hi there :)

miss me?

lots going on and ill fill you all in eventually but wanted to post a little thing so ya'll know I've got some good deals on flights to a few European cities for those of you who still have Moz concerts to attend in September :)

http://www.statravel.com/Statravel/centermain.aspx?MenuID=8001S9

If any of you are interested, let me know and ill get you talking to the right person

Throughout the night, he's had this running joke where he makes a tiny circle with his finger, right at the base of my neck, over on the left hand side. He makes a tiny circle and tells me "See? right there. Thats trouble. Youre trouble. It says so right there" just before he gives that spot a little kiss.

He does that again and this time I tell him "wow, all this time I thought that was my clavicle. But now I know its trouble". He laughs at my joke.

He lays on the bed and I turn on my side to face him again.

And I panic. In this moment of perfect passion and tenderness, I panic.

He tells me "your face is different. what's wrong?" Not only has he studied my face in these few short hours, he's studied it enough to notice such a slight change.

I don't dare open my mouth because the moment I do, tears will flow.

He asks me again, "Cupcake, what is it?"

I don't answer.

"You're terrified, aren't you"

I nod "yes"

He pulls me too him and tells me "I'm scared too. Everything in this fucking life is uncertain. But just let go. Let go and enjoy this moment right now. You and I might end up living happily ever after or we might go down in flames, but I want to just enjoy this moment. This moment right here and every moment we have together. This whole world is a mess right now. But us, here, this is the only thing that is perfect."

I'd spent the moments prior to that trying to decide what to do when he DID break my heart, days, weeks, months or years down the road. Until that moment, I didnt even think about how much he was trying to make my heart light that very moment.

I'm thinking too much.

"Just. Let. Go." he repeats.

I close my eyes and breathe in deeply

"Cupcake, look at me."

And I look up and he smiles and I smile and lean in to kiss him again.

"I'm falling for you"...

He pulls me closer, and says nothing.

I react and say "Err, wow. Sorry bout that" and he looks in my eyes and kisses me sweetly and tells me there's nothing to be sorry for and that he thinks I'm fantastic and that he really really likes me too and jokes about how I tell him I love him now, but that soon ill rip his heart out and tear it in a million pieces.

I tell him "I wont break your heart if you dont break mine" and he shakes my hand and says "deal". Of course, a deal like that is bound to be broken at some point.

After a bit, we make our way back to his house.

Oh, and did I mention he has 1) Chococat stickers on his lightswitches in his bathroom? 2) An actual clawfoot tub. I tell him I want to come over just to bathe.

He takes his laundry out of the dryer and I help him make his bed. He goes and takes a quick shower and its one of those situations where neither one of us has said "ok, we're gonna fuck" but we both sorta know.

I lay on his bed, on my stomach, listening to the rest of that Coltrane CD that he's got on repeat. I drift off to sleep twice.

I hear his bathroom door open but I dont turn around. I want to be seduced, not the seducer as I'm used to being.

He gently runs his hand down the curve of my back and leans down to kiss the backs of my knees. He switches the light off.

He joins me on his bed and I turn to face him. He smiles, and in that stereotypical, New York goon voice, asks me "Eh, How You Doin!"

I giggle and reply with my Yonkers accent, "How YOU Doin' ". He smiles and kisses me on the forehead.

My shirt comes off first. He had mentioned earlier that he wanted to see my new tattoo, so, when he asked me to disrobe, I told him I was only doing it for the sake of tattoo art.

And he asks "so how many tattoos do you have" and I tell him "technically, 6".

My shirt is tossed onto the floor on his side of the bed and I return to lying on my stomach. He undoes the zipper on my skirt, pulling it off my hips and down my legs and sets it on the chair by the foot of the bed leaving me wearing only the sweet white and pink polka dot panties with the lace trim that I had picked out for that evening..

"Very Nice" he says. Im not sure if he means me or the tattoos.

"So", he starts, "which tattoo did you get first?" and I tell him "The one on my thigh" and he says "and how long ago did you get that, cupcake?" and I tell him "when I was 18" and he leans down and kisses my tattoo.

"And then what did you get?"

"The swallows on my back"

"very pretty", he says, and kisses each one softly.

"and then?"

"Then my blue valentine tattoo" and he moves himself on top of me, pressing against me, as he leans in to look at my tattoo.

And he sings the first verse of Tom Waits' "Blue Valentines" in his gruff voice, dripping with memories of cheap beer and Lucky Strikes.

"I like it a lot. I like it a whole lot" he tells me.

I get several kisses on my left shoulder, where that tattoo lives.

He repeats the kisses when I tell him the story of the Lotus blossom tattoo I took home with me from a trip to Chicago nearly three years ago.

"And then we've got this" he says as he moves his fingers down my back, touching the lines of my jellyfish.

"How long did you get it finished?"

"About 3 weeks ago, I guess"

"You heal fast, dont you".

My flesh, yes. My heart, not quite. I decided to avoid telling him that.

*To Be Continued*

New Boy (from here on out known as Joshua) was suposed to go out for drinks with his friends friday night.

We made plans to go out Saturday night. I did something I normally hate to do. I cancled a date with the guy from last saturday. Normally, I'd go back and forth with "is it the right thing to do" but somehow, I didnt need to. I knew it was.

I called friday yesterday morning from work. I really dont know why other than the fact that I wanted to hear his voice again. This girl you know here who's developed a knack recently for being cool as a motherfuckin cucumber around a guy she likes (at least until she finds out if he likes her or not), was suddenly turning into the giddy teenager who'd write "Steph + Josh 4Ever" over and over on her notebook.

He called me at work when he got home from work. We talked for two hours, then I did some work then we talked for another 20 minutes. During some point, my boss called about taking me to lunch. I told Josh about it and how, when my boss asked me to lunch, he sounded sorta flustered and that I was kinda creeped out. Josh said "If he trys anything, just tell him your boyfriend will beath the hell out of him. I can kick some ass when I need to". Wait. Did he just say "boyfriend"?

He told me his plans with his friends got cancled and he wanted to hang out with me. My dad had called to tell me that he was coming through town so I told Joshua that I WANTED to but might not be able to because of my Pop.

Dad ended up running late and told me we'd have dinner Saturday evening instead so I got into the bathtub for a soak and called Joshua. I do all my best phonecalls from the tub.

He gave me directions to his house.

I actually didnt really care about looking perfect. The desire to get there quickly outweighed my desire to make sure everything was in place, which would have cost me another 10 to 15 minutes of time. Plus, it was nearly 11. I decided I'd stay just for an hour or so.

I find his place and end up standing outside his door for 15 seconds before knocking. The nerves were starting to set in.

I knock. He opens the door. Small talk, small talk. He tells me he's nervous. I tell him no fair being nervous since I claimed that right before I even knocked on his door.

We drank a Lone Star.

Well, he drank. I chugged.

We sat at his kitchen table. He tells me he's a bit less nervous and I tell him so am I but there are still a few nerves lingering around.

He tells me he'll try to take care of that and takes my chin in his hand and kisses me. Not deeply but softly. So softly and gently that I barely feel it. The only sign that he's kissed me is the surge of electricity that ran over my body.

We decide to walk to get some more beer. He holds my hand the whole way.

We talk on the way there and the way back. He's facinated by the fact that I play the saw.

And at one point he stops and says "Wow...what good thing did I do to get you...."

And that was that. All sensability and shields fall by the wayside.

I'm falling fast. Too fast.

When we get back to his house, he puts on some John Coltrane.

First words I hear from the soft music coming from the speakers behind us are ones I recognize as Irving Berlin's "They Say Its Wonderful"

They say that falling in love is wonderful
It's wonderful, so they say

And, with a moon up above, it's wonderful
It's wonderful, so they tell me

We decide to take a walk over to the park by the house. We grab two beers each, walk the few blocks, and claim the parkbench over on the westhand side.

I snuggle up close as his arm moves around my shoulder.

He tells me how wonderful I am and how its the first time he's felt like himself in a long time and that he wants to thank me for that.

I blush, and look away. He thinks its cute when I blush.

And when I look back in his eyes, emotion surging through me, he knows....

He knows that I've gone from flirty girl, sitting there next to him, sharing a Pabst Blue Ribbon and Lucky Strike, to the girl who's falling in love with him.

Or maybe not "falling". Maybe "has fallen".

He asks me "whats that look for" and flashes the sweet, shy smile I've seen throughout the night.

I answer "nothing" and smile back.

He tries to get it out of me a few more times and each time I tell him "no, its nothing".

He whispers, in his sweet tenor voice with flashes of evidence that he did indeed grow up in New York, one of those sweet irish drinking songs about the guy who's longing for his sweet Molly Malloy or somesuch.

And the words slip from my lips....

"I'm falling for you..."

*To Be Continued*

The last few weeks have brought me reconnections with a few people I had lost. Some I lost on purpose but they found a way of crawling back into my reality. Some I lost purely by carelessness and have been in my thoughts for years now.

  The unwelcome returns I’ve managed to push away again. The welcomed ones I have brought close to me with open arms.

When I was 7 or so, I had a friend named Nicole Acosta. She lived on Cherrybrook. I think it was Cherrybrook. I know it had the word “Cherry” in it somewhere. Nicole and I went to Shepard of the Hills Lutheran in 3nd grade together. We played on the schools softball team together.

Down the street from Nicole lived Catherine Miller, a lanky, red-haired girl, a year or so older than I was. Her dad sold us my first computer. Tandy. Pre Windows, ya’ll. That’s how long I’ve know this girl. She’d come over some Friday nights when I’d sleep over at Nicole’s house and watch Growing Pains. Damn, we loved us some Kirk Cameron back in those days.

Catherine was at a slumber party of mine. I think that was the slumber party where we ended up watching dirty movies on Cinemax.

I lost touch with Catherine during middle school after Nicole’s mom joined the Navy and moved the family to Oceanside, CA.

High School. After I “left” Catholic school at the end of my freshman year, I attended John Marshall High School in San Antonio. Turns out Catherine also attended and we had a mutual circle of friends.

End of High School. She went to the same college as I did during my freshman year. Saw her from time to time. And that was that.

Hadn’t seen her since sometime in 1996. Hadn’t seen her, that is, until Sunday evening.

 

(CONTINUED)

The miracle of the "Swallows" of Capistrano takes place each year at the Mission San Juan Capistrano, on March 19th, St. Joseph's Day.

As the little birds wing their way back to the most famous Mission in California, the village of San Juan Capistrano takes on a fiesta air and the visitors from all parts of the world, and all walks of life, gather in great numbers to witness the miracle of the return of the swallows.

Spring also marks the return of the ghosts of Stephanie’s romantic past. Personally, I’d take those little birds over the parade of losers who make late night phone calls, drop me unsolicited emails or coming knocking on my door just to say “so, err…I was just thinking about you and wanted to see how you were. “

So, it seems that every year, as the days grow warmer, the boys from my past come back all at once. It was entertaining the first few years but at this point, its getting pretty ridiculous.

Now, you are all fairly smart folks, I’m guessing so I’m sure you’re thinking “these guys are just wanting to rekindle an old flame…pick up where they left off”. Sure, you’d THINK that but if you did, you’d be dead wrong. No, they each want to come by, stick their noses into my business for about 3 hours, make sure I’m not rich and famous or something, and then swoop back out again.


(MORE)

So, ya’ll remember how, during SxSW I was apparently “hot” or something and the bass player for The Wildhearts tried to get in my panties by telling me he’d get me on the list for The Darkness show?

Well, the show was Tuesday. Honestly, I wasn’t really expecting to be on the list. Sure, I was hoping but, ya know, didn’t expect to be. I mean, it HAD been a month and he HAD been drinking and he WAS trying to chat me up so, who’s to say he actually meant it, let alone would remember when it came down to show night.

I headed to Jake’s right around 7 so we could watch American Idol before we went to Stubbs, but of course, as we all know (because, you all watch A.I. religiously too, right? RIGHT?!), American Idol was preempted by a presidential speech that featured the word “insticate”.

I called Stubbs to see if I could verify my status as band whore. All I was able to get was a recording saying “Tonight, it’s a sold out show with The Darkness. Doors open at 7. The Wildhearts go on at 7:45 and The Darkness go on at 9. Did I mention it was 7:39 when I called?

So I got myself all dolled up, or as dolled up as I could be in in 8 minutes and Jake slipped into his white leather trench coat of DOOM (oh, and clothes too) and we headed downtown. I walked up to the will call window and putting on my best “yes, I’m big and important and of course I wouldn’t make up the fact that I had been told I’d be on the guest list for this very sold out show” voice and said “Hi, I was informed I’d be on the guestlist for The Wildhearts.”

CONT.

So, Ive had more than a few people in recent days ask me "Stephanie...why havent you updated your journal in a long time? And how did you get to be so devistatingly beautiful?" Ok, I made that 2nd bit up but to answer the first part, I have been, you just didnt know about it. See, last summer, I bought myself my happy little domaine, bluevalentine.net, and have been keeping my journal there since then. Its pretty. I do it all my self. Its like porn for the mind or something. So, to make my dear Morrissey-Solo friends happy, I'll be cross posting my entries here so you know when I've written something new. The way it will work is I'll post the first paragraph or so then end with the link to my most recent entry...got it? You Sure? Well, lets try.
---------------------------------------------------
Reflections after seeing Endless Sunshine...
4/10/04

I had hoped to avoid mentioning any of what happened over the last week or so that has kept me from wanting to update. I still will not mention names or details or the fact that I’ve never wanted to spit on someone as much as I did Sunday afternoon, but little nods to my recent history will come up during my talking of the movie we saw last night…. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
(MORE)

I have an amazingly famous shoulder...

read all about it here Bluevalentine.net

Morrissey, money woes and all that jazz

MY JOURNAL ENTRY