letters from the dead, a stream of consciousness.

kismet-(kiz-met) n, often cap Turk. -FATE

confession time. i got "kismet" from an episode of "beverly hills 90210". haha. no idea why it stuck in my head out of the millions of pieces of pop culture that bombard our brains every day. didn't even realize where it came from until years later, watching a rerun. laughed aloud. 

i wrote kismet zine the fall of my freshman year at college. worked at the radio station, which had a whopping broadcast range of just our campus. went to shows like that was my major, instead of environmental science, my actual major. conducted interviews at shows. (which to this day amazes me, since i was pretty much scared of my own shadow back then.) wanted someone to actually read the interviews. so kismet was born!

probably only printed less than a hundred copies of the first issue. interviews with shift, orange 9mm and face to face. assorted ramblings of a barely 18 year old who fancied herself to be "deep". reading it makes me uncomfortable. having other people read it makes me squirm. 

i did another issue the summer following my freshman year.  chaos ruled my world, as it tends to do every 5 or so years, and interviews were with sick of it all, one king down and another victim. my "playlist" consisted of promise ring, the cure, ink and dagger, bridgewater, torn apart, the get up kids and braid. i guess i tried to cover all the bases. lots of personal shit i wouldn't put out there today. (or maybe i would, since i'm typing this now?) hadn't read any plath or sexton yet, but spilled my guts regardless. 

what's in a name? i always struggled with fate vs. free will. always have been a really independent, strong-willed, outspoken girl. from a long line of the same. 

for the many lessons i wish i could undo that my mother taught me, the one amazing thing she drilled into me was to speak the fuck up. if something is wrong, say it. if you're not getting your way, correct the problem. no one is going to know what you are thinking unless you open your mouth. 

mom was a kid herself at 19 when she had me, so we basically grew up together. in the 80's when she would've rather been out at a club dancing to talking heads, the police, blondie, the cars, instead she had an elementary schooler to deal with on her own. (hell, in 2008 I would rather be at a club dancing to those records!) 

young mom equalled grandparents who helped out all the time. i was lucky. 

protestant maternal grandparents. catholic paternal grandma, peggy, after jack died when i was 4. instead of being from a "broken home", i was the pride and joy of 5 individuals, who let me know it each and every time i saw them. 

it's not until lately that i'm able to see my past for what it was, not from some place of bitterness about what i didn't have. material things only do so much. i had the LA gear sneakers and the white guess jeans and the esprit hoodies and the bass slip on shoes in middle school, the years when fitting in is paramount. (1990-1991 and 1991-1992 for anyone trying to place the fashions.) 

the girls who had everything back then are inherently unhappy right now. even though i have deviated from my chosen path many times, i have dodged the unhappy marriages, unwanted children and the kinds of mistakes one can't bounce back from. 

18 year old me would never imagine that i would be living in ny, working in my industry, still friends with the ragtag bunch of people i collected over the years. living in an amazing apartment...an apartment i'm currently packing...

i keep every letter that everyone ever wrote me. going and opening them up to read the contents only happens every so often. last night, before going to my friend from work's birthday soiree, i was organizing my "merch box" of souvenirs from my life. nothing from this box ever gets thrown away. 

was piling letters on top of each other by date. there are a bunch with my grandma peggy's handwriting. a swirly scrawl that coupled her rural irish background with an accident in her basement that made her beautiful penmanship not so great. 

these letters were written in august, september and october of 1996. she would die in early february of 1997. after reading the contents with my now adult brain, i know that she knew her time was limited. 

my sister, well half sister, but she has my whole heart, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer when she was 5 years old and i was in my first week of high school. my dad never picked me up from school, so when he did that day i knew something was up. he told me she was sick while driving from corcoran to the hospital. 

the previous week, when he was helping her into her gigantic flower girl dress for my uncle sean's traditional irish-catholic wedding, he noticed something protruding from her abdomen. she was then and has always been a teeny, tiny little thing, owing to my dad's 5'8" stature combined with my stepmom's 5'4" frame. (dad calls me his "amazon". my mom's 5'11 1/2". and always in heels.) 

to see this little kid, this kindergardener, in a hospital bed getting her first round of chemo and to have been explicitly been instructed NOT to cry in front of her was a lot for me to take as a 13 year old in her first week in high school. understatement of the year.

everyone has their own coping methods. my stepmom turned to religion, then alcohol. my dad was his stubborn irish self, refusing to cry, refusing to give up hope, being strong for the family, as his father jack had taught him by example. 

gram always had religion, masses in latin and an gaelic school upbringing. having one son die a week after he was born and at least two miscarriages after that. gerard, my uncle who didn't live, passed away on the same date that jackleen, my sister, was born. (valentine's day.) this fact solidified peggy's belief that my sister would make it, beat cancer, live a full, happy, productive life. 

she was right. 

peggy lost her battle to cancer on a cold february day at my aunt cathy's house. she refused treatment, saying she had lived a full life, watched her children and grandchildren grow and was secure in her knowledge that she'd be in heaven, finally reunited with jack after almost 15 years.  

a drunken conversation at a pub in syracuse, limerick, revealed that my two girl cousins, who are between me and my sister in age, believe my grandma prayed for my sister's illness. that she be taken instead. this is a bit much for my ex-science major, logical mind to comprehend. 

i should also mention at this point that peggy was a nurse, lived in london during the war, working in hospitals while air raid sirens blasted.  she knew fear, death, disease intimately. 

reading peggy's words committed to yellowed paper, twelve years after her death, i am sure of one truth:

she knew. 

all the things she said to me were classic things people say when they know they may never have the chance again. i am special. i am loved. she will miss me. i will do great things in life. that she hoped my guardian angel was looking after me...

as jaded as i have become, i have never lost my self-esteem, like so many women i know. even at my low point right now, with family drama looming dark on the horizon and major changes afoot, i love myself. even more than i did 6 months ago or 6 years ago. but those words from beyond the grave were exactly what i needed, exactly when i needed them. 

i keep peggy's picture where i see it every day. but words to me mean so much than pictures ever will. pure, true words from the heart. she was the best person i've ever met. 

if there is a heaven, i hope she's watching me. and not thinking that i've fucked all this up beyond repair. her values live on in me and i hope that when death comes knocking at my door, i can exit with as much grace and peace of mind as she did. 

the kennedy curse ain't got nothing on my family's...

for margaret butler. a true matriarch. (i think i'm keeping this horrible tattoo, since it might be the only part of me you'd recognize at this point. you smiled and didn't yell when i got it.) i love you. more now than ever. 

post script..."to me this is a lifestyle, not some silly trend. and years from now when they're all gone, i hope that we're still friends." thanks tommy. slainte. 

-mjm

three to get ready.

at 2 am i wake up on a daybed at my best friend's apartment. i'm under the covers, full of Taco Chulo, searching in the darkness by light of my ipod for my bag, pen and paper to scratch thoughts in handwriting I don't recognize as my own.

said best friend is on a detox. as am i, i suppose...from drama, a life i no longer knew to be my own, sloth, greed, envy. 

my cell has bit the dust. maybe a blessing in disguise? keeping me incommunicado. out of harm's way. within the 4 walls containing my best friend/sister soul/sparring partner. if i can figure her out it's one step further inside my own labyrinth. (or was it two steps back?)

my favorite moment today---anthropologie---wandering zombified on a 2:30 lunch. near the windows. i don't know if it's the bright red hair-or something else-especially lately, the little kids, the babies, all look into my eyes. seek me out. it happened again and again last saturday on my H.C. day wandering around central park alone for 7 hours...

anyway...a field trip, all matching neon green t's with white writing. one little boy taps on the glass at the side of the store, where there's no one standing but me, and waves frantically, a huge grin on his 7 or 8 year old face. i smile so wide, snapped out of my trance, wave excitedly back. all the little kids with him start to grin and wave at me too. i walk away on air. no one has seen this but me, the kids, their teachers. 

it's still the little shit that gets me. so glad i didn't move to this city, as planned, at 21 to let it suck my soul. 

postscript..."a professional cynic...but my heart's not in it..." a person came into my life on sunny october day in 1996. it would never be the same again. hour long cab ride, stolen golf cart, music, music, music, salt bagels, pure fun, tears, a funeral, a wedding, a birth, adulthood, eternal friendship (even when i doubted it was there), one of my guardians through it all. 

at a certain point, hopefully, everything clicks. comes into focus. the who, what, when, where and why. if you call it god or spirituality, a life force or just order forming out of chaos. people who've been there for half your life but may not always be right there next to you. shit goes down. they assume their roles. it's blowing my already zooming mind. 

dedicated to two of my guardians and protectors. i count you as family. 

for r.r.w.

for m.r.d.

-mjm

round two:

the first show i attended that i remember the bands that played, because i obtained and still have the flier, was for a band called copper at a vfw in solvay, ny. they played with iceburn. 

i didn't like copper that day. now i love them. i often yearn for a time machine to take me back to shows when i was too naive to pay attention or too concerned with people to focus on the music. or just to be a fly on the wall. so many people were there that i now count among my friends. my future ex-boyfriend sold me his zine. my friend's brother booked the show...i think? copper was from buffalo so i'm assuming my buddy mark was there too. 

anyway, my memory is fuzzy. this was pre-sxe me. i do remember obsessing over what shirt to wear. not that i was a girly girl. at all. it was some pseudo-riot grrrl! shirt. (before i realized i didn't hate guys, i just owned a couple L7 tapes. big difference.) it's ironic that a girl going into a male-dominated subculture would be alternately hyper-obsessed with appearance and completely indifferent to appearance. in some pictures i look like i didn't own a mirror, in others not so bad. 

i wish i had a picture from that day. but pictures, for me, color whatever day in a certain light. if it is a day i remember vividly i can see past the smiles or poses and remember what was actually going on, happy or sad, good or bad. if i can't remember the day it is just a comedy of hairstyle and clothing errors! usually.

copper was a chick band. melodic hardcore with girl vocals. as was ashes. upstate ny fave and dc fave. i'm glad i never really saw either of them. my love is based on what's committed to disc. 

the copper/texas is the reason love connection always intrigued me. "your place is still at the heart of my everything" versus "your place is at the heart of my everything". big words. do the feelings ever live up to the words? or more importantly, do the feelings ever sustain that intensity? 

-mjm

is this thing on?

i'm on the fence about blogging. my myspace has just been made private for the first time since having it, the alternative to deleting it completely. (which i did once before.) i'm cutting dead weight from my life. "friends" have been deleted, both on the worldwide interweb and from my phone and life. a blank slate. a fresh start...

so why would i want to put myself out there in this way?

my friend pete's blog is awesome. i asked him if it was ok for me to do a "girl version" of his. he said yes. not sure if this will end up much like his, aside from posting old cd covers and waxing nostalgic.

not that he corners the market on music blogs or nostalgia. it's an epidemic amongst my friends as of late. unearthing old records, zines, shirts, etc. i did a myspace page for my zine as a "creative" outlet, since i don't really write my poetry anymore. (and kind of want to throw up when i read the old ones.)

i subscribe to the nick hornby philosophy of books, movies and music mattering. but to put my own spin on his theory... "it's what you're like AND what you like." if i've learned one thing in my almost 30 years it's that truth. just because i have the same record collection as someone does not mean we will become great friends. lots of socially inept people like what i like. in fact, my music encourages people to be brooding, introspective jerks who are pretty much lost in their own thought bubble for a majority of their lives.

luckily, i am a sum total of all my experiences. as much as i was immersed in the music scene, i kept going to family functions, working "normal" jobs and socializing outside the subset of people who knew the secret handshake, owned the decoder ring, knew which book to pull off the shelf into the secret underground world that my music used to be.

with the advent of ebay, messageboards---the whole internet pretty much---things were less underground. i still have the "maximum rock and roll" about the year punk "broke". i liked listening to "alternative music" on sunday nights in high school and middle school on Z89. going to shows at vfw halls. not buying tickets from ticketmaster. owning a 7" that only 50 other people knew about. looking for records at oliver's and later smash and dccd. my grandparents were antique dealers. searching for buried treasure is in my blood. the quest is better than actually obtaining it.

i wasn't seeking out validation in the music scene that i didn't get at home, like most. it wasn't an escape from a suburban picket fences life. i never knew that life. when people ask me where in syracuse i'm from and i reply "the city", they are shocked. it's not compton, but it's not great.

my schools were in the ghetto. i grew up being the minority as a white girl. got jumped in a park for being the wrong color. acted one way for survival and another way around my family. a double life. lace curtains and sunday dinners at my irish grandma's. trying to avoid drug dealers at the bus stop during the week in my neighborhood.

all this made me who i am and i'm now finally able to, after a ton of family drama and personal trauma, able to accept it. embrace it. wouldn't change a thing.

i'm a lapsed catholic. i like the tradition, the history, the basic message. but the hypocrites run rampant. blind faith was drilled into me from age zero. and my family in ireland has amazing positivity and just an air of calm that i don't see in my friends. despite all the hell they've been through. i'm a bit jealous. even if it is the opiate of the masses...i kinda want that drug they're pushing!

-mjm

postscript...oh and the cure "wild mood swings"...title fits my mood as of late. saw the cure at msg with my friend sharon in june. started crying during one song. out of the blue. after being in a great mood.

i thought the crying was because i listened to "disintegration" on loop in my dorm room at GW while staring at the ceiling in the dark the day i got the answering machine message that my grandma had died. (my dad thinks voicemail about someone's death is totally appropriate.) my world was falling apart. my idol was dead. in a few months time i wouldn't be able to afford my college. i was barely 18 and thrust into adult life...or so i thought.

adult life starts now.