the adventure is here

anne is taking me to the airport in a half hour. 

holy shit.


HOLY SHIT.





see you on the other side of this wild dream.

i love you. 

angela

satisfaction is a wonderful feeling

.

romance.


and last night while walking in the cold, cold wind in san francisco, i realized no one has ever provided for me as well as i provide for myself.  i must somehow allow myself at least a short moment to feel proud of myself and the life i am creating.  these dreams once seemed so far out of reach...  impossible to believe ever coming true.  here i am with a passport and plane tickets with my name on them.  BIG MIDDLE FINGER TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO SAID MY GOALS WERE STUPID AND UNREALISTIC. 

smiling so big right now.  :D 


hahahahaaa!  and i cannot help but giggle to myself.  i know i still have 3 1/2 weeks to wait until i board my plane to New York but it's going to fly by and my excitement is building building building.  Becca and i will rendezvous at her favorite restaurant in the village 2 days before we get on another plane to Heathrow Airport.  i'm trying not to get misty eyed just thinking of it now.  i'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself.  i have absolutely no idea what to expect but i can't wait to grab my bag and let this adventure begin.  yesterday, i played tourist in SF and bought the bag i will live out of for a month.  bright yellow in honor of my long lost Bumble Bug.  i loved that little car so much but the life that awaits is one in which owning a car is totally unnecessary.  it's unnecessary now.  i love that i live in such a way that allows me to enjoy the romance of riding trains daily.  and aside from which, me and my converse get around just fine.   ;) 

artist life.

HOLY SHIT!

anti-solace

let me crawl back under my rock now.  let me crawl back to where i came from.  my coils of black wool and ink, graphite dust stuck to my feet, smudged across my face, empty bleeding heart dragging its ugly shape and shame across the page.  the inches are horrible.  each scratch of the pen, an agony.  each inch of wool twisted into knots, a horror.  but it is the only repair that has ever worked.  it is the only repair i trust, the only truth i know.  i bring my two hands back to myself.  at least for a time.  at least until i can see straight.  no longer interested in reaching toward the world, toward unknown doors.  at least not until it is time to pack a bag.  i see now that what i've been accused of is true.  i talk too good a game.  i take pictures of myself wearing a cap that says SLUT across the front and everyone automatically believes it.  they see my red lips and how seldom i become upset.  they see how independent i am and somehow, inexplicably to me, confuse me with being cold. i am not cold.  nowhere close.  my brashness is a moral responsibility to my own life...  to live as fully and as wholly as i can manage.  but i am not callous and i am not flagrant and i am not without compass or standard.


but fuck it.  what do i know?  i don't know a damn thing.  it's why i want to live.  in order to find out.  something.  anything. and it could quite easily be that it's my mirror that shines askew.

 

what is it about me that makes people seem to believe that i have no feelings?

i've cried three times this week.  everyday, for 3 days running, a small horror found me.  and even in the moment i told myself to feel blessed and lucky because i haven't had a bad run of luck or days of pain in so long it seems.  everything has been going pretty well.  no major complaints.  but i could feel it all along brewing in the background, simmering below my naive feet.  i've expected it for quite some time now that my brashness, my good game would lead directly to the wind being knocked out of me.  i've been going against my better judgement in certain ways because i just became so damn tired of loneliness.  i became so tired, painfully tired, of not allowing myself to know the world and to know other humans.  but i knew it was coming.  i knew i would wake up, humiliated and stupefied, and feel the urge to run away from the life i have here in Oakland.  and  maybe it's necessary?  maybe it's the kick i need?  i have wondered while crying if i should try to feel thankful for this pain...  it untethers me, afterall.  there is no longer any reason to drag my feet.  there are no anvils around my neck.  there are no gentle hands to lay me down and smooth my hair back across my forehead. 

i wake up this morning and a Great Goodness finds me...

baby's first passport arrived in today's mail.  i kissed it and kissed it and wanted to cry.  it is sitting next to me on my bed right this minute.  it is a gem.  it is my most sacred, most valued, most loved possession.  today, it trumps every piece of art i own.  everything pales in comparison to this little book: a testament to faith and struggle and belief.

in 4 weeks i'll be back in my beloved NYC for a few days before hoping on a plane and heading to europe for the very first time.  my very first trip over seas.  i am beside myself.  i can't find the words.  i'll find them in europe, i suppose! ha!  Becca and i stop in London for a night and then the next evening, on the 4th of July, our Independence day (and the 1 year anniversary of when i had my passport photo taken), we fly into Berlin.   a few days later, we will take a train from Berlin to Paris to see our beloved Rammstein play in Nancy, France.  after that?  hahahaaa!  there is absolutely no way to know!  but when (if?) i return, i fly back to new york for a few days before heading back to Oakland.  i'm sure i'll spend the first few days back crying, forlorn and lonely and in total anguish, in my bed before having to tie the apron around my waist once more, put on my bright lipstick, and tell jokes table-side.

i am lucky in that i will have a job to return to.  i am lucky in that i like my job.  i enjoy being around people and i am very good at creating an atmosphere of warmth and ease.  i'm good at being a waiter and, come July, it is a profession that will take me around the world.  well, at least half way.  :)  but i'm telling you, these next 4 weeks cannot go by fast enough.  the passed two days i have been crawling out of my skin.  i have never wanted to hop on a plane so badly in my entire life.

i am not afraid of knowing the world.  i am afraid of NOT knowing it.  i am not afraid of people, not even if i know i will suffer as a result.  i am more afraid of dying without ever having known what real love is.  i can tell you, right now, that i do not believe i have ever experienced it.  not on the receiving end anyway.  not a healthy love.  it seems definitions for love run the gamut and i am a dunce trying to figure out what the fuck i'm supposed to be doing and saying in the midst of it.


i'm supposed to be making art in the midst of it.
i'm supposed to be writing.


at very least, i know what my life is for.

whatever you do, don't pinch me

at a quarter to 2 in the morning, we pulled the trigger. we bought our tickets to Europe.  Becca and i are going to Berlin.  7 weeks to wait.

my mind bends in half at the thought of this. i can't believe i have a ticket with my name on it that will take me all the way to Germany.  i am stunned when i think of it.  it can't possibly be real but IT IS REAL. 

holy shit! hahahahaaaaa!  

today i was all in a frenzy: studying and cleaning and filling a box with clothes and objects i no longer want which will be left on the street in front of the house.  something has changed in my life and within my being already and i haven't even gone anywhere yet.  simply buying the ticket and accepting the massive and beautiful reality that i am finally going to travel to Europe changes so much.  my being is a strange mix of such a deep calm and tremendous excitement.  i have no clue what to even say!  i have no clue what to think!  i'm just going to work on a yarn bomb and have a cocktail and watch "Wings of Desire".  ha!