learning curve

So, that's how it's done.

senior citizen

Holy Christ...one of the most depressing things just happened. I was out walking Iniki, just a stroll to catch that witchy twilight hour that I don't usually get to see stuck down in the dungeon as I often am. And I see these two youngish (definitely of legal voting age, questionable drinking status) gals walking towards me. They're chattering away and we walk closer and closer to one another and as we are about to pass one another, one of them stops and says...
"Excuse me ma'am...we're looking for (blah blah blah, blah blah blah random party house)" I was aghast...she called me ma'am. Has is truly happened, have I stumbled over that hill of aging into the realm of ma'am-dom? I mean, I guess I'm not so worried if a twelve year old calls me ma'am...but a twenty year old? Fuck that shit.

pure genius

Portishead's Third is the most brilliant piece of music-making I have heard in a really long time. It is pure magic. I love it so much that I would give my virginity to it if I could.

on the table

I have been looking for some change in my work situation for a while. Mostly I just want to get on a day shift because I am mostly over the evening shift thing. It was cool when I was more into the party scene because I could go out all night and sleep in all morning. It was cooler when I only worked four days a week and had more flexibility. But now I feel as though I am missing out a little bit. I want to be able to take an ecodance class or a sewing class or go to a bar and play in a trivia tournament. I want to have weekends off and finally be able to spend Thanksgiving with my family for the first time in like 12 years.
At any rate, I went on an interview recently and went in today for a job offer. It was a good offer, I wouldn't lose any benefits, the vacation time is good, I'll get a bus pass...but I counter-offered for a slightly higher salary. It's the first time I've ever done that, normally I would just take a job. So now comes the waiting game, the woman who would negotiate is on vacation and hopefully she's checking her email. And I'm kinda geeked out because I do want the job. Other than a mild salary increase, the rest of the job looks pretty good. I had to do it though. The worst they can do is say no right?

meine mainfesto

I am who I am and that is somebody with a multitude of facets, some of which are inherently flawed. But if I were a diamond, I would be at minimum a VVS2.
I will not take more than I can give and conversely I will not give more than I can take.
I will find happiness in the mundane, I will find happiness in the extraordinary, I will find happiness.
I will not fit into anybody else's tidy box. I will peer into and appreciate the box somebody else has taken the time to fashion for themself, but I will never cut off my appendages in order to squeeze into the cardboard walls of what somebody else designed.
I will take all of the time I need. I would rather walk through life than race through it because you notice much more. None of it is irrelevant.
I will not expect it to be easy. The greatest rewards and the greatest learning come from having pushed yourself through something difficult.
I will honor my thousand chestnut trees. I am a mirror of the history of my ancestors. I will honor them in order to honor myself.
I will no longer engage in the hubris of thinking that I have surpassed a certain set of ideals. I will recognize that they may not be right for me but I won't look down on them with disdain. Sometimes it really feels okay to be normal and average.
I will allow myself to be a work in process.

take one

Yesterday, as I left the hellhole that is commonly referred to as work by the masses, I walked past this huge container of broken down boxes. As I flitted past I noticed a lone unbroken-down and empty box on top...
First, I was just amazed to have noticed the box because of the sheer volume of shit that it was with...but I stopped dead in my tracks and began to ponder...
What pray-tell had come in this box of Anger & Forgiveness? Why only 120 pieces? Is 120 how many we get over a lifetime or is there an ordering system where you get the 120 automatically shipped to you every two months? Are there 120 separate Angers, 120 separate Forgivenesses for a total of 240? Or do you have to mix and match the two until it adds up to 120? Is there maybe a bulk quantity that can be purchased at Costco or another warehouse supplier? Was there Anger & Forgiveness somewhere in my workplace that I could steal like people often steal office supplies?
All of these questions pummeling my already exhausted brain, but I walked over and really investigated the box. I looked at the recipient address and lo-and-behold...it wasn’t even sent to the hospital. It had been sent to some woman’s home in Redmond. Apparently she brought the empty box to the hospital to dispose of it. Did she not want the recycle man to know she buys her Anger and Forgiveness so she took it someplace else to throw it away like I throw away the shipping boxes from my favorite adult novelty store? Do they maybe have cheaper versions of this product at Amazon? How big exactly was the Anger & Forgiveness? Smaller than a bread basket? Bigger than a playing card? Did this lady keep all 120 for herself or is she planning on giving some of them to other people? Maybe mailing them with her Christmas newsletter at the end of the year?
And then I thought, maybe in keeping with my last blog post...maybe this was another message from the universe. So I took the box home...

can you hear me now?

The universe has been trying to tell me something lately, of that I am quite positive. And I’m trying to hear her, I really am. I give myself quiet time to pseudo-meditate and reflect and open up to the messages cosmically and comically being tossed at me. But I think I need a better service provider with clearer reception cause I am just not breaking the code. Is there a super-secret, hyper-magical decoder ring out there that I get by submitting my proofs-of-purchase of fifteen containers of Ovaltine per chance?

resurrection

Is it possible? Have I survived this mess? Might there be light at the end of the tunnel? Some days it feels like that may be true. Some days it feels like that may be a lie I'm telling myself because you can make anything feel normal, even a prison sentence. But life keeps moving and I am a survivor. I was telling somebody last night that yes we all have problems, and our problems always feel like the biggest and most important problems in the world...but truly, the only thing that will help us is having a positive outlook. So, lie to myself if I must, but dammit I'm getting through this and there will be rainbows.

dali

Sometimes life can feel so fucking surreal I almost begin to question whether or not it is a dream that I am living. So strange but always with the taint of normalcy, the happenstance feeding from the umbilical cord of intention, cloudy with confusion while simultaneously being blinded from the prisms of light bouncing off of what is so clear... The clocks are melting off of the walls into the painted desert sand and I stand in wonder at the beauty of it all. Because it is all beautiful, even when it isn't.

summation

My life feels like a series of cliches,
Not because of wisdom or any objective truth contained in those phrases,
But simply because of the utter sameness of our human condition.

are you experienced?

One of the wonderous things about life is how your experiences can define and redefine almost everything you think you know (though in a hypothetical and philosophical sense, my realization is that we really don't know much). The example of this that has been rampaging through my brain lately has been music. I've been listening to The Beatles for as long as I can remember, I think they might be my first real musical love, a huge leap considering my parents' love of disco and funk when I was a wee thing. And for as long as I have been listening to The Beatles, my favorite song has always been and continues to be Strawberry Fields. I feel like this song has been an old friend, standing beside me throughout my years. I've listened and relistened to this song forever and the other day, on the drive back from my mom's house, I was listening to this song again. My life and experiences up to this point changed the song on this particular listen and it was like I finally heard it for the first time. It was almost overwhelming how the meaning shifted so suddenly and after over twenty years of listening to Strawberry Fields, I have an even bigger attachment to it than I've ever had before. After listening to it possibly thousands of times, the beauty of the song and lyrics touched me in a new way because my experiences are different and now I am different, even if in barely detectable ways.

Let me take you down, cause Im going to
Strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
Its getting hard to be someone, but it all works out
It doesnt matter much to me

Let me take you down, cause Im going to
Strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever

No one, I think, is in my tree
I mean, it must be high or low
That is, you cant, you know, tune in, but its alright
That is, I think its not too bad

Let me take you down, cause Im going to
Strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever

Always, no, sometimes, think its me
But, you know, I know when its a dream
I think, er, no, I mean, er, yes, but its all wrong
That is, I think I disagree

Let me take you down, cause Im going to
Strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever
Strawberry fields forever
Strawberry fields forever

crystal ball

I have often thought that one of my strengths is that I am an intuitive person. I like to think that I do fairly well at reading people and recognizing what it going on with them and how they will act and react. Lately though, I've wondered if that's always a good thing. Feeling like I have some sort of anticipatory power about people and what they will think and do lends itself to not allowing myself to enjoy the mystery and surprises of people and life. It also lends itself to more than a few assumptions. And frankly, when it is one of those things where I predict something not so positive (for myself at any rate), it doesn't necessarily feel good to be correct, even if it's in a small way. But it's a hard thing to let go of, the whole "Well, I certainly called that one" is a powerful force when we're often taught that only right and wrong can exist and who doesn't want to be the one who's right? But I think that the bigger conundrum for me is that sometimes I really want and maybe feel like I need to be proven wrong, I want to be shown that my cynicism is an invention of my imagination. And then when it isn't, I feel disappointed and that's never a good thing. But here I sit, feeling like I was correct about something and wishing I weren't.

dancer in the dark

Last night I went outside to indulge in the one vice I actually wish I didn't have whilst chatting on the phone. My balcony (for the next three days at least) overlooks a busstop. When I opened the door and walked out into the cold and rainy night, I noticed that there was a person with long blonde tresses wearing all black, including black headphones, standing under the busstop. Actually, standing is a misstruth. This tentative voyager was dancing like mad to whatever beat was pulsing through the headphones. He/she (I couldn't really tell) looked up at me as I looked down on zee and a brief moment of eye contact was achieved. The whole time and pretty much until the bus pulled up, this person danced and danced. She/he danced his/her ass off, all swiveling hips and waving arms and bouncing feet...I'm pretty sure zee was listening to the EDM. It was a pretty cool ending to an otherwise pretty unremarkable day.

proofs and theorems

Tying together an amalgamation of loose threads and thoughts...

There is no rebirth without death.
There is no death without pain.
Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice.
We do not suffer alone.

Using basic and most likely flawed high school geometric theorems, we can then postulate that everybody will choose to be reborn. I choose to be reborn as a spidertail monkey. A tail seems much more useful than a healthy soul.

no more ms. nice guy

I've the spent the last few years being immersed in a specific genre of music and had to have the lovely random music selection process of iTunes to remind me that there is a whole wide world of music I love and have loved. Oh you riotgrrls of days yore...with your simple guitar riffs and banging drums bringing back the distant memory of sweaty, slamming bodies and releasing a primal scream that purifies the soul at the exact moment an elbow slams into your face and leaves you bloody. Welcome back, I missed you.

quicksand

Alas, I am still stuck in the mire of feeling sad, though it does get a little bit easier every day, though I'm not terribly sure that getting used to being lonely is a good thing. I'm moved into my new place and getting rid of some things to make way for some new things...with my apartment and with my life. They say that for every year of being in a relationship, it takes half of that time to fully recover...so I guess that means I have like nine months to go. But despite all of that I am trying to have a positive outlook and trying to remember that the pain of it all is all part of the human condition because I know that I don't walk down this road alone.

baggage

I fucking hate moving. That is all.

rights and fights

RAGE AND VENTING TO FOLLOW:
New Year's Eve ended up being awkward...not surprisingly. Though a friend of mine and a friend of (grimace) his thought to ask him not to show up to a certain party we had both planned on attending...he naturally erred on the side of self-interest and came anyway. Our friend however made it clear to him that he should in no way try to communicate or interact with me. Other than a really stupid hello, he managed to comply. And I managed to mostly ignore him, painful as it was. Though at the end there was a little drama. It was inevitable but luckily the "scene" I had anticipated was not as bad as it could have been. And frankly, there were moments when I purposely created awkwardness...just because I could.
So now here I am, feeling like I am exactly where I fucking started not quite two months ago when we first broke up. Because I tried to do the "right" thing. I thought that because our lives were so complicatedly intertwined, if I tried to be friends it would make it easier. I shouldn't have to give up the life I had before he and I were a we and dammit I was ready to take my life back, I NEEDED to take my life back. I thought that our working towards a friendship would make that easier. But all that happened was that I ended up feeling so fucking hurt. Again.
But dammit if there aren't pools of conflicting emotions swirling inside of me still. If there aren't still feelings of pure unadulterated sadness for not having him in my life. Even knowing that he should be stripped away like a malignant life-sucking cancer eating at my flesh...I still...miss him. Even knowing that the best thing for me right now is to acknowledge that he doesn't deserve anything from me, that I've lost so much respect for him now, that he believes himself to be somebody but all of his actions recently indicate that to be so fucking untrue...and to base my decisions on those feelings and not the others.
I know, I know. It's a hard road to walk down and things will get better, and I'm going to learn and grow and be a much better person. AND AND AND...
Seriously though, can't somebody just point me down the easy road, cause the other right one is just not the one I want to take anymore. The people who hop on the crazy train and do stupid, bitter, dramatic things to their exes seem to get a lot more satisfaction. I'm willing to go Jerry Springer y'all. I'm tired of being the better person doing the right thing. It's getting me nowhere except back where I started.

sucker punch

Well, the ex-boy decided that he was ready enough to move on and slept with somebody who I thought was a friend of mine as well...I guess I was wrong. According the reports from the front line, she initiated it and he was drunk, not that that really matters. Nor does it really matter that she's seemingly worked her way through multiple people in Idaho and the rest of the northwest who've put needle to record, including several of his friends.
Frankly, I'm furious...I am a raging inferno of white hot heat. Not because he moved on first, though that is always hard to witness, but because of the mixed signals he had been giving me. Because, according to a little hearsay, he didn't know what his intentions with me were, he just knew that it felt good to hang out with me but he couldn't be celibate forever. And because he actually had the fucking nerve to call me later that night, after he had slept with somebody else, to chat. And because he's a selfish, self-centered, self-indulgent, emotionally crippled human being who I let hurt me for far too long. I thought I would try and be a better person and try to be his friend. I thought that doing that would break me out of a cycle of removing people from my life and running away from the hurt. But sometimes, some things really are for the best. Because even in the end, he wanted the best of me...in whatever form that was...while he went out and did whatever would please himself. Now I'm completely letting him go, I want nothing to do with him any longer...he won't get the best of me or the worst of me or any of me.

plummeting

I had the most intense and amazing dream not too long ago. In this dream, I was driving around in my car with the ex-boy. We were just driving and talking. But for some reason, my driving was erratic and I could barely control the car. At some point, the car started to veer off of the road and tumbled off of a cliff. After the car went off of the edge, I was no longer in the car. I was free-falling, at an amazingly quick velocity, the ragged walls of the cliff were flying past and I was scared. I screamed and cried and thought I was going to die, but I wasn't ready...I knew that I wasn't ready to die. So then I started to lucidly dream and I remember telling myself that I didn't have to be scared that I was falling...I didn't have to be afraid. And then the dream changed. Yes, I was still falling...but I wasn't afraid to fall anymore. And I fell! I fell down through that huge canyon, I fell down through the center of the world, I fell down through other worlds and bodies of waters and finally stopped somewhere else. I can only describe that place as feeling as close to heaven as I have ever felt. Once I stopped falling, in this amazing place, I just floated. Floated with all this love and light surrounding me and I felt like I didn't have to be afraid, I didn't have to be scared, I didn't have to be anything...I just had to let myself be. It was incredible. It was one of those dreams that you wish you didn't have to wake up from...