On the topic of: Create your day, Brave hope, Birmingham and the matters of life: An essay.

Someone asked me a question today and it triggered this whole day long, roll through self inventory of who I am? I've come to a few conclusions after some serious contemplation, rest assured, I'm just as messy and interesting as I've always been but I feel like I'm starting to be the kind of person I totally want to be. No time like the present right? I mean for the longest it's been all about figuring out who that is, that's life right? We're all just trying to live and be who we are. The vast majority of people want to be someone they can and want to look at in the mirror. Growing up I feel like one of the messages in my family was to be better, we had to be. It's taken me thirty some odd years and a world turned upside down by history repeating itself in the most combustible of ways, for me to really grasp why that message was so important for me. In finally, fully, recognizing the meaning of that message and it's link to who I am. The message wasn't simply that you had to be better but that people would always kind of be looking, friend or foe, somebody cared what we did. Fear. Fear was ingrained in this message, and I have always tried and wanted to be fearless. So you can imagine what kind of struggle this can become for a kid who is oppositional defiant to begin with. 12 year old me didn't have a clue when to be fearless, to be brave or when to shut up and listen, watch and learn or shout at the top of my lungs with purpose. 30 something year old me, is still trying sometimes, more frequently than others and harder than I ever have before (2 bonus life points for you if you even picked up that super obscure aqua teen hunger force reference!),  to know the appropriate times for any of those options as well as a plethora of other additional life skills of varying degrees of importance. Most times it comes across as awkward. Sometimes I'm a big dumb scaredy cat about absolutely silly things and if I'm being honest I think that's just to distract me from the shit I'm really afraid of,  because then I'd have to acknowledge how silly I'm really being, and then I don't have to be fearless, if that makes any sense at all. It doesn't really need to make sense either way though, because it's bullshit. The world around us is kind of crumbling in a million different directions and I'm more hopeful and aware and afraid and excited but still moderately concerned than I've ever been. Yet still I'm trying to be fearless, I'm doing fearless the best way I know how and that's trying. That's growth and work and stumbling along the way, but for me being fearless and being better have the same motivations.
I'm no better than anyone else, I get foolish and human and act like I am sometimes, but I'm not any better than anyone else.The only person I really want to be better than is myself, yesterday, and the day before that and maybe a little extra better than whoever I was the last time I acted like an asshole like earlier today. When I bugged out at a security guard for one of my least favorite big dumb banks of america who advised me I couldn't park in their mostly empty parking lot for more than 10-15 minutes. That version of me was definitely a crazy person. She sucked. In that moment I was a tiny little human throwing my own tiny little tantrum and I truly hope in that moment the security, parking attendant, guy getting paid maybe 12 and hour by someone prevent their parking lot with plenty of spaces, I hope he laughed at my crazy ass behavior. That's what I want to do every time some one does something crazy in my presence. I want to laugh, because why not, if a spade is a spade why not call it a fucking spade? Imagine if that dude started laughing not at me right in front of  me, not a mean laugh just a gentle hey relax what's up kind of chuckle, I might of calmed down, I might have gone ahead and continued to be a big mean jerk. I don't know. What I do know is we don't get do overs. We just get a chance to learn from that moment and maybe if we are very fortunate not repeat that behavior. In other words be better. Grow. Learn some important shit. In that moment I was a jerk and this time it didn't take me weeks of feeling shitty and continuing to be shitty to realize I could be better. It took maybe 2 minutes. (Which I feel has got to be a personal best and I do totally believe that deserves a little horn toot of the persuasion my own.) Within 2 minutes I knew I was being an asshole for no real reason, I mean don't get me wrong that parking lot was empty and I did need more than 15 minutes and I wasn't trying to catch a train which rationally thinking about it has to be why this establishment was so territorial about their parking lot turf that they would pay a guy to sit and be and asshole really It is either super cheap (Probably) Or genius (also kind of) but rather than pay a tow company to be on retainer to tow cars, wich is likely more expensive and requires maybe a permit or two, these guys pay a guy, to sit all day and tell people they can't park there. Keeps their lot free. I mean I could dig deeper into that hypothesis but it's not a hundred percent relevant. Point is this dude I got all crazy aggravated towards had jack all to do with anything aside from doing his job which I'm certain he barely makes a liveable wage for. If I'd just been human and honest towards him and said hey I'm NOT going to be here more than an hour over your fifteen minute rule is there any way you could cut me some slack I have something really important I'm trying to do and If you can help me I'd really appreciate it. I believe that would have, could have changed that entire interaction. But because I didn't within 2 minutes I was able to laugh at myself and pin point where that interaction went wrong. Later In my day I would be reminded again how much I really have to learn. and then in that same conversation, how far I've come. Those are the conversations and Interactions I want more of, that was the conversation that triggered today's thoughts. Only my second very short interaction with this person and she is someone I believe, I could learn how to be a better human from.
You see that conversation happened exactly where and how it was supposed to happen and for the first time in 5 months and some days, but longer than that really, I'm remembering some of the most important things about me. I didn't learn them over night. I don't learn anything overnight. I have to practice and do and redo. Sometimes shit knocks you down and it takes time to get up but if you pay attention and learn from life, it gives you life and you can get up and do the right things for you, which also turns into doing the right things for others, because, well, happy people are just plain nicer. I had to have that 2 minute realization to put myself in check but also so that I could ease my nerves and realize that even if I mess up there is progress in that. That was exactly what I needed today, a reality check, a reminder of who I want to be. I'm hoping it helped. I'm hoping it was evident immediately after  in my oh so important that I acted a fool over my plans (before realizing I had a solid and workable back up plan), moment. I'm hoping eventually today is just a funny story I get to laugh at with this really interesting and seemingly, happy, functional, feel good magical human I got to meet for a sliver in my life so far. I'm hoping that because my gut says that's worth hoping for, my instinct is, I'm on to something that works for me if I can just learn how to harness it for the better.

There we are back to better. Fear tells me my gut could be wrong, but experience tells me it's worth a try and my heart tells me to just be kind and do the right thing, to and for myself and others as long as I can, the best ways I can. That and try harder to be brutally honest with myself as to why i'm doing what I'm doing at any given time. Is it who I want to be, Is it the best person I can be, am I acting like a snickers commercial, am I taking care of myself? That shits important. I feel it should be important to all of us.
I also feel we all get distracted from this on a daily basis, by life and its bells and whistles. Everyday in this world we are faced with choices and information. Every day we make a bad one or two and every day we can ask ourselves what it's about and learn from our mistakes and mis-steps and grow into a person we like, It's all a choice to learn or not to learn, to grow or not to grow, to open ourselves up to a better standard of living, together. To find out if we can, in fact, be better.

A little over 5 months ago someone who loved, lived, questioned and felt, fearlessly made a grand exit from this world, we all have our demons and while part of me believes we all make choices the other part of me is learning to accept there are things we all have trouble controlling and sometimes it's harder with certain things than with others. Life is more complex than all the questions could ever answer. After years of trying to figure out who I am, I am the composite of my best lessons, a work in progress and still seeking to find my most important parts. What I do know so far is that sometimes within our fears is where we find our strongest voice. I am black and I am white. I am fierce and strong and sincerely afraid of failure to be a better human being than I was yesterday.
I am also fully aware I am going to fail, in some way, somehow each day. It is my belief that being fearless is knowing there may be failure and trying anyways. We can ALL stand to be better. Being taught from birth that you HAD to be better, always be better, that's some shit that fucks with a persons head. Knowing WHY it's important, that, that is the difference between being the best version of you. It's what I like to think we're all on this big ole planet for, and if we're not trying to be better in the real and raw sense of just living good lives and being good to each other then what the fuck are we really doing.

Growing up we were taught we had to be better, because my parents fight could not be allowed to be our fight. They protected us with hard knowledge and cold truths, taught us how to think for ourselves, how to be resourceful and how to live through what they knew would be hard. I'm certain they never knew our lives would be anything like they were or are. I'm pretty sure they're proud of us, somewhat sure they're still scared for us and I have no idea if any of it's at the right things, but I know they did the best they could with the tools they had.

In the time leading up to the death of the more lucid of my grandmothers she told me many harsh truths about the world, some helped, some hurt but they all taught me a piece of who I wanted to be and opened the door to a path of understanding I may never have found without the pain of her deathbed honesty. She showed me her full deck of cards and she told me in those weeks and days and moments so precious at the end of her life, why it was so important that we, my brother my sister and I be better. She loved us, I believe that because I felt and saw that too in my time with her. She also believed we were a bit of an abomination. She feared for her offspring and she feared for us, and at the same time I believe she was afraid of us, Not really of us but of change and what it meant our lives would be like. You see we had been taught we had to be better for many reasons but growing up in a world like ours we are all so often taught, to fit in and early in my life it was made clear that we were different. Not by our family but by the world around us. My grandmother had lived her life afraid for others and she was good where she could be and she tried when she could to be better, sometimes for the right reasons sometimes not.

My own grandparents struggled to see my life as ever being happy, not because they knew me but because they knew the world I would be living in. We were mixed children. Black and White. We heard questions about who were were long before we knew anything about who we wanted to be. We learned the best way to fit in was to observe, learn, trust our gut instincts and if we still had questions to look it up. We were happy, made from love and cared for but we were a social experiment too and that meant we had to work. We had to turn out ok. I mean I'm flawed as fuck, but I think I'm turning out ok. Beyond anything else I feel our skin and what some consider our disadvantages have been our advantage. We knew we had to be better and we each in out own ways have grown into people who are trying regardless of how flawed we may be at any given moment, we had the advantage of learning early, with honesty and eventually with clarity why we had to be better humans.

I am the whitest black person I know, really though,I am just myself. The skin I'm in and the color of the skin I'm in stopped mattering to me a long, long time ago. In light of recent events in this country, I am forced to confront the cruel fact that while I may see myself as just a person trying every day to be the best me I can be. There will always be people in this world who see brown, before they see ME. That is why I have to think smarter, learn more, prepare more try harder and be better any time it is possible, because sometimes it won't be enough to be myself, sometimes I will only be what people see first and while I see a growing, living breathing opportunity for a better world, while I hope everyone can see that in my eyes, in the way I present myself, how I carry myself, in my words and when I speak. 33 years after my birth, some people in the world we all have to live in together, still see the color of a persons skin or sin before they truly observe all the things that make up a given situation. So I can't always be fearless, I cannot always be alright, But I CAN always try to be, progress. to learn from the best parts of the people who have helped me to see myself.

I am alive, and therefore able to keep trying. What I know so far is I can be happy if I just keep remembering what I learn along the way and putting it into action. Eventually, I'll do all I want to with my life, from finally finishing at least one of the letters I've started to write a friend to being completely confident with all of my decisions regarding just being myself. to maybe doing something that helps the world we live in progress to better than how I found it. For now though I just keep wondering how we change anything if we don't start with ourselves, if we aren't willing to be honest with ourselves and each other, to laugh at our mistakes, apologize when we should and stand up when maybe we shouldn't. I want to be told (in the kindest of ways) when I'm fucking up, honestly and with a chance to fix it, to compromise when it's right and question it when it' not. I want to learn and I think we all should. It's the most human thing and I fear we are losing that. I fear if no one stands up and says hey how did this work out last time we just keep repeating bad behavior, as individuals but also as a society. Which is why people should act on love and work their way up from there. On the off chance we fail, keep trying. Life is too short to give up. That we live only matters if we live to our fullest potention and we just aren't doing that if we stop looking. At ourselves and each other, with honesty and trusting past the obvious.

For a Slammy...

It's not everyday people come into your life and just fit, they click, they get you and understand or at least respect, how you love, live and grow. I've been fortunate in my life to meet enough of these kinds of people to know how truly great the world can be. We don't get a second chance in this life to make certain decisions about who we are going to be and at the same time it's my belief that if we work for them, we get all the chances, all the opportunities, we wake up every day with a chance to be better, do better and learn from the person we were days months years ago. The people who have helped me grow the most have no fucking clue how they've changed my life and shown me who I wanted to be. I think people have forgotten in ways we may not fully realize as a society, until it's too late, how important that can be for someone, gratitude, genuine love and appreciation for the exchange that is friendship and companionship with each other, fellow human beans(yea, I meant to type beans, like MAGICK!). The times we are living in give us this false sense of security in the way things are. A perception of how it should be, according to a whole lot of people who don't know shit about the life you've lived and the story your scars may or may not tell. A perception of who you should be aligning perfectly with the scale of miserable to happiest person on earth in just such a way that nobody's happier than anyone else because we're all miserable together. I don't feel secure in those ideas at all but I know they're out there. I know there are people pulling strings and pushing buttons because "It makes them feel better" or gets them where they want to go. I know that the world we live in is filled with people who will push you down just to get a better view. I also know that people are capable of so much more. Imagine a world where people truly strive to just be better. A world where there's always someone you can go to and talk to because they'll always make the time because they have it, because they're able, because they know time is something worth spending with a friend. In the words of a great man, that shit would be, Radical.

I try to live my life in a way where the people I love, know it.The people who help me to get through a day, a week, a year, a lifetime aren't forgotten in the movin and groovin of everyday life. Sometimes, I fail at this. Frequently, like anyone else I say to myself "I gotta call (Insert name of friend I haven't seen in forever but really miss at that moment cuz of some weird memory only they would appreciate....), then like a human who hates the impersonal nature of the interwebs I try to think of the best time to call that person where we might be able to actually have a conversation of substance. Then, inevitably, I fail. I get too busy. Too stressed. Too full of bullshit excuses and 3 weeks to three months later I still haven't called whoever it was, and by the time I get around to having time it's generally a few months later. Not because I actually didn't have the time, more because I simply didn't make the time. We don't always realize what's important, what we need to make time for and what can wait. As we evolve we gotta stop, take a minute and recognize that we are nothing if we forget those that build us up. It's some pretty profound yet fundamental shit.

 We are nothing if we forget those who build us up.

The world is full of people who help us become better versions of ourselves. Not all of them can be repaid their kindness. Not all of them need to know how deeply they've touched our lives. If you feel moved to tell some one, in whatever way you can, then fuck it, don't look back just tell them. Be it in actions or love or words. I feel like it's the ninth secret of the universe or some shit and we've all just been fucking it up for centuries, ponder it. Simmer on this shit, people, telling each other ya know, that they give a shit about each other! I know right!?! WOW!! What kind of crazy hippy idealistic bullshit am I selling here! Think about it though, it's super basic, like a pyramid scheme and shit. People are nice to each other, it spreads, they get confident about being nice to each other and branch out now being nice to strangers who then repeat the kindness and it continues to spread! Crazy. Utter nonsense. But it could happen. If we made time. to think about how little it really takes to change someones day, attitude, life.

Today Slammy would have been 31 years old. I met him through a friend I haven't spoken with in years, he walked in on movie night and we just chilled, he was funny and real and full of fucking energy. We quickly started hanging out, he told me his story and I told him some of mine and we were friends, it was automatic and simple. No bullshit. We told each other what we thought, laughed, talked about all sorts of crazy shit. He showed me some of my favorite places in the state of Connecticut, some of the most breathtaking and beautiful views I have seen yet in my short little life. He was an explorer, an adventurer a liver of life and one of those friends you could talk to for hours about nothing or everything. He was a friend. A friend who helped me survive living below the poverty level, while unemployed and finishing an associates degree that I knew would get me a job still doing nothing I liked. He encouraged my writing helped me with algebra and showed me how to find the laughter at a time when everything was so ridiculously serious and intense and ultimately painful. He used to walk into my apartment on a Friday or Saturday night after clubbing or partying or whatever crazy shit he'd gotten into and at the time I could easily be found on either evening, watching Reba, in my house sweater, on the couch like a finely tuned 90 year old woman. Sometimes it would be just him, sometimes he'd have guests and we would mute Reba so he could tell me about the night he'd had or just hang out and be ridiculous, He'd then come back the next day and drag me out to go hiking or have a beer if either of us had the dolla dolla bills. (It was more likely hiking at the time.) He got me out of the house and out of my head, taught me more than I will ever remember about how shit grows in this world. I called him my biologist, he loved that shit, plants and nature. He loved, nature and his friends, his family, his siblings he loved a good story and a good time but mostly he loved people. He loved so damned hard, like with his whole heart and shit.

A few days ago Slammy, lost his life, I lost a friend. A mother, lost her son. Siblings lost their brother and the world lost someone who could have changed it. A biologist, A spirit, a lost soul who still had a chance. Until he didn't.

Everyday until you die you make choices. Choices that effect you and those around you, and everyday you live with those choices. Meaning every fucking day of your life you have the opportunity to choose better, for yourself. The only person who can make those choices for you is you. If it makes the majority of people around you hurt maybe it's a choice you should re-examine. If it will ultimately make your life a more positive one, fuckin go for it, fuckem if they can't see that, but if you happen to be spiraling into the abyss of whatever bullshit you're selling yourself and the world around you, maybe take a moment and check yourself. Life is just too short. If you completely stop asking yourself "Hey are these good decisions?", if you stop making time for a friend in need before a needy friend. If you stop recognizing the good in people or reaching out for those who truly love you, If you forget who you are, find a friend. One of those real ones and ask for a little help getting by, because a true friend will build you back up and help you however they can as long as you keep it real, whether they've known you 6 months, a year, or a lifetime.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I'd like to think everyone has at least one true friend they can call when the going gets tough. Perhaps I'm a hypocrite or maybe I've just been here before but I don't have it in me to watch people I love dive head first into oblivion. I've learned the hard way to step back, I'll be around if you need me but I won't watch anyone spiral out. After spending many years being someone I didn't like, I began the swim out of my own shit and despite each of our struggles being so completely different, Slammy was there. Building me up. Sometimes because he saw that I was a hot mess and other times he had no idea, but he helped me grow into a better person and for that I will forever be in debt to him. Of course this means in his passing I find myself feeling all the feels of regret. I find myself sad over all the things you're sad about when some one leaves this world way too soon and frustrated with myself because I didn't call more, I didn't make time. Thought about that twinkle eyed motha truckin fool at least once a week but sold myself the lie that there would be more time later. I'm currently fighting my guilt with the idea that the phone goes both fucking ways and my number hasn't changed in almost 15 years now. Doesn't make it right or easier but it helps me keep perspective. At the end of the day if you need a friend, find one, if you are a friend, be one, because you never know when it might make all the difference. I think if everyone did this, if everyone just lived this, people would know they could and a whole lot of shit might be a whole lot better.  I really and truly believe we can all be better. Ain't that some shit...

Dear Slammy,
Wherever you are, it's coasters for you when we meet again. Coasters mothafucker. It's the fourth fuckin commandment and ya broke that shit so, Coasters. In the mean time, If there is an afterlife I'm sure my people have found you by now tell em Large Marge sent ya...
Love, peace and chicken grease, Slammy

Two boats, thee uh helicopter, and oh hey thee uh toilet papers gone : A Redux

I will preface this re-post with some basics for you folks, tonight at approximately 9:15 p.m. myself and those fellow fightclubbers I've grown so fond of, learned via various news outlets that our employer, sold our company, our jobs, our futures, our years of service to the tune of 17.7 BILLION. This comes after years of being told this wouldn't happen and a few recent months of reasonable speculation and some public fishing by thee uh guy in charge. In the years since joining this particular fightclub the threat and rumor of the company being sold has come to be a yearly exercise in fear based management. Tonight (Lastnight, if you happen to have slept), the yearly fire drill turned into an actual fire.
What does it mean? It means each and every employee has been lied to by omission. Some guy at whichever news outlet broke the story first, knew before us, our bosses, or their bosses, even had a clue.
It means this organizing drive is about to kick into high gear. The only employees with any security are those who are UNIONIZED! Here's lookin at you Brooklyn! Really though, what thee uh fuck does it mean for the rest of us?

It means get loud, get public get down with the facts and know your rights while you still have the rare opportunity to save your job! Right now there are workers in Brooklyn sleeping while the rest of us prepare for the worst. It doesn't have to end on the unemployment line, though it may, if we don't stand together, help each other with the life jackets and get in the boat! Let there be no mistake about it, the boat is big enough for all of us if we are simply willing to do the work! Together, as a Unit, by simply saying YES to a unionized work place we provide ourselves with a chance that based on what I've read will not likely remain once this sale is complete. A chance at securing our jobs much like our Brooklyn Brothers and Sisters have already done.

When things get crazy or when one of her kids has one of those "Duh!" moments my mother will look at us, laugh and say, "Two boats and a helicopter!". This is my take on this epic parable, by whatever name you call your higher power, whether or not you believe in one, or twenty, or none, please take from this what is important and relevant and true for you and also forgive me my swearing but for real I was a trucker once...

A man is on a roof after a bad storm because his city had flooded, he's praying for God (or as I call him Jeebus), to save him, and a boat comes by. The people in the boat say "Hey, Guy, jump down get in, lets go!" The man say's, "No, it's cool you don't have much room in there, I'll be ok, save some women and children and such, Jeebus will save me!" The folks in the boat argue a bit but eventually say ok and move on. The water is still rising and the man is still prayin on the roof when the next boat comes by. They have a few seats and the waters so high he can walk right in off the roof. Once again the people in the boat invite him in and once more the man says "No, Jeebus will save me!", and the boat floats on. Now it's getting dark and the man is clinging close to the chimney as the waters continue to rise, he hears a loud noise coming closer and then out of the sky, directly above him comes a bright light, its a bird, its a plane, JEEBUS HIMSELF? Nope, a helicopter, from which a rope ladder drops and a man on a microphone yells, "Hey, Hey you there, on the chimney, in the red suit, with the white trim, grab the ladder,you'll drown down there! GET TO THE CHOPPA, IT'S THE ONLY WAY OOOOOUUUUT!" The man clings tighter to the chimney shaking his head no and deliriously yelling something about some guy by the name Jeebus coming to pick him up with some other guy named Rudolph. Finally the copter has to go, and they do. Leaving the poor waterlogged man who thinks he's Santa, to drown on the chimney.
The man gets to heaven after some screaming and flailing and demands to see God. God says to herself, and all the Angels, ~Well, this, I have got to hear, send this dude in. She nudges the Angel to her right and says watch this, and turns herself into Samuel L. Jackson, cuz come on, what's not funny about that! The man looks at her and says, "God, Jeebus, I knew you were black! Seriously though? What the funk? Why have you forsaken me? Why did you let me drown out there?!!!?" With this, God stands, laughing, she holds his face in her hands and says, as only Samuel L. Jackson could, "MOTHAFUCKA, I sent you TWO  BOATS and a mothafuckin HELICOPTER, If you think I was gettin in that water myself, you were sadly mistaken. I don't SWIM, HA!" She laughs and the angels laugh and she hugs the man and they all laugh and eat cake and that's that.

 If at any point the man had thought outside the box of his expectation, he might not have drowned. Life  changes every day. We make decisions based on expectations, based on fear or lies or both, lies other people tell us, lies we tell ourselves. That man told himself God would save him, to the point he actually believed the sky would open and God would carry him to dry ground. Instead he got a prankster in the sky. It wasn't what he expected. The boats, the helicopter he didn't accept those and he didn't expect to see the pearly gates or Mr. Jackson that day, but it happened. If he'd had the chance for a do over, I bet the man would have hopped right in the first boat, said thanks, and been livin high off the insurance money to a ripe old age. But life is short, we don't always get second chances and sometimes you have to fight your fears through to safety even if the boat is fueled on hope alone, boats float in rising waters, fear doesn't, a teen aged lifeguard can tell you that.

When your employer sells your company, your family, your security, your future, the boat IS a Union and that Union is the CWA.

"The Labor Movement was the principle force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Lighthouses, Guilds and Unions.

When I was a kid my mother and Grammi took us to see the lighthouse in our town. It was some kind of big deal. We waited in line for what seemed like an eternity, finally made it to the top and were then advised, that we would not, could not, go outside. To which a child me, expressed my rage and disappointment to what I imagine was a member of the U.S. Coast guard, " DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I WALKED UP ALL THESE STAIRS AND I DON"T GET TO GO OUTSIDE?!?", so naturally, they let us outside. Last Saturday that Lighthouse was open for the first time in awhile. I missed it though and it's cool I had other things going on.

Back in April I made a life changing trip to church, no I didn't find Jeebus. I did, make a life long friend. Whatever happens over the next 30 or so years before the worms eat me, The person I met with, that sunny April Sunday, will forever hold a place dear to my heart. In a brief conversation I attempted to explain (with what little I knew then) how important it was to organize, to recognize our value, stand up and do the work to make 40 hours a week a little less intimidating and a lot more enjoyable, satisfying even. In what little time we had to discuss organizing I did my very best to stress to this person that it would not be easy but it would be worth it. 

Every day these last few weeks I have had to remind myself of that. On a personal level I miss the beach, my friends, my Harley (Aka Merle, whom I have finally ridden, but not nearly enough!), running around with my army of nieces and nephews and all the things that make summers better than winters. On a professional level, I have a job, so that's cool.This week, for the first time in five years I went to work early. with a smile on. Because hope. 

Hope in my personal life, that's been easy. I made changes, tried new things, figured out what worked and what didn't, cleaned out the negatives and practiced living the positives. In my professional life,it's a daily struggle. Then came hope, in the form of a union. It came crashing in like all the best adventures in life do. At the worst possible time. I made a decision to make myself available, to try and find answers to do whatever I could to help the people who have helped me survive my employment situation, my fear, my anxiety, my last hopeless place. I don't sleep as much as I should, For the last month I've had my face in my phone more than I ever wanted to texting, talking, emailing, like a jerk. A jerk on a mission though. My mission: Not lose my income. This eventually turned into: Not go down without a fight. That eventually turned into: Inspire others to not go down without a fight. The natural evolution of this, is clearly, save the world. 

I don't want anyone to walk into the place they make their living and wonder if the rules changed overnight, or if today is the day they lose that living for essentially being human. I don't want to watch people be treated badly by anyone. I know that seems pretty simplistic, I know it's childlike even, but it's true. I don't want to stand by with a fire hose and all the water and just watch the world burn. That ain't me. I want to put the fire out. I want to see the world rebuild stronger, kinder, realer. I want to see the world we live in and the people in it, live better, treat each other better, be better. Yes, I do believe we can all be better from CEO's to landscapers, Politicians, Policeman, Teachers to Carpenters, Nurses, Housekeepers, we can all be, live, experience better, both at home and at work.  All it takes is people, recognizing people, respecting each other, Listening to each other and looking out for each other on just the most basic of human levels.

Call it community. Call it tribal. Call it a guild, call it a union. Call it whatever the fuck you want but, "Never under estimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world, In truth it is the only thing that ever has!" ~ Margaret Mead said that shit long before I was even born. It's just as true, and real, and important today as the day she first thought to say it. Why aren't more of us living by this? Where are all the children inside us who wanted to change the world with whatever magical thought we believed would do just that. 

To my professional family, my work family, my brothers and sisters in the struggle to simply be heard, Thank you for getting me through my work week these past few years, months, weeks, days, Are you ready to fight though? Really. Are you done feeling hopeless? Because I didn't walk up all those stairs not to go outside, and I certainly didn't risk goin up in flames that day I walked into church to come this far and give up now. I fear spending this whole summer walking up those stairs of hope only to be told I can't go outside, but I don't fear my employer because I know there is power in facts and numbers. Who benefits from a Union? Employees. Who doesn't? People who don't have one. Who benefits from fear? Employers. Bullies. Dictators and occasionally 6 year old children in lighthouses.

The room with a view.

Someone said to me yesterday "Hey I heard you're a writer." I laughed because he followed it up with this bit about how I should write a sitcom and I thought ~ Yea, I don't really want to. I smiled and was polite - for me - then he explained how it was better with a visual expression of the things he thought I want to write about. I thought ~ What the fuck is the point then?!!! Will good sitcoms suddenly be more meaningful than Shakespeare?, what I said was nothing I smiled politely and moved on with my day. I came back to that conversation before writing this and thinking about how I haven't written on here lately because I'm doing other stuff, living other lives. I haven't stopped writing though. I write more regularly than I have in a very long time. It's a whole different writing experience to take your adventures and the characters you've met and try to find a balance between the actual factual people and the exaggerated  hilarity, humanity and humility of their stories colliding. I make that shit sound either fancy as fuck or downright pretentious. The real of it is though I have no clue what i'm doing, no idea if what I'm doing is worth anyone reading or worth trying to do. It could quite possibly all be utter nonsense. I could fail. I fuckin hate failing. I loathe the feeling of failing at anything, even things I don't particularly give a shit about. That said imagine how bad I'm going to feel if I never reach the goals I have regarding my writing.
Now, replace my writing with anything in the world. Any dream or hope you may have ventured to have any person you thought you would be when you were a kid. Think about it, simmer on it, are you doing it? Are you living the life you wanted? Are you the person you wanted to be? Are you miserable or happy? What do you want for yourself? Who the fuck are you? Are you movin and perhaps more importantly are you groovin?

 Suddenly the fact that I keep writing down fractals of ideas and beginning stories without finishing others as I go, doesn't seem so bad, because, well, what the fuck else am I working for if not to be a better human, a better me and so, a better writer. What is life, if not to some extent, a lesson in learning when to walk away and knowing if and when to go back. Bam! Instant inspiration. I want to be the type of person who is always writing something. I hope eventually something I write makes a difference somehow to someone else but also I want to be able to take care of myself. By which I mean get money. I want to write about Fuckin Bitches and Get Money for it so the way I see it I will...as soon as I stop being afraid and just do the shit.

 I have been in this intense growth spurt of awareness to who I am and mostly I think I am becoming a pretty fuckin awesome human being but I know my deepest failures and I know I can be a far better one. I think all too often we allow it to be all too easy. We say, Fuck it. this is where I am so this is who I am. We allow our fears to swallow our hopes and dreams and aspirations of being who we wanted to be before we became who we are. I could have been a million far shittier versions of myself if I had just accepted who I was at any of my past moments of doubt. I've slowly learned to give myself a healthier insulation of people who are both supportive and understanding of who I am. People who respect where I've been and can see where I'm going, who get me and love me even if they don't really know me. I relapse on that from time to time but more so lately I feel like I'm getting the hang of this living thing. I'm progressively happier as I recognize and address my flaws and failures. I am living to be someone I respect. It feels pretty good mostly.
We shouldn't be afraid of failures, of messes and mistakes. I don't want to be. That's not to say I'm not, but, the heart of it is, we shouldn't be afraid. If we are going to be, then we should pick better things to be afraid of. I am afraid of failure, it scares me more than anything in the world, but I am also afraid of not living the big beautiful adventure filled life I have been planning since I could think of cool shit to be when I grew up. I'm afraid all of the people I love not knowing how much I appreciate them even if I can't surround myself with them or immerse myself in their lives. I am afraid of missing really good sunsets and lives lost way too soon. I'm afraid of a world where no one is who they want to be and I'm afraid of dinosaurs making a comeback due to grossly negligent scientists...among other things.
You see? There's way better things to be afraid of than being a shitty writer and even those aren't worth the cost. Yes, there is a cost, there are casualties of fear, hope, dreams, adventures, love. All things that get lost when you choose to be afraid rather than keep it movin and groovin. More than that I dare say we ourselves get lost when we let fear tell us who we can or cannot be. When I die I want some one to get up and say "That bitch lived. She was one fun, fearless, fucking bitch of a cunt." I want to be remembered someday for doing the shit I said I would and even if I failed, at least I'll have done it. Not tried. Actually, done it. That. That's the shit right there. That is what living is to me among countless other equally important things. Life is an adventure and the way I imagine it adventurers need fear only to keep them moving. I'm an aspiring adventurer, writer, human. I never want to stop collecting characters and stories and moments. I want many things for my life but mostly I want to keep movin and grovin until I can't anymore.

Dangled carrots don't play guitars...

Sometimes I wonder if anyone sees half the shit I see in the world. I've been extremely fortunate to have many chances in this life to change my trajectory. To figure shit out. I will never have it all figured out, Never will there come a day where I know it all. I don't know shit really, not a goddamned thing. I know how I've lived, I know it hasn't always been roses. I know where I've been and I like to think I recognize something of that in the people I choose to surround myself with. Life isn't easy for anyone. Anyone who tells you their life is easy, is a goddamned liar. Someone who tells you their life is getting easier, that's someone to believe in, that's someone to stand with. The world we live in doesn't give us anything. we earn it, with battle scars and wounds that don't ever quite heal. Over the course of my life I have (Not always on purpose) made it my mission to keep a hard head soft butt mentality. I never learned to stop hoping, wanting and looking to the best in people, in myself. I lost myself in many ways and for a long time lost hope in all of the things I wanted for the world and myself. I still had hopes but they were pretty useless hopes, the hopes of an angry fuckin midget. The type of shit you hope for when you're not a total piece of shit just a little - broken.
For many different reasons my life got stalled for a while in a fairly broken and fucked up place. Occasionally, things would get better and inevitably something would come crashing down and I'd let myself be a sloppy mess of a person again. I still have lapses of judgement, I still fuck my own shit up from time to time, but somewhere along the way I've remembered how to hope for the right things again. It's not about expecting things to go the way I want them to, it's about hoping for the best even while preparing for the life parts.

Life will kick your ass if you let it. Sometimes we let it, we put our faces down, bend over and let it kick us with a big dirty boot and we say "Thank you". Those times can be for some people, more frequent than others. People cry about this or pray or scream from the rooftops, others silently move on with their shit. No two people ever feel the boot in the same way and while there are groups of people who may respond to this the same way, you never know why any one person is really responding to something with one emotion or another. It's endless possibilities of causes all relevant to only one person in truth. I believe in people and hope and myself after an excruciatingly long hiatus, but I am no where near done yet. I was a very angry person once for like over a decade, but the fact of the matter is I'm still kinda angry sometimes. I just like to think I handle it better more frequently than less these days.

I played Rockem Sockem Robots the other night with an extremely worthy adversary, we snorted like piggies and made a ridiculous amount of noise and we laughed more joyfully than anyone ever really truly laughs anymore, you know with bills and kids, wives, husbands, jobs, bosses, mortgages, who really laughs at the silly shit often anymore? I'm not talking the, that was funny laugh, but the deep amazing carefree laugh of life being simple. No past, no future just here, now and enjoying it. I strive to be more in that moment as I figure my shit out. It's getting simpler, once in a while to just be. To enjoy the really amazing parts of life that I might have missed out on if I'd taken the short road instead of the long one (or in some cases the extra long one with the circle rounds every ten miles or so).

 From time to time I've been known to make bad decisions as a rule, that's another thing I've really - no really, I'm totally serious, REALLY been working on. I'd like to think I've made some minor progress on that over the last few years, but change don't happen over night and a lifetime of crappy decisions doesn't suddenly get wiped clean with intentions to make better ones in the future. People have a way of either bringing you down or lifting you up but at the end of the day you decide which people can do what in your life. I can do a lot of things but refuse to keep believing people have to make each other feel shitty to feel good. I won't say I never want anybody to feel shitty, there are zillions of people I think should be thrown into a pit of lions, some for barely any reason at all, but at the end of the day even the shittiest people in my life get multiple chances before I cut them loose. I'm not talking the friends you fade out with but the ones who stay in your life but just keep bringing you down. I try to believe that they just need someone to believe in them, to hope for them while they figure out how to be - better. In some people I see little slivers of who they are capable of being and like a sucker, I give-em, Just. One. More. I have friends who get upset when other friends don't like them but the truth of it is, I don't really give a shit because I like them. Until I don't. To end up on my shit list for real, as in no coming back ever, you have to be a repeat offender and you pretty much have to cut me so deep I actually feel it. That shit ain't exactly easy, For either of us.

Why isn't it easy? What am I rambling about? What the fuck does one have to do with the other? When is this post going to finally be done?
Soon. A lot for me. I'm getting there and because to be in my life and kill my hope these days you have to be basically fucking my corpse.
 I mean my hope and joy and fierce gratefulness at the life I currently have isn't impossible to kick down a set of stairs and bruise pretty badly, but I'll still get the fuck up. I am much more agile then I look. I've lived a life not a bad one at all really, a pretty damned good one so far, but it's not been without some painful lessons. I've lost irreplaceable pieces of my life by being angry, by not enjoying the people around me and by forgetting who and what matters. I matter. The people I love matter and the people who love me matter. The rest of the world can all fall in line after those three in no particular order. People make a difference in your life to the degree you let them. I choose the survivors of real life, I choose, to hope we can all come out better than we imagined, to believe that where you've been makes you who you are, but you can always be more. Always grow and always find a way to be KINDER, if for some reason we are too weak in a moment to simply be kind. Be it to ourselves or to others.

I believe that life really could be as simple and silly and fun as Rockem Sockem Robots. It's some pretty basic shit, but what makes it fun is who you're playing with. No sore losers, no cheaters or overly boastful winners ever walk away happy from shit like that. The same goes for life, so why NOT enjoy it? Why not surround yourself with people who walk away generally happy no matter what happens. People who are hopeful despite their knowledge of real life, people who handle sadness and pain with a little humor and people who accept that sometimes you might be the weird hat girl or smiley, or an avid lover of unicorns, an Aunty, or a friend and other times you may be the angry midget, but you're evolving and it's good. Why not surround yourself with people who want you to be better because the world is full of people who want you to fail for one reason or another. Why waste love on people who don't see the slivers of potential, in people, in life. Why would you do that? Why does anyone do that? Not all of the people in my life see my life the way I do. Not a single person I choose to keep in my life would pull me down to get ahead of me. If they would, I'd like to say fuck em but really I'd still, like a true sucker, hope they'd figure it out, but not on my time. I'm too busy plotting spectacular dinner parties, having adventures, watching sunrises, laughing at knock knock jokes and remembering who I wanted to be when I grew up to let the things that hurt me define me or put me out. Nothing in life is easy but sometimes you've just got to find the fun, the hope, the happy shit, hold onto it and believe that the people and things that matter will eventually catch up. Even if they won't.

My pussy must have ate it...

Its strange the things we think of when our world begins to change, when we start out to change. The people around us do, or don't and life moves forward, we move forward, or we don't. It's strange. Life. It always ends the same way. We eventually, inevitably die. What people remember of us is how we lived and what they know of how we lived. These things are important. These things make a lasting difference in not only our lives but others too. Life and death have lessons. Lessons no one can teach you in school, things people can't buy with all the money in the world. Life is hard and downright dreary at times, but we live for the good moments. If we are really fortunate we have a person or two that teaches us not to take it too seriously. I have a habit of viewing things in a very black and white manner. It doesn't always serve me well, but i'm consistent about it, so is life. We live we die and the rest is truly details, details we have trillions of opportunities to rise or fail in. Surviving is tough but there are people in every life, every group, who truly live. Who enjoy the adventures and roller coasters that life presents. That's the kind of person I'm striving to be even in my bitchiest moments. That's a large part of who I want to be and who I am.

Eight days ago I left the gym after work, went home, took a shower and drove 30 minutes to go see a shell. I say shell because that was all that remained of the funny, bright, lighthearted and raunchy as fuck, woman I remember. I had resisted going to see her these last few months because I didn't want to remember her as the scared, lost person that old age and Alzheimer's had left. It wasn't until speaking to a really good friend and even then mulling it over that I managed to get over myself long enough to drive up there and see her. On the ride up I thought about what I wished I could ask her. What I wished I could ask all of the dead people in my life. Who did you want to be? Did you get to be her? Once I got there all I could do was just repeat in my head what my friend had said to me "You don't have to remember her like this", She was peaceful, but she wasn't the same woman who had thrown me in the pool, or tortured us with cicada shells on her finger. The crazy fun one who rode the roller coasters, told dirty jokes (even to children) and laughed like laughter was life itself, She was already gone. There was her body, there was breathing but she was long gone. I saw my grandfather be, human and real, my mother, a bit extra crazy with grief and a whole lot of weird, But I didn't see any of the light that was my Grammy. I made the right choice in going up there when I did and I'm glad I got to see my grandfather in that light and some day, I'm sure it will be appropriate to laugh a little about how my mother Sister Gloria'd me with pictures of New Orleans and asked me if I wanted some of my Grammy's hair, (because vikings or some shit like that.) Shortly after I left, so did my Grammy and I have no regrets thanks to one really smart and underpaid guy up north (someone must be paying some of these friends for them to stick around this long.), but I'll never know the answer to my question. Did she get to be who she wanted to be? Did she live the life she had hoped for?

Of all the people over the last ten years who have dropped out of this life and moved on to whatever comes next. I think maybe she's the only one who might have actually done that. It's kind of amazing that anyone could and even a little ridiculous when I think of all the shit I don't know about her or most of my family really, but I think she did. I think she lived through the bad shit, through hard times and sad ones and somehow she had fun whenever and wherever she could, I think that bitch really, fuckin, lived. If that's not what life is about then we're just not doing it right. Water Skiing, Sky diving, speeding over a bump in the road, throwing kids in a pool, dressing up as Miss Piggy for your birthday, getting a tattoo at 60 something, making faces, setting lobsters loose, letting us peel her sunburn and do her hair, sitting on the beach, having fun. That was Grammy. That was one fun Broad.

People will come and go from our lives for many different reasons, but the shit they teach us, the shit that molds us and provokes us to move forward, good or bad, these are the seeds they leave behind. You can grow stuff and make a life, You can let fear stop you, or you can jump right the fuck in and go. I don't remember learning how to swim but I know we didn't take one of those baby survival classes, I imagine my Grammy, (but possibly my mother,) tossed me in the pool, laughing. and obviously we didn't drown. Appalling as that may be to some, it was one of the best lessons she could have taught me, that and never smell a cupcake... There are all kinds of people and all kinds of ways to live, some are shitty, some are good and some are just plain fun. I hope that when I go ~ like a rockstar ~ I hope that I can be remembered as the fun one... My give a damn about anything or anyone that's not fun or enjoying their life is kinda like the mouse my Grammy used to tell us about, but could never find when she tried to show us. She'd ask us if we'd seen her mouse, she'd look for it on her leg and then when she couldn't find it she would look up and tell us her pussy must have ate it! Take from that what you will but it was years before I got it and once I did it was even funnier that this raunchy grandma would tell it to a bunch of kids, not giving a shit that we didn't get it cause some day we would and either way it was funny to her. That is how I will remember my Grammy.

~ Goodnight Irene.

Holding the line.

I'm exhausted, should be sleeping, but I'm furious. So I'm writing. Furious at the choices life leaves us and furious at how much tougher it becomes to know or feel the right choice the harder, the longer, the more ferociously and loyally we love. I've talked and written much over the past two years and some about my growing pains, decisions, strengths and failures. Examined openly and privately my motives and questioned myself and my behaviors in this growth. Taking the lessons I could from all of these experiences.
 The single most helpful thing I learned in earning my mostly useless Associates degree was to ask myself, What's that about". Whether pertaining to myself, someone I know or even a stranger on the street. What's that about? Be it a feeling, emotion, thought or behavior, what is it all about, why am I judging, defending, hurting, caring, laughing, smiling, what's driving my reaction,or lack of one to any given event, person or thing. The statement has effectively changed my perception for the better and was worth every penny spent on all that fancy book learnin!

As a kid I stole, I'm not proud of it but the shit happened. My favorite thing to steal was brownie mix. Like a true fat kid lovin cake and all things cake-like I would  hide out under the bed or in a closet and eat the fuck out of that shit. Sometimes the whole box sometimes just a little. I ate it dusty and dry, or added water and once or twice when there was a spare egg I would mix it all up and it that way too. One particularly unforgettable afternoon my mother went to make brownies only to find that some run by psycho brownie mix thief had thieved half a box of brownie mix. So, my Mothadear in a rare yet justifiable fit of what I can only describe as rage and exasperation, interrogated and promptly chased my lying ass around the house from the kitchen, up the stairs (on which she nearly got me), to the bedroom I shared with my sister where I narrowly and briefly escaped, only to come full circle and be caught in the kitchen. On my hands and knees I pleaded with her through tears and snots, not to kill me, (whether aloud or silently I can't recall). My mother, mommy dearest, Mothadear herself, proceeded to beat me about the head and face with what remained of the aforementioned brownie mix. When the last of the mix had spilled out and the floor and I alike were covered, I was told to clean up the mess and I quote, with conviction, I quote, "This, NEVER, happened!"

This never happened. It's a statement, a declaration that haunted me well into my twenties. Before I began to ask, what's that about, before I made any conscious effort to grow the fuck up. This tiny statement held power, clinging to my psyche like a barnacle and driving me for a long time to question many of the things that have actually happened in my life. Forcing me to store carefully and exactly all those, You can't make this shit up moments that for many go from memory to tall tale ever so quickly. This single experience shaped and implanted a part of me that will always doubt my own memories no matter how clear and confident of them I may be. She said it never happened. But it did. Denied it for years, would probably still deny it if you asked her today. I used to bring it up around friends and family, she would laugh, tell them it never happened, convince them I'd made it up by passing it off. It did happen though, I was there, I knew it was real, factual and true. Then FINALLY at some holiday or family event later in my twenties, after I'd once again told this story and she'd once more denied it and everyone had just about cleared the room she leaned in, this maniacal mother of mine, and quietly confirmed what I knew yet still doubted was, indeed true. Mothadear admitted that she had in fact beaten me about the head and face with half a bag of fuckin brownie mix.

For over ten years I'd been made to question my own memory. Even now as I write this I think wow my mom was kind of a dick. At the same time I appreciate the lessons she taught in this among other things. It taught me what it felt like to to tell the truth and go unheard, to hold my ground on the important stuff, the stuff that really mattered such as the truth. I was no angel, I was a lying liar from Liarsville until a particularly altering relationship at 18 taught me the value and sometime necessity of a lie as a survival mechanism rather than a way of life. The brownie mix incident also taught me slowly over time that I despise and detest being lied to. I'm not talking white lies people tell to get out of helping you move. I'm talking the big whoppers, the manufactured kind of webs people weave for sympathy, jealousy, pure fucking stupidity. Sometimes loosely based on facts but lies nonetheless. These are the ones that burn me to my center, they hurt me the most because I was there and know it didn't quite happen that way or because somewhere inside I see through the bullshit I'm being fed. It hurts when people take you for an idiot. Misuse your trust and faith in them and even worse than that keep it going until caught. I hate being cheated, manipulated, or played for a fool to me they're all unnecessary risks of friendships, support systems and pieces of my life I value.

I have this terrible grey area though, and I'm not much for grey on such things hence it being kind of terrible for me. The grey area lays between the place where I see a person for what they are and love them anyways, want them in my life flaws, warts,  lies and all. That's where the hard choices come in. Thats where its been getting tougher. Some of these people I keep in my life lie to themselves more than they're lying to me, convince themselves of their false truths, but aren't fooling me. Does that forgive the toxicity or offensiveness of behaviors like lying for two years about some pretty heavy shit out of jealousy, all the while proclaiming "I just wanted to protect you." Does it excuse revisionist history about saving my ass from an extremely unhealthy relationship which makes you the hero and me some victim? Does my knowledge of the facts as well as the flaws of these people I continue to keep in my life, whose offenses seem, so minor in comparison to the their champion moments and positive contributions to a life filled with amazing highs yet also intense lows that they stood by for in what ways they were capable of, change the amount of chances they get to essentially break my heart? Like a video game where you earn extra points just by bein there for the tough times. Is my loyalty, friendship AND presence in these lives as they are in mine worth wondering when the next time I hurt will be?
 Also, what in the fuck is this need to keep these people all about? Yep, I'm finally bringin it back around, bringin it to a close. See, the fatty in the closet, under the bed, that bitch mostly died a long time ago but she left a thing or two. That girl had one booger flickin friend, we were weird lonely kids with parents who were too poor or cheap to buy us new uniforms or normal kid clothes, eventually that girl had two friends and at some point they multiplied and so forth. Recently, these past few years the friend pool may have downsized but the people with the deepest roots in my heart are the ones who accepted me for all my weird, mostly right out of the gate and didn't disappear when shit got hard. Friendship, like life is one hard badass bitch. I don't believe in giving up on people you love unless you really fucking have to, but every time one of those original weirdos sticks a little jab in there I question, What's it about? I wonder, can this person love,  accept and appreciate how far I've come and want to go from that lonely lying liar from Liarsville eating her mothers brownie mix and her feelings, under the bed? I wonder do they see the person I'm capable of being or just the person I was or even worse the person they want me to be. I question it all because I think it's rare that we ever really look outside our own realities. My mother inadvertently trained me to question my own reality in addition to others, my father taught me to see what and who people really are and accept them anyways, keep them anyways, be good to them, find the good in them anyways.


** Sidebar/ Disclaimer: Aside from this incident I don't recall my mother ever hitting me while she did make us drink soap, the liquid dishsoap, a few times, I am certain I mostly, always, deserved that shit...

You're Fucking Amazing. Thank you.

Over this past weekend I had an opportunity to see two women I respect immensely, rock out.  One fronting an extremely metal and amazing band and another thoroughly celebrating another year of living.Both of these women inspire me daily, that's right. Daily. They're not the only ones, but that's what brought on my deep thoughts on the topic and moved my lazy ass to write for this silly blog again. Don't get me wrong, I've been writing, just not on here. This seemed worth sharing though, at least to me. It dawned on me that as we grow older and apart, or even just grow really. People come in and out of our day to day or week to week lives but those who inspire us, help us, relate to us and generally give enough of a fuck about us to care even on the most basic of levels, those people are always with us. I guess there's a sliver of possibility that I'm the only one who feels this way, buuuuut I doubt it. (Anyone who reads post secret has a clue what I'm talking about in that sense.)
I wish people expressed what they mean to each other more freely, more often and perhaps a little more clearly. I wish also that all the people I love even just a little could be in one place all at the same time ever again in my lifetime. One of these is impossible, the other, get it together people.

I've worked hard and harder to reach further for the things in my life that matter. I fuck up plenty, even real stupid shit like how money really works and washing clothes, I struggle to accept the idea that to make anything of myself I should probably focus on one thing at a time. So I focus on what I'm going to do with my life.~ Aside from ROCK!...I battle with the job I hate to buy shit I don't need and the cushion to fall on if it all goes to shit. I dream, and I hope and I struggle to figure out how I'm going to afford my rock and roll lifestyle, you know, that life where work is passion and passion pays. How does anyone get through to the parts of life that really matter? How does anyone break out of the box and into the pursuance of happiness, passion, living? Not living breathing, but living just out there hustling the world and enjoying that shit for real and pure, enjoying it. How do people get there. How do we find and contribute and survive for and on whatever it is we're passionate about.

Do you call it a hobby,tell yourself "eh, someday" or daydream about it at work, on the ride home or once in a while when a famous celebrity dies? Do you drown in it, or worse yet drown yourself in booze and hookers - both cheap cause you're broke... Do you tell yourself you can't? That there's no way you could possibly, just no way, to do whatever it is that would make you, yea you, feel good about the mark you leave on the world. Or convince yourself that whatever you get paid for IS what you're passionate about. Do you sometimes, maybe in the corner, at a party facing the wall, when no one is looking shed a single tear drop over all the shit you never did. Yea me either... Seriously, though I've done some of this shit, well, never and some of it all the fucking time. Maybe my insecurities and fears of failure are all on point, possibly I am meant to work at a desk and listen to first world problems all day every day. Could be, I'm built for that shit and am simply denying my full potential as a customer service representative with every artsy-craftsy, wordsmithy thing I do. Maybe I'm not. Perhaps my fears are unfounded and wrong.
What if I am wrong? What if the books I want to write and the movie I want to build from that one book that changed my entire life that time, and the adventure with Khloe "Brickhouse" Kardashian (like a week, just hangin out like we were friends, no big deal.Cause that shits on my internal bucketlist and I think she'd be so much fun!) or A movie night with Mr. Tarantino, followed by a brief discussion of his favorite scene in Blues Brothers or even that drag club with full health benefits for employees that I always dreamed of opening, what if all of it can actually, factually, happen. Not some, all. What if it can. I can. What if we all can.

That's the hope. The dream. The reason for living. That's the reason all of these people I've collected in my heart over the years and along the way, the ones I know but rarely see or barely know but still see, ones I love but mostly never say it, (cause, who does that?), matter, mean so much and inspire me so VERY, much. They live out their dreams in whatever ways they can. They say fuck it with their yes I can and yes I will attitudes about the things that mean something to them. The epic battles the demons and bullshit they overcome to be A rockstar, A Tattoo artist, an artist at all, A Nurse, A poet, La Profesora (I failed Spanish 9 times, you get it), A Father, A Mother, A Fireman, An Audio master (Cuz, I don't know the official title for either of those two dudes and that seemed epic enough),A helicopter pilot, A writer, or even just happy. Those are all very real people who I am ever so proud to have known or know in my life. All of them and many more Inspire me daily. To be better, to be who ever it is I want to be rather than who the world wants me to be. I'm grateful for the support, encouragement, and hope they and their lives give my broke winged dreams and the motivation they give me to grow. I'm thankful for these very real people and their exceptionally rare ability to evoke change and emotion and provide proof that people can, in fact, accomplish dreams and surpass expectation. I am awkwardly, proud of these people. Some, I don't necessarily know at all anymore others are day to day, week to week or phone call to phone call, but each of them touched my life in someway when I needed more sparkle and shine, more move and groove. Each of these magical yet ordinary people have given me an extremely extraordinary outlook on not so much living but life.Living, getting by, that's what I'm doing now, surviving, learning, gettin it together. I'll be doing that shit, forever. Life? Life is green grass between your toes, love, laughter of, friends, children and family. Life is about passion too though.


More than anything I am inspired and amazed by those who find a way, a will, the time, to pursue the things they are passionate about. To live the life they ~survived~ so long to enjoy. To have little people, fans, followers, friends, readers, patients, whatever you call a person rescued by another person, students, random strangers on the interwebs, and me, all looking up to you must be pretty cool. Though, I wonder, do any of these people even know what they're worth, to each other, to those of us who haven't quite gotten there, to the world of people like me who rarely barely see or speak to them. Do they know how absolutely fucking amazing they are? I think, "How could they not?", they're fucking amazing. Then I think, what if, yep, back to the what if, what if they didn't. Well, why don't they? What kind of horseshit must that be I mean surely some of them must know they're awesome. Perhaps they are simply too humble to bust through our doors parading their amazing inspirationally awesome selves around but they know. They know.

Or do they? Would it be so strange if people just told each other the good shit like, "oh hey, by the way, you make me want to live my dreams" Or Your art, your words, your voice, your zest for life, your smile, "Light up my whole fucking world, or maybe puts a sparkle on my sparkle, or just gets me through the day." What if people said thank you to one another for the shit that really matters, the real life movin and groovin, important shit like hope and dreams and the beauty and value of life's finer moments. Imagine how much the world can change if we just taught ourselves to say thank you instead of just think it. Thank you for all the little things that matter and all the even littler shit in between. Thanks for bein a friend or just bein there, but what if we just started saying thank you. Preposterous! I know. What if it's not though. What if we start the conversation and tell people the good shit. What if everyone tried it? I'd hypothesize that a lot more people would feel good like they should (NOW,obligatory 7 a.m. James Brown reference, don't mind if i do...).  They would know that they matter very much to someone, perhaps more than a few someones, a little to others and maybe not so much to a lot in the grand scheme of things but I can't imagine a person existing that doesn't inspire some one some how and matter to them. Not in a world where serial killers and rapists can marry people from inside prison, I mean if someone cares about those folks, then some one cares about everyone. Most people mean a lot to me, some more than they should and others mean a little, but none less than they should. Still I find myself wondering how uplifting and majestic would it, could it be, this world we live in if we took the time to acknowledge the best in eachother, even just once, in a blue moon.

Single is not alone.

When I was a kid I wanted only a handful of things when I grew up. To drive trucks, own  a house and a Harley and be able to take care of myself. It all seemed so simple as a kid. As I grow older and accomplish more of these things, other shit comes up. This is life right? Shit comes up. I've deviated from many a broke winged dream over the course of twenty years but those four, those have always been there, waiting for me to get it together. The past few years have been filled with struggles I never imagined as a child. I'm still here pluggin away at those 4 dreams though. Over the past few months I've begun to realize how these dreams of mine don't necessarily sync up with most peoples. Including but not limited to many of the people I surround myself with. It took me time to get used to the idea of my friends having kids and starting families, it took me time to really accept that other friends would leave and others would come back. Just as I finally got into the groove of  the changes and growth of myself and those around me, life started to get better, so I made more changes and learned a few things about what makes me different.

 One of these things I will never get rid of, I can never forget and were it not for my baby steps in other seemingly unrelated areas of my life I may never have discovered or found any relief on. For all of my adult life I have lived with a disease no one, NO ONE could tell me jack shit about. I spent a very long time assuming I had an std that I deserved for being such a... goodtime gal. I spent a long time in pain because this was normal for me. When I started asking questions, when I started seeking a better life quality I was told there wasn't one, that I should wash myself with surgical soap, slather creams on myself, hope and learn to live with it. I spent a good amount of my life pissed off, in pain and figuring my "do what I want lifestyle", had created a new std that no one had ever seen. Why am I telling you this? I'll get there. First, I do not have any std's! Winning! I do have a much healthier fear and understanding of processed foods, and a class of vegetables called Nightshades, (fuck those things). I've learned that many of my problems go directly back to this disease in ways I would never have thought. Depression, stress, random as fuck adult acne, the golfballs and marbles in my armpits and other areas, The ingrown hairs I panicked over at least once every six months since I was 13. All pretty gross and those are just a few! Heavy stuff right? Now throw in there that no one in the medical community has a s fucking clue and everyone who has it has a million different opinions and cures, then consider that its genetic. 

I know, I know, where the fuck is this going? Just stay with me. I'm 30 years old want kids, maybe I don't want kids, Fuck, I don't know! I know I just bought a Harley. I know driving trucks wasn't really my thing but it was also one of the most liberating experiences of my life. I know a house is possible if I can just decide where I want to be and put the money in the bank. I know I've  been taking care of myself (with the help of many good friends) for a long time now with plenty of ups and downs. What I know less and less lately is how fair it would be to involve anyone else with this shit that I'm only barely beginning to get under control in the grand scheme of things. So very much more than that, I've got to ask myself do I want to risk the possibility of passing this down to another generation along with the various other lovely family traits. I'm not getting any younger and I have no idea what ELSE I want and while I realize I have time, I also realize, I don't. Life is a short and precious thing, meant for living. As we grow older I think most of us grow more responsible, with others, with ourselves. Knowing is only half the battle, what you do with knowledge that's a whole other story. 

Can you feel it? My point is coming... As I grow older, I don't get any more or less single than I was before. I've become a lot less good time about my gal, but I've been on my own in that sense long enough to be ok with it most of the time. Recently, the children in my life have slowly started picking up that my life is a little different than their mothers. Oddly their mothers in some, not all, some, cases have suddenly begun to push a little harder in their own ways on the when I'm going to finally assimilate either with kids or a partner or both. My own mother quietly, silently even, except around Christmas, fights this battle these days while children and friends pick it up. These people all love me and I love them, that in itself keeps me from feeling alone. That in no way means I don't get lonely. It just means, after years of trying not to care over the wrong shit I finally care about the right shit. I have a family that I love made up of people who love me and maybe I'll find someone who can handle my past, my family, me and my genetics, In fact I am certain I eventually will but in the mean time I'm doin just fine with my baby steps. What I'd like to throw out there is the thought that maybe some of your other single friends are too.  My adventures, my life, my lifestyle, it's not easy but I've enjoyed it so far and will continue to, with or without someone by my side. Would it be nice to have a partner in crime? Someone to tell about my really spectacular day or really terrible one for that matter, and tell me about theirs? Of course. But, it's not necessary, I've done ok without and at the end of the day I have a pretty amazing life. Some days I want a kid, some days I want a relationship, some days, I just want a Jack and Ginger. Someday I may or may not have either, in the meantime I am extremely proud of how far I've come. I am a happier, healthier person today than I have been in probably my entire adult life, I get lonely sometimes but I am not alone. Lately, I've been wishing more often that people in general were a little more forgiving with themselves and others when it comes to all things different. My reasons for not doing things the way someone else would, I have plenty, but you don't need to know them all. Just try to respect that maybe I have an idea what I need and want for now.

Having somewhere to go... is home.

Three years ago tonight, a woman went to bed. She went to bed and never woke up. I will never hear her voice or see her face again in this life. What more do you really need to know about the end of someones life. Over the past few years I've searched my soul for the answers. Still don't have them and am finally coming to the conclusion I will never have them. People give up or others give up on them, or sometimes it's a little of both.
A convicted felon may have gotten away with murder or a beautiful broken heart may have given herself bittersweet relief, or a series of unfortunate events could have done something neither of them had even expected. What I know is either scenario leaves far too many questions for any of us that loved her to ever answer. The simplest easiest to digest way to say it is she went to bed and never woke up but the fact is like every rock star she went to bed, likely choked on her own fluids, drowned after coughing and choking for at least a couple minutes and then she was gone. I'm no doctor, I have never seen someone overdose but I'm guessing it was something more like that and less like some peaceful elderly woman passing in her sleep. The story is only magnified by the neighbors tales that the man in the very next room with the dogs barking and the possible motive sat in the living room watching his football telling the dogs to shut up and turning the TV up. This is the shit sadness is made of, I can't prove she killed herself and I can't prove he killed her. I can prove he was a bastard, I have my own proof of that, but I can't prove he killed her. She was sad and she had pain like only a Brickhouse would know, but I can't bring myself to believe a woman who always had a plan would have planned death.

I was 27 years old, had just started a new job and couldn't take a day to process the shittiest wake up call ever. I had no time. My brother called and I remember going through the motions, I remember going over what I knew then of the situation and thinking, it doesn't add up. I remember sleeping with a picture for awhile and being sad and silent. The silence death leaves inside of you is a cruel sound that's the only way I can explain it and each time, with each loss that silence gets louder. Some days I choose to hear it telling me to live, other days, I have to fight it just to do shit I want to do, to get out of bed and have even what I know is going to be a good day. This year there's been a shift in the power of that silence, a stifling of the fighting spirit of death and an overwhelming change in the tone of that loud crowd in the distance chanting, "Do something, Live, be a better you.". The silence doesn't taunt me lately so much as teach me and while I may, continue to at times daydream of my Aunt being off on a tropical island with a new name and identity, laughing at how well she planned her escape. I know my Nancy is not in witness protection anymore than Mike Crouse is going to walk through my door and tell me a racist joke, or my Black G-mo is sharing beauty tips with Richie Cunningham AND is going to be canonized, but each of these thoughts make me smile and sometimes even laugh out loud for seemingly no apparent reason at times. Especially that last one, that one is sure to crack a smile on even the worst of days.

The thing is, people die, they leave us with memories and love and a shitload of laughter, they give us all the chances they can to love them and be loved by them and then they're gone. Will the way my Aunt, my person, my Nancy died, forever haunt me? Forever. Do I have to spend tomorrow as angry as I want to be, angry at the whole world for shit that can't be changed? I submit that I can simply spend tomorrow living, that I can change the tone of the entire day if I just take a day, a personal day, a very, personal day and do something to remember the shit that makes life live-able. I mean being honest I may wake up tomorrow only to go back to bed, I may wake up and make art or read a book or clean my house like a madwoman. I know for the first time in 3 years I have time at that job I had to go to and smile while my soul cried and so I'm gonna take my time and I'm gonna use it effectively, and do my absolute best to remember shit other than how sad and painful and alone it must have been to go to bed and never wake up. At some point I will probably go to the sea wall and miss my Aunt, I'll replay my last conversation with her in my head and try to remember her voice and all the things she ever tried to teach me. The only difference between tomorrow and every other day for me is that tomorrow I spend the whole day wondering and angry that the whole entire world isn't stopping to miss her too.

Four simple things in this bitch before...

Recently, I've been examining my life in a million different ways. Looking at what I want, where I've been and who I've become. I've discovered some shit and uncovered other shit, I'm ever a work in progress. Over the last few weekends I've danced more, lived more and done more than I had in awhile. My house is cleaner than it's been since the summer began and my life is getting itself together. The other night I went out with a friend and this girl from out of town I'd never met, she was a nice girl, talked a lot but nice none the less.We ended up going to see this guy I know play piano requests at this bar. At the end of the night I was taking her home and she was drunk, not that obnoxious drunk some girls get but ya know the honest and funny drunk.She said to me after a night of dancing, "I wish I could be like that, dance like that." The statement struck me funny, and I thought and I think even said, - what like a crazy person, like no one's watching, like I don't give a shit? - I don't though, not really and man did i have a good time. At another point on the way home she asked something about how they knew my name, but she was drunk and kept calling me Maggie so it took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. She thought it was neat that the Bartender and The Piano Man both knew my name. Now, I've known the piano player a few years and even had an adventure or two with him since we met, he always says hello to me and I to him. He's a goddamned amazing musician as are many people I've met along the way but that's how I know him, a good guy who makes sweet music and always says hello. The bartender, I'm pretty sure she reads the names off the cards people give her when they start a tab and she calls you by name to remember what tab shes adding to. I thought about what this vibrant and drunk out of towner was saying to me and briefly considered the events of the evening and responded to her with a laugh and told her that if you're good to people they're generally good to you.

I believe that. I also believe it's a matter of choosing cautiously who to be good to. There are people in all of our lives we can't explain, people we love without really trying or even wanting too. We love anyways. I think I've mentioned it before on here but I'm a sucker for homeless people, If there's change in my pocket and they have a good sign, every penny is theirs. When I was younger I remember a trip to New York where my grandmother got upset with me because I wanted to give a man my change. It wasn't much, I was a kid but the man was hungry. I didn't know then but there was a lesson on that moment. You choose who you are, just about as much as the people around you mold who you are. If I didn't set some boundaries and slim down some of my criteria for handing my change over to every homeless or hungry person I'd be broke by now. A good sign, a little trust and a whole lot of faith will get you anything I can give ~ without going to the poor house myself. I choose to see the good in people but not forget the bad. I've never met a person who won't show you their bad within 10 minutes of meeting them. It's just a matter of being willing to accept and acknowledge it. If you can't do both, they probably don't need to be in your life.

 I'm on the verge of big changes, the kind of changes that give broken wing dreams a whole new chance to heal and get strong again. Change takes forever though, so in the meantime I'm just trying to keep my head above water. I'm on this renewed mission to be better, to just go with the flow, to dance more, to fuck what people think and just keep taking care of me and mine, to enjoy every moment with the people in my life who want to be in my life. That's the point, the meaning of life, enjoy it. Be good to people, acknowledge who you are accepting into your life. Dance, regularly and say hello once in awhile, you'd be surprised how far that shit will get you, and if all else fails, fall back on ~fuck bitches, get money~, Seriously though...

Movers and shakers.

When I was twelve, I knew what I wanted. So, I thought. Then I got older, not grew, but got older. Then I thought, I'm a fuckin teenager, I know what I want. Jeebus, I knew so well what I wanted, and for a few years I chased that teenager making wants into needs. I chased and I ran and I pushed and flailed around like a bull in a china shop after shit that was just never going to happen. I'd like to say I always knew I was going to turn out this awesome, the truth though is I live in fear of failure. When I was ten I wanted desperately to climb into the radio and learn everything about it, wanted to be the voice inside the radio, with the power to play that funky music and be heard by so many people everyday. When I was twenty I went to broadcasting school and I learned about how to be who I thought I wanted to be - when I was ten. I don't remember anymore how old I was when I decided I'd be a truck driver. I remember how and where that decision was made but I can't recall when. A few months before my twenty-second birthday I went and did that shit. It was one of the craziest adventures I've ever, really, lived. It wasn't who I really wanted to be either, but I learned. I learned so much, not the least of which was being tall is amazing, for awhile, until it's not anymore. Crashing from great heights is one, painful, overwhelming ride to earth. That's the best I can do to explain that experience for me. Failure.

At twelve we still have no idea what the worst case scenario for us actually is. We're pure, naive, blissfully unaware and loving it despite all the shit that could have happened in twelve years of life. Every twelve year old has seen some shit that we as adults looking in would think was insane, shit a twelve year old should never see. The thing is at twelve we have no idea these things truly have any meaning or effect. Think about the shit you dreamed of when you were that age. Consider for a second  the ridiculous ideas you had about the world way back then. There's not a person alive over twenty that carried every last piece of that innocence along with them into adulthood. We all get lost, damaged, jaded the more we learn about how it works to grow. Painful yet beautiful in all the places it should be. When you're a kid you just want things. You don't know things though. As you grow, you learn and you want more important things. Increasingly more important things.

Two days before my Aunt died I wrote myself a note about who I wanted to become over the next few years of my life. New years was coming and I wasn't so much making a resolution as a declaration to myself. I wanted to be more like the person I wanted to become at twelve. I wanted to go back to the basics, my bare bones dreams and wants. This time though I'd be going in with my eyes open and feet on the ground. Sure, why not. To take care of myself. Simple, I wanted my life back. Back from the pain of each lesson learned and the sadness of failure. I wanted freedom. I made a decision based on the brief thoughts, could I do this, would I do this. I could love my life, I would love my life. I've taken great steps towards becoming the most basic version of myself . I've grown and I'm still searching for light and food and water to continue growing with. The best decisions I ever make regarding anything of substance in my life are the difference between I could and I would. I could for a lifetime or I would for  lifetime. I would if given the chance. I could find my way to any broken winged dream my remaining little wing could carry me to. A broken wing alone though will only get you so far, alone. Two days after I declared myself ready for change, my Aunt died and about three months after that my Grandmother. Death is ever the abrupt game changer. I learned so much about them, about myself, my family and friends within the months and years since those events. Mostly though I've realized life is all about how you live it. I hope I'm living for the right things and I know I'm living for the things I want for myself. I just also hope I know, by now, who I really am right now. I don't think either of them really did know themselves when they passed into whatever's next, at least not well enough to expect more or be better. I want to be whoever it is that I really am when I grow up, as I grow up and become tall once again. This time if I reach those great heights I want some cushions, maybe a trampoline. I want to be ready to bounce instead of break, and that is who we all were once and who we could all become. If we wanted to, if we would. I would do a lot for the people I love and that includes myself. Everything is possible if we just live like it is, like it was.

A game of horshoe.

There are people in your life who want things from you. There are people in everyone's lives who want things from them. That's just the way it is. The trick is finding the people who want things for us as well. Sounds simple enough, but it's not. We are by nature a needy species even greedy at times, but we have the ability to surpass those instincts a thousand times over with even just a drop of love and kindness. There are many people who have saved me in my life, none of them ever wanted anything for it but a better effort. Even that is probably more self imposed than anything else. Life is a tiny fragile thing and a giant all powerful volcano at the same exact time. Danger and beauty, and we survive them all with a little balance. Without the people in our lives that not only want something from us but for us, we don't stand a chance. That shit is frightening as hell. Imagine having no one when things get bad, imagine that ya'll, imagine that. The people in my world that I love, for them I want the world and everything in it, possibly, maybe a favor now and again but I'm pretty certain that is a two way street and so some balance comes into play.

I've always had a belief that if you know what someone's all about, if they show themselves to you and you can handle them warts and all, then you should be able to accept their behavior, for the most part without judgement. Bitch about things all you want but at the end of the day love them for who they are. I'm aware it's a somewhat flawed way of thinking considering all facets of my life and the contradictions this seemingly brings. I am hypocritical in where I draw my boundaries from friend to friend. For the most part though my expectations of each of these people I keep in my life are fairly clear. I expect them to be the people I saw them becoming when I made them part of my life and I expect nothing less from myself. When someone I love accomplishes something amazing, yea I won't lie I get a little bitter for a minute, but I spend a whole lifetime proud that I knew them when...

I have no shortage of crazy fucked up people in my life but all that is dwarfed for me by the potential, the future, the sparkle I see in these crazy fucked up peoples. We all need people, we all need love and I don't think it matters where a person comes from if you can see where they can go. If that doesn't trump the past then you're not looking towards the future.

Internal what? Change, the word is change...

Four days ago, I reached a milestone, an event, a fucking miracle, I turned 30. After a particularly depressing 29th birthday I made a somewhat last minute decision to take a road trip this year. Suffice it to say due to somewhat poor planning I spent most of my time driving. Despite my lack of accounting for traffic, time, miles and space in an utter disregard for logic and everything I learned in two and a half years of truck driving, most of my weekend was spent behind the wheel of my Toyota. This afforded me a rare opportunity to do a shitload of soul searching and clear out the cobwebs of some excruciatingly dusty corners of my mind. By the end of this jam packed emotional adventure I realized with a random memory of someone else's ignorance how good my life really is. Not to say I don't get the occasional monsoon season  of shit sandwiches from time to time but I really lucked out in the family and friends department. The random memory you ask? I'll get there, I swear, but first allow me some time to reminisce.

A long time ago in a land far away I sat, at my brothers football game, admiring two skater boys wishing, as young girls often do, that either of these fine young punks would some day take me away from my horrible preteen life. A little over a year later, I walked into a room filled with kids just like me, who all looked just like themselves at 13 to probably early 20 something (and a few youthful adults). There, I met these two fine young punks and plenty of others, people who I am forever grateful to have had at that time in my life, some of which I will forever keep  close and others who I will always make time to say hello to or crack a smile for when our paths cross. It was a youth group for the misfit toys of my town and several surrounding ones. We were the weirdos and freaks, the goths, the geeks, the skaters and punks, and anything else your parents may have warned you against. We were a lost and found of wacky pieces, art, youth and a whole lot of strength, understanding, love and above all, hugs.
Every Friday night (that I wasn't grounded and even a few where I was) for my High school years we sat in a circle and discussed feelings and soap,(though I wasn't there that night) read poetry, sang songs, danced, relaxed, cried, learned, loved and grew, shared our keen fashion sense and made life long friends. I got a unique chance to meet people who would grow up to be Goddess like Drag queens, Hero's in an EMT uniform, Bikers, Artists, Musicians, Teachers, Small Business owners, Homeowners, Adventurers, Nurses, Parents, Role models,Authors, Unexpected Republicans... The list could go on and on but I think you get the gist. Yes, like in any other group of over (atleast) 300 teenagers some grew up to be no longer with us in one way or another, but overall I think our group of ever colorful shades of different, survive and thrive through even those tragic losses we may never understand. ~ Stay with me I'm bringin it back around to happier thoughts and even, eventually my point.

As kids, teenagers, young adults, we had no idea who we would become and as adults I think we only have slightly stronger legs to keep our search going long enough to get there. Wherever "there" is. We will all get "there" eventually and I believe those of us that had the chance to get to know all these colors of the rainbow (and the storm clouds that came before it), we got a jump start the average, run of the mill teenager never got. For one, we got a shitload of free therapy, more than that though we learned about who we were, that we could be heard, loved, seen. We got a chance to be ourselves, see ourselves, and others with open minds and open hearts, we got a chance to be and do better, than some of our parents, our classmates and even ourselves at times ever dreamed we could or would. 17 years after walking into that meeting room I have the privilege of calling those two young punks two of my best friends, my brothers. Many of the people I met there aren't part of my daily life in the most traditional sense but everyday I am alive and breathing they are part of who I am and where I come from ~ Family. Even if some are creepy cousins you're not really sure how to have a conversation with and one or two may only admit they know you discreetly when no ones looking, but whose family doesn't have a few of those...

In my weekend of soul searching and sunshine, I remembered myself at 13 and 16 and 19, 21, 25 and so on. I remembered the parts that hurt and the parts that made life livable, the moments days weeks and years  I never thought I'd make it through and like any sensible girl on a road trip, I sang Cyndi Lauper songs at the top of my lungs. Then I remembered, I survived it all with a little help from my friends, OK, alright, A LOT, of help from my friends and that isn't exactly a new realization. I knew before this fantastical road trip, slash emotional roller coaster, that I have an amazing family beyond blood and logic that help me through the darker days. What I think I never stopped to really consider  was that not everyone can say the same. There are people in this world who will never look at someone else, someone different and say hey, how ya doin, just because. People who will never accept the abstract or rebellious as beautiful or dance in the rain. People   who will never know family beyond mainstream societies simplistic definitions and blind eyes.

Today, The Supreme Court made history, yesterday A woman stood for nearly 11 hours to make an important point. Me, I, just survived another day. What got me through the day? The evolution of a people, people I know, people I knew and people I have never even met.

Somewhere around 15 years ago shortly after our youth group had marched in a memorial day parade - as our selves of course,  a woman I had at one point respected, a friends mom, (ya know because at the time you just automatically respected other kids parents.) came up to me at some church event I was forced into, to tell me how "disappointed" she was to see me with "Those kids". This was the thought that hit me as I hit the Connecticut state line on Monday ~ "Those kids" have grown into some of the most amazing, selfless, hardworking, strong, beautiful and independent people I have ever known and hopefully some of that rubbed off on me along with the goth make up, patchouli oil, rainbow socks, gay love and punk music. ~ Hopefully.

Dear Mrs. K.
     I accept the fact that you may very well be a good person who meant well, but I thought you were crazy then and 15 years later I'm so glad I didn't respect you enough to let you change me. You saw what you wanted to see, in the simplest terms and most convenient definitions. But what I found out is that you couldn't have been more wrong. Those freaks, were and are some of the best parts of who I became and strive to be. Life isn't simple or convenient, and a life lived doesn't fit neatly into any box. Life is beautiful though.
~ Sincerely yours #255