Anti-feminist Propaganda

OR, alternately titled:

All a Lesbian Needs is a Good, Strong Man to Save Her from Her Silly Ideals

The scene: a dimly lit coffee shop. Late evening, Audry, a young woman of around 2o, sits alone at a table with a cup of coffee. She is dressed nicely and keeps checking her watch. Lights are down with a spotlight on the table. Audry is alone and speaks as though voicing her inner monologue.

Audry:

I think this might be too soon. I mean, one always assumes that, given the opportunity to better oneself, most people would go and grab that chance. Seems that's what I'm doing with this whole online dating thing, but here I am, wishing my ass off that I had been stubborn enough to refuse to change. Even if he said he did want to meet me, here he is- late. So demoralizing, so humiliating to be sitting here, what? (checks watch) 20 minutes later than he said he'd meet me. I should never have asked him, pushed him really, to meet me. He probably isn't looking for anything serious anyway. I should have listened to that Tarot reader in the first place. What was it, she said? Oh yes... (in a mystical, far-off voice) I am afraid that this is not a happy year for you, darling. Not a happy year? That's a fucking understatement. Stuck in a job I hate, single, and working on an open-ended manuscript. Picture of a failure, indeed. She must have been right, that fortune teller. I don't shell out forty bucks at a Renaissance Fair to be shown shoddy foresight. (Large sigh.) I suppose she has no less chance than all the others of being the right advice. You know, after years of hearing, "Don't give up yet! He's out there. It's just not the right time. You're still so beautiful", you hear the emptiness ring truer over time. Madame Mysterique words could have no less emptiness than all those forced compliments. Maybe it is time for me to move on, alone. Strong, valiant, sure. Who needs a man? Did Susan B. Anthony need a man to go out and get her the vote? No! Did Harriet Tubman need a man to construct her the Underground Railroad? No! Did Marie Antionette need a man to help her bring down the French aristocracy? Well, it's no mystery that Louis XVI did spend the country's reserve freely, but that is hardly the point! The point is this. For centuries, women have been braving the world alone and coming out on top! I can be one of those women, a crusader for single women in today's society! I... I... I can't believe he's forty minutes late. Yes, yes, I can be a shining beacon for women everywhere, but I also don't deserve to be stood up! I can't believe I shaved above the knee for this guy when he doesn't even have the nerve to show up. I mean, he could have been so kind as to call. (checks phone. Visibly swallows deeply.)

Oh, my phone is off. It's... been off, for the last hour or so probably. Oh God. He's probably tried to call. He's probably tried to call and thought I was standing him up when I didn't answer back. (powers on phone and dials voicemail) Oh dear sweet Jesus, please let him have left a voicemail. Please, please, please, please... OH! 2 new messages.

Brandon (voice over):

Hi Audry, this is, uh, Brandon. I'm sitting here at Cafe Luna waiting for you to show up. It's been about 25 minutes or so. I hope you're still coming. Call me and let me know. Okay, uh. Goodbye.

*BEEP*

Oh my gosh, Audry, I am so very sorry. I just remembered we were supposed to meet at Cafe Lune, not Cafe Luna. So, just in case you're still there and haven't given up on me, like you should have, I'm coming over to Cafe Lune. In fact, I think I can see you. Red scarf? Glasses? Cute smile?

(Brandon walks on stage in front of Audry, hanging up his cell phone. Audry is obviously smitten and stands up to greet him.)

Brandon (kissing her hand):

You're even more beautiful in person. I can't believe someone like you would try online dating. I can hardly imagine you having trouble finding a date. Now, let's get to know each other better.

(Invites Audry to sit down. Both take seats.)

Brandon, cont:

I have a question. Who do you admire? Who do you think really had it all figured out?

Audry (blushing):

It's funny you should ask, I was just thinking about that before you walked up.

Brandon:

Oh, and what have you come up with?

Audry:

(considers)

You know, I'll have to go with Guenivere. Not only was she a beautiful and respected queen, she bagged her knight in shining armor.

(Huge wink and exaggerated embrace to audience. End scene.)

Velvet painting of an evening

Oppressive, bubbling heat cools into the dusky steam of evening. Cool beers and creature comforts: ribs, coleslaw, corn muffins, honey butter. Momma on the back porch listening to the birds, the trees, the sound of the world outside. Talk about nothing, about everything, about people that affect us or silly things we want to share with the other. It's infrequent, but refreshing to sit down and keep company with my mother. We are warriors together, weathering the same storms. She pictures a journey off to calmer waters and I into the spray on the rocks. I am never more aware that we are nothing but women when we sit at the end of our days and unwind. I like hearing her humble hurts, the frustrations she faces day after day. It's nice to remember that the apple never falls all too far from the tree.

How am I spiritual, you say? Well, I believe in the Almighty Dollar.

OR, alternately titled:

America is a Festering Greed Lair

I've had money on the brain recently. Looking at four years of college ahead of me is like looking at a looming string of bills and loans and debt, debt, debt. I have never liked or understood the idea of credit. I do not spend outside my means. I only buy something if I'm positive I have the finances to support it. So the idea of plunking down $32,000 a year scares me (and provokes my Socialist views.) I would much rather be living in a nation that supported furthering education more. I believe Government spending in this country is seriously flawed and grossly ill-placed, but that's another post.

It might also be good to mention that my mother has recently been on a big simple-living kick. It's been a bit of an adjustment, but it's obvious that it means a lot to Mom. We often talk about our mutual distaste for large corporations and insurance firms. We are both outraged by the anti-humanist and unjust treatment of the general populous. We both think that being money-hungry is a pretty dickish way to live life. However, she wants to live as cheaply as she can and I want to make enough to support my lifestyle. I don't have too expensive a lifestyle, I just want to make sure I have enough to pay for all the things I buy in life without using credit. So I'm not cheap or overspending, frugal or impulsive. I am scared of debt. I will spend money when I have it and be incredibly tight-fisted when I don't.

Playing house as my way to pay the bills has really made me think a lot about this kind of thing. Do other 19 year olds spend so much time thinking about their finances?

P.S. Did I mention I even invest my money in a small stock portfolio? I have thousands saved already. I am such a goddamn adult.

Gardening

I helped my mother trim the plant life in our yard today. It was a nice opportunity to people watch in suburbia. I saw children riding bicycles and scooters, holding lemonade stands and blowing bubbles. I watched old, fat men and young, lean jocks huff and puff by on their daily running schedule. I saw mini-vans and SUV's and shiny, bonus-guaranteeing Chrysler's. It was quiet and gentle. with birds tweeting and sun gleaming. Peaceful, balmy, breezy afternoon outside.

The cage really is beautiful out here.

Blank

I am as unspoiled as an expanse of cloudless sky. I am the embodiment of lightness and clarity. I am as hollow as avian bones. I am full of blissful nothingness. I am the chaff swept along by a gust of wind. I am submerged in light, with nothing but the soft thump, thump of my heartbeat for company. I am air and prism and dream and wisp and purity.

I am dust, swept under a rug.

Argument

My brain flexes in defense as a man would flex his muscles

Protective, cautionary- imagination is my strongest asset

Fistfight of words, sting lightly as purple bruises on my pride

I cannot connect or make an intersect of my visage in your mind

The haunted, brooding monster or accomplished, convivial heroine?

My reflection in the glassy glare of your irises is muddled and dull

A burden be the day before, a fruitful joy of wit and cleverness the next

Hard to hang your hat on having you around, when even an identity

Is questioned? Trust cannot be forced onto quaking tectonics.

Freshness, newness has the draw of the unfamiliar, and those of whom

You have grown tired, you have grown out of? Disparity, dichotomy

Between the heart's proclamations and mouth's recitations, how do

I separate the amalgam of communication?

Without a translator, the message is confined to one mind

And I find that I lose ground every day that I fear will be resolute.

Permanently orphaned in solidarity and sublime obligation.

Someone once told me:

-If you keep your keys in the ignition of a car while pumping gas, your car will explode

-You will never change. You will bounce around from institution to institution all your life, always living on the system.

-If you're not nervous, you're not ready.

-You're like 5 gay men in one big lesbians body.

-If I got a nose job, I'd ask for your nose. It's perfect.

-My father doesn't approve of people over size '4'.

-We all knew you were going places; turns out, these are the places.

-Pain is inevitable, misery is optional.

-I want you home with me. I don't want to keep sending you away to that horrible place.

-I can't break my promise, so I want you to kill me.

-I never thought you would be in so much pain. You seem so strong, so perfect.

-Do you have a passport? We might be going to Europe.

-That's you! You're going to be the lead.

-We cast you first. We wanted you most.

-You know? This isn't half bad.

-You've always had me wrapped around your little finger.

Montage

With the twists and turns of my liquid neck

the flicker of the camera frame captures

a classic movie moment for siskel and ebert

Apertures and filaments, flash bulbs in my eyes

dilating the blind spots in my sickly vision

voices split, run and ream their melodic destruction

tenuous high string, zip and slap the nylon chords

Pinging drips of harmony, drizzle like honey the sweetness

of sound, golden and delicious and fix to each snap,

each click of the camera lens that captures my mind

imaging finds my memories and my very own home movie

in my head of all the years and times and blazing, burning

buried back in my brain. the moving madness in my mind

makes me miss my father, with his bright face the feature of

the film within my memories. the sound he inspired

the love of music injected into my veins like a wondrous

drug- an addiction he advocated, he appreciated and taught

me how to make it, mold it, and mean the music

the swinging camera circles my head, grabbing all these pictures

of family and love and grief and death and how things return

to a state of undiscovered territory after such bane removal.

He's still in the hidden in my mind, captured now onto filmy

reproductions of the life we had together. we do not connect

on any plane, but that I have you tucked away within my

heart and within my mind speak volumes of my love.

At the great beginning of things as it were for me, as you

wanted for me, I think of you and tip my hat to all the things

you've advised me to hold dear over the years

At this the beginning of my life as it will eventually grow to be,

as you will never get to see, I feel you near and that you guide

me and want to be a part of the person I soon will be. Take

my mind's stream of consciousness, the pictures of your

face etched onto the backs of my eyeballs, take this and know

that I haven't forgotten you, that I think of you and even

if you wouldn't have cared for the direction I followed or

the dope that I smoked or the women I've kissed, you'd still

know that I love you by continuing to live on through all of

my life and I haven't tried to reach you in a permanent sort

of way. I am living my life as you lived your life, to give me all

the opportunities I deserve. I love you because I've followed

my hopes and dreams for my life. Keep close the camera's picture,

capturing just the love I have for you. That I will always have

for you.

We are the nights

We are the moments you will reach for. We are the sticky, sweaty low-lit backrooms of a jazz club and you're dancing too close, too hot. Thighs locked between thighs as the bass strums a swinging beat. Swaying to and fro and low and dirty, rough and tumble with the city as your stomping ground. Streets to run through wild and free, find the next adventure destination. Slide through town on a string of saxophone slips and slithers. Twitch of hips, waggle of hand in a taxi you climb, slinking leg after luscious leg into the backseat of the chariot of the evening. Whiz, whirl, twirl about Broadway and 5th Avenue, rush your head around the buzz and call of the socialite's beehive. Patent leather high-heeled shoes clicker-clack down concrete streets, swishing skirts and shooing into hole-in-the-wall joints with light in your eyes and gin on your breath. A coo, a call, a cool rhythm boils up our blood and sends your hips shaking and shimmying toward mine. Tipped hat, ashing cigarette bouncing between two lips as we jive and boogie, hands exploring back and forth and leading the way around the smoky dance floor. Simmer, saunter down the darkened alleyways and avenues. Steamy vents and black and white smoke and mirrors, illuminate your face, you spotlit starlet and luxurious lover cavorting about town. These nights that blossom under activity and far too much spirit come crashing closed with sweet, enticing simplicity. We are the nights you long for, you cuddled up tight in blankets and suburban nightmares. We are the nights you crave, you claim to make your own when you've made it on your own. We are the ticket, the release from waspish, fetid and chained- let me free into the swirl and buzz of these stinging nights of unencumbered hedonism.

We are the nights you think of when lying braced against your cold mattress. Lonely, longing for the company of some heat, some action, some great show of life.