Echo

Say No To Dirty Old Men

There are these psychologists who share an office on the floor of our building. I see them occasionally, and while one guy is cool and I like him, most of them seem like your standard crazyass LA therapists. Like the woman who looks like Tracy Ullman playing a crazy therapist, complete with the random ponytail at the TOP of her head that she’s dyed purple. What’s that about?

Anyway, the bathrooms are right by their exit door so you end up running into them a lot. There’s this one older guy who looks more like an asshole lawyer than a therapist. He has collar-length hair that he slicks straight back, he wears crisp shirts tucked into his pants that sit a little on the high side, and he walks with posture so extreme, I swear there’s a rod up his ass and he gets off on it. This guy has a black lab that he brings to work every once in a while and always ties up outside our door. My coworker once noted that he’ll leave this poor dog out there for the entire day with no water, so we usually bring a dish of water out there. Once, his dog kept barking and I was watching it from our window. All of a sudden, this dude comes slamming out of his door with his notebook in hand, and starts screaming at his dog, “Max, SHUT UP! We talked about this! SHUT UP!” It was really sad but I thought it was funny, because this guy was clearly in the middle of a session. I imagined some poor patient spilling his heart out about how he was molested by his next door neighbor, and meanwhile, there’s this barking in the background and his therapist is totally not listening before he just gets up and says, “I’m sorry, can you excuse me for a second?” Then ten seconds later, he’s outside screaming at his dog. That’s just so absurdly unprofessional.

Anyway, I ran into him in front of the bathrooms once and he was asking me what my name was and which company on the floor I worked for. I was at a trade show in Atlanta the next week and one day, the week after I get back, Eddie transfers me this caller who specifically asked for me. So I pick up and the guy says, “It’s Dan with the black lab.” I’m like, what? He’s like, “Dan with the black lab. I work on your floor.” I’m like, uh, okay. He says, “I heard you were out of town.” I think, that’s creepy, because that means he must have tried calling last week and someone told him I was out of the office. He says, “I understand jetlag, I just got back from Asia myself.” This is a huge red flag, because by throwing out that he’s been to Asia, he’s basically letting me know he’s down with the yellow. Then he said that he’s going to have his dog at the office on Wednesday, and he doesn’t know if I mix business with pleasure dog walking (what is pleasure dog walking? does it involve fondling?), but he wanted to know if I’d be interested in walking his dog with him. I said, I have a boyfriend. He gets flustered and he’s like, “Oh…oh you’re quick. You cut this right down to what this is. Uh, okay. Well…I’m sure that the next time I see you, it’s not going to be awkward.” I’m like, dude, whatever. You’re a stalker.

Later I found out from my coworker that the reason he drives a Mercedes is because he did one of those radio contests where he married someone he never met, then quickly took the prize and got divorced. Gross. This is just the type of guy I would look for in a therapist.

So I don’t know what’s wrong with these fucking therapists because there’s another guy who always hits on me. And this guy’s in his 50’s. He’ll stop me by the bathrooms because he wants to tell me how beautiful I am. Once I left my office and went to the elevator banks and he must have seen me heading for the elevators from his window, because all of a sudden, he comes running out of his office, then acts like he’s gotta go down to his car. So I’ve gotta ride the elevator with him, and he’s telling me how beautiful I am and trying to get information out of me. Then we get to the garage and here’s the thing. He didn’t even have his keys on him, so he just kinda pretended like he was going to his car but then changed his mind.

So yesterday, I’m coming back from lunch and he steps out of the elevator. Every time I see him, I kind of roll my eyes on the inside, but then I have to gather up my armor and play a coy defense. Guys like these are sharks and you have to dance with them just right, or they think you’re egging them on with a challenge. So I make a joke about going up or down, then get in the elevator. As the doors are about to close, he puts his hand in to hold the door and asks me if I would be interested in getting together for dinner or coffee sometime. I’m like, yo reality check –you’re old and dirty. But instead, I ask, “In what sense?” He says, “In the sense that maybe one coffee will lead to another coffee.” Coffee? Is that what we’re calling mad, inappropriate old man boning these days? He asks me, “Would you be interested?” I said, “Not in a romantic sense.” He said, “Oh, not romantically?” I said, “No.” He said, “What about as friends?” Because a 20-something year old woman can never have enough 50+ year old male friends who hit on ’em. I told him I would think about it. He said he would buy me coffee as a friend and I told him again, I would think about it, then hit the Door Close button.

What’s the deal with dirty old men? What makes them think that hitting on a girl half their age is appropriate, you might ask? The problem is that they honestly don’t realize it’s inappropriate because emotionally, they hit this point when they said, you know what? I refuse to acknowledge that aging happens. So in their minds, they still see themselves as young, robust, virile men of 25. So you see, this dude thinks he’s younger than me, so therefore, he can’t see why I would recoil in disgust at the promise of his saggy, saggy man parts.

I talked with Rie last night about how we need better men in our lives…men who are emotionally mature. I told her that it’s a waiting game for us, so we’re just dabbling while we pass the time. If you’re a strong woman and you’ve got good internal integrity and a sense of who you are, you basically need a man who is also strong and solid inside. Men don’t achieve internal integrity until they earn their confidence through being successful in life and having gone through serious emotional experiences, the reflections of which allow them to open up and become more at home with their emotional lives. When they get older, there’s this point where they decide either, I refuse to acknowledge that I age and evolve so I’m gonna ignore reality and never grow up, or they embrace each new chapter of their life and embrace aging gracefully. In another sense, some men with serious baggage will decide, I’m so against letting anyone in to touch my hurt that I have decided the area of neglect in my life is going to be love, that they will decide to live out the rest of their lives in emotional solitude. They can still get married, but you will see, it will be a marriage filled with the echoes of silence, because she’s married a ghost. A man who has made this decision will never be a partner. I think it’s when men fully embrace aging and their evolution and their emotional lives in their entirety, that they become very good partners. They realize that no one person is perfect, neither themselves or their partner, but the difference is that both people try their hardest, and both people ALWAYS come to the table to TRY. Unfortunately, this almost never happens until they’re older and life challenges them until they wisen up. You can always recognize someone who has reached this point. You can see it in their eyes. There’s an inner peace, they’ve integrated their insides and though they may not fully know what’s in there, they’re willing to explore it and they’re not afraid of it. And this energy and inner confidence is radiant. These are the good partners. It goes the same for women as well. Look into their eyes. You’ll know.

I’m con
vinced that my life partner is going to be older. Not necessarily significantly older than me, but I won’t meet him until he’s older. I wonder if sometimes my parents are disappointed that they didn’t get to see that, to see me bring home a nice young man filled with potential, but if you look at me, my spiritual depth as a result of my life journey, my level of awareness and intelligence…I need someone stronger and smarter than me, or at least as strong and smart as me, and I think most men need to have had a certain level of life experience and awakening before they get to this point.

I definitely don’t want a dirty old man. Or anyone who’s an emotional child. These guys just want women who adore them and affirm their Peter Pan Syndrome, and they will have fits when I start running intellectual circles around them and calling them on their shit. But I do want someone strong, balanced and confident in expressing every facet of himself. I want someone I can share all of my crayons with.

writing is just mental masturbation

i think all writers are perverts.

i’ve got my lights dimmed. i’ve got my candles lit. i’ve got air’s late night tales playing in my right ear. i don’t know why it’s like that. why music always feels so good when it comes through the right. i can feel it more.

in these quiet moments when i’m alone, when i can spend time relaxing with myself, it’s such a state of ultimate peace. i can feel everything, every single waft of emotion that floats through me, the colors of them, the spectrums, the textures. i have an extensive emotional range and really enjoy that.

my friend michelle said something brilliant to me the other day. if you think of people’s emotional range as a box of crayons…some people have 3, some have 16, some have a huge boxful. even if you have a huge boxful of crayons, you have to understand that some people only have 3 crayons, and that’s all they have to color with.

so is it worthwhile to spend the time trying to teach someone with 3 crayons all the infinite colors there are in the emotional spectrum? it’s like teaching a blind person the meanings of sight. you have to keep searching for signifiers, common perceptions of ideas, so that you can have a relative point to explain a perception in a way that someone who has no understanding can begin to understand.

in secret, i have been teaching my autistic brother how he can express and feel love, to not be afraid. if you have seen him and how far he’s come in life, you can see him changing and growing. they think that people with autism can’t grasp abstract ideas. but my brother understands love. he tells me the pain of loss is when he is crying in his heart. “because men don’t cry on the outside.” my brother suffers so greatly from fear of loss that he is constantly looking for clues that he is loved. when you feel him being emotionally needy, you have to give him love. you have to tell him how handsome is, and how interesting he is but more than anything you can hug him and tell him you love him. all that matters is that it is truthful down to the very last bit of your soul, because he can smell any hint of insincerity or distraction, which he’ll feel as another betrayal. you have to feel an actual transference of energy. but the glow on his face when he feels these things and knows you’re sincere, it is utter gratitude so corporeal, it becomes an entity, a force. if you can truly see how an act of pure kindness can brighten a soul energy, you have to let yourself experience this. you will believe in god. that by nurturing something pure and giving it unadulterated love from the deepest reaches of your soul, when it’s accepted by another person, you’ll have such a feeling of immense peace, you’ll get a glimpse of what the Truth is, behind all this illusion that is our lives. you’ll see that’s all it is, what’s in the darkness behind the scenes, this stage of ours, this drama. it’s what connects us all, our ultimate connection to each other ,this utter acceptance of who we each are at the core. That peacefulness, that integrity, that wholeness, is what love is…when you let yourself embrace it and become it. it’s everything…the thing that is the truth of everyone and everything.

somewhere on the battlefield are the wounded, those who have been cut off from love or have forgotten what it is due to trauma, or have been putting all their energy into holding a black hole of all their anger, rage, sadness and hate so close to their heart, that they fear that opening themselves up to receive will release this negative force into existence. so they won’t be able to accept the very element that would heal them and let them move forward.

then if you ask me if i believe in evil, there absolutely is. they aren’t a part of us, the thing that connects us. they’re souls who have gone rogue and rejected anything that stands for what they can’t have and they are destructive, because they have embraced this embodiment. you really have to be careful out there because there are a lot of those types floating around, so you have to be careful of letting them see that you have higher knowledge of truth and love. they’ve dedicated their life purpose to destroying all that is pure.

i want to say one thing though. i gave it some thought. i think i spent two and a half years in a relationship being an asshole. i mean, the funny thing is that people never feel like i was an asshole. like growing up and in college, i felt like an asshole all the time. this dark, gloomy cloud. but then i have people come back into my life and tell me how much i meant to them, even the sister of one of my friends came up to me at her wedding and thanked me; she said that i got my friend through her freshman year and she would have dropped out of school if it hadn’t been for me, and i think…what? when did this happen? where was i? and i honestly can’t remember. because all i remember was just feeling bad all the time.

so i just got out of a two and a half year relationship, where i’m finding out now from friends that they could tell i wasn’t happy, yet my experience didn’t involve that awareness. i asked why they didn’t tell me and they said, it’s not really our place. i find it incredible that i can spend two and a half years not realizing i wasn’t happy. because i truly thought i was. and it’s not for lack of respect and love for the other person, because i do sincerely cherish him, it was just me…i could be so unhappy, yet not even realize it, which made me feel like i was an asshole all the time. does that make me a dangerous person to be in a relationship with? do i get stuck in situations out of feeling obligated rather than balance and true contentment? i recognize the quality and elements of a person who would be on my level and what i deserve. but i haven’t met people like that. i also know that i’m not ready yet to meet these kinds of people. i know that once my career is at a certain level, once i have shown myself and the universe that i can put in consistent effort to follow my path and work hard at my ambitions, then it will move me into contact with these types of people–those who are ambitious, charismatic, confident, compassionate, successful…lucky. those whose upward momentum carry them to great heights even though their goals are more to have a positive influence on a wider scale versus a thirst for power. i want to meet people who are leaders and percentage-wise, leaders are a terrible minority. someone who knows the responsibility and loneliness that come with being extraordinary.

i guess this is what it’s like, working through your issues. you tell stories, you talk to people, and everything is just a reflection, because you are trying to build a mirror so you can see yourself.

yes, my parents made me feel bad growing up because they were so stressed, that it was hard to take care of me. they just didn’t pay attention. yes, i would say the crisis of my life came when my brother fell out of that tall swivel chair in the kitchen and cracked his head, and i thought he was dying on that floor because he’d hit it on a sharp metal piece of the chair, and i’ll never forget that sound.

crack.

so matter of fact, so unavoidable, so fucked. there was so much blood…so much blood…and my mom was screaming and someone had to call the paramedics, and she didn’t know what to do so she went and grabbed our next door neighbor who was a police officer. the paramedics came and they took my brother to the hospital. i don’t remember what happened after that, i think he was okay. but here’s the thing. one day, he climbed up there and he fell AGAIN. and he cracked his head again. and i thought, oh my god, surely he’s dying this time. and another part of me was screaming, WHO THE FUCK IS IN CHARGE OF THIS CRAZY TRAIN?, as he bled out onto white tiled floors and my mom screamed in the background and i went numb numb numb numb numb numb numb

that’s my crisis. imagine having that scene imbedded into your heart.

(did you know he fell into the deep end of the pool once, and he managed to cling to the edge until my dad finally found him? that boy has a deep, tenacious will to survive)

i realized no one could really take care of us, that everyone else was as lost and helpless as we were. no one fucking pays attention. and now my brother is autistic and has developmental problems and sometimes i wonder if those falls had anything to do with damage to his head, but we’re not allowed to talk about that. and it makes me sad because my little brother is an amazing human being.

FUCK.

why. why do these things happen.

and so i’m searching. for someone who has answers. because these fucking people on this planet sure as shit don’t know how to take care of themselves. and i’m so tired of taking care of everyone and i just wanna know…who has some fucking answers around here. because i really need to know.

by the way, i’m a crazy magnet. crazy people talk to me. i mean, this is the general exchange:

Crazy person: Are you an artist?
Me: No.
Crazy person: A musician?
Me: No.
Crazy person: What do you do?
Me: I work in an office.
Crazy person: What kind of office?
Me: A little tech company doing something that doesn’t contribute anything to the betterment of society.
Crazy person: There’s something about you. You have this energy.
Me: Thank you.
Crazy person: Are you Japanese?
Me: Chinese.
Crazy person: There’s something about you.

And then the rest of the conversation involves them staring at me. maybe they’re not crazy, but they feel a little crazy to me. and a lot of them tend to be homeless. so to be honest, this happens a lot. homeless people, taxi drivers, people in 7-11, starbuck’s, etc…people stop and talk to me like they know me. i think it’s an energy i give off. truthfully, what i think it is, is acceptance. i think i truly appreciate life and people, and so i’m attentive even if i’m creeped out and that’s what they’re feeling. i always look people in the eye, and that connection makes them feel like someone is really seeing them without judgment. i think it’s just acceptance. if you truly appreciate life, you accept all energy.

anyway, so today, i was cornered by a homeless couple who sat at a table next to me at starbuck’s. they didn’t look homeless, just…liberal. the woman came up to me and asked me if i was a smoker. i said no. she turned to the guy and said, see, you made an assumption and you were right. i asked her, were you two just trying to psychically gauge if i’m a smoker? she said, he has a theory that people who don’t smoke have an aura about them, they’re more sensible and stable. she said, you have an energy about you. i said, thank you. they started talking to me about how we’re in a frightening time right now, that our administration is about to make some grave mistakes. he was more lucid, but she started ranting with a story that was about george w. bush’s father and seagramm’s and wine and nazi’s and cuba and communists in china and socialist health care and selling communists nuclear reactors and deals for oil and iran and nuclear warheads and not being cuban american but being american cuban and some great instructor at ucla who did research on soil and the tyranny that makes up china and how our mayor cheats on his wife and lies while he goes off with his girlfriend to mexico where they really take care of their exports while starbucks uses union delivery men and the problem with the three supermarkets–vons, ralphs, albertsons–is they got together and make people work part time so they don’t have to give them insurance and every month and a half they want a union so see these jeans, these jeans are too small for me but i wear them because they’re not made by slaves in africa or china, and i mean, wtf? and i sat there and listened to it all, maintaining eye contact, nodding in agreement, asking thoughtful questions–the same way i would listen to my grandmother when she is lecturing, and the whole time i’m thinking how much i wanna get out of there. and meanwhile, during this rant, her husband would roll his eyes and shout, “LENA! YOU
NEED TO SHUT UP! CAN’T YOU SEE THE POOR GIRL IS TRYING TO WORK?” “I SAID LENA, I’M CUTTING YOU OFF. NO, YOU’RE DONE. STOP TALKING.” “LENA! YOU’RE GETTING OUT OF CONTROL!” i contemplated if i just got up and walked away mid-sentence, if these people would kill me. but seriously, these are the types of experiences i have when i’m out and about.

i got up to leave and the man took my hand and said, i’ve lived a full life and i’ve traveled the world. i’ve seen a lot of things, a lot of things…but i can tell there’s something different about you so i wanna say one thing before you go. you said something interesting, that what you do for work does nothing for society. you’ve got awareness. whatever you end up doing with your life, just take care of your connection with the universe and do the right things to help everyone. too many people have no idea what’s going on and they don’t know what a dangerous time this is because they’re not paying attention, but people like you need to honor the universe and do its work by taking care of the rest of the people. and with that, he let go of my hand.

i have to be honest, i meet a lot of strangers and it’s never initiated by me because i’m very shy about initiation and i tend to be self-contained. both men and women like to come up to me and talk to me and sometimes that’s a little unnerving. most of them are nice, polite but they always look like they’re trying to figure me out or figure out where they know me from, or they’re searching for something in my eyes. a lot of them like to casually touch my arm, shoulder etc which weirds me out sometimes but i try not to think about it. sometimes i like the instant intimacy. sometimes i’m wary. it’s always a mystery, why people approach each other out of the blue. what brings a set of people together while the rest serve as background. i don’t understand why people come up to me, or why people get so intimate so quickly with me. there’s always a struggle for what to do when it happens because there’s half of me that’s so timid and half of me that loves danger and the promise of adventure and is open to whatever clue or message i may receive, but usually i try to be a good judge of who not to let get too close. it’s always been one of the reasons i think i like to travel…i’m approached by a lot of characters, and through these experiences i learn. sometimes i feel like it’s crazy, but then i think maybe that’s my own projected fear, that when i talk to people and interact with people at this level and seem to know so much about them, that they think i’m crazy, too.

Okay, I’ve had an ongoing battle with trying to get internet in this house, because we all know I only talk like this at night and that’s the time I really wanna talk to people. We can’t get the wireless router to work, and plugging the DSL cable directly into any one of our laptops still can’t get us internet. But then there was that night I randomly got wireless from a router called “linksys.” I remember that night. I had been working on trying to get my desktop to connect to the internet for hours and was trying everything. As a last ditch effort, I grabbed my work laptop which I never use, and tried to get a wireless connection. In the 7 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never been able to get a wireless connection to work. I could see faint signals, and plenty of secure ones, but I’ve never been able to pull signal from anywhere. So really this was the biggest crapshoot, but I was desperate. Turning on the computer, the feeling was of almost willing the internet to work, just a blind faith that when I booted up the computer, I would get bars in the wireless icon…I just really needed it to happen. So when everything loaded and I saw the laptop’s wireless had picked up and connected to “linksys,” I opened a browser and prayed, because usually it’ll still say page not found. When my browser popped up with my MSN homepage, it was like a stranded submarine crew finally getting a signal on the radar. I could have danced around and celebrated. That was those two days when I blissfully started blogging late at night again. Brian even commented when he saw me working on my laptop in my room, that we’ve never gotten wireless in the house, but he wasn’t able to connect to it with his computer. The wireless suddenly stopped working two days later, but simultaneously, the desktop computer started connecting through dsl, so I was still able to write.

Later, a friend of mine was trying to figure out why the internet was so messed up, and he couldn’t do it. He just said there was something very weird and fucked up that he couldn’t figure out. He said if we connected the router, we would be able to see the router remotely, but it wasn’t connected to the internet so it wouldn’t work. I told him it had worked for two days. He said it wasn’t even plugged in so it couldn’t have connected to the internet. So if I’m hearing right, if linksys is my router that isn’t even plugged in, how the fuck was I able to connect to it for 2 days until my desktop could get back up and running?

today is going to be a really random day. i’m in a very random mood so i’ll just spill. forgive me for punctuation and grammar. my conscious alter ego will clean up after me…

brian is at a place in his life where he’s realizing that he doesn’t know what he’s passionate about. i think it’s worrying him. he told me about this coworker who’s a doormat and lets everyone walk over him. he says that this guy just doesn’t have any interests and isn’t passionate about anything. so he acted out a conversation he had with this guy and i could see how passionate he got when he was asking his coworker what it is that he’s passionate about. i also remember the other night when he walked in while I was practicing piano. He stood in the doorway and started talking about how different people in his life have certain talents, and he wishes he had a talent. I said that he had a talent with words and ideas. he said, yeah, but that’s not really a talent. i think he’s sad because he doesn’t know what can motivate him from the deepest corners of his heart. he doesn’t even know what’s in his heart. i think he’s afraid of letting himself go.

this book i’m reading (blink) is amazing. i mean, while i’m reading it, i don’t feel like it’s that mindblowingly written, but then i start thinking about the implications of what he’s talking about and i can just feel how it changes me from the inside. it’s a book about the unconscious that actually does something to your unconscious. it’s pretty trippy. i’ve also been feeling very healthy and strong. my diet is very good…trying to stick to organic…and i’ve been drinking both acai green tea and coffee with milk in the morning to try to figure out how each makes me feel. it’s kind of like alice in wonderland with the blue pill or the red pill. the tea makes me content and sleepy, the coffee makes me super focused but REALLY irritable. i get so much done, but almost anything can set me off. so…is productivity worth feeling like a dragon? or can i be excused for my constant napping by the higher ups, because it’s just an effect of the tea i’m drinking? and one more thing, when i say higher ups in reference to work, i’m joking. there’s no one higher up above me because there’s no management or structure. we are stranded on an island and no one knows how to get off. just think of that image when you think of my office.

Love is…

David Gray & Damien Rice.

I can’t copy the exact clip, but go to the UK performances, then David Gray & Damien Rice doing Babylon and Blower’s Daughter. Holy crap. When I saw they were playing together, my brain and my loins almost shortcircuited. Then they backed each other up for two of my favorite songs. I’m bleeding love here. Those are two of the most beautifully emotional and honest songs ever written.

Those are two beautiful, beautiful performances. I love David Gray’s look, too, ever since he started performing in suits. Fuckin’ classy. I love that man.

Overheard on the GS Warriors message board a few weeks ago (yeah, I’m delayed with my basketball insight):

-do you think there will ever be an Asian player considered the next Michael Jordan?

-No way. Michael Jordan was known for driving to the basket. Asians don’t know how to drive.

The Art of Spiritual Advising

I have a spiritual advisor I talk to about once every few years. Some might call her psychic, but she does about the same thing I do, but with more detachment. Basically, she can listen to me and gauge the place I am in my life, and where I’m headed by quick calculation of the most likely probabilities and what lessons I’m supposed to be working on. I know the way I do it, I open myself to be receptive to all that someone is communicating on various levels, then I can visualize likely futures. Like if a friend is saying that she’s in a great relationship but starts talking about her boyfriend, I can feel from her tone and the things she’s saying, if she’s actually worried that her boyfriend is unfaithful, even though all she’s talked about is his work schedule. So anyway, I talk to her once every blue moon because if you talk to an advisor too much, you’re basically talking about shit instead of living your life. It’s the same way I feel about therapy. It’s one thing if you’re trying to get advice on something, another if you’re talking instead of doing, fixing, improving, living.

She said she could tell that I was in a very good place in my life and to keep focusing on my career because good things will be happening very soon. We both felt that August would be a strong month. She advised me not too get too distracted by the things that tend to distract me, and to focus on being spiritually strong and not letting petty things bring me down, because at the end of the day, they’ll work out the way they’re supposed to, and to give people a chance.

I’m trying to do that. I know that 4 years ago, I let a bad relationship really get into my head. I let someone who was a weak but mean person hurt me, and the hardest thing was that my intentions were always pure and I was trying to be a bigger person and not play into games, and to help him out of his own personal hell. And I got burned. I guess I still remember that and sometimes it weighs in my head, that I can be kind to people, but then I worry that I’m giving it to people who don’t deserve it, or at the end of the day, they’re just laughing to themselves about what a fool I am.

When I was with my coworker that day and I opened up, I opened up because I didn’t care about what he thought of me. I just needed to be honest to someone. I don’t have any romantic interest in him whatsoever and still don’t, but in that moment, it felt really safe and platonically intimate that I told him everything–how hard karmic relationships are, how I recognize them when they happen, but it’s always sad, because when they end, it feels like dying all over again. And how lonely it is, to see these things and very few people understand it, but I know certain things to be true and so I follow it in hopes that it can help others relieve themselves of pain. Spiritually, I’m a specialist. I’m an expert at recognizing a person’s unique potential, and their specific spiritual obstacles, particularly those created by mother issues. In particular, my area of work is helping wounded healers, people who are cut off from their potentials as ultimate healers. When people come into my life karmically, it’s because they asked the universe for help and the universe puts me in play. I never look for them and they always show up when I’m strong, so in a way, it kind of drives me crazy because I feel like, fuck, I just got myself put back together again from the last one. I’ve been paying attention and it seems specifically, that my karmic connections come in intimate relationships and with people with mother issues. There is no safer person and careful person than me when it comes to this delicate arena, but just for once, I wish someone would stand up and fight through it so that they can taste freedom. Sometimes I wonder, if I can help a wounded healer set himself or herself free, if they in turn will be able to help me.

I think what I need most is someone I can truly trust, who can keep watch and protect me–my body, my mind, my soul–when I’m off exploring those dark recesses of the collective unconscious to bring back knowledge and enlightenment. I read that people with my placement that have this kind of karmic duty (Venus in the 12th house) tend to have an invisible guardian angel. Maybe mine is on a different plane, but I hope one day to find a partner who can take care of me, just as I take care of him. He doesn’t have to be strong now…I don’t judge and I don’t mind helping him. but I hope one day I can find someone who can watch over me while I sleep and dream.

Open letter to David Hassellhoff:

1. Don’t dance. Ever.
2. Stop the plastic surgery. This is getting crazy.
3. How does one man’s ego get so big that it can suck it’s own dick?
4. Tell your editor to stop playing with video effects from the 80’s.
5. Don’t you have a hamburger to eat?

(video find courtesy of effing the ineffable)

My thoughts on critics…

I used to write film and television reviews for the paper at U-M and it was such a cool thing, to think that your opinion was revered by so many people. You start getting drunk with the power of it, that you had the ability to influence people’s desires to see a movie by what you said about it. You quickly learn that the most fun reviews to write are bad reviews, because then you can go to town ripping some silly piece of shit to shreds.

After I made my own films and came out to LA and witnessed production, I realized how worthless critics are. After you’ve been through enough production nightmares of machine malfunctions, actors/actresses who partied too hard the night before and didn’t show up ready to work, of shots that you didn’t get to quite put together the story you want, you realize that sometimes having a coherent film is a miracle. And often the reasons films come out looking like they’re flawless at least in terms of production, is because they were able to reach deep after most of the film was in the can, and find more money to fix all the mistakes. If a critic can not show that he can do better with the same amount of resources, or if he has never made anything or done anything to show that he has done what he claims to be an expert of and has a true understanding of the process and the product, then what is a critic, outside of a catty bystander sitting on his self-appointed throne? What is he, but an average fan who someone gave the permission to yell the loudest? If you’ve never done it or can’t do it, you haven’t earned the right to disparage the work of someone who has done it.

That’s when I became ashamed for my time as a critic. I feel guilty for all the bad reviews I’ve written that were gleefully mean, and I hope that karma doesn’t come back to haunt me.

The hardest thing about putting your work out there are the critics. Some critics have valid points, but there are those people who are haters because they’ve never done anything but they feel they have a right to say someone else’s work sucks, or to make ignorant comments (for example, most of the Youtube population). Or there are people who are truly jealous because someone else did something that they could never do, while they wasted their own personal potential.

So this is my rule of thumb when it comes to critics (both of your creative work and of you as a person):

If you would not invite this person into your home, why would you invite him into your head and your heart?

If someone has criticism that helps you improve, let that in. Sometimes that’s a blessing. But anyone else doling out bullshit just to make you feel bad, they can only hurt you if you let them in to do so. Do you even value this person as a person, let alone his opinion?

It’s easier said than done, but just try to remember that anytime someone anonymous or known says something stupid about your work or about you as a person–if you wouldn’t invite them into your home, do not invite them into your head and your heart.

Everyone Who Had a Rough 3 Weeks, Raise Your Hand…

Don’t all y’all fuckers lie. The last 3 to 4 weeks have been tough. If you didn’t have weird email/computer/electronic/appliance/car issues, you either forgot or weren’t paying enough attention. If you didn’t experience delays and minor/major miscommunications, have many points of irritability with random people in your life, you’re lying. This last Mercury Retrograde was brutal, and the fact that it was in Gemini which rules communication and all things mental and mechanical, it made communicating especially hard. For example, my home computer barely turns on right now, and our work email has been on the fritz the entire retrograde so that we can’t send outgoing emails. That stuffs classic. Not to mention poor communication with important people in my life.

The good news is that today’s the last day of it, though today might have been difficult as the retrograde is always at it’s worst when Mercury is stationary at the beginnings and ends of the retrograde. There will still be some lasting effects until the 14th, but after that, you’ll see life pick up and your projects resume at a good pace.

In fact, the funniest thing just happened. Brian and I have been sitting at Starbuck’s, each working on our laptops. We’ve been here for about 2 hours, and Brian just said to me, “Have you noticed that everyone who’s walked by has been arguing?” YEAH. Everyone is having a heated discussion on their cellphone, or couples are walking in having arguments or very serious discussions. I just explained to him that today is the last day of the retrograde, and things tend to be even more tense than the rest of the retrograde. Today has been a tense day, which was why I was hiding out in my office, trying to talk to as few people as possible.

Hopefully your relationships with others didn’t suffer too much. There’s always a lot of introspection and retrospection during a retrograde. You run into old friends and acquaintances, or people contact you out of the blue. You think about your past, mistakes that you’ve made, things that parallel your present, and you have an opportunity to decide if there are certain things in your life that are holding you back, or negative cycles that you tend to repeat. You can think about projects that are looming, and take the time to carefully plan out your steps. Overall, it’s a time when life forces you to slow down and take stock.

Well, we made it. It’s officially over tomorrow so pat yourselves on the back for having not killed yourself or any of your malfunctioning gadgets or acquaintances. Tomorrow and on will be a much better time to sign contracts and purchase electronics or appliances, but if you can wait until after the 14th, that would be even better, as there are still some influences in the air. Just think of the retrograde as an occurrence in which a large invisible magnet jumbles everyone’s brains as well as anything with wiring. And now that magnet is lifted.

Fuck. I’m just so glad it’s over.

By the way, here was a conversation I had with my bank today that’s totally a mercury retrograde conversation.

Me: Yes, hi, I’m calling because I’m locked out of my account.
Customer Rep (CR): Yes I see that. Are you entering the wrong login information?
Me: No I’m not. I’m logging in the way I usually do but it’s asking me a security question that’s not the one I set up.
CR: What’s it asking you.
Me: It’s asking me, “Where did you get married?”
CR: Did you forget the answer?
Me: No, that’s not my security question. I’m single so there’s no way that would be my security question.
CR: Well, we don’t touch your security question. You’re the only one who could have set it up.
Me: I’ve never been married, so why would I make my security question where I got married?
CR: I don’t know.
Me: Well, that’s not the security question that I set up.
CR: Again, you’re the only who can set up the security question, unless someone has hacked into your account. Did you check to see if you have money missing?
Me: You know, I would…except I CAN’T GET INTO MY ACCOUNT TO CHECK.
CR: Oh, that’s right. Okay. Well, I don’t know why your security question would be wrong unless someone hacked in and changed it.
Me: Well, if someone’s hacking my account, I definitely want to know. Is there a way for you to check on your side?
CR: No ma’am.
Me: Then would you like to unlock my account so I can check if I have money missing?

So we go through a process to unlock my account on the phone. Then he says:

CR: Maybe you put in the wrong password. How many characters is your password?
Me: 8.
CR: Oh, that’s the wrong password.

I count.

Me: No, it should be 8.
CR: Wait, let me see………oh no, you’re right, it’s 8. Hmmm…that’s so weird. It must be a hacker.

I wanna shake the shit out of him at this point. So he unlocks my account, and I log in with the exact same information.

Me: Okay, I’m in. It didn’t ask me where I got married.
CR: Yeah, that’s really weird why it did that. Maybe it’s a glitch in the system or something, but I would keep an eye out to see if money starts turning up missing.
Me: Okay, thanks.

*sigh*

Thanks, man. You’re a peach.

I love it when people cover Billie Jean

remember this?

My Super Slutty Vacation, Continued…

I spent some of today researching the mythology of the Phoenix and found some cool things. Like the fact that its tears are supposed to heal, and it’s supposed to regenerate when wounded, thus making it invincible. Also, in Chinese mythology, the Phoenix (Fenghuang) symbolizes femininity (the Empress) and the balance between ying and yang, and people would hang up images of the Fenghuang outside of their house to signify that people with loyalty and trustworthiness lived there.

I spent the rest of today lounging by the pool. I have to report, it was too hot for me to stay out there for very long, so I’m not significantly more tan than when I started. I’m in LA next weekend and then Hawaii the next, so hopefully I can work on that. I’ve never been one who wanted to be too dark, but my legs are almost reflective right now, so I’ve gotta at least make them presentable.

I got all dressed up and went to dinner at this place called Olive & Ivy that came highly recommended by someone at http://www.chowhound.com. It was super pricey and just okay, though the coffee was good. This one waiter who wasn’t even my waiter talked with me for a while about having been a semi-pro basketball player in Asia (what is with me and basketball players? Oh yeah, I asked for Baron Davis and the universe is trying…), and he was trying to get off early so he could take me to a bar. I didn’t really want to go to a bar with him and be stuck talking to him the whole night, even though he was nice, so I slipped out while he was talking to the manager.

I went over to Borders and got totally engrossed in this book called, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It’s about how everything you need to know about someone or a situation, your adaptive unconscious can figure out accurately within seconds. I’ve always believed this and have gotten really good about paying attention to these signals, so it was cool to read it from a scientific point of view. The first chapter is about this psychologist in Washington who has figured out an experiment where they can watch a video of a couple discussing something that’s a point of contention, and by coding reactions (ie contempt, defensiveness, anger, stonewalling, etc) almost like marital DNA, they can predict with 95% accuracy if a couple will divorce within 15 years by watching an hour’s worth of tape, and with 90% accuracy by watching for only 15 minutes. It’s all about paying attention to those red flags that we all tend to ignore. He talks about how people are in one of two states within a relationship…if they are in positive sentiment override, positive emotion will override irritability so when the spouse does something bad, they’ll excuse it in their minds or let themselves drop it. But if they’re in negative sentiment override, even if their spouse says something neutral, the partner will perceive it as negative. So in this state, people draw lasting conclusions about each other so that if their spouse does something positive, they think it’s a selfish person doing a positive thing. He says that it’s really hard to change those states and those states determine whether when one party tries to repair things, if the other party sees it as an attempted repair or hostile manipulation. He tracks a couples levels of positive and negative emotions, and by graphing them, he can basically tell if the negative will override the positive to the point where down the road, a failure in the partnership is overwhelmingly likely.

I wonder if people became conscious of these negative interactions, if they could change and save their relationship. I’m usually really conscious when I interact with people, like when they’re being defensive, or when I’m being defensive or irritable, and how it affects communication. But it takes two people to come to the table, and even if you can point these things out, if the other person won’t acknowledge it or won’t consciously work on it, the relationship (no matter what capacity it is–love, family, work, friendship, etc) is in trouble. I think any good relationship really requires consciousness and two people who trust each other to want to communicate clearly and really work hard at it when there are negative things in play. Reading that chapter, I realized that, outside of my other personality quirks and flaws, I’m a very good partner in a relationship because of how seriously I take good communication and how conscious I am about it. I’m always dedicated to making communication work and be open. I think I’m in a really good place in my life right now, and available for a very good, positive relationship with someone amazing.

Anyway, long story short, I got really engrossed in the book, so I bought it and now I’m holed up in my hotel room, blogging and reading. I’m not bummed though, because this is the stuff I like to do, and I just didn’t feel like going out to a bar, drinking and talking to strange men. Also, I don’t need to keep smoking out of boredom. This is enough of a vacation for me, to be able to relax, be alone with my thoughts, listen to music and have a change of environment.

Tomorrow I’m meeting up with a realtor to look at rental real estate in Scottsdale. I don’t know if I really wanna buy a place out here. I wonder if, with global warming, it’s going to hit like 130 degrees in a few years.

Arrival in Phoenix…er, Scottsdale

I’m currently in Scottsdale, which I hear is more fun than Phoenix because according to a random girl who overheard my conversation about this trip in SF, everything closes at 10 in Phoenix.

My hotel is amazing…very resorty with fire torches everywhere and a huge pool/lagoon surrounded by rooms. My room has a little deck so I plan to sit out there tomorrow. I can’t wait to get in a bikini and do something about the obscene paleness of my legs. Though, to be honest, I hate tan lines.

I made a decision a month ago that I’m going to get a tattoo, something that symbolizes my life purpose — To Seek Courageously. I don’t want a Chinese phrase because I want a symbol, an image that embodies this life purpose. Then I thought about getting the Phoenix tatooed on, because it symbolizes resurrection and transformation, which is another major theme of my life. I figure, when the time is right, the symbol will become clear to me. But I’m committed to getting a tattoo that symbolizes my life purpose, as I’ve discovered here in my Saturn Return.

So one thing I’m confronting in this Year of Fearless Living is my fear of flying. I still manage to get on planes, but I’m always so anxious. Now I feel like, if God wants to take me, he’ll take me and there’s nothing I can do about it. I prefer if he doesn’t take me too soon because I feel like I have a lot still to contribute to this world in terms of enlightenment, mentorship and healing, but again, your destiny is your destiny.

There was a scary moment on the plane where we went in to land, then took off again. I got scared that there was something wrong with the landing gear, but the pilot announced that there was a plane on the runway that couldn’t clear out of the way, so we would circle for a few more minutes.

Phoenix is hot. It feels like being in a warm cocoon. I arrived shortly after 8pm, so I assume the heat had actually mellowed out, so I’m a little scared of what it’s like in the daytime.

I checked into the hotel and showered, then headed out for dinner. I went to a place close to hotel (can’t remember the name of it) and let the bartender recommend what I should order. It was called the chicken, artichoke and mushroom stack (seriously, couldn’t they have found a better name?) and it was two halves of a grilled chicken breast with artichokes, mushrooms and this cream sauce in between. It was pretty damn good.

Afterwards, I went to this club that came highly recommended, Axis and Radius, but I got there around 10:30 and it was dead. The plus though, was that before 11, all drinks were $2, so I had a couple of Red Bull/vodkas. There were maybe about 20 people there when I got there which makes it really hard for me, because when I travel alone, I like to blend into the background or pretend I’m with a group. I felt like I stood out like a sore thumb. The dance floor was empty the first hour I was there, though I realized that what it takes to get a dance floor going is a group of slightly bisexual seeming Asian girls acting drunker than they actually are. Asian party girls, as Brian likes to call them. Truthfully, sometimes I’m embarrassed of those kinds of girls, because they’re so in need of male attention, it makes it so obvious that Asian dads just don’t hug their daughters enough.

Axis and Radius is actually two dance clubs that are tied together, with one playing top 40 and the other playing hip hop. I bounced around both for a while, then settled on radius for its hip hop and its large video screen showing videos. I sat down next to this big black guy who was kind of cute, and I could tell he wanted to talk to me. But you know, I don’t initiate unless I’m sure I want it, so I let him do the talking. Turns out he’s a college basketball player from Chicago, which is kind of hot. We talk and he’s kind of cool…he’s got some depth. He says I’m sexy as fuck and I ask him, well how sexy is fuck, because I’m trying to gauge how sexy I am. We dance a little and he gives me his number and really, really wants me to call him. I think, I could hook up considering I’ve got a sweet hotel room all to myself, but then I think, how am I gonna politely kick him out when we’re done? So I just tell him I gotta go because I’ve got a meeting tomorrow morning, and leave.

I go to this other club, Myst, that someone had told me has good DJ’s. It was okay, lots of gay guys. Maybe not openly gay, but let me tell you, Scottsdale has a lot of gay guys, so the pickin’s are slim. I walked around, trying to find a person to bum a smoke off of because sometimes you ask the wrong person and they act like you owe them a flirt…or more. I got one, hung out and watched the gays dance, then grabbed a slice of pizza and came home.

So far, Scottsdale has not been as impressive to me as Seattle. Seattle has a cool vibe to it, and that $12 for 12 clubs deal in Pioneer Square is hard to beat. I had to pay a $10 cover to get into Myst, and I just thought, well, I expected more. Maybe more hot, straight guys.

Something I realized. If you want something, just go get it. Don’t be embarrassed. Sometimes I think I have to uphold a certain image. I’ve noticed that men are kind of afraid of me. That once they get close to me, it’s like they can’t integrate this image of me, and this image of a girl they wanna fuck. And so guys never want to have sex with me if I show them too much of who I really am. It’s the virgin/whore thing, where they see me as someone of value, and don’t want to defile that. It’s cool, it’s sweet, but seriously, I’ve gotta learn to just take it if the other person wants it but is letting fear drive. Someone has to make it happen.

Maybe that’s my lesson right now. Assert myself. Be able to say to someone, dude, all I wanna do is fuck your brains out. So stop this bullshit spinning in your head, and get with it. My favorite kind of sex is the kind where you don’t know where one person ends and the other one begins. Where you’re so lost in the moment, your brain can no longer function. Where every single part of you–body, heart, soul–is engaged. And it’s absolutely mindblowing.
It’s gotta be with the right person though. But sometimes, the right person is afraid to act on the impulse because their brain does too much spinning. Well, sometimes you just have to be bold and demand it. I’m learning that.

I hope some day to be able to integrate this…to be able to have that kind of sexual connection within a relationship that is healthy. I have no doubt that it’s possible, but I just have to be patient because I know that there’s a smaller pool of guys that are truly compatible with me (need to be as emotionally and spiritually mature and intelligent) to light me on fire and fulfill me long term, and maybe they’re still working on stuff before they’re ready. Whoever is right for me is probably going to be older, so maybe I have to wait a few years until this guy has more years and life experience under his belt. That’s okay. I’m not settling for less than I know I need so even if it’s hard, I’m going to be patient.

I’m a very simple person. When I want something, I want it right away. I don’t want to dance, I don’t want to play games, I don’t want to guess what you’re thinking. But I’m very selective about what I want. I think when you find something you want, as unconventional as the arrangement might be, you have to demand it if it’s what you want, and then if it happens great, if the other person doesn’t agree, then…NEXT. You have to leave yourself open for something good. Be patient until the right thing comes along, but jump on it when it does. Otherwise, you risk living a life of what if’s.

I refuse to live a life of what if’s, of settling for less than I need, of regret. If I want it, I will pursue it, courageously. That is the only way to live a life fulfilled. Don’t let fear drive your life. Fear is the one thing that
keeps us from being the people we were destined to be, from getting the things we want. Don’t fear failure, don’t fear success. Don’t fear rejection, don’t fear embarrassment. Fear is an invisible threat, one that won’t kill you. Allow yourself to live freely but not recklessly. Allow yourself to deserve the things that will open your heart and make you content. Don’t waste time. Tomorrow doesn’t exist and tomorrow you may forget. Start living your life NOW.

do not meddle in the affairs of dragons…

Michael Bay Sucks.

I love Transformers. Always have. Always will. I used to make Transformers out of Legos when I was a kid, these things that I could change from an object (ie a car or a plane) to a robot.

As I got older, I realized I harbored a secret robot fetish. But not just any type of robots, I discovered. I hate those stupid looking robots that look like they were thrown together with scrap metal. I could almost get into Robocop if there weren’t some pasty-faced white guy behind all that hot armor. Specifically, I get really turned on by Transformers.

Why?

I don’t know. I mean, look at them…those breastplates. Those angular, chiseled features. The weapons, the helmets. The stances of confidence. Their stealth to live amongst us. Their honor. Their loyalty to their own. Their commitment to good against evil. And even the Decepticons, there’s something about a bad boy robot that is irresistable.

I suspect it’s an Asian thing, because secretly, the culture prides itself on being disciplined, analytical and with machine like precision and diligence. But hot robot trumps Asian man at all times, hands down. Asian men just can’t get that chiseled and self-repair.

So anyway, my point…robots are powerful. Robots are hot. Robots are the epitome of men’s men…what cowboys symbolized back in the day. No messy emotions, no emotional weakness, just an iron sense of duty and honor and a complete lack of fear. And guns. Big, powerful, sexy guns.

Given all this, I’m pissed off that Michael Bay tried to get so cute with my beloved Transformers, turning them into these cute little children trapped in powerful robot bodies. I hated how he animated their eyes so they emoted like puppies. Their eyes looked like the eyes of the penguins from Happy Feet. They’re robots! They don’t need human-like eyes. Just make them lasers or hide them behind reflective shades. I hated that little bad robot and all the noises he made, like a Gremlin. I couldn’t take that thing seriously and it annoyed me. I hated that scene that went on forever, where the robots were on Shia’s lawn. That scene should have been 30 seconds long at most if it was even needed, and it felt like one of those moments where the director thought, hey this might be funny…let’s let the robots improvise. It was stupid. I hated the scene where Bumblebee pees on John Turturro. Bumblebee is classy. He would never do that. It hurt me, that this scene was in the movie because it was so crude. I hated when the kid freaks out because his car’s come back, and he comes out of his house with a pink girl’s bike. I mean, first of all, if you were afraid of your possessed car, wouldn’t you maybe…I don’t know… STAY IN YOUR HOUSE? And then the pink bike with streamers…you could totally tell that Michael Bay was like, oh yeah, that will be funny to have him riding around on the gayest bike ever. But where did it come from? He tries to say later, “I was on my mom’s bike.” Seriously. Unless your mom is 7 and retarded, that’s not her bike.

The movie sucks because Michael Bay sucks. He gets too self-congratulatory and he needs to learn how to cut, or how to take these little nuggets of ideas that he thinks are interesting, and save them in a shoebox under his bed to be used in other movies that may be more appropriate venues for certain gags instead of saying, “No! It’s funny! Just put it in. People love me so much they’ll sit through 3 hours of visual babble that doesn’t always make sense.” But if you went like everyone else, knowing that the movie wouldn’t be good but the robots would look awesome, then you couldn’t possibly be disappointed.

I’m in love with Bumblebee. Yellow’s not my favorite color, but I would be able to overlook that if he were my guardian Transformer and I got to touch him all the time.

The Power of Choice

One of my favorite stories as a kid, was the one about Sir Gawain and the hag.

King Arthur is challenged by a rival knight, Gromer Somer Joure , to discover the secret to the age-old question–what women desire most. King Arthur’s nephew, Sir Gawain (who was always my favorite, by the way, as he was the embodiment of Honor), sets out to save his uncle’s life by finding the answer to this riddle. He travels far and wide, and gets many theories and ideas from a lot of people. But it is Gromer’s sister, this hideous hag named Ragnelle, that promises him the correct solution if he marries her. Sir Gawain selflessly agrees in order to save his uncle, and Ragnelle tells him that what women want is, sovereynté, the freedom to choose. King Arthur wins Gromer’s challenge with this answer and his life is spared. However, Sir Gawain is obligated to marry the hag.

After the wedding, the newlyweds retire to their private chamber, and Sir Gawain is prepared to dutifully do the things that are expected of a man to his new wife. However, once in their private quarters, he discovers that the hag has transformed into the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. She explains to him that she was put under a spell a long time ago to look like a hag until a good knight married her. Now that the spell has been broken, she will be able to look like her true self half of the day. She offers Sir Gawain a choice–either look like a hag during the daytime, so in public, the world would see her as his hideous wife while becoming a beautiful woman that only Sir Gawain would see and know in private, or she could look beautiful during the day for all the public to see, but in private at night, she would retire with Sir Gawain as a disgusting hag. Sir Gawain weighs the decision, and after a long time, he declines the decision and asks Ragnelle to choose the situation which would please her most.

By offering her the choice to decide her own life, Gawain gave her the sovereignty, the free will, to have power and autonomy over herself, thus lifting the curse and allowing her beauty to return permanently.

*************
This story always stays with me. It influences how I deal with people (you should never force someone to make a decision. You can only advise others and decide how you will live your own life, and allow others the freedom to make their own decisions, no matter if it brings them more challenges or more expansion. The only choice you have is what you are willing to accept into your own life), and how I see my own life in how I project myself. Do I show my true self during the day, but in private, let others discover that what they love is an illusion, a projection of energy that comes from the universe to help them make their own discoveries, completely independent of one small, flawed human being who accepted a life path as a messenger? Or do I appear and do as others, and in the privacy of my inner quarters, project an entire universe that only a very small, select few can experience?

I had an interesting experience on Tuesday night. Someone unexpected got into me and ripped off my mask. It was not an unpleasant experience, because I didn’t let myself get defensive or feel fear. It was an experience based on mutual respect and trust. By relaxing myself to remain receptive, I was not afraid to stand pyschically naked and vulnerable in front of him, and was surprised that he was able to see me so clearly. We laughed about it, how people think I’m so complex, or I project myself in such a complex manner, but the real secret is that I’m actually a very, very simple person. How people think they’ve got a read on me, but it’s not entirely accurate…where I come from. How people sometimes perceive me of needing to be in control all the time, when in actuality, I’m not that way at all–my motivations come purely from not being controlled versus needing to be IN control. I don’t care what other people do, just don’t tell me what to do. And ultimately, at my core, I’m in love with everyone, no matter how I feel about them mentally or emotionally. The most interesting moment was when he said, I know the real Julia because I’ve seen her. You have this alter ego that you show the world, but this right here, right now, is who you really are. It’s like you’re magnetic and people can’t help being affected by you, and when you walk into a room, people can’t help but feel your energy and be inspired. Whatever you need to do to consistently be this person all the time, do it.

Honestly, this person has never struck me as deep and I’m not convinced he is. But for a small moment, it was like a door opened, and I got a message from the universe that had nothing to do with the man. So this is what it feels like to be on the other end, huh? I’m still trying to process all of the message I got that night, but I want the universe to know that I’m hearing it and I’m working really hard to be true to my path.

I wish it were so easy as solving a riddle, how to consistently be this person without fear that once I get close to someone, I will turn to dust.

Is it freedom that allows my energy to expand the way it does, this way where people can feel me and know that what courses through me is a higher level of peace and contentment, faith of a higher power in its purest form? Once someone is determined to catch me and put me as a fixture in their life, will it all disappear, shattering me to the point where I can’t remember where I came from and what it was that I once served?

I hope never to be caught, and one day, if I ever let myself, I hope that whoever that person is will help me structure my expansion to help me achieve my ultimate potential, rather than extinguish my fire.

For anyone to get close to me anymore, they must believe in magic. They must have faith in things they can not see, feel, smell, touch, etc. The reason I love David Gray’s White Ladder album is I feel it’s incredibly personal and truthful for him, that it’s all about the transformational power of love and faith. As he says, we have to let go of our hearts and let go of our heads, and feel what we know is true from the deepest part of ourselves. Because the only things worth living for are innocence and magic, and we can actually change our realities if we truly believe in that.

If someone can have that kind of faith and trust, if someone can earn my trust to the point where I truly feel that they have the courage and faith to welcome a life changing experience without feeling the need to possess me, if they give me the freedom to be myself, complete sovereignty to be a pure conduit, and can keep me safe while I’m in that place, then I promise them. I will show them the universe.

I just finished my Vegas pilot. I have officially earned my trip to Phoenix.