be good

What can you do to be good to yourself tonight, my shrink asks, at the end of our sessions.
This is a new shrink, by the way. A woman, slight, tattooed, insightful. I miss my old shrink but we'd become chums and our sessions were pally, gossipy chats. These sessions, with the new shrink, are painful. I come out feeling scoured and empty and raw.
How to be good to myself. Well, I'll tell ya. It's tough right now.
One of my closest friends is on his own delirious journey and not available for our customary daily chats.
I have family troubles going on, scary and deep and permanent.
I'm restless; changes are coming and none of them within my control.
If I come to rest, I think, and if I think, I get scared.
*
So how to be good to myself and yet not quite come to rest? It's a question.
I've tried long chill walks, or chocolate and trashy magazines, or yoga, or drinks with friends.
Yes, but sort of not yes. 
What I'd really like is to go to sleep, to just pass out for a week or two or a month and wake up floating in a warm sea, with music playing and my man lounging on the beach with drinks and a fluffy dry towel.

happy gut

So I went out of town this weekend to a friend's birthday vacation. A dozen of us met up at a lakefront house about 3 1/2 hours from town. To get there you drive over mountain passes and along canyons and around sunset the scenery is particularly breathtaking. And yet, the more people commented on how amazing it all was, the less I felt. I got that it was pretty, and the trees and water and clouds and skies pleased me. But--I felt nothing. And I felt that my friends felt something, a kind of happy appreciation in their guts.
Realizing this made me feel alien. I thought about it a lot.
Other things give me that happy gut appreciation--all of us laughing together at dumb jokes, or seeing a foursome's fanatical concentration at the foosball table. But that exuberant appreciation of nature, looking up in awe and exclaiming at the stars?
I felt nothing, and I felt very much alone in knowing this.

through

I want to believe in love. But, I believe in it less and less. At least for me.
Here's a bittersweet clip from "Everyone Says I Love You."
PS Marilyn Monroe sang this song in "Some Like it Hot." Nat King Cole sang it. But Goldie feels it.

change

Boyeee, it's been a week in Seattle.
I hope we all come out on the other side without lasting damage.
And I hope I never see the likes of it again.
Also, what Subhan said.

art is ego is

To create art you have to be somewhat egotistical.
News flash, I know!
Even the humblest artist feels they have something to say or anyway a need to express themselves, some kind of inner compulsion that thrusts itself out into the public eye.
Otherwise, the laptop would remain powered off, brushes would stay put away in a drawer, guitars and drums would gather dust.
I'm not exempt from this. I wonder often, Am I an egotistical jerk?
*
People share.
One friend sent me to Gloomy Bear and I fell in love:

A musician friend sent me this Boards of Canada video, maybe the coolest thing I've seen in awhile:

my kinda hip

Lawww have marcy, Seattle's numero uno in America for hipsters. Check this vid about the hunt for the elusive Brooklyn hipster. Mme Galliot should also pay attention to plaid, droopy black beanies, scarves, and a penchant for bands whose music involves a lot of clapping. (*note: I removed the Vimeo link due to auto play driving me cra-zay)

Me, this is my kinda hip.

the sweet

so where is that intermediary spot?
because, I can't quite locate it.
either everyone calls, or no one.
either I love the world, or wish to depart it.
I don't need superlatives.
and yet my vocabulary is liberally peppered with awesome and amazing and super and rad.
*
I want to move forward into love and yet I can't quite step off the curb.
my new shrink asked me to *talk about* talking about my past, sensing after just 3 visits how scared I was.
and there's this essay I'm working on, about being a kid and wanting to be good and needing to be bad.
*
anyway, c'est tout for now.
mwisho.