Echo

I found another piece of real estate I really want to invest in, but it’s going to be tough with no income. I’m going to need help from the universe on this one.

i’ve had so much to say the last few days, but i feel like i’m just bleeding out of my head because the things i really need to say to the people who need to hear them…it’s not happening.

they say when a gemini is talking a lot it means they’re bored, but what about frustrated?

sometimes, with some people, i feel like i’m running out of time, that i only have so big of a window to connect with them and exchange information, but somewhere, is a conflict of how much i should tell people, and whether or not it’s prudent for me to get involved in other people’s lives.

growing up, i was always the person who went in trying to break up fights who got punched herself, or ended up having a group decide they wanted to go after me instead. or sometimes, you stand up for someone, and in the end, you find out the loyalty’s not mutual as the next moment, they’re feeding you to the wolves because it benefits them. my dad always warned me, don’t get involved in other people’s lives. probably smart advice. but then i live an isolated life, watching people, wanting to tell them what i see, but afraid to get involved in case if the shit hits the fan, i’m the easiest one to blame.

life, like in writing, is about making strong choices. they may not be the right choices, but at least you committed to making a choice and the results will fall into place the way they will by the forces of cause-effect. and then from there, you find out the results and you adjust where needed. so i need to make a choice–my mind is strong these days. people ask me questions, and i have plenty to say, or at least i have plenty to output and that changes as they give me more or different information. but i’m so afraid of being too straightforward with people, or too honest with people, because i still don’t want them to kill the messenger. maybe trust is a two way street. if they trust me to be open, then i learn to trust them to be respectful, and perhaps we can see what really happens when i talk to people without holding back.

or maybe this is a test to see if i’ve learned how to leave people alone, to keep my thoughts and images to myself and let people figure it out on their own.

i think perhaps a good rule of thumb from now on, is to keep my mouth shut, and not be tempted by provocations to get me to speak, and if people really want to hear or see things, they have to be very direct in their request, really give me the assurance that they are open and willing to hear what i have to say.

otherwise, leave it all alone, and watch things unfold as though i’m watching a movie. people always find their way onto their feet, even if they have to go through really hard experiences and journeys to get there. just because you might be able to see where they’re going, doesn’t mean you have a right to tell people.

i got a taste of my own medicine today. i knew it was coming and so i can’t say i didn’t deserve it. good or bad, the world always balances itself out.

my blueberry nights. movie with good intentions and some very sweet moments. love to hate natalie portman but i give her the utmost respect for her acting. it made me a little irritated in a sisterly way why the chinese (not named ang lee) have such an awkwardness when it comes to the subject of sex. i feel like jude law was a little leering and they could have done with a sweet, mysterious unknown in this role. when i sit and imagine what it would be like to be in an empty room with jude law, i’m convinced that if he’s set you in his sights, the seduction would be quite predatorial. it makes me wonder…if in another world, wong kar wai (who claims he doesn’t go by a script) had said to jude, hey jude…let’s improvise on this one. let’s try it where you think about how you, jude law, would carry out the unfolding of a seduction of this heartbroken girl, in this empty dinner in the middle of the night…

i just feel that if wong kar wai had let him do that, we would have gotten a much more interesting film, but one where we’re not sure how comfortable we feel about the things we saw jude law do to a sleeping norah jones.

i really liked the character, but i’m just really not into jude law.

it was a sweet movie. because blueberries are sweet, so we knew from the title that the director wanted everyone to know that everything would always be okay. hey, natalie portman’s dad died and she’s not even crying, so everything is hella okay. and it’s nice that everywhere that norah jones went by bus, she always found idyllic pitstops without meeting any super crazy muthafuckers. just maybe a handful of people who are higher on the passion spectrum. great stories and characters. but in the end, just like we knew she would, when she’s a different person and ready, she comes back to the guy who fell in love with her the moment he saw her.

[sidebar: dude. menfolk. it’s obviously the subject of the week. even the girls are discussing it. in fact, i even had a dream last night where i went to this monastary that was like an all girls school meets day spa, and us women spent all day in the courtyard wearing robes, drinking cucumber ice tea and talking about it. so you guys better start having the courage to look in a mirror and get real with what you see, because those of you keeping up the bullshit, you’re going to be hearing the truth from one of us.]

back to.

my movie thoughts. i’m really glad the director chose to paint a masterpiece about soul reunification, but i wish he took bigger risks with his main characters. they have to fully separate in order to be brought back together on a higher level. they have to have dropped those keys into an ocean, and then somehow, out of sheer will and miracle, find them again. trust me. i’ve been dropping keys in the ocean for years. but that’s when the miracle really happens. when you’re walking along a beach in the most random place, and you find that set of keys that you’d forgotten all about. i think maybe wong kar wai didn’t have the guts, but you have to admire how loving and protective he was to the characters he identified with.

i’m really glad i watched this movie tonight. it was the exact right time. i really love and appreciate my group.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8311156/Wizards-sign-Arenas-to-six-years,-$111-million

even their team president says it. it’s not important to debate his supposed choking or questioning if he can lead a team past the early play-offs. the $111 million isn’t just for his basketball skills. it’s about his charisma, his star power. they need arenas there to keep them on the map. you really can’t survive as a brand if people can’t identify you.

I was searching through the Kindle titles, and I found this book:

On Being a Shit: Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life

I like that.

I’m going to write a book called:

“You’re the Reason We Can’t Have Nice Things!” and Other Ways These Bitches Lie.

have you noticed graduates of different colleges have different vibes?

god, stanford grads are so hot. it’s like they’re the people who are good at everything but aren’t obnoxious about it, making it kind of obnoxious. berkeley grads are walking computers. michigan kids are so unoffending and naive but your friend when in need, usc people are jedi trainees. ucla’s a little spoiled and tricky, like the baby sister who gets everything she wants because she knows she’s fucking adorable. then there’s harvard. no one ever knows how to act around a harvard grad–do you ignore the fact that they’re better human beings than you? or do you joke in a way like, “what? you think you’re better than me?” when really, you’re ashamed that you think they’re better than you. or do you just acknowledge they might be better than you but say fuck it, then try to move on outside of that fact. no one’s ever that comfortable about measuring dicks with a harvard grad. and then all the kids from florida…we get it. you guys totally had more fun than the rest of us. utexas grads are definitely interesting–they’re snipers when it comes to artistic sarcasm and will secretly win you over with their diligence. i’ve noticed more than a few arizona grads slip into moments of zombie sheen. and never let a unlv student think you don’t take them seriously because…c’mon, you live in vegas…they take themselves very seriously. there are a lot of people at san jose state who are foreign. but it’s san jose and that place is a little foreign anyway.

i don’t know if i have a favorite school vibe. i think michigan made me hard in some ways, but left me a little soft in the ways that matter when living in an big city. but when i imagine school environments and the powerful energies that mix in them, my favorite is thinking about my mom as a grad student at texas tech, this flirty and brilliant taiwanese girl landing in the middle of lubbock, texas, and trying to teach undergraduates with her very wobbly grasp of english. in the 70’s.

i wish i could go back in time and film a reality show.

one of the things my father taught me was respect for money. you have to understand the magic in it, the protection of it. i’m still very uncomfortable with asking for it, but i understand that there are certain people who just know how to make it grow.

i think i stumbled upon my future home today.

there’s hope. i’m not willing to commit to believing it’s the right one just yet, but there’s hope.

i’ve had my energy grounded for a couple of days now and the resulting effect has been magnetizing.

it’s actually incredibly pleasant to give into. and anyone who comes too close, i’m careful about being gentle and always maintaining the best intentions.

i’m also able to understand how magic is unique to an individual, and then on another level, it’s unique to their ethnic and cultural background. individually people have specific magic but the group or the different groups to which they belong can really influence the strength of the focus of this magic.

i’ve been reviewing my book that intersects symbology, psychology, mythology and artist’s path, i can see how things lay out and how to direct the logical points of your life story. however, at each step, the room you have to wiggle really depends on the people around you, and what roles they serve your story in the context of their own free will, needs and desires.

i can’t tell if people want to know or not though about the things i see and how to see them. i feel like when i used to be naively open and talked to people as truthfully as possible, people did unfair things, or people ganged up on me. so i’ve really gotten by by not getting too involved with people and having superficial but easy conversations. maybe that’s the leap i’m about to take now. if people don’t want me to tell the truth, then i won’t. but if they do want to know, they have to accept the consequences of seeing a reflection of reality and not take it out on me. the happier people are the ones who find out that the their reflection and their perception are basically the same. but those who get surprises should remember that this is actually a time to figure out what they want and adjust their life so that it fits the projections you have of it.

i have been very interested in chiron lately, as i know very little about it except that it’s a healing planet and they believe it’s a second ruler of virgo, but last week in my postings about sex, i started wondering if chiron didn’t have something to do with scorpio’s ability to use concentrated power for transcendental healing. maybe chiron is actually an expression of sagittarius building upon their recent memories of scorpio knowledge and adding to it sag’s magical ability to aim an arrow at a star and hit it. i just can’t accept that chiron rules virgo. she’s a servant.

but then today i learned about the god chiron, how he was a centaur and was the mentor/drill sargeant/guardian of many heroes. even though centaurs can often be savage creatures because of their animal half, chiron was more evolved and peaceful, combining his primal, intuitive urges with the calm powers of wisdom. he’s gentle out of discipline and choice and dedicated to sharing wisdom. but then hercules, who’s an unevolved crazy muthafucker, got frustrated as his student and wounded the guy enough that he begged the god’s to kill him. and they made him a constellation that rules sagittarius.

but sag is mostly documented as being ruled by jupiter. i think those planets share them rather than appear simultaneously in them. i think jupiter is like a siren who tempts so many impressionable sags away to an easy, happy but superficial life, but the more serious ones who refuse the tempting calls of jupiter to follow wise and mystical chiron, those are the ones who come back from the woods with shamanistic capacities. they are the counterpart to the descendents of athena/isis.

so good. life is so good right now.

just bought a kindle. hella psyched.

mom called to tell me her heart was moved by kite runner. was that one of the books i recommended to you in the bookstore in taiwan? yes, she says. don’t tell me anything about it, i say. i just ordered it today and i’m going to read it.

i don’t know what made me so sure she would be moved by it. when i was in the bookstore, there was just something about the rightness of the book. like seeing a stranger across a room and instantly knowing that you are going to be connected for a reason.

i also ordered the glass castle and i was told there would be cake. i’m going to order one or two more to balance these experiences out, and then i’m going to wait until i get to europe to open these.

holy shit.

http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/couplesandmarriage/articlecosmo.aspx?cp-documentid=8361783&GT1=32001

this was on of the articles for today’s msn homepage. just opened it.

david and i basically had a two hour conversation earlier today discussing exactly what this article talks about, down to the points.

it started with a story about a friend of mine who dated a 38 year-old guy working in the industry for 2 years. near the end, she wanted to know where this relationship was going, ie marriage. he was always very noncommittal, citing various reasons, blaming bad experiences in the past, etc., but never really seeming sure that he was in this for the long haul and determined to make this work. after a few months of these discussions, my friend said she had a real soul-searching moment when she asked herself if her boyfriend were to turn around and ask her to marry him after all these discussions that left her feeling frustrated, would she want to marry him? as she put it, she realized, “what little girl grows up dreaming of the day when she gets to badger a man into marrying her?” well put, i thought. very well put.

so she realized, it was over. there was no way she wanted to be with this man, because she wanted a man who knew without a doubt, within every part of his being, that he WANTED to try to make a relationship work. it’s not about doubts of if a relationship will ultimately work because nothing in life is guaranteed, but it’s about not having doubts about whether or not each person is willing to work together and make the strongest, most committed effort possible.

david thought my friend didn’t give her boyfriend enough time to think about it, and my point was that it didn’t matter because they’d been together for 2 years, he obviously wasn’t ready or had other priorities (career) that were in front of her and could potentially always be in front of her, and at the end of the day, there are men out there who know without a doubt that they’re ready to give 100% to a girl who’s worthy (like the guy she’s with now who realized within the first week that she was someone he could see himelf with for the long haul), so why settle for a man who you have to badger to marry you, versus the man who knows without a doubt that he wants to marry you? for a girl with healthy self-esteem, it’s a no brainer.

so this led to a debate and i was trying to explain why men do and don’t commit. my theory was that men who get to the place where they’re ready to have a real relationship and have gotten their career/life in order will usually settle with the next girl who walks into his life who’s a suitable partner. it’s a lot about the girl but it’s also about timing. there are so many stories of girls who wait for a guy and wait for a guy who’s not sure about commitment. unless the guy is young and is still figuring himself out or still has specific career objectives he needs to finish first before he can prioritize the relationship, a lot of times when guys drag their feet, it’s not that they aren’t sure about commitment…they’re unsure about committing with YOU. i see a lot of examples of guys in their 30’s who have gotten their careers work out and are in good places in their lives, and when they suddenly meet the right girl, they make declarations pretty early of their desire to settle down, and they’re persistent and tenacious. it’s actually enough examples for me to not know which is the exception and which is the rule between mature men who are sure of what they want, and those who need extended time to figure it out once they’re in a relationship. perhaps the best poll would be one if you asked elderly couples who have been together for decades and have had a strong, relationship that continually grew and evolved, if the man knew early on that this was a woman he wanted to partner with.

i really think for a man WANT to commit (because there are a lot of poor souls out there who commit even though they don’t want to or because they feel they have to, and that always blows my mind), he has to hit the perfect storm of meeting the right girl at the exact time in which he’s tired of a certain way of life, wanting something deeper, challenging and with more opportunities for him to grow, and in a place where he’s fulfilled other priorities and he is able to make room in his life for another person and make a partnership a top priority. it’s about the right person, but more so, it’s about the right person at the right time. and like the hunters that men are, once they find that person and know they want them, there’s really no stopping them. any other girl who gets caught with this man when he’s not ready, even if she’s a great girl and someone who he would do well with, is kind of shit out of luck. maybe a guy will turn around once his other priorities are settled and he figures out what he wants, but often, if you’re the girl who supported a guy while he went through his struggles, he’s more likely to leave you and marry the next girl who sees him only when he’s achieved his goals and is this “better” version of himself in his mind, not the girl who saw him as an incomplete man struggling with his doubts and fears as he attempted to reach his goals. yeah, it’s fucked up. but us good girls have all been there…the training girlfriend who makes a guy a perfect partner…for someone else. i think if a guy has his life basically in order but he doesn’t want to commit, he’s not unsure of commitment in general per se, he’s unsure about committing with YOU. for whatever reason, he’s not sure you’re the one, and whether it’s chemistry or timing or some combination of both, you really want the guy who’s in the right place and knows himself well enough to really be sure. because a guy who is sure and determined is going to be the guy who will be willing to look at a partnership realistically, will be willing to work through the hard parts, and will be happy to see the relationship evolve to a real place with real emotions and real people.

so we had this long discussion and i threw in examples from my experiences and observerations of married couples and he was pretty stubborn. he thinks sometimes girls don’t give a guy enough time to figure it out. again, yes, if the guy is gunning for a specific goal (ie trying to finish med school) or is young and wants to know who he is first before he makes a serious promise, but otherwise, he’s just not into the girl enough and so already, the relationship is doomed. so i asked him. “i know you’ve played around and you’ve also been in long term relationships that worked well. but why aren’t you with one of thoe girls now?”

he said, “i wasn’t sure if i wanted to commit.”

then i asked him, “was it you you were unsure of, or was it the girls?”

he started laughing. “okay, i get it. if a guy is sure that he wants to be with a specific girl, he’s going to do everything he possibly can to make it work.”

i was really happy. “exactly! and if he’s dragging his feet, chances are, he suspects you’re not the one for him, no matter how great you are, so it’s better to find someone who wants you and is therefore willing and ready to go through the difficult challenges of partnership to really make it work.”

and then i saw this article’s on the homepage and sent it to him and we were both cracking up.

today was definitely a cool day.

it’s been 3 days in a row of really challenging and illuminating days.

i want to thank all the people in my life for being unique and amazing.

one night in tahoe, my dad said to me, “there are many people who will fall for you, but you have to be careful who you let catch you.”

later my mom whispered to me, your dad doesn’t want you to go to europe. you’re his only daughter and he wants to keep you close.

but it hit me, stirred the part of me that is looking for any excuse to stay in the wind, to justify why continually staying in motion will keep me safe.

i thought about it that night, about suspicion, about how you try to make the right choice when the right choice could mean that whoever you put your feet on the ground next to, could suddenly one night put you in a cage just when you think that everything is safe.

i thought about how it’s impossible to know for sure who someone is, and it’s impossible to allow for the potential that with any given person, i might be settling, signing my life away, trading in potential for what is, perhaps tricked in a moment of vulnerability by a rose-colored illusion.

but yet, i don’t believe any of that shit.

i cut david a little bit each day, just to see if he’ll bleed because i have trouble believing he’s real or that he’s human.

today i hit an organ, but rather than fight me, he stepped back and calmly said, “i want to set you free. i want you to be happy. i want to show you how a real relationship can make you happy, what real love from a man means. i know you’ve been let down by a lot of people in your life but i’m not going to let you down…i’m going to do everything i possibly can to show you that you can trust me, to show you how lucky we are to have found each other. and one day, i believe you’re going to see that everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be.”

part of me knows everything that’s being said, but another part can’t stop the rumblings of that familiar anger, that shadowed demon inside me that seethes when it doesn’t get what it wants, its proof of what it claims to know without question.

because people change and life is never constant, so how can one human being with no way of controlling the world possibly make promises when being human means you can’t guarantee anything?

everything in me rejects him, screams to have him as far away from me as possible. i wanted to slam down the phone to hurt him, hurt him so irreparably that he would let go, his fingers caught in the door jamb of my retreat back into my world of echoes.

but then, in the heavy silence as night raged in my head, i heard a cool, low whisper.

are you done punishing him yet for wanting to be in your life?

and in the flood, when i opened my eyes, i realized where i was.

thursday stream

i’d had a strange day today so outside of going to the gym first thing in the morning, i didn’t really get out of the house until the sun was setting. i decided since i didn’t feel like doing work, i would take a walk to my starbuck’s since i haven’t been there at night in ages.

for some reason, i wanted to look nice so it took me a few more minutes to get out of the house. i took my social experiment kit — dl/cc wrapped in a $20 bill, ipod, notebook and pen…and put my keys in the car taking just my car key. as i was leaving, i realized i hadn’t brought my cellphone. i thought about it. i was scared that if something happened — i’m being followed by someone or whatever — i would be screwed if i didn’t have my phone. then i thought, what are the statistical chances that the one time i take a walk and don’t bring my cellphone, is the day something terrible happens? so i go.

the walk is good. the sun is just setting and there’s a nice soothing breeze blowing.

i catch a girl waiting for the bus, lost in her own world and smiling to herself, but when she happens to look up and catch my eye, she immediately hides it with a frown, like she didn’t want me to see whatever thought was making her so happy.

the reason people don’t like to walk in la i think also has to do with the way people drive. it’s a city made for machines out here, and people are pretty reckless. it’s like they don’t expect pedestrians. i’m very careful when i cross the streets.

as i’m walking, i am thinking about vision. i think if you are in a stage where you’re needy for attention, you’ll look for it in the face of everyone you meet. and since not everyone is meant to connect with you, you’re really forcing things and putting yourself on tilt. i think when you relax your ego enough to know that not everyone is going to notice you, but the ones who do might be interesting, you start to look for or see only the people who seem familiar, the people who seem to suddenly click into your wavelength. it’s a really nice way to go about it. it’s like not forcing the universe but letting the universe bring things to you, like objects floating down a river.

so i’m sitting at my table, the table that used to be my other home, my place of constancy.

i remember i used to come here, until i realized that a person should be aware that after being encountered in the same place twice, they shouldn’t return until they can return as a different person who’s had the space to look on the rhythms of people and a place with objectivity.

when i used to come here, i would look at everyone and track their progression, who had changed and who stayed the same. and even though i see them in different people, i recognize them collectively by their energy. but then i found that i was becoming stagnant energy, and i left for a while to find my current.

i think after a person experiences a major life shift, they should return to a place in which they are familiar and observe it for new perspective.

return to where you come from with your new perspective.

hmmm.

kind of like that stage common in legends, religion and mythology, the hero journey as representing the common human cycles and themes, how a person who has reached deeper insight has to come back and experience their old, original world through those new eyes. it makes them or breaks them, since you are forced to ask, which was the dream if anything, and which was reality. do you have the courage and strength to put the two worlds together, to integrate them, to take back the treasure or knowledge you found in another world, and try to incorporate it into the linear reality from where you came? does having both worlds overlap negate one or the other?

i was willing to take the risk to see. it felt kind of like a reunion of sorts, where new light is cast on things you didn’t understand before, but because you’re in a different place now, the world wants to be more honest with you.

so i sat there, feeling positive that i was going to meet someone, but not knowing who it was. i was careful not to make eye contact with anyone (didn’t want to project anything) and i kept my head down, writing stream-of-consciousness, every observation, every thought, every feeling.

there was a little elf-like guy who looked like an antique-model matt mccoy (hand that rocks the cradle) who was hitting on this kid in a phillies t-shirt. antique-model matt saw the kid had a booklet from santa monica college, and was telling him how he used to be on the board there and he was a huge supporter for the school. at first the conversation was purely casual, but then the guy kept talking to him and touching him. i think the kid was getting nervous because he was stuffing food in his face like a chipmunk. i thought a-m matt heard his number called because he went inside, but minutes later, he came back out and gave the kid his phone # on a napkin. call me if you ever have questions or need help in school, he said, and he shook the kid’s hand vigorously. the kid thanked him politely and packed up his stuff and left, while a-m matt stayed at the restaurant for a good two more hours.

there are more gay men in los angeles than people want to admit or realize. i’m good at picking out gay men. gay men are my thing. i think they like me because they think i’m a man in a woman’s body. anyway, for example, my gym is a big time cruising gym. i know this. i don’t know how i know this, i just know this, and i’ve found evidence to back up my inklings. i always ask the basketball boys if they see men picking up men in the sauna or locker room and they always say no, so for a little while, i thought perhaps i was making stuff up. but i swear 60% of the men i see on the floor are gay, conscious or not. then when david was here, i took him to the gym. later as we were leaving, i was asking him how his workout was, and he starts telling me, but then suddenly bursts out, “what the hell is up with this place? this guy followed me around the weight area for a good hour staring at me, and there was this naked guy blowdrying his pubes when we got here, and he was still doing the same thing when i went back in to get my stuff.”

“was he still naked?” i asked.

“YES! He must have been doing that for over an hour!” he said, and even though i was laughing inside, i noted he was pretty seriously alarmed.

it’s just the night people, i told him. they can be weird.

but i’m sure. this is a cruising gym. and people who don’t notice either don’t want to admit it, or are going out of their way to be oblivious of it.

there was a guy in his 50’s reading a vintage paperback and i’m pretty sure he’s english. he just has a look to him, and he’s not using his straw–he’s taking the cover off his soda and sipping it like tea. i figured that book had to be some lit classic like something by dickens. or a science fiction novel. he looked like the type. when his number was called and he went inside to get his food, i bolted up, made like i was going to the trash can behind his table to throw away a napkin, and checked out the cover of his book. here’s what he was reading. ha! i was right.

this really cute little black girl at the next table keeps staring at me. she’s with her father who’s reading some kind of ledger. work-related. she’s battling this fly, cringing from it and slapping it away from her. she accidentally drops her fork. without looking up, her father take his plastic fork and puts it on her plate.

i see an asian guy staring at me while his girlfriend is oblivious. he keeps looking over, not hiding it, not backing down. i don’t want to generalize but a lot of asian guys are about posession. very specific male-female dynamics and a very saturnine ide
a of their gender role. i think that’s why most asian guys stay away from me, and i don’t get involved in them. there’s a conflict of egos and perspective.

i’m freewriting everything i see and feel, and thinking if you put yourself in the right place and right time and let the universe act as a river, the universe brings people together in a way in which we are the fleeting moments that make up time, and what we think is time is actually the real, active constant. as much as we would like to believe, we are not the constant.

and as i think, i’m about to run into someone who i need to talk to, i look up, and there’s eytan walking up.

eytan–let’s go back.

we met in a bar. i don’t know–6, 7, 8 years ago. neither of us can remember. but i remember that night because it was a miserable night. i hadn’t been in la for very long, and the only people i really knew were friends of friends who i didn’t really have anything in common with but i hung out with out of lack of alternative. i’d been invited to this girl’s birthday party at the bar, but being unenthused, i showed up an hour late. i tried calling her to find out where they were in the bar, and the call went to voicemail. as i’m convinced that i’ve come too late and had missed the party, i see two beefy security guards hauling the birthday girl out. i was to find out later that she and her boyfriend had one of their reknowned volatile fights and she’d thrown a glass at him, shattering it on the dance floor. so they were walked out and i figured, crap, i’m at this freakin’ bar and don’t know anyone.

i figure i would get a drink and see who else showed up, and that’s when i met eytan. hit it off immediately, though i was a little wary of how smooth he was to talk to.

a week later we went to a comedy show (my suggestion) and closed down the starbuck’s afterwards, talking. he told me that he made money squatting on domains and then creating porn sites. i couldn’t tell if he was kidding but either way, this guy was too smooth for my liking, though we did have great chemistry. so we parted with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. he invited me to a party at his house, and i couldn’t get anyone to go except these three guys i worked with. so i show up at his party with three guys. he was a big flirt, flirting with everyone at the party so i figured, okay, then i wasn’t being a douche for bringing three guys to this guy’s party. a few weeks later, he showed up at my birthday party with two girls. according to one of my friends, he snuck off and was making out with both of them. yeah, i was a little irritated, because i wondered if he was getting back at me. we would half-heartedly email about meeting for coffee, but nothing ever turned out. i didn’t trust this guy and he seemed like the kind of guy you hang out with despite not trusting so it wasn’t a very high priority for me to find time to meet up.

then throughout the years, we would keep running into each other. at the post office. at the gym, twice. while dropping off screener tapes at a film festival (we were both in the lineup and in the same program), while sitting in traffic…it was the most random but constant thing.

when i saw him at the gym, he was with an older asian lady i assumed to be his girlfriend. i really didn’t care.

at the film festival, he told me to find him before the screening and when i showed up, he was doing his producer thing and surrounded by girls, and i was with my actor and my boyfriend. i think he didn’t know i was dating someone, because there was tension between my boyfriend and the situation – my boyfriend felt eytan was vibing me, and i didn’t seperate from my group to talk alone so it was really like, what are we supposed to really do here.

when i saw him in traffic a year later, we laughed like, of course it’s you. he said he’s never run into one person as many times and as randomly as he does with me. it’s what we do, running into each other. we did a quick 30 second catchup and parted saying we would run into each other again.

i invited him to my birthday party and he responded saying he couldn’t wait to run into me randomly at my party. i knew he wouldn’t show though and indeed, he wrote me an apology email to say he hadn’t been feeling well.

and then when we saw each other today, it was like…again, of course. “of course it’s you,” he said. “there’s something about you and me that this keeps happening.” we hug and i’m laughing. i tell him i was just writing about how i had come here because i was going to run into someone, and just before i looked up, i had an image of him in his car the last time i saw him, and when i looked up, he was there. he didn’t believe me, and i told him, i’ll tell you some crazy stories.

i told him about my life since i quit my job in february, about going to germany, to amsterdam. about following life and how people are brought together for a reason. he tells me he was raised orthodox jewish and he always had this doctrine in front of him, telling him how the world was and how to be, and that he didn’t believe in fate. i told him it’s not fate, sometimes it’s just life. it’s like how science has shown that intention can affect particles, that maybe the decisions we make are the ones we were supposed to make, just because those were the precise decisions we made. time’s not linear, eytan. we talk and i learn that he resists faith, he resists ideas. a part of me is surprised because i dont’ know why we’re on this topic and how it started, but he tells me that he believes something is up, and if i write down a date right now of when we’re going to run into each other again, and i show him that date and it’s right, then he’ll believe.

so you need hard evidence to please your logical side, i ask him.

he thinks about it. i guess so. i need stone cold proof before i can let go and say okay, i believe.

you’re asking for a miracle, i say. but the problem is, if you need a miracle to believe, the problem is even if a miracle occurs, you won’t have the faith to realize what just happened.

i’ll have faith when i see it, he says.

okay, i say. obviously the universe keeps bringing us together for a reason. maybe i’m still not ready yet, so i just need to expand my vocabulary of analogies and ideas so the next time we meet, i can bring you more signs. all of this evidence is circumstantial, but i’m going to show you a pattern when all these things are put together. i may not be able to give you a precise piece of evidence of magic, but i’m going to build you a mountain of evidence that adds up. and if you’re willing to see it, you’ll see it.

he asks me if i think he’s the person that i came here for, waiting to run into.

it looks like it, i say. i had a strong feeling i would run into someone if i came here, but i had no idea who until you showed up.

he asks me what happened after berlin with the guy in amsterdam. i might be moving out there for a couple of months to write, i say.

so you guys are still connected, he asks.

yes, i say. i neglect to say that today, i finally sucked it up and booked my ticket to amsterdam.

he mentions that since february, he’s settled down more. he tells me that he’s moved out of a house that he began deeming the groundhog’s day house, because every party was the same party.

so you’ve reached the ‘been there done that’ phase, i say.

yeah, it took me long enough.

i’m looking at him and wondering where he’s coming from, if he’s trying to tell me that he’s changed. i kind of have a feeling he doesn’t know where he’s going with this, with any of this but then again, neither do i. we’ve been dancing around each other so long that it’s defined the relationship, and outside of that it’s still not good timing despite for whatever reason, having been brought together again.

he refers back to something i had said, how some people will keep dating the wrong people for t
hem, but it’s the same kind of wrong. and despite advice from their friends and family, they’ll keep doing it until they hit rock bottom a point where they realize they can’t do this anymore, they refuse to do this anymore, so they sit out and examine why these partners, and what they really want out of life and a relationship. he says that it’s funny that i say that because he’s realized that he’s always dating the wrong girls…but it’s the same kind of wrong girl.

i think people instinctively know when a person’s not available, i say. the question is, why does a person chase what’s unavailable or not good for them. maybe they don’t want to have to be confronted with something real.

i do like chasing what’s unavailable, he says. there’s something exciting about it.

maybe you have to find a girl who’s available, but hard to get at, i say.

he repeats what i say like it’s a riddle, then says he has to go because he’s late meeting up with some friends.

until next time, i say.

julia, it’s always so good to run into you, he says.

as he walks away, i write down the date of a next time in my notebook.

my friend b recommended wong kar wai’s new film, my blueberry nights, a few months ago and it sounded like something i would really be interested in seeing. but then i watched the trailer …gorgeous visually but masterfully featuring “the greatest” by cat power, one of the most beautiful songs ever written (the kind of song i never want to end), and that was enough to make me already like the movie. it sounded like the kind of movie i would want to watch alone on a good screen since wong kar wai is so lyrical and vibrant with his use of colors, but it was only playing in the crappy theaters by then, so i’ve been waiting for the dvd which is finally out. so last night i had wanted to put it on my netflix queue so i could have it this weekend, but i forgot, dicking around on the warriors message board getting irritated instead. i did download “the greatest” and was listening to it right before i fell asleep, and the crazy thing was, when my radio alarm woke me up this morning, it was “the greatest” playing on kcrw. that really made me happy.

i think i need to watch this movie. i just moved the movie to the top of my queue and i hope they get the movies i sent back in time to send it to me for the weekend. otherwise, i’ll just suck it up, pay my outstanding hollywood video late fee and go rent it. i’m pretty excited. synchronicity always makes me happy.

le petit mort – what the french use to describe orgasm.

scorpio is the symbol that rules not just death which is the common misconception, but the spiritual idea of death and regeneration, death as the gateway to new life, like the phoenix. scorpio, incidentally, is also the sign most associated with sex.

“the little death.” not so much little, but a death that doesn’t wipe out conscious attachment to reality in totality. it’s a death and regeneration in a split second where you leave the world and re-enter seemingly seamlessly, but having gone somewhere so far away and found your way back. it’s a conscious way of simulating reincarnation.

if two people completely submit themselves and experience an absolute and total orgasm simultaneously, there is a moment of transcendence where two individual perspectives suddenly meld into one experience occupying the exact same space in the exact same moment with no separation. it’s a momentary achievement in which souls are released from their human bodies and return to the singular entity to which our higher selves belong and from which our ego perceptions have separated us. it’s a moment where the separate you’s die, are released from your separate bodies to blend together in order to experience the oneness of God, and return having understood something beyond the linear representation of this world. once you’ve experienced it, you really can’t go back to a reality before you experienced it. it’s now a part of you.

i think maybe that’s the issue with scorpios. in a way, they’re born inherently possessing this knowledge of the transcendental powers of sexual union, and an innate instinct for how to get there. however, their suspicion, lack of faith and lack of trust in others cause them to spend their lives watching people and testing people to decide if they’re willing to let go with someone in order to share their birthright. while there are scorpios who come to terms with their powers of transcendence and learn how to use their immense power for good, i think some stunted scorpios can spend their entire lives watching and weighing, but in the end when they make their final tally, they decide they couldn’t really trust anyone. in a way, i can understand it but it doesn’t make it any less of a shame.

but the truth is, and i’m going to lay it down honestly with you, you don’t need a scorpio to lead you there. you just need someone with scorpio knowledge and to mutually have a willingness to trust each other and the experience of delving into the unknown completely.

so this guy wants me to define “great” sex

i was talking with a friend today and he asked me, completely earnestly, “what exactly makes sex great sex?”

well, i’m not naming names here, but i kind of feel like if you ask questions like that, you probably haven’t had it yet. maybe you’ve had good sex, satisfying sex, intriguing sex, crazy sex, debauched sex, but maybe not great sex, the holy grail of sex, the kind that people try to describe but usually only manage exclamations and a vague repetition of, “you know what i mean?”

before you all protest that i’m generalizing or talking out of my ass, from a girl’s perspective, we all know that girl who claims she’s had an orgasm but goes into all kinds of defensive or unsure details about what it felt like and seemed like and looked like and smelled like until you reach a point where you’re positive she’s never had one. it’s the basic rule of simplicity — if you’ve had it, you’ll know, no doubts about it. trust me. you’re not my uber-dorky college friend matt who told me he’d “kinda had sex” this one time at drama camp. you either did or you didn’t.

put simply – sex turns boys into men, girls into women. it’s documented.

i look at all my cousins younger than me, and i can tell if they’ve never had it…and later, when they have. there’s a change in them. it’s like seeing a person and realizing he’s molted since the last time you saw him.

then the next step – great sex. the achievement of the ultimate in intimacy. the ultimate in surrender and attainment.

it turns men into MEN, and women into something that sits just below goddess stature.

you think angelina jolie, the closest thing we’ve got to a celebrated goddess on earth, is finally having great sex? you bet she is. there was a time when she wasn’t, and then a time when she was.

i think great sex is not something that can be summed up in a list of techniques or positions or tips, though cosmo has educated millions of girls in the art of sexual dexterity, knowledgeability and versatility to the appreciation of past and present lovers. in fact, i trace the widespread female understanding of the male g-spot back to cosmo and its tireless editorial staff. who knew the secret was in the taint!! hard hitting journalism, gals. one-half of the world’s population thanks you.

i think that technical knowledge comes in handy, but if your head is present and in the middle of it, you’re not really connected with the other person because you’re still rattling around in your own perspective like a self-conscious actor. and that intangible connection is the root of what makes good sex great, what personal preference builds on but does not create the foundation of. i think if your brain is still present and capable of functioning, and hasn’t been blown out the back of your skull into oblivion, then maybe you should try your luck with a different partner.

there. i said it.

but studies have shown that a passionate, satisfying, healthy sex life is an important core factor of strong, longlasting partnerships, which makes great sex of utmost importance when it comes to picking a partner.

so happy f—rolicking. and if you know what i’m talking about, then seriously, high five…

rule for the next few weeks.

if you don’t want to get shot, i don’t want to hear another peep about baron davis and the warriors front office.

thank you.