dropping a line


Here's an email I sent to a friend, but it pretty much sums me up these last few days, so I thought I'd post it.

~ ~ ~

sorry I didn't write back sooner. The show went well--everyone was impressed, the bands did good, I didn't decapitate anyone with the sword, and my pasties stayed on. A success all around. We actually sold the place out--they were turning loads of people away at the door. It was packed.

It was very difficult for me, though, 'cos I'm battling MAJOR body issues right now (self-loathing girl crap). And it's just plain hard to take yer clothes off in front of a crowd, no matter hwo artful it is, no matter if you've got a badass weapon in your hands or not--even if I had the perfect body it would have still been a horribly stressful event.

In fact, it was so stressful and such a traumatic experience I got a cold the next day and broke out in rashes. :\ I guess I pushed myself too hard--I was shaking when I did it (everyone told me they didn't notice).

I also have been really loath to leave the house. I used to feel like I HAD to do something every night: had to be out with friends, seeing a show, at an event, something, anything, or I'd start to go a little stir-crazy in my apartment. The compulsion to go out was so strong I'd call it neurosis. I was running from something, there was something I didn't want to think about. But after the show something shifted, like I'd just realized deep down that was the most running I could do, and I couldn't do any more--it was literally making me sick. And then I didn't want to go anywhere at all. All I wanted to do was go to work, earn money, and go home and sleep and then wake up to do it all over again. I think the biggest problem I was running from was finance (or the lack thereof), and so now I'm kinda having to face all that.
Other stuff is good. I just wrote my second article for Coagula Art Journal. The LA Alt Press FINALLY paid me for my article on the Brewery I did about two months ago. I want to do as much freelancing as I can so that I can maybe find a staff position or get a regular gig like a weekly column or monthly article--that kind of thing could permit me to quit my current job, which is my goal.

How is everything going with you? You're prolly in the midwest right now visiting your folks for Thanksgiving, right?

Anything happen with *****? Last I heard you two were working some stuff out. As for me, I'm not dating anyone and not interested in anyone. Well,....not really. No. And I'm glad for the respite. I just want to focus on stabilizing my own life right now and taking care of the basics, which I've really let slide.

My ex-boyfriend from when I was in college showed up at the Silverlake Lounge show and freaked the hell out of me. We'd found each other on friendster and had corresponded just a little, and I thought maybe we could be, I dunno, loose aquaintances again. But seeing him in person and talking to him, and seeing he hadn't changed an iota--in fact, he was downright CREEPY, obviously full of venom and anger at me but with this spooky fake smile pasted to his face, and so passive-agressive in every poisonous word he spoke--it brought it home in a way I'd never before appreciated, how deeply and thoroughly he'd abused me when we were together--he subjected me to the worst sorts of emotional and verbal abuse, and I didn't really appreciate the seriousness of it until NOW, looking at him with lucid eyes, with my judgement undimmed by years exposed to his unkindness. I could see how bad it really had been (he's still on all sorts of drugs for depression and anxiety) and I felt my heart kind of break all over again for the young naive girl I'd been back then, eighteen years old, him seven years my senior, and me so willing to be completely broken and dominated. He truly did rob me of some of the best years of my life, and they will never come back--nor will I ever truly be rid of all the cruelty he poured into me. I'll always have to battle that negative voice inside me.

So I've been kind of just coping with that, too, the last week or so. I'm just going thru something big and internal, and I can't quite describe it, but it's like one of those phases you just have to go through once in a while.

Well, all that was a big fat serious mouthful. I hope you're good and that things are going well in all the parts of your life. Drop me a line and let me know; we should go out for beers sometime soon, or catch a show and crack jokes about the hipster kids.

-michele.