Walking the Dog

Yesterday I learned about the fruits of the spirit.  Kindness, love, patience, meekness, humility, and there are a few more but my notebook is in my car and I don't wanna break up the flow of the click clacks on my keyboard.  When you're in a place like a Hollywood, the fruits of the spirit are a lil underrated to say the least.  They are trumped by ambition, drive, calculation, greed, manipulation, power and status.  Although, drive is good, I often pray to get my engine started on a daily basis and ambition can be fruitful if coming from the right area of your soul, and power well it should be wielded with a tender hand in my opinion.  The rest are rotten tomatoes.  Calculation, greed,  and manipulation don't wear well, especially on women, maybe that's why they get the botox, to hide the battle scars of plotting.  I've managed to stand firm in the fruits of the spirit although at times slightly skewed.  Being kind to those whom I wanted to "like" me.  That was stupid.  I was raised to "do unto others as you would want them to do unto you" but I learned real quick that not everyone got that pamphlet.

So I water my fruit and adore when certain ones are in season.  Nothing can beat the intoxication of encountering a kind heart.  One that is bursting at the seams with love.  Patience is really a virtue.  It takes lots of discipline.  I am thankful for the patient ones.

I have grown very fond of the dog that I have been taking care of for the past month.  We have become friends.  She follows me everywhere and just waits on me no matter what I am doing.  I've realized it's been a long time since I allowed myself to look forward to something and everyday when I come home I am so damn happy to see that dog.  She is the sweetest. She sits at my feet when I read a book.  She sleeps at the foot of the bed.  She hops on the couch when I'm watching a movie and when I talk to her I swear she knows what I'm saying.  She tilts her head and acknowledges my thoughts.

I have been helping a couple of my friends move.  I really like doing this.  It's like a workout for me.  Lugging all those boxes.  It's exciting, these new beginnings.  I think I am vicariously living through them and pretending that I am moving and starting over.  Well I feel like I'm always starting over anyway and for now the only movement I will be doing is taking my new best friend, (this furry creature staring at me as I write) on a walk :)

Summertime

I am wearing a black skirt and a grey tank top.  It is summer.  My freckles are out and my hair is now long and wild.  I feel prettiest in the summer.  I have stumbled upon an event at the prayer house that I frequent.  Everyone is wearing white.  There is some sort of theme tonight with the teaching.  I sit on the side in my dark colors.  I feel like Mary Magdalene.  I always like her.  She was faithful in the end.  Confidante.

It is hot.  People are dancing and singing.  There is a guy in the corner that really knows how to wave a flag, it is bright, shiny red.  I ask my friend what it symbolizes.  He doesn't know.  I make up something in my head.  It's celebratory.  I grab the leaflet that I was given when I walked in the front door.  I use it as a fan.  All I can think about is getting into the night air.  The room is full of hipsters.  There is a guy in jean shorts and an expensive shirt.  He has blonde hair and wears a thin gold bandana thingy across his forehead.  He would be cute if he cut his hair and stopped trying so hard.  He has a wedding band on.  Next.

I wake up the next morning and wonder what my next chapter will be like.  I have learned to draw lines in the sand and sort of communicate what I want and need.  Go figure.  Don't know why I didn't do this sooner.  I have been such a scaredy cat for so long and I let everyone else have all the fun.  The good girl.  That was me.  Never wanting to ruffle anyone's feathers.  I realize now that is was better to be that than anything else because that was me, is me.  Now I can still be good along with all of  the other life ingredients that make it exciting.  I like accomplishing things.  This, I have been doing as of late.  Even if it is just maintaining some sort of stability and consistency.  I am not so easily thrown by the whirwind of drama.  I sway from side to side but I usually almost never end up on the floor anymore.  

I have a bunch of movies that I need to watch in the next month.  They just fell out of the sky courtesy of the DGA.  I'm a lucky girl sometimes.  I started watching Interview With A Vampire last night.  The opening scene was luscious and Brad Pitt was beautiful.  I remember when I worked at Chanel in New York and that movie had just come out.  We used to get all of the magazines delivered to the office.  BP was on the cover of Vanity Fair and the caption said "Golden Boy".  I kept it in the bottom drawer of my desk and I would look at it when my boss went to lunch.  Back then I had a shitty leftover college boyfriend that would not go away no matter how much I shooed him.  I often worked late and would come home to an empty apartment on the west side of the park.  It smelled of a fresh shower.  He made sure to bail for the local bar before I arrived.  I used to think that's how life was when you grew up.  Lackluster.  Then I decided I could change it.  I hopped a plane for Los Angeles in the middle of winter and never looked back.  I have met the "Golden Boy", he is still very handsome and has impeccable manners.  My palette is bright and vibrant.  Everywhere I turn I have a choice and this time I choose the best.

Inside It All

There is an eruption taking place.  It is black, red and blue.  I am walking through a fog.  Every way I turn there seems to be some sort of blood dripping.  It ranges from a picked mosquito bite to a full on broken heart.  Bursted at the seams.  Popped from too much love flowing in the wrong direction.  The strength of the current caused the walls to cave in and people were brought to their knees.  I cannot escape.  It is ok.  I am humble and I am new.  The entrances and exits are struck with impeccable marks.  The lighting is off and the lines of ruin are visible under the black light.  The twister has almost blown the house down.  Thank God it was built in the 30's.

My path is illuminated with my knowledge, acquired with the price of my own pain.  It is clear and my feet are comfortable walking on the pebbles of life as I've known it.  I want to paint the inside of my words the color of my feelings.  They are rich in the pigment of  my imagination.  My touch is stained with the rainbow of their depth.  I am still  and silent.  Put in a place where I belong.  Reality.  Kindness wanders into uncharted waters and the sails are overturned.  I gulp for air and remember the territory that I bought.  Irrationality.  Hollywood.  The rules are different.  I am winning.  A different game.  The players disqualify themselves.  I brush  my keyboard and play the letters like a piano.  I have always wanted to learn.  Classical. That is the way I conduct myself.  In the utmost.  I feel defeated when I don't meet my match.  It is common.  It hurts.  The currents wash it all away.  I pick up a seashell and listen like when I was a kid.  The breeze smells like summer and tiny explosions are heard in the distance.  It equals what I have invited.  I am learning.  I never liked Algebra or Geometry and yet I sat through it.  I failed.  I moved on.  I found what I was good at.

Truth Serum

I am learning to be a good friend.  It is an art.  You don't always get what you think you want but you most always get what you need if you find the right person.  It's like walking the tightrope in the circus finding these people.  I think I have found my band of vaudevillians.  They are a colorful bunch.  Super talents with big squishy hearts like mine.  Some of them I have known for years and the jury was out for a while but that was mostly my own stuff.  This trust business is like treading in murky waters.  One day you just have to go on faith and know that no matter what happens it will be ok.  Life doesn't always have to be a soap opera even though I sure knew how to cast mine like one.  I was very good at selecting the less than worthy sort.  Like Luke Spencer on General Hospital full of deceit and lies.  You know the ones that are only out for themselves.  And I could cast some pretty good femme fatales too, they were super pretty and didn't bat an eye when they were stabbing you in the back.  Ruthless Behavior could have been the name of my soap.  I am so happy to be done with THAT chapter in my life.

No more drama, like the Mary J. Blige song.  Although I do like a bit of good drama and I think it's because I came out of the womb of my single mom three weeks early.  I was born in the eye of the emotional storm and it just kind of snowballed from there.  With the gentle guidance of a few mentors I am now able to channel it all.  I can be more real with my writing and more real with my peeps in general.  The truth is often all you need.  If you tell the truth no matter how hard it is it can make for a very interesting life.  It's like when you have a crush on a boy and you think he feels the same way and he doesn't, sometimes that type of truth is a hard pill to swallow.  But you do and miraculously someday out of nowhere another one appears and tells you that you're pretty and you believe him.  He means it.  He is telling the truth.  I like those moments of truth.  

I swam in the pool today and my freckles came out.  I cooked dinner for friends.  Marinated that piece of meat for two days, just call me Martha.  It came out well if I do say so myself.  We ate outside as the sun was setting and swapped stories.  I am content.  I am sleepy.  Now I'm gonna watch Tangled and call it a day.

The First Barbecue

I remember the days when I used to roller skate.  It was at a roller rink right on the Massachusetts/Connecticut line, kind of the bad part of town.  They played great music and I think acid wash jeans were in style and me and my girls wore them really tight.  Those were the days.   Now I have to do 100 leg lifts on each leg every day just to feel sassy in my skinny jeans.  Time goes on. The beat goes on and you learn to roll with the punches.  Everything seemed so easy back then.  Carefree.  Dinner was on the table every night at a certain time and the seasons were expected.  Summer, Spring, Winter and Fall.  I always bought new clothes every three months.  It was very exciting and everyone talked about the weather.  When it was changing and how it changed.  Living in California there aren't any seasons and I wear my suede boots in June and my mother rolls her eyes.  Whenever I go home to visit she says "no boots, they're scuffed."  Well I like my boots, scuffs and all.  They tell a story.  I have walked miles.

My hair smells like chlorine and I ate at my first barbecue of the summer.  Chicken breast, hamburgers, hot dogs and ribs.  Yum.  I went with a friend to a friends house.  It was festive and the night was warm.  Lots of smiles.  I was happy.  I laughed and it was real.  I love when I feel like I have no where to be except where I am.  Those times are rare but I hope to keep them coming to me more and more.  I have just hit the tip of the ice berg when it comes to enjoying the present.  This is a new experience for me.  I am usually caught up in what happened to me or what could of been or if he could only be a certain way.  At the end of the day none of that really matters and I think I have finally thrown in the towel.  Offered up defeat to how I think things should be.  It's not up to me.  I only have to listen.  Listen to what happens first thing in the morning and when I lay my head down on my pillow late at night.  I always go to bed late.  I'm a thinker and by the time I am done battling my thoughts I am exhausted.

I cleaned my car today.  It was cathartic.  The Armenian guys tried to hustle me into getting an eighty dollar detail.  I told him I didn't have that kind of money and to please give me the days special.  The manager started arguing with his employees in a foreign tongue.  I just continued to rid my car of the empty coffee cups that accumulate on my travels.  In the end, the special did my car just fine.  It was shiny and I rolled down my window and blasted my Foster The People CD, a gift from my friend Grady.  Number two is my favorite track, I play it over and over.  Shiny car and new music on a summer day is all a girl could ask for...well that and maybe some corn on the cob.