Nobody Loves A Farting Princess

by Jeni Birr

  Maybe if my teeth were just a little whiter

  Or maybe if I were less a lover more a fighter

  Maybe if I was just a little better writer

  Or maybe if my ass was just a little tighter

  Then maybe baby, maybe baby

  Maybe baby

  Would you want me then?

  Then maybe baby, maybe baby

  Maybe baby

  Would you want me then?

  Maybe if I picked up your shirts from the dry cleaners

  Or maybe if I could keep your house a little neater

  Maybe if my lips were just a little sweeter

  If I could erase my past so I had never been a cheater

  But then again…..

  Maybe if you would ever let me out the kitchen

  Maybe if when I’m speakin you were actually listenin

  Maybe if you could bring home even half the bacon

  Or maybe if every night I didn’t need be fakin…

  Then maybe baby, maybe baby

  Maybe baby

  I might want you then

  Maybe baby, maybe baby

  Maybe baby

  I might want you then…

  ~*~

  One summer we took a road trip out to New York for what was supposed to be this amazing two-day, thirty five artist line-up music festival called Field Day Fest. We didn’t find out until the week of, however, that they didn’t secure the permits for the field in time, and didn’t think they were going to have enough security. It was moved to the Meadowlands stadium in New Jersey, cut down to only one day, the list of artists was cut to only sixteen, but most of the bands we wanted to see were still playing; like Beck, The Beastie Boys and Radiohead, so we still w)ent. The day of the concert was chilly, it rained all day, everything was wet, and Beck was knocked down a flight of stairs and rushed to the hospital just before his set, so he didn’t perform. Then the Beastie Boys had horrible sound issues and by the time Radiohead came on to close out the night, the whole thing was such a bummer, but they still put on an amazing show.

  We still stayed the extra day in New York and walked around Manhattan. That night we decided we wanted to drink in our hotel room, but were all underage and just decided to try buying beer from a drugstore that shall remain nameless, and because I was the oldest, I brought the case up to the counter, showed the cashier my ID when asked, paid the man and left. We just assumed he didn’t really care but knew he was on camera and had to ask and may or may not have even looked at my birthday, because honestly, who hands over their ID if they know they’re underage? Yup. This girl. We went back to our crappy hotel room at a rather large discount hotel chain that will also remain nameless because we were promised two beds and then given only one double that all three of us were trying to cram into, and proceeded to get slightly inebriated. All in all, this was a very fun trip.

  It went on like this a few more years, constant open-mics and shows of friends and their bands. My dad let me transfer to Wayne State for my sophomore year, but my dumb ass got into a pretty bad car accident on my way to auditioning for a musical and totaled my tracker. Damn, I miss that car. So, instead of being able to live downtown, my dad said he would buy me a new car, (and by “new” I mean a thousand dollar piece of junk with major transmission issues, but I still appreciated the gesture) but I had to live at home. This was probably better because if I didn’t have someone around to tell me to go to class, I probably wouldn’t have. I think I had more credits in one semester at State than I ended up with my entire sophomore year at Wayne.

  In early November, Leah and I went to a party at Blair’s, where we met Ross. Ross was not unattractive, and he had a fancy red BMW and gauges in his ears, but Leah got to him first. No biggie. She and I were headed up to Starbucks, where he worked, a few weeks later for a visit, where we met Eric, one of Ross’s friends who was also waiting for him to get off. I know it’s very romantic to be all like “I knew right then and there that this was the man I was going to marry,” but it would be a complete lie if I said that here, and I’m sure he would agree. I knew as soon as I met him that I was going to go home with him because he had the sexiest voice I’d ever heard, but I was only nineteen when we met and I was still convinced I was never going to get married in those days.

  A few days later we all met up at The Music Menu in Greektown where another great local band had a Thursday night residency, The Brothers Groove. We did a bunch of Lemon Drops and danced, and Leah made up some story about some people they ran into or something so that I would go home with Eric, but that was already my plan, so I’m still a little unclear what happened there, but long story short, Eric and I started dating, and shortly thereafter, even moved in together.

  He was a House DJ by night, a really good one that had learned a lot from Chicago greats during his stay out there and he was putting together a demo, trying to book parties and we had talked about moving back out there when I was done with school. My big mouth had to ask him one day “if you were offered a house gig out in Chicago, today, would you take it?” knowing full well that would mean I wouldn’t be coming along because I had to finish school and couldn’t afford out of state tuition. He initially said no, but I guess he thought about it some more and a few days later he came home and said “we need to talk.” I wrote many songs in the months that followed that break-up. This was also the last time I asked a question without thinking about if I really wanted the answer.

  We Need to Talk*2003

  You’ll sit me on the bed

  And hold my hands in yours

  Look me in the eye

  And pretend you’re hurting too

  And when you’re feeling guilty

  You’ll hold me when I cry

  And that’s when you’ll convince me

  That it’s not me, It’s you

  You’ll spoon-feed me the bullshit

  That I swallow every time

  As I savor the taste

  Of defeat in my mouth

  Stumble and you’ll stutter

  Trying to find the perfect words

  But they all mean the same damned thing

  When they finally come out

  We need to talk

  We need to talk

  We need to talk

  We need……..

  Don’t tell me it’s not working

  Don’t tell me it’s not my fault

  Don’t tell me you’ve got dreams

  Goddamnit, don’t we all

  I guess yours are more important

  Though my heart is on the line

  But I’m the idiot who put it there

  So I guess the fault’s all mine

  We need to talk

  We need to talk

  We need to talk

  We need…

  If you loved me in the beginning

  You’d still love me ‘til the end

  Don’t try to tell me differently

  Now all you want’s a “friend”

  Spare me your fucking pity

  Go waste someone else’s time

  Find another heart to break

  I’m tired of fixing mine

  No, we don’t need to talk

  No, we don’t need to talk

  No, we don’t need to talk

  No, we don’t need….

  ~*~

  A Bird May Love a Fish*2003

  Doctor, please help me

  I need to be flying up there

  But in place of my wings

  Are these funny webbed things

  And I can’t seem to breathe the air

  And Oh, my love’s going to leave me

  Because we can’t find a common ground

  She nests in the trees

  And I’m stuck in the seas

  I’m so sick of swimming around

  So drop me a postcard

  When you get to Belize

  I’ll save you some sand

  From each of the seas

  And if I had
any of my own

  I would fall on my knees

  And beg God, to give me some wings

  Oh, please God, won’t you give me

  Some wings

  Doctor, please hurry

  I think I’m running out of time

  She’s bored with my love

  It’s no longer enough

  I think she’s going to leave me behind

  Doctor, I’m so worried

  I really think I’m losing my girl

  Why didn’t I listen

  When they said we’re from two different worlds

  So drop me a postcard

  When you get to Belize

  I’ll save you some sand

  From each of the seas

  And if I had any of my own

  I would fall on my knees

  And beg God, to give me some wings

  Oh, please God, won’t you give me

  Some wings

  Doctor, No thank you

  Please take these little pills back

  I’ve realized I don’t need a disguise

  I’d rather just be who I am

  It’s not meant to be

  If she can’t love me for me

  And we can’t find a compromise

  But let truth be told

  Need I be so bold

  I shouldn’t have to change my life

  When you perch on the Eiffel

  And you look to the blue

  When you see my waters

  You’ll know I’m missing you

  I’m sorry I’m not the thing

  That you needed me to be

  But I’m not sorry for being me

  So drop me a postcard

  When you get to Belize

  I’ll save you some sand

  From each of the seas

  And if I had any of my own

  I would fall on my knees

  And thank God for not giving me wings

  Oh, thank God, for not giving

  Me wings…

  ~*~

  Dreamer's Lullaby*2003

  When the weight of the world

  Is crushing you down

  There’s no use in removing

  Your head from those clouds

  When you’ll always regret

  Taking the easy way out

  And giving up on the jeweled life

  You’d otherwise have found

  The road to the emerald city

  Isn’t always paved in gold

  The path may be dark and winding

  And heavy will be your load

  But look how far you’ve come by now

  To give up and turn around

  When you’ve already lost so much

  There’s so much you haven’t yet found

  There’s door number one

  Or door number two

  A choice to be made

  And neither’s wrong or right

  When one makes you happy

  And the other’s just easy

  If you turn from your dreams

  Can you sleep through the night?

  How can you sleep without your dreams

  How can you sleep without your dreams

  How can you sleep…

  How can you sleep…

  ~*~

  The following May I threw a birthday show for what was really my twentieth birthday, but I told the bar where I was throwing it that it was my twenty-first birthday, and no one ever asked me for ID. I was in there all the time for their Tuesday open-mics, also hosted by Blair, so they knew me anyway. I played a short set, as did Dale, Dan Minard, and Ian Lee Lamb. Everyone that I wanted to be there that night was there, and it was another highlight of my life. All of my favorite people and music for my birthday, it was lovely.

  The next day I got a call from a boy in one of my classes that I had seen around at open-mics and was friends with Blair, and “in the scene” if you will. I was at work, but he left me a message I saved for a long time saying what a wonderful party I’d thrown and he would want his exactly the same way. I had a mini crush on this boy, but he had a girlfriend, so I just assumed he was off limits. Another long story short: they were having problems, they broke up, we got together, in that order. I was not a home-wrecker. Yet.

  His name was Matt and we dated almost three years. I don’t know if I ever told him this, but I attribute my graduating Wayne State to him. He took a few classes with me that he had no business taking as a Public Relations major, including Design 2: Color Theory, the most difficult class I took. He would stay up all night with me while we worked on these poster sized journals and painting exercises trying to mix the exact right shade, or hue, or tint, or whatever the hell it was supposed to be that was never right! That professor definitely made me cry a few times. I needed this class for my art major but I feel like I may have dropped it and changed majors all together if it weren’t for Matt.

  Coward*2003

  It feels just like I’ve been sleeping

  But I can’t seem to wake

  And I know my body must be screaming

  But no one comes to my aid

  And I know the morning is coming

  To wake me up with a kiss

  But Oh how I wish she’d hurry

  I can’t go on like this

  Fear of those nights

  Fear of those mornings

  Fear of the aching that never subsides

  Fear of those days

  Feeling like nothing

  The fear of losing my will

  To survive

  And you just might be perfect

  The dream that I let slip away

  But I’ll never know all I lost to the wind

  Because I was too afraid

  If only I could close my eyes

  To all that I have seen

  Then maybe I could finally learn

  To just let a dream be a dream

  They’re all nightmares to me

  All nightmares to me

  Afraid of those nights

  Afraid of those mornings

  Afraid of the aching that never subsides

  Afraid of those days

  Feeling like nothing

  Afraid of losing my will too survive

  Afraid of the dark

  Afraid of the lonely

  Afraid of love lost as it trickles to the floor

  Afraid of the razor making love to my skin

  Because I can’t love

  Anymore

  Can’t love anymore…

  Love me, teach me to be unafraid

  Love me, and frighten my fears away

  Love me, and say you’ll understand

  Love me for the coward that I am

  Fear of those nights

  Fear of those mornings

  Fear of the aching that never subsides

  Fear of those days

  Feeling like nothing

  The fear of losing my will

  To survive

  ~*~

  I heard a statistic when I was first starting school that the average college student has seven different majors before they graduate, which I thought was absurd; until I had eight. I was undecided for the first semester at Michigan State, then I decided to be theatre, then it was fashion design, then interior design, then graphic design, video arts, studio art with a concentration in drawing and painting and ultimately: printmaking. Funny thing is, I honestly didn’t even know what printmaking was until I was invited (as a graphic design major) to a meeting to review the new Wayne State website before it launched. I just happened to sit down next to Stanley, the head of the Printmaking department, who looked as much like Santa Claus as one could without a red suit and reindeer. He commented that I had very nice handwriting and that I should take his etching class. So the next semester, I did, and I liked it. And I liked Stanley. I thought I could definitely take more classes from this man, and I didn’t particularly care for drawing and painting all that much the way it was being taught. It’s
unfortunate I wasn’t able to get into a screen printing class until my senior year because this turned out to be my true love. As long as it was flat, or could be flexed to be flat, you could print on it, and I just started printing on everything! The stool at my desk in the communal studio, t-shirts, bandannas, CD cases and even toilet seats. These became my signature piece as I found a local hardware store where I could buy them for five dollars, disassemble them, paint them, print them, and then giftwrap them back up and sell them for thirty dollars at art fairs. Detroit was great for this sort of thing because there were always art fairs, always artists looking to split booth rental, and always people interested in buying cheap, kitschy, art.

  I actually hated being a studio art major, but it was already my senior year by the time I made this decision, and I wasn’t about to stay in school forever, at that time anyway. All the professors wanted me to talk about my work like “what I’m trying to say with this piece is…” or “this piece says to the world that…” and blah blah blah, bullshit. I didn’t have a statement to make. I just wanted to make things pretty. I loved bright swirling colors, and glitter, and generally felt driven to make the world a prettier place, but I had no “statement”. I did a whole series of prints for my senior project about not being an artist. Bright, beautiful prints (in my opinion anyway) with bold wording saying “this is not art” and “I am not an artist” or one of my personal favorites, the sarcastic “I have a statement!” Stanley said I would make more money than anyone else, and perhaps I would have if I’d stuck with it, but unfortunately, real life took over. I know everyone says do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life or some crap, but rent doesn’t pay itself and once I graduated, Daddy stopped paying it, so I went back to Cosi.

  I applied for a tattoo apprenticeship at one point, and was offered the position after an extensive interview and portfolio review; but they wanted me to work in their shop for about thirty hours a week, unpaid, in exchange for my training and equipment costs, and I was already working forty hours or thereabouts at Cosi, so I turned it down. This is one of the decisions I feel like probably had a great impact on which direction my life took. I think next time around I’ll take it.

  The other thing I don’t know how I would have gotten through without Matt, was my dad moving to Jacksonville, Florida. As I mentioned earlier, he had quit Compuware some years ago and was working from home and living off of stock market winnings. As soon as my brother graduated high school though, in 2003, he sold our house and we moved to Ferndale, a nice enough, highly rentable city right on the northern border of Detroit. It was also only a few blocks from Woodward Avenue which ran straight through the center of Ferndale, and all the way down through the center of Detroit, where Wayne State was, so that my brother could take the bus home on the weekends if he so chose, but I think he usually just hitched a ride with me.