bethofalltrades

I still have a little ache inside me for you, you know. Maybe it's for you, or maybe it's for the you I thought you were. Then again, it might be for your sister, or the last girl I kissed for real, or that punk on the train with the blue hair. It might be for any number of women with accents-- British, Aussie, Kiwi, or deep American south. Perhaps that ache is actually for the woman I kissed during a thunderstorm last summer, or the one who kissed me hard and fast last fall.

The ache travels. I have always fallen in love with women with lots of teeth, I think to myself as the ache centers itself in my right hip, reaching around toward my spine. (Of course they have the same number of teeth as anyone else, but they smile more.)

The ache reaches around to my abdomen and I remember the women I wanted children with, girlfriend number three, who is still married, and girlfriend number four, who I saw in the window table of a restaurant a week ago but did not approach.

The ache resides like a knot in an overtired muscle, deep in my neck. A woman once slid her hands across it and pressed down, saying, "There's the spot" as I yelped. Her transparent hands worked at it and she told me the trick was to breathe, although I have been breathing and the ache remains.

If I could, I would decant it, sliding the ache off as it floats on top of the rest of my life, bottling it in a jar with Your Name on it. I'd send it to you through the mail and the United States Postal Service would think me a terrorist.

I'd cut it out with a scalpel or a rusty letter opener and vacuum seal it and leave it in the freezer until it was just a lump of frostbitten, out-of-date ache.

I would draw a sign, "Free to good home: one ache," and I would put them up all over the neighborhood and when someone came to ask about adopting the ache I wouldn't tell them that it makes me drink and sometimes doesn't go on the paper.

"One hundred and two," says the nurse taking my temperature. I want to explain that if she was able to find the perfect spot and thrust the thermometer inside, she would find a marble ten degrees cooler and could we please do something about that? I want to say that, but instead I talk about the flu rather than the ache.

There is still a little ache inside me, for you, or for a multitude of things that are not you. I drop it like pennies on the pavement and it clinks. I fling it in the air like confetti.

There is a very little ache that I would like to be rid of. It's not worth much at all, except... every now and then, I open my mouth and it sings.

Love,
Beth

Places my house keys might be:
Under Tonya and Adam's coffee table
At the Tea Shop
Behind my mom's couch
In the dressing room or balcony of Mr. Small's
At Target, WalMart, Barnes and Noble, Lowes, Michael's, Old Navy, Panera Bread or Ritz Camera
At one of several Eat n Parks
In James's car
In the Vermillion van

Places my house keys are not.
In my purse, camera bag, backpack, or in the pockets of my pants, coat or green army jacket

Places I am not and would rather be (good, better, best) Los Angeles.
London.
Brooklyn.
In a taxi.
On an airplane.
On a tour bus.
Sleeping next to a pretty girl who doesn't love me... yet.
Sleeping next to a pretty girl who loves me.
Sleeping next to Cinderella.

Places I am.
The greyhound station in Pittsburgh.

Places I am going.
Home.

Things I am not.
Warm.
Frilly.
Clear-headed.
Comfortable.
Calm.
Infatuated, crushing, in like, in lust or in love.

Things I am.
Tired.
Sick.
Lucky.
Grateful.

Love,
Beth

Edit. Places where my house keys are. My back pocket. Things I am. Spacey, confused, exhausted, relieved.

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) )

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

I feel as though I have perhaps been drunk for several weeks.

As if the clouds that envelop my brain are just the residue of too many margaritas on one of those warm summer Sundays.

How strange, then, to wake up at 1AM in my apartment, with the cat snuggled close against the encroaching chill.

I wonder where September went.

I wonder where summer went.

I wonder where spring went.

The last I remember it was winter. I was wrapped in my long purple coat, already ill-fitting, with a gray hat that did not match. I was taking photographs. My feet went numb at the shoot outside the old synagogue. We drank coffee in the McDonalds down the street and I picked at someone else's french fries.

I miss the sun already. I want the sun and sandals. I want Texas in June, I want the relative chill of Michigan on the Fourth of July.

I want Kyle upstairs and Neil downstairs and Amanda playing her ukelele in her underwear in the middle of the night. I want cigarettes with Steven on the steps and I want wine with Becca on the steps and I want homemade beer with Noah and Chelsea on the steps. I want those steps.

I want room service on my birthday in that hotel room in Oklahoma City. I want sitting beside the bus drinking Coronas with the crew. I want the Crocodile Lounge and saying "Fuck you" to my old life. I want crying on the Chinatown bus.

I want leaving home.
I want coming home.
I want home.

I want real, hard work that leaves you bone tired and able to sleep. I want sweat. I want fresh tattoos and planes (but not at the same time). I want London. I want sunburn. I want running through Symphony Hall barefoot, feeling like some strange fairytale heroine in my fancy dress. I want the belt that broke in San Diego.

I want the pictures I didn't take because I was trying to live in the moment. I want the moments I didn't live because I was too busy taking a picture. I want dirt.

I want the new friends I can barely count and the old friends I can barely believe and all the friends I barely see. I want the economy to mend. I want new email. I want new love. I want a maid service to come clean my apartment. I want to get my nipples pierced.

I want to be held. I want reassurance that getting older isn't fatal-- even though it always is. I want beauty and love and truth and everything about it that's ugly.

I want I want I want.

And that's all.

I hate the fall.

Love,
Beth

Sars from Tomato Nation has this to say about crying on the street.

On April 20th, 2004, I was on a University of Pittsburgh North Oakland shuttle, crying my eyes out, trying to ignore the exuberant girl sitting next to me who was chattering to her friends.

She was small-- about the size of the 12 year old girl-- but full of energy, hands darting about, voice loud and far too low for her small size. Her hair was dyed Manic Panic red and she was a little bit punk, a little bit defiant.

As the bus neared my stop, she said "Well, it's probably sexual harrassment, but fuck it" and then she hugged me, hard.

Years later, I saw a stranger crying on the subway, so I sat down next to her and offered her my hand.

She took it.

There are people who are in our lives for bare seconds, yet leave impressions that do not fade.

To think of the reverse, that we might have similar impacts on those we meet, is almost too terrifying to comprehend.

Love,
Beth

For those of you who haven't seen it already, Neil was amused by my last blog entry.

It is 2:25 AM and I am just now settling down to try to go to sleep. My sleep schedule is ridiculously malformed at this point.

A lot of people commented on the past few entries in my journal with some variation on "you're so lucky" or "I'm so jealous." I have mixed feelings about this.

Being inside of my life, I know that, no matter how cool my job can be, it can be equally frustrating. 90% of my job (probably more) is the same stuff you hate doing. Tedious returning of emails, paperwork, organizing things. The hours are longer than you can imagine, vacations are non-existent and the pay is super low.

BUT... do not think I am complaining, because I recognize that 10% of my job is insanely cool. The perks to this gig are awesome. And I get all the groupies I can handle! I think that alone is worth the $35,000 pay cut from my last job.

...

Lucky. I struggle with the idea of "lucky." There are huge parts of my life (this job, for one) that would not exist if it weren't for fate. Fate put me on a plane next to a person who changed my life by connecting me with Amanda.

Fate opens the door. Had I not worked my ass off developing a wide range of skills at a ton of soul-sucking jobs, I never would have landed this gig. Had I not been brave enough to take the risk of saying, "I'm good at what I do and I think I can help you," I would not be here, now, lying on a mat on the floor of the Cloud Club, looking up at the plants and the Christmas lights.

Fate could blow and writhe all day long, but if one does not also act then it is but a hollow play for impressionable children.

When I got my wrist tattoo, I decided on "aut viam inveniam aut faciam"-- "I'll either find a way or I'll make one"-- but I still think fondly of the runner up.

Audentes fortuna juvat.

Fortune favors the fearless.

Yesterday, KT and I were walking home from the train in the pouring rain.
Umbrellas had been tried and discarded and we were soggy, down to our underwear. The rain was still pelting down and it was just chilly enough to be rabidly unpleasant.

We saw a small bird sitting on the sidewalk. It was soaking wet. I approached it.

The bird, a sparrow, did not try to move away from me. I cupped my hands around it and picked it up. It did not protest.

"It's probably sick," I said to KT as we resumed our walk. The sparrow was shivering in my hands, its body convulsing as it fought the cold. "They don't usually let you touch them unless they're very sick."

"So what are you going to do with it when we get home?"

"I don't know. Put it in a box, I suppose."

And I did. I found a small, empty cat food box (oh, the irony) and made a makeshift nest inside with a bit of toilet paper. I put the sparrow in the box, where it huddled in a corner, and I put the box on top of a lamp where the heat from the bulb would warm it.

I knew the sparrow would die.

I avoided peeking into the box, for fear I would find it still and stiff. I probably should have left it where I first saw it and let nature take its course... but I couldn't.

Nothing should die cold and alone.

Early this morning, I took the box from the top of the lamp and walked downstairs to the porch. I'd decided I would bury the bird in the neighbor's flower bed. I sat on the steps and lifted the lid.

There are times when I become fear that nothing I do matters. I work, I make art, I try to connect... but is it all ultimately futility?

We have no way of knowing what impact our actions will have. Stopping for a moment in the rain cost me bare seconds, nothing more...

But as it emerged from the box into flight, I realized it mattered to the sparrow.

Love,
Beth

A couple of days ago (I keep wanting to say "this weekend," but now I can have CRAZYROCKFUNWORK during the week too), a new friend asked if I was a vegetarian.

I've flirted with the concept on a regular basis for years. I've gone months without eating meat. At 16 I stopped eating meat for a while because Jorja Fox had an epiphany while eating a meatball sandwich in Brooklyn that SHE needed to be a vegetarian and I really really really wanted to be like her. But despite the frequent flirtations, I've never felt solid enough in the desire to be a vegetarian to actually BE a vegetarian.

I have, for the past few years, been pretty comfortable with the way I eat, at least with regards to meat.

Yet, when my new friend asked "Are you a vegetarian," I felt... guilty.

Vegetarianism is healthier for me. (I'm not going to make blanket statements about other people. I know that some people metabolize meat more easily than others and I'm one of those others.) As a vegetarian, I would have less of an impact on world resources than I would if I continued to eat meat. It's hypocritical to hate the live poultry store down the street because the chickens there are packed into crates with no room to move when I continue to EAT THEM.

Vegetarianism is more aligned with my ideals of non-violence, kindness and compassion.

Vegetarianism MAKES SENSE for me. I know this. That's why I felt guilty.

I had my meatball sandwich epiphany in a Whole Foods in the South End of Boston.

Love,
Beth

Some people get signs from the universe. Pennies, repeating numbers, vague "feelings"... but I get people. The universe sends me people to tell me things I need to know.

Last night one of my roommates was upset so we were sitting on the steps of the house bonding. Smoking. Because I'm smoking, a lot, the past week or so.

A 40ish man who was walking by asked us if he could bum one. Of course, because smoking together is bonding and I do everything I can to make sure that my neighbors know I'm not some stuck up white bitch who is slummin' it. We started talking, about art and its effect on the universe, the pursuit of happiness, the sameness of all of humanity despite differences in color, religion, politics. He told us about how he made five hundred thousand dollars selling real estate and then lost it all.

We talked about bands that we like. He started listing-- Nirvana, NIN, Alice in Chains, the Kaiser Chiefs, Audioslave, R.E.M. He asked me who my favorite musician was and I bet him he'd never heard of Amanda. (I lost.)

Deep in the conversation, he said something like, "People will tell you that art doesn't matter. It's not true. Art is the only thing that matters because it's the one way we can communicate without the barriers of our differences getting in the way."

And then he asked us if we wanted some weed.

Love,
Beth

I woke up late today. 7:30. I need to leave by 7:45 or I feel too rushed.

I showered anyway. Checked my inbox. Brushed my teeth. Pet the cat. It was nearly eight before I left my house.

I made record time to the Canal Street station. I could almost make it to work on time, even without rushing. I was going down the stairs to the Q train when everything stopped. A jam, people not moving, rustling of papers and shifting of feet. I got frustrated, since I could see the train pulling in. I would really rather not be late.

As the crowd parted, I saw a woman lying on the stairs, sobbing. People were pushing by her, stepping over her, not even looking down.

I asked her if she needed help and she said yes. I dropped my things and sat down next to her. A woman passing by asked what she could do and I told her to get a station agent. A man handed me a bottle of water to give to the woman lying on the stairs. A homeless man stood at the bottom of the steps and told people to go another way.

Her name was Lisette and she'd hurt her back when she fell. I sat and held her hand and talked with her for forty five minutes until the paramedics took her away. They'd arrived a half hour ago, they said, but they were lost in the station.

One of the police officers asked me who I was.

"I'm Beth," I replied.

"And you're with her?"

"No. I was just walking by."

He seemed surprised, which made me sad. As soon as I saw her lying on the stairs, I knew I had to stop, if only because if I told my mother I had walked past someone who needed help, she would be on the first plane from Pittsburgh to beat me.

Lisette and I spoke for forty five minutes, as I told her all would be fine and distracted her with questions about her life. She is getting laid off from her job. Lisette and her husband have two kids and she's always wanted to be a travel agent, so she thinks that maybe she'll try to do that next. Then they can take beautiful vacations, the four of them.

I told her that when one door closes, it is because a better one is opening, and that I was sure she'd be in Paris soon.

She thanked me for staying with her.

I told her that I go where the universe puts me, and today it made me late.

Love,
Beth

I am constantly innundated with these situations that press the question of:

WHO ARE YOU?

Am I a girl who types and sits in an office for eight hours a day and is pleasant and kind and likes being someone's secretary?

Am I a starving artist who is okay with the instability that comes along with temping because it brings with it great freedom?

Am I going to buy a new pair of high heels or shall I buy a pair of combat boots? (You're not Ani DiFranco, Beth. You're not that indie and you know it.)

There is such fear in me. Fear that I have this obligation to create art and am failing it, fear that an office job will turn me into a drone, fear that living an artist's life will find me at 35 broke, childless and terribly obscure.

I make lists, but how am I supposed to balance the glories of health insurance against the ability to say, "Hey, getting on a bus tomorrow, need to heal" without getting fired? Is there a way to weight a stable income against a manic mind?

Do I just idealize the artist's life? I spend my insomnatic nights reading blog entries of a mad woman who makes her living banging on a piano and standing perfectly still in a public place. Does that sound like heaven to anyone else?

I repeat my mantras, I am not getting older, I will not die young, I have plenty of time for everything that I want, I am not a failure, I am not a worthless piece of driftwood floating at the whim of the current.

When given a choice, why would I choose for life to be hard? Is suffering noble? Must I suffer to be a true artist? Am I okay with counting pennies to pay my rent, or do I like pretty clothes too much? (I like pretty clothes too much.)

If I wake up in an office-- not a cube, an office-- will I feel like I've been duped or will I be relieved that I can finally investigate the meaning of that strange mole on my lower back?

To be perfectly honest (and when am I ever perfectly honest) I could use the chance to build a nest egg. Build a nest egg and then quit my job and land on the steps of an artists' collective and say, "Open the door and let me in, I NEED you!" Save up enough cash to spend a year doing nothing but having piles and piles of babies art.

Nothing is permanent. Making one decision now doesn't mean I can't make a different one later. I am still young.

The funny thing is, if I were still with the Princess, there would be no wracked decision. Go corporate and fuck art, spend your time in bed watching movies and in the kitchen cooking dinner and just let yourself be fucking happy (for a change). I was happy. I was looking forward to a life that included marriage and children-- let's be honest and say that's what I really want.

Now I'm like, well, the suffering has kicked in, why not finally take that trip to New Orleans and take your camera and see what lies beneath the black type in the newspaper? Why the fuck are you trading freedom for security?

Am I exchanging a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

Love,
Beth

i want a real life
a real love
one that grows upwards in daylight