You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

2010 was one of the most challenging years of my life, and that is putting it mildly. Shitty would be a better word for it. 2011 has thus far treated me more kindly, but the fact remains that I continue to feel frustrated, trapped and bored.

The good news is that this isn't going to last. There are changes on the way that will make things different and more than likely better. But I'm a creature of the present. If it ain't here now, it doesn't feel as though it will ever be.

I walked into a therapist's office last year, sat down, and said: "I'm trapped." Since then I have made progress, but most of that progress simply comes from the flip of the calendar. I don't know whether to be amused or sad about that fact.

Quotable Adam

"My ego isn't big enough to have an alter ego."

"Nothing says good times like drinking out of a plastic cup. By the time you're 36, 37, you should not be drinking out of plastic cups."

Distraction

Yesterday the New York Times ran an article about cellphones and smartphones and texting and Tweeting and all that stuff we've gotten to know and loathe, and the stuff that many of us (including me) do. Well, Tweeting ... only on occasion, and only on a whim.

As I read the article, at first I felt superior: I'm not easily distractable! I don't have an ADD mindset! Then I think about how I write, constantly switching back and forth between applications. I can write without the internet, but it is damn hard.

Is this how I have trained my mind? If so, I want a second chance.

Someday

Someday I will write a long post about the past few months, the past year or so maybe. I'll write about why I haven't written publicly about so much that I've been feeling. Someday is coming soon.

Third Anniversary, St. Orres, Gualala, Calif.

"The Timid Need Not Apply"

Marcus sent this to me tonight. This part in particular grabbed me:

Often, when you’re young and new to New York, your identity isn’t real yet, just as the city isn’t real yet. It’s a fantasy; it eludes you. You fashion yourself into the person you think will belong. It’s cliché to compare one’s relationship with a city to a love affair, but incomparably apt. We invent ourselves in love, as we do in new places. It makes sense that we often end up serving those who have been here longer, whose selves have solidified into their unromantic reality: the mad, the lonely, the perverse, the rich and miserable. They feel native to us, and they need us.

God, I love NYC. Maybe that makes me a tourist, maybe that makes me someone who should've been there her whole life.

Waiting room

I take the top off his carrier. He doesn't want to come out, sits defiant and pissed off and for that I am grateful. I know every bolt that keeps this carrier together, have memorized how it feels to unscrew them. I've done it enough. I've done it too much. They will come in soon. We wait together. "I'm sorry," I say. I don't know if I'm telling him or myself.

Bowing

When everything exists within your big mind, all dualistic relationships drop away. There is no distinction between heaven and earth, man and woman, teacher and disciple. Sometimes a man bows to a woman; sometimes a woman bows to a man. Sometimes the disciple bows to the master, sometimes the master bows to the disciple. A master who cannot bow to his disciple cannot bow to Buddha. Sometimes we may bow to cats and dogs.

- Shunryu Suzuki, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"

Today's writing

All I want right now is a boy to rub my neck. I want his fingers right where I keep all my tension, at that nape. I want him to look at me with something like a mixture of love and curiosity. I need him to know me, to accept what I am even if it’s not a neatly wrapped package. Especially because it’s not.

What's changed

I'm writing with less anger now. Less anger and more detail. I like that change.

Leather and Lace

Three years ago I stepped into a new phase of my life -- of our lives. I have never been happier. Here's to you, love. May we grow ever stronger and may we laugh ever harder. I have no doubt on either count.

Wrote this to Adam this morning

I think the hamster wheel also includes emotions, you know? We get used to feeling one way and we just feel it, feel it, feel it. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I think it does.

I always wanted to live a life full of revelations and spontaneity and happy chaos. I still do.

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

With my bro and my babe -- and a bike! Does it get better than this?