Ohm 24/7

Order

2008-06-08T12:27:00.005-05:00

Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No...
Dick: Not alphabetical...
Rob: Nope...
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: No fucking way.

Taking mental stock of outstanding items, chores, or to dos, happens naturally with me, on a constant basis. In spite of myself, I'm always striving toward greater standards of order and organization. Not purposely -- I don't "care" in a thoughtful way -- but rather it just happens instinctively without any real effort. Which is particularly noxious, I think, because that means that haphazardness is a skill I have to work toward, and reliability and stability are natural. So I'm always projecting an air of concern that honestly doesn't exist in me, and it seems like I'm interested in "fixing" things or making things "better" when in fact I'm not thinking about it at all. It's just happening without effort. I often worry that this call toward order has made me appear weak -- like I am investing more energy and effort than others. But, truly, it takes more effort for me to do nothing, than to do something.

So I spend a lot of time revisiting certain "messes" and cleaning them in greater detail. Like my nearly unruly music collection. This morning I started organizing and reordering a few items and what happened? I was done with that chore so quickly that I felt like I "should" do something else. So I started making a mix -- what I used to accurately refer to as a "tape" but is now called a "playlist". Blech! The very notion of that analog to digital shift makes me nauseous. Without an actual tape, the whole mix-making process loses something of the tangible effort and work that made it so fucking laborious and personal of a process.

In the past, when I sat down to make a "tape" -- I never sat. Instead it was all physical work. I was up and down, pacing around my room, playing tracks on cds on one stereo, then moving to the tape deck, recording, playing back. Listening to more tracks on a separate machine trying to pick the songs and get the order -- the flow from one track to the next -- exactly right. Making sure the song selections and transitions were on the level with the intentions of the mix (who it was for, why it was being made, what I wanted it to convey, etc.). As Rob so clearly states in High Fidelity "the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do's and don'ts. First of all you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing." And it is. You have to be careful, you have to listen to the words, to the music, to the message that is translated in subtleties of the fade from one song into the next. You have to pay attention to band names, song titles, possible innuendo and intended or unintended interpretations. Sometimes a mix is a straight-shooting monologue and other times it's a coy invitation.

Taking a note from Rob's handbook - it's a delicate thing that no amount of order can arrange neatly. But without the work of the tape making, the playlist arranging loses some of its meaning and power. After all, it's a lot easier to click and drag a track than to rewind to the right spot and rerecord. So in a certain way I'm not sure that mixes have the same reach that they once did and that is just yet one more tragic truth of modernity that makes me feel totally out of order.

All The Posts I Was Supposed to Write

2008-06-01T12:33:00.005-05:00

I've been on a bit of a writing hiatus the past 6 months or so. I think, mainly, because I'm uncomfortable with many of my thoughts and therefore, unsure about immortalizing them in the printed word - either shared or privately. It's as if, if I don't record them, they don't exist and then I don't have to deal with how confusing they are.

So, what's so wrong with where my head's been at? Nothing. It's all normal, nearly 30, contemplating the universe, the same old bs... But I don't like questioning myself and how I went from there to here and what the next square target should be. I much prefer being in the know. Yeah, don't we all? Instead, I'm thinking about the painful, overwhelming passing of time, and that facts that...

I started college 10 years ago. I have 2 classes left and will be done with grad school. I haven't talked to my brother in at least 7 months. My sister in at least 4. I am in debt to the tune of a figure that if I typed it would make me throw up. I have lived in South Florida for 4 years and 8 months -- some of that time I was happy. I have spent the past 25 years contemplating the universe and still don't seem to have any answers. 9 years ago I lived in a house I hated, but the summer was beautiful there -- since then I have had progressively more and more intense feelings of uncertainty about the future. I have been an adult -- on my own and unsure -- for 8 full years, but I still feel like I'm 15 and that any minute, as summer sets in, I'm going to drive to Bubbling Brook, sit on the back of a car, eat ice cream and talk until curfew about love without fear.

I used to believe in such things. I really did. Now I am walled up and afraid. So much so, that I don't like writing things down.

Is It Any Wonder I Never Figured It Out?

2008-05-03T09:35:00.003-05:00

I was thinking this morning about My So Called Life probably one of the most pivotal 19 hours of my life -- probably the 19 hours that I have relived most often and can even relive (unlike the moments and events that occurred in my "actual" life) and that meant the most in the foundation of me and who I am. Beyond any other cultural moments in my existence, being 15 in 1994 and watching that show was like a "pinprick to my heart" (to steal a quote from the Indigo Girls). Talk about defining moments in time and "formative" years -- that show is the very fabric of my understanding of the world -- it's confusing, untrustworthy, and treacherous -- and relationships -- they are misunderstood, miscommunicated, painful, and open-ended, left hanging...

Open-ended? Right at the major moment of climax, right when there may have been resolution or clarity, the show was canceled. So is it any wonder that I never figured out how to relate to others or how to make progress in my life? The only teacher I had, left me right before the cram for the final exam, so I never took the test, and I never passed to the next year. I'm still stuck in limbo at 15 waiting to learn how to grow up and become something other than an awkward, insecure, introvert who hides behind a big mouth and loud hair.

At nearly 30, I relate better to the culture of early-nineties teens than I do to my well-adjusted peers who all seem to have been more focused on 90210 than the depressing and spiritually-tortured so-called world of Claire and Co, that apparently I'm still struggling in. If only we had episodes 20+ that could have, in the tradition of sitcoms, finally wrapped it all up and made sense of the noise.

Solution to Friend Going Beyond Insult....

2008-03-30T19:06:00.002-05:00

Breathe, breathe.... breathe more. Wait a week, at least, to respond. Anything I say now will only end the friendship.

Completing a Much Dreaded Task

2008-03-26T22:07:00.001-05:00

The older I get, the more I hate doing things for people. Even people I like.

I think I burnt out on charity too early in life.

And with that, I give up on trying...

Not Like It's the Second Time Around or Something "Magikal" Like That...

2008-03-23T09:08:00.006-05:00

Didn't realize this post was never posted - was supposed to go up on Easter. Oh, well, better late then never....

--------------------
UGH!

Everything is closed today. Flat out closed. Not Starbucks, praise the heavens. But everything else. And I, for one, am ticked off. Why in 2008 must we observe random pagan holidays so much so that we cannot participate in normal everyday business and commerce? I have credit cards and I want to use them, damn it.

The problem is -- and I know I'm not alone here -- that I live in a world where I have 2 days per week during which I have the option to be a normal human being. The other 5 are spent working 12+ hour days and driving a horrendously long commute alone in a car on a highway listening to solitary music of my choosing. For those 5 days I'm in a complete bubble and totally unaware of the rest of the world. On the weekend I get to find out what I've been missing. These are not the days to screw with me by closing shop in observance of a day that frankly, with each passing year is less and less spectacular. I mean COME ON... Nothing miraculous has happened in 2000+ years, and, really, the world has gone to shit, doesn't that, in it of itself, tell us all something about the nature of the accuracies or inaccuracies of a primitive people's storytelling???

And, that aside why does someone else's holiday mean that I can't have a day doing normal, productive errands? Why do I have to pause and contemplate the nothingness I feel in the universe just so 33% of the world can imagine that once upon a time, long ago, something magikal happened in Oz?

Suicide by Fitness Center

2008-03-13T19:57:00.002-05:00

I had the unbelievable honor and privilege of seeing Joyce Carol Oates speak not once, but twice, in the past week. Live. Speak live. In the same room as me.

On the second occurrence she read 90% of one of her newest pieces of short fiction "Suicide by Fitness Center".

Joyce Carol Oates may be the funniest, most brilliant woman in the country. I'm riveted still by the feeling of listening to her read.

The Science of Sleep

2008-03-09T09:38:00.003-05:00

Few things seem as interesting to me about our creative minds as dreams. Where they come from, what they mean, how to control them, what to interpret from them, etc. I've spent a great deal of my life chronicling, studying, and interpreting my dreams from as far back as the age of five. And I never seem to run out of material.

The other day, on Discovery Channel I learned about how our muscles, hand-eye coordination, and brains learn or re-learn the day's activities during sleep. In one segment they followed a soccer player who practiced a particular move 100s of times while awake and then described how that agility, coordination, motion, and muscle memory were reinforced during his sleeping and dreaming. Sadly, my dad's constant nagging about practice, practice, practice with everything in my life, finally make sense. And, trouble is, it appears, at least thanks to "science lite" a la the Discovery Channel, that his persistent nagging had a point.

Sadder is that for the past month and change I've been having a series of vivid dreams about all my failed past relationships, so, if the argument follows, my brain is trying to reinforce lessons learned on the romantic front. While I don't play soccer, if I have to learn in my sleep, I'd much prefer lessons in becoming a faster typist (my most frequent activity) or BETTER still, lessons on how to become a better driver (my second most often done activity). And, the latter, especially would be very much appreciated by the rest of the world.

Instead it seems that my brain is schooling me on the failures of love and men night after night after night. Maybe I can save it all that trouble by t-y-p-i-n-g out the fact that I've already learned those lessons and understand them to be true. If only I could now determine how to sign up for nocturnal tutorials in something creative, like becoming a better story teller.

One Ring

2008-02-17T21:00:00.003-05:00

I went on another miserable date tonight. M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E. And, the worst part is that there wasn't anything wrong with the guy. He, in it of himself, was fine. We had nothing in common or worth talking about. Nor do I have any interest in ever spending another second with him. But there is nothing wrong with him as a human being.

There was just no reason that he and I should be sitting across from each other eating food.

There is no reason I should be sitting across from any guy, save the beta. After all, my life post-betadom is just one random occurrence and act of utter senseless desperation after another.

I wore my wedding ring on the date. On my right hand, but still. In all its platinum-forever symbolism, there was me, trying not to nod myself to sleep on a horrendously boring date, flashing my feelings of monogamy and devotion to another, brazenly on my right ring finger.

Sadly, I wore it because I wanted so badly to be with the beta tonight, that I thought at least that object would bring something of his presence nearer to me.

Reality Check

2008-02-04T19:11:00.001-05:00

I have no faith in humanity. I don't think I have since I was very little. I try to pretend I do, but I don't. It's not depressing to me, in it of itself. What is depressing is people who do have faith in humanity, I feel like their perception of reality is drastically altered and beyond repair.

Trying

2008-01-27T19:18:00.001-05:00

This really doesn't feel good right now.

The Official Diagnosis

2008-01-22T20:14:00.001-05:00

(drum roll, please): A benign controller with good communication skills.

Nearly a year and a half of therapy to be told something I've known since I was cognizant of my own existence -- or roughly the past 27 years.

Maybe it's not surprising that I'm so drawn to Hillary Clinton's presidential race. After all, somehow her lack of "likability" makes me feel so well represented and understood. She's not the charismatic, impressive talker, she's just the one who's going to get the job done. Never mind that she's had to deal with unreliable scumbag men throughout her life and that definitely gains her points in my book despite the fact that I still think she should have zigged (left him) when she zagged (sold herself out for political stability in the future).

Fear Number 2,562,467 Conquered....

2007-12-25T11:41:00.000-05:00

I spent Christmas Eve by myself - by choice - because someday I may not have a choice and I don't want to be afraid of it anymore.

Not surprisingly, like so many other fears, this one was pretty easy to get over; it doesn't hurt nearly as much as the anticipation of it does.

In Rainbows

2007-11-10T18:16:00.001-05:00

What beautiful, beautiful, soothing noise.

Another Day...

2007-11-08T19:45:00.001-05:00

Not anything a couple glasses of wine can't cure.

Great Expectations

2007-11-04T20:39:00.001-05:00

One year of this new me under my belt. Here's what I think:

I'm better off. I mean, I actually know now that I'm better off (instead of everyone screaming it in my face and me somehow feeling otherwise). I'm happier today in this life than I was in my previous one with the beta.

I'm stronger and more self-sufficient. Shocking as that comes to people, it's true.

I know the best is yet to come. Not in any trite sort of way, but truly, I know that things are only continuing to move forward into bigger and better.

I've finally found someone - myself. I've remade all the little bits of me that needed shaping or polishing and I've finally "found" myself and some damn amazing components of being, all in the process.

I'm ready for whatever's next. I'm not over-confident, but I've got some sureness in my step now that wasn't there before and though I have some trepidation, I'm ready for the future to arrive, though in no interest to rush it's approach.

I'm doing yoga again - enough said.

All Those Familiar Pains

2007-10-21T19:54:00.000-05:00

With the sounds of the Sox in the background, I sit in his chair and plug away aimlessly at my job - remotely, on a Sunday night, because that's what being me in my job means. It means working when everyone else is resting while listening to the Sox game being televised in the next room. And I remember so vividly when he was here, working like this with the game on and so much distance between us and I have no idea why I couldn't bridge that gap to make it better.

I was thinking, during my Sunday Target run, of him with her doing all the mundane things we had to do for so many years. How, after a while, our relationship was made up of all those mundane things, but how much more I loved them because he was there to share them with.

And now I go through all the tasks, I do all the work, I sit here night after night alone in this house and I have no clue how I'm ever going to rebuild...

The Insidious UnderBelly of Life - Or....

2007-10-01T19:39:00.001-05:00

As I like to refer to it: emotional blackmail.

I think it's the one common thread in 95% of my relationships and I so easily give in due to compassion and concern and an overwhelming sense of responsibility for everything.

I Long for a Time When "Back in the Day" Had No Meaning

2007-09-30T09:26:00.000-05:00

I ventured into a suburban Urban Outfitters yesterday. Probably my first trip in since 1998 or 99, and definitely the first time I'd been in one in a "mall" environment, and I was horrified by the ridiculous display of "urban" artifacts and clothing.

Back in the day - before a time when that phrase meant anything to me, meaning circa 1991/92/93 - Urban Outfitters was the bastion of all things chic and nonconformist conformity... It was where I went to understand the culture of my time - to know which jeans, which obscure shoes from Italy, which t-shirt brands, etc. were outside the mainstream, not found in the mall, and therefore not only acceptable, but highly coveted and revered.

I would step into Urban's and pay huge amounts of money (back then) - $80+ for a pair of jeans - and understand that I was one of a particular persuasion, because I wore the identifiable uniform. Of course, we viewed it as an "anti-uniform", but seeing the goths and punks and emo kids of today, I understand that all the "we don't give a shit - we're not trying to be cool" trends that I so deeply embraced at the initiation of Grunge were certainly more than an identifiable uniform. They were, at their onset, not nearly as unique or groundbreaking as we thought they were. And by 1994, a commercialized land of trash. But in those first years, those trends were gods of fashion and, ironically, belonging...

Yesterday, in Urban Outfitters lite, the next generation, I overheard a frat boy employee, who was lost in a sea of horrendous bright colors and 80s-esque white t-shirts with giant black letters eschewing slogans like "Relax" and "...Vote", while he was in the process of opening locked dressing rooms (we used to change behind giant curtains, back in the day, no organized dressing rooms for our avante garde selves) comment (in response to the sound of Boy George over the stereo system), to a fellow clean-cut employee, "What is this music? Like from the 80s or something?".

Now I understand that this is how it feels to have a cultural broken heart. Back in the day, kids at Urban's knew their music.

I Never Do This...

2007-09-24T04:29:00.000-05:00

Thanks to this one, here I go...:

You are The Chariot

Triumph, Victory, Overcoming Obstacles.

The chariot is one of the most complex cards to define. On its most basic level, it implies war, a struggle, and an eventual, hard-won victory. Either over enemies, obstacles, nature, the beasts inside you, or to just get what you want. But there is a great deal more to it. The charioteer wears emblems of the sun, yet the sign behind this card is the moon. The chariot is all about motion, and yet it is often shown as stationary. It is a union of opposites, like the black and white steeds. They pull in different directions, but must be (and can be!) made to go together in one direction. Control is required over opposing emotions, wants, needs, people, circumstances; bring them together and give them a single direction, your direction. Confidence is also needed and, most especially, motivation. The card can, in fact, indicate new motivation or inspiration, which gets a stagnant situation moving again.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

The Best of Memory....

2007-07-15T10:44:00.000-05:00

The best poem I've read in probably 5 or 6 years leads me to recall a feeling about summertime that I'd nearly forgotten: relaxation. I mean, honest-to-god, no-commitment, complete-and-total freedom from responsibility, just-laying-back-and-sunning-without-a-care-in-the-world relaxation.

The last time I felt it? 1998. The summer before my parents sold the house I grew up in and everything in my life mutated, shifted, warped, and changed -- and never really righted itself again. In short, the last summer before adulthood set in.

Here, in no particular order, are the beautiful things I remember and desire to feel/be/know again: Squeezing the kids' chubby arms into floaties that squeaked and resisted as we pushed/pulled/yanked them on and hanging their flotation-device-built-right-in bathing suits, sopping wet, on the fence to dry. Coming in from the extreme heat to the chill of air conditioning, showering with cool water because my skin was so warm, soft cotton kick-around clothes, and the coldness of freshly cleaned sheets against my sun-burning legs as I watched Pulp Fiction, and Dazed and Confused, again and again. Sneaking beers and smoking Dunhills, eating chicken cutlet sandwiches, and wondering if he really was the one (he wasn't). Driving around, for lack of anything better to do; searching for ice cream stands at 11:30 p.m. and never wanting to go home. The excitement of knowing there were more good books unread than read... Being in love. Freedom. The smell of the grill; the taste of hotdogs, which has never been the same since. Music playing through the kitchen window two stories above. The sounds of my parents. Car doors slamming as the brood arrived; hot, burning-your-legs seats. Ice coffee trips. Hanging out in the basement, listening to music, shooting pool. All the contrasts that meant so much on my skin -- heat and cool; bright, dizzying sunshine and shadowed basement half-light. City escapades and chasing Norwood Baddies. Tossing the kids in the water, horsing around until we got yelled at.

Never knowing those days would end or that the feelings, the beauty, the total carelessness and wonder of it all wouldn't last forever.

One More Comparison:Tragedy... Comedy!

2007-06-25T20:55:00.000-05:00

There's an extended plot point in Stranger Than Fiction where Will Ferrell's character is trying to determine whether the narrative tale of his life (as a simultaneously real and as-being-written, fictional character) is a tragedy or a comedy. He spends his day making hash marks in a journal each time something comedic or tragic occurs. By the end of the day, it's clear... Tragedy.

His mournful acquiescence to this fact, is so pitiful and sad that it's hard not to laugh hysterically -- clearly it's a comedy after all, if really a hopelessly painful and human one...

The past year of my life has had the same ring... Tragedy? Comedy? Oh, tragedy -- but only in the most pathetic and ridiculous way.

One year ago this week, it was nearly my birthday and I had my shit "together." I was the most confident, the most secure, the most alive, and the most certain of me and my life that I've ever been, and everything around me in my immediate sphere was a total and complete illusion.

Now? I am insecure, frightened, defensive, drawing back up into my crab shell, scared, scared, and scarred... but everything is incredibly pure and real and truthful.

Tragic? Maybe. But I'm laughing my ass off, despite how miserable I am. ; )

As Rufus Wainwright so aptly lisps, "It's such a vicious world..." So much so that I can't help but guffaw while choking back the tears.

Reminiscent of Many Pies

2007-06-17T20:50:00.003-05:00

I get surrounded
so easily
and passively
by everything
you left without.

I can see it all, but
I can't take it in; I'm
encased
in madness,
feverish denials,
irresponsibility,
and failure.

These careless monkeys
take up residence,
taunt me,
round my brain
and spin me
out of control.

I miss how
life was
so quiet and lifeless
with you here.

But I Liked It

2007-06-04T20:27:00.000-05:00

If I peel away all those last defenses, the truth is that as imperfect as my life was pre-beta-lessness, I was happy then and I liked the plans I had made. The circumstances weren't quite right, the participant(s) weren't ideal, but the overall plan was everything that I wanted from my life. And I'm still mourning the loss of not getting what I developed and worked so hard to achieve. I'm sad and dejected that I have to give up the comfort and security of partnership and legitimacy to be sitting here widdling away at the world by myself crafting a revised version of the future reality I had already taken as fact.

I can't stop feeling like, on some level, it's just totally unfair.

My Airport Poem

2007-06-03T14:00:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Mike (for the inspiration to write it), here's my self-mocking airport poem a la my March 10 post....

I transgress gates
like I transpose lines
from that sonnet
you used to like

(and probably still do).

But I can't see through
the glassy
smokeless fog
of families and non-cave dwellers
chaos and happiness and life.

My traveling moves
in tight, spiralling
circles;
winds closer and closer
around my neck,
as memories of those years
cascade through me.

I don't live in their colorful
world
of beginnings,
and hellos,
and fresh starts.

I dream cleanly
of moving shapeless
through the maze
of blinding congeniality;
and romanticize humanity
like only
naivety and self-imposed
brooding isolationism
can.

Other is outside
by choice.
That knowledge
without interrogation
renders me
ridiculous.

I am small
in the sea of
mundane purpose.
I make myself important
by not fitting in.

Falling For Normal -- I Think I Created the Last

2007-05-29T20:41:00.000-05:00

I seem to always think I'm immune to normal, everyday human emotions and needs... Including, hunger, having to pee, or doing anything mundane. I somehow believe that I can go without each and all of these things, or wait to the last minute, or deprive myself of them, or ignore them, or completely reject their necessity.

Instead, I am a totally unapproachable, uninhabitable island. At least on the inside.

On the outside? All agreeable and giving, easy-going, warm, and welcoming. Ridiculous, and usually I'm fooling the crowd.

But lately I've been a little over-exposed, found out, seen through. Not totally, of course, that's probably not possible, but enough that I feel human and good about it. Surprisingly good. And it's clearing the cobwebs from this life in my head and making me see more layers and depth that I had been ignoring.

I really did create the last stretch of my life -- that's not assigning meaning after conclusions, it's fact. But the strange reality is that that most likely means that I'm creating this stretch as well; and I honestly feel far from in control at the moment.

Just When I Thought it Would Stop...

2007-05-24T17:52:00.000-05:00

One month post canceled wedding and my life is light years away from what I ever imagined it would be. In a good way. I've been happy. Really. Especially the last couple of days.

But, everything must come to an end eventually, I guess. I accidentally opened a bag containing items from a trip I took in October 2006 -- for my wedding shower. Lo and behold inside I find: 20 amazingly beautiful and heartfelt cards of congratulations and best wishes for a lifetime of love.

There are no words to describe the weight that just descended on me.

Oh, Look, A Castle! ...

2007-05-06T09:38:00.000-05:00

So a now long-told joke about me.... that I'm like a goldfish in a bowl (short attention span/memory, high enthusiasm)... I swim around the circle and see the little pink castle "Oh, look, a Castle!" -- so excited -- swim past and continue around the circle, swimming, swimming, la, la, la, and then come upon something shimmering and pink, what is it? "Oh, look a Castle!"

No Joke.

I am that easily amused, easily surprised, easily taken off guard by the same things that moments before I thought I had seen/known/heard for the first time... I'd like to think this flaw isn't lack of intelligence, per se, but rather the speed at which I go through my day and my total inability to stay still. I flit from one thing to the next -- intense and obsessive while I'm on something and then forgotten immediately when I'm on to the next. But, that being said, I'm no more or less pleased or interested in a previous item when I encounter it again later on. My attention span and memory just can't keep everything in line and order because I'm just not that tuned in anymore.

So dulled senses, dulled memory, dulled experience -- what's the root? Fear, suspension of belief (as opposed to the necessary suspension of disbelief), doubt, cynicism, my odd understanding/relationship with time, self-defense, and above all else, work.

If this blog is a truth serum, let me just say that this weekend I finally realized that I have actually crossed over into the realm of workaholism for real. I mean, I am actively using work as a means to avoid and escape myself, my life, my feelings, and everything around me. I'm actively neglecting other things in place of work and I'm obsessively unable to stop myself when I'm doing it, including choosing work over social interaction and/or family. Scary. A million miles away from what used to be me.

This is why I have not allowed myself to work more than 1 1/2 hours so far this whole weekend...because I know that it is a problem and that I have to take it seriously.

Time, however, is an even more interesting component of the "castle" phenomena of my thought process... I don't know if my understanding and relationship with time is really that much different than other people's, all I know is that it confuses and astounds me... I find it extremely difficult to distinguish months, years, weeks -- they all blend in strange inconsistent patterns. And ever since the beta left, time has been frozen for me. I'm not up on the date, I'm not sure of where I am in the year, and I continue to feel like it's November even though it's May. This eerie suspension of existence translates to everything in my house. There are chores, piles of paper, odd remembrances of October 2006 that haven't moved forward since his departure. Yet there are also a million outgrowths of completely new (and not here before) items that are comingling and growing up around all the stuff transfixed in time... It's an odd environment that I really need to do more to get a handle on.

That issue of control, however, is the kicker.... Now that I know I really don't have any, I vacillate back and forth between wanting to regain it and wanting to ignore any desire to ever have it again. I can't find a balance and instead I am oblivious to the world around me, swimming along dealing with things as they arise, but never focusing my attention, energy, or thoughts on any one thing long enough to not be surprised that there's a pink castle up ahead...

Layers of Abandonement

2007-05-02T19:41:00.000-05:00

I seem stuck on trying to decipher and resolve all the ways human beings betray and degrade each other. All the ways we disrespect and dishonor others.

I've been spying on the beta, again. He is MIA in his social media world, to some degree at least, and I am faced with thinking.... how did it happen to me? How was I fooled by someone so plainly unworthy?

I still don't have an answer. And I can't unravel the whys?, the hows?, the wtfs? of all the shit we do.

Now... When the Words Won't Come Fast Enough

2007-05-01T19:28:00.000-05:00

I think a lot of what I'm doing lately involves comparison.... now I am x, before I was y; at one point I thought this, now I think that. It's confusing how much time my mind is spending flipping back and forth between past and present trying to make sense of all the change. Trying to compare and contrast; seek patterns; recognize shapes; and ultimately draw conclusions that I can base future thoughts, speeches, and decisions on.

It's not working. I cannot formulate anything sensible from all this chaos.

Change is the one extreme constant in my life at the moment. Everything is in a total state of flux and each time I think things are about to settle down and take on their new shape, instead everything shifts, contorts, and dances off into the night without me. Usually though, in all times, bad and good, I have the words at my lips, fingertips, disposal to express 1) what's wrong; 2) what's right; 3) what needs to be done.... NOW, however, it's all just a jumble and I have barely any words at all.

When I do speak I hear everything through a funnel of self-doubt and immediately I sense that nothing is quite what I mean it to be or coming out round about how it ought to. I'm flopping around noisily with nothing worthwhile to say and I think people are starting to catch on.

Squint

2007-04-27T20:36:00.002-05:00

Dating is part of what's making me so unbearable to be
around lately. I mean, come on, I'm crabby as hell and
it's mainly due to the lack of sincerity in my life and the
invasion of others' energy from every angle and perspective.

"In our endeavor we are never seeing eye to eye
No guts to sever so forever may we wave good-bye
And you're always telling me that it's my turn to move
When I wonder what could make the needle jump the
groove"

What I can't seem to get off my mind is how much I feel
trapped in myself right now. I started re-reading Frankenstein
and I'm feeling the alienation so much differently this read
than I did the last. I mean, I'm actually feeling it personally --
I don't recall having that happen before. And, it got me thinking
about two things: AI, which was the most horrendously
gut-wrenching movie I've ever seen and Anna Karenina, which
is probably one of the most heart-breaking novels of all time.

In Anna K, Tolstoy writes Anna with a nervous tick. Every time
she's forced to face something she doesn't like or deal with a
truth she doesn't want to believe, Anna squints her eyes.
The squint becomes a metaphor for distance and disregard. As
if, when she doesn't look at something head-on
with eyes wide open, Anna can somehow negate its existence.
Brilliant. Two thumbs up to a great approach to life. Ignore
whatever makes you sad or uncomfortable.

The problem? Right now, I'm what's making me sad and
uncomfortable and the alienation I feel is born out of the
foreignness I feel with myself. Tonight I really noticed it, how
wound up around myself I am. How much all my defenses are
up and how closed off I am from interacting with people. Like
I can will everyone else's energy away from me and keep mine
shut up inside.

100 years ago (at least it feels that way now, though it was
actually 7 1/2 years), I wrote a brilliant analysis of Tolstoy's
use of the squint in Anna K. I can't remember exactly what my
conclusion was, but I'm pretty sure it went something like this:
As long as Anna refuses to see the truth she will remain locked
in her own self-actualized hell. Though she thinks the reality
of her life is too harsh to bear, the opposite is probably true.
In fact, most likely, she would be better to see what is actually
there, acknowledge it, feel it, and move past it. By hiding from
it she's only prolonging her mental and emotional distress and
wearing down the fabric of her fortitude and independence.
Tolstoy uses the squint as a means of revealing her
vulnerability and her deep regret for the ways she has
underperformed in her own eyes.

Pretty beautiful stuff.

So what's it mean for me, now, 7 1/2 years later? I need to
let all of this out. I need to feel it. I really, actually, need a
good cry. I need to stop bottling every bit of what I'm
experiencing up and winding it tight in my gut where it's
wreaking havoc on my soul. But honestly, I'm afraid of the
stress of feeling these emotions and I'm scared I don't have
anyone in my life strong enough to support me through
them. It is easier to bury them.

But, driving home tonight, when I pulled down my visor mirror
and saw my reflection squinting back at me I realized that I've
got to start paying attention to what's impeding my vision --
namely, me.

With, not a Shout, but an Apocalyptic Screech

2007-04-24T19:12:00.000-05:00

"Don't give a shit about the temperature in Guatemala
Don't really see what all the fuss is about
Ain't gonna worry about no future generations
And I'm sure somebody's gonna figure it out
...
Well I use to stand for something
But forgot what that could be
There's a lot of me inside you
Maybe your afraid to see "

Here's a little known fact about me...not too long ago I was one thousand-fold Internet opposed. I mean, in a crazy, apocalyptic, the end-is-near kind of way. Probably much the same as I imagine storytellers or the Catholic Church reacted when Gutenberg built his printing press...

What changed in 7 years? What brought me over to the dark side of cultural and social interaction? Well, first, let me back up and say that everything I feared would happen to our society as a result of the Internet has come true -- and it's not just a little ironic that Year Zero, which is arguably NIN's most apocalyptic record to date, surfaced through a barrage of the most ambitious and brilliant social media marketing I've yet to see. Not only that, but everything I feared I would become as a result of the Internet has also materialized. I am, in fact, now, in a way I never could have been before...asleep, drugged by media, lulled into quietude and passivity, technology-obsessed, completely unable to function without a computer, and completely unable to "speak", "type", and "interact" in non-email, non-text, non-im shorthand.

The brilliant girl who used to write long eloquent letters by hand -- 10 or 20 of them a week -- has been replaced by a total airhead who can barely master printing her letters in the correct order, because she's so used to typing followed by spell-check.

So, what changed? Same problem as the post-apocalyptic world of Year Zero...complacency. I could not beat the revolution, I could not convince anyone that we were headed in the wrong direction, AND I could not stop myself from being pulled into the mix. I gave in to the ease, the convenience, the laziness, the sloth. And, ultimately in a great twist of irony and fate, a very well-known fact about me (especially for those that read this blog and know the way of the beta -- who I've been spying on again, by the way, because social media makes it so easy to do so), social media as we know it in the mid-to-late 2000s, destroyed my life. Or the illusion of the life I had.

Apocalyptic whining? Yes.

Unfair characterization of social media, the Internet, and/or the power of this crap to totally reinvent even the strongest and most sincere among us? NO!

So, call me Chicken Little. I've heard it before. I won't reiterate the theories and opinions that were laughed at so many years ago... I won't try to explain what I know is true: That interconnectedness and democratization of information are an Illusion -- as the Web expands we, as a society, contract into lifeless, thoughtless, zombies.

In the immortal words of Bono:

"Where do we go?
Where do we go from here?
Where to go?
...
And staring at each other.
We were doing nothing.
Jerusalem, jerusalem.
Shout, shout.
With a shout, shout it out."

Or as The Killers like to say... "run for the hills before they burn".

Thanks to Trent for an amazing record and incredibly vivid picture of the present and the future. For what it's worth, I think he's right.

Finding Energy

2007-04-23T21:17:00.000-05:00

I think I used to talk about moving energy a lot. Breathing energy a lot. Feeling and sensing energy. Back when it was a commodity in large supply.

Now it's all kind of tapped out. Nearly dried up. And I can't think to move the trickle that drips down my arms and to my typing hands anywhere beyond the keyboard. I'm lucky I can still muster the strength to compose a sentence, never mind keep my eyes open long enough to proof it.

Not to sound old, but this level of exhaustion is somewhat beyond the norm of anything I've ever known and in the midst of it, I'm supposed to be jazzed about dating.

How can I call a guy back who I barely know when I can't even make time to empty the dishwasher or call my favorite sister? I mean, really, what kind of crazy-ass supposition is that....make time for a stranger who could pan out to be important, but probably won't, when you can't even make time for what already is important. Dating is losing this battle and I'm not finding the energy to strike up a conquest and rally the troops for an all out war.

What I Learned on My (Unsummer) Miami Vacation

2007-04-22T19:44:00.000-05:00

Top Ten Things I Learned in Miami

1. It really is about the moments. They're what count and stay with us -- the rest is filler and illusion. Being in the moment and really feeling what it has to offer is hugely powerful.
2. It feels fucking good to indulge.
3. Doing nothing is important.
4. I really can't live without the Internet.
5. I am still capable of surprising myself.
6. I am not nearly as uptight as I feared I had become.
7. I haven't moved on yet but I'm finally ready to.
8. The sadness outnumbers the beauty, but the beauty outweighs the sadness in power in scope.
9. Some things go without saying, but it still feels good when someone says them.
10. Sometimes drinking too much doesn't make me throw up.

And...honorable mention: 11. I need to take more vacations!

Miami might not have given me the answer I was looking for -- namely can I move there? (The answer is no, sadly.) But it did give me insight into a lot of the baggage I've been carrying around and luckily for everyone in my life I left this morning a little less of a curmudgeon than I was when I arrived. Whew. Glad that's settled.

A Lobster, an Apple, and Some Pineapple Compote; Or Ten Hours with Vista and I Can't Ctrl+Alt+Delete My Way Out of This One...

2007-04-15T18:42:00.000-05:00

Hooray for the longest and seemingly nonsensical title in the history of this blog.

I should start by saying my household has one phenomenally amazing new member -- this gorgeous iMac I have the pleasure to currently be working on. All tricked out and snazzier than the rest, by far. So, tonight, with my new, unbelievably capable machine in front of me, I should be happy. But I'm not.

Why?

Maybe it started with the words of doom "Please wait a moment while windows prepares to start for the first time..."

During the very, very, very, very first time in history when those words flashed across a screen -- did the world throw up a little just in the back of its throat? I believe so. Just as I did earlier today.

What I did was pretty much near all-out blasphemy at the highest level. I subverted the sheer beauty of this machine by partitioning its hard drive and installing the antichrist of all OS's -- Windows Vista. You'd think it isn't that bad, but, honestly, IT IS.

Now, to be fair, the very act of running Boot Camp on this heavenly machine made me feel like the first time that I ever cooked a lobster on my own. I have been eating lobster since I started solid foods and never thought twice about it until I decided to boil one up for dinner one night in college. There I was all apartmented-out totally grown up and away from home. I boiled a huge pot of water. Picked up my lovely little friend and tried to put him (or her?) in the pot... Tail flapping, claws outreached, I nearly fainted from the knowledge that I was about to drop a living thing in boiling water. It was horrendous. I did it, but I couldn't eat.

Running Vista on this brilliant machine is the same thing, I installed it, but I don't think I can live with keeping it around. The level of subversion -- of total degradation of a thing of beauty could only be equalled by Lise's fondness for Pineapple Compote.

Finally, after half a day, those Mac - PC "deny - allow" commercials ring true. It's not so much even the soul vs. no soul question -- I run Boot Camp (with XP) on my laptop and don't feel nearly as chilled or nauseous as today's adventure in Vista has left me. But, it's true, what happens in that advertisement. You cannot do anything in Vista without receiving a pop-up requiring you to "allow" the action... Not that I ever would expect an efficient product from MS, but still, do they have to be so blatantly barbaric about their inadequacies?

Vista's getting two more days. If I can't deal, my beautiful iMac is getting an honorable discharge from the service and I'm going to rock on with my bad self in a less cumbersome, cluttered world.

p.s. The more "Apple"-like the MS interface becomes, the more I feel them failing to achieve anything close to worthwhile.

How to Forget to Breathe

2007-04-10T20:59:00.000-05:00

Through the years of being a overworked, haphazardly challenged, neurotic perfectionist, I have taken the art of not breathing, while still maintaining my composure and expertly racing through a day, to a whole new level of existence. In short, I've raised the bar on being several things at once: graceless and out of breath and overflowing with enthusiasm and self-assuredness.

My blue-in-the-face approach to success comforts and relaxes others even as each shallow gasp sticks in my chest and gulps for a breathe of its own.

In short, I am great at faking it. So great, in fact, that I'm swept up by my own rhythm and tempo and get carried away in the confidence of knowing it all.

So, for me, most importantly, this blog is a means toward manufacturing my own truth serum. Something that will require me to lay it all out without holding back or maintaining any level of the facade. If I peel back the onion (thanks to Jason for arguing so vehemently for it a million years and lifetimes ago) here's what I see tonight:

I'm tired. I'm still not getting enough sleep and I'm hanging on to waking in the hopes that something good will come if I stay up just a little longer.

I have so much hope its appalling. I mean every day I actually think, "maybe today will be the day that things take an upswing." And every day I actually believe it could be so -- and every night I'm so disappointed I can't breathe.

I've bitten off more than I can chew. My brain is unable to process all the roles I'm supposed to be playing right now and I feel pulled in every direction and far away from knowing me.

I like it better when I don't know me. When I'm in a perpetual state of sleep-running through life, I'm most happy.

It was better when he was here. I could pretend much easier with him and that relationship as extra layers on the onion.

I feel like people have let me down. I try to be selfless and giving at all costs, but in my heart I'm burning with resentment for the first time in my life.

I'm as strong as I pretend to be. Truly. I can do it "all" and still stay upbeat and enthusiastic... but I'm not sure that's what I want to do. Nor do I think it will help with my breathing problem.

I'm not as good of a writer as I've always dreamed I would be. And that pisses me off and makes me feel like a failure in ways that other flaws and shortcomings can't. If not a writer, than honestly, truthfully, what? What can I possibly be?

In the present state of my life I don't know one person who can see through me -- not the way he could. And that scares me.

Instead of Getting Married...

2007-04-04T22:11:00.000-05:00

Well, as it turns out, getting married this month isn't happening. I know I've known this for nearly 6 months now, but I have officially made alternate plans for the weekend I was supposed to be getting married.

Making plans -- especially in the state my life is right now -- means I'm really not getting married. And, though I should have known this months ago, it also means he probably is never coming back.

So, instead of getting married, here's the plan:

1. Buy a bathing suit. Doesn't sound like much, I know. But for me, it's huge... I haven't owned one in about 5 years. The thought of them makes me want to crawl under a rock, but as you'll see with plan #2, a bathing suit is essential.
2. Spend the now-canceled wedding weekend in one of the most luxurious hotels in the entire country -- close to, but not on, South Beach. Enjoy 2 days in a private beach cabana and wash away all the pain (or at least dull it; or at the very least ignore it) with several Bellinis and some over-the-top spa treatments.
3. Don't call him, don't email him, don't wonder why I'm not the one. Just, whatever I do, don't think about it.
4. Maintain my composure. Make it through this month. It'll have to get better eventually.
5. Get dressed to the nines and act the part. No, I don't fit in on South Beach and I'll look like a moron compared to the Super Models -- especially when I wear the bathing suit -- but can't I at least fool myself into thinking that I can exist in their universe for 2 days of my life?

Here's what I won't be doing:

1. Getting married.
2. Feeling like my life is headed in the direction I want it to.
3. Understanding why the hell this happened to me.
4. Accepting that I am alone.
5. Looking good in a bathing suit.

April is turning out to be a long fucking month.

A Dating Wasteland

2007-03-28T20:27:00.000-05:00

I wonder if my dating karma is horrendously black and malformed...? Maybe that's why I'm trapped in this unknown circle of Dante's Infernal Hell --> Dating in South Florida in the mid-to-late first decade of the 21st century.

Nothing could be more pitiful or discouraging, except maybe being forced to watch episodes of American Idol.

What I've realized is that there is no guarantee that I will ever meet a mate -- in fact, it's statistically probable that I will end up alone for the rest of my life. Because this time I'm not going to settle and, truth be told, I may never meet another man who I am capable of falling in love with (who would also fall in love back). And that reality is a little too overwhelming to bear.

But here's what is amazing about it. I've always been the extremely jealous type, maybe even to a fault. Even jealous of my partners' past partners from long before we were together... Totally irrational and emotionally immature, I know. Certainly not something I've ever been proud of.

But today I sent a truth out to the universe that was fundamentally different -- I said, if there is a man in this world that I can truly connect with (and he connect back to me) my most sincere hope is that he's not alone right now. Even if he's not madly in love or happy beyond his wildest dreams (I mean, that's what meeting me is for, right?), I at least hope that he's not lonely and not feeling the same emptiness I feel right now.

And for once in my life, with no jealousy, suspicion, or negativity, I mean it. I hope in this moment he feels whole, I wouldn't wish what I am feeling on anyone especially not someone I'm destined to love...

Note To Self...

2007-03-25T21:29:00.000-05:00

No matter how much you think otherwise, self, the following things are bad for you:

1. Spying on the beta. Stop it! He is not interested in you, stop spying on him.
2. Not getting enough sleep. You can work 16 hour days, but it won't fill the emptiness, so quit it! Get some rest and stop trying to work yourself happy.
3. Eating just enough to get by. This total pendulum shift from super-healthy nutrition girl to woman on the run with no time to notice she hasn't eaten is bull. Start paying attention again, stop slacking on the basics.
4. Saying you're fine. You aren't fine. Stop saying it. Stop saying "fine" in place of the truth.
5. Procrastination. 'nough said.

Get your shit together, girl. The wallowing is getting old.

Failing at My Success

2007-03-20T18:59:00.000-05:00

Their were times in my past when I thought the only success would be artistic -- not that I ever thought I would achieve artistic success, because I didn't. What I thought was that the only thing I would ever count as proof of having succeeded was doing well at some artistic endeavor.

It's a long time ago since I've felt that way. Now I measure success with money and responsibility and recognition of talent and business and intelligence and not necessarily sticking it to the man. Don't get me wrong, I think in my own way I still stick it to the man, I just think I play his game, not my rowdy, anarchistic, crazy-ass girl-power game, while doing it.

Today I achieved the highest level of business and professional success I ever have with a promotion at work...one would think after all my hard work and drive and energy and dedication that I would be happy and proud. And I am.

But, moreso, I'm failing at my success, because in this hour of celebration I am stuck feeling empty and missing that damn beta. I like to imagine he would have wanted to see this moment of glory and to have hooted and hollered and drank champagne with me. I imagine it and it stings and burns and makes me sick, because it's not true. He wouldn't have cared. He wouldn't have been joyous. He wouldn't have loved me or been proud. He would have said all the right things, put on a grand smile, then sulked off into the corner when I wasn't looking to go online to talk to his other girlfriend. And I would have been so content and felt so connected to him and to the power of building our lives together. Even in my elation I would have been failing at my success.

So, option 1 -- which is no longer an option -- stay with beta in a phony life where I am hopelessly clueless to the fact that everything I believe is real is a lie. OR. Option 2 -- where I am -- stay with me, all alone and hurt; be proud and successful but not be able to escape the emptiness of what's missing that I never actually had.

I'll say it again for effect -- and because it's true -- I'm failing at my success and it hurts like hell.

Another Dark Tunnel -- Next Stop, Who Knows

2007-03-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

There are changes in life that we accurately anticipate the results of (endings we know are coming because of the finality or impermanence of a situation -- graduations, births, etc. -- events where, should all things go as planned, the resulting outcome is easy to qualify and anticipate), but there are other changes that are so open-ended that there is no way to begin to surmise what their final result will be.

In all areas of my life right now, I'm faced with this total, all-out nebulous trajectory of not knowing. Everything is in a state of change and flux and there's no way to anticipate what the results will be. I feel like I'm riding on a train barreling toward the open mouth of dark tunnel with no idea where I'm going to arrive when I come out on the other side.

Notes on the Harsh Truthes of a Non-Dream-Like Vision

2007-03-13T19:46:00.000-05:00

"In my dream I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows, they learned to swim"

For those familiar with the next lines in the song, this post's for you.

Last night I dreamt the craziest thing. My dreaming mind manifested an anthropomorphized version of The Catholic Church -- in my dream, the Church was a woman, a short nun-like Italian lady who was very, very angry at me. And rather than listen to her accusations, what did I do? I made every rude gesture known to man, flipped her off, gesticulated wildly, uttered foul remarks, did things I wouldn't do in front of my non-Catholic mother, and ultimately spit on her. I spit on an anthropomorphized version of the Catholic Church across a dinner table in a dream. And it felt fucking awesome.

And why? Because last night at dinner -- actually in-reality dinner, not the dinner in my dream -- my real-life Italian father had the nerve to insinuate that his youngest daughter, who up until recently was nearly about to undergo the most beautiful transformation from Whore of Babylon to wedded wife (we're talking about me here), was less than pure. Well, jeez, dad, I did live with a guy for nearly 7 years...

The contempt at which he suggested that I was in the situation I'm in because I "gave away the milk for free" (yes, he actually said it) and that I "gave in" to a man instead of staying on the path of "virtue" made me want to vomit.

Is he for real? I mean, is he for real??? And this on the heels of the guy I've been dating for the past 6 weeks breaking things off, because he was worried that I may want a relationship and he wasn't interested in anything beyond casual.

Newsflash, dumbass, neither was I. Why do you think I was dating you, hot stuff?

Is this really the world we live in? Is it just these Italian men or do men today still think sex is their game and everything else is ours?

Sigh. I'm really at a loss. I wish I could wax poetic about the injustice of this double standard especially in our contemporary world. But I'm actually too shocked to know what to say. All I know is that any man who thinks sex is more important (or less "special") to him than it is to a woman, ought to wake up.

It's not modern times or women's lib, jackasses, it's biology.

And we don't do it for you nor is it something we give to you nor is it something you can scare us away from -- not even my big Italian father can intimidate me into a new-found appreciation for "virtue." What's it going to take for us to prove our sexual power -- spitting on nuns in dreams?

Seems like a pretty feeble vision in an equally feeble reality -- reminds me how stupid men are. And I was just starting to respect them again...

Hiding

2007-03-11T08:28:00.000-05:00

I used to pound phrases
out of concrete slabs

away when I lived
under shady trees --

but I gave it all up
to be here tinkering
with you.

And I can't say I'm
better for the wear.

I can't say I'm
much more
than lonely;

but life doesn't
want me to leave,
not even
you.

If I sink down
through the space
of lives clashing
too long
I'll never find
a way to express
even my most
mundane fears.

Like,
I wish I could have
a cup of coffee,
and ease the ache --
get beyond this mess.

But that's not easy
to speak
in this fragile
place.

I should know
we're in trouble
when it takes
two
car trips
around the block
just to
gather the knowledge
to say
"I'm hurt."

Love isn't a blanket

or a wall of hope and trust

it's not much,
really,
compared to loss

except that it lingers
half as close.

Why the Airport Depresses Me

2007-03-10T17:30:00.000-05:00

The airport is, admittedly, one of my least favorite places to be. Here's why: it makes me happy.

Okay, how very Goth of me to hate a place that makes me feel pleasure. But, it's true. When I'm at the airport I get a feeling of such comfort and joy and excitement -- all the movement and travel and possibility of it. I feel the same way at train stations. I doubt a bus station would do it for me, however. Though South Station, which is a combo of both, certainly gives me the same warm and fuzzy feeling that any other train station does.

So, I hate airports. Why? Hope. Same theme that's presently floating in and out of my entire existence. Airports are all about becoming -- transference, maybe even transgression -- and crossing over from one space into another, from one existence into another. And at airports, I, unlike the vast majority of the world, fall head over heels in total love with humanity. No sarcasm here, it's true. I look around and I am giddy with love for all the poor schleps and their dumb ass lives and all the ultra chic jet setters and their asinine behavior and over-indulgence. And the yuppie 30-something families chasing after their gap-wearing kids. Seriously. I'm in complete all-out love with every one of them.

So, in other words, I hate airports because they make me feel connected to everything and I'm not connected. I'm lonely. I'm isolated. My life is devoid of direction and meaning. And airports make me feel like other people's aren't (though that's doubtfully true) -- they make me feel like other people have places to go and people that they're traveling with. And, right now, I just have me. Being at the airport today reminded me what it was like when he was here and I had someone to share my life with. And it reinforced all my listless wandering.

I'm a bad flyer -- I can't stop envying everyone else and I'm left feeling nothing but alienation and emptiness.

April Is the Cruelest Hope

2007-03-10T09:10:00.000-05:00

"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain"

For those that didn't see that one coming -- where are you minds? Ever since the day I set the date for my now-canceled wedding, I've had those lines in my head on endless repeat. I knew I should have never picked a date in April -- I knew there was a problem all along. Compound that with the "curse" of my gown, and there was an air of gravity and uncertainty to that entire plan nearly a year and a half ago. Yet, still I marched on. Almost knowingly. Into the pitch-black caverns of a potential hell far worse than the one I had been living in (or the one I'm living in now) and I have only one cruel explanation: Hope.

If April is the cruelest month, which I do believe (and always have) that it is, then it is so by the very virtue of the fact that it elicits hope in people. That being said, hope is the cruelest emotion.

Hope breeds trust in unconfirmed happiness -- it's born of speculation and assumption. There's nothing concrete or real about it, just the dreamer's whimsy of possibility and fantasy of better days, better loves, better chances -- bright, endless future becomings. That and $4 still won't get me my morning latte. Hope is a poser of the most severe and sadistic kind.

Ah, cynicism. So comforting. [I could wax poetic here on the irony that cynicism is no less extreme and unrealistic as hope. How this emotion is an equal but opposite poser. How it breeds trust in unconfirmed loneliness and despair. However, to do so, would reveal the imperfections of my own current justifications, excuses, emotions, and theories, and, truly, why would I want to undermine my own argument?] Cynicism is the great bastion of defense against hope and all its minions: faith, joy, trust, confidence, stupidity.

Cynicism is safe -- especially as April approaches. I find it so reassuring to know that, in the end, I've abandoned these ridiculous notions of eternity for emotions that are encased in more defensive armor. After all, it's a lot easier to feel like a failure when hiding behind a shield of cold indifference than behind a veil of pink tulle and butterflies.

Alone in the Valley

2007-03-05T22:08:00.000-05:00

"The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech..."

I wonder if I've ever before felt so far away from anything comforting or felt so alone. The last few days have been filled with my re-living the feeling of total desperation I felt when everything I thought my life was, dissolved into thin air. It's been months since he left, and months since I've felt so low, but here I am wandering alone in the valley and I avoid speech for lack of ears to listen and lack of confidence in myself.

And, do I even have anything worthwhile to say?

I'm heartbroken for everything I thought I had that never existed. And I'm so fearful that I will never find my way out of the darkness and fog of disappointment to something good.

The dichotomy of good and evil, female and male, yin and yang, fair and unjust is so strong in me right now that I feel pulled and drained by this fight. I was left, abandoned and alone by someone I wholly devoted myself and my energies to - by someone I worked so hard to nurture and care for and, though I'm not alone in my pain, loneliness, or rejection, I feel a million miles away from a kindred spirit or even a friendly face.

Reflections on High Fidelity

2007-03-04T10:39:00.000-05:00

Back in October, I was one of the lucky few to see the stage musical High Fidelity in Boston, MA. Since then the musical opened and closed on Broadway and apparently was not well accepted at all...which I really can't figure out. I mean, truly, I thought it was the most hysterical show I have seen in my entire life. I don't think I've ever laughed that hard or smiled that much in a theater. The worst part about the show's lack of success is that I will live on with only vague memories of the brilliant music and lyrics -- there will be no original cast recording a la Rent or Wicked, etc., etc., to add to my collection.

Granted that's all a side note to the larger issue at hand, but more than worth a mention considering how brilliant and horribly underrated the show was. Truly, one of the most memorable and enjoyable theater experiences of my life.

What I really aim to address with this post is one of the moments in High Fidelity, the novel, that lingers with me most poignantly despite not making it beyond the page to either of the other incarnations of the story (musical or film)...

At one point, as the main character, Rob, is reflecting on his life he talks about memories of childhood and how he looks back at himself at 8 years old, let's just say, and wishes he could apologize to that kid for what he's done to his life. At 8 he had full potential to go anywhere, be anything, see and do everything imaginable, but at 30+ he's tapped out, tired, stuck in the course of the decisions he's made, and he looks back and feels guilty for fucking it up for that kid who had so much hope.

For someone like me who's always prided herself on having no regrets -- the obvious thought process has always gone something like this: we wouldn't be be where we were if it wasn't for the sum total of everything leading up to that point, so really how can you regret anything (if you're living a good, honest life) if it's gotten you to the point you are presently, and the point you are presently, being the only thing that exists, is all you have (the future not having yet arrived and not being a guarantee and the past already over and impossible to regain...) -- well, being such a person who lives so fervently without regret, it's amazing how much I can empathize with this guilt over what the adult version of the life has become.

Just like Rob I would like to go back in time and apologize to that kid -- the little girl that was me -- because really I've screwed it up. And, maybe, someday I'll look back and say, "Oh, yeah, this cross crosses this t and that dot dots that i and it makes total sense that x came before y, blah, blah, blah" and I'll subscribe some meaning to the course of the events of my life that will make me feel better about why I did what I did or became what I became. But, really, in my heart, I will always know that assigning meaning after the fact is nothing compared to the honest-to-god earth-shatteringly powerful feeling you get when, in any given moment, you are living and doing exactly what you know you should be. And that's not a feeling I have very often. Especially the older I get.

Ostensibly, High Fidelity is about love and romance and relationships (not to mention the more important topic of pop music as the soundtrack of our lives!), and the "fidelity" is an obvious play on words for recorded sound as much as for commitment within relationships...but there's something else in there: Fidelity to oneself. Truth, honesty, and fulfillment to oneself. Sure, Rob may be a complete commitment-phobe who doesn't want to grow up, face responsibility, or settle down with one girl and miss out on all the other fish in the sea -- he's a perpetual beta male of the most attractive and repulsive kind.

But, more than that, Rob is struggling with his lack of fidelity to self. We require our partners to show devotion, care, honesty, and monogamy to us, but we don't really show it to ourselves. It's ironic, actually, that we ask so much more of the other people in our lives than our own selves -- it really doesn't make sense. Because, in the end, if we're alone in our skins, shouldn't our own fidelity mean more than someone else's?

Ultimately, and I know this from the experience of having been betrayed and left and cheated on by someone I deeply trusted and cared for, we are more concerned with how faithful other people are to us than our own faithfulness to ourselves. And that's completely ass backward. But I feel it, even now, I feel how I want my friends and family and those around me to honor me, to be true to me -- I feel so acutely any pain of judgment or criticism from them, how much I want to be cared for and treated with faithful regard. Yet, I disregard myself -- and is this the same as not setting boundaries? This feeling of complete and total unfaithfulness to self?

So, here's my apology to an 8-year-old version of myself -- so pretty and spirited and independent and knowledgeable beyond her years; a girl who, in my feeble capabilities, clearly never had a chance to grow into her full potential -- I'm sorry I put you second and everyone else first. I'm sorry I didn't honor your needs or require more of those around you. I'm sorry I stayed with that beta for 6 1/2 years and didn't question or challenge the emptiness I felt. I'm sorry I didn't hear you. I'm sorry I held you to an impossible standard of strength and emotional distance and that I didn't accept your weaknesses as human and forgivable. I'm sorry I didn't ask for more. I'm sorry I made you give away so much.

In a perfect world, I'd right some of the wrongs. I'd ask for more, give less. Be true to myself, not sacrifice so much. Require something more of myself. But I don't have it in me. And if I do, I'm too scared to let it out. Instead, I'm going to put my head down and keep working and -- quite ignorantly -- hope that my karma is good enough to bring something worthwhile in.

I'm going to continue to look outside myself for validation and fidelity. And, maybe the scariest truth is that I've always dated beta males because I myself relate to them personally in that I, too, am ineffective and weak...

"I'm just a mirror of a mirror myself. All the things that I do. And the next time I fall I'm gonna have to recall it isn't love its only something new..."

My Life, My Rock Pile

2007-02-26T21:11:00.000-05:00

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral."

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Our lives are so unnecessarily complicated by what we try to make them be that we often forget to see them for what they have the potential to become. We see potential in other people, in other lives, other ways of being, other opportunities, other everything -- and feel jealous. But we are rarely realistic about ourselves. About the fact that the only thing that separates us from the "others" is vision. We are inspired by what lies outside of us and envy it, mimic it, covet it, try to dominate it, be a part of it, anything to own it or co-opt it for ourselves. But we lack inspiration in our selves -- we lack a true belief that we are the same as everything else and harbor the same potentials.

We wake up and think, "why is that happening? why is my life like this? why? why? why?" Instead of the more obvious, "What can I make myself into? How can I evolve? Who can I become? Where can I go?" The questions we ask represent our plights and foibles -- when really we should be asking ourselves what challenges we've yet to encounter and how we can seek them out and grow.

This may all sound really over-optimistic or self-helpy, but I hope that isn't the case. Really the crux of the matter is living one's life is like creating art. Dreaming of the unimaginable and setting it into motion in life -- rather than on canvas or paper or in sound. Actually working the energy into an artistic experience of our existence. And that takes true vision and clarity of self. Something that, up until recently, I completely lacked. I had the black cloud of the beta lurking over everything in my life and dirtying my aura and I couldn't see anything except frustration, obstacles, and impending failure. But freedom from that situation has reawakened my self to the world of possibility. The art of becoming other.

Not for the sake of mimicking that which is outside myself, but for the very point of acting out an artistic version and expression of my inner self. And for the first time since I was in high school, I no longer feel acute pain and emptiness and agreement with one of the most brilliant quotes from one of the most gut-wrenching plays in the history of American theater. Tennessee Williams wrote, "We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life!" And that quote used to weigh in the pit of me like an albatross.

But in this new manifestation of my gowth, the mirror doesn't reflect rocks, it bears the image of a cathedral.

Fallen in Love (with Illusion)

2007-02-22T20:18:00.000-05:00

"I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me -- the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe is the reason for every work of art." --Anais Nin

For someone who worked in publishing for as long as I did, I must admit I'm a terrible editor when it comes to my own life. I mean, here's my created world: completely ass backward and not what I meant at all. Everything is 100% contrary to the plan. Ha. And here's me: gasping for words, air, anything that will resemble a time when I was satisfied, satiated, and feeling connected to another person.

Everyone keeps saying I shouldn't need a man. I shouldn't need a relationship. I should be fine on my own. And, fuck them all. Because I'm more than fine on my own. I feel great on my own. I'm doing great on my own and I am rocking every day like it's a blessing and a challenge and a gift. And I'm actually enjoying the process -- I like coming unraveled, it reminds me that the perfectionist standard I hold myself to is just another illusion. But none of that has anything to do with the fact that without a relationship there's a whole part of me that has no voice or form of expression and that part of me is not ready to be quiet. In fact, on the contrary, that part of me is screaming from the depths of my soul -- and the horrible truth is that I am the only person listening.

And why? Because everything that came before was so manufactured. I worked so hard to build -- to write and create -- the world I wanted to be living, the life I wanted to have, that I forgot to acknowledge that it was built out of stage props and scenery -- and founded on all the lies he told. Which made everything so easy to manipulate and move, so transient and malleable , but also, so unreliable and contrived, so built on stilts and weighted too heavily to stand without support. What was I thinking? On what level did I think -- as long as it looks pretty it won't fall down. As if aesthetics really supercede essence.

But in my created world I thought they could. I thought I could "squeeze the universe into a ball" and bend it to my will.

Control. It all comes back to control.

I am in love with control. So for all my reality -- for all my honesty -- for everything that sets me apart from the fakes and the posers, the brutal fact is that I am in love with an illusion, a ghost, a figment of my own imagination. And, he was just the same -- totally unreal.

Funny how it took me so long to make the connection between unreal, him, and that first mix he made, titled "Your Unreal Is Here Now" -- oh, how stupid I was at twenty-one.

And that strikes me as the greatest hypocrisy and narcissism of my existence -- that I love illusion.

But the very act of admitting that hypocrisy is such a relief. I'm so happy to see it and look at and dwell on it a bit. To reveal how flawed I really am.

So the story isn't just about the ugly things that have happened to me, but also the ugliness that I harbor in my soul. I much prefer to expose it, show it to everyone who cares to see it, and admit that I'm not ready to give up this love affair. Not the one with the long-gone beta. I surrender him to the wiles of the universe -- may he travel lightly and make his way very far away from me -- but, rather, I am not ready to break off this passionate romance between me and control.

I may have uncloseted it, so to speak, but I'm not ready to let it go quite yet. I'd rather look at it, try it on, search it up and down, and find a way to integrate it back in me -- I mean, it's an art thing, right? I can't create without it, so I need to learn to live with it and embrace that there are things about me that have an air of dishonesty about them. And, since I'm human, that's okay.

"And I feel it like a sickness, how this love is killing me, I'd walk into the fingers of your fire willingly. And dance the edge of sanity, I've never been this close. I'm in love with your ghost."

Rising

2007-02-11T14:33:00.000-05:00

Completely moved into my new old house I am comforted by the fact that the work is nearly done and I am so pleased by the results. I have reclaimed this house from all the energy of my failed beta-ship.

I thought that I never felt more satisfied than the day I got engaged -- I finally had an answer to the question of where my life was going. I don't think I ever knew security that hard and fast and concrete and Absolute like that a single other day of my life. But, as it turns out, the best day -- the best feeling and the most satisfying -- was the day I got un-engaged and rose up out of me and my life into the limitless possibilities of becoming.

Being home in this new manifestation of me feels like home never has in all my life and this security -- in the rootedness and steadfastness of me being me -- is more real than any false feelings of hope and knowledge I felt in that other person.

I'm so thankful to have a second chance at everything and to really hear myself this time. To let my heart speak and honor what it says. It really is the evolution of my soul -- and it's so beautiful to experience.

Wherever Belief Lays Its Head...

2007-01-31T21:30:00.000-05:00

...that's where I want to be tonight: wherever belief lays its head down and calls home. Without belief, faith, the firm knowing and security of the Objective (capital "O") infinity of the world, we are nothing but listless, lolling creatures.

Belief in knowing that life won't change with or without us. That everything is and isn't simultaneously. Belief in knowing "this is it" and "this is it" -- in every moment. The cool, careful calm of being.

What my days need: less driving, less sitting, more movement, more poetry, more meditation. Where my heart longs to be: safely cradled in the truth of a created world.

Falling off the Saddle

2007-01-27T23:30:00.000-05:00

I'd like to say, I'm back in the saddle -- playing the field and feeling powerful and great about it. Instead, after my first noteworthy date in 7 years, I think, "I must not be very good at this."

I mean, I think I bored the guy. Me -- all the intensity and passion and knowledge and heart. He didn't seem to be interested in me and I'm not sure how to process that.

Who am I if not the highly noticeable, voted most like to attract attention, vision of well-rounded female personalities? How can that man -- who, by the way, was so unbelievably handsome and kind and normal -- not be attracted to me?

One date and I already feel drained by the process. I think I've fallen off the saddle and I'm not sure if I have the knowledge or talent to get back up.

Searching for the Future Through a Veil of Pink Tulle

2007-01-23T21:46:00.000-05:00

I picked up the bridesmaid dresses for my canceled wedding yesterday and was left to continue to wonder why I have to clean up someone else's mess. Why I have to reach down into me and come up the bigger person every time while others glide away effortlessly off into the sunset. And, in all my failed relationships, both friendship and romantic, it's been that way -- I've tidied up after the fact, made it easier and more pleasant, while the leaver has quickly left without a second thought, inconvenience, or parting glance.

Here's the crux of the problem: I don't set boundaries with any person in my life. I will drop everything at less than a moment's notice for anyone I care for at anytime.

Here's the part I can't get over: I don't think I would like me if I did set boundaries. I mean, what the hell do I have to offer if I enter into the world of those who don't give wholeheartedly? I wouldn't have any respect for that kind of me.

Here's the challenge: Set boundaries with me first, then with others. That's the only way I'll be comfortable with having them, by getting used to the idea of "no" internally first.

Here's what I have to say "no" to myself right now: Feeling sorry for myself. Buck up, pink tulle is for sissies anyway.

Groan.

Last Resort: Sing Until I'm Hoarse

2007-01-18T21:31:00.000-05:00

"I'm singing now because my tear ducts are too tired
and my brain is disconnected but my heart is wired"

Driving home tonight there was nothing else I could do. I cried, I sang, I cried then sang until my throat was raw and I was so hoarse that I actually scared myself -- and it felt good.

Singing woke me up to the fact -- doesn't pop music always reveal the most interesting truths to us? -- that I can't even fathom my capacity for love.

Here's the truth: not that everything happens for a reason -- I really don't think so and I think we use that as a comfort and a crutch (it's a poser) -- but, rather, that people come into our lives very specifically, purposely, and they bring something to us that we need. I don't mean every dot with a pulse and human form we encounter from point A to point B, I mean the select people. The ones who are presented to us offering a gift and it's just up to us to recognize and learn.

I've collected people my whole life. Everywhere I go, like songs that I love and travel with on mixes, cds, and compilations, I find people who speak to me in a way that I don't understand, need to understand, can't understand, or intuitively understand and I bring them with me. I don't run from those connections and I don't try to explain them away -- I embrace them and throw every bit of myself in with no fear of that abyss. And that's where my capacity to love is the most amazing thing I know about myself.

The problem is, I resist the call to let go. I internalize each of the people and intend to carry them forever, even (or especially) at a loss to myself. Loyalty supersedes love for self.

Every almost-regret I've ever had (though I truly have none that stick with me) is in relation to a time that, for an instant, I held something back and didn't tumble over the edge of the rabbit hole of someone else's story to see where mine would go when I floated to the floor. When I was "disloyal" to the call from that person's soul to mine -- when I felt what was right, but rejected it and let reason intervene.

But I know I'm headed in the right direction, because at the lowest point of my entire existence, when I lost the one person who I intended to commit most wholly to, I thought: "This is worth it, I need this; I needed this person to come in, and now I need him to go." To experience loss at that level and know it's for good can't be explained: The moment everything in my life felt like it had imploded into the most unbearable, suffocating hell was the moment I felt the greatest calm. (Don't get me wrong, there have been days and months since then that are filled with such grief and pain that I cannot bear to dwell on the memory of them or stand to live through them when they hit me with the full weight of loss, but, in that first moment, it was okay.)

And, why? Because I collected that person for a reason (for him and for me) and regardless of whether he can never fully realize the potential of what I brought to his life, I can feel every bit of good that he did for mine. Even the negative goods -- the retroactive ways that he showed me so clearly how loyalty is not the same as surrendering my heart in order to save someone else. And with that, like I've felt one thousand times before in the past few months, I am free to honor that connection even though I'm the only one to profit from it.

Last year when my friend was adopting her daughter from China we all shared in the story of the Red Thread -- to me the legend extends beyond those immediate bonds of parent and child or lover and lover -- it means we are soul mates with all those we journey with. Each of us collects our soul mates and carries them with us for reasons we can rarely articulate, but that we truly do know and understand. And when those people go, it's okay.

"it was a brief brilliant miracle dive; that which i looked up to and i clung to for dear life had to burn itself up just to make itself alive"

Astrology, Polarity, and This Full Moon

2007-01-03T21:10:00.000-05:00

Saturday is my first official Polarity Therapy. Sure, I've had energy work before, I mean it's 2007 for christ's sake, who hasn't? Okay, I know, most people haven't, but I have - and it has gone by many names with the guardianship of several extremely talented practicitioners and always been a wonderful experience.

None of these past experiences though, ever made mention outwardly of Polarity. Polarity? On Saturday I'm having actual, full-on, as it's "designed" to be practiced Polarity Therapy. Who knew? This is a whole new level of engagement I never thought I'd reach, but tonight during the first full moon of the new year - after a horrendously humbling yoga class during which my right foot paralyzed and crumbled and cramped and froze and gave out on me for nearly an hour and a half leaving me by the end exhausted, shaking, pained, and exhausted - on this full moon night, this beautifully sullen Cancer wondered out loud, "Can I make an appointment for some energy work." The reply was, "No, Polarity Therapy. How's Saturday?" And like that, I had an official Polarity Therapy appointment.

Oh, joyous Polarity Therapy, with its aura-cleansing, energy-unblocking, broken-heart-healing powers - Saturday won't come soon enough!

Of course, Saturday is his birthday. Figures. My crying beta male's energy will be written all over my unbalanced energy field. I'll stumble into the Polarity Therapy studio more like a flopping fish (a Piscses!) than a scuttling, self-assured crab. The practicioner will scoop me up in her net of powerful calming energy and, an hour later, pour me out on the floor still flopping and no where near balanced or unblocked. All the while I'll be breathing in ohm while breathing out him.

Sad. His polarity to me (Capricorn is to Cancer as Yin is to Yang) will invade my Polarity Therapy. All of this determined on the first full moon of this new year.

Breathing in I am ohm, breathing out I am fish. Flop.