DatingGod

News

are you watching the new hbo show The Newsroom? After every single episode, it has me thinking about what news is, how it affects us, what the point is, what it really is when newsmen/women get it right. til this show i abhorred the news. now i'm actively seeking out who is doing it right. i want to know what's really going on. and i know that there are people out there with the balls and heart to tell the truth. who do you listen to, read, watch that you absolutely know in your gut is telling the truth in news?

Anarchy & Beautiful, Terrible Yes

The only reason I'm not writing, really, is because I don't feel to. And part of the lovely, mundane magic is that it's okay not to write. There's nothing that has to be done. Only what I feel to do, based on what Life is bringing me. Right now, I need to work and sleep and eat. Not much else. There are a few things I feel to do simply because I feel to, things like be with kitties, and do yoga, and watch tv shows, and eat pie, so I do those too. Some make me feel better, some worse. But it all feels true. And it's all Whatever. 

There are a couple of things I feel to share with you.

The first happened on my way to work a couple of weeks ago, when I was deep inside a state of misery so profound it was like being eaten alive. There was nothing wrong occurring. It's still a good job, a good life. And yet the bonfire of Human Torch inside has kicked it up a few notches in the past two months, so the truths being revealed of What's Really Going On have been profoundly hide chapping. Yet again.

And so I drove down the road, hands gripping the wheel, trying to get my head molded into a shape that would allow me to show up at work calm and ready to get things done. Then I saw something that caused a few moments to extend into one of those time expansions where everything slows down. And heart mind and body blew open wide with recognition, acknowledgment, knowing.

It was a turtle. In the middle of four lanes of pre-9 a.m. rush hour traffic. His head was raised, his legs pumping. But he didn't seem afraid, just focused, moving in a straight line, oblivious to the corridor of death he walked through.

I almost slammed on my breaks, pulled over to the side so I could leap from the car and lift him to the other side of the road. But in that expanded moment in time, I understood that I had no role in what was happening. I actually heard: do you really think his life or death is up to you? That if you get him to the grass on other side of the road a hawk isn't waiting for him?

And in that expanded moment, I saw how a hundred thousand things were happening - the wind was at his back, then from the side, impacting his speed; cars were going at different speeds and these hundreds of cars would either miss him or hit him depending on a hundred other things, whether people were talking on their cell phones, or swerving trying to avoid him or even aiming for him. But this intersection of these thousands of individual threads of action were occurring out of a dance of Life, and this turtle's life or death was up to something much larger than him, or me. 

Of course there were also several pieces of my own bullsh*t racing through my mind - around how if I get out of the car and enter into that traffic I risk dying, etc. - but I also felt this anguish, this acknowledgment of how this wasn't my fight, and how leaping in to make it my fight was an option, I could do it, but was it true?

And I got that who I was even a year ago would have found the leaping true, but the person I was now, the person I've become, knew that it wasn't. Life let me enter into that expanded moment, to see this ordinary turtle, simply going about the business of his living, just like me, just like you. When we are being brave because we have a corridor of death to cross, and we feel to cross it, this what we do, even knowing we might die in the middle of it. Because this is being alive. This is being here, on this planet, at this time.

After work, I looked for the turtle, or his body, but I didn't see it. Maybe he lived, maybe he died and became crow food. And that too is perfect. All of it.

The second thing I feel to tell you is about Sons of Anarchy. Movies and television and books and blogs - all the ways we humans have evolved to use to tell our stories - have been a direct way, all my life, that Life uses to teach me, to move me, to show me deep aspects of precise angles of living.

From April through mid-July, it helped me wrap my head around scientists and the scientific way of looking at the world through the Stargate series - some 325+ episodes. Sure, it's entertaining, and fantastic, but at its core, it's about people who encounter "magic"- religion, belief, myth - and then look for how it's based in fact, and truth, not denaturing it, not denigrating it, but simply looking for the moving parts, the practicality of the truth of it. And then, once I was able to integrate it into my living, using it to help me walk and talk in this new land of science and academia my new work is in, it moved me on to the next: society and how we are part of a whole.

Specifically? Anarchy.

Before Sons of Anarchy, I had no understanding of right use of violence, or true outlaws, or anarchists in general. I still barely barely have a grip on the side of this roiling volcano top of perspective - a feeling of how this is another aspect of how The Matrix is actually true. Over the past few weeks, I watched all three SOA seasons, then went back to begin watching them all over again, letting the information go in at an even deeper level as I read the works of Emma Goldman, John Zerzan, Cleckley and Fromm and Tarpley. 

We all feel so sh*tty for reasons that go far beyond our will and ability to control our thoughts and feelings. If mustard gas were released into your home right now, would you be able to control your physical reaction to it? What I'm waking up to and seeing is that there is mental, emotional, environmental poisonous gas being released. 

Of course, I've had an intellectual knowledge of this for years. But now, to truly see it, is a whole new level. Like the difference between thinking your mate is cheating on you, even knowing it in your bones, and then walking in them on them nekkid with your best friend. The sh*t changes you in a way that you don't get to pretend your way out of.

I don't know if I can do anything about any of it, either for myself or for others. I barely understand it yet. What anarchy is, what it means. What freedom really is, what it costs. But it's all there. Another layer of this reality we live in. And it's shocking on a level that I know is changing me for the duration of this life I'm in. Hidden inside this finely crafted television series is a revealing, a tool for Waking Up, just as subversive as The Matrix, and if you let it, as effective as having your own zen master, your own personal Jed McKenna.

Or maybe, for you, it'll just be a great ride, a fun tv show about SAM CROW, full of bang shoot em up and hot biker dudes and tough smart strong women. It's all good. It's all Whatever. Life brings us exactly what we need when we need it. We just have to have the courage to look it in the eye, let it do it's work in our heart, body, mind. 

Because seriously, what the f*ck else better do we have to do?

Much love to you all . . . til we meet again here on this screen . . . maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, or next year. Leave your comments, send your emails . . . you know I feel you, as I know you feel me . . . 

Soul Sister

You would not believe how many posts I've started and then left to languish in "draft" mode. Why? Because they're cack. Spew cack. Cack of the toxic runoff variety. And no matter how pretty I shape it, I'm just not going to post that sort of thing.

Mostly I'm tired. Really tired. I spent all day Sunday on the couch watching old Medium reruns. Actually, I did leave the house once. I went to the mall, bought thermal pajamas with wide-eyed, psychedelic owls all over them, went straight back home, then went back to the couch with my new jammies on.

I'm having many small pity parties. Several a day. Served with green smoothies and roasted broccoli, and okay, leftover pumpkin walnut gluten-free cake from the xmas dinner I attended. I'm drinking green tea, and okay some half decaf Newman's carmel coffee. I lay down on the couch, the kitties climb atop me and drape themselves up and down and in every nook and cranny, Season 3 of Medium lights up my laptop, and the latest small pity party commences.

I remember trying to watch Medium when it first came out but I didn't like it. People were always hollering at her, ridiculing her. She'd have a dream, and because it wouldn't be perfectly spelled out, like watching a documentary, or reading a research paper, people would give her grief, tell her she was nuts. It felt upsetting to watch it, watch the anguish she'd go through week after week. But a couple of weeks ago I started watching from the pilot episode, and it's been a great source of comfort, even as it's the ambient backnoise for my small pity parties. Each episode brings nuggets of understanding, of sympatico, that only another psychic could pass on. And I'm grateful for it. And it sure adds a dimension of "social" to my pity parties that drone on with just me and the fuzzy guys.

A lot of what I've been dealing with the past few months has been around coming to terms with my psychic abilities, what they mean, what I'm supposed to do with them, how I live with them. They come with so many down sides, and I don't think I've really admitted it to myself before, what a burden they are in so many ways.

People think it would be so awesome to be psychic. They think they'd avert Bad Things, and bring Good Things to their lives, the lives of folks around them. But the truth of it is that it makes you a freak, a freak who can never be a part of the flow of living that is this culture we live in, but who still has to make a living, deal with landlords and coworkers and department store clerks and family.

I keep trying to come up with a way to describe what it is like to be psychic in the way that I am - I hear, see, and feel things - like watching a movie going on right behind the regular movie of "reality" that's playing. And a couple of days ago, when I jetted in and out of the mall to get those pajamas it hit me: it's like being around shrieking people. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, picture the people around you shrieking. Shrieking at a high pitched decibel. But they're not aware enough to know they're shrieking. And so not only do you have to deal with the fact that your ears are freakin killing you, you have to pretend there is no shriek. And even though I've gotten very good at dealing with it over the years, very grounded and practical, it still doesn't change the fact that when I leave my house, and enter the world, there is so very much shrieking, such loud shrieking, and everyone insisting they are so very quiet and lovely.

Poor me, right? Poor, psychic, misunderstood me. I told you there were pity parties afoot.

But there's more going on than I'm writing about. There's a job, an amazing job. A job with one of the top medical facilites in the country. A job that would utilize my MPH, the program management experience I have, and my knowledge of the holistic world. A job that would mean a ~8K raise. Where I'd get to work with MDs on the cutting edge of global holistic medicine. And I'm going to turn it down. Actually, they haven't made a formal job offer, only invited me to come back up, do a second interview and meet the whole team I'd be working with. But I'm not going to go. Because my psychic ability has spelled things out very clearly - it's not the place for me to be, that it's very existence in my world is nothing more than a test by Life to see if I'm ready to move on. And I know I'll email them, tell them I'm withdrawing, but in the meantime, all I can think about is the money and the prestige and f*cking Hiveworld and my oven that doesn't work.

Poor me. Poor, poor psychic me. Saved from a hell job by warnings from psychic postcards from the Yes.

And so I lay on my couch, then go into Hiveworld, even though I was supposed to have this week off, but can't because the Hilarious Coworker's replacement quit and someone needs to man the cubicle. But then after work I go back to the couch, watch some Allison and Joe, Manuel and Lee, watch what it's like to be her: a psychic who talks to dead people, then comes home to a man she can talk to, kids she can snuggle with, a context of Love and Yes she can do her psychic work out of and not go nuts from the echos.

Me? I'm just over here on a couch, throwing small pity parties for myself. I'm grateful to be out of range of the shrieking, grateful that I have a job that allows me shelter and food, holistic clients that allow me to use this psychic stuff for more meaningful use, kitties that snore and squeak and sigh and lick, and words, that I can string together so that my inside can flow a bit to the outside.

Gleeful Teenage Dream

I don't know why I'm obsessed with this video, but I am:

 

Hereafter

Last Sunday, after a long walk that let loose a bunch of emotional funk, I felt a strong push to go and see the new movie Hereafter. I took a quick shower, packed a bottle of fresh squeezed lemon and lime and apple water, a slice of gluten free pumpkin bread to sneak into the theater, and drove on over.

Saturday had been a really, really rough day. Some of the emotional stuff sloughing off lately is around money. How it's been showing up in the living is a long reoccurring pattern of getting involved with folks in a financial arrangement of some sort, but right before I sign on the dotted line, or hand over my cash, I get a strong, clear message of the chaos that's coming if I don't back off and say "I've changed my mind". Over and over in my life, I've gone ahead and done it, the ensuing chaos making my life much more difficult. Why do I do it? Why do I go ahead when I get the heads up?

Because I've felt afraid. Afraid that something better won't come along. Afraid that I'll miss out. Afraid that I'll cause someone discomfort or embarrass them, or they'll get really, really angry with me if I change my mind. But lately, with increasing frequency, I've been backing out of things. Often at the last minute. It causes weirdness, folks get angry, or think I'm a kook, but afterwards, when I walk away with my time and money intact, I experience a sense of relief so profound it's like pure joy.

So Saturday was rough. As I back away from the pattern, the emotional energy field around it ramps up. And Saturday morning, after dealing with the tail end of nearly buying a new (used) computer, then backing out, I had an anxiety attack. I haven't had one in a really really long time, and I was out at a farmer's market with my sister. I found a way to maintain until I could get home, drink a greensmoothie, take a hot bath, empty everything out so that I was released and relaxed for clients that afternoon. But that night, it heated back up. And just when I thought my head would implode I got a very clear, very simple directive:

Stop fighting. Stop trying to make things better.

In that moment, lying in bed, kitties surrounding me with their love and fur and purring, the full moon beaming in through the window, I got it, truly got it. What this Letting Go means. What surrender and trust is. What is really at the heart of this Backing Away business. Stop coming up with ways to make more money, or get along better with people. Stop trying to change the negative thoughts into positive ones, the anger into expansiveness. Stop trying to make things right. Stop trying to explain so that people don't think I'm nuts.

Just Stop.

And then I fell asleep. Woke up Sunday, wrote, cleaned, did laundry, then went for a long walk. Then: Hereafter.

I cried through most of the movie. Because I'm that guy. I don't talk to dead people, but I'm that guy, that psychic guy sitting at the table alone, that guy who meets a lovely person, connects, then watches as she runs away, horrified at what he can see. That guy who gets, really gets, that he'll never live a normal life, that no one can possibly understand what he deals with, not even his brother who so obviously loves him, not the folks he does sessions with.

He says to his brother: a life about death is no life at all.

And I thought about how I say it: a life about No is no life at all.

I cried because in the scenes where the woman drowns, when the twin dies, I felt Calhoon. That fat fuzzball that lived by my side for 16 years. I saw him. Felt him. I remembered the Space of Love The Hoon and I drifted in those last 10 days of his life. In those 10 days I didn't write, didn't really talk to people, put most work on hold. When I was in the Space of Love with him, he purred, his eyes sparkling yes yes yes. When I slipped out of Love, he panted from the pain, his eyes hazy. It focused my mind and intention like nothing I'd ever experienced before, like a laser: anything that took me out of the Space of Love with him had to go: food, thought, emotion, distraction. No conversation, no snacks, no tv, no trying to make The Happy happen. For 10 days, it was just the Hoon, and me, and Love. I pulled away from everyone and everything that didn't reflect the Space of Love, which meant with only a tiny handful of exceptions, everyone and everything in the world created by the personality of Katherine had to go. And at the end of those 10 days, when he died, when he left, I found that I'd also lost the concept of love, that crackling full-emotioned energy that roars through a human's body mind heart. When I tried to come back to my life, that tangled weave of relationships and responsibilities, it was for all intensive purposes, gone.

In the two years since then, I've been attempting to acclimate to a living where there are no relationship ties to anyone, other than those connected with pure survival. Can you imagine this? Totally alone. Not shut down. Just open-eyed, an enormous weight of delusion gone, and there's no going back.

There is no Santa Claus. Superman isn't coming. Human love exists only as an implant in the mind.

I spend my days walking through a world that no one around me can see. It's just under the surface of what everyone else is walking around in. But they can't see it. And so they don't believe it's there. It's been weird enough to have all attachments fall away. But to also exist in another world? One that is so obviously HERE, but that somehow no one else around me can see? How do you even begin to deal with that? How do you live?

I've learned to stop talking, to really, genuinely not speak, because not only can't folks see, they think that To See is madness, or meanness, or sour grapes, or stupidity. I've spent thousands of hours trying to find a way to simply pull back inside myself, disappear from the world, but I can't do it, or I'm not able to pull it off, or Life doesn't want me to. It keeps me plugged in, in a half dozen ways. In the face of that Not This Direction, I've relaxed a lot more, just let the waves of folks reaching out to connect to me roll past, not fighting, just letting them roll.

But seeing the movie, watching Hereafter, lit something all up again. The reality of my situation. What happened, and what I continue to deal with. When the insanities of the psychic and holistic work I do would bring me to my knees in grief and loneliness, The Hoon was there, his huge sparkling eyes seeing everything. And then he was gone. And nothing, no one, took his place.

I just do this day to day paying of bills, work in Hiveworld, see clients for holistic work here and there. I watch movies, tv shows, read books. It's like watching a life spiral down, to nothing, to death, to failure and ruin. How will I pay my bills? How will I keep myself sheltered, fed? And my tremendous energy, the one that has always roared into motion to create energy and money and opportunity, kicks in. It looks for a new job, new ways to meet with holistic clients, pushes to finish the novel, find a way to move to an area of NC that has public health jobs I can use my MPH for. 

But then: Just Stop.

I've been working on this post all week. It's long, unwieldy. I don't quite know what to do with the energy behind what I'm writing, the Just Stop. Because stopping is so difficult it makes me want to cry. Sitting here at the keyboard, I want to cry. Because isn't stopping giving up? Isn't it that place that losers go when they finally accept that they can never win? Isn't it the place where sad pathetic people dump themselves out into when they resign themselves to a life of aloneness, of cats and food and tv and a cubicle job? I'm living the life right now that used to be my nightmare. I've spent my whole life avoiding the life I'm living right now. And now I'm supposed to let go even more?

I can't even wrap my mind around it. My living is shredded. And my heart feels savaged.

Why is there no manual for this? Why are there no teachers? The books are bullshit. Have you figured that out yet? And all the teachers are full of it, no matter how well-meaning, no matter how sincere. Every single human appears to be a stand alone unit, and the best a book or a teacher can do is reveal their own personal formula. And it never translates. It never ever translates.

There is just this aloneness. This slowly deepening muteness.

Madness? Waking Up?

Don't Fear The Ripper

All I can do when I hear folks hollering about the thievery of people ripping songs and tv shows and movies off the net is think: dude, you are so fighting the tide. I also experience the same sort of sighing and eye rolling when I listen to the kvetching of writers who can no longer get paid because bloggers do it for free (hi!) or how newspapers are losing subscribers at the rate of 5% a year or how many dozens of magazines closed this year. Because you know what?

Free the Muthafrakkin Freedom of Expression!

Viva La Artistic Spew!

Because you know what else? A revolution is underway, it's kinda socialismesque in nature, but instead of one group deciding what's more social and what is less, and who gets to eat the really nice food based on hooking your Aunt Myna up with a better quality of Equal and Fair Distribution, (which didn't really work anywhere did it?) it'll be the mass of humanity, sort of like bee hive mentality, but with high cognitive functioning and opposable thumbs. (Okay, using the words high and functioning together when referring to the net is still a bit lofty, but you get what I mean . . .)

Using my finely honed psychic ability, I can reach back through time and listen to serial show radio screeching about television, or even further back, the town crier hollering about how no one can give the personal touch to news like he can. But evolution has a mind of its own. And the human brain is just part of that evolution. Dinosaur farts or man's quest to merge a corndog with an orgasm with a monument to himself: what's the difference? 

But really, I didn't mean to preach at you. I just wanted to give some justification for why I work my side*reel profile like nobody's bidness. And to try and patiently explain, should one ever mosey by, why the folks who create high quality content shouldn't be afraid of the rippers. The days of $135 a month cable bills are rapidly becoming a joke. $5 to rent a dvd is just plain mean. We, the people, want anything we want, whenever we want it. (Not that it will ultimately make us any happier, but yeah, okay, that's another post.) 

Because if I couldn't have whatever I want whenever I want it (at least in terms of television viewing pleasure), I never would have found half the shows which are now my favorites, because Hiveworld doesn't currently afford me the leeway for even new bras, so cable is a luxury item up there with a pruis, a plot of arable land, or a husband who wouldn't drive me insane, the latter of which actually releases the need for new bras, or is that only for boyfriends? Because if I feel like watching all 5 seasons of Alias, all 105 shows in a three week period, well, that's what I'm going to find a way to do, and since I'm a poor person who's obsessed with herself, that's what I did!

 

So the point of this post is to tell you about three shows you're most likely not watching, but you should, and it's very easy if you turn to the lovely side*reel.com. (take out the asterisk of course as I'm not a total doofus about the ripping stuff)

The Good Guys - http://www.side*reel.com/The_Good_Guys - At first, all you can think of is how Colin Hanks is god-awful stiff. But then there's Bradley Whitfield, who's all sexy, sleazy and full of police genius gone to seed but still asprouting during moments only a genuis cop could water, with his love for TransAms and Foghat awesomeness is afoot. And then you realize that Colin Hanks is all stiff and serious and freakin hilarious. And the juxtaposition of the two is just plain Yes. And then you get how you know both of those characters, that you ARE both of those characters, stiff and all serious, but also woefully underutilized and yet dang sexy doing it. Really, look: 

Tell me that's not what you see every time you've had a few too many Tequila Weasels and look in the mirror . . .

Okay so that's only one. Next time, I'll tell you about:

http://***www.sidereel.com/memphis_beat

http://***www.sidereel.com/leverage

http://***www.sidereel.com/party_down 

http://***www.sidereel.com/nurse_jackie

Don't forget to remove the asterisks . . . because yeah, The Man still locks up revolutionaries. 

Free your mind! Free the stories! (and snuggle kitties while enjoying light snacks after a long day doing Whatever)

And may the studio - network - label - publishing house folks rapidly cycle up to understand that "free" is here. And that all they have to do is find a way to profit from this wild unfettered tide of downloading without harshing our delighted rapid ripping Yesness . . . Otherwise, you're just a skoch better than the Nazi Party trying to shut down the Swing Kids. Swing Heil! Swing Heil!

Why think outside the box when you can live outside the box?

I Love You, Brother Jamie, Cuz Your Food Revolution Rocks

Sure, it's a reality tv show, and therefor stoked for conflict and drama and WooHooHoo.

Yeah, he's a millionaire chef/entertainer looking to create successful product.

But dude is also genuinely a driving force behind publicizing and educating the utter f*ckstorm that is our food supply. He's all up in people's faces, his crazy warped faux-hawk morphing in all directions, calling all the women "sweetheart" and all the men "brother", and challenging them again and again and again to see that the food they consider normal and healthy is actually poisoned and making friends, neighbors, family sick and die early, painful, undignified deaths.

Some of my favorite bits:

He goes head to head with the school district's director of nutrition, refusing to back down when they keep allowing their elementary school kids (such tiny, trusting little five and six year olds) to have access to strawberry and chocolate milk by saying that it's the kids' choice if they prefer it over white milk. He keeps saying over and over "these flavored milks have more sugar in them than soda pop", and it's all you can do not to scream victory when the milk company comes and removes every single last falvored milk from the school. 

He squares off with a sadistic lunch lady over dozens of things - but my favorite is when she gets up in his grill and snarls: I have a problem with you touching the food with your bare hands. And he retorts: well, I have a problem with you touching the food with those plastic gloves.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution: Episode 1

Holes and Wholes

I can tell you when things began to change, when this latest shift I'm in started. It was back around the time of that first big public health interview, when I blew the interview, and on the walk to the car heard, "This is the part where you trust". Since then, I've been deep inside that trust.

I got: honey, you ain't going nowhere until Life tells you to, it ain't about no "destination" anymore, so you better make yourself comfortable and settle in for what may be a very very long ride. I asked myself several times if this simply wasn't about creating another safe, warm hole to hunker down in and hide, but it was clear that this wasn't about hiding, but about facing the reality of the situation I was in, how hard I was fighting, how f*cked up my body was. 

On some levels it was very basic new choices I needed to make. My work chair was at the wrong angle and height, and was causing most of the back and wrist pain I was experiencing, so I spent a day trying different adjustments until I found one that was optimal. I was drinking the city water, so bought a small Brita filter and kept it at work, and a large one for home. I began keeping my home cleaner and threw out even more stuff. There were dozens of things like this, things that in and of themselves seemed small, but in aggregate, were hugely impactful.

On other levels it was about my body kicking in and beginning to detox, like with the digestive issues that forced me to eat cleaner, simpler, lower in animal fat foods. Or in moving away from energy that showed up as funky, not trying to change it or the person it was attached to, but simply moving left or right out of it's path.

I also stopped fighting the screaming chimps. For the past few years, a major awakening was in truly seeing the ego, the personality in humans. It made me sick. Was one of the most horrendous things I've ever been through. 

We gain a great deal of comfort and put a lot of hope in other people. And when you see what a monster everyone is, how robotic and cruel and selfish and lost, it makes you crazy, and I mean this literally. The mind becomes unhinged as it realizes that you are in a gigantic insane asylum called "the world" and that no one, literally no one can save you or help you or make you feel better or lift you up or hook you up or make the horror go away. And as you realize that not only are They monsters, You are a monster too, well, the plot of the horror film, it does thicken, and take on a new level of O Holy Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck Oh My F*cking Godddddddddddddddd.

Have you ever gotten something really foul on you? Had poop flung on you or stepped in raw sewage or had a drunk person vomit on you? What's the first thing you want to do? What if you can't clean it off? What if you have to walk around wearing it for hours, days, months, years? That's what it's like to wake up and smell the ego. To smell it on others, and on yourself. And you can't escape it. It's everywhere. 

The last portion of this awakening was very much about literally smelling the ego, as in I spent a lot of time nauseous, literally having my stomach roll when around other people. It's a big portion of why I was so dang unpleasant to people, why I disliked them so much. They were insisting that they smelled delicious and lovely and sweet and Just Like Love, but the pitch and roll of my stomach showed me otherwise, and I hated people for trying to jam their lie down my gullet. And I hated my own lies, my own self even more.

But when I began to trust, I began to see, feel how silly everyone is, how folks are asleep and therefor can't do anything about their stench. It's like being mad at a baby for pooping out the back of it's diaper, or a kitten for having a smelly bung. And it actually began to feel pretty funny, as in how ludicrous everyone is. And out of this, I began to relax, and laugh my fool head off. 

For a couple of weeks there, I became the funniest person at work. I had people peeing themselves, spitting out their diet cokes and doughnuts, tears streaming down their faces. All of the bosses and several fellow cube dwellers started stopping in my cube to joke around, or coming over to hang whenever we ran into each other in cubicleland. My horror movie changed to a high quality sit-com overnight, and it was such a relief.

And then it faded, and although I've continued to laugh at/with others, and the anger hasn't come back, I initiate the jokes less, and am settling in to something new. I have this weird sense that I'm impersonating myself, playacting the better parts of "Katherine". Although flashes of the old way still bubble up, for the greater majority of the day, I no longer want or even need anything from other people. It'll take a while to weed out what's left, but it's a heck of a lot more fun now, and of course it now comes with kittens and a new Chill Job so the party, it's a rockin on the mellow tip, and how can a gal not be grateful for that?

I never would have taken this journey if it hadn't been forced on me, if I hadn't have had any other choice. I really did sign up for the life with the soulmate and cash and the career, but on a deeper level, I was requesting something else this go around, and Life did me a solid, the breadth and reach of which I am just beginning to comprehend. 

I saw the movie "Funny People" last week, and cried and laughed hysterically through the thing. It was so real for me, this movie. And I understood that on so many levels, I was seeing the life I gave up, the one that I'll never have again, the richness and love and drama of a life lived large in the world. 

I'm glad for this living I'm in right now, so incredibly amused and engaged and full of acceptance. I'm so grateful that my cold, dead hand was pried off the tiller, and that Life now drives this ship. 

I'm never lonely anymore. How is possible to be lonely when there are kittens and sky and TrueBlood and superfood green shakes and the amazing array of high-quality health care that has been laid out for me with my new health insurance?

This dying stuff sure does pay great dividends . . . 

Life and Hulu

Lame, lame. I know. Didn't post yesterday. Only offering up a snippet tonight. But what can I say? NaBloPoMo can kiss my great white behind. 'Cause I actually worked a full day of holistic sessions, finished the 10-page synopsis for my novel this weekend, and have discovered Hulu.

And I'm alive. I give thanks that the the fuzzy guys and I are alive . . .