You don't begin to live until you've lost everything.

I had one foot out the door. I'm sorry, it's just always like that. I let you down. You said "roots" and I only pictured chains. Is it better to roam the earth or fly above? The ariel view allows me to see the spots that are dead, have lost growth. But looking you in the eye levels me and everything surrounding us disappears. New York City skyscrappers disappear. Forefathers disappear. pasts and futures disappear. Anxiety disappears. Seeing disappears. Hunger, curiosity, drive. Disappear, disappear, disappear...

She couldn't keep it in her pants. Her mind, that is. She sat witnessing. Witnessing you witnessing her. She prayed. She doesn't pray. She got rational. And talked calmly. Some would say--way to go, others had the chance to be suspicious. She said, to herself, that she knew. She knew, right? Like that time, in that bed, when she felt the embarking. Was it the future or a lucky shot.

Knowing that roots cause pain, knowing that flying causes pain, can you love me. I hate marking questions. Seeing me as a little girl, seeing me as an eighty year old woman, did you spend your days without me. The upside down wine and the right side up cake, never did I doubt our world, just me in it. I have no discipline. You have no vision. There was that day, you changed your mind. There was that day I changed mine. Say what I need to say? Okay.

You don't begin to live until you've lost everything.

Fall

We fall to get up.

We fall in Love.

Don't believe the hype that we fall out.

The sky IS falling.

Fall into my arms, just this once.

A fall harvest is just the kind of harvest we need.

Falling from grace, just means grace is a mean bitch.

Free fallin is the best feeling in the world.

Fall is orange and green and red and brown, so am I.

Fall right. Or left or wrong.

Fall write.

When she falls, pick her up dammit.

Don't fall for it.

Falling is detrimental to our health. Falling is necessary for our survival.

If you fall...you better hope Obama has a good health plan.

Fall, sweet baby, fall.

Let's Talk About Sex.

They say sex is a two-way street.
Don't they? Wait, I'm not sure now. Do they say it's a two-way street? And who are they?

I say sex is like a 4- lane highway. Fast, slow, boy, girl. And then there's the shoulder lane for all the twisted in-betweens and the broken transmissions. I'm sure you 're thinking I'm gonna talk about the down and dirty, which I will eventually, but I am currently obsessed with gender right now and as I see it two-way is a thing of the recent modern past. With adulthood (supposedly past the horizon) and my ovaries a-jumpin, sex consists of boys, girls, women and men.

Let's start with the 7-year olds. They just. can't. hear me. I'm smiley and happy, they ignore me, I yell, they call me mean. I smile, they jump on me and pull my hair. I tell them to quit it and sit down, they roll their eyes and call me mean. My co-worker says one single solitary even-toned word and it was like He spoke. Him. The Creator All Mighty. My fellow male co-workers think I'm dramatic and crazy, when really I'm just not a boy.

Then there's the semi deep stuff. Sometimes it just hits me on my way home from work or when I'm stuck in traffic and there isn't one song I want to hear on the radio. I just KNOW he has moved on without a second thought, I know it! Damn him! Not damn him for not being in my life but damn how do they do it? They have no time constraints. One girl leaves and they literally go from that point onward. I know I'm speaking in generalities but there is no other way to get my point across then to report on those I know--boyfriends, boy co-workers, boys in the family, boy exes, boy currents, lots and lots of boys.

If I was a 26 year old boy who broke up with my girl there would be family and football and friends and other girls lining up and my career to focus on. But as a chick you worry. Ok, you say to yourself, hurry and go work out! go where they boys are! when am I gonna have sex next? not too soon or I'll look like a whore! It really can be a burden with your ovaries twitching and your wine-tummy expansion.

I have a real hard time admitting that most of the time I don't crave marriage, I don't crave responsibility and it feels like such a relief to only have to deal with my own problems and not someones elses. I want to have sex when I want to and then not have someone hogging the bed. Then every couple of weekends or so go as a couple somewhere and have dinner together. But the other half of the time I find myself curled up wondering when my prince will come, fighting the nesting urge and smacking myself for being so L.A. when I should be like a normal woman.
But I can't get away with just wanting to drink beer and watch football. And it sounds so anti-feminist to wish for a boyfriend. I want babies and it's out of my control! I don't want to want babies for christ's sake! I find myself not wanting to sound like a "girl" and that is terrible. I am one, I am a complex emotional being with a cute tush. And if that's what the world needs then.... .Life is a Highway!

The things that you earned are given, not won

I was out riding my bike last twightlight of yore (that means a few evenings ago) when a voice came into my head. It might have been my ipod, but whatev.
"Day to day, where do you want to be?" it said. And really, what a fabulous question isn't it? You can be in any situation at any time and you ask yourself that and boom the answer comes.
Try it.

But I want something from L.A.; love? money? friends? career?--What??!!

There are some pretty smart bloggers out there. Some of them have stolen my ideas-but I don't think they know it. And the moral to that short story is to stop sitting on your damn ideas (and mine).

Anyway, my snarky attitude toward brilliant bloggers or as some may call "pro-active individuals" is pitched, bought and sold in the room due to high volumes of insecurity.

My butterflying through life and the-gypsies-made-me-do-it outlook is less novel and more chick-lit.

So why am I in L.A. not doing what I want to be doing and doing that which I wish to not be doing? I could call it the two years that couldn't. I could call it really? seriously? Or I could call it that which it is: Uncertainty. aka Danger.
Those relationships that you've loved and lost out there, they've defined you. But they haven't.
Those jobs you've kept and lost. No one remembers, but they're all you have to move forward.
The books you read. Total waste of time. And priceless timing.
With this much wishy-washing in ones head stability is far away and lonliness takes residence.

Perhaps it's time to do what L.A. does best. Put on your flip flops. Really. Flip it around! I've resided here, so maybe here should reside in me. Kick all of the people and shit in your home out! It's your home. I'm gonna go surfing, work when I can, feel my ovaries getting older and eat burritos and one o'clock in the morning! I'm fuckin psyched about this! I'm gonna go to the store for wine, forget the toilet paper and make cheese into a meal. I'm gonna buy Starbucks and cable and go to my girlfriends house for dinner (her mom lives with her and she cooks!)

Love, money, friends and career will let you go. Let you down. I don't mean always and i don't mean that I don't have responsibility in that, but I trully believe L.A. will give you what you want. And no blogger is smart enough to stop it.

Dear One,

Thank you for the rememberence of color.

Thank you for dinner.

Thank you for bringing me not only into your thoughts, but your importance and helping me to change my mind.

Thank you for letting me in on your secret....happiness is waiting, wink.

Thank you for coming out of it alive.

Thank you for trucks that bear your name, it made me laugh.

Thanks for your natural talent to share with the world.

Thank you for the humor and ideas you share with me. Makes life much easier.

Thank you India...... and Burbank.

The Escapist (Bo-Bapist-Banana-fana-fo-Fapist Me-My-Mo-Mapist)

Escapism is a noun. It means the avoidance of reality by absorption of the mind in entertainment or daydreaming. A dreamer, an idealist, a romanticist, an Aquarian. (I added that last one).


Up until this point my whole world would have made sense. I would have lit up, jumping up and down and pointing at the screen. I'm an escapist! I do those things! They are describing me perfectly! And I would have been satisfied in the knowledge that I fit. As a creative free boho-chic entity.


But I have been doing al--HOT of thinking lately, and seeing the similarities between me and the escapist are sort of a sad comparison. It was unique when I was a kid, stylish in college, creative in my twenties. Now it's my handicap. My once innocent idealism is running interference to a succesful, responsible future. Think gearing up for a hike on flat terrain. Think filling your tank and driving round and round for hours. Think blood-vile wearing Angelina becoming a mom or pot-smoking Matthew McConaughey becoming a dad. The gray area of this transition just seems wrong.




I terrified myself today with the thought of me on my deathbed as I am now. I thought, you know the only way to take my mind off my iminent death if it were right now, here, today would be to watch The Office. That show really makes me laugh. Can you imagine if you were one of the actors and you knew someone wanted to watch your show inorder to escape the reality of their death? Whoa. Funny is pretty strong to me. It seems as if it's everything. I have laughed at the absolute worse times of my life. After my first humiliating break-up in high school I remember going straight home, turning on the telly and watching Bill Cosby on Childhoood. As my heart was breaking I laughed my ass off. Then the realization of the enorminty and complete mundaneness surrounding this thought swallowed me. The awareness of my coping mechanism is stark but unsurprising.


I am always escaping. Before I even get there,I escape. The only place I wasn't so eager to escape, was the womb. I came out butt first, so there you go. Freud would have a hey day with that one. When I get a job, the first thing I do is try to escape it for the next one. Same with boyfriends. When I figure out I like my job, each morning before going to work I load my bag with things to do during the day and plan my daydreaming so as not to be bored there. I need to escape the responsibility of what I'm doing there and move on to the next best thing. I get to the gym and run my ass off so that I can escape the gym. And wouldn't you know, I'm never satisfied. Most people would come out to L.A. without a dime in their pocket, I am constantly wondering when I'm gonna get to NY. And what, my friends, do you think I'll do when I get there? Look for ways that I can root myself there ever after? Just the thought of that gives me the willy's.


So I laugh. And I run. And I laugh. And I run. I constantly escape so that I may be free. There she goes. She's not connected to anything. She has no responsibility to anyone (including her bill collectors, not so humorous btw!)

But life depends on connection.

We are born connected.

Goals must be connected. Atoms, chemistry, fingers, private parts, humor. All need connection to survive.



I never told myself to grow up, like we tell each other to do all the time. It seemed pretty boring to me and I escaped it as long as I possibly could. Then suddenly I woke up one morning and it was just sitting there at the footend of the bed. I said, wow, you showed up later than ususal. It laughed. We got some tea and a clown nose and went to work. To earn some of that freedom.

You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one.

Ahh, L.A. (I can breathe here)

I've never bought into the saying that it's Better to have Loved and Lost Than Never to Have Loved at All. That's bullshit.

If I fuckin don't know how bad it hurts, it ain't gonna fuckin hurt me.


But this blog really has nothing to do with that.


It has to do with juxtaposition.
And contrast.
And being drunk.

I am a highly evolved human being, but an obnoxious contradiction. Do you ever feel that way? You're listening to Coldwar Kids but wearing Gap. You just recycled your organic, eco-friendly toilet paper on your way to Starbucks. You're reading Rushdie but just went to see Confessions of a Shopoholic.

You want roots but just not in the same place for the rest of your life.

Imagine this. You are making dinner for your model hot boyfriend (remember last year when you thought to yourself--life would be better if I was making dinner for two) who happens to be a fireman. He thoughtfully helps and appreciates you, kisses you in public, tells you he's gonna marry you and does the dishes. Your future is thought about and he makes enough to support your hypothetic family. This is what you waited so patiently for at night when you were trying to fall asleep. Eat your heart out women at starbucks in your yoga pants, strollers and diamond rings! I get to be like you soon!

Later that night you freak. But what do those women do after Starbucks and yoga? Is it the same thing everyday? Forget that. I need to start fights now. Maybe if I drive him mad, he'll go and I can....stay. Or go. That's the beauty of it. I can't do yoga and make smoothies in Orange County for the rest of my life.

Then you remember that for the past like 7 years you have been cursing L.A. for having people here not worth meeting or dating. And L.A. is ugly. It's dirty. And there are too many people that suck. And, seriously, it's ugly. Orange County has good schools, guys to date that have real jobs, it's pretty, it's grown-up oriented and not too far from L.A. It fits the bill.

Be careful what you wish for. Because fitting the bill has never been my style. And having style is courageous. There is no way you are going to be able to breathe with anything less that what you expect. Expectations are also the dynamite to relationships with anything other than freedom. So you give up everything for everything. Try figuring that one out.

Heartbreak hurts very, very bad. Choosing freedom over anything has a slim percentage of making you not second guess. And that second guessing can come close to killing you. Then that day comes when you are driving down the freeway and memory lane at the same time crying your eyes out wondering what in the hell is wrong with you, choking on your own decisions and that damn song The Fray sings, suddenly signs for Los Angeles approach and the smog clears your lungs. For a brief moment I comprehend the pure bliss of my choice for freedom. I see myself, who I am and what I'm about so clearly it's the calm inside the storm.

Happiness, the root of my freedom.

Did a Shark Eat Your Boyfriend?

Ceasar and The Romans were said to be in a state of confusion whence winter rolled around each "year". I think they were drunk.

So, February was really like the last month before the "New Year" began, or before spring. This has to be why every single friggin holiday is jam-packed into this innocent, delicate month (BTW Februras means Purification..har, har snort, snort).

We got Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, President's Day, Fat Tuesday aka Mardi Gras, The Oscars, The Grammys, Black History Month, Leap Day, My Birthday, Friday the 13...

But no matter how many groundhogs I pet, or hurricanes I drink, no matter how many black people I say hi to, or red carpet dresses that make me want to vomit and do a colon cleanse for, it's the pink hearts, hershey's kisses in red foil, raspberry mocha's, boy's named John or Matt or Mark--really any bible named boy, and prixe fixe dinners that make me want to drive to the posh part of North Hollywood (Noho), pick up my Gay and drive us to AMC where we will delight ourselves amoung popcorn and martinis to the big screen adventure of "My Bloody Valentine".


(excerpt from Kristy's life):

5 year old Reed: Hey Krithty, I wath wondering...whersth your boyfriend?

Kristy: Uhhh, well....

Reed: Did a shark eat him or something?

Kristy: Yes! Why yes he did! You're very smart.

Reed: I kinda figured. (goes back to coloring a flying ninja with 17 legs)

And smart he is. Had I thought of that 8 months ago and told everyone that that was indeed what happened how philanthropic my life could be today! I would feel just like that ninja. So, Reed I thank you, and the next boyfriend who comes into my life will certainly be impressed my my past.


Now there are bloggers out there who will slander V-day and rattle on about how it's a commercial holiday propaganded(I definately made that one up!) by the retail vampires. Others Eureka'ing on and on about how they prefer singledom mid-Feb. And still others gushing about their recent engagement and how clever their sig other was for putting the ring IN the champagne! Can you imagine? IN the CHAPAGNE! I love it all. I really do. I find it refreshing, hopeful, cyclical and real. And honestly, I can give you both sides of the coin. Heads and tails.


I have had pasta dinners with ten of my friends all eating out of one big bowl and downing bottles of red wine. I forgot, had fun, watched silly movies. I also secretly wished I was on a trip in Santa Barbara drinking wine by a fireplace snuggling with my fiance. I have had dates where I've been asked out on the actual day, relieved, dinner plans, excitement. But the next day couldn't have been any more empty. I have had boyfriends on the big day, glad to be coupled, ready to make plans, even talked about taking the aforementioned fantasy trip. But I have to tell you, he worked late, the dinner was overcrowded and expensive, I felt pressure to buy him something and the roses were expected.

Really, the whole boyfriend thing was a little bit of a let down. Why is it that if a guy is single on Valentine's Day the pressure is off for him. When a girl is single on Valentine's Day the pressure is on.

When you are in your grass is greener tunnel vision I urge you to focus on the details of your wish, the grass may just be artificial, I promise.

You wanna celebrate love? Jam pack your schedule with Laurel and Hardy film fests and wine nights with your best friend...and your Gay! February has a lot to offer, as does my Gay. He makes me dinner for no reason, puts up with my bullshit and at the end of the night lets me sleep by myself in my warm bed. We're gonna see V-day in 3-D--the way it should be. And don't forget to go to a black poety reading and adopt a groundhog.

This is my Valentine to you....Be Mine!

In case your not sold on the Gay is the way for Valentines Day motto.....I feel I should let you know that the Greeks had a word for the last day in February:

Annus Bisexxtus

Decaf

I slept the first three days of the new year.


Make no mistake. This is a good thing. I gave up coffee on January first too, after 13 years, so you know--par for the course. And really, anyone who didn't take three days to sleep off what will become known in history as "the year that shouldn't have been invented" will soon be seen in an anonymous meeting somewhere working out their brain disfunction. Hand to God.


Upon waking, I took a look around. I really should clean up. Wash the sheets, vaccuum, pay some bills, start working. What the eff is this green thing in the fridge? Whatever. I'm gonna go for a run and then count the days till my first paycheck of the year. Going full force decaf, with a side of sugar-free. Then I'm gonna notice.

I'm gonna notice that George Bush is leaving. That we somehow just figured out a way to make history. That even though there is a recession, I've never felt so equal to every other mother fucker in America. That the relationship I last got rid of needed to be gotten rid of. And some I need to salvage, are in fact salvageable. (Is that a word?)

I'm gonna notice too, my mountainous shortcommings. I went to an audition yesterday and the very nice man was like, "Tell me your life story in one minute!"
I chuckled and then made the following statement:
"I was born on a small farm. I'm funny and my hair never keeps a curl..actually I need a haircut." There was laughter. But, stupidly, I went on. Laughter is my cryptonite.
"I've been dancing my whole life but I just started acting."

Damn it. Why? I've been acting for, well, since I noticed my acting skills got my mom to do my homework when I was like 6.

Then we all looked at each other as if to say, that was odd. Which it was.
Alright, so perhaps in order to get my career on track I should stop out right LYING.

I'm institutionally corrupt. I live on the corner of balanced and besotted. Adjacent to hysteria.

Wish you were here.