Reconciling Saints

So by the end of the day on 8/27 we had our place down to this :

By the end of the day on the 28th we got this:

However, now this pile:

is stuff for storage/stuff for trash... so it's still a pile o' boxes and sort of a mess, but it's heading towards the door!

I'm TRYING to go through things wisely, however, right now... everything... including my old ballet shoes (pointe and slippers), is looking very giveaway/trash worthy.

This aspect of moving BITES!

So today... well these past 2 days, really, has the kind of weather I adore. It's crisp out. The sun beats down warmly but there's a chilly little breeze whipping about and the sun is starting to look a little different.

This... is exactly what fall in LA is like. In fact, I was lucky if I got a day like this... 'cause generally it's just... hot.

So my body is feeling a little off in that it's telling me, "It's fall! It's fall!" and here it is, not even Labor Day yet!

My body is also telling me that I need to get back to the gym as I'm feeling totally off kilter from the weirdness that is moving (tonight we tackle the boxes!).

Speaking of moving, so finally getting our own place has me feeling as though I just moved here... again! It's funny, but I look around at all my stuff and I think, "Hey! It's up here with me too!"

I think that that thought is what makes it seem real. I now live in Portland and this is a fact because all my stuff is here. I can now have my toys, and CDs and books and... well, just stuff!
Now I can set up where I would feel best writing, and where to put my books and if I prefer to sit on the back stoop or the front stoop. That kind of thing. I can also have friends over and have cocktail parties (which Long Beach saw only one of, but it was a HIT!). I can just... BE. I can dream there with Da5id, with friends, or just by myself.

Ugh!

Lunch is over... no more day dreaming for the time being.

More later...

This is currently what home looks like:Thankfully I have a sanctuary that looks like this:

(Yes, I've been reunited with Mitch and 猴子, my sleeping Monkeys)

It's sparse, I know, but there ARE NO BOXES IN THIS ROOM!

...

So David London, being the better friend that he is (better than I, the one that forgot his birthday), said he got me a present and I've currently found Season one of Skins in my possession.

David London,

You.... RULE!

SO! I guess once I clear some wall space, the boyo and I will be throwing some Skins onto our walls via projector. Maybe I'll make it a night.

There's a longer post in me somewhere, but I'm still losing track of time and I never seem to get enough sleep. I'll post about Home later.

I'm going to go dream happy dreams now... even if our light mysteriously came on last night while we were trying to go to sleep.
*bites nails*

It rained here, today, in Portland. I finally got the weather I was wishing for after a weekend of 90 to 100+ degrees F weather. I felt like I was in California, and therefore, perhaps, that's why I didn't feel like I had really moved.

Today was movie night and, as always, it was interesting. The movies tonight were "Moonlight Whisper" or so it was called in the American title. It's a Japanese movie about a boy who likes the pain and the girl who likes to cause it. We only made it about... 3/4? 1/2? way through the movie and then it geeked out on us. This is not important, though, nor is the fact that we then put on The Signal... interesting and a lot more ... well thought out? ... than I would have given a horror movie to be. Funny at times, and at others, funny 'cause... well movie night turns into a night on the Satellite of Love .

Yes, my point...

So the friends around, my friends, friends of friends... they remind me of family. It's much like familiy in that your kid brother is making stupid remarks and your older sister is being Trés Whit-é. Still ... zany mad-cap fun ensues.

Tonight as I was taking out the trash (for a lot accumulates on movie night... plus tomorrow is trash day and I'd rather do this now then as a zombie in the morning) I could smell the wet in the air... a very... unfamiliar smell to me, one who has never lived anywhere else than So Cal. It made me realize... I'm somewhere else! I moved and I'm trying to do what my heart said to do next... which was a)move and b) move to someplace with a different (colder) climate.

I wonder, then, why this all feels so familiar.

I think I trust easily... and gain friends easily as well. As was pointed out by a dear friend a few nights ago, some of the things I post are ... well, quite private, and I unabashedly post them for all the world to see and then I write CECI in big red crayon over it for all the world to know that I SAID IT! It's not that there are not reasons to mistrust the internet... and yeah, the people around me probably don't want their shit as public as I post mine, yet, I can't help but put myself out there. For me, it's no different here than it is if I were to meet you in person.

...

Ok so some does come from the idea that I know most (98%???) of the people that read this little blog of mine. The other part is that... well, for me the internet has always been a way of making friends and reaching out to people and just... well... being out there! I started going to chat rooms in '97 and I made a nice little network of friends, that I still keep in touch with in some form or other. It works for me.

I send out a signal and I get a resonating *ping* back.

For me, I feel like I can catch someone else's signal just as easily because I'm receptive to it, and therefore everything ends up being very familiar to me. This is the way I operate, this is the way I feel and, most importantly to me, this is the way I experience life. I like it. I have faith in it.

Of course, maybe I also have so much faith in it 'cause I know I can be such a Bitch if you so much as step out of bounds. I do it to my friends and I do to non-friends.

I'm just me.

Get the signal?

SO!

The good news is that Skins is coming to BBC America!

The bad news? Da5id and I decided that cable was not important and therefore was an unnecessary expense. I was a little tempted once I heard this, but I thought about it rationally and thought... well if it's on BBC America now, then it shan't be long 'til it's on DVD. :D

I hope I'm right.

I am pleased to report that we now have a place called Home!

Really... where does time go?

I feel like I can't get a good grasp on things. Usually, the next thing I know, it's a week later than when I had first planned on doing X,Y and Z. What happens?
I have a list of things that I not only have to do, but want to do and i can't freakin' get around to doing it.

WHY!?

I'm still blaming displacement.

It's been FOREVER since I've talked to Stephen... or... I don't feel I update on here nearly enough. The gym goes by the wayside. Writing people that I want to drops off too. I've been trying to write my sister since 2 weeks ago!

Why is it that I'm all of a sudden trapped in a land where time slips by like clutching sand?

Is it just me? Do I need to time manage myself better?

Huh.

I really wish I knew.

SO!

it seems that I'm a raging alcoholic. YES! That's right, I've been hard charging 'cause... well it's been birthday week... and I've done nothing but DRINK. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing in my world. It might be in yours... but, whatever. So today I... ok WE decided that we weren't going to our usual happy hour because we needed a break from the drinking.

WELLL.... cut to a few hours later and I've finished the vodka (mind you, there was only enough for 2...ok MAYBE 3 tall vodka and lime juice), plus I'm finishing (have finished by the time it posts) off the big jug o' wine (it's not actually a jug but one of those big 750 ml bottles).

...

I worry...
I called my favorite alcoholic, Stephen, and he didn't answer so here I am, subjecting poor Da5id and William (one of whom is hiding out playing W.O.W. and the other is actually putting up with me and talking... your guess as to which is which).

So .... SO!
aside from my slightly worried check on myself... I'm thinking of a shit load of things.

Right now I'm remembering my childhood... and I'm thinking of my choice as to how I choose not to be a parent... and I'm thinking of the really hard times when I thought it definitely couldn't get any worse than this, and I'm thinking of music that I lost and then found again.

I spent most of this "off" night talking to friends and listening to music. I talked to Matt whom I haven't talked to in quite some time.... and I talked to William about music, new and old.

This drunken rambling is not the point.

The point is that I've touched on a lot of "touchy" subjects with William in my very light way of doing so and he makes it SO EASY! This, I keep thinking, is how it should be. I should be able to talk to all my friends so easily about things.
... hmmmm... this, however, again is not my point.

So I want to talk about the lessons I've learned in that way that I have of talking about this so easily.

There are lessons to everything and none of them are easy, but all of them are worth it. That, in a nutshell, ladies and jellyspoons, is what it's all about. For me, life ticks down to the lessons I've learned, all of them hard and all of them worth it. I think a few months ago I posted something about how if you're not feeling like you're going to throw up, then it's not worth it... or something of the sort.

Look... I'm here to tell you I've survived, if that's what you want to call it, a lot of shit. I've dealt with depression and I'm still here. I've been through 2 abortions (yes, that's right... it's the choice I made, and no matter what, I don't question these choices) and I'm still here. I've been married (twice) and divorced (only once... and I hope that that remains such... but to preserve me, I do hope you know I'll do it again) and I'm still here. I've been arrested but never convicted(The DA threw it out) and I'm still here... Life throws some CRAZY shit at you, but you know what? You'll still be there... and you'll be better for it.

Heartbroken? maybe.
Confused? For the time being, most definitely!
Alive? Very much so!

Sometimes you come across things, and for me these are usually songs, that remind you of the wounds. I can't help but listening to them. Wounds, especially the ones that have been scabbed over, are just marks that remind me that I'm alive. This is life. This is all part of it. I wouldn't want anything more than this... I don't want anything less... if I don't feel, then how the hell am I living.

Right now, literally... right now... I found a song that I seriously had forgotten all about until I played the whole Here CD.

The song is Scava by Here and it has me in tears. I used to listen to this album on the way to work... and it wasn't long after the Kate Bush episode (as I like to call it) when John had told me that maybe...just maybe we didn't have to share everything with each other. I would get to work... early, back in those days... and before I could begin my miserable ('cause that's how it felt) little day, I would play this song. It was ... knowing... just knowing that this was it, that I wasn't happy. It's odd that I can still feel that feeling of, well, almost hopelessness now... the feeling of, "What have I done and how am I going to get out of this?" that overwhelms me just listening to this.

...

Sometimes one gets stuck in a situation where one wonders, "How in the hell am I going to get through this?" or even a "Please, just let me get through this." I've been there and... I've survived all this and more. So... it's just part of my life... it's just part of learning. I know how it looks, and I know how it sounds... but seriously, people, some of the toughest things one has to do in life, are also the most liberating, and the more I go through, the more I want... well, More!

I don't get much pay right now, I don't have a place to call home and I sure as hell don't have a lot of money... but MAN! I wouldn't trade it for the world. I have Da5id, I have a path and a dream to follow, and most importantly, I have me!

and I've never wanted more...

Saturday I was going to put up an "away message" since I spent the whole day reading Breaking Dawn. I bought it at 1pm, got it home by 2pm and did not put it down until 2am.
That's all I'm going to say about that.

I'm still trying to learn how to balance everything in this chaotic atmosphere. It's only chaotic in that things change from day to day and I'm still getting used to all of this new. I keep trying to post more, but things like house hunting, meeting new people, seeing my new city, spending TIME with my husband (who also gets lost in all this) and all sorts of other things.

Today I realized that I thoroughly miss this. I miss the time I would just sit here and write. It's addicting, it's meditative, it feeds something in me that I;ve found out I just need to do, and that is to write.

It's funny how the things one loves in life are the hardest things. I love music... it's not VERY hard to listen to it... but it's very hard to create and it's hard to keep up with. I like books and keeping up with the pile of books I seem to always have to read is incredible. I love it, don't get me wrong, but it's not easy. Keeping Da5id in my life from day one was difficult! I had to fight for a feeling I had that I new I was right despite the fact that I hurt someone in the process, despite the fact that I never thought I'd re-neg on my word. Living how I'd like to live is very tough indeed. It requires a lot of mental push. I have no other way to describe it than that. It has nothing to do with money or ability, it has just to do with pushing myself to do that which I think is right and that which I want. Easier said than done!

I demand a lot out of my life. I demand to that I live, I demand that I feel, and I demand that I be exactly who I am. Wow that sounds like it should be pretty freakin' easy, doesn't it? It's not. Why? Because I want more. I don't want just some job... and if I have just some job I better damn well believe in the people and the job. Let me put it to you this way: from this perspective, there are a lot of jobs that I was hoping to get that I know am so glad I didn't. However, the money thing still comes and hits me in the head about this one, where my heart says, umm... NO! Why would I whore myself out like that?

...

Hahahahaa!

The point!
The point is that we all have to remind ourselves that we have dreams and we should be reaching them. If you feel someone could love you better, then that's what you should go after, no matter how hard. If you feel like you need a different job, you should be looking for that too. If you feel like you can be a writer, then for GOD' S SAKE write already!