What is this predeliction for drunken publishing?

What is the feeling when you go back and read something, something you must have spent time on, and you don’t exactly recognize the voice, the words, the moment? Yes, yes… It’s surprise and it’s disappointment. It’s showing lots of sides. Maybe it’s something about being young or being unrealized. That you just show it and don’t look back.

I believe the Supreme Court knocked down an archaic and liberty-limiting piece of legislation yesterday. I believe that they made the correct, most democratic, decent decision. My skin has been crawling since 1998 when, in my city, two people were arrested for having sex in the privacy of their own home. Arrested and charged in the name of puritanical “rightness”. I remember hearing about it then and my stomach turning, thinking, “how can this be right? how can we allow government to do that?” It just wasn’t right, especially in modern society. It had to go. Now on to the rest –

“It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.”

Yeah for privacy. And for liberty.

Yesterday I raced the little mini on Allen Parkway and it kicked my ass.

Yesterday I said hello to my neighbor in the elevator and the 70-something year-old guy replied, staring only at my chest.

Yesterday I won new business for the company I don’t want to work for and for an account I don’t wish to lead.

Yesterday I didn’t get any sleep; I read and watched and took in too much *news* from too many outlets.

Yesterday I packed a bag and loaded my car –

Hasta luego, friends.
The weekend awaits.

Jeezus

I come home, I get the sniff-down from Mr. Holly Golightly, see his judgement pass before his huge cat-eyes and just smile at him. Because he knows I’ve been at a bar; he knows I’ve been seeing Sandy & Ross and what can I do? My powers are useless against them.

And what of love? Most prefer not to go there, but all I know is love. It is my young nature. My young, having-not-yet-known-tragedy nature. I care about you or I don’t. I tell you, I choose to keep it or I don’t. I make an effort to keep in touch with you when you move, when I don’t hear from you in ages – I make an effort to travel miles and miles to see you or I don’t. I’m going to Phoenix in a few weeks. I’m going to visit my friend and fellow blogger. And I’m heading to the Natural State this weekend with a friend and fellow blogger. So thank god for this road trip, Darling. Perfect timing. Couldn’t be better. Let’s DO this right. Our style, all the way.

(For an enjoyable time, I recommend you call one of these two while they’re in the element. I assume, and am right to do so, that you won’t regret it. A piece of their world…good god, what an interesting world..might entertain you for quite some time. Cast a different light on things at the very least…).

Aside – let’s change the subject to ice cream sandwiches —-

I, for one, am enjoying an ice cream sandwich and it’s pure bllliiiiiiiiiisssss. I love ice cream and I’m a big fan of sandwiches. So the ice cream sandwich is literally the marriage of two very good and right things. You’re so missing out right now – nosh, nosh.

Alright. So I am fortunate; and the difference is that I know I am. People take care of me. Amazing, beautiful people take care of me. Friends may not be here in this city (besides, of course, my beloved Sandy & Ross), but I’ve found that they’re scattered about…but still plugged in. Quite literally, I’m honored to realize this, to see the wagons circled around me. And quite literally, I know that I’m lucky.

to begin,

As I recall we’ve listened to each other talk about nothing for hours (in
particular with the aid of our good friend ethanol). It’s important to me
that you feel comfortable enough to tell me whatever you want. You know I
always have had a soft spot for listening to you vocalize your thoughts,
trying to find clarity. I’m terrible at many qualities people look for in
friends, and I’m still learning, but I’ve always enjoyed listening.

Hmmmm – whatever I had to say before,
I’ve justifyably lost it now.

So,
how do we all like the new blogger upgrade? Pretty sweet. Makes me wish they’d upgrade my template, but even then, at this moment, I’m finding the severely limiting nature of my template to be comforting. Because really, I can’t decide on a design. I wish now, like I wish everyday, that I could just plug the computer into my head. Right next to my eye, in my right temple. That you could get it *fresh*, straight from The Source. And it could just download thought. And design. And words and imagination and purity of intention.

Talking with you last night was just so good. I’m lucky you’re still around. I’m lucky you put up with me. I know that we’re friends, and I consider myself fortunate…as you might prefer it not be that way.
But maybe I’m wrong.

Passing Notes in Class

So this is what a co-worker just emailed me, no lie:

I need a bowl. I need a big fat bowl. I need a big fat bowl laced with three Valiums and a shot of Nyquil to chase it down with!!!!
I fu-reakin QUIT! I hate _______ . I’m gonna jump out the window!!!!!!

Good times, kids. This office thing is the BEST!
(please sense the sarcasm here. please. )

My World Is Small

Although I used to read blogs from far and wide, from foreign lands and realities, my circle has narrowed to just Friends (collective) and that damn LA community that pays such big dividends. Don’t know what it is, we just can’t get away from them. Can’t stop reading you people. Once, around the time of the great blog conference that everyone posted about (and I don’t even care about permalinks right now), someone linked this hilarious old gray-hair golfer grandpa blog. I’d like to read that old dude again – if you know what the hell I’m talking about, and can direct me back as such, I would be temporarily grateful. Thank you in advance….

But my world is small. When I’m at work, all I want to do is stop and blog about what I’m reading and hearing. When I’ve got the Journal in my lap, all I want to do is stop and elaborate down tangents. When I’m reading you, all I want to do is stop and contribute to The Discussion. When I’m at home though, I’m typically disheartened, put-down. Aged by 20 years. Sad that my day and energies have been spent on a relative existence that barely pays the bills. That pays them late sometimes even.
But that, as they say, is reality.
And I’m not actually a sad person though. Maybe I’m just tired.

I’d like to take up some exacting standards. Live a more principled life. Yeah, that’s me – judgemental, critical, exacting. I do though, want to take another editing class as my AP style is more than waning and I could be more exacting about editing. I do, though, have principles…but the thing I’ve learned about my personal take on principles is that they change. And principles aren’t supposed to change, right? They’re supposed to be solid, concrete, immutable. Mine do, though. They’re, I guess, “mutable”. Everything, for me, changes. So I’m not sure that you’d consider me principled. But you’re relative too, come to think of it, as are your morals and your thoughts and your “principles”, so cheers for the circular line of reasoning.

My world is small. All I blog about is myself. I haven’t spent time yet on worldly news, trends, rumors. I divulge too much even, so much that a few of you have asked me to tone it down even. I’m guessing that you’ll forgive me though, as my world is small.

I’d like to presage something. Something beautiful, something bigger than me. And that wouldn’t be tough ’cause I’m 5′ 2″. Who can do that though? Who gets to do that? (again, relative) I can sit here and think of what I can presage, for presage’ sake, but that’s not fulfilling to me. Nope. Gotta find it, something, that I can Be or presage.

David tells me, “Seek it Kid.” He has for years, called me Kiddo and Babydoll, like I’m his baby sister instead of a friend only 2 years younger, which is especially entertaining as he is one of my youngest friends. But that’s another matter. And I am, though, trying to Seek It.

I’m tired of hospitals. Tired. And I know I’m lucky, it’s not like I’ve spent any kind of time there on my own, for myself. I wasn’t born with a low white blood cell count or sans immune system, and I haven’t yet been through the horrific tail end of a loved one leaving the world. But I’ve been in them, in ways it’s true to say “consistently” and “spontaneously” for the past 6 years, moreso in the last two than before. And I don’t want to go back tomorrow. I don’t want to see someone I care about, again, bruised to hell in a hospital bed, not remembering my name or my face for that matter, barely recognizable under the stitches. And I don’t want anymore apologies or lies or promises. I want it to end; I want said person to wake the fk up and look at her life and participate in it, and leave this ridiculous bullshit to the wind. I want authenticity, reality, no more denial and powerlessness. And I want to understand, because I’m trying to understand, why some people want their lives to end, why they care more about leaving life than living in it. And no more heart attacks or strokes or stress-induced multiple organ failures; just stop. Stop Dying. Both of you.

It is an extremely strange and painful experience watching a parent move from strength to vulnerability. Difficult to see him leaving his once frenetic schedule reduced to a series of slow rituals: resting and waking, eating meals, taking this shot and that handful of pills and this other shot. Resting. Calling me home on days he feels well and asking me for help, then when I’m there, constantly remarking on his shock of his condition. “Never get old, Lauren,” I’ve heard now, countless times. “I won’t Pops, promise” I tell him. Silence. Because what do you say? And silence because I’m trying to memorize all his damn medications in case something happens again, and the paramedics have to come and I have to tell him what he’s on. Fking shit, people. Can’t I have 10 more years before this happens?

IIIiiiiiiilllllness.

Ill.

The task is daunting, more daunting than it has been in past years.

But my world is small, so what am I missing?

___________________

And we have to be careful, friends. Because we’re not islands. We have people, and our people need us regardless of our own wishes or plans for our lives.

Could my world get any smaller?

Carry Me Across The Water

It’s too late Baby;
baby it’s too late.

The finality though, it what’s so difficult to swallow.

On Denial

I want to think that I’m a Realist. I want so much to think so. That in my head I am able to logically see things as they are, with clarity, or at least as much as I am able given my own personal, slighted perspective. With the always limited knowlege that I have. I want to think that I separate hope and reason, that I do so when making value judgements, that I put arguments together that flow and are understood in a clear and conscious way. For this purpose most likely, I injest the news like it’s air. I read, I listen, I condemn and am offended by the oligarchy of corporate media ownership. I am addicted to blogs – all kinds of blogs, every kind of blawgs, liberty of thought dissemination. I read foreign newspapers, in other languages a veces. I want to know everything I can about as much as I can, even when it hurts badly to know. To know what you are actually like and what my world is actually like. And what I’m actually like, no doubt.

It’s defense. And it’s curiosity-hunger. It’s big eyes and lost innocence among the graying reality of good & evil.

I was brought into the world to see it. To experience it, the whole world. With and without the rose glasses.

But I am not a Realist. I wish I was. I’m instead a see-er and a sometimes process-er. I am a head-in-the-ground-er, a close-my-eyes-shut-er. I always and too often have Hope.

And Fk Hope.

No, don’t fk hope, but goddamn fking Hope, you mthrfker kicked-me-down, vengeful ogre, Hope.
No, again – Hope, you’re not vengeful. You just come net-less and boundless and without arms to wrap around me or branches to suspend me. You’re just there.
And I choose your hand every time.

So I know you’re in crisis – we, are in a literal crisis. And I need resources to combat this with and more information and increased understanding. But my empathy has slighted me. Because I’ve not helped you for that matter, or any of you alongside me in the peanut gallery. I’ve supported you and allowed you to be You, and given you breadth and width and infinite time.
And you’re worse.
So much Worse, terribly spitefully worse.

And now what. What on earth do we do? What can I do.
I can no longer hope.

I can open my eyes, I guess, and become a Realist.

The Grand Piano, my friends, it has fallen.

Ciao, Bella

My god, it was great to see you last night, the freshing comfortableness of someone who knows you well. Sitting in my favorite bar in this town, catching up so naturally like years never passed between us. Mmmmm.

And you’re good – you look good although thinner, you sound good, you’re doing fine. You’re on top of your game, you’re loving your work, you’re leaving the country, you’re finally listening to good music. You’re still so damn funny.

And the weekend, finally at home – so good. So self-indulgent, lying in the sun and running and sleeping and reading and blogging (but deleting – oh no!). Not really accomplishing anything, but doing what I want to be doing, which is relishing. I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I pretty much, despite any plans or intentions for the day, I pretty much just act on whims…on the, “what would I love to be doing right now…” and being selfish enough to do it. The Professional Appreciator. The Impulse Facilitator.

Actually, being alive enough to do it.
Yum, Yum.

What is that feeling when you’re driving away from someone, and they recede on the horizon until you see their specks dispersing? It’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye.

Ciao, Bella.

“The whole mad swirl of everyting that was to come began then,”
[said jack].

The Corporate Blog is Cathing On

I say ughhh.

But I understand.

Stop. and Think.