Daryl Ebneezra Kadabra

times still change...

2012-10-31T18:50:00.000-07:00

i gá a thaifeadadh an dáta seo do na glúine ar mhaithe toisc go bhfuil crosbhóthar mór bainte amach. Is é mo cairdeas le óg Miss Scarlett i mbaol de dar críoch. agus díreach mar a thosaigh mé a scríobh seo amach le hintinn go hiomlán chun dul i domhain le léargais agus na mínithe ar cad a tharla dúinn a thabhairt chuig an bpointe seo (a bhí i réidh le dul isteach i doimhneacht an oiread sin go raibh mé ag dul a aistriú an téacs seo go Fraincis ionas go mba aon duine a stumble ar seo bheadh siad ag dul trí roinnt iarracht chun a fháil amach cad a bhí scríofa i - ach amháin ar ndóigh, bhí siad ina labhraítear Fraincis). Ach anois go bhfuil mé ag scríobh nach bhfuil mé gur mhaith leat cuma a insint duit cad a tharla. Ní gá dom a aer mo cheann amach. Ní gá dom gearán a dhéanamh. Ní gá dom a mhíniú mo thaobh den scéal. Cad é is cóir agus beidh mé ag déileáil leis.

Beidh mé a rá go bhfuil mé wounded mór ag an méid a tharla. Go mothaíonn gach lá ar an scaradh óna cosúil le bás. Gur thug sí orm áthas an oiread sin, i simplí ar bhealaí agus tá stoptar anois sí amach gach sreabhadh na foinsí nurturement dom. Mar gheall ar a bheith ann ar easpa tuisceana idir an dá n-intinn.

Tá sé seo a tharla roimhe seo. Tá an sreabhadh fuinnimh, an sreabhadh connective a choimeádtar beo ag caint le chéile go minic go leor go mbeadh a fhios go cruinn conas an duine eile a dhéanamh. Bunaithe ar fírinneach a léiriú ár n-intinn agus ár mothúcháin. Ba é an chéad uair a bhí mé riamh in ann a insint do dhuine éigin i mo shaol ar fad an fhírinne faoi conas a mhothaigh mé agus shíl mé faoi rudaí. Cinnte, bhí laigí agus lochtanna i ár bhanna. Ach don chuid is mó a bhí againn mar fíor le chéile oiread agus is mar a bhí againn gach is féidir a bheith.

Nuair a bhris cumarsáide síos roimh rug muid féin laistigh de chúpla lá agus beirtear suas chun rudaí a dheisiú sula bhfuair sé i bhfad as láimh. An uair seo cé go bhfuil, am i bhfad i bhfad ró-a rith agus (Thosaigh sé amach le deireadh seachtaine ach dul gan caint, ach na himeachtaí a tharla sa deireadh seachtaine atá athruithe saol gan choinne) chas sé isteach ar seachtain na cumarsáide ilroinnte i gcás iompaithe míthuiscintí i confusions utter a iompú isteach i troideanna agus anois táimid tar éis comhaontaithe go bunúsach go bhfuil sé ach níos fearr a bheith ciúin ná iarracht chun rudaí a oibriú amach.

Sin é an fáth eagla orm go bhféadfadh sé seo a bheith ar an deireadh de gach rud dúinn. Tá sí go bunúsach ceart nuair a thosaigh sí nuair a thosaigh sí amach leis liom sa líon cara. Tá sí ar ais lena buachaill a dhéanann sí an-, an-sásta (anois). Tá sí a cara is fearr a saol doras aice léi. Tá sí a máthair. Plus tá sí a cairde banna rac-cheol. Tá Mar sin, go breisithe nua; bhí sí a líon bunaidh móide trí cinn nua. Mise? Tá mé d'fhág nuair a bhí mé nuair a thosaigh mé amach. Níl aon chairde. Agus dorchadas níos mó i mo chroí a dhéanann dar liom fiú níos mó ostracized ó bheith in ann go sóisialta. Níl aon duine go bhfuil mé ar a dtugtar riamh go raibh mé in ann dul go dtí anois agus a iarraidh chun éisteacht liom seo a roinnt scéal. Níl mé ag dul chun labhairt le Brittney faoi, ná ní mé ag dul chun é a insint do Malori. Tá mé ag dul díreach domhain agus dorcha i mo domhan ar an eolas ina cónaí orm go hiomlán ina n-aonar. Lot Tá de obsessing am faoi mo chuid scríbhneoireachta le Nanowrimo agus go leor na gcuairteanna ar fuar, reiligí dorcha.

it's not the end, nor the beginning. it's just the going on...

2012-10-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

you know why i like the dark seasons (autumn & winter)? because they give me permission to be a depressive. at least that is what i've exemplified for myself as a cry of victory over the majority of my lifetime. its more okay to be depressed during these months than it is when the sun is constantly shining.

i'm not going to say any of what's on my mind or in my heart properly or succinctly enough in this entry because i'm very out of practice with writing. i'm out of practice with communicating outwardly and publicly. i have been living in secrecy for a very long time now and mete out what i want to be known in teaspoon fulls, but not to anyone in particular. i am becoming obscure and reclusive. it's been roughly a year since i left facebook and my goal of making stronger, real seeming relationships with people not using that platform of communication has floundered. the majority of the members of the modern world that have been swept up into the easiness of electronic communications and the addictive utensils like facebook and text messaging do not want to communicate in old school ways anymore. i've written letters to people, but get email replies, weeks or months later. "Oh, that was unique of you to write a letter on paper and use the mail system to post it. When are you coming back to facebook." No mentions of what I actually spoke about in the letter. Same with phone calls. No one seems to answer their phones anymore. Leave a voice message. Maybe they'll listen to it. But we all have voice translators that transcribe our voices into text. You never need to hear the emotional tone in the voice of another human being again. I'm just as guilty of this too though, not answering the phone but I blame it on my depression.

back to topic, our first real storm of the winter blew in last night (and it dumped a lot of rain - which was beautiful to listen to). yesterday i didn't really move out of bed till around 2pm and i was so fearful that if i DID NOT get out of bed and out of the house, that if i just laid there like my depressive instincts were dragging me down to do (i would have been entirely satisfied to not eat all day, slip in and out of sleep, and watch movies endlessly), I would have opened the door for a HUGE depression to abscond with my whole life. so much has been brewing up for a depression to settle in already that the efforts and effects of the cold, wet, and gloom would be the icing on my cake to finish me off. Not give me permission to enter a world of depression - because it is always a matter of choice, it's just sometimes you make a lot of poor decisions along the way that build up a depression-fortress around you. that's what's been happening with me. i could not let the gates close. i've been locked inside too many times in past years and i have too much to want to stay alive for now.

so i decided yesterday that i had to go outside and interact with nature. fortunately i was able to get support from my best friend who confirmed that it was a good idea to do it. if i had not been able to get that little boost of support from her i probably would not have had enough strength or courage of my own to go for it.

i just went for a two hour hike in the woods and hills not too far from where i live. thankfully there is such an area so close to my home. sadly, i do not take advantage of going out there often enough. i just get into habits and bad routines, get stuck in them. the summer heat was what kept me from going on hikes, from building a routine up even though i did go out several times during the summer when there were cool days. perhaps now i'll start to build up a new routine.

i was weak yesterday. my legs, knees, back and frighteningly my heart all gave me trouble. the trail i took was a steep uphill climb and after about 15 minutes of steady walking i started to feel strange tinglings and numbness in my hands, my chest tightened up, my breath became more shallow than normal from that sort of exertion... the thoughts passed through my mind that i could have a heart attack. that maybe i even was. and you know how a whole scene flashes through you mind. i tried to see if i could get a signal on my phone to call someone. but there was no service exactly where i was on the trail. my mom didn't know where i was. i had only told her i was going to the library. my best friend knew the general area i was going to but again, no way to reach her either. and i saw no other people this far up on the trail. the pain persisted, i could not catch my breath and the vision developed of seeing myself needing to lay down. i looked for a soft spot in the leaves and dry grass where i could lay down like an old bear that knew it was going to die, where i could curl up and let the pain overwhelm me. and in that moment of standing there considering whether i should lay down i looked to the other side of the path and found a cement drainage ditch that i could sit upright upon. i chose to go there instead. drank some water and everything started to become more calm. a hiker appeared then and asked if i was okay. he saw me fiddling with my phone, i was still wondering why there was no. he was close to my age, probably younger even though he was more gray-haired. he had been hiking out here regularly and was kind. but i was not past the panic stage and he did not pause long enough to see that i was not totally fine.

I became fine enough though to carry on. Didn't go any higher into the hills but didn't speedily retreat to my car either. Just stayed in this one grove of trees where i took a couple dozen photographs with my camera's phone. Which was very relaxing and therapeutic. I can be differently happy taking photographs of nature like that than i am taking photographs with models. It's more meditative. Lonely, which i can deal with too, but if i can keep a balance of still doing the two types in my life, I'll feel healthier. (Something unfortunate happened later last night. I needed to reset my phone and LOST over 500 photographs from my phone's storage. Everything I've shot with it over the past 3 or 4 months. I spent 2 hrs trying to backup all that data, thought I did - but my weak brain missed some step in the procedure. and none of it had been backed up anywhere - except for what had been posted to Instagram. THAT's enough to send someone into depression. i am so used to depression or so constantly on the verge of depression that something like this is easy for me to accept. it's like, "how can things get any worse?" kinda philosophy.

OKAY, so the other big realization that came up for me yesterday was this. No one else is responsible for how i feel. My feelings are my own and no one causes me to feel the way that I feel. It's all the results of how I interpret events with my mind. My feelings are MINE. I create them with my thoughts. Most of which are rooted in selfishness. This was a breakthrough realization because my good, best friend and I have been feeling some strain recently and I've been fearing that she thinks she's the blame for any unhappiness that I'm suffering. Thing is, that i was indeed feeding some energy into that theory. It was self pity and blame and i cast the cause of it upon her because i could not get her to do the things i want her to do or be for me what i want her to be. But once I had this breakthrough realization on the hike, the exercise, the air, the sunlight, my depression was broken off, the shell of it fell away and i saw that what i created for myself to think that way was childish and immature AND FALSE. that it weakened both of us. it clouded up the pathways for communication and freedom between us and i had to not contribute any more deluded selfish energy to it again. And i stopped!

okay, that's kinda it for now. would write another chapter about other stuff coming up. need to. maybe in the next day or so. i'm sitting outside of Starbucks now because they closed 40 minutes ago and it's 56 degrees here. gonna fly, bye!!

Zen Archer, by Todd "Godd" Rundgren...

2012-10-22T20:26:00.000-07:00

i hope i will never fully understand why this song moves me so much.

Pretty bird with feathers falling
Pretty as a lady calling
For her pink and midnight lover
As she stares into the water

And a yellow moon is rising
And there can`t be no disguising
That the pretty bird is dying
With a silver arrow lying at its side

Rivers of blood,
oceans of tears,
life without death,
and death without reason

To the whole United Nations,
To your greatest expectations
To the moment that you realize
As a dark figure slips from out of the shadow

Pretty bird closes its eyes, pretty bird dies
Another pretty thing dead on the end of the shaft
Of the Zen Archer

A man in parts forgotten
With an outlook that is rotten
And an attitude to match it
Finds relief inside a hatchet
And he halved someone in Boulder
Justifiability is in the hands of the beholder
And you just don`t know what people will do next

Mountains of pain,
valleys of love,
death without life,
and life without meaning

To the promise kept and broken
To the love that`s never spoken
Just as surely as I`m in your ears
A dark figure slips from out of the shadow

the truest love ever...

2012-09-30T01:23:00.001-07:00

she's the love of my life, pure and simple. by that i mean she is the most ultimate match of my soul that iv'e ever come across yet and she fills up my life now. our lives are an enigma that neither of us can decipher the mystery of, and we love it. yet we are not boy and girl friend, we are not lovers. we are soul mates, of a sort. there are so many similarities that we share in our interests and in our life goals, but it goes deeper because we have become joined somehow inside, in a way that makes us aware of and concerned about the condition and needs of the other, more than anything or anyone else. i care more about her well being than my own.

anyway, i could go on and on about this, and perhaps will one day to more explicitly pinpoint what this unique elemental structure is because it's so strong and it's making life partners out of us, we both know it. not life partners that will be completed as physical lovers are, but life partners because of all the other ways we balance out and complement each other.

what i wanted to talk about more in this entry is what kinds of things we've been experiencing lately. i've been hypomanic for a number of months now; no depression whatsoever - thanks in large part to a change in my meds. and she has not been suffering from depression. she has short bouts of sadness but none of the debilitating depression that can knock her out for days and destroy her focus on things positive. so yes, right now we are both on hypomanic rides together and it's been joyous. we do a lot of things together, see each other a lot, talk a lot; i am no longer lonely/alone and i get to spend time with someone that i genuinely have heartfelt care for.

she mentioned something last night about a worry of being in a relationship with someone who also suffered from depression. that it would be a difficult thing to be affected by the charge of the energy of the mate if they were depressed while you (she) were depressed. in my own mind, i have thought about this potential dilemma and figured that there is a way to deal with such conundrums. regardless of the power of combined depression to overpower a loving couple, one member will be stronger and would eventually be the one who could rouse enough energy to stir both members to make efforts to rise out of their mire. individual depression is a unique and solitary experience that can only be solved by experiencing it through to it's own end and resolution. still, having a compatriot that knows you so well, but also understands the mechanics of depression could be a godsend rather than a stultifying curse.

contrarily, i think the problem of two manic minded members of a couple could be more dangerous. two minds running on adrenalin, chasing the flames and sparks of the excitement of a life for answers in experiences shared; the understandings that will come to the pair are multiplied by the ecstatic clarity of their mutual visions and mental interpretations. the danger though is making poorly formulated decisions based on risky thinking, and also from mental and physical exhaustion.

i'm starting to experience a bit of physical exhaustion from this latest stage of enthusiastic living i've been having with her. i'm also starting to think a bit radically about options for taking an adventure with her. we'd been hoping to have a bit of good fortune, winning some money to take a short trip to L.A. to celebrate Elliott Smith's life with other people that appreciate what he loved and suffered through to give us his music on October 21st. That is still 3 weeks away, but the methods we've been attempting to use, intuiting numbers for the lotto have not been successful as of yet. There were bright indicators early on that made us both feel like a divine purpose was at work, unfolding for us to make this journey, like a pilgrimage - and we dreamed up the most comfortable trip we could envision making. Flying to L.A., separate hotel rooms, individual rental cars so that we could both go to all the places we wanted to see on our own each day. oh yeah, and we wanted to stay for 10 days. but the numbers we've been intuiting have not been winning. we got our first winning ticket this week though for a whole $1. that was a breakthrough, but i played again tonight; two tickets that both felt inspired and both came up zero. i have to find some new way to decipher the intuitions i'm getting.

the point i'm degrading to though is that perhaps we will not be able to afford the extravagant trip. perhaps, we will need to take the budget journey. drive in one of our cars. only spend one night (or two) there and return the next day. i still have some remaining credit card values we could use to get a hotel room with and to pay for gas with but we'd have to use cash for food. the point is, that if we make this trip by the skin of our teeth on the means that we actually have, it'll help us focus our desire into obtaining greater riches for greater tasks ahead that we will desire to achieve together. and it will be more of an adventure truer to our real lives to go on our own means, it'll impress Elliott more for him to see us make the effort to do-or-die to get there to honor his life and death.

more points about this are that we are finding and learning the ways that we work together. how our energies mingle and cooperate. there is still time for a money miracle to occur, and we believe that more are on their way (not telling you why in this entry), but i think we need to struggle together in our poverty a little bit more and see that we are capable of doing something big that we want to achieve on little more than desire and will power and conviction of spirit.

in the wildness and beauty of our combined mania last night we both overcame the weakness of fatigue - we both had extremely long days, and at 1am decided to go to the cemetery to take some photographs. i had bought a new (thrift) dress for her to model for me a couple of days ago and she couldn't wait to wear it. we drove to my house from Denny's to get it. when we pulled up in front she said something i thought i'd never hear her ever say. she said she wanted to come inside. and of all the previous times i had asked her to come inside and she was not comfortable enough to, yet... i had been so disappointed. but this night, i did not have the house to myself and to bring a stranger inside at such an early hour would have just stirred up to many questions. i dissuaded her, to both of our discouragements. i got the dress and we started to drive away. she was so overtaken with excitement by the dress she made me stop the car less than a block from the house because she insisted that she had to try it on, immediately.

now i've been on photo shoots with my other models and have not looked, but am aware that they are able to do amazing acrobatics in the front seat of a car and change clothes in a matter of minutes. i thought she would do this and i was going to turn and look aside. she opened her door and stood on the sidewalk. we parked next to a hedge and there was no streetlight so if there was anyone outside, their view would have been diminished. she was wearing a short black dress already with black pantyhose on underneath and her traditional black bra. in a second the dress was off and she was the purest scene of uninhibitedness she's ever displayed before me. i remained calm and watched as she put the new dress on. zipped it up for her and gloried in the magnificence of it with her. they were splendid together.

well, i've already written so much here and wandered over a lot of territory. i'll talk about what happened over the rest of the early morning in my next entry.

what would you do if you won...

2012-09-24T01:54:00.001-07:00

so the old "lotto fever" has crept back into my noggin. i've had the feeling since i first became responsible for the lives of others back when i was a young man, got married and started a family. there was an imbalance of some sort in my karmic/financial balance in this lifetime that's made me be unable to ever have enough finances to take care of all of the things i need to take care of. i've never been "dirt poor", but i've never been out of debt either. and were an emergency to arise, a true, life altering emergency of any magnitude; well there's never been any source of income to fall back upon to take care of such situations. blah blah blah... blah blah blah, stfu, okay??

well, to balance out all of that poverty mentality and poverty reality, i started to have imaginations (or inspirations) about being blessed by god with a gift of magnanimous wealth. thing is, it never happened. ever. not then when i was young. not in my 30s or 40s either. and now here i am in my 50s and i still have a hankering feeling that it could happen. not that it's owed to me or that i deserve it because i've asked nicely, but it really does feel like it's in my bones, or in my spiritual dna, my destiny to experience this. i believe that i am not supposed to be poor my entire lifetime. i believe that i am supposed to achieve greatness in this lifetime, and in many ways, all along the pathway of my years, i have. i have overcome obstacles that have tried to overwhelm and destroy me by finding a core belief in myself that is greater and more powerful than the weaker forces around me that try to tear me down.

right now i am experiencing one such achievement; through the nurturing of a need and desire in my desolate heart i drew the best friend i've ever known to myself out of the mysts. whether this is the one person that i will spend the rest of my life with or not, i do not know yet. what is important is that she has willingly participated in this relationship with me and has proven to me that i am worth knowing.

so back to the matter of overcoming poverty. it's an ultimate matter for me. just as my new friendship is. i can't be satisfied with just half doses of a little bit of friendship here, or a little bit of a different sort of aspect of friendship coming from a different person over there. i need to be able to experience being consumed in a full experience with one being. likewise, it seems to be with money for me. i can't figure out how to manage getting money from a bunch of smaller options. the question is repeatedly posed to me about my photography. people say, "oh, your work is so good. why don't you sell it. or hire yourself out for weddings (etc)." and i adamantly reply that i am an artist, not a businessman. i need someone, a partner to do that aspect of my life for me. if i were to attempt to negotiate becoming a salesman i'd lose my focus on doing my art as intensely as i do. and it's not a matter of my not being willing to try. i'm just hardwired this way. i've tried. and cannot do it.

so i dream with big eyes of a big answer to my big problem of being under-wealthy all my lifetime. i need one fell swoop of income to fall upon me to wipe out all of my worries so i can just concentrate on doing the things that i do best. many of which i bet i have not even discovered yet, because i've been so limited in taking care of myself properly due to my poverty.

so what would i do if i won the lottery? what if i won $1,000,000. what would i do with that money. by today's standards that is not such a huge sum anymore, by the standards of richness in our society. still, at the rate of wealth i've lived at my entire life, it is more than i would have accumulated in 10, maybe even 100 of my lifetimes. i would do the standard things to take care of those closest to me. i would buy a new house in a new city for my mother to live in. somewhere near the sea. a house large enough for many people to be able to come and live in. not a brand new modern house. not in the best neighborhood of a rich city. probably Portland, Oregon we could get a place for $250,000. i'd buy my brother a car/truck; $25,000 - although i'd probably offer him $50-75,000 so that he could move away and be on his own. the most important thing i believe i had to do is give money away. out of $1,000,000 i would seriously consider giving half of it away. And i'd want to do it in creative ways. It would be easy to just plop down several $100,000 checks on some major worthy charities, but those big charities are too much like corporations and the money gets too absorbed into operating expenses. i'd like to find ways to help out smaller types of organizations, or even just individuals that are in need, or that have visions of doing something with their lives... like i did when i was in my 20s and wanted to start an organic farming project in Ireland. all i felt i needed was $30,000 to do that back then. what a miracle that would have been if someone just came along out of the blue and said, "here, go do it!"

for myself, i do not want to own a house. i do not want to feel secure. i would hire an accountant to set up a trust fund for myself to take care of the rest of the money. to only allow myself to have access to a certain amount of money a month. a little bit more money than i am used to regularly spending. i want to travel. i want to see so many places and live in so many rough neighborhoods and cheap apartments so that i can feel unburdened from caring about what i look like and having to please and fulfill the expectations of the neighbors. but i want to see Paris and walk her streets. not own a fancy car. not stay in a fancy hotel. i want to cook in my room. maybe if i end up liking the town after being there for a month i'll decide to upgrade and get a nicer flat with furniture i like so i could entertain guests. i want to be a true bohemian. if i get tired of Paris after 4 or 6 months, i can pack my two suitcases and head off for Berlin. or wherever. then after a year come back to Portland and crash with my mom and tell her all the stories of the places i got to see. or some such extravagant dreamy lifestyle. the point is, i do not want to act rich. i do not want to be rich. i just want to be able to do the normal things that i've dreamed of doing, more often, more easily. and i still want to be able to help people i meet along the way.

if i still end up blowing all of my $1,000,000 after 2, or 3, or 4 years, here's the kicker. i believe that if i figured out how to win it once, and if i shared the money, used the money responsibly, not locked it into a bank or spent all of it on myself, i'd be able to win more again.

getting back to my process of finding the winning numbers of upcoming lotto drawings, i know it's impossible (or practically impossible) to read the future in any scientific manner. what i do believe is possible is to work magic through intuition and combined effort of belief. my friend and i have been having unique experiences of combined intuitive effort to make things come together for ourselves. right now, our dream goal is to have enough money come to us to make a trip for a week to stay in Los Angeles together in October. our concentrations and meditations are at work to make this be. stay tuned to see what manifests.

wishes do come true... you just need to wait long enough.

2012-09-24T00:36:00.002-07:00

when you plant seeds of desire deeply enough into your heart and water them with strong enough wishes for them to grow, and come true... as corny as this sounds, be prepared for eventual fulfillment of those wishes. i think that a combination of clarity of desire, intensity of focus when installing the desired vision, and continual care... not just casting a wish to the wind once and saying, "if it comes true, great. if it does not, no loss to me." how badly one needs their wish to come true will be illustrated by their determination to burn the image into reality through obsessive dedication. want that thing like you've wanted nothing else before.

about 6 years ago a heartfelt need arose in my life to just have a simple friend to spend time with. i wished hard for this need to come true. read back through the archives of this blog and you'll see pages and pages of these yearnings. and i got little bits of answers to this need/desire/wish for short bits of time, here and there... but i never got the fullness of the wish for companionship until what i have now with this friend now. and i've never had a friend like this ever in my life.

there were fallow times in the wish dreaming. and i think this is a most important element of the process. there were times when there were no elements of the wish manifesting at all. and i was resigned to believe that the wish would never be fulfilled. i had to sink into an abysmal recess where non-existence of the dream was my reality. i had to be in a place where all hope of the dream ever becoming reality was my reality. i had to forget about needing what the dream was to fulfill for me. does this make sense?

don't want to go any further into this now because i'll only get more abstruse and confusing. i know i don't speak clearly enough when trying to relate esoteric matters. i mainly want to go on and relate the story for you of what my friend and i did last night. something i most certainly laid seeds of desire for, years and years ago but lost all hope of them ever coming true. .... i was going to say that there were some instances where it seemed like the dream was being fulfilled earlier on, but not all of the components were present to make it as great as it is right now.

she and i spent two hours together, early this morning (between 12:30am and 2:30am) in my cemetery, the cemetery where i've spent years alone doing my studies and experiments for the research for my novel. i've wished for someone like this to be able to incite this sort of interest in this place, and my work over all these years. i could feel that there was someone out there, who she was, the living representative of my novel's Cemetery Girl but i always assumed that she'd be someone from Danville that had close access to the cemetery. that it would be why she'd fit the bill. but no, it turned out to be the other way around how this girl found herself in the character of my book. she found her way to my cemetery by getting to know me. she saw the light of the garden growing inside of me, and felt a need and desire of her own to come and find out what the whole mystery was that i've been so fascinated about. she did not want to leave. she asked if we could stay until the sun rose.

so much more depth of discovery of our connection occurred last night too, we did end up chatting till dawn. but for me, this revelation of knowing that the girl i made from imagination for my story, and dreamed of for a companion came to me, is here, now. this is proof to me that thought does create reality.

the greatest gift of my life...

2012-09-22T00:19:00.000-07:00

we receive so many great gifts over the course of our lifetimes so it's hard to say that one is ultimately the greatest; especially when you have lived a long life where many, many great things have been received (or achieved). the point is to be conscious of what is great now, today, and to be appreciative of it, to revel in it, to make it stay important and great so that it won't die and go away; not today or ever.

this is what my current best-friendship is like. it truly is the greatest gift in my life because it is what is making me feel joyous about living right now and gives me light in my eyes about wanting to go on living. not gonna go overboard on being gushy about this because i want to jump down a couple of levels into another greatest gift of my life that has arisen out of this great gift.

for the sake of privacy of my friend and i, i'm not going to go into elaborate detail (if i were writing this in my private blog i could/would) about how i/we got to this point of development - but i will expose some hard truths about myself. have to.

i have developed a very high regard for my woman friend. higher than i've had for anyone in my entire life, other than my mother and my guru. but it's been a long path that i've traveled to get to this point of respect for her.

i've come from a position in life where i have lived without female companionship of any sort for nearly 15 years. zero physical companionship in all that time but also, little if any camaraderie at all with women other than what i've been able to engender from my photography project. none of which has ever led to more than casual conversations between model & artist about art. this friend, who was just a model to me has opened herself up to me for investigation and discovery and now, camaraderie. platonic camaraderie. we've been comrades for about 10 months now, but we've known each other for 13 months.

being extremely single, i developed an unfortunate habit of (addiction to) masturbation. All the single men were doing it! when i first met this friend i had no visual imaginations about her at all. but later, after we got a little chummy and started to talk to each other online and her spirit started to infect my imagination mental images of her sparked to life. and i began to imagine what it would be like to be with her. 2+2=4, you get it, right?

in the beginning i didn't think too much about this being a bad thing. i had imaginations about other real people that i knew of in the world before. but the difference was that none of them were anyone that i was developing a friendship with. in the early stages of the development of our friendship was when this problem was the most chronic for me because it was like my soul was awakening to it's craving desire to be near this person. and being manic depressive, there are times when you are manic and you go a bit crazy with desires.

anyway, my friend is a strong empath and confessed to me months later that she was aware of the lustful energy i was casting over her with my desirous imaginations and that it made her uncomfortable. guys? can you imagine this? getting called out by your secret fantasy girl that she knew all along that you were masturbating about her? some women might find that flattering, but in the camaraderie i was developing with my friend, it was inappropriate. and we talked about it. and i confessed that i had a realistic desire of one day having her as a lover.

what came out of these discussions were two-fold; one side of the coin was that she confessed to having no such desires or imaginations of such encounters or relationships with me. of course i was discouraged, but i didn't know what to do with my uncontrollable energies. i created a little bit of a fantasy idea/plan that maybe if i change, one day she'll change her mind about me. so the very first thought that occurred to me was to stop masturbating. stop the imaginations. show her that you are not just a sex freak and that you can show respect for her. having practiced yoga for a decade i had experience of abstaining from allowing energy to flow through the lower chakras. essentially turning off the sex organ's sensitivities and allowing that energy to flow upwards toward the heart and crown chakras. i was not in as great of yogic form now as i had been over a decade ago and despite how easily this new act of devotion and rejuvenation began, i was only able to maintain it for about three months.

a greater thing occurred though. since i was inspired to perform this discipline as an act of respect and devotion to someone that i cared for deeply on an emotional level, i took the practice to new places i had never been able to go to before. (she and i have extremely open dialog with each other.) i made a vow to her that i would not only stop masturbating about her but that i would also attempt to get to the root of the cause of my problem. i would stop looking at pornographic material. if i were going to have a holy regard for this woman, i could no longer have illicit thoughts or feelings about any woman. believe me or do not believe me, but it worked. through the respect i garnered for this woman, i have not only stopped looking at pornographic material, i have lost all interest in it. furthermore, i no longer look at any women with a sense of lust or yearning. its partly a feeling of dedication to this friend because i do still harbor a secret desire that one day she could fall in love with me. and that i do not, even now in these days when she does not love me that way, and even if she'll never love me, want to carry any disrespect for her in my being-ness.

well, after that first 3 month stretch of celibacy lost it's focus (my body just could not endure the rigors of retaining all that sexual energy) i started to have crazy dreams where it felt like she was actually coming to me, to soothe me. and i ended up masturbating to release the backup of fluids. i felt like i failed for about a week, slipped back into looking at some erotica (not hardcore porn) that photographers that i follow publish, but it did nothing to soothe or entice me and i stopped myself. i did not want to indulge in my depression and allow myself to get sucked back into the ugliness of the old addiction. basically, my friend had indirectly helped me break my addiction that i've been suffering from for 30 years.

that was about 3 months ago when that period of celibacy ended. there has been zero interest in viewing porn. none at all. no feelings of attraction or desire to other women. and my feelings of desire for my friend are dormant. something else is different now though. i just reread what Norman Mailer had to say about masturbation; that it is a wasteful thing because it prevents you from experiencing the full experience of soul transference that occurs when you make love with a living women. He said that is better to never masturbate because every time that you do it, you destroy your ability to be present with your lover and have a full and consummating experience with her.

in my lifetime, i've masturbated because i am not able to attract women to engage in sex with me. i've only had one satisfying experience with what i'd call a "lover" in my entire life. so please don't judge me for the times i've taken care of myself for having a healthy desire for sex. now i have a different sensibility though. now, this person has awoken in my through this respect i have developed for her the sense that if i were to ever earn the opportunity to become her lover (or anyone else in the world's lover) i need to not only hold respect for her but for myself. and stop abusing the sensitive and delicate areas of trust that lie between us. i now feel that i do not want to experience an orgasm again until ~my lover~ (whoever she may be) arouses that experience for me. and i hope that through this practice of respect for my friend, and my desire to make my body healthy and strong and attractive, through the disciplines of celibacy, diet, meditation and over all clean living/thinking, I'll become someone that somebody wants.

okay, i think i said it all.

To quote Mailer: "I'm saying it's (masturbation) a miserable activity. Who is going to benefit from it? Masturbation is bombing oneself."

a new player has entered the arena...

2012-09-19T19:04:00.001-07:00

and has given me a challenge to blog along with her on a daily basis. i've been such a sloppy and lazy blogger for months now, so i've told her that i'd accept her challenge. well, it's not THAT sort of dare. we're not going to fight if i said no, or if i miss a day writing, but we are good encouragers for each other in many other aspects of our lives, this is a good one to bring into the mix.

i need to be writing now anyway to get my fire started up for Nanowrimo. need to get a day countdown app running on my phone as a reminder of how little time there is left to prepare. oh there is so much that i could say about this matter right now, but even as i sit here writing these few words for you, blind reader (yes, i call you blind because i know that no one reads this blog anymore - which suits me fine...) i can already feel the mountains of misery amassing before me of the difficulties i will have to climb to discipline myself to get ready for this task. writing is work. hard work. you know this. i've bitched about it for years. but being even a little bit older than i was last November, the mind is wiser but more tired. and the body, well the body is a wreck.

yes, i am glad my friend asked me back here because i miss the alleyways i could roam along where my mind would just expound on the things it had no one else to talk about them with. i don't get opportunity to talk out loud with myself anywhere but here. i created my private blogs, which were extremely helpful but since NO ONE could read those writings, there was a sense that in only my being able to hear the words, only i could come up with the answers. those blogs are closed systems. except for the blog where i write to my muses. no one reads those either but i write them in such a manner that the words are directed in spirit to three specific beings; as prayers. so the interplay is alive. here, i'm going to continue writing as i did in the past with an attitude that what i'm talking about is of the nature of the things that i could carry on a conversation with a stranger. still personal, still weird, still all me.... just airing out the attic.

i have something so wonderful in my life right now that i'll probably start to talk about in here, but i have to mete it out carefully. it's a special friendship i'm enjoying with someone. i'll probably just restrain it to "daily journal" like entries for the most part. but personal analysis will come into it too. i'll let one bit slip out now... and this is a big chunk of info that'll leave some wondering what's going on. i'm going to see my therapist tomorrow to talk about "my friendship". not that there is anything wrong between my friend and i. i only see this therapist about once a year, one time. usually when there are so many things going on in my life that i feel "full and overflowing" with busy-ness and fear that my rationale could fail because i am faced with so many options and decisions all at once. the other thing is that i value this friendship more than any relationship i've had in such a long time in my life that i do not want to do anything that would damage it. this is my life, right now. and this woman, well, she is the best thing that i have to build a future upon. my friendship with her. just need to air out the attic and get some feedback from someone that can interpret warning signs... if i exhibit any.

tha's all for now....

my letter to Joanna Newsom

2012-08-04T23:15:00.001-07:00

i was able to obtain Joanna's mother's mailing address and sent the letter there. about 10 or so days later i was driving around town listening to her sing in my car and i got this wave of intuition washing over my face and heart and i KNEW she had read the letter and she was smiling appreciation back at me. true story <3

a tale of two men

2012-08-04T20:09:00.001-07:00

first an update. the kick from being in the same room with Joanna and Philip got to me within a few days of the show. i WAS glad that i went. their beingnesses sank into me and i started to feel their individual life forces flow through me. it was important that i was there and here is at least part of the symbolic essence i'm grasping. Joanna was a brand new musical discovery to me, yet her sounds echo the wisdom of an age old crone and she is disguised in the body of a whippoorwill of feminine mystique. and across the stage was an age old man who i've listened to the music of for nigh on three decades, yet he has the spirit of a little boy inside of him, eager to play in the dirt and mud of the fields of ecstatic sexual energetic sounds that carry the soul to higher states of consciousness. both of these people are tapped into wavelengths of knowledge and understanding that surpass normal human understanding and they do not let the slights and misdeeds of human frailty draw them back from speaking, singing, composing as bravely and boldly as they dare to. yeah, it was very important that i was in that room that night. a few days latter i wrote a letter to Joanna. i have a copy of it scanned on my other computer. i'll post it here later.

THE TALE OF TWO MEN
neither of which are me, neither of which do i know, oh yes i am not lying to you.

One man was born with a four foot long penis that weighed more in ego-strength than his entire physical body did. This man's body did not flow blood. It flowed testosterone. All he had to do was imagine that he was in the mood for sex and within hours (sometimes it took days) a woman would appear in a circumstance that would become conducive for his needs to be met. Whether it was an afternoon long romp which upon completion the two would kiss and walk away as strangers, or if it would be a longer engagement where the two could get to know some particulars of routine and elements of personality of the other, but always where sex was the central focal need for both. He was so good, so powerful that he could even rotate through multiple engagements in a week's time having as many as 6 or 10 different woman, all who would walk away as satisfied strangers; depending on the affect of the moon's tidal pull on the surge of his sex drive.

This man thought at one time when he got bored with the shallowness of so many varied lovers that found no attraction to his mind, but only his gargantuan that it would be moralistic to settle down with one woman and did. He bore children with her and lived the life of a householder until the children became grown and began to seek lovers of their own. A resurgence of lust for the wild came upon him, as did for his mate. They became unattractive to each other and sought thrills among strangers. And because of the power of the ego of the man's four foot long penis, despite the fact that he was now in mid-life, women were still drawn to him for the enjoyment of the sex that he could delight them with.

---

There was another man that was born with an invisible penis. That is not entirely true because it is not anatomically possible. Either you have a penis or you don't. But this man felt that his penis was invisible because all through his lifetime women treated him as if he did not have a penis. He knew he had a penis. He could see it. He could hold it. He could make it do things. It was a happy penis when he played with it, but it was a sad penis because it was lonely. The man read stories to the penis about life in the real-man's world about where penis' got to meet sex organs' of the opposite sex (vaginas) but they ended up making the penis depressed and caused him to pretend it was invisible. When the penis figured out that he just wasn't going to get to play those games it decided it had to convince the man to stop thinking about those games too. "No more dreams or imaginations about women friends, okay? Can we agree on this?", the penis pleaded.

Later when the man was in his middle age he found out from a test his doctor ran on his blood stream that all his lifetime long he had suffered from a low sperm count (not enough testosterone) and that if someone had told him about it when he was young(er) he could have been treated for it. It was too late for treatments now because of damaging side effects, plus, the doctor suggested "Why would you care about improving your sex life at this point in time anyway? No one would find yo...." The man and his penis were too sad to listen to the doctor say anymore and left the place in a hurry. They went home and curled up in the darkness of their bed and held a lifeless doll that was their best woman friend that was always there for them. And the penis told him, "This is how you become invisible..."

_______

A BIT OF A DEPRESSIVE RANT NOW

I've fallen into a bit of a physical depression these last few days. My spirit has not fully succumbed to it and intend to not let that happen. I can't. There are too many things i have to do this month. On the cusp of this depression my mind started to wander into darkness and I just want to put down a few of the ideas that brushed by. I guess so that I can have record of having thought them as a tool to fight stronger against letting them manifest. They certainly could manifest. All action proceeds from thought. I just want there to be some record here too, in case it does play out. I've not blogged in a very long time and very few people know anything about what's going on in the depth of my mind. So there is a new photography book out. It contains my best work. A year ago, when my best work to that point in my life was released in two books and only two copies were sold, i decided to go into hiding. No more social networking. No more forcing my work down everyone's throats on the internet. I have been loyal to this attitude. Most of all the new photography in this new book, none of the people in my "old circles" know about. And I don't intend to go around informing them either. This is true and half true. I know the word will get out and that's okay. I'm detaching myself from the whole fanfare of it. I don't care anymore what anyone thinks. If they like it I'll tell them they shouldn't. If anyone asks me what it means or how i did or why i did it i want to say that i won't tell them. well, there are certain people i won't tell. i don't know, i am back at where i was with the whole feelings about becoming a published author. i had the feelings that if i ever got my book published and it became popular and i had to go on book signing tours that i would hire a stand-in to go out in my place with a rehearsed set of answers to give to the reporters and interviewers. because i did not want anyone to know the truth of who i was or why i wrote what i did. why should the mystery of art be broken??? anyway, it's possible that i'll get to do an art show with photographs from this new book. in san francisco. i need to be positive minded about it for the sake of my mother and the sake of the gallery owner and the sake of my models. but i do not want to be friendly or positive to anyone else. especially not to anyone that has treated me falsely in the past. okay, that's enough about that. here is the deeper matter on my mind. if i do get this art show, i've achieved the two main goals i've had since i was a teenager. i've become a writer and a photographer. i remember the dream i had in my mind's eye when i was 15 of wanting to make books of photographs. and i've done it. this is my chance to say "i've achieved what i've come here for." and i fought hard to do it. and i did it the best that i could. i did it with passion. i made something beautiful to be remembered by and it broke my heart. i can't do anything better than this. why should i try? it's a good enough thing to be a one hit wonder with i think. i'm just tired of so many things. i'm tired of wanting things. i'm tired of the pain. i'm tired of being afraid of how bad things will get. i've made my impression on the world. very few people need use of me. and i'm going to die one day anyway. i felt last night at one moment from a strange pain in my leg that perhaps one of those aneurysm type things, or blood clot things that flow up to your brain... i dunno, could happen. weird shit happens all the time that make people drop dead. i don't have a suicidal mentality anymore. i am not depressed in that sort of way. but you've heard stories of people, rare beings who just got to a point in their lives that felt they reached the point of having done all that they came here to do, and they "stopped", "let go", "gave up the ghost". i don't know exactly how that works or happens, but this is what i'm thinking now, that i feel like i'm nearing that sort of juncture. after finishing this art show, it'll feel like an "it's a good time to go" kinda moment. i don't know what the hell i'm talking about.... i told you i was depressed.

my night out with Joanna and Philip

2012-06-26T18:44:00.001-07:00

i bought a ticket to this concert about two weeks ago on a whim. i had just stumbled upon the music of Joanna Newsom and after watching a few youtubes of her fell head over heels in love with her. when i got to SF last night, due to a swing in moods due to my meds, i was in a depressive slump and was on the verge of not even attending. i actually texted 3 people i know who live in the city offering my ticket to whoever could show up in time at the Warfield to claim it before the show began. one person responded and arrived in time! turns out that seeing her boosted my spirits and she talked me into seeing the show myself, which i went ahead and did.

(weird side note: i asked the ticket-takers if it would be okay to switch my ticket with someone; literally, let her walk in and i would walk out the door. they said NO, but in this instance because of the story i told them (i had a bad day, as did my friend - she attended a funeral in the morning), they'd allow it - but NOT to tell anyone else that worked there. it took her about 20 minutes to arrive... i had to wait inside the lobby and once she came to my ticket receiver friends, they would let her come in as i exited. and her name is Rita. the woman i believed i texted to come was Rita who lives on Bush street, but when the text msg sent the face that showed up on the return call was another Rita, who i have never met in person yet. a Rita from Flickr who i've been wanting to meet and i told her i was surprised that she called to my request, never having met me before. i kept looking out to the street for Flickr Rita, not my Bust Street friend Rita, but it WAS Bush Street Rita that showed up, much to my relief as she and i are very kindly friends of a soul sister/brother sort and i have not seen her in so long. anyway, she steps into the outer lobby and i'm thinking, "oh, she must be coming to the show on her own!" and i still kept looking for Flickr Rita to arrive. then an usher walks up to me and says, "That lady there says you have her ticket, well, do you?" and I snap out of my daze and say, "Yes!" and hand it to him. he scans it, the machine beeps and he lets her inside. MY ticket scanners are oblivious to me and my friend because they are flooded at the door with the latecomers. and i stand there for a moment, flabbergasted at how she pulled this off. getting inside, for free to a sold out show. That's Bush Street Rita for you though. she knows how to work this city ;) i don't think she was even interested in seeing the show. i think she just wanted to see me, and if it hadn't been for exactly HER coming, i would not have stayed.)

i cannot give a better description of the concert than what is spoken here. but i'll step back a little earlier in the day to where i had a moments precognitive deja vu where i felt compelled to buy a bouquet of flowers to bring to the show to offer to Joanna at the end of the encores. it was one of those moments that half glimmer in your minds eye where a glimpse of your potential to live out of the norm and touch the potential of your greatness as a minuscule being on earth. if i had been in an elevated state of being yesterday i could have had contact with my power to believe i could have done it. but it wasn't until this morning when i pulled out from my dreams that i saw the fruition of that deja vu, and what could have been.

the aisles were free to roam during the concert, pretty much at least. security was fairly lax and i was on the second level of the main orchestra floor. i could easily have rushed up to the stage at the final few moments of their bows with a bouquet of carefully selected unusual flowers to take to the stage. the thing is, no one else at all brought flowers for her/them. was i the only one that had the inclination to do it? when i saw Dylan in '07 tons of people brought flowers into Bill Graham Auditorium and threw them at the stage for him. So I see myself, dressed exactly as I was dressed last night, all in black with my cap on backwards and Joanna sees the only person with flowers smiling up at her, offering them to her. she bends down to take them and I tell her, "I only heard of you for the first time 3 weeks ago and I immediately fell in love with you. I had to be here tonight to see you." then i turned to Philip and tell him, "And I've been listening to you for 25 years. you are the soundtrack to my dreams and visions, maestro." and i bow to them, and walk away.

i don't know what the show did for me. it did not blow my socks off because i was in a lot of emotional pain last night. i still am today. it was great to be in the company of such great performers on a special night. one i did not think i felt dignified enough to be part of, but the wonderment of the music washed all that away. Philip is a delightful person's presence to be in. Joanna, you could tell that she was honored to be there with him as well. And when Philip mentioned Patti Smith, that cemented it for me. Of all the great people he knows and has collaborated with, that made me feel that I was in the presence of the holy of holies.

this is all the video footage i was able to sneak shooting last night before being told that i was not allowed to shoot. nice that it was of a brand new song of hers!

post memorial memories

2012-06-02T08:54:00.001-07:00

i did not attend Coach Marshall's memorial service. not in person, at least. i genuinely sense that my presence was preferred to be absent by at least one person there, Son Halliday. why he would have any sort of long running resentment against me for nigh on 40 years is something that exists only in his mind.

a little recent back-story that i can share; about 2 or 3 years ago a woman that attended Monte Vista at the time we were all there, a close friend of the Halliday girls, a woman who's name escapes me right now - found and contacted me through Facebook. she struck up a very personal conversation asking about how my life had been and told me very personal facts about her life, including the harsh reality that she had lost the life of a young daughter. after introductory niceties were over she got to the point of why she was really contacting me.

Coach Marshall had been put into a nursing home up in Sacramento and was lonely. the kids were all too busy to both, take care of him personally any more, and to visit him regularly and she wanted to know if i had time or interest in visiting him once a week, "to sit with him and play checkers, or chat". first off, i was so moved to learn that he was still alive. i had not heard a whisper about his existence since the last time i had seen him in 1978 when i dropped by the MV campus with Alan one day. it was so funny, we saw Coach and that other bitchy teacher we had for social science and they both wanted to hear what we were doing with our lives. Alan said he was getting his pilot's license and they were both very excited by that. when i said i was working on an organic farm, Coach said something like, "So you're just shoveling horse shit all day, eh?"

anyway, i told this friend of the family that i would be more than happy to hang out with coach. i explained my situation about being unemployed and my personal health conditions, that i probably could only go up there twice a month max but she said that would be perfect. she was going to contact the sisters who lived in southern California to let them know she found someone that wanted to help, and have them contact me with more details. i can't remember but i think she said she was going to contact Neil too. well, i never heard from anyone. i wrote back to the friend of the family a couple of times over the next month or two and never got a response, ever again.

during the time of the service yesterday i didn't feel anything. no negative vibes, thats for sure but just no vibes. then around 6:00pm when i was going down to the cafe i suddenly got a wave of energy into my heart that felt like it came from coach and it made me smile, like he was letting me know that he knew i was thinking about him and that it was okay that i didn't go, and that whatever the kids' hangups were, they were assholes for holding resentments. whatever, right? i'll find where his plot is in Alamo Cemetery and go hang out with him in a few weeks. you know i will :)

what i wrote for his guest book, i didn't copy it but it went something like this, or had some of these components:

"Coach Marshall is the rare kind of person you only get to meet once in a thousand lifetimes. He's like the Dalai Lama, a wise man gifted with an ability to awaken people to hidden and higher powers within themselves. Even when he was kicking your ass in the gym, or poking you with his cane, he did it with respect and love. I wouldn't have gotten as far in my life as I have if it weren't for what he taught me, but there have been far too many times when I have said "I can't do it." Maybe now that he is where he can see everything, we'll all be inspired to try a little harder. I wish I could have known him better." (paraphrase from memory)

Aside from using the expression "kicking your ass", the only other reason I can see that they would not print this was because it was from me... oh well.

God bless you old man, we'll hang, soon :)

guest book; DENIED

2012-05-29T12:35:00.002-07:00

i wrote something, probably too personal - as usual, for Coach Marshall's online guest book and the moderator, one of the Marshall kids seems to have chosen not to display it. i submitted it on Friday and i thought that maybe it was because of the long weekend. they were just not paying attention to submissions... and that may still be the case. i dunno. thing is, now it's got me in a tailspin about attending the memorial on Friday. if they dissed me over what i wrote, maybe that means they don't want to see me there, and i don't have enough power of personality on my own behalf to go there alone. i don't know anyone that will be there, except maybe Linda Silva, but i haven't heard from her in ages. i guess i could call her. anytime i've called her in the past it usually takes her about 3 weeks to respond. i'll probably still go anyway but just slip in and sit in the back row so i can leave as quickly afterwards as possible. if anyone had cared to contact me (after reading my tribute to him, i would have volunteered to read a poem, or something...

when i read this poem, thinking about him, it moved me to tears...

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

~Walt Whitman

(Sure would be nice to see Jolene though... *sigh*. Not that she'd have anything to say to me...)

i finally found her. the REAL Cemetery Girl!

2012-05-29T11:56:00.002-07:00

we were just hanging out for the afternoon and i decided to take her by my cemetery in Danville, you know, the one where I hang out all the time alone. i've never taken anyone there, as a friend, to just hang out with. (of course i had my camera with me...) but while we walked around i observed the way she acted and what interested her, and before i knew it she was acting out in manners very similar to ways that the young woman in my novel acts. the photos in this set were unplanned and unprompted.

since she is my writing partner, i'm sure she'll want to revisit the cemetery and explore the place more to help motivate me to finish writing my story. that this strong of an experience occurred and i did not rush home and start working on the novel just shows how deeply receded it has fallen into my subconscious, yet again. i believe that my meeting her, and am now focusing on only wanting to photograph her (and not any more new models) is a mechanism for me to get back on track to finishing my most important works.

view the complete photo set here.

Captain o'Captain

2012-05-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

Obituary

ANDREW MARSHALL

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"Coach Marshall" Andrew Stephen (Steve) Marshall May 16, 1930 - May 14, 2012 Resident of Danville Beloved Father and Husband, longtime resident of Danville, and retired school teacher at Monte Vista High, Steve passed away peacefully at the age of 81, with his family by his side. Steve as a young man, served in the Merchant Marines, and started out "as low as you can" working his way up to a licensed Marine Engineer, from 1946-1951. When he came home from the sea he worked night jobs, so he could go to college to earn multiple degrees, a BA from Pomona College in 1964 and an MA from Claremont Graduate School in 1965. He went on to become a beloved teacher and coach at Monte Vista High School for 35 years. At the young age of 40, Steve became paralyzed from the waist down. When they told him he would never walk again, he simply told them that they were wrong. Through the years with his positive "can do" attitude he began the fight of his life to always keep his upper body strength so that he could support himself and walk, as Steve would say "no gain without pain". Steve never missed a beat and never complained, he continued to walk with crutches everyday at school and teach his students. Steve, with his marvelous strength, was able to keep walking into his mid 70's. Prior to his 1995 retirement from the San Ramon School District, Steve taught World History, Government, US History, Economics and German at Monte Vista High. Steve was the solo Academic Decathlon Coach, as well as coaching gymnastics, wrestling, cross country, Baseball & football. Steve was recognized, from Brigham Young University in 1986 as the "Inspirational High School Teacher of the Year", and the "Teacher of the Year for the East Bay Council for Social Studies. Steve was an avid sportsman and sports enthusiast, keeping up with all the High School, College and Pro Football rankings and teams. He was a life-longUCLA fan, a wonderful cook, loved to garden and especially loved his trips to Tahoe with his beloved wife Ann to keep fresh on the game of Craps. Steve converted to Catholicism in 1971, and was baptized and married at St. Isidore Church. He was a longtime member at the Good Shepherd Church, was a Knight of Columbus and taught Bible Studies. He took great comfort in reciting the Rosary and reading the Bible. Steve was preceded in death by his beloved wife of 38 years Ann Marshall, his parents Andrew Ceil Marshall & Margaret Scott Marshall. He is survived by his 7 children, daughter Linda (Bob) Newton, son, Scott (Nancy) Marshall, daughter, Pat Thorp, son, Neil (Becky) Halliday, daughter, Marianne (Jeff) Allgeier, daughter, Kathy Halliday, son, Michael (Kathy) Halliday; 15 Grandchildren and 8 Great Grandchildren, as well as his siblings Fred Marshall, and Margaret "Gretchen" Marshall. He acquired many longtime dear friends along the way including Don Harrison, his best friend for 64 years and of course his "poker guys" This quote regarding Steve from Brigham Young University Alumni sums up what many thought of him "Mr. Marshall was a powerful influence for good in the lives of his students, they will not soon forget him or the lessons he taught them." A celebration of Steve's life will be held on Friday June 1, 2012 at 11:00am at St. Isidore Catholic Church in Danville, California. Memorials may be made in Steve's memory to St. Isidore Catholic Church, 440 La Gonda Way, Danville, 94526. Visit www.legacy.com to sign Andrew Marshall's guestbook.

Published in Contra Costa Times on May 19, 2012

2012-05-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

nous avons ce test, nous faisons les uns aux autres en ce moment, une épreuve de force si vous voulez. et je ne sais pas pourquoi nous le faisons ou qui est le gagnant sera. Je lui demande de prendre des photos d'elle-même porter des articles que j'ai acheté pour elle. parfois elle le fait tout de suite, sans plaintes et d'autres fois, elle semble non plus oublier, ou tout simplement refuse plaine, parce qu'elle «peut». et j'ai l'impression d'avoir le droit d'être insistante qu'elle fais ce que je demande, si je continue à demander jusqu'à ce qu'elle se conforme. mais ensuite elle se plaint que je suis "guilting son" et ce n'est pas drôle, mais j'ai toujours la louer pour sa beauté ... c'est un jeu étrange. Je lui dis que je vais renoncer à demander. si elle ne me donne pas une photo après une demande, je ne veux plus poser une deuxième fois et qu'elle suffit de savoir que si je ne demande pas à nouveau, ce n'est pas parce que j'ai perdu tout intérêt, mais c'est parce que j'ai réglé avec avoir été déçu par elle. et les gens, je ne parle pas de sa modélisation elle-même pour moi en lingerie sexy ou en prenant des poses provocantes d'aucune sorte. nous ne sommes pas ce genre d'amis. Je viens de parler articles d'habillement jolies qu'elle pouvait porter en public avec moi, que nous ramassons dans les magasins d'aubaines ensemble ... eh bien, ces't La Vie.

tornadic tuesday

2012-05-22T11:23:00.001-07:00

i’m glad she wrote what she’s thinking in such/much clearer terms on her journal, but this is so crazy that we talk to each other through so many layers of subterfuge; via emails, text msgs, innuendos, and so few direct real time conversations... it’s the modern age where we have the quickest means of communication available to us in the history of the world, but the meanings of our hearts and minds are only becoming more confused because it’s so multi-leveled and tiered. why are we playing these games?

here i am hyperbolizing and hypothesizing for the sake of hearing my own voice, but i’m not saying anything. i just want to hear her voice. even if there are gaps of silence while we struggle to find the courage to say what it is we really are feeling. the emotion in our voices when we are weak and struggling to bear the truth is what is real about life. words on a screen are flat and bloodless.

Cam as Joan

2012-05-20T15:35:00.001-07:00

This is a video made from photographs I shot of Cam Damage, back in February. This is almost exactly the vision I had in mind, when I proposed this portion of our shoot to her. To embody the personality of a pagan, roughshod Joan of Arc, a young woman that might have battled with internal demons & angels before she battled with men in the fields and trenches of France. We did the shoot very early in the morning, it was quite chilly, and yes, she is wearing very little clothing. I only posted this video yesterday. Sometimes it takes awhile for an idea to coalesce for me.

my gal, Scarlett

2012-05-20T12:08:00.003-07:00

Temple Tattoo, Oakland - April 24, 2012

This is Scarlett. We've known each other since last August. She's a young woman that lives nearby and I am extremely fond of her. If you are a long time reader of this blog, you'll recall that I've yearned for companionship with someone like this for quite awhile. There have been a couple of touch and go attempts with other local girls (Monica, Rachel, and Kacey, if you recall the stories) and other online friendships but none of them took root like this one has started to.

My friendship with Scarlett is strictly platonic, professional, and ethereal. We have explored through discussions the depths of intimacy we are both safe and comfortable with so that we can keep our friendship intact and strong and have established parameters for behavior when we are out together. There are no imaginations going on of ever escalating our relationship to anything more intimate. Professionally we are very strongly affiliated with interests in writing, music and photography. We first met on a photo assignment, then later discovered that we both had fervent desires to become published authors. We have been reading each other's writings and writing together since November. In the realm of photography, well, she could be the one model that I'll give up working with any other model for, if she'll let me. Musically, this is her most unique calling and she is on her way to developing a professional career as a singer/songwriter and I want to help her find her way as well as I can. When I say that our friendship is ethereal I refer to manners in which we have a strong sense of awareness of each other's spirits. Maybe esoteric is another term that could be inserted there.

We are both bipolar, sufferers of bipolar disorder, and have witnessed each other go through cycles of mania and depression, and have been close by to offer comfort and assistance as requested. This is not to say that our friendship has been completely "kittens and cookies". It has not. We've been through some extremely rough waters where I thought she hated me and that I'd never hear from her again... but I persisted in waiting out her storms, patiently because I knew from the imprint her character, her soul made on me that she was someone unlike anyone I had met, maybe ever, and that I if I did not finally learn how to be careful with the people I meet and learn how to fully respect the chances I have when given an opportunity to be invited into someone's trust, I may damn well end up dying completely alone, hated, and forgotten.

This girl is so special to me. I don't ever want to do anything that would cause her grief or disappoint her, in myself or in the potential of humankind to stand up and do things right.

Thank you Scarlett, for your graces <3

Sideboard Cafe, Danville (our regular hangout)

no one will understand this. but her.

2012-05-19T22:42:00.001-07:00

i’m trying to be mean. i’m trying to be obstinate. i’m trying to be opposite things of my nature, for a change, thinking with rotten logic that if maybe i act the right bastard and be a “bad boy”, maybe she’ll come running to me the way i always run to her, because she’s my maiden in distress and my princess... and my nature is to always want to serve and please her. and i’m further sickened with myself than i was yesterday when it was just realizations about how false and conniving my tactics at achieving her friendship were.

when i cast myself off into my dungeon of solitude yesterday, so that i could try this tactic of illogically displaying my worthlessness, but furthermore showing her that she has all she needs in the other people of her life... that i am nothing but a stone around her neck that will drag her to the bottom of the sea. she has a man that gives her emotional comfort and satisfies her sexual needs. she has reacquired the attention of her dream-soul mate. she has a man that she can play flirtatious games with (for whatever purpose that is important to her). she has gotten on path with her dream career and has enough support from her mother, boyfriend, and best friend to progress towards that. and i broke in with a selfish agenda, full of selfish demands and desires, wanting her to do things for me in exchange for things i would do for her. but she is too busy with all of the other people in her life, plus she is not interested in doing the things i want and need her to do for me, not with any desire to do them to please me.

so it comes down to failure on many levels. the way i forced my way into her life was disingenuous. the secretive ways that i hoped she’d repay my favors... you can’t make someone have feelings that they just do not, or cannot have. and if you say that you’ll wait, you are only fooling yourself. (and by “feelings” i’m not talking about love or anything like that. i’m just talking about having a genuine desire of wanting to make me happy in return for how she says i’ve supposedly made her happy, by wanting to model for me. i want her to call me up and say, “i’m feeling so pretty today, oh won’t you come and take pictures of me today? please?!!”) i thought with all the heartfelt flattery i’ve given her that she’d understand how much i treasure the spirit she transmits to me when she prims and plays before me when i create art of her... how it takes me to another world, a place in spirit where i float off the earth... and it does go deeper and higher than this. they are not just images frozen in time. they are energy portals that connect me to her. i do believe we are soul mates of a peculiar nature, that we have known each other in other times... and that we have power together here, now... seeing her, being near her... it empowers me.

other models give me temporary experiences of this but this one, this special one has given me moments of divine grace when she has bared her soul in the light before me and it makes my moments of capturing her image similar to ecstatic religious experiences. i’ve hungered for what seems like an aeon now to have just one subject that i can obsess completely over, to see as if there were no other woman in the world... and this one, this petite blue eyed brunette that whispers poetry to me when she smiles at me is the closest i’ve ever come to enchanting... but she doesn’t understand this hunger, this passion, this all consuming flame of desire inside this artist’s fiery soul to be surrounded and blinded by nothing in the world but the vision of just her.

and i feel dead because i’ve had to tell her all the truths now of what i’ve done to get her to let me come close to her. it hasn’t all been a lie. i DO like her as a person, extremely much. i like her as a person extremely much much much more than anyone i’ve been given the divine pleasure of getting to know this closely in over a decade. in the history of my life there are components of our friendship that make her one of the most unique and happiness fulfilling people i’ve ever had a chance with.

but i feel that right now, i am doing what i always always always do............. i admit that i’m a fuckup and that i’m not worthy of her/their time or devotion or friendship... and i say if it weren’t for the things i can do for you, you wouldn’t keep me around, would you. i can’t stand being your friend if i can’t tell you the truths of what i think and believe and feel. i’m sorry. i’d rather walk away now and forget everything than ever cause you a moments more sadness because i expect too much or demand too much from you, or ask you to do things that you do not want to do, or guilt you... i can’t stand making anyone uncomfortable. this is why i loner the world.

do you understand? you want me to go now, yes. right? i know. everyone else always ever did. i never gave anyone this much of a confession bef9rel

everything is sooo fucking black again now. it feel slike home.. like hell

rants, tangents,,,,, my brain has a whole in it. so does my heart... i just want to walk the earth until my feet bleed and i can finish this long day-life. i’m so tired of being alone and misunderstood.

this is not my miserable life. how did i get here?

2012-05-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

i made a decision a few days ago to self regulate my medications. my pdoc failed to cooperate with me and allow me to try out using Straterra to see if it would assist me achieve power of concentration to achieve goals. Simple goals of completing academic style tasks, like reading books, paying attention through a film from beginning to end, coming up with ideas for writing projects and being able to sit down and write out an outline without drifting off into daydreams after just 10 minutes and then not being able to remember at all what my original ideas were. Simple kinds of tasks that a normal majority of human beings on this planet are able to do. Not all humans are perfect and not all can do these things at all times, but I used to be able to do them much more aptly than I have been able to over the past 4-6 months. Yes, even just 8 months ago I was in much better mental dexterous condition than I am now. Well, better than I was up until a couple of days ago. Before I wrestled control of my will power from my pdoc.

That's what it seems to come down to in the end. Who is in charge of what I allow happen to myself. That's the rule for all of us, isn't it? I didn't make a drastic change to my meds. I didn't stop taking all of them. I just cut back on one tablet of a two tablet a day dosage of Wellbutrin. "Why would he want to cut back on his antidepressant? Aren't those supposed to make you feel happier?", someone may ask. So say the pdocs, but when these things are in your blood you get an intrinsic sense of what they are really doing to you. I could tell that it is the thing that pushed me over the edge into over-mellowness, which effectively was the cooling off of my mental acuity. I don't want to be floating on a lake of placidity. I need some ripples and rough currents. and by god, i've gotten them back already.

I have an extremely good friend in my life right now. Someone that i can be extremely frank with but who I also admire beyond reproach. Last night we were conversing and I started to have a melt down about how i felt like my whole reason of understanding her desire for being friends with me were built upon false pretenses, that i was not a person worthy of her attentions or affections and that i was a liar and only wanted things from her to please myself. and that if she did not want to be hurt or disappointed by me in the future that it would be better if she just accept my admissions of disrepute and let me walk away. well, she let her true genuineness shine through and convinced me that her opinions of me were based on stronger and more pure interpretations of what she saw as valid and legitimate character strengths. i'm still in doubt and am going to spend the weekend delving into hellish self analysis and abusive accusations to punish myself but also...

the new day has finally come...

2012-05-09T18:32:00.002-07:00

well, i did it! i let go of my angst and what i yearned for came to me. (it wasn't as easy as that sounds, but now that i am there, here, it feels like all the years of moaning and groaning i went through were birth pangs or death growls in comparison to the cloud of bliss i have ascended to am floating on now).

"what the hell is he talking about?", are you screaming? I FOUND MY PERFECT FRIEND.

and i've reopened my blog to the public. all in the same 24 hour period. two major manifestations in one day. i'm overjoyed by the one, but i'm a little out of practice about the other and i'm stumbling to find my old blogger voice. i've been blogging in private since i left here back in January and there i don't give a dang about syntax or spelling or telling a good story... so i have to get my mojo back a bit here... bear with me.

the story of my new friendship is worth telling, and worth listening to. and it's going to take me time to bring it all to you. so much has happened all ready and so much more will happen, i am sure of it. right now i just want to talk about the perfect day we had yesterday.

we spent 10 hours together. side by side, all 10 hours. never separate for more than 3 minutes when either of us needed to go to the restroom. there was one exception. i got a phone call from my mom and i had to go outside to be able to hear her. after about 5 minutes i got a text message from my friend who waited inside for me. she was asking, "where'd ya go?" and a minute later she came out the door to find me. there were other underlying reasons for that but still they were the darned cutest acts of affection i've experienced in memorable history.

and now your getting bored, saying "wtf is he bragging about. that's stupid." if you have read this blog. if you know me. at all. trust me. yesterday was better than winning the lottery. to try to put it into words here, or if anybody called me and said, "what did you do yesterday?" words would diminish the radiant splendor of how perfect the whole day went. the really great thing is that i know that there are going to be many more days like this. she and i have opened our hearts to each other in such an amazing manner of acceptance and agreement that it's like divine grace has encircled us, or something wild like that because we have become effortless. we can just be with each other now. i really cannot remember ever having this level of comfort and satisfaction in a friendship with anyone before.

there is no longer any need to impress, or desire, or plead, or compete... i am one unique thing in the world to her that she has desired with her deepest heart to have, and she has called me to herself. equally, she is what i have been aching and starving to have, direly over the past decade at least, but i suspect that as we get to know each other even more i may discover that she is someone even more familiar to me. an old soul friend, perhaps.

a lot of what is magical about our union is the struggle we have come through to achieve trust and understanding with each other. we met 10 months ago and have gone through various stages of flirtations in our endeavors to get to know each other. checking each other out, finding out how safe we felt with sharing our innermost secrets and weaknesses. and it's all been trust building activities. we've written together. yes, we share passions for writing... she is a much better writer than i am. she finishes what she starts and writes very creative and interesting stories. she's written a novella since i've known here and is in the middle of another quite large novel right now.

we have been of a good type of friendship while we've been moving towards where we are now, don't get me wrong. we've never wronged each other. it's just been getting to this point where we feel safe with each other. that goes deep and i don't want to talk about it more yet... not sure if i will here or not... i just want to say that i'm experiencing a peace that i have not felt in a very long time. my burning loneliness has ceased suffocating me because i feel like she is with me all the time... now i'm gushing. okay, stopping.

for the want of a friend, my heart breaketh, yet again...

2012-01-09T18:36:00.000-08:00

okay, this is going to be a rant. i know it already and i am so glad i have this privacy to say what i want to say with no fear of anyone reading this. i don't want anyone to know how i am feeling or what i am thinking. even though nothing is entirely private. it's all illusions.

i've played out a pattern of behavior in my life that i now recognize for what it is. that doesn't make sense, but give me a chance. there is something i keep doing, over and over, and each time i do it i end up not getting what i want. the thing that i want must either be unattainable, or ill thought, or i go about seeking/pursuing it badly, or i have really bad luck with what it is that i end up attracting to myself.

all i want is someone to hang out with. someone to do fun and innocent things with. go to bookstores with. go to cafes with. go to movies with. go on drives to explore places with. the things i do by myself, i just want someone else to hang out with to do these things with. i'm not looking for a life partner. but i am looking for a steady friend. i do want to spend time with someone i can get better acquainted with over time. i want to be friends with someone that i can call in the middle of the week and suggest an afternoon hanging out together, and they'd say "yes".

i can't find someone like this though. not even something as simple as a companion regularly available for afternoon teas. i'd like more, sure. i've sought more, sure. but in the failure to attain, or acquire the larger friendships, companionship, i've narrowed down my vision. over the past 7 years i have had two strong friendships with young women online that i felt a strong enough connection with that i envisioned the possibility of being able to engage in more complex friendships, companionships with. okay, i'll say it, actually to the point of being able and desiring to live with these women. and in our conversations the topic was explored. in both cases, it was agreed that there was enough common interest in lifestyles and behaviorisms that we'd experience an improvement in our lives by living together.

there were circumstances in both friendships that prevented us from ever being able to create lives together and eventually the friendships fell into states of abandonment. i placed a lot of hope for the fulfillment of my soul's happiness on the expectation of being able to have one of these women enter my life and give me something, someone to devote my energies to, and to also be loved by. one of the friendships developed over a period of nearly 4 years, and i still have contact with this person, but all the intensity and openness of our original passion as friends has died out. strange, but now she is ready to move to California. timing really is critical in life. you build something up with someone and there is the period of blossoming when energies are passing back and forth, mingling between two entities and there is a sense of connection that makes your minds and heart work as one. i had that with this friend for a long time. it just was not the right time then... and now that has all died out after years of separation and searching elsewhere for companionship. momentum... it's a real force. and it takes a lot of concentration to build up. we had it. but then we lost our grip, lost our focus, lost our chances...

she came from a broken home too. i don't know how much credit to give that for saying it's to blame for her not being able to better help make things happen, but this is part of where the pattern becomes exposed. the second friend, just last year came from a broken home too. bad father figure in her life. they both had bad fathers. and now i'm attracted to someone else with a bad father. are these young women finding me? seeing something in me that they miss? need? i was not a great father, despite the fact that i raised a child that is a productive member in society. he has his scars, and i helped cause them but i never intentionally harmed my son. my damage to him was based on my inability to care properly for myself. and that is also to blame on the failure of my ability to maintain a healthy relationship with my son's mother. that all goes back to my problems with addiction... which leads back to me not having a healthy father/son relationship in my life... damn.

i don't understand all of the complexities of the issues in the current friend's life to make a fair judgement, partly because she is unable to communicate. to simply sit and talk about her issues, she cannot do it. i think part of the problem for me is that having attractions to young women, there is a time balance matter in play. the young, predominately think that they have the rest of their lives ahead of them to do things. that there will always be time later. they have an optimistic outlook for there being an open-ended flow of time available to themselves to do things. i on the other hand have crossed over a line where i now feel like time is running out. i think it started quite awhile ago when my body hurt more of the time than it felt good. it also started to seem that there is less time when it became more evident to me that there are certain things that i just cannot make happen in my life. i cannot attract the opposite sex anymore. last girlfriend? 1998. seriously folks, that means something. and there is the forever present threat that "life is short". death can strike at any moment. you've got to live while the living is good.

one good thing about this new attraction is that i found someone local. not someone that i have to get to move across the country to get to come visit me. but that's besides the point. nothing more is going to happen between this one and i. i haven't got the strength of spirit or heart to be stretched this far apart just to get someone to come out and have coffee. i've offered to do as many things as i can to help her, to make things easier for her, to trust me as someone new she can talk to but she won't... my heart, i have to take care of it. too many breaks before that even the slightest threat of calamity scares me to death. if i were being met along the way, it would be different. but she's no where to be seen.

more rewriting ideas...

2012-01-03T19:22:00.000-08:00

i printed off a copy of my completed nanowrimo from 2010 so that i can read through it and start to make notes and scratch outs and changes. on reading the very first page i see a great thing. that the idea i had in the very beginning, of writing the story about a man that is dying and trying to write a testimony of what has brought about his demise - well, it looks like in the span of two nanowrimos i actually did it! i did not lose the thread that i imagined from the beginning. there may be some structural elements that need adjusting. for one thing, the first nano i did this thing with counting down the days 30-1 until the end of the month as chapter headings. and i did not do that for the second nanowrimo. so that has either got to change by dropping the countdown from the first nano or there must be someway to sprout from the end of the first one into the second one and make it work.

anyway, i'm trying to figure out how to start the process of going through the pages (and paragraphs and sentences) of the drafts and examine them closely for the process of the rewriting. i just had a little bit of a breakthrough idea that i can hold the paper in my lap, read it, make notes on it, but then go right to the computer and start to type it all out, anew. this will be a time consuming process but it will get it done. and not every single page, paragraph, sentence needs to be rewritten... there is good writing that i achieved.

i also need a way to stand back from the close scrutiny and look down upon the story's overall structure to see how it stands and flows. this may take more geographical room than just having the pages on my lap and my computer next to me. i may have to use large pieces of drawing paper to map things out... which will be fun. i think i should start to set up some sort of calendar to gauge my work flow to otherwise it'll just fall apart into another blur of wishful thinking and nothing getting done. more on that soon...

november ended, now it's time to rewrite...

2012-01-02T19:40:00.000-08:00

i had a feeling all the month of November that this time i wanted to really finish this novel, finish it for good. not wait till whenever to eventually get to it. and i think i'm closer to living up to this feeling than i thought possible. it's the beginning of January and my ambitions are shifting. i still love the photography. need to do the photography. but my ambition for it to be something that will make me money, or save me is dying out. well, i still think it is something that can save me because i still get so much joy from the creation of the imagery, but i do not have professional ambitions or skills that will take me out of my obscurity. and i have, i hope, genuinely started to move into a path of dissolution of those desires. by not socializing with photographers anymore, and by not pushing my work out there to be seen, its coming down to just being something i do for myself.

i have a very strange friendship right now. i'm friends with a person that is so (seemingly) narcissistic that she really does not see beyond the edges of her own world. i get no feedback from her about "me" - "how narcissistic is that?", one may ask... but it's strange because i do get emotional energy from her that feeds me. i just can't rely on her for what i'd call normal friendship feedback. can't tell her things and expect understanding in conversation, and certainly cannot rely on her as someone i'd turn to in time of need. she is also extremely private. she fascinates me though. i just don't know why i feel so compelled to engage with her.

one thing about her is that her beauty mystifies me. she has let me photograph her several times and i am drawn into a web of seduction by being entranced by her looks. this is a new thing, to get so close to a model. i have several models that i've photographed more than one time, and in the course of doing so we have more conversations. but those conversations do not always lead to a deeper personal connection or understanding. i really wanted that to happen with Presh but she never had any opening in her defenses to let me get beyond a certain level in knowing her. and now it's been over 6 months since i've even heard a peep from her.

i just have to be careful of the dependencies i develop with these girls. and yes, there are others. one other in particular right now, but she's different. i don't really want to over talk about them right now. the important thing is that they are becoming friends that will actually spend time with me. they've met me in coffee shops, they've gone out driving with me, we've done more than one photo shoot together and i feel that our work together is getting better. they are deep, complex young women though and neither of them are available for me to develop close, bf/gf relationships with. which, really is fine. i don't have the emotional or financial capacity for that. i am just glad that i have the two of them for the interactions i am having with them.

___

i came into this blog entry to write about my new ideas for what i want to do this month. i want to start to work on rewriting the draft of my novel that i wrote in November. this also means that i have to take into consideration the larger task of rewriting the draft that i wrote in November of 2010 because it is part of what i wrote two months ago. this feels good that i am here now, writing this, saying this, thinking this, and actually writing this because it is partly what i promised myself i would do. and following through on that seems really important.

another thing is on the drawing board for this month and that is a class at dvc. an art class. a class i feel a deep conviction about taking because of where i know it can lead me with my creative endeavors. i am fearful of the energy required for the commitment though. it's not that hard of a class schedule, only two days a week in the afternoons, but it is a definite sway away from my old routine of doing just the photography. well, plus the writing schedule... it's a lot of things. and the new thing of learning to draw and paint. it's really starting to stretch my mind into new directions and it's going to bring on a lot of frustration. i'm likely to feel like tossing the whole thing after the first week. or after the first class meeting. but maybe i'll be awakened with a brilliant sense of discovery and self awareness, and potentiality and the sleeping dragon inside of me that wants to draw will be rise and find it's way to the surface where it can breath and find new things to do.

the other thing that is really important about taking this class and sticking it out is BEING at the college. being around people. not only will i find new people to photograph, but i may actually make some new friends. and maybe even find, NO, don't say it. don't even think it. don't even consider the possibility...