Annabel Lee

None so softly

2012-01-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

Some people binge-eat when they take lunesta or ambien. I do other things, like write.

I wrote this last night, or this early morning, and I do not remember it at all. I've read through it and will share it here, but it makes me quite sad. It's as if this shadow part of me emerges only when it can or I will let it, and only if I don't know what it's saying.

I wonder who this me is that writes these things of me.

***

Late nights like this wonderful night, lights kicking off everywhere. Where nothing makes any sense at all. Not my life. Not my short life, and let us face it.

I watched certain city lights, always on, bears leaning against buildings while aliens danced for no good reason at all. Always something was moving along.

Or always moving something along, on, on, this life. Leaves. Cemeteries, they grew. Loves, they left, on adventures to nowhere, climbing to feel something and go on, feel what you need and then get back to feeling nothing at all, like you always did.

And, alone as ever, lights kicking, maybe we can all be little girls.
Maybe I was never a little girl.

He’d come of course, he told me to my face that he would never leave, he had never been the sort of man to just go. The men that leave are the bad ones. He was a strong one. He made these promises.

All of this matters to me. Pinpoints. Angel wings. Pixelations. I watch.

And like this night, the same knifing light tells older stories still. Ties that died, times I tried so hard to live like they told me to live. I remember the glorious time of dying, my liver and heart failing, the consummate lost soul of the ICU. An already-ghost unaware of my already-death, some tube thrust down my nose into my stomach while I wept, because of course it went all the way down.

Shove it all the way down, then kill me. I was gone already.

Make me not care anymore. Make me not care just like you do not care, shove it down and I will take it. Go on, make me cry, I'm pretty when I cry, you like it. Make me never forget what you never wanted to remember, that I was alone in all of this from the start. Alive to die, dead already.

There are glowing things in this life, insanely bright things that can fill us, they light up in moments. They shine with gemstone luminescence, into every perfect part of us, for we are never alone.

Into skies point telescopes, gauge and place and determine right angles. Yet with this glowing girl, she will shine anyway, having only ever smiled (for she willed it): so white, so bright, ah such a good wife. All energy pours out, given over to vast incisions: I watch you destroy many things. These things killed my father.

You took your knife, you took the shitty pieces out, all the cancers. Sliced and sutured, anything unnecessary thrown away. But there was still me, right? With so many parts gone already though, sliced out and eaten right up, I guess it makes sense that I would go too.

"Breathe within it and think of something nice,” he said, like he was the him I had needed him to be, for what better time should he show up for me? There was no better time!

To champion even one thing on my behalf. I wanted him so much. I wanted him to care for me more than he cared about ... anything. Maybe when I died he did, or would when I do, but these are things I will never know.

And I did die. I am dead there still, a little bit, because I have no wings. I can only be given these wings in the right order of things.

Pardon me, I blame no one. So many little boxes with me; Crystal will die every day in every way.

But I am here.

On these nights

2012-01-29T23:27:00.001-08:00

I can write the saddest lines tonight.

Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance

The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.

I can write the saddest lines tonight.
To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her.

Hear the vast night, vaster without her.
Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.

What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her.
The night is fractured and she is not with me.

That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.
My heart looks for her: she is not with me

The same night whitens, in the same branches.
We, from that time, we are not the same.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.

Another’s kisses on her, like my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.

I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.

Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content to have lost her.

Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,
and these are the last lines I will write for her.

--Pablo Neruda

Squee

2012-01-22T20:44:00.000-08:00

I have very,
very,
very,
very,
very,
VERY good friends.

Mahalo ke Akua.

?

2012-01-22T06:56:00.001-08:00

After all these years, can anyone guess why Annabel Lee is me?

Mirror, broken

2012-01-19T18:28:00.000-08:00

I am in therapy. It is weird.

I have taken to calling my therapist what my dear friend Matty calls his: "the rapist". Because it all gets poured out, my bones bare, my issues legion. I actually said that to the rapist. I said, "my issues are legion, my dysfunction, disproportionate." "Disproportionate to what?" he asked. "To what appears before you on this couch. Demure, wearing a size 4x Chicago Bears sweatshirt just in case you want to hit on me, and...dubious."

"Why would a the rapist hit on you?"
"It happens," is all I said.
And so I began.

My the rapist is like a car salesman and I don't quite know how to feel about it. He postures and inflects and gesticulates like he's debating Mitt Romney, it is ugly. But he has pearls here and there and he tosses them right to me. He thinks I stayed with my ex so long because he in fact reminds me of my father. "Well, but he never beat me, and he sure could have," I laughed, and what can you say to that?

Because he didn't. Though I suppose a case could be made for emotional abuse because of all the obfuscation, lies, misinformation and neglect. There's a case for that in every relationship, however, or might I be jaded? Doesn't everyone lie? Doesn't everyone withdraw? Doesn't everyone neglect?

Wait, does this only happen to me?

In any event, in the end I probably gave as good as I got. I'm not sorry. I had grown insanely, ridiculously frustrated --- gaslit and irrational. I had hit the wall, gone through it, then witnessed the abyss on the other side staring back at me. And oh what suffering there was. For months.

I've finally had enough of all that. Onward to self repair. And I'll have you know there is no shame in seeing the rapist. There is no shame in organizing all of my issues and having someone reflect them back to me, one by one, in some kind of Dantean system of awfulness. It actually makes everything so clear. As it turns out, I am ridiculous. As it turns out, I am wonderful too, and I might even deserve a partner befitting my wonderfulness. All along I'd thought so; who knew I was actually right?

And so, yes, I have no boyfriend or husband. No male love interest at all. There are men that pursue me but then there are always men that pursue me---none of them are mine. I can't claim any of them and frankly I do not want to. Not to be corny, but I'd rather spend time claiming myself in this haphazard journey on some car salesman's couch than try to see myself mirrored back in some new lover's eyes. I've done that before.

And strangely, the mirror has always been broken.

Maybe

2012-01-14T22:44:00.001-08:00

To describe the angst of not knowing. Of wanting more, of feeling just the edges of something magnificent, something that could be mine. How do I live with the knowing? With the not knowing? How do you?

I want the entire world. I want to give myself over to the entire world. I want to die having accomplished all this, having edified the ones I love and the ones I never knew. It's all that is in me, all I've ever dreamed, and yet I sit here, thinking of it in starts and stops, all I'm supposed to be doing, all I haven't yet begun. Then comes guilt. Remorse. Time wasted, people lost because of me. And I still have no idea.

Yet sometimes, the revelation. The epiphany of a road before me, drenched in sunlight and very clear, a road I cannot lose myself upon. Sometimes I can feel that it's there. I devise plans, make sketches, take the first initial steps. Yet inevitably I stall. I question. I wonder if I ever truly saw the road in the first place. Maybe the road was a dream? And so I look back to the crossroad, that place in the dirt of my life where I first decided on a different direction, and it looks safer.

And I backtrack.

I have lived these years of my life backtracking and drenched in sunlight. These have been long, terrible, glorious years. At the end of my days I wonder if I'll realize that life was only ever about that, the starts and the stops and the realization that we never go anywhere, and that is the point.

But what if it's not? What if in the end I realize that life is up in the stars, and that I've spent all my time looking at a road, wasting time?

Because maybe there is no road. Maybe in the end I'll see I've been living life up in the stars all along, creating a road in my mind, a road to constrain me. Maybe I'm already perfect just as I am. Already all that I seek, the world and the people and the revelation, it's in the pupil of my eye, the crash of my pulse, the ridges in my palm. Maybe I am the stars.

And maybe that's all.

Would that they did

2012-01-09T08:19:00.000-08:00

And so irrespective of grand gestures and what not, what a woman is truly looking for is some sort of sign that indicates normalcy can actually occur with any given potential mate --- not boring-ness or complacency, but normalcy, stability, foundation-building behavior and actions.

We all love to swoon, me perhaps most of all, but frankly if we do not have something to stand on to build something that will last --- what are any of us doing? Praying to stars. And the stars never listen.

Would that men did.

Net shifting: Center to left by approximately 4%

Two points

2012-01-07T22:32:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how many of you lovely women out there have had songs written and recorded for you by grown ass men with sound systems, recording equipment and instruments. It was one of the sweetest gestures ever made to me, point blank period. I'm blushing! I did not expect it.

Net Shifting: left to center

Letter to An Ex (Or, The Stylings of a Bard)

2012-01-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

I will see you tomorrow night, which is Friday, which is perhaps today if you're reading this on Friday. I was wondering, as an aside, whether you could grope me a little under the table when we meet. No worries, I could grope you as well, it's truly either/or. I'm a diplomat and a consummate giver.

In other news, I am incredibly fat. Just truly, horrifically out of shape. I feel like one of those stay puff marshmallow people, or the Michelin man. Just fat as hell. So what to do?

Well, buy jeans with sequins on them, of course! To direct you specifically to all the fat. Because nothing is better for fat than gargantuan patches of reflective surfacing. I'm fat and I have an afro and apparently an affinity for sequins that reflect all the fat. Such a perfect circle.

Don't worry, kid, I'm not that fat. I mean, technically I'm potentially morbidly obese. I guess that's fat. I guess the morbid part implies death by fat. Okay, I could be dying by fat, I'll admit that. I could be suffocating right bloody now with all the fat pressing down on my esophagus and other essential parts. But don't worry, you will still like it. You can even bat my fat around a little, just not in public. Bat it around and have a fucking free for all, plus there will be sequins! You can check your teeth at the same time you bat all the fat!

I am now going to bed.

After I eat.

A bitch (unleash the Kraken)

2012-01-05T03:25:00.000-08:00

I'm up in the middle of the night, see, because apparently those paper-people who throw the Denver Post at houses like flowers at the king's parade like to drive immense 4x4s with grinding motors around and around, then idle, then throw, throw, then grind onward only to idle again, and throw, throw.

It's appalling how people have forgotten how to be decent. Though in truth I'm pretty sure humanity was never really decent, in fact what am I saying actually -- we have always been barbarians and baboons. And these paper throwers are the worst of them all is what I've decided, at least at 4:17am as I write this, because I can hear them in the next cul de sac over, those poor neighbor sods trying to sleep as I was I'm sure, while baboons behind the wheels of trucks big enough to haul countries haul possibly two men only and a stack of about a hundred newspapers nobody will ever read. Goodbye trees. Goodbye decency. Wake up, Greenwood Village.

And where are the police when you need them? Oh they're always there to pull over the soccer mom interlopers -- their numbers being legion --- but these grand 4x4 fucks? Well of course the police are nowhere to be found at this fine hour. Just me, this computer, walking around my house in a fury with no pants on. As onward they grind, idle and throw, as I pace, half naked, wondering what they would think if I slipped into my ninja outfit and slithered into the cab of their ridiculous vehicle with my sickle. Oh they'd learn to be decent. And oh, if only I had a sickle.

Ain't insomnia a bitch?

Penis Part

2011-12-29T10:06:00.000-08:00

I'm tired of bitching.

I want to buy a Rubicon. I hear they're historically problematic (Jeeps) but maybe the new ones, which look rad, won't be too hard on me. I think I'm ready to get rid of the convertible if you can even remotely believe that. Though more likely than that, I'll get rid of the truck. It's big and boys should live in it.

I'm also over this house. It's not in the least what I thought it would be, which is odd since my career happens to be as an intuitive, so how did I miss that? I've certainly learned a lot there, hosted a lot of classes and get-togethers and generally speaking, experienced some interesting things. It's by a lake, has a great deck, the neighborhood is quiet.

But I want a house that is L-I-G-H-T. Infused everywhere with it. Joyful to walk into. Bright. All my vibrational shifting must translate within my living space most assuredly. So I will manifest that, along with that Rubicon. Which I may switch for a FJ Cruiser. I don't know. When the money descends from the heavens, I will make that call.

In summation, I actually feel very good about this whole 2012 thing, despite my propensity to re-enter dysfunctional patterns with people who consistently make me insane. I don't want to do that next year. If I'm with someone, anyone, he's got to be a complement. Maybe it'll be the ex, maybe it will be someone new I meet. I'm honestly open to it not being him or anybody else. I'm good with that. I have a lot of work to crack out, anyway. Sometimes penis people serve only to distract me from my tasks, mainly because of the penis part, which I humbly admit to enjoying.

Still, I'll get it together, penis or no.

Swears A Little Less (Part II)

2011-12-27T17:48:00.000-08:00

I won't take the other post down because I felt it strongly when I wrote it. But I will explain a few things here which ought to be provided.

The man who didn't show up for me has been been my ex for awhile. I never asked him to accompany me to this biopsy but he did offer to do so and said he wanted to be there. But I had to reschedule it when he said that, and ultimately scheduled it for today, two days after Christmas. And due to all of our off-ness, he had made other plans to be somewhere else over the holidays. Which meant I was alone.

I felt unreasonably rejected. Unreasonably, I say, because we are always off and what, he should wait around and try hard to see if we could make something work by Christmas? That has never been his m.o., which I think touches on the heart of the matter. His m.o. is to do stupid things and then argue for those pointless things and in very unfair ways, gas-lighting me and then blaming me for the argument after he was the one who initiated it through bad behavior and infantile communication skills. His m.o. is non-pursuit and benevolent neglect; it is chosen absence and chosen blindness.

This whole month has taught me how much I need to get much, much better --- how I can no longer stand, health-wise or any other kind of -wise to be in situations which put me through this kind of turmoil. I know he's working on a lot of things and I think that's great, but he's also still stuck in these patterns that are thoroughly destructive to me and which leave me, inevitably, standing alone. Which I should and have been doing. Because he's my ex, and I guess your exes just cannot be your friends or anything else.

So I had no right expecting him to change his (out-of-state) plans and be there for me. I had no right to call him sobbing and then be offended that he didn't call until six hours later. I have no right to expect anything decent or kind from him as a basic reaction to anything involving me, much less him taking a position of pro-active care and pro-active love expression towards me. I have no right because I should goddamn know better.

It can't be this hard to find someone compatible. God, but maybe it is, and maybe so much of us are out there settling for a life that is just two steps above a shitpile because it's what we know and it's what we've accepted.

This man is not a bad man. He's just an absent man, and absent in a lot of ways that relate to me. And while I feel sorry a lot of times that he is like that, I need to start caring for myself more.

Swears A Lot (my new Indian name)

2011-12-27T10:42:00.000-08:00

I had the worst medical experience today, and mainly because I was alone. I won't go into the gory details of it, but it was piss poor in quality and I left crying, shaking, and barely able to drive --- and now I'm way to the hell sedated.

But I did drive. Because nobody's going to drive my sorry ass home but me. And I get that I'm feeling sorry for myself and that that's unbecoming. It's just that for so long I've dated (on and almost always ridiculously off) a guy who claims to love me so much and want to be there for me and blah blah blah all this bullshit. I have no doubt that he believes it in his own head where for the most part he lives as opposed to in the real world where people have to actually do things in order to gain certain effects, and that's great and all, but if thoughts don't translate into deeds then for me all we have here is a heaping pile of horseshit.

2012 is rapidly approaching and the time to start fresh couldn't be more apparent. Dysfunctional patterns need to be left behind for good. I have been trapped within an in-and-out fucked up situation that has played upon my good nature and very nearly turned me into someone who could accost people. This runs counter to me being an avatar. Hence, this needs to change.

It's made me miss my ex-husband, hell, both of them, because at least they backed up their words with action and at least they gave it their all, no holds barred. Sometimes things don't work and that's just how it is. But they were stand up guys all the way around. A hardworking warehouseman and a fighter pilot/lawyer. These men did all they could to make me smile. I miss men like that. I refuse to settle for less than a man who gives me that. Men who make me cry are so motherfucking yesterday.

One thing I can say, though, is that it hasn't fucked with my self-esteem or my confidence. I know I am all that, I know that I have skills, talents, gifts, attractive qualities, you name it. I'm a writer and one of my books is almost done and it will publish because goddamn, I'm opening my own publishing house. The other will come out after that, but not long after that, because it's all part of a program I am creating with my best friend WHO WOULD NEVER LEAVE ME TO GET A FUCKED UP BIOPSY ON MY OWN and it will be successful.

I know I am sweet, charming, demure, spiritual, appropriately effusive and a whole lot of other very rad fucking things. I won't have a problem out there in the real world where dudes are actually inclined in some sustainable way to be in a relationship where they are an active participant, participating with a merry heart.

I deserve the best and the good news is that we all do. The bad news is that most of us settle for utter horseshit, for less of a life, for half-measure mates and for sex lives that resemble a drought. This is not cool. I'm alive and who knows for how much longer? And I want to live with energy, grace and most of all, ferocity.

I did this shit alone today and it sucked. And yeah I cried, and yeah I shook, and yeah I felt really sorry for myself and I even still am. But I'll get over it. If I've learned anything over this last three years it's that I'm a strong fucking broad. Who at times swears a lot.

I get it, I'm traumatized. I'll stop here. But sometimes writing is better than crying uncontrollably in your truck in front of your doctor's office and having people look at you strangely. Sometimes writing makes me look normal, and like I don't have actual feelings that hurt, to people who see me in person. So I guess that works.

Joyeaux

2011-12-25T12:48:00.000-08:00

My ~~Giftmas~~ Christmas was actually really nice. How about yours?

Mele Kalikimaka, all.

Oh and merry christmas

2011-12-23T21:44:00.000-08:00

Would it kill me to have a mundane life a little bit? Must there always be chaos, drama, questioning, uncertainty and ridiculousness? Can't I just be like everybody else for two goddamn seconds? You got me saying goddamn. Now you know it's on.

2011-11-30T20:07:00.001-08:00

I'm ready.

Scary place, because when you're ready with real openness things will happen.

Check where I am in one month. Just check!

The wisdom of commoners

2011-11-15T20:41:00.000-08:00

To argue with insanity is insane.

To explain step by step, using careful logic, is insignificant when someone isn't having the same experience. Because they are in their own private Idaho while you explore, trying to explain different lands to inspire them.

They toil in fields as you skip away with much potential, and you'd like to bring them along, you love them do you not? But they do not see your lands, nor even the way that you skip; they see only the myopia of their toiled creation, the dank soil and rotted potatoes they forgot in their season to pull.

It's up to them of course to see new paths to these places, but these aren't their lands, not really, and these people are not even close to beginning to perceive. Not your lands at least, not as you skip in fine shoes with that big hopeful smile on your face. Oh explain, explain if you have to, explain if it makes you feel better for some reason, and sure, use that logic girl, show them exactly how they are setting off on so many wrong paths. But do you think a wolf listens to a swan? Do you think a prince recognizes the wisdom of a commoner?

We are all this terribly and tragically different, so then lose yourself to the exhaustion if you like. Yet if you're brave you will skip right on despite it, just always on until your toes are stubbed and bloody, kicked up against some stone on the shore of a new adventure.

Oh friends, forget these potato farmers. Forget the ridiculous illusions. Create your own adventure and leave behind those that never knew how to dream in the first place.

Heyhowyadoin

2011-11-10T19:22:00.001-08:00

Apparently someone googled "long penis in girl mouth" and got my blog.

Appropos of nothing

2011-11-06T10:57:00.001-08:00

I don't have anything to write.

Get it.

refuse to follow

2011-10-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

Trouble altogether

2011-10-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

Time to let go of outmoded ideas. I guess it's always time to do that.

Didn't work out. Wasn't what I thought it would be. Didn't arrive where I thought I'd live. I live here now, in this strange place, and yes it's different, and so am I, and so is life in general.

But it's still better and I am still moving toward something --- I'm certainly still growing. Nothing ends up being exactly what we thought it would be; the best laid plans and all that. Yet leaving it to God is always the better idea, and although metamorphosis carries with it some definite pain, the final surprising result is worth the trouble altogether.

Hi, internet.

Okay with that

2011-10-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

I think I just have deep-rooted ideas about what a man should be.

I used to write romance novels, not so much for money (that's a hard business to crack, though I was published), but rather as a method of articulation. Basically, I was creating the kind of man I wanted for myself. Over time, I realized that some of the men I created were unrealistically drawn. They were overly alpha, hyper-successful and of course too good looking for words. I don't think that guy exists. I know now that I do not need him to.

But I do have a few deal breakers and I'm not apologizing for them. For one, he has to want to make sure I'm safe, well and okay. He can't leave me in a lurch or be content with assuming I'll make it home okay. He needs to be strong and want to protect me. Not that I will conduct myself in a fashion that needs protecting --- but he needs to be able to do it, irrespective. And he's got to want to.

He's got to be honest and true to his word. I've met too many men who say they are one thing and then, upon even the most rudimentary examination, prove to be otherwise. They say they're loyal and then they betray me or others. They say they're steadfast and then disappear. They say they've got integrity and then willingly screw someone over. It's okay if you're not loyal I guess --- I'd just like that information so that I can make a fair decision for myself. But I realize most people would never admit to being disloyal. Or hardheaded. Or petty. Or unfaithful. And a lot of other things.

Nobody wants to see themselves that way.

And so I go through exercise after exercise in my attempt to discover just who it is I've hitched my wagon to. The good news is that the trips are a lot shorter now, I know the signs. The bad news is that I'm getting tired of traveling this much, and on a road I can barely make out.

He has to be decent, kind, protective, stalwart, good-natured and intelligent. He has to be nice to others and want to be of service in some sort of way. He has to have a gigantic heart and I have to feel that heart in whatever he does. He has to want me to be okay, warm, safe, protected, because he has to want to be the man. I'm okay with roles. I'm old fashioned that way.

Maybe that's too much to ask?

I guess that's why I'm alone. (I'm okay with that too, by the way.)

Even thought of

2011-10-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

I think systems are okay. I think people need systems in order to feel safe as they make progress. Rules make us feel safe, don't they? Because someone higher than we certainly had to have made those rules, which means we cannot be it. It doesn't stop with us, does it? It couldn't possibly!

But what if it did? What if we really are gods, or could be?

If your system helps you, or your mythology, or your patterns, then cling to them. They are useful. Just know that there is a space beyond your system, a place no structure can stand because structures themselves aren't necessary. That space is real mystery.

That space is spirituality.

Away, plans

2011-10-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

There's something oddly invigorating about having no map. In order to rebuild you often have to have dismantled to some degree, somewhere along the line. And that's okay. I think it's a natural part of progress. To grow you must change, and change often hurts. But there's stuff on the other side of change, and a lot of that stuff is good. I think it's ok.

One thing I've learned though, and this without a doubt, is that life is not easy, no way, no how. No part of it. Just when things seem to really be going your way, all of it's torn down once again and here we are, off and running again, rebuilding somewhere or something. I think it's ok.

Today I am writing a book, I am booking clients, I am sitting in my new favorite coffee shop right by my new place, my kid is healthy, I've got really great friends and my schedule is busy. Some things I thought would stay most definitely went away, plans I made detonated and people, as ever, totally split. I think it's ok.

More than ok, I think it's life. And life is good. Not easy --- not by any stretch --- but definitely good.

bye, baby

2011-09-23T20:39:00.001-07:00

Wow. (Make this day end.)

2011-09-08T16:33:00.000-07:00

It astonishes me how self-absorbed some people are. The root of all their problems, they don't see it as such, they just spin and spin and then wonder why nothing makes sense. They lose friends and loved ones, become increasingly estranged from nearly everybody, and all along they blame everyone else for the phenomenon, so indignant. Yet who could possibly miss the common denominator?

They could.

Amazing.

Let's, shall we?

2011-08-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

So in any case, let us not get caught up in things that do not serve us, or harm ourselves and others, let us not view friends and neighbors as less than we are due to color of skin, proclivity or capacity. Let us reflect instead on the state of our own grace, or lack thereof; let us strive to complete the life we've come here to live, and let us do so with dignity, dispensing peace and good cheer at all turns. There is no higher good.

Let us be mindful of those who grieve, who lack, who have lost sight of roads, who forget how to live with love. Let us practice mercy, long-suffering and patience, let us be thankful for each and every one that teaches us even the harshest of lessons. Let us frame all things as beautiful portraits, placed side by side along walls, the people, places and things, all beneficial and for the edification --- and consider at all times the greater purpose and the higher way.

How true

2011-08-10T16:14:00.001-07:00

‎"If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, act lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that's perfectly valid - but don't go out trying to sell your beliefs to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself." -- Tom Robbins

the game better be all A, all day long

2011-08-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

silliness, silliness.

I got it

2011-07-19T19:34:00.000-07:00

I find out in two days about my mother's surgery. And then I mobilize, pack, get with my brother, figure out the strategy and head out.

It's almost a joke to expect some kind of static facet to life. It just doesn't happen. Even the stable parts are fluid, moving, moving toward something, something unknown and often seemingly frightening.

So who knows? Who knows what happens to Mom, or me on the flight/drive to Iowa, then to Chicago, or the friends I'll see there, the prayers I'll make, the recovery or trajectory around such. Who knows who shows up for me, or gives a damn, or notices, do I even care? No, not really, I exist without anyone else needing to know the level at which I do.

Separate and apart it's all as it should be, and I can be this mountain, this strong and majestic thing, I really can. Just holy fuck, just for one second, for one moment only a soft place to land, an arm into which I can fold my face and hide.

I guess such is life.

delight, go ahead

2011-07-18T15:26:00.000-07:00

Lots and lots and lots of colors.

Can't let anything get in the way of all that.

I've lived black and white and mostly gray for far too long.

Wish castles, not sand, growing in the direction of my heart. Some grew, some decided not to, you stick with what works. You go in the direction of colors.

I was thinking about you today.

most days

2011-07-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

I wake in the middle of the night and it's a done deal. Nighttime is gone, so is peace, sleep always elusive. In nearly three years very little in that regard has changed. I emphasize the little wildly.

Sometimes it's a neck vice I have to talk myself out of. The trick of course is in the organization. The arrangement of time so as to resemble or perhaps even flow into some kind of cogent routine propelling me toward something. Of a predictably nebulous nature.

I have the vaguest of ideas as to what that might be, and a sense of what it probably is not (this means next to nothing), but if I know one thing it's that I know very little in the final tally, that days are little more than twenty four full hours of endless waiting games. I was thinking just the other day how things change on such a clever dime, mice and men and all such nonsense, the key being to forget planning and simply to flow.

Into the day or into the night, awake or asleep, you do what you have to, or at least I do, and most days it's fine as it is.

I'm neither here nor there.
I'm almost always everywhere.

Maybe some day I can move like you

2011-07-15T23:21:00.000-07:00

The only thing I've ever found

that's greater than it always sounds

is love.

Dreamt about jumping into the arms of an ex. All sorts of muscle and strength and it was odd how I missed it. And loved it, when within it, within the dream.

I was running from something and he stood right there, stalwart to catch me.

Most times it's not what I think I want, or what I ought to want --- but sometimes I let myself want it. No homemade tinfoil book covers for the worn black and white compositions, no brittle pressed flowers smashed into dust and drifting up into the atmosphere, a little girl's dream. And this woman's dream.

I keep wondering whether there is someone for me, just for me, and I don't necessarily need him right now, nor do I think my wanting him means I'm wrong in any way. It's just that my arms are empty too much, really empty, except of course for all the weighty stuff they hold onto and also hold in place. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have real muscle and strength to run into?

Yes, wouldn't it be wonderful.

Up now

2011-07-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

Heading back to Chicago soon. Mom. Surgery. Everything is on hold. Whole new situation. Odd how things get switched up yet remain the same.

Will head into Des Moines first, either via car or plane. I hope I can afford a plane because god knows Nebraska sucks out loud to drive. Want to spend some time there on the front end and possibly even the back end of the Chicago trip. Good folks there, I genuinely like all of them --- it will be good to get away. They make me happy.

I'm not sad about it. I'm just steeling myself. There's a lot to be strong for. Not going to mess it up now.

Get it

2011-07-11T23:36:00.000-07:00

Oh man.

Overwhelmed.

And alone, really, without much support anywhere. I'm not complaining. I know I'm working, taking classes and attempting to form some kind of life. This is good. It's progress. But I'm tired tonight. And while not feeling misunderstood necessarily, I'm certainly feeling unseen. Who cares?

I know. I get it!

Dating Rules #6: Find Your Energetic Match

2011-06-17T15:55:00.001-07:00

To simply assert

2011-06-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

Hardly any time to do what I must do. This is frustrating on many levels and I try not to take it to the logical negative place, I try to just do the best I can with what I've been given, knowing that ultimately all will be well. And I do believe it will be.

I have had some very interesting information given to me in the past three days. Remarkable even. I will simply assert that things in my life are on the final verge of truly tipping over into radical change. Good, immense, incredible change. I'm excited. I'm rather in awe. But you can't stop the wave once it has begun.

In other news, I am going to see a film about enlightenment tonight and then enjoy a nice Mexican meal with my delightful friend V. All is well in the world! No matter what the naysayers tell you.

Dating Rules #5: How Not To Approach A Chick At The Bar

2011-06-01T15:55:00.001-07:00

Dating Rules #4: Jealousy will get you dumped

2011-05-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

This one hits home. When someone is overly jealous, it's usually because they're doing something they shouldn't be. And this is not cool.

what fresh hell

2011-05-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

It's one thing to dream about an ex-boyfriend after so many years.

It's quite another to dream of this ex where you two are on a roller-coaster type contraption funded by Donald Trump heading to the core of the earth breathing through tubes wax-sealed to your mouth when he turns to you and asks Wanna play chocolate snake, baby?

He did look good after all these years, however. Props where props are due.

Dating Rules #3: Passive-Aggressive Dealbreaker

2011-05-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

So this was an interesting day!

Yet onward and upward, friends. I am here to take you to school again: rejoice.

No yardstick, no mirror, just me.

2011-05-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that I might intimidate people. Maybe even you.

There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is that I am rad. I also love myself and am committed to becoming a better person on all levels. My path is intriguing, my thoughts are important and my interaction with others, while presently rare, is fairly precious for all parties involved. And...I'm pretty.

I get why that might make some people unhappy, either because they like me or their man likes me or their entire family likes me, but really? Why intimidated?

You would only be if you thought my motivations were bad, or because you yourself are insecure about something that has absolutely nothing to do with me. Maybe your relationship, maybe your looks, God, I don't know, but do I really need to know? I don't think so.

The reality is that I do not go out and seek the attention or approval of others. People do not readily believe this, because on video I am bombastic and in pictures I am provocative and in person I have a certain kind of charisma that attracts all sorts; I admit these things. People think because I look the way I do or conduct myself in the manner I do, that I am doing so because I want them or others to like me. But the exact reverse is true. People like me because I do these things, and primarily (heads up!) because I really do like myself. Do you like yourself?

And while I can absolutely say that it is not my intention to make anyone feel insecure or poorly about themselves, or create an angry or jealous person out of someone who doesn't even really know me --- I can also even more heartily say that I really don't have the time to fix this for you. That's your kuleana as we say in Hawaii -- your business, your path, your choice. It has nothing to do with me and frankly, I do not have the time or inclination to reassure you.

I'm rocking my own life out.
All you need to do is pay attention to yours and you'll be just fine.

Mahalo.

Dating Rules #2: GET THE HELL OUT

2011-05-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

Dating Rules #1: Liars Suck

2011-05-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

I will be posting a series on dating and relationships because clearly I am well-versed and a veritable expert as it pertains to this subject. You will watch these videos and you will like them.

All of this for you

2011-05-11T07:13:00.001-07:00

Not your around the way girl

2011-05-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

At the present moment I am boring myself beyond belief. Knowing that 80% of what the brain absorbs is done so visually makes these binaural beats and blissed out tracks somewhat perfunctory. I always want more. My endless curiosity propels me in the strangest directions, particularly when it's away from something. Something I thought I wanted. Something I slapped up on my proverbial vision board in hopes of it manifesting just as I hoped it would. Oh Christ, eff that. A higher thought happened in a clearer moment and I got the gist of it, the down and dirty, the whole beautiful point. And now what? To infinity and beyond? I sit here wondering actively, because if infinity can be accessed then by God I'm the chick to dial the number. Yet I'm running out of ways to actualize, which means here I go again, being called to do nothing but simply wait. Watch. Gauge, size, never judge, assimilate or reject.

In other news, I would like a cosmopolitan in approximately 2.5 hours. And I will have it. It's not infinity, but it's something.

Happy tequila day

2011-05-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

It is cinco de mayo which is quatro days before my birthday and although I don't have a fella, it doesn't mean I can't get out and do something fun, all pretty like. Such as drink tequila.

Not a lot though, primarily as I hate tequila because it eats my guts. I will not stray too far from home, either, because it is wrong and stupid and against the law to drink and drive (so I walk) but I will go check out my favorite bartenders anyway because they're super generous on the pour and also true fun to hang with.

Hey you, life's kind of short you know: kick up your heels a little, do your hair up, put on those designer jeans or that short-short skirt. Gloom Away and two pumps of guava perfume for me and bam...Mommy will see you cracker jacks later.

How's my life?

2011-05-04T10:49:00.001-07:00

What dreams may come

2011-05-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

Dreams are cool because once you decide to actually follow one, other dreams emerge right on top of them. You start off wanting to be this, and so you take all the classes for that, and while taking classes bam, you're introduced to something else, and now you begin to dream about being that something else, and along your new path to being that bam, you're turned on by something else! And all the jigsaw puzzles click into place, pretty patterns and compelling landscapes. And here you are ticking off dream after dream after dream, realizing them all, putting in your orders and getting them back tenfold. I have many dreams! You should too. Dream them into being and then see what happens.

Some of my dreams? Oh, I won't tell them here. Surprisingly they're far more altruistic than before. I used to dream about soul mate love with a man who would be there no matter what, strong and stalwart and ever my savior. Bah. I don't dream about that anymore, or all the houses I want to buy and all the places I want to see. My dreams now extend outward toward others, like dissipating clouds of energy stretching, stretching, and by the time I've actualized you won't see me at all. I'll just be what I have been all along, the difference being, I'll occupy it.

No, I'm not high. I'm just tripping the light fantastic.

Won't let them.

2011-04-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

In discussing the current developments in my life I told a friend that it wasn't so much that I needed to protect my heart, but rather my path. My path concerns the work I've chosen, to include education, networking and a new social circle. All of these things shine a proverbial light on the road and make each step clearer. When you're doing what you love, you are doing what you're supposed to be doing. It makes a life worth living. To have all that potential in this moment only to hand it over for reasons of relationship, circumstance or finance is pure recklessness. My heart will be all right. But in THIS moment the blocks are clicking into alignment, brick after brick after brick, and it's THESE things I have to protect and which no one can disrupt or take away. Not if I don't let them.

Hm

2011-04-21T11:56:00.001-07:00

Head down, girl

2011-04-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

I'm letting some of this get to me. I'm getting stressed. It's only eight in the morning but already I feel the tightness in my chest. There's so much I have to do. I can't let it affect me because I know that I can absolutely do this --- and that, in fact, I must. It's not like I can just go climb in a hole somewhere and wait it out. This is all up to me, and at a core level, I prefer it that way. Because I continue to challenge myself to do the hard things.

It's just what the stress does to me. Historically it's made me sick, but I'm working for that not to happen here. Mainly it makes me tense, on edge, hard to deal with --- which I know. So when it gets like this I tend to put myself in Coventry; remove myself from others who don't deserve to be around this kind of energy. Others such as, say, the entire state of Colorado. Or the world.

It's stupid. Clearly now is the time to develop other coping mechanisms, like, perhaps, a good and strong crack addiction. Or, alternatively, exercise. The idea of which makes me kind of want to shoot myself in the mouth.

I think what I'm allowing to poke at me is the fact that I'm doing it alone. Again, I prefer it simply because in the long run it's probably easier, but I don't like bearing the weight of the world on my shoulders and mine alone. I wish there was someone I could trust or turn to, someone at whose feet I could momentarily lay all of this burden, not even to have him take it...but just to have him hold it awhile. It's been a long time since I've felt like I had that. I hate a little bit that I feel like I might even need it, even if just for awhile.

But it is what it is. Here I am, trying to figure everything out. And I know I will, and when I do? I will feel proud of myself, another notch on my accomplishment belt.

Around corners

2011-03-17T05:57:00.000-07:00

I want to say something about being let down and how to avoid it.

My observation is based on my own life and the amount of energy I have expended on trying to make something work the way I have envisioned it would (be it relationships, financial growth, parenting, spirituality, etc.).

What I want to say is that you have to let go of the end result. You have to be okay with not having it be what you planned; you have to get right with the idea that you cannot control the outcome. And that it is better when you don't.

Chasing after a result (or a condition) creates an energy that exhausts and ultimately depletes. It's better to give your best to any endeavor or relationship in an attempt to build it --- all, of course, in good faith --- and then see if your seeds were planted on fertile ground.

Many of our seeds (which contain hope, love, dreams) will get tossed in places that will never bear fruit. That is okay. The point is that we're sowing anyway, that we're growing anyway, that we're building and trusting and loving no matter what. When we take that attitude and apply it to all of our actions we will always end up with the right result --- even when the result itself doesn't represent what we previously envisioned for ourselves.

Try and just be grateful. If this one doesn't want you that is good --- another one even better will want you. If that job doesn't hire you that is better for you --- the right job is waiting around the corner. If this person doesn't buy your services don't fret --- the right person will come along to place the proper currency on your offerings and it will be a better fit. Let go of the end result.

Learn to accept who you are and the inherent value in what you offer and then keep sowing those beautiful seeds. Keep moving, my friends.

It's going to be all right.

Expectation

2011-03-08T08:20:00.000-08:00

"Where there is love there are no demands, no expectations, no dependency. I do not demand that you make me happy; my happiness does not lie in you. If you were to leave me, I will not feel sorry for myself; I enjoy your company immensely, but I do not cling." -- Anthony De Mello

Let you know

2011-03-03T22:52:00.000-08:00

Oh, and another thing? Guess what I'M doing?

I'm going to Hawaii. Many of you know this already. I'm going back and I intend to go back twice a year, actually, period.

This time I will be going to Hawaii Kai, where I was partly raised. Hawaii Kai is on the island of Oahu and it's near Sandy Beach, for starters, and also Cockroach Cove, which is where that scene in From Here To Eternity was filmed --- the lovers rolling around in the sand and waves. Now that's sexy.

I have a best friend who lives there named Renee. I am proud of this woman because she's always been about a year or two ahead of me in development and illumination, and the great thing is that we are, at the same time, absolute soul mates. You know how you picture your soul mate to be someone of the opposite sex? Heads up --- it's not always like that.

Lots of times the soul mate connection is mother to child or friend to friend. I know Renee is my soul mate, bar none. We finish each other's sentences. We laugh until it hurts. Obscure jokes or even gestures are wholly understood and appreciated. God blessed me the day he brought her into my life.

I'm going to see her in a few weeks and here's the thing: remember when we were kids (and I'm speaking mainly to the girls here), how we made blood pacts? Became blood sisters? We cut little lines into our palms or arms or wrists and we bound them to our friends, exchanging fluids and therefore, in our minds, the life force, bonding us for life. It was a sweet and innocent gesture --- but it also meant something. As children, though, the gesture was fleeting, but as adults? That sort of ceremony means much more.

I will remarry some day. I will love a man and he will love me and I will give all I am to that relationship. It will be beautiful and I do desire it, of course. But a love even beyond that is the love of a real friend, one that stays to the end no matter what --- and this is what Renee is to me.

And so we've decided to conduct an updated and modified blood ceremony, if you will. The best part is that no blood is involved, which is far more sexy and painless. We're going to have a commitment ceremony.

Now, I am no kind of lesbian. Haha, what a joke, I love the penis and I love it hard (pun intended). Would that I were a lesbian! God, it would all be so much easier. Renee and I could live on some hill somewhere and give our counsel and healing and we could be happy. But neither of us are "down for it", if you know what I mean; we both like men and that's just the sad fact of it all, irrefutable. But our bond is sacred and so surely something by way of ceremony is in order, no?

We will wear summer dresses and haku leis and we'll take professional photographs which of course I will post here since I love posting pictures of myself as you may have noticed. We'll commit to each other for the rest of our lives, we will affirm that that which has been given will be honored and remembered until death do we part. We will have necklaces. It's a big thing. It's a really cool thing.

I'm not ashamed of my game. I love what I love, who I love, where I love and in the way I love. I celebrate it unabashedly.

I'm telling you, if you have just one friend like Renee is a friend to me ---- you are blessed, indeed.

How cool is my life?

The good stuff

2011-03-03T22:26:00.000-08:00

It's hard to write about real feelings when you know you ought to be ambiguous, because this is a blog that anybody can read and plus, I change my mind a lot. But I'm tired of that last part; I have in fact been searching for steady for a long time. Not easy, just steady, just constant, just dependable. I haven't had it. I've learned through the not having it that I have to give the steady to myself. I have to make my own self feel secure and hopeful. I've managed this. I've accomplished a lot. I don't want to write endlessly, however, about how much I've learned and grown and accomplished. Most people don't care about such things. I wish I could talk about more specific things, naming names and dates and places. I cannot. But I intend to reveal more. I think it's okay that I do. I hope you like that I do. Sometimes the epiphanies are so startling. I have to share. I will. And I'll put more specificity in the mix.

I made a choice today. This choice is going to hurt a few people. Maybe not deeply (although some of them, yes, deeply) but it will hurt. Because I've been unsure up until now; unwilling to commit wholeheartedly to a path. Today I decided on the commitment, and this commitment naturally excludes others --- it must. But like snake skin, I have to lose a little to really reveal the good stuff.

Filters, filters. But you'll get the point.

As if through a veil, darkly

2011-03-01T05:36:00.000-08:00

So, a pathway is forming.

I didn't know what I was going to do after I left Chicago. I knew I needed to rest and to center myself. I knew I'd hit a two-year long (+) pattern of sickness and general physical/emotional unrest. I knew I needed to re-learn how to sleep, how to eat, how to basically be. And I knew all of that would take time. What I didn't know? Was what I would do after that.

I'd always heard that when you do not know what to do --- do nothing. And so I did nothing. I just ate good foods, met new people, got rest, got into the sunshine, found places to run, joined groups, found a coffee shop, read books. In the back of my mind there was always this little voice saying I should Produce, Produce, Produce! That I didn't have time, that financial support was a finite thing and that I should not rest on my laurels. Which made me nervous and anxious, often threatening to push me right back into previous patterns. I had to give myself permission to do nothing but get better. And to remove myself from the chaos.

In some aspects my attempts to remove myself from the chaos simply created more of the same. I'm coming to think that's normal, maybe --- that as we try to extricate ourselves, resistance on the other end escalates, particularly after having such a stronghold. Resistance in ourselves too, because we are used to patterns and people and conditions, even if they are destructive. It's what we know...and the Devil you know, right?

But I've made strides, real strides, even though my life from the outside may not look especially different. And I don't claim to be a paragon of health and stability either; I struggle every day to eat at least one meal that serves all of my body's needs and to say no to social things which, while being fun, run me down and tire me out. Oh, and make me poor.

It's murky, it's not a blinking neon sign. It's vague, something I see off in the distance, but it is there and my spiritual eyesight isn't so bad yet. I can make out those shapes and forms. I can follow that light.

I'm getting there, people.

Negative

2011-02-26T22:27:00.001-08:00

Set adrift?
Yes

On memory bliss?
Not so sure about that.

Impact eternity

2011-02-26T01:22:00.000-08:00

I often worry about women, and that's because I am one.

I worry because in strides we've come so far but at the same time we've lost incredible ground. So much ground lost that we might as well be on different planets. Who are we anyway?

I have an eating disorder. I've had this for years. Over twenty years and goddamn if that's not a fucking shame. This eating disorder manifested for a variety of reasons, and the thing about disorders is that they dig deep in, they entrench and fortify until they are a part of your structure. My disorder is skeletal at this point.

Tonight I watched Holly Hunter who is past 50 now. Who would have thought? Such a wee and clever lady, beautiful in that tomboyish, exact kind of way. But she's older now, and as she was interviewed she held her neck the entire time, pulling the flesh back toward her ears so that nobody could see she was aging. But she is aging. She is 50.

What kind of life is this anyway? What is going on? Holly Hunter has done amazing things in her own way, just as my mother has, and just as you have, and here we are picking up ridiculous periodicals like Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire and trying to align ourselves with the ideals set forth therein. What folly, ladies. That's some bullshit right there.

Someone told me tonight that "Jesus, you look 25," and that may or may not be true (I'm going to go with not), but it was meant as a compliment and that's my ultimate point. I wasn't insulted, of course, but I thought to myself: why would I want to look 25? I am not 25 and I haven't been for awhile. I am in fact all these miles, well tread, and all these lines, well earned, and I don't want to be just-starting, not after all of this. I want to be me, beautiful in my own way, linked to others who have earned their own miles at whatever stage.

Yet my disorder folds into the Marie Claire reality which folds into this irrational fear that perhaps all is lost. Lucky for us all I know better and am able to write about it. Because the fact of the matter is that if you are not accepting of yourself and surrounding yourself with people who see you just as you are (and value you for it, period) then you are living a life of reaction and fear, chasing something that will never be yours and in fact was never meant to be. So choose your battles, women.

What a strange time to be a woman. A great time too, because if we get to the real truth of it we can really be free. And the truth is that none of this matters. That lady who runs Cosmopolitan is cutting and pulling just to keep pace with non-reality and to perpetuate it as well. Hell, don't be her. Be you. Die being you and having lived being you.

A strange time, indeed.
So rise to it.

Of me yet

2011-02-26T01:10:00.000-08:00

I tire a little bit of life. I realize that sounds suicidal and I'd like to start off here by assuring you it's not meant that way. Suicide is gauche, an absurd capitulation; I agreed to come here for a reason and just because I don't know what that is, doesn't mean I shouldn't stick it out. And life is fun anyway; there's no reason to check out now when things are just getting interesting.

I'm just saying that I've been here awhile. I've lived a lot of this life, I've gone through very passionate and intense relationships, be they friendships or lovers or what have you. I've given to others 'til I was poured out, broken, and I don't regret it. I've done bad things and have hurt people. The latter --- the hurting people part --- has made me think most deeply. That out of all else has been the most awful.

But when I fear in the middle of the night for my family or my friends or my own state of being, be it about money or love or place or circumstance, I often segue right into the reality that none of this means much, if anything at all, and I won't be here much longer, anyway. Certainly not in the grand scheme of things.

I read in a book once about a woman sitting on a cliff overlooking a panorama of some sort; she took her surprising last breath and had a near death experience. She traveled from the cliff back to her home, through her gardens and then to the house, free as a bird, feeling nothing but love and the supreme lightness of being. And she was terrifically resentful when she came back to life. Too much to explore on that other side, she thought; too much that felt better than this uncertain drudgery we endure. She wanted to return. She wanted to explore.

I get that. Sometimes I feel overly primed to explore, myself.
But I can wait.

I'll live this life and give it all I've got, which is a lot. Before I check out I'd like to write more, share more, bless more. Before I go I'd like to help as many people as possible, not the least of these being me. I have a lot to learn.

But sometimes I sit here, you know? And I think about years from now when my kid is off to college --- will I still be single? Have I done this all terribly, bloody wrong? Will I be alone? Would it be best if I were? I think about these things, these murky and often fearful things, and then in a rush I offer it up to the next phase of life. Because none of this matters, not really, save the love we show ourselves and to others. Specific and very directed acts of love.

No.

2011-02-24T22:13:00.000-08:00

There have been a series of men who have wanted me for one thing (well, maybe two, as I am an awesome cook if I do say so myself) and that was about it. Some have been confident enough to at least cop to it as such; others have dangled promises in exchange for essentially robbing the pooty. As a romantic of the highest order, I like sparkly promises and have, historically, allowed them to change my mind and even the course of my whole life.

I am very physical, very sensual, very tactile, very creative. I am a whole lot of awesome wrapped into this little bod and I don't think there's a damned thing wrong with me knowing it. Sure, I'd like a man with whom I could take love and companionship to another level, but he has to be the right man.

There have only ever been a few lucky souls who have interested me enough to get me thinking about more, beyond, everything. Usually it took some convincing but when I believe, goddamn, I believe. But do I believe now?

In myself, yes. And that's about all I have time to believe in right now. It's not that I'm jaded --- God knows I love men. I want to love a man, the right man --- and boy will he be a lucky man. But right now? Right now I am getting used to believing in myself, enough to allow myself to be led to him at the right time and in the right manner. I also believe enough in myself not to let someone just take the best parts of me and waste my time.

So no, I do not want to let you use my body, take what you want and enjoy it, even if you give something that feels good in return. That's nice and all, but it does not interest me. If you don't want my heart and all the bells and whistles I bring to the table (which are legion; please have a large table) that's fine, but please know that it's just as fine for me to tell you, unequivocally, NO.

I'm ready now to reach for other levels --- on my own or with the right man --- and unless you're capable, sir, my plans will not and cannot, unfortunately, include you.

Attracting what you are

2011-02-24T21:56:00.001-08:00

I was watching Iyanla Vanzant recently and was bowled over by the fact that this stupendously brilliant and intuitive woman could at the same time be so totally out of touch with her own demons or "pathology", as she referred to it. She gave advice to millions, counseled and wrote books, appeared on the Oprah show, etc. Yet even so, and throughout the duration of her success, she expected the worst and therefore drew the worst into her life, over and over. She lost her marriage, her home, her fortune, her career --- all because she couldn't recognize and change the personal patterns that were damaging her.

All through history there are fine examples of "enlightened" humans who at the same time were startlingly low on introspection. I can admit to this, absolutely, not that I'm any more enlightened than the next person. Still, I can confidently assert that my moral and spiritual compasses are sound, that I have a good heart, mind and soul and that I'm interested in progressing and becoming a better person. Even so, I have clearly lived through a series of failed friendships and relationships and yet still seem to attract similar circumstances into my life, time and time again. So when I heard Iyanla say that "you attract what you are," it really struck a cord with me.

Chew on that.

You attract what you are.

All these dysfunctional people surrounding you? The ones that tax you, exhaust you, abuse you, disrespect you? These are people who for some reason resemble you. What drives you most crazy about them is what you host within your own personality and spirit. The key to ridding yourself of these people and these conditions is to root their aggravating traits out of your own life. When you manage that?

The people and conditions resolve.

You attract what you are.

That's heavy. I've been thinking about it all day.

Because I want to attract better, healthier, stronger, kinder. I want to attract into my life all that I aspire to be.

Guess I better get cracking, then.

ring finger

2011-02-23T13:39:00.000-08:00

Why is it always a man with a ring on his finger that pursues me?

They won't ever divorce, you know. If they were going to divorce they'd have done it already. But they won't and instead what they'll do is look for women like you, women they think will believe. But I don't believe. Neither should you, sisters.

Because married men suck.

So for the record all you misters, no, I do not want to be with you and hell no, if you don't have the balls required to approach a woman like me free and clear?

Then you don't get to approach me at all.

Not really

2011-02-23T13:32:00.000-08:00

The worst is when it's a man, one that you love, one that you straightforwardly want, and all he can do is default to what you are doing wrong, even when you are doing nothing wrong; endless assaults against character, mostly implied, passive aggressive bullshit asserted cleverly so as to be denied in full when confronted.

Terrible to feel like you have to prove your worth to someone who says they love you; terrible that you have to choke it down, barb after barb, and then get blamed for irrationality when you cannot take it anymore. How dare you blow up? How dare you stick up for yourself? How dare?

You're a good person. You know this. Your friends know this. He says he loves you yet why doesn't he know this? Because he doesn't want to. In quiet hours he tells you that you intimidate him; that he doesn't know how he ended up with you; that he has no idea why you are with him. These are words he'll forget he said hours later when he puts you down again, accuses you of cheating, of entertaining the advances of other men. When you do not because you do not want to. Because you love him.

But your love isn't enough, not even with all those quiet hours added together, soft words intricately woven --- did they ever mean anything? Not really if all he does is spin around and do it again, rattlesnake.

And it is poison.

Let me

2011-02-23T09:04:00.000-08:00

Thank God for friends. Real ones, the ones that don't strand you or leave you stranded; the ones who check up on you even when you've been quiet awhile. Thank God for the handful of friends I have, and a handful is not a lot. But I don't care. If you have one good friend in life, you're lucky indeed.

I was told yesterday that I let people suck the life out of me; that I don't know how to assert proper boundaries and stick to them. It's as if having a big heart is a bad thing, which it's not, or like my wanting to help others diminishes me somehow. I hardly think so. I think setting boundaries is good and I do need to work on that --- but I'm doing that work. The people who remain in my life are the ones I really want there. I've gotten rid of all the rest.

I'm calling it -- time of death: today. Wait, time of death was last night at about 11:30pm, one less friend and hey, that's all right. Because someone who puts me down in order to feel better about themselves is not a friend. Someone who needs to lessen me to make themselves greater is not someone I need around me right now. I'm starting a business, getting healthy and moving forward.

Jesus, I'm doing well. Let me.

I don't know

2011-02-21T20:28:00.000-08:00

I read somewhere on the internet today that nobody is blogging anymore except for outmoded ridiculous people who don't know how to twitter and who don't care that nobody is reading, which I guess would be me. And hey guess what? Liberation!

Now I know none of you crackers are actually reading and that's freedom right there. Nobody's reading? You mean this is a real journal? I can say anything I want with my dirty whorish mouth?

Sing it, William Wallace!

For starters I want to say that my ex boyfriend looks like a rat. It's disturbing, the older he gets, just how much he resembles a rodent, especially his teeth. How did I ever kiss that? You ever wonder stuff like that?

I don't know, I don't know.

I'm thinking

2011-02-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

Today right in this minute I am learning about how to really experience what I am feeling.

Because a lot of times we'll feel something, say grief or rage or a jolt of deviance, but we won't want to look at it overlong; we're embarrassed or maybe we think we shouldn't feel certain things. But no kind of feeling is wrong save a feeling unexplored.

If it's unexplored it's not really a feeling, it's just an impulse. Passes quickly, never meant anything. Nothing to see here.

But if I were to be completely honest in this minute, I would say that I feel pretty strongly about what I am finally doing for myself. These six months have led to this weird moment, and I am nowhere near where I thought I would be six months ago. And happier for it, too. I've seen myself complacent, obsessive, democratic; I've seen myself infuriated, indignant and rebellious. But I never thought I'd see myself here, nurturing this strange indifference. Almost an ambivalence.

Is that wrong?
I don't think so.

It's just honest, maybe.

Move, move, weave, dodge, get hit again, boom --- that one hurt. Pretty soon the hits that keep on coming don't feel like hits at all, just reminders that you're supposed to go a different way, not that way, this way. And so you keep going, you keep feeling, and one day, I'm thinking, you'll finally be there.

Yet, what did you leave behind?
Innumerable amounts sloughed off.
And pared back to what?
Maybe that is the point.

Maybe back to nothing at all. Just to this moment.

You are all insane.

2011-02-18T21:17:00.000-08:00

I've always been morbidly intrigued by the recounting of Poe's being busted by a physician friend whilst having sex with an underage girl ... who was dead.

The compulsions of man are beyond me. Base does not even begin to describe it. Horrible, unthinkable things just so the penis can go inside something or a big fat mouth can round out and declare war. I dream of a day when actual aliens make contact and maybe we all realize that wow, Jung was right and we are all connected, and holy shit, Joseph Campbell knew a little something here or there and maybe we should all just be quiet for one hot second and follow our damned bliss. Maybe then we'll put the penises away and also the war mouths and let a little love shine through.

All of these terrifically relevant observations deriving from the madness of Poe. Said story about whom, by the way, was completely made up.

Calling it

2011-02-17T20:30:00.000-08:00

I think a position of neutrality is a position of power. When you're not invested in another's response, or an outcome to an issue or event, you really do have nothing to worry about. Neutrality is not indifference, it's more like acceptance.

Buddhist precept: Awareness, Acceptance, Action.

I've only recently become aware of certain truths in my life. It amazed me, really, how quickly I jumped straight from the epiphany to neutral acceptance. And now I can change it (and am). Or maybe I won't change anything, but at least I can decide.

Living in reaction, bopping from this stimulus to that --- is not really living. It's existing for the next reaction which is existing for all the wrong reasons.

I call bullshit.

I gotta wear shades

2011-02-11T13:30:00.000-08:00

Fear sets in on all sides. It's interesting how now, with reserves both mentally and physically, I can recognize it for what it is and keep it at bay, even talk myself out of it using rationality and hope. But fear always presses in, and I think that's life --- what will happen tomorrow? What will this person do now? How will I get money for that?

In Chicago I sank into those fears and let them nearly eat me alive. Twice a month (at least) I would find myself at the emergency clinic needing urgent help for something. TWICE A MONTH, and that's a fair estimate. Additionally I contracted a nearly-unheard of malady in May that almost killed me. A subsequent surgery went awry and two more surgeries were promptly put on the books. I lost weight. I drank too much wine and ate nothing to sop it up. I could not sleep. Sunshine was a rare commodity in my life.

Now, six months into this new life, I sleep without the use of pills. I have friends who seem to love me and I really love them. I'm surrounded by natural beauty and have plans to get even closer to it, come summertime. I eat considerably better (insofar as I now eat, period) and a person would be hard pressed to find me with a frown. Even though there's fear. Even though life likes to toss up threats and illusions of devastation. It's not that I laugh in the face of it, it's just that I see it now for what it is from a position of wellness. It's just life and its curve balls. It's just another opportunity to find the hope, to help someone and yourself, to look for the sunshine.

One year ago I was in a dark place; you remember. Today life isn't perfect and that's for damned sure --- but I'm happy.

Intrigued? This is proving to be a great read.

2011-02-09T08:57:00.000-08:00

Is There Life After Death? (link)

reviews:

"The basic premise is that nearing the point of death, you actually never die and the brain gushes with glutamate, as it did once before, during birth, and you re-live your current life again in a virtual reality generated by the brain (or something else) - a Groundhog Day existence, so to speak. This is due to the fact that time dilates and you literally enter a time-less state or at least a state where time is near endless. This is alluded to by the way your perception of time changes dramatically throughout your life for one reason or another - dreaming, playing, getting bored, endangered, excited, sad and so on. Dropping out of time is what Peake calls it."

"Peake seems keen to prove that all of human experience takes place within the brain, which is in his view the seat of consciousness. But, in contrast with other materialists, Peake uses scientific evidence to argue that there is no death, as far as the individual is concerned. At the point of death, he argues, the chemicals in our brains which affect our perception of time slow that perception down to a virtual standstill. At this point our brains run through what he calls a Bohmian Imax (named for the physicist David Bohm) , creating a "virtual reality" replay of our entire lives. Everyone else watching us sees us die, but from our point of view we never do."

I have stupid coming out of my face hole

2011-02-04T11:33:00.000-08:00

And the award for Most Improved Life goes to me.

Followed by the award for Most Consistently Awesome Wardrobe, also going, yes: to me.

Unfortunately I was runner up for the award for Most Positive of All People. And when I say runner up I do mean that nobody even submitted my name once. Bastards.

Yay!

2011-02-03T13:21:00.000-08:00

Remind me never to boast about not having to see the doctor.

Just my luck, I went out into that way-worse-than-freezing weather last night and got sick. Nothing serious, but I'd sure like to cut the nose right off my face.

Bachi a gataru. It's what's for dinner.

These things

2011-02-02T11:49:00.000-08:00

Life is good. I've always said that happiness is not a consistent state, but rather moments that come and go, sometimes in a flash. The more you recognize the moments the more you can duplicate them and become "happy" generally. But nobody is happy all the time, and if they are, well...then they most assuredly aren't.

Yet to the extent I can be happy, I am.

I've made friends here in Colorado. Jodie, I have yet to meet you face to face --- and I'd like to do that sooner rather than later. I'm a good soul; you will like me.

But barring Jodie I've met a lot of people and experienced a lot of interesting things. (I have over 90 reviews on the restaurants and bars I've tried while here.) I've been doing new things. It's been good for me.

It's good to know your worth and value (not necessarily the same thing; one can be more internal, the other more external). This has been my work lately; figuring out my currency and then living every day without forgetting it. Surprising how much you refuse to put up with when you learn to do this. Surprising, too, how much you welcome in.

People in my life have chances. I've stopped asking for things from anybody. I am getting my own things and living my own life. If certain people do not do the things necessary to have a relationship with me --- that is fine. Good, even. Little by little, on my end, they are stored on higher and higher shelves. Soon forgotten. Other shelves are filled with better things. These people have made their choices and I have made mine. Nothing to begrudge here. Just life.

I am sleeping again. I spent over two years as an insomniac. Last night I got eleven hours.

I haven't needed to go to the doctor multiple times in one month since Chicago. In fact I've seen the doctor only three times in the last five months --- to any who know me, you know what kind of progress this is.

I am returning to my previous work. Some of you might remember what that is; I might have even done some of that work for you. If you're interested to know how to access my writing as it pertains to that work, drop me a line. It's spiritual in nature, for those of you who disbelieve or are hostile to spiritual things. If I know that you are I will probably decline your request to read my writing, should you ask. I'm creating a non-conflict zone. It's nothing personal.

Mundane things. Easy things. Predictable and good things.

Yes, it's good to have all of these things.