I have slipped through to the very depths of my soul.

"And if you feel that you can't go on, and your will's sinkin' low

Just believe and you can't go wrong.

In the light you will find the road..you will find the road.."

One of the many things I love about photography is how much it coaxes deep thought of people. One photo can say a thousand things to a thousand different people. And though we can manipulate photos, at the core of a simple photograph is pure truth. A photo of a person? No matter the skill of the subject in portraying a poker face, the eyes never lie. I don't care if you're a ten-years+ successful actor. It is extremely hard to convey a lie in your eyes. One must really commit to the objective of the shot in order to make it believable.

The perfect photo can bring people to tears or inspire side-splitting laughter. A photo can start a revolution or bring calm to troubled social waters. Photos can arouse, disgust, touch, or demand introspection. 

I've always been into art and art-related media, but over the years I've become more aware and almost developed a sixth (seventh?) sense for 'seeing in photos', as a friend once put it. With this, my personal photographs have gotten better and more artistic.

I love showing different aspects of a person, place, or object (noun? ha ha..)-ways to perceive something or someone that aren't traditional or aren't the biased representation. For example, I've been taking photos at work over the past few months of my fellow dancers and bartenders. I've focused on things like hands, jewelry, subconscious habits (folding and unfolding gum wrappers, for example), shoes, cigarettes, etc. Parts of 'the biz' that aren't all glamour and glitter and silicone. Aspects of the industry that reveal that these are human beings with human behaviors, not just fantasy objects in good lighting.

What's funny about my work is that I often end up being out of the series of photos if I'm taking them on a trip with friends or at friends' houses. We went on a trip last week to Jerome, AZ, and I took three photos (out of around 150) that involved me in some way: two were of my shoes and one of my famous mirror shots. Ha. But I don't mind being behind the camera for this type of thing. I'm lucky to be in front of a camera for a few parts of my life so when I can show my perception of my surroundings, it's quite satisfying.

I've also met some amazing creative minds through this interest. A few of the photographers I've been blessed to meet are so interesting and passionate about things that it inspires me to be a better, more life-loving person. I know photographers with very different styles as well, so I'm fortunate to learn about each and why each person loves the style he or she loves. I love learning about the interests of others who are very passionate about what they like. My best friend is a huge (that's actually an understatement, italics and all) DMB fan, and I love constantly learning new things about the band and why she loves them the way she does. She's taught me so much-things I never knew I cared to know-and helped me be a more well-rounded person regarding music. I was never a big DMB fan, but seeing her passion and how certain songs brought tears to her eyes convinced me that I at least needed to expose myself more to them. If something (band, artist, animal, shoes-whatever) moves someone, truly moves them, there is something (however small) for you to learn from it. However different we are from each other, we are still the same species and we are stuck here together. It's intelligent and relevant to learn about things that scare, shock, disgust us or make us uncomfortable-these things teach us to look inward and turn the mirror back at ourselves. They force us to examine our own motivations and belief systems to see where we stand and why.

It's a little amusing how so many of my blog entries begin with a concise topic and what appears to be a well-marked path, and quickly progress into chaos and rambling, culminating in some philosophical mantra regarding a lesson learned or to be learned.

I think it's the pot.

Trouble get behind me now, trouble let me be..

I'm staring at a white screen, trying to formulate a witty or at least intriguing introduction to a grossly overdue blog. 

+++
Oh there's an emptiness inside her 
And she'd do anything to fill it in 
And though it's red blood bleeding from her now 
It's more like cold blue ice in her heart 
She feels like kicking out all the windows 
And setting fire to this life 
She could change everything about her 
Using colors bold and bright 
But all the colors mix together 
To grey 
And it breaks her heart...
(Dave Matthews Band, "Grey Street")
On days like today, when everything comes suddenly crashing in around me, and the pressure around my head from the mask I wear becomes too much to bear, it's hard to transfer anything from mind to 'paper' coherently. Everything I want to say sounds like a whine or a cry for empathy, and everything I end up typing becomes deleted shortly after because it translates completely opposite what I'm actually feeling.

The hardest part about being a former ('recovered'? 'rehabilitated'?) depressive is the knowledge that certain things are now unacceptable. One may feel dragged down into the darkest abyss of sorrow, but the former seemingly rational option of suicide is no longer a viable solution. Any attempts at self-injury, physical or psychological, are suddenly abhorrent. What was a comforting assurance (a knife blade across the skin) is now an embarrassing and irrational coping mechanism you cannot embrace. The rushing kiss of a bottle to the lips becomes an obvious escape from the reality you're just too weak to face. All of the things that used to seem such rapid and successful diversions from your deepest pain are now, being a 'recovered' patient, silly and completely impossible.

Now I can feel myself being grasped and sucked backwards into an endless vortex of emptiness and pain and hopelessness, and yet all I'm able to do is go limp and let myself be taken. I can only give in to my pain and ride out the storm, no matter how much it hurts, because I truly see no other option. What should be a happy achievement-the absence of suicidal or self-detrimental thoughts-gives me a very hollow solace. My tears, once hot, now burn my cheeks. My hands, which once searched for anything sharp within reach, now clench and unclench and claw at my temples, desperate to extract the thoughts that plague my mind. The stomach, in knots, which was once appeased by the quick punch of whiskey to its sides, now turns in on itself, searching for an escape from a nameless torment. 

And the heart....the heart. The heart that slept in silence and chill, safe behind walls that took years to build. The heart that knew so much inexplicable pain that it imploded, and died inside. The heart that felt neither stab of pain nor rush of warmth, that merely hiccuped, if that, in the presence of instability. The heart that rested on still waters, now exposed and vulnerable to the deepest, darkest sorrow..nothing upon which to lean for balance, no chemical or physical injury or liquid courage on which to depend to steer it through the storm. My heart is now forced to accept the brutal hands of growth wringing it out and strangling it in their grasp. They envelop it, gnarled and dry, made of only truth and realism, rubbing it raw when it feels its weakest. 

And this is how 'recovery' goes. One is never truly 'over' depression. You just learn new ways, sane and reasonable ways, to deal with the difficult times. You have to first accept that there will be more difficult times ahead, and just because you've managed to overcome the biggest obstacle (life), you aren't in the clear. The hardest part about not wanting to die anymore? Realizing that now, you have no choice but to live.

+++

And these are the things that flood my mind and cloud my vision on days like today. When I come home, collapse on my bed and stain my bedding with salty tears and remnants of eyeliner. Days when, sitting on my bathroom floor, my head against the cool wall, my cheeks hot and my eyes puffy, I'm forced to accept that this is what I chose. This is life, in all its ambivalent glory and raw honesty. This is the ups and downs, the side to sides, that I chose over the emptiness of death. I chose to crawl, then stand, then traipse, and finally to walk towards a future that involved my presence rather than the absence of me. 

It gets difficult, and I still have a hard time just accepting that sometimes things go badly, but it comes with the territory. In my blood is a certain genetic torment and restlessness, and I must be aware of it and know how to direct it. It is much, much easier to press a gun barrel against your temple or hold a bottle of narcotics in your hand than to step out of the darkness and stare into the mirror. However, once the ripping of your insides and the throbbing of your head subside, and you realize you're fully feeling things, everything becomes much easier with which to deal. It is surviving, and trudging onward, that display courage. The cowardice is not in being afraid to pull the trigger-it's in the belief that the trigger steers your destiny. 

You steer your destiny. 

Dark clouds may hang on me sometimes 

But I'll work it out..

(DMB, "Dancing Nancies")

+++Yes, there's a DMB theme to the lyrics accompanying this blog. The concert's tomorrow. :)

booksmart devil

I know. I've been a blogging slacker.

I've just actually had a quite wonderful few days/week, so I have had neither time to blog or anything poetic and witty to say. 

And wouldn't you rather read an engaging blog than one that just shuffles through the mundane parts of life, however uninteresting they may be? The only way that question (which was rhetorical, BTW) should get a 'no' answer is in the case of photo documenting one's day-which is something I'm actually planning on doing soon. ;)

My camera keeps beckoning to me when I leave every morning. It calls to me to take it out and embarrass myself by taking photos in starbucks and on the road and again at work. I'm going to do it, but just be warned- my life isn't that compelling. I guess in a weird way it could be. Maybe all the things I think are boring are really freaky and I just have no idea how high on the freak scale I am? Hmm. Food for thought.

Tonight's agenda:

+hit up the ol' J-O-B for a drink or two with a girlfriend (no, I can't stay away even after a 5 hour workday. See masochism).

+Pinky Ring at Bar Smith downtown. Score! Good music, good people, good energy. And great fucking weather. The last few times I went it was goddamn cold. And you can't not go on the rooftop. It just doesn't work that way.

That's a jam packed agenda, I know. I'm in high demand. Time to pull out the paparazzi-deflecting sunglasses and purse in which I hide Nicole Richie.

I got my labret done. Not entirely sure why, since I've never been big on facial piercings. I guess I've become more particular about, as well as am running out of, room for my tattoos. I counted my piercings yesterday and realized I have ten. Ten! For someone 'not into piercings' that's a pretty decent number. Huh. Who'd have thought? 

Sorry about the line across it. My Photo Booth gets temperamental sometimes. One of my friends pointed out that my dermals and labret now make a perfect triangle around my throat chakra. Unintentional but beneficial spiritual gain is always accepted.

I also went on an awesome mini-road trip with my best friend up to her hometown. Her dad has all sorts of cool western and kitschy stuff at his house, so I took a few crappy pictures with my phone. This is a neat little donkey... um, thing (?):

I'm also working on a wicked painting for my other dear friend's birthday (um, it was actually the 27th of Feb, so it's a little late. I suck at life). It began with one direction in mind and ended up taking a completely different one (amazing what a little herbal assistance will do) that's more twisted and odd. Which is good. I'll post photos when I finish it.

That's all. I'm tapped out of interesting for today; come back tomorrow.

xo

go ahead, cornelius, you can cry.

Oh gnat-like tiny bugs who fly into my apartment when I leave my patio door open, why do you torment me so? 

Must you perch on my freshly baked brownies? The bunch of bananas on my counter? Is there nothing else in my apartment with which you can satisfy yourself? 

And please, when I'm two inches from my bathroom mirror applying liquid eyeliner, I'd appreciate it if you flew away from my exposed eyeball. Thanks. This is a difficult enough task when under the influence of marijuana. Flying tiny things by one's eyes does not a safe situation make.

+ + +

Now that that's done with.

New fierce heels:

What's that inside? Oh yeah. They're fuckin' UNICORNS, son. 

The jewelry haul..

Yes, it's Bambi on my bracelet. Yes, I will rock it with my head held high. Who doesn't like Bambi??

Ooohh..Fender pic earrings. Yum. It was a battle between these and some heart shaped pics with colored dinos all over 'em. Fender won out, of course. Come on now.

And possibly the best for last..one of my all-time favorite movies ever. Didn't you just wanna be there?? Classic.

I didn't need to get all that shit at Hot Topic, but I did. What do you do.

Oh, and if I never see another Twilight anything again, I'll die happy. What a ludicrous, over-dramatic, sloppily metaphorical piece of poorly executed drivel. And the special effects? Oh.My.God. Words can't even adequately express how 1993-era-made-for-television-sci-fi-movie they are. 

And FYI:

-vampires do NOT sparkle. Wtf.

-here's a good way to remember what 'vegetarian' means: you eat nothing with a face. 'Vegetarian' vampires wouldn't eat animals. They'd eat plants and legumes. Like the rest of us vegetarians. And then they wouldn't really be vampires. Which brings us back to..

-vampires DO NOT SPARKLE. Are they myspace glitter graphics made by fifteen year-olds? No.

-What self-respecting vampire drives a suburban soccer mom's crossover sport utilitywhatever? It's very unimpressive and sad and actually quite humorous to see a 'vampire' screech up to bullies to save the day in.....a volvo? Hmm. Not quite the effect they were going for, I think. Did the big three see through your thinly veiled excuse for a vampire flick and refuse to loan you a muscle car? 

If that's the case, there's hope for America yet.

-enough with the cloaked abstinence metaphors. Everyone gets it. Except the people preaching it, obviously.

-vampires do not sparkle.

-what looks to be premature ejaculation probably is. Don't pretend it's some animalistic craving for the lead female's blood. I see that look and familiar shudder all the time-right before the guys make for the bathroom to clean up. Just like 'Edward' did. Hmmm...

-vampires don't sparkle. 

+ + +

I'm off to cast my best friend's chart and spent some Q time with the pups. Watching Interview With the Vampire, natch.

I leave you with a great comic from explosm.net :

..as well as a pic from La Planete Sauvage (Fantastic Planet), because if you're not high, you'll wanna be while watching this movie..:

Actually, I don't know how anyone can be sober for certain movies, but that's another blog. 

xox

turn to the gates of heaven, to myself be damned

We see things not as they are but as we are.

-John Milton

Paradise Lost

Ahh, Phoenix drivers. Gotta love 'em. Mile and a half of 30 mph for no reason? Sure, we can do that! Driving the speed limit in the left lane? No problem. Going through construction barriers and guides like rats in a maze, searching for cheese that's not really there? Phoenix drivers will take care of that for ya.

I mean, really. Between snowbirds who can't read the street signs (bad vision) to non-US citizens who can't read the street signs (language barrier) to Cali transplants (..'nuff said), it's a wonder anyone gets any actual driving done anywhere in this city.

Anyway. Not to start the entry on a bitchy note, but it's just reason 5,092 why I smoke herb. I'm pretty sure running someone off the highway and dragging him out of his car to beat with my tire iron is probably frowned upon.

On a deeper note..

I feel lately like my life is a big puzzle, and there are all these pieces coming together of which I'm not aware. There is a lot going on currently that I don't quite understand, yet I know without a doubt there is a purpose to it all. I'm meeting and forming relationships (as well s severing ones) with people with whom I'd have never imagined I'd interact. Yet it doesn't feel nonchalant, or peculiar. It feels like everything that's happening and has happened in the last year or two is all interconnected and threaded together in a way that's not yet clear.

Sometimes you just feel things in your bones. Well, I do. I know some of you do, too. It's a sense, an instinct about things, that runs to the marrow. You feel it pulsing through you and electrifying your whole body. These feelings aren't some crazy adrenaline-pumping rush--they're subtle. They're like someone whispering a centuries-old secret to me; it's hushed and almost inaudible but the weight of its importance is immeasurable. I feel- I know- that something amazing and unexpected is going to happen to me or involving my life, and it's going to change me and possibly those around me forever.

It's everywhere-I feel it in the air, on the breeze. The breeze feels like a thousand ghostly fingers running through my hair. The sound of it in the trees sounds as though a million spirits are following my every move. It's not ominous-just ever so present. It's like 'they' know that I know, and they're telling me to stay strong and steadfast, and to follow my instincts. It sounds crazy, and maybe it is a little crazy, but it's one of the truest, most raw experiences I've ever had. I've learned over the years and in retrospect that tuning in to your 'gut' feelings and just tuning in to the world around you is a beautiful and rewarding gift to yourself. There are things and entities we know nothing about, but if we just turn down our own voices and slow our breathing we can become truly aware of the world around us (beyond the physical, tangible world).

That hippie, metaphysical tangent did have a purpose, I promise. I'm not going to start wearing patchouli and stop washing my hair, don't worry.

There are just times when the universe is giving-practically handing-to you knowledge or clues about your future, and if you're shut down and non-receptive it's all for naught. I've been feeling like this for some time now, but only in the last six months or so have I really tuned into it, almost fully. It's like a mother sensing when her child is hurt or in danger-it's that kind of just knowing. It's interesting and exciting, though, because I've always had strong convictions in my abilities and my future. I've known since I was a child that things would be fine-better than fine-no matter how bad they got. And believe me, there were bad times. But I always had this odd knowledge that things would be okay. Even at my darkest times, when I felt like I was drowning in a pitch black, thick pool of melancholy, I somehow knew that it wasn't my time to leave the world. I knew I would be involved in something big-even if it was only big to one other person.

So these feelings lately-they aren't something I shrug off or disregard. Especially when I examine some of the situation, like the people with whom I've been connected recently. Even my best friend came into my life for a very definitive reason, I know. I think about what turns my life would've taken had I stayed with my ex a few years ago, and one of the first and major things that comes to mind is my best friend. It feels as though we were separated at birth, or perhaps sisters in another life. I couldn't imagine existing on this earth without her in my life. And our spiritual connection is uncanny-we've known each other about a year and a half but it feels like we were meant to meet and become friends. It's like the universe was waiting for each of our lives to be at the right time to come together.

I've been using (maybe close to overusing) the term 'electric' to describe myself lately, and it's because any time I think of how my spirit and my body feels that's the first thing that comes to mind. I feel something running through me at all times, making me hyperaware and almost clairvoyant. It's not clairvoyance in the stereotypical way, though-it's subtle and I think it's purposely a little enigmatic. I think the universe is trying to get me to pay attention more. I know things, but I don't know them. I have dreams that I know are telling me very relevant things, but I can't put them together coherently. I meet, approach, and/or am approached by, people who I just know are vital to this part of my life-vital to the puzzle that's being assembled. I can't say why and I can't fully say how, but I examine how bewildered I am about some of my interpersonal connections and I realize it's because they don't make any sense. I'm bewildered because I could've never predicted it and yet it feels like it's been coming all along. I find myself wondering why so-and-so has come into my life, and I into theirs, and I have to stop and step back, and realize that this instance is one for which there is a definite, concrete reason. The opposites-attract or 'different strokes' cliches are all around me. I feel like I put out to the higher powers what I wasn't looking for regarding friends and lovers, and I was sent exactly that. Yet I know there is a greater meaning behind it.

Ugh. I feel like I'm making no sense, but the words are coming out as they're being spoken in my head-I'm just putting it all out there. So maybe it actually doesn't make sense? Ha.

So that's it for now. I had notes and a bunch of other stuff about which to blog, and that stuff was actually compelling, but I'm ever the stoner and can't recall where I wrote the notes and how exactly I planned on threading it all together so sober and/or sane people could read it. I'm sure it'll come to me at an ungodly hour and spew out like a baby unicorn-a bumbling mess birthed from something beautiful but probably inherently nonexistent.

Till then.

xox

OH! Speaking of unicorns... just click it. Trust me.

so i'm back to the velvet underground

Farewell, remorse: all good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my good. 

-John Milton, Paradise Lost  (bk. IV, l. 108)

You know, it's not that I'm unhappy here. It's just that I am inherently stir-crazy. I am a gypsy. I was a born traveler. My father was an army brat born literally on the beaches of the Philippines. He grew up, went to the army, then traveled the world and the US as a musician and jack-of-all-trades during gaps in lucrative musical opportunities. It's no wonder I am how I am- look at him.

I've moved and gone on trips for as far back as I can remember. We were always moving somewhere else, for some other reason. I never had a problem with it though. Of course I was upset like any kid would be, having been moved and severed friendships a few times in a few years. But I knew I had to take it in stride because that's just how things were. 

Funny enough, I'm now a complete contradiction when it comes to moving and forming relationships, and the types of places I seek out. I love being anonymous-love being just another face in the crowd. I loathe small towns with nothing to do for fun (nothing bar or music related, I mean). However, I feel superb on a stage and in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and I actually enjoy having a social 'network'. I just don't care. I love the hustle and bustle of a big city where no one knows your name, but I don't really care if everyone knows my name. It's a preference thing I guess. 

Ugggh. The joys and simultaneous pitfalls of smoking pot-digressing to the point of indifference about one's original intent. Sigh.

I just need to get the hell away for awhile. A weekend, a month, a year, forever. Whatever. Change it up, life! Charge into the china shop and break that shit! 

The most appropriate word for my vibe lately is 'electric,' and that's just how I feel. There are thousands of words more eloquent and surely more engrossing than that one, but it's the one that sticks out. And feeling so electric, I feel like I need to be around energy that matches my own-energy that's at once chaotic and peaceful, vibrating with the night and the pulse of the city then riding low on an El with coffee as the sun rises in front of me. My god, the visuals in my head right now are so vivid. I can smell the grit of the concrete, the diesel in the air. I can feel the haze on my skin and the dewy touch of early morning humidity-the shock of cool air against moist skin. I hear the horns, alarms, shouts, wheels..the hum and clack of iron and steel of trains and the smell of water not far. 

I have a lifelong, torrid affair with the city. But I always love the way I feel the morning after.

xox

dead as dead can be

Between the guy who likes women to use his hand as an ashtray (yes-ash, put out and leave in his palm their cigarettes), and the guy who came in today who spoke hardly a lick of english (this is America, right? just checking.) and would ask a dancer if he could cut a piece of her hair off to take home, I'm convinced strip clubs are like the Humane Society for Crazy Fuckers.

Granted, these are both normal, acceptable fetishes. Neither is strange, especially if you're well-versed in the fetish world. However, the person requesting the act makes a big difference. Ashtray Guy is a normal, nice man with money to blow and a slightly off the wall degradation fetish. Cut-Your-Hair-and-Probably-Make-Lifesize-Sex-Dolls Dude is...not so much. Give him an inch and next thing you know he's skinning the fatties and dancing to Q Lazzarus. 

Let's not forget CYHaPMLSD Dude (hereafter, "CYH Dude") bore an uncanny resemblance to the Mexican in Constantine who discovers the spear of destiny. IE: creepy and most likely possessed. So combine his appearance, his broken (and slurred, I might add) english, his greasy skin (bleeeech) and his women's strands of hair fetish and we have..ta-da! A new Crazy Fucker inductee into our little topless bar refuge. 

Not to digress, but my GOD why don't people teach their dogs to shut the hell up? Newsflash: if your dog barks at everything, he probably won't effectively warn you when there's a real emergency. And he'll annoy the fuck out of your pothead-but-don't-let-that-fool-ya-I'm-a-crazy-bitch neighbor. Just sayin'.

Anyway. It's not all bad at the titty bar. I had a blast today, worked my ass (clothes?) off, and made some cash. The majority of customers in today were fun and good natured. This kind of day makes my job so much easier, and in turn makes the patrons' experience much more pleasant. Who wants to see a bunch of morose, whiny bitches at the strip club? No one. Especially when they aren't all hot. This is not the club where strippers go to die. (That's downtown).

xox