And your very flesh shall be a great poem

Snow Day.

I had a Snow day this week.  I woke up late, had some breakfast.  I considered going ice skating but the one I wanted to go to was closed.

So instead I called up the White Whale and we had tea for two. It was lovely. I like him more every time I see him.

IHOP

I went to a show of one my favorite bands. They are from the area where I grew up. They sneak in geographical name places that only someone from there would know ... that is why i like them. their lyrics are all about nostalgia, memories, smells and images they hold close to their past. it's like they are trying to document memories that no one else knows about, but by putting them in a song, they take on a new life and recycle themselves into a song that is now in everyone else's brain - set to live on forever, or until someone doesn't hear that song anymore. clever.

At the show i met two people who were there for the music as well. At first when i sat at the bar top i felt rather lonely. But then i started talking to a fellow lone bar top sitter and everything was ok.

The show was AMAZING. the band came off the stage for the last bit of the show and did it acoustic. and of course i was in front! lyrics and harmony get me every time.

After the show we were all a tad drunk. And hungry. So we went to IHOP. We all ordered the pancake combo. I got strawberry pancakes and sausage links and scrambled eggs. We proclaimed we were the Breakfast Club.

I woke up the next day and we got a Snow day.

That was been the best Monday ever.

The Changed Man

The Changed Man" by Robert Phillips, from Spinach Days. © The Johns Hopkins University Press. 

The Changed Man 

If you were to hear me imitating Pavarotti
in the shower every morning, you'd know
how much you have changed my life.

If you were to see me stride across the park,
waving to strangers, then you would know
I am a changed man—like Scrooge

awakened from his bad dreams feeling feather-
light, angel-happy, laughing the father
of a long line of bright laughs—

"It is still not too late to change my life!"
It is changed. Me, who felt short-changed.
Because of you I no longer hate my body.

Because of you I buy new clothes.
Because of you I'm a warrior of joy.
Because of you and me. Drop by

this Saturday morning and discover me
fiercely pulling weeds gladly, dedicated
as a born-again gardener.

Drop by on Sunday—I'll Turtlewax
your sky-blue sports car, no sweat. I'll greet 
enemies with a handshake, forgive debtors

with a papal largesse. It's all because 
of you. Because of you and me,
I've become one changed man.

ahab goes to an art gallery.

I'm going out tonight w/ the white whale to an art gallery....of course. last night we spoke on the phone for 2 hours. This seems to be becoming a regular occurrence. Once we start talking we just have so much to share and we want to get it all out, like we don't have enough time or something.

he told me a lot about himself. he was an open book and shared some pretty major details about him and his life thus far. i deeply appreciated this. but I'm not so ready to tell those things about myself. it's too soon and i gotta trust before any of that happens. and that takes me awhile. i can pretend trust, ignore it's absence - that's easy. but actually trusting with a whole heart is difficult for me.

to love someone too much is a great risk; but miracles still happen and sometimes things come true.
It reminds me of the scene in "Moonstruck" when the mother says to the daughter:

[Loretta announces she's going to marry Johnny Camareri]
Cosmo Castorini: I don't like him.
Rose: You're not going to marry him, Cosmo. Do you love him, Loretta?
Loretta Castorini: No.
Rose: Good.
[She looks at Cosmo]
Rose: When you love them they drive you crazy because they know they can.

 Then later in the movie when Rose decides to marry the man she is REALLY in love with:
Rose: Do you love him, Loretta?
Loretta Castorini: Aw, ma, I love him awful.
Rose: Oh, God, that's too bad.

The White Whale has lived longer than i have. He has more experiences. Yet, we click. We never run out of things to say and i find him devastatingly handsome, like so handsome it has a sweet pain attached to it. sort of like "la dolore exquisite" only i think there is a big chance i will be with him. He's irresistible.

He tripped me up a couple times on the phone with questions and he got quite a kick out of making me go silent. Not many people do that to me.
"So how is it that you don't you have a boyfriend?"
...

I cherish the fact that he wants to go at a glacial speed. I've had to many failures based on lightening speed lustful attractions. It's time to try something new. I want an exclusive partner who wants to get to know me, the true, real me; not just the physical. I'm over that and want the full experience of truly loving someone else.

The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam

I read an article about genetic memory: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25156510

It got me thinking about other things, like past lives.

I spoke to a close friend of mine a few weeks ago. We determined if we did in fact have past lives, we knew exactly who we were in those lives. I was an Italian Prima Donna opera singer at some point. I'm positive. Why, you may ask?

 

• i am in love with love
• i love to sing, and am quite a good singer actually
• i love theatrical drama
• i love character driven stories
• when i was in italy, it felt like a new home to me
• i am obsessed with italy in general
• i am obsessed with italians 
• i love art, art history
• i am sassy and can be a bitch if need be
• i usually have ridiculous, insane love affairs

The friend that spoke with me on the subject believed she was an ex-groupie from California in the 1960s.



She said she didn't fear life struggles as much, because she knew she had lived life once before, her past life.
"Don't you get that feeling, like, 'Well, it worked out before so it's going to all be fine again.' "

I think i can relate to that. Also -
isn't it odd when you get an "at home" feeling in a brand new place, like you have been there before or are from there?

And what about when you meet someone, and feel as though you know them, even after only speaking with them for a short time. I'm convinced at least two of my past lovers I have known in a previous lifetime. Stuff that I felt and things that happened between us were just too coincidental to ignore.

Isn't it in the Disney movie, "Sleeping Beauty" that illustrates this concept of love so well?

I know you
I walked with you once upon a dream.
I know you
The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam
Yes, I know it's true
that visions are seldom all they seem
But if I know you, I know what you'll do
You'll love me at once
the way you did once upon a dream

The opposite could happen as well. Predetermining your taste for a place or person due to an uneasy feeling or energy you sense from them.

This unexplained comfort/discomfort could just "be" the way it is. But the Cosmos seem so deep and mysterious, I think there is something to the concept of past lives, past journeys, a past experience we are not fully conscious of.

looking in and out

this year was a doozy in good and bad ways. it was extremely stressful at times.

in jan-april of this year i was frantically searching for a new job, knowing my contract would end June 1st.

I got a new, better paying, more fulfilling job in May of this year which was a huge relief. This job just happened to be in the next city i wanted to live in, which is also a plus.

I moved across the country in May to start my new life out here, a new chapter. The past several months have been thrilling, very lucky, lonesome, full of laughter, tears, sexy, and heartache.  I barely went home this year and that is one thing i am changing in the new year. I saw my parents twice. Seeing my family grounds me. This year was so full of change and I was alone to deal with all of that. My move, bike accident, ill-fated relations with men. It's hard when you move to a new city and go thru all that shit alone. But - this is growing up, this is becoming who you are meant to be, this is making you better.

Another crazy phase I'm in right now is that I'm suffering from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory syndrome.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[last lines]
Willy Wonka: But Charlie, don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted.
Charlie Bucket: What happened?
Willy Wonka: He lived happily ever after.
[hugs Charlie]
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I recently have had the most blessed experience of getting everything you've worked hard for, wish desperately for, wanted for a very long time. I feel guilty that I'm not insanely happy. But I am insanely grateful.

But for some reason I still feel like there is something else. Yet, I do not know what that "else" is. I've been going to yoga and church trying to meditate on the finding the answer. I'm writing more every day. I'm trying to dream new dreams for myself. I constantly ask, "what is next for me to do?" "what am i supposed to do next?"

But i realize these aren't really the questions i should be asking. I think where I am right now is where I am meant to be.

I'm going to try to let my heart guide me - as i always have - for the next few months. Maybe my intuition will guide me to my next goals. I know I've always wanted to get published. And maybe this is the time to pay attention to that wish? I also want to volunteer and contribute to my surrounding community.

I wish I was growing in reverse like Benjamin Button. I believe I was born at age 40 and have been trying to gain immaturity since birth. "Lightening up" is difficult for me to do. I'm a serious thinker and creator and sometimes i get lost in those heavy thoughts. Another personal goal of mine is to not take life so seriously.


All i know for sure at this time in my life is the twenties are a weird, wild, terrifying and ecstatic ride. 

My hood.

I like the subtle little characteristics of my neighborhood.

Every morning i am awoken by four bitchy Pekingese dogs yapping at each other. In the beginning of this custom i wanted to strangle all of them, but now they are a sort of alarm that rings to let me know it is time to get up.  They yap at each other every time they get outside, like they are biting each other. it's weird but it's amusing in a similarly weird way. They are walked by their mom or dad, who live across the street from me.

There is a middle-aged single mom who always talks to her old male neighbor every morning, in between yelling at her child to "get ready because we NEED to GO!"  they always seem to share a laugh though.

This morning, while walking to the metro to go to work, a little Hispanic boy maybe 7 years old, with striking green-blue eyes was walking towards me on the sidewalk. He smiled at me with a huge grin and said, "Hola!" It was great to get that enthusiastic of a greeting from a complete little stranger. He most likely thought i was some other old lady, but he was a sweetie.

Random things like that make me like my neighborhood.

i also love the fact that everything happens so close to where i live. last night i got to get drinks w/ girlfriends and saunter home to my little place. i am doing yoga tonight at the studio in my hood and pub trivia with some co-workers.

life is long and life is good.