Griffons

Брызнет сердце то ли кровью,
То ли тертою морковью —
Ах, поверьте, всё равно:
Все равно жестокой болью,
То ли гнётом, то ль любовью
Наше сердце пронзено.

И слезами плачут куклы,
И огнём пылают буквы,
И взорвался барабан:
И пошла под гром оваций
Перемена декораций —
Здравствуй, новый балаган

office space

Few things I learned working in a semi-corporate environment:
--When in doubt -- lie. Project supreme confidence.
--Shiny name tags and high heels instill fear. It helps if you're tall, too. Walk slow while your steps echo in hallways and tower over people. Smile like you're on smack.
--Beware the sociopathic binge drinking Irish janitor who actually runs the place.

rainy day in another life

Breakfast at Tiffany's..or close

I love Chicago. Love the way it makes me feel alive and on the verge of..spring, this time. A trip to the city from the bleak outskirts of Midwest suburbia is a perfect fix for my sensory deprivation. You can have the fenced forest preserves and the farms and cutesy houses on their cutesy hills (none of it is nature, anyways --where have you seen manicured lawns and pond fountains in nature ?..:)-- I'll take the city with its noise and grime and obnoxious cab drivers any day -- maybe because that's how I grew up, feeling 8 million people's heartbeat everyday..People need people to thrive..as for the loners which I proudly call myself -- its always easier to be alone in a crowd than face your demons in isolation. Sitting on a bench in a city park or at a corner cafe, watching people go by, I am closer to nature, MY nature, than anywhere else. SO. After a very suburban weekend of kids and more kids and picnics in da dreaded forest preserve, my dear BF swept me off my feet like only he can, and an hour later we were checking in at the Drake, THE DRAKE that I love, with its grand foyer, its heraldic dragons and live jazz in the tea lounge. Drake to me personifies Chicago -- opulent, grand, fit for a queen !..yet mellow and comforting and inviting. Woke up early morning..glass of champagne on the bed stand, Lake Shore Drive in the window..We had breakfast in the Prairie Room and felt like newlyweds. Spent a day in the city..Picked out a "retirement hotel" for ourselves on the way back home..no, it won't be Drake, but it will be in Chicago, before the cornfields get the best of us :)............

nothing, really

Blessed is the morning with time to do THIS and barely a thought in mind..I'm re-arranging skeletons in my closet, its getting crowded in there..I shouldn't be left alone with myself, it'll end bad. Though nothing really ever ended bad for me, nothing really ever ended..I continue to be a stranger in my own life, playing up to men that have always defined me, I can stage my life by them. And if there's more to me than my men, why can't I be content with just me for more than a day ?..Lower expectations bring about certain comfort yet I inevitably get restless. Here's a thought -- maybe I don't exist at all. And what I really am is a reflection of whomever happens to fall into my life at the moment. Always too eager to loose my self in someone. Until all of me starts rejecting the very intrusion I so welcomed. So maybe I'm all gone, spent. The one thing in my life I haven't questioned is loving Boo, everything else is a blur.

gr-r-r-r-r-....

With Public Health in the building, I can't prop my door open..My closet of an office is unbearably hot, humid and stinky (someone pooped in the hallway..)..I feel like a caged monkey in the zoo. My office plant sprouted, my stash of chocolate has melted...GET ME OUT OF HERE !!!!!..
here's some brain droppings before I have a meltdown..
-MD order, found on chart today: 50 ml brandy every Wednesday with dinner
-heavily accented voice mail greeting: "leave your messes..I go back"
-flashback: tour guy in Dominica, passing by a cemetery :"dead people live here"
-a flamboyantly gay nursing home activities director in AX shirt that has "EXPLODE" written all over it..
and for the drum-roll...
-from the list of Medicare-approved diagnoses (seriously, word-to-word): "suicide by a paintball gun"

vacation

7 days aboard a ship cruising the Caribbean is best for late winter blues, for me, anyway.. Para-sailing is way overrated. Only I can feel claustrophobic and out of air 400 ft up in the sky. Tubing, on the other hand, rules. I did everything physical I could think of. That too, lots. Things that impressed the most -- the ship, rocking-- no sea sickness, just feeling drunk hence the hangover, and it rocks you to sleep ever so gently..Cemetery in Aruba much like one in New Orleans -- vaults stacked above the ground, only in festive pastels..pink, blue, yellow, very Mardi Gras. A tiny chapel atop a sun-drenched hill, not a shade in site in a 90 degree heat -- stone cold to touch.. Old fortress of San Juan towering over the sea --entire Spanish armada sunk by its walls. Lunch of ceviche and tapas in old cobble stoned San Juan. Vintage porn in a local thrift store. Grenada's port, a sign for tourists to please refrain from wearing military attire on the island..scents of cinnamon and saffron and coffee, coffee to die for, palpitations and all. Dirt poor Dominica, chickens walking the the streets, stoned locals with tertiary syphilis, one of them chasing the jeep with a huge machete for I dared to take his picture..and a stinky sulfur springs resort named "Screw". Tiny Bonaire that is all ochra and deep blues and greens with trees a color of flesh, hot and mellow. As if stepping into a Gauguin's painting. And a very American St Thomas, vanity fair and tax-free David Yurman. Few things that didn't impress: casino, on-board entertainment, a sip of $1500/bottle cognac, local markets.

in passing

Living in the moment is, once again, not happening. I need major wars and cataclysms to keep me awake, but I'm desperately craving some sleep. The moments flash and pass nulled by the mundane and leave me spent. I want something sustainable. An illusion. Yes, an illusion has more substance than a random burst of adrenaline. Have a mind-blowing orgasm and you're happy. Have ten more and you got yourself a nervous breakdown..Hold on to the moment just before -- I'll build you a shrine and follow your footsteps. Can't. Living on borrowed time, with no solitude, no peace, I leave myself the pure pleasure of sublimating pleasure. Keep it real somewhere else. I'm bringing back the blissful escapism, to guess, to digress, to slip away to random universe mid-day and dwell on own reflections and encrypted love letters. To not be in the moment. For now..

"Sickness, insanity and death were the black angels that guarded my cradle."

Saw the Munch exhibit in the Art Institute today, still shook up. Raw, graphic, couldn't bear to look yet couldn't turn away..All those dead faces, empty eyes, agonizing corpses crowding the canvas. I saw death and dying, but never like that. The insanity, the decay, and the excruciating AWARENESS of the LIVING dead. Not even so much the paintings but the etchings -- he's not the greatest colorist from what I saw..These etchings are keeping me up tonight..

last week, over, thank God..

Spent 3 days in hell. Ambulance chase, ER. 3 days in a hospital watching my tiny 3 year old tortured by all kinds of medical devises and crying my head off with her. Back home now, both skinny and tired and mad at the world. Vacation cancelled. Sleep.

05:19 pm: misc

1. Found in a patients chart today under "behavioral": "Needy, sometimes nasty". Same chart, therapy notes/diagnosis: "Colon surgery with a rectal pouch". YOU THINK ??..
2. Had to attend a big multi-state corporate seminar on "Medicare entitlement". I never saw so many fat middle-age women sporting bad hair, green skin and horrific pant suits in one banquett hall. Note to self -- quit the desk job before its too late.
3. I'm being cyber stalked by crude, pushy, delightfully uncomplicated yet thoroughly unpleasant israelies. ..Brrr...PS PIONERY, IDITE V ZHOPY !
4. Called to book an appointment with a pediatric GI doc, got following directions from the clerk (was spelled out in a dead-serious voice): "Come up to the 3rd floor, step on the red carpet and look for the GREEN FROG". When I asked if I should kiss it then -- silence followed..
5. Went through Fresh Farms for half hour with a polar bear sticker on my butt thanks to Nika.. And I just thought these jeans fit me really well..Damn. Well they do, anyway :)

New Years Eve recap

1. Played with Boo, made a mess
2. Made a cake of my childhood, called "Iceberg" -- to die for, all merengue and cocoa leche buttercream. Was all gone in 10 min.
3. Dressed up in black and gold. Later burned a hole in my pants with a firecracker, 2 scars left to remember the fun..
4. Partied till 3am then joyned the neighbours party of 20 people and partied till morning, fired petardes everywhere, burned a lawn chair on a grill, danced, won a couples contest..
5. And for the drumroll..at midnight countdown found a 2 carat diamond in my champagne, felt overwhelmingly silly and happy...said yes :)

From work, a real winner

A birthday party for a resident turning 100. The whole family came for the occasion, BD cake, candles, balloons, nurses singing happy BD, the whole shabang. Grandma can't talk -- voice cord paralysis, so she writes her requests and such on a little clip board. Suddenly she starts leaning to the left..A nurse standing near props her up with a pillow. After a while she starts leaning ever so slowly to the right..the same caring nurse props her up with another pillow. Then she starts to look a little worried and leans forward..The nurse gets creative and ties her back strait with a blankey. Then her grandson comes by and asks "So, grandma, are they treating you nice here ?.." Grandma grabs a board and starts writing..In a minute the grandson is bent over with hysterical laughter -- the board says "NO. They won't let me fart !!"

can't sleep..

Nothing like cutting work short for hot, wet, dirty drunk monkey sex. Keeps me grounded..:) Endless meetings at work, spaced out thinking about his lips..his hands on me..I meet him 2 hours later at Sybaris and forget there's outside world..He is my world, and I am his, and what will I do if this ever ends...
Vanity Fair at Manor:
The other day at the office, I'm wearing my usual basic black..
"Your're just not a very colorful person.." -- this coming from a book-keeper in vampy make-up, fur-trimmed shoulder-baring sweater and a tight sequened skirt, with her gay side kick in a purple Armany X-change shirt and heavily moussed bangs..
No, I guess I'm not...:) Although I could go on to add that I'm wearing my pink lacy Vicky thong underneath...but I bet the Armani-maniac here's got the same pair on :)..

Random

1. Intra-office memo about upcoming X-mas Party: Please make sure that all residents are dressed in green and red.
2. Its rather hard to have a casual conversation when confronted with a huge erection. Lots of bad puns..
3. Scribbles in an elevator at manor: DISTURBIA. Now, that's just mean..I kinda like it here
4. Stopped by Whole Foods in Lakeview and had coffee in adjacent lobby of a "Gay, Lesbian, Trans-sexual and Trans-gender" Recreational Center. Nice place. Felt utterly plain, grabbed a hand-full of free condoms from a bowl on the way out then shopped at Brown Elephant across the street to feel better..Me and my thrift stores. But I'll never know what gay bingo is like..or trans-gender crafts..I imagine lots of tape's involved..and batteries..and leather scraps, perhaps..
5. A blood curdling scream out in a hallway: "NOBODY LOVES ME !!!" Ouch.
6. Try to explain a vibrator to a 3 year-old who just dug it out of your drawer and is giddily dragging it across the floor by the cord (don't ask..)
7. Mom, I wanna go to "Chucky Jesus" !!!
8. Our nanny scared shitless by a toy pony that went off by itself at 3 am. Locked it in a closet but it just kept on going.."I'm a little pony..tram-tararam.."
9. I am perpetually torn between feeling lonely and wanting to be left alone. No peace.
10. Listening to Kill Bill soundtrack in gridlock and craving a nice classy massacre

trick or treat !

Birthday Girl. We're 3 !

Два дня из жизни, 10 лет спустя..

Вчерашний вечер был бесконечен и удивителен и перешел в утро как то почти без ночи..Концерт Земфиры был говно, НО: сам факт Земфиры и узнаваемости старых текстов даже в очень, очень плохом звуке был все же приятен. Придя рука об руку с Любимым сначала наткнулась на стройные ряды друзей и родственников его бывшей жены которые рассматривали меня так навязчиво что я в конце концов отошла на самое видное место и покрутилась чтобы уж точно все разглядели и запомнили. Любимый был невозмутим и горд и отстояв долгую очередь в бар вынес оттуда нечто такой убойной крепости что сразу стало жарко. А потом еще жарче когда напротив меня вдруг оказался мой бывший муж.. Коперникус для меня место роковое. 10 лет назад я познакомилась там с ним на сборном концерте..Аукцион, кажется, и Агата Кристи..Я пришла тогда с приятелем который был там и вчера, но вчера мы не пересеклись..Самое забавное то что как и 10 лет назад, вчера я была во всем черном и с кем то, а он весь в джинсе и один. Как продолжение прерванного сюжета но с другим концом. Он стоял рядом с общим старым знакомым -- тот увидев меня помахал рукой и я подошла поздороваться о чем тут же пожалела -- к великому смущению общего знакомца мне пошленько нахамили в ответ на просто привет и улыбку. Я посмотрела напоследок как нервно потеет и бледнеет этот нелепо одетый, узкоплечий капризный мальчик, не в тему но с удовольствием отметила на себе с десяток восторженных мужских глаз, и услышав Его голос, Его, ищущего меня в этой толпе, поняла что счастлива. Бесконечно счастлива тем что нашла наконец Его. И что дал мне Бог уйти живой и здоровой от этой рептилии..А потом был концерт, побег с концерта, долгие поцелуи в подворотне, опять концерт..знакомые, и гуляние по городу с полуночным заходом в любимый дайнер и сладкое забытье где то под утро в его руках, дома..Я наконец-то дома.

Fridays odds and ends..

-Walked into a bathroom and nearly hit a huge tower of blue and white balloons..I'm talking eye-level, on the run, not even looking up..20-some balloons. In the bathroom. Allright...
-Halloween decorations went up in dementia floor today. Now that's just cruel. They're scared shitless of their own shadows and voices in their heads, but no, lets put spider webbs and severed digits and decaying corpses everywhere..PAR-TY !!! Seriously, picture a grim ripper holding a sign -- "Don't laugh -- you're next" (hanging in the dining room..) and another one above the back door -- "CEMETERY (we've missed you !). C-mon, THAT is not funny. What IS Halloween for the half-dead ?..Home coming ?..:)