Thursday, May 31, 2007

stimulation

What is it about creative people that makes me feel alive and aware? One weekend alone spent in the company of dancers and musicians energizes me to the point where sleep seems almost completely unecessary, an inconvenience and a burden at best. I become stimulated by the energy of it all. It's as though the vibration that eminates from the strings and hollows of musical instruments penetrates right into my core making my soul vibrate. And the heat that is generated by dancing bodies warms and invigorates my own body and urges it to move ecstatically. These effects seem compounded by the creative and harmonious output, a soulful undertaking to which I desire to contribute stimulation.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

so fleeting

What was my redemption the night before is the bane of my existance today. The project that was a gift of inspiration and which seemed to stop time has now become a slow drudgery that moves at a snails pace. I'm full of anxiousness and frustration and I just want to get out and run and run and run right off a cliff.

I haven't been in a more suicidal mood in some time. Not to worry though, my current suicide attempts are little more than obsessively trying to finish my project myself to death. At least it feels like it can kill me.

I feel so guilty. I feel like my time could be so much better spent doing, well, my laundry. And today is the day that I do it or die. Suicide by unclean wash....I wonder if anybody has died that way. I have one remaining pair of clean underwear in my drawer now, so the project I'm obsessing over will have to wait until I can do it with clean wash.

I'm in a very dangerous mood. I nearly spent $300 on Victoria Secret sale underwear, the only thing that stopped me is the thought of more sparkley duds I could spend that same $300 on should I ever make it to Egypt like I planned.

I'm off!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Returning to me

I feel as though it's been years, but last night was a moment of pure me-ness. I associate a certain creative drive with myself and when I get into that flow I feel so at home, so alive.

Usually, I struggle with fear and self-doubt, particularly when it comes to crative projects. Sometimes I think through things so much and I second guess myself so much it becomes paralyzing and any project I start moves forward at a snails pace as I stop to consider over and over again.

According to this tiny book I got on a whim about my astrological sign, if I wasn't given enough reassurance that I was loved and worthwhile growing up I would develop phobias that I would have to overcome as an adult. I don't put a lot of bank on the stars, but this time the shoe seemed to fit. I was given love as a child, but I was also torn down a lot too. Sadly I did not develop adequate faith in myself and my abilities, despite my outstanding talents. As always, knowlege is power, so now that I know I'm phobic it's cause and it's result, it was time for me to push through my fear and do. (My little book also says that I can do things I'm afraid of, it's one of my traits.)

So last night I did. I had a little project and I worked on it, and when I stopped to consider, I didn't doubt, but just solved the problem at hand and moved forward. When I got tired at 6:30pm I laid down and slept and when I awoke around 9:30pm I got up and worked. I then lost complete track of time as my creation came to life before me, and as dawn broke through my window, I realised I was home. How long it has been since I've forgotton time like that? I finally began to feel tired again around 7am and then I laid down to sleep and when I woke again around eleven, I was spouting poetry to my arrival with consciousness.

Poetry, painting, stories, creativity that takes away my awareness of time. This is my happy place. Now I just need to work in eating, yoga and laundry and I will have a perfect life. Thank God for last night. May I have a million more like it.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Procrastination

I'm really good at it. In fact I'm doing it now. I feel a little overwhelmed today. I think I'll finish a bunch of stuff instead of sleeping tonight, that way when morning comes, I'll feel ready for it.


Ah, the venom of night, how I delight in it's poison, and how it makes my head spin in delirium. How I crave it's sweet air and its lonely mysteries. I like to wander into night fully alive and battling at that line between duty and passion. I love and envy those people who live nights of music and fire. I carry that fire in my belly and it burns my head and my eyes. It is sure to bring tears tomorrow, tears of sheer exhaustion. Sweet venom.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

For Yummy Skin

I love my esthetician. She is the best. Slowly but surely my problem skin is becoming a glowy healthy organ, despite my insomnia and haphazard water intake.

I would tell you her name here, but that would give away my neighborhood. If you already know me and my neighborhood, then all you have to do is look up the only organic day spa in town.

I will give you my current skin care regimin though.

Morning:
-wash with the remainder of my dermologica dermal clay cleanser (which will be replaced by an organic cleanser as soon as I run out)
-moisturize with Lotus Moon's D20 moisture mist followed by Lotus Moon's citrus honey clarifying lotion.
- supplement with The Eclectic Institute's Vital Force multi-vitamin and The Eclectic Institute's Burdock Root (freeze dried, vegetarian capsules).
- eat organic yogurt (ususally with frozen blueberries mixed in), for the acidophilus.

Night:
-wash with the remainder of my dermologica dermal clay cleanser (which will be replaced by an organic cleanser as soon as I run out)
-moisturize with Lotus Moon's D20 moisture mist followed by Lotus Moon's citrus honey clarifying lotion.
- treat my skin with DermAware's End of the Line (it's a chemical peel that exfoliates and reduces my wrinkles).
- treat my skin with Lotus Moon's blemish control gel on my problem acne areas (I just ordered Visual Changes sulfur sal gel that I think I might replace the Lotus Moon's blemish control gel with. It also has salicylic acid like the Lotus Moon product to treat my blemishes, but I also found the sulfer to have an extra soothing and healing property when I used it in the past, so I think it is a little better.)

About bi-monthly I go in for a facial with my esthetician at this beautiful little organic spa.

And there you go. Now all I have to do is exercise, do my yoga, sleep at night, eat healthy and drink enough water and I will have perfectly healthy skin!

:-)

Friday, May 18, 2007

What a beautiful lazy day. I will have to do some painting today or I will feel riddled with guilt. What a beautiful day. I feel so peaceful and hazy. My head feels heavy, but I'm happy to be alive.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Good-bye Trouble, it's been nice knowing ya.

At the prompting of a good friend I decided to listen to warning of my inner voice and completely break off my "friendship" with Zuel. I did this yesterday afternoon. I felt initially sort of bad about it. I felt that I was probably really hurting this man's feelings. But the aftermath was strangely humorous.

I then went with another friend out for a night in DC, a female friend who was also aquainted with Zuel. She actually brought him up and a very interesting conversation ensued. Suddenly all of my guilty feelings were virtually obliterated. Zuel had been caught in a lie. In a whole series of lies, in fact, and I realised all my concern for his feelings was needless.

I'm glad I have friends willing to give me good advice and I'm glad I have an inner voice that warns me when things aren't right (I only wish I listened to it better). And I'm glad to have friends that tell me the truth. It isn't a quality everybody has.

Today, I plan one last meeting with Zuel, if he has the bravery to call me back. I want to leave him with some parting advice (and nice swift kick in the ass - although I will try to control myself in that respect.)

It's a sunny, beautiful day and I'm feeling light and happy. Tomorrow I'm going in for a facial.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

seeing blood

I've been giving a great deal of thought to what it means to see blood.

In modern America we go to war and never see the blood. The blood we see is only the blood we choose to see at the movies or in games, sometimes in the news or in photos. Usually we are a large step away and often it is entertainment for us.

For some people in the world they see the blood virutally everyday. I wonder at the horror with which we reacted to the Viginia Tech shootings. I wonder how it would change us if we had to live with that sort of experience regularly. I wonder how it would change me.

I hope I never find out.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

a dream

I woke up this morning to a very strange dream.

It began with a car accident.

I was driving my car and as I headed towards a red light at a busy intersection, I discovered that my brakes were only half alive and as I pressed the pedal down as hard as I could I slowly decelerated but finally crunched into the back of another vehicle. The next thing I remember is bring my car to a repair shop with many congenial men running about busily repairing various autos. There was a hispanic man who spoke very little english in the back and I ended up addressing a man probably in in 30s with long dreaded har and a beard, red, but very respectful and knowledgable. I told him I needed to repair my car and he examined it dinted in in the front and the insides mangled. I told him I still owe $3000 on this car, but he looked at it and said I'd be better off selling it for parts; that I might get up to $1400-1600 for it. I asked if he would give me that much, because I was ready to cut my losses and release myself from this headache of a car. He considered it, but then a video came on the television. We both looked up and it was belly dancers, specfically members of the belly dance superstars, all in purple costumes, heavily beaded lycra dresses with cutouts. They were dancing in a music video and the camera panned in close to their torsos, then it took an amazing edit and suddenly we were looking at three completely naked women writhing against one another. I was surprised, but noted that they probably got away with it because the way they pressed their bodies together, they were concealing their nipples and other private parts from the camera's view. But I must have wondered outloud why theses belly dancers would dance nude and in such a manner, because it was then explained to me that these were actually not the same dancers, but some other women that did this sort of dance and that I might notice that their bodies were a little different, a little more voluptous actually. Then I awoke.

As my dreams often do, this one lingered with me. I was feeling it's feelings and wondering what it meant. My husband used to interpret my dreams for me, albeit reluctantly at first, his mother would interpret his when he was young and he became so frustrated by her intrusion that he made it a habit to purposefully forget his dreams. But he softened one day, I don't know why, and started to tell me the interpretation when I would tell him my dreams. But for myself, I usually understand my dreams better than any mystic could divine, because I know myself, my life, my heart.

I know what this dream means and it has very little to do with the true reference to my real life car that needs fixing, once again. It is about my feeling that I'm not completely in control of my own destiny. It speaks of my sexual frustrations and the ambiguity that surrounds my feelings about belly dance. It speaks a little of my secrets.

I met a man once, who invited me to stay in his apartment and share his bed and enjoy a night with him. I told him that I couldn't possibly because I was married and I wouldn't want to hurt my husband in that way. He told me, it doesn't hurt him if he doesn't know. He felt that there was nothing wrong in little affairs, people have affairs all the time, and that if I kept it to myself I could go on happily married for the rest of my life. I insisted he was wrong because I could keep no secrets from my husband, that my relationship with him was totally open and I wouldn't want to have anything to hide. I did not go to his apartment that night and I have not seen him since. But some part of me absorbed what he said. I don't plan on having any affairs, I would be eaten alive by guilt, but I now think perhaps there are some things that should be my little secrets, even from my husband. Some thoughts I shouldn't speak, some feelings I should keep as my own.

I watched a movie this morning. It has been sitting and waiting for me for a month. It was a documentary about Picasso - Magic, Sex and Death. It told his life story and illustrated it with his art and with photographs. His art seemed to change with each new woman in his life and he regularly exanged one women for another until his death and as an outsider you were led to view each woman as she became first goddess and then wretch. I wondered to myself if I would be better able to make art if I were to follow my passions more liberally, if I were to exchange man for man as I found a new one that engaged my attentions, if I were to imbibe in the drugs of life more liberally as he did. But it's a moot point. I will not willingly ever wreck myself in that manner. Slowly but surely I will work to remove the traitor in me. But I do not want to deny myself life.

I will return to myself one day, I tell myself, and paint again my secrets. Maybe today this will happen again, I don't know, but if I paint again like myself, I will feel that I've finally returned home. That my passion has returned home and I will give up on trying to please anybody. I am often jealous of those trained as artists from birth, like Picasso. But what do they have on me? Are they living my life? Can they paint what I may paint? NO! So it is up to me, if it will be said at all, to say it. If death doesn't find me first, hopefully I will return to myself once again.