To All The People In The Dead Sea:

Like so many pinballs riccocheting from one bumper to the next, only the pinballs are all of us that walk this earth, and the bumpers are the myriad stimuli we encounter. Bound to what we experience via our five senses. Careering from one sensory experience to the next. One reaction to the next. Cause and effect? Cause, cause, cause. Effect. Effect. Effect.

Patrick is correct.

Post-modernism would have you believe that there is no such thing as "the concrete." Everything is bendable and subjective, right? Wrong. Stop pretending that you can explain away all of the times that you flitted to the next bumper as simply being a product of "cause and effect." The indecisiveness. Flaccid conceptions of the self. Half-heartedness does not reach into majesty. It is entirely possible to draw lines that are clear and concrete, but one must be willing to examine the core-ness of themself. Self. Myself. Yourself. Ourselves. There are differences. So many differences that I am only now willing to point to.

Have been timid.

The philosophy that is evolving in my brain is not exclusive. It does not point to people's failings and laugh. It does not point to people's failings and judge. Though there certainly is a nascent definition of this elusive failing. I have fit into this definition! It only asks that one examine, examine. Examine. Not to be scientific or dispassionate. Ossified. Not to be sterile and unhuman. To be alive. Awake. To end the cycle. To stop being a pinball.

we're all connected like a lego set.

There is an entirely new significance there.

This One Is For... Sao Paolo.

There is something really strange going on inside my body. Like a second adolescence, but without the angsty poetry. Or maybe this is my angsty poetry? Anne was right, Billy Corrigan's poetry is stinky like cat litter left uncleaned for a week. You either have a gift with imagery, or you don't. Let's not delude ourselves, people.

But, I digress.

Things are not touching at my core... things that once would have riled me up are falling away, being ricocheted back off of some new break-wall that I can't entirely see. Like I'm standing on top of it peeking down, what is this thing, and from whence has it come? I like it and don't want it to go away. And feeling so much more connected to life. Life. The trees the air the ground underneath my feet the eye contact of passing strangers. Not all of the talking posturing stuff and nonsense that we dress up in business suits and call life. That which is corollary to the forgetting. The deluding. Feeling slightly judgmental in saying that but there is no longer that tinge of guilt. These are merely observations, anyone can make them, the ground is on fire outside with a blanket of yellow and red fallen leaves. Absolutely gorgeous.

Not physical beauty. Not talking to you in a way that is designed to make you feel better about yourself and therefore value me in your life [sick, non?] Not pretending to care or know about things that I don't care or know about. Still, calm, honest. Whittling away the purposeless. Scraping down to the core emily. She is still a gangling and goofy marionette. But, somehow, different.

Objectivism

To remember:
The three axioms. Existence -- Consciousness -- Identity.

Hard to wrap my head around this basis of Ayn Rand's philosophy, becuase my brain at the moment feels like ideology soup. Lots of ideas swarming around, none so bold as to take hold [my strength.] The immediate problem is with her presentation; the argument that axioms need not be proven because they're axioms makes sense when she explains the why and how, but still seems sophomoric nonetheless. Like an escape hatch out the back of the room.

Identity is the one I grapple with the most. What is this idea of Identity, but a construction of the human mind? And even in the asking one points to this elusive idea of something being seperate from something else, etc. Blah blah blah. They had scones at the market today. So I got a couple.

Don't Panic.

and about what you were saying about the drunk girl who tried to crash your dinner party, well, it is like throwing rocks in a pond. you're gonna see the ripples awhile, but in the end you will settle back into your 'normal' frame of mind. though you may think that your worldly view is in the state of constant change, there are some areas that stay, and will remain the same no matter how drastic the makeover. it is the essence of you, of emily. the part of you that, if every sensory organ was cut off from your brain and you were suspended in perpetual limbo and darkness, would still be there. YOU are the listener of intuition. our minds are limited, we cannot comprehend nonexistence, which is why we've created the afterlife when really there was no before or after, there just IS (life). i've used the analogy of one hand clapping before, and i'm sure you've heard it a thousand and two times. but it is never so true as when the mind or our 'true' selves try to envision our 'true' selves. the sound of one hand clapping. i believe through meditation one comes close to that state of realization. it is called buddhahood. satori. nirvana. yeah, you've heard the schmeal. but even if you never reach that state, just by acknowledging that there is a 'core' to you, you have just drawn the line of who you are and who you will never be.

i guess that is what i was trying to say. i hope it made a little sense. philosophical matters always lose direction, always suffer from the lack of literary vocabulary, consisting mainly of subjective aspects. it is easy to describe an object, but to describe how it is feeling is an entirely different ballgame.


Thanks, Ryan.

Kernels.

How easily the wind overturns a frail tree.
Seek happiness in the senses,
indulge in food and sleep,
and you too will be uprooted.

Do I have what I need, or do I just want what's around?

To stop simply reacting. To stop plodding along without purpose or wisdom. To stop filling life with trifles that only put off the task at hand. To awaken. To be conscious of the labrynth that modern life erects between you and the truth. The stuff and nonsense, floundering, moving but arriving nowhere.

Look within.
Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
know the sweet joy of the way.

Regarding King Midas.

Lamont has just given me his copy of Emily Dickinson's poetry, despite my protestations and affirmations that I had a copy at home. He smelled strongly of cigar tobacco, and if it weren't cold outside today I would have had the window open as soon as he disappeared from sight. Instead I retreat to the quiet safety of my office in the back of the building, and let the pungent odor diffuse itself into oblivion.

This morning a woman [a broken woman] came into OCS to talk about her options, of which there were few, and none seemed to be satisfactory. "There is a piece missing here," I think to myself as she talks about what she's been up against lately. This is an effort on my part to dissuade the feeling of responsibility that lodges itself in my throat as her eyes glass over and the tears begin to stream down. "And what difference would it make, the knowing? She would still be sitting in the chair across from you, afraid of the future, weight of the world upon her shoulders." So I do what I can, and listen, though it feels ridiculously far from being enough. I feel so incredibly prostrate. I send her off with a few ideas and a few bus passes, ask her to come back and see me on Friday, and offer a wordless promise that I will have thought of more options by then. I hope she comes back. What does the world look like to her, of this I will never be certain. It amazes me the amount of pain and suffering that human beings are equipped to deal with.

My first thought about Ayn Rand's Anthem: she bastardizes the philosophy against which she rails in order to make her argument all the more fervent and persuasive. A sophomoric and fatal mistake when addressing human logic [well, for the most part, though there certainly are those who are won over by whichever shiny is glinting the most brightly under the sun.] I'm tired today, and can't wait for Anne and Pat to get back.

A Few Observations.

There is nothing quite so nice as baked autumn squash with melted ghee and brown sugar sprinkled on top for dinner.

Regular yoga has done for me what years of weight training never could. While putting on my shoes for my run this afternoon, I noticed a vein beginning to pop out on top of my bicep, ala any formidable tough guy. :: flex ::

Candidate's nights are 5% informational, and 95% fluff and filler.

Quite a few of the people coming to the agency for help are looking for a willing ear to converse with, as much as they're looking for whatever type of assistance brought them through the door.

What's pleasing to the eye is just an illusion, and is transitory.

The Well-spring

Maharishi Ayur-Veda describes the lack of connection with the body's inner intelligence as the primary source of human suffering. In the ancient Ayurvedic texts, this condition is referred to as "the mistake of the intellect," or pragyaparadh. Pragyaparadh is mistaken perception that the ever-changing display we experience through our senses is all that there is; we do not perceive the underlying wholeness of life, the home of all the laws of nature.

It is as if we sailed out into the sea, looked out over the waves on the surface, and concluded that they comprised the total reality of the ocean -- without perceiving that there are unfathomably vast, silent depths beneath from which those waves spring.

The book I have just begun reading feels like contraband. Like Montag will be in at any moment to seize this text, whisk it away to the adjudicating 451 degrees. I feel as though what I'm reading is something that I wasn't supposed to read until ten years from now or so, like I've robbed the future, like I wheeled a crane up to Sisyphus and catapulted the boulder like it was a piece of ash. Running my finger along the spines of so many rows of books, what caused it to stop? And what caused my hand to investigate the book that my finger found rest upon? I think I feel a bit of kinship with what Mike said his experience was when reading For the New Intellectual, but on the other side of the pole. Precepts feeling very tenuous, should I really be reading this teacher's edition of the text I have been wading through of late [life]? My desire is to hoarde it away and keep it like a secret.

Relationships.

A few things that immediately come to mind.

They shouldn't be par for the course, they should be the exception. There is so much work to be done on an individual level, and there are myriad opportunities to fall into a pattern that would leave you sleep walking through your life. Each decision made consciously and from a base of understanding [oneself.] Opening one's life to another person is an incalcuably monumentous experience; peculiar and important. It's crucial to embark upon this joining without [so much] trepidation and hesitation. There is ground work to be completed for this to be possible.

Not as a means to find validation and worth.

Not as a means to fulfill physical desires.

Because you have found each other heading in the same direction on a familiar road.

Do I have what I need, or do I just want what's around?

My Comrades.

Thoughts I want to touch on, before they slip from grasp.

Problems with individual thought pervade through to macro-level thought, or what Orwell would call, groupthink. Reading Perestroika has caused me to evaluate my own opinions through time, opinions which I had once held to be unbiased. Information is incredibly flavored as it filters down through the various channels (paper, tv, internet) and I begin to wonder if it's even possible to make a solid opinion that is truely based on the facts, fair and balanced. Back to the original point. Often we find that individuals point out the failures of others as a means to elevate and validate their own life's decisions. Or they wait with baited breath for others to fail, in the hopes that their "successes" will be all the more brighly illuminated. Government bodies do this as well. The soviet revolution was begun on a platform of massively good ideas and intentions, but it challenged the burgeoning capitalism of the US, a successful soviet russia would make the term "world leader" that much more difficult to define. For the US, "the top" is a position that cannot be shared. Like old high school rivals, the soviets were dressed down, ridiculed, belittled, and never considered as a serious analogue or contemporary. Ossification in the high ranks of the politburo during the middle part of the century certainly only made this easier. Polemics, however, seems to have been the rule of the road.

My point, though (that evasive thing) is not quite so specific as the misinformation campaigns between these two super powers, but it is mired in the ideology.

These are missed opportunities for growth. In fact, growth is impossible when one simply sits back pointing out the other guy's mistakes in the vainglorious attempt to elevate one's own position. Yes, yes. And what have we learned? Look at the standard US news report from the situation in Iraq and the answer is painfully obvious. Gorbachev said,

Sometimes we are not only disappointed but have serious misgivings when in the US our country is treated as an aggressor, an "empire of evil." All manner of tall stories and falsehoods are spread about us, distrust and hostility are shown toward our people, all kinds of limitations imposed and, simply, uncivilzed attitudes are assumed toward us.

A bit of deja vu occurs when one reads this passage, non? When are we going to learn? And not just on a national level, to realize that simply chanting "we're number one!" until we're blue in the face gets us nothing but hoarse voices, but on an individual level as well...? Life must be undertaken with soberness, with consciousness. There is no king of the mountain, because there is no mountain. There is always something to be learned.

Chit Mang.

meep

Someone evil took this photo. But I likes it.

Slippery.

You just take a fucking beating. Sad cases coming in and out the door, doing what you can to help, as soon as they leave, the nosey boss steps in and asks a bazillion questions trying to stick her finger on the point that says "we shouldn't be helping so much" people in the community who think they're doing good and just dress you down over the phone. "Yes well I just think that you shouldn't name the program adopt a family because in my family the word adopt connotates forever because both of our sons are adopted you know and yes I would like to make a donation but we want a family with a girl because my son always wants the toys I get if there is a boy."

And all you can do is stare at your wall that is still empty from having just started, mouth agape, blinking.

Someone take the crazy-pills out of my reach.

I find myself trodding on a razor thin line that separates stand-offishness from professional inquiry. I don't want to prod and pry into the situations that caused my clients to get where they are today, but in a sense it's my job to do so. I know that part of case work is counseling, but I have a hard time doing it. That's an understatement; so far I haven't been doing it. I can't accurately describe the trepidation that occurs when a 30 year old mother who had her first child at the age of 13 and has had 7 more since is asking me if I have $40 to help get the gas back on. Or when her sons come in the next day for bus vouchers because they need to get to classes and mom's truck just broke down. Yes I'm absolutely sure there's a history there. And that some terrible decisions have been made. But how do I begin the process with this woman, how do I how do I how do I. I vow to spend more time with the next client on these things. I have to, not just to satisfy the requirements of the job, but to satisfy the requirements of myself.

I feel like there are three hundred thousand things that need doing here, and here I sit typing away at my blog. In-breath. Out-breath.

My List Revisited.

1. I have continued to meditate for an hour a day.
2. There is this entirely new feeling creeping into my core, a hope that is not parasite to some host expectation.
3. I could really, immensely, use a massage.
4. Mike M. is one of the most articulate and fiercely intellingent people that I have ever encountered in my life.
5. I am consistently amazed by Pat's dogged determination to look out for me.
6. When people tell me to "have a blessed day," it makes my skin crawl.
7. I used to use relationships as a means to seek self-validation and approval.
8. The Radiohead concert I went to two summers ago was the most visceral experience I have ever had listening to music. Even more so than listening to even radiohead through pat's fancy headphones while stoned.
9. I believe that human beings are, at their core, good, and that rejection / fear / hardships cause them to lose sight of this goodness.
10. The greatest compliment that I've ever received came from Anne, after we watched Bowling for Columbine with Lee and Evelyn, and she told me that she thought I was well-spoken and acutely intelligent.
11. These are qualities that I have a hard time ascribing to myself.
12. I ocassionally feel guilt over the way that I ended my friendship with Jenny B.
13. I started writing a book about a robot colony on earth, and am determined to finish it within the next year.
14. I want to make one of those christmas count down chains for the 300 some odd days until I can sit my first vipassana course.
15. I am looking forward to the day that I build independent, happy memories in Olympia. When it isn't tied to stagnation.
16. I hope with all of my body and soul that libby gets my old job.
17. I have this silly 12 year old girl notion that horses are magical creatures.
18. I am convinced that monkeys and dolphins are evil and have secret societies, like the Masons.
19. When I worked with Carlos in SGS I was convinced that the illuminati was real. Too many early morning shifts with that crazy guy, mang.
20. I secretly wish that Manny were my brother.
21. I have never been in a physical fight, and am not sure if I could be provoked to the level of anger that it would require to engage in one.
22. Although when I think about it, if anyone threatened anne or libby or aimee or patrick, I would go to town with my crowbar.
23. I immediately dicount the intellect of people who believe strongly in horoscopes and zodiac. I realize that this is mean to do, but the realization doesn't stop me. Parallax over the past thousand years has caused the stars to be in different positions than they were (calendar-wise) when astrology was created. So the signs aren't actually in accord with the physical placements of the stars at the times they're supposed to be anymore.
24. Though Mike D. is still my hero despite his constant reminders that he's a scorpio.
25. I usually listen more than I speak.
26. In social situations I generally feel like I'm outside of my body, watching things as they occur. Like I'm behind a camera lense. Though like Anne I've been known to front like I'm an extrovert.
27. I really actually do enjoy Zeke.
28. But the little kitty is the greatest thing ever invented. (There is no way that he is a natural creation.)
29. When I was a kid, Anne used to tell me that an evil leprechaun lived in the attic and would come down and do an evil dance when she was the only one in our room. I hope that this properly demonstrates the extent of the psychological torture that existed having Anne as a twin.
30. Har har har.
31. She really did make up that bit about the leprechaun, though.
32. And it absolutely scared the bejesus out of me.
33. There is a great deal of upheavel going on in my mind lately; it feels like some huge seismic shift, plates are being repositioned, one age is ending and the new one is attempting to take hold.
34. It excites me and I feel that something cathartic looms ahead.
35. I wish I could have sat the december course.
36. I can read bass clef and used to play the string bass and the trombone.
37. I started out college thinking that I would major in music education.
38. I think the major that I really ended up with would be aptly titled, "The Science of Critical Thought."
39. I have been strongly attracted (sexually) to two women in my life.
40. I didn't act on either of these attractions.
41. I haven't stopped thinking about the fact that one day Anne and I will be apart (in a final sense) since Ryan mentioned it.
42. I am so glad that he mentioned it. This is something that will cause my world to break. I can't be an ostrich forever.
43. Life is transitory. In-breath. Out-breath. That is the extent of the time we are allotted.
44. I read the mediations of marcus aurelius like i was a born-again baptist and it was my bible.
45. I haven't started my detox-from-the-wedding-diet yet because there is a wheel of brie in the fridge that has somehow figured out my name and keeps calling it.
46. I used to be a tough-guy (sweeper, mates!) on the soccer field.
47. I have all sorts of crazy schematics for a diesel van that I'm going to build under pat's guidance.
48. Instead of having a flame decal on the hood, it's going to have real flames.
49. I have the two greatest brother-in-laws ever.
50. I have vividly detailed dreams just about every night.
51. If dubya is re-elected (or rather, elected legitimately for the first time) I will give serious thought to moving to new zealand.
52. My father was a detective for a really long time. I think that observing him has helped me become a pretty good judge of character. Although my current boss is one of the most perplexingly unreadable people ever.
53. I have never been in any scrapes with the law.
54. Although three years ago I was on the Burmese (well, myanmar) government's watch list.
55. If I had a million dollars I would start a foundation that gave out emergency aid, no strings attached to folks in northeast ohio.
56. I shamelessly steal Beastie Boys lyrics whenever the opportunity presents itself in conversation.
57. Asanas daily so I'm very flexible.
58. I am ridiculously ticklish.
59. Despite my previous comment about astrology, I believe that there is magic in the night sky.
60. Autumn is my favorite of the seasons.
61. I never underestimate the depth of the people I encounter on a random day to day basis.
62. I believe that the average person has far more depth than they are willing or able to show.
63. Socialist Democracy is something that I had never counted as a viable political structure until I read Perestroika. Now it is the system that makes the most sense to me.
64. I am highly skeptical of the ability of a large body (ie, nation state) to properly carry out the tenents involved in socialist democracy.
65. It comes down to (and, I think, the ills of society in general) the propensity of direct responsibility to be diffused when there are several layers of administration and bureaucracy. The consumer saving $.25 on cucumbers doesn't think of their connection to the migrant worker getting paid a dollar a bushel to harvest them.
66. I often wish that I was like Ken Saro Wiwa and could get by on just three hours of sleep a night.
67. I played on a female football team for awhile in Olympia.
68. I don't know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, cause I could never hold out long enough to count.
69. I have been feeling incredibly placid of late, even while being belittled by Allen Q. the crazyman. This concerns me a little, but in a good way.
70. I have never been outside the land mass of the americas.
71. Caffeine has me in its grip, and I abide!
72. Sometimes while thinking of my ideals and opinions of what this country could be, I get frustrated with the mediocrity that we settle for and think, "well, let them have their WWF and Jerry Springer and acid rain, then. I will be behind my waterfall eating mangoes when Rome crumbles for the second time."
73. Most of the time this feels like a cop out.
74. Although I truely believe that any real and lasting change must be catalyzed at the individual level.
75. If you ever have need of my life, then come and take it.
76. I tend to be rather gullible. And I get extremely embarrassed and blush deeply upon realization that I've been duped.
77. Halloween is my favorite holiday. I almost always dress up as an amalgamation of a pirate, an elf, xena, and a viking.
78. It's 11 pm in Dublin. Do you know where your twin sister is?
79. I'm done with casually evolving relationships that are formed on the basis of two somewhat similar people meeting and both being single at the same time, a string of compromise and concession resulting in two shells of the former individuals abiding for the sake of not being alone. If I'm ever in a relationship again, it will be the result of a lengthy process of excoriation and unqualified interaction. Yeah.
80. My chrome is shining just like an icicle. You'll see me riding around town on my low-rider bicycle.
81. See?! I am powerless to stop.
82. I named my bike Sven. I tend to name inanimate objects. I also tend to create wild stories and backgrounds for these inanimate objects (and sometimes the animate ones, too, ie, little kitty.) eg: crookshanx.
83. I know what a pelantia is. (yeah anne, that one's for YOU, cochese.)
84. Translated, #83 means that I am, above all, a massive dork.
85. I have this idea that a person can't experience new thoughts unless they're open to them. IE, ideas and thoughts are out there circulating, but to be able to experience them, you must be on the proper... vibrational level to decode.
86. When it comes to quarries, I'm known to swim.
87. I strive daily to be as ridiculous and silly as Mike D.
88. I played in the graveyard a lot as a child. I don't think this has prepared me for death, or caused me to be morbid, I honestly don't understand the significance that people attach to graveyards. I think they are a tragic misallocation of land.
89. One day I will have the bust of V.I. Lenin on my desk. His ideals were noble, and bastardized by Stalin. This causes people to discount his philosophical significance and relevance, I think.
90. I think that I recently had a dream in which I was madly in love with M.C. A. Lately when I hear him rap my heart's all a-flutter.
91. Haha, that sounds so lame that I'm not erasing it.
92. I wish that boxer-briefs for women were widely available. Boxer-briefs are a great invention, up there with crowbars and flame.
93. When I build my house I'm going to have one closet that's devoted entirely to costumes and disguises.
94. Never downplay the significance of the difference between the transitory and the enduring.
95. That sentence was preposition soup.
96. I want to learn to snowboard.
97. Ya govaryou pah-rooskii.
98. I have dreams of crafting a robot that will beat box while doing "the robot".
99. My primary mode of transportation was a skateboard for a very short while.
100. If you want to battle, go internal.

Over And

One thing I can't get out of my mind.

There is the questioning, the questioning, (and I remember the surrealist adage, there are no answers, only more questions) and regardless there is this positivity. How to get to that state, it impresses me, bewilders me, there is no other analogue to study. He is an iconoclast who tears down the definition of even the word iconoclastic. Can I curl up inside your brain for awhile? I promise to not take up too much space, or fidget, or presuppose a course of events.

[An aside] Mikael Gorbachev (the russians pronounce this gar-BACH-ef) is much more eloquent and stoic than I had originally imagined.

Back to the original point. He has proven to me that the paradigm can be broken out of without fear. I have myriad more questions about life now than I did two weeks ago, but I feel so much more connected to it. The pulsing. Have you ever inexplicably awoken only to find yourself reaching out towards something whose identity does not carry through to the waking world.....? What was this somnambulistic figment?

Take.
Me.

To.
Your.
Leader.

The thoughts in my head have not yet congealed enough to find their match in words.

It Take A Second To Wreck It.

I'm sitting here looking at a fax received yesterday from Columbia Gas. A client had brought her shut-off information to me in the early afternoon, we looked it over together, I called the gas company, they sent me the fax that I'm currently perplexed by. OCS had put a $50 pledge onto this client's account, shortly after I spoke with her. I had her contact the Salvation Army in Wellington for the other $50 pledge she would need for her gas to be turned back on, which the urgency in her face told me should would do at the next available opportunity, which was the next morning. Everything should have been hunky-dorey; this fax says that the shut-off date is 10/29/04.

Plenty of time to get the crinks worked out. Turn-around time should be a day at most, so all is good.

This client awoke this morning to a cold house, cold baby formula, cold water, panic, panic. Enraged I call Columbia Gas. The nasal sounding woman at the end of so many miles of telephone wire (that I had thought to use as a strangulation device) just barking out the same meaningless bits of data to me, "yes well the heat season date isn't actually until November so we go by the first trip date and not the second trip date until the heat season is in effect so that's actually why the shut off date was the 19th and not the 29th OK." I am bewildered by her Kafka-esque attempt to confound my logic. I shook off her string of filibuster. "The date on the form that YOU sent to me says 10/29/04. This is a form that came from YOUR office, please explain to me why her gas was shut off today." A pause. A heavy sigh. I will win in the war of wills, you can sigh at me all you like. "Yes you see the heat season date is in Nov.." to which I interject, "no, this form that I'm holding doesn't say anything about a heat season date. It doesn't say anything about a first and second trip date. It says Shut-off date, October Twenty-Ninth, Two Thousand Four. This is what we're going by. This is all that we have to go by. I have never heard of a heat season date, nor a trip date, nor is there any indication on the information that you sent to me that I SHOULD be concerned about these tertiary dates."

She is frustrated with me, and I her.

I envision the client with her three children (one infant) huddled under a blanket. It's going to be cold tonight.

"The soonest we can get out there to turn the gas back on is tomorrow morning. We will waive the reconnect fee."

"Okay," I say with sarcasm that I'm sure wasn't lost on her, "so you're waiving the reconnect fee for the erroneous disconnection. I will follow up with my client tomorrow morning at 10 am to make sure that the gas is on."

I had elicited a reaction and she huffily hung up the phone. I tell myself that it wasn't my intention to make her feel bad, but I know that my knee-jerk got the best of me. You can't screw around with things like heat, it's freezing outside, none of this should have happened. I feel like the apes in the beginning of 2001, banging whatever bones I can find against the unsensing monolith. Perhaps this is a tad hyperbolic. But, in my gut I believe that we exist because of each other. You don't do a wrong to another without also doing a wrong to yourself. You don't dismiss someone else's emergency heat situation as unimportant without killing yourself a little,too.

Tomorrow I will hang my six-shooters over my desk. I hope that vigilante case work is not the rule of the road.

Dudley Do-You Right

The transitory:

• appearance
• finances
• breath

The enduring:

• i've no idea.

My definition of who emily is feels so incredibly nebulous at the moment; this is at once frightening and liberating. I have no idea how I would define myself, if someone were to ask me "so who are you then?" I am a vigilante freedom fighter, though I'm grappling with feelings of ineffectualness, "the system" is an unfeeling behemoth. What is becoming important to me is each solitary interaction. I will not be cold and calculated in my assistance, I will follow Anne's lead and be a real human being. And this is all so far from what I had intended to say.

Who am i? Can anyone really actually answer this question?

And does the definitive answering invite stasis?

Meditating with anne and pat and mike was so good for my head. Wssshhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhh. I've no idea why I can sit for an hour. I have a suspicion that I'm not doing it "right." I am quite certain of who I am not. This is a beginning, I suppose. Many of the relationships that I saw this weekend were a pestilence, a pestilence. I have a hard time not feeling entirely judgmental when I think and talk about this, but these observations seem crazily obvious to me. There is no point that one comes to in life when the formula has simply been solved, and the change and growth is over. Outkast still nagging at me. "so why-o why-o are we so in denial when we know we're not happy here?"

Loneliness is a sword of damocles hanging over the heads of those who stay in unhappy relationships. This is what I have come to believe. I am more and more inclined to think that the majority of people in the world don't like themselves very much, and therefore don't like to spend time by themselves very much, and therefore like to stay in [even unhealthy] relationships. There is work to be done here today and I can't hang around writing these trifles much longer! Suffice to say that, this weekend, I disagreed with Dostoevsky's Akakiavich for the very first time ever. I require a moment of unbroken silence to let the gravity of this admission register. Notes from Underground has an entirely new significance to me. The dam has broken and now I must begin to address the resulting flood plains.

Enough metaphor.

The example of anne and patrick gives me hope that I too will find truth and the ability to continually change in a relationship. So much happiness. One word that I would without doubt use to describe myself is, "lucky."

I Want To Take A Minute, To Introduce You To My People.

Because some people spend their entire lives and never think about it, not once. Unless they are walking downtown in D.C. or on the subway in Manhattan. And even then it's "NIMBY, NIMBY," and myriad cause and effect scenarios are queued up in the mind to explain the situation away. Because the thoughts consume you. Because you see people and situations and not cattle.

Because you do not judge. Because there is no air of have/have not. Because the power card is not played.

Because sometimes the hardest thing is truely believing that one has any value in the world. Because this constant cycle of negativity and self-loathing builds the foundation of the dilapidated building. Because the sparkle in your eye, I think, often transmits to people that they are not worthless. All as one.

Because you are intelligent but not inaccessible.

This is why you are an ideal case-worker, Anne. If I were down and out I would be thanking Ba'al that I had you as an advocate.

"How to act: Never without forethought, under compulsion, with misgivings."

A true representation of the logos.

From This Box

In-breath.

It takes me 5 cups of coffee to develop a physical twitch. My eyes feel warm. I looked at myself critically in the mirror today, there are smile wrinkles at the corners of my eyes like so many dopplegangers still hanging about long after the happy moment has passed. Sentinels betraying my tough-guy facade, harbingers of what is to come, what is to come.

I am not afraid of the horizon, though my support system will surely have changed by the time I come to the precipice. The world is a beautiful place, and my attempts to explain why and how are feeble and tenuous.

We all are done for.

My note from Marcus Aurelius today says, "Adapt. Overcome." and I try to abide.

Yeah we do, yeah we do!

Bones, dancing and
there's some fizzy type sensation at the top of my nose, just behind my eyeballs as well, i love you october. Did you know that,

we live in a beautiful world?

Full of anxious ecstasy, like the feeling of getting ready to go to illumination, i asked the world for truth and only that which is real and real and real, my voice echoing into the void perhaps and now

what i find is truth and that which is real and real and real. All of us are done for. When I was 20 and in oly for the first time I dreamed about being the me that I am right now. And now that I've got her I'm not letting go...

That She Taught Me.

Getting darker outside, getting darker outside. I have to take the steel bars down, there is ahhhh this strain of thought is not where I'm going right now.

Sven is angry at me for having not taken him for a ride as I had promised. Tomorrow morning, first thing. Press my finger to my lips and keep it like a secret.

Reading back through my old journal and photo book was like meeting myself in a dark [safe] back alley and talking in conspiratorial whispers, hush hush emily, we're laughing about something [not menacingly] and no amount of explanation would cause anyone but us to understand. Listening to Adrock talk about his man's OD over and over and over and

something about autumn that makes you want to burn at both ends. If you haven't got the canning done by now, there is no point in stressing over it. Enjoy what you can while you can, tomorrow is the war! Or something along those lines. Rimbaud. The white men are landing! The cannon! We must submit ourselves to baptism, put on clothes, work. But we still have this night.

Inside I feel like I'm made of candy corn and woodsmoke hayrides through the country, the amber colored windows eminating warmth and happiness poking into the dark street as you run past, so many microcosms, so many.

Just

What they tell me is that it looks good for Libby, it's only between her and Beth. And with Beth they're afraid that there would be issues with her being Jacquie's best friend. Keeping the fingers crossed.

My head feels hollow or something; drained, a tad uninspired, a tad lethargic. It's gorgeous outside and I feel foolish for being here. But. There is work to be done, and only for a short while longer.

Excitement. I feel excited about my new job in a way that I've never felt about a job before. It's going to be challenging, and difficult, and I have a feeling it'll involve lots of learning-as-I-go. Detective stylee. All the elements that I've longed for. Yeah and .. yeah! I was hoping that writing would help get my juices going, but it's just not happening. There is a layer of wet cotton surrounding my brain. My fingers ache and there is no breath to my voice. I'm not returning any of the phone calls, or petulant requests, as of now I'm on holiday and won't return until god knows when. There is a little island in the center of my solar plexus and I'm sitting on the beach drinking whiskey and cursing, for no apparent reason. And smiling.

And Me

Over 600,000 on the market, the veil of secrecy is beginning to lift thanks to anne's keys and ann's cryptic notes and papers and memos. There will be much learning required. It's exciting, and fascinating, and I am finally feeling the nest of understanding encircle my head like a turban that's going to keep me warm in the winter. She has been responsible and painstaking and deliberating in her decisions, I think, and I am a little frightened that my Robin Hood syndrome will temp me to move away from all of that. So glad that Anne is here. You do what you can and you surround yourself with people who won't bring you down in the end, people who live "rightly." This is what I'm hearing from other people now, too. Pat's right. I have a crush. I immediately try to dismiss it because it's foolish and silly and ridiculous, and not at all logical.

Not at all logical.

But still I am waiting for my morning note from him... some part of me thinks that I'm Wyatt Earp, an oak, should not be affected by human emotions. Why the hell is this.

Aaaaaaand

please let me
die
an instant death.

something hanging around in the air tonight, all day really, lucky lucky waster. sick of the party i had left alone one night at OU, halle and kate be damned and,
walked alone under the cold autumn ohio sky,
tipsy from the alcohol and
intoxicated from the buzz of autumn,
reaching my door and writing some nonsensical note about being ok and don't worry and such and such, and
no reason to my rhyme,
no purpose but that which we make.

over and over again.

in my core tonight,
all day,
feeling so incredibly happy. Happy.

Lucky waster.

ps,
stop eating mcdonalds
and
go watch supersize me.

I Need An MC Name.

me & my crew
I forgot to mention that my plane was routed through NYC, and I had a really long layover, so I decided to take a tour of the city, and I ran into these guys. They were really cool, and we spent a few hours graffiting together, then we took this photo. The guy to the far left asked me if I would join their band, I'm weighing my options...

:)

Twenty Questions

The First Evening

does life make me happy, or does it bring me down?
do i have what i need, or do i just want what's around?
how many countless lifeforms on a little ball that twirls?
water feeds the plants, and the sunshine makes them grow,
so how can anyone be an island on their own?

Feeling so incredibly refreshed, alive, lucky, happy, having come back from that hallowed ground, the forests of the Pacific Northwest. There is so much beauty in the world, so much more than my heart could ever possibly contain, so much, so much. So glad to have had dinner with Mike, what a perspective shift that involved... I hope that one day, someone completely randomly associated with me will call me for dinner, and they'll leave with the same sense of renewal and excitement about life that I left with that night. I hope that one day I'll have that kind of kindness and radiance beaming out of me. As the Russians say, vperyod!

Thank you for:
giving me anne and pat to come home to
giving me my father to make the trek with
giving me the ability to see the magic in the world
sharing with me that baobab tree


Are we intrinsically seperate beings, or could we possibly be parts of the same thing?

There is an entire world out there, there is an entire world out there, there is an entire world out there...


And the first night back, I love you c-town!