Reaching · for · the · Golden · Ring...

It's not growing apart. It's growing up.

And it's not neglect. It's care.

Loneliness.
Not the same as being alone.

Solitude.
the state of being alone and secluded from other people.
often implies a conscious choice.

Loneliness is therefore unwilling solitude.

This is my last saved draft. Ha.

I am. Quite a bit wiser I suppose, than last year.

I think this has to do with the progression of the time as opposed to any attempt on my part to become a smarter individual. But maybe not. In fact, when I think about it, I think 2007 has been perhaps the most active year of self discovery I've had to date. The year started off with Jet of Blood really...I guess that is one thing I learned to love about directing. The absolute moment I was given a go ahead (1/03/07) I held that script in my terrified fingers and never let go. All of a sudden, I had a relationship. I owned the script, reveled in its glory, and fell in love with Artaud. And three weeks later I had a group of 20 people working on it with me and I was never alone. I think it is rather appropriate that in my start of the year babble Jet of Blood comes to mind because it happened to be the strongest relationship I sustained all year.

1am design meetings in the TCR fighting with the script to make sense
tears tears tears
9am rehearsals where we tried to understand the reaction of a 1000 venomous scorpions
tears tears tears
4am mental breakdowns in my bed where I stared at the ceiling hoping for the answers that were hidden in my tears tears tears

Opening night after a disastrous dress rehearsal. God love god love god love.
Screams, dry heaving, tears, laughter, excitement ..I made them feel something! I can see them all around me and we're all in it!!
Three beautiful wonderful days.
Closing night, madness, a dance party. I walk out of the theater after the very last show to Hobnob who runs at me, picks me up and yells.. almost slamming me into the flats against the ventilator.

It was beautiful those moments, and then it was over. Just as quickly as I was wonderfully overwhelmed by the year I was suddenly tragically underwhelmed.

and i paint the moon like stars in my mind
and i fall to pieces and shatter the earth
and i snatch a small whisp
and my blood chills to heat
and i take the whisps of desire

i blunder down the snowy feast of indecision

before i know it

i've broken my own heart

fine.
yes. okay.
sure. great.
maybe.
i dunno.
umm
no.
thanks.

this is what i'm thinking. quiet now::oh golly gee boy i really do want to smile right now and blush and oh stop blushing oh gosh gush gash (shh) polly wanna cracker he's so lovely why don't you try to wink a but, no more of a twinkle, there yes there, look a little more delicate, soft, oh that sigh was perfect thank god i needed that::

well. so.
if. that.
might.
make.
things.
awkward.

::awkward motherfucking hot mess::

but.
wait.
don't.
sorry.
i'm.
a big mess.

B.
so..give me a moment. to make the right decision.
i promise. if you let me make the right decision,
this might could would in the end be just lovely.

or not too bad anyway.
::deeper::
or not too bad any way.
ha!
gotcha nose!.
it's sort of a joke.
i'm trying to be funny.
i'm so not good at trying.
to be.
wow.

drunk.
i'm drunk.
this is funny.

fuck me.
no seriously.
this could be great.
and legitimate, and easy.
easy.
this could be very easy.

or hard.
::;-)::
or hard.

There comes a time in every young girl's life when she has to evaluate her situation, perhaps even her moral standards.

I often wonder if I am who I am because I like who I am or being it appeases others.

That glint after you've said something of which the reaction is unstable/unsure/uncalculated.

What a weight I hold on myself to be good to others appearance of me...

I am feeling rather melancholy right now I suppose.

I used to feel things. It must have been beautiful.

When I was two and a half the doctor told my mother that I was missing joints in my ankle along side the ones missing in my fingers, and I could never do the things that other kids could do. I couldn't do ballet or play piano..I couldn't do sports without being in constant pain.

How do you raise a child to be fearless when there is so much fear and pain around her?

My mother told me today, "you know what sorrow feels like. you know what pain feels like."

yes. yes I do.

It's falling into pieces again
the fear grows over the once beating heart
forward backshift...never together
her self beat her at the game every time

wonder what it is to fall like rain
how it feels to be alive
because i'm falling into a part
of feeling nothing at all but a

but a
ah an a
ache

She holds the apple delicious folding over
the words slip out and to be continued
biting the skin of a violent mood
caving into the subdued smile she exudes

wonder what it is to fall like rain
how it feels to be alive
because I'm falling into a part
of feeling the feeling of nothing at all ...but a

but a
ah an a
ache

wonder what it is to fall like rain
to beat to a warmth inside
because I'm falling into a part
ready to shoot down my broken heart

because I'm falling into a part
of feeling the feeling of nothing at all ...but a

but a
ah an a
ache

ache.

she was a girl with a chosen purpose
she felt the stinging flow of unfeltered
fresh fault falling down on her face
and she asks why the sky is blue
why the grass the GRASS man
the grassss man
grass green
or brown rather.
around here it's brown.
she wants to know that the future
the unmade memories
unmade and uncared for
it's the carelessness that really gets
to the bone
to the core
to the skin skin SKIN of it
the bone
the bone is the past

I remember the smell of the earth
i lay in the wide open swallowed
giving in to the weight of me
reaching up for the air as if to
suck in the smell
smell smile smeared smell
of it
hold it unmourned
with a wet sweat passion
take me back to that heat
take me back
back
back
me

soft marble shadows of lighted matches
fallen into the embers of returned love
under whilted thoughts of undone hope
sheer froth winged whimper without

madden my emotion
with your fallen angel whispers
flirt the moan of her
winking - at the shape of it

A Puppy farm excerpt:

secretly I used to sit up beneath the covers and write quips that spoke of leveled out lust, unfortunate realizations.
I want to run away with the sweat of the sun beating down on me.
I want to fill your life with a light that is brighter than the greatest memory of a burning star.
I want you to know what it is to be in pain.
I want to rip run your heart, twist it and fill it with empty bottles of sorries and worries and regrets.
My heart is full of them – of epic drum ballads and full out kick turns, of dances that are too intricately beautiful to perform, songs too loudly complicated to sing –

I don’t even know who I’m talking to anymore –
I used to know –
It used to be you – now just a memory of you in a dream that is always better in my mind anyway.

Extreme vulnerability

I'd like to note that this momentous change in my life, and in my state of mind, that i am about to converse on...ALL started with directing Jet of Blood...which has been the most important piece of work that I have ever created...and from there sprunga SLEW of summer events that changed my life.

Things that have changed my life this summer:

-the puppy farm...and everyone who went to it
-camping for the first time
-ahem. the ten stitches I got when I fell off of a tree I was climbing...and the subsequent emergency room visit
-Bonnaroo with Jo and Laura Lashley - the four day music festival of my dreams where I tripped out while watching The Police play Roxanne LIVE...where i saw Feist, White Stripes, Kings of Leon, The Roots, Brazillian Girls, Franz Ferdinand, Regina Spektor, etc.
-the 9 hours i spent at the Nashville international airport
-the road trip
-meeting the South
-Forrest Gump
-the beach
-Super Walmart
-driving 5 hours straight through Virginia
-meeting Ben's grandfather
-the Pride parade
-Maverick - thanks to whom I finally got to do that thing where I strut to the front of a night club and am let in automatically
-living with the Andrews
-Tarzan with Daveed
-Cafe Orlin (specifically their goat cheese and sun dried tomato omelette)
-living alone ALONE for two weeks
-night clubs and nyc bars - and the hopping that has now taken place
-the abandoned haunted smallpox asylum on Roosevelt Island
-not working on shows in July (minus puppy farm and Savage Love)
-Passing Strange with Jo, Daveed, Jaclyn, and Andrew
-Garage Band.. (lip gloss instrumental and Feelin' Good by Nina Simone)
-Mouthful of Birds in a BIG way
-Katie Qs show
-Kind Ness and Peter Pan

....this has been the best summer of my life. the best for ME. I don't mean the most awesome in terms of what I did (though it has been) I mean I have personally never felt this ...well able... about my life and the world. Being in love with someone unrequitedly for such a long time was really really hard...and really really painful.. but now it is really really over.

Imagine there is a city, with apartments and shops...and on the outskirts are farming communities and it all lays on flatland with a mountain the distance. For so long, I stood on the mountain in the distance, surveying the whole city scape before me, not allowing anything in - far removed so I didn't have to feel things. Then came this time where it shifted and I was sitting in my room staring the mirror, and that was my whole perspective on the world. Now I've come to trying to find a balance - being in and out of the shot, being part of it, but being able to step back and look at it all with a more understanding, forgiving, and objective eye -

Sitting in my room last night, I wanted to cry. I was sad about a secret love that I am maintaining an emotional distance from because I know it isn't going to work out. But it still makes me sad...so I smoked a bowl..or 3...and waited for the tears to come pouring down like they did all last summer and a lot of last year...but they didn't come ... instead I put on beautiful music and painted...I didn't sit there beating myself up about things that I can't change...instead I reminded myself of things I could change and turned it into a painting...

So what it comes down to in the end is...for this very brief and beautiful moment I'm happy. For this brief and beautiful moment I realize that as much of a child as I still am-and want to be- a very important part of me has grown up --and i am changed for the better.

I want to start at the beginning. I want to start, where it started. This feeling I have - this longing to hold something else that is missing within myself.

Let me start from the top for once.

I feel myself coming upon something momentous.

What makes a person do what they do? Love what they love? Own what they own?

What makes the grid work, the cage hold, the human zoo sustainable and striving - walking on a line.

"In this world of sameness and design by committee it seems almost everything is beginning to just blend in?"

Behind the weary eye, though, is discovered a slender touch of weary wisdom - it is how we hold the touch we are given that defines our character.

I unfold before more open shores and find myself ...

disappointed?
hopeful?
tragic.
yes.

Hung out with some amazing people in the last couple of the days. Smoked a lot of pot.

Stevo is AMAZING. Liz is adorable, Scovs awesome as usual. Jonathan steals my food.

Spring Awakening is beautiful.

It was a good couple of days.

Then why am I so damn sad?

So i got my play today : next semester I am directing Jet of Blood by Artaud-my third, but truly favorite of my submissions. I didn't think they would give it to me cuz it's so nuts ... so I threw it in as a wild card ...but i gueess..here we go. HAH. WTF. So I'm gonna need about 359834 cast members...and a hell of a lot of conventions to work out - my design meetings are going to be INTENSE.

dear me oh my.

The trouble is something that nearly never caught me
Surely there is a cliff somewhere that I can climb
Holding breathe still..cold..numb
Eyelids shading the future in a warm envelope of darkness

Clear, cool, come smooth
The air below me melts away
and I feel nothing but the hands of millions of ghosts
carrying me slowly down down down down
Until the grounded pillow knocks me out

Surely there is an edge near
toes tipping back and forth
balancing on the near air
heels digging into the past

Will the past be enough to keep me back?

I'm sitting in my hotel room in San Francisco, ordering movies and eating the entire contents of the minifridge and charging it onto my father's credit card.

It is as if my life...up until this very moment, this very second has seemed trivial. It is as if my life up until today was hopeless...and stuck...gluey and bloody. As if me..and those around me are constantly bruising me in the same painful places.

In my dream I walk towards the ocean and stare out across the great expanse. The powerful nature of the waves, the strength of the water's depth, the sheer size of a part of this great world that I know nothing about but that shapes my very existence. I wanted to jump in, to float forever, to dive down and push and push forward forward onward forever. Except today this wasn't a dream, because today I stood at the brink that separated land and the Pacific ocean - for the first time in well over a year - and I didn't feel like drowning, and I didn't feel like running away...I felt like diving in headfirst into the unknown and finding my way as I went...moment to moment. The wind cooled my hot flushed cheeks and I stared out into the horizon - my mind blank and open and free - and I felt, alive.

So maybe I just think I'm drowning - but truly..if I wanted to...I could dive deeper and fly forward...and leave everything and everyone hurtful behind.

I feel alive.

Maybe it's time to...fly.

Maybe it's time to go abroad.

Maybe it's time to stop being afraid of myself.

It's time to fuck all and blaze through this year like fierce flames of passion. Yes. Good plan.