Kiss on Wet Glass

I hate my uterus. Part IX.

2011-04-01T20:38:00.003-05:00

Whiskey and cigarettes. For when you can't stop crying on the laundry room floor.

Fuck, I'm turning into my dad.

Oh Neruda...

2011-01-23T01:17:00.002-06:00

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

~Pablo Neruda
Read more: http://hellopoetry.com/poem/xvii-i-do-not-love-you/#ixzz1Bqf1j8nv

Misadventures with Little Cricket in LA

2011-01-19T00:35:00.014-06:00

TUESDAY
a sign turned around backwards
the other side of magic, a blankness
a splinter in my heel and an overflowing toilet
the beginning of 150 hours of confusion, but i didn't know it yet

WEDNESDAY
disconnection
unrelenting pain and the constancy of painkillers
no reaction to my touch
no light in his eyes
light in his eyes i couldn't reach
drinks i couldn't afford
trying
him reading the darkness in my eyes
an open wound of mystery

THURSDAY
a three hour black-out in the city
despair while dancing to violins by candlelight
giving up
a conversation erasing a stranger
an unexpected question
finally getting really fucking high
cautious optimism despite all evidence to the contrary

FRIDAY
meditating in the hollywood hills
looking for a labyrinth and finding his childhood church next door
a moment with the divine in the oldest part of LA
the unknown closing of his favorite japanese restaurant
the making of plans
not quite being able to let go and dance
never having any idea what he was thinking or feeling
the unmaking of plans
knowing the final nail in the coffin was coming

SATURDAY
the disappearance of the one thing i really wanted
giving up
deciding to go "home"
no flights out
2 o'clock and the rental car agency closed at noon
trapped in LA with a fucking stranger in the decrepit house of his godmother
chain-smoking outside a shopping mall
wondering if i was going to have a psychotic break
my credit card being turned down
him buying me a book about time travel
almost being hypnotized by the power of my dreams
answering imaginary interview questions
realizing he was a gambler with a heart of gold
realizing i had taught a gambler with a heart of gold how to play poker
recognizing the storm of optimism we'd been caught in
finally beginning to see him
the beginning of friendship
the reappearance of certainty
not wanting to be seen
wanting to be near him
never knowing which one of us was a kaleidoscope

SUNDAY
alone in LA
falling in love with a pair of sphinxes
taking pictures of the shadows of art
dancing by myself in the living room
a drunk dial filled with laughter
him returning to me
openness and playfulness and sensuality
how things were supposed to be
an unripe avocado, a broken fence, and spilled wine
"don't worry, it's just a symbol"
never knowing if we actually kissed
not being able to see him see me
shit i didn't want to be reminded of
a doorknob falling apart in my hand
a roller-coaster in a house of mirrors

MONDAY
waking up and hating myself
going the fuck back to sleep
knowing what he was feeling by the music he was playing
connection
feeling like he was my husband
marked by sadness
waving good-bye on opposite sides of airport security
crying while the plane took off
crying while the plane landed
a 9 month relationship poured into 6 days

choosing love over fear and walking into the heart of an enigma

Who said that love was fire?

2011-01-18T23:33:00.001-06:00

Who said that love was fire?
I know that love is ash.
It is the thing which remains
When the fire is spent,
The holy essence of experience.

~Patience Worth

Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton...!

2011-01-03T14:35:00.005-06:00

"What is serious to man is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as 'play' is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in the mysterious cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch the echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat, when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts, or when, like the Japanese poet Basho we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the 'newness,' the emptiness and the purity of the vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

"For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.

"Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join the general dance."

~Thomas Merton

What I meant to say was that I want to fall in love with you very, very slowly

2010-12-27T00:00:00.004-06:00

No one has as absurd a love life as I do.

NO ONE.

Northern Lights

2010-09-15T21:09:00.006-05:00

The experiment in celibacy is becoming quite interesting. I just watched a show about the sun, and I think I more or less had sex with the universe. Or at least the solar system.

I'm going to need to see the Northern Lights.

My body constantly wants to eat the universe.

2010-08-11T21:44:00.013-05:00

Somehow this week I am finishing up grad school (again), starting to fast for Ramadan, and moving out of my place to escape to the country. I'm oddly calm about all of the Major Life Transitions that are Happening Right Now, but that could just be the denial talking. There is no furniture in my house except for a mattress on the floor and a decrepit book shelf full of old bank statements and art supplies (mostly red). The majority of my belongings are in piles on the floor, usually right next to empty boxes, but not actually in the boxes. Packing everything I own and cleaning the place in two days while I am not eating for 12 hours a day should be easy, right?

This Ramadan got off to a weird start. Actually it got off to a perfect start, since it began last night. I was having dinner with H. at Mother's when the sun set, which was lovely and in some ways a great encapsulation of how this transition is going. Because who else, several weeks before she is about to move across the country, more or less falls in love with a man with muscular dystrophy 18 years her senior? NO ONE. (Well, H. might know a few...) Ah well. I love longing and mystery and the universe kindly showers me with an abundance of both. It is very interesting to know him right now, as we are both going through Major Life Transitions. He is buying some land outside of Austin to start a holistic health center for folks with MD. It feels like there is something else at play in us (re)entering each others' lives at this particular moment.

Anyway, the weirdness of Ramadan was this morning. I couldn't sleep last night so I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning reading about the holographic nature of the universe. Then I started investigating how I could spend some time at Esalen before I settle down in whatever my next hometown will be. I finally went to bed at about 4 am, only to wake up two hours later to try and beat the sun. So I went to McDonald's. MCDONALD'S. I started off my first day of fasting with MCDONALD's. After which I promptly fell asleep on the couch. Fail. Damn you, enchanting holographic nature of reality.

The rest of the day was a blur of almost-but-not-quite packing and finishing up things at my internship. I had my last meeting with my fabulous supervisor Inga Larson, during which I started to feel the effects of not eating for 8 hours. Since there was not much food in my house for dinner, I went to Central Market. I'm pretty disorganized when I shop anyway, so you can imagine what it was like on a very empty stomach with little sleep. There were no straight lines, no lists, just the chaotic tracing of nutrient-deprived neural networks back and forth across the shiny floors. There was actually something strangely interesting about the experience, watching the impulse to snack on the cheese samples, being utterly distracted by the smell of fresh coffee. My body constantly wants to eat the universe.

Fasting started to get quite amazodelirinteresting around 6:30 pm, when my brain really started to shut down. I was increasingly delirious in my house without furniture, stumbling around piles of clothes and empty boxes, trying to talk to strangers from Craigslist who really really really want the last of my belongings. At some point I became fascinated with the pile of half-filled journals I have accumulated since high school. I thumbed through them in a reverie, feeling like I needed to DO something with them, but unable to figure out what. One of them was empty except for the sentence "Everyone needs a pet monkey" and a list of peoples' addresses from 1995.

At some point I did a little latihan and started cooking dinner. Cooking actually helped me feel more focused and wasn't as difficult as I expected. And then I felt normal again. Simple as that. So normal that I am now drinking tea and smoking cigarettes at Spiderhouse (fail). So normal that I am concerned I will stay up again all night reading about holograms.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

There were fireworks on the day I decided to leave.

2010-07-04T20:40:00.012-05:00

So, I've decided to leave Austin. I've decided to leave Texas.

Yeah.

I haven't really caught up with my decision yet. Every time I try to really think about it, I just get...ellipses. A blank space filled with something uncertain. A shade of disbelief.

Who am I without Austin? On one hand that is an easy question to answer. Wendy, Wendy, in love with eternity, in love with mystery, in love with the unknown. On the other hand, my whole adult life has been in Austin. I wandered in as an insecure 19 year old and turned into...exactly who I want to be when I grow up. The process has been unexpected, miraculous, heart-breaking, boring, lonely, beautiful, amazing. It has been full of laughter, full of play, full of beautiful humans, full of shit, full of disappointment, full of music, full of magic, full of dancing, full of intoxicants, full of hundreds of broken expectations, full of lanterns, full of crystals. And full of God. Most definitely full of God.

A part of me wants to separate out my experiences from Austin. There was my first love, a crippling depression, some bad decisions about men, groups of friends coalescing and dispersing, countless drunken shenanigans, a handful of miraculous Flipsides, the revelation of God, the discovery of what I want to do with my life. And it all happened here. Austin.

There is no way to separate it out. Austin was the background.

In a way, that is what Austin does. Every year it takes in thousands of young folks and watches them while they wander around having fun, bruising their knees and hearts, until they finally stumble upon the truth of who they are. It somehow keeps them safe, ever watchful but gentle, never too heavy-handed. People float in, thinking they will only be here for a short while and then years pass and they realize they don't really want to leave. Austin was only supposed to be a temporary stop, until I got my degree and moved on. Which is, basically, what happened, just fourteen years and three degrees later.

I don't think Austin lets you leave until you are ready.

And I am writing this at Spider House on Independence Day. Outside on the patio, under the Christmas lights, drinking sangria and smoking while I write, write, write. Spider House and Austin, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. I almost can't think of one without the other. How much time have I spent at Spider House writing? How much time have I spent at Spider House in general? When I first came to Spider House I used to write in my thick black journal about how fucked up I was, how ugly, how no one would ever love me. I wrote most of my papers as an undergraduate here. I remember staying up late into the night, writing a paper here about Kabir and sound. We came here on my 21st birthday, and I ordered a Shiner an hour before I was officially 21. I still remember the bartender looking at my ID and hesitating before she gave me the drink. I also remember getting overstimulated and climbing under the table that night. Natalie and I came here the Monday after our first Flipside. We sat in silence, holding hands and crying. There was this. And this. An evil, narcisstic ex-boyfriend used to come here every day and ruined Spider House for me for a couple of years. But I came back.

And now I am here, thinking about leaving.

One of the things I have learned in Austin is that I am not good at good-byes. I used to think that leaving was easy, that I could walk away from that apartment, that job, that lover, that friend without a backward glance, without a pause, without feeling a thing. Only to find myself astonished a few days later when I couldn't stop crying. Now I know that I have to honor all the endings in my life. I know I have to process leaving and that I am going to cry and feel like my heart is breaking and that this is completely okay.

So, in the next six weeks I'm going to go to all the places where my heart has broken and stare at them. I'm going to go to all the places where my heart grew and transformed and take it all in. Many of these are the same places, so that should save some time. I already cried today thinking about Sculpture Falls, breakfast tacos, and the Texas sky in the summer. My friend Laura said that I shouldn't let my grief convince me to stay. It is an adventure.

But how am I going to live without the giant-ass Texas sky in the summer? Especially when it was full of fireworks on the day I decided to leave.

You there, reading this poem by robert martin

2010-07-01T00:51:00.001-05:00

I,
the consciousness
that I am,
eternal,
indestructible,
the consciousness,
that cannot be burned,
or cut, or marked, or wet,
the consciousness that can travel
at the speed of thought,
the consciousness that is already there,
the very consciousness that says:
there is no real time, or space,
there are no limitations,
the consciousness that says:
you are made in the image of God,
to be Godlike,
the consciousness that experiences,
itself,
unfolding,
unto itself,
by itself,
for itself,
the sacred expression,
you there,
reading this poem,
you are the very one,
I address,
saying:
I see a light.
and by “I see a light,”
the I,
I am talking about,
is “you,”
I see a light,
a tiny fragile, beautiful bubble,
of light,
floating in emptiness,
and it sees me,
and in dancing,
we move,
into the other,
and it is the universe,
and I, can, see,
as if,
standing on the edge,
of a football field,
looking out,
I can see—
end to end,
top to bottom,
side to side,
post to post,
this tiny bubble of light,
full of movement,
spiraling, and spiraling
unfolding,
unto itself,
by itself for itself,
this galactic expanse,
life,
full of expectation,
I can see the majesty,
I see the sacred expression,
and it sees me,
and we dance,
and we move,
into the other,
and we dance,
and we move,
into the other,
and I am it.
and I am it.

Read more: http://hellopoetry.com/poem/you-there-reading-this-poem/#ixzz0sPJ1DB4f

I hate my uterus. Part VIII.

2010-06-27T16:00:00.003-05:00

Watching The Full Monty and crying. Fuck you, PMS.

re-membering

2010-06-04T12:23:00.015-05:00

every day i build a ladder from my heart to God

on lazy afternoons angels stroll down
they like to eat pistachio ice cream in the sunlight
and make babies smile

they can only do God's will

when i don't know what to do
with this pinch of the cosmos i have been given
i climb up the ladder
to watch the stars
spiral along the skeleton of the universe

i re-member
there is no separation
we are all made of mystery
we are all cells of the divine
every moment is an exchange
we are forever becoming
there is no end

it makes it much easier
to deal with the state of my bank account

2010-05-19T00:49:00.000-05:00

"The desire to question life comes from life itself, from that part of life which is still hidden. Life provokes us to question. It wants to be admired. As long as it is not, the question remains." - Jean Klein

Just another week in the life of a dancing nerd mystic

2010-05-14T01:51:00.005-05:00

1. I recently committed to 1000 days of celibacy.
2. Even more recently, I've become a little...um, boy crazy?
3. Also, a little girl crazy?
4. I feel like I am barely tethered to the earth.
5. My car got broken into and I don't even care?
6. My biggest concern about the car break-in was that I was not very concerned?
7. Also, I knew it was going to happen?
8. Then I came home to 200 skull beads and delicious, delicious cake.

9. Being in love with mystery is awesome.

The Quintessence of Loneliness

2010-05-04T12:00:00.002-05:00

I am like a heroin addict
In my longing for a sublime state,

For that ground of Conscious Nothing,
Where the Rose ever
Blooms.

Oh, the Friend
Has done me a great favor
and has so thoroughly ruined my life,

What else would you expect
Seeing God would do!

Out of the ashes of this broken frame
There is a noble rising son pining for death,
Because,

Since we first met, Beloved,
I have become a foreigner
To every world
Except that one
In which there is only You
Or - Me.

Now that the heart has held
That which can never be touched
My subsistence is a blessed
Desolation.

And from that I cry out for more loneliness.

I am lonely.
I am so lonely, dear Beloved,
For the quintessence of Loneliness,

For what is more alone than God?

Hafiz,
What is more pure and alone,

Magnificently Sovereign,
Than God.

~Hafiz (1320-1389)
from "The Gift", Poems by Hafiz, translation by Daniel Ladinsky

2010-03-16T03:33:00.004-05:00

i think my drunken poetry muse has abandoned me.
insert metaphor about longing.
insert metaphor about time.
this is the part where i talk about the night.
then a reference to embodiment.
maybe a simile about an iceberg will pull it all together?
disappearance.

I can check near-death experience off the list.

2010-03-06T18:10:00.004-06:00

Um...I kind-of tried acupuncture for the first time today and almost died? I mean, I passed out for about five minutes and then basically stopped breathing and the acupuncturist sort-of had to administer CPR? And my roommate called 911, but I regained consciousness before they actually dispatched an ambulance?

I feel sheepish for saying things like, "I am really sensitive to energy," but, umm... yeah. It's apparently true.

True.

2010-02-16T00:06:00.003-06:00

From PostSecret.

yep, still can't get enough

2009-12-22T22:48:00.002-06:00

You are tired,
(I think)
Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
And so am I.

Come with me, then,
And we'll leave it far and far away—
(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,
And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—
Open to me!
For I will show you the places Nobody knows,
And, if you like,
The perfect places of Sleep.

Ah, come with me!
I'll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,
That floats forever and a day;
I'll sing you the jacinth song
Of the probable stars;
I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,
Until I find the Only Flower,
Which shall keep (I think) your little heart
While the moon comes out of the sea.

e.e. cummings

Conceptual synesthesia makes me hot.

2009-12-18T10:45:00.003-06:00

You'll thank me when the revolution comes.

2009-11-20T10:24:00.013-06:00

I recently discovered that in Vedic/sidereal astrology I am a quadruple Aries. With Leo ascendant. Yeah. Did I mention that I'm an only child? And the center of the universe? And massive amounts of energy are constantly spiraling into and out of my head through these great damn horns? This explains so much. Not the least of which are the perpetually laughable and absurd states of my bank account and love life. I have officially stopped paying any sort of attention to either of those because I AM TOO BUSY TRANSFORMING ENERGY THROUGH MY HUMAN BIOCIRCUITRY.

On being a Cassandra to myself

2009-11-11T12:54:00.003-06:00

It is hard to write about this without sounding crazy, but it seems important to put it out there so other people might feel less crazy. Clicky.

And just so we're clear, you will owe me $100 when you get married.

2009-11-04T12:29:00.001-06:00

This is the first time in 9 years that I have forgotten your birthday.

Time is marked by forgetting. (Or is it remembering? I forget...)

Happy belated birthday, Christopher Paul Giguere. Thanks for saving my life and stuff.

i can't get enough e.e. cummings lately

2009-10-29T15:03:00.001-05:00

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
by E. E. Cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

2009-10-29T11:21:00.003-05:00

your eyes put magnets along my spine, making me move in unexpected directions

Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part IX.

2009-10-27T16:38:00.002-05:00

Andrew Bird playing in a church.

a secret in 4 parts

2009-10-02T14:23:00.010-05:00

1.1 here's the secret
in your absence my love turns into green apples
i imagine eating them with you
under the trees

2.1 i left the bar when it was raining
down the stairs, into the night
except...
everything turned into poetry
tom waits was playing
i smoked under the christmas lights
thinking about unrequited love

3.1 here's the secret
i don't miss you anymore

2.2 it's been raining since you left

1.2 there are no apples

4.1 i don't miss you anymore

2.3 um, I don't even know you?

0.1 when i am with you, the air i breath turns into bone

3.1.1 but...

2.4 the romantic and the cynic have been battling since we met
even the cynic wants to throw the game
lose spectacularly

0.2 we all carry the past within us
in the crook of our dendrites
in the lines of our palms
in our bones

1.3 here's the secret
there are apples when you touch me

4.1.1 i will always miss you

4.2 you understand the beauty of the perfect moment

2.5 i loved you at first sight (more or less)

2.5.1 a secret i try to keep from myself

3.2 i loved you when you told me "this is what a pecan a tree smells like"

4.3 i loved you at first sight (more or less)

1.4 i will never know when I first loved you

0.3 everything turns into the beating of blood
everything turns into poetry
everything turns

0.4 here's the not-very-well-kept secret
I confuse dreams with reality

0.4.1 because i am human

1.5 thank you

4.4 thank you

Really?

2009-09-30T00:42:00.003-05:00

I don't know why your name still beats in my brain. Maybe I should stop fighting it?

Almost

2009-09-25T18:22:00.001-05:00

It's been so long since I've seen you, I almost don't miss you any more.

Almost.

we call each other

2009-08-15T22:27:00.005-05:00

we call each other
we call each other

i stood on the edge of the deck
toes wiggling in the darkness
and my phone died
or rather
it became
and i laid on my back
looking into the night sky
(or what i could i see of it from the southwest edge of the city)
feeling my heart beat in my chest
the length of my bones
the forest of my nervous system
thinking of you and your flashlight
walking home
and...
and..
and.
and there is no end to this
we are forever becoming

i know you understand
(more than anyone)

unfinished

2009-08-07T18:37:00.008-05:00

we are weightless in the summer
feet barely touching the earth
toes tracing patterns in the dirt
heat-light-sun
burning the intricacies we've fixed
between the past and the present

we're restless (you see)
time is restless
memories are restless
the upturned soil and dust in our eyes
clouds nothing
we're not afraid of our ghosts anymore
we're not afraid of our roots
let the old seep into the new
let us be saturated with it
let us rupture

it is only at the unfinished places
that we can break

oh well

2009-07-31T17:48:00.004-05:00

i always liked you best when your eyes were closed
which was, in retrospect, an obvious warning sign

I heart Aquatic Ape Theory!

2009-07-31T11:03:00.003-05:00

Just give me one thing that I can hold on to

2009-07-27T04:02:00.003-05:00

it's 4 am and i can't sleep
my right hand signs beautiful behind my back when i think of you

Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part VIII.

2009-07-23T15:12:00.004-05:00

I'm a total softy for dancing and weddings.

Happy 4th Anniversary!

2009-07-21T23:02:00.009-05:00

I've had this bloggity blog for 4 years. Four years! In that time I have bought and sold 4 cars with reckless abandon, procrastinated, moved twice, written a lot of drunken poetry-prose, changed jobs twice, started my third graduate program, slept with 5 people I really shouldn't have, avoided 2 nervous breakdowns, thought I met the perfect guy 3 times, been to Flipside 3 times, built a labyrinth in the mountains, dated a narcissistic asshole, danced A LOT!, turned 30, become oodles more sane, made an unfortunate amount of puns, tried to learn to love the ebb just like the flow, had quite a bit to drink, dreamt about the ocean, quit smoking 3 times, thought a lot about icebergs as metaphors, marked the passage of time by the smell of flowers, become a little obsessed with crystals, met a slew of amazingly magical and lovely people, gotten a tattoo, voted for Obama!, become increasingly fond of exclamation points, had at least 35 magical weekends, been unceasingly stressed for 10 months (and counting), clarified the relationship between consciousness and matter, possibly remembered a past life, and said good-bye to one of the best cats in the entire world.

In short, its been a lot.

2009-07-10T19:09:00.002-05:00

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

~e.e. cummings

Things are quieting down on the ecstatic union with God front, but these are still lovely lovely lovely.

2009-07-03T11:27:00.005-05:00

God and I have become
like two giant fat people
living in a tiny boat.
We keep bumping into each other
and laughing.

*** *** *** *** ***

All these words are just a front.
What I would really like to do is
chain you to my body,
then sing for days
about God.

*** *** *** *** ***

Now is the time to know
that all you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider
a lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand
that all your ideas of right and wrong
were just a child's training wheels
to be laid aside
when you can finally live
with veracity
and love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy
whom the Beloved
has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me,
why do you still
throw sticks at your heart
and God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside
that incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know
that every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time
for you to deeply compute the impossibility
that there is anything
but Grace.

Now is the season to know
that everything you do
is sacred.

*** *** *** *** ***

How did the rose
ever open its heart
and give to this world
all its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light
against its being,

otherwise,
we all remain too frightened.

*** *** *** *** ***

Everyone is God speaking.
Why not be polite and listen to him?

*** *** *** *** ***

God
disguised as myriad things
and playing a game of tag
has kissed you and said,
"You're it -
I mean, you're Really IT!"

Now it does not matter
what you believe or feel
for something wonderful,
mind-blowingly wonderful
is someday going
to happen

~Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

2009-06-26T00:53:00.009-05:00

you don't know me well enough to know that i have this thing about skeletons. and embodiment. the heart, with its ventricles, and atria, and valves. the human body as a metaphorical landscape.

but you do know me well enough to know that i am intoxicated by your loveliness. it's not something i am good at hiding. as if i even have the option of hiding it. with you i am all yes. yes yes yes.

i guess what i am trying to say is that i am glad they did not take a bone saw to your sternum.

i know the metaphors of my heart. jewels in the cardiac muscle. the beating of wings in my chest. birds waiting to fly towards the light.

i know nothing of what circles around your heart.

what would the doctors have found? by all accounts you have a lovely heart. copper light, perhaps. or fat green caterpillars. but i don't really know. i don't really know you.

and lately God has done nothing but press reset buttons - for me, for you, for everyone. definitely for "us." the possibility of "we" has been set aside, maybe for ever.

i guess what i am trying to say is that even though i may never learn the metaphors of your heart, i am glad they did not take a bone saw to your sternum.

Lewis Carroll's favorite number was 42. I'm just saying.

2009-06-25T15:44:00.006-05:00

There aren't really words for how ecstatically happy I am about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I guess the closest approximation would be "OMG OMG OMG OMG! Squeeee! Exclamation points!!!" I just...I just...I just like Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. A lot. A LOT. Literary nonsense, neologisms, surreal humor - this is the world that I want to live in. I am also amazed by the river of influence that flows from Lewis Carroll: Tom Waits, Jeff Noon, James Joyce, Douglas Hofstadter, Neil Gaiman, The Labyrinth, The Matrix. And now Tim Burton. It's very exciting!

I hate my uterus. Part VII.

2009-06-19T23:35:00.003-05:00

Things I've yelled at tonight: a plastic bag, some water droplets, the picture on my desktop.

I might have PMS.

Amen.

2009-06-11T21:50:00.005-05:00

Dear Universe,

It's very sweet how you are constantly showering me with unrelenting beauty. Thanks.

Wendy

If only there were a way to practice both...

2009-06-11T16:42:00.002-05:00

It's been so long since I've written regularly that I'm worried that I've forgotten how. Much like sex.

236 Reasons I Love Flipside

2009-06-11T09:33:00.005-05:00

Check out The Photo Booth Project's photos from this year's Flipside. Just look at how happy, beautiful and sexy everyone is!

This is what I have been saying!

2009-06-05T15:51:00.001-05:00

We Transform.

2009-05-29T10:41:00.008-05:00

I want to thank the spirit of Flipside and Burning Man for showing us, truly, what humans can do. We can create the world that we want. We are creating the world that we want. Thank you for showing us our place in the universe, between the sun and the moon and the stars, above the grass and the earth. We celebrate there, us humans, reveling in our aliveness. We spark, we dance, we love, we build. We transform. Thank you for allowing so many openings - in ourselves, between each another, between us and something higher. Everything we need passes through these openings. I am humbled by and grateful for these gifts. I will do my best to remain open.

Thank you for giving us what we need. Thank you for giving us what we need. Thank you for giving us what we need.

There are no other words.

Why won't the drunken poetry let me go to sleep?

2009-04-28T00:35:00.016-05:00

i've never written about you

we meet elsewhere
in the marrow of my pelvis
in silence
icebergs touching under the surface

you and i
the trembling of birds
stunned
held in the palms of a savior
human

youarethebirdiamthepalm
iamthebirdyouarethepalm
hollow bones hollow bones
resting

with you i can close my eyes
with you i can rest
with you there are no words
only the whisper of iceberg to iceberg

to write about you i have to be still
keep you inside of me like a secret

~

even though i can't sleep
you come to me in my dreams

in my dreams
we never speak

Even me

2009-04-13T13:17:00.003-05:00

From PostSecret

Factoids

2009-04-10T09:10:00.008-05:00

From The Influence of Exercise on Mental Health by Daniel Landers

Exercise is as effective at reducing anxiety and depression as psychotherapy, relaxation training, meditation, engaging in enjoyable activities, and social contact

Reduced anxiety
* Best results with “aerobic exercise”
* Best results after 10-15 weeks of regular exercise
* Best benefits for those who begin with lower fitness levels
* Best benefits for those who begin high in anxiety

Reduced depression
* Best results after 9 weeks of regular exercise
* Best results when done several times a week
* Best results with more vigorous exercise
* Best benefits for those who are more depressed

Exercise is associated with positive self-esteem, restful sleep, and ability to respond to stress

Lonicera periclymenum

2009-03-30T15:07:00.004-05:00

Flower clock says it's spring!

Themes

2009-03-28T12:02:00.004-05:00

The song for the week is Masterswarm by Andrew Bird. Particularly these lyrics -

"so they took me to the hospital
they put my body through a scan
what they saw there would impress them all
for inside me grows a man
who speaks with perfect diction
as he orders my eviction
as he acts with more conviction
than I"

You can hear the song here.

The question for the week - is "discovery" actually an act of creation?

Enjoy your week.

I apologize in advance for the fangirlishness

2009-03-10T10:50:00.003-05:00

Dear Universe,

Pretty, pretty, pretty please let me go the PJ Harvey and John Parish show at South by Southwest 2009. Please, pleas, please, pleas, please, pleas, please.

Thanks!
Wendy

PS. Also, I wouldn't mind having Andrew Bird's babies, if that's something you can arrange and you aren't too busy with black holes and global warming and such-like.

Some day I will write something myself again.

2009-02-27T21:26:00.001-06:00

Under the Walnut Tree

When I face what has left my life,
I bow. I walk outside into the cold,
rain nesting in my hair.
All the houses near me
have their lights on. Somewhere,
there is a deep listening.
I stand in the dark for a long time
under the walnut tree, unable
to tell anyone, not even the night,
what I know. I feel the darkness
rush towards me, and I open my arms.

–– Lynn Martin

Mmm. Embodiment Theory.

2009-02-02T08:27:00.001-06:00

"Visible and mobile, my body is a thing among things; it is caught in the fabric of the world, and it's cohesion is that of a thing. But because it moves itself and sees, it holds things in a circle round itself. Things are an annexe or prolongation of itself; they are incrusted into its flesh, theys are part of its full definition; the world is made of the same stuff as the body."

~Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part VII.

2009-01-26T13:32:00.000-06:00

You should really, really, really not click the link unless you are ready to be upset by man's inhumanity. Really.

Israeli troops shot and killed zoo animals.

Senseless. Senseless, senseless, senseless.

Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part VI.

2009-01-20T14:36:00.001-06:00

Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part V.

2009-01-16T11:45:00.000-06:00

I am a sucker for animals of different species befriending one another.

Sadly, I didn't get laid.

2009-01-05T20:05:00.001-06:00

I am such a weird combination of crazy cat lady and messy bachelor. To wit, the only reasons I have cleaned my apartment in the past four months are 1.) to bring home a sick cat from the vet and 2.) because I thought I might get laid.

Dreams

2009-01-01T20:31:00.000-06:00

I want to rest in your wilderness.
I think it might be lovely.

Learn to be Quiet

2008-12-19T09:25:00.000-06:00

"You need not do anything.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
You need not even listen, just wait.
You need not even wait,
just learn to be quiet, still and solitary.
And the world will freely offer itself to you unmasked.
It has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

~Franz Kafka

In June, we are going to be friends again. And all I will say is "Thank you."

2008-11-30T22:21:00.001-06:00

Last night I dreamt of you. And houses. I dreamt of you and houses last night.

And I woke up. To a three-legged cat who needed to be fed. To a paper that needed to be written because it was due seven months ago. To a desire for a cigarette, even though I quit. Again. For the third time. And I wasn't ready. For any of it. I wasn't ready to miss you terribly.

I miss you terribly.

Because I know what houses mean in dreams. I know what it means that I was moving my clothes out of the closet underneath your stairs. And I was reassuring your girlfriend that there was no broken glass in the carpet. That I was making space for her.

So, because I wasn't ready, I went back to sleep. And dreamt of houses.

Prepare to be astonished

2008-11-19T22:36:00.000-06:00

Wow.

2008-11-10T20:33:00.000-06:00

"The past isn't dead yet. It isn't even past." Go here now.

This entry is about you

2008-11-05T02:22:00.000-06:00

my love for you is tangled up in the lines of my palms
i am not even the same person any more
thank you

Done

2008-10-25T14:00:00.000-05:00

Go here now

2008-10-22T18:38:00.000-05:00

http://www.fuckjohnmccain.com/

my life: not so great, actually

2008-10-22T17:19:00.000-05:00

so, for those of you who i rarely/never see in real life, this is what's going on:

my cat has cancer. the vet wants to amputate her leg.

i'm working 32 hours a week, doing a 17 hour a week internship and taking a 4 hour class.

i have sharp pains in my stomach, ringing in my ears, and more or less continuous low-grade headaches.

i'm exhausted all the time. on friday, i laid down on my couch to relax at 4 pm and woke up at noon on saturday. i then went out for lunch. when i came home after lunch, i decided to TAKE A NAP.

i haven't cleaned my apartment since...august?

i have pink eye. but it's hard to tell since both of my eyes are red and swollen due to all the crying i've been doing lately (see above).

yeah.

A Beautiful Problemette

2008-09-30T17:05:00.001-05:00

Okay, people, I have a problem. It's not really a big problem, like the failure of the economy, the fact that Sarah Palin might one day be president, or the shooting pain in my stomach. No, it's more of a problemette. And a beautiful problemette at that.

I am obsessed with We Heart It, a "visual bookmark for everyone." I can't stop. Because look at this!
And how much do you love this!And apparently there is a photographic technique known as bokeh and I love it and want to have its babies?And color!
I can't stop. I have been doing this for hours. And when I think I can get away, I end up checking the Flickr Hive Mind and FFFFOUND and getting sucked back in. I need help. Send help. How do you expect one woman to fight the pretty, pretty, prettiness, colors, birds, bokeh, christmas lights, skeletons, Alice in Wonderland, clouds, pretty color prettiness? I'm weak. I can't stop.

Or you can come on over and obsess with me - I'm kissonwetglass .

Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part IV

2008-09-22T18:10:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen Jill Bolte Taylor's Powerful Stroke of Insight, you should watch it immediately. "Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions -- motion, speech, self-awareness –- shut down one by one. An astonishing story." Plus, you get to see a real human brain!

I want to unlock my chest. I want to escape.

2008-09-15T17:56:00.000-05:00

Cold front + full moon makes me feel like this:

Her only friend The Moon by Alexander Jansson

Republicans: They continue to make me throw up in my mouth a little.

2008-09-05T07:26:00.000-05:00

Apparently Sarah Palin will not be interviewed by the media during the campaign? And all we will learn about her will come from scripted speeches? And according to the McCain campaign, the American people don't care about her views on domestic and foreign policy? And also, the media did something to Palin's family that we have never seen before?

I am so sick of such blatant manipulation and disregard for the American people. I'm not sure whether to cry or throw up. I have been saying, "Well, who cares who is elected president, as long as it is not Bush?" But I don't think I can say that anymore. Because the McCain campaign is feeling more and more like a manipulative, clueless narcissist who is out of touch with reality. And since I have dated a manipulative, clueless narcissist who was out of touch with reality, I can tell you that all they do is spend your money, lie, and cheat on you. Blech.

Please to return to the unfettered optimism of the Obama campaign?

P.S. Jon Stewart is a genius.

P.P.S. Holy crap! I just realized there is going to be a vice-presidential debate between Biden and Palin! That'll be good watchin'!

Meme Dispersal II

2008-08-13T17:43:00.000-05:00

Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part III

2008-08-13T15:11:00.001-05:00

Days with My Father by Philip Toledano

Drunken poetry, Part the Trillionth

2008-08-11T21:27:00.000-05:00

I want to crawl inside your voice, sleep against the plushness of your vocal chords.

This entry is self-referential. And also heavily influenced by Rumi, Douglas Hofstadter and office politics.

2008-07-23T17:26:00.001-05:00

I could probably write pages and pages about language. Which might be lovely and meta and self-referential and ironic because, well, I mostly dislike language. During my brief foray into the land of internet dating, I actually spent some time trying to accurately describe myself for the "About Me" section. And one thing I wrote was that I like words but dislike language. Which is so very true. So many things about my relationship with language are paradoxical. I'm a good writer, but I mostly hate writing, except sometimes I have to get the words out and they have to be exactly right and there is something, I don't know, almost cathartic about doing so. Except cathartic isn't really the right word, because when I write, the sense of release isn't quite as intense as the word cathartic sounds. Or I don't experience enough joy at the release or something. Hmm, maybe I should look up cathartic in the thesaurus (or Visuwords) and try to find the exact, right word for what I experience when writing. Except thesauri are often dangerous for me, what with all those lovely, shiny words all nestled together like chickity chick chicks under their mamas feathery belly, just waiting to distract me... but I can probably handle it. Oh! Did you know that cathartic is used medically to refer to a purging of the bowels, so writing is sort-of like taking a shit? Hmm, what an interesting metaphor;I wonder how far I can take it? So the words are what remain of things I can't digest, or that I don't need to digest? And I excrete them through my finger-tips and/or pre-frontal cortex? Digestion itself is such a great metaphor. You can do all sorts-of things with it. Except it is not even really a metaphor, in some ways, because you actually have millions of neurons in your intestines, so that you can actually know things with your gut. For real. Not speaking metaphorically. You can literally know things with your gut. Hmm, I wonder how many neurons are outside of the brain? Because even if it is only like a tenth of the neurons in your brain, it still has major repercussions for how we conceptualize mind and body, so that your whole body, is in a sense, your brain, or your brain is just a part of your body... Wait, why do I have this thesaurus? Oh, right, I was writing something.

The above is why I have turned in every paper I have ever written in grad school late. Usually days late. Because language and I don't really get along. Despite the fact that I write well and love to read and want to kiss individual words, language actually traumatizes me a little. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to pare down my actual, extravagant experience of the world into something I can stuff into tiny, tiny squiggles which I then give to you so you can de-squiggle and un-pare them and arrive back at my original experience so it becomes part of your experience? How? How how how how how? Is what I have to say even worth the time and effort?

Wouldn't you rather go dancing?

The truth is, I am right-brained, dancing mystic living in a left-brained, disembodied, secular world. And I have to write email messages. E-mails! Which people then take seriously and get upset about that one clause I used and take that clause really fucking personally and want to talk to me and my supervisor about the repercussions of that clause (Yes, this entry brought to by office politics). I don't give a damn about that fucking e-mail. I would rather talk to you on the phone. Or in person. Or hand-craft a letter to you, embossed with artistic nudes and decorated with washers I found on the street. Or take you out to coffee and talk about what it is like to be alive. Or teach you to meditate. Or play with you. Or dance with you. But no. I've got to send you an e-mail message apologizing for my last email message.

I've forgotten what the initial point of this post was, so I shall stop. Words no work anymore.

Optical Illusion of Consciousness

2008-07-10T11:45:00.000-05:00

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us 'the universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical illusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

~ Albert Einstein

It's too bad I cut back on drinking, because I sort-of love horrible, drunken, embodiment prose.

2008-07-09T17:52:00.000-05:00

I've lost track of who I am writing this to. If I ever knew. But this is what I want.

You, standing close to me while I take off my flesh. I will carefully peel back the layers of my eyes - conjunctiva, cornea, sclera, iris, lens, retina, macula, vitreous, choroid. Each layer has a god(dess) who answers a prayer hidden in the lines of my fingertips. I will rest my lenses in the curve of your collarbone, while you blur the memory of past lovers with watercolors pooled in the corners of your lips.

You, standing close to me while I take off my flesh. Unseeing, I will move toward you and offer my ribcage to all your hidden prayers. They will break through bone, they will find where every blood cell dances. The prayers on your thumb and the litanies on your palm will brush against the jewels embedded in my heart. You will break them free and press them against my blind, seeking lips. Feed them to me one by one.

This is when I know who you are.

This is when I surrender.

How I Spent the Last Hour at Work.

2008-06-26T14:42:00.000-05:00

Since I am a dork and enjoy playing the game of Telephone almost as much as I enjoy pondering the fallibility of language, I am madly in love with the Lost in Translation web app created by Carl Tashian, which translates a phrase back and forth between several different languages. "The resulting half-English, half-foreign, and totally non sequitur response bears almost no resemblance to the original...Something is lost and sometimes something is gained."

I decided to "babelize" some of my favorite quotes. "Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why," from Vonnegut becomes, "Here that interests them, hung before amber. Because it does not have, it is." I kind-of like it.

Andrew Bird sings, "In time you need to learn to love the ebb just like the flow." Lost in Translation replies, "In the time you must learn, because one sufficiently appreciates the later river like the river." It's like something a zen robot would say! I know what I am going to be for Halloween!

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake" from Fight Club becomes "They are not pretty and only tape." Hmm. True dat?

Marianne Williamson calls us to awaken with the words "It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us." Ten translations later we arrive at, "It is our light, not our density, of that scares to majority we." Actually, I think it is the presidency of George W. Bush that scares to majority we.

Joseph Campbell tells it like it is when he writes, "I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive in our bodies." This babelizes into "Task that, observes the interior in true, a experience of being the alive creature who our experiences of the duration in the only physical surface that resonances in ours to being the greatest piece of the secret and the truth, since then that really we create the enthusiasm, to be alive in our bodies." Wait, where can I get the greatest piece of the secret and the truth?

Maybe these are too complex. Let's keep is simple. Let's try the classic "There is no spoon." End result? "It has spoon" Well, there is only one thing to say to that. Whoa.

Yes.

2008-06-25T16:31:00.000-05:00

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer from The Invitation

Dancing makes you smarter!

2008-06-18T12:22:00.001-05:00

Researchers from The Albert Einstein College of Medicine studied the link between mental acuity and physical and cognitive recreational activities in senior citizens 75 years and older. Turns out, the best protection against dementia was frequent dancing!

"They studied cognitive activities such as reading books, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and playing musical instruments. And they studied physical activities like playing tennis or golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, walking for exercise and doing housework.

One of the surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia. There can be cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the mind. There was one important exception: the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia was frequent dancing.

People who played the hardest gained the most: For example, seniors who did crossword puzzles four days a week had a 47% lower risk of dementia than those who did the puzzles once a week.

Reading - 35% reduced risk of dementia
Bicycling and swimming - 0%
Playing golf - 0%
Dancing frequently - 76%.

That was the greatest risk reduction of any activity studied, cognitive or physical."

Musings by Richard Powers can be found here.
The original article is over here.

Warning: Dancing to this song may cause your brain to re-wire itself

2008-06-12T16:55:00.000-05:00

Eurythmics vs. Eminem - Mashup

I mean...it's just so...I'm not sure what...it's like...CANNOT.STOP.LISTENING.

I am so transfixed by this. I really think it might be re-wiring my brain. After all, how often do the Eminem-related neurons get to talk with the Eurhytmics-related neurons? NEVER. Granted, the first time I heard it was at Flipside after four days of eating nothing but intoxicants and breakfast tacos, so my judgement might be a little skewed. But it's good, right? You want to listen to it again, right? Plus, I don't know what happens around 1:37, but I do know you should not fight it.

The Other Side of Desire

2008-06-02T16:41:00.001-05:00

It's strange not too hold on to every instant so goddamn tightly. Strange to uncurl my strained, hungry fingers and let the air kiss the lines on my palm. Somewhere, when I was looking the other way, I stopped wanting to suck every last drop of poetry from the moment. The constant longing has subsided. I can drop the metaphors of hummingbirds and honeysuckles. I can run across the street in the brightness of the Texas sun and not want so very, very much to find the truth of the moment.

It's even stranger that I am okay with this. I am okay with letting go of the truth of the moment. Who can imagine a Wendy not infatuated with the truth of the moment, a Wendy not trying to rub up against every shade of meaning, graph every nuance of feeling?

Whatever. The other side of desire seems nice enough. There still seems to be dancing and silliness and wordplay and good music on the other side, so I should be fine. I will let the moments dance themselves. I will let them dance me. I will show God the palms of my hands so she can see they are open open open. I am pretty sure she will want to kiss them too.

Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part II

2008-06-02T10:16:00.001-05:00

(Clickity click to make bigger). From Get Your War On.

The amazing paper art of Peter Callesan.

2008-05-29T11:01:00.000-05:00

All this Iran talk is making me nervous.

2008-05-20T12:22:00.001-05:00

From marriedtothesea.com

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Rocks my World

2008-05-09T15:34:00.000-05:00

The core therapeutic messages of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) are:

*You are not your thoughts, emotions, memories, roles
*There is a you that is not “thing like” that has been present your whole life
*When something is fearsome, notice who is noticing it
*You are perfectly made to experience your experience
*The contents of your awareness are not bigger than you; you contain them
*You are a safe place from which you can have experiences for what they are

- From "A Practical Guide to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy"

2008-05-01T14:15:00.000-05:00

"If the history of humanity were the clinical case history of a single human being, the diagnosis would be: chronic paranoid delusions, a pathological propensity to commit murder and acts of violence and cruelty against his perceived 'enemies'.... Criminally insane, with a few brief lucid intervals."

~Eckhart Tolle

How I Roll - Dreams, Cat Vomit and Crystals

2008-04-29T08:54:00.001-05:00

Last night I dreamt you were left-handed and lived in a tree-house. The tree had a strong trunk and the air at the top almost always felt cool and bright. People who were about to die were drawn to you, as were spirits, and consequently you developed a habit of spending a lot of time alone. You liked to find places high, high up where your eyes could look down and contain all the corners and edges sharpened by the distance. You had a calmness about you that I never saw in real life. Except maybe sometimes in the margins of your writing, or in the space under the dots of your "i"s. There was very little static.

The calmness made you look different. I am not even sure how I knew it was you. I think somehow my subconscious endowed you with the qualities of a bird. Maybe this is how you exist to me, somewhere at the back of my eyes, at the border of my retina where the letters you have strung together transform into electricity.

*******************************************************

And then I woke up and began the process of separating my dreams from reality. And since I am not particularly good at this type of threshing, it didn't go very well. In fact, after turning off my alarm clock, I fell back asleep and dreamt I was getting ready for work and was on my way, out the door, almost there. Only to wake up fifty minutes later with just a few minutes left to scramble around and get ready. Tricky, tricky dreams....

So I maneuvered around the cat vomit on the floor and removed the crystals from the sink so I could brush my teeth; the whole time the phrase "Last night I dreamt you were left-handed and lived in a tree-house" was beating through my brain. And while I was admiring the way the zoisite looked in the water and trying to recall the exact feel of my dream and attempting to avoid thinking about taking my cat to the vet, the juxtaposition of unattended cat vomit and crystals in the sink became laughable to me. How clear is it that I mix up dreams and reality? What says that more than cat vomit and crystals? Could it be any clearer?

Even as reality slowly seeped into my sleep-soaked body, I was still mesmerized by my dream of you. They way it felt at the top of your tree-house. The lightness of your spirit. Even the realization that I left my car in the parking garage at work yesterday when it ran out of gas BECAUSE I SPENT MY LAST FIFTY DOLLARS ON CRYSTALS didn't pull me away from the dream. It just caused me to smile at my own ridiculousness. I confuse dreams with reality, you see. So I walked to work, ten minutes late, down the street with all the cats that are scared of strangers, trying to figure out exactly where that tree-house of yours was. Near a church maybe? Behind a cemetary? Neither of those seemed quite right.

And I cut through the park, with its lovely trees and cool, clear air and shifting light, and I realized that this must be where your tree-house was. This was where you lived up up high, with birds for neighbors. And I wanted to stop and sit and drink in the air, remember the dream of you. But somehow reality won and I kept on going, strolling towards my cubicle and my co-workers who don't seem to have as much trouble separating dreams from reality as I do. My co-workers whose floors are free of vomit and whose sinks are free of crystals. Towards putting on the appearance of normalcy for a few hours until I have to walk to the gas station to buy a gas can and a gallon of gas. Towards a dream of reality.

Meme Dispersal

2008-04-17T11:27:00.000-05:00

I continue to heart PostSecret

2008-04-14T10:53:00.000-05:00

Lonicera periclymenum

2008-04-11T10:51:00.001-05:00

It's April. I know because I can smell honeysuckles on the wind. Which reminds me of every April of my life.

I want to measure time solely by the smell of flowers. I want to encode my memories in a garden. We can sip iced tea by the Texas mountain laurel and talk about childhood. We can fall asleep when the night-blooming jasmine wakes up.

Are you in?

"I need to mate, and you'll probably do as well as anyone else"

2008-04-08T13:56:00.000-05:00

A short black comedy about relationships - I Guess You'll Do.

Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part I

2008-04-07T10:19:00.000-05:00

Maybe I need a new category of entries, like "Things that make me cry in my cubicle." It can be a mixture of the soul-crushing monotony of my workday life and the touching things I find on the internet to avoid the soul-crushing monotony of my workday life. Like this article about a dog that saves a baby kangaroo.

A New Earth

2008-04-04T17:05:00.000-05:00

Not to get all OPRAH! up in here, but everyone should read A New Earth.

For Reals.

Morality: 2012

2008-04-02T09:16:00.000-05:00

There is so much interesting research being done on morality right now. In this video, Jonathan Haidt discusses the difference in moral judgments made by liberals and conservatives. His research suggests that liberals make moral judgments based upon two moral foundations (harm and fairness), while conservatives make moral judgments based upon five moral foundations (harm, fairness, in-group, authority and purity). He suggests that liberals have a view of morality based upon protecting the individual, while conservatives have a view of morality based upon protecting the individual and larger social groups and institutions. Interesting...

I am so white

2008-03-31T12:37:00.000-05:00

The Stuff White People Like items that painfully apply to me.

Religions their parents don't belong to
Organic Food
Diversity
Making you feel bad for not going outside
Wes Anderson Movies
Tea
Having Black Friends
Gifted Children
Hating Their Parents
Awareness
Not Having a TV
80's Night
Vegan/Vegetarianism
Breakfast Places
Apple Products
Indie Music
Sushi
Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops
Irony
Living by the Water
Sarah Silverman
Apologies
Juno
Natural Medicine
Toyota Prius
Recycling
Michel Gondry
Mos Def
Difficult Break-ups
Modern Furniture
Graduate School (Actually, I have come to loath graduate school, which is, well, ironic, considering that I am in my third graduate program and am a graduate program coordinator. Whatevs)
Hating Corporations
Having Gay Friends

Yummy brain food

2008-03-28T12:54:00.000-05:00

My friend David lent me the book What is Your Dangerous Idea? Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable. Below are some of the yummier nuggets of brain candy.

* "In a very real sense, then, virtually all organisms, including humans, are sunlight transmogrified, temporary waypoints in the flow of energy." ~Scott D. Sampson

* "Brains cannot become minds without bodies....Perhaps thought and feeling are only possible because the brain interacts with its body and listens to the things it tells it. And perhaps much of how the brain understands the world is only possible because of the brain's experience of controlling a body....We may build computers that understand language but cannot say anything meaningful, at least until we can give them 'extended tactile experiences.' To put it another way, computers may not be able to make sense until they can have sex." ~Alun Anderson

* "Our brains may never be well enough equipped to understand the universe, and we are fooling ourselves if we think they will. Why should we expect to be able eventually to understand how the universe originated, evolved, and operates? While human brains are complex and capable of many amazing things, there is not necessarily any match between the complexity of the universe and the complexity of our brains, any more than a dog's brain is capable of understanding every detail of the world of cats and bones, or the dynamics of stick trajectories when thrown. Dogs get by and so do we, but do we have a right to expect that the harder we puzzle over these things the nearer we will get to the truth?" ~Karl Sabbagh

* "Relativity makes it clear that asking, 'What is happening right now on Andromeda?' is complete nonsense. There is no 'right now' elsewhere in the universe; nevertheless, we keep thinking of the universe as if there were an immense clock ticking away the instants, and we have a lot of difficulty adapting to the idea that a phrase like 'the present state of the universe right now' is physical nonsense." ~Carlo Rovelli

* "The self that is the particular, networked set of connections of matter compromising our mortal bodies will one day die, of course. But the self that is the sum of each separate individual condensate in us of energy-turned-matter is already ancient and will live forever. Each fundamental particle may one day return to energy or from there revert back to matter. But in one form or another, it will not cease. In this sense, we and all around us are eternal, immortal, and profoundly connected." ~Carolyn C. Porco

* "Nothing can be more dangerous than nothing. Humanity has always been uncomfortable with zero and the void....But the emptiness is all around us. Most of the universe is void. Even as we huddle are our hearths and invent stories to convince ourselves that the cosmos is warm and full and inviting, nothingness stares back at us with empty eye sockets." ~Charles Seife

* And then there is this one, which I cannot adequately summarize, but is full of delicious yumminess.

What I'm doing at work

2008-03-25T15:56:00.000-05:00

I'm a little obsessed with Jango right now. Also, CocoRosie.

Damn, this entry was hard to punctuate.

2008-03-22T13:37:00.001-05:00

When asked at a job interview, "Are you more of a follower or a leader?" would it be inappropriate to answer, "I reject your useless fucking dichotomies!" And perhaps sweep everything off the table and do a little interpretive dance? Because that is what I want to do most of the time.

I think it might be time to cycle back around to "Buddhist Nun" on Wendy's Big Wheel of What the Fuck Should I Do with My Life?

I'll be dead by December 2050

2008-03-14T13:21:00.000-05:00

DEAD AT 74

cancer

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