bethofalltrades

My fever broke yesterday. It had been a year.

My heart has a specific rebuilding process when it's been broken. First, I stop eating. Not on purpose... I just can't stand the feel of food in my mouth when my heart is broken.

After a while, I start eating again. That's about the time I stop crying. By then, a dull calm has descended over me. The heart stops aching and is simply comatose. A low grade fever settles in. I resume normal life. I look normal. I act normal.

Something is missing. At that point, I am five steps back from my life. I can see it and hear it, but it doesn't touch me. I am uninvolved in my life. I eat, but I cannot sleep.

The heart coma lasts as long as it needs to. The swelling goes down and the heart wakes up. The trauma and coma have left a thick crusty layer of scabs around the heart. Nothing gets through. I am then two steps from life, surrounded by a thick membrane of protection. It's warm. The fever grows.

By then I am close enough to normal that I can play act at connection. I kiss. I have sex. I go home and lay awake, wondering what is so broken in me that I cannot get out of my head when I do these things.

The heart, of course. The scabs fall off. The membrane thins. The things inside me and the things outside me almost have a chance of meeting. They see each other, doh see dohing on dark street corners.

At this stage, I get frustrated by the membrane. The fever makes me restless and achy. I miss love. I itch, like the skin under the cast you're getting off tomorrow.

Then all of a sudden, something shifts and the barrier between me and life bursts. The world rushes in.

--

My hands are covered in paint.

I've spent the past six hours creating a... thing. For a person. A girl.

I don't do this normally. Arts and crafts are not my thing. I typically follow a pattern of getting VERY into something, buying all the stuff to do it, and then giving up when my product is lackluster. See also: jewelry making, stained-glass, painting, sculpting, sewing and silk-screening.

Yet somehow I am not deterred. It occurred to me earlier today that I wanted to make ART for this girl. And so I am.

This is an impulse I haven't felt in many many months.

It makes me happy and hopeful.

Love,
Beth

And now for something completely different.

Here's a photo of me by fairytalevegas, who is a brilliant photographer and a dear friend.



This photo was taken before the Vermillion Lies show, which was incredible. If they come to your area, you should go, and you should buy their merch and hug their tour manager Dakota and flirt with at least one if not both sisters.

Here are the Vermillions:


Here's Dakota:


She is an excessively talented slam poet AND she rocks a spandex bodysuit better than anyone I've ever seen. Dakota used to work at an insurance company and then she quit to run away with a rock band.

I feel a deep kinship with Dakota.

And I love the Vermillions.

And I love their UNDERWEAR...

...which I bought at the merch table and which say "What's in the Box" and which I put on over my tights and flashed at them. Kim was delighted. Zoe blushed.

Love,
Beth

"I can't advocate for a benign life much longer."
-- Dakota Belle Witt

In the summer of 2004, I dabbled in the art of spoken word. I wrote a piece called "101 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Love Me (or, Simple Mathematics)" and it was very well received at the little open mic I frequented.

I have been feeling more poetry recently. I haven't written any in months. When I think about it, that summer was my most prolific, because I'd take my little notebook to open mic and I'd write while the guitar players strummed up on the stage.

Life in 2004 was very inspiring.

I was a pretentious little fuck.

But, I think we all were, so it was okay. I was 22 that summer.

Below the cut is "101 Reasons." I've crossed out everything that no longer applies and that is just plain wrong.* Almost everything was true at the time.

If I were to write this piece today, I would call it, "101 Reasons Why I Am Fucking Awesome-- Because If I Don't Believe It, No One Else Will (or, Math Is Hard.)"

Love,
Beth

( 101 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Love Me (or, Simple Mathmatics) )