a hard rain's a-gonna fall

Last night I was walking down east Sunset with a friend of mine headed to a bar. As we were crossing onto a new block, all of a sudden I jumped back and gasped. My physical reaction happened even before any recognition as to why - in my peripheral vision to the right of me was this dead dog. Lying on its side, about the size of my pup. It looked as though its eyes has just shut a moment earlier. Flies buzzed around its open mouth. It was just there, open and exposed, the beginning stages of when a body starts to rotten...

It's not so often the average person in America is around death in such an exposed setting.
Why the images of New Orleans finally woke up a dazed and drugged up populace into screaming "Why?" and "How can we just let this happen here!!!" into the night's air. Why it's so important to the Bush administration that all photography of the death and destruction caused by our invasion of Iraq is censored. Let alone dealing with the raw photos of men missing limbs, we are not even allowed to photograph the coffins that come back home. It was exactly these same images which woke up a country into demanding that we leave Vietnam...

Death has a smell a texture and life of its own in some way. You can taste it at the back of your throat. You can hear it in an echo...

This dead dog stayed burned in the back of my mind last night, through the wine, through the conversations, through the laughter and through the dancing. This dog. I know we have something to learn from everything, and the universe has all these openings and examples of lessons to be learned continuously. All morning I keep coming back to this little puppy.

We have these bodies, that are only here now. At this moment. None of us are promised anything, not a damn thing from tomorrow. All that we have is now. All we have is this moment. So what are we doing with it? If today is your last day, what do you want it to be about? I want to have loved so fiercely and to know deep down because it is true, that I was loved just as intensely in return. By the universe. If all I have is today, how can I live saying "Yes!" to the universe. What does this love look like? It's knowing the value and goodness within everything and everyone - From being able to love the abandoned puppy searching the streets for safety and food, its being able to fogive those who have hurt you the most, its being able to see the good in someone you would normally have offed with a snide douchebag comment, its treating everyone with a respect. Fuck, its being able to see the love in McCain, to seeing the love in Bush even. Gratitude is a cycle and when you are at peace with yourself you are at peace with the world.

Fucked up things happen, wars, violence, rape, the list could go one forever. But its in how we choose to see the world, where our awareness lies, that we can tap into our true power. That power is in love. That's where we need to see things from - the rights and the wrongs, the clarity to make the choices that need to be made to make this world a better place. We need to come from love to do good, to be good.

We should be giving our love every moment, every truly precious second that we are alive.


What if, for just one day, we could not complain. If for just one day, we could not put ourselves or anyone else down, if we could cease from gossip, if we could stop criticizing, if we could end all our judging. If we could just love. If we could do that for just one day, what would that life look like?

And then...what if we did it for two?

At the end of the night walking back to my car, someone had put a white tshirt over the puppy.

Gustav is racing towards the Gulf Coast. I pray that the people and the animals are all safe...

"Just be logical people!" Guest blogging with Pilita!!!

Pilita makes her introduction to the world of Im'ing as blog context. Enjoy...

6:17pmHolly Hey there! What a fun day at work, right?

6:17pmPilita I feel silly

6:17pmHolly Ok. Good then! So, what are your thoughts about Palin? Are the Republicans suddenly card carrying feminists?

6:18pmPilita No, she is not a feminist. She's anti women's reproductive rights (even in the case
of rape and incest). She's horrible...


6:22pmHolly I know, right! You know I was reading this survey that was done which asked
Americans if they would terminate a pregnancy if they knew their child would be
born with something like downs, and more than 90% of those surveyed said they would.
So talk about extreme in the greater context of American views on when an abortion is an option.

What about this scenario? America has the highest incest rates
of any "first-world" (HA!) country - So, are we supposed to tell our young women
who are raped by family members and get pregnant that they need to have these babies?
Hmmm, well.. it would definitely lead to more Republicans being born...

6:27pmPilita I am pro choice and anyone has the right to do whatever with their body, but I
don't believe that linking abortion to terminating babies with downs syndrome is
really where we should be focused.

Just keep it legal and focus on keeping unwanted pregnancies from happening

That's something we should all agree on. Like Obama said in his speech


6:29pmHolly Right, well, in order to do that we would have to make erasing poverty and
increasing access to some real eduction part of the status quo, and for sure that
is not part of the Mccain platform.

Also... to make the violence against women act finally a reality - go biden for his
history with that one..

6:33pmPilita Yes, we agree on all that. People need to be properly educated at an early age
about sex. Kids should be comfortable asking any questions and hearing honest
answers. Also more funding to after school activities. If a girl has a strong
interest in something and is focused on her future she is going to make smart
decisions.

6:35pmHolly But its even more than that, right? Because I knew girls who had strong interests
and were future focused who had pregnancies they never intended for...
I mean, at root can it be a self- esteem issue? Or total ignorance too? This guy I dated in high school was trying to have sex with me when I was a virgin. This is how the convo went-
No!
But...You won't get pregnant.
And how do you know that?
Because I don't want you too - That only happens to people who want it.

That guy became a dad at 18 btw...

6:36pmPilita Putting all personal and political opinions aside... If you look at this purly from a logical perspective - kids need to get educated, it should remain legal to have an abortion.
And if you're a gun totting hunter you should want to protect the earth you hunt
on and want everyone to carry arms in a legal and educated way

6:36pmHolly Do you think Obama will heal the wounds of our countries educational failures?

6:37pmPilita Well - self esteem is a factor.

To change that deals with the media and so many other personal things

Uh, I don't know. To be honest.

6:38pmHolly Did you know that Pilan was a runner up for Miss Alaska?

6:38pmPilita Well, that is not what bothers me about her

6:39pmHolly Me either; just a fun fact

I respect a woman who can wrangle a moose in heels while playing the flute.

Gives me something to aspire towards in my role playing...

6:40pmPilita Her lack of experience and, sadly, typical conservative views really scare me. He
wants her cause she's a woman who is pro guns, pro oil drilling, homophobic, anti
environment...I haven't heard one good thing about her. I also heard McCain had
only spoken to her twice

6:41pmHolly I bet he called her a little lady...

6:42pmPilita She probably liked it

6:42pmHolly lol. He is totes going to throw out the c.u n.t. at one of these debates...

6:42pmPilita What, was Condi not available?

6:42pmHolly You know that Cindy must be sweating bullets...Mccain was rubbing his wedding
ring all nervously during Palin's acceptance speech

No - Condi was busy being too black.

Plus, is America really ready for a VP who wears stilletto boots and tight
leather skirts? Apparently we are barely even ready for "hockey moms."

6:44pmPilita In a way I am glad. The decision was one of the biggest in his campaign and he
fucked it up. It makes no sense. She has very little experience on top of that. I
mean look at Biden. Compare his experience to hers.

6:46pmHolly The biggest attack point they had on Obama was his lack of experience.

foot. in. the. mouth. much? I am looking forward to calling Obama the President of my country.
Not that I know him, or could call him, but, ya know...

6:46pmPilita He attacked Obama for his celebrity status. Claiming he didn't have the chops for
the job and then he chooses her because she is a woman.

It's insulting. To be honest.

6:47pmHolly Word.

i'm a form of punctuation that signifies an aside!!!

C'mon Grrrls! Do you belive in LOVE? Cuz I got something to sing about it!!!



So what you want me to do???



Don't worry! Your husband will still know when you're angry!

Feed Your F*****g Family! Dammit!

Hmmm...I can't wait for a family of my own so that one day I can get
crucified by the public for never serving them microwaveable meat chunks...

every time Barack speaks an angel gets an orgasm

Barack Obama: He Completes Us

She's about as much of a "feminist" as I am a Virgin...

These are your rights on drugs.

This is a feminist on - (hold up here) - on 18 million crack hits!!!! mwahahahahaha

Check this - He just wanted to say "probe" to her...

Shirley (haha, get it?) this will get you all those electoral votes for Alaska, right? Yeah! All fucking 3 of them....

She is no Liz Lemon...This intro is great - you know why? Because no one fucking knew who she was!!!

Does this mean we are going to have to hear about "hockey-moms" for the next few months non-stop? The only time I enjoy hearing the word hockey, is when someone says "tonsil hockey."

McCain is nervously rubbing his wedding ring the whole time. He wants to tap Palin like she wants to tap into the Alaskan reserve. Word!

She's gonna be all like how Gulianni is with 9/11 replaced by "but I didn't abort my downs baby," every other sentence. You know, 10% of surveyed Americans have said they would not abort if they knew their child would be born with downs. That's how anti-choice she is, that unlike the 90% of America that would not choose to do that - she had that little baby anyway!!!! She really does challenge the status quo!

Btw (cuz you probably haven't heard!!!) McCain FOUGHT! In an WAR! For AMERICA!!!!
OMFG!!!! He's like, a friggin' HERO!!!! What war was it? Let's see here - Oh! I think it was the war of 1812!

USA! USA! USA!!!!!

You know, John, SARAH IS NO FUCKING HILARY CLINTON. This flagrantly patronizing pandering to the female gender, that we should support this ticket because a "vagina" is suddenly attached to it, is beyond gross.

This is not 18 million cracks.

...because it makes my taco...POP...

Umm...These boys aren't competing...well, for any girl that is...

Just a Suggestion...

From my perspective it seems that perhaps if you break up with someone, that maybe you should not go "hanging out" with them right away. Maybe you should "just say no" to going out with mutual friends for a few drinks. Because, let's face it...Who has just a "few" these days? Maybe you should stay sober and meditate on yourself, instead of getting shitfaced and being mean to people and making people cry or conversely talking all sorts of suicidal crap.

Then again, this is just a suggestion...

Flexibility and Strength

How do you define yourself?

It seems that most people define themselves by their limitations. "This is what I can't do"..."I am not able to do this..." We go through the motions of our lives, through the minutes of our days with our limitations hanging above us. This lack of self-esteem, which it is, allows for us to be intimidated, to be anxious, to be scared. It becomes our truth, it strains our present, and it diminishes our dreams, our future... It is as subtle as it is overt.

You take an average person and place them in the context of a yoga class. They are thinking, "Oh shit, I can't do warrior 3, please don't let us have to do warrior 3 today..." I remember when we would get to the inversion part of a class and I would be sweating already, "I can't do handstand, I can't do handstand"...And so I never did.

But I can. I was practicing yoga for a decade before I really ever got the idea of "pulling in from your mid line" and exactly what that meant. Yoga just begins in a classroom - It is merely your first step. You put yourself in uncomfortable and strange postures. You get to a place where you begin to burn, where you start to shake. So do you back down? Do you try and get back to comfort immediately? Do you avoid the situation? Or do you match it? Can you raise it? Can you find the strength of your essence, from your mid line, to pull from? Everything we do on a mat is a reflection of how we deal outside. When relationship problems arise, when the bills come flooding in, when bad things happen...Where are we flexible, and where is our strength?

What you do in yoga is just training yourself for life. Do you run away? Do you avoid, do you back down, shut off, become passive? Or will you rise up, step up, and take your nows to a whole new level? Every moment we have, we are given a choice. A choice of how we intend to live, what this life even means to us.

We can choose where we need to draw on our flexibility.

We can choose where we pull and direct our strength.

Everyday we face real situations where these choices exist. One of my dearest friends just broke up with her boyfriend. A couple, who lived together, who often talked of marriage, finally awoke to the fact that they saw different lives for their futures, lives that were directed by different religious beliefs (It's always so shocking for people who never thought they had any until they start talking about raising children...) Another friend of mine was like, "What's the big deal, right?" Well, for some people, it's not. They can choose to be flexible and have that be their strength when things like this come up in relationships. For my friend, her religion is infused with her identity and from day one he knew that it was her intention to one day have children and raise them with that. He was always cool with it...until one day. So, it is a huge hard thing for her to draw on that strength of what path she wants to go down, and end the relationship.

Flexibility and Strength.

I have always dated boys and men who were not Jewish, and that was all fine and cool up until a year ago, most likely because being Jewish hadn't meant a whole lot to me and I never ever thought or dreamed of getting married and having children. But, uh...that's changed. I have to think about these things now, to some degree, because if I were to love and have a long relationship with someone who wanted to, let's say, have a completely atheist household, would I wind up compromising my soul and identity to maintain a relationship where I had to suppress part of myself or couldn't share my spirituality with my love or my family? I wouldn't just limit my choices of who to date to only Jewish men...My father was not born a Jew and he and my mother always made things work. I do think at this stage in my life, that I need to find a partner who is on some parallel spiritual path and seeking out self-knowledge. Otherwise, where are relationships leading to? An ending. And who needs any more sad breakups...

Flexibility - Where we are open to life dancing through us.

Strength - Where we name our non-negotiable values and be true to them.

How can we define ourselves not with limitations but with pure possibility? Not by saying "I can't do it!" But even by changing the conversation to "I haven't done it yet, but I am on my way." By acknowledging our true selves. Which is so much more - so beautiful and so much stronger and clearer than any fake limitation we place upon ourselves. When we realize that, that is when we have the clarity, the ability to meet the occasion, and to rise above it with grace with passion and with complete self-esteem.

Party Unity My Ass !!! But is that seriously what it stands for?!!

PUMA hunting in Denver: John McCain was in a WAR?

I've Gotta Crush!!! OMFG!!!!

What was it Barry? Did this one win your heart?

Biden?

What. a. letdown.

medical observation...

Every single time I see someone in scrubs these days, they are either smoking, buying "energy" drinks, or eating cheeseburgers...

fasting...

Fasting is one of the most effective and incredible tools I know of to self-realization. An immediate path to enhancing your potential, of strengthening your focus. A fast is a catalyst for change. A time where you have to reflect on the psychological aspects of consumption. Where you develop your clarity to make important decisions. Where you learn self-restraint and control of your passions. Where you literally undertake a transformational, evolutionary process.

Along with that, fasting has many other amazing benefits: rejuvenation, more energy, rest for digestive organs, clearer skin, anti-aging effects, restful sleep, relaxation, greater optimism, improved communications, commitment to habit changes...

The list goes on.

Try selling that in a bottle Miss America.

I am currently on the 5th day of my fast. Seeing just how much time, how much love I've got...

Through yoga you really learn how to utilize and shift all of your parts around in a way where you realize the full potential of your body. You actually are just organizing your body, you are not maxing any one part out. If you apply this to life, through just some effective natural organization, you suddenly can see how much great space there is to move around in.

How much time you really have...Now.

I am fasting for an answer. I am waiting. Actively.

a simple lady mind...

Sarah's back out of the hut!

Prop 4: Since We Couldn't (Fuck? HaHaHa) Those Raping Pillaging Liberals The Last Two Times

Let's take a girl, hmmm...and let's call her Sarah. Yeah, Sarah! That sounds so purty and nice!

Who is Sarah? Well, my friends! I am glad you ask. 

Sarah was a 15 year old girl who became pregnant. Without her parent’s consent or notice, Sarah visited a clinic and the abortionist performed an abortion on Sarah, unknowingly tearing the right side of her cervix. Unaware of this complication, Sarah suffered blood poisoning, fever, chills, abdominal pain and nausea for four days before finally being admitted to the hospital. When hospital personnel discovered the tear and post-abortion infection, they placed Sarah in the Intensive Care Unit, but the infection was too far advanced and Sarah died. Hospital physicians reported that had Sarah received prompt medical care, she would still be alive today.

Sarah’s parents did not know that she was pregnant. Sarah’s parents didn’t know that Sarah had an abortion. Her parents could have saved her….if they had known.

Proposition 4, or the Abortion Waiting Period and Parental Notification Initiative, also known to its supporters as Sarah's Law, is an initiated amendment that will appear on the November 4, 2008 ballot in California. This is basically the same legislation that the right wing has tried to slip on by, not once, but twice (Prop 73 and 85) which voters already rejected in 05 and 06. Well, they have chutzpah that's for fucking sure.

Now - Let me tell you who Sarah really is. Sarah's real name was Jammie Garcia Yanez-Villegas. Yeah, get that, she wasn't white. Wonder why they whitewashed her name? Could it be because the populace couldn't give a fuck if some brown girl dies? Or just if her unborn baby does? But get this, Jammie lived in Texas. And was married. Which makes her not a minor, which makes their  (Friends of Sarah, major funding provided by Jim Holman, Don Sebastiani, and others to reform parent's right to know and child protection laws) entire argument, that this proposition would have saved her life, COMPLETELY FUCKING IRRELEVANT. 

From where I stand if you lie once and you still stand by it, you are a liar. If you conceal the facts and distort them, then again, you are a liar. So, would you like to tell me how Jammie really died? Considering that her hospital record is pretty confidential, how do I know that she didn't die from the anaesthesia? It's really tragic that this girl died. But maybe we should ask why a 15 year old in the US was married? Whether or not she had access to any health care, or efficient health care at that? From other sources I have read, she perhaps died of a related infection. But this is what the issue comes down to - Whatever your opinions are on abortion, every living woman, girl, female, or youth, should have the right to proper health care. This is a human rights issue. 

As much fun as it may be to generalize the population through crap legislation, it's not effective. There are many girls who cannot go to their parents with this information. There are many girls who are victims of incest in the household. There are many girls who fall into horrible circumstances as they try to deal with these situations they did not have the knowledge ,the know how, or the pure dumb luck to circumvent. Prop 4 is not going to help any girl. Prop 4 isn't going to make family relationships better. It is not going to stop young boys or older men from having sex with minors. It is not going to protect anyone. It is going to criminalize the actions of the doctors, or more specifically, their inaction's. It criminalizes the girls. 

If we want to change things in this country, what we can do is talk about sex, about sexuality in an open honest forum. We can empower our young women and men, to have some depth to the decisions they are making. We can help girls to connect to their voice, their strength, so they can avoid, defend, and say no to what they don't want. But most importantly, when tragic things happen, we can give them the right to seek medical advise and counsel without their families notification. Because, sorry, that just ain't always the real world. 

This November, please - Vote NO on Prop 4. Vote NO to this Sarah lie, Vote NO on legislation that won't save shit. 

If you feel moved to getting more involved check it - This fall Planned Parenthood is going to need 1500 volunteers to help make those calls - to talk to supporters and to talk to the voters about this Prop. Tuesday and Sundays in East LA you can volunteer to phone bank, and on Wednesday  and Thursday you could rock out at the Santa Monica office if that's more your thing. Make some action, make some new friends, and eat some free food while your at it. 

For more info:

Planned Parenthood Los Angeles
1920 Marengo Street
Los Angeles, California 90033
P: 323-223-4462
F: 323-225-5844

The Big 5.0. - 50 Gates, Or Properties of Understanding (Insert Kabbalah Joke Here)

Let's just pretend that she never made that crap with Justin Timberlake, and instead celebrate with our faves!

I will always Cherish this song...


Tell me all about it ooooooh!


Justify My Love...


Never one to shy from Excess...


Sucking on Jesus's Toe...


It's Human Nature...


and You tell Poppa what's up yo!

Role-Playing

I have been holed up in my apartment sick for the past few days. I thought I was getting better and last night I cooked up a vegan fantasia for the girls and the goys and we had a Gypsy music party afterwards. I sang, I danced, I played, and perhaps I should have been a little tamer because I feel horrid today. This cold just won't let up and I've tried to just sweat it out with yoga and running, but to no avail. May this be the last day so help me! I have had so much chlorophyll, E3, wheatgrass, and crazy green immune concoctions this week, I just can't take anymore. This was the incentive I needed however to buy a new Neti Pot since I left mine in the shower in Costa Rica. I hope one of the monkeys took it home..

I was given this book to read by one of my life mentors out here, and it's a book that I probably never would have read, oh, even 6 months ago. It is this relationship book and I probably would have dismissed it along with all those other books which I have never read but only read about, i.e, the rules, he's just not into you, etc...But my whole approach to life these days is that I have something to learn from absolutely everyone. So what's it gonna be? I did have to hide it before I had people over the other day, cuz, it would totally kill my street cred to be seen reading this..

The book is focused on the determination of what "type" you want to be in your relationship. There is a "male" and this is the giver, the person to be respected. There is a "female" which is the receiver, the person to be cherished. For example, if you want to be the "male" in the relationship and you initiate actions, then you would need to find a partner who is a "female" who is open to you initiating. If you found a man who is the "male" role, then you would have conflict over this time and again. That you would be emasculating him. The author stresses that you must choose which one you are, and then always work within those lines and never cross over.

Now, most definitely we are composed of both a masculine and feminine essence with perhaps one side being a little or a lot more dominant. I don't agree that one needs to pick one role and always stay there, because to be a feminist and hopefully to be with a feminist man, it would require movement between the roles you play, flexibility, and an awareness and acknowledgement about it. But this did get me thinking in more specific terms of my past relationships, the roles I have played, the roles my partners have played, and it opened my eyes up a bit to what exactly I want in my future.

One day I was out walking my dog, Bella, and I didn't have her on a leash. She tends to just walk alongside me and she follows my command so this is pretty routine. Disclaimer: She is a very joyous dog at heart. Out of nowhere this huge dog runs down the street and up to her. She gets scared immediately, but instead of running to me, she gets all up in the other dogs grill. Yes, that's right. Grill! She is arched, and hissing, (what a pussy puppy!) and suddenly looks like she is going to bite the other dog. At this point I have gotten to her so I can grab her neck and do a little alpha-role playing. First she directed her anger to me, and made a little bite face till I showed her what I meant with some eye contact. What I saw in my dog, was this. There was a situation that filled her with fear, so she manifested that with misplaced anger (and misplaced indeed - left on their own this other dog would have eaten her) but while she was doing this she looked terrified. She was honestly freaked out, not by the other dog, but of what she was doing. Her eyes were scared shitless. Because it is not in her nature to act this way. She is by nature, not a dominant, alpha dog. She likes to be submissive...hehehe. Anyways, I was remembering this event after I finished the book, because I was suddenly thinking about roles I have played, that I don't believe were always true to my nature. My nature, btw, is Simcha - Joy.

I grew up in a household where the mainstream gender roles were totally flipped around. My mother was the "male" and my father was the "female." My mother runs her own company, controls the finances and investments, and is the main provider for the family. My father always worked, but in order to support her career first. They moved to Las Vegas for my mother because of the new real estate market which she was entering, instead of trying to duke out a space for her in the old boys club in the East Coast. My mother started her own company straight out of grad school and in a time when tiny, petite, beautiful women weren't exactly taken seriously as presidents and leaders. Ha, seems like that much hasn't really changed since then. My father was the main child watcher, the cook, the cleaner, the sewer and the ironer; all the traditionally or conventional "female" household roles. My mother taught me that I could be anything I wanted, and throughout her life she has broken glass ceiling after glass ceiling. This is incredible - She is incredible. I am very similar to my mother in vast ways, and then, in other ways, not so much. How much of the roles we play with our lovers are imitations of those we grew up observing?

I have largely played the "male" role in my past relationships, either with "male" men, but I think more so with "female" men. I guess I have always felt safer with "female" men where I feel more in control (as probably many women who have experienced sexual violence do). But then I have expected to be treated as the "female" as well, and when I don't - I can emasculate. I can resent them for being weak or just whatever, and then I break up with them. Or create a hostile enough environment that they would break up with me. And its not just with my boyfriends. I was just recently awakened to a male friendship I had where I was, at times, incredibly criticizing, doling out my advice, or out to prove that I was always right and he was wrong. Now what did that get me, a new boyfriend? No. It's crazy because I always wanted to be this guys girlfriend, and I suddenly started acting out like a jealous girlfriend, without actually holding the title. Like my Bella's scared puppy aggression.

I want to be the female in many ways, more so than I have been. I want to be the female in the bedroom, I want to be the female emotionally, and I really need to learn that I don't have to win every fucking argument or have to prove my point, that what, that I am smarter than my man? Where has that gotten me? I am not saying that I need to deny who I am, or suppress anything, but what I am getting at is my objective for everything. If I want a man to be a man, then I cannot deny him his manhood at any or every opportunity. Because I do want a man.
Because I do want a full person.

This summer a guy who was trying to hook up with me asked me to go out for a drink. (Ok - this is probably lashon hora, fuck. Well, you don't know him and this was in another country so I think we are going to be ok.) At the end of the evening he expected me to pay - "Well, you're a feminist. That means you should pay right?" (He was not joking.) As if one has to do with the other. First off, being a feminist this does not equate, and had I asked him out, then I would have been prepared to pay. Secondly, I always offer to split or to pay my share. What it comes down to though, is character trait - Largely we are attracted to generous people. I want to date someone who is a giver, who is generous. Fuck, I like my girlfriends to be as well, and I try to do the same for them. So he could not seem to grasp that I did not want to date him after that, because as you see, it was not just an issue of paying a measly 20 bucks. I have chosen for myself that a generous man is a non-negotiable issue, and hence, this guy is not the man for me. I will say though, that he is a very great guy, and deserves a wonderful woman who can make him happy.

Anyways, just some things I have been thinking about while sick. Probably not the type of role-playing you thought I would be writing about from the title. You perverts! Although, I am way into that shit. Cmon, I am an actress.

like Whoa!

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.

and on that note...

Happy Friday Bitches!!!

this is what a feminist looks like...

Chico Team - Slam Finalists @ National Youth Competition 2005

I haven't been to slams in some time, and it's been even longer since I have been to a Youth Slam. When I lived in NYC I used to see the Youth Speaks Performances , and I tell you- Some of the pieces these kids were doing totally killed what my peers and older poets were putting out there.

Anyways - this is awesome.

My Puss Wrote Your Puss A Love Letter

Madame Margaret! Oh! My! Goddess!

How I knew her long before she ever went panning for pussy.
How she taught me to live life fabulously! She reminded me that when I am down, to remember that I've always got style. When I am outnumbered, she assured me of my own strength, and to use it for those who have none. When I struggled to get the job finished she reminded me how to do an efficient job!

Oh! How our puppies both bring babies to shrieks of glee and cause random strangers to fall in love amidst the absurd chaos!


Margaret -
You spoke to me with the same story.

So from the age of 10, I became anorexic, and then bulimic, and then stayed that way for about twenty years, until one day I just said, Hey, what if this is it? What if this is just what I look like, and nothing I do changes that? So how much time would I save if I stopped taking that extra second every time I look in the mirror to call myself a big fat fuck? How much time would I save if I just let myself walk by a plate-glass window without sucking in my gut and throwing back my shoulders? How much time would I save? And it turns out I save about 97 minutes a week. I can take a pottery class.

You called out the bullshit.

It's gonna be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere, especially in women's and gay men's culture. It's all about how you have to look a certain way, or else you're worthless. You know, when you look in the mirror and think, "Ugh, I'm so ugly, I'm so fat, I'm so old." Don't you know that's not your authentic self? But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising. Magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so you will take your hard earned money and spend it at the mall on some turn-around creme that doesn't turn around shit.

You made me proud. Stronger. Because with each voice we (women) put out there, with unity and grace, we all grow together. Hope we can articulate and with humor at that.

We have Dreams. We have Revolution inside us.

If you are a woman, if you are a person of colour, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world. And it's going to be really hard for us to find messages of self-love and support anywhere.... If you don't have self-esteem, you will hesitate to do anything in your life.... You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote; you will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.


"I'm not going to die because I failed at someone else. I am going to succeed at myself. "

You embody beauty. Generosity. Laughter through the Tears. And of complete Love in face of all else.

A true righteous woman...I can't wait for this fucking madness to air!


One ya'll bitches with a television needs to be inviting me over come the 21st.
I am not joking. I will bring the fuckin' party.

but you say he's just a friend...

Is it possible to have a purely platonic relationship with a member of the opposite gender?




Throughout the years I have heard people say that men and women cannot just be friends. I have always argued against this, and actually, I am not so sure as to why.

This summer while I was in Israel this convo came up with some girlfriends. Once again I assumed the position, "Yes, men and women can have platonic relationships. They look at me. "Well, I have had good friends (my mind could only flash with one name at that moment) that I have just been friends with." One of them looks at me warily and says, "Well, what makes you think any of them have never thought of you in a sexual way?"

Um...Silence.

The other day I went to my lovely therapist for our weekly chat. I was telling her about a friendship of mine and she asks me, "What's your intention?" I really didn't want to answer that. It's much easier to remain ignorant rather than asking yourself the questions you may not want to answer. Because once you answer them, then you are forced into action. You must respond to Truth.

Instead of answering the question I give her one, "Do you think that men and women can have strictly platonic relationships?" She looks back and says, "Well... Maybe... but they are rare...You know, (BEAT) all my male friends dropped off the face of the earth once I got married. So..."

Not the first time I've heard that.

I leave and go to work, but I can't take this off my mind. I realize that I have never really thought about the dynamics between each and every close male friend I have had. I make a list from high school to now, with only the men who I can or could describe as close friends...

7 of them I was friends with and then at some point we became, more than. 4 of them confessed their (unrequited) love for me. 1 is my "little bro,” and he also holds the title of being my best friends ex. One is my ex's best friend. 3 are gay (2 of whom i have made out with anyways.) 2 I have loved, and this love was either unrequited or, well, I don’t know. They never told me otherwise.

When I actually counted it out, I realized that for someone who used to argue so wholeheartedly for the pro-platonic male/female relationships...I really haven't had too damn much of that experience. I think about how most of my friends when I was younger were men and now most are women, and in this frame it suddenly makes more sense considering that I no longer care to just make out with anyone of my friends. That I am looking for something else...

As I grow older, I have been seeking out to develop and nurture my relationships into stronger, more meaningful, more invested ones. And something that has really stood out with how much change I have put into place in my life this year, is that just about all of the men who are new to my life, who try to enter my life in any way beyond that which is purely acquaintance, aren't really looking for a friend. They don't want to be my friend. They want me. But this wanting is without knowing. It is within these casual "let's hang out and get drinks," it's with some quasi-logical explanation as to why we should date (as if that could ever makeup for lack of chemistry,) it's with lingering hugs and overtly sexual jokes and subtle tensions. Maybe I used to crave these general male statements and attention, but frankly, I 'm really kind of over it. It exhausts me now. Because I know where this all leads to, and it's just not in the direction I am headed on. And this friend thing, well, I 'm stuck on it. Because at the end of the day, all that I want is a best friend. A best friend to be in love with. Who is in love with me. Partners. I want an epic. fucking. love. story. That is as monumental as it is deep. These guys that try to get in, they see, something cute. Or sexy. Or they've had a crush for a long time and have projected some sort of fantasy onto me, of some false me. That I could never live up to. Maybe its the legs or maybe they like the feisty. You know, whatever it is, I know that they will never know me. Cuteness fades without an anchor. Feisty turns to judgement and heated anger when it is not rooted in a connected place of love. These guys don't want to be my friend. They want me in their bedroom.

When I was in high school, I remember hearing a girl telling another girl who had recently been broken up with, "It's just practice for the real thing." The other girl kind of looked at her and nodded in agreement - yes, for every relationship that we have must be building towards - "the real thing", and within this line of logic, all relationships will end until "the real one" comes along.

“I swear this one is going to last and all those other bastards were only practice…” – liz phair

But is this just something we tell ourselves because socially that is what we are supposed to do and because emotionally it seems appropriate or helpful to do? Do all the relationships we have been in, all the boyfriends and girlfriends, and lovers and dates and all the misc. that fall into the cracks, do any of them really help us to be ready for this "one?" What the hell does that even mean? All of our past relations aren't filler, just as you can keep dating the same person over and over and over again if the whole time you are just looking outward (oh - it's them) instead of in.
You are the same. You haven't changed. You haven't brought anything new to the table. So what does all your experience even add up to? This person was great at this and that person was really wonderful at... and this goes on and on. Comparisons, valuations, judgement. It's like this type of thinking allows for us to be passive, to not take responsibility for our choices and to continue on in the same detached modern manner, until, well, as long as you like.

True relationships bear fruit through time. The years we put in, the rich involvement we make in another persons world. The work makes space for the joy. You reach levels of personal intimacy and soul growth with the people who you really dedicate yourself to. You learn who you are and through this, you evolve to a new level of self growth.

I use much more discretion now with whom I let into my life.

I feel like I am at some Great Divide, this realm of existence between - man as lover - and - man as best friend - waiting for someone brave enough to cross that bridge...

suddenly wishing that i were watching the olympics...

i want to know...

the


place



you



are