Operation Cowboy

On September 17, 2008, I woke from a gin and tonic haze at the ungodly hour of 7 am after a month of going to bed at 4 and waking at noon.

I flashed a courteous smile to my mother who, in her infinitely maternal martyrdom had forgone her own good morning cup of decaf for my necessity of regular in an effort to pump me full of enough caffeine to get me coherent and functional and on my way to Phase Two of my "plan"; Operation Cowboy.

I jumped in the shower and pondered to myself as I lathered what in the world had compelled me to pick up my beloved east coast life and head across the country to reside in Bayfield, Colorado, of all places.

I then reminded myself that this all had something to do with the reevaluation of existence. I chose for my companion on this wayward journey one of the few people in the this world to know all the darkest secrets of said existence and STILL invite me to live with her for the next 6 months.

Pulling out of the driveway, Ricky Nelson sang great praises to his sweet Mary Lou, and the hot breeze outside my window carried blossoms of those dearly missed crepe myrtles.

The flight attendants on my flight were, I can only guess, sniffing glue in the back of the plane. Which might explain them blasting YMCA and offering free drinks to anyone willing to dance down the aisle.

Sorry intoxicated airplane workers, this woman doesnt dance to drink. She does, however, drink to dance, on occasion.

My gorgeous partner in crime, my Vogue, met me at baggage claim. From the moment my plane landed I was bombarded with text messages inquiring as to my position. I replied, sadly, that while in a layover in Vegas, I had decided to stay there and try my luck as a showgirl.

I don't think she bought it. She did, however, tell me I would wear the tassels well. I'd much rather see her in tassels. But I thank her, all the same.

Emerging from a thin hallways in one of those rare travel warps where everyone is going only one way, I could see her pacing back and forth. But they had in this airport the kind of gynormous revolving doors that always make me pause at their opening. I have visions of being sliced in two if my steps are not timed correctly. I let it spin around a few time and waited for it to be all mine so I could hesitantly and frantically swing through and embrace my love standing just a few feet away.

We had a roadtrip teaser, with 3 1/2 hours of driving thru New Mexico to Colorado. My window gazing greeted me with rocks such colors Ive never known. These rocks of flame called out to the fire lover in me. They captured my heart with their colors, and I happily burned with them.


Then suddenly, the rock turned to forest. Deer, horses, and hawks emerged. The air smelled of wild flowers. And something was missing....Smog.

Id somehow become accustomed to it again during my time in LA.

There was champagne to drink upon our evening arrival. Melrose place and 90210 to occupy our tired hours. The kind of laughter that brings unstoppable tears has consumed these days of mine. And the hours seem shorter here, somehow.

Ive seen many cowboy boots, but surprisingly few massive belt buckles. I imagine this will be amended, however, when we enter the Billy Goat Bar in Bayfield.

My dear Vogue informed me that I was not to feel as if I had to dance, were I asked to. Slightly offended, I told her, "Just who do you think I am? I'm a New Yorker at heart, after all. No one makes me two step!"

Well, maybe Danny Nucci could. But then, that goes without saying.

I lazily fill out my applications and wait to hear if I will be bartending or waitressing in these coming months.

I spend my unemployed hours reading in her spa's waiting room, taking awe-inspiring hikes through thick forests, driving around the 4 blocks that make up this town, and meeting all the people who Im apparently supposed to remember.

There is always so much gossip in these kinds of towns. It makes me glad I never grew up in a small town. But rather, I emerge into this place as Vogue's "New Yorker". As if the Yankee hat I always have on isn't a dead giveaway, or the seemingly random accent that occasionally appears out of nowhere when I say words such as "coffee" and "door".

Each individual I meet comes with a story once they have departed. His wife left him, she's a total drunk, their mother just died...on and on.

Being the roommate of the town spa's owner, Im privy to all sorts of interesting tidbits. I may not like gossip, but I do enjoy stories.

There was a car theft here the other day, for example. The car was somehow moved without the use of keys or hot wiring from a shopping mall parking lot and moved, oddly, just a few blocks away to the bank.


The mystery intrigued locals for days until it was discovered that an angry individual had moved the car with a forklift because her place of business was in that shopping area, and she simply felt she had every right to control the cars which remained parked there after business hours.

There is a disturbing fact about this small town I cannot quiet let go of. No one locks their doors. Not just their house doors either, mind you, but their car doors. Vogue leaves her keys either on her dashboard or in the ignition. Every time. In my distrust, I grab them on our way out and stick them in my pocket.

Perhaps if the car theft victim had left her keys in the car as Vogue does, the stolen car would not have had to risk damage via the use of forklifts.

Vogue hooked me up with a free massage last week. The second I've ever had. The very first, in Brooklyn, did not end well for me. In fact, where it ended was with my head looming over a toilet bowl. No one told me that it was water I should be consuming afterwards, not beer.


It stirs up all those toxins, you see. And adding more to it is just, well...stupid. Now I know.

Ive also been threatened with a leg waxing. This does not please me. But Im sensing it is inevitable. I sense this, you see, because that is exactly what Vogue has told me.

It seems that I have no say, once I enter this spa, in the things that will be done to my body. Lash tints, I also hear, are on their way. Why people would dye their lashes is beyond me. Why women do any of the baffling masochistic things they do in the name of beauty is beyond me.

Except torturous heels, obviously. I mean, that's just common sense.

But then, I certainly did enjoy gazing at those fabulous models that roamed the streets wild in Manhattan. Seeing as I so enjoy the end product, I should perhaps not mock the process.

Better them than me, is all I can think to say.

Has Anyone Seen My Mind Lately?

My mind has run wild these past few days. I've found myself chasing after it, down the cold, empty streets. I'm hot on its trail, it seems at times, but then I turn a corner at it is gone!

Ive heard it's been harassing friends at all hours of the night, writing nonsense on scraps of paper for discovery in the morning, planning trips it has not discussed with me.

It has been listening incessantly to Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. But that's not all... I woke one morning with Ricky Nelson in my head.

In ransom to itself, it has demanded I remain away from IM and e-mail. Away from the computer in general. But Ive snuck onto myspace now and again, and here I am now pleading with my friends and family to please return my mind to me if it should one day show up on your doorstep singing "It Ain't Me, Babe".

But be warned, it is presumed loud and crazed.

For the love of Jeebus, don't bring up Vonnegut, cross country road trips or the Large Hadron Collider. Just throw a burlap bag over it and ship it to Lexi's.

Many thanks.

The Modern Masochist

Okay, so there is this bathroom appliance out there called Epilady. Ladies, Im sure you've heard of this sadistic grooming tool.

For you unaware male readers, an Epilady is a nifty little invention which is basically a series of tweezers torqued up and used to mercilessly rip the hair on the legs straight from the follicle.

It does NOT come with single serving doses of morphine.

What a world!

My mother had the original model when i was a kid. Back then, it worked on coils which snagged the hair as it vibrated. This newer model, as i said, is just a bunch of tiny tweezers.

It is equally as painful as I remember the original being.

The newer model does offer a sort of safety feature for people like me. When leaning over it, it will not grab hold of any dangling hair from your head, rip it out and entrap it in it's cruel metal jaws.

In my panic to one such occurrence, I cut off my tangled hair and shoved the Epilady, clumps of hair and all, back under my moms counter. I then sauntered out of the room with a lopsided hair-do and a non nonchalant look on my face.

As one of only 2 red heads, Im fairly certain I was pegged for this.

But then, mom was used to finding clumps of my hair all over the house.

This contraption, whose tagline in ads should read "The appliance for the modern masochist!", provides slow release pain in bi-monthly installments.

All for your convenience.

Fan-demonium

I am DESTRUCTOR!! ROAR!

As my brother Hollywood put it, "Even when your not here you still fuck things up"

With all loving tones intended...Im sure.

Of course, that was another incident altogether, several days after Id left the scene of the crime.

It was an innocent enough mistake! Too many glasses of champagne seemed to wipe clear from my mind the fact that the ceiling fan with a missing blade was NOT to be turned on.

And in my defense, I didnt mean to turn it on. I was looking for some light in that batcave of his.

It started off fine enough, a little wobbly, sure, but certainly nothing to freak out about. Not just yet, anyhow.

But it rapidly began picking up it's pace, swinging wildly in all directions. I screamed for Hollywood. Hollywood would fix it, I thought, Hollywood can fix anything! Trying my best to keep my cool with Alexis laughing uncontrollably in the corner, nearly on the floor in tears, I stretched my hand into the death trap above my head to pull the damn cord I knew had been there just a moment before.

But it was gone! In the erratic swaying, it had been sent up and over, wrapped around the top of the fixture.

Alexis, between her tears of laughter, screamed at me, as best she could, not to be sticking my hand up there.

"What the hell do you want me to do?!? I gotta turn it off!" Again, I screamed for Hollywood, who was in the kitchen making taquitos, completely unawares to what his darling older sister was doing to his room.

Dust from the blades flung itself into my eyes, and I turned my head away in time to hear a rather unfortunate creaking and then the feeling of plaster falling on my head. A glance upwards showed a slew of wires, still connected with the ceiling- dangling beneath it a three-bladed fan significantly closer to my head than it was just a moment ago.

With plaster now not just in my hair but my eyes, after having just blinked out the dust, I realized I was blindly shoving my hand into a very bad situation, and my head too, for that matter. I can't be sure, as it all happened so fast, but I vaguely remember Alexis, still laughing, grabbing my other arm and trying to pull me away.

But common sense demanded that I keep a hold of that thing. I had visions of that opening scene from Ghost Ship, where the metal wire snaps and cuts everyone in half. The best slice being the ship's Captain who has the upper half of his face removed. Awesome scene. Awesome. But not something I wanted happening to me. True, it wasn't a one inch cable moving with ridiculous momentum, but a wayward swinging fan seemed equally as dangerous were the wires to snap and the contraption to go flying. And frankly, I've become rather attached to the upper half of my face.

"Close the door!! Close the damn door!!" I screamed. Hollywood would see this soon enough, but I doubted it a good idea to allow the whole household to see what this off and on house guest had done to the property. Not until we could at least get it to stop spinning, anyway.

It was then that Hollywood walked in. What a scene! His sister covered in plaster, holding a spinning fan just above her head, her friend cackling madly a few feet away, probably on the floor. And him standing in the doorway with a baffled look on his face.

I had to stop myself from asking him where my taquitos were. One thing at a time.

Ian would tell me later that evening that every time he left the room, he half expected to come back and find a small fire burning in the corner, me laughing on the other side of the room swearing I had no idea how it happened.

This isn't an entirely inaccurate assumption, i must say. Given enough time, I might very well have started a fire. I may still. These things happen....to me. Or because of me, if you want to be technical.

Electronics are not a friend of mine. I want them to be. Ive no problem with them, but they sure as hell seem to have a problem with me. Remotes, computers, ceiling fans, they are all out to get me, I tells ya!

Eventually Ian got the fan turned off and left to shut off the power to the house so he could cut the wires and remove the dangling disaster.

Standing on my toes, still holding the thing above my head (and let me tell you those old ceiling fans are h-e-a-v-y) I realized I needed more documentation of this event and made Alexis switch places with me while I rummaged for the camera amongst the mess of scattered clothes and plaster dust.

I admit...I may have been taking my sweet time finding it. I was curious just how long she would stand there. A LONG time, it turns out.

"Hurry the fuck up! This thing is heavy!" She told me after about 5 minutes.

"Oh relax, what is your problem? I gotta find the camera. There, I got it. Oh wait, I have to delete some old photos..."

What a trooper that one is. By the time I got the photos deleted, the flash turned on and the shot framed, she was whining too much to get more than one shot. This was it:

Fan-tastic.

I told Ian just to put it on my tab.

Good Times.

Ive lost my poetry.

Not the poetry of wildflowers and fair maidens, nor that of lost loves or jaded spirits. But the poetry that resonates within daily existence, that perpetual fuel of conscious thought. Emerging at times when there would appear to be no significant thoughts at all.

I had it by the nape of the neck not so long ago. But it slipped from me somewhere, as it tends to do from time to time.

And each morning I wake in shrouded silence, I wonder- where has the poetry gone?

I search in the most common places for items misplaced. but it is not, i find, in the couch cushions, or under the bed, nor even in the fridge, though that a favorite for socks.

I wait inside the sunsets for clues to where its gone, I wander the dark streets where more than once Ive found it again.

Ive no fear that it will return to me, in time it always does. But these hours without it ring in my ears, they dull my days and empty my nights.

In my searching I remember the moments I had it. Those moments, so fleeting it seems to me now, where I held it firm- my fingers entangled within its locks, being led as surely as I was leading it.

I wait with patience, as it is all I can do, and set on the door step the lures I think it will come to.

I wait and I wonder, and I remember and I plead. For each second that passes without its song is as a thousand years to me.

This I bear in mind as I'm shaken from my peace, it will itself restore. In time, it will rebound. Keep open your mind to the rhythms it exudes, do not chase; but open wide your windows lest it hears your call and covets return.

I abide.

At times myself tells me I should best be writing. And then I reply "Oh shut up self! Ill do as I damn well please! Why, if I want to sit and stare at a blank piece of paper for 45 minutes, I will!"

Sometimes, myself slaps me. Sometimes, I deserve it.

I heard an interesting point a few moons ago, just before my phone decided it would no longer remain charged. Of course, my charger remains plugged into a hidden outlet at Hollywood's house.

So it goes.

But the point was pertaining to an observation I'm all too familiar with; that the majority of people never seem to grow out of high school. "It's the theory of relativity," I was told "You can only see the difference in perspectives once you step aside from your current point of view." And this is true enough.

Not enough people ever feel the need or desire to step aside. Stuck in the perceptions they were born to; perhaps fearful of what a new sight would do to their blind securities, perhaps in denial that anything outside of what has already been learned by them even exists at all.

"Some people just don't want the truth." And this, too, is true enough. True, and eternally frightening to the likes of me.

I came across a forgotten feeling this evening, somewhere between dinner and cocktail hour.

So forgotten, in fact, that i first thought it was the flu.

But it was not an attack on my immune system, as id original thought, rather a subtle underlying loneliness that seemed to sneak up on me from nowhere. Impending, perhaps, from the upcoming departure of my sister, my better half, and my niece. Perhaps due to the uncertainty 2 weeks alone with my mother will bring, or the distance Ill soon know from my brothers, my friends out here on the West coast. Or perhaps still, none of these things singularly, but all of them conglomerated with others unknown.

It was not unwelcome. An underrated emotion, much as fear and anger. As any that is not joy or peace, it would seem.

I reflect upon my friends now, upon the people I miss. a hodgepodge of emotions and beliefs, ideas and ideals, but ultimately- and almost entirely- a sort of bohemian beatnik society. Dig it sweet.

Rebels at heart.

My secret kindreds share with each other an unquenchable thirst for life. Roaming the streets of their scattered cities and towns in search of this world's offerings. Little care given to whether they be dark or destructive, joyous or enraptured . Their interest is in favor of enlightenment, however it may come, which carries with it an unbounded ecstasy- often times intensified by the desperate wanderings of the uncertain and unfamiliar.

This one certain thing I have learned from myself and my loved ones on the matters of life and living, this one point I will leave this world swearing by: Feel as much as you can as often as you can. Do not discriminate but rather discern. no emotions, be it love, hate or careless indifference leaves you without lesson. No experience, if you are experiencing it correctly, leaves you without growth.

One can only hope.

Not to say I think it particularly healthy to brew in anger, resentment, pride or jealousy (to list examples of the 'negative' form). But know them, yes. Know them so you can know the joys of not knowing them.

I cannot conceive it healthy to brew in anything too long, or exclusively. The more time that passes in jubilation or admiration, lets say (to list examples of the 'positive' form), the more that seeps, the cloudier your vision becomes. Until soon you can see nothing. Until soon you are left blind.

Its all about the variations, the textures. Im all about the textures. I may not exude them, but I certainly hunt them out in the people I spend my time with.

I live vicariously through my cross country friends this summer. They place their lives into their backpack and ride or drive themselves across this country, stopping as many places as possible. I hope one day to do this too.

First...money. Yes, money first. This would have been wise to have when I first decided to cross to the other side of this country a month ago. Then a car, or perhaps a bike. And then I too shall see these things I'm told about.

I too can witness the shoe-licking phenomenon taking place amongst the buffalo folk.

I can witness the angry suburbias, the desolate fields of urban existence, the fiercely wicked city streets, all of which span almost perpetually across this land. The gaps filled by lonely interstates begging to be appreciated. Fear not, my lonely roads, though Ive yet to grace your crumbling asphalt, I appreciate you for all you represent to me.

Freedom to roam.

Your darkness is only half the appeal.