Twelve years ago someone close to me died. If you’d have known me at the time it was all I really talked about and I also wrote poetry about it and strange prose poems and short stories and marveled at the way the pain caused this preponderance of words, this spillage, really, and not the frozen numbed out wordlessness you’d expect. If I may be precious for a moment, you could say the pain existed in hypercolor, even though when I remember that period of time it’s usually in a smudgy grays. Pardon me, I think I made myself puke.

Anyway, and this is a tangent, but I still feel a bit sheepish about the fact that I so clearly allowed everyone around me to witness my mourning but perhaps even more sheepish that my mourning outfit consisted mostly of black leggings, various shiny shirts and a black fake fur coat which I used to quip was made either of poodle or gorilla. I also wore an animal print scarf around my neck because I was playing in the band at this point and we were all about fake fur and animal print. I wore this whole ensemble in the summer in the  height of my wanting to disappear, which is ironic. It was around this time that my car died and I had to get a  new one which felt like a colossal bummer and yet another example of the way the world was cruel and sucked because I really liked that first car and I really didn’t feel like being a part of any world which would steal the life of my friend and somehow test driving cars and dropping umpteen thousands of dollars on one felt like compliance. But I had shit to do and places to go so I dragged my heels and shlumped along to various car dealerships with my mom who was gently urging me toward life. I almost bought an Integra which is a smallish car but at the last  minute I worried I would feel claustrophobic in this car with my amp in the back and my furry coat around me in the front and so I bought a Honda Accord. I bought a larger car specifically for the coat. That’s how much I clung to that mourning outfit. Incidentally, I no longer have the coat but I still have the car and still hate it with all my might. (My first car also was a Honda Accord but there was a massive redesign in the intervening years.)

That was a long tangent. What I was saying was twelve years ago I was a sad furry thing but I worked through a fair amount of all that and the rest of it just kind of receded and now I barely think of any of it except for the death anniversary which usually hits me just a little. So anyway tonight I was reading Twitter and I read something singer Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses) said and then I went to her web site and was reading the message boards and there was a mention of someone who covered one of her songs—“Your Ghost”—on Grey’s Anatomy and I remembered that I’d heard that song on the show and wondered who covered it and was meaning to check.

Then I started thinking about the song which, if you haven’t heard it, below is the video,

Kristin Hersh – “Your Ghost” (featuring Michael Stipe)

Laura | MySpace Video

and wondered what the lyrics were, even though I knew them already, so I looked them up and as I was reading them it just all hit me again, both because I think I must have been listening to that song around the time he died and also because the lyrics brought back the memory of wanting so badly to call his house after he died to see if  his voice was still on the answering machine and just because I felt like I still had this special number which could bring me a tiny bit closer to something which was now permanently out of reach.

And then I just started crying like I haven’t cried in about twelve years. Full body paroxysms, which I’m kind of having as I type this actually.

I recall my therapist at the time saying that the thing about mourning is that if you don’t work through all of it it’s likely to just sneak up on you one day because the unconcious has no sense of time. Perhaps this is true but I can tell you for a fact that my unconcious has never been late for a movie or lunch date and is usually a few minutes early even!

What was I saying? I don’t know, I got tired of saying it all. It’s just weird the way something can suddenly bring everything up again, especially when you’re trying to get other stuff done.

So back in the day people used to always think I was goth and I never understood why. “Just because I have black hair doesn’t mean I’m goth!” I’d exclaim, frustrated by the crappy follicular hand I’d been dealt. Hadn’t these people ever seen someone with fair skin and black hair? I didn’t even listen to goth music! “Don’t put me in your little box!” I’d yell before repairing to the bathroom to cut myself and write in my journal.

Well I just found this photo:

I think I understand now.

But since I’m taking a Christmasy dip in Lake Me, here’s another gothy shot from the same time. Mind you I’m not even posting photos from when I played in a band because they would blow my whole argument to hell I think.

At the gym again, toning my hexagons, perennials and robots and I really don’t feel like being here. I don’t want to feel the burn, I want to feel a snack and then a nap. So I’m going to do what I do when I am forcing myself to stay here: cry. Okay, now I’ll blog and I was thinking this might be a good time to answer all those questions FAQ style, except the formatting will likely be all messed up. Deal with it.

Do you really write those posts from the gym!
Yes.

Why are you always in the newsroom on Red Eye?
I get this one all the time and I’ve been in the studio, in both chairs at different times, however that was before I suffered a horrible accident and lost my left foot. In what can only be viewed as a horrible miscalculation on the part of the medical community and also the veterinary community, they grafted the foot of a duck onto what was left of my stump. Infection and deformity resulted, but I won the women’s freestyle and butterfly strokes in the olympic trials so it’s not without benefit.

Do you eat foie gras?
What am I, some kind of cannibal?

So then when people say “Is there a duck in here?” around you, is it actually a reference to your webbed foot!
Precisely!

When’s your band playing?
Never. Unless we reunite for a wedding of one of the members or a short west coast tour which I’m trying to beat the drum loudly for but likely won’t happen.

Beat the drum loudly? I thought you played guitar.
You’re awfully literal, you know that? I do or rather did play guitar, Amelia Bedelia, but since you ask, here is a fun fact: I was the drummer before we had one who was actually good.

Um, what else?
I don’t know, you’re the one asking the questions.

Right. Is your hair really black?
Yes. I used to lighten it actually.

Are you goth?
I prefer ‘realistic.’ I’m just kidding. I’m not goth, damnit, although I do remember that when I started working at the OC Weekly years ago someone told me that they thought I was just some ’sullen intern.’ I promptly had them fired.

How long have you lived in New York?
Six years.

Where did you go to college?
Yeah, because I really get this one frequently! You are too much!

Thank you.
Pomona College. It’s a small liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was also the facade of Eastland in the credits for Facts of Life, but that’s not why I went there, I swear.

Who’s your favorite Facts of Life girl?
Can’t choose, don’t make me.

Have you been listening to “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here” by She & Him on repeat for days?
Pretty much.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The following will only be interesting to people invested in the drama that is my sister and I both naming our plants Fred. Now, to be fair, eight hundred years ago she went out and bought brown Doc Martens, and then I went out and bought the same ones even though I’m older, which may have created an irreparable tear in the older sister/younger sister dynamic. Which is to say: perhaps I had this coming.

[More about the Doc Martens, you ask? Well she was really into My So-Called Life at the time. I think she even was mistaken for goth around then, which is rare for her since she's more sunny/colorful stylistically whereas I am kind of always mistaken for goth even though I'm so not goth. Except kind of recently someone who has known me a tiny bit for about ten years said, "Wow, I never knew you had such a twisted sense of humor" and then I asked him, if he's surprised to find this out, what did he think I was like for all these years. He said, "I just thought you were... normal."]

Anyway, here’s the plant discussion:

My sister: Did I tell you I got a plant for my office?
Me: Yes.
My sister: I named him Fred.
Me: [slow burn] That’s my plant’s name.
My sister: Huh. No wonder it worked well.
Me: Yeah, Fred and Rita.
My sister: Rita’s the other one?
Me: Yeah.
My sister: Rita looks skinny.
Me: Thank you!
My sister: Mine looks more like a Fred anyway.
Me: I highly doubt that. Wait, is yours Frederick?
My sister: No, just Fred.
Me: Well mine’s, uh, Fredley.
My sister: Well then they don’t have the same name.
Me: Yeah but no one calls him that!

I think I just heard this word in a commercial for some kind of asthma drug. I may have misheard it, however if it exists (as a made-up word) I think it’s:

a) awesome
b) something PR people should take
c) something publicists run on
d) something publicists run their car on
e) something you could accuse someone of taking if they’re acting too self-promoting
f) like “what the fuck, are you mainlining promoterol?”
g) or “someone took their promoterol…”
h) or, if someone is being overly self-deprecating you could wonder if they FORGOT to take their promoterol!
i) god, possibilities: endless!
q) I’m tired of the alphabet
w) so this guy and I were once talking about what we wanted on our tombstones
k) I’m fighting the urge to make a pepperoni joke
x) and I said “she liked words”
e) and then I added “more than people”
s) I forget what he said
p) I kind of suck
v) I mean, not in general, but just, if you’re having that kind of goth conversation you should really remember what the other person said