Thou Shalt Not Squeal

I’ve been dabbling a bit in unseemly pools, and I’ve not been forthcoming about it. My sister knows, as do three of my girlfriends, but that’s it. It’s as though I’m too embarrassed to admit that I’m…human.

My very sweet aunt is still around and hopefully leaving soon, having used up what should have been the awesome part of being alone, that nourishing half Paul Johannes Tillich affectionately dubbed solitude. Its shadow aspect, loneliness, recently offered itself as a replacement. My sister lives in Hawaii and regularly finds herself overwhelmed by circumstance and declares herself unavailable to me. Luke has been working on outside projects more than ever before, and we can’t even go out to eat anymore since my doctor put me on a special diet for 26 food sensitivities. In fact, because of that, I eat every meal at home, where my mom is either preoccupied or absent altogether, spending her spare time cooking and delivering meals to my grandma, who hardly puts a bite to her lips now that she is withering away in a nursing home.

“Why should I eat?” she asked, gobbling up her Thanksgiving dinner for the novelty of it, I assume. It’s not the usual beans and tortillas fare. It’s creamier. “I can’t even walk. I want to die.”

She somehow put her sad right hand to her head, that same hand which has steadily lost coordination, and she then burst into tears. Before they had dried, she revisited a conversation we’ve had hundreds of times. Perhaps thousands, thanks to dementia.

“You married, mi hija?

“No.”

“You not with Luke?”

“No.”

“Oh, you not in LOVE with him. You don’t have a boyfriend, mi hija?”

“No.”

But this time she threw in something extra special:

“Why not?”

“Because the boy I love doesn’t love me.”

Thus my greatest disappointment was revealed from behind a curtain to her new roommate at the rehab center.

Grandma doesn’t understand. In her world, her “so pretty” granddaughter should have no trouble snagging a suitable beau. Frankly, I don’t understand either. I haven’t had one in 9 years. I am rarely intrigued by anyone, and those few times I’ve turned my head, it’s blown up in my face, each more horribly than the last.

It’s been this way for so long that sometimes I think my eggs will simply go to waste, and I will have to take extra care to prevent the development of all of those diseases you get from not having children. Maybe I have some kind of genetic mutation that evolution needs kept out of circulation. It’s sad to think that I will not pass on these quips, hips, and lips, particularly when so many less endowed specimens have enjoyed the privilege of replication. I try not to think these thoughts, and although I haven’t mastered them, they are no longer my master.

That said, I am torn. Visualize one fabulously shoed foot in wealth, the other in love. Then further imagine my hands in Twister-esque play, one in health uncomfortably reaching to the left, the other in perfect self-expression, stretching back far behind my legs. It’s precarious. It’s the perfect recipe. For falling.

Something unexpected has caught my attention. And I’m not sure it should have.

My Wisdom of Avalon cards seemed certain enough, though, and who am I to doubt the wisdom of Avalon? These are the moments I wish Sarah Negahdari had enough time to befriend a tiny girl like me; she is the only other person I’ve met who owns this deck.

So I beat on, a boat against the current, Fitzgerald rules, yadda yadda, but I just have to do this. Sure, I’ve gone completely fairytale on you, but here’s a reminder: I’ve got everything to lose or everything to gain. 50/50.

It’s hard for me to be composed. I want to squeal. I want to cry. I want to explode. But I can’t lapse into emotional displays without missing what is really happening.

The part of me that dismisses my existence as my mother’s terrible mistake is at war with the nobler facet that admires my genius. Am I just an ugly, abused, untalented piece of crap with a possible DNA abnormality that my suitors can taste when they kiss me? Or has no one yet been able to handle my most magical incandescence? Have I been reserved for a most discriminating connoisseur? I’m a lot to say yes to, I realize.

I’m putting every effort into remaining calm. And daring. Indeed, I will be the boldest I’ve ever been, holding my favorite supergoddess Björk very close because, after all, it takes courage to enjoy it. Erica Jong knows that, too.

“Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it.... It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more. Life doesn't leave that many choices.”

So this is either going to blow me up or blow me away.

P.S. Fingers crossed for the latter.

A Chance to Be Nerd

I am trapped here with an aunt who has overstayed her welcome, having "visited" since mid-September. Recently she proceeded to ice this cake with the incessant burping that apparently accompanies acid reflux. She could just stop eating wheat to cease aggravating her gluten allergy, but no, she won't. Not everyone has my discipline.

She continues to belch away any possible enjoyment I might derive from eating at a time when I am forced to dine at home. My food sensitivities test came back negative for a gluten allergy but mildly positive for 26 other foods. For three months, avoidance is mandatory, and because one of the culprits is PEPPER it's virtually impossible to find suitable food for myself outside of my house. Before 3:30, when I leave for rehearsal with Sean, Luke, and Vanina, I have to prepare and pack a dinner and snacks that are basically devoid of fun and flavor. Whatever I take has to be enough to power me through the pehrspace party tonight.

But hell. At least I CAN eat. The National Inflation Association's new projections came out yesterday, and they are horrifying, but because I am in a state surrounded by "progressives" who deride "conservatives" for policies that are virtually indistinguishable from their own, I have learned the hard way to keep most of this stuff to myself. I still don't see how bashing mirror images of ourselves advances our humanity, but if you do, feel free to enlighten me.

Almost all of my facebook friends applaud the free lunches that are killing our currency. Round two of quantitative easing is upon us, but we're drowning in petty talk and pejorative terms. Both sides are pushing monetary policies that will likely destroy the dollar, and the only thing, I think, that will unify the people behind a better way will be the hardcore experience of struggle that lies ahead. "Within a decade a loaf of wheat bread may cost $23 in a grocery store in the United States, and a 32-oz package of sugar might run $62. A 64-oz container of Minute Maid Orange Juice, meanwhile, could set you back $45.71 (http://www.naturalnews.com/030309_food_inflation.html)

We are looking at a deadly combo of price inflation and dollar deflation, and not enough of us are talking about it, and even fewer are suggesting solutions because who wants to be that guy? That unpopular dude who will make the cuts that will hurt? A representative of sound money? WHO? There are a few, but they're kept on the periphery for the most part. Alienated. And I feel their pain.

When I used to be a "progressive" who derided "neocons" as racist buffoons, I would have found solace in my facebook roster of liberal cheerleaders. Now that I actually read about the world beyond mainstream media sources, I have a broader understanding of the ideological framework, and both parties leave me unimpressed. These days I'm cheering for a new team. Gerald Celente suggests it is the emergence of the progressive libertarian, but it's not growing fast enough to save me from alienation today. So I stand by and watch my friends on both sides gut each other over nothing, wielding that ever-potent weapon of deletion.

Then I go quietly to practice what I no longer preach. I buy only organic food. I use baking soda and lemon and vinegar to clean my house. I have my own garden. I filter the chlorine and fluoride out of my water. I exercise. I support sustainable businesses, and I am starting my own, details to come, of course. I refrain from unnecessary travel as a boycott of increasingly intrusive searches, and if I must travel, I will opt out of naked body scanners. I embrace holistic medicine. I use pure cosmetics with fruit-pigmented ingredients. I read. I breathe. I make an effort to be a good girl. For these reasons and many more, I appear to be a radical among my peers when the truth is I represent a growing minority of people who have no allegiance to anything that doesn't serve themselves, their contemporaries, or their planet.

I'm sort of a transcendental vigilante in a sea of distraction and complacence. In 1856, antislavery orator Wendell Phillips warned, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and that really resonates with me lately. I feel it viscerally. A primal desire for unadulterated freedom. And, like Tantra, it has opened up new pathways in my brain, body, and heart. My most recent creation, "South," is a record of this unrestrained way of being, and it's just the tip of iceberg for this "queen of cool," to cite my own lyrics.

I can't wait for tonight. It's going to be so much fun having a proper lineup instead of a phantom one like that band of bones in the Grateful Dead's "Touch of Grey" video. Who am I kidding? Even those skeletons are a realer band than we have been over the past couple of years. Finally. A chance to be heard. What every artist wants. To revel in my devotion and my difference. And maybe when I've accomplished that much, my social acceptability will simultaneously soar, and I'll be lauded for my liberty-loving, article-devouring, discipline-cherishing self. A chance to be nerd.

For those of you who cannot make it to the show tonight, you can buy our EP on iTunes!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/audition/id402380199

OR if you want a hard copy, hit me up ASAP! My limited edition jersey girls are already selling out, and they're not even officially for sale yet. They include four acoustic tracks. Positively charming!

UGH! After staring at me all the way through the rough draft and the rewrites, my aunt has begun rummaging through my stacks of nutritional information, supplements, and receipts. Talk about intrusive searches! Mother drssshhhhhh!

A Very Carrion Birthday To Me

These days are definitely the worst I've had to endure--not because of the number or severity of my triggers, though they may be plentiful and powerful right now. What's supremely yucky is that I am in the wilderness.

A liminal space. An unnavigable transition. The magic is missing. I have an urge to drop some cash on one of my gurus, who could succor me with suggestions that I may not be divinely disconnected, but even stronger is my desire to be independent of outside reassurances. I feel like I should be able to untangle on my own the frayed and twisted cord that once tied me to abundance.

And it is in this atmosphere that I greet yet another year of my life. Will this be the one that delivers me from evil? Will I finally be deeply happy?

I hope so. Hope, though, does not galvanize universal forces like faith does. Fearless faith.

This, then, is really a faith rut. There is evidence for this rut, to be sure, but there is also evidence for an unseen glut.

That is precisely the stuff of now. I'm not where I used to be. I'm off to greener pastures, and the process, it turns out, is grueling. At the same time, I'm not convinced I've been cut off completely from creative currents. Maybe I'm just incredibly impatient to taste what's waiting for me on the other side, and in the process, I've clamped down a little on my good.

Case in point, I had my first solo vocal lesson this weekend. His pokes and prods seemed relevant in every way:

"Don't work hard."

"Feels like it's a little bit of work up there. What does it sound like if you don't?"

"Feel less; work less."

"Slow. Just let it go."

"When you get to that fork in the road--sound good or let go."

"There's a choice there: struggle or let it sound bad. Let it sound bad."

The critic in me resents having to choose between these. Isn't there another option the experts have failed to mention? One that allows the preservation of both my pride and my perfection?

I am welded to control; I never want to lose. Yet, in so many arenas, I am losing despite all of the restrictions I have set up for myself and others. The past proves my philosophical objection to letting go, while the present makes a break in that movement, pushing instead for a future of absolute freedom. Surrender to what is seems the only decent decision I could make today simply because my way isn't working anymore.

I'm not sure what letting go will look like or feel like, but it will certainly sound bigger. A very scary proposition indeed, but I'm almost ready to foreclose on formers and exchange everything for this expansion. Really? REALLY.

This Wednesday's show at Club Moscow will be part-birthday, part-funeral, as every proper solar return should be. We will distance ourselves from the decay of what was and drench ourselves in the truth of what is, dismissing our incessant need to know what's to come.

The Chicken or the Egg?

380 million salmonella eggs. Not yummy, but, apparently, neither is 80% of the chicken. It's regularly contaminated with the very same salmonella involved in the recent recall. Still, no one is talking about that. People only speak in sound bites now--even my adoptive Italian Grandma stated: "It's not worth the risk." Just hours later I read her exact words in an article by Mike Adams.

No, the FDA, the CDC, and the USDA aren't telling you to throw out of those tiny tainted chicken corpses. Proper cooking kills the contaminant. Same with the eggs. They don't report that.

So was it the chicken or the egg? Both? Neither? In this case, if you plow through the misinformation, it is obvious that it is the farming practices that are wrong.

Awww, come now. THAT doesn't make for exciting television. We need sensational news stories with sci-fi endings, like the idea of nuking all the eggs, eradicating nutrients along with the contaminants. Why attempt to cure the big agribusiness disease completely when you can invent a new oppressive solution that will evenly distribute poor health to everyone? Now that's equality!

What's useful about the age-old chicken-egg question is that it probes for root causes. What started it all? That's why I almost became a naturopathic doctor. I appreciated the methodology: restoring balance by addressing the most basic problem.

Nowadays, we treat the surface. Not just in conventional medicine. In so many arenas.

Take, for instance, insults to supposed "teabaggers" by so-called progressives who believe that Tea Party values are without merit simply because neocons like Palin, desperate for followers, are hoping to capitalize on this record-level disenchantment by posing as champions and saviors. They are not. This situation has smeared the good names of Patriotism and Political Dissent, which are GOOD THINGS. Vital things.

If Republicans are racists, Democrats are socialists, and Independents are just wasting their votes, where does that leave us? You know. Us. The people.

Nowheresville.

Popular adherence to the false left-right paradigm is infuriating and dangerous.

When will pseudo-progressives and faux conservatives quit their petty assaults on each other?

Isn't it evident that most politicians, be they Democrats or Republicans, are beholden to corporations whose primary motivation is not our well-being but their profit?

In this atmosphere of zero accountability, we can expect that such interests will contribute to the promotion and election of more corporate shills who seek to co-opt movements by both true conservatives and true progressives and to subvert their agendas. The problem is not the other side: it's the infighting among those of us who realize something is amiss. We need to befriend the Other. We need to dig into our differences and find the overlap, or it is curtains for our country.

The exacerbation of political difference is our greatest weakness. We are powerless until we see this. Only from a place of empowerment will we be able to identify those parties who wish to exploit that weakness by fomenting tensions and thereby keeping us too distracted to start rooting for ourselves and each other. You know. The home team.

French Kissin' for the DNA

When I hear a boy has a cold, it is an immediate turn-off for me. If he eats white flour and sugar, my heart suddenly stops fluttering. If he is regularly exposed to chemicals, I hide my cuteness from him. If he smokes, I think, "What a waste!" and promptly begin searching out a new crush.

My friends and family dismiss my criticisms as "weird" and "picky" and suggest that I broaden my horizons. I vehemently protest until they switch topics.

Apparently, I am not alone. Vastly outnumbered but not entirely alone.

Yesterday Luke had bubblegum for breakfast and an ice cream sundae for dinner. Sure, it was organic raw vegan ice cream, but where was the balance? What kind of nutritional debt did he accumulate that day? I scolded him for not preserving his genetic integrity in front of our new drummer because he knows better. No, it didn't earn me points with either of them, but I get angry. I have invested in his health. I have taught him. He has been the beneficiary of all my diligence. The countless books and articles I've studied have allowed me to impart sage advice whenever applicable. He's been lucky to have me as his personal nutritional counselor/gourmet chef/health guru. I do realize that he usually eats properly and that, more importantly, he prefers to, but sometimes he gets disappointingly lazy, and I just can't stand it!

Sure enough, last night Natural News sent out a video and article about the "genopocalypse." It discusses how humans are destroying their fertility and their very genetic code via poor diet and lifestyle choices. Studies in small mammals have demonstrated that, even if you don't see genetic anomalies in the next generation, some reproductive irregularities will appear consistently in third and fourth generations and beyond. In his article, Adams claims that vegans will be the ones making viable deposits to the sperm bank, but I disagree; only the most discriminating vegans who are supplementing correctly will be able to contribute to the cause. All of the vegan boys I know eat mass quantities of unfermented soy, which is mostly GMO, highly estrogenic, and definitely unsuitable for consumption by men or anyone, really, unless they want to end up like these poor rats:

"...female rats fed a diet of GM soy experienced a drastically higher infant death rate, and their surviving infants were smaller and less fertile than the offspring of rats fed on a non-GM soy diet. Male rats fed the GM soy had their testicles change from pink to blue, and the GM soy was also observed to damage the DNA of sperm and embryos. Fertility problems such as abortion, infertility, premature delivery, prolapsed uteri, infant death, and even delivery of unformed infants (bags of water) have been observed in farm animals fed GM cottonseed and corn."--
Doctors Warn About Dangers of Genetically Modified Food



After watching and reading, I called Luke again. I told him I believe he has a moral obligation to his progeny to make healthy choices and implored him to do so.

Sometimes I suspect we've strayed too far from our primitive roots to ever connect fully with our most basic urges, but on this account, I was right. It may be socially unacceptable to say these things, but biologically I've always known it to be true. No matter how my contemporaries have fought me on it, I continue to feel this need to couple with someone who is fastidious about his health--not, of course, to an extent that is unhealthy! Just someone who puts genuine effort into his body, mind, and spirit because he finds value there. As I do. Simple.

Maybe someday soon I will get to reclaim and recontextualize the terms weird and picky. Maybe what's weirdest about me is how uncannily right I am to consciously and meticulously choose a partner who doesn't represent a genetic dead end.

Dusting Off My Brutes

Noticed this afternoon that my room was a little on the dusty side. Pulled everything off the shelves before leaving for rehearsal.

I returned home to my floor, as I left it, littered with coated-grey objects. I was just about to tackle the issue when an ex decided to make an appearance.

We'd ended on bad terms. Remember? He's the one I publicly humiliated at a party by pouring lemonade on his cheating skull.

As you may recall, this is the umpteenth time a major cleaning, corporeal or otherwise, has summoned unfinished emotional business before me. Indeed, the lemonade incident itself remains a shining example of this very phenomenon.

Years later he didn't want to explain, really, or even entertain explanation. He merely wanted to convince me that, though we made a "dangerous pair," I just might want to flirt with that danger yet again.

Ahhh, so he wasn't married with 3 kids! That's how I envision the whole lot of my former interests: snatched up by better women than I and now, miraculously, fully invested in completely enviable lives of which I dare not learn a single detail lest I become ill over what could have been.

And why wasn't he living the perfect life I pictured for him? Perhaps because he isn't a good kisser or because he is wildly insensitive or because he is always an enigma or because, ultimately, he could care less about this litany of complaints I am now cutting short out of consideration for you, kind reader.

He tried and tried, but time healed AND educated. I met a boy better suited for me, and THAT didn't even work. Here he was presenting me with a lesser option. Absolutely no temptation. Sooo easy to brush off.

There are reasons we aren't together, reasons we aren't with our formers, reasons that aren't always evident because we're not quite ready to see in the midst of the collapse--reasons that later become cause for celebration.

Thank goodness I am not with this man! Thank goodness I am not with any of them!!!

Oh, yes. Sing it with me, and take this scientific morsel with you: next time you think you miss someone or you're simply wondering where he is, you have only to pick up a broom or grab a glass of green juice. Fixing those little kinks is only one sweep, one sip away.

Zen Cool Kitten

It is said that the Tantric experience is cool rather than hot. Thus, a Tantric version of Paris Hilton would instead chime, "That's cool." My teacher is always encouraging us to use this lens beyond the bedroom, and I've toyed with it for some time now without huge results, but, all of a sudden, I seem to have fully integrated this knowledge.

Likewise, my beloved Dr. Loretta Standley often speaks of spiritual romance, and I didn't realize it until today, but boy, am I in love! Today as the priest performed last rites on my grandmother, he was reading this passage, and I'm going to have to call him on his cell phone tomorrow to find out exactly what it was, but it sounded like a love letter. To me. To everyone. I know it sounds crazy, but it was so beautiful I had to hold back the tears.

Dr. Standley sees God as the Father, whereas I usually envision the Universe, but this evening I got a glimpse through her eyes.

My kitty Blake is a bad boy. When he isn't sleeping, he terrorizes his surroundings, knocking things off shelves and crying incessantly to get whatever he wants at the time, that is, until cuddles ensue late at night. Needless to say, he had to be locked in his room while the priest was here. With my "Thank you, Father," Blake was unleashed upon the household once more. He started brushing up against my legs, looking to earn some extra food, so I picked him up, scratched his precious white chin a bit, and let go, expecting him to immediately jump free. Surprisingly, he remained. Still. Tranquil. Just drinking it all in.

He would eventually bounce off of my thighs and onto better things, but those 25 seconds were magic. Right then, when he wasn't fussing and complaining and trying to make things happen for himself, my wish was to simply give him everything. Immense generosity that perhaps only a parent would know. Thus meandered a mind briefly imprinted with the word "Father." Quite the education.

I believe the Universe wants to give me everything, and it is asking that I be calm and cool rather than clamoring to receive. Flossie already told me this two years ago, and it's finally sunk in. In the placid, there is power, so stay zen, my little cool cats.

Declare Independence

Finding it difficult to concentrate on music when governmental and corporate collusion threatens our very survival and so few of us are enraged enough to do something about it. At a certain point, you have to put down your latte, turn off the television, and ask yourself about those big guys and their fortuitous stock dumping in the weeks prior to the blast; why a poison the UK banned as too toxic for its own waters is being poured out upon our once beautiful gulf; why benzene, a known carcinogen and only one of myriad toxins in their chemical blend of choice, is at levels THOUSANDS of times more than what is allowable and yet the public has not been notified. I mean, really, folks: what is it going to take for you to be politicized by the atrocities that are being perpetrated in your name by parties motivated by only power and greed?

Begin Educating Yourself

Get angry. Get loud. Get clear. Declare independence. Raise your (effing) flag!

Oh, Björk, you are beyond.

Ushering in the New: A Parisian Portable

Sometimes when I take a look around at our world, I see no method, only madness.

But there does seem to be a divine design. Sounds fruity, I know, but it's hard not to believe.

Over the winter I had told my mother that I was through with caretaking, that I needed to move on once the summer arrived. It just so happened that Gram and I were right in sync with each other, though we did not yet know it on the physical plane.

She has really deteriorated lately. Sure, it is hard to be around, but when she leaves I will miss her--the woman who constantly called me ugly when she first arrived three years ago. Well, "ugly" eventually transitioned into "so purdy," and I do appreciate the change, but it is unimportant, really. An interesting perspective, maybe, given my love of language, but today I am convinced of this: what people say is mostly inconsequential. I'm more into doing and even more into being. Only then do your words assume maximum power.

New opportunities are on the horizon. A bed of such infinite synchronicity. Far too rich a catalog to rest on mere coincidence. I'm convinced of this as well.

I'm going to make an extra effort to keep you apprised of our upcoming summer fun. For starters, we're shooting a video this week for our deliciously Parisian remix of "Portable" by the drop-dead handsome Jon DeeJay. It will be released and ready for download from all the proper cyber-places on June 15th. Talk soon!

xx,
m

Kitten Heels

Three-strap mary janes got nothin' on you, kid. Here's to your uber-precious pearly white fangs.

I Am Everybody

Jay told me. He is right. In a cosmic sense, I am everybody. You are, too.

When I make declarations of my unimportance arising from an overwhelmed mind, it is at once dehumanizing and arrogant. This simultaneous denigration and elevation of experience really misses the mark. My life and your lives are of inherent value, a richness external definitions cannot contain.

It's not our job to subject ourselves to constant evaluation. Examination? Yes. Embodiment. YES.

Moments, I want to immerse myself in you. I know that if I'm placing each droplet of my day on a spectrum from good to bad that I am not being truly present. I could be in paradise. Wading in the water. A perfect climate. In silent conversation with an electric blue dragonfly perched on an effulgent leaf nearby. The second I call this good or bad, I forget that I am in paradise. I miss the shimmery feel of the water. The temperature loses its balm. A luminous dragonfly sails away, taking every sparkle with it.

I am going to make a conscious effort to step out of the muck, to remove myself from the relative and to enter into the essential. That pattern of separating and sorting is old and tired and has nothing to offer me or anyone else.

Our words and thoughts etch themselves into our lives. My yucky words and worse thoughts have left me in an experiential rut, and I am ready to exchange them all for a new groove. The universe is asking me to create a new and beautiful record, and I am starting today. My heart can steer.

Thank you, Jay.

I'm a Nobody

Lately, no matter what I do, I cannot be seen. My skin may glow more than ever thanks to regular green veggie juicing, a renewed dietary emphasis on omega-3's, and religious astaxanthin supplementation, but I'm a nobody (oh, Monsters Are Waiting.....) When your ostensible life purpose depends upon your being seen more and more, this is particularly problematic.

I am not even being acknowledged by the precious few people I have kept in my circle. My sister and my best friends have been very busy these days, and, truly, they need to be. There is perfection here.

This does mean, however, that I am having to address on my own an intense inner dialogue. Am I really supposed to be a musician? Am I living in the right city? In the right country? Should I be making big changes in my life?

Some of the big changes are deciding to happen to me. Like my grandma. She is very much a mother to me, and, in gratitude to her for all those pancake breakfasts, paper bag lunches, and enchilada dinners she lovingly prepared some 17 years before I left for college, I figured that being present when she needed me was the least I could do. I have been her caretaker for about 3 years now.

The battery in her pacemaker is about to run out, and her doctor believes that the most compassionate decision, given the extent of her dementia and her very poor health overall, is to finally let her die a natural death. We spoke to medical ethicists who agree. I believe it is the right decision as well, but it's still very stressful. Daily I get up, not knowing if she's going to be breathing. Mom cries uncontrollably every evening. She second-guesses herself and me and the doctors and the medical ethicists and takes it out on anyone in her path, most often me. It's been a month of this drama. Needless to say, I haven't been able to write any music. There is simply no room for it.

So I feel very disconnected as a creator. My little wall geniuses must be very upset with me, though I still get invitations. Charming little melodies will pop in--a whole lush track played last night--only to be ignored by the girl who doesn't know which papers to sign, which leads to follow, which relationships to nurture. I am totally empty and lost.

It is no wonder, then, that I am such a ghost in the world.

Maybe I just need a Facebook profile.

I was discussing this possibility with a fan of ours late last night when I should have been sleeping off this stress-induced spring cold. He assumed I didn't have an account.

"I feel like you're better than that."

Interesting comment.

I've avoided Facebook thus far. I've made use of it for the band (and some extra tidbits for me) through Luke's account. The real Margot doesn't want one.

She lives in a dream world where her friends have her phone number and use it regularly to call her to meet up or, if they must, they will text or email her.

I, on the other hand, am faced with the reality that all of my peers, save my best friend who already has a serious boyfriend, are on Facebook.

So this invisible Margot beats on, a boat against the current, borne ceaselessly into a past of handwritten letters, of telephone calls, of face-to-face interactions, of songs capturing such moments in the flesh. I really can't imagine Debbie Harry sweetly singing, "it'll mean you want to see me on Facebook." It's so unappealing. My heart is not ready to buy into this dependence upon computers. Even for my social survival. Thus I remain on the fringes.

Our fan suggested that I create a page and use it sparingly. Oh, I don't know...

Being pressured to sing tonight, by the way, is the pits and yet another symptom of my invisibility. I can tell my boys that I can't sing, but they don't even hear me. They say to drink tea, but tea cannot clear a serious blockage. My left sinus is utterly noncompliant. I can't sing without sounding like a dying frog or a screeching cat. Maybe I should stay home tonight.

Out of the Din

One of my pet peeves is talking to people in noisy rooms. Even hot boys. Sorry, hunks. I don't even want to talk to you! Not during performances, especially if our friends just started playing, no matter how long I pretended not to stare at your crotch during your set and no matter how many pictures of said crotch were captured via iPhone and promptly sent to my sister in Hawaii and my best friend in San Francisco. Understand this: I don't like reading lips; I prefer kissing them. If you want to exchange words, let's go somewhere I won't have to apologize for having nodded idiotically to questions clearly requiring "no" answers.

My irritation with such cognitively compromised conversation falls under the larger umbrella of my least loved thing: hampered communication.

That is why I don't want to go to the movies with you, either. It is particularly offensive as an idea for a first date--and not just because I am bored by most movies and spend much of my theater time calculating how I might adjust my schedule to compensate for these 1.5-2 lost hours. My primary concern is this: if you're into me, don't you want to talk to me??? How else do you propose expeditiously arriving at the point at which either of us knows if we're interested or not? I don't want to be wedged up next to some stranger with whom I've probably only chatted under the worst possible circumstances, those cacophonous club settings. And I'll tell you this much: I'm not into you if you are into the squandering of time. Yuck! No! And especially not mine!!! Why don't we race to this finish line? Ask me to an organic dinner. We'll talk. If you seem more devoted than despicable, you may be the recipient of a rather innocent hug at the end of it.

I'm very serious about this! That said, I recently made an exception by conversing over a loud background provided by Spaceland after the record release set of our studiomates, Radar Bros. A music friend of ours was praising "Holiday" and wanted to know everything about its origins and, furthermore, if he could provide Vespa boy with some form of corporal punishment. I gave him a crystallized version, and he was horrified by...wait for it...my behavior! Though he immediately recognized the boy as a sociopath, he also wasted no time in calling me out on being such a lamb.

"You seem so strong on stage and on the recordings. I wouldn't have expected this from you!"

I thought to myself, "I seem strong on stage?!?"

I so admired his astute observations and his honesty in reporting them that it didn't matter too much that they were being relayed at length under less than optimal sonic circumstances. It was that refreshing.

I have sometimes wished that more of my friends had been stern with me two years ago when this was all going down. But whatever. I like what came of it; I'm not the pushover I used to be. He and I agreed that, at the very least, I got some amazing songs out of that mess and that, quite like our impaired interlocution which spontaneously emerged out of the din that night, every droplet of experience is worth something.

Hell Care for Us All

I remember when, six years ago, I was a pathetic little creature who desperately wanted this very mean boy to want me because he fit neatly into what Dr. Helen Fisher would refer to as my love map (www.helenfisher.com.) Because he adored Rachael Ray and some virtuoso guitar gal, among countless others and, it seemed, anyone but me, they became my mortal enemies.

This evening, many moons away from such oaths of resentment, I noticed a tweet by this guitar girl, and, though musical genius she may be, she is but a political lemming. The gist was her expressing a collective sense of accomplishment, that (good) history had been made. Any vestige of former jealousies vanished. Inwardly I released a half-sigh/half-snicker. You see, that boy was (and may still be; I bulldozed him off of my landscape long ago!) the drummer in a math rock band that was all about being uber-progressive, but, in truth, it was a joke; this dude was far more interested in libido than liberation than he'd ever admit; I just couldn't see it then. So here was one of his admired publicly embarrassing herself by endorsing big government. Yet, with so much of my former resentment having dissipated, the initial demirelief gave way to disappointment and then depression rather quickly. The effect was amplified by a pro-Obamacare facebook update by a venue we have played a couple of times. Eight people liked it! Why do this artist, this small business, and these eight people think they've won a free lunch? Have any of these people educated themselves? Have they read the monstrous bill?

I know it's not popular to discuss religion or politics, but my contention remains that such an axiom is detrimental and antithetical to democracy. Is that all this is? A giant popularity contest? Well, then, do tell me how the unpopular changes are going to be made in this country. We are faced with currency devaluation, GE contamination, record unemployment, the co-opting of true environmental causes by ludicrous carbon-trading schemes, exorbitant war budgets wasted on conflicts we vehemently opposed, and the ever-deteriorating health of our people, just to name a few pressing matters.

To force Americans who do not want or need this sick care, to coerce those of us who make conscious choices to practice health via unpatentable and unprofitable modes such as eating right, exercising daily, and reducing stress to pay a hefty price for something we cannot use is an outrage, and I am astounded that more of my peers aren't up in arms over it. And to do this to an economy that is already tanking!?!

The process of our so-called representatives getting this legislation through was, like the bill itself, hardly constitutional. Obama was supposed to be working on our behalf, but he made it known that his plan would pass with or without our support for it, the implication being that ultimately Washington knows what is best for us. It sets a precedent of their forcing us to buy goods and services we do not need. Who's the winner?

The proof is in the pudding. Bloomberg reported today that "U.S. stocks extended gains today, erasing an early decline, as health-care shares rallied after the House passed the industry overhaul." Why are stakes in insurance companies soaring? Because they have millions of new reluctant clients who face fines for failure to participate in mandatory "health care," enforcement power given to, you guessed it, the IRS. The article continues,

"Under the bill, Americans will have to buy insurance or pay a penalty, with the possibility of tapping new purchasing exchanges and government aid for lower-income Americans.

Republicans said the costs will balloon, criticized the increases in government programs and held out the possibility that private insurance and medical care would be hurt.

“We are looking at a health-care bill that nobody in this body believes is satisfactory,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said prior to the vote. “We have failed to reflect the will of our constituents.”

I do not find it humorous that we have been trampled yet again. It isn't cute that this war president of ours received a peace prize, nor do I find it charming that he has not dismantled the Patriot Act, as promised, or ceased rule via executive order, as pledged. It is particularly upsetting that even the once courageous Dennis Kucinich capitulated, deciding to support what he formerly dubbed a bailout to insurance companies. Broken systems, broken words, broken records, broken hope.

We don't need hope, though. We need action, and dozens of states are already preparing to fight what Mike Adams has coined "hell care," as they should.

I don't want to shell out thousands of dollars each year for something I am not going to use. I want to be able to use that money to invest as I do now, in my body, through clean food and healthy habits. If government really cared about our health, why would they be pushing additional GMO's into our food supply, like GE alfalfa, when there is mounting evidence that these experimental crops destroy human health and pose catastrophic environmental dangers? Why then have they attacked naturopathy and the supplements industry and organic standards? Why have they not promoted Vitamin D as the major cancer preventative that it is when the majority of the population is thought to be deficient and when the simple act of getting a little sunshine could save countless lives? Is it because the government doesn't own the sun--yet???

I love being able to afford to eat well. I love having enough leisure time to exercise and work on my craft. I love being creative. I love freedom.

But Congress just sold me out. If we don't get this repealed before the bankruptcy of the country does that all on its own, as Ron Paul predicts, I am not going to be able to continue living here much longer or making music, my greatest passion. It will be a fiscal impossibility. A moral one as well.

I don't know about you, but I've appreciated the semblance of freedom we have enjoyed up until now, and now having indulged in its substitute, I could REALLY go for the REAL thing. There is absolutely no way I'm going backward!!!

No thanks, Mr. President. I do not want unemployment or irradiated frankenfoods or bodyscans or endless war or Big Pharma's latest vaccinations and medication side-effects--or forking over this declining dollar to subsidize them. I was born free, and I intend to stay that way. I will not be jabbed or fried, swindled or silenced.

Charlotte Sometimes

My favorite bands in high school were the Smiths, the Cure, Depeche Mode, New Order, and, haha, yes, the Dead Kennedys. I was never in the middle artistically, politically, socially, or emotionally, but I faked it for a long time.

Until the morning of what was to be my first day of my second year at Berkeley, when I found myself unable to drag my skinny body out of bed. "No, thank you," it seemed to say to my brain, which promptly went crazy.

Questions fired. What would happen during roll call? How would I explain missing the introductory lectures of courses that were already impacted? What if I got dropped?

I'd seen it happen. I'd felt so sorry for those faceless names whose owners hadn't bothered showing up, knowing quite well that there were dozens of waitlisted students ready to assume position. I'd felt superior before. But no more. I had mutated into that shameful Other. I was staying in bed. I wasn't "feeling" school. In a few short minutes, I had decided to take the year off to play in the broadest context possible: music, photography, beach, books, whatever. On a whim, I had silenced those desires which had been nagging at me, only, of course, in exchange for the parental torment appropriate to such a decision.

That is how I became intimate with intuitive leads.

It was a lucrative move indeed; that year, I would write and record three songs that gave me early glimpses of wealth, and they still bring quarterly treats! But, at the time, I was just following my heart. I brushed off the concerns of the many wet blankets. I told them I would go back to college, and I did. In fact, upon returning, I finished up in only 2 years plus a short summer session, maintaining my scholarship-required GPA and even making the Dean's List en route. If I had listened to the well-meaning creeps, I'd be sadder and poorer for it today, no doubt. I was growing into my natural fearlessness. I would eventually lose track of it a couple of years in before uncovering it once again.

More and more, life seems to be this game, just like Flossie says. A game of consciousness: holding it, dropping it, and then giving it another go. In this light, there is no room for sadness. Only fun. And validation. The biggest lessons do seem but mere reminders of the giant truths you've always harbored.

Questions arise. How absolutely fearless can you be? How fully can you show up to the present moment? How deeply can you love? What are you prepared to give?

Sometimes I forget. Today I knew I needed a reminder. I just didn't know how I would get it. So I called Charlotte.

She is my best souvenir from those blurry Berkeley days. We became buds when she wound up in my introductory drawing class, excited to make the most of her discounted senior citizen enrollment. We went to the park. We went to the market. We laughed and played. We talked about the universe. We were the oddest pair, a smiling Japanese grandma and a mighty brooding waif, but we knew each other, and, at the end of the term, from this place of knowing, I was able to sketch a portrait of her that earned me the highest praise from our critic of a teacher. He dubbed me the Chosen One.

This morning, restless in the sun, my fingers poking at my inconstant iPhone, I was prepared to say:

"Sometimes, Charlotte, I want to quit. I don't see any progress whatsoever, and I consider it a very cruel joke to have tried so hard for so long to accomplish this and to still have nothing to show for it."

But speaking with her reminded me of the more marvelous variations of myself. I could see more. Nothing wasn't nothing after all, and suddenly those words and attitudes had no place in our conversation. They were quickly replaced by acknowledgment and gratitude.

When I was having a shet time a year and a half ago, after Vespa boy made sure my Roman holiday ended in a ditch near Melrose and Vine, this magical sense of connection and protection slowly blanketed me. Once I was calm enough to sleep through the night, I could again receive songs as I returned to my waking state. This particular batch, though, was infused with even greater meaning than usual. Through my matins music, I was able to heal. The last dawn download of this mending era was the Cure's "Charlotte Sometimes." As is often the case, a certain more important lyrical segment will loop in my head, thus demanding extra attention, and this is the section that beckoned me that hour:

sometimes i'm dreaming
she hopes to open shadowed eyes
on a different world
come to me
scared princess
charlotte sometimes

Flossie says, in a magnetizing state, you envision yourself as the daughter of the King: a princess, then, given her kingdom. Sometimes I am that scared princess. Sometimes I am afraid I've lost my birthright--that there will be no prince, no castle, no kingdom...and that I don't even have the King's phone number anymore! That message of the morn was the King dialing my number, a reminder that the world that has been dreamed for me, the one vastly different from the gloom that's left me weary, is yet awaiting my arrival. Whenever I'm off, whenever I'm discouraged, whenever I'm so lonely that the only thing that could possibly fill the surrounding emptiness is the steady reach of my heartbeats, the command from this invisible King remains: "Wipe away those tears, dear. Brush off the dust, and don your prettiest dress. Nothing is ever lost, and there is no reason to be afraid."

Venus Envy

Being the silent masculine half of a duo isn't always easy:



So, yeah, we're having a special guest member at Monday's free show at the Echo. We will also introduce two of the newest babies. It's going to be badass. Don't miss it!!!

The boys are recording as I type.

P.S. Alex, "Are You Even Sorry?" is on the set list.

Parasites Lost

My room is draped in receipts. The laundry is arranged in two tiny piles by my closet. It's nearly 6 PM, and I haven't yet taken a shower. Grandma, by contrast, has just taken her second because her dementia makes her incredibly unpredictable like that. I arranged a song with Luke early this afternoon over a plate of crudité, raw hummus, and roughly-chopped tabbouleh. With the 2.5-week Europe jaunt and my sister's 3-week stay directly after that, I've been neglectful. And the only redress that appeals to me right now is complete metamorphosis.

I've been happily busy, mostly, which is exactly what I requested from the powers that be. I have these friends, though, as I'm sure you do, who aren't in alignment with my new schedule. They continue to demand huge chunks of my time despite explanations that I have none to give. My experience of their enduring expectations of extra attention falls somewhere on a spectrum between humorous and offensive, depending on my mood. If I do return a call, my destiny drips laboriously down the drain, and, at this point in the game, I am not keen on throwing these precious hours away. This is not to say I get absolutely nothing out of such conversation, but we are certainly not talking bang for your buck here. At best, I'll take with me a single interesting morsel; at worst, I'll feel completely drained by my interlocutor's stories and utterly bored by her petty concerns. Clearly I have outgrown the friendships in the latter group, and, when I really think about it, those are the ones I never consciously chose to nurture in the first place; I only unconsciously allowed those people to choose me.

Every case, though, stands under this umbrella of truth: I need less and less from people, thereby making others' requests to interact seem more and more intrusive. My reaction also stems from resentment, as there is no one in my own life to take on the patient, sagacious role I play in my friends' lives, except for maybe Luke. No matter what I say in passing about my musical co-conspirator, here is my take on him: he is naturally astute when it comes to the things that truly matter. Whatever I have been able to eke from the tumultuous pseudo-existence that was my adolescence, whatever wisdom I extracted in the years that followed, whatever I have become is attributable to him. Maybe I should start sending my advice-hungry sisters his way...

Not so fast. Luke would never be in line to replace me, to grimace while on the receiving end of perpetual foolishness. Luke is smart enough to apportion time wisely. I want to be smart, too.

My current protocol is not calling people back, yet they continue to buzz and beg, and just saying this makes me sound like an uber-bitch, but I'm not. Not because of this, anyway. I just want--and I know it may sound radical, but--I seriously want my time. I mean, it is, after all, mine to use, right? Why can't I choose to nurture myself during what I feel to be a critical time in my life? Does that mean I don't care? No. Does it mean I'm selfish? Maybe. But if I am, then it's the good kind of selfish, no matter what is said. My parasites need to find new hosts.

Maybe I will have to suck it up and friend-break up with some of the vampires, even though it is against my nature to disappoint via formal declaration. Maybe the less leechy ones will have to be relegated to phone calls made strategically before meetings or practices. I don't know. These things will have to be negotiated.

To be sure, I'd rather be creating. More consistently. Lately, with my social situation as it has been, I've especially dreaded the blog. It has become the equivalent of the unrewarding 90-to-137-minute girl gab I will do almost anything to avoid. I do want to write, but I find the pressure of writing something both substantive and spectacular each time so overwhelming that it quickly extinguishes the initial desire to communicate. The reception of my last several posts was, I must admit, a bit cool for my taste. I don't even know if people read this thing anymore. Or if people even listen to our music. Luke posted a couple of the newer songs, some of our best work, in fact, and, last time I checked, they only had 8 plays!!! Eff.

Nevertheless, I have resolved to save the blog and to save everything, really, by reshaping my relationship to it all. Here I will do this by not making every post a big deal. I'll write a measly paragraph if I want. I'll sketch something inspired when I feel like it. It won't be a chore anymore. It will be an authentic mode of self-expression.

For the time being, I won't worry about who's reading my blog, who's listening to our music, who's waiting for her phone to ring. This thought alone energizes me.