Echo

if you’re such a poet, use your tongue and show it…

hahaha

this is my theme song today:

they say that talk is cheap and time is too expensive
so in these hard times i form lines to gain entrance
some say it loud but stay at a safe distance
some get close enough to whisper it
(same difference)
plain as the day is long
same song
with new moves…
trippin’ in the 0-9 crew
thinkin’ i won’t fly it
i’ll pilot the globe
because where we’re going we don’t need no roads
(i’m takin’ off….)

i got nuthin’ to worry about

–Nothing to Worry About, Peter, Bjorn & John (Troublemaker Remix)

I dedicate this song to all my bruthas and sistas out there. May you feel the breeze through your fingers, and remember what it was like to run free.

looked over the schedule again. 9/16/2009…phoenix at the greek. phoenix at the greek.

the last few weeks, i’ve been really fixated on the phoenix symbol, getting the closest i’ve ever been to getting a tattoo. i wanted the symbol to have exactly 36 parts representing 9, the goddess in numerical form, and it had to look like two mirrored birds come together to form the wings of the larger phoenix. something like this:

julia once fell in love with a boy who always went with his second choice.

now she finds that she wants to be with a boy who will be happy with his first.

These times are so uncertain
There’s a yearning undefined
And people filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age?
The trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
They’re the very things – we kill I guess
Pride and competition
Cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us
You know it doesn’t keep me warm
Im learning to live without you now
But I miss you, baby
And the more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought Id figured out
I have to learn again

-don henley, heart of the matter

i had no idea where i was when i woke up this morning.
the last 7 placed i’ve woken up in the last 5 days:

ship cabin
bed in vancouver
floor in vancouver
plane*
guest room in fremont*
guest room in fremont
own bed in la

(*woken up with a kiss from someone pure of heart. jonathan then my brother, respectively. a very sweet way to be pulled back into this world)

combined with how far i’m going in my conscious mindscape, and how far i’m feeling and traveling in my dreamscape, today took a very, very long time to adjust and figure out where i was and what kind of world i was in.

i’m assuming this means my old perspective has been fragmented. am itching to hit the usual spots to see if i see the same old things in new light.

the full moon drew people out of the wood work. last month someone was pushing at my boundaries and i had to energetically roar a little to get him to back off. i didn’t have room for him in my life in the place he wanted to be, and i told him i didn’t want to hear from him for a while. that he should be working on his art, because i’m busy working on mine.

he’s been off the radar and i finally got some peace, but as soon as i turned on my phone after landing in vancouver, the whole cruise experience swirling in my mindspace, finally, after so long, an overwhelming need from the words themselves to output, he texts. i mean, like 5 seconds after my phone got service again. he always does creepy things like that. how does he just know. i lied and said i wasn’t coming back to la for a while because i’m going through some major life changes. he wants to talk about what he’s been working on, says there’s been some exciting new developments, and wants to catch up. last i talked to him, he said i inspired some orchestral pieces from him.

i don’t know. i’m curious about the art, scared of the man with the net.

truthfully, if you ask me, i lost 6 lbs of words.

brian and julia are the big brother and big sister of the world. brian specializes in career and business pursuits, while julia hones people’s souls to prepare for a humane new millenium.

man, i really wish the cruise had gone through tonight. i would have loved to have seen the moon from the water, away from the city lights. i’m adding a full moon cruise to things i want to experience.

it’s beautiful here. i went and put on my glasses, i wanted to see as much of it as i can. earlier today, it was up just over the rooftops with slivers of clouds crossing its face while the sky was this ethereal lavender, and i nearly tripped myself going for my camera. couldn’t capture it though. can never capture things like the moon or the temple just right from our place. they’re like things you have to experience to believe. got some texts…people are thinking, feeling a lot tonight. this is positive.

now playing: simple things (zero 7)

old moon fades into the new

perfection.

do you know what today is?
yeah, i don’t know either.

just that i’ve been dancing around and singing all day, and my face looks like this:

:D

constantly. even when i’m not smiling.

julia – laughing/crying
julia – bigger than the universe
julia – having the time of her life

getting texts about the moon. sounds like a great one all around

the moon is full at 12:55am tonight
connecting us all
everyone should spend some time
take from it what you need
manifest some hopes and dreams.
bring dark things to light
let the light sink into dark
find what answers may lie on the water’s surface
take time to breathe

Maybe I will never be
All the things that I want to be
But now is not the time to cry
Now’s the time to find out why
I think you’re the same as me
We see things they’ll never see
You and I are gonna live forever

beer. balcony. beauty. sunset.

bring it on, brutha. :D

i just said to my playlist, “c’mon, give me something good.” and it gave me the song, good. that got a laugh out of me.

so i’m listening to good by better than ezra since my playlist has decided to choose it for me, and i start laughing as i listen to the lyrics. i don’t think i’ve ever paid attention to them, but suddenly, in this exact moment, they make complete sense in my world.

i’ve always said that i only write what’s true, so i have to live my story to a certain extent before i can write it. this week definitely provided me some kind of abstract answer to the place where i was stuck, though i’m starting to feel like this book won’t be finished until i’m near the end of my life. so where i’d left off, i’d written this scene that i thought about for a major climactic scene. and i remember the character has found the house where she hopes will provide all the answers, this empty house belonging to this man she’s been following, this man she feels inexplicably tied to in life and in her dreams who may or may not exist, a man whose face she’s never even seen. And she doesn’t know if he’s a real person, or a ghost, a hallucination, what, and she has no idea what it means for who or what she is. if she’s even real. if the world is even real. and she’s sitting in the corner if this empty room, watching the light move across the floor as dusk falls, and she wonders who it is who’s going to walk through that door, calling this place, this moment, this girl: home.

lyrics:

Looking around the house.
Hidden behind the window and the door.
Searching for signs of life but there’s nobody home.

Well, maybe I’m just too sure.
Maybe I’m just too frightened
by the sound of it.
Pieces of note fall down, but the letter said,

Wahow, it was good living with you.
Wahow, it was good.
Wahow, it was good living with you.
Wahow, it was good.

Sitting around the house,
watching the sun trace shadows on the floor.
Searching for signs of life, but there’s nobody home.

Well, maybe I’ll call
or write you a letter.
Now, maybe we’ll see on the Fourth of July.
But I’m not too sure, and I’m not too proud.
Well, I’m not too sure and I’m not too proud to say.

Wahow, it was good living with you.
Wahow, it was good.
Wahow, it was good living with you.
Wahow, it was good.

just got back to la. clear blue skies, cool breeze and everything where it should be.

as i was walking through the terminal in san jose, men kept turning and looking, but i didn’t care, listening to music and only focusing on some abstract point straight ahead. i felt like natalie portman at the end of closer. i’ve always wondered what she was thinking in that scene, and now i think i know. she’s not thinking of anything. she’s just going where she’s going.

the re-entry process back into my world has been rough…i think i’ve cried on the plane the last 3 times i’ve flown home, though for different reasons. today i cried for art, poetry, love and passion. for truth and compromise. but this is the process. it doesn’t last long but it has to be experienced in order to cross over to the other side.

yes, how i managed to lose 6 lbs in a week on a cruise. it’s envious! just kidding.

it probably balances out, because i had inexplicably gained 6 lbs over the last month, when i was working out intensely with professional trainers and a basketball coach, and doing hours of cardio on my own while reading (i love the discipline of simultaneously focusing my mental energies and physical energies to carry on independently). no significant changes in diet. good sense would say it was probably muscle gain from all the training, but i remember my trainer telling me that the body goes to the weight it needs to be. he said maybe i gained 6 lbs because my body needed it for what i was trying to do. now in hindsight, the fact that i lost exactly 6 lbs burning off this inevitable fever of mind & soul from the cruise experience seems to say that somewhere, a part of me already had a good idea what was coming up and prepared for it. i’ve always felt strongly about what the greeks said, strong body, strong mind. and the last week, my mind has burned an intense amount of fuel that my body has been strong enough to support.

got home and looked at my concert calendar:

8/26 – Cake at the Fonda
8/30 – Ask Your Mama at the Hollywood Bowl, Sunday Sunset Series (the Hollywood Bowl always provides a spiritual experience at exactly the time I need it, so I chose this concert even though I have no idea who Ask Your Mama is)
9/16 – Phoenix at the Greek
10/14 – Moby at the Wiltern

much music to look forward to. now it’s up to me to fill the spaces in between productively.

am happy to be home. much work ahead of me.

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We’ll both forget the breeze
Most of the time

have not written the third part. want to finish in la, in my own space, where my mind is most clear, under the watchful eye of the full moon and the temple which sits outside my window, with a gold prophet and his trumpet at its apex always pointing off into the horizon, sometimes pointing through a blanket of fog at 3am.

i did a search on my blog for the word “soulmates,” having a strong feeling of having delved into the idea in 2004 (that was the year of heavy rains and quiet emotional storms swirling with echoes), the most poetic year of my life.

i haven’t reread it yet but i have a feeling it might answer some questions.

http://3amwanderer.blogspot.com/2004/01/last-thought-for-today-and-im-off-to.html