So
ya noticed. My naked ass is back in town. People
keep askin' me why I came back and I feel obliged
to provide a litany of excuses, when really I
have no idea! I'm not sure where I am, who I am
or how I am. So let's puzzle this out together.
REASONS
I'M BACK IN TOWN:
I'm
a spoiled brat and it's your fault.
I
am totally addicted to stripping. I love it love
it love it.
I work fifteen hours a week to enable my princess
lifestyle and spend the rest of my time doing
whatever the fuck I want! Part of the reason I
left was to get off the sauce. Stripper rehab.
But Kitty's words kept echoing in my head, "It's
the best job out there, why not do it for as long
as you can?"
By
August it seemed clear she was right. Manhattan
had given me everything I asked for. I was performing
as a naked girl, guitar girl and writer girl.
For the most part I made my own schedule and was
Holly Golightly and a whole lot more. But my dark
secret--that I spent two days a week as an advertising
whorewas breaking my spoiled-rotten heart.
I started to think that people who lived in New
York City were all nuts. Deluded dreamers. Just
like me. But I wasn't ready to submit and was
not about to put in one more hour at a dreary
office job doing brain-melting fuck-all, waiting
to die. Especially after "the incident," when
death seemed imminent--
a punishment for dicking around a midtown office
against my better judgment.
My
cats are spoiled brats and were three thousand
miles away.
I
realized there was no way I could shoehorn my
fabulous Pornland lifestyle into a two-bedroom
townhouse, much less a king(bed)-sized room in
Brooklyn. But my darling children (Punk and Simone
Ramone) were still living in the lap of luxury.
Could
I convince them to relocate when I wasn't convinced
myself? I decided this issue had to be resolved
by the holidays. Cuz cats love Christmas.
Also,
$2000 for a closet is unacceptable.
Although
I tell myself it wasn't a factor, who am I kidding?
New York changed overnight. Within a month work
had dried up, lots of folks had bailed and the
entire island was settling into a very un-Woody-Allen
schizophrenia of depression and anxiety. Those
of us who relied on the subways got the added
thrill of playing Russian roulette several times
a day, with all the anthrax scares and bomb threats.
The city's mood was most noticeably low on the
subways, which were always rush-hour packed since
service on the busy Broadway line had been rudely
and permanently interrupted when a couple buildings
collapsed into the Rector Street station. Packed
but silent. Even the vagrants and crazies had
seemingly turned inward with horror and sadness.
Yeah, I'll say none of that mattered, but I made
damn sure I got on my westward train before October
31st. The incessant Halloween warnings were just
too spooky.
When
Our Great President Bush told the nation to go
back to work on September 12th, whether we were
bonds traders, ballplayers, teachers, actors,
prostitutes or David Letterman, I knew he didn't
mean for me to go back to writing advertising
copy. My nation needs me right now.... naked in
downtown Portland! My vast array of important,
famous and good-looking New York friends saw that
this was true and gave me their blessing: "The
goal ultimately is to be bi-coastal." Hmm. Indeed.
With what I save on rent here, I can afford a
plane ticket to go back to that city of dreams
to work on mine. So I booked recording time with
my pygmalion producer in January and in the meantime
will be filing my Village Voice vignettes
from my enormous clawfoot tub and doing my patriotic
duty on the boards at the Magic Garden. Sounds
eerily like exactly-what-I-wanted.
All
ifs, ands and buts aside, the real reason I returned
to snuggle back into my spot in this wet red-lit
heaven, honey, was you.
