work ethic

Two fellow writers (poets and artists, both) told me recently they've been working more consistently because of me, how seriously I take my writing. A musician pal said he admired me.
Nice, right? (I say, embarrassed.)
Sure. Yes. Yep.
Hearing those things feels good, and reciprocal, because whenever I hear a friend's beats or read a killer sonnet, I feel inspired to go a little nuts, create something fresh, so original and frighteningly lovely that it might make you cry.
And yet, part of me wants something else.
Not admiration, so much, as passion.
I want someone to be crazy about me.
Someone to swoon over me. To think that I'm the shit.
Corny. Maybe.
You can't help what you want.

i go on i rock on

Man, life has been lobbing lemons my way. I mean it. L-E-M-O-N-S. A cornucopia of them. A festering nest of squeeze-resistant lemons.
Okay, maybe I exaggerate. But, bottom line it's been a hard couple of weeks and I've puzzled over what to do about it.
How much of this was self-inflicted? Am I really so stupid? Why so much rejection right now?
My shrink was no help. I've never seen you this sad, he said, adding in all seriousness, When can you leave the country?
So, I thought a lot. Then tried not to think. Talked, and then stopped talking.
*
But gradually, the fog lifted a little and I looked around.
There was motivational graffiti in an alley: grow past your misery.
A yoga instructor, talking nakedly about acceptance instead of struggle.
I listen to Zion I ("Coasting") and ask myself if I can yield a little, and live in peace.

move

Today's soundtrack, new (to me): The Coup

Try and not move to these beats.

ebb n flow

While Ebb and Flow is the maker of one of my favorite gins, it also seems to be the situation around here. I've been trying my hardest to figure it out.

Several good friends have disappeared into relationships. Is there a term for this? I understand it, sort of, but it also makes me feel like the temporary friend, the placeholder until someone else comes along. Irrational? Or c'est vrai?

Then there are the long-time pals who are suddenly super busy, or who make plans and then cancel them. Those who won't make plans and then call up last minute. I wonder what has happened. Or if it's just life's rhythms.

We are all alone, yes yes I know. But friendship makes the alone-ness a lot more bearable.

Maybe I need to stop trying. For awhile, anyway.

The thing, I think now, is just to wait and see.

when

when do you yield and when do you press?

this is the question, and as to the answer, I do not know.

after this long on the planet, I thought I might have a clew.

o hai

Last week I re-read a journal I kept during the year before my divorce.

Damn those were tumultuous times. I moved out of my old house, then back in; went to one shrink, another, and another.

The only constant was how shitty I felt most of the time, and the certainty that I needed to be doing certain things.

Writing.

Taking pictures.

Finding a network of creative people.

Traveling more.

Chilling out.

Well whaddya know I've been doing most of the above.

But I've been thinking some more. Back in the day I filled sketchbooks with images ripped out of magazines, quotations, all the little bits that made up my life: Benetton ads, my own drawings, Christian Lacroix pearl-encrusted crosses, ESPRIT shoes, Len Deighton. A me-book. Today, armed with tape and pages torn from Citizen K, I started a new me-book.

*

O hai, 2012