the quality of light

I love writing in a way I love few beings and entities of this world, with my eyes half-closed and the scent of dream still on my skin. But sometimes with work half-done and a soft embracing image in my mind, sleep creeps in.

Tonight I cannot finish what I am writing. I can't show you the snowy world glistening inside of me, but I can tell you that it is there. And in it, the light through the window shines so pure, heaven is illuminated under the skin of a perfectly imperfect mortal.

I should say, though, that this is the world I see every day. I just lose patience counting the minutes until I can share it.

Dramatis Personæ

Hello. I'm Jillachetti. I'm in charge here. Miss Artistic Director...

...Jill Writes--she seems to think that she runs the place. But she's not doing too good of a job. She confuses people. She lets this one...

...the one that babbles--take over indiscriminately. That's right. I said "indiscriminately". What, you think just because I'm not old enough for pre-school, I don't know big words? A lot you know. I know enough to realize that someone needs to set things straight around here. And our "fearless leader", trying to juggle the play and the poetry and the expository stuff, she confuses people. She is vague. She is ambiguous. She writes random posts directed at God-knows-who--

I'm not God.

What?

I said, I'm not God.

Well of course you're not God. You're a chick from a Renoir.

Well, yes, I'm that. But I also know who JillWrites writes about. You said "God-knows-who", but I know who. And I'm not God.

Oh really, Miss Smarty-Impressionist-Pants!

Muse will do. You can drop the "Miss."

Uh, wait. I thought he...

...was our muse.

He is.

Not so easy to keep it straight, now, is it?

I didn't hear any one talking to you.

I was. You're me, kiddo. You were confusing yourself. Thus, you were talking to me.

Us.

Us.

So you're our muse?

I'm the head muse. I found him.

Why does he get the iPod avatar?

Because.

That is so not an answer.

Well it's a better answer than--

You're bickering with a fictional character.

What do you expect when she acts like you?

I expect you to remember which one of us is which.

You can't even keep it straight. I bet if Damon and I were both standing--

Someone call me? Hey man, what's up?

Wow.

Ambiguity. Ambiguity is up.

What do you have to complain about? You know exactly what's going on here.

Wow.

What?

And now you're male bonding with a fictional character.

Wow.

He's not fictional. He's me. Sorta.

I didn't think it was possible for you both to be in the same place, but... Wow.

This is not the time!

Are you kidding? This is the only time. This is the hottest thing I've ever seen.

I would have to agree.

Of course you agree. You're the one that gets us into these messes.

I would hardly call a well-developed appreciation of the male form and the male aura a mess.

What would you call it, then?

I think I'm too young for this.

Limitless inspiration.

You rang?

OH

MY

GOD.

I thought you'd see it my way.

Avatars courtesy of:
"Limitless Inspiration": Flandrin's Young Nude Male
"Muse": Detail from Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party
"Damon": Detail from Tillmans' portrait of Moby

Why I Write What I Write, Part II: Weird, Artsy Montage

I see them before me. Each one I love differently, but unconditionally. Even the ones that now I avoid.

Perhaps “am learning to forgive” is a better choice of words. But nonetheless:

The one that hurt me—more and more often than any other in this life. But he was like a child, and I a nurturer. I practically raised him, though he was already eighteen when we met. I don’t really write about him any more. But I did. Omission from this list would perpetrate a lie.

The one that betrayed me, with one act of selfishness that I always knew was coming. Yet there were lessons—as the frog learned of the scorpion.

The ones I would never avoid. Probably because they never hurt me in that way. Because they never had the chance? Not a question to be answered. I have ached in other ways.

The one that came first. Just a boy. Always a friend. Now gone.

The one that stuck around. The words keep coming, and they’re different every time.

The one that was consistent—but whose other lives kept me wary. It was only because heart thievery was a quiet possibility.

The one that was a surprise. Well, one good shock deserves another. And now there are words I never dreamed would come from me.

And then, the one I do not write about. He loves in a way I do not understand. I love him back as best I can.

Cupcake

Do you ever just want to write something delicious? Something simple and sweet and... perhaps a little naughty? Something, let's say, not on your diet.

Or maybe you don't want to write it. Maybe you want to say it. You want to sit across the table from someone and swirl the frosting on. Sprinkle on some bits of sugar. Watch as the spring-hued sweets fall across the bed of icing, some of them toppling off onto the tablecloth. Then you'd take a step back and store it in your mind--the colors, the textures, the contrasts. Before you moisten the soft pad of your thumb, press it down onto the sprinkles, make them stick. Lift it to your mouth.

What you do next is up to you.

A mental snapshot... a tiny taste... pricelessly delicious teases.
But not a substitute for the whole thing.

Will you answer to "Cupcake"?

Callie has a meltdown.

As many of you are already aware, Callie and Damon have some communication problems. For an introduction to C & D, check out the links in the sidebar under "Someday on Stage". They're quite the pair. Oh, yes, and Jill has a habit of referring to her fictional characters as if they were real.

Jill

I miss my characters. And they are getting mad at me.

Other person

Okay, there's suspension of disbelief...and then there's borderline schizophrenia.

Strangely, Callie seems to have a bit of a personality split as well...

Callie

Do I ever seem like two different people to you?

Silence. Then laughter. Damon finds this endearing, and amusing, and probably unnecessary.

Callie

I'll take that as a yes. I'm sorry.

Damon

Why? It's just you, I guess.

Callie

But I don't want it to be "just me". Really, I want me to be... I don't know. A different me, a better me. A me that knows how to converse like a regular person. Like, I'm sorry for all the times I wanted to say something but I didn't. Or you wanted me to say something. But I didn't. Probably on purpose. Sometimes on purpose. Just, you know, because I didn't want to, you know, let you, you know... Ok, but not maliciously on purpose. Never maliciously.

And all those times when you were expecting me to say something? You know, because that was the normal way the conversation would have been going? And then I said something totally out of left field. Not even left field. Like, waaay over the Green Monster. Or, on the other side of Monument Park. Or, you know those buildings outside of Wrigley? Where the people hang out on the roofs? Over their heads. Yeah. That far out. I know I do this. Trust me. I know. You're not the first person I've done this too.

(To herself) Great, I'm sure that's exactly what he wants to hear.

(Back to Damon) Could we scratch that? You know, forget I said it. I'll try again. You... You make me want to be more me. More me than maybe I've ever been before. Or maybe not more me. Maybe, better me. Braver me. More better braver me. So it's not that I don't trust you--all the random answers, and the "way out in left field"--it's not that I don't trust you. It's that I do. You understand? From the first time I spoke to you. I had an impression of the you that I was expecting you to be and I turned out to be right, but even though I was expecting you to be that you, I wasn't expecting me to be right. You know? I know, right!

Like I said. It's not that I don't trust you. It's that it was so easy to trust you.

Will you say something?

Damon

Green Monster? Monument Park? Wrigley?

Callie

You don't watch much baseball, do you?

Relativity, Speaking

Something about thirty has given me words I've never had before.

When I was younger, when I was more forthcoming, more trusting, very rarely did I do the writing. I did the talking, I did the nurturing, I did the giving. Unfortunately, I trusted the wrong people. Millions of words, lost.

I regret every single word I have not told you, but now I am a writer. I write--pictures, poems, stories, essays, plays. All full of images. (You, me, us.) All full of regret. Regret that I did not trust my instantaneous trust. Pre-emptive regret for the explaining I may never do.

Why never? Because. Just because. Because how long will it keep coming? Wells run dry at some point, and my well and your well--well, they're just not well-synched. My regret is your obliviousness. Two weeks for me is a day to you. My physics teacher spoke mostly Russian, but time dilation was one concept I didn't need explained.

Maybe, we were twins. We are twins. But we are separated. You are on a rocket, approaching the speed of light. I am here on earth. Your clock seems normal. To you. You expect I am living at the same velocity. You expect there is plenty of time. Will be plenty of time. But my life just keeps ticking, and in your place are words.

Won't you be surprised. When you return, all you'll find--in the place I once was, next to the place you never knew you had--will be a pile of scripts, a handmade book of poems, and this.

I ask myself: should that make me happy?

I See Fictional Characters

You met Damon. Now meet Callie. She hasn't been hiding from me, so much as she's been hiding from him. Hang on a sec...

What? Yes, I know Damon is being a pee-pee head. That's what guys do. You'll deal.

I have no idea how I'm going to get these two to coexist peacefully on the same page.

Huh? No. I'm not going to tell her that. Tell her yourself.

But maybe that's a good thing--there doesn't really need to be peace until the end, anyway.

To be fair, Callie gets a playlist as well. You may notice Callie shares a few of Jill's favorite songs. But so does Damon. Music plays an integral part in the theme and plot of the play. These two may just learn to love each other as much as they each love music. A shared passion for The Ramones and Violent Femmes has to count for something, right? If I can get one of them to pick up the damn phone and dial. And the other to actually answer.

Just to be clear: as opposed to Callie, Damon does not share Jill's clothes.

The "Callie, Come Out and Play" Playlist
Josie and the Pussycats (Original cartoon theme song)
Rush (New York City Club Version) Big Audio Dynamite
Jellyhead Crush
Closer to Free Bodeans
Dancing with Myself Billy Idol
Mickey Toni Basil
I Love Rock and Roll Joan Jett
Hurts So Good John Cougar Mellancamp
Can't Buy Me Love The Beatles
No Matter What Badfinger
ABC Jackson 5
American Music Violent Femmes
I Believe in Miracles The Ramones
The Break Soul Asylum
Mystify INXS
When Doves Cry Prince
Everlong Foo Fighters
How Soon Is Now? Love Spit Love
Wonderwall Oasis

Hell, Hatchlings, and the Elegance of Longing

Longing may be elegant, but it also hurts like hell.

Long too much, too long, and you invite exhaustion. Emotional and physical. Quite a frustrating situation when it is longing that fuels your writing.

Because sometimes, you'd rather just curl up in a ball and read, rather than bleed regret.

There's more to be said, you know. But you also know now's not the time to say it. If you're sick, you can't donate blood. Of course, you also can't donate blood if you've recently been to Mexico, but that has no immediately obvious parallel in the extended metaphor.

Though, upon further contemplation, it could be about an incubation period.

When longing incubates, what hatches?

When a Man Italicizes Feet, Then It Is Okay to Take His Suggestions

"Ruining your life...is an effective path towards writerly enlightenment. You should write a post of good ways to ruin your life for the sake of inspiration."

Disclaimer: It should not be assumed that Jill or anyone that confides in Jill has ever done, or ever intends to do, or even has ever had a situation that brought to mind the thought of doing, any of these things. Though it shouldn't be assumed the opposite, either. Believe what you will.

Good Ways to Ruin Your Life for the Sake of Inspiration

1. Regularly get drunk with one of your college professors who actually lives with his girlfriend and may or may not be certifiably insane. Let nature take its course. Let this develop into a long-term relationship. Write about it. Don't finish the project, though, because you HATE plots.

2. Regularly get drunk with one of your college professors who actually lives by himself and quite possibly is gay or at least bisexual, and most likely has some sort of crush on the professor who lives with his girlfriend. Sleep with him. Refrain from killing him when he decides to cut off all communication with you even though you are still in his class. Get an A in the class and then write about all the ways you could have killed him. Get grad school credit for the writing. Sell mucho tickets at a festival.

3. Date an actor. Write about his inability to accept compliments or express his feelings. Place very high in a writing contest with the result.

4. Become best friends with your ex-boyfriend, the actor. Write about how you get nothing done when you hang out together. Simultaneously, develop crush on 400 year old dead procrastinating fictional character. Write about how delusions of conversing with aforementioned fictional character dovetail nicely with how little work you get done when hanging out with aforementioned ex-boyfriend. Write an academic essay about your creative writing about your delusions. Get grad school credit for both. Sell out run at major festival.

5. Pine.

6. Pine.

7. Pine.

8. But, you know, don't admit the truth.

9. Truth, you see, is stranger than fiction.

10. Therefore, when you write the truth, vaguely enough, people think you're creative.

11. So, you know, why live the truth, when you could just write about it?

12. It's all in the telling.

13. Run away to someone you barely know.

14. Run away with someone you barely know.

15. Think of how many hits your blog would get if all in the blogosphere knew what you'd done, and couldn't wait to hear the sordid details. Think you, possibly, wouldn't care.

16. Self-publish your multimedia journal from the excursion.

17. Sleep with some guy who's probably gay, but at the least is unsatisfying. Become buddies once you get over it. Collaborate.

18. Leave that phone message you've been dying to leave. Sit back and wait for the response. Record the conversation. Transcribe. Publish.

19. Obsessively save all your email and IM conversations. Stop going out into the real world, so that you can stay home, cut and paste them, and turn them into a novel.

20. Ignore someone for as long as you possibly can. Then let sparks fly. Chick lit is hot market.

21. Wake yourself up every two hours and force yourself to write down all the naughty dreams you're having about the person you're ignoring. Sleep deprivation may be a torture method, but clit lit is a hot market.

22. Take a shower.

If you all have any additional suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

I Put the "Pro" in "Procrastination": Meet My Dream Guy

If it were up to me, more intelligent, attractive, adventurous men would be found like this: shirtless, barefoot, in a perfectly worn pair of jeans, sprawled in (my) bed.

Back in November, I was walking through Barnes & Noble when this postcard jumped out at me. Back in November, I was actually getting productive work done on my new play. I bought the postcard, tucked it into my notebook, and have been carrying it around ever since.

I don't write physical descriptions into my character notes, because I don't want directors and actors to feel limited by them. I have written and will continue to write characters for specific actors that I know, but even when I know who will likely be playing a role, I still don't write the description in.

Because I carry my notebook everywhere, denim boy made it to Thanksgiving dinner. Lisa took one look at it and said "That's the guy from your play."

Come again?

"The guy from your play. The character. That's him, right? That's why you've got the picture in your notebook."

Psychic, much?

Yes. That's him. That's why I bought the postcard. Everyone, meet Damon. Or at least, his bottom half.

My characters routinely visit my dreams, in some form or another, and this photo jarred me into some hazy dream recollection. Oh yeah, and it turned me on. It captures the balance of virility and vulnerability that I imagine the character to possess. So yes, he's my "dream guy"; i.e., he'll haunt me at least until the play is done.

Except, recently, he's been curiously absent. (I think he's on strike because I've been paying too much attention to the blog.) So today, I did what any self-respecting music-obsessed procrastinator would do after being deserted by the person of their dreams. I made him a playlist. Damon, this one's for you.

(Yes, I just addressed a fictional character.)

(Yes, I just dedicated a CD to him.)

(Yes, he has very eclectic taste in music.)

(Feel free to direct your comments at Damon. Maybe that'll make him come out and play again.)

This is Your Life (featuring Tyler Durden) The Dust Brothers [from Fight Club]
Believe Franka Potente [from Run Lola Run]
Ripper Sole Stomp [from Tank Girl]
Call Me (E-Smoove's Beat Vocal Mix) Blondie
Sunglasses at Night Corey Hart
Mrs. Robinson The Lemonheads
The Boys of Summer The Ataris
Paint it Black Rolling Stones
Baba O'Riley The Who
I Will Follow U2
Pour Some Sugar on Me Def Leppard
Talk Dirty to Me Poison
Panama Van Halen
Dangerous Type Letters to Cleo
Hit Me With Your Best Shot Pat Benatar
99 Red Balloons Nena
Let's Go Crazy Prince
It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) R.E.M.
Blitzkrieg Bop The Ramones
Time Bomb Rancid
Add It Up Violent Femmes


By the way, the photo is actually a 1993 portrait of Moby by photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. I rather enjoy the whole photograph, but many of my girlfriends can't abide a man so...uh...scrawny. I hate to use that word, because I'm all for men with lean bodies. So I cropped the photo. I didn't want you to get as distracted as they were by the negative.

Sea Glass

I wake up slowly in the morning, the luxury of working afternoons. After a few months of this, I realize why I’ve always thought I hated waking up early. It’s not the hour that’s the problem—it’s the sharpness of alarm clocks, their automated disregard for the progress of my dreams. The night dreams and the waking.

Waking up slowly, I write scenes. I’d always thought they were fantasies, a luxury whose time-toll I could not afford. Or worse—by-products encasing empty calories, beer bottles tossed carelessly into the sea. But the images feel organic. With room to evolve, they writhe into the shape of drama—first people, then scenes. The scenes replay and I put words to them. Several times in one slow morning, I run the words, then whisper them, head still on the pillow, eyes still shut, until finally the scene comes to a natural end. Climax, dénouement. I open my eyes.

I write by hand. I like the feel of different pens, their sounds as they slide across the paper, the bleeding of the ink as it courses into the fibers. The words people love best are always written by hand.

Showers help when I can go no further. Water courses over the words, picks them up, tosses them, breaks them and rearranges, carries them along, smoothes them out. Running water has a presence and a rhythm that I can close my eyes and hear. And borrow. Later, I can read aloud.

Finally, I type. Tapping fingers have a different rhythm than running water, a different rhythm than coursing ink. The three meld. Always, I change things--words, details, actions. A guiding hand on the back inches closer to the hip. A shout becomes a whisper. Bitten fingernails, a bitten lip. The words I imagined saying, now to be murmured by someone else. But always, they’re mine. Still me. Still to be spoken. Still what would slip out if the phone rang too early, and I answered in my haze, and you asked.

Writer-girl, Interrupted

Music reminds me of you. I’m almost afraid to hit play. Because what if a song comes on and it makes me wonder where you are, and I don’t know, and I really really start wondering and I have to go out of my way to find a way to distract myself to stop thinking about you so that I don’t have to spend my time thinking about someone who is not thinking about me?

Sure, I have no proof that you are not thinking about me. But I don’t have any proof that you are either. So I guess I will write in silence. Once I start typing, I no longer hear the music anyway.

Like that day that you called and I had been writing for so long, staring at the computer so long that when the phone rang I didn’t even realize what I was supposed to do with it. The music had been playing all along but I hadn’t been hearing it. Some part of my mind that I didn’t even know was awake took over and answered, but I could barely make sentences. You started talking, then thought maybe I had no idea who it was, because my tone of voice didn’t change, as it normally does, when I realize that it’s you and you can hear me smile from there. So you identified yourself. I knew it was you. I always know when it’s you. I just couldn’t make sentences.

The music was still playing and I didn’t even realize it had been playing all along until I started trying to explain to you that yes, of course, I know who it is, but I can’t speak, I can’t make sentences, I'm trying to mute the music, but all I can do is listen to you talk, just the sounds, not the words, I can't comprehend the words exactly, but I know what you are saying is meant to put me at ease and somewhere in the back of my mind I just want to keep listening. But I can't just keep listening. I have to react. I have to say something, because you are worried now, that I'm not talking, that I'm not laughing, that I'm not giggling like the little girl I was when first we spoke, when last we spoke, when every time in between. I can't just keep listening, but I can't seem to make sentences either.

It wasn't me listening to you that day; it wasn't me that answered the phone. Because if it had been me, the me that always wants to talk to you, she would have said something, she would have reacted the way you expected her to, warmly the way she always does when you say something light and silly and unforgettable, a future secret. It wasn’t that me. I know it because that me would have first been aware of trying to hide the excitement in her voice when she answered the phone so you wouldn’t know, because she’s too cool to let you know all the time, how happy she is to see your name on the caller id.

It was another me. The one who’d been far, far away, staring at the computer screen, not even hearing the music. Probably formulating some words that she wanted to write about you. She was writing about you somewhere in the back of her mind, silly boy. That’s why she didn’t smile through the phone when she heard your voice. She was writing about you.

My Muse Is a Son of a Bitch

My muse is a man. I appreciate those Neo-Classical visions of ethereal women with fabulous hair and gossamer robes, but they don’t speak to me. Not like he speaks to me.

He says anything he damn well pleases, but always pleasantly, always politely--unless of course he feels like channeling Batman on a given day, because then he speaks a bit more pointedly.

My muse, that son of a bitch, will not desert me. I have tried to get rid of him. Avoid him. Ignore him. I have tried to jot down the ramblings of other voices, hoping it would make him jealous. No luck.

Because nowhere in the “muse” job description does “jealousy” ever appear.

And worse, “modesty” is apparently on every line.

It must be pretty sweet, being a muse. Knowing you can make words dance.
Living as if it were simply part of the job.


That painting is: Jeune Homme Nu Assis (Young Nude Male) ~ 1855
By Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin