Quick bit of star speak

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Wave farewell to your old self, Sagittarius. Maybe blow a few kisses as well. But don't linger too long. Refuse to get bogged down in ambiguous rituals filled with interminable goodbyes and meticulous inventories of the past. It's time to go! Off with you! You've got urgent appointments with the unsettling but fascinating future, and it's best to part ways with habits that have dulled your initiative and comforts that have numbed your courage. You're ready for more change than you think you're capable of.


I often times find myself a little spooked by Mr. Brezney's accuracy! I've bolded my favorite part. Unsettling but fascinating does not always sound inviting.... but it sounds like the kind of life I long to live.

Saw "Rent" yesterday, and was a bit daunted by how ordinary and 'un-passionate' life has been lately. Where is the artist who longed to live in chilly lofts for the sake of art? When did I become so staid in my ways? When did I choose the road more travelled, and how can I find my way back to the other?

Gratitude

I tend to be remiss about doing this 'gratitude' thing at Thanksgiving. However, as the Universe and I are playing the "Create your world" game this particular 30 days, I want to be sure to thank her for all that has manifested recently.

* A new job- that pays well, that has respectful co-workers, a jovial attitude, and can be left at the office every night.

* Time and ability to see my parents. After a couple of years without them, I was uncertain how the time in FL would go. But it was lovely, and I'm thrilled I went. I look forward to my next visit, whenever it may be.

* A "Private Benjamin" moment- that is to say, the ability to see something and know that whatever your feelings are on the matter, it is not in your best interest, and that is what must be served. Then turning and walking away, proudly, unquestioningly. The pain of the tearing away is experienced. Continued suffering is not.

* Someone honest and authentic, who holds the space for me to cry unashamedly, and rejoices in watching me smile. Someone who faces fear, enjoys learning, and shares constantly..... oh... and he can DANCE! *sigh* *grin*

* Healthy Cats, Paid Bills, A Working Car, & A Sense of Humor

* MOST OF ALL, let me thank you Universe for the best damn friends a girl can have. They keep coming back year after year, even when I KNOW that I'm not always a picnic, and I have more than a few tendancies towards drama. They make me laugh. They speak truths. They rage at the stars when the world isn't working out for any of us. And they smile and squee and hold you when all the world is right. My eternal thanks for Dreamschool, Dirt, LunaMoonSong, Shazam, Amandarin, SonofHarry, and the AZ_Pup

& Thank YOU, Universe, for letting me be your student.

And she reminded me .....

you deserve someone authentic.
and available
and loving
and demonstrative
who makes you laugh
and makes it safe for you to cry

they come in all shapes and sizes, honey. But good is to the core.


I love my friends.
I love the way they see me.
I love the space they hold for me.

Gun Quiz

I don't usually do quizes here.... but after a week in the South, this was just too appropriate.


Which type of gun would you carry?
brought to you by Quizilla

Another gem from the homestead

At dinner, the subject of drinks came up…. I touted the virtues of the minty lime goodness that I find at my local hang-out.

DAD: Why does "Mojito" sound familiar to me?
ME: well, a lot of folks are ordering them these days. Much like "cosmopolitans" became popular when Sex & the City came out.
DAD: That doesn’t help me. I don’t watch popular television these days.
MOM: well…. It does sound like someone from Hawaii 5-0.


Yeah…. "Book ‘em Mojito"

*laughing*

i come by it honestly

A little background for the new readers. Mom is a packrat of the most fanatical kind. Dad fought for a neat home for many years, but the passion for the good fight has left him, and he is resigned to his clutter-filled demise. This has not, however, diminished his sense of humor about it.

We three were in the middle of Chik-fil-a, lunching and loudly discussing the rattiest pair of slippers that needed to be retired.

Now, in trying to explain the difference between sane keeping of stuff and the obsessive need to accumulate, I used what I believed to be a facetious example…. ‘that would be like if grandma died, and someone kept her body in the spare bedroom because they miss her."

To this, my mother began to sputter, to clutch her hands to her face, and make unidentifiable noises… at first I believed it to be laughter, but tears at her eyes had me worried. Her mother passed away some 6 years ago, and it can sometimes be a soft spot.

ME: (to Dad) is she crying?
DAD: I don’t know
MOM: (napkin to her eyes, shaking head no, mumbles thru hysteria) murffle, mrgh… flr ooom.
ME: uh…. Um…. One more time mom.
MOM: (now clearly laughing) My mother’s ashes are in the spare room. (more laughter)
DAD: Ahhh, see…. Your Grandmother has gone from collecting clutter, to becoming clutter.

Yeah…. In ANYONE ELSE’s family… it would have been a facetious example.

Heavenly Quotable

He said: "You have the body of a goddess."

and he meant it.

*grin*

Pandora's Closet Storage Area

She spoke of going thru her journals from a decade ago, and enjoyed the stroll down memory lane.

I, on the other hand, lock my old journals away in boxes. Unmarked, and sealed with enough duct tape to hold a bumper on a CRX. I know where in the house they are. They are never very far from me, because i would never want them to fall into the wrong hands.

When I began journalling, as a teen, I thought about my "glamourous life", and how I would capture it all on paper. I imagined the publishing of my memoirs after my too young death, and the scandal they would cause.

I pictured people salivating over well-described steamy scenes of passion. I envisioned lovers weeping as they discovered the un-revealed depths of my feelings. I hoped for fury from those I "double crossed", knowing I'd had the last laugh from beyond the grave.

Instead, what I have amassed is boxes of smarm and unexpressed rage. Hopes for loves that never should have gotten my time. Fully described moments of bold stupidity, fueled by desparation and the desire to be 'enough'. Later, when I thought I had grown to an age that I swore I didn't need approval anymore, I find thru reading that I in fact just transferred that need onto whatever abusive emotionally-distant jackass I chose to fill my life with at that time.

I used to read my journals more often. As if by seeing where I had been, I would know better to not go down that road again. But it became more and more painful....

I don't begrudge that girl her elaborately planned suicide attempts, or her bone-achingly deep desire to be loved. She and all her misadventures have made me what I am today.

However, much as I do when I'm entranced in a tv show (I yell at the screen helpful tips, and get frustrated when they can't hear me), I find myself crying out from my soul, "NO... Don't... Please please stop." And yet she barrels away blindly, smacking face first into the pain.

And the reading... it seems to give life again to those feelings. As if by speaking aloud the words I wrote in blood all those years ago, I cast a spell that calls them into being today. I resurrect them from their forgotten hell and set them free, to wreak havoc upon the world, and upon my soul.

When I was a child, I read the myth of Pandora and her box of horrors. Something about the description made me picture those terrors as tiny headless bats, slightly bigger than a 50cent piece, dripping blood, smelling of death, and screeching unholy fury.

That same image asails me when I think of opening that box of journals. This Pandora has fought many demons, and I daresay will fight more. But I will not give life to past terrors, and let the old ghosts come out.

In this way, Duct Tape will save the world.

New Version of the Old Scene

For years, I have been one to follow the time-honored tradition of the road game known as “Slug Bug”. A wide range of ‘slugging’ has occurred in my world, from a college relationship where we released unspoken aggressions in forearm bruising assaults, to friends and associates who have played in spoken exchanges only.

He: (pointing) Slugbug
She: Bastard!

However, the Pup and I (in what would seem a “stoner’s burst of logic” only we were completely sober at the time) have moved the game into a new, and I must say exciting, realm.

We’re playing “Cop-a-feel Bug”. And yes, it’s absolutely what it sounds like. Oh… it starts off with a twitch or tickle here, but after several hours on the road (we went exploring on our mutual day off) the game takes on a new dimension. We’ve become FAR more competitive about this than we ever were before.

When we passed a series of car dealerships, he told me “If you get near a VW lot, you better just pull the car over before we kill ourselves.” And pull over we nearly did on one small back road that was overpopulated with German engineering. A road we later found to be accurately named “Johnson Road”. LMAO.

Now, I will admit…. There is a ‘law of diminishing returns’ about this game. The more VWs your partner finds, the less you care about looking around. But really… I didn’t mind.

Trust me when I suggest it, folks. Play this one TO LOSE. *grin*

30 Days

Amazing isn't it, how the year speeds by?

As a Pagan, this is the beginning of a new year. Another moment of adventure spreads out before us, and we can jump on the bike and ride, or simply watch it go by.

At my desk, the giant windows fill with panoramas of construction against a hazy backdrop of the Angeles Crest Forest. With such busy eye candy, it is easy to choose to watch.

But watching leaves one life in a general rut, does it not? And ruts, however safe, are not my style of choice.

And so, in a declaration before the Universe, in a ritual to wash away the old year and make room for the new, i gave 30 days to the voices.

30 days that when I want to hit the snooze again, and the little voice says "get up so you can get something done"..... I do.

30 days when the little voice says "Please don't do drive thru again. You have soup at home" and thus i pass the BK and head home to heat up chicken noodle.

30 days when they say "Jump" and with faith in my heart, I do.

It is my intention, that in 30 days, this life will be unrecognizable, dynamic, alive, and I will be at the source of all that is around me.

30 days.
Sprout wings and fly.

Finding the spirit of adventure in unknown realms, she blurs the line between dreams and waking. As children do, she follows her bliss and leaves behind the “shoulds” and “have tos” of the everyday to climb into the world of belief in magic. -

Thanks to AndreaPalframan for her BEAUTIFUL image!!

"Dream" is only one of several stunning pieces of art that make up her moon cycle deck: "Attunded"