late 2003, or maybe early 2004, before all the trouble began. another unremarkable night at the bar with my lover. the neighborhood she was living in was gentrifying rapidly, & we were at the last bar within walking distance that wasn’t completely overrun with yuppies just yet. i was an unemployed college student on winter break, no money & nowhere to go but her freezing punk house. luckily, we were crazy in love with each other & she had a good job at the cable company & her housemates were mostly my best friends, so it was all good.
i don’t remember a single thing about the bar. i do remember that we got really drunk, on her dime, and walked home holding hands. maybe we were singing, but probably just talking. i remember having a good conversation with an edge of sadness. & then we saw a huge pile of trash and stopped to pick through it.
christmas had happened really recently, and this particular trash pile had a fake tree that was thrown out fully decorated, as if the people who owned it said, “ehhh, i’m tired of this!” and tossed it right into the trash. i plucked the gleaming metal balls off and began hanging them at various places in my outfit–hat, buttonhole, scarf. and then my lover unwound the bright sparkly hanging from the tree (what is that called? it’s not quite tinsel–i don’t know) and wrapped it around me. we walked home giggling.
when we got home, a. was in the living room on the computer and c. was milling about. i opened the door and yelled, “I’M A CHRISTMAS TREE!” and they got it. completely unquestioningly got it. that was all i wanted. a. said something about how she was glad she had a life where drunk housemates came home dressed like christmas trees, i agreed, and then we all went to bed.
last night i sang “no scrubs” at blue moon karaoke with amanda & amy, and it was really gratifying (even if TLC do repeat themselves over and over again). i love that song. i remember one summer when it was popular, me and eric and kastoory were driving around listening to the radio, and that song was on, and we were by this basketball court where all these hot-but-losery townies played ball, and kastoory randomly leaned out the window (of her best friend’s ride) and hollered “GO TO COLLEGE! DO SOMETHING WITH YOUR LIVES!” just as TLC was warning of the scrubs doing just that. well, probably not yelling “go to college,” but you know. it was a truly great moment of synchronicity, and i felt very happy to be living my life and hanging out with my friends.
everything is kind of in this weird space with me. i found my dream house, like utter dream house, but i’m not sure if i’m going to pass the credit check because i have a bunch of unpaid medical bills from my most recent health scare. but i’m not sure if medical bills infect your credit rating. i feel like i read somewhere that they do not. maybe they do. other than that i’ve been mailing out lots of zines, being anxious and scared about everything, watching good 90’s tv shows (does anyone remember “popular”?) making kale smoothies and the best burritos i’ve ever had (hope in burrito form! and you don’t even have to stand over a hot stove!), etc.
my goals for the summer are 1) stop being embarrassing 2) get rid of my backne, which could conceivably fall under goal #1. i am making good progress on the backne. i don’t know about being embarrassing. i feel really bad and embarrassed pretty much every time i open my mouth, but i keep trying anyway. it doesn’t help that while i was walking to the giant eagle yesterday, a middle-aged woman looked at me and very loudly said, “oooooooooooooookay,” which was kind of funny, but also kind of mean.
my current favorite thing is this slab of plywood on eden way (between 44th & 45th. look for it if you’re in the hood). when i moved in, there was this beautiful drawing on a piece of cloth glued to it. then, a few months later, someone wheatpasted what appeared to be a woodcut print beneath it. then, a few days ago, someone put what looked like a print-out of a graphic design. then, a line drawing of birds. then, a few days later, a tag. it is so spontaneous and beautiful. amanda suggested i put up a poem; i’m thinking of it. pictures to follow, once branden gets his ass back to pittsburgh and helps me pick out a quality digital camera!
so, like, today my eyes are itchy and my wrists are limp. i’m dressed like a cute faggot–not biz cas at all, despite the fact that i’m at work. staying late basking in the air conditioning. i’ve been singing the saddest song to my empty house for dayz. it makes me feel sad and sweet all at once. i’ve made some important life decisions that maybe i will stick with. maybe not. i just want someone to swim in the polluted river with me & someone to spoon with even when it’s unbearably hot. butt curved against hipbone, feeling like puzzle pieces. it’s been so long.
i’ve been thinking about appreciation, about love, about letting people know. today i was reading the guestbook from my old diaryland page (2000-2004, rip) & was confronted with this gem:
i love your voice, when you tell your stories it’s your timber that fills them,and it’s beautiful, and hilarious, and yes, full. You are a story teller, you know. When i come home and hear you talking a smile always creeps up on the corner of my lips, because i know you’re wonderful, and that the day will be so much more worth while because i will be able to share moments of it with you. Know this Ocean Capewell, you are cherished.
from axi nue
6:39 am - Sunday,February 8, 2004
i had totally forgotten that she had ever signed my guestbook–there are a few entries, but this was the best. such a present. & it stings to look at the date & think she’d be dead in less than a year’s time, but back then she was so alive, so smart, so sparkling, so brilliant, and i never told her. i want to tell you, all of you. i am working on figuring out how.
i am at “work” at the TBH, listening to the local alterna-radio station play fuzzily while reading a book of essays by sarah schulman (heart!). “you know you’re right” by nirvana just came on & it reminded me of something weird. six years ago, on long island for the first time in a long time. i went on a job interview & didn’t bring my bike to the train station because it was 95 degrees out & i didn’t want to be sweaty. i took a cab from the train station in mineola to the job interview (which is another funny story but doesn’t fit in with what i’m trying to say here), went to the job interview (proofreading at a local paper), had literally everyone in the office stop what they were doing and stare at me in shocked silence (oh long island. this was during my closet-tranny period). i walked back to mineola & took the train back to syosset. nobody was home to pick me up, so i got into the cab.
cabs in long island are weird—you don’t get one all to yourself unless you pay top $. usually, you are herded in there with up to 5 other strangers and you get driven all over with them. there’s no meter & drivers charge whatever the hell they feel like. that day, the driver was my favorite one–a mid-20’s white guy with long tennis-ball-colored dreads. he was wearing overalls with no shirt & you could see his pierced nipple. some irritating woman was demanding that he drive her first, alone, and then send someone else to pick up the hordes. “fuck no! you want fucking private service, you call a fucking limo! come on, everyone, get in,” and we all herded in, kind of stunned. as we peeled out of the parking lot, he leaned out, gave her the finger, and yelled, “FUCKING YUPPIE!” everyone laughed. then “you know you’re right” came on the radio, and our cab driver got so happy, like this wave of relief visibly spread through his body. “fuck yeah,” he said, turned it up and headbanged. it made me really happy.
i didn’t take cabs for years before that. an old friend of mine, one i was secretly in love with, got raped by a cabbie when we were all 14 or 15 or so. she was coming home drunk from a party. this was after she stopped talking to me, so i heard it thru the grapevine, but it broke my heart, and for years i avoided cabs at all costs. not because i thought i would be raped, but because i couldn’t stand the thought of tipping the man who raped her. i didn’t know anything about him, but it was a small town, a small cab company. i liked tennis-ball-dreads dude because he was too young to have been working 5 years ago. and because he rocked out to nirvana and wouldn’t tolerate rude yuppies. man, i hate those yuppies too.
Filed under: nostalgia
this is one that i never talk about, because i am not quite sure how to articulate it, but it’s something i find myself thinking about every so often.
2003, the beginning. i was just about to fall in love, but i wasn’t there yet. living in NYC at last & full of a delicious loneliness that was hardly painful at all. full of hope & hopelessness all at once. kastoory & i were traveling on the subway from her apt. in williamsburg to visit my kinko’s boy(embarrassing, i know). i had found a pair of vans on the street & on the L train discovered a used condom wrapper inside them & freaked out. kastoory said, “it’s the city [aka land of people not staring at anyone, no matter how bizarre, because they're just too effing jaded or whatever] and people are still staring at you.” we laughed & laughed.
we made the transfer from the L to the 1 at 14th street, through that tunnel that just feels endless, that feels like the hugest barrier to where you wanna go. at the end (or was it the beginning? i forget) of the tunnel, there was a man wearing spraypainted gold robes. he had a violin (was it spraypainted gold too? i forget.) his eyes were closed, and he was waving his violin bow in the air. slowly, and you could tell that whatever music he was conducting in his head was the most beautiful thing ever. we stopped and watched him, completely transfixed. perched on that bow was a parakeet, bobbing a little or stretching its wings when the bow got too unsteady, but otherwise staying right with him. we looked for a string around its little leg or for crucial wing feathers to have been clipped, but there was no such thing. the bird wanted to be there; it was as simple as that.
a little girl stopped & he opened his eyes and they just looked at each other for a few seconds. with a look of pure understanding. it wasn’t romantic, it wasn’t creepy, it was just like they got each other. she was maybe five or six and with her father. he hauled her away, and we could hear her scream, “daddy! no!” all the way down the tunnel. he closed his eyes again and was still. kastoory & i shuffled along, speechless by the extreme magic of that moment. we went to see my kinko’s boy, who wasn’t really mine anyway, and just sat on the subway, trying to say something about it. but what can you say? even re-reading this, i know there’s no way to convey to you how fucking amazing it was. finally, kastoory said, “he saw her, you know?” and that was all we had to say about that.
1996 or so, early. thirteen years old. it was a snow day. we were at d.’s house, because it had the lowest amount of parental supervision. d. was a troubled loud crazy girl from a really fucked-up family who i was secretly in love with, e. was a pretty little blonde from a really fucked-up family (and who is still one of my best friends today!) and i was a tall awkward bookish dork from a really fucked-up family who was just coming out of my shell, just learning how to talk so people would listen, just learning how loud i could scream & what it could do.
anyway. three thirteen-year-olds (perhaps e. was 14 by then. she’s an aquarius.) snowy day. bored. this was before the interweb. sitting in d.’s living room we saw some teenage boys walking by us. we dared d. to say something to them. she opened the window, pulled up the screen and screamed, in her waking-the-dead voice, “EAT ME OUT, MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU AIN’T SHIT! EAT ME OUT EAT ME OUT EAT ME OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTT!”
we all laughed. then one of us said, “oh shit, they’re coming towards the house!” we all panicked and ran out the side door, up the hill in d.’s backyard. no shoes, no jackets. d.’s backyard was a hill at about a 50 degree angle, straight up and totally icy. we ran up, half scared, half giggly. i looked down at e., climbing underneath me. she had a kitchen knife between her teeth, blade side pointed away from her tongue. she had a truly crazed look in her eye. i had a moment that i’ve had a lot of times since, where i look around and think, “this is so fucking crazy, and this is so where i need to be.” barefoot on the ice? why the fuck not? e. was so quiet in school, the only conventionally attractive one in our whole social circle. everyone thought she was so normal. but she had a knife between her teeth, and she took it out once we reached the bushes at the top to hiss, “if they come up here, i’ll stab them! i’ll stab them!” i have never loved her more.
that was the first time i fell in love with tough girls, the first time i made a vow to always have my life be crazy, the first time i looked at danger and got exhilarated. before them–just two years ago–i’d been resigned to a life of reading books in my old beatup chair. nobody touched me & nobody heard me. i would talk and people would just look in shock. i didn’t know how to be loud. people said my name like a punishment. who would have thought in just two years i’d have a new name, i’d be standing on a hill with knives & we’d talk about stabbing boys. we’d do it for each other, if that’s what it came down to, because that’s what we meant to each other. two years ago i would have cringed at “eat me out” and “motherfucker” but now my mouth was filthy, now it was curved to fit the shape of those words.
the boys knocked on the locked door & eventually went away. we went back inside and prank-called people and laughed until we couldn’t breathe, until we all thought we were literally going to die. & that was just the beginning, just the beginning.
my life isn’t really all that crazy or dangerous anymore, and i don’t really want it to be. but sometimes i miss that self, wire-rim glasses and all. i have a waking-the-dead voice of my own; that girl who screamed has a baby & lives on the other side of the country & hates me so much she won’t speak my name. that’s fine, i guess. she helped me enough.
