Animosity

The energy in Tuesday night's class was absolutely suffocating. Walking into a seating chart with no explanation seemed to raise suspicions as to what the problem could be that we had to be assigned where to sit. The confusion over when assignments were due caused quite a bit of unease between some students and definitely Dr. Panning, and then the conversation in regards to the lack of responses, the party invitation being pulled... not to say anyone was in the wrong, but holy shit, you could cut the animosity in that room with a butter knife.

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't commented on pretty much anything all semester on the blogs. I am not going to make angry excuses, or say it was because I haven't been getting comments myself (although, if you scroll down a bit, you'll notice that I've pretty much been writing for myself this entire semester seeing as though there's no proof of anyone reading my stuff) but I am feeling a bit of that frustration in terms of the class not really being what it was initially meant to be. I think Dr. Panning set it up beautifully so that we could have this cool, experimental and modern experience, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I really feel as though we just weren't ready to handle it. And it fell apart at the seams.

I share Duane's frustration in the lack of response. Not only in a lack of blog comments, but in the returned manuscripts during the workshop even more so. I mean, come on, if you're going to mark up my essay during class, cool, but could you PLEASE not insult my intelligence by writing verbatim what someone else said during the workshop?! I take my own notes, I don't need 13 copies of the same thing repeated. I would honestly rather receive nothing than a rushed, scribbled response that's not even your own original thought.


And really? Doodling all over my essay? Really?


I don't know, I guess this rant really isn't going anywhere, but I definitely have lost motivation in this class, which is horribly disappointing due to how unbelievably excited I was the first few weeks. I would have loved to see this blossom into what it was originally supposed to be, and I wish that all of us (myself included!!!) had taken the time and energy to use the tools supplied to us to make it be super rad. But more so than anything, the animosity in the classroom was toxic, and contagious, and I really hope we're able to shake that off before next week, because man.... that was brutal...

Kiss the Stars for Me - WORKSHOP ESSAY

My dearest Kieran,

I need to begin this letter by apologizing for how long it has been since my last. I could come up with a child-friendly excuse to spare your feelings, but since you would be turning 9 this coming summer, probably around late July, I suppose I can be honest in saying to such a big boy that it’s just getting harder and harder to come up with things to write about. Part of me feels like I should keep you updated on the goings-on of your family, the life you never got to live but on the other hand, I feel like it’s got to make things harder on you to hear all about it but not ever be able to experience it… to never know the joys of life, the happiness and any sorrows I couldn’t protect you from, even to know the sound of your mother’s voice. Sometimes I stop mid-letter to you, considering how crazy I am for bleeding my soul onto a page that will never be read, but that thought makes me keep writing. I want to believe you can hear me, somehow.

            I know I told you in the last letter that I would update you on your father, and there’s no easy way to say this sweetheart, but I have nothing to report. I’ve been trying desperately to find him, but I think he’s back in Maryland doing things you can’t know about until you’re much older. I can’t tell you how he is without lying to you, and I would never lie to you, angel. I can tell you all the things I’ve told you before, if you’d like to hear them again. I hope they make you smile…

            Your daddy loved you very much the minute I told him about you. He cried, a very happy cry, and kissed your mommy lots. After that night, he kissed you through my belly and talked to you all the time. He chose your name within days and I fell in love with it – Kieran Lee VanKirk. Just like daddy’s name, but Kieran instead of Steven. I hope you like it. Your daddy was very, very tall with blond hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. I ask myself every day if your eyes would’ve been brown like mommy’s or a stunning shade of steel and clouds like daddy’s, or some smooth, exotic in between. Regardless of what the outcome, I know you would’ve been handsome like your daddy. I wish I could find him for you, baby boy, and I promise I’ll keep trying, and hopefully he’ll write you himself someday soon. I just hope you’re not mad at me for losing him… like I lost you…

            I still haven’t decided if I should tell you about your baby brother in these letters, again, I don’t want to make you jealous. I want to keep you involved in the family though, and I wish you could tell me if I’m making you upset. Phoenix was a pirate for Halloween this year, and went trick or treating for the very first time. I really wish you could’ve been with us; you would’ve had a great time. I can see you holding your baby brother’s hand as you take him from door to door – I think you would love being a big brother. Although, if things had worked out differently, and you had been born and I had been able to keep your daddy out of trouble, who knows if I would’ve met Phoenix’s daddy and had him when I did, so I guess talking about him is silly.

            I’m starting to get a little upset angel, which means you might be too, so I should probably wrap this up. I have to end this the same way I always do, and please don’t cry sweetheart, but I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I lost you. I don’t know if I just wasn’t strong enough, or if it was your daddy’s fault for making me too upset, but I was just so young, angel. So very young. And I promise I tried my hardest to hold on, I did. But after I got the phone call telling me your daddy wasn’t coming home for a really long time, and after hours of waiting and worrying and crying and then that phone call in the middle of the night when I should’ve been sleeping, there was nothing I could do to keep the red from flowing over and ruining the white of my sheets. I know you don’t know what that means, angel, but that’s how I lost you. And I cried. I still cry over you, angel.  I even buried the sheets and made a cross out of sticks so I would always know where to find you.

            I will put this letter in the box under the bed with all the others I’ve written you in the past 9 years, and sometimes when I sleep at night I imagine that you sneak in, open the box, and read all the letters. That thought gives me hope that you know just how much I love you.

            Just please know baby boy that I loved you from the minute I knew of you, and I loved you even more once you were gone. I loved you so much I just knew you were a boy, without even having to find out. If I were older, stronger, I promise I would’ve been good to you, angel. I would have done everything I could to make you happy, and keep you safe and warm. But all I can hope now is that wherever you are, up high in the sky with the clouds and the moon and the stars, that you’re happy. And warm. And hopefully you can see me sitting here with tears in my eyes as I write to you the words I wasn’t ever able to say.

           

            Don’t forget to kiss the stars for me.

Love Always,

Mommy

Sami Sue's Costume Review

**So, I am dating a new guy. I know, I know, fast, it's a long story, but he's fantastic, and I've known him for years, blah blah blah. Anywho, he is the writer for the best selling Rochester punk zine, the RochesterTeen SetOutsider. And he asked me to write an article for the Halloween issue. So... this is what I came up with. Sami Sue's Costume Review. Please let me know what you think :-) I'm gonna be famous! (amongst the Roc City Punk Scene, at least!) **

Sami Sue’s Costume Review

So as every good teenager with an affinity for everything spooky should, I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect Halloween costume. I’ve visited every Halloween store (twice), checked every website I could think of, even  checked the sewing patterns for DIY costumes, but alas, I’ve run into the same issue I have every year – prepackaged, run-of-the-mill costumes. Pretty much every single women’s’ costume I’ve seen is the exact same dress (low cut, tight in the middle, poufy on the bottom but still short enough to show all the goodies), just in different colors and patterns. Sexy Little Miss Muffet, Seductive Vampire, Naughty Nurse, even Pocahotass – everything is a (for lack of a better word) SLUTTY interpretation of a perfectly good costume idea. Not to say I’m not okay with showing some skin, I mean, if you’ve got it, flaunt it, by all means, but geez guys… what happened to ORIGINIALITY?!

With that being said, I’ve compiled a list of the top 5 costumes I personally would like to see around this Halloween. Nothing you can buy in a store, so you may have to put on your thinking caps and get resourceful for these, but these five ideas, I personally believe, would be all the rage amongst the teens around Rochester this year.

5.) Universal Monsters – I’m not talking your typical “paint your face green and call yourself Frankenstein” costume. I wanna see a Phantom so disfigured you’d want to actually touch the face to see if it’s real or latex – a Creature from the Black Lagoon all slimy and stinky and dripping with spooky authenticity. If you’re gonna try the Wolfman, there better be hair on your knuckles and toes, not just around your face.

4.) Terrifying Hot Chicks – I know, I know, not an actual costume, but I would LOVE to see some smoking hot broads in digs soooo scary that I’m crying like a baby. Nothing’s more attractive than a woman with all the goods AND a super tough and spooky mindset. So ladies, put down the pleather cop costume and kitty ears. I wanna see blood, and gore, and everything scary. On a hot bod.

3.) Elvis – Everyone’s already seen the fat Elvis impersonators, the leather clad gyrating Elvis, the stripe covered Jailhouse Rock Elvis of the 50’s. What happened to the forgotten Elvis of the 70’s? Post-leather, pre-fat, white polyester suit wearing, Bossa Nova singing, pill popping Elvis who was always a bit sweaty, forgetting the lyrics, bringing young Betties to the dressing room to do unspeakable acts Elvis? That’s what I would like to see this Halloween – everyone’s favorite Elvis.

2.) Sadie, Krug, Weasel & Willow – In my travels around the Halloween circuit looking for costumes, like every year, I’ve found the same horror flick costumes that have been around since the 90’s – Freddie, Jason, Michael Myers, Ghost Face, even the awful Strangers remake costumes. For the ladies, there’s the teeny tiny Ms. Krueger dress, the Friday 13^th Jersey Dress, even a complete Child’s Play costume so you can be the skankiest murderous doll in town. But what’s missing are the forgotten villains of horror, the ones who may not have made a cool mil at the box office but I personally believe are far more badass than the masked scoundrels who chased babysitters up the stairs. With that being said, I want to see a group of four super badass teens taking a lesson from one of my favorites – the 1972 version of “The Last House on the Left”. Round up a group of your friends (ladies, here’s your chance to actually be something scary!), get dirty and bloody, raid your mom’s knife drawer, and get killing.

And last but certainly not the least… *drumroll please*

1.)    Dead celebrities. – I’ve discovered in my travels that celebrity tribute costumes are all the rage. Especially with all the celebrities dropping like flies in the past few years (R.I.P. Farrah Fawcett) it only makes sense to try to memorialize your favorite teen idols. But in the spirit of keeping things spooky, I’m urging all you teens to capture the true essence of dead celebrities – death. Don’t just dress up like Michael Jackson… Let all your friends know how cool you are by dressing up as a zombie MJ doing the thriller all around town. Ladies, get your nappy beehive wig, say “no” to rehab, tape a syringe to your inner elbow, and embrace Ms. Winehouse at her finest. And for all you rockabilly cats out there, don’t forget our dear Kenickie, found unconscious in his apartment by his junkie girlfriend (if you need pointers, check out the 2008 season of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew). Don’t forget the foaming at the mouth, and be sure to pick a fight with every Daniel Baldwin impersonator you can find.

And that, my dear teenagers, is Sami Sue’s Costume Review. Don’t let me down, kids!

The Scoop

If any of you happened to be wondering why I disappeared off the face of the earth, both in blog land and class land, it's because my life (per usual) took a pretty gnarly turn for a bit and I had to recollect and get my feet back on the ground. I lost my job last Tuesday - fired for some nonsense childish reason that was not worth the amount of chaos it's going to cause in my life. I was fired 5 months after signing my first, $715 monthly lease, at which I live by myself with no other help, financial or otherwise. I was fired after 5 months of full time employment, not 6, which more than likely means I will not be eligible for unemployment. I'm looking everywhere for jobs, and trying to stretch 2 weeks worth of groceries indefinitely for myself and my three year old because I don't know when I'll be making enough to cover all my bills again. It's pretty rough. I'm fortunate enough that my son's father helps out TREMENDOUSLY financially, but it's still not enough to cover my rent and all my other bills. Not looking for sympathy here, but if I'm going  to be ignoring all of your guys' hard work, not read or comment on the things you post, not be in class to contribute to the discussions, then I figured I better have a damn good excuse, and thought it best to share it with you. Also, my mom just moved out of the home we shared for 4 years, so on top of my entire life crumbling I've had to help her start her new one, clear ghosts from my past out of a cluttered attic, part with things my son has had since birth because there just isn't any space for them anymore... it's been a really rough week (and holy shit I can't believe it's only been a week, it feels like forever).

I'm regaining my focus for school. The last thing I need on top of everything else is to jeopardize my education. I just had to take a few days to screw my head back on tight. I've missed you all, and your writing, and can't wait to see you all on Tuesday. And just a heads up... I'm going to be frantically playing catch up on my blog comments, so I apologize in advance for completely dominating all of your blogs.

Xoxo,

Sami Sue

Love Like Winter...

I'm alone again. And trying hopelessly to figure out why all my relationships are temporary. Yes, this is one of THOSE blogs. But really, the more I think about it, the more it makes my fingers ache to realize that I keep digging and digging until my nails are peeling back at the root, bloody, trying to break through the mud and grime and dirt to find something worth hanging on to and it's just... never there. And now the ground is on it's way to freezing which makes me terrified to think that the soil will be too solid to penetrate until Spring, and I'll be alone through the cold harsh months of winter, shivering, and waiting...

I think about the past few years, the loves that have come and gone, the feelings that always end up fleeting and I think to myself... if only I could put a little bit of all of them into one person, I'd finally be able to rest. A man with a drive like my husband of a whopping five months - completely content to work himself exhausted to provide for me and his son. A lover with the mind of the man from last September, absolutely brilliant and incredibly insightful yet a little off kilter and almost dangerously unstable. Or someone with the voice of my girlfriend from years ago, sultry and smoky and so smooth it would give you chills. The passion of my summer love, two summers in fact, who loved, kissed, talked, wrote, drove, walked, and fucked like the entire world owed him something, always so fiery and so intense, with this constant sense of immediacy that makes you feel like the world will end tomorrow and you HAVE to live every second today. I want eyes like two Halloweens ago that always looked through me as opposed to at me, arms as big as a few winters back that nothing could ever penetrate (the only time I felt truly safe), or my birthday love from last year, the sweetest and most gentle giant I've ever had the pleasure to know. If only they all could melt together into one person for me, I wouldn't have to keep digging and digging and breaking my fingers and waiting for the bones to fuse back together before I begin to dig again, in vain. It almost feels like I'll reach the flames of Hell and meet my fate there before I finally find the one for me... if there is one at all...

Rock Star Status

To those of you who may be curious, i will not be in class today because like any good 50's rebel would do, I'm bailing on class for rock n roll. Psychobilly to be exact. Nekromantix to be specific (yes, you need to go look them up on YouTube right now... I know you're at a computer. Its okay, I'll wait....). K now that you know the epic amount of rad that is Nekromantix, perhaps you'll understand why it is absolutely necessary to celebrate my boyfriend's birthday at a Nekro show. Only downside is, that means getting up at 5am to work a 7:30 to 12, then a job interview at 12:30, then flying home to get dressed, picking up friends all over Rochester, hitting the road no later than 4 (fingers crossed), arriving in Cleveland by 8, raging the night away and then turning right around to come home around 2am, which makes our estimated return time about 6am, (yes, that's 25 hours awake), have to take all my friends home, pick up my son, get him ready for daycare, drop him off, get home hopefully by 8 then crash until Ralph Blacks class at 6 because he's one grouchy fucker when he wants to be and i gotta be ready.

So yes kids, that is what we call rock star status. 27 hours up, 8 hours at the wheel, all to see some hot sweaty psychobilly action. In conclusion - i will not be in class tonight. I'll miss you all.

An Everlasting Story - Workshop Essay

                Paper towels. Vaseline. Ceran wrap. Buzz buzz buzz.  Tiny cups. Latex gloves. Dental chair. Buzzzzzz. Shaking hands, shaken bottles, colors blurring filling cups. Buzz buzz buzz. Sweat. Blood. Heavy breathing. Shaking hands, shakier breaths. Bitten lips and eyes squeezed shut. Buzz. And then the pain.

                Stories are far too often forgotten. Fragments that live in the memory of someone, told once or twice, perhaps written down, and then… gone. Life shattering events tend to be drawn back a bit more clearly, but how often do you truly let them out of just your mind? Memorialized, eternal, a daily reminder of things that you desperately try not to forget?

     

           My best friend died when I was 12 years old. I did everything I could to remember him as he was, not how he went with a needle in his hand and a heart that just couldn’t beat anymore. So I focused on everything I could remember, but in time those things faded; first his voice, then where his eyes creased when he smiled, then his walk, then his smell, lastly how it felt when he hugged me. When all those were gone the needle began to creep back in, so I had to keep trying, trying to find something to remind me of when he was here.

The roses.

When he first got out of rehab, he said all the time that he needed something to keep his hands busy. He tried everything you could imagine, from stress balls to his old Game Boy, to reading and even tried knitting. Nothing stuck, and his hands would start to shake the way they always did when me and his mother knew we had to worry. But one day he came over, hands steady, a smile with the creases exactly where I try to remember them, and told us he figured it out. And every six hours on the hour he would hop on his bike and go back to his dad’s garden to water the roses that had become his new addiction. He would tend to them painstakingly but lovingly, and on the rough days he would spend hours on his knees in prayer to his new red goddesses, the only thing keeping him tied to us for then, before his shaking hands took him from us…

I needed to remember. I needed something real, something solid, something that would never leave me. Something that would tie him to me for all eternity, beyond death, beyond the grave, beyond anything within comprehension that could take him from me again. It was the needle that took him from me – it would be the needle that tied him to me.

The roses.

                And so at a measly 18 years of age, brand new ID in my hands blazing brightly the month and day that said I could sit in that chair alone with no consent and no supervision, I asked for roses. Three roses specifically, for the past I didn’t want to forget, the present I had to accept without him, and the future hope that we would someday be reunited. And barely visible through the vines, the hearts, the leaves and thorns, a small banner on the bottom showing a mere 4 letters – Nuti – for my Michael Louis Benvenuti; benvenuti – meaning welcome.

        

        With shaking hands and a sweaty brow, I moved up slowly in the dental chair, latex gloved hands positioning my arm exactly where it needed to be. Reds, greens, yellows and blues all put into their separate cups, bottles shaken carefully to even out the hues. Shining needles taken out of sterile packaging, foot tapping a pedal out of site creating the buzzzz that I grew to love. “Are you ready?” he asked with a smile on his face, and I drew in a shuttering breath before the pain hit. The roses. Now there forever.

                I got used to the pain, after time. And my garden of the flesh grew. Nuti wasn’t the only thing I never wanted to forget. I wanted to always remember the first time I read to my son, his little tiny hand squeezing my finger as I read him the first two acts of Hamlet aloud – buzz from shoulder to shoulder, across my spine, etching my message of love to him forever into my back. The wound on my thigh was at first to honor the man who stole my heart, a sparrow in flight bearing his name to show my eternal gratitude for  him being a part of my life. Then a meager few months later, buzz to reopen the wound to cover that name, an attempt to forget what I swore I always wanted to remember.  My dear aunt Beverly, who taught me to bake, buzz across my shin in the shape of a butterfly  as to not ever forget to thank her silently for ever cupcake that leaves my kitchen. Every drop of ink a story, every inch of flesh a monument to every moment of life I have lived, and will not forget, will never forget. The eternal buzz of carrying those memories with me to the grave, bled into my skin for all eternity.

                A mind is such an faulty thing to rely on to look back at your life – skin is so much more reliable. 

The Walk...

When I first started working downtown, I parked in the garage under my building. It was crowded and expensive, so I opted to look for a more cost effective place to park. I found a lot right outside of the parking garage for only $65 a month, a far cry from the $130 and change that I as paying in the structure, so I began parking there. After a few days, I discovered that instead of walking through the dark garage, beginning my mornings in corporate America with the smell of exhaust fumes and the sounds of muttering and yawns over coffee coming from the mouths of people who would rather be anywhere but there, I discovered I could walk down Andrews St. just a few feet and walk down the Genessee Valley Riverway Trail all the way to my building.

This may not seem particularly important, but let me explain exactly why this is so prevalent to me...

I wake up at 5:15 every morning, and rush to get to work. Shower, wake up the baby, get us both dressed and fed, teeth brushed, in the car, hustle hustle in my business casual to dump the kid off to strangers to raise him for me as I curse my way through rush hour traffic to go crunch numbers at an hourly rate. The stress of suburbia still weighing heavy on my shoulders, I step into my morally bankrupt office where the clock flies faster than fingers can keep up, deadlines come and go before we can catch our breath, and our boss pretends as though the world will end if we don't get everything done.

The walk along the river is a bridge, my bridge, my sanctuary between the pressures of being a mother in suburbia and the stress of being a corporate slave. I have roughly 7 minutes between closing my car door and opening the door to the First Federal Plaza in which I can just... breathe. Forget about white picket fences and day care tuition, forget about the suits and ties and clicking heels and just watch the river beside me.

It's become the best part of my day, really. the walk.