Slow Down Feel Love

My Lily-face made it through sugery splendidly. I am so ridiculously relieved. It will be a long two weeks of healing now, and hoping she doesn't pick out any of her stitches, but I am so hopeful. : )

Tomorrow will be another day for writing. I intend to send out a package to my parents and one to my friends in North Carolina, both including love notes. I also intend to write a belated birthday letter to my sponsored child, Mostakin, congratulating him on turning nine years old.

I’m hoping to be able to finish my yoga sculpture tomorrow, and to be able to do more studying of the Italian language. I’ll be working on the chapter about introducing yourself and talking about where you come from. I’ve mastered everything up to there, I just need to take time out to proceed. I’ll be spending all day listening to the Makepeace Brothers, and soaking in their love and sincerity.

I also plan on donating blood and cleaning my room… but we’ll see where that goes, haha.

In the mean time, I’ll be writing.


Last night I had a sudden revelation, spurred by Stumble Upon, my latest resource for inspiration and beauty. I can spend hours stumbling from webpage to webpage, finding everything- ingenuity, music, art, beauty, community, and culture. Last night, Stumble Upon showed me something that wrenched me open, and let everything I didn’t know I was holding in way out into the open. It was a video, set to emotional music, of a cat trying to revive its dead friend. You could clearly see its confusion and distress, and from the moment it started, my heart began to break. I thought about stumbling away, but I couldn’t. It would have been wrong to. You can’t just look away from the suffering in the world and pretend it doesn’t exist, then walk around like you understand it all… you have to let it in, you have to experience it; otherwise you’re just numb and naive. A minute into the video I was crying. By the end, I was sobbing uncontrollably. The worry of the past few days for the comfort and health of my rat, Lily, which I had assumed I had overcome, came bubbling back to the surface, bringing with it all of the loss I had ever felt in my life. I relived the deaths of every single person and animal I had loved with emotion just as raw, feeling the desperation, the misery, and the hopelessness to help. The guilt. Then, beyond that, I felt the loss and devastation of the whole world. I felt every person affected by death, starvation, humiliation, and suffering; and I wept for all of it.

Then, suddenly, gasping for breath and wracked with sobs, tears soaking my face and shirt, I sat up. A realization struck me. This, that I was feeling, was love. Not romantic, heart-fluttery, butterfly-stomached love. No, this was unabashed, untainted, pure, all-encompassing LOVE. This was the love of the entire universe that I was feeling. It is impossible to feel grief without first feeling love, and in that moment I could feel the underlying magnitude of all the love existing within every single living thing all over the world. And my capacity to embrace this love, I then realized, was the evidence of my connection to all of it.

There is a type of tree, a Quaking Aspen called Pando, which appears on the surface to be a forest of trees. However, if you look under the line of soil, there is, in fact, only one root system. These trees that look as though they are simply standing near to each other, are actually just appendages of one SINGLE plant. They are all connected.

They are ONE.



As are WE. Our root system is LOVE. We may appear to be alone in our lives, moving from one place to another, unaffected by those around us, but in reality we are surrounded by love. And like that plant, if one of us is affected, it can be felt by others very far away.

Yesterday I felt all of it, and it was a beautiful and affirming thing. It was the exact experience that I needed to help me cope with feelings I’ve been holding onto. Sorrow is such a tricky thing, it can follow you at such a distance that you believe it to be gone entirely, until the day it pops up out of nowhere to overwhelm you. My guilt, over so much of the loss in my past, is one of those types of sorrow. But now I know that the only thing that keeps it tethered to me, following so resolutely, is love.

For one example, I still feel so guilty for what happened to my little kitten, Eve- something that I know deep down was just an unfortunate accident. I realize now that the reason this guilt will never leave me is that I still love her. I will always love her, even though she has been gone for longer than she was ever here, I loved her as much today as I loved her when I held her in my hands the day she died. And now, despite the pain I may occasionally feel, I am so immensely grateful for my capacity to love so enduringly, and my grief and my guilt and my sorrow are all constant reminders of my beautiful capacity to LOVE.

I love with such a passion, it sometimes takes my breath away. Last night, I realized that I love so much more strongly than I thought possible. Today I love even more. My heart bursts with it, and I give it freely. Take as much as you need. I love you, so.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

Love for My Lily-Face

I’m on the verge of tears tonight, weighed down with worry and memory. Just less than two and a half years ago, my sweet baby Delilah was lost to a battle with a facial tumor. She was just a rat.

No.

She was a friend, a comfort, a confidant, a companion, a ceaseless fountain on love and support. She loved me unconditionally and she was torn from me violently over a three week period after a three year friendship. She suffered and I can’t help but blame myself. I feel like I let her down. I have let down so many…

It was a tornado of events even before she got sick. I was homeless for the first time. Ashamed and beaten, I was already planning on going home. I then lost my store as well as I discovered that my manager didn’t like me and was transferring me out. During a nearly shattering blow to my recently built up image of my own self-worth, then a careful period of reinforcement, both at subsequent music venues, I also had to deal with the falseness of a supposed good friend, and the heavenly appearance of a new friend. Then- tragedy, my Delilah was torn from me unceremoniously. I didn’t even have anywhere to bury her. And, as if I didn’t have enough on my plate, just days later, the car accident that sent me packing, spirit broken, tail between my legs. I’ve never been as shaken as I was that night in the Arby’s parking lot with my bags over my shoulders, tow-truck disappearing in the distance, and no one answering on the other line of my desperately punched phone numbers. I couldn’t stop myself from letting go the wrenching sobs born in my chest. I have never been so low.

Now, two and a half years later, the scars still run deep. I don’t notice them until moments like these. When I brought my Delilah into the vet after first noticing the tumor on her cheek, they were confident that surgery to remove the mass would be a successful solution to our problem. They were very very wrong.

I have to bring my sweet Lily-face, dear friend for the past year and a half, to the vet in eight hours. She has a mammary tumor larger than a tangerine and the vet said she was confident that surgery to remove the mass will be successful. Logically she’s right. The tumor is run of the mill. It is most likely benign, as most rats’ mammary tumors are, and there is no evidence of any other tumors growing in any other region of her body. The tumor does not seem to have infiltrated her chest cavity, and will most likely take half an hour to remove at most.

Nevertheless, I feel a deep seeded sense of impending doom. I am terrified to the pit of my being. I can’t sleep, my stomach churns, my hands shake. I am reliving every single moment of those months I spent in Phoenix, the rollercoaster ride of emotions, the loss. I miss Delilah too much to express, and I worry even more for the safety of my baby, Lily. There are so many things that can go wrong, and there are so many loved ones that I have lost tragically and unexpectedly: My Nonno, My Grandpa, Prince, Eve, Tulip, Spunky, Delilah, Thumper, Shamu, Steve. There is no line for me that separates family from friends from animals from strangers. For me, love is love, and I love with undeniable, undying passion.

I love Lily.

I am so scared.

Like Language

Music is like a language that I can understand perfectly, but that I cannot speak. It is so frustrating to hear a wonderful conversation that I cannot join. The language I speak is one of a different dimension. I speak the language of subtle curves in the fabric of space. I speak a language of patient silence and aching back muscles, of frustration and repetition and bandaged fingertips. I speak the language of sculpture, and for this I am grateful.
But the only language I have ever truly wanted to know has always been music. I want so badly to let beautiful sounds erupt from my throat and melodies to strum their way from my fingertips. I’ve wanted to add bits of myself to a drum circle or an open mic night, to make people’s toes tap and lips curl upward as their voices rise alongside my own. I have always wanted to stand alone before ten thousand people and to share a melody with each and every one of them, as personal as if we were soul mates.
The language of sculpture has the ability to tell beautiful stories and to withstand the tests of time; even to affect the masses among the best of us- yet it is quite a solitary song, to be sung alone and viewed alone and interpreted alone. It is a wonderful thing that I have and I want so badly to appreciate it fully, but I cannot help but feel as though I am missing one of my senses, and the world is incomplete.
Maybe I’ll learn to sculpt music, and then I’ll be whole. Until then I’ll listen and dream.

The Next Chapter

10:00p.m. MST – 12:00a.m. EST

Some words from one of my heroes, Butch Walker
12/25
"I just want to say that life is precious. Life is wonderful. Life is unpredictable. So please, go out and live your own. It’s going to only get weirder and wilder from this point on, so please, don’t sit in your little bubble and listen and follow what you have been taught or told your whole life (because there’s a 72% chance that it was all BULLSHIT). You have the ability to take chances, sleep on floors in random strangers’ houses, drive around the country, fly around the world (if you can afford a ticket), backpack anywhere, and believe anything and nothing. Whatever it is that you choose to do, just do it, and act on impulse and will. I can smell it on people a mile away if they were brought up as carbon copies of their own peers. The shirts, the lingo, the philosophy, the record collection, etc… just take chances because you will never regret that. This is a promise."

I spent New Year’s Eve last year driving. I had been visiting my family in Florida from where I was living in Virginia, and I had to be back in Chesapeake for work on the first, so at six a.m. on December 31st, 2009, I left Port Charlotte, where I had been visiting my friend Gene, with my mom. We stopped for breakfast and I dropped her off in Orlando at nine. I picked up my things and my rat, Lily, and headed north. I drove all day, cracked out on red bull and Starbucks Double Shots. It was a difficult day.
The drive was long, and would have been fine, except for the possum that ran out in front of my car on Highway 58E. I had never hit an animal before, and the guilt was voracious. To make matters worse, the conditions which prohibited me from seeing the possum were the same conditions which prevented me from getting out to check on it. If I had stopped my car and gotten out, chances were very great that another car would have come speeding along through the blackness and I, myself, would have become roadkill. I didn’t stop.
I got back to Virginia Beach just before midnight. I went inside to find Sam watching the New York City times-square festivities; so, exhausted though I was, I sat with him to watch. It was too much, though, to see poor Dick Clark fumble through the count-down with his stroke-stricken body. I went to bed thoroughly depressed. Way to bring in the new year, right?
But the next morning brought a new year, and new opportunities to embrace the world with open arms. I accept my sadness the night before as evidence of my compassion, but the life is about so much more than just that. And through the year I certainly lived.

11:00p.m. – 12:00a.m. CST

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” – Edith Lovejoy Pierce, twentieth century poet and pacifist.

This year past has been the most incredible year: full of strife and success, with passion, joy, and heartache.
I began the year in Virginia, right on the oceanfront, with wonderful roommates and great friends. My store was like another family and I was happy. The time came for me to make my way, and I headed west to Colorado. This brought about a replay of the timeline of my self-discovery. It was beautiful. However, things weren’t all smooth sailing. I had my share of trials. Homelessness, hunger, and theft all plagued my days. But they did only one thing to me. They made me stronger. Through my suffering, I found forgiveness, self-reliance, and resourcefulness. I made my days count, and I took every opportunity that presented itself. I never missed a Friday night or a road trip. I explored the countryside and found coincidence. I lived. I truly lived. And so, the days passed. Now I find myself in the canyons of Idaho, with farmland to the north and south, friends all around, and more trials to deal with at every turn.
I grow every day.

The new year is coming up quickly now, and I foresee a prosperous year, filled with challenges, new friends, and resolutions kept. Now, I don’t have standard one year resolutions. I made a list two years ago. This list has a variety of things on it which I wanted to accomplish within four years. I was inspired to make this list by the presidential election. If we can demand so much of a single man, we can demand so much of ourselves. I wanted to improve upon myself as much as I want to see this country I love so much improved. Here I am now, halfway through my time, and I can say with no reservations, that I’m proud of myself. I’ve allowed myself the luxury of re-thinking my list as time goes on. I realize certain things aren’t as important to me as I may have once believed; and I also realize other things are important. Losing weight isn’t actually something I feel I need to do. What I do need to do, however, is to truly accept myself for who I am. I am beautiful, and I know it, but I have to know it with every fiber of my being. I’m getting there. As long as I’m healthy and happy, nothing else matters. Living in Pennsylvania and half of the other states I wrote down isn’t really important to me. I’d like to see them, sure, but what is important to me is making the most of the places I do live. So I do. Travelling to Europe and learning new languages is very important to me. I’ve realized that I can’t just wait until I have the money to do things the way I dream to do them. I can put one foot in front of the other where I am now and slowly make my way. So I am.

12:00a.m. MST

Happy New Year.
Fireworks sound outside, and I feel joy over the throbbing in my head. My throat scratches, but my heart pounds still, and I am happy. Yesterday was a hard day, but today is a new day, with new opportunities for adventure. I’m ready. Welcome to 2011, the next chapter in the story of your life. Write it well.

“I want to spread a message to everyone I know and everyone I will know, that life isn’t about looking back with regret, or even looking forward with longing. Life is about looking around you exactly where you are now and embracing the world you live in. Now is the time to make changes if they are to be made. Now is the time to celebrate what should be cherished. Right in this moment is the only place you ever truly are, and the person you see in the mirror is the true you. Be how you’ve always wished to be instead of waiting for something or someone else to come and change you. Once you’ve learned how to take hold of the life you’re living as you live it, the possibilities are endless.” – Carolyn Della Malva, poet, sculptor, traveler, barista, friend, fan, and avid wearer of socks 01/01/11

In an hour it will be 2011 across the country. I'm going to bed soon, ready to start a new day and beat this cold that's been plaguing me since just before Christmas. In the meantime, I want to wish everyone I know a happy new year. I love you all. Good night.

The Santa Anna Winds Again...

My name is Anna, and I live in Twin Falls, Idaho. This place is nothing like what I may have expected. At every turn, I’m completely taken aback. Here’s my first impression of what I’d find in Idaho. I had left Yellowstone and had driven for a few hours. The sun had set, though it was only around seven thirty or so, and I had found myself a sketchy little rest stop. It was poorly lit and awkwardly arranged as far as parking was concerned. Inside there were a men’s area, a women’s area, and a family bathroom with the door propped open, which was, I think, the main source of the overwhelming stench in the common area. I proceeded to the women’s area. Through the door were a few stalls and some sinks- quite standard. The door shut behind me and drowned out most of the aroma. Altogether, maybe a four on the rest area bathroom scale. Don’t scroll ahead quite yet. I haven’t been writing all of this simply to tell you about a bathroom (although, if you are opposed to potty talk, I would go ahead and skip onto the next paragraph). I did my business and washed my hands. The water coming from the faucets was hotter than I usually find at rest stops, and I got the idea through my head to grab the bag from my car and give my hair a good wash in the hot water there. I walked back to my car a started to grab the few things I would need to take in with me when a car pulled up. Nobody got out for a little while, so I went ahead back into the bathroom. I decided to stall for time by changing my clothes first. As I changed, an old woman waddled her way into the women’s toilet area. The very first thing she did when she walked in was to announce (to me?) that she had taken her teeth out because they hurt her mouth. I was confused. I was hoping that she would just do her business and leave, allowing me to have full access to the sink area. Nope. She proceeded to belch- loudly- repeatedly. Mind you, she did excuse herself each time. I tried to wait her out, but decided it was no use when sudden grunting, tooting, and mumbling commenced. Perhaps she just hadn’t had her prune juice that day, I don’t know. All I know is that it was absolutely the most awkwardly horrible thing I’ve ever had to listen to. It couldn’t have ended soon enough. I had to return to my car and wait for this small old woman to return to her husband waiting in the car out front of the shady building before heading back in to wash my hair. I wasn’t surprised by any other late night stoppers… but I should say that one was certainly enough.

Um, so welcome to Idaho. Anyway, the town is bigger than I expected it to be. I arrived here after the sun had set, and was immediately greeted with a street reminiscent of Highway 192 in Kissimmee, FL: it was big and bustling and brightly lit with shops of all sorts on both sides of the road. I was surprised to say the least. I had expected a Golden sized town, maybe somewhere around one or two thousand population, a river, some farms… that sort of thing. What I found, on the other hand, is a small city, albeit the only city within 200 miles, full of places to go and things to do; lots of meth and few potatoes apparently. I found myself a nice, cozy Walmart and spent the warmer than anticipated night. The next morning I navigated my way to Starbucks to do some undercover surveillance of my new store. They are a bunch of great people. My new manager, Russ, is a teeny bit on the more managerial side of things than I’m used to- but then my last few managers had been younger people who had started as baristas and moved up in the company. Russ is an outside hire and therefore lacks a bit of the laid-back qualities that I had grown to love. No worries though, he’s a really great guy. I work with mostly girls, there’s really only Billy in addition to Russ in the testosterone department of the store, and I’ve been getting along really well with all the girls (except Sheila a little bit, but I’m hoping she’ll warm up to me). Amanda is the resident lesbian, and I must say she is my favourite of the group so far. She has a personality very much compatible with my own, and she and her friend Andy (also a favourite and big lover of mash-ups) really crack me up.

My new roommate, Nicola, is also fantastic. I was at the Starbucks on that first day here and I was searching Craigslist for rooms for rent. I figured that it would take me a few days to find a place at best, and I was ready for some tedious calling and emailing and viewing. I found a listing for a place nearby and called the number. I left a message and thought nothing else of it. I searched a bit more online for rooms, but finding nothing else that immediately caught my eye, I had just about decided to call it a day for the time being. I was about to close up the laptop when my phone rang. It was Nicola. She had been in class and hadn’t been able to return my call until then. She asked if I wanted to come by that afternoon while she was on her lunch break so she could show me the place. She sounded nice and I was ecstatic. We agreed to meet at noon. I got lost a bit on my way to the house- the street sign is behind a tree and there’s a turn onto a dirt road that I didn’t know about, but I was only a few minutes late. I walked through the front door and was immediately greeted by Nicola and her friend Liz having lunch in the living room, with Liz’s young daughter toddling around their knees. They invited me in warmly and Nicola gave me the dime tour. The room I’d be renting was still a bit full of her daughter’s things, but she’d be clearing it out that evening. Her fourteen year old daughter, Maiyana, was headed to Jackpot, Nevada (about 45 minutes away) to live with Nic’s soon to be ex-husband George so that she could be in a smaller school that could give her more one on one attention. The apartment was cozy but clean, and Nic and Liz were so nice, I ended up cutting a check for my first month and moving my stuff into the room within the first half-hour after we had met.

I’ve been here for a few weeks now, and I must say that it is absolutely incredible having a place to live again. I have my own heater so I never get too cold at night. I have a window with blinds, so I can sleep in as late as I want in the mornings. I have a kitchen with a refrigerator- which I have been keeping chalk full of all sorts of vegetables and fruit. I have an oven where I can make soup. I have a place to use my dishes and I wash the dishes all the time. I have to confess that I love washing the dishes. I thought it was just at work- but no! I really love washing dishes. Nicola loves me for that. I also have a washer and drier right here in the house so I don’t have to worry about keeping myself stocked with quarters for the Laundromat. I have a shower that I can use whenever I want and a sink to brush my teeth in. I can drink fluids past seven p.m. because I don’t have to worry about waking up in the middle of the night with nowhere to go. And most importantly, I have a BED. A real bed! It has a mattress and a box spring and a frame and everything. I bought new sheets for it. I make it after I sleep in it (occasionally), more often just if we’ll be having company. I can let the rats out of their cage to explore (although Violet has taken to scratching at the carpet in the corners, so I have to keep a really close eye on them because I really want my pet deposit back). And Nicola has the entire Friends collection on DVD and I’ve been watching it pretty much nonstop for over a week now. Chandler just proposed to Monica… omg! (Not that I didn’t know it happened… but I had never seen the episode. In fact, we’re getting into a lot of new territory this season. I stopped watching the show so much around this time) But really- this whole thing is so incredible. I love this apartment so much.

Idaho is turning out to be quite fantastic. It has snowed about a foot since I moved here, and it’s looking like it’ll be keeping this up throughout the holidays. I was invited to Thanksgiving lunch by a customer at work, and provided I can get in touch with him before then, it’ll definitely be something that I am up for. I’ve found a natural foods shop that’s short on produce, but does house a lovely woman by the name of Mary who wears a sweater just like the one I got for my mom for Christmas years back and who ordered a case of Mango Kombucha just for me for when I return to her shop on Monday. I’ve been recycling my fruit bags and buying whole wheat pasta and lots of carrots. I bought a French Press and teapot during our partner discount days this week with my extra 10% off, and I’ll be getting an $150 bonus next month with Starbucks’ re-implementation of the whole bonus system. I biked to work for the first few days here, and would be doing it still if my front tire hadn’t popped again. I have to get whole new tires for the bike now, instead of just inner-tubes, so the biking is probably out until the summer; or until I win the lottery, you know, whichever comes first. All I have to do now is to find somewhere that I can bring my recycling because we don’t have a collection at the house. I’m feeling now that I’m finally able to be the person that I really want to be, and it’s so wonderful. I’ve even been thinking about how wonderful it would be to have back in my possession all of the things I’ve been storing at my parents’ house in Florida. I know I’m not ready to stop moving around yet, but it would be nice to get a place where I could decorate a living room or something. Oh well, all things in time.

I’ve signed up for an email called The Daily Love, and it’s been so inspiring to me along with my friends Kate and Julz. I’ve started writing again and I’ve been sending love and messages to all the people that I can. I really think I’m growing in this way, and I’m really proud of everything I’ve been able to accomplish, even just in this past month. I have a lot more to do, but I’m so happy with where I am. I feel like such a grown-up. Haha. It’s like I’ve only gotten better at pretending.
For example, you know that feeling when you’re a little kid and your mom lets you pump the gas or hand the cashier the money and you pretend like you’re all grown up. When I go grocery shopping or to the bank or cook dinner or do laundry, really just anything that involves responsibility, I feel as though I’m a little kid pretending to be grown-up. I feel like I’m dressing up in grown-up clothes and doing such a good job. I literally get giddy with my excitement. You might see me gloating and ask me what I did that day that was so fabulous, and I’ll tell you proudly, I did errands. That’s right! Errands! Hurray!!! The seven year old in me is giggling madly with pride.

Warning: Digression

I want to write a book. I’ve decided that I might be able to meld together a few of my writings to make a cohesive storyline from a few different perspectives. I’ve written about various bits of my life from various points of view, and I figure, since they’re all on a timeline, and they don’t overlap, I can merge them as different chapters or parts in one story. I think it would be interesting. We’ll see what happens… but I’m going to go work on that now. I hope you’re having a wonderful time, whatever time it is and whatever it is you’re doing with that time. I love you. More importantly, I love me. Most importantly, I love love. Good night. <3

Road Trip of Wonder: Part 2

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet as Mumford and Sons. Fact.

Just the day after I visited the doctor to get antibiotics to tackle my tonsillitis from hell, I was already furiously making plans to try to see as many of my friends as possible. I thought originally that I’d be staying until sometime that weekend, but I added a destination to my trip that made it important for me to leave on Friday, and being sick had sucked away nearly three days of my visit already. I ended up being able to meet up with Malyssa and her on again off again friend/open relationship co-conspirator, Tony on Tuesday. Mom and I picked them up after a nice Vietnamese dinner and a quick rendezvous with some cats at a Petco downtown; and we all headed over to the Dandelion Café where there would be an open mic Spoken Word happening that night at which I was planning to recite. It had been so long since my last poetry reading that I was a bit nervous, but the whole thing was such a blast. I felt so much support from my mom that totally made up for the little spat that Myssa and Tony ended up having at the end of the evening. We ended up dropping Tony off at his place and kidnapping Myssa for a couple of days, as much for my benefit as for hers. There was more wine and there was more hookah, and some pool action, I believe. I think it was the next day that Kate came over and we got to hang out all night. There was definitely pool action that night. We were wild, if I do say so myself! It was so incredible seeing Kate again and being able to catch up with her. She is so beautiful and inspirational and has such uplifting stories (and outrageous ones these days), and being with her was very clearing for me. We got to swap stories and catch up after so long playing phone tag. The next day, after saying my goodbyes to Kate and Malyssa, I got the chance to visit for a little while with my long lost buddy, Aisha. She’s a wonderful woman, very proactive and sure in her beliefs. She says she aims to get out on the road as I am, but somehow just can’t get her foot out the door. I keep trying to motivate her to just get up and do it… I find that people get so caught up in what they are supposed to be doing, and they forget to do what they really want to. There’s no point putting it off, I think. You never know what tomorrow might bring, or if you’ll be around to enjoy it.

I tried to see as many people as I could, and ended up just having a few intensive visits with a handful of friends. I think it ended up being better that way. I was too sick to have enjoyed a big get-together like I originally intended, and a mellow scene was really just what I needed in the end. I drove away with my heart full of love and whole to do list of pending adventures. It was a bit hard to leave without knowing when I’d be back again. I usually have some sort of time frame of when I’ll return- even if it’s a year away; and, to this day, I have none. This may, in fact, be the first year that I won’t be home for Christmas.

But I digress. I left Florida on that Friday, September 17th, on my way to Arlington, VA to see Eric Schwartz at the Arlington Draft House. I had met Eric, if you remember, at Billy’s CD Release show in San Diego earlier this year (the trip just before my purse was stolen). He’s the one with the puppy dog eyes. : ) I read on his Facebook that he would be playing in Arlington, and I figured, since I was going to be on that coast, I might as well drive up to see him. It was going to create a bit of back-tracking later on, but I didn’t mind. Eric is a fantastic person and I would drive any distance to support him. I passed through all the places that I would later be spending more time in, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Highway 58 to Chesapeake- each time with a little twinge of impatience at having to wait to see my friends when they were so close by. However, the drive was beautiful, I was feeling rejuvenated and excited, and I was so ready to see Eric the next day. I spent the night in a truck stop after a beautiful sunset and a brief glimpse of fall in a few red trees I spotted just off to the side of the highway. I made it to Arlington by around noon the next day and I plopped myself down out front of the venue to take in the scenery. I passed most of the afternoon going back and forth between the Draft House and my car to nurse the meter (which would only allot four hours of parking at a time- inconvenient considering my intent to stay for about 11 to 12 hours) or to take naps. I eventually migrated inside to the bar area after finding no comfortable conversation or patch of sidewalk outside. While sitting in the bar, I overheard the bartender and one of her customers talking about where they were from. The bartender mentioned being from Houston, Texas- a place I had just visited- and the customer was from North Carolina- a destination on my list that week. I ended up joining in the conversation and we talked jovially about my road trip and the adventures I’d already had. I mentioned a few places on my list for the remainder of my trip, and when I got to Spaghettifest, in West Virginia, the bartender, Bridgette, looked pleasantly surprised. She laughingly told me that her best friend was dating the drummer from the band, Midnight Spaghetti and the Chocolate G-Strings. What a small world! She told me that I would have to talk to Ryan, the drummer, and tell him that Bridgette from D.C. says hello. I told her that I would be more than willing to send along her message. I spent until show time chatting with her and the other ladies about travelling, music, comedy, and beer; and finally tore myself away in time to get a good seat right up front in the theatre.

The host of the evening was a cute little Indian woman. She played up her nationality in her jokes and definitely got the laughs flowing. It was something along the lines of: “Let’s just go ahead and take care of this elephant in the room. And, you know, it’s convenient that it’s an elephant… considering… my culture.” Teehee! She introduced us to Eric’s opening act, and the giggles cascaded. He played around in various areas, mainly sticking to relationships- past and present. Like bringing a drunk girl home only to find that she had peed on the floor of his bedroom, at which point he proceeded to rub her nose in it and hit her with a rolled up newspaper. And finally- Eric! It was such a pow-wow of a show. In fact, Eric spent so much time on digressions he actually had to cut his act short and skip the new songs he had planned to perform. According to him, the show the night before had been so much better… but all I knew was that he was hilarious. I think the last live comedy I had seen was back when I took Myssa to see Dane Cook or Stephen Lynch way back in the day. There were two people who jumped out to Eric while he was on stage. First was a girl to my right at the far edge of the stage, sitting with her friend. They’ve since been compared to Ren and Stimpy… which I realize is a bit cruel… but at the same time is pretty fitting. Eric was in the middle of his show when he looked over and immediately exclaimed, “Hey! You’re from the Disney cruise!!” He had a quick conversation from the stage after having randomly recognized these ladies from a series of shows he’d done for Disney on one of their European cruise lines. It was pretty funny. The other girl he recognized was Erica, a loyal follower of his from Facebook. She ended up getting excited at one of his jokes and accidentally flipping over a little bowl of Honey Mustard dipping sauce that had come with her dinner- allll into her crotch area. Eric pointed it out to the entire audience, and brought buckets of hilarity with each reference to the incident throughout the night. Eventually he just took to calling her Honey Mustard.

After the show, Eric went to the merch table to sign autographs and take pictures. I headed that way, too, but hung back to give everyone else time to chat with him. I’d already met him and hung out with him anyway. I wanted everyone else to have a turn as well. And besides, it would give me a chance to have more of a one-on-one chat with him without a few dozen people trying to press in. I got to chat with Erica a.k.a. “Honey Mustard” for a little while, and we promised friend each other on Facebook, and slowly the crowd around the merch table thinned out. Finally, after Ren and Stimpy left, I was the last one left. Eric came forward and went to introduce himself and thank me for coming. I mentioned Billy’s show and suddenly a look of familiarity flashed across his face. There were a lot of “Wow!”s and “Oh my gosh!”s and he was thrilled to find out that I’d driven from Florida just to see his show. “Well of course I did… you’re kind of amazing” was my general reply. He extended an offer to me to join him and his friends at a bar nearby called the Liberty Tavern, and I accepted, and when he left to freshen up is when I met Julz. She was working the merchandise table, helping Eric out for free because he was a friend and she’s incredible that way. She and I started talking and realized that we’d already sort of met before at Billy’s Washington D.C. show. She had been the one who sold me my buttons, and was the one who would soon be having the kidney transplant that Billy was so excited to find out about that night when he ran off to dinner with that girl. Haha! And here we were, hitting it off. Soon, after a quick ride back to my car by Julz and Eric, and a short drive down-town thanks to the GPS on my new hand-me-down phone, we all reconvened at the Liberty Tavern. It was absolutely packed! We headed inside where Eric met up with the friends who had invited him and we stood in a wobbly circle swapping stories and yelling over the hubbub around us. Eric bought a round of drinks for everyone… which pretty much consisted of pineapple juice and seltzer water. None of them are really big drinkers, and I was enthralled by the fact that we had come to a tavern and no one would be having anything alcoholic. It was quite refreshing, actually. Eric was having a conversation with the people who had invited him out, so Julz and I huddled together and had a conversation of our own. We come from completely different backgrounds, but both have a strong foundation of love in our lives and are both looking for the same connections in everyday life. It was beautiful to meet someone that I felt so connected to- something I had missed so much after moving away from my original love-inspiration/guru, Kate, in Orlando. We exchanged phone numbers before parting for the night- something she insists that she doesn’t usually do with random fans of her friends- and made loose plans to see each other again before I left the east coast. I drove to a rest stop off the highway heading south and spent the night.

The next day I called up Mer and Tony, my wonderfully amazing Jason-loving friends in Charlotte, North Carolina and gave them a heads up as to my arrival time. It was a long drive, but full of such excitement and anticipation at seeing these great friends that the time seemed to sail by. I found myself in their neighborhood before I knew it, and stopped by the local grocery store for some almond milk and fruit before heading to their driveway. I was greeted by Tony and Kayden, who, now three years old, has grown so incredibly much in the six months since I last saw him! We did some catching up while waiting for Mer to finish work, and as soon as she came home the reunion was in full swing. We exchanged stories and CDs, played with water-powered rocket ships and sidewalk chalk, examined cats and rats and THC (they did, anyway… I’m more of a casual observer). Mer and Tony have been trying to get me to smoke with them nearly the entire time I’ve known them. It’s become a kind of running joke with us. I’ve sworn to smoke for the first time with only them and/or Jason Mraz and/or Bushwalla. It makes it easier for me to say no to other people I hang out with- which is kind of nice. I don’t feel any pressure or temptation at all when I’m hanging out with David and his fiancée and they ask me to smoke with them. I say, nope, sorry, I promised someone else. It’s pretty funny. These days I’ve bumped it up to only in the case of having Mer, Tony, David, and Rachel in one place at one time (preferably with Jason and Billy, too) will I smoke. We get a laugh out of that, but I digress. So Mer and Tony offered and I respectfully declined, and that was that. We had a spectacular time. A couple days after I showed up on their doorstep, we finalized our plans for our trip to South Carolina. We had all bought tickets for the Jason Mraz concert in Greenville, and we decided to make the 3 hour drive down together, although in separate cars seeing as I would be continuing on to Charleston the day after for the next show, but they would be heading back to North Carolina for their son and work and other grown-up type responsibilities.

And so, after dropping Kayden off at Grandma’s and running a few errands, we end up, the three of us, in Greenville, North Carolina.
And that, my friends, is a story in of itself, and therefore where I must leave you in this episode of my road trip adventures.
I am so excited to write about Greenville, but Starbucks is closing in two minutes and I’m going to be kicked out. I will continue these adventures soon. I promise.
I love you, and I love my life, and I love the fact that, as of yesterday, Julz has her new kidney and it’s working fabulously, and her new nickname is Pisser! X D <3

It's cold and it's windy... and I digress

So I love my life. I'm the happiest person in the world. I am. But some nights I get really cold, and I wish my brother and I were closer, and that my father was as healthy as I still tend to picture him. When it is thirty-something degrees outside, but I have to keep my windows cracked open so that they won't fog up and alert the police that I'm "camping illegally" on private property, and the only food I have is six-month-old raw spaghetti that I have no way to cook and therefore store in trunk thinking that a noodle might be nice to crunch on if my cash runs out or someone breaks in again, and the wind outside is roaring through the parking garage I'm not allowed to stay overnight in (anymore) like a semi crawling up the slope behind me and every once in a while when the air shakes the ground, I have to check out the back window to make sure it isn't the cops, I get sad- and simply being the happiest person alive isn't enough to keep me from shivering and my heart from pounding and my thoughts from cycling my insecurities. Won't somebody just take me home.

"You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone... You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who all miss the same imaginary place." -Andrew Zimmerman -Garden State

I watch Rives speak "Op Talk" and I see Adam send Leila a message that says "<3u" and once Joseph told Sara that she was like a sister to him... and I think to myself, maybe he would like me better if we were raised 3,000 miles apart. And maybe I would like me better if he liked me better. And maybe I could find a home again. And sometimes I get so angry and wonder what the hell is so bad about me that renders me so unlovable; or what the hell is wrong with him that makes him so heartless. But then, maybe he's just insecure, too. Maybe I put too much energy into seeking his approval. Most of the time I can let it go. Tonight it got to me, and sharing seemed like a good idea.
Being homeless isn't that bad unless you're alone and it's late and you let yourself think about people and your relationships with those people. Blame is a dangerous thing. I have no one to blame but myself... but only when it's late and I'm alone. Night creeps in deeper than you realize sometimes. Speaking of which, I have to go. My fingers are freezing and it's almost time for the police to drive through.

I love my life. And I love you. And I'm the happiest person in the world. I am so thankful for this gift of voice. And for sleeping bags. And for kidneys. And for my family (yes, my brother as well). Goodnight. <3