I'm off to Vancouver BC for the New Year. Visiting friends I made at Burning Man this year. Chris Weeks, Rick Bellairs, Kurt Feschuk and Astrid Fries. I've been talking to Tara and Steve in Tulsa. Tara was very sweet and sent me a black shirt with "fishnet" arms for the holidays. Very cool.

Chris is headed back to Tucson. I think about him constantly. Today I dusted off some letters we'd written back and forth last September and although my passion has not waned, I'm in such a different head space these days. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so impatient, although I know that this is a symptom of something deeper and darker. I am frustrated and yet I know my frustration is not entirely rational. I was able to put a positive spin on my feelings back then; I should be able to do that again. I'm not going to make excuses for myself.

I need to sleep on it and perhaps when I'm in Vancouver, I will find a new perspective. If I don't, I won't be anywhere different than where I am now and it will only be a matter of time and discipline. I want to be better. I want my life to be better. Only I can make that happen.

I don't know why I'm posting this so late. Chris took off today to visit with his brother and parents in Austin, TX. I'm not going to see him for two months now, while he returns to Tucson, like the sun. I keep telling him that if he believes in what he desires he will do what he needs to do and then eventually he will be able to do what he wants, when he wants. Occasionally I'm not that lucid.

Sometimes he is not his best friend. That's when I hope he understands that I'm supporting him as best I can. Sometimes I'm just taking care of myself so that he's not worrying about me. I focus on that "universal" love, so I know what is real and good in the world.

Someday he will return and we can get back to business. In the meantime, I have to work on myself so that I can be better prepared. I have my memories right now, which are good and pleasent.

Perhaps the best thing recently was when someone complimented me on how positive I am. I'd forgotten that usually I try to be, without losing touch with what is real. I really think of myself as angst-ridden and negative, but that is simply why I work so hard at being the opposite. I think I may have succeeded convincing myself this new positive me is the real me and the negative me is out-dated and unsuccessful or at least false. Perhaps I'm growing up finally. As always, there is still much to learn.

Why does it seem we are right back where we started?

Perhaps...
I've learned something more about myself
now,
but I seem uncertain.
I love. I feel I am loved.
I cannot stay frozen forever, so I move
from thought to thought investigating the possibilities
like shattered glass fragments
flaking away into cocktail glasses.
Drinking my fill through the pain and the sharp edges
I see only one small hope left at the bottom of this cup of desire,
leaving us looking at our reflection
alone
vulnerable
naked.

The truth will set you free...

Everything is false.

I promised myself that I'd be positive about the conclusions I'd come to this weekend. My mettle is being tested because I can't say I'm exactly happy, but I have no one to blame besides myself and my own delusions, my own suffering. I'm trying my best to make it positive and suffer beautifully.

The tip of the iceberg, not that you'd really care to know, is that I did worse with NaNoWriMo this year than last year. Ho hum! Big deal. Better luck next time. This has caused me to look at my skills as a writer and find myself lacking discipline and commitment. I feel very much a fraud and charlatan. I have such high aspirations and yet I seem unable and unwilling to come even close.

I been such my whole life. I've wished to be more than mediocre, but I've only believed what I can produce to be mediocre, so I believe the results have never risen above mediocrity. I do so much better in my professional life, yet I get little joy from that. There is the idea that I can apply myself to my professional life so that I can support my creative life, yet the cost to my soul is too heavy. I remain even more mediocre because I cannot practice my craft as thoroughly as I wish. It is a vicious circle and I suspect that when push comes to shove I'm going to buckle under the strain. See, I'm so cliche'd.

Only I don't believe that giving up is an answer. Sissyphus still struggles to roll that rock up that hill, knowing at the top it will only roll down the other side. Is it so important that this rock should balance at the peak, when nature demands that physics keeps the rock at the bottom of the hill? Perhaps not. Yet I've succeeded at worse odds in my life. My little hope, my last refuge, keeps me aloft and working when I despair against the odds of reality.

I wish to be admired by worthy individuals and I can say that many are already my friends. In order to be an individual, I need to be true to that desire for admiration, because it has been my only motivation and consolation at these times when I've been down and out. Somehow I know I will survive even this time and I will go on as I have always until such time that I lay my head down for the last time. Can you believe the cliche'?

I bear no ill for those who cannot admire me. They have not failed me. I have failed them, if anything. I still have hope that somehow I will cobble together the right combination of magic and talent to charm them. But what then? Once my magic ends, my talent wanes and my charm fades, who will be there to comfort me, besides myself? I've asked myself that question my whole life. I do not fear the answer that has always echoed in time. Cliche'd, cliche'r and cliche'st.

So I shall do just what I always do, play a little harder, dig a little deeper. Someday I believe I may even hit paydirt. Until I do, I'll write poetry.