Author Archives: clearlii

Low Cut

Comets

Certainly, you can imagine that souls have no real shape or form. They could be rounded and plush like clouds, or faceted and compact like gems. Maybe they are completely transparent, save for a single point of light. Perhaps it depends on the person they came from, or the next person they will be.

So it isn’t impossible to believe they could stretch for miles. If not all, then maybe parts of them reach out above and below. Long tails like comets, projecting behind them, leaving a path that alters gravity on some small scale. A sighting or a special event sought out in the night sky.

What if that happens while you’re still alive, and your soul is still inside you? Small parts of you, invisible to the eye, reach out without you knowing? To all the wants and desires you never talk about, the dreams you never attained. The people you never see anymore. The loves you can’t get over.

Each silent, auxiliary piece of us would still be us. The most concentrated version of us. With its own whorled structure, like a fingerprint. Its own level of warmth as it passes. A signature scent that wafts in its wake. A custom sound, too, the same way Tesla owners choose a backup warning as a personality trait.

And also, our weaknesses? An inability to calm oneself, a shameful compulsion for self-soothing. Incredible, all-consuming lust that blots out all other brain activity. Insecurity that wraps around the throat like a cold, dead hand. A restlessness that rivals even the most haunted of ghosts.

Your soul is showing, then, like a slip peeking out. It’s completely betraying your best efforts to be cool. But it’s also finding the other souls; the ones who are the same temperature, color, taste. Entangling tails as they sniff each other, get in to the real parts.

And when they do — get all wrapped up like that — there’s no undoing it. It would be easier to untangle a million fine strands of gold chains and pendants.

That’s why it’s so hard to forget them.

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Basic Cotton

Facade

Which version of me do people see?

I ask myself first thing in the morning, all the fluid still puffing my face. My hair an absolute catastrophe of errant waves and wisps. It seems almost disingenuous that it isn’t this one.

And when I’m in the gym, is it this one? Gyrating (some would say, uselessly?) on the elliptical. Pumping my shoulders and arms with weights and pushups. Panting through burpies. Sweat and salt, and not in the good ways.

Or while vacuuming the office, and I’m finding a dead moth folded on the floor, in a corner. Picking it up delicately by the wing, so as not to disturb it, and tossing it over the balcony as a proper burial. Maybe her?

After a shower, is it the me who is slathering myself in age defying oils and moisturizers. Spritzing on perfume. Matching my bra to my panties. Wondering if they are too worn yet, too passe. Does underwear actually go out of style?

Walking out the door, locking it behind me. Which version of me is my outfit? Straight to work me. Polished for dinner me. Playful and creative me, regardless of the destination. Do my sunglasses nail it into place? I might have to switch them out.

Coming home, me. Exhausted and showering, slipping on the least amount of clothing, melting slowly into bed. Or me, tipsy and sexy, sending you videos as I undress. Remembering what it was like to have you in my bed. In my kitchen. In my life.

Or is it this me, quietly drinking tea, looking out the window at all the cars passing by. Normal people, normal schedules. Imagining that they all have families, purpose, radios on in the background. Futures spread out grandly before them, like wide open plains or the autobahn. Any number of possibilities. All the money in the world. Passing hands, theirs for the taking. Muscles and blood and bones under skin, behind faces, powered by pure will.

That was also me.

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Basic Cotton

Bodies

I’ve been observing bodies more lately. Out of pure interest for the shapes, sizes, weight distribution.

Particularly the latter, because it is so personal, and seems to be so affected by a variety of things. Activity, and lack thereof. Resting positions. Probably even water and food. Definitely hormones and emotions (are they the same?). When they talk about wearing in public what you eat in private, these factors should be bundled in as well. What if, instead of cottage cheese thighs, it was sad girl hips? Love handles should be lonely grips?

Some bodies, alternately, are so incredibly perfect. Slender. Compact. Compartmentalized. Fluid lines tracing parts flowing into connective tissue and structural beams. If you watch them move, it is clear how everything interacts and works together. It’s hard to imagine that everyone has the exact same framework, because it’s less obvious, less elegant, under clouds of fat and sallow skin, sun spots and aging. Is there a person in there? A brain? A heart? A spine? Do they still think thoughts like I do? Or is it all a mush of early mornings, vapid afternoons, early bedtimes, and nostalgic food.

Shadows are deceiving this way. They settle into wrinkles and accent curves. All encompassing shadows can actually conceal, and trick, while their counterparts highlight and accentuate. Harsh light ushers in harsh reality. Flaws become less exception and more impression. They become what define you. Reveal you. There are few places to hide in the light.

Which is maybe why light is associated with honesty, purity, good. There are no secrets, everything is open for all to see. No one likes a hidden agenda, an unpleasant surprise. Deception is never a green flag, and no one enjoys being punked, even if it gets you on tv. The earlier you see someone’s flaws, the more easily you can accept them, and move on. And frankly forget them.

Suddenly it seems like a good thing?

The bingo wings. Glazed donut skin. Huge fake melons. Pea brains. 

Ok, maybe the last one takes a turn.

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Low Cut

Bad

It doesn’t happen all the time, but there are mornings where I wake up craving a cigarette.

Not the mouth feel, or the taste. Not the smoke coating my lungs and staining my fingertips. Just the practice of it, the art. Stretching out in the morning air in my pajamas, coffee in hand, smoking.

My body hates it now. It’s tolerated it the last few years. Before that it was scarcely a blip. I could breathe it out of my body, and my blood. It’s barely ever registered as a habit. Just purely as a love for the sport.

Though I am less self-aware overall as I age, this is one thing I am conversely self conscious of. Who would get near me, breathe me in, touch me, kiss me? if I smoked. It becomes a social delineator. Once it’s done I can’t leave the house.

And I don’t want to socialize with other smokers. Especially not ones my age. These are not my people.

Which begs the question, who am I? To be so singularly acceptable in this private transgression. To crave a sexy cigarette, without anyone ever seeing it. To put my body through yet another vice, and more toxins it can’t afford. What the fuck am I actually doing?

Maybe it isn’t just the cigarettes.

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Laundry Day

Title Story

I love to sit and think about baby names. Why do I do this?

I’m not married, or any in danger of becoming pregnant. I’m not even being courted as a girlfriend. I am as single as it gets, and closer to menopause than puberty. And, yet, I love to imagine what I would make with a baby name.

It’s usually a baby girl. I like girl names. They have personalities with subtle differences. Not like boy names, that fall into coarser categories. Troy, Chase, Dominic — probably athletes with a drive to succeed. Evan, Warren, Sol — more like poets in beatnik coffee shops. Michael, William, John — no frills types of guys.

But the difference between Helen and Helena, Elle and Ellen, Vicki and Victoria — these feel like worlds to me. The difference between black leather and black patent leather.

I string the names together — first, middle, and my last name — and imagine classmates calling them out. Nicknaming them. Forming them into their own interpretations of my original work of art. Sampling and revising and making more modern, this vernacular image I nailed down so perfectly.

And then I see that little girl ebbing and flowing with those changes. Coming into the world, pristinely polished with her given name. Then trying it on with her clothes, her makeup, her interests and thoughts. Seeing if they match. Making it her own.

And me, always wondering if I got it right.

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Low Cut

The Night We Met, Again

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I meet you in a bar. Of course I do. It’s dimly lit and warm, with wine. You’ve come down here to me, and you are sitting in a barseat with an expectant drink, your back to the door when I walk in. You have on a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and casual boots. You’re fidgeting with your straw, or the condensation on the glass.

I am wearing something cool and comfortable. A pretty blouse with jeans, boots, and my favorite jacket. I did my hair so that I wouldn’t play with it too much. Right now it’s pretty and long. It curls just enough and casually catches the light. Soft jewelry and makeup. I feel calm and ready.

I walk up to you and touch your shoulder. You look back at me with a look that is half nervous, half disinterested. There’s a warm sea between us of uncertainty and long-awaited guesses. We aren’t sure whether or not to hug, so we only sort of do. That weird shoulder thing you do with coworkers at Christmas parties. We are all business at this point.

But we both smile, and search each other’s faces, briefly. Trying to read one another’s first impression. I remind myself to just be myself. I’m not sure what’s running through your head.

I talk to break the ice. Ask you simple things, and order a glass of wine. Your drink is almost done, so you order another. When you look away, I steal glances at your skin. Search for familiar marks, catch glimpses of memories. You ask me questions in kind, and I respond. It’s not an easy rapport, as much as we’d like it to be.

My hand reflexively wants to touch you. Feel you out for anything. A dormant spark. Any sort of remembrance.

Your last girlfriend is heavy in the back of my mind. I can’t help but wonder if she is in the back of yours, too. I feel compelled to tell you that I’ve searched for you in the past. That I’ve seen bits of your life, and have pieced together the parts you aren’t telling me. I have so many questions about things that are none of my business. They get in the way of me enjoying this moment, and you.

So I don’t hold back. There’s no reason to. I ask everything in case it helps to shatter this barrier. You aren’t sure you should tell me, but the alcohol is a good lubricant. It begins to pour out. I feel like a therapist’s pillow, just for a moment.

I tell you about my in-betweens. Work. New York. Men. Jenn and the babies and the now. Me flying and writing and shifting gears, hopefully for the last time. You are quiet, and either thinking about what I’m saying, or hoping this will all be over soon.

We switch to lighter topics. You and your simple dreams. Me and my complicated ones. The things that could be but aren’t for sure yet. You probably want to sleep with me, but aren’t interested in anything more. At least, that’s the conclusion I come to. But that’s what I thought the first time I met you, too.

And here we are. In some sort of odd homecoming. You trying to figure out why we are here. And me waiting for the answer.

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Lacy Things

Location

I have an imaginary life. Everyone does, right? A little place I go to in my imaginary future, where I’ve figured out the grimy and annoying details, smoothed them over, and put them in their place. Where I can step forward into a light that looks like artful monochromatic photos of models in model homes overlooking Manhattan through picture windows. So I can move the way I want, dress the way I want, talk the way I want, be the way I want, everyday.

Some parts of that life are so clear it almost feels close enough to touch. Between this life and that life I can see webbed strands of connection, like the gelatinous bridges of the mind. Cartoon sparks run back and forth across them, feeding one into the other. Somehow I have images of that self and that space as if they were memories; a parallel existence I’ve lived through a double-sided mirror.

In an effort to piece that reality together within this one, I have mood boards and collages of items and people and tastes that seem accurate. Ok, really, it’s Pinterest, but it’s no less real, no less saturated with desire. And the elements are no more clearly defined than my just knowing what feels right. Each piece completes a puzzle picture that, like real life, continues to evolve over time. But with a glow, an undercurrent, that is cohesive and always me.

What do we do with these lives that are such a pleasure to construct, but have absolutely no value in the real world? Could they be actual goals, or is that too naive? Maybe reflections, premonitions, overactive idealizations? What do they say about us, in their complexity and investment of real world time. Do they make us seem hopeful or pathetic? Are they something to be shared, and do we need to explain them? Would we even know how to begin if we did?

I would like to have that life, despite my few complaints in this one. I would like that body, that broodingly beautiful gaze, that wardrobe, that gaussian filter on normal afternoon light. I’d like to put it on like a silk shirt over an unlined bra, slipping over me and hiding very little. Or grip it like brass railing along a marble staircase, to steady myself as I click down in stilettos. I’d like to tell it a joke, make it laugh, and find that I’m popular and engaging to the glamorous crowd around me. Say, ‘money is no object,’ and pop champagne, my leg languid through the slit in my dress. Then wake up next to it in the morning, amid a swath of white sheets and huge pillows, with tea and the New York Times.

And nowhere else to be.

 

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Laundry Day

Being Nice

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I flew home today from Vegas, and a friend was on the same flight. We walked through the concourse to our terminal, after a standard bout of frustration with some especially barky security screening personnel. As we walked alongside and past people of varying speeds, he made a comment about hating people. There is so much dissonance between us. So much grappling for resources with perceived limitations. So many opportunities for human connection that instead become rife with miscommunication and misplaced anger.

Not wanting him to stew in hatred, I tried to argue most people were interesting and good. That society was still capable of getting along and maybe even liking each other. Then we asked a lone female in headphones, sitting in the center of a row of seats, whether or not we could join her. She sneered without even trying to hide it, moved over, and never said a word when we thanked her.

I didn’t know people actually sneered at nice, normal strangers.

This whole interaction was foreshadowed by a brunch conversation from earlier that morning. He argued that society was ruining men by discouraging them from the masculine drive to pursue challenges and conquests. In so doing, they lost their biological predisposition of defending against foes. Whether that took the form of men protecting their resources, women, or even just their pride, men who no longer cared to enter into battle over something, no longer really cared about life.

Men now find their outlet for this inclination in first player video games and overt violence over skewed principles. In the most extreme examples, these are red pill incels whose hero figures slay the women and hot “Chads” who impeded their ability to get laid. As part of a lighter fare, they are the dudes who fail to launch from their parents’ basement and are eventually featured in a documentary about guys in relationships with sex dolls. In either case, these are not one offs. In fact, I would guess they are becoming the rule more than the exception.

Men who don’t care about life don’t care about the mates, resources, and goals they would naturally desire and protect. As a result, a vacuum occurs and societal balance is shaken. Men–and women–begin to behave in ways that seem to defy logical norms.

Seth Godin made a name for himself when he wrote the book, Tribes, a 2008 tome about social and professional leadership. Godin was certainly onto something, but he chose to focus on the whipped cream and rainbows version of this concept. The dark side of his theory is how easily one can use it to appeal to darker minds. Even the Klu Klux Klan has a leader.

Tribes are everywhere. They are Taylor Swift’s stans, Starbucks devotees, and even the part of society who crowds around the luggage carousel before the belt turns on. Tribes bond around a perceived truth, whether or not it can be objectively substantiated. They create ideals around virtues, goals, and enemies.

But from an evolutionary perspective, tribes were meant as sort of a macro-scale Darwinian marker. The tribes that bested one another were able to expand and spread their social seeds. Today’s good-hearted tribes are more concerned with Instagram likes than biological fitness and world domination. They essentially retard the social, physical, and psychological progress of mankind by dumping it into the virtual, and neglectful, Bio-Dome of the internet.

What this means is that technological and ideological progress actually have the potential to destroy its makers if they lose site of why they made it in the first place. When we create advantageous systems and then use them to escape our responsibilities, rather than further our progress, we make ourselves vulnerable to the influences of tribes—good or evil—that know how to put them to work.

In short, everything can be weaponized, whether through intent or neglect.

So be nice to strangers.

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Laundry Day

Fit to Print

I would never say I’m a purist, but part of me favors the decadence of simplicity. Freshly painted white walls, a solid gold band, 100% Kona coffee — all examples of how concision and focus make a simple product superb.

When I was very young, my Dad gave me a typewriter he had acquired as a hand-me-down from our babysitter’s family. It was an old, very basic machine; just a ribbon and keys. Heavy metals, stiff levers, and black-blue ink. Initially, I spent as much time typing on it as I did untangling the long arms of letters when they crossed. Not only that, but the ink was not erasable, so every click had to be intentional and true. Mistakes were annoying and unsightly to correct, so I learned to type gracefully and with a purpose.

As an older child, I was introduced to electronic typewriters (word processors, in some circles), which amazed me for a lot of reasons. First, they were much better at feeding paper, the whole key-tangling thing was never an issue, and many of them came with an especially exciting feature: the backspace key.

Backspace was a point of contention for me, though. Frankly, it felt like cheating. Any pride I had ever taken in my carefully coordinated typing was suddenly moot. Errors were incidental rather than ruinous. One could type with reckless abandon and never worry. In one easy tap, backspace could lift its eraser-y ribbon and stamp over the mistake, leaving only its ghost on the page.

My love for typing suddenly felt cheapened, and even a little hollow. What I had once considered a craft was now just a rote means to an end. Versus the heavy metallic slap of the typewriter, the diminished clicks of plastic buttons seemed to look up at me and say, “What’s the big deal?”

Oddly enough, I was reminded of this early disappointment today when a girlfriend of mine texted me in a flurry. She had gone out with a guy a couple times and given him her home address, right before he flipped a switch and turned into a supercreep. She started Googling him to confirm his identity, and found that he didn’t seem to exist online. This only served to freak her out more, and she was seeking advice on what to do next, all the while admitting that she had been too quick with her trust.

It made me wonder if the typewriter gives us all a big hint about life: that the best course of action for a desired outcome is slow, measured, and practiced, and adding features to hurry through life just waters down the simply sublime. Mike Powell addressed this beautifully in his New York Times Magazine article, Washing Dishes, where he debates the purchase of a dishwasher for his family over losing the lovely, normal ritual that washing dishes can be. In it, he recalls the solace that activity had been on occasion, and reflects on how mechanizing the mundane further disconnects us from the hidden gifts of ordinary life.

Life doesn’t have a backspace key, and even if it did, it wouldn’t completely erase our errors. Rather, it would just cover them up and move on like they never happened. The mistakes are obviously still there, though: butting curves up against lines; creating unintelligible symbols out of conflicting letters; subjugating the text you meant to write, but rushed through the first time.

Silently reminding you, with each finger stroke, that nothing you do is inconsequential.

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Here, Kitty

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In January I adopted a cat. My last cat and I had a good run, right up until the moment she ran out the front door to meet up with her new cat boyfriend. I started to miss the easy company and tuna-can-licking perks, though. So down to the Humane Society I went to pick up my next shedding loaf of quirks.

She was a former street cat missing half her right ear, and she was just aloof enough. I gathered her paperwork, brought her home, and locked her in the bathroom as advised. She would spend a couple days hiding, get used to my apartment, and then would we be besties. Or so they said.

Instead, new kitty hid in the bathroom for weeks, in a tiny little corner behind my laundry basket. She was like a lazy bathroom attendant who eventually learned that, when sitting on the toilet, I was a captive audience who would pet her on demand.

I started to worry I had accidentally adopted a defective animal, and began doing things to force kitty out into the world (aka, my one bedroom apartment). Naturally, forcing it only made things worse, and her trust in me slowly began to degrade. When bribing, overfeeding, and smothering tapered off in effectiveness, I sort of resigned myself to having a creepy little toilet troll as a pet, and just decided to leave her alone for a bit.

I was reminded of this beginning today when I read Madison Taylor’s blog post, Timing Can Be Everything. In it, she talks about the dissonance between human-imposed timelines and natural ones, and our tendency to either want time to slow down or speed up. Rather, she advised, we are better served by believing that timing is always at a purposeful pace, and life is unfolding as it should.

Taylor isn’t the first to point this out. It’s in Deepak Chopra’s Seven Spiritual Laws of Success as part of The Law of Least Effort: I will not struggle against the whole universe by struggling against this moment. And Gabrielle Bernstein repeatedly states that, “obstacles are detours in the right direction,” throughout her book, The Universe Has Your Back. In other words, lots of smart, zen people believe that one of the secrets to life is to simply chill the fuck out about your five year plan.

Kitty certainly embodied this philosophy, because she finally emerged from the bathroom when she was good and ready. Not only that, but she has since blossomed from a mangy street mongrel into an adorable lap cat.

All I had to do was just let her be.

 

 

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