Janice Erlbaum My interview with a truly amazing woman is up, go comment!

March 23rd

sleepless nights became sleepless days.
I watched New York sunrises from broken glass windows with a bottle in my hand every morning.
Immersed in a cultural underworld where I have made my bed.
Spanish is everywhere and the men whisper from the broken streets "Muy bonita".
And the latina women with deep curves, hold fatherless children on their hips and walk to the market.
I watch the world awaken below me, sunrise after sunrise.
Insomnia bred a certain form of delusional love.
I was alice falling down the rabbit hole.
In seperate states of mania I created thet "Tradgedy" collage .
Something I used to work on when I was a teenager living with a skizo
who thought he was a prophet.
bizarre newspaper articles and a bunch of obituaries.
hallucinations made me feel stuck halfway between the dream world and my own.
the visions got stronger, like wind gathering air and picking up speed, leaving me flustered.
I fought off my reactionary impulses to make a home on the highway again.
I am, afterall, branded a gypsy, floating like smoke.
Finally the gift became a curse.
I just wanted it to stop, the hallucinations that I adored at first.The voices that made me feel strong and chosen like Joan Of Arc.
A bottle of whiskey and a bottle of sleeping pills.
Please angel, bring me back down.
drifting off into unconsciousness, finally, sleep, my old friend.
I woke up in a hospital gown. With the sound of the sick moaning around me.
I ripped out my I.V. to find someone with some sort of recollection.
A security guard soon intervened. "Go lay back down little girl."

"Where am I? What?"

A doctor twirled around, clipboard in hand, "Just relax, You are going to be transported upstate to a psychiatric facility."

"No i'm not."

He laughed like a man with more knowledge than me. "you are being involuntarily committed. You're leaving in about 5 minutes."

Soon I was on a stretcher, outside and in an ambulance. speeding past the city of lust and danger and love and heartbreak and.......My city got smaller and smaller behind me.

The psychiatric hospital was full of magical people. Some quiet and stuck in their own minds, and some theatrical and charismatic. My favorite woman was about 40 and had multiple personality disorder and I became quite familiar with all of her 8 intricate personalities. Some people would get shocked when she would speak and immediately change from one realm of existence to the next. I sat unfazed and intrigued. What a wild soul. She inspired me to write a play. One day they took her out for shock therapy and I never saw her again.

april 6th

The world becomes what we make of it, I stand in my own shattered glass trying to pick up the pieces. The day Rammy came to pick me up, he held my hand and said in spanish that this was the first day of the rest of my life. I squeezed his hand as the city emerged brighter and more chaotic than usual. Dia Jara wrote me a letter, in blue ink with her imperfect handwriting and bad english, They are sending her to Iraq. I cut out a heart to send back to her and ripped it a little down the middle. I miss her soul. I pray she uses all her strength for survival. Harmony has taken her place as the woman in my life, but they are worlds apart. Harmony the gorgeous and theatrical screamer. So pretty on the outside that it almost makes me sick, but her inside imperfections make up for her flawless beauty and anyway thats where the real shit is. I miss Johnathan. I miss angels and lovers and friends.I've been thinking of them a lot with this memoir (I've been seeing a lot of old acquaintances/friends lately and it's been a great disappointment) ... I've been hush hush about my writing, but things are starting to happen.

I love you all, Lily



What? did you think you were gonna get a naked pic? I'm not so much into mindless self indulgence anymore, which is a good band, btw, I've shed miles of skins while on this site... but I love the way this picture captures a certain WTF facial expression I make a lot.

But SPEAKING OF NAKED PICS, check out my little sister apathy 's "member review" set. I think its gorgeous and she is a wonderful little lady who wrote me letters in the psyche ward. Go comment