when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when i’m feeling sad

The day started off with me staring at the floor, already exhausted, eyes swollen and red, feeling incapable of putting on my socks. The good news is that it got progressively better.

Tonight I went shopping for a few of my favorite things to cheer me up:

Amy’s Cheeseless Pizza (I’ll saute some spinach to yummy it up…)
Karite Lips Shea Butter Lip Balm (The best, but at $6, usually too expensive because I’ll lose it in a day or wash it in the washing machine, but today, who cares?)
Throat Coat Herbal Tea
Gypsy Cold Care Herbal Tea (I like to drink these even when I’m not sick)
Arden’s Garden SuperGreen 12 oz.
Men’s Health Magazine — the Tech Guide issue
Orangina (reminds me of Sondra)
A new adjustable sleeping mask in black
Cereal

The universe brought me a few of my favorite things on its own:

A suprise from Randi’s trip to California (a full post on this later!)
A sweet note from a friend-of-a-friend I don’t know
Dinner full of comforting conversation with long-time friends
Waking up to a thoughtful email from the BF
The ability to say no to plans
An invitation of friendship
The strength to be weak with Brandon
Discovering an awesome mention on violet suede’s site…never saw it before tonight (to be included amongst anyone’s favorites with Sacha and Casey and Gavin is beyond the beyond!! too sweet!!)
The ability to choose to still trust someone
A call to perform at Eddie’s (more on this tomorrow if it pans out, still nice to be asked)
Me tucked in, teeth brushed, journals written, thoughts thunk, life lived, by midnight

and this “we are one” crap as you’re invading

"In the end, it’s about how fucking hard it is to love somebody, to really be intimate, to really let go and be open to that, no matter what the context." — Jake Gyllenhaal, on "Brokeback Mountain."

just to see how hard you can make me cry…

What a twisty, sort of screwed up day. I’m trying to sleep, but I can’t, so I figured I’d type.

I’m such a dork!, but I think about Anne Frank during times like these:  She refused to give up on the good in people, despite betrayal.

Tonight, it seems like this poem i wrote bears re-running.

El Norte

frozen sheets
fall away
into epic shards
on oil-stained asphalt

inside, glaciers
shift in an
unexpected ice age

meltfreezemelt
until winter
is all that can be trusted

rocky crevasses
conceal
tectonic plates
sliding imperceptibly
along hidden seams

rearranging
earthen memories
of a lost continent

– lucas miré, 03/04/05

I’ll write about tonight’s Tegan and Sara concert tomorrow, if I’m up to it.

we’ve all got our wars to fight, but i won’t fight with you

I’m always shocked when someone says they don’t check their e-mail that often.

Perhaps it’s the luxury of working in a corporate environment where I have access throughout the day, but often e-’s are my preferred method of communication. There’s something about the written word, the act of hammering out sentences on a keyboard and being able to construct everything — or not construct everything — per your liking.

In conversations, things can pop out that don’t sound quite right or your thoughts can just pile up and never get thoughtfully organized. Then there’s the matter of the other person in a conversation that you have to interact with, changing what you might want or need to say.

In an e-mail, you can take your time and say exactly what you want to say, how you want to say it — you basically have a captive audience. Plenty of people say things in emails can be misconstrued, that you should never have a “serious” conversation over email. I beg to differ with those people. I sometimes find that with an appropriate amount of judgment, some things come off better over e-mail.

In fact, e-mails in the early stages of dating can be crucial if spelling, grammar, punctuation and subject/verb agreement matter at all when it comes to choosing a mate. Speaking for myself, I always want to make sure a person can put together sentences in a smart and thoughtful way before they try to put together a relationship; you want to make sure they are trying to get into your soul, not your ‘sole.’ (Ugh, unfortunately that is a real life example.) A well-written and cute email can go a long way to warming my heart.

But, if you’ve been following my life through this blog, you know that these last 6-to-8 months have been about sloughing off all the things that are no longer absolutely required. So, I’m trying to break my addiction to useless email. For the last two weeks, I’ve been canceling nearly every e-mail subscription that I have. All my favorite bands, gone. All my favorite stores, gone. All my favorite quotes, gone. All of it, gone. I’ve killed at least 18 subscriptions in the last week alone. I figure if I really want to know something, I’ll find it out eventually, right?

I’ve been feeling lighter, and that makes me want to need less and less. I want to slow down my life and have less information and things to remember.

I want to have time to read a book, and maybe if I’m not reading these emails, I might have time to do so.

I want to remember what it was I loved about being alive, and maybe if I’m not reading and deleting these emails, my memory will be jogged.

I want to watch my netflix selections for a change, and maybe if I’m not reading and dealing with these useless emails, I’ll be able to enjoy those dvds.

I want the clarity that is coming in to continue to flow unfettered, so I’m canceling these subscriptions. So when I get in email that I do REALLY want, from actual real people like YOU reading this, I’ll be more present and ableminded to enjoy it and respond. Maybe it will feel like a real life again and I’ll thaw out.

It’s about showing up, and after a few years off, I’m ready to get unburied and be. here. now. again.

i’m getting good at the cold shoulder

WOW! This story in USA Today is talking about a street one block down from where I lived in New Orleans. I’d wondered what happened to Gar Williams, and now I know…he drank mouthwash! Crazy, but if you know Gar, not surprising.

Off to see the movie RENT tonight, which I enjoyed as a stage production with the rest of the planet, of course. But after spending a few days with Sarah Schulman several years, ago, it’s a little bittersweet. See, Schulman is a lebian author who published a novel in 1990 called “People In Trouble,” that is basically the plot of RENT. She’s a great lady, and I’m very sad that she continues to receive no credit, much less money, from RENT’s success. Everyone acts like Jonathan Larson is a saint because he was dead by the time RENT had any success, but talking with Sarah and reading her book “Stagestruck” makes me less sympathetic to him. Then again, were he alive, he might acknowledge that he “borrowed” his acquaintence Shulman’s work and do the right thing. Who knows? I hope that Chris Columbus doesn’t screw the movie version up. I’ve been listening to the movie soundtrack all week and it sounds really good.

In other web items, Prudie cracks me up.

i haven’t got the heart for disappointment

After going on about Gemma’s lyrics in my previous post, I thought I’d post one of my favorites….

Another for the Darkness 
by Gemma Hayes

Talk, talk.. empty sentiment
I haven’t got the heart for disappointment
Ten thousand reasons why I should go
the state you’re in, I better get you home

car crash, running through my head
I’m saying things that are best left unsaid
stop looking at me that way
I’m not the answer, but I’ll be your anchor
if you’re tired of the fight

well I don’t understand you better than most
I am just your friend, with troubles of my own
and I don’t understand you better than most
better than most…

You say, you’re unravelling
I haven’t got the heart to watch you crying
One for the road, and another for the darkness
I’ll get you home and tomorrow you’ll forget this
Get ready for the fight

well I don’t understand you better than most
I am just your friend, with troubles of my own
and I don’t understand you better than most
better than most

hailstones beating on my heart
and I’m tired of holding back
what if I was to let go? what would be so wrong with that?

these days I’m surrounded by people I don’t even like
but boy, you are a flower, tonight I’ll be a liar
and tell you, it’s alright…

that I don’t understand you better than most
I am just your friend with troubles of my own
and I don’t understand you better than most
better than most…

these days i’m surrounded by people i don’t even like

So clearing out my iPod and diving deeply into one disc has sort of been a healing balm for my listening ears. I feel slightly rejeuvated musically, but that could be because I’ve had the new import version of Gemma Hayes’ CD, The Roads Don’t Love You, to inspire and command my attention. (The domestic release is set for next May.)

Gemma is my favorite recording artist, and has been for the past few years now. (Previous favorites are EBTG and Tori Amos. Lori Carson, of course, lives in the stratosphere of my heart that defies any ranking…) The title of this blog actually is derived from one of her songs, "Stop The Wheel."

Musically, the songs are tighter and less epic than those on her first full-length CD, Night On My Side. There’s less sprawl, but despite using a different producer this time around, the sonic palette sounds basically the same.

Lyrically, Gemma’s made a few changes. There are more lyrics to each song this time around, less impressionism. I think the art to songswriting is saying something while take care to not say it directly. Gemma does this perfectly. My favorites so far are Two Step, Another for the Darkness, Happy Sad, Undercover, Nothing Can, Something in My Way. The drums in Keep Me Here remind me of the Red House Painters, and I love that.

LENGTHY ASIDE ON LYRICS: In the song I wrote about in my previous post, Blink, I wanted to use the word ‘insecurity’ in the song, but any time I put it in there, it felt too heavyhanded and wrong. So then the puzzle begins…how do I talk about something and make people ‘get’ it without coming out and saying it? Showing, not telling. I think the failure of most top 40 pop music out there is that they come out and say something so directly it diminishes any emotional impact.  When ani difranco sings, "i was thrown out the window of love’s el camino and i scattered into a shower of sparks on the curb. You were smoking me, weren’t you? between your yellow fingers, you just inhaled and exhaled without saying a word," well we’ve all been there, right. She could have just said, "You used me, you A-hole," but the cigarette metaphor is so much more vivid and powerful.

one of these nights, in the blink of an eye…

Here are the lyrics to my new song ‘blink.’ It’s one of several that appear in my new, updated lyric section on my Web site. If you’re into lyrics check them out.

I wanted to write a song about insecurity and the inability to lighten up in matters where the heart is involved. Sometimes, you just want to tell youself “GROW UP” but you just can’t make it happen on your own. So I came up with this song “blink”…i originally felt silly singing the Ladidadideda part, even all alone in my living room, but then I realized that’s the point of the song!

The photo of me at right is from a little outdoor party I played at over the weekend. Good times. Thanks for the pic, sugarmoxa!

BLINK

you don’t call me and i panic
expectation meets semantics
and i start looking for the holes

growing up has never been this tough
you could never reassure me enough
this terror, well, it comes and goes

but one of these days
i’ll be alright
the past won’t replay this time
and one of these nights
in the blink of an eye
i’ll be
la di da da de di da
la di da di da di da

if i believe it, then i’ll see it
when good enough’s alone, i leave it
and i could be real bad news

because once i win it, then it starts to dim
and I can’t feel it, though I’m in it
and i don’t even trust the truth

but one of these days
it’ll be alright
the past won’t replay this time
and one of these nights
in the blink of an eye
i’ll be
la di da da de di da
la di da di da di da

BRIDGE
i can’t avoid the crash
don’t know how to make this last
i can only touch it as it passes
and i can’t compare you
it’s not fair to the others who
even on their best days
just weren’t you…
they weren’t you….
they weren’t la di de da di de da

but one of these days
it’ll be alright
the past won’t replay this time
and one of these nights
in the blink of an eye
i’ll be
la di da da de di da
la di da di da di da

© 2005, lucas miré (BMI)

poetry is no place for a heart that’s a whore

Inspired by tray b and a fit of aggravation, I completely dashed everything from both my iPod and my nano late last night. 

Why?

For the last 4 or 5 days, I’ve not been able to find a song that fits my mood. So I started to think: Could it be a case of too much music?

Remember the days when you saved up your allowance or had to beg your parents for money to buy music? Now that it’s everywhere, coming from all sorts of affordable angles, I may be on overwhelm. I don’t ever want to say there’s too much, but there’s a lot.

I have barely been able to listen to the new Kate Bush, James Blunt, Jamie Cullum, Eurythmics, bootleg Tori, Lene Malin, Andy Bell, the list goes on. I’ve given the Cardigans one good spin, but not enough to form a huge opinion about it.

So I thought I’d employ the same strategy I recently employed in my love life…clear away the dregs, the distractions, the things I am ambivelent about, and now I’m only putting songs on my iPod that I actually feel like listening to NOW. Not what I might be in the mood for later, not what I should want to listen to, not what sounds good in theory, but what I’m interested in now, what I actually really do want to listen to.

Hopefully, through the process of elimination, I might actually get some quality time with my music again.

maybe it’s not you that i need, maybe just your picture is enough

Thought I’d share the first bit of West Coast press I’ve gotten. It’s just a tiny mention in GS’s article for the Bay Area Reporter, but still fun!

and that r.e.m. song was playing in my mind

I have been wondering lately if everyone goes through phases like I do.

For instance, I went through a USA Today phase for about 8 months in which I had to read Hip Clicks every day. I also went through a Larry King transcript phase last year in which I had to read the on-line transcripts to all of his shows at least weekly. I went through a general CNN.com phase, too, that found me into all things current events.

Of course, we have cultural phases, too, in which together we went through our Cosmopolitan phase, which morphed into the $5 martini phase.

Fashionwise, I went through a long ‘homeless chic’ phase last year, and I also went through a reading phase — that was, of course, after I went through a book buying phase. I go through chat phases too, where I want to chat on-line with friends instead of talking on the phone. Then I go into my hermit crab phase. 

Ending is my bag buying phase as I enter my clutter free phase. I haven’t been in a live music phase in a while. For years, if a favorite artist was tooling through town, I would move heaven and earth to attend. Now, I could just as well stay home and de-clutter. This ties into my "let’s save everything" phase which quickly changed to my "do I really need this? let’s just throw it away" phase.

I also went through a ‘serious music’ phase, where I only listened to lyrically important songs that ached for deep meaning. This phase was a long one, lasting from age 18 to 28. I was also in a fast-food phase for a few years, but now I am in a burrito phase. I also did a "no red meat, no caffeine, no dairy, no chemicals, no refined sugar" phase for a few very skinny years. I also did a lengthy stint in the self-help book phase, TLC channel phase, and Oprah phase, but I’m in a "I don’t watch tivo" phase and a "let’s buy magazines" phase.

For a while I was in my sleep meditation phase, where I played an evening meditation on my computer as I dozed off — but now I’m in a phase where sounds are distracting.

What phase are you in? What phase are you leaving? Post it in a comment.

he said “it’s all in your head,” and i said, “so’s everything,” but he didn’t get it

Do you ever have times when you listen to a song and "get it" in a completely new way? I’m always shocked when this happens. And it happened on my drive into work this a.m.

One of my favorite songs, "Paper Bag," by Fiona Apple, shuffled into the iPod which was playing in my car as I turned from West Peachtree onto 10th. Now, my obsession with this song goes back to 1999 and I used to use it to warm up when I first started singing. So I’ve sang it a scrillion times, and know every line and actually thought I knew the meaning of it. WRONG.

Today, I realized that the song is about illusions and thinking someone is something they are not. And the underlying lyrical structure of the song was lost on me completely! She mistakes the titular paper bag for a bird of hope and she later mistakes the boy she is dating for a full-grown functioning adult. I feel like a doofus for admitting I was so wrong about it.

I couldn’t believe that something I’d adored so deeply was profoundly misunderstood by me for so long. I used to think the song was a self-indictment of her unworthiness of a relationship, instead of the opposite. 

Things like this can make me wonder what else in my life I think I have figured out that I really don’t have a clue about. Maybe it’s true that songs, like people, only reveal themselves fully over time.

i slept until 12, spent the day by myself

Gregg Shapiro of Philly Gay News gave me a little mention in a recent issue….

Here’s the excerpt:

Atlanta-based Lucas Miré is another welcome voice on the gay male singer/songwriter circuit.

Incorporating electronic and acoustic instrumentation, “Forever’s Not As Long As It Used To Be” (Zakz) is a pleasure from start to finish. Particular favorites include “Push/Pull,” “Swallowed Whole,” “Francis,” “Fill In The Blanks,” “Go It Alone” and “Sunday.”

don’t give me your life, i’ve got one of my own

It’s been a glorious week for music — Imogen (see post below), Gemma, mix CDs from AD and GayShawn, and a remastered and expanded edition of one of my favorite discs of all time, Interiors by Rosanne Cash.

Now, I got this disc in the mid-90s at a pawn shop for two bucks. It features the kind of intense, effortless, relationship-oriented songwriting and performance that I love. It also shared the name of one of my favorite movies, Woody Allen’s Interiors. Interiors was the first DVD I ever purchased and I always thought it odd that two of my favorite works of art had the same name.

Now, I read in the new liner notes essay of Rosie’s Interiors that she borrowed the title from the movie! When I read that, I freaked a little. It made me realize how what we love is mostly intuitive. Sometimes we don’t understand what draws us so powerfully to a person, or movie, or a piece of music. But you are drawn in, nonetheless, compelled to fall in love and pay attention to what your life knows but what you don’t yet understand.

Truly, I don’t know if I can recommend Interiors — the movie or the CD — to anyone. The production is dated, the emotional motifs well-worn, but I love ‘em both. If you are patient and open-minded and in the right mood, you might love ‘em as well.

As an aside, if there was ever anyone I would love to have dinner with, it would be Rosanne Cash. I think she is a phenomenally gifted author, songwriter, and person. Her humanity is so fierce and she manages to come across as strong and fragile at the same time. I highly recommend her monthly column on her website for an humanistic, lovely portrait of an artist unfolding in a complicated world. I once interviewed an author who said he wrote a negative review of one of her CDs for a NYC paper and she actually wrote him a letter with her concerns about his piece and defending her work. What a woman!

sarah, you live and you learn you’re invisible

My monthly horoscope from planetwaves is freaking me out. Usually, his forecasts are wrong wrong wrong for me, but this one couldn’t be more accurate. Also check out your monthly ‘scope at my favorite, astrology zone.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)

It would not be fair to say you didn’t know what you wanted before now, but I think it’s very fair to say that you’re making significant discoveries, particularly what you truly need from love. The astrology for the foreseeable future has you skating on a razorblade between emotions associated with fear and desire. The fear may be enormous, the desire, incredibly specific.

There’s a relationship, which is the extent to which you are, one by one, willing to bring all your feelings to the surface. Most people hide their fears from themselves; you cannot do that any more. It may seem that as you go ever closer to the core of your being, at some point there will be no turning back. But I assure you that you’ll reach a natural limit; this comes with a revelation, decision or acknowledgement whereby you find the new sense of outer direction that quite literally changes everything.

where are we? what the hell is going on?

I couldn’t sleep again last night. So as I lay there thinking, I thought that I get a lot of good thinking done at this time. That maybe my brain just needs space to think so it wakes me up, demanding to roil in thoughts that must be thought. During the last year or so, there has not been a lot of room otherwise to let my brain loose, to let it wander around itself and see what’s there.

Got the new Imogen Heap CD "Speak for Yourself" on my lunch break. I met her a few years ago and she is beyond sweet and so talented. Go run out and get her new disc — it’s incredible.