The Multiverse

*the following is a work of fiction. i wrote it sometime last winter (?). i was mourning the end of two relationships and reading a lot of comic books.  

there’s another universe where we exist. where we met in paris, two americans lost in a city bigger than our dreams. we were staring at the same painting in the louvre, and i was hungry. you got the courage to say hello when my stomach growled. it didn’t matter that you were younger than i was, or my skin was darker than yours. our mutual interest in special effects make up and dancing was enough. i flew home before you, and my home was one river, two counties, three states, and four hours by car away from yours. but i was in between jobs, so coming to see you when you finally came home wasn’t a problem. we fell in love. we were a romantic comedy. we wrote letters. we took road trips. we found new, better jobs nearer to one another. you wrote for a music magazine and i ended up becoming an interior designer. we lived in a shitty apartment where everything was always falling apart and fixer-upper was an understatement. we got a golden retriever. we sent out engagement announcements with photos of our golden retriever balancing the rings on his nose. we went back to paris on our honeymoon. in this universe, things worked out between us.

there’s another universe where we exist. where our first date was a kanye west concert. both is us were huge kanye fans, but we tried to act unaffected and like we were too cool for the whole thing. we were really hip, but our hipness couldn't keep our bodies from swaying in unison. you reached for my hand during the vamp of flashing lights and we held hands and kissed all throughout runaway. three months later you move into my bungalow in the canyon. we spent hot mornings having sex and cool afternoons taking bike rides through twisty roads to get to out of the way cafes for dinner. i got angry when the santa ana winds whipped through our back yard and you soothed my nerves with essential oils and cucumber tea. we started our own band in this universe. we opened for phantogram. i wrote the lyrics and you sang. we were fairly successful. we never got married. we did have a daughter named amnesty. she chased your cat, errol, through the yard daily. in this universe, things worked between us.

there's another universe where we exist. where you were the frontman of world famous band, and i was a penniless would be music video director. you saw one of my youtube clips and suddenly i was being flown to new york city to take care of your next video. you didn't know i'd be so pretty. it smells like a rare hamburger outside, but we are stuck inside a warehouse and i’m teaching you dance moves and you wonder why i don’t have a choreographer; i mumble back that i’m new at this and you chose me. our animosity towards one another is not real animosity, it is unhealthy flirting. as we’re packing up to leave that day, and i remind everyone that call time is 6am the next morning, you ask me on a date. my face twists in confusion. no, i will not go to dinner with you. your face twists up in confusion. no woman has ever said no to you after your first single went platinum. i remind you that i am your boss, or maybe you’re my boss, for the next two days, and besides it being unethical i am not the kind of girl that dates rock stars. you shake your head and walk away. you ask the next day and the day after that, and the night we wrap. i tell you no every single time. i am on a plane back to san francisco that has wifi checking my e-mail. you thank me for a great shoot, say you can’t wait to see the finished product, and ask me out again. i relent this time. we get married on a yacht. in this universe, things worked between us.

there’s another universe where we exist. where we did not break up a week before our two year anniversary. we went disneyworld like we had planned. i took photos of tourists for my street style blog, we played games on your phone during long line waits. my mother asked me if we had any plans to be married before we left. i laughed at her and told her we liked things the way they were, no titles, no commitments, just each other. i was actually good with that, by the time the trip rolled around. when we came home, you were finally moved out of IT for the website you worked for and became a paid contributor. i was happy one of us was making real money, because it looked like my next band might actually work and i could keep putting off going back to school. it didn’t, and i did go back to school. culinary school. you laughed at the idea, but you liked how i took things one day at a time. i was a new person; someone who wasn’t anxious about the endless sea of tomorrows. eventually i opened my own bakery.  in this universe, things worked between us.

there’s another universe where we exist. where we did break up a week before our two year anniversary, just like in this universe. but, in that universe it was a clean break. we let each other go with dignity, and then we met up again on a flight to seattle. you were going to visit your parents. i was going just to go, i had never been. i thought i saw you when i checked in with TSA, but i convinced myself it wasn’t you. like i didn’t know your body and your walk better than i had known my own at one point. i chanted and prayed until it was time for me to board my flight, i didn’t know if i was asking the universe to make that tall blond man you, or please keep it from being you. a snot nosed woman who constantly looked like she was smelling something unpleasant sat next to me. i looked up into the shadow you cast as you begged her to trade seats with you, because i was your ex girlfriend and you missed me and wanted to talk to me. i froze you out like a snow queen for the next three minutes. i finally melted and we caught up on the last two years on our flight. we agreed to meet at your favorite bar, you asked if you could take me to the space needle. i liked seattle. i liked you again. you tried to kiss me. i said second chance romances never work. you sang me a maroon 5 song. we ended up moving to seattle, and buying a big house with the advance with your first novel. i left my job in rights and licensing at BMI, i unintentionally started a new wave of riotgrrrrl rock by producing music in seattle. in this universe, things worked between us.

there’s another universe where we exist. where i am a beautiful actress, but am entirely broke. i take a horrible film shooting in a remote jungle, because it is the only audition i can land. we arrive on the island that is supposedly haunted. you are a thirty foot tall bonobo. the director scraps his film and decides to bring you back to los angeles, and charge people admission to see you. i am the only person who speaks against him, who tells him it is wrong. he captures you anyway. i spend time in your cage on the voyage home. you’re an animal, but you’re the only place that has ever felt like home. when we get back to los angeles, i refuse to participate in his stage show. you escape the first night and rampage the city looking for me. you find me and clutch me in your fist as you scale the capital records building. military helicopters shoot as us until you fall. you die. i die of a broken heart. somehow it still feels like in this universe, things worked between us.

there’s another universe where we exist. where we met online, on our favorite blogging website. we both have passions for writing and love the same bands. we exchange long e-mails and post secret in jokes on our blogs. we text each other daily. the two hour time difference doesn't bother us. we decide to meet. austin, texas has an up and coming music scene that we are both interested in and we have heard good things about the local food. our flights land at different times, so we agree to meet for dinner at 24 on lamar where we split chicken, waffles, and sweet potato hash. you cancel your hotel reservation and we are back in my room at the cute little boutique hotel i looked up online fucking each other's brains out. in this universe, things worked between us.

there’s another universe where we exist. where you crash your car into mine, driving drunk. it is the first time you’ve ever driven drunk. you get arrested. you contact me after your insurance has written me a check for my totaled car. you apologize over the phone, your voice sounds so sad and lonely, not only do i forgive you, but i ask you if you want to meet for coffee. you make me sides ache with laughter, even though you're describing your chronic depression and descent into alcoholism. i have never told anyone besides my therapist about my years long affair with bulimia, but i confess to you. i tell you if i can conquer my addiction, you can battle yours. i act as an unofficial sponsor. it's good things are unofficial because you can't kiss your sponsee, which i do on our visit to the grand canyon. you get clean. i relapse. we work through it. we move to norcal. we adopt a vietnamese baby. in this universe, things worked out between us.

there’s another universe where we exist. where we never meet. you never went to csulb, you stayed with your parents in seattle, and worked at a small book store. i started many failed blogs. i married a woman with red hair, and ended up with in the hospital from complications from my anorexia. you never got married. you had a baby with a woman you met at a show and didn't want to speak to again. we were both consumed by sadness and couldn't figure out why. soulmate doesn't mean you stay together forever. our souls needed to be touched by on another; to learn things, to figure the world out, to be loved, to become a more complete soul. our souls needed each other. without it we were lost. this universe was the saddest of all. 

there is this universe where we exist. where we broke up the week before our two year anniversary, because you thought we were better as friends. i said i never wanted to see you again. i still called you twice a week crying and cursing. after everything; i missed you and i loved you. in this universe, where i was insecure and starved myself for your approval. in this universe where you drank and totaled my car. i wanted to go back to paris with you, i wanted to believe we could conquer our demons and have a large family of interracial children. your mother blamed our age difference. my mother called you a dog for refusing to marry me. sometimes at night i think we were just too different. we are trying to be friends. sometimes it works better than others. i called you from the space needle, when i finally went to seattle. you told me the city suited my color. we've talked about getting the band back together, but our failed trip to the grand canyon as "just friends" told us that wasn't such a good idea. in this universe where i've quit four different careers as a blogger, a pastry chef, a director, and a photographer, because the future frightens me, and this fear led me to worry about our future, beg you to marry me, punish you when you said you weren't ready. in this universe where you found success as an architect, after building a beautiful new musical venue in austin, inspired by our first trip there. you called me last night; king kong was on tv and you were thinking about our first date. we talked for a little while, and i didn't cry after we hung up. in this universe, where things are unknown between us.

Dark Ladies

*The following is a work of fiction inspired by one of my favorite Cher songs. 

My mother was a witch. Witchy woman. Witchy mom. One of my first memories is of my little body burning from the inside out with chicken pocked fever; she is standing over me while I thrash in an oatmeal bath my father had run. She waves a peacock feather and mumbles her new age prayer, then lifts me from the bath, wraps me in a Egyptian towel, dresses me in my Underoos and lays me down on my Hello Kitty bed sheets. I stop burning in an hour. I’m playing with the neighbor’s dog in two. I stopped trusting her shortly after that. Dark lady. Weird lady. Witchy Mom.  

I was Daddy’s little girl.  I longed for his hugs. His kisses. His lifting me      way-uppy-high to spin round and round like the ceiling fan.  I loved to smell his flannel shirts rich with the smell of wood from construction sites. My dad built houses. My dad fixed cars on the weekends. My dad ate hamburgers cooked rare and Macaroni from boxes. My dad’s only flaw was loving the wrong woman. He was nothing like her. She was glitter, feathers, raw food diets, yoga, tea, Stevie Nicks, and lies. He was wood, mechanics, roast chicken, college football, beer, Van Halen, and trust. 

I can figure why he fell in love with her; her smooth skin, long dark wavy hair, silk dresses, vintage boots, deep confident voice, the full-lipped smile. She was beautiful and the only thing I love about her deceptive beauty is that I inherited none of it. She would have wondered if I were her child if she didn’t remember every second of the thirty-hour labor.  Beyond that, I can figure she probably did something to make him love her. Witchy Mom. She didn’t figure they’d be too different. Her appetite was insatiable and he wouldn’t be enough. She wouldn’t be able to reverse whatever magic it was that made him come to her, and he would never leave. She couldn’t magic away a child he couldn’t walk away from, nor take from its mother. 

I stopped trusting her for two reasons. She couldn’t love my father the way he deserved, and there was no magic she could say that would stop cancer. It was after the chicken pox time. I had walked home from my second grade class in my cowboy boots and pink dress. My mother had forgotten school was a half-day that day. I came home and she was drinking herbal tea in her silk bathrobe with a shirtless man; the living room smelled like incense and musk, and even though I was only seven I knew it was all wrong. She hustled me to my bedroom where I kicked the walls and ripped the feathers from my hair and cried until my father came home and all of the evidence of her tryst was erased. Six months later my father’s cancer was so bad he couldn’t walk. He couldn’t lift me in the air anymore. He couldn’t shoot his guns, fix his cars, or sing along to his favorite Bruce Springsteen tapes. He died after my eighth birthday. I have always blamed her and her lack of love. Witchy Mom. Bad Wife. Dark lady. 

If I was daddy’s little girl before, I became my father afterwards. I learned how to shoot his guns. I ate my steak while it still bled.  I spent the weekends underneath cars learning how to take them apart, how to steal them for joyrides and park them like they had never been moved. I dressed in jeans, heavy black boots, and leather jackets. I listened to the hardest of rock about death and disease and sex. And I fell in love with the wrong person. I eschewed anything pretty and bright and anything my mother would approve of. I didn’t let her braid my hair or magic away my colds or anything. When her boyfriends came over I spit in their faces and told them to fuck off. I was a problem child, a rebellious teen, and an ungrateful adult. After my architecture degree was complete and early-onset Alzheimer’s started to ravage her brain, I had her sent to a home where the rooms were so small she couldn’t take her cards, her crystals, her dream catchers, or her recipe books. 

My boyfriend didn’t understand why he had never met my mother, though I had taken him to my father’s gravesite. He didn’t understand why I always visited her alone, and only once every few months. He never understood why I looked at him out the side of my eye when he said he wanted to stay home while I was getting dressed for the bar. He didn’t understand why I hated tea, Coldplay, and nice dresses. But, he was kind, and tall, and had a good sense of humor, and smelled like freshly cut wood and concrete.  He was the first person I had loved since my father had died. It had been seventeen years since I had loved anyone; of course I was blinded by it. 

The only thing I had taken from my mother was her intuition. I had felt it was all wrong the day I came home early from school so many years ago. I could feel when my boyfriend started to pull away. Something about the way his brown hair was falling into his eyes was all wrong those days and I couldn’t shake it. I went to visit my mother. I had no desire to see her, but the doctor had called me and told she was unresponsive. It would only be a matter of time. I sat with her and didn’t say anything. The light in her eyes made me know she knew who I was. Witchy Mom. I sat there, rubbing my sweaty palms on my jeans. I was about to leave when she opened her lips and spoke. I almost couldn’t make out what she was trying to tell me. It was an address. I shook my head and left her room. 

The address was only slightly out of my way. I don’t know why I wanted to see what it was. I don’t know why I cared about anything that woman had to say. Dark Lady. Witchy Mom. I drove my motorcycle down the street and slowed in front of the right numbered storefront. It was a magic store. Psychic shop. Witch haven. Of course. I should have known. The gust of wind that blew the door open was the only thing that made me go inside. I sat at a low table. The scent in the room was familiar, intoxicating, and spooky as fuck. The woman entered from behind a curtain of beads, like the kind that used to hang our kitchen when I was a kid. She was beautiful, like my mother. Dark lady. Witch lady. She sat down and asked who I was, asked why I was there. I told her I didn’t know. She lit her candles. She pulled out her cards and turned them over; a king and a three.  Witch woman. She mumbled her witchy words, the way my mother used to. She turned up a black two-eyed jack. My vision went red and tears welled in my eyes. She spoke again and told me my boyfriend’s name. I stood up and walked out of the room before she could continue. 

I got back on my motorcycle and drove down the high way, then up the high way. Up and down again. I couldn’t shake the all-wrong feeling, the way my mother had looked at me that afternoon, the memory of my father’s crippled body in his last days, the way my mother’s boyfriend has smiled at her in my father’s home, my boyfriend’s brown hair, that witch woman my mother had sent me to, and most of all that fucking smell. That smell I had smelled before. That incense and musk and dishonest smell. I went home and lay in my bed without getting undressed. I tossed and turned in my big black boots and turned up The Black Keys on my iPod trying to get the images out of my head, and they disappeared, but the smell remained. I thought I had remembered it only from that afternoon so many years ago. But lying in my bed, in my jeans, reminded me of weeks ago. One night when I had gone to the bar and he had stayed in. I came in, took off my boots, my jacket, and my sweater, and lay in bed drunk in my bra and jeans tossing and turning and smelling that scent all over my bed sheets.

I leapt from my bed and stood in the middle of the floor of my bedroom. I couldn’t magic this away, I wasn’t my mother. Witch woman. I couldn’t let it kill me, the way my father had. If I wasn’t my mother or father, who would I be? Dark lady. I could be a dark lady. I could be the best and worst of both of my parents. I got back on my motorcycle and drove back to the Witch’s haven. The front door was locked, but the side door was not. I crept through the room with the low table and the candles, and took the gun out of the waistband on my jeans. I parted the beaded curtains as quietly as I could and saw them there in the back room. That witch woman and my boyfriend. They were laughing and kissing and drinking herbal tea with wine. And then they weren’t laughing or kissing or drinking because they were both dead on the floor, lying in a pile of feathers and glitter and cards that would never be turned up anymore. 

Future Music

I am a music junkie. Music dictates most of my life. You know that thing that happens when you listen to a song and it takes you back to a very specific place and time? That happens to me with basically every song I listen to. That and pretty colors, because I have synesthesia. Because of this, new music is very important to me. It’s my future soundtrack. A song I’ve heard for the first time, will in a year’s time, mean something completely different to me then. It’s exciting. When my favorite artists (or even artists that I like, but am not insane about) release new music it’s like Christmas Day or when Pumpkin Spice Latte’s are back in season. This is a good year for me. Marilyn Manson, Fall Out Boy, Sleater-Kinney, Kelly Clarkson, Falling in Reverse, Sleeping with Sirens, Purity Ring, Madonna, Kendrick Lamar, Florence + The Machine, Mumford and Sons, Of Monsters and Men, Ciara, Carly Rae Jepson, Passion Pit, Muse, AND Adam Lambert have already dropped new albums and we’re only half way through July. There’s another five and half months to go!  This music will become the soundtrack of my next year; indulge me for a moment, as I look to the albums we’re yet awaiting, reminisce on past releases, and predict what memories I’ll be looking back on when I hear these songs in 2017 (also, you’ll know what I’m looking out for and maybe get some new music in the process).

July ? - Frank Ocean Boys Don’t Cry 

Frank Ocean released Channel Orange in the summer of 2012. That was one of the best summers of my life. That album takes me back to hanging out in the repair room with my boys (in my previous life I was a mobile device technician for a very well known fruit company), and tooling around with my then boyfriend. We listened to that album LITERALLY every day, usually multiple times a day. It was good times.

Considering it’s July 16th, I highly doubt we’re going to get a new album from Frank before the month ends, even though it’s been supposedly coming out this month for ages. I can’t wait for this album. I want it so badly. I hope he pulls a Beyonce and just lets us have it out of nowhere. I predict this album will remind me of hanging out on rooftops drinking craft beers and dancing as the sun sets around me. I just need to find a rooftop to hang out on first. 

August 7 - Chelsea Wolfe Abyss 

Chelsea Wofle released Apocalypses summer 2011. I didn’t find it until the following fall. It reminds me of taking the bus to aforementioned job, because I didn’t have a car yet, and trying to concentrate on my first year Grad School reading while the woman next to me did the crossword. I liked her; neither wanted to make bus friends so we just ignored each other every morning. 

I think I probably won’t get into her new effort until fall; she’s just got a fall vibe to me. I imagine listening to it while driving to different Halloween haunts with friends, and making out to it while thinking of bobbing for apples, even though I’ve never once bobbed for an apple.

August 28 - Beach House Depression Cherry 

Their last release Bloom in the spring of 2012 found me at a great time. I listened to it mostly before going to bed while texting my then paramour. 

I imagine baking cupcakes and journaling while channeling my inner manic pixie dream girl at the end of this summer. 

Sept 11 - Leona Lewis I Am 

I am a hug Leona Lewis fan. I have all of her albums, I know all of the words, she is everything. Spirit Nov 2007 reminds me of my freshman year of college and living in my all girls dorm where this song was blasting out of someone’s window every single day. Echo Nov 2009 reminds me of forcing my older brother to partake in Leona sing-a-longs when he was my best friend, Sami, and I’s DD. Glassheart Oct 2012 was one of my “oh my god, did I really just get dumped?” albums. Christmas with Love Nov 2013 reminds me of the magical Christmas when my family returned to Disneyland together for the first time 20 years to the day. 

I think this new album will be the soundtrack to girl power nights with my best friends, making our own mixed drinks and talking shit on their balconies while we Tinder. 

Sept 15 - The Dead Weather Dodge & Burn

Okay, I listened to both Horehound and Sea of Cowards from 2009-2011, that I almost can’t stand either album anymore. They both remind me equally of my last year of college and riding around the valley trying not hate my life the year after college ended. Not the lightest of memories to get called up on a whim.

I want this new album to make me think of the days shortening, watching movies outside, driving to shows, and trying on clothes that I don’t need at my favorite malls. 

Sept ? Lana del Rey Honeymoon 

Born to Die was my everything album in 2012. Feel sad? Born to Die. Feel sexy? Born to Die. Mad at my man? Born to Die. Love my man? Born to Die. It was, and still is, the perfect summer album. Ultraviolence while still the soundtrack to last summer, didn’t have the same vibe to me.

I hope Honeymoon eclipses my not so enthusiastic feelings about Unltraviolence and is my everything Fall 2015 album. 

Oct 9 Coheed and Cambria The Color Before the Sun

Coheed and Cambria is one of THOSE BANDS for me. You know, THOSE BANDS, the ones that so heavily define a time period so long that they’re a part of your makeup and you wouldn’t be who you are without them. I discovered them my freshman year of high school and they were my everything. Claudio Sanchez is the only celebrity I have fangirled over when actually talking to, because I usually try to keep it chill and try to remember they are just people. 

I really want this album to allow me to relive my teenage emo glory and listen to it in bed while I scroll through tumblr.

The following artists are rumored to be putting out albums this year, but none of them have release dates;

Britney Spears Please queen, release a new album (better than Britney Jean), that can become the reason why I pre-game ala Blackout, Circus, and Femme Fatale. I was too young to pre-game for Baby One More Time, Oops! I Did It Again, Britney, and In the Zone, when they came out, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t subsequently. 

Christina Aguilera With the current climate of the nation I need some angry feminist pop anthems in my life. I’m counting on you, Xtina.

Coldplay I predicted that Muse would make a good album once Matthew Bellamy ended his relationship with Kate Hudson, and I was right. I pray the same is true for Chris Martin and Gwenyth Paltrow.  

Drake I hope I don’t have any reasons to drive around being sad during this years end, which is usually what I do when I listen to Drake, and I want a new Drake album, so…sacrifices must be made. 

Ellie Goulding Ellie Goulding makes me feel empowered and like I can do anything all while wearing high heels and plastic wings. So, yes, more of you, Ellie. 

Garbage Garbage introduced me to feminism and female fronted bands i the early 90’s, so I will always love them religiously. I want to think of driving down Sunset Blvd in the wee hours of the morning, singing at the top of my lungs when I listen to this album in two years.

Gwen Stefani I legitimately stopped a family road trip in order to get to a record store and buy Gwen’s first solo album. My world stops for Gwen. I can’t even process that there’s possibly a new album from her coming out.

Kanye West Kanye is my writing music, so I really to listen to this album and think of this blog and all of the other projects I’m working on coming into fruition and ceasing to be ideas in my head. 

Macklemore Playing pool in a dark room with a sweaty beer in one hand is all I want from the memory of this album.

Pierce the Veil Give me all of the adult teen angst.

Rihanna Rihanna is on a whole nother level right now, and I can’t really think about.

Selena Gomez I don’t have a visceral reaction to Selena the way I do the other artists on this post, but I just love her so.

The Smashing Pumpkins Still super bitter I missed the Smashing Pumpkins/Marilyn Manson joint tour this summer, so I don’t even want to think about this album. That and I haven’t really paid attention to their new releases post-Zeitgeist because shit got weird.

TLC I want to listen to this album and not cry over Left Eye,

The Weeknd I hope this album sees me on long rainy nights, waxing poetic about relationships with people I’ve just met.