Ah, The Pen

I went to this thing tonight where people tell stories. This is the beginning of my stories. The Buick It reached it's pinnacle when I watched it being hoisted onto the tow truck. The fact that the towing company was called "Rock n Roll" towing helped ease the sting, but still, this was too much. Courtney had come with snacks because my blood sugar was crashing and through my stress exhaustion, I was ready to kiss her feet for the cheddar pretzels she brought from the DA's office. But she agreed with me, which made it worse, because she is into voodoo, so must feel these things more than me: "There's something up with this car." And by "something," she meant bad. It was just too weird, we both agreed, that lots of crazy things kept happening with it that brought misery into an already stressful time in my life, and seemed to throw a wrench into the fun I was trying to have despite said stress. Like when the tire exploded on my way to a long-anticipated beach getaway with a fuck buddy and had $10 left to spend all weekend due to an $80 tire replacement. Or when I got pulled over and arrested a month before that for a surprise suspended license. Or when I ran out of gas to see another fuck buddy and I had to be pushed through the rest of the intersection by a lesbian in an SUV. That's just half of what happened in the last 3 months. A few days after the towing incident, I was convinced that the universe hated me and had somehow cursed my car as a mean trick, and that shit like this only happened to me, and "why me?" I met Courtney for coffee and had forced her to bring along her voodoo cards, desperate for some sort of answer or not to feel some invisible forces in the world were against me every time I even turned the ignition in my car. But she smiled as she read them, and told me I should keep the car. I don't know what voodoo gods she pulled, but they had something to do with the universe showing me love. I may have just been wanting to find meaning in some cards, but I realized then how each time my car put me in the shitter, one or more of my friends had showed they care about me by taking me to get gas at 10 at night, bringing me snacks to help prevent a blood-sugar emergency, or sending consoling texts. I smiled big the next time I turned the ignition, knowing something, maybe my car, is showing me I am loved.

Do The Waddle

Rearranged apartment and mind. Once your confidence breaks down, it's dangerous but amazing how you forget that you're allowed to dance how you want to, write candidly, and know what you're talking about with a professor. And now, it's like I'm a toddler who just learned how to waddle again. I may be too protective of said re-found waddling, but hey, it's better than ever crawling again.

Y Nada Mas

I'm back. For real this time. I'm not sure what happened to me the last two years or so, but I'm finally cutting through that shit. It's all about loving yourself enough to own your life and not give it to anyone else. "Walk tall, kick ass, learn Arabic."

Just a Second

Kidney infection, flat tire, and poor self-esteem. It aint that bad. But how can you take all your clothes off in front of a crowd, sit at a bar ass-naked and still feel like nobody wants to do you or thinks you're cool? Easy.

Fuck all ya'll. I'm sick of worrying bout you.

How do I feel about it... little slimey and out of character. Not very "sweet annika" but a departure from that name may be good. The beauty of life is that you can reinvent yourself with every diappointment, heart-failure, and sideswipe. And you can always reinvent yourself back. Well almost always.

I want to invent more of myself I know is there. That self that's got that swagg, and can lean on it. And the catchphrase is "honey badger don't give a shit."

Week One

PMS and Pinesol

Ok, so, the last 3 days have wrought a turn for the worser. A new dog is fun to walk, but not fun to pinesol and anxiate about.

And what did I say on Friday? Seems my ovaries, or perhaps some sort of breakup cycle erased 2/3 of that. Well, not erased, let's say cloaked.

My thing: at first I am better but then she gets better. In my mind of course, because how does that really change. I haven't even seen her to know that she is better, or worse. Though talking to her might help me see the worse part. That was mean. I take it back a little. Because I do miss .. her, or when she allowed me to break shit down, or something.

I know that I am still supposed to be strong and a he-woman and taking back my days n such, but I need a few more pep talks and maybe one less ovary.

For now I will say that I rock, even though I'm uncertain. But at least I have the nuts to admit the latter. There are some who don't.

Ah Feck But Not Quite At All

So this turn around I'm having weird remembrances of a past beginning. Meaning I'm finally getting to back to feeling who I used to feel. And I'm not reaching to be able to say that. It's just happening, on its own. My brain is doing it for me somehow. How can this be so different than the last 2 times. I could be an old pro by now, or maybe I'm finally just succumbing to that fact that I both don't matter and matter a lot.

Give Me Mine, Valentine

I've gone from making happy to wanting to be made happy and I'm reversing. The Beatles sang "All you need is love" with, I think, an implied [to give] before "is." Because if you tell someone that all you need is love, all that you think you need isn't likely in sync with all they're willing or able to give you. And the things they do give you fall by the wayside as nothing of note. The only thing one can do is give love and hope for the best. And as long as the other can take it and not treat you badly for it, you're good, I think.

Changing notes, this city's dredge is a chokehold when I came from sidewalks filled with people going somewhere. However, the bar aint set too high, which gives you more leeway to sit at bars, waste a day, and go out to lunch.

Blips of A Few Days

My sister's husband forebade her to get a tattoo in New Orleans. She told me she wanted one on her asshole so she could show it to him at oportune times.

She wasn't drinking because they're trying for a kid. She never drank much anyway. She, sitting next to my brother, had the biggest glow on her face when I was on stage, smiling back at them as I detangled from my umbilical cord.

My brother watched a motions hearing with rapt attention, shushing me when I tried to whisper wise words of explanation to him. He made some observations that floored me and reminded me that he's not 8 anymore. He said maybe he should be an attorney. I'm hanging on that.

Molly sat on the wrap-around porch with them talking about babies and childhood until late at night. She told me how beautiful they were. Wish she'd listen better when I tell her she's beautiful and in many ways my dream come true. I know it. and that's why I have my work cut out for working on myself, I learned again this weekend.

Social Network was unremarkable. Except that it made me want to be more remarkable. Or more remarkable than this town suggests I be.

No Cosmic Lover Pre-assigned

Ariel has been having difficulties with a man she doesn't think is her "soulmate."

While sitting with her on her couch last night trying to sip rum and swaying to Hedwig, we both realized that we won't ever find our soulmates, because there are none to be found. And love ... or the definition of it we're limited to... don't mean shit.

Got that out of the way.

Now on to something that's the truth. No more wispering words of devotion of over a sangria buzz without knowing really what the hell they mean. No more waiting with saucer eyes for that cosmic pop.

What's out there, and what we can all look forward to if we open our eyes, is first becoming our own soulmates, and then possibly finding someone who is good, but definitely not "meant" for us.

And when I find that person, I'll do them the honor of not telling them I love them, because cliche is the worst offense.

Beginning to Re-See the Light

I had something when I moved to this weird bowl of swamp and circumstances. I had the important/the real things in life on a pedestal and the other shit somewhere below it looking up.

Recently found the pedestal again, now looking for stuff to put on it.

I Am My Own Badman

The day after Mardi Gras brought one significant event:

My friend Marissa posted the following on her wall:

"Versus parading and drinking Ive decided to spend a day with my dad in the yard..some may call that lame but I call it father/daughter time nothing like it."


Mardi Gras felt off again this year, albeit for different, less dramatic reasons than last. I was doing everything my friends were: drinking starting at 9 in the morning, getting into an elaborate costume with a witty slant to it, trying to make contact with every acquaintance who might be in the area, smoking pot on the sidewalk, throwing rainbow beads from the balconies of gay bars.

But when I got home I laid in my shower in confusion and relief wondering why I wasn’t smiling.

I stumbled my dazed body to my computer this morning to see what crazy things my other friends had done and saw Marissa hung out with her father.

Because she wanted to.

And there’s the key.

Doing the things you think most people do for a good time rarely leads to your own good time. The real fun lies in having the courage to do exactly what you want and not let the vapid majority diminish the value in that.

Thank you, South America

"Nobody can take away what you've danced."

She Looked Like She Didn't Care

At any moment you have a choice to let a train of thought drag you into self-loathing and your next therapist appointment, or you can just let it go.

This weekend, thank god I chose letting go.

The urge to kick someone or nail yourself to a cross will still be there, but there's a sort of wonderful and perverse satisfaction from thinking about what a bad bitch you are when some force is trying to convince you otherwise.

So bring it on, bitches; I'll just smile and let it slide.

9 Below Zero

Today is one of those days, when your brakes don't work, you're sleep deprived, and you learn and then dramatically try to accept your interpersonal relationships.

It's hard to recover from this shit sometimes, but I'm just betting on the fact that I'll have a way of bouncing back.

And it's easy to forget what doesn't matter so much in life ... and hard to think that maybe now it does.

..... You're Not Supposed to Tell a Lie

On my rug face-up, fisting a cocktail and Mr. Williamson is on the turntable.

"Going Down Slow..."

Good way to fake turning the world off and out.

You can never really do it for real though. That's the bitch and the beauty of life.

Drinking Water and Keepin it Real

Stuck in a Queens apartment intimidated by the cold is a perfect time to map out what ways I messed up in the last few months and concoct some hopeful fixes. Self-loathing is tempting, but that's not what the new year is about.

It's about losing weight, taking classes, flushing your cigarettes, eating less Ramen Noodles.

Since none of these are on my radar, I'm choosing instead to drink more water, learn to do a split, and stop that familiar victim babble.

As it stands I have two looseleaf pages of illegible brain babble in partial ven-diagram style.

But I have a tall glass of water and I'm feeling optimistic.

We All Get It In the End

Saw a drag queen named Justin Bond do a midnight show at the Always Lounge last night.

Best thing I've seen in a long time.

I was afraid to sit up front, because I was expecting a bitchy schtick, where she might insult my footwear. And the, you know, it's on, bitch.

But Bond was like someone's chain-smoking, ex-starlet aunt who had a wisdom that ran deep from pain and too much experience - and I swear it wasn't my gin that made me want to lunge at her and ask for redemption.

The message from the songs she belted out at my noggin was, I'm alright, and so is everyone, because:

"We all get it in the end"

What she was singing about probably has more to do with anal sex than karma, but what it meant to me at the moment was:

No matter how "good" we try to be, we all fuck up, and we all deserve to "get it" in the end. Some actually do get it, and some of us bastards don't.

While I was really hoping I don't get mine, I felt a closeness to everyone in that room that night, swaying along to those words, knowing I deserve to "get it" as much as that dude next to me.

It's not that I want to be a crappy person, it's just refreshing to acknowledge that we've all been there, and we'll all continue to go there, but we don't have to be saints to keep moving forward and upward ... just human.

Where Were We..

Tonight was the first night dancing on my table in my underwear made me happy again.

Very 90's romantic comedy, but I get my kicks where I can find em.