schools out for the summer

or indefinitely... i'm not sure on this one.

it's time that i had some space and time for some personal renovations. in being honest and hopeful about that i have to spend what energy i have on the direction i'm going... and well, it's not been tested by the fda yet so i can't say that it's fit for human consumption.

it's simultaneously a huge deal and not a big deal at all. i'm sure i'll be back blogging soon... in the meantime keep checking out these things:

cover lay down - the best music blog and insight into the relationship between the human soul and the love of music itself
hypem.com - the place to check out new tunes and listen to them online in their whole goodness
this american life - the most amazing thing in the world... true life... real life captured and perfectly painted over the course of an hour
radio lab - mr. science meets this american life... for insightful and intelligent goodness

additionally don't forget to love, save the world, be still and quiet sometimes and as abraham lincoln said..... "whatever you are, be a good one."

the chorus of the universe

i was going to write a lot of things tonight.... but i am reminded as i sit down to this very public venue that not everyone likes their life to be read on the web. not everyone likes to throw their emotional guts out there and have others feast on the sweet meats like some internet hannibal lecter enjoying the salty and rawness of fresh destruction and death. so out of respect for the more squeamish i will abide to my first rule and only divulge here what is mine to divulge. i may be a cannibal and a voyeur but i'm not an asshole...
instead of the original post i wrote another post... long and poignant and deeply personal and then realized again that it violates the rules of opening up others to the public living that a daily blog can create... so i had to censure myself again.
in the place of those two things i can only give you this brief something..... something about making mistakes and having the opportunity to be forgiven, something about finding out once and for all what a person you love really (i mean no holding back REALLY) thinks about you, something about deserving that accurate and pointed judgment, something about giving up and then deciding i'd rather give in, something about being flawed and imperfect and finding out that it hasn't changed, something about how if jameson can't fix this cluster fuck i've created we're all in serious trouble, something about anxiety and the restlessness that comes from being on the cusp of failure and success all at once and lastly i was going to write something about the beauty and dichotomy of stark contrasts.
that last subject matter is the only thing i can manage for right now because the rest of it is a rat's nest of stupid emotional rawness that i still haven't had a chance to figure out... do i cut the blue or the red wire? will this shit blow up no matter what i do? this is officially the scariest environment imaginable... but that is not the point.
here my dear friends is the point.....
as my plane glides over clouds, not the puffy ones but the ones that are stretched out and thin as gauze over the landscape, i see beneath me a mountain range. i identified in the landscape the beauty of contrasts - the elusive wonderment in only seeing one thing because you've seen another - light for dark, life for death, love for hate, smooth for rough and internal fulfillment because you've been through the void. i have seen and felt all of those things, sometimes it's all the good ones, or all the bad ones, or in the good moments they come in paced intervals one after another in waves that i can breathe through. stark contrasts illuminate what we want to see and what we like about the picture of ourselves and others. i myself have seen the dark overwhelm me and the light fill me in the space of 2 long days, been loved and honoured and cherished and then discarded in the space of 24 hours and have felt the smooth feeling of flying and then the rough realization that flight is no longer even an option. now i suppose it's up to me to find that ever escaping and twirling and curling mythical beast called fulfillment because if we're all being honest and i don't know why we wouldn't be here... i've seen the void and i'm frustrated and sick to death of it.
funny how different things can come together to say exactly what it is that you've been searching the dictionary of the universe for the chorus to...

monarch white

the nice thing about having my own blog is i get to vote for whatever i want... i get to call attention to the things that i believe are worthy of attention and praise.

i give you the latest example of something i love....
www.monarchwhite.com

please go there and give a listen and even be their friends on myspace if you do that sort of thing... the social networking thing. i think that we should all put our cards on the table here - yes i do the myspace thing you can find me here: http://www.myspace.com/lexasaurusrex
and you should also know that it's one of my cousins that belongs with the monarch white project. he's an amazing musician, a hell of a friend, a wonderful man and he even has a cameo in the upcoming novella that still isn't really finished... i'm proud of what is on his website and i am proud of the things i hear in his voice.. the changes and the years have given him the wisdom to produce something worth listening to and that my dear reader is what this life is all about.

while you are there don't leave without listening to #4 - Railway Man. it's a personal favourite of mine and it has deep sentimental meaning and is a part of my personal history... it had been at least 9 years since i had heard and sometimes when i dreamt of my grandfather and of a time of painful change in my life it echoed through my subconscious.

and not to diminish the greatness that exists in the music but i want to say... as a talisman of hope and of love... there is nothing that cannot be conquered by good whiskey, a sunrise and an open heart. there is nothing that cannot be understood in hindsight if you are willing to see things for what they are. there is safety in knowing that your past will always be your past regardless of the shine you give it and the only thing you can change or affect is the future. we... as the latest generation of gillmore children are proof that dysfunction won't kill you and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

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

a playlist, a mood, a novel of sorts..

so the way it's been going lately i've been publishing a blog and a playlist a day. i'd like to make it a blog, a playlist and a picture at some point but seeing as i'm preparing for a move and transition i think the picture thing may have to wait awhile.... we'll see how things go. for now here is the playlist:

the strange thing about the play list is that not even i know whats going to be on it until i sit down to write and then whatever music feels right as i'm putting these words down is what ends up playing in the background. even if it seems like you don't like what is on there you should listen... just so you get the whole thing... you know the "thing"... the ambiance, the scene... the whatever the fuck i'm trying to create here besides a chronicle of my days. also sort of interesting to me as i'm working on this version (the third incarnation of my "blog") is that i no longer plan what i'll say during the day. i sit down and spend time and let it all flow... whatever comes to mind i talk about.

even when i think of what is here i'm a little weirded out... it's my words, my actions, my thoughts and all my shit on the internet... i don't know if you know but that's huge.
'pardon my french sir but it's a big ass' ... world. sometimes i wonder to myself if there is value to documenting the crazy shit that cycles in my head, my moods and my perspectives. i spend a lot of time analyzing, processing and thinking and it seems too big for me sometimes. i sometimes wonder who on earth will ever want to know how i made the decisions that i did by reading a day to day record of how i got there...

i thought perhaps that tonight instead of going on and on about whatever is in my head i would instead put the latest finished (sort of chapter) piece of what we are at this point referring to as a novel of sorts... i think one person may have already read this and so it will be disappointing to him but in fairness he disappointed me tonight with perhaps the most disturbing thing i've ever processed or seen in my life... my whole life... and i've seen some pretty fucked up shit. so for the rest of you who aren't bad bad bad friends i give you what is below...

perhaps before we get there we should note that this is just a portion of the chapter and the overall novel of sorts that is STILL unfinished because i'm lazy and stuck in my writing... a whole other topic... and it is NOT about me... and that you may like or not like what you read. that's fine. i'm interested in your opinion... maybe....

Chapter 7 ?
Part 1: "It seemed so ridiculous. There was no way I could keep a baby. Even knowing that I wasn’t ready for that responsibility I fantasized about running away and never speaking to him again. The sweet baby with his hair and eyes growing inside me. The child that we had created in a city full of sunlight and history. How I would raise a child alone – bravely – and in the end I would know I had done the right thing. That was the truth. I knew I was doing the wrong thing. I was sinning against the hope and the comfort I had found in him. I was taking the memory of Mac that had been given to me in the years after he left and sullying it with poor decision making. I was ashamed of who I had become.

I began to stay awake all night because I had nightmares of Mac not loving me anymore once he knew what I had done. I felt sure that if Mac was watching he would despise me. I was throwing away a glimmer of hope and a life that wasn’t mine to discard. Without the comfort of sleep I sat on the porch each night just to watch the dawn and make a list of all the things I had become; the list came down to a fairly concise summary. Liar, hypocrite, and failure. I recited those words to myself through all my other daily tasks, only broken by the interior monologue in which I would tell Finn that I didn’t care what he thought and I would choose instead to make myself happy.

The night before I was to pick up the prescription for RU486 I couldn’t stand to think of him, and yet I knew that at some point I would have to face him and talk to him. He hadn’t called and as I lay in bed I silently cursed him for telling me things that had given my hope, he had said he wouldn’t leave me that he would stand by me. I had chosen this because I knew it was best for him. I knew then that he wasn’t what I thought, and that I had made a mistake but it was too late to go back on my word now. I fell asleep for the last night with both hands on my belly. As I drifted off to sleep I cursed him and repeated my new mantra to myself – liar, hypocrite, and failure.

The morning was grey, as if it knew what was in store. I woke before the alarm and watched the minutes tick by with my hand on my abdomen. I had not prayed in years but I prayed now; asking God or Buddha or the Universe to secure a painless and easy death for my baby. I knew that once I got up there would be no saving myself or the baby that was innocent to an immature father and a cowardly mother. I asked for the strength to turn off my phone and never see him again, I asked for him to be struck dead, and I asked wordlessly for forgiveness for what I knew was the wrong decision.

I dressed slowly, waves of morning sickness washing over me and I prepared myself for the task that was ahead. I called him on my way, and his voice was filled with enthusiasm and relief; just the sound of his voice made my want to slit my wrists. I pictured it completely in my head. Turning my car around, walking up the stairs to my apartment. Taking out a knife and sitting in the claw foot bathtub fully dressed. I imagined pressing it deep into my right wrist first from the base of my palm all the way up to the middle of my forearm and then struggling to complete the same task on my left.

I silently begged for him to understand and relent, or for the strength to admit that I couldn’t go through with this horrible task, but neither came. I arrived at the clinic and forced my legs to carry me inside, at first I believed that I would pick up the prescription and never take it, instead I would disappear and do the right thing but the harsh florescent light and the bleak interior immediately dashed my bravery. The receptionist smiled and gave up the prescription in exchange for $425, I signed two pieces of paper with my hands shaking and turned and walked out."

Part 2: "I stumbled drug laden and semi-conscious into the kitchen and found a note.
“Gone to work. Be back tonight. Stay away from sharp objects, whiskey and pills.”
I would have laughed at his humour if I hadn’t felt dead inside. I would have smiled at the flippant sarcasm if I didn’t think it was somewhat true. He really didn’t want for me to kill myself at work. He hadn’t beaten around the bush or tried to cover up his request.
I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror for the first time in a long time. I saw my hair dull and tangled in a halo of frizzy wisps around my face. I saw the dark circles around my eyes and the empty shine in my eyes. I saw for the first time what a baby killer looked like. I began to weep softly at first and then cry harder as the emotion found an outlet. I held onto the corner of the sink and leaned in close the shiny cold surface of the mirror to see if I could find any trace of Mac inside me.
I only saw myself and my current situation. I only saw a coward and then in a sudden moment my breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I felt as if my lungs were on fire and my heart was pounding so hard that it would impale itself on my ribs. Panic rushed into every part of me. It ran to all my limbs and I was completely terrified. Every last part of Mac was dead. He was gone for sure now. I had left him when I was a teen, buried him, found him again in another man, been left and then killed him again with misdirected hope. I had been chasing a person to love me and that I would honour my whole life. I had been looking for a solid trust and love for longer than I could remember and had thrown a perfect love away in exchange for the hope that Finn would love me. A tit for a tat. A trade. A fucking misguided sick idea of what it would take for someone to stop and notice me.
I thought of my father. How he wouldn’t be surprised if he saw me here and knew everything. How he would laugh and enjoy this moment of my complete failure. I thought of Mac and how he would be so sadly and completely disappointed and ashamed of me. How he would look at the ground and then look at me in disgust at this moment of losing myself. I thought of Finn and how he was so pleased with my choice and how he had never loved me. How he would never call me again and was relieved that the worst was over. I realized that I had disappointed myself and the only man I had ever loved and made two other men happy.
The world turned for a second. It went dark around the edges and bright white in the middle. Only my eyes were visible and white spots danced in my line of vision. Without warning there was a loud crack. Stiff sharp pain filled my right fist. The mirror fell in long jagged pieces into the sink and onto the floor. I looked at my knuckles and at the silver glinting piece shoved in between the second and third fingers. I watched maroon velvet liquid well up and then run down both fingers into the sink. When it touched the white cold porcelain the colour changed to a softer red. The small rivers looked like tears dripping from my hand into the drain. I reached over and pulled out the shard with my left hand. The minute it was released from its comfortable nest small spurts flowed more quickly into the sink. I grabbed one of my towels and wrapped it around my hand and walked slowly back to bed.
I woke and it was dark. I smelled the heavy acrid aroma of cigarette smoke and followed it out to the porch. Colin looked up from his Physics book.
“I thought I said stay away from sharp objects.”
“You did. I don’t fucking listen.”
Colin didn’t say anything. Instead he grasped my left hand; the one without dried blood and a gash in it. We sat there quietly until the moon rose high into the sky and the stars danced into the tree tops."