only one?).  It seems to have slowed, but it's definitely not stopping. My crazy mop of thick dark hair will be a crazy old lady at the end of the street wild shock of silver. And I embrace that; I've decided to go Emmy Lou Harris with this one. No covering, no dye, no short cut, curl and set. Although no one would ever accuse me of being that wispy and delicate so it will probably be more like Dorothy Palanza.  Apologies in advance.
There is no "work" to be done here-no going under the knife. I've earned every line and spot and stain and sag.  Though I do plan to continue with some tattoo removal and general maintenance, so those battle scars don't turn into battle blobs.  This is what has happened to my rock and roll lifestyle. Regenerist, removal, and the art of aging dangerously.

The Weekly Walk With Me

8 People I Wanna Hug Just to See What Would Happen

8. Bret Easton Ellis

7. Nick Cave

6. Lauryn Hill

5.  Kanye West

4.  Henry Rollins

3. Lydia Lunch

2. Cornel West

1. Phyllis Schlafly

The Weekly Walk With Me

4 Things That Made Me Question The World I Live In

1. The Espys.  I was completely conned by this award show.  I had no idea who any of these people were, no one was pretty, they all had problems reading teleprompters...  Like are these people actually good at something? Like are they capable of superhuman accomplishments using sheer force of will and Greek God like bodies?  Was it like profiles in courage or something? Trash.

2. Nick Cave and family's horrible tragedy. Nick Cave is an acquired taste-like Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen.  His storytelling is timeless and horrifying at the same time.  He's on my list of people I want to hug just to see what would happen.  (Maybe more on that next week.) My heart is broken for him and his family as news traveled that one of his twin sons died from a fall off a cliff.  I cannot fathom it.  Life has imitated your art and it is devastating. Love to you Nick Cave.

3. WTF, I'm totally into Shawn Mendes right now. His little song Stitches is my newest guilty pleasure. And he's Canadian. I think we all know how I feel about that.  Not long ago he played in my town and I sat stuck in traffic in front of the venue staring at an unending line of gawky, brace-faced, giraffe-legged girls.  And every 10 girls or so there was a woman in Keds and khakis trying desperately to be the cool Mom.  And every 15 girls or so, there was a miserable looking man wishing he could be anywhere but there trying desperately not to look like he didn't want to be there for his baby giraffe's sake. I remember feeling a bond with those men--all of us stuck in the seventh circle of hell, a gridlock of  rush hour traffic and 14 year old girls. I might've even locked eyes with one of them, and the look was probably not unlike something that inspired Apocalypse Now.  And now here I am, betraying our brotherhood. It's a heavy, heavy day.

4. National Ice Cream Day.  So I realize it's Sunday and that technically means it's next week already, but I just can't let this go. Everybody knows that "National Whatever Day" should always fall Monday through Friday.  This is so you can hear about it on the way in to work and stop and get extreme deals/free stuff so you can talk all about it with your co-workers and look like you're totally in the know about shit (which you're not).  Or, if the "National Whatever Day" requires some sort of ribbon for awareness, then you would wear said ribbon to make other people think you care about shit (which you don't). But National Ice Cream Day on a Sunday?  Could we have gotten more advertising on this?  Because I only found out about it a few hours ago on Twitter--already in my pajamas and sitting out a horrible storm that blew half a tree into my yard and knocked the power out in the middle of my brussel sprout roasting.  And really, who is going to see you long enough to be jealous on a Sunday?

But you don't find roses growin' on stalks of clover...

What is it that makes a weed, a weed
and an orchid, an orchid
or a rose, a rose
what is it that makes us plant shrubs for the butterflies
but repel the moths
what is it that makes a beetle a scarab-
to be immortalized in stone
and amber
and skin
what makes us afraid to get wet in the rain
but compels us to swim in the ocean

what human instinct was it

that made us smoke the bud
or eat the berry
but poison the dandelion
is it that we cannot control where or when it grows,
that we do not control where the wind takes its seed?

And what is it that makes always, mean always
and never, mean never
what is it that makes a word true
when dirt turns to mud, we wash it away
when dirt turns to clay, we covet it.

And I'll Find Me a Soapbox Where I Can Shout It...

Today is throwing me all the way back to 1975.  I wasn't here yet, but some of my favorite people happened in 1975.  And today Jack White is 40.

I remember the first time I really paid attention. 2003. There was buzz around this new lo-fi "band". A boy and girl, just a guitar and drums.  A front man from Detroit with a weird ex-wife-sister situation who looked like the not so scary corpse in an R.L. Stine story.  Seven Nation Army was all over the radio.  There was every reason I shouldn't be interested. But a friend gave me a copy of Elephant, and I couldn't bring myself to get out of my Honda Civic until I had heard the very last track.  Including Ball and Biscuit which I re-played probably four times before I could let it go.
Ball and Biscuit, for me anyway, is the single most sexy song recorded in my lifetime.

This man doesn't steal glances, he looks long. He watches, he leers. And he dares you. He flicks his cigarette and lets the curtains catch fire. And then he smolders.  He kisses deep, he holds tight. Not desperate, but sure.  He doesn't give a shit about dinner, or dishes.  He goes down, dives deep, devours. He worships. Dirty and predatory and longing and high. Seven minutes in heaven.

That is a song, Mr. White.  And I thank you.  Happy Birthday.

The Weekly Walk With Me

I feel like I've spent Independence Day weekend freeing myself from the month of June.  It was the longest month ever, and for no reason at all really. Maybe that it began with an executive meeting with a woman who had the nerve to wear shower shoes (Hint: It wasn't me.) and ended with my Dad's birthday blowout (where he wore shower shoes).  You see how this exhausts me...

7 Things in June-In No Particular Order

1. The losses.  Jean Ritchie and Ornette Coleman.  This gave me the sads, but an excuse to revisit their works and celebrate my music nerdist tendencies with edibles and patchouli.  OK, everyone knows I absolutely draw the line at patchouli, but I did let my wife burn incense when I wasn't home once.

2. True Detectives.  I want everyone involved in this project to sit on my face.  Except the children. And Kelly Reilly because I've always sort of hated her.  But she does manage to pull off a heavy bang and a blunt lob at the same time as if she were 25.  I could probably do a whole Walk With Me on this show and I'm only 2 episodes in.   The highlights for me so far:

• Lera Lynn
• Rick Springfield
• "I will come back and butt-fuck your father with your mother's headless corpse"

3. Alabama Shakes live.  This show was hot and sweaty and drunk and absurd.  And that just describes me, and the 75 year old man trying to eat nachos during the show-not the opening act.  If Brittany Howard is not on your radar, you are bad person.  You just are.

4. Following Anne Murray on Twitter.  These days I find myself surrounded by Canadians, which I'm OK with because I've always been infatuated.  When I was a little kid--I'm talking like 6--I was completely obsessed with Anne Murray.  I had a portable turntable/cassette player that closed like a suitcase and I carried it around with me everywhere.  I had a few 45s that changed up every other day or so, a Chipmunks LP, and an Anne Murray greatest hits cassette that I played TO. DEATH.  Most kids had a security blanket, I had all of the above with me at all times.  I'm not sure how a 6 year old found herself entertained by the sweet,sweet sounds of a soft-butch Canadian singing every song written by everyone else but I never claimed normalcy, and I definitely wasn't a My Little Pony kid.

5. The realization that my father, at his aforementioned birthday blowout, is walking around without eyebrows.  Apparently my mother didn't want my Dad's old man eyebrows to get out of control and talked him into giving them a trim.  The problem is, he can't see (or hear) and refuses to admit this. So he doesn't need your help, thank you very much. And now there are no eyebrows. None.  Like Uncle Leo on Seinfeld. Or Divine Miss M without her face on.

6. I wore a bathing suit.

7. This:

I will rarely discuss politics here.  I follow politics and current events closely and have my opinions, and a lot of them might surprise you. But I like to keep this forum as surfacey as possible so no one knows there's a tiny pot of gold in my cold black heart.  I can't help but touch on this, though.  I mean, June is Pride month. And there was kind of a major thing that happened. And I happen to be part of this community.  The gay one, not ISIS.  I just want to know how many Arabic speaking people are aware of this and completely offended that fat stupid Westerners think their language looks like butt plugs and dildos?

I've Got A Blank Space Baby...

There are some people whose stories you have to ask for, like maybe they don't even have one. And there are people whose epics project on a big screen when you encounter them, their credits rolling as they walk away.  I am blessed (or cursed) with being the former. I've had missteps and lapses in judgement, but nothing I can blame on a parent's divorce or a tragic loss or a rapist uncle. Life happens--and I eat my feelings, cry in the shower, and get over it like any other normal functioning adult.
Not long ago I sat down with a friend I've known about two years; it's one of those no holds barred, instant connection kind of friendships. Until that evening we hadn't really spent any time together without our spouses or large groups of people around.  And then he asked me, "So what's your story?" It was asked as if we'd just met, like it wasn't unusual that he didn't know by now. And I really didn't have A story. And I realized that's probably why I have so many tiny stories to tell, why I manage to meet all these strange and interesting characters that do have stories.  I'm a sponge, a blank slate--I listen and experience and turn other people's stories into something else for them. Essays and Op Eds. And it's almost as if they know it.
A Wednesday or two ago, hungover from an Alabama Shakes show, I found myself day drinking on the water with someone going through a gut-wrenching breakup. A couple hundred dollars later we were chain smoking cigarettes with Asian Brian and his friend Matt. (Asian Brian is how he introduced himself-and I've actually known more rare Brians.  I once knew a Brian with one testicle, and that's exactly how I set him apart from all the other ones. "You know, Brian with one testicle." So I'd rather sound a little racist than get Asian Brian confused with One Testicle Brian.) Anyway,  me having once known One Testicle Brian led into a whole conversation about genital health with total strangers.  Which led to us discovering that one of their phone numbers spelled out WET-TWAT. Which opened my companion up to laying herself bare with these two guys we had just met about what a shitty shitty time she was having.   Turns out Matt is a pretty realistic and compassionate guy who had his own story of love and loss and been there done that. We learned about his family, his mother, his former friend who betrayed him, the fact that he had actually been trying to avoid Asian Brian all day, and that he had helped recently engaged friends move that afternoon.  And there was weight to every word he said, he analyzed every bit of it-start to finish.  Or maybe he was just looking at her boobs.  Either way, to hear her tell it, he gave her some of the most cosmic, important advice she's ever heard. And after a hot shower and an egg sandwich she was better.  Not healed or whole. But better. Because now she has a story.
And I'm better, just for having watched and listened to and absorbed two open books with no fear interact and fix each other the way human beings do.