Me: I don't know what I'll do when you're not here anymore.
Her: Well, first of all, honey, if anything does happen after, I'll be there. I don't know if it does, but if it does, I'll be around. And even if I'm not, you have my DNA. That's a scientific fact. So I'll always be with you. Forever. And you never have to be afraid.
Me: Okay.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
I asked for a sign and. . . .
today I learned how to draw a bat. And a popsicle and a Studebaker and a few other things. And one of the biggest frustrations I've had my whole life -- I can't draw -- parted curtains to reveal the prize -- I haven't learned how to draw. And more than that, I never accepted that things are achieved in tiny pieces: an arc, then a ball, some dots and wingtips, and voila, you can fly and shoot sonar from your head and sleep upside down. And even if it's just little line drawings of bunnies and cakes and bats, I am so thankful I can watch my hand move across the page and result in something that doesn't let me descend the ladder into the neverending River Styx of shame and perceived inability where I so like to splash about.
Did I mention I can draw a bunny now too? And when I can draw everything -- and I mean everything -- then I'll put a little something up here for you.
Thanks, Joy.
Did I mention I can draw a bunny now too? And when I can draw everything -- and I mean everything -- then I'll put a little something up here for you.
Thanks, Joy.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Love The Idiots, Hate The Idiocy
So there was this. Then there was this (and hundreds more like it, yay, parody!). And that begat this. And that last this (that would be www.giantgayrepellentumbrella.com) is being read, as of its creation yesterday, by lots of hilarious people with hilarious comments that are beautifully poking fun at the idiocy of the National Organization for Marriage. But of course, there's a screaming troll or two in the bunch, saying lots of unprintable words about gay people while assuming to have a higher moral code.
NOM has shifted the argument against gay marriage away from the concept that gay marriage will somehow annihilate straight marriage in its wake, perhaps because there has yet to be one credible straight divorced couple who will step forward and tell that sorry tale. Now NOM is trying to make the case that gay marriage is impinging on the freedoms of religious folks. Like the freedom to turn away a gay couple seeking IVF even though you're a doctor who took the Hippocratic Oath. Or the freedom to burn a copy of Heather Has Two Mommies on the lawn of your child's public school. Or whatever. So gay marriage isn't impinging on the freedoms of religious folks per se, just non-introspective, non-thinking religious folks who can't engage in any internal rhetoric beyond parroting whatever it is they are told to think, and can't see their own bigotry.
And religious folks who like to say ********er on a website. It is interesting to me that the people who discuss the issue of gay marriage on websites that are pro or neutral on the topic are, by and large, the cursingest, most foul mouthed homphobes out there. I don't see a whole lot of "love the sinner but hate the sin," or "separate but equal" -- both weak arguments but at least earnest in following some kind of internal moral code. Sure, these are the trolls, but there are only trolls.
So, religious folks, I'm not against religion. But the YesOn8s of the world are making you look pretty bad, when they rant about pouring gasoline on gays but affiliate themselves with your family values and such. I'll do my best to love the idiot and hate the idiocy. (And the hypocrisy). Maybe you can educate the idiots, or make sure they know burning people alive, let alone denying them equal rights under the law, is not a family value. I have a family, and that's not my value.
NOM has shifted the argument against gay marriage away from the concept that gay marriage will somehow annihilate straight marriage in its wake, perhaps because there has yet to be one credible straight divorced couple who will step forward and tell that sorry tale. Now NOM is trying to make the case that gay marriage is impinging on the freedoms of religious folks. Like the freedom to turn away a gay couple seeking IVF even though you're a doctor who took the Hippocratic Oath. Or the freedom to burn a copy of Heather Has Two Mommies on the lawn of your child's public school. Or whatever. So gay marriage isn't impinging on the freedoms of religious folks per se, just non-introspective, non-thinking religious folks who can't engage in any internal rhetoric beyond parroting whatever it is they are told to think, and can't see their own bigotry.
And religious folks who like to say ********er on a website. It is interesting to me that the people who discuss the issue of gay marriage on websites that are pro or neutral on the topic are, by and large, the cursingest, most foul mouthed homphobes out there. I don't see a whole lot of "love the sinner but hate the sin," or "separate but equal" -- both weak arguments but at least earnest in following some kind of internal moral code. Sure, these are the trolls, but there are only trolls.
So, religious folks, I'm not against religion. But the YesOn8s of the world are making you look pretty bad, when they rant about pouring gasoline on gays but affiliate themselves with your family values and such. I'll do my best to love the idiot and hate the idiocy. (And the hypocrisy). Maybe you can educate the idiots, or make sure they know burning people alive, let alone denying them equal rights under the law, is not a family value. I have a family, and that's not my value.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Let the Cranes Fly
In this week's PostSecret the very first postcard asks for a sign. My first impulse was to somehow be the sign for this person. I can only hope the card or something else sets into motion the events that furnish them with their sign. But maybe that won't happen. We don't get the answers on our timetable (unless you are Paul).
When D and I got married we decided to fold 1,000 origami paper cranes and have them included among the reception decorations, a traditional Japanese symbol of patience and trust in a marriage. We were engaged just before 9/11, and we also appreciated the symbolism of peace and renewal. They were in the flower arrangements, hanging from branches, perched atop the cake. Guests took home what they wanted, and we took home the remainder.
A few of them were scattered around our apartment but the rest sat in several shopping bags in a closet. And sat and sat. One bag became our cat's napping spot and were crushed into misshapen, brightly patterned horrors. These became the ass cranes, having suffered such indignities beneath the cat's fat tush.
After including some of them in thank you notes and holding a proper funeral and burial for the ass cranes, we didn't want the rest of the cranes to meet the same ass-tacular fate.
So, in the early evening on 9/11/02, rolling with the peace theme, we decided to let them fly. We got on the subway with our shopping bags, and left the cranes all over New York City for people to find. We left them on subway seats and platforms and newsstands and lampposts, on car hoods and restaurant tables and in parks.
I wonder still what happened to them. I wonder who threw one away, who took one home, who ignored. If somebody found a little gold and pink paper crane with a slightly crushed nose and was amused by it, or helped by it. I wonder who took it as a sign.
So hey Universe, let the PostSecret person get their sign. And since I can't give it to them, howzabout letting me provide somebody's sign. I definitely owe. I'll mull over another random act of signs and this time see how to track them as they fly.
When D and I got married we decided to fold 1,000 origami paper cranes and have them included among the reception decorations, a traditional Japanese symbol of patience and trust in a marriage. We were engaged just before 9/11, and we also appreciated the symbolism of peace and renewal. They were in the flower arrangements, hanging from branches, perched atop the cake. Guests took home what they wanted, and we took home the remainder.
A few of them were scattered around our apartment but the rest sat in several shopping bags in a closet. And sat and sat. One bag became our cat's napping spot and were crushed into misshapen, brightly patterned horrors. These became the ass cranes, having suffered such indignities beneath the cat's fat tush.
After including some of them in thank you notes and holding a proper funeral and burial for the ass cranes, we didn't want the rest of the cranes to meet the same ass-tacular fate.
So, in the early evening on 9/11/02, rolling with the peace theme, we decided to let them fly. We got on the subway with our shopping bags, and left the cranes all over New York City for people to find. We left them on subway seats and platforms and newsstands and lampposts, on car hoods and restaurant tables and in parks.
I wonder still what happened to them. I wonder who threw one away, who took one home, who ignored. If somebody found a little gold and pink paper crane with a slightly crushed nose and was amused by it, or helped by it. I wonder who took it as a sign.
So hey Universe, let the PostSecret person get their sign. And since I can't give it to them, howzabout letting me provide somebody's sign. I definitely owe. I'll mull over another random act of signs and this time see how to track them as they fly.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Is The Ether Made Better For Our Asking?
After a morning of mistakes I'm wondering if all this yawping into outer space is anything like talking to your plants. Is the ether made better for our asking? Prayer, desperation, favors -- it feels like a river of pleading. Yet the synchronicities, the strange coincidences and the out and out results must say more than "We're listening, yo." What could the symbiosis be? How is the ether made better for our asking?
I'm self-medicating with Cat Power and thinking about a musician we met a few months ago. His story will come along eventually when it's done with dinner, when it's done brewing. He told us the only thing he could do was play music, that he didn't know how to do anything else. He seemed to feel a certain failing in this, like who would want to listen? I said, you know, you're a minister and we're the congregation. So play and know we're all better for it. We need you.
He thanked me. Hell if I know where that came from.
I'm self-medicating with Cat Power and thinking about a musician we met a few months ago. His story will come along eventually when it's done with dinner, when it's done brewing. He told us the only thing he could do was play music, that he didn't know how to do anything else. He seemed to feel a certain failing in this, like who would want to listen? I said, you know, you're a minister and we're the congregation. So play and know we're all better for it. We need you.
He thanked me. Hell if I know where that came from.
Friday, April 17, 2009
The Brokeness of Us
We were at Newark Airport. It will never be Liberty International Airport to me. While I like that it is smaller and more navigable than other New York area airports, it has not been liberated from anything, any more than fries became free.
Everything that could have gone wrong did and it was entirely on me. Our dream vacation in Mexico, in January, had itself fallen out of the sky and out of the hearts of generous friends who invited us to join then. In the mushy cold and brokeness of us just-after Christmas, it was like winning the lottery.
Now we were on line for our airport security check, two days later than we were supposed to be. My passport had been mangled in one corner and we were refused entry on our original flight. We then spent two days living at the Newark Marriot and hunting for silver linings for our son (indoor swimming pool! dinner in bed!) while my husband and I procured a new passport for me by smiling our way through tens of tenuous bureaucratic conversations. We got a new flight. We were finally going.
And then we were directed to a different line on the security check. And it was the same line as the airport workers. So after about 30 airport workers were directed to cut us in line, missing our flight was becoming a real possibility. We could not get into the other line, where now every other passenger was being directed. So I cut the line, and got through security, to the consternation of the airport workers I cut. I was pissed, and I was a jerk.
When I got through security, my boarding pass was gone. I don't know if I misplaced it, or what, but it was gone. I sat down on a bench and began a howling, keening, unstoppable cry. 7 TSA workers standing nearby turned in unison to get a look at the crazy crying woman, determined I wasn't a threat, and turned back away to continue their conversation.
I sat there, having destroyed our vacation again, I thought, and was dimly aware that my husband and son were now standing next to me. My son asked my husband why I was crying. My husband tried to explain, and after deciphering my snuffling explanation about the boarding pass, left us together on the bench to go see what he could do.
I kept crying. Because I can never do anything right. Because nobody will help me. Because the world is a stupid place with never-ending lines that never get you to the beach.
"Mommy, you're crying. Mommy, don't do that."
A pause. My hair was stuck to my face with tears.
"It's ok, Mommy, I will help you, I will help you."
The Buddha climbed on the bench and took my hand in his. I looked over at him mostly because of the shock of his touch.
"I'll help you, Mommy."
He wiped my tears off my face with his other hand. I stopped crying and put my hand on his cheek. I looked to my left and saw a TSA worker, a woman of about 60, had stopped what she was doing and was leaning up against an X-ray machine, watching us and smiling, and crying. The Buddha didn't say anything else, just pet my hair and wiped off my tears.
I sat there with my son, who has all the good stuff within him, and calmed myself down. My husband got me a new boarding pass. Eventually we got to Mexico, and that was really nice, too.
Everything that could have gone wrong did and it was entirely on me. Our dream vacation in Mexico, in January, had itself fallen out of the sky and out of the hearts of generous friends who invited us to join then. In the mushy cold and brokeness of us just-after Christmas, it was like winning the lottery.
Now we were on line for our airport security check, two days later than we were supposed to be. My passport had been mangled in one corner and we were refused entry on our original flight. We then spent two days living at the Newark Marriot and hunting for silver linings for our son (indoor swimming pool! dinner in bed!) while my husband and I procured a new passport for me by smiling our way through tens of tenuous bureaucratic conversations. We got a new flight. We were finally going.
And then we were directed to a different line on the security check. And it was the same line as the airport workers. So after about 30 airport workers were directed to cut us in line, missing our flight was becoming a real possibility. We could not get into the other line, where now every other passenger was being directed. So I cut the line, and got through security, to the consternation of the airport workers I cut. I was pissed, and I was a jerk.
When I got through security, my boarding pass was gone. I don't know if I misplaced it, or what, but it was gone. I sat down on a bench and began a howling, keening, unstoppable cry. 7 TSA workers standing nearby turned in unison to get a look at the crazy crying woman, determined I wasn't a threat, and turned back away to continue their conversation.
I sat there, having destroyed our vacation again, I thought, and was dimly aware that my husband and son were now standing next to me. My son asked my husband why I was crying. My husband tried to explain, and after deciphering my snuffling explanation about the boarding pass, left us together on the bench to go see what he could do.
I kept crying. Because I can never do anything right. Because nobody will help me. Because the world is a stupid place with never-ending lines that never get you to the beach.
"Mommy, you're crying. Mommy, don't do that."
A pause. My hair was stuck to my face with tears.
"It's ok, Mommy, I will help you, I will help you."
The Buddha climbed on the bench and took my hand in his. I looked over at him mostly because of the shock of his touch.
"I'll help you, Mommy."
He wiped my tears off my face with his other hand. I stopped crying and put my hand on his cheek. I looked to my left and saw a TSA worker, a woman of about 60, had stopped what she was doing and was leaning up against an X-ray machine, watching us and smiling, and crying. The Buddha didn't say anything else, just pet my hair and wiped off my tears.
I sat there with my son, who has all the good stuff within him, and calmed myself down. My husband got me a new boarding pass. Eventually we got to Mexico, and that was really nice, too.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
About the Noise
Hey Universe,
I keep asking you for silence. I understand there would have to be some kind of foxy force majeure at work to actually make that happen here where I live, 15 feet from a major highway and bordered on one side by a New York City local truck route. That the trucks are local does not make them somehow more charming or organic, it merely means they originate or terminate here in Brooklyn.
It seems to more I ask for silence the more noise I get. Today the street outside my front window is being repaved and there is a generator running that has emitted a constant tone that has not stopped once for a breath once since about nine p.m. last night. It sounds very similar to the shabbas airhorn that sounds every Friday evening at the shul two blocks from here, the call to prayer. But a never ending call to prayer, without vibrato, like an earnest folk singer's end note, held too long, trying to keep the crowd there long past when interest has faded.
So there's a never ending call to prayer going on outside my window and I keep asking for the noise to stop. And according to the neglected piano here to my left, it's a high C.
I'm going to go answer the call to prayer now, even though it won't make the call stop. The call will keep on calling, endlessly, asking us to step in and take part, and I'll find something new to ask for, since the answer for now is clear.
I keep asking you for silence. I understand there would have to be some kind of foxy force majeure at work to actually make that happen here where I live, 15 feet from a major highway and bordered on one side by a New York City local truck route. That the trucks are local does not make them somehow more charming or organic, it merely means they originate or terminate here in Brooklyn.
It seems to more I ask for silence the more noise I get. Today the street outside my front window is being repaved and there is a generator running that has emitted a constant tone that has not stopped once for a breath once since about nine p.m. last night. It sounds very similar to the shabbas airhorn that sounds every Friday evening at the shul two blocks from here, the call to prayer. But a never ending call to prayer, without vibrato, like an earnest folk singer's end note, held too long, trying to keep the crowd there long past when interest has faded.
So there's a never ending call to prayer going on outside my window and I keep asking for the noise to stop. And according to the neglected piano here to my left, it's a high C.
I'm going to go answer the call to prayer now, even though it won't make the call stop. The call will keep on calling, endlessly, asking us to step in and take part, and I'll find something new to ask for, since the answer for now is clear.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Hey Universe
Hey Universe,
I've been like an old white wall for the last six months. Blank but marred, scuffed up, getting by on the appearance of having once been shiny and new. Not one word to put in here or out there with you has crossed my brain.
I've been a good listener. I've always been a good listener, a good observer, a creepy starer, looking for details -- with my public relations clients, it's key differentiators. How are you different. How are you special. How do you matter.
The trajectory of my life, the whole shmegegge, is like the bastard lovechild of William Faulkner and Jackie Collins with a bit of Goodbye Columbus thrown in there for flavor. How on earth could I have nothing to write about? My own life has stunned me still. No dad, tragic and troubled family with enough heart warmth to restart a failed sun but tape and string where there should be bones.
I'm afraid one wrong word could kill them all, wipe out my tribe, so I say something crazy, then shut up, say something offensive, then shut up. Sit very still, say the crazy things to the other family I've assembled on the side who thank God thinks the great majority of what comes out of my mouth is alright.
I am very grateful, Universe, for all the good and I'm grateful for all the bad. I'm grateful for my addled brain and I'm grateful for the people I loved who died. I'm grateful to live in this incredible country where everything can go ragged and putrid and you have the opportunity to open your mouth and fight for it. I'm disgusted, today, watching the teabaggers (but thank you so much for the nom de stupide) who see an iota of their entitlement slip away and suddenly think secession is patriotic.
And here's where that crazy trajectory comes in. One of the people leading the teabag movement assaulted me years ago. Seriously, who is writing this stuff?
What I'm grateful for right at this moment:
I am grateful for the husband who is smarter than anyone else I've met yet and has the same dank humor and righteous indignation that I do, who hates hypocrisy and somehow loves sloppy strange me.
I'm grateful for my American best friend, in many ways the love of my life, the stranger whose eyes met mine across a room, who by God gets it gets it gets it.
I'm grateful for the British best friend, the keeper of our history, the earth mama philosopher, who I don't give enough to and I expect it to bite me in the ass one day.
I'm grateful for the beautiful child put in my care and I'll just say it here and spit between my fingers as I type- he is the smartest, the tallest, the wackiest, the brightest, the most incredible by far, and his mama -- your mama, Buddha -- would reach across time for him.
So hey Universe. Let the synchronicities continue. Let the nonsense pour out me. Let seekers sift through it until they find something to hang on to. Or not. Let me talk and talk and talk and not hold back for fear of what it will do to them, or me, or you, what anyone will analyze or refute or pass along.
Universe, open up, I want back in.
I've been like an old white wall for the last six months. Blank but marred, scuffed up, getting by on the appearance of having once been shiny and new. Not one word to put in here or out there with you has crossed my brain.
I've been a good listener. I've always been a good listener, a good observer, a creepy starer, looking for details -- with my public relations clients, it's key differentiators. How are you different. How are you special. How do you matter.
The trajectory of my life, the whole shmegegge, is like the bastard lovechild of William Faulkner and Jackie Collins with a bit of Goodbye Columbus thrown in there for flavor. How on earth could I have nothing to write about? My own life has stunned me still. No dad, tragic and troubled family with enough heart warmth to restart a failed sun but tape and string where there should be bones.
I'm afraid one wrong word could kill them all, wipe out my tribe, so I say something crazy, then shut up, say something offensive, then shut up. Sit very still, say the crazy things to the other family I've assembled on the side who thank God thinks the great majority of what comes out of my mouth is alright.
I am very grateful, Universe, for all the good and I'm grateful for all the bad. I'm grateful for my addled brain and I'm grateful for the people I loved who died. I'm grateful to live in this incredible country where everything can go ragged and putrid and you have the opportunity to open your mouth and fight for it. I'm disgusted, today, watching the teabaggers (but thank you so much for the nom de stupide) who see an iota of their entitlement slip away and suddenly think secession is patriotic.
And here's where that crazy trajectory comes in. One of the people leading the teabag movement assaulted me years ago. Seriously, who is writing this stuff?
What I'm grateful for right at this moment:
I am grateful for the husband who is smarter than anyone else I've met yet and has the same dank humor and righteous indignation that I do, who hates hypocrisy and somehow loves sloppy strange me.
I'm grateful for my American best friend, in many ways the love of my life, the stranger whose eyes met mine across a room, who by God gets it gets it gets it.
I'm grateful for the British best friend, the keeper of our history, the earth mama philosopher, who I don't give enough to and I expect it to bite me in the ass one day.
I'm grateful for the beautiful child put in my care and I'll just say it here and spit between my fingers as I type- he is the smartest, the tallest, the wackiest, the brightest, the most incredible by far, and his mama -- your mama, Buddha -- would reach across time for him.
So hey Universe. Let the synchronicities continue. Let the nonsense pour out me. Let seekers sift through it until they find something to hang on to. Or not. Let me talk and talk and talk and not hold back for fear of what it will do to them, or me, or you, what anyone will analyze or refute or pass along.
Universe, open up, I want back in.
Monday, November 17, 2008
New Home!
Clearly the place needs some sprucing up, but I've moved in and started unpacking. More soon.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Changes
I received yesterday a lovely and generous response from Judy Blume, who did feel the name of this blog should be changed so as not to confuse her readers. I agree, and I feel ready to put this experiment further into the world with a new name. I will be shutting down for awhile while I migrate to the new blog. There will be a virtual shingle in this space to easily make the jump.
Cheers!
Jen
Cheers!
Jen
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
More Medicine
I can't entirely wrap my head around what happened to The Kid last week. I'm glad he's alive and safe and everyone who loves him feels the same. I'll get into more soon.
In the meantime, more medicine, per The Buddha and TGD:
Medicine:
A handy little primer on the chakra centers of the body and what they mean to your health.
Music:
A song about walking away from the things that are killing you:
Books:
From Leaves of Grass:
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from;
The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,
This head is more than churches or bibles or creeds.
Sesame Street:
Dr. Horrible has NOTHING on this --
Neil Patrick Harris as The Shoe Fairy
Later,
Jen
In the meantime, more medicine, per The Buddha and TGD:
Medicine:
A handy little primer on the chakra centers of the body and what they mean to your health.
Music:
A song about walking away from the things that are killing you:
Books:
From Leaves of Grass:
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from;
The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,
This head is more than churches or bibles or creeds.
Sesame Street:
Dr. Horrible has NOTHING on this --
Neil Patrick Harris as The Shoe Fairy
Later,
Jen
Friday, August 29, 2008
Let Him Win
For the first time in my life, it does not seem naive to want goodness in our leader, our politics and our nation.
Have a good long weekend.
Have a good long weekend.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Answers From My Buddha
I am normally very reticent to blog anything about my son, who I'll call The Buddha (his dad calls him that sometimes, it's not a reference to Five Corners). I'm pretty reticent for him to have any kind of virtual life, because, at the age of three, he has no control over it. However, he spoke the truth yesterday, so I'm writing it here.
My friend The Goddess Devi has been having some troubles of late. Most goddesses, and literary heroes for that matter, have to go on an involved series of adventures or a quest in order to become the king of their own lives. They have to fight their way out of their father's head, or figure a way in and out of Hades. They have to suck all the blood out of the demon Raktabija. In The Goddess Devi's case, they have to go live with their parents while they await, have, and recuperate from surgery, and life goes into a numbing stasis that breeds uncertainty, doubt, and an increasing suspicion that doom lives in Toronto.
So The Buddha and I were playing with his toy trains yesterday afternoon, and since he has a talent for knowing what's bothering people and animals, I said to him "Buddha's name here, is there anything I can do to help The Goddess Devi that I haven't thought of?" And without looking up from the wooden tracks he said "Um, give her medicine, and music, and books, and Sesame Street. That's all anyone ever needs."
TGD, an email package is on the way. Buddha, thank you for being the Universe, and for being you.
My friend The Goddess Devi has been having some troubles of late. Most goddesses, and literary heroes for that matter, have to go on an involved series of adventures or a quest in order to become the king of their own lives. They have to fight their way out of their father's head, or figure a way in and out of Hades. They have to suck all the blood out of the demon Raktabija. In The Goddess Devi's case, they have to go live with their parents while they await, have, and recuperate from surgery, and life goes into a numbing stasis that breeds uncertainty, doubt, and an increasing suspicion that doom lives in Toronto.
So The Buddha and I were playing with his toy trains yesterday afternoon, and since he has a talent for knowing what's bothering people and animals, I said to him "Buddha's name here, is there anything I can do to help The Goddess Devi that I haven't thought of?" And without looking up from the wooden tracks he said "Um, give her medicine, and music, and books, and Sesame Street. That's all anyone ever needs."
TGD, an email package is on the way. Buddha, thank you for being the Universe, and for being you.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Are You There, Margaret?
I'm taking the day off from blogging to write Judy Blume and ask her permission to continue with this title. If she says no, I'll change it. Maybe I can pitch her Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret -- The Musical while I'm at it.
EDIT: This is something I actually said to a friend in a theater company, off the cuff, just kidding, and for about ten minutes she really considered it. Who doesn't want as much Judy Blume as possible?
Have a great weekend!
EDIT: This is something I actually said to a friend in a theater company, off the cuff, just kidding, and for about ten minutes she really considered it. Who doesn't want as much Judy Blume as possible?
Have a great weekend!
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Universe, Thanks For The New Talent. Yick.
My mom is empathic, but it's in a way that I've always been able to accept, because she's my mom. Like when I was in Woodstock on vacation a few years ago and got a sudden toothache, and called her two days later and mentioned I'd had a tooth pulled and her response was "The second tooth from the back on the lower left?" Yes, Mom. .
My mom has been doing stuff like that my whole life, and because it's my mom and we're very connected anyway, and also because it's a little annoying in that way only your mom can be because she seems to know EVERYTHING, it never struck me as all that strange.
Except now. Athena is ill and I went to see her a few days ago. It was a bit like that scene in "Be Kind, Rewind," where every time Jack Black walks by the television the static goes in waves because he's magnetized. I went near her, I felt sick, she felt better. I walked away, I felt better, she felt worse. I'm assuming she got her appetite back yesterday afternoon, because I was ravenously hungry for no good reason.
If nothing else, it's an eye-opener about how 'one' we all really are. And Mom, I'll never make fun of you again. This kind of sucks, in the coolest possible way. Love you, Mom.
Peace,
Jen
My mom has been doing stuff like that my whole life, and because it's my mom and we're very connected anyway, and also because it's a little annoying in that way only your mom can be because she seems to know EVERYTHING, it never struck me as all that strange.
Except now. Athena is ill and I went to see her a few days ago. It was a bit like that scene in "Be Kind, Rewind," where every time Jack Black walks by the television the static goes in waves because he's magnetized. I went near her, I felt sick, she felt better. I walked away, I felt better, she felt worse. I'm assuming she got her appetite back yesterday afternoon, because I was ravenously hungry for no good reason.
If nothing else, it's an eye-opener about how 'one' we all really are. And Mom, I'll never make fun of you again. This kind of sucks, in the coolest possible way. Love you, Mom.
Peace,
Jen
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Post 100
"When a question is posed ceremoniously, the universe responds."
--Chinese Proverb. Came across it noodling around online today.
Here we are at the 100th post, and I've been blogging here for just over a year. Since I promised to not only pose questions to the Universe, but also post the results, here are a few.
The blog was a good idea.
He's gone, but he's been right here the whole time, and I know it now.
Sometimes poetry actually helps.
Jenny just moved to Italy.
And I am now singing and doing yoga and jewelry-making, all the things I wanted to do and couldn't figure out how to do them. I've managed to drop the veil of the 'how' and just 'do,' and that took alot of help.
What has thrilled me most is other people asking to post here. It is a growing group belief, or at least hope, that throwing a bottle with a message in it can change something. You can call that speaking your piece, or speaking your peace, or the law of attraction, or prayer, or whatever else you want. What has thrilled me is what people want -- health, peace, purpose, understanding, an end to conflict, for themselves and for others. To put it in the ground.
I've moved into the thinking of our generation's only brilliant popular philosopher to date, Yoda, who said it best. Do, or do not. There is no try.
I've learned only one thing, really, and that's that all of the questions I could ever ask here have already been answered. It's a matter of who said it in the way I can hear it. I'm working on improving my hearing, so the method matters less.
Be well, thank you for reading,
Jen
--Chinese Proverb. Came across it noodling around online today.
Here we are at the 100th post, and I've been blogging here for just over a year. Since I promised to not only pose questions to the Universe, but also post the results, here are a few.
The blog was a good idea.
He's gone, but he's been right here the whole time, and I know it now.
Sometimes poetry actually helps.
Jenny just moved to Italy.
And I am now singing and doing yoga and jewelry-making, all the things I wanted to do and couldn't figure out how to do them. I've managed to drop the veil of the 'how' and just 'do,' and that took alot of help.
What has thrilled me most is other people asking to post here. It is a growing group belief, or at least hope, that throwing a bottle with a message in it can change something. You can call that speaking your piece, or speaking your peace, or the law of attraction, or prayer, or whatever else you want. What has thrilled me is what people want -- health, peace, purpose, understanding, an end to conflict, for themselves and for others. To put it in the ground.
I've moved into the thinking of our generation's only brilliant popular philosopher to date, Yoda, who said it best. Do, or do not. There is no try.
I've learned only one thing, really, and that's that all of the questions I could ever ask here have already been answered. It's a matter of who said it in the way I can hear it. I'm working on improving my hearing, so the method matters less.
Be well, thank you for reading,
Jen
Friday, August 8, 2008
Guest Post From Mr. E
Here goes:
"A friend of mine just moved home. At least back to his home town. He got a job supposedly in his field, but finds himself dong all the grunt work and none of the things he went to school or trained for many years to do. He's pretty miserable about it because what was supposed to be a creative position has turned into a job plugging numbers and doing exactly what his boss wants with no input from his part.
On the social front, he's tried to connect with his old friends since moving back, but they've moved on with their lives over the year and a half he was out of town. They've gotten married, had kids, moved away, or have settled into a conservative lifestyle that has no room for him. He's working a lot and has no time to meet girls, so he languishes coming home late from work tired and playing video games to fill the time before he crashes out on his couch.
He's tried looking for a less demanding job, and he's tried to reach out to his old friends which are his only connection to the town( His parents moved out years ago) but he's sinking into a distinct depression and frustration.
He wants to throw everything away, move again, start over, but I keep telling him that if he can't make the changes in himself where he is, he won't make the changes whereever he moves. He may be in the same situation with even less connection.
I want him to get his job situation fixed, and figure out his social situation. I want his old friends to be more open and recognize that he's back. 'd like him to be able to find the friends he needs and to be able to build a happy life He's one of my best friends, and on the phone sometimes he sounds like he's losing it with depression. If I lived closer, I would help, but I'm not able to.I'm asking the universe to help him out. "
Go, Universe, Go!
"A friend of mine just moved home. At least back to his home town. He got a job supposedly in his field, but finds himself dong all the grunt work and none of the things he went to school or trained for many years to do. He's pretty miserable about it because what was supposed to be a creative position has turned into a job plugging numbers and doing exactly what his boss wants with no input from his part.
On the social front, he's tried to connect with his old friends since moving back, but they've moved on with their lives over the year and a half he was out of town. They've gotten married, had kids, moved away, or have settled into a conservative lifestyle that has no room for him. He's working a lot and has no time to meet girls, so he languishes coming home late from work tired and playing video games to fill the time before he crashes out on his couch.
He's tried looking for a less demanding job, and he's tried to reach out to his old friends which are his only connection to the town( His parents moved out years ago) but he's sinking into a distinct depression and frustration.
He wants to throw everything away, move again, start over, but I keep telling him that if he can't make the changes in himself where he is, he won't make the changes whereever he moves. He may be in the same situation with even less connection.
I want him to get his job situation fixed, and figure out his social situation. I want his old friends to be more open and recognize that he's back. 'd like him to be able to find the friends he needs and to be able to build a happy life He's one of my best friends, and on the phone sometimes he sounds like he's losing it with depression. If I lived closer, I would help, but I'm not able to.I'm asking the universe to help him out. "
Go, Universe, Go!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
God 2.0 and TMI
I just took my first look at #21 in awhile, where I reference not being to listen to the Garbage song #1 Crush without thinking of my friend Owen. As I was reading it, I was listening to the little radio station on Fred Flare, where I'd been looking for an alarm clock. As I'm reading #21, #1 Crush came on the radio. It's 1 of maybe 60 songs on the whole thing. So, thank you God 2.0, or thank you coincidence. Either one works.
I'm getting down with my kumbaya roots (raised by wolves dressed like hippies, that's the short version) and asking for world peace today, which is a little like asking for the fabric of the whole world to be ripped to shreds and rewoven with a tighter and softer hand to it, maybe out of the undyed wool of very cheerful sheep. But I want war to end, I want everyone to go to bed with a full belly, I want torture and rape as a war weapon to stop, I want people to stop getting killed over land or God or ideas. It's what I want, and it's not well thought out or remotely logical, but I'm pretty okay with the fact that I'm basically hurtling emotions with curly hair. I have to be okay with that; I have to wake up with me every day, and I'm done changing.
I'm always asking for the little things, hoping they'll add up to the big things. Now here's a big thing. I hope it helps all the little things.
Love --
I'm getting down with my kumbaya roots (raised by wolves dressed like hippies, that's the short version) and asking for world peace today, which is a little like asking for the fabric of the whole world to be ripped to shreds and rewoven with a tighter and softer hand to it, maybe out of the undyed wool of very cheerful sheep. But I want war to end, I want everyone to go to bed with a full belly, I want torture and rape as a war weapon to stop, I want people to stop getting killed over land or God or ideas. It's what I want, and it's not well thought out or remotely logical, but I'm pretty okay with the fact that I'm basically hurtling emotions with curly hair. I have to be okay with that; I have to wake up with me every day, and I'm done changing.
I'm always asking for the little things, hoping they'll add up to the big things. Now here's a big thing. I hope it helps all the little things.
Love --
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Guest Post: Response to Universe, I Need A Raise
From my beloved R. I'd say she needs her own blog, but then I wouldn't get these awesome guest posts:
In reading your post, my dear friend, I was reminded of a different online conversation I had recently with a different friend, and my answer to youtoday is adapted from one I wrote to him, but I think it is still apropos ofyour mood.
I recently came across this quote from Rilke:"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in avery foreign tongue. . .And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
I give you this quote today- on this day, when the dark ceiling of thesleepless night just behind you still looms large- because I have the sense from your post that you are at a place in your life where you, perhaps, feel that you should have answers, or at least more answers than you haveactually thus far found. That you have reached this place ofhands-thrown-in-the-air because, despite all the decisions you have made inorder to have those answers, you are now somewhat disappointed that thereare still things you don't know.
So I wanted to tell you that I have noticed, among my peers who have children in particular, that most people seem to feel that there is some mechanism by which they should have crossed over into a zone of having onlyanswers. Perhaps this is because, once you have a child, you feel some certain responsibility to actually have them. I don't know. Or even if you don't have children, there seems to be some line, some place-shift in the environment that should have happened, around 32, where we stopped being kids, and realized we became, for better or for worse, the adults we alwaysknew were waiting for us.
And yet, for my part- even at 36 and well past that imaginary demarcation line- I can't quite silence my inner teenager and ask "Why *should*?" and"Who says?" Perhaps because I recently learned in the hardest way possible that not all answers are right, but it seems to me now that in some ways,the questions have really never been so good. I was never so sure as when I was 18, but I have never had more wonder about the workings of the world, and sometimes my own heart, as I do now. If you embrace it like that, you may just find that it isn't so much about the answers you don't have, but rather about the questions the foundation of prior answers has allowed youto beget.
I say all this now because I found this quote in the midst of one of my darkest periods, and when I did I realized not only that the darkness was simply a form of a question, but that I had found my epitaph. Live the questions. In fact, my own personal belief is that questions, dark or light, are our tie to life. And that only in the moments before death, will all the answers be revealed to us. Only then will we be free to let go, and fall from the earth, because our souls are satisfied that we *know*-whatever it is that our lives where shaped to find out.
So as you move through whatever struggle you are facing today, and whatever compromises you may be making- with your kitchen, your job, and what have you- I just wanted you to know that you are already living an extraordinary life. You have already found many answers, you will seek many more, and- as you have on occasion already- you will have glimpses of transcendence. Today is one day, and if you are giving up your hopes and dreams, remember that it is likely only in order to make way for the new ones that await you. Don't let the answers you think you have block the questions that will help you get there.
In reading your post, my dear friend, I was reminded of a different online conversation I had recently with a different friend, and my answer to youtoday is adapted from one I wrote to him, but I think it is still apropos ofyour mood.
I recently came across this quote from Rilke:"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in avery foreign tongue. . .And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
I give you this quote today- on this day, when the dark ceiling of thesleepless night just behind you still looms large- because I have the sense from your post that you are at a place in your life where you, perhaps, feel that you should have answers, or at least more answers than you haveactually thus far found. That you have reached this place ofhands-thrown-in-the-air because, despite all the decisions you have made inorder to have those answers, you are now somewhat disappointed that thereare still things you don't know.
So I wanted to tell you that I have noticed, among my peers who have children in particular, that most people seem to feel that there is some mechanism by which they should have crossed over into a zone of having onlyanswers. Perhaps this is because, once you have a child, you feel some certain responsibility to actually have them. I don't know. Or even if you don't have children, there seems to be some line, some place-shift in the environment that should have happened, around 32, where we stopped being kids, and realized we became, for better or for worse, the adults we alwaysknew were waiting for us.
And yet, for my part- even at 36 and well past that imaginary demarcation line- I can't quite silence my inner teenager and ask "Why *should*?" and"Who says?" Perhaps because I recently learned in the hardest way possible that not all answers are right, but it seems to me now that in some ways,the questions have really never been so good. I was never so sure as when I was 18, but I have never had more wonder about the workings of the world, and sometimes my own heart, as I do now. If you embrace it like that, you may just find that it isn't so much about the answers you don't have, but rather about the questions the foundation of prior answers has allowed youto beget.
I say all this now because I found this quote in the midst of one of my darkest periods, and when I did I realized not only that the darkness was simply a form of a question, but that I had found my epitaph. Live the questions. In fact, my own personal belief is that questions, dark or light, are our tie to life. And that only in the moments before death, will all the answers be revealed to us. Only then will we be free to let go, and fall from the earth, because our souls are satisfied that we *know*-whatever it is that our lives where shaped to find out.
So as you move through whatever struggle you are facing today, and whatever compromises you may be making- with your kitchen, your job, and what have you- I just wanted you to know that you are already living an extraordinary life. You have already found many answers, you will seek many more, and- as you have on occasion already- you will have glimpses of transcendence. Today is one day, and if you are giving up your hopes and dreams, remember that it is likely only in order to make way for the new ones that await you. Don't let the answers you think you have block the questions that will help you get there.
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