Echo

Why I like big cities and to travel, arriving as a stranger? Because it hides the fact I don’t really fit in anywhere. You live in a big city, or if you’re just traveling through, people assume that even if you don’t exactly fit in here, there’s an understandable reason. You’re not from here. That explains why you seem different. But if you’re living some place, and people see you day to day and start to realize, hey, she’s different…it’s a lot harder to hide.

My own family thinks I’m an alien. Maybe that’s a strong word, but they always say, “Where did you come from?” Which says a lot when I have Michael next to me, easily taking so much of the attention off me.

When I was young, I had a power. Over boys. They did what I told them. I seemed to always get what I want. It made my parents uncomfortable, and made the mothers of the boys extremely uncomfortable. But the thing was, those boys never did anything they didn’t want to do.

First you have to understand. My dad is a lone alpha and my mother’s an alpha. What else could I have been but an alpha? I was born into my type. Put me in any group of boys my age or younger, and I would emerge with the reins. They looked at me as a leader. And because I was also born with a sunny, magnanimous personality,  I wasn’t abusive with it.  It was persuasion, like hypnosis. You can’t make anyone do anything they’re morally or instinctively opposed to, and I never asked that of them. The worst of it was, if they got a new toy, I said, let me see it, and it was in my hands stat. The best of it was one hell of a fucking adventure (my mom said that every party used to end up with all the boys running around the house screaming like a pack of rabid wolves with me at the front, and it didn’t stop until someone had an asthma attack or someone got so overworked their nose bled. This really embarrassed my parents, how feral I could be).  I was driven by an insatiable curiosity, and they either believed in that cause or believed/trusted that following me would be to their best interest. And even if the result was we all got in trouble, they sometimes pointed a finger at me, but they never blamed me, at least not enough to not follow me again.

Well, as they say, there’s no such thing as an endless party. And that kind of power in a 5 year-old girl is probably scary, so my parents had Michael, who doesn’t do what ANYONE says. And they said, here you go, good luck.

Well, that’s not exactly how it happened but on some levels, it did. Whereas I never conceived of a force I couldn’t handle or tame, life suddenly tamed me, from every direction. And I lost my powers for a long time. I didn’t believe in myself anymore.

I’ve had some major unhappiness in my life, a lot of things that have made me look back at my childhood as being under an overcast sky. But I think about all the things that happened, and I realize that I wouldn’t be who I am today if those things hadn’t shaped me. Sometimes it’s our worst, most painful experiences that teach us the most, build the most out of us. I often think that these things do happen for a reason…maybe if my power had gone unchecked, by 3rd grade I would have been a queen bee BITCH. When you have power but lack maturity, it’s so easy to misuse power. But I didn’t have the opportunity. I learned the value of kindness, that it is the most precious thing on earth.  I learned the value of compassion for the same reason. I learned about fairness, acceptance, and standing up when you get knocked down because there’s no other option. I learned sometimes it’s about giving second chances as much as it’s about getting.

3 years ago, the power started coming back. I started believing in myself again. I think it’s different now. Whereas, when I was younger, there was nothing to restrain me, the world taught me values and responsibility first, what it’s like to have no power, and be bullied for it. I was angry for a long time, I was filled with hate and vengeance, but when I understood that these things weren’t real, the past didn’t change me, didn’t brand me and I could be whoever I wanted to be, I let all those things go. It’s more important for me to feel positive, to be light. And through that transformation, I started to be able to see my potential. 3 years ago, I started to get my power back.

I would like for this not to be a trick.  I’ve risen up before, only to be knocked down by people smaller than me who feared me. If the world will let me unleash, I am willing to show that I will use my power responsibly and reasonably humbly, that what I dedicate myself to is transformation in the name of healing. That has always been my chosen path. To comfort and heal. I promise I will not start a religion, though I may pass on “teachings,” but I will do my best to leave a positive and progressive legacy.

I was in a throbbing dream world of blue and concrete, but it was an electrical world I was dominating. I was me embodying the breeze, walking into a night rooftop party to discover it populated by a reunion of college newspaper people. All the usual assholes were there, even the one I know sent me that anonymous letter telling me to quit. They moved as a mass–brainless, conniving, petty. Each trying so hard to pretend what’s real. And then Brian. Looking good-humored and lost, as usual. He was warm and he was friendly. He told me I looked good. My changes were good. I wanted us to talk, to finally talk, but he was with that group, in that group. And just the fact that group was real to him meant even if a part of him could love me, he would never live in my world.

It was hard to wake up, having been surrounded by people so far in the past I was no longer connected to, they felt as though from a different lifetime, separated by a distance as great as the distance between worlds separated by death. The cool metal blues of the dream world chilled my reality. I felt them throughout the day, like spirits trapped in a jar. Muted, but present.

I trudged the block and a half to physical therapy. Met another short-haired mannish lesbian but with surprisingly soft hands. Texted B this discovery and he thought it was the funniest thing.

Went to the river. It was sunny today so I sat out along the edge in front of the gym with my legs dangling. Just let the river pass.

Poor workout while reading about a death-row psychologist whose ego is a bit off-putting. Came home and went to gym in building instead, while watching Monk, my TV equivalent of the Golden State Warriors.

Went to Theoretics show at the Triple Door. The lyrical poet has been messaging me, telling me about his creative process. As I hoped, I slipped in and found the seat I wanted despite his prowling the entrance. Ordered the usual, a Green Dragon. Wrote in my notebook as the band began.

When he finally saw me, he came over and asked how long I’d been sitting here, watching from the shadows. Not too long, I lied.

His friend, Doug, joins us. While the lyrical poet is on stage, and I am writing in my notebook, I hear a clattering below. Doug smiles sheepishly and stoops under my chair, collecting objects. He lays them on the table – a small red dice, a small white dice. 3 and 2.

“I always have these in my pocket,” he said. “I like playing around with them. They’re like my meditation balls.”

I suppress in my mind what Freud might say, and ask him why.

“About 6 months ago, my friend was into this girl, and she was going over to his place but he was scared to be alone with her. So he called up me and this other guy, said, “I really, really need your help.” So we go over, but he’d just moved into his place and didn’t have a lot of stuff yet, so we go to the store and buy some wine, dice and cups, so at least we could have something to do that night. We spent the night all playing dice games. I just never took them out of my pocket.”

Lyrical poet is alpha who allows himself to be read, but must tread carefully. I am still wary with this connection, choosing the path of greatest boundary but which can still be helpful. I can see him doing a show in LA, sending in a CD to KCRW Morning’s Become Eclectic. I can see how lonely and how focused he is.  I am very careful. This is work.

He tells Doug to be careful, that I’m a baller.

I ask him how he knows that and he stammers out some kind of answer, even though I know full well how he knows that. Just watching his reactions.

While the background band is still playing, this girl walks up to the keyboardist and starts talking to him. He finishes the song and the band goes on break but she hovers over him. At one point, it even appears she’s giving him a piano lesson. I ask him later if he knew that girl and he said he didn’t. A friend of the band said the girl had said she would like to meet the band, and even though they told her to wait until they finished the set, she just walked right up to him as he was playing anyway. I couldn’t decide if this was highly inappropriate or perfectly appropriate.

On break again, the lyrical poet tested the waters. He said it was too bad I had a cold, otherwise he would rather just kick it with me after the show. I did not respond. He asked why I had to go back to California. I laughed. “Because there are other people who need me, too,” I said. He asked if it felt like we’d known each other for a really long time even though we’d just met.

“It probably feels that way to you,” I said.

“Yeah it does feel like that to me,” he said. “Like I’m complaining about my band, talking to you about things I normally would never tell someone I just met.”

“I’ve heard that from a lot of people,” I said. “It seems to be one of my effects. I’m very familiar, easy to talk to.”

I told him that being around him seemed to enhance my sense of hearing, as I was able to hear certain nuances with the music and understand what he meant about chemistry incongruencies with his band. And I could distinctly hear what people were saying around us, despite it being a noisy place with live music.

There is a moment, when the band has stopped playing, and we are all looking at each other, and a song begins to play on the sound system. I’m suddenly dizzy with it, the feeling of familiarity. Why do I know this song. I ask the guys who this is, and they don’t know. I grab a few lyrics and Google. Cold War Kids – Hang Me Out to Dry. I announce who it is and the poet asks me how I did that. I said I put the lyrics through Google and Doug said that’s how he finds songs as well. The poet looks at us in horror and asks if we’re from the future.

“We could be,” Doug said.

“In fact, I’m a robot,” I said.

“You could be,” the poet said.

He tells me about how he has a manager who’s inspiring him and helping him set deadlines. He mumbles something and I think I catch the word “alien.”

“Did you just say he’s an alien?” I ask.

“I said his thought process is alien to me.”

I note that the words robot and alien have both come up in conversation.

The Theoretics are basically one white MC and one black MC spittin’ rhymes together. Tonight, the black MC wore black, and the lyrical poet wore white. As I watched them face off, I realized it was like the black ninja and white ninja. I think about how he thinks of himself as a black ninja, and yet he continually reveals his white. I took a picture of him and after that song, he put on his black coat. I would ask him after the show why he put on his coat and he seemed surprised I’d noticed. His coat hides him when he feels vulnerable. He said it wasn’t specifically because I’d taken a picture but just a feeling of being exposed. I told him about my black and white ninja thing, and asked him if he thinks of himself as Black but is actually White.

He laughs at me. “How do you know so much?”

He says he wished he could find some way to help me with my writing. He tells me a story he’d once tried to write. About a great man expelled by his world, only to become a god in another, and that this man had a mark on his back that matched the symbol foretold by the other civilization. He said it’s a sci fi story, and he used symbols from the Zodiac.

“From the zodiac!” I said. “Like which symbols?”

“Well not zodiac exactly. Like the hero is Balance, and he represents scales.”

“Does it have to do with you being a Libra?” I asked.

He looks surprised. “Wow, good memory, ” he says.

He tells me his story and I write the details furiously. Sparks are going off in my head, his story is one so familiar, one I’ve been glimpsing fragments of for a very long time. His words drive mine to the murky surface–El Caido, the children, the girl born with a phoenix on her back. I write them all down, rainwater falling in a bucket that just may hold my salvation.

When he’s done telling me the story, he says that he hasn’t really done the story justice, but he always thought it would be a cool series or something. I start laughing.

“Do you ever feel like the people you meet, they give you bits and pieces of what you need to get to where you’re going? Everywhere I go, I’m looking for the same thing, and all these people, through the things they say or even sometimes the exact words they use, tell me things that slowly fill in this big picture, little by little, piece by piece. They’re all building the same story. So somewhere, this story has to be true. Like I’m always talking about how there are different types of humans on earth, and some humans are more human than others. You asked us earlier if we were from the future and for all you know, I could be a robot or you could be an alien. All I know is that people seem to talk about the same things.”

As I pause, the music playing over the speakers begins to fade in. I hear a man sing, “I’m a Space Invader…” I grin and point up, and he hears it, too. He laughs, incredulous. “We’ve got some synchronicity going on.”

He invites me to hang out after the last set but I tell him I have to go home and write tonight.

“Will you at least give me some chi before I go back up there?” I hold out my left hand and he takes it, gripping it with strength. I feel his heat transfer into my hand, and my coolness seep into his.

I settle my check, and leave. I find out I’ve just missed the cutoff and my car is stuck in a garage. I’m less than a mile away from home and it’s a distance I usually walk anyway, though I didn’t tonight just because I’m at the tail end of this cold. As I’m trying to figure out what to do, I realize how deserted the streets are and the random homeless people walking around. I realize, it would be a really great night to run through the city, especially since I’m in shadow mode. I’ve only run on the treadmill once since my surgery, so this was the first time I ran outside. It felt amazing, the way the night air felt against my skin, the way it smelled. I felt like the wind. When I lived in Amsterdam, I walked so many times to work through city central that I got bored of it. So sometimes I would pretend I was a woman who was very late, and weave through the crowds in a jog. No one could say I wasn’t late for something. I would feel dark and unbounded and free.

As I was almost home, I walked by the corner bar. I was already 5 steps past it but something made me turn abruptly around and walk right in, taking a seat at the bar. I’ve lived around the corner from this place for half a year, and in fact, this was the only neighborhood place the leasing office had recommended to me. I’d been in here a few times but had never felt comfortable. Even their giant signage, a single EYE, kind of creeped me out. But something made me sit right down at the bar with a resigned determination.

The tattooed massive-chested bartender with sleek black hair approached and asked me what I wanted, but it was hard to see what was on draft from where I was sitting. I squinted, found a familiar word in large block letters- MANNY.

Ah yes, Manny’s. The beer I’d tried for the first time that night at King’s in Ballard, the night I met Gareth the Kiwi. Incidentally, I recently found that post while searching for a ghost of a line that had been echoing in my head.

Manny is also a name that has had its own little quirky story behind it recently. The guy who works at the gym, his name is Manuel but I’ve always called him Manny. In fact, he called me and left a message once and identified himself as “Manny.” The day I ran into Curtis and we talked, he asked me why I call Manuel “Manny.” He’s known the guy for years but I’m the only one who calls him, Manny. I didn’t realize that. I thought he went by Manny.

So I ordered a Manny’s, relieved to be bailed out, and sat, in this completely unexpected and unusual pocket of reality I’d found myself in.

Perhaps the first clue that something was different here was a girl who looked and moved a lot like my friend Hooch. She pointed at the TV in the corner and squealed, “Oooh! Sade!” I looked up and sure enough, Sade was performing. I marveled at how she hasn’t aged in 30 years. Some guys in baseball caps sitting at a corner table craned to see the TV, asking each other what was on the TV that had the people at the bar so riveted.

“It’s Sade,” I told them. They don’t look like they get it.

“She did those soul/r&b songs in the 80’s, like music you would put on to get down with your lady.” They still stare at me blankly.

“Just go home and google her. Pull up her old album covers and compare her with this image of how she looks now. It’s the same. 30 years and she hasn’t aged. It’s incredible.”

“Are you talking Sade?” The bartender suddenly appeared behind me. “She looks the same! She’s a robot! She was made.”

“Or she’s been cryogenically frozen for 30 years.”

I note the robot reference. Again. This night has felt incredibly synchronized.

I’m taking the time to look around the bar. It reminds me of the coffee shop in Amsterdam, next door to David’s store, where if business was slow, the girls behind the bar would blast some dance music and have a dance party in the window, cracking up people passing on the promenade outside. Even the brash, tattooed bartender seemed out of place here in Seattle. I expected to see her jump up on the counter and own it, while some Irish guys drinking pints in the corner egged her on. I tell her so and she lights up. Her husband is going to graduate school in either England or the Netherlands, and she really wants to live in Amsterdam. She would love to work in a coffee shop. I tell her if she tries to find work in Amsterdam, to go to Boom Chicago, an American company that runs the improv comedy show, and talk to Ken about becoming a promoter. Once she gets plugged in, she’ll find her way. She leaves to write this down on the back of receipt paper.

I notice that above the bar, there is a crafted shrine of painted wood in the shape of an eye. I see two lamps on each side of steps leading to the next room shaped as Easter Island heads, and on the far wall is an Egyptian-themed painting, energy flowing like long tresses.  On the other side of the far wall is a montage forming the face of Malcolm X. I like how eclectic this art is. It makes me feel like I’m in the Star Wars Cantina. I turn to look at the wall opposite the bar, and noticed for the first time all night, massive cases mounted side by side, almost all the way up to the ceiling. What was inside those cases…made me catch my breath.

There were rows and rows of tiger statuettes, the figures in each case facing each other as though standing off. On closer inspection, there were panthers and lions as well– an entire wall dedicated to the untamed feminine predator.

Holy. Fuck.

I spun my seat back towards the bar, staring up at the shrine of the eye. I turned back to look at the cases. On the top shelf of the left case, were two particularly large panthers, so sleek as to almost become liquid metal in their pounce.

I looked from the eye, to the Easter Island heads, to the wall paintings, to the wildcats. I suddenly realized I didn’t know the name of the bar.

I asked the girl next to me and she said we were in the Cyclops. She points to the eye above the bar. I’m watching that eye, and watching that eye, when I suddenly remember Gareth the Kiwi, and how that night he’d insisted that he have permission to draw my eye in my notebook. I happened to have that exact notebook on me so I flipped through until I found the page, an intense black eye like a full moon interpreted through the transformation of a werewolf.

I sat there holding the drawing up, like a postcard of the Louvre I was comparing to the real thing, but they just didn’t seem to add up. I started giggling. The possibility of synchronicity made my head fizz.

“What?” asked the bartender. I flipped my book and showed her the drawing. Her initial reaction was to recoil. Without context, the drawing seemed threatening.

“I met a stranger a few months ago and he insisted on drawing my eye,” I said. I pointed up at the eye above the bar. “It looks a lot like that eye.”

She looked up and her eyes widened.  “Whoa,” she said. “That’s freaky. You were meant to come here.”

I pointed at the cases filled with predators, my glee rising in particular for the panthers. “I’ve been writing a lot about panthers. Tigers. Forces of nature both feminine and powerful.”

In fact, you could say it started around the last time I found proof of magic, on that cruise to Alaska. I will never allow myself to be dominated, but I began to feel the nudging urge to be tamed. I remember being surprised when Curtis mentioned Lion King the other day, and specifically, “untamed female predators.” He had touched upon a current motif. I pulled out my phone. “I want to show you something,” I told the bartender.

“I posted something a couple of days ago, but haven’t posted anything since, because for some reason, it was this post that seemed important, and I wanted it to be at the top.” Finally the page loaded and I showed her the Panther Eyes. She read the post.

“Wow, that’s really interesting,” she said. “Do you know we’re actually in the Panther Room right now?”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah…” She leaves to rummage near the register, then hands me a red matchbook.

“This whole bar is called the Cyclops, but this room is known as the Panther Room. You were destined to find your way here.”

The people who were sitting nearby had all been listening to this thing unfold and were laughing along with it, how random and crazy this was. I asked the bartender to sign my notebook with date, location, her name and whatever message she wants to give to Tomorrow Me so that I would believe I had really been here. She wrote, “This is called “The Panther Room” at Cyclops. *heart* Mia Calarese-Cyr, 3/19/10. It was destiny, fate, meant to be.”

“Funny, it’s also the last day of Pisces,” I mentioned. Today would mark the end of a 12 month cycle. Because of it, I’d even wondered if the day would bring a little extra energy, the way company’s rush to spend their surplus budget before the end of their tax year.

“Are you a Pisces?” she asked.

“Gemini,” I said. She responded with a loaded “Ohhh…” but not one without respect.

“But I’m working with a Pisces, I said. “And I did tell him March would be an interesting month for the both of us.”

– 3/19/10

“how could you read me?”

“maybe i’m the white ninja to your black ninja.”

“how do you know i’m the black ninja?”

he laughed. “oh, i know you’re the black ninja.”

okay. but anyone who’s seen me play basketball can make that assumption.

“do you ever rewatch a movie you watched when you were younger and catch something you didn’t catch before?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“I just rewatched The Lion King. You know how Nala’s always jumping on Simba and he can’t do anything about it? In the end, when Simba jumps on Nala and pins her, I never noticed it before but she gets this look in her eyes like she wants to pounce the hell out of him.”

My mind immediately went to Michael’s birthday party where he had told me his way of dealing with people was just looking at them like they’re completely stupid. We had a staredown where he tried to give me that look, and I flashed him one that I would eat him if he tried. He’d started laughing, and he has such a beautiful laugh, but I remember thinking he was too immature for me.

Later, he quoted the movie and I asked him if he was still thinking about his Lion King revelation. He wrote, “Yes, both untamed female predators and hidden meanings.”

I wrote back, “Enviable food for thought.”

“I’m inclined to believe you’ll agree that thinking isn’t near as much fun when you can’t share the thoughts.”

This kid’s a mental wrestler. I don’t know his intelligence but his quickness is a match. I have to stay very focused with him. In fact we both are–I watch his pupils dilate when we talk, and I can feel mine as well. We get hyper focused. Show a card, see a card, tests and tests and tests and tests. But they’re games, at least on the surface. I’ve always been a sucker for someone with a quick mind. But I’ve learned before that when chemistry is based in a mental dance like a dog chasing its own tail, even though the sheer act is incredibly enjoyable if not because it’s so frustrating, but then you get so caught up in the mental gymnastics that you don’t realize you really don’t know this person. You may not even like him. So I’m staying wary.

But it’s funny he brought up Lion King and its particular dynamics. “All black except for two yellow eyes burning through darkness like the fire of a Tigress before she’s pounced.”

Women who have warrior spirits can not rest unless under protection of a man who is a greater warrior. She will not trust or respect anything less. These women tend to mate for life. Avatar was a nice example of this breed of woman as well. The two sides of the coin are the warrior and healer. In the course of a lifetime, she has the potential to embody both.

i am a powerful being, but i do need to be tamed. the softer i am in the tiniest of places, the stronger i am in the most expansive.

perhaps the fact that the sound of distant train whistles always sends me to another dimension, one heavy with safety, innocence and peace, is what should tell me that i’m already tamed.

whenever i hear distant train whistles, or the low drone from an 18-wheeler’s wheels on asphalt as he motors cross country, i feel the sounds cutting through fog, somewhere, where it’s 3am.

the gray skies finally broke yesterday, so i headed out to the other room to watch the sunset and read the little prince. the sky was an ethereal palette, and at the table next to me was a group of happy italians. it was a wonderful way to spend dusk.

this morning, i got up as brian was taking his car to the dealership. i remembered that mine is due for a scheduled maintenance as well, and i want to get it done before i drive up to seattle, which will be as early as the week after next.

so i called, got an appointment and headed over. the rep they gave me was paul, this thai guy i worked with 2 years ago, the last time i took it in.

i told him the engine still does that weird thing where as i’m accelerating, it feels like it drops for a few seconds into neutral as the rpm spikes, then sudden kicks hard like getting kicked in the butt by a horse. he offered to do a test drive with me.

while we were driving, we started talking and the conversation turned to life potential when i mentioned the reason i haven’t brought my car back in the last year even though i’m still having the same issue, is because i was living in europe. he asked me about it, and mentioned that he feels he’s been living in la for too long and wonders if it’s time for a change.

man, these are the types of people i always connect with–deeper, passionate people with such high potential…at a crossroad.

so we talked and it was a good connection. i told him about the list i made in 2007, and how 2 years later, i’ve somehow done everything except for one thing, but i have faith it will happen when the time is right. it didn’t matter what the actual item point was, just that once it happens, my list will be completed, proof that if you believe in things enough and have enough faith in yourself, life can be exactly what you try to make of it. he asked what the last item was, and i told him, to meet a basketball player i have great respect for. i told him i was close…lately, a lot of people that i’ve been meeting are friends of his, and we almost met a couple of weeks ago, but the timing didn’t feel right so i was glad when it didn’t happen.

he tells me that he’s from thailand, and whenever he goes back, he doesn’t want to leave. that he thinks he could be very happy, making less money but enough to have a comfortable life there, but he also has a wife who doesn’t want to go, and a son to think about. i told him that there’s always a balance, there’s always compromise. that sometimes, we have to make realistic considerations, but that should never stop our hearts and minds from looking at things for their highest potential. somewhere in between will be a balanced situation that will be “enough.” whatever is right for us, we’ll be happy with, because it’s enough. but first we must discover what that place is, and what it looks and feels like.

he dropped me off at urth cafe and said he’d call me when my car was ready. i did my free write, and finished the little prince.

first of all….

wow.

another example of books and magic. reading this was exactly what i needed to read at the exactly right time, and scarily resonant of the things i’ve been writing for a long time, down to some of the symbols that are motifs in my world.

here’s something interesting.

so the bahamas cruise was shallow and in a way difficult. like superficial forces in the world were challenging the reality of my rich, inner world, and challenging my beliefs. i felt so lonely being around these people, that there were so many points i would do anything just to be alone.

the 2nd night, i cut out early and went back to the room. i’d had a nasty encounter with this man at the blackjack table and was done being around people. hong had wanted to play blackjack so i sat down, playing 3rd base which is where i like to be. i feel that i’m a trustworthy 3rd baseman, willing to do what’s necessary for the table. so there was this older man between hong and i. he had terrible energy, very negative, and kept talking to me, wanting to know where i was from, etc. i was keeping my answers polite but short. when he found out i’m from la, he said he was too. he said, i’m a lawyer, and a usc guy, like i should be really impressed. i didn’t respond, pretending i was concentrating on my cards. instinctually, i was wary of this guy.

he repeated again, i’m a lawyer and usc guy, his eyes burning through me. okay, i said, not looking up.

you know what usc, is right? like the place that runs everything.

(i hate usc. i spent a summer there, and find the whole culture symbolizes arrogance and false entitlement)

so finally, i say, “yes, i know what usc is. i’m not a big fan, but i didn’t say anything because i was trying to be polite.”

he doesn’t respond, but still keeps trying to get in with me. he wants to know how old i am but i ignore the question, so he announces to the table how old he is. 51. he says he’s venezuelan, but i don’t respond. i can feel his eyes on me. then suddenly he says, “what are you, like a poker player or somethin’???”

the waitress comes around to take drink orders and he says to me, “you want somethin’, honey?” the moniker made me clench my teeth. no thank you, i say, politely.

when i lost a couple of hands in a row, he looked over at my pile and said, don’t worry, you can use my money if you want.

i pretended not to hear him. i have money, asshole. and even if i didn’t, i wouldn’t want yours.

i was also kind of irritated with this middle-aged indian guy at 1st base who couldn’t play. engineers pride themselves in being so logical, but sometimes they’re very arbitrary; they just don’t recognize when emotion is coloring their decisions. he kept hitting on a 15 or 16 against the dealer showing 6. it was driving me crazy.

the last straw was when this big white dude with a handlebar moustache asked if he could sit to my left, thus becoming 3rd base. i moved over so he could sit, then old man venezuela asks him if he’s with me. it was kind of absurd. the guy looks confused, then says, no. and here’s the kicker.

that question was just an excuse to do this:

venezuela introduces himself, sticking out his hand to shake the guy with the handlebar’s hand. but he does it behind me, so he can run the back of his hand and forearm across my bare back, shake the guys hand, then slowly rub against my skin again as he pulls his hand back.

this was clearly a gross and inappropriate act of froderism.

the panther inside me let out a low snarl, baring teeth.

venezuela looks at me out of the corner of his eye. i refuse to show any acknowledgment or give him eye contact. he’s an idiot standing at the edge of a cliff, the line so much closer than he thinks.

i look at hong.

i’m ready to go when you are, he says, naive to what were probably his own instincts.

let’s go, i say, already out of my chair. don’t even look at that sad, pathetic person.

(*saw him a couple times afterwards, once with his family while waiting for the elevator. he lowered his head and shifted behind his son when he saw me, but i saw him)

*****
that incident really irritated me, and the rest of the group was just sitting around drinking, so i went back to my room to write. i wrote about this incident, and some other things. i mentioned,

Children, whether good or bad, always find their way home. The question is, is this a good or bad thing?

the last thing i wrote was something that had popped into my head while watching the sunset earlier, and that i’d been thinking about all night:

I will never allow myself to be dominated. But I would like to be tamed.

tamed? where did that come from? i had no idea what it meant. but i don’t always understand the meaning of things that come out
of my mind or mouth. only that in some way, i can feel they ring true, but i just don’t know in what way yet.

*****
so as i’m sitting at urth cafe today, i get to the part where the little prince meets the fox, and the fox explains what it means to be tamed. i was sitting outside on a clear, beautiful day with the sun shining down, my body reverberating with chills as soon as i read that word.

“‘But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I’ll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest. Other footsteps send me back underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then, look! You see the wheat fields over there? I don’t eat bread. For me wheat is of no use whatever. Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you’ve tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I’ll love the sound of the wind in the wheat…'”

holy shit. so this must have been what my soul meant when it had written that line about wanting to be tamed, as i walked through my loneliness despite being surrounded by a sea of people.

then when the fox tells the prince a secret — “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”… i suddenly understood a line i had written a couple of weeks ago in my free-write while on the cruise to alaska, the day after being mesmerized by christian but not knowing what to say:

What happened to my eyes that I can’t see, yet I can see so much? In an echoing world of blindness, you find yourself a god to hang on to and you fight your way towards him with all you’ve got.

i’ve really noticed that it’s become glaring, how i can’t tell people’s age anymore, their status, their superficial “types.” i’ve always been able to see deep into people, but since i came back from amsterdam, i can still see deep, and now these psychic intangible but very powerful impressions are what i put the majority of my faith and trust in, but i can’t seem to see shallow anymore. so the best i’ve been able to do to cope is to trust that these impressions, these feelings i get that i hold to be true but which other people can’t seem to see, are in fact real, even though i can’t seem to distinguish things that other people seem to hold to be most real.

relief. reading this made me feel relief. that i am not just okay, but i am better than okay.

then, i suddenly had a curiosity. i flipped to the back of the book to check antoine de saint-exupery’s bio, and calculated his birthday. i started laughing. a bittersweet laugh.

he’s a 9.

like me.

no wonder.

the soul expression and life path of 9 is a beautiful, expansive one, but a bittersweet one. often lonely. there is much time spent looking out into the sky, listening to echoes.

a man asked if he could share my table because the cafe had gotten crowded, and so he sat across from me, eating soup and working on a crossword puzzle. i got to the part where they’re looking for the well, and the narrator is carrying the little prince in his arms. he says, “‘What moves me so deeply about this sleeping little prince is his loyalty to a flower–the image of a rose shining within him like the flame within a lamp, even when he’s asleep…And I realized he was even more fragile than I had thought. Lamps must be protected: A gust of wind can blow them out.'”

my eyes teared up. i was exasperated with myself but i couldn’t stop. it was going to happen. tears spilled. oh, how embarrassing in public i can be.

like david gray wrote and which i always repeat, “the only things worth living for are innocence and magic.”

the man asked me if i was okay. yes, i said.

but even if i knew why i was crying, i wouldn’t have told him.

antoine, you beautiful fellow 9 traveler…

thank you.

*****
when i got back to the dealership, i sat with paul for a while, talking to him about his life path and goals. i told him to write everything down and put the list where he could see it every day. so many people don’t even really know what they want in life, so the first step is to know what you want. be specific. how can life give you what you want, if you are unclear yourself about what you are asking for?

there was suddenly a loud crunch.

he jumped up. oh no, he said. someone hit your car!

we went outside and it was this little old lady who had been trying to drive out of the service area but misjudged the space. my back bumper was dented.

she felt really bad and was shaken up, but i told her it was okay, and laughed about how these things happen. it’s just one of those things, and maybe this little accident prevented something bigger. that maybe if she had driven out, she might have been hit by some idiot texting someone and not paying attention. sometimes these little inconveniences are life’s way of protecting you from the big tragedies.

so i spent time talking to her so she wouldn’t fall into a negative affect cycle. i learned that she’s from calgary, retired, and was a former biology and chemistry teacher. that she had been living in la since 2003, but had originally moved to cupertino with her husband after they’d retired. that she has 2 sons who are writers as well, one on the simpsons, and one on bones. i tell her that a good friend of mine, jessie, is an assistant to one of the simpsons writers, and text her to find out who. jessie texts back the guy’s name, but says she knows the woman’s son and that he’s a really nice guy. the woman was happy to hear that, and i tell her that children who grow up to be nice people show that they were the product of good parenting. someone from the body shop comes out to give an estimate, and we exchange information. she thanks me again for being so nice and for not being angry and yelling at her, and i said, i’m very happy with my life, so it’s easy for me not to be stressed about little things. life unfolds the way it unfolds, so you can either resist it, or make the most out of every moment.

paul walks me to the front to get my paperwork done. he tentatively asks me how i feel about the accident, if i’m upset, and i laugh and say, “i’m too happy with my life right now to get upset about anything.” he says that these things sometimes are blessings, that maybe because this accident happened, it kept me from getting into a bigger one if i had left when i was going to leave.

i started laughing. that’s exactly what i told her!, i said.

i tell him that perhaps the next time i see him, his life will be in a completely different place. i told him that i feel he’s on his right path, and he’s going to be very happy. he thanks me for the talk and tells me, good luck in seattle. before he leaves, he asks, who’s the basketball player who’s the last one on your list?

i laugh. baron davis, i said. my family and i sat behind the warriors bench during that miracle run, and he and i used to exchange looks a lot. he’s on my list just for proof…so people can see that i did “magically” accomplish what i set out to do. proof of the effect of faith and belief in yourself, that life gives you exactly what you ask of it. plus, baron and i have got it in us to be good friends.

he laughs as he shakes my hand. that’s truly amazing, he said.

Interesting subject but what the hell is this essay about? The guy’s conclusions and reasoning are idiotic, unfocused, unsupported and unprofessionally personal.

“The impact on the narcissistic Black ego that has used the white woman (instead of God) to compensate for his underlying feelings of inadequacy is to increase his sense of rejection and associated rage.”

Instead of God? Is this really objective discourse?

For the white woman, possession of the Black man subconsciously serves to commemorate the defeat of the white man’s mortal enemy. The object of her true love and desire is the white man. Once the Black man submits to her she sees him as weaker than the white man, who will never submit to her. At this point she taunts the Black man with the white man.

Look on myspace. The stereotypical “white girls who love black guys” (outside of a healthy appreciation of their attractiveness or a desire for adult compatibility) are the ones who have low self-esteem, take provocative pictures flaunting a forced promiscuity and a desperate need to be desired by men who symbolize ultimate masculinity who will either debase them or be “tamed” by the girl’s desirability. They have no sense of empowerment whatsoever that would allow them to recognize a man submitting to her, nor any way to truly obtain that sort of power balance, giving away any power or respect they might be able to obtain. These girls are not respected and are regarded as whores by the black guys they chase (Exhibit A: One black college basketball player on Myspace who had plenty of said girls commenting on his website claimed his hobbies were–basketball, fucking, finding out why white chicks love that black dick). Another reason a woman who is more empowered but seeks out black men solely because they are black men is that she is looking for a higher level of masculinity due to disappointment with her perceived impotence of white men (ie their fathers). There can be many theories or arguments made, but I really don’t think white woman chase black men in an effort to prove they are weaker than white men, or to show their superiority. I think when a white girl chases black men for something beyond appreciating them or having individual compatibility with someone who happens to be black reveals more the insecurities and psychological flaws of the the white woman than a perceived weakness in the black man.

Regardless, poorly written essay. How the hell does this guy have a PhD?