deep breaths.

holy crap, this week is like insane with potential. these weeks are like my most outwards-facing weeks ever.

may 17th > first day of shooting for making my first ever documentary-type piece, for cafe au play.
may 18th to 19th > covering siff (not that out of the ordinary).
may 23rd > interview @ a local radio station about redefine.
may 25th > my first dj gig ever at holocene’s happy hour.
may 26th to 28th > potential to cover sasquatch for purevolume (?)
may 30th > video at gardens & villa and swahili show.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah so public, so public!!

insanities.

‎… with spring and summer always come the insane ones, who call from the street just as the sky starts to get light. Today’s awakening was perhaps the most haunting one yet — courtesy of a man who could only be described as absolutely hysterical, barely forming words through his mixture of scream-crying. Words like “I did it! I did it!” might sound like positive achievements, but in this case, sounded as though he had murdered someone accidentally and was left to collect the fragments of his mind. I wondered if I should call the police to have them see why he was roaming the streets at 6am. I wondered how many people lose it and have no one around to care…

The other one I still remember fondly is the man last year who was screaming the same rhythm every minute or so, and was slowly making his way away from my house. It was as though I could hear him for a quarter of an hour, and have an idea of where he was due to his personal echo location tools… so fascinating. I look forward to what this window will bring in the future nearest!!!

I have a job interview tomorrow that I am really excited about. Hopefully I get it. I would link it but I’m afraid they’ll catch on. Godammit, internet!!!

sending letters to boyfs.

oh you know. instead of sleeping. explaining! this was after quite a blinding moment of self-realization. might as well share with the lover. man, i am a complicated person.

i think in my writing exercises tonight, i’ve pinpointed the major new source of my recent anxiety. thought it was weirdly profound, by my own suppositions, and thought that i might share it with you a little bit…

my ramblings began with self-analyzing kind of why i have been rather nostalgic in an obnoxious way lately — curious about stupid shit that i had generally been avoiding or whatever, looking up troy one’s facebook page, for example, or even reading old letters we’d written just to have some idea about what they said. i don’t know why! it’s just kinda been a curious exploration into, “was that really a thing, and why was it a thing?” or something (the answer is still yes, though i forget from time to time).

after these ramblings to self, i thought with a start that it was getting all of these readings lately, and just generally having outside things (or inside things vaguely disguised as outside things) tell me what “my path” is supposed to be that is making me anxious. it is all making me consider my future more than i would like to, and in an unreasonable way. like i’ve been saying so much lately, i feel like i am at a crossroads and that i don’t know what to do… but i feel now, as i am realizing this, that usually i don’t have this fucking problem because i am usually living in the present. but newfound future knowledge is confusing my intuition and causing me to have expectations… or, more accurately, is making me worry about whether or not i’ll live up to my expectations (one always has expectations, after all).

i never thought something like this would even potentially be bothersome!… probably because i never, up until now, believed in predictive things like tarot readings or past life readings with too much conviction. but now, due to my belief in their accuracy and their massive corroborations with one another, i am getting all caught up in the future when the future obviously hasn’t happened and worrying about it pre-emptively is completely pointless. i wrote to myself today that i must re-learn how to live in the present. the future will come, and it is certainly important to be forward-leaning,but i don’t want to expect. it is not becoming of me or natural of me to expect…!!!!!!

i think the dissonance comes from the fact that so many things are telling me things that i already feel. that they are being declared to me in addition to my feeling them transforms them from personal “let’s look and see!’ adventures to embark on into weird mechanized processes to reach an end goal. no fun and not enough mystery in the latter, with the most significant problem being its vague timeline. having a clear-ish sense about events in the future causes me to rely not on intuition and general go-with-the-flow sentiments, which are fun…!, but on neurotic, pressure-laden self-examinations wherein i am constantly wondering if i am making the right moves at any given point in the timeline. it’s almost as if knowing about the future makes me more apt to fuck it up!… as normally i would just do it and not worry about to what ends. it is so obnoxious.

right now, the concrete examples contributing to pressures are probably: a) the film thing; b) the “my people” thing. the film thing because i feel like dreams and mushrooms and psychic readings have all been pointing me to it for quite some time now — but, like i’d mentioned to you, i don’t always feel like working on it. i usually feel it’s important to work on it when inspiration strikes — but because it keeps coming up, i am getting the sense that it will become an important thing, and that is making me feel like i should set goals even when setting goals feels wrong!! then the “my people” thing because i concluded lately that i am feeling rather lonely these days (take no offense <3) because many a close friend moved away and i am also feeling hermitude pretty strong — and i am almost looking with excitement towards whatever future group of people will hypothetically emerge for me to become truly feel at home with… because, like i said, i unfortunately still feel a bit uncomfortable around all of your band and stuff… and i'm waiting for it to blow over, but it's still there… and on top of that, so much more complication…! complication in whether my hypotheses (i told you the g&v) is even correct, and if so, again with the timeline thing… or if it's not correct, who it might be — or worse, whether there is even such a thing as a vaguely-defined path at all! perhaps, instead, there will never be a home of people, and it will eternally be a floating corpse of a loner (as with all my other past lives): me!

arf. i am beginning to realize that perhaps THIS — this time for deep writing and setting oneself back to 0 (it is 4:30am after all) — is the reason why i should probably take nights alone sometimes… more than any other reason. basic sanity, or something. but it's funny, the creature comforts just always make this seem so unnecessary, until slight grievances or emotional complications not dissected by writing build up until i am just "off" somehow…

anyway, because i've felt so disconnected and strange as of late — and been so out of touch with myself that i haven't ben able to explain it at all — i just wanted to share with you the greatest insight i've had in the recent past as to why i am a complete madwoman right now. hope it makes sense and you get it! (you'll get it, i'm sure.)

vivian

^ i am pretty into my own writing lately… not to sound bragadocious. but it pleases me. the inner monologue is fucking stroooooooooooooooooooong.

I AM SO CLUMSY.

… I have some clumsy confessions to make because they’re too funny to go undocumented.

1) Earlier this week, in Reno, I was staying at Troy’s friend’s house. Went to the bathroom. Flushed the toilet while realizing the toilet paper roll needed changing. Spring fell out of toilet paper roll, into toilet. Gone forever.

2) This morning, in Swahili’s bathroom, I dropped a toothbrush cap down the hole of the sink.

3) I needed a chopstick to retrieve the toothpaste cap from the sinkhole. Went to the kitchen to get a chopstick from the utensils drawer and pulled the entire drawer onto the ground with the loudest bang. Most hilarious moment of realizing I am a clumsy failure ever.

past life regression.

Just got a past life reading from Ashlyn. Currently sitting in a park in Oakland getting super sun-baked as I’m writing this. People are debating over philosophy stuff, and I am getting bored, so I am cutting out! Cutting ouuuuuuuuuuut.

Summary of how it went down (as lifted from some other website):

The reading begins with a rose reading. The rose is a symbolic representation of your current spiritual growth cycle. A rose reading offers a rich overview of major themes in your spiritual growth process.

Then the reader looks at the seven layers of your aura. In each layer, the reader sees different colors and identifies which colors represent your own energy and which colors are unwanted energies. Often just by recognizing that something is not your energy, you can begin to release it and move forward.

Alright, so to go over the past life reading. It began with Ashlyn getting into a trance for about fifteen minutes. Then it began with a Rose reading in which she visualized a rose. The petals, she said, were 65% open, which meant… I forget. The center of the rose was my color – a bright, rich orange – and she said that there were pieces of pink trying to encroach upon it, trying to suffocate it and swallow it up, thinking that it was the orange energy when in fact it was an outside energy. She asked it to leave and said it felt much better. Then it was analyzing the sun, which was at 11:45 or so – almost straight up above the rose, which meant that I was almost directly on my spiritual path but just slightly short of it. She said that the stem of the rose was extremely long, “to the end of the page,” she said, which basically meant that I have been around since “the beginning of the game.” Towards the bottom of the page was a black energy – a negative or stagnant energy. And she moved it a little, and beneath that was a clump of karma. The clump of karma, as she zoomed in to study it, was a picture. Set in a jungle, very clearly, with myself in an ancient culture. She said that perhaps it was something Incan. Apparently, I was a an Incan princess of some sort, high up in power and rank, and very influential. But I guess the time came where I was tested and was supposed to show my power over a set of poorer and less powerful citizens. Rather than stepping up and being powerful and showing my reign, I decided to run away and to live an isolated existence, as a “Robin Hood,” of sorts, she said. The dark energy referred to a man who I knew at the time who caught me as I was to leave, and because of a deep love and care we had for one another – I am uncertain of whether it was romantic – he let me leave but was extremely sad that I had to. After I left, he was extremely depressed about it – and that depression later turned to anger, which resulted in him lying around stagnantly, waiting for me to return, or come back. That gave me a bit of guilt – guilt in having to leave people behind in order to do my own thing. The overarching message of this – why my “spirit” pulled in this scene at the time – was because it was focused on the topic of isolation, and of me having to do work that is important to me, even if it is solitary or lonely. As you’ll see from my previous post, this is very much a thing that has been on my mind lately – the conflict between what I feel I have to do and the lack of reciprocation for doing the things I feel that I have to do. This was definitely a theme that came up over and over again.

Next, we’re looking at the stem of the rose, and there are two leaves, one on either side of the bud, just slightly below it. Evidently, these are agreements that I made with two other beings to be a mother figure to them – and those are agreements I can choose to acknowledge or not.

Slightly below the leaves was a shining and vibrating past life, which Ashlyn went in to study. This past life showed me working on a field, alone, with children on my back. I guess I was happy, but at the same time unsettled, a bit lonely. I enter the house. My husband is not present, and Ashlyn gets the sense that my husband has gone off to war and has perhaps passed away; and I feel that moment perhaps intuitively but did not realize it in a serious sense, because I had not yet gotten actual wind of it. She then said, this sounds weird, but I see you putting down the babies and leaving. I’ve decided to go and leave to do the personal work I need to do – and to not do the work that I feel like I am perhaps forced to do? A lot of isolated work. My whole being wants to do work that is important to me, but so, so lonely…

Moving on, she went to do an aura reading for me.

1) BODY.
It began at the root aura, which was a orange color. Again, there was an encroaching energy that wanted to swallow me up. This first one was something like what is expected of me versus what is me, and the encroaching energy – the same as before, very female, possibly that of my mother – really wanted me to be a certain sense of female that was very traditional, calm, “beautiful,” submissive, whereas my entire being was very strongly against that sense of female… still very female, she said over and over and over again – this was the overarching sense… that I was a different kind of female energy – but still very assured and strong. She said it was extremely intuitive of me to think that what was necessary at this root was a very feminine energy (?), but in an a traditional sense… feminine but not in the stereotypical way, at least in terms of the appearance and body.

2) EMOTIONS.
Emotion. Extremely sea-green in color, ebbing and flowing easily, and very , very clear. She said it was cool and the clearness basically meant that I will accept things as they come, and that they’re fresh, very fresh, always living in the now and never in the past or in the future.

3) ABILITY {?}
The desire to share with others my work, to share the goodness of the world. I don’t remember much more about this, unfortunately. Something about how the things I do hold the “back lines” so that other people can build on top of this. Also a small reference to my magazine in there, I think. Also some reference to sadness, and about how there is a bit of sadness in knowing what I have to do but realizing that it is also a very, very isolated thing.

4) AFFINITY.
A lavender energy, that was very subtle but wide-spreading, very diffused but self-assured and nice. Holding the space between the voids, and the whole sense of holding ground for other people – subtly – is a sort of healing or accepting potential. So that people who see me and meet me and don’t really understand this type of energy may think that I am cold, but that those who do understand it gravitate towards it and understand it. Feminine energy, again.

5) COMMUNICATION.
An understanding that the dark spaces are vital to see the goodness, the depth of goodness. This is a magenta, which then turns into a very bright orange over the course of the reading. Energy movement. There is a hint of martyrdom, where I take it upon myself very heavily that I need to do certain things. Full of depth which is pulled from finding the goodness that comes out of dark places. The color changed because a lot about how my being listens to people and at one point only took in the energy and were sitting on it, rather stagnant, and finally was able to be a little more playful about it – a little ready to let that seriousness go to instead laugh from people’s stories, to receive an amusement out of it… to have be a slight bit more of a give-and-take to make it rather less tiring.

6) HOW ONE SEES THE WORLD.
An extremely light blue color, kind of, that is denim-colored, lighter than royal blue but darker than the sky. This is the one place where I am less serious and more open, the place in my chakras and my life where I am so light, like air, and less heavy. In all other aspects, I take work extremely seriously, but in this aspect, I think that the world is just full of goodness that I want to share it with people, and taking in things from the world rejuvenates me. I can pop up into the air at times to pull things from that, past a purple border line… a border line I want to erase and lighten, so that I can pull the lightness into other layers.

7) HOW THE WORLD SEES ONE.
A lot of vibrating energy, where people had their eyes of me, kind of, but were basically waiting to see what will happen. An extremely, extremely slow build of energy where people are studying, and are curious, but are not necessarily extending a hand. They’re just waiting to see where I go, certain that I have power but not sure how to efface with the power. And she says I like that. I like that people don’t always know how to approach me, and that those who actually do are the ones that keep around and decide are important and ones who are on the same page. She says that there are three groups of people that I am somewhat looking towards, which does not include the Swahili household, because they are already here, already present.

And here Ashlyn asks if there’s a question I want to ask. I ask if there’s a group of people that I am looking towards – who they are, and where they are in my life. She says that me – as a rose – looking at the Swahili group of people (she reassures me that she is double-checking this scene to make sure she is not being biased) up and towards other people. She says that there are three groups of people, but that there is one group in particular that I am looking to… because the Swahili household are my partners people, who I get along with, but they are not MY people, and I am all the time looking for MY people. She thinks that out of three groups, there is one group that stands up stronger. They are led by a male leader of some sort, and I can think only of Chris, and instantly thought of it because of the exchange that we had yesterday. She says that with this group, they are waiting for me to show up and to step into the role, but I am in the meantime trying to figure out what that role is. She says that perhaps they are more activist-like, that they are undergoing projects which are a little more political or scientific. I am not sure what this is – and not sure if this fits them – but what she does think is that this group will help out the Swahili group a lot, and there may be some clashes because of that, but that ultimately both groups will benefit from each other. It’s interesting because after our last experience seeing Chris’ band, what we discussed was that they were more rigid, more structured in their songwriting. Swahili would be the more artsy, the more jammy end of that. But in my mind they are such similar human beings, and such similar life interests and goals… and really kind of similar music, in a sense… but yeah, Ashlyn got the sense that this other group – which will be really important for me, but not in a romantic way – will be extremely beneficial for Swahili and will help them out a lot, and vice versa. And man. After my conversation with Chris yesterday, I’m definitely extremely curious to see if this comes to light… I don’t know if he is on the same page as I am, but I am sure that he understands where I am coming from; he replied to my email yesterday where I sent him the Swahili tracks, signing off with “It’s a feeling,” and that he felt honored that we were able to exchange brain spaces in such a way. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s weird; I feel like in some sense they are people I neeeeeeed to know. We’ll see how that pans out.

That was the end. All of it blew my fucking mind! Will fill in the blanks, in red, after today.

UGH.

Went to bed early this evening, but the giggling in the next room over has woken me up, and I haven’t been able to fall asleep again.

Disappointment is weighing heavily on my mind. The fact that my favorite band of the hour agreed to play our SX showcase — making Gina and I the happiest we’ve been probably all month — and then backed out due to MONEY and FAME is a thing that drives me absolutely bonkers. While I do understand that the music industry is a business, I suppose that I had expected that my favorite band would be promise-keepers, that they would be saintly as their music, that words would mean more than wads. Appreciate as I do the personal email from Chris who apologized and assured that he fought to “stick to the original plan,” it is nevertheless an affront — not personal, but so, so apersonal that the apersonality is the root of the problem. While it is true that I know only three of them, they are a band that strikes a deep chord with me, perhaps the deepest since Incubus. But that, I see, may be only with Chris, and even then, these connections are veiled by facades, smeared by the haziness of perspective. Regardless of the reasons behind that most logically arrived-at conclusion about the business of their band — reasons which I “understand” but nevertheless spit upon — they’ve besmirched all that they are or were, in my eyes. It is less a calculated disapproval as it is a visceral instinct. It is a gut-instinct, a shaking-my-head-at-[the-royal]-you disbelief. It is to be jaded. It is to add to the jadedness already so stirred up and in-my-face this year by evidence of society’s allegiance to greed over morality. While I expect a preference for greed from money-hungry SOPA/PIPA supporters and the cold anonymity of SXSW, I expected it not from people to whom I have shown my guts — and whose guts I have worked extremely hard and with nothing but great dedication and sincerity to show. But, as we have seen, who cares. I just don’t think I will be able to listen to their music for quite some time. The feelings that that record represent to me are bittersweet, but for the most part, bittersweet in the best of ways. This circumstance, though, has soured me… and it will be a while yet before I am able to reprocess, reimprint them, as a musical entity, back into a wholly positive and joyful position in my life. For my own sake, I have great sadness for that lack of their music in the future of my life. It is a kind of deep and specific kind of love, sullied.

This is the first I have written of this. It is an important step.

March 23rd, 2012 EDIT:
I am more or less over it. I still can’t listen to the music in exactly the same way, but personal correspondences have rendered their actions acceptable, mostly under the premise that I truly only know one of them, and he fought for our sake, so that in itself is enough. I suppose I cannot idealize the rest to be so noble, for they have no reason to be as such… perhaps?

not gonna lie…

parents were just here, visiting me, in portland, for a few days.

what can i say… the first couple days were fine, even pleasant, even, though it has to be taken into consideration that it was mostly pleasant because of what it wasn’t — that it was pleasant because i had expected worse and gotten dished out less than “worse.” but hey, standards are standards, although they may not be extremely high. so there’s that.

this particular evening, we went to shandong in portland. first time going to that restaurant, and i must say that i was quite very stoked that there is! indeed! close-in! portland! good! chinese! food! shandong was half americanized, but in a really good way… it was authentic although it catered very much to americans. so i am into it. the dan dan mian (which i will now make in the future nearest) was of particular note, and they have a really good koreanized jja jjang myun… so i’m into that, too. i will definitely be going back, oh yessss. so excited. funny that it is down the street from the ambassador — this really funny chinese food / karaoke place that troy and i went to on our first date. dare i say the ambassador even had a better chinese eggplant dish than shandong, and i’d say the ma po tofu, too? i dare. funny fun fun funs.

anyway. when the parents came, we did some hefty driving, first to silver falls state park — apparently in the amazingly named city called sublimity. that place has like this trail that is 8.5 miles long and goes through 10 waterfalls. the north falls were AMAZING because they fall from pretty high and then have a seating area behind them that is carved into the rock and is basically a circular section looking out onto the opening of the rest of the park. hard to explain — will have to snag a photograph from the mother who actually took photographs — but yeah.

yesterday, we went to astoria (pretty pointless, i must admit) and then to seaside, which looks totally different in the summer! last time i went there was in the winter, or fall or something, with sherry and tinwin. i don’t feel like half the shit that was open this time was open then. i bought a shit ton of salt water taffy. some that was super cheap and some that was more expensive… i must say… more expensive salt water taffy is WAY better than cheaper salt water taffy. the chocolate peanut butter ones i got (more expensive) had real peanut butter and just generally hella ruled. the other kind all kind of tasted artificial, and very little like what flavor it was supposed to, no matter what flavor you got…

the rents met troy and really, really liked him. and generally, they gave everyone a good impression when in a public setting. i feel bad in some ways, because hanging out with them too much makes me turn into this ugly, ugly person that i am usually never like around anyone else; it is just that they are so, so, so suffocating, and negative… and there’s so much a reason that i broke away and live on my own and will never go back. i mean… it’s nice to see them occasionally, but rather horrible to feel like i am constantly being judged and micro-managed. i felt bad in some ways that troy would ask me how my day was — when the rents were here — and i could kind of only answer in the negative because it was a negative… because whereas usually i can make shit roll right off my back, in the case of my immediate family, it is truly, truly something else. i just can’t let shit slide in that way. it’s just not possible… everything is just such, such a far cry from who i am. i am the opposite of planning out every second of my day, of worrying about every little thing… and though i care about those things sometimes more than my friends, the degree to which i’ve scaled it down from my origins is like… almost insurmountable.

but anyway. originally my dad had really not wanted to go to dinner because he thought he’d have to pay for everyone, but he ended up footing the bill, though i have to say that literally the reasoning he gave me was (said in chinese): “it looks better this way.” and yes, it did, but… yeah. i mean… i pick up the details that may get lost in translation but i suppose in every family and with every set of facades, only those who were really in it know the truth? and there are a lot of things i could say but suppress. today, i found myself taking deep breaths a couple of times to get a double-take and to not say things that were biting and unnecessary… but those deep breaths and second thoughts only accounted for like, 2% of the things i probably did end up saying, or the bad attitude that i gave off when i shouldn’t have… i don’t know, man. i don’t know. it’s something i have to work on… because yes, they are in the wrong, but i could act better, too… i could take the attitudes that i take in other aspects of life… of going with the flow… of letting things go… and apply it to these difficult familial situations, as well. i’m learning…

i haven’t updated in a while, so this is a complete brain dump.

my parents met troy a couple nights ago and were quite stoked on him. (we went to blossoming lotus, and i was rather surprised that they kinda liked it… but i was glad to give them the new experience because it was their first time eating at a place with food that said GF — gluten-free, R — raw, and … something else i forget… dad said it made him poop well… dad loves to comment on toilets and bathroom facilities… seriously…) anyhoot. troy seems like the type who would probably please any parent. but seriously, they had nothing but nice things to say about him, which is good. dad even went as far as saying he was pretty good-looking, haha. it’s funny, though, because dad barely said anything to him — but, as troy was pointing out today, of the three things dad DID say to him, one involved inviting him to taiwan in november. which is pretty hilarious. like. dude. we’ve been dating for a month! luckily, i can say these things to troy, and dad can say shit to him (like tonight at dinner: “take care of my daughter!”) amongst a table full of 7 other friends (robby, rachel, shawn, andrew, christopher, rose, gina)… and troy won’t get frightened away. haha. i guess that’s good. the other night at blossoming lotus troy thanked dad for paying for dinner, and he said, “it’s family!” and in a lot of circumstances it would be truly head-in-the-hands “fuuuuuuuuuuuck” — and in this case it was subtle and he barely heard it, but “take care of my daughter!” today was definitely met with a head-in-the-hands reaction on my part and a lot of laughter on everyone else’s part. luckily, it was funny enough that it wasn’t uhhhh hugely awkward. it’s just funny because money is such a “thing” with the rents, and such not a thing for me… they said multiple times, “troy seems nice!” to which i would respond, “he’s the best!” and mom would respond with something like, “the best should still need to know how to earn money!” once, dad said, “i hope he makes enough money to take care of the both of you!” or that “he knows how to plan for your future!” and… firstly, it’s like, dude… we have been dating for a month… secondly, it’s like… dude, we split payment on a lot of things, and i do that with all guys i date… and thirdly, it’s like… dude… we’ve been dating for a month. haha. even if it feels like longer than that…

a couple days ago troy and i went and had a picnic at colonel summers, and i started telling him about a dream i had about george clooney. when i initially told gina this dream, she said, “troy is kind of a george clooney,” and it was only until i started telling him this dream that i began to realize that fuck, the dream kind of was about him, or something. what happened in the dream was that the police were looking for george clooney in this city with super narrow streets and high walls (kind of like siena in italy, or something). they looked for a really long time and could not find him. finally, i think they stop looking, and i run into him. i jump up and hug onto him, like a koala bear, and am bawling FURIOUSLY. i have never cried like this in a dream or in real life. soon thereafter, he lets me down or something, and says, “but i am going to see you in a couple days!” and i instantly start laughing. end of dream. this was when troy was on tour… totally was about him… and i don’t know why i didn’t realize it until that moment when i was retelling it to him. sooooooooooo weird. sooooooooooooooooooo weird.

life is funny, anyway. shit just pops out and punches you in the face and you’re just like… whaaaaaaaaaaaat. there have been no use of words like the “L” word — whatever — but there certainly has this feeling of just this thing being the realest, easiest thing i’ve ever had. it’s pretty fucking crazy. i am really, really happy.

in the work world, too — life is good and easy. i pretty much have not had to look for graphic design projects in a really long time, and everything is just… easy… and it’s good… 2011 is the most magical of years. and i’m just trying to figure out the best way to round the rest of it out. for starters, beginning in mid-september, i will be embarking on a cross-country road trip with rose, who is moving out to new york. it will be something else, i am sure. until then… i have a little more than a month (man, time is flying, again) to do a million things… psychedelic things… helsing junction farm sleepover things… camping under the stars things… loving life things… eating food things… soaking in everything wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and wonderful things…

i’m ready.

OH DUH. it is to be noted that last saturday, rose, gina, robby, andrew, and i went camping and found an amazing, amazing, amazing situation for ourselves. these are robby’s photographs from his iphone. see below. OH MY GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

basically, gina / niko’s friend bobby had a space out in southern washington that he shares with this hippie retreat place… they have a bunch of land friends can camp on. we had a bonfire and basically slept under the stars — no tent — and then went hiking the next day. gina destroyed her really awesome sneakers hiking in the river. ah man. it was good times… there were a lot of s’mores eaten. probably too many s’mores. but it happens…

campground area:

but yeah. we found a really amazing swimming hole with a waterfall. below are pictures from it. pretty much there was life before the waterfall and life after the waterfall… haha.

robby tried to dive into the river with us but then froze to death (0 body fat) and then had to get out. as for andrew and i, we went close to the waterfall and it was seriously 2x closer there. like, it was cold when we got in, but when you got near the waterfall it was some serious shit. afterwards, the four of us were so cold we were seriously retarded. for starters, we could only — in andrew’s terms — “shrimp” to the shore… as in — we were walking upright when we went into the water but crawling on all fours when we got out. it was also like a three mile hike into the waterfall area, through rivers, and while it was slightly challenging and uncomfortable on the way there, on the way back we were seriously being so retarded… practically falling off logs… i felt like i was way closer to nature because of the poor decision-making skills i’d newly possessed: rather than going over a set of fallen branches, for example, i would crawl in between them and find my face now inches from ferns i would have otherwise simply risen above… it was strange, profoundly strange, deliriously delightfully naturally strange. high, high, high!!!!

carebear strikes again.

mom’s original email:

Hi! Phil and Vivian,

How’s everything? We are doing fine. If you need to contact me, just send email to me. I can find Roxanne’s email address, say hello for us.

Mom

my response, part one:

things are good! really busy!
where are you guys now and what is the latest thing you’ve seen?

my response, part two:

you know what would be fun.
i think from now on our emails should all include 2 thing that have recently happened which have made you happy, and 1 thing you’re looking forward to!!! OKAY??!
[ [ [ [ [ PS - PHIL DID YOU EVER GIVE THEM MY PRESENT?????????????????????? ] ] ] ] ]

i’ll go first.

- COMING UP: i’m looking forward to seeing everyone at jeremy’s wedding this weekend! not looking forward to giving wedding $$$ ;p
- PASSED: my friend just gave me a bunch of images of his artwork. you can see it here… it’s the trees! he started with a single brush stroke (japanese sumi ink) and then added the trees after the basic shape was formed. they’re all differerent and all really incredible. see here.
- PASSED: we had an alice in wonderland-themed picnic in the park last sunday…!! i made a dress, kinda. here are some pictures:

heck yeah! i will make you bitches think positively!!!

>>>

in other news.
it’s funny to have recently met the swahili people because they are so much on the same page… i mean, they even say “so good,” which is pretty much just really super ridiculous. cosmic.

today i went to a lecture that troy (yeah, troy, but not the los angeles one) invited me to about science versus belief. it was interesting… interesting in that… i am also trying to bridge science with spirituality, but the route the dude (a chemist who basically reworked entire theoretical physics models to fit his worldview…) took was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo far removed from everything i’ve been thinking though the basic topics are still there. as is the basic notion of duality… so… i can say he’s astute, but i disagree completely with EVERYTHING he said, and it was maddening because there were people in the audience (“audience”) who were really quick to accept his theoretical model though his graphs and charts meant NOTHING at all and had NO value… and one guy behind me was saying, “you just have to realize that people are idiots and the majority of people don’t know what’s right!” and that was his argument against the current theoretical physics models. it was kind of sickening and really, really disturbing. anyway, the fact that he is a chemist — an extremely rigid form of science because as blake said, “it’s generally figured out and is a complete science,” only adds to the fact that i think what he’s saying is crap. furthermore, he would say stuff like, “that just doesn’t look right to me,” and that was essentially his justification for that stuff being ‘wrong’ and his model being ‘right’. man, i swear, you can manipulate data in any way to construct the reality you want…

anyway, i’m going to los angeles this weekend for jeremy’s wedding. i am going to call up troy. i rather doubt he will meet up with me… or even responsd to me… but i’ll try anyway. other than that… oh right, xinlei got engaged. aaaah! everyone!

and lastly, one more thing. after last friday’s chemical ingestion session with blake, the next day, I BECAME A PRO BIKER! seriously, though. i went to research club the following day and was biking circles in ladd’s addition with no hands. weirdest fucking shit. it just magically clicked and now i can bike huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge stretches and blocks and blocks with no hands. and i don’t even have to think about it. it’s super easy. second nature. makes ZERO sense. i dunno what clicked or why, but something clicked. SO WEIRD.

blake also leaves in a couple weeks for montana and then the east coast, which is kind of a little strange. i don’t think i’ll realize just how strange til it happens, though…!

i also opened a new bank account with wells fargo because they don’t charge you the same amount in ridiculous fees that chase does. the banker who opened my account was really quite fun. he also told me a banking joke — of “which there are not many” — but i guess people at wells fargo say that “chase chases all their customers to [us]“. har har har.

anyway. exciting things coming up. i’m finally lighting a fire under my ass again, at least a little bit…

too busy to write is actually not a good feeling.

i’m listening to… the zombies.

—

i thought this week would be a piece of cake! i suppose it is in the conventional regard but i was telling robby, “oh sure! i can meet up anytime this week!” but that turned out to be a huge ball of lie as this week, which had seemed so very free, in fact was not… for starters there are like, three friends’ birthdays this week, one of which will probably be celebrated twice, and it’s just all around “aaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhh!!!” insanity!!

but you know, whatever.

there has been an all-time high use of that thing we call mary jane at our home because shawn is out of town on the east coast and austin is living in his place. austin is quite a fan of such, and rose and sarah have been coming over to hang, and andrew is quite a fan of such, too… so it’s an all-around… smokery mess… the household dynamic is ever-interesting. man. not gonna lie. been paying only minimal attention to all of the responsibilities i should probably be taking care offffffff in terms of redefine. i mean. i’m doing a bunch of shit but there’s a never-ending amount of additional shit to do which has been neglected ;s need more hours in the day…

anyway. i really want to not write right now because it takes time but i think i need to.

life is been unbelievable in terms of synchronicities this year, as i have already been talking about, but it’s kind of at an all-time high, particularly since i started realizing it. gawsh, i hope our minds are not literally just our minds and that all of THIS is not some elaborate fantasy. it’d be quite elaborate and quite fascinating that a mind could construct such butttttttttttt. yeah.

the past few days have been non-stop philosophical conversation, to the point of some serious, serious life reflection… in this… mind-numbing, all-of-this-is-way-too-big-for-us-to-possibly comprehend type fashion. the other night after watching “pi,” rose and austin and i were talking outside on the porch and they were totally on the extreme frOo-frOo spiritual side of things, making me feel like this scientific extremist even though i’m not. blake was passed out on the couch so he was not able to join the discussion which was too bad, because they were just like, “i feel so much!” and i was like, “what the fuck!!” i wasn’t angry, but it was a very like, involved discussion… but in either case, it was interesting because there were these points that kept coming up that they were saying but that blake had said other nights… for example… they were talking about how it would be great to change education in a way that taught children how to rely on emotions and intuition… whereas the other night, blake was talking about how it would be great to change humanity by teaching people to reason and think logically. so fucking weird these polarizations, and hearing both sides, and being essentially the mediator of these sides that stand in stark contrast to one another… it’s kind of maddening. actually, i think my body is pretty pissed at me and is really stressed out. i really want to stretch non-stop…

anyway, another portion of our conversation was brought up by austin, who said that perhaps a solution to some of life’s problems of extreme emotions was turning to this buddhist way of thought… by clearing the mind of thought so that one could think about nothing until an emotion passed… because emotions supposedly only last a short amount of time. to this, i was like WHAT THE FUCK THAT MAKES NO SENSE. and i was trying to argue it from the standpoint that firstly, you couldn’t clear your mind completely really, and even if you did… it would not be at all useful in a modern world because the thought that were bothering you would probably just re-emerge like 5 minutes later, and what could you possibly do? clear your mind non-stop every 5 minutes? it’s simply not practical.

(man… side note… i haven’t had the impetus or time to listen to ANY new music. it’s a fucking problem, seriously…)

what else did we argue about… back to the emotional teaching model of thinking… they were both saying how it would be great if we could teach people to properly emote because that would solve all the problems, and i thought that that was missing the point entirely; teaching someone to rationalize was one thing… scary potentially, yes, but more possible than teaching someone emotion because we have absolutely no grasp on emotions… the prospect of teaching people how to emote is WAY scarier than the prospect of teaching people how to think logically. i don’t know if it is was cause they were stoned (probably a contributing factor) but this line of thinking was rather maddening to me, and again, it was like, “GODAMMIT BLAKE WAKE UP CAUSE I FEEL LIKE AN EXTREME SCIENTIST WHEN REALLY I’M JUST PRETTY MIDDLE OF THE ROAD AND THEY ARE FAR FAR FAR IN LEFT FIELD!”

anyh00t. they were also talking about how teaching emotional awareness would lead to the solving of the earth’s problems, that humans would stop destroying the world around us and realize that we are all connected to everything around us and we should therefore take care of it… and i ended up taking this stance that everything is ultimately selfish, from every human to every tree that is struggling simply to live… and that the trees were not destroying things not because they didn’t want to but because they literally did not have the faculties. that they couldn’t even consider destroying everything because they don’t have godamn arms and shit. they brought up that chimpanzees were similar to people and that they didn’t destroy the earth like we do, and i had to say that they do, that they war and fight against one another, and would probably do more only they don’t have the tools to do so… that we destroy because it’s in our nature, to a degree, and because we have the faculties to do so… they seemed to take on a super pessimistic viewpoint, but only of humanity, saying that it is only humans who sets out to destroy all things, and that all other beings in life work together to help each other. austin talked about how there’s evidence that cells group together and work together to help each other and that animals do too (? i don’t know details and he didn’t say specifics ?) and i had to be like, “wtf, human beings do all sorts of great things and work together on all sorts of great things!” to which rose was like, “like what?” (?!) and i was like, “what do you mean like what? look at this fucking fence! it’s fucking great!” it ended up being a point in my argument that human beings, even with the best of intentions — even if instilled with love of the earth — intrinsically need to create and by creating end up creating waste… that we destroy the earth by virtue of being curious and having large enough of brains! i don’t know why this argument even needed to be argued! it seems like a no brainer!!! again, being stoned probably didn’t help them with their thinking, but!! aaaghhh! maddening!!!

MADDENINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

other than that, went to sauvie’s island this past weekend with rose and blake for the first time, which was quite nice. ugh, i’m sleepy. it’s midnight-thirty, and i have oh-so-many errands to run tomorrow. i think i will actually be able to wake up early and get everything i need to fucking do fucking done, yo.

ugh. i actually wanted to write down a why-life-is-so-fucking-crazy-this-year type equation or list of events but this is going to take a while. i will try to summarize quickly.

january > sucked, essentially, haha. got better towards the end, but what-in-the-hell-ever.

febuary > started realizing some interesting coincidences and feeling a different kind of energy. horoscope lineups and all sorts of synchronicities. psyching oneself out on the amazingness of life, generally-speaking.

march > everything everything everything seemed to go flawlessly, effortlessly well. mysterious energies, again, found in things like horoscopes, tarot, etc. interest in duality, stemming a lot from literature, in re-readings of vladimir nabokov, in aldous huxley and related things… slight bent on spirituality, though spirituality from a very concretely written point of view… not entirely frou-frou, but grounded in a pretty solid kind of way (other than baudelaire). all of these books which pointed in this direction were attained rather synchronicitously, baudelaire by random excursion into a borders bookstore that was closing down; aldous huxley by random trip to a bookstore in new mexico; etc. comparisons between baudelaire and metaphysics, symmetry in asymmetry, order in chaos… influenced my writing a lot, lots of pattern-based writing and careful attention to structures… as if i didn’t do that enough already, ugh, but baudelaire kind of contributed a lot more to that…

april > bit the butt in many ways. spent a month alone contemplating the concept of duality. every piece of literature i read — particularly charles baudelaire — began to shape my reality more and more, and interesting that i only probably became interested in baudelaire because of troy… and all the more interested because “it”: a) didn’t work out; b) gave me a lot of introspection in a period when i spent all my time by myself in california. timing could not have been better. seriously. picked up book by sartre, in the only place i could find it, which was the dublin library. read it and the timing was perfect. being by myself in california, had the occasion to begin writing my own book, highly inspired by sartre’s nausea… slightly philosophically, but more in structure and writing style. again, the whole troy thing lighting a fire under my creative ass…

may > began noticing dualities between metaphysics and spirituality… something kind of intrinsically felt in my life but difficult to explain as i barely know anything about either… kind of just a feeling. continue writing book. continue exploring such concepts through conversations. finding a close duality in another human being that makes for some senses of knowledge-completion. two sides of the same coin, both providing me with viewpoints — literature, one, with a focus on poetry; science, two, with a focus on philosophy… both equally abstract, but not to them… but very obvious to me, as a middle-of-the-roader, and the timing is just sheer insanity, and the parallels between the two even larger insanities. in addition to that parallel, though, it all just kind of clicked one night at a party, being sandwiched between a spiritual-minded individual and a science-minded individual, both with quite similar ideas, via different terminology and interpretations. but again. me = middle of the road.

june > conversations intensifying with themes of duality, but moreso this exploration between metaphysics / physics and spirituality… things practically falling into my lap. books being introduced which address the idea of parallels between quantum-level physics and spirituality, lectures and quotes coming up without my even looking…. and this month has only just begun. i resolved a couple days ago to begin dedicating myself, in a way, to studying this topic and trying to synthesize the information in a meaningful way because i know not what else i can do with these topics which keep coming up. i am trying to find the connection between intuition and rationalization — in what ways they are two sides of the same coin. errrf, i guess i am trying to explore the relationship between quantum-level physics and spirituality, via philosophy and literature. what.

hopefully these notes make sense. fuck.
probably will make sense to very few people.
the coincidental power… i don’t know what to do with it.

i think my body is not stoked. i feel suuuuuuuuuper stressed out, my thyroid is super swollen, and oh yeah, i think i can never smoke mary jane again. seriously. it makes me feel like shit — about myself, the universe, etc.

:>>> :>>> :>>>

but yeah here is the problem with studying this stuff; a scientist is largely isolated from religion, a religious person largely isolated from science. the idea is to find the cross-over… i am looking for patterns by loosely studying both ends, and then the goal is to interview the proper people to find more parallels and patterns. fuck. this seems fucking like a crazy undertaking… there are very few human beings to talk to about this, honestly.

—

lenny: (about above)
it makes sense
but i have a hard time relating that to the world i guess

me:
i can understand that
i can barely relate
just kind of happened
as, if you believe in this kind of bullshit, happens..

lenny:
like, what exactly happens to make you realize stuff like this exists
i dont even know what the stuff i’m referring to is

me:
i dont know man. this year i just started feeling this really weird way like everything was working out really well
and then throguh books that were introduced
these ideas just came up
and then kept going
so i guess it started with intrinsic feeling and got solidified by knowledge shared by other people which vibed similarly with feelings i was unexplainably feeling
whoa.
this is a new idea i hadnt thought of.

lenny:
im still pretty lost
what kind of ideas?

me:
let me give you some quotes
ok so life was going really well
effortlessly well
in feb/march
to the point where im like… this is barely life… life cant be this easy
and then i read this book. and this quote kinda describes how i felt

http://hellomynameisvee.tumblr.com/post/4218407856/from-the-french-window-i-walked-out-under-a-kind

it’s like pseudo-spiritual, kinda, but not like super out there… pseudo-spiritual but in a really concretely written literary way
this was only a jump-off point
and from there i just read a LOT and all of these ideas seemed to like
converge.
and a lot fo the books i didnt even look for, i mean i kind of did by the sheer act of going to bookstores and looking at books
but they just happened to be there and appealed to me for whatever vague reasons
and then meeting two people who are very similar in many ways and i have very similar relationships with… yet are complete opposites of people in a lot of ways and opened up two worlds for me: (1) world of abstraction through writing and literature; (2) world of abstraction through philosophy
and also these meetings/intense connections being rather chance in and of themselves…
and fleeting
as though used only for the purpose of gathering knowledge
does this make a lick of sense haha

lenny:
yeah the idea of it makes sense
like i get what youre saying
that recently youve been having these eye opening experiences and synchronicites in your life

me:
yeah i mean i can understand how it’s hard to realte
like a year ago i woulda been like wtf
but that’s the thing with these weird kinda spiritual things
they jut like
… pop up
and then it’s like oh i kinda get it
or something
so they’re kind of hard to explain by nature

i am a bit in private hell.

fucking eh, seriously, my days are equal parts really awesome and really horrible. in-betweens are rare. it all feels ever so disturbing. disgusting.

22:01
dude. seriously… the… life… thing. is out of control. my emotions are unparalleled. IT IS OVERWHELMING. it’s a constant seesaw of up and down and in and out. holy moses.