Echo

i know i’ve been all over the place lately. but i’ll be honest with you. it has been an incredible experience lately, life…it feels like i’m getting the software in my head upgraded and i’m feeling all these old emotions getting erased by all these new types of experiences.

i had really bad back pain from january until may. i mean, some days it was torture to walk, but i didn’t want anyone to know how bad it was so i powered through it. i started letting go of a lot of things and people in my life that i felt were holding me down, and i started feeling better, but right around may, as i had my eyes opened to a new level of awareness, my back stopped hurting. i started cutting down on diet and sleep, spending most of my nights dancing alone in my room by candlelight, doing yoga stretches and writing. it’s weird how i can go to so many doctors to help me with my back, but deep down, if you intuitively do the things you feel to be true, sometimes you know the secret to healing.

michelle has a friend who was just diagnosed with having a large mass in her ovary. it’s a scary time because they don’t know what it is exactly. i asked michelle if this was her friend who married the virgo guy. i had remembered 4 years ago, michelle had told me extensively about a friend who married a guy who was a virgo. the guy had a mild and defeated temperament, and her friend basically told him that he was going to marry her. she said that the guy was miserable before getting married, yet still went along with it because he didn’t stand up for what he wanted. so flash forward and they’re still married but they have 3 kids. but the guy suffers from hypertension and all kinds of health issues. i asked her if she thought the bad marriage was manifesting itself physically in him. she said she was sure. now her friend has a huge mass in her ovary. i think this marriage is filled with a lot of bad energy, and it’s killing them.

crap. 2 hours of sleep on a weekday is not okay.

i hate you today, julia. i hate you so much.

Don’t Accidentally Have Sex on the First Date

I just read today’s articles on MSN’s homepage where men and women weighed in on sex on the first date, sex and serious relationships and taking your time. I noticed that the men were older and either divorced or never married…personally I would have liked to have seen the opinion of a guy who’s happily married or someone closer to my age group, but whatever.

I’ve never been a one night stand person, but I’ve never been a serial monogamist either. I just kind of feel that who I am is valuable and what you share with me is going to be an incredible and unique experience, so I don’t want to give it away, but I also don’t want to commit to giving it to someone if I don’t know that they deserve it.

I do know that sex on the first date really complicates things and puts a lot of pressure, so I’ve never done that either. I think the approach though depends on the person and what that person wants. If a person isn’t interested in pursuing a relationship at that time in their life or is “test driving” people/relationships to figure out what they do want, I don’t see a problem with how they want to handle their sex life, even if it’s a series of one night stands, as long as how you behave is aligned to what you truly want, so you don’t end up working against your goals or what you feel comfortable with. For example, if you really want a fulfilling relationship but you find yourself giving it up right away and guys don’t call you afterwards or they’re jerks who end up pursuing only the sexual part of the relationship, then you probably have to ask yourself what you’re doing to contribute to your not being able to get what you’re actually looking for. But on the flipside, if what you really want to do is figure out what you want romantically and sexually, but you feel uncomfortable with sleeping around so you pursue series of relationships that stifle you when what you’re really trying to figure out is what you want, then maybe you have to not worry so much about being judged or judging yourself. Just be safe but have fun.

For me personally, there are all different kinds of sex involving different kinds of connections between two people, but there’s only one kind that I’m interested in enough to put in effort. I only like it when I can feel a deep connection with someone where you’re so connected, you don’t know where one person ends and the other one begins when this experience happens. And it’s no holds bar, straight passion. You won’t be able to have that kind of thing with just anyone…it has to be someone you have that deep connection with, someone who turns you on and someone that you have enough trust with and respect for to want to share something this deep and sacred. Because it’s all-encompassing and amazing, almost an out of body experience, and it’s worth waiting for. If I feel that connection with someone, I’ll take my time, because I want to deepen the spiritual/emotional connection first, make sure it’s real, make sure there’s trust, and then let us go wild. It’s the best sex imagineable, because you’re deeply connected and you’ve withheld that energy for so long that it just completely takes over you in that moment when the dam breaks and you guys get together. It’s a sacred, private connection between two people, something I don’t talk about with other people, because it’s only between you two, and I don’t allow just anyone to experience that with me. That person has to show me that the truth of who he is, is that he’s special and he’s open, and he can truly appreciate an experience like this. It’s because of the connection. It wouldn’t be as amazing of an experience if you shared it with anyone, because inherently, it involves a very specific chemistry.

Everything else to me, if that connection isn’t there, if that passion isn’t there, is like scratching an itch. It’s a lot of work for a little payoff and it’s boring. I go long periods of time without sleeping with anyone because no one’s struck my fancy and I enjoy being celibate because I’m more creative…all that blood is diverted to my brain. I know I can get lazy about it, but if I don’t feel like someone is a deep connection with all the other elements there, I just think of sex as an obligation or work. It’s like getting on an exercise bike. So I don’t do it. I can look at a lot of guys and appreciate their looks, their warmth, their charisma, etc., but there are very few people that I’m sexually interested in, because I’m looking for something specific. So until something comes along that I feel is something I want to pursue, I like to talk about it and think about all the what-if’s of crazy nights of passion and scenarios, etc., but overall, I don’t bother to realistically pursue anything because I would rather save myself and my energy for the real thing. It’s just personal preference.

The Hollywood Bowl is Mecca

Anyone who gets a chance should go see a concert at the Hollywood Bowl at least once in their lifetime, if not as often as possible. The shows put on by KCRW are usually the best as they pull a lot of artists from around the world, and seeing people who come from completely different cultures express themselves is something that gives you a whole different perspective on life in itself. But the whole feel of the place, the background as the sun sets behind the mountains, the positive energy, the fact that you can bring in your own food & drink (and they look the other way when it comes to weed)…it’s a spiritual experience.

This is a more recent thing, but I like to get high just as the sun’s setting, and then spend the rest of the evening feeling the music, the vibes and watching people and learning about all the different types out there. It makes me really love and appreciate people. I think being at the Bowl relaxes people which makes them project more honestly, and you’d be surprised how much you could learn about different personalities or humans in general just by taking in everything. It’s beautiful on so many levels.

Earlier this week, I realized that the only person I wanted to go with was my friend Colin. Otherwise, I wanted to go alone. Colin’s someone who’s himself almost no matter what, so you can talk or not talk to him, and it’s still very comfortable. I’ve found that lately, I’ve had a real lack of patience for vapid, superficial interaction and conversation. I just feel like I’m wasting myself and my time, because when you’re busy making small talk with people who don’t really know you or care to know you because they live on a more surface level, you’re trying to make yourself as bland, as acceptable and as mildly pleasant as possible. But it sucks! It’s like having a Ferrari, but you can only drive in a parking lot. It’s like being put into a little box when you know you have so much more to offer and you’re so much bigger, and it’s pretty magnificent. In these more surfacey interactions, I’m not really getting to be myself with all of my parts present, and I’m having a harder time being tolerant of that anymore if it’s not a situation where socially, I have to be a certain way (ie for work, etc). I would rather be by myself, or be with people who accept and enjoy the whole me. I just want to be able to relax and be myself. I don’t mind more superficial interactions sometimes. It’s good to have balance and relate to people on the different levels they’re comfortable with. But lately, I just feel like I’ve been doing a lot of spiritual work, so all I wanna do is be in situations where I can drop any masks or dividing lines within myself and just relax.

So I had asked Colin earlier this week, and he finally got back to me the day of the show that he could go. I met up with him at his house, which is within walking distance of the Bowl. We had a couple of tequila shots (I realized I like tequila because it doesn’t fuck with my body the way most alcohol can make me feel sick right away. It just goes straight to my brain while leaving my body alone), and headed over.

This is Colin. He’s 6 foot 4. He’s got red hair, fair skin and freckles. He’s gay. And he’s in a long-term committed relationship. I know him because he was a friend of a friend of a friend when I first moved out here, and he’s a good friend of my roommate now so he’s always been around. Once he was over at my house and we heard a party somewhere in the neighborhood. It sounded like it was raging so we thought it would be cool/funny to crash this random house party (we’re close to UCLA so we figured it was probably students). So we follow the noise until we find it, but when we walked in, it turns out it was all Persians. Basically, we were hoping to crash a college party, but we ended up walking into a party where a 6’4 red haired guy and an Asian girl so obviously didn’t belong.

So as we walked, I start telling Colin that I’m just tired of stupid shit. I’m tired of shallow connections and shallow people, and I just want to be myself and not care that it might make some people uncomfortable, envious or scared. I just want to be myself, no matter how bizarre, deep, inappropriate it is, because I fuckin’ love being me, and I’m tired of hiding it. He agreed because that’s basically the way he lives his life, and he’s survived and he’s successful. He tells me that he always has these random deep connections with strangers, like they know each other. He understands. It was such a relief.

So we get to the Bowl and we eat and we smoke and we’re super happy. The crowd around us is a little weird. A lot of your Hollywood Bowl experience depends on your section. We had the best section at the DJ Shadow show because it was one big block party, one big love fest of people having a fuckin’ good time. Groove Armada is opening for Cafe Tecuba and they were accompanied by a live band so it was really cool. We watched people dance–I pointed out some older white people who looked really stiff and uncomfortable, like they knew they should dance because they’re “having such a good time” but their faces looked really anxious and one guy was dancing towards this woman with this, “I wanna fuck the shit out of you look” that was super disturbing, but she was so caught up in self-consciously trying to not looking stupid while she danced, she never noticed. And Colin said, “They look like dancing pickles.”

Groove Armada was amazing. The one guy performing with them was young and very vibrant and enthusiastic, and you would sit there thinking he was the coolest guy on earth until he busted out some terrible moves like he was an emcee at some Florida resort event. Colin and I both agreed he’d probably be the kind of guy who has ten-hour marathon sex. Speaking of marathon sex, Colin and I were talking about Pisces men. First we agreed they’re kind of fucked up. There is no rhyme or reason to them in that you can’t cajole or force them to get close to you. They’ll be totally in love with you, then they’ll want nothing to do with you and all of a sudden, they’ve dedicated their lives to serving your every romantic need. As long as you ignore them. We did agree they’re pretty amazing in bed because they put every ounce of their souls into it, and that’s the kind of thing we like. That’s the best kind of sex, personally, the only kind that makes me put in any effort (I’m sure there will be a post coming that discusses my love for celibacy). So he told me about a boyfriend who was a Pisces, and Colin would get home from work and there would be a line of candles leading from the walkway all the way to the bedroom. Which sounds good, right? But it would happen all the time until the day Colin was exhausted from work and came home to find candles leading from the walkway to the bedroom and he was like, “Oh no, not this.” So Colin walked into the guys room and slapped him, then walked back out. By the way, Colin’s an Aries. I asked Colin if the guy was upset (because you know, I always want to know the emotional aftermath of stories), and Colin said the guy was crying in his room and threatening to kill himself. I felt bad, but then it sounded like that kind of chemistry fueled the relationship, so it’s one of those things you don’t judge and you appreciate hearing as a different experience of life. I think if people stopped acting like all our lives are as similar behind closed doors as they are in public, we would feel more integrated.

There was this guy sitting in front of us who sat there and didn’t really move. He didn’t have any food or any drinks, just sat there with his hands in his lap. I could only see the back of his head so I didn’t know what he looked like; from the back he looked like Tobey Maguire. So Colin whispers to me that the guy is clearly enjoying himself, but he’s so anxious that he’s afraid to show it. I look and the guy is tapping his legs to the beat, but he’s not moving at all. His head, neck
and back are completely stiff. Colin says, “Poor thing, he’s so anxious. He probably hasn’t come out yet.” I’ve got a good gaydar (I’m a nightmare for guys who don’t know or refuse to admit they’re gay) but Colin’s is on a psychic level. It’s like, I can name a song in 3 notes, but Colin just needs 1 (weirdly, Brian needs a chorus). So we started discussing, what if I just tapped him on the shoulder and introduced him to Colin, or if I just started massaging his shoulders. We were plotting and it got crazier and crazier and Colin said, what if this turns into some crazy threesome and I said that I was okay with that. It was really kind of hot, mentally, this crazy scenario we were plotting. I said, we sound like we’re tigers circling before the kill, and that poor kid’s a lamb. He said, we’re totally tigers who would tear that poor thing to shreds and just start fucking each other on his carcass.

Okay. In the light of day, that was a weird conversation to have with my gay friend. Or with anyone. But at that moment, between the music, the vibe of the crowd, and this poor kid that we were brazenly plotting to sexually manhandle, for a gay man and a straight woman to plot how we were going to have our way with this kid with clearly repressed sexuality seemed like the only logical conversation we could possibly have. We wanted to wait until it got dark and I said, I just hope he’s at least 18.

(Well, he left before Groove Armada finished and he didn’t come back. I wonder if he heard us. We did see him when we went to get more beer, and the kid was totally gay. Like future flamer, gay.)

As we basked in the glow of our devious plot, Colin said that I’m evil and it was delicious. I said he was, too. Who knows if we would have really done anything. It was fun to think that we could truly use our powers of not giving a fuck for good or evil. We shared a moment and I think we realized that we’re very similar in one very specific respect–the two of us have an ability to break down repression. Colin’s specialty is to relieve men of the conflict of their sexual identity, and you all know what I do…mother issues, human potential, blah blah blah. But we realized that we can see the truth of people, everything that is hidden but is still a part of them. And despite our love for breaking down walls and cages, we really respect and love the core of people, and it’s that respect and love that compel us to want to set people free to be themselves. It was amazing. I asked him how come we never realized how powerful the two of us are together, that we can both see things. He said, it’s because no one has really left us alone together.

Cafe Tecuba was not that great. I said it felt like being at prom in Mexico. Colin said it felt like we were at someone’s fat Aunt Betty’s wedding. Their stuff that I’ve heard on KCRW is so much better. The crowd enjoyed it though. Especially when they chanted “Mexico…Mexico…”

We left when we couldn’t stand it anymore (a lot of people were walking out. As the guy next to me said about the band, “This gives me hope that anyone can be in a band.”), and went back to Colin’s place. I had some port with Martin and we all watched Devil’s Backbone, which is an amazing but scary movie. I noted to myself that I have a strong feeling that their new house has bad energy in it. There is something wrong there, and it’s an energy that will break their relationship by bringing out negative feelings and feelings of separation and isolation. Later, I talked to Brian about it and he said he was so glad that I mentioned that because he felt it too, but he could never put his finger on it. He said the house used to be a duplex so there’s something very compartmentalized about the energy flow. I told him that I was worried about their relationship, and he said he was, too.

Okay. I’ve been stewing about the paparazzi thing for a whole day now. I think it’s not so much that I’m mad at the guy, because I don’t give two shits about him. I think the incident triggered one of my deepest fears.

I grew up in a house where there was someone who could exhibit the most awesome, destructive, senseless violence at a moment’s notice. You never knew where it was going to come from, when or why. It would just happen. Like I said, over spilled milk. Over not eating fast enough. Over wanting to eat too much. Or for absolutely nothing or everything, because he was angry at our mom or overwhelmed by life’s stresses. It was like being caught in a terrifying storm that came out of nowhere, and it would leave you broken and wrecked when the sun came up, wondering what it was that caused this and how you could possibly avoid it next time. But here’s the thing. You couldn’t. You have no control over this force, and you can’t reason with it. You can kind of predict it by reading certain signs and making yourself scarce, but there was an inevitability to it. I was completely helpless.

So I have all these feelings in me, the fear, the rage, the anger at myself for not having protected myself and my brother. The helplessness, the vulnerability. Look how strong my body is–I have the body of a fighter, a warrior. I’m obsessed with keeping it strong because I guarantee you any physical attack anyone launches at me, I will fight back. And I will fuck some shit up. Look at how angry I get when I finally decide that someone is not on my side but is trying to do me harm. I have no qualms about using the words that will cut deepest and cause the most damage. Truth in words is my sword, and it is always at my side. And should I not be able to draw fast enough, I still have my hands for survival.

I have worked very hard to gain the spirituality which allows me to not get to a point where I feel cornered, where I don’t need to be on the defensive or need to be at arms. I’ve worked to make my mind incredibly strong, to analyze both instantly as well as continually to find perceived threats, to know very quickly who someone is (even their secrets and repressions), and where they’re coming from. I’ve learned how to be aware of my body, to relax myself when I’m feeling threatened, to know that unless it’s a dangerous threat of bodily harm, that I can handle anything else, that I’m not helpless. It works in that I have ways to consciously keep my heartrate down, I can keep my body relaxed, I can process everything logically so I don’t become overwhelmed by my emotions. I can get irritable but it takes a lot for me to become angry because I’ve got a lot of discipline, because I delineate everything logically and process information bit by bit rapidly rather than as a large chunk so I don’t become overwhelmed too quickly. But in those moments when I get overwhelmed and feel threatened too quickly, if my mind loses its grasp…I’m scared of those moments. Of losing control, of what might happen. I have the storm in me. I have stored in me the vibrations of my father’s rage.

My soul and my mind can say, it’s over, you aren’t in that place anymore, you’re safe now. You aren’t in that house anymore. Nothing can hurt you that way anymore because you are no longer helpless. And I absolutely know that. I’m completely conscious of that. But there’s a part of me that I’m scared of, the part that lays dormant in my unconscious. A part of me that has to take over when I feel backed in a corner, because it’s the last resort when my mind, which is always my strongest defense, becomes too overwhelmed to handle the threat. Then what? How deep is my rage and what can it do? How dangerous is my rage?

I meet certain people and I can see it in their eyes. It’s an intensity. We are drawn to each other because we know each other’s secret–that we are terrified of something that lays deep within ourselves, something that we did not ask to carry but we can not help. And even if we so desperately want to get close to other people, we are afraid we will someday lose control and hurt them. Razor hands. What if we hurt the very ones we’re trying to love? There is no forgiveness in our own souls for that. So we keep our distance from people. We go through life and we can learn how to be gracious, how to be kind, how to be wonderful jovial company, even how to give the good parts of ourselves unconditionally and nurture and protect others, because we give to those that which we always wanted. Sometimes we convince ourselves that we enjoy being alone, that it’s the ache of loneliness that truly reminds us that we are alive. But we are lonely, so wary of others and so afraid of ourselves.

What if someone gets too close to us and hurts us, if this thing could unleash and be so primal, that it could do things that would morally horrify us in the aftermath, where everything that we have built of ourselves comes crumbling down, and all that is left is one ruined, fucked up individual with blood on his or her hands. How could life possibly go on after that?

You don’t want to believe it. You don’t want to believe it could be so bad. So you have faith. And you hope. And you believe with the right kind of love, it will heal you from this burden. And you try to meet people like you, so scared but so aware, and you want to see how they can work through it, because if they can diffuse this bomb and extricate it, then so can you. That maybe if you can talk them through towards healing, that once they achieve it, they’ll in turn be able to help you set yourself free, because that’s the irony–the only way to free yourself, is to let someone get close enough to you to touch it, but that’s the absolute thing you’re most afraid of. You don’t want to believe that this is who you are, this darkness. You don’t want to believe that you are destructive. People tell you it’s just in your head…it’s just fear, trauma, but you’re okay. Look how gentle you are. But deep down, you worry. You always worry.

All I have in my life is faith and hope — that there is order to this chaos, that there is a reason behind what can not be explained, and at the end of the day, there is healing if you work hard enough. My greatest hope, is that there is light at the end of my journey.

I can’t say it enough. Never, never, never schedule big events during a mercury retrograde. Remember what the retrograde did to the 2000 elections?

Read this rumor about how the Warriors were working out a deal for Garnett on draft day that got screwed up due to miscommunications and the phones in the war room not working. Phones in a team’s war room on draft night not working? Sounds like classic mercury retrograde weird.

last night my fever broke.

for that i am thankful.

i will not deny that i am sad as well, but it’s a sweet sadness, the kind that makes me smile to myself when no one is looking.

i was never good at saying goodbye though it is never in doubt that i always wish people well at the level that matters most.

when we meet again, when all the petty ego conflicts have been forgotten and all that remains is the joy of a reconnection, i hope we each find ourselves in a better place.

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.

(letting go)

hey tantrum boy.

i’ve seen your loss
it was hiding in the same place
brooding like you
crouched in the corner behind all the other things you pretend aren’t yours
the dirty thoughts
the voiceless needs
the unanswered letters to a compassionless god next to the
empty cartons you hoped to someday fill with lofty dreams

i can understand.

you could not save your mother
i could not save my father

we are both failed
failed failures flailing
in a still bottomless sea
but it has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?

comforting more than anything
like eyes that bleed at will
a gangrened hole in the heart
or a fantasized bullet to the head

it’s so much safer to see yourself as broken
so the world will think there’s nothing left to break
grinding away the afternoons
assigning every fragment a personalized adjective

hideous
diseased
unloved
unloving

like items in a morbid warehouse
called out one by one
to be savored with a tongue of delighted pity

i’ve been keeping your smile for you inside my left pocket
folded into the pages she wrote about
her bleeding insides that she didn’t know you’d read

and the ticket to the movie you went to see the afternoon she died
when all you wanted was to cry inside a dark empty womb where
shadows might keep the thoughts at bay
but the fat guy in the corner kept laughing at all the wrong jokes in
all the wrong places and ruined the whole damn experience for you

it seemed too fragile to throw away

and someday when you realize how you’ve been missing it
you can have it back

and someday when you realize what you want from me….

if you sleep i can keep watch
i’ll pick up my pieces beside you and try to put this whole story together

when it rained
who to blame
why this whole damn place came crumbling down and
left the children without a soul to their name
stranded in the middle of a dry desert landscape
whipping up its own brand of nightmare

and when it’s time
when we can look back at all of this and laugh over ice teas in frosted glasses

when you can put your arms around me without feeling so lonely that
you would die just to be alone
so terrified to look into someone else’s eyes for fear of what they might reflect

you can tell me why it is
and whose fault it is
that nothing
ever
stays in one place forever.

okay. from the beginning.

i liked to wear red shoes. i didn’t like to wear clothes. things were usually really confusing to me. they weren’t home a lot so i didn’t have anyone to talk to. we had a lot of babysitters. some of them were just children themselves, because i would watch them fumble around with their responsibilities. the night my brother was born my dad’s cousin watched me. he wouldn’t tell me what was going on. i was gentle with michael. i didn’t understand him though and sometimes I would be aggressive, like bite him or put toys in his diaper. i could always get out of trouble. my mom didn’t have the attention span to dole out discipline convincingly. she only grounded me once in my life, and it was for something really, really stupid, because she thought that’s what parents are supposed to do (she said it like, “well I guess what other parents would do is ground you…”), but i blatantly went out the next day because I knew she’d forgotten. My dad was strict. He was like military. He was a drill sargeant. He kept you in check. I told him once that I wanted to play basketball. So he dragged me out to an outdoor court at 6am and made me do layup drills, screaming at me the whole time. I decided that I never wanted to play basketball because I’m a big pussy who’s too sensitive. My dad is a very very angry man. I remember that anger. It’s rage with a hair-trigger. I spilled milk on the couch once (I mean, it was literally over spilled milk) and he flew into a rage that went from the couch to me cleaning my room. He threw objects at me, including a binder that hit me in the leg and really hurt. I ended up getting really angry about it so I waited until he went off to bed and then I started crying until I hyperventilated and I freaked my mom out. I pretended to have body spasms so they took me to the hospital. I didn’t say a word but I think the doctor knew something was wrong. Because later, my mom whispered to me that the doctor told my dad that he had emotional problems. sometimes i would throw michael under the bus when my dad was angry, because even though michael was so vulnerable, he would still take things out on him. but the thing was, michael never let anyone attack me. If my dad would dare hit me in his presence, little autistic michael would jump in the way and scream, “NOOOOOOO.” he wouldn’t let anyone touch me. he would yell at my parents to stop yelling at his sister. but i never stood up for him because i was a coward.

ah, fuck. at what point can I make up for my cowardice in life? how much good can I do to erase the fact that I am a coward? what if all this strength I supposedly have gained is just something that crumbles into dust in the face of a real challenge? who am I really, if I built this image of myself on the foundation of “I am not a coward,” when I know deep down, I’m building my entire personality on a lie? What if it’s not a lie and I’m actually stronger than I want to admit, because I’ve spent so many years hurting myself out of guilt that I’m still not convinced that I deserve to feel good again. I wanted him to do the work when really I need to do the work myself. what’s so clear to others, you absolutely can not see. It’s the curse of irony. that twilight zone where the guy who loves to read and finds out that due to a natural disaster, he’s the last man on earth so he’s happy he can read all these books in peace…until he breaks his glasses. you spend your life begging for a mirror, because you can’t see yourself anymore and have no idea who you are. and that’s the thing. all you’ll really know of yourself, is reflection. but all that you can feel of yourself, is infinite.

i must be stronger than i realize, but i don’t know why i can’t see it. i’m so afraid of finding out i’m still a coward.

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.

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.