I woke up this morning to the sweet fresh smell of stargazer lilies on my nightstand, which is really (appropriately) a chrome and glass rolling bar/drink cart. Brent�s at practice right now and in a moment I�m going to look for a picture of John Oates to make an iron-on T-shirt for Steve. I think he�ll appreciate it. It just better be a moustached Oates.

I have 80�s cover band practice tonight with Das Otto Kats. I wish we could just cover all Madonna songs. That would make me happier. The other night at practice we were working on some Madonna songs, �Papa Don�t Preach� in particular, and Dave hauled off and sang harmonies whilst drumming. It was fun. I felt like I was in a discotheque for a few moments. It really did take me back to my old radio days, as seen in the last episode (which Wil called �bitchy� and I guess he�s right, but I was just being honest. And I�m sorry to all the people who unabashedly love Riverdance, and I did write, �That�s not to say I won�t bend.� There�s my disclaimer. Or something. I promise I won�t unabashedly love Riverdance though. I do enjoy Mike Myers� spoof of the LORD of the dance on SNL where he was running off to the side every chance and dry shagging whatever girls were in the wings. F�hrer of the DANCE!)

There is something awful about exhibiting the sort of sensitivity that I do in that I tend to allow myself to be dragged along, as if tied to some jalopy, mesmerized that it has the gumption to keep jaunting along without falling to bits, and I�m rolling in the dirt and feeling my limbs being scraped, because I always assume that the person whose psyche is the jalopy has it much worse emotionally than I do, and so I go along, tethered and bumped, instead of saying �I don�t like the way this is going� or �that�s not really what I had in mind� or �LET GO OF ME!� So what sometimes ends up happening is that eventually, when I start to feel uncomfortable pressure, I have to overcompensate for my original sensitivity/empathy (which yes, could be misconstrued as simple non-confrontation, but I�m telling you it�s not simply that, and you�ll just have to trust me on that because well, I�m not a liar) and put up a big fat wall that no leeches can get under. And I �screw my courage to the sticking point� instead of saying �screw my courage.� It�s like feeling you have to pee. You know you�ve got to get outta this place and you already held it too long.

Like what makes so many men think they can latch onto a woman�s cosmic boobie and never let go? And if you push them off you�re a bitch and a princess (and it�s such an obvious, unoriginal and predictable reaction, all the while he is more worthy of your tiara than you are). Like you wrote this recipe for this great zucchini bread and he sprinkled some powdered sugar on top and ate a piece, so that makes it just as much his recipe. And just because he was hungry it�s his. Somehow. Or you painted a picture and he put it in a frame and all of a sudden he�s signing his name to the bottom with a trumpet flourish. And you looked at him and thought, �He really needs this right now. I�ll let him believe it�s his.� It was a really nice frame. It added a lot to the picture. Or because you�re existing under the label of �relationship� you�re suddenly no longer individuals and anything that you might feel that might threaten the way he sees the �relationship� is bad and wrong and �if you love me you�ll� cut off your arm to fit in this box. �If you love me you�ll save me.� �The teat is mine� (sing to the tune of �The Heat Is On.� If you do this you�ll have experienced the true depths of my dorkiness because this is just the kind of thing I walk around my house singing). And they bring up all the times you said �x,� �y� and �z� and the dates and times of each and I say only manipulators and liars have to remember the exact date and time of everything that was said. Go do some work on yourself for God�s sake. And blah blah blah blather blather blah. And then one day you wake up and realize your own misguided sensitivity is going to be lethal to everyone involved, because you feel sick to your stomach and need Pepto Bismal for your soul and you should have just trusted your own better formed gut right from the beginning, instead of trusting someone who �really probably does like you� but is looking for a quick fix for his own pained soul. And now you�ve come down with cosmic indigestion. But you�ve always felt guilty about trusting your own gut because it means hurting someone�s feelings and saying �no� right from the start. Or when things started to get weird. Because you really trust in basic human logic and expect people to right themselves, like falling cats. But they�ve found you and have become akin to using you as a crutch or trampoline and you�ve not stopped them. And they think the art you�ve created together is �bigger than the both of you� but you�ve brought much more to the table from the beginning so of course it�s going to feel to them that it�s much bigger than them because it�s not their soul and voice in the recipe, the songs, the painting. But your soul looks a little better to them than theirs and they�d rather just live there for a little while. And just EXPECT that it�s going to be ok. And the moment you realize they�re getting their hooks too far into your stuff and try to tell them �this feels like bad touch� they say you�re �asserting your ego� because after all�they liked what you did and they helped your art and so they OWN it just as much as you do. Bullshit. So there�s no reason for them to flip themselves over in the air and land on their own feet. And the worst part is that you really liked them a lot and felt they were good people deep down, albeit a little troubled and it was quite a lot of pressure to hear they were almost constantly thinking about suicide and this �is the only good thing in [their] life� and you find that odd because maybe they�re married or have a good job or write well and it feels wrong and like bad touch again. So you let them take too much and can�t go back and rectify the situation because you can�t be in any sort of relationship where you constantly have to monitor if you�re setting your boundaries strongly enough and they�ve already decided you�re a bitch/princess if you don�t let them have their bottle. So it has to end because what kind of relationship is that where you always have to put your little toe in to make sure the temperature�s alright before you decide if you want to get in? I don�t know about you, but I plunge headfirst into relationships whatever they may be and maybe that�s how I get myself in these messes. And boundaries don�t work for me.

But what I find the most laughable is that certain of these cosmic boobie leeches, in a last-ditch effort to try to make me feel bad, I guess� accused me of copying him by writing for a certain magazine he writes for (he had a cd and I asked if I could review it and if the review was bad to tell me and the review was good), putting my photographs up on a certain web site (I happen to take pictures too and thought he was giving me a �heads up�) and starting a diary site (I copied Shannon on this one, SORRY!). I mean, how much more 2nd grade can you get� �Jenn, I was wearing that dress yesterday I can�t believe you would copy me and wear it the next day.� One would think someone 20 years my senior would not stoop to such juvenile depths but it just goes to show how little he knows me and how desperate he is. And I wish him nothing but the best and the only advice I can give is the next time you find something that you feel strongly and good about and want to lend your creativity to it, don�t crush it Of Mice and Men Lenny-style because you�re going to wind up killing it just like you killed this. I started, as you call it, �asserting my ego� when you started flailing and dancing embarrassingly about the studio around loads of ridiculously expensive recording equipment and high-paid professional engineers, getting off on it, practically ejaculating all over the room, while I sat back and listened intently to my music, one of the few things I feel is mine in this world, trying to figure out how to tweak it here and there, to make it the best, and you were most concerned with turning up the surface noise because it was one of the things you suggested and you wanted Brian to drum along to the electronic drum beat you picked because then you could salvage what little ownership you had over it, worried because there Brian was adding just as much to my song as you did and asking nothing in return. And the thing is� I agree with you that the music is �bigger than us� but that doesn�t change the fact that the best songs are my songs, I WROTE them, and I think they can be even better with live strings, etc., which you didn�t want to do because it would threaten your precarious position in this �band,� as you call it� I guess I should have made it more clear from the beginning that I didn�t want a �band� and at no point were these songs going to stop being mine and I had no intention of giving up ownership of them. But that seems logically obvious. Forgive me for thinking you rational enough to be aware of that.

So somehow, being the extreme princess/bitch that I am I manage to have several very close female and male friends who have seen me at my worst and best, as I have seen them, crying, balling, screaming, laughing, loving, scratching, biting, kicking, and have earned the right to call me a princess/bitch and yet know me well enough to know where it�s really at and what I�m really about. And yes, I can be a bitch. I can be a princess. But it�s in random moments and I love nothing better than to share my heart and my music with people. But don�t fucking try to manipulate me. I won�t speculate why these people are my friends but I will say it�s not because of their lack of anything. I marvel at my friends every day. They are a bunch of hard working, extremely talented, forgiving, fun loving, intelligent, open-minded, empathetic and dare I say revolutionary (and incidentally dead sexy people). I can only hope I bring them some of the same joy they bring me. In fact, I think my next entry must be about the people I love in my life because I�ve spent too much time on this entry and I�m spent. That�s not to say when someone�s having a hard time you abandon him or her. We�re all walking wounded. We just have to try not to walk on each other.

Words I like:

Lurid, dirge, sanguine, nubile, ubiquitous, hubris, more more more�

Things I�m not sure I like the idea of but haven�t quite decided yet:

Crab dip, the diamond trade, mayonnaise and mayonnaise-based side dishes, disco dancing, mixing the sweet and the savory (namely with foods such as any entr�e with coconut milk, which includes most Thai food, but I do enjoy, and I�m not sure why, Hawaiian pizza), Cliff�s Notes, open houses, liquid latex, ice cream with crystals on the top, television, how your skin gets white and weird under Band-Aids, because it doesn�t really seem like anything could heal that way, Snoop Dogg, pretzels, James Bond movies, popsicle sticks (is it a tongue depressor or was there ice cream on it or is someone using it to check little kids� heads for lice?)� on and on.

Can I just tell you how much I love Law & Order�. Or Lahr �n Ahttah as they call it up here in Massachusetts. I�m not sure what it is about Lahr �n Ahttah I love so much but I get the same grinning feeling I have when I first walk into a Dunkin� Donuts and know I am soon going to imbibe a giant iced hazelnut coffee (dubbed Iced Crack by Kristin).