Grace

It's true, surprisingly, what they say.  That one day, you just get over something. As a rule, I despise cliches, find their trite simplicity irritating but here I am, a walking example of them.  I don't mean that I'm healed, I don't know what that even means but I am content and well? Unbothered.  The great energetic omnipresent buzzing is quiet.  With one act, the lever of the primordial electrical complex was flipped and everything went silent, stone death.   And since then?   An absence of that ever present hum.  It's given me time to feel and think.  About me. Just me.  And what it means to be me.  In this vacuum, eons of emotions came boiling to the surface expressed by parts of myself I'd never given the spotlight to before. A new symposium of voices and energies to learn.  To each of them, I handed the reins to heal.  This is your space, do with it what you will but this time? We won't leave.  I thought at times I was losing myself but the opposite was true.  In giving each of those little Mes time to be, I joined myself with them.  Not the abyss of before, but a profound pool of oneness.  In the ever progressing journey of self, the surprise is that we are infinite.  

In anger awhile ago, I lamented to my therapist, I just want to get to the place where I don't need anyone else. It was the anger of a little me, angry that they weren't seen and loved by the broken adults around her.  Angry at the present me for not seeing her and for putting herself in the arms of those that perpetuated the same myths.  In my recovery, I visualize a great many things, so many scenes with each of these versions of myself. Each whole and unique and so very alive. I have always longed to live in a commune, a collective community of beautifully weird personalities and it turns out I already do.  And in this time of innerness, I have come to know them all. By sight and even more importantly by feel. I know her and HER and Her. This collective matriarchy.  And we disagree and fight and thrash and snarl and cry and love and nurture and push and rest and crawl our way to union. 

There is a real grace to this dance. Grace in the religious sense. Beatific and knowing and incredibly patient and kind. The kind of strength it takes to sit with each part of yourself, and just feel. I have always known I was strong, a warrior but I had no idea I possessed the soft side of strength.  The strength it takes to keep quiet while another speaks, the strength it takes to hold one's own thoughts and not writhe in resentment but rather in peace. The strength it takes to walk away and truly leave it, not knowing what lies ahead.  To walk into the unknown, unarmed but awake.  Naked but not weak. Strong but not bombastic. Secure not arrogant. Human, at last. 

The other weekend, I saw the Jeff Buckley documentary, It's Never Over.  Heavy handed in some ways and lyrically poetic in others.  Jeff wrote, "living in the abstract is a cancer and a hell."  There's something about him I've always resonated with and felt equally adverse to. I left the viewing contemplative and hopeful, there is something so lovely about living an analog experience and it gave me the reminder that It is in those quiet moments.  I wonder what would have become of him, had those waters not swallowed him whole.  

 

Ordinary World

This week was absolute carnage but I don't want to be a one track pony who only complains about the same thing just because thought loops are my special party trick.  So in other news, my friend teases me about only liking what they call "Duran Duran" music.  You know the kind I mean. Heavy on the synths and nostalgic vibe of a world dreaming of romance and a life without Reaganomics.  So I told my other friend this who is also the sister of the other friend who is also a bit of a dark horse with spiral tendencies and now we giggle trying to find the most Duran Duran style music we can.  

And because this week was carnage in a month of mayhem in a year of spiral, I will not be going to my favorite place to dance to Duran Duran music because I'm no good around people right now but will share some that we've loved recently. 

 

Nation of Language - Wounds of Love

This is so Roxy Music coded I can't stand it in the best way. 

Sculpture Club - Just One More 

Dripping with romance and nostalgia and existential malaise, I love it.

We'll Have None Of That

Wolf Alice - Heavenly Creatures

Was it never enough that we should simply want to be together?

Wolf Alice - Silk

My love it kills me slowly

Steady As The Weather

Up before the sun, that's my new normal.  I well remember the many slides into sunrise from the other side.  For so long, I've longed to turn The Devil upright into The Lovers.  No one said in order to step into the light, I'd have to sever The Darkness. Walk away from the pit that holds all the zings.  I can do it with a broken heart has never hit harder these days.  Receiving acknowledgment and appreciation for my skills and achievements is so foreign, I don't believe it and definitely don't put my trust in it but something surprising is happening. In choosing me, this me, not the conjoined me.... my public life is undergoing some sort of renaissance.  Yesterday, I was flooded with appreciative recognition.  My friend said, are you able to hold your own head up right?  Actually yes. No more feigned humility or deprecation beyond the joke "I don't know that I'm wise... even a broken clock is right twice a day".  

Earned after years and years and years of the upside down, pulling myself upright, soul muscles straining and bleeding... twisting the inverse through tenacity, intuition and some days sheer will.... I am wise.  And learning every day that my own instincts and perspectives are not only en pointe but also help those around me to ascend into the light with me.  There's joy and power in that even while I carry my own storms and darkness within.  So maybe I am still conjoined but this time balance might just be the twinkling light I see sometimes in the distance. Along with a healthy dose of fuck off if you don't understand the magic I weave. I can't have it all but actually? Realizing that I wouldn't want to.

The compass is pointing west more and more and Glitterfox is the soundtrack.

Glitterfox - Wildfires 

Keep it together

I'm as steady as the weather

Keep it together

Wildfires make their own weather

Glitterfox - Gamma Ray

I wanna talk to you 

But I don't really wanna talk to you

I thought you were my friend

Now you're just a ghost in my head

Waiting on a reason

Changing of the season

Will it ever fade away? 

Cause I can feel the burn

As the wheels turn

Hotter than a gamma ray

Nothing's gonna change me

Nothing's gonna save me

Time is gonna heal the wound

But I can feel the fire

Wish that you could feel it too

Whimsical Whirls

Four posts in a month (plus two drafts)??? What year is it... 2012?? 

But... but... this song is a must hear.  It's wormed itself into my ears and soft crevasses with delicate nostalgic chords and riffs.  I think you'll agree.... it's a yearner but also so sly synthy, smirk tickling, heartsy poptastic. I'm such a sucker for songs with peak pining whimsy. That easily belong in the past while careening into the future.  

<3 <3 <3 

Lathe of Heaven - Aurora 

Oh and this one by Mareux has been making the rounds too when I bring my head out of my own doom spells long enough to remember that dancing cures all ills and evils.  Listen, I'm trying ohh-kaaay.

Mareux (ft Riki) - Ebene Fume

And Will You Return It

Do you remember when you would find a song or a band? Back in the day, are we even saying that these days? Without digressing too much into nostalgia, which apparently is yet another marker of The Aged, back in the day, I would find music through people in real life by word of mouth or by situations. 

In this era of isolation and remote work... that's a bit harder. Let's not even mention dating.

There's no point to this post.  Truly.  For now, I find myself living life because life has claimed me.  No deep existential crises today.  Not to worry though, Life is still wreaking havoc but the upsets are practical, not existential, which has rarely been this blog's brief. 

My actual work life is an insane turmoil at the moment but that's not very romantic. So let's move on (delirium acknowledged). I'm just a person who is healing from the loss of the love of their life and a lot of trauma, loves music, deep thoughts and deep emotions, naughty and spicy quality undercurrents, hates fascism in all its forms, avoids shallow connections, likes cats, is wary of dogs, HSP, INFP mostly (though I like crowds when it means a concert or dancing), loves being at home, loves making a garden, loves cuddles, loves days when we don't shower and we revel in our lazy togetherness. 

Yeah... okay.... I could go on but I get it... I'm writing a recipe for a dating app or a dating interview or a birthday candle wish, which I hate.  I'm not that person... the one who jumps into a situation ready to trust and happy to have my expectations ruined.  I will run them through their paces after everything I've been through and that's not for everyone.

No. Sadly, I'm a traumatized analytical romantic demi/pansexual with PTSD and certain anatomical preferences who actually needs to connect with you first.  But, okay.  I know myself better now than I ever have before.  So much better that I'm typing this out fully aware that I'll publish it rather than keeping it in some journal.  This is a beautiful testimony to these years of this blog and my weird experiences with social media! Exposure therapy actually works ... I'm laughing at the irony...

So... in terms of dating... is it weird if I just say The Cure Lovesong and Depeche Mode Strangelove in my bio? I mean... it's just the beginning so where's the limit?

For me there isn't a limit so besides my match, who is my match?  You get what I'm saying right?  The inferred sarcasm and resignation? The ridiculous pretend game je ne sais quois of even posting this but here we fucking are.  I already know who knows me to my core and who can handle me but I guess we exist in a circus of our own fucking making. 

That's not wholly true.  There are others. Like my dearest friend who speaks to my emotional core, the one who I actually let see my soft underbelly. The one I send gentle and tearful voice notes to.  The one I'm most scared to lose. Even in this relationship, there runs an undercurrent of pain.  One that resembles a Bjork side eye...  soft and undefinable.. but also wholly understood. The strange gripping and releasing as we allow each other to breathe and be. She is so soft and strong and yet I find myself too sharp for her.  

This is so true for my relationships.  

A new friend said in our daily video chat, "it's a new day" and I responded with "a new day is just another way of saying we exist and so do the horrors." She didn't get it or laugh but the other new friend kind of did and we giggled over the Icelandic history of necropants.... 

I need someone who gets it and laughs and says more in the way of the perfect song. I miss these dark songs with my entire being. Also, the dagger, the side eye, the cynical acidic velvet tongue, the sarcasm and the gentle. 

Depeche Mode - Strangelove

Will you take the pain I will give to you

Again and again and will you return it

...... I also miss dry sarcastic humor laced with deep emotional unspoken understanding. The one I miss connecting with. The heartbreak I keep trying to heal. 

But also, the hidden messages and jokes I plant everywhere. C'mon this is funny! Maybe not the consumer mainstream haha kind of funny but the intellectual wry dry witty recognition of the too smart in a too dumb world. Call me crazy, you wouldn't be the first. 

Butthole Surfers - Pepper

They were all in love with dying

They were doing it in Texas

They were drinking from a fountain

That was pouring like an avalanche 

Coming down the mountain

I don't mind the sun sometimes

The images it shows

I can taste you on my lips

And smell you in my clothes

Cinnamon and sugary 

And softly spoken lies

You never know just how you look through other people's eyes

Intellectual Beauty Queen... and Wild Thing

Ah the decadence of self indulgence... but this isn't chocolate boxes and roses... no it's more ragged and scummy than that.  Oh well, I live in an estuary brackish with both the old programming and the new. 

Only way through is through the storm, right?  But there is something just over there, yonder and I can breathe more easily some days.  Some days there's so much space that I vacillate between feeling the vast chasm, clawing and clamoring to fill it.  Others, just reveling in the delicate elixir that is freedom of movement.  Or so I remind myself to do on the days when the old programming wins.  But today is not that day. Today is a middle of the sidewalk, sit your ass down and just nod kind of a day feeling the eddies of warm and cold waters - so like the gulf of our youth. 

In the estuary, the old - salty and indulgent to the nth and the new? It's clean and equally indulgent but this time?  Right side up and Wolf Alice is seeing me through. 

A Perfect Circle - 3 Libras

Wolf Alice - The Last Man on Earth 

 

Cate Le Bon - Remembering Me 

Wolf Alice - How Can I Make It Ok? 

Wolf Alice - The Sofa 

I hope I can accept the wild thing in me 

Hope no body comes to tame her

And she can be free 

I'll be fine, I'll be ok

I feel kind of lucky right now and I'm not ashamed to say

I can happy 

I can be sad

I can be a bitch when I am mad

I wanna settle down, wanna fall in love 

And sometimes I just want to fuck!

I love my life, I love my life 

How Ever Far Away

So much has come up this week, so many messages and dreams. A dream with Him, filled with closeness and tornadoes and then someone new in sunshine. Strange synchronicities. Songs met with shivers. 

My therapist and I run circles around this. Anger. So much anger. 

She tells me He is Me. That all the love I feel for him is really all the love I need to feel for myself. That He doesn't love me the way I love Him. 

I try to believe her. 

But at my core, still... when I hear Lovesong... it's Him. 

It was a secret for so long. This undercurrent beneath my life. I didn't understand that he became an archetype for my own love and devotion. It's so much easier to project that onto Him instead of recognizing my own holes.  

Ok, fine, I honor that. But still, I remember the moment I first heard this song at sixteen years old, alone in my grandparents' home, watching the music video for the first time and hearing my future. I knew in my heart, in my being, that my person would understand why this song was so important. 

And he did. Letting that go is both surgical and impossible. No contact, fine. Energetically? He is still there. My therapist's ire. 

Letting go of an archetype and recognizing it was never about them but rather me searching for me ... it's definitely not as fun or romantic as an undying love for someone who desires you equally. But it's real and it lets me release myself from blame and place responsibility where it originated. A step towards reclaiming Me from Him. Separating the person from the archetype. My therapist reminds me that I am not a cruel person. This is a foreign idea for me. She tells me who I am and I am so perplexed by her idea of me. Because in my own eyes, on a bad day.... it's ... not ... good. 

But here's the thing. We have Cancer Ascendants and conjunct Capricorn moons in the same fucking degree. We will always know how the other feels. Always. Even when we lie, even when we pretend. We will always be able to see through to the root. And I get it. I really really fucking do. My twin moon. You chose stability and lightheartedness and I chose freedom and intensity. But the root of us is the same darling. 

You love that song by The Magnetic Fields: I Wish I Had an Evil Twin. Maybe you met them? Maybe you are them and I am them and we are we? 

Embedded: The Cure Lovesong

Whenever I'm alone with you

You make me feel like I am home again

Whenever I'm alone with you 

You make me feel like I am whole again

However far away, I will always love you

Whatever words I say, I will always love you

dearest wolf, i offer only my sweetest fruit

Today, I was reminded of how other I can be.  How my tastes and references and words and way of moving through life are so seemingly different.  Is that true or did I somehow wander again into a foreign land?  I don't think I'm that weird but then again, the mentally ill think everyone else is insane. Who's to say who is and isn't... 

It's disheartening though to feel always on the outside, on the fringe.  I long for someone to speak MY language for a change rather than constantly changing the way I relate to the world in an effort to be understood.  There have only been a few in my life that came close, maybe just one really and even that turned out to be an illusion.  Even though I've always loved the line from a forgotten niche indie film, "Illusion must be the scent of something real coming close." It's okay, you probably haven't seen it.

Don't mind me, I'm just feeling some kind of way today and whinging into the void is better than any number of old coping mechanisms I used to employ.  It's a made up problem anyway, in a world filled with made up problems. 

Here are some new releases from this spring that I really really like. 

Erin LeCount - Sweet Fruit

 

deary - I Still Think About You

  

Glitterfox - Passenger

 

Wolf Alice - Bloom Baby Bloom

Pulp - Got To Have Love

She Comes Alive When She's Dying

There's a special place in Dante's inferno reserved for the lesbians who thrive on the internet's misfeasance.  And in this circle, reserved for just a special few, are the rest of us who discover the woman they've been in some sort of undefined situationship with having ongoing flirtations with another.  It is in this circle you discover you are just a pawn in their fucked up broken toying seduction.  It really sucks.  Even more so when you discover there's a harem of back ups.  And you my dear are just a back up of a back up of a back up.  

The rawness of internet receipts must be steak tartare in the Devil's mouth. I hate that my prescience gives way to killer sleuth instincts.  I'd rather live in my delusional la vie en rose. 

It's not the time... what is time?  It's the emotional investment.  The effort.  The connection.  The highs brought so low. 

And the really funny part?  I wouldn't have even minded if she said "hey I think you're really [_____] but I'm interested in this other woman and I'd like to see where it goes".  Cool, thank you for the honesty. 

It's the suggestive duplicity, manipulation, bread crumbing, selfies, late night videos and flirtations that send me into Volcanic Defcon 1.  How she used me, my emotional labor, my words, my intelligence for months all to inspire her poems for this other woman.  You fucking used me as a muse, you shallow piece of shit. You lied and you fucked with my feelings.  You showed lack of integrity and respect for another human being.  I know this place; I've been here before. Where is my writer's credit???

Playing a game where you weren't given the rules and they have the playbook and cheat codes. I despise these games.  Never found them fun.  There are so many consensual games you can play with someone without causing emotional or psychological harm. 

At least these days my guillotine game is strong.  Revocation without explanation is a breath of fresh air. 

Some of them left no trace at all

Some left her black and blue

She come alive when she dying

She come alive when she on her last legs

She damned if she will

She damned if she won't

Some of them left in one piece 

And some she damn near broke

And I am no stranger to the strange and all his ways

What could be stranger than to be stuck outside your cage? 

The Kills - Damned If She Do

I Never Grieved Her

Her.... the One I attached myself to.  The One I desired beyond all others.  The One who beguiled me with long stares and intensity.  The One who awoke in me something I knew existed but had never fully experienced. Her beautiful body. Her beautiful voice. Her moods.  

Her. 

Her. 

Her. 

I've never grieved Her.  I transferred all of my love and devotion to Him. And did it so without hesitation.  Because why wouldn't I? I adored Her. I loved Her. I wanted to marry myself to Her, body mind and soul.  What wouldn't I do for Her? Everything. I would give anything to and for Her. 

Even if She was a He. Even if She loved another. Even if she married another. I would always, always, always be devoted to Her.  That is what I promised in my heart when I proposed.  When I tied myself to Her.  

And when I couldn't have Her.... what did my body mind and soul mean anymore?  Nothing.  Nothing mattered anymore... I could satiate my body with whomever.  Destroy it even. Because without Her, life became a long night of hedonistic self destructive limbo. Very much Florence and the Machine Cosmic Love.  I was in the dark and searching desperately for reunion. I convinced myself for years that if I was "fine" then She / He would realize the mistake and right the wrong. Come back to me, save me even. 

I convinced myself for years that if I pursued the males of the world that I would be desirable enough. If I made enough money. If I was cute enough. Crafty enough. Goth enough. Sane enough. Together enough. Well versed in music enough. Intense enough but not too much. 

When He severed Her breasts, I fucking cried. I cried for ages. I mourned for years.

When She aligned with another woman mere days after the big fight and lied to me that she loved her, got a tattoo with her name on her body, asked me for opinions on engagement rings, I convinced myself I deserved it. It must be my fault because I was so unlovable. I marked my body in sacrifice in the presence of the woman who told me.  When she laid with me and told me what the other one tasted like as pillow talk, I deserved it. Because I wasn't good enough.  When I begged for reprieve, even said "You've got to let me get over you" and she didn't listen, I believed it was because she loved me. Got a job at my place of employment and said to me it was so She could be near me but lied to everyone else.... Loved me in the way only a decrepit demon like me deserved. Danced with the new one and mouthed this James song is for you.  The James Song.  How fucking dare you. How cruel.

I spent years avoiding emotional intimacy.  Years pursuing shallow and disgusting connections to abhor my own body. Because if I could lose the love of my life, what salvation remained for me?  Let me prostitute myself in the name of lost love. Let me prove to you how much I love you, I will even lie with men again to prove it. Because as He said, He was never a woman always a man. Let me lose my own life even because what does it matter? She / He doesn't love me.  Nothing matters.

Not a waste. I have thought that before. I am healing from this. 

Rather a reminder of how powerful my love and devotion really are.  Body, Mind and Soul.  I will give it all but let's embrace discernment this time.  Because when I meet HER this time, I will be able to say with my whole heart that I choose you.  And I choose you because I've met my own Darkness and seen the Void.  I've come out the other side and know myself fully in both Light and Shadow.  My body bears the scars but my heart is pure and clear. 

He still lives in the world but I don't know Him.  I don't want to know Him because the one I wanted has died.  And the way I was treated proves that was never actually love.  Love doesn't feel like that.  Whatever that was, it wasn't love.  It was something twisted and unkind.  Love feels uplifting and good and brings you to a place of light and wholeness. I felt like shit for years in His eyes. 

I never grieved Her but she died a long time ago.  When something fully dies, we need to mourn it but we don't resurrect it and we don't linger at the graveside.  I've never been much a fan of graves.  I think it's better to let things burn into the wind.  Let it carry those ashes onward and away.  

This one gets no songs because I spent years attaching music to Her / Him and releasing those from my library and mind is liberation.  

But actually, it does get a song.  A song for me.  One that raises my vibration in such a happy lovely way so let's lead with that. I am so happy these days because my life is my own and whatever I choose to do it is because I want to. Because I choose my life every day and the other ones have no influence on it anymore. My beautiful friends, my beautiful choices....ALL MINE. And all the lovely ones that live inside me in various states of healing, the unloved, abused, lonely ones, they have a Home inside me and their voices matter.  I will listen and take care of them forever, body mind and soul.

The sea waves are my evening gown

And the sun on my head is my crown

I made this Queendom on my own

And all the mountains are my throne

I hunt the grounds for empathy

And hate the way it hides from me

With care and thirst I have become

You have a home in my Queendom

A Life We're Fighting For

How do I even put into words what is happening? It's an awakening but that sounds so fucking trite.  

I spent years, LITERALLY YEARS, trying to fit into a model that would please him and subsequently anyone.  Begging for attention and validation.  See Me.  Love Me.

Fuck that. 

AND FUCK HIM. 

I will never allow anyone to tell me again who I am and what I'm worth. 

There's so so so much more to say but the feeling is fucking freedom. 

The music, THE FUCKING MUSIC, it's such a loud cacophony that reverberates in my entire body.  

I AM ME AND I AM ALIVE. AND I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE THINKS ABOUT ME ANYMORE.   

They can all fucking choke. I am here to celebrate joy, connection, belonging and the beauty of being alive. 

I know, love and feel myself fully. I am gay.  I knew it at four years of age. I will never let anyone tell me who I am ever again.

Let's start here. 

Santigold - Disparate Youth

We said our dreams will carry us

And if they don't fly, we will run

We know now we want more

A life we're fighting for. 

LABOUR

I audibly gasped when I realized you sorry sack of shit vampire sucked me of my ideas, energy and wonderfulness to make your sad life better. The joy tap has been turned off and I will never do your labor again. Good luck with the wife who never apologizes.  

Paris Paloma: Labour (the cacophony)

The capillaries in my eyes are bursting 

If our love died, would that be the worst thing

For somebody I thought was my savior

You sure make me do a whole a lot of labor

Oh James, I Know You Well

 Oh James, you broke me. I thought I knew you well.

 

Laugh at the wonder of it all. Laugh so loud you break your fall and you hear the gathering sounds.  Leave your bones, leave your skin. Leave your past, leave your craft. Leave your suffering heart.  Come, dip on in. 

Camera Obscura: James (2009 Live Radio Session)

James: Sound

Sure, Ok Yeah

It's the artists, the musicians, the visionaries, the weirdos, the deep thinkers and feelers who draw down the moon and bring in the light.  This song is bringing me back online after a prolonged downward spiral.  

Little indie band of whom I know nothing about from Portland Oregon that I randomly heard on this Friday night when I wasn't actively seeking.  Or maybe I was and we found each other.  Collided more like because this is the literal mood. Breakdown or breakthrough?  I don't know, whatever this is, it's not yet done birthing itself but this song is helping and tonight, my friends, that's all I want. 

Sure - Be Myself (released February 9th 2025)

It sure takes a lot to be myself. 

Well sure I forgot about how to be myself. 

Step inside this hell. 

Something's out of reach. 

Ignis Fatuus

Twenty years connected. 

Twenty years the push, pull, hello goodbye, yes and no. 

Twenty years, the passion.

Twenty years, trying to understand what begets cruelty.

Twenty years, found when hidden.

Twenty years, a haunted halfway house. 

Twenty years of these stupid little crumbs. 

Twenty years of dangled apologies. 

Twenty years of warnings. 

Twenty years of maybes. 

Twenty years of possible regrets.

Twenty years of trying to be everything.

Twenty years trying to prove. 

Twenty years, an oath.

One year of actual truth. 

One year processing an untruth.  A narrative buried so deep, it is cemented in ore. 

One year, the fall out.

One year stubborn, willful.  I am here. I am real. I am genuine. 

One year holding breath, tensing, still giving.

No more years. 

Realization: playacting with ignis fatuus.

Glass is too benign to describe those shards, the unraveling, the vacuum, the blank space. 

No more blood or bone sacrifices. No more balmy water for tears or devotion. 

I am not the villain and never was. 

You were my twin moon. You were my songs.  

This is a death I can't even mourn openly.  

How do I tell the world I became half, severed?  

I sat a version of shiva alone because there is no recognition or bereavement when you mourn a wraith, a trickster who hides behind many masks. 

Instead, blame and sharpness. "You should have known better. You're stuck."  

My fault again. 

But oh how I delighted in that game! 

There is no burial. No Body.  No final resting place to leave behind.

For what you have stolen from me, I do not forgive. 

For believing in you, I will find a way to forgive myself.

And one day revel in the wicked delight that you and I are different.  And it is those differences that offer me life. 

Embedded: Bat For Lashes, All Your Gold 

You Always Were Two Steps Ahead

The irony of the desert's tragedy is that it supposes it needs to be made whole with rain. Yes, the monsoon brings life to the otherwise seemingly desolate landscape. Flowers flourish, lakes pool and the wildlife embraces it all. But in that watery union the desert loses its quiet windy beauty and whispering dune mysteries. The desert experiences oasis for a time but it doesn't need it. It has learned to thrive without the rain. Maybe the desert thrives on romantic desolate arid beauty but has evolved in strange wondrous ways to desire flippant and willful rain. 

This is such a twisted albeit simplistic metaphor for our human obsession with contrarian love. Maybe the desert and the rain are better as they are. Maybe they enjoy being their own separate worlds, even "happily" in their own prisons, quietly desperately desiring union. You tell me. I think you're a liar, the saddest most tragic kind. The one that doesn't realize they've lied to themselves until it's beyond midnight.

 

 Embedded: Everything But The Girl - Missing ///  Gigi Perez - Glue

The Todd Terry Remix is my beyond favorite and no one can tell me differently. 

Let Them Bleed

Seems  like a good song to round out this year with, don't you think?  Cheerful, jolly mad red sounds. 

 

Embedded: Tori Amos Precious Things (Live)

And I died. 

But I thanked him, can you believe that? 

Sick. 

These precious things?  Let them bleed, let them wash away.  

These precious things, let them break their hold on me. 

Blue on Blue

This. This is my soft spot. Blue on blue. A coquettish lambent moth fluttering in a Lynchian dream.  Those precious night creatures. 

IG: saccharinesylphs 

2024: A Playlist Poem

No fanfare... just me posting a poignant poem based solely on song lyrics from my 2024 playlist. Imagine a slightly emo Dadaist approach to an end of year shenans and then you've got it. It's intense, dramatic, bleak and dripping with romance. Would you expect anything less from me? 

When you wear the same face every day, worried you might have a small hole in your soul.

We’ll be fine, just take your time whichever way you go. 

Another goodbye now, on and on. Dream Keeper, my dream keeper. 

If we are infinite and there’s no end, I hope you live. 

Doing what you say like a hund, hund, hund. Ich weiss, Ich weiss, Ich weiss! Das ist alles für mich. 

You push it hard, I pull away, I’m feeling hotter than fire. I guess no one ever made me feel that much higher. 

Oh. It’s our history. Everyone wants you to be something you’ll never be. 

I can’t have it all and I wouldn’t want to. 

This is gonna be a weird record.

How else can it be proven to you that I’m devout? I spill right out. 

I wonder how a gap can feel this much. How a gap can feel that something this big. How it multiples in my veins and my blood and how it triggers itself in my thoughts. I’d like to be your beautiful hell. 

When the tides turn elsewhere, I shall give myself to the moment somewhere. I am ever crashing, just waiting for you to pull me out. 

I’m sanctified in my lover’s eyes. No way around it, no way to fight. A pull too strong. Don’t try to forfeit, the way is through. If you deny death, you deny life. Let it suffer, let it shine. What must be severed, left behind?

I have my sentence now at last I know just how you felt. I dig my fingers in expecting more than just the skin. 

I can’t wait to consecrate this wondrous mess. Words unforgotten until we sing again. Start at the bottom and then we descend.  

She tries to understand a never never land.

Scantily clad woman. Scantily clad man.

Wanna kiss you all over, wanna eat you up! 

I lost my way in the fire. I am a moth to the flame. Dancing too close to desire. To feel again.

Could this be a life without love, without loss? When you met me, buried deep in my heart… Heavy metal.

Don’t ever put me on the moon again. Don’t ever see the moon again.

Me repugna esta sociedad.

While you are still alive, do not let your soul fade away. 

I’m gonna win this game. 

When the rage in me subsides, in this white wave I am sinking. In this silence. In this white wave, in this silence, I believe.

Forever is just a waste of time. You live, you work, you die.

You never stop, you never stop.

You broke my heart, it came in two. It was an accident, I didn’t mean it.

I’ve tried to fight this but you are my weakness. Pull back your eyelids, I’m lost in your iris.

It fills my wombs with a poisoned wine 

It blinds my eyes with a veil of dark

It feeds my heart with a filthy blood

It grows inside me like the devil’s son

It burns inside me like a blazing soul

It sucks my life out of every bone

It blurs the truth with insane lies

It can’t be fought, ‘cause it keeps me alive

This anger in my veins makes me suffocate.

Are you alright?

I’ve got no feelings anymore. The evenings slide from being bored. No gleaming past or future formed. I run solo. I run to what I know. 

It all started with a shiver. Just a little touch. 

What if it’s not meant for me, love?

A thousand people I could be for you and you hate the fucking lot.

Because you know my ways now. There’s a phoenix fire burning in my house and it’s melting me down. 

I think my kink is when you tell me that you think I’m pretty. 

Bring your shadow into the light. Meet my lover on an astral plane.

You wrote my favorite song, now I’m fucked up and carrying on. And it hits me, I don’t want anyone else touching you like I do.

Stop, go, fast, slow. Who can deny this perfect symmetry?

If you walk through the flames, do you catch fire? And too much has already been said. 

I get so frightened and no one else seems frightened. Only me.

One ticket out of your heavy gaze, I want one ticket off of your carousel. 

So no thanks, I’m politely declining.

And a lust for life keeps me alive. 

This isn’t a party, it’s a crime scene.

I must have died a thousand times.

I don’t like the way you run your mouth, no more letting secrets out. 

You've got secrets too. 

Very moody, yeah, yeah, yeah! Very up, down and all around baby. 

You can bite the sound apple here: CTST 2024 Love Letter Playlist 

TRACK LIST: 

The Clean - In the Dreamlife U Need a Rubber Soul

La Luz - Strange World

The Veldt - The Everlasting Gobstopper

BLACKSHAPE - Itiiitiatiihylihyl

Schnallo - Ich Weiss

Lana Del Rey - West Coast

Gliss - 21st Century

Miya Folick & Skinny Atlas - Can't Have It All

The Saxophones - Desert Flower

Gigi Perez - Please Be Rude 

Adna - Beautiful Hell

SRSQ - Ever Crashing

Chelsea Wolfe - Tunnel Lights

The Last Dinner Party - Nothing Matters

Devendra Banhart - Won't You Come Over

Beach House - Once Twice Melody

Haute & Freddy - Scantily Clad

Vicious Pink Phenomena - Take Me Now

deary - The Moth

Cindy Lee - Heavy Metal

Tim Presley - Morris

Jonathan Hulten - Afterlife

Kontravoid - Losing Game (ft Chelsey Crowley)

Delirium - Silence (ft Sarah McLachlan)

The Mad Walls - Television

TR/ST - Dark Day

Virgin Prunes - Baby Turns Blue

Aurat - (Language Unknown) 

Sidewalks and Skeletons - Slip Away

Pastel Ghost - Iris

Minuit Machine - Black Is My Anger

Modern Heaven - Midnight Cowboy

TR/ST - Run (ft Cecile Believe)

Fever Ray - Shiver

Wolf Alice - Don't Delete the Kisses

Lola Young - Messy

Warpaint - Melting

Blondshell - Kiss City

Say She Say - Astral Plane

Del Water Gap - Ode to a Conversation Struck in Your Throat

Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure?

SDH Semiotics Department of Heteronyms - Lovers Wonder

Strawberry Switchblade - Trees and Flowers 

Bleachers - Merry Christmas, Please Don't Call

Bea & Her Business - Safety Net

Lana Del Rey - Lust For Life

Male Tears - This Party Ends in Tears

The Chameleons - Less Than Human

Geneva Jacuzzi - Keep It Secret 

Röyksopp - What Else Is There? 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fleez

Windows

Does anyone actually blog anymore?  I miss it so much - discovering what people are actually without knowing what their faces look like or how many followers they have. The adrenaline junkie visual world has replaced this seemingly simplistic verbal world with static two dimensional images... and if we're lucky embedded audio images. 

This vociferous hungry visual organ and its equally greedy eye machine ... are we its godparent or is it a part of us?  I think we should go analog... totally. 

I love this something awful, because it's beautifully true and we need to cherish that. 

Narcissism Is Not Empathy

It's Jean Cocteau's birthday.  He's been dead for awhile.  

Life is a horizontal fall. 
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little they become its visible soul. 
Mirrors should think longer before they reflect 




Moaning is what you need.  Truly.

I'm Still Undone

Earlier this week I saw Orville Peck live in concert, after waiting for four moons.  One of my dear friends gave me a ticket four months ago on my birthday.  But four moons sounds so much lonelier.... languishing in the desert for four long moons.  See?  It works.

Since then, listening to anything else has proven more than difficult.  I tried TR/ST The Destroyer Part 1, in preparation for The Destroyer Part 2 coming out next month and was even tempted by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' Ghosteen but I just can't yet.  Even when I try, I'm only half listening.  In between recorded tracks, wisps and phrases of Orville's songs just continue to reverberate and haunt me across those moonlit mind deserts.



Hope to Die is my dark night of the soul track but there are so many standout gems.  Dead of Night.  Winds Change.  Roses are Falling.  Queen of the Rodeo.  Turn to Hate.  Buffalo Run.  Kansas (Remembers Me Now).

Pony is a truly a phenomenal debut album.

I'd like to say, for the record, how happy I am that a masked incognito gay cowboy crooning in beautiful vibrato baritone with tenor to soprano soaring swoons about homoerotic dark nights of the soul and transvestite Queens of the desert is making waves and winning over people by the hundreds of thousands.  The world needs him.  I need him.  Also, his whistling prowess is tear slash whoop worthy.

At the concert, he said several times how a song was about SOLIDARITY.  Yes, love, it is.  Thank you.

**Edit: New Order Age of Consent and Fleetwood Mac Gypsy caught me on my sojourn into the world tonight, so maybe there's hope for me. *winking riding a horse into the sunset emoji

Call Me By Your Name

The other night I watched Call Me By Your Name. It's been out for some time but I'm late, as usual.  Have you seen it?  It really touched me, deeply.  

I felt so much after watching it - like I had wondered into a room inside myself I haven't been to in a long time.  Even now, days later, I still can't quite put my finger on the emotions it evokes, it really was more of a sense of solid self.  An entity, a force and presence.  And in this room, she was a breathing part of the ether who lives and exists all on her own, without me.  She needs neither my permission or my approval, in fact, she/It are unaware of such notions.

There is only this love, this connection to oneself, others, food, nature.  It is so intimate too, soft and tender, breathing pink rainy mists of vulnerability.  Without fear of reprisal or shame. 

And since then, for three days I have only been able to listen to one song.  It's from the soundtrack and it's by Sufjan Stevens, who is someone in the past I was resistant to.  I think maybe because it reminds me of Elliot Smith and that's a sad thing.  Regardless, for days, it's the only thing I could stomach as I let the tears fall. As I stayed curled up in that pink misty room inside myself.  

Nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spots.

Machiavellian Aliens

This is what happens when New York based Gen Z trust fund part-time models decide to make "glam rock".

I hate myself a little for kind of crushing on it.  I said kind of.

Wild Is The Wind

Twinging... just there.  And with it a dash of provocation.  Building on something, something very dear.

Two of my favorite versions of this song, gifts from those gone ahead.  We can feel ourselves, in our decaying bodies, in the dreams behind us and the lessening tomorrows.



David Bowie



Nina Simone 

Holiday

The dreamy vibes continue... this track quenches everything.



Released June/July 2018 via Snowstar Records here.

Per their site:
Donna Blue is a collaboration between Danique van Kesteren and Bart van Dalen, both each other's muse, lover and band member.  The creative duo plays sultry indie pop, under the influence of sixties ye, ye, Lynch movies and old Hollywood romance - perfect for practicing those slow dance moves.

<3 p="">

Happy Pills

For fans of Japancakes, here is a little Japanese bedroom indie dream pop.  It's exactly what you think it is. - comfortable and chill, like pajamas with fun prints.






Released August 1, 2018 so you're right on time.

hearts x

This Means Nothing To Me

Something resembling fall is flirting with us; where in these humid swampy bits, any days with temperatures in the mid 60-70s mean many pull out their sweaters (and in some cases down jackets), I'm just content to not be melting into a viscous pool of salt.

Still as lovely as it is, lately I only long for mountains and wide, pristine open spaces crisp with frost.  Preferably the kind next to towns with bustling night lives where you can enjoy a cocktail and feast on the dreamy eye candy.  But, that might be asking for too much.



April Stevens // Teach Me Tiger // 1959



Ultravox // Vienna // 1980-1981

High Heeled Moss

So many artists and music tracks I'd like to share with you but I'm in the middle of a maelstrom, moving house and living out of boxes.

Here's a little precious gouter to tide you over.  What do you think of the art direction?  I'm torn between wonderment and excited schadenfreude to something else, something uncomfortable.  A lot of comments have already been made comparing this to The Knife, but I suppose I've never separated Honey is Cool, The Knife or Fever Ray as separate entities.  For me, that would be akin to divorcing one period of an artist's repertoire from the others.  It's all one glorious journey.   That said, I do find myself drawn to one or the other, depending on my mood.



Fever Ray // To The Moon And Back // 2017

Concurrently, this gem is very relevant to me and I hum a few key lines over and over, Tourette's style.



Fever Ray // When I Grow Up // Fever Ray // 2009

When I grow up
I want to be a forester
Run through the moss on high heels
That's what I'll do
Throwing out a boomerang
Waiting for it to come back to me

When I grow up
I want to live near the sea
Crab claws and bottles of rum
that's what i'll have
Starting at a seashell
Waiting for it to embrace me

(Honorable mentions: here, here, here, here  ... amongst others)