tomorrow morning, near the crack of dawn, i will be flying to maui! i'm looking forward to the brief reprieve. attempting to balance personal creative expression with the "creative" thinking required in my job (the subject of which is primarily dull to me) has proven to be quiet a challenge. everything seems lackluster or dauntingly enormous : can't see the bricks for the wall. most certainly, this upcoming sojourn will be a welcome break & allow me the time to reassess.
akin to the rock climber scrutinizing the seemingly smooth surface of a cliff face : at first glance, impossible; upon further study, the foot & hand holds mockingly jump out. (i did find a peace once, semi-one-dimensional, while weeding calendula and listening to the muffled silence of a polytunnel. for a brief moment, i felt completely whole and satisfied.)
deliverance : continued cerebral intoxication by fact alone, exploring ideologies, & striving to generate a new perspective.
april 25, 2001
space - time - order
Main Entry: so.cio.path.ic
Pronunciation: "sO-sE-&-'pa-thik,
"sO-sh(E-)&-
Function: adjective
Date: 1930
of, relating to, or characterized by asocial
or antisocial behavior or a psychopathic personality
Main Entry:
psychopathic personality
Function: noun
Date: circa 1923
an emotionally and behaviorally disordered state characterized by clear perception
of reality except for the individual's social and moral obligations and often
by the pursuit of immediate personal gratification in criminal acts, drug
addiction, or sexual perversion
Main Entry:
an.thro.po.cen.tric
Pronunciation: "an(t)-thr&-p&-'sen-trik
Function: adjective
Date: 1863
1 : considering human beings as the most significant entity of the
universe
2 : interpreting or regarding the world in terms of human values and
experiences
--
(is the crux of socio/psychopathy the complete absence of anthropocentricity?)
april 22, 2001
there's no sense in telling me the wisdom of a fool won't set you free
i need a syncopated drumbeat to court me through life. on the bus, fellow commuters demand privacy via headphones & personal listening devices, providing them a soundtrack through their life -- at the cost of experiential moments, like when the two people sitting behind you are discussing heatedly what color of paint the kitchen walls should be, and the conversation ends with "fuck blue -- i'm sick of your taste -- i'm going to call my mother."
when i was in europe at the fresh-young-thang age of 19, one of my prized possessions (and i had very few -- of all the travelers i met, there was only one other with a more limited amount of gear than myself) was my listening device. sleeping in bus stations (i could only afford the train once) and under the stars while hitch hiking, jacking in to my mixed-tape collection often sated the bits of homesickness that only reared its bitchy head in the shadowy pre-r.e.m. moments. the soundtrack was amusing -- ranged from pj harvey's "to bring you my love" & "rid of me" to lou reed's "transformer" (purchased for two pounds fifty off of a card table on the corner in cork, ireland) to tanita tikaram's "lovers in the city" -- my travel journal is peppered with random excerpts & lyrical inspirations sourced from these various gems.
yesterday's entry strikes me a bit complacent. sort of a "why does everyone have to pick on me?" vibe -- which is not really what i meant to convey. perhaps all i really wanted to share was my frustration with my inability to temper my emotions. it seems that as i delve further in my psyche, uncover secret parts of me -- things that i'd either forgotten about or misplaced a long time ago -- i expose a myriad of raw nerve endings which even the least flippant comment can bristle. i'm not looking for exception, and truly i would prefer that my close friends feel they can be honest with me, and tell me, "hey, you're a little too sensitive, settle down" or whatever.
perhaps my frustration stems from my own perception that i don't take part in such in-your-face inspiration. my very nature dictates behind-the-scenes manipulation -- and i don't use that word with all the usual negative stigma/strings attached. life is about manipulation: survival is based in one's ability to "work voodoo" -- and whether you use such a skill selfishly or selflessly dictates your own happiness. certainly, i attempt to inspire & instigate positive change in those that i love, but to me it's an almost osmosis-like process. no matter how many times you tell someone that they need to do x, y, or z (or all three) it is always ultimately up to them to initiate the transformation process.
i distinctly prefer positive reinforcement, i suppose. rather than point out flaws and tell them to "get their shit together," i'd opt to remain silent during the moments of their self-destructive activities. the last thing i want to be is a nag -- so i've carefully crafted, over the years, a modus operandi dealing primarily in embracing and celebrating all the wonderful and healthy choices my close friends make. maybe this could be construed as not wanting to get my hands dirty, but in my experience, it has been the most successful manner in which to promote happiness in others.
by no means do i have this down to a science, though i have learned to keep most of my criticisms to myself -- unless pointedly questioned on my feelings. honesty (blah blah blah) is tantamount to trust, and i figure minutely in to the entire equation of my friends' lives, most of them i will know for only a short time and then the off & on ramps of life's freeway will begin to add & subtract my fellow commuters. but even those that i knew but for a short while (less than a year) have touched me deeply and altered my perceptions of reality and myself with sometimes only a few well-chosen words.
overall, i know that the intention is good. i should internalize and reassess, lest they pave the road to my own personal hell.
april 21, 2001
ornate primate
serial monogamy : when you wake up one morning & realize the person lying next to you is nothing more than an amalgam of your last ten lovers. habits, kinks, pet peeves, birthmarks, secret jokes, and several first kisses blending seamlessly into one single crook of an arm.
where did your day take you, darling? mine left me by the door w/o shoes on.
last night, i was whisked away by certain delirium, the kinetic loveliness of one of glasgow's graces. today, i've treated myself to a couple serious hours of developing my music collection -- added some ubiquity, andean, and a little bit of the jetset caught my eye as well. i've been boogying all morning as a result.
my mother visited & delivered an easter basket. holidays have always been fairly lackadaisical for me -- an afterthought -- but my mother loves them. after everything that has happened, these little societal reminders give us a few moments of nostalgia. cadbury creme eggs! it's ridiculous, but ever since i was a child, i've loved those sugarbombs. now they make me feel like i am pony-tailed on the floor, listening to 'blue monday' and reading some forgettable horror novel.
it feels as though a door has opened & i've been finally invited inside. clarity, or perhaps just a bit of perspective, lending me a welcome light in the recent storm of my emotions.
a friend said to me last night that my sense of humor is fragile. another friend referenced his interest in observing me as i chose which aspects of myself i should defend. this is frustrating. sometimes i wonder if i'm just too insecure and if my self-esteem will never truly develop into a healthy state -- perhaps i don't have the tools. i don't want to blame anyone, i feel that, at twenty five, i need to be responsible for my psychic make-up, and it's not fair to expect my parents to continue to shoulder the burden of my inability to know myself.
but then i wonder if maybe i'm just sick & tired of always having to be tough, not allowing the communication to ever completely pierce the shell i've built around myself. these two people, who i'm attempting to open up to, respond by criticizing the very honesty that i'm trying, albeit inexpertly, to share. i don't really know how to do any of this well, which is why i so often close myself off from genuine connection with other humans. with brothers that picked on me incessantly since birth and a childhood peppered with the cruelty of my peers, it was easier to detach and pretend than to stay and attempt to relate.
i don't always trust myself, often my faith in myself is shaken, torn. why do i have to be so sensitive? and why do i surround myself with people who utilize a rather harsh way to motivate change in any individual, if that is, in fact, the reason for pointing out flaws? am i equally as obtuse? seems there should be a more holistic, caring way to inspire change in another. i am keenly aware of my faults, and i try continuously to work through them. i'm just sick of having them poked.
it makes me want to turn everything off and disappear. crawl back in my own head and pull back. but this is what i'm fighting against: my own "natural" inclination to third-person every event & relationship. maybe i expect too much.....deluding myself with ideals of perfect interaction that will never exist -- they can't ever be achieved -- because everyone else i'm dealing with is just as flawed & hurting & scared & worried as i am, and if they say they're not, then i'd wager they're in denial, as well.
such envy crawling around my heart, easing up my throat, combined with such hatred for the self-satisfied. i deal with a few of them every day and my skin is beginning to hive when in their presence. do you ever wonder if there are actually a finite number of souls behind the eyes of the people you pass on the sidewalk, sit next to in the theater, honk at on the freeway -- say.....five million....and the rest of the bodies going through the motions are doing just that: preprogrammed activity, choreographed & synchronized to promote the image of spontaneous living, but automated at core? do you ever wonder which one you are? i do, all the time. sometimes i feel like a robot, other times i think that i feel too much, i must be alive.
blah! let me just spin the dial -- whichever number i land on, there is a corresponding action, right? can someone send me the rule book?
p.s. here are photos of me when i was much classier and had infinitely more taste.
april 17, 2001
release notes
it's about rootlessness. this mania, this modern day anxiety, this middle-class angst. how can an individual be expected to prosper when the the soi(u)l is molding, the limbs curling, and the hope of sunlight has moved across the way?
apathy rampant because nobody bothered to mention an admiration for the intrinsic.
it takes time to focus on what is important to us, patience to learn & grasp.
bittersweet -- like saying "thank you" to embarrassingly cavernous compliments delivered via well-used lips. it's okay, mr. everything, we've heard it all before.
keeping things in perspective is a bitch. occasionally catastrophic within, an aching, throbbing mass of crisp nerve endings -- no center, even in sphere. swim twenty laps, attempt, in vain, to transcend the chlorine, and enter a mellowglass world (each muscle marrying aqua).
lost -- or worse, hung out to dry. robbed a bank on a whim & a single accomplice ratted out.
i don't know when it all hitched a ride for the border with an unraveling knapsack full of tangled haiku. we should probably catch up at some point.
p.s. it's time to clean up my act.
save your receipt
(1) -- introduction
do you ever feel the crushing momentum of freedom? independence as a discordant church bizarre, folding tables filled with mismatched knits, toaster cozies, and wooden spoons painted with the faces of the nativity. a supreme nightmare, soundtrack: soulful piano ballads (pull at my heart strings, baby)detailing rejection & misanthropy, row after row of kitsch and "craft" running together, muddying, blending into an amorphous clucking woman, stretching and heaving as eyes search painfully for the nearest exit.
(2) -- random house
how many mormons does it take to change a light bulb? ten: one to change the lightbulb and nine to bring refreshments. mormons are all about refreshments, it seems no task can be merely contemplated without first delegating the responsibility of juice and cookies. growing up in this atmosphere, it's no wonder i placed such high regard on foodstuffs: it gave me something to look forward to during all the endlessly drab religious speeches. organized religion, darling crutch.
i don't really think of my years as a mormon very often. it's so far past, over fifteen years -- i've been a practicing heathen longer than i was "saved." when i was sixteen, i went back to church for a few months, trying to figure out what it was all about (all i really remembered were the refreshments) -- i was soon deterred by talk of female subservience and homo-bashing.
(3) -- sidenote
do you ever find yourself trying to crack someone else's wall, almost against their will? frustration and refusal the only response. is it worth it, i wonder, to reach out to someone so determined to send themselves to the cornershop on an errand, three minutes before the bomb they planted (in the back aisle, disguised as a box of cereal) will detonate? false bravado, exposing the soft white meat of the underbelly (flashing oncoming traffic), editing & deleting intrinsic details.
(4) -- redress!
i have been contemplating sobriety. i've spent too much of the last six years escaping into bottle, plant, powder, or pill. i'm getting really tired of the hangovers. and the high gets more hollow every time. i can't help but ponder what i may have overlooked along the way.
fact: american children take four times the amount of psychiatric drugs than the rest of the world's children combined. i recently saw a documentary which debated the legitimacy of "diseases" like add/adhd -- the symptoms they touted were a list of maladies most often associated with laziness. one mother said, "it helps my daughter concentrate & finish tasks" -- far be it from a parent to actually spend the time attempting to tutor her child in the finer points of discipline.
okay, there are entire ways of life devoted to achieving the type of concentration and focus that these parents, teachers, and doctors believe will be delivered via a few pills, twice daily. similar to the raver's predilection for an ecstasy high, providing the peace, self-love, and acceptance that takes years of soul work to achieve. fast food culture applied to personal growth.
(too many children in the classroom, not enough time to devote to each malleable brain. the american school system really isn't set up for learning, anyway, only to provide a menial set of skills, enough to function properly in a factory environment.)
additionally, ingesting these "easy-access methods" feels like i'm cheating myself, truly. why should i rely on the "insights" provided by chemical alteration of my brain matter for inspiration?
(5) -- migration
i've been thinking about moving. perhaps to new orleans. i have lived in the northwest my whole life, it's time to explore new horizons, gain experience living outside of this pale, soulless land. everything here seems muted. i am beginning to detest seattle, utterly. i've decided to craft a plan, with the goal of leaving this city early next year. while i may not be in the position to leave the country completely, for an extended period (read: five or more years) i can easily expose myself to newness and inspire my own growth as an individual by living in a city and a region with which i have had limited experience.
i feel stagnant. it's time to move forward.
(6) -- continuity [sic]
divergent paths coalescing for perhaps only moments (months) or indefinitely (decades) giving rise to my most definitive fear: love like torture. there is a terror inside of me, desperate to circumvent the trainwreck, self-destruction, deep, empty depression of another. most often, i just won't give a shit at all, but i have approached the edge of a cliff -- i could dive down in it and revel in the nicks and scars, or i could turn away and continue in a different direction, forever pondering if good could have come from my own selfish desire to bring someone else an element of peace, understanding.
i cry too much, look the wrong way when crossing the street, practice apathy when it's convenient. is it okay for me to stem my emotions this time -- when it has already been made crystal clear that it will never achieve the levels i desire? is that cowardice i wear so well?
tell me something: if time mutes all emotion, should i attempt to erase this heavy feeling completely by refusing to sate it and filtering the very person who inspires it within me? cut myself off. seems a shame, and perhaps immature, but i don't know any other way to keep my self from sliding into yet another lost cause. i don't need any more shower-floor-sessions.
truly, i must be looking at this far too linearly. how many different stages of headiness before one realizes the mind has been lost completely to an idealization of companionship & understanding? i really don't think it's expecting too much, this hunger for potent complicity.
mayhaps this present challenge is learning to transcend my own wishes in lieu of exploring an alternate relationship. i think i tried that once before, it didn't turn out well. round two?
(7) -- conclusion
blah! baby, where did these blues come from? think i need to shed a few tears and....move it right along.
april 13, 2001
composed via accordion
crawl out of bed, take a minute to reminisce all of your dreams (singular minutes collected for redistribution later.) stumble into the bathroom and wait for everything to make sense.
ummmmm, wasn't the sun supposed to remit something special? clairvoyant or just plain presumptive, like an ice skater clipping the ice with new skates, ankle braces and previous injuries threatening to give way (replacement joints ache easily when faced with oxymoron.)
do you remember all of the rules of grammar & punctuation, imparted upon you when freshly adolescent -- "it's time to teach these kids where to put a comma or two"?? i have known people whose fear of the red pen prompted them to stop writing altogether. how many silenced voices at the hand of english teachers? does it matter? perhaps the simplicity with which they allow their shouts to be quieted proves how impotent their perspective. it may, actually, not be a shame that these individuals have never contributed a fully formed sentence to the general lexicon. in fact, we could be talking about my favorite subject: natural selection.
why do i, for example, feel the need to impart upon these pages my drivel, misinterpretations, random thoughts, and juvenile angst? is it truly because i have something "important" to say? i highly doubt that.
this essence of publicity, the internet, never truly concrete, yet following you to the grave, proffers an extremely comfortable vista from which i may analyze and reinterpret (not to mention whine, tantrum, and complain) various factual events of my life. what does this do for me? sometimes it helps me sleep better. other times it promises redemption (okay, usually only when i'm completely wasted.) but most of the time, it is only the hollow reflection of the image i wish to project. never really exploring my rawness.
even within this forum i have so selfishly created for myself i haven't been truly honest. why not?
it used to be that my father read these pages, and i had the desire to not cross certain borders for fear of his disappointment. no, not really disappointment. perhaps i actually feared he would empathize with me. now that would be impossible to accept. in all fairness, he is a brilliant, humorous man who really only wants to be loved like each of us do. why, then, do i hold him up above all others and treat him only to my own disappointment in his inability to transcend the very human incapacity to get outside of one's own fucking head?
i remember once, when i was about seven or eight, he went away for a week or so on a business trip to st. louis. i was bereft. i recall climbing up to my treefort and huddling there, clutching something he had given me (i can't remember now what the gift had been) sobbing for hours that he had gone away. i was so horrified by his absence. pained by the deliberate separation.
through the years, as i have entertained love and all of its inherent stickiness, i have oft felt that fear, that sadness. rejection, on a tiny scale. the inability to trust.
rejection, for me, has been a quiet companion. occasionally rearing her ugly head only during my most honest moments. fact: i have been rejected more than i have rejected, and in this i find some sense of comfort. strange, but i know the humiliation of rejection all too well and would never utterly wish that upon anyone.
like my hatred of the word "bitch" -- but only when a man says it, echo of my father, enraged, spitting out the word at me as if i were a french aristocrat huddling away from & begging a peasant to spare my pathetic life.
where will honesty lead me, anyway? cut-rate honesty, bare-your-bones (i'll take the soul, too) dissertations have led me into the heart of someone else's own fear of exception. we want to be different, yet elegantly the same. quirkiness, not insanity. please, let me have originality without the stigma of madness.
i detest the phrase "be true to oneself" perhaps because i feel it constantly. i must re-create my own identity by lambasting all the pale shades i've aped before. truthfulness may be a painful path but i can't imagine true satisfaction birthing itself from trickery.
so here, as i even admit the occasionally disingenuous nature of this journal -- okay, i've never really lied, per se, just amended the truth a bit -- i crave the deliciousness of authenticity. i must begin shedding the onion skin.
in my idealism, i propose that writing and sharing thoughts/emotion/experiences/suppositions is a linguistic holding out of the hand. offering companionship within the murky bog of human emotion. it's not that i've ever known any answers.....i try to read my life backwards and still, no clarification....it's only that i intend to record even this smallest existence. often battling with the sheer torture of first-person.
hey, can i try omnipotence for awhile? i think i'd be really good at it.
what i remembered today, while driving to work, is that i am operating this vehicle. if i take my foot off the gas, i'm not going anywhere.
april 12, 2001
is there a time?
surreal! i'm a bit sick, myself. snotty nose, chapped lips, dour demeanor. everytime i'm sick, i just sink. my fragile ego can't handle the frustration. all i do is lament and whine and cry....ever depressed that i've been dealt this illness. aargh.
i have been thinking about simplifying my life. too much shit. i crave living out of a backpack again. although i'm not one for regret (and had i never returned, these journals would not have existed for your delicious enjoyment,) i have been wondering if the decision to return to the states three years ago was a positive one. of course, way too much has happened over the last three years to really be able to understand where i'd be at now....i've changed completely from the little girl aping tropicality.
actually, to be more to the point, i think what may be occurring is a psychological bursting at the seams. sometimes i ponder if my desire to leave this country and all its inherent gluttony is based in my own fear of failure. do i detest this rat race because i feel i can't achieve success within it's parameters?
my main goal is to bring happiness to those that i love -- giving of myself, truly, contents me in turn. i adore sharing my life, and enjoying all the quirky, kick ass people who have chosen to be part of it. alas, working every day in a soulless job is lending me to a sour-grapes attitude towards all things in life.
i don't want to be a spoiled brat. selfish. a princess. this is not what i'm about, deep down. it seems that discontent is difficult to justify when taking advantage of the modest opportunities available to me based solely on my nation of origin -- and race. middle class angst. marx had the time to pen his theories while living in fairly comfortable circumstances....with his sister, i believe.
philosophy, introspection....the past-time of the leisurely. there is a distinct drive inside me, telling me i need to achieve more than that of a dilettante. a dear friend of mine is living in cameroon with chimpanzees. a mutual friend told me that she has been taking the baby chimps for walks through the jungle recently. this is an experience i cannot imagine. envious, but she has worked hard to get there. living an unconventional life. sharing her tales and triumphs -- terrifying, at times -- with a sense of humor and glee unlike any of my more "established" friends.
perhaps this pull is meant as slingshot. regret has never accomplished a damn thing....truly, i must embrace the turmoil and allow it to drive me to this new destination. overall, there is a feeling of necessity, powerful emotion, wide-open chance.
this past weekend, my darling max whispered to me that he thinks i'm a woman. he meant it with the utmost sweetness (we were cuddled underneath many blankets, intertwined and euphoric).
woman. such a strange label. it makes me think of portishead -- "give me a reason to love you; give me a reason to be a woman." when i first heard that song, i was working as a waitress in an italian dive, graveyard shift, with the psychopathic dishwasher (i think i've spoken of him before -- he's a comic genius) and fritzing fluorescent lights. i lived in a gingerbread brick house with a lumberjack, lawyer, and nurse, my room the largest, with three windows and a walk in closet i still recall as cozy and renewing.
the shower had been custom built by the lumberjack who had been living there for over ten years. gordon. ken. rachel. gordon had a cornucopia of instruments all tuned differently. he would play the discordant harpsichord (pushed up against the far wall my room shared with the living room) late into the night.....i would lay next to the heater with the purple light on, my feet pressed against the wall, feeling the vibrations.
ken was a lawyer. he wasn't around much -- but he knew how to talk his way out of anything. when i told all of them i would be moving out (i was going to head to ireland) he was enraged. he tried to talk me out of my decision by offering me the address of an organic farmer in olympia. he was a bitter man.
rachel -- ex drug addict who's body had staged a painful coup. she couldn't eat anything, her assigned shelves in the kitchen were populated by vitamins and dried miso soup packets. she could eat broccoli, though, and made it every night, much to our continued chagrin. when she moved in, she said she had chemical sensitivities. by the time i moved out, the laundry soap in the container in the basement gave her a rash while she laid in bed at night.
the house was located in a hasidic jewish neighborhood. i traveled everywhere by bus. there was a co-op six blocks from me, and i often saddled up with back pack and hiked purposefully through suburbia, making a mental list of the things i could buy with my allotted $30. to and from work by bus proffered pages of inspiration once i cozied into my tiny twin sized bed, purple light and mermaid lamp glowing lazily.
like the tap-shoe cowboy, remember him? oh, jesus, was he a looker. always with the same slick shirt, dapper pants, and worn in cowboy boots (with taps on the toes/heels.) never said a word, always analyzing behind his hooded eyes.
or the two scraped-knee girls in chipped platform heels yelling, "pizza hut!" and giggling avariciously.
snippets from my life when first i heard the aforementioned songbird's call to inspire her femininity. still a little girl. i recall feeling that if ever i were to wed, this would be the song played during the ceremony.
marriage. so far out, so strangely inconceivable to me. do i respect it? i'm not sure. what i respect is loyalty.
am i a woman now? i wonder. i need to work harder, my sadness and frustration is no doubt a direct result of my presently lazy approach to life. when did i forget that no matter what i do, i should do it well -- and, most importantly, enjoy it? i used to have the ability to revel in wiping off a dirty table -- how far the mighty hath fallen when i can't even appreciate moderate spoils.
should i bother to find the gold in the clouds of my present circumstance? or just trash it all, pull down the canvas, steal another pen and move on.....?
sometimes i think my "success" is due to my inability to rely on anyone. i've always been too stubborn to let my guard down.
but, fuck, i crave it so.
ah, love. as i grow older, i realize how important it is to me to have some sort of partner in life. i feel capable of giving spades more than i ever have. concentrating on myself has never proven pleasurable....but it's so difficult for me to trust people.
this is a meandering entry. no real continuity. save for an overall malaise, spiked with glitters of hopefulness....that soon i'll climb out of the pit...and hold someone else's hand for a change.
p.s. i miss you.