There's a light on in the attic...

I dreamt last night that I was part of a colony. Like ants we would build towers and with a series of pulleys and rigs would lift food high into the tallest rooms. We had no rights and we had no time to think for working so hard. But we had a sense that we were safe here and anywhere outside the colony was dangerous and terrible. Rumors began to spread of a few escapees. And then of an explosion in their hideout. A choice few including myself were assigned to a rescue team to recover the bodies. It would be our first time outside the colony. I remember feeling absolute panic. But orders were orders. As we left the colony everything suddenly became clear and as if it had never been there before a city (like San Francisco) emerged. There was a corner store blown to hell with a bunch of sorry looking folks running around it. Search and rescue would now commence because here were the wounded and slain of our escaped colony members. As I picked through the rubble I saw a boy about 19 who looked to be Ross's (from school) little brother (he doesn't really have one). He was hurt and I helped him up. He held unto me for dear life. As he hugged me tight it was as if all my memories came came back to me in a flood. I hadn't always lived in the colony. I had had another life with a family and school and this city. My gratitude towards this boy overcame me entirely. I had been enslaved and brainwashed and now I could recover my real, whole life. I took his hand and we walked deeper into the seemingly destroyed corner store. Inside it stretched back for miles. (As some little shops in Chicago seemed to do) It was a costume shop. I caught a glimpse of someone who looked like my dad in the back. Suddenly another explosion sent the place rocking and full of smoke. We ran to the entrance and I saw people from my colony picking the wounded and dead up to be sent back. I was scared and felt so unsafe. Who was bombing this place? Was this what the real world was like now? For an instant a desire to return to the colony hit me hard. At least there I would be safe. But my friend grabbed my hand and I felt warm relief. He insisted we go back inside the shop. Deeper this time and into the back we saw there was a workshop. Tons of people I had known over the course of my life were busy making various nondescript items but not in the brainless manner of the colony but with a motivation and prowess that could only come from free thought. Another bomb came down and shook the place. Instead of running this time my friend and I stayed and a new realization so obvious struck me like lightning. The colony was bombing this place. They were sending us back with fear. They were controlling us with fear. I was enraged. I never expected it would come to this. But as I saw the scared confused faces running towards the entrance to return to the colony that had once enslaved them I knew it was true. My friend and I held each other again as each new bomb hit the place. And with our new understanding of what was really going on the bombs suddenly didn't mean anything. The smoke and the crumbling walls  and the screams faded away to nothingness and there was just you and I and something that tasted faintly of  freedom.

 A tree is waiting for me as I wander down a muddy path, I feel simultaneously useless and lucid. Like a baby. When I find it I can't decide whether its worth climbing or walking on. Finally I decide because a book is also waiting for me. And the ground is wet and I hardly ever read standing up. Perched there seems awfully poetic. Sickeningly so. As the river rushes below my feet and sit with my boots dangling trying to gather enough focus to read. Poetry has ruined this moment for me. Its too cliche. The girl in the tree with her book. All those damned poets waxing the same lines to death. Eventually I allow myself to settle and stop worrying. I am absorbed. Jack Kerouac is writing about fucking some "dame" named Ruth for the first time. He is her belly full of wheat. I hate how the author is such a genius and all at once such a bastard. A sad bastard scared to death of women.
I look down and there is a beautiful crane. Or heron. I can never tell which is which. Its so close delicately dipping its impossibly skinny feet into the frigid rushing water. Don't make a sound! She either doesn't know I am there or is allowing me to watch. Pretty little thing. I wonder how she stays so white with the muddy contaminated river surrounding her. A page in my book goes swish! And shes off. 
Reading once more but the light is growing dim. And I hear the mean laughter of boys in the background. Panic clutches me like a needy bitch. So easy to arouse. I realize my vulnerable position in the tree, however poetic it is or is not. I jump down and I am off. A nervous crane. A scared animal. 
I am walking the path alone. The trees smell like a library. The library smells like trees. Dead trees and a mountain of useless knowledge.

Headdress-Amazing Baby
I'm the man who's gotta know
What I've done and what I've lost 'cause of what I've done
And I can't say another word except to say, I'm sorry to you baby
And I don't know another thing except that you're the only girl I love, no
And I cant seem to understand, how I walked away from the best thing I ever had


Molly, I got mad at you, I did somethings I wish I had been better
I did to you what you did to me, but I did it so unexpectedly, I was angry
Molly, I've got news for you, no one understands what we have but me and you
And I dont care what your friends think, what my friends think, what your mom thinks
I'll be with you
'Cause we live and love like each other
We get mad like each other
We were made for each other
But grew up differently


I may have disappointed you, I know you know I'm sure I will do better
If I'm the man that you love the most then lay him down and let me put my 2 cents in
Molly, I'm not begging you, I'm telling you that nothing else should matter
I feel this strong in every bone in my body knows that you're my f***ing baby
'Cause we make love like each other
We get mad like each other
We were made from each other
But grew up differently


We grew up differently

I drank 4 cups of tea today and still counting...
I am so over it. Put myself out there and now it just seems so not worth it. Harsh I know but true. Besides spending this last month obsessing over a girl who would never make me happy in a million years just seems so pointless. There are so many other more important things to obsess about. Like...money for my trip. Speaking of which! The government has decided to return 800 dollars of the money they took out of all my paychecks! Was not expecting that! So that is good.
Necessitos ablar espanol muy muy bueno. Another thing to obsess about. Communication while in a country I know very little about. I can't wait! So ready to leave and so scared at the same time. But when I do it will be like living again. I feel like I have been buried for the past 6 months. I did it myself obviously. Dug myself in deep. But now I can come back to the surface and live again!
And the boy who I was so ready to leave and be done with is, of course, showing his best side all of a sudden. Or maybe...it was my fault. Not all of it obviously. But I am always so afraid to be honest with him. And whenever I do he proves all my fears wrong. So wrong. I finally told him that when he is with me he cannot drink. I obviously can't ask him to drop it all together. But where I am concerned he must be sober. And he took it so well. He agreed with me and respected my decision. It takes a really good person to be able to hear something like that and instead of getting defensive, agree to change. I do love him. Guilt is sinking in. 
I didn't really do anything. But the intention was there. Same difference.
Blaag don't know what else to say.
Over it and ready to move on. Over her. Give him another chance. He could be the one.

 So lets talk about Saturday night. Yes lets!
I decide to go to a play called Don't Feel. The Death of Jeffery Dahmer. Yes thats right. A fucking Jeffery Dahmer play. Ok in my defense I didn't know anything about Jeffery Dahmer till I was already on my way to San Francisco and had bought a ticket. I knew it was going to be intense. But intense doesn't even cut it. Lets clarify. Jeffery Dahmer killed 17 men in different gruesome excruciating ways and then had sex with their bodies. Yea.  Am I the only person in the world who didn't know about this story? Certainly feels like it. The main reason I wanted to go to this is an old student from Dell Arte wrote and performed it and I had heard he was an amazing actor. So this was my opportunity to check him out in action. So I get there and its packed. There is a man in an orange jumpsuit slumped in a corner with blood running down his head. Static from a radio is buzzing in the speakers. There is a naked mannequin with a BDSM mask on. And an empty refrigerator. Woo! it can only go one way from here!
To be honest though. The actor did an amazing job. And I can only say that it takes so much courage as an actor to tackle a character like that. Apparently the story of Jeffery Dahmer had been haunting him for years. He wrote the script and did all the research 2 years ago and has been waiting for a chance to put it on the stage. As horrendous and awful this story is, its one that should be told. because this guy was a human being. As much as we would like to shut our eyes and say this person was a monster so that we feel better about mankind it just isn't true. There is a darkness to everyone. And we all have our closets. But what does it take to bring someone to point where they can do something so terrible to another fellow human being?  Jeffery grew up in a religious home where being gay was as hell worthy a sin as hacking someone to pieces with a meat cleaver. There was so much shame in him that the only way he could imagine being with a man is if that man was dead. There was obviously a lot of other things going on as well with him but its terrible what denying who you are can bring out in a person. And its sad. Really heartbreakingly sad. In no way was the play justifying his actions or condoning them but its purpose was to bring understanding. It was performed at a venue that only hosts queer art. A safe place for LGBQ artists to express themselves. The actor himself was gay and he said that is the main reason he chose to tackle this subject. After Dahmer was imprisoned he became a born again Christian. The religious community pinned his actions as symptoms of a sickness. For them that sickness was homosexuality. Its mortifying that people still think this way and would spread this sort of ignorance to their children and their children's children. Dahmer was beaten to death by an inmate whose nickname in the cell was "Christ." Ironic much? One man who saw the show said that he was Christian and wanted to walk out of the show the first five minuets. But he stayed through the entire thing because he said the actor was so brilliant. He came up to the director and said that the play had given redemption to a monster. The director retorted,"well isn't that what you folks do?" Kind of love that.
Anyway they whole show really put me in a funk. It showed me again just how powerful theater can be but it was also just plain disturbing. And part of me wondered why on earth i subjected myself to that.
So fully disturbed I set out into the night to get completely and utterly shit faced. Andrew and i did some bar hopping, landing at a bar just around the corner from his place. The bartender was an awfully nice fellow and kept refilling my vodka tonic for free. I was feeling all warm and happy when suddenly the room started spinning and i lost all control of my limbs. Andrew who seems to have a sixth sense about these things realized it was time to go and guided me out the door. He described me after as one of those toys made out of wood and string where you press the button at the bottom and they go all limp and collapse. You know the ones? Well someone kept pressing my button all the way home. Andrew was doing a great job catching me each time till i pulled a doozy on him and I fell forward unto the pavement severely skinning my knee. I guess after that I kept asking to do it again because it felt good and it sobered me up some. But Andrew pulled me inside and I puked my guts up all night. Charming. I. Am. Never. Drinking. Again. 
So that was my adventurous night and even though I have yet to fully recover from that hang over and that show I am still glad that it happened.  Just got to figure out why now. 

 Last nights' entry sounded a lot like an essay. A sloppy sort of stream of consciousness essay with only four paragraphs but an essay none the less.  I am starting to miss school just a little. Emphasis on just a little. Its more like I sometimes need that motivation of being forced to read a book that has changed the face of literary history (instead of these awful vampire novels that the True Blood tv series is based off of) or write a meaningful essay about current events, or even stay on top of current events at all. I swear, and this is truly embarrassing, I didn't know about the disaster in Haiti until close to a week after! Now thats bad. Thats really bad. I shouldn't allow myself to live in this state of blissful ignorance. True as soon as i found out i donated as much as i felt i could from my measly savings. But it all just feels so pathetic. But only way to rectify these situations is if everyone is aware and active. The problem lies in being aware and inactive. When I read the news papers and after wading through the load of crap about celebrity gossip and ads and the fire hydrant bursting on 6th street in Santa Rosa and find something actually worth knowing about its usually so awfully depressing that I just sit there and feel numb. 

My mom is being so distracting right now. She keeps laughing about the trainer that got killed by a killer whale the other day. I swear some times my mom is fucking morbid.

Back to the subject at hand. This is why I could never appreciate Mr. Barry's class. If i actually listened to him instead of tuning him out and waiting for the spittle to drop that hung from the corner of his wrinkled mouth, I would feel like the classroom was going to cave in at any moment and kill us all. From all the pollution and war and social injustice in the world. And instead of doing anything useful I would sit there and start to hyperventilate. Maybe I am just a huge pathetic wuss but I can't stand feeling like that.

So what to do. I would like to take Civics/Econ class not taught by a grouchy, dying, pessimistic old man but by someone who not only teaches but is politically and environmentally active and knows that things are shitty and awful but actually believes there is something we can do about it. That knowledge is power not a suicide note pinned to your chest as your drive your car off a cliff crying "Goodbye cruel world! You sonofabitch you!!!!!" Because wah, wah, motherfucking WAH! its so hard to stay on top of it myself. 

Maybe someday I will go back to school. And only take classes I know I can commit to and will absorb the knowledge being hurled at me. But right now because of my time anxiety I feel that sitting in a class for 6 hours a day is an awful waste. And I start getting panicky and feel like if I don't rip all of my clothes off and start screaming "there is a big wide world out there and I am gotta explore it NOW before its too late DAMMIT!!!!" i am going to explode. And if I did that they would probably ship me off to a mental institution and then I would waste even more time. So right now its safest to commit to travel and furthering my performance career and leave it at that. Because damn do I love those two things. And if I never do anything but that for the rest of my life I can happily say I would die with a clear conscious and few regrets. But i do admire those people who have the staying power to be politically active and continue to strive for a better world. And maybe in my own way i am doing that too. A lot of time my pieces are political if not changing the perspective of the few people who watch them a tiny bit. Or maybe I just say that so i can feel less guilty. Whatev. I am a selfish beast and I will do what makes me happy. Isn't that what America teaches us to be after all? I am a good little patriot i am.  

 I am trying to decide if my vanity is getting the best of me. The other night I was pondering whether I truly appreciate any women my age or if I am always in internal competition with them. Especially in the theater world. If I hear of someone's success through the grapevine or first hand my automatic reaction is intense jealousy. But this excludes anyone 30 and up. Because they obviously have a head start and I can't be blamed because who knows what i will have achieved at that age. This can't be healthy. Right? I mean I try to stifle it and I always act happy and encouraging. But inwardly I  birage myself for not being more successful, for letting someone else get ahead. Now, I am not a monster like i am making it sound. Often after these encounters it gives me a kick in the pants to get going and motivated so I am not left behind. I have always been competitive and a lot of times i feed off of it. But I am trying to draw the line between healthy competition and being a flat out bitch. I cant be the only one who does this...can I? Am I being totally unreasonable and selfish or is this something that everyone does?  

I know there are many talented women my age and thats something i appreciate about my generation. There is a "get up and go" attitude about many of us that I think will truly lead this world in a more positive direction. But I also worry. I worry that there is too much pettiness, that when someone succeeds it is habitual to belittle there achievement. Its like the boiling pot of crabs. When one crab has climbed its way to the top and is almost out the others drag it back down. I know I would never actually be the crab and pull someone down on purpose. And I would never get in the way of someone's success so I that I feel better about myself. But it sickens me just a little that when I go to see a show by one of my friends I mentally pick it a part to pieces. I want to be able to let myself be humbled by my peers and their talent. Because I know that so many of them deserve praise and respect. 

Sometimes I am caught off guard and a person does something so undeniably wonderful its impossible to find fault with it. And then thats where the real magic happens. I am inspired. Inspired to do better work, to be a better artist. I wish I could let myself drop the ego and let this happen more. I do my best stuff when someone else inspires me. Its one of the great things about being human. Working together, supporting one another, acknowledging other's accomplishments,  we mold ourselves into better people. We set our own standards of greatness. No one would be great without someone else standing there applauding them. Without that its all meaningless. 

So I am striving to be a better audience. To stop judging others so I wont have to judge myself. I want to be able to see the beauty in someone else without comparing myself to it. I don't wish to completely drop being competitive, I know that would be next to impossible anyway, because I do believe it can be healthy. And I think it is also healthy to be critical to a point and not accept everything at face value. But to overdo it like I have been is going to run my creative well dry. I know its only full in the first place because of the people that have inspired me.  

I am quitting cold turkey. I swear to god he is like a drug. While I am with him I am desperate to quit. As soon as I stop I break out in cold sweat and chills and want him again. Just say No. I am tracking my progress from here on out.
Day 1- Not so good but getting better

Oh and the guy who reminds me of a misunderstood 80s hero gave me a tape of joy division he had made especially for me. Yea thats right a TAPE. and joy division. Am i good with first impressions or what?
He is really cool tho. The name is Colin. But definately staying away from all men. I am on a program.

I think i need a sponsor.

We slept in a sticky sweet mess of desperation last night. Clutching each other so tightly there was no room for air in our lungs. There was no room for anything but each other and fear and something like love. I love the song in Hedwig and the Angry Inch about how people were once a whole in pairs. And since we have been broken to part we are constantly searching for our other half. Trying to force ourselves back together again. Even though that idea is somewhat frightening to me. I want to be my own whole. Not a sad lonely half looking for someone fit me and make me complete again. But last night thats what it felt like. I knew then why were making this choice. Why it felt necessary. Now I am not so sure. I just know I feel empty and sad. So sad like someone has died. And thats the way i felt last night and called him and asked for one last night. So melodramatic I could puke. But I needed it. The only thing that could stop making me feel like my best friend just drowned. Sex. Sex with the boy I love so desperately its stupid. I knew how it would be. Nothing is better than panicked "i dont want to lose you sex."  
He is still such a boy and when I feel his head rest on my chest I feel so safe. And warm. When I hear him snoring like a walrus in my ear it makes me fall asleep with a smile on my lips.
"But his three chances were up." the devil or angel  (i dont know which) on my shoulder says. He hurt you BIG three times. Dissapointed you, humiliated you, scared you. Three times. Three strikes your out. Thats the way it works. Not 4 or 5 or 22 times. Just three.
If it were up to me I would give him an infinate number of chances. I would let him swing that bat and keep missing till his arms fell off. Because when he finally wacks that ball, its out of the park and into the San Francisco Bay, past the kayakers and their nets searching hungrily for game room den trophies. And it floats all the way to Australia where a wallaby finds it and keeps it in its pouch like a baby. Thats how good it is. My wallaby foul ball.
So now its only been 7 hours since we said goodbye. Thinking it was for good. And all i want to do is run back there and have him hold me again. But he said he can't do this anymore. I can't keep jerking him around like a dime store yo-yo. Because they are made with cheap plastic from china and break easy. So this is it. All or nothing. Either I go back to him all the way. Or I don't go back at all. And even if I go back to him all the way I am still leaving in March. There is no doubt about that. And he will try to follow me and then there is just another big mess to clean up. And it wont be nearly as easy as it was now. I couldn't believe how beautifully it went. Saying goodbye in the pea soup fog of the early morning with smiles and a hug. I never anticipated it being that easy. I always figured he would make me regret it. He would explode and do something that would make me rue the day I ever stood on his porch at 2 am on a muggy summer night asking if I could come in. Its probably because he didn't do that, not this time, that is making me think this could actually work. Maybe because he proved me wrong this time and humbly stepped down even though its the last  thing he wanted to do that is making me want to run back to him.
But if i do what then? It will just be the same thing over and over again. He will keep striking out again and again and I wont be able to take it. He will never trust me and keep hurting me because he is afraid that I will leave. And I will keep being the flaky flake that I am. Playing peek-a-boo with my heart and running hot and cold like a leaky faucet.  Because I am terrified. I am terrified of being tied to something that could drag me down into a deep sea cavern where all the alien fish live that scientists don't have names for yet.
I feel like I am running out of time. The damn clock keeps ticking and if I don't decide something soon the descision will be made for me. So what the hell am I supposed to do?

Went to a little bar called Ravenous in town last night. There is a bartender there who amanda and i think is adorable, oops i forgot the capital A. He comes into the grocery store i work at alot because the bar is right around the corner. anyway its a really sweet little place. They have these lamps that glow orange and they are wrought with iron vines and little metal birds that look like they are going to chirp or sing at any moment even if their little metal wings are too heavy to take flight. Anyway the whole place is dim and they play jazz there. In the back they have a patio surrounded my bushes. There is an outdoor bar and heat lamps everywhere and on Friday nights thats where all the cool people that hide in coffee shops creep to. So Amanda and I order our drinks, whiskey for me and a rose wine for her. And the bartender keeps coming by and eavesdropping on our conversation and then dropping little witty charming remarks. Then this guy sits next to us and tells us we should order a beer that has an after taste of Bubble Yum. And then sais you need to have a very developed palate to taste it. I can only hope he was being sarcastic. But other than that he was pretty cool. He had a tattoo of the evil guy from the transformers on one forearm and another bad guy from power rangers? on the other. He said it was his comment on the bush administration and how everyone even made up villains are fighting the same battles. Anyway he said he spent some time in Iraq as a soldier but that he discovered he liked math more than shooting people. Not sure how he was able to get out but he did. He had a bunch of pens in his pockets and a protractor too. So then we start talking about local bands and the bartender joins in and pretty soon we are talking about the best local musician around, Tom Waits, and then the people on the other end of the bar join in as well. And then pretty soon the whole bar is talking about Tom Waits and different music styles. It made me so happy. It may have been the whiskey but i swear my heart was warmed.