Random Acts of Awesome

Here's the thing about letting yourself need something. It means you're vulnerable to anxiety about its loss. I have pushed away anxiety about loss for a very long time now. I've recently started opening myself back up to it, by allowing myself to have things that I actually need. This is a terrible feeling. Any sort of threat to my need is this unfathomably dark, huge, stressful thing. Even if it's fucking tiny. Even if it's manageable, with just a little bit of intelligence and effort. Even if it's mostly fictitious. Even if I know all that, in my forebrain. None of that matters. The only thing that matters to my brain is the potential for loss. I hate this. I hate being like this. I was listening to a song that, in my youth, I would have drawn comfort from today. It was a song bemoaning the idea of being you. I wish I was young enough to have the luxury of not wanting to be me. Of wanting to be somebody else. But I gave that comfort up along with the will...

There are 3 baby goats in my bedroom right now. In the list of things I never thought I'd say, that's pretty high up there. Other things I never thought I'd say: Stop eating my work computer! STOP SUCKING MY TOES! Oh, thank god, this poop is sticky but not runny. I am hand raising 3 baby goats. Bottle feedings every 6 hours, training, protecting, keeping away from electric wire... They are awfully cute. They follow me around everywhere they can, bleating, hopping, and peeing indiscriminately. They are louder at night. They are currently, at this very moment, trying to eat my sheets. Thank god they can't hop on the bed yet. They'll be going to their permanent home in the barn soon, but for now they only spend half the day there. Between a pit bull who'd like to eat them and a Bull bull who is way too interested in them for my comfort, they stay near me and behind closed doors unless we are in the pasture together. I am... more than a little in shock...

Farm life is preeeetty fucking amazing. I have settled into it like a frigate bird to air, and I am finding myself looking forward to the stretch of 5 years never touching ground. There are aspects of it that terrify me. But they mostly revolve around image. My image of myself as irresponsible, or lonely. Others image of me as Wonder Woman, or nothing. One of the things I love most about nature (which is a vague, giant word for a specific, giant concept) is how it makes a mockery of the self importance of image. When one is shoveling cow shit, or hiking mountains, or sitting on a rock by a remote lake, there's no one there to define yourself by. There's hardly even you, when you're working hard enough. The soothing lullaby of labor combined with the raucous, gentle disregard of the biosphere pulls you away from yourself into a space where you exist next to any other number of creatures and moments that could be you but aren't. It's hard to explain, the dichotomous ...

I am sitting in the atrium, with a fire sparkling merrily in front of me, listening to the rain patter heavily on the plastic roof. The fire is a gas fireplace, something I've always judged as lacking compared to a good wood fire. But this little fire is adorable. And powerful, it its own way. One of the things I love about watching a wood fire burn is the destruction, tangible and compelling. A gas fire lacks the tangible aspect of destruction, but appeals to my mind with its greedy gobbling of invisible particles. Plus, it's warm. And I am naked, covered only in a towel. I ran from the hottub to the atrium through pouring rain. I stopped to revel in it for a moment, overheated skin evaporating freezing little droplets on contact. But that got old quickly, and I ran to start the fire. Today is a luscious day. Physical exertion, sensual imaginings, extremes of sensation. I've been painting my bedroom, peacock blue and unabashed gold. I have missed color that I choose, ins...

How many people have, throughout their lives, felt greatness lurking around the corner? Always just out of reach, both reassuringly distant and tantalizingly close. How many people never quite get to meet their potential, a crush they nurture from afar, easier to watch from a distance rather than engage with in the present... I feel like a teenager. Again. Fucking thirties, man. They suck. They're both a sharp reminder that you're old enough to know better, but young enough to still desperately care. You're dealing with the concept of aging, while simultaneously dealing with the kind of emotional, hormonal shit that drove you insane when you were just hitting your teens. At least I am. I need to get laid. Holy carp, I need to get laid. But, I don't want to get laid. I don't want my comfort to spring from something external to myself. So, it won't. Not that sex is bad, not that comfort is bad. But I will not be dictated to by my sharp needs anymore. I will ...

Traveling was an excellent way to get out of my head. It lifted me out of myself and gave me other, much more interesting things to focus on than the seemingly eternal struggle of consciousness vs bullshit that wages constant battle in my head. Sitting still for any period of time lets that struggle come to the fore, and I hate that. But I am here, and I am happy to be here. I have plans for this place and this moment in time. Plans that don't involve constant movement. So, I need to focus on ways to get out of my head that allow me to sit still for a moment.

I decided that I didn't want to be alone anymore yesterday, so I put an ad up on Craigslist looking for someone to eat sushi and watch Star Wars with. It was a good ad. And I got some great responses. But I woke up at 5:30 this morning, depressed and uncomfortable, thinking about those responses. Thinking about my reaction to emails from men, how I felt compelled to become a different person for each email, responding how I thought they would themselves respond best to. It was a conscious decision, to not be myself, and it felt kind of great. Because it felt like putting on an old suit that you didn't think would fit you anymore but still does and still makes your ass look great. But then you stand there for a while in front of the mirror, looking at yourself in this old outfit, and you remember everything that happened to you in this outfit. You remember why it was so important that your ass look great, because there was certainly nothing else about life that was making you f...