An excerpt from nothing

"Look at her," he said.

"She's everything. Looks, brains, wit, the list goes on and on."

She felt her eyes begin to fill with tears. Against her better judgment, she stole a glance at the woman across the room. Indeed, she was gorgeous. Something about her, the way she carried herself, the tinkling sound of her laugh, the waves of amber hair cascading down her back. She looked back at him. His glance shifted, he couldn't look her in the eye.

Panic.

She heard the voice so clearly in her head. One thing at a time, she had to slow down her mind if she was going to make it out of this with any shred of dignity.

Panic.

It insisted again, more forcefully this time. She would not allow herself to lose control. There must be another option, she thought.

Escape.

Escape. A far better option. She took a deep breath, held her chin high and turned for the door.

"You'll be ok, won't you?" he asked, more a statement than a question.

Silently, she fumed. If it helps him sleep at night, "Sure." she responded, the heat apparent in her voice.

It always ends in pain. Don't say I didn't warn you. You left yourself wide open for this.

She pushed hard against the door with both hands. It swung open and released her into the cold. She couldn't hold them back any longer. Her tears poured down her cheeks, hot and wet, freezing slowly as they trickled down her face. She began to run. She clenched her hands into fists in her pockets, her nails cutting tiny crescents into her palms.

You can't escape this pain by hurting yourself.

She cried as she ran, and ran until she was lost. The looming edge of a massive redwood and pine forest stood at her feet. She pulled her coat tighter around her waist and reached in her bag for her knife. Can't be too careful, she thought. The moon shone bright tonight but its light was eliminated, almost completely, by the foliage overhead. She walked slowly between the massive trees.

You should have listened. I can't believe you were stupid enough to think this wouldn't happen again.

Walking so slowly left far too much time for her thoughts and emotions to run free. The tears came again. Not for pain this time, but for her own foolishness. She was angry, but not at him. The voices won over, she believed them. This was her fault for giving in, for letting go, for letting someone in close enough to hurt her. Silently she cried as she walked along.

Something moved in the brush off to her right. She paused. "Hello?" she called, but there was no answer.

She continued on, slowly, gripping her knife that much tighter.

She heard it again, a rustling sound, closer this time. Breathing. She could hear something breathing. She began to back up slowly, towards an enormous redwood. The breathing followed. In this light, her eyes were nearly useless. She reached the tree and pressed her back against it. She was shaking, gripped by the fear of the unseen adversary she faced. Her pulse quickened, she held her breath. She could feel heat, breathing, heat, against her face.

She could hold it no longer. Slowly she let out her breath. The moment the sweet scent of her air left her lips, it struck. She felt a white-hot pain in her side, teeth at her neck. It growled at her, pinning her against the tree. For a moment she was paralyzed. Her mind reeled. Suddenly she remembered the knife in her hand and sunk it deep into the side of her attacker. It shrieked in pain and released her. She fell to the earth, landing on top of the creature. Still unsure of what it was, she could feel it dying beneath her. It's breath became shallow as it slowly stopped moving. A final breath hissed from its chest, the stench of blood and sulfur surrounded her.

She put a hand to her side. The wound was deep. She tried to raise herself from the ground but she was unable to move. She felt the hot thick liquid pour from her side and tried in vain to press her hands into the source, to slow the bleeding. Again she cried. The tears slid slowly from her eyes. Her face pointed to the heavens, she remarked on the thickness of the branches overhead. She could see no stars, no moon, only darkness.

She chuckled, weakly, to herself. "You can't escape this pain by hurting yourself." she whispered. "You can't escape this..."

The box, the key

One more time, thanks for the memories.

Thanks for the memories.

He?

He tastes like you, only sweeter.

Ok, that's a lie.

He doesn't taste like you, but he does taste sweeter.

Another matter:

The box and the key

He may not have a clue what those are but I do. The box is the key. The key, is the box. The box. THE box.

1. talk, walk, frog
2. Petty
3. the box, the poison
4. move and lose
5. Selena
6. to Elizabeth
7. gift
8. kiss
9. ride, fly. Paris
10. learn
11. fight
12. hide or die
13. hide and die, not quite
14. the Woods
15. anxiety
16. rebuild
17. struggle
18. conquer
19. Canada
20. commit
21.
22. latch
23. chances or pills
24. the phoenix
25.

If you don't you won't. I won't either.

Have transmission, will travel

Somehow I got to this place. This place is unlike any other, but similar to many.

There's no way to explain how some grand design has brought me here. Tonight I get to taste something from a new perspective: overly self-conscious percussionists.

There is a rag-tag group of teenagers that just showed up in this cafe. Amateur percussionists with an enormous bag of tricks. One in the bunch knows his way around a set of bongo drums, the rest try to keep up, and give up every time they lose track of a beat. With how many fantastic percussion accessories I've seen pulled out of that bag, I can't believe how often they all give up after one failed rythm.

Then I remembered myself.

I don't even have the courage to make an attempt in front of other people right now. I know for a fact I could easily keep up with any item out of that bag, with any of these kids sitting here, and I still wouldn't try.

I feel it. I feel the want. I feel inside me the desire to play yet I allow myself to be limited by my own fear. A fear which I see in my own mind as needless but can't manage to overcome.

What is wrong with me?

What will it take for me to get over this self-conscious fear of public criticism?

* * *

Today I drove. I drove all the country roads I love to drive. I put the top down and waved my arms in the rushing air around me. I breathed. I flew. I felt free.

Fuck broken transmissions. I still love you my mistress, my Celi.

* * *

And now for some random quotes from the cafe:

"that reminds me of cat people"

"you're just like Phil Collins"

"what's a trombone?"

I also got to listen to the barista, a late 50's man, cuss out some guy over the phone in front of the 'musical act' of the night, and then immediately exclaim "I fucking hate musicians. Who are you?" upon hanging up. I wonder if that's how all musicians are greeted here. I used to practically live in this place and I've never seen anything like that before. I'd never make it as a musician if that's commonplace...

Which brings me to another topic, artists.

Do all people think artists are eccentric freaks? A couple of my co-workers, unaware that I frequently refer to myself as an artist, had this conversation the other day on the way to work. Apparently, the common concensus is that artists, painters specifically, are all eccentric weirdo freaks. Let me know if I'm wrong. Actually either way, I don't care. You could probably call me an eccentric weirdo freak to my face and I'd thank you for it.

Currently reading: The Fifth Sacred Thing By Starhawk Release date: 01 June, 1994

It's called a life, I guess I have one

I just realized that for the past few weeks, I've only been posting a blog about once a week. I started to wonder what was up with that, since there have been, at times, more than one blog per day. Then I realized, lately I've actually had other stuff to do. (imagine that...) So today, on my lunch break, my preview of tonight's Heroes episode failed me, and I decided it'd be a good opportunity to get back in touch with my blog.

I've been meaning to post some stuff, and it's severely belated but, as they say, better late than never. Well, unless you're talking about a death row pardon I suppose. (But I'm not talking about a death row pardon so lets move on.)

Actually, after looking at this stuff I decided to just go with one item for now. (Thx Celeste) In my commonplace discussions with Celeste about certain flavors of ice cream and the many complexities of my overbearing sense of logic vs. my emotions, one topic has recently been brought into discussion. Magical Panties of Chastity. I think Celeste may have found the counter balance to the Magical Panties of Chastity: The Magical Harness of Naughtiness. According to this poster, using the Magical Harness of Naughtiness may save your life someday.

Ok, moving on... So today is Monday, and while I can say for sure that I still greatly dislike Mondays, I can also say, this Monday has come at the end of a fabulous weekend.

Somehow, the weather decided to hear my request and stay nice this weekend. Allow me to give you a run-down of the events which qualified this weekend as fabulous. On Friday night, I got to have dinner with Shawn & Michele and the kids. Abby is talking so much now, I can hardly believe it. And it's still true, Shawn & Michele are the parents of some really great kids. I hope should I ever procreate, that I'm so lucky.

Ok so then, I went home and finished uh... cleaning my room... thats right, cleaning my room. I was in no way, shape, or form, working. Then I had some wine and watched Royal Tennenbaums. (Ok I'll admit, I was tired and fell asleep half way through.)

Saturday was so nice outdoors, that I actually managed to get a sunburn! Imagine that, enough sun for a real sunburn! That's gotta be a sign that we're getting closer to summer. I wandered to the top of one of the beach view hills at Montana de Oro and ate picnic lunch. It was pretty nice, until I tried to lose Merlin on a dune. I need a new holster for him, the clip on this one is all worn down and loose now. Luckily, some nice kids picked him up and I was able to call and speak with them to arrange to get him back within a few minutes.

So after that madness, I went down to the beach at the end of the road and hung out for a while. It was such a nice day. I found a jilliondy seashells and a few holy pebbles which shall become jewelry someday.

Later that night I had dinner with Aaron and Becca at some new sushi place called Sushiya. It was much better than I expected, and I tried the most rediculously expensive bottle of sparkling sake, which was actually very good. After dinner we went to see the insanely long but still very entertaining movie Zodiac. It was pretty good and my ass only fell asleep once or twice even tho it was much longer than 2 hours.

Sunday was a day in the kitchen. I haven't spent so much time cooking in years and I really enjoyed it. One of my favorite things to do is teach, and even more so when I'm able to teach someone how to do another of my favorite things. For brunch (I was going to say breakfast but it was probably 11:00 or later by the time we ate) I made my secret recipe french toast. Actually, for the first time ever, I tried making the french toast with wheat bread and it was very good.

Then, the afternoon was spent preparing fresh brussels sprouts and lasagne, which turned out incredibly well considering that I never use a recipe, and it's been years since I cooked lasagne. It even served perfectly after I let it cool down for a few minutes, in perfect little rectangles. (Considering that the recipe in my head doesn't call for a drop of Evian... that's how it should be.) It was delicious, and there was actually enough to make two lasagnes so there were plenty of extras to take home. Hopefully the pizza smell it caused won't last too long.

So enough rambling from me, what did everyone else do this weekend?

Currently listening: All The Stars And Boulevards By Augustana Release date: 06 September, 2005