I am so tired. My body is sore because I am trying to train it ( and my mind and my mouth, yeah good luck with that) to focus on something new. Having said that, I feel that I must communicate something to you, the angels walking earth that I surround myself with.

Matt, I love you. You are such an inspiration to me, in that a lot of our struggles are parallel. I recognize you as a compadre in the battle to really and truly find who you are and be happy with that, instead of letting the mundane, drone world guide you. You are such a thinking/feeling person, and that is rare to find in a guy. So loving and intuitive, and then out pops the boy in you, just to remind us all that you are richly human and loving every minute of it, even the crap parts.

Alicia, Alicia, Alicia. Man, do I miss you. And yet, I don't. Because I know that no matter what, no matter how the friendship stretches and flexes and wanes and swells, you will always be there, as will I. I hope you understand that you are the first true person that I've been able to say that about confidently. It actually led me to meeting all of these other wonderful people. I am so very very proud of you and what you are trying to achieve.

Ashley, you and Matt are my examples of true men in this world. I'm happy with knowing you because we can be not perfect together "ooouuuu, you really said that?" or "Ashley, how old is she, really?" It's so wonderful for me to be able to say what I want and be who I am as a woman and have a man that I respect love me because of it, not inspite of it. It's neat to love you because of it all too.

Amber Lynn, so strong, so vibrant, so willing to love. My peace. My "Amber is here, I am able to breath again." I don't know if you see your strength and your hope yet, but it just radiates from you. Your smile gathers all of the light around you, and anybody in close proximity must understand that even if you are smiling through tears your message is "A challenge? Give it to me, I want it." You know you can do anything, right?

Mom. Mother. Ma. Just the fact that you ARE my friend makes me blissfully happy. How lucky am I? What praise to the gods should I be singing that would justify such a blessing? Little spitfire that you ate, your warmth is so apparent that even strangers in line at the grocery store recognize it. And you are my one and only. Your grace and willing smile know no bounds and they are figures that my soul rests on when everything else is gone. Good Lord that makes life special.

Jolie, just thinking of you makes me smile. I have never seen a woman with such a capacity to draw the people that she wants to her, and care about each one individually and with much gusto. I am in awe of your ability to read people, as a matter of fact, I aspire to have a fraction of your intuition. You have helped me open myself, and while sometimes it makes me raw, I am happy to be free. I want to create a renneisance woman within myself and to give to the world, and it is humbling to know a soul who already is one.

Shawn, the instiller of patience. I don't think I naturally have any, but I've found a lot by watching you. And such a mixture of true perfect womanhood: intelligent and strong, fun and witty, mother and friend and lover and just a damn real person who is not afraid of being that way. The attention that I get from you is truly a gift to me, when those dark, cracking eyes focus on me I know that even if I don't want to come out, you want to see the true me and have no time for the one that messes around. It makes me comfortable being who I really am, knowing you who I admire wants to see me.

Sam-mantha. The world exists for the sweetness of fun, and you will always remind me of that. The "party planner" the "clown" the "yep, life's a bitch, let's go have a cocktail or otherwise entertain ourselves, shall we?" You think so much and feel so much that it's amazing you don't explode. Once you get your feet underneath you, man, watch out. My only hope is that you'll stop sometime for happiness, 'cause I think when you grow wings that's the only thing that WILL slow you down.

I love you I love you I love you all so much, it is my pride and blessing to know you and I just wanted you each to know that.

This one goes out to all you Monkeys out there.
And the next time I try to deny my instincts, you all have my full permission to smack the stupid out of me.

My finger to the world, ok not so much the world but men (Matt, this is the bitterness coming out in a healthy way, sans BB gun, aren't we glad) is going to be a resoundingly witty comentary on my state of "affairs" from beginning to present. Some titles I threw around today: "How to Treat People, No Really, You Need to Learn", "Trials and Tribualtions of a Drama Queen", "Comments on the Three R's: Restaraunts, Retail, and Relationships," or by far the most laughable favorite "You Guys Suck : Here's why." It'll be an article publshed in some dreadful women's magazine, and damn if I shouldn't send it to every last one of "them", just for old time's sake. My promise to myself is that I will NOT be bitter, because that is letting unworthy people influence my life and don't ya know that ain't gonna happen to me. But I've got to get it all out of my system somehow and might as well have some fun and profit from it while I'm at it. I've always thought I should have been paid for my time anyway (yes I realize what that sounds like) if I'd have charged a therapist's rates I would have been rid of A1A ages ago and halfway through grad school by now.

I've been writing really, so unfolded below are pieces from the mish-mosh.

1/18/05
...The miracle of youth, I tell you. I ACTUALLY believe that I can, and WILL, do whatever I want to. Personally, professionally... So far though, I haven't been able to figure out what's stopping me.

STUPID INVISIBLE WALLS

I'm a virgo. I like these notebook lines. Pages with no lines stress me right the hell out. Nice little blue guiderails for me to follow. At the same time, the very same time, I want to obliterate the sons of bitches.
Write
OUT
of
order
IN RED
syawedis *um* <---- backwards?

The problem is, I don't want different if someone, anyone else, has done different. Not *good enough* for me dammit, if it is not starkly original. In this world, filled with billions of people - real, not real, fun, lame, hurting, happy, forward thinking, archaic, ALL OF THEM...I defeat myself, because, (stomp feet here) "well I could write in a spiral too, but some FLAKE whose smoked too much weed in order to 'free the' frikkin' 'mind' has already done it, winning a published book and all the accolaids that come from telling to box to pack up and head on down the road." My screw you to the universe is to not EVEN TRY.

Ewww, control yourself, you praise fed little recognition monster. Nobody but you cares why or how but you anymore, why doncha get over it and bust the way you really want to bust? Too...polite? Too...afraid?

you want people to feel your color.
gotta let go of it first.

Hell, gotta come out of the grey first. Fins some black and white. Be ok with the red of putting your foot down and standing up to it all, the blue of each unexoected voice, purple doubt, fuschia love, the purity of living life without fear.
----------------------

1/30/05
(blue pen) Good-bye, love-house. Thank you for taking care of me - shelter, peaceful porch, warm solace and all. I will miss you as my first. Good-bye, sturdy house to my clumsy body.
-----------------------

2/19/05
*Suddenly*

I feel sure that most of the blood has beensucked out of my BRAIN and is pumping furiously towwards my HEART-

It's taking too much room, consuming all of my energy, making it hard to see anything
else and I want it to stop beating or go back to normal.
--------------------

2/27/05
I want to dance, but I can't quite give up the heels yet, in some circumstances. I want to love, but fuck you if you want to track my heart, my soul, my being. I want to rage, but smile and hug you. I want it all and I want nothing. It's the same, right?
-----------------------

3/1/05
I am paralized with fright. Absolutely immoble. I can't stop thinking I can't get away from it I just want my mind to stop working.

3/2/02
I cherish that cookie.
Savor every bite.
Because, it was earned by my persistence and desire to be accepted by people that I respect,
by being myself
Not a chamelion
or a muse
who caters to
other
people's
whims.

There is more, but my eyelids keep trying to steal kisses from each other so I must leave this for now. As was expected, to be continued.

Dammit, I still know, and isn't that just the thorn twisting in my side?

It's so ridiculously simple, all of this. It's all set lights and smoke, backdrops that are designed to induce the sigh of love and whispering winds of hope that fan that sigh into a fire that's so painfully hard to put out. No matter how short or long, no matter the disinterest and pride and blatant flaunting of oneself to drive the other mad...nothing matters when once you were allowed for a slip of time to see what you've always wanted to see. It is the reason for fools, violence, drunkeness and several other dramas that can be chalked up to breaking away and starting new, again. Some take it well, some will never ever learn, and still others will back away from it like it is a rabid thing with mossy fangs and punishing claws.

Is it so bad that I just want to HUG the rabid thing?

Because I know...
(and knowing is half the battle)

Oh come on, you can't say one without the other. It's just not right man. So even though I was trying to be serious, humor snuck in and stuck its tongue out at me again. I guess there are far worse ways to deal with major topics that make me squirm, ways such as:
drinking, eating, staying up too late, sleeping to long, procrastinating, drugs...
well, at least I don't do the drugs.

Here's the thing. I was starting to go on a flourishing diatribe depicting the paths that I am wandering around as we speak. The outline I had in my head was to lament my current career standing (or the fact that I don't have one and almost two months into being 25 am no where nearer to stumbling across one) and chide myself over the inaction. Then I was going to throw in something empowering yet witty to boost my failing temperament through another day of smiling at people that I don't like. Add a dash of "stop berating yourself for trying to make the right decisions and taking the time to do it" and I would have been mentally satiated knowing that the whole world understands that I don't want to remain a waitress in St. Augustine forever and I am perfectly willing to shout it from the rooftops, if I felt confident that I could do so without falling off a one story house and killing myself.
I started to, but I was contradicted. By me. A-GAIN. So I stopped. It seems that I have either killed off the brain cells that were making me over-analyze these things, or I really have just stopped caring. Or maybe I really do understand that my time will come. When I ponder being a go-getter, I take another sip of my vodka tonic and push through the crowd to stare at the beach and think "nah, the real world can wait." While I fail to believe I should just sit idly by on my ass doing nothing, I am renewing my thinking with the fact that I will be a grown up for the rest of my life and this world is too hard to live in without enjoying the major things that I know will sustain me:
Love, family, career, surroundings...
and I refuse to push myself to do anything but enjoy these things.

If you're worried, don't be.

I'm not. Just trust in me. I am learning to, and it's a fabulous thing.

HEY DUCKS!!
New mantra "be sweet, be kind, be patient, be strong. Again...be sweet, be kind..." God knows, I'm trying.
"What have people got against a chick being by herself?"

There would be no rainbows from the soul if there were no tears in the eyes...

This is the gist of a quote I saw on a wall in Savannah today. It sums up my short trip nicely, I think. Driving up, the passanger seat of the Camry was inhabited by one big, tense mass of contradictory thoughts and emotions. Talked myself out of most of that nicely. Had I stayed here I would have created a melodrama the likes of which would rival the best soap opera, and then some. Weird how stepping away from something allows for some eery clarity and eventually restores peace. Let's see if I can remember this lesson.

Well, I am just really happy.

But before I say anything...my heart goes out to the victims and families who are suffering in Haiti right now. I can't even begin to fathom the things that these people are going through now. I am so sorry but so very thankful.

Now back to happy. Since I have written last, I celebrated my birthday in Miami, where I got to hang out in the Dj booth with John Digweed and watch the sun rise on my 25th, not to mention spend time with one of my favorites. I have trips planned to Costa Rica with the other favorites (AKA monkeys) and Australia if I can swing it, and I am finally getting to go to New York. Fabulous. Shortly I will start studying to take the GRE so I can start on the good ole career track. We made it through the first batch of hurricanes, thanks be, and hopefully we will make it through Jeanne (which by the way is named after my sassy Grandmother, go freakin' figure. And, drumroll, please. I have a boyfriend. Hope you didn't hurt yourself falling out of your chair in shock. Lord knows I'm still reeling from the surprise. I am very gun-shy right now, but I hope I can pull this off without totally freaking out. We'll see.

So my attetion is waning for the moment, hope to write less superficial stuff soon.

WELL, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, WAS I THAT BIG BEFORE?

Hey! Now you can post comments! So do it! Uh, I mean, em, please enlighten me with your most valued opinion. Ah-thank you.

Well, through all of the love-life blundering that typically happens on any given day, at least I can say I am starting to get more intuitive about the shenanigans. Probably I'm just learning to pay better attention to all of the BLARINGLY OBVIOUS signals. That might be it.

WARNING. Political discussion to follow.

So I have this to say about politics. Figure that mess out for yourself. (That was the essence of what I had to say. Figured I'd plant the seed before I tried to be eloquent.) But please, please, por favor, don't decide the future of our country by selecting the candidate's name that you see the most on the side of the road. In any election, from school board member to Commander in Chief. "Whichever devil you choose, you will look him in the face first." This quote from Dangerous Beauty may not be referring to the same situation, but I think it is a stance that we as a society should take, even though we often fail to. In this time when it can truly be the lesser of two evils, be aware of what you are signing your soul away to achieve. Take a look at the issues and the facts, and seal your heart from being affected by emotionally charged (if not factually based) speeches and campaign press releases. And if you are an undeniable moron, ask someone whom you respect to tell you who to vote for, 'cause even you need to try and make a difference.

Really, it's the way that you approach things.

For all of the times that I wanted to scream when I heard "it's not WHAT you say, Kelly, it's HOW you say it" I realize more and more everyday, it's damn true.

Learn about tact, and then learn how to use it.  I have no filter, so I empathize.  I talk to much, about too much, so I understand it's hard to hold back sometimes.  Especially when I think that I am always right.  Indignant is the term that comes to mind as of late, and I can't quite figure out what there is to be indignant about.  I'll be stepping off of my soap box now.  Thanks for reading.

PLAN:

1.  GRE (shudder)
2.  Resume (blech)
3.  Fancy suit as a reward for the above, b/c isn't it obvious by now that I operate on a reward system?
4.  Networking (did my anti-corperate, no-no-yuppy rear-end just say that?)
5.  Volunteering

AAAANNNDDDD....go!

Oh, and, uh, just found out that Digweed is going to be in Miami at Crobar the day before my birthday (which would be a monday night).  I think that it would be quite awesome to:

a. see Digweed!
b. Go to Miami
3. Dance my butt off at Crobar and watch the sun come up on my Birthday...yeah baby.

Uh-oh.  The wheels are definitely turning!

      

I think I am going to tattoo "mistaken intention" on my forehead..."What?  Why are you looking at me like...wait, no!  That's not what I meant, that's not what I was going to do... dammit, why...oh, for cripes sake, I give up!"
 
Why can't I just BE, and you GET IT?
 
For those of you that miss the Monkeys, the recent quotes on the board include:
 
Kelly: Can't you feel your heart beating?
Alicia: No, not under this padded bra.
 
Alicia:  Who are those guys hanging out on the stage behind them?
Kelly:  It's their posse.
Alicia:  Oohhhh!
  

 

Pursue Happiness inscribed over my battered knuckles.
Poor car.
 
Even if it is silent, my prayer is always the same.
 
Be safe.  Be strong.  Know that even with all of the disaster around you, the confusion and the opposite ends of honor, no matter the politics or varied opinions, there is always a heart open to you.  I love you for everything that you do for us.  Thank you for your life and your courage.  For the past, the present and the future, you are all my heroes.

Funny.  The other day, I called a good friend of mine a boy, and he got offended.  "Don't call me that.  I know that's an insult coming from you."  Apparently I have been very vocal about my views of the difference between men and boy.  Guess I'd better follow up the opinion with the behavior now, huh?

Ok, so here's the thing. My computer has some mysterious virus thingy going on. I can't even turn the abominable thing on now. So I am quite near twitching from not posting - still writing, but this whole online thing is strangely addicting. Nothing much eventful to lament about, really. Hopefully the bane of my existence will be working by the time something interesting happens.

NO REALLY.

IS THIS THING ON!?!?!

The moon is calling me...It's making me lose my concept of time, it's altering my perception of reality, it's drawing the drama to care from this body as its last breath. No worries. This is just the cocoon. The vibrant, strong creature my soul will become is still being nurtured inside. The pulse of the moon may just breath life yet. I am desperately fighting the urge to ignore it. The music and the words are holding me to it. One day. One day there will be so much more. It'll hurt, there will be pain and rage and distrust and failure and all of those other nasty words and thoughts and sentiments. But there will always be love. And I will pick up new words along the way to induct into my vocabulary - trust, support, commitment, honor, sucess, fufillment. Even to try will be enough.

Sober for 17 days, here's where I am on THAT totem pole:

* People in bars are ten TIMES more annoying when you are the ONLY one not drinking. Being intoxicated makes that a whole hell of a lot easier to deal with.
* I'm grouchier than I've ever been before.
* I've noticed when the urge strikes me the hardest, and this awareness reminds me of why I quit to begin with: When I am angry, threatened, or stressed, I crave alcohol.
* It IS hard to not drink when you work at a restaurant and go to bars, but not impossible. The major thing that strikes me when I'm out is, "God, why am I here again? To be social? With WHAT?"

Is it because you know that I want to grab you up and shake the teeth out of your head? Is this what causes you to think the way that you do? Or are you just so encapsulated in your own mind space that you don't realize what you passed up years ago?

JUST ONE DAY IN ALL OF THEIR HEADS, THAT WOULD PUT MY MIND AT EASE. GUESS I'M JUST GONNA HAVE TO RELY ON SWEET, SLOW TIME, EH?

"I know, I know. Action. Not words."

I feel like the worst comedian in the world, playing to a non-existent audience, tapping the mike, screaming "IS THIS THING ON?!?!?!"

There must be something that allows for a mess up. A do-over. Stepping stone. I don't know, a freaking experiment that's not too caustic or hurtful. Can't I have a get out of jail free card? As much as I scribble, as much as the steam escapes through my ears...all that thinking just leads to so many concentric circles. Good, back to chasing my tail again. Glad for that!

Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.
-Margret Atwood

No, the tears are not rife
with any particular emotion.
Slow and circumspect,
hating disappointment
as the only measure
that still trickles pain,
the only one
that finely drips through
the mesh of control
to mingle with my blood.

This fabulous inertia
that strikes my limbs
but won't even put pause on my brain
makes my eyes vibrant
but my actions dim.
Being this body
is hurting my soul
and floating
is causing more scrapes and bruises
than the Path ever would.

Musically, poetically I'll watch you
as I cling to the notes
and words
to save me from drawing you near.
The sting from my palm
still open on your face,
you will walk away.
I will be watching patiently
for the sight of your back -
breathing easily because I won, again.


Can you hear me clamoring, finally?

BUY!! SELL!! TRADE!!

No, this is not a used car dealership ad, this is how I feel about my life right now:

"Stuck in a rut with nothing to entertain you? Go buy something you don't need for that five minute of translucent joy!"
Passe, at best.

"Want to cleanse your spirit because you are brutally hard on yourself and feel that you tend towards no good? Go through the house like a tornado and bag up 2/3 of your stuff to give away - you're helping other people right?"
Trite. That about sums it up.

"Need some affection? Want to connect with someone? To be special? Of the many things in your head you have to barter, why not pick the one that you are the best with? 'Cause that makes sense."
Even when you know better, huh?

Clearly when I said that I am ridiculously inept at social multi-tasking, the powers that be took that to heart and decided to really try my malfunction. My inclination would be to bitch, 'cause well, that's what I do. But seeing as I am famously Happy, *uh, Content, or maybe...Satisfied, yeah that's it, Satisfied* with my "social calendar" as it is, I think I might try keeping my mouth shut. Now, to all of you Nay Sayers out there, every last one of you - to you I say "remember that I will ALWAYS surprise you." So there, and a nanny nanny boo boo, too, just for good measure. How's that for being a grown up?

Monkey, um, really, what is this? "Goddess of the Fabrics of Time."

Please to share, thanks.

ooooh...I want that! Why not me?

Ummmm...

Love...
and why stare?
Those next needs
Boil beneath a moon gown
Rusting
Aching
Blood
In a thousand languages.

Yeah.

I should be famous for the odd sunburns that I get...sheesh.
It doesn't matter how much they protest, kids will always like water in the end.
I am HORRIBLE with social multi-tasking.
How long before I run away in a fright, thinking, "whew, that was close!"

I wore my new shoes last night! (Robbie, if you are reading this, I didn't fall nor were they uncomfortable.) Apparently, this is all I've got right now, when really I am jam-packed with issues...maybe I'm scared to take a closer look.