The Ocean Breathes Salty

Yesterday I ran. I ran so fast and so far. I found myself in the middle of a field and I yelled and I sang and danced to Sublime, Rancid, and Modest Mouse as loud as I could. I was the only one around for a couple of miles and, I didn't have to posture for anyone or apologize for my emotions or pretend that they weren't there.

It felt so good and honest. I was really alone for the first time in a couple of weeks and I felt like I could accomplish anything. I felt like I could be myself. I thought the best thing for me to do was to surround myself with people and let them help me understand this whole mess. I guess I realized in that field that while all the wonderful people and new connections are important this is my mess* and I need to handle it on my own. I hate long distance running, but the space it gave me to think and feel was worth the sweat and sore knees.

*Shameless good friends band promotion. I saw the opportunity and seized it like a lioness.

In other news I've been listening to a lot of music I don't usually listen to to avoid listening to other music, and it's very nice. Building a library is a labour of love.

Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4

Yesterday I played catch in the sun for over an hour with my nephew. I haven't worn a mitt on my sausage fingers since I was fourteen! It was nice. Today I played frolf (frisbee golf) with my brother for the first time ever. I suck, but it was nice to be in the sun. And then I watched the cubs beat the cards (woot). I feel so sporty.

Sunshine helps me not to think so much. Sunshine helps me smile when smiling is harder to come by. Being outside makes me feel more alive. Hot-damn, I'm a real girl!

Tonight might be another story, but I think I'm ready to take it on. BF's are good for that!

Hot-damn.

Le Peep Le Sigh

My inbox has read 666 for the past week and I can't seem to get it to change, it's funny and mildly creepy. Maybe gmail is trying to tell me something ...

Be left today :( but not after we had a long talk about the meaning of meaning. I love that gal, and I really hope I get to see her again before I leave, but she promised to come and visit with J. I'm sort of wigging out (wigging out?) about leaving these past couple of days. Oh man. I wonder if anyone will actually come and visit me? I really (really) hope so. Sigh. I miss everyone already.

Tomorrow is supposed to be warm and sunny. I could really use that. I wish I could go on a forever bike ride that starts in sunshine and ends in the grass on a cool night.

My Life Without Me

This weekend was the most surreal weekend I've had since forever. I am beside myself. It all started en route to the Titus show and got crazy as shit, non-stop the whole weekend. A few highlights:

1) Coming a fraction of a second away from getting in a fist-fight with the coat-check lady from Metro. "Don't mind me I'm just the coat check lady...Get the fuck out of MY coatcheck, no really you have two seconds before I punch you and then call security." Say whaaaaat? We could have taken her out, but we were just too confused as to why we would need to do that ...

2) Turning down Ghiardelli chocolates from a homeless man. Watching said homeless man getting tackled by the police outside the window approx. 30sec later.

3) Sunshine Cleaning, not a light hearted comedy like the previews lead you to believe. Not a good birthday movie. This is the kind of movie where the realities of life start perching atop your shoulders and make you sink slowly into the ground until your telling yourself that this could never be MY life ... right? Right? But it is your life in a way. It's everyon's life. Sets the tone for the rest of the weekend. A morphing ball of sad, happy, and disillusioned.

4) Two words: Hollywood Casino. Casinos are the weirdest most unholy places in the world. Perfect place to spend the first few hours of Easter 2K9.

5) Three words: Hit and RUN! "Hey are you okay?" Man staggering out of car carrying front and back license plates, " No, yes, could you give me a ride?" Uhhhm. Fleeing the scene of an accident anyone? One BMW down, one million to go.

6) The weight of reality finally breaking lil ol' me. The boy, the coatcheck woman, the characters in the movie, the man in his divorce, the gamblers, the drunk driver, my best friend getting older. I just absorbed it all, thusly crying myself to sleep. I woke up in my clothes with snot on my hoody. Keep reminding myself that it's gonna be allright, even for the man with the hit & run on his record.

7) Easter. A gaggle of pre-teen girls calling me agent bumble-bee not believing that I was going to turn 25 in less than ten days. "No, I won't be your partner for the egg hunt, because I'm hiding the eggs." "But you're not a grown up ... want to go play web-kinz and look at pictures of the Jonas Bros?" They cried when I left, tears actually fell from their eyeballs. I felt like a weird ghost of Easter future warning them about the dangers of too much tude' and the glassy stares of the Jonas brothers. They believed me because they thought I was one of them. Was I ever one of them?

8) Awkward encounters on the train because I'm too idealistic and too stubborn to be good at this stuff.

9) Realization that you're going to have to pretend not to care or go bat-crazy. I'm good at pretending.

10) Be and Tor all weekend make me feel like I'm drinking honey lemon tea. You might be sick, but at least you have this great tea to warm you up a bit. Some people don't even have tea. Best friends are somethin' special.

It wasn't a bad weekend, just crazy and too bright and just too much. I'm still reeling from it. I felt like I was stationary while the entire weekend whirled around me. Now, I'm tired. So tired.

Whoah

I just fixed a vacuum, and now I'm going to do my taxes. I don't think this is what anyone meant by "keeping yourself busy." Heh. The real world sucks it big. Maybe I'll go to the A Hawk & A Hacksaw show at the Hideout tomorrow night ... by myself (cynical self-loathing laugh and shrug of the shoulders) and shake reality for a bit.

hearts and farts everyone.

A Pocket Full of Plans

I wish I could fast forward in time to where my heart matches what my mind knows is right. I have a clean slate ahead of me without baggage weighing me down (I hope), and the possibility to see what I'm really made of, why does that seem so scary?

I'm slowly working through all that is floating around in my gut and my head and my stupid wonderful heart. I realize it's okay to feel anger, frustration, or betrayal. I have to be willing to embrace all the feelings I got inside me, but it doesn't have to be directed at anyone or any event.

This sucks any way you slice it, and it was unavoidable any way you slice it. The thing is, that night, we weren't okay and that's okay. That's another brutality of life. Some pain, some problems simply can't be talked away, and I want to try and accept that with as much grace as possible. Life is crazy and unpredictable. Growth is sometimes very damn awful painful, but who wants to stay the same forever?

I wasn't honest with myself when I thought that this would be easy for anyone involved. Today is all right, yesterday was awful (not sleeping the night before sure as hell didn't help), and the passage of time will be the only way to find out what tomorrow will be. Cliche, but true. Living your own life is one of the hardest responsibilities to accept.

Talk about cosmic, the last paragraph in the book I just finished this afternoon:

"But she needed no more advice and no more instruction. She was calm and quiet now with knowing what she had always known, what neither her parents nor Aunt Claire nor anyone else had ever had to teach her: that if you wanted to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always had to be a thing that had to be done alone."

On a lighter note --- GO CUBS GO!

If Winter Ends

I've never been this tired and hungry in my entire life without being able to really rectify either. I feel like a deep dark well. If you threw a penny into my mouth you could watch it fall out of sight and hear the clanking echo when it finally reached my toes.

Not to mention that Spring decided to be a bitch and crawl back into the groundhog hole to give winter a last gasp. Why is it April already and why is there fucking snow on the fucking pavement?

It's gonna be allright
It's gonna be allright
It's gonna Be allright
It's gonna be allright

Haunted Graffiti

I had no faith among the believers.
I was lost at the big tent revival.
I had spring fever. I woke up to snow.
I would be lying if I said I didn't like it.
I would be a liar if I said I enjoyed it.

I was an unbeliever among the faithful.
A lonely company to keep.

On Ariel Pink:
I had drank too much. Maybe not enough? I just couldn't get over how many of his fans (NOT T. thank goodnass) pawed at him so reaching out to stroke his face, to catch a single drop of his holy sweat. It was weird. I'm not saying it was awful, but I just don't get "it." I felt like I've seen his character in ghost forms, supercilious sentimentality with a crust of pretentious poverty and I wasn't impressed. Empirically Ariel Pink is a very sweet man though, and his back up band Haunted Graffitti is pretty damn great. But I'm no critic, so dig it for yourself.

I had fun though. Malt liquor and best friends and familiar faces in dark and unfamiliar, well you know the rest, can't beat it. I miss wasting all my money on shows. Anyway you slice it music stimulates, and that's never a completely bad thing.

Here's some of that:


On his songs:
"It's sad because it's happiness from something that no longer exists."
- Ariel Pink

Late Night Bloomer

Last night I met a strange strange man at a bus stop that buses were no longer stopping at. He gave me good directions and walked his bike with me telling me all about how hard it is to smoke from a one hitter while pushing a bike while it's raining! The bus took forever and here I was in the middle of Chicago at 2 a.m. talking about life with a strange man. He made me laugh pretty hard when he said, ''I hope you aren't a cop, but if you are just let me smoke this once more before you arrest me. I looked at him like he was crazy and then we both burst into laughter when a REAL cop walked by.

It was strange how comfortable I felt with Phil. My mother would tell me that I should have been less talkative and more guarded. I can't say that for a moment I didn't feel a twinge of uneasiness as he started to walk his bike along mine, but I'm glad he was around to tell me not to wait for a bus that wasn't coming and for his company. Phil is definitely one of the most optimistic people I've ever met. As we waited for that bus we talked about all of life's little pleasures and it was so refreshing to 'hang' out with someone so excited to be living life. After we had been waiting for the bus for about half an hour we finally saw one coming as we concurrently read the sign that the bus we were waiting for didn't stop at this particular stop. "Allright," Phil said, "We gotta make this! I'll go ahead on my bike and stall while you make a run for it!" So I did. Laughing all three blocks. Traffic sucks in Chicago even at 2 a.m. so we made it in plenty of time. When we got on the bus three guys in the back said HEY PHIL!!! They seemed really excited to see him. We went our separate ways.

I'll probably never seem him again, but I really glad that I know people like him exist. The degree of gratitude for life and openness to people is something I can strive for in my own life. Plus I totally would never have gotten home without running into him!

40MPH Gusting Winds

WHAT THE FUCK? Why am I so anti-social? My parents used to give me crap for being a "social butterfly" and now I have to convince myself to go out! I feel lame.

add. I've been convinced, now I don't feel so lame, but STILL why I got to be convinced?

Sometimes I don't get me.