the love shack diary

may 8

waiting . . .

elle & raph

 

may 9  

the labor & birth of the love shack

(thank you jonathan & patrick & john & elle & chele & rick)
(it's a blur)
(thank you)(thank you)(thank you)
(little bow of my head)
(my heart)

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may 9



(on the phone w/ paul hurley)
(long distance amore from cardiff)
(this is a good thing)
(better than the heavy pouting earlier)
(sometimes cute but usually trouble)
(sometimes love art is a high wire act)
(and paul certainly knows this better than anyone)

may 9

the inner core/ the love staff





the lovely lovely chele



beautiful elle



kathe & elle in love & on the computer

may 10

the first appointments

the rose love

(we love each other immediately)
(it is almost hopeless)(soft skin sisters) 
(catherine deneuve says over 40 it is you face or your ass)
(those of you who know what that means know)
(the rest of you well I'm sorry)

 

(women are so beautiful, it's almost a crime)
(for ourselves mostly if we don't know it)
(we were almost separated at birth)
(it's the ones that love automatic with the foot on the gas pedal that make me cry)
(cause it's me)(is it boring to love yourself)
(the tears came and came but I tried to keep them to myself)
(you noticed)(you asked me if there was something wrong with my eye or if
I was remembering something)
(of course the tattoo came out)
(beloved)
(keep yourself first)
(and first and first and first)
(no matter how many lovers you have lined up)
(or not)
(you read lord byron to me)

so we'll go no more a-roving
lord byron

so we'll go no more a-roving
so late into the night
though the heart still be as loving
and the moon still be as bright

for the sword outwears its sheath
and the soul outwears the breast
and the heart must pause to breathe
and love itself have rest

though the night was made for loving
and the day returns too soon
yet we'll go no more a-roving
by the light of the moon

(beloved)

(accepted)

matthew

(oh I love you)(couldn't you totally tell)
(I was shopping on ebay when you came)
(love or shopping)
(I can't help myself)
(I told you every secret)(did you hypnotise me)
(you had just come back from walking at the lakes)
(and smoking)
(and I longed to smoke with you love but the love shack is smoke free)
(by necessity)
(which doesn't seem quite right)
(don't cigarettes go with love)
(sorry)(it is my past)
( but we must keep the temple)
(making love between past & present)
(letting go)
(you kept referring to your new start)
(finding yourself clearly makes you happy)
(new & clean & bright)
(we smoked on the way back to town)
(so in love we almost got hit by several cars)
(you told me it was ok)
(I believed you were watching out for me)

(smmooooch)

may 11

naughty/ stealing the rose petals

it's all a little overwhelming at the contact theatre, so much going on and I don't want to sound like the diva that I am, but I'm used to a little more coddling, a little more handling, a little more of a buffer from the audience at large, but I am a trooper at heart and, (as I straighten up my spine) . . . I can handle it . . . (sniff) . . .  it feels a little bit like the santa kiosk at the mall, you know where you get to sit on santa's knee and tell whether you've been a good girl or boy and ask for your wildest dreams . . . and I guess I am santa, which I don't know if it's better or worse than being thought of as either a therapist, a prostitute or dear abby, but I tell you I'm just another person, and sometimes a little grumpy . . . actually it's the kids you have to watch out for at contact, they're really brazen and keep stealing the rose petals, which I guess it could be worse, I imagine them pulling those rose petals out of their grimy pockets later, at home, before they go to bed and wondering . . actually I love that, now I want them to steal . . . it's just the way they do it, right in front of me, defiantly, looking me in the eye . . I mean, I'm right in the middle of a love appointment and I don't want to lose the flow, but the strict mom in me wants to call them to task . . . it's a sharp and narrow road, tough love . . it's a good thing that in my compulsiveness, I hammered some of those petals down (now I am smiling, laughing to/at myself)(love)

 

gaetana

(it's so funny you came back)

(I remember you so from Harvey Nix)
(you went through the valentine boxes of the crush museum and chose the pictures of my life that made a story for you and read it back to me)
(you never stopped to see what I thought)
(you were so bold)(I just listened)(I didn't have to do anything)
(it was like going on vacation)

(we embraced like old friends)
(we got into it)

(archeology & narrative)

(the rising sun of winter vs the setting sun of summer)
(the belief that the warmth will come again)
(remembering)

(building to the rising sun)

(we're talking Bronze Age here)(I don't know, like 2000 BC)
(to be so simply thankful for that the sun has come again & there is no darkness)
(everyday)

(for you gaetana):

I remember inside a tent in the woods
the shadows of the leaves flickering against the fabric
I have no light
I used to be afraid of the dark
now, indoors I can walk through a house unaccompanied
in the night

a tent can be indoors
it is now daybreak
I eat up the morning & the answer of light
becomes the qualifying substance
I am light
I am home
the molecules break through
the concentration of my body
then the tent 
then the landscape

(love!)

simon

(big bear hug)
(today it is about depression & why & does it take us to the other side & does it really make us stronger
& is it just the other side of intense creativity)
(being in love)(staying in love)
(still getting that text after 9 years in love & that feeling in your heart)
(you are so full)
(full & full & full)
(you have liberated yourself)(it was a choice)(remember that)
(I didn't know you then but I can love you retroactively)(in some kind of hindsight)
(& stroke your brow)
(even though you have enough love)
(I can tell)
(you're lucky)

(joy!)

joey

(taking a ride together)

(beginning with non-monogamy vs polyamory)
(and ending with fucking with just about everything we know we are)
(or thought we knew)
(or pretend to be)
(I'm so hopelessly retro & beyond theory)(or maybe before theory)
(or just slow)
(a slow moving train picking up passengers)
(a femme self absorbed train)
(which isn't so bad) (really) (be honest)
(maybe not self absorbed but more like chronically inborn & reflexive)(organic)

(i get so hung up on the body)
(on the soft body at birth)

(isn't that the nature of the origin of love anyway)
(or maybe you don't think about that)
(where love comes from)
(but if we are to surgically dissect gender)
(and by that I am not implying that it wasn't fun)
(wouldn't somehow in that dissection there be some avenue of exploration
into the matrix of life itself)(which at the very core would be love)
(because even as an gender outlaw one must be born)

(ok enough of me)(really)

(thank you for your kind patience)
(you're pretty smart)
(I learned a lot from you)
(sweet)
(transformational consciousness)

peggy

(beautiful skin)(striking really)
(familiar)(though we haven't met before)
(we both said that we'd felt better)(a little down)(or elsewhere)
(& by that maybe we were better together)
(maybe)
(I had gone outside to take a break)
(so often I feel like I just can't do it)
(but I'm a girl of my word & I continue)
(& it surprises me)
(the love)

(it was so special between us)(wasn't it)

(I worried you wouldn't think it was art)
(I was too worried about what you thought)
(I had to work hard to let it go)
(I was struggling with this even as I said:
when I worry about how people experience this work I am lost
&
I live life with a lot of gusto (or something like that) I get a lot out of life . .
(I don't know)(did I really say that)(god it all sounds so corny)
(but how can it not be good if I was struggling to be myself & be seen)

(because I cared)(about you)(what you thought)

(you spoke about grief)(and then having to work)(I felt it)(I know it too)

(having to show up & work & grieve at the same time)

(your sister)(your life)(your truck outside the green room not inside with you)
(not knowing what is next)(being soft)

(I don't know either)
(what is next)

(summer in upstate ny)
(dusk)
(eating a little bit)
(being in the car)
(children)
(grandchildren)
(partnership)(even in this moment)(you & i)

(integrity)

may 12

procrastination/ can't ever get out of my room

Overwhelmed and feeling behind it's hard to just jump in here.  I've been procrastinating like crazy, made myself actually leave my bed and the hotel at the ungodly hour of 8 am to get a huge redeye from Starbucks, forgoing my usual lolling around the bed for a good hour, meditating and yoga, then staring at the screen for what seems ages and relatively mindless correspondence, you know, kind of touching everything I know and love before I can leave the house.  When I'm at home, I try to get up really early, when I'm not otherwise occupied, but then I make a habit of living in relatively unexciting locations or let's just say slower environments so that an early bedtime is manageable.  This is absolutely essential as I am such an excitable girl and living outside of a lot of commotion is the only reasonable way I can get some sleep, at least for the 55% of my life that I am actually at home.

So I walked up Picadilly to Starbuck's and on the way I tried to think constructively about the shack and how to really make it grow . . .  I've been doing a lot of sitting around and talking, and by talking I mean really loving, but it's kind of the default the talking, isn't it . . I mean it's what I know how to do best, I suppose, but can't you just love someone by being next to them, can't you love someone by noticing them, breathing them, really paying attention or then maybe just by being yourself on the planet with them.  I don't know for sure obviously but I do get tired, not of listening, cause I love a story, but of waiting for something to happen . . . when it's already happening, it's been happening, a whole lot of synchronicity, all of us, forever . . .oh god, I hope you know what I mean.

At Starbuck's there was this little girl sitting at a table with what could have been her mother and father and grandmother but the coupling was hard to figure out.  They were a scruffy family, not remarkable or pretty, really.  But the little girl was something.  She was so excited, really excited.   She was maybe 4 years old with a disheveled ponytail, dark hair and she wore a dirty little yellow outfit, matching shirt and skirt, the shirt with gathered short sleeves and BARBIE in hot pink handwriting across the top.  She was telling a story and she kept making that YES motion with her hands, you know, when you raise two fists up in the air, and then pull them sharply to your chest and close your eyes, you know, like Yes! Yes! And then a kind of mmmmmmmm at the end, with the head bowed to the chest and holding there for a few seconds.  I don't know what she was talking about but the man next to her, maybe her father or maybe her brother, he looked so young, maybe 17, but looked so much like her and he was laughing like crazy and he was doing the YES! too.

I loved them.  Obviously. (& effortlessly)

On the way home there was a placard, I think it was about education, I'm not sure and there were two teenage girls and they were making some kind of dress for one of them, it looks like it's made out of bunched up plastic bags and they are both giggling, and the type says something like: OUTSIDE OF THE BOX? THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THERE WAS A BOX.

Really everything goes so much better when I get out of the way and just show up like it's my job so I took the love responsibility a little more constructively and I went out and bought some pansies and some verbena in the hopes of getting some or at least one of my patrons to help me figure out some gardening in the hopes that getting some dirt under my (our) fingernails would liven it all up a bit.

may 12

it started to pour

will

(you started to pour)
(& pour & pour)
(you've been loving me really well all week)
(I just wanted to let you know that)
(I noticed you there behind the desk @ the box office & you are always smiling)
(at me)
(I needed it)
(i need it)
(thank you so much)
(you brought your travel journal with you) (from your trip to the states)
(you said later that you had wanted to tell me another story)
(we barely got there)(to the other story)(the story of your first love)
(when you were a boy)
(blackpool)(by the sea)
(kiss me quick hats)
(growing up not really the footballer you appeared to be)
(but we could barely catch up on your childhood)
(you were racing)(to california)(san francisco)
(you told the story of a lost love) (lost)
(I could hear in your voice that you thought there might not be enough time)
(& I kept thinking for what)(enough time for what)
(there was/is enough time)
(you need to breathe more)
(I was really listening)(I really was)(I kept looking at your face)
(your eyebrows)(your mouth)
(it was impressive how much you wanted to do the right thing)
(that you would wait for love to present itself in a way that would hurt no one)
(is that possible)
(I used to tell my kids that love & life is not fair)
(it doesn't add up in the end)

(turning the power on)(over)
(the best break up sex ever)

(breathe a little more)

(passion)

barney

(I stayed with you but you were a roller coaster)
(jamaica)(manchester)(the hacienda)(the dry room)
(chinese opera singers)(doodlebugs)(close blond nappy hair & kilts)
(am I still with you)(I asked you about your love life)
(we're both loners)(we're both)
(loners)
(you better come back barney)
(you got to liven up the shack)
(I'm counting on you)
(karma coma)
(psyience phiction)

(me & you)

(paradise)

(& then later):

hola k . . . just to say muchos gratias for the loving spot on
could've easily continued for the whole evenin
wil hook when bak   tail end a next week
enjoy xb

(more paradise)

martin

(I could tell you really wanted to come)
(& I love that you didn't hide your enthusiasm)
(in the world)
(full on)
(making shit happen)
(I asked you were in love & you said with making things)
(I asked you what was your main story)
(you know behind it all)(if you peel it all back)
(I said my story was about speaking the truth)
(after you peeled it all back)(whether I was speaking in film or poetry or just being)
(you said you had two main stories)
(you said the first one was control)
(said it was all about control all the time wasn't it)
(authority or just two people figuring it out)
(I asked you if you were a scorpio & then we never got to your other story)
(you were)
(you told me a story about love)
(I asked you how it went)(you said tragically)
(& we both laughed like crazy)
(it was an Indian girl when you were 14)
(her parents hated you)(they sent her away)(no goodbye)
(i told you would be loved again)
(i got a little chill so I know it was the truth)
(I heard you say it)ITHE TRUTH)
(you left a poem for the love shack):

The S & M Cafe

I was down in Islington with a girl one day
When she took me to this place, the S&M Cafe
She whipped me with the bacon, I said "don't be rash"
And the stuff she did with bangers was totally mashed
The shit we got up to was flippin' obscene
She handled my sausage while I was flickin the bean
She was going so fast, I could hardly catsup
I did her doggie style, had the sloppy seconds bagged up
What she did with corn on the cob, just a-maized me
I smothered her in sauce, but yo it was all gravy

(you're too much martin)
(but pretty perfect)(you cheered me thoroughly)
(thank you)
(chains)

may 13

phone home

It's raining out.  I had nightmares about losing my phone, sleeping in the street, yelling at Chele and making her cry.  Chele leaving me alone to handle my own scheduling.  I wasn't doubting the love, because I know it is genuine and I know it always works, but I was clearly having an anxiety attack.  I always say whatever happens is perfect and although I do mean it, I think it's easier for me to feel that is true for everyone else but myself.  I mean on the one hand I am here to love my audience and that mission should make everything easy, easier than those who have traveled here to queer up north to do major productions where everything is coordinated, the light, the sound, 2 hour long scripts to be memorized or worse or more difficult, 2 hours of improvised madness that must hold tight . . . by contrast all I have to do is just show up and be me, but really the sense of validation that I know I would have if I performed a herculean focused and traditionally productive task would be a balm right now . . . just being me and feeling that that is enough, just feeling that it is all enough, weighs on me in equal measure to the flight I feel when I just know and can follow it.

I called steve this morning and I had to ask him three times how he was before I got an answer to my question "how are you?"  I am sure he thought he was answering me the first two times when he said, "lunar" & "stirred" & "being in my skin" but then finally I knocked again for the third time, cause I love him so & I did really want to know how he was, that he started to talk about the details of his day, stuff I'm sure he didn't think I was interested in, but of course I was & even though I was really listening, the details didn't really matter, what mattered is that I was able to contain some of it for him for that time, be the annex so to speak, and, how did I say it yesterday, it was effortless . . I should remember that, the effortlessness, because it is precisely this lack of effort that sometimes makes me feel that my work is not enough & that I can't compare it to other people & that makes me even a bit bored with myself.  Why do I feel like I have to work so hard?  It just kind of creeps up on me.  I'm trying to remember one of the last things steve said, what was it . . .The only difference between us & love is . . I can't remember.

may 13

the sleepy & dark garden

(w/bsl interpretation)

It was quiet at contact when I arrived on saturday.  I had hurried, invested in a cab.  It was rainy & dark & queer up north had invested in the services of a sign language interpreter, Siobhan Rocks (& she did really rock --  for me and @ armistead maupin as well later, signing words like cock & sphincter as well as the more literary passages with grace & ease) and I wanted to be there to greet her. 

No one else was around but I got ready, turned on all the lights and picked up around the shack.  There's always vestiges of visitors from the night before, candy wrappers & footprints.  Yesterday I found a Jedi fighter on the lawn.

My first appointment was late and I asked Raph, Elle's son, if he would help me with some gardening.  I had salvaged some teapots and assorted vessels from the prop room.  He got all excited.  Then Borhan showed up, so we all got our hands dirty.  Elle & Siobhan & Salina helped too.