Echo

implode .\. explode
implode ./. explode
implode .\. explode
implode ./. explode

(don’t cry, kid. it’s not what your parents like to see)

and then ./. complete stillness.

just try, julia. for once, just rely on your own inner compass.

“we accept the love we think we deserve.” – stephen chbosky (the perks of being a wallflower).

i left this book out on the coffee table for weeks before brian finally borrowed it. he left me a note and said he’d taken it to italy with him. i hope when he reads it, it speaks to him.

today i had a very unsettling experience.
a homeless came out of nowhere and smelled my hair.
it was like one moment i was walking and he was walking in the opposite direction, and the next, there was a memory of him smelling my hair and he had already passed me by. I was about two strides away before I really comprehended what’d happened. I turned around, and he was walking away, cackling to himself about it. I just stood there and couldn’t comprehend what happened. On one hand, what the fuck was that?

On the other hand, I discovered something curious. I go so deep into my head so quickly when I’m vigilant or scared that I lose the present and all I experience is the memory of something, like I’m watching a delayed film strip of what happened but it’s not something I’ve ever consciously experienced. I can hop so far out of a moment when I’m scared, that I can only remember it when it’s over. I know what this means. But I can’t see what it actually looks like. What the fuck was I so traumatized by that my perception of reality and memory’s so fucked up? What happened to me? How is it possible that someone can’t remember large portions of her life?

Trauma seeks trauma and someone was kind enough to give me a spiritual mirror for a bit. I know so many people say walk away, it’s a dark tunnel, but there are those of us who are looking for redemption. We have to find the answer to the questions about our history because by knowing it will set you free. Right? Or is all this spiritual stuff just complete bullshit? What’s at the bottom of this tunnel, at the end of this journey? Man, weird shit has been happening in my life. And I’m sober and conscious most of the time but people just come out of the woodwork lately. And sometimes they scare me. Why?

The closer you get, the more people want a piece of you. Who do you trust?

as the night falls, let’s see which parts of me come out to play tonight…

some people live like this…

they’re available for something unavailable
they’re unavailable for something available

fantasy is so much better than life

the universe will give you *nothing* because you won’t let it.

writing is just mental masturbation

i think all writers are perverts.

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.

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?

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.

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

Brian told me that he’s got a half day today, so I got jealous that it’s beautiful outside and I have to work all day.

So I called in my boss’ assistant into my office and told her that we’re gonna get a half day. She said she tried already by telling him that the building management company is only working a half day today.

So I just walked into my boss’ office to “tell” his assistant that I heard from one of the girls in the office next door that the building is turning off the air conditioner at 1pm. My boss said that if it gets too hot, we’ll all just leave early.

So I just bumped our thermostat up to 80.

Am I evil?

Today I woke up and felt gloriously strong and balanced. I have no doubt that at this time in my life, I’m stronger and more able to take care of myself by trusting my inner voice and listening more carefully in a way that distinguishes the voices of playful danger-loving curiosity, and the voices of good care.

I had two interesting encounters yesterday, one that will potentially help me move forward on my path, and one that revealed itself to be one that will attempt to hold me back in the same negative patterns from years ago. The latter I feel was a challenge, to see if I’ve truly learned my lessons over the years and grown, or if I can be toppled with the same negative interactions and gameplaying from other people. I think I’m very clear on what I need to do with each, and that’s the reason I feel so good today.

Sometimes people are so busy playing defense and making sure they get what they think they want, that they never notice the people around them and what they are truly saying, or what those people even want, because what they want may not be what you assumed. The key is to listen, rather than play off assumptions that create miscalculations. And then when you don’t get the results you want within your relationships and you don’t understand why, you’re miserable and assume that life just likes to throw you lemons or people always let you down. Truthfully, you do it to yourself and you know it. You just don’t feel a need to work for anything or change, because if you get results from minimal effort and tantrum throwing whenever things threaten to change, and then blame external circumstances or other people when things go south, why would you put in any work when you can manipulate from the comfort of your living room couch? This is just lazy and a guarantee for a person to never experience truly fulfilling and rewarding relationships in their lives. Cowardess is not an appealing cologne. So don’t wear it.

It’s not my job to fix other people or even be a friend to them if I can’t feel without a doubt that I’m getting something beneficial back in return. For example, Reggie has a friend that I really don’t like. He tells Reggie that Reggie’s a good friend because he never asks him for anything. I get mad whenever Reggie talks about this, because he’s proud of this fact, but he doesn’t read the subtext. The subtext is that this person is happy that Reggie is there for him whenever he needs him at a moment’s notice, and he likes the fact that he has to put in no effort because he’s in a situation where he has to give nothing or just the minimal effort back for maximum reward. That’s bullshit.

A beneficial relationship, be it a friendship or a romantic partnership, is a two way street. For balance, everything is mutual–support, understanding, level of commitment to growth, faith, and positive regard. For someone to ask for a friendship when they aren’t prepared to give back anything is an immature and self-centered notion. Shame on them. And if you are on the receiving end of this type of silly proposal, if you are a person who respects yourself in any way, you should never agree to such a ridiculous arrangement. You don’t need that kind of thing in your life.

I’m on my way to San Francisco to see Aubrey and Candice, and to celebrate Simar’s birthday. Have a great weekend everyone!

One of the hardest thing to know is when to fight for the things you want. On one hand, you recognize that if you’re overextending yourself, you have to ask yourself if this is something you actually need in your life that is beneficial, or if you’re chasing something that is actually the manifestation of an internal issue that you have to work on. On the other hand, this could also be a challenge for you to live outside of your comfort zone, to have courage for better or worse, through good outcomes and bad, to trust yourself to take care of yourself and find the path that most benefits you.

Fear gets in the way of everything and clouds your judgment, or makes you avoid the things that you need to be doing. On the other hand, it keeps you away from places you shouldn’t go that might be negative or dangerous for you.

I think right now, the challenge I’m working on is being able to quiet myself, until the only voice I hear is my own, and to trust it, no matter what it says. I hope it all works out.

Work Update

Our outgoing email has had issues for two and a half weeks. Random emails won’t make it to recipients. What company can’t consistently send outgoing emails for two and a half weeks? I got reamed by a customer today who was angry that I never responded to his emails (I had written 3 responses on Thursday) and when I told him that we’ve been having outgoing email issues, he said, “That’s weird” like he obviously didn’t believe me and told me this was a great way to lose customers.

I got really irritated because this is my reputation. I work really hard to respond to everything that’s directed at me, and it pisses me off when people don’t realize that and think I’m dismissive.

I kind of went off on one of my bosses (I kept it cool and analytical, but I was pretty mad) that it’s incredibly unprofessional of a company to not be able to send outgoing mail for two and a half weeks, and that needing to fax all responses is ridiculous (what is this, the 90’s?) and inefficient.

That was the most passionate moment of the day. Otherwise, I did my usual–filled out orders, forwarded emails, returned calls, etc. Woke up and realized I had not only fallen asleep at my desk, but had been dreaming. Put my chin on the window ledge and stared longingly out the window. Thought about taking off my shirt.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/westmidlands/series2/robot_man_cyborg_machines.shtml