a catholic girl that could work for allen marine...

from http://www.overheardeverywhere.com/

Is That What Jesus Would Do?

Catholic school girl #1: (sings "Total Eclipse of the Heart")
Catholic school girl #2: Stop it. I swear to god, I will shank you.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Overheard by: Adelaie

this one is for anyone who mighta said "ma'am, i will fucking cut you"... wait thats me. and in fairness, i didn't actually say that. but i totally wanted to. and i told many a story that ended and started with the phrase "i will fucking cut you".

sigh.

i want burger bitch and a drink at the arctic bar.

love and love alike

my dear friend the incredibly helpful jay and i decided to both love this album together - the decemberists - the hazards of love. you should totally love it too. no really. do it. love it. it will make you happy in a calm relaxed way in which you realize the world is better for music having been made. everyone needs that in their lives.

just in case you are concerned about my music credentials after my last two guilty pleasure posts, i'm going to admit that you have every right to be concerned. but at least i'm admitting my little secret pleasures and opening myself up. by my logic that should make me more of an reliable source. jay on the other hand is just awesome and is my favorite boy to love things with. you can trust him. he's very tall (just to show off mostly) and we all know tall people hear things more clearly.... sigh. maybe that's why i like bad music. i'm practically a midget at 5'4" or 5'3.5" technically. i keep hoping i'll grow but 33 is right around the corner (or 28 for the 5th time) and i'm pretty sure there are no 33rd year growth spurts. although i would take one if i could get my hands on one.

anyway.... here is what you should love love love. besides yourself and of course jay and i.

the decemberists - annan water

the decemberists - the hazards of love 4

san diego's southern cross

'cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small
but it's as big as the promise, the promise of a comin' day
so i'm sailin' for tomorrow, my dreams are a dyin'.....
think about how many times i have fallin'
spirits are using me, larger voices callin'...
....

crosby stills and nash - southern cross





i have learned many things from this past weekend in san diego. i have learned about myself and about what it means to be alive and in this life. i have learned more about family and friendship and about the bonds that hold us together and move us apart than i ever knew was possible. i learned what it means... to love someone so much that the love will endure beyond what we understand. i don't mean romantic love. i mean the love of a family and i mean what happens to the love and the bond when we cannot define it by life. and in some ways i think i mean a romantic love... a romance between a man who is the best father i know and the strongest woman i've ever met who chose to stand beside him. the woman who will continue in his place to be the solid rock and flexible ties that holds a family together in a house with a garden that feels so much like home that i feel lost now that i am not there.

i have not written about this, although it has been going on for quite awhile. i wanted to give privacy to those who needed it and not speak about a future that had not become definite. i still was hoping (and in my heart am still hoping and praying) that the one thing i was most afraid would not come to pass. i write about it now because this is the piece that i can give... my words and my perspective as a salve or an outlet for how much my heart hurts.... unfortunately i am probably the only one who can or will be helped by my words that seem to be unable to express fully what my heart feels like.

my best friend's dad is dying. i don't mean in the abstract way in which this life is not permanent and we are all slowly dying by a series of breaths. i mean in the concrete way in which he will not be living in a set amount of time. i mean that he, for all of his strength and his fight and his power has come up against cancer and it is killing him in small increments. in small enough increments that we still hope that somehow it will turn out differently but big enough increments to rip that hope and your silly human heart to shreds.

it seems that when i think about it logically that it cannot possibly make sense. you would have to know him... but it's not possible. and that cannot possibly be true. it's too awful and it's too big and it's too much and it's not fair.

and i love him. like a father, a mentor and a hero. i love him because of a thousand things but mostly because he is simply him. i love him even more because he gave me my best friend. she has been in my life for 29 years and she is the other half of me. some days it seems she is the better part and the better half.

and some days, like today, my grief seems so big that my heart seems to hurt from growing large enough to hold onto it. the grief is senseless and frightening and beyond what i can manage with human feelings and human words. the grief feels so big that it makes everything else seem pointless in it's wake... like school or grocery shopping or getting new shoes. those small things are all swallowed up into a undefined mess of daily tasks that must happen but seem to hold no joy or interest... but the hardest thing is getting past the feelings of powerlessness and anger at how this could have possibly happened. the even harder part is that she is my best friend and i know how she hurts and i know how i am impotent to help her. i don't know what to say or do... except to say that there is nothing i can do or say and there isn't a way this will be okay.

i will admit that i have been standoffish to my friends and to my boyfriend. i have had a hard time talking about it - my feelings, my fears and what it all means. i know that talking about these things supposedly makes it better but everytime i talk about it i feel like others are overwhelmed with the duty to say it will be okay and it won't. it can't ever be okay... maybe it won't be as bad but it's hard to believe that it will be okay.

and so it is with that knowledge... the knowledge of exactly where we are that i leave you. we are in unchartered territory - on a map of life. and it is just life. and it's terminal. and it works out okay in the end. and it's already tomorrow in australia. and i've been around the world looking for myself (the only woman-girl i know) and i've got to trust that above all things love endures.

and to dawnielle - even though you may start to like karaoke... "what heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten" - we are family linked together through happiness and tragedy and "you understand why now (we) came this way" and i wouldn't have come any other way. i promise that if you need me i will always come. i'm sorry i cannot do more.

found iP0d #3

you understand now why you came this way...


crosby, stills and nash - southern cross

comin' home from cali and this life's so thick that you can hardly swim on through it

it was a long weekend in cali... i'm not ready to talk about it.

i haven't dropped off the face of the earth... i'm just processing the circle of life and what it means to really live. i'm facing what it means to be in my thirties and no longer be a child protected from black news and black days... to have to face what is inevitable about living and about breathing and that is that one day you will cease to do both.

i'm learning, processing, breathing and being grateful for absolutely everything in my life. sometimes when you can do nothing else you can recognize that you get today. there are no other promises and when it has to come down to it... today is enough.

i have pictures to post of trees. i have heartache to blog about. i have things to think about. tonight though, i have to sleep.

and this song is the new cali song... because as dawnielle said today it just makes her happy in her heart. and some days... because she is the one i've known my whole life and more days than not she is the best parts of me... making her happy makes me happy. and i'm grateful for that.

'member 'bout that?

'member 'bout that line in that blue october song... the hate me song... that says "Playing movies in my head that make a porno feel like home"... 'member 'bout how when we found it that was so profound... of being in those dark places long enough that visual ugliness seemed like a better place to be.

if you're new here and you don't 'member 'bout that you can go here and listen to it:
hate me - blue october

'member 'bout how we talked about how no matter what happened we would always be friends and 'bout how that's what it means to be friends? yeah, and sometimes i wish you were here to see these other things and hear these other things and see what people are really like sometimes. i wish we could walk down to the beach and we could talk about simplicity and cycles and take a drive and see the lighthouse lady... and talk about chuck palahniuk because i just read his book diary. you know it says in there... "if you don't understand something you can make it mean anything" and know what? he's totally right.

so here is my postcard to you... that i would throw off the space needle in the pitch black of a cold windy evening:
"i trust people and sometimes they let me down. sometimes i take that personally. i'm smarter than that though. it's not personal. i'm still a good person just for the sake of it. i'm not judging i'm just saying that people sometimes are sausage heads. and really... do i look worried?"

something like... hope floats

there is something about the ocean... the simple smell and feel of salt water quickly washing up onto the shore and pulling back into the depths of the dark ocean. there is something about living here on the exact spot where salt water and fresh water exchange in perfect harmony. the water runs down from the mountain where it was dropped after evaporating from the place that it returns to. the circle, the symbolism, the cycle... the sheer beauty and pureness that are involved in the circulation of the ocean.

i have long thought that all problems are smaller when by water - these waters come from distant lands and have touched the dreams, hopes and thoughts of millions of people over thousands of years. how can i be so self centered as to believe that my thoughts, worries, anxieties, imperfections, questions and doubts are any bigger or smaller than all of the rest. the ocean is my confidant, my home and the place i go when i need everything to come back into perspective. i often talk of being by water and how much that means to me - it is a place to recharge and literally leave myself.... i am able for that small period of time to forget about all the things that i obsess over and become calmer and more certain.

everything is smaller by the ocean and that is reassuring and soothing.

i am grateful for this summer. i am grateful for this island and for what has come from it. the moments - happy, wonderous, bittersweet and frightening. i am a better version of myself for them.

on arrival here i wondered what the hell i had done. it was pouring rain in black fat drops; it was cold, windy and dark. i slept in a soaking wet tent for three days and cried for at least part of the day during each of them. i wandered around the area and looked at the mountains, trees, sky and ocean and felt like there was something here if i could just be strong enough to stick it out. i found tim ferris' carving in the table at the arctic bar and used it as a touchstone. i watched people and wondered what it would feel like to call this home. mostly i ached out of homesickness and worry that things wouldn't work out. in all my moves and all my searching i have never felt so isolated and so afraid that this was the one time i had gone too far.

four months later i have that kaleidoscope of memories and moments and they are all mine. i no longer need a touchstone or a voice from miles and miles away. i met myself here in the long days. i found the perfect salt to fresh water exchange. i learned what i was really made of.. and what i could aspire to be if i put my heart into it. i could in fact be the best version of myself.

with that said i have great hope. i have great dreams. tonight as the sunsets in a light show of yellow, blue and orange i know (perhaps for the first time) that what i came here to figure out is "what if" and only now can i say i know the answer to that.

the answer is that "if" can happen all it wants and i will remain. those moments of strength and certainty aren't traded or changed when i regress or have a moment. each moment exists... they simply exist in a collage of everything i have done.

tonight i am proud. i am sated. i am certain. all the other things simply wash away back into the depths of the ocean - i can leave whatever impedes my progress on the beach and be certain that when the salt water to fresh water exchange happens that in return i will receive the happy moments that have floated to the top.

the only way is forward

picture at right of when things were easier... i spent all my time being a mom and emma was so small that she never wanted to be away from me.

there is this pressing ache in my heart and in my chest that grows bigger everyday. it never subsides, it is never lessened and it has become more difficult the more time goes by. i miss emma with all of my being. every part of me needs to be with her... i am not whole without her and it hurts me to think that she is doing well without me. (i realize that statement is selfish and shitty) tomorrow is her first day of school and i keep wishing i could just see her for a minute - smell her hair and be close to her for a little while. i want to be the one that takes her to her first day and to hear all about the new things she gets to do. she isn't much of a phone person and so our conversations daily are about 2 minutes.... sometimes it's hard when she forgets to say she loves me or she asks me to call her back when she isn't busy.

these are the sacrifices i made for this summer alone. for this waking dream of work and the outdoors with the sound of the creek running through my mind. the sacrifice that paying for school required... or at least that was the excuse i made. i came to find myself and figure out what it was that i thought was the next step. i keep asking myself if i've done that... if i've found what i was looking for.... and i still don't know the answer. in true form i found a lot of what i wasn't looking for but it was easy to identify and easy to discard. i found some of what i was looking for and have a better idea. i made a plan for the future and got a grip on what it is that i'm wanting... but in the scheme of things did i make the right choice? i sacrificed precious time with the only person on earth that i love in a true and pure way... and i'm not so sure about that decision.

i suppose i'll have to move forward.. onward... through... we can't go around, over or back. the only way is forward.

and on that note...

thank you and goodnight.

if i could do it all over again

today on my break i took a boat ride out to the adventure kart drop off point and back. one of the perks of working for this company is getting to go out and see ketchikan from the water occasionally.

the cluster of islands is so amazing from that perspective. dark green and lighter green trees mixed along the shore planted in rocky beaches littered with remnants of the trees that stood before. the water was flat and calm, the air humid and faintly smelling of salt and the decay / life of the ocean. the sky is overcast today but not quite grey and so the water looks black and cold. fishing boats are moving through the inside passage either into town to refuel / unload or out to sea to make more money. halfway out to the dock we saw dall's porpoise(s) dancing, jumping and splashing in the water. the captain stopped and we watched them for about 10 minutes. there is something graceful and beautiful to the simplicity of their shape and form.

i had 2 1/2 hours to just watch the world and think about things. i found myself thinking about my life and how it's come to this point and all of the high points and the things that if i could replay i would.
1. talking to my grandfather
2. the afternoon light in grand central station
3. the metropolitan museum of art
4. the hustle of the train station in amsterdam
5. the taste of the bread in the market in singapore
6. the sounds and excitement of the open market in hong kong
7. the sunshine and sand from australia
8. orange mist of thailand interlinked with the sound of the temples and clatter of the city
9. three days and two shows with john lee hooker
10. dinner with booker t jones
11. watching tool play 2 feet from the drum riser
12. travelling the us / canada on a tourbus
13. the sunset in salt lake city
14. losing my first tooth
15. seeing emma for the first time
16. taste of freshly baked bread in paris
17. the week long road trip with craig (twice)
18. seeing graceland (just the outside though) and memphis (the picture at the top)
19. sturgis bike week
20. crazy horse memorial
21. new orleans with tim
22. the chester house and time spent with the boys
23. watching my brother be born
24. sitting with my sister

then i realized that this summer in alaska would probably go onto that list at some point in the future and how it's strange to me that this place and these memories have become so common place to me. i'd like to explore it more and make sure that i experience it as much as possible in these last 6 weeks.

beware of brians

so there i am nicely using the internet and then brian shows up. he’s had a few drinks… i’m sure at one point he was still a nice person. he wanted to see porn but sadly i was already busy. luckily i had the webcam handy and got a few pictures of our interaction. with boys like brian around it’s a wonder that i don’t sleep around… who doesn’t like a guy that just rambles on and on and then asks if i’ll sleep with him. in fairness to brian… (i wouldn’t want you to think he’s a total jackass) he did say i was very pretty and had nice tits. it’s a wonder we aren’t going to start seeing each other regularly. put another strike next to cody’s name for leaving me on this damn island – big head kid thinks we’re going to date, i have no one to share ocean view with, i cried, brian had room to sit next to me and i had to sit next to a movie talker last night. someone might have to be cut if things don’t straighten up around here.