All posts in life

the b.q.e. and streets prior.

By On July 15, 2011 In life, nyc With 1 Comment Permanent Link to the b.q.e. and streets prior.Permalink

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I’m writing this from a cab. It’s past 2am and I’m writing this on my phone from a cab… I’m tired, but maybe I should write. I’m always in cabs and it’s always late. do I bitch about stuff? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t. with walls and bullshit, sometimes I forget. it’s easy to forget, maybe you have someone in the other room who you havent paid a compliment to in a while. that’s okay… wait, it’s not okay. that’s something you say. you haven’t reminded the missus she’s pretty and I haven’t held out an embrace for this city. I guess I’m tired. I know I’m tired. I’m always tired. but I’m not the only one. I think that’s what new york city does best – remind you that you’re not the only one. there’s a lot of me here, tall dark-haired kids. in my office, there’s not only another Aric, but someone with a tattoo that says ‘absurd’. mine says ‘absurdity’. there might be snow, but there are no snowflakes. this cab is making me sick. too many people pass through and not enough people come and pass through. i just passed where they filmed Ghostbusters. maybe I should ask him to go back and have a cigarette outside. maybe not. they might not like smokers. Bill Murray’s dance by the fountain when he was waiting on Sigourney Weaver was classic. you can get away with shit like that here. you can get away with a lot, but please don’t think it’s original. we’re all pretty tired. yesterday, a girl who works for us, but a floor above, said she goes to bed around 4a – back up at 8a. ‘how long?’ I asked, ‘since forever’ from under her Ray Bans. and so it goes in the big city. and so we go in the big city. tomorrow’s going to hurt – not from drinkin’ though; haven’t had one of those in a while. just sleep. or lack thereof. the city hurts. no – not hurts. the city makes me a good tired. this Manhattan gives me a constant hangover. but that’s okay. but this cab is making me sick.

 

tuesdays with tara – volume thirty-eight

By On June 28, 2011 In life, tuesdays with tara With 1 Comment Permanent Link to tuesdays with tara – volume thirty-eightPermalink

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“And the hardest thing about this love is that it’s never gonna’ last. And the hardest thing about this love is that you’re never coming back.”

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I have things that I want to say to you. It doesn’t matter to me that you will never read this. It doesn’t concern me that these words will never reach you. You know all of this already. You know because you did this. You did all of it. You did it to me. You did it to us. You are the one who will have to live with it, as well. It did its work with me, to be sure. But if there’s one thing about me that you vastly under-estimated (and let’s face it; it wasn’t just one thing), it’s my raw strength; my ability to take one on the chin, dust myself off and keep moving forward. You did not break me, though there were nights where I wondered if it were the case, nights when I laid in a pile on the floor in a pool of my own hot tears, feeling as though I had finally been broken beyond compare.

You got scared. It got real. It got real and you freaked. It’s really as simple as that in the end. You don’t like yourself very much. You think you are full of dirt and shameful ways. You didn’t understand why I would even want to be with you; why I would want to know your heart. You feel it is a dark unknowable place that you must never truly reveal. It is your right, after all, to go through life hiding behind a shield. But you betrayed my love in the process. You hung me out to dry and you did it in the most cowardly way possible.

I can’t blame you for being afraid of bearing yourself to someone else. It’s damned frightening. Anyone who doesn’t appreciate the full weight of such an action is probably not going deep enough in the first place. But you threw your words into the wind. You made promises and swore oaths and then you went back on all of them. I found myself standing in the hallway at five in the morning, my eyes swollen from crying for hours, not knowing where you were, and all I could do, all I could muster at the sight of you, was to bring my hand across your face. You were breaking me even then, but you were doing it so slowly that even I didn’t realize what was happening. It was the beginning of the end, that morning. It was the first stage of your cowardly departure.

And when you chased me like a dog down a highway median, I still wondered how my life had gotten to that point. And when you tore the arm off of my wool coat, I asked myself who it was happening to. And when you dragged me through the bushes, and I tore at your face with every ounce of strength I had in me, I was sure that none of it could be really happening. You loved me. So why was any of it happening?

In the end, I decided that maybe you were right to want to hide your heart from me. Perhaps there is within your heart some darkness with which you cannot ever possibly reconcile. This is no longer anything that I concern myself with. You are no longer anyone who can hurt me.

I want you to know one thing and one thing only, in the event that you do not know it: what you did to me was wrong. What you did to us was sad, but what you did to me was wrong.

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like Tara? shame on you. love Tara? welcome to the fold. there’s 37 more of her offerings here. you’ll thank us

 

vvvvvrrrrrroooooooooommmmmm.

By On June 23, 2011 In life, nyc With 2 Comments Permanent Link to vvvvvrrrrrroooooooooommmmmm.Permalink

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for someone who’s not good at keeping secrets, I’ve done a good job of keeping a secret. the 2nd week I moved to Brooklyn, I found this gorgeous little thing on Craigslist. it’d been posted a few days prior and, with Vespas being the absolute cupcakes here in NYC, I was sure it had gone [I won't tell you the price, but trust me that this was a steal]. I went ahead and emailed the poor fella who had to let her go and went ahead and asked if he had sold her yet and, as it turned out, he had received loads of inquiries, but had been out of town for a few days and mine just happened to be the first [read: most recent] email on top. so I had first dibs. problem was that while I had plenty of dibs, I did not [nor do I ever have] the money for it. so I tried a second Hail Mary and asked if he’d be willing to accept 6 weeks of partial payments. cheeky, sure, but it was either that or quickly sell 341 books.

and he went for it.

it’s amazing what happens when you take the chance and just ask. try it for a week.

so…

the night before I go to pick it up, I happen to get a call from my buddy Chris – who lives here in town, but I never get to see [read: common occurrence in the city] and we decided on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon to meet up at my 2nd home/favorite joint in NYC, Salt.

did I mention it was gorgeous? and that I hadn’t seen Chris in a while? and that we were at my favorite place in the city?

okay, good.

6 hours [unconfirmed] and 7 [confirmed] bottles of cava later, we came to the conclusion that we had done a good job of catching up.

the next morning, our heads/legs/shoulders/soul/toe would question our reasoning.

I was woken up by a message from the Vespa owner saying that he had to leave town early, so could I get there within the hour?

no.

but I had to.

so, yes.

now, I don’t know what you know about New York City, but I live in the gorgeous Brooklyn area of Park Slope. previously-nice-now-turned-mean-spirited Vespa owner lives on the Upper West Side. it’s basically from Prospect Park to Central Park. a long way. and it’s a very long way on a train when you’ve got the shakes and a vicious headache.

I think I said ‘hello’ to him and I’m pretty sure I told him ‘I understand’ when he gave me instructions that I didn’t understand. somehow, in the months leading up to the acquisition, I had not realized that this was a manual Vespa, as opposed to the normal automatic. and it’s not the manual like a motorcycle, which you might have read about my experience with. it’s different. a lot different.

anyway.

I couldn’t tell you the number of times I stalled in front of buses or cabs, or even the more dangerous bike messengers. I can tell you I did about 25mph the entire time. I missed turns, almost ended up in a tunnel to New Jersey and then almost hit a large group of tourists crossing over to the World Trade grounds. what was supposed to be a 30-minute drive from the west of the city to the Brooklyn Bridge took more than an hour.

and then there was the bridge The Bridge. it’s a big ole bridge. and people go really fast on it. there’s no shoulder to go the aforementioned mph preference, and, despite the gorgeous weather, I was still suffering. greatly. lots of suffering. and my wrist hurt from the weird shifting motion. and I was holding in a nervous poo.

and oh yeah! it wasn’t until I was halfway onto the monstrous steel and going 45mph that I realized something I had somehow missed during the Manhattan part of the ride…

the steering column wasn’t aligned.

meaning in order to keep the front wheel straight, my hands were not at the 10-and-2 position, but – in fact – 10.15-and-3.07 marker. now, that might not seem like much to you, but it’s fucklot when you’re on a Vespa going fast over a bridge with angry cabbies behind you [one less customer]. and your mind does a funny thing when realizing the danger you’re in. it doesn’t agree with your hands not being straight. it wants to be straight. aligned. the weirdest thing. my mind actually was telling my body to straighten itself out.

but I couldn’t.

so I freaked.

my hands started shaking more than they were previously. I slowed down and was screamed at by a yellow gang of 4. it started raining [not really][but it might as well have]. I finally made it off and pulled over to calm down.

it took about 20 minutes. both hands – on the area between you thumbs and index finger – were blistered. my bottom had sweated a streak in my shorts. my jaw hurt.

but I had made it over. I was in Brooklyn.

the rest of the day, I rode all over – stopping only to get gas and stopping only once more to ask people how to open up the seat to put gas in it. I enjoyed myself and people told me through unrolled windows at stoplights that they liked my bike. I was a cool guy to them and thus, I was a cool guy to me.

it was a good day.

until David came home and scolded me. ‘you could have been in a lot of trouble – driving around with no license or insurance.’ I pah’d him away with a wave. it was worth the possible $100 fine [or whatever] to be free on the streets of New York City. he told me ‘it would be much worse than a few hundred dollars’ and I pah’d him away again.

but then my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to join a scooter forum and ask.

turns out I would have been in a lot of trouble.

no problem though, right? get a license, get insurance and away I go!

absolutely!

all I have to do is:

 

- order a new birth certificate [mine was taken in the China raid]

- order a new social security card [same]

- take both in and surrender my OK driver’s license for a NY one

- go back and take the written test for a motorcycle learner’s permit

- enroll in a driving school

- pass the test

- get my NY motorcycle license

 

… didn’t really think that one through.

but I got one great photo!

so there’s that.

tuesdays with tara – volume thirty-seven

By On June 14, 2011 In life, music, tuesdays with tara With No Comments Permanent Link to tuesdays with tara – volume thirty-sevenPermalink

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“People say that old road is haunted. If you travel on it long enough, you won’t get off it.”

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Stories. We all love to hear them. We may even love to tell them. But what of the stories we tell ourselves? What of the stories that become such an entrenched part of our inner fabric that we begin to assume them as fact; the way things are, or were, or will be.

Internal dialogue. We’re all entitled to our very own. We sometimes make the leap of faith to allow another person into that sacred space where such thinking is contained. This is not an easy gesture to make. If I choose to open that place and usher you inside, I lose some of my power. Whatever it is you choose to see, to perceive, to come away with, may be entirely apart from what it is I assumed was tucked inside there. And what are we to do, then? Are we at an impasse? We are. It is a stand-off of epic proportion. I stand before you and I say that what it is you have seen deep inside of me is one way. You stand before me and tell me that what it is that you have seen deep inside of me is something else.

And who is right?

Naturally, you assume that you are correct. It is, after all, your mind, your conscience that has been peered into. It is your very soul that you have bared and so, does it not then follow that the power of its contents should rightly belong to you? That any and every interpretation of what has been revealed ought only to appear as it has been presented? And yet, is this not an impossibility? Is it not the case that once the leap of faith has been made, and once the space has been opened; in fact, once you have opened that door, are you not then subjective to what it is that might walk through?

Is it not the case that you cannot tell me how it is that I feel? Is it not the case that this very fact, may actually, chill you to your very bones? And yet, this is where we stand. This is where we find ourselves. You empty the contents of your emotions. I absorb it and decide what it is I can do with it. I cannot promise you that I will always make the wisest choice. I also cannot promise you that how I feel will be something that will leave you with a sense of well-being or peace. It may, in fact, be the very opposite. This may happen again, as it happened today; as it happened a month ago. It is where we are. It where we might find ourselves tomorrow. What, then, are we to do about this? Well, for one, we can let go. We can forget all about the need for power. We can forget all about the need for control. We can remember love. We can remember that. It’s what we’ve got.

More than anything, in times like these, I want to say this to you: please come back to us.

Grieves ‘Bloody Poetry’

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written, as it always is, by Miss Tara Noble. visit 36 more here. this girl’s the jam. when she’s not living in a campervan.

from a [Brooklyn] basement on a hill.

By On May 16, 2011 In life, people, photos, travel With No Comments Permanent Link to from a [Brooklyn] basement on a hill.Permalink

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‘I have an idea’ said my friend David, a few weeks ago on the phone, ‘it’s kind of weird, you might get wet and probably can’t stand up in it, but it’s something…’

sold.

David, who I hope will let me write about him more in the coming months, was someone who I’d always wanted to be like… but more on that later. what I did know is that he had a very quirky/artsy side to him and I knew that if he was suggesting it, then there had to be a major draw.

so I said ‘yes’. right there on the phone. before even seeing it. he wanted me to come by and check it out, but I already knew that I would like it.

I live in a basement, in case you weren’t following. and I can’t stand straight up when walking under the beams – but that’s okay. it does get wet here when it rains, but that’s okay because 90% of the time, I’ll have a dry home.

wait – I can picture your face right now. that nurturing look made when reacting to someone’s silver lining. but let me stop you right there. I’m making money. a decent amount of money. and I could easily afford to pay $1500 a month to share an apartment with a stranger I met on craigslist.

but I don’t want to pay $1500 a month to share an apartment with a stranger I met on craigslist.

I want to live here.

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… I want to live here and I do.

I live in a basement.

more photos to come of the house itsself – I mean, in-suite laundry, a backyard with a bbq grill [unheard of in nyc] and we have a baby grand piano in the middle of our kitchen. banjos hang on the walls and are played whenever bourbon is served. books overload the shelves. an original print from ‘mr. brainwash’ hangs behind me. it’s the most funkiest of places with the funkiest of people [two roommates musicians/sound designers, two of them in theater] and it’s in the gorgeous tree-lined area of park slope. at night, if you look down our street, you can see the statue of liberty.

so – to recap:

- I get a job with a very hip ‘zine in manhattan [more on that in a bit].

- my first weekend in town, I spend it in a 50-million dollar hampton beach house.

- two days later, I have a book launch party that a lot of people showed up to.

- that next weekend, I move here.

…

it’s all gone a bit silly, if you ask me.

tuesdays with tara – volume thirty-four

By On April 26, 2011 In life, tuesdays with tara With 2 Comments Permanent Link to tuesdays with tara – volume thirty-fourPermalink

“But you’re still, you’re bright, you’re quiet in the heart of it.”

When I look back now, the images appear in my mind like talisman: a little green room in a dark bar. A hollowed-out tree at the edge of a lake. A claw foot bathtub garden. They are a few tokens of a past; all symbols of a life, of a friendship. They are suspended above my head in reverie, these tokens, and I reach out as if to hold them, as if it were possible to experience their sweetness anew.

In those sweet golden days the weight, the burden of living this life, of garnering experience, getting battered and bloodied, was a refuge that we gladly sought. We had no one to think of but ourselves. Utterly free to make asses of ourselves; and we often did, sometimes merely for sport. It was one of many exquisite luxuries of that time that we would only be able to truly admire when it had long sailed away from us.

I thought I knew myself and I was wrong. My image of myself turned out to be much at odds with the reality. It was jarring. I was encapsulated in a falsehood of sorts; held prisoner by my own devices. I was completely unaware of the source of my distemper but it fell upon me like a woolen cloak, clumsy and suffocating.

I didn’t mind the night fits. The darkness seemed good company for melancholy. It was when I fell apart in broad daylight that alarmed me most. Busses rumbling by, friends conversing as they walked, birds perched upon street lamps, everything humming along and me on the floor in my pajamas in a puddle of tears in the middle of the afternoon. Surely it was unseemly. Surely there was something terribly wrong with me.

And then came that night. I had been up waiting for hours in the dark for him to come home. In my misery, I watched the clock as the hands slowly dragged themselves around, but still the sound of the key in the lock didn’t come.

I had been crying for some time. It was one of those crying jags that scoured me clean, like a seashell that’s been bleached. I felt empty and impossibly light, but in a dangerous way, as though there were nothing left inside.

So I opened the window. The night air blew the curtain into my face. I scrambled out onto the fire escape. I made my way up the ladder on auto pilot. I was already in a trance at this stage. I made my way to the very lip of the rooftop, sat down and dangled my feet over the edge.

I was six stories up. I looked down and tried to absorb what was passing by below on the street. I wanted to see busses and people and street lamps. What I saw instead was like looking out a windshield in a bad storm. Streaks of color and light and noise, all of it slurring below me, and drawn out as though I were trying to see it all, hear it all, from underwater.

I don’t know how long I sat there like that. Long enough to have become cold without realizing and long enough to have become treacherously fatigued. I started to fall forward. There was no conscious intent in that motion. It was just something that happened to me.

And then an arm wrapped itself around my neck and pulled me from that edge and I was saved. I had been spared a certain horrible and senseless death. He didn’t know why he stopped working early that night. He didn’t know why he found himself rushing home. How could he have known? And yet when he stepped into the room, saw the curtain blowing in and out in swells, he knew where to find me.

What if he had continued with his work? What if he had gotten caught at a light? What if he had made himself a sandwich before seeking me out?

But none of those things happened. He pulled me back. He saved me from myself.

Gregory Alan Isakov – ‘Unwritable Girl’

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33 more ‘tuesdays with tara’!

 

the big apple. NYC. the city that never sle… etc.

By On April 21, 2011 In friends, life, work With 3 Comments Permanent Link to the big apple. NYC. the city that never sle… etc.Permalink

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Ethan Trembley: ‘You can ride with me; I’m going to Hollywood!’

Peter Highman: ‘Los Angeles. No one calls it ‘Hollywood’. You’re going to Los Angeles’

[Due Date]

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I suck at keeping secrets. I might have mentioned that before. in fact, how in the world I managed to keep the video that Josie’s friends and I made her quiet for so long was agonizing. I’ve also, in my past few years of constant fluctuation, not been one to say ‘hey! _______ is happening!’, because, along with a first initial ‘A’ and a last name ‘Queen’, the heavens also get their laughs out of my plannings. so no, I don’t usually mention something until it’s all done. I rarely say things like… oh, I don’t know – ‘I’m moving to New York City!’ because it’d suck if for some reason, I wasn’t able to move to New York City.

but I’m moving to New York City.

[exclamation point]

for the past few months, I’ve been in negotiations/talks/interviews with a funky company there and we finally got to that point where they said ‘would you like to come here?’ and I said ‘sure’ and they said ‘we’ll pay you this much’ and I said ‘sure’.

that was all last night. lots of things to sort out, of course, but I’m going to go ahead and take the chance on mentioning it now.

I’m moving to New York City.

this might not be a big thing to you, if you grew up in a big city, but I didn’t. I grew up in Oklahoma. sure, I’ve spent enough time there to have a favorite bar and a strong group of friends, but I’ve never lived there. I’ve never taken the subway to work. where I had to be on time. which means I need to understand the subway.

‘oh god, the J train is running late again!’ I’ve seen friends write on Twitter. I’ve always wondered what that’s like.

another friend just today wrote a moving piece about the people on the train. don’t read it at work though, you’ll cry.

but yeah.

I’m kind of excited.

a job I like. surrounded by people I adore. in a city that’s rumored to be kind of fun.

so, you know… away we go.

the [previous] redhead

By On April 10, 2011 In life With 1 Comment Permanent Link to the [previous] redheadPermalink

okay.

what I’m about to say has all the nuances of an… damn it, who was the guy… in love with his Mother… Icarus? no. he flew too close to the sun, right? Achilles? no. shit. bad foot guy, I think. ah – yes. Oedipus. yes. that’s him. he might come to mind here in a minute. and before you snicker and make fun, you haven’t spent the past 2 hours deciding synopsis font and researching the official rules of when to spell a number and when to write a number, now have you? no, you haven’t.

I was going somewhere with this… oh yes.

I love my Ma. who doesn’t, sure, but I mean, being able to be home for a decent amount of time this stretch has reminded me of what a strong family I come from. Mom and Dad love Dad and Mom. all the siblings get along famously. we can all out-drink one another and we’re all 3 pretty good in a pinch [sister being the toughest]. simply put – I come from good stock. so, the other evening, I’m driving with Mom down her favorite country road and I realize that I could not ask for a better Mother. I thought this to myself and then I took a look at her hands on the steering wheel and to the graceful lines that only a graceful life could give. I realized that this was one less drive I’d ever have with her, so I told what I was thinking.

‘Mom, I’m glad you’re my Mom.’

that’s it. no Hero Son Points for originality, but I can tell it made her feel good. which it should. she and Dad have devoted their entire lives to making sure we 3 did.

anyway, this isn’t about that.

it’s about making sure the people you love not only know it, but are told. and that it’s told to other people. you can say ‘Aric, you’re swell’ at the pub and I’ll say ‘shucks’. but you could also tell someone else I’m swell and then they’ll say ‘you know who thinks you’re swell, Queen? [your name here]‘ and boy-oh-boy, that makes it even better.

so – tell the person you love that you love them. but don’t be afraid to tell other folks as well.

make sense? cool. okay…

I love the woman in the photo below.

Perth, WA - Kat's Birthday!

I really do. and no doubt you’ll look at that photo and say either [woman's voice] ‘isn’t she cute!’ or [man's voice] ‘fuckin’ right’, but it goes beyond that. is she stunning? oh man. you have no idea. sure, you’ve seen photos and what have you, but she is even more beautiful in real life. I’m serious. and that’s not even the best part. no, the best part is the Josie I know and you don’t. think about having a boyfriend who lives half-a-world away. okay, now, make that boyfriend a moody, broke, self-conscious, hyper-sensitive sometimes-child. and, oh yeah! make him a wanna-be writer. a wanna-be writer whose first book is all about the drugs he did and the women he slept with! I know, right? isn’t she the lucky gal?

oh man.

I could not be more in love with her. simple as that. she lives over there and I live over here and it’s going to be that way for a while… a long while. and you can go ahead and mumble ‘good luck’ and some recycled line about long-distance relationships and that’s okay. cause we’ve both done the same thing. but this isn’t about that.

this is about being so happy with someone that you want to, not only tell them – which is easy – but tell everyone you know. from the top of a mountain or whatever you’re standing near. and if, god-forbid, I don’t get a chance to say it tomorrow, then let me say it tonight…

I’m a lucky fella. and don’t think that a day goes by that I don’t realize that.

I’m in love.

and I’m this far into a bottle of pinot grigio to share a one of the many things she does for me during our time of geographical separation.

she is my sunshine.

mow betta blues

By On March 30, 2011 In life, people With 1 Comment Permanent Link to mow betta bluesPermalink

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a funny thing happened the other day in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

granted, a lot of funny things happen here – even more if you leave for a while and then come back; but this one happened to me. see, my parents have a big ole patch of land, and it takes the better part of the day to mow it – even with the lawnmower we have, which rivals the size of a Smart Car. but I offered to do it, hoping it made up for being the 34-year old son who’s single, unemployed, homeless and someone who justifies his current state by calling himself a [cough] writer.

walking outside with my Dad [62 years old last week, if you can believe that], I asked him ‘where the property line ran to’, as we’re nice enough folks not to need things like fences. he looked at me a bit strange and said ‘all of it, man’, and then showed me where the spare gas can was.

and so I mowed – all of it. all of the land we had been looking at. it wasn’t all of our land, a good portion of it was owned by the neighbors all the way to the right, and all the way to the left. it took me, as predicted, all day. but I can’t moan too much about it, seeing how all I did was sit and occasionally turn the wheels. I wasn’t bitter about the ‘all of it’ statement, I just wondered what that was all about.

but I let it go. he might be 62, but he’s still my Dad. and, save for my years of 12-19, he’s never been wrong. so it was forgotten quickly.

this past weekend, he and Mom went out of town. while they were gone, I told them that I’d paint one of the spare rooms. I managed to find a roller + paint, but couldn’t locate a regular paint brush. having stolen, wrecked and, even one time, lost one of their cars growing up, I was understandably not allowed to drive theirs while they were away. meaning I couldn’t get down to the hardware store to buy a brush to finish the cutting-in.

they came back today, Mom, of course was thrilled at what a good job I had done [which I had, thank you. and if you must know, I also did an excellent job of finishing my muffin this morning] as was Dad. but he had to ask:

‘what’s going on with the trim?’

‘oh, right’, I said. ‘I couldn’t find a paintbrush.’

‘did you ask Ray?’

‘who’s Ray?’

he looked at me funny again.

Ray lived to the right of us. a few days ago, our lawnmower cut his grass. today, I could’ve gone over and gotten a paintbrush.

I got the funny looks, ’cause in my 16 years away from Oklahoma, I had forgotten what being a neighbor was all about. these days, I guess they’d be someone who I’d wave to if I drove by. but only if we talked on occasion and were Facebook buddies.

Dad, and Ray, seemed to think differently.

Over the past few years, I’ve been pretty hard on my roots; sure, a lot of them are simple folks who aren’t always up on the newest bands or social networking scene, but that’s also kept most of them from being assholes.

see, without all the iGreed or hell – even iAwareness, they’re not going to TweetPic a Instagram photo of traffic to your Facebook wall as an excuse for not coming to the Linkedin party you posted on Upcoming.org. if they say they’re coming, then they’re coming. there seems to be still value here put on things like the spoken word and honoring promises. I like that. I had forgotten that there were still people like that. I was reminded of why I liked that. and in my short time here, I’m going to go back and revisit all of those wonderfully simple things that make Okies some of the nicest people in the world.

I’m gonna revisit as many of them as possible.

and maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll get to revisit, well – all of it… man.

tuesdays with tara – volume thirty-one

By On March 15, 2011 In life, music, tuesdays with tara With 3 Comments Permanent Link to tuesdays with tara – volume thirty-onePermalink

I can’t sort it out.

It has been flooded; inundated, this brain. It is full up and sloshing sloppily out of badly sealed corners. Today, it is equal parts cold medicine and good old fashioned displacement. Displacement getting me down? This gypsy? Never say never.

If any praise can be lauded upon routine, it is this: a sense of certainty. There is plenty to be said for that kind of stability. So what happens, then, when everything is new and everything is upside down and nothing is what it was and where you are heading is unclear? Let’s not even enter into the discussion the power of insecurity and second guessing. Let’s leave that out of the equation for today. Let’s deal only with an over-active mind that is filling to the brim on a daily basis for lack of much else to do and can I please, pretty please have something else to do?

What I do know is this: that I am expending a ridiculous amount of energy merely trying to keep my happy face above water. I know my joy is one of the best things I have going. My desire to hold on to that, to safeguard that, is occupying a fair amount of my days. I take a little time each day to remind myself of what is good and right about what I have done with my life. I remind myself of time-honored platitudes such as, “This too shall pass.” I pet the cat. I cook something delicious. I look out the window and I think, “Yeah. This is good where I am now.”

I believe it, too. I have a genuine sense of peace that fell into my lap out here. Sometimes when you stop looking for something, it finds you instead. So why, then, does my life not catch up with my spirit so that I can go forth and be productive? So that I can make room in my head for things more worth thinking about?

This song made so much sense to me today. I have no idea what he is saying. But if feels joyful to me. It has momentum. It moves along in a relentless way. It refuses to stay down.

I get that more than you could know.

Shugo Tokumaru – ‘Lahaha’

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for a whole lot more of ‘tuesdays with tara’, visit the archives. or, stalk her. or both.

 

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