Random Acts of Awesome

You can tell a lot about a place Observing its relationships with clouds. A village wears hers like a birthday shawl, A city wears hers like a shroud. The clouds above an empty plain Always seem rather sullen, As if there's not enough to see or do And they'd rather be above an ocean. Now the clouds above the ocean Have a playful, mysterious air Like a pregnant wife with a worried husband, She's got a secret she's unwilling to share. I wrapped myself in a veil of dreams And let the sun melt them into my skin, Leaving behind a slick layer of happy Drowning in memories Gasping for air Seduced by the deep Crawling for the surface Reveling in the journey Through the past. Walking along the edge Arms opened wide Fingers trailing sparks Through the midnight air Head thrown back in joyous exaltation Belly trembling with fear Not knowing the destination Breathlessly waiting for the fall.

If you won the lottery tonight? I don't think about winning the lottery very often, because it's the type of escapism that's incredibly easy for me to fall into. I start thinking about it, I start feeling like I've won it, and then I don't and I get sad. That's just silly. But sometimes... Sometimes it's incredibly helpful to think about what I would do with a shitton of money. Like today. I've had a stress headache since Monday, based on an absolute inability to grieve openly and a complete lack of sanctuary. My home is not mine at the moment, nor is my room, nor my mind. And since none of these factors are actually out of my control, are instead repercussions of decisions I've made and continue to make, my body has decided to punish me. And keep punishing me till I fucking nut up and take care of myself. I'm not allowing myself to distract me from the decisions with the wonderful hormones released by sex and socializing, the way I always

When you kiss someone, does it not sometimes feel like you're kissing yourself? That you're looking down at your face as they lower or raise their lips to yours. Seeing every imperfection with a grimace, wanting to smooth your eyebrows, widen your eyes, lower your nose, straighten your teeth. Do you look at yourself with half the admiration your lover does, as they memorize every imperfect feature you hate? I think about the times I look in the mirror and wince, and I can't imagine another not doing the same. I can't imagine a lover seeing my flaws and loving them as much as I hate them. There are facets of me I love wholeheartedly. But there are more parts I don't deem worthy. How sad for those parts.

So fucking selfish. It probably seems like I'm a whole lot of down on myself in this blog. I write out all these epiphanies where I realize I've been an asshole about something or other for most of my life, and I castigate myself for being a dick. But that's not who I am in day to day life. I like myself, mayhap a bit too much. I expect the best of myself, I see myself through rose colored glasses, and it takes a whole lot of thinking to get me to admit to myself that there are things genuinely wrong with me. It feels like my 30s have been all about figuring out what's genuinely wrong with me. I'm kind of ok with that. I spent my 20s figuring out what was right, so I'm hoping I'll spend my 40s just being happy. After about 3 years of constant thinking (I'm not kidding. This has taken me 3 years. It's pathetic) about the friendships I've lost over the years, I've come to the conclusion that I was just a goddamn horrible friend. I had my

When I was young, I'd dream of escaping inside myself. I folded my arms around my heart and curved my body down. I dreamt of being a cocoon, invisible on the outside, but with a rich internal life. I can't tell you how many moments those images got me through. Every level of emotional trauma was met with this idea of escaping inside myself. It was comforting and warm, the ability to curl away from any danger, any damage. But the older I get, the more I dream of spreading my wings and flying away. I know longer see myself folding inwards when threatened. I see myself throwing wide my arms and dancing. I throw a coat of joy on over my vulnerable parts, I feel fire licking up my limbs and eating away at any danger that comes near, I feel power now. A power that my cocoon never had. I rarely feel the desire to hide away anymore, to protect my soft parts with my arms and back. I don't know where this power came from, but I'm grateful to it.

It is so very hard to see yourself through the eyes of people who think they know you. It’s like looking through a prism, or a muddy window. You know what you SHOULD be seeing, the landscape you’ve viewed every day for most of your life. You think you know the heights and the valleys, the sunshine and the darkness that you’re composed of. And then you see yourself through the eyes of family. Of people who need you to be what they think you are. And the hills and valleys, the light and dark, become a foreign landscape. That tree didn’t used to be so tall, that stream was 5ft to the left last time you looked. Your mind tries to make sense of what it’s seeing, scrambling to keep up with the changes, to provide reason and context for them. It pulls from a stagnant reservoir, 10 years untouched, of memory and sensation. And, finally, you have this new view of yourself. You look in the mirror and you see what they see. But it’s muddled and confusing. It’s terrifying, like looking in a funh

I'm sitting outside a little cafe in Lexington MA, drinking coffee and trying to reconnect to a sense of nostalgia. It hasn't been happening much this trip. Normally when I visit my past, I fall right into it. Wallowing, one might say, in the memories ands emotions of my youth. Its fun, but its also incredibly draining and unhealthy. That wallowing coats all my experiences with a sense of Not Quite Good Enough. Nothing ever feels as deep and intense as the emotions of your past. So, it leads to an intense sense of dissatisfaction. This trip, though, has been marked by clear eyed pragmatism. Mostly. I AM sitting outside the coffee shop where I met Michael for my first date. Michael, my forbidden boyfriend when I was 21, and he was 42. So, a little, teeny touch of nostalgia. But its not doing much for me. In an obvious attempt to make my heart beat faster, fate stuck a black lab on the sidewalk next to me, owned by a bearded Frenchman who looks disturbingly like Michael. When

I don't want you to be a mystery. I want you to be an open book. I want to rifle through your pages, licking my thumb to provide traction on the sticky ones. I want to write in your margins. Sometimes in pencil. Sometimes in ink. I want to highlight passages I love. Ones that made me cry, made me laugh, made me think. I want to dog ear your pages. I want to open you up and smile at your scent, with its gift of memories and time. I want to be careful not to break your spine. But I'm probably going to do it anyways, given enough time. I want to duct tape your cover when it starts to fall apart on me. I want to read you again and again, until I can recite passages of you word for word. I want to forget your ending. I want to take you to my favorite coffee shop, sit in a sunny corner with you, put you on my lap, and stare at you. I want to discover new things every time I read you. I want to fall into you when I'm sad, dive into you when I'm happ

I went on a date on Friday night that got me thinking about the (seeming) correlation between height and morality. It's a fascinating thought process to me, trying to dig into the physical aspects of what makes people act the way they do. And a pretty consistent variable I've noticed is that the taller a guy is, the more... morally flexible he is. It sounds horrible. I'm not saying that tall guys are sociopaths, or that all tall guys are morally bankrupt, or even morally compromised. But certain factors just keep popping up for me, and I'm trying to figure them out. So, this guy the other night was 6'5. A tall, slender, very handsome Caucasian male, successful business man, well traveled, cultured, and relatively wealthy. We met when I put an extremely quirky ad on CL, on a complete whim, composed entirely of Tom Waits lyrics. He responded with a lyric riddled email, and we were off. In his initial emails, he was very open about the fact that he was recently s

A Hymn Of Praise To Death Beautiful Death! I sing thee as one has sung Whose song like mine from the depths of his being was wrung; I sing thee as I have seen thee behind the cloud Which folds thee from hourly sight as a corpse in its shroud; I sing thee, veiled one, because of thy face, unknown To many, the beauty benignant to me has been shown. Angel of change and of progress, Angel of peace, Who bringest God's order in time for the soul's release; Shadowy presence that turning Love's day to night Gives us a glimpse of the starry infinite Angel of Hope and Revealing, God's minister, Silent and secret in service that knows not to err; Though from their side thou hast taken the life of their life, Folded in sleep, there have been who have rested from strife, Yielded their all at the last to thy tenderer care, Sought not a word or a sign of farewell for their share; Followed thee, gentle one, gone with thee into the night, Followed thee, holy one, come

There is a loadstone hidden in my belly, way down deep. Muffled under layers of fat and unease, wrapped around tight with false comfort and ridiculous needs. It burns hot and bright underneath those layers, though. And it pulls, always pulls, magnetic due happy. It jerks me about like a marionette on broken strings, lifting a leg here and an arm there, never in sync. But always, always forward. I can feel it burning its way up under my breastbone now. I think it was startled into action by the knowledge that this sort of life is actually possible. The kind of life it never believed in. The kind of life that kills you slowly through boredom and ephemeral depth. It sneaks up on you like hypothermia, this slow death life. It lulls you to sleep in the pillowy snow bank, lying to you about warmth and comfort, convincing you that the effort required to get up and BE just isn't necessary. Look! You can be right here, with this second choice life! It's enough, it's enough. It

Watching a young, mentally unstable homeless woman interacting with a phonebooth, and I can almost feel her fear. It's disconcerting, watching her bang at the change slot multiple times, like the harder she flips it the more likely it is to produce spare change. Now she's given up at that, and has instead picked up the phone itself and is cradling it to her ear, pretending to talk into it. It's so obviously a connection to reality for her, and it's bringing tears to my eyes, this need of hers to have someone to call. She's huddled in on herself, trying to ignore the people passing by and staring at her. She's close enough that I can hear her when she speaks, but she's just muttering unintelligiblely and sporadically. I want to invite her to come sit next to me, to feel safe for a minute. But this isn't the kind of fear that would go away with the temporary illusion of safety. I can feel it building up in myself, the more I watch her. I can feel her b

Strength is a weird thing. By definition, it's solid. In reality, it's ephemeral. For me, at least. I've been thinking about my own strength a lot lately. It seems to come and go so quickly. Both physical and mental strength. There are times when I'm a freaking powerhouse, with limitless potential. I can feel the excess energy coursing through my blood, and my muscles can grab on to it and put it to good use. And then there are times when I'm empty, my blood is a sluggish river with no currents to push it along. It's infuriating, honestly. And my mental strength comes and goes just as easily. At times, my brain is firing on all cylinders. I'm CRACKLING with energy and power, and words and deeds flow out of me effortlessly. And then they don't. The river analogy works too well here. When I'm off, it feels exactly like I'm trying to work my way up and out of a river of molasses. Sluggish and heavy, I pull myself along against the flow, tr

Man, I am craving a banana split sundae in the WORST WAY right now. It's all I can think about. Which is weird. Because I don't actually like banana split sundaes. Never have. I was always a plain and simple chocolate fudge sundae fan, no nuts, no jimmies. Just a whole lot of fudge, maybe some whip cream, and a cherry on top. I remember going out for ice cream when we were kids, and it was a big fucking deal. 5 kids, broke, cheap parents... it meant that ice cream was a treat the likes of which I don't really get anymore. You know the kind. The treat that you value so deeply because of it's scarcity, the kind you savor for as long as possible. There are very few things I desperately want that I can't easily get anymore. That's an odd thought. I'm not wealthy (LORD, I'm not wealthy). But I really can't think of anything that I feel the same way as I used to feel about an ice cream sundae. And that makes me kind of sad. I loved the savoring of a tre

Ok, here we go. Writing out the negative is important, but doing something about it is much, much more so. So, here's the plan. First off, push back my travel till the first of October. I already spoke to the woman I'd be renting the house in Costa Rica from, and she's fine with me pushing my dates back. I'll give her a deposit on the house, and we're good. Talk to Trevor about options. What I'd prefer: We rent out the basement. Move out of it after my brother moves in with Callie, Sept 1st, and move into the bedroom upstairs. $600 a month for the space downstairs, $550 for the upstairs. He's there for 3 months while I'm traveling, then moves when I come back. Gives him 3 months of cheap rent to save. Cats. I've already got ads up on Craigslist for 2 of them. Sitha is going back to Jake, and I'm going to ask him to take care of Lucious while I'm gone. That leaves Cloud and Rufus at the house, much more manageable. My bonus comes in S

I've known, for a very long time, that I'm particularly vulnerable to manipulation. I'm sure part of it comes from growing up deeply immersed in an extraordinarily manipulative religion. And part of it comes from my own manipulativeness. We are always weakest right behind our biggest strengths. I manipulate the shit out of people, mostly in an effort to make them happier and healthier (I comfort myself with...), but it means that I'm prone to be drawn to other manipulative folks. Who do not have my best interest at heart, but rather their own. (That begs the question if I actually have the best interests of others at heart when I manipulate them, or if I'm just creating a world that is in my own best interest, of course) So, knowing that I'm vulnerable, knowing that I'm drawn to these people, doesn't make much of a difference in avoiding them. Or at least, it hasn't so far. Every person I've ever loved, every person I've ever let myself get

I've still got the "Holy SHIT, Universe" vibe going on, but it's mellowed out a little bit. I bought plane tickets to Phoenix and back for the 19th through the 21st, and reserved a car rental. I've talked to Peter, and am staying at the house, in the master bedroom suite I'd be renting. Checking the place out before packing up my shit and driving halfway across the country seemed like a good idea, even though it cuts pretty deeply into my moving budget. I've also decided to keep the apartment in PDX for now. It's cheap-ish rent, and it's a safety line. Part of me wants to cut that line completely and just free fall, but the other part of me realizes that I fucking LOVE Portland and I'm about to try and move to the desert. The exact opposite climate of what I've been living in and loving on for the past 12 years. So, a nice little line back to sanity if I need it sounds like the adult thing to do. I keep going back and forth on this, tell

Ugh. I'm nervous. Normally, I'm more than a little superstitious about writing about things that haven't happened yet, but might happen soon. Writing them out, I feel, makes them less likely to happen. But this? I'm a weltering morass of nervousness and giddyness, and I want to write about it. See, all the things that I wrote out, about what I want? They're all possibly coming to fruition in a couple of months. Every. Single. One of them. I was randomly poking around Craigslist in Arizona, looking at places for rent in spots that I've found beautiful (I do this regularly, all over the world. You never know what you're going to find). And I found an ad that made me gasp. It hit me, right in my head and my heart. It was written by a 78 year old farmer/scientist (RIGHT???) who was looking for someone to rent some space from him in his house or on his property. But he didn't just want someone to rent space from him. He wanted someone to contribute to w

Man, this stupid bullshit drama saga just keeps going. I've been writing these posts to myself for months, and very little has changed. Have no fear, self, that's about to change. So, the worst thing about being stupid is the need to hide your stupidity from others. When this being stupid involves a man (or woman, or whatever form of sexual interest you choose) in your life, someone who's there all the time, the need to hide your stupidity evolves into isolation. It can't not. If you're going to hide how fucking dumb your life is right now due to this person, you kind of have to hide most of your life. Moments that you don't want to talk about start getting bigger, turning into days, and then weeks that you don't want to talk about. You complain once or twice, you vent to people you trust. And then things don't change, and you feel a little stupider venting the next time. And the time after that is even worse. Very quickly, you stop venting. Because a

Something to remember. A very important something to remember. Any man, any person, who encourages your weakness is a weak person. If they need to be better than you, it is because you are better than them. If they see the best parts of you, and they need to bring them down to their level, it is because their level is far below yours. It's not a matter of pride, or class, or money, or intelligence. It's a matter of strength, whatever that means to you. If you can not be stronger than your partner sometimes, if you can not be stronger than your friends, if they can't bear to see that strength inside of you without trying to tear you down just a little bit, think about what that means. And if you get a little thrill from my words, a little sense of righteous smugness... "I knew she couldn't be that good". Think about what that means. My honesty isn't for you. It's for me. It's to remind me to never be that weak again. It's to acknowledge

It's been a long time since I felt like this. I used to have this habit of hope. It was a big habit. It took up a lot of my life. It was a longing for potential, and a sense of absolutely limitless desire and reality. I dreamed big, about a million different things. I had a sense of who I was, and it was huge. I was a teacher, a gardener, a piano player, a consort, a wealthy lady, a zoologist, a marine scientist. I would save the world, I would save my part of the world, I would save you, I would save me. This hope lasted well beyond my youth. It pushed me out of my family, out of the safety of my tiny little existence, out of the surety of my religion. It pushed me beyond incredibly strong barriers designed to limit my hope to safety, dictated by others. It kept me from falling in love, because I hoped to be able to have a better love than I was capable of some day. And then, my hope stopped. It hit the boundaries of my own frailty, and it crumbled. I had never realized how very

There's a woman who works in the building my office is in. She works the front desk of the building, and I've considered her a friend for years now, almost as long as we've been in that building. We both worked odd shifts, and I'd always stop by the front desk before going home, chatting for a bit. Since I work regular hours now, and mostly from home, I don't see her nearly as often. But I still make it a point to stop by and talk whenever I'm in the building. Last night was one of those times. We got to talking about her job, about the good and the bad parts of it. The whole time we're talking, we're constantly getting interrupted. Manual laborers needing access to various parts of the building, business men and women in expensive suits, stopping to say hello and ask for a favor. It's her job to know these people, to smile and nod and remember names and be respectful. It's not a very difficult job, but it requires very specific skillsets, whic

It bothers me, looking back over old posts, how rarely I write about the dark reality when it's happening. I do write about it, but only after. After I'm happy again, after I've got my feet back under me, after I've re-found my strength and am able to pretend again that the darkness that just swept me under and rolled me over a gritty shore doesn't really exist inside me. When I have my reason back, it's ok to write about things that are so unreasonable. Even now, after thinking about this for weeks, today is the first day I'm able to write about it. Because today coffee tastes good again, and sunshine feels life giving again, and I can think happy thoughts without them being immediately obsfucated by that dark reality again. Not writing about it when it happens is, I think, a way of pretending it doesn't happen. I'm very, very good at forgetting things. I forget endings to books that I love, no matter how many times I read them, so that every r

I just stood on the beach for an hour and watched lines of pelicans skim the heavy waves like they were parting cream from milk. It was incredibly mesmerizing. They were so slow, and perfectly synchronized. The leader would begin to dip, and just before he disappeared behind a white tipped wave the last in line would gracefully follow. Then back up out of the trough, each pelican a rollercoaster cart rolling behind the first. It almost made me cry out of sheer jealousy. I wanted to know what they were feeling so badly, and imagination can only take us so far. I tried to imagine the chaos of the wind skimming the waves, the sudden wells of silence within the trough of each wave, following the heavy body in front of me with perfectly instinctive rhythm, the sunlight warm on my back and glittering off the water, obscuring my view of the food below till the last possible second, the sudden shocking cold against my tongue, the blind hope that this time something slippery and wriggling woul

I have this weird... fear, for lack of a better word, of charity. Not of receiving it, but of giving it. I woke up this morning with this idea in my head. I was going to make a ton of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, buy a couple bags of oranges, and I was going to go downtown and distribute them under the bridge. A part of that was me thinking about what Memorial Day means to me. I'm not remotely patriotic. But I believe a society has a responsibility to take care of those it puts in harms way. And the number of Vets living under the bridges in downtown Portland is testament to our absolute unwillingness to do so. Giving a grown man a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an orange isn't much in the way of thank you, but it's a start. The other part of it was the fact that I think about doing this all the time. Making a couple pots of chili, some rice, putting it in the back of my car, and distributing it on paper plates at night, downtown. Rice and beans, mashed pota