may i just say that it was so good to talk to you tonight. yes, you! it'd been too long.
may i also just say that i have felt so much better since yesterday. since ridding myself of so many nostalgic pieces of clothing. and i cannot wait to bleach the one piece that i kept into oblivion?
do you do that? make really silly symbolic statements that make total sense in your brain but when you try to put them into words they sound quite stupid (plus, bonus: hopefully when bleached into oblivion this particular tee will start to tear and maybe even resemble those holey balmain's that go for $1000+.. we'll see.)?
i am starting a new job tomorrow, too. i love that i'm starting over. a lot of people don't take a second chance or don't get one at all. and it's not like i completely screwed up the life that i had to begin with, i just couldn't live it anymore. well. more like i couldn't stand to. i could have, just not happily or healthfully. and i haven't been taking full advantage of it yet and i keep saying i'm going to.. but i've been waiting on a stable income, really. i'd love to act like money doesn't matter but we all know that money matters a lot. i don't need lots of excess money to be happy (although, honestly, who would mind some?), but i do need a home and stability to be happy and that requires me to pay rent. so.. yknow. income i must have. so between cutting him out of my life, talking to you today (i must admit, i was worried you'd forgotten about me.. and it was saddening. very saddening.) and starting work tomorrow things are looking up. we'll have to see about this job and if it really is as good as they make it out to be, because, well.. are they ever really?
i guess those were all stresses that have really been weighing on me lately.. it's nice to have them lifted. it's nice to remember that things change. even though i take such comfort in stability, it's nice to recognize that there's a certain stability to change; that is that things will always change, they'll never stay the same forever. when things are bad, they'll (hopefully) get better and usually when things are good, sometimes they fall. and with those pitfalls, comes good again. and you know what they say, 'without the sweet, you can't appreciate the sour.'

let's talk.
let's talk in particular, about losing things.
losing people, particularly.
i've lost two of the people closest to me recently. one in death, one in life.
when does my heart stop hurting? when do i not think of these people every day? it's like i think of them more now that they're gone.
one, i am better off without.
one, the world is a worse place without.
these obviously are both men, and i was hurt by both. and if the circumstances were reversed and one weren't dead and the other were and i had lost the other and.. i've confused myself, but you get what i mean. anyway, if the circumstances were reversed, my heart would be way worse off. but they're not, so i take what i'm given and i deal with it accordingly.
i wish he were still alive and i wish the other didn't hurt. but between you and me, i don't know if he does like he says he does. but what i do know concerning him, is that for my life to move on happily i must break contact with him. i wish it had not gone like it had, i wish i had not said some of the things i did. there was a nice, civil way to initiate radio silence and i did not use it. after years of built up and pent up resentment and hostility it's hard to be civil when i'm angry with him.
i wonder if that's what marraige is like? or any relationship for that matter? i wonder if that means we had a completely unhealthy relationship for all these years? (that's a joke, by the way. we had a ridiculously unhealthy relationship. duh.)
however, it is one that i have learned more from than any other. and i will always love him and have gracious feelings towards him. i just can never fall back to the person that i was when i was with him.
i hope he never reads this, and i don't think he will. and i don't want this to be misconstrued as... well. to quote cursive: 'the lament of pretty baby.'
i just want it to not hurt when these people cross my mind or not even cross my mind at all.

i leave you with some of 'the lament of pretty baby'

I don't want to be seen as a pretty thing
'Cause it's the pretty things that we're always breaking...


(And now she whispers into the mirror:) I'm broken.


Oh doctor, doctor, can you fix me, can you fix me?


Oh Pretty Baby, you're so naive -- but it comes off so cute
We don't want to fix you
We love you just the way you are
The butterfly pinned to the page
The nightingale locked in the cage -- won't you sing for me?
Sing for me..
Yeah, we love you just the way you are
Crushed 'neath fashion magazines
Trampled by circus pony dreams -- won't you kiss me?
Won't you kiss me? 

Phil Lesh wrote in his autobiography, Searching for the Sound,

"The fervent belief we shared then, and that perseveres today, is that the energy liberated by this combination of music and ecstatic dancing is somehow making the world better, or at least holding the line against the depredations of entropy and ignorance."

and even completely out of context, it holds such truth that i can't help but let it jump off the page and into my soul. because really, for me, there is nothing better than that state of mind and being where you don't care who's around, how crazy you look, who you're smashing into because everyone around you doesn't matter. only your spirit matters, and your body and mind letting go off all the things that are holding that spirit hostage.
i used to not dance. i used to go to shows and not dance. how silly, looking back. i remember my first widespread panic show and watching all these crazy hippies around me moving more than dancing i thought, because i was under the assumption that dancing went to a tune, a beat that was occuring from the outside world. what i didn't realize then, was that that idea is so unfulfilling and confining that it makes me shudder like taking a shot of whiskey.
which is probably why i look like a crazy person when i dance. but really, who the f#@% cares?

i'm craving a new tattoo. which can only mean i'm restless.
if i could just ride it out like a bad acid trip until tomorrow, where charleston lies ahead and cursive lies before me... oh, my darlings of cursive, how i long to see and hear thee. charleston, you too, but that should go without saying. i'm very much looking forward to perusing the city, brimming with history of it's own and of my childhood. i love the south, oh so very much.
perhaps the streets will be littered with little trinkets, cast off by others, to you maybe known as trash, to me known as diamonds in the rough, just waiting to be transformed into something lovely to worn by whomever's spirit it speaks to. or their eye, depending upon the person. my things will be here next week, which means the creative energy built up inside of me by this restlessness of which i speak will be able to spring forth like a fountain. and i, for one, cannot wait. my wallet, can, sadly.
if only bartering were the way of the world, and soon enough, i fear it will be.

for the past few days i've been in a restless funk. the weather's been lovely for the past two days, before that it was raining and i seemed to love that, which is so unlike me. but i'd sit out of my 'porch' and listen to the rain, watch it fall and then splash through the puddles. yesterday i stayed inside all day and watched LA Ink for what seems like forever.
but today, my family arrives and i woke up to a most reassuring email, and while i hope it wasn't just the alcohol talking it made me want to go buy shoes! because that's what i do, apparently. though, Kat Von D and her giant cork platforms didn't help that, either.
i finally got a little bit of creative energy out with the necklace that i posted on Alice D., which i plan to wear to a fancy schmancy dinner tonight with my family for the newest addition's birthday.. there really is nothing like getting glam-ed out and girly-ed up to make a lady feel better. but i also get 'coco before chanel' in the mail today, and my oh my, what a glorious email it was. 97% is way better than 1.7% and seeing eye to eye, or in this case, screen to screen, really makes a difference no matter how hard complete honesty may seem.
when i type this, sometimes i feel like rev run in a bubble bath with a blackberry and that makes me laugh out loud. i must seem like a crazy person sometimes. most times.

it's always interesting to see where life takes you, isn't it? with posting the links to my old blogs, i started to reread (and laugh and laugh at) them and realize how much one learns by growing up. i have a birthday coming up and i'm dreading the number going up (and the grey hair multiplying and the wrinkles getting deeper and...), but i'm looking forward to growing up, even though i moan and groan about it all the time. it's really nice to gain the self assurance and experience that comes with every single day we live, even if it's the most boring day evah.
in particular, i've been thinking about my experiences with love and romance and how much i learn and take away from every single romantic interaction. after so many have gone so awry and so many hearts broken, it's nice to be able to find consolation in the fact that with all of those unmet expectations and mistakes comes reflection upon those lapses in judgement and miscalculations and hopefully, one day you'll be able to put those lessons to good use and maybe not completely foul up something that comes along that you really want to work.
i had a lover once in high school (and yes, i know you don't call them lovers in high school, leland) that i considered, and i guess still do, my first love. i didn't at the time realize that it was the awful, unrequited kind. i thought we were in love and would grow up and get married and the whole nine. what a laugh this has turned out to be. i would have done anything for that boy, just to make him feel for me as i did for him. turns out, what did the trick was me letting go of him. silly boys, she sighs...
then i had another lover, who was a struggling addict and with him, i had to clean up my act for fear that his way worse act would only worsen. i was right of course; for the first few months we lived in a haze of narcotics and contentment but after meeting the monster inside him a few times.. well, OH HELL NO. but he said he loved me, and we were great friends and so we stayed together, he got clean we started to work together & live together but i didn't trust him ever. not to go out, not to stay in; i felt i had to keep an eye on him all the damn time and that's just no fun. we split, he says it's because i was still in love with the former, i say it was because he was a lying snake that didn't know the meaning of respect. both of which are untrue, as we're both also two of the most stubborn people we know.
there was another in between those two that was one of my best friends before we started dating, and things were good there; we had the same friends, same interests (except his music; i'll never be into the screaming and he'll never hear anything other the amazing guitar riffs), but he up and moved to chicago with a few hours notice.
it's funny, through all of those (and the ones i didn't mention), the one i mentioned in the last post, the one across the country, i always wanted him. it was never the right time when we lived in the same city because we didn't know that each other wanted the other, and then once we did know i was 'in love' and he was moving states away. we kept in touch off and on, through crazy girlfriends and visits to the school counselor and mixtapes.. jump to a few months-ish ago, i get an email from him. it'd been a while but i was so glad to hear from him, just so glad to hear he was well and that he still thought of me from time to time. turns out, i'd been in one of his dreams.. coincidentally, we were moving to completely opposite sides of the country on the same day. he came back to visit me and... fastforward to right now, i'm sitting here in the southeast, he's in the northwest and i want nothing more than to be with him. and i really really really want nothing more than to mess it up! we both have had to learn hard lessons through our failed relationships.. so i ask you this, dear readers, how the FUCK do you make a relationship work? how do i make him make up his mind this instant to come to me, to realize that life is too short not to? without pressuring him, of course. without bugging the shit out of him and making him loathe the sound of my voice asking him to uproot his new beginnings and start a new adventure with me? how unfair of me?! i know, i know.. it's terrible of me to even ask such a thing of him. it's so selfish and i kind of loathe the sound of these keys and the meaning of these words i type. but i do, i just want him. as my own, finally.
i dated a guy, "dated" used very lightly, every once in a while for the past couple of years, we'll say i knew this guy. anyway. i knew this guy for the past couple of years who had built the most elaborate of defenses around his heart, mind, soul, his very being. it was unreal the labyrinth that this guy was. it became almost a game to me to try to get through these defenses, which was fine with him as he was just gonna disappear anyway and he knew that. what i didn't know, until the last few months of his life was why. and that's because he was dying. no really, he was. for years he came up with these seemingly outlandish excuses that i never believed so i talked to his friends when i'd see them and slyly attempt to pry validation, and they always delivered. oh how it bugged me.. but never ever did i consider that he was dying and that's why he ran every time anyone got near his intricately built walls. i'd like to say i was beside him until the day he died, but i can't. he disappeared again after he confided in me about his condition and he was an epic asshole every time i attempted to speak to him to get my things back or to just see how he was, which i won't lie, it was usually to get my things back. and then, one day a couple of months ago, he died. i've known people that have died before, and yeah, i think of my grandfather all the time but never has someone's passing effected me so tremendously. he was 26 years old when he died and he'd been expecting to die everyday for the past 15 years or so. and he never let anyone love him. he said he'd only told seven people besides his family about his condition, something that of course was later validated by a mutual friend.  he didn't want to be treated differently, and i understand that. what i don't understand is his not living every day of his life to the fullest that it could have been just because he didn't want to hurt the people around him. he didn't want to people to hurt when he inevitably left this life, so he pushed them away and hurt them while he was still here. with his death came the understanding of a theory that we've all heard time and again, that "live every day like it were your last" one. know that one? well.. it's taken on a new meaning to me. and i'm still working on it, as i'm not living every day like it was my last, i'll be honest. lately i'm a lazy slug. but that's not the point.
so what is the point, you ask? my point, at least i think, is this: i just want him. i've wanted him for upwards of 12 years.
i have this rule, that i put into action my senior year in high school when i found the perfect pair of slouchy brown boots and didn't get them after visiting them multiple times, that if i'm still thinking about an item after a predetermined amount of time that i go back and purchase it.
now, i know that this man and our relationship is not the perfect pair of slouchy brown boots with a round toe and the perfect shade of buttery soft chocolate leather (half off, too). it's way unspeakably beyond better than that, if you can imagine.
it's think about him all the time, still taste his kiss on my lips, can't wait to find out what the next words out his mouth are gonna be or hear his laugh or find out something new about his wacky grandparents. it's a love story, baby, just say yes...
see? it's so bad it makes me sing taylor swift. and shhh, don't tell, but i even kind of like it.
finding the perfect brown boots again would be easier than this. but i'd give up all of my lovely shoes and be barefoot forever if it would make him mine.  

so i've started this new chapter of my life in a new state, only knowing about ten people and i've been looking forward to starting this new chapter for quite some time. it has been about seven months in the planning, but years in the making, really. i just had to get away from the life i knew and the negative influences and the negative impact that my hometown was starting to have on my spirit. i chose the beach, a town that i was familiar with and knew a few folks, but that wouldn't limit my opportunities, would only expand them. but since i've been here, i've not been living up to my potential, which is nothing new. i'm lacking motivation and i'm overwhelmed at the vastness of it all; starting completely over, being able to be who i want yet still holding on to who i am at my core, in my heart.
and in the midst of it all, i might be falling in love. with someone who lives across the country, no less.
it's all just a lot harder than i imagined it would be; on my heart, on my brain, on my body, on my spirit. i've always been a loner, i love being alone, really, but i find myself craving like minded individuals and in most cases i find that i relate to men easier than women, but i've also come to realize that it's almost impossible for men and women to be just friends. i find myself defeated in thought before i even attempt to befriend anyone, and i'm having to really work to overcome stigmas of basic human interaction.
i have great hope for my future and i can't wait to see how it all pans out, and i have great faith that this move and this new start will have been for the absolute best; in fact, that i already know. i suppose it's just trying to be in such a state of limbo and so displaced from everything i know, from the layout of the town to where the best burger is to a shoulder to lean on for support.
so, i'm turning, once again, to you, dear readers, as i have for the past eight years. hell, i might even link back to my past blogs, starting with my first blogspot, to my livejournal, to my myspace, to my facebook.
this is to be a secret part of Alice D., that's why the link has no title and no information. it's my emergency exit, my own wonderland.
Alice D. gets it's name from an old Grateful Dead song; this seems like an opportune time to let you in on it.

You say you're living in a world of trouble

All your schemes have popped like a bubble
Your mother told your sister
And your brother told your friend
Now your secret's out, and you don't have to pretend
You can see for yourself, it's really not the end
You're standing there with tears in your eyes
There's too much going on now, there's no time to cry


You say the walls are closing in on you child
All your friends have put you in exile
Bad luck seems to follow you all around the world
You can't seem to find no peace of mind girl
You will take a chance to seem so bad
Every minute is a brand new day
And there are some games that I'd just love to play
Even bad scenes are for real, there's no time to cry


Since you left your old scene behind you
Go ahead and let the green light find you
It's warm and friendly girl and it won't blind you
Come out in the street and the weeds won't grind you
See the love is in the air, you feel it all around you


Your yesterday's are all left behind
There's a brand new light in your mind
You don't need a key to define
What's written on the magic sign
There's no time to cry


When the season of the magic lantern
Is transformed into a funny pattern
And the wheel of fortune has a flat tire
You can't seem to get any higher
When you go above the machine, you find a horseshoe