Miss Hag.

12.31.2005

The Way We Weren't

"All day long she fills me up with dogma
She's all magazines and benzedrine and vodka
There was one man she truly loved
He took everything but her bear-skin rug
And now and then it's clear to me
That need is love and love is need. . ."

Here's to your own benzedrine dreams and vodka wishes.

Keep your heads up. And float, my friends. Not everyone wants to need or needs to want. Or can. Or should. Or will.

Cheers.

link * Miss Marisol posted at 4:44 PM * posted by Miss Marisol @ 4:44 PM |

12.19.2005

Make a wish.

Birthdays for me have always been rife with disappointment. This can be a disappointing time of year. Sure, it is merriment and holidays. Celebrations of family and exchange of presents and well-wishes.

However, it is also a time to ponder our regrets. Time when we are forced to reconcile with our demons. Face the music. Remember missed opportunities. It is the end of another year. People are reminded of their imminent demise, the quickly falling sands of time.

It has always been difficult for me to gather people together to celebrate my birthday because there are so many other festivities around this time of year. People are overstretched. So, I usually end up doing something quiet and low-key. Which is fine for me. I don't really care.

I'd be lying, though, if I said I didn't have some small expectations. I have always secretly hoped for something miraculous to happen to me on this one day of the year.

This year, I told LIL S'BEB* that I wanted to go away for my birthday. He misinterpreted this as I wanted us to go away together. I really wanted to just take a train somewhere by myself and spend a night in a lovely hotel. Alone.

I am not disappointed that he has joined me on my day trip for my birthday, mind you. Please don't think I am being ungrateful to have his company. He is a good friend who just wants me to be happy. He is someone I will always care for. And, because of his connections, I am sitting in a plush terrycloth robe in the most astounding luxury hotel with all the liquor and food I could ever hope to consume. For free.

But, his presence inevitably sets up expectations. We have to celebrate. It's my birthday. Not only that, but we have to celebrate like a couple. Which, my heart and mind are quickly practicing not to be. Although we still walk near each other, I no longer want his arm on my back. I don't want his kiss to build a dream on. I'm all out of love. Love don't live here anymore.

A week before his heart transplant, my brother told me something that has left me unsettled. He told me that it doesn't really matter to him if he lives or dies. He said he is not afraid of dying. That he feels like life is just a series of waiting patterns before we pass on.

Naturally, I said that there must be things he looks forward to, longs for, hopes to achieve. But he said all that is just stuff. That none of that really imbued him with a passion for this world. He said he was going through all of this for us now, to protect us from sadness. He was so matter-of-fact about it. Not ungrateful or pessimistic. Just realistic.

Since our conversation I have been troubled with the prospect of how to convince someone that life is worth living. How do you give a reason to live to someone whose life's signature key will always be sharp with sadness and lacking real romantic love?

It's been a week since his transplant operation and the recovery process is slow and full of potential pitfalls. But, he is getting there. Very, very slowly. He hasn't been able to speak yet because he is on a ventilator, and I am anxious to ask him about how he feels now.

Also, I want to tell him that I understand why he may find it so easy to feel unmoved by the reality of living. But, perhaps, I am hoping, there is something miraculous and wonderful about life that neither of us has yet begun to truly understand, or stopped dreaming to expect.

* LIL S'BEB (Live-In, Long-term, Soon to Be Ex Boyfriend.)

link * Miss Marisol posted at 12:21 PM * posted by Miss Marisol @ 12:21 PM |

12.18.2005

30.

When I was 8 years old, I slept over at my best friend, Racquel's, house. I walked into her house that day and met her mother for the first time. She was an eccentric woman fascinated with the occult and things of that nature. She greeted me warmly and said, "Hmmm. You know. You're not going to live to see past age 30."

I have no idea why she would say that to a child, but I have always kept that message tucked somewhere in my brain. Sort of assuming that it was true.

December 19th, I turn 30. It is with the vastly tenuous luxury of humanity that I assume I will wake up in the morning.

I don't think I will actually cease breathing tomorrow. But, I do believe there is a certain truth to Raquel's mother's bizarrely inappropriate prophecy. I need to do some living before I die.

Photo by g8s. Coney Island, 1999.

link * Miss Marisol posted at 8:38 PM * posted by Miss Marisol @ 8:38 PM |

12.09.2005

Thank You. . .

I got the call last night.

They found a suitable donor for my brother and at one in the morning, he went into surgery to replace his heart.

Thank you, whoever you are. . .for giving my brother another chance at living.

Thank you to all of you for sending good thoughts and prayers this way.

Thank you, whoever has been listening to my prayers. I'm turning 30 in ten days, and this is all I have hoped for. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

link * Miss Marisol posted at 8:58 AM * posted by Miss Marisol @ 8:58 AM |

12.08.2005

No More Cartoon. . .?

"I live in the most expensive city in the country because I have long believed, and had many people convinced, that my career was dependent upon it. I spend money on martinis and expensive dinners because, as is typical among my species of debtor, I tell myself that martinis and expensive dinners are the entire point--the point of being young, the point of living in New York City, the point of living."
-- Meghan Daum, "My Misspent Youth"

Over breakfast this morning, I read this, spit out my coffee and screamed.

Noooooooooooo!

For the unititiated, Cartoon Network has long (six years) been the safest, most efficient marijuana delivery service in New York City. Or . . .ummm, like, so I've heard.

One easy phone call and within an hour you could have a friendly, hardworking person come right to your door with little plastic boxes of cannabis goodness. And for every plastic box you buy, you get a free lottery scratch ticket. A free lottery scratch ticket, for Chrissakes! How generous! How good natured!

Well, apparently, they got pinched.

My sadness is palpable. (But, Miss Hag., you quit smoking the wacky tobacky, right?)

Well, that's not the point.

It's New York Freakin' City, dammit!

That's the whole point of living here, y'all. To drink $15 martinis at 4 in the morning. To wait three months to get a chance to have a thousand dollar dinner and to peruse $30 knockoff Hermes bags for sale on the street. To buy batteries for a dollar on the subway.

And, ultimately, to have everything brought to your doorstep for a certain amount of money: your perfectly cleaned and folded laundry, beers from the corner store at five in the morning, a weeks worth of groceries, and yes. . .a relatively harmless plant to stick in a pipe and smoke so you can sit around with your friends giggling and analyzing meaningful music lyrics.

Here's to you: Cartoon Network. Here's hoping we'll be together again. Someday.

File Under: Norml

link * Miss Marisol posted at 2:50 PM * posted by Miss Marisol @ 2:50 PM |

12.04.2005

harmless afflictions, painful addictions.

"I walk into an empty room,
And suddenly my heart goes boom.
It´s an orchestra of angels,
And they are playing with my heart." -- Eurythmics

I have always loved the idea of love more than the act of it.

As a teenager, I consumed a steady diet of intense, ridiculous crushes. Obsessions that bordered on unhealthy, in restrospect, seem like harmless symptoms of surging hormones. By sheer luck, I missed out on acne and braces, but I was afflicted with infatuation.

I realized recently that I miss having crushes. Certainly, there was a large amount of pain involved in the gamble of unreturned desire. But, I miss the longing of potential. I miss the electricity of space between two bodies as they near each other and wonder if the other wants to kiss them back.

It annoys me how faithful I can and have been in my relationship. It doesn't seem like me to not have had an affair. Aren't I still that girl that once wrote long, rambling dissertations on the draconian scourge of puritan monogamy?

Despite the overwhelming circumstance of my immediate family crisis, my vision is keenly focused on the path leading towards my future. I still have an eye trained on early spring -- a future in which I will be standing alone in this world again. No longer half of a couple.

Yes, yes, long term love is wonderful. There's comfort and security. There is warmth and easiness. But, if I have learned anything these past few weeks, it is that security is an illusion of the mind, not the heart. Knowing something is certain will surely sustain you in times of doubt, but hoping for something unexpected will drive you beyond the pallor of mere existence.

And although I'm sure I will miss the solid floor beneath my feet that has sustained me for six years, I look forward to stumbling through the passion of a crush again. And, perhaps, actually acting on it -- recklessly.

File under:Crush

link * Miss Marisol posted at 9:53 PM * posted by Miss Marisol @ 9:53 PM |