eros, logos: Aria: the story from A to Z

Monday, June 05, 2006

Aria: the story from A to Z

Repost: 3/20/06

Today is the one year anniversary of Chelsea Girl's blog, and so this is a special post about her blog, and also about her.

I link her as my blog goddess, and while this is a private joke, it is very real also and deadly serious. I mean that her blog is my favourite blog. It's one I would be compelled to read daily even if I did not know her. (And was, actually, long before I knew her.) More important are the reasons why I read her. I read her because in every post, there is always at least one turn of phrase that I actively covet, that makes me think, fuck, I wish I could write like that. I can't think of anyone else where that is true, that consistently, where every post has at least one dazzling turn of phrase like that.

So her style and wit alone would be enough reason for me to read her every day, but that's not why I do. She's also got her copyrighted thinky-kinky thing going on in spades. Every post typically makes me come away with some ideas, no matter how much I have thought about that topic before. That's what I value most: she can make me see something anew when it is something most familiar.

I find in her writing both the shock of recognition, that internal sound like the ringing of crystal that tells me, yes, this is truth, this is just how it is, this is it,--and I also always find there the shock of the new: I find myself thinking more, and differently, and more deeply, because I read her. And again, I cannot think of any other writer where I consistently find that to be so.
This is why I wind up linking her so much, in my own posts; I'd be linking her exactly as much if I didn't know her at all. I link her the way I would footnote someone, in my actual work. I link her because either she inspires me to write on something, or I find that whatever I'm writing on, she already has, and there will be again something there that makes me think and write differently, because I have read her. We joke about our water-cycle of masturbation, and we have that going on, but I find her blog also a water-cycle of inspiration. And she always writes bravely, in the way that I would most like to write and rarely feel I have enough courage to do, even if I had the skill: she cuts close to the bone.

I wanted also today to say something about Chelsea as a person, as my friend.

I've been starting versions of this post for weeks, and I have so many drafts, and so many things I want to say. I thought this would be incredibly easy to do, to write about someone I admire so very much as a writer, as I did even before I came to know her personally, and came to be lucky enough to call her a friend. To write about someone who is now one of my closest friends and one of the best friends anyone could have. To write about someone who I admire so very much as a woman and person, for her bravery, her wit, her strength and her gentleness, her defiance, her tenderness and wickedness, her blazing sexuality and her shining intellect. To write about someone who I admire passionately as a thinker, someone who always makes me think, and better, and more, than I have before, even about things about which I believe I have thought very deeply. To write about a friend who can (and does) makes me laugh hysterically, and a friend whose blog can (and has) made we weep. And none of this, none of this, even mentions the quality of her friendship, the kind of friend she is, the kind she has been and is to me.

To write about someone I love. I thought this would be easy.

Instead, I have found that all my words, and any words I find, are all inadequate, they're not enough, at all. Chelsea, I'd need your ability with words and I'd need the capacity of your heart, for me to able to do you justice.

Marry me. It's legal in Massachusetts. I think.

Okay, well, I had to make some kind of joke in here. It's very stuffy now with all the emotion. I wanted to write something for this day that would be funny, and also sweet and true, and something bloggy with loads of links to so many posts on her blog. But every single time I started, I found that Chelsea is a serious subject for me, and I had to say some of that, however inadequately.

So this has been my aria for CG, who is brave and true and shining, as writer, as woman, as person, and as friend, on this her first blog-birthday.

Write on, exquisite bitch.

And now: something for the party mix, which also has private meaning:

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Slam your body down and wind it all around!

posted by O @ 03:30