Seriously dude... what. the. fuck.
Did I wrong you in some way that made you so colossally pissed at me that you had to chase me for 12 months with a chariot of fire and destruction?
I mean, we've got a few good hours left in us so I'm hoping we can end on at least moderately peaceful terms but what the hell did you have against me? The only truly good things I got this year were a new couch set, a former prison guard, and a super hero best friend. But even then, yo managed to pry everything but the couch from my hands in the eleventh hour.
I can't say I was the most loving either, but at least I tried. I had a hope in you, faith that you'd bring me something better. Maybe I didn't give 100% to you but I at least hit the lower 90s.
It feels like all you did was take from me this year. You took jobs, took friends, took futures, took all joy from me when it was the only thing I had left. So I ran.
I chased the moon, I chased the deer in my backyard, I chased sunsets and I chased the windstorms out of my hair. Guess what? I still win.
You tried your best to destroy me and to be honest, you got pretty close. But there's still too much fight to ever give up even when I'm hanging by threads.
My house is a mess, my life is a mess and my immediate future looks about as uncertain as the piles of rubble across the street where beautiful buildings once stood. Yeah. You took the stained glass windows too.
Unfortunately for you, I can still see Orion watching me outside my bedroom window. You can't move the constellations, and I still have eyes to see. You haven't taken the moon or Jupiter or Venus and I wait for the frosty nights when I can talk to them in orbit across my bleak horizons.
It's been a month of long Decembers but you underestimated me. I still have reason to believe. I'm still here. Tomorrow, you'll be just a fading memory, but I'll still wake up breathing,
Checkmate, motherfucker.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Monday, December 7, 2015
A Lack of Compuntion for Hating Winter
December 28, 1989: I had just purchased my very first cassette with a $20 gift certificate I got to The Warehouse in Orange County, California.
The Jets topped the charts with their album "Magic" and their hit single "Make it Real" was an all-too-relatable anthem for my pathetic 8-year-old heart.
From then on, Love seemed to be an ever-dying mistress... a shooting star constantly fading from the night sky. Rolling tides of romantic cliches, waiting for boys to ask me to dance at awkward junior high social events and writing hundreds of sheets of notebook pages of poetry for boys who still never knew I existed.
As winter pushes in again with its hateful grey eyes, heavy black rain clouds and chilling temperatures, I have to wonder if maybe love itself isn't also a sepulcher of sorts. We fall into this tomb of darkness waiting for someone to be our light but each time love ends, the lid is pushed further shut until eventually we end up dying alone, in the darkness, waiting for someone to notice we're still here; we're still waiting. Waiting to be seen, waiting to be heard, waiting to be told we are beautiful and magnificent and worthy of all the joy in life we seek.
Sometimes ponder the chances that the weather has turned me to stone along with the rest of the frozen earth until nothing can penetrate my heart through layers of ice and cynicism. Nothing good can reach the roots such that, when someone tells me I look beautiful fighting with a tangled scarf and cup of cider, I can only roll my eyes and scoff the possibility of gaining attraction.
Perhaps there just aren't enough days of sunshine this far north to fully thaw out the land. Or maybe Mike Gonzales really did break my heart before I ever knew what to do with it. Life seems to be an endless two-lane highway of hearts in such tight propinquity and yet, miles from ever seeing each other.
At what point do we finally get to stop? At what point do we finally see each other for who we are?
At what point can we finally fall in love before the chilling wind of death takes us back to the sea?
I long for a life
with more love and less strife
unlike your sweet Annabel Lee.
And if I should die -- be a widow or wife
let my love not be quick, or sharp like a knife
lay with me down by the sea...
in a sepulcher finally set free.
The Jets topped the charts with their album "Magic" and their hit single "Make it Real" was an all-too-relatable anthem for my pathetic 8-year-old heart.
He never eve knew I existed.
And yet, I loved him.
Joey Gonzales' brother, Mike, was in the sixth grade, had wavy brown hair and he was going through a slightly chubby pubescent stage of adolescence. He was everything I'd ever dreamed of. I mean, he had a pulse, he had hair, he had eyes and a face and everything. He was tall dark and handsome because I was tiny little redhead with ringlet curls and was only a year away from discovering the first love poem that would forever change my life.
Joey was friends with my brother so I tried to hang out with them in order to be around Mike but I stood out like a blade of grass on a baseball field. Which is to say, not at all.
But oh how I loved him. The way he did whatever he did that I can't even recall 26 years later. I think he walked or talked or, maybe he just stood there breathing.
I had no idea what love was at that age.
And yet, I loved him.
The only definitive moment in all our nearly-real interactions was when I was too short to reach a red foursquare ball at the bottom of the ball cage on the playground. He came up beside me, reached down, grabbed the ball and placed it in my hands. For the briefest moment, he made eye contact and I'm pretty sure in those five nanoseconds, I saw our entire future together, complete with a wedding a house, a dog, and two cats. That was the first and last interaction we ever had.
The following year, I discovered Edgar Allan Poe and the harsh realities of unrequited love in tragic tale of the beloved Annabel Lee.
"I was a child and she was a child,
Joey Gonzales' brother, Mike, was in the sixth grade, had wavy brown hair and he was going through a slightly chubby pubescent stage of adolescence. He was everything I'd ever dreamed of. I mean, he had a pulse, he had hair, he had eyes and a face and everything. He was tall dark and handsome because I was tiny little redhead with ringlet curls and was only a year away from discovering the first love poem that would forever change my life.
Joey was friends with my brother so I tried to hang out with them in order to be around Mike but I stood out like a blade of grass on a baseball field. Which is to say, not at all.
But oh how I loved him. The way he did whatever he did that I can't even recall 26 years later. I think he walked or talked or, maybe he just stood there breathing.
I had no idea what love was at that age.
And yet, I loved him.
The only definitive moment in all our nearly-real interactions was when I was too short to reach a red foursquare ball at the bottom of the ball cage on the playground. He came up beside me, reached down, grabbed the ball and placed it in my hands. For the briefest moment, he made eye contact and I'm pretty sure in those five nanoseconds, I saw our entire future together, complete with a wedding a house, a dog, and two cats. That was the first and last interaction we ever had.
The following year, I discovered Edgar Allan Poe and the harsh realities of unrequited love in tragic tale of the beloved Annabel Lee.
"I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee"
From then on, Love seemed to be an ever-dying mistress... a shooting star constantly fading from the night sky. Rolling tides of romantic cliches, waiting for boys to ask me to dance at awkward junior high social events and writing hundreds of sheets of notebook pages of poetry for boys who still never knew I existed.
As winter pushes in again with its hateful grey eyes, heavy black rain clouds and chilling temperatures, I have to wonder if maybe love itself isn't also a sepulcher of sorts. We fall into this tomb of darkness waiting for someone to be our light but each time love ends, the lid is pushed further shut until eventually we end up dying alone, in the darkness, waiting for someone to notice we're still here; we're still waiting. Waiting to be seen, waiting to be heard, waiting to be told we are beautiful and magnificent and worthy of all the joy in life we seek.
Sometimes ponder the chances that the weather has turned me to stone along with the rest of the frozen earth until nothing can penetrate my heart through layers of ice and cynicism. Nothing good can reach the roots such that, when someone tells me I look beautiful fighting with a tangled scarf and cup of cider, I can only roll my eyes and scoff the possibility of gaining attraction.
Perhaps there just aren't enough days of sunshine this far north to fully thaw out the land. Or maybe Mike Gonzales really did break my heart before I ever knew what to do with it. Life seems to be an endless two-lane highway of hearts in such tight propinquity and yet, miles from ever seeing each other.
At what point do we finally get to stop? At what point do we finally see each other for who we are?
At what point can we finally fall in love before the chilling wind of death takes us back to the sea?
I long for a life
with more love and less strife
unlike your sweet Annabel Lee.
And if I should die -- be a widow or wife
let my love not be quick, or sharp like a knife
lay with me down by the sea...
in a sepulcher finally set free.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Flying Cars and Falling in Love
I was eight years old when Back to the Future II came out in theaters. I remember how anxiously my brother waited to see it after reading the book, how he went on and on about the book being better and key plot holes due to missing scenes from the book during the alternate 1989 sequences. But most of all, I remember thinking I'd never live to be old enough to see the year 2015.
It was "the future" and at the time, I cold barely handle the thought of Prince partying like it was 1999. In my world, 2015 might as well have been a thousand years away. And yet, here it is. In two hours, it will officially be Wednesday, October, 2015.
There are no flying cars, no hoverboards, no re-hydrated and no self-lacing shoes. The kids don't wear their pockets hanging out of their jeans, I can't stuff trash into my gas line to make my car run on rotting leftovers (though that would be cool and hella better for landfills) but on the other hand, we actually do have video chatting, google glass, smart phones, self-driving cars, satellite images of every inch of the planet and y'know that whole internet thing is pretty cool too. literally all the knowledge of the world free at your fingertips. I'm pretty sure that's better than a flying car.
I remember watching the Back to the Future trilogy endlessly with my dad and my brother and wondering what it would be like to travel through time. I'm sure Marty would disagree but if I cold go back to 1955, I'd probably never leave. The idea of meeting a boy for a milkshake and cheeseburger is pretty much the quintessential post-war Americana love story stuff dreams are made of.
And the music! What I wouldn't give to see Buddy Holly perform live, to be able to dance close with a boy as my pink chiffon dress shuffled across the floor and I closed my eyes tightly wondering if ever a day might come when he'd take that big next step and finally kiss me on the lips.
If I could go back in time to 1955 I think my first purchase would be a 45 record single of The Penguins "Earth Angel" and bring it back with me to present time. The single itself is worth far more than I could ever afford to spend on one vinyl issued song but it's such a perfect song of innocent love and romance. I can't explain exactly what it is about that song but it's just perfection.
Maybe in some alternate universe I already live there and life is pure bliss. But for now, I guess I'll just keep spinning the vinyl I have and settle for traveling through time with my eyes closed.
It was "the future" and at the time, I cold barely handle the thought of Prince partying like it was 1999. In my world, 2015 might as well have been a thousand years away. And yet, here it is. In two hours, it will officially be Wednesday, October, 2015.
There are no flying cars, no hoverboards, no re-hydrated and no self-lacing shoes. The kids don't wear their pockets hanging out of their jeans, I can't stuff trash into my gas line to make my car run on rotting leftovers (though that would be cool and hella better for landfills) but on the other hand, we actually do have video chatting, google glass, smart phones, self-driving cars, satellite images of every inch of the planet and y'know that whole internet thing is pretty cool too. literally all the knowledge of the world free at your fingertips. I'm pretty sure that's better than a flying car.
I remember watching the Back to the Future trilogy endlessly with my dad and my brother and wondering what it would be like to travel through time. I'm sure Marty would disagree but if I cold go back to 1955, I'd probably never leave. The idea of meeting a boy for a milkshake and cheeseburger is pretty much the quintessential post-war Americana love story stuff dreams are made of.
And the music! What I wouldn't give to see Buddy Holly perform live, to be able to dance close with a boy as my pink chiffon dress shuffled across the floor and I closed my eyes tightly wondering if ever a day might come when he'd take that big next step and finally kiss me on the lips.
If I could go back in time to 1955 I think my first purchase would be a 45 record single of The Penguins "Earth Angel" and bring it back with me to present time. The single itself is worth far more than I could ever afford to spend on one vinyl issued song but it's such a perfect song of innocent love and romance. I can't explain exactly what it is about that song but it's just perfection.
Maybe in some alternate universe I already live there and life is pure bliss. But for now, I guess I'll just keep spinning the vinyl I have and settle for traveling through time with my eyes closed.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Stories Written on Reeds and Strings
I'll never forget the first time I heard Alex play the bass clarinet. It the late winter of 7th grade and as he opened with a solo to our middle school symphonic band's first piece with one half note and two eighth notes. In that moment, shattering the silence with the deep echoes off the cafeteria walls with the timbre of his vibrato against the reed, I fell in love.
Maybe I was misguided and only fell in love with him because of the music, but in nearly three decades of studying music, I've never been more in love with anyone than at that moment, with him.
From there, I fell in love with two drummers, three saxophone players, one guitar player, an a pianist. Through the years though, I don't think I ever felt another kind of "Alex" type of love until I heard the mandolin.
I still remember standing in the living room talking to him, our footsteps clacking across the wood floors as we made out way to the couch. His name was Jim and he had long blonde hair, just past his chin that curled ever so slightly at the ends, ripped jeans and a plaid flannel shirt that assured me I wasn't the only one carrying the 90s into the next decade. I can still remember the name of his cologne and the way his fingers moved so effortlessly across the strings of his guitar when he'd close his eyes and sing. His guitar made mine look like it came out of a crackerjack box but he seemed intrigued enough to want to write songs with me and play together in the front lawn on Sundays.
Ironically, I can't remember if he actually played the mandolin himself, or if I only heard it on the radio that day and have forever associated those feelings of love with the starving artist who, like so many other guys, saw me as another one of the guys. He told me of the girls he loved, the loves he'd lost, and the hopes he had for the future. As expected, I wasn't in his gameplan. I remember writing love poems about him that summer and casting wishful thoughts into the night sky that someday he might realize I was singing songs about him.
I haven't seen him in almost 15 years; our chance meeting was over almost as quickly as it began, and I undoubtedly evanesced into the attic of his memories until even those were no more.
I still think of him every time I hear the mandolin. I wonder if he still plays music. I wonder if we would even recognize each other if we were to pass on a street corner in some small town neither of us lived in. I was nothing more than another sigh between chord progressions he'd pick and choose form to pass the time on the lawn after church but even still, I can't help but wonder if maybe sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, he hears someone play an A-minor chord on an old acoustic guitar and for the briefest moment, a light fog blows through his memory... something about a vegetarian hippie and a wide-neck Spanish guitar...
It would be a fuzzy memory at best, but it would make all the wishing stars worth the wait.
Maybe I was misguided and only fell in love with him because of the music, but in nearly three decades of studying music, I've never been more in love with anyone than at that moment, with him.
From there, I fell in love with two drummers, three saxophone players, one guitar player, an a pianist. Through the years though, I don't think I ever felt another kind of "Alex" type of love until I heard the mandolin.
I still remember standing in the living room talking to him, our footsteps clacking across the wood floors as we made out way to the couch. His name was Jim and he had long blonde hair, just past his chin that curled ever so slightly at the ends, ripped jeans and a plaid flannel shirt that assured me I wasn't the only one carrying the 90s into the next decade. I can still remember the name of his cologne and the way his fingers moved so effortlessly across the strings of his guitar when he'd close his eyes and sing. His guitar made mine look like it came out of a crackerjack box but he seemed intrigued enough to want to write songs with me and play together in the front lawn on Sundays.
Ironically, I can't remember if he actually played the mandolin himself, or if I only heard it on the radio that day and have forever associated those feelings of love with the starving artist who, like so many other guys, saw me as another one of the guys. He told me of the girls he loved, the loves he'd lost, and the hopes he had for the future. As expected, I wasn't in his gameplan. I remember writing love poems about him that summer and casting wishful thoughts into the night sky that someday he might realize I was singing songs about him.
I haven't seen him in almost 15 years; our chance meeting was over almost as quickly as it began, and I undoubtedly evanesced into the attic of his memories until even those were no more.
I still think of him every time I hear the mandolin. I wonder if he still plays music. I wonder if we would even recognize each other if we were to pass on a street corner in some small town neither of us lived in. I was nothing more than another sigh between chord progressions he'd pick and choose form to pass the time on the lawn after church but even still, I can't help but wonder if maybe sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, he hears someone play an A-minor chord on an old acoustic guitar and for the briefest moment, a light fog blows through his memory... something about a vegetarian hippie and a wide-neck Spanish guitar...
It would be a fuzzy memory at best, but it would make all the wishing stars worth the wait.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Longing for the Stars
One of my best friends just announced she's pregnant with a baby girl. Another friend is having a baby shower in three weeks. Several of my friends have kids who just started high school and my sister's oldest daughter just started middle school.
All my friends are married with families, houses, property with fences and garages and houses with washing machines and dryers and refrigerators that don't make screeching noises as you pray it keeps working so all your food doesn't go bad the day after you stocked up on groceries.
And me? I'm working at a job so far below my potential that even my boss can't figure out why I'm there, I'm months behind on my electric bill, my boyfriend lives more than two thousand miles away and I can't get my cat to stop eating my mail. Really. He seems to think the best way for me to pay my bills is after he's chewed off the corners and thrown them back up onto my shoes.
Today was an absolute disaster from start to finish at work and I felt like I let down so many people and I got yelled at by almost everyone one of my coworkers, even the new guy. And the one guy who actually makes me smile and keeps my brain from shrinking into an atrophied state of stupidity for lack of intelligent conversation, I felt like I ruined his day by constantly fucking up, so I faced down my fears of social anxiety and offered to buy him frozen yogurt after work for surviving the day with me. The visit was short-lived, I feel like I said all the wrong things and was this totally awkward bumbling idiot with her head in the clouds and if that weren't enough, as I pulled into the parking lot across from my condo, I picked up my half-finished cup of now-mostly-melted "froyo" and somehow managed to dump it all over myself. I mean all over myself. It's in my hair, it's all over my brand new shirt, all over my very last pair of clean pants, it's in my fucking underwear.
And as I sat there in my car, covered in an ice-cold sticky mess listening to a song about a girl who just wants to escape her small-town nothing life, I couldn't help but laugh. This is my life. This is the lot I've been cast. Some girls were born to grow up into beautiful women, get married, have beautiful families and live happy beautiful lives. I have a friend with that life. Other women were born to be adventurers who see the world, pack up and head to Burning Man without any road maps or plans or obligations, and even the very few single friends I have left still have the "adult" thing down enough to purchase their own homes and new cars.
I spent the first 15 minutes of every morning trying to find my pants and at least twice a week, I have no idea where I parked my car and have an anxiety attack thinking my car has been towed or stolen or abducted by aliens. Nope. I just have attention-deficit disorder and can manage to lose even a giant 2-ton block of metal on wheels.
My life is kind of a pathetic joke; my only real goals are to fall in love and change the world. Society long threw out the last of its residual hippie population and somehow I slipped through the cracks. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Ever. I still write love poems no one ever sees, I still make wishes on shooting stars, and I still come home from work every single day with a burning child-like excitement beating through my chest wondering if this might finally be the day I get a love letter in the mail or a random package I wasn't expecting full of some grand surprise that could forever alter the entire course of my life.
But every day it's still the same thing: bills, grocery store fliers, and for some reason, car insurance offers for the guy who moved out of this place 5 years ago. I think I get more mail for him than I do for myself and he only lived here for 6 months before I took over the lease. Life is funny.
But while I was having frozen yogurt with my friend, I got this momentary arcane glimpse into my past when I realized that he's 22 and when I was 22, exactly this week 12 years ago, I was living in a battered women's shelter in a slightly worse financial situation as I am now, and just as lost on what to do with my future. But the thing is, This time around, I can laugh about everything that's going wrong in life. I can laugh, because I have hope. I know this is only temporary. God Almighty knows my deepest fear is that I will never move above this current situation and I will spend the rest of my life scraping to get by, but there's too much evidence suggesting contrary futures to this current lot.
I know I'll never be rich. I hope someday I'll be loved enough to wear a ring and give my life to noble man worthy of my undying devotion and maybe, if I'm lucky, I could have a decent retirement nets egg set aside by the time I'm too old to work. But in between now and then, I'm pretty much always going to be the girl who says awkward things when trying to be social, I will inevitably find 100 more ways to spill ice cream on myself and be forced to walk half a block back to my front door covered in dripping wet white goo from head to toe as my face burns in shame wishing I could explain to all the cars passing me by that it's only ice cream, and nothing in my house will be able to stay clean for more than 24 hours because if I don't knock over or spill something, my cat will surely be right behind me picking up the slack.
But you know, there are far worse lives I could live. I could be sad, I could be mean, I could be bitter and resentful, I could still be suffering from an eating disorder and hating myself for eating frozen yogurt or I could have been too afraid to ask someone to hang out with me and be my friend. And I almost was. At the end of my life, I'll be dead. This is the time that matters. I have sticky ice cream all over my hair. I'll never be beautiful or graceful, but if nothing else, I can always find a reason to smile.
All my friends are married with families, houses, property with fences and garages and houses with washing machines and dryers and refrigerators that don't make screeching noises as you pray it keeps working so all your food doesn't go bad the day after you stocked up on groceries.
And me? I'm working at a job so far below my potential that even my boss can't figure out why I'm there, I'm months behind on my electric bill, my boyfriend lives more than two thousand miles away and I can't get my cat to stop eating my mail. Really. He seems to think the best way for me to pay my bills is after he's chewed off the corners and thrown them back up onto my shoes.
Today was an absolute disaster from start to finish at work and I felt like I let down so many people and I got yelled at by almost everyone one of my coworkers, even the new guy. And the one guy who actually makes me smile and keeps my brain from shrinking into an atrophied state of stupidity for lack of intelligent conversation, I felt like I ruined his day by constantly fucking up, so I faced down my fears of social anxiety and offered to buy him frozen yogurt after work for surviving the day with me. The visit was short-lived, I feel like I said all the wrong things and was this totally awkward bumbling idiot with her head in the clouds and if that weren't enough, as I pulled into the parking lot across from my condo, I picked up my half-finished cup of now-mostly-melted "froyo" and somehow managed to dump it all over myself. I mean all over myself. It's in my hair, it's all over my brand new shirt, all over my very last pair of clean pants, it's in my fucking underwear.
And as I sat there in my car, covered in an ice-cold sticky mess listening to a song about a girl who just wants to escape her small-town nothing life, I couldn't help but laugh. This is my life. This is the lot I've been cast. Some girls were born to grow up into beautiful women, get married, have beautiful families and live happy beautiful lives. I have a friend with that life. Other women were born to be adventurers who see the world, pack up and head to Burning Man without any road maps or plans or obligations, and even the very few single friends I have left still have the "adult" thing down enough to purchase their own homes and new cars.
I spent the first 15 minutes of every morning trying to find my pants and at least twice a week, I have no idea where I parked my car and have an anxiety attack thinking my car has been towed or stolen or abducted by aliens. Nope. I just have attention-deficit disorder and can manage to lose even a giant 2-ton block of metal on wheels.
My life is kind of a pathetic joke; my only real goals are to fall in love and change the world. Society long threw out the last of its residual hippie population and somehow I slipped through the cracks. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Ever. I still write love poems no one ever sees, I still make wishes on shooting stars, and I still come home from work every single day with a burning child-like excitement beating through my chest wondering if this might finally be the day I get a love letter in the mail or a random package I wasn't expecting full of some grand surprise that could forever alter the entire course of my life.
But every day it's still the same thing: bills, grocery store fliers, and for some reason, car insurance offers for the guy who moved out of this place 5 years ago. I think I get more mail for him than I do for myself and he only lived here for 6 months before I took over the lease. Life is funny.
But while I was having frozen yogurt with my friend, I got this momentary arcane glimpse into my past when I realized that he's 22 and when I was 22, exactly this week 12 years ago, I was living in a battered women's shelter in a slightly worse financial situation as I am now, and just as lost on what to do with my future. But the thing is, This time around, I can laugh about everything that's going wrong in life. I can laugh, because I have hope. I know this is only temporary. God Almighty knows my deepest fear is that I will never move above this current situation and I will spend the rest of my life scraping to get by, but there's too much evidence suggesting contrary futures to this current lot.
I know I'll never be rich. I hope someday I'll be loved enough to wear a ring and give my life to noble man worthy of my undying devotion and maybe, if I'm lucky, I could have a decent retirement nets egg set aside by the time I'm too old to work. But in between now and then, I'm pretty much always going to be the girl who says awkward things when trying to be social, I will inevitably find 100 more ways to spill ice cream on myself and be forced to walk half a block back to my front door covered in dripping wet white goo from head to toe as my face burns in shame wishing I could explain to all the cars passing me by that it's only ice cream, and nothing in my house will be able to stay clean for more than 24 hours because if I don't knock over or spill something, my cat will surely be right behind me picking up the slack.
But you know, there are far worse lives I could live. I could be sad, I could be mean, I could be bitter and resentful, I could still be suffering from an eating disorder and hating myself for eating frozen yogurt or I could have been too afraid to ask someone to hang out with me and be my friend. And I almost was. At the end of my life, I'll be dead. This is the time that matters. I have sticky ice cream all over my hair. I'll never be beautiful or graceful, but if nothing else, I can always find a reason to smile.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Twice in a Lifetime: Stories about the Moon
As I opened this browser tab to make this very post, Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon" started playing on my Internet radio station. It's like the universe can hear my thoughts. :) There's something eternally romantic about the moon that I may never understand but I'd be content to explore until my final breath.
As a small child, I remember my dad telling me a story about the "Bunny Moon", in which the moon was actually inhabited by a large colony of bunnies that spent an entire month making rice for their monthly festival. You knew it was time for them to eat all the rice when the moon was full because rice was white and if you turned the man in the moon's face sideways, it looked like a giant bunny. I have no idea where he got the story from but I distinctly remember the day I realized rabbits couldn't sustain life on the moon and I diligently worked hard to keep my father from ever having his heart crushed by finding out what I had learned. So every month until probably my early pre-teen years, I excitedly nodded and told him I could see the bunnies on the moon too and I secretly hoped if he ever found out there weren't ACTUALLY rabbits on the moon, he would still enjoy seeing its beauty. I think I was in my mid-twenties when I found out my dad always knew and had been trying to protect me from the same reality I tried to hide from him. Great minds think alike, right?
When I was 19 years old, I took an astronomy class in college and we got to use telescopes that were literally worth more than the cost of my entire education there. My teacher was mean, impossible to understand, and I'm pretty sure he hated me and graded me intentionally lower than everyone else... however, he couldn't stop me from looking into that telescope and watching the craters of the moon slide out of vision from the viewfinder, proving that we really were moving through the universe, even when it didn't feel like it from so many thousands of miles away.
It's easy to take the moon for granted when it's just a giant night light in the sky but to see it up-close, to see the craters, the mountains, the shadows on the surface, it was breathtaking. The only thing more beautiful I've ever seen in my life was looking at the rings of Saturn through an even bigger telescope. But that's a story for another time. Tonight, my love is the moon.
Everyone has been talking about this "once in a lifetime" super harvest blood moon lunar trifecta. As a professional photographer, shooting the moon has always been a daunting task, since I'm dyslexic can never seem to remember if night skies are fast shutter speeds and large apertures or small apertures and long shutters. And then you have to take into account the factors of earth's orbit and light pollution. Light is the worst. Ironically, also the most important and necessary. I almost decided not to go for it. I've seen blood moons, I've seen lunar eclipses, I've seen super moons, like I said, it's easy to take for granted. But then my mom texted me. She asked if if I would be willing to try to take some pictures for her because it was so beautiful down in San Diego. That was all it took.
I got in my car with my camera bag, 5 lenses, my tripod, and absolutely no idea where I was going. I got on the highway and just sorta drove east until I couldn't see any city lights. I wound up in another city (not sure which one but it was probably 15 miles east of where I live) way out in the county. There was a dead-end sign on a residential street that looked promising, but as I got to the actual cul-de-sac at the end, I realized this is exactly the type of place a girl traveling alone late at night on a dark street in an unfamiliar city gets brutally murdered by the psychotic serial killer fugitive escapee who just broke out of prison and decided to hide in the woods because a fucking super moon brought everyone out of their homes and he had to go into hiding.
Yeah.... pretty much the fastest u-turn I've ever made in my life. However, further up the road I was able to find a safe place to pull over and still get a perfect shot of the moon.
At first, all I could see was a sliver of orange in the blackness of night but it slowly lit up to a more full orange, then red, then, as the earth's shadow passed over, a but of white finally started to peek through into a beautiful ombre of reds and rusty orange. My only regret is that I let someone get under my skin and haven't been wearing my glasses as much lately because two guys I work with constantly tell me how unattractive I look with my glasses (which I happened to love until they made me feel ugly) and how I shouldn't wear them because I "look way better without them" and because got into a recent habit of not wearing them, I let two jerks make me second guess my meaningless exterior and it resulted in my pictures not come out as sharp as when I found my spare pair of glasses in my car.
By the time I put them on, the eclipse was nearly over and the colour had returned to a regular white so I missed out on a once in a lifetime photo opportunity. While I'm disappointed to know part of me is perpetually 13-years-old and easily shattered at the whim of mean boys, it's a good reminder that beauty comes in many forms and anyone who can't see it isn't worth ruining something as special as tonight was. I know there are far better photographers out there than me with even more expensive cameras and longer lenses but I also know that without an adventurer's heart, it's just another picture of the moon.
There's a thrill you get on an adventure; never knowing where exactly you'll end up or if it will all be for naught. While I was sad that I had no one to share the adventure with me on my drive, my heart was joyful to know that 2,200 miles away, my boyfriend was out in a field in northeast Texas looking at the same moon through his telescope. When I got back. I saw he had texted me a picture of the moon from his camera phone, which appeared as a tiny red spot on a black square. I excitedly shared one of my pictures with him, and he replied "you win." It wasn't my intention to compete, but he made me laugh pretty hard.
I have no idea why the moon is so symbolic of romance, why Harry Connick Jr makes me turn into a giant puddle of starry-eyed nonsense, or why I have such an insatiable desire to take off in my car at any given moment, but I'm grateful for tonight. The world is lacking far too much romance these days and while this is more often than not, the secret place I go to hide my ridiculous notions of love an romance, I'm glad all the mean boys in the footsteps behind me haven't had a chance to ruin my hopes of love. I've still got that. And the moon.
As a small child, I remember my dad telling me a story about the "Bunny Moon", in which the moon was actually inhabited by a large colony of bunnies that spent an entire month making rice for their monthly festival. You knew it was time for them to eat all the rice when the moon was full because rice was white and if you turned the man in the moon's face sideways, it looked like a giant bunny. I have no idea where he got the story from but I distinctly remember the day I realized rabbits couldn't sustain life on the moon and I diligently worked hard to keep my father from ever having his heart crushed by finding out what I had learned. So every month until probably my early pre-teen years, I excitedly nodded and told him I could see the bunnies on the moon too and I secretly hoped if he ever found out there weren't ACTUALLY rabbits on the moon, he would still enjoy seeing its beauty. I think I was in my mid-twenties when I found out my dad always knew and had been trying to protect me from the same reality I tried to hide from him. Great minds think alike, right?
When I was 19 years old, I took an astronomy class in college and we got to use telescopes that were literally worth more than the cost of my entire education there. My teacher was mean, impossible to understand, and I'm pretty sure he hated me and graded me intentionally lower than everyone else... however, he couldn't stop me from looking into that telescope and watching the craters of the moon slide out of vision from the viewfinder, proving that we really were moving through the universe, even when it didn't feel like it from so many thousands of miles away.
It's easy to take the moon for granted when it's just a giant night light in the sky but to see it up-close, to see the craters, the mountains, the shadows on the surface, it was breathtaking. The only thing more beautiful I've ever seen in my life was looking at the rings of Saturn through an even bigger telescope. But that's a story for another time. Tonight, my love is the moon.
Everyone has been talking about this "once in a lifetime" super harvest blood moon lunar trifecta. As a professional photographer, shooting the moon has always been a daunting task, since I'm dyslexic can never seem to remember if night skies are fast shutter speeds and large apertures or small apertures and long shutters. And then you have to take into account the factors of earth's orbit and light pollution. Light is the worst. Ironically, also the most important and necessary. I almost decided not to go for it. I've seen blood moons, I've seen lunar eclipses, I've seen super moons, like I said, it's easy to take for granted. But then my mom texted me. She asked if if I would be willing to try to take some pictures for her because it was so beautiful down in San Diego. That was all it took.
I got in my car with my camera bag, 5 lenses, my tripod, and absolutely no idea where I was going. I got on the highway and just sorta drove east until I couldn't see any city lights. I wound up in another city (not sure which one but it was probably 15 miles east of where I live) way out in the county. There was a dead-end sign on a residential street that looked promising, but as I got to the actual cul-de-sac at the end, I realized this is exactly the type of place a girl traveling alone late at night on a dark street in an unfamiliar city gets brutally murdered by the psychotic serial killer fugitive escapee who just broke out of prison and decided to hide in the woods because a fucking super moon brought everyone out of their homes and he had to go into hiding.
Yeah.... pretty much the fastest u-turn I've ever made in my life. However, further up the road I was able to find a safe place to pull over and still get a perfect shot of the moon.
At first, all I could see was a sliver of orange in the blackness of night but it slowly lit up to a more full orange, then red, then, as the earth's shadow passed over, a but of white finally started to peek through into a beautiful ombre of reds and rusty orange. My only regret is that I let someone get under my skin and haven't been wearing my glasses as much lately because two guys I work with constantly tell me how unattractive I look with my glasses (which I happened to love until they made me feel ugly) and how I shouldn't wear them because I "look way better without them" and because got into a recent habit of not wearing them, I let two jerks make me second guess my meaningless exterior and it resulted in my pictures not come out as sharp as when I found my spare pair of glasses in my car.
By the time I put them on, the eclipse was nearly over and the colour had returned to a regular white so I missed out on a once in a lifetime photo opportunity. While I'm disappointed to know part of me is perpetually 13-years-old and easily shattered at the whim of mean boys, it's a good reminder that beauty comes in many forms and anyone who can't see it isn't worth ruining something as special as tonight was. I know there are far better photographers out there than me with even more expensive cameras and longer lenses but I also know that without an adventurer's heart, it's just another picture of the moon.
There's a thrill you get on an adventure; never knowing where exactly you'll end up or if it will all be for naught. While I was sad that I had no one to share the adventure with me on my drive, my heart was joyful to know that 2,200 miles away, my boyfriend was out in a field in northeast Texas looking at the same moon through his telescope. When I got back. I saw he had texted me a picture of the moon from his camera phone, which appeared as a tiny red spot on a black square. I excitedly shared one of my pictures with him, and he replied "you win." It wasn't my intention to compete, but he made me laugh pretty hard.
I have no idea why the moon is so symbolic of romance, why Harry Connick Jr makes me turn into a giant puddle of starry-eyed nonsense, or why I have such an insatiable desire to take off in my car at any given moment, but I'm grateful for tonight. The world is lacking far too much romance these days and while this is more often than not, the secret place I go to hide my ridiculous notions of love an romance, I'm glad all the mean boys in the footsteps behind me haven't had a chance to ruin my hopes of love. I've still got that. And the moon.
(All photos shot with Canon 5DMarkII)
Beginning of the end of the eclipse
I accidentally slowed my shutter speed and caught this incredible shot of the moon in orbit. :)
At the end of the eclipse (when I finally found my glasses)
I have no idea where I was, but I don't think I've ever seen so many stars in my entire life
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Barefoot Island
"I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me."
-Simon and Garfunkle
Summer has reached an end and as if on cue, autumn has been instantly drenched in rain. I knew summer would eventually end, I just didn't expect it to slip away one night without even saying goodbye. I guess I never really knew what to expect beyond the unexpected to begin with, so I can't really be too upset by any sudden changes. I knew it would be about strength; about survival, trials, walking through fire and nearly insurmountable faith braided into thick ropes of life lessons.
On my way home tonight, as the dark sky poured rain down onto my windshield, Simon and Garfunkle's "I am a Rock" came on the radio and it made me think about a conversation I had with a coworker. *sigh* I promised myself I wouldn't get attached to anyone at this job because I didn't expect to be here very long. I still don't expect to be here much longer but it seems I have found a sudden trap in unlocking a friendship with one of the most intellectually stimulating people there.
I put up walls. People tore them down. I pulled back, people came closer. I reminded myself over and over "coworkers are coworkers, not friends" because I've been burned far too many times in the past to be foolish enough to let my guard down. I kept my thoughts to my poetry and my journals as best I could and fought to keep myself as much of an enigma as possible.
And dammit if it didn't all crumble at my feet one way or another.
Trust is a thing to be earned. I will probably always have trouble trusting people but some just have an ability to break down my walls with a single glance. Books were supposed to be my shield. Instead, they became the undercover catalyst for one of the most thought-provoking conversations I've had about literature in a month of Sundays.
I think what I find most intriguing about him, however, is how incredibly misunderstood he is by the rest of our team.
"I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain."
Labeled as "the constantly grumpy guy", I have to wonder exactly upon which standards my coworkers base their determinations. The difference between people who smile and people who don't is interdependent upon how much they think about the world around them. I've noticed as I've gotten to know him more, whenever I get lost in thought and am enjoying the random internal conversations in my head, someone inevitably disrupts my peace to shout "SMILE! You look so angry!" and sometimes I want to shout back "I AM Angry! I was thinking about how EASILY obtainable biosand water filters could be in East Africa if only we had enough money to buy and fly them over so others wouldn't die from contaminated drinking water and they might actually stand a chance at living to see 18! You should be angry too!"
But alas, thoughts are for the "boring" and those with too much time on their hands. Or so I'm told. But this guy... he thinks. And when he speaks, he enriches my world, makes me laugh, and validates my own reasons for not smiling. It's not even that I am opposed to a world of happiness it's just... I don't know. The world didn't turn out the way I expected it to as a wide-eyed child and sometimes it's nice to have someone understand when and why you need to occasionally regroup. But it's also really nice to have someone inside my walls every now and then. It's a healthy reminder that not everything in this world is destructive either.
I feel both completely ready and wholly unprepared to leave for my next adventure. It would be so much easier to cut ties if I cared about no one along the way of life. But then, how sad would be my existence? Everything in me says I should remain an island forever and stick to superlatives for safety. But then someone has to come along and fuck things up. This is the story of my life: an ever-softening heart failing to harden itself to the lies of the world. Even still, it brings me joy to see someone take interest in my continued existence on this planet, proving that, at least for now, I'm not a total waste of hydrogen and carbon.
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me."
-Simon and Garfunkle
Summer has reached an end and as if on cue, autumn has been instantly drenched in rain. I knew summer would eventually end, I just didn't expect it to slip away one night without even saying goodbye. I guess I never really knew what to expect beyond the unexpected to begin with, so I can't really be too upset by any sudden changes. I knew it would be about strength; about survival, trials, walking through fire and nearly insurmountable faith braided into thick ropes of life lessons.
On my way home tonight, as the dark sky poured rain down onto my windshield, Simon and Garfunkle's "I am a Rock" came on the radio and it made me think about a conversation I had with a coworker. *sigh* I promised myself I wouldn't get attached to anyone at this job because I didn't expect to be here very long. I still don't expect to be here much longer but it seems I have found a sudden trap in unlocking a friendship with one of the most intellectually stimulating people there.
I put up walls. People tore them down. I pulled back, people came closer. I reminded myself over and over "coworkers are coworkers, not friends" because I've been burned far too many times in the past to be foolish enough to let my guard down. I kept my thoughts to my poetry and my journals as best I could and fought to keep myself as much of an enigma as possible.
And dammit if it didn't all crumble at my feet one way or another.
Trust is a thing to be earned. I will probably always have trouble trusting people but some just have an ability to break down my walls with a single glance. Books were supposed to be my shield. Instead, they became the undercover catalyst for one of the most thought-provoking conversations I've had about literature in a month of Sundays.
I think what I find most intriguing about him, however, is how incredibly misunderstood he is by the rest of our team.
"I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain."
Labeled as "the constantly grumpy guy", I have to wonder exactly upon which standards my coworkers base their determinations. The difference between people who smile and people who don't is interdependent upon how much they think about the world around them. I've noticed as I've gotten to know him more, whenever I get lost in thought and am enjoying the random internal conversations in my head, someone inevitably disrupts my peace to shout "SMILE! You look so angry!" and sometimes I want to shout back "I AM Angry! I was thinking about how EASILY obtainable biosand water filters could be in East Africa if only we had enough money to buy and fly them over so others wouldn't die from contaminated drinking water and they might actually stand a chance at living to see 18! You should be angry too!"
But alas, thoughts are for the "boring" and those with too much time on their hands. Or so I'm told. But this guy... he thinks. And when he speaks, he enriches my world, makes me laugh, and validates my own reasons for not smiling. It's not even that I am opposed to a world of happiness it's just... I don't know. The world didn't turn out the way I expected it to as a wide-eyed child and sometimes it's nice to have someone understand when and why you need to occasionally regroup. But it's also really nice to have someone inside my walls every now and then. It's a healthy reminder that not everything in this world is destructive either.
I feel both completely ready and wholly unprepared to leave for my next adventure. It would be so much easier to cut ties if I cared about no one along the way of life. But then, how sad would be my existence? Everything in me says I should remain an island forever and stick to superlatives for safety. But then someone has to come along and fuck things up. This is the story of my life: an ever-softening heart failing to harden itself to the lies of the world. Even still, it brings me joy to see someone take interest in my continued existence on this planet, proving that, at least for now, I'm not a total waste of hydrogen and carbon.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
The Insurmountable Weight of Falling in Love
"The Insurmountable Weight of Falling in Love"
Oh but how I long to
touch you
when morning's light
peaks through the heavy curtains!
My love, your arms are
ever too far away,
with mountains and
valleys and miles of freeways between us.
And it is in your arms I
long to be
because there, in your
embrace,
I am more free than any
other moment
I've drawn breath in my
life.
You are my lighthouse
in the night,
my safe harbour in the
storms,
the soft shore upon
which my body crashes
in waves of passion
and the only
destination to which I ever want to travel.
If I lose myself in
moments of separation,
I can blame only the
pull of the lunar orbit
making these confounded
heart strings
dance like a marionette
in desperate need of your affirming smile.
You are my Boaz.
I would spend all my
days picking single grains
from the fields if only
to be rewarded
with the honour of
sleeping at your feet each night
and never giving you
pause to consider the depth of my devotion.
If ever my fields ran
barren,
I would plant every
flower and crop known to man
to ensure you were
never hungry or without beauty
constantly surrounding
your world.
My darling, you are my
heartbeat;
the gravitational force
that causes
me to lose my breath
when you smile.
You are the force
inside me that brings me joy
and vigor for life
in ways that no
artificial replacement
could ever hope to
compare.
Though my past is
scourged with darkness
and I often leave
blackened footprints
through your perfect
walkways,
It is your unbending
strength
that permits me to
continue believing in faith.
Believing in love.
Believing the scorched
earth
will one day flush with
garden roses again.
My love, you are mine.
And in that alone,
there is nothing more
I could ever ask you to
be.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
The Seemingly Supernal Nature of Otherwise Conventional Laughter
"The Seemingly Supernal Nature of Otherwise Conventional Laughter"
She laughs quietly and
brushes the hair from her eyes
when he suddenly
freezes,
catches her gaze and
says
“What does that laugh mean?
I've never heard you laugh that way before.”
“What does that laugh mean?
I've never heard you laugh that way before.”
Her cheeks instantly
burn
and flush a bright pink
as she desperately
tries to distract him
or change the subject.
And it works.
It's too foolish and
risky to try to explain
that every once in a
while
when her shoes are off
and her guard is down,
if you place your and
on her leg in just the right way
while telling her that
she's beautiful,
her soul begins to fray
a little at the seams.
Not much, but just
enough to reveal that she isn't
anything he dreams her
to be.
He sees this enchanting
duchess of great stature and beauty
when in reality,
she couldn't find
matching socks
again,
her life is just as
much a mess as her house,
she's late on the
electric bill
again,
and she has absolutely
no idea what she's doing
in any aspect of
living.
But the thing is, if she could be doing anything,
But the thing is, if she could be doing anything,
she'd
want it to be something meaningful and beautiful.
And
that's where things get complicated.
He
seems to think the simple act of breathing
is
a an exquisitely graceful process,
whether
expressed through tiny gasps,
excited
lengthy stories about butterflies,
or
as now, a quiet laugh.
She
has never been graceful a day in her life.
But
he touches her as if she were a Lily,
so
delicate to the touch, that even fingertips
could
bruise.
He
looks at her as a child stares at a rainbow,
taking
in all the colours before it suddenly disappears.
And
he speaks to her as if she might one day wake up
and
decide to never speak to him again.
But she is no duchess.
She is no champion of intangible beauty.
But she is no duchess.
She is no champion of intangible beauty.
She
is anything but put together.
At best, she is held together with glitter,
At best, she is held together with glitter,
rubber
cement,
and
a thousand wishes on stars.
She
laughs
not
because what he says is funny,
but
because she fears in a moment of
unexpected
vulnerability
she
has bared more than just her feet
and
he can see all the secrets
she's
spent a lifetime trying not to reveal.
In truth,
In truth,
she'd
love to be a duchess...
but
they don't take her kind
and
he has only ever loved her
through
rose-coloured glasses.
That
laugh
was
the most real he's ever seen.
And
in that moment,
he
had no idea who she was.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Disappointments, Achievements, and Major Life Moments
My car hit 100,000 miles on the way to work yesterday.
I had so many expectations and hopes when I first bought that car; where it would take me, how long it would be before I hit that milestone of adulthood and what I would be doing with my life when I got there.
Unsurprising, I never expected to be driving at 6;30 in the morning on my day off to go work a 12 hour shift for an entry level job well below my estimated potential aptitude. To say hitting that milestone was a disappointment would be a gross understatement. I mean, it's not like I expected to be writing my own rendition of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" while on some Hunter S. Thompsonesque epic gonzo journalism adventure but I mean, I dunno... I remember being a kid in the car with my parents as we counted down the miles driving cross country to a new military station and when we hit 100K, we all cheered.
Was is cheesy? Sure. Mediocre? By most standards, absolutely. I guess what disappoints me is that I had no one to share it with. I called my parents and clearly woke them up (who in their right mind gets up at 6am on a Saturday anyway?) and my dad was basically like "that's nice. congratulations. I'm going back to bed." and I could hear my mom in the background FREAKING out because in her world a 6:30am call clearly means I am being held up at gunpoint or living out some other equally insane movie plot. Though to be fair, just a week ago, I was chased down the freeway at more than 85 mph by a crazy ex-boyfriend who was trying kill me and my passenger, his ex-girlfriend, by throwing things at my windshield. So I guess once a decade, my mom sorta has a right to panic.
I got Marvy in the summer of 2003. He was bought in secret because my then "one and only" wouldn't allow me to drive, have a license, leave the house, breathe without permission, etc. I had scored an awesome job going on a short-term tour with a bunch of famous comedian TV and movie stars. The actor who put the show together hired me specifically because he could see I was in an abusive marriage and wanted to give me a reason to get out of the house and get away from him for a while. What my ex didn't "garnish" from my wages as a "finder's fee" (apparently it costs $900 to say "this famous actor's agent called me today and wants to hire you") I took and sent to my parents and asked them to find me a car for which my earnings would make a suitable down payment in a price range I could afford to keep up with after my ex garnished my paychecks every week.
$187 a month for a 1 year old car with only 12,000 miles and 2.9% fixed APR for 5 years was an unheard of miracle. I remember my parents had to fax the paperwork to the store I worked at so my ex wouldn't find out what I was doing. The title was put in my name to give me some form of equity upon with to build credit and hopefully, eventually leave him.
Most people buy a car for looks, efficiency, future family needs practical stuff. My car was purchased by price, and my ability to safely live in it, if my relationship got to the point where i had to flee at a moments notice. I remember running home from work every day, frantically checking the mail to make sure the title for the car didn't arrive before I could find and hide it. My parents and I worked out a master plan to tell him they decided to "surprise" me with a "gift" of a new car that I would pay them back for every month. In reality, everything was in my name. The loan, the insurance, the title, they had nothing to do with it except find it and file the paperwork for me from 1,000 miles away and then drive it up to me.
I remember the day I started saving cardboard boxes in my trunk in case I decided to leave him.I remember being panicked the day he FOUND the boxes and I had to pretend that a friend asked me to bring them home for her from work because she was moving.
I remember the day, 2 weeks after I left him, driving home from the welfare office after the lady there told me "I can' believe you're ONLY 22 and ALREADY a victim of domestic violence" as she threw a food stamps card at me and walked away before she could catch whatever disease I seemed to have. I remember sitting in the car for three and a half hours outside the domestic violence shelter I was living at. I sat there for hours crying, looking at a statement that said "You qualify for $11 a month in food stamps even though you only make $400 a month" and thinking I would never overcome my situation and it was better to just end my life right then. My work apron was inside my room at the shelter with my box cutter in it. I stayed in the car until I could finally find a reason to not give up. I was only 22 and that car had already saved my life twice.
I drove to my first day of university in that car, accidentally drove to Canada, drove cross country four times, went to the 2010 Olympics in that car, had my first kiss in a foreign country in that car, was searched by immigration, went on my first solo road trip, graduated college, moved into my very first apartment, road-tripped with my pet fish, adopted the first cat that belonged only to me, got my first parking ticket, and yeah, even got in a high speed car chase in it.
I've managed to keep his wheels rolling for 13 years without blowing the stock speakers (which is impressive considering how loud I play my radio on the freeway), The upholstery still looks fantastic, and aside from one giant dent in the read bumper, he's in pretty good shape.
I don't know where I'll be in another 13 years or when I hit 200,000 but I hope I will be more financially stable at a job that is in my career field paying me what my estimated potential is worth at a fair market value... and who knows, maybe I'll have enough money to finally fix that dent.
Or not. It makes him a lot easier to find in crowded parking lots. I'm still on the fence. But I guess I've got a bit of time on m hands to officially decide. :)
I had so many expectations and hopes when I first bought that car; where it would take me, how long it would be before I hit that milestone of adulthood and what I would be doing with my life when I got there.
Unsurprising, I never expected to be driving at 6;30 in the morning on my day off to go work a 12 hour shift for an entry level job well below my estimated potential aptitude. To say hitting that milestone was a disappointment would be a gross understatement. I mean, it's not like I expected to be writing my own rendition of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" while on some Hunter S. Thompsonesque epic gonzo journalism adventure but I mean, I dunno... I remember being a kid in the car with my parents as we counted down the miles driving cross country to a new military station and when we hit 100K, we all cheered.
Was is cheesy? Sure. Mediocre? By most standards, absolutely. I guess what disappoints me is that I had no one to share it with. I called my parents and clearly woke them up (who in their right mind gets up at 6am on a Saturday anyway?) and my dad was basically like "that's nice. congratulations. I'm going back to bed." and I could hear my mom in the background FREAKING out because in her world a 6:30am call clearly means I am being held up at gunpoint or living out some other equally insane movie plot. Though to be fair, just a week ago, I was chased down the freeway at more than 85 mph by a crazy ex-boyfriend who was trying kill me and my passenger, his ex-girlfriend, by throwing things at my windshield. So I guess once a decade, my mom sorta has a right to panic.
I got Marvy in the summer of 2003. He was bought in secret because my then "one and only" wouldn't allow me to drive, have a license, leave the house, breathe without permission, etc. I had scored an awesome job going on a short-term tour with a bunch of famous comedian TV and movie stars. The actor who put the show together hired me specifically because he could see I was in an abusive marriage and wanted to give me a reason to get out of the house and get away from him for a while. What my ex didn't "garnish" from my wages as a "finder's fee" (apparently it costs $900 to say "this famous actor's agent called me today and wants to hire you") I took and sent to my parents and asked them to find me a car for which my earnings would make a suitable down payment in a price range I could afford to keep up with after my ex garnished my paychecks every week.
$187 a month for a 1 year old car with only 12,000 miles and 2.9% fixed APR for 5 years was an unheard of miracle. I remember my parents had to fax the paperwork to the store I worked at so my ex wouldn't find out what I was doing. The title was put in my name to give me some form of equity upon with to build credit and hopefully, eventually leave him.
Most people buy a car for looks, efficiency, future family needs practical stuff. My car was purchased by price, and my ability to safely live in it, if my relationship got to the point where i had to flee at a moments notice. I remember running home from work every day, frantically checking the mail to make sure the title for the car didn't arrive before I could find and hide it. My parents and I worked out a master plan to tell him they decided to "surprise" me with a "gift" of a new car that I would pay them back for every month. In reality, everything was in my name. The loan, the insurance, the title, they had nothing to do with it except find it and file the paperwork for me from 1,000 miles away and then drive it up to me.
I remember the day I started saving cardboard boxes in my trunk in case I decided to leave him.I remember being panicked the day he FOUND the boxes and I had to pretend that a friend asked me to bring them home for her from work because she was moving.
I remember the day, 2 weeks after I left him, driving home from the welfare office after the lady there told me "I can' believe you're ONLY 22 and ALREADY a victim of domestic violence" as she threw a food stamps card at me and walked away before she could catch whatever disease I seemed to have. I remember sitting in the car for three and a half hours outside the domestic violence shelter I was living at. I sat there for hours crying, looking at a statement that said "You qualify for $11 a month in food stamps even though you only make $400 a month" and thinking I would never overcome my situation and it was better to just end my life right then. My work apron was inside my room at the shelter with my box cutter in it. I stayed in the car until I could finally find a reason to not give up. I was only 22 and that car had already saved my life twice.
I drove to my first day of university in that car, accidentally drove to Canada, drove cross country four times, went to the 2010 Olympics in that car, had my first kiss in a foreign country in that car, was searched by immigration, went on my first solo road trip, graduated college, moved into my very first apartment, road-tripped with my pet fish, adopted the first cat that belonged only to me, got my first parking ticket, and yeah, even got in a high speed car chase in it.
I've managed to keep his wheels rolling for 13 years without blowing the stock speakers (which is impressive considering how loud I play my radio on the freeway), The upholstery still looks fantastic, and aside from one giant dent in the read bumper, he's in pretty good shape.
I don't know where I'll be in another 13 years or when I hit 200,000 but I hope I will be more financially stable at a job that is in my career field paying me what my estimated potential is worth at a fair market value... and who knows, maybe I'll have enough money to finally fix that dent.
Or not. It makes him a lot easier to find in crowded parking lots. I'm still on the fence. But I guess I've got a bit of time on m hands to officially decide. :)
Saturday, August 8, 2015
"An Incident in Which a Late Bus Nearly Changed the World"
"An Incident in Which a Late Bus Nearly Changed the World"
He says he gets nervous
around really beautiful women.
But the problem is,
she's not beautiful
and he doesn't seem
afraid of anything in the world.
They sit across from
each other at a bus station
while a messy autumn
rain causes wet leaves to stick to passersby,
as if to prove a point
that you can never shake yourself free
from all of life's
little nuances.
He's got blue collar
hands and blue collar hair;
a look that says his
hands work too hard to find themselves
nestled in those of a
beautiful woman,
and a his hair is only
ever cut to keep it out of his eyes.
She looks down at her
book of poetry,
wondering if she would
ever amount to such a desire
that would drive a man
to write about her the way
T. S. Eliot speaks of
love.
She stares intently at the yellowed pages
She stares intently at the yellowed pages
as the words begin to
blur:
“Love is most
nearly itself
When here and now
cease to matter.”
He
studies her movements,
turning
pages like placing flowers in a jar.
She
pretends not to see him,
painfully
aware, as she feels like each page
turns
with the force of door after door
slamming
shut on her future.
He
speaks not a word.
She
moves nothing but her hands and her eyes.
At
3:17pm on a Thursday afternoon
the
uptown and east-side buses arrive,
and
the strangers pass one another
without
a second glance.
At
precisely 3:19pm the rain finally lets up,
weary
from defeat.
The
sky had poured out its soul unto them
in
hopes of forcing them onto the same crowded benches
in hopes of giving them a reason to talk;
in hopes of giving them a reason to talk;
who
doesn't engage in meaningless conversation about the weather
when
in the company of strangers?
That
was their chance.
He
was supposed to ask about her book.
She was supposed to tell him it was the only thing
She was supposed to tell him it was the only thing
the
airline didn't lose when she landed.
He
was supposed to ask her where she was going.
He
was supposed to tell her 12th Street was on the East side.
They
were supposed to ride the same line together.
The
bus was supposed to get a flat tire in the rain.
They
were supposed to talk for an hour,
stranded
on the side of the highway.
She was the one not meant to get away.
He was the answer to all her shooting star wishes.
She was the one not meant to get away.
He was the answer to all her shooting star wishes.
But
he never spoke.
Because
beautiful women make him nervous.
And
she never spoke
because
she wasn't beautiful –
to
anyone but him.
In
silence.
In
the rain.
And she would never be beautiful again.
And she would never be beautiful again.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Road maps and reward systems
My mom sent me a message this afternoon informing me that, exactly 21 years ago today, I left Seattle for the Arizona desert.
Ironically, I left the Arizona desert for Seattle when I turned 21,
It's hard to look at life sometimes and see where I am, compared to where I thought I'd be by now. I was supposed to be someone... do something important... do anything.
21 years ago I was a skinny ugly awkward 13 year who had just learned how to shave her legs but still had no idea that the world was kinder to girls who had perfectly groomed eyebrows, short skirts, and too much perfume. And now here I stand, mid-thirties, far from gangly, less ugly, slightly less awkward, and with a much greater understanding of a world where the beautiful girls go out on Friday nights and I read computer software release notes in my pajamas with my cat.
It's not the worst life I could live. In fact, it's the happiest I've been in years. But that's part of the problem. When you live so much of your life waiting for the other shoe to drop, happiness is a dangerous lover to flirt with. I've given my heart away so many times, I've started to find pieces of it in thrift stores alongside discarded VCRs, records, and other means of obsolete communication.
We live in a world where everything is merely surface deep because that's all we feel safe with anymore. When I was 13, I would've given anything be told I was beautiful and now... a guy recently started telling em I was beautiful and every time, I instinctively laugh in response. It's not that I find the comment funny... I just don't know what to say other than "I don't believe you in the slightest bit. If you scratched even a millimeter below my surface, you'd run screaming like hundreds of guys before you."
We keep everyone at arm's distance these days because it's safe, and we sacrifice authenticity for a false sense of security.
Twenty one years ago I wanted a fairytale romance. When I was 21, I just wanted romance. Now? Now I want something authentic. It's not about the looks or the cars or the salaries or the flashandbang flattery that distracts us from the reality.
I want something I can touch. Something I can taste and feel in my soul. I want authentic love with imperfections, hard-working hands, rough and calloused from a live well-lived. I want eyes that aren't afraid to look into mine and see who I really am. I want a voice that isn't afraid to whisper vulnerabilities in the quiet embrace of a winter night. I want real love with tattered edges and faithful roots. I want my worth to lie in my soul, rather than my beauty, and a man who can recognize that without needing to be told,
I want life to be an adventure, not a disappointment. I want passion and fire and hope and laughter and everything we overlook on a daily basis in pursuit of the "American Dream"... now sponsored by Corporate America executives.
The only place I truly feel alive and free is in my car, with the windows down, the breeze in my hair, and the radio up as loud as humanly possible.
Because when the radio is loud enough you can't hear someone crying. When the radio is loud enough, you are never sad, and most of all, when the radio is loud enough, you can literally feel it in your heart.
Few things in life are so pure and true.
I don't get out much around town, but I'm great at road trips. The same strip of Interstate 5, running from one border to the other and back. It's a long few thousand miles, but when it's just me and God and the radio...
I am never more happy or alive
I may never learn how to fully be "beautiful" in the eyes of a man beyond washable surface value, but I'm an expert in singing 80s rock anthems at the top of my lungs, And I guess in a way, it kinda makes me feel beautiful to be that free.
Friday, July 17, 2015
working title: Covalent Bonding
Co...
He comes to her in the heat of the night.
He comes to her in the heat of the night.
She awaits
like two electrons with
a shared interest,
they become one source
of energy.
Valence...
It's chemical.
It's powerful.
It holds tight, exchanging bursts of electricity
It's powerful.
It holds tight, exchanging bursts of electricity
as fingertips mingle
with tongues
and together, they
refute the world around them.
Intertwined flesh on
flesh,
all that is holy and
unholy,
sacred, raw,
passionate.
In hushed whispers,
In hushed whispers,
he tells her secrets
that flush her cheeks
with blush
and make her body ache
to bond with his.
This is more than
science,
This is more than
feeling.
This is the moment upon
which
all other chemical and
physical reactions will take place.
Stretching limb to limb, atom to atom
Stretching limb to limb, atom to atom
action to reaction
they
will
stumble
and
fall.
And it will be
glorious.
In the fraction of a
second,
they form a
sigma-bonded affair –
Two like-minded
elements
forming one diatomic
molecule...
One flesh.
One moment of
singularity
against which, nothing
in the world can overcome.
With tools of symmetry,
he pushes, she pulls
him in.
He withdraws, she
follows.
Overlapping orbitals
lead to their cyclical
motion;
forever cementing this
moment
in the history of all
that has been or will be.
Nothing can become what
they are in this moment.
Co-valence is the the
sharing of power between
two elemental forces.
It is the strongest
bond known to man.
It is scientific.
It is chemical.
And yet,
It is
so
much.
More.
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