I'm So Susceptible to Lights

Things that happened:

I totally forgot about how much I loved the Starlight Mints. So that's happening for at least the next 2 days.

We did this thing for Pechakucha where we got up in front of like 500 people and told 15 second stories that were kinda melancholy all around frankly, and then did shots from the stories. I totally didn't want to get wasted, even though we basically were doing six shots each in 6 minutes, cause I didn't want to embarrass the friend I was with by being my drunk self. So I only had an Irish coffee to calm my nerves beforehand, and then a beer when we got there, but also maybe some cold medicine, non-drowsy, cause I was terrified of breaking into a barking coughing fit in front of everyone. Well, that may have been my undoing. But it totally made me talk fast enough. And talk a lot. Perhaps..maybe...too much? Oh, no such thing.

No, it's a thing.

Shots done: Southern comfort, tequila, pineapple and vodka, vodka, another vodka. In combination with the experience of Vodka night, I'm starting to think straight vodka is my gin.

We went all scurrying into the Higbees building, which is very white and office like when you first walk in, but then the elevators betray it, darling stamps of the industrialists, that totally knew sexy elevators. Up to the 10th floor, where the ceiling curled around like a movie set, and I twitched my nose and bounced my feet a lot while waiting. It's nerve wracking you know, it's shattering to sit there waiting to take your turn. Especially when you can't be drunk beforehand, which is the way I got through it last time. This time I tried wearing sequins instead. I mean, it's not quite the same. But random strangers will always tell you how shiny you are, like you've forgotten, and so it's a cheap way to get an ego boost. Using strangers as medication.

I also forgot how much I liked Cake. Jesus. It's totally going to be one of those weeks.

So we got up there and did our thing. So this thing I do when I have to be in front of people, I sort of zone out and I'm in some sort of time bubble where the audience is frozen and it doesn't matter what I say, it's just bouncing off of them in icy waves and falling to the floor crackling. Anyway, it seems to have gone well. People were awfully nice afterwards. We were leaving, and somebody in their car driving by shouted "Good job!" and that was so cool, to be jaywalking across a dark cold city street, dodging cars in a shiny dress with two cute boys next to you, and to get yelled at like that from a car. Best moment. Reason #356 to wear sequins, when you do something, people will remember you and be able to spot you cause you were wearing That Dress. Probably that should be the way you pick all dresses, the ones you keep. Only ones that help people pick you out from a crowd.

After our thing, it was a break, and I had to run outside to stick a cigarette in my mouth and try to erase the taste of Southern Comfort/tequila/water of the Polish wanderer. Like blood. More nice people saying hi, and Public Square being it's well lit abandoned blue dark self.

When we went back upstairs, I could barely stay still, I was drunk and wired from the cold stuff and the nerves and so James and I went wandering around into rooms. Everything on the tenth floor was weird hallways, bathrooms with rows of vanities, freight elevators and old christmas decorations stored in between concrete pillars. James posed with a cigarette and pulled off dashing. Eventually I came back, unwillingly, and tapped my fingers nervously watching the rest of the presenters. I'm pretty sure I really liked at least two of them, but frankly, I was floating off somewhere ADD, until afterwards someone gave me dice and then there was the same embarrassing thing I did last time where people kept coming to talk to me and I was all like La La La I'm incapable of listening to you, or not being drunk but I really love that you're here! And really maybe if you see me do something in public and you ever really wanted to watch me being stupid, afterglow is the best time for that.

Later I met a girl who had one of those faces that makes you happy, makes you smile somehow regardless, and man, I wish I could be a ray of sunshine. But it's hard to pull off. You don't want to give someone sunburn, right? And some of us, we just aren't those people. But hey, we got some other things going on at least. Like a burning desire to listen to indie pop music from 2003 all the time, and wear shiny inappropriate things, and take a million pictures of walls.

February Made Me Shiver

Rule #205: No matter how flash frozen and thawed and frozen again you feel, like an abused saran wrapped piece of meat with ice burn, forgotten in the depths of the Great Lakes freezer, you can always make yourself feel better by finding the food coloring.

Note: You must never be afraid to kneel in the snow. While you sit there kneeling in the ice, and feel the wet soak through your jeans, and the blood rush to your cheeks and the tip of your nose, remember also to feel the sun burning through the rest of you. Focus not just on one sensation, but on all the sensations, and it will be a quality package deal. You will find you have to move positions because of the sun first, because it's just too hot on the back of your calf. That's awesome by the way, to feel something burning again. That feels like someday there will be the beach again, and car trips with the windows down, and porch hang outs. That feels like some of your cells might still be alive.

Later in the day Marty mentioned how lucky we were there was no sound in space, because otherwise the noise of the constant ginormous 100 million nuclear explosions from the sun would be huge and loud and all around us all the time, growling like a huge African cat outside our window.

Spray bottles are your friend. Stencils are an essential skill. Mix your colors as bright as you can make them. Next time, we will have more tools, funnels and basters and maybe freeze the surface hard the night before and paint on the ice like stained glass.



Cause we are just 12 yr olds really, at that awkward time when you still make your dolls talk out loud, but also have to write papers for school on the constitution, and maybe start to have to try and understand algebra too. There is a part of your brain stuck there, and that's the place I want to live on all my off days. When algebra still seemed magical and murmured, when maybe you also hated it, but hate was an uncomplicated thought that didn't last long in your little head, and you didn't think about your boots being ruined or your mascara running when you went outside on the first sunny day in a month. A sunny day is too precious to waste wondering what the neighbors think of two middle aged women in their backyard painting snow.

Later we drove to Akron to see the babies. You could see that everyone was feeling the sunshine. The cars were moving faster, and people were talking more, faster, happier, like they had to talk just to hear the sound come out of their mouths unmuffled by snow.

The hospital was full of giant rocking horses and mechanical mousetrap sculptures. And yes, it's the childrens museum, I mean, hospital, but all this art was created by adults, for adults, and that's reassuring, that the best way to comfort stressed out parents is still surrounding them with bright colors and fish murals and towering toys. I like the fact that part of our brain is always there to fall back on for warmth.


The babies were all up and kicking and stretching when we got there, Rebecca in her rocking chair playing Madonna with Addy, and Evie fussing her space pod, stretching her little toes like she was swimming. It was quiet in the ward, and we had to whisper, while the nurses gathered in little groups talking and eating red foil wrapped candies.

Confession: I want to paint the babies with food coloring too.

Later, after the baby break, there were hot chocolate drinks, the kind with alcohol, slipping and laughing and not falling but sliding over sidewalks, and Pechakucha, which was packed, overpacked, at capacity. So that you saw people you knew across the room, but there was no possible way to get to them, unless you played the centipede game. Shoulder up, shift, smile bashedly at men with beers who may move to let you through. Like dancing really. And someday, here's the thing, Evie and Addy will be those well clad shoes below, all grown up, sitting through presentations about community development, and then driving to Cleveland Heights to birthday parties, picking out discounted wines and trying not to fall on the ice because they wore the cute boots with no tread. And by that time, I will be the crazy gray haired woman who paints her backyard, and they will probably think I am lame, until someday they are 30 themselves and sick of being stuck inside.

Get To Know Your Cleveland Monsters

I know I sound like a fourteen year old reading a book report, but...I am also wearing a tiara.


Also, let me just mention, for the record, way more of you people have prom queen complexes than I thought.

Sex, Fear, Boxing, Tequila, Polish Food

A couple of things coming up this week:

This Tuesday, my sister is hosting a book discussion at Visible Voices. Even if you haven't read Sex At Dawn: The Prehistoric Origin of Modern Sexuality, the title alone should tell you that the conversation will be more interesting than staying home and watching NCIS reruns. It starts at 6:30pm, any and all welcome. I can't make it cause I work till 10, but Carrie is way prettier and more engaging than me, so you'll like her. Which is the opposite of a perfect segue to this....

This Friday, the 19th, come out to see me present Excerpt from the Compendium of Cleveland Monsters at PechaKucha Volume 10. The event is free, starts at 7pm, and there will be a cash bar, so you can use me as an excuse to get drunk in the Old Arcade in a more civil way than just walking around on a Tuesday afternoon with a brown paper bag. I am, frankly, terrified about doing this, so while I know some of you will be singing opera or on your way to Spain (how do I know you people again?), everyone else should show up. I don't know what my place is in the schedule, but the other presenters will probably be tops as well. As in they will all be better than me and I will look like a babbling fool. Ugh. I'm so nervous about this, I've actually crossed the line into "fuck it", then back into "oh my god", then back into "no one will miss me if I run away to Michigan and never come back." So you know, it will be what it will be and I can only do my best, and at the very least I already know what I'm going to wear so at least I won't be freaking out about that the day of.

Saturday night Colleen and I went to Halycon Lodge to see a boxing match. The fighters were all teenage boys, the highest weight was 154, and all over the auditorium were their nervous mothers, desperately chewing gum, or groups of young people in matching hoodies with the names of their gyms on them cheering for their fighters. We sat up in the balcony with some friends, and talked about the ethics of watching boys beat each other up. My point is that it's just like a karate demonstration. The New York Time's point is that repeat concussions are bad for you. Amy's point is that roller coasters shake your head around a lot too, so are those bad as well? Colleen knows more about fighting than I do, but I like to look at the guy before he gets in the ring, when he's just standing there on the sidelines waiting and thinking about it. It's like looking at the horses walk by before a race, and you're looking for the one with the sleekest lines and the calmest face.

After the fight, we went to a tequila tasting, which was equal parts education, dance party, dog chasing, scarf eating, keg hoisting, and sweet. The sweet parts came from sitting on steps by myself. Every time you get drunk in such a way that people are going to fall down around you like dominoes, it's best to reapply your lip gloss, find a quiet place, and just sit for a moment feeling innocent. Of course, I don't know what it says about me that I have to actively find my moments of innocence, but at least I know how to.

The next morning, the survivors (there were only 4 of us, it was carnage, there were bodies everywhere, and then they kept getting up and walking around, and finally we had to just tie them up in sleeping bags and run) went to the Polish American Cultural Center for lunch, where 10 dollars buys you mashed potatoes and sauerkraut soup and chicken thighs in gravy, also old Polish men who want to kiss you just because you are half Polish, and later you hear their life's story from their wives, which involves secret train trips and starvation camps and scrimped trips to America, and you think to yourself that men like that have earned every right to kiss young girls for no real reason.

After eating, and filling in some memory gaps from the night before, we got a tour around the museum, which is in process of being coagulated from donations and inheritances and antique finds. My favorite sections were the Solidarnosc posters and pins and flyers. It made me think of that t-shirt Carrie had for a while in high school, and the pin I used to keep in my jewelry drawer. Stylistically exactly what little liberal raised blue blooded girls with birthing hips and political aspirations like.

Also, all the little painted wooden eggs Mom used to have, and the little dolls. And I wonder why the color scheme of Polish Americans is the same in every church and bingo hall, the pale pale pink, burgundy, white flowers, occasionally a burst of the bright flag red, and white draping things. That's how St. Boniface used to look too, before it became more of a Korean church, when the 3rd generation stockyard workers moved out of the neighborhood, out to Westlake and Brecksville. And that church in Manayunk that Grandma Bert used to take us to, where they still said the mass in Polish, same thing, all sparse and light colored. It's a very different look from the Irish Catholic churches, more reserved. But meeting halls are always meeting halls, no matter what color scheme they have, church, immigrants, or otherwise. Giant metal vats of coffee, and old women with brooches talking, and little bundles of flowers on the table. They have a Wigilia dinner at the Center the weekend before Christmas, so I'll probably try to go with Mom, and then she can tell me stories about Babka, and we can both feel a little guilty for not knowing more, but still pretty grateful we don't have to. Cause the history of Poland is one of a lot of people dying and a lot of people starving and a lot of people leaving.

Did you know almost half the girls in Cleveland are half Irish, half Polish? That is a fact I made up just now.