intellectual properties

streak

my goal for this week is to be nice. to myself and to everyone else. last week was mean.

fire dragon

FIRE DRAGON – 1916, 1976, 2036

The most righteous, outgoing and competitive of all Dragons, the Fire Dragon will expect a lot from everyone. But while he may be demanding and aggressive, he is also blessed with enormous energy and has a lot to offer in return. The trouble is that he may go around with an air of superiority plus authority and make people fear or shy away from him. His leadership qualities are often marred by his desire to be treated like the Messiah. Fire matched with his forceful lunar sign will give him overzealous and dictatorial inclinations. He pushes too hard even where there is little resistance.

In reality, he is an open and humane person given to impartiality and uncovering the truth at all costs. His criticisms are objective and he has the power to arouse the masses with his vibrant personality. A natural empire builder, he will look toward the supreme order of things, with himself at the helm, of course.

Because the Fire Dragon is often enveloped by insatiable personal ambition, he is short-tempered, inconsiderate and unable to put up with anything less than perfection. He also overgeneralizes or jumps to conclusions, frequently lumping people into categories without allowing for or even perceiving their individual differences.

Nonetheless, here is a performer of the highest degree who could easily be a source of inspiration to his fellowman and a personality who will catch the public eye – when he learns to master his negative traits and communicate more humbly with others.

in general, i do not believe in astrology as an oracle or predictor, but even so i always consider what it says in terms of whether it is true about me or not, regardless of the stars.

i like to see myself as defined in the 2nd paragraph, but am i also an egoist who jumps to conclusions?

problem identification

today’s source of irritability, slow cognitive function, and general malaise.

that pre-5am period was especially harsh, waking up coughing with an unbelievably dry and raw throat and unable to stop. water is not a lubricant.

temporary remedies: coffee, listening to Guns N’ Roses.

evening solutions: exercise, dinner, go to bed early.

forest therapy

i used to think i was a pretty chill person.  but i am not, and i have not ever been. that image of the laid back hippie chick was just a dream.

when i was younger my anxiety manifested itself as social awkardness, nerdiness, etc.  but then as i got older i learned how to control that, to “groom” an outward persona closer to cool.  and i think what happened is all that anxiety went inward and is now manifesting itself physically.  i have an almost constant stomach ache.  my ongoing shoulder/muscle pain is now over a year old. i have actual Anxiety Attacks.

i still have my totally socially awkward moments, in the worse of which i am a total Manic, overly flirtatious and rather aggressive, and afterward i am always a bit embarrassed, and wonder if anyone else noticed.

but in general, day to day, i am usually just sort of trembling inside. other times the feeling starts to overwhelm my whole experience. as mentioned, when i got back from burning man, i was so hella relaxed people kept asking me what was wrong because i wasn’t my usual self.

.::.

last night we went camping at China Camp in Marin – one last time for the year, before DST adjusts again tomorrow and the short, dark, damp days descent upon us.

for my body and mind, i have found nothing as therapeutic as time spent in the woods.

h8rs gonna <3

“the more ridiculous, tiny, arcane or completely irrational the object of your outrage is, the more you know you have attained ultimate freedom. You are living the real American Dream, hereby defined as being endlessly upset and miserable about totally meaningless bulls–t for no valid reason whatsoever because you have everything you could ever want or need in this life, ever.”
–mark morford

every once in a while someone who i don’t see in person very often but who keeps up with me online will note that my public/online persona is often very much a hater.

i am aware of this. that’s why i bought myself this t-shirt!

my excuse, and i think many writers will agree with me here, is that it is more often only things that make your blood boil that move you to express more than 140 characters. i know that this is not a good excuse, and in fact believe that more expression of the positive is needed in this world, that all this media and cultural negativity is somehow deeply traumatizing us, individually and collectively. (aside: something the other day prompted me to think for a minute how awesome it would be to have a positive-news-only channel/newspaper).

this is the part that is maybe not obvious, which i want to enunciate: even when i am hating on something, i’m reveling in whatever absurdity i’m finding there, either in the thing itself, or often laughing at my own hating on it. most often this is music, fashion, or art.  i try very hard to have more compassion and less judgment about other parts of people’s lives and their choices. well, except for politics and religion, but that’s a whole other thing there that we’ll not even get into right now. but music, fashion, art: they are put out there as a language, as a message for interpretation, and so i feel ok about critiquing these things, even though, yes, these things are also often very very personal.  even when i am at my most critical, and i’ve said this before, i will support creatives until the end of time in their endeavors in these realms, but that doesn’t mean i also love their art. sometimes the output of a brilliant concept really viscerally sucks.  it’s kind of like loving your 5-year-old’s kindergarten drawings. of course they suck.  but look how much creativity and love!

[it's true that there are some things i just can't get behind and personally support. like sports/fans. but i'll take the cue here and "stop Eeyoring" and this will be the only time i say a word about the fact that "my home team" is in the World Series and no, I DO NOT CARE.  but everyone who does care ("bandwangoneers" and "real fans" alike) should LIVE IT UP AND have fun! i mean it! i will not hate on the Giants or the related ridiculousness going on around here right now.]

back to the more important point: there is no apathy here.  i care deeply about fucking everything. i am one of those who revels in darkness as much as light. i walk the line. just because i am not espousing positivity and puking rainbows does not mean i am unhappy (anxious, maybe. unhappy? no.) or that i do not find joy in the world.  in fact, i still SQUEE over the simplest things, one of the most common being dogs with their heads out the windows of cars on the freeway,  their faces into the wind, mouth open, surely getting smacked by bugs and detritus and dust and tiny rocks, GRINNING. I LOVE THAT THEY DO THAT.  almost enough to make me want to get a dog.  flowers, also. and trees. and moonlight. a simple girl singing a simple song. people’s eyes, reflecting forever.

so please don’t get me wrong. i love humans. i just find human nature wildly incomprehensible sometimes, and the levels of relative absurdity are often overwhelming enough to make me spew.

little earthquakes

it has become apparent that i am going through one of those phases again where i am having a series of small breakdowns. mini crises. freak outs. anxiety attacks. little earthquakes. i hereby recognize and am doing what i can to stop the pattern and prevent a big one. please forgive me if i am not my self right now.

34

today is my 34th birthday.

a year ago today, we were in Prague, and that seems so, so long ago. for some weeks now, i have been noting how long this year+ has felt to me, in many ways.

since last august, i have been to 8 countries (not including Canada).  traveling has been something i’ve always dreamed of, always wanted to do when i was young and poor, and only in the last few years have i had both the time and money to be able to really do it.  this has made my life so much richer, feel so much bigger and opened up to the world to me.  other people, other music, other cultures, other foods, other forests, other mountains, other cities – i find everything so interesting, the micro complexities and the macro homogeny. i am completely enamoured with this planet and i want to see everything. traveling took up most of my extra time, money and energy this past year but it’s what has made the last year my life really start become the life i’ve been working toward.

for those following along you also know that since last fall, i’ve been dealing with chronic pain.  it was particularly bad in november-february, and i spent so much time and money seeing all kinds of doctors and healers that it also made that time period feel long and drawn out. i still wake up some mornings with a fair amount of pain in my neck and right shoulder, but it is no longer debilitating and i am off taking pain meds most of the time.   i will admit, though, it is the one thing that is really making me start to “feel my age”, and at times it sort of freaks me out for moment. on the flip side, because of all the bodywork and exercise i’ve done to try to alleviate the pain problem, it’s possible that right now i’m in the best physical shape i have been since high school!

finally, there is also some undefinable shift/change going on inside me.  i don’t quite know how to put it into words, really, but i think going to burning man without jay this year was a big part of it. as i noted at the end there, i felt some definitive growth.  i spent a lot of my youth feeling a victim. of my past, of my economy, of my insecurities, of my sex, of my culture. but i think i’m slowly breaking out of that. it isn’t consistent but i now feel a soft confidence that was definitely not there before.

big <3 to all my friends and family who have encouraged and supported me through both my pain and my wandering endeavors. 33 was an amazing year.  i'm thinking 34 might be even better.

alignment

i am.
i mean:
i know.
i think too much about it.
i do.

and all of the things….

who are you next once you’ve metamorphosed a dozen times already?

i went to yoga tonight and my mind was racing during meditation
but i think it was OK;
i thought a lot about things that make me feel good
as i twisted my body into alignment.

even the fact that it (everything) is so much harder now at 33 than it was at 23:
i had an ok reflection on that.
mostly: you can come back, baby -
rock and roll never forgets.

sleeping beauty

i’ve been reading and linking to a lot so there’s a lot going on over here @GoogleReader and here@twitter, but no so much here. because, well, not to go on again about exhaustion, but oh man am i so tired, and it takes energy to write.  so many nights without good sleep. lying in bed.  twisting. turning. thinking.

first, last week my (now) chronic shoulder/neck pain spiked again, to the point that on last friday morning i was shriveled and exhausted and crying on the couch and jay made me to to the ER. what for? they won’t tell me anything new. DRUGS, that’s what for. but it turns out, the drugs, they don’t work miracles, and in fact, somehow, vicodin keeps me AWAKE. WHO KNEW.  as it has been for the past 6 months, the pain comes in waves, and now today, is subsiding back down to a point where it’s only slightly aggravating. i’m just more mentally frustrated than anything else.

then, just as i was feeling better, the boy half went and crashed on his mount bike something fierce, and so now HE’s the one taking all the drugs and rolling around in bed all uncomfortable from pain, and i have not had a good night’s sleep in over a week. and yet, somehow, even if i crawl in bed at 9:00pm, i still can’t go to sleep.  sometimes for hours and hours. insomnia sucks.

so while i intended to write something this week about, i don’t know, all the other crap going on in the world, right now all i want to do is go home and crawl in bed with my cat. which, by the way, i recently learned on This American Life, people from other cultures find weird, that americans sleep with their cats. huh.

i am only coming through in waves

the approximate scale is 15 to 30:
a nice-looking spectrum in its duplicity,
but there’s a lot of room in the middle.

my right arm is barely alive.
one of my least attractive personality traits
is that when i’m in pain i whine.
how much does it hurt?
i don’t know if i have a low threshold for pain or for complaining.

sailing through the wet-green and foggy-blue,
today is not the first day i wished my bike commute was longer.