Baobab

My dad and I walked along the beach one evening, and came to a large crevice along the twenty foot high break-wall. On top of this crevice was perched a tree; precariously perched, as this tree had nothing solid to grab onto directly underneath it. The tree, somehow, had grown so that its root section was split into two parts; one part reached to the north, and attached itself to the north side of the crevice, and the other part reached to the south, attaching itself to the southern side of the crevice. The bottom of this tree was like a gigantic moustache reaching out to establish itself atop the break-wall, crevice be damned.

My dad looked at the tree, and saw desperation.

I looked at the tree, and saw unmeasurable strength and determination. A true and unfailing representation of the logos. What we are given is this body, (a corpse really,) the ability to breathe the air, drink, eat. What we choose to do beyond these things is entirely our choosing. Fallen trees accept each other, but growth is what they long for.

Wait, I Saw You Lookin

Rar?
I was supposed to look "tough guy" in this but I suppose it's more sleepy and crankshank than anything. Oh well!
This is the face I make when folks crawfish the Emily. Ima popeye your ass, lemme reach for my spinach. Hah hah. Painfully not scary, huh? THAT'S WHEN I STRIKE.

So Oberlin Votes is going ok, and Ken is wankering about with the requisite amount of wankering. Soon I'll be a member of the Oberlin Chapter of the League of Women Voters. Crop walk is just around the corner and I'm working on getting sponsors. It feels nice to be aware of something larger, I'm trying to keep my focus on leaving the world a better place than it was when I came in. Yoga for my mind and body, working towards a balance between inward attention and outward attention.

Anne is my hero in this regard.

Calm and eager to put others first, but fierce in the understanding and refining of her beliefs. Fake people like Heib and Erin seek her realness like a moth to a flame. Suffice to say that I'm excited to begin work with her.

Here I come, Pacific NW! Are you ready?? (cause I am.)

Cinderella Gonna Ride To Die

She was talking to me again this morning about her feelings of disillusion within her marriage. Sounds like it's been a rough week in the Geist household. She said, "I almost want to tell you girls to not even bother with getting married," (she lumps me together with her daughters, I think, which is actually kind of really endearing.) "I would say that it's not even worth it, but I wouldn't want you to be alone for your whole life, either, so I guess it's not completely not worth it."

So we take out the loan against our future and think we're getting a really good, low interest rate, just have to keep paying it down and down until we finally own our happiness, when all of a sudden you're eighty and you realize you never even made a dent in the principal, that you spent your entire life picking up socks and mopping floors and rushing home to get dinner in the oven and raising the kids and not having orgasms and you were never once appreciated. Adult boys in too big bodies with no idea how to go about being caring, let alone accepting women as equal, aging mothers looking desperately for something to nurture, having no idea how to nurture themselves. They whither, whither, and whither, and play games with each other, hoping desperately that one day it'll work; that they'll see, reflected back in the eyes of their unadoring spouse, the person that they have been too afraid to be for themself.

We have got to be so incredibly selfish to get through life with any of the shiny green stuff inside of us left. It doesn't matter what other people think. You keep searching for the right group of people until you find the ones that don't have to drink every night to numb their unhappiness, don't have to make you feel bad in order to make themselves feel good, know how to give you the compassion and loving kindness that you deserve. They're out there, just stop settling. There is a world of difference between being alone, and being lonely.

The Little D

1. A change of circumstance of any kind (a change from one state to another) produces a loss of some kind (the stage changed from) which will produce a grief reaction.
2. The intensity of the grief reaction is a function of how the change-produced loss is perceived. If the loss is not perceived as significant, the grief reaction will be minimal or barely felt.

Human beings are interesting creatures. Evolution doesn't work exactly as I have always understood it; there are still so many unexplained and seemingly unpurposeful reactions, emotions, and sequences that should have fallen to the evolutionary wayside. Grief, for example. What is the purpose of this process? Shock, emotional break-down, panic, anger, guilt, depression. But as I think about it, I remember what Pat Krafcik used to say:

"I am going through something now that is hard, and seems near unbearable, but I will emerge, and when I do I'll be stronger and closer to myself than I was when I began."

The fifth stage of grief is acceptance. I've been oscillating between the fourth and fifth stages for the last two weeks or so; anger and acceptance. Anger feels good, sad to say, but acceptance feels better. Onward! As dad would (probably now) say, "Come on, pooch. We've got a long way to go before we're through, and a man to kill once we get there." Figuratively of course.

Oh and for those of yall possibly keeping score that I will forget to tell this to later, Jeff is still kind of fronting I think, or else he's just sort of really inept, or else something, hell, I don't know. He just stopped in here and I made a point to not get up to sign for the box, but he came over to my desk anyway and asked to see my tattoo again. He put his face all up close to it, yuck. And he was still hawking his services. It's kind of just really gross and sad at this point, and I wish we could get to the "awkwardly distant" phase of things, where we just sort of half-heartedly wave at each other through the glass. Of course this is not something that I'll need to worry about after Friday. OH, SWEET, SWEET FRIDAY! I should probably start work on cleaning this place out... and by that I mean of course stealing all the good pens and notebooks and stuff. Kidding, kidding. It's not stealing when you earned it cause the man dont pay yous enough!! hahaha. Well on my way to the miner forty-nizzine.

Sleepy Time Now Yall

I'm not really so jaded as all that (see below.) The examples of Libby and Mike and Anne and Pat give me hope that I'll find truth and happiness with a mate as well. It's just that I'm filled with skepticism and trepidation.

Scar tissue...

Oh For The Love Of

When people try to set me up with their buddy's buddy who just moved back to town, or the guy who did the wood carving in their yard last summer, or the organist from church, or the new guy at the bank, what I want to tell them is that, yes, I believe that there is someone out there for everyone. And that the great thing is that we were all born with this person! So it's pretty damn easy to find them, but the amazing thing is the sheer number of people who go around looking for this person everywhere but where they should be looking.

Hello America! Another person does not complete you! Only you can complete you! Despite what those Budweiser ads keep telling you!

The Truth About M-L-E

So I'm 25 now, and it's incredibly odd to say that. I feel like there should be some amount of gravity with it, but it's just not there. "I'm twenty-five." Nope. Nothin'. Yesterday afternoon when I was walking home from work I realized that I'm a 10 year old boy trapped inside a 25 year old woman's body. What a preposterous combination! It's true, though. Two of my favorite people are Houston, and Jared. Houston is in the third grade, and is the son of Pam (the receptionist here,) and Jared just began pre-school and is the son of Cathy (a bus driver.) They're both in the office a lot, and both their moms always tell me that they say they think I'm "the coolest." We play spiderman and find the robot and sneak-around-the-corner and who's-the-bigger-tough-guy. I think the reason that I have a hard time connecting with people is that I have too much hesitation in just asking them if they want to play who's-the-bigger-tough-guy. That's who I am, I'm more like Satchel than Bucky, more like the Little Kitty than Etienne. Ten year-old hungrily trying to find a place in the too-big world, eager to be nice to all the other ten-year olds.

And apparently Jared's mom told him about my new job, because this morning when he came in, he marched over to my desk, looked up at me with his huge ass blue eyes, frowned, and said, "why are you leaving us?" I opened my mouth, but there weren't any words brave enough to escape.

I can hardly bear the beauty of this world!

Farewell, Old Friend.

Autumn quietness like a blanket around my middle this night, the walk back home. Endless comfort in the death and decay, autumn is the funeral house of the seasons. With a nod to the flourishing green just past we wait with trained patience through the decline, and then -- new life.

Spring will always come.

This year my life mimicks nature so closely, and there is much comfort to be found in this statement. We must do the requisite cleaning up once autumn's death has had its say; there are leaves to rake and gardens to till over. Only after this work has been done can we step with sure feet out of this autumnal shroud, and give ourselves completely and confidently to the new life that spring carries upon its heels. My hand releases from your grip and I

fade

to



light.

What The Helen Of Troy

Larry Strong is my hero.

"You're a good person, and you deserve it. Good people, if they can be patient enough, always end up where they should be."

And he offered to give me a letter of recommendation. Sometimes the kindness of the random people in our lives is too much! This morning Trapper called me first thing just to wish me a happy birthday. Good karma just keeps circulating, dogged in its determination to return itself to each of us.

Oh! And I've been wearing my new black leather knee high boots all day, and my feet are snug as a bug in a rug! Today is too cool for school.

Like 3 The Hard Way

wait a minute while i bust this,
there's a big loop-hole in justice...
in the search for truth i go a lot of ways,
there's not a lot of peace
that I find these days...

Yes yes, Mike D. is my hero.
I'm feeling strong, see,
trust myself, G,
oh wait, that's MCA.
Cause every day I write the book down line by line.

Ken Stanley is straight crazy,
and he forces you to make small talk with nervous yet out-going young programmers, but secretly it's fascinating. It's so good to get involved in this town, even if at times it seems like nonsense. Touching lives, hearing stories, tapping into this eccentric energy that is Oberlin.

and so i kick the level up,
cuhootnified, i'm mackadocious vibes positively fortified.

yeah, i have ill communication on the big speakers.

You can't dis me, it ain't worth it, b
You put yourself down and you don't even see
Cause I don't play that, I know who I am
For a minute I didn't but now I'm back again
You turn your nose up, you think you're high up
you play it real safe and now your shit's fake
I seen you hawking and then you clock my style
And then you try to play it off like you think you're wild

Someday ima have Beastie Boys lyrics tattooed across my abs. Or maybe I'll just have "GEEK LIFE" ala Tupac. At any rate, it's difficult to get motivated for a job that won't be my responsibility after this week. Although my version of slacking is still painfully Jurgis-esque in its work ethic. And so, Amelia made contact today, and that was nice. She is effervescent and doesn't make apologies for being herself. From what I can tell. Eager to be friends. We will see where this goes....

U Turn

breathing you in I feel
complete --
complete.
purposeful.
whole.
amazed at what life has to offer.
i breathe you in again and again
inhale



inha--



exhale.
a thousand times and still it's not enough --
who knew how quickly things could change,
how sure I could be of things,
of this,
of me,
of

everything.
riding this rollercoaster still,
and,
no mistake,
but the highs begin to take me higher,
and the lows
well.
the lows are not so unfathomable.
how could anyone be...
an island on their own,
inside i feel something i haven't felt in an unmarked amount of time.
depth - passion - importance

loving kindness.
and not the type that would
wait only for the happiness
but would
take you on its back when you were too weak to walk
too weak to walk,
and even after,
see the ocean in my returned gaze.
little death happens every day and so subtley,
so subtley that one not even need take notice.
until
years later,
you wake to find your limbs chilled with despair
face pale
eyes hollow,
and then something remarkable happens.
you rise from this ignominious state,
reclaim what was yours and

begin to put the pieces back into place.
the death-grip is strong
and it takes a fierce warrior to find release,
but my clan has produced some of the fiercest.
warm flesh replaces the death and decay
slowly,
and though it rattles the entire foundation,
there is only one word echoing in your mind, the gift of the russians,
Onward.

That I would have found you along this shakey and dangerous trek
is an unexpected gift,
a gift,
a.
gift.

breathing you in I feel
at home.

Whirrrrr

My body is a graveyard of the past; saddnesses and fears piled up like cord wood, tucked under mountians of hurriedness, hesitation. My heart feels strained, my breath shallow. I walked among the tombs early this morning, and felt convulsive beauty stronger than what I've felt in a long, long time. My breath marked the path before me.

A low sound in unison, a deep longing, something so dear to me has been buried here, how could I have possibly not been here before? There have been countless diversions and yet the headstones wait, paitently, to hear their eulogies. Have I been this close before? Is this just another diversion? Something rumbles in my chest, and my eyes spill over, but these tears feel different than the others that have seemed so unceasing of late; these are cold as ice, and don't taste salty, and there is some unmeasured amount of beauty in the flowing. There is no connection to grief with these tears, just the new life that water catalyzes. There is a smile on my lips, however fleeting, and I remember what hope is.

The stirring in my chest subsides, and the tears dry, and I begin my task up and down the rows of so many sepulchers, placing my lips to each name, and asking, softly, "rise, you dead. Construction begins erelong and this will become a place for the living."

A place for the living.

Upside Down And Inside Out.

Intestines: tense and
like a knot, right through me.
Tied in a knot and it never loosens.

Head: temples throbbing,
salt water good
for cleansing.

It's a wild night tonight.
Street full of
branches and stones.

Pale half-light of the street lamps
so harsh, just to illuminate this
cutting world.

My wish:
that you would have found your own reason to call.
feeling like
everything that i thought i knew is wrong.
cheap and
worst of all,
worthless.
This I am working on.

O snail
climb mount fuji,
my heart stops when you do.

I Want A Remote For My B-Day.

There is a yoga studio in town, and the classes are an hour and a half and affordable, sweet sweet. There's a "fundamentals" class tomorrow morning that I think I'll go to, supposedly they teach Iyengar style, which is delightful to my ears. Stretch stretch stretch. Yoga makes your organs feel better.

Today I was honest with Diane about why I took yesterday off, we talked about grief, and bits and pieces of other things, and it was like she was really trying to be compassionate towards me. Not that she is normally uncompassionate, but... distant. It was so endearing.

"You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it does."

Sending my strength to Chuck Thundercats style, to help get through this weekend...

Word On A Gravestone

heart; exploding, singing out -- crying
like a
buidling falling in on itself

the supports once so
sturdy
out of sight, out of sight, out of
mind.
out of my mind. (?)

when you reach out, they tell you,
into the darkness,
there will be a hand there to meet your hand,
a guide to meet your recklessness,
something,
anything.

question after scornful question like
when did two and two become five,
when did..
my eyes glass over.
that he who would shine closer by.
when did,
why did i never recieve an invitation
to go dancing,
why was i never enough,
never enough.
the light in my core,
cold and hollow, flickers for an instant
like death.
bloated fish floating on an icy river,
kholibri tells you that
even before the asking
even before
the questions have been answered.

a gushing and
feeling foolish / scared / terrified
who is it,
eyes blue with
shining tears as yours are
blue blue like the tundra,
the warmest of places is that
that one who never lets you down
takes your
fears and second-guessing
mistakes
always willing to begin anew,
takes you for your weaknesses and insecurities
takes you for the fact that you are a human being,
who is it...
anne
thank you for being
you
thank you for that
note you sent that i continue to go back to,
in my second-guessing
my insecurities
i am
in love now, and not afraid anymore
[so much]
will not find fear in being truthful --
will not find cold, empty, loneliness
in my fear
i am in love now.
and that changes everything.

On What Life Is.

$29.00 more than I had counted on and it's enough. But, I am done wanting that which is simply enough. Head: like a seive. Heart: ignoring it. Character: changeable, frustratingly so. Thought: fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.

Don't talk to me of insecurities, I have known more than my share, do know more than is healthy, the bubbling vat of acid that is my stomach will attest. Though stasis is no longer an issue. And the resolve is becoming more chiseled. I am not one to settle, never never never, life is not about settling for what's easy / safe / comfortable / within walking distance.

Close your blue eyes, lay down, next to me. Sinking into something that is not myself, Litmus strips, where are the confounded Litmus strips?!

Fall into me, completely. Totally, unashamedly, completely. Your half-attempts and violent flailing about get you precisely nowhere. All of your life you have been looking for me, and now that you're this close, you turn around, seized by fear! Be stronger than that. Your thought process lately -- fallible, self-defeating, juvenile, weak. I know how much you want this; why do you go on, chasing your tail, looking for any reason to deny yourself the rejoicing that will occur once you come home? While you are so determined to go on finding fault with yourself, I'll keep hoping that you find what matters. A hint: Go within.

Mad Hits Like I Was Rod Carew

M-L-E gonna rock the sure shot.

So Derrek came in again today, plopped himself down in the chair across from my desk, ignoring the pile of work that I was so doggedly trying to appear busy with. Conversations with Derrek... perhaps the name of an SNL skit, but not a funny one, one of those painfully awkward and flat ones from the early 90s. He speaks with much gesticulation and verve, and his subject matter is as abruptly and randomly shifted as any manual transmission motorcar behind whose steering wheel I am poised and determined. Yes, yes, and but. Today our conversation was actually really interesting. He was talking about living in places "other" than Oberlin. The "other" is in quotations because often it feels as though there are only two places in the world; those that are Oberlin, and those that are not. But I digress.

So interesting, we were talking about suffering, and the exponentially growing chasm between the "haves" and the "have nots." He's on fire when he talks, and it's hard to get a word in, and it's hard to make the point that you wanted to make two minutes ago when he was talking about homelessness, because now he is somehow talking about Soviet Russia. (But perhaps those two subjects are not quite so opposite as I had first intended?) At any rate, during one of his gesticulations I caught glimpse of some ink under his sleeve, so when he stopped to take a breath I asked him if it was a tattoo. And indeed it was. Getting a tattoo is an initiation into a secret society; I would talk about it, but there may someday be people without ink on their bodies reading this purposeless drivel! Why am I even writing this? Ah yes, I was going to make a point about about Eugene Debs and how his spirit is still alive and kicking in even the most unlikely of places, but somehow I became sidetracked with all of this nonsense, and I've gone too far to change it now! I'll leave this entry as it is, out of spite. Eugene Debs was from Cleveland, you know.

For Myself

"Gamble everything for love,
if you're a true human being.

If not,
leave this gathering.

Half-heartedness doesn't reach
into Majesty."

Trying now to understand these words in regard to my relationship with myself. So much darkness to be wading through, so much pain, regret. Trying to remember the brevity of each individual moment, these demons have followed me relentlessly for too many nights now. I will get there, wherever this there is, that elusive point of peace. I don't want to be so critical of everything anymore, I don't want to be so judgmental, so eager to find problems and fault. The support of my friends is like a light at the other end of the room; I long to be there with you, and am searching with great determination to find my own light, that I might get there. I won't give up on myself, don't give up on me.

Like Pepto Bismal on My Vat of Acid

Such it is with The Meditations.

"Though you were to live three thousand years, or three million, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, or lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and the shortest thus come to the same. For the present is the same to everyone, though the past is not the same, and what is lost appears to be a mere moment. For a man cannot lose either his past or his future: for what a man has not, how can anyone take from him? These two things then you must bear in mind: the first, that all things from eternity repeat the same forms and come round in a circle, and that it makes no difference whether a man gazes at the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or an infinite time; and the second, that the longest liver and he who dies soonest lose just the same. For the present is the only thing a man can lose, if it is true that it is the only thing he has, and that a man cannot lose a thing which he has not."

...

An amazing thing, the human spirit; dogged, determined, indefatigable. Even injured it feels called to that which is right, and (one hopes) sets its action accordingly. There is no wound that doesn't heal with time.

The Mind of the Little Kitty.

Well, this is funny. I just received the letter that Ann Fuller told me she'd send, the one that officially extends the job to me, and accepts my acceptance. Haha. Formalities. Anyway, while reading over the letter, I found something that made me chuckle out loud:

"This is a temporary position, which will run from October 1, 2004 - September 30, 2005."

Basically a year, yeah? Not basically. Exactly a year.

Then,

"Vacation: may be taken after twelve months."

THANKS SO MUCH!!! Haha, why did she even bother to put that in there? I have so much vacation time at the school that I had accrued, and now it appears that the earliest I'll be able to go on an adventure is A YEAR FROM NOW. Because the position starts out at half-time, and because this means I'll be able to come to the school for half days and help out until they don't need me, I'm thinking about requesting the last week of September off. It's been like eight million years since I had a vacation that involved lots of R & R. In fact, I think the last time was a year and a half ago for Coyote's wedding. Maybe if the board denies my vacation request, I'll just be like, "ok, then my last day is Sept. 24th." Hehehe...

So all of you (the two of you) who read this blog, start giving me some ideas of a restful but also exhilirating vacation destination! I think it'll really help me make a good transition into the new job, with a positive frame of mind. My frame of mind lately has been crap and something akin to crookshanx. Who, I swear, was up in a tree squwaking at me on my way to work this morning.

Oh, the other reason I'm currently slap-happy: Jeff just stopped in, and I showed him my tattoo. If I had known he'd be in today, I would have drawn in a fake tattoo above my real one, and it would have said "LESBIAN 4 LIFE" in big, solid, easy to read letters. Anyway, I think that this showing of the tattoo will help to end the leaving of the notes at Jindra Keep, and the stopping by my desk. I won't be telling him about my new job... [freak-magnet.]

And This Is Fine With Us

Feeling sick today, though strangely so. Not coughing. Not feverish. There is something brewing behind my eyeballs, something in my chest that causes me to move as if in sleep. Ocassionally I allow the future to crush down on me with all the force of a bull elephant charging, lighten up, lighten up. Too much Emily Dickinson in my head this morning, or Kerouac; a bleak world, scant hope. This is all so transitory, the grippingness of my fear is dulled by the knowledge that all things get easier with time. Notes From Underground is the most important book that I have ever read. This is not so tangential, but the bridging of the two directions cheapens the meaning. Sometimes there are no words.

We Have a Barrel Full of Wine, and No Cups...

A starry night, cold air, atmosphere soaring up for miles and miles, Orion sleepily crawling ever closer towards his sentinel duty. Tonight my father said, "two years ago today we were on the road, driving you back from Washington." Two years. Is it even possible...?

"Parting is all that we know of heaven, and all that we need of hell."

Feeling so fortunate now to have had safe docking for the time that was allotted me. I'm so tired of burying my feelings for fear of appearing weak or foolish. The future has not been written, and perfection is a fool's gold. The discussion today was about grief, pain, hurt, anguish, fear, anger, feeling....lost. I felt so much, months of the fear and indecison that I haven't allowed myself to embrace, months of coldness, locking myself up in the little tin box in the center of my heart, and I wept, I wept. I will do my best to open that box and abolish it. Feeling so lost, but I'm picking up the trail... the low to give perspective to the high.

and by the way thank you
for keeping your face hidden --
i can hardly bear the beauty of this world.

The Opposite Of Love

Isn't hate, it's indifference.
........

For those of yall keeping score, THEY OFFERED ME THE JOB!!! RhYmE sTyLe WrItIn! I meet with AF at 4:30 this afternoon to talk figures, now pass me the wok, cause I'm cookin' :*) I will be needing to acquire a small goat, as it is now time to sacrifice things to Ba'al so that OCSD will grant me a year's absence.

Somebody is pouring me a scotch to celebrate.

Breathing in I calm my body,
breathing out I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment.

A Change In Perspective

Get up, get out and do somethin'!

Such a good break from the mind box, that candlelight vigil. There are people in the world who are concerned with more than if they have two fitty for a carmel latte, and catching the eye of the little hottie serving it. And she probably has a butterfly tattoo in the small of her back, anyway. Haha. People in Oberlin are so caring, so concerned with the bigger picture. Thirteen thousand Iraqis are dead, one thousand Americans, and the tolls just keep rising. No End In Sight, is what they recommended we write on our posters. And to think that the efforts of Anne and myself brought all of those people together...

1,000 dead faces in the New York Times. That shit hits home.

So thankful to be in Oberlin, to be surrounded by people who really care about something greater than themselves.

To Resolve The Aching

O snail
climb Mount Fuji,
But slowly, slowly!

He Was Talking To Me About Retirement

I wish I could fast-forward to a month from now, or two. Although I suppose I could just stop listening to The Doves. Everything's ok. I can finally be honest with myself about things, this is immensely helpful. Better late than never, is what they say.

There is no order to things, to life, if I ever had any doubt that things are random and there is no divine path along which we all trod, it is now annihilated. It's true, it's really true; every day in every way we make ourselves -- we make the world. Stop living as though in the future everything will work out and you will simply have made all the right decisions, and will be happy. Don't forget about the organ-stop. The ant hill. The point is to keep learning, to keep growing. You make mistakes, what's important is how you deal with the realization. The future is not some static point in time towards which we move a little closer each moment. It's a farce, a gift horse, an illusion, don't listen to the siren as she beckons you towards immobility. Do now. That's all there is. "The future" is a place where you will never, ever, find yourself.

Like Spinning Plates

I finally understood, what he meant
too late --
i suppose.
[headlong is how i should have jumped in. trepidation.]

but then.
once the lesson is learned it is never in vain.
you get on with it, this thing. [life.]

year one

i was still standing
on a northern corner.

moonlit winter clouds the color of the desperation of wolves.

proof
of your existence?
there is nothing but.

The Last Broadcast

There comes a point when you feel nothing, when the past is really the past, a distant point in time that stakes no claim on the future -- an amalgam of recollection that contains the actual and the imagined, not just the perfect world version of what could have been possible. You can’t escape yourself and I no longer desire to. This is the last point. [I hope, I hope!] Too much wordiness when all I wanted to say was too unimportant to even be written. It’s Tuesday, such a shitty perspective of late, there’s a whole world out there.

Breathing Is An Arrival

These lows, I guess they're what give the crest of the wave its gravity. I feel three thousand years old, though I shoot my mouth off like a sixteen year old of late, anger just below the surface and deeper still there is some level of placidity, whose depths as yet I haven't delved. Cracking through the anger is the hard part. It's hard work, reminding yourself that you're not living life for anyone else. No one is watching. There isn't any meaning save that which you make.

Stop wondering what other people will think. Stop taking into consideration how the thing will make you appear, weak or strong. Act.

This is all so far from what I had wanted to say. I'm afraid, and the things I'm afraid of are probably fears that are not unknown to most people, but I'm afraid even to talk about them. It's so crazy how you never really know someone, you just know the brave front that they present you with, the happily-married-doing-quite-well guy who for some reason works late every night and plays golf all weekend or stays out with the Kiwanis or shoots his brains out. So far from what I had intended to say. It's me, it's not that guy -- I'm the person presenting you with that front, I'm strong and I can weather whatever storm life can throw at me, when really I can't. I'm trying so hard to appreciate the me that isn't that person. The one who wouldn't say "500," the one who would run, tail between her legs. She's in here, cowering, afraid of how I will deal with her. And deal with her I must.

I'm afraid of being alone forever.
I'm afraid that the most fulfilling parts of my life are behind me (that this is the most satisfying/challenging job I'll ever have. That I'm not smart enough for something more.)
I'm afraid that I don't know enough about being "feminine" or "domestic", or however you want to label the pink and fluffy parts of being a woman, and therefore don't have "enough" to bring to a relationship.

Well, there they are, the big ones. They do seem rather ridiculous when I lay them out like that, but not so ridiculous that I can just banish them as easily as all that. I will get there, eventually.

Keep It Like A Secret

There's all of this grey muck, smog, something.. hanging around my head this weekend, can't see straight. Drinking coffee and listening to Built to Spill probably isn't helping my clarity, but there it is. Clarity, Ahniwa, you're probably the only one who gets what that reminds me of, I'm so angry with you but I am really finding myself missing you...

I don't want to talk about this.

It's stupid and annoying, what time does to your memories. And we will leave it at that.

Last night the atmosphere clung to the earth like death clings to everyone who lives; the sky felt uncomfortably low and there was no moon, no stars. And as Little Kitty takes his Pegasus position in the litter box, I am aware that I need to hit the pavement to sweat this depressing bullshit out of my body. All that glitters isn't gold.