Lulu Dengler

Time stands too still
Left here there for the kill
But this hope that sorrow bleeds
Leaves a man with nothing

There’s just no mercy in your eyes
There ain’t no time you said things right
And I’m afraid I’ve lost the fight
I’m just a painful reminder
Another day you leave behind

Love grows a fear
Suites your taste of bitter ends
But this stake that holds you in
Leaves no place to begin

There’s just no mercy in your eyes
There ain’t no time for selling lies
And I’m afraid I’ve lost the fight
I’m just a painful reminder
Another day you leave behind

Words seem so blind
I’ve been pushed far aside
To my choice seems too small
Any move and I could fall

There’s just no mercy in your eyes, child
There ain’t no time to set things right
And I’m not preaching to the choir
I’m just a painful reminder
And you’re a fool to satisfy

Here in Mexico it’s still April 14th. Today will be only once. So, this is my only chance in this year to post a video with one of my favourite musical pieces: Avril 14th, by Aphex Twin (aka Richard David James).

Today is the 104th day of the year. Thomas Alva Edison demonstrated his kinetoscope in this day of 1894.  In 2000, Lars Ulrich sued Napster. And five years ago, the 99% of the human genome sequence was completed to a 99.99% accuracy. As I have mentioned in the previous post, it’s Alex’s birthday. And, also my parents celebrate their 24th wedding anniversary. But those events are neither related to this music nor the way it makes me feel. I always thought of this piece as a “morning after” sort of soundtrack. You know, the notes are melancholic, but hopeful. Just like you would feel after sleeping with a new love for the first time (and in the case it turned out as an experience worth of repeating), ha.  Just like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette surely feels as she walks back to Versailles, the morning after sleeping with count Fersen. Watch and listen:

Happy Birthday Christopher

Originally uploaded by Schooled_in _rock

Let me dedicate this post to Alex, who’s turning 30 today.

You were my first real infatuation (by real I mean a close and alive person, who infatuated me differently from Marie Curie, Francis Crick, Julio Cortázar, Eddie Vedder, Freddie Mercury or John Lennon). And, so far, you’re the person who knows me the best –I have thought that you actually know me better than myself, but that’s to be discussed on the couch, with the shrink.

You put the standard. You know, the minimum requirements a guy should cover to infatuate me. And you put them high. And I thank you for it. I also thank you for not being my friend, and listening and holding me as I felt I was crashing though. For letting me cry in your futon, and feeding me ice cream afterwards.

I hope you find yourself again soon, so you can find a nice gal –not the ordinary one who recently broke your heart, come on, didn’t I put a standard for you, too?

Wherever you are, well, I just wanted to congratulate you for your birthday, dude!

These are Thurston Moore’s “Honest James” lyrics. After that beautiful intro, I’m singing out loud:

Come back, honest James/ come back to your town

Take you shadow’s mistress/ from our fertile ground

Never one to cry out/ but it’s gone on too long

Every song is empty/ without your friendly tone

Come back, honest James/ your brother, he is here

He rose into the darkness/ and he needs you to be near

Why don’t you just tell him/ what’s inside your heart

Let love take over/ you know, the devil just ain’t that smart

And I’ll always love him

From the album Trees Outside the Academy, released on September 18, 2007.

He wrote. He’s doing fine. He thinks of me a lot, he says.

Damn it! For some strange reason I contain myself from telling him that there hasn’t passed a single day without me thinking of him either sadly, romantically, sexually or hatefully. He’s always here, even in my good and bad dreams.

The top things I miss about him, in growing order of intensity:

1. His voice –a little out of tune, but versatile enough to emulate the singing style of my teenage years idols. I also miss the vein in his neck that swelled as he held the effort.
2. His smell –I occasionally buy the cigarettes brand he used to smoke, and enjoy smelling like he did,  entering his atmosphere, though this awkward practice sometimes makes me want to cry (perhaps because I miss him, or perhaps because I feel pathetic)
3. His smile –Framed by his slim lips, it was enough for making my day. So sincere, and true, and childlike. It was capable of actioning the “I would do anything for making you smile” drive in me. If it occurred that I had gotten a smile out of him, I felt complete and fulfilled. My mission on Earth had been achieved: even for a moment, I had made him happy.
4. His way of presenting his own achievements –he  didn’t like to talk about them at all, but when he had to, he could be read as modest but I’d go for qualifying him as measured. He felt proud and vulnerable at the same time. I remember when he first showed me his room and started to show me his basketball players cards collection, and his impeccable elementary school marks and acknowledgements. It was like entering the room of a kid and witnessing a parade of toys and action figures, and his own joy. It was priceless.
5. His hands –they were manly, gigantic and tough. I really felt protected when he hugged me, and holding hands with him (while we walked or as he managed to drive) was like sailing a transatlantic ship which would never wreck. Yet they were caressing, gentle. It was like he was afraid of the size and power of his own hands, so he was particularly careful with whatever he touched. He had a way of seizing and handling things (either his guitar or a simple glass of water) that deeply moved me. And whenever he touched me I felt like falling apart, and the hairs in my skin would make me look like a porcupine, and my lips would colour and swell like a blooming flower. And when his hands weren’t doing anything, he rolled them into, like feeling ashamed of their enormous size, and this was the moment I felt I had been born to expect, because finally I could reach for his hands to match mine.

When asked to list my favourite music, I always mention the ‘anything that has an angry white girl as a leading voice’ genre. Well, today I figured out that I’m a fucking white angry girl myself. No, I do not sing, fortunately.

The first time I was packed in, I wanted to kill somebody. I had enough potential energy to rock a hurricane against the whole fucking Japan islands, so I turned it into kinetic energy while I ran across Madrid for hours. Rage was my fuel.

While running, I looked at all the statues along the streets and gardens, and I wanted to be like them: trascendental, gigantic, hard, beautiful, strong, there for everybody to see.

This second time is more or less similar. I can’t keep away from thinking that if I ever win something like a Pulitzer or an Oscar or something, I should write a little list with the names of all the people who hurt (rejected, etcetera) me. Something like “thank you, because you are the indirect responsible subjects for me wanting to be more than I could ever dream of; for making me feel so down that I could only move upright.”

Of course, although I hate to admit it, I currently fantasize about my exes living in their shitty flats and having lousy jobs, with their overweight wives and at least two snotty and very loud children, going on a typical Sunday, watching the tube or reading some magazine. Of course it’s me on the cover or the main feature. “Jesus”, they’d think “I didn’t see her coming. I just let her go.” It has nothing to do with them, actually. They are good guys and deserve much more than the sad scene I just described. Surely they’ll achieve much more. It’s all about me, about my dreadful fear of being forgotten. Of having passed flat over people’s lives. But that’s the way it works, isn’t it?

And then comes the relativism. How much suffering do I need in order to feel that I want to become something big? Why do I feel so fuckin’ little if I’m actually bigger (symbolically speaking, though phisically I’m also bigger than I expected) than the 22-gal I had calculated to become? And, most important of all, why the hell do I need to demonstrate to others how far can I go? Shouldn’t be enough wanting to demonstrate that to myself and no one else? Shouldn’t I definitely change rage for something else as my fuel? That’s some stuff I thought about while listening to angry white girls rock my iTunes.

So, did I fool you with the “we both suffered” stuff, eh?

It’s never that simple. The truth is that there was a second girl in the picture. To be fair enough, I was the second gal. No, don’t misunderstand me. I was the official girlfriend but, you know, when you’re 27, you’re old enough to have a history. A romantic history. This other girl is a friend of him. And a friend of mine. But they’ve known each other for about ten years. And he is hopelessly in love with her, though he has never told her. She is just amazing, and beatiful, and packed with attitude. She also knows and likes this, but he’s just not mature enough for her. She was the first always. The only one. I arrived later. In my attempt to be the second, I stayed in no-place-at-all.

Then my sister tells me her fable. “He did to you the same thing I did to my first boyfriend. He couldn’t stop himself from loving her madly, so he dumped you despite he may have had feelings for you.” Both my sister and my ex have this tragic defect, I notice: the only way they live is according to their truth. My sister was in love with the best friend of his poor ex boyfriend. This was her truth. She told it to him, things were over. He was in love with his/our friend. He never told me, he just kept rejecting me. And here’s the big deal: my sister’s six years younger.

And this may appear as a calm conclusion to which I arrived during a REM sleep phase or while watching the shower’s water rushing down, but no. I had to figure all this out from his actions and some extra information. Curiosity drove me to the virtual space where he keeps photographic excerpts of his life. There they were, along with other friends, friendly, together, having fun. But, you know, he held that look. He seemed particularly blissful.

I had to admit it: I had lost the unconquerable battle against platonic love. He never said this, but I could hear him saying “I know we used to have something but, no thanks, you’re not Her.” If she weren’t my friend, I wouldn’t have known her, and I’d be peaceful. I would’ve had the chance of sorting out an image of “the other” for myself. But I knew her. She has a real face and body and all. And she is really nice.

What to do in such cases? There should be a hot line, some 01-800-I’VE BEEN DUMPED FOR MY BEAUTIFUL GIRLFRIEND. There they could persuade you about not doing any of the horrible things you think of doing.
1) go, kill the woman in a display of rage
2) go kill the man in a display of mercy
3) go kill yourself in a display of self-pity

The truth is I’d go for none of those right now. I’m just pulling myself together, gathering some pride for not bowing to her, Ms. Goddess on Earth, and kiss her feet. I’m experiencing a very late oedipic complex situation. If I’m like her, he will love me (maybe).

This is not nice. This is hell, wanting to be something you’re not. Who the hell am I?

Since I started dating guys (i.e. approximately, seven years ago), I’ve come to develop a ‘type’ of the right-guy-to-date: you know, men who read books and music magazines, watch films, listen to records and new bands, have a car, go (or went, since I’m good at getting thirty-somethings’ attention) to college, have jobs they don’t like, still live with their parents, smoke, drink… physically speaking, I’d go for tall, from tough to little overweight, short curled dark haired, bearded, furry, and the list continues to ennumerate a series of average characteristics corresponding to my averageness as a girl. (more…)

I’ve felt like this before.

Now I feel it again. Here it is, the awful sensation of being rejected for the second time. Not for the same reasons as the first time it happened, but in an interesting parallel way. Obviously, the parallelism being the thing that makes you feel as if you hadn’t learned anything from your many mistakes. The first hit, it really hurt. But it was just an insult to my ego compared to this sort of heartbreak. It hurts still. The first hit was a pretty live rehearsal. This one is like dying on stage.

Except for this time, rejection also comes from mum, and dad, and siblings, and aunts, and uncles. Even grandparents. The columns in which I had placed the abstract concept of absolut love just fell apart. And, if they do not love me unconditionally, who else will? Not even myself, certainly.

Ironically, myself is the place to start and the only one that matters. That’s why I’m reconstructing. Writing. Finding my own narrative and hence logic.

No había enseñado mi tattoo ni el piercing en el ombligo… lo hice todo en menos de un mes.

Y ya me dio el rush. Tanto, que Kat von D ya entró a mi top friends en myspace.

¿Por qué lo hice? Se va a escuchar súper emo, pero me gusta verme sanar. También por eso en la secundaria me cortaba los brazos con cutter, dizquehaciéndome el asterisco ese de los Red Hot Chili Peppers, o las piernas con la punta del compás. Pero no tanto, no se crean que soy una atascada masoquista. A mi hermana también le gusta hacerse cortadas de las delgaditas, como rasguños, y ponerse vendas aunque no las necesite. Cuando alguien te cura te sientes muy bien. Sientes que a esa persona le importas y te quiere. Y cuando creces y ya no te curan (o no pasa nada taaaan grave como para que alguien tenga que ayudarte), ¿qué otro remedio que herirte y curarte tú solito?

El tattoo ya sanó por completo. El ombligo no está bien. tiene muchas costras aún… y es que no puede sanar completamente porque diario bailo y me aplasto la lonja, y sudo, y los leggings lo mueven, y las hebillas que uso también se me clavan. Eso, y tal vez haya influido el hecho de que me lo hice en un establecimiento sobre Tláhuac, a manos de un hombrecillo que llevaba como tres minutos de haberse convertido en perforador. Pero estoy segura de que será un sobreviviente, como yo.