Post Post Post Modern Art.

Definition of Curate:

1. select, organize, and look after the items in (a collection or exhibition)

2. select, organize, and present (online content, merchandise, information, etc.), typically using professional or expert knowledge:

Now I know next to nothing about the art world. Nor that of rare books. But I do know that back before perhaps the late Naught years, as far as I knew the word “curator” was essentially utilized in these fields of artistic expression, and required a certain sense of professionalism- certainly expertise- in order to be attached to an individual.

Then the invisible forces of Colloquialism landed upon this little word and began adopting and co-opting this notion of “curation” in other arenas.  Suddenly, my hipstery upper middle class Westside white world was filled with curators. 

The local wine stores weren’t stocked with wines from knowledgable owners any longer- they became curated.  Book stores, sandwich shops, cafes, gift shops, high-end bakeries…the pot dealership down the way—suddenly all run by curators.  Not only the high-end clothing boutiques, but my favorite thrift shops and consignment stores were helmed by them. Indeed, I myself was referred to as the ‘curator’ of my own in-house part time vintage clothing business by friends and customers.

Somehow, the use of this term never really bothered me back then.  Just another slippery little redefinition being bandied about.

Until recently when I caught a short NPR news commentary on the radio and heard ”Curate” oh-so-appropriately attached to a whole different realm of human interaction-  social media.

The brief news piece involved some sort of German study on Facebook and Facebook users.  Age ranges, amount of time aboard, type of interactions, and emotional responses to these interactions, etc.

First of all, turns out- not surprisingly for those of us with teen and pre-teen kids - Facebook is sooo not happening for the youngsters.  Less and less Millennials are signing up for and/or using FB. They find the SM format increasingly unappealing, and tend to gravitate more toward Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat where info is more terse, more easily digestable, and at times immediately disposable. AFAIK.  Lol.

Secondly, (and I digress a bit from topic to illustrate what I found to be an intuitive point) --for those of us old Crusties who climb aboard Facebook quite often- there are two types of interactions as laid out by this German study:  Interactive users are ‘liking,’ commenting, posting their own status, sharing files, etc.  This type of interaction tends to make the user feel more connected.  Happy.  Plugged in. Whereas the other type of interaction- the lurker- just browses.  Behaving more like a wallflower observer at the dance, this type of user browses through others’ vacation photos, family/friend events, reads strings of comments without adding voice to the melee, and can feel increasingly depressed or disconnected as a result. 

As someone who’s used Facebook in both ways, and has experienced both sets of resultant feelings, I find this information to be, if not revelatory, than certainly validating.

But back to the curation of it all.

Perhaps it was Terry Gross, perhaps Ann Litt- I cannot now recall who presented this story, but she began discussing the pressure we all perhaps feel in this world of social media to sort of “curate” our LIVES, as it were.  Wherever photos of one exists--quotes, comments, reviews, etc etc- the need to  “select, organize and look after the items”  falls upon us all.

We are now all curators.  Curators of the presentation of our own lives and selves as we appear on the internet.

Now for me, this curation is not a new thing at all.  Back in 2000 when I was just finishing up my first album, to be released and promoted by me and for me- my first truly independent musical work- I immediately procured the rights to hollylong.com.  I was connecting to as many online music sites as I could find to throw my work out there into the cloudy atmosphere (before there was a Cloud.) At the behest of some other indie music friends, I was one of the first people I knew to start up a Myspace page.  And then subsequently a Facebook page, Reverbnation page.. blah blah.

It was very clear that the old pillars of the music industry were crumbling- giving way to the brave new world that was online promotion. If you wanted to survive at ALL as a musician trying to break your music to the world, you needed to interact with the online community.  You needed to be present and active and continue to show up.  That’s still true.  As the years have gone by, and I’ve piled up a few more albums in my arsenal, I’ve found myself muddling through Twitter and You Tube and Google Plus and Ilike, trying to discover the magic balance between what feels authentic to display vs. the gaping maw of insatiable hunger our impersonal communal internet is made of…

To be honest, somewhere back in 2010, immediately after promoting album number 4, I just sort of stopped.  I dropped the ball on curating the fascinating, up-to-the-minute, ever-evolving life of the artist Holly Long.  I never stopped being the artist, I just got weary of curating her.

So now it seems- this task appears to be much more of a universal online thing.  Since the maturation of Facebook, and the enormity of usership has found us all thriving on the connections we have with one another. Which seems like a good thing, right?  And yet somehow this reality of each one of us having to become personal curators fills me with an eerie sense of dread.

OK.  So we must consider the source here.  I am one of the grumbly troglodytes who went kicking and screaming into my iphone’s IOS 7 transformation last year.  Which I still resent. I currently use my dusty oversized paper desk calendar year after year. Despite the mounting number of coffee rings and unidentifiable stains which accumulate as the year progresses, this large lo-tech device continues to prove itself invaluable in keeping me organized. I like books made of paper. I wear clothing made in the 80’s.  I listen to a lot of old LP’s and find myself explaining to friends in a mealymouthed manner over and over again that I am the last person to ask about hip new music.

So it would stand to reason that I have a little chip on my shoulder when it comes to progress.  I am a chick who digs her vintage.  And who feels the need to wallow around in those past energies and past sets of feelings as if this particular present plane of existence isn’t nearly as vibrant or rich with life.

However, I think it’s not so much that I don’t want to move forward or feel as though I and the rest of “us” and “the world” are progressing….I’m just very skeptical that what we deem “progress” really is “progress” all the time.  And so I’m a wee bit scared.

Alright.  I said it.  I’m scared.  It’s slightly scary to think that we humans feel the compulsive need to curate bits and pieces of our lives in order to present the most attractive, engaged, happy, plugged-in sort of versions of ourselves all the time. Something about that seems false, and therefore not healthy.  Not good for us.  Not wholesome.  You know- like filler, but something that never really properly fills.

Now, I’m all for waving the flag when you’ve got it.  But I must say- I really don’t always have the flag.  In fact, much of the time I don’t. I am not a consistently curated piece of work which revolves around an interesting gravitational theme.  I am authentically filled with bumps and jags and inconsistencies.

I find life to be a rich nuanced concoction of crazy beautiful coincidences mixed with dully mundane buckets of melancholy.  Atop rickety structures of social mores and attempts to do right and be present and make small differences in a good way.  I am not hitting the marks so much of the time.  I am just putting one foot in front of the other and trying as an artist not to feel completely invisible, and trying as a person to make the most out of my relationships and trying as a human being to be as conscious as possible so I can leave this place ever so slightly better than I found it. 

And I’m unclear as to how the incessant curating is going to actually bring what my shrink and I have come to believe I’m looking for out of life:  “Good feelings that last.”  In fact, if anything- I think all the manic attention toward building and maintaining online persona does the opposite.  Good feelings that don't last.  And/or worse- Empty feelings that do.

As I type this, my gaze is averted over to the right hand side of my screen where an additional open online window has some sort of movable American Apparel ad running across the top.  Cute white 20 something girl with long hair and nothing on except black fingerless gloves—which is the apparel-du-jour they are apparently advertising.  There’s four pictures of her in these gloves moving at rapid speed from right to left across the top of my screen in what would perhaps be a continual day and night stream were I to keep that window open.

I suppose that’s a lovely image to end this here rant.  

The ongoing stream of information never stops.  Will never stop.  And our need to engage in it has now become primal, as the online world has become so endemic of who we are as people in any one of our present-day worldwide cultures.  In this complex world where “survival” has outgrown merely food and clothing for most of us lucky ones…we must appear online in some way in order to feel here and present.

Which requires the continual growth of new muscles of curation.  Ever expanding new skillz.

I am left here to wonder, however, at the outcome of all our meticulous curating.  These online people we become and present ourselves as day in and day out- are they to become the real ones, while our actual human forms fade away in presence as the mere place holders?

God knows, my real form is so much less appealing in many ways than the virtual me-- more vulnerable and unpredictable, less easy to package in some tidy box of quirky adjectives…

*******

Speaking of.  I’m off to wash it.  This body of mine still clad in PJs with only two cups of coffee, half a fried egg and a Granny Smith apple fueling it for breakfast. 

…Left side of my cheek very slightly swollen from yesterday afternoon when, while in a writing session, I inadvertently rammed my face into the electric tele I was attempting to sling up and over myself to play.

…Lower left abdominal muscle twitching in a very irritating tickly way leaving me to wonder, have I eaten enough potassium lately?  Maybe a banana is in my future.

…Ah- and now I’m leaning over to turn off the computer to notice the little piece of crud that lives on the &/7 key above the alphabet.  What IS that?  How long has it BEEN there?  Why is it this strange shade of dark orange??

…OK.

Curate THAT!

Clean Up on Aisle Three

It's January 1, 2014.

I've spent an uneventfully quiet day at home with the husband and the offspring.

Exactly none of us got out from under the sheets before 9:49AM.

Luckily, there's not a whole lot of foggity New Years Day hangover happening since I wisely stopped imbibing the nine different vintages of wine maybe two hours before hitting the hay last night.  (And if memory serves, that was somewhere around 11:20, seeing as Jeff and I never actually made it to the westcoast NewYear mark. Which means I must have stopped drinking somewhere around 9:20.  Which then clearly puts my start time at around 4 in the afternoon, but we don't need to---)

So, the day has been rather lovely and calm.  Hour after sun drenched hour has drifted by listlessly.  Children happily rotting their brains away on constant electronic screen overload.  Husband simultaneously downloading Rachel Maddow on itunes while checking Fantasy Football status slash "I'm working, Hol" on the desktop.

I'm wondering whether to attempt that quiche I've been threatening to make since the manic Bed Bath and Beyond Excursion of Fall 2012 landed a number of shiny white, French-y cookware products in my kitchen cupboards.  Never to see the light of day again.

There's Nowhere to go.  Nothing to do.

And at some point as the day rolls on and the sheer laziness of it all starts to affect even the rotted brain members of the family-- we do actually throw some semblance of 'clothing' on.  Pull out the big plastic containers and attempt something useful.  It's New Years Day- let's get Xmas the F outta here.

With a sigh and a slight tear wiped wistfully from the eye, we attack the fire hazard that now sits limply in the corner of the living room- denuding the prickly sad evergreen skeleton of all its ornaments.  Leaving crumply piles of wet brown needles strewn in a defeated shaggy line from the living room corner to the outside porch where the carcass now stands- defiantly naked and shedding.

That's when I decide to change it up.  It is definitely time to get (oh my god) outside of the house.  So, I bravely announce to my barely clothed, severely bedheaded family -- "I'm Going To The Grocery Store!"

To which my family replies- in varying degrees of apathy- "Urh..Hm Hmph..."

I don't need any send off.

I get in the car.  I drive the four point two blocks to the local chain store, known in our neighborhood as the "Ghetto Ralph's" for which I am developing a real cuddly affinity, seeing as I can no longer stomach the righteous Whole Foods crowd.  And as much as I loves me the Trader Joe's where I do tend to do the bulk of our regular shopping- our nearest is a good 20 minute drive away.  Can't beat the ghetto grocery store which takes- at max- two and a half mins to get to in the car.  And that's only if you hit the one rather long red light on the way.

I pull into the lot.  Swing into a space.  Whoosh, slam- go the car doors.  (Lookit me, I've remembered my recyclable grocery bags! Ok, so they both say Whole Foods on them, and here I am at the Ghetto Ralph's, but I'm choosing to look at that as an ironic self-loathing sort of white person maneuver on my part.)

Oh my- there's my old friend Matt from the hood with his baby girl!  Haven't seen them in an age.  She's getting so big... I hug him.  We smile.  "Happy New Year! How's Greg?"   "Fine- what's up with Jeff?"   "Great- Same old."

I feel obliged not to get too close to the baby, because, well....I'm not wholly completely healthy.  And I look it.  Which leads me to feel equally obliged to apologize for the three vaguely weepy cold sores which are working their magic on my lips... "I've caught a bit of a cold- see these lovelies?  heh heh-- heh- don't want to get too close to your sweet girly now!"

He looks at me with a veiled mixture of pity and disdain.  Didn't need to hear about the cold sores, Hol.  Don't really care.  I see them.  Whatever.  And why do you feel the need to justify your facial sores when they sporadically arrive in your life?  People can really get past them- nobody gives a flying about your herpes-

Wait.  Maybe that was more the dialogue in my own head...

So now I'm inside the store.  Happy for having chatted with Matt in the parking lot, despite my complicated relationship with my face.  He and Greg are such a wonderful couple- we should see them more often.

I'm making my way through the produce.  I'm throwing the organic milk into the cart.  I'm working the edges of the grocery store.  Meat. Produce. Dairy. We need the works.  I duck into the toilet paper aisle- I sweep through the bakery.  I'm almost done!  Matt and I nearly crash carts around the toothpaste.  We laugh about both being the kind who essentially dislike grocery shopping and will do anything we can to make it a speedy trip.  I move toward frozen foods to pick up some waffles before heading to the checkout.

And that's when it hits me.

I suddenly realize there's music playing at the Ghetto Ralph's.  Because I recognize the song.  And because of the muted nature of the PA system- it takes me a minute or so to actually figure out what song it is.  And who it is.  Because, goodness- I recognize that voice.... It's really familiar!  Huh.  It sounds like a female singer I've heard quite a bit.  Well- really it sounds a bit like- more than a bit like-- my OWN voice really- --

BECAUSE.  IT IS MY OWN VOICE.  It is MY voice singing MY song on the PA system at Ralph's.  I am standing with a box of Eggo's in one hand, listening to an indie pop song I wrote and co-produced with a Chicago pal of mine three years ago called "Stardust Glitter."

And I stop and point to the sky and say out loud to nobody "Hey!  That's my song!  They're playing my song!"

Luckily for me, my pal Matt is close by and notices me looking oddly toward the asbestos tiled ceiling with my finger pointed in the air.  "Wait- that's YOU, Hol?"  "Yeah!  That's ME!  That's 'Stardust Glitter! "  We both smile a bit goofily at each other.  Because it's not a huge moment.  But it is an oddly special one.  Not one that happens every day.  Certainly not to this gal.

And as we're suspended for a brief moment craning to hear the notes of my tune, some twenty-something post-workout brunette in her black spandex leggings and Tshirt says to me- "That's you?  That's your song?  It's a really good song!"

A little angel sent from heaven.

I sort of float out of the store.  Me and my filled to the brim Whole Foods recyclable bags.  I note the gorgeousness of this So Cal January First afternoon.  I am supremely grateful to have somehow cashed in a karma chit such that I decided to go to the Ralph's at precisely the right moment, on precisely the right day, to have randomly started listening to the muted music in the store at precisely the right time.  Because this tiny little moment for me, as witnessed by my friend, and another random stranger in the grocery store is apparently, sometimes all it takes to keep going.

The year of 2013 was a tough year for me.  It carried with it a heavy amount of loss.  From my first stepfather to THREE old, beloved family pets.  And a dear neighborhood friend who owned my favorite joint to play.

2013 also brought transitions.  Like witnessing my daughter say goodbye to elementary school- hello to middle school.  My mother said goodbye to the Palisades, and moved out of LA for the first time in over 25 years to settle a bit farther inland with her husband in their retirement home.  My grandmother has been moved into hospice in her nursing facility.  She will surely go any day now-

And as I sort of limped from one of these emotional milestones to the next that 2013 offered up for me, I felt increasingly deadened as an artist.  And subsequently lost. There were only a handful of days where I felt truly alive in my art and work.  The weeks I blogged, the word salons I performed in, the couple of gigs I played...the album I am recording. oh. so. slowly.  Along with the rock that is my family, these parts of my life shape and mold the sunny side, as it were.   The side of me that feels activated and present.

And somehow, at the very dawning of a new year, hearing myself singing in a grocery store also generated that same set of feelings.  Not everyone gets to hear themselves in the grocery store, kid!  Your work may not have been raised to the status of elevator musak yet, but it still counts for something!  There's a tiny pulse in the music you write- there's something in it that some folks think is worth hearing...worth throwing on a satellite radio playlist.

You are HERE, Holly.  Is what I heard in the grocery store.  You are here, and people are listening.  Even if it's only you, and your friend, and one other kind stranger in black lycra... you matter, if only in the tiniest way.  Keep going- you discouraged, grieving, herpetic crazy woman, you.  Keep on going.

I'll take it.

I'll gratefully take that surprising delicious morsel of a moment in the grocery store. Until I unwittingly play audience to a future medley of Rolling Stones/Burt Bacharach/Jack White/Holly Long being butchered by a vibraphone in an office elevator somewhere.....I'll.  Take.  It.

Goodbye, 2013.  Thanks for the memories.

Hello,  2014.  What you got in store?

Serious

Yesterday in the car?  A routinely benign mother/son conversation? Where I do most of the actual conversing in long rambling sentences that each end in higher registers?  Thereby smacking of a maddening continual question stream simply because I'm hoping to actually engage my nine year old son...????

My nine year old son--- breaks protocol.  Cuts short the usual intermittent piggy grunts that generally suffice as response.  Dips his toe in the running question stream and responds:

"Yeah- I agree, Mom. Totally serious. Cereal and Silk."

He looks sideways at me.

I stop my stream mid- run-on sentence number seven and furrow my brow. Can't recall which question he's responding to.  Not sure I heard him correctly.

"You agree...um... what, Truman?  Can you repeat what you just said?"

He smiles knowingly.  I've caught some sort of bait.

"Cereal and silk."  No further explanation needed.

I sigh.

"What does that mean, honey?"

"Mooo-oom.  Cereal and silk? ---- Serious? --- It means serious!  Duh!"

Duh.  Yes.  I have once again been unwittingly snared into the "Duh" trap.

"Don't you Duh ME, young man.  I TAUGHT you how to "Duh." -- You mean the words 'cereal and silk' which sound I suppose a little bit like the word 'serious' ...mean 'serious'?"

"It's 'Youth,' Mom.  You wouldn't understand."

Translation:  This is what the kids be sayin, mother dearest.  You is old, old as the hills and cain't begin to be comprehendin the youthful flow of wisdom that be emanatin from out the pores of this hee-ah younger generation.

Sigh number two within one minute.

"That's not Youth, Truman.  That's just kind of stupid sounding."

"My point exactly, Mom.  "YOUTH" speak."

He is really self-satisfied here. In sort of a weirdly overly connected to this moment sort of way.  My nine year old boy is many things, but he is not a cruel kid.  He does not usually take delight in the discomfort of others, but in this tiny little moment in the car, he seems to be truly enjoying lording over me the fact that he is young, and I am not, and whether or not I groc this particular "youthful" expression, as he deems it such, isn't really the point.  The point is, he has something over me -- and he knows it-- because he knows I am not such a huge fan of feeling increasingly older, out of touch, textbook middle aged melancholic icky ick.  I like to pride myself in my (supposed) ability to still rather have a tiny finger on the pulse.  Because I'm an artist - see.  A writer and a musician.  Not just some dumb ass middle aged white person mom. I know what the Harlem Shake is.  I know Beyonce just put out her own record and accompanying videos on itunes all by her lonesome.  I've seen the "President Barak" spoof video...   (whined the dumb ass middle aged white person mom in her own defense.)

So I go on the attack now.

"OK, Truman- so EXPLAIN to me- who is not a "youth" and clearly can't inherently understand-- EXPLAIN why 'cereal and silk' means serious.  Other than it just sort of vaguely sounds like the word serious- but not even all that much...."

He looks a little less sure of himself.

"Well- yeah.  It sounds like serious."

"So that's IT- huh?  Well.  That doesn't make any SENSE, Truman.  I mean I'm just sayin.  Back in OUR day when WE were the youths, at least our colloquialisms made some sort of sense!  Like we used to say when something was Serious- it was Serious As Cancer!  See--  That's a thing!  That was a thing- that actually makes sense."

Truman looks at me in disbelief.

"That was a thing?  Serious as Cancer?"

"Yeah!"

"That's terrible mom.  That's really depressing.  Cancer is really sad."

"Well, um - yeah.  I know.  But we were using it ironically, because nothing 'serious' could ever really be serious as cancer, because it doesn't get much more serious than...ah- nevermind."

Side note: therein lies a peep into the cavernous maw between Gen X'ers and the Millennials.  Perhaps less of a need to 'make sense' or to adhere to any inherent structure whatsoever within the fabric of their collective language.  Maybe it's more just the celebration of the random.  The random is funny.  The random is odd.  The random is... well, random- and that's enough. (May I refer you to "The Harlem Shake" phenomenon circa Feb, 2013)

We return to me and my kid in the car:

"Yeah, ok Truman.  Cereal and Silk.  It's growing on me now. "

He smirks.  Truman- one.  Mom- zero.

Old.  Me-- old.  I find myself thinking about and writing quite a bit about how I feel Old.  Or am reminded of being Old.  Older.  Older than being Young.  Older than I used to be when I was Young and there were other Old people around and they were not Me and Mine.  Old was Them.  But now Old is Us. Old Is somehow Me, and I'm forced to inhabit this weird role with my kid in the car whereby I'm the crusty dusty one gathering up sayings from a time long ago and far away which predated i-anythings and where there were only three Star Wars movies and only really rich people had portable phones and it was sort of like hauling your toaster around with you.

Well- fuck that, I say.  Me and Mine may be Old, but some of us are still way fucking cool.  Some of us even have some finger on the pulse- and I'm probably not hardly included in that list.

So- to that end- speaking of beloved lists: Here's a small list for nearing the end of this year.  A list of some kick arse, funny, OLD people (read, chicks over the age of 25) who are keepin it real.  While I chip away at my old person chick rocker mom writer curmudgeon voice, there are those out there who are far beyond my preliminary stage...and so worth a read and a look.  When you have a second, check out these awesome blogs.  Good for a few laughs, snorts, guffaws.  Seriously.   Cereal and Silk,  man.  Check out these ladiez.  Foller them on Twitter and Facebook and all that.  And while yer at it- follow me and maybe tell one or two folks about my little growing blog here.  After all, we crumbly old ones need to stick together.  Happy reading!


http://thebloggess.com/

http://www.amysedarisrocks.com/

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/  (this one may be written by an actual young person.)

http://www.mommywantsvodka.com/

smilie facing

Confession:  Sometimes I find myself posting a smilie face at the end of a Facebook comment or a Twitter message when I don't really mean it.  Usually a winkie smilie face.  And a lot of times, I don't mean winkie smilie face.  I'm not really smilie facing.  Or winking.

But there I go.  Semi-colon.  lower case dash line.  (Press shift) Right facing parenthesis.

Of course now it's easier to winkie smilie face on my new spangly recently upgraded to ios 7  iphone (grumble fucking hate ios 7 stupid bullshit upgrade...) because I have such a plethora of face-y emoticons from which to choose to punctuate my emails or texts or status updates.

And I was thinking about that today as I spent the vast majority of my morning deciding not to do anything more productive than troll around the net, looking for conversations to start or join.  Like the employee at the water cooler who never really finishes her cup of water.  And never really leaves.  Just keeps chatting and head-shaking and using finger air quotations around things and fist pumping anyone who shows up around the cooler because it's Friday and she just doesn't want to work.  At all.  She just wants to connect with folks.

So that was me.  And as I'm roaming around commenting on certain political strands and social issues and of course the inevitable cute photos of my friends' children and animals doing various cute things or reaching various cute milestones in their lives.... I'm having a ball.  But I'm also winkie smilie facing.  And though I do try to keep the emoticons and all the various potential incendiary punctuation marks like exclamation points !!!!! at a minimum---

I still feel like I'm over smilie facing.

And WHY am I over smilie facing?  Would I be over smilie facing around the water cooler if I was still that bored office assistant on a Friday morning trying any way possible to make the last few grueling hours of the work week go by faster?

I would like to think, no.  I would like to think in actual face-to-face conversation with actual fellow worker human beings, I would not need to signify with smilies my sarcasm, or solidarity, or sad understanding, or sly disbelief or any of the other varying nuanced shades of grey I'm hoping my winkie smilie faces convey in the vacuum.  I'd like to think that were I in front of these individuals, they would understand any and all of the varying greys through my vocal inflections, facial expressions, hand gentures.  Dynamic.  Pauses.

You know.  The rhythmic stuff of interaction.

But when I'm left to merely a small variety of little black and white symbols lined up in certain formations that I input into electronic devices to speak my personality for me- I'm a bit concerned.  I lack the faith of the pithy.  I am a bit worried that some of my letter and space formations- my word choices and sentence structure, though so obvious to me, may fall short of fully representing the actual intended meaning.

See, because I know I'm not a muckraker.  I''m not someone who likes to drop some sort of comment bomb and then disappear for awhile, returning later to hungrily review the damage she has created.  The fiery trails of barely literate name-calling she has spawned.  Rather, I'm a craver of interesting interaction sort of Facebooker.  And Twitterer.

When I was a kid- and still an only child- my parents say I would frequently enter a room in the house where folks were busy working, reading, resting.  I'd sit down on the couch to announce "Let's have a conversation." Easily bored, often lonely when my hours of book reading and piano practicing were over, I was the kid who desperately wanted to interact.

And so this age of information (misinformation?)-- this new era of small world communication should really jive with me and those like me.  And for the most part I think it does.  However, I still wish I didn't have to use so many damn winkie smilie faces.  Because like I said earlier- I'm not a winkie smilie face kind o gal.

But because I'm not a muckraker- and still one who occasionally leans toward the dark comedy side of the bench- I find I gotta trot out the smilies.  Or maybe I lose friends.  Both real and virtual.  Maybe I end up starting conversations that wind up with  "Wait- What I meant was..." at the beginning of every one of my replies.

And who wants that.  Who wants to be publicly editing themselves at every turn.

So I leave you dear reader with this:  It's almost 1pm at the water cooler here.  And while occasionally avoiding cross-knit browed glances from my boss,  I'm still here air quoting and chatting away.  And because you are not actually standing in front of me while I say "T.G.I.F."  in an overstated, obvious, making fun of myself while appearing to also look sort of cool tone of voice...I am left to type--

Happy weekend. T G I F.   ;-)

shitty

I am having a current discourse with myself about "feeling shitty."  Mostly because right now, for no actual discernible reason, and for no apparent limited time trajectory, I am feeling shitty.

In the 12 plus years I've been in consistent therapy - basically in service of the condition called Being Alive - I've been able to come up with a few other words to further illustrate this feeling.  Words like- Lonely.  Purposeless.  Lost.  Adrift.  Empty.  Disconnected.

But really nothing suffices quite like "shitty."  That's still the best one I've come up with so far to truly describe this state.

And of course when the discourse starts to take shape over the feeling shitty of it all...it inevitably becomes about "un-feeling shitty."  Not feeling "un-shitty," which will ostensibly occur if I do it right, but about "un-feeling shitty."  Which is more of an action.  Or an attempt at an action.

I feel this way.  I would like to feel un-this way, so I'm going to figure out how to un-feel this way.

And therein lies the rub.

Because, I can take any sort of action to try to achieve the un-shitty state.  Say:

1. Drink more coffee
2. Go for a run
3. Stand on my head
4. Sing something
5. Write something
6. Find someone in my neighborhood and talk to them
7. Eat something sweet
8. Eat another piece of that sweet thing
9. Meditate
10. Watch TV
11. Facebook.  Twitter.  TEXT.  CALL SOMEONE -

CONNECT! TURN IT AROUND!
SOMEHOW!

But those things don't necessarily make me un-feel this way.  They just sort of put it off for awhile.  The process of un-feeling something is sort of a losing proposition, I've found.  I cannot truly escape the feeling states, I can only manage them.  So- enough of the conversation about "unfeeling."

So then I go-  the conversation needs to switch.  To the feeling- and not to the attempted distraction.  But the feeling.  It looks like this- it smells like this.  If it were a food it would taste like this.  It does this to me.  It makes the world look like this.  Dive deep into the feeling.

Which is risky.  Risky because I worry that by diving in, I'll never get out, and then where would I be?  Who would make the crabmeat dip for this evening's pot luck dinner?  Who's going to the grocery store to take the household fruit stock from one brown, slightly dehydrated banana to the horn of plenty my upper middle class children need and deserve? Who's gonna ride the bike at the gym for 30 minutes? This fat is not going to burn ITSELF off.

I mean, who's going to power through that mundane moment to moment living existence that I am so grateful and lucky to inhabit?  You know- the one that is also frequently the catalyst for the whole "feeling of shitty" in the first place.  (ie- what has my life become?  Where did my dreams go to die?  How can I recapture that feeling of being needed and useful?)

It's also risky because- let's face it- I don't see a whole heck of a lot of company in that world.  The world of those Not Running From The Feeling Shitty.  Misery loves company supposedly, but we 21st Century humans apparently prefer company in the prolonged attempt to never ever ever feel miserable. Because when you feel miserable- that seems to be the wrong state of being.  Well, that's not right.  That's not good.  Here- take a pill, get a massage, go talk to someone, be sure you do everything you possibly can not to feel that way.  Because feeling that way sucks and is uncomfortable and obviously means you've failed at the proposed goals here.  Which is that Life is Awesome.  So stop that.  Don't feel shitty.  You're wrong.

!!

I know there's at least one guy who's on my side here.  And that would be the man I've been creating a deeply connected relationship with in one tiny small earthly space at roughly the same time every week.  The man I happily pay to spend this small amount of time dedicated just to me and my shitty human condition.  And that would be my shrink.  (You were kinda thinking gigolo for a second though, weren't you?  I entertained that notion for about 6.7 seconds. That was kinda fun.)

My shrink believes in the just feel shitty of it all, right along with me.  I'd go so far as to say there's probably many in his profession who come down on that side too.  Not every moment of every second of every day- not that the goal of human existence is to feel like crap, but it also certainly isn't to un-feel like crap either.  And maybe in fact, the less we focused on "goals" in general, possibly the more peaceable we'd be.  Alone and together.

So I've spent many expensive minutes in his office feeling shitty with him.  I'm telling you- it's been kinda great.  I am getting some bang for my buck in there, turns out.  Diving into the shitty in a safe environment, for a specified amount of time-- I highly recommend.

The trick is - like yoga - how to install this program into my everyday life whereby when the shitty comes, I can do it.  I can connect through it - into it- with others- so that it becomes a workable part of my existence as opposed to something that makes me want to hide.  To crawl under the covers and cower until the fog lifts for a bit.

sigh sigh sigh.

so here I am writing the shitty.  Thanks for reading.  If you are reading, I suppose I actually posted this piece.  Which, as I type these final words, I am entertaining crippling moments of ambivalence about.    On the one hand- you're crafting this blog, Miss Holly, in an attempt to be as authentic and real as you possibly can.  To not hide from the warts.  Post the Feeling Shitty blog.  Post it!  On the other hand- Who wants to read about your vague depressive feelings of shitty which are hopefully soon to shift anyway?  As they always do because nothing lasts, not even the truly great stuff?

Well, I hope you've gotten something out of this.

I still feel a bit shitty.

Though perhaps a little less so.

Same time next week?

It Keeps You Running

I spent the endorphin-soaked 20 minute segment of my run yesterday solving the world's problems.  That's generally what I do, you see.  Or at the very least, I spend those super focused, rainbow-swirly moments internally ranting while nodding silently in agreement with all my own opinions.

The bummer is that inevitably what occurs at the 45 minute mark of my run- the part where I lurch through my backdoor sweaty and gasping for air after hurling myself through approximately 3.5 miles of space- is that all the answers dry up.

Endorphins, for me, apparently work like magic fairy dust.  Or PCP or something.

There's a part of me that wants desperately to record my brain while on these self-injected chemicals. And not so much to retain the content alone, but to retain the drive behind the content.  Because, I'm telling you, I could seriously do some pretty awesome and/or wacked out things if I was perpetually jacked up on these chemicals.  Like potentially write the next Broadway hit rock opera or run for political office.  And probably at the same time.  Because, when the chemicals are coarsing like wildfire through my veins-- I feel empowered.  I feel plugged in.  I feel hopeful and necessary, like my ideas are viable and possible.

Now obviously I've done a few significant things in my life on a more down-to-earth scale. I've birthed two children and am parenting them.  I've made some albums.  I've done charity work and fostered long term meaningful friendships.  I've consistently co-tended to a relatively successful marriage.

But all of these major cornerstones in my life took and do continue to take time.  Small increments of time and energy and attention- consistently.  Whereas, the endorphin rush feels like a totally different gas in the tank.

You know what I mean, right?  Even if you don't bring it on yourself through exercise, there are other ways.  The second cup of coffee, perhaps.  The third glass of wine.  The fourteenth day of consistent meditation.  That one unbelievably amazing yoga class.   Reaching the top of the mountain.  Jumping out of a plane.  There's so many ways.

And the fuel that you're suddenly sucking down is incredible.  It's like 100% Self Esteem in a can. Like revisiting- or re-creating perhaps- a time in your life where you were willing to suspend all the disbelief.  When, either because of ignorance or sheer joy, you actually believe in the possible, despite the existence of the highly improbable.

So- ok.  THAT was running through me for a time yesterday as I'M running through the slightly sea-soaked balmy Venetian air.  The innocence of believing in the possible.

And now I think it's necessary that I provide you with this image.  Because a small piece thereof is what came into my purview just as I was getting into the groove of my run at the .3 mile mark down Venice Blvd.  I pass a bus stop- and this is what I see plastered on the side:

To be very specific- the image I see on the bus stop window is the one in the upper right quadrant. The chick in the bikini with the phone- apparently shooting a selfie (which, as all you linguists out there probably ruefully know, was just included last month as an official word in the dictionary.)  And this image makes me sort of sigh in vague disgust.  Not because the whole Grand Theft Auto franchise itself has really pierced through my life yet in any meaningful way- though I do have a nine year old boy who adores all things video game...

It's just that this image and all it implies is so so tiresome to me.  Me - an aging, curmudgeonly, educated female who's been swimming around in her own sea of confusion about where she belongs in the world as a woman and as an artist for some time.

Now, there's nothing wrong with beautiful girls/women wearing bikinis.  And though it's really vacuous, I suppose there's nothing actually technically wrong with shooting a selfie or flashing the now completely meaningless "peace" sign at the same time alongside your "come fuck me" face.  (Yeah- yeah I know- it's a V for Five.  As in Grand Theft Auto Five, but I see the other implications.)

What makes me sigh is that the whole package stinks.  It's the use--yet once again--of the image of a young, nearly naked gorgeous girl alongside images of fully-clad dudes sporting enormous machine guns and other automatic weapons.  As if those two contrasting images of  male power/violence and naked female weakness/vulnerability living beside each other are totally normal.  Well maybe because they are sadly ubiquitous in our culture-  powerful advertising tools.  These two contrasting images also seem to make up the essential energy that is this particular video game.  (Which, by the way, might be one of the top selling, most highly sought after games in all of home video gaming history. )

But, in my world - it's 2013.  Not 1958 or 1875 or 1312.   It's not even 445 BC.  In my world in 2013, we are moving ever so slightly toward a more wise, tolerant, kind, SMART society.  Where androgynous emblems are starting to take root and male and female live together in equality.  In my world we realize that women have much more power than just their sex appeal.  We value women for embodying the fundamental beginnings of all human life and culture.  And the nurturing element that sustains.  In my world, men who really understand sustainable power realize it's not about perpetrating fear. It's about supporting growth. In my world, men don't have to prove how strong or manly they are through violent acts.  They don't subjugate their heart-- the real center of power because power is about connection. They use their hearts alongside their brains and allow their hearts to make them present and vulnerable.  Then they become interested in discovering what the right choices are and how to make them in all the deeply grey areas life has to offer.

And now I've just passed mile marker 1.2.  And my inward wordy philosophical rant turns a bit angrier.

Because I realize My World is really still that-- just mine.  It's not the world I actually live in.  It's the fantasy world I like to think I inhabit.  Like Aaron Sorkin's "West Wing."  It's not a TV show about the ACTUAL White House.  Just the White House you wish were running the country.  Sure, there are handfuls of people living in the USA and elsewhere who likely would deeply align with me, but I do realize how sadly and actually in the minority I am.

So I get mad.  And my huffing and puffing becomes a little more measured and audibly louder.  Fuck these stupid men who grew up with no love and no respect for women because their mothers were beaten down and undervalued by their fathers.  A lot of whom grew up with no strong male role models because their role models abandoned them daily or just split entirely.  As did the generations before them.  Fuck these dudes who believe that running and splitting are what make men free and thereby living their birthright.  And that shooting and screaming and fighting and fucking and gambling and basically being destruction incarnate makes a man awesome.

Fuck all y'all insecure men, I inwardly shout, who are only comfortable with a beautiful woman if she's smaller and prettier and more timid than you.  Who appears to be not as bright or driven or steady as you.  And who then is basically yours for the taking- someone you can dominate.  Fuck y'all who keep messaging to our girls out there to become that kind of bikini-clad clone and to fight each other over the stupid stupid boys, because securing one of them is the only measure of her worth.  Fuck y'all who keep grinding our boys down to be so stupid and to value violence over compassion and brash impulse over thoughtful decision-making.

And the whole time I'm indulging in this strangely satisfying inward rant, fueled by that high octane endorphin rush....I'm remembering childbirth.  That's right- the births of my two kids.  I've been very lucky-- these two moments in my life are simultaneously the most violent and the most meaningful moments I've lived through.  And I suppose somehow, my furor over witnessing a sophomoric ad based on celebrating male gun-toting dominance over vacuous, naked femaleness seemed connected to these memories.

See, I chose to give birth to our daughter Josephine with no epidural.  I had not ever gone through childbirth before, and naively decided to adhere to my belief in the possible and went into the birthing room drug free.  To this day, I have a lot of respect for myself in retrospect.  Because fairly early in the process, I discovered that having a child is a very violent thing for me- filled with shakes and vomiting.  Constant pain - tormentous pain (not these contractions that come and go, as they were sold to me...), Moaning and screaming and fear of dying and then fear that my body would split in half and that I would NOT die, but have to keep enduring the biblical amounts of fear and pain.  That was in a nutshell my perfect-on-paper birth experience of our daughter back in 2002. Though she would eventually emerge 24 hours later whole and healthy, without trauma or damage, leaving me actually able to walk off the birthing table, her birth - sans epidural- was about the scariest thing I have ever been through in my life.

I suppose the only way I could re-up and get pregnant again was by hoping that it would not happen to me the same way the second time.  That maybe this time would be different.  I would be able to endure it having gone through it once before.  Well- it was different.  Half way through giving birth to our son, and realizing I was going to experience everything exactly the same tormentous way I had experienced it the first time- I yelled for that fucking needle.  Give.  Me.  The.  Epidural.  I begged and pleaded and sobbed and whispered.  And finally got it.

So I do now know how it feels to give birth in the 21st Century. With all the comforts that 20th Century western medicine has to offer.  But my first birth experience was definitely something more akin to cavemen times. And having gone through those births- having endured that kind of torture and fear and pain, I believe one thing very deeply.  Women are just stronger than men.  In some fundamental way- women are hardwired to withstand in a way that men are not.

So of course it makes sense that over the span of centuries and millennia, men have sought to balance that out.  They've sought on a broad scale arc to undermine their women alongside their own inner feminine facets.  Being a woman-- one who gives birth to humans-- is really really fucking amazing.  And nuts.  And primal and scary and freaky and gross and disgusting and beautiful.  And bloody, let's not forget.  But we women do it because we are wired to.  And so far, it appears to be the only way we humans keep on truckin, so to speak.

So men, for the most part, have reacted by dipping right down into their endless vats of testosterone  and found ways to feel badass.  Despite the fact that they are not the true original badasses, men now wear, govern, and own that mantle.  Men do the killing, for the most part.  Men do the planning of the killing.  Men fight.  Men wage war and develop weapons of destruction and men organize and attach value and put up fences and govern countries and run companies and plan coups and terrorist attacks.  Men write stories and make movies glorifying all this kind of behavior- making it appear infused with valor and courage and other essential elements of badassity.

But men are not the original badasses.  We women are.  And there's no amount of money or gold or pussy or drugs or territory or hold over religion or technology that can change that.  Because women are the ones designed to create and sustain humans.  And THAT is real power.

I'm tired of living in a male-dominated world where male-dominated attributes are so overly celebrated and perpetrated.  I'm weary of my own constant questioning of self which I think is partly due to my sex, but to be truthful- also very deeply rooted in my DNA.  (I am just drawn that way.)

As I run down Venice Blvd, one of the chief arteries in this little piece of LA I choose to call home, I am reminded of one of the many reasons I live here.  Say what you like about Venice, but we do have a penchant for questioning norms here.  And a tendency to celebrate the outside track.  The weirdos.  The freaks.  The ones who don't necessarily conform to the norms, but rather reject them - realizing many times they don't fit.  Some of us here are innovators.  Some are artists.  Some are complete dropouts.  Some are just passing through.  But the energy here is palpable- you are always allowed to attempt being who you are here even if it doesn't fit anywhere else.

I'm constantly trying to figure out how to feel like I'm truly inhabiting my self, my power, my human life so generously bestowed upon me by the universe.   I'm happy to live here in Venice because I feel at least like there's more hope for me and my children to, say, notice a billboard of an egregiously chauvinist and violent image and realize how wholly that doesn't fit into our family's concept of self, or of what humanity is capable of becoming.

I suppose hopped up on endorphins, for 20 minutes out of every two or three days or so, flying down Venice Blvd,  I can internally concoct myself as the next Martin Luther King Jr infused with direly important messages to the world.  As the next Cesar Chavez- ready to mobilize the troops for the greater good.  Or Gandhi- poised to soothe and fundamentally change behavior all at once.   An impassioned leader, poised to channel and deliver my true message- that women and men are equally necessary and powerful.  And that if we can truly internalize that reality-- we really can be great together.

And then the spell is broken.

I walk slowly down my back alley.  Chest heaving up and down. I approach my backdoor.  Turn off whatever 70's/80's band has been providing the high volume soundtrack to my internal ravings.  And realize I will write about this later on.  That the concepts and ideas that whirl themselves around my brain high on endorphin chemicals are so huge, they can't begin to be manifested in any immediate way in my life.  Nor can they be coalesced in one simple blog post.  But the conversation can at least be attended to in some small way.

And I suppose that's what keeps me strapping on my old New Balances three times a week and pointing myself toward the ocean and back.  That's what keeps me in the game of suspending the disbelief and embracing what I hope can be possible.

Yesterday, Grand Theft Auto V was on the menu.  And a subsequent journey into my own rage at popularized social inequality for the sexes as it relates to violence and power.  But really, I'll take whatever my endorphins are serving up- week after week.  It's a damn good fuel that sparks my wanting to believe in the improbable possibilities.

And that's what keeps this ol girl running.

in fashion

There was never any way I was going to be in the fashion industry.

That's what my 18 year old self made very clear to my then- stepfather Michael.  Back in 1988, Michael suggested that instead of becoming yet another wanna-be actress in Hollywood, I take my model-esque body, love for clothing and mind for creativity, and go do.

Either that or become a TV news anchor, he suggested.  Because not only was I extremely easy on the eyes, according to Michael, but very smart and supremely charismatic.  (He was an avid and vocal fan of me back in those days.  A kind quality in him I will never forget until my dying day- especially since his arrived very sadly earlier this spring in the form of pancreatic cancer.)

The news anchor idea at least titillated my nubile actor brain a bit more than did a career in fashion. Mainly because it involved my face being displayed on a screen of some sort.  And because it simultaneously dealt with a very serious industry, which is the News.  But- Fashion.  Come on.  No one takes anyone seriously in the fashion industry.  My thoroughly-inexperienced-with-said-terrain teenage self threw this tidbit of ignorance back mockingly at my well meaning stepdad.

Which I think mainly meant- I don't take anyone seriously in fashion.  Fashion was not a serious world of creative expression, I suppose I had decided.  Though stealing away in my mother's closet and poring through her Vogues and Glamours and Bazaars had been a monthly habit for me back in my elementary school days.  Until of course, I was gifted a subscription to Seventeen somewhere in middle school. And then I proceeded to wear those dogeared pages down from overuse.  Studying the line of a skirt or the color of a silk jacket as if to memorize these features, as I was doing less surreptitiously with  my actual homework.

And that eventually morphed into paying the same kind of attention to the jacket covers of all my records.  I wanted the verbal information provided, surely- who played what where.  Who wrote what.  Lyrics.  Credits.  But I also loved soaking in the visual vibe of each record- the colors and choices of photos, hairstyles and CLOTHING of all my favorite rock stars.

Oh, and oh my god, let's not forget the hours spent creating mini fashion magazines out of white construction paper and staples using my Hasbro Fashion Plates toy circa 1982.  If I ever land upon these gems of my childhood again, I will either burn them or frame them- depending on how I want to approach my vague shame of these memories.

"You too can be a Truly Modern Woman in this Delectable Ensemble from designer Horatio Langley! Just flip on that sexy beret- toss your high leather boots on and you're good to go anywhere in town, ladies!"

The above is an attempt to provide copy of the scripts I wrote in sprawling cursive alongside each colored-pencil Fashion Plate creation.  Horatio Langely being my best version of a made-up designer's name.  Sounded foreign and classy and a little esoteric all at once.  This is the sort of thing I was holed up doing in my room in middle school after the homework was completed, piano practiced,  and the hours of phone time were concluded.  (Those endless conversations with my bestest friend Sarah which primarily focused on boys who didn't know we existed.)

I was making my fashion plates.  I was writing my copy.

However, this was clearly not something I was going to DO as an adult.  To actually spend my LIFE'S WORK in this industry!  I have so much BETTER, more LASTING things to accomplish as an artist!  (I also humbly recall the misguided interaction with stepdad Michael at the outset of acquiring my Theater degree from UCLA about how I would never, not ever audition for a commercial.  What a lowly existence that would comprise.  Being a COMMERCIAL actor. Y-UCK...  Fast forward to five years later when I'm actually living in the world of Hollywood- struggling desperately for any sort of paying gig.  The rare commercial audition was like manna from Heaven for me.)

What the hell does anyone know at 18.  OK, I suppose some of you out there had a significant amount of your shit together by 18- I do know a few of those unlikely types.  But I certainly was not one of them, and so I had all kinds of room to look up and down on all sorts of things I knew absolutely nothing about.

Which led to a flimsy-at-best career in acting in my twenties.  Followed by an only slightly less flimsy career in music, where clearly I belonged all along.

But it did NOT lead to a career in fashion.  And I suppose that's ok- because the music found me and has not let go, and that seems to be as it should.  BUT.  My relationship with fashion magazines and clothing and thrifting and buying and putting outfits together and spending a fairly significant amount of time basically thinking about fashion has only grown and flourished.  So, I was not destined to be a pro- but I am one hell of an amateur, not wheeling and dealing in the realm of fashion, but sort of parked off to the side.  I think rather I'm a pro in the magic fantasy world of fashion as it relates to other things, less tangible.  More related maybe to the tie between rock music, say, and fashion.  More related to how fashion makes me FEEL.

And as I sat down with my lovely friend Maggie the other day downing some Provence Rose at a local joint- somehow this subject got brought up.  And Maggie insisted that I blog about it- that fashion needed to hear from me about me and this so-called subverting of the value within.

And I guess I agree with her, because here I am typing away at you, my readers.  What I have uncovered over these last few years that has afforded me growing older, wiser, and more humble, is that I do truly value fashion.  And it's not a worthless endeavor or a flimsy industry at all.   I mean, sure- there may be some shallow souls inhabiting that world, but who the hell am I to blithely dismiss the realm that birthed Dior and Armani and Prada....Calvin Klein and Chanel- Lagerfeld and Von Furstenberg--the list goes on and on.  These are true artists, each in their own way.  Working their craft in the physical realm, but also of course, as artists must do- tapping into the spirit world on a regular basis to bring back inspiration based in primal concepts and etherial energies much of the time.  They are constantly going on their own inner journey year after year to bring forth something simultaneously authentic to themselves, and universal.

Anyone who knows anything about the world of the fashion designer knows this.

But more importantly to me- and closer to home- is that as a consumer of fashion, as my own personal stylist, I too am working my artist self.  Each time I put an outfit together (well- maybe not EVERY time, sometimes just that trusty old Tshirt and jeans are all I've got energy for), but most times I'm looking to channel something.  And what that means is I'm trying to bring forth whatever facet of the multi-dimensional Holly wants to shine that day.  Meaning, I'm trying to physically clothe and accurately reflect that which wants to come out and play.

If you walked through my closet you'd immediately be struck by how schizophrenic my wardrobe is.  (Most of my friends posit that I do have some sort of personal style that according to them coalesces these many forces and many influences together into something of a whole cohesive thing.  I hope that's true.  I can't really comment on that- too close to the source.)

But what I can say is that some days I'm attempting to channel the French me.  The coquettish, classic, pixie Audrey Hepburn me who has only 14 pieces of clothing in her closet, and they're all impeccably tailored and they all go with each other. Each piece is rakishly elegant and beautifully easy at the same time.  Like I just threw myself together last minute, and instantly became accidentally the height of style in less that 4 minutes.

And then, there's the Stevie Nicks-70's-siren, rock-star me.  The sexy vixen- powerful mistress to the druggy, free-loving, Topanga Canyon lifestyle.  These pieces are flowy Indian dresses, feathers, leather, vintage lace, high heeled boots.  Hats with floppy brims and cape-like jackets.

Some days are Chrissie Hynde.  Tight leather pants.  Mens shoes, tailored jackets.  Ripped up rock concert Tshirts.  Black eyeliner. Red lips.

Then there's Faye Dunaway...plaid wool A-line skirts.  Brown, camel, soft salmon leather boots.  Tight button down 70's silk Cacharel shirts only buttoned up half way.  (If I was really adventurous, I'd go braless too I suppose.)

And that's just the obvious iconic female energies.  Sometimes I'm channeling something smaller-- a feeling or a memory.  One particularly productive trip to a thrift store two years ago resulted in a pair of tapered flower jeans as well as a shrunken crochet jacket.  I put them together and became "Pretty In Pink's" Molly Ringwald the day that Lane asks her out at the record store where she works.

A couple months ago I found an old satin bowling jacket.  When I wear it I am Michelle Pfieffer in "Grease 2."   Lookin for my coo-oo-oo-ool rider.

The comforting thing about my conversation with Maggie is that as I spewed all of this to her at the 1.5 glass of Rose mark, she was nodding her head in understanding.  Yes, Holly- she says.  I get you.  Especially about the French thing.  Who doesn't want to wake up one day and be French?  To throw on the perfect navy striped Tshirt and silk scarf over your exquisitely tailored trousers and flats...wander down the St Germaine in the brisk fall...under a cobalt blue sky...smoking your first Gauloise of the day...on the way to meet your starving artist lover...10 years your junior...at the smoky cafe?

Because sometimes the most fun thing about fashion is the story you are telling yourself.  The piece of the person you maybe aren't on a regular basis but want to at least echo now and again becomes that much more manifest when you put on her outfit.  Like a costume.  And I love that.  It's like holding on to a tiny bit of my real childhood.  The one where my friends and I would meet half way in between our houses after school and assign the roles we would play in our mutual game of imagination that would last until we were all called home for dinner.

Play.  Imagine.  Fun.  That's what fashion has been for me.  That's what it continues to be.

So no- dear Michael.  I'm still not, nor likely to be, destined for a job in the fashion industry. That's not where my real talent lies.  I am a creator of songs and poetry- words and music strung together in lines, as opposed to thread and fabric.  And though I am someone who likes to look and ponder over the images- to soak them in like wine and see what pieces I can incorporate into my living breathing life or work-- that's where it ends for me.  I think I'd ruin it if I had to put a real-life, every day mercantile construct upon my love for fashion.

At least now I know it has nothing to do with devaluation.  Because I do hold the fashion industry in  high regard, having spent scads of time reading magazines and catalogues.  I've also had the pleasure to meet up and coming young visionary designers over my years here in LA.  I just know it's not the world I am meant to inhabit.  I am an avid visitor- though I don't live there.

After all,  if I did move in,  I might have to change my name to Horatio Langely.