I never blog about work... hell, I never really write about it in general.
Anyone who reads this blog is probably reading it from work anyway, so why remind them of what they want to forget?
Work is something you do, and unless your work is highly interesting (photojournalist, political campaign manager, rogue archaeologist with a bullwhip and a fedora) no one should ever have to read about it.
Any and all ruminations should be shared for interaction with people in the flesh and possibly over the phone. If not for work, what would married couples have to talk to each other about at the end of the day? If not for work, how would I ever find out about my female friends' co-workers and their attempts to sabotage them? If not for work, would I even be able to carry on a conversation with anyone else that I marginally know?
Talk about it, share it with others, laugh it off... Just don't write about it.
It's unlucky, I guess. I learned a long time ago not to write about work, out of fear of jinxing my gigs. I may seem rational and enlightened in print, but I've got some weird superstitions regarding the workplace.
How many times did I ever mention my work in this blog or in the blog before this one? Less than you can count on one hand, I suppose. Usually it was because I had a crush on some girl I worked with and I had to paint a picture for the benefit of my readers. Otherwise, I stay away from that well-- there's nothing to draw from it.
As I continue to finalize my adjustments to this new gig, I feel like I can write a little bit about it. But I won't go into detail, and if I do it will be in private.
You see, I still haven't found my angle yet. To write about something, you always need an angle, a perspective, a slant that is unique.
The angle can be a tried-and-true formula too, just so long as you remember to make it distinctive. I write about my love life often, and we all know how beaten that horse's corpse is, but what I choose to emphasize determines whether or not it is readable and enjoyable. If (for example) I decided to bore you with the more mundane aspects of my past relationship with Eve-- the grocery shopping trips, the standing in line at Blockbuster, the uneventful minutiae of our shared days --the impact would be dulled and no one would be receptive to the highlights I choose to focus on: the romance, the misunderstandings, the tiffs, the humorous instances, the glorious occasions that resemble normalcy...
This new job is hard to nail down, but I feel that I should at least give you an idea of what I do for a living.
*/*
I work for a company whose name I will not divulge, and they specialize in architecture and furniture. Their products are very modern, usually prefabricated, and exceedingly high-end.
Their headquarters is in Santa Monica, but I work near Downtown Los Angeles, where the offshoot factory has been set up. This location is a mix of blue-collar steel/wood workers and the office staff, of which I am a part. The attitude is casual and mellow, with a hint of the lowbrow that always appeals to my Everyman instincts.
The Santa Monica office seems to me like some vaulted mausoleum, staffed not with flesh-and-blood humans but cybernetic architects that barely move or make noise. I am positive that having a stick lodged in one's anus is a prerequisite to working there. Luckily, I don't have to see or even speak to anyone in Santa Monica unless I have to, so I can't really complain.
Obviously there are pros and cons to each office environment: The factory is great but the air is bad, seeing as we are only a stone's throw away from a meat-packing plant and many landfills; Santa Monica is nice and breezy but the yuppies in the area make me want to vomit, and I hear they've banned smoking in most of the city.
(Funny that I should be concerned with the bad air in one location and the lack of permissible smoking in the other...)
The money is swell but I am working ten hour days, and the overtime pay I receive is calculated by hours in the day, not hours throughout the week. My first full-time paycheck was a shocker because of the amount of taxes Uncle Sam jacked me for, but I made a few adjustments on my W-4 and that made a slight difference. The overtime is responsible for the increase in taxes but at least I'll get money back next year... That is, if I don't forget to re-adjust my W-4 before the end of the tax period.
I sit at a desk in the upstairs office. It is not a conventional desk-- it was made by the carpenters in the Wood Shop. I like it because it is as far from corporate chic as we can get. The office seems like more of a clubhouse than a place where people make phone calls and use computers.
I talk on the phone (sometimes I answer if the receptionist is gone), send e-mail correspondence to liaisons, fax quotes back and forth with vendors, collect invoices, draw up work orders, run light errands, and basically do whatever I am told. I have no experience in this field and I truly do not belong here, but thanks to the wonders of graft I am employed here gainfully based upon a reference from my friend Nina's current beau, who has worked for the company for a while.
The factory is all new, and they needed to hire anyone to help. I would have never had a chance at this place if not for that stipulation. The foreman, the supers, everyone knew I was greener than a baby's booger, and yet they hired me.
I am now approaching the end of my 90-day probation period, and I don't know what to expect, but I suspect it won't be too bad. Even if they let me go, it was nice while it lasted. I like the people here, and the work is challenging because I know NOTHING... and that's the way I like it, I am finding out.
Still, the guys at the radio station have been calling me, asking if I want to do weekends here and there. I said I'd think about it, because the extra money would be too hard to turn down. Who knows how it will all turn out? All I know is the main reason I left the station was that they were moving to Anaheim at the end of the year, and that is a commute I am not willing to make.
So maybe I will just work my ass of with both places until the end of the year, around the holidays. I'll surely have enough money for Christmas presents, and if I have enough money saved up by then I can put it down on a new car, or maybe a used car in tip-top condition that isn't too old.
*/*
I went to the gas station this morning to buy cigarettes and fill up my tank. It dawned on me, as I put money back into my wallet, that my wallet is never empty these days. I slid the change between the 20s I withdrew from the bank ATM two days ago, which hasn't whittled away by very much.
It is insane to actually have money in my pockets. I still cannot get over how my lifestyle has improved over my financial situation a mere four months ago. I was scrounging for change in couch cushions, borrowing money from benefactors, selling DVDs and CDs for gas money, and I always ran out of funds two days before my next payday.
No more sliding into home plate every two weeks-- the paycheck-to-paycheck days are over. And what's more, I'm not spending money the way I used to when I was in my twenties. Except for one or two occasions when I truly went overboard, I have been pinching pennies and putting them in my savings account.
Of course, I am spending tremendous amounts of money on gas, but that's nothing new. Besides, the gas prices are just so ridiculous now-- of course I'm going to bemoan what I'm spending on gasoline... but at least I don't drive an SUV.
In the past three months I have bought some much-needed gadgets and doodads for my home studio along with some new clothes, especially new shoes and boxers. Other than that and a few pricey dinners and bar tabs, I've been as frugal as can be.
I haven't even bought a new CD since June, which leads me to believe that I only buy music when I am stressed out concerning my income. When I'm depressed, I don't buy anything new. Instead, I go back and listen to old stuff. Sometimes that old stuff is formerly new stuff that I never got around to hearing until I got sad.
When I receive a paycheck and I know that all the money is already spent and that I'll only have a few bucks to my name after the bills get paid, my attitude is that I deserve a little something for myself to keep me happy. That's the only way I can explain how I have resisted the urge to go to Tower or Amoeba or Second Spin and drop some serious doll on some muse.
Speaking of Second Spin, according to my last credit report I owe them $50 from four years ago. All I have to do is pay them and it's off the books. I owe less than $750 total, to various creditors and banks. This debt has been slowly attended to over the course of the past five years but I've only made real progress as of late.
Add all this together with the fact that I am eating healthier and actually started running laps again, and you get a man who is mostly happy... That is to say, as happy as I can get at one time.
That's not a bad thing.
What is bad is that I am still human, and I fall prey to wants and needs and moods and phases. But I'm also working on the novel again, and that is good. That novel is a monster but I am whipping it into some semblance of a coherent vision.
Plus, Mercury will leave its retrograde state a few days after July ends, which means that things will get slightly easier.
After five years of ups and downs, I am finally making the money I should've been making all along. A Bush in the White House, 9/11, a tumbling economy and the unemployment blues all contributed to me taking a mighty big fall, but I got up, dusted myself off, and kept on moving.
In the process, I started up some new projects and rekindled some old works. I'm going full-steam ahead right now, and I can't say I love it or hate it-- it just is.
I work in a factory but I'm not a factory worker. Regardless, I am continuing forward like a machine, and nothing will stop me from getting where I have to go.
Nothing.
Have a beautiful weekend.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
good comment
The following is a comment that a friend made on my most recent post, which I have decided to delete because it was too negative... but the comment was shiny and bright, so I kept that instead.
James,
You say you forgive, but there is a sense of pain and a twinge of bitterness in this post. I don't think "God" or the universe sent you this experience as a chance at anything but to learn what really matters, and that is that you have to learn to love yourself for who you are and not worry how anyone else feels or treats you. You seem to be saying that if you are still not with the right person when you are 40 that you will be resigned to some sort of failure. Do you think I am a failure or less worthy because I have not found the right person? Has it occured to you that maybe no one good enough or right for you has really come along? People tend to worry that it is because there is something wrong with them or that people will view them as failures for not having a relationship by a certain age, when in reality most relationships end prematurely--not having one only means you have not made the mistake of being in a relationship that is bound for failure in the first place. And I am sure you and I both have things we can work on in our lives to make us better partners when the right person DOES show up. The truth is that you need to see this for the blessing that it is, because these are the experiences that are preparing you to be the kind of person you need to be when the right person DOES arrive. Learning to love yourself and really forgive and understand people for thier mistakes takes a lot of courage, and is very hard, but once you learn to do it, it makes it a lot easier not to be hurt or take things so personally. The universe us sending you this lesson to teach you to be able to be detached your feelings of self-worth from situations like this while also being compassionate and understanding of other people. You are growing up.
Luvs~Shannon
James,
You say you forgive, but there is a sense of pain and a twinge of bitterness in this post. I don't think "God" or the universe sent you this experience as a chance at anything but to learn what really matters, and that is that you have to learn to love yourself for who you are and not worry how anyone else feels or treats you. You seem to be saying that if you are still not with the right person when you are 40 that you will be resigned to some sort of failure. Do you think I am a failure or less worthy because I have not found the right person? Has it occured to you that maybe no one good enough or right for you has really come along? People tend to worry that it is because there is something wrong with them or that people will view them as failures for not having a relationship by a certain age, when in reality most relationships end prematurely--not having one only means you have not made the mistake of being in a relationship that is bound for failure in the first place. And I am sure you and I both have things we can work on in our lives to make us better partners when the right person DOES show up. The truth is that you need to see this for the blessing that it is, because these are the experiences that are preparing you to be the kind of person you need to be when the right person DOES arrive. Learning to love yourself and really forgive and understand people for thier mistakes takes a lot of courage, and is very hard, but once you learn to do it, it makes it a lot easier not to be hurt or take things so personally. The universe us sending you this lesson to teach you to be able to be detached your feelings of self-worth from situations like this while also being compassionate and understanding of other people. You are growing up.
Luvs~Shannon
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
to eve
Ten years ago, an ex-girlfriend said to me:
"If I'm not married by the time I'm 50, will you marry me?"
I laughed and said, "sure."
Then, she went out and got married almost immediately.
So when Eve told me two months ago that she would marry me if she was 40 years old and didn't have anyone, my heart broke.
It has not healed.
*/*
I'm not mad at you, Eve. I forgive you. I know you aren't asking for any forgiveness, but that's all I have to give now.
My heart is broken.
We can't be friends anymore, okay?
You don't really expect me to wait another ten years for you to decide that I am the one you really love, do you?
At this point, nothing makes any difference. I didn't want to marry you but I brought it up anyway, because our friends planted that seed in my head and I got curious. The last thing I wanted to do was scare you off. I never wanted to settle down or have a kid, but you have this annoying habit of thinking you know what I'm thinking when in reality you are miles off.
At least I got my closure with you. All I wanted when I contacted you again was to hear you apologize to me for sleeping with Sharky.
I got that out of you. Everything after that was just two people using each other... at least that's how you put it.
Silly me, I thought God (or whatever it is that puts me through this hell) was giving me a second chance.
I know now that I was wrong.
I understand the reasons why you will never ever EVER reciprocate what I feel for you. They are reasons that do not need to be voiced-- they are understood implicitly.
There is no explanation. For a moment there, I needed one. But not anymore.
I don't need to hear the excuses, because they are so transparent that even you don't believe them.
I know the truth. It is the same truth that every woman eventually discovers in terms of me. That's why I will always have a bunch of girlfriends, none of them who care or truly understand me. I suppose I am fated to be a perrenial bachelor.
And what that means is: By the time I'm 40, if I don't have anyone to call my own then what makes you think I would want you?
If this is the way my life is to be, then when I'm 40 years old I'll be dating 18 year olds and living out my mid-life crisis, not waiting on your beck and call.
Pathetic, yes. But I am resigned to it.
How about you? Are you resigned to give up the love of your life?
I know the answer. You don't have to entertain me with explanations.
*/*
I know you read this blog. Do me a favor: Don't.
You're the reason I am not writing regularly here anymore. Stop reading this so I can write again... otherwise I'll just start a new blog elsewhere.
One good thing: Since you have decided that I don't exist to you anymore, I have gotten a lot done.
I guess I was wrong about you being my muse. You are NOT an inspiration. I get nothing done when I am with you. You are like artistic Kryptonite for me. I tried not to think about it, but it was no use. All we ever did when we were together was shut out the rest of the world, draw the blinds closed, and hide under the blankets.
I can't do that. I don't want to be afraid of what's out there. I don't blame you for being afraid, but I can't travel that road with you if you won't let me be.
It sucks that I am telling you in this way, but you won't talk to me anymore unless your new man is out doing something else and you are lonely and call me up on a Saturday when I'm in San Diego trying to forget you. So I have to let you know this way.
This is not 'goodbye', and this has nothing to do with forgiveness. This has to do with me being a fool and thinking that what we had was real.
On my end, it was real. On yours, it was not, and never was, and never will be.
I'm going where I'm wanted again, and this time I'm staying there.
When you are married to some guy and have a kid, I might say 'hello'. But that's about it.
Adios, amigo.
"If I'm not married by the time I'm 50, will you marry me?"
I laughed and said, "sure."
Then, she went out and got married almost immediately.
So when Eve told me two months ago that she would marry me if she was 40 years old and didn't have anyone, my heart broke.
It has not healed.
*/*
I'm not mad at you, Eve. I forgive you. I know you aren't asking for any forgiveness, but that's all I have to give now.
My heart is broken.
We can't be friends anymore, okay?
You don't really expect me to wait another ten years for you to decide that I am the one you really love, do you?
At this point, nothing makes any difference. I didn't want to marry you but I brought it up anyway, because our friends planted that seed in my head and I got curious. The last thing I wanted to do was scare you off. I never wanted to settle down or have a kid, but you have this annoying habit of thinking you know what I'm thinking when in reality you are miles off.
At least I got my closure with you. All I wanted when I contacted you again was to hear you apologize to me for sleeping with Sharky.
I got that out of you. Everything after that was just two people using each other... at least that's how you put it.
Silly me, I thought God (or whatever it is that puts me through this hell) was giving me a second chance.
I know now that I was wrong.
I understand the reasons why you will never ever EVER reciprocate what I feel for you. They are reasons that do not need to be voiced-- they are understood implicitly.
There is no explanation. For a moment there, I needed one. But not anymore.
I don't need to hear the excuses, because they are so transparent that even you don't believe them.
I know the truth. It is the same truth that every woman eventually discovers in terms of me. That's why I will always have a bunch of girlfriends, none of them who care or truly understand me. I suppose I am fated to be a perrenial bachelor.
And what that means is: By the time I'm 40, if I don't have anyone to call my own then what makes you think I would want you?
If this is the way my life is to be, then when I'm 40 years old I'll be dating 18 year olds and living out my mid-life crisis, not waiting on your beck and call.
Pathetic, yes. But I am resigned to it.
How about you? Are you resigned to give up the love of your life?
I know the answer. You don't have to entertain me with explanations.
*/*
I know you read this blog. Do me a favor: Don't.
You're the reason I am not writing regularly here anymore. Stop reading this so I can write again... otherwise I'll just start a new blog elsewhere.
One good thing: Since you have decided that I don't exist to you anymore, I have gotten a lot done.
I guess I was wrong about you being my muse. You are NOT an inspiration. I get nothing done when I am with you. You are like artistic Kryptonite for me. I tried not to think about it, but it was no use. All we ever did when we were together was shut out the rest of the world, draw the blinds closed, and hide under the blankets.
I can't do that. I don't want to be afraid of what's out there. I don't blame you for being afraid, but I can't travel that road with you if you won't let me be.
It sucks that I am telling you in this way, but you won't talk to me anymore unless your new man is out doing something else and you are lonely and call me up on a Saturday when I'm in San Diego trying to forget you. So I have to let you know this way.
This is not 'goodbye', and this has nothing to do with forgiveness. This has to do with me being a fool and thinking that what we had was real.
On my end, it was real. On yours, it was not, and never was, and never will be.
I'm going where I'm wanted again, and this time I'm staying there.
When you are married to some guy and have a kid, I might say 'hello'. But that's about it.
Adios, amigo.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Maybe She Was Right ABout Me Being A Vampire
I've been told to gaze at the sun
when it rises and sets
Possible replenishment could come from this
an extended solar kiss
I see nothing in the surface
except for endless fire
breathing
contracting
Spend my time redacting statements
taking my mind higher
shunting desire
Simmering summer season
sears my sensibilities
Sends me incensed and frenzied
breathless with energy
into the barren deep bluff
Flirting on the edge of engulfment
waiting for my sensitive skin
to toughen
My days lived out in a baked daze
My nights wasted and drained
Poisons calm demons and
serums stake claims
Powders and elixirs suggest
calamitous consequences
A lust for danger
flails in my gut
but fails to erupt--
A mental coffin nailed shut
Say what you will
but to stay out
in the daylight
is a bitter pill
to swallow
Better that I spend my moments
wallowing
in the mud to keep cool
Following blood
and discrete rules
Borrowing drugs
to deceive fools
Maybe she was right about me being a vampire
when it rises and sets
Possible replenishment could come from this
an extended solar kiss
I see nothing in the surface
except for endless fire
breathing
contracting
Spend my time redacting statements
taking my mind higher
shunting desire
Simmering summer season
sears my sensibilities
Sends me incensed and frenzied
breathless with energy
into the barren deep bluff
Flirting on the edge of engulfment
waiting for my sensitive skin
to toughen
My days lived out in a baked daze
My nights wasted and drained
Poisons calm demons and
serums stake claims
Powders and elixirs suggest
calamitous consequences
A lust for danger
flails in my gut
but fails to erupt--
A mental coffin nailed shut
Say what you will
but to stay out
in the daylight
is a bitter pill
to swallow
Better that I spend my moments
wallowing
in the mud to keep cool
Following blood
and discrete rules
Borrowing drugs
to deceive fools
Maybe she was right about me being a vampire
Thursday, July 20, 2006
grudges
It's amazing how many grudges I hold.
I always told myself that I was a nice guy, an open-minded dude with a soft side.
There is an aspect of that which is true, but it doesn't take into account my mean streak.
The majority of my mean streak is consumed by my long memory. The same faculties that allow me to recall pop cultural trivia and inconsequential minutiae effectively also causes me to not relent from my personal grievances and vendettas.
Although I very rarely indulge in it, my mind brims with revenge scenarios constantly. Every once in a while, something happens to someone that I am secretly angry at, and I sit back bemused and confident, attributing their bad luck to 'karmic justice'...
What a load of shit on my part. It's like those Born Again Christians who are smug in their belief that everyone else is going to Hell except for themselves.
*/*
Every day since Sunday, I have remembered someone that I cut out of my life simply because they said or did something that pissed me off and diminished any respect I may have had for them.
I am also remembering some of the beefs that were so petty and insignificant to begin with that I actually forgot about them for a while. When I would get wind of them again, I'd renew my anger at the person who wronged me, even though I hadn't wished them ill for some time.
I remember my last steady girlfriend, and how it was me-- not her --who broke it off, simply because she told me about the time she had sex with her friend's fiancee... the day before they were to be married.
I never told Jeanie the real reason why I wanted to end it. I never told her that I couldn't trust her, and that I was afraid she'd do the same thing to me at some point.
Granted, she wasn't repentant about her past deed, which caused me more alarm than the admission itself, so maybe I was justified in my aversion to her.
But I should've been honest with her, and I should've acknowledged my fear so that she could understand what bothered me.
She and I had a good thing. It was hard to break up with her. In order to refrain from reneging on my will, I kept a notebook that documented all of the bad things she and I encountered during our short but passionate relationship.
Any time I felt bad or missed her, I pulled out that yellow notebook and re-read my entries. It was a great way to remind myself of what kind of up-and-down roller-coaster we were on.
But I wonder if it didn't cause me to ignore my instincts. Every time my heart longed for her, I would read the notebook in order to steady my resolve. Every time I told myself "Man, you care about her... you should just let it go..." I would pull out the poems and recall how wrong she did me sometimes.
I'm sure she left our relationship wondering just who the hell I was, and why I was so unwilling to take a chance.
She doesn't talk to me now. It's been 6 years since I last saw her.
I used to think she just hated me, but something tells me that I broke her heart and now she is the one who cannot forgive.
It's OK. I deserve it. I'm not going to try and get in touch with her. Live and let live.
*/*
I am curious to see if this is just another phase or if I am truly sincere about wanting to forgive and forget.
It's not as difficult as it seemed at first, but that can be deceptive. Just because I am embracing the concept of letting bygones be bygones doesn't mean it will last for very long. I'm sure that somewhere down the line someone will do something to me that I will find unforgivable in the least.
That will be the true test.
I'm just not ready to turn the other cheek 100% yet. I can do it, and have done it on many occasions... but lately my first reaction has been to smack someone back if they smack me first.
I have a lot of pride, and when it gets wounded I get defensive. But my pride doesn't allow me to go apeshit in the way that I'd prefer, so instead I get confrontational and rude. I mask it all in the pretense of "lively debate" or "open-minded discussion" but really I am finding ways to communicate my ideas in the coldest, iciest manner possible.
I'm sick of making people feel bad for making human mistakes. It's not my business or responsibility to do that. It's not my job to sit there and tell people, "I told you so" or any of that self-righteous bullcrap.
So what have I been doing to train myself to forgive?
Just like with the yellow notebook, I am resorting to a popular medium in order to reinforce my will. However, in addition to writing it out I am also trying to expose myself to works of art that employ the theme of forgiveness.
I've been listening to "A Quick One (While He's Away)" by The Who. I wrote about that song in May of 2005, in a short post that barely scratched the surface of what that song means to me personally.
It was an early attempt at a rock opera for a young Pete Townshend. At the urging of their producer, Kit Lambert, Townshend penned a ten-minute long suite comprised of six different song ideas. They were short of songs for the next LP and this measure was done to fill out the album.
The six parts of the suite were as follows:
The a cappella introduction, "Her Man's Gone"
"Crying Town", which sets the scene by introducing the main character, a woman who is sad because her lover is far away and has been gone for a long while.
"We Have A Remedy" is a rousing chorus of voices (presumably the woman's friends) urging her to temporarily hook up with studly Ivor the Engine Driver, in order to get some relief.
"Ivor The Engine Driver" is a humorous interlude where Ivor speaks for himself, announcing his lecherous intentions in a thick Cockney accent with an English music hall backing.
"Soon Be Home" flirts with country & western music, the only lyrics being the title. It shows that the woman's lover is on his way back to his beloved.
But the part I am focusing on-- which also happens to be the most famous and recognizable part of the song --is the finale "You Are Forgiven", which resolves the conflict climactically: The lover returns, so glad to see his beloved again; she in turn confesses right off the bat to her infidelity and explains why she did it.
And then he sings to her, "You are forgiven" and The Who repeat this refrain over and over until the finish of the song, when Pete Townshend declares "We're all forgiven!" before ending the epic tale.
The refrain is divided between the three Who vocalists: lead singer Roger Daltrey handles the middle register and harmony while Pete goes as low as he can with the melody; that leaves the late, great John Entwistle (aka "The Ox") to deliver the excellent falsetto.
Every time I hear this part of the song (it was featured in the movie Rushmore) tears well up in my eyes. Just thinking about it sends chills up my spine. Maybe all those instances in the past were signs that I was longing to forgive the people who have hurt me in my life, but I just couldn't bring myself to admit it.
I'm sure Pete Townshend wrote the song about a girlfriend he used to have-- he addressed the topic later on in the full-blown rock opera Tommy: Captain Walker comes home from WWI to find his wife in bed with another man. In a fit of rage, he kills the man in front of his son whom he has never seen, Tommy Walker. This causes Tommy to psychosomatically become deaf dumb and blind.
The consequences of jealousy and rage, according to this treatement of the infidelity theme, are far-ranging and more harmful than we think.
Pete also approached the same subject matter in the early hit "I Can See For Miles" but in a different tone. Rather than being forgiving, his tone in "Miles" is one of watchful paranoia: "I know you've deceived me now here's a surprise/ I know that you have 'cause there's magic in my eyes/ I can see for miles and miles..."
Is it any wonder that "Miles" is my all-time favorite Who song? Or that "Miles" was written before "A Quick One" while Tommy was written afterwards?
I will always love that song, but for now "A Quick One" is my new favorite. Let's hope it stays like that for a long time coming.
I always told myself that I was a nice guy, an open-minded dude with a soft side.
There is an aspect of that which is true, but it doesn't take into account my mean streak.
The majority of my mean streak is consumed by my long memory. The same faculties that allow me to recall pop cultural trivia and inconsequential minutiae effectively also causes me to not relent from my personal grievances and vendettas.
Although I very rarely indulge in it, my mind brims with revenge scenarios constantly. Every once in a while, something happens to someone that I am secretly angry at, and I sit back bemused and confident, attributing their bad luck to 'karmic justice'...
What a load of shit on my part. It's like those Born Again Christians who are smug in their belief that everyone else is going to Hell except for themselves.
*/*
Every day since Sunday, I have remembered someone that I cut out of my life simply because they said or did something that pissed me off and diminished any respect I may have had for them.
I am also remembering some of the beefs that were so petty and insignificant to begin with that I actually forgot about them for a while. When I would get wind of them again, I'd renew my anger at the person who wronged me, even though I hadn't wished them ill for some time.
I remember my last steady girlfriend, and how it was me-- not her --who broke it off, simply because she told me about the time she had sex with her friend's fiancee... the day before they were to be married.
I never told Jeanie the real reason why I wanted to end it. I never told her that I couldn't trust her, and that I was afraid she'd do the same thing to me at some point.
Granted, she wasn't repentant about her past deed, which caused me more alarm than the admission itself, so maybe I was justified in my aversion to her.
But I should've been honest with her, and I should've acknowledged my fear so that she could understand what bothered me.
She and I had a good thing. It was hard to break up with her. In order to refrain from reneging on my will, I kept a notebook that documented all of the bad things she and I encountered during our short but passionate relationship.
Any time I felt bad or missed her, I pulled out that yellow notebook and re-read my entries. It was a great way to remind myself of what kind of up-and-down roller-coaster we were on.
But I wonder if it didn't cause me to ignore my instincts. Every time my heart longed for her, I would read the notebook in order to steady my resolve. Every time I told myself "Man, you care about her... you should just let it go..." I would pull out the poems and recall how wrong she did me sometimes.
I'm sure she left our relationship wondering just who the hell I was, and why I was so unwilling to take a chance.
She doesn't talk to me now. It's been 6 years since I last saw her.
I used to think she just hated me, but something tells me that I broke her heart and now she is the one who cannot forgive.
It's OK. I deserve it. I'm not going to try and get in touch with her. Live and let live.
*/*
I am curious to see if this is just another phase or if I am truly sincere about wanting to forgive and forget.
It's not as difficult as it seemed at first, but that can be deceptive. Just because I am embracing the concept of letting bygones be bygones doesn't mean it will last for very long. I'm sure that somewhere down the line someone will do something to me that I will find unforgivable in the least.
That will be the true test.
I'm just not ready to turn the other cheek 100% yet. I can do it, and have done it on many occasions... but lately my first reaction has been to smack someone back if they smack me first.
I have a lot of pride, and when it gets wounded I get defensive. But my pride doesn't allow me to go apeshit in the way that I'd prefer, so instead I get confrontational and rude. I mask it all in the pretense of "lively debate" or "open-minded discussion" but really I am finding ways to communicate my ideas in the coldest, iciest manner possible.
I'm sick of making people feel bad for making human mistakes. It's not my business or responsibility to do that. It's not my job to sit there and tell people, "I told you so" or any of that self-righteous bullcrap.
So what have I been doing to train myself to forgive?
Just like with the yellow notebook, I am resorting to a popular medium in order to reinforce my will. However, in addition to writing it out I am also trying to expose myself to works of art that employ the theme of forgiveness.
I've been listening to "A Quick One (While He's Away)" by The Who. I wrote about that song in May of 2005, in a short post that barely scratched the surface of what that song means to me personally.
It was an early attempt at a rock opera for a young Pete Townshend. At the urging of their producer, Kit Lambert, Townshend penned a ten-minute long suite comprised of six different song ideas. They were short of songs for the next LP and this measure was done to fill out the album.
The six parts of the suite were as follows:
The a cappella introduction, "Her Man's Gone"
"Crying Town", which sets the scene by introducing the main character, a woman who is sad because her lover is far away and has been gone for a long while.
"We Have A Remedy" is a rousing chorus of voices (presumably the woman's friends) urging her to temporarily hook up with studly Ivor the Engine Driver, in order to get some relief.
"Ivor The Engine Driver" is a humorous interlude where Ivor speaks for himself, announcing his lecherous intentions in a thick Cockney accent with an English music hall backing.
"Soon Be Home" flirts with country & western music, the only lyrics being the title. It shows that the woman's lover is on his way back to his beloved.
But the part I am focusing on-- which also happens to be the most famous and recognizable part of the song --is the finale "You Are Forgiven", which resolves the conflict climactically: The lover returns, so glad to see his beloved again; she in turn confesses right off the bat to her infidelity and explains why she did it.
And then he sings to her, "You are forgiven" and The Who repeat this refrain over and over until the finish of the song, when Pete Townshend declares "We're all forgiven!" before ending the epic tale.
The refrain is divided between the three Who vocalists: lead singer Roger Daltrey handles the middle register and harmony while Pete goes as low as he can with the melody; that leaves the late, great John Entwistle (aka "The Ox") to deliver the excellent falsetto.
Every time I hear this part of the song (it was featured in the movie Rushmore) tears well up in my eyes. Just thinking about it sends chills up my spine. Maybe all those instances in the past were signs that I was longing to forgive the people who have hurt me in my life, but I just couldn't bring myself to admit it.
I'm sure Pete Townshend wrote the song about a girlfriend he used to have-- he addressed the topic later on in the full-blown rock opera Tommy: Captain Walker comes home from WWI to find his wife in bed with another man. In a fit of rage, he kills the man in front of his son whom he has never seen, Tommy Walker. This causes Tommy to psychosomatically become deaf dumb and blind.
The consequences of jealousy and rage, according to this treatement of the infidelity theme, are far-ranging and more harmful than we think.
Pete also approached the same subject matter in the early hit "I Can See For Miles" but in a different tone. Rather than being forgiving, his tone in "Miles" is one of watchful paranoia: "I know you've deceived me now here's a surprise/ I know that you have 'cause there's magic in my eyes/ I can see for miles and miles..."
Is it any wonder that "Miles" is my all-time favorite Who song? Or that "Miles" was written before "A Quick One" while Tommy was written afterwards?
I will always love that song, but for now "A Quick One" is my new favorite. Let's hope it stays like that for a long time coming.
Monday, July 17, 2006
forgiven
What the hell do I know about forgiveness?
I have never had to forgive anyone anything. That is to say, if someone ever did me a serious wrong, I never ever considered forgiving them.
I could move on, make up and still be friends with the person... but I could never forgive them.
I have never forgiven anyone, but I have been forgiven for my transgressions time and time again.
So, all I really know about forgiveness is how to receive it.
*/*
Saturday night, a beautiful long-legged black girl in a sushi bar revealed to me that forgiveness is divine.
According to Wikipedia, "Forgiveness is the mental process of ceasing to feel resentment or anger against another person for a perceived offence, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. Forgiveness may be considered simply in terms of the feelings of the person who forgives, or in terms of the relationship between the forgiver and the person forgiven. In some contexts, it may be granted without any expectation of compensation, and without any response on the part of the offender (for example, one may forgive a person who is dead). In practical terms, it may be necessary for the offender to offer some form of apology or restitution, or even just ask for forgiveness, in order for the wronged person to believe they are able to forgive."
The beautiful black woman informed me that I am unable to grow unless I let these hurts and aches go.
*/*
I have a long list of people I need to forgive.
First and foremost, my father. I forgive you for the things you did that destroyed our family and caused me to lose faith in everything around me.
I forgive all of the friends with whom I have strained relationships due to actions they took that (in my view) disrespected me. That includes Sharky, Eve, Laurie, Daniel, A-Dogg, Jeanie, and Bro Man.
I forgive Sophie for leaving me without any explanation.
I can't think of anymore off the top of my head. As the days go by, I will remember them slowly, one by one.
*/*
I have never wanted to forgive anyone because I wanted to make them all pay. I wanted to make them all feel the pain and desperation that I feel. I wanted them to know what it feels like to be me.
What I've discovered is that none of that makes any difference. Some of these people who have hurt me (whether intentionally or unintentionally) have experienced horrible things that I thank God every day for not experiencing myself.
I always figured forgiveness to be a sucker's route, something that powerless people do when they know they are licked. I could never bring myself to do it.
It seemed like weakness, but the real weakness is to never forgive someone for their trespasses.
I used to say, "I can forgive, but I can't forget." That's not forgiveness. If I cannot allow myself to forget, then I am not forgiving that person.
What I understand now is that forgetting doesn't mean erasing the memory from my mind. Rather, it means that I should not focus on perceived slights as the basis for my relationships with people.
I have never asked to be forgiven, and yet people do it for me all the time. It seems so easy, but I know it's not. It's extremely difficult for me to bury the hatchet.
One day at a time, right?
*/*
It doesn't happen overnight.
It takes a long time before the healing begins.
Because I waited so long before deciding to set myself free from this burden, it will take a while before I can be strong again.
By allowing myself to forgive, I am effectively going against the grain of everything I feel and believe about this world.
I'm sure I will feel rotten for months to come, years perhaps. There will be times when the vengeance and wrath inside my heart will come to the surface, like a natural instinct or a chemical reaction in a laboratory. I trained myself over the decades to be spiteful and bitter and hateful, and I did a good job of cultivating that anger and rage.
But at least I won't have to hurt like I do. At least I know that all of this is going towards making me a better person, not just in deed but in thought.
Still, it will take time, and it will be so hard to resist the temptations, the urge to wreak havoc upon anyone I see in my way.
In other words, it's going to be a long time before I can forgive myself.
I think this blog is done, don't you?
Yes, it is.
Have a nice one.
I have never had to forgive anyone anything. That is to say, if someone ever did me a serious wrong, I never ever considered forgiving them.
I could move on, make up and still be friends with the person... but I could never forgive them.
I have never forgiven anyone, but I have been forgiven for my transgressions time and time again.
So, all I really know about forgiveness is how to receive it.
*/*
Saturday night, a beautiful long-legged black girl in a sushi bar revealed to me that forgiveness is divine.
According to Wikipedia, "Forgiveness is the mental process of ceasing to feel resentment or anger against another person for a perceived offence, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. Forgiveness may be considered simply in terms of the feelings of the person who forgives, or in terms of the relationship between the forgiver and the person forgiven. In some contexts, it may be granted without any expectation of compensation, and without any response on the part of the offender (for example, one may forgive a person who is dead). In practical terms, it may be necessary for the offender to offer some form of apology or restitution, or even just ask for forgiveness, in order for the wronged person to believe they are able to forgive."
The beautiful black woman informed me that I am unable to grow unless I let these hurts and aches go.
*/*
I have a long list of people I need to forgive.
First and foremost, my father. I forgive you for the things you did that destroyed our family and caused me to lose faith in everything around me.
I forgive all of the friends with whom I have strained relationships due to actions they took that (in my view) disrespected me. That includes Sharky, Eve, Laurie, Daniel, A-Dogg, Jeanie, and Bro Man.
I forgive Sophie for leaving me without any explanation.
I can't think of anymore off the top of my head. As the days go by, I will remember them slowly, one by one.
*/*
I have never wanted to forgive anyone because I wanted to make them all pay. I wanted to make them all feel the pain and desperation that I feel. I wanted them to know what it feels like to be me.
What I've discovered is that none of that makes any difference. Some of these people who have hurt me (whether intentionally or unintentionally) have experienced horrible things that I thank God every day for not experiencing myself.
I always figured forgiveness to be a sucker's route, something that powerless people do when they know they are licked. I could never bring myself to do it.
It seemed like weakness, but the real weakness is to never forgive someone for their trespasses.
I used to say, "I can forgive, but I can't forget." That's not forgiveness. If I cannot allow myself to forget, then I am not forgiving that person.
What I understand now is that forgetting doesn't mean erasing the memory from my mind. Rather, it means that I should not focus on perceived slights as the basis for my relationships with people.
I have never asked to be forgiven, and yet people do it for me all the time. It seems so easy, but I know it's not. It's extremely difficult for me to bury the hatchet.
One day at a time, right?
*/*
It doesn't happen overnight.
It takes a long time before the healing begins.
Because I waited so long before deciding to set myself free from this burden, it will take a while before I can be strong again.
By allowing myself to forgive, I am effectively going against the grain of everything I feel and believe about this world.
I'm sure I will feel rotten for months to come, years perhaps. There will be times when the vengeance and wrath inside my heart will come to the surface, like a natural instinct or a chemical reaction in a laboratory. I trained myself over the decades to be spiteful and bitter and hateful, and I did a good job of cultivating that anger and rage.
But at least I won't have to hurt like I do. At least I know that all of this is going towards making me a better person, not just in deed but in thought.
Still, it will take time, and it will be so hard to resist the temptations, the urge to wreak havoc upon anyone I see in my way.
In other words, it's going to be a long time before I can forgive myself.
I think this blog is done, don't you?
Yes, it is.
Have a nice one.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
July horoscope
AQUARIUS (January 20- February 18)
Your July Horoscope by Susan Miller
Life has become a series of sharp contrasts. Your career could not be better, and although you may have recently encountered new competitors or detractors (more about those later), the smart money is on you. This year is to be your most glorious for professional progress, something you will see in full force in November. A close relationship has been problematic, however, and last month, problems that were previously hidden suddenly became very obvious.
Let's talk about your professional life first. Watch July 6, when Jupiter will turn from retrograde to speedy, strong direct orbit in your house of honors, awards, achievement, and fame. If you felt that much of your career progress has slowed in recent months, that sounds right because Jupiter, the great planet of expansion and good fortune, has been a weakened, retrograde state since March 4. Watch the kind of phone calls and offers you receive in the days surrounding July 6. I promise you'll be so encouraged by what you hear!
July 6 will be important for another reason - the Sun and Uranus will be ideally aligned, helping you find money from a plum assignment or sale. It's a day when luck is on your side, so make it important!
I will admit that this month, when you present certain ideas, you are likely to encounter at least one Doubting Thomas who will fold his arms over his chest and ask: "Why should we do things YOUR way?" Even an old supporter may act like this, so don't take this person's lack of support to heart. If you've done your homework, you will be able to present your case forcefully and eventually win. It just will take a bit more time and energy, due to the opposition of Mars and Saturn to your Sun, but you CAN win this person over.
Mercury will be retrograde throughout this month, from July 4 to 29, making for an increase in miscommunications, misunderstandings, false starts, and outright wrong thinking. Mercury rules perception, thinking, communicating, negotiating, and the drawing up of agreements, and important contracts / documents of all kinds. Mercury also rules transportation and shipping, as well as buying and selling. Things will go haywire, and it will be hard to get hold of the people whose decisions you need, let alone set up meetings and get decisions from them.
While Mercury will slow you down, Jupiter, as mentioned above, will protect you. November will be your very best career moment, possibly of the decade. After that, Jupiter will move to another house, and I won't be talking about your career so much in the long-range future. While you have this rare advantage, use it!
If you are thinking you had better hurry up and get things done in the first three days of July before Mercury goes retrograde on July 4, the sad truth is, it's already too late. Did you notice how appliances and computers began acting up in your house and office in June? That was a sign that you were already in Mercury's undertow. Don't plan to initiate any vital plan now. Wait until August 5 or so.
You need to leave some space from the day Mercury goes direct again on July 29, because Mercury always acts most wildly on the bookend dates, that is, the start and end dates and the days that surround them.
One other day I would like you to circle on your calendar as potentially terrific career news will be Friday, July 14, when Mars and Pluto work hard on your behalf. It will be a good day for a key meeting or presentation, but so would Wednesday, July 12, when the moon will be in Aquarius and the energy of this Mars to Pluto aspect will still be building. It looks like a good friend, collaborator, or your lawyer may be quite instrumental in helping you get your good news.
Finally, July 26 should be outstanding for career success, as Venus and Jupiter will be so sublimely angled. You may find a way to increase your status in your industry, be interviewed by the press, or give a speech. Others will somehow come to know your name, and all of the buzz about you will be very, very positive.
I will admit that in your business life, it appears someone you think of as an agent, collaborator, representative, or partner has been giving you a very hard time. This person might alternatively be a competitor or critic, or if none of these, then a romantic partner. What makes this person's lack of support so painful is that you respect this person's opinion - or at least you used to. If this person is someone you encounter at work, be grateful that this person is out in the open and easy to spot. There is nothing underhanded about this energy - you can see who this person is, for this person's behavior is out in the open.
If you were born in January, the past year has been doubly difficult, but happily, Saturn is about to move away from your Sun this month. Conditions should improve with each passing day. If you were born in early February, the same sort of stress you've been feeling lately will continue a while longer, and I am so sorry to have to report that. Your birthday is the one feeling Saturn's pressure most now, and that's why you have to promise me you will take good care of yourself.
It may help to know that Saturn's presence can be a little painful UNTIL you try something new to untangle the problem. Once you do, you will see the problem begin to melt. Don't rely on old formulas, dear Aquarius - take a risk and the problem will almost immediately begin to melt.
Keep your health strong near the full moon, July 10, when you may feel yourself begin to feel a little less robust than usual. You've been under a great deal of tension lately, so you need ways to channel it. Exercise can keep you not only calm, but make you super-fit, too. If you are already fit, you know how much you love your workouts - it's "me" time you need. This month won't be exactly easy, not with warrior Mars opposing your Sun, so take it slow, take frequent breaks, and be your own best friend.
The new moon that fell at the end of June was very encouraging for health and fitness goals, and the energy of that moon will still be very strong as July begins. If you want to see a doctor, nutritionist, trainer, or any other type of health professional, do so the moment the month takes off. This is the very BEST time for you to initiate a consultation or to begin a workout program. Never worry about Mercury retrograde if you need medical advice. Often it means we are going back to an old problem that needs to be fixed, and what better time to do this than now?
Romantically, if attached, the same heavy atmosphere that you saw in June will continue to hang over your relationship. (As said, some attached Aquarius are not feeling this energy because it is being asserted in your work life or with health.)
This month seems to have a more serious mood, and will require you to make some tough romantic decisions. The key will be to remain as dispassionately realistic as you can be. You need a partner in life who will support you through thick and thin - if you don't have that, you will soon see that your partner is more part of the problem than the solution. You don't need added pressure these days - so if you don't see evidence of a changed attitude in your significant other, you may move on at month's end.
If you want to play the field, Venus in highly compatible Gemini will help you quite a bit during the first three weeks of July. The trick will be to put past relationships out of your mind - easier said than done. If you find you CAN give love a chance, your star power will bring you all sorts of fresh opportunities.
One day that should be sexy and fun would be July 15, when Venus and Mars will dance a sweet duet. Married, single, or dating, you're sure to enjoy what the day can bring. Make plans!
If you can only get out to socialize on one weekend, make it the weekend of weekend of July 29 - 30.
On July 30, Venus and your ruling planet, Uranus, will shower you with sparkling vibrations. It's sure to be an effervescent, light, and happy weekend for all Aquarius, no matter what your marital status. With the moon in loving Libra, you're sure to have a standout day. Plan something, but also be open to lots of unusual and surprising events, for those are also indicated, dear Aquarius!
Best date nights: July 3, 4, 8, 11, 12, 15, 21, and 30
This month seems to give new meaning to the old adage, "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." If you have any critics or detractors who have been hoping you'd trip up, you will know in July. The good part is that competitors will be very visible, so it will be easy to separate the good guys from the bad guys. There's no behind-the-scenes intrigue - everything will be out in the open.
While your chart seems to point to a political situation related to work, it might be that a romantic partner may be the one generating all the tensions. If so, you can finally air out issues that have threatened to harm the relationship. If you feel you are beyond the talking stage, you may now leave without regret. This is a make-it or break-it month, and you'll be too weary to hang on to ANY relationship that despite your most valiant efforts seems impossible to fix.
The whole month will be fraught with emotion and confrontation, but the last week of July will be your toughest. At that point, you'll finally say "Enough!" and call an end to the antics. Mercury will be retrograde all month, so although you'll be ready to voice your plan, try not to make any firm decisions until August when you'll feel a greater sense of mental and emotional clarity.
It will be vital that you take very good care of your health this month, as you will be under a strain. This is no month to diet, binge, burn endless amounts of energy, or go days without sleep. It's also not the time to keep yourself locked up inside. Insist on early morning fresh air, sunshine, and exercise. Of course, you'll also need rest and nutritious foods, too. Your office life will be unusually hectic, so if you aren't careful, you could feel yourself flagging at the full moon, July 10.
At the same full moon, July 10, if you have not identified all those who are not members of your camp, you may hear confidential information that will help you solve the puzzle. Although sometimes it is hard to hear the truth about others' motives and secret activities, in the end, knowing will protect you. With that in mind, when truth starts coming out, just say courageously, "Bring it on!"
Your July Horoscope by Susan Miller
Life has become a series of sharp contrasts. Your career could not be better, and although you may have recently encountered new competitors or detractors (more about those later), the smart money is on you. This year is to be your most glorious for professional progress, something you will see in full force in November. A close relationship has been problematic, however, and last month, problems that were previously hidden suddenly became very obvious.
Let's talk about your professional life first. Watch July 6, when Jupiter will turn from retrograde to speedy, strong direct orbit in your house of honors, awards, achievement, and fame. If you felt that much of your career progress has slowed in recent months, that sounds right because Jupiter, the great planet of expansion and good fortune, has been a weakened, retrograde state since March 4. Watch the kind of phone calls and offers you receive in the days surrounding July 6. I promise you'll be so encouraged by what you hear!
July 6 will be important for another reason - the Sun and Uranus will be ideally aligned, helping you find money from a plum assignment or sale. It's a day when luck is on your side, so make it important!
I will admit that this month, when you present certain ideas, you are likely to encounter at least one Doubting Thomas who will fold his arms over his chest and ask: "Why should we do things YOUR way?" Even an old supporter may act like this, so don't take this person's lack of support to heart. If you've done your homework, you will be able to present your case forcefully and eventually win. It just will take a bit more time and energy, due to the opposition of Mars and Saturn to your Sun, but you CAN win this person over.
Mercury will be retrograde throughout this month, from July 4 to 29, making for an increase in miscommunications, misunderstandings, false starts, and outright wrong thinking. Mercury rules perception, thinking, communicating, negotiating, and the drawing up of agreements, and important contracts / documents of all kinds. Mercury also rules transportation and shipping, as well as buying and selling. Things will go haywire, and it will be hard to get hold of the people whose decisions you need, let alone set up meetings and get decisions from them.
While Mercury will slow you down, Jupiter, as mentioned above, will protect you. November will be your very best career moment, possibly of the decade. After that, Jupiter will move to another house, and I won't be talking about your career so much in the long-range future. While you have this rare advantage, use it!
If you are thinking you had better hurry up and get things done in the first three days of July before Mercury goes retrograde on July 4, the sad truth is, it's already too late. Did you notice how appliances and computers began acting up in your house and office in June? That was a sign that you were already in Mercury's undertow. Don't plan to initiate any vital plan now. Wait until August 5 or so.
You need to leave some space from the day Mercury goes direct again on July 29, because Mercury always acts most wildly on the bookend dates, that is, the start and end dates and the days that surround them.
One other day I would like you to circle on your calendar as potentially terrific career news will be Friday, July 14, when Mars and Pluto work hard on your behalf. It will be a good day for a key meeting or presentation, but so would Wednesday, July 12, when the moon will be in Aquarius and the energy of this Mars to Pluto aspect will still be building. It looks like a good friend, collaborator, or your lawyer may be quite instrumental in helping you get your good news.
Finally, July 26 should be outstanding for career success, as Venus and Jupiter will be so sublimely angled. You may find a way to increase your status in your industry, be interviewed by the press, or give a speech. Others will somehow come to know your name, and all of the buzz about you will be very, very positive.
I will admit that in your business life, it appears someone you think of as an agent, collaborator, representative, or partner has been giving you a very hard time. This person might alternatively be a competitor or critic, or if none of these, then a romantic partner. What makes this person's lack of support so painful is that you respect this person's opinion - or at least you used to. If this person is someone you encounter at work, be grateful that this person is out in the open and easy to spot. There is nothing underhanded about this energy - you can see who this person is, for this person's behavior is out in the open.
If you were born in January, the past year has been doubly difficult, but happily, Saturn is about to move away from your Sun this month. Conditions should improve with each passing day. If you were born in early February, the same sort of stress you've been feeling lately will continue a while longer, and I am so sorry to have to report that. Your birthday is the one feeling Saturn's pressure most now, and that's why you have to promise me you will take good care of yourself.
It may help to know that Saturn's presence can be a little painful UNTIL you try something new to untangle the problem. Once you do, you will see the problem begin to melt. Don't rely on old formulas, dear Aquarius - take a risk and the problem will almost immediately begin to melt.
Keep your health strong near the full moon, July 10, when you may feel yourself begin to feel a little less robust than usual. You've been under a great deal of tension lately, so you need ways to channel it. Exercise can keep you not only calm, but make you super-fit, too. If you are already fit, you know how much you love your workouts - it's "me" time you need. This month won't be exactly easy, not with warrior Mars opposing your Sun, so take it slow, take frequent breaks, and be your own best friend.
The new moon that fell at the end of June was very encouraging for health and fitness goals, and the energy of that moon will still be very strong as July begins. If you want to see a doctor, nutritionist, trainer, or any other type of health professional, do so the moment the month takes off. This is the very BEST time for you to initiate a consultation or to begin a workout program. Never worry about Mercury retrograde if you need medical advice. Often it means we are going back to an old problem that needs to be fixed, and what better time to do this than now?
Romantically, if attached, the same heavy atmosphere that you saw in June will continue to hang over your relationship. (As said, some attached Aquarius are not feeling this energy because it is being asserted in your work life or with health.)
This month seems to have a more serious mood, and will require you to make some tough romantic decisions. The key will be to remain as dispassionately realistic as you can be. You need a partner in life who will support you through thick and thin - if you don't have that, you will soon see that your partner is more part of the problem than the solution. You don't need added pressure these days - so if you don't see evidence of a changed attitude in your significant other, you may move on at month's end.
If you want to play the field, Venus in highly compatible Gemini will help you quite a bit during the first three weeks of July. The trick will be to put past relationships out of your mind - easier said than done. If you find you CAN give love a chance, your star power will bring you all sorts of fresh opportunities.
One day that should be sexy and fun would be July 15, when Venus and Mars will dance a sweet duet. Married, single, or dating, you're sure to enjoy what the day can bring. Make plans!
If you can only get out to socialize on one weekend, make it the weekend of weekend of July 29 - 30.
On July 30, Venus and your ruling planet, Uranus, will shower you with sparkling vibrations. It's sure to be an effervescent, light, and happy weekend for all Aquarius, no matter what your marital status. With the moon in loving Libra, you're sure to have a standout day. Plan something, but also be open to lots of unusual and surprising events, for those are also indicated, dear Aquarius!
Best date nights: July 3, 4, 8, 11, 12, 15, 21, and 30
This month seems to give new meaning to the old adage, "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." If you have any critics or detractors who have been hoping you'd trip up, you will know in July. The good part is that competitors will be very visible, so it will be easy to separate the good guys from the bad guys. There's no behind-the-scenes intrigue - everything will be out in the open.
While your chart seems to point to a political situation related to work, it might be that a romantic partner may be the one generating all the tensions. If so, you can finally air out issues that have threatened to harm the relationship. If you feel you are beyond the talking stage, you may now leave without regret. This is a make-it or break-it month, and you'll be too weary to hang on to ANY relationship that despite your most valiant efforts seems impossible to fix.
The whole month will be fraught with emotion and confrontation, but the last week of July will be your toughest. At that point, you'll finally say "Enough!" and call an end to the antics. Mercury will be retrograde all month, so although you'll be ready to voice your plan, try not to make any firm decisions until August when you'll feel a greater sense of mental and emotional clarity.
It will be vital that you take very good care of your health this month, as you will be under a strain. This is no month to diet, binge, burn endless amounts of energy, or go days without sleep. It's also not the time to keep yourself locked up inside. Insist on early morning fresh air, sunshine, and exercise. Of course, you'll also need rest and nutritious foods, too. Your office life will be unusually hectic, so if you aren't careful, you could feel yourself flagging at the full moon, July 10.
At the same full moon, July 10, if you have not identified all those who are not members of your camp, you may hear confidential information that will help you solve the puzzle. Although sometimes it is hard to hear the truth about others' motives and secret activities, in the end, knowing will protect you. With that in mind, when truth starts coming out, just say courageously, "Bring it on!"
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
The Madcap Dies
O where are you now, pussy willow that shined on this leaf
When I was alone you promised a stem from your heart
My head kissed the ground
I was half the way down
Treading the sand
Please
Please lend a hand
I'm only a person
Whose armbands beat
And his hands hang tall
Won't you miss me?
Wouldn't you miss me at all?
The Crazy Diamond is dead.
He was already dead, some say. His mind was fried by electric flashes of insanity and chaos, or perhaps too much LSD, or maybe the Xanax was much stronger in the '60s... nevertheless, Roger "Syd" Barrett ceased being much of anything as the '70s trudged on, content to eat pork chops at his mum's countryside home while painting in the garden.
He grew old and fat, like Elvis. But all eyes were on Elvis, making him paranoid. Syd never attained even a fraction of the overwhelming fame that The King received, but apparently that short yet mercurial brush with stardom did a number on him.
Don't cry for Syd, because like I said, he's been dead for some time. Cry instead for the man who disappeared from sight decades ago, the sparkling personality that created the first incarnation of Pink Floyd in 1966, the whimsical flower child who not only wrote songs about gnomes and scarecrows and mice named Gerald but mothers telling bedtime stories to their children, mischievous cats, voyeurs stealing women's undergarments off of laundry lines, and the Universe.
Pink Floyd after Syd's departure was an entirely different entity. Their music was popular and epic and cerebral, with Roger Waters taking the reins and composing rock operas using the latest technology and with the cutting edge in sound electronics at his disposal. It barely resembled the acid-party Britpop of the Syd years.
I love Pink Floyd's music after Syd, but there is a special place in my heart for the Barrett era.
*/*
In his prime, Syd Barrett was an artist, a writer, a singer and a musician. He was handsome and witty and terribly charming. He was fashionable and hip and mysterious.
He taught David Gilmour, the man who took Syd's place in the later line-up, how to play blues guitar. He inspired Roger Waters to write lyrics (it should be noted that Waters has gone on to pen some of the finest lyrics in all of rock music) and he loomed so large in the lives of his peers that, years after his mental collapse, his former band found themselves paying him a tribute with the album Wish You Were Here.
Oddly enough, during the sessions for that classic album Syd showed up unexpectedly. He was overweight and balding. He looked disheveled and unkempt. And he wanted to jam with his old buddies again.
But nothing materialized. Syd may have wanted to play again, but he was in no shape to do much of anything. It was depressing rather than inspirational for the rest of the band. In their eyes, it must have seen like such a huge fall from grace: going from hippie saint to clueless vegetable in the course of six years.
It haunted Waters often enough that he found himself lyrically invoking the ominous imagery of madness time and again. References to going insane and lunatics and hollow-eyed shells of men permeated his later opuses. The character of "Pink" in the rock opera The Wall (portrayed by Bob Geldof in the movie adaptation) is based on Waters but there's a lot of Syd in there too.
*/*
Roky Erikson. Arthur Lee. Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Skip Spence.
"The acid casualties", as they are known, if anyone knows them at all.
And by anyone, I mean people who obsess over the most esoteric and obscure artists, out-of-print limited edition rare vinyl, and the footnotes of pop music history.
Compared to artists like Elvis, Madonna, The Beatles, or Michael Jackson, Syd Barrett is nothing. He's barely visible on the map. But the question is not how big could he have been but rather what happened to make such a promising young artist wig out?
People always blame drugs, which doesn't wash with me. I've heard countless stories about Keith Richards' drug abuse but never heard one single story about him getting paranoid and going insane.
I blame his temperament and general disposition. Unlike Richards, who has the physical constitution of an elephant and the lucid-eyed perspective of a man who knows his own strengths and weaknesses very well, Syd was a bit of a delicate flower. He wasn't rugged or macho-- he was sensitive, and inquisitive. He had a boyish charm and a likeable presence; there was never any danger present in his music. Only when he started going into catatonic fits and forgetting how to play his own songs onstage did he ever come close to being dangerous... and that's a relatively benign kind of danger because it doesn't hurt anyone except for the other guys in the group.
So they kicked him out. But they didn't one day say to him, "Syd, you're out." They eased him out, which is worse. It's the polite way, and it sucks because there's nothing polite about being told, "We don't need you anymore", no matter how many smiles and spins you put on it.
I used to listen to his solo albums all the time, the ones that Waters and Gilmour produced for him as some sort of amends or atonement for their shabby treatment. The albums were haphazardly produced, almost as an afterthought. Syd sounds bad, like a man on the verge of crumbling.
But underneath the false starts, strained vocals, and dodgy performances lies the last gleaming twinkle of his magic. No illness or condition could squelch the fire burning inside of him, even as he started to realize himself just how bad things had gotten.
He married a beautiful James Joyce poem ("Golden Hair") to music. He sang songs about rats and terrapin and Bob Dylan and Native American folklore-- he even wrote a song about the song he was singing at the moment!
I don't know why I identify with the burnouts. Is it because I see myself becoming a burnout? Maybe there's some romantic notion in all of it that I am gleaning. Possibly, I see their disintegration as some sort of transcendence. Rather than go the traditional route (money, girls, accolades, fame, and the inevitable downfall, followed by a comeback perhaps), these rock and roll suicides jump right into the fire that heats the frying pan.
Theirs was not a pose. They were not people who put on masks to perform, only to take them off when they left the stadium. They were not actors. They were real... and they were really weird too!
I think it's the weirdness that endears these types to me, because I know that I am weird to the bone, if not as weird as the Madcap himself, the late great Syd Barrett.
To paraphrase the ever-elegant (and disgustingly rich) Roger Waters: You crazy diamond, oh how you shined, for that one brief little moment, before I was even born, there you were singing your songs and playing your instrument, and even though you are long gone now your music is still around, fractured and frail but also trailblazing and bold.
This is the fate of the True Originals. They are not long for this world.
When I was alone you promised a stem from your heart
My head kissed the ground
I was half the way down
Treading the sand
Please
Please lend a hand
I'm only a person
Whose armbands beat
And his hands hang tall
Won't you miss me?
Wouldn't you miss me at all?
The Crazy Diamond is dead.
He was already dead, some say. His mind was fried by electric flashes of insanity and chaos, or perhaps too much LSD, or maybe the Xanax was much stronger in the '60s... nevertheless, Roger "Syd" Barrett ceased being much of anything as the '70s trudged on, content to eat pork chops at his mum's countryside home while painting in the garden.
He grew old and fat, like Elvis. But all eyes were on Elvis, making him paranoid. Syd never attained even a fraction of the overwhelming fame that The King received, but apparently that short yet mercurial brush with stardom did a number on him.
Don't cry for Syd, because like I said, he's been dead for some time. Cry instead for the man who disappeared from sight decades ago, the sparkling personality that created the first incarnation of Pink Floyd in 1966, the whimsical flower child who not only wrote songs about gnomes and scarecrows and mice named Gerald but mothers telling bedtime stories to their children, mischievous cats, voyeurs stealing women's undergarments off of laundry lines, and the Universe.
Pink Floyd after Syd's departure was an entirely different entity. Their music was popular and epic and cerebral, with Roger Waters taking the reins and composing rock operas using the latest technology and with the cutting edge in sound electronics at his disposal. It barely resembled the acid-party Britpop of the Syd years.
I love Pink Floyd's music after Syd, but there is a special place in my heart for the Barrett era.
*/*
In his prime, Syd Barrett was an artist, a writer, a singer and a musician. He was handsome and witty and terribly charming. He was fashionable and hip and mysterious.
He taught David Gilmour, the man who took Syd's place in the later line-up, how to play blues guitar. He inspired Roger Waters to write lyrics (it should be noted that Waters has gone on to pen some of the finest lyrics in all of rock music) and he loomed so large in the lives of his peers that, years after his mental collapse, his former band found themselves paying him a tribute with the album Wish You Were Here.
Oddly enough, during the sessions for that classic album Syd showed up unexpectedly. He was overweight and balding. He looked disheveled and unkempt. And he wanted to jam with his old buddies again.
But nothing materialized. Syd may have wanted to play again, but he was in no shape to do much of anything. It was depressing rather than inspirational for the rest of the band. In their eyes, it must have seen like such a huge fall from grace: going from hippie saint to clueless vegetable in the course of six years.
It haunted Waters often enough that he found himself lyrically invoking the ominous imagery of madness time and again. References to going insane and lunatics and hollow-eyed shells of men permeated his later opuses. The character of "Pink" in the rock opera The Wall (portrayed by Bob Geldof in the movie adaptation) is based on Waters but there's a lot of Syd in there too.
*/*
Roky Erikson. Arthur Lee. Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Skip Spence.
"The acid casualties", as they are known, if anyone knows them at all.
And by anyone, I mean people who obsess over the most esoteric and obscure artists, out-of-print limited edition rare vinyl, and the footnotes of pop music history.
Compared to artists like Elvis, Madonna, The Beatles, or Michael Jackson, Syd Barrett is nothing. He's barely visible on the map. But the question is not how big could he have been but rather what happened to make such a promising young artist wig out?
People always blame drugs, which doesn't wash with me. I've heard countless stories about Keith Richards' drug abuse but never heard one single story about him getting paranoid and going insane.
I blame his temperament and general disposition. Unlike Richards, who has the physical constitution of an elephant and the lucid-eyed perspective of a man who knows his own strengths and weaknesses very well, Syd was a bit of a delicate flower. He wasn't rugged or macho-- he was sensitive, and inquisitive. He had a boyish charm and a likeable presence; there was never any danger present in his music. Only when he started going into catatonic fits and forgetting how to play his own songs onstage did he ever come close to being dangerous... and that's a relatively benign kind of danger because it doesn't hurt anyone except for the other guys in the group.
So they kicked him out. But they didn't one day say to him, "Syd, you're out." They eased him out, which is worse. It's the polite way, and it sucks because there's nothing polite about being told, "We don't need you anymore", no matter how many smiles and spins you put on it.
I used to listen to his solo albums all the time, the ones that Waters and Gilmour produced for him as some sort of amends or atonement for their shabby treatment. The albums were haphazardly produced, almost as an afterthought. Syd sounds bad, like a man on the verge of crumbling.
But underneath the false starts, strained vocals, and dodgy performances lies the last gleaming twinkle of his magic. No illness or condition could squelch the fire burning inside of him, even as he started to realize himself just how bad things had gotten.
He married a beautiful James Joyce poem ("Golden Hair") to music. He sang songs about rats and terrapin and Bob Dylan and Native American folklore-- he even wrote a song about the song he was singing at the moment!
I don't know why I identify with the burnouts. Is it because I see myself becoming a burnout? Maybe there's some romantic notion in all of it that I am gleaning. Possibly, I see their disintegration as some sort of transcendence. Rather than go the traditional route (money, girls, accolades, fame, and the inevitable downfall, followed by a comeback perhaps), these rock and roll suicides jump right into the fire that heats the frying pan.
Theirs was not a pose. They were not people who put on masks to perform, only to take them off when they left the stadium. They were not actors. They were real... and they were really weird too!
I think it's the weirdness that endears these types to me, because I know that I am weird to the bone, if not as weird as the Madcap himself, the late great Syd Barrett.
To paraphrase the ever-elegant (and disgustingly rich) Roger Waters: You crazy diamond, oh how you shined, for that one brief little moment, before I was even born, there you were singing your songs and playing your instrument, and even though you are long gone now your music is still around, fractured and frail but also trailblazing and bold.
This is the fate of the True Originals. They are not long for this world.
Friday, July 07, 2006
"Don't Tell Anybody Anything..."
I am re-discovering the joys of personal writing.
Ever since I started blogging about four years ago, my personal writing has been neglected. I haven't kept a notebook solely for the purpose of creative writing in all that time. The majority of them are filled with work notes, lyrics to songs, ridiculous raps and the occasional poem here and there.
In a recent post (which I will not link-- you'll just have to find it yourself) I wondered about my newfound inability to be alone. I couldn't figure out why I was constantly craving attention from other people. I threw out a few possibilities but nothing was conclusive until this week.
Now I know why, thanks to the short but sweet moments I stole this week, where I scribbled out some words onto a pad while waiting for my bosses to meet with me concerning some of my duties.
Blogging is great but it is exhausting emotionally because I am putting a lot out on the line by writing about my personal life. The insularity of writing in a notebook is warm and welcoming. No one sees my words, my thoughts, and therefore I can be 100% honest.
In my notebooks, I don't have to change names, invent composite characters, omit events or blur the line between reality and fantasy. My notebooks are raw, uncompromising, private... They are the real me. This blog? It's a PR stunt, a meaningful facade, a truthful diversion that falls short of the goal.
If I were blogging fictional stories or random trivial bullshit, I think I'd be OK. But the fact is, I am spilling my guts for the Web, and when the Web doesn't appreciate it I get upset.
I don't have that relationship with my notebooks. I dictate my hopes and fears, and the notebook takes it all in, and never reveals my secrets.
*/*
That song by Morrissey, "Suedehead", reminds me of a girl in high school who had a crush on me. This was during my long-haired phase, when I just didn't care and nothing mattered to me.
She invited me over to her place to watch the Driver's Ed TV show that all first-time adolescent drivers had to watch in order to pass the written exam. After doing our assignments, I went to the bathroom.
When I came out, she was reading my notebook.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I screamed. "Leave it alone!"
"I'm sorry. I just wanted to read your words," she said, apologetic.
"If I want you to read them, I'll open it up to you," I said. And with that, I took the notebook away.
I guess it was mean to do that to her, especially since she liked me and thought I was smart and cool and funny. But I didn't care. I didn't give her permission to do that, and as a result it was a number of years before I ever showed that girl one single poem from my notebooks.
I didn't want her, or anyone, to know me. My notebooks were my business.
Then, I started giving them away, when I felt like I was trapped by the words and patterns in each of them. I used to burn them, but after a while an old friend convinced me that I should just give them away. And so I chose people to give them to, hoping that they would be the kind of people I could trust with some of my private thoughts.
It was easy to give them away once I moved past them. By the time these people read my thoughts on paper, my mind was onto something else.
Now that my mind is turning inward again, I think it's time to keep a notebook. I don't want anyone to know me anymore. They don't know what to do with the information I give them.
I am also reminded of Holden Caulfield's immortal words at the end of The Catcher In The Rye:
"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."
I've been telling everybody everything, and that's why I can't stand to be alone anymore. I can't enjoy my loneliness if everybody is in on it. That's why Holden Caulfield's words are echoing in my ears. And if anybody in the world knew about enjoying being alone, it was J.D. Salinger, legendary recluse and the creator of the infamous Caulfield.
*/*
I sometimes still do enjoy being alone, but I used to revel in it.
Quiet walks along the freeway, listening to my Walkman and watching the sun setting in the distance... a dimly-lit bedroom and series of papers and notes scattered about... I was always in the middle, sorting the piles and deciding what stays and what goes, what lives and what dies... maybe I'd sneak a smoke behind my father's house before he came home from work... There was always music playing, syncopated to the infrequent impact of ripe apricots falling against the tin awning on the roof... No telephone, no transportation, no money, no hopes and expectations, and yet I was content, if not happy... I could stay that way for days upon days, and then maybe a friend would realize that they hadn't heard from me in a while and call me up, and it was as if I'd never been away, it was as if a few hours had passed when in reality weeks had gone by...
I didn't miss anybody or want to be with anyone. Even the girls who used to make me tear my hair out faded into the background when I was alone. The minute they hung up on me or told me to go to hell, I was back in the world of words I had created. Then, they'd call me after a while and tell me they loved me, and it was all the same to me-- love, hate, just words to be written and misspelled and defined and rewritten countless times...
The small amount of words I've written this week (for me and only me) have triggered a reaction in me that I haven't felt in so long.
I will still blog. I can't stop blogging. But...
I see now that the anticipation of waiting to read a comment, or wanting to talk to someone about something I wrote-- all that stuff is destructive to me.
It's no surprise that the novel I am working on still revolves around a lonely wannabe fiction writer who makes friends out of his imaginary characters. I really am not interested in knowing people. Instead, I am more interested in writing about them, or perhaps sketching them out.
I am OK with that. Really, I am. It works for me.
What doesn't work for me is craving approval from people who don't know how to give proper feedback. That, in my mind, includes everyone in the free world.
I apologize for my contempt. But then again, not really.
Have a nice weekend, everybody.
Ever since I started blogging about four years ago, my personal writing has been neglected. I haven't kept a notebook solely for the purpose of creative writing in all that time. The majority of them are filled with work notes, lyrics to songs, ridiculous raps and the occasional poem here and there.
In a recent post (which I will not link-- you'll just have to find it yourself) I wondered about my newfound inability to be alone. I couldn't figure out why I was constantly craving attention from other people. I threw out a few possibilities but nothing was conclusive until this week.
Now I know why, thanks to the short but sweet moments I stole this week, where I scribbled out some words onto a pad while waiting for my bosses to meet with me concerning some of my duties.
Blogging is great but it is exhausting emotionally because I am putting a lot out on the line by writing about my personal life. The insularity of writing in a notebook is warm and welcoming. No one sees my words, my thoughts, and therefore I can be 100% honest.
In my notebooks, I don't have to change names, invent composite characters, omit events or blur the line between reality and fantasy. My notebooks are raw, uncompromising, private... They are the real me. This blog? It's a PR stunt, a meaningful facade, a truthful diversion that falls short of the goal.
If I were blogging fictional stories or random trivial bullshit, I think I'd be OK. But the fact is, I am spilling my guts for the Web, and when the Web doesn't appreciate it I get upset.
I don't have that relationship with my notebooks. I dictate my hopes and fears, and the notebook takes it all in, and never reveals my secrets.
*/*
That song by Morrissey, "Suedehead", reminds me of a girl in high school who had a crush on me. This was during my long-haired phase, when I just didn't care and nothing mattered to me.
She invited me over to her place to watch the Driver's Ed TV show that all first-time adolescent drivers had to watch in order to pass the written exam. After doing our assignments, I went to the bathroom.
When I came out, she was reading my notebook.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I screamed. "Leave it alone!"
"I'm sorry. I just wanted to read your words," she said, apologetic.
"If I want you to read them, I'll open it up to you," I said. And with that, I took the notebook away.
I guess it was mean to do that to her, especially since she liked me and thought I was smart and cool and funny. But I didn't care. I didn't give her permission to do that, and as a result it was a number of years before I ever showed that girl one single poem from my notebooks.
I didn't want her, or anyone, to know me. My notebooks were my business.
Then, I started giving them away, when I felt like I was trapped by the words and patterns in each of them. I used to burn them, but after a while an old friend convinced me that I should just give them away. And so I chose people to give them to, hoping that they would be the kind of people I could trust with some of my private thoughts.
It was easy to give them away once I moved past them. By the time these people read my thoughts on paper, my mind was onto something else.
Now that my mind is turning inward again, I think it's time to keep a notebook. I don't want anyone to know me anymore. They don't know what to do with the information I give them.
I am also reminded of Holden Caulfield's immortal words at the end of The Catcher In The Rye:
"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."
I've been telling everybody everything, and that's why I can't stand to be alone anymore. I can't enjoy my loneliness if everybody is in on it. That's why Holden Caulfield's words are echoing in my ears. And if anybody in the world knew about enjoying being alone, it was J.D. Salinger, legendary recluse and the creator of the infamous Caulfield.
*/*
I sometimes still do enjoy being alone, but I used to revel in it.
Quiet walks along the freeway, listening to my Walkman and watching the sun setting in the distance... a dimly-lit bedroom and series of papers and notes scattered about... I was always in the middle, sorting the piles and deciding what stays and what goes, what lives and what dies... maybe I'd sneak a smoke behind my father's house before he came home from work... There was always music playing, syncopated to the infrequent impact of ripe apricots falling against the tin awning on the roof... No telephone, no transportation, no money, no hopes and expectations, and yet I was content, if not happy... I could stay that way for days upon days, and then maybe a friend would realize that they hadn't heard from me in a while and call me up, and it was as if I'd never been away, it was as if a few hours had passed when in reality weeks had gone by...
I didn't miss anybody or want to be with anyone. Even the girls who used to make me tear my hair out faded into the background when I was alone. The minute they hung up on me or told me to go to hell, I was back in the world of words I had created. Then, they'd call me after a while and tell me they loved me, and it was all the same to me-- love, hate, just words to be written and misspelled and defined and rewritten countless times...
The small amount of words I've written this week (for me and only me) have triggered a reaction in me that I haven't felt in so long.
I will still blog. I can't stop blogging. But...
I see now that the anticipation of waiting to read a comment, or wanting to talk to someone about something I wrote-- all that stuff is destructive to me.
It's no surprise that the novel I am working on still revolves around a lonely wannabe fiction writer who makes friends out of his imaginary characters. I really am not interested in knowing people. Instead, I am more interested in writing about them, or perhaps sketching them out.
I am OK with that. Really, I am. It works for me.
What doesn't work for me is craving approval from people who don't know how to give proper feedback. That, in my mind, includes everyone in the free world.
I apologize for my contempt. But then again, not really.
Have a nice weekend, everybody.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
shock
I am in shock.
Talking with my mother on Friday, she informed me of something so terrible that I have no words to express what I feel.
It has to do with family, in particular the actions of a relative who has gone beyond hitting rock bottom-- they are now digging beneath the pavement.
I am 32 years old. Nothing should shock me anymore. But I feel like I am 16 again, grappling with contradictory notions of good and evil, light and dark, trying to balance all of this without becoming cynical or depressed.
It was so much to take in that I think I have short-circuited my emotions. I cannot laugh, I cannot cry.
All the progress I made... now I am back at Square One.
Suddenly, nothing else seems to matter. All the things I blog about, all the things I spend my time fretting over... none of it makes any amount of difference.
I tried being in touch with my own emotions for a spell and found that they were raging like stormy currents on the high seas. But hearing this bit of news shocked me back into the numbness that I am so accustomed to in my waking life.
Now my emotions are calm and still, without even so much as a ripple denting its pristine surface.
The world can pass me by and I can't bring myself to bat an eye. The words of well-wishers and the good-intentioned once again appear to me as just words, spoken by people who think they know the deal but do not.
Forgive me for not imparting the news that has me back in my old ways. I am candid about many aspects of my life but this is one those things that serves no purpose for me to reveal to anyone, because then I know people's perception of me will change. They will see me as a victim, or a sad sack, and they will not try to truly understand what I am experiencing.
I don't see this as a good or bad thing. It merely is. If anything, it has centered me, like a brutal slap in the face, like a jolting realization that there is nothing I can do to control the situations I am in... all I can do is just move forward and play with the cards I have been dealt.
The less I care, the further I seem to get in this world.
Sad.
Or at least, it would be sad if I gave two shits about anything. And at this point, I cannot afford to care whether or not this world wants to light itself on fire and burn itself to a crisp.
Just like the day I found out that nothing was as it seemed, I am ambivalent about the news of my family. It will spur me on to better things, yes, but at the expense of my own happiness. In order to cope, I am going to have to go back into that shell that I've been breaking out of, because it is in that shell where I find solace, hope, strength and courage.
Ironic, yes. But we all need a protective shell around us, don't we?
I'd like to introduce you to mine. But I'll save that for another day.
Other than the above-mentioned insanity, I had a nice and relaxing weekend. I went where I was wanted and I followed my bliss. I was actually happy for a few incandescent moments.
But now, I am neither happy nor sad. I am just am.
I will just be. Until the shock wears off, I will always be.
Talking with my mother on Friday, she informed me of something so terrible that I have no words to express what I feel.
It has to do with family, in particular the actions of a relative who has gone beyond hitting rock bottom-- they are now digging beneath the pavement.
I am 32 years old. Nothing should shock me anymore. But I feel like I am 16 again, grappling with contradictory notions of good and evil, light and dark, trying to balance all of this without becoming cynical or depressed.
It was so much to take in that I think I have short-circuited my emotions. I cannot laugh, I cannot cry.
All the progress I made... now I am back at Square One.
Suddenly, nothing else seems to matter. All the things I blog about, all the things I spend my time fretting over... none of it makes any amount of difference.
I tried being in touch with my own emotions for a spell and found that they were raging like stormy currents on the high seas. But hearing this bit of news shocked me back into the numbness that I am so accustomed to in my waking life.
Now my emotions are calm and still, without even so much as a ripple denting its pristine surface.
The world can pass me by and I can't bring myself to bat an eye. The words of well-wishers and the good-intentioned once again appear to me as just words, spoken by people who think they know the deal but do not.
Forgive me for not imparting the news that has me back in my old ways. I am candid about many aspects of my life but this is one those things that serves no purpose for me to reveal to anyone, because then I know people's perception of me will change. They will see me as a victim, or a sad sack, and they will not try to truly understand what I am experiencing.
I don't see this as a good or bad thing. It merely is. If anything, it has centered me, like a brutal slap in the face, like a jolting realization that there is nothing I can do to control the situations I am in... all I can do is just move forward and play with the cards I have been dealt.
The less I care, the further I seem to get in this world.
Sad.
Or at least, it would be sad if I gave two shits about anything. And at this point, I cannot afford to care whether or not this world wants to light itself on fire and burn itself to a crisp.
Just like the day I found out that nothing was as it seemed, I am ambivalent about the news of my family. It will spur me on to better things, yes, but at the expense of my own happiness. In order to cope, I am going to have to go back into that shell that I've been breaking out of, because it is in that shell where I find solace, hope, strength and courage.
Ironic, yes. But we all need a protective shell around us, don't we?
I'd like to introduce you to mine. But I'll save that for another day.
Other than the above-mentioned insanity, I had a nice and relaxing weekend. I went where I was wanted and I followed my bliss. I was actually happy for a few incandescent moments.
But now, I am neither happy nor sad. I am just am.
I will just be. Until the shock wears off, I will always be.
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