I'm reading a book on meditation - specifically the Vipassana technique. I've never really been much on meditating because I have a hard time sitting still, concentrating and being patient with myself. However, had someone shown me the following paragraph sooner, I'd probably be on the road to being a master meditator now:
"Somewhere in this process, you will come face-to-face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and hopeless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way, and you just never noticed. You are also no crazier than everybody else around you. The only real difference is that you have confronted the situation; they have not. So they still feel relatively comfortable. That does not mean that they are better off. Ignorance may be bliss, but it does not lead to liberation. So don't let this realization unsettle you. It is a milestone actually, a sign of real progress. The very fact that you have looked at the problem straight in the eye means that you are on your way up and out of it."
Showing posts with label crazy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crazy. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013
An open letter to Benedict Cumberbatch re: PoshGate:
**warning: the word "posh" will be used unendingly in this letter/post/diatribe**
Dear Benedict Cumberbatch:
With you being the new "it" dude of the summer of 2013 (rather deservedly I say), there are countless articles out now where you're featured and most all of them have some sort of claim about you not being as posh as people think you are or might be and that you want to stretch your acting muscles out beyond the posh roles you've played in the past, get out from under the posh stigma* (most always with some posh photo set featuring beautiful clothes, beautiful people, worn leather, tea and cigars). I applaud your eagerness to grow and expand in your craft however, I don't think posh is as bad as you, or the people writing the articles, make it out to be. To start, you must know that the definition of "posh" has expanded in direct proportion to the income gap experienced in the past decades. Posh forty years ago was drastically different than posh is today. Perhaps you should look at the posh stereotyping from a different angle: you are tremendously adept and gifted at playing posh upper and upper-middle class people, both modern and classic. I think there are several factors that contribute to this, namely, 1. your unflinching acuity, eloquence and alertness; 2. your posture and bearing; 3. your mouth.
One of your most prominent and fawned about features are your amazing eyes. Not only are they a gorgeous, ever-changing, speckled and brilliant blue, there is an unerring, hawk-like sharpness about them. You can't hide that they are taking everything in - making mental notes of the goings on in the corner of your eye. You have a perpetual look of mental calculation on your face because of this and, as such, you come off as highly intelligent and alert. Highly intelligent and alert translates to well-educated (incorrectly so most times, but few choose to understand that distinction) which translates into posh. Additionally, your well-measured honey baritone does little to dissuade a posh demeanor. You're articulate and eloquent in your speech and you pause to breathe or quickly, but not anxiously, collect your thoughts often, both of which show a calmness and command that, combined with the molten rumble coming from your diaphragm, demands one listen to you, demands attention, demands respect (posh respect).
Another seemingly natural feature that screams posh is your posture and bearing. Your hold yourself very straight and very stiff but still demonstrate an elegance and efficiency of movement. At this writing I've seen everything you've acted in per IMDB's list except all but one of the episodes of "fortysomething" because that just hasn't made it over to the States yet, and the NINE things you are currently in production with. However, I don't expect it to be too long before "fortysomething" is here, I mean it's House, the original Duckface and you all in one show - it'll be on PBS or BBC America tout suite. Anyway, in all of that amazing stuff I've watched, I haven't seen you slouch once unless your character was sick. There are very few non-posh people in real life who aren't physically bowed by the trials life has thrown at them, hence regal posture and bearing equaling posh: well-bred, etiquette school, servants, different varieties of worry - survival versus maintenance of comfort - they all affect how people perceive you. I'm not saying that having amazing posture is bad, it just doesn't lend itself to your desired non-poshness.
Finally, one thing you can't change that really puts posh all over your face is your mouth. There's a way you tug the corners of it down when you're concentrating, trying to fight back an emotion - sadness, pride, hurt - or are otherwise touched by an act or situation, that brings great length to your face while enhancing the length of the rest of your features and it makes for a distinctly posh, "stiff upper lip" bottling of emotions. One can see the stopper being tamped into place when those corners go down.
So, I've come to the conclusion that this "poshgate" (great name by the way) comes down to two possible scenarios: 1. it's a massive PR move to show you as being more accessible to the plebes because there's some really generalized nonsense out there that your flame will burn bright but short if your fans don't feel like they can relate to you, or 2. you really are really really keen on branching out into non-posh roles. Lets take these one at a time.
PR move: let's be real here, you're not really going to be accessible** in the way that your fans want you to be accessible, which is constantly in our bedrooms lulling us to sleep with whispered dulcet tones of some completely soppy poetry after a wild romp of some kind. You don't have a Facebook account, you don't have a Twitter account, you don't have a Pinterest account, you don't blog - there isn't a way for people to know the real you and, to be honest, even if you did any of these, how would we know it really is you? It is your job to lie and/or go outside of yourself to tell the tale of another for a living - you're an ACTOR, you have two degrees in ACTING. However, there is a plethora of charming, down-to-earth, silly, fun, sweet interviews and tidbits all over the internet which paint you as this fellow that we would all get on with like a house on fire wearing sweaters over our shoulders with the sleeves tied, sipping tea and you schooling us on something like theoretical mathematical physics. You really don't need to be worried about accessibility, I think you're doing just fine with your Cumberbitches and your Sherlockian somethingorothers. They (ok, we) aren't going anywhere. We like you posh and fictionally petulant.
Branching out: let me work up a visualization scenario for you - go back to "Stuart: A Life Backwards". Could you play Stuart? Could you access the unintelligible intelligence that Tom Hardy brought to it? Can you let madness roll in and cloud over your impossibly clear and calculating eyes? Do you have the confidence in your well-trained voice to let it slur and tumble over words out of order? Can you let yourself have an irrational reaction to something rational and benign? Can you be filthy on the outside as well as on the inside? (I saw you play that posh pedo rapist, so you've got access to filth of some kind on the inside).
Tom Hardy has made a name brilliantly playing extremely clever, extremely mad antiheroes. You can see the fog of crazy rolling over him. He has a way of bringing the haze of inebriation (from drugs, drink, hate, revenge, exhaustion, insanity) to the forefront of his role and puts it right in his eyes because that's the only place it's believable. Can you do that? Actually, I think you can, but the more important question is, do you WANT to do that? Do you have the personal experiences yourself or with others to genuinely find, access and give respect to those actions and feelings that may seem so foreign to you? Yes, I saw you in the Vincent Van Gogh BBC1 bit you did and you were great, but seemed to play it more anxious than mad.
Christian Bale has taken a whole other tack to get into roles: extreme physical transformation. Would you emaciate yourself to properly play a role? Would you make yourself overly giant? Would you transform yourself into something wholly unrecognizable for the sake of a role? That may be a way to get you out of your posh box. They say the ladies have to get fat or old or crazy or drugged out to win an Oscar, maybe you need to do the same to release yourself from the velvet trappings of poshness.
I'm all for expanding horizons and trying new things (much to my own detriment) but I also fervently believe in knowing where you excel and accepting, appreciating and embracing where your talents lie. You don't strike me as one who would do something if you didn't think you'd excel at it. So, I'm glad that, in your breadth of work, you haven't thrown yourself into a role that was decidedly not posh, but wasn't the right part for you, simply because it was not a posh role.
To sum up, coming from one person who will very likely never meet you (which is a shame because I'm awesome and our powers of awesomeness combined would make the Wonder Twins blush with furious shame), I'd like to encourage you to embrace your inherent poshness and run with it. The posh have so much freedom of expansion within poshness: they can make fun of it without coming off as bitter; they can be silly as all get out, but are almost always subtly so; they can be searing, romantic or brooding (Heathcliff); they can be stiff, boring, unemotional and naïve (the perfect straight man). Anything and everything the unposh can be, but it's so much more fun because it's clipped and unexpected. Perhaps embrace the Alec Guinness in you: did he play a mad drunk who wasn't kind of posh? Most everything he did, he did well, even if he was typecast sometimes. He got to be funny, criminal, smart, mean, desert-y and wise but always had a little something poised, something regal, about him. Maybe you can help change the definition of posh once again into something you would desire it to be. Who knows? I just think there are so many better ways to think of posh than solely POSH per se. And you can help us find them.
*********
* - the google search "benedict cumberbatch posh" spawns pages and pages of anti-posh articles
** - Hun, one of your charities of choice is the Prince's Trust. This means that you associate and hang out with a real life PRINCE. That's a posh mark that can't be done away with even with the strongest heroine addictions, impromptu prostitute blowies or crazy-haired B&E convictions. Prince trumps crime in Poshland.
Dear Benedict Cumberbatch:
With you being the new "it" dude of the summer of 2013 (rather deservedly I say), there are countless articles out now where you're featured and most all of them have some sort of claim about you not being as posh as people think you are or might be and that you want to stretch your acting muscles out beyond the posh roles you've played in the past, get out from under the posh stigma* (most always with some posh photo set featuring beautiful clothes, beautiful people, worn leather, tea and cigars). I applaud your eagerness to grow and expand in your craft however, I don't think posh is as bad as you, or the people writing the articles, make it out to be. To start, you must know that the definition of "posh" has expanded in direct proportion to the income gap experienced in the past decades. Posh forty years ago was drastically different than posh is today. Perhaps you should look at the posh stereotyping from a different angle: you are tremendously adept and gifted at playing posh upper and upper-middle class people, both modern and classic. I think there are several factors that contribute to this, namely, 1. your unflinching acuity, eloquence and alertness; 2. your posture and bearing; 3. your mouth.
One of your most prominent and fawned about features are your amazing eyes. Not only are they a gorgeous, ever-changing, speckled and brilliant blue, there is an unerring, hawk-like sharpness about them. You can't hide that they are taking everything in - making mental notes of the goings on in the corner of your eye. You have a perpetual look of mental calculation on your face because of this and, as such, you come off as highly intelligent and alert. Highly intelligent and alert translates to well-educated (incorrectly so most times, but few choose to understand that distinction) which translates into posh. Additionally, your well-measured honey baritone does little to dissuade a posh demeanor. You're articulate and eloquent in your speech and you pause to breathe or quickly, but not anxiously, collect your thoughts often, both of which show a calmness and command that, combined with the molten rumble coming from your diaphragm, demands one listen to you, demands attention, demands respect (posh respect).
Another seemingly natural feature that screams posh is your posture and bearing. Your hold yourself very straight and very stiff but still demonstrate an elegance and efficiency of movement. At this writing I've seen everything you've acted in per IMDB's list except all but one of the episodes of "fortysomething" because that just hasn't made it over to the States yet, and the NINE things you are currently in production with. However, I don't expect it to be too long before "fortysomething" is here, I mean it's House, the original Duckface and you all in one show - it'll be on PBS or BBC America tout suite. Anyway, in all of that amazing stuff I've watched, I haven't seen you slouch once unless your character was sick. There are very few non-posh people in real life who aren't physically bowed by the trials life has thrown at them, hence regal posture and bearing equaling posh: well-bred, etiquette school, servants, different varieties of worry - survival versus maintenance of comfort - they all affect how people perceive you. I'm not saying that having amazing posture is bad, it just doesn't lend itself to your desired non-poshness.
Finally, one thing you can't change that really puts posh all over your face is your mouth. There's a way you tug the corners of it down when you're concentrating, trying to fight back an emotion - sadness, pride, hurt - or are otherwise touched by an act or situation, that brings great length to your face while enhancing the length of the rest of your features and it makes for a distinctly posh, "stiff upper lip" bottling of emotions. One can see the stopper being tamped into place when those corners go down.
So, I've come to the conclusion that this "poshgate" (great name by the way) comes down to two possible scenarios: 1. it's a massive PR move to show you as being more accessible to the plebes because there's some really generalized nonsense out there that your flame will burn bright but short if your fans don't feel like they can relate to you, or 2. you really are really really keen on branching out into non-posh roles. Lets take these one at a time.
PR move: let's be real here, you're not really going to be accessible** in the way that your fans want you to be accessible, which is constantly in our bedrooms lulling us to sleep with whispered dulcet tones of some completely soppy poetry after a wild romp of some kind. You don't have a Facebook account, you don't have a Twitter account, you don't have a Pinterest account, you don't blog - there isn't a way for people to know the real you and, to be honest, even if you did any of these, how would we know it really is you? It is your job to lie and/or go outside of yourself to tell the tale of another for a living - you're an ACTOR, you have two degrees in ACTING. However, there is a plethora of charming, down-to-earth, silly, fun, sweet interviews and tidbits all over the internet which paint you as this fellow that we would all get on with like a house on fire wearing sweaters over our shoulders with the sleeves tied, sipping tea and you schooling us on something like theoretical mathematical physics. You really don't need to be worried about accessibility, I think you're doing just fine with your Cumberbitches and your Sherlockian somethingorothers. They (ok, we) aren't going anywhere. We like you posh and fictionally petulant.
Branching out: let me work up a visualization scenario for you - go back to "Stuart: A Life Backwards". Could you play Stuart? Could you access the unintelligible intelligence that Tom Hardy brought to it? Can you let madness roll in and cloud over your impossibly clear and calculating eyes? Do you have the confidence in your well-trained voice to let it slur and tumble over words out of order? Can you let yourself have an irrational reaction to something rational and benign? Can you be filthy on the outside as well as on the inside? (I saw you play that posh pedo rapist, so you've got access to filth of some kind on the inside).
Tom Hardy has made a name brilliantly playing extremely clever, extremely mad antiheroes. You can see the fog of crazy rolling over him. He has a way of bringing the haze of inebriation (from drugs, drink, hate, revenge, exhaustion, insanity) to the forefront of his role and puts it right in his eyes because that's the only place it's believable. Can you do that? Actually, I think you can, but the more important question is, do you WANT to do that? Do you have the personal experiences yourself or with others to genuinely find, access and give respect to those actions and feelings that may seem so foreign to you? Yes, I saw you in the Vincent Van Gogh BBC1 bit you did and you were great, but seemed to play it more anxious than mad.
Christian Bale has taken a whole other tack to get into roles: extreme physical transformation. Would you emaciate yourself to properly play a role? Would you make yourself overly giant? Would you transform yourself into something wholly unrecognizable for the sake of a role? That may be a way to get you out of your posh box. They say the ladies have to get fat or old or crazy or drugged out to win an Oscar, maybe you need to do the same to release yourself from the velvet trappings of poshness.
I'm all for expanding horizons and trying new things (much to my own detriment) but I also fervently believe in knowing where you excel and accepting, appreciating and embracing where your talents lie. You don't strike me as one who would do something if you didn't think you'd excel at it. So, I'm glad that, in your breadth of work, you haven't thrown yourself into a role that was decidedly not posh, but wasn't the right part for you, simply because it was not a posh role.
To sum up, coming from one person who will very likely never meet you (which is a shame because I'm awesome and our powers of awesomeness combined would make the Wonder Twins blush with furious shame), I'd like to encourage you to embrace your inherent poshness and run with it. The posh have so much freedom of expansion within poshness: they can make fun of it without coming off as bitter; they can be silly as all get out, but are almost always subtly so; they can be searing, romantic or brooding (Heathcliff); they can be stiff, boring, unemotional and naïve (the perfect straight man). Anything and everything the unposh can be, but it's so much more fun because it's clipped and unexpected. Perhaps embrace the Alec Guinness in you: did he play a mad drunk who wasn't kind of posh? Most everything he did, he did well, even if he was typecast sometimes. He got to be funny, criminal, smart, mean, desert-y and wise but always had a little something poised, something regal, about him. Maybe you can help change the definition of posh once again into something you would desire it to be. Who knows? I just think there are so many better ways to think of posh than solely POSH per se. And you can help us find them.
*********
* - the google search "benedict cumberbatch posh" spawns pages and pages of anti-posh articles
** - Hun, one of your charities of choice is the Prince's Trust. This means that you associate and hang out with a real life PRINCE. That's a posh mark that can't be done away with even with the strongest heroine addictions, impromptu prostitute blowies or crazy-haired B&E convictions. Prince trumps crime in Poshland.
Friday, April 2, 2010
be warned - the following is a long, steaming, heaping pile of...
awesome.
please note: this isn't my ideal means of reconnection or communication of this topic, but geography and money and all those general life circumstances keep me from having the face-to-face conversations on an individual basis that i would prefer to have regarding this situation. unfortunately, this is the most convenient means of communicating what i want and need to get out here.
here's the short version of what's been going down for those of you with tiny attention spans: the last 4 months of 2009 were – well - to be honest, using the phrase “absolute shit” to describe them would be a delightfully buoyant understatement. to be wholly truthful, the last half of 2008 through to the end of 2009 was pretty lame and stupid, but it had it's bright spots. But those last few months of '09 definitely sucked dirty monkey balls. it all got to a point where i just didn't want to deal with any of it anymore, and since i'm too lazy and curious about outcomes to concoct some lame and useless attempt on my life, i decided to do what i do best and run away from it all. i sold literally everything i own bar the few items that would fit into a backpack the size of a carry-on bag and bought a one-way ticket to europe. i wandered around northern europe for a few months during the coldest winter in the past decade – smart, i know - until my money got dangerously low; low enough for only a plane ticket back to the states where i knew i could get a job and earn money. So i came back and realized how crazy i really went (completely and totally batshit crazy to be exact) and now i'm in crazy rehab. details for the stout of span below.
let's start at the beginning, shall we? end of 2009 sucked. super duper bad. we don't need to go into those details. we're just going to leave it at “it sucked and then i cried” (hello dooce reference) and go into the things that i did at that time in the midst of the crazy i was in that i didn't know i was in. it has been established that i ran away from it all, but it was much more than that. in order to run away this time, i tried to completely erase all parts of my “former” self and start a new self to see what would happen. i changed my name. legally. i have whole new identification and passports and addresses and everything. i got rid of my phone and phone number. i no longer answer email at the address that everyone had for me. i sent 2 letters out at this time - one to my parents telling them that they sucked, why they sucked and that they should fuck off because i'm removing myself from their lives (admittedly, the sole smart thing I did throughout this whole process) and the other to someone who didn't deserve to bear the weight of what i sent to her and who had so many other, more important things going on in her life, essentially telling her and anyone that she or i knew, that i'm removing myself from her life, from everyone's lives because mine sucks. that one i'm truly and deeply sorry and regretful for. i SERIOUSLY lost my grip on reality, but it all seemed so sane at the time - i didn't want to know anyone because i didn't want anyone to know me and how much of a fuck up I felt like at the time. while i was in europe, i realized and – finally – truly understood what troy told me all those years ago as we were driving back from a hotel cafe show and what they tell you all the time in AA – wherever you go, there you are. and when i realized that, i said, “DAMMIT” in that whiny, “oh, crap” kind of way. so, say it while you can troy lee wells, you certainly did tell me so.
before we delve further into the crazy, I am going to take this moment to reflect on europe/travels:
ireland:
- the dudes there are everything that everyone says they are. AWESOME and the epitome of dudeness and they fully embrace and appreciate it and could give a fuck less about what anyone else thinks of it
- the food there sucks. totally sucks. it's no wonder they all drink so much
- bulmers is far too delicious and lovely to not be in the states
- i saw a little green and a little rolling under all the white snow and it was very pretty
- you have magical animals that i've not seen anywhere else
- cork is my favorite city of yours. galway might have been if it weren't so cold that it bit my face off
- i met more french people in ireland than i did in france. discuss
france:
- paris, -i liked you a whole hell of a lot more than i thought i would. A LOT
- parisians, you are not as asshole-y as the rest of the world makes you out to be. you just like things the way that they are and aren't too into change - there's nothing wrong with that
- shakespeare's: it took you to show me that i really am a romantic. maybe not in the traditional sense of romanticism, but i'll take any sense i can get
- the food here is perfection. the air smells like fresh baked bread and i wanted to take large gulping bites of it
- you had a lot more green than ireland did
- you like lady gaga. a lot. somehow, this doesn't surprise me. i managed to last the year and a half or so of her american blitz on media and radio without setting eye or ear on her, but i just couldn't avoid her there
- thank you for being the only country i went to where it didn't snow continuously
belguim:
- you're weirdly funny and sterile all at the same time. i'm not sure what to make of you
- when i was in brussels and ordered sprouts (only), brussels sprouts are the ones that came out
- please make a decision on what language you speak. do you speak french, dutch or flemish? it is very confusing for me
- your waffles aren't any better than the ones i've had elsewhere. and, contrary to popular demand, neither are your fries. Sorry
netherlands:
- you have very tall people. i finally found a place where i can wear heels and not feel like i'm towering over everyone
- your pot is STRONG and delicious
- most of your “bars” only have one or 2 types of beer and it's usually light. what's up with that??
- your people are VERY logical, almost robotic-ly so. it makes their art and their view on art kinda funny
- maastricht's carnival is awesome. maastricht's dialect is not so awesome because I don't speak it
- the girls i met there were very nice and i totally wore out my welcome
- you are the only country i went into a mcdonalds in. and it was only for the stropewaffel mcflurry – totally worth it
- one of your jealous girlfriends left me with a scar
- when an american sees jon dee graham in your country, he will make that american homesick. really really homesick
ireland (again):
- man, your dudes really are awesome. you should bottle whatever it is they have and sell it (i know now it's NOT jameson)
mexico:
- you have obscenely beautiful sunsets in juarez
- thank you for finally not making me feel like i'm prey whenever i walk into your country
- your food is AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS. i'm seriously wondering what the taco bell people were eating, or what crack they were on, when they got the idea for marketing gorditas because they are NOTHING like real gorditas
- i like your colorfulness
- i like your nonplussed-ness about the cops in riot gear in every corner
- you think i'm a funny gringa for not being scared about being there and not speaking a lick of spanish. ha!
- your coca-cola is significantly yummier than the stuff in the states. i won't ever have american coke again
back from europe and to the crazy:
i got back onto american soil and i thought i had a plan laid out. i was going to go to this town and start my life there and this is how my life was going to be, etc. etc. etc. and it most definitely did not work out that way. i ended up getting even further into the depression that i was already in and nothing seemed right or clear. at that time, i was offered a chance to go to crazy rehab, so i jumped on it.
the first thing i did when i got to crazy rehab was realize that when i went crazy (some people would soften it by calling it a "mid-life crisis" but i like to call a spade a spade), i did some things that were stupid and silly and drastic, but i don't and won't regret (all but one of) the things i did, because they were all the things i needed to do to get to crazy rehab, which is a pretty good place for me right now. and it is most definitely not the place i thought i would end up at this point.
in crazy rehab, i found that it's a rather evident pattern in my life for me to "go 'round my fist to get to my thumb" to use a cute, often under-appreciated southern expression. it means that i take the scenic route to the places in my life that i need to be - places that are usually right there in front of me. i kind of like that about me.
in crazy rehab, i have chores so i can develop self-discipline (of which I have none, but you all knew that): i go to yoga in the morning, i sweep the entire house everyday, i do the dishes after every meal and i read.
i'm VERY surprised about how quickly the days pass with the seemingly little i have to do. i'm also surprised that i haven't gotten bored yet. a few days after i got here, we discussed a 21-day plan to exorcise the crazy or at least get me to learn to live with and accept it and how to work with it in my everyday life. thus far, it's very interesting to see the progress - some days are wonderful and the crazy is controlled or satiated. some days, the crazy is back in full force. that's when i start to hyperventilate. those latter days are coming less and less, which is how i'm tracking my progress.
in crazy rehab, i've found that being crazy is similar to being an alcoholic – in AA they tell you that you're never “cured” of alcoholism, you'll always be an alcoholic learning to live each day without a drink because every day is different and will present you with different challenges. crazy is the same way. there is no cure for crazy, and i've learned that i will always be crazy, but here i'm getting the tools i need to embrace and appreciate and accept the crazy so that i can learn to live with it in my everyday life in a more constructive way than i have in the past. that's kind of comforting to tell you the truth - it's one less thing i have to worry about changing of fixing.
in crazy rehab, i realized the extent to which i went crazy and i also realized that i can, and need to, undo some of the things that i did, if possible. i'm changing my name back – it was weird for me to answer to that other name anyway. i need to do that to show that i'm willing to accept and love the crazy that i've had my whole life.
i'm not going back to austin right now. i knew in april of last year that my time in austin was coming to a close for now. i'm not saying i won't ever go back because i LOVE that place so freaking much, but it's not the place for me right now.
i want to bring the people back into my life that i left, if they'll have me. i know that i was an asshole for doing the things that i did and in the way that i did them and that i'll never know what that did to some people and i'm ready to accept if they aren't ready to let me back into their lives - those are the consequences to be paid. but i would be forever humbled and grateful for the forgiveness and understanding of those who would invite me back into their lives.
today, i turn 30. today, i've been at crazy rehab for 30 days (yeah... the crazy was re-evaluated and we realized that 21 days wasn't enough). on days like this - with this pattern - i would usually find a 30 oz. hamburger with 30 sauteed mushrooms and 30 squirts/dots of mustard and a bun with 30 sesame seeds on it and eat it with gusto and vomit most of it up 30 minutes later. but, of course, today is good friday and, being the intermittent and mediocre former catholic that i am, i don't eat meat today (thanks jesus), so i will instead have 30 nonpariels that have only 30 sprinkles on them and eat them all within 30 seconds so that i'm sick to my stomach for at least the following 30 minutes. or maybe i'll have 30 cupcakes. or 30 lattes. or 30 hot do... dangit jesus! definitely something with food and 30.
so, to sum up: i had a shit year and a half (it was in the coming, really), i ran away and went crazy crazy (and i have a scar on my face to prove it!), i am at crazy rehab and getting prepared to undo some of the weird things i did to prepare for my going crazy.
i feel like i should provide a coupon for a cupcake or an ice cream as a reward for making it to the end of this... whatever it is. instead i give you this laurel and hearty handshake.
questions? comments? concerns?
please note: this isn't my ideal means of reconnection or communication of this topic, but geography and money and all those general life circumstances keep me from having the face-to-face conversations on an individual basis that i would prefer to have regarding this situation. unfortunately, this is the most convenient means of communicating what i want and need to get out here.
here's the short version of what's been going down for those of you with tiny attention spans: the last 4 months of 2009 were – well - to be honest, using the phrase “absolute shit” to describe them would be a delightfully buoyant understatement. to be wholly truthful, the last half of 2008 through to the end of 2009 was pretty lame and stupid, but it had it's bright spots. But those last few months of '09 definitely sucked dirty monkey balls. it all got to a point where i just didn't want to deal with any of it anymore, and since i'm too lazy and curious about outcomes to concoct some lame and useless attempt on my life, i decided to do what i do best and run away from it all. i sold literally everything i own bar the few items that would fit into a backpack the size of a carry-on bag and bought a one-way ticket to europe. i wandered around northern europe for a few months during the coldest winter in the past decade – smart, i know - until my money got dangerously low; low enough for only a plane ticket back to the states where i knew i could get a job and earn money. So i came back and realized how crazy i really went (completely and totally batshit crazy to be exact) and now i'm in crazy rehab. details for the stout of span below.
let's start at the beginning, shall we? end of 2009 sucked. super duper bad. we don't need to go into those details. we're just going to leave it at “it sucked and then i cried” (hello dooce reference) and go into the things that i did at that time in the midst of the crazy i was in that i didn't know i was in. it has been established that i ran away from it all, but it was much more than that. in order to run away this time, i tried to completely erase all parts of my “former” self and start a new self to see what would happen. i changed my name. legally. i have whole new identification and passports and addresses and everything. i got rid of my phone and phone number. i no longer answer email at the address that everyone had for me. i sent 2 letters out at this time - one to my parents telling them that they sucked, why they sucked and that they should fuck off because i'm removing myself from their lives (admittedly, the sole smart thing I did throughout this whole process) and the other to someone who didn't deserve to bear the weight of what i sent to her and who had so many other, more important things going on in her life, essentially telling her and anyone that she or i knew, that i'm removing myself from her life, from everyone's lives because mine sucks. that one i'm truly and deeply sorry and regretful for. i SERIOUSLY lost my grip on reality, but it all seemed so sane at the time - i didn't want to know anyone because i didn't want anyone to know me and how much of a fuck up I felt like at the time. while i was in europe, i realized and – finally – truly understood what troy told me all those years ago as we were driving back from a hotel cafe show and what they tell you all the time in AA – wherever you go, there you are. and when i realized that, i said, “DAMMIT” in that whiny, “oh, crap” kind of way. so, say it while you can troy lee wells, you certainly did tell me so.
before we delve further into the crazy, I am going to take this moment to reflect on europe/travels:
ireland:
- the dudes there are everything that everyone says they are. AWESOME and the epitome of dudeness and they fully embrace and appreciate it and could give a fuck less about what anyone else thinks of it
- the food there sucks. totally sucks. it's no wonder they all drink so much
- bulmers is far too delicious and lovely to not be in the states
- i saw a little green and a little rolling under all the white snow and it was very pretty
- you have magical animals that i've not seen anywhere else
- cork is my favorite city of yours. galway might have been if it weren't so cold that it bit my face off
- i met more french people in ireland than i did in france. discuss
france:
- paris, -i liked you a whole hell of a lot more than i thought i would. A LOT
- parisians, you are not as asshole-y as the rest of the world makes you out to be. you just like things the way that they are and aren't too into change - there's nothing wrong with that
- shakespeare's: it took you to show me that i really am a romantic. maybe not in the traditional sense of romanticism, but i'll take any sense i can get
- the food here is perfection. the air smells like fresh baked bread and i wanted to take large gulping bites of it
- you had a lot more green than ireland did
- you like lady gaga. a lot. somehow, this doesn't surprise me. i managed to last the year and a half or so of her american blitz on media and radio without setting eye or ear on her, but i just couldn't avoid her there
- thank you for being the only country i went to where it didn't snow continuously
belguim:
- you're weirdly funny and sterile all at the same time. i'm not sure what to make of you
- when i was in brussels and ordered sprouts (only), brussels sprouts are the ones that came out
- please make a decision on what language you speak. do you speak french, dutch or flemish? it is very confusing for me
- your waffles aren't any better than the ones i've had elsewhere. and, contrary to popular demand, neither are your fries. Sorry
netherlands:
- you have very tall people. i finally found a place where i can wear heels and not feel like i'm towering over everyone
- your pot is STRONG and delicious
- most of your “bars” only have one or 2 types of beer and it's usually light. what's up with that??
- your people are VERY logical, almost robotic-ly so. it makes their art and their view on art kinda funny
- maastricht's carnival is awesome. maastricht's dialect is not so awesome because I don't speak it
- the girls i met there were very nice and i totally wore out my welcome
- you are the only country i went into a mcdonalds in. and it was only for the stropewaffel mcflurry – totally worth it
- one of your jealous girlfriends left me with a scar
- when an american sees jon dee graham in your country, he will make that american homesick. really really homesick
ireland (again):
- man, your dudes really are awesome. you should bottle whatever it is they have and sell it (i know now it's NOT jameson)
mexico:
- you have obscenely beautiful sunsets in juarez
- thank you for finally not making me feel like i'm prey whenever i walk into your country
- your food is AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS. i'm seriously wondering what the taco bell people were eating, or what crack they were on, when they got the idea for marketing gorditas because they are NOTHING like real gorditas
- i like your colorfulness
- i like your nonplussed-ness about the cops in riot gear in every corner
- you think i'm a funny gringa for not being scared about being there and not speaking a lick of spanish. ha!
- your coca-cola is significantly yummier than the stuff in the states. i won't ever have american coke again
back from europe and to the crazy:
i got back onto american soil and i thought i had a plan laid out. i was going to go to this town and start my life there and this is how my life was going to be, etc. etc. etc. and it most definitely did not work out that way. i ended up getting even further into the depression that i was already in and nothing seemed right or clear. at that time, i was offered a chance to go to crazy rehab, so i jumped on it.
the first thing i did when i got to crazy rehab was realize that when i went crazy (some people would soften it by calling it a "mid-life crisis" but i like to call a spade a spade), i did some things that were stupid and silly and drastic, but i don't and won't regret (all but one of) the things i did, because they were all the things i needed to do to get to crazy rehab, which is a pretty good place for me right now. and it is most definitely not the place i thought i would end up at this point.
in crazy rehab, i found that it's a rather evident pattern in my life for me to "go 'round my fist to get to my thumb" to use a cute, often under-appreciated southern expression. it means that i take the scenic route to the places in my life that i need to be - places that are usually right there in front of me. i kind of like that about me.
in crazy rehab, i have chores so i can develop self-discipline (of which I have none, but you all knew that): i go to yoga in the morning, i sweep the entire house everyday, i do the dishes after every meal and i read.
i'm VERY surprised about how quickly the days pass with the seemingly little i have to do. i'm also surprised that i haven't gotten bored yet. a few days after i got here, we discussed a 21-day plan to exorcise the crazy or at least get me to learn to live with and accept it and how to work with it in my everyday life. thus far, it's very interesting to see the progress - some days are wonderful and the crazy is controlled or satiated. some days, the crazy is back in full force. that's when i start to hyperventilate. those latter days are coming less and less, which is how i'm tracking my progress.
in crazy rehab, i've found that being crazy is similar to being an alcoholic – in AA they tell you that you're never “cured” of alcoholism, you'll always be an alcoholic learning to live each day without a drink because every day is different and will present you with different challenges. crazy is the same way. there is no cure for crazy, and i've learned that i will always be crazy, but here i'm getting the tools i need to embrace and appreciate and accept the crazy so that i can learn to live with it in my everyday life in a more constructive way than i have in the past. that's kind of comforting to tell you the truth - it's one less thing i have to worry about changing of fixing.
in crazy rehab, i realized the extent to which i went crazy and i also realized that i can, and need to, undo some of the things that i did, if possible. i'm changing my name back – it was weird for me to answer to that other name anyway. i need to do that to show that i'm willing to accept and love the crazy that i've had my whole life.
i'm not going back to austin right now. i knew in april of last year that my time in austin was coming to a close for now. i'm not saying i won't ever go back because i LOVE that place so freaking much, but it's not the place for me right now.
i want to bring the people back into my life that i left, if they'll have me. i know that i was an asshole for doing the things that i did and in the way that i did them and that i'll never know what that did to some people and i'm ready to accept if they aren't ready to let me back into their lives - those are the consequences to be paid. but i would be forever humbled and grateful for the forgiveness and understanding of those who would invite me back into their lives.
today, i turn 30. today, i've been at crazy rehab for 30 days (yeah... the crazy was re-evaluated and we realized that 21 days wasn't enough). on days like this - with this pattern - i would usually find a 30 oz. hamburger with 30 sauteed mushrooms and 30 squirts/dots of mustard and a bun with 30 sesame seeds on it and eat it with gusto and vomit most of it up 30 minutes later. but, of course, today is good friday and, being the intermittent and mediocre former catholic that i am, i don't eat meat today (thanks jesus), so i will instead have 30 nonpariels that have only 30 sprinkles on them and eat them all within 30 seconds so that i'm sick to my stomach for at least the following 30 minutes. or maybe i'll have 30 cupcakes. or 30 lattes. or 30 hot do... dangit jesus! definitely something with food and 30.
so, to sum up: i had a shit year and a half (it was in the coming, really), i ran away and went crazy crazy (and i have a scar on my face to prove it!), i am at crazy rehab and getting prepared to undo some of the weird things i did to prepare for my going crazy.
i feel like i should provide a coupon for a cupcake or an ice cream as a reward for making it to the end of this... whatever it is. instead i give you this laurel and hearty handshake.
questions? comments? concerns?
Thursday, April 23, 2009
yes and no
you know, you've said no to me so many times now that it makes my whole body think you're only going to continue to say no to me or give me some lame excuse as to why you "have" say no to me *insert rolley eyes here*, that i can't even picture you saying yes anymore. that's HORRIBLE. i have this overwhelming feeling that i'm going to get a no. AGAIN. and i've been feeling it since tuesday. and i can't shake it. and i need to shake it because it breaks my heart.
i need to be able to picture you saying yes because that's the only way it's going to happen. i can force through thoughts of yes, but they get washed over almost immediately with the inevitable no. to the point where i picture myself walking out to the beach and throwing stones on the cliffs, hoping they'll break because i need the catharsis of seeing something break due to my own actions.
christ! when am i going to be done with this?
i need to be able to picture you saying yes because that's the only way it's going to happen. i can force through thoughts of yes, but they get washed over almost immediately with the inevitable no. to the point where i picture myself walking out to the beach and throwing stones on the cliffs, hoping they'll break because i need the catharsis of seeing something break due to my own actions.
christ! when am i going to be done with this?
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