my new job

it's at the art museum here.... and the painting the death of marat is on display... by jacques-louis david... and it's more amazing than the last time i saw it. more beautiful and more compelling... somehow it seemed so familiar and brought back such strong memories. have i mentioned i love love love art?


below is my one of my other all time favourites: jules bastien-lepage's joan of arc from the metropolitan museum of art. i could look at it all day.

i would be a liar...

i would be a liar if i didn't admit that i've been daydreaming about owning these shoes.... i don't even think i like shoes like this... oh but i do. i totally do.... i've been dreaming about them in unhealthy ways....

while going to work

things haven't been going as smoothly in my life as i would like them to... sometimes it feels like it's an uphill battle just to get things done. one thing i do know is that i need a new work wardrobe and i have isolated the following items as having something to do with it:











yeah... i know... i'm supposed to be good at shopping because i'm a girl... but i totally suck at it. i like weird shoes, the color black and handbags. is that a wardrobe???? help!

let's put our cards on the table

let's take care of this first:


"i'm sinking to the bottom of my everything that freaks me out" - blue october

there are somethings that have been on my mind for awhile that i'd like to put on the table so to speak.... i think just getting it off my chest will make a huge difference... despite what you have been told about your internet experience.. the internet works both ways. i am fully capable of tracking blog views. mostly i am happy to know that people are enjoying what i've written and that they are visiting regularly. but there are a few people that check it regularly that leaves me with a weird feeling... it almost seems as if it's being checked to see if i'm posting things that could be used against me... like to answer certain questions about me and what i do in my life. so i've made an executive decision to give you the information you are looking for... i feel it's only fair to reward such constant attention.
1. i don't do drugs... unless tylenol, benadryl and vitamin b12 are considered drugs
2. i don't really drink... and when i do my child isn't under my supervision
3. i don't sleep around... in fact it's been a really long time since i've had sex and even longer since it was enjoyable
4. i'm not dating... and not because of some pining away for a person but because after my horrendous experience this summer in alaska i decided i'm not allowed to date anyone for a long long time
5. i'm not ever going to post things on my blog that will give you inside track information about my life... it's just my rambling thoughts, opinions, music i like and occasionally a movie clip
6. i have no opinion about your life and i stay away from commenting about it because quite frankly you are inconsequential to me
7. although i love the views and hope you just like reading my stuff i wish you'd figure out that you only need to check my blog once a day and if you save the link to this little homepage (right up top after http://www... in fact you can just bookmark it right now) you can stop searching for me in google... my google stats are through the roof and i appreciate that but geez... twice a day through a search engine? get a life.
8. the last time we saw each other (well talked on the phone) i just said "see ya" and i meant it in sort of a i didn't want you to feel bad about the fact that you were an absolute sausage head (thats a codyism) for 4 months and i had really become grateful that we weren't going to see each other again... but i didn't mean it literally in a you're going to stalk me online sort of way... perhaps it was unclear... but i hope we're on the same page with all our cards on the table.

i assume my stats will drop significantly after this post since i'm guaranteed about 57 clicks a month from you... but that's a risk i'm willing to take.

i feel much better.

totally better.

two versions of independence day... both of which i love

listen to one and then the other and know that i love them both so much i could never choose which independence day song was my favourite... this might be another example of things wrong with me.



and then the other



on that subject i think it's important that we all accept independence to be what it is...

1: not dependent: as a (1): not subject to control by others : self-governing (2): not affiliated with a larger controlling unit independent bookstore> b (1): not requiring or relying on something else : not contingent independent conclusion> (2): not looking to others for one's opinions or for guidance in conduct (3): not bound by or committed to a political party c (1): not requiring or relying on others (as for care or livelihood) <independent of her parents> (2): being enough to free one from the necessity of working for a living independent means> d: showing a desire for freedom independent manner> e (1): not determined by or capable of being deduced or derived from or expressed in terms of members (as axioms or equations) of the set under consideration; especially : having linear independence independent set of vectors> (2): having the property that the joint probability (as of events or samples) or the joint probability density function (as of random variables) equals the product of the probabilities or probability density functions of separate occurrence2capitalized : of or relating to the Independents3 a: main 5 independent clause> b: neither deducible from nor incompatible with another statement <independent postulates>

synonyms see free

and then nothing

perhaps it is my mood today... somewhat cranky
perhaps it is that my brain is full of things to process... things unsaid, undone, unfinished, understood, underweighed, unmapped, unraveled, unmoved
perhaps it is because i am tired... sleep has been elusive

regardless there is nothing to write tonight. nothing really to say.

i do have a movie i've been wanting to see lately...

little known facts

some little known facts about me:
i love the smell of morning and flowing streams and rain and irish spring soap...
i really love jameson, reading emerson, naps, the sound of the ocean and taking pictures of trees
i daydream of falling in love with a man that can live with me a cabin in the woods, sings to me in the morning and at night, will make me banana pancakes for breakfast and is willing to be honest with himself and others and live with integrity... everything else we'll work out.
i watch movies that are period pieces or historically based... i love great costumes and the feeling of being carried away... i also love foreign films and subtitles and quirky indie films
i don't like french toast or gin or any kind of carnation (even the milk)
i hate feeling frustrated or misunderstood and the idea and practice of karaoke
i write everyday here on my blog, in my personal journal, poetry and in what we're currently referring to as the novella of sorts
i never know what is going to come of those writing sessions and i never plan them ahead of time... i start by finding the playlist and then write how i feel based on what i wanted to listen to.
i find that my life revolves around music more than i ever knew... i have a soundtrack to most things in my life.

sometimes in my life i think about missed opportunities and the things that i didn't give enough time or effort to. i wonder if i had been different in the moment or ready for different things if my life would be different or if i would have gotten here regardless of the path that i took. sometimes i ache for the days back when i was just a child and everything was unwritten and unstarted and unknown. sometimes i long for these moments to be over so i can just be past them.

i worry (sometimes daily) that i am supposed to be doing more, feeling more, committing more, growing, learning, changing and experiencing more. sometimes i feel stagnant in the middle of change like a person feels in the eye of the storm... sometimes even with my life in upheaval things are so quiet and calm at the center of me. i wish that i needed less change and adventure. i wish that i would be content with a small life that involved less time on the battle ground.

i have become weary in the past few days of being on the forefront and wish that i could apply for furlough although i know there is no rest and there is no leaving the front lines. i hope for a person that can accept all the things that i have come to understand and own the battle with me. there are days when i wonder how i'll ever explain to someone how i got here and what the purpose is for continuing. more and more i've become afraid that there will never be another night's sleep without worrying about the things i've come to know and there will never be another moment of sanctuary or peace that i don't have to fight tooth and nail for. i find that in this particular time of beginning to understand and finally open my eyes that i hold certain people even closer to my heart... they have become an indelible part of my past, present and future. i could never release that bond because without the role model of living in love i think i would forget easily... or give up when the fatigue and the frustration at the state of the world became too much. they are my reminders and my talismans that true north exists, that there is a standard of gold and of love, that sometimes there are people in your life you are simply meant to love and lastly that all the answers are here if we are just quiet enough long enough to hear what our hearts are telling us.

tonight my heart is telling me to make tea, put my feet up and relax.... i don't have to do everything right now... just breathe and relax. and since my heart has had years of practice listening to that very sound advice i'm going to take it once again... while doing that i'm going to reflect on this:
"If we look wider, things are all alike; laws and letters and creeds and modes of living seem a travesty of truth. Our society is encumbered by ponderous machinery, which resembles the endless aqueducts which the Romans built over hill and dale and which are superseded by the discovery of the law that water rises to the level of its source. It is a Chinese wall which any nimble Tartar can leap over. It is a standing army, not so good as a peace. It is a graduated, titled, richly appointed empire, quite superfluous when town-meetings are found to answer just as well.

Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls. When the fruit is despatched, the leaf falls. The circuit of the waters is mere falling. The walking of man and all animals is a falling forward. All our manual labor and works of strength, as prying, splitting, digging, rowing and so forth, are done by dint of continual falling, and the globe, earth, moon, comet, sun, star, fall for ever and ever.

The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. He who sees moral nature out and out and thoroughly knows how knowledge is acquired and character formed, is a pedant. The simplicity of nature is not that which may easily be read, but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made. We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth. The wild fertility of nature is felt in comparing our rigid names and reputations with our fluid consciousness. We pass in the world for sects and schools, for erudition and piety, and we are all the time jejune babes. One sees very well how Pyrrhonism grew up. Every man sees that he is that middle point whereof every thing may be affirmed and denied with equal reason. He is old, he is young, he is very wise, he is altogether ignorant. He hears and feels what you say of the seraphim, and of the tin-peddler. There is no permanent wise man except in the figment of the Stoics. We side with the hero, as we read or paint, against the coward and the robber; but we have been ourselves that coward and robber, and shall be again,--not in the low circumstance, but in comparison with the grandeurs possible to the soul." Emerson

the best movie ever made...

no really one of the best movies ever made and this is a great scene from it...

about today

this song is amazing. it's worth a good listen to.



how many days of your life have passed where you knew that soon you would lose something monumental? in death, in rebirth, in transition or in the general sands of time. in those moments and that recognition of that loss were you conscientious? were you careful? did you take that moments and catalogue all the things that you felt, smelled, saw, heard and touched? did you sit in the dark and see the outline of the person next to you and hear the rise and fall of their breathing and feel that ache spread into your rib cage because you knew that it would be the last time that you would be close enough to smell them? perhaps they smelled of musk and of sex and smelled exactly how they tasted when you touched your mouth to their shoulder and the soft indent in the back of their neck. did you exhale that heavy breath full of sadness and regret about the unfinished things and the loss of the goodness and beauty between you into the night air and feel it linger around you in it's weight and potency? did you see them that morning in the early light as it peaked through the blinds and memorize how their hair stood up against the pillow and how their skin was sprinkled softly with only a few freckles - three to be exact?

i recommend that before you live the next day you commit a few things to memory and you commit them so fully and with such detail that everyday beyond this one you have those moments to come back to. life is not worth living unless the precious details make an imprint on us... on our hearts and our minds. life is not life without those blaring flashes of impatient memories that bring us solidly back to a different time... the time before we know what we know now. that instant is so bittersweet and so powerful that without it i might go as far as to say you have not truly lived in your own skin.

okay... so i think it's called a retraction

now we all know that i am not allowed to retract anything that i said on my blog... because well it dishonours the moment and gives me the power to make it seem as if i'm perfect and always have the answers. i always want to honour the moment, have integrity with my words and actions, respect the interactions, admit that i am not perfect and i do not have all of the answers... and so tonight i must admit that my blog last night "not like peas and carrots" may have been completely crazy, off base and somewhat skewed in it's perspective. i guess the good news is that i'm grown up enough to admit it.

here is what is real and true... (in a nutshell)... i have a past, present and future. i get up everyday and forgive myself for yesterday and commit to the big three - respect, honour and integrity and try to live the best life that i can. some days i succeed and some days i lean more towards being in the red as far as success goes. my greatest hope is that at some point i will have the people in my life that are blessings and i will have grown past the people that are a burden on me, that i will be able to trade in gold in every interaction regardless of who i'm interacting with, that i will be able to communicate my thoughts and feelings kindly with clear words and a pure heart, that i will continue to be a great parent and a great friend and lastly but certainly not least that i will achieve the goals of success i have set for myself.

yesterday was a difficult communication day. i was not the best version of myself and i am so very grateful that i have a friend that will forgive me for that. for speaking out of uncertainty or speaking on impulse i am sorry... the things i said about peas and carrots were not really about our situation but about what i am afraid of. as you so eloquently said tonight "we're smarter than that" and you're right...

i found this amazing bit of wordiness today and enjoyed it immensely:
Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.

I suppose that is all we're ALL looking for... wisdom that we can hold on to and cherish... something that will preserve us, give understanding, promote us to our full potential, bring us to the honour and grace that is rightfully ours and deliver us... from ourselves.

also i'd like to note that the following lyrics by gordon lightfoot are fucking genius:
"When you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail
And you wont read that book again
Because the endings just too hard to take."
in all fairness heroes do often fail.... and the ending is sometimes hard to take... unless you happen to be jay or rollins and then your last feeling fell out of you onto the sidewalk where you poked it with a stick until it broke into two and then you threw it at the stupid bitch rollins used to date because she was fucking insane and we hated her... and then it's not hard to take at all. the only thing hard to take around there is less shots....

ayn rand helps when i'm feeling bitter or existential....

in this exact order are four of my favourite short ayn rand quotes.... they can be read almost as one sentence although each one is so powerful on it's own....

A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

not like peas and carrots...

two things that do NOT go together (unlike peas and carrots which are a lovely mix) are watching 50 first dates on the muted television while having an active conversation about how you are still not the carry on bag type of girl. that analogy may be lost on some readers so we'll dig that story out of our collection... ah yes, filed in between 'the girl crazy' and 'are you fucking kidding me'. yep. it's right here. now just dust it off and here it goes:

the washington boy, emma and i were once on a flight to and from places which are now irrelevant in the scheme of things. he became upset during said flight and after some prodding revealed what his concern was... it was quite simple really.... it seems that after some deep thought he had realized that he was a carry on bag kinda guy and i was a checked luggage kinda girl. what a perfect fucking metaphor for our relationship and many other relationships. needless to say he and i had started to see the beginning of the end... long story short fucking great story that ends the same as most of the rest of the stories i've amassed over the years. he wasn't in love with me. they never are. for awhile i thought it was me... but now i've just decided that there is something seriously wrong with men.... but i digress.

so tonight i got to have that conversation all over again while watching a movie that i think is funny and sweet and just great. i can sum up the two hour chat with some pretty easy bullet points:

• i'm great. (yes. we all know i'm fabulous... just ask me. i'll tell you)
• i have baggage.
• i have a past.
• in the end all things being laid on the table the fabulous simply is not enough.
• don't forget the great and ever fucking hopeful but what if... uh huh but what if... if relationship or love what ifs were dollar bills i'd be one rich fabulous girl.

i usually make a comment here about how i'm over boys but not tonight. in fact i'm no longer going down that tired old road. tonight i'm taking another road... the high road as it were.

additionally it's made somewhat easier by the fact that i logically predicted this outcome. not only did i predict this outcome but this was a conversation that in all rational situations could have been avoided... just as a side note don't ever tell someone that you have already decided there is no way you would ever a relationship with all the reasons WHY... what the fuck is the point? it's a stupid and hurtful conversation to get into with no purpose.

great! that narrows it down and i can go sell fabulous elsewhere.

you must listen and love this song / video. i'm in love with hayden. not my friend hayden... although she is delightful but this guy and his band / music. "this is the last time out for me, i don't want to wait and see..."

Hayden - Home by Saturday Video that you'll have to click through and see because I cannot get the stupid code to stop automatically playing.... grrrrrrrrrr... but it's great enough you should take the time to click through. really. i promise.


on the front of what is going on with me... because i assume that is why we are all here... well.. things with me are good. good as they can be considering that i'm still transitioning, learning, growing, changing, evolving my processes and ideas... sometimes change is good and sometimes it is temporarily uncomfortable. the idea of change being temporarily uncomfortable is something i've been thinking about a lot lately. how do i become better at it? how do i become better at accepting when and why things have to change? how do i stop outsourcing my discomforts and discontented feelings and begin owning their root and their solutions in a very real and honest way? how do these things make me a better and stronger person?

these questions and answers could keep us all night talking on the phone over a crackled connection that brings your voice closer and then softly distant. i could ask over and over again what it is that i'm gaining and losing however i think the real truth is that i'm gaining a part of myself i didn't know i was looking for and i'm losing the part of me that i have disliked for many years - the dependent part that was afraid to go it alone emotionally. i can pack a bag and leave for a week long trip on another continent more easily than i can ponder my life and find what comes next. prior to these recent developments i felt like i was meandering on my journey stumbling upon truths and difficulties and then feeling selfishly as if those things just happened. starting very recently i have decided to find a different way... i've begun to plot points between me and my goals and hold myself accountable for progress towards those points and goals. it's somewhat scary and it is a change... which is how this whole post started... with good music and change.

while you're puzzling out how i just talked myself in a huge circle i'll be reading emerson:
"Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate. Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective nature? Who cares what sensibility or discrimination a man has at some time shown, if he falls asleep in his chair? or if he laugh and giggle? or if he apologize? or is infected with egotism? or thinks of his dollar? or cannot go by food? or has gotten a child in his boyhood? Of what use is genius, if the organ is too convex or too concave and cannot find a focal distance within the actual horizon of human life? Of what use, if the brain is too cold or too hot, and the man does not care enough for results to stimulate him to experiment, and hold him up in it? or if the web is too finely woven, too irritable by pleasure and pain, so that life stagnates from too much reception without due outlet? Of what use to make heroic vows of amendment, if the same old law-breaker is to keep them? What cheer can the religious sentiment yield, when that is suspected to be secretly dependent on the seasons of the year and the state of the blood? I knew a witty physician who found the creed in the biliary duct, and used to affirm that if there was disease in the liver, the man became a Calvinist, and if that organ was sound, he became a Unitarian. Very mortifying is the reluctant experience that some unfriendly excess or imbecility neutralizes the promise of genius. We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly they promise, but they never acquit the debt; they die young and dodge the account; or if they live they lose themselves in the crowd."

hayden... it's just so good... so effing good.

a postcard from my own personal everest.

sometimes when we grow and we learn knew things we have to let old things go... old ways of thinking, of living, of dealing and of being ourselves. sometimes it seems like such a big mountain to climb or such a high bar... the expectations of others and of our own growth seems to loom in the distance like a mountain you need a sherpa to get up. there are times where i'm a few hours into the hike and i'm simply too tired to go any further, there are times where i'm too spent to do anything but hang out at base camp and wait for the weather to clear. there are times where i think of firing the whole team i've brought to this point with me, there are times where i panic i'll wake up and the team will have left me. the thing is about climbing mountains - real or metaphoric mountains is that you have to be at the top of your game. there is no room for error or for silly mistakes. you have gear, you can always get more gear, you have a map, you can always get a better map, you have will power and you can always steel those reserves of will when you become afraid to continue.

i find that at the point i'm at in my personal climb is a difficult one. i'm pretty far from the top and i'm really fucking far from the bottom. i've lost people along the way and i've let some turn back. i've had to assess if this is really the mountain i want to climb and if i'm really sure that all the decisions i've made up to this point are sound ones. i find that if i make a mistake at this point the consequences are dire and i am the one responsible for those injuries and deaths (mostly metaphoric deaths... some very literal injuries). some days i really don't know up from down or north from south and i don't have the confidence to just make a decision and deal with the outcome.

overall it's a work in progress. my hope is that in my lifetime i'll get to the top and be able to look down at everything the world has to show me and all the base camps along the way (i've left baggage at each one as a marker). my hope is that my mistakes and miscalculations became so few that it's more great days than bad ones and that i am able to earn the respect and love of the people i've chosen to take the journey with.

in the meantime i'm bunkered down at the latest base camp reevaluating and taking deep breaths from an oxygen tank. luckily i have emerson with me to sustain this rest.

"There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances and you always may. The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this" - Emerson. Self-Reliance.

since i've been into reliving the past and facing those days....

today was the greatest day

today was a good day... running around town trying to get some errands taken care of.. listening to 98 KUPD and i heard some gems... some real gems... and i'll admit it i should be cooler than these songs... they may be my guilty pleasures. i was definitely singing along and i don't care who knows... no really i don't care one bit.

before i moved here i said i needed cooler hair and many more tattoos... and i took care of the hair (well caroline took care of it because she is AMAZING) and so one thing down and many more tattoos to go. i made an appointment (ish) for a new big piece that i am super excited about - i won't disclose the details but i will say that it will include my religion, cupcakes, candy, the color pink and BLING. yeah i said it bling... turns out the newest punk rock retirement plan is something to do with faux glamour - like leopard print from the nineties got into steroids and now it's retro, campy, dressed up and hip. it involves fucking bling and pink hair... i was way fucking before my time.

then hayden and i went out to play pita jungle and we might even go do something else... we might play something else like jameson and the roadhouse even though the street lights are on.

squander your ill gotten fortune found

although all the time periods remain unrelated to my playlist from tonight the songs are all so significant to me during a certain phase of my life and i went searching for each of the songs for a long time. i even had to change playlist websites in order to get what i wanted. here are some lyrical highlights that should express what my favourite part of each song is. PS - if you don't like these four songs you don't like me one bit. seriously. it's like saying you don't love me.



face to face - disconnected: "Trust is something that comes easy, When you've never been a victim, Lies and promises and words are said, Its you're decision to accept them. No, you dont know what you will give up, You don't know what you want, It may take you years to find out, You don't know what you need, Its something that may never come to you."

jets to brazil - wish list: "If ever I should seem to take for granted this lovely life that I have been handed, darling don't just stand there, come knock me around. 'Cause I know, I can write my way out of this black hole. Back to all the things that I miss. Sometimes, I wonder if I even exist. Add another line to my wish list."

knapsack - katherine the great: "Know that we wish there were circles in all, And hope that but notice, As you walk through hopeless halls, And there are better days waiting for everyone, But cheekbones, good homes, Won't always be there, They won't always be there. Set out to shut up
And you know that you want them to care, You can be grateful, You can be strong, We are not wrong."


tonight i went back. way back. well it all started today with seeing john and getting to revisit that past. that version of myself. for better or worse i existed in a flawed and scary form that fills me with shame and self-judgment every time i visit that time period in my mind. not because i regret it and not because i am ashamed but because i had so much in front of me and i chose... I CHOSE to leave it all where it laid... at my feet as an unaccepted opportunity. john and i went back and we talked about it all. perhaps there is more because there are reunions to be had and i'm sure all of those people have equally unflattering memories of me doing whatever i was doing back in the day. then on the heals of that i got an email from an even older friend... someone who created and defined my life in more ways than one. he and i shared a street to grow up on and sunny afternoons sitting in a car drinking forties whenever we could (which wasn't really all that often) we shared a past that is intertwined with who we are today.

the sad truth is that we didn't all make it. we didn't all survive the teens and then the early twenties. and i don't mean we didn't survive in some abstract way. i mean that there are people who passed on into whatever there is after this life. sometimes i think about what it would have been like if it had been me instead of them. would they have made better use of their time? would they have tried harder? what excuse do i have to give them all these years later except that i have not been careful with the time i was given... that i was not mindful of the fact that actually living is our most important job. those times are few and far between. i try to dwell in those moments briefly and then smile and tip one out for the homies so to speak. i don't even really know what that means but i think it's something to do with respecting our friends while we continue to enjoy and live life... and i definitely do that.

i guess what is important is that i made it out alive. sometimes it looked doubtful. there were times where i shouldn't have lived. there were times when i should have gone the other way but sheer will power and stupidity pulled me through the darkness to where i am now. for that i am grateful. i'm not always grateful of the circumstances. i wish there had been less darkness and less moments in which i needed those survival skills. i suppose it's all water under the bridge at this point. i suppose that i am a myriad of things and a collage of those moments.... what a bright and wonderful collage it is. what an amazing journey it's been.

in closing i'll say... go back to those moments where you had to squander your ill gotten fortune found and relive those memories as painful and shocking as they might be and then give yourself a chance to be grateful. give yourself a chance to live in the now beyond all of it. be what you're here to be.

i'll think of a reason later

i don't know why but i've always loved this song... and although i am absolutely religiously against karaoke i certainly rock out to this song and would consider singing it... perhaps there is something wrong with me. in all fairness i do currently have a hematoma...

take a listen and marvel at my guilty pleasure and the lyrics that say: "it sure ain't christian to judge a stranger, but i don't like her. she may an angel that spends all winter bringin' the homeless blankets and dinner, a regular nobel peace prize winner but i really hate her. i'll think of a reason later. inside her head may lay all the answers for curin' diseases from baldness to cancer. the salt of the earth and a real fine dancer.. but i really hate her."

you know how i get

so i found something new this morning... well actually it came to me but that's not the point the point is that i LOVE LOVE LOVE this song... 'is it love' by Nick Rallis and i've tried like hell to find the mpeg or mp3 or some streaming version of it to post here but no such luck so unfortunately you will all have to click through to his page and listen there.

that's your homework today... just go do it... you're going to be happy you did and when was the last time that i had a new absolutely favourite song that i loved? okay, well there was that thing with the great lake swimmers and the song your rocky spine but in fairness they are canadian and he says glacier weird which i kinda have a thing for. but that's not the point the point is that i have a new love now and it's the 'is it love' song and you should love it too... because dammit that's what friends do!

go here right now: Nick Rallis on myspace yep just click on the words Nick Rallis and then you'll go there and then you can click on the song and then you'll be happy and i'll be happy and perhaps even Nick will be happy since it is his song after all.

tori amos witnesses another crushing defeat of my certainty... luckily her and i have hiked out of this fucking canyon before

for your viewing / reading / listening pleasure. for a long long time i've wanted to take lyrics from tori amos song and makes plates / cups with the words inscribed in circles. i've also thought of painting these lyrics on walls and making framed pictures with just the words cut out of newspaper. the obsession may have gone a little far even for me... and i'm a girl content with my obsessions. the only thing worth mentioning about today is that i had a chance to see my family, a chance to spend time with two of my best friends, lost a hard drive - maxtor 3200 with all my data on it rest in peace, a chance to have a few good phone conversations and then at the end of the day when i should have been preparing for my interviews tomorrow and thinking about how everything in my life is moving forward at a nice steady positive pace i was shot down. i suppose in fairness i have been too happy lately... too content... too certain that my life was on a good path. i was due for a little shit. so i cried. i cried really hard. so it sucked. we all know that this is just how things end some days no matter how awesome the beginning is. luckily i had the piece of mind to put together my tori montage, mmmmm. tori amos and the fucking canyon of crazy / emerson hole of defeat / dragon to slay in my own backyard. i might need an intervention in a few days. more tomorrow.

We've all been Pushed Too far
I guess on days like this
you know who your friends are
And I'm down to Your last cigarette and
this "We are one" crap as you're invading
This thing you call Love
Sure you talk the talk when you need to
She's afraid of the light in the dark
6:58 are you sure where my spark is
She's convinced she could hold back a glacier
But she couldn't keep Baby alive
Doubting if there's a woman in there somewhere
Yes my loyalties turned
These precious things
Let them bleed
Let them wash away
These precious things
Let them break their hold over me
I wanna smash the faces
Of those beautiful boys
Those christian boys
So you can make me cum
That doesnt make you jesus
Cause sometimes
I said sometimes
I hear my voice
And it's been here
Silent All These Years
Years go by
Will I still be waiting
For somebody else to understand
Years go by
Will I choke on my tears
Till finally there is nothing left
One more casualty
You know we're too easy Easy Easy
I hear a voice you must learn to stand up for yourself
Cause I cant always be around
He says when you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do

a date to date

so i have a date. yes. a date. he's a boy i met at the gym. it's for tomorrow during the colts game. he's rooting for san diego. i figure i'm safe from making out cuz who could really respect and make out with any boy who likes the san diego chargers. it's strange to date. it's strange to have a date. it's strange to begin again with someone new who doesn't know all the old things about me. it's strange to feel as if i'm betraying the past and the old people by taking a risk on someone new. how do i honour what has already happened and still put all my energy into something new. how do i explain where everyone comes in and how they got here? how do i speak with respect, love and honour about all that have come before him when it's hard to respect, love and honour those that didn't offer that courtesy to me?

i'm tired of saying that they were all nice and that it was just bad timing. i'm tired of making excuses. i don't really want to start a new relationship with all those old layers of betrayal and deceit. perhaps this will be the first time i don't make the excuses. perhaps this will be the first time that i speak honestly about all that came before and why it is that they aren't here today... perhaps i'll leave behind the old words that avoid confrontation and speak frankly. perhaps we won't discuss it at all. perhaps i'll leave out all the boys that have failed before and just meet him at his place and watch the game and have a great time... perhaps for the first time in my life it doesn't fucking matter who or what came first. they've all became somewhat funny cautionary tales....
the boy that never ever wanted a commitment
the boy that thought i wasn't good enough
the boy that wanted me to be someone else
the boy that almost committed to me for a lifetime for lack of another option
the boy that never wanted what we ended up having
the boy that was married and used me because i was young and pretty
the boy that never really gave a shit and just liked the sex
the boy that controlled every move and then cheated because i couldn't be enough
the boy that liked me because i was 19
the boy that loved another girl and dated me because he thought i might put out

that's all of them. sad isn't it? the upside is that they all are in the past. i don't know if you've gotten the memo but i'm amazing and all of that is behind me. i'm not settling this time and i'm not compromising. anyone who has come before this point has had their chance and failed me.

i'm ready. i've had a paradigm shift and 2 weeks at the gym 2 - 3 hours a day. i'm totally ready.

the end of the hiatus

there was a hiatus. i'd like to pretend that i took a month off to sort out my life and make a new years resolution that changed my life, that i had a total paradigm shift that has absolutely changed my life but in all honesty there was an intervention on the 12th of december about the matchbox 20 thing. loving that song got me thrown into rehab.... while you're puzzling all that out here is the first playlist of the new year for your listening joy.

the truth of the matter is that i moved. i left 'sconsin and made the trek to fahonix. i did what i thought i couldn't do. i braved a snow storm, my feelings of sadness about leaving my parents and worry about taking the next step and i leaped. i took the plunge. and since then it's been good. it's been great. the hills and valleys have all been filled with positive lessons and good things. i have found that i am stronger and more dedicated to myself and my family than i thought i was. just today i sent the text below in an email to a friend and i think it gives a good overview of where i am...

A business in the simplest form creates a product the owners believe in and then they offer it for "sale" on the open market. Sometimes those owners have enough capital to offer investment in other people – employees, partners, tenants and even sometimes enough to cover a few cases of people that can't afford the product at market value (donations or "charity"). The bottom line is that the product must be as efficient and well made as possible to keep the cash flow coming in from the investments. When the product is faulty, the business invests in unworthy people or other properties or offers too many donations the business has to close its doors or go bankrupt.

Over the past 10 years and probably longer than that I've been working my emotional business on a policy of a somewhat damaged and offended product. I haven't gone back to the drawing board and made another product, I've tried to cover up the dings and dents and faults of the product with exterior paint and "patches" like a computer company. My call center often acknowledges that the product has known faults and that for some people will never offer the functionality that they are looking for… it just doesn't work for some people. I've consoled myself and other people by justifying the upside of the product and encouraging people to continue to have faith that eventually the patches and quick fixes will all be completed and the product will be what I've been selling it as all these years.

Before the New Year I had a paradigm shift. What if I abandoned the old product? What if without blame, guilt or anger and WITH love, respect and self esteem I simply created the product I wanted and lived the life I wanted to live? Of course there is the old fear that no one would buy something new but I believed in myself. Once I realized that I know what I want for myself and had that confidence the fear dissolved. It simply ceased to exist…. and I found that it's the first time in a long long time I've been able to live without fear. Now I'm not talking about fantasy here. I'm talking about making a very honest list of what I WANT in my life. How I want it to be and the qualities that I want to have and to have around me and then I decided to have it. I'm worth it after all… it turns out after all this time I've finally decided that I'm worth it.

The next issue was that over the years I've gotten myself into some emotional over-extension and debt. I've made poor investment choices in partners, employees and tenants. I've allowed a lot of people to dip into the emotional bank and take loans against their name or their word and never asked for those emotional stores to be returned. Perhaps because I was always afraid the original product was somewhat defective and perhaps because I didn't really believe I was worth the return. I'm not talking about a list of what people have taken and I have received against their name – John Doe – 1 hour of friendship and caring… returned 15 minute phone call and 1 lunch out in which he listened to my feelings about x, y and z. I'm talking about allowing people to simply not respect, honour and care for me. I'm also not saying I was the victim of embezzlement. I chose those people, those transactions and those events. I made the choices and felt "empty" so to speak. I was always looking for the other store of emotional wealth – God, another person, a way of thinking, a way of living that would allow the deficit to be filled up without changing the product or having the discussion about how I was allowing myself to be treated.

So now we have a new product. It's in the newer stages. I'm proud of the initial results and feel comfortable and confident about the next stages. I have a board of members that I feel very proud and blessed to have in my life. They are a resource of knowledge and love that allows me to be innovative and brave without worrying that I'll become caught up in the marketing hype or deny my own culpability. They keep me honest with myself so to speak.

The last thing which has become the hardest is learning what boundary that I have to set with others. I've finally settled on the following definition: a person that earns respect, honour and love from these emotional stores is a person that is living in respect, honour and love. I decided that metaphorically there are a lot of letters of foreclosure that need to go out. I'm saying this in a way of love and forgiveness – I'm no longer going to be enslaved or indebted to people based on the past. I've created something new and I'm asking the people and parties involved to get on board in a real and true way. It's no longer okay for me to allow people that only talk about living in truth or in honour to receive large loans out of my personal stores. When people aren't living in love and living without reverence and submission to a higher authority or they are living without integrity in many ways they simply aren't living in alignment with the new product and the new vision. My company has in fact decided to go in this new direction… I've downsized I suppose I could say and the immediate benefit of that is that I've felt strongly I have more time to dedicate to Emma, myself and the investments that matter.

i realize it's not a message that everyone will jump on board with. i realize that it's difficult for some people to read from me. unfortunately it is the way things are and it's how i've chosen to run my "business" so to speak from here on out. as micheal jackson so eloquently put it: "i'm starting with the man in the mirror, i'm asking him to change his ways, and no message could have been any clearer, if you want to make the world a better place take a look at yourself and then make a change"
(yeah i know micheal jackson is so 1987. i don't care.... i'm bringing the king of pop back)

the last thing i have to say in this new year post is that there are some people in my life and maybe even some people who read this who may be on the list of things that i'm not doing from this point forward. i'm going to say in a non-judgmental way with total love in my heart: there is no room for you in my life unless you are living in respect, honour and love. i'm not selling myself short for another day. i realize how things were in the past. i take responsibility for the past and now i'm taking responsibility for the future. if you choose not to look at yourself in the mirror and make the changes that is not my choice. i love you and wish you the best with your life...

on that note... happy new year to everyone. the 30 day hiatus will be the only one this year. sorry about the missing in action status for awhile.