On the Process

We are all worms, But, I do believe, I am a glowworm.-Winston Churchill

As we all know, working is never easy. Well at least not at normal jobs. The good news is: I've landed myself two pretty fantastically fun jobs that make my life better rather than more stressful.

I'll admit the waking up at 6 every morning is a little bit of a drag, but seeing the coffee begging to be drunk in the coffee machine is the best way to shake off the dregs of despair at having worked for three weeks in a row with no breaks in between. Seriously, people. I have two jobs, most all of which require me to work literally every single day of my life. But, it's okay. MOST of the time.

I would say that today has been the end of the line for working everyday of my life. I was positively exhausted at the Fruit store today and I couldn't possibly think of anything I would like better than a Diet Pepsi, my paper back copy of The Godfather and my bed. And so it goes, I've read a couple chapters and am now blogging before I hit the ever-lovin' sack and get my first day off in WEEKS ( possibly months) I haven't really kept track.

The proper truth really is that I WOULD like a little time off to finish the novel and the collection of poetry I've started and to like, you know, have a social life.

But, commerce calls every morning at 6 sharp and insists on my presence and utter diligence. I don't mind it all that terribly much, it's actually kind of fun, being a little normal for a change. Coffee and cigarettes get me through the day, and that good ol' fashioned brown bagged lunch I pack every morning before hopping on the bus.

I suppose my life doesn't lack much.
It's all part of the plan, all part of the project of becoming a better person and a better friend and lover.
I would lose sight of things if it weren't for the Universe pulling me back in every once in a while when I'm chanting just to say, good job kiddo.

I essentially love my life and essentially only lack a couple things, but those things are in the works and so are many, many other wonderful things.

Ta.

On the Stage Coach

We are all worms, But, I do believe, I am a glowworm.-Winston Churchill

There are things none of us understand. Such things for me are more often then not, men... the Universe... Women... Algebra...Politics and cooking. Let us begin with the first in line:

Men:

While the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life may be the most beautiful, he most likely is not the best suited for me. I find myself discovering more and more that I don't have a type. If I had one, it would be Russell Crowe, Case in point: Assholes. Russell Crowe in physicality is perfect for me. Scruffy, manly and kind of a teddy bear. But, essentially, he's a douche. Now, lets face it, most women like assholes, nothing new there. We like the guys that treat everyone but US like shit. WE love to be the exception to the rule. The one that changes him, the one that tames him or at the very least the only one he doesn't treat terribly.

- Problem
When a dude is an asshole... Please, for christ-sake don't expect him to be anything else. Especially to you.
Assholes are assholes they may put on a pretty pink hat for the first few months but essentially they will always be assholes. It's the same with women. When she's an asshole... Point blank, my sisters and brothers, she is an asshole.

This is something I need to realize. I always love the furry fluffy ones who could throw my over their shoulders and carry me off to a cave some where. Yet, here I am, single and coming more and more to the conclusion that I need to change the friggin' recipe if I'm planning on settling down any time in the distant future.

I've said what I will about the things I don't understand for today, but I know, I know you're probably wondering I titled this entry On the Stage Coach.

I like the idea of the metaphorical stage coach waiting for all of us. we just have to choose which place we'd like. My problem recently is I've been a passenger rather than riding shotgun, twelve gauge in hand awaiting the moment to pull the trigger. Biggest problem here is, no one's got the reigns. I just want the twelve gauge, that's all I'm sayin'.

Plus I'm a little obsessed with the old west. Whatever. More on things we don't understand later. For now.

Ride on

On the Mission

We are all worms, But, I do believe, I am a glowworm.-Winston Churchill

Leaving one thing behind to move onto the next is always a struggle. But, the struggle is what makes us whole in the end. The holes inside us we move to block up and sew back together are what make us who we are.

Break-ups are never easy and the most recent has been difficult. We are intrepid, we carry on. There aren't many good reasons to cut yourself off from what you deserve but at times we create them simply to protect ourselves from loneliness. I have made many mistakes and though I don't necessarily consider this a mistake I do, at times, look back on it as a waste of time. But, all blips on the radar are learning experiences even if they only last six months.

I've come to discover that serial monogamy is most certainly my lot in life. I am meant to love as many as cross my path. This is simply my destiny and I do not recent it, most of the time.

I only ask that in my coming endeavors, I become a stronger woman, believing in myself as well as others.

On Rupture

We are all worms, But, I do believe, I am a glowworm.

-
Winston Churchill

Everything must go. Nothing gold can stay. This too shall pass. For everything must turn. I know, I know we've heard it all a thousand times from a thousand different myriad poets, prophets and messiahs, but no one ever seems to realize that until whatever was golden has now turned to ash between our fingers. I will not say much but I will say that friendship does not always maintain manifestation in the same place from the same person forever. There are seasons in our lives for everything. Seasons for love and loss, seasons for hope and doubt.
And this just happens to be the season of awakening. I have come to terms with the fact that friendships do not always last forever and if they do last forever even the most steadfast have seasons of a sort.

This is the time of year when things spring to life and in this particular case my life does not imitate nature in the slightest. I've discovered that where I once found kinship no likeness of spirit remains. And this particular experience has been very difficult for me. One of my dearest and closest friends, I feel, has betrayed me in a way that I can never forgive, in a way that begets a rupture. There has been erosion for a time and the time has finally come to realize, however horrifically, that some things are meant only to last for a season or two.

And as I have learned through many years of loss, bitterness breeds bitterness and that is simply not something I will allow to happen to me. I will only allow the rupture to weave its course through my life and I will accept this with a still open heart, chin up, shoulders back and this will not shake me and it will not stop me from my goals and I will learn to carry on the fight in another place with another friend for another cause.

But also in this season of rupture we tend to discover that not all things which we believe to have eroded permanently are truly gone forever. Having rediscovered an old friend whom I thought, lost and gone forever I feel new and old may need a good swift kick in the bum.This is a time for new life and a certain, shall we say, spring cleaning is in order, but in this particular case, I feel, the structure just needed a good scrubbing and now it looks like the gold didn't leave it just got dirty.

Scrub the gold, my friends. Scrub the gold.

On the Attack

We are all worms, But, I do believe, I am a glowworm.

-
Winston Churchill

When I dated in my earlier years, earlier months ( I should say.) I would constantly feel, with any man or woman, no matter who, this intense and utter sensation of dread and terror. A feeling I will understand other than to call it the sense of " wrongness" that this is not where I belong. I felt the need to retrieve myself from the ridiculous greed of lonely people to find " love" in anyone and in any place necessary. And so I will tell you a story:

I came upon on a person once, whether this person be man or woman is not essential, what is, however essential is the lack of the sensation of "wrongness." For the sake of argument we will call this person Daniel and we will say that it is a he and that he has dark curly hair, dark olive skin, bright green eyes and the propensity to quote movies and do keenly observant impersonations of his friends and other well known personalities. And for the sake of argument we will say he is a Comcast technician and that he is slumbering next to me now making horrific noises and making me want to kiss him every time I look at him.

We will say that the first day we saw each other there was a spark and that after a few weeks of silent admiration we met, by whatever means, that means being, we will say, our mutual friend Sean. On this monday night of November 9th we kissed and we will say on the next night we made it official and we will say on the third night we were steadfastly in love.

I will not pretend that at first I wasn't petrified of what I felt, in fact I'll go so far as to say I was horrified. But, I had decided long ago that when the time came to fall in love I would relinquish the battle and let there be no blood shed. And in this particular case, there were no casualties.

I waited for a few days for the feeling of "wrongness" to overtake me and though I dreaded its cry of disaster I made the decision to wait until it came to make any sudden movements. But the " wrongness" never came. Daniel was somehow able to keep this feeling at bay. In fact the urge to put as much space between me and my affliction never came because the affliction never showed up.

I've discovered through my months with Daniel that love isn't at all about finding a match as some think. In the opposite it is much more about the instinct to find home, to find belonging, to find a place that no hate or malice or indifference or misery can touch, a place that walks upright and has opposable thumbs. We must not find our equal, we must not find our match. We must find the puzzle piece that fits. We are all pieces of a puzzle and what we lack the other piece makes up for.

He is my puzzle piece and together we make one complete person puzzle that does not fall apart and that does not ever despair.

Go forth young ones and search ever more till thou hast found thine puzzle piece.

On a Place of Peace

We are all worms, But, I do believe, I am a glowworm.

-
Winston Churchill

While searching for a job is becoming all consuming and pretty much stealing my life away from me I'm finding a sort of satisfaction in pounding the pavement, as it were. I'm enjoying the routine of waking up around 9 every morning, making coffee, doing morning Gongyo and sometimes ( even though I promised myself I wouldn't) smoking a morning cigarette and then going straight to the computer and applying to over a dozen places a day and now that my mother and her fiance' have most graciously sprung for a thirty day pass, traversing the city in the hopes of finding myself gainful employ.

I remember the days of having a full time job and surprisingly to most I remember them with much fondness and realized today that those were the happiest days of my life. There was absolutely nothing like taking a fifteen minute break in the middle of the day to smoke a cigarette that I really felt like I'd earned. And then when leaving the job, having that end of the day cigarette which just felt like success in a cylinder.

I'm dying to find something as gratifying as that in my daily life like the cigarette after three hours of writing good material. I realize I'm quantifying my life's happiness and meaning through a cancerous habit, but really there is just nothing like it in the world.

I find myself mesmerized by the longing to find a job as a receptionist at a hotel or a server at a bakery and I search and search and enjoy every minute of it.

Life is only as precious and fulfilled as we make it. And love is only as available as we allow it to be.

On questioning

We are all worms, But, I do believe, I am a glowworm.

-
Winston Churchill

I've been asking myself how I feel a lot lately. I never seem to know what I'm thinking, where I'm going or realize what I've misplaced until I've already thrown it away.

It's amazing what abject terror will do to a previously high functioning brain. Since graduating from Columbia ( It's official, I even passed my science class) I felt a great surge of self confidence and the courage to rise to the challenge. Unfortunately while away on vacation, while seeking guidance, I received misdirection and have now had to struggle to remain afloat while living with one thumb in the dyke and all other extremities searching for the steering wheel. ( Yes I know, metaphors aplenty.)

The thing is, I'm simply petrified beyond words. I'm doubling my work load for finding a job daily and searching incessantly for the muse that skipped off into the sunset an hour after my very last class in college.

I've come to find that it's impossible to find a job, love and creativity all at the very same time while scrounging for pocket change in the couch. I have to free something up, let go of one thing to allow myself access to that specific determination. But the trouble is, frankly, I'm not at all ready to give up any of those things.

The absolute truth is, after receiving the go ahead to grow up I've finally begun to understand that just like the rest of you, I have no advocates. I must be my own proponent and to do that I must shed the deceptive armor of familiarity and scratch out a living for myself. The time has finally come. Really, here it is. But, the sad thing is after this Christmas I've realized that all of that security I felt in my favorite city was just another smoke and mirrors routine and finally I've come to the absolute understanding that one must only ever rely on oneself. And though that may sound like a departure from the good 'ol Grace of lore, I'm afraid it seems to be very true to me, especially lately.

The struggle to maintain an open heart continues, the good fight for good humour and winning friends and a job and the ability to write again is ongoing.

The storm approaches

On Disappointment

We are all worms, But, I do believe, I am a glowworm.

-
Winston Churchill

There are very few in this life that I have found truly disappointing. But, lately everything and everyone seem(s) to be letting me down. But, I'm happy yet and will continue to be for some time, I feel.

I have no advocates left but myself and my love. I will carry on as I always have and never let adversity overtake me. I have learned that quietude makes the largest statement, that saying nothing often allows thought for all involved. I have learned that love is not all one needs to continue in life and of course that the pain of saying goodbye to one means the joy of greeting someone else.

The love of my life, sleeps next to me, emitting nasty snores and I can't help but feel, that no matter what goes wrong, even if we don't see through the year, that I will have these moments forever, no matter how short lived they may have been. No one loves in vain. We are intrepid, we carry on.

There is nothing more hopeful than new love and nothing more dashing than the grief of loss of belief one has for another. We must always believe in ourselves and we must never despair. We are ever intrepid we will always carry on and therefore we will never be defeated.