I spent time with family today.
(I can hear every disconnected clacking of the keys as I realize how strange that word feels rolling from my fingers with regards to my mother)
I spent time with family today.
I needed to say it again.
My father's still the asshole he's always been, turning anything beautiful into ash with the narrowing of his eyes.
I see the smoke pour from his mouth and leave stains on faery wings.
But I spoke to my mother, told her the condom story, talked about life and sex and little things, and part of how laid back I was feeling was due to waking up to shuddering orgasm this morning, and part of it was how much less I've been smoking lately and how the irritation of lack of nicotine wasn't so encompassing this time.
And part of it is that she's trying.
She bought me earmuffs, black ones even -- and I caught the reference, how she'd listened to me the last time I'd broken down in front of her and screamed and sobbed and slammed the door on my way out.
I'd screamed about how she'd never let me wear earmuffs as a kid, how they were impractical, how they would never keep my head warm, and my voice was all too shrill as I understood all too well...
Earmuffs are inefficient, that sounds so much like something I would say now.
But she bought them for me, and I wore them home...
And we sat up and watched "Sex in the City" and I had the uncomfortable realization that this is where my life is going... The glamoury and the professionalism and the exciting places and people and crazy things to wear...
And I looked back and realized that I don't want a fancy new york loft, and when Marn gets around to doing that movie of my life...
... I don't want it to be about glamour.
I don't want to run into old high school rivals and stun them with how terrific my life is speeding by. I'm finally free of needing to prove it to them...
I know I'm a success. So I don't want to look like one anymore.
I don't want to talk like one anymore.
I don't want to wear masks for respect.
I don't want to know all the people in all the right bars and cafes, and when I walk into a place and someone recognizes me and we talk excitedly of mundane things, I want it to be because I care. I want it to be like Club Redemption where the bartender knows me because we've had moments together... Where I'm only in with the in crowd because they're wonderful people who had the strength to organize the event.
Not because I'm just oh so cool.
And I want to be feminine but not a woman and not a girl and not a lady either... Not a princess but some mad child with swinging hips and curls that trap you and pull you in...
And I want my home to be a home and not an austere and chic appartment, and I want my friends to be thinkers and dreamers and lovers and people who care...
...not people who's Curriculum Vitae I can quote from memory to impress people I don't care to impress.
I don't want to talk anymore. I want to laugh, and tease the giggle from faces that lack the crease of having laughed enough, and I want to dance, with abandon and not with the calculated rythm of someone who knows they're being watched every moment by every pair of eyes.
And y'know what? The more I think about it, the more I think I'm not doing so bad after all...
Overcompensating in each direction, from badass punk to happy homemaker to cold-hearted corporate queen, and nearly imperceptibly... The pendulum swings back towards what I've always been looking for.
The happy things.
Where I don't always have to have the perfect word to land on the perfect ear, where not everyone needs think me beautiful, where VNV Nation streams from my stereo in the heat of an afternoon...
...and Jeff Beck slices razored guitar riffs through my palate on a crisp morning.
I don't want my furniture to match, and looking around, I realize that it never could.