Stuck

Technically I am not actually stuck inside but it feels that way. It is pouring...the kind of rain that makes one say things about 40 days and 40 nights and arks and the like. And I was desiring to go outside but don't quite feel in the mood for a swim. Good thing some random mermaid of a lady gave me an umbrella which some poor soul had left at the bar last night. Since I did my duty and shut down the bar, and sent a few drunk suitors home in cabs, I was handsomely rewarded with this prized possession. A beauteous black umbrella which appearing to be quite new and is now, somehow, lost. Due to my pack on my back days of late this is so very odd to me. I have ransacked this apartment. I am without the tool which allows me to enter more freely and much drier in the underbelly of the slowly drowning streets. It feels like I won the lottery but lost the ticket. I have not given into this feeling completely...I mean things like umbrellas were made to be lost but being that I have not left this apartment since the witching hours, I highly doubt it will remain forever gone.

It is funny stuff like that...things get lost and you know they will turn back up and they do. Usually, items that went off to wander among the ghosts for a bit return in one of two manners. One - the manner of the odd and absurd, e.g. "What is this umbrella doing in the freezer? How did the sausage maker even fit in the sock drawer?". These are so amusing that it is usually worth losing the item momentarily because life is once again a bizarre circus and the ride is amazingly hilarious. The audience of crazy monkeys is golf clapping from the wings. You wander amongst the day with a delicious anecdote, likely a coat-hanger in the mouth sort of permagrin and quite possibly are forced to ponder your mental health, drinking or drug problem, the existence of supernatural beings, or the possibility that your roommate, lover or landlord is having a good laugh at your expense. This silly mixed up paranoid fantasy mini-adventure paired with the return of the beloved item is quite often worth the temporary loss.

The second manner of return of the quasi-lost "truc" is the bizarrely obvious, e.g. "Somehow I managed to lose my glasses for three days only to find them on top of my head." or "I lost my car keys for a week, had new ones made which cost $200 because of the oddities of the car only to find the sneaky fuckers sitting smack dab in the center of my desk." These things give you everything thing that the first manner does - story, amusement, quandaries of life...but adds to oft underrated and rarely sought terror. Am I losing my mind for real? I mean I can accept that I packed the bread maker and shipped it to my niece at camp that is hilarious...but over looked my computer which is turned on and sitting on my coffee table to the point that I had it replaced...clearly - clearly I am insane. Cleary, story number two will only be told to the close inner circle of your entourage to gauge how crazy you actually are and perhaps one drunken night it will be shared with the torturous finger-pointing strangers we label "them".

So alas - the umbrella is still off travelling in the shadows...and perhaps if I never share the tale of its return, you can assume why...

Hail in San Francisco

Among things that don't occur: Snow in San Francisco. I thought that day when they trucked in all the snow for the ski jump event would be the only day that I would ever see snow in San Francisco. That day (see photo) was actually ridiculously hot...in fact, a friend of mine that attended the event with me said he was about to take off his pants it was so hot. But this weekend, an apocalyptic type of hail storm occurred. Hard chucks of ice ...similar to dipping dots only larger...pelted the streets of San Francisco. People came out of doors, it seemed magical, mystical and a bit eerie. Needless to say it was amazing and quite unbelievable.

That was the start of my weekend. Then a friend of mine that I haven't see in ages arrived in from LA and we reminisced about old and new times...felt lost...tried to come to some resolutions about how and where we were. The oddest part of the discussions was that she changed my feelings about LA to some extent. First, the rent does not seem as steep as SF which is appealing these days. And she kept using the word easy...easy life...refreshing even. She moved to la la land from NYC and I have to say I could use some easy in my life. I feel like I have been working incredibly hard and not seeing the results that I feel I attempt to work toward. I am still continuing, I am not one to think there are vast rewards without any challenge, but I have this feeling sometimes that I am swimming upstream on the salmon run - only I am not the vicious fervent fish but an oddly confused dove finding wings a poor excuse for fins. So - you can see how easy is appealing.

This feeling stuck around for awhile and then I had a run in with another friend while traveling around town in a desperate attempt to retrieve my phone charger as my phone has become the only semblance of a homebase that I have. The conversation was short but impacted me hugely at least at that moment. It seemed implied in the conversation that my friend thought I needed to figure out what I wanted and in some ways, it seemed to me, accept less than what I want.

But how do I answer what I want...I mean I try, I think I am on a path. I am trying not to freak out on a daily basis that actually right now in the immediate present I am nowhere just here. Just in this purgatory...homesick for some unknown home. The path in front of me surely is there but is yet to be built and the twisted road behind me is covered with fog...and there is no going back.

What do I want really? I want to pass the fucking bar. I want to be allowed to practice in the field that I have worked so hard to be allowed to dally within. I want to finish writing a novel fully and completely. I want to find love. I want to be a mom. I want to travel everywhere. I want to teach kids somewhere for some period of time (Yes I still consider South Korea). I want own something...land, a home, a car - someplace to call my own. I want to change the world even if only in a small way. I want to finally learn to play that guitar I bought so long ago. I want to learn to ride a motorcycle, to run a marathon, to DJ, to play tennis, to fix a car engine, and to do a cartwheel. I want to be debt free. I want to live without fear or at least be so comfortable in my own skin that the fear is merely a feeling and never paralyzing.

In the immediacy of right now...I want to be able to get by all by myself. Have a job that pays my bills and have a home with a bed of my own.
I have an interview tomorrow. I find out about the Bar in May.

Hopefully, if all goes well I will figure out how to fly and stop trying to swim. I am working at this really hard. This is my life right now. I am trying terribly hard to be strong. I am ready to stop being in the shadows of life and walk trembling to center stage. I just need a little help and I am digging deep to disgorge it from within myself.

I know for a fact this time right now is the rawest self I have ever been and I am trying my damnedest to not douse it with additives in order to dull the actual true sensation of me. I am trying to be inside of my vulnerability and deal with it and not run away. I am hoping that if I stop paddling trying to escape that I will wash up on dry land in the sun and it will all start to be clear and doable...because I don't think I get a do-over or to rewind.

But for now there is hail and it is beautiful and amazing and crazy and I love it and I am scared. It is hard. But I grew up in Boston and March is a hard month...and it must be remembered that March breaks the cold of winter and lets the oft needed spring in again. Some things need to be broken...and most breaking hurts.

Inhaling Thrills

"This place is a prison
And these people aren't your friends
Inhaling thrills through $20 bills
And the tumblers are drained
And then flooded again and again"
- Postal Service

I just thought that was a nice way to bring up the fact that there is a new $10 coming out...see it is orange and red and yellow...and I do love Orange.

Ok - back in SF - couch surfing for what has now been one week and three days and I have to say it feels much much longer. That is not a bad thing necessarily - - I think it must take a bit of time to get used to any new lifestyle and once I break this horse...she'll ride just the way I need her to. The hardest thing about couch surfing is the lack of time alone. Floors, sleeping bags, couches, people stepping on you aside...it is that I truly enjoy my solitude more now than ever. We must remember I have been studying for three freaking months - lucky to see anyone for 12 - 14 hours a day. Here - now I feel a bit like a turnstyle at a mall entrance. But that is not a complaint at all..change is change. It is necessary for growth and it always takes more adjusting than first seemed necessary.

The hardest realizations are also in some ways the truest and the most obvious. It is strange to realize truisms that are in your face because they are always so obvious to everyone around you but not necessarily to yourself. I like to think of it like this - sometimes I have my nose right up against the wall of this billboard and I am trying to figure out WTF it says but all I see are brushstrokes or millions of pixels. In the end - a few steps back would have done the trick...but you get caught up in the details and in viewing life from your own perspective.

So since I am feeling a bit under the weather and I had an empty apartment and a bed for the past two days. I have taken some time to reflect and sleep comfortably. It has revitalized me a bit...tho the weather, movement, stress of the bar, etc may be catching up to me healthwise. I feel good just pensive but quite strong in some senses.

I mean this is my life and I control it to some extent and I am finding that three months of being gone is a long time and no time at all. Some days in SF this time around - have already been so different - I could not tell you my name or confirm that indeed it was me acting. And somethings and days are bizarrely the same. That is both good and bad. Perhaps I am finally standing a few feet back and can read the billboard for the words - if I want to. A friend of mine says, "It made sense at the time." And sometimes - you just have to go with that and not be too hard on yourself or spend too much time analyzing any one thing.

This weekend was amazing in a lot of ways. The beats of electronic music enveloped me in its arms as tightly as my friends did. The music and the friends that I have missed so much. So many smiles and faces and interesting comments. And the dancing. Part of me has come back to life. That being true...there are a few other things I have to devote my time to right now. Getting a job and myself.

Sometimes I think socializing in clubs has a draw for me that is like a drug and surely much healthier than a drug - - if say one uses music and friends instead of drinking and drugs. But I do have a tendency to let it steam roll over all the other aspects of my life that I love as well...because really no one in the world has better friends than I do :-) I mean I would not even be able to couch surf and find my way in SF if it weren't for my amazing friends - as Jondi and I discussed - Friends are the only true riches.

But there is a real validity of self - a necessity of living - a flower grown from within...that only exists if you take a little solitude for your own passions. I do not want to lose the strengths that I have gained throughout my process of solitary confinement for my studies nor could I ever dream of giving up the riches that are my friends.

So - what really happened in the last week and a half. Too much to write out and far too much to process. But I am glad to be back even if I do want to be careful which shoes I am wearing.