Top Ten

10.- Skinny dipping isn't dead.

9.- Bottomless cups of coffee + free wifi = good.

8.- Listening to every one of Damien Rice's songs in a row is equal to acacia berry for detox benifits.

7.-3 couples created in 1 week is very good for my matchmaker resume.

6.-Read the Kite Runner. You wont be the same.

5.-Have you ever sat, watching the screen of your phone, hoping? It makes me feel fragile.

4.-Now that I have a timeline for how long I'm in this town, I'm ready to embrace it whole-heartedly. It's a refreshing feeling.

3.-Wearing sunglasses on your head at 11 PM doesn't make you cool.

2.-My laptop has stickers now. I think that means I'm hip.

1.-I fit into my skinny jeans, at last.

Some disjointed thoughts on settling versus settling down or how a vegetarian ate bacon for breakfast.

"Maybe we're all in glass houses, and shouldn't throw stones. Because you can never really know. Some people are settling down, some are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less..."


I'm getting this finally through my head that things don't always turn out the way you're expecting. Exchanging that concept for visions of perfection I've entertained, I feel a good deal closer to finding a sort of happiness I can dig my fingers into.

I had bacon for breakfast this morning. Sitting cross-legged and barefoot, the new morning sun warmed my eyelids and the remains of last night's ponytail. I slid my tongue across my teeth, tasting a midnight cigarette. I had four pieces of bacon, dripping with grease that soaked right through the toast and ran into a little pool that hardened on the edge of the plate. Delicious. Totally not tofu. Goosebumps appeared on my forearms to touch the poignant paradox that sat thick and heavy in the air all around my plate of pork fat.

Life is so full of irony. Most of the time it makes me laugh. The rest of the time it makes me all glassy-eyed and lost in thought and is really responsible for nearly all of the wrinkles on my forehead. It's okay. I don't mind them. I don't mind the gray hairs either, as an unrelated side note that I enjoy celebrating as often and as loudly as possible.

And of coffee..

Two primates can lock lips. Any prick can drag his tongue across another's. It means less than nothing with a lack of sincerity. Fuck what it looks like from the outside; a cup of military brew, black as Iowa mud, delivered far more authenticity than a good-morning kiss.

I want to help

One of my dearest friends just lost her boyfriend of nearly 4 years. My heart aches so much, knowing what she's going through. How can you transfer your understanding and commiserating to somone? How to comfort? Especially the independent souls that run far, far away to bleed... I should know the answer to this one so well. Why do I feel like a bobble-head and a broken record, nodding up a storm and mmm-hmmm-ing and awww-ing. Isn't this what experience is all about? Helping? Let me help...

A connection

We had a book signing at the restaurant last night. I got to have a long talk with the author. An author from Portland, nonetheless. The irony was not lost on me by any means, I assure you.

Why is it I am scared to admit I am a writer when I know, deep down, it's what I really am? I told him how excited I am about moving to Portland, I told about my hopes for art school, my thoughts on leaving journalism...but there was some..block..that kept me from saying I am an aspiring writer. It kept me from saying how much I would like to write a memoir-style book.

It was interesting for me to realize this...and rather unexpected. My heart aches, aches when I think about writing. Does it ache a little more because I don't feel like I am pursuing what I need to be? Because I feel like a failure? Am I embarrassed at my nearly non-existent repertoire of work? I'm not sure.

All self-help meanderings aside, though, it was, wonderful to meet him. Wonderful to meet someone who has a hard copy of their work and experiences that you can hold in your hands and smell and flip through and put on a shelf. It was just nice to meet a real live person with a book.

Also, he turned out to be a fabulous Portland connection. He gave me a layout of the city; what to look for in the different districts, a huge list of phone numbers of personal friends of his in the art and media scene and also owners of bars and restaurants in the area for perspective jobs.

"Peoria is a good place to get stuck in," he said, recounting his time spent here.
"A good place to get stuck?"
"Well, it's a good place. But it's really easy to get stuck. It happens."
"I've noticed. I don't want to be a townie.."
"Then you won't."

So, yes. Portland seems to becoming something of a reality as I simply sit and stare. It's an odd feeling. Like watching a bridge be built and figuring that you'd better hurry up and get your shoes tied if you want to walk across.

And, world, I am a writer at heart, whether I have been hiding these talents under various bushels or not. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Plastic Surgery

I drop by the tanning salon for sun-kissed skin. I attend yoga on Wednesday nights to establish flexible, sexible joints and an elongated spine. I streak bleach through my hair, apply charcoal to my eyelids and sandpaper my heels to achieve outward loveliness. If I had the means and the want to I could reshape my nose or my breasts or my tush. New fingernails? Sure. Pesky cellulite or stretch marks. Apply a little cream and wa-la. Want blue eyes, or purple? No problem a little piece of plastic can't fix.

But when it comes to character, a trip to Sally's or Regis can't add more sparkle to my conversational skills or remove stray negativity. I want a toner that adds honesty or some pills to pop that incite genuine compassion.

In this age of instant beauty-on-demand, have we as women lost our patience with cultivating a lovely soul?

Maybe the past is like an anchor holding us back. Maybe, you have to let go of who you were to become who you will be. -Carrie Bradshaw

"Allllllllllllll-righty then, lady. Call me sometime."

He buttoned his jacket. It made a comforting crinkle-squeak. She could almost see the leather smell curling up in little waves into the humid night air.

"Maybe. Or maybe I'll wait for you to call me..."

The giant gray sweater exposed one of the girl's shoulders. He followed a tangled curl of hair past her collarbone and noticed the black strap of her bra was too tight. It cut into her shoulder.

"Okay. But it seems like it's always me, girl. Calling you."

He rested his hand lightly on the seat of the bike. She slid her foot out of her shoe, then back in. Out and in, out and in..

"C'mon, it's my way. I'm old-fashioned, or something like that."

Leftover bits of rain drip-dripped off the edges of everything, pretending to be a real, grown-up rainstorm.

"We're way beyond that, baby."

She pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands and raised her eyebrows.

"I'll call, " she said to his exhaust pipe as he rode off.

peace

"Some love stories aren't epic novels - some are short stories. But that doesn't make them any less filled with love." ~Carrie Bradshaw







Regrets are real. And sometimes they're loud and pushy. They won't be avoided or denied. But sometimes you just have to chalk things up for what they were. And then take that next breath, put on that next pair of socks, spread mayo on that next sandwich, smile at the next stranger and take the next breath and flush the next toilet and pick the next flower and buy the next tank of gas and do the next sit-up and take the next breath...and in time, the next next might be finding peace. Looking respectably at regret and acknowledging its existence. And breathing anyway. And carrying on.

For me this means accepting that, just because something didn't last, that doesn't mean it wasn't real. It was. It was real and it was good. And now it's over.

And it's okay, and I'm okay. Not right as rain, but okay. And for whatever odd reason, in that knowledge, I can take heart and move along.

On feeling small and getting mugged.

I am so small. I am insignificant. I am so small. What I have is so small. What I have is nothing. What I have to offer to God..what I have to offer to the world..what I have to offer is nothing. It is my everything, but it is nothing at all. Nothing.

I feel so delicate. I feel like a knick-knack in the bottom corner of a breaking cardboard box on on moving day. I know I will break. Everyone else knows I will break. God knows I will break. This is inevitable. This goes without saying.

I walked to the sketchy gas station on the corner to buy some oil for my car. It lies on the corner of one of the worst blocks of Peoria. I was carrying a twenty dollar bill in one hand and my ipod, phone and keys in the other. A boy with shifty eyes looked me up and down and peered at the contents of my hands. I wondered off-handedly if he had a gun and even more casually, I wondered what the front page would read in tomorrow's Journal Star. Little white girl gets mugged for ipod?

Other than wishing I had worn something other than the ratty batman T-shirt if this was going to be my last day on earth, I found that I had few thoughts on the matter and even less emotion. I wondered, as he passed what had happened to my lack of fear. I've always been a bit reckless, but this was more of a genuine disinterest.

Is this development positive or negative?

On the walk home the character of Sydney Carton from the Tale of Two Cities came to mind.

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."

I used to be able to make myself cry on cue at this part of the book. Sydney Carton gives a little speech as he takes the place of a man condemned to death.

The most striking thing to me about the whole situation is the calmness Carton has. He is able to preform an ultimate act of bravery without flinching. I don't think it's because he was particularly brave or noble. I think it is because he had no one and nothing holding him back from death.

Hard things in life, simply put, it breaks you down. Into smaller and smaller pieces. And the knick-knack tumbles and tumbles and tumbles and tumbles and becomes sand. It's broken.

I decided something. If I had been shot, I would have bled all over the sidewalk and caused a nasty stain that would have stayed for a while. And then, in a few days people would have been enjoying various types of lunch meat at a memorial service. And then, everyone would be sad for a bit and then move along. And the globe would still turn. I just wouldn't be on it.

That's not so bad. A little lonely, but not so bad.

Maybe the lack-of-fear-of-death isn't bad. It could be pretty damn useful. I want to do far, far better things than I have ever done...

On a Wednesday she is electric

Tonight I planned to sleep. I did. I really did. Clearly, I didn't.

I was going to bed, only I needed a Sex and the City fix. And then there was laundry. Which led to a shower. Two therapeutic phone calls with two dear friends who are both going through break-ups, wrestling with the cats and photo editing...

And by the time I finished all of that, I didn't feel like sleeping anymore. So I did some thinking...here's what I came up with.

I need to write.

And that's just about that. I've been writing lots of moody little bits and pieces that I store away in half empty, dusty journals on the floor of my closet and on miscellaneous word documents that get saved under random names and numbers whenever my laptop dies. I guess I'm a perfectionist sometimes and if I can't finish and edit something pretty much perfectly, than I don't do it at all.

What if half-assing it is better than..not assing it at all? Or something like that.

I know that every time I've written consistently in my life, I've been pleased. I know I should. So..I should.

There.

If you're subscribed to this blog, forgive the possible choppiness, bad grammar and lack of polish that may come in the upcoming posts. It's just time for me to write myself into a frenzy. This isn't time to wait to learn calligraphy and search for synonyms.

And now, suddenly, I want nothing more than to sleep.

Fitting.

Amazon and the weepies and depth

"Amazon.com recommends Limited Edition Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood Wooden Trolley Set of 3", the e-mail reads.

It is six in the morning and my body has just waken me up out of sheer habit. It's a terribly considerate thing to do, you know, despite the fact that I'm still exhausted and my back aches from forever sleeping on this couch and today I don't need to leave for work at six and can sleep till noon, if I like. However I get up. I've always had a problem telling people that their favors are of no use to me; I don't even like disappointing my inner alarm clock with the news that the wake-up was unnecessary this morning.

This problem leads to me, twice each week, eating this tasteless ham Alfredo that makes me think of earthworms and crushed hopes, just because the guy across the street seems to think it's my favorite and brings it in. It leads me to keeping a heap of hand-me-downs in my closet that will never ever touch my skin and sometimes it makes me agree to go home early from work when I'd rather have the hours, but all that's beside the point.

I get up with a nod of thanks to my inner alarm clock. I realize that I've fallen asleep again without brushing my teeth or washing my face or taking off my bra. I hate that feeling. It makes me think of one-night-stands, and sleeping in a car, neither of which I am big fans.

And of course, I check my e-mail. An addiction that easily grows into obsession when one has no phone. Unfortunately, most of the e-mails include offers from memberships I signed up for in various checkout lines around the country; Borders, Victoria's Secret, American Eagle..the list goes on. (and we're back to the obligation to receive "favors", even when they include assumed commission for these smiling and well-meaning employees. We have a theme this morning, ladies and gentlemen.)

Amazon sends me e-mails, too. I heard part of this tape series once, outlining the strategies of "Permission marketing". Supposedly Amazon.com is a regular guru at this and their recommendation e-mails are all part of the plan. Well, they work for me. I always, always read their e-mails, normally finding myself dazzled at the fact that they know I need art textbooks, dammit, how do they do that? And they've magically figured out my weakness for memoirs and Rand and....pretty much everything else that has to do with anything I've ever purchased on their site. Yes, I am a salesman's dream, I realize this.

This morning it's wooden trolley cars and everything Mr. Rogers.

After reading the e-mail I sat very still for a long time. I felt a bit like an animal who freezes for an instant after being frightened before they take off running. I thought immediately of this song by the Weepies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4sa2HoXpsE
(sorry, it's not click-able for some reason, but do copy it. It's on my mind and worth 2:01 of your day, i think. it's a great video)

The world spins madly on

Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
I thought of you and where you'd gone
and let the world spin madly on

Everything that I said I'd do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on

I let the day go by
I always say goodbye
I watch the stars from my window sill
The whole world is moving and I'm standing still

Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
The night is here and the day is gone
And the world spins madly on

I thought of you and where you'd gone
And the world spins madly on.

I think that truly...truly...it is good to feel. I know it sounds trite, I know it sounds cliche, I know. But really, really there is a depth.

Right now I'm sitting here with a bowl of ultra-healthy cracked wheat cereal and a counter-productive load of brown sugar. I have old mascara under my eyes and a legit side pony tail worthy of Napoleon's Deb. I'm watching another morning waltz in and point out the need to dust my windowsill. Everything's pretty normal. Nothing unusual or glamorous or other-worldly here.

Except this depth. I don't know another world to describe it, or I'd diversify my vocabulary more. But that's what it is...this depth of retrospection, contemplation and, yes, even the sadness. It makes me feel expansive inside and moves me out and beyond myself and reminds me that I'm a part of something larger than Kyla.

Thank you for the reminder, amazon.com.

Eat Pray Love

I finished this book after a few days of insane reading. I'm in love.

I was thinking and was reminded of this super cheesy quote from Captain Obvious. I've always hated it. You know it, I'm sure, the one that's on seventeen ceramic magnets in every gas station around the country-"Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.."
If we can apply this to books, then I'm sure Eat Pray Love left stegosaurus-worthy, fossilized prints.

The book is the memoir of a life-changing year in the life of Elizabeth Gilbert. After a battle with depression and two heartbreaks, among other struggles, she takes a year traveling Italy, India, and Indonesia to learn about pleasure, spirituality and balance, respectively.
Gilbert's writing is charming and really, very good. But her ideas on life also have an incredible amount of insight and depth.
I finished this book wanting to take Italian and Yoga classes, with an itch for travel and craving a whole lot of pasta.

I highly recommend the book. It was a very timely balm for my soul. Also, I prescribe reading it in a bubble bath with aromatics, Sinatra and dark chocolates. It's the thing to do.

The following are some of my favorite excerpts and a few disorganized notes I took while reading. This is going to get long, look out.



"Looking for truth is not some kind of spazzy free-for-all, not even during this, the great age of the spazzy free-for-all.."

I agree with you, 100%, Liz, however it strikes me as odd that you would would say this. Especially in light of your particular theories. Stellar use of the word spazzy, though. I love it. We need that word in print more often.

"I believe that we shocked each other by how swiftly we went from being the people who knew each other best in the world to being a pair of the most mutually incomprehensible strangers who ever lived."

A keen observation. It made me sad when I visably nodded

"David's sudden emotional back-stepping probably would've been a catastrophe for me even under the best of circumstances, given that I am the planet's most affectionate life-form (something like a cross between a golden retriever and a barnacle), but this was my very worst of circumstances. I was despondent and dependent, needing more care than an armful of premature infant triplets. (This is the perfect word picture. Hits the nail on its proverbial head.) His withdrawal only made me more needy, and my neediness only advanced his withdrawals, until soon he was retreating under fire of my weeping pleas of, "Where are you going? What happened to us?"

(Dating tip: Men LOVE this.) "

Oh, sister, amen and amen.

"The fact is, I had become addicted to David (in my defense, he had fostered this, being something of a “man-fatale“), and now that his attention was wavering, I was suffering the easily foreseeable consequences. Addiction is the hallmark (hallmark is such a good word, i need to start using it...)of every infatuation-based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never even dared to admit that you wanted–an emotional speedball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention, with the hungry obsession of any junkie. When the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore–despite the fact that you know he has it hidden somewhere, goddamn it, because he used to give it to you for free). Next stage finds you skinny and shaking in a corner, certain only that you would sell your soul or rob your neighbours just to have that thing even one more time. Meanwhile, the object of your adoration has now become repulsed by you. He looks at you like you’re someone he’s never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The irony is, you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You’re a pathetic mess, unrecognizable even to your own eyes.

So that’s it. You have now reached infatuation’s final destination–the complete and merciless devaluation of self."

This has to be one of the most perfect and revolting descriptions of a cycle I've struggled to pin down for so long. This is so heartbreakingly post-Eden and so my battle. Damn it....

"I crossed the street to walk in the sunshine..I leaned on my support network, cherishing my family and cultivating my most enlightening friendships. And when those officious women's magazines kept telling me that my low self-esteem wasn't helping depression matters at all, I got myself a pretty haircut, bought some fancy makeup and a nice dress. (When my friends complimented my new look, all I could say, grimly, was, "Operation Self-Esteem-Day Fucking One.")

:-)

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly,
than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.
-Bhagavad Gita

"When I get lonely these days, I think: So be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings."

This may have been the single most impacting paragraph for me.

"Moreover, I have boundary issues with men. Or maybe that's not fair to say. To have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place, right? But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time-- everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else."

"When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt-this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within that life, no matter how slight."

oh, and mercy on that poor potentiality for happiness if it turns out to be of the biological variety..

"I'm not interested in the insurance industry. I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water."

While Gilbert's spiritual revelations and journeys were more not particularly something I can align myself with, even in my state of searching, I must still commend her greatly. She shows such serious commitment to chasing God and discovering who and what he is. Though her discoveries are questionable at best, I covet her passion and LOVE for God..I want to search for Him like that..

“But I don’t know how much more socializing I can do, Felipe. I only have the one dress. People will start to notice that I’m wearing the same thing all the time.”
“You’re young and beautiful, darling. You only need the one dress.”


Women, we're beautiful. Let's try to not forget. The world will be a much, much better place.


“We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”


Selah.

Cinnamon Dolce Latte

Growing up

So, I think I might have grown up yesterday. In fact I'm sure of it.

There's this odd feeling I'll get once every great while. I had it during the Master's conference while sitting on a piano bench in the Welch's living room, in the middle of the afternoon. Another time I was riding on the train in Boston, watching the sun set over the Charles. And a few summers back when I was lying on the dry, hard ground, trying to catch my breath after falling off my horse.

And it happened again yesterday. I was running from the library to my car wishing wildly that I hadn't worn a skirt and wondering why, in the blue blazes, Illinois couldn't be closer to the equator. As I grabbed the icy door handle, it hit me. "You've grown up, Kyla."

Now I haven't been able to figure these moments out. Do they mark some sort of an evolutionary leap, or are they maybe a culmination of a long, painstaking process? I'm wrestling with that, and I doubt I'll figure it out. All I know is that one moment, I'm humming happily along and the next I'm standing with my nose buried in this brick wall of realized maturity. It's overwhelming, really. And I think I'm also wondering if anyone else experiences this. Or if they could maybe at least politely drum up some pseudo-experience of their own so I don't feel like such a dingbat.