I'm a 1.

A numerologist just told me that when you add the numbers of your birthdate, you get the number that reveals the core of your personality. Sez he: "1's are identified with powerfully motivated people who have a strong need to achieve personal success and a tendency to express themselves directly...1's can be very highly motivated to succeed, and perhaps a little selfish occasionally in terms of what they consider a successful outcome." Wow; sounds very much like the woman I see in the mirror, whose voice is a constant presence in my head. I do hope there's something redeeming about the 1.

But it does explain why I'm pretty much done with playing the role of imaginary friend in the life of 9.

It's never ever ever what you think it is. Hardly ever.

Four and change years ago, I was driving to my office at CBS, listening/not listening to the radio, aswirl in thoughts about things personal and professional (plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose), and the yammering radio DJ cut through my ruminations to say something stupidly profound to me in that moment: "Note to self: Stop thinking."

I got to the office, made a post-it to that effect, stuck it on the frame of my computer screen. Later, I told the woman who ran my department (similarly besieged by her own thoughts), and she made a post-it of her own, stuck it to her phone. The notes stayed on our respective office equipment for the next year or so, until we left the network.

This memory is fresh because I still think too much. Just spent the last 48 hours running myself into the ground with it. What did I do, what should I do next, did I fuck it up, how can I fix it? What is the other person doing, thinking, wanting? Second, third and fourth-guessing. A supreme waste of time and energy.

I admire Taoism, I just haven't gotten around to practicing the precepts: to just be in the moment, not churn in the ones that have passed, or project the ones to come. (Fucking) Be Here Now.

Another random, but appropriate memory: A friend gave me and my ex-husband a box of those magnetic words for Christmas several months before we separated. After we split, I rearranged the phrases he and I had created. One of them became a poem; I can't remember all of it, just the last line: "Let it go, life will flow." Obviously, I want to let go. I talk about it enough.

Walk the walk, girl.

New poem.

Kill the drama queen.

Her sleeved heart makes us cringe
Take cover under a rotting moon
Until her weeping rests
We wish we could see her in
The light of calm
That smells like summer grass
And feels cool blue on our faces
Sweet on our tongues.

But her whirl of thought, so much
More than is necessary
Whips flies into a frenzy
Chases rats to their nests
Quakes the ground until it crumbles
Crawls the skin, rattles the brain
So a seat facing the darkest corner
Is the only refuge.

Myriad battles of wills
Have not stopped her kick
To our groin, to our head, to the
Last living drop
Even to grab and twist her breast
She won’t stop, tramples our words
With leather-booted glee
We hold our rage; such retaliation is futile.

Stalk her quietly, lay in wait
Tempt her with a tiny tragedy
She’ll emerge when a storm brews
Unprepared, unaware
That you are in the room
Bearing the one weapon that can
Eviscerate the drama and
Retain the queen.

Fun will still be had
Joy will be proclaimed
Life and death are but dreams
So comes peace unto our hearts
And hers, in one minted breath
When open-handed blood runs warm
When love without looking begins
The true queen reigns.

7 August 2005

"I'm getting tired of starting again/Somewhere new." Dave Grohl

Heard this line in the Foo Fighters "Best of You" song last night while in a video store on Beverly. I had to walk away from the guy I was with for a minute -- I didn't want him to see my feelings. They weren't about him.

But there I was, in the process of starting again/somewhere new. And I guess I'll be doing that again tonight, with another guy. And the next night, with another. Until I don't have to look, anymore. Until I find that guy.

The guy I thought I'd already found. Who has started again/somewhere new.

Amazing.

I'm watching a live online video of the space shuttle as they fly over California, this very moment...the spacewalker, a Sacramento native, is providing a travelogue, he can see the San Andreas fault, the fog over San Francisco...and two minutes later, he's over Colorado...

I love experiencing events I never would have imagined as a kid.

Thought for food.

The reason pork is so sweet and succulent, and bacon fries up so delightfully crisp, is that pig flesh is infused with puss.

"Lovers don't finally meet somewhere, they're in each other all along" -Rumi

It's like the coin that's lodged somewhere in my intestines from when I was 5 years old, and my mom gave me a quarter for a Good Humor bar, and I put it in my mouth so I wouldn't drop it while I was running to the truck, and swallowed it.