Asian Hipster Abundance

This morning as I was trudging up from the dungeon of Montgomery Street BART, there was an asian hipster dude a few paces in front of me, and he’s bobbin to his music, and then he’s really swaggering it, and then he begins to bark out some phrases, and then he begins to clap with wide arm gestures. With every increasing jaunt of his, my smile begins to get wider, and I follow him for about a block or so, smiling to myself as a few short stints of sunlight shine through the buildings onto my face. And I ask myself to remember this feeling – at least for a little while.

I’m now working 3 days a week in SF as a temp at an interior design firm. And sometimes it’s sort of cool, and I’m looking at massive design books of ridiculously fancy homes and touching pretty fabrics from a new line – but mostly, it’s the same admin work any admin anywhere does – cataloguing, entering, organizing … mind-numbing, I think my eyes are bleeding work.

That said, I’m tremendously grateful to have this job. Firstly, the people are quite excellent – at a former temp job, I had a very “that’s my stapler” cubicle tenant adjacent to mine, and it was always a fine line between being immensely entertained and alarmed – particularly when the continuous murmuring monologue included sudden bouts of loud expletives. Secondly, I’m a graduate student, living off student loans with absolutely zero savings, and much like unemployment, student loans pay you almost enough, but really not enough. Well, not enough for a studio apartment in the Bay Area at least – which, yes, was a conscious choice I made rather than have roommates.

And so, when this temp job was offered to me, despite also being a full-time student, it was like manna from heaven. I worked with this company over the summer – it was like manna then too – and they asked for me back. So, I’m back. I’m also babysitting, catering, and ... well, yeah, that’s it for now (although artist’s model auditions come up in January again – I missed them last time. I auditioned with a different company once before and it wasn’t as weird as it was simply difficult to remain super still for 20 minutes!)

So, suffice it to say that today, after a few mind numbing hours in front of a computer screen, it was hard for me to maintain the jaunty optimism of the asian hipster, but I’m glad to remember him and his yellow backpack right now.

I’ve been tracking my income and expenses much more closely, but with purpose, since August. Prior to that, about a year or more ago, I started to track my expenses, but just got pissed at myself that I was spending so much money on coffee. And thinking self-flagellation was not a mile-marker on the road to serenity, and not really having any idea what to do with that information, I stopped keeping track. But, then it was August, and I’m contemplating ramen, canned tuna, and an empty fridge - again - it was time to address this - again. So, I reached out to people who do this sort of thing (this frighteningly adult sort of thing) called “having clarity around finances”, and started to keep my numbers again. ~ and I was amused to note that in August, I spent $8.00 on coffee. Not the omigoditmustbelike$100 paranoid number I’d imagined!

After tracking my expenses, I work with these folks to create a spending plan. It was surprising to learn from my friends that I was “underspending” aka depriving myself in all sorts of categories like food, clothing, and personal items (apparently $1.34 a month-for a toothbrush-is not an act of self care!). And so, I’ve begun spending within my newly clarified means – confirming abundance, and also confirming the fact that I actually *do* have this money. I just haven’t known where it is, or where it goes, hence my whole “binge and purge” financial routine.

The advanced part of this exercise is the income plan. This means that yes, YAY! I get to buy the fancy shampoo that is kind to my chemically straightened hair (bad idea), but that I have to earn the appropriate income to support a habit of self-care. And I like this new habit of self-care – this month I actually added in a category, modest though it is, for flowers. And there they are, right here on my desk. :)

So, yes, I work in a job that is more exhausting by how sedentary it is, and yes,  I woke up this morning at 6am to write a paper and went directly from work to class until 9:30pm tonight, but a) it won’t always be like this, b) I’m grooving patterns of responsibility and evenness (not the mania of “how am I going to pay my rent???”), and c) … well, I really like coffee.

The Cousin.

When I was 19, my brother’s best friend’s cousin (got that?) came to visit NJ from Ohio. His name was Ben, like my brother, so we just called him “The Cousin” for clarification.

And, oh, how we fell. I wrote a poem about that too. (pasted an excerpt below). The cousin and I have been each other’s… well, he’s been my “if we’re single and 40” contingency plan. I said to him once that if I were willing to let myself fall into the painting of the white picket fence with him, I would. We were very good painters.

He was the first (and only) guy to send me flowers on Valentine’s Day. He sent me a poem about my hair (that it was “everywhere” ~ not like that! ~ like it’s so unruly) and it had little hand-drawn cartoony pictures of me with my unruly hair. Enclosed was a “self-portrait” he’d done in Microsoft Paint or something, with a backwards cap, because that’s what 16 year old boys did back then.

Yes, 16. He was 16; I was 19. Be grossed out – but that’s how it happened. My best friend dated my brother’s best friend that summer – of course it was summer – and the 4 of us were a raucus ball of Summer Lovin’. We had a blast. I was his first. And although it sorta sucks to say, I think part of what has kept our link for so long is that the fiery kindling of that summer romance never had time to extinguish. The summer ended, he went back to Ohio. But for the next five or more years, we kept up semi-regular correspondence, lots of meandering, poetic, off-kilter emails. Jokes, and references, and randomness – a randomness that almost, well, it made sense between us. Our individual off-kilter-ness made sense to each other. We felt understood; I felt understood. (I’m sure you understand) ;)

Last I visited him was on my drive out to San Francisco in 2006; we had another lovey weekend together – sensitive, understood, silly – and drunken. Last we were both in New Jersey, I was no longer drunken, and he couldn’t remember the mildly offensive things he’d said the night before. Then it’s 2009 and he says maybe he should come out to California … and I tell him that California didn’t fix me – I had to do a lot of work to get out of the mess(es) I’d been in. And he says, Oh, and we hang up.

And I hadn’t heard from him in two years … till a month ago.

I was in New Jersey and I get a text from him. He hadn’t heard that I was in town, he just decided then (cosmic Universe oo-ee-oo sound) to text me. Remarkably, a “Calling in the One” exercise of that very week was “Renegotiating Old Agreements.”  (“Marry you when we’re certain we won’t find anyone else & are done doing everything else” Agreement ring any bells? ~ cue music again.)

So we talk on the phone the next day, and I play “friendly” catch-up because, really, what is there to say? … What is there to say when I’m standing at the threshold of letting go of a promise written in gossamer? How can I say, I’m getting “over” you. Because that’s not the truth either. I will always be that 19 year old in NJ August heat in my best friend’s bed with my hair strewn across his vibrating body. I will always be her, but I will also always be the every-other-age-woman that I’ve been, including today’s ~ and that woman is very desperately sorry to disappoint her 19 year old, and to disappoint The Cousin ~ but I am available for a different kind of love now. One that isn’t a painting of a picket fence, but one that breathes, is adult, is still random and off-kilter, but, frankly, is no longer available for “if I can’t find anything better” ~ because everyone is worth more love than that.

I still have a renegotiating letter to write and likely burn, ceremony-like. And a potential conversation to have. Or maybe, as has been suggested to me, a promise written in gossamer will simply fade when I stop re-writing it.

***

(from "Love Poems")

There’s a voicemail I’ve pressed 9 to save for two years—it’s a joke, without preface, 

and he just hangs up when it’s done—and there’s a text poem about a porch and twilight

and hands I can’t yet erase, and there’s him, 16, in August heat, on the bench seat of my dad’s cutlass.

***

You can’t please all the people all the time (hint: stop trying)

i have this habit after my poetry workshop of not reading the feedback the other poets give me on whatever poem I handed in the week before. it’s fear. i know. i spend a lot of time when I write feedback on their poems, but, well, I sort of don’t want to hear what they have to say. I have this ridiculous vision that my poems are like Athena, springing forth fully formed from my head, and so they don’t need revision.

Which isn’t true. a good writer is/has a good editor. In fact, these days, for poems to even get typed, they’ve already been worked over by hand at least once and will likely undergo change several times more before print … but,  … When I was home in NJ last month, i found the short story from college on which my teacher had written that it was … too purple, too poetic, too much. ~ less x, less y, less molly is how I read it. Even though over these years I couldn’t remember precisely what that teacher had written, I could still feel how stung I was by her critique. Looking at it in hand last month, I was right to feel burned by it. It was pretty much everything you don’t say to a budding writer, or a budding human for that matter.

It has taken me years to show people my writing. I began to post my poetry on facebook about three years ago, and it was a ‘safe’ forum for me, as everyone reading it was a friend of some stripe. And I got some good feedback, lots of love, and much indifference, but it was a heart-pounding moment everytime I clicked “publish” ~ “will they/won’t they” … and eventually, much later, “does it matter.” It did, and it didn’t – I am a sensitive person, and my ego sometimes needs soothing, but much like with the painting project, I allowed the poems to go “up” anyway, perfect or not. (though I would still, even after several years, go back and tweak a word or title here and there)

About a month and a half ago I put up a poem on facebook about being institutionalized ~ and I took it down pretty quickly. About a month ago, I put up a poem about rape ~ and I took it down after a few days of gnawing my lip. Then ~ I took everything down. In a moment of extreme reaction/self-protection, I wasn’t going to have that all public. I even got a “like” on the rape one before I took it down.  But … things … my poems have recently been getting more “real”, more graphic, more uncomfortable, ultimately more authentic, and suddenly, facebook did not feel like the “safe” place for me to put these anymore. I felt exposed, even though, yes, everyone was/is still a friend of some stripe. But, over the years, my stripes have gotten wider, and my circle of “friends” has expanded, and somehow, I don’t really want to expose some truths about myself or my experiences to such a mass audience.

And so, everything came down. Even the “silly” stuff, even the non-exposing stuff. It was the pendulum swing – everything up or everything down. Do I regret it? Maybe a little. There were some wonderful and supportive comments from people, friends. But I felt myself retracting, wanting to hide it/me. So, *cue irony* here I am on a blog, a more visible, barely more anonymous forum, and one of the first things I’ve tried to do now that I’m going to be using it more often is to figure out how to get a page that will also publish my poetry. (I downloaded Wordpress, and am way overwhelmed with words like “code”!)

So, here’s the thing. The truth will out. It will out on facebook, or blog, or classroom. People will write it’s melodramatic & cliché (like a professor said last semester), or, more likely, they will write supportive comments meant to help *improve* my work, not detract from it. They are not ticking time-bombs, this stack of unassuming pages. Although I’m not sure I feel ready to look, and sure I feel melodramatic saying it ;) I’m warming up to the idea that creating art implies and demands being vulnerable ~ and being teachable. If I want people to read it, I have to let them have their ideas about it. And, but, still, in the end, I have to follow my inner compass, because f*d if that’s not what this is all about anyway. 

Pulling a Carmen

So, following in the footsteps of my friend Carmen, I've decided to post a blog a day, cuz why not. I thoroughly enjoy reading hers each day, or a few in a row, like catching up with a friend - and keeping up with people in this busy world.

So, can I admit that I just wikipedia'd adam levine - that maroon 5 singer, after watching some of charlie day on SNL (on hulu; no tv ~ not a california thing, just a ... don't have a tv thing). And lord, have, mercy. My god. That is one hot jewish man. And god save me, there are actually hot jewish men in this world.

Now I know you can't chose (particularly) who you fall in love with, but boy, would it be nice to find a tall, handsome, jewish man. ... and while we're at it, employed. It's been interesting - as a semi-result of reading Carmen's blog, I bought and started to do the exercises in this book "Calling in the One". Now, gag if you must, but I did a lot of browsing in the "preview" on amazon, and it seemed like it was up my alley - very Artist's Way-style exercises and readings, and hey, why the f. not.  Now interestingly enough, I'm asked to look at what ways are my relationships with men a reflection of my relationship with myself - She, the author, asks, if we're picking up this book, in what ways is are we not loving, nurturing, or committing to ourselves ... and I knew immediately that there are tons of ways in which I am not committed to myself - to my dreams/goals/little internal nudges. And that is certainly mirrored back to me in the real world.

So, I've been reading this book, and doing these exercises - and shit you not, the week I was home in NJ was the week on "Letting Go" ... I'm not doing it all precisely one-a-day, but reading, flagging, going back, doing the exercises on more than one situation like she suggests. And things are changing. Take a look at my apartment!!

But, also, I recently downloaded from the SF Public Library on eBook (yes you can do this now!), What Color is your Parachute? It's a book about careers, career advice, how to figure out what you want, what you're good at. And so I'm now doing the exercises in this as well. Because, no, I am not committed to my dreams. I am always embarrassed to tell people I sing. No one's heard me (well, except Carmen actually, who once told me [after I'd just sung with a band in front of an audience of a hundred people...] that I was really good, and when I said "Really??", she said, No I'm just trying to sleep with you) ;) But more than just sing, I want to perform. I want to act, be on stage, riddle you with emotion - I wrote a poem about it once. About throwing you off the edge of a cliff and gently reeling you back in - about steamrolling you with emotion - and the fucked up thing is that I really do think I can. I really do believe that I have it in me to possess myself so completely that I might possess you too.

What a powerful thing is that?

Now, the advanced portion of this exercise, is to let myself head there.

This blog, I suppose, is a part of that. Emptying out my childhood home is a part of that. Finally completing the art project I began in July is a part of it ~ and I'll tell you something, It Looks Amazing. Even I'm proud of myself.

I've been realizing I have a pattern of thought/behavior lately, which states that I can only have happiness when I have success. I can only have love when I have a job. I can only have a career when I ... when I let myself take the hideously frightening action steps - even the baby ones, like call these two working actors I know in SF and set up coffee dates/informational interviews. So, putting up my artwork yesterday was part of spitting in the face of that belief - the art doesn't have to be perfect for it to go up (that was actually the purpose of that project - was to let myself paint it, no matter how it came out - and when it was done - it was done, no finnicking with it). The art doesn't have to be perfect to make me happy. I don't have to be perfect to be happy, because let's face it - that would be never. So, I've set up for myself a system of belief where I can never have love or joy in my life. And, in realizing this, I'm realizing how ultimately retarded it is, and I'm beginning to take action in the opposite direction.

Because maybe there's another Adam Levine out there just waiting for an actress/writer/singer. ... bass player ;)

(source: huffington post via Cosmo UK)

Excavation: Chapter 3

So, it's been bothering me that I have recently been writing about all this fucked up shit about my family and childhood, particularly now when I feel that I've been "doing so much better" and "moving beyond it." Or rather, truly feeling that it (the past) doesn't have the same power to inform my behavior and interpretation of the world that it used to have.

And so, I've been curious then to see that it's been coming out so much in my poetry. Then, I had a realization. I had begun a serial poem a few years ago titled "Excavation", and it has a few "chapters", Curiosity, and Betrayal, and a 2.5 that I can't find, But I'd always been curious as to when the next chapters would show up, and, I believe they are. I believe this is the work that is happening right now.

It occurs to me now that "excavation" is not just, dig stuff up and get rid of it. It's dig stuff up, examine it, and then get rid of it (or lay it aside, or hold it differently, etc.). And so, writing all these poems, I've recognized, is the examination. This is what these ancient pieces have to say; there's a reason they don't feel current, and that's because they're not. They're like fossils of an ancient emotion or experience, and my work now is just recording them. Acknowledging they exist, validating the experience, and setting them aside with honor, but without the power of tyranny.

I find comfort in this realization; that I am "moving beyond" these old wounds and experiences. But, I actually have to process them (record them) as I excavate them, or else they still have a hold on me, they're still unexamined, and therefore like the ghosts of souls who still have work left to do on this plane. By writing about them, I am finalizing the work of these experiences. By recording what was written in and on these fossils, I am laying them to a final rest. And so, "Excavation Chapter 3: Examination", so that eventually, I may come to the next chapter, Freedom.

Cadillac Beauty.

there are problems i hear referred to as “Cadillac problems,” which are thereby deemed unfit to be of actual import in the course of human maturation, and the person lamenting such problems should promptly be force-fed humble pie. however, labeling an experience as shallow and unworthy of examination hinders the degree of honesty a person can have with another.

and so, i will here attempt to be honest.

i have been ashamed to broach the subject with anyone until recently for fear of reprisal, or dismissal. or that i will be considered narcissistic, vapid, or ungrateful. and, throwing aside for one moment the imagined bitter murmurs of contempt and derision, i’d like to give voice to my struggle.

i am beautiful. i catch myself at moments when it reflects back to me so blatantly, i sometimes gasp. i sometimes pause with awe that this person is me. and sometimes, i find myself so in possession of these gifts, that i actually feel like i am inhabiting the skin given me, instead of wearing it like a cocktail dress that i want to tell people i bought at the second-hand store, so they don’t think i’m showing off.

there are moments when i own this body. the long lines of legs. the carved cheekbones, and ravenous almond eyes. the legs are the hardest. they’re so damn visible. i can hide the eyes and cheeks behind glasses or matted hair. and i usually hide my thirty-six inches of legs under pants or dresses to my knees, but this weekend, i wore shorts. not booty, i-can-see-the-fine-china shorts, just shorts. ones that exposed the vast expanse of thighs that are pale white, in comparison to my tanned arms, because i keep them hidden away. because they cause whiplash, and traffic accidents.

sort of.

what they do cause, what i cause, are turned heads. and i can’t begin to tell you how uncomfortable that can be. hence, the Cadillac problems. imagine? me lamenting that i get stared at by men? some men; some times. but they do, and it makes me so very hyper aware of myself, i start to wonder if this body i have is mine or not. if i am actually in possession of it. or, as i have often done, if i should shrink away inside of my own skin so i can’t feel your stares, or the glares of the woman you’re with.

as i become more comfortable and confident within myself, my life, my body, i begin to walk in it – the life and the body – differently, more fully. and thusly, i find myself attracting attention that i don’t get when covered by layers of “don’t look at me.” and so, i am looked at, which is okay, and sometimes fun, but sometimes intrusive, as if a conversation i’m having is being eavesdropped upon – and in some ways it is. it’s a conversation, a relationship, with myself that i am having, and flaunting, and caressing – and you, sir, are a voyeur.

and sometimes, sir, you are with a woman. and she looks at you, and sees you looking at me – then, she looks at me. and i feel suddenly branded with a scarlet A, like i am now a harlot, a siren attempting to lure away your man. when really, lady, i’m just buying fruit. when really, dude, you’re with a girl. and i feel so uncomfortable in those moments. like not only has my brilliant moment of self-possession been besmirched, but also, your moment as a couple.

a friend told me recently that she is afraid to introduce me to men she likes for fear they’ll think i’m cuter than she is. and besides the fact she herself is stunning, and that i told her she didn’t have to then introduce me to any men she thought were cute, i felt icky. like somehow being the woman i am is a bad thing. that being beautiful, or walking with poise is wrong. that i should shrink to let couples have their moments, and friends feel secure.

that by hiding my light, as they say, i will make room for other people.

however, this conclusion is erroneous.

perhaps it may be possible that owning what i am, who i am, what i’ve been given can be a bolster to others to do the same. perhaps not. but perhaps it is possible that i can allow myself to shine as brilliantly as i care to shine without fear of reprisal. without fear of being shot down - without fear that i ought to shoot myself down. maybe it’s possible for me to stand in my skin when men look, single or not, and allow myself to be seen. affirming that i can claim myself, life, and body. and not be ashamed.

because, in the end, it's about ownership of all of myself, not just the external, but also the shy, dorky, blemished, tentative parts.

but, too, it is about owning this external piece of me. this piece that i am sometimes awed by, sometimes mad at, sometimes prod and poke and suck in and lament and feed gallons of ice cream to and wonder if i'm "enough." sometimes i’m just a woman. and sometimes, i would just like to feel that being a woman engaged in this social world is not a Cadillac problem.

trauma and literature

i’ve been watching that show parenthood on hulu lately, and i’ve been crying at every episode. i’ve been writing lately about my mother, and how much she hurts and hurt me and how i hate her, even though i don’t, but there are significant parts of me that still do, and i don’t know how to reconcile them yet, or at all. and so there’s the writing that has to be done, because there’s nothing else to do about it. i haven’t been able to exorcise this stuff out of me.

i was in my creative writing class last semester and we were workshopping a book of my poetry, and the second poem, the one that follows the martyr poem is about me. and my mom. and her telling me about her online affair with a 19 year old. when i myself was eighteen. and her telling me they met through an online chatroom about leather … fetishes i assume is the right word there. you can read the poem. but the ‘funny’ thing about it was in workshop the teacher asked the class who they thought the woman was in the poem, because it certainly couldn’t be the mom, even though that’s who it seems to be; that no one’s mom would talk like that. that it simply couldn’t be. true.

and at the end of the class i said as much. i said it was a mom, my mom. and everyone was silent for that beat too long when something awkward has been said, and you don’t know how to react. much like in the poem itself.

and so, how does it end? does forgetting happen, or numbing, or leaving or reconciling. surely, i know this isn’t the worst motherly behavior. surely i know people who have had trauma greater than mine. but. to acknowledge it as trauma … isn’t enough. it's not full enough, or un-cliche enough. it doesn’t lessen it, or make it better, or take it away.

i was in my senior year of college, only a few months away from institutionalization, though i didn’t know it at the time. i only knew i was drinking in class by then. in film class though. experimental film. the only way to watch bunuel, of course. i was taking a class called trauma and literature. we read books about domestic violence, the holocaust, slavery. and i remember. mostly i remember this one book about domestic violence where the man slams a kitchen drawer on his blonde wife’s fingers, severing them, and we hear and see through her eyes that moment of necessitated numbness when she doesn’t feel anything because she can’t. because it’s too massive to feel anything at all. and so she’s intrinsically protected by her body and all of human decendency, and i know that moment. that suspension before the agony. i lived that suspension. and i don’t know how to land those moments. how to lay them down, how to put them to rest.

and so i watch television that makes me weep, and i ache in a place that is unchartable. and i wait for something to change. for change to overcome me like long awaited sleep. for it to catch up to me and allow me to let go of my breath and trust that maybe for once, and yet maybe for the millionth time, i can be safe in whatever’s happening, drawer or no drawer – i have to believe that something. will change. mainly because it must.