Echo

took a walk in the light drizzle this afternoon, looking for the waterfall garden. feeling very present, strong, but dark. dark energy gives me the strongest light. while crossing the street, i passed a man. when our eyes connected, i acknowledged him and his jaw dropped in surprise.

i’ve learned there’s no point in analyzing it. i just accept it.

there was a city worker cleaning up a construction site. he looked like a sweet guy having a bad day. could feel all kinds of harmless little cuss words over his head. so when he looked over, i gave him a big warm smile like a hug to a friend. he broke out in a really big smile. i looked away and when i looked back, he was still smiling. i smiled and he gave me a nod like, ‘thank you.’ that felt good. probably for both of us.

i went to the garden. a homeless man in one corner, a couple of guys in deep conversation in the other. it’s really interesting there. it’s not peaceful exactly, because the sound of rushing water is pretty loud. but it is meditational, because you do need a lot of focus to block out the sound. the visual surroundings are beautiful. i tend to be someone who works best with moderately pleasant background noise. read a few more stories from fulghum. this lone, elderly japanese man walked by a few times, then found a seat on the level below, just in front of me. to be honest, if he had been interested in conversation, i would have been happy to talk to him.

it was beautiful because it was drizzling with a dramatic sky, but the garden felt so alive. if it weren’t cold as well, it could have been a park in taiwan or singapore. in the middle of a tropical rain storm. it was a lovely feeling of displacement, of being in overlapping points of time and space. consciously creating a memory in the present.

two different people asked me for directions. first, the place isn’t very big and it’s not very crowded, so i had no idea where these people were emerging from. but i guess i’m one of those people who seems like she would know, so i’m always being asked directions when i’m in a place i don’t know well. i actually knew the answers to both, so that made me happy. i love being helpful.

took a beautiful walk towards the tailor. the clouds were amazing. a man with a cane caught me looking up.

something’s brewing, he said. i turned and looked at him to see if he was reading the sky or me.

definitely, i said with an innocent smile.

in their eyes, i can always see the hounds coming. i put my headphone back in and caught the signal at the crosswalk in one quick stride. how’s he gonna catch me with a cane? i don’t talk to strangers. ;)

oh, i am unprepared for the cold here. it’s so cold here, it makes me want to put on a t-shirt and walk faster. i know, it doesn’t make sense but i’m a girl who loves simultaneous extremes. just look at my views on sex and love. what? you’re not sure of my views on sex and love? exactly my point. simultaneous contradictory extremes. you don’t know where i’m at. probably neither do i. but it doesn’t matter as long as it gets me closer to who i am. and as in all sciences and arts, life is born in the contradictions.

the run back with the dress was ridiculous. but even more ridiculous was i got 2 blocks away from home, suddenly had an impulse to test my luck, ran 2 blocks in the opposite direction to a bakery to get a tiny bite-sized coconut cream pie i’d read about then continued the 4 blocks home. i know. i left that part of the story out earlier. so sneaky, this one. those extra blocks were probably what allowed the water to soak me through my sweatshirt, through my shirt down into my bra. i don’t think i’ve ever been that wet without jumping into a body of water.

any other thoughts on the day…oh, rie forwarded a job opening for a graphic designing gig for a vibrator company. i told her she’d be perfect for it. that when i think of her, i think: 1. baby apparel (she’s working on a baby clothing line), 2. vibrators, 3. all things french. that if she could design a french vibrator in the shape of a cherubic baby (hey, they had a rubber duckie one on their website), she would be golden.

we’d talked a couple days ago about branding for her clothing line. she was saying she had looked around and the same type of stuff is out there. i told her what mattered was her vision, which would set her apart. so it didn’t matter if the item itself was out there–just like a pair of pants is a pair of pants, but some people pay thousands for designer brands. she has very unique artistic vision…i always think of her as my french japanese friend, because even though she’s japanese, i swear her spirit is french). that if she creates what she would personally like to see on the market, people will recognize it as very edgy and hip. anything unique and well-done is easy to brand as exclusive and premium.

her next email refers back to that conversation:

heehee. now this is the kind of concept that you would have totally came up with, seriously:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/12/LVG7HH2MJ11.DTL

So i’m sure somebody said, “well, there’re tons of vibrators out there”. But not the “right” kind, and this brand fills that niche.

i forgot to mention. where i see rie as my “french friend,” she sees me as her “super sexually liberal friend.” neither of us get why the other person thinks of us the way they do (we don’t see it ourselves!), but we just go with it.

last day of the retrograde. had to go pick up my dress. she told me that i’ll need another person to get me into it because of the way she altered the back so i’ll wait until i get to cali to try it on. what was kind of fucked up was that it was threatening to rain when i went in, and 5 minutes later, i come out and it’s a full on pouring rainstorm. which i love. usually. but not while protecting this freakin’ bridesmaid dress that needs to make it to daisy’s wedding intact.

i couldn’t get a taxi so ended up running the 12 blocks in pouring rain, while trying to protect this dress (it was in plastic, but halfway there, the bag opened at the bottom and the train spilled out, but i caught it and had to hold that, too, as i ran. by the time i got home, i was so drenched even my bra was soaked through. but the dress is fine.

unbelievable.

Babel is one of my favorite all-time movies, both for the film itself, and for the daring way that Alejandro Inarritu worked with the actors and cultivated stunning performances despite language barriers. The film was made in a way that honored the film’s themes. He should have absolutely won best director that year, as well as best film.

Here’s a live performance of my favorite piece of music from the film by Ryuichi Sakamoto. It represents an entire emotional landscape… absolutely moving.

one day you will ask me about my father, and i will tell you, “he was a man of many moods and storms. but no matter the weather, he taught me the one thing that always made me different, was i never accepted that humans couldn’t fly if they wanted to.”

last night

someone down the hall either got a puppy that isn’t used to being at home alone yet, or someone makes some very unfortunate sounds during sex.

Older chests reveal themselves
Like a crack in a wall
Starting small, and grow in time
And we all seem to need the help
Of someone else
To mend that shelf
of too many books
Read me your favourite line

Papa went to other lands
And he found someone who understands
The ticking, and the western man’s need to cry
He came back the other day, yeah you know
Some things in life may change
And some things
They stay the same

Like time, there’s always time
On my mind
So pass me by, I’ll be fine
Just give me time

-Damien Rice

i got a great question today.

someone noticed that i’m always talking about wanting someone who asks “the right questions.” and he asked a great question…what constitutes “a right question?”

any question a person asks that actually represents the question inside them, in a way that openly seeks a truthful answer. i like being truthful. i like when people don’t set me up so that being truthful is actually a trap.

basically, a question formed by a desire for open truth, with the purpose of seeking truth.

i need this because i struggle in conversations that aren’t immersive and direct. my perception of the world shows all the parts simultaneously with the sum of the whole. so my view of truth can be very multi-dimensional or very straightforward. in immersive and direct conversation, the more i understand specifically what a person is seeking, the better i can give direct answers.

some people don’t ask questions.
some people don’t ask the questions that answer the questions they really have.
if you ask the right questions, people will give you the right answers. it’s kind of that simple. it comes first with willingness, then with consciousness, then with practice.

mercury has been messing with my blog. posts were disappearing then reappearing, but the most egregious thing was taking posts that were saved as drafts and making them public all of a sudden (resolved with a refresh). mercury, i’ve been tolerant of every bit of technology you’ve messed with this month, and you’ve been pretty bad. but the one rule is you don’t touch my blog or hard drive.

julia doesn’t eat bait. she knows the real thing when she tastes it.

i love that i’m going to be back here in time for the full moon next month. right before midnight it usually hangs just out my door so i can see it from my writing chair.

we don’t get cloud cover in la over the moon the way they do here. it’s very dramatic. i’m very happy tonight. another night of arcade fire’s neon bible looped in the background but i just changed it to my own mix. now playing (come pick me up, ryan adams). a sad, angstful song that actually makes me happy (figuring how good he must have felt when he wrote it and it turned out amazing).

i’m happy with where my life is going. everything is falling into place. all that energy is being channeled through my mind into my hands almost unconsciously. it’s very gratifying.

i like scientists and engineers. they and i have such a delightful curiosity about each other.

inside me, there is a giant amphitheater of happy people listening to music, breathing in the cool air of an emerging dark moon fall.

an entire day saved in drafts.

their names are never spoken
the curse is never broken

fall fall fall

my favorite season

again, hello goodbye

this time

your goodbye is my hello

you asked about the real me

the one i said was amazing

would you recognize her if you met her on the street?

if you can, then you’ve met her.

some people are good at losing things

some people are good at finding things

some people are too busy with the paperwork to think about it

top 5 list

1. solitude
2. sleep
3. sex
4. symphony
5. sunsets

just my guess.

fireworks tonight.

sleep tight.

for you i’ve uncapped the night sky

A vial of hope and a vial of pain
In the light they both looked the same
Poured them out into the world
On every boy and every girl
It’s in the Neon Bible…

Weeds is one of the best-written shows on TV:

a 12th house venus in cancer. my greatest gift. my biggest burden.

fall shift is starting. today was the first plunge. as predicted, a storm is settling in to take me into fall. 22 day tomorrow. get ready.

thank you for a wonderful summer.

i know i can’t be mad. i’m probably more sad about it than anything. people want to look and see my insides even if they don’t want them, they don’t want to have to be responsible. they just don’t realize that it is painful for me to show my feelings and see how they don’t fit into this world. it’s for my own survival that i have to keep them hidden. no depth of hole can make me not aware of them. but burying them under words and words and words is the only way i can make sure my mind continues to function even while being denied the things i want most. it’s how i keep myself sane.

i’ll never tell you what i feel.
i’ll never tell you what i want.
unless you tell me how it is i can trust you.

I know when the time is coming
All the words will lose their meaning
Please show me something that isn’t mine
But mine is the only kind that I relate to
Le miroir casse
The mirror casts mon reflet partout
Black mirror.

one day, if you can find me, i’ll tell you everything inside me that i’ve been holding back.

The mirror casts mon reflet partout.

talked to a friend last night. her husband is acting like a little boy trying to get what he wants by way of tantrum. it’s disappointing.

i told her, it’s a male problem, unfortunately. inside every man is a little boy who didn’t want to grow up. the good ones just can’t justify it to themselves that it’s okay to act in a way that disrespects their partner. the good ones, at least you can work with…they’ll know at the end of the day, it’s in their best interest for both people to work things out and find a happy balance, so they’ll work with you. but a little boy behaving badly is hell on a good woman. because she’s conscious of exactly what’s happening, but knows the only way for it to stop is if the man decides to step up and put a stop to the boy.

Got a text from my basketball coach thanking me for the birthday present I sent him. We caught up…sounds like he’s still with the same girl because his ex-fiance has another guy right now, but he’s biding his time.

What happened to there only being one shot at the title, coach? Jeez. I guess some things are easier said than done.

I still remember though. I still don’t look back. Why stay with someone if you already know they’re not the one.

At Daisy’s bachelorette party in Vegas, some British guy had come up to talk to her (12 beautiful Asian girls at one table…what guy wouldnt?). I had been out on the dance floor looking for a hot black athlete for her to talk to (her request for the night). When I came back, she grabbed me and introduced me as, “This is my cousin, Julia. She’s my hero. This girl keeps guys in line like nobody else. If you get stupid and pull bullshit, she walks away and never looks back. So don’t even try unless you’ve got what it takes.” The guy kind of looked at her like she might be joking, but seriously, with an introduction like that in a dance club where most interactions are bullshit, most guys are going to run. I didn’t care though. He seemed cheesy. But it’s not that I’m cold. It’s that, I don’t have time to waste, letting my head and heart get twisted by people who don’t know what they want or what they’re doing. What I have to give is real and of value.

I wrote to my coach, “I remember what you said, ‘You only get 1 shot at the title.’ If a guy doesn’t drop everything for the chance to be with me and is willing to gamble that I might slip through his fingers, then he’s already lost.”

He wrote back, “You are a Jedi to be.”

I wrote back, “I already graduated, coach. I’m a Jedi Master, imparting great wisdom to the young men who will some day save our galaxy.”