Random Acts of Awesome

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...