Learning to be vulnerable…

“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability… To be alive is to be vulnerable.”
- Madeleine L’Engle

Has anyone perfected the delicate balance between wearing their heart on their sleeve and keeping their defenses posted up high on red alert?

There is a great line in the movie Magnolia, where Claudia Gator says, “Now that I’ve met you, would you object to never seeing me again?” Because God forbid, that wonderful moment ever gets ruined by neurotic behavior.

Maybe because women are, in general, more socially vulnerable than men, and therefore their choices and actions carry an extra charge of suspense, risk, and poignancy – but opening yourself up is such a terrifying proposition. So much so, I rarely do it. With anyone. And in the instances that I’ve found myself motivated to open the door a little bit to let someone in, I’ve proceeded with meticulous caution. Some of you reading this may think, “well that’s just smart.” but when you never want to be vulnerable, you skew the interactions in such a way that it’s more than that. It’s compartmentalizing yourself off to avoid being hurt.

I’ve never been that fussed about dating, because to be frank about it, I’ve known that I was never the type of person who was going to be alone unless I wanted to be. I enjoy solitude, can be a bit of a control freak, and I’ve never heard even a whisper from my so-called “biological clock.” I had other interests that were at the forefront of my thoughts, and relationships just took a back seat. When I was younger I figured I’d deal with that whole “boy scene” when I cared to, and for the longest time just observed from a distance. Unlike my peers, I had a rather laissez-faire approach to relationships. This is just reality as I’ve always known it. It’s almost always been on my terms, because that’s the way I like it. Let’s be honest here, who doesn’t? If you can dictate the terms of the engagement, you will.

And whether or not the odds being seemingly so stacked in my favor at times has been a good thing, I don’t know. I don’t have the answer for that. I’m genuinely beginning to question if it has been beneficial to me or not. It’s like a debate on whether or not it is good to have too many choices or none at all. On the one hand, you can wind up so desperate that you’ll take anything that shows you attention. On the other, you never really make a choice that you feel compelled to stick with – because frankly, something better can come along at any moment. It’s easy to back away from a situation that isn’t adhering to the ideal you have in your head, because you expect more. You want more, and there is nothing wrong with that. But at the same time, if you constantly look for excuses, reasons, or flaws…you’ll find them. It’s good to have high standards in life, but when the line of demarcation is so difficult to overcome, you just end up in self-imposed isolation.

No one is perfect. No one is a mind reader. As long as they are trying, stick along for the ride, and see where it takes you. This is advice I give to you, but am only just now trying to put in practice with myself, and personally it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever challenged myself with. Opening yourself up to someone or a new experience is as exciting as it is daunting. For me, the scariest aspect is when you can feel yourself falling, unexpectedly harder than you had anticipated, and as much as you attempt to slow the descent…ultimately your efforts are futile. It’s easy to say, “This is what I want. This is what I expect.” but at some point compromise is going to be required, and that’s when you become susceptible to deflated hope.

We all have choices to make, doors to open or keep closed. Boundaries to let people cross and to open yourself up. Everyone has relationship paths and options. For a relationship to work, to be the ideal partner everyone dreams about, you have to have that combination of history-making-romance, communication and fidelity. For so many people, though, it seems that they always seem to have a handle on one but not the others…or conversely, they are just bad all across the board.

And we all have habits, and a good portion of them are bad…

Like me? I can’t stand to not be in control of situations, it’s something I’ve been working on. I’m a perfectionist and I have impossibly high standards at times- an attribute that has made me successful in life / business and makes me a wonderful friend (I am a fiercely loyal person), but it has always made relationships difficult. I realize that most of it has to do with a fear of vulnerability. I mean, what happens when you have impossibly high standards for people, other than yourself? Well….they can never measure up, of course. And if they can never measure up, then you never have to drop your guard completely. They’re always going to disappoint you somehow, you just have to run them through the paces and until it happens. Until the other shoe drops or they break. You’re pitting them against unconquerable odds and setting them up for failure – most of the time unknown to them. It’s terribly unfair. It’s agonizing and drives you mad. Yet, I still do it.

There have been times in my life where people say things to me, and it resonates on such a profoundly deep level that it modifies my behavior. When I decided to end my last relationship, completely blind-siding the other person with my decision- I explained to him that it was because he just didn’t seemingly understand me, on that intuitive level that I was looking for. And as he pleaded for me to alter my decision, he looked at me and said, “How can I, when you’ve never let me in?” And I realized that he was right. I didn’t, and the fault wasn’t with him, it was with me. But at that point my mind was made up, so I just decided to take that lesson and pocket it away for next time.

I want it all. Everything. And I’m not the type of person who ever settles for less. But I also give 110%, which is why I do it so rarely. I’m not interested in wasting time or going through the motions. What’s the point? Just to have someone? That’s why I have friends…

However, I’ve also realized that I abhor finding myself in a position where I am interested in someone more than they are of me; either verbalizing it or through attention-seeking pursuits. Even 50/50 efforts make me wary and hesitant. If I like someone, and I tell them how I feel first, or I make the initial move…I feel like it’ll be disaster from there on out. Why? Because I want that fairytale type romance. There is something intoxicating about feeling pursued or that someone is investing effort to receive attention from you. They work for it, because they want it. Who doesn’t want to feel wanted? It makes you feel deliciously feminine when a man does things to win your favor. It all sounds seemingly ridiculous, but it’s the truth. And I try, I do try so hard to make it not be that way; but I’m afraid I’m just not very good at it. I’m a woman with modern sensibilities and strictly old-fashioned ideals. I’m not a prize easily won, even when I want someone to come out on top.

And if for some reason, I feel like I don’t know where I stand, I begin to feel plagued with “What Ifs?” What if I hadn’t said anything to them, would they have said something to me? What if I hadn’t continued to pursue them? Would they have picked up the slack? What if they don’t like me as much as I do them? What if they are just with me, because they are the type that always need to be with someone, etc… And naturally, we always interpret the worst possible scenario: They wouldn’t.

So what happens when people start to think in such a neurotic way? They cut and run. They reinforce boundaries. They start replacing bricks and mortar to the wall between themselves and those around them. Not because they don’t care, but because they care more than they’re comfortable admitting. It’s altogether terrifying, and frankly a bit stupid. They force distance, when all they want to do is be consumed by anything but absence. Their mind and heart are filled with all of these things that they want to say, but keep to themselves. And for what? So they won’t get hurt by someone else? But they are also risking hurting themselves.

I’m not writing this because I have any answers to the dilemma at hand. I’m merely acknowledging that it’s there, and something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. How much compromise is too much compromise, and what level is not enough? At what point do you accommodate differences in someone, without feeling like you are settling for less than what it is you are after or deserve?

I guess I’m not afraid of being alone, just disappointed.

And back to Magnolia, luckily for Claudia, Jim Kurring responds to her request with, “I can’t let this go. I can’t let you go. Now, you… you listen to me now. I won’t let you walk out on me. I won’t stand for that. You want to be with me… then you be with me. You see?”

Sometimes we all need reassurance, even if we don’t realize it ourselves.

 

Be Beautiful. Not Attractive.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.“
- Nelson Mandela

Be Beautiful. Not Attractive.

Throughout my travels it has been brought home to me, that in the matter of our external appearance – the bodies, the clothes and haircuts others see when they look at us – there is an important distinction between a concern over appearance and an intrinsic desire to be beautiful. A significant portion of economic activity is devoted to pressuring people to occupy themselves with how attractive they are to others, through magazines, films, television, and advertisements. We pain ourselves everyday with how to be attractive, and it’s simply an exhausting waste of time.

I know this all may sound a bit silly coming from me, because of the work I do and the fact that it’s a rare feat to not see me in high heels or conscious of my appearance, but trust me on this. I do work in an industry based largely on superficial aesthetics and image, so listen to me when I say this to you: I know what I am talking about. I’m not being hypocritical here, but I am going to share some insight with you. It is the world in which I live and work, and if anything, you can consider it insider observations.

As I get older I notice what everyone always complained about when I was growing up – the search for the fountain of youth. Only it’s not so much a search, but it’s a pressure. The strain to aspire to look like our former teenage selves, or worse, teenagers today. And maybe it’s a valid cosmetics scheme based on anthropological research, but the more I see of it, the more it bores me to tears. Teenagers, for all their energy- are vapid creatures. Don’t get me wrong, they have their place in our society and they contribute and shape the world we live in, but to be perfectly honest, I’m really over them. I’m tired of seeing prepubescent girls with deer-in-headlight stares trying to sell me something or convince me that their life has been changed by the use of some product.

You’re an infant! Your life is probably altered 10 times in a single day, by nothing of measurable importance! By the time you’re done reading this entry “My life is over” has been uttered approximately 358,549,205 times by teenagers throughout the world. Of course, companies love the 18-24 year-olds, because they are so malleable, and I don’t blame them – it’s smart business, but sweet mother almighty – I am over it. I’m tired of young girls dressing in clothes that are simply too old for them, and therefore being made to look like they’re in their mid-30s when they are barely pushing 17.

Give me a woman with moxie. Hell, at this point just give me a woman that knows what that term means. I want character. I want substance. I want a life that has been lived! That is beautiful, and in that sense (almost more than anything), the Europeans have got it right. Sure, there is no shortage of lust-fueled desirable teenage playthings on the streets of Paris; but it’s when a woman is in her 40s that the real magic happens across the pond. Think Sophia Loren, Catherine Deneuve, and Monica Bellucci. Those women are sexy. And I don’t mean attractive, I mean they are beautiful beyond comprehension. Even at 75 years old, Sophia Loren is the definition of sex appeal. And why? She carries herself with the right attitude. She is sexy from within.

Last summer in Italy, I realized that the women there (the women in their 30s, 40s, 50s) carry themselves in such a way that its mesmerizing. They walk as if they know things and have secrets that you would desperately love to know. They aren’t obvious, and I think that is what is missing here in the US. Women need to take ownership of their age and stop apologizing for it. Step up to the plate and show these infants how it is properly done. It pains me to hear women lament over the ‘loss of their youth’ when they should be embracing the multitude of experience they wield at their fingertips.

Learn to be intriguing and memorable and stop striving so desperately to be noticed.  Confidence is sexy, and even if you don’t have it…fake it until you do.

In America our concept of attractive far outweighs the pursuit of beauty. Carefully contrived clothing, and enough plastic surgery to have faces pulled so tight that women look like they nose-dived in a prototype for a new military aircraft. It’s all exceedingly becoming the norm. Middle-aged women dressing like their daughters. It’s just not beautiful. It’s not attractive, and it makes you look ridiculous.

It’s OK to be dissatisfied with aspects of what you see in the mirror, but the reason for wishing to change should be in order to look like your own internally created notion of beauty, rather than some outside dictation of what is “sexy” or “sassy” or “pretty” in the eyes of others. You should strive to be the best version of you. Define yourself for what you like about your body’s shape, or your hair, or your face – rather than falling under pressure to look like what everyone else is aiming towards. Don’t be generic. Develop your own sense of style and presence. Be an original, and the most top-notch version of YOU that you can be. Don’t be a clone or an imitation of someone else.

Often times, people ask me why there are high-fashion models who are so weird looking. Their perception of models are that they must be these super-human flawlessly beautiful creatures, but the fact of the matter is, the most successful models have always been beautiful but flawed. Why? Because if someone is “perfect” then they are beautiful, without question, but it’s a boring type of beauty. You need contrast, because that is what highlights the true beauty and makes someone unique and stunning. It gives them intrigue and mystique.

Throughout my travels and experience, I’ve also learned that your happiness and your self-perception go hand in hand. Your attitude matters. I’ve met women my age that look like their mothers, and not in a good way. This is not aging gracefully–it’s more a sense of giving up on opportunities. On life. And yes, these are the same people who say everyday, “I must be getting old” or “I’m not young anymore.”  They focus so heavily on getting older, specifically on the negatives of it rather than the positives, that they just lose all sense of themselves–and there are many, many positives my friends.

I ran into a former schoolmate and was shocked at her appearance.  She’d just married, and true to hometown expectations, had taken to wearing dowdy dresses and a matronly hairstyle.  Why? Because “I’m old and married and settled now.” When I saw her at the store she was wearing sweatpants in public (Jesus Christ, I forgot people really did that!). Her face was still young, but I remember thinking at the time that she looked 42, not 28.  Her posture had changed, her facial expressions, the way she carried herself, the constant sigh in her voice.  It was as if she’d just resigned herself to a death sentence and decided to stop living, stop trying, stop enjoying.

I don’t ever want to be like that.

We should strive to be the best versions of ourselves as we possibly can. Sure, we get lectured about that all the time – how our emotional well-being matters and is paramount to how we rate our life satisfaction. But for all the superficial disparities aside, aesthetics matter too. Everyone knows when they look good and when they’re just phoning it in. And we can all argue that we don’t have the time, or the energy, or there is more important stuff to be had; but that’s such a cop out. Invest in yourself, the dividends pay off.

Think of something you’d like to change about yourself. Then ask yourself ‘Why’ you’d like to change it. If your answer begins with, “Because I would be happier…” then change it. Go for it. Baby step it all the way if you have to, but don’t give up until you’ve achieved it. Even on a superficial level, for example, don’t lose weight because you think it will make you seem more alluring to the opposite sex – do it because it’s healthier for yourself. Do it because it will give you more time on this earth to spend with your kids, your family, and your friends.

Stop focusing on being attractive, because all you’re doing is worrying about how you are perceived by other people. And the truth of the matter is, these people normally look ridiculous.

Invest your energy into being beautiful, the absolute best version of yourself that you can be. Inside and out. You’ll have to work at it, we all do. But when you begin to see yourself in a positive light and devote more time to appreciating your positive qualities, it opens the door for other people to pay attention to them as well. Beauty is how you feel on the inside, it’s reflected in your eyes. It’s not completely something physical.

The quality of “sexiness” is an internal construct. It comes from within. It has more to do with something that is inside you, rather than coming from the size of your breasts, the pout of your lips or the length of your legs.

Like good ol’ Sophia said, “Sex appeal is fifty percent what you’ve got and fifty percent what people think you’ve got.”

Make people think you’ve got the keys to the secret kingdom at your disposal…

Say what you feel.

“I try to talk to you, but I don’t know what to say. I am afraid you don’t want me to say anything. So I don’t. But inside of me there are words waiting to come out, to tell you how I feel- especially how much I want you. But those words may forever stay in my heart- locked inside. Sometimes I wonder if there are words locked inside you too… but I’ll never know.”
- Voltaire

I always tell people how I feel, and it’s a blessing as much as it is a curse. It goes part & parcel along with my personality. Overall I think it fits well with who I am. I’m definitely not an acerbic personality, and the most common descriptive used on my behalf is usually ’sweet’; so usually when I tell people how I feel, it’s typically a good thing. Even if I don’t like someone, I try to say it in the best possible way.

My point is, why do we feel so compelled to keep ourselves under lock and key, masked, or hidden? Do you realize how much work that takes? How much effort and energy we expend thinking and feeling, but then keeping it to ourselves?  For what reason? Because you’re afraid to lose? Nonsense!

In this game of life, you’re already a winner. Why, you ask? Well, you woke up today for a start. You are alive! With every inhaled breath you are a step ahead of the game; somewhere out in this world a person is exhaling for the last time, and you’ve got them beat. I don’t mean to have a morbid perspective, but let’s face facts here. You are not dead. Blood is coursing through those veins and there is a heart beating in your chest. Stop wasting it!

Sometimes the scariest chances are the ones worth taking, as they yield the highest reward. And most of the time, they are unexpected. You never saw them coming, and it’s fantastic.

When I was younger there was a boy that went to my school, and he was no different than a million other boys in a million other schools across the world. Donovan. He was introverted, he was the outcast, he wore bad clothes, had a stupid haircut, and had absolutely no concept of how to properly socially interact. The quintessential geek of the highest regard. For christ’s sake he carried around a briefcase and was on the chess team! If he didn’t understand something he’d say, “that does not compute.”

Now take yourself back to 7th grade and being 12-13 years old. Reflect on how important peer respect and social standing was and what it meant. Now if you’re thinking, “I didn’t give a f*ck” then you’re delusional or you were one of the boys of whom I speak. Because for the rest of us, regardless of our clique or interests, we most definitely gave a damn about what those around us thought. We were hyper-aware of it actually.

While I wouldn’t have considered myself popular at the time (because again, we were at the age of constant comparison and measuring ourselves against unattainable standards), but I was known. I was well-liked, and I most definitely gave a damn about what those around me thought. Now I wasn’t ‘cookie-cutter’ by any stretch of the imagination. I was on the dance team, and president of student clubs; but I also listened to punk rock and spent all my free time skateboarding. So my fragile mind, that was on the onset of puberty, had to constantly micro-manage the opinions of multiple groups of people. Constantly walking around with an “all eyes on me” perspective. In retrospect, it’s laughable, and I often chuckle at how cliche I was. Cindy Mancini, circa Can’t Buy Me Love, through and through.

But the day that, and so many other things changed for me was on Valentine’s 1993. It began as a day, like any other day. I walked into the halls of my school, anxious to see what cupid had in store for me. So imagine my surprise when I see my locker covered in construction-paper hearts, with a giant (and I mean giant) card taped to the outside. What pray tell was this?!?

Everyone stared from a distance, anxiously waiting to see who it was from. Who was this mystery lover? People started murmuring guesses as to the identity of the secret admirer. Personally, I had no idea, but I definitely had hopes. There were definitely boys that I was wishing that card was from. And it should be noted, that all of them were either highly unlikely or impossible, but a girl can dream. The excitement and anticipation was palatable.

So imagine my surprise when I opened this oversize card, and a giant heart POPPED out of the inside (yes, it was a pop-up card). Written on the inside was, “Will you be my Valentine? Forever Your Admirer- Donovan.”

I felt my heart sink like a stone. Jesus Christ, this must be a joke. Please tell me that this is a joke! This cannot be happening to me! The boy who talks about human genomes and Magic The Gathering cards? The boy that has a Kool-Aid mustache? The one whom I’m pretty sure I saw pick his nose in math class in 6th grade? THAT GUY wants to be my valentine?!?! What earthly hell is this?

As I removed all of the hearts from the metal door, fighting back a mixture of disappointment and tears (hey, I’m being honest here), I noticed that everyone else was still excited and buzzing. Envious. Jealous even. None of them came to school this morning to find declarations of love covered in glitter taped to the outside of their locker. Sure, at this point, none of them had any idea that the source was the weirdo who ate lunch by himself, but that didn’t matter. No one was trying to impress them, so why was I?

I was pounced on by all my friends when I arrived in home room. Everyone wanted to see the card. To find out who it was from. It had to be seen to be believed, trust me. It was so ridiculous it was wonderful. Naturally my friends started howling with laughter when they found out who it was from. Their reaction was treating this gesture as more akin to a prank that had been executed with precision and success. Of course they found the whole thing ludicrous and absurd. But for all my misappropriated attention that I gave to other people, I was touched.

It was my first valentine. Not ever mind you, but my first unsolicited one. The first time that a card given to me didn’t arrive in a box that I had glued together and sat on the edge of my desk. The first time a boy, any boy, ever made a grand gesture for my affection.

Sure I received other cards that day, and there were other boys that vied for my attention, but not a single one of them took the time to scissor out red hearts and make sure to arrive to school before anyone else, in order to tape them up for me (and the whole world) to see. He had to plan and put thought into such a thing. There were actual logistics involved. No one had ever executed a strategy on my behalf. This was something!

And while I knew that there wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d ever be his girlfriend (again, I’m soft-hearted, but a realist just the same), my opinion on a lot of things changed that day. For all his social ineptitude he wasn’t ignorant, he knew that he was taking a huge risk in putting it all out there. It was courting ridicule and humiliation, but despite this, he soldiered on. He followed his heart. He was prepared to shout from the rooftops if I’d let him (I wouldn’t). And our friendship was forged from that point on. I made a lifelong friend. He became my biology lab partner. He taught me how to play chess and I taught him how to stop being such a nerd. One of us was more successful than the other…I can play chess really well now.

He never stopped being the nerd, but that is what was so perfect about it. He never changed. And throughout the years he gave out more Valentine’s, and in a weird way it became a status symbol, as he only seemed to give them to those that were way out of his league. He had girlfriends and had his heart broken. We would discuss life and love, and most of the time I would have to interject, “Stop being such a geek!” but it was fantastic. As a matter of fact, he was voted “Most Memorable” our senior year of high school.

And you know he actually made the Vulcan “Live Long and Prosper” hand sign in the yearbook photo? That is the level of nerd I am talking about. Brilliant.

He’s married now, successful in computers (go figure), and has children. I couldn’t be happier for anyone more. But my point of this entry was, I learned that fateful February morning that sure, you risk losing something by telling people how you feel. They could respond with “Too Much Information” (HA!) and you may not have anything come from your admission. Those kinds of humiliations are fleeting. But on the flip side, you risk losing everything by not saying what you feel. You could be letting something that will change your world, pass you by. And that my friends, that, is the worst loss imaginable.

So these days, when people comment about how communicative and open I am, I really feel like that boy deserves some sort of residual thank you for showing me how exciting those moments of life can be. The rush of adrenaline and the prospect of heart requisition are second-to-none.

Life and those that live it.

“Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”
- Pope Paul VI

Nothing reminds us of the precarious essence of life quite like death. It is the chiaroscuro of our existence; the compositional balance of light and dark that gives it weight and importance. Dimension. It heavies the meaning and purpose. And while people contemplate and debate, philosophers and zealots engage in contestation over its design, one thing is for certain – it is passing us by. Life is happening.

Right now.

As my friend Brian eloquently stated, “I’ve been put into a contemplative mood by yet another twist in life. Someone I know is dead as of this morning.“

Unfortunately, I had the news reverberated twice this week- on the same day. One friend, one acquaintance – two people that I found incredibly engaging and effervescent. Both of whom left this life, much too soon, under unfortunate circumstances. It’s heartbreaking to say the least. And while I wouldn’t even think so highly of myself as to attempt to eulogize them, as there are those out there who can do it with much more eloquence than I – it breaks my heart just the same.

First there was Beau, whom I recall only speaking to maybe once or twice while I lived in New York – despite numerous mutual friends and interests – it just never happened. Then through chance circumstance and the internet, we ended up discussing Midnight Oil and Stereo Mcs late one night, which then lead to random art discussions every now and again and some very kind words given to me regarding a very difficult situation he was peripherally aware of. It was all in passing and I promised that the next time I made my way up north, we’d grab a coffee and continue our discussion of Diesel and Dust.

Like I said, there are those that knew him far better than I, but what little I did know, was fun. I don’t know how else to describe our interaction. He was funny and had good taste in some very eclectic music and art. I’m sorry for not getting a chance to learn more, but I am even more sorry for those who did and the lost they now grieve.

Aside from my sorrow and the obligatory response of how much he will be missed, I’ve also hesitated saying anything publicly  about the passing of my friend Tony. But over the past couple of days, it’s really hit home how so many memories of my youth have included him in their pages.

My first memory of him is over 16-17 years ago, as I was standing outside of a venue waiting to see a show. He was laughing (surprise!) with a group of guys who were both terrifying and intriguing. I’ve always been a bit shy and introverted, it’s just one of those things that people who know me have grown accustomed to; but when I was that young my self-consciousness was nothing short of epic. I was a nerdy little kid from the South End of Louisville who had just discovered the magic of punk rock and hardcore by rifling through her brother’s record collection. It was a sequential learning experience; first metal, then thrash, then discussions of Napalm Death with guys I would skateboard with, which then beget conversations regarding the weird guy down the street (see: Troy Cox) played bass in some band with my old babysitter (see: Tim Ruth). The rest as they say, is history…

At any rate, I hardly knew anyone. A preteen tomboy from the outskirts of Louisville – or at the very least the epicenter of all things happening in Louisville, that I sought to be a part of, I was an outsider trying to participate in a counter-culture outsider movement. I felt like a fish out of water. And I would like to say that I was brave and immediately made loads of friends, but I didn’t. Everyone seemed so much cooler, so much more together and in the know than I did. I clung to my friends and tried not to stick out too badly. It was a real coming-of-age-John-Hughes-meets-Sean-Garrison sort of existence in those days.

Then one afternoon at Tewligan’s, I was thrust into the pit where guys about 500 times my size were beating the living shit out of each other. I’m not talking about the silly Ninja Solid Gold Dancing “Look at the gymnastics I can do” that goes on at shows these days. It was back in the days of Erchint, where if you went to a show and didn’t leave with some sort of Fight Clubesque bruise or scar, then it was a rather lackluster afternoon.

So there I was, panicked in a sea of testosterone, when who should appear but that goofy fella from outside, sweating and having the time of his life. He was smiling ear to ear, and offered his hand, keeping me from being stampeded by the masses. I spent the rest of the show glued to his side, and he provided a human barrier for me from which to enjoy the show behind. I was finally able to lose a bit of my self-awareness for a moment or two.

And there you have it. My first non-South End Louisville friend. The doe-eyed guy with the perpetual smile plastered on his face, Tony Bailey.

We talked in the corridor after the show (my friend Jennifer Paris was keen on one of the member of Loppybogymi, so we sort of lingered around for a while). From that point on, whenever I was standing outside of a show waiting to get in, he would find me and we’d talk about music or he’d introduce me to new people inside. Nearly all of my friends from back in the day are separated from me by one degree, Tony. So many of you that I now am lucky enough to call friends, are due to him.

Over the years I’ve been gone, living life (or at the very least trying to) and while we admittedly lost touch, whenever I would come back in town and we’d manage to find one another,  a great deal of time was spent catching up – and laughing. Fuck, he could make me laugh. Genuine, stomach-ache inducing joy.

This last time, when I came back from the UK, he was the first person I ran into at random on Bardstown Road – and after having spent so much time away from my hometown, his face just made the city feel like home again. It’s so weird how I remarked about that very thing so recently to a friend in mine in New Zealand whilst discussing Hedge.

I don’t drink and I’m not the biggest fan of Cahoot’s, but I tried to make it a point to go up there specifically for the purpose of hearing him talk shit and discuss music every now and again. The last time I saw him, he had heard I had a bit of a crush on someone he knew (*note to self: there are no secrets in Louisville), and he spent the entire night giving me a pep talk and advice on how to flirt with boys. Apparently in Tony’s mind, it was perfectly acceptable to walk up to a guy and say, “Take yer pants off. You’re my new boyfriend” or my personal favorite, “I am Dawn Geary! Now take off yer pants, because you’re my new boyfriend!” HAHA.

But the thing I remember most about Tony, is how he made me feel – and it was always positive and confident. In all of the years that I’ve known him, and don’t get me wrong – sometimes he was in a mood or a bit pissed off at the world, but I never walked away from our conversations not feeling better about myself and life. That is just something special he always managed to accomplish. He could always make me smile, even at someone else’s expense. =)

I hope he realized the amount of love people felt and still feel towards him. He was blessed with a talent that was nothing short of remarkable – and even if I had never had the honor of knowing him myself, his music has permeated so much of my life and has provided the soundtrack to so many good memories, that I am forever grateful. There are not, nor will there ever be, enough words to express my gratitude.

And while I admittedly try to let my friends know their importance to me all the time; and I think he was aware of the joy he brought to my life – however infrequent or random – I really just wanted to write this as a vehicle to share my admiration for someone I was lucky enough to have crossed paths with on this adventure called Life.

I want to thank all of my friends for the relationship we share. Those of you whom I see everyday and those that circumstances only allow intermittently. One person was lost that I had planned on seeing again, and I lost another that I always assumed would always be around – because he always had been.

This town is small. For better or worse, we’re are all connected. Trust me, I’ve realized that no matter how much distance we put between ourselves and the River City, we’ll always be reminded of where we came from. I’ll never forget one of my first nights in New York City. Here I was, walking down the street in a city populated with millions, and whom do I see walking down the street 40 feet in front of me? Duncan Barlow, who didn’t even live in the goddamn city himself! It was such a wonderful reminder of home. This has happened so often in my life, that I now just expect it. It’s comforting.

We’re like family, albeit a cantankerous and dysfunctional one at times. No we all don’t get along. This city is so small, that 50 years from now people will still be talking (and retain offense) over some bullshit stunt or petty argument that happened in their late teens. I don’t expect the death of someone that we knew to make us hold hands, look past differences, and sing Cumbayá together for eternity. This is Louisville, and even though an occasional movie is filmed here, it’s not Hollywood. Once this The Big Chill moment is over, we’ll all return to our respective lives and memories will fade. That’s just life. It’s how it goes. But what I do hope, the one indelible impression that this week has left on me, is that we are all going to die. Maybe not today. Some tomorrow. And a handful of you bastards will keep going on longer than nature should allow…but regardless of how many days we are allotted in this Jesus-time-share-experience…make sure that the people you know and care about, know how much you care about them. No matter how deep a wound is, “I’m sorry” will fix start the healing. Those two words can make miracles happen.

Most of all, I hope it goes without saying that I am always here for you. Always. I don’t care if we’ve been friends our entire lives or we’d barely recognize one another in passing. Even if you’re a complete stranger to me, if you want to talk -  I will listen. If you don’t think I’ll understand, I will try. I may do a lot of things in life, but judge is simply not one of them. Ever. No matter how dark it gets or feels, there will always be someone who is invested in seeing things get better for you. If you feel alone, misunderstood, lost, or helpless…we’ve all been there in some form or fashion. That’s the beauty of the life experience. It’s peppered with peaks and valleys, but you are never alone on the journey. You could mean so much more to someone than you’ve ever realized. I’m sure that Tony had no idea that there are people all across the world who ache for his loss. People he had never met or would ever see. No matter how overwhelming the world feels, it’s so incredibly small, and we’re all in it together.

Whatever your demons are, asking for help or turning to someone else is not an act of a coward. It takes a special kind of bravery to admit that you can’t go it alone. Only a fool keeps blazing the same path, making the same mistakes and expecting different results. No one is perfect and no one will ever expect you to be, no matter what you think. People will help you, and above all else, people will want to help you. Assistance can come from the places you never would have expected them to emerge from. Never give up.

Alt vær er forbigående.
(All weather is passing).

I love you all.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
- Maria Robinson

Anatomy of a modern day love affair.

“Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn’t happen.”
- Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby

You know something that I will never understand? When people talk about the type of relationship they want and then do everything in their power to make sure that it doesn’t happen. If we’re being honest with ourselves, not a single one of us is going to glorify the prospect of dying alone. Ok, so maybe you don’t daydream about attaining the perfect nuclear family, house with the white-picket fence, and all the jazz included in the package. Maybe you want kids, maybe you don’t. There really is an entire buffet of options out there for you, but I want to talk about something specific to a group of people: those who say they want a relationship. Or hell, even those that willingly participate in a partnership with someone and then do everything they can to ruin it.

Let’s go there.

Tom meets Jane. They cross paths at some random point in their lives (let’s say a party where they are introduced by communal friends). On some level, there is a mutual attraction, perhaps initially a little more one-sided for Jane – but they laugh and get on like a house on fire. They spend the night trading stories, he impresses her with his witty conversation, and she charms him with her smile. At some point, Jane’s friends want to leave, so she frets thinking that she might not see him again. Tom suffers the same plight, but doesn’t know what to do. He’s really bad at this.

He really likes this girl, and he hasn’t been this excited about anyone in quite some time. Not since his last girlfriend. Her. The former love of his life, who was the center of his universe longer than he cared to rememer; the girl who made the dark seem light, and cherries taste a little bit sweeter, and the measure by which all others have been judged by. That bitch. No, not since the girl he had secretly pledged to love forever, had he felt so excited about someone. Enamored even.

But he lets her leave. Why? He doesn’t know why. If he were more of a man, he would run up to her and say all of those great movie-starring-John Cusack-lines that are racing through his head right now (or will be a half-hour later on the ride home). He would tell her everything. How lovely her eyes are. That contrary to her self-opinion, she has wonderful hair and he liked that she looked so casual in a room full of people trying a little too hard. He would confess how proud he secretly felt every time she laughed at one of his jokes. The ones that he recycled from of a bartender who shared them last week over a pint of Guinness. If he had any sort of musical ability, whatsoever, he’s pretty damn sure he would belt into song and a choreographed danced that utilized the lamp post on the corner of the street to let her know how he feels after meeting her. She’s a breath of fresh air, and, that’s the kind of man he is, but instead he’ll stand there. Awkwardly. Like a deer in headlights and watch her go.

And she’ll leave.

As she’s walking away, she’ll start replaying the entire nights events in her head. Analyzing every move and nuanced inflection to the conversation, trying to decide if she had misread his interest or if he had been sending her morse-coded signals that she failed to pick up on. Oh my god, why is dating so hard?!? If he wasn’t interested, then why had he spent all night telling her about the weird Siamese cat that ate cheetos that he had while growing up in Michigan? He had touched her arm at one point during their exchange, and she was pretty darn sure that in some relationship book that she had read somewhere, that meant he was keen on being more than friends. Or was it Vogue? Fuck.

But if he had been interested, like she would love to believe, then why didn’t he ask for her number? Why hadn’t he indicated that he’d be well down for keeping in touch? Did he not want to maintain contact? Was it an exercise in time wasting? Did he have a girlfriend? She was sure he mentioned that he was single. Should she have asked him? Is her radar that off these days? God, it’s been so long since she’s had to do this. Was there some new social protocol regarding meeting strangers at parties that she was unaware of? She considered herself a fairly modern woman, based in old-fashioned sensibilities, but perhaps there was a memo circulating on facebook that she hadn’t read just yet. And she was wearing a new dress! Granted, he wouldn’t realize that she was wearing a new dress because they had only just met, but she had spent an exceptionally long amount of time fixing her hair before going out. Surely he would have noticed that? Just once, she’d love a guy to rush up to her and say something epic and profound. At some point in her life, she wanted to leave such an indelible impression on a man that he felt compelled to say things that could have previously only existed in the mind of a 1980’s John Hughes cinematic masterpiece.

Instead she would be riding home in the backseat of her friends’ mid-sized sedan; sandwiched between a bitter divorcée who loathed all men and a woman that proudly describes herself as a cougar. Declaring with with such pride and reverence, like the term had been derived from the feminist proselytizing of Gloria Steinem herself.. Seriously, she needed new friends.

—————————————————————————-

A few weeks from now Tom and Jane will get together, somehow. They will date, and things will go swimmingly. Damn near perfect even. And then boom! out of nowhere, one of them (for the sake of argument let’s say Tom), will tell her that he’s not ready for a relationship. Doesn’t know why, just isn’t. Of course he previously was all kinds of ready, and Tom, well he isn’t a commitment-phobe. But you see, this girl Jane, she knows what she wants. She has her head on her shoulders. She’s independent, free-thinking, doesn’t play silly games. She’s perfect. Only, she’s not. Because he’s used to antics of Girl X, the crazy psychotic drama queen who made his life a living hell and ripped his heart right out of his chest, barefisted sans anesthesia. Can’t go risking that again. He is out of his comfort zone. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that Girl X just phoned him up out of the blue, saying that she missed him. It’s all totally unrelated. Really. Seriously. I promise. Sorta.

Or, their relationship will proceed, only Tom will behave like a soldier with Post-Traumatic Stress disorder and compare everything that Jane does to someone in his past. He’ll talk about the relationship, this new relationship, by referencing all his past liaisons (namely the one involving Girl X) and remind Jane how much work it is going to require to prove to him that he doesn’t have to worry. She’ll have to prove herself, just so she knows. Jane will start to feel defensive and angry, because she’s not that girl and she can’t figure out why Tom is acting like he’s already tried and convicted her of crimes she hasn’t even committed nor had ever crossed her mind to commit. Well, until now that is. He brought it up after all.

And their previously harmonious coexistence will now be tainted with the lingering after-effects derived from the poisonous rampage of a ghost.

Wonderful.

Somewhere along the line, they’ll break up, box up their relationship; to only have ticket stubs and poorly written Greeting cards to serve as a reminder of their affections 50 years from now, when they’re 80 years old and infirm. All that time, condescended into a piece of cardboard that formerly served as the vehicle for Bud Lite.

They’ll try to maintain a semblance of friendship, because that’s what adults are supposed to do, right? Only one will lose touch before the other and that will become the defining factor in the never-ending argument entitled “Who Loved Whom More.”

You moved on with that goddamn French hipster DJ who wouldn’t know good music if Godspeed You Black Emperor! bit them in the ass, so don’t tell me I never cared!

And the cycle will continue, next relationship forward, permeating the warped mix of optimistic initial reports and negative expectations, until at some point they decide to change and stop fucking themselves and other people up. For some, that will never happen and they will become the sorry souls who die alone and end up having to eat cat food out of a tin can to survive. The ones who actually enjoy watching some Regis Philbin hosted game show on daytime television. (*author’s note – this is the most depressing situation I can ever fathom being in when I am older.)

The moral of the story (if it isn’t obvious), is that we’re often led to act against ourselves by an undetected weakness that goes before us -  one that tries to pass itself off to others – as strength. I’m going to pretend to not care, because then I won’t get hurt. I’m going to put up a wall, and not take it down until this person proves themselves to me.

This is secret self-sabotage. It sinks us in our personal relationships as surely as a torpedo wrecks the ship it strikes. This is the unseen dialogue that goes on behind the scenes whenever two people meet. Start catching yourself about to act from weakness, and examine your motives. If everything is perfect, why does it feel ‘off?’ Communicate.

At this point in your life, you will have had some type of love affair. Some type of heartbreak. You will have been in some situation where you have been screwed over. We’ve all been there. Most of us have at some point been the instigators ourselves. We get it. If there are no problems, with this new person, aside from the exacerbated imaginative or emotional PTSD based situations you create, work through it. Don’t quit!

Run a quick inner scan within yourself to see if that remark you’re about to make, or the answer you’re about to give, is something you really want to do. I mean, really want to do. Use the perfect world scenario. In a perfect world, would I do this? Would I want the person I’m dating to be comparing me to someone in their past? That’s not a great feeling. Granted, we all do that a little bit (hopefully to the benefit of the new person on the scene), but for pete’s sake don’t ever TELL the person you’re dating that. If you ever go to begin a sentence with, “This makes me angry because my ex….” Stop yourself. Don’t say it. Articulate yourself sans the past. This is now. Speak to now.

Becoming aware of residual turmoil building within you is proof that it’s some form of fear – and not you – that wants to do the explaining, leaving, bolting, problem instigation, or whatever the self-sabotaging act the inner pressure is pushing you to commit. If things are good, why be so quick to ruin it? Do you not deserve to be happy? Stay silent. Your conscious silence stops self-sabotage. Give yourself time.

In any and every moment of your life, you are either in command of yourself or you are being commanded. Take control of your life. No one should be running it but you, especially not a memory from your past.

Here and now. Live in that space. Not the past.

*this was inspired by no less than six people I know who have gone through such circumstances at various points this month. Personally, I’m quite excited for my future (just wish I were psychic) and while I can relate to the aforementioned scenarios, this wasn’t written for me. Be strong my friends!

You are going to die.

“When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity that lies before and after it, when I consider the little space I fill and I see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I rest frightened, and astonished, for there is no reason why I should be here rather than there. Why now rather than then? Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time have been ascribed to me?”
- Pascal

You are going to die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. Someday you will die and you will become merely a speck of dust on the time line of the world’s existence. No one is going to remember all of the funny things that happened to you today. No one will be able to recall that asshole who was too busy talking on their cellphone, cut you off in traffic and almost wrecked your car. At worst you’ll die alone – abandoned, and at best you will be a character in someone’s memory recalled storylines – or my personal favorite, part of someone’s medical history. What will you have contributed to society? John or Susie’s predisposition to high blood pressure a few generations down the road? Brilliant.

Depressing right?

For some reason it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. In a way, I find it sort of comforting that I have a deadline (pardon the pun). It drives me to make the most of everything. Every day, every friendship, every moment – I want to savor it all. As cliche as it may sound, I never want one second to pass me by unappreciated ever again.

For a long time, I operated with my mind focused strictly on the future. Whatever was going on in the present was just the foundation for what I wanted to happen next. Admittedly, I rarely appreciated what was going on in the moment because all I was really concerned with was how it was going to play into my plans 5, 10 or 50 years from that point.

To be quite honest, I was really dismissive to things happening around me. Not in a major way, but in tiny increments. I was determined and ambitious, which got me pretty far in life (I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish as much as I have, without that drive); but it was also counter-productive to my ability to simply relishing the moment. Often it wasn’t until I was riding in a car, or on a plane, or somewhere without any distractions (the in-between moments), that I could sit still for five minutes and reflect on things.

So what does that mean? It means that all my time in the present was spent focusing on the future…so that when I took the time to enjoy events that occurred, embrace the intimate moments of interaction, or celebrate the nuances of life – it was always as a memory. In a way, it was more like my life had become someone else’s life and occasionally I was allowed to glimpse the photo album of things that had gone down in my absence.

I never stopped to smell the proverbial roses or even the literal ones. I just pushed myself, hard, and I pushed everyone with any sort of investment in my life with the same impossible standards. And if they didn’t measure up, I cut them out, for fear that the plan I had laid out for myself wouldn’t be achieved.

But when you live your life operating with the carrot-on-the-string mentality, and you’re caught in the moment, you don’t realize that you never really ever reach that goal. The problem with living with your mind focused on the future, is that there is always more of it. You’re never satiated and you never feel accomplished or resolute. Frankly it’s nothing but an experience in cultivating anxiety.

Then one day, I was sitting in my back garden in England, soaking up the sunshine and watching the local pheasant (whom I had christened George) prance around the yard; and I thought to myself – “I have everything that I have ever wanted in my entire life, and yet, I still feel unfulfilled.” Like something was missing, only there wasn’t, and it just left me unsatisfied. The hole was just never going to be filled, and it makes a mockery of all your achievements.

After some time, and a lot of self-reflection, I decided to reevaluate my mindset. The biggest conundrum was learning how to relax and stop being wound so tight; yet maintain my standards and expectations. It was a complicated process and at times brought me so far out of my comfort zone that it took all I had to not jump right back into my safe routine. But eventually I made it out the other side so much happier and pleased.

These days, I feel so grateful, and that was what was missing. Truth be told, I’ve always been a gracious person – fantastic manners and very appreciative towards others…but I never allowed myself any of that gratitude in regards to my own actions. It was always more about what I didn’t do, versus what I did do right. Less about what I did have, and more about what I felt was missing (and when you go looking for what your life doesnt have you can compile one epic list). I never cut myself any slack and I had to learn to do that. I think, most of us, need to learn that or be given a refresher course from time to time.

LEARN TO RELAX.

I had spent so much time looking for answers to a question I wasn’t prepared to even ask. Strangely, it took sitting outside on a brisk winter morning watching a pheasant parade around without a care in the world, before I realized that I needed to adopt some measure of that mentality in my own life. We all do. It will drastically alter your perspective in countless positive ways.

5 pieces of advice:
1. You can’t make anyone do anything, and it’s best to not even try. Even if you are the most persuasive human being in existence (and trust me, I am in high running for that title), if you have to talk someone into doing something, at least where emotions are involved, it’s best to not even bother. Why? Because you’ll always wonder if their motives were genuine.

2. Learn patience. Not necessarily with people, but with life. We all want what we want, when we want it – which is now. We are creatures of immediacy. But sometimes we haven’t been given it, because we aren’t ready for its arrival. Prepare yourself.

3. Know what you want, what you expect, and what you’re willing to do to get it/keep it. Then never compromise on those facts. Lowering expectations is a slippery slope, my friends. It’s best to not even venture down that path and stick to your guns.

4. Embrace Solitude. For some reason people always think that they have to have something (read: someone). They treat relationships much in the same way that junkies approach their next fix. They have to have something to distract themselves. It’s a toxic way to operate, for everyone involved. Spend time on your own, and then when someone enters your life, you’ll have a clearer perspective on where to proceed next.

5. Laugh. Always. If you can find joy in the darkest of places, you can find it anywhere.

Tomorrow may never come. We are not guaranteed tomorrows. Freak accidents happen. Diseases discovered. Natural disasters. Who knows? It’s when you learn to embrace the moment, right here and right now, that you truly prepare yourself for anything that may happen.

Thanks George, I owe you one.

The Beauty of Childhood Love.

About 11 years ago I read one of the most beautiful things ever written about love, friendship and childhood. So tonight when I was linked to Sean Patrick Flanery’s Twitter page, after quoting Boondock Saints, I suddenly remembered that he was the person who wrote it. So I scanned my old email until I found it. Although it took me a few hours to find it, I did, and now I’m sharing it with you. Read it, you’ll be glad you did. He’s got an amazing heart.

—————————————————————

Jane came into my life headfirst in 1973 when I was 8 years old. I was starting into my bowl of Cocoa Puffs, listening to my new 45 of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence,” when I heard a repetition of small, passion-filled breaths that are usually reserved for nubile porno stars. My eyes followed the sound through the sliding glass window, across our backyard, up the fence, and collided intermittently with what I can only describe as the perfect embodiment of everything that I find wonderful about this life.

I never noticed anyone moving into the house that ours shared a rear fence with, much less that they had a trampoline, or a lot much less that Jane would bounce on it. My hatred of gravity was punctuated by the fact that it only allowed me short glimpses of Jane’s face before calling her back down, never failing to notify her long black hair last, so it hovered in the air just that much longer. From that moment on, Jane would be the catalyst for all my ideas, secrets and dreams, never allowing my passions a moment’s rest.

The next day, although completely unaware of it, Jane became the star of my first short film. I documented her rhythmic bouncing on an old windup Bolex movie camera that my grandfather had given me–one five-minute shot of the top of my fence with Jane’s head coming in at regular intervals. I kept the film in an old Charles Chips container in my closet along with all of my other prized possessions. Either projected on my bedroom wall or out my back window, Jane bounced to “Sounds of Silence” all summer long.

I came face-to-face with Jane for the first time when a brainstorm told me to confront my claustrophobia by locking myself in the trunk of my father’s car after figuring out how to open it from the inside. I was determined to stay in for 10 minutes, and I was halfway through the first five seconds when panic set in. My brain was on sabbatical somewhere near the engine compartment, and I couldn’t get the latch (whose mechanism I had committed to memory) to be my friend. I hollered and yelled as I flailed around in the trunk until it finally popped open, at which time I leaped out, gracefully catching my shoe on the rim and going into a 10-point face plant in the center of the driveway.

Why fortune sent Jane walking home via my front sidewalk on this very day haunts me still, but she stood there staring at me from no more than 10 feet. It wasn’t until then, that I realized that Jane was nothing less than an alien being beamed down for the sole purpose of making a mockery of our female population. Her presence caused me to slip into inarticulateness, and after an inordinately long pause, I searched my vocabulary and came up with, well, “…Hi.” She then answered back with an equal if not more gusto-filled “Hi,” the only difference being that it was then followed, after what seemed like three weeks, with a devastating “Bye.”

After our chance meeting by the car trunk, I began writing letters to Jane and sending them to a fictitious address, my rationale being that if she were meant to get them, then the postman would recognize the name and reroute them accordingly. I began receiving the returned letters unopened and eventually starting mailing them from the 7-Eleven mailbox, after getting a verbal reprimand from the disturbed postal worker who couldn’t understand someone making the same address mistake over the course of many years.

I never told a soul about my affection for this tempestuous creature, but she moved me so much that I kept on going. Jane was a drug that could completely reorganize my chemistry from across the fence, so I was privately devastated when my mother sold my Charles Chips can in a garage sale, oblivious to the magnitude of it’s contents. I learned early in life that there were 17 important people in the universe and that Jane was nine of them. I am convinced that she was the prototype for Lenny Kravitz’s “Butterfly.”

Jane’s parents were Woodstockers who actually numbered their children. Jane was originally Two, but it became her middle name by the time I discovered her. Jane Two. She was a true flower child, and the more I learned about her, the more I fell in love. Most of my information came from her mother, who ended up being my homeroom teacher in eighth grade. She would often speak of her daughter, and because she was their only girl and went to a different school, I was sure I was the only one who knew who she was. She would bring pieces of art that Jane had painted to show the class, but it wasn’t news to me, as I had watched Jane create them in her garage weeks before.

One day, Jane’s mother asked everyone in the class to write down an invention and turn it in the next day. She even brought an example for us to look at. It was for an antigravity machine that utilized two objects that wielded the same attraction and would thus cancel each other out. One of the objects was a cat, because that no matter how you held a cat and dropped it, it would land on its feet. The other was a slice of peanut-butter toast that, with 14 years of breakfasts to the inventor’s credit, had been proven to always land peanut-butter-side down if dropped. The inventor suggested that if the toast were strapped to the back of the cat, peanut-butter-side up, then the cat would just hover, each side insisting on hitting the ground when only one could be allowed to.

I didn’t need to see the “Two” at the top of the page to know who wrote it. This was the Jane vernacular, and I was in love. John Lennon once said: “No one I think is in my tree,” but I had definitely found someone in mine. Her nonsense suited my nonsense, and to say I was smitten would qualify  for the Understatement of the Year contest. Jane was the most perfect person in the history of perfect people, or in the history of ever for that matter. Jane was the answer.

By the time I left for California in 1989, I had accrued 143 letters stamped RETURN TO SENDER and postmarked as early as Nov. 14, 1973. Jane had moved to another part of the city in ‘84, but I kept sending them to the same address, as they had become a sort of therapy. The day I left with my car packed, I drove by the art supply store where she worked and sent a goodbye letter to her from the mailbox right in front of her store.

In October of ‘96, another 44 letters later, I found myself back in my hometown at a friend’s wedding, listening to the obligatory “How ya been?”s, when someone asked if anyone remembered “that love child, Jane, who always had her head in the clouds.” I froze. He then proceeded to address the table with some other shit he called language and ended the sentence with “You know she’s got cancer?”

I had never wanted to violate a person more severely with a carving  knife, but my claustrophobia had spread to my fingers, and I could no longer make a fist. I got up and left, and an hour and a couple of phone calls later was outside Jane’s hospital room, trying to control my heart rate before telling my hand to knock. Her mother opened the door with her lips moving, but nothing coming out. I walked past her and saw Jane on the bed looking more beautiful than I could have possibly remembered. She said, “Sean,” and at that moment the viscosity of my blood changed. I couldn’t move. Jane not only remembered me; she knew my name.

That night, I told her all the times I watched her bounce, and I was the one who stole her Charlie’s Angels T-shirt from the swimming pool. She admitted that she had left the copy of Ultravox’s Vienna on my doorstep for my birthday in 1981, and that she’d read all of my papers her mother brought home to grade, and that the bastard who had taken her to every festivity was actually her cousin because all the other boys thought she was weird, and that she had seen me standing in line one Halloween for the school’s haunted house and jumped behind the counter so that she could be the one to hold my hand and place it in the bowl of grapes while whispering in my ear that they were eyeballs, and that she was angry that she’s missed out on so much of life, and why the hell didn’t I talk to her sooner? Before she fell asleep, I told her that I would send her a box with the last 23 years of us inside.

I leaned over the pillow that she was dreaming on and kissed her goodnight at 6:43 a.m. and promised her that I would attend her gallery opening in two weeks, after a brief return to Los Angeles. As I left, I couldn’t comprehend how anything wretched could live inside something so  beautiful, nor how her new haircut could be sufficient in keeping her thought cage warm.

Jane died on Nov. 1. her mother said that she’d received my box of letters, and the she had read every one of them. She also said she would send me a package that she said Jane had wanted me to have. This wasn’t the plan. I had dreams to live, and I didn’t remember Jane’s absence being in any of them. I was welcomed into this Jesus time-share experience when I got here, and I knew that some stays would be shorter than others, but somehow now I felt betrayed. Jane’s stay was too short, but she drove her point home… straight into my heart.

A month later, I pulled into my driveway and noticed a UPS box on my doorstep. With a mixture of trepidation and desire, I opened it up. Inside was a partially rusted Charles Chips can that was much smaller than I remembered. It contained about 100 feet of slightly yellowed film and a 45 of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” with Sean + Two written in the center in purple Crayola.

Don’t expect a fairytale – Demand it!

“Without love, what are we worth?  Eighty-nine cents!  Eighty-nine cents worth of chemicals walking around lonely. “
- Laurence Marks

Admittedly, I don’t handle ‘tough love’ very well.

Where my heart is concerned, I’m sensitive. Overly so. I wear my heart on my sleeve and need it to be treated with kid’s gloves. While it sucks at times, for the most part, I prefer it. One of my psychology advisers, once told me that if I didn’t learn to develop a thicker skin, then I was going to find myself being constantly disappointed by people in life. Talk about a glass half-empty perspective, no thanks.

For every time I have been let down, I’ve also been overwhelmed and surprised. People are wonderful when you least expect it. That my friends, is the greatest lesson I’ve ever learned. Empathy is a virtue that I am proud to possess, and even though I’ve had every reason to be, I’m not jaded. And I figure if I have been able to successfully remain un-blasé about life and love (and people) after all these years, I’m never going to fall short on that mark. Life is good.

But I am observant, and I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs in life – and for whatever reason, people always seemingly find themselves volunteering their life story in my presence (not that I mind, it just took me a while to realize it’s not common for people to have happen) – so I feel like I know a thing or two. However, there are still moments where I am at a loss and I turn to my friends, and the results are often more amusing than beneficial. Nevertheless, I always walk away from the conversation with a little bit more understanding of the way people think.

So today when I was discussing the complexities of love with a friend, he shared with me a great blog: Derek Sivers. The entry was about Kurt Vonnegut discussing drama, and why people feel they have such a need for it in their lives. Go read the entry, it’s short and enlightening. He drew up some charts:

Time moves from left to right. Happiness from bottom to top.

Then he moved on to the fairy tale story of Cinderella. That fantastic love story, from which countless love stories are based on, and the one that most people want to have happen to them (by whatever measure or degree they deem necessary).

So there you have it. The Love Story that melts our hearts and leads little girls to believe that Prince Charming is out there, somewhere; waiting, searching, hoping, and longing. And when you meet, it will be Happily Ever After. The End. There isn’t a woman alive that doesn’t long for that to happen in their own life, is there? I’ll raise my hand, guilty as charged. And even the ones that balk at the mere thought and protest how unrealistic it is – they’re complaining the loudest because they have become jaded. At one point in time, they believed it. We all did.

Vonnegut then goes on to explain that the fact of the matter is, and the reason most people get into trouble, is because life is actually more like this:

No major rollercoaster rides. No historical events or statues erected in our name. No world-changing romance. One hundred years from now, we’ll all be dead and buried. To which I say, “Well, duh.” Just because you want someone to sweep you off your feet or you long to meet someone who is willing to go above and beyond, doesn’t mean you spend all of your free time pining away, longing to be Helen of Troy!

Just because you want to contribute and change the world by some small measure, it doesn’t mean you have secret delusions of becoming Alexander the Great.

Most of us, I dare say all of us, would say “spare us the battle, just give us the hero.” Meaning, that we don’t need the drama or even want it, all we’re after is the person who would be that person if the situation ever arose. We’re after potential, not necessarily experienced practice. Stop worrying that we’re looking for a man who is going to slay a dragon. We get it, you’re not Ulysses. It’s all metaphorical speak, anyhow.

What we do want is the person who is going to be there when we need them to be. They’re going to have their priorities in order (read: us, then all else), and if some deranged lunatic shoots up a bank while we’re in it, you don’t have to necessarily take a bullet for us…but you’d make sure to throw us to safety first.

I figured if I were to make a chart of my life (thus far), it would look something a bit like this:

Sure it’s the condensed version, but overall it illustrates life-experience and knowledge gained. And no, I’m not Cleopatra or Jane Austen, I’m not you, or anyone else. I am me. Whatever your life story and experiences are, they’re yours. No one else’s. That is what makes them important. That is what makes them unique. Even if you subscribe to the Many Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics or reincarnation, the experience that you’re having right now will never be duplicated again. Ever. That is why everyone you meet is important. They all have value. Nothing is a random accident.

You’ll have bad times. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, chances are it won’t be on scale with the Hindenburg Explosion…but to you, it will be a big deal. That is what matters. And even if you don’t discover the cure for cancer, or solve all of the world’s problems, or conquer Mars, you’ll have lived. And that is what should be valued.

The greatness of your love affairs is really only up to you, and what you’re willing to settle for and put in. A friend of mine once called me late at night crying about how he was scared his marriage was dooming him to a life of ‘languishing in mediocrity.‘ What did I tell him? “So don’t let it.” After he sorted himself out and I explained that if you want something, if you know exactly what you want, work at it until you get it. Love takes effort. Life takes work. Nothing worth having ever just lands in your lap and doesn’t require maintenance.

A few years later, and another baby in the world, he tells me he’s grateful that I had that outlook. Does it always work? No, of course not. You can want to change something and empower yourself with all of the best intentions, but if the other person isn’t willing to participate, it won’t happen. Accept it, carry the insight with you, and move on. Simple as that.

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that life can be bad, it can be good, or it can be great. All it takes is perspective, effort, and motivation.

Don’t go for second best, if you really want to be in first place. And while I don’t recommend you aspire to have a life that is filled with all the chaos and drama of a daytime soap opera; I do think it’s perfectly acceptable to have a life that is reminiscent of a fairytale. Even if it’s just through inspiration.

Cartrain versus Hirst

“I always ignore money.”
- Damien Hirst

I’m going to take a break from writing my usual introspective daily blog, and talk about some drama that has been going on with some people I know. In the beginning I really only heard one side of the story, and now that I know them both…I think it’s worth a commentary. Not because I think it’s worthy of gossip, but because I think the absurdity of the confrontation needs to be brought to light. I spent a great deal of time discussing it with friends of mine recently, and I think it’s an interesting situation for people to chime in on. The entire matter has been going on for a while now, but since it’s close to reaching some sort of resolution shortly, I figured I’d bring the rest of you up to speed.

It involves two people – one of whom is a creative teenage schoolboy, the other, an older multi-millionaire fixture in the ‘artistic’ establishment. Now under most normal circumstances people from such different worlds would never really intertwine with one another, but with all things Hirst, when money is involved…he’s interested.

The whole fiasco started when Cartrain made a sagacious serious of  collages that incorporated a photograph of Damien Hirst’s infamous platinum-and-diamond skull titled, “For the Love of God.” Cartrain’s series superimposed the image of the skull over various figures, all in his signature tongue-in-cheek way. All of the images were displayed  online and were available for purchase for £65 (about $105).

Here’s an example:

Clever, right?

I know when I first saw them they made me cackle out loud with laughter. I was actually in London when For the Love of God was being unveiled, and I remember the hoopla surrounding it – cobras in the display case, etc. Personally, I’ve always found Hirst to be the P.T. Barnum of art. That’s not to pretend that I haven’t been impressed by his works (I have). I remember one night in particular, my ex and I were walking in Manhattan and stumbled across an exhibit of his by accident (ironically, the same one that is now embroiled in the controversy), but nevertheless we looked in the windows of the Lever House and admired what Hirst had set up.

And while I have ethical issues with his use of animals (hope you’re reading this Matthew!), aesthetically I can admire what he’s going for. It can be an impressive sight. Now that he’s venturing into more painting (that I hope he’s going to do himself), I’ve enjoyed some of his pieces. His influence can’t be denied, but like the rest of OZ, I’m ready for the Wizard to come out from behind the curtain and show us what he’s really made of.

So imagine Cartrain’s surprise when he found out that not only had Hirst seen his collages, but he contacted DACS (Design and Artists Copyright Society), complaining that he had infringed on Hirst’s copyright. When I first heard that, my initial reaction was, “Say Whaaaat?” I mean I had heard of businesses or corporations going after artists under the same guise, but an artist? And over that? I was taken aback.

Cartrain was told that he had to cease selling the prints, handover all profits made from them, as well as give over all remaining copies. How much had Cartrain made? £200 (about $325). I’m going to wager a guess that Hirst spent more on dinner at Scott’s in Mayfair just the other week.

To myself, and thankfully most of the art world, it seemed petty at best.

The reason that most of us found the whole exchange ironic, is that Hirst’s skull sculpture has been embroiled in controversy since its inception and debut. For the Love of God, consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead of the skull. Costing £14 million to produce, the work went on display at the White Cube gallery in London at an asking price of £50 million. Hirst stated the idea for the work came from a turquoise skull at the British Museum, but in typical Hirst fashion, we soon learned there was a bit more to the story.

Artist John LeKay, a friend of Hirst’s in the early 1990s, claims the work is based on a skull covered with crystals, which LeKay had made in 1993. LeKay said, “When I heard he was doing it, I felt like I was being punched in the gut. When I saw the image online, I felt that a part of me was in the piece. I was a bit shocked.”

Anyone familiar with Hirst would not be shocked to hear such a proclamation being made. I know a few artists who jokingly say that they will never discuss work around him, for fear it will magically be reproduced at a later date. One even makes up absolutely ludicrous work ideas just so they can discuss them around him, loudly. So if a solid-gold cast of Hirst’s anus embellished with feathers from a Giant Ibis (in lieu of Unicorn tears) is ever produced, the jokes on him.

* In 1999, chef Marco Pierre White said Hirst’s Butterflies On Mars had plagiarised his own work, Rising Sun, which he then put on display in the restaurant Quo Vadis in place of the Hirst work.

* In 2000, Hirst was sued for breach of copyright over his sculpture, Hymn, which was a 20-foot, six ton, enlargement of his son Connor’s 14″ Young Scientist Anatomy Set, designed by Norman Emms. Hirst paid an undisclosed sum to two charities in an out of court settlement.

* In 2006, a graphic artist and former research associate at the Royal College of Art, Robert Dixon, stated Hirst’s print Valium had “unmistakable similarities” to one of his own designs. Hirst’s manager contested this by explaining the origin of Hirst’s piece was from a book The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry (1991)—not realising this was where Dixon’s design had been published.

The list goes on and on, even his vitrines, which he is most famous for, are marred in controversy and claims of plagiarism. Not to mention that he admittedly doesn’t even make his art – he has a factory team doing it for him. Hirst’s work has become the Ford Assembly line of creativity. Even when Hirst’s claimed that For the Love of God, had been sold, full sum (in cash), it turned out to be a lie. He just wanted the notoriety and the reputation. Undeserved accolades for being the highest paid living artist.

So does the tale end there? Thankfully no, because not only did the underground art movement get behind this entrepreneurial teen, and create a series of protest pieces (all of which incorporated the skull) – they set up a website called, Red Rag To A Bull, stated their purpose, and rallied others to join their cause:

All of the works below are for sale and once TWENTY MILLION POUNDS has been raised ALL the proceeds will go to make an exact copy of a sculpture known as “For the Love of God”. This will then be sold for FIFTY MILLION POUNDS and the THIRTY MILLION POUND profit will then be used to repay the Street Urchin his 200 quid, help other Street Urchins and also feed starving children in Africa and Sussex.

There is so much to be said for the punk-mentality of sticking together. Loyalty is such a quality virtue.

But it gets better, way better, in my opinion. In an act that can only be admirably defined as ’sticking it to the man,’ Cartrain brazenly walked in to the Tate Briton and stole removed a packet of pencils from one of Hirst’s exhibits. The box of rare Faber Castell dated 1990 Mongol 482 series pencils were taken from the Pharmacy installation.

Shortly after, some fake police appeal posters started appearing around.

Quality. He then released this statement:

“For the safe return of Damien Hirsts pencils I would like my artworks back that DACS and Hirst took off me in November. It is not a large demand, he can have his pencils back when I get my artwork back. DACS are now not taking any notice of my emails and I have asked nicely more than five times to try and resolve this matter. Hirst has until the end of this month to resolve this or on 31st of July the pencils will be sharpened. He has been warned.”

He has seriously endeared himself to me, this kid. Especially after releasing this print:

In less than 2 weeks, we’ll find out the fate of Cartrain – but during this time I have to say that I simply admire his guerilla tactics. I have long since subscribed to the ethos of making a statement with something worthwhile to say. And while I am admittedly bias to my friend, I’ve found this entire David and Goliath battle fascinating. The very nature of Pop Art, especially Urban Art, is to make a commentary on the society we live in. Why Damien Hirst, for all his courting of pomp and circumstance, suddenly wants to be above that is beyond me. The Hirst machine has become a corporation that not many people wish to speak out against. Has he done admirable things for charity, certainly. I won’t go so far as to call him a hack, but not even he is immune to accusations of misappropriation. One must wonder, what career (or fortune) would he have, if he were to be forced to hand over profits every time the word “plagiarism” found its way to his direction?

Has Cartrain behaved outrageously? Of course! In my opinion, that is the very thing that has made this entire ordeal so fantastic. He’s 16 years old! What more do you expect from a teenager who has developed a reputation for graffiti on the backstreets of London? If he weren’t behaving in the most tempestuous manner possible, I’d be disappointed. He’s shown spirit and continues to embody the nature of the movement.

“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”
- Salvador Dali

Now quick, someone get Frank Dunphy on the phone, these things are going for $12 a pop at my local Halloween store! I’m sure those kids in Mexico have made at least 64¢ Damien Hirst is entitled to.

Challenge yourself sometime.

“Go without a coat when it’s cold; find out what cold is. Go hungry; keep your existence lean. Wear away the fat, get down to the lean tissue and see what it’s all about. The only time you define your character is when you go without. In times of hardship, you find out what you’re made of and what you’re capable of. If you’re never tested, you’ll never define your character.”
- Henry Rollins

Life is hard. It’s full of challenges and trials and tribulations. Some people get more than their fair share and some people create problems that never needed to exist. But life, by its very essence is a challenge. The challenge to survive, to do well in school, to become successful, find a partner, have a good relationship, etc. Some challenges stay with us our entire lives. Sometimes, simply  over-coming our past is the biggest challenge to our future.

Challenges give us a sense of purpose. They identify goals for ourselves that we need to accomplish. Things we need to do in our lives in order to proceed to the next level. And when at the various stages of our lives, the challenges are resolved, we feel accomplished. We have achieved something. We can sometimes pride ourselves in achieving something that others have not, or perhaps achieving it at an earlier point in time than our average peer. Everyone has boxes that they want to tick off: place to go, people to see, experiences to have.

What happens though, when we no longer have a substantial challenge? When there are no obstacles to overcome? How do we manage dealing with life when it becomes routine and predictable? What is the secret to alleviating the sense of boredom?

For most people, they long to reach this point in time. They are anxious to retire and lay in a hammock all day doing nothing. Some people aspire to live a life of complete and utter leisure. But the truth is, when such a blasé existence is reached, we find ourselves loathing it, and try to diminish it in a few ways. For some, they will start a hobby or try to learn something new. Others will do whatever they can to figure out how to rediscover their lust for life (which can either be a positive or negative thing depending on the circumstances). And then there are those who will intentionally create chaos in order to have a problem to solve. Those latter folks are the ones I avoid like the plague.

When I came back to the States, I thought I would put all my time and effort into becoming a better person for one specific goal; but now I realize that devoting all this time to myself has improved almost every aspect of my life. Sure, sometimes I wish things were different; and don’t get me wrong, it’s not the easiest challenge I’ve ever had to face. I’ve met some incredibly engaging and attractive people; and have been pursued by some of equal measure. As my friend puts it, I’ve never really been at a loss of options, but when you make a mistake or life gets off course; sometimes you just have to stop and do some proactive course-correcting of your own. It’s been 9 months since my return, so I figure, if people are still interested in 3 months, then we’ll talk, but until then…I’m on my time. And I needed my time. I have done some things and met some of the greatest people I’ve ever known during this sabbatical. So when this challenge I gave to myself is up, I think I will be completely ready for anything. In order to focus on me, I’ve needed to focus on me.

Some of my friends have been engaging in equal self-pursuits, and we’re all staggered at various stages of the game. It’s been interesting though to see how people rise (or stagger) at the occasion.

We need to enrich our lives, constantly. As human beings we never stop learning, we never stop growing, and there is always – ALWAYS – room for improvement. There is never any excuse for stagnation on our part. Big or small, you should always be challenging yourself. Challenge yourself to be a better partner, to learn how to knit, play an instrument, become a triathlete, whatever, just do something.

As Yoda would say, “Do or do not. There is no ‘try.’”