any day now, it’s alright, she’s standing on the precipice of big time. yea we’re just a couple small people squeezing out life, we need a little good time.
well, this is it.
30 days. a blog post a day. national blog post a day month. complete.
i did it. and things are, well, more calm. i don’t really seem to have anything more figured out. i bullshitted a little, i poured my heart out a little. i felt a little. and then a little more.
and, over all, i feel good about it. it’s interesting to look at where i was 30 days ago. staring at the same full moon that i am now. writing about, siiiiggggggghhh, feelings. i started sitting next to a pool twentythreehundred miles away, in new orleans, and finish sitting in my bed in san francisco. symbolic really. of a lot.
i guess this is what people that write in a journal feel like when they go back and read it. and i’ve only been doing it for 30 days.
i feel good. i wish i could blurt it all out here like a real journal. tell the ones i love that i do, and the ones that hurt me that they did, the ones i wish for in my life that i do, and so forth. but that’d be sappy. and i’m no sap. ha.
this month i’ve come to a place where i’m learning to feel. and just be ok with that. not have to know what to do with those feelings. i’ve learned that people often show you parts of themselves that they chastise in others, and don’t even know it. that sometimes, true friends (or what you thought were) have the ability to hurt you the most. that some people will think what they want about me, whether or not it’s true, well, when most likely it’s absolutely not. that i love my alone time more than ever. that sf is one hundred percent home. that i know more about relationships than i wish to and it haunts me. that i am waiting for you. that i’m still figuring it out. that getting uber geeky glasses has the opposite effect as i desired (total prep boys like em? when i just want to be not looked at). that i absolutely cannot live without the friends i’ve know for years, and know me the best. that travel is in my blood and soul, and i need it like i need sleep. that most of the time, people won’t understand. and that is ok. that my intuition is becoming sharper and sharper. that living for me is exactly how it should be. that i miss academia, and grad school. that i love words, and writing more than i ever thought. that i’ve moved on. that i’ve come full circle. that it’s a process. that i’m moving forward. always.
mostly that i’m okay. i love, and hurt, and feel, and exclaim, and rest, and contemplate, and listen to my inner voice, and am. and that it’s all okay.
i am okay.
and in honor of just being ok with every crazy thing that makes up me, i’ll leave you with this… a song from my favorite ever band of life. with no shame. pure love.
‘im sorry,’ she said, ‘i know, i’m not the kind of girl you want… we’re falling, oh oh oh, falling falling down.’
young hearts spark fire, all night. oh yea. oh yea.
i have a crush.
i don’t know him, really.
but, nonetheless, i hope to see him around.
crushes are weird. they are exciting, they give you hope, they add fun to everyday life. but having been single for so long now, and honestly, not having met many people in that so long that i would want to stop being single with, there is something scary about having a crush. like what if this goes somewhere? what would that mean? (spiral spiral spiral)
and i know it seems extreme that i’m even talking about this, especially because i don’t know said boy, but now is exactly WHEN i think about this stuff. because crushing, in and of itself, is fun. what is not fun is when something happens that is real enough to push that crush onto the 5 yrd line of the possibility zone. because then shit’s on the line. that is where something that is said or done could make or break it. ultimately, that is where rejection becomes factor. that is where a crush moves into a possibility of dating, or going on a date.
it’s kind of nice, actually having a new crush. but the thing is, i don’t know him. and when i think about getting to know him i get all weird and freaked about rejection. and this is all happening before ieven know him. because i meet so few boys that i crush on, the possible rejection that comes from a crush these days oddly holds a higher level of possible affectedness. meaning, that rejection holds more power than if i were meeting smart, handsome, funny boys all over the place every single day. it’s a numbers game. the less chances, the more value each chance acquires. therefore, just the thought of something making this crush move into the possibility zone is mildly paralyzing.
but, um, HELLO i am not going to let a chance at something good pass me by because of fear. that’s for sissy marys. but i am going to blab it all out here to get it out of me and move on.
because i don’t even know him.
but, neither does anyone i know. which is also nice for a change. avoiding the normal incest that comes with dating and my group of friends.
so i have a crush. and randomly thinking about this boy that i don’t know gives me hope that i’m not broken. i do know how to maybe be interested in someone in this city. cause it’s been a long time since that’s happened.
also, i love my neighborhood.
we used to dream, and now we worry about dying. i don’t wanna worry about dying… i just wanna worry about those sunshine [boys].
i’d like to rest my heavy head tonight on a bed of california stars. i’d like to lay my weary bones tonight, on a bed of california stars.
i’ve talked about my inherent need for travel. it’s like the spin cycle to my daily wash. i can live life without it, but i’m a big dripping sloppy mess. it clears my head, wrings me out, and leaves me fresh and clean for more daily use.
and most of the time, this travel includes some form of spending time with someone that i care immensely about. lately, that someone (or someones) live in the locale that i am visiting. as opposed to traveling to a locale with someone in which i care about and with which want to spend time. which means i get my fill of spin cycle rejuvenation, but it comes only at a cost of having to say goodbye. and though the cost of having to say goodbye does not outweigh the benefit of spending time, it’s still a little thorn in the heart that seems to be getting deeper and deeper.
mostly, i am blessed to have friends that live across the country. good friends. true friends. connected friends. i could essentially visit any (cool) place in the US and have a friend to visit, stay with, see, or at the very last resort, accompany me. and for a travel bug like me, this is more valuable than endless quarters to do my laundry.
i suppose it is the nature of those friendships that make me able to visit in the first place- good, true, and connected. but the relational foundation being so positive and important, means that there are equally as strong feelings of icky, false, and disconnection when leaving those friends.
and as i wrote about feeling alone last week, i looked forward to a thanksgiving week spent with the type of friends that are as close to family as friends can get.
but as the week came to a close today, i was ultimately filled with a sense of loss, and sadness to say goodbye. because the thing about friends as close as family is that they chose you. they chose to continue relationships with you, and therefore they chose to accept you. as you. if we are lucky, we are able to define family as people who accept us exactly as we are. but we do acknowledge that family is one of the most uncontrolled relationships in life. so, having friends as close as family denotes almost a higher (well, different) level of importance and acceptance. because, we could have chosen to disengage from that relationship anytime, unaccept the people with whom we are in friendship, and we didn’t.
therefore, seeing these ‘friends as close as family’ fills me up with hope and courage to continue being me, continue moving forward when it seems like no one cares if i move mountains or if i stand still. but this makes saying goodbye to those friends that much harder.
this year i am thankful for my connections across the nation, or world for that matter. thankful for those genuine times of goodness spent with people when i was not worried about being something else, or being misunderstood. or more importantly, when i was worried, and those connections solidified that there was no need.
i’d love to feel your hand touching mine and tell me why i must keep working on…so I’d give this world just to dream a dream with you on our bed of california stars.
smoked (for 7 hours) turkey wrapped in bacon.
baked turkey stuffed with sage and oranges.
mashed potatoes with butter, cream cheese, and garlic.
mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar, butter, with marshmellows folded in and sugared pecan crumble on top.
stuffing.
cranberry relish (my great aunt’s recipe).
cornbread with homemade (by me) honey butter.
vegan and gluten-free greenbean casserole.
trifle with angel food cake, whipped pudding, berries and powdered sugar.
pumpkin pie with all natural vanilla IC.
gluten and dairy free pear and cranberry crumble.
broke his own heart, poured it in the ground, big red tree grew up and out, throw up its leaves, spins round and round.
ok, you know those songs that you hear, usually on the radio or at a place in which you do not control the music, and they make you instantly in the moment. like nothing else matters. like nearly thirty years of life just hit you right then. and you are soaking it in. and don’t want it to end. you know those songs?
i heard one of them last night. and since then i have just been in love with my moment. because, really, the feeling that started during the song hasn’t left.
it was 7:37pm, i was at bevmo in carlsbad california with @tjferrara and his father. after working a busy day at work, i had flown from san francisco to the orange county airport, was scooped up by tj, and within 6 minutes of getting in the car i was watching ‘the carter documentary’ about lil wayne in the front seat of his prius. an hour and a half later we were at the grocery store, meeting @tiffanyleonard and tj’s parents (in from detroit). ten minutes later i had departed with the men and at bevmo we arrived.
after wandering with the snarky tjferrara in search of his pops, we arrived at the wall of pinot noir. and i heard this song.
and everything was put into perspective. here i am. in my life. living in california. spending thanksgiving in california. without my family. blood family. feeling like if i couldn’t be with my family, i couldn’t really imagine being with any other people than tiffany and tj. and tj’s parents. because i have known them for so long, they might as well be family. and yea, we that have moved away from ‘home’ often say that our friends are our ‘family,’ but this is for real. genuine love, acceptance, fun, laughs, and ‘this is the grown up life we used to talk about in my bedroom while staying up late in middle school.’ we are adults. and will always be in each other’s lives. and someday, i won’t be the single third wheel asking tj if he has any single male friends that are his clone. but until then, it’s still just perfect.
this is what the holidays are about. living that adult life that you used to imagine when you were in middle school. with those people that you care for and love like family. that aren’t going anywhere.
so i was thinking of a fun post about drunk woman etiquette. but i decided that it is going to wait.
many of my friends run the internet. well, like half of it at least. the fun half. and while why are taking the train to the internet everyday, i am driving across the bay bridge (well 3 hours before them). and while they are doing ‘work,’ i am, in fact, doing work.
normally i’m so not into this. stuff from the internet, that is. i just don’t have time. but apparently today was a productive day for my friends. therefore, i going to regurgitate their productivity to you.
here is all the good work they did on the internet today. thank you friends, mostly via twitter. your success does not go unnoticed.
today i feel alone. and this series of thoughts that will eventually be called a post is going to be much more raw than most of the other posts this month. nothing new for me, or from me, but it does feel a little strange and open given the surrounding posts. but alas, i’m here writing, in theory, to myself, because i need to talk. i need to tell someone. and probably no one will get it. and that lack of understanding is more more digestible when i can’t see it. so this is going in writing, not speaking.
today i feel alone. that’s it. not lonely, though alone could include lonley. it seems that the more i work on myself, learning, growing, striving to be conscious and right, the more i feel alone in the process.
last night a friend said something to me that i’m sure was not intended to make me feel the most understood and, simultaneously, misunderstood i have probably ever felt. she said (in paraphrase), ‘it seems like your advanced knowledge of relationships, your subject and expertise, sometimes just comes back to get you because you’re more aware of everything than the people you have relationships with.’ and for a moment i felt understood in the catch22 that seems to be my life.
you see, because self awareness and the eternal search for growth and goodness is a purely personal thing, if the person with which you are interacting is not ready, willing, or aware of their own self, but you are, there is an instant impasse in the relationship. and then what do you do? you’ve identified that to be true to yourself and serve your higher purpose, a change needs to happen. but if that person is not at a place to accept your needs then it is up to you to make that change for yourself. which often leads to distancing yourself from that person. which then equals a) more aloneness, b) (most likely) a misunderstanding on behalf of the other, which probably then leads to some sort of negative energy passed. both of which feel icky. probably just like the thing that inspired the ‘need to change’ in the first place.
all of this leads me to the unsettling realization that the majority of us are operating, the majority of the time, strictly in defense mode and with unconscious intent. and when that is met with conscious intent the defenses spiral even more, smothering the purpose of that conscious interaction. yea it’s new agey in its wording, but there is really no other way to say it.
mostly what i’m feeling right now in life is a major lack of people and connections in my life that are focused on conscious intent and genuine care. even more unfortunate is that many of the people i have relationships with in my life are being driven by the autopilot mode of defense and project their perceived understanding and supposed ‘figured out’ thoughts of my life onto me. and what’s worse is that those projected defenses are false. because i was never even consulted in the decision making process. because, again, they may think that they know, but that mere fact (that they think they do) means they absolutely don’t. but since they are acting unconsciously, i am treated in response to what they think they know. and this seemingly unending cycle is utterly draining and distracting once you become aware of it. making it that much more difficult for me to be me, in a conscious state.
this makes me feel alone. in my process. in my own head. in my own life. in my own needs. all of it. and aloneness is a complex and tricky concept. it is calming and allows one to just be. but that okayness with self is constantly toeing the line of ‘wall building’ and shutting others out. which is, ultimately, a bigger problem because ‘walls up’ equal defenses which equal exactly that which you are trying to rid yourself. it’s like the mind and soul are unconsciously choosing, without your knowledge, the ‘if you can’t beat em join em’ mentality despite all efforts towards the opposite.
i’m choosing, consciously, to not go there. but that means that i am consistently navigating the terrain of ‘alone,’ testing the boundaries learning through challenge, difficulty and hurt where those lines are.
so today, i feel alone. and that’s it. i’m not trying to be ok with it. or identify if i’m not ok with it. i’m just trying to stay within the present. and most likely, you will not get this post. on a mental, logical level nor emotional spiritual level. but at this point that’s ok. because it’s not about you. and it’s not about needing you to understand. it’s about me. and feeling this. and being with complete and utter absence of concern for you. and your thoughts. your feelings. your projections. or your needs.
we are always running for the thrill of it thrill of it. always pushing up the hill searching for the thrill of it.
today i had a fabulous hayes valley brunch with ron. we had delicious la boulange while discussing life, love, creativity, work, goals and other awesome stuff.
we then sat in hayes green for at least an hour talking and remembering that saturdays are for exactly that: doing nothing, and being in the moment. preferably in the sunshine.
and then, for some reason we started talking about sarah palin. blech. and THAT lead to pick up lines gone wrong. (logical progression, right?)
so here are some of our favorites. they stemmed from terrible things to say, changing one word in a commonly known pick up line, getting the words mixed up, getting two or three separate pu-lines smooched together, terrible things to use as a pick up line in SF, and taking any pick up like three steps too far.
:::this one is how it all started::::
“have you read sarah palin’s new book?”
“do you know what going rogue means in the UK?”
“my name is ‘Ron’… should we keep talking, or just do this?”
“do you come here often? because, i love you.” (see also, insert i love you after everything)
“do you have a quarter? i told my wife i’d call her when i found the girl of my dreams.”
“those pants are becoming on you. of course, i’d becoming on those pants if i were you.”
“what’s your sign? virgo? not after i get through with you.”
“jesus may love you. but i’ll LOOOVVEE you.” (said in marvin gaye voice)
“those pants are becoming on you. i would be coming on your floor if you were on me too.”
happy saturday, ya’ll.
on and on and on we are calling out and out again. never looking down i’m just in awe of what’s in front of me.
addendum to original post, including additions from friends that read this original post-
“im not normally a supporter of interracial sex, but id be willing to make an exception for you.”
